I felt the pain as a hot wash of flame across my spine. I screamed in rage and twisted around, ignoring Ninavis to concentrate on my attacker.

I didn’t bother with the sword.

I tore out his windpipe with my nails, tossing it to the ground as I moved to impale another bandit through the stomach, ripping up and out until he spilled his intestines in a great steaming pile on the ground. A fecal stench, sharper than the road’s sewage, joined the aroma of spilled blood and wet metal.

I don’t know what happened to Ninavis or Brother Qown. I didn’t see them, for which I will be forever grateful. The two remaining men backed away with their empty hands raised. I think they begged, but I had no ears for human tongues.

I killed them too.

It’s just as well for everyone I don’t go into details.

I don’t think I stood there for long before I returned to my senses. At some point, I realized I stood in the middle of a half dozen Marakori corpses, no more recognizable as humans than slaughtered livestock. Blood covered me, some of which was my own.

And I didn’t know if Ninavis or Brother Qown were alive or dead.

“Nina? Qown?”

I heard whispering to the side. Brother Qown stood up from behind a broken, overturned cart despite Ninavis’s best efforts to pull him back. He scanned the scene, horrified. I wouldn’t have begrudged him for throwing up, but sometimes I forget he doesn’t faint at the sight of blood.

I wanted to say something, but my vision began darkening.

“On second thought, I’m also kind of glad you didn’t prove you could use that sword when you and I first met,” Ninavis said. Her joke fell flat as she stared at me. “Janel? Janel!”

The world slid out from under my feet, and I plummeted into an abyss.

21: A DIFFICULT HEALING

Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Kihrin D’Mon, Hamarratus, and Star left the Capital in search of a Gatestone

Kihrin frowned.

“I told you that wasn’t my favorite part,” Janel said.

“No, I just had the oddest mental image of watching you kill a demon using someone else’s severed arm.” Kihrin studied her. “But you didn’t describe that. Also, remind me to stay far away from you in a fight.”

“I hardly ever lose control anymore.”

Kihrin shook his head. “Now see, it’s that ‘hardly ever’ part I find so disconcerting.”

“Welcome to the party,” Ninavis said. “At least the beer’s free.”

Janel cleared her throat and looked away for a second. “Your memory of the arm happened. In the Afterlife when we last met.”

“Huh.” Kihrin wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea he was remembering the Afterlife or, by implication, his past life. Unsettling.