Chapter 43

Aris reels from confusion and regret after waking alone; Raker has left at dawn with her sword and scabbard. Three Questral challengers enter the cave, leering and declaring they are to deliver Aris to a god, implying they may dismember her and assault her first. Aris realizes Stellaris is muted inside the missing scabbard and cannot be summoned.

Despite being naked and unarmed, Aris adopts a fighting stance and targets the men’s weapons, intending to turn their blades to her cause. She launches first, tackling one assailant and killing him with brutal force by smashing his head against stone and destroying his eyes.

The second attacker charges and, in the chaos, accidentally impales his fallen ally. Aris wrenches the blade free, claims it, and meets his renewed attack, severing both his legs and leaving him screaming and helpless.

Facing the marked leader, Aris pins his arm to the wall with a thrown sword, disarming and trapping him. When he pleads, citing promised passage to the Land of the Gods and “two immortal cups,” Aris rejects his appeals and stabs him in the chest. Consumed by rage and memories of past assaults, she repeatedly stabs him until he dies, then slits his already marked neck.

Blood-soaked and having claimed and discarded their blades, Aris exits the cave. She remains cut off from Stellaris, trapped within the scabbard Raker took, but survives the ambush and understands more clearly that she is being hunted as an offering to a god.