Levan shifted his stance, fingers curling toward his belt. “Kairon,” he said, voice steady. “We fight the Empire, not each other.” The scarred raider barked a dry laugh. “Words, Gvaramia. Your speeches heal nobody while folks cough black phlegm in ditches. Seize them!” Before Levan could draw steel, two brigands with rusted cleavers charged. Levan moved with a dancer’s grace, deflecting the first blow with his forearm, but the second caught him hard in the ribs, sending him stumbling back against the cart. Nusha, still near the cart’s driver’s seat, felt a surge of cold fury. This wasn’t some back-alley scuffle; these men intended grievous harm. “Murtazi!” she hissed, barely audible above the rising shouts. Her Corpse Cat, who had been lazily stretched across the cart’s supplies, uncoiled with terrifying speed. His six legs launched him in a blur of motion, a guttural snarl ripping from his throat. He aimed for the closest raider, a man with a torn earlobe, clamping down on his thigh with jaws designed for carrion. The man shrieked, dropping his axe and flailing wildly. “Pry the vermin off!” the brute with the maul barked, waving two flunkies forward. They rushed Murtazi, who, despite his ferocity, was still just one creature against a dozen. A heavy club connected with Murtazi’s flank, sending him skittering away with a pained yowl, but he remained on his feet, spitting venom. Meanwhile, Levan, grappling with three men, was being inexorably dragged away from Nusha, his strength impressive but ultimately insufficient. One of Kairon’s men, a greasy-haired youth with a chipped dagger, grabbed Nusha roughly by the arm. “This one comes with us,” he snarled, his breath smelling of fermented grain. He tied her wrists together with a length of rough cord, pulling it painfully tight. “The boss wants her breathing, but a bruise or two keeps stock docile.” “You touch me, and you’ll regret it,” Nusha said, her voice low and steady, a sharp counterpoint to the chaos. Her eyes, narrowed slits, fixed on his. The youth snickered. “Heard that one before, Saint. You’re just a pretty face with a parlor trick.” He shoved her towards a grimy shed, ignoring her resistance. Murtazi, seeing Nusha being dragged away, let out a furious, chittering cry, but two Gray Wolves held him back with a makeshift net of ropes. Inside the shed, the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and stale hay. The youth roughly pushed Nusha onto a pile of sacks. “Stay put, ‘Saint.’ We’ll be back for you after Kairon’s done teaching Gvaramia a lesson.” He slammed the wooden door shut, plunging the shed into near darkness. Nusha inhaled the sour air with deliberate slowness. *Parlor trick, is it? We’ll see.* She tested the ropes on her wrists. Too tight to break, but the knots were hasty. She began to work them, her fingers surprisingly nimble, even in the dim light. Her eyes scanned the shed. A rusted grain hook leaned in the corner beside a split crate, and daylight leaked through rotted slats at the back. Outside, she heard the muffled sounds of the altercation continuing. Levan’s voice, calm but firm, carried occasionally. “Your captain brings nothing but graves! Look at you, squabbling over roadside dregs while the high enclaves feast behind wards. Is this what Giorgi bled for?” There was a moment of silence, then a grumble from one of the Gray Wolves. “He has a point, chief,” muttered a rough voice. “The cellar back home is full of coughing kin. You swore she’d mend them.” “Shut your hole, Dima,” the scarred brute snapped. “She cures our faction first. Gvaramia only wants a holy doll to parade on a wagon.” “A doll?” Levan countered, ringing with contempt. “I offer her freedom and an end to this rot. He dangles oaths of bread and leaves your bellies hollow. Where are the grain sacks he swore were in the last garrison?” Nusha slipped the loosened hemp over her raw wrists and peeked through a fissure in the wood. Levan stood ringed by hostile steel, yet his posture radiated stubborn fire. Two of the renegades glanced between each other, shuffling back from their commander. The seeds of doubt were sown. *Now,* Nusha thought. She snatched up the curved harvesting hook, dull-edged but solid iron. She drove her boot into the decayed door latch. Pine gave way in a brittle crack, startling the sentinel outside. Nusha swept the hook across the stonework in a shriek of scraping sparks. At that same second, Murtazi shredded the cord netting, leaped through the mesh, and sank his upper fangs into the guard’s collar. The ambush disintegrated. The men penning Levan turned toward the feral screech and the sight of an escaped prisoner brandishing barn metal. Levan twisted the wrist of his nearest captor, pried loose a hunting blade, and pivoted just in time to deflect the downward sweep of the iron hammer. The two leaders clashed, a brutal dance of steel and raw power. Nusha jabbed with the hook’s blunt heel, keeping two men at arm's length. When a rusted hatchet whistled past her ear, she dipped low and drove the heel of her boot into an attacker’s kneecap, dropping him into the mud. Murtazi, a furry, six-legged whirlwind of teeth and claws, kept two more occupied, ripping at their roughspun tunics, forcing them to fend him off rather than focus on Levan or Nusha. “Follow me!” Levan yelled, battering aside another swing of the hammer before planting an elbow into an adjoining ribs. Nusha hurled the tool straight at an advancing bandit's shins, vaulted a shattered spoke, and fell in behind Levan’s strides. They darted through the gaps between wagons in tandem. Levan cleared the path with powerful, precise strikes, while Nusha, almost instinctively, found the gaps, the blind spots, her speed and smaller frame allowing her to slip past their attackers. They broke through the market perimeter, leaving shouted curses and wounded brawlers behind. They kept a brutal pace until the sun sank behind the ridges, staining the blighted hills in bruised purple. Their lungs burned, their muscles ached, but they were free. Levan eventually led them to a winding, overgrown path that ascended a craggy peak. At its summit, half-hidden by ancient pines, stood the crumbling stone walls of what must have once been a grand monastery, now roofless, yet buttressed by stubborn masonry. “The Monastery of Saint Cyrion,” Levan gasped, leaning against a weathered archway, catching his breath. “One of our hidden refuges. We’ll be safe here.” Murtazi, after a quick, furious inspection of the perimeter, curled up beside Nusha’s feet, purring a low, rumbling sound that was more menace than comfort. Inside the monastery’s vast, echoing nave, a small fire crackled, tended by a handful of Silver Lily rebels. They greeted Levan with relieved smiles and respectful nods, their faces illuminated by the flickering flames. The heat drained from Nusha's limbs, leaving an ache behind her ribs. She watched Levan trade low murmurs with his sentries. Surviving the road had bought them a shared escape, but it did nothing to bridge the gulf between a holy crusader and a fugitive sewer surgeon. He still saw her as a symbol, a means to an end. A saint. She was just Nusha, a medic who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. When Levan stepped away from his cadre and leaned against the granite arch beside her, his breath came slow and controlled. “You handled that alley better than most veterans,” he murmured. “I wanted to keep my skin intact,” she said, folding her bruised arms. “Now stop dodging. You brought me here under the title of an oracle. Giorgi never gave me fairy tales before he died. You claim my bloodline birthed the ash rot. What precisely did the verses say I must undo?” Levan’s face softened. He hesitated, then sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “The old chant passed down among the abbots,” he began quietly. “‘When the Gray consumes the land, the Crimson Saint shall rise from the ash of forgotten lineage. Her touch shall mend, her will shall guide, and she shall sever the plague by undoing its wellspring, ushering in the Dawn of the Lily.’” Nusha stared at him, the flickering firelight casting long shadows across her face. “‘Undoing its wellspring,’” she murmured, tasting bile on her tongue. “To your mind, that means butchering Vardo and razing the estate.” Levan nodded, his expression resolute. “Precisely. Your family’s dark practices, their ancient pacts… they are the root of this plague. You, Nusha, are the antidote.” Her gaze did not waver, but an ugly conclusion took root in her gut. Her craft did not come from thin air; the dark talent humming beneath her skin was the exact marrow of the dynasty she fled. If the forgotten lineage produced both the curse and the cure, then the wellspring was not simply grandmother Vardo's throne. It was the sorcery coursing through Nusha’s own veins. To excise the root of the rot meant burning out her own core, perhaps ending her life altogether. Levan looked at her with unclouded hope, completely blind to the trap woven into his sacred scripture. He wanted a martyr draped in red silk. Nusha had spent five years stitching festering wounds in filthy basements specifically to stay alive; she had zero intention of becoming kindling for his grand dawn. “The Dawn of the Lily,” Nusha said, her voice dry as tinder. “Tell me, Levan. Does your holy scripture say anything about a Saint who refuses to climb onto the pyre?”

An Unlikely Rescue and an Unwanted Truth