For Lack of Empathy

[Rayse Valentino]

Closed.

Many years ago...

The first time you come to Ettermire, you keep your eyes to yourself. Your fear makes you watch your feet, your back, anything that makes you think they're not looking at you. But they are. They're burning holes into the back of your head. You stay close to the people you came with, you don't wander off the path you're given. Your concern over your own safety trumps that of your curiosity for these strange black structures all over the city. The steam that rises out of them, making you think that the whole place is just one huge set of armor that's on fire. Even the streets are straight, makes you feel like you're walking on glass.

The second time, you notice them. You catch a glimpse of one of the drow. They're still staring at you, but now you stare back for an equal display of foreign hatred. It gives you power. You remember why you're here, what you're supposed to do. No longer is your only impulse to just leave as fast as you can.

After the fourth time, you realize that you're not the one scared of them. They're scared of you.

It was Rayse's third year in the academy. Of course, his name wasn't actually Rayse. It was Trent Loryn Junior. But, between him and his best friend Vincent, it was Rayse. There were two types of kids in the academy: The ones who cared about their career and the ones that didn't. Vincent was the former, while Rayse the latter. Although only one type of kid got into the damn thing in the first place: The rich. All the poor kids of Salvar go to boot camp a little later in their teenage years, but the rich kids go to the academy where they start as officers. It's not unusual in the Salvar military to be outranked by someone half your age.

Since the Ettermire-Knife's Edge train was established a year ago, somebody in charge decided it was a good idea to get rich academy kids experience with drow. Up until the train was built, the average Salvaran's perception of drow was based on stories by traders coming from the Kachuckian border. Now, they were damn near everywhere. Since they only dealt with the higher-ups anytime one was seen in Knife's Edge, they gained a sort of illusive status among the populace. But to the military people coming to perform government duties in Ettermire, they knew the truth. They knew what it was like to become pariahs everywhere they go in the city. They knew that it was likely the same feeling that drow felt in Knife's Edge.

This trip, Rayse was accompanied by at least a dozen officers from a real military base and a few students like himself, including Vincent, who was coming here for his third time. The two were thick as thieves, often playing pranks on their underclassmen. Vincent was a strange kid, because while he teased and bullied the same as everyone, he refused to participate in the little academy smuggling ring that Rayse conducted with another friend, Robert.

The contingent was on a fairly important assignment this trip. Some sort of rare magical tribal kid was caught and the maniacs back in Knife's Edge decided that they wanted her. Alerar was quick to offer gifts to foster their relationship, so they arranged a secure transfer of the prisoner. All of the men from Salvar wore red grenadier jackets with black sashes across them, some more decorated than others. The academy kids also wore them, although they were not officially graduated into the army yet.

Right now, Rayse was marching in formation down one of the streets of Ettermire. The pure flat ground allowed them to march in unison, and at their sides were the tall square buildings of Ettermire. They were black structures, built several stories tall although only the first couple floors were in use. The drow say that they made the foundation from steel, but it was a hard pill for a Salvaran to swallow. Nonetheless, the streets were surrounded by these tall structures, with alleys between them so thin that from the center of the street it looked like you were surrounded by two black walls. Even the ground was dark, the flat stone mixed with bits of metal. It was sunset already, giving the buildings a strange glow like they were reflecting a huge fire somewhere far away. To first-timers in Ettermire, they were terrifying. The streets were cleared out for this contingent, with drow standing at the sides and glaring.

Rayse and Vincent were in the back of the group, walking in lockstep with wandering eyes. In front of them were a few more soldiers that surrounded the prisoner, and then a couple more at the front leading the way. The whole formation looked like a snake that just swallowed a rabbit whole. They could see the barefoot prisoner in front of them, and it was a young child.

The kid wore what looked like rags; probably her old clothes before they were torn up getting captured. She had chains around her arms and legs, but the kicker was she looked no older than 8 years of age. She had long black hair that went down everywhere, reaching down to the small of her back. Her long bangs covered her bright blue eyes, and on her bruised and dirty face was an expressionless look. The kid looked like she shut herself off from the world.

"The hell is up with this, man?" Rayse whispered to Vincent. "Why are we escorting some little kid?"

Vincent replied in whisper, "I heard some of the higher-ups talking about it. Apparently her tribe is like, pure magi or something. Like she was just born being able to do all kinds of crazy shit."

"That's fucked up." Salvarans had a bit of prejudice against magi. They stopped talking when an officer in front of them looked back for a moment, and then continued his march.

[Taische]

Though bare brown toes probed the unforgiving worked stone, Taische couldn't hear the earth sing beneath her feet. Instead, Ettermire sighed and screamed in its weariness and agony. Not for the first time, the child wished for her shoes so she could drown out the sound of Althanas's suffering. The air hung heavy with ash and grime, filling her lungs with its putrid bitterness. No matter how much she coughed, though, it lingered in her chest.

Ten days had passed and then five more since she'd been abruptly delivered to the land of elves whose skin was dark as sand and soot, whose food was mushy and full of bugs (although she didn't mind those as much as the mush), and whose language hooked and bumped around a flowing base. This dark elven tongue almost reminded her of a river running too fast and hard for its bed. She'd figured out a few words from her captors - she was l' dalhar, for one thing - but no one had told her what was happening or why she was there.

Sure, she might have hit a couple of them with a metal pole... and maybe those four men were pretty badly burned, but she'd been scared and everyone would be okay. Didn't the grown-ups know she was scared? She was only eight summers old.

Where's matháir?

Taische's most prevalent thought since her arrival had been of her mother, who was absolutely, definitely for sure coming to get her. Even after two weeks of nothing, she still knew that lightning would shatter the sky at any minute, that Taodoine would scream angrily, and that her mother would beat up all the bad guys and take her home.

Over time, every other thought had faded. She didn't wonder what had happened to bring her here anymore. She didn't cry at how miserable and dirty the city was. She wasn't homesick, she didn't miss her doll Hannah. She wasn't even mad that she'd been kidnapped anymore. She just knew her mommy was coming, then the bad guys would all be sorry.

Dragged down by the misery around her and the beatings when she acted out, Taische's initial defiance had turned to listlessness. She hadn't questioned when the guards had come into her dingy cell or complained about the heavy shackles that hurt her wrists and ankles. She had even trudged obediently out of the big prison and into the hazy light of day. Dull blue eyes watched some humans march up. She watched without interest as some fancy man and a fancier elf stepped forward to dance the careful steps of not-quite friends making a trade. Now she trudged along, as fast as she was able with the heavy chains hindering her, but still not fast enough for the men in red and black, so sometimes she got a rough push to keep her moving.

The wind shifted, bringing in hot, dry air from the south. Something murmured in the breeze, a whisper of warning. The child's eyes sharpened and her head lifted, turning to look around from under the matted mess of black hair. When her eyes crossed the Salvarans, they didn't linger; the men weren't what she was looking for. She even ignored the hand that grabbed her to keep her moving, for she had stopped completely to listen to the wind and heed it.

Where is it? And what is it?

[Rayse Valentino]

Vincent was, well, Vincent. About the same size as me, but with brown hair and brown eyes. We clicked immediately when we first met in our first year of academy. He lost his mom at an early age as well, but he had about six years to my two, so he actually remembers her. We always talked about the absurdity of nobility, how being born into this life somehow made us better than other people. We both wanted to grow up into our own men, free from the expectations of others. He was like me in that we tried to skirt the nonsensical orders we were given, but I was doing it out of spite; him out of some notion of true justice or whatever.

If there was ever a person I would trust to watch my back in my weakest moments, it would be him.

The red-clothed human procession stopped in the middle of the street. In front of them were several overturned wagons, all leaking hot refuse from some construction work. The waste was being transported across town to a dump site, but the hot metal burned through the frames of their transports, spilling out into the street. It gave off a noxious odor, and the only drow near it were in masks. The man with the most decorations on his uniform walked up to one of the drow and told him their situation, but the masked drow simply shook his head and pointed at one of the alleys.

Rayse and Vincent questioned this whole spectacle in whispers. Why not just stick the prisoner onto something with wheels and covertly take her to the train station? Vincent heard that the prisoner would just slowly burn through whatever they put her in somehow, so by keeping her on the move she remains too tired to resist, but the logic of such a claim was questionable. Couldn't they just cover her with something fire-retardant first? Rayse's theory was different: It was a show. Having a Salvaran military presence prance through the streets of Ettermire conveyed a message to the lower class drow- that this was normal. Humans in this city showed a future to everyone that they must accept, and any action against them could be considered an action against the Queen of Drow herself. Ironically, it was safer to do it this way than trying to keep it a secret.

Still, this situation was odd. Rayse expected them to turn around and take the long way, but the leader of the contingent wanted to maintain his schedule. Vincent agreed with Rayse, but being mere academy students they didn't dare to speak up. So that was how a bunch of uniformed humans with a prisoner entered the back alleys of Ettermire.

You never appreciate the sky until it disappears. Looking up from the alley you could only see smoke. The walls were close, each one part of a long windowless building that the drow love constructing. There were some windows on the floors above the ground floor, but it was impossible for any thieves to enter without a long ladder. It was from these windows that smoke seeped out, creating a ceiling of fog that settled not far from the heads of the contingent walking through. There were some doors along the way, but they were made of steel with intricate locks on them. Some of the soldiers were starting to feel short of breath, which was reasonable given that they only had about three meters of walking space between the menacing walls. Rayse looked back, and noticed a couple of masked drow standing at the entrance to the alley. They were pretty far away now, but still there, staring at him. A few rats skittered around, which kept everyone looking down. One of the soldiers lit a torch, since the light from the sunset did not reach into this cramped area.

Halfway through the long alley, a few pebbles fell on Vincent's shoulder. He looked up, but nothing could be seen through the smoke. Were they in-between two factories or something? Rayse saw that Vincent was distracted and looked up as well, and both of them stopped. There was a shadow. It was just barely visible, but it was there. Long strips of shadows between the buildings... were they planks of wood? Beams of metal? Then, they noticed it: The shadows were moving. Someone was on top of the beams. They both stopped, but it was too late.

In front of them, drow wearing chain mail, armed with maces and axes, leapt from the shadows and onto the soldiers. Both of the teenagers felt that dreaded feeling in their hearts, like a sharp knife being plunged into their chests. The soldiers, completely unprepared for the ambush, fell quickly despite outnumbering the drow nearly four to one. The torch fell to the ground, its flickering light giving the gruesome details of the battle in bursts. One of the drow noticed the two teenagers, who were frozen with fear, and was about to charge them when there was a great flash of light. They all shielded their eyes.

"We have to go now!" Rayse said with urgency.

It was then that the little tribal kid fell in front of them. She was the only one to move during the flash of light; a mad dash back to the entrance of the alley. She didn't make it far before tripping on the chains. The drow who was going to charge them finally recovered from the light, and decided to pull out a flintlock pistol to dispatch the teenagers. What they saw next amazed them.

While lying on her side, the kid conjured a spark. It looked like it appeared from nothing, but small trails could be seen coming from the torch. She flung the spark into the pistol's barrel, which caused it to burst in the drow's hands. The drow dropped the burnt weapon, screaming out in pain from the burns on his hands and the shrapnel that lodged into his dark skin.

"Give me a pick!" Vincent demanded. He knew that Rayse always carried a few lock picks on him.

"Screw that, man, let's go!"

"I'm not going until you give it to me!"

Rayse begrudgingly produced the pick, fumbling it in his nervous hands and giving it to Vincent, who then applied it to the kid's chains.

"What are you doing?!"

Vincent didn't answer, instead maneuvering the pick with precision to relieve the child from the chains on her hands. He then helped the kid up and grasped her by the shoulder.

"Whatever you did, do it again to that lock," said Vincent, pointing to the intricate lock on the metal door next to him.

"What?! You lost your mind, Vin-"

"Shut it, Rayse! You think we can just go back the way we came? They're waiting for us!"

Rayse looked back at the entrance to the alley, and there were indeed several drow now running at them. He fell to his knees, almost giving up until he looked at the tribal kid and saw her holding the lock to the door, watching the lock start to change from its blueish-black color to a bright yellow, then orange, then red. The next thing he knew, the whole damn thing fell to the ground. Nobody needed to order them to do what they did next. Leaving the carnage of the soldiers being slaughtered, the three of them pushed the door open and ran into the building on one side of the alley.

[Taische]

Taische turned a hard left as soon as her tiny body slipped through the door and into the lightless building. She hated it, the lack of air and space, the feeling that the walls would fall in around her and that she would never find her way out. But though sore and tired, her feet drew her left, and she knew better than to doubt her intuition. She was only just starting to grow into the O’Sheean birthright, but it would not lead her wrong.

“Hey!” Called a male voice from behind her. Obviously one of the two northerners thought they would be taking the lead, but not when they were slow.

“This way!” She called, holding up her right hand and setting it alight, still running down the long, narrow hall. “Hurry or they’ll get you!”

With no choice but to follow, the older kids were quick on her heels, with the one who wanted to leave her behind passing her in a few quick strides and the one who had unchained her following behind to make sure she kept up. Her little legs needed two steps for every one of theirs, but she was almost running, half panicked… and with good reason.

The door banged open harder behind them, letting four of the armed dark elves into the building behind them. Crossbow bolts peppered the walls and floor around them as they took a hard turn up a flight of stairs. Taische screamed and fell hard on the steps as one quarrel passed so close to her that it tugged on hair. Her light faltered, threatening to go out, and she flailed uselessly on the steps, limbs refusing to work in concert. Thankfully, the strong, gentle arms of the teen behind her lifted her up and carried her up the rest of the flight. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered, trying to soothe her even while adrenaline sent the blood pounding in his ears. “Just gotta keep moving.”

He set her down when they reached the top, nudging her to the right to send her back after Rayse, who was waiting for them impatiently. Thankfully, the child was able to get her feet back under her immediately, and she hurried to catch up to the other boy, dirty bare feet slapping the cold tile.

Rayse led them on a rapid course through the factory, turning them right and left seemingly at random to throw their pursuers off, and Vincent pulling things down behind the group to slow the quartet of dark elves down. Right, left, left, up some stairs, down some stairs, down more stairs, right, right, up again, right, left.

“Not that way!” Taische cried when Rayse went to turn them right again, reaching for a door as their pursuers burst into view once more. He didn’t listen to her, charging them into a cluttered factory room with two ways out: the door the armed Alerians were converging on and a rare window. The wrong turn had cost them; there was no choosing another way to run.

Desperate for escape, Rayse hurried to the window, throwing it open with a mighty heave of his arms. “The street is clear! We can make it,” he called to his best friend, planting a foot on the sill.

Bitter wind roared into the room, and Taische looked up at Vincent, chin bleeding from the hard fall. “Pull down that shelf!”

She didn’t have to tell him twice; the wooden shelf, loaded with turpentine and cleaning chemicals, clattered to the floor, breaking open some of the containers. She flicked her hand, killing the flame that had lit their path and sending sparks to consume the whole flammable mass in an inferno of choking smoke.

“Come on!” Rayse shouted, jumping out.

[Rayse Valentino]

Old Ettermire.

The city they don’t want you to see. The last landmark of the history of drow servitude. They built tall factories around this whole area, sectioning it off, hiding it from the glare of other kingdoms. The derelict structures that remain serve as hideouts for criminals, revolutionaries, fugitives, and those without true homes.

The three of them stood at the edge of the massive opened window. Smoke poured out of the top, and the drop to the alley below was about 12 feet, about triple the height of the tribal kid. Sitting on the edge, Rayse dropped down first, feeling a bit of strain as he landed on his feet, but nothing that would keep him from running. He turned around and motioned for Vincent to follow. The other teenager mimicked Rayse's motion and also dropped down. Rayse took that to mean they were ready to go, so he started running only to find that Vincent was still standing under the window.

"What's the hold up?!" Rayse yelled.

"Come on, kid, I'll catch you," Vincent smiled. The girl was still climbing up on the edge of the window.

Rayse couldn't believe it, "Are you serious? You're going to get us both killed! Let's go!"

"I'm not leaving without her!" Vincent shot back, and then looked back up at the kid, holding out his arms. "Come! There's no time to be afraid! Let yourself go!"

The kid perched in the window with her toes gripping the sill. She looked toward the source of some noise behind her, then back down, adjusting herself a little and leaping. Her body crashed into Vincent's chest, and they both fell to the ground. After getting up, they joined Rayse and ran into Old Ettermire.

The first thing that assaulted them was darkness. The factories around the old city were like walls, keeping everything inside. There was enough light to see, but not enough to make out the details of where they were going; they simply ran, passing by large shadows that threatened to swallow them whole if they lingered too long. Few of the houses had doors, and those that did, Rayse tried to see if they would close before heading over to the next one. Eventually they found a door with a functional locking mechanism and ran inside.

They were all exhausted, the tribal kid especially. She was laying prone on the stone floor, sucking in air like she’d never breathed before in her life and wasn’t sure she’d ever get the chance again. Rayse, ever the one to forget the immediate danger to pursue other priorities, looked incredulously at his friend.

"What's up with you, man?" He said in a harsh whisper. "Why are you taking the kid with us? She's only going to slow us down."

Vincent understood where Rayse was coming from. It was a reasonable concern, as they had all come very close to getting axes lodged in their craniums.

"I know what you're thinking too," Rayse continued. "The whole damn reason we got jumped is because of this kid! We don't owe her anything!"

"We owe her a promise," Vincent replied. "We agreed to guide her to the train station. Nothing has changed about that."

"So this is about duty? Who cares about that shit?"

"I do."

Their eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and they saw that they were face to face. The thing about friendship is that true friends aren't carbon copies of each other. They can have disagreements and fights about all sorts of things, but they will always move on. Sometimes they would fight and not talk to each other for a day or two, then go back to normal as if nothing ever happened. Other times, Vincent apologized even though he didn't truly believe he was at fault. Rayse would never apologize, but his sheer helplessness made him drop the subject this time. Vincent was the only one among them with any semblance of a plan.

"Do what you want, man. Just don't get us killed."

"I won't. I promise." Vincent looked at the kid. "Got a name? I'm Vincent, and my idiot friend over here is Rayse."

The kid hadn't said a word since leaving the factory, and she had no reason to trust these boys. After all, one of them wanted to abandon her to die. However, the sincerity of Vincent's voice, the way he had carried her when she fell and caught her when she jumped made her trust the teenager. He wasn’t like the other one; he could have run, but he didn’t. So she answered him. “Taische.”

"Tasha?”

“Tash-ka,” she corrected.

A light suddenly illuminated the old room, showing the faces of the three. Rayse held a lit match, and used it to light one of his pilfered cigarettes. Before he could put it in his mouth, Vincent slapped it out of his hands and stamped it out.

"H-hey!" Rayse said, in a tone that changed halfway to a whisper.

"You trying to get us killed?!" Vincent scolded. "You think they won't bust down the house that smells like smoke?"

"Damn it, man, I haven't had a smoke since I got off the train."

"You're so single-minded, Rayse."

"Listen to the kid," came a gruff voice from the back of the room. The three bolted upright and put their hands up, looking for the source of the voice. "Calm down, I'm not after you."

"You don't want to get caught, after all," the voice continued, coming into the light. It was a tall drow with long white hair, and a certain sadness weighing heavily in his eyes. He was wearing a brown tunic. "It didn't look like you were leaving, so I thought that I would go first."

"Who the hell are you?" Rayse asked.

"There are two kinds of elves that go into houses like these: The poor and downtrodden, and illicit deal makers."

"Which one are you?"

"Don't get me wrong. I may be poor of heart and soul, but I am not lacking in coin. I thought I had a deal here, but apparently I was ditched. It happens in this business. Look, I'm not going to tell anyone where you are, but you better leave soon. Once they figure that you stopped running and started hiding, they'll check places like these as well."

"Why are you helping us?"

"I don't know. I'm no good guy. Let's just say that us drow aren't all the same. I look forward to the day where we can openly trade with Salvar, you know the kind of trade where merchants can come into town without fear and set up shop. I long to see your city of Knife's Edge, but instead the only ones allowed to go are Graf-lovers and royalists." He sighed. "Take it easy, little ones." He walked up to the door and unlocked it. He looked at Vincent for a moment. "Duty isn't all it's cracked up to be, kid."

Opening the door, he looked around to make sure nobody was seeing him leave, and closed it behind him. Vincent did not think of his words at the moment, but little by little they started to eat away at him. Was he really doing the right thing?

Poor of heart and soul. I would not learn the meaning behind those words until much later.

[Taische]

With the elven man gone, the three kids looked at each other in the thin slivers of light that passed through the cracks in the door and shutters. The darker boy wore a sour, irritated look on his face, the lighter boy’s teeth raked his bottom lip as he tried to think his way out of their predicament and to the assumed safety of the train station, and the little girl looked between the two of them from under a thick mane of matted black hair.

Vincent looked down into the wide blue eyes and gave the kid a reassuring smile, kneeling down to check that her chin wasn’t bleeding too much. “You’re doing great so far, Taische. You’re being very brave. Can you keep being brave for just a little longer?” Behind him, Rayse let out a sigh that was very nearly a disgusted scoff.

The child nodded, and the kind teenager patted her on the head. “Good. Now, we’re going to leave this building and run so the sun is on our left side. That will take us deeper into the city, where they won’t be looking for us. Then we find a better hiding place than this, stay very quiet, and try to get to the train during the night. Then we’ll all go back to Salvar, where it’s safe.” Considering what the child was, safe might have been less than true for her, but it would almost certainly be safer than Alerar.

“You’re going to get us killed!” Rayse snapped from by the door. He hushed instantly when heavy treads passed by, scarcely daring to breathe until whatever had caused the sound was long past. “We are humans in Ettermire,” he whispered harshly. “We have to get out as quickly as we can, or we. Are. Dead. We stick out like furboars in the king’s palace! What part of staying here for even one more second is a good idea?”

Vincent stood, setting his jaw and looking at Rayse. “Right now we are being actively hunted. At night -”

“They can see in the dark! We are-”

Taische raised her hand uncertainly. “Um. We can’t stay here anymore. We need to go. If we leave completely and go to where it’s really outside, my mommy can find us easier! She’ll beat up the bad guys and take us all home,” she promised with both the naivete and sincerity afforded to small children.

Rayse glowered at the small girl. Vincent glared at his friend. “Do you have any plans, Mr. Sneak and Smuggle? Then let’s go deeper into the city.”

The kids waited until it was quiet outside, then cracked the door open and carefully peered around. The street looked quiet, so they rushed out in single file, Vincent in front this time, holding Taische’s hand to make sure she kept up, and Rayse grudgingly brought up the rear. They fled quickly, alert eyes probing for any movement. There was plenty of it - the occasional vagrant wandering around, the cats and crows that hunted for whatever scraps of food the dingy streets offered, shadows that flickered all around them like frightful ghosts...

The child looked up, at the hazy sky and the tall chimneys that belched black bile upwards, choking both air and earth. The smoke twisted and coiled, like a noose slowly tightening. Like… like…

“Stop!” The child dug her heels in before Vincent could turn them around a sharp corner. “They’re coming.”

The boy tugged on her arm. “That’s why we have to-”

“No!” Taische pulled free, head whipping around frantically, irises white as fog. “No, no no no no no no… They’ll be here soon and they’re coming from there and we can’t go back the other way because they’ll see us!”

Finally, her eyes lighted on a thin metal pipe, cast off as refuse from some project or thrown out as trash when it had broken, and she reached for it. Thick black sludge ran down the side of the building, gleaming in the sick light of the day. It pooled in cloying puddles at the base of the building, but while its very existence disgusted the girl, just at that moment it gave her hope.

“Stand over there because I can make them run away, maybe.” She pointed to a tiny alcove in the wall, one of many, coating both ends of her pipe with the tar. The boys opened their mouths, both in some form of protest, but she looked up at them with eyes blue as fire. “Just do it or you’ll get burned!”

Without waiting for them to do as she said or arguing more that they should, she started drawing on the street with her copper pipe and the rancid pollution. “Circle for truth," she recited, trying to keep her magic right, "square for strength… A line across and across for intersecting fates. Umm…. uh…” She scrunched her face, trying to remember what went into the arcs where the square and the circle didn’t touch. “Earth to bind… and...and air to breathe. Fire and fire to burn bright and hot. And the word of power in the middle.”

While Taische was drawing her magic circle, Rayse took note of their immediate surroundings. They were in a narrow alleyway, made much more tight by the apparent collapse of the building on their left. There was a makeshift ceiling above them created from the rubble that looked unstable, making the alley appear triangular. A thought lingered in the back of his mind, but he put it away.

She stood in the middle of the circle for a few seconds, tiny body shaking in terror and breaths coming in hard, fast gasps. But her blue eyes focused on the street ahead, where, sure enough, their pursuers burst into view. One of them shouted, leveling his crossbow at her, but she let out a shout as well, as loud as her lungs could manage. She lifted her makeshift staff, igniting the ends with a pair of sparks from her hands and spinning it around with precision belied by her age. A pair of bolts flew for her, but she spun low, letting them fly over her head as she began a stomping, kicking dance.

“A leanbh mo chléibh go n-eirÃ* do chodhladh leat!” She chanted purposefully. “Séan is sonas gach oÃ*che do chóir! Tá mise le do thaobh ag guÃ*dhe ort na mbeannacht! SeothÃ*n a leanbh is codail go foill!”

Both little bare feet planted themselves firmly on the ground, and fire burst forth from the girl, igniting the circle with potent blue flame that flared viciously skyward. The dark elves looked at each other, uncertain, but kept advancing on the group of human young. The circle flared again, blowing the girl’s hair and rags every which way, but not burning her despite the roiling, shimmering heat. Her eyes glowed gold at the dark elves, full of magic and malice.

“Do ya want t' see what it does?” She challenged, hands gripping her weapon and knees bending. One of the elves snapped a command to his comrades, and they all withdrew. Why risk injury when the child would soon tire?

Taische fell to her knees when they were out of sight, starting to breathe again. Her circle of fire, no longer needed, flickered and died. The boys hurried out of their hiding place to her side.

“What was that?” Vincent asked her, helping her to her feet and back on the move.

“Just something my mom used to sing when I was little to help me go to sleep. I thought if I said it scary, they would be scared and go away. I really, really wanted to run away, but she says that if you face scary things, most times they’re more scared of you.”

Rayse shook his head, hurrying along behind Vincent and Taische again. How little this kid knew.

[Rayse Valentino]

They ran for what seemed like an eternity, the setting sun chasing through the cracks of the crumbling derelicts. Pain grew in their legs until each step felt like someone was driving a splint through their knees. Taische’s strength gave out first, and while once again Rayse pleaded to leave her behind, Vincent started looking around for some place to rest. While they ran, factories clanged ever louder, echoing throughout the streets like a warning. They continued for a little while longer until the girl collapsed in pain, tears in her eyes and teeth biting lip tightly to stifle the cry. She rolled over to her side and held onto her foot as if it was about to fall off, noticing a sharp metal shard that had pierced the thick callous.

“You’re playing with our lives here!” Rayse spat. He slammed his fist into a nearby wall.

Vincent ignored Rayse’s outburst, rushing over to Taische and noticing the splinter. His eyes darted around their immediate area. “I see an alley we can duck into, there might be an back entrance. Carry her, you’re the stronger of us.”

“No way.”

“Come on Rayse, you owe me!”

Rayse hesitated, his eyes blinking in disbelief. He never expected Vincent to pull that card. Grudgingly, he walked over to Taische, who didn’t seem too pleased about it either. He knelt down, his face flushed. “Get on,” he mumbled.

They ran into the alley, praying for some sort of shelter, but found themselves in a dead end. Before panic could set in, they saw an opening covered by old cloth. Running inside, they stumbled into a long hallway, filled with doors on each side. Leaky pipes dripped water from the ceiling, and rats scurried into holes. The metal thumping turned to clanking, so loud that it caused the loose plaster to shake and the ground to vibrate.

“Are we near a factory?” Rayse wondered, recognizing the sound of machinery. “It could lead us out of here.” He set Taische down and looked around.

Most of the doors were missing; the few that remained were torn off their hinges. A musty scent of rotten food permeated the air. Ordinarily, it would have drawn a disgusted reaction from the child, however exhaustion and a fortnight’s worth of exposure to Ettermire’s foul smog had inured her to the new smells, and she did not react. Vincent leaned against a wall, his heart beating rapidly in his throat and his breath hoarse. He was far more winded than Rayse, even without the passenger. He never knew where Rayse’s seemingly infinite stamina came from.

Taische nearly collapsed to the ground, lying on her back and taking deep breaths. Vincent walked over to her and told her to stay calm as he pulled the piece of metal out of her foot and wrapped it with a rag. Surprisingly, she did not give much of a reaction, merely biting her lip momentarily at the crude medicine. After she assured him that she was okay, he walked over the doorway they came in from. Peeking out from beyond the tattered cloth, it looked like they’d evaded their pursuers for now. When he turned back around, the grimy little girl was seated on the floor, staring at him expectantly through streaks of soot.

“Tash.. ka?” He asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“What’s he owe you?” She asked, leaving Vincent blinking in confusion. “When you said he owed you. What did you mean?”

“Oh,” said Vincent, smiling for the first time in hours. “It’s… complicated.” He put his back to the wall, hearing it crack under his weight, and slid down until he was seated, grunting along the way from the pain in his joints. Despite their situation, this is what the girl cared about, and Vincent couldn’t help but smile.

“Complicated?” She asked, tilting her head.

“Well...” Vincent scratched his head. “He doesn’t really owe me anything… we’re friends.”

Taische held a hand up, calling forth a flickering light that seemed to consume the appendage. “He doesn’t seem nice enough to have friends.”

“Hah. Maybe not.”

Rayse walked back with a look of dejection. “No good. It’s all caved in up ahead. I think it was some sort of housing complex for the factory… but I don’t see any way to get to it from in here. I tried to check upstairs but the staircase is completely destroyed.”

“Then we need to keep moving.” Vincent tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t listen. “Shit!”

Rayse sighed, “Let’s stay here for a while, we’ll just be sitting ducks out there at our pace.” While he hid it well, he was also exhausted. “I’ll take watch.” He thought of letting out a sarcastic quip before he left, but he was just too tired to think of anything.

Taische and Vincent limped into one of the rooms and sat against the wall together, Vincent lending the girl his handkerchief to wipe away her sweat. The room was fairly bare except for the debris of a dresser and a ruined bed frame. A large crack ran along the ceiling, and Vincent swore he could see little eyes up there.

“Thank you,” she said politely, throwing him a smile. He wondered how she could be so calm, what she knew that they didn’t. It was like she was in another world. “If he doesn’t owe you anything, why did you say he did?” Just like that, she started where she left off. Maybe this was her way of coping with the situation, so Vincent decided to oblige.

“Well, it’s something that happened a couple years ago. I barely knew him then, but I helped him out anyway. I never felt like it was something he needed to repay, but he’s not the kind of guy who lets things slide like that. Debts are very important to him.”

“What happened?”

Vincent was a bit apprehensive given the thought of talking about Rayse like this, but there was no guarantee they were getting out of here alive.

“We met in our first year of academy. Back then, Rayse started up a smuggling ring, and he wanted me to join him. I wasn’t interested, and he apparently took offense to this and started a fight with me. We both beat each other up and that was the last I saw of him for a while.”

“What?!” Taische’s mouth was agape. “How did you become friends, then? Boys are weird.”

“We have a mutual friend named Robert, who Rayse managed to get roped into his smuggling operation. One day, he came running to me, and begged for my help. To help Rayse.”

“What did he need help with?”

“A few days prior, someone had caught wind of Rayse’s dealings and wanted to get in on it. He threatened to blackmail Rayse, and got his arm broken for it. Unfortunately for Rayse, he was Melor Tivarian, the headmaster’s son, and wasn’t used to such treatment. He was furious, and organized a trap for Rayse, and planned to… kill him.”

“Just for breaking his arm?”

“It wasn’t just that. He never suffered that kind of humiliation before, and that resentment made him a bit more… extreme. He went crazy. He bought off one of Rayse’s clients and in a back room, jumped him with half a dozen people he paid off. They were really going to kill him. At the time, I was studying military engineering and prepared a smoke bomb. I got there as fast as I could and threw it into the room, hitting as many of them as I could with a baton in the confusion. Before the smoke cleared, I got Rayse out of there. It was in the nick of time too, he was beaten half to death when I got there.”

“That… is amazing! So you saved his life?”

“Yes… and ever since then, we’ve been friends. I don’t think he ever figured out why I risked my life for a stranger.”

“Why did you?”

“You know… even now, I don’t really know. Part of me felt like it was the right thing to do, part of me just felt like it, but really it was just on impulse. I didn’t want to see him die… I wanted to see more of him, what he could do in the world. He was interesting to me.” Vincent was becoming self-conscious of his candidness. “Anyway, I never used that against him. I always felt like we were equals. But this time… it’s not about us.”

“So you’re a hero, like my mom. You help people and make the bad guys go away.”

The teen chuckled. The child’s adulation felt good to his ego, even if the rest of him was sore and winded. “I don’t know if we could say ‘hero.’ I just...don’t like seeing people get needlessly hurt.”

Vincent noticed something in the air, wafting among the pungent odors of the deprecated building. He recognized it immediately, stood up, and ran over to the exit.

“Rayse!” He said sharply. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Rayse stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette, “What’s your problem? It smells so bad in here there’s no way they’ll notice this. Give me a break already!”

Vincent pressed a palm up against his forehead, thought about lecturing Rayse, but gave up and walked back down the hall. Rayse, shocked by this action, tossed the cigarette aside and followed him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Rayse asked.

“Nothing,” Vincent answered. In his mind he was scolding Rayse, but right now he just didn’t have the energy. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Rayse didn't respond at first, he just pursed his lips and stared at his friend. “Go relax and I’ll keep watch, okay? Once the sun’s completely gone we need to get out of here.”

[Taische]

An hour passed, maybe two. The thin strips of light that filtered through the shutters sank and darkened from dingy saffron to muddy peach. The human children grew more anxious and restless with each passing heartbeat. Doubtless someone knew they were there by now; if they weren’t out before dark they would be more trouble than a furboar piglet in a hungry bear’s cave. The longer they stayed, the worse their already-slim chances.

Vincent turned to Taische, checking the bandage on her foot and giving her a very serious look. “All right, Tash. We’ve really got to find a way to get out of here, and we have to do it sneaky. There might be a way from the second floor. Rayse and I would check it out, but the boards don’t look like they’d hold us for long. You’re a lot lighter. If we boost you up, can you be very careful and look for a way?”

Taische looked at Vincent, beyond exhausted from the long, hard weeks imprisoned and their headlong flight across the city. The restless nap she’d taken, curled up on the filthy floor where they hid, hadn’t helped much. For a moment, Vincent thought he’d need to repeat the question - or, worse, that the girl wasn’t up for the task. This day would have pushed many grown men past their breaking points, and she was a child half his age, not a hero. She was doing admirably well to be so calm and have so few tears and complaints.

Then she rubbed the grit from her eyes and nodded. “Give me a boost, and the last one to find a way out is a stinky toad!” She clambered to her feet, hurrying over to a hole in the battered floorboards. Though it was jagged and barely large enough for her to squeeze through, it was also against a sheltering wall where she should be safe from immediate harm. Vincent didn’t really like sending her up there on her own. But he didn’t really have much choice.

With a little bit of a heave and some precarious balancing of calloused little feet on bigger, softer hands, Taische wiggled through the hole and into the building’s second level. “Be careful,” he whispered up after her. But she was already beyond his help if something went wrong.

Dust hung thick in the air on the second floor, immediately clogging her lungs, nose, and mouth. The light was quickly dying, but she resisted the urge to pop a flame to light her way. The hairs at the back of her neck prickled in the quiet of the upper level; she felt like she was being hunted. Something… something was definitely not right.

On tiptoes, she started exploring the room, flinching when some floorboards creaked loudly beneath her feet. Old blankets and furniture littered the floor haphazardly, and she could see crusty brown stains on the floor and the upholstery. It smelled like rust, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was or how it had come to be there.

After a few minutes of careful creeping, she found a stairway that seemed to lead out the back. It was as good a plan as any that she could see, and the boys hadn’t called her for their way out, so either they were playing a trick on her or she wouldn’t be the stinky toad.

Taische was almost back to the hole when pain lanced through her skull, blazing behind her eyes with a ferocious rage. She collapsed to her knees, clutching at her head so hard that strands of hair started popping out beneath her nails.

A bolt, whizzing through the window, faster than the wind. A turned back, an unaware boy. A shout, and explosion of blood. A look of horror on one face, a look of agonized death on the other.

“LOOK OUT!” Her cry tore through the building, shrill enough to pierce through walls and eardrums, loud enough to shake ancient dust from rafters.

Vincent and Rayse only had a moment to respond, each diving into a room on either sides of the hallway on the ground floor. They hit the dusty floor and scrambled back up, pressing their backs against the wall near the doorway. They heard the bolt hit the wall, its shape torn in half by the force, whatever left of it rolling down to the ground.

“What the fuck?!” Rayse whispered harshly. “Who the fuck fires a crossbow into an abandoned building?”

Vincent put a finger up to his mouth, “Shh!” He signaled the entrance of the tenement with his eyes.

Their pursuers must have known they were there. For how long? Rayse took a quick look beyond the doorway and saw that nobody had entered yet. They fired the bolt through the cloth without even looking? Maybe they never truly lost them after the kid’s light show, and they were just waiting for them to come out.

“We’ve gotta rush him,” whispered Rayse from his room across the hall. “We can’t let him in here!”

“Agreed. If he shows the rest of them it’s safe, we’ll get swarmed.”

They both reached for their belts and pulled out their military knives. Rayse looked again quickly, and waited for any sign of entry. When he saw a hand clearing out the cloth and a large figure stepping inside after, he lifted his left hand and curled all but the index finger inwards, pointing it at Vincent and then himself. As Vincent nodded, Rayse broke out into a sprint, holding the knife with both hands with a desperate, crazed look in his face. Vincent followed closely behind, trying to stay in Rayse’s shadow as closely as he could.

The elf bared his teeth as the first thing he saw was a teenage Salvaran charging him, so he took the crossbow with both hands and swung it in front of him, hitting Rayse in the side of the head with the length of the weapon, sending him crashing into a wall. Vincent took their pursuer by surprise however, his concealment allowing him to cleanly run through his opponent with the knife. The soldier grunted in pain as the blade was driven into his side, dropping the crossbow, reaching down and clamping his hand down on Vincent’s head.

“Let go of him, you pointy-eared piece of charcoal!” screamed Rayse as he nearly flew at the enemy and went straight for the neck.

The hunter lifted Vincent up and kicked him in the gut, sending the young soldier hurtling back down the hall. He lifted his other hand and shielded his head. The knife sliced through the elf’s arm, but not enough to stop him from responding by elbowing Rayse in the chest, then following it up by throwing him into one of the rooms.

Upstairs, the tension of being a stalked prey animal had exploded into adrenaline at the moment of attack. The boys below engaged in mortal combat while Taische lingered upstairs in relative safety. She could run; she had a head start and she was clear. She thought about it for a second; she was way too young for all of this scary stuff. But if she didn’t do something, both of the boys would die. She couldn’t let that happen.

Bare feet padded through the building’s rooms, taking the child in search of something she could do to help. Was there anything, anything in her power to do? Could she burn the building down? No, she couldn’t make a circle to focus it; there wasn’t time. Could she… could she…?

There!

A broken chair made of solid wood, thick cloth, and probably rats’ nests lay toppled by a small hole in the floor. The planks beneath it sagged dangerously, it wouldn’t take much to push it. A thud from down below told her that she had only moments to make her move, and she didn’t hesitate. Little brown hands pushed on the decrepit furniture, little brown feet shoved on the floor. The chair creaked, then it shifted, then it toppled.

The elf cursed in his native tongue, pulling the knife out and tossing it aside, blood pouring out of the wound. His left arm shook violently from the pain, a huge red streak growing across it. He growled and took a few steps forward, eyeing the prone teenager vengefully, lifting up the crossbow and ready to bash Vincent’s head in with it. He lifted up the weapon and was about to swing down when the ceiling collapsed on both of them, dirt, rocks, and a large chair burying both of them in an avalanche of filth.

Rayse limped out of the room he was thrown in, clutching his head in pain, blood running down the length of his face. “Vincent!” he yelled, running over to the big pile of dirt from which nothing was moving. He painstakingly removed rocks until he saw the drow’s unmoving body. With a heave, he removed it and saw Vincent underneath, who was still breathing. “Hey! Get up!”

Vincent coughed, spitting up some blood and opening one eye to see Rayse’s hand. He took it without hesitation, and was pulled up to his feet a little too quickly, nearly losing his balance with a wave of nausea that passed through him. He bent over and continued coughing, mixing in a bout of dry heaving. If he had any food in him, it would have been purged right now. Rayse himself leaned against the wall, gnashing his teeth at the pain he felt in his head. He saw something brush up against his foot; a letter. It was covered in dirt, but it looked recent.

He bent down, picked it up, and was about to look at it when Vincent got his bearings and yelled, “How do we get out of here?!” Rayse pocketed the letter and shook his head.

“Up here!” came a voice from above. “There’s a way out up here!”

The young soldiers looked up and saw Taische, looking at them through the hole she created in the ceiling. “There are stairs over in the next room. Some of them are broken, but I think you can come up.”

The boys scrambled over rubble and shoved through a decrepit wooden door to reach a rickety staircase. More than a few steps were broken, and one shattered as Rayse tested its strength, but within a couple of minutes, the teens were on the second floor. The little girl’s wide blue eyes scanned them anxiously to see if they were hurt very badly. While Vincent was weaving a little after having had a massive piece of furniture dropped on him, he was better than dead.

Not reassured, but with no choice left, she led them down the next set of steps and back out into the streets. It was quieter here; fewer people milled about, though the factories clanged ominously not far away. With fewer people, they had less cover and would soon be overrun if they didn’t find another place to hide. With that thought hanging heavily in all of their minds, the three young humans ran toward a fairly small but foreboding building not far from the exit of their former haven.

[Rayse Valentino]

Justice. That is what the decrepit halls of that courthouse represented. We grow up to learn the rules, the rewards for abiding them, the punishment for not. But what justice did the elves who were “processed” through here have? What were their crimes? Breaking a tool? Causing an injury? Being unable to work? What crime did we commit to deserve being hunted down in the dark? The fact we were soldiers? What about the girl, was it simply existing?

I learned that day that there’s no such thing as justice. It’s an empty word for people who want to be Right. When enough of those people get together, they create laws and export their sense of justice all over the world. No, there is only one true form of justice:

Revenge.

It was an easy decision to make. The doors were still intact, so they headed towards the large wooden frames. The ground floor was built with masonry blocks up to the second floor, where wooden pointed protrusions made up its roof. They swung the doors open and piled inside, desperately looking for a way to bar the entry. On the inside, the doors had square-shaped hooks that looked like they were used to bar entry… or exit. Rayse spotted a long, rusted pipe nearby and with Vincent’s help, they dropped it over the hooks to seal themselves in.

Inside, they were presented with rows of pews leading up to an open area with a podium in the center. In front of the podium was an elevated table with several chairs behind it. At either side of the podium was another row of benches, and behind them were doors. The young soldiers realized that they were in an abandoned courthouse. A reflector and sounding board were above the podium, to shine light onto the accused’s face and amplify their voice.

Knowing that they couldn’t leave the way they came in, and likely not having as much time as before due to their macabre deed, they all split up and started searching for an alternative way out. Rayse immediately checked upstairs, but the second floor was entirely collapsed. Vincent checked the walls, which had many loose boards and missing sections. Taische provided some semblance of light with a flame on her finger. From the ceiling hung several chains that once housed chandeliers, and many of the pews were torn up or outright missing. The few that remained were up against the walls. The podium in the center was the only thing that suffered no wear in this room, as if looters intentionally avoided it. Cobwebs fell like a curtain over what remained.

“No good,” said Rayse with a sigh. “Everything’s wrecked beyond the doors, and there’s no way to get upstairs.” He could see some file cabinets, desks, chairs, and long tables in the small rooms.

“I think I got something,” said Vincent. He stretched his arm into a hole in the wall and could feel cold air brushing against his palm. “This way leads somewhere.”

“Outta the way.” Rayse picked up his leg and slammed it into the wall, breaking through rotten wood to reveal a small opening between the inner and outer walls. He crawled in, and after a minute, came back out. “There’s a pile of rubble along the wall near the back. It looks weak enough to break through.”

“Great, we’ll go out that way once they find this place. They’ll spend all their time looking for us in here, there are hiding spots everywhere.”

“Then what?” Rayse asked. “Are we getting any closer to the way out of here?”

“I don’t know.”

They pulled out one of the more intact file cabinets from a small room and pressed it up against the wall near the opening. The idea was that they would pull it over the hole on their way out to mask their escape.

While they were waiting, Vincent noticed that Rayse was intermittently clutching his head, leaning against the wall with a lowered posture, “You okay there?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rayse said with one eye closed. “Doing better than that pointy-eared bastard we left back there.” Ever since they left the tenement, he had an intermittent ringing in his head.

“Any way I can help?”

“Yeah,” Rayse spat on the floor. “Go back in time and pull us off this mission.”

Vincent had had enough. “At least I’m trying to get us out of here alive, all you’ve been doing so far is bitching.”

Taische, searching for escape routes at the other side of the room, looked back at the boys. The sudden heat in Vincent’s tone didn’t sound good to her. Were they going to fight? They couldn’t fight in here, it was too scary.

“Who are you trying to impress?” Rayse snapped. “All we’re doing is running around in circles, I’ve done just as much as you.”

“Do you have a problem with how I’m doing things? If you have anything valuable to add, please be my guest.”

“Please, no,” called a tiny, worried voice. “We have to be nice or the bad guys will win!” Unnoticed, the little girl slowly approached the teenage boys. Her pleas for peace went unheeded.

“I’m just saying it seems all you’re good for is sucking up to your superiors!” yelled Rayse.

“That shit again?” said Vincent. “It must be really easy for you, right? Getting everything handed to you on a silver platter and you still manage to fuck things up.” Vincent’s lip curled as Rayse stood up straight, black eyes flashing fury. “Yeah, that’s the look. You know how hard it is to get into a royal military academy when you’re of low birth? How many favors my father had to pull? You were basically guaranteed to get in, and even then military service is optional for you. You can just retire and then attend parties or whatever it is you nobles do.”

“I’m not like them, you know that!”

“Every day we wondered if we would have enough money to survive the next month. My position is the highest anyone in my family has ever gotten. Do you know what it’s like to live in the shadow of your father’s expectations? I don’t have a choice but to do well. If I don’t, I have no future. Military is the highest position we can have! Status is everything!”

“You’re wrong,” Rayse said, rubbing his temples in an attempt to relieve the pain. He walked over to Vincent and lifted his hand, pressing his thumb and fingers together. “Wealth is everything. Have enough money, and status doesn’t matter. That’s how the world is run.”

A tiny hand gripped each of them by the wrist, forcibly drawing their attention to the child who had been forgotten in the argument. She looked between them, as much fear in her face from the way they postured and spoke as from any of the dangers they’d faced that day. “You have to stop! We aren’t safe yet, and sometimes when it’s not safe, people die. If someone dies, you will be sad forever that the last things you got to say were angry. So you have to be nice now, and later, when we’re safe, you can punch each other until you’re friends again.”

Their conversation was cut short by the pounding on the courthouse’s doors. The pipe held steady, barring the intruders from entry, but it looked like the doors themselves would give way soon enough to the strength of the elves.

The three of them ran to the hole, and Rayse spoke up, “Okay, you two go through, I’ll pull the cabinet over the hole.”

“It won’t cover all the way,” Vincent objected.

“It’s good enough,” Rayse asserted. “Tasiche, you first, go!” Tasiche crawled into the opening and disappeared into the darkness.

Vincent paused, and then said, “Wait, I have a better idea, so just go on ahead. Be quick and don’t look back.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. Now hurry!”

Rayse felt a nagging apprehension, but it was clouded by the ringing in his head, which intensified at Vincent’s words. He shook his head and entered the hole, vanishing after Taische. The remaining soldier limped to the side of the cabinet opposite the hole, and started pushing until it was completely covered up. He then made his way to one of the small rooms before the courthouse’s doors gave way. The hunters stormed the room and surrounded the boy, who only made it as far as the podium.

While crawling behind the walls, Rayse looked behind him and realized what had happened. He panicked and grabbed Taische’s ankle from behind to keep her in place. He was confident that when it came to his life, Vincent would give her up. He wouldn’t give up his life for a complete stranger, right?

Vincent reached for his knife but was stopped short when two elves on either side of him grabbed his arms.

An elf in front of him kept his hands at his sides as he asked in Tradespeak, “Where are the other rats?” Vincent didn’t answer, not wanting to give them any hints with his response. He wanted to keep them in the dark as long as possible. The sounding board above them allowed Taische and Rayse to hear everything that was being said. “You’re in a good place, kid.” The elf reached into a bag and pulled out a pair of sickle-swords. “The execution grounds weren’t far from here. Sometimes they didn’t even bother to wait. Want to see how it was done?”

Sweat rolled down Vincent’s face, but he couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s so funny?” asked another elf.

“A few kids outsmarted you, t-that’s all. We... we split up a while ago. They’re long gone.”

“Just kill him already!”

Rayse was speechless. What the fuck are you doing, Vincent? All it took was dragging her back in there. They would go in, present the little pyromaniac, and leave like nothing happened, right? Or maybe just use her as bait. An easy ride back to Salvar. No, Vincent would never go for that, and at this point, neither would Rayse. They were in too deep. They killed someone. So then what? What could he do?

Something!

Anything!

The original elf placed the swords on either side of Vincent’s neck. “Enough!”

Rayse heard nothing for a moment, and then a thump.

[Taische]

Taische huddled against the side of the building, hot tears racing down her cheeks in Ettermire’s hot and oppressive air. The earth beneath her feet screamed of suffering, and the elves who lived on the land channeled it into further cruelty and violence. Blood had washed the streets around her almost from dawn, but though she had seen it and smelled it and felt the lives extinguish around her, that hadn’t been quite real. It was if they were puppets in a play, destined to die from the beginning so the hero could shine in the moment and tell his story - their story - again and again when he was old.

But the hero was dead. Vincent had kept her with him and Rayse even though the elves might have let them go if they’d handed her over. He had reassured her, protected her, and stood up to his friend when the dark-haired hothead was being a bully. He had sacrificed himself so they could live, and it wasn’t fair.

Rayse stumbled out of the hole in the building shortly after she did, nearly tripping on the pile of rubble beneath him. His breath was hard and halting, like he had an iron band tightening around his chest. He looked dazed, like he knew he couldn’t collapse and weep, but he didn’t know what to do from there.

“W-we...we have to go,” the child managed to whimper. “We can’t stop. They’ll be here soon.”

Not for the first time, she wished for her mother’s presence. If Karuka were here, she would stride through the city like the embodiment of protective fury, and anything that dared stand in the path between her and her child would be beaten or zapped back by the famous spear in her hands or incinerated by her phoenix. Then everything would be safe. She and Rayse would be okay, and maybe the wise redhead could even do something about Vincent.

But her mother was not there. Just her mother’s words of wisdom, and the young soldier didn’t respond to them. He merely stared at his feet listlessly, as if nothing mattered to him anymore, so she tried again.

“If we don’t, then what did he die for?” Taische sniffled and rubbed a grimy sleeve across her tear-streaked face. “My...my matháir says that if you stop when bad things happen, then you end. So we have to go.”

A heavy thud sounded on the other side of the building; the dark elven soldiers had opened the courthouse and were beginning the hunt anew.

Taische grabbed Rayse’s hand and started pulling him through the dark alleys. She had liked Vincent, and he had sacrificed himself even more for his friendship with Rayse than for his duty to her. So she couldn’t let him die. She’d just have to protect him, somehow.