Chapter 27: Holes In Her ArmorAs they descended the steep, switchback trail, the temperature spiked. It wasn't the clean, dry heat of the sun above; it was a humid, suffocating warmth, thick with the smell of sulfur and something acrid, like vinegar boiling on a stove.

  "Cover your mouths," Baby hissed, pulling her own multi-colored scarf up over her nose, tying it tightly around her face. "That’s acid vapor. The little bastards spit it to soften the rock for nesting. Breathe too much of it, and your lungs will start to dissolve."

  Miz’ri adjusted her red scarf, pulling it tight until only her goggles and the bridge of her nose were visible. Beside her, Talisa was already coughing into her sleeve, her eyes watering.

  "Keep it together, Dandy," Miz’ri murmured, her hand resting briefly on the small of Talisa’s back as the girl quickly searched her bag for a spare piece of cloth to wrap her face in some manner of protection. "I got you."

  They reached the canyon floor. The walls rose on either side like the ribs of a leviathan, blocking out the sky. But the stone wasn't grey. It was honeycombed. Every inch of the cliff face was riddled with holes—perfect, fist-sized circles bored straight into the rock. Millions of them.

  And from each hole came a sound.

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  It wasn't loud, not yet. It was a low, collective vibration that Miz’ri felt in the soles of her boots. It was the sound of a city sleeping fitfully.

  "Torches up, Gang.” Gourdy whispered, his voice barely a rumble. "High and bright. Remember the bluff. We are dragons. Little dragons, but still scary, fire-breathing dragons."

  Five torches fred to life, the pitch catching with a wet whoosh. The orange light danced across the canyon walls, and instantly, the texture of the rock changed. Reflected in the firelight were eyes. Thousands of compound, multifaceted eyes glinted from the darkness of the honeycomb. They were dull, oily bck, unblinking and alien. They didn't retreat from the light; they watched it.

  "Don't look at them," Artie warned from the rear, his daggers drawn but useless against a swarm this size. "Just keep moving. Smooth. Constant."

  They walked. Their boots crunched on a carpet of dried husks—the molted skins of previous generations. The sound was deafening in the buzzing silence. Talisa was walking in the center, between Miz’ri and Baby. Her knuckles were white on her torch handle, the fme trembling violently. She made the mistake of looking up.

  The "ceiling" of the canyon wasn't stone. It was a shifting, living mass. A carpet of dormant Dracostirges hung upside down like bats, their scaled wings folded tight, their needle-like proboscises dripping acid onto the floor below. Talisa stopped. Her breath hitched in a sob. "They're... they're moving," she squeaked, staring at the ceiling. "They're shifting."

  One of the creatures detached itself, spiraling down in a zy arc before snapping its wings open—leathery, translucent membranes that spanned three feet. It buzzed past Talisa’s ear, the sound like a saw cutting bone. Talisa flinched violently. Her foot caught on a rock, and she stumbled. Her torch dipped, the fme dangerously close to guttering out in the dirt.

  "Dandy!" Baby gasped, reaching for her.

  But Miz’ri was there instantly. She didn't offer a hand to help; she grabbed the back of Talisa’s tunic and hauled her upright with a brutal yank. "Get up!" The command was a whip-crack. She spun the girl around, gripping her shoulders hard enough to bruise. "Look at me!" Miz’ri snarled, her face inches from Talisa’s. "Dandy, get it together. You drop that fire, we die. You scream, we die. You stop moving, we die. Do you understand?" Miz’ri felt a dissonance within her at own words compared to Talisa’s wide-eyed stare. The kind of fear she hadn’t seen in the girl since that dirty room in Valienta. The kind of fear in the eyes of her Seriso that made Miz’ri feel like nothing but the rotten, empty predator she knew herself to be. But she couldn’t process the thought; the idea of succumbing to the death around them was far worse than living with the chaos in her soul.

  Talisa stared at her, tears spilling over her shes. "I... I'm scared, Miz"

  "Good, Tali, feeling fear means you’re still alive." Miz’ri hissed. "Fear keeps you awake, alert, ready. Now hold your torch high and walk. You can cry when we're out, or you can cry while they drink you dry. Move!" She shoved Talisa forward, hard. Talisa stumbled, caught her bance, and raised her torch. She didn't look back at Miz’ri. She just walked, her spine rigid with terror and hurt.

  Miz’ri watched her go, a sick feeling curling in her gut. She hated being this person. She hated the way Talisa had flinched from her. But as she looked up at the shifting ceiling, at the millions of hungry eyes watching the faltering light, she knew that kindness was a luxury they couldn't afford.

  "Focus, Miz, apologize ter" Miz’ri muttered to herself, saying it almost like a prayer as she drew her sword. "Focus, Miz, apologize ter…."

  The path ahead was blocked. A section of the canyon wall had shorn away, colpsing onto the resin-coated track in a heap of jagged boulders and scree. It wasn't a dead end, but it was a chokepoint—a narrow, waist-high gap between the slide and the cliff edge that needed to be widened if they were going to fit Gourdy’s bulk and Herkel’s awkward frame through.

  "Clear the ne!" Gourdy ordered, shoving his torch into a fissure in the rock to free his hands. "Baby, keep the light on the ceiling. If they twitch, burn them."

  Gourdy grabbed a boulder the size of a beer keg, his muscles bunching under his green skin as he heaved it aside with a grunt. Artie, ever the eager partner, sheathed his daggers and stepped up beside him.

  "I got this one," Artie said, reaching for a sb of granite. He pulled. Nothing happened. He gritted his teeth, his boots sliding in the muck, straining until the veins in his neck stood out. The rock shifted an inch, then settled back with a mocking thud.

  Gourdy let out a noise that was half-ugh, half-growl. "Move over, Artichoke. You're going to pop a vessel." He nudged Artie aside with his hip, grabbing the rock with one hand and tossing it like a pebble. "I love you, but by the ancestors sometimes I wish I’d found a man who could carry the other end of a piano up the stairs like his Ma said."

  It was a joke—a stress response from a man terrified of the millions of eyes watching them—but it nded wrong. Artie flinched as if he’d been spped. He stepped back, shrinking into his cloak. He looked small. Useless. "Right," Artie muttered, his voice hollow. "I'll just... watch the fnk. With the other spindly, useless people…." He turned away, shoulders slumped, retreating into himself.

  Miz’ri watched the exchange. She felt a familiar, sharp pang of sympathy. She knew that look. It was the look of a tool being told it was the wrong shape for the job. Without thinking, she stepped away from Talisa’s side and walked over to Artie. She didn't touch him—Dark Elves like them didn't comfort like that—but she leaned against the rock wall beside him, mirroring his posture.

  "He's scared," Miz’ri said quietly, her voice pitched low so only Artie could hear. "Big men get loud when they're scared. They take up space because they think it keeps the dark away."

  Artie looked at her, surprised. "He thinks I'm weak."

  "He thinks you’re cute," Miz’ri corrected. "He also knows you aren't built for hauling rocks, Artie…We all py our parts in a partnership; it’s in the name after all. " She nodded toward the ceiling. "Let the ox pull the cart, do his part. You watch the wolves. You do yours. Make up nice and be all kissy when you have a moment." Mizri wasn’t sure if she was talking to Artie or herself.

  Artie blinked. A small, grateful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "G'rftte, dalninil…” (Thanks, Sister…)

  “Xuat inbau aturr ulu ol, lotha dalninuk." (Don't get used to it, little brother) Miz’ri grunted with a little smirk.

  She turned back to the group, feeling a strange sense of dissonance. She had just offered Artie kindness, understanding, and support. Moments ago, she had shoved Talisa into the dirt and threatened her. Why am I a monster to my lover and a saint to this male I tolerate? Miz’ri thought, the realization settling in her gut like a stone.

  "Path is clear!" Gourdy announced, wiping sweat from his brow. "Let's move! We're burning torchlight!"

  "Finally," Miz’ri snapped, slipping back into her armor of aggression. She strode past Talisa without looking at her. "Move it, Try not to trip over your own feet."

  Talisa didn't respond. She just kept her head down, clutching her torch, and followed the tall woman into the bottleneck. The low, buzzing vibration of the hive had sharpened into a high-pitched, frantic whine. The Dracostirges were waking up.

  "Gang I don't think the fire’s gonna keep holding them!" Baby shouted, her voice tight over the roar of her own magical fire. "They're getting bold!"

  As if on cue, a dark shape detached itself from the ceiling. It didn't flutter like a bird; it dropped like a stone, snapping its wings open at the st second. It was the size of a hawk, with an armored, iridescent carapace that gleamed sickly in the torchlight. Its proboscis, a long, serrated needle, dripped with the same stone-dissolving acid that coated the walls.

  It dove straight for the center of the group.

  "Back!" Baby yelled, thrusting her hand forward. A jet of orange fme erupted from her palm, engulfing the creature. It shrieked—a sound like tearing metal—and fell to the ground, thrashing and burning.

  But the scream was a signal. Above them, the ceiling seemed to peel away. A thousand wings snapped open at once. The collective vibration became a physical roar that rattled Miz’ri’s teeth.

  "Fuck!" Gourdy bellowed, swinging his massive mace in one hand and a torch in the other. "Run, now! Stay tight!"

  The Dracostirges didn't care about the bluff anymore. Hunger had finally overridden the programmed fear of dragon-fire. They dove in waves, a chaotic, chitinous rain. They bounced off Gourdy’s pte armor with heavy thuds, their cws scrabbling for purchase. They swarmed Artie, forcing the scout to drop his torch and draw his daggers, spinning in a blur of defensive steel.

  Miz’ri was a whirlwind of red and silver. Her head was a mess of noise —the buzzing of the bugs, the heat of the acid, and the terrifying, pulsing heartbeat of Talisa standing right behind her. She was shing out, her strikes cklustre and heavy. She wasn't fighting with the elegant, dueling grace of a clear mind. Her bde—the fine Doulmaedan steel—shrieked every time it bit into a draconic carapace. She was hitting too hard, meeting bone-dense chitin with raw, uncalcuted force.

  "Talisa was holding her torch with white-knuckled intensity, her eyes wide with a terror that made Miz’ri’s gut ache. The girl was trembling so hard the light was flickering, dancing wildly against the swarm.

  "Look at me, Dandy!" Miz’ri roared over the buzzing. "Don't look at them! Look at the fire! If you drop that torch, I will leave you here!"

  Talisa's eyes went wide. Blue, tearful, face scrunched up as if someone had hit her in the stomach. It was a lie, a cruel, jagged lie meant to spark the girl’s survival instinct, that worked too well. Talisa’s grip tightened, her terrified gaze locking onto the fme. That was unnecessary, why can't I stop hurting her? Miz'ri thought, clenching her fists. heart was hammering against her ribs. She turned back to the dark, her sword raised.

  The metal felt vibratingly thin in her hand, the bance slightly off from a microscopic hairline fracture she hadn't noticed yet. She was dulling the edge of her soul and her steel at the same time.

  "There!" Baby pointed toward a narrow, jagged rift in the canyon wall. "The squeeze! If we get in there, they can't swarm us from all sides! Move! Move now!"

  They broke into a dead run, the swarm snapping at their heels, the air growing thick with the scent of burnt chitin and desperation. Miz’ri stayed at the rear, her broken rhythm and clouded mind pushing her toward the limit of what her noble bde—and her sanity—could endure.

  The "Squeeze" was a nightmare of tight stone and acidic heat. It was a jagged rift, barely wide enough for Gourdy to shoulder his way through, and it acted as a funnel for the swarm.

  "I’m at the limit!" Baby screamed from the front, her hands shaking as she maintained a constant curtain of fire. "The air is too thin, the fme is choking us!"

  "Push through!" Gourdy roared. "Artie, get Dandy into the crevice! Rosie, hold the tail!"

  Miz’ri didn't need to be told. She was the wall. She stood at the mouth of the rift, her Doulmaedan dueling sword moving in a blur. But the bde was dying. Every time it struck the draconic scales of a Stirge, it failed to slice. The edge was rolled, the fine silver-steel blunted by the sheer volume of chitin it had been forced to hack through.

  Miz’ri stepped forward to meet each new drone, her boots sliding in a cocktail of acid and bug guts. But as she brought her sword down in a perfect overhead strike…

  CRACK.

  It wasn't a metallic ring. It was a dry, final snap. The Doulmaedan bde—the sword she had carried through the Reaches and to the Surface for nearly 300 years, the st heirloom given to her, and not just to herself like her old gloves. Her normally iron cd grip on the broken hilt began to falter. The literal weight of her identity shattered as she stared as the top twelve inches of steel spun into the darkness, cttering uselessly against the stone.

  Miz’ri stared at the jagged, six-inch stump remaining in her hand. For a heartbeat, the Silence in her head was absolute, screaming her failure in her ears that made time feel like it stood still. Her past was gone. Her protection was gone. She was just another lost and angry girl in the dark with a broken piece of junk.

  The nearest drone hissed, and reared back to strike Talisa. Panic—cold, sharp, and primal—erupted in Miz’ri’s chest. She didn't have a sword. She didn't have a pn. She only had a terrifying, overwhelming need for Talisa to keep breathing.

  Miz’ri lunged, sword arm seemingly dead and hanging by her side in grief at the loss. With her torch she smmed the burning pitch directly into the Drone’s cluster of eyes, her weight pinning the monster against the wall.

  "GET AWAY FROM HER!" Miz’ri screamed, a raw, throat-tearing sound that drowned out the buzzing swarm. "GET BACK!"

  She jabbed at the creature's joints with the jagged edge of the sword, over and over, driven by a feral strength. "I WILL DIE IF I LOSE HER!" Miz’ri shrieked, her voice cracking with a vulnerability she couldn't hide anymore. "SHE IS MY SANCTUARY!"

  The Drone fell, twitching and blinded, and for a second, the tunnel went quiet. Miz’ri stood panting, her hair matted with sweat, her red eyes wide and searching. She turned slowly.

  Talisa was staring at her. The girl’s face was pale, her eyes huge and shimmering with shock. The word hung between them, heavier than the stone walls.

  Sanctuary.

  "I'm... your sanctuary?" Talisa whispered, her voice trembling.

  Miz’ri’s face went hot. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a cold, stinging embarrassment. She felt seen. She felt naked. She looked at her empty, shaking hands, then at the girl who had just heard her soul leak out.

  Miz’ri froze, her desperate expression at the edge of tears repced by a desperate, panicked flush. She couldn't look Talisa in the eye. Her face cast down in a poor attempt to hide the rawest fear she had ever let anyone witness come from her.

  "Gourdy broke through!" Artie yelled from ahead. "Move! Now!"

  Miz’ri didn't wait for another word. She threw her dying torch at the approaching swarm, reached down, snatched Talisa’s hand in a crushing grip, and practically carried the girl forward.

  "Just run, Tali, please just run, please," Miz’ri choked out, dragging her toward the light. “Vith, usstan tlun folt natha kl'eril elg'caress” (Fuck, I am such a useless bitch). Miz'ri chided to herself as they ran.

  The rift ahead narrowed into a jagged, resin-slicked throat of stone.

  “Gourdy! Get through!" Baby yelled, her fire guttering as the oxygen in the cramped space began to fail.The big orc didn't hesitate. He jammed his massive shoulders into the gap, the stone grinding against his pte armor with a sound like a ship hitting a reef. He grunted, his muscles bulging as he forced his frame through the pinch-point. Behind him, Artie scrambled through, his lean frame vanishing into the dark.

  Then it was Talisa’s turn.The pilgrim hesitated. The gap was coated in a thick, translucent film of digestive resin that hissed whenever it touched fabric. Talisa was shorter than the others, her hips and bust wider, her movements clumsy with terror.

  "I... I can't," Talisa whimpered, staring at the custrophobic maw. "It's too small, Miz, I'm too big, I’ll get stuck—"

  "Move, you useless cow!"The words cut through the buzzing like a whip. Miz’ri didn't look at her with love. She looked at her with a feral, hateful intensity. The Sanctuary rom five minutes ago was gone, repced by the jagged cruelty. Talisa gasped, her eyes welling with fresh tears. "Don't look at me! Move your fat ass into that hole!" Miz’ri shoved Talisa forward, her hands—still shaking from the loss of her sword—brutal and unyielding. "You’re slow, you’re soft, and you’re going to get us both killed because you can't stop crying for five goddamn seconds! Squeeze!"

  Talisa let out a sob of pure heartbreak and threw herself into the gap. The resin began to eat at her traveling tunic instantly, the acid stinging her skin. She shrieked as she jammed her hips through the tightest part of the stone."Keep going!" Miz’ri roared, her back to the hole.

  Miz’ri was the st line. She had no sword, only a jagged stump of steel. The swarm was centimeters away, a carpet of clicking legs and needle-sharp proboscises.She felt a hot, searing line of agony across her shoulders. A Stirge had lunged, its serrated cw shearing through her leather armor and deep into the muscle of her back. She didn't scream. She just leaned back into the stone, using the pain to fuel a final, desperate shove.

  "Out! Get her out!" Miz’ri heard Gourdy’s voice from the other side.With a final, violent kick, Miz’ri unched herself into the squeeze. The stone tore at her clothes, the acid resin soaking into the fresh wounds on her back, making her vision swim with white-hot sparks. She felt the rock biting into her ribs, pinning her, until a massive hand—Gourdy—reached in and yanked her through like a tooth from a socket.

  They tumbled onto the damp floor of a wider cavern. They were a ruin.

  Gourdy’s armor was pitted and smoking. Artie was clutching a bleeding arm. Talisa was curled in a ball, her tunic shredded, her skin red with acid burns, sobbing quietly—not from the pain, but from the words Miz’ri had spat at her. And Miz’ri y face down in the dirt.

  Her plush red scarf was a tattered rag. Her back was a map of gore and chemical burns."Great golly..." Talisa reached out, her hand trembling. "Your back, let me see—"

  "Don't touch me!" Miz’ri hissed, scrambling to her feet with a jerky, broken motion. She flinched away from Talisa as if the girl’s touch were more acidic than the resin.She didn't look back. She couldn't. She grabbed her broken hilt from the dirt, her knuckles white, and began to run toward the faint, blueish light of the Rurokitarin exit.

  The shouting started a moment ter."Hold! Alchemical fres! Light the sky!"

  THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

  Massive iron bolts—more like railroad spikes than arrows—smmed into the tunnel behind them, pinning the trailing Dracostirges to the stone walls. High-intensity fres erupted overhead, blinding and brilliant, casting the silhouettes of the Rurokitarin Guard against the canyon walls.

  "Suicidal maniacs!" a guard yelled as the group stumbled into the safety of the fortified gatehouse. "Who the hell tries to cross the Hive during a Bloom?"

  Miz’ri didn't answer. She didn't look at the guards. She didn't look at the Garden Gang.

  "Rosie, wait!" Talisa called out.Miz’ri kept walking.

  The adrenaline was crashing, and in its pce was a hollow, echoing silence. I lost my sword. I hurt the only person in the world who sees me. I traded my dignity for scars and pain that will never fade. Miz'ri ran down the road, barely noticing anyone. Running into this strange city until she found a secluded corner behind a stack of supply crates, far from the light and the voices. I am a contemptible trial of a woman, she said it herself. Letting Talisa's words from Valienta haunt her. She slumped against the cold stone, her breath coming in jagged, pathetic hitches.

  Miz'ri looked down at the broken steel in her hand, and finally allowed it to ctter to the floor. And now I am less than useless, I deserve to be forgotten. The broken woman fell to her knees and curled inward, and then buried her face in her hands and began to weep.