Thunder wasn't unusual. Bharncair had been plagued by a heavy storm for the past two weeks, but tonight, that wasn't thunder above the dungeon.

It was a full-on tremor.

Maeve flinched as the entire dungeon groaned, dust trickling from the cracks in the cobblestone ceiling. Cold droplets followed, pattering onto the floor. One of them struck her cheek. It ran down to her lips, bitter as gutter-water, and she licked it away only because thirst was crueler than disgust.

She curled tighter in the straw corner of her cell, her body screaming in every bone and muscle. The last two weeks had drained her more savagely than any battlefield. She'd been left without much food, without medicine, and without any blade to cut herself safely, the toxic blood inside her veins sat thick as tar.

Breathing was an ordeal. Shallow. Tight. Her ribs ground like stones. Yet when the rumble overhead came again—closer, harder—her eyes snapped open.

Something was going on upstairs.

The dappled moonlight falling in through the little slit of glass at the top of her cell wasn't a lot, but it was enough light for her to turn—just enough to glimpse the shadow behind her. Alana lay slumped against the wall, lips drawn thin, breaths heavy as a bellow gone dull. Her mother was already fragile to begin with; these past two weeks had been even tougher on her than Maeve herself.

She wouldn't let both of them die in this pit.

Trembling, she crawled to the far corner of the cell. That place had been her secret for weeks: a little pocket of dirt where the stone had cracked, and where stormwater dribbled in just enough to nourish a few narrow-leafed weeds. They were small, humble things, but their scent was unmistakable. She'd never forgotten it.

She bit down on them once again, grinding the bitter leaves into paste.

Have to hurry.

I reckon there's not much time left until—

The dungeon's door groaned. Boots thundered behind her. She spun around fast, spitting the remaining green grit from her teeth and curling back into her original corner as if she'd been motionless for hours.

Moments later, three Repossessors stopped in front of her cell with jangling keys.

"Hurry it!" one barked at the keybearer, panic curling his words. "The boss wants the Exorcist upstairs! Says she'll make a fine shield!"

"Don't rush me!" the second snapped, fumbling with the iron ring of keys.

The third just spat into the straw, eyes narrowed at her. Then the key clicked and the gate yawned open, screeching in its hinges.

As the three of them came in expecting a corpse in a dress—too weak to stand, too broken to even raise her head—one of them stooped to hoist her under the arms.

At that moment, Maeve bit her tongue hard enough to taste iron. Pain sharpened her mind and cut through the haze.

Her body jerked awake. She whirled, gritted her teeth, and whipped her fist into the man's face. Bone cracked under her knuckles. His nose collapsed, red spray fountaining as he crashed backwards into the wall with a howl that ended in a crumpled heap.

The other two froze, eyes wide.

"You're still—" one stammered, morphing weapon clattering from its holster into his hand. Maeve didn't wait for him to get there. She lunged, driving her knee into the second man's face with a crack, then caught his skull in both hands before hammering him down into the floor.

She wheeled on the third, teeth bared, hair whipping with sweat. The lady yanked her morphing blade into form—too slow. Maeve lashed out with her foot, kicking the fallen man's weapon across the cell, and it buried itself into the lady's thigh.

The Repossessor's scream filled the dungeon. Maeve roared back and kicked her square in the chest. The lady flew back, smashing through the rotten wall into the next cell with a crash that woke every prisoner in the dungeon.

While men stirred and women gasped, shackles rattling, Maeve collapsed forward against the bars. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and her heart was slamming in her throat, but she managed to look down at the sprawled bodies at her feet with disdain.

They were right. By every law of her toxic blood, she should've been too weak to stand by herself, let alone fight by herself, but…

Her lips curled into a grin as a horrible memory surfaced.

Those herbs.

Those little herbs Gael had shoved past her lips in that rude, unforgettable kiss when they'd first met had an unmistakable taste and scent. Back then, they acted as herbs that diluted the toxin in her blood, blunting the effects long enough for her to keep on fighting—so it was luck, perhaps, or even accursed 'fate' that those same herbs had been growing here, sprouting stubbornly in the damp dirt of her cell.

She'd chewed on them every day in secret whenever the guards weren't looking. There were close calls here and there, and at times, her jaw ached so much she didn't even feel like trying to sustain her strength… but it all paid out in the end.

The ceiling groaned again—an ugly, dragging sound—then split a little wider. Mortar sifted down like ash. Another cold bead found Maeve's brow and slid over the bridge of her nose before it reached her mouth. She swallowed, because she'd learned these last weeks that the body takes mercy where it can.

The row of cells along the dungeon shuddered as well. Hinges cried. One door after another bucked on its warped pins. Most of them had been left to rust, so now, with the building above them shaking like a drunk god was stomping about, those doors began to sag open.

One by one, the prisoners lifted their heads like dogs who'd given up the habit. Maeve pushed her hair out of her face, braced one hand on the bars, and raised her voice.

"Everyone, out!" she said. "Up the hall, up the stairs! Don't squander this chance! Something's going on upstairs, and it's not going to be kind to us if we wait!"

The prisoners stared at her, wide-eyed. Men with the look of long punishment. Women with shoulders bent inward, making smaller targets of their hearts. No one moved as if they feared the air itself would bite them for disobedience.

She pointed towards the black mouth of the corridor. "Run as far as you can! Better yet, go south to Asphodel Lane Number Two, the building at the end of the street!" She forced a smile onto her face. "You can't miss it! It's the prettiest old church with a big fountain that thinks it's a lake! Head there, and the people there will give you sanctuary!"

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But silence still stretched.

From the opposite cell, the bearded old man with only one arm dragged himself upright and measured her with pale, scared eyes.

"... That another trap?" he croaked. "We were told sweet words once. Signed the papers. Paid with everything we had and everything we didn't. How do we know this clinic of yours isn't the same lie in a clean coat?"

Every gaze shifted to her and hung there, and oh, it'd be easy to give them doctrine. It'd be easy to say the phrases carved over altars and printed in the little books, but… that wasn't what they needed.

They needed a person.

So she let them see her tired mouth, the grime on her cheeks, and the tremor she couldn't hide in her hands.

She gave them the truth dressed in her best voice—the voice she'd honed working as the clinic's receptionist for six long months.

"It's not a trap," she whispered. "It smells like herbs and wet leaves and fresh water from the Gulch drawn clean, and the only man there smart enough to trick you is also perpetually drunk, so you can actually outsmart him pretty easily."

She smiled wistfully, sniffling as she did.

"It's… the place I love," she said. "So go, and don't look back."

The silence stretched a little longer.

And then someone cursed softly.

Locks scraped. Feet shifted. One by one, the prisoners began to move. Two men each without a leg swung their stumps to the thresholds, and two women each without an arm shouldered under them and bore them up. A young man with a split lip wedged himself beneath the shoulder of a woman whose ankle was crushed. The old man with one arm gestured someone else ahead of him, and together, they helped each other out of their cells.

Maeve sniffled once more before turning. Her mother was still slumped against the wall, her eyes a fever-glass. She staggered over, crouched, and slid an arm under Alana's shoulders.

"We have to go, mom," she breathed. "Up. On your feet."

"Leave me," Alana slurred. "I'll… slow you. I am… not anything to you anymore."

"Up," Maeve repeated, ignoring the words because they were poison and she had enough of that already. She got Alana under the arm, and together they heaved. They were the last out of their cell. The dungeon corridor was already empty now; the other prisoners had already limped or crawled past the iron door.

As one of the ceiling stones dropped and burst on the floor like a rotten tooth, she managed to haul the two of them into the stairs at the end of the passage. The steps were high and slick with seepage, but she set her jaw and climbed.

Two steps. Three. Alana's weight dragged at her like penance. Five steps, six. The world swam, and she tasted bile under the taste of the herbs.

Behind them, the dungeon cracked and groaned for the last time. In the next breath there was a collapse as the entire ceiling caved in. The wind from it shoved up the stairwell and made the lamps around them sputter.

"Saintess," she breathed. "We would've been crushed if we were any slower."

Seven steps, eight, nine—

And then her knees locked without warning. Pain flared up the back of her leg into her hip and tore a gasp out of her.

She pitched forward onto her hands, dragging Alana down with her. Stone bit her palms. Her breath vanished. For a moment, she could hear nothing but blood, ragged and loud, filling the world between her ears.

Shit!

I spent too much… beating up those—

"Leave me," Alana whispered again, and Maeve could hear the tears in it. "I… betrayed you. I thought—" Another breath, broken. "I thought Lorcawn would keep his word. I put you in his mouth. I am not anyone to you anym—|

Rage landed so cleanly in Maeve she could've sworn it made a sound, so she pushed up on her palms, turned, and slapped Alana. Not hard enough to bruise—she hated that kind of theater—but enough to sting. Enough to startle.

"Snap out of it," Maeve hissed, voice shaking. "Look at me."

Alana did. For the first time in two weeks, her gaze cleared. It hurt Maeve to see what was in it. Guilt like a black river. Self-hatred with long teeth. And—maybe she imagined it, and maybe she was only greedy for it—some sort of love, stubborn and scared.

So Maeve grabbed her only hand, tears welling in the corner of her own eyes.

"We are not damsels," she said. "We are not weaklings. We are Exorcists. Upstairs there is a man infested with a Myrmur, and we cannot let him do as he pleases."

The staircase trembled again. Dust slithered down the wall in pale threads. But for a heartbeat the noise faded, and there were only the two of them, as well as their old habit of looking at one another without blinking.

Alana's mouth tightened. She nodded once, a jerky little movement like she was agreeing with a ghost inside her—and then she glanced down at her ankle.

Both ends of the bloodshackle cuffs were still wrapped around her mother's ankle. Maeve knew that meant Alana had no access to the system right now, but to her surprise, Alana took a deep breath and dug her nails under one of the cuffs.

"Wait—" Maeve began, but before she could even finish her sentence, Alana gritted her teeth and ripped the cuff free. Skin broke. A smear of red. Immediately, Alana caught the dangling length and snapped the Hunter's end of the cuff onto Maeve's ankle.

The world jolted.

[Blood to blood contact established]

[Host is designated as 'Alana'. Hunter is designated as 'Maeve']

[Beginning system integratioṉ̶͛ ̵̲͠f̵͕̂o̵̱̎ř̶͉ ̴̘͐H̶͖̃õ̴̟s̷̳͌t̵̫́ ̴̹̐ä̵̺n̸̯̈́ḍ̴̛ ̴̖̈H̶̻̉ṵ̵͌n̶͂ͅt̴͑͜è̷̟ř̶̡—̵͈̕]̷̘͠

̴̹̒[̵̧͝E̴̩̽s̸̅ͅt̸̙͂ï̵̗m̶͍̈a̵̲̍t̸̗͑ḛ̸̍d̷̦͆ ̵͇̄t̶̠̑i̴͉͝m̶͔͝e̵̥̓ ̴̜͑r̸̪̀ḙ̸̏m̷̔ͅa̴̧͋ỉ̶̯n̵͕͠î̷͈ṇ̸̕g̴̚͜:̶̤̿

[Integration Complete]

Something bright and cold and electric lanced Maeve from heel to hip, then shot up her spine to the crown of her head. The jolt of being reconnected to a system again made her gasp, and with the reconnection came a soft mercy:

The drain of toxic blood.

Dull green blood began flowing from her body, through the bloodshackle, and into Alana's body.

Maeve's eyes flew wide. She grabbed the iron at her ankle, fingers frantic. "Get it off! No! We can't be connec—"

Alana caught her wrist with surprising strength. "No."

"You were a Hunter, too, so you already have toxin in you! If I also drain mine into you, you'll—"

Alana cupped Maeve's cheek with her only hand, and her thumb stroked grit from the hollow beneath Maeve's eye.

"... I've been looking for you for a long, long time," she whispered. "I wanted… a happier reunion. But I betrayed you, and that is fact, not fog… so at the very least, let me bear some of the weight I put on you." She drew a breath like a woman lifting a beam. "Drink this venom out of yourself. Let me drink it for you, just this once."

The drain deepened. Maeve's chest eased for the first time in fourteen days, and lightness lapped at her limbs like new air finding an old room.

Alana looked up, as if she could see the thunder stomping above the stone. "And… I don't know why," she murmured, "but the one making that ruckus upstairs… it feels like he might be someone you know very, very well.

Maeve froze. Her lungs locked, too, as if her ribs feared what the truth might hold.

Because she felt it too.

"Go." Alana's lips trembled into the ghost of a smile. "Go back to him. I'll… still be here after all of this."

And that broke something loose in Maeve.

She swallowed hard, then pitched forward into Alana's chest, tears searing tracks down her cheeks. For thirty long, trembling seconds, she let the bloodshackle hum between them, let her toxic blood flow out, and she pumped it all into her mother's body until her own body felt free and alive again.

Then she bit down, grit her teeth, and—with a ragged cry—ripped the Hunter's end of the cuff off her ankle. Another jolt ran up her spine as she disconnected from the system violently, but she rode the jolt until it carried her back to her feet.

She steadied herself.

Her breath found its edge again.

And as she trudged up the stairs, leaving her mother behind, she swore two things to herself:

She would save her mother, and she would kill the man who kicked them down to begin with.

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