MIRRI

  It had been rude, to pass by the Wards loading the lift without returning any greetings. Even at an obvious sprint, which should have signaled to them that she was busy.

  Mirri's claw slipped over the slick metal bead for the second time in moments, pressing it sideways through the incision instead of *out*, godsdammit.

  She fought the urge to scream her frustrations to the darkened room. The sound would echo.

  A deadness dragged at her limbs, early but not out of place. A Venatrix was dead on the valley floor, because in her very first real test of readiness, Mirri had failed.

  Injuring the Arrivals so that they had to wait. Telling Emma to stay by the cliff-bottom before she had been used as bait. Splitting from the group when she caught Calen. Taking an injury in the landing so that the Venatrix had to hold ground for her escape.

  Every step that had led to the Warlord's victory had been Mirri's fault. Even the Arrivals had made a better showing, Emma standing up to three separate blows from a true Immortal, and Calen...

  Gods, that was her fault too. He had crippled himself at her instruction, buying them a way out of the Stubs.

  The crossed slit she had cut in her shoulder was leaking blood, staining bunched cloth above her armor. Mirri let it, digging in again despite the pain.

  She needed to retrieve the iron, there was no guarantee she would be able to access a surgeon before the Seraph arrived to make a reckoning of things. If it was to be shackles instead of annihilation, this might be her last opportunity to remove the disruptive element from her flesh. The chill would only get worse the longer the flesh around the iron was deprived mana.

  Her claw found the bead again, and Mirri took one long, slow breath, straightening to look herself in the eyes across the mirror.

  Curling up on herself would do nothing. The best that would earn her was being overlooked, and no one would show her mercy if she was pathetic.

  No, her best chance was to own her failures, and offer to make them right. Somehow.

  If she had the time.

  She kept her gaze locked on her own eyes, working by feel until her claw was hooked around the single iron bead, dragging it the pitiful distance past her flesh.

  Blood dripped into the flow from the sink as the projectile finally popped loose. Mirri retrieved it, bunched the already-stained cotton over the incision, and tightened the straps on her armor again. The minor wound would keep another minute.

  The bath was three quarters full, so she dragged the aperture in the wall firmly shut, stopping the flow of water from the reservoirs up above. The power Eastwatch was famed for sat still and quiet in the darkened room, daring Mirri to slip in and ease her own pain under the cold, but it wasn't for her this time.

  It might never be again, after today's disaster.

  Mirri was careful not to lean over the basin, or touch it with her bloodied hand. Tainting the Arrivals with her own blood would be one too many sins to ignore when they were already terrified of going silver. Instead, she spent nearly a minute crouched by the edge of the bath, forcing raw power through the bronze tub until it found the copper heating runes, saturating the metals completely with her mana.

  Feeding the runes without direct contact was exhausting, and the water had half begun to boil by the time she finished, but that would only increase the concentration of power in the water.

  It would be the start of an apology, if the Arrivals even understood its value. And if not—

  If not, then it wasn't even Mirri's power to give. It was her mother, helping clean up another mess. She would have to find another way to fix things, to repair her reputation.

  Mirri shook off her singular wet finger as she stood, reminded of the chastisement she had received in the pass. Reminded of her duty. To snuff the fire, not burn the world down one life at a time.

  It had been selfish, wanting to risk her life for vengeance. She had only just met Mahira. Her mother would have known the Venatrix far longer, and still she had chosen to save the Arrivals rather than risk the trade of lives continuing.

  Even if it meant snuffing Mirri's 'bolt', inadequate as the threat had been.

  Dovin's voice was carrying through the door to the entry hall, and Mirri crossed quickly. He would have the Arrivals with him, and she wasn't ready for that. Not face to face.

  Dust and closed shutters greeted her in her quarters. Mirri's muddy boots kicked a spare blanket out of the doorway as she stumbled inside, and she managed to shut the door quietly ahead of the sound of footsteps and strangely soft speech.

  Mirri rested the top of her head against the wood for a moment, basking in the relief of doing that one thing right today for a breath. If the gifts from the sky had been anything but humans, this entire mess might have been avoided.

  Or if anyone but her had gone with the Venatrix.

  Her wardrobe was exactly as ajar as she had left it last autumn. The bandages she hadn't shoved in her bag were still scattered at the bottom of it.

  Dust shook out of them well enough, but the washing bowl was empty by now. She moved it to the sill of the window, and undid the latch.

  For just a moment after she threw open the shutters, Mirri considered jumping.

  The breeze from the south tickled at her folded membranes above the shoulders, and she almost raised her wings to catch a bit more, just standing rooted there.

  She clenched her jaw and kept them where they were.

  She wouldn't get far. She had just emptied her mana pool heating the bath to excess for the Arrivals, and the minor wound was taxing her regeneration less than the iron, but she could still sustain a glide off her regeneration alone. Not a perfect one, but something decent.

  From this height, she would make it perhaps three markers down the road before she touched down. It would take less than a minute before she was back within her mother's sensory range, to say nothing of how quickly a search would be launched if she somehow escaped the very air itself.

  Every village elder in the valley knew her name and her face. With Wards already out searching for Arrivals, it would be simple enough to notify the ones nearby that she was up to no good, and then she would be dodging the senses of every mage and spare set of eyes in the valley.

  Exiting the continent would be another layer of impossible even if she weren't one of the most recognizable faces in the city. No captain worth their charter would take an anonymous Tyrantborn into the hull unless she bought the ship, the risk of fire was too great. Even with a properly sized bribe, which Mirri didn't have, it would be simple enough for her mother to check each and every one that left the harbor this early in the spring, at any point in its voyage.

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  There was no bribe on the planet sufficient enough to get an intelligent captain to anger the Storm Sovereign. Gazing longingly at the thin band of gray water below the horizon and pretending she could see sails from this far was futile.

  Mirri would leave the harbor on an Aequitian barge as an honored guest on her way to the Sinking City, or not at all. Likely the second option, after rumors of today's disaster spread. She would be truly untouchable, fugitive or not.

  No, Mirri had escaped the pass because Sariel was busy with true enemies. She would have to face whatever reckoning the Seraph decided on for her mistakes soon, with whatever clemency her mother could buy for favors, when they were already drowning in need.

  Running would only make things worse, so she didn't, even if they would all have been better off without her.

  A familiar knock interrupted Mirri's contemplations, dragging her back to the early autumn despite the remnants of a spring storm slowly filling the bowl in front of her.

  "It's not locked." She told Viran without turning around.

  A hesitant creak followed the sound of the latch. He hadn't quite mastered shuffling as silently as he usually walked yet. It was a common symptom of accelerated growth.

  As was dying young.

  "It's smaller than I expected," Viran sniffed after he shut the door. "And dustier."

  "I stopped and stayed at Second Bend on my way back, just how I promised," Mirri bit down on a hiss as the act of loosening the laces on her armor aggravated her wrenched wing, but she was running out of time. "It's had a whole season to settle."

  As had they. Two seasons, in her case. The physical effects were superficial, at this point.

  And visible, with her back turned.

  "Dovin told me to check on you, but I left my patch with the squires," Viran rumbled. "I can't really help here either."

  That was right, he had taken captives. Unequivocal success, to offset her defeats.

  "I," Mirri dragged at the bandage and anchored the first loop before starting the second. "Was supposed to be helping you this spring."

  Instead, she had gotten the Immortal who was to fill his place killed, leaving everyone worse off than they had been. Stacking failures atop one another was becoming a specialty of hers.

  "We can do that later. I'm supposed to find clothes for the Arrivals, and let you see Auntie alone first, when she gets back." Viran said.

  He was so placid. Like nothing had changed.

  Gods, he might not even realize what had gone wrong, unless her mother had told him her intentions for Mahira. He wouldn't even understand that portion of the loss.

  Maybe nothing at all would change for him, if the Seraph was merciful.

  She might even have more time to help him, with none spent on an apprenticeship.

  But first, reparations.

  "My wardrobe. They're all the same cotton. Mine will mostly fit the girl. There's something smaller in the back for the little one that I never gave away. I tore a stitch putting it on last year, and never got it fixed." Mirri finished bandaging her shoulder.

  She had told herself it was laziness at the time, before a month in the dark digging through the mirror to find where she had gone wrong. That had been pride under a lesser mask, wanting to hold onto proof. Mana naturally manifesting in size increases was a significant marker for a Young Immortal, especially so early, before her second decade.

  Not that fixing the shift and donating it would have spared her the arena, but maybe the person who would have made that choice would also have known better than to pretend she didn't need fire to win for the first two and a half rounds.

  Still, the literal clothes off her back were bloodstained from her impromptu surgery, the Arrivals wouldn't want them. And she wanted to change, before the reckoning arrived.

  She sent him on his way after she piled a few sets of leather sandals into Viran's arms, and clean wraps in case either of the Arrivals wanted fresh underclothes. They were all plain and functional garbs from the fortress laundry, no more hers than the power in the bath right now.

  He disappeared without complaint, and Mirri finally kicked her boots off, determined to drag out her last minutes of true freedom.

  The wing ached in a way that turned sharp at her first attempt to drag herself out of the armor, chewing up the valuable time immediately. It would take more than a good night's rest to heal the limb if she re-strained it now. Mirri spent a full minute futilely attempting the lazy way out before she did things properly, fully unlacing the back and pressing her wings tight to remove the heavy garment.

  She let the weight of the armor hit the floor, dragged the bolt on the door shut, and her other layers followed. One of the nicest things about Eastwatch was the utter lack of of nosy neighbors. Mirri closed her eyes, faced the window, and spread her wings to catch the breeze from the south, letting it wash away her worries.

  If the Seraph dropped out of the clouds to execute her nude in her bedroom, so be it. If not, she would have a single moment's peace before her penance began.

  A moment became two, and then four. The breeze stirred up dust, and her first sneeze broke the spell.

  The second sneeze meant war. This space was hers, and only one of her wings needed rest.

  The battle that ensued was less one-sided than Mirri liked, but the enemy had been entrenched, and she was partially disabled. Seventeen flaps of her singular wing, a decent chunk of her regenerated mana, and four more sneezes later, she declared her first lasting victory of the day.

  A ripple in the aether sucked the remaining motes of dust out the window, heralding her mother's arrival just as Mirri decided to dress.

  "*Thirty seconds*." Confirmed a discrete buzz of mana less than a minute later, shepherding the sound of her mother's voice to Mirri's face through the open window while she dragged the shoulder of her chiton into place. The tone was all but lost, which meant the message had been sent from nearly the absolute range her mother could manage.

  The Warden was moving at close to her maximum speed, or the time would have measured at least a minute.

  No time for armor then. Mirri's belt came back off the bedpost, keeping her dagger close at hand in case she didn't have the opportunity to retrieve the gift again.

  The washing room was still shut firmly when Mirri unbolted her door, which spared her a human audience as she approached the gallows. Viran was perched atop two crates, which were stacked outside the Warden's office in flagrant violation of all decorative sense.

  Dovin nodded towards the door when Mirri met his eyes, and resumed answering Viran's questions after she returned her cousin's tentative wave.

  The office had not a mote of anything out of place, with the doors to the Perch itself swung wide into the rain. Water dared not cross the threshold, moisture drawing a stark line in the doorway to the balcony.

  The familiar space tested Mirri's resolve, but she straightened her spine instead of making for one of the chairs in front of the desk, or the rugs in the far corner. She would face her fate with dignity, and offer whatever recompense was demanded without flinching.

  Moments later, a blur of deep yellow cloth billowed to a stop, the wind from her mother's wings throwing rain away from the Spire without disturbing any of Mirri's clothing.

  No Seraph joined her. Yet.

  The Warden's wings were barely folded enough to pass the doors when she strode in, laying her staff aside against a worn patch of wall without ever taking her eyes away from Mirri.

  She opened her mouth to explain, but the excuses caught.

  Better to save them for the Seraph, who might actually believe them.

  The blur of golden scales never stopped approaching. Mirri had just begun to turn her snout to the side and lean back when the sound of the wind cut off and—

  "I'm so sorry." The words echoed, locked into arm's reach by a shell of mana.

  Face pressed sidelong into golden robes, it took Mirri a moment to process the anguish in her mother's voice. She couldn't have pulled away with all of her strength, and her hearts protested the idea anyway.

  Not that being clutched so tightly hid the tears that had begun to leak from her eyes. She could feel the liquid misting away from her scales as each one tried to run down the side of her snout. One last gift of dignity, so that Mirri could face the Seraph clean.

  "Mirri? Mirri talk to me. It's just us."

  Or not, as her mother continued, taking the time to brush one of the water droplets away from Mirri's eye by hand.

  Her breath rattled, hard to control. The reprieve lengthened, somehow, but the stay of execution felt like just that. She would rather have it over with, rather *know*.

  "Where is the Seraph?" Mirri managed. Maybe the judgement had already been passed, some minor service. "What do I need to—"

  "Nothing for Sanctum," Her mother interrupted. "Sariel gives chase, halfway to escape me after the mess they brought disguised as help. I should have paid more attention, before I risked you, but I thought it was safe."

  The words struck Mirri cold. They didn't make sense.

  She had made mistakes with lives on the line. An Immortal was dead, and an Arrival crippled. She was supposed to atone for failing.

  If Mirri had done her job properly, everyone else would have left the pass safely.

  "Why not?" She croaked. "Why wasn't it me?"

  "Because I would never sacrifice you. Not for anything in the world," Isha replied without hesitation. "Shhhhh. Shhhhh. It's okay."

  Mirri was pulled close again, and this time it was silk catching her tears, not mana in the air.

  "Everything is going to be fine. I am so, so proud of what you've done today." Her mother lied while Mirri blubbered apologies into her robes like a child.

  surgery predates the dawn of agriculture. A skeleton dated to 31,000 years ago was found in Borneo, having had the lower left leg removed. Its owner survived at least another half decade without the limb.