It was one of those ideas that really felt like it shouldn’t work. But Dorian couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

The last time he had this feeling… was when Sun suggested that sewer tunnel scheme, and the letter-writing to the Alchemist’s Guild. Maybe it was his natural biases? To Dorian, the simplest answer was best. In winning a battle, the objective to him was not to know everything, and plan for it down to the second—to him it was creating a situation where neither he nor his enemy had the slightest clue what the Hells was going on!

But if it works, it works, I suppose…

“You look constipated,” said Sun. She patted him on the head. “Shhh… trust me! It’ll work out just fine!”

“Don’t you pat me on the head.” Dorian shot her a cross look. “I am a patter of heads. Not one who is patted.”

“But it feels nice, doesn’t it?”

“…”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Alright—let’s go through with it.”

“Yes!”

“We’ll get inside, and bring tools with us, and I’ll see what I can do about breaking into the vaults. Worst—and likeliest—case? We won’t be able to! Then we can just… attend the auction normally, buy resources with whatever Gerard’s got on hand, and blow up the city when we’re 10,000 li out.”

“Very good,” said Gerard. “I’m for it.”

“Me too!” said Sun.

“Then here’s how the next few weeks will go. Gerard, you plant the bombs and commission the vampirization antidote.”

“Consider it done, sir. I doubt it’ll take more than a few days. Perhaps I shall renovate the room some, too,” he mused, scanning the dark steel rectangle in which they stood. “It is perfectly sealed, which makes it ideal for our purposes… but for a home base it isn’t very homely, is it?”

“Get it done and you can decorate to your heart’s content. And you—”

Dorian flicked Sun in the head. “Pay attention! You will actually cultivate. Got it? Get up to the thirty-whichever transformation. The shapeshifting one! There’s a very good chance we’ll need you to squeeze into some tiny spaces once we’re in the Palace.”

“You got it, boss! I will do my best!” said Sun with utmost earnestness.

“You will sit down, focus, and cultivate,” said Dorian firmly. He stared her in the eyes. “Repeat it.”

“I will sit down, focus, and cultivate,” said Sun.

“Repeat it, but mean it this time.”

“I will sit down, focus, and cultivate,” said Sun, and it was like she’d reversed time and replayed it—so perfectly did she match her cadence and expressions. She grinned innocently.

Dorian sighed. It would have to do.

“In the meantime, I will hone my Techniques. Right now I’m a bow with no arrows.”

He picked up the three tattered Technique manuals he’d bought, looking down at them fondly. “I’m quite curious just how deadly I can get in three week’s time.”

Top ranker among Gods, perhaps?

***

“Greetings, friends,” said Jez. He bowed to the two other men in the war room—one a tall, thin, bald, and painfully pale Jiangshi. He sat neatly on his marble chair, handles folded on the round stone table, lips constantly pursed.

The other was massive hulking demon with scales like armored dark-iron plates, twisting horns sticking out, and golden stitching crisscrossing his skin. His eyes too were gold, and every few seconds some part of his body would twitch as though he’d just gotten an electric shock. His chair was nearly as big as the table itself.

Both men stood. The Jiangshi bowed back, and so did the demon—a good deal less deeply than Jez had, Kaya noticed.

“Kaya,” said Jez. “Meet my two high generals on the Ninth Circle of Hell. This—” He gestured to the Jiangshi. His eyes passed over her like she was a chair, or a table—like she was something so insignificant she only registered in some subconscious part of his mind, and faded just as quickly. “Is the Emperor of the jiangshi, Salieris.”

She instantly decided she disliked him.

“And this,” said Jez, gesturing to the giant demon, “is the Demon King Yama.”

“Hullo,” rumbled Yama.

“Yama, Salieris—Kaya.”

“This is the tracker?” said Salieris sharply.

Jez nodded. “She is the prime operative. Thus far you two have conducted the hunt for Dorian on your own. Salieris, you and Nujia have made admirable progress! And Yama—the Sky Wolf nearly caught up to him at the Swamp as well. But since then he is cloaked by a force that evades our strongest detections. And that is where Kaya here comes in.”

“He stole my brother’s body,” said Kaya simply. Strange, how little her voice wavered. At some level she registered that these were two creatures with power beyond her wildest imaginings. That with a thought they could unmake her. Yet what was left to unmake? She nearly giggled at the thought. Maybe the anger, but that was all.

“Each of your compasses runs with just a drop of my blood. But I also have Fate-threads tied to him too, deeper than maybe anyone. If you want to hunt down Dorian, I’m your best shot.”

Who was this person, talking about of her mouth? Had she cracked? She was so far out of her depth it was laughable. Yet when hadn’t she been, after Rust Tribe? It felt like the ground had opened up underneath her then and she’d never found her footing again. She was falling, falling, falling… at some point she couldn’t even tell how deep she’d gotten. All she knew was that it was very dark. It’d been so dark for so long…

So long she was getting used to it—

So long she was starting to like it.

“Master Coldforge is polishing up a custom treasure. A blood compass of incredible strength—one that can ignore all cloaking, and one that only Kaya here is positioned to wield. She will act as the scout,” said Jez. “You two will pool your resources. The Sky Wolf, The Nine-Tailed Fox, and she will be my strike team to bring Dorian to justice—forever.”

Jez had scarcely finished her sentence before Salieris jumped in. “And it is Nujia shall lead this expedition, I trust?”

Yama leapt in right after. “Of course not. Do you take Master Jez for a fool? Wolf’s nose is the sharpest under Heaven—he’s the most skilled hunter we’ve got! That Dorian’s a slippery one—” He snarled. “He’ll see that pyromaniac fox a thousand li coming!”

“That pyromaniac fox who nearly cooked him in the Swamp, while your Wolf was chasing ghosts halfway across Hell? I hardly think so. If you take a moment to calm yourself,” drawled Salieris, inspecting his fingernails, “You’ll see you’ve been blinded by bias. But we are all here busy men. None of us has the time to wait for you to come to your senses. And so we must move on without you.”

He turned his a flat gaze on Jez. “Nujiia shall lead the expedition.” He said it like it was already a decided thing, like he was simply relaying the information.

“A lesser God,” growled Yama softly, “Would gut you for how you speak to me.”

“A lesser God, or a braver one?”

“Who do you think you’re speaking to, you paper-skinned worm?” Gold light was leaking out a stitch on the side of Yama’s head.

“A second-rate Empyrean,” sighed Salieris. “Felled by Dorian with frankly embarrassing ease. Then revived! And gifted a rise to Godking, by the graces our our dear Jez. And yet you still manage to be an ingrate and a twit. Simply astonishing.”

Yama’s face shifted three colors in as many seconds—red, gold, then darkening to black. His whole body swelled, cords of muscle writhing like live snakes under his plated armor. Just looking at him Kaya thought he could take off Salieris’s head with a casual flick.

In that moment his aura leaked out.

She felt very, very small. Not in the way a mortal looks up and sees a mountain and marvels at its size—but rather as that same mortal clinging to the very tip of the mountain, staring down ten thousand li drops into the yawning mouth of a bottomless abyss. Winds of power howled around her, ethereal, unreal, and yet somehow they cut below the skin somewhere else, deeper—shivered the very soul.

“Watch your tongue.”

Even with the new powers Jez had granted her she could hardly stay upright.

Yet the Jiangshi Emperor only arched a brow. “Why is it that Fate grants so often grants such great powers to even greater dullards?” he sighed. “Well?” And now there was a hard bright light in his own eyes, a feral eagerness. “Get on with it, then! Will you strike me or not? Come now, fucker. Hit me!”

“Friends…” said Jez with a deep frown. “Please—do not dignify this bickering! We are all on the same side, are we not?”

A shadow flickered across Yama’s face. Kaya braced for impact. Yama opened his massive mouth—

And all the sharp harsh lines on his face softened. All at once.

His eyes shone like bright mirrors reflecting an angry white sun.

“Friend Yama, Friend Salieris,” said Yama in a harsh croak. Only his tone was so soft, trembling a little, laden with feeling. Jez’s voice. “I feel I should rephrase. I must have given the impression that that was a request. How… silly of me.”

Salieris stiffened. Was that fear or horror in the wrinkled lines of his face, in those staring ruby-red eyes? Then it was gone, and Salieris sat back.

“…Of course,” he said smiling. “I’m sorry. At times my tongue has thoughts of its own. I’ve embarrassed myself.”

“That’s okay.” Jez’s voice issued Jez’s mouth. Yama slumped down in his giant chair, deflated and gasping heavily. The gasps turned to a choking, coughing fit. For his part, Jez just looked tired. “Back to the task at hand, gentlemen?”

He stood. “Neither Wolf nor Fox shall lead this expedition. Kaya here knows Dorian better than either of your operatives. She has spent months observing him. She will take up the task.”

“With—all due respect, Master—” rasped Yama, who’d finally managed to retrieve his voice. “Pardon the bluntness—who the fuck is this? What qualifies her?”

“I’m Kaya,” she crossed her arms and grinned at the both of them. “Nice to meet you. And I have two things neither of your servants have. First I know how he thinks—he played me like a godsdamned lute for months! I saw up-close the kinds of sick ways that mind bends—” She giggled. “Only I didn’t think it’d bend back on me, did I?”

For so long she’d had nothing to blame but herself and Fate, and Fate was nothing to blame at all. Waking up extra early every day in Azcan, training her fists in the desert—like she could train the weakness out of her. Like if her fists were a just a little higher leveled she could’ve beaten back that dragon. Saved the day! Like anything she did mattered a shit when a snake takes hold of your brother’s body, dupes you into loving him while burning everything you held dear.

As it turned out, there was someone to blame. And it sure as Hells wasn’t her. When Jez pointed it out to her it had been such an incredible relief—to at last pull that awful knife from her heart and turn it on someone else. It all seemed so obvious once she heard it.

The instant Dorian came weird stuff started to happen. That eclipse. The dragon attack. And then that beast horde at the Oasis. Coincidence? Or was someone messing with other peoples’ lives without a hoot to how it hurt them? She’d been so dumb, so happy to believe him! She would’ve died for him ten times over… how sick was that?

Jez was no better, even if he couldn’t admit it to himself. Maybe none of these damned Gods were any better. Maybe giving power to a person was like putting spider poison in a good soup. Maybe she hated all of them at least a little. Even Jez, who gave her the one thing she still had worth a shit.

But not quite as much as she hated the asshole who smiled at her, and cheered her, and said he loved her while wearing her brother’s skin.

Where would she be if Dorian never came? Her eyes were wet. She sniffled.

In the Lower Realms. With her Tribe. With her tribe, and brother and lover, laughing and sharing roast Vordor around a campfire. It was so clear to her now, so obvious, so perfect, like a dream she once had that could never be.

Some tiny part of her felt a flicker of uneasiness at the story she was telling herself. Just a flicker, the feelings of someone she used to be. She figured some fool part of her still cared for him—somehow, despite it all—even now. Still thought maybe, just maybe, some part of him really cared for her too. How silly was that? She hated him. She hated him more than she’d ever hated anything. You can’t love and hate someone at the same time.

The flicker was gone.

She knew the truth.

Because of him she was here, which was nowhere at all. With nothing to think about neither except how miserable she was. Even the thought of his fucking smirk shot her up with anger. Stoked that pretty gold candle-flame Jez had put in her back in Azcan, the candle-flame he’d just made a golden inferno.

She knew then her eyes were glowing gold, and her lips curled into a snarl.

“You can’t know how bad I want to get my hands on him,” she whispered. “Every night it’s the last thought I have ‘fore I drift off. And then I dream of it, and I wake up, and it’s the first thing I think of. Every damned day. Your folk want him for bounty, do they?” Her fingers dug into her palms, drawing blood, pricks of delicious pain, and she laughed. Her voice sounded high and shrill, like someone else’s. “I want to strip the flesh off his skin, and strip the muscles off the bones, and tear out the tendons and poke out his eyes, and leave him only his vocal chords so I can hear the sound of his screaming! Maybe then he’ll know what it’s like to have your life taken from you piece by fucking piece!”