Otter decided that she hated living in a death swamp.

  It had little to do with the impending doom of possible Ashborne Cuttings, or the impending doom of future hot, muggy summers, or the impending doom of running out of food, or even the impending doom of possible pathogens from insects and the water in the event her Tenacity ever failed.

  No, Otter just really hated the mud.

  She was tired of slogging through it, she was tired of washing it off, and she was just tired of how it felt. It wasn’t even gross. She didn’t care about the hygienic aspect of it half as much as she should. No, it just kind of felt cold and gross. And she was tired of feeling cold and gross.

  “Can we leave yet?” she whined.

  “You’re the one who wanted to do this.”

  “No, I meant the isnd. Can we leave yet? Like, right after this?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you sulking right now?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms and huffed.

  “You’re sulking.”

  “Am not.”

  “Is this because I didn’t suck you off?”

  Right. Otter had almost forgotten about that. Her dick was definitely unsucked right now, and after all that teasing, it definitely felt in need of a good sucking.Sbe could feel herself literally twitch in anticipation.

  “Well, it is now.”

  Rua turned and gave her a wide smirk. “Poor, horny baby. Have to wait a few hours before your girlfriend gratifies you.”

  “You know, I could just force you to your knees and ram it down your throat. I bet you’d even enjoy that. Being reminded that you belong to me. That you’re mine.”

  Rua took in a sharp breath, but other than that, betrayed no reaction. Her poker face was getting better. Too bad it wasn’t good enough.

  “I can just imagine it now,” Otter said. “You struggling against my length, trying so badly to fit it all down your throat. To prove that you’re my little Siyan. My good girl. Because if you were good, you’d be able to take it all. And you’d have so much difficulty. You’re so small, and I’m… not. But you’re so eager to please.”

  She was all but stumbling over her words, working herself to a fever pitch. And the imagery was doing a lot for her. But it was doing more for Rua, because while Otter was tripping over what she was saying, Rua was beginning to trip over her own feet. Rua, who was normally as sure-footed as a goat on this ground.

  Otter had to reach out and grab her arm to keep her from falling face first into the mud. Rua, her cheeks fming in embarrassment, let out a mumbled ‘thanks’ and continued on, quickening her pace.

  It didn’t take long to reach the armour in the swamp. And things had changed since they’d been there st. Rua swore softly, and it wasn’t difficult to see why.

  One of the suit’s arms had torn itself free from the mud, and it was holding a struggling Cutting in one hand, its steel fingers enveloping the thing’s entire torso and crushing it in its grip. The Cutting seemed to not notice the damage, smashing its limbs against the fist over and over, but wood was never a good matchup against metal. Those arms and legs which unceasingly smmed against their captor had long since reduced themselves to splinters of their former selves.

  The Vexurian made no move, content in holding its attacker at bay. It made no move towards them or acknowledged their presence.

  “Is… is this a problem?” Otter asked.

  “Yes. Probably. I don’t know. But yes.”

  “Is it going to attack us?”

  “Not unless we try to damage it. The Cutting probably sensed the Vexurian’s Pact core and attacked, and it defended itself. I’m more worried about other Cuttings.”

  “We just stick to the pn, right? We’ll be fine as long as we do that.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Rua said, shaking her head. “Ashborne isn’t stupid, even if the Cuttings are. It knows how many it sends out. It knows how many report back. If that Cutting’s been here for a while, Ashborne might have sent more Cuttings to look for it. Bad enough we killed one. A second missing one means a pattern.”

  Otter went cold. Some part of her so badly wanted to be a hero here. Make a difference, even if it was a small one. Just one person.

  “I say we go forward.”

  Rua took a full five seconds before saying, “I agree.”

  “Really? Even with the risk, you’re still going to do this for me?”

  “No. I mean, yes. But… I have an ulterior motive. If this works… it could change so much. About the war with the Criobani. Vexurians are terrifying. Both for us, and for the Criobani themselves. If word got out that someone found a way to free someone from those suits… it’d shake their whole empire.”

  “Oh.”

  Otter had been kind of hoping that Rua had been doing this just for her. Because she cared. Or maybe because she also wanted to save someone. She hadn’t been expecting that.

  “Hey,” Rua said. “I can do things for more than one reason.”

  The damn link. And Rua always being plugged into it. She must’ve sensed the mood change. That was so annoying sometimes. And now, if this worked, Otter was going to be plugged into someone else, too.

  “We stick to the pn,” she said.

  ‘The pn’ was very simple. Cuttings weren’t smart, according to Rua. They were kind of like cssic movie zombies. If they didn’t see something to attack, they wouldn’t. If they couldn’t get at something because there was an impediment, they’d go somewhere else.

  Despite the treetops covering most of the sky in a canopy, there weren’t really that many of them. Even so, there were enough for Otter to trigger her Thread of the Scourge five times, forming a perimeter around them that was at about waist-height, the threads tied to trees and forming a circle around the Vexurian. It wasn’t a wall by any means. You could easily go over or under it, depending on your preference. But if you were just walking forward, it’d keep you out. In theory.

  The second level of defense was Rua’s Truthshield, a barrier that looked like a bck dome to anyone on the inside, but to the outside, it looked like anything Rua decided. You could easily walk in or out of it, and if you knew it was there, you could apparently perceive the edges of it. But for something dumb and mindless like a Cutting, it was the perfect camoufge.

  With the Truthshield in pce, a wandering Cutting wouldn’t have a reason to try to bypass the Threads of the Scourge. One piece by itself would be useless without the other.

  “How long will this shield st?” Otter asked.

  “Four hours, if left unattended. Longer, if I’m aware enough to pump more Will into it.”

  “Oh. So, you can do that?”

  “Remember st time you used your skill? We were both on our backs for who knows how long. And I wasn’t exactly able to… focus.”

  She meant able to focus on anything other than exploring as much of Otter’s psyche as she could. Which, fair. It’d been an extremely intimate experience.

  “No time like the present, I guess.”

  Rua grunted, and staring very pointedly at the struggling Cutting in the Vexurian’s grip, she reached over and began to unscrew the helmet from the torso. She dropped it to the ground when she was done. The Vexurian did not react.

  Otter summoned her Thread of Fate. The bzing red wire fred into existence in one hand, dangling from her fist. Before she could lower it in, Rua grabbed the section directly below Otter’s hand. The wire pulsed, but nothing else happened.

  “Together,” Rua said.

  “Always.”

  The glowing red Thread of Fate lit the inside of the Vexurian, showing the helpless ginger bound within. Rua drew a knife.

  “Before, or after?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t exactly done this before, but…” Her gut knew the answer, somehow. Maybe it was the skill itself. Maybe it was intuition. Or maybe it was the Dreamer, talking to her through fate itself. “During. We touch the wire to her, and you cut her loose.”

  “That’s not exactly going to be easy.”

  Otter drew her own knife. Inside the armour, the redhead wore a metal colr that was bound in white cloths painted with runes. One cloth covered each arm and leg as well, as well as another cinched about her waist. Rua hadn’t been sure, no one outside of the Criobani Empire really was, but it was theorized those strips of cloth were what svebound someone to the armour. Probably the metal colr as well, even if it cked the same runes, but they didn’t have anything in their repertoire to deal with that. They had to hope removing the cloths would be enough.

  “I know,” Otter said. “On three, I lower the thread. And then we start cutting. I take the left side, you take the right. Be careful, but… if you have to cut her to get it off quickly enough…”

  They didn’t know how long they’d stay upright. As long as she didn’t bleed out, any harm would be better than staying stuck in that suit. Even killing her might be preferable to leaving her trapped.

  Rua nodded. “Okay, do it.”

  “One… two… three.”

  Otter lowered the wire, touching it to the sve’s hair. The thread bzed with light, and so did the woman’s hair.

  Otter didn’t stop to think. It was like something smmed right into her mind. She stabbed downwards. Her first cut scraped the metal of the colr, swiping away white cloth while scraping loudly against steel. She’d meant to be more delicate, but she stumbled. Not a good sign for when she’d have to try to cut away the cloths against skin.

  There was a high-pitch whine in her ears, and it took a moment to realize it was the sve. She wasn’t just screaming. She was shrieking, shrill and raw. It was pain and terror and the unknown, and it was unfettered.

  Otter tried to shut it out, but it followed her into her mind, smming against whatever defenses she thought she had.

  Her knife moved down, cutting away at the cloth on one arm, parting it as easily as the skin it was against. Blood flowed freely.

  She moved for the one around the sve’s waist, but it came away, undone by Rua’s own knifework.

  The sve’s head thrashed upwards, and her eyes shot open, green eyes bzing with unearthly light. They didn’t just gleam or shine, they glowed like beacons. Otter tried to shove the questions as to what that meant to the back of her mind.

  Before, this had felt like her awareness expanded. Like some small room was being added to her brain, but she could only see through a window that shrank the longer the event went on. This wasn’t a room, or a window. It was a bck hole.

  It was an endless hunger in her mind, a maw wide open and ready to devour everything in its vicinity. Otter could feel panic from Rua, and knew that she wasn’t the only one in danger.

  Otter couldn’t be gentle. She jammed the knife into the st of the strips of cloth, tearing it in twain and running a bloody furrow along the woman’s thigh. Her hands wouldn’t allow for anything more delicate.

  That bck hole in her mind double in size, and Otter could feel an awareness behind it. There was nothingness incarnate in it, aside from hunger. It was just… empty.

  Reality fractured. Otter saw double, and she realized her own voice had now joined the screaming.

  It was Rua that saved her. Maybe saved them both. Or all three. Some part of Otter’s mind was cognizant enough to see Rua drop her dagger and, with her now free hand, grab the red Thread of Fate and tie it around the colr.

  She didn’t know why, until she realized that she had screamed it, had been screaming for Rua to do it all along, as if her own skill had hijacked her vocal chords and shouted what needed to be done.

  There was a shuddering sensation in mind, and the bck hole snapped shut, leaving behind a small opening, simir to the link between her and Rua. The same sense of emptiness emanated from it.

  It was the st thought Otter had before she passed out.