I leave the room, urgency all at once tugging at me. Anticipation settles into my limbs, and I consider my choice of weapons carefully. My hands are eager to grab everything I can and find a home for it on my body, but my mind warns me that doing that might give others something to grab and use against me if they get too close. With what I’m planning to do tonight, someone is bound to get too close.
I need to think things through carefully.
I close my eyes and try to picture the Order of Bruins. I’m not sure which one is Gartox exactly, but I plan as though he’s the biggest one of the group. He probably is. Fate thinks it’s funny to pit me against mountains that can walk, talk, and fight. If he’s like all the other giants I’ve fought over the years, he’ll probably throw his weight and size around. His reach will be an issue just like it was with Taur. Maybe I should thank the masters for the fight I had earlier. In a way, it was good practice for what’s about to go down.
A pair of curved daggers as long as my forearm catch my eye. I grab them along with some leg sheaths holding thin knives that I buckle into place around my thighs. A handful of push daggers go into guards on the belt I knot around my waist, and lastly I slip a penknife down my back, my armor keeping it snugly in place between my shoulder blades. I take a deep breath, locking any stray thoughts or emotions down once and for all, and turn to Hord.
“I’m done.”
Without a word or even a nod, he leaves and I follow. We walk silently toward the manor, and I work through all the possible scenarios of how this will end for me. Will it be fast? Slow? Painful? Tilleo might have guards waiting to capture and silence me just as soon as the job is done. Or maybe the other members of the Order of Bruins will discover what’s happened and slit my throat before Gartox’s blood is even cold.
The lazy desert wind flings sand against my clammy skin as I mentally stomp on all thoughts ofwhat ifand worry. I move silently behind Hord, who seems oddly nervous as he keeps looking back over his shoulder to check that I’m still there.
Something about his fear calms my nerves. It reminds me of everything I’ve been through to survive this place. I get to come face-to-face with the monster they’ve created and then forced me to keep locked up and leashed. I get to set her free once and for all. No more cages for us. No more piss-stained tunics, unearned whippings, or cowering in fear. Everything they’ve beaten, starved, and tortured into me is about to come out and play. Whatever happens from here on is becauseIdecreed it, becauseImade it so. This may be it for me, but I’ll spend my final moments making all of the bastards here sorry for it.
I’m led through a maze of foyers and corridors, one looking the same as another. I map everything out as we go, matching it up with what I learned about this place when I was first pulled from a cage and later when I was marched out and carried down to the ludere. After what feels like forever, Hord stops at a wide, barely lit hallway. With a brief nod of confirmation, he hastily disappears back the way we came. I can’t help but scoff at his unapologetic and speedy retreat.
Where does Tilleo find such big tough guards?
Reality drums in my chest like a call to arms as I stand amidst the closed doors of the strange corridor. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go. Am I expected to knock on each room, inquiring gently for Gartox until I find him and then try to slit his throat before he can get the jump on me?
I stand frozen like an icy boulder in a storm, uncertainty making me hesitant as I look from the dark wood of one door to another and then another, all the way down the hallway until darkness keeps me from seeing any more rooms.
Why am I even here?
I start to wonder as I stand there. Maybe it’s time to cut the puppet strings and hunt down Tilleo and his cronies instead. I don’t owe him anything, especially not some Order member’s death. An uneasy stillness settles in the air. Warning calls to the hair that starts to rise on my arms and the back of my neck. Tension practically whispers that something dangerous is out to play tonight…and it’s not me. Alarm tightens my muscles, and I start to think that plan B might be the better way to die, just as a scream rips through the deadened night and sinks its terrified talons into my gut.
I don’t know who the horror-filled plea belongs to, but three doors down on my right, the dark wood vibrates against the shriek as though it can barely contain the sheer agony in it. My stomach drops, and I rush silently toward the door just as another scream rips my hesitant caution away. I surge into a thin patch of shadows on the wall, the blackness soaking me up and delivering me seamlessly to the other side. In front of me, I find a large entryway with a small round table in the middle and a dark hallway further back. The distinct sounds of a fight lure me down the bleak hall, and then I don’t know what happens, because one moment I’m shrouded in the shadows by the door of the suite, and in the next breath, I’m standing in an unfamiliar dark corner and trying to get my bearings. I’ve used shadows to hide or move from one connected place to another, but I’ve never jumped entire spaces like I just did.
I’m disoriented by the strange new ability I accidentally unlocked, but the sound of glass shattering and fabric ripping clears the haze, and I focus. The room is huge and dripping with luxurious furnishings. There’s a large round bed cocooned in hanging drapes that flutter even though there isn’t the slightest breeze in the air. One panel is hanging askew and in tatters, and through it, I see a behemoth of a man pressing down on the neck of a much smaller female. She’s clawing at his massive hands, teeth bared and eyes wide with fear and pain and rage. Red hair fans out all around her, and I immediately recognize Sennet.
In a heartbeat, I catalog her torn tunic, her missing pants, the bruises, cuts, and…bite marks that pepper her skin and face. Another beat is all it takes for daggers to be clutched in my hands as I move in behind the Bruin. He’s the giant I remembered. I still don’t know with a one-hundred-percent certainty that he’s Gartox, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Whoever this is needs to die.
Like a wraith, I hunt him, moving toward his naked back as I quickly work out the best option to take the colossal Order member down. I want to go for his throat—it would be my best chance to mortally wound him quickly—but the way he’s scrunching his shoulders as he does his best to strangle Sennet means I won’t get the clean deep cut I need. Fairy light flickers in the room, and it’s as though the shadows themselves are reaching out to help me. A strip of darkness moves down the Bruin’s arms, and at last I see it, I see where to attack.
There’s no hesitation, no deep preparatory inhale or adjusting of my angle. I leap for him like the savage I am, flicking my daggers from an underhand grip to an overhanded one. Like a pouncing feline, I land on the Bruin’s back and reach around to slice the underside of both arms.
My blades cut through his flesh like it’s nothing more than a hot juicy roast that was just pulled from the fire. A bellow of pain fills the room, and blood arcs up the wall at the head of the bed before splashing Sennet and soaking the bedding beneath her.
I flip off the monster as though I’m capable of walking on air the way I walk through shadows. I crouch and ready myself for what I know is going to be a brutal, unforgiving fight as the Bruin turns to me. Images of Taria’s empty eyes flash in my mind, and I blink back the sight of the marks on her body. This fucker didn’t just kill her, he tried to destroy her. He shattered her body right along with her hope, and now he needs to pay for that.
Sennet and Taria are decent fae. They didn’t target the weak. They didn’t stand on the backs of others in order to climb high in the ranks. They deserved to have a rich life in a prominent Order, to find some semblance of contentment and peace. They sure as fuck didn’t deservethis.
Blood drips from my blades as the Bruin pushes off of Sennet and slowly studies me like I’m nothing more than a swamp gnat buzzing obnoxiously in his ear. Green eyes the color of stinging nettle lazily move over my body and my weapons, landing and staying on my crotch for far too long. The threat is clear in his gaze when his eyes eventually find mine. I have to strangle the molten urge to charge him when I see the laces of his trousers are undone. His features are sinisterly unapologetic as he reaches down to stroke the grotesque bulge in his leathers. The monster’s eyes darken with painful promise, and he licks his lips as though he’s some kind of reptile who’s scenting me.
Sennet isn’t moving on the bed. I can’t tell if she’s even breathing, and there’s no way I can take my eyes off the fucker in front of me to try to help her. Fear simmers in my stomach, and a foreboding chill crawls up my spine.
I took too much time getting here.
The room is eerily quiet now as the Bruin touches himself and watches me. I can hear drops of blood as they fall to the carpet at our feet, and my gaze flicks to the rivulets of crimson flowing steadily down the Bruin’s inner arms. There are scratches on his face and chest, but I can’t focus on that. My soul doesn’t need any more scars.
My cuts under his upper arms must not have been deep enough, because he’s not bleeding to death nearly as fast as I was hoping he would. It doesn’t help that he’s gargantuan. He was huge from afar, but close up, his size is even more daunting. His arms are bigger than my thighs, his thighs thicker than my waist. My heart hammers as I take him in, and I realize, with alarming certainty, that I’m going to have to rethink my plan of attack. I could spend all night hacking away at him and still not take him out.
He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t ask what I’m doing in his room or why I attacked. He doesn’t look toward Sennet, doesn’t feel the need to reassure himself that his prey is where he left her. No, the Bruin looks at me like he discovered something that’s guaranteed to be more fun than what he was previously doing. I want to gag on the revulsion that bubbles up my throat, but I manage to tamp down the bile.
I can do this.
I know I’m good. I hate that I ended up in the ludere, but there’s no question that I take to death and violence like a bird to air. But staring this monster in the eyes has doubt festering in my chest. I may not be enough tonight. And if this bastard wins, I’ll wish for oblivion long before I’m blessed with it. Here’s to hoping I can get a blade through my own throat first if it comes to that.
