“I’ll find you,” I promised Mimi before leaving Eliza’s infirmary. How… inadequate. I hadn’t even really spoken to her since I returned from that wretched bunker, and both times I did nothing but panic and saddle her with responsibility. I hadn’t fought well enough in the bunker. I worried her and yelled at her. I couldn’t bring gifts or memories of my travels. All I’d done was bring a burden.

  I’ll find you—my ‘coworker’ nearly turned Valorie’s innards into outards! Mimi probably wanted nothing to do with me.

  But still.

  I couldn’t protect her, but maybe that was just circumstance. Arthen had sent me on that accursed mission—I didn’t even belong there in the first place! He was lucky he didn’t meet the same fate as that raging brute, especially after loosing that Dream-Eater on me. What a cruel joke; I could barely protect Mimi from them, either.

  Hopefully, she would heed my warning and meet with Olayemi in Mnemosyne. Far closer to Hillcrest—and the Dream-Eaters—than I would like, but I would reunite with her as soon as I was dealt my punishment from the Syndicate. The moment that Citadel collapsed, I’d made up my mind to part ways with them anyway.

  In the meantime, Mimi would survive the Forest. She had Cupcake; the thunderdog would pulverize any predator, human or animal. And I’d shown her where the bandit outposts were in my dream stones. She should be able to avoid them, no? Maybe she would even reveal the truths I’d been too cowardly to articulate.

  Before I made my way to Northstar Hollow, I paid Hugo another visit. It had been two days since the Snow Leopard attacked Mimi. My swords would have been made by now.

  Would he need a coin for each piece of him that met Kharon? Or just one for his whole body?

  “Marcel?” Hugo welcomed me, almost surprised. He was sitting at his workbench, polishing a spearhead.

  “Káàr??,” I greeted. I usually kept my distance from Reminiscents, but I had two exceptions. Hugo happened to be one of them.

  “I’m assuming you’re here for your swords, then?” He raised an eyebrow. He was always holed up in the Oven; he likely didn’t even know what had happened to Mimi and Valorie. He would find out, sure. Just not from me.

  “Abeg.”

  “You know I don’t speak Cosmaran,” he rolled his eyes, wheeling to a nearby weapon rack.

  “Pele…” I rolled my eyes. “You won’t die.”

  “I suppose not,” he sighed, retrieving my hook swords from the rack and presenting them to me, “but you definitely will.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” I replied, inspecting the silvery-white, runeiron blades.

  “I’m serious,” he urged. “Ask yourself where you’ll end up in just five years!”

  “I didn’t come for a lecture, Hugo,” I dismissed through gritted teeth. I appreciated his concern, I truly did. But he knew I never thought that far ahead.

  “How much will you punish yourself before you’re satisfied with your atonement? It’s all for Maya’s sake, yet you act so recklessly, it’s like you don’t even consider what her world would be like without you.”

  “I’ve done my part for her,” I snapped, “and I continue to do my part! So when I die, nothing will change about her world. She’ll move on and she’ll be happy. That’s why I brought her to this fortress.”

  “Your absence is an iron-maiden for her,” he sighed, exasperated. “Protected on the outside, sure, but the inside… she suffers without you more than you know.”

  “Do you know what my parents used to call her?” I asked him. “Before we were forced to abandon them?”

  “Changing the subject?”

  “She was their… ‘little butterfly.’” I scowled. “And do you know why I hated that pet name?”

  Hugo sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Why?” he offered.

  “Does she look like some delicate creature to you?”

  “Yes,” he replied bluntly.

  “You must be an amnesiac then,” I muttered as I started toward the exit. “Suffer ko, agonize, ni. she’s a survivor.”

  “If you truly thought that way,” he called after me as I stormed out of the forge, “then you wouldn’t feel the need to ‘protect’ her, now, would you?”

  ***

  I went down the west side of the mountain, toward Northstar.

  The Syndicate was only a few hours’ journey west of Snowcrest Hollow—and though the distance was convenient for me, it was… questionable, considering the animosity Snowcrest held for the Syndicate. I’d barely managed to spare the mountain from the village’s trigger-happy destruction protocol after the Snow Leopard’s… stunt.

  I should’ve just grabbed Mimi by the wrist and fled the moment he threatened me. He’d boasted about what he’d done, said he’d gladly repeat his actions if I didn’t return to the Syndicate with ‘expediency.’ His presence threatened the very existence of Snowcrest—

  As if I cared about them one way or another.

  Perhaps, then, I’d felt duty-bound to send her away and take care of my ‘business’ without her. Or maybe this was my way of forcing her hand. There was no guarantee that when I ‘found her’ it would even be in Mnemosyne, as I intended. There wasn’t even a guarantee that I would live long enough to look…

  I cursed the tanglebrush of the Forest as I progressed through the thicket. Hugo could forge these hooked swords, which weren’t even native to Reminisce or Cosmara—but he somehow couldn’t craft a functional sheath for them. They snagged on every branch and twig at every opportunity.

  There wasn’t a single thing other than wilderness between the two villages, a stark contrast to the two southern outposts and the barren northern wastelands. Most of the Forest’s animals were in their deep sleep by now; the thicket was almost eerily quiet. But I endured until I reached Northstar.

  The ‘hollow’ was bustling, as it usually was in the morning. My hands were starting to ache from holding my swords for so long, but I didn’t get to rest or even crack my knuckles before—

  DOOON!

  ***

  I awoke in a cold cell—under the Office, where we kept political prisoners. I rubbed my forehead, where I’d been struck with some sort of Sleep rune. Probably a runebolt. I hadn’t even had time to react to it. My swords were missing, and so were my runes. No matter. These bars were only about an inch thick. I could bend them out of place and free myself if I wanted to.

  “I’m sure you know why you’ve been detained,” Judge Modupe said, standing outside my cell with her arms crossed. She was wearing gold, hooped earrings—but I was disappointed to see her in a Reminiscent blouse and skirt. I found them unbecoming of a Cosmaran, especially of her esteem.

  “Hillcrest’s little castle?” I asked.

  “And desertion, Tiger Fang,” she added, furrowing her brows. She was young for a judge—only two or three years older than me.

  “Desertion?” I scoffed. “I didn’t desert. I was stuck!”

  “Stuck how?”

  “Snow Leopard didn’t tell you? I was injured and receiving treatment—the Snowcrestians wouldn’t let me leave! I can show you dream stones if you want.”

  If they had let me leave, the last place I would’ve come was Northstar—but Modupe didn’t need to know that.

  “Abeg,” she said, placing a hand on her hip. “If it’s credible, then we won’t even bring it to the Tribunal.”

  “What am I supposed to draw the stone with?” I asked.

  “Use your head,” she scoffed, turning to leave. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  ***

  She meant it literally.

  I scoured my cell for any trace of runeiron, but the only place I could find any was the prison bars themselves. She intended for me to place my head against the bars and draw the dream stone that way. Humiliating—but I knew it would at least reduce my sentence. If I was only tried for the destruction of the Citadel, then maybe I could weasel my way out. Technicalities.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  But deserters… they were invariably put to death.

  My dream stones usually came out blurrier and heavier than normal—but the Syndicate already knew this. They were always laden with… burden. Today, that would work in my favor; I could doctor my dream stones with no consequence.

  I pressed my forehead against the runeiron bars and remembered the night I’d staggered into Eliza’s infirmary

  ——————————————————————————————————————————

  “Listen to me,” I urged. “I need to leave this place—”

  “You’re hurt,” Mimi interrupted. “Let’s focus on that first.”

  I clamped my hand around hers.

  “No!” I pleaded, “I cannot stay here, Mimi. Please.”

  “Why?” Valorie asked.

  “None of your concern!” I snapped.

  Mimi gently touched my face. “You know you can’t leave, right? None of us are permitted to.”

  “That’s not true—!”

  DOOON!

  ——————————————————————————————————————————

  That should suffice, I thought, drawing the white crystal from my head. I’d changed details, added emphasis where necessary—but the overall progression of events remained unchanged. Most importantly, I left my emotions out of the dream stone. That was instinctive at this point. I always stripped my stones of emotion, especially when I gave them to Mimi to show her Reminisce’s grandeur.

  Save for the last two.

  I sat with the dream stone and waited for Modupe to return. It was the longest hour of my life. I seriously contemplated breaking my way out—but I wasn’t specialized in stealth. Strong as I was, I wouldn’t survive the entire Syndicate converging on me.

  At least, not all at once.

  Eventually, Modupe returned.

  “You have the stone?” she asked.

  “Can you see?” It was the brightest thing in my cell—almost blinding.

  “Watch your tongue, nameless one,” she warned. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Take it, now.” I ignored the insult and passed the stone between the bars.

  “Eh hehn,” she scoffed, pocketing it.

  “Why not convene the Tribunal now?” I asked her. “Why imprison me?”

  “A Hillcrestian operative came and reported you and Arthen,” she explained. “The way he described it, they might deal with him themselves. But we’ll wait maybe two weeks for him to turn up. If not, we’ll try you alone. Until then, you’ll stay here.”

  I hoped she didn’t see me roll my eyes.

  “You people love wasting time,” I muttered. “Egbami…”

  “We’re thorough,” she replied coolly. “ìy?n ni. If you were, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I was thorough,” I snapped. “Ask Reminisce what happened to their army. Better yet ask them who did it. They don’t know!”

  “You were tasked with defending the Citadel. Now it’s rubble. Thoroughly destroyed, maybe.”

  “Would you rather lose a few hundred munins in repairs,” I sneered, “or a few thousand in profits?”

  “Don’t overestimate your value,” she shot back. “Emblem-holders are just as expendable as everyone else.”

  “Ibex and Snow Leopard, maybe—but me?” I scoffed. “I’m the second coming of Achilles—”

  “Cocky, polytheistic bullshit,” she growled. “What if I grind this stone to dust—then what?”

  “Then I’ll be put to death, and you’ll lose your greatest asset. Face it, now, your best bet was to pretend nothing happened. Justice has never been the Syndicate’s strong suit.”

  “You’d better pray to your false gods that Arthen saves your ass,” she scowled. “You know we’ll be seeking death for you both—and your word means nothing to me.”

  She spat in my direction and stalked off.

  ***

  Every so often, a nameless Syndicate member would be sent down to the dungeon to bring food or allow me to relieve myself. That was the only time I ever saw beyond the prison walls, and that pattern repeated for days.

  All I could think about was where I would lead Mimi once I was released.

  Arthen had led us to Snowcrest because it was the furthest geographical point from Cosmara, but now Reminisce wasn’t safe. The Dream-Eater in Hillcrest was proof. So naturally, we should flee northward—but what lay beyond the wastelands?

  Cartographers died before they could document the northern lands. And if they didn’t, they died on the way back. The north remained a mystery.

  But all of this planning depended on Mimi actually following me.

  I’d joined the Syndicate at fourteen, and I’d been lying about the nature of my travels ever since. I’d abandoned Mimi and everyone else in my pursuit of bloodlust…but she didn’t have to forgive me. She just needed to know I was acting for her survival.

  Didn’t she?

  But how could I prove that to—

  “Marcel?” a familiar voice called.

  “Arthen,” I grunted.

  He stepped into view, and he was a completely different man from the one I remembered. Scruffy instead of well-kempt. Travel-weary. And most harrowing of all, his left leg was gone, replaced by a shoddy prosthetic.

  None of that dulled my fury.

  “These bars are only an inch thick,” I snarled. “I could sue my own power to tear myself out of here and destroy you.”

  “I’m sorry to put you through this. Truly.”

  “Those weren’t normal soldiers,” I snapped. “I could’ve died!”

  “I was confiden—”

  “Shut up.” My voice shook. “It’s my fault. I’ve never done any kind of mission like that—why? Because you never sent me. I work on the battlefield, and you sent me on defense. Which one is my own?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t go if I—”

  “You set a Dream-Eater after me. I should rip your skeleton out through your mouth.”

  “Listen, Marcel,” he tried to placate me. “You know everything I’ve done since I met you was for your sake. Yours and your sister’s.”

  “Ohhh… that’s why I’m in a cage, abi?”

  “Everything is falling into place—and it’s thanks to you. Hillcrest is vulnerable. Reminisce is reeling. Now all that’s left is the Syndicate.”

  “Are you drunk?” I hissed. “You want me to believe this is—”

  “Yes.”

  “You wasted twelve years of my life. What could possibly be different?”

  He hesitated.

  “I haven’t failed you yet,” he said at last, vague as ever. “But first, we deal with the Tribunal.”

  I couldn’t deny it. The little weasel had a talent for pulling just the right thing out of his ass to escape trouble, and I was going to need that skill if I wanted to leave here alive.

  That damnable ‘perfect’ memory. Sometimes, it felt like he had hindsight of the future.

  ***

  Arthen left, presumably for his quarters on the upper levels of the Office. Of course, he could sleep in comfort while I lay on cold stone. My thoughts drifted to the spearman from the Citadel…

  “Wake up,” Modupe said the following morning. She’d personally come to rouse me. “Trial’s starting. Unless you’d like to submit a written testimony?”

  Written. I couldn’t even right my wrongs, but she wanted something ‘written.’

  “Just unlock the cage,” I spat.

  She shrugged, did so, and led me out. The Syndicate honors its—own there was no need for shackles for someone as duty-bound as I.

  Modupe brought me to the barren, white interrogation room on the second floor and sat me before the other judges. Venoy was quite literally twiddling his thumbs, while Liz rushed out presumably to retrieve Arthen.

  She was apparently trying to break into his room; I could hear her pounding on the door from below. A few minutes later, she returned with him, and they took their seats.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Modupe said. I noticed she’d changed her earrings to gold studs. “Shall we begin?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Good,” Judge Venoy clasped his hands. “We’ve heard a grave accusation from a Hillcrestian operative. He claims you conspired to collapse Hillcrest Citadel and provided memory crystals of the wreckage as evidence.”

  Conspiracy? If we’d planned to destroy it, I could’ve done so on the first day. Why wait a month?

  “We confirmed his account held weight,” Judge Liz added. “Records show the Tiger’s Fang was present at the Citadel during the suggested timeframe and was assigned to its defense. We also saw briefly that Arthen was captured at the site of the wreckage.”

  “This event cost us thousands upon thousands of munins, a minor-faction ally, and our reputation,” Venoy continued. “We are determining whether this was gross negligence or planned conspiracy. Either way, we are seeking the death penalty.”

  A pause.

  “But, of course, we will hear your testimonies. Starting with you, Tiger Fang.”

  I hesitated. I’d spent days brooding instead of preparing a defense.

  Then it clicked.

  “Firstly,” I began, measured and calm, “thank you for hearing me. As the Tiger’s Fang, I have never once been sent on a defense mission. That is not my area of competency.

  “Secondly, toward the end of my deployment, the Citadel was ambushed not by minor-faction soldiers, but by highly trained Reminiscent operatives. They collapsed the Citadel as a last-ditch effort to escape me. I had nothing to do with that.”

  That would mostly take the heat off me, without directly blaming Arthen. I wanted to throw him under the bus—badly. But playing the blame game, especially now, would only get us both killed.

  “Oh?” Judge Modupe said. “If that’s true, then that calls Arthen into question. You were among the captured, weren’t you? So you must have contributed to the Citadel’s destruction, no?”

  “I tried to stop them,” he maintained. “But the Vanguard convinced themselves it needed to be done. I couldn’t sway them without exposing myself and the Syndicate.”

  “That it?” Judge Venoy grunted, irritation creeping into his voice.

  I wanted to kill the Snow Leopard myself. I would’ve hunted him down if I had to. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me.

  Tigers are stronger than Leopards, after all.

  But I didn’t want to be executed here, leaving Mimi unavenged. So the best thing I could do was bring him down with me.

  “No,” I seethed. “Munins ko, Reputation ko—The Snow Leopard threatens the Syndicate’s existence.”

  “What do you mean?” Judge Liz inquired, leaning forward. Arthen looked confused as well.

  “You people sent him to Snowcrest to look for me,” I snarled. “He terrorized the villagers. I personally had to talk their council down from their suicidal deadman protocol.”

  I wanted to make all of them pay—but I couldn’t mention Mimi directly. They’d dismiss me.

  “Really now?” Modupe tilted her head. “Then we’ll have you pull a dream stone from that event as well.”

  She gestured to Venoy, who retrieved two small runeiron hammers from beneath the table and placed them before us. Arthen and I each picked one up and pressed them gently to our foreheads.

  This time, I didn’t need to fabricate anything.

  When we finished extracting, we handed over our dream stones and were dismissed for the time being.

  DOOON!

  DOOON!

  DOOON!

  “How long do you think it will take them to dream-walk?” I asked as we descended the steps into the lobby.

  “I don’t know,” Arthen admitted.

  “Should we run?” I asked. How suicidally I fought in battle, only to shy away from death now. Arthen had saved me all those years ago. Perhaps I was waiting for him to save me again.

  “We should wait for the verdict,” he reasoned, scratching near his prosthetic. “If we run now, we’ll be caught and killed immediately.”

  “Well,” I sighed, more relieved than he realized. “I’m out anyway.”

  “Out?”

  “I’m going to find my sister and stay with her. I don’t want to die before I become her big brother. The Hillcrest mission made me realize that.”

  “I don’t follow,” he said. “Being her big brother is a matter of timing and genetics. You’ve always been and always will be her big brother, even after you die.”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t understand. In my eleven maybe twelve years here, I’ve only feared for my life twice. The first time was long ago, before I became ‘the Tiger Fang’ or whatever names you’ve given me. I was weak.

  “But I can’t bear to see her cry and beg me to stay anymore. So I sent her away from Snowcrest and promised to meet her in Mnemosyne. That’s where I’m going after this.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. I’d hoped she would heed my warning and leave, but I didn’t know if she actually would. It wasn’t fair to ask her to abandon everyone she cared about.

  Then again, what choice did she have?

  “I see,” Arthen said quietly. There was something guarded in his expression, something I couldn’t read. “You’re a good brother, and a good man, Marcel.”

  He looked as though he wanted to touch my shoulder—but he knew better.

  “I know better than anyone how much you suffer for her sake.”

  “You lie,” I said, smiling weakly. “I’m… irredeemable. But it’s not too late for her.”