MIRRI

  The light rune on the rounded stone Mirri had tied to her lapel bounced with every jerking motion in the narrow tunnel, but she was grateful for it anyways. The platinum-dusted paint making up the rune was worth more than its weight as coin, burning through its own store of power to keep both of Mirri's hands free for her weapon in the dark.

  A detail that had mattered immensely, when they had begun squeezing through the side path. As had the length of her spear, maneuvering in the narrow space.

  Bright rays danced over the viper's face in the darkness, and the silver-eyed hydra lunged for the mana.

  The tip of Mirri's spear caught it under one chin, impaled on its own momentum. Not something she could have done, if she were busy holding a light up to see.

  The hydra's second head flailed for her fingers, heedless that it was tugging its partner's skull further down the wedge of bronze.

  Mirri tucked the ashen haft of her spear under her shoulder and released her weapon with her lead hand, pulling at her mana already.

  The simplistic lattice she had practiced thousands of times took form in a blink, softly glowing firelight manifesting at the tip of one of her claws.

  She fed the gaping maw the only proper medicine for monsters, and its sizzling corpse went limp, both brains destroyed.

  The brackish green blood popped and sizzled as she withdrew her spear. She bored through the initial skull with a bolt too, just in case. Something so small was unlikely to have enough power to regenerate brain matter, but cauterization made it a sure thing.

  Venatrix Mahira's voice echoed behind Mirri.

  "Regeneration and acid blood manifesting in one of the juveniles. Not something you normally see outside the Wastes, or cultivated strains."

  The Venatrix likely could have cleared the nursery with a single fireball. Instead, true to plan, Sariel and Sutai were behind them, clearing the main tunnel while Mirri demonstrated competence at something she was trained for.

  "What does take root mutates fast." Mirri said, embarrassed at how loud her heavy breathing was in the confined space. "Everyone wants a piece of Tenashki."

  "And competition breeds strength, where there are resources to spare." Mahira hummed. "How are your reserves?"

  Mirri opened her mouth and hesitated, deciding to check. Empty reassurances wouldn't do.

  "Two thirds," She said. "I can keep the light on, and I won't freeze, but won't regenerate much beyond that while I do."

  The aether was thick as stew in the tunnels, but Mirri's efficiency powering a light rune was sadly lacking. Another caster might have been able to run the stone near-effortlessly in such an environment, even if it were carved instead of painted, but her mana came pre-polarized.

  Combining that drawback with the need to keep herself warm, another consequence of her birth, often left Mirri reminding herself that the Tyrant's Marks came with blessings, too.

  The Venatrix's clawed hand came to a rest over Mirri's shoulder, tapping at the stone and brightening the fading light with a pulse of mana.

  "Let me know when it gets low again. Best to keep your resources available as we press forwards. Those venom sacs looked nasty."

  Sure enough, when Mirri prodded the more-intact monster head with a boot, she saw a bulging venom gland stretched wide behind the eye. More than that, the viper didn't demonstrate any of the muscle distribution required for constriction.

  The monsters would be ambush predators, willing to lie in wait while their prey weakened.

  Mirri clamped down on her protest. She was traveling with an experienced delver, refusing the help would be petty. And the Venatrix was right, having the mana available to fight off venom might make the difference between finishing the clear safely, or Mirri being forced to make an embarrassing retreat.

  She was not certain who would be sent back with her if that happened, but every scenario sounded like a hellish punishment for failure.

  "Thank you." She said, and pushed forwards.

  The brighter light and the steady trickle of mana regeneration were both emboldening. Mirri pushed on, not to the point of folly, but the most threatening thing remaining in the winding tunnel were the knobbly roots the monsters had dug around and through. More than once, she heard Mahira widen the tunnel by knocking clods of dirt to the ground, but the Venatrix and her spear were never far behind when Mirri paused to check.

  The opposite end of the nesting chamber was visible from the opening Mirri finally reached, but shadows still stretched across the space.

  She shuffled to the side to allow the Venatrix the opportunity to stretch, and nearly lost her footing when the ground slid. Catching herself with a grip on her spear, Mirri accidentally slapped the Venatrix's knees with a swing of her tail.

  The smell of carrion intensified after Mirri's cramped boots had smeared rot against the floor. She didn't know where to look after the gaffe, still wary of the silent nesting mounds in the room. Soft hissing filled the space, in between the crunch of rodent bones and eggshells under their feet. They weren't alone, but there were no large threats charging them.

  Mahira chose not to comment on the slip, simply stepping into the space beside Mirri.

  "She doesn't mean it either, you know. Most of it."

  Mirri blinked in confusion, turning her head.

  "What?" She asked, a useless question.

  "She's doing what she knows. Competing for a place." Mahira continued, apparently unworried in the midst of the hatchery. "We picked her up for local guidance, and now she's not a local anymore."

  "Sutai." Mirri realized out loud. "You noticed."

  "It's going to be quite the comedown for her, after the last few weeks. To be normal again, after a sip of power." The Venatrix seemed almost amused at Mirri's embarrassed admission. "And there you are, just barely beginning to rise, taking her place at my side. Of course she'll make a try of it, take your measure. Show me how you'd clear this, we'll burn them on the way out."

  Mirri almost missed the instructions, so distracted she was by the previous sentence. Mahira was already speaking as if she had made a decision in Mirri's favor about the apprenticeship.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "The nests?" Mirri asked, hiding the thrum of excitement from her voice. "It should just be hatchlings, right?"

  An amused nod preceded more experienced advice.

  "You killed the guardian. There'll always be more than one, sometimes a few. The natural instincts of the animals are often overridden by the Maw's influence, in nests this large." Mirri blinked in surprise at the sudden pivot to preachings of faith, but picked out the sense in the words as Mahira continued. "They've likely burrowed in, close to the eggs, waiting for a deeper incursion. An overextension."

  The mounds of dirt and rotting vegetation were stacked nearly to Mirri's chest, and plenty wide enough to conceal another juvenile hydra, now that she looked.

  She speared one through the middle, levering the top off at a distance and stepping back as dirt tumbled.

  With the bulk of the weight on top gone, she drove her next strike deeper, and met resistance. A hissing explosion of dirt snapped fangs around the shaft of her spear, but Mirri was ready, already stepping back.

  Drawing away pulled the rest of the beast's coils from the nest, and allowed her to set the bladed edge of her spear to its midsection, to saw away.

  The dangers of overextension went both ways, and monsters were stupid.

  A hydra would only split a new head if decapitated within the first nine vertebrae, and lunging was impossible for something so front-heavy, once the tail was removed.

  Shaking the squirming mass off her spear while it bled out, Mirri increased her pace for the next mound, and the next, tearing through the loosely packed insulation of each in turn until she was satisfied there were no real threats left in the room. She had to stomp a few hatchlings under her boots, but there were no more snakes of sufficient size to be a real threat.

  "I only found one." Mirri said, turning back.

  "Yes. This whole nest has been rather... anemic, for what it should have been." Mahira mused. "Sariel was done purging the initial response far too quickly. We should get back to the others, just in case, but I suspect our quarry has moved dens already. Likely before we even left the temple, otherwise Sariel would have found her out in the open."

  Mirri dropped a palmful of flames into each of the demolished nesting mounds, and waited until she heard the spilled yolks of smashed eggs begin to sizzle and pop before moving to the next. Mahira was less judicious with her flames, and they soon wound their way back to the wider main tunnel, away from the smoke.

  Walking abreast through the still-cooling soil, Mirri let her curiosity drive her tongue.

  "So we'll be tracking the Wyrm, then sweeping for Arrivals?" Mirri asked.

  "Yes. Sariel was directing nearby Rangers to groups, as they scouted, but any humans who landed this far north would be relying on us killing the monster to stay safe." Mahira grimaced. "Gathering them up would just be baiting the trap."

  A screech and a flash of light echoed off the tunnel walls ahead. Sariel was cleansing another section while Mirri swallowed a lump in her throat.

  She had almost forgotten it was humans they were saving today.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Mahira stopped in the middle of the tunnel, turning to Mirri.

  "Your mother told me about your Proving, but I'd prefer to hear your perspective."

  Fear flooded Mirri's veins immediately.

  "Which part?" She croaked, freezing.

  There was no chance she would be granted an apprenticeship, if she simply spilled her innermost thoughts. A Venatrix's mandate was to preserve the ties that bound civilization together against the darkness, and Mirri had never even heard stories of someone so thoroughly cloaked in the literal symbols of Sanctum's authority.

  A breeze briefly brushed Mirri's face as Mahira spread her wings, revealing that she was carrying not three, but four pieces of Seraph Steel. With the silver slats behind her reflecting the firelight into Mirri's eyes, she asked the one question Mirri hadn't expected.

  "Why did you press through, after your own wings were aflame, instead of giving up?"

  To anyone else, anywhere else, Mirri would have spat on the ground and demanded a duel. Beyond the incredibly prying, personal nature of the question, the accusation of cowardice inherent in the first five words of the question demanded a response. Even ten seconds prior, Mirri might have refused to answer.

  But seeing the mottled scars that dotted the Venatrix's own wings, the purpose of the fourth piece of Seraph Steel was immediately clear.

  Mahira was wearing a flight aid, because her own membranes were cauterized into a mottled mass of flesh, clearly too scarred to channel mana on their own. Only the structural members of the Venatrix's wings were carrying mana, feeding it along her bones to infuse the shining equipment with mana.

  The Venatrix could not take to the skies on her own power.

  Mirri had simply assumed the Immortal was walking as a concession to herself and Sutai, and keeping her wings folded at the temple because of how much space they took up.

  "It was my own fireballs. One too many, just a bit too close." Mahira answered Mirri's unspoken question with a grimace as the silence stretched. "More than one too many. I kept doing it. Because evil things still needed killing, or we would die."

  "And it worked." Mirri said. "You're carrying more Seraph Steel than anyone I've ever heard of."

  It was half a question.

  "It worked. For a time. Eventually luck runs out. I wasn't carrying all of this until a few weeks ago." Mahira admitted, hefting the shield on her arm and stamping her taloned boots. "Only the spear and the wings are truly mine, and keeping so much on a single fighter is foolhardy. The rest will find a new bearer, whether I stay here or not."

  So the Wardenship was still undecided. And Mahira was still waiting for an answer, lifting a brow. and tilting her head now that Mirri's curiosity had been addressed.

  Not sated, but she was pushing the membrane of civility already. She had been asked a direct question about her behavior by a potential mentor.

  But Mirri's answer had not changed, and paled in comparison to the sacrifice she saw before her.

  So she lied.

  "I had to win." She said.

  Mahira's eyes narrowed, and for a moment Mirri feared she had been caught out.

  "Go on." She was prodded.

  "Not for me, but so they would know it didn't work." Mirri stumbled though the rest of her justification, saying things that were true, but she had only realized afterwards. "If I showed them... if I of all people gave up, with all my advantages, the moment I was threatened with real loss, the tribes would have seen that it worked. The valley didn't deserve that."

  Reasons she hadn't known or thought of in the moment spilled out, uncontrolled now. Thoughts that hadn't weighed the scales in the slightest. Things she had come up with on her own, in the dark, trying to pretend it had been anything other than anger.

  "Everyone who stepped onto those sands for their own proving would have been subject to the same munitions. The threat would have grown, not shrunk. It wouldn't just be my wings on the line." Mirri pleaded for understanding she didn't deserve. "I couldn't let that be the result. It wouldn't have been fair. So I showed them fair, fire for fire."

  Silence stretched over the cooling tunnel as she ran out of words, and awaited judgement. Sariel had not purged the tunnel ahead in over a minute.

  "I see now why your mother is so afraid for you."

  Mahira's response plunged Mirri's hearts into a pit of ice. Even her excuses were worrying.

  The cold stayed for a moment, and then the rest came, before she could begin to plead.

  "Young Immortals with that much resolve rarely pass their first century." Mahira continued, folding her wings as if nothing had just happened, and continuing down the tunnel. "You'll need training, not just experience, or you'll burn yourself at both ends, trying to fix the whole world."

  Mirri dared to breathe, looking up.

  "Do you mean—" She started to ask.

  "Details later. Keep your eyes in the now. But yes." Mahira confirmed, flashing teeth in a smile at the edges of her jaw. "Now, let's finish this hunt. Sariel would have been louder, if our quarry were still here."

  Mirri gripped her spear tighter, as much for comfort as for show. Her gambit had worked. Now all she had to do was live the lie forever.

  It should be easy.

  She had been training to do the right thing for her entire life. She just needed to never slip up again.

  "So we have people to protect." She said, falling into stride as best she could beside the Immortal whose head almost scraped the ceiling.

  Mahira gave an amused huff at the sight.

  "Don't try to poke the Wyrm with that stick, when we find it." The Venatrix teased.

  "Do you think it's gone after Arrivals already?" Mirri asked.

  Saving humans on her first hunt with a Venatrix would go a long way to repairing her public reputation, and make her deception unassailable, so long as she never lost control again.

  "Hopefully not." Mahira replied easily. "I'd prefer if this particular monster was a nice easy kill, curled up in a hole somewhere, sleeping off a meal before the first new batch of eggs hatch."

  Mirri nodded her understanding as they approached the main chamber, where Sariel was impatiently waiting in the predawn glow. The ceiling had been rent asunder, where the monster had exited the den.

  The Venatrix was right. Keeping people safe was the priority, so it was better if the monster had already found a new place to lay low.

  Even Arrivals wouldn't be fool enough to crawl into an obvious monster nest for shelter unless they were desperate.

  Or stupid.

  Vipers are classified by the presence of long, hollow fangs for venom injection, which fold against the roof of their mouths when not in use, and extend only when the snake is lunging. The fangs themselves do not produce or drip venom, being fed by sacs located behind the eyes, which contribute to the triangular shape of their head, distinct from the 'neck' of the snake. They are often ambush predators, have the ability to modulate how much venom they inject in any particular bite, and are capable of giving 'dry' bites during low-threat encounters, even when they have venom available.

  My is now 10 chapters ahead of Royal Road.