The wind at the top of Thros'len wasn't real, but it pretended well.
Engineered through slits in the stone above, it whistled between crumbling parapets and broken columns, carrying the illusion of open sky. It even smelled faintly of sea salt, though the ocean was half a continent away—some cruel joke built into the bones of the city.
Nyxia stepped out onto the weathered ledge of a ruined tower, bow slung, hand brushing the hilt of her dagger.
And there she was.
Boo stood at the edge, back turned, arms raised slightly like she was balancing on the breath of the wind. Her silver hair whipped in slow motion behind her. The glow of the city silhouetted her in sleek black leather—every curve shaped for movement, every strap speaking to blades hidden or not. She wasn't hiding.
She was waiting.
"I was wondering when the forest would catch up," Boo said without turning.
Nyxia didn't answer.
"I like you already," Boo added, and turned slowly, eyes glinting under heavy lashes. "You've got the whole stoic elf thing down pat. Broody. Mysterious. Very marketable."
Nyxia stepped forward.
"I've read worse bounties," Nyxia said, voice cold. "Yours was almost poetic."
"Oh, good. I was worried they'd downplay the thighs."
Nyxia didn't smile.
"I heard your bowstring creak three minutes ago," Boo added, pivoting lazily on a heel. "You're either very slow, or very polite. I'm not used to either."
Nyxia stepped forward. "You left a trail."
"I always do," Boo replied, voice casual but tuned. "The fun part's seeing who's clever enough to follow it."
Their eyes locked. Nyxia's obsidian black. Boo's bright and molten with Veil-glow, framed by a smirk that didn't quite touch her eyes.
"You're smaller than I expected," Boo said. "But you carry yourself like someone who's killed gods."
"I haven't," Nyxia replied.
"But you've thought about it."
They began to circle each other—neither quite predator, neither quite prey.
Boo moved like water poured into the shape of a woman. There was grace in her laziness, a predator's patience in the way she didn't reach for a weapon. Yet every step was measured, deliberate, as though she knew Nyxia was already aiming.
"I read your name on a wall," Boo said. "Old druid circle, half-eaten by void grass. Nyxia—scratched in like a prophecy. Or a curse."
"Not my doing."
"No," Boo agreed. "But your shadow's longer than you realize."
Nyxia's fingers drifted toward her dagger.
"You going to try and kill me?" Boo asked.
"That depends."
"On?"
"Whether you're about to lie to me."
Boo gave a low, amused laugh. "Darling, I've lied to kings and kissed their heirs. But I've never lied when it mattered."
"Does it matter now?"
Pause.
"Yes," Boo said softly.
Then she drew her saber.
No flourish. Just motion. Like she was pulling a thought out of its sheath.
The blade caught the windlight as Boo lunged.
Nyxia blocked the first strike—barely. Boo flowed with it, twisting her off-hand saber toward Nyxia's neck. A flash of steel. Nyxia ducked and countered with a sharp elbow. Boo twisted away, leather creaking as her boot skidded across stone.
The fight ignited in rhythm.
Strike. Parry. Sidestep. Spin. Boo was fast, elegant, aggressive. Nyxia was precise, controlled, brutal.
"You're not like the others," Boo breathed between clashes.
"I'm not here to be liked."
"Oh, I don't like you. I'm impressed. That's worse."
Boo kicked a loose tile toward Nyxia's face—Nyxia sliced it in half mid-air. Boo fired her pistol; Nyxia dropped and rolled under it. The shot rang off the rooftop behind her.
"You're reckless," Nyxia muttered, rising.
"I'm fun."
"You're bleeding."
Boo glanced at the shallow slice on her arm, blood trickling into her glove. She licked it.
"Little early in our relationship to be drawing blood," she said. "Usually I wait until at least the second betrayal."
They circled again.
And then the air changed.
Their marks ignited.
Nyxia's runes flared across her arms and collarbones in pale, silver-blue light. Boo's glowed through her armor—veins of obsidian and moon-silver light crawling up her neck and down her spine.
They froze.
Boo's cocky grin faltered.
"You're marked," she said.
"So are you."
Boo took one step back. "That explains a few things. Like why I dreamed of you before I met you."
"You dreamed?"
"It whispered your name," Boo said, her voice suddenly dry. "After the flower."
"What flower?"
"The one that bloomed from a corpse I didn't kill."
Nyxia said nothing. A soft wind passed between them, carrying the silence of something watching.
Nyxia sheathed her dagger.
Boo stayed ready, but she didn't raise her saber again.
"You're not here to kill me," she said.
"No."
"Then what?"
"I need to know why we're marked."
"And if I don't tell you?"
"I'll follow you until you do."
Boo sighed. "Gods, you're exhausting."
Nyxia said nothing.
Boo looked out over the rooftops, her smile faded to a sliver. "I used to think the Veil gave me a second chance."
Nyxia glanced at her.
"But now I think it just didn't want me to die clean."
Nyxia stepped beside her.
"You said you were waiting for me."
"I was."
"Why?"
Boo turned her head, finally meeting her gaze.
"Because I had a feeling," she said, "that if anyone else made it through what I did—and didn't break completely—they'd have eyes like yours. Like they'd already decided the world wasn't worth trusting."
Nyxia almost smiled.
Almost.
Behind them, a sound rose—a pulsing thrum from the tower below. Deep. Hollow. Alive.
Boo's eyes narrowed. "Shit."
Nyxia had already drawn her blade again.
A relic she thought was dead.
A mistake neither of them could afford.
"We're not done," Boo said.
"No," Nyxia replied, voice cold steel. "We're just beginning."
They moved together without speaking.
Down the spiral stairs of the old tower, boots quiet on cracked stone. Boo's sabers were drawn but idle, tips dragging faint lines of metal along the wall. Nyxia walked ahead with her bow lowered, muscles coiled, ready. The air grew heavier with each step—thicker, colder, flavored with iron and something older than rot.
They reached the bottom.
A circular chamber stretched out before them—half-collapsed, with one wall broken open to expose jagged root structures from the cavern beyond. Broken furniture littered the space. At the center, a pedestal made of fused bone and crystal pulsed with violet light.
"That wasn't glowing before," Boo muttered.
"You left it here?"
"I didn't think it still had a charge." She shrugged, unconvincing. "It was dormant. Dead."
"Clearly not."
Nyxia stepped closer, tattoos already humming beneath her skin. The relic was reacting. To her? To Boo? To both?
A sharp sound echoed through the chamber. A scraping. Stone grinding on stone.
Then, movement.
From the far shadows of the chamber, something stirred.
It unfolded itself from the wall—literally. The construct had been dormant so long it had fused with the stone behind it. Seven feet tall. Vaguely humanoid. One arm ended in a mass of twisting claws; the other pulsed with voidglass, wrapped in cursed glyphs that cracked the air around them. Its chest split open like a blooming flower, revealing the twisted remains of a face screaming from inside—a remnant of whoever had been its core.
"...That's new," Boo said.
It lunged.
The construct moved faster than it should have—joints clicking, claws blurring. Nyxia dove left, rolling across debris and loosing an arrow mid-roll. The arrow struck true—thunk—but bounced off the creature's arm.
Boo was already on it, twin sabers flashing in rapid arcs. One blade carved deep; the other sparked uselessly across voidglass. The construct hissed—high and inhuman—then slammed its clawed limb toward her head.
She ducked.
The claw shattered a column behind her.
"I think it's pissed," Boo yelled.
"You touched its relic," Nyxia called back.
"I steal things, not wake them!"
Nyxia dashed across the room, scaling a broken stair for higher ground. She fired again—this time into its open chest. The arrow sank into the exposed cavity. A pulse of violet light flared—but the construct didn't stop.
It turned toward her.
Boo struck its back, drawing a roar of noise like wind screaming through a hollow corpse. It spun on her, arms a blur of movement—claws, shadow tendrils, kinetic blasts of force.
One hit Boo square in the ribs.
She flew backward, slammed into the wall, and didn't get up.
"Boo!"
Nyxia landed beside her in seconds, yanking her upright. Boo's armor was cracked. Her breath came in ragged bursts.
"That hurt," she wheezed.
"Stay down."
"Oh now you care."
Nyxia stepped forward, drawing her dagger now—her tattoos flaring to full brightness. The construct charged. She met it head-on, ducked under the claw, drove her blade upward into the exposed ribcage. A pulse of silver fire erupted from the runes on her arm, searing the construct from the inside.
It screamed.
Boo limped in from behind, sabers reversed, and jammed both into its back with a snarl.
Together, they forced the relic-bound thing to its knees.
Nyxia pulled her blade free, panting.
The construct spasmed once.
Then exploded into black ash.
Silence.
Smoke curled from their weapons. The relic's pedestal cracked in half. Boo leaned against the wall, sweat glistening on her face, blood running from a split in her lip. She looked at Nyxia, chest heaving.
"Well," she said. "That went worse than expected."
"You said it was dead."
"I lie when I'm scared."
Nyxia stared at her.
Then: "Thank you. For the assist."
"Are you... thanking me?" Boo blinked. "Stars, you must be concussed."
They stood amid rubble, tension bleeding into exhaustion.
Then it happened.
From the ash where the construct had fallen, something stirred.
A small shape. Delicate. Impossible.
A flower.
It grew from nothing—white petals laced with red veins, glowing faintly. Its bloom pulsed once. Then twice. Then—
It whispered.
"Nyxia…"
Nyxia flinched. Boo took an instinctive step back.
"That's the second time," Boo said softly. "The first was at Carrion Bloom. Now this."
Nyxia knelt beside the flower, careful not to touch it. The air around it vibrated with Veil energy—like something beneath it was watching. Waiting.
"Why you?" Boo asked.
Nyxia didn't answer.
But her tattoos were glowing again.
So were Boo's.
The Veil wasn't done with them.
Not yet.