Mar'kost's arrow felled yet another newt-like stonehopper. The shelled creature began to ooze acidic mucus from its skinâwhich he'd been told was orange and spotted.
"Gira." With a flick of Mar'kost's hand, the metal arrow flew to him. He notched it to his recurve bow and aimed at a stonehopper hiding under a shelf three decatails away. It was on the edge of his field of clear 'vision.' Past three decatails, he could only make out impressions of shape and movement. He was fairly certain his team was wise enough not to stray into his arrow's path, but just in case-
"Is my path clear?" His voice caused the stonehopper to tuck its eye stalks inside its snail-like shell.
"Clear," Thyr called, his voice muffled by his safety mask.
"All clear," Raeve called, her voice similarly muffled.
Mar'kost hesitated to draw his bowstring. "Harker?"
No response.
"Ha-"
"He's not in the way," Raeve shouted. "He's reading something."
With a sigh, Mar'kost loosed his arrow at the stonehopper. Its metal tip went straight through the creature's shell with a crunch. He magicked the arrow back into his hand before scanning the area within his field of clarity. Metal shelves littered with ancientâand unfortunately, mostly worthlessâdetrius stood or lay around him. He sensed no movement except for a few troglits skittering around. The glue traps Raeve was setting would take care of them eventually.
Referring to his mental map of the storage room, he moved to the next section in his search grid. At a glance, half a dozen stonehoppers resided in this area. They would be easy targets. Too easy. After four weeks of clearing out reavers and remipedes, exterminating the mostly harmless stonehoppers bored him to tears. The only real danger would be if he grabbed the arrow by the wrong end and burned his hand with acid. Though, even that wouldn't be too dangerous given his natural healing abilities.
His team might have been working on a more dangerous room if not for Raeve's wings. Without them, she would've been at great risk in a fight against anything above a Threat Level 2 monster. That left them stuck clearing the storage room.
He wouldn't have chosen to take Thyr's place cleaning up the stonehopper corpses or Raeve's place setting traps, but he wished he could trade with Harker. The lucky bastard was sifting through the detrius for valuables. Even the pieces with little monetary value held a wealth of information on the dungeon's previous inhabitantsâprimarily Shiel and her shifters. Unfortunately for Mar'kost, he couldn't sense inked words that he wasn't touching, and he couldn't sense small engravings from farther than two tails.
Harker could spot even dirt-obscured writing from a decatail away. Well, perhaps not an entire decatail. Five tails would've been more accurate, but that was still impressive compared to Mar'kost's own limited range. Mar'kost might have considered assuming a form with vision, if not for the unfortunate fact that remaining shapeshifted burned arka faster than he could recover it, even in the dungeon.
As he picked off the stonehoppers automatically, his mind wandered away from the task to a more interesting oneâkeeping an eye on Liza. He'd used slivers of his own flesh to set the bones in her legs, and he hadn't allowed them to dissolve yet due to their utility in tracking her. At the moment, she was several kilotails south-west of himâas expectedâand in good health except for the crystage growing through every organ in her body.
It was thicker now than it had been yesterday, but it didn't seem to be affecting her in any negative way. That was a small relief, seeing as even a butcher would struggle to remove every last bit of crystage from her body. And of course, butchering Liza wasn't an option.
Mar'kost wasn't sure whether to tell her about the mysterious growth. It would undoubtedly worry her to no end, and there was nothing she could do about it. Trying to remove the crystage manually or with magic would leave her full of holes. His cheap potions wouldn't heal her quickly enough to save her life. Even healing potions far outside his team's entire budget wouldn't be able to fix the holes in her brain without changing who she was as a person.
Perhaps that would be a necessary evil to save her life. If the crystage continued to progress as quickly as it had, her entire brain would be consumed in a week. At that point, no amount of magic could save her body, much less her mind.
He knew basically nothing about human anatomy besides what was nearly identical to a longstrider's. It was entirely possible that humans naturally grew crystage. The only way to find out would be to ask her, but if it wasn't a natural human function, he would worry her unnecessarily. It was more likely that Ortai grew crystage to store the immense amounts of arka they wielded, which could mean that this was a perfectly natural process for Liza.
Then again, even if the crystage was part of her Ortai heritage, there was no telling how it would interact with her human biology, especially her brain. It might erase what he knew as Liza and replace her with an unknown goddess. Or it might simply increase her arka capacity and allow her to perform magic. There was no way of knowing, as the Ortai had never deigned to share their anatomy texts with mere mortals.
His connection with the flesh in Liza's legs wavered. It shouldn't have; with her in such close proximity, the connection should have lasted over a week. But it was weakening as quickly as the crystage was growing. Soon, he would have no way of finding her if she tried to run away againâor if she was right about his team's intentions.
He didn't truly believe his team had told Cadmus to kill her. Cadmus was no killer, and he'd seemed fascinated by her ability to talk with drykons. But there was always the possibility that they had hired someone else... perhaps one of Raeve's old assassin friends?
'Friends' might not have been the right word, given that they would kill her without hesitation if they knew she'd told anyone about the Assassin's Guild, but they would probably kill Liza if she asked them, maybe even without cost.
No, Raeve wouldn't ask someone to kill Liza. Thyr had forbidden anyone from hurting Liza. At least, that was what he'd said in front of Mar'kost. He might have said something different while Mar'kost was sleeping.
Mar'kost's hand slipped, sending the arrow flying in the wrong direction.
"The felk?" Raeve shouted as his arrow ricocheted off a metal shelf frame and nearly hit her. Wings vibrating, she glared at him. "What could possibly be distracting you from the riveting task we're stuck doing because your insane lady friend shredded my wings?"
Mar'kost's feathers flattened against his skin. "I apologize. Are you okay?" He assumed the soft-spoken tone he used to calm people.
"Don't use that voice on me. It won't work. I'm flamed at the freak, and I'll keep being flamed until she goes back to where she came from."
"And if she can't go back?" A hint of stubbornness crept into his voice.
She crossed all four arms. "We're not keeping her forever, Mar'kost."
"If we abandon her, she'll die."
"No, she'll go off to the happy place where lost puppies go." Her antennae twitched. "Just don't think about it."
A shiver of cold fear zipped down his spine. "Did you arrange for Liza to be killed?"
She gaped at him. "Are you kidding?"
"No."
"Of course not. I'd be off the team if I did."
"Unless Thyr changed his mind and neglected to tell me."
"He didn't."
He wanted to believe herâof course he wanted to believe his friend of five yearsâbut her tendency to lie in order to 'protect' him had put them at odds on more than one occasion. He didn't know if she would go so far as to lie about a matter of life and death, but he wasn't willing to take the chance with Liza's life on the line.
He crossed the three tails between them in a few strides and crouched so they were eye-to-eye. "Let me make this very clear. If you purposefully cause Liza to die, I'll never speak to you again. Understood?"
She stepped back with a scowl. "That spell really has a hold on you."
He fought the urge to strangle her. "If you killed Harker or Thyr, I would also stop talking to you."
"Why would I kill them?"
"That isn't the point, and you know it. Swear to me that you haven't arranged for any harm to befall Liza."
She rolled her eyes. "I swear. You know, you shouldn't worry about that. We're pretty sure you'd go crazy or die if she died, so none of us are going to hurt her."
Given his family history, he'd suspected as much, but without any concrete evidence, he hadn't bothered using it as an argument against hurting Liza. "Good." He straightened and returned to where he'd been working.
"Good?" She was on the verge of shouting. "You think it's good that you'll die if that lunatic with a death wish does?"
At the edge of his circle of perception, Harker looked up from a small object he'd been inspecting. "Really?"
Mar'kost glared at them both. "She doesn't have a death wish. She was merely confused. Now she isn't. She believes Vangorn is real and that she's an Ortai hybrid."
"She might not be confused, but you obviously are if you still think she's an Ortai." Shaking his head, Harker returned to inspecting the object in his hand. "You'll understand if she removes you as her Knight. You could convince her to do it." Under his breath, he added, "Not that you will."
Raeve scoffed. "Who needs to convince her? Just hold her down and make her activate your Interface. It doesn't have single-user privacy, right? Once it's activated, you can remove yourself. If you're really not under her spell, you can just rejoin her Party after, right?"
"I'm not-" Mar'kost repressed a shiver at the thought of one of his teammates pinning Liza down while she fought to free herself. "I'll do it. I'll have her activate my Interface, and I'll remove myselfâif it's possible to do so. There's no guarantee it's possible for either of us to undo a generational oath."
"We'll see."
***
I came out of the bathroom to a sea of stares and pulled my robe tighter. Mar'kost and his team didn't seem to be waiting for the bathroom. They were just standing, watching me.
Mar'kost sat on the couch and gestured for me to do the same. He brought out a metal disk the size of his palm.
"Run your finger around this."
"Why?" My voice was faint.
"I- want to see your Skills."
"Oh, it's an Interface?"
He nodded.
I hesitated. Something felt off, and it wasn't just the fact that his team was staring at me. He seemed nervous; the end of his tail kept twitching against his leg, and he was unusually stiff otherwise.
"Why do you want to see my Skills?"
"If you've leveled up, you might be able to choose new ones."
"Oh." I wasn't sure if I believed him. I definitely didn't feel comfortable leaving the Interface in his hand while the Interface was active. I took it and ran my finger around the edge. My information appeared on the disk, but before I could read my Skills, Raeve snatched the disk out of my hand and jumped back out of reach.
"Hold her still," she shouted.
I jumped up. Harker grabbed my arms. I tried to wrench free, but he had a firm grip on me.
"I said I would-" Mar'kost started.
"No one believed that." Raeve danced back out of his reach, leaping onto the back of a chair and then onto Thyr's high shoulder.
Mar'kost started to grow in height. With a yelp, Raeve tossed the Interface to the ground. He grabbed it, cursed under his breath, and dropped it again.
"What did you do?"
"I just tried to remove you, and it-" She hopped down, staring at the metal disk.
I couldn't twist far enough around to see exactly what had upset them. I very much wanted to head-butt Harker's broken nose, but he held me at arm's length.
"Let her go," Mar'kost said with a note of steel in his voice. "There's no point holding her; the Interface broke." With his sleeve over his hand, he lifted a steaming metal disk with several cracks running through it.
"Of course there is. You must've sabotaged your Interface." Raeve brought out a smaller metal disk and came over to me.
I kicked at her, but Harker yanked me away before I could make contact.
Mar'kost looked livid. "Why the felk would I sabotage- It took me three years to save up for an Interface. And how would I even attempt to sabotage it? You know I'm a terrible enchanter."
Raeve hopped on the coffee table, which unfortunately made it impossible for me to kick her with any momentum while I was standing in the narrow space between the table and couch. She pried one of my fingers out of a fist, dodged my frantic head-butt, and ran the disk around my finger. It lit up with my information as she stepped back.
"Don't worry, Mar'kost. In a second, you'll be back to normal." She fiddled with the Interface. It sizzled and cracked, going dark. She dropped it, and it burned the coffee table. "What the-" She stared up at me.
Mar'kost laughed. "I should have known. Shiel invented the Interface. Of course she wouldn't let her descendant's enemies control her with it."
Harker's grip on my arms loosened, and I tore away. He stared at Raeve's Interface, dumbfounded. "It isn't possible."
"Isn't it?" Mar'kost set a hand on my shoulder. "Who are you to say what is and isn't possible for an Ortai?"
I jerked away from him. How dare he act like we were fine after he'd tried to help them do who knew what with that Interface? Feeling a twinge of satisfaction at his hurt look, I clambered over the back of the couch.
"You know what? I think I'll stay at Cadmus's house. He has a guest room he said I can stay in, and he doesn't want to kill me."
"Liza-"
"Don't 'Liza' me, Mark. Sorry, Mar'kost. You flipping lied to my face and tried to help them kill me. As far as I'm concerned, you don't exist." I marched into his bedroom and locked the door. I wasn't about to trek all the way to Cadmus's place wearing a robe. I rifled through Mar'kost's half of the closet. We were roughly the same height and build, so I should be able to wear his clothes without much discomfort. He didn't have many, and they were all thick work clothes except for one pair of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. As far as I could find, he didn't have any underwear. Not that I would've been comfortable wearing his underwear, anyway.
"No one is going to kill you," Mar'kost insisted through the door. "You can come out."
Dreading a walk in this heat wearing jeans, I put on the relatively casual clothes I'd found before grabbing my polearm. I shoved the bedroom door open, making Mar'kost stumble back. My shoes were in the bathroom, behind a closed door. Judging by Harker's absence, he was the one inside. I ducked back into the bedroom, locking the door so no one would interrupt me as I put on a pair of hotel slippers. They were a horrible choice for a half hour walk, but they would keep me from having to stand around while everyone stared at me.
I threw open the door, and this time, Mar'kost wasn't in the way. I headed for the hallway door.
Thyr stepped in the way. "We wanted to test how the Knight bond affects Mar'kost, not kill you."
Clutching my polearm, I tried to look less intimidated than I felt by a seven-foot man with claws. "Out of the way."
"Will you kill me?" He sounded more curious than worried, no doubt sure that his thick tail could knock me off my feet before I got close enough to hit him with my weapon's Skill.
"You have healing potions. You won't die."
Mar'kost grabbed my polearm and pulled. "You can't attack him."
I didn't let go. Whether or not Thyr was telling the truth, Mar'kost had tried to remove what little guarantee I had that no one would attack me. It didn't matter if he would defend me even without the Knight bond; without it, the others would assume I stood alone, and Mar'kost wasn't fast enough to stop them all.