“I should have known,” snarled Shranai, tossing her bow aside and picking up her staff in its stead. “You and that Zsaran. Both the same!”

Ashne must have known all along. Somewhere deep inside, she must have realized. Refused to accept. Surly as Shranai was and had always been, Ashne could not forget: those weeks of fever, not long after the queen took them in. And Shranai leaning above them, muttering harsh curses under her breath all the while, hands red and rough from toil, yet still gentle.

The years of nagging, the years of mocking and criticism. The brief, satisfied look of approval when they had returned from their first mission. But never...

Never this.

“Is it true?” Ashne said, thinking of the arrow. The kammrae sightings. Everything. Everything. “What he said. Was it really you who —”

“I don’t know what lies he fed you, girl. Or what deceits he employed to seduce that flighty fool. But no matter. It ends here!” The staff spun once, twice, aimed at Ashne’s head.

Ashne leaped back, only for the staff to thrust forward, knocking the sword from her hand.

“Why?” she pleaded, backing away yet further. Her fingers stung from the blow, unable to bend. “What happened? Why did you —”

Shranai’s gnarled face was cold and remorseless. “A traitor is owed nothing but death.”

Ashne ducked another blow, this time attempting to reach her sword.

“Zsaran would have never betrayed the queen!”

“Don’t waste my time with your excuses! The moment the Tiger appeared, I knew — I knew!”

“Knew what?”

“Where your true loyalties lay!”

“Our loyalties have always lain with the queen,” she protested, still dodging, no longer certain what she was saying, knowing only that it must be said.

“It takes one to summon the beast. One to summon, and one to welcome him in.”

One to summon — Kitzon. But one to welcome —

“She wouldn’t have. She would have never.”

“Then who do you propose did? Yourself, perhaps?” Shranai unleashed a bark of laughter. “No, no. Impossible. You are too slow, too dull to have pulled such a pretty trick, much less thought of it.”

“We swore an oath. The lady saved our lives. We owe a debt to her many times over.” A debt they had not yet repaid, even now. Would never be able to repay now in life.

But Shranai sneered. “Oaths can be broken. How little mere words amount to, when a handsome fellow comes a-singing! I have seen it all too often, with you young things!”

“You thought us incapable of duty? Of...” Ashne trailed off, knowing not what new protest had been waiting at the tip of her tongue, realizing that it was no use.

“More words! Do not waste your breath on me, girl. The treacherous little fool admitted it herself. ‘For love,’ she said. ‘I did it for love!’”

Anger, helpless and all-consuming. Then despair. Doubt, cruel and insidious, creeping into her heart. What if she was the one who had been lying to herself all this time? What if Zsaran, somewhere deep down inside, had never truly forgiven her?

She had disapproved of the mission from the start, while Ashne accepted it unblinking. She had tired of their service under the queen, while Ashne thought nothing of living the rest of her life unwavering in her loyalty.

She had loved him. Ashne had —

“If even you could not believe in her —” she choked out.

“Whimper all you like, little one. But I speak the truth. Your own actions betray you!”

Then I will show you betrayal, whispered the treacherous little voice in her heart.

Ashne dove for her sword and rolled away before Shranai’s staff swung down. She could feel veins of energy trilling through her heart, rippling across her skin. The staff spun and darted at her, mimicking an angry snake, but in her eyes it seemed more like a bird of prey circling slowly, slowly overhead. Everything seemed so slow. Her sword found an opening, flaring to life; the staff whipped back in defense, but already she had withdrawn the attack, pressing instead to the right, to the crushed foot, the weak foot, the twisted foot for which no wooden replacement could ever fully compensate.

The staff thrust straight forward. Again, again, tapping out a desperate rhythm in the air.

A familiar rhythm. A familiar three-footed dance.

She twisted away, redirecting the force from an incoming blow. Stepped forward. Stretched out her arm, allowing her wayward blade, for once, to guide her.

Blood sprayed out in a brilliant arc.

The anger drained from her, seeping from her souls and into the earth.

“I regret nothing,” said Shranai, laughing and laughing as she never had in life. “My lady, you should never have sent me from your side. You should have... I would have done anything for you... I regret nothing. Nothing.”

“Nothing,” whispered Ashne, and turned away.

* * *

She continued running. If she stopped now, she would see Shranai again, cold and hateful eyes staring towards the heavens, body lying broken in a pool of dark blood. She would see Zsaran, lying peacefully in the field of starflowers, as if merely sleeping. She would see the prince, devoured like a slaughtered deer. His double, clutching at the gaping wound in his side, whispering, End this.

The further she ran up the slope, the brighter the flames of the signal fire grew. The end was near. She put on an extra burst of speed. But then the shouts of battle drew her attention, and she hesitated, veered away from the main trail in search of their origin, past the scraggly pines and through a copse of maples.

Not far from the path she caught sight of the combatants. Identified them: Kitzon battling the twins among a flurry of fallen leaves with his curved blade, Hazsam sheathed at his side once more.

And she did stop, then.

Normally, Kitzon would have dispatched the two girls with ease. Lure one away from the other, and their strength dwindled to nothing. Alone, they were still formidable against lesser opponents, but against a seasoned mercenary, they were little better than children playing at violence.

But Kitzon seemed not in his right mind. He stumbled, falling for a feint even a novice at swordplay could have seen through. One of the girls flew at him, intent on delivering the finishing blow, but he managed to whirl away just in time.

He had bound his wound with a strip of cloth, and that stayed much of the bleeding. Ashne could not tell if he’d had time to remove the arrowhead, or if indeed removal would have been the right choice under the circumstances.

But he swayed as he fended off the twins’ assault, his movements cautious, more wary than his usual aggressive style. It hurt to watch: he who had always possessed such daring, such swagger, such unbearable beauty and precision in his skill.

Had the arrow been poisoned? If so, he was a fool. Fighting in such a condition would only hasten his end. Surely he knew that.

Of course he knew.

For a long time she stood there, unable to act, hating herself for being unable to act. She remembered the day the queen had returned to the palace with two little girls in tow, much as she and Zsaran had arrived barely three years earlier. Both quiet, mute, their arms scratched, their faces muddy and blank. How Shranai had grumbled over her new charges. How long it had taken before the girls began to smile, to laugh and talk once more.

The choice should have been easy. He was a liar and a traitor. The girls were her sworn sisters. Her only remaining attachments in this world.

She owed him nothing. The girls were innocent. They had no reason to fight. No reason to sacrifice their lives for this farce.

Kitzon stumbled again. One of the twins — Jenhra, as always — spotted her standing frozen at the edge of their battle. Shouted, eyes suddenly alit with unfamiliar, heartstopping hatred. The girl rushed forward, sword at the ready.

Ashne reacted before she could blink. A single heartbeat slipped past. Another.

Jenhra slumped to the ground, clutching uselessly at the blade in her belly.

The look of shock on the girl’s face must have mirrored Ashne’s own. Ashne drew out her treacherous sword. Looked down at her hand, drenched now in blood, sticky and still warm despite the crisp night air. Then looked up again, eyes locking once more with Kitzon’s.

This time he did not stop or acknowledge her. Instead he ran, fleeing again along the dark trail.

“Wait —” she cried out after him, but he did not even turn.

Behind her, Nalum loosed a howl of rage and despair. Ashne readied herself for an attack, but none came. The girl flung herself over her sister’s body, weeping.

No time left for grief or regret. Ashne turned and ran.

* * *

Before long, the trees dispersed, revealing the vast sky overhead and the peak looming before her. The altar that stood there blazed with a furious light. The flames crackled and raged, lunging at the heavens, the heat hungry and insistent against Ashne’s skin.

Facing the flames at the foot of the bonfire stood none other than the queen herself, draped in ceremonial robes, scattering salt from her hands.

Ashne slowed. Stilled.

The queen turned at the sound of her approach.

“I knew you would come.” Her voice was low, solemn, barely audible over the burning altar behind her.

“My lady,” said Ashne. “Please. Tell me what is going on!”

The queen did not respond. Her gaze swept across the clearing, deliberate, weighty, unhurried.

“I suppose Shranai...?”

“Dead,” Ashne choked out. “As is Jenhra.”

“I see,” said the queen. No change rippled across her face.

Before Ashne could say anything else, another voice rang out.

“Hail, oh mighty queen of pondscum!”

She whirled around. Kitzon staggered up the path, panting from exertion, face gray and sallow and slick with sweat.

The poison had slowed him even more than she had expected.

“Mercenary,” said the queen, unmoving, unmovable. “Where is my daughter?”

“Far, far away,” he growled. Then, as if finding his own words unbearably hilarious, he began to laugh. “Somewhere you cannot reach!”

He unsheathed Hazsam, brandished its gleaming length before him.

No, it was not poison that had slowed him.

He had cut a chunk of flesh from his forearm.

Blood streamed down, staining his short sleeves. He tossed his flesh into the fire, still laughing, and brought Hazsam downwards in a single, powerful stroke, as if to part the very flames.

“Die!”

With a single utterance, the world itself ripped apart.