Much calmer than I actually felt, I explained my Majekah in full. She took it all in while assessing her movement and strength. She could stand, but the side covered in bruises also had a spattering of broken bones. Her ribs and her right arm were the worst.
After a brief mourning of her three tattoos now staining the carpet, she opened her pocket-void and pulled out a small arsenal of weapons.
“It’s too bad you can’t heal,” Brit said, handing me a dagger.
“Yeah, tragic,” I responded. “I’m better at breaking things.”
Brit shrugged. “Enough people are after you, probably for the better you can’t. We don’t need to make you an even juicier target.”
I snorted before looking around the room. “We’re getting out of here, right?”
Brit cut a few holes in the blanket and created a short toga. “Yes.” She pulled me into a bear hug. “We breathe yet, and we’re together. I’ll get us out of this mess.”
I didn’t even get to finish my next breath. The door cracked open.
Two metal canisters clattered in, one spinning to a stop, the other rolling under the bed.
“Dow—”
Brit didn’t get the word out before both erupted with a deafening bang. Shards bit into my arm and cheek, hot blood spilling before pain caught up. The air turned to acid silk. Green, slow, heavy, and alive, it crawled up the floor like it wanted to smother us.
Brit yanked me down, throwing herself over me. The gas thinned near the carpet but still clawed my throat, scorching every breath. My eyes burned; tears streamed down my face in stinging trails.
The door yawned open wider. A shadow moved. Brit’s dagger flashed, a silver streak cutting the fog. A grunt answered from the hall.
I tried to crawl toward the door, but my limbs betrayed me, growing heavy, sluggish. Brit’s weight sagged over me. Her body went limp.
My lungs shrieked for air I couldn’t find. I grabbed my friend and shook her, chanting her name over and over. She couldn’t leave me again. Together we could get out of this, but alone…
Two figures stepped through the fog, gas masks hiding their faces, dark-brown coveralls blending into the haze. Horax’s squat outline was easy to recognize, while the taller one could be anyone.
Tears blurred everything but the narrowing path to the door. I clawed the carpet, dragging myself an arm’s length closer before my body quit entirely, useless and slack.
They loomed over me. The one who wasn’t Horax crouched, gloved fingers hooking under my chin and lifting my head.
“She’s real.” The man dropped my head.
I didn’t feel it hit the floor.
“We still struggle to understand your choice to sell her,” the man said slowly, his voice echoing oddly through the long gas mask.
“I’m old.” Horax rested a hand on his protruding stomach. “My life was The Rooster. I don’t give a shit about her, and I want nothing to do with the fight to keep her. I just wanted to hit that pompouswould-be-king where it hurt.” He grunted and made a fist, shaking it at the ceiling. “The Architect’s a mentalist. I’m no fool. I need to hurt him and vanish.”
The second man nodded before dropping to the ground and sweeping Horax’s legs out from under him. Dark green runes burst from the man’s fingers, spinning, hissing as they tore the mask off Horax’s face.
Horax screamed.
The fog clung to his skin. His muscles seized. His eyes went wide.
One rune split from the others, twisting into a spike. It shot upward, straight into the soft underside of his chin.
The sound wasn’t human. A wet choke. A gurgle and Horax’s body joined mine on the floor. Warm, sticky blood snaked across the floor, oozing over my fingers.
I couldn’t pull my hand away. Couldn’t move at all.
The second man leaned down, and his mask filled my vision.
“Our Prophet waits,” he said.
