Chapter 1

Most people in the City of Lights, or anywhere for that matter, never had the misfortune

of meeting an elf. As his feet pounded against the rain-slick pavement, Jonathan Ackerson

reflected that when he’d set out that morning he hadn’t known he was to be one of the unlucky

few. If he had, he might have stayed in bed. Outrunning an elf, he’d heard, was no task for a

mere human, but his own thundering footfalls were answered with silence. Foolishly, he took

this for a good sign and turned to look over his shoulder.

If few ever met an elf, fewer still saw their fabled alchemical weapons. Jonathan

Ackerson knew them to be very real as the razorwhip coiled around his ankle. The blade, if a

blade it could be called, dug so deeply into his flesh that he instinctively jerked his leg back to

relieve the pressure, hoping to keep his foot attached to his leg. This proved unwise mid step as

his legs almost immediately tangled up, sending him sprawling across the rough pavement.

Blood welled in his palms as he scraped them raw trying to break his fall, the shock of the hard

ground and icy water jolting through him and giving him a keener awareness of the pain in his

ankle. And then he saw her.

She glided out of the late night fog. Her movements were...too smooth to be walking. Red

eyes gleamed, glowing in the dimly lit alleyway, framed by silver-white hair that fell past her

elbows. He’d heard elves were tall, but she would have stood head and shoulders over him were

he still on his feet. Elves, he’d been told, were meant to be slim, willowy even, but he could see

nothing but hard muscle beneath the black coat she wore. What struck him most, though, was the

deep purple of what little of her skin was visible. Had the pain in his ankle not called him so

sharply back to the moment, he might have spared a thought to wonder about that.
 He didn’t ask what he’d done, or why him. Of course, he knew, and had spent the last

few days regretting it, all the more in the last few minutes. It hadn’t been a long chase. His breath

rattled in his lungs as the elf crouched in front of him, tilting her head forward so the rain ran off

of her forehead instead of into her face. She was smiling, the glow from those red eyes casting a

bloody pallor over his pale skin.

“I’ll give you—” Jonathan gasped as the pain in his leg redoubled. The elf had jerked on

the weapon coiled around his ankle.

“Don’t do that,” she admonished in a pleasantly lilting accent, shaking her head. “Don’t

be that guy, Jonathan. Nobody likes that guy. Take this with some grace.”

For a moment, Jonathan was wrong-footed by her speech. What had he expected?

Poetry? Song? He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. However plain her

words were, the touch of her musical accent, vowels longer and consonants softer than he was

used to, gave even the Common Speech an exotic tinge.

“I don’t want to die!”

It was pathetic, he knew, but it was all he could think to say. His throat was raw from the

running, his ankle still bled, the coil around it hurting far more than it should, and his stomach

twisted all in knots in expectation of the end. His end. Jonathan didn’t want his last words to be

so cowardly, but he couldn’t think of anything better with those wicked red eyes boring into him.

But the end didn’t come. Jonathan opened his eyes, only then realizing he’d closed them

tight against what he’d been expecting. The elf still crouched in front of him, frowning.
 “Did…you want to try that again?” she asked, seeming aware of his disappointment with

his own last words, perhaps even sharing in it herself.

Jonathan wanted to say something brave, defiant. He wanted to tell her where she could

shove her freakish weapon, but the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was stare. The silence

seemed to stretch on forever, and Jonathan almost thought she might say something else. After

what felt like an hour, but he doubted was much more than a minute, the elf shrugged and stood.

Was she going to leave? Sudden hope blossomed in Jonathan and he almost started to

push himself to his feet. He was in such a rush, he didn’t even see her wrist flick. The simple

motion sent the strange weapon’s bladed coils looping around his neck. Jonathan’s head

separated from his body in a tiny gout of blood. The last of Jonathan’s life flowed down to mix

with the rain, carried into the nearby storm drain as his killer shook her head. He never even

knew it happened.

The elf reached into one of the inside pockets of her coat and withdrew her phone, its

touchscreen surface glowing dimly in the alley. She tapped her contacts list, found the desired

name, and started a call on her hands-free set before slipping the phone back into her pocket.

“Wilbur,” she said when she heard the click of the line engaging. “Go ahead and flag the

job done. I’ll bring proof to the dropoff.”

“Razor,” came the other voice. “Razor.”

“I’m not doing this with you again,” she said tiredly.

“Arioch, you know I hate it when you call me Wilbur.”

 “And you know only an asshole makes up his own nicknames, especially something as

stupid as ‘Razor’.”

“Wilbur sounds like an asshole name anyway.”

“Take that up with your mother,” Arioch snapped, reaching back into her jacket and

withdrawing a shopping bag-sized sack.

“It was my father’s name.”

Arioch scooped up the human’s severed head by the hair and dropped it into her sack.

Most people didn’t appreciate how heavy severed heads really were. Maybe it was odd that this

was a daily concern for Arioch, but she knew exactly how many severed heads she could fit in

her bag, or carry before her arm started to get sore.

“Did he make up a stupid nickname for himself?” she asked, rehashing this same

conversation for what had to have been the thousandth time.

“He just goes by Mr. Ockham.”

“Human names are stupid.”

Head-sack in hand, Arioch turned to leave the alleyway. Her car was parked mercifully

close by, just at the end of the neon-lit street. She passed half a dozen of the glowing signs, most

simply informing passersby that the various shops were still open, even at this late hour. Arioch

ignored them all, not interested in a meal, a haircut, or whatever else the myriad businesses

might be peddling. Not tonight, at any rate.

“How is ‘Starshadow’ any better than Razor?” Wilbur was asking.

 “Well for one I didn’t pick it. It’s my last name, you ass. You ought to know that, being

an elf fanatic and all.”

Wilbur was a good enough kid, but the way he idolized elves bothered Arioch. Hell, it

bothered anyone who heard it. For a short-lived species, humans had long memories, and more

associated elves with the centuries they had ruled over humans and the other races than with

anything positive. Wilbur’s interest in elves, elven culture, and— Arioch shuddered at the

thought—the elven form, set him well apart from his peers. She’d accidentally stumbled into one

of his poorly hidden archives of elven pornography when he was trying to teach her to use a

computer. It had been their last lesson.

“I’m not a fanatic,” he protested. “I just happen to think, as an elf frac, I d-”

“Shut up with that. You are not an elf frac, or any other frac. You don’t even have

pointed ears.”

Fracs, or fractionals, were humans who had just enough of another species’ blood in them

to show a few minor characteristics. Elf fracs, to a one, had pointed ears. They were also

typically taller and more graceful than baseline humans. Most also had red eyes, as all elves did.

Wilbur exhibited none of these qualities.

“My great-great-grandmother was an elf halfie!”

Arioch rolled her eyes. Her little black car was just ahead now. Even with the seating

modified for someone of her height, the sports car was almost too small for her. She’d had to

remove the back seat so she could have the driver’s seat pushed far enough back for her long

legs. Sure, she could have bought the model meant for orcs, who were ranged from slightly
shorter to much taller than elves, but she hated the boxy, unwieldy design of their larger cars.

This was sleek, low to the ground, and handled much better than orc cars, which were typically

little more than tanks with wheels in lieu of treads.

She opened the small hatch on the back of the car and tossed the bag inside, having at

least thought to line her trunk with plastic before setting out. No sense ruining the upholstery.

That done, Arioch slid into the car, her head almost scraping the roof as she smoothed her coat

around herself.

“Yeah? When did she die again?” Arioch asked.

“A year after I was born,” Wilbur muttered.

“So that put her at what, a hundred? Fracs live longer. You’re what, twenty? If your

great-great-grandmother was a halfie, she’d look your age today. Unless she had your great-

grandmother when she was somewhere around twelve or thirteen hundred years old.”

Halfies, halfbreeds, were humans with half or more of their ancestry composed of another

race, and typically exhibited a number of their traits. Halfblooded elves tended to live for

centuries, as elves themselves could not die of old age or disease.

“Bitch,” Wilbur grunted as Arioch touched her key to the starter pad in the car, which

came to life with a dull roar.

“Why do I let you work with me again?” Arioch asked, pulling her car onto the street and

flicking the headlights on. Elves had near-perfect night vision, but she’d been pulled over one

too many times for driving without headlights, and another ticket wasn’t what she needed just

then.
 “Because you’re older than dirt and can’t work a computer?”

Much as she might have liked to, Arioch couldn’t argue the point. She had trouble

keeping up with technology at the pace the Free Alliances, the government which ruled after the

collapse of the elven empire, created it. Humans and dwarves were frighteningly industrious.

With the benefit of several thousand years’ worth of hindsight, Arioch now understood this to be

a strength that neither she, nor any elf, had appreciated properly for a very long time.

“For instance,” Wilbur began, his gloating tone grating on Arioch’s nerves. “I bet you

dialed me by hand again, didn’t you?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what they had in mind when they put a keypad on a phone.”

“I paired it with the hands free set so you could just say ‘call Razor’ and it would call

me,” he said pedantically.

“First of all, I’m not talking to a phone. That’s just silly. Secondly, I will never, ever say

‘call Razor’ as long as my ears are pointier than yours.”

“This is why you need me to survive in this worl—”

Arioch fished her phone out of her pocket and disconnected the call. Wilbur gloating was

bad enough, but Wilbur gloating when he was right was even worse. Her facility with modern

technology was sorely lacking, a flaw that was admittedly quite common among her people.

Their longer lives led them to slower lifestyles, and humans’ appetite for change far surpassed

the elves’. Maybe that was why they’d won the war.

The world had become far more dynamic in the last three thousand years than Arioch was

used to. Humans had risen from mud huts outside the broken elven empire to places like the City
of Lights in a few short centuries. The towering, gleaming metal skyscrapers of the city glowed

with light at all hours of the day, making the nights a riot of flashing neon color, perhaps earning

the city its name. As the capital of the Free Alliances, it was the center of culture, wealth, and

power in the world. The newest styles of clothing from the coastal lands were sold in shops so

exclusive Arioch had hardly had the chance to so much as see inside them. Dwarven crafts and

new gadgets filled department stores and homes in every neighborhood. Highly polished cars

zipped up and down the streets like glimmering little insects, adding their own glowing lights to

the halo of luminescence already hanging about the city. Arioch liked it well enough, she

supposed. There was, at least, always something to do.

As Arioch pulled out of the quiet side street and onto the busy main thoroughfare, she

flicked on her windshield wipers and turned into the flow of traffic. To her ears, far more

sensitive than any human’s, the soft swishing of the rubber blades over the glass was a constant

annoyance, and she was forced to turn the radio up louder in an effort to drown it out. The light

from the city’s illuminated billboards and advertisements created a thousand tiny starbursts in the

raindrops on her windshield before being swept away with a dull squeal of rubber over glass.

Arioch would almost have preferred the obstruction to the sound of getting rid of it.

The trip across town was not truly a long one, but it was made so by the ceaseless traffic

on the city’s bustling streets. At all hours of the day, pedestrians and vehicles crowded the streets

and sidewalks, giving Arioch the sense the city was constantly in motion. As much as, out of any

of the humans’ technological advancements, she quite possibly loved her car best, she sometimes

felt she might get around the city faster on foot. Or by subway. She had taken the subway once,

and only once. The claustrophobic experience had been made far worse by elves’ inborn dislike

of small, enclosed spaces. Being pressed in a narrow metal tube with so many bodies, the sounds
and smells of them all, had nearly driven Arioch to a panic attack, a sensation which until that

moment had been utterly alien to her. No matter how much Arioch tried to convince them

otherwise, humans refused to believe they smelled awful. Being so cooped up with them had

been almost overwhelming, and Arioch was happy to trade a shorter travel time for the comfort

of her own car. Besides, few elves treasured any time spent underground.

After much swearing at drivers who were too slow to respond to traffic signals, and more

than a few times leaning out her window to make more emphatic gestures, Arioch reached her

destination. A squat, dark building with mirrored windows, Mort’s club was more of a place of

business than entertainment. Sure, people could go in for food, drink, and conversation. But the

small, dimly lit building didn’t do much to encourage such behavior. More than half of it was

given over to Mort’s offices. As the chief middleman between contractors and Collectors, who

were essentially the Free Alliances’ way of turning a blind eye to the specifics of how crime and

punishment were handled, she needed the office more than the bar. Like every other Collector

working in the City of Lights, Arioch did the vast majority of her business with Mort.

Arioch pulled up to the front of the building and slipped out of her car, locking it with the

touch of a button on her keystick. Another button opened the trunk, and Arioch fished out her

sack. The doorman recognized her both by her size, and by her tendency to park right in front of

the door. After the last doorman had asked her not to, the replacement had been instructed not to

trouble her about it. He gave a quick nod as she passed, holding the door open for her.

In any other bar, she’d have been assaulted by the scent of alcohol, people, and the

sounds of conversation. Here there was just the faint smell of sweetleaf smoke, and the sound of

some sporting event or other on a pictscreen over the bar. Inside was essentially a wide open
space, the floor covered in overlapping rubber mats, the kind restaurants used to help staff keep

traction even after a spill. Only there weren’t any tables. The bar had a dozen or so chairs, but the

rest of the dimly lit, faintly hazy space seemed to suggest one’s time might be better spent

elsewhere. Mort preferred the place quiet. She said it made it easier to run her contracts.

Ignoring the rather uninviting bar, Arioch walked straight for the door at the back.

Standing beside it was Ren, the orc frac who served as Mort’s doorman and occasional muscle.

The man was enormous for someone with so much human blood, a wall of muscle and cheap

cologne Arioch had seen manhandle pureblood orcs when they forgot their manners. Even so, he

only just came up to her chin. Like most orc fracs, he shared the common green skin of the

purebloods. He wore his aquamarine hair, all orcs having hair some variant of blue or green,

short to keep anyone from grabbing it in the performance of his usually very physical duties. He

gave her a mute nod as she approached, and pulled the door open.

Mort was waiting for her. The diminutive dwarf frac always seemed to know when she

was coming. She spread her hands, rings of gold and silver glittering on her stubby fingers, her

black business suit all but shining in the back room’s much brighter illumination. Arioch

suspected Mort wasn’t her real name, but had never bothered to ask what was. The frac enjoyed

being something of a mystery as far as she could tell. A deep black pantsuit and bright red scarf

denoted Mort’s membership in some dwarven organization or other, and seemed to be her way of

making herself stand out in contrast to her dingy bar.

“Arioch!” she said, her gold canine catching a bit of light as he spoke. “My very favorite

elf. Come in, come in.”

 Arioch was fairly sure every Collector who showed up on her doorstep was her “very

favorite insert race here” to their faces. Still, she put on her best polite face and stepped in. The

back rooms were warmly lit and well-appointed. Lounge chairs lined the wall in what amounted

to the waiting room, a counter on one side serving as a weapons check station for larger

meetings. Instead of leading Arioch back to one of the handful of meeting rooms, Mort took her

directly through the long, whitewashed hallway leading to the frac’s office.

“Done already, Arioch? Always so fast. That’s why you get the extra gold. No muss, no

fuss, just a job done. It’s why you’re my favorite elf.”

The woman was overly effusive sometimes, though Arioch suspected it was mostly to

keep the Collectors complacent. If everyone thought she was their best friend, no one looked for

her to skim money off their contracts. Arioch didn’t buy it for a second.

“Still working with that layabout elf wannabe?” she asked as she tapped a code into her

office door, which slid open with a soft hiss.

“Mhmmm,” Arioch murmured, stepping inside.

She’d seen the interior of Mort’s office on a handful of occasions. It was small but a bit

gaudy, not unlike the woman herself. Little golden statuettes of Arioch didn’t know quite what

decorated each corner of her desk, which was otherwise dominated by a large computer. The

desk’s glass surface had a projection suite built into it so Mort could show Collectors pictures

and information they needed while showing off her top of the line technology. The first time

she’d seen images in the glass, Arioch had been more impressed than she might have liked, but

that had been years ago, and Mort never got the reaction from her again.
 The walls were decorated with images of Collectors who had done major jobs for Mort,

and even a few headlines about some of the more romanticized men and women who had been in

her employ. All the young boys and girls wanted to hear about Collectors and their work killing

bad guys, finding lost treasure, and whatever else children thought Collectors did. She suspected

the image made Mort more than a little bit of extra gold on the side.

“You really should bring him in sometime. He could find all kinds of work here. Ren

isn’t very handy with a computer, and I’ve got so many things to do. Not that I’d try to steal him

from under you, my girl!”

Mort laughed, either at her own jest or to prove she was just a harmless, matronly old

frac. The woman milked her increasing age for all it was worth, making sure her tight bun had all

the streaks of grey she could show off visible. Humans were quick to trust the elderly, and Mort

did all she could to look and act the part, including playing den mother to all the Collectors in the

city. Arioch, being more than a hundred times her age, always found it silly when the woman

tried the same with her.

“He doesn’t go out much,” Arioch responded flatly, setting the sack on Mort’s desk with

a soft thump.

“Is that our poor Mr. Ackerson?” Mort asked with a long, rueful glance at the sack and a

sigh Arioch expected was entirely for show.

“His head, anyway.”

“Well, the contract did require dead. I assume the body is—”
 “Somewhere someone will find it, like the contract said. He’s on the approved kill list

from the Free Alliances anyway,” Arioch said with a shrug.

The Free Alliances authorized Collectors to arrest and, in a number of situations, kill

citizens for any number of transgressions. Some had to be proven by the Collector either before

or after the fact, and some were simply on a pre-approved list circulated to Collector contractors,

meaning either some official authority had concluded they had committed crimes punishable by

death, or money had changed hands under the table for a death warrant.

“Results, Arioch. That’s what you get. Results!” Mort said brightly, sliding into her high-

backed leather chair and leaning over her computer for a moment. “There we are. Payment sent

and contract flagged complete. Wonderful work, dear.”

Arioch’s phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her coat, confirming the transfer of gold

to her account. She raised a thin, white brow at the amount.

“Two thousand, Mort? You said the contract was for three.”

“Oh, no, no, no, dear! I said I thought I might be able to get you three. But the client is

pleading poverty and I can’t take what they don’t have. I didn’t even take my fee from the total.”

Arioch stared at Mort in a moment of silence that seemed to stretch, an angry red glow

creeping into her eyes. The frac met her gaze evenly. So few people were willing to look an elf

in the eye. Old wives’ tales about elves stealing the souls of those who do or some other such

nonsense. Whatever else Mort was, the frac was one of only a small handful of people Arioch

had met who had never been afraid of her. Most humans would piss themselves and roll over
when an elf fixed them with a glowing red stare, but Mort had ice water for blood, and only

smiled placidly up at her from her chair.

“I really am sorry, dear. I’ll try to make it up to you with a better contract next time, yes?

Nothing in the pipe now, but you know this city. It’s never more than a day or so before

something comes up! Have a drink or two on the house if you like.”

Arioch recognized the dismissal, and her jaw clenched. Once upon a time, she wouldn’t

have had to put up with that kind of behavior from anyone, but her days fighting for the crown

and the gods were long since over. A little more than three thousand years didn’t feel like too

terribly long ago when a dwarf frac was lying to her face, taking a third of her payment, and

sending her on her way with a shot of cheap liquor as consolation. Her fingers twitched, but

Arioch stopped her hand from moving to her weapon. Sure, she could kill Mort, and Ren. But

then she’d be putting herself largely out of work, and drawing the ire of every contractor who

worked through Mort. Such a loss of control would land her on the pre-approved kill list and

bring every hunter in the city down on her head to boot, and Mort knew it. So, the frac got to

show the elf who was boss every now and then.

“I’ll pass,” Arioch said, turning to leave without another word.

“Stay safe, dear!” Mort called after her.

The door closed behind Arioch, and her fingernails dug into her palms. Mort had pulled

this kind of thing before, and every time Arioch played out any number of scenarios in her head

where she showed Mort just what she thought of her. In the end, she never acted on any. Ren

opened the door for her to let her out of the back rooms, and Arioch stalked past him, heading
straight to her car without a word or glance at the doorman whose name she’d never bothered to

learn.

Rubber screeched against asphalt, and Arioch’s car shot out into the tangle of traffic in

the streets once more. She needed a drink.

Chapter 2

If there was any single place Collectors went to drown their sorrows and discuss their

work, it was the Pour House. Halfway across town from Mort’s swindler’s den, the Pour House

was a two story bar and club which stayed open all day and night, and served good liquor on the

cheap. Mostly Arioch just thought the name was cute. Humans had a capacity for turn of phrase

she admired in spite of herself.

When she pulled up to the smoked glass doors, a young human in a red jacket shuffled up

and opened her door for her. He held out a small paper chit to her with one hand, and opened the

other in expectation of her keystick. She dropped it into his hand and got out of her car. The valet

was less a luxury and more a necessity this deep in town, where parking was simply a forlorn

hope, busy as the streets were. Arioch watched her car roll off, silently hoped the valet didn’t

scratch it, and then headed through the heavy glass double doors into the bar.

The Pour House was much livelier than Mort’s den. The sounds of conversation and

music quickly assailed her ears, along with the scent of liquor, bodies pressed together, and

sweetleaf smoke. Arioch picked her way through the crowd, some of whom were gathered about

the tables which were meant to be waist high, but only reached Arioch’s thighs, others milling

about, mingling with friends or searching for companions. Never one to enjoy being indoors with

so very many people, Arioch made her way up the metal spiral staircase set against the back wall

to the second floor, and out the sliding glass door to the terrace.

The open terrace offered a rather unimpressive view of the street in front, and buildings

across from the bar, but at least it was open to the air, even if the dull grey awning had been

rolled over it to shield customers from the rain. String lanterns lit the outside border of the
terrace in a rainbow of color, casting their polychromatic glow on the black, polished bar top and

the rows upon rows of liquor bottles arrayed behind it. A series pictscreens set above the bar

showed varying news and sports shows, but Arioch paid them no mind.

Spotting a familiar face, Arioch turned toward the bar. The demonkin, as his kind were

known, was leaning back against the bar talking to a woman who had her back turned to Arioch.

Like all demonkin, he had a pair of small horns protruding from just over his forehead, which

curved back over his slick, shoulder-length black hair. He was deeply tanned, as most of his kind

were, and stood several inches shorter than his companion. Demonkin were typically regarded

with a measure of suspicion, thought to be a combination between either elves or humans and

demons. This particular specimen wore a grey pinstriped suit complete with a set of polished

black wingtip shoes, and a pair of round, black sunglasses, behind which she could just discern

the faint orange glow of his eyes. Demonkin often hid their eyes to spare others the unsettling

effect of their fiery glow.

As Arioch approached, she recognized the woman he was talking to as another fellow

Collector, an orc halfie named Jada. Tall, muscular, and ever eager for a fight, Jada was

uncommonly lighthearted for someone with orc blood. Orcs tended to be grim and gruff, but

Jada was downright bubbly as far as Arioch was concerned. She reached the pair without either

of them noticing her, and slipped up to the bar behind the demonkin. Jada spotted her, and before

she could open her mouth, Arioch touched a finger to her lips. Understanding, Jada returned her

attention to her conversation.

In a quick, smooth motion, Arioch reached into the demonkin’s side pocket and drew out

his phone. Wilbur had shown her how to program specific sounds into phones when different
people called, and fortunately the demonkin’s phone was the same model as her own. Scrolling

through his contact list, Arioch found her own name rather quickly as she tended to be near the

top of most lists that used the Common alphabet. Slowly, as it was all unfamiliar territory to her,

she went through the instructions Wilbur had given her detailing how to change the sound the

phone made when it rang. He’d called it a ringtone or something like that. Satisfied with her

selection, she slipped it back into his pocket and palmed her own phone.

Locating the entry for Dante Tertius in her contacts list, she tapped his number. A

moment later, the popular song “Desperate for You” began blaring from Dante’s pocket. He

jumped, looking embarrassed and confused at the famously sappy song playing so loudly. Jada

smothered a laugh in one large hand, and when Dante finally got the phone out, Arioch said into

her phone, and loud enough for him to hear her where she stood behind him, “I didn’t know you

thought so much of me, Dante.”

Dante whipped around so fast his tail smacked into the barstool beside him. His yelp of

pain echoed through the bar, trailing off into an impressively fluent string of curses in at least

four languages, the contents of which were sufficiently heated to make even Jada arch a brow at

him. He stared at Arioch for a moment, then looked down at his phone, then back at her, his

usual grin giving way to a look of utter bafflement as he ended the call and held up his phone.

“Did you do this?” he demanded.

“You know I don’t know how to work those things,” Arioch said with a dismissive shrug.

Dante titled his head back, looking up at her through his sunglasses, lips pressed together

in a suspicious frown. Arioch met his gaze with all the innocence she could muster, which

seemed like it might have been enough until Jada broke out into a fit of snickering.
 “Great, our resident pointy ear is working technology out,” Dante muttered, slipping his

phone back into his pocket. “And stop picking my damn pocket.”

“Stop putting your phone in your hip pocket,” Arioch rejoined, leaning against the

counter.

“I thought you were working tonight,” Dante said, pulling the barstool he’d nearly

upended a little closer to the counter before sitting down. “Some job to find a runaway

something or other?”

Arioch drew her finger along her throat and walked over to take a seat beside Jada, who

was sinking into a barstool herself. Jada waved to the bartender for a round of drinks, and Arioch

winced. Jada and Dante were as close as Arioch had come to having friends in quite some time,

particularly where the shorter lived species were concern as she often had difficulty

understanding the more rushed mortal perspective, but Jada’s taste in liquor tended toward the

unutterably bitter orc brews, which had never agreed with Arioch. Still, if Jada was going to pay

for it, Arioch wouldn’t complain, particularly after Mort’s shorting her.

“Done already?” Jada asked.

“He didn’t run very fast,” Arioch said drily.

“Shouldn’t you be a little more, y’know, upbeat?”

“Mort screwed me. Said the client is pleading poverty and knocked a thousand off what

she’d promised.”

Jada frowned, and Dante shook his head.

 “Oh, come on, Arioch,” Dante said, spreading his hands on the bar as he turned toward

her. “Mort doesn’t screw her Collectors. I’ve seen her negotiate our prices up. What have you

got against that old frac anyway?”

Jada took three foaming mugs from the bartender, sliding one each to Dante and Arioch

as she nodded agreement with him.

“Yeah, she’s a sweet old lady. I mean, she’s no pushover, but she takes care of her

Collectors as best she can,” Jada said.

“I don’t buy her sweet old lady routine. Really, I’m surprised anyone does.”

“Does paranoia come standard with the pointy ears, or is it just a side effect of whatever

made you purple?” Dante asked.

Arioch bristled for a moment, hiding her frown by taking a drink from the mug Jada had

handed her. The bitter liquid rolling across her tongue turned the frown into a grimace.

“I’m tired of explaining that it’s like elven albinism,” she lied easily. It absolutely was

not any such thing, but the lie was preferable to explaining the truth of the many now-extinct

elven subraces. Dante often pointed out her purple skin as an oddity among elves he’d seen, and

it was. Even in the days when elves had more or less populated the planet, when there were any

number of variations on the more typical brown and white colorings, the subset of elves who

tended toward more purple hues had been rare. Now, so far as Arioch knew, she was the only

one left, a fact she didn’t care to be reminded of. “It’s just a skin thing. And three thousand years

isn’t a long time for an elf. I’m still not used to people taking that tone with me, so best not do it

again.”
 Dante laughed, but Jada buried her face in her drink for a moment. Few appreciated the

reminder of the times elves had ruled over the planet’s other races, and fewer still wanted to be

aware they were talking to one of the few elves who survived to remember those times. Neither

Dante nor Jada had ever asked her about what it had been like, and she had known Dante for

over a century, and Jada for almost twenty years, most of the halfie’s life.

“Well, you’re not queen of the world anymore,” Dante said dismissively, waving a hand.

“So if you want me whipped for my insolence or whatever, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

“You’d like that,” Arioch muttered, shaking her head.

Dante flicked his tail in a quick snap. “Wha-pssh!”

At this, Jada gave a chuckle and set her drink down, stretching out in her seat. Dante had

a talent for diffusing tension and putting people at ease, which was rare for a demonkin. Arioch

had worked with him a handful of times on jobs which required more finesse and people skills

than simple violence. Relaxing, Jada pushed a few strands of her long blue hair, which was

shaved down along the left side of her head, away from her face. She turned toward Arioch and

leaned one elbow on the bar, noting Arioch’s glass was still mostly full with a disapproving

frown.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked. “Are you looking for more work or…?”

Arioch shrugged, taking another painful sip of her drink, if only to forestall any criticism

from Jada. While Jada’s back was turned, Dante poured a bit of his drink into the sink over the

edge of the bar, earning an ireful glance from the tender.

“Probably. Not involving Mort if I can. She said her well’s dry right now anyhow.”
 Arioch suspected this was another trick. Mort’s way of making her Collectors wait on

her, come to her regularly, and depend on her to do the searching for them. If the Collectors

thought they needed her to get work, none of them would go searching for any on their own and

so stop her from taking her cut.

“Well I’m sure she’ll call you if she gets anything. The old lady likes you,” Jada said

with an emphatic nod. “You get the job done quicker than her other hunters, what with your little

hacker friend.”

Arioch waved a dismissive hand. “She doesn’t like me. I’m an elf and she likes having an

elf under her thumb.”

“So cynical,” Dante said, shaking his head. “Besides, I would’ve thought at your age

you’d have thought to maybe save some money so you don’t have to work for evil, elf-hating

dwarves.”

Dante’s voice fairly dripped with sarcasm, but Arioch ignored it, instead taking another

eyewatering swallow of her drink. She never understood how Jada could enjoy this swill.

“I’ve always been one to live for the moment,” Arioch rasped, doing her best not to

cough up her last gulp of orcish ale.

Dante was about to respond when his phone rang again. He turned away from them for a

moment, speaking quietly before slipping his phone back into his pocket and standing up. The

bartender saw him rising and, in keeping with the typical mistrust of demonkin, hurried over to

him to make sure he paid his tab before he left. Immune to the show of racial bias, Dante pressed

his thumb to the pad the bartender held out, bowed, and turned back to Arioch and Jada.
 “Well, that’s it for me. I’ve got work to do while you two while away the hours actually

enjoying yourselves,” Dante heaved a theatrical, long-suffering sigh. “I’ll give the evil frac lady

your regards, Arioch.”

Dante tipped an imaginary hat to the pair before vanishing into the bar. Jada watched him

go and shook her head before finishing off her drink and turning her attention back to Arioch.

She pressed her lips together in a thin black line, and Arioch could just discern the subtle

working of her jaw as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. Having known Jada for more than

two thirds of the girl’s life, Arioch knew when she was on the verge of saying something she felt

she shouldn’t, and silently met her gaze, waiting.

“I did hear about a job,” Jada finally said, her voice having dropped a little lower. “I

don’t know a lot of details, but it’s a private gig, working for a client in one of the undercities.

It’s got Collector contracts on both sides. I’ve been hearing Reldien picked up one side, and not a

lot of people are anxious to work against him.”

It was rare for contracts to be issued in opposition to each other, pitting one Collector

against another, but it did happen. The name, though, was what caught Arioch’s attention.

Reldien Darksky, a fellow elf Collector, was just about Arioch’s least favorite person on the

planet. He was considered to be one of the best Collectors in the city, which meant one of the

best in the world given where they were, but Arioch knew Reldien to be more a scavenger than a

worker in his own right. His preference was to swoop in and take contracts out from under other

Collectors who had either completed them alone, or already done most of the hard work for him.

Reldien was young for an elf, too young to remember the time when the elven empire

ruled the world, and believed that youth made him a better fit for life in the modern world than
the more aged members of their kind. He had tried on several occasions to steal work from

Arioch, and once or twice even succeeded. She’d gotten a few of her own victories in, once even

hospitalizing him when he went too far trying to jump one of her claims. But a chance to play

offense and directly ruin a payday for Reldien was too good for Arioch to pass up.

Jada seemed to see some of what Arioch was thinking in her expression. The halfie set

her glass down with enough of a thud to secure Arioch’s attention and frowned up at the taller

woman.

“I know he’s a piece of shit, and you have good reason to hate him. No one likes an

upstart trying to steal their good name. But this is a big job, Arioch. I don’t know what or for

who, but it’s big enough people are whispering about it, and no one else wants to go near it.”

Arioch shook her head. “Hey, he’s taken jobs out from under you, too. I figured you’d

have been first in line for a free shot at him. But if you’re not going to, I’ll put the little bastard in

his place.”

“It’s not him that turned me away, it’s more all the rumors going around the job.”

“Yeah?” Arioch arched a brow. “Like what?”

“That’s the thing. They’re all different. No two people are saying the same thing about

it.”

In addition to being generally trustworthy and enthusiastic, Jada had a gift for keeping

her ear to the ground in a way Arioch seldom managed. She always seemed to know what was

going on with other Collectors and their various jobs. While the woman certainly had enough
experience to insure she didn’t scare easily, Arioch wasn’t ready to believe the job was beyond

her. Especially not if Reldien had already accepted one side of the contract.

“Can’t pass up a chance to take the prick down a peg or two,” Arioch said.

She also couldn’t pass up a job with a big paycheck. She’d been counting on the money

from Mort to pay her bills, and since she’d lost so much of her promised payment, she was more

desperate than she would have liked to admit.

“Arioch…”

“Oh stop it. I’ll have Wilbur check it out and find out what’s what. Probably just

everyone getting spooked by a big payday.”

“You know Collectors don’t spook easy, Arioch. Not the ones worth a damn, anyway.”

Arioch shrugged and turned away from her drink. She couldn’t stomach another swallow

of whatever it was, and by now she expected Jada to be aware of the widespread distaste for the

bitter assault on the taste buds that was orcish ale.

“Give it a rest, Jada. If I want to be mothered, I’ll go back to Mort. Can we just enjoy a

couple of drinks that aren’t orc piss?”

Jada looked back at Arioch for a long moment, recognized the resolution in her face, and

blew out a sigh. The brief pause was all it ever took for her to cheer herself back up and move on

from an unpleasant topic. She smiled, ordered herself another of her revolting orc ales, and

Arioch turned toward the bartender to request something more palatable.

The night passed in a blur of drinks, dancing, and conversation. Arioch had needed to

vent some frustration, and there were few better options available to her with Mort closing up the
job market. Not that she particularly wanted to do a job for the greedy little dwarf just then

anyway. She parted company with Jada at the subway, and drove herself home from there. After

making her way home, Arioch had headed up to her apartment and fallen facefirst into bed.

The sound of her phone ringing and the feel of its vibration in her pocket woke her. She

groped blindly, feeling around inside her coat she apparently hadn’t bothered to take off until she

found her phone. Groggily, she lifted it to her face and pressed the accept button.

“This had better be world-shatteringly important,” she muttered.

“It’s like three in the afternoon. Why are you asleep?” Wilbur asked, his voice tinny in

the phone’s speaker.

“I had a late night. What do you want, Wilbur?”

“I have the information you asked me for,” he said, sounding surprised and even a little

confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“You asked me to find out about the job Reldien took. The one with the opposing

contract?”

“I did?” She didn’t remember doing that. It wouldn’t be the first time she forgot

something after a late night, particularly as slowly as her mind worked in the moments after she

woke these days.

“Yeah. Last night. You said Jada told you about some job or other, and wanted to know

what the details were. Do…you still want them?”

 He sounded uncertain, but by now Arioch expected he was used to her late night

information requests and how often they were forgotten by morning. When she gave a grunt in

the affirmative, he let out a breath and began speaking.

“It’s a retrieval. Some cargo a client wants brought to them in Boulder. Small freight

container by the look of it. Hundred pounds or so from what the report says. Anyway, Reldien’s

accepted Arcana Corp’s contract to retrieve it, but there’s another contract out from a private

party in Boulder, still open. Guess no one wants to cross Reldien, or Arcana Corp.”

Arioch chewed on the thought for a moment. Arcana Corp’s presence in the deal might

explain why people were steering clear, but it’s something Jada would have mentioned. They

were the largest supplier of high end security, weapons, and medical systems on the planet. They

were also the only company still conducting magical research. Magic had been on the decline in

the world after the disappearance of the ruling power before the elves, the Ancients. While elves

were intensely, powerfully magical creatures, Ancients dwarfed their ability and potential in that

regard. Humans, dwarves, and orcs were so far removed from either as to be almost entirely

magically impotent in general. As a result, humans had mostly abandoned magic in favor of what

technology they could come up with alongside the orcs and dwarves. In truth, the latter drove

that progress for the most part. The decision had been made easier by the slow death of magic in

the wake of the fall of the elven empire. Arcana Corp was undoubtedly the wealthiest company

in the Free Alliances, and almost every Collector had done at least one or two jobs for them

before. She would rather have done the work for than against them, but she’d take what she

could get.

“Let them know I’ll take the job,” she mumbled.

 “Arioch…you want to go up against Arcana Corp?” Wilbur asked, sounding both awed

and concerned.

“No, but I will since there’s nothing else out there, and it’ll be a chance to stick it to

Reldien.”

“You keep talking about him like he’s an asshole, but he has got to be like…the greatest

Collector who ever lived!” Wilbur practically squealed.

Reldien’s success had made him something of a celebrity among those who were

interested in Collectors. Wilbur, who loved both Collectors and elves, was naturally quite

enamored with him, regardless of what Arioch told him about the man. She shook her head and

gave a disgusted grunt.

“Not even close,” Arioch said flatly. “Just tell them I’ll take the job, get the specifics, and

call me back in a few hours.”

Arioch tossed her phone at her sofa just across the room and let her face fall right back

into her pillow.

Chapter 3

However long Wilbur did wait to call her back, Arioch was fairly sure it wasn’t a few

hours. While she hadn’t checked the time on her phone when she’d answered it, she was fairly

sure it had only been a few minutes since he’d last called, as she was just starting to fall asleep

when she heard her phone’s muffled ring, wedged between cushions on the sofa where she’d

tossed it. By the third ring, Arioch had resigned herself to the sad notion of sleep being a forlorn

hope that day.

With a groan of protest, Arioch rolled gracelessly out of bed, catching herself on her

rickety nightstand and nearly knocking over a three day old glass of water she’d left there.

Arioch’s apartment was something of a mess, made worse by the fact that she hardly spent any

time there and generally couldn’t be bothered to take time out of her day to clean. A studio

apartment, the single, open space was dominated by her bed wedged into a corner up against the

window, which she often kept open even in the dead of winter so as to not feel too enclosed.

Aside from her bed, she had a ratty old sofa whose frayed upholstery was deceptively

comfortable, the cushions soft enough after years of use they all but conformed to Arioch’s body.

Set across from the sofa on a low stand was a dated pictscreen model which Aioh had no

intention of ever replacing. A small card table stood in the opposite corner of the room, a set of

three foldout chairs arranged around it. Arioch wasn’t sure where the fourth had gone. Amid the

old takeout boxes stacked on the card table was a powered down notebook computer. Wilbur had

picked it out for her and helped her set it up. She might have used it once a month.

Arioch staggered across the roughspun carpet, realizing she was still wearing her boots

when she didn’t feel the usual scratchy tickle of its cheap fibers. The overhead light was off, but
with night vision sharper than what humans could boast even in sunlight, Arioch had never had

occasion to use it. Sunlight filtered in through the blinds, and Arioch turned her back to the

window as she scooped up the phone and flopped onto the couch.

“How long has it been?” Arioch asked without ceremony.

“About an hour. Look, you need to hear this: Reldien’s already on the move. He’s

securing the cargo soon, probably tonight. I’ve located it, and it seems it’s being held in a

warehouse the Peacekeepers suspect belongs to one of the local orc gangs.”

Arioch snorted. The Peacekeepers were the Free Alliances’ public protection and

investigation unit. There were usually not more than a couple dozen in a city, which was what

left room for the Collectors to work.

“I don’t suppose there are contracts to close it down?”

“Not right now. Peacekeepers don’t have anything solid enough to offer money for it.

Anyway, I’m going to send the address to your car’s GPS. Of course, only if you’re still sure you

want to do this.”

“Hey, we got screwed on the last job, and I need the money. Also to screw Reldien.”

“Really? You’re just gonna…softball it in there like that? Also…we?” Wilbur asked,

trying to sound more amused than thrilled. “We’re ‘we’ now?”

“I’m tired,” Arioch snapped. “You know what I mean.”

“No, no. I like the sound of this. We. Team. It’s nice. Does that mean we’ll have dinner

together and such?” Wilbur asked, teasing now.

 “Sure. We can go do dinner. There’s a great river-style restaurant downtown. I’ll pick

you up at nine?”

“That’s not funny,” Wilbur growled, the humor gone from his voice.

Wilbur was intensely agoraphobic, a fact Arioch learned very quickly on meeting him.

She’d seen him outside of his home twice, and both times he had been trembling and covered in

sweat.

“And yet my sides are splitting,” Arioch mumbled into the couch cushion.

“Just get the job done so we can get some real money,” Wilbur said sullenly.

“Are you pouting?” Arioch asked, smirking into the cushion. “Wiiilbur?”

No response. He’d hung up on her. Arioch turned her head, blinking at the darkened

screen on her phone. Usually she was the one to do that to him. Shrugging, she let her phone fall

onto the couch and considered going back to sleep for a while. Knowing Reldien wasn’t going to

move until night took a bit of the pressure off. As much as going right then and leaving him to

show up to an empty warehouse appealed, she would much rather be there to see the look on his

face when she snatched the payday out from under him. Resolved to wait, Arioch very nearly

allowed herself to fall back asleep for a short nap before she realized she was still wearing

everything she had been the night before.

“Fine, fine. Okay. Shower, gear up, then maybe nap. Deal? Deal,” Arioch said to herself.

Still, she didn’t move, lying face down on the couch and getting more comfortable by the

moment. “Come on, Arioch…up!”

 At her own urging, Arioch managed to peel herself from the couch. Tired, eyes half

closed, and hair in front of her face obscuring her vision, Arioch groped her way to the

bathroom. She fumbled with the door until it swung open, then staggered inside, booted feet

clunking against the tile floor. The bathroom was a little on the spacious side for an apartment,

having a long counter with a single sink and full-length mirror topped with vanity lights. Beside

the counter was the toilet, set against the wall and out of the door’s line of sight, which Arioch

considered a thoughtful placement. On the opposite wall was the shower, which was set into a

sort of cubby along the bathroom’s wall with a sliding glass door, more to protect the white tiled

floor from water than to spare the occupant’s modesty in case of intrusion. Much as Arioch

would have liked a proper bath, humans seemed to much prefer the faster, standing approach to

bathing. With just barely enough room for Arioch to stand inside and turn freely, the shower was

among Arioch’s more serious complaints about her living arrangement. Once inside, Arioch

removed her coat and hung it over the corner of the door. Turning toward the long counter in the

bathroom with a prodigious yawn, Arioch began the process of removing her gear and garments.

First was the belt and bandolier, both colored black to match her tendency to wear darker

clothes. She unclasped the thigh strap on her belt to free the sheath for her razorwhip, then

unbuckled the belt at its center, carefully removing the wide black band with its numerous

pouches and twin low-slung holsters. As she removed her belt, she shrugged out of the attached

bandolier, where she kept extra rounds for her weapons and a handful of small throwing knives.

These she hung on a hook opposite the counter. Next came the boots, the almost knee-high black

leather requiring a bit of effort for Arioch to work her feet free of, careful not to catch her toes on

the palm-sized holdout pistols in either boot. A girl had to be prepared, after all. The socks she

carelessly tossed out of the bathroom door to be deposited in the hamper later.
 Arioch’s bare feet slapped against the cool tile on the floor, and she took a moment to

wiggle her toes and enjoy the freedom lack of footwear gave her. If she had her way, she’d never

bother with the stuff, but humans were funny about what you had to wear to move in polite

society. With the heavy stuff off, Arioch turned her attention to her shirt, tugging the casual tee

over her head and tossing it out in the general direction of her socks. Beneath, she wore a thin,

form fitting bodyglove which provided a bit of protection from small arms fire. Some dwarven

made job composed of armored cloth or somesuch, it had cost a small fortune, and had had to be

custom fit so she could wear it underneath her clothing. Getting in and out of it was a bitch. Of

course, before she could do so, she had to remove her pants as well, which got the same

treatment as her shirt and socks.

Finally free to address the bodyglove, Arioch pulled back the flap of armor cloth

covering the zipper running down her spine, and then began the uncomfortable arching shimmy

of getting hold of the little thing and push it as far down as she could before having to let go and

reach back under her shoulder to pull it the rest of the way down. Once she’d gotten the zipper

down, Arioch started tugging her right arm out, slipping her hand through the wrist hole, then

doing the same with the left. The bodyglove covered her from her collar to her knees, and had

the option of gloves she could wear to protect her hands. The grubby little dwarf at the shop had

tried to sell her one which covered all the way to her toes, but she’d felt like she was wearing a

onesie and turned him down. Wilbur had once asked her how she used the bathroom wearing the

thing, and she’d explained there were sections cut away for that express purpose and to not ask

her about how she went to the bathroom again if he wanted to be able to do so himself

unassisted.
 Once she was free of the bodyglove, Arioch let out a grateful sigh. Sure, it was a snug fit

which lifted and supported, but whenever she had it on she felt a little restrained. The tailor or

salesman, Arioch hadn’t really been able to tell which he was for sure, had assured her it would

fit like a second skin, but she had always been keenly aware of it hugging her form. Still, the

slight discomfort was worth the protection, and she had been occasioned to test its worth a

handful of times. A wicked bruise was always preferable to a bullet hole.

A little more careful with the garment which had cost almost as much as her car, Arioch

carried the bodyglove out of the bathroom and over to her tiny utility room, where sat a washer,

drier, and steamer. She set the bodyglove in the steamer, slid the little glass door closed on the

wall-mounted machine, and touched the green button to begin its auto cycle. This done, she

padded back to the bathroom and leaned into the shower, turning the knob to get the hot water

flowing. As the water began to flow, the single glass tile about waist height among the sea of

marble white in the shower glowed to life, and the sound of the radio filled the bathroom. Arioch

had to admit, it was a rather brilliant addition on the part of the shower’s designer. She kept it

tuned to a newscast station, not because she cared about what the humans were up to, but

because it was important for a Collector to know what was happening in their city, and

sometimes the world at large.

“…evacuation plans have been approved for Everbough as the Dead Wilds continues its

expansion toward this, the third major population center in the last decade. Several other

evacuation plans are in the making, and experts are warning Free Alliances officials the current

expansion of the Wilds into vital agricultural land may cripple our current food production,” the

anchor was saying.

 Arioch snickered as she held a hand under the water, waiting for it to warm up. The Dead

Wilds, what some called the Elves’ Revenge, was a constantly spreading area of dead land

radiating outward from the heart of what had been the elven empire. At first, it had been

confined to the walls of the former elven capital, but over time it had begun to spread. Every

year, either the Free Alliances or some corporation held an awareness event, and tried to promote

research to determine the cause of the rot and stop its spread. So far there had been no real

progress, but Arioch did so love watching the humans panic over it. Of particular note had been

the news about fifty years ago warning about the tendency of human and dwarf-made machinery

gradually ceasing to function within the Dead Wilds, and electronics’ workings became

increasingly unreliable, making expeditions into the ever-growing plain of dead vegetation and

abandoned ruins almost impossible. Around then, the doomsayers really started taking an interest

in the place, and every few months Arioch heard about a new cult springing up either in worship

of some unknown death god ruling over the Dead Wilds who would soon expand his dominion

the world over, or otherwise praising some equally unknown messiah who would deliver the

world from the rot. Arioch didn’t much care either way. Elves had proved to be quite immune to

its effects.

Water cascaded over her body as the newscaster droned on about the record of the Dead

Wilds’ expansion. Still tired, she pressed her hands to either side of the shower nozzle, bowing

her head to let the water wash over her hair and down her back. Streams of water raced down

either side of her face, and she watched them run off into the open air to splash about her toes,

which she wiggled against the smooth floor of the shower. After a few moments of relaxing

against the wall, Arioch reached over for the shampoo to begin the laborious process of cleaning

out her near waist-length mane of hair.

 Some time and no small amount of scrubbing later, Arioch felt clean enough to shut off

the water flow to the shower, silencing the newscaster in the process. She toweled herself dry

and pulled her belt and bandolier down from the hook on the bathroom wall, bringing them over

to the couch and small coffee table set in front of it to make her preparations for the night.

Fortunately, as her last job hadn’t exactly been taxing on her resources, this simply amounted to

a quick check to be sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Satisfied, she drew her

razorwhip from its sheath and held it in both hands, gazing down at the silvery blade with a small

smile.

As much as Arioch enjoyed human and dwarven craftsmanship in the design of firearms,

nothing could quite compare to the elven workmanship evident in her weapon of choice. The

blade was a bit longer than the length from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, with tiny

segments just visible along its length. She could see them only because she knew to look for

them, having owned this weapon for most of her life. The segments could realign, making the

blade longer, even giving it a curve, or separate entirely, joined by a length of flexible, almost

liquid metal to form a bladed whip which gave the weapon its name and greatest utility. So rare

were elven weapons anymore that the simple shock of seeing a short sword suddenly reaching

out three meters could bring a fight to a close as opponents failed to respond. Though it was tens

of thousands of years old, the blade itself looked freshly forged. Arioch could clearly see her

own face reflected back at her in the polished metal, faint ripples and lines warping the image in

subtle shifts Arioch knew changed over time as the near-liquid elven metal continued to flow in

against itself.

There was not a corporation, private armorer, or even museum which would not pay a

king’s ransom for the weapon. Just the possibility of duplicating the mystical metal the elves
used in its construction was enough to urge even the most restrained of researchers to lavish

spending. Academics would murder one another for the opportunity to study the weapon, its

history, and the techniques used to make it. Arioch was well aware an entire museum could be

built around any single elven weapon and the lives it ended, the feats it accomplished. She could

sell it and retire comfortably by any human standard. But she wouldn’t.

Arioch could no more part from the razorwhip than she could from her own arm. It was a

part of her. In many ways, it lived and breathed with her, the liquid metal constantly shifting and

changing according to her moods, her desires. When she had first been gifted the weapon in her

youth, it had been shorter, having nine segments in its length. Now it had thirteen, making a

longer, slightly thinner blade after an infusion of extra liquid metal forged into it at the hands of

an elven master smith when she reached adulthood. The idea of humans taking it, and either

breaking it down for study, or putting it on some pedestal and giving it a name like ‘Souleater’ or

some other such nonsense galled Arioch. She’d had offers to purchase it on more occasions than

she cared to count, and had always given the same, rather crude answer about what they could do

with their money.

Smiling faintly at the blade, and seeing the curve of her own black lips reflected back at

her, Arioch allowed her fingers to trace the almost invisible outline between segments. So sharp

was the blade that even these little joints along either flat side sliced the tips of her fingers,

leaving tiny droplets of blood on the weapon’s surface. She didn’t mind, hardly noticing the pain.

After a moment, she withdrew her hand, watching briefly as the tiny ruby dots sank into the

weapon’s surface and disappeared. Elven weapons were said to drink of their victims and owners

alike.
 Arioch held the weapon by its hilt, textured and molded perfectly to fit her right hand,

and gave her wrist a flick. The segments separated, and dropped to the floor beside her, pooling

in a coil of bladed mercurial silver. Another flick set the segments flying back together with a

soft whoosh. She changed her grip, tensing her fingers around the blade, and the segments

shifted, adjusting to form a longer, slightly curved blade, the edge blunting along its back. Her

compulsive check of her weapon complete, Arioch relaxed her grip, the segments melting back

into their original place, before replacing it in its sheath.

“So what do I need to humiliate Reldien?” she mused.

The answer, it turned out, was not much different than what she’d needed for just about

every other job she did. Once her bodyglove was clean, she shimmied back into it, put on a clean

set of her usual black outfit, and grabbed her belt and coat. The only notable difference, really,

was that she made sure the camera on her phone was ready. She wanted to be able to remember

the look on Reldien’s face for as long as digital storage would let her.

Gear in order, Arioch left her apartment, making sure to lock up before heading down to

her car. It wasn’t quite nighttime yet, but Arioch had nothing better to do at the moment than to

get herself to where she needed to be. Not until the moment she sat down in her car did she

realize she had no idea where she was supposed to go. Wilbur had said he would send the

information to her GPS, which it seemed he hadn’t yet done. Arioch leaned back in the driver’s

seat, hands resting on the steering wheel as she toyed with the idea of calling him back. He’d

hung up on her, which was unlike him, and this was probably his way of making her pay for

upsetting him.
 “Passive aggressive little…” Arioch gritted her teeth as she slipped her phone from her

pocket and tapped his name in her contacts list.

“What?” came the answer after an uncharacteristically slow four rings.

“The address. You didn’t send me the address, Wilbur.”

“Oh. Are you done being bitchy?” Wilbur asked with the air of one setting terms.

Arioch let out a single bark of laughter. “Come on, Wilbur. It’s me.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Are you going to give me the address or are we going to keep playing?”

Wilbur let out an explosive sigh followed by a moment of silence. The GPS built into her

car’s dashboard flickered to life and registered a new destination.

“Fantastic. It’s really creepy knowing you can control that from your place, though.”

“Be nice or I’ll have it drive you off a cliff.”

“Oh, please. You can’t make my car drive off a cliff.” Arioch paused. “Can you?”

Wilbur snickered, a bit of his poutiness falling away as Arioch put her car into gear and

pulled out into traffic. She slipped her phone back into her pocket and tapped the button on her

earpiece to keep the line open. From the look of the map, the warehouse was on the opposite side

of the city, in one of the older neighborhoods which had been converted mostly to commercial

and industrial storage when all the people had moved out as the city expanded.
 “What am I heading into here?” Arioch asked. “This looks like the storage district, the

one that used to be mostly houses and stuff a few decades ago.”

“It was?” Wilbur asked. Arioch often forgot Wilbur was little more than a kid, and so far

too young to remember such things. “Huh. Well, anyway, yeah. That’s the warehouse district.

Well, the shitty one, anyway. Most of the corporate stuff is in newer buildings and parts of the

city. You’re looking at the old stuff. It’s just about all privately held now. Lots of those rent-a-

space places, stuff like that. Like I said earlier: This particular warehouse is supposedly run by

one of the local orc gangs. The…uh…” Wilbur paused, probably looking something up. “The

Hellions.”

“Hellions. Creative. Keeping to their roots, I guess?” Hellions had been the name for the

mounted orc warriors in the war against the elven empire. They had a reputation for unmatched

ferocity in combat, as well as being able to ride any animal large enough to bear their weight.

“Well, I don’t think you’ll find a lot of horses stabled there, but if you do let me know. I

always wanted a pony.”

“Way to break the mold, Wilbur. How many of these guys are there?”

“I dunno. At the warehouse? Probably not a lot. If they’re holding something valuable,

which I guess they must be, I expect they’ll have a few guys around to guard it. Half a dozen,

maybe?”

“Half a dozen orcs probably hopped up on blur or rez,” Arioch mused. Blur and rez were

popular street drugs favored by smalltime gangs, and were known to increase aggression, and

were believed to provide quicker reflexes and incredible strength in short bursts. Arioch had
dealt with enough people under its influence to be somewhat suspicious of those claims. “Well, it

won’t be a boring night.”

“Don’t forget Reldien.”

“How could I? Looks like I’m going to get there before him anyway. Once he realizes

I’m there he’ll probably just wait for me to deal with the orcs and then try to take the cargo while

I’m cleaning up or recovering. Little prick.”

“So wait for him to do all the work?” Wilbur offered.

“Nope. Not giving him the satisfaction of playing it his way,” Arioch said.

She would have done it, truthfully, but knew that if Reldien claimed she stole his cargo

after he did the work, people would listen. Not other Collectors, given his reputation among the

better informed among them, but certainly potential clients. If Arioch wanted to make money

away from Mort, she had to beat him on a level field, leaving people to say nothing other than

she was simply better.

“Are you going to keep an open line for this?” Wilbur asked, his voice pitching just

slightly higher, something Arioch knew he only did when he was excited.

“Yep,” Arioch said. “Just in case.”

Chapter 4

Night had just begun to fall when Arioch arrived at the decrepit storehouse district

Wilbur had marked on her GPS. She’d decided to stop for food on the way, realizing she hadn’t

eaten since the previous day, and knowing she had more than enough time to beat Reldien there

anyway. As she pulled her car up to the warehouse adjacent to the Hellions’ run down building,

she took another sip from the paper to-go cup from the fast food joint she’d paused at long

enough for Wilbur to complain about listening to her chew over the phone. At least he hadn’t

hung up.

Arioch killed the engine and leaned back in her seat, looking out the passenger window to

her right and eying the warehouse. While she didn’t see anyone, or any vehicles outside, she

didn’t take that to mean much. If it was serving as a makeshift outpost for a gang, they probably

kept any cars or bikes either parked nearby as Arioch was, or inside the warehouse itself.

A squat, gray concrete building, the warehouse’s sides were covered in graffiti and “No

Trespassing” signs. The front was almost entirely taken up by heavy metal shutters. Arioch could

just make out flecks of blue paint clinging here and there to the otherwise rusted surface. Though

in disrepair, the door was still largely intact. Around the side, Arioch could see a short set of

steps leading up to a metal door which showed far less of the wear the shutters did. If she had to

guess, she’d have put it down as their main entrance.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me if the building has skylights or anything like that?”

Arioch asked Wilbur, not thrilled about just walking up and knocking on the front door.

“Hang on a second. Let’s see if there’s a satellite map of the area…” Wilbur went quiet

for a moment while Arioch tried not to think just how closely such a satellite might be able to
watch. “Okay, if this is the right building, and I think it is, there are a couple of skylights. Street

view from the back shows a fire escape ladder coming from the roof, but it’s a good ways up the

building to get to it from the ground.”

“How’s a satellite give you a view from the street?” Arioch asked.

“It’s…done with people driving down the street with cameras,” Wilbur said slowly, his

voice tinged with a measure of incredulity.

“Oh.” Arioch quickly shifted the subject from what she realized was a stupid question. “I

like my chances at making a high jump over kicking in their front door. So let’s see how that

goes.”

Still cringing inwardly from her foolish question, Arioch pushed open her car door and

stepped out. A wave of vertigo crashed over her the moment her foot touched the pavement, and

as she tried to get to her feet and climb out of the car, she nearly fell facefirst onto the pavement.

Every nerve in her body tingled, and a strange heat crept up from her feet to the tips of her ears,

leaving her whole body fairly humming as though she were standing on the deck of a ship whose

engines had just thrummed to life.

“Whoa…” Arioch gasped, staggering sideways and catching herself against her car door.

“What the hell…”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Wilbur asked sharply.

“I…I have no idea,” Arioch said, looking around. The ground seemed to jump and buck

beneath her feet, gradually settling into a dull, constant throbbing vibration. She pressed the

heels of her hands against her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. “Something’s…weird.”
 “Weird how? Are you okay?”

Arioch shook herself again, stamping her feet on the ground as if to try and still its

vibrations. She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes shut. “I think so.”

As the shock of the bizarre sensation wore off, Arioch realized she did know what it was.

This was magic. Something nearby was giving off more magical energy than any human ever

could or should. Attuned as elves were to magic, it felt like someone had just struck the world’s

biggest tuning fork right beside her head, then crashed a truck into it. With another shake of her

head, Arioch finally managed to steady her footing, and let go of her car.

“There’s magic here, Wilbur. More than I’ve felt in I don’t even know how long,” Arioch

said quietly as she crept cautiously around the building, making her way to the back while

keeping an eye to the darkening streets for any observers.

“Magic? Hey, maybe this isn’t a great idea. No one deals in that anymore…”

“No, but now I’m curious what could possibly put out enough magic to nearly knock me

off my feet like that,” Arioch whispered.

Truth to tell, she was more worried than curious. While she could freely admit she was

unused to feeling much in the way of magic these last few centuries, she couldn’t imagine what

could produce enough to almost knock her unconscious from across the street. By the time

Arioch reached the back of the warehouse, she was accustomed enough to the sensation of so

much magic humming in the air around her that it became markedly, and mercifully, less

distracting. She was still aware of it, her own body practically vibrating in sympathetic resonance

with the magical energy, but at least she wasn’t dizzy anymore.
 As she approached the back of the warehouse, she searched around for the ladder, finding

it near the opposite corner of the building. Looking up, Arioch saw a flicker of movement and

blinked. Someone was on the roof. A glimmer of blue light drew her attention, and Arioch gave a

low gasp.

“No…” she breathed. “No way…”

Darkly glowing blue eyes flashed at her, framed by a mane of thick, impossibly long

black hair, and before Arioch could get a clearer look at the figure standing at the edge of the

roof, it was just…gone.

“Arioch? Did you say something.”

She didn’t respond, not to Wilbur. “You can’t be here,” she whispered, her stomach

twisting around in knots. “You can’t be anywhere…”

“Arioch? What?”

“Nothing,” she said sharply, shaking her head. The magic she felt must have rattled her,

shaken loose…something. She’d imagined it. The Spider had been gone for thousands of years,

and couldn’t come back. “Thought I saw someone. I’m at the fire escape.”

Arioch shook her head, trying to clear it of…whatever had just happened. She didn’t

have time to worry about it, not if she wanted to finish this job and get paid before Reldien swept

in and stole it out from under her. Focusing as best she could, Arioch lifted her gaze toward the

fire escape.

“A little ways up, you said?” she hissed into her earpiece. “It’s like four times my height

from the ground to the lowest rung!”

 “Uh…how high can you jump?”

“I guess we’re going to find out.”

Arioch took a few steps back, looked up at the ladder, and decided it might be smart to

take a few more steps back. She took a deep breath, shaking her head. Either she’d make it, and

probably slam facefirst into the wall in the process and lose her grip, or she’d miss, and slam

facefirst into the wall. Either way, she hoped no one saw this. With that thought, and a suspicious

glance skyward, she broke into a run. At the last second, she crouched and heaved herself up

with all her might, stretching her arms out in a desperate grab for the bottom of the ladder.

Her fingers curled around the bottom rung, and she gripped as tightly as she could,

turning her head to one side as her momentum carried her forward and her body slammed against

the concrete side of the building, nearly knocking the wind out of her. Still, she clung to the

ladder, gritting her teeth against the pain of the impact.

“Arioch?”

“I’m fine,” she finally managed to breathe.

The hard part done, Arioch hauled herself up the ladder one hand at a time until she was

able to set her feet against the rungs. From there she nimbly scaled the side of the building. Her

boots crunched against gravel as she swung herself up over the side and onto the roof, the

concrete building’s roof covered in the stuff. A large air conditioning system loomed ahead of

her, and around its side she could just make out a raised skylight.

“Getting in a building through the skylight is never as fun as they make it look in

movies,” she muttered to Wilbur as she stalked across the roof toward the window.
 “See anything in there?”

“Hang on.”

Arioch peered over the rim of the window into the warehouse. The interior was in much

better condition than the outside. It was lined with shelves in neat little rows, some stocked with

boxes and wooden crates, others bearing what looked to be an assortment of tools and possibly

weapons. Along one side Arioch saw two white vans, one behind the other, parked to face the

metal shutters. A series of catwalks ringed the upper areas of the warehouse just a couple meters

below the skylight, though they were set along the sides, and the skylight was a bit farther

toward the center. Swinging onto them would be difficult, but probably doable.

“See what you’re looking for? Should be a white crate, composite material, no labels.”

Arioch glanced around and quickly found the crate Wilbur described sitting beside the

two vans. It was bigger than she’d been led to believe, about waist height and square on all sides.

Moving it wouldn’t be easy, particularly in her little car. She might be able to steal one of the

vans. They were property of a gang, after all. Who would press charges?

“Yeah. I see it. It’s bigger than you said though. Maybe about a meter or so to a side.”

“So, that’s probably not fitting in your car.”

“Nope. I’ll figure something out.”

Arioch crouched beside the window, looking down at the catwalks and floor below.

Wilbur had been close to right. She counted seven orcs wandering around. They were dressed in

an assortment of ratty jeans and loose shirts, a few with vests or jackets. None of them appeared

to be patrolling the place or keeping watch so much as keeping company with each other. At
least they didn’t seem to be alert to the possibility that someone would be arriving to steal their,

well Arioch wasn’t sure what it was, but at least two parties thought it was worth stealing.

As Arioch was considering what might be the best approach to getting inside and

thinning out the Hellions within, a distant, but rapidly approaching roar caught her attention. She

straightened, ears pricked toward the sound, and cast a glance toward the street behind the

warehouse.

“Oh you twice-damned moron!” she hissed to herself as she picked out the outline of a

fast-approaching car with what looked like a bulldozer blade bolted to the front.

The growl of the engine grew to a throaty roar as the car approached, and Arioch was in

no way shocked to spot the outline of an elf behind the wheel. Sensing what must have passed

for a plan in the idiot’s mind, Arioch crouched near the skylight, bracing herself against its metal

frame as, scarcely a second later, the entire building shook violently. Metal screamed with a

horrible rending screel accompanied by a cacophonous banging as Reldien’s car tore through the

metal shutters and several rows of shelving into the bargain.

Shouts of alarm and one or two screams of men pinned under debris filtered up through

the window, and Arioch watched for a moment, not sure whether to be impressed or alarmed at

the brutal dim-wittedness of Reldien’s plan. The screams were joined by the staccato rattle of

gunfire, muzzle flashes illuminating the warehouse in sharp bursts. Bullets pinged off of the car’s

armored front, buried in the wrecked shelving and boxes covering and surrounding the now

motionless vehicle, and generally made a mess of the remnants of the warehouse’s front.

Cursing Reldien’s idiocy, but seeing no other way to proceed, Arioch pried the skylight

up and dropped inward, catching the rim of the ceiling and swinging herself in toward the
catwalks. She just managed to catch the guide rail above the walk and hoist herself up, remaining

unnoticed amid the near-deafening uproar of shouted curses and gunfire.

As Arioch crouched in the shadows of the catwalk, Reldien finally managed to get one of

his car doors open, dislodging several boxes, which tumbled out onto the warehouse floor,

spilling contents ranging from bottles of liquor to bags of narcotics. His long mane of brown hair

trailed out behind him as he swung a pair of pistols to bear, pouring rapid semi-automatic fire in

the general direction of his attackers.

The young elf, as Arioch understood him to be well under three hundred, fired without

taking much time to aim, though several orcs cried out and dropped to the ground. He remained

crouched behind the combined cover of his car door and the boxes it had pushed outward,

occasionally firing over the top of his improvised fortress. It would be so easy for her to put a

round in his head from where she was positioned without him ever being the wiser, but doing so

would not only have deprived her of seeing his face when he knew he’d lost, but would also

likely land her on a kill contract as well. Collectors seldom killed their fellows without

consequence.

Instead she slipped a pistol into one hand, and scanned the room for more acceptable

targets. Finding a pair of orcs moving around Reldien’s car in an effort to flank him, she fired off

a pair of shots. Two heads snapped backwards, their owners jerking in place before toppling to

the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Another orc was poking his head out from behind

his cover to fire at Reldien’s position. Arioch leaned forward to give herself a better angle, and

squeezed the trigger. The orc’s gun fell onto the box in front of him, and he made not a sound as

he slumped back into cover, dead.

 Another series of shots from Reldien, and the warehouse went quiet. Sensitive to the fact

that, even in an area of town like this, quite so much fire would draw unwanted attention, Arioch

resolved not to waste any time in depriving Reldien of his prize and making good her escape.

She slipped her pistol back into its holster and slid from the catwalk, gripping its edge before

dropping onto one of the fallen shelves and the mass of what had once sat on them. The debris of

what had once been a neatly ordered, if not well-maintained warehouse shifted beneath her, and

Arioch wobbled, toppling onto her backside and sliding down to the floor with a less than

graceful thud.

In the comparative silence of the warehouse now the firefight had died down, Reldien

could not fail to hear the sound of Arioch’s inauspicious arrival. As she got to her feet, rubbing

her rear, Reldien swung around, pistols levelled at her. She saw his fingers tense on the trigger,

and prepared to drop flat, but a heartbeat later, recognition dawned on his narrow face, and he

broke into the wide, thin-lipped smirk she hated so much about the little prick.

“Arioch Starshadow,” he drawled, spinning his guns around and slipping them into their

holsters like some damn action movie star. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here. Or were

you signing on to join up with the orcs?”

Reldien’s red eyes settled on her in a mixture of mockery and, Arioch thought, open lust.

She preferred the former, considering the source. He placed his hands on his hips, adjusting the

white racing jacket he wore. Another thing Arioch couldn’t stand about him: He almost

exclusively wore white, usually with some inexcusably riotous color underneath. Today it was a

bright blue and green shirt with some logo she didn’t recognize. Maybe a band? She didn’t care.
 Arioch rolled her eyes, closing the distance between them with an air of intending to

investigate the toppled over boxes behind him. When she drew level with him, though, she

reached one hand into her pocket for her phone, and balled the other into a fist and rammed it

into his stomach with enough force to briefly lift him off his feet. A satisfying whoosh

accompanied the air leaving his lungs, and when his feet touched ground again, his legs buckled,

and he sank to his knees, gasping for air and dry heaving at the same time.

“Actually I’m here for the same reason you are,” she said, looking down at him as he

caught himself on his hands and knees, still rasping for breath. “I know, I know, this is usually

your routine. But you sort of crashed in on my operation here, and it was either shoot you and do

the work myself, or let you help. Thanks for being a team player.”

Reldien turned up to look at her, his eyes wide as he continued trying to take in air. A

mixture of shock and rage warred on his face, and Arioch quickly snapped a picture on her

phone, much to his evident puzzlement. That done, she smashed her foot into his face, hearing

his nose break with a satisfying crunch. She hoped against hope the bone would set with some

obvious deformity and forever ruin the smug, shit-eating grin of his.

“Well, that went nicely,” she said as Reldien’s face smacked wetly into the concrete

floor, his slow, ragged breathing telling Arioch he was unconscious for the foreseeable future.

“What did you do to him?” Wilbur asked suspiciously.

“Broke his nose and knocked him out,” Arioch replied. “Nothing fatal. I promise your

hero will live to be a pain in someone’s ass another day.”

“Arioch…”
 “He’s fine. Now, let’s see about transporting this thing…”

Arioch stopped in front of the box, hands on her hips as she frowned down at it.

Thankfully, it rested on its dolly, which would make moving it easier, though maneuvering it

into one of the vans would be a bit of a task, awkwardly shaped as it was. As she regarded it,

though, she found herself uncharacteristically curious as to what must be in the box to have

given her such a powerful sense of vertigo. Even now, after having taken time to accustom

herself to the effects, she could feel the magic buzzing behind her eyes, tingling through every

nerve in her body. On reflection, its presence probably accounted for the considerable gap

between Reldien ramming his car through the front door, and his actually getting out. He must

have felt the same thing.

“Wilbur, any word on what this thing is?” she asked.

“None at all. Since when do you ask about stuff like that?”

“Since it nearly knocks me unconscious just being within a city block of it.” Arioch

considered the smooth white surface for a moment, arms folded across her chest before sighing.

“Hell with it. I’m opening it.”

“Arioch! Are you out of your mind?! There’s a reason you don’t ask questions, especially

about a job like this!”

Wilbur was right, of course. There were a great many things it was quite simply better not

to know in Arioch’s chosen profession. No matter what she tried to tell herself about the smart

thing to do, though, Arioch couldn’t restrain her curiosity about what could cause such a
powerful response from so far away. Such powerful magic had been gone from the world for

thousands of years.

Determined in what she had to admit may not be the best course of action, Arioch leaned

over the box, peering down at its topmost side. The smooth white was interrupted by a simple

panel with a dimly lit readout screen. At the moment, the small square screen, about the length of

Arioch’s thumb on each side, pulsed green with the letters “OK” appearing in a slightly darker

shade at its center. Seeing no other control, or seam along which to pry it open, Arioch reached

out to touch the screen. Her fingers came into view, but they were longer than they should have

been and her skin was a pale shade of almost marble white. Arioch jerked her hand back, staring

at it for a long moment. All was normal. Deep, purple skin, and no longer the size of a shovel.

“You are not here!” Arioch hissed between gritted teeth. “I am. You are gone,” she

reminded herself.

Arioch grit her teeth and touched the screen. An electric jolt shot through her arm as she

touched the box. She jerked her hand back, thinking she had tripped some kind of security

measure. But the light only pulsed the same green. Had the shock been from whatever was inside

the box?

With a soft beep and hiss, the screen went dark, and the box’s top slid away. Arioch tilted

her head, peering down into the interior, and found herself staring into a small set of brilliantly

glowing blue-white eyes.

“What the…”

“Hello,” said the little girl sitting in the box.

 Arioch almost didn’t believe her own eyes. But after blinking several times, the sight

refused to disappear. A little girl sat cross-legged in the box, wearing a simple white dress which

almost matched her nearly translucent skin. She stared up at Arioch with luminescent blue-white

eyes, an almost expectant smile on her young, narrow face. She brushed a bit of her wispy,

silver-white hair from her face, but it moved wrong. It seemed almost lighter than the air,

floating free for a moment before she smoothed it down into a single mass which fell just over

her slender shoulders. Words failed Arioch, and she simply gawped down at this girl who sat in

the box as though it were a perfectly normal thing to be doing.

“What’s your name?”

The question snapped Arioch out of her daze, and the elf shook herself in an attempt to

regain her senses. Realization dawned on Arioch, and her stomach began a series of backflips

and twists that almost doubled her over with renewed shock.

“You’re an Ancient,” Arioch finally managed.

“What?” Wilbur’s voice cut in on the conversation, but Arioch ignored him.

The girl smiled a cherubic smile and held both short arms outstretched toward Arioch,

her fingers spread and wiggling back and forth as if expecting help getting out of the crate.

Arioch did not, could not act for what felt like hours. It was Wilbur’s voice cutting into her

thoughts once more that finally brought Arioch back to her senses.

“Arioch, that’s not possible. The Ancients all died out over a hundred thousand years

ago.”

“Shut up, Wilbur. I know an Ancient when I see one.”

 “What? Like, you’ve seen one before? How old are you?!”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her focus remaining on the girl whose arms were still held

outstretched.

Unable to think of anything else to do, Arioch reached into the box and took hold of the

girl’s arms. Another jolt of energy surged through her, and Arioch’s whole body jerked in

response. The girl gripped Arioch’s coat sleeves when Arioch’s own fingers failed to close

around her wrists for a moment, and as Arioch involuntarily straightened, she pulled the girl with

her. The Ancient child held herself in Arioch’s arms as Arioch stood, her body stiff at the feel of

energy crackling through and around her before she was finally able to regain control of her

limbs and hold onto the girl.

“I’m Mya. What’s your name?” the girl asked again.

“Arioch.” She hadn’t realized she’d even spoken, her head still swimming with the

realization she was actually holding an Ancient, who so far as she and anyone else knew, simply

shouldn’t exist. But there was no mistaking those glowing blue eyes, the almost ethereal silver

hair, and the impossibly potent magical aura which was still making muscles along Arioch’s

body spasm.

“Hello Miss Arioch.”

Mya could not have appeared more at ease. She seemed perfectly happy to meet Arioch,

and not just because Arioch had pulled her out of a box which, so far as she could see, had no air

holes, food, or water. How long had she been in there?

“How the hell did you get here?” Arioch finally asked.
 “They brought me here.”

“Who are ‘they,’ kid?”

“Mya. The mean men. They put me in the box and told me to be quiet and brought me

here.”

“The mean men? What, the Hellions? The orcs here?” Arioch asked, looking around at

the wreckage of the warehouse.

Mya nodded.

“Where did they find you? Where did you come from?”

Mya shrugged.

“How long have you been here?” Arioch asked.

Again, the girl shrugged, looking out from her vantage in Arioch’s arms. As her blue eyes

swept the admittedly grisly scene, Arioch was forced to admit this may not be the best place to

have a conversation with what by all appearances was a young child. In fact, she was fairly sure

all the dead bodies and blood were the stuff of children’s nightmares. That, combined with the

certainty of more Hellions coming around to investigate what happened, convinced her a change

of setting was in order.

“Okay, we’re leaving,” Arioch said after a moment, which Mya accepted readily enough

with another nod.

Arioch turned and made to carry her out the now smashed shutters, pausing only when

she reached Reldien’s unconscious form. He might be out for a while longer, but she didn’t need
him waking and coming after her as soon as he was up. Killing him was more or less out of the

question, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t restrain him and leave the Hellions to do her work for

her. She set the girl down and straightened.

“Wait right here. I’ll be back in just a moment.” When Mya simply nodded again, Arioch

felt compelled to at least offer some kind of reasoning for what she was about to do. “I need to

make sure this, uh, mean man doesn’t follow us.” Yet another nod.

The girl appropriately informed, Arioch bent down and lifted Reldien over one shoulder.

Fortunately, he was smaller and lighter than she was. He was indeed fully grown, but Arioch’s

particular subspecies of elf tended to be larger and stronger than the pale-skinned variety to

which Reldien belonged. With a devious smirk, she carried him over to the box and dumped him

into it. Sure, she had to force his legs into what was undoubtedly an uncomfortable position to

get him in, and if he was anything like as uncomfortable with small spaces as she was he might

have a panic attack, but she had difficulty feeling sympathy for him. Once he was situated inside

the box, she closed its top again. Obviously there was airflow into the box, or the girl wouldn’t

have survived being placed inside. The backlit screen on the top glowed green and, satisfied he

wasn’t going anywhere until the Hellions found him, Arioch straightened and turned back to

Mya. If she was lucky, the Hellions would just kill him for being there.

Arioch walked back to Mya, jerking a thumb for the girl to follow her. Instead of moving,

Mya held out a hand toward Arioch.

“Come on, kid, let’s go,” she said.

“Mya,” the girl corrected, wiggling her little fingers to Arioch as she held her hand out.
 “Fine. Come on, Mya.”

Mya didn’t budge, continuing to hold her hand toward Arioch.

“Oh, for…you are kidding me,” Arioch muttered, snatching the girl’s hand and taking

off, giving her arm a tug.

Mya squeaked in surprise, and was forced into a near jog just to keep up with Arioch’s

long strides. In fairness to the little girl, she was hardly half Arioch’s height, and the elf moved

with a purposeful rapidity a small child’s stubby legs could hardly be expected to match. As a

result, Arioch all but dragged the girl over to her car before pulling the passenger door open and

gesturing inside.

“Come on, get in. We’re going for a ride,” Arioch said.

Mya complied readily enough, crawling into the seat and reaching up to grab the seatbelt.

She pulled it down across her chest and slid it into the buckle, giving the device a little pat before

folding her hands in her lap and looking up at Arioch, who closed the door without comment.

Arioch circled around the car and got into her own seat. She started the engine, and as she was

shifting the car into the gear, Mya reached across the console and poked her side.

“Seatbelt, Miss Arioch,” she said, pointing to the unused belt over Arioch’s shoulder.

“Right. Thanks.”

Arioch did her best not to groan as she reached back and fastened her own seatbelt. She

didn’t actually remember the last time she’d spoken to or otherwise dealt with a child, but was

fast starting to remember why she avoided doing so wherever she could. Should have just left the

damn box closed. Sometimes not knowing was just better.

 “Wilbur, I need to get rid of this kid right now. I’m going to bring her to you, and then

contact the client and have them send someone to pick her up,” Arioch said as she pulled the car

away from the warehouse.

“The hell you are. I’m not taking care of a kid. And if it really is an Ancient, I don’t even

want to be within a city block of it. What would Arcana Corp want with an Ancient?”

“How do I know? They’re the only people doing magical research. Maybe they want an

Ancient because Ancients have more magic in their pinkies than the entire population of this city

combined? Maybe they just want to unlock the secret of their weird hair. I have no damn idea,

Wilbur.”

Mya squeaked again, and Arioch remembered the girl was able to hear at least her side of

the conversation, and felt a sudden awkwardness at having talked so bluntly of getting rid of her.

Arioch looked over to the girl, and seeing her head upturned, staring at Arioch in a look of

mingled fear and confusion, she was about to say…something to maybe calm her down. Wilbur

cut in just as she opened her mouth with some of the most unwelcome news she’d had all year.

“Look, if the girl’s an Ancient, then this is bigger than either of us thought this could

possibly be. You can’t bring her here. Or anywhere in town for that matter. I don’t know what

you should do, but you can’t just hide her.”

Wilbur was right and she knew it. “All right. We need to get to the client then. Can you

get us transport to Boulder? It’d take me a day or two to drive there. There’s got to be an airship

or something heading there. Book it and we’ll make the client cover the expense.”

“You’re going to take an Ancient on public transportation?” Wilbur asked.

 “No one knows what they look like! I’ll give her some sunglasses, it’ll be fine.”

“Sunglasses? Arioch, are you seri-” He sighed, giving up halfway through. “Fine. Hang

on a second. Let me see what I can find you.”

Arioch turned to look at Mya as Wilbur fell silent. She looked mostly human. Pale,

certainly, with extremely light hair which seemed to fade into the air around it at the tips rather

than simply end. Maybe she should grab her a hat, too? The real problem was the eyes though.

None of the living races had glowing blue-white eyes, and while Arioch knew for a fact no one

would be able to identify her as an Ancient, no actual pictures of her kind existing, a child with

glowing blue eyes would stand out in people’s memory if anyone came looking for her. With this

in mind, Arioch tapped the console just in front of her moon roof, and the holder for her

sunglasses swung down. She snatched them up and held them out to Mya.

“Here, put these on. Help you blend in.”

Mya took the sunglasses and held them out in front of her face. Hesitating briefly, she

tried to put them on. They promptly fell off, her head much too small.

“Umm…” Mya hummed uncertainly.

Arioch reached over, ramming the glasses onto her face and bending the arms inward to

hook the tips over her ears. Even still, the glasses slid forward on her nose, almost falling off her

face. Fortunately, they were large enough on her comparatively small eyes to cover them.

“We’ll…uh, get you some that fit on the way,” Arioch said, nodding. “Where are we on

that, Wilbur?”
 After another moment’s silence, Wilbur’s voice returned. “Okay, I’ve got you a pair of

tickets on the intercity subway. It’s leaving in about forty-five minutes from Central Station. You

should be able to get there with a few minutes to spare, and be in Boulder in a few hours. Once

you’re there, I’ll contact the client.”

Arioch’s jaw tightened. “I am not taking the subway, Wilbur.”

“What? Are you serious? Arioch, we don’t have time for this. You need to be gone by the

time Arcana Corp realizes their Collector didn’t get the job done. Once he notifies them, or they

figure it out, they’ll be looking for you with who knows how many Collectors, or even their own

people.”

Arioch’s insides twisted, and she grit her teeth. “There must be an airship, or something

else. Even if it doesn’t leave right away. Air travel’s faster.”

“The next flight to the Boulder airfield isn’t until tomorrow morning. I already checked.

The flights today are full.”

“Fine,” Arioch snapped, forced to acknowledge the absence of any suitable alternative.

“Just…just have the ticket ready at the counter. We’ll take the damn subway.”

Arioch jammed her foot against the accelerator in her frustration. The car leapt forward

and drew another squeak from Mya. The little Ancient clung to her seat and turned slightly to

face Arioch.

“What’s a subway?” she asked, her head tilted backward to keep the sunglasses from

falling off her face.

“Pretty much the worst idea anyone ever had,” Arioch groused.
 “What?”

“It’s a train that moves underground. Tiny. Cramped. Full of people…” Arioch trailed

off, realizing talking about it wasn’t helping the anxiety she was already feeling.

“Oooooh.” Mya sounded more interested than put out by the description.

“Oh yeah, it’ll be wonderful,” Arioch muttered, her grip on the steering wheel tightening.
Chapter 5

Arioch pulled into the long term parking lot at Central Station just under a half hour later.

When Mya didn’t get out on her own, Arioch was forced to walk around her cat, pull the door

open, and all but drag the girl out by the hand. Again, Mya struggled to keep up with Arioch’s

rapid stride, jogging along beside her with one hand pressed to her face to keep her borrowed

sunglasses on. There would be someplace in the station she could get Mya a pair before they got

on the subway at least.

“Come on. We gotta hurry if we’re going to get you some glasses of your own,” Arioch

said, giving Mya’s hand another jerk, eliciting a pained cry from the girl.

Looking back, Arioch saw Mya’s face pinched, her brows contracted and lower lip

wobbling. Even she knew what that look meant in a child, and stopped. If Mya burst into crying

here, people may start to wonder what an elf was doing with a human-looking child. Conscious

of this, she turned and picked the girl up in her arms instead, resting some of Mya’s weight

against her hip.

“Hold on, we need to hurry,” she repeated, and Mya obediently wrapped her arms around

Arioch’s neck, leaning her face into the elf’s shoulder, calmer now Arioch wasn’t tugging on her

arm.

Fortunately, Mya weighed next to nothing, and Arioch had no trouble carrying her with

one arm as she approached the station. Dozens of people of varying races moved in and out,

though the majority were dwarves and their various halfies and fracs, being the most apt to want

to travel underground, particularly since the intercity subways mostly connected city states to

dwarven undercities.
 Arioch shouldered one of the glass doors open and stepped onto the large, open

concourse. Even well into the evening as it was, the station was crowded with people embarking

and disembarking, collecting their luggage, and purchasing tickets.

“Which counter do we go to?” Arioch asked, having kept Wilbur on the line.

“Boulder Transit Systems, counter four,” he answered. “They have two tickets in your

name. One adult, one child.”

Arioch nodded and cast her gaze about, finding the appropriate counter by its bizarre

appearance of having been hewn from a rock resting against the wall where the rows of ticketing

counters stood. The obviously plastic rock looked more than a little garish beside all the other

simple counters, particularly when accompanied by the gaudy, chiseled writing emphasized with

multicolored paint spelling out the company’s name.

Shifting Mya’s weight a bit, Arioch approached the counter. A squat, dwarf man looked

up at her, his face twisting in a frown as his head craned upward to look at her. Dwarves were

renowned for their particularly strong dislike of elves, far moreso than other species did. Arioch

couldn’t remember what might have kicked that off.

“Can I help you?” he asked drily.

“Yes. I have two tickets reserved. Arioch Starshadow.”

The dwarf looked down at his computer, typing something into it. It beeped at him, he

typed again, and received another beep in reply. Another few taps later, and he looked up at her

with what she supposed was meant to be some facsimile of a regretful expression. If anything, he

looked triumphant.
 “I’m afraid there’s been some overbooking and we were forced to downgrade you to an

economy ticket in general seating,” he explained.

“Huh?” Arioch hadn’t known Wilbur had tried to book her a private seat. That

was…thoughtful of him. “Fine, just give me the difference and I’ll take the damn economy seat.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to contact our offices for a refund of the difference. I’ll provide

you with their information. They should be able to issue you the appropriate refund in sixty to

ninety days, provided you meet all the requisite criteria.”

Arioch stared at him. “I…what? What was all that?” She leaned over the counter, trying

to see if he was reading some kind of script from his screen, being quite sure real people didn’t

speak in such a bizarrely artificial manner.

The dwarf put out a hand, stopping her from looking at his screen and all but confirming

her suspicions in the process. Aside from the fact that every word he’d spoken had positively

dripped with malicious relish, the wording had been entirely too mechanical. She checked her

urge to reach across the counter and throttle the grubby bastard by his greasy black beard.

“As I said, you will have to contact our corporate offices.” He reached into a hollow

below his computer and pulled out a ticket folder, sliding a few things into it before holding it

out to her. “Your economy tickets and corporate contact information are enclosed. Have a

pleasant journey.”

He simpered at her, showing yellowed teeth obscured by his bushy mustache and beard,

and Arioch had to force herself not to cram the envelope down his throat, along with most of his

teeth. If anything, the anger on her face seemed to amuse him more, and his wicked little smile
widened, opening up a yawning chasm in his sea of facial hair. With nothing to be done, and no

time to argue, Arioch growled angrily and spun around on her heel, Mya giggling at the sudden

motion and gripping her coat a bit tighter, reminding Arioch of her presence for the first time

since she entered the station.

“Let’s get you some glasses,” Arioch gritted out, heading to one of the nearby gift shops

which stood before the security checkpoint.

As with most such shops, a rotating stand held a number of sunglasses, topped with a

garish, glowing neon sign reading “Welcome to the City of Lights. Get your own shades,

because our streets are always bright!” Arioch shook her head and set Mya down in front of the

stand.

“Pick out a pair for yourself,” she said, glancing around the store, hoping they had some

sort of mild sedative to help keep her calm on the trip. Or maybe a liquor section.

She was about to head to one of the store’s back walls, which looked promising, when

she noticed something seemed off. At first, she couldn’t put her finger on just what it was.

Gradually, though, she realized the sounds of the station had almost entirely faded away. The

dull roar of conversation had subsided into a low, scattered murmur, and the shuffle of bodies

had given way to the occasional shudder of the ground beneath her, but nothing else. Arioch set

one hand on Mya’s shoulder just as the girl picked up a pair of glasses for herself and exchanged

them with Arioch’s, holding them out to the elf as she looked up to Arioch, wearing a pair of

reflective black glasses with glow in the dark green frames.

“Like them?” she asked brightly as Arioch absently took her own glasses back and
slipped them onto her face, taking a careful look toward the security checkpoint, sweeping her

gaze back toward the entrance.

“Yeah, sure kid,” Arioch said distractedly.

“Mya. Hey you’re not-”

“Arioch Starshadow.” An unfamiliar voice cut through the silence, drawing Arioch’s

attention to an information kiosk near the ticketing counters. “Hand over the girl.”

The speaker was an orc woman, pureblood from the look of her. Arioch’s first thought

was concern the Hellions had followed her, but she quickly dismissed it. Gangers didn’t wear

full body tactical armor. Even Peacekeepers didn’t wear anything so pricy, and Arioch could see

pulsing indicator lights along her arms and chest, which meant it was a digitally integrated rig,

and so even more expensive. Besides which, she had four companions with her in similar dress,

all of whom looked to be humans, and so far as she knew, Hellions were exclusively orcs. No,

with such sophisticated armor they had to be private military. Few Collectors could afford armor

so advanced, and Arioch would have known them if they were among those were able to do so.

“Who’re you?” Arioch asked, interposing herself between Mya and the group of

militants.

“What’s going on?” Wilbur asked in her ear.

“Some private military types found me,” she hissed. “Probably because some asshole

bought the ticket under my real name.”

Wilbur’s response was somewhere between an inarticulate gurgle of surprise, and a

mumbled apology. Arioch said nothing. Either Reldien had gotten out of the box faster than she
could have imagined, or someone else had been involved in the job. What mattered now, though,

was getting past them. There would be no way to get to the subway on time with these people on

her heels, and they would know exactly where she’d be getting off anyway. The bright side, she

supposed, was now she didn’t need to worry about cramming herself into a subway car.

“Give us the girl,” the orc repeated in a flat, deep monotone.

Odd. Usually orcs were more aggressive, particularly when making demands. Yet this

woman who towered over her fellows, large even by the standards of orcs, spoke surprisingly

softly and calmly for one of her kind issuing orders.

“Mya, no matter what happens, you don’t run away. You hear me? You stay here, and

wait for me. I don’t think you want to go anywhere with these guys,” Arioch said.

Mya didn’t look inclined to disagree. She was regarding the quintet with undisguised

fear, and cowered behind Arioch, gripping the back of Arioch’s coat and burying her face in the

elf’s legs.

“I need you to let me go so I can deal with this,” Arioch said, trying to keep her

impatience out of her voice. When she felt the little hands disentangle from her coat, she took a

few steps forward.

“You haven’t told me who you are. You’re certainly not Peacekeepers,” she said.

“We represent the girl’s guardian. Hand her over and you won’t be harmed.”

Arioch snorted. “Right. Okay, you got me. I surrender.”

 She raised her hands about shoulder height, palms-out in a show of surrender. Mya

squeaked fearfully at the sight of Arioch giving up. At times like this, Arioch wished there was

more magic to be used in the world. Once upon a time, she could have used her innate gift to

reach them before they knew what was happening. But now, attacking them from so far away

while four of the five held firearms trained on her was just asking to be riddled with bullets.

When they got closer, though…

The elf was a threat, and all four of the orc’s subordinates knew it. On their captain’s

orders, they approached, pistols trained on her, each man wishing he’d been allowed to bring

something heavier to the fight. Elves were faster, stronger, nimbler than human beings. If their

briefing was accurate, this particular elf had thousands of years’ experience honing the craft of

murder. This was the sort of duty which typically fell to the poor unlucky bastard who drew the

short straw.

They advanced on her as one. Two to her left, two to her right. Even with her hands up,

having agreed to surrender, their weapons didn’t come down. If she had a change of heart, this

could get ugly fast, and their briefing had warned she was far from trustworthy. Both two-man

teams reached her together, one man in each team standing in front of her now, one of each

moving to flank her. She towered over them, fully head and shoulders taller than most of the

team, but they were used to that. The orc who led them was even larger.

“Disarm her,” the corporal standing on her right side, who served as the little squadron’s

second-in-command ordered.

The other two men at either side reached their free hands toward her waist, where each

could see a pistol holstered on a low-slung belt she wore beneath her floor-length coat. None of
them had time to react. The elf’s hands fell in a blur of motion, wrapping around the tops of the

pistols both men now held with only one hand. She forced the pistols away from herself, aiming

them forward, directly at the two men in front of her. Her thumbs hooked under the barrels,

pulling the trigger on each weapon. Armor-piercing rounds tore through the chests of the

corporal and his companion in front of the elf, and they fell backward, away from her.

The elf jerked upward, forcing the pistols from both their hands and tossing them away as

she stepped forward, past them. As her feet planted on the ground, she changed direction. She

didn’t move her feet, didn’t shift her weight, she somehow simply changed direction, sliding

along the floor to her right with a faint scraping sound as her boots ground against the tiles. As

she passed in front of the guard on her right, she turned. He was going for his knife, had it in his

hand and was just starting to face her when one of her hands closed over his wrist. He tried to

jerk his hand away, but she held him fast, the bones in his wrist screaming in protest. His

companion drew his own knife and lunged toward the pair of them, but too late. The soldier

could do nothing but watch as his hand was twisted, the blade forced back toward his own chest.

The elf’s other hand pressed against the back of his neck, forcing him down toward the knife. A

soft groan of protest reverberated through the plates on his body armor as they flexed inward, the

knife forced through them in one motion, ending its wearer’s life.

The final remaining soldier was halfway to his target now, knife raised. He thumbed a

tiny switch on the grip, and a low hum, almost too low for human ears to hear, filled the air as

the blade on his knife began to oscillate so rapidly its edges appeared to blur, perfect for slicing

through armor, and even other weapons. As his final companion slumped to the ground, the elf

straightened, turning toward him and jerking her hand down, free of her third victim. He didn’t
even see the blade between her fingers as she flicked her wrist, flinging it at him. A black blur

flipped through the air and struck him in the forehead with a dull, muffled thud.

As the final soldier dropped, Arioch bent low to scoop up his knife, having heard the

vibrations moving along its blade and noticed the way its edges became indistinct. She turned it

over in her hand, and thumbed the switch to deactivate the blade.

“I always wanted one of these,” she said to herself, examining the blade before looking

up to the orc woman who led group. “Little expensive for me, though.”

She slipped the blade into her coat and placed her hands on her hips, mirroring the orc’s

stance. Arioch had to give the woman credit for her calm. People tended to panic when their

squadmates were cut down, particularly when it happened so quickly.

“Oh! Wilbur you didn’t time that from the first gunshot, did you?” Arioch asked

suddenly.

“Uh…hang on. It was…six seconds.”

Arioch frowned. “Damn. Thought I might have hit a record there.”

“Isn’t there one left?”

“Yeah but she’s not doing anything.” Arioch looked up. “You’re not doing anything,

right? We’re done here, yeah?”

For a moment, Arioch thought the orc might have gone catatonic, which admittedly

would have been odd for an orc. They didn’t really do fear in battle. Of course, they also tended
not to just stand by and watch a fight unfold, either. In fairness, it couldn’t really have been

called a fight.

“Give us the girl,” the orc finally said.

Arioch blinked. “What ‘us’? There is no ‘us’. It is very much you now. Singular.”

“Give us the girl.”

“Erm…are you…broken? I, uh, can you say anything else? Wilbur, I think I broke the

orc.”

The orc stood immobile for another moment before reaching back, behind herself, and

drawing out some kind of serrated sword. Arioch hadn’t seen a weapon quite like it before, and

couldn’t contain her curiosity as to what would drive someone to serrate the edge along an entire

sword whose blade was roughly four feet long.

“Oh, never mind. She’s still working,” Arioch said, dropping one hand to her razorwhip

and slipping it free of its sheath.

As the orc approached, Arioch could see “Cpt. L’ora Stern” stenciled on her armor. At

least she had a name. Arioch was about to open her mouth to speak again, but L’ora suddenly

leaned forward and charged. Knowing what an orc could do at a full run when they collided with

something, especially one of L’ora’s impressive size, even by orc standards, Arioch sidestepped,

swinging her sword in a flat arc at L’ora’s neck. L’ora ducked under the attack with surprising

speed.

Before Arioch could reposition for a better attack, L’ora’s blade swung upward toward

her throat. Arioch leaned back and brought her razorwhip, the segments aligned rigidly, down to
parry. L’ora’s sheer strength nearly knocked the weapon from Arioch’s hands, and she staggered

backward. Arioch lifted her free hand to grip her blade two-handed. Just as Arioch pushed on the

orc’s blade, a sudden roar filled the room. The serrated edges on L’ora’s sword were moving.

Caught off-guard, Arioch’s blade was swept downward, toward the crossguard of L’ora’s

weapon, whatever the hell it was. For a moment, the serrations ground against Arioch’s

razorwhip, pinning it against L’ora’s crossguard. Taking advantage of her surprise, L’ora pushed

her weapon upward and rammed the pommel into Arioch’s forehead, sending her sprawling

backward, off balance.

“Whoa,” Arioch said, shaking herself, a trickle of blood running down her temple. “Is

that a chainsaw in the shape of a sword? That is a chainsaw in the shape of a sword!”

“What? Seriously? That is so cool!” Wilbur all but squealed into her headset. “I want

one.”

Arioch was having trouble getting as excited about the weapon as Wilbur, particularly

when L’ora sliced at her torso, the motor, probably housed in the oddly boxy hilt, growling. She

parried the blow again, this time striking the flat of the blade to divert it, but was still nearly

overwhelmed by the orc’s strength. Arioch had fought orcs before, even their berserkers in ages

past, and couldn’t recall one ever coming so close to disarming her.

“Okay, so, you’re strong,” Arioch admitted, taking a step back.

As soon as L’ora advanced to maintain her position, Arioch ducked low. She twisted

herself sideways to avoid the downward slash she’d seen coming a mile away, and stabbed

upward toward L’ora’s inscribed chest armor. L’ora reversed the direction of her thrust, bringing

her blade up to meet Arioch’s and deflect the blow.

 “Nope.”

Arioch twisted her grip on the razorwhip’s handle, and the segments came apart. L’ora’s

sword struck the uncoiled whip, changing the direction of the tip’s motion, which suddenly

whipped downward, wrapping in a loop around the blade and coming full circle over its top,

slashing a deep gash across the side of L’ora’s cleanly shaved head.

L’ora staggered back, and Arioch seized her advantage, jerking downward on her weapon

which was now entangled with the orc’s. Off-balance and hurt, L’ora didn’t react fast enough,

and pitched forward, nearly losing hold of her sword. Arioch jumped straight up, over L’ora as

she doubled over, landing on her feet behind the orc. As L’ora tried to spin to face her, Arioch

moved the opposite direction, intending to wrap the razorwhip around L’ora and use the orc’s

own momentum to entangle her in the whip’s deadly blades. But L’ora let go of her weapon,

tossing it upward, which sent the whip’s coil over her head, and it closed over nothing. Facing

Arioch now, she brought a fist up into the elf’s side.

Arioch found most people didn’t like punching her, particularly in the abdomen where so

much hard muscle had about as much give as the average concrete wall. But L’ora might as well

have taken a swing at a gelatin mold for all the resistance Arioch’s body offered. She heard a rib

crack as the blow lifted her from her feet, sending her rolling sideways over the concourse floor.

Gasping for breath, and tasting the bitter copper of blood, Arioch retracted her razorwhip

into its curved, one-sided form and hopped to her feet, wincing as every muscle in her torso

screamed in protest. L’ora had taken advantage of the extra time Arioch’s fall afforded her to

pick her weapon back up, and was already charging at her again, sword tip down and almost

level with the ground. At least she was letting Arioch know what was coming. Arioch
sidestepped at the last second, edging outside L’ora’s upward stroke. With L’ora overextended,

her whole side was vulnerable and Arioch brought her razorwhip in a horizontal slice. The blade

bit through L’ora’s body armor and cut deep into her side. A gout of blood spurted through the

new gap in the armor plating in the wake of Arioch’s stroke.

L’ora let out a grunt of pain and sunk to one knee, her sword, or whatever it was, loosely

held in one hand as the other kept her from falling over entirely. Arioch was under no delusions

such a blow would kill an orc, or even keep one down for very long. Turning toward L’ora, who

was already beginning to push herself up, Arioch brought her blade back for a killing stroke. Her

vision suddenly exploded in a searing burst of light, and Arioch staggered back, swearing. Elves

were particularly sensitive to so much light, their vision being as acute as it was. The sunglasses

she’d taken back from Mya probably saved her from being permanently blinded by such a

brilliant flash so close.

Furiously, Arioch swung her blade in a wide arc, hoping she might still catch the orc with

the attack, but L’ora was already gone. Her vision awash in white, Arioch tilted her head, trying

to listen for the orc’s footfalls. Arioch’s ears twitched. L’ora was running away, toward the main

entrance. The orc’s uneven gait told Arioch she might have cut a bit deeper than she thought, but

she didn’t have time to savor the small victory.

“Mya?” Arioch barked, swiveling her head left and right. “Mya come here.”

Able to see nothing but a sea of blank whiteness, Arioch only knew Mya was

approaching by the soft pattering of her bare feet against the tiled floor. When the sound stopped,

Arioch turned toward where Mya stood and tilted her head down, blinking furiously to try and

clear her eyes.

 “Are you okay, Miss Arioch?” Mya asked tremulously.

“Huh? I’m fine,” Arioch grunted, and tasted more copper on her lips.

“You’ve got blood…”

“I’m fine.”

Arioch was starting to see vague outlines, shapes resolving in the mass of white which

had blurred her vision. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. At least able to see a gradually

sharpening blob in front of her which must have been Mya, Arioch reached down and lifted the

girl into her arms.

“We need to go. Quickly, so hang on.”

Mya’s fingers dug into Arioch’s coat again, and her small legs wrapped around Arioch’s

torso, drawing a muted gasp of pain as she pressed against the broken rib. While Arioch couldn’t

make out any details about the crowd in the terminal, she could at least gauge their relative

positions. Arioch ran, as best she could with a broken rib and extra weight pushing against it,

ignoring the crowd and heading toward the emergency exit whose glowing red sign she could

just barely discern in the blurry fuzz that was her vision after whatever L’ora had used on her.

Reaching the door, Arioch kicked it open, her boot clanging against the lever and sending

a spike of pain up her side. Still, she didn’t slow. The streetlights loomed in her vision, not much

more than fuzzy white balls against the blanket of night, occasionally interrupted by a billboard

or street sign, none of which Arioch could read.

“Wilbur, I need you to direct me back to my car. I can hardly see a thing,” she said.
 A moment of silence. “Turn left, and head parallel to the street. It should take you to the

lot. I’ll need a minute to find a way to get your car’s GPS going to pick it out of the lot.”

Arioch turned left, still holding onto Mya, and ran along the blacktop. Indistinct outlines

which Arioch took to be cars swam into her vision, and she wove between them. As she went,

Arioch listened out for the sounds of Peacekeeper sirens, surprised she hadn’t heard any. Sure

the group hadn’t been Peackeepers themselves, but such a detail wouldn’t stop the bystanders

from calling them after the display L’ora and her people had put on. She could probably

convince the Peacekeepers it had been self-defense, but explaining Mya would be a bit harder.

“Can you see the signs for lot C?” Wilbur asked.

Arioch slowed, casting her head around, and saw an illuminated sign she thought

displayed either a large C or an O, she wasn’t completely sure. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Okay, get to it, and start tapping your keystick to lock the car. Just follow the sounds

from there. You aren’t far in.”

Arioch shifted Mya a bit, hoping to relieve some of the pressure against her wounded

side, and changed direction toward the sign. It wasn’t too terribly far, and when she dipped her

hand into her pocket and started tapping the lock button on her keystick, she heard her car beep

at her from just a few feet ahead.

“Mya, look around. Do you see anybody nearby?” Arioch asked, heading toward the

beeping.

“No,” Mya said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so…”

 Arioch came to a stop at her car, just able to make it out now, though little flares of light

reflected off of its smooth black surface in disorienting starbursts. Driving was going to be, at

best, difficult. But she couldn’t exactly just sit around in her car and wait to see if L’ora showed

up with more people. She hurriedly set Mya down, who wobbled for a moment as her bare feet

slapped against the asphalt.

“Get in, we need to go,” Arioch said, relieved she could actually see the handle to her

door.

The soft patter of Mya’s rapid footfalls told Arioch the girl wasn’t demanding her hand

be held through this, and moments later Mya’s door opened and closed, the girl clambering into

her seat. Arioch started the car and looked over at the blurry outline of the girl seated beside her.

When Arioch noticed the absence of luminescent blue eyes shining back at her. She snickered.

“Did you take those sunglasses?” she asked.

“You said I should pick some.”

“Ha! The first Ancient in the world in tens of thousands of years and I’ve turned her into

a petty thief!”

Mya gave a strangled gasp. “Wh-what?”

“Never mind,” Arioch said, blinking a few times and peering through the windshield. She

could see the cars parked opposite her with something resembling clarity. Good enough.

“Arioch, we’ve got a problem,” Wilbur cut in. “Someone’s trying to tap our line. Not

sure who yet, but someone’s trying to break into the call. I need to break the connection and set

up another secure-”
 “Save the techy talk and just do what you need to do. Call me back when you can,”

Arioch said, and hung up. “Just you and me now, kid.”

“Mya.”

“Whatever.”

Arioch pulled out of her parking spot and nosed the car into the fuzzy, vaguely outlined

traffic ahead of her. Not ideal, but if someone was trying to eavesdrop on her conversation with

Wilbur, then someone was definitely after her, and she couldn’t afford to sit still.

“Okay ki-Mya. We are going to be going for a bit of a drive,” Arioch said. “So, get

comfortable.”

The drive to Boulder would take almost a full day, and much as Arioch would have liked

to have stopped and done something about the broken rib which by now was likely a flowering

black bruise all along her side, she couldn’t afford to lose the time it would take. Wincing, she

turned toward the highway which would eventually lead out of the City of Lights and into the big

empty nothing between it and Boulder.

“You hurt those people,” Mya said as Arioch stopped at a traffic light.

“Huh?”

“Those people, back where I got these.” She tapped her sunglasses. “You hurt them.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, they were going to hurt me, then probably you,” Arioch said

dismissively. “Couldn’t let them do that.”

 “You shouldn’t hurt people,” Mya said, with such conviction and innocence Arioch could

almost see her wide-eyed stare without looking over at her.

“Yeah? Why not?” Arioch asked without thinking.

“Because it’s bad.”

“Yeah? Why’s it bad?” Was she really engaging a child probably not any older than eight

in a debate?

“Because it’s mean.”

Arioch wasn’t sure what sort of reasoning she had expected, but it shouldn’t have

surprised her.

“Sometimes you have to be mean, kid. Th-”

“Mya.”

“-ey would’ve hurt both of us if I hadn’t.”

“But we could run,” Mya said.

“They had guns. I’m fast but even I can’t outrun bullets.”

“You didn’t have to hurt them…” this time her voice was plaintive.

“I really did. Way of the world, Mya.”

“Is that why people say elves are bad?”

 Arioch blinked, her jaw unconsciously clenching. “We’re not going to talk about elves,”

she managed to grit out.

“But-”

“No buts, kid. We’re not talking about elves. Now shut up for a minute while I figure out

what to do.”

Mya hiccupped, and Arioch could just see the girl flinch out of the corner of her eye,

head drooping despondently. She started swinging her short legs back and forth over the edge of

her seat, prodding at her sunglasses and nibbling on her lower lip. Good. At least Arioch would

have a moment of quiet.

Afforded the first opportunity to think all night, Arioch realized a number of things: First,

her client was not expecting her to show up in Boulder. Second, she had no idea where in

Boulder her client was. Third, the presence of Mya, an Ancient child, in the modern world meant

something big. Arioch wasn’t sure what, but it was important in a probably-world-changing sort

of way. This, of course, led to the fourth and probably most important thing: As much as Arioch

hated to even think it, Jada was right; she should never have taken this job.

If Arioch hated to admit Jada was right merely to herself, the idea of admitting it to Jada

was beyond intolerable. So, while she needed someone to contact her client and set up a meeting,

as she’d never bothered to get the contact information from Wilbur, calling Jada was right out.

Jada would lord it over her for the remainder of the halfie’s life, which Arioch would probably

end up shortening out of sheer petulant irritation. Not knowing when she could get back in touch

with Wilbur, there was really only one person she could call.
 Almost reluctantly, she fished out her phone and found Dante’s contact entry. She set the

phone on the dashboard and waited for Dante to pick up, tapping her fingers against the steering

wheel in opposition to the muted swishing of Mya’s legs kicking back and forth.

“Mmmnh…hello?” Dante mumbled tiredly. “Who is this?”

“It’s Arioch. What are you, asleep?”

“It’s…four in the morning. What do you want?”

“I need a favor.”

“Can it wait?”

“Would I be calling you at four in the morning if it could?”

“Are you hurt?” Dante suddenly sounded more alert, as though he had woken up enough

to realize first that Arioch never called, and second she never asked for help.

“Not really. But I need you to call Wilbur, tell him you need my client’s contact

information, and to get in touch with the client and arrange a meeting somewhere safe in

Boulder.”

“Boulder? Arioch, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. But Wilbur has all the contact information and I can’t call him

right now.”

“What? Why?”
 “Dante, just do it. Please. I need a meeting with the client tomorrow night. Tell them to

expect me sometime between nine and midnight.”

“What’s going on, Arioch?” A note of concern entered his voice, quite possibly because

‘please’ was not generally a word which found use in Arioch’s vocabulary.

“I’ll explain later. Just make the call, get the meeting set, and when I get back from

Boulder I’ll explain.”

Before Dante could say more, Arioch hung up, turning her attention back to the road.

“Who’s Dante?” Mya asked suddenly.

“Someone who’s going to help us get where you’re going,” Arioch answered simply.

“Is he nice?”

Arioch squinted at the steadily sharpening outlines of cars drifting by for a moment

before Mya repeated her question, apparently unwilling to allow Arioch to ignore her.

“Sure. He’s nice. I’m sure you’ll like him lots.”

The sarcasm was entirely lost on Mya, it seemed. The girl smiled, kicking her feet back

and forth all the faster against her seat as she turned to look out her window, little hands pressing

against it as she leaned forward, nose flattened against the glass. Arioch groaned inwardly,

thinking of the marks she’d have to clean when this was over. At least she’d have some peace

during the drive.

Chapter Six

“Are we there yet?”

Arioch’s belief in even the slight possibility of some peace on the drive hadn’t lasted past

the first few miles. Not an hour after setting out, Mya had already lost patience for sitting in her

seat.

“No,” Arioch gritted out.

“When will we be there?”

“Not for almost a full day.”

“But that’s so long!” Mya whined, bobbing up and down in her seat and sinking her teeth

into her lower lip. “And I’m hungry…”

Forcing down the angry retort already fighting its way to her lips, Arioch took a deep

breath, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. She was just a kid, Ancient or no. Much as

Arioch couldn’t stand kids, she couldn’t fault her too much for being hungry after spending who

knew how long in a blank white box. Besides, Arioch hadn’t had anything to eat herself since the

early evening, and it was creeping toward morning.

“Okay, okay. We’ll grab some food once I find someplace open, All right?”

“Can you hurry though?” Mya pleaded, turning her wide-eyed gaze toward Arioch. “I’m

reeeeeally hungry…”

Arioch let out a hissing sigh and shifted her attention toward the signs on the freeway,

hoping for a nearby exit. The vast, empty spaces between city-states were sparsely populated at
best, and held little in the way of amenities. Fortunately, they were still close enough to the City

of Lights that exits with filling stations and fast food were common enough. Spotting a sign for

food, Arioch swerved into the exit lane, causing Mya to squeak in surprise.

“Hope you like burgers,” Arioch said as she turned with the exit, the sign for Berserker

Burgers, more commonly known as BB’s, already looming ahead of her.

“M…meat?!” Mya gulped, her pale cheeks losing what little color they had.

Arioch almost smacked her forehead against the steering wheel. She’d forgotten Ancients

couldn’t eat meat. It was less of a choice, and more of an actual inability to process meat as

Arioch understood it. In consequence, most of them found the practice repellant, it never having

occurred to them to even attempt to do so in their own society.

“We’ll uh…get you something without meat,” Arioch said quickly.

Mya looked at least a little mollified, though still somewhat suspicious as Arioch pulled

up to the drive through menu beside the building. The parking lot was empty at this hour, and

only the flickering lights of the restaurant’s signage illuminated the drive through lane. Arioch

leaned back in her seat, gesturing toward the menu for Mya, then wondered whether the girl

could read it or not.

“Uh, can you read?” she asked, rubbing the back of her neck.

Mya nodded, and leaned across the shifting column to peer at the menu. Her lips moved

silently as she read, and eventually she pointed. “I want potato sticks!”

“Potato sticks? Okay, what else?”

 “Just those!”

“Those are a side. You don’t just eat potato sticks. You have to get a meal or something,

too.”

“But I just want potato sticks!” Mya bounced up and down in her seat, smiling brightly,

hands clasped together as she looked up at Arioch. “Please?”

Figuring it would be easier to just let her have what she wanted than to argue with a child

about why potato fries didn’t constitute a full meal, Arioch shrugged in acquiescence. She pulled

ahead to the window to order and was greeted by a bleary-eyed orc frac in a red apron. He

looked Arioch over for a moment before speaking, his hazy gaze lingering on her just a little too

long.

“Welcome to Berserker Burger, would you like to try our screamin’ combo?” he

mumbled.

“No,” Arioch said flatly. “I need two large potato sticks, and a…uh…double

cheeseburger with everything, a side of potato sticks, water, and…what do you want to drink?”

She turned her attention to Mya, who bit her lip for a moment in thought.

“Fruit punch!” she cried.

“We’re out of fruit punch. Do you want, like, some lemonade or somethin’?”

Arioch looked at Mya, who pouted for a moment, then nodded. “Strawberry lemonade?”

“Okay, so two large potato sticks, a double berserker burger with everything, another

order of potato sticks, a water, and a strawberry lemonade. Do you want to Ravenous Size th-”
 “No,” Arioch snapped, cutting him off.

The sullen frac sighed, and glanced at his register. He read Arioch her total, and she

tapped the payment pad with her thumb before pulling to the next window. After taking the food

from yet another dead-eyed teenager, Arioch handed Mya her bag of potato sticks and set her

lemonade in the cupholder between seats.

“Thank you!” Mya squealed joyfully before unceremoniously stuffing potato sticks into

her face. Arioch shook her head, trying to tune out the smacking sounds of the overeager girl

gracelessly chewing her food as she headed back to the freeway, driving one-handed as she ate.

“Okay, Mya,” Arioch said once they were back on the road, deciding it was time to try

and get some answers from the girl, if only to slow down the positively alarming rate at which

she was inhaling her food. “Where did you come from, hm? How’d you end up in that box?”

Mya shrugged and forced another fistful of fries into her mouth. “Dunno,” she mumbled

around the food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Arioch said without thinking, causing Mya’s cheeks to

turn pink. “What do you mean you don’t know? Where were you before the box? How’d those

Hellions find you? Where are your parents?”

This time, Mya swallowed before speaking. “I don’t know, Miss Arioch.”

“How can you not know?” Arioch asked.

“I don’t know. I just don’t.”

“So the first thing you remember is being in the box?”

 Mya nodded.

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know…” Mya looked down at her hands, which were slick with grease and salt,

and bit her lip. “I don’t remember where I came from. Just the mean men who kept me in the

box.”

That didn’t make sense to Arioch. Mya knew about seatbelts, burgers, and too many

things not to have at least some experience in the world. She couldn’t have just spent her entire

existence in a box, could she? “Okay, how long did they have you in the box? Did they do

anything to you?”

Mya thought for a moment. “A…long time? Maybe a week? And they fed me, and had a

doctor look at me, and…then just left me inside the box.”

A doctor? That hardly sounded like the sort of thing one would expect from the Hellions.

Arioch frowned, thinking for a moment.

“Was the doctor an orc?” she asked.

Mya shook her head and shifted in her seat. She pressed herself back against the cushions

and chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek. “No…he was human.”

Definitely not with the Hellions, then. “What did the doctor do?”

“He took blood…” she shuddered, hands moving to her knees and gripping them tightly,

leaving little dark smears on her dress where the grease rubbed off. “And took pictures, and
made me lay down in a machine that made chukka-chukka noises, and then on another that

shined a bright light on me. Then he sent me back to the box.”

So the doctor was probably with Arcana Corp, maybe trying to determine whether she

was an Ancient or not? It might explain their interest, but it did nothing to tell her where Mya

came from in the first place. Obviously Arcana Corp was convinced she was an Ancient if they

sent Reldien after her. He didn’t work cheap.

“Did he say anything to you?”

Mya shook her head, sinking farther back into the soft leather of her seat. Even without

the nigh-preternatural elven ability to sense fear, Arioch could tell the girl was uncomfortable

thinking about whatever she’d endured under the Hellions’ care. Arioch supposed she couldn’t

blame her. Street gangs weren’t exactly known for their hospitality. Still, how had they found her

in the first place?

“Well, you won’t be going back to them, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore,”

Arioch said, not really expert in comforting children, or anyone else for that matter.

Without warning, Mya sprang from her seat, wrapping both arms around Arioch’s middle

and burying her face into the elf’s stomach. Even as Mya’s seatbelt tugged her the opposite way,

she held onto Arioch, finally upturning her face to look up at her. “Thank you, thank you, thank

you Miss Arioch!”

Conscious of the grease rubbing onto her coat, Arioch awkwardly patted her on the head

before pushing her back into her seat, nodding. “Sure…sure, kid.”

“Mya.”
 “Right.”

“How did you learn to be so strong, Miss Arioch?”

“Huh?”

“You fought all those people, and the big orc lady! I know you hurt them and hurting

people’s bad but…you were really strong. And fast. How did you do that?”

Arioch shrugged, weaving around a car going too slowly for her tastes and all but

flooring the accelerator. For the briefest of moments, she caught a glimmer of blue in her

windshield she thought was Mya’s eyes, but a quick glance told her the girl’s sunglasses were

completely occluding the light coming from her eyes. It’s not real, Arioch, she told herself.

“Lots of…practice, I guess,” she muttered vaguely.

“What did you do when the elves ruled the world?”

Arioch blinked, turning to look at Mya. The little girl was staring up at her, her

sunglasses slowly slipping forward on her face until the blue light from her eyes spilled around

the edges. Mya’s brows climbed up her forehead, lips slightly parted as she stared up at Arioch.

Curiosity was etched across her little face, and the glow in her eyes intensified as she waited for

Arioch’s response.

“How did you know elves ruled the world? You look five. And how did you know I was

alive then?”

Mya shrugged. “I don’t know, Miss Arioch. I just know. You’re very old. I can tell. You

have an old glow.”

 “A what?”

“An old glow. Everyone has a glow! Yours is just…very old. Is it hard being so old?”

Arioch had to fight down the urge to smack the girl. No one had ever talked so directly

about what her role in elven society might have been, nor was she often asked about her age.

Humans were so touchy about their ages, where elves saw it more as a matter of course. Still,

something about the way the question was asked needled at Arioch in a way she couldn’t quite

explain.

“What are you talking about with this glow nonsense?”

“Everyone has a glow. It’s a…glow! Yours is sort of purple and red. It’s really bright,

and there’s blue at the middle, dark blue.” Arioch swallowed, trying to shake that particular

image from her thoughts. “The man at the restaurant was…umm…” she screwed up her face in

an effort to remember. “Kind of yellow? But really dull like smoke. The big orc lady you fought

was brown, but it was really, really hard to see.”

“I absolutely do not have a glow. See?” Arioch held up a hand. “Not glowing.”

“Maybe you just can’t see it,” Mya said with a nod.

“Maybe I just can’t see it,” Arioch muttered. Kid logic.

Mya nodded as though Arioch had finally seen reason.

“How old are you, then, Miss Airoh?”

“And we’re back to this again,” Arioch sighed, shaking her head and trying to look

preoccupied with driving.

 “You look the same age as the other grown-ups I’ve seen, but you have a really old glow

and elves live forever but I don’t know what an old elf looks like so how old are you?”

Arioch had trouble following the near-babbling rapidfire speech, frowning as the girl’s

curiosity promised to be a constant annoyance. Resigned to having to make some kind of

answer, Arioch took a breath. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. It was true, but only

inasmuch as Arioch couldn’t point to the exact number of years. In truth, she had a pretty good

idea, at the very least. One tended to lose track after long enough, and past a certain point elves

lost track of anything smaller than the hundreds digit of how old they were.

“What? You don’t know how old you are?”

“You said you don’t know how old you are. Why’s it strange I wouldn’t?”

“But I don’t remember a lot of things,” Mya said, squinting up at Arioch with an air of

not quite believing her.

“Well, I don’t remember how old I am,” Arioch said with a shrug. When Mya’s eyes

continued to narrow, the elf sighed. “I don’t remember exactly how old I am. After a while you

lose track.”

“Ooooh,” Mya murmured, her expression turning thoughtful. “Are you a hundred?”

“Older.”

“A thousand?”

“Older.”

“Ten thousand?”
 “Older.”

“A hundred thousand?!”

“Older.”

“A million!”

Arioch laughed. “No. I don’t think anyone’s that old,” she said, her eyes back on the

road. “I think I’m not quite two hundred thousand years old. But I could be a shade older by

now. We didn’t keep track of dates as closely as humans do.”

“How come?”

“When you’re never going to run out of time, you don’t worry about how much of it has

passed. When you’ve lived a thousand years, a day doesn’t seem like it’s worth paying attention

to or worrying about. So, I’m somewhere around two hundred thousand, maybe a little older,

maybe a little younger.”

“That’s really old!”

Arioch shrugged. “Maybe. It didn’t used to be.”

“Why?”

Arioch groaned inwardly. This was going to be the entire drive. “Well, when there were

more elves, you’d meet people who were as old as me every day. My parents were older,

obviously. Their parents, and so on. I wasn’t considered ‘old’ when there were still elves

around.” She had to admit this wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. She’d been of “venerable” age long
before the elven empire fell, but had simply never behaved as one might expect, and so never

settled down to the lifestyle of an “old” elf.

“Were your parents nice?” Mya asked. She turned in her seat, cross-legged now so she

could face Arioch and leaning back against the door as she continued to munch on her potato

sticks.

The question drew a short bark of laughter from Arioch. Mya didn’t seem to have quite

the same conceptions of elves as people around Arioch did, or she certainly never would have

asked the question. It took Arioch a moment to collect herself before she responded.

“Well...” Arioch paused. She hadn’t given much thought to her family in a long time. No

one asked her about it because it invariably meant discussing the time when elves held the other

races in bondage, and that wasn’t a topic anyone enjoyed discussing. Added to the fact Arioch’s

family was something of a tender subject for her, and she was surprised to find herself answering

at all. “I don’t know if nice is the right word for it, but they took care of me and taught me like

any parent should,” she said vaguely.

“Did they love you?”

Arioch blinked. Again, the question struck her as absurd, mostly because no one today

would attach concepts like love to elven behavior or thought. And yet, for reasons she couldn’t

quite understand, she found herself answering the girl’s question.

“Of course they did. Even elven parents love their children.”

“Did you love them?”

“In my way, I guess,” Arioch said, not wanting to continue the conversation.
 Mya was squinting at her again, once more seeming doubtful as she chomped on another

handful of potato sticks. Arioch thought she was about to say something when instead Mya

picked up her cup and slurped loudly from the straw she’d stabbed through its top. Relieved,

Arioch turned her attention back to the road. Daring to hope the conversation was over, Arioch

relaxed in her seat, sighing under her breath and putting her mind on getting paid and getting

back home. She would never be so happy to be done with a job.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Mya piped up.

Arioch wondered if killing the girl could be considered genocide.

Chapter 7

No less than eight stops to let Mya go to the bathroom later, not counting the stop to fill

her car up, when of course Mya said she didn’t need to go, Arioch finally pulled into the main

tunnel leading to Boulder. Mya was already starting to bounce in her seat again in the way that

told Arioch a request for a bathroom break would be coming soon, and Arioch still hadn’t heard

back from Dante. With no other ideas on what to do, Arioch decided she would leave her car at

the main lot near the tunnel, and go with Mya to find a quiet hotel room and wait for either Dante

or Wilbur to get in touch with her to tell her where she could meet her client. After this, she was

going to sit down with Wilbur until she could do enough with a computer to let her handle this

part herself next time. Originally, Wilbur had sent her short messages with all the information for

her jobs, but when it became clear she never so much as opened them, he had stopped. She

would have given anything for just a phone number at this point.

Mya was bouncing in earnest by the time Arioch parked her car. Arioch was about to get

out when a thumping on the side of her window caused her to jump and Mya to cry out in shock,

the high-pitched squeal making Arioch wince. Turning to the window, Arioch’s lips parted in

shock, and she shoved the door open, stepping out and stabbing a threatening finger ahead of her.

“Dante, what the actual fuck are you doing here?” she growled.

“Hey, hey, whoa,” Dante said, raising both hands and taking a quick step back. “Wilbur,

erm, Razor told me I couldn’t call you back. He said your phone was probably being monitored

and he was working on it, so he told me to meet you here so I could take you to the client. So,

here I am. Being helpful. Don’t jab me with those razor nails of yours.”
 “You came all the way out here for that, just because Wilbur told you to?” she asked,

folding her arms over her chest and staring at him, brows creased incredulously.

“Well, yeah. I’d have pawned it off on Jada but she’s off getting her license renewed. So

it was either that or, I guess you could hang around here twisting in the wind for who knows how

long? You’re welcome, by the way.”

Arioch sighed, and was about to speak up when she felt a tug on her sleeve.

“Miss Arioch, I have to go again…who’s he?”

Before Arioch could say anything, Dante spoke up. “Is…that a kid? Arioch, why is there

a kid with you? Do you have a kid? Arioch, do you have a kid?”

“What? No. This is-”

“Mya.”

“What?”

“My name is Mya. Who are you, mister?”

“Uh, Dante.”

“Oh! Miss Arioch said you’re nice and I’ll like you lots.”

“You said I’m nice?”

“What?” Arioch said, looking between the two and trying to keep up with the rapid

exchange. “No. I didn’t say you were-”

“You’ve got horns…”

 “Yes, I do have horns. And a tail.”

“Oooh! Can I see?”

Dante turned sideways, flicking his forked tail out toward Mya, who gasped in delight

and raised her hands as if she were about to bat at it, neither one of them paying the slightest

attention to Arioch anymore. She threw up her hands, closed her car door with her hip and

locked it as Mya chased Dante’s tail, the demonkin simply turning on the spot as she giggled and

ran around him.

“Dante. Hey, Dante!” Arioch snapped her fingers in an effort to secure the demonkin’s

attention. At length, he turned to face her, his tail still flicking back and forth for Mya’s

amusement. “Where’s the client? Where am I supposed to meet them? And how’d you know I’d

be here?”

“It’s the main entrance to the city in the direction you were coming from. I know your

car, so I figured I’d just wait around until you showed up. I didn’t expect you to have, uh,

company though. Are you going to bring her with you to the client?”

Arioch rolled her eyes. “This isn’t take your kid to work day you tit.” She stepped closer,

speaking under her breath even though Arioch could see no one else in the parking lot as late in

the evening as it was. “She’s an Ancient. She’s what I’m bringing to the client. Getting her away

from Arcana Corp was the job.”

“What!?” Dante shouted, his tail going still and allowing Mya to grab hold of it.

Apparently she squeezed a bit too hard, as Dante winced, jerking noticeably. He’d once told

Arioch that manhandling a demonkin’s tail could cause considerable pain. Arioch clapped a hand
over his mouth, which seemed unnecessary after a moment’s thought, and she let go, taking a

step back.

“Arioch there are no Ancients. They’ve been gone for…what, a hundred thousand years?

Did you hit your head?”

“Actually, yes. But she’s still an Ancient. I know one when I see one. Mya, take your

sunglasses off for a moment.”

Mya, who still had hold of Dante’s tail and was tugging back and forth on it, much to

Dante’s obvious discomfort, let go and stepped around to stand between the pair of them. She

pulled her sunglasses off and looked up at Arioch, then at Dante. “Do I have to give them back,

Miss Arioch?”

“See?” Arioch said, pointing to the girl’s glowing, blue-white eyes. “And no, you can

keep them. Put them back on.”

Looking a bit confused, Mya shoved the glasses back onto her face, turning to eye

Dante’s tail again. Obviously being cooped up in the car for almost twenty-four full hours, much

of which she had, mercifully, slept through, had given her some extra energy to burn. Dante’s

lips had parted in confusion, his brow furrowed as he stared down at Mya, looked back to

Arioch, then to Mya again.

“That’s…okay so she’s got glowy blue eyes. That doesn’t make her…”

“Get a funny bout of nausea a few minutes ago? Or just before you saw me?”

“Yeah, just a little vertigo. Adjusting to the scale of the undercity is all.”
 “How long have you been here?”

“About twelve hours, I guess.”

“When I got within a city block of her, I almost passed out. You’re a demonkin, you can

feel the way she’s radiating magic. I’ve seen Ancients before, Dante. Mya is one.”

Dante blinked. “Wait. You’ve seen Ancients? Arioch, how old are you?”

Arioch rolled her eyes. “I’m going to stab the next person who asks me that. In the face.

Several times.”

“I thought elves weren’t all caught up in-” Dante stopped midsentence when Arioch’s

hand began drifting down toward her razorwhip. “Okay, fine. If she’s an Ancient…how?”

Arioch shrugged. “No idea, and she doesn’t seem to know either. Maybe the client will.

So…where are they?”

“He’s waiting at a house in a suburb sorta near the middle of the city. It’s not too far.

We’ll grab a tram and head out his way. Should be ready for us by now.”

Arioch swallowed. “There’s not another way to get there, is there?”

“Not unless you want your car seen driving around the city. Wilbur said people are

looking for you, and he’s had his hands full just to keep your car’s GPS secure. Public

transport’s free in Boulder, so no one checks ID or anything. Best way to get around without

being noticed. Or, so they tell me.”

 A lump settled in Arioch’s stomach and seemed to nestle there for the long haul as she

realized she was both underground, and about to be cooped up in a very small space, which made

for about the worst imaginable combination for any elf.

“Let’s get this over with,” Arioch said, her fingers already curling into fists, jaw

tightening as she glanced toward the street outside the parking lot. “Lead the way…”

“C’mon, kiddo. We’re going for a ride!” Dante said, bending down to scoop Mya up into

his arms. She giggled madly as he set her on his shoulders and guided her hands to his horns.

“Hold on tight. Just don’t tug on them or anything!”

The shoulder-ride was met with wild enthusiasm on Mya’s part, who bounced on Dante’s

shoulders, holding onto a horn with one hand and pointing to the road ahead with the other.

“Let’s gooooo!” she cried.

Dante led Arioch to the station, not seeming to mind the bouncing child on his shoulders,

which somehow seemed odd to Arioch. He was far more comfortable with a child being around

than Arioch would have thought, or indeed than she was herself. True to Dante’s word, the tram

required nothing more than for them to step aboard, which Arioch did with no small amount of

hesitation.

The interior was full to bursting with a mixture of dwarves, humans, and a number of

fracs. Dante had pulled Mya down from his shoulders, holding her hand as he wove through the

crowd. The two of them found a trio of seats near the back of the second car. Arioch sat down,

head bowed and jaw tight as Dante dropped into a seat one down from hers, letting Mya sit

between them. Mya set about kicking her feet back and forth, looking around the tram car at all
the people crowding in, a not insignificant number of which were forced to stand, as it seemed

Arioch’s little party had taken the last empty seats.

As the car lurched into motion, Arioch clenched her jaw and swallowed, closing her eyes

for a moment. Her hands gripped her knees of their own accord, knuckles straining against her

gloves with the faint sound of creaking leather.

“Arioch?”

It wasn’t until Dante repeated her name that Arioch realized he was speaking. She

inhaled slowly, trying to smooth her expression before she looked over at him. “What?”

“You All right over there?”

“Fine,” she said tightly.

“You sure?”

“Positive,” she gritted as Mya hummed quietly to herself, oblivious to the tension. “Just

shut up.”

Dante leaned back, away from Arioch, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender as

Arioch lowered her head again. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In through

your nose, out through your mouth. In through your nose, out through your mouth… It didn’t

help. It never helped. The air was thick with all the bodies pressed together, the scent of so many

people’s sweat, perfume, even food. Worse, Arioch could hear all the little sounds the occupants

made. A swallow here, a sniffle there, someone’s stomach gurgling, whispered conversations,

and the rattle of more than a few loud breathers. Elven senses were too acute to be enclosed in
spaces like this, and sweat beaded on her forehead as she tried fruitlessly to close out the

avalanche assailing her senses.

A shudder ran through Arioch, strong enough to shake her seat just the slightest bit.

Without thinking, she raised a hand to her face, covering her mouth and nose. She could taste the

sweat of the dwarves around her, and felt suddenly like her mouth had been stuffed full of dirt. It

was all she could do not to gag. Another shudder seized her, and Arioch’s hand clenched around

her mouth, fingers digging painfully into her cheek. She squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as she

could, sweat running down her face now. Her fingers and head began to tingle as she realized she

was hyperventilating, and little white spots swam against the blackness of the backs of her

eyelids.

She was about to throw up. Right there in the car in front of she didn’t know how many

people. Her hair hung around her face in a damp curtain, mercifully shielding some of her

pinched expression from any nearby viewers, but doing nothing to hide the increasingly common

tremors which had turned into a fine, none-too-subtle shivering. Just as Arioch felt her throat

tighten and her stomach start to heave, a tiny, featherlight hand pressed against her back between

the shoulders.

“It’s okay, Miss Arioch,” Mya whispered. “You’re okay.”

Arioch’s hyperventilation suddenly slowed, and her eyes opened. A strange, but soothing

warmth spread through her, and the numbness melted away from her fingers as her grip on her

face slowly relaxed. She turned to stare, openmouthed, at Mya, who was standing on her seat and

resting one hand on Arioch’s back. The girl smiled gently at her, the faintest hints of blue light

glimmering around the edges of her sunglasses.

 The train seemed suddenly quiet, the press and stench of so many bodies abating as Mya

kept her hand on Arioch’s back. The feeling of being enclosed still weighed on her, but without

the oppressive sensory overload, she found she could manage the primordial panic threatening to

surface and overwhelm her.

“How…” Arioch trailed off as Mya simply smiled at her, slipping back down into her

seat, but keeping her hand on Arioch’s back, having to reach up almost comically high to

continue resting it between Arioch’s shoulders.

“Arioch…” Dante said slowly.

Arioch turned her head mutely toward Dante, not trusting herself to speak, and wholly

unsure of what she would say even if she tried.

“Your eyes are glowing,” Dante said, a note of confusion in his voice as he stared

between Arioch and Mya.

Moving slowly, as Arioch didn’t want to dislodge Mya’s hand, or test the limits of

whatever she was doing, Arioch withdrew her sunglasses from her cloak and slipped them onto

her face. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for an elf’s eyes to glow. Usually it happened when they

were feeling something with particular intensity, or tapping into large amounts of magical

energy. Arioch wasn’t ruling out either possibility at the moment, confused as she was. Either

way, the effect tended to draw attention and more often than not made observers uncomfortable.

Something about glowing red eyes seemed to unsettle most anyone.

Arioch wasn’t quite sure how long the tram ride was. Her sense of time was never too

reliable when enclosed like this, and even with Mya doing…whatever she was doing, Arioch was
still about as uncomfortable as she could ever remember being. Fortunately, Mya was able to

prevent her from losing control again, and as the tram lurched to a stop, Arioch was the first

person on her feet, taking advantage of her sheer size to shove her way through the crowd, one

hand in front of her to clear away living obstacles, the other behind, holding onto Mya’s hand

unbidden for the first time since meeting the girl. If Dante noticed her doing so, he did not

comment.

Once she was off the tram and on the comparatively open streets of the undercity, Arioch

drew a deep breath, never thinking she would be so grateful to taste the open, though somewhat

musty air of a dwarven city. She tried to let go of Mya’s hand, but the girl clung to hers still, and

after what she’d done in the tram, Arioch decided the girl deserved to get to hold her hand this

once.

“Where do we go from here?” Arioch asked, turning to look at Dante.

“It should be just up the street a few blocks…that way,” Dante said, glancing around and

then pointing up a dimly lit street to their left. Dwarves tended to prefer lower illumination,

which suited Arioch just fine.

“All right. Let’s get going, then,” Arioch said, setting off down the street at a pace more

cognizant of Mya’s shorter legs than she had been before.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a long walk. The street was lined with squat, square homes Arioch

assumed were cut from the same stone as the city itself, which probably made them more

prestigious to the dwarves who lived there. They were big on rock and where it came from. After

passing what seemed like twenty completely identical houses, Dante stopped Arioch in front of

one near the end of the block they’d been walking.

 “Here,” he said. “This should be it.”

Arioch looked to the house, frowning slightly at the rust-colored exterior and the smooth,

metal door set precisely in the center of the house’s front. “I don’t think I can get through that

door without ducking,” she groused as they walked across the tiny front yard, which was little

more than a patch of dirt and rocks with a cobblestone path leading to the doorstep. Standing

next to it, Arioch was quite sure she’d have to duck to get through the door without hitting her

head, which served only to further sour her mood.

“Well?” Dante prompted after a moment of Arioch simply standing there.

“Huh? Oh.”

Arioch looked around, and found a tiny intercom pad barely above her waist, and reached

down to press it. After a moment’s delay, a static-washed voice came through the speaker.

“Who’s there?” it demanded in gravelly, dwarven speech.

“Arioch Starshadow, the Collector you hired.”

“Eh, wondered if yeh’d show up. C’mon in and be quick about it.”

The static ceased, and a faint click sounded from the door, which then slid slowly

sideways into the wall. The small door opened into an entryway which could generously be

described as cramped. Hewn of red-brown stone with nothing in the way of adornment, Arioch

felt like she was doing nothing so much as walking into a cave, swallowing a bit as she did. Mya

gave a quiet squeak, and Arioch realized she’d tightened her grip on the girl’s hand far more than

could be considered kind, and forced herself to relax.

 “This is…cozy,” Dante muttered.

Arioch had to bend her knees and duck her head as she stepped inside, Mya following

along with considerably less difficulty. Dante, who stood head and shoulder shorter than Arioch,

didn’t need to duck either. Seeing light pouring through an archway near the end of the foyer, or

whatever a dwarf could call this cramped little hall their door opened onto, Arioch hurried

forward, hoping the room wouldn’t be quite so enclosed.

“H-hey!” Mya gasped as she could not help but be pulled along in the elf’s wake, Arioch

heedless of the girl’s short legs in her rush to escape the cramped entryway.

As Arioch ducked under the archway leading into the illuminated room, she was

surprised to find just how comparatively open the space was. Dominated on one side by a hearth

as wide as Arioch was tall, and extended from floor to ceiling, the room could probably best be

described as a lounge. Two plush chairs faced the hearth at an angle, with a large, heavily

cushioned couch between them, a decorative table situated in front of them all in the shape of a

wide anvil. Somehow Arioch had expected something a bit more austere.

Seated in the chair closest to the door was a wizened, grisly old dwarf. He turned to look

at the approaching trio, earthy brown eyes sharp, even settled as they were in the voluminous

wrinkles of the dwarf’s leathery skin. Sitting opposite him in the other chair was a human

woman in a simple gray pantsuit, staring silently at them over the edge of her wire-rimmed

glasses.

“Yer Arioch, eh?” the dwarf growled, his accent the very picture of old dwarven speech

so often mocked on the surface.

 “Yeah. Which of you am I here for?”

“Ha! Yeh’re gonta wonder which’ve us ‘as a name like Blackforge?”

Truth to tell, Arioch hadn’t known the name of the client until just then, but at least he’d

cleared that up for her.

“So, you, then,” Arioch said.

“Not exactly top marks, ‘ere, lass,” the dwarf said. “But yeh managed it anyweh. ‘s right.

Grael Blackforge. The surface lass ‘ere’s Doc Miranda Halperin. She’s ‘ere to ‘elp figger oot if

our girl’s really wot she claims t’be.”

Dante leaned in to whisper in Arioch’s ear. “You catch all that?”

“I c’n ‘ear ‘cross rooms, boy!” Grael roared. “Old don’t mean deaf, ferget it and I’ll

pound it back inta yer ‘orned ‘ead till it sticks!”

“Get all that?” Arioch asked, smirking at Dante, who had straightened in alarm at Grael’s

outburst.

Perhaps sensing the meeting was getting off track, Grael’s human companion cleared her

throat.

“As Grael said, I am doctor Miranda Halperin,” she said, looking to Arioch. She smiled

thinly, adding a formal greeting to Arioch in old elvish.

“Don’t do that,” Arioch snapped as Miranda finished speaking and had begun the

accompanying gesture of touching her right index and middle finger to her right brow. Arioch
hated hearing humans speak her language. “You’re accent’s horrible.” It wasn’t. In fact, it was

uncanny.

“I’ve been told otherwise,” Miranda said coolly, tilting her head back just enough to look

Arioch in the eye.

Humans never looked elves in the eye. Some old superstition about elves stealing one’s

soul or some other such nonsense. Arioch hadn’t had a human willingly look her in the eye in

thousands of years, and something about the way this woman did it made her intensely

uncomfortable. Her pale, gray eyes seemed to look through Arioch, as if peeling back layers of

skin and skull to examine the contents of her brain. The woman couldn’t have been past what

Arioch remembered hearing humans call middle age, wrinkles just beginning to form at the

corners of her eyes and lips, a few odd strands of gray mixed in the tight black bun of her hair.

“Well, you were lied to,” Arioch said after a moment’s uncomfortable silence.

Miranda was on her feet and across the room, standing just a little closer than Arioch

might have liked, but not close enough to be offensive. It hadn’t been an especially fast

movement, but something in it, perhaps its suddenness, had been jarring. Or perhaps the way

she’d held Arioch’s gaze locked with hers the whole time. The doctor made a show of looking

Arioch up and down, her lips compressed into a thin line, brow slightly furrowed.

“I did not think I would ever meet a dark elf,” she said, almost to herself. “I was given to

understand your subspecies was extinct.”

“Subspecies?” Dante asked, looking over at Arioch.

“Not getting into it,” Arioch said tightly.

 “Well, this certainly is an interesting day for me,” Miranda said almost cheerfully, though

there was a brittle, cold dryness to her voice Arioch didn’t care for. She turned to Mya and

smiled faintly. “But certainly even a dark elf couldn’t be so rare as you, my dear. Come here, let

me take a look at you.”

Mya didn’t seem to like the woman any more than Arioch did, but when Miranda

beckoned her a second time, she let go of Arioch’s hand and reluctantly shuffled forward. The

doctor unceremoniously reached out and slid the glasses from Mya’s face, exposing her glowing

blue eyes. This prompted a simultaneous intake of breath from both her and Grael.

“By th’ stones and earth, it’s true,” he murmured, his heavily hooded eyes widening.

Miranda’s lips parted, but for a moment she was completely silent as she stared into

Mya’s eyes. “It shouldn’t be possible, but here you are,” she breathed after a silence which

stretched out for almost a full minute. “Do you know where you came from, dear?”

“Mya,” Mya said almost automatically, having obviously grown accustomed to needing

to put adults in the habit of using her name.

“Mya? I see,” Miranda said, smiling a bit wider. “Do you know where you came from?”

Mya shook her head, and Miranda pressed her lips together, glancing down at the floor

thoughtfully. For a moment, there was no sound but the gentle susurration of several people

breathing. At length, Miranda looked back up.

“What’s the first thing you remember?”

“The mean people putting me in the box the Miss Arioch rescued me from,” Mya

answered quickly.
 Miranda arched a thin brow over her glasses, glancing briefly at Arioch before looking

back to Mya. Seeing the doctor would likely not be deterred from fruitlessly interrogating Mya,

Arioch instead stepped across the room to stand beside Grael’s chair. The dwarf only turned his

attention to her when she cleared her throat, folding her arms over her chest as she looked down

at him where he sat.

“Job’s finished, obviously,” she said.

“Is it, now?” Grael rumbled.

“Girl’s standing in your house. I’ll take what you owe me and be on my way.” Arioch

couldn’t wait to be out of this city and back in the open air. Even the day-long drive home

seemed a sweet mercy in comparison to this place.

“Ah, but th’ job ain’t done ‘till I say so, eh? I’m yer client and this’s jus’ a stop on the

way t’where yer goin’.”

Arioch shook her head. “That’s not how this works, dwarf. You contracted a Collector to

bring you the girl. I’ve brought you the girl. Job’s done. You want someone to bring her

somewhere for you, set up another contract.”

“Are yeh really so simple yeh dannae get wot ‘avin’ an Ancient girl ‘ere means? Did yeh

ne’er ask yerself wot Arcana Corp wanted with ‘er?”

“No, I didn’t. Still haven’t. That’s not why I’m here. So you can pay me what you owe

me, or I’ll take her straight to them and collect their fee.”
 “Yeh cannae do that, lass,” Grael said quickly, holding up both hands. “They’re lookin’

to sacrifice the girl, use all ‘er power to open up th’ gates fer demons t’come back, and bring new

magic with ‘em.”

Arioch blinked, and Dante stalked across the room to stand beside her, his face a mask of

disbelief.

“No one’s that stupid,” Dante hissed in a whisper.

“Th’ jackarse, Krieger, wot runs Arcana is. ‘s wot obsession with magic’ll get yeh these

days. And I dannae needta tell yeh both wot kinda ‘ell ‘e’ll let loose if ‘e succeeds.”

“Magnus Krieger, the CEO of the largest company on the planet, wants to ‘unleash hell’

for…what? ‘Cause he’s got an odd hobby?” Arioch asked dubiously, raising her fingers in air

quotes as she said unleash hell. “Global apocalypse will sort of put a dent in his profit margins.

Board won’t be happy and all.”

“He’d definitely lose his parking space,” Dante said, nodding gravely.

“Yeh buncha kids dannae think ‘bout jus’ ‘ow bad a daft bastard like Krieger can make

things,” Grael snarled. “Yeh think e’s doin it fer profits? ‘e’s doin’ it fer wot th’ demons’ll give

‘im for bringin’ ‘em back.”

“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘world domination’ I’m leaving,” Arioch said

flatly.

“After you get paid,” Dante added helpfully.

“After I get paid. Which should be now.”

 Grael glared between the two of them. Miranda’s questioning of Mya broke off as the

two turned to watch the unfolding argument. The dwarf bristled in his seat, puffing out his chest

and crossing his arms, his stubby fingers digging into his thick biceps, left bare by the typically

sleeveless dwarven leather vest he wore. His craggy skin was red from the collar of his vest to

the tips of his ears. Arioch regarded him flatly, unwilling to let his display of outrage cow her.

“Yeh kids’ll nae be laughin’ so much if ‘e gets ‘is way,” he warned.

“Grael, he is nearly your age, and she is well over a hundred fifty thousand years old,”

Miranda chided. “I’ve no doubt she remembers quite well what it was like to face an army of

demons.”

Arioch turned and gaped openly at Miranda. No human she had ever known had been

able to guess an elf’s age once they reached adulthood. Even the younger elves had difficulty

understanding the subtle hints of age their older kin showed. How Miranda, a human, had picked

up on the nearly undetectable indications of age in an elf, Arioch could not begin to guess. Her

consternation seemed to amuse the doctor, though, who responded with a tiny, if somewhat self-

satisfied, smile.

“Then what’re yeh arguin’ ‘bout this for?! Yeh know jus’ wot’ll ‘appen and we cannae

allow it t’be!” Grael cried, voice strained with his incredulity at Arioch’s indifference.

Her thoughts snapped back to the moment as Grael barked at her, Arioch rounded on the

dwarf. “I’m arguing because it’s absurd. To say nothing of what the Free Alliances would do to

him when he tried, the man would have to be a complete idiot to even attempt something like

that. And, don’t get me wrong, humans don’t average too high on the old intelligence scale, but
I’m pretty damn sure one wouldn’t get where he is by being…oh, I don’t know…a fucking

lunatic.”

Miranda sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and adjusting her glasses, looking for all

the world like a schoolteacher whose students simply weren’t grasping the lesson. She held up a

hand to Grael, who sat, seething in inarticulate rage, overcome by the naturally fiery dwarven

temper he clearly had in spades.

“Did you never wonder why Arcana Corp is the only corporation still conducting magical

research today? Has it not struck you as unusual? The largest, most profitable company in the

world essentially throwing quite literally truckloads of money into a hole, never once having

announced a breakthrough, never once having released a product? In any other company, a

division like that would have been shut down ages ago. Even in times when their position was

threatened by competition and rising corporations, their arcane division never so much as

suffered a layoff or funding cutback. Does that not seem strange to you?”

Arioch shrugged, turning back to face Miranda. “Would you believe I honestly don’t pay

attention to what’s going on in the corporate world?”

Miranda’s sigh was markedly less patient this time. “I would, yes. But the point is

Krieger is conducting this research with a very specific agenda, and this girl,” she gestured to

Mya, “rep-

“Mya,” Mya interrupted.

“-resents the completion of his agenda. He isn’t so foolish as to think he can control the

world, but this is a chance for him to gain power. The kind of power no human has ever had. The
kind of power that would put him on equal footing with the demons. He wouldn’t rule the world,

no, but he would be on the winning side in a war the Free Alliances could only lose. And he

would gain the one thing humans envy of your kind.”

Arioch rolled her eyes. “You humans and your obsession with living forever.”

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Dante interjected before anyone could respond. “I’m as anxious

to meet my ancestors as the next demonkin, which is to say not at all, but, all right, let’s say he

could do this—which he can’t—and he would want to—which he wouldn’t. How do you know

all of this? Did you steal his diary or something? Did he leave his evil master plan lying on the

sidewalk somewhere?”

Grael grunted, as though conceding the question were reasonable.

“A few years ago, Krieger contracted several archaeology, linguistics, and history

professors from a number of universities in the Free Alliances to work on a site Arcana Corp had

uncovered on a research expedition into the Dead Wilds.”

“Oh, here comes a ghost story,” Arioch sighed. People seldom ventured into the Dead

Wilds, as electronic equipment was almost invariably useless, and anything organic, living or

not, had a tendency to decay at a positively alarming rate. Unless, for reasons people hesitated to

explore, there happened to be an elf within a few meters, at which point there was no evident

danger. Regardless, she had heard more ludicrous stories from people claiming to have braved

the Dead Wilds than she could stomach.

Miranda continued as though she hadn’t heard. “Of course, everything had to be done

analog, as computers and the like can be so unreliable there. I was a member of the team, and
though each one of us was assigned a specific, independent project, I was able to confer with a

handful of colleagues and review some of their materials. In doing so, I realized the site was a

temple dedicated to one of the ancient demon cults. Individually, our tasks were very much the

type of academic research one might expect to be done on an archaeological find so old.

However, some of the broader pieces, when combined, began to suggest Arcana Corp was

actively investigating the summoning of demons and the creation of a stable gateway to their

realm. Combined with the fact that entire sites of the ruin were either sealed off for Arcana

personnel only, or completely ignored as they didn’t seem to relate to their particular goal, the

picture became clearer. Afterward, I made my own inquiries, and brought my information to

Grael here.”

Grael grunted in acknowledgement. “Which’s where yeh came in.”

“No. This is where I leave,” Arioch said. “You two can keep your conspiracy theories

and doomsaying. I want the payment I was promised. What you do after is your own damn

business.”

In Arioch’s long life, considerably more so than even Miranda had guessed, she had seen

too many people succumb to paranoia to fail to recognize the signs. She’d seen it often enough in

researchers, particularly where the occult was concerned. Too much of the magical simply could

not be explained, which for some reason never sat well with humans in particular. So, they

inevitably began to make connections where there were none, and before you knew it, the world

was locked in a spiral into the apocalypse. Arioch didn’t buy it for an instant. And even if they

were right, a human could have spent a lifetime amassing power to attempt to open such a

gateway and not come remotely close, not even in Arioch’s day when magic was still a powerful
force in the world. Humans simply lacked the magical prowess to accomplish such a task. Even

the most powerful elven sorcerers of her day would have needed centuries to gather and safely

direct such power.

Miranda’s lips pressed together in a frown, and she placed her hands on her hips. Grael

let out a strangled growl, rising to his feet, fists clenched, the muscles in his neck standing out as

his long, gray beard wagged back and forth.

“I told yeh, yeh get paid when yeh finish th’ job!”

“And I told you, the contract you requested has been fulfilled and you will pay the fee

now,” Arioch said, carefully enunciating each word, cool in the face of his heated anger.

“She’s right,” Dante added, almost reluctantly. “She finished the job you requested. If

you want her for another, you need to set up another contract.”

“To which my answer will be no,” Arioch said. “So, you’ll want to put it on the open

market.”

“I’m not payin’ yeh one bit o’ gold ‘till yeh’ve finished th’ job as I want it done!

Besides,” Grael’s anger melted, his expression twisting into a cunning smirk. “Arcana Corp

knows who yeh are now, and they’ll be after yeh till this’s over. So if yeh don’t finish th’ job…”

Arioch’s eyes narrowed and she took a step toward the dwarf. Her cool evaporated in an

instant, and her lips pulled back in an angry snarl of her own. “Are you trying to blackmail me,

you little-”

Dante quickly interposed himself between Arioch and Grael, placing a hand on her chest,

and holding a hand out to the dwarf. “No, no,” he said quickly. “We’re not going to do this.
Arioch, you and I are going to go have a drink and calm down.” He looked to Grael. “You are

going to talk to your friend here, and then review Collector contract procedure, and then send

Arioch her payment, because she’s right. Once we’ve all done that, maybe we can talk about

setting up another contract.”

Arioch’s expression made it quite clear what she thought of that possibility, but Grael

seemed somewhat mollified, so she elected not to disabuse him of the notion of her continued

assistance just yet. Dante didn’t seem to want to give anyone a chance to argue, and was already

steering Arioch out of the room. Mya, who had kept quiet through all of this, made to follow

along with Arioch and Dante.

“No, Mya. You stay here with Grael and Miranda. We’ll be back,” Dante said.

Mya opened her mouth to argue, but Arioch shot her a sharp look. “Stay here,” she

growled.

Mya’s mouth snapped shut, her lower lip trembling as Arioch and Dante walked out of

the house.
Chapter 8

Arioch didn’t like being herded, but she didn’t know where she was, and Dante seemed

to have a good idea of where he was going. So she let him lead her out of the dwarf’s house and

back down the precisely laid out dwarven streets, desperately hoping they could get to a bar

without getting back on the tram.

As it turned out, they could. Dante led her to a bar whose door was designed to be a bit

more interspecies-friendly than Grael’s house had been. The place, called On the Rocks, was

carved into the ground, necessitating a climb down a long staircase to enter, the stairway covered

in neon signs advertising different dwarven brews.

“Come on, you need a drink,” Dante said, almost pushing her down the stairs.

“I need ten. And you get to buy, leading me around like a damn pack mule,” Arioch

grumbled as she shoved her way past a bouncer barely half her size.

Behind her, Dante made a monetary apology for her rudeness, then entered himself.

Fortunately, the long stairway down into the bar meant the ceiling was surprisingly high for a

dwarven building, large enough for a catwalk to encircle the bar, hosting a number of tables

away from the hustle and bustle of the busy floor. And busy it was. Dwarves swarmed all over

the tables, chairs, and couches, shouting and laughing and drinking as only dwarves could. A

handful of humans and orcs were sprinkled into the mix, rounding out the crowd.

Dante tapped Arioch on the shoulder, pointing to the bar at the far end, opposite the door.

She nodded and began picking her way through the crowd, having little trouble clearing a path

by virtue of sheer size alone, most of the other patrons barely coming up to her chest. As she
reached the bar, the bartender, a particularly muscular dwarf whose tree-trunk arms were covered

in so many tattoos the ink practically blurred together, turned to face her.

“Eh, dunnae see many elves ‘round here,” he said in greeting, his accent markedly less

pronounced than Grael’s. “What’ll it be, lass?”

Arioch couldn’t quite lean on the counter; it was too low. Instead, she placed both hands

on it and peered at the rows of liquor behind him, searching for something which would be a

sufficient blow to Dante’s wallet to make him groan, but not protest. She settled on a single malt

whiskey, pointing over his shoulder to one of the higher shelves.

“Better just leave the bottle,” she muttered.

“One-a those kinda days, eh?” he asked, having to climb onto a step to pull the bottle

down. “First one’s on the house, lass.” He plunked the bottle down in front of her and fished out

a shotglass from behind the bar, considered it a moment, then discarded it in favor of a tumbler,

into which he dropped what looked like a trio of frosty rocks.

Arioch nodded, picking up the glass and examining its contents for a moment. “Bit

literal, isn’t it?”

The dwarf grinned. “Whiskey rocks. Dunnae want it gettin’ watered down.”

Shrugging, Arioch poured herself a glass right around the time Dante caught up with her,

being somewhat less adept, or perhaps simply more courteous in making his way through the

crowd. When he reached out for Arioch’s bottle, she swatted his hand.

“Mine. Get your own.”

 “That’s an expensive damn bottle!” Dante griped. “I’m not made of money, Arioch.”

“Guess you’ll have to settle for the cheap stuff, then.”

Dante groaned and leaned against the bar, ordering himself a mug of dwarven lager and a

chaser. The bartender, snickering at the exchange, headed off to fetch a mug and find the

appropriate tap. He returned a moment later, setting a foamy mug and a shotglass with a pale

yellow liquor in front of Dante, who thumbed the payment pad to open a tab.

“Let’s get a seat,” he said, frowning at Arioch’s bottle, which she took by the neck in one

hand as she headed away from the counter.

Arioch once again pushed her way through the crowd. This time, though, Dante followed

immediately behind her, apologizing as they went. Not wanting to stay down among the crowd,

Arioch opted to climb one of the spiral staircases along the back wall, heading up to the

catwalks, which were generally less occupied. She slid into a chair at the first unoccupied table

she found, and refilled her glass, which must have emptied of its own accord on the trip up.

Dante sat across from her, nursing his lager at a bit more restrained pace.

“So we’re clear, if you ever grope me like that again, I’ll feed you your hand,” Arioch

said as she refilled her glass.

“What?”

“At the dwarf’s house. You grabbed my tit.”

“I was holding you back! It was just a-”

 “Hand on my tit. That’s what it was. Oh, also if you try to hold me back again, I’ll feed

you your hand. That dwarf is trying to screw me out of a payday, and I’ve gotten dicked over by

enough dwarves this week.”

“Are you still on about Mort?”

“A thousand gold, Dante. A thousand. Yeah, I’m still pissed. Anyone with half a brain

would be.”

“He’ll pay you,” Dante said, shifting the subject away from Mort. “You know how

stubborn dwarves are. His doctor friend seemed reasonable. I’m sure she’ll sort things out.

Speaking of, though…was she right?”

“About what?”

“Are you seriously over a hundred and fifty thousand years old?”

Arioch shrugged. “Probably,” she muttered evasively.

“No, don’t bullshit me. Are you?”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing and taking a long drink from her glass. Empty again.

“How old are you? Exactly.”

“Somewhere around two hundred thousand. Not completely sure because you lose track

after a while. Not a lot of people going around saying they’re ninety-seven thousand four

hundred sixty-three years old and all. I’m close to or a bit over two hundred thousand.”
 Dante looked Arioch up and down as if seeing her for the first time, his mouth hanging

open. He’d always known she was old, old enough remember the elven empire clearly. But this,

this went well beyond merely ‘old.’ Arioch had been alive, had been an adult in times his history

books could only speculate about. She’d seen that look before, the look of a thousand questions

fighting for expression, a sudden desire for answers he was sure she could give. The look and the

questions to would follow it were why Arioch kept her age to herself.

“How come you… Arioch why didn’t you ever tell anyone? I mean…you could…you

could have…you’d be rich just from what you could tell people. The things…” Dante paused,

seemingly at a loss for words. “The things you’ve seen, the things you know…”

“I could what? Write books? Talk to academics? Tell stories for a living? Please. As if

humans would want the version of history they’d get from an elf. Sure, I could tell them about

how all the races came into slavery and the ugly history of that long line of bad ideas. I could tell

them all about elven society, the Demon Wars, the disappearance of the Ancients, the story your

history books don’t tell about the elven genocide, and a thousand other things. But no one wants

to hear that. Besides, it was a bigger world then, and it’s not like I knew everything happening

everywhere the way you people do today.”

“And about you being a ‘dark elf’? I’ve never heard of one.”

“It’s not a thing. Humans came up with it.”

“No, she said subspecies of elf.”

“There were more kinds of elves. Once. Now there aren’t.”

“What kind of elf are you?”

 “I’m just a fucking elf, Dante,” Arioch snapped, realizing she’d once more emptied her

glass. “Okay? I don’t want a damn label about Eldar’nyxis or dark elf or whatever the hell else

people want to call it.”

“Elder…Nexus?”

“Eldar’nyxis is an elven word for…” Arioch’s open palm slapped on the table after she

finished refilling her drink. “Never mind.”

“For your subspecies.”

“Dante…” Arioch warned, looking up from her drink.

“Fine, fine. Sorry…I just, shit, Arioch, this is a lot to process.”

“Ask the creepy doctor about it. She probably knows at least something. I don’t want to

talk about it.”

She made no effort to hide her irritation at the subject. In truth, it was less irritation that

she felt and more…pain. Arioch had lived through the admittedly spotted history of her people,

right up to the part textbooks pretended never happened: the reason that there were maybe ten

thousand elves in the world today instead of a hundred million. Watching her race butchered by

the victorious Free Alliances, knowing that they had taken special care to eliminate her own

people—her own subspecies as Miranda termed it—had made it impossible for her to keep her

cool when the subject came up. Fortunately, the Free Alliances’ actions in that period had been

so completely expunged from the historical record that almost no one knew there was such a

thing as an eldar’nyxis. Most people simply thought she had some peculiar elven version of

albinism.
 Dante subsided into silence for a long moment, his eyes dropping down to his beer.

Several times, he opened his mouth as if to speak, but when his gaze rose to Arioch, his words

died on his lips. He picked awkwardly at the table, brushing imaginary crumbs from its surface

before finally changing the subject.

“Are you really going to walk away from this job?”

Arioch blinked at the sudden shift, her drink hovering in front of her lips. Funny how it

seemed to keep doing that. “What?”

“You heard me, Arioch.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because Mya’s nuts about you? Because if there’s even a chance they’re right, then

someone should do something.”

“Someone doesn’t have to be me. And what does the girl even have to do with it? How’s

them having her help?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly stick around to ask, did you?”

“Oh don’t give me that. How much crazy bullshit can one person sit and listen to in a

day? Crazy knot of those whiny human teenagers who wear all black and cut themselves while

writing sad poetry trying to summon demons? Sure. One of the richest men in the world running

the largest corporation in the world trying to summon demons? Why? Doesn’t make a damn bit

of sense and you know it.”

 Dante pointedly looked Arioch up and down, taking in her outfit. “Yeah. Who wears all

black these days? I mean, really. Also, you know, you’re right. Rich people are to a one the

perfect picture of sanity.”

Arioch glanced down at herself, refilled her drink once more, and frowned at Dante.

“First, there’s a lot of purple in my coat and pants. Also silver. Second, do you know how hard it

is to find colors that go with purple skin?”

“I actually don’t. I never really thought of you as vain, but… Anyway, don’t change the

subject.”

“Okay, so let’s pretend he would do it. Because he’s power mad or…whatever. The how

is kind of a problem. Summoning a demon would take more magic than fifty humans could

conjure, and I’m talking about back in the day when magic was still a force to be reckoned with.

Let’s not even talk about a gateway to summon them all. You’re talking the magical equivalent

of a dozen…a hundred…ten thousand atom bombs. Fuck, I don’t know, but it’s more magic than

even exists in the world right now.”

“Which is where Mya comes in.”

Arioch sighed. “Okay, so they sacrifice the girl, paint the wall with her blood or

whatever, and boom, demon portal? I was never a sorcerer but I’m not buying it.”

“Okay, well let’s say it worked. You were around for the Demon Wars, yeah?”

“Obviously.”

“Just humor me here. Say this happened. Say he actually summoned a horde of demons.

All the demons. All of them. How bad would that look?”
 Arioch ran a finger along the rim of her glass for a moment, thinking as she stared down

into the dark brown liquid. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, tuning out the sounds of the

bar around her. The picture Dante asked her to paint wasn’t one she particularly wanted to

contemplate.

“Today? With no Ancients, almost no elves, and not much magic? Pretty much the worst

parts of every horror and end of the world movie combined into one horribly protracted

nightmare,” she said, then, after a considerable pause spoke up again. “They’d probably start by

possessing a few thousand people, get a feel for what’s going on in the world. That’s how they

started last time. And I’m not talking about the green vomit and spinning heads movie version of

that. No, just slipping into a person’s body like a cheap suit. You’d never know it’d happened

unless you made the demon angry enough to stop pretending to be something else, and that’s not

generally easy to do, since they don’t send the dumb brutes out to do that sort of thing. Or if you

tried to kill it, I guess. Possessed people you can at least kill. It’s hard, because they’re…scary

strong and fast, but you can do it. Once they knew there wasn’t much in the way of magic they’d

start coming through themselves. And then it would end.”

“Why?” Dante asked, leaning forward on his elbows. His sunglasses slid far enough

down his nose to allow Arioch to see his glowing orange eyes, which became more than a little

unsettling given the topic of discussion.

“You can’t kill a demon with a normal weapon. Bullet would hit it, and either go right

through, bounce off, or just melt on contact. You could shove a grenade down a demon’s throat

and it would just belch shrapnel right back onto you. Without magic, there’s just no fighting
them. To say nothing of the fact the more powerful ones are you know, twenty feet tall and on

fire all the time if they want to be. They can take pretty much whatever shape they want.”

“How’d you beat them, then?”

“Ancients and elves did most of the fighting,” she said. “Orcs and humans played meat

shields and fought the possessed. Dwarves worked just about nonstop forging magical weapons.

Sorcerers might fight demons on less lopsided footing, but the rest of us, sometimes it took ten to

bring down a demon, and maybe two would walk away from it. We got better at it but…” Arioch

shrugged. “Like I said, if that happened today, it’d be the end of things.”

“So, why walk away from this, Arioch? Doesn’t everything you’re saying make you just

about the perfect person to help?”

Arioch snorted, shaking her head. “No. No, it doesn’t. Because I already dealt with it

once. It’s someone else’s turn. I got Mya halfway, so if you want to take over, go ahead. But I’m

done. This isn’t my problem.”

“I don’t know. Sounds like it’s everyone’s problem. You want them to destroy the world?

All your stuff’s here.”

Arioch gritted her teeth, stabbing a finger at him and wincing as she raised her arm a little

too high, irritating her cracked rib. She quickly dropped her hand, hissing softly in pain and

forgetting whatever she’d been about to say to Dante. Dante tilted his head, regarding her

curiously as she quickly took another gulp of her drink, the spreading warmth doing a little to

numb the pain, also prompting her to realize she’d already finished half the bottle. A little more

and she might forget it hurt entirely.

 “What is it?” Dante asked.

“Rib,” Arioch said, frowning. “Orc bitch tried to take the girl. Had some kind of weird

sword and hit like a pissed off freight train. Cracked a rib or two.”

“Don’t you want to get it looked at?”

“Right now I want to drink until it stops hurting,” Arioch responded flatly. “Besides, it’s

a cracked rib. I can pay a couple hundred gold to go to a doctor who will take a look, tell me it’s

cracked, and I should stay off it for a few weeks, and probably throw some pain pills at me. Not

really worth wasting the money when there’s nothing they can do.”

As if to emphasize her point, Arioch finished off the remainder of her glass and refilled it

again. She’d lived with worse injuries before, though to be fair, not lately. Work as a Collector

was certainly dangerous, but Arioch was seldom wounded in the course of her various contracts,

something she prided herself on. This didn’t mean she hadn’t been shot or stabbed a handful of

times, but after a demon nearly turns you inside out with dull claws, you develop an impressive

tolerance for pain.

“Don’t you think it would be worth what they’ll probably pay, if nothing else?” Dante

asked.

Arioch was already refilling her glass yet again when she shook her head. “No,” she said

simply.

“Why?” Dante’s tone was curious, his glowing orange eyes fixed on her, mug hovering

just a bit above the table.

 “I just don’t want the job, Dante.” Arioch set her rapidly emptied glass down on the table

a little harder than she meant to.

“Why?” Dante continued looking at her, though she picked the faintest note of caution

out in his voice, likely sensing he was pushing her too far.

Arioch glared at Dante, then at her almost-empty bottle. With a huff, she pushed her chair

out, getting up to her feet and turning away from the table, ignoring Dante’s question. He didn’t

press her when she stalked off, heading down toward the bar to get another bottle. This job was

too weird for her. Mya was...Arioch wasn’t sure what she thought of the girl. She’d known a

small handful of Ancients, and Mya had the same oddly… The word escaped Arioch, or maybe

she just didn’t want to continue too far down her line of thought. Sure the girl was nice enough,

but such had never counted for much in Arioch’s books. Still, there was something about Mya,

and Arioch-

“Look out,” a voice to her right grunted as her shoulder smacked against another bar

patron.

“Piss off,” Arioch growled, throwing her weight into her shoulder to shove the speaker

aside.

“Hey!” The voice rose in indignation, and someone tugged violently enough on Arioch’s

coat to stop her in her tracks. She turned, finding herself face to face with a powerfully built orc

halfie who stood about chin height. He was flanked by a pair of dwarves, the whole trio looking

at her with the righteous indignation of the moderately intoxicated who thought themselves

affronted. “Watch where you’re goin’, lady. You want a autograph, there’s better ways to ask.”
 Arioch tilted her head down, fixing the halfie with her most irritated glare. It didn’t seem

to work, as he spread his hands a bit, shrugging at her. She put her hands on her hips, nostrils

flaring in a slow exhale as she looked down at him. “Autograph? Why would I…you know what,

just don’t ever touch me, kid.”

“Hey, you’re the one walked up on us and started shovin’. Apologize and keep walkin’.”

Arioch rolled her eyes. “Let go of my coat or I’ll break your hand,” she said very slowly,

dropping her gaze briefly to where the halfie had hold of her coat, the leather bunched up in his

big hand.

“You don’t wanna do this, lady. I will wreck you, girl or no. Just apologize and get goin’

outta here.”

Arioch let out a short bark of laughter, shaking her head as she swatted the halfie’s hand

away. He frowned, brows knitting together as he took a step forward, looking up at Arioch. The

halfie set his jaw and raised one hand, pointing up toward her face. “You don’t want none of this.

Believe me,” he rumbled, his dwarf companions stepping aside. “Don’t you know who I am?

Just apologize and walk away. Last time I’m gonna offer it.”

Again, all Arioch could do was laugh. She of course had no idea who he was, and

couldn’t have cared less. “You’re nothing like as scary as you think you are, kid.”

The halfie sighed and raised his hands, his muscular arms, exposed by his sleeveless

shirt, flexing in a manner Arioch supposed was meant to be menacing. It wasn’t. He bent his

knees, lowering himself into a traditional boxing posture, and Arioch arched a brow.
 “What are you supposed to be? Some kinda box-” Before she could finish the sentence,

he threw a jab at her head. She stepped forward, pinning his hand under her arm in a quick

counter and delivered a blow back to his face. His head snapped back and she followed up with a

rapid combination, a right cross and another jab to his head. The halfie took a step back and

shook his head to clear it. “At least you’ve got a chin,” she said, laughing, hands dropping back

to her sides.

The halfie snorted angrily, raising his hands back into a defensive position. At least his

form was good. He stepped in, dipping left before changing direction and lashing out with an

uppercut. Arioch didn’t doubt there was real power behind the man’s punch, but he was simply

too slow. Content to play the boxing game for the moment, Arioch sidestepped and responded

with a left hook to the side of his head. He stumbled sideways, but recovered quickly and faced

her.

By now, they’d gathered a bit of a crowd, several people cheering for the halfie with

notably fewer taking up her part. It was a dwarven bar, and a night without a fight or ten would

have been a boring one. Bouncers were there to keep the riffraff and genuinely malicious out, not

break up fair fights, as doing so would have deprived the patrons of a favored form of

entertainment.

Angrier now, and with a cut above his temple, boxer-boy rushed in, fists flying at her

stomach. Arioch blocked the punches, keenly aware of how much a body blow would hurt just

then, and sidestepped again, countering with a straight punch to the head. To his credit, the man

was taking quite a beating and bearing up well under it.

 “You’re not like, a professional are you?” Arioch mocked. “I’d hate to mess up your next

fight.”

The halfie yelled something she didn’t quite catch, which sent a cheer up through his

supporters, and swung viciously at the side of her head. Arioch ducked under the punch and

slammed her fist into his stomach. Like his orc ancestors, this halfie’s stomach had all the give of

a steel plate, and Arioch gritted her teeth against the resistance his body offered. Still, he grunted

in pain, but was obviously ready for the body blow, and responded with one of his own. His fist

smashed viciously into her injured side and all the air was driven from Arioch’s lungs, sending

her staggering sideways. Maybe he was a professional, then, as Arioch could count on one hand

the number of times in the last thousand years she’d been hit quite so hard barehanded. What’s

worse, with at least a couple ribs already cracked or broken, she simply hadn’t been ready to

absorb that kind of punishment.

“Ugh there goes another rib or two,” Arioch muttered, spitting a bit of blood onto the

floor as she straightened.

The halfie had his hands in the air, and was shouting like he’d just won the championship

bout. Arioch changed her stance, shifting her injured side away from him, and he laughed.

“What, you want more, bitch?” he asked, spreading his arms and nodding to his supporters. “All

right, you’ll get more Gold.”

“More Gold?”

It was at that point she realized the crowd was, for whatever reason, chanting “Gold”

repeatedly. Not particularly knowing nor caring why, Arioch had decided she was about done

with this fight. The halfie stepped in again, hands raised, and started bouncing slightly on the
balls of his feet. Irritated, Arioch rushed forward with the kind of speed only an elf could

manage. She crouched the slightest bit, shifting her weight and adjusting for their height

difference before throwing an uppercut which slipped between his hands and caught him on the

chin. His head jerked back, and he sprawled backward over the nearby table, his jaw hanging

open at an odd angle.

The patrons at the table took a couple of steps back, but didn’t clear too far away, not

wanting to sacrifice their view of the fight. Arioch stepped in, placing one hand on the man’s

chest to keep him on the table as he groaned, starting to come back to his senses. It took a

moment for his eyes to fix on her, but when they did, he snarled and tried to push himself up.

With Arioch’s hand on his chest, body positioned in between his legs to prevent him from

getting to his feet, he couldn’t move. Instead, he twisted sideways, hammering his fist against

Arioch’s injured side again.

Rage dulled the pain darkening the edge of Arioch’s vision. Her hand crawled forward

from his chest to his throat, pinning him fiercely against the table. She brought her other hand

back and smashed it into his face with all her considerable strength. Then again. And again. And

again. Blood fountained from his nose, and what might have been his next blow to her side

turned into a weak slap at her shoulder, trying to shove her away. Arioch tightened her grip on

his throat and throttled him against the table before yanking him backward, up to his feet. With a

feral growl, Arioch hit him again, his face and her fist a mess of dripping red. His eyes were

unfocused now, and Arioch threw him sideways, ramming him bodily into a nearby pillar

supporting the catwalk above them.

 She didn’t notice that the cheering and chanting had stopped. The crowd had backed

away, now staring awkwardly, some filming with their cell phones. She didn’t care. By now, the

only thing keeping the halfie on his feet was her hand around his throat. His eyes were half-

lidded and rolled upward, head lolling as she brought her hand back again.

“Arioch!” The familiar voice cut through the blood red haze of her anger, and she jerked

her head around to see Dante trying to get through the crowd. “Arioch, let him go!”

She glared at Dante for a moment, then turned her attention back to the halfie, whose

head had fallen forward, little bubbles frothing in the blood gumming up his nose. He was clearly

unconscious, she realized, and she was supporting the whole of his weight. With a disgusted

grunt, she shoved him back at the pillar, releasing her grip on him. The halfie collapsed to the

ground, unmoving, his jaw hanging slightly open, a faint groan the only real sign of life. By then,

Dante had made his way to her, but was standing cautiously out of arm’s reach.

“Come on, that’s enough,” he said, gesturing toward the bar.

The only thing Arioch wanted more than to keep punching the halfie was to get the drink

she’d come for in the first place. She stepped over the unconscious man and stalked over to the

bar. The crowd parted readily for her, though several filmed her passing with their cell phones,

the group immediately closing around the fallen halfie once she reached the bar. Arioch wasn’t

sure why everyone was so interested, but it hardly mattered to her.

When she reached the bar, the bartender shifted his attention back to her, brows slightly

raised. His dark eyes regarded her a good deal more seriously than when she’d first come in, and

after a moment he nodded as if in satisfaction. Without comment, he pushed his stool up to the
wall and pulled down a dark bottle from one of the top shelves, then slid it across the counter to

her.

“Yeh fight like a dwarf,” he said gruffly, nodding to her. Arioch took it for the

compliment she knew it was meant to be, at least from his perspective. “That one won’t be

getting’ up anytime soon.”

Arioch glanced back toward the crowd, some of whom seemed to still be holding their

phones in the direction of the man she’d knocked out. No, he wouldn’t be getting up anytime

soon. He’d probably need to be carried out, with a night in the hospital to look forward to.

“Lesson learned, hopefully,” Arioch muttered, shaking her head.

The bartender shrugged and handed her a fresh glass. She poured for herself as Dante

approached, cautiously settling into the seat beside her. He was silent for a long moment, simply

sitting there with his nearly empty mug, looking over his shoulder at the crowd.

“You could’ve killed him,” he said after a moment.

“I didn’t,” Arioch said flatly, taking a drink from her glass and humming appreciatively.

The bartender had given her the good stuff, apparently.

“Don’t you think you’re a little…”

“A little what, Dante?”

“Well, that just wasn’t necessary, is all I’m getting at.”

“Leave it alone.”
 “Fine. How’re your ribs, then?”

Arioch frowned, glancing down at her injured side. If she had to guess, three or four were

broken, maybe one or two others cracked. Elves healed quickly, but it would still take a week or

two at least for her injuries to sort themselves out.

“Broken. Bad enough to hurt like a bitch. Not bad enough to mess anything up.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve had worse,” Arioch said with a shrug.

“Don’t you think it’s about time to call it a night?”

Arioch turned to look at Dante, one hand on her glass, the other braced on her thigh.

She’d known him for quite a while, and had spent a fair amount of time over drinks with him and

Jada the last few years, but had never seen him be quite so much of a worrier.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked. “You’re talking like you’re my damn father. Is it

past my bedtime, Dante? What’s this about?”

Dante sighed, keeping quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. When he finally spoke

up, his tone bordered on accusatory. “You’ve got better places to be than here and more

important things to do than beating up strangers and getting drunk and you know it. What I don’t

get is why you’re avoiding it. And don’t tell me it’s cause the dwarf irritates you.”

Arioch, more than a little taken aback at the intensity in Dante’s voice, leaned back and

didn’t respond right away. While she had always been relatively friendly with Dante and Jada,

there had always been a sort of unspoken understanding that this was contingent on them
continuing to avoid irritating her. She was by no means a friendly person by nature, and wasn’t

even sure she considered the two of them to be her friends. Dante had never taken it on himself

to pass judgment on her behavior, at least not to her face.

“Someone took his vitamins this morning,” Arioch commented.

“Cut that shit out,” Dante snapped, a bit of anger creeping into his voice. “You called me

for help, Arioch. I hopped on the subway at four thirty in the damn morning and then waited here

for twelve hours because you asked me to, so you don’t get to bitch at me, because we both

know for damn sure you wouldn’t have done the same for me. Well, now I’m here, and I’m

helping. And right now helping means calling you on your bullshit. Cause it’s bullshit. You

brought the girl all the way here, and she obviously likes you. You must like her too, cause you

let her hold your damn hand and you hardly ever let anyone so much as touch you. So yeah, you

need to go back there and finish this job. Because if Grael’s right and they’re going to cut her up

to set loose a bunch of demons, then you’ve got two good reasons to put a stop to it: her and the

demons.”

Arioch ground her teeth as Dante spoke. Part of why she didn’t engage with Dante, or

anyone else for that matter, too much was because she had very little ability to restrain herself

from lashing out when people spoke to her like this, something of a holdover from her days in

the elven empire where people feared her far too much to even contemplate speaking to her like

that. Worse, she was angrier because at least some of what he said was valid. He had taken a

long trip just to help her with almost nothing in the way of explanation given to him. But, was he

right about this being her fight? Arioch was…less sure there.
 “It’s not my fight, Dante. I’m not the girl’s damn keeper, and I sure as hell don’t want to

be. Don’t try to-”

Dante cut Arioch off as his phone started to ring, holding up a hand to silence her. Again,

she was shocked enough to fall silent, and he reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone with

a frown. He tapped the screen and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

Arioch turned her back to him, deciding to refill her glass rather than try to pull him away

from his phone. If she hadn’t had to go back to Grael’s house to make sure he paid her, she

would have already been in her car heading home, subway ride be damned. She was about to

take a drink when Dante’s voice drew her attention.

“What?” he hissed. “No. No, just lock up and we’ll be right there.”

“Wait, we’ll be where?” Arioch asked, turning back toward him.

Dante was already on his feet, phone back in his pocket. “Arcana Corp sent a team to

Grael’s. He just called and said they’re trying to break down the door. We need to go. Now.”

Arioch growled angrily, draining her drink and grabbing her bottle by the neck as Dante

quickly thumbed the payment pad on the bar in front of them. “Bastard hasn’t paid me yet. He

better not be dead.”

The two rushed out of the bar, pushing their way through the thick crowd, several of

whom were still clustered around the man Arioch had knocked out. Each step sent a spike of pain

up Arioch’s left side, dulled somewhat by the alcohol. She kept her grip on the bottle the
bartender had given her, deciding since he’d taken the trouble to gift her a bottle of high end

single malt, she’d drink it, even if it meant carrying it into a fight.

Luckily, Grael’s house wasn’t far away, and was made easier to pick out of the sea of

identical homes by the unmarked black armored truck idling in front of it. Arioch frowned,

heading for the door, which had been smashed inward, at a full run.

“How’d he know it was Arcana Corp if the truck is unmarked?” she asked as she reached

the open doorway.

“Think he has enough enemies that there are a lot of people sending kill teams after

him?” Dante puffed, pausing briefly to catch his breath. As he did, he took a moment to survey

the area. The armored truck was silent, engine off. So, it was likely empty. The door had clearly

been kicked in, judging by the splintered frame. The silence from the house meant that either the

kill team had done its work, or hadn’t started yet.

“Wouldn’t shock me,” Arioch muttered under her breath.

As before, light poured into the dimly lit entryway from an arch ahead and to her left.

Satisfied that there was no one lurking outside, Arioch waved Dante forward into the home,

following silently at his back. Once inside, Arioch heard the scuffling from what must have been

the living room, followed by some rather colorful shouts, not a small amount of which came in

the form of a gravelly dwarven voice hurling curses at whoever had broken in. Hearing this,

Arioch slowed down, pressing herself against the wall and quickly peeking around the corner to

see what they were up against.

 Inside the living room, Grael had overturned his couch in front of the fireplace, and she

could see his head poking up over the top, accompanied by what looked like a shotgun,

brandished threateningly at the intruders, all of whom had their backs to Arioch. There were six

in all, each wearing the same black body armor the men who had accosted Arioch at the subway

station had worn. A quick look told her none of them were large enough to be the freakishly

strong orc captain, so there was a bit of welcome news. All six of them had small automatic

weapons levelled at the couch, and were slowly spreading out in an attempt to flank the

improvised cover. Arioch assumed Miranda and Mya were crouched behind the couch as well;

otherwise they probably would have just opened fire.

She leaned back around the wall and turned to Dante, who stood just a few feet behind

her. “Six of them,” she whispered quickly. “All with automatic weapons, about to circle around

Grael’s couch fort.”

“What?”

“Are your rounds armor piercing?” Arioch asked, ignoring the question.

Dante shook his head.

“Neither are mine. In close then. You go left, I’ll go right.”

Dante nodded and crept up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her against the wall.

Arioch turned to look at him and held up three fingers on one hand. “On one.” She started

dropping her fingers in sequence, mouthing, “Three, two, one.” As she folded her last finger into

her fist, she darted around the edge of the wall, trusting Dante to do the same and handle his half.
Grael’s shouts kept the group’s attention as Arioch rushed in behind them, reaching the nearest

of the three on her right before any heard her.

The first was easy. She stepped in behind him and wrapped one arm around his throat.

With her other hand, she grabbed his jaw and pulled his head sideways before clenching her arm

around his throat and forcing his head in the other direction, snapping his neck. He went limp,

and Arioch shoved him forward into his nearest teammate, who was just starting to turn toward

her. His companion’s sheer weight bowled him backward, and Arioch swung her left hand in an

uppercut, snapping his head back and exposing his neck beneath the bottom of his tactical

helmet. Her right hand slammed into his throat, crushing and dislocating his larynx in one blow.

The second man dropped to the ground with a strangled gasp, clawing at his neck.

Only one man left for Arioch, and he was already bringing his weapon to bear on her.

Arioch delivered a straight kick to the center of his weapon, between his hands where he gripped

it. Her boot rang against the metal, and the shock of the blow drove the weapon from her

opponent’s hands, sending it skittering across the room’s stone floor. He staggered, off balance,

and Arioch leapt at him, one hand closing over the front of his face and shoving violently

forward, smashing the back of his head against the sturdy wall. His grunt was muffled by her

hand covering his mouth, and she slammed his head back again. A third bash was answered with

a dull, wet crack, and he slid to the ground without a sound.

“Hope you’re done with yours, Dante. Cause I-”

“Don’t move.” Hard metal jabbed into the small of Arioch’s back to accompany the

order. Apparently Dante had missed one. “Don’t move. Now bring the girl out here or the elf

bitch dies.”
 “Are you really doing this?” Arioch asked, unable to keep the note of excitement out of

her voice. “Please tell me you’re really doing this.”

“Shut up! I’ll count to five. Bring me the girl!”

“Hey, what kind of gun is that?” Arioch asked, turning her head just slightly to look at

the soldier, or mercenary from the look of him, out of the corner of her eye. As he was deciding

whether to answer or not, she jerked sideways, turning her body away from the gun and stepping

closer to sweep the barrel along her back and shoulders. She reached back, taking hold of the

weapon by the barrel to push it farther out of line with her body. A deafening bang filled the

room as the gun discharged. Arioch gripped the stock with her other hand, twisting the weapon

away from its wielder and bringing her elbow back to ram against his throat. He staggered

backward, gasping for breath as Arioch leaned away, the weapon now in her hands. Unsure

whether or not his rounds were armor piercing, she stepped forward, jamming the barrel under

his chin before pulling the trigger, making a spectacular mess of the inside of his helmet and

tactical mask.

Arioch dropped the rifle. It clattered to the ground at about the same time as its owner.

She glanced around for Dante. He was lying on his back, groaning and clutching at his stomach.

Seeing no blood, Arioch stepped over and grabbed him by the shirt, hauling him to his feet.

“Shake it off. You’re not bleeding,” she said.

“You try taking a rifle butt to the gut,” he grunted.

“I’ve got three or four broken ribs, and you don’t hear me complaining, you p-”
 “Och, kids! Yeh ‘bout done?” Grael growled, standing up from behind the couch,

shotgun still in hand.

“Yeah, we seem to have dealt with your problem for you. Should I add that to the bill?”

Arioch asked, rounding on the dwarf.

Grael stared up at her, his jaw set, lips downturned. He looked about to say something,

but Miranda set a hand on his shoulder.

“I believe thanks are in order,” Miranda said, as much to Grael as to Arioch and Dante,

who was still clutching his gut.

Grael grumbled something that might have been a thank you, but it was hard to be sure.

When Miranda gave him a nudge, he begrudgingly muttered, “Thank yeh, kids.”

“It seems we need to move th-Mya, we need to move Mya quickly. How Arcana Corp

knows where she is, I’m not sure, but that’s a question for later,” Miranda said.

“You,” Arioch corrected. “You need to pay me, then you can move her wherever you

want.”

Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but movement from Grael silenced her. He rushed

forward faster than Arioch had ever seen a dwarf move, and grabbed the front of Arioch’s jacket.

Grael jerked downward with alarming strength, and Arioch staggered forward, bending at the

waist, pain lancing through her injured side and momentarily making her world spin. She

wobbled, only barely balancing herself in time to stop herself from falling face first into the

ground. Before she could right herself, Arioch felt the cold press of metal under her jaw. Grael
held his shotgun to her, looking her dead in the eye, his own rusty brown eyes fairly seething

with anger.

“Listen t’me, lass, like yeh never listened t’anyone before in yer life. If yeh don’t ‘elp get

‘at girl outta ‘ere, Arcana Corp’s gonna gut ‘er, paint th’ walls with ‘er blood, and use it

t’summon an army a demons what’ll kill th’ whole world.” Mya gave a tiny squeak of terror at

this, ducking back behind the couch. “So cut yer elfy apathy bullshite and admit yeh’re one of th’

poor sods what lives in th’ world, so if it ends, yeh’re goin’ down with ‘at ship. Like it or not,

yeh’re ‘ere and involved now, and Arcana Corp ain’t th’ sort to just let things slide. So, yeh can

get us where we’re goin’, and get paid even more’n what yeh were gettin’, or yeh can turn’n run,

and keep runnin’ from Arcana Corp for th’ rest of yer life, ‘cause they ain’t gonna just let this

go.”

Arioch’s eyes narrowed in cold fury, locked on the dwarf as he ground the muzzle of his

shotgun against the underside of her jaw. “This isn’t the way to get my help,” she hissed through

gritted teeth. Grael’s response came in the form of a firmer press of the weapon against her jaw.

“Yeh’re stuck in this as much as any of us’re in it now, lass. Best accept it with some

grace, ‘cause Arcana Corp won’t be lettin’ any one a us walk away now.”

Miranda finally pushed her way around the couch, coming to stand beside the pair,

though not too close. She held up both hands, looking rapidly from Arioch to Grael and back.

“Stop this,” she said urgently. “We don’t have time for this. Listen, Arioch, please.” Her voice

took on a sterner quality as she turned toward Arioch, looking straight into her eyes once more as

humans never did. “You may not like it, but Grael is right. Aside from Arcana Corp not letting

this go, there’s more at stake here than any one of us. Mya may be able to revive her people, and
if she does, that could bring magic back to the world, could give us a chance to stop the spread of

the Dead Wilds, and a way to fight the demons when they return. Even if what Krieger is plotting

doesn’t work, there will be someone else, and without the Ancients, you know better than most

how little chance we stand. It’s more your problem than mine because you’ll live to see it. You

think a world choked by the Dead Wilds is going to be worth living in?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Arioch was well aware of the curious immunity that elves

displayed to the aura of decay that filled the Dead Wilds. “You know it doesn’t harm elves,” she

said flatly, jaw still clenched as Grael continued to hold his gun on her. “Not losing sleep over it

spreading.”

“Oh, yes. Then you can live alone on a dead world with the handful of other surviving

elves and what, starve to death? Assuming, of course, the world lasts even that long, and

someone doesn’t manage to let a demon horde through. With so few elves, and no Ancients, a

war with demons will be over quickly. You know this. Whichever happens, you’ll live to see it.

So do something about it. Help us get Mya where she needs to go, and then this will be over.

Arcana Corp won’t dare come after her when we are finished, and there won’t be any need to

come after any of us either.”

“Uh, question,” Dante piped in, having managed to regain his breath. “Where exactly are

you trying to get her?”

All heads turned toward Dante for the moment, as if everyone had forgotten he was there.

Arioch, of course, was only able to turn her head fractionally with Grael’s shotgun shoved so

roughly under her jawline. Perhaps made somewhat self-conscious by the sudden attention,
Dante straightened up and stopped clutching at his stomach, and looked between the trio in

confusion, head canted to one side.

“The Nexus of Ancients,” Miranda said.

“Oh screw that,” Arioch snapped, swiveling her head as much as she could to get

Miranda in view. “How are you going to get her through the Dead Wilds?”

The Nexus of Ancients, the mountaintop home of the Ancients at the height of their

power and presence in the world, had been near the elven capital, which was now situated nearly

in the heart of the Dead Wilds. Any journey undertaken there would have to be made on foot, as

electronics and machinery tended to be unreliable at best in the Dead Wilds. Worse, the decay

choking the life from plants also drove animals away, as it could set into anyone who entered,

slowly leeching the life from them.

“Thus the need for your presence,” Miranda said flatly. “As you said, elves are immune

to the effects of the Dead Wilds. There’s precedent for those in close proximity to elves being

unaffected, or the deleterious effects on life and electronics slowing in proportion to proximity to

an elf. In short, if you are with us, we can get Mya through.”

Arioch closed her eyes for a moment, letting out a slow sigh. She didn’t like her choices

one damn bit, and didn’t care if it was written all over her face. If she declined to go with them,

she had no doubt Arcana Corp would come after her in an effort to either find Mya, or find out

where she had gone. Grael would, she believed, be more than happy to lead Arcana Corp to her

in order to buy time to find another elf willing to accompany them through the Dead Wilds. Of

course, going with them meant a trip which, even for an elf, would be dangerous considering all

the raiders and the like prowling the areas surrounding the Dead Wilds, to say nothing of what
the stories claimed waited within. If the stories about crazed feral elves were anything to go by,

the slow deaths of her companions would be the least of her concerns. She’d never set much

store by the stories, but then, she’d never been faced with a trip to the heart of the place before,

either.

Much as she hated to admit it, Arcana Corp committing itself to tracking her down was a

death sentence, plain and simple. She couldn’t survive their undivided attention. Arioch vaguely

recalled someone telling her when she was young that when she was confronted with certain

death, and a faint hope of survival, the choice should be easy. Well, it wasn’t. But, it also wasn’t

much of a choice at all, and even she could only fight the inevitable for so long.

“Fine,” she growled. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Grael’s grip on her coat relaxed, and she jerked upright, glaring down at him.

“But if you point another gun at me, I will kill you.”

The dwarf merely grunted, leaning the shotgun back on his shoulder as he surveyed his

ruined living room. Arioch let the sight of the half dozen corpses, most of her own making, sink

in to add some gravity to her threat before speaking up again.

“If we’re going, we had better go quickly. It’s not like they don’t know where we are.”

Miranda nodded and looked down at Grael. “We need to go now, she’s right. Is

everything ready?”

Grael cleared his throat, thumping his gun against his shoulder as he chewed his lip.

Arioch didn’t quite understand his hesitation, and his silence stretched for several moments
before he finally nodded. “It’s far from ideal, lass, but alrigh’. Get goin’ and I’ll ‘andle wot I

gotta from ‘ere.”

“What? He’s not coming?” Arioch asked, arching a brow. “Damn.” Best news she’d

had all day, as far as she was concerned.

Grael ignored her sarcasm and ambled out of the room, stepping over the corpses of

Arcana Corp’s kill team as he went. What he was going to do, Arioch couldn’t guess, though her

indifference won out over her curiosity in this case. The trip would be infinitely more tolerable

without him underfoot constantly grating on Arioch’s already frayed nerves.

“Well, my car doesn’t seat four. So…we’ll need another one for this.”

“We can take mine. It’s big enough for everyone and parked closer anyway,” Dante said.

“I left it at a garage near the bar.”

Arioch could have kissed him for sparing her another ride on the train.

“All right,” Miranda said. “Mya, come here. We’re going to go for a bit of a walk.”

Mya’s head finally poked over the edge of the couch, and when she saw no one was

pointing a gun at anyone else, and the fighting had stopped, she stood up completely. Still

wearing her sunglasses and white dress with no shoes, she didn’t do much more than come

partway around the couch, stopping before the first corpse, her eyes cast upward to avoid looking

at it. Miranda blinked at her in confusion, but Arioch could only roll her eyes at the human.

“She’s barefoot,” Arioch said simply, crossing what little space there was between Mya

and herself before leaning down to scoop the girl up in one arm. “Floor’s a bit sticky.” That was
about as tactful as Arioch could be about the various spreading pools of blood around the room

starting to join together to create a small lake of red slowly eclipsing the stone floor.

Miranda glanced down, noting she was—well, all of them were—standing in a thin film

of blood, frowned, and shook her head. Arioch watched the odd academic curiously. Usually

people in her position didn’t handle this sort of thing well. A room full of corpses and blood

tended to unsettle those who hadn’t had the benefit of experience to grow accustomed to such

things. Mya, on the other hand, was even paler than usual and clinging almost painfully to

Arioch’s shoulders with her head buried in the elf’s thick mane of silvery hair.

“All right, let’s get out of here. This place is getting a little, uh, corpsey,” Arioch said,

shifting Mya’s weight to her hip and turning to go.

Chapter 9

Arioch was not comfortable. While Dante’s car, truck, whatever it was, was certainly

large, very few vehicles offered the kind of leg space she needed. With Dante driving and

Miranda in the passenger seat to help navigate and whatever other nonsense she’d spouted to get

the seat for herself, Arioch had been left with the choice of either sitting beside Mya, or taking

the entire back row to herself. She’d elected to try the latter, spreading herself out across the

seats as best she could, but was still forced to sit up at an angle in order to be able to stretch her

legs out. Fortunately, she’d found a quilt laid over the cargo space and had rolled it up to pillow

herself, in hopes not to agitate her injured ribs. It wasn’t working particularly well.

“How long did you say it would take to get there?” Arioch asked after the car bounced

over another bump in the road, painfully jarring her side.

“At least another day and a half if we don’t stop much,” Miranda replied, her voice tight

with barely restrained impatience at having to answer the question every couple of hours since

they set out the previous night.

Arioch sighed and leaned her head back on the window, her feet bobbing slightly with

each little shift and bump in the ride. Mya turned around to look at Arioch, folding her arms on

the back of her seat and resting her chin on them. “Is something wrong, Miss Arioch?” she

asked.

“Nah.”

Why Mya had imprinted on her, Arioch could not even begin to guess. Miranda showed

far more interest in the girl, and Dante had certainly shown himself to be much more adept at
dealing with children, but for some reason Mya couldn’t seem to get enough of Arioch. Part of

her was even a little flattered, but the rest of her was constantly screaming that she wasn’t good

with kids, didn’t like kids, and had no interest in a kid clinging to her all the time.

“Anyway,” Dante was saying, trying to get his interrogation of Miranda back on track.

He had been grilling her for everything she knew about elves since they got in the car, probably

because Arioch had been less than forthcoming on the subject. Miranda seemed perfectly happy

to indulge his inquisitiveness. “What was it you were saying earlier about elven subspecies? You

said she was a dark elf?”

Arioch groaned, just able to make out the bobbing of Miranda’s head in affirmation.

“Yes. The dark elves, which is as close an approximation as we can manage for their word for

themselves, Eldar’nyxis, were one of the subspecies of elves thought to be among its higher

social strata. Possibly even a ruling caste. Bear in mind a tremendous amount of the work

surrounding the subject is conjecture, as records from their time period are inconsistent,

unreliable, or lost entirely to the Dead Wilds. But, what we know for sure is the dark elves

tended to be larger than what we think of today as elves, and were more magically sensitive.

Their skin tones were all darker, tending toward varying shades of purple, blue, and black as an

adaptation to their mostly nocturnal life cycle. They are substantially more photosensitive than

other elves, but have even better night vision and hearing to compensate. Their sharper

fingernails and canines have suggested they were primarily carnivorous, and likely favored

hunting in prehistoric times. You’ve probably noticed her eyes are a darker shade-”

“Hey, could you stop anatomizing me?” Arioch grumbled, folding her arms across her

chest, and immediately regretting the gesture as pain shot through her. “I’m right here.”
 Miranda glanced back at her and frowned. “Quite,” she said tersely. “The fossil record

suggests a number of elven subspecies existed at one point, most specialized to specific habitats,

suggesting as a whole the species was remarkably adaptable. The subspecies seemed to range

from forest-dwelling elves with denser bones and slightly larger hands for climbing to what is

theorized to be a subspecies which lived almost entirely in volcanic regions based on where the

skeletons were found. It seems the so-called ‘baseline’ elves we encounter today were either the

original species, or a result of interbreeding between other subspecies.”

“Huh. I’d forgotten about the Eldar’pyris,” Arioch murmured.

Mya perked up, turning back to look at her. “The what?”

Arioch smirked, realizing she could give a five-year-old information which would have

catapulted Miranda to academic fame were she in possession of it. Maybe she could have a bit of

fun with what she knew, after all.

“I guess you’d call them fire elves, or something like that. Translation’s tricky,” she

whispered. “They lived around the volcanic ashlands to the south. Their skin was silver, and they

lived around lava floes, hunting salamanders and other volcanic creatures. They were some of

the best metalworkers among the elves.”

“Really?!” Mya cried shrilly.

Arioch nodded gravely. “They could even swim in lava for a little bit at a time.”

“No way!”

By now, Mya had drawn Dante and Miranda’s attention. “What are you two talking

about?” Dante asked.

 “Elves who swim in lava!” Mya blurted before Arioch could stop her.

Miranda arched a brow, glancing back at Arioch with an air of amused curiosity. Arioch

couldn’t quite tell whether Miranda was challenging her to confirm the truth in what she said, or

merely being amused at the way Arioch had presented it.

“Stories is all,” Arioch said after a moment’s consideration before leaning back in her

seat.

Miranda continued regarding her with the same mixture of amusement and curiosity for

what felt like a long time before she turned back around to return her attention to Dante. Arioch

wasn’t sure what to make of her. Did she know? She would have thought a scientist would have

been more curious, but the notion hadn’t seemed to be new to her, or perhaps hadn’t been

interesting. Miranda knew more than she ought to about elves, and Arioch had to wonder

whether she had her own source in another ancient elf. Mya watched both of them curiously,

perhaps sensing some of Arioch’s consternation before leaning over the seat to push her face

toward Arioch’s, speaking in a loud whisper.

“It’s true though, right?”

Arioch met her wide-eyed gaze, considering her response. “Yeah,” she said finally. “But

don’t tell the doctor. She’ll never leave me alone.” This seemed unlikely, though, as Miranda had

not had a single question for Arioch about her people, much as any other historian would have

considered her a wellspring of information. Perhaps Miranda simply sensed Arioch would not be

a cooperative source, but Arioch didn’t think that was it.

 Mya nodded gravely, her small jaw set as though she’d been issued an order on a

battlefield. “Promise!” she whispered at about the same volume as Arioch’s normal speaking

voice.

Arioch tapped two fingers to her forehead in a little salute to Mya before leaning her head

back against the window and closing her eyes. She would have liked nothing more than to sleep

the entire trip, but knew doing so wasn’t in the cards. Up front, Miranda had resumed her

dissertation about elves and their various anatomies and histories. Having been there for

everything Miranda was presenting as history, though, Arioch elected to tune her out, focusing

instead on the white noise of the tires on the road, hoping it might lull her to sleep.

A three tone ring from her phone interrupted as she was starting to make real progress on

the sleeping front, and she sighed in irritation. The caller ID showed “R4Z0R” and all Arioch

could do was roll her eyes and touch the accept button.

“Well, you took your time getting back in touch, Wilbur,” she said by way of greeting.

“Do you know how hard it is to establish a secure line against one of the largest corporate

entities in the world with access to…well, never mind. You don’t. So, let’s just say I was setting

speed records and singlehandedly supporting the energy drink market in my neighborhood. I’ve

followed what’s been going on as best I can and I guess I only have one question: are you out of

your fucking mind?” Wilbur demanded, his voice rising in pitch, speaking a mile a minute.

“Nice to hear from you, too. What, exactly, are you on about?”

“You…you don’t know? Did you not wonder how they found you? Arioch, turn on the

damn radio.”
 “Hey, Dante, shut the professor up and turn on the radio a minute,” she called.

Both Dante and Miranda turned to frown at her, but when she simply stared back at them,

undaunted, Dante sighed, tapped the center console, and turned the volume dial. After a moment

of static as the car computer adjusted the frequency, a voice resolved in the middle of a report.

“…now confirm the amateur video footage captured in Boulder of boxing legend Gordon

“Gold” Fairchilde is authentic. For those who haven’t seen the video taking the internet by

storm, patrons at a local bar in Boulder captured video of an unknown elf being drawn into a

fight with the notoriously belligerent boxer. Video depicts unidentified the elf bumping into and

exchanging words with Fairchilde before he squares up and throws a punch while the elf is seen

speaking. And, folks, this is where the story takes a turn. Instead of landing himself in jail on

another assault charge, Fairchilde, the undefeated world boxing champion, bit off more than he

could chew. Video captured from several cell phones shows the elf countering in traditional

boxing style and quickly knocking the boxer out and subjecting him to a savage beating. What

this might mean for Fairchilde’s career and potential matches with two of his more famous rivals

we can only guess just now. His manager declined to comment about the incident or whether

Fairchilde would be pressing charges when approached, but sources say Fairchilde has been in

the hospital since last night’s hostilities. The identity of Fairchilde’s victim-turned-victor is

unclear, but we have confirmed she is not a member of any professional boxing associations. So

much for your perfect record, Gold.”

Dante turned back to stare at Arioch, whose mouth had fallen open during the newscast.

So, he had been a boxer. If he was boxing’s best, maybe Arioch was in the wrong line of work.
 “Arioch, did you know you were knocking out a world champion boxer?” Dante asked

slowly. “Why…why would you do that?”

“I didn’t know who he was!” Arioch snapped defensively. “I mean, come on. A nowhere

bar in Boulder? That was… Besides he went down so easy, I wouldn’t have thought he had a

career in boxing…”

“Well he probably doesn’t anymore!” Wilbur cut in over her earpiece. “I’m hearing you

dislocated his jaw, then broke his jaw, fractured his skull, and cracked his…eyebone.”

“His what?”

“I don’t know, there’s a fancy technical term for it, but it’s your…I don’t know, the part

of your skull near your eye and cheek. It’s the uh…hang on…the…zy…go…matic? Sounds like

a bad scifi gadget…” Wilbur said uncertainly. “I don’t know. It’s like…your cheek under your

eye I think. Anyway, you broke that too.”

“So, I’m a good boxer. Is that what you’re so mad about? Because frankly I’m

considering going pro now.”

“You’re trying to lay low and you punch out the biggest boxing superstar in the world?”

Wilbur yelled. “Are you kidding me? They probably had no idea where you were right up until

the moment those videos went up.”

“But I punched him out like ten minutes before they showed up at Grael’s house…”

Arioch protested.
 “I know you think information still moves on carrier birds, but that’s not how it works

anymore. Arcana Corp has people everywhere, and once the video hit the net, they must have put

together where you were pretty quick.”

Arioch gritted her teeth. She hated when Wilbur prodded at her lack of technological

knowledge. “I do not think news travels on carrier birds,” she growled. “I just…wait. In ten,

maybe twenty minutes they found the video, figured out I was in Boulder, and knew to go to

Grael’s from there, then had a kill team at his house?”

“Apparently. They must have been watching Grael, and probably had people ready.”

“Huh.”

The scale of what they were attempting had not really occurred to Arioch until right then.

Sure, she knew Arcana Corp to be a powerful, globe-spanning corporation. But to see how

quickly and decisively they could act on such a tiny bit of information was, in a word,

frightening. Why had she taken a job against something so powerful? How had Miranda and

Grael deluded themselves into thinking the two of them and a Collector, now two by

happenstance, could beat them? Worse, she had no room to back out now. As the full weight of

what she had been maneuvered into doing, or perhaps what she had trapped herself in, settled on

her, another awful realization hit Arioch.

“Dante, drive faster,” she said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“I said go faster. We need to hurry.”

“Why?” Dante and Miranda asked together, the latter turning to face Arioch.
 “Arcana Corp found you just by knowing I was in Boulder, so it’s a safe bet they know

where we’re going. That means we need to get there before them, or we’ll have to deal with them

in the Dead Wilds, or they’ll set up at the Nexus. Either way, they’re going where we’re going.”

Miranda frowned. “They would need an elf to get through, or risk losing their entire

expedition. And one elf can only protect a handful of people. Arcana Corp almost exclusively

employs humans. I doubt they would have a full-blooded elf.”

Arioch rolled her eyes. “Setting aside the fact they’ve obviously worked with elves

before during your expedition, they hired an elven Collector. There are still a few of us around,

you realize. I know him, and he’ll be perfectly willing to lead them through the Dead Wilds for a

fee. So, we need to get there before they do.”

Realization dawned on Miranda’s face, and she turned sharply to Dante, nodding. Arioch

leaned back in her seat as she felt the tug of acceleration, chewing thoughtfully on her lip. She

should have listened to Jada.

“Wilbur, can you find a camping supply store or one of those outdoor stores somewhere

between here and the Dead Wilds? We aren’t exactly prepared for this trip, and we can’t go far

out of the way,” Arioch said, starting to make a mental inventory of the things they would need,

food being chief among them as there would be no hunting or foraging during the hike across the

Dead Wilds.

“There are a lot in the area for…well, for obvious reasons what with the expansion. I’ll

find you one just off the highway. Give me a minute,” he said.
 “We’re going to need to make a stop,” Arioch announced as she waited for Wilbur to get

back to her.

“You just said we need to hurry,” Dante argued.

“Yes. We do. But what do you think we’re going to eat while we hike for three or four

days across the Dead Wilds, hm? What are we going to drink?”

“You’re ancient. Can’t you like, hunt and forage and all?”

“In the Dead Wilds?”

“Oh,” Dante said sullenly, understanding the point she was making. “So, we need to get

food. Okay. I’ll stop at a gas station and we’ll get some-”

Arioch groaned. Sometimes she forgot how used to having a microwave and other

amenities people like Dante were, so much so he apparently couldn’t envision a situation without

things Arioch had spent most of her life unable to even imagine. In Dante’s case, he has probably

just over-acclimated to the modern world, as she knew him to be slightly over two hundred years

old, so he should have had some idea of what things would be like.

“No. Wilbur’s finding us an outdoor shop to stop at. We need food, hiking backpacks, a

tent, a stove since there won’t be much in the way of wood for a fire, sleeping bags, clothes for

Mya, and a few other things. You two will probably want clothes, too. It’s going to be cold up in

the Nexus.”

“Oh.” Dante didn’t look back this time, his head slightly bowed as though he felt foolish.

As far as Arioch was concerned, he should have. So, for that matter, should Miranda, for not

having all of these things prepared when she knew she was going to be making this trip. “Won’t
you need some clothes?” Dante asked, probably hoping to have thought of something Arioch

hadn’t.

“Cold won’t bother me,” she said offhandedly.

“Elves have extreme tolerances for heat and cold compared to most other races, with the

exception of dwarves,” Miranda added helpfully.

“Well, it must be nice,” Dante muttered.

“I get new clothes?” Mya piped up, looking from Dante to Arioch in undisguised

excitement.

“Yes. We’re going to get you some new clothes,” Arioch said. “Can’t have you

wandering around the Dead Wilds barefoot in a dress.”

Mya clapped her tiny hands together, grinning from ear to ear. If not for the seat between

them, Arioch had no doubt the girl would have leapt forward to hug her. As it was, she contented

herself with bouncing up and down in her seat, her light-as-air hair floating in a nebulous mass

around her head as she moved.

“Okay, got it,” Wilbur said, reminding Arioch the line was still open. “About forty miles

down the highway, you’ll hit an exit with an outdoor shop just off it. Pretty big one, from the

look of it. Probably milking the people wanting to take their last chance to camp in the safe areas

ahead of the Dead Wilds expansion for all they’re worth.”

“Good enough,” she said, and was about to inform Dante of what to look for before

Wilbur cut in.

 “Wait. You can’t pay for it yourself. They’ll be watching for your accounts. In fact,

they’re probably watching all of you…”

“Well we can’t exactly steal a literal truckload of camping shit from them. So, I’m open

to suggestions.”

Wilbur was quiet for a long moment, thinking. At length, he gave the sharp gasp he so

often did when finally reaching a conclusion he found satisfactory, and spoke up. “Okay, this

will be a little messy, but what I can do is bring their network down. They’ll have to manually

record payments and enter them all in once the network’s back up. I can probably keep it down a

day, maybe two, which should give you plenty of time to get to the Dead Wilds, so by the time

Arcana Corp sees you were there, you’ll already be in the Dead Wilds and beyond where any of

their teams could reach you.”

Arioch considered the plan for a moment, thoughtfully tapping her chin. It sounded good

enough, and didn’t require her to do anything with technology. Plus, the head start on Arcana

Corp would make it impossible to find them. Tracking them down in the Dead Wilds would be

an expensive, arduous proposition, and would involve finding another elf, or diverting Reldien,

thereby slowing down his progress to the Nexus, assuming that’s where he was headed.

“All right,” she said, nodding. “Sounds good. You’ll take it down now?”

“No. I’ll wait until you’re in the shop and about ready to check out. If it’s down long

enough they may close for business, so I’ll try to time it so you’re the first group it goes down

for.”
 “Fair enough,” Arioch agreed, then turned toward Dante. “There should be an exit in

about forty miles advertising a big outdoor shop. We’ll go there. Oh, and Miranda, you’re going

to have to foot the bill for this. Arcana Corp is watching for hits on my account.”

Miranda glanced back at her, frowning, but didn’t argue. Arioch managed to keep the

smirk off her face until the woman turned back around, only barely suppressing her snicker. It

was going to be an expensive trip, and Arioch had no interest in making this outing any more

painful for herself than it had already been. Forcing Miranda to pay would just help make it all a

little more tolerable. On that self-satisfied note, Arioch relaxed back in her seat and waited for

Dante to reach the store, checking and rechecking her mental shopping list.

Somewhere in figuring pack and tent sizes, food per person, and the like, Arioch must

have dozed off. Between all the alcohol and frenetic activity of the last two days, she’d tired

herself out more than she realized, and it wasn’t until Dante called back to her from the front seat

that she woke to find the car had stopped, and they were sitting in the parking lot of an enormous

building sporting a stylized logo of a stand of trees surrounding lettering spelling out the store’s

name, “Great Outdoors”. Not exactly creative as camping goods store names went, but Arioch

supposed it didn’t matter. Once Mya was out of the car, Arioch clambered over the seat in front

of her to get out as well.

Dante, Miranda, and Arioch were all stretching, rolling their shoulders and necks and

working out the tension. Seeing the grown-ups all doing the same thing, Mya joined in as well,

copying their movements, Arioch suspected, without really knowing what they were doing or

why. Sitting in such a large car couldn’t possibly have been so confining for someone of her

small size.
 “Let’s make this quick,” Arioch said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other to get

the blood flowing to her legs once more. “Don’t want to lose any more time than we have to.”

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” Wilbur chimed in through her headset.

“Shut up, Wilbur.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just let me know when you’re about to get to the register.”

“Right.” She turned to Dante and Miranda. “Okay, everyone grab a cart.”

Miranda frowned, perhaps beginning to realize Arioch was about to rack up a sizeable

charge to her account. Grael could compensate her. Or not. Arioch didn’t care either way.

Whatever the case, the look on Miranda’s face when they did get to the checkout counter would

be priceless.

“Let’s get this over with,” Miranda muttered as they turned toward the store.

Their unusual group drew no small amount of attention from the staff and handful of

other customers. An elf was a rare enough sight, but an elf, a demonkin, a human, and a child

most would assume to be some kind of halfie or frac together made for positively bizarre

companions. Each of them took a cart, and Arioch led the group through the store, gathering all

of the things they would need, from a tent and sleeping bags to backpacks and meals. Mya

insisted on being given a backpack as well, though Arioch knew the girl could hardly be

expected to carry much more than a few snacks for herself, as small as she was. Still, she didn’t

complain. It was, after all, Miranda’s money.

 When they finally had everything, their three carts laden with supplies Arioch was

admittedly dubious about their ability to carry, they headed toward the checkout counter. “Now,

Wilbur. We’re heading to the counter,” Arioch murmured into her earpiece.

“Okay…starting everything up, should be down by the time they have you rung up.”

The process of ringing up their voluminous purchases certainly bought him time to finish

whatever he was doing. The clerk at the register moved with painful slowness, and Arioch

stepped aside to let Miranda take the lead so she could pay for everything, coming to stand

beside Dante.

“Did you have to get top of the line everything?” Dante whispered to her as Miranda’s

frown deepened at the steadily rising total.

“I wouldn’t want us setting out with anything less than the best,” Arioch responded, only

just managing a straight face.

“Really?” Dante asked flatly.

“Your safety and comfort matter to me. Personally.”

“Uh-huh.” Dante’s lips twitched in amusement, but he didn’t comment further as the total

continued climbing well over a thousand gold. Miranda’s jaw had tightened, her shoulders

tensed, and Arioch half expected the woman to round on her in anger, but she kept her calm, for

the most part, even as she was given the total.

“Is it done?” she whispered into her earpiece.

“Should be down…right about…” Wilbur fell silent for a moment.

 “Wilbur?” Arioch prompted, her voice rising slightly in a combination of urgency and

impatience.

Miranda, who Arioch hadn’t informed of the plan, turned to look at her. “Something

wrong?”

Arioch realized she needed to play for time, as there was no doubt Arcana Corp was

watching Miranda’s accounts as well. So, she frowned, making a show of picking up a couple of

bags of jerky, squinting at the label. “Just wondering if we have enough food,” she said. “And

I’m not sure how long what we have will last once we get the seal broken, so…”

“Now,” Wilbur said.

Arioch shrugged and put the bags back on the shelf. “Eh, we’ll be fine. Never mind.”

Miranda breathed out a sigh of relief on seeing she wouldn’t be adding more to her total,

and nodded to the clerk, who held out the payment pad, which Miranda obligingly thumbed. A

moment later, the clerk frowned and tapped something on his register. Arioch smirked.

“Uh, need you to try again, looks like our system didn’t send it through,” the clerk said,

holding the pad back out to Miranda, who tapped it once more. When nothing happened again,

the clerk sighed and picked up the phone at his station, dialing a number without explanation.

After a short, whispered conversation into the phone, he turned to Miranda. “So, uh, our network

is like, down. We will need to do a paper payment. So, just give me a second, okay lady?”

Dante chuckled. “A paper payment? I haven’t had to do that in over a decade,” he

commented. “Remember life before thumbpads?”

 “Mhmm,” Arioch murmured, trying not to look too pleased with herself. “I also

remember carrying around gold coins in a pouch, and before gold, amethyst and rubies.”

“Huh?” Dante asked, turning toward her.

“Elven currency was gemstones,” Miranda explained as the clerk dug through his

register, finally finding a paper ledger and beginning to transcribe the numbers onto it.

“Amethysts, rubies, and hematite in descending order of value, cut into small, multifaceted discs.

No one knows how they did it. Modern methods for cutting gems can’t reproduce them, and

there aren’t many specimens left. The lasting stigma attached to them is why you won’t see

jewelry using rubies or amethyst today. Hematite, I think, is simply a matter of taste.”

“Aren’t you just an encyclopedia,” Arioch muttered.

“What’s a hematite?” Mya asked, tugging on Arioch’s coat sleeve.

“It’s a silvery black stone, very shiny,” Arioch said. “You wouldn’t find it in stores

today, really.”

“Ooooh,” Mya murmured. “Sounds pretty.”

“It was,” Arioch agreed with a nod.

Finally, the clerk handed Miranda the paper to sign. Once she had, Arioch pulled Mya’s

clothes from the cart and handed them to the girl. “Go get changed in the bathroom, then we’ll

get going.”

Mya nodded, taking the bundle of clothes and scurrying off to the bathroom. Arioch

followed, not wanting to let the girl get too far out of her sight, but waited outside the bathroom
door as Miranda and Dante wrangled the three carts between them, heading out the front doors.

Fortunately, Mya didn’t keep Arioch waiting long, and emerged from the bathroom in just a few

short minutes wearing pants and a thick shirt with a pair of comfortable hiking shoes she had

picked out after trying on what must have been a dozen pairs which were either too small, too

large, or “felt funny.”

“All set?” Arioch asked.

Mya nodded and reached out for Arioch’s hand. Used to this by now, Arioch offered

neither resistance nor comment, instead just taking Mya’s hand and heading to the car. Outside,

Dante and Miranda were loading up the trunk, and Arioch moved to assist them, Mya in tow.

Once everything was packed up, the four of them piled back into the car and set out on the road

once more, and Arioch settled in for the remainder of the long drive.
Chapter 10

Somehow, and Arioch couldn’t quite fathom how, she managed to sleep for a significant

portion of the remaining drive. Sure, there had been hours of interminably boring wakefulness

here and there, but Arioch had blessedly slept through the better part of the drive. She didn’t

even realize they were reaching what some called the “border zone” until the car bounced over a

particularly large pothole in the mostly abandoned highway. As the Dead Wilds swallowed up

more and more of the world, entire towns and their surrounding infrastructure were abandoned

wholesale. The so-called “border zone” was an area of constant retreat which ringed the ever-

expanding blight. Maintenance of roads and utilities ceased, and residents were rapidly

evacuated, paving the way for the looters and gangs who carved out a nomadic existence in the

empty space between the rule of law and the decay eating at the world.

“There’s a gas station up ahead,” Dante announced. “I’m going to pull in there, and we’ll

have to go on foot. The border zone is only a couple miles across, but I don’t want to leave the

car too far into it. At least here there’ll be some chance of getting it back.”

After so long in the back seat of a car, Arioch would have gladly walked an extra few

miles to be out right away, so she wasn’t about to complain. Once Dante pulled over, Arioch

almost couldn’t make herself wait for Mya to get out before climbing over the seat and

practically jumping from the car. In her waking moments during the drive, Arioch had

considered how to divide up the gear, quickly realizing she and Dante would have to do most of

the carrying. With this in mind, she quickly circled around the car and began dividing up the

food and camping supplies between the three large packs, and filling Mya’s smaller pack with
snacks, the girl’s coat, and the dress she’d discarded in favor of her new clothes, not trusting the

diminutive girl to be able to carry much more.

“Here,” she said, holding the pack out to Mya. “Not too heavy?”

Mya took the bag and slung it over her shoulders, bouncing on her feet a few times before

shaking her head. “Nope!” she reported with a smile.

“Good. Here, Miranda.” She tossed the next pack to Miranda, who staggered as she

caught it, overbalanced by the weight. Arioch may have thrown it a bit hard. “And yours,

Dante.” She sailed Dante’s pack to him, but after seeing Miranda, he was prepared and had

braced for it. They both shrugged into the straps and adjusted them before nodding at Arioch as

she pulled her own pack, the heaviest of the three, on. “All right, let’s get through here as quickly

as we-”

Arioch’s words died on her lips as the sounds of several engines reached her ears.

Turning toward the sound, Arioch was just able to make out the rising dust plumes rising behind

four growing black specks on the horizon. She had to squint against the light to get a look, but

Arioch guessed from the size and sound they were motorcycles, which were the vehicle of choice

for any number of gangs.

“Back in the car, now!”

The others had heard the sound as well, but none had Arioch’s vision, and couldn’t see

the outlines against the setting sun. None of them questioned her, though. Arioch pushed Mya up

into the trunk and jumped in behind her, pulling the hatch closed. “Up you go,” Arioch said,
helping Mya climb over the back seat to get in the rear row while Arioch turned, remaining in

the cargo space to look out the back window.

“I hope your insurance is good, Dante. You’re going to have to drive us far enough into

the Dead Wilds so they won’t follow, or-”

Arioch didn’t hear the gunshot, which must have been suppressed, as the sound would

have carried over such open terrain, but she did hear the back windshield crack as a hole

appeared a scant foot to her left, leaving a spiderweb of cracked glass around the hole about the

width of a finger.

“Get down!” she shouted as Dante started the car. “Anyone hit?”

A chorus of “no” reassured Arioch as the engine growled to life, and Dante floored the

accelerator. Arioch braced against the back of Mya’s seat, watching their pursuers’ rapid

approach. By now, she could quite clearly make out the motorcycles racing toward them, each of

which had a passenger standing on some kind of makeshift rig behind the driver and holding a

rifle. This didn’t tell Arioch where the suppressed shot had come from, as clearly none of the

riders bore such equipment. Their rifles were a ramshackle combination of old and recent

equipment, mostly painted over in splashes of color or designs of skulls and rude messages. The

sort of things Arioch expected from border zone psychos.

“They’re gaining on us,” Arioch called. “Step on it, Dante!”

“I am,” he snapped back, the car bouncing along the poorly maintained road, clearly not

as prepared for rough terrain as the manufacturer might have liked to claim.
 “They’re going to catch us,” Arioch said, shifting position to crouch near the rear

window. “Mya, get down under the seat. Get as low as you can.”

Mya scrambled out of Arioch’s sight after squeaking something Arioch failed to make

out. Dante’s car was simply too slow, and the gangers knew the terrain well enough to be sure it

wasn’t the hindrance to them that it was to Dante. Arioch drew her handguns, silently wishing

she hadn’t told Dante a hunting rifle would be useless in the Dead Wilds. Another suppressed

shot tore through the back window, cracks radiating outward from the break it left in the glass.

Arioch’s left arm exploded in pain, and her gun fell from momentarily nerveless fingers as the

shock of impact reverberated through her body.

The armored bodyglove she wore beneath her clothing stopped the bullet, but the sheer

concussive force was painfully jarring. She hissed, swearing viciously as she snatched up her

gun, an agonizing throb building in her arm helping to reawaken the pain in her side. With both

weapons back in hand, Arioch ducked as low as she could, turning her attention back to their

pursuers.

“Dante you’ve gotta start swerving or something. Someone is taking some seriously long

distance shots at us,” Arioch yelled over her shoulder.

“Can you get rid of the guys on motorcycles?”

Arioch was a good marksman. But to expect her to hit a target moving so quickly from a

firing position most generously described as unstable with a pistol was asking a lot.

“With a handgun? Dunno.” And she was being optimistic.

 The motorcycles continued closing on them, the gun-wielding passengers raising their

weapons over their heads, mouths open in shouts Arioch could not yet hear. Her hands tightened

on her guns, but she didn’t open fire. They were too far away, but wouldn’t be for long. Once

they got close enough, well, Arioch didn’t like their chances. Dante either wasn’t driving

anywhere near as fast as he should, or the motorcycles were much faster than Arioch would have

thought. Either way, they had seconds before the riders were on them.

“Oh shit! Hold on!” Dante shouted.

He wasn’t even finished speaking when he swerved so violently to the right that Arioch

fell flat on her stomach. The turn sent her sprawling sideways when she hit the floor, and Arioch

felt the car tilt onto two wheels, near to tipping over. Shouting curses, Arioch righted herself,

looking up through the rear window to see what had caused Dante to so radically change course.

Another five motorcycles were bearing down on them from the opposite direction, not

much farther away than the first group.

“Son of a bitch. Dante, floor it!”

“No, Arioch, I thought I’d take a leisurely damn drive on the open country-” a bullet tore

through the rear passenger window, exiting the vehicle with another crack of glass on the

opposite window, “-side.”

“Well when you’re done sightseeing, can we fucking go?”

“Do you want to get up here and drive?” Dante snapped back, the car bouncing over even

rougher terrain now, however impossible such a thing seemed.

 Arioch watched the ten motorcycles start to fan out around them, forming a semicircle

behind them and sweeping forward, threatening to overtake and surround them. “Yes,” she called

to Dante.

“If you think you can do better, then by all means!”

The car jerked left as Dante swerved to avoid…something. Arioch managed to keep her

position, but only just. The motorcycles, engines roaring, finally edged close enough to give their

riders a clear shot at the car and its occupants.

“Look out!” Arioch shouted. A hail of gunfire tore into the body of the car, filling the

interior with the staccato rattle of bullets hitting metal. Arioch ducked lower, several rounds

shattering the back windshield and burying in the seat behind her. “Mya, stay down! Dante, get

us out of here!”

“Stop backseat driving and shoot something!” Dante yelled.

“How about you shoot, I drive?”

“Can we focus?!” Miranda bawled over the roar of engines and automatic weapons fire.

Much as she would have loved to shoot something at the moment, the riders were smart

enough to stay out of her range, which was considerably shorter than their rifles’. Still, Arioch

couldn’t just sit in the back and watch. With the rear window almost completely destroyed

anyway, Arioch had to do little more than give it a firm push to send the shattered remnants

spinning out onto the dirt behind them.

“Did you just break my car?!” Dante demanded.

 “Seriously?!” Arioch shouted as more bullets peppered the car’s body. She popped her

head over the window, weapons raised, and did her best to take aim. Her shots were wasted,

though. The car was bucking so wildly on the rough terrain, and the riders were so far away she

didn’t even manage to hit their motorcycles, let alone the riders.

“Nice shooting, ace,” Dante growled, and the car lurched sideways again, slamming

Arioch’s injured side into the wheel well. She gasped in pain, nearly dropping her weapons.

Arioch ignored him, did her best to steady herself and fired again, to no effect. She could

see, but not hear, the riders laughing, heads tossed back as a few more rounds impacted the car.

Something was wrong. They could have shot out the tires and run them down already. They

certainly had the speed advantage. Why weren’t they using it? Maybe the gangers wanted them

alive? The possibilities accompanying the thought did not appeal to Arioch, and she shoved them

aside. Even if they did, shooting out the tires would have been the best way to take them. Unless

they were leading them somewhere.

“This is wrong,” Arioch called. “Something’s wrong!”

“They should have killed us by now,” Miranda agreed.

“I’m not complaining,” Dante countered.

Arioch wasn’t as prepared to accept this as a blessing, but didn’t have the time or

patience to argue. She returned her attention to their pursuers in time to see one of the

motorcycles breaking off from the group and heading straight for them, rapidly closing in. The

passenger’s weapon wasn’t aimed at them, though. Instead, he was grinning, resting the barrel of

his weapon against the driver’s shoulder. The pair pulled up beside the nearly destroyed rear side
window, and the passenger leaned over, bashing it in with the butt of his rifle before resting the

barrel back over the driver’s shoulder.

Arioch turned to face him, leaning down to keep as little of herself exposed as possible.

Rider and passenger were human, clad in a patchwork mess of leather and what looked like

roughspun cloth. It was hard to tell through all the dirt and grime caked on their outfits, if they

could even be called that. Both were shaved bald and covered in tattoos inked in cheap black,

probably done with whatever they could scrounge in the border zone. The passenger leered at

her, showing a decaying row of black teeth.

“Pull over, we’ll just talk,” he called over to her, wagging his tongue back and forth at

her after he spoke, lips pulled back in a skeletal grin.

“Oh, fuck no,” Arioch hissed feelingly, cringing away from the sight of him and shoving

one of her guns through the window into his face. She pulled the trigger without hesitation, then

jerked her hand downward, firing at the driver.

“What the hell’s going on?!” Dante shouted

“Just drive fas-”

Arioch was interrupted as another barrage of fire impacted the car, this one lasting longer,

likely in response to Arioch’s killing of the two gangers who had come to deliver their demands.

At the same time, the terrain grew suddenly rougher, and Arioch was nearly bounced out the rear

window as the car pitched and jerked wildly. “Mya hold onto something!” Arioch yelled as she

pressed herself against the floor, bracing her feet against the back seat and her hands against the

latch to the trunk.

 “Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” Dante cried.

“What now?!”

“Just drive!” Miranda shouted.

“Those are trees!”

“They’re dead! It’s the Dead Wilds! They’re rotten, we’ll break through them!” Miranda

insisted. “Drive!”

Arioch didn’t quite see what happened, but out of the corner of her eye she could just

make out a scuffle in the front. Was Miranda trying to force Dante to drive into a tree? “Mya,

hold on as tight as you can!” Arioch yelled, pushing herself over the back seat and grabbing onto

the seatbelt. Doubting she had time to buckle it, she simply wrapped it around one hand as she

pushed herself down between the two rows of seats, hopefully on top of Mya to pin the girl in

place.

She didn’t have time to check whether she had managed to do so, though. The car heaved

violently, splinters of rotted wood flying through the broken windows, raining down on Arioch’s

back and head. A tremendous crunching, grating sound filled Arioch’s ears, and the car spun,

skidding ahead at an angle as Dante lost control. Thundering bangs sounded against the side of

the car, the body denting inward as Arioch realized the car was barreling through rotten trees,

dehydrated and made brittle by the decay in the Dead Wilds. They weren’t sturdy enough to stop

the car, but they were giving it one hell of a beating as it passed.

Finally, they ground to a halt, resting at an angle against a row of long-dead trees. Arioch

lifted her head enough to see several of them had broken where the car was pressed against them,
the tops having fallen onto the roof. Fragments of rotted wood clung to her clothes and hair, and

she shook herself in an effort to dislodge them. A squirming against her stomach, and a faint

whimper told her she had managed to pin Mya down, but was now probably smothering the girl.

She pushed herself up, her wounded side and arm screaming in protest, and leaned back against

the seat, sitting amid the mess of broken glass and wood.

Mya scrambled out from beneath the seat, looking, wide-eyed up at Arioch. Somehow the

Ancient child was unhurt, her blue eyes shining brightly, no longer covered by her sunglasses,

which Arioch assumed she’d lost in the chaos. “You all right?” Arioch asked her, and she

nodded mutely. “You two alive up there?”

“Oww…my everything,” Dante groaned in response, shifting in his seat with a faint

crunch of glass and a puff of fine dust from the deflated airbag.

“I’m all right, I think,” Miranda muttered, shoving the remnants of the airbag away from

her lap.

“No more driving for Dante,” Arioch grumbled, turning to look out the rear window.

She could still hear the roar of the motorcycle engines, but they were no longer

approaching. Instead, they seemed to be driving back and forth along the border of the Dead

Wilds, likely not wanting to risk subjecting their bikes to the effects of the blight. The gangers

hurled catcalls and curses at them, along with the occasional pop of weapons fire, but Arioch

couldn’t see them clearly and doubted they could hit anything.
 Then she heard a spitting hiss, and saw a red streak arc into the sky. A faint crackling

sound filled the air, and Arioch blinked, shielding her eyes against the sudden, brilliant light

burning in the darkening sky.

“What the hell is that?” Dante asked.

“A flare,” Arioch said, frowning in confusion. “It’s a flare.”

“Why would they shoot a flare at us?”

“They didn’t. They shot it up into the air.”

“Same question.”

Arioch had no answer.

“I think the real question is: who are they signaling?” Miranda pointed out.

“It’s the border zone and the Dead Wilds,” Dante said. “Who is there to signal?”

“He’s right. None of the gangs would come after us in here. No transportation and most

of their stuff wouldn’t work. Getting a carload of junk out of the Dead Wilds would be more

trouble than it was worth,” Arioch agreed.

“Could be the feral elves,” Miranda mused.

Both Dante and Arioch laughed. At best, the tales of ghostly pale, unliving elves

wandering the Dead Wilds and snatching anyone who came too close were campfire stories. In

the mouth of an academic, it was probably more akin to hysteria.

 “Really? Feral elves? Maybe they’re out there riding snipes? Bring us back to meet all

the other boogeymen your parents warned you about when you were five?” Arioch needled,

looking to Dante as the pair continued to laugh.

“I’m serious.”

“There are no feral elves. There’s nothing in the Dead Wilds to live on, and I promise

there was never an undead variety of elf.”

“Oh, elf zombies. That’s good,” Dante chuckled, pushing his door open and getting out.

“We needed that.”

“We did,” Arioch agreed, kicking open the damaged door and waving Mya out. The girl

crawled over Arioch and out the door, looking around at the broken trees and trail of splintered

wood the car had left in its passing. While Mya looked around, Arioch grabbed the girl’s pack, as

well as her own, and pulled them out of the car along with herself, slinging her pack back onto

her shoulders before handing Mya hers. “Well, here we are.”

Dante and Miranda were pulling their backpacks on as well, and had come around to

stand with Arioch and Mya, taking in the sight of the Dead Wilds in all its glory. Glory may not

have been the right word, of course. The stand of trees they had crashed into was surprisingly

dense, and somehow Arioch hadn’t expected them to be there. True, she hadn’t seen the Dead

Wilds in person for almost three thousand years, but she had expected more of a swampy soup of

dead matter. That had been her last memory of the place. Ever the curious type, Dante had

walked up to the nearest still-standing tree and was picking at its bark, looking bemused.

“This doesn’t feel like wood,” he said. “It’s all soft and…flaky?”
 Miranda walked up beside him, picking a bit of wood from the tree herself and rubbing it

between her fingertips. This of course prompted Mya to do the same, adopting a pensive

expression mirroring Miranda’s. Arioch couldn’t help but laugh.

“Dehydrated, but yes, it seems off somehow,” Miranda said thoughtfully. “There haven’t

really been many samples taken from dead matter in here, so I don’t know if this is typical or

unusual.”

“Not really important right now, is it?” Arioch asked.

“Yeah, we should probably be moving on,” Dante agreed. “Wouldn’t want the feral elves

to get us.”

Another bout of snickering from Dante and Arioch drew a frown from Miranda, and the

two Collectors glanced skyward at the flare slowly dropping to the horizon, its light beginning to

gutter out and return them to the growing darkness of the approaching night.

“We should see if we can get a couple miles in and find somewhere to camp for the night.

Then we have a long few days ahead of us,” Arioch said.

“Guess that makes sense,” Dante muttered. “Hope we can make this trip as fast as

possible. This place just feels…wrong.”

Arioch couldn’t disagree. She hadn’t noticed it at first, what with the adrenaline from the

chase and the sudden, violent entry, but now, standing still, looking around, something about this

place felt, as Dante put it, wrong. The first thing she noticed was the total lack of scent. She had

expected decay, rot, putrefaction. But there was nothing. Even the smell of the people near her,

which should have been quite clear this close, was somehow muted. Then there were the sounds,
or to be more precise, the lack of sound. Arioch wasn’t sure if they were all whispering, or if

somehow the air around them was stifling their voices.

“I think that would be a good idea…” Miranda said slowly, her eyes on Mya.

Arioch turned to look at the girl, who was shifting her weight from one foot to the other,

looking around nervously. The blue glow in her eyes had dimmed, and she was chewing on her

bottom lip. When she realized everyone was looking at her, she ran over to Arioch and buried

her face in the elf’s coat.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Arioch asked.

Mya simply shook her head, clinging to Arioch’s coat, not even interjecting her name as

she had every other time she’d been called kid.

“Okay, let’s go,” Arioch said, not at all encouraged by Mya’s behavior. “And stay close

to me. Don’t need you two rotting before we get where we’re going.”

Dante swallowed, evidently having forgotten that particular risk, and hurried over to

Arioch’s side. Miranda pressed in opposite him so the two were almost pushing against her, and

Arioch sighed, starting to pick her way through the dense tangle of dead trees. All the while,

Mya held onto Arioch’s coat, walking so close to her that every so often she’d feel one of Mya’s

shoes scuffing her boots. They walked this way for what felt like an hour, no one speaking,

hardly a sound made among the group. No one seemed to have any desire to talk, the stifling

oppression of the Dead Wilds weighing on them more than Arioch would have thought. If it was

this bad for her, she suspected it was far worse for the others.
 Finally, it was simply too dark for Miranda to continue picking through the forest, and

Arioch came to a stop. To her credit, Miranda hadn’t complained, but Arioch had noticed her

tripping over fallen branches and bumps in the ground with ever increasing frequency, and

figured there was no point going on and risking Miranda breaking her leg and stopping the trip

entirely. “Let’s set up a camp,” she said, looking around the ruined, decayed woods. There was

just enough room to pitch their tent. Normally, Arioch would have set about clearing the

underbrush, but there was none to be cleared. Whatever had once grown here had long since died

and decayed into a light, odorless mulch over a layer of dry dirt.

“No arguments here,” Dante said, shrugging out of his pack and untying the tent bag

from where Arioch had secured it on his backpack. When Arioch went over to assist him, he

waved her off, shaking his head. “I got it.”

Dante pulled off his sunglasses, his burning orange eyes glowing brightly in the darkness.

He set about pitching the tent, Arioch turning her attention to the area around them, debating

whether or not it was worth trying to build a fire with the rotted wood. Miranda had set her pack

down on the ground and was sitting atop it, talking quietly to Mya, whose pale face was still

pinched in worry, illuminated by the blue glow of her eyes. They were not more than three feet

from Arioch, which was as far as either of them had wandered since entering the Dead Wilds.

It didn’t take Dante long to get the tent up, and Arioch poked her head inside, tossing

each sleeping bag in and looking around. There was just enough space for the four of them, but

Arioch suspected the others would probably huddle annoyingly close to her anyway. This was

going to be a long, long trip.

 “Okay, well, it’s not cold enough to rate a fire, and I for one am not hungry. So, I vote we

just go to sleep so we can get started as soon as the sun comes up tomorrow,” Arioch said.

“Works for me,” Dante said, crouching by the tent’s entrance and starting to remove his

shoes.

“All right,” Miranda agreed after a moment. “I’m going to go use the facilities first.”

Dante and Arioch looked at each other and exchanged a smirk. Arioch reached down to

her pack, pulled out the collapsible shovel she’d bought, and tossed it to Miranda, who barely

managed to catch it, looking bewildered. “Make sure to clean up after yourself,” Arioch said,

managing to suppress her snicker, though only just.

“Wha…oh,” Miranda said, realizing after a moment what Arioch meant and frowning.

“You have to come with me.”

“I absolutely do not,” Arioch retorted. “You’re much too old to have mommy take you to

the bathroom. Just don’t wander far.”

Arioch pulled her boots off as well, and set them beside the tent entrance. Normally she

wouldn’t, but it wasn’t as if there were animals, bugs, or thieves to worry about here. Mya,

seeing the grown-ups removing their shoes, plopped down to do the same. Miranda’s fading

footsteps fell quiet, and Arioch crawled into the tent, removing her coat and laying it along one

end of the tent as she unrolled her sleeping bag.

“This will be cozy,” Dante commented.

“Touch me and die,” Arioch warned.

 “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Mya crawled in and began unrolling her bag as well, pushing it up to the side of Arioch’s

as the elf slipped in. Dante laid his bag on the opposite side of Mya’s, and crawled in, zipping his

sleeping bag up once he was inside. None of them said anything as Mya crawled into her bag and

rolled sideways until she was practically tucked under Arioch’s side. Something about this place

seemed to make them all reluctant to speak.

A few moments later, Miranda appeared in the tent’s entrance and looked straight at

Arioch, who was halfway surprised the human could see her in the darkness. “Something’s out

there,” she said. There was a note of urgency in her voice that bordered on fear.

“There’s nothing out there. Not for nothing it’s called the Dead Wilds. Get in here and go

to sleep. Probably just the decay playing tricks on you while you were out on your own,” Arioch

muttered, pulling the hood on her bag up over her face.

“I’m serious. I heard something moving around out there.”

“Wind. It makes all kinds of noises.”

“Have you felt so much as a slight gust since we got here?” Miranda hissed.

Arioch hadn’t, but wasn’t about to admit it now.

“Just get in here and go to sleep. There’s nothing out there.”

Dante grunted a sleepy affirmation, and Mya pressed a little more firmly against Arioch’s

side, the girl wrapped so tightly in her sleeping bag that only a few wisps of silvery hair poked

out around the drawstrings. Miranda glared at Arioch for a long moment, then jerked her boots
off and climbed into the tent, zipping the flap up before crawling into her sleeping bag and laying

down on Arioch’s vacant side, almost pressing against her. Arioch was really going to hate these

next few nights.

Chapter 11

Blue eyes gleamed in the darkness of the tent, and for a moment, Arioch thought Mya

was staring at her. But the color was off, too dark. Arioch’s blood ran cold as those blue orbs

hovered closer to her, set too far apart to be eyes in a normal human or elven face. Even Arioch

couldn’t see through the darkness pressing in around her, but those glowing blue eyes cast just

enough light around them to let her make out the sharp curves of a smooth, pale face. Dark, full

lips pulled back in a smile, hovering all the closer to her, and as Arioch recoiled in something

between fear and disbelief, those lips parted with a soft, hissing intake of breath as if to speak.

Arioch woke with a start, and to the realization that sleeping on the hard ground hadn’t

done her injured ribs any favors. She groaned, stopping herself from clutching at her side only

because she knew doing so would simply make matters worse, even as she found her breath

coming in quick, shallow gasps, sending tiny spikes of pain up and down her sides. Dim, gray

light filtered through the walls of the tent, and Dante stirred opposite Mya, who was still asleep

and tucked against, almost under Arioch. She wasn’t alone, and the nightmare face was gone.

Mya burrowing against her side probably helped explain why it hurt so much, and Arioch

tried to subtly edge away from the girl without waking her. The sun was only just starting to

brighten the tent’s interior, so they could afford to let Mya and Miranda sleep just a little more.

Seeing Arioch’s eyes were open, Dante sat up, stretching.

“Gonna go use the little boys’ room,” Dante muttered, running his hands through his hair.

“Also, we should have bought pads to sleep on.”

The demonkin shimmied out of his sleeping bag and crawled forward toward the tent’s

entrance flap. He paused, turning toward Arioch, who was still lying flat on her back.
 “Coffee’s in your bag or mine?” he asked.

“Yours. So’s the stove.”

Dante gave her a thumbs up and unzipped the tent. “Okay then I’m going to get a pot

going fo-” Dante trailed off. “Oh…my…shit… Arioch!”

His shift from a sleepy near-whisper to keenly wakeful near-panic grabbed Arioch’s

attention, and she was sitting up, unzipping her sleeping bag right away. Having stripped down

to just her bodyglove once inside her sleeping bag, Arioch hurriedly pulled on her pants as she

got up. When she remembered where they were, though, her alarm gave way to irritation, and as

she jerked the tent’s flap aside, she was frowning.

“What do yo-”

It was Arioch’s turn to let her words die on her lips.

“Oh my shit.”

Arioch had to blink several times to be sure of what she was seeing. A dozen, maybe

more, sets of red eyes were staring back at her, all set in drawn, pale faces. Dante stood, barefoot

and slack jawed beside her, and Arioch was no better off. They were elves. At least, that was

Arioch’s first impression. Dressed in a patchwork of roughspun cloth and brown leathers, the

elves, if indeed they were elves, were almost as tall as Arioch, but gaunt to the point of looking

unhealthy in several cases. Their skin was so pale as to almost be translucent, dark veins standing

out around their eyes and the corners of their mouths. Every one of them held a spear pointed at

Dante.
 If Arioch was surprised to see them, they seemed even more so to see her. Several of the

spear tips pointed at Dante dipped slightly, the hands holding them going slack as the elves

stared at Arioch, then at each other, whispering back and forth in obvious consternation. They

were so quiet Arioch could only pick out the occasional word repeated in conversation, noting

they were conversing in an archaic form of elvish which hadn’t been spoken since before the fall

of the empire.

Finally, one elf, the healthiest-looking, most robust of the bunch—not that this said a

great deal—stepped forward, pointing his spear directly at Arioch as he spoke.

“How have you come to be here, Lady? And why do you bring lesser races with you?” he

asked in typically florid old elvish, his tone somewhere between respectful in recognition of her

caste, and demanding.

Arioch turned her attention to him, looking over the state of his cobbled-together

clothing, but noting the shining metal of his spear’s long blade. Where would they even get

leather in the Dead Wilds? A quick look put the elf around two thousand years old. Had he been

here the whole time?

“What’s he saying?” Dante whispered.

“Shut up,” Arioch hissed out of the corner of her mouth, keeping her focus on the elf in

front of her. She switched to old elvish, not sure if they spoke anything else. “My name is Arioch

Starshadow,” she said slowly, not sure how much it was wise to divulge.
 More murmured conversation amongst the elves as Arioch gave her name, and for a

moment, her jaw tightened. But nothing came of it and she relaxed almost imperceptibly, letting

out a slow breath.

“Why have you come here, Lady Arioch Starshadow?”

Arioch hadn’t been addressed by a title in a long time. It was a strange feeling. They

expected her to be one of the imperious, superior Eldar Nyxis. She hadn’t played the part of

royalty in quite a while. It had never really been who she was, but she supposed she could

manage.

“I am on a personal errand, and the human and demonkin are attending me,” she said,

straightening to her full height to look down at the elf, never mind that she was standing in front

of them in her underwear and half-donned pants.

“What of the other?” The question wasn’t quite so deferential as Arioch would have

expected during the time of the empire, and she realized she wasn’t quite sure her status in the

elven empire would be helpful.

“She is my ward,” Arioch answered. Not exactly true, but if they were going to afford her

the courtesy her cast could generally expect, it would be enough to keep Mya alive, even if they

killed Dante and Miranda.

The leader of the group, at least Arioch assumed he was, seemed to be thinking this over.

His jaw worked slowly, and his gaze abstracted as his fingers tapped against the smooth wood of

his spear. Again, Arioch had to wonder where they would have found such material in the Dead

Wilds.
 Seeing the elf’s uncertainty, Arioch decided to go for broke and push her caste’s

authority as far as she could.

“You’ve not told me your name, young one,” Arioch said, her eyes narrowed slightly,

making sure to highlight their difference in age as well. “Who are you and why are you pointing

your weapons at my attendant?”

If nothing else, this at least shocked the elf from his thoughts, and he looked sharply up at

her. “I am Moridan, and you have intruded in our lands. But you are the first of your kind to do

so, Lady Arioch Starshadow. I…” he trailed off uncertainly, and the others in his group began

murmuring again, sensing his indecision. “You will be brought before the elder. She will

determine what to do with you.”

“What’s happening?” Dante whispered anxiously.

Right about then, Miranda poked her head out of the tent and gasped, falling backward

with a soft thud and a squealed “ow!” from Mya. The human quickly shoved her glasses onto her

face, staring, mouth agape at the elves surrounding them.

“What is this?” she breathed.

“Shut up. Both of you!” Arioch hissed under her breath.

Dante frowned, but subsided into silence, and Miranda seemed caught between glowering

at Arioch and gaping at the elves surrounding them. Moridan arched a thin brow at the outburst,

his red eyes sweeping over Miranda and Dante before his attention returned to Arioch. Whether

he understood what Arioch had said to them was unclear, but her tone had been difficult to

mistake either way.

 “You will all come with us,” he said, and Arioch determined that if he spoke Common,

he would have done so when he addressed them as a group.

Arioch looked over her shoulder at the tent, making a show of treating his command as a

request she was considering. If she let him bark orders at her and complied readily, she would be

giving up any shot at playing to her age and caste for advantage. So, after a moment, she nodded

as if in agreement. “All right, we will accompany you, after we’ve dressed and packed up our

camp. I will leave nothing behind.”

Moridan frowned, and seemed about to argue, but Arioch had already turned her back to

him and was stepping into the tent. Not sure Moridan would wait for them to take down the tent

and pack it and their sleeping gear up, Arioch at least wanted to get her clothes on. Of course,

since she fully intended to continue on after dealing with this elder, she wanted as much of their

equipment as she could get.

“Get dressed and pack your shit up,” Arioch growled to Miranda. “And do it quickly.

They’re not going to be patient about this.” She turned to Mya, who was sitting up in her

sleeping bag, just her pale face poking out. She’d pulled the drawstring tight before going to

sleep, apparently. “Mya, I need you to get up and get dressed. Roll your sleeping bag up like I

showed you in the store, and get it in your pack. Make sure you put your sunglasses on before

you leave the tent, okay?”

Mya stared at her for a moment, those blue eyes shining from the depths of her sleeping

bag, a little brighter than they had the day before. Maybe because she was afraid? Arioch could

certainly see the worry pinching her face, smell the faint tang of fear surrounding her. Usually
she enjoyed that scent. Not this time. Not hers. Still, she nodded, and her face pulled back from

the hole in her bag to be replaced by little hands tugging at the drawstring until she freed herself.

Satisfied Mya would do what she needed to, Arioch reached back out through the tent

flap and grabbed Dante’s tail, tugging him backward, into the tent. He yelped in pain and

stumbled backward, catching himself before falling into the tent. Dante turned around, flicking

his tail in irritation.

“What?!”

“Get your stuff together and ready. We need to pack all this up real fast, before they lose

patience,” Arioch hissed.

“What is going on? Who are they?” Dante asked.

“I don’t know, and I have no idea,” Arioch said flatly. “Less talking, more packing. I

don’t want to leave our stuff behind.”

As she spoke, Arioch busied herself putting her clothes back on, making sure to secure

her belts with her weapons and gear before stuffing her sleeping bag into its pouch and strapping

it to her pack. That done, she tossed her pack out of the tent, not caring much if it hit an

inattentive elf. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. Arioch’s urgency seemed to be sufficiently contagious,

and it wasn’t long before everyone had their things out of the tent and Dante was taking it down.

He was quick enough to make sure their elven company showed only minimal impatience as

everyone hefted their packs.

“How far is your elder?” Arioch asked Moridan before any of his company could

complain about the time they’d taken to get ready.

 “Half a day’s walk west of here,” Moridan replied, pointing deeper into the forest.

At least it wasn’t exactly out of their way. Of course, any trip deeper into the Dead Wilds

took them in the mountain’s general direction. Arioch shrugged and glanced back at her

companions, who were tightening the straps on their backpacks, and taking care to stay close to

her. Mya was, once again, practically standing on Arioch’s feet.

“All right, then. Lead on,” she said, gesturing for Moridan to go ahead.

The frightfully pale elf waved two of his party on ahead of them, and the pair disappeared

silently into the forest. It must have been the Dead Wilds’ peculiar effect on the senses that made

such a feat possible, as Arioch was quite sure no one could move so quickly without her hearing

them. Once the two elves disappeared, the remainder of Moridan’s party took up positions ahead

of and behind them, keeping Arioch’s party in the middle of their group as they set off at a brisk

pace, leaving Arioch wondering if Dante, Miranda, and Mya would be able to keep up.

To their credit, the trio puffed along beside her without complaint, remaining as close as

they could to Arioch, even though this was probably no longer necessary since they were

surrounded on all sides by elves. Of course, this did nothing to improve their spirits, and they

walked in silence for some time before Dante spoke up.

“So what’s happening? Where are they taking us?” he asked.

Arioch, who was relatively sure Moridan and his people didn’t speak Common,

nevertheless answered as quietly as she could. “He’s taking us to see his elder,” she explained.

“Apparently it’s about half a day’s walk from here.”

“Is that good for us or bad for us?” Dante asked.

 “I don’t know. Elders were a holdover from the tribal days. No one looked to them for

decisions during the days of the empire. Mostly they were just known to be sages at best, and

isolated loons at worst. Sounds like these people have revived the tradition since the royalty’s

dead.”

“I don’t suppose you can play on the rights and privileges of your caste?” Miranda

whispered.

“I’m trying to, but I don’t know how much it means to them. I’ve never seen elves like

these before.”

“The feral elves.” Miranda’s tone said what she didn’t: I told you so.

“That’s great, and you can write a paper about it if we survive, but how are we going to

get out of this?” Dante asked urgently.

“Going to have to play it by ear. If the elder is young enough, I might be able to bully her

into freeing us. If she’s closer to my age, it’ll be harder, but there may be other options. Even

setting aside caste privileges, there are tribal traditions I can maybe use. Ways of resolving

disputes and contesting judgments.”

“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘trial by combat’ I might shoot you,” Dante

hissed. “You’re not exactly in fighting shape what with the broken ribs.”

“What, you want to fight an elven champion if it comes to cases? Because even on your

best day, that wouldn’t work out for you. Besides, that’s only one option.”

Dante looked about to argue when instead Miranda spoke up.

 “How are they living out here? Their clothes look almost new, and the wood on those

spears can’t have come from rotted trees. The leather and cloth they’re wearing aren’t made with

modern methods, but they shouldn’t be able to get either here. And what are they eating?”

They were good questions, really. Unfortunately, Arioch hadn’t the vaguest notion as to

their answers, and suspected Moridan would be less than forthcoming if asked. Either way, they

would likely find out when they arrived at the elder’s home. If they had returned to the tribal

tradition of relying on elders as leaders, then it was likely their entire settlement surrounded the

elder’s dwelling, and Miranda’s questions would be answered there.

“I have no idea,” Arioch admitted after a moment. “But I’m betting we’re going to find

out.”

Every so often, one of the elves glared at them during their hushed conversation, but

Arioch met each elf’s eyes and stared back until they looked away. They were clearly unused to

seeing a member of her caste, probably having only heard of them by description, especially

since, from what she could tell, Moridan was the oldest among the group. What’s more, these

elves were pale and drawn. While tall, their builds could generously be described as wiry, and

where skin showed through their simple garments, it was stretched tight over muscle and bone,

giving them an overall gaunt appearance. Arioch, on the other hand, was robust and healthy, her

dark purple skin full and smooth. Her hands and cheeks were not nearly so bony as their escort’s,

and her red eyes glowed faintly with the inborn magic and vitality of her kind. She did all she

could to project an aura of health and potency, hoping it would keep the other elves awed, or at

the very least slightly afraid of her, making sure to walk straighter, with all the fluid grace she

could pour into her movements.

 Silence reigned over the group for a while, Miranda and Dante having to work harder to

keep up with the elves’ longer strides. While Dante was holding up well enough, being in good

shape, Miranda was clearly not used to the exertion, and her breath was growing ragged. Mya

was the worst off, having to move at a near jog to keep up, and was showing signs of tiring.

Fortunately, the girl was so light Arioch could probably carry her if she had to.

“If they’re living as a tribe,” Miranda panted, finally breaking the silence. “Can’t you

claim leadership by right of your caste?”

It was true those of Arioch’s caste had always been the leaders of the elves, but Arioch

wasn’t sure those rules applied any longer. True, elves were slow to change and clung to

tradition, but she was fairly sure these elves hadn’t even seen one of her kind in the last three

thousand years.

“Humanity did its level best to wipe out my kind during and just after the war. For all

intents and purposes, they succeeded. I doubt any younger than three thousand have even seen

one of us. I don’t think my caste will get us very far. As much as I’d like to tell this story later

and end it with ‘and then they made me their chief,’ I’m fairly sure it won’t play out like that.”

Dante snickered, though it sounded hollow, and one look at the generally upbeat

demonkin told Arioch all she needed to know about his state of mind. Growing up in a world

where he was told elves were vicious, cruel, and sadistic at the best of times had taught him a

situation like this had only one possible outcome. No matter how much time he spent with

Arioch, he never seemed to be able to shake the long-ingrained picture of what an elf was.

Maybe Arioch’s being so visually distinct from any other elf he had met helped to make it easier

for him to separate her from her people. She wasn’t sure, but Arioch had noticed Dante never
really thought of her as an elf, except when she herself pointed it out. Finally, he spoke up again,

confirming Arioch’s suspicions about his low morale.

“How screwed are we?” he asked.

Miranda looked to Arioch for the answer.

“We’ll be all right,” Arioch said with confidence she wasn’t sure she truly felt. “There

are a few different things I can try to get us free, and if it comes to a ritual combat, well, they

haven’t got anyone who can beat me.”

If the sampling of Moridan and his companions was anything to go by, it was very likely

true. Arioch didn’t think much of the chances one of these pale shades of elves would have

against her in a fight. Dante was right about her ribs being a problem though. Even walking

through the forest was sending regular spikes of pain up her side, and she could do little other

than grit her teeth and try to deal with it. It would be a terrible liability, but there was no sense

frightening the three of them over it. She’d fought with worse handicaps.

“Well, I’m glad you’re confident,” Dante muttered drily.

“Someone has to be,” Arioch countered.

“Are you really so certain? Do I need to remind you what’s at stake here?” Miranda

asked. “If you can’t negotiate our way out of this, or win a ritual combat, which we both know

stacks odds against the challenger, then we all die.”

Again, Arioch wasn’t sure how Miranda would know this. There had not been an elven

ritual combat in over three thousand years. “How about you two just let me talk to them before

you start writing out your wills, hm?”

 “Arioch, I know you. You’re not exactly a talker,” Dante pointed out.

“Well, I guess you’re going to have to trust me. Unless you want to take your chances

negotiating with elves yourself. In which case, all the best.”

Dante frowned, shaking his head and falling silent. Miranda kept quiet as well, evidently

not liking her chances of negotiating with elves as a human, to say nothing of the language

barrier. Mya continued to say nothing, simply puffing along beside Arioch as fast as her little

legs could carry her. By now she was truly struggling, beginning to fall behind. Arioch looked up

and down the formation of elves, noting those closest had not taken their eyes off of her. She

sighed, knowing how what she was about to do would be received.

“C’mere,” she said to Mya, looping an arm around the girl’s waist and lifting her off of

her feet midstep so her legs pumped comically at the air for a moment before she realized what

was happening. Arioch lifted Mya over her head and set the girl down on her shoulders. Mya

was so light Arioch hardly noticed the added weight, and kept on walking as a couple of the

elves stared.

Arioch having told them Mya was her ward would likely buy the girl some protection

from any of the usual things elves could be expected to do to captured humans and those of the

other mortal races, but elven parents and guardians did not coddle children as Arioch just had. If

an elven child could not keep up with a group, they would be expected to find their own way to

their destination, and thus learn to take care of themselves. Arioch had been raised that way, as

had, she was sure, all of the elves present. However, she wasn’t sure what they would do if one

of their captives fell behind, and didn’t want to risk it with Mya. So, to the apparent shock of all

present, including Dante and Miranda, Arioch opted to let the girl ride on her shoulders.
 No one said anything, though. Mya simply wiggled a little, getting balanced before

leaning forward to rest her hands atop Arioch’s head. Occasionally, Mya’s heels bounced against

Arioch’s chest, but apart from the small flickers of pain this caused in her broken ribs, Arioch

hardly noticed her presence. Once the immediate shock of seeing an elf carrying a child who was

clearly able to walk wore off, their escort returned to dividing their attention between their

captives and the forest.

The rest of the trip passed in relative silence, and Arioch found she was starting to grow

bored as the sun reached its zenith and began its slow journey toward sunset. Arioch was getting

ready to ask how far they were from their destination when the elves suddenly began speaking to

each other. Dante and Miranda looked to her, but she held up a hand to silence them, instead

trying to listen to the elves’ hushed conversation. She could only catch pieces of dialogue here

and there, but from the sound of it, they were approaching their destination, and a few of the

elves were wondering what to do with Arioch’s companions.

“We’re just about there, apparently,” Arioch said after a moment. “And they’re not sure

what to do with you. It sounds like some of them want to take you two somewhere else.”

Dante’s eyes widened and Miranda frowned. Undoubtedly, wherever they might take a

human and demonkin was less pleasant than Arioch’s destination, and the two of them knew it.

“We can’t let them separate us. We may never find each other again,” Miranda

whispered.

“She’s right,” Dante agreed.

 Arioch hated to agree with the know-it-all scientist, but she had to admit Miranda’s

assessment was probably accurate. Irritated by having to start making demands so early on, she

cut into the elves’ discussion by sharply clearing her throat.

“I won’t be separated from my attendants. They will accompany me to the elder. If your

elder decides to send them away, we’ll deal with it then. For the moment, I won’t have my

servants taken away,” she said with every ounce of authority she could muster.

Her little speech had the desired effect as the elves began arguing amongst themselves

over what to do, drawing Moridan’s attention. He, of course, had heard the whole discussion.

Arioch had made certain of it. Moridan had struck Arioch as a leader in a somewhat tenuous

position from the way his people fell to bickering so quickly, and so she doubted he would waste

an opportunity to assert his authority. Predictably, he was ready to do the opposite of what most

of his men wanted just to show them who was in charge.

“The Lady is right. We will not take her property until the elder makes a decision. Until

then, we can afford to leave this rabble with her. It may not have been the tribute we expected,

but the elder will be interested to see them,” he said, raising his voice over the argument.

Well, that was interesting. Tribute? Arioch had to stop herself from asking what he

meant. She could find out in conversation with the elder, and so not have to stoop to asking him

for information. The elves fell silent, some more reluctantly than others, and resumed their

march. It was not long before the forest of dead trees gave way to something else entirely.

Arioch couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath, echoed by all three of her companions, at

the sudden change in scenery. One step past a rotten, decaying tree revealed a wide grove she

was certain had not been there before, within which was nestled a village of wooden houses,
shaped at the base of wide, tall trees, the likes of which Arioch had not seen in thousands of

years. The trees soared over Arioch’s head and the dead husks surrounding them, forming a

thick, verdant canopy above the village itself. Shaded beneath the trees were walkways of

smooth wood suspended from branches, connecting the trees both around and within the village.

Smooth-sided, wooden houses nestled against tree trunks and branches, shaped to conform to the

curves of the trees themselves. At what must have been the village’s center, an enormous tree,

fully three times as wide as the others, towered over the rest, a wide opening carved into its

center, flanked by two healthier-looking elves wielding spears more ornate than those carried by

Arioch’s escort.

More elves than Arioch had seen in a single place since the empire fell walked to and fro.

Some carried water, food, or bundles at whose contents Arioch could only guess. Others seemed

to be simply taking the air alongside their companions. Most appeared far healthier than the

sallow specimens who led Arioch into the village, though she saw a few of the pale, gaunt elves

wandering around alone or in small groups.

Struck silent both by the impossibility of what she was seeing, and the realization that

there was a place in the world where an elven civilization still existed, Arioch found herself

standing stock still, gaping at the scene before her. The silence from Dante and Miranda, as well

as the soft, murmured “wow” from Mya told Arioch she wasn’t alone in this response either.

“The elder is waiting for you,” Moridan said, finally snapping Arioch back to herself. He

gestured to the enormous tree flanked by the far better-dressed and equipped guards she’d

noticed a moment before. “This way, Lady.”

Chapter 12

“Your companions will wait here,” intoned the guard on Arioch’s right as she reached the

archway which led into the tree’s interior. If he was surprised to see one of Arioch’s kind, he did

not show it. Unlike Moridan, this guard wore what appeared to be proper leather armor, polished

and even ornamented with a long cape affixed to his shoulders by clasps shaped to resemble

leaves, inlaid with what looked like emeralds. Again, Arioch was forced to wonder where the

elves had acquired something so refined within the Dead Wilds. Ruins of a city, perhaps?

“As long as they won’t be harmed or taken elsewhere,” Arioch said flatly, meeting the

guard’s hard gaze.

He nodded once. “They will not be.”

“You need to stay here,” Arioch said, turning to look to Dante and Miranda. “It’ll be

fine.”

With no choice but to take his word, Arioch lifted Mya from her shoulders and set the girl

on her feet. Mya looked up at her in confusion, and Arioch realized she’d been speaking elvish

automatically enough she hadn’t noticed she was doing it. This, at least, explained the confused

looks she was getting from Dante and Miranda. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“You’ll need to stay here. I have to talk to the elder alone. They’ve promised not to harm

you or take you elsewhere. But if they try, just scream as loud as you can and I’ll come deal with

it.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Dante said.

 Miranda gave Arioch a curious look, head titled to one side as she regarded the elf. What

she was thinking, Arioch could not have guessed, and Miranda didn’t say. Instead, she held out a

hand to Mya, who reluctantly took it. Arioch looked down at the girl and patted the top of her

head.

“Stay with Miranda and Dante, kid. I’ll-”

“Mya,” Mya interjected.

“-be right back,” Arioch finished.

Mya nodded, standing by Miranda’s side as Arioch turned back to the guards, who were

frowning at her use of common as opposed to elvish. Elves had always considered it to be

something of a vulgar tongue, unfit to be spoken in civilized company. Though, in fairness, elves

hated the way the other races butchered the pronunciation and cadence of their own language as

well. Ignoring their disapproving stares, Arioch headed toward the opening, only to be stopped

as the two guards crossed their spears in front of her.

“You cannot appear before the elder armed,” he said, stepping forward and reaching

toward Arioch’s belt, his hand moving first toward the hilt of her razorwhip.

Arioch’s own hand shot out, grabbing the guard’s wrist and twisting it backward with a

growl. As she wrenched his wrist back, she hit the center of his throat with a powerful strike

from her other hand. He reeled, grabbing at his throat with his free hand, and Arioch slammed

her open palm into his solar plexus and hooked her foot around his ankle, sending him sprawling

to the ground.

“Don’t ever touch me,” she growled.

 The other guard took a step forward, and Arioch shifted her gaze, pointedly looking him

up and down.

“Really?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Let me pass. I’m not going to hurt your

elder, and you couldn’t stop me if I wanted to.”

The guard stared at her for a moment, his eyes briefly dropping to his companion, who

was still trying to gulp down air after Arioch had nearly caved in his windpipe. His lips pressed

together in a thin line, and after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped aside.

“I thought so,” Arioch said simply, brushing past him.

The archway led to a set of stairs that spiraled upward along the tree’s interior. Arioch

had been in these sorts of buildings before, if the term truly applied. Elders in the tribal days of

the elves lived in the hearts of trees magically shaped to their needs and tastes. There hadn’t been

enough magic left in the world to do something so complicated as shape a tree, though. At least,

not as far as Arioch had known. After a brief ascent, Arioch arrived at a wide, open landing that

must have taken up the entire circumference of the tree. The floor sloped upward to a subtly

raised dais, on which sat the elder, resting on a simple wooden chair shaped from the tree itself.

She wore a plain gown of white, the fabric flowing over her chair to pool on the floor

around her. It was too long to be practical for walking, offsetting the otherwise simple style with

the obvious impracticality of the garment. As Arioch entered, the elder looked up, her blond hair

shifting about her pale shoulders. While she was not nearly so waxen as the elves who had

escorted Arioch into the village, she was notably paler than what might be considered normal.

Her red eyes were sharp, though, and fixed intently on Arioch as she approached. Arioch put her
at somewhere in the area of thirty to forty thousand years old, which at least gave her an idea of

the range of ages of the elves in the village, if she was in fact the eldest as was custom.

“Kind of young to be an elder,” Arioch said in lieu of greeting.

“I must seem a child to you,” the elder replied coolly. “Yet few older than I remain in the

world. The Pale Ones who brought you could not even guess at your age. I did not think to see

one so old as you again, much less of your kind. What is your name, Lady?”

Well, the elder addressing her by a title was probably a good sign.

“My name is Arioch Starshadow, and I’m in something of a hurry. As interesting as this

place is, I need to be on my way.”

This time Arioch was not so lucky as to be met with ignorance at the mention of her

name, and she regretted her honesty immediately. She’d gone by her name freely for so long

even she had forgotten what those old enough might associate with it. The elder’s eyes narrowed,

and her lips pursed, her shoulders straightening so subtly Arioch almost missed it. The woman

was obviously the sort to keep herself under very tight control, as would be expected of an elder,

and such a shift in posture was tantamount to an outburst from one who was less master of

herself.

“I was under the impression you were dead,” she said, her voice taking on a hard edge.

Arioch shrugged. “Obviously you were mistaken.”

“While I can’t imagine anyone falsely claiming your name, I will require proof.”
 Arioch sighed and reached to her left ear, unclasping one of the series of piercings there.

As she pulled a nondescript silver stud from her ear, the glamour it created was dispelled.

Several small, faded scars appeared across her face as if someone were etching them into her

skin. There were too many to count, and they were so faded as to be difficult to make out. A nick

over her lips here, a few thin lines over one eye there, a trio of narrow parallel scratches down

her left cheek, and so on. Reluctantly, Arioch reached one hand back and lifted her hair away

from her neck and shoulders before shrugging partway out of her jacket and pulling the edge of

her shirt and bodyglove down to reveal the elaborate, magically stenciled tattoo of a spiderweb

over her shoulderblades, rendered so perfectly as to appear as if a gossamer web had been draped

over her, situated at the center of which, just beneath the base of her neck, was a black and violet

spider, its gleaming red eyes emitting the faintest of magical glows. The tattoo had been

something of a hallmark of hers, having been a gift from a mentor of sorts whose magic not even

Ancients could duplicate. After allowing a brief moment for the elder to see it, Arioch readjusted

her jacket and dropped her hair back over her shoulders.

“Satisfied?” Arioch asked.

“The Spider Queen indeed,” the elder murmured, her voice tinged with the barest hint of

disgust. “I am Sularia, elder of this village, and I cannot allow you and your companions to

leave.”

Arioch shook her head. “I’m just another elf now. And you have no reason to hold me

here.”
 Sularia snorted indelicately, apparently no longer interested in maintaining the

appearance of composure. She rose from her chair, tilting her head back to look Arioch in the

eye, being several inches shorter.

“You know better. How many of our kind did you kill before the war? After? There’s no

greater crime now, with so few of us left. Do you know what the people of this village would say

if I told them Arioch Starshadow had come among them? What they would demand I do?”

Arioch closed her eyes, sighing quietly as she slipped her earring back into place, the

scars fading from view, wiped away by an unseen hand. Though Sularia could not see it, her

tattoo faded as well.

“You and yours are living by elven laws. You have no right to detain me, no authority

over me. By rights, I have a better claim to rule here than you do. All you have to do is let me go,

and no one else need even know I was here,” Arioch said sharply.

Sularia laughed again, harsh and dissonant, the sound echoing through the hollow

chamber, deepened by the resonant wood, a trick long intended to make the elders sound more

impressive. “I don’t have to do a thing. If you want to step out of this tree and claim authority, by

all means, try. It will save me the trouble of deciding what to do with you.”

“I’d just love to see your half-starved subjects try to stop me,” Arioch countered.

“Yes, yes. I’ve heard the stories about you, the legends about how you earned that title of

yours. I’ve even seen you fight, if you can believe it. We have enough of our own for you, Spider

Queen,” Sulara snorted contemptuously, dropping into her seat and leaning back. “The Pale Ones

may not impress you, but they are an aberration.”

 Arioch frowned, and her curiosity got the better of her, the question leaving her lips

before she could stop it. “What are these Pale Ones, exactly? Is that what elves born in the Dead

Wilds look like?”

Sularia’s expression turned pensive. Her eyes dropped and her gaze abstracted, no longer

glaring at Arioch but rather staring intently at the floor off to her side. “Sometimes,” she said

slowly. “Some of our children are born healthy. But perhaps half of them are afflicted. They are

smaller, weaker, hollow-looking things. But they don’t suffer the same malaise we do when we

leave our sanctuaries. So, they have their uses.”

“What? Malaise? Elves are supposed to be immune to the effects of the Dead Wilds. I

spent a day out there and didn’t notice a thing,” Arioch said, confused.

Sularia looked up at her, tilting her head to one side as if seeing Arioch for the first time.

The elder was silent for a long moment, her lips pressed together in a thin line as she appeared to

consider Arioch’s words. After a silence which stretched to the point Arioch was about to speak

again, Sularia nodded slowly. “I never met one of your kind in the days of the empire. I wasn’t

important enough, then. But I’ve certainly heard the stories of our more magically potent, more

vital, more vicious caste. Our noble royalty,” Sularia practically spat. “It seems your millennia of

inbreeding have afforded you some protection. Which of your close relatives were you promised

to, I wonder?”

Arioch hadn’t heard these prejudices since before the war broke out, but her anger

showed on her face, and she instantly regretted giving Sularia the satisfaction of knowing she’d

touched a nerve. The way Sularia was talking, the uncontrollable disdain both for Arioch and for

those of her caste…

 “You’re a separatist,” Arioch said as the realization dawned on her. Sularia must have

been one of the elves who fled the empire in protest of the way it was ordered. A substantial

portion of the lower classes did so not long after the war began, simply vanishing. Many of them

appeared later, fighting on behalf of the Free Alliances. “No...you were a collaborator, weren’t

you? How’d that work out for you, hm?”

Sularia’s expression twisted into a vicious snarl. A number of elves had fought on behalf

of the Free Alliances, only to find themselves caught in the mass killings which began almost the

moment the war ended. As soon as it became clear their elven allies could offer no more aid in

understanding elven tactics and countering elven magic, the other races had turned on them,

butchering them alongside their defeated foes. Centuries of hatred, it had turned out, were not

forgotten after a few short years of cooperation.

“Don’t you dare preach at me about my choices in the war. Those of your kind are

precisely why the war started to begin with! Your endless, self-indulgent, hedonistic obsession

with sadism and-”

“Don’t for one second think you were better than any of the rest of us,” Arioch growled,

her own anger flaring. “You sold out your entire race just for a chance to survive the war. You

helped the Free Alliances commit genocide against your own damn people! So, don’t you dare

preach at me. Without your help, we might have survived the war, and there might be more than

a few thousand of us left alive.”

Sularia crossed the room, pushing offensively close to Arioch, red eyes blazing with fury.

Arioch stared back at her, her own eyes glowing brightly in her rage, casting Sularia’s pale face
in a bloody crimson light. The elder’s lips quivered as she stood, inches from Arioch, whose

fingers were twitching, eager to wrap around the younger elf’s neck and put an end to her.

Arioch had watched firsthand as her people had been butchered by the Free Alliance

soldiers and even civilians. The blood-crazed mobs had burned whole cities, surrounding them

first with soldiers, or sometimes even flaming walls or pits. Human and orc children stoned elves

in the streets, and those of the higher castes had been carried off for public torture and execution.

For years, the unchecked slaughter of elves had dragged on before more moderate voices in the

Free Alliance put an official halt to it. Even then, there had been plenty of killings, and elves

were forced to live in hiding, then in special “protected” zones, before centuries later finally

being allowed to mingle with the rest of the population. Even now, a lone elf in the wrong place

could find themselves the victim of hatreds so old even their murderers didn’t understand them.

Nothing would have made Arioch happier than to throttle the life out of this woman who helped

to make the near-extinction of her race possible, who had helped to make Arioch the last of her

kind.

“You helped them murder our entire race,” Arioch hissed, her voice raw with her

unchecked anger.

“And how many have you murdered, hm? How many do you kill every year? A dozen? A

hundred? How many does that add up to in your life, Spider Queen? A million? More?”

It was a numbers game Arioch hadn’t played, and the gravity of it was somewhat

unexpected. The sudden parting of her lips as her brows contracted must have given her away to

Sularia, who smirked victoriously. Sularia stabbed a finger at Arioch, who was still considering

her claim. If she was two hundred thousand, and barring the first couple decades of her life,
she’d killed a dozen or so people a year, where did that leave her? Had she walked over two and

a half million corpses of her own making in her lifetime?

“You are the greatest mass-murderer alive, Spider Queen. Don’t talk to me about right

and wrong.”

Arioch snorted. Whether it was two million or twenty million, she couldn’t have cared at

the moment. “I never helped with genocide. When it came to it, I didn’t betray my own people.

And even if you totaled up all the people I killed myself, I couldn’t hold a candle to what you set

in motion.”

Sularia jabbed a finger into Arioch’s chest, moving so close she had to tilt her head

almost straight up to look Arioch in the eye. “The difference is I never meant for that to happen,”

she said slowly, digging her finger into Arioch as she spoke, as if she might impale her then and

there. “I only wanted to end a war threatening to kill us all. You, you just wanted to cause as

much death and pain as you could. It was…art to you. Fun. Don’t ever compare what I did to

what you are.”

Arioch slowly, deliberately reached up and grabbed Sularia’s offending hand. She

wrapped her long fingers around Sularia’s, and began to squeeze. Sularia gasped in pain as

Arioch began to grind the bones in her hand together, the small bones threatening to crack under

the pressure. Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head down so her hair formed a curtain

around both of their faces, filled with the angry red glow of both sets of eyes.

“Do not ever touch me,” she growled, and used her grip on Sularia’s hand to shove the

woman away. “Now let’s play this out logically: You’ll put me on trial for…something. Being in

your lands? I’ll demand a trial by combat. You’ll set your best warrior on me. I’ll kill your best
warrior and leave as the laws demand, and you’ll be down a champion, and when I’m allowed to

speak, I’ll accuse you of collaborating during the war, and you’ll be put on trial. I may even stay

to act as champion against you if you want a trial by combat. Or, you could let me leave right

now, keep your best warrior, and I’ll have no forum where I can make accusations.”

Sularia cradled her hand, flexing her fingers and wincing before returning her gaze to

Arioch. In the silence following Arioch’s pronouncement, Sularia’s lips parted in a vicious grin.

She straightened, her hands dropping to her sides.

“I won’t deny you your trial by combat, Spider Queen. I’m told the Emperor and

Empress themselves enjoyed your little displays, and I’m sure my people will in turn. But, I

wonder, have you heard the name Haverin?”

“Anyone over ten thousand years old has as I’m sure you know. He would probably have

been the greatest sorcerer to live if he hadn’t rushed off on his own to try to singlehandedly end

the Free Alliances. Is this meant to be a lesson in pride, then?”

“Yes, but not the one you think. You’ve lived a long time cut off from magic, haven’t

you? I can see it. You’ve not used magic in a long time.”

“That was always sort of the point. I was never a sorcerer.”

Sularia let out a short bark of laughter. “No, but in that world even your own inborn

talents have diminished, haven’t they? You have so little magic left in you. I imagine it makes

your life quite a bit harder.”

Arioch wasn’t sure where Sularia was going with this, but a faint nagging in the back of

her mind was warning her it wasn’t good for her. “Get to the point already.”
 “You see, Haverin didn’t leave to destroy the Free Alliances. He left to help them. You

didn’t think they had an army of elven sorcerers, did you? When the humans turned on us, he

helped the survivors escape. And then he used his magic to create these sanctuaries here, in the

Dead Wilds. He’s very much alive. And he will be your opponent in your trial by combat. You

will face the most powerful sorcerer alive, and you have no magic left of your own.”

Arioch pressed her lips together in a thin line, glaring at Sularia as the elder spoke. Well,

shit, she thought. Sularia seemed aware she could think of nothing to say, and her smirk

broadened. A sharp, echoing snap resounded through the chamber, and a moment later the faint

sound of footsteps drifted up from somewhere beneath them. Guards. Suvaria had summoned her

guards. As their footsteps drew closer, Arioch turned her attention from Sularia to the chamber’s

entrance. Two guards appeared, carrying a chest between them, their weapons slung across their

backs. Apparently Sularia expected her to go quietly.

“Arioch Starshadow, you are charged with intruding on our territory, sedition in

attempting to usurp the position of an elder, and the murder of your own kind,” Sularia

announced as the guards approached, her voice carrying throughout the chamber, dripping with

relish as her eyes fixed on Arioch. “Your trial by combat will be held tomorrow at first light.

Until then, you will surrender all of your weapons and equipment, or they will be taken from

you, and you will accompany the guards to your lodging for the night.”

Sularia didn’t have to add the “or else” to her pronouncement. Arioch knew perfectly

well that if she resisted, Sularia would have Mya and the others killed. As the elder finished her

little speech, the guards set the chest down beside Arioch, opening its lid. Inside was a simple

white gown of roughspun cloth, a pair of leather sandals, and more than enough empty room to
hold everything Arioch had on her. One guard removed the gown and sandals from the chest, and

the other stepped toward Arioch, who held up a hand.

“Touch me and I will feed you your hand,” she growled. “I’ll handle this myself.”

Cheeks burning with the indignity of what Sularia meant to force her to do, Arioch

removed her coat and folded it lengthwise, placing it in the chest before doing the same with her

boots. Her belt and weapons came next, then her shirt and pants, leaving her in nothing but her

armored bodyglove. At this, both the guards and Sularia seemed curious.

“What is that?” Sularia finally asked, regarding the skintight black garment with some

confusion. “Some kind of undergarment?”

“Something like that,” Arioch growled in irritation as she unzipped it, peeling it away

from her skin and setting it atop her clothes in the chest. Naked, and angry rather than

embarrassed, Arioch spread her arms and turned. “Satisfied?”

“The earring,” Sularia said, and Arioch gritted her teeth.

With no choice but to comply, Arioch removed the earring responsible for the glamour

which concealed her scars and tattoo. In addition to the scars on her face, a number of small scars

covered her torso, along with four wide, deep parallel cuts running diagonally across her

stomach, a souvenir from the Demon War. She dropped the earring on top of her bodyglove, and

snapped the lid of the chest shut. Each guard removed a key from his belt, and inserted it into a

slot on the chest, locking it with a soft click. One guard brought his key to Sularia, who slipped it

into the folds of her voluminous gown, and the other held his key, along with the gown and

sandals, out to Arioch.

 “Should you survive your trial by combat, your belongings will be returned to you. If you

do not, they will be burned along with your remains. If there are any,” Sularia said. “Now dress,

and follow my guards.”

Taking commands had never come naturally to Arioch, and she bristled at being ordered

about, but recognized she was in no position to argue. She snatched up the gown and unfolded it,

looking it over with a disgusted frown. It wasn’t a dress, as she had originally thought. Instead,

they had given her a kind of elven sarong, which she would have to tie in such a way as to leave

her back exposed, which would allow everyone to see her tattoo. Arioch had left revealing

garments behind in her youth, and couldn’t help the frown crossing her face when she realized

this gown had probably been intentionally left too small for her. If she was lucky, it would be

long enough to cover her thighs. Huffing in irritation, she fussed with the cloth, adjusting it and

trying to remember how to properly drape and tie it. After three attempts, and a chorus of

sniggers from Sularia and her guards, Arioch finally succeeded, and slipped into the sandals. Of

course, she had nowhere to put the key, so she tore a narrow strip off the bottom of her sarong,

which unfortunately only came about halfway down her thighs, and threaded it through a small

hole in the base of the key before tying it around her neck.

“Ah, one more thing,” Sularia said, untying a leather thong from her wrist and tossing it

to Arioch. “Your hair. Off your shoulders.”

Arioch understood. Sularia wanted everyone to see her tattoo, who she was. With the

sarong’s open back, she would need to keep her hair out of the way in a ponytail. She fought

down her reply as she used the thong to bind her hair in a ponytail, which she let fall in front of

one of her shoulders, exposing her tattoo.

 “There. Much better. As amusing as this has been, I have other matters to attend to. Take

her and her companions away,” Sularia said, waving to her guards.

When the guards moved to take Arioch by the arms, she let out a low, warning growl, and

they instead took up positions on either side of her. They escorted her from the chamber, leading

her out of the elder’s tree to where her companions stood waiting just outside. Dante, Miranda,

and Mya stood clustered together a few feet away from one of the tree’s watchmen, talking

quietly as they stared around the village, still wearing the same awed expressions they had on

entering the village. The trio turned to face her as one at the sound of her exit from the tree, and

both Dante and Miranda stared in open shock.

“Arioch…what the hell?” Dante breathed, looking her up and down in plain bafflement.

“Ooooh, you look pretty!” Mya said happily.

As she drew closer, Dante noticed the scars on her face and arms, and blinked. He had

never seen her without her glamour, never knew she even used one. His lips pressed together

when she finally stood in front of them, and the full extent of the scars covering her body became

visible.

“What happened in there?” Miranda asked, cutting across Dante who was clearly about to

ask the same question.

“We’ll talk when we get to our lodgings for the night,” Arioch said gruffly. “Come on.

Don’t make a scene.”

Both of them clearly had questions, but both recognized the anger in Arioch’s tone, and

thought better of pressing her. Arioch rested one hand at the center of Mya’s back, steering her
away from the tree as the guards led them deeper into the village. Elves stopped to stare as the

group passed, most gaping openly at Arioch, whispering to each other. One or two who Arioch

recognized to be significantly older than the rest fell to hissing softly when she passed and they

caught a glimpse of her tattoo.

To their credit, neither Dante nor Miranda commented on the suddenly hostile reception

they were receiving. Mya seemed to be too busy staring around the village to be worried about

what the natives thought of them, though she remained, as ever, so close to Arioch as to be

practically on top of her.

Finally, the guards ushered them toward a small house nestled against a larger building

which Arioch supposed might have been the guard barracks. One guard moved ahead, standing

at the door and stopping them before they could enter. He turned to Arioch and spoke in short,

clipped tones.

“They must surrender their equipment. It will be returned if you are released,” he said.

Arioch sighed, then turned to Dante and Miranda. “Give them your stuff,” she said,

leaning down to help Mya out of her backpack, which she threw more at than to the closer of the

two guards. Dante glanced at Arioch, frowning in concern before handing over his backpack and

unfastening the belt holding his weapons, giving it up as well. Miranda simply handed her

backpack to the guard closest to her with a shrug. She had nothing of value to want to keep.

Once they had handed over their possessions, the guards all but shoved them into the

small house. As the last one in, Arioch had to jump back to avoid having the door slammed in

her face. The little house was dimly lit, and even then only by what few rays of light made it

through the thatched roof and a window set in the far wall. Arioch stepped in, looking around to
see the house, which was really more of a hut, had but a single room with two rows of three

straw mattresses arrayed on the floor, each with a folded blanket at one end.

“Cozy,” Dante remarked as he glanced about.

“So, what’s going on?” Miranda asked, ignoring Dante’s quip about their

accommodations.

“We’re in trouble,” Arioch said flatly.

Chapter 13

“That might be sort of an understatement. What the hell did they do to you?” Dante

asked, walking over to Arioch, his eyes moving over the scars on her face, arms, and legs.

“What? Nothing. Do these look new?” Arioch snapped. “They made me remove the

glamour hiding them is all.”

“And they would do that…why?” Dante prompted.

“Humiliation is a significant part of ritual combat for the accused. I expect it’s why they

gave you your new…ah….outfit?” Miranda said.

“I think it’s pretty,” Mya said, fiddling with the end of Arioch’s roughspun sarong.

“Scratchy though…”

Arioch looked down at Mya, setting a hand atop her head and ruffling her hair. The girl

smiled at her, and Arioch couldn’t help but smile back. Better she not understand the gravity of

the situation anyway.

“Mya, why don’t you try to get some sleep, hm? We’ve been walking around all day. I

bet you’re tired,” Arioch said quietly. “We’ll be busy tomorrow, so why don’t you get some rest

while you can?”

Dante and Miranda seemed to immediately understand Arioch’s intent and sprung to

support her.

“Yeah, let’s get one of these beds ready,” Dante said brightly. “Get you all tucked in so

you’re not sleeping on the ground.”

 He and Miranda picked up one of the mattresses, setting it atop the one beside it and laid

one of the blankets over the bare mattress before spreading the other out. Miranda pulled off her

coat and rolled it up into a makeshift pillow, which she set at the head of the bed before Dante

picked Mya up, swinging her back and forth.

“Ready to crash?” Dante asked Mya with a little wink.

Mya giggled as Dante pretended to drop her into the bed, complete with his best attempt

at mimicking the sound of an explosion. She squirmed playfully as he pulled the blanket up over

her and tucked it around her, smoothing out her hair.

“Get some sleep, kiddo. Long day tomorrow and all, like the big lady says,” Dante said,

patting Mya on the forehead.

“Mya,” she said with a little smile.

“Get some sleep, Mya,” Dante amended.

She settled into the bed, pulling the blanket up around her face before closing her eyes.

Dante and Miranda crossed the small space of the hut back over to where Arioch stood, coming

to form a tight circle and began speaking again, now in quieter tones.

“Yes,” Arioch said. “It’s a humiliation thing. They will also let their champion choose the

weapons we fight with.”

“So what’s with the glamour, then? Humiliating you by showing your scars? You look

scarier, if anything,” Dante mused, his confusion plain in his voice.

 “No, that was something else. Look, the point is, they have a champion I didn’t expect.

He’s going to make sure we fight unarmed.”

“Okay, why’s that a problem?” Dante asked. “As far as I know you’re pretty good at the

whole unarmed combat bit. There’s even video on the internet to prove it now.”

Neither Arioch nor Miranda laughed.

“He’s a sorcerer,” Arioch said after a moment of silence to let Dante know this wasn’t the

time for his quips.

Dante’s mouth snapped shut. Miranda’s eyes widened, and she shifted closer to Arioch

and Dante. “A sorcerer? If it’s true there is more magic here than elsewhere in the world…”

“It’s Haverin. He’s alive and he’s the sorcerer they’ve named as champion,” Arioch

interrupted.

Miranda’s voice died on her lips, and Dante gave a low groan of disbelief. “Haverin? As

in the Haverin? The one who died after wiping out four or five regiments in the war?” Dante

asked, his voice rising. “The sorcerer who might have broken the entire Free Alliances military

alone if every human, orc, dwarf, and demonkin sorcerer alive hadn’t come together to stop

him?”

“Yeah. Him. Except apparently none of it happened,” Arioch said. “Turns out he fought

against the empire at the end of the war. So…at least that’s one myth debunked?”

It was Dante’s turn to disapprove of Arioch’s trying to make light of the situation. His

fiery eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together. He might have spoken up if Miranda hadn’t

beaten him to it.

 “What kind of chance, realistically, do you have against one of the most powerful

sorcerers ever to live?” she asked surprisingly calmly.

“Oh, without any weapons,” Dante added bitterly. “Let’s not forget the shitty icing on

that awful cake.”

Arioch ran a hand through her hair, frowning at the ponytail. There was no sense taking it

out though, so she simply tugged at her hair, letting a few strands fall free, then adjusted the

thong to hold her ponytail a little higher. If Sularia wanted her to show off who she was, then she

would. Maybe it would scare Haverin. Miranda’s question, though, troubled her. As cut off from

magic as she had been, she wasn’t sure she liked her chances.

Arioch turned her back to the pair of them for a moment, her hand sliding around her

head, rubbing the back of her neck thoughtfully. It may not have been the most confidence-

inspiring move, but she realized it too late.

“Arioch, that’s not very – whoa,” Dante paused midsentence as he saw her tattoo, and

Arioch looked over her shoulder in time to see his reaction hovering somewhere between awe

and disbelief. “I have never seen a tattoo like…is it even a tattoo? What is that?” he asked,

momentarily distracted from the matter at hand.

Out of the corner of her eye, Arioch saw Miranda’s lips part silently, her eyes widening.

If Arioch was any judge, Miranda’s reaction was not to the tattoo itself. When the academic

paled and swallowed mutely, Arioch was sure Miranda somehow recognized her.

“It’s a tattoo,” Arioch said quickly, turning back to face them. “Sort of. And it’s a long

story. Short version is I got it from the…person who taught me most of what I know.”
 “It’s freaking glowing!” Dante breathed.

“Yes, I am aware.”

“You’re the Spider Queen,” Miranda said in a hushed whisper.

Arioch’s gut tightened. Her focus shifted to Miranda, and she couldn’t help the subtle

narrowing of her own eyes as she looked the woman up and down. She knew more, far more,

than any human should. There was simply no way Miranda could have seen her tattoo

somewhere, or even read a description of it. The elves hadn’t exactly had cameras, and any

depictions of her had not been of her back. No artist would have attempted to duplicate a tattoo

like hers in the times of the empire, and no artist after the empire would have seen it to try.

“How would you even begin to make a leap like that?” Arioch asked softly. “Why would

you even think she was a real person?”

“What? Like, from the movie? The Queen of Spiders? The thing with those weird elven

sex gladiatrixes who were like…assassins, courtesans, and uh…sort of soldiers? Arioch, are you

a movie character? Because that was a messed up movie and if it was you, I’ve really missed out

on some of the more interesting elements of knowing you,” Dante said with an air of not really

believing a word of it.

Arioch groaned. She had forgotten the awful film made based on a few loosely-

interpreted legends of her life that had somehow endured. At the end of the war there had,

predictably, been songs, poems, and stories written about the heroes and villains as the victors

had assigned those roles. Some had been about her, mixed with remembered history from the

empire. Apparently a few years ago, someone had dug up one of the stories about her, absurdly
embellished an already largely fictional account, and put it to the screen. She’d even gone to see

it out of sheer curiosity.

“First of all, that movie was awful and not even kind of a representation of what life was

like. Second, if you say ‘sex gladiatrixes’ again, I will brain you.”

Dante blinked. “Wait…wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me this was an actual thing?”

Miranda folded her arms across her chest. “So that’s why they want you, and us, dead.

We just happened to be with the wrong elf.”

“They’d have killed you anyway. Or made you slaves, and I’m guessing out here death

would be better. With me, at least you’ve got a shot.”

“Why would they want you dead? Did you actually do any of the stuff in the movie?”

Dante asked.

“I honestly don’t remember very much about that movie, Dante,” Arioch said, irritation

creeping into her voice.

“I can never look at you the same way again,” Dante said, his gaze abstracting slightly.

Arioch elected to ignore him, instead turning to Miranda, whose lips had compressed into a thin,

pale line.

“I would think they’d be happy to see you,” she said tightly. “If what I’ve heard is true,

then you held quite a lot of favor in the imperial courts.”

“At some points,” Arioch shrugged. “Mostly when I helped them come into or stay in

power.”
 “So, why aren’t they happy to see you?”

Arioch sighed. “The elder here was a turncoat, one of the elves who fought for the Free

Alliances. I hunted and killed a not small amount of those elves. When the Free Alliances started

finishing what I started, I guess she went into hiding with Haverin’s help.”

“And the glares from the elves as you passed?” Miranda prompted.

“Not everyone liked what I did and what I was,” Arioch said simply. She didn’t want to

explore her life with Miranda, of all people.

“Okay, but this is good, right? In the movie you were like…crazy badass. If Wilbur knew

that was you he’d…well, I actually don’t want to think about what he would do, but I mean,

you’ve done this sort of thing a ton, right? Killed lots of dangerous people in duels or whatever.”

“Dante, for the last time, the movie was nothing like how I actually used to live. They got

a couple of names and places right, and nothing else.”

“He’s right, though. You’ve fought more dangerous opponents than Haverin,” Miranda

said, her voice still holding a hard edge.

“Yes. But, I’ve been living away from magic too long. A lot of the things I could do then,

I can’t do now,” Arioch said flatly. “Which will complicate this, and Sularia knew it when she

picked her champion.”

“So how screwed are we?” Dante asked.

Arioch shrugged. “We’ll see. I haven’t fought a sorcerer in a long time.”

“Some optimism from you would go a long way to making me feel better,” Dante said.
 “That was optimism. We’re talking about probably the most powerful sorcerer alive

today, which I guess if you had asked me two hours ago I’d have said didn’t count for much, but

look at this place. It shouldn’t be possible, but apparently he did it all with his magic.”

“Well, shit,” Dante muttered. “I don’t suppose there’s some sort of appeal you can make

for, y’know, a fair opponent?”

Arioch shook her head. “No. The accusers are meant to have an advantage in ritual

combat. That’s why they have first choice of a champion, their champion picks the weapons, and

so on. It isn’t really supposed to be an easy way out. Not a lot of people took it, because the

empire could call on champions like, well, me.”

“Or Haverin,” Miranta interjected.

“Or Haverin.”

“So what can you do against magic? I’m guessing fists and feet against…whatever a

sorcerer does is not a great matchup?” Dante asked.

Arioch rubbed the back of her neck, shaking her head. “No. It’s not a great matchup.

Once upon a time I could do a lot of things. Now it’s probably going to be about how quick his

reflexes are and how fast I am, if I can get away from whatever he throws at me.”

“You mean, it’s going to be about how much you can dodge and run with a few broken

ribs?” Dante asked pointedly. “And how long you can keep it up?”

“Yep.”

“We are so screwed,” Dante sighed, leaning back against the nearby wall.
 “I hate to agree with such a sentiment, but this doesn’t paint an encouraging picture,”

Miranda said, her arms still folded across her chest. “Pity. Under other circumstances I’d be

interested in interviewing you about the fabled elven arenas.”

“Yeah, like did you guys actually have sex with all the barbarians and monsters who got

carted in for you to kill?” Dante asked, trying to muster his playful enthusiasm but really only

coming across as bitter.

Arioch cut her gaze to Dante, pursing her lips, but Miranda spoke up before she could.

“Sexuality was known to be part of the spectacle of the arenas, but it hardly means sex

was involved, particularly with, as you say, monsters and barbarians. What is your fixation on

this anyway?”

“You don’t know Arioch. I do, and it’s just…weird imagining her being sexy.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Arioch asked sharply.

“Uh…”

“You may want to take a moment to get your foot out of your mouth,” Miranda muttered,

returning her attention to Arioch. “I suppose this is the expectation you were confronted with as

often as not?”

Arioch shrugged. “You’d be amazed what people thought we did and the rumors that got

spread around. Turns out no one needed the internet to have filthy imaginations. There were a

few who did what they could to help those perceptions along, too, I suppose.”
 Miranda looked to be caught between her anger at finding out who Arioch was, and a

curiosity about her she hadn’t shown before. Of course, Arioch was sure she would have been

one of the most interesting elves to meet from the imperial era, though, she had to confess, not

necessarily the best source of history. She had done her best to keep clear of the myriad dangers

of life at court in the empire. If she was honest with herself, her best had unfortunately not been

adequate all too often.

“Ha! So it did happen!” Dante said, then fell silent when Arioch and Miranda both turned

toward him again.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Frankly, I’ll never tell,” Arioch said flatly. “The empire is dead,

and, for better or worse, so are just about all the things that went on within it.”

“Did you ever see or compete in the Free Alliance arenas that cropped up after the

empire’s fall?” Miranda asked.

“Oh, they loved it when they could find an elf to toss into those arenas. I saw a few of

their fights, yes. I did participate for a while, but I had to be thoroughly disguised. They’d have

killed one of my kind outright if they saw me, arena or no. It got boring. They were all about

simple bloodbaths. Throw as many things into the arena as they could, see as much death. The

arenas in the empire were about skill, spectacle, and the dance, not just the result. You humans,

always racing to the finish, never enjoying how you get there.”

“And the rumors surrounding how you got your title, are those-”

“I don’t talk about it,” Arioch said, her voice hardening.

“But, is it true you killed-”

 “That’s enough,” Arioch snapped, catching Miranda by surprise. “I don’t talk about it.”

Arioch shook her head at the memory. Another story Miranda should never have heard,

and one Arioch certainly didn’t want to go into, especially not with Miranda. She didn’t

immediately notice the way Miranda was staring at her, appearing for the first time to be

genuinely interested in what Arioch had to say. When she did see Miranda’s eyes fixed on her,

Arioch blinked. Something about the woman’s gray eyes was…wrong. She’d had the same

impression, to a lesser extent, on meeting her. But this time, her intense gaze had an almost

physical component to it, and Arioch could have sworn she felt the woman’s stare boring into

her eyes, a faint pressure building behind them until she quite suddenly turned, breaking eye

contact with Miranda and rubbing her face with one hand. A dull throb pounded at Arioch’s

temples, and for a moment, the ground seemed to heave beneath her feet.

“Are you All right?” Miranda asked mildly.

“Fine,” Arioch gritted out, blinking several times before looking back at Miranda. Had

the woman done it intentionally? Could a human do something like that to an elf? Her red eyes

fixed on Miranda for a long moment, who looked blandly back at her, her eyes made somewhat

larger by the glasses she wore.

“Well, I prefer not to leave all our lives in your hands, especially if you’re not in top

form. But I suppose there is nothing we can do about it,” Miranda said suddenly.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Arioch muttered.

“Hey, you’re the one who said she wasn’t sure how screwed we are. Confidence doesn’t

seem to be flowing very freely tonight.”

 Arioch sighed and glanced around the hut, her eyes alighting on Mya’s sleeping form.

The girl was partially curled on her side, the blanket on her bed pulled halfway over her head.

There was a very real chance the four of them would be dead tomorrow. While Arioch wouldn’t

have lost sleep over Miranda’s death, Dante was…well, about as close to a friend as Arioch had

and Mya didn’t irritate her as much as she thought the girl would. There was precious little

Arioch could do about it at this point. Even if Sularia had been the lenient type, and at least in

this case she clearly would not be, an appeal for a different champion had never even been

attempted. If she was being completely honest with herself, Arioch also couldn’t bear the thought

of giving Sularia the satisfaction of knowing Arioch thought she might be unable to win. At the

very least, whatever else happened, she would deny Sularia the pleasure of her fear.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do tonight,” Arioch said, stretching and looking to the row

of straw mattresses. “Might as well get some sleep.”

She walked over to the mattress opposite Mya’s and flopped rather gracelessly onto it.

She groped around for the blanket, found it, pulled it over herself, and said nothing else. Dante

and Miranda stared at her for a moment, both shaking their heads.

“How can you sleep at a time like this?” Dante asked.

“By knowing there’s nothing else I can do. Now shut up and let me sleep,” she mumbled,

turning her face down into the mattress and closing her eyes.

For a time, Dante and Miranda were quiet, as she asked. Eventually, they must have

thought she had fallen asleep, because they began to talk softly, situated at the opposite side of

the room, perhaps in respect to Arioch’s being, ostensibly at least, asleep. She was having

difficulty actually getting there, though.

 “You seem to know a lot about the elves and their history,” Dante was saying.

“It’s my job, Dante,” Miranda replied.

“Seems a little strange though. Even Arioch seems surprised by what you know.”

“Does she strike you as a woman of learning?”

Arioch bristled, gritting her teeth where she lay on her mattress.

“Arioch may not be the sort to spend time in libraries, but she’s been around an awfully

long time, apparently.”

“Still. More is known about the history of the elven empire than she realizes. It is,

perhaps, not common knowledge, but the historical record is a bit more complete than she seems

to believe.”

“So, tell me about these…” Dante paused. “About the gladiatrixes or whatever they were

called.”

“What’s your fascination with them?”

Dante sighed. “Well, to use an old cliché: You think you know someone, yeah?”

“How long have you known Arioch?”

“Oh, maybe a century or so,” Dante said thoughtfully. “Somewhere in there, anyway.”

“And you never knew who she was?”

“Or how old she was, no. I thought she was old, sure. Maybe like…ten thousand or so?

Boy, was I off the mark.”

 “What’s your fascination with her job, then?” Arioch had to stop herself from snorting.

Job. It has been nothing so mundane as a job. With all Miranda seemed to know, Arioch would

have expected her to understand that.

“You have to know Arioch to know why it sounds so weird. Assassin? Sure. No trouble

with the idea. But…sex symbol? Arioch has never worn anything less than her long coat, a shirt

that comes all the way up to her throat, and long pants with boots. The idea of her running

around in a body harness, half naked and fighting monsters for some combination sexy-violent

show is…well it just doesn’t fit with the woman I know.”

“It is worth noting they probably didn’t wear ‘body harnesses.’ A fair amount of

information suggests they wore armor like any other warrior. Maybe with nonessential bits cut

out here and there to be alluring, but from what we understand of the period, their sex appeal, if

the term really applies here, came from their grace, and the sheer predatory viciousness of their

kills.” Thinking back to what she wore in the arenas, Arioch was forced to agree with Dante’s

interpretation of the typical wardrobe more than Miranda’s. “Elves have…very different notions

of what is appealing than the rest of us. Sometimes arena matches involved opponents the

gladiatrix could kill in seconds, and the art, as they saw it, was in drawing the time out to hours,

creating a show in toying with their victim. Other times, gladiatrixes fought opponents who were

a very real threat, and the show was about their skill in achieving victory.”

Arioch had to admit, Miranda’s understanding of the elven arenas was far better than she

would have expected from a human. Was she telling the truth about the historical record having

survived better than Arioch thought? No, if all this information was available, more people

would know it, right?

 “And Arioch was…?”

“The best, and in some ways worst of them,” Miranda said.

“How’s that?”

“Well, for one, a member of her caste becoming a gladiatrix, and yes that is what they

called them, was a fairly substantial step down. There were a number of positions as a warrior,

all of which would have better fit her caste. You’d have to ask her why she did it though. What I

do know is she very quickly developed a reputation for ruthless brutality which set her apart even

in the arenas. She was involved in a number of upheavals in the courts, usually involving power

changing hands from one ruling family to another. Emperors and empresses losing their lives to

political intrigue wasn’t entirely uncommon. At one point, she was sentenced to a ritual combat

intended to be an execution. Records differ, but some place her alone against as many as fifty

champions, some as few as a dozen.” Arioch put it closer to fifty. “She survived, and gained

favor with the court for the sheer surprise of her performance during the battle.”

“What about this makes her unusual?” Dante asked.

“Gladiatrixes typically had patrons. Royal houses which they served in exchange for

support. They fought for their honor in trials by combat or as champions in personal disputes.

They were also often part of a head of house’s personal retinue when special protection was

needed. Some were even advisors at court, usually on military matters, and all fought for the

crown when called. She didn’t pledge herself to a patron house. She sold her services to

whatever house could afford them, and in a number of instances worked actively against the

crown, which is what she was meant to be executed for.”

 “Sounds like an early mercenary,” Dante commented.

“In a sense. But it is worth noting, even in elven culture, which we understand to have

been quite brutal, she had a reputation for capricious cruelty. If even elves thought of her that

way, we’d do well to be cautious.”

“I’ve known Arioch for a long time. She’s a lot of things. Bit of a sadist. Selfish.

Downright nasty when she’s angry. But…I’ve never seen her hurt someone who didn’t give her a

reason, or go back on a deal. Maybe she’s changed.”

“I’m sure seeing your race nearly exterminated will have a rather profound effect on

one’s personality and behavior,” Miranda admitted. “But I don’t think it would change someone

for the better. Be careful. Elves…play a longer game than is possible for any of the other races.”

“What? You think she’s planning to kill us all and reestablish the elven empire?” Dante

asked, a note of sarcasm creeping into his voice.

“I know I’ve never seen an elf do something that didn’t benefit them more than anyone

else involved.”

“Oh, well, that part’s easy here. Money. Arioch needs the money,” Dante said simply.

Arioch had always appreciated Dante’s straightforward pragmatism and matter-of-fact

approach to things.

“So how’d she get the name Spider Queen?” Dante asked. “I’m guessing it’s not how it

happened in the movie.”

 “There are a lot of rumors, most of them involving one of the elven goddesses. All I can

tell you for sure is it doesn’t seem to have been entirely complimentary.”

“Elven goddesses?”

“Surely even you know this? The elves worshipped a pantheon of gods and goddesses.

Each was identified with an animal. The Spider, the Jackal, the Ocelot…”

Arioch’s attention drifted away from the conversation. She wanted to sleep, really. The

difficulty was she honestly could not remember how long it had been since she had faced real

mortal peril. Sure, people died in her work all the time, but Arioch had always been quite sure

she would never be one of them. After all, the average criminal on the streets of the Free

Alliances’ cities had never been much of a threat to her. This...this was different. Haverin…he

could kill her. Without the ability to counter his magic, Arioch wasn’t even sure she could put up

much of a fight. Was she going to die like one of the victims she’d toyed with in the arenas so

long ago?

These thoughts did nothing to help Arioch sleep. Casting her mind back, Arioch tried to

recall what she had done to calm herself the night before she did something potentially deadly.

Unfortunately, as those nights came back to her, she realized none of the things she had done to

calm herself were possible this time. The elves certainly were not going to offer her any alcohol,

Dante simply wasn’t her type, Miranda even less so, nor were the frighteningly pale guards, and

being confined to the tiny hut ruled out the possibility of a run under the moon.

The truth no one talked about, perhaps because so few knew, was that it was not the fight

itself that was frightening or difficult; it was the quiet hours before it, the empty time with

nothing but the knowledge of what lay ahead. Or, at least the fight never seemed as awful while
it was happening, mostly because in the moment, the focus was on the fight and surviving it

rather than how unfortunate the situation was. But the long wait before the fight, the night of

knowing what was coming, it always gave Arioch too much time to think, to reflect. At that

moment, her mind was stuck on how stupid she had been for getting herself into this situation,

and not for the first time, admitting to herself she should have just listened to Jada and kept clear

of the job.
Chapter 14

Arioch woke to the sound of quiet sobs. In the darkness of their meager accommodation,

it took Arioch a moment to locate the source of the sound. Mya, it seemed, was sitting against

the back wall, her head bowed, hair covering her face as she cried into her hands. She hadn’t

woken Dante or Miranda, and as Arioch was closest, she supposed she ought to do something.

Approaching Mya, something seemed off. The girl was too large, and while Arioch could see

almost nothing of her through the curtain of her hair, that hair was not so light and airy as it

normally was. A tiny knot wound itself at the core of Arioch’s stomach as she drew closer.

Before she could reach out, a set of pale hands emerged from the darkness, coming to rest

on Mya’s shoulders. The sobs abruptly ceased, and the girl lifted her head. Silver hair parted to

reveal purple skin and dimly glowing red eyes. It wasn’t Mya. It was…Arioch. The knot in her

stomach tightened, turning into a cold lump as she realized what she was seeing, what she was

remembering, what she was, she hoped, dreaming. Her child-self lifted her head to stare up at a

pair of glimmering, dark blue eyes, the light they cast just enough to illuminate a broad, but

twisted smile as their owner stared down at her.

“You’re gone!” Arioch cried. “You’re not-“

“Arioch, wake up. I think they’re trying to get us out of here. I don’t speak elvish but

they don’t sound happy,” Dante was saying, his face hovering over hers, hand on her shoulder.

“You were…talking,” he said awkwardly, looking from the door leading out of their little shack,

down to her, and back. “And the elves have been pounding on the door for the last few minutes.

They sound angry.”

 “Gimme a minute,” Arioch mumbled, slapping Dante’s hand away and covering her face

with her own.

The dream stuck with her, those blue eyes seeming to hover just at the edge of her sight

as she tried to shake them from her mind. She had more immediate concerns than long-dead

memories, and judging from the haze of sleep trying to creep back over her, she had not slept

nearly so long as she would have liked. As she let her eyes slide back closed, Dante’s fingers dug

painfully into her shoulder. He shook her violently this time.

“Arioch!”

The sharp call was enough to cut through the sleepy haze. Arioch remembered where she

was, and what she was supposed to be doing with a gutwrenching lurch. She sat bolt upright,

looking around the room. Mya stood with Miranda, the pair tucked against the back wall, as far

from the door as they could get, and Arioch understood why almost at once. The elven guards

stood in the doorway, shouting and gesturing at the four of them, one even jerking his spear

toward them. Odd, she was usually a much lighter sleeper. Doing her best to shake her

sleepiness, Arioch pushed herself to her feet, ignoring Dante, who looked more than a little

relieved as she pushed past him.

“Come! It is time. You are late! Move, move, move!” one of the guards was yelling.

“You cannot keep the elder waiting.”

Mya gave a little whimper as the guard jabbed the point of his spear toward them, and

Miranda pulled the girl closer, wrapping one arm around her chest and holding Mya against

herself.
 “I said move!” he yelled.

“Enough, we’re up,” Arioch muttered.

“What’s he saying?” Dante asked.

“Probably exactly what you think.”

“Get moving! You are late! You have wasted time. Get your dim-witted slaves,” he

jabbed his spear at Mya and Miranda again, “moving!”

Mya cringed again, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and turning her head away to bury her

face in Miranda’s stomach. Miranda reached down, trying to soothingly stroke Mya’s hair, but

for the first time since Arioch met her, the woman looked a bit unnerved herself. This of course

was not helped when the guard, his impatience finally winning out, stalked toward them, weapon

raised threateningly.

“I told you to move, cow!” he growled. “You will-”

“Enough!” Arioch shouted, her eyes flaring bright red.

She was across the room before the guard had even turned to face her, one hand around

his neck. She throttled him against the wall, holding him there by the throat and lifting him up

several inches until he was eye level with her.

“I said enough,” she growled, raising her other hand to point a warning finger to the other

guard, who had started to enter the hut as well. “We are awake, and we will come with you, but

you are going to behave yourselves or you won’t have a chance to see the fight. Do you

understand me?”
 The guard swallowed, and she felt his throat work under her grip. She didn’t relax it as,

after a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. When the other guard did the same, Arioch let go, taking

a step back as the more aggressive of the two guards dropped to his feet, only just managing to

catch himself instead of falling. He gave a single cough, straightened, and marched back to the

door.

Arioch walked back to Mya and Miranda, reaching down to ruffle Mya’s hair. Mya’s grip

on Miranda relaxed, and she tilted her head back to look up at Arioch through her sunglasses, the

tiniest hints of blue light peeking around the lenses. A small, tentative smile spread across her

lips, and Arioch nodded at her.

“Nothing to worry about, Mya. C’mon, let’s get going.”

Arioch flicked her gaze to Miranda, then turned back around, heading to the door. Dante

fell into step beside her, and she tilted her head toward Dante. “Whatever happens, you keep a

hand on the kid. If this doesn’t go well, try to tell them what you are planning to do, and what

she is. Can’t hurt, and might save your lives. Doubt they like being in the Dead Wilds much,”

she whispered.

Dante said nothing, though the tightening of his jaw as she spoke made it clear what she

said did little to comfort him. Arioch shook her head. She couldn’t worry about his state of mind.

Besides, she had never been the comforting sort.

As they reached the door, Dante and Arioch walking in front of Mya and Miranda, the

guards turned, and began marching them through the village. Unlike the last time they had been

paraded through the sanctuary, the place seemed completely empty. No elves stood to stare and
point. The streets, if the dirt paths between buildings deserved the name, were empty. It wasn’t

long before Arioch saw why.

Near the town’s center was a large, open square in which had been erected a set of

wooden stands circling a walled off pit. What must have been the village’s entire population sat,

stood, and jostled for position in the stands, some pressing up against the railing which peeked

over the dirt ground a few feet below. Arioch had to wonder whether they had always had this

little arena, or if Sularia had tasked someone with building it overnight.

Their approach was greeted with a chorus of jeers, and Arioch was quickly separated

from Dante, Miranda, and Mya, who were herded into a small, separate section of the stands,

fenced in and guarded by three elves in shabby leathers. Obviously they were not considered

much of a threat. As they reached the open gate to the arena floor, Arioch’s escort was joined by

two more well-equipped warriors who took up positions on either side of her as the other two

shifted to stand in front of and behind her.

Thusly boxed in, Arioch was escorted to the arena’s center, where the guards stopped,

and Arioch had a view of the crowd surrounding her completely. The stands soared above her

head, and Arioch realized they had to have been erected overnight, as she would have otherwise

noticed something so large when they first arrived. How many sorcerers did they have in this

place for something like this to be practical? As she looked around, she saw the space

immediately in front of her was given over to a large box, at the center of which was a large and

ornate wooden chair, not unlike the one in Sularia’s tree, and Arioch was not at all surprised to

find Sularia seated there in the same flowing robes she had worn the day before.
 The elder raised her hands for silence, standing up in a slow, smooth motion, and all

noise from the crowd ceased. Sularia’s face was a solemn mask, but Arioch would have bet

anything it was taking every ounce of control the woman had not to let the gloating smirk she’d

seen the day before creep back across her lips. She turned her eyes to Arioch and spoke in a

magically amplified, and Arioch noticed, deepened voice.

“Spider Queen,” she began gravely. “You stand accused of invading our lands,

attempting to murder our leaders and take power for yourself,” at this a collective hiss rose

among the crowd, “and of revealing our existence to the lesser races. You have asked for a trial

by combat, and as tradition dictates, you are given that right. You intend to champion your own

cause?”

Arioch merely nodded, not wanting to add to Sularia’s little bit of theater.

“Very well. As our champion, I have selected Haverin.” This time the crowd inhaled

sharply in a collective gasp. “Do you have anything to say before your trial commences?”

“Nothing that can’t wait until after,” Arioch shouted back, doing her best to make sure

her voice carried.

Sularia’s lips twitched, and Arioch saw the beginnings of a self-satisfied smirk once

more. Obviously Sularia didn’t believe there would be an after for Arioch. Well, Arioch wasn’t

entirely sure about that either, but she also wasn’t about to let Sularia know.

“Very well. The rules have been determined by our champion as such: Both combatants

will fight without arms and armor, and no assistance may be offered to either. The fight ends

only with the death of one of the combatants. There will be no surrender. Should the accused
lose, she will die here in the arena. Should she win, she will have her possessions restored and be

free to go with her charges.”

Arioch tapped her foot impatiently as Sularia droned on, folding her arms across her

chest and shifting a bit in her sarong. Fighting in the ill-fitting garment wasn’t going to be easy,

but it was a little late for them to offer her a new wardrobe.

“Finally, before the trial begins, our sorcerers have elected to furnish you with clothing

more appropriate to the task before you.” Maybe it wasn’t too late for a wardrobe change. “They

thought this might better suit you.”

Sularia nodded to an elf standing to her left, a tall, willowy woman with deeply tanned

skin, which stood in stark contrast to the pale elves surrounding her. She stepped forward and

raised a hand, flicking her wrist toward Arioch before stepping back without comment. Arioch

blinked, and was about to ask where she might get these new clothes, when she felt a strange,

tingling sensation wash over her. Her sarong began to twist and warp, the fibers darkening and

stretching, even thickening, as they flowed around her, the garment having every appearance of

melting. Arioch watched, stifling her gasp as her clothes wriggled over her body, the off-white

fibers darkening to glossy black and wrapping around her in thick bands until she realized what

was happening. Her lips pressed together in a scowl as her sarong reformed, stretching across her

body to cover her upper arms and legs and flattening against her chest and stomach, squeezing

almost painfully tightly, something she hadn’t experienced in millennia. At length, the tingling

sensation abated, and Arioch was left covered from her neck to the bottoms of her feet in a set of

tightly-fitted gladiatorial novice armor. Metal bands protected her thighs and upper arms, layered

over the boiled and blackened leather, along with rivets across the chest and stomach. The
novice’s armor was the heaviest version of gladiatorial armor, meant to protect the inexperienced

from lethal or career-ending attacks from their betters.

Arioch could see the effort it took Sularia to keep from smirking, the woman’s jaw held

rigidly still, the muscles in her neck tightening. So she thought she was humiliating Arioch,

putting her in the stifling armor of a neophyte. Difficult to admit though it was, Sularia had

succeeded. Her time in such armor had been mercifully brief, and the firm press of its restrictive,

but protective embrace galled her. To be displayed as if she were an untrained child was a bigger

blow to her pride than she would have cared to admit, and the chuckle that rippled through the

audience did nothing to help matters.

“Thank you,” she called out tightly. “This is far more appropriate arena attire.”

Sularia’s lips twitched, and Arioch could see the amusement there. The elder cast her

amused, haughty gaze around the arena, shifting in her seat before finally speaking up again.

“Then it is time to begin the trial. Haverin, enter the arena,” Sularia intoned, her voice

faltering at first before regaining her put-on, imperious quality which Arioch couldn’t help but

wonder if the villagers took seriously.

Arioch turned toward the gate she’d entered through, but it was closed. Confused, Arioch

glanced around, seeing only smooth walls. As she looked, a tingling pressure built behind her

eyes, growing to the point she was forced to squeeze them shut. Almost the moment she did, the

air around her began to crackle, a wave of prickling static washing over her. Her eyes shot open

and were almost immediately closed by a brilliant flash just in front of her. She checked her

impulse to leap backward, not wanting to appear frightened.

 As the afterimage faded from her eyes, and she blinked away the dark spots that took its

place, a figure resolved into view in front of her. A tall, dark-skinned elf stepped forward. He

wore a midnight blue sash across his bare chest, which opened into a loose kilt around his waist

which covered his legs to the calves. His long black hair was tied in a ponytail, which fluttered

behind him as the air displaced from his grand entrance rushed back toward him.

“That was dramatic,” she muttered, shaking her head, eyes remaining focused on what

must have been Haverin.

“So you are the Spider Queen,” Haverin said, taking a step toward Arioch.

As she watched him approach, Arioch was struck by how much healthier the sorcerer

looked than the other elves she had seen. His dark skin was stretched across thick bands of

muscle, not drawn taut over bone. Why this was would have to wait until after the fight, she

supposed, as he had come to stand just outside of arm’s reach, and was looking at her

expectantly.

“That’s me,” she said with a shrug.

“There was a time I wanted very much to meet you,” he said, folding his arms across his

chest. “The stories of your skill with shadows and the magics you used were fascinating, even to

a sorcerer.” He pursed his lips in a thoughtful frown. “But I understand you do not have access to

those skills anymore. Too long removed from magic in the world outside the Wilds. Whatever

the case, I’m sorry we didn’t meet before today.”

“So am I,” Arioch said flatly, imagining for a moment what she would have done to him

had she found him in the immediate aftermath of the war.

 Haverin’s lips twitched in a faintly amused smile. “Yes, I heard about your hunting down

collaborators. But, here we are. I’m more than a little excited to see you at work.”

Arioch ground her teeth. If there was a way for Haverin to be more smug, she couldn’t

think of it. Her hands curled into fists, and she bent her knees, coiling herself in preparation to

strike almost without realizing it. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” Arioch growled.

“Begin the trial!” Sularia shouted.

“I’m afraid not,” Haverin said, shaking his head.

Arioch didn’t have time to react. The air in front of her simply exploded. She was thrown

clear of Haverin, across the arena floor. The ground seemed almost to jump up and slam into her,

such was the force of her impact. Air was forced from her lungs and she rolled across the ground

until she hit the far wall of the arena. Not the most auspicious start. Still, Arioch wasted no time

in pushing to her feet, casting her gaze around for Haverin. He remained standing at the center of

the ring, arms still folded across his chest.

With no other choice, Arioch rushed in, running toward Haverin at an angle. It was

always a bad idea to simply head straight at a sorcerer, as it made her a much easier target for

some of the more…spectacular spells they might use. Haverin watched her approach, his head

turning to keep track of her. Sorcerers were tricky opponents, as each had their own way of

casting spells and manipulating the world around them. Arioch had learned, through repeated

trial, to watch for certain tells among them all which signaled their use of magic. A twitch in the

face, a sudden glow in the eye, hair blown out against the wind. Little things could warn of a

spell being cast, and if she was quick enough to respond, could save her life.
 Haverin’s eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, and Arioch suddenly changed direction, jerking

to her right. The ground where she had been standing erupted in a gout of flame, sand shooting

up from the arena floor, burned so hot a fountain of glass stood where she had been. Heat washed

over Arioch’s back and shoulder, but she had escaped the worst of it. For a moment, Haverin

looked victorious, then he blinked, turning to see Arioch bearing down on him. Arioch leapt

upward, flipping forward and bringing her heel down toward his head. He looked up, his lips

parting in shock as her foot connected with his forehead…and then passed through it.

Haverin faded from view, and Arioch’s kick passed harmlessly through the phantom

image. She caught herself, landing low and twisting to search for him. Haverin stood clear across

the arena, hands still folded across his chest, smirking. Arioch knew what was coming, and leapt

away, keeping her focus on Haverin as another pillar of flame bloomed where she had been

crouching. Again, she sprinted toward Haverin at an angle, realizing part of why the arena floor

had been made so large was to give him space to cast spells at a distance.

Haverin moved one hand, pointing toward her with his arms still across his chest. Arioch

instinctively shifted her weight, dodging to her left…and almost right into the line of fire

slashing through the air between her and Haverin. His lips twitched in a smirk as Arioch

dropped, throwing herself to the ground. Too slow. Pain seared through her left arm as the fire

burned skin away from her bicep. She hissed, gritting her teeth as she rolled away and sprang

back to her feet, moving automatically. Thousands of years of experience had taught her never to

be still when fighting a sorcerer.

Haverin sent another tendril of flame whipping toward her as she got to her feet. She

leapt straight up, Haverin’s aim having been low, toward the ground. Her jump brought her close
enough to attack again, and she swung her uninjured arm with all her might. No phantom image

this time, instead her fist scraped along a shimmering curtain of violet light. It didn’t hurt, not

exactly, but she was thrown off balance as Haverin’s shield shifted her momentum away from

him. She staggered, and Haverin moved in a blur, fading backward and spreading both hands.

She was too close to dodge, and the wave of energy which hurled her backward knocked the

wind from her.

She caught herself before she could slide across the entire arena this time, looking up

toward Haverin, who continued to smirk at her. He was toying with her. Twice he could have

and should have killed her now. Was he going to treat her like one of the sport victims she had

fought for hours in the arena, cutting apart piece by piece? Anger burned away the pain in her

arm, and Arioch leapt to her feet again. She would not die helpless.

Arioch’s feet pounded the sand, muscles straining as she ran at Haverin. The sorcerer was

laughing. Laughing at her! Rage gave her speed, and the muscles in Arioch’s legs coiled as she

crouched low. Right as she was about to spring onto Haverin, he rushed forward, his feet sliding

over the sand without taking so much as a step. Arioch didn’t have time to react. Haverin swung

his fist in an uppercut, snapping her whole body backward, the force almost enough to crush her

jawbone. With Arioch off-balance, Haverin’s knee slammed into her stomach, doubling her over

and sending a spike of pain through her much-abused ribs. As Arioch gasped for breath,

clutching at her stomach, a blow from Haverin’s elbow to her back sent her sprawling facedown

into the sand, stars exploding across her vision.

She couldn’t breathe. Arioch clutched ineffectively at the sand beneath her, but her arms

lacked the strength to push her body up. Arioch tried to gulp down air, but instead her stomach
clenched, and her lungs heaved violently. The painful cough wracked her body, and she felt

wetness in her mouth, saw a thick splatter of blood darken the sand. Anger burned through her,

compounded by the indignity of squirming uselessly on the ground, trying in vain to get to her

feet. It was pathetic. She’d seen it hundreds of times before. The moment where her victim’s

body gave out before their spirit. They would squirm, flail, spit, and snarl. But they could do

nothing. She could do nothing.

“I thought you’d have more fight in you, Spider Queen,” Haverin mocked, standing over

her, arms folded across his chest. “Even without your magic, I thought you’d be more

impressive.”

Arioch tilted her head, glaring up at Haverin, her mouth full of sand, face caked in the

gritty stuff. The sight of her made him laugh again, head thrown back as his whole body shook

with amusement. He wasn’t a fighter. Haverin was a sorcerer, a scholar, and perhaps a showman.

But he was not a fighter. A fighter wouldn’t have taken his eyes off of his opponent. Not when

he was standing so close, even if they were down.

She couldn’t get up yet, but her arms still worked. While Haverin laughed, Arioch

reached out with both hands, grabbing his ankles and tugging with all her might. Haverin’s

laughter stopped abruptly as he fell backward, his feet pulled out from under him. Arioch levered

herself up and onto Haverin. Her hands closed around his throat, and she throttled him against

the ground. Haverin’s eyes widened in surprise, the smile dying on his lips before he suddenly let

out a short bark of laughter as Arioch slammed his head into the ground again.

Haverin’s eyes narrowed, and all at once Arioch found herself lifted upward, thrown off

of him and suspended in the air. The sorcerer got to his feet and dusted himself off while Arioch
hung helplessly above the ground, arms and legs thrashing wildly as she tried to free herself from

whatever spell held her in place.

“So there is a bit of life in you,” he said, tilting his head back to look up at her.

Arioch twisted, trying to grab at him, though he was much too far away. Suspended as

she was, Arioch had a perfect view of the crowd and their response to the show Haverin was

putting on for their benefit. They loved it. Some were laughing, others pointing and shouting,

many cheering. Everyone present was enjoying the show, none moreso than Sularia who sat in

her little throne, no longer able to contain her self-satisfied smirk. The only silence came from

Miranda, Dante, and Mya.

Arioch wished she hadn’t seen them. Miranda simply stared at her, her expression

betraying nothing of what she might think as she stood behind Mya, hands on the girl’s

shoulders. Dante’s mouth hung open, and he looked torn between looking away and running out

to try and help her. But Mya…Mya was crying, and Arioch could see Miranda’s hands almost

digging into her shoulders to hold the girl in place as she tried to climb over the wall roughly

level with the little girl’s chin. Tears streaked her cheeks and her blue eyes blazed as she

squirmed in Miranda’s grip.

Arioch looked away. She couldn’t watch as the girl started screaming for her. When her

head drooped and her limbs ceased their flailing, going limp, she simply hung there. Haverin’s

laughter subsided into quieter chuckles, and Arioch caught sight of him flick his wrist. Whatever

held her in place released its grip, and Arioch fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Once more,

the air was forced from her lungs, but this time, she didn’t stir right away.
 “I know I haven’t killed you yet,” Haverin said, not coming to stand as close this time. At

least she’d shown him how foolish that was.

She was going to die. It was just a question of how he would finish her now. If nothing

else, she might keep some dignity and not die facedown in the dirt. Centuries away from war had

almost let her forget how difficult simply getting to her feet could be after such a vicious beating.

Her ribs were on fire, pain blossoming along her side and chest. Maybe if she hadn’t come into

the fight wounded, she could have lasted longer. It didn’t matter, and as she forced herself up,

fingers gouging deep furrows into the sand, she summoned every ounce of strength she had to

claw her way to her feet. She was halfway there when Haverin clicked his tongue.

“No, no. You can’t be the queen in defeat. So, you should kneel,” Haverin boomed,

amplifying his voice so the whole crowd could hear.

The cheer rose so loud it almost knocked Arioch back into the dirt.

“Fuck you,” Arioch panted, the words accompanied by a small froth of blood tinging her

lips.

Not trusting herself to say more, Arioch continued forcing herself upward, shifting her

weight back to her feet and starting to straighten. Just as she was getting her balance, Arioch felt

a sudden weight press against her. Her limbs grew heavy, and she stumbled, only barely

managing to regain her balance. Still, her body continued to grow heavier and heavier Arioch’s

feet pressed into the ground, deforming the sand around her. Haverin was doing this. He was

making her heavier. A flick of her eyes to his face confirmed it as he smirked at her and folded

his arms across his chest once more.

 “I said kneel, Spider,” he shouted.

When the magic making her body heavier didn’t work, Haverin’s eyes flickered,

gleaming brilliant red for a moment. A tremendous weight slammed between her shoulders, and

Arioch pitched forward, managing to catch herself on one hand, but she had dropped to one

knee, her upper body pushed low, almost parallel to the ground.

“Much better.”

Arioch almost couldn’t lift her head to see Haverin. Such was the weight of his spell that

the sand beneath her was starting to cut into her hands and knee. She grit her teeth against the

pain, red eyes narrowed and blazing with fury. The pain was nothing compared to Haverin’s

nearly palpable aura of self-satisfaction. He spread his arms, looking over the crowd, pausing for

a moment to enjoy the mixture of horror and fury on the faces of Arioch’s companions. With one

stroke, he would end four lives.

“I’m afraid the elder asked me not to make this quick,” he said without even the faintest

trace of regret, his voice barely even reaching Arioch’s ears over the roar of the crowd.

Haverin raised both hands, taking a step back and stretching his arms out toward her. His

palms began to glow, light and heat bathing Arioch’s whole body. Brighter and brighter it grew

until she was forced to close her eyes. A tingling wave washed over Arioch’s whole body as she

felt pure magical energy washing over her. The tingle became a sting. Then it began to burn.

Searing pain scorched every nerve in Arioch’s body, and it was all she could do to

swallow the scream of pain trying to fight its way from her throat. She could, at the very least,

deny him the pleasure of her suffering. More and more of Haverin’s magic washed over her, and
she curled instinctively, raising her hands as she sank to both knees, doubling over to try and

protect her body from the waves of agonizing energy. The skin on the palms of her hands started

to blister. Haverin’s spell was pulling her apart one piece at a time, and she could feel every

excruciating second as layers of skin were torn from her hands.

As Arioch closed her eyes against the blast of magic she thought might reduce her to little

more than a pile of ash, everything…stopped. When the next wave of energy didn’t hit her, she

opened her eyes, confused. All had gone still and silent, and form the nearly blinding light of

Haverin’s spell, a figure gradually resolved into view. Blue eyes stared down at her as a familiar

form stepped out of the light and onto the arena’s sand, not disturbing so much as a grain where

she stood. Long, thick black hair swirled around her waist, seeming to move on its own. Arioch

recognized the white spidersilk robe she wore, buttressed with metal plates of armor older than

anything she had ever owned. This was the goddess of war, The Spider.

“You’re not here,” Arioch said, her voice hoarse. “Am I dead already?”

“You know better,” she replied, chuckling softly in amusement. “I can’t die, no matter

how deep you bury me. I may be part of you, Arioch, but I can’t ever be gone.”

The Spider regarded Arioch for a moment, then made a show of looking over her

shoulder at Haverin, frowning. Arioch supposed she should have known her silence for all these

years did not necessarily mean she was gone, but with the increasing lack of magic in the world,

Arioch had assumed her presence had simply…dwindled. After all, what were the gods without

magic in the world?

 “So this is what it takes to defeat my Champion, hm? A bookworm of a sorcerer who

wouldn’t have even suited The Crow as a Champion?” The Spider shook her head. “I know you

haven’t had a proper challenge in a while, but this is embarrassing for both of us.”

Arioch would have thought The Crow, the goddess of knowledge and wisdom, would

have taken an interest in Haverin, given his inclinations and achievements. Like The Spider and

The Crow, each god and goddess was known by an animal totem, some creature they either

identified with, or had played a direct part in creating, Arioch was never clear on which was the

case. While they had names of their own, mortal tongues weren’t capable of producing the

sounds to speak them, and Arioch had only ever heard one god’s name spoken aloud, and the

experience had left her unconscious for days. She was, however, not inclined to argue with one

deity over the tastes of another. Too often, the gods’ minds didn’t seem to operate on any

comprehensible mortal logic.

“The most powerful sorcerer the elves have to offer is embarrassing for a Champion cut

off from magic?” Arioch asked.

The Spider shifted her attention back to Arioch, her lips pursing in a frown. No matter

how many thousands of years went by, neither she, nor any other deity really, seemed quite at

ease with a mortal speaking to them in anything but supplication. But, as a blessed champion,

Arioch did not feel what was termed godfear. Mortals in the presence of gods were, to a one,

struck with a kind of terrified awe which compelled most to drop to their knees in worship. It

was…not surprising. To be in the presence of a being responsible for the existence of the

cosmos, a being whose voice could shape reality itself, was an understandably powerful

experience. The gods tended to carry much of this power in their appearance, when they weren’t
disguised as mortals, and so mortals seeing them were stricken with godfear, and could hardy

speak in their presence, much less argue with them.

“The most powerful sorcerer alive against a god’s champion shouldn’t be much of a

fight, Arioch,” she said flatly.

“Well, it hasn’t been so far,” Arioch responded glibly.

The goddess’s eyes flared, and Arioch realized a moment too late that sarcasm had never

gone over particularly well with her. In fairness, she hadn’t spoken with The Spider in almost

two thousand years, since the death of magic had seemed to mute her presence in Arioch’s mind.

“It is only my great affection for you keeping you alive in moments like this, Arioch,”

she growled.

“Affection,” Arioch snorted. “Right.”

The Spider’s eyes narrowed, but Arioch met her gaze. She was, after all, about to die

anyway, it seemed. “We have both been made to pay for your idiocy in trusting The Jackal on

that matter.”

Arioch bristled at this. The Jackal was the trickster god who had helped Arioch to contain

The Spider within herself, as close as anyone could come to killing a god, in order to avoid

having The Spider consume her soul as a sacrifice. In all the thousands of years since Arioch had

enacted The Jackal’s instructions, The Spider had maintained he had been lying to her. But as the

goddess of war and scheming, The Spider was not always entirely trustworthy herself, and so far

as Arioch could see, The Jackal gained nothing from helping Arioch as he had.

“Is this really the time to have this conversation?” Arioch asked pointedly.
 The Spider folded her arms across her chest, and Arioch realized she had fallen quickly

into an old familiarity with the goddess that might not have been entirely shared. This was,

perhaps, not altogether surprising given the time the goddess had spent confined within Arioch.

“Why are you here? Now, I mean. Of all the times you could have shown yourself, why

now?”

“I thought that much was obvious,” The Spider said simply. It wasn’t, not to Arioch at

least. “Being cut off from magic, manifesting to you would have been…difficult. But such is not

the case here. And, well, I didn’t think I’d see a day my Champion lost.”

“So you’re here to gloat? I die, you get released out into the world?”

“I suppose if you twist your viewpoint up enough you could manage to see it that way.

But, no. I can’t have some sorcerer who hasn’t spent more than a few days of his life on a

battlefield best my Champion. This was why I didn’t want one to start. I’m the goddess of war.

How does it look if my Champion loses in a battle?”

It shouldn’t have surprised Arioch that somehow this was all bound up in The Spider’s

considerable ego. One thing she found all gods shared was the sort of ego she supposed must

accompany the beings who held nearly limitless power over reality itself. Each god’s Champion

was something of an elaborate bit of showmanship, and each Champion lost was somehow an

embarrassment. The Spider had only ever taking one Champion, Arioch, spoke volumes of her

distaste at even the prospect of being embarrassed by a mortal representative.

“So, am I to understand your first appearance in all this time is going to be a helpful

one?”
 The Spider approached, her enormous form, fully head and shoulders taller than Arioch,

blotting out the light of Haverin’s magic. She leaned down, her dark lips pulling back in a smile

showing gleaming white teeth. Arioch remembered that smile. It had been the first thing she’d

seen of The Spider as a child, and she had seen it many times since. In all her time knowing The

Spider, she had come to learn it meant The Spider was about to enact one of her far-reaching

schemes.

“You don’t need my help here. Not directly. You just need a moment to think.” She

gestured behind her to Haverin. “You wondered earlier about why I thought The Crow wouldn’t

want him for a Champion.” Arioch grimaced. She had forgotten. Not only could gods read the

minds of mortals quite readily, but more importantly, The Spider had a special connection to her

mind as she was quite literally living within it. “It is because for all his studies, he still manages

to be a fool. Maybe in another few thousand years he could learn wisdom to go with all his

knowledge. But, really…what sorcerer wields pure magical essence on its own? Oh, it’s very

impressive as a light show, and certainly stripping your body apart one layer of skin and sinew at

a time will be agony, but there are other, better ways to accomplish this. Don’t you think?”

Arioch’s lips parted in shock. The Spider was right. Having been apart from magic for so

long, Arioch had forgotten so much about its use and manipulation. Sorcerers seldom used pure

magic because it was unformed, and anyone with a connection to magic might take the raw

essence and turn it to some other purpose, where magic formed into something more purposeful

was much harder to wrest away from its wielder.

“I haven’t done that in a long time,” Arioch said slowly. “I’m no sorcerer…”
 “Well, you had better remember quickly. I think I’ve helped enough for one day,” The

Spider said, and smirked as she vanished.

Arioch’s body jerked with the sudden return of the painful waves of magic which

resumed tearing at her once The Spider vanished. A spasm of agony shot through her, but she

fought it down. The Spider was right. Pure magic was not something proper sorcerers used. It

was showy, painful, and memorable to be sure, but also exploitable. Haverin was too young to

know how it might be used against him. Arioch may not have been a sorcerer, but she could still

channel magic, and now The Spider had put the idea in her head, maybe Haverin’s energy could

jumpstart what had been so long dormant in her.

She hadn’t attempted this in thousands of years, and even then only on rare occasions, but

she had little choice. Arioch squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the pain as she focused

on drawing in the magic surrounding her. All at once, a searing surge of energy rushed through

Arioch. Her entire body twitched violently, and she was nearly thrown flat to the ground. Instead

of tearing her apart, Haverin’s magic was coursing through her. As it did, she felt her own

connection to the magic around her explode back into life, a curtain pulled back from her eyes to

show her once more what she had become blind to after years of separation.

Haverin blazed with magic, its light coming off of him in brilliant starbursts. But the light

was flickering as he expended more and more of his energy on her, and she could see confusion

and doubt creeping into his face as her renewed magic burned in her own eyes. Invigorated by

the sudden rush of raw energy, Arioch remembered what it was like to feel powerful. Not simply

strong and fast, but powerful. As Haverin poured more magic into his spell, she continued to

channel the energy back into herself until she felt it might explode out of her. But she would
need a tremendous amount of magic to beat him, and keep herself on her feet long enough to do

it.

Arioch began to stand, and Haverin realized something was wrong. His spell wasn’t

burning her flesh anymore. Instead, her red eyes glowed bright enough to shine through even the

glare of his spell. As she got to her feet, Arioch gritted her teeth and focused, exhaling sharply

and, with a tremendous exertion of will, forced the wall of blazing energy back at Haverin,

dispelling his attack.

Light exploded around the pair of them. A deafening bang shook the arena. Haverin

staggered backward, shielding his eyes with one hand. Arioch seized her moment. She rushed

forward and balled up one fist, swinging for his stomach with all the strength she had in her,

covering her body in a thin bubble of magic as Haverin had. His focus was broken. Arioch’s fist

shattered the barrier she had been unable to breach before. Fist met flesh, and Haverin doubled

over, gasping for breath. As he staggered, Arioch brought the heel of her other hand up,

smashing it into Haverin’s face.

Haverin reeled back, grabbing his face with both hands. The man was a sorcerer, and not

used to taking a physical beating. To his credit, he recovered quickly, stretching out a hand

toward Arioch, flames licking his fingertips. Arioch sidestepped, grabbing his wrist and turning

it back, forcing his hand up against his back. She was rewarded with a gasp of pain which sent

her lips twitching in delight.

“You’re not a fighter, Haverin,” Arioch growled, wrenching his arm up, and perhaps

understanding some measure of what The Spider meant about why he could not have been a

Champion.
 The sound of his shoulder tearing from its socket, and the tendons in his elbow snapping

as she overextended them drew a smirk from Arioch. She felt the air around her shift as he tried

to bowl her over with another wave of energy, able to feel and anticipate his magic with her own

now rekindled. Arioch slid around him, away from the cascade of magic, to stand facing him.

His right arm hung limply at his side, the hand dangling at an odd angle. Nothing could have

matched the combination of bewilderment and fear at war on his face though, and Arioch all but

drank it in. Still, he was too dangerous to toy with, which he proved right away.

Haverin’s eyes narrowed, and a bolt of flame streaked toward Arioch from the sky.

Arioch held her breath and closed her eyes, focusing as intently as she could, even as she felt the

heat begin to prickle at the top of her head. Shadows enveloped Arioch, and she vanished just

before the fire seared the sand where she had been standing into a sheet of molten glass.

A sudden silence fell over the crowd as the spectators waited to see a body amidst the

cracking glass. Half a heartbeat later, Arioch appeared in a swirl of shadow, behind Haverin. The

faint hiss of her appearance drew his attention, and Arioch’s lips curved in a vicious smile. She

hadn’t been sure she was ready to shift again, to move through the shadows so quickly it was

often mistaken for true teleportation, as Haverin had done on entering the arena.

“What…” Haverin’s voice trailed off as Arioch laughed.

Her laughter echoed around the arena, and shadows coiled and twisted around her again.

She reappeared standing in front of him once more, crunching the glass beneath her feet. The

sorcerer turned toward her, then fell back half a step. Ha lifted his good hand, but Arioch swatted

it aside. The magic which burned through her was starting to take its toll. She needed to end this,

and expel all the extra energy she had absorbed before it really hurt her.
 “Goodbye, Haverin,” she breathed, sliding forward across the glass and grabbing him by

the shoulders to whisper to him. “I’ll make this quick.”

Haverin’s body stiffened as her fingers dug into his shoulders, the nails piercing flesh. A

collective gasp rose through the crowd as they realized the arena was darkening. Arioch drew the

light from the arena around her, plunging it into total darkness until the only thing visible was the

piercing glow of her red eyes, and the faint glimmer of the tattoo on her back.

No one saw what happened to Haverin. The spectators saw the two glowing spots of red

move back and forth, and heard a long, drawn out scream, cut off abruptly in a gargling gasp.

And then silence. The moment of awful quiet seemed to stretch forever until the darkness that

had engulfed the arena finally began to lift. And then, every spectator present saw Arioch exactly

as Sularia would have liked. She stood in the arena’s center, blood dripping from her hands.

Crumpled beneath her was Haverin’s body, facedown in the blood-soaked sand. Finding his

wounds in the mess of blood covering him was impossible. What everyone there could be sure

of, though, was the tiny spark of life remaining in the sorcerer, as one of his hands groped

weakly around the arena floor, grasping futilely at Arioch’s ankle. To the audience’s collective

horror, Arioch lifted her foot, and pressed it down on the back of Haverin’s head, forcing his face

into the sand.

Few who lived in the sanctuary, as Sularia had called it, had ever seen an elven arena

match. Perhaps none other than Sularia knew what to expect. Arioch meant to show them exactly

what they had asked to see. Haverin’s struggles amounted to little more than useless flailing. He

slapped ineffectually at her leg, tried to buck her off of him, but he had no strength left. Whether

he died of his wounds in a few moments, or right then, Arioch had already killed him. All that
was left was for the audience to see just what this meant. The muscles in her leg tensed, pushing

Haverin’s head harder into the blood-slickened sand. Silence reigned as the sorcerer finally went

still, and Arioch turned her gaze toward Sularia.

The elder’s lips were pressed into a thin, pale line. The muscles in her neck strained, and

her brows contracted as she fought to maintain her composure. None of Arioch’s satisfaction

showed on her face, but it swelled in her nonetheless as Sularia haltingly rose to her feet,

approaching the railing surrounding her private booth. As she leaned forward, fingers curling

around the balcony in a white-knuckled grip, Sularia gathered herself to speak.

“Arioch Starshadow, you are found to be,” the words seemed to stick in her throat, and

Arioch’s eyes narrowed, her brilliantly glowing red orbs fixing so intently on Sularia they might

have burned right through her. “…innocent. Your possessions are hereby restored, and you are

free to go.”

Sularia’s voice all but dripped with contempt, and she reached into her robe to produce

the key she had taken to the chest holding Arioch’s belongings. She flung it down toward

Arioch, who caught it in a bloody hand. The elder raised her hands to dismiss the crowd, but

Arioch cleared her throat.

“I have a right to speak,” she shouted, and the crowd that had been shuffling about,

preparing to exit fell silent. She’d warned Sularia what would happen if she’d forced this trial.

Sularia turned her attention back to Arioch, and stared at her for a long moment. There

was, of course, nothing she could do to stop Arioch. Tradition was still clearly important to this

community, if the elder’s tree, the spectacle of the trial by combat, and Sularia being forced to

dismiss the charges at its conclusion were anything to go by. She couldn’t deny Arioch her right
to speak after her trial without being seen to spit on those same traditions she had been clinging

to. For the briefest of moments, Sularia’s collected mask cracked, and Arioch saw her all but

pleading gaze. But she could find no sympathy for the woman who had tried to have her

executed, who betrayed their people.

“Very well,” she said, voice heavy with resignation.

“Sularia, you are a traitor to your people by your own admission. You told me you

collaborated with the Free Alliances during their war against our people, and I call you to answer

for your crime,” Arioch cried, her voice rising more than she meant for it to. She hadn’t even

realized she had yet to remove her foot from the back of Haverin’s head.

A low murmur rose up from the audience, and Arioch wondered if they even believed

her. Sularia held up her hands for silence, but it didn’t come right away. Again, she gestured for

silence, but it wasn’t until her third attempt that the crowd begrudgingly settled into a tenuous

quiet. Sularia turned her attention to Arioch, glaring hatefully now.

“You have no proof but your word, and the Spider Queen is not known to have been

trustworthy by any definition of the word,” she countered.

This seemed to sway the crowd back to her side, and another rumbling began, this time of

jeers aimed at Arioch for defaming their elder.

“You freely admitted to me that both you and Haverin collaborated with the Free

Alliances,” Arioch shouted, only then realizing she was still pressing Haverin’s head into the

sand. She jerked her foot back, aiming a kick at his ribs and sending his body rolling onto its
front, sightless eyes staring upward. Arioch pointed up at Sularia. “You belong right there next to

him.”

Sularia turned her nose up, releasing the railing and gesturing to the guards in the stands.

“Return her belongings and see her and her charges gone. They’ve done enough damage here.”

Arioch glared up at Sularia in the brief moment before the elder turned and swept out of

the arena, ending the discussion. She shouldn’t have been surprised to find the woman brushing

aside her accusation so easily, and truthfully wasn’t sure what she’d thought she might

accomplish. Maybe when this was all over she would come back and try a more direct approach.

She had little time to consider any sort of plan, though, as the guards were already

approaching, flanking Dante, Miranda, and Mya. The trio looked relieved, to be sure, but there

was not a trace of happiness to be found among them. Arioch did not have much trouble

imagining why this might be, in fairness. Her brutal finish to the fight wasn’t the sort of thing she

would have expected them to appreciate. At least she had spared them seeing most of it.

“Are you All right?” Dante asked, the first to speak up as usual.

“I’m fine,” Arioch lied. It was an easy lie, as Haverin’s blood now covered most of her

wounds, masking them.

“You look…taller,” he said, frowning at her.

Arioch shrugged as the guards turned them toward the arena’s exit and silently marched

them toward it. There was no question that The Spider’s full return within her had made her, in

some sense, more impressive. She didn’t have the energy to go into it with the perpetually

inquisitive demonkin. Of course, she could see him just the slightest bit differently, too, with
magic enhancing her vision. The orange glow of his eyes was just a shade brighter, and she could

just make out the tiniest of glimmers of magic inside him. Demonkin were, after all, creatures of

magic, even if Dante had been separated from it as she had.

What caught her attention, though, was Mya. Even at the periphery of Arioch’s vision,

the girl glowed like a miniature sun. Her brilliantly blue eyes blazed in her head, and a blinding

light shone in her center. Arioch almost couldn’t look at her, and instinctively squinted against

the brilliance of her glow. Mya, though, was not looking at her, and seemed to be fighting to

keep her attention off Arioch, both hands holding onto her sunglasses, head cast downward.

Miranda still had one hand resting on the girl’s shoulder. Looking to the human, Arioch

saw…nothing. Miranda looked exactly as she had before, with not the tiniest of glimmers of

magic to be seen. Odd, Arioch would have expected at least some magic to cling to someone

who spent her time studying things ancient and past.

Her thoughts were interrupted when their exit was barred by a tall, robed silhouette.

Whoever it was held out a hand toward the guards, who dutifully stopped. Was someone else

about to try to kill them? Arioch wasn’t sure she had the energy for another fight. Before she

could even begin to brace herself, though, the stranger spoke up.

“You have a long trip to return to your homeland,” it said in a female voice. “Come, rest

at my home for the night. Eat, bathe yourselves, and leave in the morning.”
Chapter 15

Arioch had been too tired to argue with their unexpected benefactor, who identified

herself as Lianya. Dante and Miranda were understandably not enthusiastic about remaining in

the city, but Arioch could hardly make herself take another step, and almost hadn’t made it the

short walk across the village to reach Lianya’s rather spacious home. The walk had been

something of a blur, and Arioch wasn’t sure she could have found her way back if her life

depended on it.

Perhaps sensing Arioch’s exhaustion, Lianya had personally led the quartet up to a large

suite she supposed might serve as their room, and guided Arioch to a well-appointed bathroom,

at the center of which was probably the most welcome sight Arioch had encountered since

leaving home: A large, steaming circular tub almost twice as wide as she was tall, and from the

look of it, deep enough for the waters to reach her stomach while she stood. She didn’t even

remember disrobing and getting in the water. Nor did she remember falling asleep.

Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of her name, and to the grateful realization that The

Spider had elected not to trouble her dreams this time. Arioch realized she had leaned her head

back, resting against the smooth stone side of the tub. She blinked several times, and had to force

herself to lift her head from the stone, giving a quiet groan. Tiny crystals set into the walls had

begun to glow, filling the room with a soft, white light, as the sunlight which had streamed in

through the open windows when Arioch entered had all but darkened.

“I see Haverin made quite a mess of you,” Lianya was saying.

The elf stood in front of Arioch, almost eye-level with her as Arioch sat on a shelf carved

into the tub. She had a cloth in one hand, and held the other out to Arioch.
 “I would have one of my servants do this, but I thought seeing them might unsettle your

companions,” she said.

“How long was I out?”

“A couple of hours, no more. Come, now, give me your hand. You’re in no position to

clean yourself.”

Arioch couldn’t argue there. Now the adrenaline had worn off, and she wasn’t channeling

magic to strengthen her body, she wasn’t sure she could even bend her fingers. Haverin’s magic

had burned most of the skin from her hands and forearms, and her left bicep wasn’t in much

better shape. Seeing no point in fighting her on it, Arioch held out one hand to Lianya, frowning

at the sight of the cracked and bleeding skin that remained, coated as it was in a mixture of her

blood and Haverin’s.

The shock of pain spiking through Arioch as Lianya gently scrubbed her clean shouldn’t

have surprised her. Her hand was raw and bloody, and even a silken cloth would have felt like a

tangle of brambles. She hissed in pain, and Lianya nodded with a frown. “I know it hurts,” she

murmured. “But I will do what I can to heal you once you are clean.”

“You’re a healer?” Arioch asked, trying to keep the hope from her voice.

“No. I am a sorceress, but many of us know at least some healing magic.”

“Why the generosity? Didn’t I just kill your teacher?”

“Hardly. Haverin was more a rival than anything else. You’ve opened quite an

opportunity for me,” Lianya replied, moving to scrub Arioch’s other hand.
 Well, that at least made sense. Elves weren’t known for shows of gratitude, though, so

Arioch wasn’t at all surprised by Lianya’s next words.

“Is it true? Was Sularia a collaborator?”

One step up the ladder was seldom enough to satisfy an elf, but Arioch couldn’t help but

be surprised by the naked ambition in the question. Still, if I meant seeing Sularia die, Arioch

would be happy to tell the sorceress what she knew.

“Yes. She told me. Well, I asked and she admitted to it, really. After enough comments

about how awful we of the ruling class were, I called her out on being a collaborator, and she

admitted it, proudly enough. Said Haverin found her and several others and brought them to

safety when the Free Alliances started butchering them. I guess she didn’t think I’d have a

chance to tell anyone.”

Lianya released Arioch’s hand and moved closer to start cleaning her shoulder. The

sorceress, like Haverin, appeared much more vital than the other elves. Her deep red hair fell in a

thick mane around her shoulders, framing pale, though not unnaturally so, skin, dotted around

her cheekbones with a light smattering of freckles. Her touch was mercifully light, for all it

mattered as the cloth touched her arm and pain shot through her body once more.

“Did she say anything else?” Lianya asked, not even bothering to try and make it seem a

casual question.

Arioch shook her head. “No. I’m afraid if you want to see her dead for it, you’ll have to

find some evidence.”

 “Or convince her I have, and maneuver her into a trial by combat now that her greatest

champion is dead. You’d like to see her die, yes?” Lianya asked, squeezing out the rag before

beginning to dab at the burns on Arioch’s face, looking her straight in the eye as she spoke.

So, this was why she wanted Arioch there. A champion to beat anyone Sularia might call

on. Arioch’s lips twitched involuntarily, an unexpected rush surging through her. So long away

from the deadly little games elves played had all but driven the experience from her mind, but

the barest hint of a return to that world set Arioch’s head buzzing. How many times had she

conspired to help overthrow a leader? How many times had she quietly killed their supporters,

and very publicly killed their champions? How many times had she all but lost herself to the

pleasure of the moment in watching her opponent’s utter ruin? Yes, she had earned her unsavory

reputation Sularia had used to fabricate the charges against her, but what she had forgotten was

how much she had enjoyed doing so. With the return of her magic, she didn’t just have to be

Arioch the Collector taking shit jobs from a greedy frac in a city that would never be hers. She

could be the Spider Queen again.

Lianya must have seen some of her thoughts on her face, because when she set the cloth

aside, Arioch noticed her positively wicked smile. Her eyes gleamed as she reached up and

placed her hands on either side of Arioch’s head. Arioch blinked in confusion for a moment, and

then a tingling warmth spread over her skin and she realized Lianya was healing her. Most

people anymore believed healing magic had been soothing, comforting. Really, it was magic

forcing the body to work much faster than it should, and could most generously be described as

uncomfortable. The tingle became an itch, the itch a dull burn. To be sure, it didn’t hurt nearly so

bad as Haverin’s spell, but Arioch winced nonetheless as fresh skin grew over the wounds,

smooth and soft, free of any scarring. The sorceress was good.
 Her hands moved to Arioch’s bicep, placing one on either side of the wound, and Arioch

gritted her teeth through the same uncomfortable sensation of skin knitting back together there,

and one final time on her hands. The smaller wounds from the sand grinding into her legs did not

warrant the sorceress’s attentions. But there was one wound Lianya could not see, and Arioch

was hesitant to ask about.

“Good as new, see?” Lianya murmured, looking back at Arioch, lips curving in the

smallest of smiles.

“Not…quite. You’re, well, very good with that. But how are you with bones?” Arioch

asked hesitantly.

“Well, I suppose I can heal bones. Why? Did Haverin break something?”

“I went into the fight with several broken ribs. Haverin…didn’t help matters there.”

Lianya frowned, pursing her lips as she turned her attention to Arioch’s torso. Under

other circumstances, Arioch might have been irritated at someone so liberally examining her

naked form. As it was, she was focused on preparing herself in case Lianya could, in fact, repair

the damage. The sorceress reached one hand out, her fingers probing along Arioch’s ribs, and

Arioch managed to stifle any gasps of pain as Lianya poked at the already suitably aggravated

wounds. Lianya’s frown deepened as she went, until she pulled her hand back and looked Arioch

in the eye once more.

“You’re a bit of a mess in there. Bleeding quite a lot. I had forgotten how tough your kind

are. You shouldn’t even be on your feet. No wonder you couldn’t fight him.” Somehow, the

words stung more than they should have. Arioch had lost the fight, saved only by Haverin’s
foolishness, and The Spider’s timely intervention. That had never happened to her before. “I

believe I can fix it, though. Of course, you understand it will-”

“Hurt. A lot. I know,” Arioch said flatly.

Lianya nodded. “As long as you understand.”

Arioch drew in a breath and held it as Lianya set her hands high on Arioch’s sides,

pressing against her ribs. Sometimes the cure was worse than the disease, and such was

invariably the case with healing broken bones. Lianya’s magic began to work, and Arioch’s ribs

ground against each other, beginning to set in place and fuse back together. She couldn’t stop the

moan of pain, even as she bit down on her lip to stifle it. Her head fell back, and her entire body

jerked, but Lianya held her still, magic surging between her hands, mending flesh and bone.

Arioch’s agony peaked, and she dug her fingers into her palms so hard, tiny droplets of blood

squeezed out around her fingernails.

Finally, Lianya withdrew her hands, and the nearly blinding pain dulled to a steady throb.

Arioch was left panting, trying to catch her breath. Her head dropped backward, landing with a

sharp thud against the stone tub. The pain in her head seemed a distant thing compared to her

sides, and for a long moment, she was unable to speak.

“Better?” Lianya asked.

“You’re going to have to give me a minute,” Arioch finally managed to choke out.

“I’m afraid I was never any good at easing pain. Some things healers truly are best at,”

she confessed.

“I noticed,” Arioch said drily.

 Arioch slowly relaxed, finding breathing no longer hurt, and she could finally reach

something approaching comfort while seated. Yes, it had been painful, but Lianya seemed to

have succeeded. With the journey still ahead, that was certainly worth its weight in gold.

“Still, thanks. Long way to walk with a bunch of broken ribs and internal bleeding.”

Lianya nodded. “Considering what you did for me, it is the least I could do.” Arioch

hadn’t done it for Lianya, but wasn’t about to correct her. “But I’d like you to consider staying.

As I said, there is quite a lot of potential for you here. There are other sanctuaries, too. While we

aren’t all wholly united…we could be.”

Arioch opened her eyes, tilting her head to look Lianya dead on. She was unused to an elf

laying so many cards on the table at once, and couldn’t stop herself wondering what there might

be that she wasn’t saying. Uniting separate elven villages into a unified civilization? Was she

thinking of trying to recreate the elven empire there in the Dead Wilds where no one could reach

them? Was that even possible?

“You’re telling me a lot for not being sure I’m on board,” Arioch said slowly, letting her

eyes drift closed once more.

“There’s no harm in you knowing. You don’t exactly have a lot of credibility here.

Besides, you have a reputation for jumping at this sort of work.”

“I’m certainly not opposed,” Arioch admitted. “I’d like to see the bitch dead for what she

did during the war.” And, though it hardly needed to be said, what she’d tried to do to Arioch.

“Then stay. Help me get rid of her. Help me unite the sanctuaries and build a life for

yourself here instead of out among all the lesser races. We were never meant for that.”
 Arioch frowned. Over the centuries, she had gotten used to the new world, but Lianya

was right. It wasn’t what she was meant for, and it had never truly felt like a home to her. But

how much room was there, really, for her even among other elves. As much as she could think of

herself as just another elf out among the other races, here every elf saw her as royalty, something

Arioch had never had any interest in being.

On the other hand, it was hard not to feel the allure of the life she had led when people

called her the Spider Queen. Power. Real power had been beyond her for thousands of years, but

she had felt it again in the arena. Living by the Free Alliances’ laws had always been difficult for

her. Arioch was a born killer and she had gone from being celebrated for it, to having to keep it

in check.

Arioch could just barely see through slitted eyelids that Lianya was watching her face

with an intensity she could very nearly feel. How much of what she thought was the sorceress

able to see? She didn’t feel the telltale sensation of icewater creeping into her brain which meant

Lianya was trying to read her mind with magic, but that didn’t mean the woman wasn’t simply

gifted at reading people in a more mundane sense.

“I would love, at the very least, to see Sularia die,” Arioch said slowly. “But your people

kind of took me out of something I was in the middle of taking care of. And I need to get back to

it.”

Lianya’s expression faltered, her lips pressing together for a moment before she spoke.

“I assumed you’d just been driven in here by the barbarians like the rest,” she said.

“What?”
 “The barbarians who live outside the Wilds. We tolerate their presence because they

drive some of their prey into the wilds, where our hunters can collect them and bring them here

to serve as slaves. Is that…not how you ended up here?”

Well, now Arioch understood why the gangers hadn’t been making any effort to kill

them, and had so aggressively herded them toward the Dead Wilds, and where the handful of

non-elven residents she’d passed by had come from.

“No, well, yes. But, I was coming to the Wilds anyway. I’ve got some personal business

here, and I need to take care of it soon.”

“No one has personal business in the Dead Wilds. What could bring you here with a

human, a demonkin, and some mixed-blooded child?”

Arioch couldn’t tell Lianya what Mya was, and she wasn’t sure it would be wise to tell

her why they were there. The problem was, she couldn’t think of anything approaching a

convincing lie. She’d just have to start with a bit of truth and wing it, then.

“The human with me fancies herself something of an expert on the Ancients, and has paid

me to escort her and the other two to the Nexus of Ancients,” she explained.

“No one has gone there in tens of thousands of years. Why now?”

“She wants to study it, and believes the girl with her might be instrumental in reviving

magic throughout the world.”

Lianya frowned dubiously. “Why would you agree to strengthening the lesser races with

magic?”
 Arioch snorted indelicately. “Them? You think the return of magic to the world would

strengthen the lesser races? Tell me, who do you think would benefit most directly if magic were

to become a great force in the world again? Humans? Orcs? Dwarves? No. We would. You’re

old enough to have seen human ‘sorcerers’ at work. Did they even deserve the name?”

Lianya’s expression turned thoughtful. “They never did have much in the way of talent,

or even potential, really. And if magic came back to the world, then we might be able to leave

these rotting lands and establish ourselves somewhere else.”

So Lianya didn’t want to remain in the Dead Wilds. Good. Arioch nodded, as though she

had considered all of this while making her decision. “So, this is important. Besides, how long

will it take you to maneuver Sularia into a trial by combat? Weeks? Months? Years?” Elven

political plots often spanned centuries, and Arioch obviously couldn’t wait quite so long. “What I

have to do will take days. When it’s done, I’ll be free to come back for Sularia’s trial if you

manage. Until then, it’s better if I’m not around anyway. She’d be slower to take ask for a trial

by combat if I remained here.”

Arioch realized she meant what she was saying as she said it. She could come back when

she finished her work at the Nexus and escorted everyone safely home. Once she was done with

the job, maybe it was time for her to leave behind a life that, while she wasn’t unhappy with it,

certainly wasn’t going anywhere in particular. Lianya nodded slowly, seemingly satisfied with

Arioch’s reasoning.

“All right,” she said. “Leave in the morning, so everyone can see you do it. I will do what

I can to make certain the barbarians don’t harass your party when you leave the Wilds. Now, if

you will excuse me, I need to imbue a speaking stone.”

 Arioch nodded, relaxing back against the tub, spreading her arms along the edge and

allowing her feet to float upward. Speaking stones had been the magical equivalent of a cell

phone thousands of years before anyone had the idea for such a thing. They were simple stones

which allowed their holders to communicate with anyone whose stone they had connected theirs

to through a simple binding ritual. Over the years, Arioch had owned several, though she had

long since lost them all.

Lianya rose from the bath and wrapped herself in a towel before heading out through the

room she’d lent to Arioch and her companions. She did not bother to close the door to the

bathroom, as if offering silent permission for the others to speak with Arioch now that she, as

their hostess, had had her turn.

The footsteps she heard approaching could only have belonged to Dante, and his voice a

moment later confirmed it.

“So…did you two have fun?” he asked around a playful smirk.

“What?”

“We heard…sounds,” Dante said, and Arioch slitted one eye open to watch him rub the

back of his neck. “Didn’t know you swung that way.”

“Couple things,” Arioch said, opening both eyes and frowning. “First, she was healing

me. What you heard was me trying not to scream while my bones ground and knit back together

inside my skin. Not a nice feeling. Second, elves don’t even have words for ‘swinging that way’

as you put it. Those notions are a gift from humanity the world could’ve done without. You are

way too concerned about who has what parts in a relationship.”

 “I’m not human,” Dante pointed out.

“Could have fooled me just now,” Arioch growled.

Dante turned his attention down to Arioch’s hands. His eyes wandered up her arms to her

face, and his lips parted in surprise. “Whoa, she did heal you. Wow, that’s…I didn’t know you

could do that. She’d put doctors out of a job in a heartbeat!”

“Trust me, as much as it hurt, not a lot of people would sign on willingly.” Arioch

muttered, still frowning at Dante. “Stop staring!”

“Huh?” Dante blinked. “I wasn’t stari-All right, sorry. Couldn’t help it.”

“Just turn around.”

Dante turned his back to Arioch with a sigh, his hands resting on his hips as he looked

back into the guest room they’d been assigned. Before he could speak up again, Miranda

appeared in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.

“What did you two talk about?” she demanded, her eyes narrowed at Arioch. “What does

she want from you?”

“You don’t want to take that tone with me,” Arioch warned.

“What did you two talk about?” Miranda repeated, undaunted.

Arioch couldn’t decide whether Miranda’s total lack of fear was simply her failure to

understand the foolishness in what she was doing, the near-psychotic disregard for her life it

would take to address and elf in such a way, or something else entirely. Whatever the reason,
Miranda had consistently wrongfooted Arioch with her bizarre attitudes and unusual knowledge.

Arioch didn’t like it.

“She offered me some work is all,” Arioch said, seeing no real need to delve into the

particulars when they wouldn’t understand them anyway. “And wanted to know what I was

doing with you lot.”

“What did you tell her?” Miranda asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Just enough to make sure she let us go without bothering us. Don’t worry,” Arioch said,

waving a dismissive hand.

Miranda pursed her lips. Arioch met her suspicious gaze and shrugged. Miranda’s

mistrust for her was not in doubt. She’d made as much clear to Dante the previous night. How

willing she was to press Arioch for information when she clearly had no interest in giving it was

another matter, though. After a moment’s silence in which Miranda seemed to be wrestling with

that very decision, she sighed and dropped her hands to her sides.

“Fine, then. We should get going,” she said.

“In the morning,” Arioch said. “We’re going to need the rest, and this will be our last

opportunity to sleep in actual beds for a while. Plus, you could both use a bath as well.”

In truth, Arioch needed the rest, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. Even after the

healing, she was thoroughly exhausted. Channeling so much magic had all but burned out every

nerve in her body. There was nothing Lianya could have done to help with that, so Arioch hadn’t

bothered to ask. Every part of her was stiff, throbbing, and tingling uncomfortably with the

remembered jolt of Haverin’s magic surging through her. Yes, it had jumpstarted her own power,
but there had been precious few times in her life when she had ever even attempted to access so

much raw magic, and it always left her fatigued. These things combined to make the hot bath

positively heavenly, and Arioch wasn’t about to leave it for anything.

“No, we need to go now,” Miranda insisted. “We don-”

“She’s right,” Dante cut in. “We need to rest before we go. A bath and a good night’s

sleep won’t hurt, either. Tomorrow is the start of a long trip, and we might as well be rested for

it.”

Arioch nodded, trying and failing to snap her fingers, wet as they were. Instead, she

simply pointed to Dante. “Listen to Dante. He knows what he’s talking about.”

Miranda sighed and turned on her heel, sweeping out of the room in a huff. Arioch’s lips

twitched in amusement, and she relaxed back in the tub. She could stand to relax for a little while

longer before relinquishing the waters to Dante and Miranda.

Chapter 16

At some point in the night, Arioch had finally gotten out of the tub and stumbled into a

bed. Even she wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened. Somewhere in her half-waking

enjoyment of a moment’s relaxation, Dante’s voice had cut through and insisted she let the rest

of them clean up. She had grouchily acquiesced, and apparently made it to a bed on her own, as

she woke to find she was covered in a thick comforter, her head buried in a soft pillow.

She curled slightly, tugging the blanket up over her shoulders and squeezing her eyes

shut against the sunlight filtering through the windows set along the nearby wall. Much like the

tub, the bed was almost too comfortable to leave, and the feel of the soft sheets and mattress

beneath her very nearly lulled her back to sleep. That is, until Dante’s voice intruded once more

on her brief moment of peace.

“Arioch. Come on, wake up. It’s about time to go. They brought our stuff up.”

Arioch groaned and rubbed her face with one hand, sitting up reluctantly. A jaw-splitting

yawn and languid stretch later, she turned where she sat, her bare feet sliding off the bed to press

against the cool wooden floor. Only then did Arioch realize she was naked, and pulled the sheets

up around herself.

Dante stood across the room with Miranda, who was helping Mya get dressed and make

certain all of her things were intact and accounted for, though he was facing Arioch, giving the

two some privacy. He stifled a laugh when she jerked the sheets up around her chest, and Arioch

glared at him.

“Where’s my trunk?” she asked groggily.

 Dante nodded toward the foot of her bed, and Arioch glanced in its direction to see the

iron-bound wooden chest sitting on the floor, the clothes she’d worn in the arena folded atop it.

A quick check of the makeshift necklace she’d made told her it remained around her neck, now

holding both keys after Sularia had given her the second in the arena.

Tugging the sheets along with her, Arioch got to her feet and shuffled over to the chest,

kneeling down to unlock it, fussing with both keys for a moment before getting them in the

correct locks. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she saw

everything was just as it had been when she was made to put it all in the chest. Her fingers ran

over the familiar hilt of her razorwhip, craftsmanship no one could fake, and an involuntary

smile crossed her lips.

She wasted no time, but was hampered at first by having to keep the sheet in place to stop

Dante from ogling her. After a bit of an awkward struggle, she pulled her coat over herself and

stretched, glad to be back in her own clothes. Miranda and Dante were checking all their gear,

something Arioch knew to be unnecessary. Elves were many things, but largely considered

thievery beneath them. Even Sularia, for all her repugnant faults, wouldn’t have stooped to

pilfering their possessions. What’s more, likely the only thing any of them had which might be

even remotely interesting to an elf was Arioch’s razorwhip, and it was securely back at her side.

Arioch hefted her backpack, adjusted the straps, and turned to the others. Mya was

putting everything back in her bag, and Miranda was helping her. At that moment, Arioch

realized she hadn’t spoken to Mya since the arena, hadn’t even really seen the girl. Mya had

made every effort to avoid looking at or speaking to Arioch in the brief period they’d been

together after the trial, and Arioch wasn’t immediately certain why.
 You shouldn’t hurt people.

The girl’s voice rang in her mind and Arioch’s lips parted with the sudden realization.

She’d frightened Mya. Seeing her in the arena, the way she had killed Haverin, and her obvious

enjoyment of doing so had scared Mya. Sure, Mya had seen her kill before, but never anything

so…personal. Arioch had learned early on the stark difference between killing people in a

pitched battle, and killing an individual in single combat. Elves seldom struggled with the gravity

of taking a life, but Arioch knew the Ancients had always held life to be sacred. As an Ancient,

Mya would have experienced the magic they used differently, too. Where everyone else in the

arena was blind to what happened when Arioch snuffed out the lights around them, Mya had

more than likely seen everything she had done, felt every bit of malice in the shadows she had

conjured to blind the audience.

Of course Mya was scared of her. How could she not be? In the short time Arioch had

known Mya, the girl had seen her kill the guards at the terminal, the soldiers at Grael’s house, the

ganger chasing them outside the Wilds, and Haverin. Arioch counted them up on her fingers.

Ten. A child had watched Arioch kill ten people. Maybe she hadn’t really been watching for

most of them, but she certainly knew it had happened. And there was no way she hadn’t seen

Arioch kill Haverin. If nothing else, she would have felt it, considering all the magic being slung

around.

Arioch looked to the girl, standing in the far corner of the room as Miranda helped her

into her pack. Yes, Mya was scared, and she couldn’t deny it made sense. What she was less

certain of was why it mattered to her. How many thousands of people had she terrified in her

lifetime? She’d even enjoyed it. Why was this different?

 It wasn’t, she told herself. She didn’t like kids, anyway, and this would at least stop Mya

from clinging to her everywhere they went. So, good. One less thing she would have to worry

about on this trip. No kid annoying her with constant questions, needing to walk almost on top of

her feet, wanting to hold her hand. Arioch nodded. Good.

She straightened, turning toward the door. “Come on, let’s get going. Don’t want to lose

any more time than we have already in this place.”

“Hang on just a sec,” Dante said. “You set, Mya?”

Arioch heard a tiny “Yes.”

“Okay, all good. Let’s go,” Dante said.

Arioch headed straight out the door, following the barely remembered route through the

house to its exit, where she found Lianya waiting by the door. The sorceress wore a long,

flowing set of sky blue robes, and looked extraordinarily pleased with herself.

“I’m glad I was able to catch you before you left,” she said, clasping her hands together

at her waist. “Sularia has summoned the elder sorcerers and sorceresses to appoint a new

sanctuary sorcerer, or as it may be, sorceress. I was just on my way there.”

If their talk last night was any indication, Lianya had seen to it she would be their choice.

Arioch simply nodded, needing to focus more on getting safely to the Nexus than what Lianya

might be scheming. The sorceress held out a hand to Arioch, opening it to reveal a small

gemstone, red along the outside with a purple center. It looked rather like someone had trapped

an amethyst inside a ruby. With Lianya being a sorceress, Arioch wasn’t prepared to rule it out.

“The speaking stone,” she said. “I will contact you when everything is in place.”
 Arioch nodded, taking the stone, which was slightly warm to the touch, and slipped it into

one of her coat pockets. “Right, then,” she said. “Thanks for your hospitality, and the healing.”

Lianya nodded with a little smile.

“Thanks for the beds,” Dante said as Arioch began to step out the door.

Arioch was about to roll her eyes when Lianya smiled.

“You are welcome,” the sorceress said in perfect, though heavily accented common.

“Yes, thank you!” Mya echoed.

Lianya smiled, leaning down to look at Mya. She tapped the girl’s nose and chuckled

softly. “You are most welcome, little one. Now, I want you to give your friends each one of

these.” Lianya handed Mya four smooth, white stones. “They will help keep you safe in the

Wilds without you having to stay so close to Arioch here.”

Mya flinched when Lianya touched her, and Arioch saw the little hand holding Dante’s

tighten for a brief moment. She quickly took the stones, keeping one for herself and shoving the

others into Miranda’s free hand. If Lianya noticed, she gave no sign of it, straightening up and

bowing to her guests before sweeping out of her house.

“Huh,” Arioch murmured, surprised Lianya knew common.

“She’s bad,” Mya was whispering up to Dante, tugging on his hand.

Arioch wasn’t shocked. Lianya was ambitious, even for an elf, and ambition was a

bloody, violent thing among elves. By Mya’s standards, Lianya was probably as bad as they

came. Then again, Arioch thought, so was she.

 The trip out of the sanctuary passed with little fanfare. Unlike their journey in, no one

gathered to watch them. Those who happened across their path quickly cleared away, most

avoiding even so much as looking at Arioch. Once, such behavior would have flattered her, to

have cowed an entire community in a day. At the moment, all she could think of was the way

Mya refused to look at her. No matter how many times Arioch reminded herself she didn’t like

children, and didn’t want them around, she couldn’t shake the sight of Mya staring at the ground,

clinging to Miranda in fear as they approached Arioch in the arena.

They walked the whole day in near silence, Mya following sullenly behind Miranda, who

kept as close to Arioch as she could, along with Dante. Once, Arioch thought she saw one of the

pale elven hunters cross their path, but when she paused to listen for his footsteps, she heard

nothing in the suffocating silence wrapped stifling around the Dead Wilds once they left the

magical barrier of the sanctuary. Maybe the elves wanted to make sure they were truly leaving,

or maybe Arioch was just more on edge than she wanted to admit.

As night began to fall, and Miranda’s slower pace reminded Arioch of the human’s lack

of night vision, she turned her attention to finding a place to make camp for the night.

Fortunately, finding a clearing in a dead forest wasn’t particularly difficult, and after a few short

minutes, Arioch unslung her backpack and announced they were done for the night. No one

objected. Miranda took Mya to get together some wood to try to burn while Arioch and Dante

pitched the tent and stowed everyone’s packs. By the time they had finished, Miranda and Mya

had returned with armfuls of dead wood.

None of them could muster any surprise to find it took even Arioch a solid twenty

minutes to coax a tiny, sputtering fire from the dead wood. Still, it had been enough to cook the
cans of soup Mya picked from her pack. They ate in relative silence, which left Arioch to think.

The problem with this, of course, was she couldn’t stop thinking about how she had frightened

Mya, and why it bothered her so much. Mya and Miranda’s decision to retire to the tent without

so much as a word scant moments after finishing their food only served to remind Arioch of just

how much she’d changed the way Mya looked at her.

Left alone with Dante, who was poking at the fire with the crumbling remnants of a tree

branch in a vain attempt to stir some more life from the guttering flames, Arioch gave voice to

her thoughts before she realized she’d spoken.

“Am I a bad person?”

Dante looked up at her, lofting his dark brows, the dull glow of the fire casting his dark

skin in a faint orange light. “Yeah.”

Arioch blinked. “What, just like that?”

“Yeah. Arioch, since when do you even care about stuff like that?” he asked, tilting his

head to one side.

Arioch frowned. “Come on, you gotta at least need a second to think about it.”

“Arioch, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a Collector.”

“No, Collector’s just the official title. What do you actually do?”

“I kill criminals and bring back proof to-”

 “Exactly,” Dante said, nodding. “You kill. You and I both know the criminal thing isn’t

what’s really important there.”

“It’s the job!”

“The job you chose.”

“You picked it, too,” Arioch pointed out.

“Yes. But you know what jobs I take as a Collector? Live capture, mostly. Protection.

Recovering stolen stuff. Occasionally killing someone who really needs to die when the money’s

good.”

“Oh come on, I’m doing a protection job right now,” she protested.

“Not because you wanted to. You more or less got blackmailed into this. Be honest with

yourself. You have a reputation, Arioch, and you came by it honestly. You’re the one to call

when you want someone dead.”

Arioch would have argued, even wanted to, but knew it was true. She had built her career

on killing contracts, and it had never been a secret. Her enjoyment of the work, her seeking it out

in preference to anything else, well, there was no arguing there either.

“Do you remember the first job I did with you?” Dante asked.

“Not really,” Arioch admitted.

“Two Collector contract to secure a hostage who had been taken. Do you remember what

you did?”
 His prompting had in fact reminded her of the job, but she said nothing. It had, at the

time, made sense to her, even if it had horrified both Dante and the hostage.

“That’s what I thought,” Dante said. “You’re a killer, Arioch. It’s what you do, and more

importantly, it’s what you love. Yeah you do it legally, but that’s never really been the point, has

it? Law enforcement. Justice. Have either ever really factored into what you do?”

“No,” Arioch sighed. What would have been the point in lying about it?

“In all the time I’ve known you, Arioch, you’ve been pretty okay with who you are. Why

the sudden concern?”

Arioch glanced back toward the tent without thinking.

“Oh,” Dante said, and there was a note of genuine surprise in his voice. “Wait, really?

You’re worried because of a kid? I thought you hated kids.”

“What? No. I do hate kids. I’m not worried about her,” Arioch lied.

Dante snorted. “You’re a terrible liar, Arioch. You always have been. And since we both

know middle aged humans aren’t your thing, let’s not kid ourselves about what you were

thinking just a second ago.”

“I don’t do kids, Dante. I’m damn sure not worried about what one thinks.”

“Yeah, Arioch, you are. Which is…weird for you, but maybe it’s a good sign.”

“Give it a rest, Dante,” Arioch snapped.

 “Hey, you brought it up. You’re the one suddenly worried about what kind of person she

is. In over a hundred years I’ve never heard you ask a question like that. And maybe it’s a good

thing you’re starting to.”

“Oh, shut up! I’m fine with who I am, Dante! I’ve pretty well enjoyed my life-”

“Murdering people for the fun of it?” Dante needled.

“I don’t go around murdering people for the fun of it. Which you well know. I kill people

as part of my very legal job. It’s what I’m good at.”

“It’s what you enjoy.”

“So? I kill anyone who doesn’t have it coming?”

“Is ‘having it coming’ really the point here?” Dante asked. “You get off on killing

people, Arioch, which is wrong no matter who you’re killing.”

“I don’t get off on killing people.”

“You do a bit. I’ve seen the look on your face, Arioch. It’s scary, and it’s what has Mya

so freaked out. Kids aren’t supposed to see people get killed, much less the way you did it, and

as much as you enjoyed it.”

“That man helped kill my entire race. You’re damn right I enjoyed killing him!” Arioch

shouted without thinking.

“Exactly,” Dante said quietly.

 Arioch threw up her hands, getting to her feet. She glared silently at Dante for a moment

before storming past him, smothering the remnants of the fire with a boot as she passed by.

“Where are you going?” Dante called after her.

“Away!” Arioch snarled as she stalked into the woods.

“We’ll start to die or whatever!” he protested.

Dante had the good sense not to follow her, probably because he knew the charms Lianya

had given them would protect them all the same way Arioch did with her presence. Why else

would Miranda and Mya have been able to stray so far from Arioch without consequence?

Arioch’s boots crunched against the carpet of dead twigs and branches comprising the remnants

of the forest the Wilds had choked, anger building with every step she took. So what if she

enjoyed killing Haverin? He helped commit genocide. Even by human standards, he was the sort

of person it was okay to feel good about killing. What was wrong with that? It was what she’d

been trained for all her life, anyway. Killing and surviving. It’s what her people did for as long as

she could remember.

So why did it bother her so much? Maybe she’d just never stopped to think about it.

Maybe it was spending so much time among the other races, and unknowingly allowing their

beliefs to supplant some of her own. Arioch didn’t have an answer, which only made her all the

angrier. Arioch had taken thousands of lives without so much as a second thought, and without

ever once reflecting back on the weight of what she’d done. She had been raised, for want of a

better term, not to deal in regrets. The Spider had seen to that. But here she was wondering what

she might have done differently, if she had been wrong. All because of Mya?
 Arioch had met Ancients before, on many occasions. They had always had sort of a

calming effect on those around them, being creatures of such potent magical power and gentle

temperament at the same time. Her feelings about them had always been complicated for in

consequence. The way they seemed to affect the world, and more importantly the people around

them made her uncomfortable, but at the same time they were almost impossible to dislike. And

then there was Mya, who, as far as Arioch could tell, was sweetness incarnate. She’d even

stopped Arioch from panicking in the subway. Did Arioch like the girl?

“Nonsense,” Arioch muttered.

But, she wasn’t so sure it was. Arioch hadn’t talked with other elves about living in the

Free Alliances’ world. Was this…just what happened to them? Did they start to change, to

mellow? Did the other races’ values just rub off on them like this? The idea would have been

laughable to Arioch a week ago, but here she stood alone in the forest stressing about how she

had frightened a little girl she wanted to think well of her.

The realization stopped her in her tracks, and Arioch’s lips parted. She hadn’t meant to

admit such a thing to herself, hadn’t even really intended to allow herself to think it. But the

moment she did, she realized it was true, and it left her with one unnerving question. How did

she make a little girl stop being afraid of her? All her life she’d focused on making sure people

did fear her, so much so, any attempt to undo the perception seemed quite beyond her.

“Come on, Arioch. What are you doing h-” Arioch trailed off, her ears pricking. She

thought she’d heard something in the direction of the camp, which was strange, considering how

sound all but refused to carry in the Wilds. It almost sounded like… There it was again. A

distant, snapping sound, as if someone had knocked over a small tree.

 Arioch turned back toward the camp, straining her ears in an attempt to hear what was

going on. Was Dante chopping down wood to try to rebuild the fire? Another cracking sound,

but this one was followed by a distant, muffled shout. Frowning, Arioch took a step toward the

camp when she heard a much louder, clearer sound: A gunshot. Then another. Her anger left her,

and Arioch broke into a full run. She hadn’t been far from the camp, but the forest seemed to

stretch before her, and another gunshot sounded, followed by a piercing scream before she burst

through the trees into the clearing where they’d made camp.

Dante stood, his back to Arioch, gun drawn and aimed at a hulking shape looming

opposite the firepit. Miranda and Mya crouched in the archway of the tent, their exit blocked by

the creature looking like nothing so much as a collection of the dead trees they had passed

cobbled together in an enormous, vaguely humanoid form. Thick trunks formed rudimentary

legs, topped by a collection of shifting, grinding stumps and branches from which protruded long

arms ending in curved, twiggy fingers, all of it surmounted by a thick block of wood surely

serving as its head. The creature, a golem if Arioch was any judge, creaked as it moved, turning

toward Dante as he fired again. A puff of splinters and dust from the rotted wood rose from the

impact, but the golem was otherwise unbothered.

“Over here you bastard!” Dante shouted, waving his arms. “Over here!”

“Dante, don’t!” Arioch cried in warning.

The golem spun around, swinging its long arm at Dante. He leapt away just out of the

creature’s reach. With a creaking groan, the golem charged at him, and Dante dove aside,

throwing himself flat to the ground and rolling away, too slow. Dante was just trying to get to his

feet when the golem swept its hand down, grabbing him by the ankles and hauling him up off the
ground. Arioch knew what was coming, and jerked her razorwhip from its sheath, darting

forward.

“Oh, shiiiii-” Dante’s cry of shock as he was lifted was cut short as the golem swung its

other fist toward his face.

Arioch lashed out with her razorwhip, twisting her grip to release the segments, which

coiled around an arm thicker than her thigh. She pulled with all her might, dragging the fist about

to impact Dante in the other direction. The segmented blade bit into the rotten wood, and Arioch

was nearly pulled from her feet as the golem tugged against her, but she’d managed to pull its

aim off, and it missed Dante.

“Get yourself down!” Arioch snapped, giving her razorwhip another jerk, trying to tear

the limb away.

Whatever magic had animated the golem had lent the rotted wood strength, causing her

blades to fail to cut through the arm. She flicked her wrist, uncoiling the razorwhip from the

beast’s arm, and instead drew her own gun in her free hand, firing at the golem’s hand just above

where it held Dante.

“Watch it!” Dante shouted in panic as he realized Arioch was shooting almost directly at

him. The hand holding him wobbled as Arioch continued to fire, emptying her entire clip into the

golem’s wrist. She charged forward, twisting her grip on the hilt of her razorwhip to realign the

segments into the longer, curved blade. “No…no…no, no, no!” Dante shouted, raising his hands

in front of his face and closing his eyes.

 Arioch leapt up, slicing at where she had hopefully weakened the golem’s wrist with a

hail of bullets, and swung as hard as she could. She tightened her grip on her razorwhip, and

gritted her teeth as her muscles strained against the rotten wood, but her blade tore through, and

Dante dropped to the ground with a muffled thud and a groan.

The golem lurched back, and Dante quickly scrambled away, getting out of its reach.

Arioch landed between the golem and the tent. Mya cowered behind her. Miranda crouched over

Mya, both arms wrapped around the girl.

“Move. Get to the edge of the clearing as far from this thing as you can,” Arioch hissed.

When Mya whimpered, Arioch turned toward them and crouched, looking Mya in the eye. “It’s

gonna be okay. Go with Miranda, she’ll keep you safe, and just stay as far from this as you can,

okay? We won’t let it hurt you.”

Mya swallowed and nodded, her gleaming blue eyes wide and blazing bright in the

darkness. Arioch wasn’t sure where her reassuring tone had come from, but it seemed to have

worked, as Miranda nodded firmly, and the two of them took off at as fast a pace as Mya could

manage. The scant seconds of attention Arioch had given to Mya and Miranda instead of the

golem cost her though. A massive arm slammed into her side, knocking her to the ground and

sending her sprawling toward the embers of the fire. Mercifully, they had died down enough not

to burn through her coat.

Arioch rolled away as the arm missing a hand slammed down where her head had been.

She sprung to her feet in time to hear Dante fire off several more shots at the golem. He was

doing his best to keep himself between the golem and Mya and Miranda, but couldn’t manage to

do much damage to the thing with a handgun.

 “What will kill this thing?” Dante shouted.

“Fire would be great,” Arioch called out.

The golem rounded on Dante as he fired off another few shots into its chest. Arioch

changed her grip on her razorwhip, releasing the segments again and darted forward. As the

golem charged at Dante, she lashed out with her whip, coiling the length around the golem’s

ankle and digging her heels into the ground. She gripped the weapon with both hands and braced

herself. Every muscle in Arioch’s body strained as the whip went taut, and the golem’s leg pulled

against her. For a brief, heart-stopping moment, Arioch thought she might lose her grip, but then

the golem lurched. A thunderous crash resounded through the clearing as it fell forward, nearly

crushing Dante, who leapt out of the way with hardly a second to spare.

“We don’t have fire,” Dante pointed out, panting as he scrambled farther away from the

thrashing golem.

Arioch blinked. “Yeah, we do. Toss me one of your clips!”

Dante didn’t seem to be in the mood to question, and started fishing inside his jacket right

away. Arioch flicked her wrist, tugging the length of her razorwhip away from the golem as it

started to push back to its feet.

“Here!” Dante shouted, tossing a clip. She snatched it out of the air and turned it over.

Arioch groped around in her jacket for a moment before finding her multitool and opening it up

into a set of pliers.

“Keep it busy!” she shouted, pushing the rounds from Dante’s clip with a thumb.

“Oh, sure, no problem! I’ll just occupy the giant wood monster!”
 “That’s the spirit,” Arioch muttered distractedly, focusing on what she was doing rather

than Dante’s griping.

She rushed over to the packs beside the tent, grabbing a sock from the top of her own

bag and crouching down. While Dante darted back and forth, Arioch took the bullets from

Dante’s clip and started using the pliers to pull the slugs from the cartridges. The task was made

a bit more difficult by the constant shaking of the ground, the sound of Dante’s gun firing, and

his endless stream of profanity. As she pulled the bullets apart, she poured the powder from each

into her sock. The wood from the forest wouldn’t burn well, but gunpowder certainly would.

Dante continued shouting at the golem, firing at it and, from the sound of things, running

back and forth to avoid its attacks. When Arioch emptied the last of the powder into her sock,

she tied it off and pulled out her lighter. With no other choice, she popped the top of the lighter

off to pour some of the fluid on the end of the sock to make sure it would light.

“Ready!” she shouted, slipping the lighter back together.

“About damn time!”

Arioch lit her improvised incendiary and ran at the golem, whose sole focus remained on

Dante. Fortunately, the thing was a collection of branches, stumps, and twigs, and had plenty of

gaps for Arioch to work with. Spotting one, she skidded to a halt and shoved the burning sock

into the mess of twigs and splintered wood. She immediately turned to run, putting some

distance between herself and the golem.

“Get back!” she shouted.

 Dante hardly needed to be told twice, running to the opposite end of the clearing. The

golem lumbered ponderously after him, but halfway through paused as if confused. A burst of

flame erupted from its chest, catching on the magically invigorated wood and setting the whole

construct aflame. It flailed on the spot, branches creaking, sparks flying. But it didn’t go down.

Instead, it lurched to one side, stumbling before staggering blindly across the clearing. Arioch

wasn’t worried about it starting a wildfire when it finally crashed into the woods, and breathed a

sigh of relief as she realized it was to be disoriented enough not to be able to chase them any

longer.

Then Arioch heard a scream, and jerked her head toward the sound. Mya had wriggled

free of Miranda’s grip, and the golem was bearing down on her, arms thrashing. Miranda was cut

off, unable to get around the flaming golem. Mya backed up unsteadily, but from the look of it

was too scared to move. Arioch wouldn’t be able to get past the golem either, and didn’t have

time to try to work her way around it. Left with no other choice, Arioch focused on Mya and

drew a breath.

Shadows closed in around her, then melted away as a searing orange glow bathed her

back. The golem was closer than she thought. Mya was barely a foot in front of her, and Arioch

reached out to wrap both arms around her, pulling the girl in close. Mya squeaked in surprise,

squirming in panic as Arioch grabbed her. Arioch had no time to comfort the girl, instead

focusing on the clearing as she exhaled. Again, the shadows enfolded her, and she kept a tight

grip on Mya.

The heat faded, but the shadows didn’t fade right away like usual. Instead, Arioch felt

more than saw a brilliant light blazing against her chest. Against every natural reflex she had,
Arioch opened her eyes to see the blue-white light fill the entire world around her, driving back

the shadows for a brief moment. In that moment she saw Mya curled in her arms, light pouring

from her as she gripped Arioch’s coat. Only the light wasn’t pouring from her, it was her. Mya

glimmered with seemingly endless coalescing pinpricks of blue-white light, swirling around the

center of what would have been her torso, all casting their warm brilliance on Arioch as she

cradled the Ancient child. She hadn’t seen an Ancient in their purest magical form since she was

very young, and the beauty of it overwhelmed her. As the first tears started to well in Arioch’s

eyes, the vision flickered and faded, and she was left crouching in the center of the clearing with

Mya in her arms, the golem smashing its way through the forest as its body burned to cinders.

Mya still clung to Arioch’s coat, cringing at the sound of each snapping tree until finally

the sound faded into the unnatural quiet normally blanketing the Wilds. Left with the quivering

girl and the afterimage of the brilliant light still burned into her retinas, Arioch was momentarily

uncertain what to do.

“Shhh,” she finally murmured to Mya, not knowing what else to do. “It’s All right. I’ve

got you. The golem’s gone.”

Admittedly she was more or less parroting the sorts of things she’d heard people say to

kids to calm them down in movies, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. To the movies’ credit, it

seemed to work, and Mya slowly relaxed in her arms, her head pressing against Arioch’s chest as

Dante and Miranda approached.

“What was that?” Dante asked breathlessly.

“A golem. Sorcerers can make them out of all kinds of things,” Arioch explained.
 “Sorcerers, like the one we stayed with?” Dante asked.

Arioch nodded. “I got the sense there were quite a few sorcerers in the village. If she’d

wanted us dead, she could’ve done it while we stayed with her, and probably gotten a reward

from the elder. My money’s on the elder getting one of her pet sorcerers to do it.”

“What do we do, then? Go back?” Dante didn’t sound like the idea held much appeal.

“No,” Arioch said firmly. “We’ll all trade off at taking watch at night, and keep moving

during the day. I thought I noticed someone following us earlier, probably spotting for the elder.

If I see them again…”

Arioch let the thought hang. She didn’t need to explain what she’d do in front of Mya.

Dante and Miranda knew. Neither seemed inclined to argue after what they’d just seen. Even

Arioch had to admit she was a little shaken. A few short centuries and she had all but forgotten

about the many and varied powers of sorcerers.

“We should be getting too far away to send another after us soon, yes?” Miranda asked.

“It’s more difficult to cast such spells at a distance, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Arioch said slowly, wondering just how Miranda could possibly know. “So unless

they sent the sorcerer to follow us, which I doubt, we shouldn’t be dealing with another once we

are a bit farther away. Fortunately, there isn’t much in the way of impressive material to make a

golem out of here in the Wilds. It could’ve been a lot worse if it was living wood, rock, metal, or

something similar.”

“You can make a golem out of metal?” Dante asked.

 “You can make a golem out of just about anything that doesn’t move on its own. Doesn’t

matter right now. Right now you need to try and get some sleep. I’ll take first watch, and you

two can figure out who has second. Two hour watches should give us all enough sleep to

function tomorrow.”

Dante and Miranda agreed, and headed over to the tent to settle in for the night. Arioch

got to her feet, and Mya clung to her still, unwilling to let go of her coat. She awkwardly patted

the girl on the back, carrying her over to the tent. When she laid her down on her sleeping bag,

Mya looked up at her, chewing on her lower lip.

“I’m not tired,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, you are,” Arioch said, crouching over her to talk quietly. “You need to get some

sleep so we can keep moving tomorrow.”

“I can’t…” she whined.

“Why not?” she asked as the others slipped into their sleeping bags and did their best to

drift off.

“The monster almost got us.”

“It didn’t,” Arioch said quietly, not wanting to disturb Dante or Miranda. “Don’t worry.”

“But what if another one does…?”

Arioch had no idea how to comfort and reassure a frightened child. The idea of even

attempting to do so ran contrary to what she’d spent most of her life doing. It certainly wasn’t the

sort of thing elven parents spent a great deal of time doing. Elven children were expected to deal
with their fears on their own. But, Mya wasn’t an elven child. And then Arioch was struck by the

one memory she had of someone comforting her in a time she’d nearly lost control. Mya’s hand

on her back, and her tiny, but somehow soothing voice. Without thinking, Arioch laid her hand

on Mya’s forehead and repeated the words Mya had spoken on the subway.

“It’s okay, Mya. You’re okay,” she murmured.

Mya’s eyes drifted closed, and she curled slightly in on herself. Arioch breathed a sigh of

relief as the girl’s exhaustion overwhelmed her and she drifted off to sleep, leaving Arioch to

turn her attention out to the forest, hand still resting on the girl’s forehead.
Chapter 17

Miranda’s prediction of getting too far away for Sularia to try again proved prescient.

They proceeded unmolested through the Wilds for the next three days. The dead, unchanging

scenery and Arioch’s continued insistence they sleep in shifts did nothing to improve the general

mood of the little band, save for Mya, who had warmed to Arioch after her rescue from the

flaming golem. The next stretch of their trek was mercifully free of similar threats, though

Arioch often wondered what might await them at its end, given how much time they had lost at

the elven sanctuary. Had they given Reldien the time he would need to lead a group of Arcana

Corp personnel to the Nexus?

Near sundown on the third day, though, the monotony finally broke. They all but ran into

the nearly sheer wall of rock. The trees ended scant feet from the gray wall, preventing anyone

from seeing it until they had all but smacked headlong into it. As one, they tilted their heads

back, straining to see to the top of the sudden impediment to their progress, but it was lost to

their sight.

“What is this?” Dante asked.

“I have no idea,” Arioch admitted.

“It’s the Nexus….” Miranda murmured.

“Can’t be, we’re still at least a day’s walk away, and the forest doesn’t come anywhere

near this close to the base of the mountain,” Arioch said.

“It is the Nexus, though,” Miranda insisted, reaching out a hand and placing it flat on the

smooth rock face.

 It couldn’t possibly be the Nexus, though. Arioch had been to the base of the Nexus many

times, and it had stood as a landmark visible from much of the elven empire for most of her life.

It shouldn’t be here. Certainly the forest hadn’t grown so close around its base, and that the trees

could have sprouted up after the Wilds choked off the land around it seemed impossible.

Yet, Arioch wasn’t sure she could argue with Miranda. She felt the low hum of magic in

the air, fairly radiating out from the rock. A cold wind swept down from the unseen heights

above them, stirring Arioch’s hair. They shouldn’t have made it to the base of the mountain so

quickly, but here they were.

The Nexus wants you here, whispered The Spider, her voice echoing somewhere in the

back of Arioch’s mind. Arioch elected to ignore her.

“Only one way to be sure,” Arioch murmured, turning to her left and starting to follow

the wall.

“Where are you going?” Mya asked, hurrying after her as Dante and Miranda did the

same.

“The Ancients carved stairs into the side of the mountain at regular intervals,” Arioch

explained as she walked. “If this is the Nexus, we shouldn’t be able to walk more than a mile

without coming to one of their stairways.”

“What if it isn’t the Nexus, since we aren’t supposed to be there yet?” Dante asked,

falling in beside her, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Then I have less than no idea what it is, and we’ll have to find a way around it, because

we sure as hell aren’t going over it,” Arioch said with a shrug.
 “I never saw a mountain that started with a giant, sheer cliff face at its base.”

“Yeah, well, the Nexus isn’t exactly a typical mountain. The story goes the Ancients

raised it from the ground and shaped it to their needs.”

“Is…that possible?” Dante asked as Miranda fell into step beside them.

“For them? Sure,” Arioch said. “Anyway, if this is the Nexus, and I think it is, then like I

said, we shouldn’t be able to go more than a mile or so without hitting one of the stairways.”

She kept walking as she talked, moving quickly enough to force Mya to all but jog to

keep up. The diminutive girl was hampered by her tendency as she went to run one hand along

the rock, paying more attention to the surface of the wall than to where she was stepping. A

couple of times Arioch thought she might trip, but somehow she managed to keep her feet as she

hurried along beside them.

After almost half an hour of walking along the rock wall, Arioch was starting to doubt

herself. Maybe there wasn’t a staircase, maybe this was some new, strange obstacle the elves had

erected in the Wilds. If so, then why hadn’t Lianya mentioned it? A frown crept over her face,

and she saw it mirrored in Dante and Miranda’s expressions.

“Wait!” Mya piped up.

All three of them skidded to a halt and turned to look at her. She had stopped a few feet

behind them, and turned completely to face the wall. Both hands rested on the smooth rock, and

she was staring intently at it, chewing on her lip.

“What is it, Mya?” Miranda asked.

 “It’s here,” she said simply.

“What’s here?” Arioch and Miranda asked almost in unison.

“The stairs…” As Mya spoke, she started to push on the wall, her little hands splaying

over the rock in what might have otherwise been a comical display. To their collective shock,

though, the rock gave way at her touch, rolling backward in a slow wave. The rock shifted and

rippled, melting away from Mya’s touch without so much as a sound. They watched in stupefied

shock as the rock twisted and turned in on itself, forming a wide stairway heading upward at a

gentle incline, eventually rising high enough to be lost to their sight.

“Whoa,” Dante said under his breath. Arioch couldn’t help but echo the sentiment.

“That’s new,” she breathed.

“Mya,” Miranda began slowly. “How did you know that was there?”

Mya turned to face them and gave a little shrug. “I dunno,” she said. “I just did.”

Miranda glanced back at Arioch, who could only mirror Mya’s shrug. Dante certainly

had nothing to add, simply standing there and staring in befuddled silence at the newly formed

staircase, his jaw still hanging open. Seeing no one else was eager to test out the new staircase,

Arioch stepped forward, patting Mya on the shoulder as she passed the girl, and took a step up

the staircase. Her foot hit solid rock, and it took her weight. She let out a breath she hadn’t

realized she’d been holding.

“See? A staircase,” Arioch said, looking over her shoulder at the others and doing her

best to sound nonchalant.

 Mya sidled up to Arioch, obviously unaware at what had the grown-ups so hesitant. She

smiled at Arioch, then took a few steps up, ahead of her. This galvanized Dante and Miranda into

action, both of them shuffling after Arioch, who turned to follow Mya. They climbed the first

few steps in relative quiet, still marveling at the magically carved stairway. Arioch noticed

somewhat belatedly, once she’d climbed a few steps, a cool breeze blowing down from the

mountain above, shrouded in clouds as it was. She hadn’t felt so much as a stirring of wind since

they entered the Wilds, and the freshness of the welcome breeze made her smile in spite of

herself. At that point, she realized she could hear her footsteps again. The subtle scraping of the

others’ feet against the stone steps, the occasional pebble knocked loose and sent tumbling down

the rock, the wind whispering through her hair. All these together told her the unnatural hush of

the Wilds was behind them.

When Arioch looked back, she froze. Dante and Miranda nearly ran headlong into her.

She swore under her breath in elvish.

“Arioch, what is i-oh…” Dante trailed off in a gasp.

In barely a minute, they had climbed high enough that the tops of the dead trees were at

least a hundred feet below them. Arioch looked back up the mountain and saw she could begin to

discern a slope in the rock, no longer simply a sheer wall. The top, still lost in clouds, was

shrouded from her sight, but they were already far closer than they should have been.

“How is that possible?” Dante asked.

“I…have absolutely no clue,” Arioch admitted.

 The Nexus wants you there, The Spider repeated, and were it not the sort of thing one

simply did not say to a deity, Arioch might have told her to shut up.

“Maybe a spell to bend time? Or space?” Miranda asked.

Arioch had no answers, not even an intelligent theory. She just shrugged mutely, staring

toward the treetops below until Mya called after them.

“Come on, slowpokes!” she shouted, and they turned to see her a dozen or so feet above

them, waving from where she stood. “Let’s go!”

She seemed excited, energized by simply standing on the mountain which housed the

Nexus itself, and Arioch had to wonder if it was whatever magic had revealed the staircase and

apparently sped their ascent. She was an Ancient, after all, and this place had been the seat of her

people’s power. Seeing no point in standing around and wondering how they had come so far so

fast, Arioch shrugged and set off after Mya. Maybe she had an easier time accepting what had

happened because of her own experience with the Ancients, and the near-incomprehensible

power of their magic. Dante and Miranda had no such experience, had indeed had next to no

experience at all with magic in their lifetime. Their day was only going to get stranger.

Mya was perhaps the biggest surprise, moving swiftly up the stairs without the faintest

sign of tiring. Arioch couldn’t figure how her short legs were carrying her up the stairs so far

ahead of the rest of them. Still, she pulled far enough ahead of them to force Arioch to break into

a run just to keep her in sight, able to finally slow once she was only a few steps behind Mya,

which left Dante and Miranda well behind the both of them. Even with the bizarre magic which

seemed to speed their progress, the climb was taking a long time. The sun was already setting on

the opposite side of the mountain, but somehow Arioch found she wasn’t tiring. She was no
more winded than when they’d started out, maybe even a touch more energized now she was out

of the Wilds.

It was at that point Arioch realized Dante and Miranda were only a couple of steps

behind her, prompting her to turn and look over her shoulder as she went. “When did you catch

up?” she asked, unable to keep the surprise from her voice.

“I’m not sure…” Dante said, glancing around. “I looked up and there you were.”

Miranda nodded. “Are any of you tired?” she asked.

“No,” Dante and Arioch replied.

“Me either, and from the look of it, we’ve been climbing this staircase for hours. The

sun’s going down,” Miranda pointed out.

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” Arioch said, glancing over toward the horizon. The

sun cast an orange glow over the side of the mountain. As many years as it had been since

Arioch had seen the Nexus, she no longer had a particularly clear picture of what it had looked

like. The oddly smooth, blank gray rock rising up along with the stairs seemed at once foreign

and familiar. Was this what it had always looked like? Maybe being in the Wilds had changed it.

She had no way of being certain, and couldn’t help but be frustrated by her confusion. Magic had

certainly always surrounded the Nexus, but whatever was happening on the stairs wasn’t

something Arioch had experienced. Old enchantments remaining active she could understand.

But the presence, somehow, of new magic on the mountain, long after the Ancients disappeared

shouldn’t have been possible.

“Come on, we’re almost there!” Mya called, once more a few dozen steps ahead of them.
 Arioch glanced down the mountainside, and was almost disappointed in herself for being

surprised to see the trees beneath them had become a tiny, blurred brown canopy spreading out

as far as she could see. Even looking back in the direction they had come, Arioch found herself

puzzled. How had they covered so much distance in just a few short days?

“I’m not sure I like this,” she said without realizing it, even as they continued upward a

little faster.

“Huh?” Dante asked, his voice a little even for someone who was all but running up a

stairway.

“We’re miles up by now. The air should be thinner. We should be tired. And we haven’t

been at it long enough to come this far. And I can’t even see outside the Wilds from up here. I

don’t think we could have come so far as quickly as we did. Something is speeding us along,”

Arioch said.

“That seems likely,” came Miranda’s mild response. “I imagine the enchantments

remaining on the Nexus are helping Mya to come home.”

It made a kind of sense, Arioch supposed. The Ancients’ magic had always been well

beyond even the most powerful elven sages and sorcerers. That it might somehow be able to

sense Mya and assist her in her journey to the Nexus didn’t seem much of a stretch to Arioch.

“So what do we do?” Dante asked.

“Not much choice, really. We keep going, and see what happens,” Arioch replied. She

shrugged off her questions, knowing no one present could answer them, and dwelling on her

confusion would do little to help. Instead, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other,
and catching up to Mya. The girl was in a full sprint by now, and somehow even Arioch’s long

legs could barely keep up. She wasn’t winded, or even straining herself, Mya was simply moving

far faster than should be possible for someone with such short legs.

No matter how fast she moved, though, Mya never passed out of Arioch’s sight, and

however fast Arioch ran, she couldn’t quite catch up to Mya. Fortunately, the Nexus’ magic

continued working to invigorate her, preventing her from tiring as she ran up the mountainside,

Dante and Miranda trailing just behind her, both running as well. The top of the mountain was

still shrouded in a dense patch of clouds, but the clouds were getting closer, and Arioch was

struck by the sudden feeling of barreling headlong into a wall. It was almost enough to bring her

to a halt. Just as she was about to skid to a stop, though, she saw Mya disappear into the cloud in

a little puff of white mist. The sight spurred Arioch on.

Arioch involuntarily closed her eyes as she hit the wall of white, expecting cold,

moisture, something. Instead, she felt a gentle puff of air, and then fell flat on her face.
Chapter 18

Before Arioch could even begin to pick herself up from where she lay, stunned and

facedown on the stone ground, a pair of dull thumps sounded beside her, and something flopped

against her back. She was about to roll away to try and dislodge it when she realized it was

Dante’s arm, and noticed both Dante and Miranda laying on either side of her, having made

equally graceless arrivals.

“Ow,” Dante groaned as he pulled his arm away from Arioch. “What just happened?”

“I think we’re here,” Arioch grunted, pushing herself up to sit and rubbing her face with

both hands.

“After all the magical assistance to get here, I wouldn’t have thought we’d be dumped

so…unceremoniously,” Miranda muttered.

“Well, I don’t think anything’s broken. We might as well…oh wow…guys…” Dante’s

voice trailed off in awe.

Arioch pulled her hands away from her face, and instantly saw why. She had expected to

see crumbling ruins covered in moss, or a layer of snow, or something similarly forlorn. Instead

they sat in a wide archway overlooking a plaza of glittering stone, crushed crystals beaten into

the rock to form walkways around its center and edges, leading to what could have been homes,

businesses, or simply gathering spots. Buildings soared into the open sky above them, carved

from the rock of the mountain into impossibly graceful spiraling towers connected by a

latticework of delicate sky bridges.

 There was not a trace of decay or ruin. If Arioch hadn’t known better, she’d say they had

just happened on the city before its occupants woke for the day. But she knew this place had

been abandoned for tens of thousands of years.

“Unbelievable,” Arioch breathed.

“Are you sure they’re all gone?” Dante asked.

“Yeah…” Arioch realized she was whispering, but wasn’t sure why.

“How is this even possible?” Dante asked.

“No idea,” Arioch admitted. “Magic, I guess…”

Miranda seemed to be at a loss for words, staring around the plaza with faintly parted

lips. Dante’s face had settled into a similar expression of awestruck wonder, and Arioch was

forced to admit she probably didn’t look entirely different herself. She was so caught up in what

she saw, she almost didn’t notice Mya rush up to her and start tugging on her hand.

“Come on! Look! Look! It’s so pretty!” she squealed, her voice rising in excitement.

Arioch blinked, turning to look at her in confusion. Where had she come from, and why

hadn’t Arioch noticed her before? Mya pulled at Arioch with surprising strength, nearly dragging

her up to her feet as she dug her heels into the glittering walkway and leaned back, using her

weight to try and haul Arioch up to her feet.

“All right, All right,” Arioch said, pushing to her feet.

 A wave of vertigo crashed down on Arioch as she rose. She staggered sideways, her head

swimming as the magical currents surging through the Nexus washed over her. Dante grunted as

she stumbled into him, lifting up one hand to support her.

“Whoa, Arioch, what’s wrong?” he asked, supporting her weight until she straightened

herself, shaking her head to clear it.

“Too much magic,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead with the hand Mya wasn’t

insistently tugging. “Way too much magic. Not used to the feeling anymore.”

Dante got to his feet, looking slowly around. “I don’t feel anything,” he said after a

moment. “Well, no…it’s like…static electricity in the air or something.”

Arioch nodded. A demonkin would certainly notice the magic at some level, but nothing

like as intense as how an elf might experience it. “Yeah, that’s the magic.”

Miranda, of course, was unaffected. She merely got up, dusted herself off, and walked

over to the nearest building, studying the polished surface curiously. Humans were generally not

attuned to magic enough to feel its presence unless it was being directly channeled.

“Come on!” Mya squeaked, heaving with all her might and jerking Arioch forward a few

steps.

“Okay, I’m coming,” Arioch said, allowing herself to be led directly across the wide,

open square.

Dante and Miranda followed, if a bit slower as they took in the walkways, buildings, and

fixtures. The path was strewn with benches, small waist high arches whose purpose Arioch

couldn’t recall, nor make an intelligent guess about, and even small plants which still somehow
lived without having overgrown their plots. Arioch, of course, had seen all of this before, but

couldn’t help but be awestruck to discover nothing had changed in the tens of thousands of years

since she had last been here. She had little time to wonder, though, as Mya continued dragging

her through the streets, heading toward the large staircase opposite the plaza where they had

entered.

“Where are you taking us?” Arioch asked as Mya hurried along.

“There!” she shouted, pointing toward the staircase.

“Right, but what’s that way?”

Mya’s steps faltered briefly, and Arioch could just make out a faint trace of puzzlement

in her features. “I don’t know…” she said slowly, her confusion plain in her voice. “But we gotta

go there.” On this, at least, she seemed certain.

“That’s toward the center of the Nexus. The Dais site,” Miranda said. “It’s where we

need to be for Mya to rekindle the Ancients!” The realization seemed to have invigorated

Miranda, and focused her on the immediate task, as she rushed over to Arioch’s side.

“The Dais?” Arioch and Dante asked together.

“Yes. It’s what scholars call the open temple-like platform at the center of the city. It’s

where the Ancients communed with each other and the currents of magic,” Miranda explained

hurriedly.

Arioch didn’t recognize the name, but knew the place. The Ancients had called it

something else, but she had never been particularly adept at their language. It had always been so
laden with metaphor and numerous layers of meaning, making truly understanding it almost

impossible for an outsider.

Mya led them on, her short legs once again lending her surprising speed, forcing Arioch

to jog to keep up with her. Dante and Miranda followed, the crystalline walkway glittering

beneath them as they sped across it, its glassy surface somehow affording them easy passage on

a path to all appearances as slick as ice. When they reached a staircase, Arioch took the steps two

at a time, Mya’s frenzied pace leaving her with no choice. Unlike their climb of the mountain, no

magical force assisted their passage nor invigorated them, and Arioch could hear her

companions’ labored breathing as they lagged a bit behind her.

As they ascended, the staircase narrowed, each step funneling them a little closer together

the nearer they came to the apex. Arioch had not actually been to this part of the city before, and

wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Over the edge of the staircase, she could see a series of

enormous pillars cut from what appeared to be gargantuan gemstones. More pillars climbed into

view, and she realized there was one for each element of magic. An emerald pillar representing

life loomed ahead, flanked by a deep obsidian pillar to represent darkness, a fiery emerald pillar

for fire, and if Arioch was right, six others she couldn’t yet see. Ancients and elves had always

drawn power from the nine elements of magic: Life, death, light, dark, air, earth, fire, water, and

pure arcane energy. Each would have its own pillar, Arioch guessed.

As they crested the stairs, she saw she was correct, and found herself marveling at the

circle of crystal pillars surrounding the massive, open circular platform where they stood, the

floor polished to such a brilliant shine, Arioch almost saw herself reflected in its surface. At the

center of the platform was a simple gray stone column Arioch guessed to be no higher than her
waist, though about twice as wide. Seeing it, Mya finally came to a stop, panting for breath along

with Dante and Miranda.

Arioch couldn’t help but stare at the pillars, the closest being carved from diamond to

represent light. The pillar itself rose thirty feet or more into the air, and was wide enough Arioch

wouldn’t be able to wrap her arms more than halfway around it. Where the Ancients had found

crystals so enormous was beyond her.

“I tried to convince Magnus to pay me with one of those. But he said they had to stay

where they are,” came a familiar voice. “I guess getting one out of here would be a bitch,

anyway.”

Arioch, Dante, Miranda, and Mya all turned as one toward its source. The speaker walked

around from behind a pillar carved from moonstone to represent arcane energy, his red eyes

dancing with malicious delight. Reldien spread his arms in greeting as two others joined him.

One, Arioch recognized as the orc captain L’ora, if only by her tremendous size and tactical body

armor. The third person was human Arioch didn’t recognize, an older man with graying hair and

wrinkles forming at the corners of his pale eyes and mouth. He wore a slate gray business suit,

complete with a matching vest and crisp, white shirt.

“Magnus,” Miranda all but hissed.

“Doctor Miranda Halperin.” Magnus’ deep voice was loud, easily carrying across the

wide, open space. Arioch suspected he was used to addressing shareholders, and this was his

boardroom voice. “I was given to believe you were dead.” He flicked his gaze to L’ora, who was

regarding Miranda with what might have been puzzlement, though it was difficult to tell with her

stony face.
 “She was,” L’ora said in her flat, hollow voice.

“Obviously not,” Magnus said mildly. “It is, however, an error I am willing to overlook

considering the circumstances. If, of course, you turn the girl over to me.”

“Ask your pet orc there how that went last time you asked,” Arioch cut in.

L’ora didn’t so much as twitch, which somehow made Arioch nervous. Orcs were known

for their temper, and never let an insult slide. Any other would have been snarling in anger at the

very least when insulted and reminded of the loss of a fight.

Magnus turned his attention to Arioch for the first time. His cold gray eyes settled on her,

and Arioch’s insides twisted. She did all she could to keep her sudden discomfort from her face,

but there was something…wrong about the way he was looking at her. Miranda’s gaze had had a

similar effect, but to a far lesser extent. Those eyes, little chips of gray rock, bored into hers. It

was all Arioch could do not to squirm.

“Arioch Starshadow,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I suspect I hired the wrong elf.”

“You’re not wrong,” Arioch said flatly.

Reldien bristled. “Hey! The bitch sucker punched me once. That’s it. I got you here,

didn’t I?”

Magnus ignored Reldien’s outburst. “You are…quite old,” he said, his eyes narrowing

thoughtfully. “Quite old. I did not believe any of your age remained. Yes, you almost certainly

would have been a better choice. I regret I was unaware of you until recently. Your assistance

would have been invaluable.”

 Arioch wasn’t sure what she had expected from Magnus, but this definitely wasn’t it. A

raving lunatic, maybe? Crazed cultist? Someone a little less…collected.

“It still could be, of course. Naturally, this breaks protocols, but under the circumstances I

am compelled offer a bid for your services.”

“A bid for my services?” The request caught her off guard, but Arioch was struck by the

thought that she could very easily have ended up in Magnus’ employ, standing right where

Reldien was. She would certainly have taken the job. But…would knowing what Magnus meant

to do to Mya have changed her mind?

No, it wouldn’t have, she realized. Knowing Mya as she did now, the fact bothered her.

So, Dante was right. She wasn’t, or at least had never been, a particularly good person.

“Yes. Of course, I do not know what Doctor Halperin is paying you, but I am certainly

willing to pay more, as you have already done the work of bringing the girl this far. All you need

do now is leave the girl with me.”

Arioch had heard this offer a thousand times. Usually, though, it came from someone

desperate, defeated, and making one last panicked grab at a chance to live. They never meant it,

and rarely had the ability to do what they offered. Magnus meant it. He certainly had the

resources to double, triple, even quadruple the payment if he wanted. Hell, he could have paid

her a hundred times what Grael and Miranda offered without noticing a dent in his bank account,

if she was any judge.

 “Arioch…” Dante said slowly, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. Miranda edged

slightly away from her. She realized they thought she was about to take Magnus up on his offer.

Mya, though, still held Arioch’s hand, standing beside and slightly behind her.

“No,” she said simply. What Magnus was going to do to Mya wouldn’t have mattered a

few days ago. Arioch knew her now, and couldn’t…wouldn’t let him try it.

Magnus’ thick brows lofted slightly. Was he surprised she turned him down? Maybe he

was; Arioch really couldn’t tell. Glancing to her left and right, she saw his surprise mirrored in

Miranda and Dante’s faces. So, it wasn’t the sort of thing an elf might be expected to do. She’d

had about enough of the things her own kind did after the last few days, anyway.

“No?” Magnus asked. “Why not?”

Arioch certainly hadn’t expected the question. “It’s the right thing to do,” she said

automatically. Reldien guffawed. She almost rolled her eyes at herself. She’d heard it so many

times in films, she had just spouted the line without thinking, and certainly without meaning it.

“Hardly relevant from an elven perspective,” Magnus pointed out.

“I guess I just like the kid, then,” Arioch said. “Not going to let you kill her.” Mya

squeezed her hand a little tighter.

Magnus sighed. “Well, I am certainly aware of the futility of convincing an elf to give up

something she wants. But, I would have been remiss not to try.” He turned to Reldien and L’ora.

“Do not damage the pillars.”

L’ora nodded jerkily, and Reldien sighed. “Be easier if we could just shoot them,” he

muttered, reaching for a long knife at his side.

Chapter 19

“You get the orc,” Arioch said to Dante, setting a hand on Mya’s shoulder and guiding

her over to Miranda. Miranda quickly wrapped both arms around her and pulled her backward,

toward one of the nearby pillars.

“Oh, come on, you take the orc,” Dante grumbled.

“Nope. You get her. Careful, though. She’s crazy strong,” she warned.

Dante sighed, stepping toward L’ora as Arioch advanced on Reldien. Reldien was

bouncing on the balls of his feet, tossing his knife from hand to hand. He probably thought he

was being intimidating. Really, he looked like an anxious kid. Arioch slipped the knife she’d

taken from one of L’ora soldiers from her coat, palming it as she crossed the platform. It seemed

only fair to use a knife instead of her razorwhip if the little blade was all he had.

“Nothing to stop me killing you out here, Arioch, and this time you don’t have the drop

on me,” he said slowly, lips pulling back in a wicked grin.

“Keep talking, Reldien,” Arioch said. “It’s what you’re best at.”

Reldien snarled and lunged at her. He thrust his knife straight at her middle. Arioch

twisted sideways, clear of the attack. Growling, Reldien shifted his grip and slashed horizontally

at her. Arioch leaned back and his swipe went clear over her. She jerked her hand upward,

stabbing at Reldien’s chest. His wrist blocked the attack, slamming into hers hard enough to stop

her motion. As soon as he parried her attack, Arioch dropped her blade, snatching it from the air

with her other hand. As Reldien recovered, Arioch slashed across his middle, only to have his

blade clang against hers at the last second.

 Arioch straightened and Reldien took a step back, not smirking quite as broadly now. He

crouched, rapidly tossing his blade from hand to hand. An old trick to misdirect the

inexperienced. Reldien was right-handed, and Arioch knew he wouldn’t fight with his left if he

could avoid it. She had no such handicap. As Reldien tossed his blade to his left hand, Arioch

rushed in, sweeping her blade high toward his throat. Her free hand shot out to restrain Reldien’s

left wrist. Reldien shifted his weight back, twisting away and trying Arioch’s trick of dropping

his blade to catch it in his other hand.

She was ready for it, and faster. Arioch released his hand and plucked his blade from the

air before he could catch it. Reldien leaned down, trying to grab her wrist and retrieve his knife.

He was rewarded with a kick to the sternum which sent him reeling. The kick forced Reldien

away, and when they straightened, Arioch had both knives.

“You look smug for someone getting his ass kicked,” Arioch said, seeing Reldien was

smirking again.

“Give it a second.”

“Wha-” Arioch was interrupted by a loud beep from the knife she’d taken.

A sudden shock jolted her entire body. Arioch’s arm convulsed, and she fell to the

ground in a twitching heap. The knife skittered from her hand, and she gasped for air as the

current ran its course through her, every muscle in her body jerking spasmodically.

“Palm print reader in the hilt with a built in tazer,” Reldien explained, bending over to

pick up his knife.

 Arioch lay helpless on the ground, gritting her teeth as her body simply refused to obey

her. Reldien took his time about approaching her, clearly savoring his moment of victory before

aiming a vicious kick at her middle. The pain shooting through her helped to push aside the

paralysis his tazer brought on. She was ready when he kicked again, and curled inward, catching

his foot between both hands. Reldien grunted, and Arioch rolled forward, forcing her weight

onto his leg. He immediately dropped backward onto the ground, unwilling to risk her breaking

his leg.

Still a little slow after the shock, pain lingering well past its welcome in every corner of

her body, Arioch wrapped both legs around Reldien’s, pinning him. Better he didn’t move

around as much while she was still half-stunned. Reldien’s next move was predictable. He tried

to smash the heel of his boot into Arioch’s head. She caught his ankle with one arm, sweeping it

away and pinning it under her arm. He struggled, and she rolled onto her side, using her weight

to trap both of his legs. Unfortunately, all she could do was hold him as he bucked against her,

having lo leverage to actually break either of his legs.

“Damnit, Arioch, let me go!” he snarled, trying to buck her off.

Arioch was about to spit back a reply when he raised his knife. Oops. She quickly

released him and rolled away. Reldien leapt up as Arioch forced herself to her feet. He wasted no

time in charging at her, seeing she had dropped her knife in the struggle. This time Reldien

slashed at her throat, leaping forward to give himself greater reach. Arioch dropped to the

ground, hoping Reldien would sail right over her. The tazer had slowed her down, though, and

his foot caught her on the side of the head as he passed.

 The blow sent Arioch sprawling across the ground. Something hard dug into her side, and

Arioch reached back to find it was her knife. Well, that was lucky. As Reldien landed and turned

back to face her, Arioch scrambled to her feet, knife once more in hand. The low roar of L’ora’s

peculiar sword not far away reminded Arioch she wasn’t the only one fighting for her life. Her

attention refocused on Reldien as he launched himself back at her, blade flashing.

Reldien was angry, made clear by the twisted snarl on his face. He had obviously

expected an easier time of fighting her. Anger, Arioch knew, would make him careless. His

attack was wild, his arm thrust out like a spear. Arioch grabbed his right hand with her left,

forcing it down and away. She extended her own right arm, elbow toward his throat. The blow

closed his windpipe, and left her right hand, and blade, just under his arm. A flick of her wrist

sliced deep into the underside of his arm, and Reldien staggered as she stepped sideway, letting

his momentum carry him past her. As he lurched past her, Arioch flicked her weapon out

underneath his left arm, slicing a long, deep cut from his underarm to his elbow.

Arioch turned to face him as he swayed, grabbing at his throat and gasping for air. Both

Reldien’s arms were already covered in blood, thick drops of crimson trickling from his fingers

down to the ground. He didn’t know he was already dead.

“You never had a chance, Reldien,” Arioch said simply, flicking a bit of blood from the

edge of her blade.

“Not…done with you…” he choked out, his cheeks and forehead purple as he tried to get

air into his lungs.

Arioch failed to hide her surprise at his failure to realize what happened.
 “Never bothered to learn anatomy, did you?” she asked calmly. “That’s your brachial

artery, Reldien. You’re bleeding out.”

Reldien glanced disbelievingly at his arm. “Just like that? That’s it…I’m dead?”

“Just like that,” Arioch said.

“Well, fuck you then,” Reldien said, reaching toward his gun.

But his arm just wouldn’t cooperate. The weapon clattered to the ground after he pulled it

halfway from its holster, and Reldien stumbled forward onto his knees. Anger gave way to

surprise, and he stared at the precise, but deep cuts on his arms, realizing they would end him.

Words must have failed him as he pawed ineffectively at the wound with his other hand.

Arioch’s lips twitched in a satisfied smirk as Reldien fell sideways into a spreading pool of his

own blood, the fierce red of his eyes beginning to dull.

Another roar from L’ora’s sword told Arioch Dante hadn’t been quite as quick about

dispatching his opponent, and she turned to face them. Dante was wielding what looked to be a

pair of tonfa batons, though she had no idea where he had been keeping them. A long gash down

the side of Dante’s face wept blood, but he looked to be holding his own. She would have to talk

to him about his choice of weapons, though.

L’ora spun, slashing in a wide arc. Dante brought up one tonfa, blocking neatly. He

pushed forward and down, throwing L’ora off balance, and struck her across the forehead with

the other. L’ora swayed, and Arioch smiled. She’d chosen her allies better than Magnus had.

Dante glanced at her with a self-satisfied smirk and winked. That was all the time it took.
 He never saw the attack coming. L’ora steadied herself and twisted, thrusting her blade

straight through Dante’s chest. The weapon’s throaty growl was muffled as it plunged into his

flesh and tore back out in a shower of blood. Dante teetered briefly, then fell backward. The

smirk slowly faded from his face as he realized what had happened.

Arioch moved without thinking. She was too slow to catch Dante, and when she knelt

beside him, she felt the slickness of blood on the ground. L’ora’s sword growled, and Arioch

turned to face her. A wave of anger, given physical force by all the magic she’d absorbed from

Haverin, slammed into L’ora, lifting her from her feet. The orc sailed backward, out of Arioch’s

sight, and she turned her attention back to Dante.

His chest was a bloody ruin. L’ora’s blade had torn a vicious hole through almost the

perfect center of his chest, only barely missing his heart. A tangle of shredded muscle and bone

poked through his shirt, and Arioch quickly placed a hand on Dante’s forehead to stop him from

looking at the mortal wound. He would be dead in moments.

“How’m I doin’?” Dante slurred, his skin rapidly losing color.

“You’ve looked better,” Arioch admitted, keeping her hand on his forehead. His skin was

rapidly becoming cool, clammy.

Dante’s orange eyes found Arioch’s. He was afraid. She’d never seen Dante afraid.

“’m gonna die, aren’ I?” he breathed, his lips bright red with blood.

“Yeah…” Arioch never had been much of a liar.

Dante swallowed, then grimaced. Arioch knew blood wasn’t a pleasant taste. He reached

up, and Arioch thought at first that he was trying to take her hand. She’d watched a lot of people
die, but none had ever looked to her for comfort while it happened. His hand flopped against his

chest, though, and Arioch glanced down to see he was looking for something. But he’d already

lost too much blood, and his hand wasn’t working the way he wanted.

“M-my inside pocket…” he whispered, a faint gurgle in his voice. Arioch could only

hope the blood loss lulled him to sleep before he drowned.

“I got it,” Arioch said, sliding her hand into his jacket.

“Phone…”

Arioch slipped his phone from his jacket and held it out to him. He tried to reach for it,

but his fingers only slipped from the screen, leaving thick streaks of blood.

“Picture…” Dante mumbled, waving the phone away.

“Dante, I’m not taking a picture of you dying,” Arioch said, staring down at him in

confusion.

“No!” he snapped, the effort causing him to lapse into a fit of coughing.

“Open…photos…”

Arioch did as he asked, pulling up his photo gallery and holding the phone back to him.

Dante squinted at the phone, the orange glow almost gone from his eyes. Somehow, Arioch

wasn’t sure how between the blood on the phone and vision she imagined was mostly dark by

now, Dante found what he was looking for. After three failed attempts, he pressed his finger

awkwardly against one of the pictures, then pawed at Arioch’s hand, turning the phone back

toward her.
 The photograph was of a woman Arioch didn’t recognize, roughly Dante’s age. She was

pretty, Arioch supposed, in the sort of mischievous way devilkin tended to be. Her thick, curly

black hair fell over her shoulders, obscuring much of her horns. On her shoulder sat a young

child, a boy with the same black hair and orange eyes. They were smiling, waving at the camera.

“M-my family, tell them…” Dante fixed his gaze on her, stopping midsentence. His eyes

opened wide, a brilliant orange glow igniting as he stared fearfully at Arioch. “I don’ wanna go!”

his voice was clearer, but plaintive.

Arioch didn’t know what to say. She looked around the platform, as if someone might

pop out and help her comfort her friend. No one did, and Arioch couldn’t find the right words to

reassure Dante as his gasping grew more insistent. He clung to life with a desperation she had

seen a thousand times, had even taken amusement in watching. But, right then, she wanted

nothing more than to help him.

“I don’…wanna…”

Dante’s head fell back, smacking loudly against the ground, though he didn’t groan in

pain. Arioch knew he was dead. The gurgling, gasping breaths had ceased, and that look of fear

faded as the light went out of his eyes, leaving glassy, white orbs behind. His hand slid away

from the phone, and Arioch was left holding it, staring at the woman and child as they smiled

and waved. She’d never known Dante had a family. A child. Why hadn’t he told her? Had he

been with them when she called and demanded he assist her? What had he told them when he

left?

Arioch swallowed and slipped his phone into her coat. Without thinking, she reached out

to close his eyes. The emptiness of those blank white eyes unsettled her, made it harder to
recognize him as the Dante she knew. Just as her fingertips brushed his lids, a familiar

mechanical growl sounded behind her.

“Fair warning. Turn,” L’ora said calmly, revving her sword’s motor.

Arioch got to her feet.

Chapter 20

Fury coursed through Arioch, and she fought against herself to bring it under control.

Anger was a distraction. It would make her sloppy. Clearing her mind was difficult, though, as

her friend lay dead at her feet. The low growl of L’ora’s sword brought Arioch back to herself.

Having already given her warning and satisfied the orc need for honor in combat, L’ora was on

the offensive. Arioch ducked and rolled to the side, gritting her teeth at the sound of L’ora’s

sword screeching as its serrated teeth ground against the smooth, polished floor. Focused now by

the need to survive, Arioch’s hand jumped of its own accord to her razorwhip. She jerked it from

its sheath and flicked her wrist.

Segments separated from each other as Arioch turned to face L’ora, who was already

charging at her. The orc was fast, too fast for someone her size, and Arioch already knew how

dangerously strong she was. Knowing she would need her size and her weapon’s reach, she

extended the razorwhip to its full length, almost twice Arioch’s height. L’ora closed in, and

Arioch twirled her whip, the bladed sections whistling through the air as she spun them in a

circle in front of herself. A wall of blades whirling almost too fast to follow slowed L’ora’s

charge.

L’ora changed direction, attempting to flank Arioch. She’d expected this, and waited

until the tip of her razorwhip reached the height of its rotation before flicking her wrist

downward and sending the blade into a diagonal slash. Serrated teeth screeched against

segmented blades, and L’ora quickly found her sword wrapped in the coils of Arioch’s whip, as

her attempt to parry only changed the direction of attack. Instead of slashing down across L’ora’s

body. Arioch’s razorwhip coiled around L’ora’s weapon, gouging a deep gash across her chest
and face. Blood gushed from the wound, and L’ora staggered back, snarling. She tried to jerk her

weapon free, but Arioch was already moving toward her.

Using L’ora’s strength to add to her momentum, Arioch slammed into L’ora just as she

heaved on their entangled weapons. L’ora staggered backward, her sword pushed flat across her

chest, driving several of the blades along Arioch’s razorwhip into her chest and stomach,

shredding her body armor. The orc toppled over, flailing wildly in an attempt to regain her

balance, or to drag Arioch down with her. But Arioch was already moving past her. She flicked

her wrist to unwrap her razorwhip from L’ora’s sword and turned to face her as the large orc

slammed into the ground.

L’ora gasped for air as she hit the ground, bleeding from numerous wounds across her

face and torso. She took hold of her sword and forced its tip down against the ground, using her

grip on it to lever herself to her feet.

“No,” Arioch hissed.

She lashed out with her razorwhip, and the coils encircled L’ora’s bicep just as she

shifted her weight onto the sword. Arioch pulled viciously. For a moment, her whip strained,

then the deadly sharp blades bit through tactical armor, skin, bone. L’ora wavered, then pitched

forward as her arm tore free just below the shoulder. The orc didn’t make a sound.

L’ora’s weapon skittered across the smooth floor, her severed arm continuing to grip its

hilt for a brief moment in its final spasm before both slid to a stop. Arioch stalked over to the orc,

the segments of her razorwhip screeching across the floor as they dragged behind her. She

wanted to make this slow. Painful. But Mya was there, and she had subjected the girl to too

many disturbing sights already. So, for her sake, she’d end this quickly. A flick of her wrist
retracted the bladed segments, forming the simple, short-bladed sword her razorwhip typically

appeared to be.

Arioch stood over L’ora, sword in hand, as her opponent struggled to get to her knees.

When she saw Arioch standing over her, L’ora looked up. Surprise. It was the only thing Arioch

could see on her face. Surprise at being so thoroughly overmatched? At losing so quickly? At

losing at all? It was hard to tell. What Arioch knew was, in that moment, L’ora knew she’d never

stood a chance. Maybe it was revenge enough. As Arioch raised her sword, a voice rang out

across the platform.

“No.” It wasn’t a cry of despair, or even a plea. If anything, it sounded like a command.

Arioch wasn’t interested. She started her downward thrust toward L’ora’s heart.

A wall of air slammed into Arioch, lifted her from her feet, and propelled her across the

platform. She hit the ground hard, skidding along the smooth surface until finally she collided

with a pillar, gasping as the breath left her body. Arioch shook her head, trying to clear it, and

looked around for the source of the attack. Across the platform, Magnus stood by the ruby pillar

representing flame, arms raised, a halo of flickering orange sparks hovering over him. A human

had unleashed so much magic on her?

“L’ora, it is time,” Magnus said, his voice resonating deeply as tiny flickers of orange

swirled around him. “Surrender.” At first, Arioch thought he was talking to her, and was about to

laugh. But it was L’ora who nodded, spreading one arm, and what remained of the other. She

threw her head back, and opened her mouth in a primal roar.

The flickering sparks of orange circling Magnus grew brighter, moving around him in a

tiny maelstrom of light until he thrust both hands toward L’ora. A wave of fiery light swept out
from Magnus, crashing over L’ora and obscuring her body in its brilliance. L’ora’s roar grew

louder, and the scent of burning flesh filled the air. Arioch slowly pushed to her feet, taking an

involuntary step backward as L’ora’s cry carried on for longer than her lungs should have

allowed. When Arioch tried to step toward L’ora and put an end to whatever magic Magnus was

working, a wall of energy shoved her backward.

“Fine,” Arioch snapped, drawing her gun in her free hand.

She fired at L’ora, but saw only tiny bursts of light around the edges of the brilliant

flames surrounding her. Had they melted the bullets? No human had ever managed magic this

powerful, and as L’ora’s scream carried on, the hairs on the back of Arioch’s neck started to

stand on end.

“Arioch get back!” Miranda’s voice only barely registered over the orc’s cry and the

flaming whirlwind surrounding her. “Get behind something!”

The light around L’ora was intensifying. Arioch couldn’t look directly at her any longer,

and as Miranda’s words reached her, she was forced to agree. She darted around the pillar she’d

slammed into moments before, ducking and shielding her eyes. And not a moment too soon.

L’ora’s roar suddenly ceased, along with ever other sound on the platform. For the space

of a heartbeat, the air was silent. And then a tremendous rending sound tore at Arioch’s ears. She

ducked her head, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears with both hands. Even with her

eyes closed, a brilliant flash seared her retinas. L’ora’s final roar ended abruptly, the horrible

tearing sound drowning out everything else, only to be replaced by an otherworldly scream.
 Arioch’s blood froze. She knew that sound. She’d heard it a thousand times, but not for

millennia. It was the sound of the barrier between this world and the demon world being rent

asunder.

“Oh, no,” she breathed, daring to open her eyes when the brilliant glare faded.

She peeked around the diamond pillar she’d crouched behind. The entire platform was

smoking, the polished surface near its center scorched. Where L’ora had knelt, a smoky haze

blurred Arioch’s sight. As she tried to blink away the afterimage which had burned even through

her eyelids, she saw movement in the patch where the smoke was thickest.

L’ora was back on her feet, only it wasn’t L’ora anymore. She - it - stood a full foot

taller. Her body had expanded grotesquely, tremendous ripples of muscle tearing through the

sleek black tactical armor wore. Such was the heat of the fire Magnus had channeled in order to

work his magic that pieces of the armor had fused into L’ora’s skin, leaving patches of black and

mottled gray amid the green where it had burst through much of her protective gear. Claws

almost a foot long extended from each of L’ora’s wickedly curved fingers on her remaining

hand. Arioch watched in horror as blood which had once been red bubbled a seething orange

from the stump of L’ora’s right arm. The hissing, smoking blood congealed, glowing fiery

orange and coalescing into the shape of a clawed arm to match the one she’d lost.

The monstrosity that had been L’ora stepped forward, red eyes gleaming through the haze

of smoke as she fixed her attention squarely on Arioch. Her mouth, lined with pointed, triangular

teeth split into a wide, cruel grin, bits of burning blood still flecking her lips. Magnus had

summoned a demon to possess his guard.

 “Stay back!” Arioch yelled when she saw Mya and Miranda moving out of the corner of

her eye.

They didn’t listen. Miranda had Mya in her arms, and darted between the pillars until she

crouched behind the diamond pillar where Arioch stood. Mya’s eyes were wide with terror. Even

Miranda, who had proven all but unflappable during their journey, looked on the verge of panic.

Arioch hoped she was managing to keep her rising fear from her face.

“He summoned a demon,” Miranda panted.

“I noticed that, yes,” Arioch said drily.

“Can you kill it?”

Well, that was the question. Arioch had fought a number of demons in her lifetime, and

even killed a few. Fortunately, L’ora was merely possessed, not transformed into a full demon.

Had she indeed been transformed into a full demon, Arioch wouldn’t have even been able to fake

confidence. She’d killed scores of possessed during the demon wars, but was forced to admit

she’d been a bit more formidable back then, if recent events had taught her anything.

“Probably,” she said as calmly as she could.

L’ora had been freakishly strong going in, which Arioch knew would only be amplified

by several orders of magnitude after her transformation, to say nothing of the magical power the

demon would bring into the equation as well. Even with some of her own magical ability, she

wasn’t completely sure she could do this on her own.

“What can we do?” Miranda asked her, and though her eyes were slightly wide, her voice

was calm. “How can we help?”

 “Just stay down,” Arioch said, turning her attention back to L’ora.

L’ora had begun to advance on them. When she reached Dante’s body, she kicked out

with a clawed foot and sent him rolling across the platform. Rage twisted at Arioch’s gut, and

she tightened her grip on her razorwhip. Mya squeaked in protest as Arioch broke into a run,

charging at the possessed orc. This wasn’t the time to reassure her, though. The demon

demanded Arioch’s undivided attention, and with the demon weaponless for the moment, Arioch

had to seize whatever advantage she had.

Seeing her charge, L’ora planted her feet, squaring off with Arioch. Sensing danger,

Arioch skidded to a halt, stopping well out of L’ora’s reach. Red eyes fixed hungrily on her, and

L’ora lurched forward. Arioch leapt sideways, lashing out with her razorwhip. L’ora let out a

roar of pain as the tip tore into her arm, jerking away.

“Magic,” she hissed.

“What, you don’t know an elven weapon when you see one?” Arioch taunted.

If she could get the demon in L’ora talking, she might be able to keep it off balance.

Possessing a mortal body was a jarring experience for a demon, and it took them time to

acclimate. She whipped her blade at L’ora again. This time the demon blocked with its molten

arm, a loud clang sounding as her blade struck the demon’s body. Again, L’ora snarled in pain,

recoiling slightly.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Arioch needled, starting a slow circle around the demon.

“I’ll do far worse to you before I release this shell,” the demon spat in a raspy mockery of

L’ora’s monotone voice. Her smile was gone though. Arioch had put her on her guard.
 “No, you won’t,” Arioch said, feinting to the left.

L’ora shifted to defend herself, but Arioch dove right. She flicked her wrist, spinning her

whip in a narrow circle around herself. Segmented blades slashed all along L’ora’s right side,

cutting her leg, side, arm, even face. Her howl of pain was deafening, and crashed over the

platform with real, physical force. Arioch staggered back, thrown off balance by the piercing

scream.

L’ora turned to face her, molten blood trickling down her right side, and screamed again.

The scream hit Arioch in a wave of sonic force, bowling her over and smashing the back of her

head into the floor. Arioch’s vision flashed white. She lay, stunned, as L’ora stalked toward her.

As she neared, L’ora’s molten arm writhed and bubbled. Her fingers elongated and twisted

together, merging to form a long, burning whip.

Arioch acted automatically. As L’ora swung her new weapon down, lashing out at

Arioch, Arioch retracted the blades on her razorwhip. Praying she was fast enough, Arioch

brought her weapon up to guard across her chest, held close to her body to prevent L’ora’s whip

from coiling around it and wounding her. The sheer force of the blow almost knocked the

weapon from her hand. A tremendous crash shook the platform as the whip slammed into the

ground, heat searing across Arioch’s chest and arms where it was closest to her.

The molten whip blistered Arioch’s skin, even through her coat, as she tried to push it

away. She almost didn’t hear L’ora’s plodding footsteps. The ground beneath her trembled as

L’ora drew closer. Without warning, L’ora jerked the whip back. Arioch flailed, off balance, and

craned her head around to see the possessed orc. One of L’ora’s clawed feet slammed viciously
into Arioch’s side, tearing through her coat and bodyglove. Arioch cried out in pain as the curved

claws bit into her flesh, curling inward protectively, for all the good it did.

Arioch needed to put some distance between L’ora and herself before the mutated orc

crushed her ribcage entirely. When the next kick came, Arioch rolled sideways and sprang

upward, propelling herself feet-first toward L’ora’s face. L’ora’s head snapped back, a growl of

pain giving Arioch at least some measure of satisfaction. Then a powerful hand closed over her

ankle, jerking upward.

“Ohshit!” Arioch gasped as she hung, helpless from L’ora’s hand.

L’ora lifted her higher, bringing Arioch’s head almost level with her waist. Arioch

twisted and writhed, but L’ora’s grip on her ankle was almost strong enough to crush the bone.

Desperate, she tried to reach up and slash at L’ora’s arm, but the demonic orc shook her so hard

her teeth rattled, and her blade went wide of its mark. Out of the corner of her eye, Arioch saw

L’ora raise her molten arm, which had reformed to match her flesh and blood hand, fingers

curling into a fist. Absolutely certain the next blow would end her, Arioch uncoiled her

razorwhip and spun it in a wide arc. The segmented blades slashed viciously across L’ora’s

thighs and she screamed in pain.

The hand around Arioch’s ankle twitched, then released her, and Arioch fell facefirst to

the floor. Barely catching herself, she rolled away and sprang to her feet. Her side still burned,

and a quick glance showed her coat was wet with blood. Breathing hurt, but she could manage it

normally, so her lungs were intact. More than that, she couldn’t say. She couldn’t keep this up

for long. Arioch’s brief moment of taking stock of her wounds cost her. L’ora had recovered, and

was already charging toward her again, clawed feet scraping against the smooth stone floor. With
almost nowhere else to go, her back nearly pressed against one of the pillars, Arioch ran straight

toward L’ora. L’ora’s mouth split in an evil grin, pointed teeth glistening as they neared. Just as

L’ora reached out for her, Arioch dropped flat to the ground, sliding past L’ora. A quick flick of

her wrist sent her razorwhip coiling around L’ora’s ankle.

Arioch leapt to her feet, allowing her momentum to carry her, and heaved with all her

might on her razorwhip. L’ora hadn’t quite been able to stop her charge, and when Arioch’s

razorwhip went taut, she lurched forward. A loud crack filled the air as L’ora’s head smashed

into the pillar in front of her. She slammed facedown into the floor a second later, and Arioch

flicked her wrist again, uncoiling her razorwhip from the demon’s ankle. Seizing her advantage,

Arioch charged in, retracting the coils of her razorwhip and leaping at L’ora’s prone form.

L’ora rolled over, burning red eyes filled with malice. Her hand shot out and swatted

Arioch from the air. Knocked aside like a ragdoll, Arioch tumbled head over heels and collided

painfully with one of the pillars. Darkness crept into the edges of Arioch’s vision, and as Arioch

slid to the floor, her weapon slipped from nerveless fingers. Heavy footfalls sounded farther

away than they were, and Arioch couldn’t quite focus on the hulking form approaching her. She

had to get up, had to move.

Arioch rolled onto her back, groaning in pain. Her head spun and her body ached. She

knew if she didn’t move, she’d die. Blindly, she groped around for her razorwhip, fingers closing

clumsily around its hilt. L’ora was almost on her, and she wasn’t sure she could manage any sort

of counter to drive her back. Left without any other options, Arioch closed her eyes and focused.

Shadows closed in around her, and the ground writhed beneath her. A heartbeat later, she
appeared on the opposite side of the platform, still laying sprawled on her back. Low, rumbling

laughter filled the air.

“You can’t run, little elf,” L’ora boomed. “You’re already fading.”

It was true. Arioch grimaced as she pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, weapon hanging

loosely in one hand, still having trouble focusing on L’ora. At the very moment Arioch managed

to fix her gaze on the demon, a puff of shadows swirled around her, and she vanished. Before

Arioch could react, L’ora reappeared immediately in front of her. Instinct took over and Arioch

dropped, rolling to one side. She swept her razorwhip out behind herself, rewarded with a roar of

pain, but unable to see where she struck as she staggered to her feet.

Before she could turn to see, L’ora slammed into her, throwing Arioch flat against the

ground. A faint whistling warned her L’ora had formed her hand back into its whip shape. She

rolled to the left, catching a blur of orange in her peripheral vision, only just avoiding the attack.

Arioch spun her razorwhip in a defensive circle. Segmented blades struck molten demon flesh,

and L’ora reared up, staggering backward.

Arioch couldn’t press the advantage, though. She wasn’t even sure she could get to her

feet. Her head was spinning and every muscle in her body ached. When she tried to push herself

to her feet, her arms gave out. L’ora grabbed her by the hair, jerking her backward with enough

force to drag her entire body along the ground. Unable to stifle her cry of pain, Arioch screamed,

thrashing as L’ora lifted her to her feet by the hair.

“Done already?” she taunted, smoldering red eyes boring into Arioch’s.
 Arioch spat at her, more blood than saliva, which hissed and bubbled when it impacted

one of L’ora’s molten wounds. She couldn’t manage a more defiant retort. L’ora released her

hair, and Arioch swayed, taking several unsteady steps backward in a feeble attempt to put some

distance between herself and L’ora. Her razorwhip felt like a lead weight in her hand, and she

would have liked nothing more than to drop it, as she certainly couldn’t lift it.

“Pathetic,” L’ora snarled.

Her burning orange hand reformed and shot out, fingers coiling around Arioch’s neck.

Arioch reflexively channeled every bit of magic she had left in her into her neck, trying to

protect it from the searing heat. Even still, she gasped in pain, her eyes widening as she was

lifted from her feet, the skin around her throat starting to blister as her magic rapidly waned.

L’ora began to squeeze, and Arioch’s eyes bulged, legs kicking wildly as she clawed uselessly at

L’ora’s arm, burning the tips of her fingers in the process.

“Will you choke or burn to death first?” L’ora taunted, glaring into Arioch’s eyes as her

vision started to blur.

“No!”

Arioch hadn’t spoken, but couldn’t look around to see who had. It was a tiny, high

pitched voice she realized a moment later must have been Mya. Before she could consider what

might happen to the girl when L’ora finished choking the life from her, a brilliant burst of blue

light all but blinded her. L’ora screamed in pain and staggered backward. She dropped Arioch,

who hit the ground hard, coughing and gulping down air.

“Get up! Please get up, Miss Arioch!” Mya pleaded.

 Arioch lifted her head to see L’ora thrashing on the ground, blue light crackling across

her skin as she howled in agony. Was Mya doing that? She shook her head, trying to clear it, and

craned her head around to see Mya, standing in front of the diamond pillar, hands held out

toward L’ora. Blue light poured from her hands, and her eyes blazed so brightly Arioch couldn’t

look directly at her.

When Arioch didn’t move, Mya turned to look directly at her. Her body jerked as an

electric jolt of energy shot through her.

“Please! I can’t hold it!” Mya cried.

Arioch ground her teeth. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest as she pushed

herself to her feet, whatever Mya had done providing her with just enough strength to get up. Her

razorwhip might as well have been a boulder, and she all but dragged it over to the thrashing,

demon-possessed orc.

“I’ll kill you, you little rat!” L’ora spat venomously, and Arioch wasn’t sure if she meant

Mya, or her.

“No,” Arioch rasped, straining against the weight of her razorwhip in an effort to heft it

and decapitate the demon. But she couldn’t. She was too hurt, too tired to lift the blade, and she

could feel Mya weakening, having spent too much of whatever power she had just to get Arioch

back on her feet. L’ora continued to struggle, slowly, inexorably rising. As Mya’s magic began

to fail, Arioch felt her grip on her razorwhip failing.

“Help,” she breathed softly, the edges of her vision beginning to darken. “Please.”
 The flickering light of Mya’s magic froze, the sound of L’ora’s struggles ceased, and The

Spider coalesced from the blackness creeping into Arioch’s vision. She stood between Arioch

and L’ora, turned so she could see both.

“Please,” Arioch choked weakly. “Help.”

The Spider placed her hands on her hips, sighing slightly and glancing from Arioch to

L’ora and back. “I suppose you’re not really ready for this, hm?”

It wouldn’t be The Spider if she didn’t make things as painful as possible for Arioch in

moments like this. Becoming her Champion had, similarly, been exercises in taking lessons from

one brutal defeat after another at The Spider’s hands. Still, she had to admit she wasn’t ready for

a foe like this, regardless of what she’d told Miranda. “No,” she whispered.

“Kind of bold, asking for my help,” The Spider said casually.

“They’ll die if you don’t,” Arioch replied. The Spider shrugged. “I’ll die if you don’t.”

Arioch didn’t know what possessed her to say as much, but if The Spider was going to claim she

had, indeed, cared for Arioch, now was the time to call her on it. “Here’s your chance to show

me you weren’t lying for all that time.”

The Spider turned entirely toward Arioch, her blue eyes narrowing angrily. “Mortals do

not test gods,” she hissed.

Arioch didn’t move. She honestly didn’t trust herself to take a step back from the

goddess’s ire, nor toward her to close what distance remained. “That wouldn’t have bothered

you, once.”

“You consumed me,” The Spider shot back.

 Arioch stared back at her, finally giving voice to the thought which had nagged at her for

thousands of years after that day. “You could have stopped me.”

The Spider lifted a hand, pointing to Arioch and opening her mouth, but only sighed

heavily. She shook her head, turning to look at the demonic orc. “Not without killing you.”

“You’re telling the truth,” Arioch breathed, her knees giving out as what strength Mya

had given her finally failed. “The Jackal…”

“Lied,” The Spider finished as Arioch ran out of breath. “Yes, he lied.” She turned back

to face Arioch.

“I think I’m dying,” Arioch managed to choke out.

“A bit melodramatic, wouldn’t you say, Arioch?”

“Please, help me,” Arioch rasped, managing to lift her gaze up to meet The Spider’s. She

hadn’t asked for help like this from anyone, not even The Spider, since she was a child. She

remembered the moment all too clearly, begging The Spider to teach her what her people

wouldn’t. It stung now far more than it had then. Moreso because Arioch knew she should have

been able to win this fight on her own. Two thousand years ago, she would have. But with the

loss of magic and her connection to it, the lack of anything approaching a real challenge to hone

her skills, she’d grown soft, weak.

The Spider sighed, turning back to Arioch. “All right,” she said. “But when you’re done

with this demon and bring magic back, you’re going to get back into proper shape and be a

proper Champion again. This has been a disgraceful week for you.”
 Arioch didn’t have time to respond. The Spider’s form shimmered, dispersing in a cloud

of blue light. The light gleamed, flitting across the scant space toward Arioch, and flew into her.

If Lianya’s healing had been painful, The Spider’s was positively excruciating, the goddess

never having had a particularly gentle touch. Arioch’s wounds knit themselves shut in the space

of a few heartbeats, and her razorwhip gleamed with blue flames.

Time lurched back into motion, and L’ora finally tore free of Mya’s magical hold, tilting

her head in confusion to find Arioch suddenly down on her hands and knees. She snorted in

derision and raised her molten arm. “Goodbye, elf,” she growled.

The burning limb hit only the ground, Arioch vanishing in a puff of shadow just before

impact. L’ora looked up, confused, to find Arioch standing to one side, weapon in hand, her eyes

burning with dark blue light. “What?” she roared in confusion.

Arioch didn’t waste time talking. She wasn’t sure how long The Spider’s blessing would

last, and knew it may well disappear if she bored The Spider with showboating or grandstanding.

Instead, she rushed in, her burning weapon’s light reflected on the crystalline floor beneath her.

L’ora’s arm quickly morphed back into the elongated magma whip she’d wielded a moment ago,

and Arioch slipped back into the shadows, vanishing once more in a puff of smoke. As L’ora’s

whip split the air where Arioch had been an instant before, Arioch reappeared in the air above

her, slashing downward toward her face.

The demon failed to react in time, and Arioch’s slice cleaved her head in two down the

middle, cutting all the way down to her collarbone. Burning blood hissed and bubbled around the

wound, and the enormous, mutated orc stumbled, but didn’t fall, the demon still scrabbling ot
maintain its rapidly fading hold on the body it had taken. It tried to speak, but the only sound that

issued from its ruined throat was a hissing bubble of its burning blood sizzling in the air.

Arioch wasn’t about to give the demon a chance to repair the damage done to its body.

Instead, she drew back and thrust her blade directly into L’ora’s heart, so often the center of a

demon’s possession, rather than the more easily damaged head. The magic-infused weapon

plunged into the demon-orc’s horribly bloated chest, piercing its heart. A horrible scream erupted

all around Arioch as the demon was dragged from the body it had claimed and back into its

realm in a tremendous explosion which hurled Arioch back from L’ora.

Arioch flew backward, thrown violently to the floor in the demon’s death throes. She

groaned, blinking as the afterimage of the explosion faded from her eyes. Her whole body

throbbed with pain, and the mere act of sitting up was almost enough to make her pass out, The

Spider’s blessing fading from her in an instant and leaving her all the more exhausted for having

come and gone. Tiny footsteps pattered rapidly across the ground, and Arioch almost fell flat

again when Mya collided with her, wrapping both arms around her as best she could.

“You’re okay!” she squeaked, burying her head in Arioch’s shoulder.

Okay wasn’t how Arioch would have described herself just then, but arguing felt wrong,

as Mya had saved her life.

“Yeah, I’m okay, kid,” she mumbled thickly.

Miranda edged over toward them and held out a hand to Arioch. Knowing there was still

one threat left to them, Arioch took her hand. Mya seemed to understand, and did her best to

push Arioch up as Miranda heaved on the much larger elf. Arioch pulled, and between the three
of them, they managed to get her to her feet, though she leaned more of her weight than she

probably should have against Miranda once she was up.

Magnus had emerged from his cover behind the ruby pillar, staring in shock at the

smoking ruin of L’ora’s corpse. When he looked over to Arioch, Mya, and Miranda, he

swallowed, his face hardening. He raised both hands threateningly.

“Come no closer. You’ve seen what I can do,” he warned.

“He’s bluffing,” Arioch said flatly, then addressed Magnus. “You used every bit of magic

you had to summon that demon. You’re done.”

“You can barely stand, I don’t need much to end you. You don’t have the strength to

fight me,” he countered.

Arioch reached to her waist and drew her gun. Though it cost her far more effort than it

should have, she levelled the weapon at Magnus.

“Don’t need to,” Arioch said. She pulled the trigger.

Magnus staggered backward and slumped against the ruby pillar. She’d hit his shoulder.

Much as she was irritated with herself, as she had been aiming for his head, she had to admit,

part of her was surprised she’d hit him at all. Fine. If she couldn’t hit him at a distance, she’d just

get closer. Arioch let go of Miranda and advanced, slowly, on Magnus. She wobbled with each

step, unsteady on her feet, but eventually drew close enough to press the weapon to his head.

Blood smeared his gray suit, and when he righted himself, he glared at her with such

hatred it was almost a physical thing. Arioch was too tired to care.
 “You can’t kill me,” he growled.

“See, you say that…” Arioch shot back, raising her hand.

With surprising speed, he slapped at her wrist, knocking the gun from her grasp. But he

didn’t attack. Instead he drew a small glass orb from his pocket and crushed it against his chest.

Magic crackled around him, energy rippling through the air. Behind him, a swirling black and

orange vortex yawned. Magnus allowed himself to fall backward, toward it. He had created a

portal, and Arioch had no way of knowing where it would take him.

“He’s escaping!” Miranda cried in alarm.

Arioch’s hand shot out, grabbing Magnus’ wrist. “No. You. Don’t,” she hissed, tugging

against his weight. She pitched forward, unable to support the weight of a full grown man,

wounded as she was, and started to slip into the portal.

Straining every muscle in her body to the breaking point, Arioch dug her heels in,

heaving on Magnus’ wrist and arresting her forward momentum. Slowly, she managed to pull

him back, starting to drag him out of the portal. Panic crept into his face as he stared up at her,

his form distorted by the portal’s magic. Sensing his escape failing, he cried out, and the portal

began to close.

“No!” Arioch shouted in alarm, leaning back and pulling with all her might.

Magnus’ hand emerged, but the portal closed around it, severing his arm just below the

elbow. Without his weight balancing her, Arioch tumbled backward, still holding onto Magnus’

hand.

“Ugh,” she grunted and tossed the severed arm aside. “Damnit.”
 Miranda knelt beside her, looking at the spot where Magnus had been standing. Her brow

creased in worry.

“He got away…” she murmured.

“I saw,” Arioch responded drily. “Can’t do anything about it now.”

Mya wrapped both arms around Arioch, hugging her tightly. Arioch slipped her

razorwhip back into its sheath and patted Mya, perhaps a bit awkwardly. Still, she let out a

heartfelt sigh of relief. They’d made it. Mya was where she needed to be, and it was finally over.
 Chapter 21

“What now?” Arioch asked, looking over at Miranda. Her job was over, now it was the

doctor’s turn to make herself useful.

“That’s in Mya’s hands,” Miranda said, her attention turning to the girl still clinging to

Arioch. “She can rekindle the Ancients’ magic here, and they will begin to return to the world.

As should magic at large. As they return, the Ancients’ power will be sufficient to halt and

eventually reverse the Dead Wilds’ expansion.”

“How?” Arioch asked.

“It’s complicated, but in essence, Mya will join her own magic with the ambient magic

here, and the result should create what you might call a chain reaction.”

“Doesn’t sound too difficult,” Arioch said, turning to look at Mya. “What about it, kid?

Think you can manage saving the world?”

“Mya,” Mya corrected.

“Right. Mya.”

The girl straightened, releasing Arioch as she chewed on her lower lip. Arioch supposed a

bit of nervousness made sense. Asking a child to save the world seemed a touch unfair, but as far

as Arioch was concerned, the heavy lifting was already done. Hopefully there was nothing left

for her to contribute, as she was utterly spent. Fortunately, Miranda didn’t seem to be expecting

anything else of her, her attention being entirely fixed on Mya.

 Quite content to sit back and watch, Arioch turned herself around, leaning against the

pillar behind her. Miranda held out a hand for Mya and guided her over to the waist-high pillar.

They conversed quietly, and Arioch let her mind wander. When she spotted Dante’s body,

sprawled near the edge of the platform, she wished she hadn’t. What was she going to tell his

family? Of all the people in the world to make a condolence call, Arioch didn’t think she could

come up with someone worse than herself.

She could almost imagine their faces. A stranger showing up at their door, an elf no less,

to tell his wife and child he was dead. How could she soften the blow? Bring them whatever

Grael had meant to pay Dante? If nothing else, she could make sure he gave the money to his

family since he died finishing the job. Somehow, she doubted they’d be particularly grateful for

the money.

Jada would want to know, too. The three of them had spent a lot of time together, and

Dante had been something of a mentor to Jada. Would she blame Arioch for dragging him out on

this job? She’d told her not to take it, after all.

And then there was Arioch herself. How would she deal with it? Dante had been

a…friend, she supposed. When was the last time she’d had a friend? Watching him die had been

harder than she expected. It still hadn’t really hit her that he wouldn’t be at the bar after a job,

smirking and teasing her, smoothing over her prickly personality when she ruffled Jada. Finding

someone else she trusted enough to work with on occasion would be—

“Arioch.”

Miranda’s voice cut into her thoughts, and she realized the woman was holding a hand

out to her. She almost didn’t take it, but figured she would need to be on her feet at some point.
Again, it took a supreme effort on the part of both of them, but between Miranda’s heaving, and

Arioch’s strained muscles working, they managed to haul Arioch to her feet.

“She’s starting,” Miranda said, gesturing toward Mya.

Mya was sitting on top of the pillar now, legs folded beneath herself, arms slightly

spread. Nothing seemed to be happening though. She simply sat there, eyes closed, breathing

quietly. Arioch was about to ask if it was working when a blue aura flickered to life around Mya.

The pillars around the platform began to glow, their light brightening until brilliant columns of

luminescence lanced skyward, forcing Arioch to shield her eyes. A low hum vibrated through the

air, and the pillars’ light began to mingle with the growing aura around Mya.

“What’s happening?” Arioch asked, her skin tingling with wave after wave of magical

energy.

“She’s attuning with the elemental pillars. She’ll gather their magic and use it to

empower her own,” Miranda explained. “When she has enough, she’ll focus it into the Nexus

and revive the Ancients.”

Mya’s aura began to glow so bright as to obscure her form, however much Arioch

squinted to try and keep her in sight. The hum became a dull roar, and the pillars’ light began to

swirl in a whirlwind of raw magical energy. The mere presence of so much magic was making

Arioch dizzy, her skin twitching as though an electrical current were running over it.

“Is she going to be okay?” Arioch couldn’t help but ask, the magic swirling around Mya

in a roiling maelstrom of raw power. Even an Ancient would struggle to control so much magic.

Miranda hesitated too long in saying, “Yes.”

 Arioch turned toward her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You’re lying,” she growled.

Again, Miranda was quiet for a moment as magic continued to rage around them, the blue

light from Mya’s aura spreading to the pillars, whose surfaces were gradually sheathed in the

brilliant azure glow.

“She’s channeling a tremendous amount of magic, there’s always a risk,” Miranda said

over the growing crescendo.

“Bullshit. What aren’t you telling me?” Arioch demanded, taking a shaky step toward

Miranda.

Miranda sighed, but didn’t retreat. “She was always going to die,” she said, with an air of

resignation. “It was a question of whether she’d do it helping or harming the world.”

“Like hell!” Arioch snapped, and swung at Miranda before she realized what she was

doing. The blow caught Miranda off guard, and she crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain.

“The magical energy will tear her apart. There’s nothing to do about it now!” Miranda

shouted, rubbing her jaw. “She knew!”

“The hell she did! You can’t expect a child to understand that!”

Arioch hobbled toward Mya, not sure what she was going to do, but sure she had to do

something.

“There’s nothing you can do! You’ll kill yourself!” Miranda cried in alarm, reaching out

to try and stop her.

 She’s right. This is not a good idea. You’ve gotten all the help you’re getting from me

today, The Spider warned. Arioch growled an angry dismissal.

But Arioch was already out of reach, her fear giving her strength. Buffeted by magic, she

staggered forward, brilliant light stabbing at her eyes until she could see nothing at all. She only

knew Mya was ahead, plainly able to feel the magic surging toward her. Arioch groped blindly

ahead until her hands hit stone. Desperate, she pressed herself up against the pillar, feeling along

it until her hands touched cloth. Mya’s jacket!

“M-Miss Arioch?” Mya asked, her voice almost inaudible over the thunderous rumbling

of magic swirling around her.

Arioch dared to open her eyes, just barely able to make out the outline of Mya’s tiny form

amid the blinding light. “Yeah, kid, it’s me,” she gritted out, the swirling storm of magic lashing

painfully at her.

“Y-you can’t be here!” she protested.

If the magic Mya used was going to tear her apart, then Arioch would damn well hold her

together, whatever Mya or Miranda, or The Spider for that matter, thought on the subject. She

leaned forward, wrapping both arms protectively over Mya and curling her body down, shielding

Mya from the storm of magic as best she could. Whatever power remained of what The Spider

had given her, she clung to in an effort to shield them both. With her head pressed down against

Mya’s, at least some of the light was dimmed, and she could see the redness around Mya’s skin

where the magic had seared her flesh. Arioch may not have been a saint, but she knew this was

far, far too much to ask of a child.

 “Well, I’m here,” Arioch breathed, as evenly as she could as wave after wave of magic

crashed over her. “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”

Mya squirmed in her grip, trying to push her away.

“No! Miss Arioch, you’ll die!”

“Never gonna happen,” Arioch murmured, the corners of her vision darkening even in the

brilliant light.

“Please, please stop!” Mya protested. “I’m supposed to do this!”

“You’re supposed to do a lot more than this, kid,” Arioch said, a little more quietly than

she meant to. It was getting difficult to breathe with all the magic tearing at her.

“Miss Arioch, please…”

“Not goin’ anywhere, kid,” Arioch mumbled, her eyes sliding shut.

“Mya…” Mya whimpered as Arioch’s world went black.

A magic explosion lit up the night as far away as the City of Lights. Every citizen of the

world felt the tingling wave of a long forgotten power returning to the world, stretching out to

the farthest corners of Vesper. The Nexus of Ancients flared with such energy, glowed so

brightly, for a moment night became day, and the whole world could only turn and stare, only a

tiny handful of those out in the world understanding what it meant, what had been done.

As the light faded, and the strange, tingling wave subsided, news agencies speculated

about the source, experts were consulted, and social media lit up with theories, each more bizarre

than the last. None who didn’t know could have guessed correctly at what happened. Indeed,
even the experts had little in the way of insight to offer. Rumors claiming magic was returning to

the world sparked renewed interest in the one corporation which had steadfastly taken magic

seriously, though, and Arcana Corporation’s stock soared. The famous corporations, CEO,

however, declined to comment on what this might mean for his company’s future.
Epilogue

Miranda blinked the stars from her vision as the brilliant flash of light faded away. She

had felt the potent wave of magic wash over her, and knew Mya had succeeded. Magic was

returning to the world, she could already feel it. The Ancients would follow, and the Dead Wilds

would cease choking the life from the land. Should Magnus Krieger, or some other fool try to

bring demons into the world, they would no longer enter unopposed. There was just the matter of

the cost.

As her vision cleared, she looked toward the central pillar, atop which now burned a

gentle blue fire, seemingly rising from the stone itself. What she didn’t notice immediately, was

the black lump beneath it. Drawing closer, Miranda steeled herself, seeing what must have been

the remnants of Arioch’s coat draped over, well, she was fairly sure she knew what.

Surprise was not something Doctor Miranda Halperin experienced often. But when she

looked down expecting to see charred remains, she instead saw wisps of silvery white hair

floating up from around the edges of the jacket, and a tiny, squirming form. Miranda’s lips

parted in shock, and she knelt down, pushing the jacket aside to see Mya, burying her face in

Arioch’s chest. The girl was still alive! How?

“Mya…?” Miranda asked uncertainly, staring at the girl as she clung to the elf’s form.

Arioch, however, lay unmoving on the ground. Her skin was scorched in places, and a

faint haze of steam, or perhaps smoke, rose from her coat. She was remarkably intact, though.

Miranda reached down to try and pull Mya away from Arioch’s body, but the girl’s tiny hands

held fast to her coat.

 “Miss Arioch, wake up!” she was crying. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Miranda swallowed. For whatever reason, this girl had bonded with the elf, however odd

a pair they made. Dante’s death would have been hard enough, but…she suspected Mya had

somehow imprinted on Arioch, perhaps because Arioch’s had been the first friendly face she

saw. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain death to a child, even one so remarkable as Mya.

“Miss Arioch!” Mya pleaded, burying her face in Arioch’s neck, both arms wrapped

around her. “Please!”

Again, Miranda tried to pull Mya away, but the girl squirmed out of her grip, clinging

desperately to Arioch. She was about to speak up when Mya lifted her head with a quiet gasp.

Miranda blinked in confusion, but followed her gaze and gasped. Standing hardly a foot away

from them both was a…woman, she supposed, clad in a strange combination of what appeared to

be ancient robes and equally antiquated armor. She towered over both of them, would have

towered over Arioch. Her skin was pale, with more of an ashen caste than Mya’s marble-white,

and her face, indeed half her body it seemed was framed by long, impossibly thick black hair

which seemed to move in a breeze Miranda could not feel. The elven gods had not been seen in

the world since the fall of the elven empire, and had long since passed into myth, but enough

images remained of them to enable her to recognize the woman instantly as the elven goddess of

war and scheming: The Spider.

Mya was staring at her in a combination of terror and awe, her mouth hanging open. She

seemed to be on the verge of speaking, but could make no sound, tears pouring silently from her

gleaming blue eyes. For a moment, Miranda thought she might faint, but then The Spider slowly
crouched down, resting her forearms on her knees, and smiled at Mya. Mya seemed to relax, as if

whatever terror had crept over her passed away, and she blinked slowly at the goddess.

“Is she dead?” Mya asked in a voice so small, even from barely a foot away Miranda

almost didn’t hear her.

The Spider glanced down at Arioch’s motionless body, and Miranda swallowed. If

anyone could explain death, it was a goddess, she supposed. The goddess reached an enormous

hand down and brushed her fingers against Arioch’s cheek.

The Spider opened her mouth to reply, and Miranda braced herself. The elves held there

were few things in the world more powerful, or dangerous, than the voice of a deity. But the

voice that issued forth didn’t level the mountain, or seem to hold anything more dangerous than a

low, slightly gravelly tone, “What do you think, little one?”

“Mya,” Mya put in, and Miranda winced. Correcting a goddess seemed ill-advised,

particularly when the goddess in question’s domain was violence. But The Spider merely

chuckled.

“What do you think, Mya?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“You don’t want her to die, do you?” The Spider asked, and Miranda was surprised to

hear a measure of curiosity in her voice.

Mya shook her head. “N-no,” she managed between sniffles.

 The Spider lifted her hand from Arioch’s cheek to Mya’s chin, lifting the girl’s gaze to

meet her own. The goddess considered the young girl for a long moment, and Miranda wondered

how someone older and more aware of what she beheld fare under that gaze.

“Why not?”

Again, her tone was almost disarmingly curious. Of all the things Miranda had expected

from this being more ancient even than the mountain on which they stood, interest in the opinion

of a small child—even an Ancient—had never entered her mind.

“She’s…” Mya paused, searching for the words. “She’s my friend.”

The Spider’s fingers slipped from Mya’s chin, and she dropped her hand to Arioch’s

shoulder, rolling the elf onto her back. Arioch’s head lolled back at an unnatural angle, jaw

dropping open. It was not a pleasant sight. Seeming to understand this (and perhaps more oddly

still, to care), The Spider repositioned Arioch’s head, tilting it back and righting her posture so

that her jaw closed and she might simply have been resting.

“She’s your friend, hm?” The Spider repeated.

Mya nodded. The initial shock of The Spider’s appearance seemed to have worn off, and

Mya was beginning to look curious herself as to who or what this woman was. Before she could

ask anything, though, The Spider spoke up again.

“She was my friend, too, once.”

“Who are you?” Mya asked quietly.

 The Spider blinked, then looked back at Mya, seeming to consider the question a

moment. “You mortals call me The Spider,” she said after a moment. “My name is, well, you

could not pronounce it, I am afraid, young Mya.”

“Can…you help her, Miss Spider?”

The Spider let out a bark of laughter. The sound was oddly disconcerting to Miranda. It

was too loud, too low, it echoed fir far too long. But Mya seemed not to notice. Indeed, her face

was tilted up toward the enormous woman before her, eyes wide with hope that she could hardly

even begin to contain. Meeting her gaze levelly, The echoes of The Spider’s laughter finally

faded, and she seemed to consider the question more seriously.

“Yes, I could help her.” The Spider’s tone suggested she wasn’t thrilled by the prospect,

or at the very least wasn’t certain she wanted to do it.

“Can you, please?” Mya asked quickly.

The Spider frowned, and she set a hand on Arioch’s head, drumming her fingers against

the apparently dead elf’s forehead in a macabre display of thoughtfulness. She parted her lips,

about to speak, but then snapped them shut again. Miranda never thought she’d see an indecisive

deity, but that was, to all appearances, exactly what crouched before the young Ancient. Rather

suddenly, the casual drumming against Arioch’s forehead stopped, and The Spider’s fingers slid

down the side of her head, feeling, perhaps, some of the split and charred swaths of skin on the

side of her face. If Miranda could read anything in those gleaming blue eyes, she thought she

saw…sadness.
 “Please…she’s my only friend,” Mya pleaded, and Miranda almost saw the effort the girl

made not to look back toward Dante’s body.

The Spider sensed it, though, and glanced toward the fallen demonkin. She tilted her head

to one side, then turned her attention back to Arioch. For the briefest of instants, Miranda saw the

goddess’s thumb brush along Arioch’s cheek, tracing along an undamaged patch of skin. Her

dark, black lips moved almost too subtly to see, but it seemed she must have been speaking. The

ghost of a smile played, or so Miranda thought, across those lips. She realized, then, that the

goddess had already decided what she was going to do, but was simply letting Mya, and perhaps

herself, believe the young girl was talking her into it. It was…disarmingly human, she thought.

“Please, Miss Spider?” Mya repeated, going so far as to tug on the sleeve of The Spider’s

robe. Again, Miranda was struck by the extent to which Mya failed to understand exactly what

she was dealing with and what it truly meant. This was a goddess, one of the beings who had

shaped the cosmos with the very hands Mya was tugging at so carelessly. But, The Spider

seemed to take her pleading with good humor.

“All right,” she said, affecting a resigned tone. “Since you asked so nicely, I’ll help her.”

The Spider set both hands on Arioch’s head, and her form began to shimmer, as if she

were becoming insubstantial. She looked down at Arioch for a long moment, and then closed her

eyes. “Now, Mya, tell her to wake up,” she said.

Mya looked up at the glimmering goddess, then back down at Arioch. She nodded, and

placed both hands on one of Arioch’s shoulders, shaking her gently. “Miss Arioch, wake up!”

she squeaked urgently.

 At first, nothing happened, and when Mya looked up at The Spider, the goddess vanished

in a glimmering cascade of blue light. Arioch’s body jerked, and Miranda could only blink. The

blue light bathing Arioch’s form flickered unsteadily for a moment, and then the glow receded

into Arioch’s body. Arioch’s mouth opened and she gasped, gulping down several breaths of air.

The elf looked wildly around, her eyes unfocused. Mya clung steadfastly to her neck as she sat

bolt upright.

“Miss Arioch,” Mya breathed, her voice breaking with a wave of relief. “You’re okay…”

“Y-yeah,” Arioch said unsteadily, evidently more than a little shocked herself. “Told you

I wasn’t goin’ anywhere, kid…”

“Mya,” Mya corrected, smiling as she hugged Arioch.

Arioch patted Mya on the back, wrapping one arm around her as she sat up and looked

around. “Did it work?” she asked, tilting her head to look up at Miranda.

“Yes,” Miranda replied, staring at Arioch in shock. “It worked.”

Arioch held out her free hand to Miranda, who, not knowing what else to do, took it and

helped to haul the other woman to her feet. Her skin felt unnaturally warm, perhaps from the

magic having scalded her in places? Miranda wasn’t sure, but found herself doubting the cause

was anything so simple. Once Arioch was on her feet, she glanced around, supporting Mya’s

weight on her hip.

Miranda couldn’t help but stare. They should both have been dead. How had Arioch

protected her? Had The Spider resurrected her? Or had she simply jolted her back to

consciousness? The scientist in Miranda wanted to believe the latter, but as she stared at Arioch,
the afterimage of the goddess’s glimmering light still shimmering in the corners of her sight, she

found herself more and more convinced it had been nothing so mundane.

A million questions tumbled around in Miranda’s head, fighting to be voiced, and she

couldn’t help her frustration when the first one to leave her lips was, “What now?”

Arioch glanced toward Dante’s body, and her face pinched in sadness. Mya squeezed her

arms tighter around Arioch’s neck. “I don’t know,” Arioch admitted. “But first, we go home.”