After an endless penance of sleepless nights and exhausting days playing cat and mouse with gangs and soldiers, Lim and the rest of her group had reached what Papiku swore was the last stop before leaving the island of Tampraparni.

The place was a small port town at the mouth of a large river on the east coast bustling with illicit business. Smuggler boats coming and going through docks hidden among the riverbank’s vegetation filled the arks of many with the prosperous yet illegal business between Wei and Tampra and with it also came an endless amalgam of other kinds hoping to get a piece of the cake.

As was usual, the krait made little effort to hide the party, and the public house where they had rest for a few days, was a beehive off drunks and shouters Lim’s nerves could not have withstood if it were not for how exhausted she was.

During their way there, she had managed to recharge the battery sufficiently with the few moments the dense vegetation on the narrow trails cleared, a little energy fastly diluted with the unbearable and continuous shaking of the wagons. Her human side did not fare much better, and the food she increasingly needed was almost always difficult to swallow, and even more difficult to digest.

From the furthest corner from the entrance door, Lim watched as Papiku descended the stairs, lacking his usual vigour. He was followed by the same small man who had joined him to the first floor hours prior, an individual with Han features who tried to appear humble but who could not hide his high status mannerisms. When the assassin collapsed into the chair next to Lim, the establishment brewer rushed to the center of the room, clapping her hands loudly. “It’s time to close people! Ale is over for today!”

The widow, a person of with a powerful personality and hostile attitude, was supposedly in debt with Papiku, and not only she let them stay in her own chambers, but she did with minor complaint.

“But, but...” stammered a drunk from the other side of the room. “You don’t make those leave. How unfair!”

The brewer waved towards Lim’s table and huffed. “That’s my brother-in-law Samar and his family. And this is my house, Aler! What I do here doesn’t concern you in the slightest. Go sleep it off in the mountains and come back tomorrow like the rest. I’ll have more soup for you to drown in!”

“Thank you, Liana,” Papiku said with unusual effort.

The brewery grumbled and, after dismissing all the customers, she hurriedly closed the front door and window shutters. “Thank me with a sealed debt and double pay to my boys.”

Liana shuffled to the kitchen with a frown and hands wrapped in her apron, seemingly paying no attention to the Han man. His delicate hands, not those of a fighter, waved in the air with pomposity and his statements, released with royal solemnity, were also ignored. “My men are on guard for such a dangerous night, my lady. Your sons can rest easy from now on.”

Liana shouted from the other room. “How about the pay?”

“It will be delivered in full, as promised.” Answered the Han man while standing stoically in the middle of an empty room and naively waiting for a response of gratitude. Not getting the expected reaction from the widow, the Han man gave in to disappointment and approached their table. “Well, then. How much more does she have?”

Papiku squirmed in his seat, and after pouring a glass of water, he responded. “Not much. Red Alacia is a poison you never recover from.”

“but your blood-“

“No,” cut Papiku. “Even if you dry me, nothing can be done. One month, two at the most. After that, not even your incredible hands will delay her fate, Master Gu’Zheng .”

“That’s all she needs! And she is grateful for it,” said a young man from the stairs. He was dressed in a Han’s war attire. A mix of leather protection plates and silky layers of reds and maroons of exquisite yet humble taste. His walk was not only elegant and classy like Master Gu’Zheng, but lofty and somehow pedantic. Lady Alishee, wrapped in Gotho’s arms as any time she was not able to use her wheelchair, came after. The remaining servants followed, and moving with delicate steps and attentive hands, they made every effort to prevent the troubled stomping of the Red man from becoming a stumble.

“The chair is in the backroom, Master Gu’Zheng will show you were.” Papiku said. “Please prepare our lady for the trip as we are departing soon.” Before the two maids could follow Gotho towards the pantry, the young Han soldier stood in their way. “You two stay,” Papiku said. “We need a word.”

Dualli fidgeted, and even looking around nervously, did not realize the Han soldier sneaked behind her. When he grabbed her arm, his face filled with enjoyment at her gasp of panic. Nora spooked, and although her tense smile pretended to be calm, her eyebrows gave her away.

“I know the deal you made with the lizards,” Papiku continued. “Don’t waste my time denying it. I don’t appreciate lies, and one more from you will end my patience. Nod if you understand.”

“I had no other option, sir, they knew about my Samur and-” Choosing words instead of silence triggered a hiss from the snake, though terrifying enough to set her lips to a tremble, did not seem sufficient to appease her tongue for too long.

“They treat with killing them and…” Dualli turned to Lim, seeking in her a compassion she wouldn’t find anywhere else. “I adore the lady, you know it! I swear...’’

When the soldier released the forearm to grasp the back of her neck, Dualli froze like a puppy held by its mother’s jaw. “Tell me, woman,” Papiku said. “What did you write on that note you hid between the Saran’s inn garden pots?”

Petrified, she found a moment to mumble the answer only after a sharp tug on her neck. “Told them we were coming here.”

“Correct,” Papiku stammered between sips of water. “Why didn’t you mention we were stopping at the inn on the old trail?”

“How do you kno-”

“I know everything, Dualli Pasandi from Uragesh! Daughter of Upamen and Illia, wife of Samur and mother of Yende and Pika.” Papiku revealed his yellowish teeth after emptying the glass. “Now, answer me.”

Dualli took a long, deep breath. “Because you said it was a perfect place for ambushes and that if they had an option to catch Lady Alishee, that was their best option. I don’t want them to hurt her… I thought, I, I… just needed more time to find a way.”

Dualli’s unstoppable tears triggered a much smaller, but equally sad one through Lim’s chick. The soldier released, and with a gentle touch, guided the sewing maid to the closest chair. Dualli fixed her gaze on the ground, helpless, unable to end her grief. “We know you all lie,” Papiku said solemnly, giving Lim a brief glance that felt like a punch in the stomach.

“Some you do it to cover old friends from the clutches of old enemies, others…” Papiku halted, and taking everyone by surprise, the Han soldier grabbed Nora by the hair and slammed her onto the table. “Do it because they are so stupid to fall in love with a liar who only uses them to get to me.”

When Lim’s breathing returned, blood from a broken eyebrow was soaking into the table’s wood. Nora, surely unconscious, did not struggle, leaving Papiku to finish his reprimand Dualli in peace. “You didn’t blurt out the most crucial information I had purposely revealed to you. You have a huge burden on your shoulders.” Papiku shifted in his chair, modulating his tone towards a more paternal intonation. “You had to suffer through a terrible struggle, I understand. And even with your loved ones at the stake, you did as much as you could to avoid betrayal.

“I don’t forgive you, though. A lie is a lie, and there’s no room for mistrust in our team. That means your service to Lady Alishee ends here. But fear not. I have sent someone to protect your family and as long as you remain quiet and there are no more notes to the Geckos, you’ll live to reach Uragesh and meet them again. Now go.”

Dualli, without the courage to lift her face from the ground, dragged her defeated soul towards the exit. When the door slammed shut, Papiku blurted out his last words to Lim. “I know that you cover up the devil of the Blue Kingdom. I know that you are lying, thinking that this way you will take from me a revenge I really do not want. Our trip is still long, but we have little more to talk about. If everything goes well, you will spend the rest of it in a pleasant cabin with luxuries and servants and I will dedicate myself to other tasks. So, if we don’t speak any further after tonight, I just want you to know your king can continue hiding in his hole without worry. I have no intention of facing his wrath a second time.”

Lim, staring at the entrance, shook her head in denial. “She chose family over duty, not so difficult to understand,” Papiku said, squirming to pull out a paper knife he immediately used to aim at Nora. “For this disgusting bitch, on the contrary… It wasn’t all about love, no... it was lust. And the promises of wealth she quickly embraced without caring in the least about our well-being were pure greed.” Papiku flipped the little knife in the air and grabbed it back by the blade. “There is no forgiveness for rotten hearts. Lord Liew, do me a favour and end this for me... I’m too tired.”

“We don’t want to make a bloody mess before lady Alishee returns, do we?” Liew said. The soldier dismissed the little knife and bolted Nora’s body with the ease of a cook flipping over a piece of meat. Her head bouncing on the wood revived the girl, who only had time to blink twice before Liew’s claws wrapped around her neck. His face lit up with a fervent arousal overflowing the more she struggled and the more he squeezed. Nora fought back, hitting and clawing at the powerful grip of two arms anchored above her. Her legs, raising up to kick away the body leaning between them failed miserably just like their upper limbs, and their struggle over the table could, to anyone witnessing from afar, easily be mistaken by an act of equal vileness, but a very different nature.

She growled. He smiled. inconsiderable joy of true evil against the sheer terror of helplessness. Her legs kicked the air and her nails scratched his shirt. Her scream blew out as a long huff as his fingers constricted much deeper.

Lim couldn’t take it anymore and escaped within herself. She’d seen worse. Stabbing, slashing, shooting. She remembered mostly none of it, but she had seen it. She was certain. Yet, it was not the sight of the act but the intrinsic evil in what some people do to others what crumbled her soul. She was tired. Tired of a cruel world and tired of uncaring people. With her senses ignoring the surrounding doings, Lim searched for those memories of a paradise island where she used to spend hours creating a home. It had been a long while since and the memory was a diluted puzzle she barely remembered. She pushed hard to reach for a last glimpse of that shores; ignoring Nora’s last fight. Ignoring the following complaints of Papiku and the further chaos of stomping of boots and clattering of armour and weapons.

Even with her eyes closed tight, her cheeks filled and her mind, unable to reach that shore she wished to hide for so long, became an abyss of darkness where only one thought was clear. A wish to forget. The desire to ask her Maker, if she truly ever had one, to erase all the nightmares forever.

“Mind coming back to us, Lim? We are leaving.” Papiku said. Lim’s sight remained blurred even after she wiped her tears out. During her absence, her surroundings had changed completely and even though it was cloudy, it was clear the figure at her side was Lady Alishee. Master Gu’Zheng and Gotho were there, but Nora was gone and the murder room was empty of any clue to the act. The perpetrator was a motionless speck in the background waiting for a silhouette slowly descending the steps.

Of the big changes, what was most obviously shocking was the large amount of orange shapes around the room. Uniforms of unknown origin, all waiting to be revealed. When her sight cleared, the boots and sharp sabres she heard before revealed, all escorting a company of soldiers with immaculate presence.

The body descending, almost falling over with each step, was nothing more than a blanket under a baffling mop of hair that even so, revealed her identity with a punch in Lim’s face. Rushing to confirm her fear, she searched among the soldiers for a pendant of their filthy past, a trinket even those properly dressed bastards would have never gotten rid of: Necklaces made of intertwined hand bones.

The Harpy, Queen of pirates and Mother of thumbs, hobbled though the room gently held by Liew’s helping hand. Even having lost a lot of weight, she still retained something of her robust complexion, and her features, emaciated by illness, still recalled her vilest intentions. “Your doing has gotten me out of bed and little else, shaman.” She said in the most common language of Hanan.

Papiku winced with pain while pushing his body straight. “Worry not. It will improve soon and you will feel like new. Won’t last-”

“I just need a couple of weeks,“ said the Harpy, taking a slow, analysing look at the rest of the snake’s group. “I like the Red man. How much?“

“With all due respect, your majesty. But he is not for sale.“ Alishee snapped with a trembling voice and a perfect Han accent.

“My wife has been on the dry deck for too long,” Liew said. “And we’d use that marvellous specimen to help her get in the mood. No price is too high-”

“Sorry, but he’s not for sale!” cut Alishee this time without any hint of hesitation.

Liew clenched his teeth and chewed his words. “The Mother of thumbs do not take a no for an answer, you little-“

The Harpy’s hand cut Liew for the second time, although now, it didn’t seem insulting to the soldier, who bowed slightly and stepped back.

“She is brave. I like her.“ The Harpy said. “We will seal our contract in blood, krait. Even Liew. This way we can make sure that his nervous ass doesn’t do anything shameful after my demise.“

“Excellent idea, my Queen,” Said Papiku, who shuffled away and got the entire crowd in a terribly noisy motion.

Lim’s chair copied Alishe’s moves, but slowed to the discomfort of the Queen’s eyes following. When the wheels stopped, the Mother of Thumbs spoke in a rare dialect of Southern Wei, a language Lim also knew.

“I remember you,” the Harpy whispered. “You are the cook of the smuggler captain with arms of metal.”

Lim nodded slightly with a knot in her throat. “Correct my queen, I believe you and Em-”

The Harpy dismissed Liew’s help and grabbed the back of Lim’s chair to push and find support at the same time. “I saw you once when I was still young and desirable. In Samarta I believe. Now I’m old and repulsive, but you have not changed much. What is your secret?“

Lim let herself be carried away, clutching the blanket in her lap as she searched for ways to keep her secrets safe. “If you are looking for miracles to avoid the inevitable, I’m afraid I can’t be of any help. No matter how I look, my end will come as fast as anyone else. I can share with you some creams and ointments that I normally use, if that would please my queen.”

“I’m not that kind of woman,” The Harpy said after a sceptical hum. “And I’m not planning to fool death, either. I was just curious.”

The Harpy’s crew raised Lim, so the chair made it through the exit smoothly, and the Queen reprised the pushing to the end of the dark alley. “I’ve embraced my fate and cannot wait to plunder the Hells. There await me many old friends I want to cheer and chant again with and many old enemies I want to kill and torture once more. But all that fun will have to wait. First, we need to sail to my domains and solve some wrongdoings. If I survive to the day we set north, we will talk again about your… ointments.”

“We are not going to the Red island yet?” Lim asked in shock.

“Nay,” answered the Harpy. “Not until my naughty pups have been properly disciplined.”