Blood And Cold Stone

The sub-basement armory was a cavernous vault of damp granite, lit only by sputtering wall torches that cast long, flickering shadows across rows of heavy iron racks. The air reeked of wet rust, animal fat, and cold, dried blood.

Kira dropped her wooden bucket onto the stone floor with a dull thud. The harsh lye soap sloshed over the rim, stinging the raw, blistered brand on her left wrist. She hissed through her teeth, curling her fingers tightly into a fist until the sharp physical pain forced back the wave of dizziness threatening to pull her under.

She pulled a heavy chest piece off the nearest wooden dummy. It belonged to an elite Iron-Ridge warrior—thick leather reinforced with overlapped steel plates, heavily encrusted with dark, flakey blood from the morning's border skirmish.

Kira sank to her knees on the cold flagstones, grabbed a stiff bristle brush, and began to scrub.

Scrub.

Rinse.

Scrub.

The repetitive motion became her only anchor against the agonizing toxicity waging war inside her body. With every pass of the brush, her muscles screamed in protest. Her hands trembled so violently that she could barely maintain her grip on the wooden handle. The silver paste sat like a lead weight in her stomach, radiating a sharp, cold fire that made her sweat despite the freezing dampness of the room.

Inside her chest, her muted wolf scratched feebly against the chemical wall binding it. It wanted to heal her raw wrist; it wanted to flush the toxic heavy metals from her bloodstream; it wanted to roar in grief for the Sun-Crest wolf scheduled to die at sundown.

Stay down, Kira commanded her wolf silently, biting her inner cheek until she tasted her own iron-tainted saliva. If you heal me now, they will see the brand vanish. They will know what I am.

Her thoughts drifted to her family—to the night the Iron-Ridge army tore through her home pack's territory. She remembered the clash of steel, the terrible smell of burning wood, and her mother forcing the small jar of silver paste into her hands, screaming for her to hide her scent and run. She had watched from the shadows as her royal bloodline was eradicated.

Now, she was scrubbing the blood of her own people off the armor of their killers.

A sudden flare of white-hot agony shot through Kira’s gut. Her vision swam, the dark granite floor tilting beneath her. A violent cough racked her chest, tearing through her damaged throat. She slammed her hand over her mouth just in time to muffle the sound, feeling a hot, wet liquid leak through her fingers.

She pulled her hand away. Blood—laced with tiny, shimmering specs of gray silver paste—coated her palm.

Panicking, Kira leaned over her water bucket and frantically washed her hand, watching the crimson evidence dissolve into the murky lye water. She wiped her mouth with the frayed sleeve of her tunic, her chest heaving as she fought for air. The poison was eating through her stomach lining faster than she had anticipated. If she couldn't find a way to stabilize her dosage, her body would fail before she ever found a way out of this fortress.

You cannot faint, she told herself sternly, her dark eyes filling with a cold, desperate resolve. Not here. Not now.

She picked up the stiff brush with slick, shaking fingers and pressed it against the steel pauldrons once more, channeling her grief and physical suffering into the backbreaking labor. She scrubbed until her fingernails cracked and bled, using the stinging pain in her fingertips to drown out the haunting memories of her past.

She lost track of time in the dim, subterranean gloom. The pile of cleaned armor beside her grew, while the water in her bucket turned a dark, muddy crimson.

Her body was completely numb, running purely on adrenaline and sheer force of will, when her trembling fingers suddenly lost their grip on a heavy steel breastplate.

The heavy piece of armor slipped from her slick hands and crashed onto the stone floor with a deafening, metallic reverberation that echoed loudly up the narrow stone stairwell.

Clang!

The sharp noise shattered the quiet vault, ringing in Kira’s ears like a death knell.

She froze on her knees, her heart slamming against her ribs in pure terror.

From the top of the stairwell, the faint sound of heavy, armored footsteps immediately cut through the silence, descending the stone stairs with slow, deliberate authority.