Chapter 3
The ruins were dark and decrepit, the air thick with mold and rot that burned her lungs with every breath.
Moisture clung to the stone, slick and cold, carrying the sour stench of decay.
“Yes,” she muttered dryly.
“Love that smell.”
No time to savor decay.
A faint glow pulsed ahead — slow, patient, like a watching eye.
“Sigil magic?” Her brow furrowed. “I’ve only read about this in pre-collapse scrolls…”
She drew her dagger.
Steel whispered softly from its sheath.
“Well,” she said, voice flat, lethal. “Time to make a stupid fucking mistake.”
She sliced her palm open.
Blood spilled freely, warm against the chill as she recited an ancient spell. Power surged. The sigils shattered—
—and the ruin noticed her.
Stone groaned.
Dust sifted down from unseen heights.
Behind the broken magic yawned a pit of pure darkness, thick with despair.
Cold breathed up from it, heavy and wrong.
“You better be down here,” she growled.
She jumped.
Bow in hand.
Using her Undying Sight was a mistake.
The moment her boots struck stone, sigil-light erupted — burning through her vision in a lattice of symbols that crawled across the walls and ceiling, humming violently before tearing themselves free.
The markings peeled away from the stone, swelling, twisting, knitting themselves into flesh.
Eight figures took shape.
Elves.
Rotting elves.
Their flesh sagged and split, joints clicking wetly as they moved.
Eyes burned with corrupted sigils etched deep into their bodies, glowing through torn skin.
They turned as one.
Eight bodies, one will.
Eight mouths opening in perfect, blasphemous harmony — their voices echoing unevenly, layered and slightly out of sync, each word chasing itself through the chamber.
“Your blood walks where it was sworn to sleep.”
“Your breath defies the roots that claimed you.”
“Tharg?n erred.”
“You should have rotted with the dead.”
They rushed her all at once.
“What the fuck is this?”
No time to think.
She moved.
Six arrows flew in rapid succession — hearts, eyes, throats. Each shot landed with a dull, wet finality. Bodies dropped violently, collapsing in sprays of blackened blood that hissed faintly where it struck the stone.
One lunged.
She vaulted over it, hooked its neck between bow and string, twisted, and hurled it into another.
Both hit the ground hard, limbs snapping at wrong angles with sharp, brittle cracks.
Her dagger was already in her hand.
“What corruption is this?” she snarled. “What happened to my people?”
A voice answered her — warped by rot and time, layered with echoes that didn’t belong to one throat.
“You bleed and keep walking. You are a corruption of us, Nalhada.”
It lunged.
She slit its throat without hesitation.
Blood poured, thick and sluggish.
The last one rushed her.
She leapt, spotted a sigil carved into the base of its neck, and drove her dagger straight through it.
The creature collapsed before it could even scream.
Silence fell.
Water dripped.
Stone settled.
The ruin exhaled.
Nalhada stood still, chest rising and falling, blood dripping steadily from her blade.
Each drop struck stone with a soft, hollow tap.
She looked around.
The bodies were still there.
“They’re not disappearing,” she murmured.
“How? …How did they know my name?”
Everything she had ever killed had returned to the land.
Flesh to soil.
Blood to roots.
The world always reclaimed what was taken from it.
Always.
But these corpses remained — twisted, rotting, wrong — as if the land itself had rejected them.
A sound cut through the silence.
A wail.
Low.
Distant.
Familiar.
The sound never touched the air — it lived inside her skull, vibrating through bone and blood.
Her grip tightened.
“…He’s here,” she said softly, a dangerous smile pulling at her mouth.
“’Bout fucking time I found you.”
The spellfiend hissed, pacing just beyond the reach of the chains. Its claws scraped stone in short, agitated bursts.
“That fucking heart,” it snarled.
It turned sharply, eyes burning as they fixed on the elf suspended before it.
“RELEASE IT,” the creature roared. “THAT HEART. RELEASE IT, YOU MORKAL FUCKING BASTARD.”
Chains chimed faintly as the elf lifted his head.
Blood matted his hair, sliding down his face in slow rivulets.
His lips split into a grin that did not belong to a man in chains.
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely.
“You’re right. I am a bastard.”
He coughed, spitting blood onto the stone. It spread in a dark, uneven bloom.
“But a morkal fucker?”
He laughed — low, ragged, delighted.
“How dare you accuse me of fucking a morkal. I might be a sick, depraved cunt, but even I have standards. That would just be heinous.”
The spellfiend shrieked in fury.
The elf continued anyway, voice slurred but sharp with mockery.
“How about this — you untie me. These chains are really starting to hurt. Great work, by the way. I’m absolutely taking them once you’re dead. Then go out in your little dungeon you’ve got here — love the aesthetics, very of the times — gather all your men and introduce yourself to my sister. I know you can feel her coming.”
The spellfiend lunged.
Its clawed hand seized the elf’s face. Talons bit deep as a blade slid in alongside them.
Pain detonated across his skull.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
The spellfiend whispered an enchantment.
Symbols burned into the air as it pressed its palm over the elf’s mouth.
Magic clamped down instantly, sealing his voice behind a choking, invisible barrier.
Silence.
The creature turned away, muttering, pacing in tight, erratic circles.
Stone scraped beneath its claws.
“Of course he doesn’t know…”
“Too young.”
“But she—”
A pause.
“No.”
“She heard.”
Its claws flexed.
“How could she?”
“Unless—”
“No.”
“Unless she felt it.”
Silence stretched, thick and brittle.
“We’ve seen the scrolls…”
Its breath hitched.
“In and out.”
“Buried.”
“Hidden—”
Claws scraped stone harder now.
“We buried the scrolls.”
“We erased them.”
Silence.
“Didn’t we?”
It froze.
“Scrolls—”
“THE SCROLLS!”
Behind it, blood slid slowly from the gash in the elf’s cheek, soaking into the sigils carved along his throat.
The enchantment sputtered—flickered—
—and failed.
The elf dragged in a sharp breath.
Pain screamed through him.
Then he laughed.
“You know,” he rasped, blood on his teeth, “you really shouldn’t talk to yourself like that. Makes you look like a fucking crazed lunatic.”
The spellfiend spun, shrieking.
“Well excuuuuse me,” the elf added weakly, grin unwavering.
“Maybe you’re the morkal fucker.”
“I SAID SHUT UP!”
The room exploded into motion.
The spellfiend crossed the distance in a heartbeat, steel flashing as it carved into him again and again. Chains rattled violently as the elf screamed, the sound raw and torn from deep in his chest.
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Pain consumed the chamber.
And still—
he did not beg.
—
“Your dumb ass can wait a little longer,” Nalhada muttered as she scanned the ancient ruin.
It was wrong.
Every ruin she had ever entered carried remnants of life — broken chairs, collapsed tables, scraps of forgotten meals. The quiet mess of people who had once existed.
This place had nothing.
Too clean.
Too empty.
Water dripped somewhere deep below, slow and rhythmic. Stone shifted faintly overhead, a tired groan traveling through the ruin like a held breath.
She drew in a slow breath and activated her Undying Sight.
Invisible sigils flared into existence — etched through the air itself. The backlash hit her like a hammer, white-hot pain detonating behind her eyes. She staggered, boots scraping stone as dust rained softly from the ceiling.
“Fuck,” she hissed.
She shut the Sight down, waited for the room to stop spinning, then forced it open again — carefully. The sigils returned, dimmer now, hazy outlines instead of blinding light. A headache bloomed behind her temples, steady and mean.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “That fucking sucked.”
Her gaze drifted to the rotting corpses of the elves she had slain. They lay where they fell, bodies rejected by the land itself. She knelt, resting a gloved hand against one cracked cheek.
“I will honor you,” she said quietly. “You will not have died in vain.”
A distant rumble answered her — stone settling somewhere far below.
She rose and moved on.
Above her, a lattice of rafters and chains stretched across the chamber, disappearing into shadow. The chasm beneath split the ruin clean in two, its depth swallowed by darkness. Water dripped into it endlessly.
Quiet approach, she told herself. Don’t fuck it up, Nalhada.
She climbed.
Wood creaked softly beneath her weight. Chains swayed, metal whispering against metal before slowly stilling again. She moved from beam to beam, lantern to lantern, timing her steps between drips and groans, letting the ruin mask her presence.
Below, the next chamber opened wide.
Three guards stood together — rotting elves murmuring among themselves. Their voices echoed unnaturally, as if the stone itself carried their words.
“I don’t know what the master wants with those vein-walker abominations,” one said.
“Should’ve killed them worthless bloodlings,” another muttered.
“Tharg?n should have been destroyed for letting them breathe,” the third hissed.
Nalhada positioned herself above them. The ceiling here was rotted thin, the beam beneath her bowed and cracked.
She inhaled.
Don’t fail me… please.
The Undying Sight flared — clean this time.
No pain.
No blindness.
She saw everything.
Sigils carved beneath skin. At the joints. The heart. The brain. The neck.
Targets marked.
She drew her dagger and an arrow, slashed her cheek, and dropped.
The beam snapped behind her.
Two died instantly — one blade through the crown, the other clean through the neck. Blood magic surged as she caught the third before it could scream, silencing it in seconds.
The bodies hit stone with wet finality.
She straightened, listening.
Only dripping water.
Settling wood.
No alarm.
“Good,” she whispered.
She moved on, slipping into the next chamber, carefully disarming the sigil traps etched into the floor. Each glyph dimmed with a soft hiss as it died.
Eight guards waited ahead.
And an ogre.
Nalhada frowned.
An ogre? What in the fuck are you doing down here—
A sharp pressure bloomed in her chest.
Wrong.
Then pain exploded.
It felt like a hundred arrows tearing straight through her heart.
She screamed.
The sound tore free before she could stop it, bouncing wildly off stone and rafters.
Every head snapped toward her.
No time.
She shoved the pain aside and fired — four arrows slammed into the ogre’s chest, staggering it back, its roar shaking dust loose from the ceiling. She sprinted, leapt, rebounded off the wall, and loosed three more shots midair — each arrow finding a heart.
Her bow flew from her hands as she hit the ground hard.
She rolled, came up with her dagger, and buried it through another elf’s jaw, punching through skull.
Something punched into her shoulder.
She hissed — then grinned through clenched teeth.
“Getting kinky now, are we?”
She kicked the elf back, ripped the blade free, and slid between two others, reclaiming her bow as she moved. Stone cracked underfoot as the ogre charged, each step a thunderclap through the ruin.
She stopped dead in front of the last.
“You’re mine now, blood-walker.”
It lunged.
She rolled, fired — one arrow through its eye. The second sailed wide, shattering stone behind it.
“Fuck.”
The ogre barreled toward her.
“Busy right now,” she snapped, vaulting over it. “Be with you in a sec.”
She kicked off its shoulder mid-leap, slamming its head into a support beam. Wood split. Stone groaned. The chamber screamed in protest.
“Only three left?” she muttered. “Thought there were four.”
One rushed her. She spun and drove her blade into the back of its throat.
Another lined up a shot.
She baited the third — stepped into its swing, then vanished as the arrow meant for her punched through its ally instead.
Before the body hit the floor, Nalhada had an arrow nocked.
She winked.
The archer fell.
She turned to the ogre, still struggling beneath the fractured beam.
One arrow buried itself squarely in its ass.
It roared.
She walked up calmly and drove her dagger into its skull.
Silence.
Water dripped.
Wood settled.
Stone sighed.
Her chest still burned — worse now.
I need to reach him, she thought grimly.
Now.
She climbed again, smearing blood from her wound across her skin. The blood bent the light around her, the ruin struggling to keep hold of her shape.
“No time for mistakes.”
And she ran — faster now, reckless — as the ruin whispered and groaned behind her.
The chamber opened beneath her like a wound.
A vast cavern split the ruin in half, a jagged black fissure plunging so deep the darkness swallowed sound. Broken platforms clung to the stone on either side, while above them, ancient rafters and sagging chains stretched across the void like the ribs of a corpse. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling—slow, irregular, each drop echoing too far. Somewhere deep below, stone shifted with a distant, grinding groan, as if the ruin itself were settling into a deeper grave.
Below her, twenty figures moved through torchlight and shadow.
Boots scraped against stone. Leather creaked. Metal whispered against metal.
One laughed softly at something only it understood.
Another coughed wetly, spitting onto the floor.
The sound carried.
Nalhada crouched on a beam no wider than her forearm, fingers sunk into splintered wood.
One breath.
Then none.
The pain in her chest flared again—his pain—sharp enough to make her vision smear at the edges.
Not now.
She moved.
A silent drop.
A swing.
Her fingers closed around a hanging chain just as it gave a soft, complaining creak.
She froze.
Below her, a figure paused mid-step. Armor shifted. A helm tilted.
The chain swayed once.
Twice.
Then settled.
A grunt.
A muttered curse.
Footsteps moved on.
Nalhada didn’t breathe until her lungs burned.
She leapt.
The distance was wrong. Too far.
Her fingers caught the next rafter by instinct alone—skin tearing, nails cracking as her shoulder screamed. She hung there, boots kicking uselessly over the abyss, blood spotting the wood.
Far below, something snarled—a low, territorial sound—and another answered it with a laugh.
A drip of water struck stone.
Plink.
Too loud.
She didn’t look down.
With a slow, brutal pull, she hauled herself up inch by inch, blood slicking the beam beneath her palms.
She flattened herself against the wood, cheek pressed to the grain, listening.
Breathing below.
Slow.
Unconcerned.
A blade scraped as someone shifted their grip.
The pain surged again—worse now.
A scream clawed up her throat, hot and sudden.
She swallowed it whole, teeth digging into her lip until she tasted iron.
She moved again.
Leap. Swing. Cling.
Once, a loose splinter snapped beneath her boot.
Below, a voice rose—sharp, questioning.
She went still, muscles screaming, heart hammering in her ears until it felt louder than the dripping water.
“Thought I heard something,” one muttered.
“Just the ruin,” another replied. “It never shuts up.”
They laughed.
She crossed the rest of the chamber in fragments of silence, never fast, never clean—always one mistake away from discovery. When she finally reached the far wall and melted into its shadow, her hands shook uncontrollably and her lungs burned like fire.
Below her, the room continued as if she had never existed.
Twenty enemies.
None the wiser.
Nalhada closed her eyes for half a second.
Then she moved on—because whatever waited ahead was worse, and he was running out of time.
—
The dark elf had begun naming the pain.
Not out loud — that would have been strange — but privately, cataloguing it the way one might name stars, distant and cold.
The new one, burning directly over his heart?
Prick Poe.
Yes.
That felt right.
The deeper ache — the one that never quite faded, old as childhood — didn’t need a name.
It lived in the marrow.
It always had.
His thoughts drifted — unhelpfully — to food.
Gumbdel’s meat, slow-roasted until the fat cracked.
Nalhada’s hunter-juice glaze, sharp and sweet.
Gods, that had been good.
He exhaled slowly, chains chiming faintly with the movement.
“I’m starving.”
The spellfiend hissed and finally turned, irritation tightening its frame.
Stone scraped softly beneath its boots.
“Still conscious?” it sneered. “Incredible.”
“Hey, crazy lady,” the elf said lazily.
“Got any food? We’ve been here for hours, and I didn’t even get to hunt before you dragged me down here—”
“I hunted you,” the spellfiend snapped, voice cutting sharp through the chamber.
“Uh-huh,” he replied. “Suuuure.”
The fiend stiffened.
Memory flashed behind its eyes — the chase, the fear, the moment it had seen the smile on the elf’s face. The way he hadn’t run.
“You knew,” it said slowly.
“Had to figure out what you were up to somehow,” the elf said. He rattled the chains deliberately. Metal rang out, echoes folding over one another through the stone vault. “And if it weren’t for these fucking things, I’d have slaughtered you and your men in minutes, figured out your little ritual, and been home before my sister even woke up.”
He laughed — high, brittle, echoing too loud for the space.
“But no. You had to trap me. Which means now?” He grinned through blood. “You’re fucked. I’m the nice one. I would’ve killed you fast.”
He spat.
Blood struck the fiend’s face with a wet sound.
“But her?” he continued softly. “She’s going to make it slow.”
The spellfiend struck him across the face. Bone cracked against knuckle. His head snapped sideways, chains shrieking as his weight went slack.
“Finally,” it muttered. “Some quiet.”
It turned back to the book on the table — ancient, cracked leather, its spine whispering as it opened.
Pages rasped under clawed fingers, margins dense with layered spellwork, desperation pressed into ink.
Page after page.
Then—
“Yes,” the fiend breathed. “That might work.”
It seized a branch — blackened, ancient — cut from the World Tree itself, soaking it in the elf’s blood.
Power curled around it, humming low, as the fiend lunged forward, driving the branch toward the open wound in the elf’s chest.
Inches from his heart, the branch froze.
Magic screamed.
Sparks erupted, snapping like lightning as the fiend pushed harder, muscles trembling, teeth bared—
—and then force detonated outward.
The blast thundered through the chamber.
The spellfiend was hurled into the wall, stone cracking under the impact.
The elf woke with a roar of pain, the sound tearing raw from his throat before collapsing into ragged sobs. Tears streamed freely down his face, striking the stone below in quiet, shameful drops.
The room fell silent.
For the first time since he had been dragged here, the walls knew peace.
It did not last.
The elf snarled, veins along his horns blazing brighter red as he forced his blood magic upward. Power surged—
Then collapsed.
The chains flared.
Wraithlight hissed along their length, devouring the magic before it could form.
He slumped, breath rasping, shoulders trembling.
Then his eyes shifted.
The mounts.
Not that one.
The other.
Yes.
He tugged at the chain, teeth clenched hard enough to ache.
Just give me one inch, he begged silently.
One fucking inch and I’ll kill this bastard.
The mount didn’t move.
But it rattled.
A small, irritating sound.
He smiled.
Burning pain be damned — if this was the only fun he got, he’d take it.
“Wakey wakey, fiendie boy.”
The spellfiend groaned awake, clutching its head.
Stone dust slid from the wall as it moved.
That annoying fucking elf, it thought.
“Are you a guy?” the elf continued conversationally.
“Girl? Hard to tell. You’ve got that big bad scary vibe, but honestly I’d like to know so I can use the wrong one. Really get under your skin.”
The fiend stared at him.
How is he still talking? it thought. That blast should have—
It reached for its knife.
And that’s when the elf noticed the shift in the shadows.
Barely visible.
By the door.
Nalhada emerged silently, crouched low.
When their eyes met, she grinned, flipped him off, and winked.
Then she climbed the wall, stone whispering under her fingers, and vanished into the rafters.
“Oh, fuck you, bitch!” the elf yelled, laughter breaking through the pain.
Nalhada bit her lip, shoulders shaking as she stifled it.
The spellfiend hesitated, glancing between him and the shadows.
“All this time,” it muttered, confused, “all the words you’ve used… and now you say fuck you, bitch? I cut you, you smile. I cut you, you laugh.”
It shook its head slowly.
“You elves are fucking weird.”
Then it plunged the blade in again.
The elf never looked away from Nalhada.
Not once.
Nalhada watched her brother’s torture with open delight, her smile wider than it had ever been.
The chamber breathed around them.
Chains creaked softly in their invisible suspension.
Blood dripped from Nalhado’s body in slow, uneven taps, striking the stone far below.
Somewhere in the ruin, stone shifted — the low, tired groan of a structure that had witnessed centuries of suffering and would witness centuries more.
But time was slipping.
The fiend seized the World Tree branch again, bark slick and dark with her brother’s blood, and drove it toward his heart.
Both elves cried out.
The shared pain detonated in Nalhada’s chest — white-hot, breath-stealing.
The sound tore from her throat before she could stop it.
Nalhada moved.
Rope rasped as she tore it free from a nearby beam.
Steel whispered as she sliced her palm open, soaking the fibers in her blood while muttering an ancient reinforcement spell.
The words crawled through the air like insects, old and hungry.
She fixed the rope to an arrow, drew, aimed for the fiend’s leg—
—and released.
The shot struck perfectly.
Bone cracked.
The fiend shrieked, its cry echoing wildly through the chamber as the World Tree branch clattered across the stone.
A heartbeat later, the creature was yanked violently off its feet.
Nalhada leapt from the rafters, momentum screaming through her muscles as she swung the fiend upside down.
Iron groaned as she secured the rope to a wall hook, leaving the thing hanging, thrashing, chains rattling as it screamed itself hoarse.
Nalhada didn’t even look at it.
She turned to her brother.
“Seriously,” she said flatly.
“What were you thinking?”
He opened his mouth.
“Wel—”
SMACK.
The sound cracked through the chamber, sharp and final.
Nalhada’s palm stung from the force.
“You are not allowed to speak.”
The fiend laughed weakly, breath hitching between sobs.
“Yeah. That doesn’t work.”
Nalhada crossed the room in two strides.
Stone crunched under her boots.
She grabbed the fiend by its rotting skull and forced its face toward her brother.
“You pathetic, worthless piece of shit,” she snarled.
“How about you shut the fuck up and listen.”
The chamber fell quiet.
Only dripping blood.
Only the low hum of ancient magic woven into the ruin’s bones.
“See?” she continued calmly.
“When I tell a bitch to shut up, the bitch listens.”
Without looking, she pointed at her brother.
“Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”
He stopped himself mid-sentence and grinned.
He knew what was coming.
“So,” Nalhada said, drawing her dagger.
Steel whispered.
She chopped a finger off cleanly.
The sound it made when it hit the floor was wet and hollow.
The fiend screamed.
She caught its head as it thrashed, voice level, almost bored.
“What are you doing? Who are you working with?”
No answer.
Another finger hit the stone.
More screaming — hoarse now, panicked, breaking.
“Why were you cutting on my brother?” she asked.
“What is your fascination with his heart?”
She severed the entire hand in one smooth motion.
The stump gushed.
Nalhada took a candle from the wall.
Flame hissed as it met blood.
She heated the blade, then pressed it to the wound.
The sizzle filled the chamber.
The fiend sobbed.
“Answer,” she said quietly, “and I’ll make it quick.”
The creature shook, chains clinking softly with every tremor.
Nalhada sighed.
“Okay. So here’s what I’m going to do. Just so there are no surprises.”
She leaned in.
“I’m going to take you apart. Slowly. I’ll open muscles and dig inside with my fingers, peel them from the bone, pull them out through your skin—”
“OKAY—FUCK—OKAY!” the fiend screamed.
“The book! The book on the table! There’s a ritual for eternal life. It needs a World Tree seed. Only two exist—one inside each of you! Master wanted the seeds—I don’t know who Master is! Ancient knowledge, from before—please—just kill me!”
Silence.
Nalhada blinked.
“…Well fuck,” she said flatly. “You took all the fun out of it.”
She kicked the fiend in the head.
Bone thudded against stone.
The screaming cut off instantly.
Then she turned back to her brother.
They locked eyes.
He opened his mouth.
SMACK.
“OW,” he protested.
“You know, you really should be nicer to me. I mean, look at me—your helpless brother, beaten and broken by that torturer—”
He broke.
“Fuck—I tried so hard to keep a straight face.”
Nalhada stared at him, unimpressed.
“Yeah. Uh-huh. Those chains really holding you back, huh?”
She reached for them.
Pain exploded through her hands — sharp, searing, immediate.
Magic recoiled violently.
Nalhado burst into laughter, tears streaming down his face.
“Yeah—go ahead. Use your magic. I dare you.”
“THINK MAYBE THERE’S A REASON I’M FUCKING TRAPPED HERE, YOU DUMB FUCK?”
Nalhada stared at him.
“…Well,” she said, reaching again, “don’t these come in handy.”
She worked fast, teeth clenched, ignoring the burn as she undid one restraint.
Nalhado toppled forward.
She stepped back.
He swung wildly and slammed face-first into the wall.
Stone cracked.
She collapsed laughing.
“HAHAHAHA—YOU FUCKING IDIOT! You didn’t think to grab the post holding you up?!”
He untied himself quickly — too quickly — ripping the chains free from their mounts.
He spun, wrapping them around Nalhada and pinning her.
She yelled — pain and shock ripping through her.
SMACK.
“Ohhh,” he said thoughtfully. “Now I see why you hit me. That was fun.”
He raised his hand again.
“NALHADO!”
Her anger surged. Blood magic flared—
—and vanished.
Devoured.
“What the fuck are these chains?!”
“Now you get it,” he said. “They block our magic somehow.”
He grabbed the book, closing it with a soft, ominous thud.
“Haven’t figured out how or what they’re made of. Might be in here.”
Nalhada freed herself at last and picked up the chains.
They felt wrong in her hands.
Cold.
Hungry.
“Do they work on him?”
“Nope.”
“Such a shame,” he said, genuinely disappointed.
Nalhada slit the fiend’s throat without ceremony.
Blood poured.
The ruin drank it greedily.
She looped the chains onto her belt.
“Why the fuck did you leave without your armor?” she asked, helping him walk.
“Needed to look like I was going to take a piss.”
“…Ah. Gotcha.”
He paused.
“Hey. What the fuck is a morkal?”
