Kavvi pulled back from Fennik’s kiss, his heat lingering against her lips, as Bollan Vannos sagged onto their cramped terrace. His uniform coat, typically immaculate, was torn at the shoulder, a dark stain blossoming on the rough weave. Pippit, who had been perched on Kavvi’s head, immediately bristled, letting out a low, guttural churr. The sand-fennec’s six legs stiffened, ready to spring. “Bollan?” Kavvi scrambled to his side, her mind racing between the sudden intrusion and their ticking doom. But the sight of Bollan, the solid, unyielding officer she’d known her whole life, reduced to a trembling wreck, snapped her back to the immediate, desperate present. “What happened? You’re bleeding.” Bollan’s gaze, typically unwavering as a compass needle, darted wildly between Kavvi and Fennik. “Lirra… she found out about the Vashkan Enclave. My application for the Warmaster’s Guard. She said it was ‘too slow,’ that I should have been a general already.” He choked on the words, a raw, ragged sound. “She hired thugs. To ‘convince’ me to desert my current posting. To expedite my promotion through… other means.” Kavvi felt a cold knot tighten in her gut. She’d known Lirra was impatient, ambitious to a toxic degree. But hiring thugs to assault her own fiancé, to force him into desertion, crossed a line even Kavvi hadn’t imagined. She remembered Bollan’s unwavering focus, his meticulous planning. He had always been the tortoise, methodical and patient, destined to outlast flashier rivals. Years ago, when he first joined the ranks, he’d confided in Kavvi, not Lirra, about his dream of the Warmaster’s Guard. Kavvi had quietly sent him obscure texts on tactical strategy, anonymously slipped him intel on overlooked training drills, even arranged for a minor noble to sponsor his application without him ever knowing it was her. Lirra, meanwhile, had mocked his “diligent crawl,” always demanding flashier advancements, more immediate recognition. Now, his quiet ambition had backfired spectacularly. “She wants to discredit me, paint me as a coward,” Bollan whispered, his voice thin. “So she can attach herself to someone else, someone higher-ranked, faster. She’s already spreading rumors that I’m unfit for command.” Fennik, who had been watching the exchange with a peculiar intensity, stepped forward. His expression was unreadable, but Kavvi felt a strange current of heat emanating from him. “Thugs?” he asked, his voice low, a surprising gravel to it. “Are they… still following you?” As if on cue, a muffled shout echoed from the lower tiers, followed by the clatter of boots on a metal grate. Three hulking figures in dark, tattered cloaks began to clamber onto the adjacent roof ledge, their silhouettes stark against the polluted glow of the capital. One of them pointed a thick finger. “There! The deserter! And look, he’s with the Jorrah disgraced and her sick husband!” Kavvi braced for a fight, mentally cataloging the broken pipes and loose bricks she might use as makeshift weapons. Pippit bared tiny, needle-sharp teeth, a low growl rumbling in his throat. But Fennik merely smiled, a predatory glint brightening his exhausted eyes. “Perfect.” He moved with a speed Kavvi hadn’t seen from him since the stalker-beast incident. He didn’t reach for a weapon. Instead, he grabbed a coil of rusted wire from a defunct ventilation unit, his fingers flying with practiced precision. He looped it around a crumbling gargoyle, then, with a surprising amount of strength, he hurled a heavy, discarded Lumin-Core. The Core arced through the air, pulling the wire taut, before catching on the edge of the adjacent rooftop’s awning. In seconds, he had fashioned a crude pulley system, connecting it to a corroded pressure plate near their feet. A half-eaten loaf of stale bread served as bait, placed carefully on the plate. The thugs, their eyes fixed on Bollan, didn’t notice the subtle alteration overhead. The largest of them, a man with a scarred cheek and a sneering grin, stomped across the tiling, heading straight for Bollan. His heavy boot landed squarely on the pressure plate. With a gut-wrenching screech of metal, the awning on the adjacent building, weakened by years of neglect and Fennik’s ingenious — if destructive — modifications, suddenly gave way. The three thugs, who had been scrambling across it, expecting stable ground, plummeted. They cried out, a chorus of startled yelps, as the makeshift gravity-trap ensnared them. The wire, now taught, caught them around their ankles, dangling them upside down, ten stories above the lower street, their cloaks flapping like grotesque bats. “Wait, what in the…?! Let us down, you madman!” one thug shrieked, his face purpling with indignation and fear. Another started to vomit, a pathetic stream onto the street below. Fennik merely adjusted his spectacles, his smile widening into something truly unsettling. “I believe you were looking for the deserter?” He gestured casually at the dangling men. “I find that a brief moment of existential reflection often helps to recalibrate one’s priorities. I’d suggest you reflect on whether Lirra Jorrah’s purse is truly worth this… unique perspective.” The thugs, terrified and humiliated, started to plead, promising to never return, to tell Lirra they’d lost the trail. Fennik held them there for another agonizing minute, their frantic whimpers echoing through the air, before he casually cut the wire. They tumbled in a heap onto a forgotten service ledge, groaning in pain, but clearly uninjured save for their dignity. They scurried away like startled sand-beetles, not daring to look back. Kavvi stared, utterly dumbfounded. Her chronically depressed husband, the scholar who had nearly collapsed while mounting a bracket, had just effortlessly dangled three armed thugs off a building. A wild thrum kicked in her ribs. Whatever provoked it, the competence was undeniably attractive. Bollan, equally stunned, pushed himself up on trembling arms. “That… that was brilliant. Utterly insane, but brilliant.” He looked at Fennik with a newfound respect, a flicker of something akin to awe in his gaze. “I… I can help you. If you hide me. I know a place. A secure, underground ordnance forge. Off the books. My old mentor uses it for experimental ordnance. It’s got a mana-flux conduit, precision tooling, everything you could possibly need. Completely untraceable. And I have clearance.” Kavvi’s eyes lit up. A forge! Underground! Untraceable! This was exactly what they needed. She caught Fennik’s gaze, a silent question passing between them. He nodded, a slow, deliberate movement. “Done,” Kavvi declared, her voice firm. “But you work for us now. Consider it payment for asylum. You’re our… stray warmaster.” Days melted into a blur of frantic invention within the hidden forge beneath the Terraces of Vash. The air hummed with the faint thrum of dormant machinery, smelling of ozone and machined metal. Bollan, surprisingly adept at scrounging, procured discarded components and rare alloys, his quartermaster contacts proving invaluable. Kavvi, now with a clear goal, became the forge’s chaotic, driving force, her shameless humor somehow cutting through Fennik’s most intricate theoretical blockades. She’d bring him exotic teas, cajole him into breaks, and even, on one occasion, dared him to build a personal automated back-scratcher if he finished a particularly vexing schematic. Fennik, invigorated by the secure environment and Kavvi’s relentless optimism, thrived. He began not just integrating the shade-moss, but also tinkering with the forge’s surplus materials, creating small, ingenious devices – a self-cleaning sand filter, a perpetual-motion Lumin-Core recharger, an automated ore sorter – each one a potential patent, a small step towards their fortune. He meticulously integrated the shade-moss into the core apparatus cooling conduits, a delicate balance of arcane theory and mechanical assembly. Bollan, a stoic presence, watched with fascination, learning more about mana-mechanics in a week than he had in his entire career. Then came the day. The mana-assemblage, now gleaming with new components and ancient moss, pulsed with a low, rhythmic hum. Fennik initiated the final sequence, his hands trembling slightly. Kavvi held her breath, Pippit’s six legs twitching on her arm. The turbine whirred, building power, the shade-moss glowing with a soft, verdant light. The numerical display on its control panel flickered, then settled. Stable. Perfectly stable. The mana-output readings climbed, higher than any theoretical model, higher than Fennik had ever dared to dream. Unprecedented power. A quiet, triumphant cheer escaped Kavvi’s lips. They had done it. They had bought themselves time, perhaps even a future. But as the engine settled into its perfect, powerful rhythm, Kavvi’s left wrist suddenly burned. She looked down. Her execution shackle, which had glowed with a faint, steady light since its appearance, was now pitch black, absorbing all ambient light, a terrifying void. Ice prickled along her spine. The countdown runes, normally a faint blue, now pulsed a stark, aggressive crimson. The remaining sixty days had vanished. Replaced by a single, horrifying number: *7*.

The Stray Warmaster