Chapter 40: Blind Sick DogThe world was an ocean of screaming, agonizing white.

  Miz’ri pushed herself up from the cobblestones, her hands slipping in the freezing mud. She didn't know what direction she was facing. She didn't know what street she was on. She only knew that the University’s brass arm bells were ringing—a deafening, relentless, rhythmic cnging that vibrated in her teeth and echoed off the stone buildings like a physical blow.

  She forced herself to her feet, clutching the heavy leather satchel desperately to her chest, and ran.

  Her boots pounded violently against the slick stones, skidding wildly. Every frantic gasp of air dragged the thick, metallic smog of Rurokitarin down her throat like razor wire. She blinked, and a fresh wave of agony spiked through her skull. It felt as though someone had poured crushed gss directly onto her corneas. The archivist’s high-tier illumination spell had burned the darkness completely out of her sensitive red eyes, leaving only a searing, blinding afterimage of the vault window.

  Keep moving, she commanded herself, bouncing hard off a rough brick wall. Keep moving.

  She stumbled forward, her legs heavy and uncoordinated. With every jarring step, a sharp, tearing sensation ripped across her shoulder bdes. The sheer kinetic impact of her three-story fall had popped the delicate alchemical stitches holding her back together. The deep, jagged gashes left by the Dracostirges in the Hive had torn wide open. She could feel the sudden, terrifying rush of warm blood soaking through her tunic, sticking the fabric to her skin before mixing with the freezing rain that had begun to fall.

  She was bleeding out in the mud, completely blind, in the middle of a hostile city.

  As she staggered down an unseen alleyway, knocking over a metal trash bin with a deafening ctter, the sound of terrified civilians shouting pierced the ringing in her ears.

  “There! In the alley! It’s that scary Dark Elf!”

  “Thief! Get the watch!”

  “It’s a monster!”

  Months ago, Miz’ri would have smiled at that.

  The memory hit her like a punch to the gut—walking through a surface town just weeks ago, watching the townsfolk part for her. She remembered mothers yanking their sticky-faced children out of her path, staring at her obsidian skin and stark white hair with abject terror. They had seen a monster, a predator from the dark reaches below come to steal their souls. And Miz’ri had kept her chin high, her hand resting casually on the pommel of her sword. She had worn their fear like armor, reveling in it, because it was the only protection she had left.

  The chaos used to thrill her. The hatred used to feed her ego, making her feel untouchable. She used to look at them and think: Look at them. Terrified of a blind, sick dog. If I fall over now, they’ll pick my bones clean before I hit the dust.

  But as she bounced painfully off another unseen wall, her knees buckling under the weight of her own failing body, the cynical armor finally shattered. The truth of that old metaphor crashed down on her.

  She wasn't a predator wearing armor. She was just a blind, sick dog. Perhaps she had been for a long time, and was only now realizing it. The thrill was entirely gone. There was no ego left to feed, no pride to shield her from the reality of her situation. She just felt incredibly small, terrifyingly fragile, and utterly hollow. The screams of the city weren't a symphony of power anymore; they were just a deafening, suffocating wall of noise keeping her away from the girl she loved.

  And as her adrenaline began to waver, bleeding out into the cold rain, the Silence returned.

  This is what you get, the Silence hissed in her ear, sounding remarkably like the Matriarchs who had beaten her as a child. This is what happens when you try to be something else. You tried to connect. You tried to be soft. And now you are going to die for your weakness. You are weak, worthless, useless.

  "Zu’tuor pur!” (Shut up!) Miz’ri choked out, a pathetic, wet sob tearing from her throat. “Vrine'winith ol, qual.” (Stop it, please.)

  You let her love you, the voice mocked, cold and absolute. You let Talisa believe you could protect her, and now you're just going to break her heart. You should have stayed alone in the dark. You ruin everything you touch.

  "Seriso…f'sarn taudl…" (Lover…I’m sorry…) Miz’ri gasped to the empty, blinding air. "F'sarn ji taudl…” (I’m so sorry…)

  Her foot caught on a jutting cobblestone. Unable to see it, unable to brace herself, the dark elf pitched forward into the dark, her blood trailing behind her in the rain. Miz’ri hit the cobblestones hard, her chin cracking against the wet stone. She tasted copper and mud.

  For a long, terrifying moment, she couldn't breathe. The wind had been entirely knocked from her lungs, and her vision remained a useless, throbbing wall of white agony. If she relied on her eyes, she was already dead. She had to shut them, squeezing her eyelids tightly together against the phantom gre, and force her other senses to compensate.

  She inhaled deeply through her nose. The acrid, freezing smog burned her delicate mucous membranes, but beneath the heavy bnket of sulfur and coal, she caught it.

  Sweat. Damp wool. And the sharp, metallic tang of oiled iron.

  Halberds.

  "Usstan z'ken dro'xun…" (I must survive…) she whispered to herself, the native sylbles a desperate, grounding anchor against the rising panic.

  She pushed herself up on trembling arms, dragging her battered body off the main thoroughfare and into a narrow, foul-smelling gap between two stone buildings. The stench of spoiled meat, old marrow, and congealing fat washed over her, a butcher’s alley.

  She scrambled blindly over a pile of refuse, feeling the splintered, damp wood of rotting crates beneath her gloves. She wedged herself desperately into the tight recess behind them, pulling her knees to her chest and clutching the heavy leather satchel against her ribs.

  You belong with the rot, the Silence sneered in her mind. Prey hiding in the garbage. That is all you have ever been.

  "Naut ghil, naut saph nindol," (Not here, not like this,) Miz’ri whimpered silently, biting the inside of her cheek.

  She pressed her spine against the freezing brick wall to make herself as small as possible. The movement sent a white-hot fre of absolute agony across her shoulders. Her torn back was grinding directly against the rough masonry, squeezing fresh blood out of her open wounds.

  Miz’ri cmped a hand over her own mouth to smother the scream that threatened to tear from her throat.

  Cnk. Thud. Cnk. Thud.

  The heavy, rhythmic marching of armored boots halted directly at the mouth of the alley. They were inches away. If she reached her hand out through the sts of the wooden crates, she could have touched their shins.

  The heat of a ntern beam suddenly washed over her hiding spot. Even with her eyes tightly shut, Miz'ri could perceive the shift in temperature and the faint, menacing red glow filtering through her eyelids.

  "Hold up," a guard's voice echoed, rough and out of breath. "Look at this mud. Blood tracks?"

  Miz'ri bit down on her lip so hard she tasted fresh blood. Her heart hammered violently against her ribs, a frantic, trapped-bird rhythm that she was terrified the guards could hear.

  Powerless. she realized, the thought breaking over her with devastating crity. I was a fool to think I was anything more than powerless.

  Centuries of posturing, of arrogant swordsmanship, of leaning on her noble titles to project strength, it had all been a performance. Stripped of her sight, her power, and her pride, there was no apex predator left. Beneath the cynical armor, she was just a frightened, desperate girl hiding in the dark, trying not to bleed to death. Trying to not let the world prove it was right about her. Trying to not let anyone get the st ugh. Let them find you, the Silence whispered seductively, promising an end to the pain. It will be over faster.

  "Talisa," she mouthed silently against her palm. She felt her fingers touch the red cord around her neck, the anchor keeping her tied together. She grit, and refused to give in.

  A second guard grunted, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Look where we are, mate. Back end of the sughterer's block. It's just meat market runoff. Pigs and cattle. The arm came from the University, not Butcher's Row. Keep moving!"

  The light shifted away. The heavy boots turned and resumed their march, the sound fading down the rain-slicked street.

  Miz'ri held her breath until her lungs burned, listening intently as the cnking iron drifted further into the distance. Only when she was certain they were gone did she let out a ragged, shaking exhale. She slid an inch down the wall, her torn back leaving a fresh, wet smear against the brick, completely alone in the dark.

  She knew she couldn't stay there. The freezing chill of the wet brick was seeping into her bones, numbing the fiery pain in her back. It was a terrifying sign. Numbness meant her body was shutting down.

  She forced herself to stand, her legs trembling so violently they felt like unstrung bows. She began to move again, trailing a blood-slicked glove along the rough masonry of the alley wall to guide herself. Her footsteps were no longer the silent, lethal strides of a scout. They were sloppy. Heavy. She dragged her boots through the muck, gasping for air that tasted of copper and ash.

  As the physical world faded into a blurry, throbbing haze, the internal world grew deafening.

  The blood loss was taking its toll, thinning the veil between her consciousness and the void. The Silence wasn't just whispering anymore; it was settling comfortably into her mind, wrapping its cold, fatalistic arms around her fractured psyche.

  Look at you, the void crooned, a sickeningly gentle voice that echoed her deepest self-loathing. Look at what connection has wrought. You took an oath not to kill that sentry in the vault. You stayed your bde for a human woman's conscience, and now you are bleeding out. This is what love gets you, Miz'ri. You deserve this.

  "Usstan xuat rytho'le nindol…" (I don’t deserve this…) she rasped, her head lolling against the brick as she dragged herself forward.

  You don’t deserve this? You created this. You were a weapon forged in the dark. Perfect. Unfeeling. Lethal, the Silence continued, a heavy bnket pulling her toward sleep. And you let them make you soft. You are a fool to keep struggling. It hurts so much, doesn't it? Just let go like the weakling you are. Give up, you pathetic runt. Like you should have done centuries ago.

  The urge to stop was overwhelming. She thought her mental crash after escaping the hive was rock bottom, screaming at the sun to kill her. Almost like a challenge, as if the sun were to burn her off the surface, the one thing that had been killing her for her entire life wouldn’t get the chance to finish the job. But this felt like the end, the inevitable corner the Silence had been working her into. She expected terror, but this moment didn’t feel like fear; but a fading escape from all this pain. Every pain. A lifetime of pain.

  A siren’s call to simply let her knees buckle, lie down in the freezing rain, and let the darkness finally, permanently take her. It would be so easy. She was so incredibly tired. She had been fighting just to exist for decades. The pain would end. The endless, exhausting performance would stop. It could all end right here. Freedom from all this pain is just as easy as surrendering to the bde. She thought and then paused, her forehead resting against the damp brick. Her breathing was dangerously shallow. For that terrifying second, when she had agreed with the voice that she couldn't fight anymore, she felt like she could almost go through with it.

  But then her fingers, slick with mud and her own blood, brushed against the frayed edges of the red silk cord tied around her neck. Talisa. The human girl’s fierce, unwavering blue eyes fshed through the blinding white pain in Miz'ri's skull. They were a cool, piercing sanctuary against the searing agony of the archivist’s spell, cutting through the void of her despair like a lighthouse through a suffocating fog. She felt the phantom weight of Talisa’s warm hands resting firmly against her chest from just hours before, anchoring her fluttering, panicked heart.

  You are my sanctuary and I believe in you. The memory of that voice wasn't a desperate plea from a frightened girl; it was a decration of absolute, unshakeable faith. In Doulmaedes, belief was only ever conditional, she was only valued as long as her bde was sharp and her obedience to her House was absolute. But Talisa’s belief was a heavy, warm mantle freely given. It demanded nothing but that Miz'ri valued her own life enough to keep it. The Silence told her she was a monster destined to die in silence, but Talisa’s eyes promised she was someone worth waiting for. If Miz'ri surrendered to the mud now, she wouldn't just be giving up her own life; she would be making Talisa a liar. She would be proving the Matriarchs right.

  "Nau," (No) Miz'ri snarled, pushing herself violently off the wall. "Naut ghil, usstan wo naut xun nindel ulu Ilta." (Not here, I won’t do that to Her)

  She lurched forward, fueled by pure, stubborn spite, fighting against her own body and the crushing weight of her mind. But her spatial awareness was completely shattered. She misjudged the end of the alley, her guiding hand slipping off the brick corner into empty air.

  She pitched forward, stumbling wildly out of the protective shadows of the butcher's row.

  The sudden rush of wind hit her from all sides. The sounds of the city magnified tenfold. The ctter of iron-shod hooves on cobblestone, the rumble of a heavy carriage wheel cutting through a puddle, the shouting of a dozen voices. The enclosed, rotten smell of the meat market vanished, repced by the overwhelming, open stench of wet horsehair and concentrated smog.

  Miz'ri froze, her boots sinking into a deep puddle. The narrow safety of the walls was gone. She was standing in the middle of a wide, open thoroughfare.

  She was completely, horribly exposed.

  The piercing, shrill bst of a guard's whistle cut through the freezing rain, slicing right through the ringing in her ears. It was terrifyingly close, so close she could hear the rattle of the brass pea spinning inside the chamber.

  "There! In the street! Stop right there!"

  The voice was booming, authoritative, and completely devoid of the fear she usually relied on. Panic, cold and absolute, flooded Miz'ri's veins, washing away whatever weak reserves of adrenaline she had left. The narrow safety of the alley walls was gone, leaving her entirely exposed in the vast, terrifying openness of the main thoroughfare.

  She scrambled backward, her boots slipping in the deep puddles, blindly retreating from the open street and plunging back into the foul-smelling byrinth of the butcher's row. But her spatial awareness, normally a point of intense pride, was entirely shot. She was navigating purely by terror now. She stumbled through the throbbing, white-hot void of her blinded vision, her bleeding hands desperately sweeping over the slimy, wet brick as she took a sharp, frantic turn down what she prayed was an adjoining passage. She took five sloppy, spshing steps, her lungs burning, before her outstretched hands smacked ft against a solid, unyielding surface.

  A dead end.

  She spun around with a choked gasp, her torn back smming hard against the cold masonry. The impact sent a fresh wave of blinding nausea through her system. From the mouth of the alley, the heavy, rhythmic thud of armored boots was already marching inward. Cnk, thud. Cnk, thud. They weren't running; they didn't need to. They had her boxed in, and they knew it. The sounds echoed off the narrow brick walls, multiplying until it sounded like an entire army was descending upon her. She was completely, utterly trapped.

  With a trembling, blood-slicked hand, Miz'ri reached down to her calf. Her numb fingers fumbled for a second before closing around the braided red and white leather grip of Artie's reforged dagger. She drew it from its sheath with a shaky, rattling breath. The bde, meant for scrappy, close-quarters survival, felt impossibly heavy in her weakened grip. It was a far cry from the elegant, perfectly banced longsword she had wielded for decades. She couldn't see her attackers; she could only hear their boots scraping against the cobblestones, the clinking of their chainmail, and the hiss of the rain hitting their hot nterns. She could hear them talking, but comprehending anything was difficult at this point. She could barely stand, her knees threatening to buckle with every heartbeat. Nevertheless, she raised the bde into a shaky defensive guard, preparing for a pathetic, blind final stand. She knew with absolute, chilling certainty that she would be cut down in seconds. She was no match for a squad of armed watchmen, not like this.

  Tears of sheer frustration and profound, soul-crushing regret spilled from her burned eyes. The hot, stinging saltwater mixed with the freezing rain, the ash, and the mud smeared across her cheeks.

  "F'sarn taudl" (I’m so sorry) she whispered into the dark void of her ruined vision, her voice cracking terribly. She wasn't talking to the guards moving in for the kill. She was talking to the girl she was leaving behind in a cheap inn room. "Usstan hojjau dos” (I failed you.)

  She tightened her grip on the dagger, though her entire arm was violently shaking. The agonizing physical pain of her torn back and burned eyes was entirely eclipsed by the suffocating, crushing weight of her regret. She realized, in this final, desperate moment, that she wasn't actually afraid of dying. She had courted death for decades. What terrified her, what made her chest heave with genuine panic, was the pain her death was going to cause the one girl who had dared to believe in her. Talisa had been safe, pious, and whole before Miz'ri had dragged her into a world of monsters, heists, and blood.

  “Usstan zhal' naut inbal ori'gato dos ssinssrigg uns'aa”(I shouldn't have let you love me) Miz'ri sobbed, the dark fatalism finally pulling her under completely as the boots grew louder, the iron halberds scraping against the brick walls. "Usstan fridj aslu dos jivviim. Usstan dregztus dos wund l'tona'xuil uns'aa. Usstan asrogg rilbol Usstan xta'rl. Usstan lar tlun natha phindar, lu'Usstan rytho'le nindol. F'sarn ji taudl. F'sarn ji, ji taudl.”(I just got you hurt. I dragged you into the dirt with me. I ruin everything I touch... I really am a monster, and I deserve this. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry)

  Between the profound, weeping regret, the uncontrolble trembling of her limbs, and the sheer volume of dark blood soaking through her ruined tunic, she looked entirely, undeniably pathetic. Just a broken, bleeding woman, holding a scrappy knife in the pitch bck, waiting for the executioner's blow to finally end the spiral. To end her like she had begged the awful sun to do days before.

  But the executioner's axe didn't come. Just as the heat of the watchmen's nterns fred against the wet brick, painting her bleeding silhouette in stark, unforgiving relief, the shadows directly above her head shattered.

  A heavy mass dropped from the rooftops with the terrifying, silent grace of a hunting spider. Before Miz'ri could even process the sudden dispcement of air, a hand shot out from the pitch-bck overhang above the alley. It grabbed the thick colr of her leather tunic and forcefully, violently yanked her upward into the dark.

  Miz’ri shrieked, her combat instincts fring in a desperate surge of final adrenaline. She thrashed wildly in the unseen attacker's grip. She twisted her body, driving her reforged dagger upward in a vicious, blind arc aimed squarely for the center of her captor's mass.

  The bde punched through yers of thick, heavy wool, but instead of finding soft tissue or warm blood, the steel met a strange, unyielding resistance. CRACK. The dagger scraped violently, sickeningly against bare, rigid bone. It was a texture she was intimately, horrifyingly familiar with. Her knife had done absolutely nothing but ruin a winter coat.

  Before she could pull the bde back for a second strike, a heavy, wool-mittened hand cmped firmly over her mouth, entirely swallowing her scream. Simultaneously, another hand, possessing an unnatural, rigid, mechanical strength that brooked absolutely no argument, cmped down on her wrist, completely immobilizing her knife arm.

  Suspended in the air, dangling blindly in the grip of a monster, Miz'ri froze.

  Right beside her pointed ear, she heard it. A distinct, dry, rhythmic sound vibrating beneath the yers of wool mufflers. Cck-cck-rattle.

  She inhaled sharply through her nose. Beneath the overwhelming stench of the city smog, she caught the unmistakable scent. Stale earth. Wet wool. And the faint, sharp tang of ozone that accompanied Talisa’s preservation magic that kept the old man in one piece. It was Pappy.

  Below them, the squad of university guards swept into the dead-end alley, their heavy boots spshing through the puddle where Miz'ri had been standing mere seconds before. Lantern light swept frantically across the brick walls, illuminating the dead end, but finding nothing but rain, trash, and a smear of fresh blood fading into the mud.

  "Where in the hells did she go?" a guard barked, his voice echoing in confusion.

  "Tracks end here!" another yelled. "Check the grates! She must have slipped into the sewers!"

  “She must have been a demon, did you see those eyes?” the guard barked as he followed his superior officer.

  Pappy held Miz'ri flush against the brick wall of the building, fifteen feet above the alley floor, clinging to the shadows with impossible, supernatural strength. He kept his mittened hand cmped tightly over her mouth, muffling her ragged, terrified breathing as the guards cursed, turned on their heels, and jogged back out into the main street to continue the hunt.

  As the sound of their iron halberds faded into the storm, the st remaining shred of Miz'ri's fight drained completely out of her. The tension snapped. “Thank you” the dark elf said wearily as she slumped heavily against the bundled skeleton, dropping her dagger to let it dangle uselessly from its nyard. Her eyes were beginning to slump, it was clear that she needed critical aid immediately.

  With a jerky, mechanical motion, Pappy adjusted his grip on her harness. Then, moving with a terrifying, skittering speed that defied all natural ws of gravity and weight, the reanimated scoundrel began to carry Miz’ri away into the foggy Rurokitarin night. “Where are we going?” Miz’ri asked, her voice weak and hoarse, eyes still full of after images and pain in every new bright light upon the rooftops of this city.

  "Hold on tight, young dy" a rough, muffled voice echoed directly beside her ear. "You're bleeding all over my good coat."

  Miz'ri froze, her breath catching in her throat. She blindly swatted at his skull. "You... you can talk? You could talk this whole time…?”

  She heard a cttering of his jaw, as close to a belly ugh as his body could produce now. “Of course! Most normal skeletons need a spell cast on them to talk. I let my granddaughter believe I was ‘normal’ for her sake. If I was chatting her ear off, the Ministry would come down on her looking for answers to questions she couldn’t answer. But as we are now, out of the frying pan and into the fire, I see no reason to hold my non-existent tongue anymore.”

  “I see… you are a clever old man.” Miz’ri’s mind searched back for every moment when she thought she knew what Herkel meant, every time he stayed silent as she shed verbal barbs at him, acting like he was a punching bag that couldn’t fight back. “Sorry if I’ve been a bitch to you up until now. You’ve saved my life.”

  “You may be saving my afterlife, and my family’s current lives,” Herkel said, his voice seemingly resonating from inside his skull outward. It sounded almost muffled, like his soul was speaking from behind a wall. But he was very much present, actively in this moment. “I think we have a lot to talk about, Miz'ri. But that comes after you’re not bleeding out.”

  Miz’ri nodded her head, too exhausted to argue, and let herself be carried. The fight was out of her, and she was safe; for now. "Where are we going?" she rasped. "We can't go back to the inn. Not yet, we can't drag the guards back to the gang."

  "I agree, I know a pce," Herkel said, his skeletal hands gripping the ste roof as he leaped across a terrifying, open gap between two buildings. "An old friend. A doctor who owes me a favor. Assuming Katie hasn't rotted away completely in the st twenty years, she'll patch you up."

  Miz’ri nodded, and tried to close her eyes. “Okay…” She knew she was going to be helped, but for now all she could do was wallow in the misery of the moment. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “No need to apologize. By golly, I’ve been through a few scrapes like this in my day.” Herkel said as they moved, a twinge of nostalgia in his tone. “Doc first. Talk next.”