“Well, from what you’ve shown me, I’d say your halberd is forged from dwarven bone steel, or at least something close to it. But the additional enchantments do make it a little hard to tell. The runes I’ve examined are complex and filled with layered redundancies, but that’s to be expected in a weapon enchantment. Whoever forged this piece knew what they were doing and had a clear goal in mind; creating a two-state weapon with remarkable durability. I know in the old empire they used to outfit the iron legions with something like this, a sword that could turn into a spear and back again. Maybe some rune smith with a bit of nostalgia was trying to improve that old design?” - Emma of Stonebone (Vindabonian Smith)
A rattling gasp escaped the Homunculus as he opened his eyes; the smell of rot assaulting his already fragile mind. Hands scrabbling against the muddy ground, he found his axe and amulet then clambered to his feet, knowing he’d need them for what came next. Surrounding the Homunculus were corpses, some unmoving, most not; the ghouls of the tide, now only kept at bay by a ring of their own. A crude circle of maybe two or three dozen ghouls stood shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a ‘pen’ around the Homunculus, their presence masking his, but not for long by the looks of it. Some of the closer ‘wall ghouls’ were staring at him, their blank, rotting faces twitching slightly, one even had its arms outstretched, groping at the air even though its legs were locked in place. The charm keeping them docile was wearing off, and when it did waves of hungry dead would come crashing down on the Homunculus… and his charge.
Another corpse lay in the circle’s center, this one in markedly better shape than the ghouls, despite being nearly frozen solid. With a series of dry pops, the corpse started to move, opening frost-kissed eyes and revealing red irises. Quickly looking away, unwilling to risk his heart and mind on more than confirming the corruption was receding, the Homunculus stepped away from the reanimating body and towards the surrounding ghouls. Acrid fire burned within the Knight’s chest, a pain that threatened to hollow him out if it was allowed to fester. Emotions swirled, feeding the flame like alchemical compounds might an unstable reaction. With every beat of the Homunculus’s heart, the fire grew hotter and threatened to split him open like an imperfect crucible.
Taking heaving breaths, the Homunculus tried to smother the flame but the effort only stoked the fire, sending it roaring through him until it drowned out the distant sounds of battle and closer sounds of ghouls. Fingers tightened around his axe hilt until they went numb, the Homunculus’s vision blurred, and then went unnaturally clear, as the inner heat remelted the glass of perception. Body shaking, the Homunculus felt he might detonate like the bloated corpse he’d faced earlier, the pressure inside was just too much. Lips peeling back into a snarl, a scream began deep within the Knight, a ragged sound that grew and grew, a release keeping the cracks within from widening into mortal wounds.
As the scream withered into something tired and broken, a voice from behind the Homunculus reached him. “Cole?”
Not turning around, not wanting to see the corpse or even hear what it had to say, the Homunculus trudged towards the ghouls, seeing their dead eyes fixed on him, fell hunger pressing against cracking chains. The very thought of chains fed the flame within like naphtha, and the Homunculus dipped two fingers into the open bite wound on his leg, smearing the blood onto his axe. As the weapon grew into a halberd, the voice spoke again. “Cole, I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t mean for this to happen. I-”
Droplets of memory joined the fire, igniting in white-hot flashes. He remembered facing the Alukah, failing to seal the curse, and then being dragged into its mindscape in chains. Old wounds were pulled open by new trauma, the Larder of Igori and the Meadow of Natalie joined into a harmony that shattered the Paladin, leaving only a creature of scars and sorrow. Chained and trapped once again, the Homunculus’s mind was dug into, psionic surgery done without anesthesia, recollection plucked at like exposed nerves, by a monster professing love as it mutilated him. A voyeur peeping through his perspective, seeing the truth and shattering from it, all while still nesting in his vivisected psyche; leaving echoes of secondhand revelation as his tormenter slithered free and broke the chains.
The Homunculus had been violated in the purest of forms, mind, and soul. His autonomy ignored, and love exploited. But his pain helped banish the curse, cracking the illusion gripping his lover and giving her the opportunity to free them both. Once again, the Homunculus suffered, and others were saved, just as was proper, just as the very cosmos dictated it should be. So with his task fulfilled, he should turn, take up his mantle, and greet his lover as a Paladin, providing comfort and protection as was his duty. But…but he couldn’t, he couldn’t just accept what had been done and stand tall in the face of torment as he was supposed to. The damage ran deep, cracks years in the making, widened by loss and failure, now split open, becoming wider and wider until the roaring flame burned free.
An ugly animal sound escaped the Homunculus and he swung his halberd, cutting through the nearest ghoul’s skull, the stained blade continuing with inhuman strength, taking another hungry corpse at the collar and another in the chest, splitting them both in twain. Somewhere behind him, the vampire who he loved, who hurt him, spoke again, voice pleading and sorrowful, the Homunculus ignored the words, as the fire was set loose. For so long, he fought, he bled, he died so others might be spared; but he couldn’t any longer, the Homunculus was broken, and like all broken souls, he sought to share his damage.
Tearing down the fence of corpses keeping the tide out, the Homunculus waded into the waves of hungry dead, halberd taking apart two or three at a time. Ragged hands missing fingers and flesh groped at him, seeking any purchase so they might drag him into their hungering embrace. But they were like strands of seaweed clinging to a ship’s bow as it broke the waves, limpid, fragile things unable to do more than sap momentum from the Homunculus; yet paltry as these chains were when compared to inhuman strength driven by mad fervor, they were still chains and the Knight would not be bound. Swinging his weapon in a reaping arc, roaring as he did, the Homunculus cleaved through a swath of ghouls, but for every half-dozen felled a hundred more crowded in.
Arms and teeth rasped against the Knight, seeking purchase, trying to drag him down, his strikes tearing through most but never all. In another life or another time, the slow attrition of the hungry dead might have been enough to grind the Homunculus down until his flesh filled their bloated bellies; but that night, the Knight rejected all chains, all bindings, even ones he self-imposed. As Requiem cut and cut, it was drenched in blood, rotting filthy blood, but blood nonetheless. The Homunculus lacked the talent or training to harvest what meager magical power might be found in such ichor, but that didn’t mean other uses for it were beyond him. Requiem consumed blood to power its enchantments in more ways than one. The magic found in red offerings let the Homunculus warp steel with a thought, but what actually made blood red kept the weapon intact. Iron, carbon, and other trace substances were consumed by Requiem, used to repair damage and add to its mass.
With every strike, every ruined corpse, blood flowed over the halberd and it drank greedily, finally allowed to taste more than its master’s offering. Droplets became milliliters, milliliters became grams, grams became kilograms and Requiem became a titan of a battleaxe. In mundane hands the weapon’s new form would be cumbersome to the extreme, being more a parody of a warrior’s tool than anything practical; but when this new weight and size was coupled with supernatural strength, the results were… dramatic.
The Homunculus swung his axe and ghouls came apart; mass married to momentum rending anything struck to mincemeat. Blood and bits sprayed out around the Knight in a literal wake of devastation as he cleaved the tide, his axe a galleon’s bow splitting wave after wave with a sound like thunder. Hundreds of corpses, lurched towards the Homunculus, drawn by the crash of steel against flesh; marching into the maelstrom, desperate to feed on the monster in its center. Standing in the shadow of Azyge’s wall, but making no effort to reach them, the Homunculus killed and killed. Unburdened by holy oaths or mortal pretenses, he expressed his rage, his pain in the oldest way known: violence, pure and vicious.
Bodies and bits of bodies covered the ground, forming a rotten carpet that invited more to the slaughter. Broken ghouls clambered over the pieces of their forebearers, the lucky among them tripping and escaping the axe long enough to crawl forward towards the Homunculus. Most of these grave worms met their end at stained sabatons or the spiked butt of Requiem; but force of numbers allowed a scant few to reach their target, grabbing the Knight and sinking chipped teeth into him. Armor, both metal and leather, further winnowed these outliers from threats into nuisances, only one or two actually managing to taste the Homunculus before fists of iron swatted them like stinging insects. These new wounds went unnoticed by their bearer, the mingling of fresh red with rotting brown the only real marker they existed. With time these outliers of outliers would slowly tear the Homunculus down, the tide wearing away a mountain, but time was rarely an ally of the unquiet dead. Just as the sea might tear down a mountain, the world’s bones can shift, and peaks might rise higher, cutting the ocean apart and leaving pieces to wither away, chained by stone and doomed to extinction.
The carpet around the Homunculus grew thicker and thicker, becoming first a marsh of the dead and then a barricade of broken bodies. Pacing in a small circle, axe cutting, fists striking, boots crushing, voice screaming, the Knight built his own fortress, a new holdfast the corpse-tide must take before it could drown Azyge. Ghouls climbed over the chest-high pile, rotting faces peering over the gory walls just in time for another strike to tear them down. Unburdened by intellect or understanding, the hungry dead kept coming, drawn to the slaughter, like flies to the flame.
As the Homunculus killed and killed, the sounds, smells and sights of his carnage pulled at more and more of the ghouls. With the main gate shut by rubble and the second breach guarded by both mortal soldiers and a gorger still feasting on its own kin, the ghouls followed their instincts and turned from the siege of Azyge and towards the siege of Cole.
Heart thundering, lungs burning, muscles heavy with the weight of slaughter, the Homunculus kept fighting, trying to drown the flame consuming with the blood of ghouls. He was broken and wanted to break his enemies, but they were beyond his reach, so these shuffling corpses would have to do. With every axe blow, memories, and thoughts splashed over him like the gore of the ghouls. Of Isabelle, of her secrets, her lies, and all the ways he suffered for her. Of Natalie, how he’d shouldered the burden of her safety without complaint, even when the curse threatened him with fates worse than death. Of Master Time, who offered a purpose never-ending, a duty that would never be done, and still refused him the one boon he’d sought.
Tears and blood mingled on Cole’s face as his shattered mind faced the truth, a truth he’d lied to himself and everyone else about. Years ago, when the scars of the Larder were still fresh, he’d journeyed to a shrine of the Tenth God, a remote, holy site where many made a final pilgrimage. There, before an altar of bones, he’d knelt and prayed for the first time. His words carried tales of ghouls slain, wraiths banished, petty necromancers broken; an offering of deeds collected over the past months so his plea might be answered. The Homunculus Knight wanted a boon from Master Time, but not the one he told others. He’d not started this path seeking to resurrect Isabelle through a god’s mercy, that was a lie and delusion both. When Cole looked upon the shrine he didn’t beg for the laws of reality to be broken, he begged for them to be enforced.
Breaths ragged, body and mind worn down, Cole paused his slaughter, catching enough air to whisper the same plea he’d made all those years ago. “Please, just let me die, truly die.”
In the shrine of bone, Master Time answered, speaking to Cole and offering a new path, one he’d walked without hesitation no matter what he’d faced. Now, now the God of Time was silent and the Homunculus faltered. With a final scream that strained his throat, he swung Requiem in a dirge of death, cutting down all in its reach before falling to his knees. Panting, sobbing, shuddering, Cole pulled down his hood and groped at his belt, unsheathing the dagger Alia gave him. Staring into its blade, wasting a moment he didn’t have, Cole shut his eyes and bowed his head. He knew what he was about to do wouldn’t end his pain, it would actually make it worse, but a moment’s delusion was a welcome respite.
As an expert on death, Cole knew more ways to kill than most people could imagine. This knowledge was practical, with him experiencing or inflicting the vast majority of this lethal catalog. So naturally, he had a preferred method, one he rarely used as the gamble involved was not just risky but painful. Bringing the knife up to the nape of his neck, aiming it at an angle, Cole sucked in a deep breath. The last time he used this technique was in the Alukah’s tomb, since then he’d never had the opportunity even when it was required. Damn Wolfgang, damn him and his master to the lowest Hell.
Cole drove the knife up through his spine and into his brainstem. New strength made this act easier than it ever had been, and darkness came faster than the pain. For a few blessed seconds, the Homunculus wasn’t, but a curse couldn’t be denied, even if it wished to be. The burden of existence crashed back into him and with it came white fire screaming along every regenerating nerve. As the dagger came free, pushed out by growing tissue, Cole gave voice to the pain inside him, howling until his vocal cords tore, and then starting again once they were healed.
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Blinking away tears, the Homunculus reached up with twitchy fingers feeling the root of his skull and the tender flesh settling into place. Forcing himself to stop screaming, he found the dagger in the muck, its blade splattered with blood and spinal fluid. Sheathing Alia’s gift, the Homunculus pulled himself to his feet, feeling the final tremors of accelerated resurrection leave him. Injuries and exhaustion had been washed away, leaving fresh flesh to break in a noble cause. Fighting down a tired sob, Cole felt hollowed out, the flame was sputtering now, leaving the bitterness of ashes to fill his heart. He just wanted to rest, to be done, to not hurt anymore, for the fetters of duty to fall away, and let him sink into oblivion.
But the world had rarely cared what Cole wanted, and an apostle of his past and future had just finished scrambling over the corpse wall. The grinner was missing one arm and had three arrows sticking out of its torso, but still possessed enough coordination to balance atop the corpses just long enough to recognize Cole as prey before it pounced. As the smiling ghoul launched itself headfirst at the Homunculus, muttered. “Fine then.”
Hand shooting out he, caught the grinner mid-air, wrapping scarred fingers around its throat and squeezing until the ghoul’s head popped clean off. The skull bounced against the ground once and then the Homunculus crushed it with Requiem’s butt. Normally he avoided such brutality when dispatching ghouls, these were the remains of people, deserving dignity even in destruction; but right now, not enough of Cole was intact to care.
More ghouls were coming, their clumsy efforts to climb over their forbearers making the meter-and-a-half wall shift and crumble. A mildly more intact ghoul tumbled out at Cole’s feet, it had been cut diagonally from collar bone to hip and now was trying to use its freedom from the pile to crawl towards Cole. He snapped its spine with a kick and then drove Requiem into the corpse pile, straining his refreshed muscles as he heaved a gap open. Stepping over broken bodies and piles of gore, Cole left his rotting redoubt and waded back into the coming tide. As the crack of bone and rip of flesh joined the chorus of groans, a voice called his name, it was familiar and filled with sorrow.
“COLE!” screamed Natalie as she stumbled over corpses, her body still thawing and robbed of its usual agility. Desperation and fear gripped the Vampire, something was deeply wrong with her lover, a fact accentuated by the literal trail of destruction he’d left. Ghouls and pieces of ghouls lay scattered about, testifying to the ferocity they’d faced. This grisly sight only worsened Natalie’s panic, she’d never seen Cole display such… casual violence while doing his duties. The sundered corpses seemed more the product of bestial rage than a paladin’s measured efforts. Such was the carnage, Natalie almost wanted to think Grettir the Werewolf was the source. But the time for delusion had passed, she needed to face whatever was happening and hopefully salvage something of her partner and relationship from it.
More ghouls were shuffling toward the center of the maelstrom, stupidly drawn to their doom, unable to distinguish between thrashing prey and a rampaging monster. Shoving past them, trying to catch up to Cole, Natalie kept calling his name, frustration at both herself and this whole horrible situation growing with every moment. Nearly tripping over a still spasming ghoul, she caught herself on another of the corpses, claws sinking into its flesh, using the gorey handhold to stay standing. But as Natalie pulled herself upright, something tickled against the back of her mind, a distant sense of pain and hunger. Even diminished and dulled, she knew this sensation and it sent a jolt of surprise through her. It was the touch of a ghoul’s mind.
Pulling her hand out of the walking corpse, Natalie’s vision shifted, blurring momentarily as something that wasn’t real manifested. The shadow of a chain stretched from her hand and into the ghoul, a phantom connection only visible when she let her eyes unfocus. Hissing in disgust, Natalie snapped the chain, banishing it with a thought. Heart growing even heavier with the implications, she kept moving, trying to reach Cole, wondering if this was a good idea. As half a ghoul sailed through the air, slamming into its nearby fellows with a wet splat, having been sent flying by a monstrous blow; Natalie knew it wasn’t, but that she also didn’t have a choice.
The source of the carnage was visible now, a throng of corpses pressing in on a single stained figure who towered over them, swinging his monstrous battleaxe in a rhythm of slaughter. Amid the groans of ghouls and the sounds of their breaking, another noise reached Natalie’s sensitive ears, ragged sobs. Cole cried as he fought. While that fact settled on her already heavy heart, Natalie realized they’d moved away from Azgye. Cole was carving himself deeper into the tide… no, not deeper, he was staging a one-man breakthrough of the besieged town. For just a moment Natalie was nonplussed and then she understood, he was leaving, leaving her, his allies, everything.
Panic growing with every step, Natalie dredged up her strength, forcing black blood to flow through thawing limbs. With restored might she shoved and pushed, sending ghouls tumbling as she frantically tried to reach Cole. Frustration and fear built within Natalie, she was too slow, too clumsy, and these jagging rotbags wouldn’t get out of her way. A snarl of impotent rage escaped the Vampire as she lashed out, tearing a ghoul apart with her claws. As rotten blood covered her fingers, a familiar sensation stroked the back of Natalie’s awareness, the mind of a ghoul touching her own. Instead of rejecting the link outright as she’d done before, Natalie paused, noticing the subtle change her psyche had undergone.
It felt like she had a new limb, or maybe sense, something that hadn’t been there before, but now pressed against her with subtle but unmistakable weight. Natalie’s closest frame of reference was when she’d taken on animal form and grown a tail; she knew how to instinctually ‘move’ and ‘feel’ through the addition but that didn’t make it any less alien. With a thought she let the phantom chain solidify, strengthening the link to the ghoul. A weight pulled at her soul, a steady tugging she could easily resist but nevertheless couldn’t ignore. Feeling the chain between them, reaching through it, Natalie let out an exhausted breath. This was the power of Annoch, of connections and control; she’d roused it and now the damn thing wouldn’t go back to sleep.
Shutting her eyes for a moment, hearing Cole’s roars of fury and tired sobs; Natalie bared her fangs. “Fuck it.”
Trying to remember all she’d done while drunk on the curse, Natalie pulled the chain free of the maimed ghoul and then sent it slithering through the Aether, striking another more intact specimen. Degraded by undeath, the ghoul offered no resistance, and she could form a link without blood or eye contact. As ethereal coils wrapped around the ghoul’s soul, Natalie let the link jump to another and then another, rapidly forming a metaphysical chain gang, with her at its head. With each connection the ghoul’s collective’ weight’ grew and Natalie quickly realized she’d only be able to overpower a dozen at a time, and even then that might be pushing it. With the curse empowering her, she’d been strong enough to pull along hundreds of ghouls, and even direct them expertly thanks to Sicar’s knowledge. But now free of the yew tree’s poison, Natalie could only rely on herself and some faint instincts; which would just have to be enough.
Gripping the dozen ghouls, she pulled, slowly heaving at their desires and turning them about. It felt like trying to pry a boulder free using a lever, difficult but doable. As the ghouls started to shuffle away from the throng around Cole, Natalie let go of the chain, letting new mental momentum carry them elsewhere like a tossed leg iron. The link binding the dozen ghouls together, and the order carried with it would fade within the hour, but hopefully, that would be enough. Creating another chain, Natalie repeated this process, a little faster this time. With each repetition, she got closer to Cole but the process drained her blood supply. While the chains were psychic constructs, the power to create and maintain them came from her. Still, Natalie had enough ichor to spare before she needed to figure out her warped self managed to drink ghoul blood.
As she peeled away the final layer of ghouls, freeing up one of Cole’s flanks, Natalie hurried towards him; trying not to think of the parallels to when she’d rescued him earlier and set off this entire mess. Stepping over broken bodies, Natalie got close as she dared, not wanting to risk an accidental strike from Requiem’s oversized form. Then loud as she could, she shouted.
“Cole!”
In a blur of movement he spun towards her, swinging his axe, scarred face stained and snarling. Natalie stepped back as Requiem struck a corpse beside her, Cole having redirected his blow at the last moment. Body heaving with exertion, covered in blood, little of it his own, the Homunculus stared at her with wild, pain-hollowed eyes. Seeing her, his expression hardened, cold anger joining the raw pain filling him, and the sight made Natalie’s heart break.
Voice cracked and as dry as drought-stricken soil, Cole rasped. “Leave me.”
Swallowing down her fear, Natalie slowly nodded. “I… I will if you want me to, just let-”
Cole screamed. “LEAVE ME!”
Natalie flinched at the desperate anger, her mind searching for the magic words to fix things. “I’m so sorry, I hurt you, and I-”
Turning from her Cole cut down a few more ghouls, seeking solace in slaughter. Reaching out with her mind, Natalie dulled the swarm, implanting ignorance in the nearest, tricking them into forgetting about Cole. As the tide started to still, Natalie approached Cole, hand outstretched. Before her fingers could find his back, Cole lashed out, grabbing her forearm with an adamant grip and pulling her closer. Staring up into his face seeing the wounds both visible and not, scarring him; Natalie whispered. “Oh my love, what have I done?”
Cole’s expression softened from rage to bone-deep sadness. “You broke me.”
Anger returned then, and words thick with bitterness he continued. “That’s my purpose, I break so others don’t. I suffer whatever cruelties, violations, and horrors this maimed world can conjure over and over because I can handle it… but… but I don’t want to, not anymore, not by you.”
He fell to his knees then, landing amid torn bodies, still gripping Natalie like she was both a lifeline to hold and a lash to stop. Exhaustion lay thick on Cole, shoulders slumped, posture bent, he radiated a soul-deep weariness Natalie struggled to look upon. This was her fault, she’d taken a chisel to the cracks in her lover’s soul and widened the worst of them until he shattered. Now he was less than himself, a gaping wound of a person seeking escape from his fate, failures, and fears. For the barest moment, Natalie wondered if re-entering Cole’s mind and erasing all this really might be the kindest thing she could do. Without the Alukah’s assault on Cole, the fissures in his being might just heal by themselves. Tempting as a quick and cruel solution was, Natalie once again dismissed the idea, she’d fix this as a human, not a vampire.
Moving slowly, Natalie pulled on Cole, trying to get him to his feet. He resisted at first but there wasn’t enough strength in him for more than a token effort. Once he was standing, Requiem still gripped in his free hand, Natalie gently freed himself from his grip. Holding his calloused hand, she took a steadying breath and brought Cole’s fingers to her throat.
Eyes widening, the Homunculus asked. “What are you doing?”
Feeling the warmth of his skin against hers, the strength hidden within him, Natalie rolled the dice. “I… hurt you. I broke into your mind and tortured you. Cole, I acted like the monster I’ve always feared becoming. The curse… it… it brought out the worst in me and I treated you like a favored possession, instead of a person, a person I love. I tried to take your agency, your memories, your everything, just so I could ‘own’ you.”
Cole flinched and started to pull his hand away but Natalie spoke faster. “So I’m giving control to you! You get to decide what happens to me now, what happens to both of us. I’m… dangerous and if snapping my neck and keeping me staked would help you feel safer then… then do it. Or just trigger the stigma, freeze me, and have Deborah strengthen the bindings. Hells, if you want we could just leave, head to Harmas together, rescue Isabelle, and then go somewhere safe, somewhere that didn’t need a Paladin.”
Choking on a sob, Natalie forced herself to keep talking. “And…and if you want to go on without me, or never see me again, then… then, I won’t stop you, just please, put me in torpor. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to watch you go.”
Letting both her hands settle on Cole’s wrist, Natalie met his eyes, forcing herself to look into their sky-blue depths for what might be the last time as she whispered. “It’s your choice, do what you must.”
The look of stunned confusion on Cole’s face slowly contorted into a scream of rage and his grip tightened. Then just as Natalie’s throat started to hurt, Cole’s howl died and he pulled his hands free before slumping forward in utter exhaustion. Natalie barely managed to catch him in a desperate hug and the pair clung to each other like two damaged trees only kept upright by shared tension. Cole began to openly weep, and Natalie wasn’t far behind; she’d gambled big and so far seemed to have rolled double sixes. This whole thing was a colossal mess, and it would take more to resolve it, but… but this seemed a good step in the right direction.
Between racking sobs, Cole tried to speak. “I-I-I am sor-sorry for-for-”
Natalie pulled back slightly and shook her head. “No don’t be, I hurt you and I need to fix things.”
Rubbing at his face, making a noise of disgust as he just mixed ghoul blood and tears, Cole said. “I mea-meant for le-leaving you at the wall. Should have communicated better.”
Lips pursing, Natalie shrugged. “We do better together, I should have followed you, or at least figured out an actual plan.”
Sighing, Cole started to recover himself slightly. “Agreed… and thank you, for helping me.”
A sad smile split Natalie’s lips. “You’ve always done the same for me.”
Leaning against Requiem, Cole looked towards the walls of Azyge then the nearby ghouls ignoring them. A weary breath escaped him, and the Paladin stood up a little straighter. “Can you help me clear a path to the breach? We need to help the defenders and make sure the cure is being distributed.”
Natalie nodded, somehow fighting through a swarm of undead and facing whatever mess awaited them back in the bifurcated town seemed palatable after everything. But the bit of ironic comfort such a prospect provided her faded as she caught Cole’s expression. He was piecing himself back together, but the cracks were still wide and plentiful. Silently, Natalie decided she needed to answer Cole’s oaths some of her own. He’d promise to try and protect her from all dangers, including the Alukah’s curse; the least she could do was promise the same.
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