The nothingness she had grown accustomed to was gone, washed away by everything all at once. She could suddenly taste the blood in her mouth, feel the viscera pooling around her waist, hear the screams—including her own—bouncing off the high walls of the cavern, smell the rotting carcass she’d inevitably have to wade through, and feel the tremors of pain erupting within her. The agony had been patiently lying in wait for her to garner her faculties once again before bombarding her. Law, there was so much pain. But there was something else too: warmth of a hand in hers. It was the boy who’d been causing her trouble since she met him. He was also the one who’d cleared the fog of her mind with his tone-maker, but the value she held in the act was more so for the tone-maker than it was for the one who wielded it. The tone-maker was euphonious, honeyed, and calmed her forge. The boy was whiny, talkative, weak, and made her gnash her teeth.

  Yet the situation was more complicated than that; Law, wasn’t it always? The boy was blighted and it made her hair stand on end. Still, in this moment, she appreciated his hand. A comrade? Mayhap not. But a tool? She could see it.

  “Boy,” she whispered.

  Her voice felt like a dusty bauble on a tall shelf. Had she always rasped in such a way? She couldn’t recall. Besides, she barely recalled this lesser tongue—he ought to be grateful she’d sully herself to speak it at all. His eyes perked up at her voice, like he’d been waiting for her to acknowledge him: how contemptible.

  “Procure to me livēsēns.”

  “I-I don’t—”

  “Tsk.”

  The boy was consistently regrettable: he talked too much and he did too little. She stood up from the slain beast, wincing as she retracted her spinal vertebrae. The K?dra tried to swallow her whole—what a joke. Instead, she’d made it a pin cushion with little effort on her part. Still, she was hungry. She needed to fill her reserves. She saw the sparks of livēsēns bouncing around her and groaned with a need to be sated. She wrenched as many of them out of the air as she could get her hands on, crushing them and licking the residue off her fingertips. Her body hummed with enthusiasm, ready to tear this maze apart. Yet something gave her pause, something on the tip of her tongue. What was it?

  “Get in there and put them down.” The blubbery slave-keeper’s voice erupted over the arena.

  He was panicking. Good. The pathetic excuse for warriors he’d summoned banded together and charged into the arena. She grinned at the prospect of the battle.

  “We should—”

  “Hush now.”

  She released the boy’s hand and lifted herself free of the guts around her, sliding down the corpse’s arms to the ground below. She felt groggy, as if she’d slept many marks, but her body desired conflict all the same. She jabbed her fingers into her sternum, pulling it apart slowly—the would-be warriors froze in their tracks like the milksops she knew they were. Or mayhap they were appreciating the art presented before them? It mattered little to her. The heart of her forge pumped on full display for them, her blood boiling and stoking her power as she snapped a rib bone free from her armory. It was exhilarating to bonesmith again. What would do the job best? She snickered as she brushed two fingertips along the rib bone, stretching it out, giving it a delicious curvature. She pinched the tip with glee, sharpening it between her fingers like a traditional smith would a grindstone.

  “Law, it’s the fecking Maliker?.”

  Mogrim, was it? He brought that accursed word back into her schema—he would break for that. Others joined him, muttering the title and fretting about what it meant.

  “The Render of Radivosk,” one guard uttered to another.

  There was a title to raise an eyebrow to; she had no idea what a Radivosk was, but she hated to be credited with someone else’s work.

  “Close your mouths,” she growled, dipping the rib blade into her forge. “You have precious few words left: savor them.”

  She drew the blade out, her blood dripping off the edge before it settled, rippling from the langet to the point.

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  “You’re Morrigan Queen.” The boy spoke again, but he finally said something of intrigue.

  The name made her smirk, like greeting an old friend. She didn’t know where he got it from, but it sounded right. She looked back at him, simpering as she gripped a link of a broken chain at her back and wrenched it free of her flesh. She couldn’t recall its origin, but the removal was euphoric. It clanged to the ground as her back closed back up.

  “Nidia?as ve,” Morrigan whined, unconcerned with the lack of understanding by those around her.

  “Um, Morrigan?” There was the boy’s voice again. Talking. Chattering. Grating.

  “Boy,” she spoke lightly, just loud enough for him to hear her. “Mada. Cease your speaking. I shall not ask again.”

  He appeared to heed her warning, silently gesturing for the slaver’s pet to scurry over to him. She does so, taking a moment to see if Morrigan would allow it: smart.

  “Don’t just stand there: kill it.” The pathetic waste of space called Mogrim barked at his men.

  They slowly pushed further in, surrounding Morrigan Queen.

  “This is not a fair contest: are there more of you perhaps?” The guards did not seem to take kindly to her jeering. “No? No matter: I shall provide my own entertainment.”

  She smirked as she placed her left arm behind her back, her blade drawn and gripped tightly in her right hand.

  “I would recommend charging me all at once.”

  As if at her behest, the octet of guards charged. The first to reach the queen swung his wooden club at her left temple. Attack the side she wouldn't be able to defend due to her left arm being indisposed: it wasn’t a bad strategy, rudimentary though it was. Morrigan already had a few responses ready, but she also had a question yearning to be answered. How durable was she? She couldn’t recall. She let the club connect with the side of her head, to which it snapped off her skull—she hardly felt it, but the offense was still there. Morrigan fell back with the strike in the expected direction were it to have actually hurt her, grew bored with her own performance, and instead stepped back into the guard’s space. As her foot came down and she lurched back into the guard, her right hand arched in a semi-circle bringing her blade to the man’s calf. There would likely be little issue in the blade of bone cutting right through the man, were Morrigan so merciful. Her blood undulated along the edge of the blade, creating small, teeth eager to saw through whatever they touched. In the blink of an eye, Morrigan liberated the man’s torso from his legs. It wasn’t enough, though.

  The next victim was upon her as his comrade hit the ground. He brought his club down from above, ready to concuss Morrigan. But the fun and games leading to her unconsciousness out in the wastes were long-since removed—he wouldn’t even get the chance. She swung her blade, bowing upward and sawing through his forearms and forehead. More. The next didn’t approach her at all: cowardice. Morrigan wouldn’t abide such an affront, so she leapt at him, driving the blade right into his throat. The momentum of her stab carried the blade into the ground; Morrigan let it go, finding herself panting with excitement. She looked up at the remaining five, but they were already falling back, leaving a trail of gutlessness behind them.

  “D?nazchet. Cowards,” Morrigan roared, stumbling and snarling.

  She lacked the reaction time to catch herself, content to fall forward, yet instead found herself held up by the boy. For a moment, at least—he seemed to miscalculate his strength in conjunction with her weight. He successfully pulled her back, only to fall to his backside and bring Morrigan down on top of him.

  “Are you”—he panted, somehow already exhausted again—“okay?”

  Such impetuousness, like a skittish prickler biting off more than they could chew.

  “Come back you idiots,” The Mogrim said, trying to reorganize his troops.

  He would fail: those whelps do not respect him, they merely feast on the excess greed dribbling from his teat. Fear trumps greed, however: a lesson only those who survive would be able to apply.

  Morrigan slowly rose to her feet with staggered breaths. She was burning through her livēsēns more than she thought possible. Was it always so difficult? Foolish—of course not. Something was amiss in her forge and something was amiss in her mind.

  “Boy,” she whispered, doing her best to mask her inadequacies.

  “Um, yes?” Rowan said, still clearly surprised by Morrigan’s voice.

  “It is time to prove your worth and get us out of here.”

  “What?” Rowan jumped at her words, looking around pensively.

  “Mada. We have no time: the reinforcement of the enemy will soon be upon us. Figure it out,” she huffed in annoyance.

  She still hadn’t caught her breath? What a disgrace she was.

  The boy looked around until his eyes lit up with what Morrigan could only assume to be what passed for an idea for him. His hands came together at the fingertips, making an oval-like shape as he put it around his mouth.

  “Hey, Mogrim.”

  Morrigan cocked her head in surprise. Certainly, coercing him with the corpses of his allies was one of the options she’d come up with, though she didn’t think the boy would have the gall necessary to—

  “Can we talk?”

  The boy never ceased to disappoint.