The taste hit her first—honey mixed with acid.

  Mara tried to cough, to spit the thick fluid from her mouth, but a firm hand clamped her jaw shut. The liquid burned a path down her throat like molten lead.

  “Swallow it,” Zeen commanded.

  She swallowed.

  There was nothing but the acrid taste and the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the factory floor vibrating through the cot.

  Mara was still. She had been groaning in pain for over a week.

  Then, a sound—a CRACK that detonated inside her bones.

  Her right femur, twisted by the Gem-Croc’s tail, snapped back into alignment with the violence of a loaded spring trap.

  Her back arched off the cot, and a strangled scream resonated in the room. Her muscles seized, rigid as iron, as the Ichor Potion hunted down every fracture, every break.

  Her shoulder ground back into its socket. Her shattered ribcage heaved and locked, the bones fusing instantly.

  The magic didn't care about pain; it only cared about order.

  The roar of the Gem-Croc filled her ear. She saw the flash of gold scales, felt the impact that had turned her skeleton into a bag of gravel.

  The potion surged again, knitting flesh with a heat that felt like branding irons. Nerves reconnected, firing blinding sparks of white agony behind her eyelids.

  It was a forced reconstruction. Her body wanted to die, to rest, but the ichor potion was dragging her back from the void by the throat.

  Her heart vibrated like a trapped hummingbird against her newly fused ribs. Her pupils blew wide, swallowing the amber irises until the world became a blinding white assault.

  Cold sweat burst from her pores. She gasped, sucking in air that smelled of sawdust and sweat. Her eyes snapped open, hunting for a threat.

  She wasn't in the forest. She wasn't on the battlefield.

  She was in a wooden box of a room, lit by the harsh flicker of a gas lamp. The walls vibrated with the roar of industry.

  Dust motes danced in the yellow light, agitated by the heavy machinery pounding overhead. Somewhere above, steam whistles shrieked—the shift change for the One-Eye’s forced laborers. They were underground. It smelled of grease, stale bandages, and the copper tang of her own blood.

  Her trembling hands searched her body.

  “Easy,” Zeen whispered. Beside him, Ezy sat on a stool, her eye fixed on the floor, her new skeletal hand gripping her knee until the leather creaked.

  Mara ignored them. She scanned the room. Four walls. A ceiling. A gas lamp.

  She spun, wild eyes hunting for threats.

  Where am I?

  The mist. The Golems. Trenn stood there, frozen, staring at a dying crocodile while the enemy closed in.

  Then the golden tail whipping around—not at the enemy, but at her.

  “He hit me."

  She carefully lifted her legs off the bed.

  She tried to stand. The room pitched to the left. Her knees buckled, and she held the wall to keep from collapsing.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing through the nausea until the factory’s roar stopped sounding like it was underwater.

  She forced her spine straight. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the cot.

  "Where is he?"

  Zeen opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at the door, anywhere but her eyes.

  Her newly fused bones hummed with a sickening vibration, threatening to fold. She locked her knees, daring them to buckle, and stared through the grey static dancing in her vision.

  "Tell me."

  "He's gone," Ezy whispered. "We tracked him. The prints were wrong—deep, webbed, with a furrow dragging between them. We followed them for hours, and they simply… disappear."

  “He left?” Mara said with a grimace of pain.

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  “No matter what, we do it together.” The memory of his voice tasted like bile.

  Liar.

  She slammed her fist against the table and winced.

  “He didn't just run,” Mara spat, her voice a ragged growl. “He broke. He couldn’t let go, he put us all in danger, and it broke him.”

  Zeen shifted uncomfortably. 'Mara, he was overwhelmed—'

  “Don't,” she snapped. “He stood there and watched that damn lizard die. He chose a corpse over us! Over me… Then he lost his mind and swatted me aside like I was nothing."

  She sighed.

  "My gear."

  "Listen. We looked for him." Zeen stepped between her and the workbench, arms crossed. "He’s lost in the mist. You don't have a trail. You don't have a scent. It’s been over a week!"

  "Move."

  "Mara, stop." Ezy stood up, the metal joints of her prosthetic leg clicking. "We're a team. Trenn is gone... let him go. You’re being as stubborn as he was!"

  Mara leaned her hip heavily against the workbench, offloading the weight her legs were screaming to reject.

  "I’m going to find Trenn. I’m not abandoning you."

  Zeen held her gaze, searching for a crack in the ice. He found none.

  "Go then," he spat. "We'll deal with the One-Eye’s occupation of the Twin Cities while you wander in the fog."

  He walked to the table, his back to her. His hand rested on a pile of black plated armor. He gripped the sharp chitin until his knuckles turned white, refusing to turn around.

  He ran a soot-stained hand along the pauldron. "I finished this while you were screaming in your sleep, Mara. Every rivet, every plate... I built it to keep you alive in the siege. I built it for the vanguard."

  He turned, his eyes hard and wet with frustration, pointing an accusing finger at her.

  "If you take this gear and walk out that door to chase him, you're no better than he is. You're abandoning the cause. I made this armor for an ally, not a deserter."

  Mara pushed off the workbench to shove past him, but her body rebelled.

  The adrenaline that had sustained her conversation evaporated, leaving only the seismic aftershocks of the ichor potion. Her newly fused knees buckled. She pressed her hip against the table to keep from hitting the floor.

  Her nerves fired random, blinding signals—phantom pains from a leg that was no longer broken, heat from ribs that were no longer shattered. She gasped for air, her entire frame trembling so violently her teeth chattered.

  Zeen didn't move to help her. He stood his ground, watching her heave, his expression hard.

  "You can barely stand," he said, his voice devoid of pity. "How do you expect to hunt?"

  Mara squeezed her eyes shut. She visualized the One-Eye. She visualized Trenn in his gold armor. She used the anger as a splint for her will.

  With a groan, she forced her spine to straighten. She wiped her muzzle with the back of her hand. She took a breath, held it, and locked her trembling knees.

  She looked at Zeen, her amber eyes burning through the haze of her own agony.

  "Watch me."

  She snatched the chest piece. It reeked of oily rot. She forced herself into it.

  Leathers lined with chitin pressed against her fur, stiff and unforgiving.

  She hauled on the straps until copper rivets dug into her skin, crushing her new-knit bones into submission.

  A wave of nausea rolled over her as the chest piece clamped down. Her ribs, only seconds ago fused back together, screamed in protest. Black spots danced in her vision.

  She tightened the buckles with trembling fingers, forcing her body to accept the shell. She would be iron. She would be chitin. She would be anything other than the broken thing Trenn had left in the mud.

  A life worth less than one of his precious pets.

  The pressure made her gasp, but it stopped the trembling. The greaves were worse—tight and stiff, digging into her shins.

  She slowly bent to pick up her bow. She slid Trenn’s old kris knife into her belt.

  Almitad descended from the shadows.

  She floated in a vibrant teal robe with a marigold flower trim.

  A porcelain mask covered her skull. It had no openings. Instead, she had painted two black circles above grinning skeletal teeth. Colorful swirls adorned the mask’s cheeks, and a gilded spider web covered its forehead.

  “Without my Mana Source, you have no claws.” Her hollow voice resonated behind her mask. “I will walk with you.”

  Zeen’s head snapped up to her, his eyes wide.

  "You swore to avenge the Dam! You defied death to accomplish your revenge! Now you’re running off on a rescue mission? To find someone who clearly doesn’t want to be found?"

  Almitad turned her skull slowly.

  "I keep my oath, Zeen. But the One-Eye has dragged Dawn into the Cavern of Echoes."

  She floated closer, looming over the gnome.

  "You’ve heard its cries. It blasts from the tunnel mouth like a wave of force. It grinds buildings, it erodes the ground."

  She pointed a skeletal finger toward the ceiling, where the faint, rhythmic shudder of the earth could be felt even this deep underground.

  "The One-Eye has created a sonic fortress. We cannot siege an enemy that screams at us to death. We require a counter-frequency. We require the Wild Mage.”

  "Good," Mara said. "Let's go."

  Zeen scoffed and turned away.

  “If he wanted to be here, he’d be here.”

  A low vibrating hum emanated from the shadows beneath the workbench.

  Skate was huddled against the table leg—a puddle of misery.

  Mara felt an odd kinship with the slime. She slowly crouched, keeping herself steady with her left hand resting on the table. She extended her right to touch the Purple Slime.

  The goo snapped into jagged obsidian. It rattled against the floor, sharp as gravel, and rolled just out of reach.

  "He turned into a monster and ran. We can’t let him leave us behind."

  The rattling slowed.

  She pushed her gauntlet closer.

  The jagged edges softened, melting back into purple pliability. Skate rolled into her palm. Heavy. Cold.

  Mara stood with the Obsidian Slime in her arms. She lifted it to her head and looked at Almitad.

  "Let's go hunting."

  Skate flowed over her scalp. It drooped between her eyes, along her snout, and around her pointed ears before freezing into a dense, shining black helmet.

  She turned to exit the room.

  "Mara..." Ezy’s voice trembled.

  Mara didn't stop. She didn't look back.

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