She was a raging wildfire. She was the cold cut of a flawless sword.

She was justice.

Minerva knew the beauty and ugliness of killing. Her blades sliced through flesh like butter, aiming for the softness between the shells of metal embedded in the Terrons' skins like armor. For every life she took, a rush of adrenaline and power surged through her. The energy acted as a buffer between her and the hollow place, so that it leeched the foreign life instead of her own.

The ugliness would hit her after, she knew. When her blood cooled, she'd look at the mess of littered bodies and wonder what girl had lost her lover, what child she'd left without parents. And in that brief moment, she'd wish she'd left just one alive to put metal to her neck and send her to Nemesis' deadly embrace.

So that's why she always screamed as she killed. They gave their lives, but she gave her sanity, her humanity. She hated how she enjoyed becoming one with her weapons, the effortless dance of death. Someone had created her to be the perfect soldier and she cursed them with every breath she didn't need to continue living.

The Terrons had crammed into the small corridor for a chance to rip into the Hydro. Though skilled, he wouldn't have been able to hold against all of them forever. The cramped space only allowed for two or three warriors to come against him at once, but it also hindered his use of the long, luminous spear whirling around his hands and fingers.

The two of them held the cluster of Terrons in pincer fangs. Minerva could only hope the spearman would hold out. If Hydro blood stained the Pyro palace's floors today, there'd be nothing preventing all-out war. Letting honored guests die under your roof was a breach of everything sacred. The Hydros could not be blamed one whit for considering their trust with the Pyros broken, even if it was Terrons who committed the murder.

Where are all the guards? A deluge of connections between this event and the entrance of the Hydros to the city the morning before assailed Minerva. She hadn't learned. As soon as she'd arrived home, action should have been taken to mobilize a plan of defense. Ashes, I could have asked Matsudo to arrange a strike of soldiers under my authority.

Distracted by regrets, she sloppily blocked and received a gash along her bicep when she curved her body to avoid being cut across the chest. The muscle protested. Her body had begun to tire. The Terron she faced recognized her battle fatigue and pressed his advantage. He called to the others behind him to shift fronts.

Minerva desperately fended off attacks. The intuitive knowledge was still hers, but not the ability to counter. Sweat dripped into her eyes.

A shadow appeared at the edge of her failing vision.

Wait—no. It couldn't have been that many yet. Minerva risked a quick glance behind her. A trail of bodies led away, over a dozen.

The shadow neared her, a thick tendril of darkness forming to touch her.

Minerva wanted to scream at the Terrons to get away from her before she snapped. To run until they couldn't run anymore. If she could, she would've have crawled out of her skin and left herself behind.

They had her pinned with her back pressed against the wall now. Her long sword clashed with an axe. With his superior strength, the Terron pinned her weapon. Minerva's sword quivered inches from her neck, kept at bay only by her will to live and the short sword she'd locked at its hilt. Even with the force of both her arms, she couldn't push back.

She wondered if she even should.

A whisper entered her ear, seeming to come from her blade. They deserve death. No one deserves mercy.

Kill them.

Minerva screamed. The hollow place burned in her inner vision. She was but a speck in its halo of negative brightness. A floating mote of light in an endless field of black. The darkness swallowed her and flashed its triumph. And all she could see—

Was red.

Pain slashed through the shadows. It ripped apart the blissful unconsciousness that had cocooned her.

Minerva groaned. Her entire body throbbed like a gorged heartbeat, overheated and burning her on the inside. Agony cut her side when she took a breath. A whimper broke from her lips.

"Shhh, you're gonna be alright," a voice whispered.

Coolness bathed her forehead. Minerva startled, eyes snapping open.

Her vision focused on dark blue eyes with wisps of ethereal blue mist drifting around their edges. The Hydro.

It hadn't been a nightmare.

"How"—Minerva licked her cracked and bleeding lips to try and work some moisture into them—"how many?" The pain lessened, giving way to numb weakness.

His eyes darted down to her mouth and the next instant, a slow stream of water flowed in.

It tasted sweet. Minerva could remember the last time she'd had water that didn't taste flat from having been boiled. Brenna's water.

"How many?" she repeated.

His brow furrowed in confusion. "How many what?"

"How many did I ..." Minerva squeezed her eyes shut. Her breaths came in shuddering gasps as she fought for control. Something shifted beneath her and she realized the Hydro held her cradled in his arms.

Her first instinct was disgust.

"All of them." He stood carefully.

"Put me down. I can walk," Minerva said, panicking. A twinge tore through her side again.

"Stop flailing," he grunted. "You're lighter than I expected, but I'm trying not to hurt you. There's a piece of rock stuck in you and I don't know how to get it out."

Minerva stilled, vision spinning from light-headedness. Now that the screams in her mind had subsided, she could hear the real ones. The fighting continued elsewhere.

"Azuki ..." she croaked. "My kat, where—"

The Hydro winced and Azuki appeared on his shoulder. "You're alive," the kat moaned pitifully. "It would have been very bad if you died, I realized."

Minerva smiled weakly.

"I don't know where to get bean buns to put on your grave," Azuki said.

"This is a wonderful reunion," the Hydro interrupted, "but we'd better move to someplace safer."

Minerva twisted her neck to get a better view of the floor. She fought back nausea—her rescuer likely wouldn't appreciate her vomiting on his white shirt and cerulean blue overcoat.

It took her a minute to differentiate the bodies of the ones she'd killed and the ones he had.

"Are you listening? I don't know where we should go, so you'll have to—"

"Twenty-six," she whispered. I'll remember. If nothing else, I'll remember.

"You're going to want to go down the hall I came from," Minerva said. "I'm in no shape to fight anymore so we should head away from where the main conflict probably is." This time she looked at him. Really looked, doing her best to engrave his features in her memory. Besides his blue eyes, the Hydro had dark—

Wait.

"So you recognize me too," he said, settling into a quick pace in the direction she'd advised.

"Bloody ashes," Minerva muttered. Of all the Hydros she could've had the misfortune of saving, it had to be this one.

His staccato steps sounded too loud to her ears—she would've walked much more softly. Each one held a note of melody in it. Unlike the stone mansions of the nobles or the wooden shacks of the commoners, the entire Imperial Palace had been constructed of kirukkan.

Well ... not exactly all of it.

Every brick supposedly took half a dozen men to lift with a kirukist encasing it in the thinnest layer of kirukkan possible. They had sealed every crack so that a knife's blade couldn't slip between. The result had been a feat of architecture never before known to man. No Pyro could burn it; no Terron could tear it down. It would stand impervious to any storms of water or wind. An eternal monument.

But each step on its floors spiked Minerva's anxiety as if she listened to her death knell.

"What's your name?" the Hydro asked. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards—a frustratingly charming gesture despite the nervousness that tried to overwrite the expression.

If she were stronger, she would've slapped that half-smirk off his face.

"I don't do names," she answered. The halls up ahead had quieted at least. It seemed all the trouble lay behind. Azuki tentatively tried to rest his paws on her chest, but withdrew when it caused her to hiss in pain.

"Well, I do. It's Kodak. Kodak Nakoya." His gaze was focused forward, a mercy. He didn't see the shock hit her.

"Burn it all," she breathed. Names she remembered, unlike faces. She held all the names and relations of Pyro and Draco nobility tucked away in the catalogue of her mind.

Of course she'd remember the name of the Hydro King's only son.

"You don't seem particularly pleased. I don't think it's a terrible name," Kodak said. "There are worse ones. Brone maybe, I'd hate to name my kid Brone."

"You're in a remarkably joking mood for someone who was almost murdered minutes ago," Minerva whispered harshly.

Kodak gave her a troubled glance. "I'd be more concerned about you. Any Hydro woman would kill for skin like yours, but I can't say I'm a fan of the corpse-like shade. My aim here might be to keep you conscious with my awful sense of humor so your spirit doesn't flee prematurely and leave me with the burden of your body. I think you're too young though." The smirking look returned. "Everyone knows you can't die until you've accumulated enough regrets."

Minerva silently pointed for him to turn left.

The thought manifested in the quiet and, in spite of her better judgment, Minerva gave it voice. "I have many regrets ... most of them involve cheese."

A smile flickered on Kodak's face. "Cheese ..." He gave a soft laugh. "I think—"

"People are coming," Azuki whined. He curled into a ball on the Hydro's shoulder and vanished from sight.

Minerva tensed at the sound of voices ahead. Kodak ducked to the side and pressed his back flush with the wall.

"What are you doing?" Minerva hissed. "Whoever it is, they're going to see us!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it," he murmured, gaze flicking back and forth as if he could see beyond the physical barriers to the approaching group.

When she opened her mouth to argue, Kodak pressed his forefinger to her lips. "You have to promise me to stay quiet and as still as possible. This won't work otherwise."

Minerva frowned in suspicion. "And what if I don't?"

He sighed. "Then they're going to see us." Kodak tilted his head to the side. "This goes for you too, kat."

Kat. He addresses Azuki so rudely.

"Azuki is quiet. I will not be seen." The kat flashed into sight for a brief moment, copper gold eyes wide with terror.

"Well?" Kodak raised an eyebrow at Minerva. "Are you going to trust me?"

The inflection of one of the speakers registered in Minerva's ears. Oh no.

"I have no choice," she answered softly.

Kodak crouched down and shifted her weight so that one hand was free. The blasted Hydro had the audacity to wink at her. "That's my girl."

If his goal had been to leave her speechless with a mixture of sudden mortification and fury, he'd succeeded.

Kodak raised his hand, thumb and forefinger pointing at the empty hallway. The dark oceans of his eyes lightened to glowing pools frozen over with ice.

Kovine stepped around the corner—a hooded figure close behind her.

Minerva twitched in surprise. Kodak's arm tightened around her in warning, heedless of her damaged side.

"You say the Terron was found in her rooms?" Kovine asked her companion. Her eyes passed right over where Minerva and Kodak sat frozen, like rabbits hunkered down in the shadow of a hawk.

"Her Imperial Majesty is correct," the stranger responded. "The man is unconscious, poisoned by the manticore known as Mala. From evidence found within the chamber, his lily escaped. The hand with her kirukkan leash had been cut off."

Minerva quivered in anguish of suspended motion. That cloaked woman's voice—she knew it.

Kodak squeezed her again, harder this time. His jaw clenched. The outlines of his face hardened with a deep furrow forming between his brows. A bead of sweat rolled from his forehead. His outstretched hand trembled.

"And you have no idea where she is?" Kovine demanded.

The woman hesitated.

Minerva silently begged her to remove her hood and confirm her worst fears.

"No, Your Imperial Majesty," she answered.

Kovine grabbed the woman's shirt front with her right hand and slammed her against the opposite wall. "We gave you one job," the Empress snarled, "and you failed."

"A thousand pardons," the woman cried. Her feet slid helplessly on the wall behind her. "May the Three have mercy on my wretched soul."

Kovine barked a laugh. "You shouldn't beg the Three for mercy. They have no use for disappointments. Fortunately for you, we are not the Three and so must use filth to accomplish miracles." She turned and flung her arm.

The woman crashed to the floor, sliding until she was a finger's breadth shy of bumping Kodak's foot. She raised her head. Blood smeared the corner of her mouth.

The dark hood had fallen away from her face.

Charna. Minerva choked on an onslaught of emotions. Grief. Anger. Relief.

You promised me you wouldn't look back.

Kovine swiped her hand on her chima and continued down the hall.

Minerva wanted to jump from the Hydro's arms and tug Charna to her feet. To hug the last friend she'd ever had and send her lands away with enough money to last a lifetime.

But the problem with Charna always had been money.

So Minerva let her go. Scrambling after the Empress like a half-starved cur, hoping to catch the crumbs from its master's table.

Something inside her broke.

Fire had filled her, but now a cold emptiness took its place. Minerva gasped for breath, though each one was shallow and not enough for empty lungs. Her hands turned brittle and stiff, as if her fingers could snap like dry twigs. Weariness replaced the life in her bones. A century of sleep wouldn't refill her.

The hollow place had come for its recompense.

When Kodak asked her where to go, she couldn't answer—her lips refused to form the words. She couldn't see. Everything melded, colors fading until it all turned grey.

She could hear though. It always left her hearing, as if to let her listen to the people break around her as she shattered from the inside out.

"You're not going to die on me," she heard Kodak say. "You bled all over my best shirt, dam you!"

Dying hurts, Minerva wanted to tell him, it's not as if I want to.

"I can lead you," Azuki called from the other side of the void.

If there was any motion, Minerva couldn't feel it. Only the pain. The searing lines in her cheek and the stabbing near her gut.

She was tired and wanted it all to end.

Time must have passed, but her thoughts were sluggish and her ears hung on by a tentative thread.

"What happened to her!" she heard Nola exclaim.

Minerva's will surged back to life. Nola knew how to save her. If her nurse wasn't ready to give up, then burn it, she'd fight too.

Nola spoke to someone and the words became hard to snare. The last ones rang clear though.

"Tell Matsudo his glass cannon fired."