“You never lift a finger again, Tavira.” The iron slabs had sealed out the canyon sun, trapping grease, copper, and the rank musk of dried leviathan bile within four stone walls. “Charming. So the ash-slave I dragged through the mud has decided I'm decorative pottery now?” I pushed off the mortar-scored stone. “Look, Karnal, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I had plans. Important plans that involve, you know, not being locked in here with a… a very large, very intense man who just dropped a severed head at my feet.” He chuckled, a low rumble that vibrated through the floor. It wasn't a pleasant sound. He took a step towards me, then another. “Your plans ended the day you bought me,” he said. “Now there is only keeping you whole.” He reached out, his massive hand, stained with dried blood, hovering inches from my face. My shoulder twitched back, but I held my footing as his thumb skimmed the heat radiating off my skin without making contact. “My people…” I started, trying to inject some authority into my voice, “are they just going to stand outside? What about Bhavar? He’s probably wondering why his entire rebellion is suddenly under house arrest.” Karnal dropped his hand, his pupils dilated so wide the gold was nearly drowned in black. “Your people. My people. They are all the same now.” He gestured vaguely at the iron doors. “They understand. They serve. Their purpose is your comfort. Your legacy.” “My legacy is an execution sentence carved into my marrow,” I spat. “Not a menagerie of disciples bowing to a lunatic.” Just then, a frantic pounding erupted from the other side of the heavy doors. A familiar voice sliced through the iron. “Tavira! Stand down and open this gate! By imperial mandate, release the ash-slave!” Nalumi. Of course. The original heroine, with her impeccable timing for screwing up my carefully laid schemes. I rolled my eyes. “Oh, perfect. Just what this intimate little reunion needed. Royal interference.” The muscles along his neck corded. He stepped between me and the entryway, his hand dropping to the hilt of his bone-cleaver. “She wants you dead.” “She seeks to ‘save’ you, actually,” I corrected, “from the big bad villainess. Me. She’s probably convinced I’ve enchanted you or something.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. This was going to be an ordeal. “Just… let her in. It’s better to deal with her here than have her battering down the walls. And she’ll see you’re… fine.” I emphasized the word, hoping he’d pick up on the sarcasm, the underlying implication that he was anything but. He hesitated, then slowly, deliberately, pulled back the heavy iron bar that secured the doors. He hauled the left slab inward six inches, framing Nalumi against the sandstone glare, two silver-mantled sect-guards hesitating a dozen paces behind her. Nalumi took a step into the threshold, her white sash fluttering. “Tavira, surrender the boy before—karnal?” Her voice snapped like dry kindling as she tilted her chin up toward his breastplate. Seven feet of scarred muscle and leviathan scales loomed over her. Karnal grinned down at her—a bared, red-rimmed crescent of teeth entirely stripped of human restraint. Her gaze dropped to the pit-boss’s smashed head leaking marrow beside his boots, then darted to my corner. She took a shuddering step back, her boots scraping grit. “Merciful ancestors,” she choked out. The righteous indignation in her stance vanished, replaced by the naked survival reflex of a gazelle that had stumbled into a slaughterhouse. Without another word, Nalumi spun on her heel and broke into a dead sprint down the canyon stairs, her white cloak snagging on rusted cage-bars as her guards scrambled to follow. Karnal chuckled again, a deep, satisfied sound. He turned back to me, closing the door and sealing us in once more. “She runs,” he stated, as if observing a curious beast. “She runs because you look like you’ve been dipped in a blood vat and are about three steps away from eating someone’s face,” I retorted, trying to inject some normalcy, some dry humor, into the utterly abnormal situation. “Look, Karnal, this is… effective. Very effective. But I need you out there. I need you to lead. To secure our… base. I need you to scout the perimeter. To ensure no more ‘savior’ types come knocking.” I gestured vaguely at the door. “Think of it as a crucial mission. For me. For my safety.” He watched me, his golden eyes unblinking. I could practically hear the gears turning in his monstrous mind. Would he buy it? Would he give me a moment’s reprieve, a moment to breathe without feeling his possessive gaze on me? “You want me across the yard,” he said, stepping into my reach until the heat off his skin scorched through my tunic. “You want walls between us.” He raised his palm, and the skin over my radial bone caught fire. I grabbed my forearm, gritting my teeth as black veins spiderwebbed toward my elbow. “What did you touch out there?” “The curse has a pulse,” Karnal murmured, pressing his thumb against the frantic beating in my throat. “It fed on your weakness, so I gave it my blood to drink instead. Now it listens to both of us.” A spike of molten iron drove straight into my elbow joint. My heels slipped on the flagstones. Karnal caught my ribcage before my knees hit the dust. His scarred fingers locked over my burning wrist, pushing bitter frost through my veins until the flare died back to an ember. “The seal senses its deadline,” he said against my hairline, hauling me against his chest plate. “It wants the patriarch's throat.” He tilted his head slightly, a terrifying tenderness in his voice. “Do not fear, Tavira. We march tonight. The Varnak estate will burn.”

The Heroine Runs