A Perverted Path to Victory

Content Warning:

Spoiler

Graphic Descriptions of Torture

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General Borek

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General Borek slapped the stack of papers onto the table hard enough to leave the room echoing with the impact’s boom. Mayaran, clutching her gut, jumped in her chair. She had a miserable expression on her face.

Good, Borek thought.

“Fifteen hours,” he stated. The words were supposed to be emotionless, but they slipped out in a barely-restrained hiss. “Fifteen hours were required to put down the riots. Two thousand civilian casualties, amongst them five Honored Elven. One Honored Elven dead. Considering the Chosen’s influence affected every living creature within a nine and a half mile radius— every shrew, insect, and human being— such a low casualty rate is worth calling a miracle.”

The wine cellar that had become General Borek’s command space throughout the disaster was bare, even moreso now that it had been emptied of attendants. He had wished to speak to Mayaran in private, and so it was only himself, the mage, and discarded scroll cases, the reports they contained scattered haphazardly across wooden tables. He could hear the fury in his own voice as it echoed back to him.

Taking a deep breath, he took a firmer grasp of his frustration. “Have you found a healer capable of rectifying your injuries?”

Mage Mayaran, still clutching her stomach, shook her head despondently. Bloody sick stained the front of her robes, dry and crusty. It had been several hours since her last bout of vomiting, but with the inner lining of her stomach having shed away from the strength of her convulsions, there was no guarantee the illness had passed. So frequent had her fits been that she had stopped changing her clothes some time ago, much as Borek had. He was dressed in his full battle armor, glaive on his back, foaming sweat soiling his underclothes below despite the coolness of the cellar.

Borek put a hand on his wrist, feeling the sprain there. A minor injury, but one that plagued him no matter how many potions he downed. Even the greatest mortal healers within the city had failed to soothe the ache. The same was true of everyone who had been injured as a result of the Chosen’s bizarre fit.

“What of the Honored Elven? Have you found any in the capital willing to speak to you?”

Mayaran shook her head in silence once again.

“Gods damn us!” Borek slapped the table and spun away, pacing from left to right. The room did not allow him to travel far before turning, but he walked anyway. “Over a hundred authorities of the Empire injured beyond our capacity to heal, swathes of the Capital in flames, and now this! When we most need the aid of those whose Skills we cannot hope to equal, they retreat into their towers like common rats!”

Mayaran looked up at him then, a flicker of irritation coloring her exhaustion.

“The Honored Elven are sheltering from her,” she croaked. “There are few things which can threaten our kind. The rage of Emotion’s Chosen is one of them.”

“So it would seem,” Borek spat. “And I do not pretend that I would ask the Honored Elven to give their lives for us. But Sara Brown has left the city! Half a day ago! Can you not convince your brethren to come to their people’s aid?”

“I… I cannot even speak to them,” Mayaran admitted weakly. “Only my family’s House will allow me entrance, and even then, my… my mother and father will not see me. I have been barred from their rooms. No other members of my House live in the capital. I am alone.”

“Gods damn us!” Borek reached the room’s far wall and spun on a heel, barely controlling a snarl as he stomped up to Mayaran. He stood over her, scowling down at the crumpled elf. “What did you say to the woman? What could possibly have elicited this reaction?”

“I don’t know.” Exhaustion left dark lines shadowing her eyes as she looked up at him. “I apologized to her. I don’t know what for, but I apologized.”

“It clearly was not enough! You must know, woman! What did you say before the… the event began? Anything! An insult, a joke, a threat? If you can discover what set her on this path, we may yet salvage something from the situation!”

“Salvage? What need is there for salvaging?” Mayaran waved tiredly to the room’s exit. “Sara Brown is gone. Left the city. Her partner remains, true, but she is a single woman. She is not capable of anything on her own. The Chosen will do what she pleases in the jungle, working out her aggression on some unfortunate beasts, and then she will return once she has herself under control. All that is required of us now is patience. That is something that my people have in abundance.”

Borek stared at her, aghast. “Do you think this is over? That the moment has already passed?”

“Has it not?” Mayaran rubbed at her eyes, sighing deeply. “She has illustrated her point. Shown her strength, isolated me from my allies, and proven that she is nearing the point of truly insurmountable power that all Chosen reach in time. What more is there for her to do?”

Borek shook his head in disbelief. “Have you already forgotten her words? That she was leaving her wife here deliberately? To handle things? That she is ‘off the leash’? You told me those words yourself, did you not?”

“Her wife is a mortal,” Mayaran scoffed. “Skilled, yes, but just a woman. Nothing more. If she is foolish enough to try something in the absence of the Chosen, I welcome it. Achieving retribution for this embarrassment would be quite the salve for my reputation.”

The thu-thump rhythm of a beating heart began to sound in Borek’s ears, rushing blood rising to meet his furious disbelief. Exhausted, wounded, and unable to heal her wounds, Mage Mayaran still did not grasp the severity of the situation.

“She is a mortal, yes.” Borek said, quivering with barely controlled fury. “And yes, she is young. Evie Eliah Brown hasn’t yet lived a quarter century. Practically an infant, by your standards. But do you understand what she is?”

“An annoyance,” Mayaran answered simply. “The Chosen’s tool, one that has become a constant irritant in my bickering with Sara Brown.”

“You’re a fool,” he whispered, shocked. He stepped back, staring into empty space. “You’re a damned fool. Two centuries old, and you’re just some child. You don’t understand anything.”

Mayaran’s eyes flashed. “What did you call me, General?”

“A fool,” he repeated. His voice rose. “An idiot!”

“How dare you!” Mayaran stood, soiled robes sparkling with enchanted light. “Does the Chosen’s madness still linger in you, General, or have you simply forgotten your place?”

“You think the Eliah heir is but one woman, do you? A pissant you can sweep aside?” He laughed bitterly. “The gods threw Sara Brown into a city at war, spending the entirety of the first and most vulnerable weeks of her new life on one thing! The gods risked their Chosen’s life in her most vulnerable state, risked her time and time again, all to ensure she came to have one woman at her side! Do you think that means nothing? Do you think that means the Eliah heir is unexceptional? How idiotic can you be?”

Mayaran’s robes burst to life, fluttering and blowing about her as the room lost all its warmth. She opened her mouth, but Borek didn’t stop his tirade.

“What did you say to her?” He demanded. “What did you say? You must know!”

“I gave her what she gave me!” Mayaran roared. “I asked her what she would think when her hideous weapons come to threaten her own family! That is what I said! Nothing more, nothing less, and that is all!”

General Borek rocked back, weight settling onto his heels. He stared vacantly forward, the mage’s shout echoing through him.

“You aren’t welcome here,” he whispered.

“What?”

“You. Are. Not. Welcome. Here.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Leave. Rid myself of your presence.”

Mayaran’s rage reached the tipping point. Her hands came up, fingers twitching spastically. A spire of ice crystallized before her, razor tip pointed straight towards Borek’s throat.

Borek swung the knuckles of his left hand through the crystal, shattering it. Mayaran had not finished blinking before his right hand shot forward, grabbing the mage by the front of her robes. A gout of defensive flames burst to life under his touch, but they mattered little. He wrenched the woman to his left before the fire could even warm his hand, throwing her over the table and across the room. She cried out as her shoulder hit the door with a bone-splintering crack. She fell to the stones in a heap.

“Get out.” Borek lifted the table and flung it aside, wood shattering against the wall. “The gods created a weapon for a Chosen, and that Chosen has spent years trying to tame it. You’ve heard her. You’ve read the same reports I have. So much of the Brown family’s efforts are directed toward keeping the Eliah heir under control, teaching her restraint, and you saw fit to throw yourself against her? No! No, I will not have you here. I have given you an order, mage. Leave.”

Gasping in pain, Mayaran used her unbroken arm to shove herself to her feet. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” she panted.

“I do.” He walked towards her slowly, watching her hands carefully.

“The Emperor himself will hear of what you’ve done.” She finished standing, pressing her back to the door for support. “The Honored Elven are above you. We are above you. After this? You will be hunted like a dog, General.”

“I have always respected my betters.” Borek pulled his glaive off his back, keeping it low and ready, choked up on the haft so he could swing it in the enclosed space. “I am a man of the Empire. I am proud of my service. Of our people. I have always honored the elven.”

“A peculiar honor you’ve shown me!” Mayaran sputtered, laughing madly.

He shot forward, grabbing her by the throat and pushing with all his might. Her body was driven through the wooden door in a spray of splinters, taking them both out into the chamber beyond. Her robes once more began to defend her, but she was thrown to the ground before they could achieve a thing. All around him were gawking attendants. He ignored them. He simply scowled down at the bloody form of a woman he once called an ally.

“Go face your fate, Mage. You are not welcome here.”

Slowly, in clear agony, Mayaran stood. She looked around the room, shivering terribly as she met the eyes of fear-paralyzed onlookers. She drew a healing potion from her robes and, with shaking fingers, brought it to her lips, downing it in several gulps.

Borek waited, glaive in hand. He locked eyes with Mayaran as the potion worked through her, fragments of the shattered door expelling themselves from her body. The silence was so profound that he could hear every splinter’s strike on the stones.

Finally, when she seemed convinced that she was capable of moving under her own power, Mayaran broke her gaze, turning away. Borek didn’t move a muscle as he watched her back as she limped across the room. It was only when she finished limping up the cellar stairway, vanishing into the snow beyond, that he let himself lower his guard. Expelling all his air in a great sigh, he gestured to an attendant.

“Come with me. I have letters to dictate. You there— I want runners ready to deliver them. As many as you are able to find, understand?”

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The following hours were as terrible as the ones that had preceded them, if in a different fashion. By the time Borek had finished sending a horde of runners across the city, the sun had risen on a new day. He didn’t know how long it had been since he last slept, but it was too long. Exhaustion hung around his neck like freshly forged chains, an invisible weight and terrible heat searing his flesh as he forced himself through his duties.

The pressure wearing down on him was made worse by the fact that none of his regular duties could be disregarded. A Carrion delegation had arrived in the city the morning after his dismissal of Mayaran, a surprise visit in which they yet again needled the Adjutant about acquiring permission to establish a colony on the unsettled Imperial coastline. Borek had been required to attend the meeting as an advisor. Foreign occupation of Imperial land was, after all, a matter for the army. But he’d hardly focused, one eye always turned toward the door, waiting for a messenger to come deliver the hammer blow he felt— knew— was coming.

Something was going to happen. Something terrible. He felt it in his bones. He had seen little of the Eliah heir, he knew. The face she wore when speaking to others was a plaster mask, a facsimile intended to present an appealing rendition of what festered beneath. He had read the reports of her conduct in battle, and in those clinical words he recognized a greater truth than any faux smile. What she would do, he could hardly guess.

Thirty hours after the Chosen’s departure, he could take it no more. He was asleep on his feet, commanding a legion of City Guards who were barely less exhausted than himself. Evie Brown had disappeared into the urban sprawl, just as Mage Mayaran had disappeared into the tower occupied by her mother and father, heads of their House. He selected a spire within sight from the one occupied by Mayaran, commandeering a luxurious room high in its upper levels.

He tried not to look. No matter how little energy he had left, his heart kept pounding, his body still sweating. He tossed and turned, cursed and paced, and drank tonics brought to him by alchemists, yet sleep was still hours in coming. It was a deep mercy when, finally, he slipped into unconsciousness.

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His eyes snapped open when his body was already in motion. He rolled off the bed in a blur, hands and feet and tail scrabbling for purchase. By the time he was awake enough to comprehend anything, Borek was in a spearman’s stance, blacksteel glaive pointed toward the stained glass window.

He glanced left to right with chest heaving, searching for what had awoken him. No one was in his room, the floor was steady beneath his feet, and-

The window burst. Borek was thrown through the air by a titanic concussion, back striking the far wall before he could react. He landed on his feet, ears ringing, blood dripping from his fur. Wiping the dust from his eyes, he peered into the night. What he saw was an impossibility.

A tower was falling.

Twisting about itself, teetering toward one side, the ancient elven construct occupied by Mayaran’s family was tipping eastward. The thin construct rippled with flashes of light, the enchantments which had been scrawled across every face flaring to life in an effort to save themselves. He could do nothing but stare as the tower picked up speed, its upper heights whipping westward with steadily growing speed, its base vomiting clouds of dust as floor after floor was crushed by the weight of collapse.

The upper half struck a neighboring tower. Splashes of blinding light spewed into the night air as sorcerous stones tore into one another, both buildings fighting to stay standing. The falling tower, the central nexus of Mayaran’s House, failed first, snapping at the midpoint, leaving its neighbor still standing, reverberating with magical energies.

As the upper piece tipped backward, hurtling toward the ground, Borek joined it. He threw himself from the window in one leap, sailing out into the open air. Spinning his glaive around, he struck the building nearest, stabbing the blacksteel blade into the grout.

Crack!

A gunshot, rendered dull by the deafness brought upon him by the explosion, thundered into the night. Borek turned to look as he pulled his glaive from the stones, dropping further.

Like a roiling thunderstorm on the far horizon, a flash lit the rising cloud of dust.

Crack!

Borek descended rapidly, leaping from foothold to handhold, breaking the stones to create his own grips where there were none to be found. Though it took but a scant few seconds for him to reach the ground, he heard three more gunshots sound, each louder than the last as his ears recovered.

Crack!

Crack!

CRACK!

The city, so narrowly recovered from the riots, began to stir around him. Borek hit the street at a run just as windows began to open, lights spilling into the streets. He broke into a sprint, shouting orders to remain inside. People began stumbling out onto the street regardless, gaping at the scene.

The billowing dust continued to rise higher and higher, as if pulled into the sky by some foul wind. Borek could see nothing of the rubble that must have resulted from the collapse. Just brown and black dust, lit on occasion by the white-hot flashes of gunfire within.

CRACK!

The cloud shifted as if it were the hide of a great furred beast, shaking and spinning. A new light emerged from within, the golden rays of a glowing sunrise bursting through the haze. The beams whirled up and around, grasping fingers whirling inward at unfathomable speeds, searching for the source of the last gunshot. Watching pillars of light ten paces across that burned the air itself as they moved, Borek knew they weren’t something Mayaran was capable of. This was true elven magic.

B-B-B-B-BOOM!

A rippling musket volley roared through the night. Narrow ribbons of royal purple energy pierced each column of golden light, continuing on to spiral high into the sky. The mage’s spell sputtered in place, hovering above the cloud as crackling energy disrupted its form.

BOOM!

A red ribbon twisted outward, fired from a muzzle so bright that, for the instant the flash persisted, he could see the silhouette of a woman in the smoke. With one leg up on a piece of rubble, the other braced backward, she had a long rifle pressed to her shoulder. That was all he could discern.

The red ribbon pierced the cloud, lancing through the origin point of the golden spell before burying itself into the stone of a neighboring tower with the sound of a cannonball’s strike, only to emerge from the building’s opposite wall, now traveling at a harsh angle that sent it hissing off into the night.

The golden light clung to existence for a handful of seconds, then faded.

Distantly, though he was still so deaf that it could only have been his imagination, Borek thought he heard a laugh.

As more flashes lit the night, Borek slowed. Spells began to emerge in all their forms, each permutation met by another gunshot. He kept watching, slowing, slowing, until eventually he was just another member of the gawking crowd.

Fires were growing amongst the rubble. Black smoke entangled itself with the dust, creating a noxious mixture that was engulfing the streets.

He was walking by then. Not running, but at least he was still walking forward. It felt as if he was in a dream, disconnected from his body. The same unnatural calm couldn’t be ascribed to most others. The onlookers paused, swaying in place as they were captivated by the scene, and then their paralysis shattered. Children screamed and parents bellowed, trying to be heard over the racket of spellflame and gunfire as the crowd picked up momentum, turning away from the unfolding battle. Even with his glaive raised high before him, panicked civilians battered Borek as they flew past. They didn’t care what or who he was, nor what he carried. They were fleeing from an apocalypse. He heard cries of “demons!” and “Dragon!” get picked up by the crowd, the calls repeated to carry across the populace. Borek normally would have forcibly shuttered such idiotic claims. This time, he understood why they thought what they did.

He reached the outer bounds of the smoke. He was alone. All others had fled. Wise of them.

A few more gunshots echoed through the air. One or two here, a handful there, the flashes progressing along the axis of destruction, their perpetrator steadily advancing through the chaos. This time he was certain of it: he heard laughter. One woman’s laughter in particular. The joyous outbursts were met by nothing more than screams.

The smoke began to flow towards him. It had a sickly scent to it, something that burned his nostrils and made his eyes water. Holding his glaive before himself, he began backtracking, unwilling to push further. Though there were still screams, the cataclysm before him was already done, its work finished. He’d seen no spells for more than a minute, now. He heard only the ring of clashing steel and the wet ripping of a blade slicing through flesh. And the screaming, of course. Screaming and screaming and screaming. To throw himself into the foul smoke would serve no purpose.

Borek waited under the stars. Eventually he was joined by others. City Guards, citizens who knew how to handle a blade, and even a few old Warriors. Some had even donned their armor. When passed whispers made it clear who he was, they all looked to him for guidance.

General Borek ordered them into a defensive line with simple, flat gestures, blocking the city street a few dozen paces beyond the dust cloud’s greatest extent. It hadn’t spread any further, yet it wasn’t settling to the ground, either. It simply hung there, as if patiently awaiting the work of its progenitor to be completed.

Louder than any that had come before, a shrill, high-pitched scream tore through the night. It devolved rapidly into a sob, then mindless, babbling pleading. Laughter answered it. Then there was silence.

“Hold firm,” General Borek ordered. It was the first time he had spoken aloud. “No one is to attack without my orders. Not under any circumstances.”

The impromptu crowd under his command shifted nervously, but no one disagreed. Not out loud, at least. Borek was at the center of the formation, holding his glaive against the ground, braced and ready. A position intended to resist a cavalry charge: something he had learned from the Tulian mercenaries. Glancing across his line, he found it steady and straight. Those that had found him were veterans, it would seem.

Not that it matters.

Backlit by growing flames, a silhouette manifested amidst the haze. For a moment Borek was tempted to countermand his earlier command and order a charge. The outline didn’t appear human. A bulbous, elongated head sat atop a skinny frame, some strange trunk-like appendage drooping from its face. It was only when he saw its hands— and the rifle they held— that he bit his tongue.

Evie Brown emerged from the fog with blood dripping from every limb. Her clothes were ragged, connected in places by single pieces of thread, and her heavy breastplate had suffered countless gouges and deep, painful dents. The rifle in her hands leaked dark smoke from the barrel, a constant, thin waterfall that pooled around her feet.

She wore a horrific mask. Black rubber clung greedily to the skin, suffocating her countenance beneath a half-melted visage. A thick tube swept down from her nose and over her mouth, terminating in a wide disc that shook with every step. Her eyes were covered by thick glass that reflected the rising fires, hiding even the barest semblance of humanity from detection.

The cloud clung to her skin as she emerged, a small wake tapering off as the haze clung to her body like a great cloak. When the distance grew too great for the smoke to maintain its form, it incongruously popped backward like a loosed bowstring, swirling to rejoin the greater whole. Only when she was ten paces removed from the fog did she remove the mask, hooking it to her belt.

“Gods above,” someone whispered.

Her face was horrifying. One eye was milky white, the iris burst open like a river bank after a monsoon, and its opposite was nearly as badly discolored. Bloody tears ran down her cheeks, joining the rivulets of blood that were leaking from the corners of her mouth. Sections of her hair were burnt to the scalp, still smoldering, and her left ear was missing outright, bloody pus weeping from the wound. Blisters ran up and down her neck, arms, and legs, yellow pustules that were leaking viscous fluid at such a rate that the putrid liquid was dripping to the ground around her. Even from this far away, he could smell the rotting pus.

On her lips was a smile wider than Borek had ever seen before.

“Hello, General!” She called, resting her rifle against her shoulder. “I apologize for interrupting your rest, as I know it was much needed. Unfortunately I couldn’t think of a less disruptive way to handle the night’s activities.”

“Hold,” General Borek whispered. “No one attack her. No one. Not without my word.”

“Have you a healing potion?” Evie stepped forward, lifting a hand his way. A finger dropped to the ground. She laughed; a happy, bubbly noise. “I seem to have used the last of mine. Though I’ll warn you: if you intend to forge on behind me, you’ll need your own. This smoke isn’t kind to the unprepared.” She laughed again, then coughed, doubling over. She spat a wad of something wet and sticky onto the ground, then straightened, smiling again. Blood ran down her chin. “As that piece of lung so helpfully demonstrated, it doesn’t seem to be kind even to those who are prepared. Selliana did warn me, but I believe the fault was with my equipment, not the nature of the poison. I need to find a more reliable mechanism for securing my mask. Some lessons can only be learned in the field, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

She still hadn’t set that rifle down. The one he’d seen on her back for months on end, yet had never seen her fire. One hand was slipped into a metal ring beneath the breach, finger reaching forward to rest near the trigger, while the other hand held it high up on the stock, poised to raise it in an instant.

When he’d first met Evie, General Borek’s Skills had told him she was barely a threat. That he could defeat her handily if need be, stabbing her through the heart before she had the chance to retaliate. That discrepancy had faded slightly over the months, of course. His scholars had reasoned that exposure to a Chosen had been strengthening her, a theory which neatly fit what they knew from the ancient legends. She still hadn’t been a threat, however. Just a woman who might take two blows to kill instead of one.

But now? With that rifle in her hand? Borek’s instincts were screaming at him. It wasn’t like when he had faced Graf Urs, nor even when he had been given the privilege of standing in the presence of the Emperor’s Guard. They had been his utmost martial superior, incomparable in all ways, but her? This… this thing standing before him? It wasn’t human. It was as if he were brandishing his blade at a wildfire, at a thunderstorm. The others, they could kill him. It was fully within their abilities, just as it was possible for them to disarm or cripple him. Evie was different. She would kill him. If you lost to this thing, it would kill you.

“I take it you can’t spare me a potion, then?” She sighed, bending down to pick up her fallen finger.

Borek almost did it then. He saw it in his mind’s eye: lunging forward, racing across the gap between them with his glaive lowered for the charge, hoping to strike her before she could get her rifle up. But he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to take the risk. He wondered if that made him a coward. In the moment, he certainly felt like one.

“You are insane,” General Borek rasped. He was surprised by how distorted his voice was. With no small alarm, he realized he could taste blood in his throat. “You’re a beast,” he said, louder and more firmly. “An animal! If it were not for your wife, I would kill you where you stand. But I do not need to. This will not go unanswered.”

“Oh?” Evie dropped her fallen finger into a pocket, cocking her lopsided head curiously at him. When understanding struck her, she laughed. “Oh! You mean Mayaran’s House? Her family and whatnot, all those elves spread across the Empire? They are the ones who will ‘answer’ me?”

“Spare me your arrogance,” Borek called. “You can’t face the full fury of an Elven House. They will tear you apart like so much chaff.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, General. Do you take me for a fool?” Evie began walking, moving parallel to the line of nervously shifting Warriors. All eyes tracked her steps. “You ordered your servants to not wake you, I presume? Or has it not been long enough for word to reach your staff?”

“Word of what?”

Evie reached the entrance to an alleyway. The fires that had partially consumed the fallen tower were fading, but Borek’s vision hadn’t recovered. It looked like she was standing before the mouth of an endless void.

“Mayaran’s bloodline is dead, General.” She said it with perfect nonchalance. No drama, no pause. Just a statement of fact. “Over the last half hour, no matter where they called home, every elf that ever claimed kinship with Mayaran was slaughtered. There’s no one left to avenge her. Her House has fallen, its allies devastated.” Evie giggled, primly hiding her bloody mouth behind a blistered hand. “The elven penchant for so rarely having children made things much simpler. Not only were there barely a dozen members of her House spread across your Empire, their lack of young children meant my assets didn’t even need to concern themselves with morality! In the end, shipping off ten barrels of emcotton was all it took to rid me of that loose end.” She waved goodbye as she stepped into the darkness. “My wife should be back in the morning, General. I will see you tomorrow.” As the figure disappeared into the inky black, a final call echoed out. “Oh! If you wish to see Mayaran while she’s still alive, I would be quick about it!”

She vanished. Borek thought of charging her down. So many Warriors together, even lightly armed and armored, might be able to overwhelm that terrible weapon in her hands. It was possible. But he knew that there would be consequences he could not fathom to such an act— consequences only a Chosen could bring down upon the Empire.

If Mayaran was alive, if she was truly the last of her House, he had other duties to attend to. With the glass of a potion bottle knocking against his teeth, Borek dove into the smoke. His lungs burned, his eyes watered, and his vision blurred.

He found the mage shortly. Alive, as Evie had promised. But that was a weak, weak word for what the woman had become.

Her throat bulged obscenely with glassware, a thick tube shoved harshly into her mouth. The red slurry of a healing potion filled the glass, dripping directly into her gut at a rate just fast enough to keep her alive. Her flesh melted and crawled like an oil painting in the rain, the venomous fog chewing endlessly at her skin. Her naked body was all the pink color of healed wounds, yet scars were already proliferating across every inch of her form, the slow drip of healing proving too little to resolve any one wound before new ones were laid atop it.

Her hands and ears were severed. Daggers nailed them to the wall beside her. She was hanging from that wall as well, pinned in place by a shining, spotlessly clean rapier. It entered her lower torso just above the pelvis at a harsh angle, exiting between her legs to embed itself in the wall.

Through the womb. Exiting the vaginal cavity.

The blade’s placement was no accident. Even if she lived to see the dawn, her House would never see another sire.

He swallowed the vomit that threatened to spill as he looked at the horrific sight. Every flinch had sent the poor woman sliding further down the blade until, presumably, she had reached her current state: held in place by her pelvis alone, the weapon’s razor edge grinding against bone.

I should have killed that woman, Borek realized. No matter what. No matter what it had taken. I had the chance to put that beast down not five minutes ago, and I didn’t.

What a fool I am.

He ran up to Mayaran. Blood was tinting his vision now. He could barely see, could barely breath. Still he went to her. No one deserved this. There wasn’t a crime in existence which could justify this.

With one swift jerk, Borek tore the blade out. The glass tube fell from her lips with a retching squelch as he caught her, careful to make sure she didn’t fall far. As he tossed the elf over his shoulders, she drew in one heavy lungful of air. Then began to scream.

“Quiet, quiet!” He ordered desperately. “Do not breathe more than you have to!”

If she could hear him, she didn’t respond. She kicked and thrashed, her ruined limbs cracking and popping as broken bones bent beneath the distended skin.

Without warning, Mayaran bit him. Her teeth latched down with all her strength, digging deep enough to rip a bloody chunk of fur from his shoulder. He threw the woman off him with a guttural scream, putting a hand to the wound.

Mayaran wasted no time. Flames sputtered and gasped from the ruined stumps of her hands. Before Borek realized what was happening, she pushed those fires into her own body. One against her temple, one against her heart.

An inferno erupted, consuming Mayaran from head to toe in a single flash. She screamed through the entire affair, long past when it should have been possible for her lungs to produce a single gasp of sound.

When it was done, there was only ash. Borek stared without comprehension. For too long.

Then he coughed. Coughed again. Something wet and solid flew from his lips, hitting the stone near Mayaran. It popped and hissed in the heat.

He retreated. Unbelieving of what he’d seen, yet knowing all the same that it had happened.

I should have killed her, he thought. I should have killed that thing when I had the chance. I should have. Why didn’t I?

Why have we allied ourselves with this? What have we done?

As he stumbled from the fog and, blessedly, into the arms of a waiting healer, Borek’s first order was simple.

“Bring me the Adjutant.”

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