Daian, sweat pouring over his brow and his entire body either numb as stone or screaming in pain, forces himself to one knee. He reaches behind himself, every small movement causing him agony. He closes a shaking hand around the handle of Kamala’s knife and pulls the blade free from his back. There’s a brief, resplendent relief followed by an entirely new pain.

Grath leaps from the doorway, unsheathing his dagger and holding it at the ready. He charges forward toward Daian, but halts before he’s closed the gap between them even halfway.

Daian is now standing, both feet securely planted on the alley floor and spaced apart in a fighting stance. He’s brandishing both his and Kamala’s daggers in each hand, ready for what comes.

Grath hesitates, eyes flicking between the edges of those two blades and Daian’s face.

“If you think you’re going to wait until I bleed out,” Daian says in a trembling voice that’s nonetheless filled with menace, “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.”

“I don’t know,” Grath says, carefully, forcing a version of that winning smile onto his handsome face. “I’d give myself fair odds.”

“Bad bet,” Daian insists, and takes a long stride toward him.

Grath drops his knife arm. He turns and runs down the alley.

Daian flips Kamala’s dagger in his hand, grasping it by the flat of the blade. He rears back and, screaming through the immense pain it causes him, hurls the weapon after Grath.

The dagger sails through the air with a perfect arc, the blade embedding itself between the man’s shoulder blades. The impact alone is enough to knock him off-balance and cause Grath to fall forward in midrun, his body skidding several yards over the alley floor before stopping.

He does not get up.

Daian tries to walk forward, but his legs feel as though they’ve disappeared. He careens to the left, stumbling and reaching for the alley wall to keep him from falling to the ground. He leans his body there, his torso impossibly warm while his legs feel cold and numb.

He looks down at the signaling mortar attached to his belt. Daian could light the sky, but he has no way of knowing who would answer the distress fire. There’s just as much chance they’ll finish what Grath and Kamala started as there is that they’ll help him. Even if the responding Aegins are among the uncorrupted, he also has no idea how to even begin explaining what’s happened here. Daian isn’t sure himself what just happened.

Instead of signaling for aid, he drags himself along the alley wall, streaks of blood trailing him in the polished stone of the building. Daian doesn’t know where he’s going. He only knows he can’t be here.

THE INTEREST PAID IN BLOOD