“ ’S like a poem, it is,” a voice that does not belong to Taru, and therefore does not belong in this tower, says from the door of the surveyor’s quarters. “A pretty lady by a window in a tower.”

Lexi rises and turns from the window, the drapes still blowing around her bare shoulders.

They’re men, though they scarcely appear human to Lexi’s eyes. They wear rags covered in thick hide cloaks and hoods. One of them, bald and half his face having long been chewed up by what must’ve been a wild animal, clutches a short double-bladed ax. The other one, lankier and malnourished-looking, is leaning on a tall spear with a length of bright horsehair streaming from the base of its barbed tip.

It’s the physical detail they share that initially distracts Lexi from her shock and panic. Her first impression is that they’re diseased, covered in some kind of sickly blue and green welts. Then she realizes the patterns look too much like writing, like some arcane runes, and aren’t raised enough on the skin. They must be tattoos. They seem to cover every inch of flesh on the bald one that isn’t scarred. The lanky spear-toting one has far fewer of them pockmarking his face and hands.

Lexi blinks rapidly, her mind racing to accept the scene and process the reality of these intruders.

She asks the inevitable question, trying to make it the demand of one who is in authority: “Who are you?”

“Death,” the bald, chewed-up one happily answers. “My companion is also so called.”

“Taru!” Lexi calls out, still and perhaps absurdly trying to keep her voice deep and authoritative and free of cracks.

The two of them share a brief, frightening bout of the giggles.

Lexi feels the trembling begin in her every muscle. She reaches up and grips her own biceps, squeezing hard to quell the physical panic before it spreads to her mind, overtaking her reason. She lets her nails dig painfully into the flesh of her arms to keep that bubbling rush of inner mayhem at bay.

“Your big retainer is in the other tower,” the lanky one informs Lexi. “It’ll be a long while checking every room and cranny for our type. Very diligent guard dog, they are.”

Lexi turns back to the window, staring out at the opposing tower of Gen Stalbraid. She searches the windows frantically for some sign of Taru, the light of a torch or the flash of her retainer’s leather armor.

There’s nothing. Alania Tower appears as cold and deserted as it has stood since the last of Brio’s family passed away.

She hears footsteps approaching behind her, light and hobbled, aided by the tapping of a spear’s shaft.