Misery is ready for it. As the sharp end of the whip slices the air she leaps upward and forward, launching herself at her attacker. Forge bless her life on Rootsdown, because she’s like a raptor now, soaring a foot clear of the attack, one hand curled for a punch, the other reaching toward the whip. Holy ruby, holy ruby—she forgets what else it does, but she reaches for its heart and twists it sideways as hard as she can anyway. The stone’s temperature instantly spikes, furnace hot, and the stranger screams and drops the handle, just in time for Misery’s landing, fist to chest, then they’re both on the floor, Misery driving her knee into the stranger’s chest to pin hir down. It’s been less than a second.

The stranger wrenches hir shoulder out of Misery’s grip and lurches upward, and before Misery can think fuck, zie’s strong, her world explodes into pain and stars as the stranger headbutts her, then she’s on her back, disoriented, and before she realizes what’s happening the stranger grabs her mother’s amulet. Twists it, hard. The unbreakable cord razors against her neck, cutting off bloodflow. Bitch, how dare? Misery plants her spine and rockets her knees upward at launch speed, catching her assailant in the guts.

To her surprise the stranger takes it with a grunt, and hir face tightens with pain but zie doesn’t let go. And Misery hit hard. Fuck. The cord tightens around her throat and she’s starting to see stars. Fuck. Two can play at that game. The stranger has made the mistake of only pinning one of her arms. Misery’s free hand shoots up and she wraps her miner’s palm around the stranger’s white neck and squeezes into the veins, the jugular. Their faces are inches away from each other’s and she feels the stranger’s hot, shuddering breath on her lips even as her vision starts to cut out. Which of them will yield first?

“Your Highness. I must ask you to desist.”

A voice rings over their heads, although “rings” is probably the wrong word for the warm tones that break like surf. Like sand being shaken in a bottle, that voice. And yet it is loud enough to be heard above the roar and breath of machinery. The stranger—Your Highness? Royalty?—pulls back with a wounded noise, but keeps hir weight on Misery. And Misery doesn’t know why, but she’d automatically released her death grip on the stranger when they were interrupted. Suddenly it seemed less important to get away.

Still kneeling on Misery, the stranger says: “This is none of your business, Most Holy.”

“And yet it is Church business, so it is intimately mine.”