CRACK.
The point strikes the wall where I was standing a second ago, sending chips of stone flying.
One of them cuts across my cheek.
Another tears through my jeans and scrapes my leg—a shallow cut, but painful.
I stumble, catching myself against the opposite wall, my heart hammering.
"What the fuck?!" I shout. "What are you doing?!"
Renna pulls the pickaxe free from the wall and turns to face me. Her expression is calm. Too calm. Like she didn't just try to murder me.
"You saw," she says simply.
"You tried to kill me!" My voice echoes through the tunnel, panicked and angry.
"Yes," she says, adjusting her grip on the pickaxe. "I did."
She's not denying it. She's not even pretending it was an accident.
She was trying to kill me.
"Why?!" I demand, my eyes darting around looking for a weapon, an escape route, anything.
My pickaxe—I dropped it when I dodged. It's on the ground between us, closer to her than to me.
"It's nothing personal," she says, taking a step toward me.
I back up, pressing against the wall. "Nothing personal? You just tried to stab me in the back!"
"That's just how it works," she says. Her voice is matter-of-fact, like she's explaining something obvious. "I needed help hauling ore. You needed money. Now I need something else."
"What?" I ask, though part of me doesn't want to know the answer.
"A heart," she says. "And blood. Fresh blood. Human blood."
The words don't make sense at first. My brain refuses to process them.
"What?"
"For forging," she explains, still walking toward me slowly, deliberately. The pickaxe rests on her shoulder now, casual.
"Real weapons. The kind that can kill demons, monsters, things that normal steel won't touch. They need to be quenched in human blood. Need a human heart burned in the forge fire."
She says it so calmly. Like she's explaining a recipe.
"You're insane," I breathe.
"Maybe," she admits with a shrug. "But I'm also a damn good blacksmith. And you?" She looks me up and down. "You're just unlucky."
She swings the pickaxe down from her shoulder, gripping it properly again. Both hands. Ready to strike.
"It's not your fault," she continues, almost sympathetically. "Wrong place, wrong time. You should curse your luck, not me."
I need to move. Need to run. Need to do something.
I lunge for my pickaxe on the ground.
She's faster.
Her boot comes down on the handle just as my fingers touch it, pinning it to the stone. Then she kicks it away, sending it skittering into the darkness.
"Don't," she says.
I scramble backward, trying to put distance between us.
My leg throbs where her pickaxe scratched it. Blood is soaking through my jeans.
"Renna, please—" I start.
"Running won't help," she says, advancing on me. "I'm stronger than you. Faster than you. Even carrying this." She hefts the pickaxe. "You think you can outrun me in my own mine?"
She's right. I know she's right. But I can't just stand here and let her kill me.
I turn and run.
The tunnel stretches ahead into darkness.
The lantern is behind me now, behind her, and I'm running blind.
My hands scrape against the rough walls as I try to navigate. My feet catch on uneven ground. I stumble but keep moving.
Behind me, I hear her footsteps.
Steady. Unhurried.
"It's a waste to run from me," her voice echoes through the tunnel. "You're just making this harder on yourself."
I keep running. My lungs are burning. My leg is screaming. But I keep going.
And then something hits the back of my head.
Hard.
The impact sends me sprawling forward. I hit the ground face-first, my chin cracking against stone. Stars explode in my vision.
A rock.
She threw a fucking rock at me.
I try to push myself up. My arms won't cooperate. My head is spinning. I can feel blood running down the back of my neck, hot and wet.
I hear her footsteps getting closer. Slow. Deliberate.
"Why?" I manage to gasp out, rolling onto my back. "Why are you doing this?"
She stands over me, silhouetted against the distant lantern light. The pickaxe is raised above her head, ready for the killing blow.
"I told you," she says. "It's not your fault. You just got unlucky. Curse your luck. Curse this world. Curse whatever brought you here to me."
She looks down at me, and for a moment—just a moment—something like regret flashes across her face.
"You actually weren't that bad," she says quietly. "Most guys try to grope me after getting a chance or make stupid comments. You just worked."
"Then don't—" I start.
"But I need a heart more than I need a worker," she interrupts.
She brings the pickaxe down.
I try to move. Try to roll away. But my body won't respond. The blow to my head has left me too disoriented, too slow.
The sharp point of the pickaxe comes down straight toward my chest.
I don't feel the impact. Don't feel the penetration.
What I feel is the explosion of pain as the pickaxe punches through my ribs, through my chest, piercing my heart.
I gasp. Blood fills my mouth instantly, hot and metallic.
Renna twists the pickaxe, then pulls it out.
Blood pours from the wound. So much blood. I can feel it soaking through my hoodie, pooling beneath me, warm against the cold stone.
I can't breathe.
Can't move.
Can only stare up at her as she stands over me, blood dripping from the point of her pickaxe.
"Sorry," she says, and she actually sounds like she means it. "For what it's worth, you did a good job today."
My vision is going dark. The pain is fading, replaced by cold numbness spreading from my chest outward.
This is how I die again.
To a blacksmith's daughter who needed a human heart for her forge.
The darkness closes in.
And then there's nothing.