Nadeden’s wooden leg strikes the ladder with a thud as she scurries up it.

  Reaching the roof of the inn, she glances back for only the blink of an instant to confirm that Smith is behind her. She waits for his feet to touch the roof, tightening her bandana and stomach bandages right before he catches up to her.

  “There’s nowhere to go!” An Officer yells from below, hopping on a Grogrung along with his troop to pursue the pair.

  Nadeden speeds to the end of the roof, leaping across to the next building. Smith clumsily follows her.

  She hops to the next roof and the next and the next, skipping between alleys as if they weren’t even there.

  Adrenaline has her now. It pumps in her hastily sewn body like the fuel of a roaring engine.

  She may not be fully healed, but she’s on her way. The rush of blood that woke her once they left the hospital is proof enough of that.

  Now free to move without the threat of reopening her wounds, she takes Smith’s hand and tosses him to the next roof, narrowly avoiding a barrage of arrows.

  The Officers below shift their reins to fire again without taking care to aim.

  Nadeden grins as she rolls down a slanted roof.

  She could shoot better than all of them, even if she was blindfolded and had one hand tied behind her back. But that fact doesn’t make the danger of the arrows any less real. One punctures the wood of her prosthetic as she springs back into a run.

  Once she hits the next building, she rips the arrow out and pins it to the railing of a nearby balcony.

  She yanks Smith out of his sprint and grips him as she swings on the arrow.

  It snaps under their weight, but only does so after the pair are already on the balcony and rushing into the building.

  The Officers are forced to circle the area, unable to locate their prey.

  Those on the street are forced to move at the stomping hooves of Grogrung.

  One Officer gazes up at the hulking tower that the two have presumably escaped into, asking, “Should we search the building?”

  The commanding Officer loosens his grip on the reins of his Grogrung, contemplating what action to take.

  The troop of Officers thoughtlessly await their commander’s decision, and as such are unaware of the Lungoza floating above them with two humans holding onto its tentacles.

  They would have remained unaware had the sight not been pointed out to them, “Look up there!”

  An Officer fires an arrow into the Lungoza at the Martian’s shout.

  The Lungoza cries in pain, gently descending while Nadeden and Smith fall to the rough gravel below.

  Grogrung hooves slam down one by one behind them.

  Still running high on adrenaline, Nadeden quickly recovers, taking Smith by the arm and combining their weight to slam down the closest door. The pair rolls onto the floor, quickly recovering again once a wall breaks their momentum.

  Another volley of Arrows is sent their way.

  Nadeden ducks and weaves past the house furniture all the way to the back door.

  A long Grogrung leg launches itself at Smith’s head, Nadeden launches her arm back to pull him aside, and yet again utilizes their combined weight to make a fast exit.

  Chunks of the back door fly into the cramped alley. Smith’s head strikes the wall, which is tightly placed far too close to the door.

  Nadeden’s back cracks against it as well, but a Grogrung hoof lunging at her face forces a resurgence of adrenaline. She places her palms on Smith’s chest and pushes off him; the motion sends both out of the alley, avoiding the attack, but separating the pair.

  Nadeden slips past the bustling market over to the next building.

  She spots Smith on the run from the Officers.

  Her speed rapidly increases at the sight.

  She knocks aside everything and everyone in her path to cross the street and make her way to him.

  Stepping on a nearby crate, she hops onto the Grogrung at the front of the troop, kicking the Commanding Officer off the saddle.

  Her fingers clutch the collar of Smith’s shirt. She lifts him onto the Grogrung as it picks up speed.

  The spindly legs of the Grogrung put Nadeden and Smith over the heads of those on the street as they dart across it.

  Their pursuers are less mindful of their surroundings. They pay no mind to those they step on in their pursuit.

  Turning back into the sprawling market, then to an opposite street, the troop follows the pair’s steed with every twist and turn, only slowing their pace to fire arrows.

  The chase continues for a tremendous length of kiloclicks, nearly wrapping the entire city, until the wave of bodies stepping on pavement fizzles out into a mixture of rough, unkempt foliage marking the end of urban civilization.

  The Officers gradually slow their pursuit as the hooves of their Grogrungs trample on the increasing stream of Water beneath them.

  Nadeden continues to speed forward absent-mindedly before Smith cries out, “Waterfall!”

  Nadeden jolts the reins, suddenly halting the Grogrung to behold the running river pouring down from the mountainous cliff they stand on.

  Staring down at the river below puts an uncomfortable, boiling, nauseous feeling in Smith’s stomach.

  The distance between them and the ground appears endless.

  Jerking the reins, Nadeden turns the steed toward the Officers who sit with their bows at the ready.

  “Nowhere left to run, Scorched Archer.” The Officer at the head of the troop hops off their saddle. He approaches Smith and Nadeden while keeping his hand up, signaling for the Archers to hold their fire.

  Smith runs his fingers over Granix’s stone in his pocket, preparing to tear it out and call them, if need be.

  The Officer squints over Nadeden and into Smith’s dark, fearful eyes.

  “We’ll let you leave, boy; the Woman is the one we’re interested in.” The Officer states.

  Nadeden turns to Smith, who looks on in a quiet intensity.

  “Decisions, decisions. My lovely Nadeden.” The ghost calls out to her, placing its imagined hand on Smith.

  She scowls, “Lay a finger on him and you’re all dead.”

  The Officer throws down his hand.

  The arrows unleash in rapid succession, speeding at their target like bolts of lightning.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Smith shifts away from Nadeden as she takes the reins one last time.

  Against its will, the Grogrung runs off the cliff, breaking its eight long legs and small neck against the jutting spikes of rocks that hide on the other side of the waterfall.

  Smith and Nadeden are thrown from the saddle, plummeting downward to the bottom of the cliff.

  The Officers can do nothing but stare on in disbelief as their prey slips from their grasp.

  The eyes opened on Nadeden.

  Then closed.

  Then opened.

  Then closed again.

  Her arms were having just as much difficulty adjusting to the bundle of warmth as the newborn was to the light blazing in from the hospital window. She tried to remember what the plan was. What was it that she had spent these last few months deciding to do while she waited helplessly for this child to be born?

  She had to have thought of something in all that time away from the battlefield and away from the public eye.

  Nadeden’s purpose in life had always been survival, yet this unexplained feeling of hopelessness filled her.

  Was it because war was all she had ever known? Was the absence of conflict that powerful?

  Or was it that she wanted to help the Division win this seemingly eternal war?

  Perhaps her emotions were related to the child’s Father.

  Emperor Gelmidas Atheneum had put in little effort to pick up the pieces of the broken Government, choosing instead to pore over Magnus’s notes on the heads and the mysterious power they held. He had become obsessed with that feeling of power, hadn’t he?

  The act of taking a life changed him.

  Just like the act of giving life had changed Nadeden.

  Nadeden never wanted to be born.

  She spent many nights pondering the fact that the universe would be far better off without her.

  This Woman. The mythical Scorched Archer, who had become synonymous with death, there was no reason that she shouldn’t have died in the blood and fire she was born into.

  Yet she was here, and she had survived and would continue to survive because survival is the purpose of life, is it not?

  It was what she was taught, at least.

  That life is either kill or be killed.

  The enemy didn’t bat an eye at the slaughter or misery of frightened little girls, but a little girl who drenched herself in the blood of the enemy was a different matter altogether.

  Nadeden was never a little girl, though.

  She never had the time to be one.

  She hardly had the time to be a Woman.

  She had to fight for time.

  She had to fight for her life.

  For her next breath and next meal. Truth be told, she had no idea what to do when she wasn’t fighting. So she simply looked at the stars.

  Although in that moment, she looked at the sun hanging over the city of Rome with a smile on her face. Now she remembered the plan.

  The plan was to abandon the child.

  To hand them off to a nice, pleasant, average couple that could give them a nice, pleasant, average life. It was about the only thing she had discussed with Gelmidas over these last few months while she waited for the child to be born.

  That wouldn’t be happening, though.

  She would be sure to tell Gelmidas such.

  Her arms adjusted to the warmth as the child slept.

  Nadeden was not fit to be a Mother.

  She knew this.

  She was hardly fit to be a person.

  Yet somehow this child of hers was not born in blood and fire and wouldn’t have to fight for the simple privilege of existence.

  What would the life of this little boy look like without any burdens?

  Would he still have to fight?

  No.

  Nadeden will fight for him just as she has fought all her life.

  She’ll let herself bear the weight he can’t carry.

  She’s always been the one to take the blows, so why stop now?

  Why not defend her child with the same ferocity she’s defended herself?

  This would be her purpose.

  Her own little war against the universe.

  Her newborn son continued to sleep even with his Mother’s tears on his face as the nurse stepped in and asked,

  “Have you thought of a name yet?”

  “SMITH!”

  Nadeden calls out, her head struggling to stay above the rushing water.

  It is difficult for her to swim against the current since her prosthetic was fractured in the fall.

  She curses herself before ripping the wood fragments off her stump of a leg and tossing them out of the river.

  Desperately kicking to keep herself afloat, she moves toward a heap of stone centered in the water. Her battered body crawls atop it, overlooking the river to view a lifeless figure floating face down.

  She lunges off the stone, paying no mind to her bandages that have come undone while she swims toward Smith.

  Going from falling face-first into a raging current to now lying flat on a grass pasture, shock flies through Smith.

  He wakes up with a rapid series of coughs that spit out the copious amounts of water he unwillingly swallowed.

  Relieved, Nadeden snatches Smith by the chest, tightly hugging him. Smith is far less overjoyed.

  “What were you thinking!” He shouts, pushing her away, “You nearly got us killed!”

  “I got us out of there, didn’t I?” Nadeden sits up, using her arms to support herself.

  Smith presses his elbows into the dirt. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to downplay how insanely reckless that was. You could have at least told me you were going to send us both hurtling toward our doom.”

  “I knew we would survive the fall.”

  “How?” Smith stands, kicking up dirt as his frustration grows.

  “You keep doing this, Nadeden! You keep endangering both of us by rushing into everything without thinking first! I know you have a death wish, but I’d like to at least get myself back in a real body before I die!”

  Nadeden shoves the grass in an attempt to move on one leg. “I don’t have a death wish, Smith! I have a goal and I’m trying to get to it as fast as possible. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

  “YOU! You’ve wasted enough time!” Smith stomps, exasperated. “You’re the one who wants to kill this Emperor person! I don’t care! I just want to get back to the Forge, to my home! I was willing to help you before, but-”

  “Why were you willing to help me?” Nadeden interrupts.

  “BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! How difficult is that for you to understand? I’ve let you drag me around since you found me, because you were my best shot at getting home, but you keep on holding onto me for some reason, and when you try to defend me, you just put me in more danger! I don’t know what you want from me, and I don’t think you do either. One thing’s for sure, though, I’m not your kid, Nadeden, so stop treating me like I am!”

  Nadeden lowers her head once Smith finishes.

  She sighs.

  The breeze from the waterfall strikes her.

  “That’s the thing, Smith. It is difficult for me to understand because I am a terrible, vile, evil person.

  The sort of cruel woman that people tell stories about. Everyone shudders and screams at the mere mention of me. People either rush to defend themselves or run for cover when they see my face.

  You think that it’s undeserved? I’m infamous for a reason. I’ve always been this way.

  I've killed indiscriminately, Men, Women, Children, Humans, Martians, Squideels, I could go on.

  I was born in blood and fire. It’s all I’ve ever known.

  I slaughter what’s close to me because that is the only way I survive, that is the way I have survived for all of my miserable life, and it is how I will continue to survive until the day that I meet someone I can’t defeat.

  I made the mistake once of giving in to peace, and the universe took it from me because it wasn’t meant to be.

  There is no end to my war. There is no extinguishing the fire that burned me and everything I loved.

  We all have our roles and our destinies, and mine has doomed me to an eternal fate of villainous bloodlust.

  I don’t want to be this way; it’s just who I am.

  If I’m not the Scorched Archer, then what am I?”

  As she speaks, Smith realizes that there is no saving her.

  There is no possible redemption for Nadeden.

  Whatever shred of hope there was for her died long ago.

  It’s simply impossible to fight nature.

  Smith should leave her here. Lying in the dirt is what she deserves.

  He walks away, leaving Nadeden behind. Smith has a new plan now.

  They’ll find a clearing in this forest and call Granix to take them to the Forge, where the Machinists will help Smith get out of this disgusting human body so that they can be with their own people and won’t have to put up with this stupid human nonsense any longer.

  The Mystic was right, right about everything, Smith thinks.

  I just hope that they were wrong about the fate of the Forge.

  “Are you from the city on the cliff?”

  Smith turns to view a small human child with a fishing rod in one hand and a sack of trout in the other. “My Mama told me that there was a city up there, but I’ve never seen it.” The boy sniffles as he speaks. “Why are you so pale, and what’s with the paint around your eyes?”

  “Julius! What did I tell you about talking to strangers?” A curly-haired, wrinkled human woman places a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “To only talk to them if they look interesting?” The boy shyly jokes.

  Smith stays still and silent out of embarrassment.

  The boy’s Mother gently slaps the back of her son's head. “Sorry about that, he’s still learning his manners and how to keep himself safe.” The Mother apologizes before drawing a wooden sword from her back, “Now, allow me to properly introduce myself. You’ve already met Julius. I’m Shanna, now tell me what you’re doing in our village before I cut you open.”