Luken woke to grey light and the smell of old blood.
The ceiling above him was stone. High. Arched. A cathedral ceiling. His first thought was that he didn't know how he'd gotten here. His second was that something was wrong with his stomach — a deep, dull ache that flared when he tried to shift his weight.
"He's awake."
Valen's voice. Luken turned his head — slowly — and found him sitting on the edge of a cot nearby, his leg stretched out in front of him. No bandages. No limp. He looked almost obscenely healthy for someone Luken had last seen on his feet and fighting.
"You look terrible," Valen said.
Luken tried to speak. His throat was dry. "What happened to you?"
"Thal carried you here. I was on his back." Valen shrugged. "The man in white put a few needles in me. The healers fixed it. You stopped breathing twice."
Luken stared at him. "Thal carried us."
"Both of us. At the same time. Jumped across rooftops." Valen paused. "It was impressive. Don't make him do it again."
Nyra was there, on a stool near the cot, her axe leaning against the wall behind her. She didn't smile when Luken's eyes found her. She just nodded once.
"Rikia's been working on you all night," she said. "She's passed out over there." She nodded toward a cot near the back, where the young healer was curled on her side, her blonde hair loose and tangled, her hands still stained with blood.
Luken looked at Rikia for a long moment. Then his eyes drifted to the bundle of dark fabric beside his cot. A shirt — no, a tunic. Massive. Big enough to wrap around him twice. The fabric was stiff with dried blood, most of it his, and there was a knot tied in the middle where someone had wrenched it tight.
Valen followed his gaze. "That's Thal's."
"Thal's."
"His new one. From Merek. The tailor. You remember — the one we dragged him to before everything went to hell." Valen leaned back, his hands behind his head. "He used it as a tourniquet. Ripped it off his own back and tied it around your waist while you were bleeding out. Held you together all the way to the cathedral."
Luken stared at the tunic. The blood. The knot.
"Merek's going to be furious when he finds out," Valen added. "He spent hours on those stitches. Very dramatic about the whole thing. When he sees what you've done to his work, he's going to throw scissors at both of us."
"He threw scissors at you," Nyra said. "Luken was unconscious."
"He'll find a way. He's creative."
Luken didn't answer. He was still looking at the tunic. At the blood that had soaked through the dark fabric and dried to rust.
"Your horn's showing," Valen said. "The eye, too."
Luken's hand went to his head before the words finished leaving Valen's mouth. His fingers found the horn — smooth, ridged, unmistakable — and his other hand came up to cover his right eye. The illusion snapped back into place. The horn faded. The eye dimmed.
And then he remembered.
The alley. The basement door. The girl grabbing Valen's sleeve. Stay here. Don't move. She'd stayed. She'd done exactly what he told her. And then her chest had split open, and the man in white had torn through her, and the blood had shaped itself into a blade on his fist—
His hand was on his stomach. The bandages were dry. But the memory of the blade was still there. The cold. The pressure. The pain.
"Luken." Nyra's voice. "You're here. You're back."
He nodded. His hand stayed on his stomach.
Valen leaned forward. "The horn doesn't matter," he said. "Thal told the healers it didn't matter, and Rikia didn't even blink. So whatever you're thinking — that they saw it, that they know — it doesn't matter. You're alive."
Luken looked at him. At Nyra. At the grey light coming through the high windows.
"Where's Thal?" he asked.
Nyra glanced over her shoulder. Luken followed her gaze. Thal was at the back of the cathedral, near the entrance. Bare-chested, the dried blood still on his forearms. He wasn't looking at them. He was just standing there, a shadow among shadows.
Luken turned back to Valen. "The people we pulled out of the basement. The children. Did they—"
"They got out," Valen said. "The two boys ran. The girl—" He stopped. His hands went still on his knees. "The girl didn't."
Luken closed his eyes.
"It's been a long night," Nyra said. "A lot of people didn't make it. A lot of people did. We're still figuring out which is which."
"What about the thing that attacked us? The man in white. Did anyone—"
"He got away." Nyra's jaw tightened. "He's still out there."
Luken nodded slowly.
"There's more," Nyra said. "Neo and Alinda went to Black Hollow. They found the Archon. Velmyn. He was wearing three bodies at once — two Eliras and a child. Thal killed all three of them, but he's got more."
Luken stared at her. "Three bodies. At once."
"One mind controlling all of them. That's what he does."
"When did this happen? While we were in the alley?"
"Same time," Valen said. "The Archon came out the same time the Rupture hit the streets. Everything kicked off at once."
Luken was quiet for a long moment. His hand was still pressed against his stomach. "So they both started tonight. The Rupture's been in the city for weeks, but tonight he went public. Same night the Archon decided to show himself." He looked up. "That's not a coincidence."
Valen was watching him. Nyra said nothing.
"They're working together," Luken said. "They have to be."
No one argued. No one agreed. But no one disagreed either.
"They've been planning this," Luken said. "And we walked right into it."
Then movement at the edge of his vision. Thal, walking toward the doors. His stride was unhurried, his bare feet silent on the stone. He didn't pause. He didn't look back. He just walked, and the grey light from the entrance wrapped around him, and then he was gone.
Luken watched him go. He didn't call out. He didn't ask him to stay. He just watched the empty doorway where Thal had been.
A moment later, Nyra turned. She looked at the empty space, and something flickered in her expression.
"He'll be back," she said.
"I know," Luken said.
Across the hall, near the benches, Neo was still sitting with Tar. The big minotaur hadn't moved from his side all night. Alinda was with them now, her back against the pillar, her arms crossed. None of them had come over. Neo had looked — once — and then looked away.
Outside, the city was stirring. Voices carried through the high windows, through the open doors. A woman near the entrance, shouting at a guard. "It was the Kruul. It had to be. Who else could do something like this?" A man's voice, lower, harder to make out, but the tone was unmistakable. Agreement. Someone else — a younger voice — said, "My brother was in the lower district. He said they've been hiding down there for years. Breeding. Planning." A guard barked something about patrols and the undercity and rooting them out, and someone in the crowd cheered.
Luken closed his eyes. The horn was hidden. The eye was brown. No one was looking at him.
He kept his hand on his stomach and waited for the morning to decide what it wanted from him.