Mars Time: 04:47, February 19, 2295

  Sub-levels, Poison Dragon Flute Motel, Dragon District

  The stairs spiraled down into darkness.

  Sigrun counted floors as they descended. Seven. Six. Five. Each level showed the same pattern: organic matter coating the walls like diseased skin, pulsing with that slow, breathing rhythm. But with every flight of stairs, the growth thinned. By the fourth floor, she could see patches of bare concrete between the ridges. By the third, the floor was almost clean.

  Marcus had been right. Fenris corruption built upward, not down.

  "Environmental readings are normalizing," Xin reported from behind her. His voice was steady, analytical. The voice of a man solving a problem instead of running for his life. "Pheromone concentration dropped to negligible levels two floors ago."

  "Good." Sigrun didn't slow her pace. "How's H?kon?"

  Silence. Then, quietly: "Fading."

  She glanced back. The Diabolisk was limp against Xin's neck, his scales a sickly gray that made her stomach clench. His small chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths. He'd pushed himself too hard with that barrier spell. Pushed himself for her.

  "How much further?" Haylen's voice came from the rear of their column. The Sergeant had positioned herself at the back, covering their retreat with her three surviving Constables. Professional. Disciplined.

  Her hands still shook when she reloaded.

  "Two more floors to the maintenance level." Xin consulted his Watch. "If the structural data is accurate, there's a loading dock with external access."

  "If."

  "It's all we have, Sergeant."

  They passed a landing cluttered with abandoned luggage. A child's stuffed toy—some kind of rabbit, its button eyes staring at nothing—lay trampled near the stairwell door. Beside it, a half-eaten meal congealed on a room service tray, flies buzzing lazily around the spoiled food.

  Signs of evacuation. Of panic. Of people who'd fled when the corruption started spreading, leaving behind everything they'd brought.

  Sigrun stepped over the rabbit without looking down.

  The second floor was cleaner still. The corruption here was sparse, isolated patches clinging to corners and doorframes like frost that hadn't quite melted. The air smelled of dust and old concrete instead of that cloying, rotting-orchid sweetness.

  "Almost there," she said. "One more."

  They reached the sub-level.

  The maintenance area opened before them. A cavernous space of exposed pipes, industrial equipment, and concrete pillars supporting the building above. Bare bulbs flickered overhead, casting harsh shadows. The floor was concrete, cracked with age but blessedly clean. No organic matter. No corruption.

  "Zori be praised." Marcus lowered his shield, the first time he'd done so since entering the building. His arms trembled from the strain of holding it up for so long. "A reprieve."

  "Don't get comfortable." Sigrun scanned the space, Járn still in her grip. "We're not out yet."

  "Speaking of which," Jabari gestured toward the far end of the maintenance area, where a heavy door marked LOADING ACCESS stood between stacks of old furniture and cleaning equipment. "That's our exit?"

  "Should be." Xin was already moving toward a dusty terminal mounted on the wall, fingers flying across his Watch to interface with it. "Give me a minute. Need to confirm the structural integrity."

  "Pappa." H?kon's voice was barely a whisper. "Shiny thing."

  Everyone stopped.

  The Diabolisk's head had lifted slightly, one eye cracked open. His scales flickered, gray to something warmer, a faint amber of interest cutting through his exhaustion. He was looking at an alcove half-hidden behind a stack of broken chairs.

  "Shiny thing," he repeated. "Pretty-blue."

  Sigrun moved toward the alcove, Járn raised. Was this a trap?

  It wasn't.

  The Indra Fountain sat in the alcove like it had been waiting for them. Dust covered its ornate metalwork, thick enough that she could write her name in it. But beneath the grime, the fountain's basin still glowed with luminous blue liquid, soft and steady as a heartbeat.

  "Nirboh artifact." Marcus stepped up beside her, his voice hushed with reverence. "In the basement of a Martian knocking shop. Zori works in mysterious ways."

  "Or someone built a cheap motel on top of ancient alien plumbing." Jabari moved closer, eyebrows raised. "Wouldn't be the first time."

  Sanskrit script was etched into the fountain's base:

  She could not pronounce it, but it was the same marking she'd seen on every Indra Fountain across Mars. Even back on Europa. Whoever the Nirboh had been, they'd left their restoration stations scattered throughout human space like breadcrumbs.

  "I'll let H?kon go first, that okay?" Xin was already at the fountain, cupping the shimmering liquid in his palm. "Come on, buddy. Drink."

  The Diabolisk's tongue darted out, lapping weakly at the blue liquid in Xin's hand.

  "Yummy-sweet," H?kon murmured.

  The effect was almost immediate. Color flooded back into his scales, the gray bleeding away, replaced by healthy silver that brightened steadily toward azure. His breathing deepened, slowed. His small body uncurled from its exhausted hunch, and his tail gave a tentative wag.

  "Better?" Xin's voice cracked with relief.

  "Hmmm! Much-much better!" H?kon's eyes were fully open now, bright and alert. "Haw-koon strong again!"

  "Perhaps the hatchling's not entirely a monster." Marcus watched the Diabolisk's recovery with something approaching wonder. "Still capable of receiving the divines' blessing."

  "He's not a monster at all." Xin's tone was sharper than Sigrun had ever heard it. "He's family to me."

  Marcus blinked. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. "Very well." was all the Stalwart had muttered.

  One by one, the others approached the fountain. The Constables drank first, their movements mechanical, professional. Haylen followed, though she barely seemed to taste the liquid.

  "Zori magne, gratias tibi ago pro benignitate tua." Marcus knelt and murmured something in Ordovox before cupping the water to his lips.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Jabari drank deep, sighing with relief as his depleted Aether reserves began to replenish.

  Sigrun waited until the others had finished.

  The fountain's glow illuminated her hands as she approached. Her fingers were still tacky with residue from the web. That alkaline, organic substance that had trapped her, flooded her with pheromones, made her say things she would never.

  Come inside me.

  She could still feel it on her skin. In her clothes. That sweetness had faded, but traces remained, clinging to her turtleneck, her coat, her hair. Every breath she took reminded her of what had happened. What she'd said.

  What everyone had heard.

  "My turn." Her voice came out flat. "Need to clean this shit off."

  Marcus's head snapped toward her. "You mean to?"

  "Strip. Yeah." She was already shrugging off her beige trench coat, letting it fall to the dusty floor. Her fingers found the hem of her turtleneck. "The web residue's still on my clothes. You can smell it. So can any Fenris creature within a hundred meters."

  Jabari scratched his head. "Surely you could simply wash your garments without—"

  "Did they not teach you dignity whence you came?" Marcus interrupted, his Yorkshire accent thickening with what sounded like genuine distress. A flush was creeping up his neck, visible even in the fountain's blue glow.

  Sigrun paused, turtleneck half-raised. She looked at Marcus.

  He wasn't meeting her eyes. His gaze had fixed firmly on the ceiling, and the flush had spread to his cheeks. A Covenant Stalwart, probably trained since childhood to view female flesh as something sacred and dangerous, confronted with a woman casually undressing in front of him.

  Something almost like amusement flickered through her exhausted face.

  "Look if you want." She pulled the turtleneck over her head. "I don't really care."

  He didn't look. None of them did, except H?kon, who watched with innocent curiosity as the Sky Lady removed her clothes.

  She stripped fast, the way she'd learned to do in client rooms where time was money. Coat, turtleneck, pants. She kept her underwear on, but everything else came off. The cool air raised goosebumps on her skin as she stepped into the fountain's basin, the luminous liquid rising to her calves.

  It was warm. Tingling. She cupped it in her hands and began to scrub.

  The alkaline residue came away in gray streams, dissolving into the blue liquid and vanishing. She scrubbed her arms, her shoulders, her neck. Ran the liquid through her hair, working out the last traces of that cloying sweetness. The shame-smell faded to nothing.

  The fountain's liquid vaporized almost instantly, leaving her ivory skin clean and dry. Leaving her ballistic-weave clothing pristine, as if the corruption had never touched it.

  She stood there for a moment. Arms wrapped around herself. Not looking at anyone.

  Somehow, in the fountain's glow, she could feel Xin deliberately not watching. His attention was fixed on his Nucleus Watch. Giving her privacy, maybe? Giving her space?

  Marcus stood guard at the stairs, facing away, his lips moving in silent prayer.

  Jabari had his back turned, counting his Kinetic Crossbow bolts for what had to be the third time.

  Haylen sat on a crate near the loading door, rifle across her knees, staring at nothing.

  "Sky Lady smell weird-bad before." H?kon's small voice broke the silence. His tone held no judgment, just relief. "Now smell like Sky Lady again."

  Something loosened in her chest. Something she hadn't realized was clenched.

  "Yeah." She stepped out of the fountain, reaching for her clothes. "Now I smell like me again."

  She dressed quickly. The fabric felt clean against her skin, the last physical traces of the web gone. The memory would take longer to fade.

  As she fastened her coat, she noticed Haylen.

  The Sergeant hadn't moved. Her rifle lay untouched, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond the loading door. One of her surviving Constables—a young man with a shaved head—approached hesitantly.

  "Sergeant? You knew Lord Batu. Before."

  Haylen's jaw tightened. "He trained me. Three years. Best teacher I ever had." A pause. Her fingers traced the rifle's action bolt. "I keep thinking if I'd been faster, back when he turned, maybe I could've..."

  "Could've what, Sergeant?"

  Haylen didn't answer. She just checked her rifle's chamber for the fifth time.

  Sigrun understood. Some questions didn't have answers. Some failures couldn't be fixed. You just had to carry them until the weight crushed you or you learned to walk with it.

  "We should move." She pulled Járn from her belt. "The Draugs won't wait forever."

  They gathered at the loading door. Xin confirmed the route through his Watch. Marcus offered a final prayer. Jabari loaded his last Lunar-enchanted bolt.

  The corridor beyond was dark and narrow, lined with old pipes and electrical conduits. Storage rooms branched off at irregular intervals, their doors rusted and forgotten. The air smelled of dust and machine oil.

  They were halfway through when the wall started moving.

  The organic matter rippled like something beneath the surface was pressing outward.

  Sigrun's grip tightened on Járn as features began to emerge from the corruption. Ridges forming where eyes should be. A hollow where a mouth would open.

  Then it spoke.

  "Sigrun."

  The voice came from everywhere at once. Not through the air, but through the walls themselves, vibrating through the organic matter, the floor, the pipes overhead. It resonated in her chest, her teeth, her bones.

  Her name. Not "Princess Fjeld." Not "Third Daughter."

  Her name.

  "Skarn." She didn't step back. "Crawled out of your hole to say goodbye?"

  The organic matter pulsed. Features sharpened. The suggestion of a face became something more defined—massive, alien, those red glowing eye-ridges fixing on her with hunger.

  "You've grown stronger." The voice caressed the words like a lover's touch. "Faster. Bigger. More sexually competent. Eleven Earth years of survival, nurturing and selling that magnificent body to lesser men." A pause.

  "How did you…" Sigrun held her Thermal Axe, body tensing.

  "I have many eyes in the Inner Sol." Skarn's avatar smirked. "All you've accomplished is preparing youself for me."

  "I'd rather die."

  "You won't." The face in the wall smiled. "You can't. Your mother Maren made sure of that."

  Her blood went cold.

  "The fuck do you mean?"

  "Did you really think you escaped, Sigrun?" Skarn's voice dripped with false pity. "That your flight to Mars was luck? Your mother allowed it. Gave you years to grow, to mature, to become an even better breeding stock."

  Lies. It had to be lies. She'd fought for every day on this planet. Bled for every meal. Sold herself to survive when nothing else would pay the bills.

  "You're lying." She replied.

  "Ask yourself: why has no Fenris operative killed you in eleven years? Why only capture attempts? Why did Batu retreat when he had you pinned in that motel room?" The organic matter pulsed faster, excited. "Because you were not meant to die, Sigrun. You were meant to ripen."

  The words hit like physical blows. Every close call. Every narrow escape. Every moment she'd thought luck or skill had saved her—

  Allowed. All of it allowed?

  "And your little Ivar?" Skarn laughed—a sound like grinding bone. "The one who 'sacrificed' himself for you? He's very much alive, you understand."

  She went still. "He's alive."

  "Would you like to know his truth? The LIES he's embedded in your memory?" Skarn's face bared its teeth.

  Ivar.

  "Don't you dare."

  "He wanted you to be free and safe. At the end. Or at least, that's what he'd have you believe."

  Have you believe.

  "You're lying!" Sigrun's heart slammed against her ribs. "Ivar's always loved me!"

  Ivar was alive. There was all the hope she needed!

  Eleven years of grief. Eleven years of saving for a shuttle ticket to a moon she'd never reach. Eleven years of believing she'd left him to die.

  And he was alive.

  But what would he be lying to her about?

  "Who has him?" The words ripped out of her throat before she could stop them. "WHO HAS HIM!"

  "I wish I had him. Ivar, the Winterborn. The Prince of Frozen Deception." Skarn's face in the wall held that horrible smile, chuckling. "Join my plans, and perhaps I will show you."

  Sigrun stepped toward the wall—toward that pulsing, organic abomination—and raised Járn. The thermal core ignited, casting quantum-blue light across the corruption.

  "Your plans? My mother's plans? Your fucking eleven years of waiting?" She pulled her arm back. "Well, tell Mother I'm coming for her. And when I'm done with her, I'll cut off every single one of her limbs and feed them to you!"

  "Whoa—" Xin raised both of his hands.

  "Anansi!" Jabari shouted in the backgroud.

  Skarn's face began to recede, sinking back into the wall.

  "I look forward to it, my future breeding mate."

  Sigrun screamed and swung Járn at the retreating features. The thermal edge carved through organic matter, splattering the corridor with ash and viscera. She kept swinging, again and again, until there was nothing left but scorched wall and the echo of that grinding laughter.

  She stood there, breathing hard. Járn's thermal core cast her face in sharp blue relief.

  No one moved.

  "Sigrun." Xin's voice was careful. "Are you…"

  "I'm fine." She wasn't. She was very far from fine. But she turned around anyway, forcing her expression into something neutral. "Just some cocky old Draug thinking he can scare me. We keep moving."

  Marcus was staring at her with an expression she couldn't read. Jabari had no jokes this time. He just held his crossbow and gave her a small nod.

  Haylen was looking at her differently now. The judgment that had been there before—sold yourself in a place like this?—had shifted into something else. Recognition, maybe. One survivor seeing another.

  H?kon's scales had shifted to angry pink, his small claws digging into Xin's jacket.

  "Bad-face Man say mean things to Sky Lady." His voice was fierce despite its size. "Haw-koon no like Bad-face Man."

  Something warm flickered in Sigrun's chest.

  "Yeah." She walked over and reached out to touch the top of his head, feeling his scales warm slightly under her fingers. "I don't like him either."

  Then she turned toward the loading dock and started walking.

  Ivar was alive. But what was all that about him lying and her memory?

  She would live so she could go find him someday.