The Cuttings were small in comparison to the mighty Ashborne. There was maybe fifteen of them, but they were like toddlers attacking a raging Mikovian berserker. Ashborne wasn’t just a tree. He was the tree, the tree of the Isnds, a spirit made manifest meant to give the bounty of his fruit to the people. He was meant to be selfless and giving.

  That had been before the war.

  No one knew what the Criobani had done, only that they’d sent several ships to Ashborne’s isnd. No one lived there, so there had been no witnesses save some fishing boats in the area. Three ships came, and one left. The other two had been swarmed over by enraged Cuttings two days ter.

  Afterwards, no one had been able to set foot on Ashborne’s isnd and be able to return. Rua had found it the perfect pce to hide, taking over a seasonal cabin that had once belonged to her sister.

  A cabin that had been given to her, because it was the best way to get rid of her. For all that, Rua had been grateful.

  After some time, she’d come to hate the isnd. It had been a way to fester in her self-loathing, reinforcing unhealthy behaviours and thoughts. Nothing had worked quite the way it was supposed to, and despite the ck of headaches and subtle if not outright hatred for her blood, she’d found herself missing people.

  And then Otter had stumbled into her life, falling out of the sky and nding face-first in the mud like the clumsy little disaster she was. And finally, things had been looking up. So of course, another disaster had to intrude on her life, the little Criobani, and threaten to ruin it all.

  Rua hated Sunny.

  There was no avoiding it. She’d been raised to hate the Criobani. Raised to hate their living weapons. Raised to hate herself for being mixed blood. Sunny had no chance of escaping that hatred, no matter how cute she tried to be.

  But dammit, her cooking was okay, and her smiles were infectious, and most of all, her presence seemed to make Otter happy.

  It wasn’t enough to expin the rage coursing through Rua as she put Sunny’s broken body down on the ground as gently as she could.

  Keep it cold. That had always been her way. You could be as angry as you wanted, but you had to keep it cold. Think before acting. And then act with decisiveness.

  She marched over to the broken Vexurian. Some glyphs on it still glowed weakly, and parts of it twitched, as if trying to come alive. Even ruined like this, Rua had heard stories of Vexurians fully capable of tearing apart women limb from limb.

  She didn’t need it for its killing power. At least, not the killing power found in the strength of its metal body.

  Rua ducked down and reached inside, her fingers questing about. During the war, the Siyans had been at a massive disadvantage technology-wise. The Vexurians had been too strong, too far outside their form of warfare once they made it to nd. But like all smaller forces faced with rger and more powerful ones, the Siyans had been given two options. Adapt, or perish.

  She found what she was looking for, tracing fingers along the edges of a section of metal on the back portion of the interior breastpte. Once located, she pried at the edge. Normal human strength would never be able to pull it free, not without a tool, but with enough soul power, you could solve a lot of problems with brute force.

  The entire time, Rua kept an eye on the Cuttings and Ashborne. They were quicker than him, but paid no heed to their own safety. And while he had a lot of crushing force in his attacks, the Cuttings recovered from being swatted around fairly well. A few had been shattered after crashing against other trees or rge rocks, but even those were still crawling towards Ashborne, trying to attack their former master.

  Rua instinctively knew how her new ability worked. There was a very short range on it, a very long cooldown between uses, and a duration of only two minutes. Most fights ended in less than two minutes.

  This one wouldn’t.

  The Cuttings had no way of inflicting damage on Ashborne on any significant level, and he could freely smash them about with little free of reprisal. But all they had to do was draw his attention.

  The glyph stone came loose with a click, and there was a surge of light from the Vexurian. A momentary fre up, and then death, a final guttering before it was snuffed out for good.

  Some part of Rua felt a grim satisfaction at that.

  “Oy!”

  Rua startled, and gnced about, looking for the source of the voice.

  “Feckin’ ask a dy before you grab her by her intimates. You don’t see me runnin’ around stickin’ my fingers in your twat.”

  It was a Criobani accent. A crude one. But there was no one around Rua. Unless…

  She looked down at the glyph stone. “Are you talking?”

  “Oh, good, you can hear me. Means I can plead my case before you fecking try turning me into a fecking bomb.”

  This had to be the mind of the Vexurian’s original pilot. Who Sunny was before she was Sunny. And she knew what Rua had been pnning, to damage the glyph stone. Scratch the rune in the right way, and it created a feedback loop. From there, she was going to throw it at Ashborne’s base, and blow what passed for feet for him right to the Dreamers. Then all she’d need to do was pull out her flint and tinder, and start burning this part of the swamp down.

  “What do you mean, ‘plead your case?’” Rua asked.

  “I want my old body back. After I get that, you can feckin’ do whatever you want–”

  “Wrong answer.”

  She grabbed a nearby stone, and began to press it into the carved rune, scraping away.

  “I can bloody well fix her!” the pilot yelled in her head.

  Rua paused. “Go on.”

  “I know how to work her Pact. She doesn’t seem to have any fecking clue how to work it, because someone turned her into a bloody empty-headed idiot.”

  “Your time’s running out, and right now you’re kind of annoying me.”

  “She’s a bloody Fleshcrafter, you fecking moron.”

  That sent a chill through Rua.

  “Those are a myth.”

  “They bloody fecking sodding well aren’t. They’re just, you know, rare.”

  “No. She works with wood. I saw it myself.”

  “Eh, the Pact evolved while I was in hibernation. Old abilities should still be there, just some new ones tacked on. Won’t know how to use those, but I can knit flesh and bone like my old nana knit wool into socks.”

  “And you want back in your old body?”

  “Yes, you daft tit. Just alter whatever you did to get her out of the armor so I can get back in.”

  “And what happens to Sunny?”

  “We integrate. She becomes me, I become her. Honestly, not lookin’ forward to that bit. The way she whinges about her mama, as if the real cunt that spat us out weren’t dead years past.”

  “Rua,” Sami said from the message window. “Pay attention to the tree.”

  Ashborne was still busy swatting down Cuttings, but was edging closer to her. He seemed to have finally realized what had caused them to turn on him.

  She toss another Truthshield up. She was running low on Will, but it might dey him for a moment.

  Rua risked a look at the glyph stone, but there was no way to discern anything from a rock. She had no idea if the voice was lying or not. Her Pact didn’t seem to work on a disembodied voice either. There was no telltale pain, but it didn’t feel right either. Like there was an absence of a conversation, the same as there was when she used those conversation windows of Holt’s.

  “I can’t do it,” Rua said. “I wasn’t the one who freed Sunny. Otter did. So, either you save your body now and tell her how to fix herself, or you lose your body for good. After, we talk about putting you back in your body.”

  “Oh fecking–”

  “Sunny’s bleeding out, which means you’re bleeding out. You think you have one over me, but I have all the power here. If you don’t fix her, it means I use you as a bomb. Even if I don’t, it means you don’t get your body back. Your don’t have anything to bargain with, and I have everything.”

  “Oh, you bloody fecking–”

  Rua began to scratch at the glyph with her rock again.

  “Fine!” the woman’s voice said, panic in her words. “Give me to her, I’ll get her to fix herself up. But you’ll need to keep the tree distracted.”

  “I won’t need to,” Rua said.

  She’d been paying attention to her link the entire time, ever since the fight had started. She’d known this moment was coming. She’d just needed to dey things until someone finally showed up.

  “LEEROY JENKINS!”

  “Oh for fuck sakes,” Sami said.

  Rua turned and ran back to Sunny’s side. As soon as she left the Truthshield, the battlefield came back into view. Otter had finally shown up, the woodcutter’s axe in one hand, one of her threads in the other. And at her side, striding from the darkness of the swamp, his cape billowing in the wind, bzing red sword in hand…

  Was that the Dark Raider? Had her mad idiot of a girlfriend recruited a Mythwalker to fight a Mythwalker? How? Why? How?

  “Rua!” Otter called. “Catch!”

  She gave a toss, throwing the axe, and Rua caught it by the haft.

  “Keep Ashborne distracted! I need to take care of Sunny!”

  “Sure, but afterwards, we need chicken.”

  “Tell her she’s an idiot,” Sami said.

  “Sami says you’re an idiot!”

  “And she wonders why I broke up with her.”

  “I think you’re an idiot, too!”

  “Then you’re lucky you’re hot enough that I don’t want to kick you to the curb yet!”

  Sami grunted. “Did that bitch just imply I’m not hot enough for her fat ass?”

  “Focus,” Rua said. “I need you to spot out weaknesses in Ashborne. Where the rot’s taken hold. You can see it better than me.”

  “Yes, but you’re not fighting him right now. You’re… I don’t know what you’re doing. You were talking to someone, but I–”

  “Long story, I’ll fill you in ter. I need you to call Otter and advise her.” Rua sucked in a breath, and then yelled, “Otter, your ex is on call with me, she’s about to call you, don’t be weird about it and just answer it!”

  “Fine!”

  Sami gave an annoyed look through the message window, and then it blinked out. Rua would have to apologize to her ter. She really needed to figure out what happened between the two of them, but every time she tested through the link, she could feel the pain on Otter’s end, and regret. More had happened than what Sami suggested, and either she didn’t know what had happened, or she was omitting key facts.

  A problem for ter. For now, she had to take care of Sunny. She held the glyph stone to Sunny’s chest. The girl was still breathing, but it had taken on an ugly, wet rattle.

  “You better not fuck us, Criobani,” Rua said. “Or, Fleshcrafter or not, I’ll find a way to fucking kill you.”

  “Don’t get your feckin’ panties in a bind. I just need to talk to her for a…” she trailed off, and went blissfully silent. There was only the sounds of fighting now. That, and the strained breathing of Sunny.

  “There, done,” the voice said. “It’s on her now to fix herself.”

  “She’d better, or you’re turning into my next weapon.”

  “Wouldn’t be the feckin’ first time someone made that threat to me.”

  “Then you know how good people are at following through on it.”

  “Feck.”