[i]She’s not fighting them.[/i] Kire pulled them away from her, tossing them as far as she could manage down the path they had just come from until there were none left between her and Ysaryn. Putting herself between the controlled bodies and her comrade, Kire raised her sword. “They’re essentially dead,” she said firmly, but not unkindly, “if they’re like [i]that,[/i], they’re far gone.” She stepped forward, cutting them down, doing her best to do it quickly, though with them crowding around her like that, there wasn’t much space to do it cleanly. As with the other bodies she had slashed earlier, these went down more easily than the Kartaian body. [i]Slaves. Weakened severely before death.[/i] Even if they couldn’t feel pain, there wasn’t much to work with anymore. Quicky, Kire went to Ysaryn, looking her over. “You’re hurt,” she said, touching the bloody arm. She looked around, tore a scrap of cloth from one of the fallen to bind the elf’s injury. Her eyes went to Ysaryn’s neck, where the dolls had tried to strangle her, and she gestured at it. “Can you go on? There could be more—like this. Down there. The moment you think you can’t fight on, you retreat. I’m not losing you here.” She looked down the entrance. Rulitus and the Gemini were on the move, on the far side of the mines. It was getting harder to keep track, with all the other magical signatures overwhelming her senses. [i]What I’d give to have that mind-reading power of his right now.[/i] Ikegai, Akuma, the Gemini, they were all somewhere here, so close, but not close enough for Kire’s liking. “Come on.” The entrance led them down the mineshaft that would have looked abandoned save for the presence of torchlight and of the dolls they had just killed. [i]It’s too quiet.[/i] Kire had an odd feeling, of cold creeping down her spine. She remembered what it had been like to hunt for Ikegai back in Amria, and this brought back those terrible waking nightmares. She had some idea of what was waiting for her, but he had six months to lie in wait and prepare. Kire looked about; the walls look like they had been extracted of their precious ores already, and so deeper they must go. Ahead of them, the corridor opened up to a deep, vertical mineshaft. A reddish glow emanated from it that Kire was almost certain wasn’t from fire. She gripped her sword. “More coming,” Kire murmured. “From the pit.” [i]They’ve been waiting for me.[/i] What crawled out of the pit was a horror that felt both gut-wrenching and familiar: her face, twisted into different forms. Elven features, molded, wrongly, into a warped version of her likeness. Others, though not a copy of her, looked like attempts to replicate a Kartaian’s form. All of them, [i]wrong[/i] in every way, and coming at them. Kire lunged, cutting them down before they could climb fully out of the pit. [i]Where’s the way down?[/i] She got as close as she dared to the edge of the pit, kicking away dolls, beheading others, almost getting pulled down by a Kartaian-sized monstrosity. “Grab a torch!” she yelled, stepping back to take one for herself. The dolls, seeing her retreat, advanced, and were met with Kire’s blade and the flames from the torch. Some of the corpses caught fire faster, spread it to the others. The sounds they made were inhuman. [i]There![/i] As they cut a swath through the advancing dolls, she could see, just to the side, beginning from the lip of the pit, a staircase carved into the rock. -- Gavin slicked back his hair, trying to steady his shaky hands. He needed to be presentable, needed to keep the mask of obedience on his face. Not a sign of weakness. He walked as briskly as he dared, even as other henchmen and servants were busy securing the manor. Many knew that even they shouldn’t risk the mines. From a servant he heard news that the captives had gotten away, and the wild hope threatened to burst out of him. He must look angry. He must look like he had no investment in this chaos. He practically ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, until he reached the third floor. The topmost level of the manor, where the lord’s chambers were, and where he and his bride would reside, was similarly off-limits to all but a few. Somebody, surely, must have informed them by now. Gavin took a few deep breaths, pressed a thumb to the self-inflicted cut on his hand, and stepped inside Lord Itallo’s chambers. There was an otherworldly glow inside, the chamber covered by runes. The lord himself sat unnaturally stiff on the edge of the bed, eyes glazed. “Ana…” he murmured, mouth twitching, the gem in his hand gleaming. Very soon, there wouldn’t be much of the lord left. There would only be Ikegai in his mind, a living avatar of his master. Should the wedding proceed, it would be Ikegai, through Itallo’s body, standing beside the beautiful, deadly beauty. [i]Should.[/i] A blasphemous thought. [i]Where is she?[/i] “Looking for something, Gavin?” Gavin turned, expecting the regal Akuma in all the wedding finery, a crown of orchids adorning her lustrous, blacker-than-black hair Instead he gasped. She was wearing armor, a sword by her side. Akuma smiled, reached out to touch Gavin’s chin. “What is it, my boy?” Gavin stammered, wishing he could be anywhere but here. “T-there are intruders. In the slavers’ hold and in the mines.” Akuma nodded, her red eyes gleaming. “I know. I can [i]feel[/i] her. She is getting close.” “I caught one of the intruders. I can prepare your chamber, for the final blood ritual before the ceremony. We can use him. His blood will be potent, maybe even more potent than the elves.” Akuma didn’t speak at first. Instead, she searched his face, and Gavin forced all the will he could muster to hold her gaze. She leaned forward, kissed Gavin on the cheek, her cold lips making him shiver even harder. “I know. You have been so good,” she whispered into his ear. “Such a good boy, you are.” Gavin gasped. He wanted to die, right there. Akuma straightened up, took his hand—the bloody one—squeezed it tight. “Come. Let’s go out and meet our friends.” -- Just as Gavin had reached the manor, the eunuchs carried the ‘unconscious’ Ruli down a set of carved stairs. Unlike the rest of the mine, these corridors had been smoothed out, and proper lamps lit the way. The sounds of fighting have yet to reach this place. As they descended, Rulitus would have noticed the veins of red crystal, and a red glow that didn’t come from any of the lamps. Like there was a giant furnace somewhere, without the heat. In fact, it wasn’t hot inside the mines at all, despite the depth. They finally set him down inside a large chamber. The lamps here looked as if they were made of quartz, and the same red glow emanated from them. The floor and the walls were smooth, save for the grooves of interlocking rune circles carved onto the floor and walls. Some of the passages around the large rune chamber led to staircases. One of the two larger openings led to an area similar to the arena in the slavers’ underground hiding place, filled with tables with manacles attached to them, shelves with vials, mysterious crates. A room for a blood mage. The other opening opposite it had a shallow, empty pool in the middle. Great ceramic jars with symbols etched into them stood all around, filled with elf blood. The eunuchs dragged Rulitus to the blood mage chamber, about to shackle him to one of the tables. Not long later, outside, the soft sounds of people heading their way. Dolls, the closest likenesses to Akuma but with empty, glassy-eyed expressions, lined the rune chamber. And following behind, the armored footsteps of Akuma.