Things had gotten out of hand.

  “Isaac!”

  He sprinted down the stairs so fast that it felt like he wasn’t touching them at all. All around was cracked stone and dusty cobwebs. Above, the ceiling of the stairwell was the segmented vertebrae of the giant, unknown creature, each arc of bone bigger than a house. The darkness grew thicker with frightening speed.

  “Isaac!”

  All at once, he couldn’t see the stairs. There was only darkness. All he could hear were gasps for air and pounding footsteps. Each step into the black was a leap and a prayer.

  He should’ve untied himself while he had the chance. He should’ve ran into the tomb before she could follow. He should’ve never cast that gods-damned fireball at that fucking ship.

  The stairs ended without warning, dark as it was, and the transition to flat ground sent him sprawling face-first across cracked tiles. Isaac barely felt the impact, his limbs scrambling for purchase, somehow stumbling back to his feet. Down below the earth, in the heavy silence brought by overhanging rock and sand, every sound echoed in the confined space like a clarion. The loudest sound was heavy footsteps. Moving at a quicker pace than his own. Louder, faster, closer.

  Green light ahead, flickering like fire. Suddenly, he could see the outlines of pews and carpets assembled in columns. A vaulted ceiling above, the curving segmentation of vertebrae acting as the apex—below, lines of pillars with corrugated stone and connecting arches. Arcaded piers, Isaac remembered. Architecture lessons wormed through his panicking mind. A nave was the center aisle of a church. The wings were called transepts. The space behind the altar was the apse.

  Tombs had chapels for the dead. They had false doors. Traps for grave robbers. Designed to kill and fool those who did not belong.

  Louder. Faster. Closer.

  Green fire ringed the arcaded piers, magically treated torches burning inside sconces. Ahead, at the foot of the altar, an onyx statue stood beneath the vaulted ceiling. Two figures—one standing, one kneeling. One human, the other an animal he had never seen before. Something to do with forgiveness. Uplifting. Absolution.

  Rotted carpet bunched at his feet. No smoke came from the rows of green fire. All around were pews and aisles and curving friezes.

  He reached the stairs before the altar. He felt the rushing wind behind him. In a single moment of clarity, he saw the stripes and stars symbol patched on the human figure of the statue.

  She tackled him with the force of a carriage. They slammed into stone tile, sliding along in a tangle of limbs before bouncing off the carved reliefs of the altar. One clawed hand gripped his shoulder. The other pressed a dagger to his throat.

  “You furless weasel!” Her wild eyes reflected rows of green fire. “You sodding ape!”

  Isaac squirmed beneath her, pushing and kicking. The blade of the dagger wedged deeper into his neck.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t!” Hot breath, snarling teeth. “Convince me not to end your life!”

  His neck bulged against the blade with every panicked breath. “I tried to save you!”

  “You buried me! Tried to leave me for dead!”

  The edge went deeper. His bound hands sunk into the fur of her chest. All he could do was twist and gasp.

  “Beg!” she yelled. “Beg for mercy!”

  Blood trickled down his neck. “Fuck you.”

  “Isaac—”

  “No! Fuck you! I’m sick of your threats! I’m sick of being tied! And I’m sick of you getting in my way!”

  The blade trembled at his throat. Mohawk spilling down, ears flat, eyes reflecting fire.

  He looked her right in the eye. “You need me. You won’t do it.”

  Long, panting breaths. Her weight on his abdomen. Her face framed in green light. Behind, a vaulted ceiling rising up into colossal vertebrae. He didn’t think about the history of this chapel—its purpose and architecture and all the exalted corpses which might have passed through its halls. For once, his life of study and research faded from his mind.

  There was only him and her and a dagger at his throat.

  Her black snout curled. The blade twitched, and her grip on his shoulder tightened. Their eyes never left each other.

  She yanked the dagger away, stabbing it back into her hip sheath. Her now free hand gripped his other shoulder, and her clawed fingers almost met at his spine. Isaac thought of pulling apart a cooked chicken.

  “‘Just seemed like the right thing to do’,” she hissed. “Xotra’s cunt, you actually believe that, don’t you?”

  He could only take ragged breaths, wincing at every stretch of his open wound.

  “What was I to do if I couldn’t dig my out, huh? Was I supposed to starve in that hole while you traipsed off to glory?”

  “I gave you—”

  “You gave me nothing! No rope, no prybar, nothing! I would’ve died down there if rust and rock hadn’t worked in my favor!” She clamped down on a snarl. “Thought you were being heroic, did you? Thought giving me the choice of starvation or capture was some noble mercy, huh?”

  “I did my best! I could’ve just let the sphinx kill you! Maybe that would’ve been smarter!”

  Her breath was hot on his face. “Don’t talk to me about smart decisions, Isaac. I’m still close to making some, myself.”

  “I gave you privileged information! Sensitive Diet contacts! The guild would have me censured and exiled if they knew I told that information to a pirate! I took an enormous risk trying to give you aid!”

  “Lot of good your aid would’ve done me! You saw my ship skulking nearby! If I leave this giant skeleton, it’ll be as a lamb to slaughter! Dead by dusk, if I’m lucky!”

  “If you don’t leave this skeleton,” Isaac said, “it’ll be worse, I promise you. Do you know what necrotic magic does to skin and bone? Do you know how easily a sorcerer could wrench your soul from its tether? Would you rather be ripped apart by undead thralls, or have your essence burned for fuel like oil in a lantern?”

  She pushed herself up to a full sitting position, trailing a hand over her tattered leather cuirass. “Take another gander at these scars, Isaac. I know you’ve stolen your fair share.”

  She guided his gaze across her torso, pointing out the most recent injuries. Many were just now scabbing over. They must’ve still been hurting her quite severely.

  “For my one good deed,” Zaria said, “I got the pleasure of being whipping post for a ship of angry pirates. Tied to a mast, denied food and drink, cut by every sharp object the imagination allowed. Only reason I’m still drawing breath is ‘cause the captain of the Saber wanted me subjected to treason charges. A fate she was keen on inflicting herself.”

  She leaned in, and her musk fell over him like a blanket. “You ever had someone explain how they’re going to torture you to death? Right in your ear, real slow like, relishing every word. Soaking her britches just from the thought of pulling your entrails out with hot pincers, smashing bone and ripping flesh, wringing every ounce of pain to the drop. Would you be eager to see that person’s face chasing you down a dune?”

  Isaac rubbed his bloody throat.

  “Since you seem to know fuck all about anything that matters, I’ll assume you don’t know who she is. Black Eye Soren, captain of the Silent Saber. One of the few pirates who’s got a reputation for brutality and sadism that isn’t tall tales and exaggeration. She relishes putting down rowdy sailors. Any top deck she graces better not have a single unbent knee on its planks, or it’ll be drenched in blood before half the cargo’s been taken. She’s not crazy. Not reckless. And not a bad captain, neither. Generous with her grog.” Zaria rubbed a cut on her shoulder, grimacing. “She just waits for an excuse. Once she’s got it, you’ll wish you were never born.”

  He laid back on the stone tiles, catching his breath and rubbing his neck.

  “I’m not risking that again,” the hyena said. “I’ll take any bloody chance other than seeing her standard come my way.”

  “How’s this treasure supposed to stop her, exactly?” Isaac asked. “Some gold sitting at the bottom of a tomb won’t do you much good. Might as well be some shiny pebbles, in that case.”

  “A vain hope is better than none. At the very least, she won’t dare approach the tomb while I’m inside. ”

  “Fine.” Isaac held up his hands. “If you’re so desperate for survival, then untie me. Now.”

  She snorted, sitting back fully on his groin. “Oh, what, I’m supposed to trust you after you stabbed my back first chance you got?”

  “Better now than when it’s too late.”

  “How ‘bout you be grateful you got all your breathing tubes intact?”

  “How about you be grateful that I rescued you from your captain in the first place?”

  “Accidental rescue don’t garner much appreciation, love. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have burnt me like a bonfire if I hadn’t found you weak and trembling.”

  Isaac thrashed his legs, but her weight had him pinned down tight. “My mission is too important for you to get me killed! Untie me!”

  She leaned forward, draping herself over him. “The tiny squire stays tied, and he best be happy to serve his knight.”

  “This is more important than you! This is my life’s only purpose!”

  “And I’m still aiding that purpose, despite your best efforts. I’m on this quest now, same as you.”

  “You’re endangering this quest! I will not let you risk my father’s life! I will not let you squander his only chance at rescue from an evil sorceress!”

  “Who said you were letting anything anymore?”

  “You’re going to get us killed!”

  “Hold your tongue, sir mage, before it’s relieved from you.”

  “No! I will not, you filthy pirate! You furry mongrel! You stupid cunt!”

  Her response was halfway between a snort and a growl. “Fine, then. If you’ll choose not to obey, then I’ll be forced—”

  She stopped, eyes widening slightly, as if something had touched her. Shifting up a little, she looked down at the connecting point between them.

  And, clear as day, illuminated by magical green fire, Isaac’s pants had pitched upwards at the groin. The already ripped fabric was straining at the frays, and he only now became aware of the crushing tightness around himself. He had never had such a painfully hard erection in his entire life.

  Perched above him, Zaria glanced between his lower half and his face, momentarily at a loss for words.

  Isaac scrambled, trying to wriggle away, but she sat back down on top of him and pinned his shoulders to the tiled floor. Her laugh started hitched, struggling to get out, and when it got going, it went from surprise to disbelief to naked amusement.

  “What’s this, Isaac? You got a weapon I’m not aware of?”

  He tried to push her off, but she grabbed both his wrists in one hand and forced them down over his head. All he could do was kick his legs and twist his abdomen.

  “Does my squire want something of his knight?”

  He couldn’t look at her. He turned his head away. Shame burned across his face.

  Her weight shifted, and, when she spoke again, her voice was right at his ear. “Do you want to fuck me, Isaac?”

  He focused on the church architecture. Apses. Arcaded piers. Studded reliefs and curving pews. The purpose of a mortuary chapel—

  She sat down on his erection, pressing it against his body. Her hips rocked back and forth, as insistent and firm as rubbing out a tough stain. He could feel her lips slide across his length through the twin fabric layers between them. It seemed to grip—

  Anatomy lessons. Sandwyrms. Vestigial wings. Composition of scales. Digestive tract.

  Labia, vulva—

  “Gotta be honest,” she said, breath hot and close. “Never usually this chatty with a hostage. Real strict professional, I am.”

  He wanted to thrust. He wanted to grab. He wanted to run and hide and never be seen by anyone ever again.

  “Maybe I am grateful for you saving my life. Maybe you got a countenance about you that just begs for teasing.” She bucked her hips particularly hard, and his leg kicked out against smooth tile. “Maybe I’ve got a weakness for the cute and helpless.”

  His father. Think about his father. Portraits, stories. Questing into the tomb—

  Her teeth nibbled at his ear. “Maybe I want you to stop lying to yourself.”

  Weight. Pressure. Sliding.

  “Whatever it is—you’ve been driving me mad, Isaac.”

  His arms wouldn’t budge an inch. Fur and claws rubbed against his wrists, holding tight. She had complete control.

  Her face rose above his, noses inches apart. A number of emotions crossed her scarred complexion. Anger. Amusement. Calculation.

  Lust.

  “Now what am I supposed to do with someone like you?”

  Face burning hot. Heat of their breaths. A furnace at his waist.

  She lifted her rear off him, his erection springing back to position, and her hand reached down between them, probing and shifting. “Here’s the deal, love,” she said, looking right into his eyes. “You can stop this anytime. Say the word and it’s over. Pirate’s honor.”

  Her hand wrapped around the hem of his pants. Cocked and waiting.

  “If you don’t want this, say so. Right now.”

  Her breasts pressed into his chest. Her thighs wrapped around his waist. His cock strained against his clothes like a bolt notched in a crossbow.

  She was waiting, watching him with gleaming eyes. It wasn’t a ploy. He could tell, right then, that she really would stop if he said so. Nothing further would happen. He had the choice, and that was the point. That was the humiliation she was inflicting. That was what made it so much worse.

  There would be no violation. There would be no shame. All he had to do was speak. Say the word.

  Stop.

  She had left a faint dampness behind. A residual heat. It was all he could focus on. There was so much warmth and wetness and pressure and guilt and fear. Her musk seemed to smother him.

  “Speak up, or hold your tongue.”

  Isaac gazed past her, towards the high-vaulted ceiling and giant vertebrae, giving one last bit of defiance against himself. Then he tilted his head back across the tiled floor, looking up at the ornate carvings of the ceremonial altar, and closed his eyes.

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  He didn’t see the expression she made, but he still felt it all the same. “Knew you had it in you.”

  She pulled down his pants, and his erection was freed. Her fingers wrapped around his shaft, stroking up and down, making him twist and clench. Gentle pads around soft fur, lubricated with his pre-cum, folded in a perfect sleeve. She kept pistoning at a measured pace, and Isaac kept his face turned up and away, knowing she was waiting for a reaction.

  She raised herself off his chest, and her other hand began to lift off his wrists. Slowly, at first, like she was testing if there would be any resistance, and then all at once when none was found. Her weight on his groin shifted away, her strokes slightly changing angle, and the gentle motion of her thighs made him realize that she was undoing her own clothes. Lowering, letting free.

  Think of the altar. Think of the reliefs on its face. Think of their importance. Think of the history that could be—

  A drop of liquid fell on the head of his cock, warm and viscous. Before he could stop himself, he opened his eyes and saw her loins glistening in the green firelight, strands of her excitement already dripping down her thighs. Around the wet fur laid a subtle play of creases and folds, a pinkness that seemed to emit almost a hot fog of musk against his exposed skin.

  “Ready to ride, squire?”

  She was grinning down at him with equal parts amusement and cruelty. He turned his head away, embarrassed at being caught, but the hand not currently gripping his cock came to his face, forcing his gaze back on her.

  “No,” she said. “Look at me while I fuck you.”

  She tilted his cock up until his head ran over her lips, slowly sliding through until he was poised at her opening. Heat and wetness and desperately sensitive skin.

  He could stop this. He just had to say the word. It was right there on his tongue.

  She paused again, like an executioner holding their axe high, ready to swing. Looking right through him. Waiting for any sign of rejection.

  With her hand gripping his chin, Isaac met her eyes, opened his mouth, tried to force something out, and only managed a shaking, needful breath.

  She dropped down on him, no easing or mercy, letting her heavy weight drive his erection deep inside her. The blow on his pelvis nearly knocked the wind out of him. She rose back up, leaving only his head inside, and slammed down again, forcing a gasp from his throat. His vision swam, green torchlight blurring around him. He was smothered by sensation. An immense heat, her walls impossibly soft and slick and tight, sliding around him so fast and strong that he almost didn’t notice her grinning at his expressions.

  And he was back in his bedroom, in the roof of his uncle’s tower, watching students his age stumble drunkenly down the street, their voices and cheers echoing through the night. He stood alone, crouched in the shadow of the window, watching one girl in particular as she swung her diploma high in the air. She was too far away to see her face, but her legs were long, and her body curved so beautifully, and he was burning with imagination, consumed with questions, wondering her name, wondering which shouting voice was hers, wondering why he couldn’t be down there with her, wondering—

  Zaria smashed down, hilting him with such force that his back arched off the floor. She grinded herself against him, back and forth, smearing their combining fluids across each other. Shifting for leverage, she began to rise and fall at a savage pace, like a blacksmith’s anvil had decided to pound the hammer instead, and the sounds of striking flesh echoed across the chapel walls. The sound was both obscene and enchanting, wet and loud, almost like—

  The cane flew, and white hot lines of pain seared across his back. The sound was a loud crack in the morning air. His muscles ached, he could barely stand, he had casted the purifying evocation for hours, and still it was not enough. His uncle struck again, and the new wound joined the old, joined the other flayed lashes that never had the chance to heal. Shouting instructions, belittling his efforts, insulting everything he ever did, and still he tried, despite his anger, despite his wants, he continued to try, and the cane continued to strike—

  And she lowered herself over him, almost eclipsing the light, almost covering him in muscle and leather and fur, her breasts spilling over his chest. She licked him across the face, her tongue heavy and wet. He barely felt her saliva cling to his skin because she was still spearing herself onto him, never losing the merciless rhythm, practically beating his pelvis into the tiled floor.

  She bent down again, tongue perched to drag and scrape, and Isaac bit the pink muscle when it came—not enough to wound, but just enough to give pain and spite. When she cocked her head back, he spit in her face.

  Her howl of laughter was loud and frenzied, her teeth glistening green in the light, and she snapped down towards his throat like a reaction of pure instinct. Her jaws wrapped around his neck, the pressure small but growing. The impacts of her drops and thrusts were hard enough to continually bounce his neck against her teeth as they tightened and tightened, and they finally pierced through his skin as precisely as breaking the surface tension of water. Twin rows of punctures widened the dagger wound on his jugular, quickening the blood flow.

  But she was licking again, running the wet muscle over blood and sweat, almost soothing, and the pressure on his throat—

  And he couldn’t stop the tears from falling, couldn’t keep the sharp knot from rising in his throat, couldn’t wipe the wetness from the old parchment, the dim candlelight flickering as he heaved and gasped as loudly as he dared, lest his uncle hear from above. He cried from shame, from all the feelings and dreams he could not purge from himself, all his hopes and wants cause for punishment and blame, but he couldn’t stop, he always wanted, he always imagined, it was a burning need inside of him, a lighted dawn shining through prison bars, and so he wept over his studies, trying—

  Her face above, hot breath and scars. With a wicked grin, she intensified the pounding both in strength and frequency, every angle driving him deeper, her insides like a hundred gripping tongues, a dull pain blurring into ecstasy with every strike of flesh. She wanted his reaction, and he almost lost composure. Seeing weakness, she slowed the frequency but struck even harder, each thrust as deliberate and vicious as the killing blow of a sword, and the moan escaped his lips before he could stop it, the sound perking her ears and lighting her eyes, only encouraging—

  And he laid in bed, moonlight draped across his form, stroking and wondering, picturing how the act would feel. Imagining the buildup, the flirtations that he knew only as dialogue from characters on a page, using their example to build his own dream because he had no other reference, no real experience of soft skin and hungry eyes, and so he knew in his heart that his imagination was hollow. He didn’t know any better, no one had taught him, and he would have no chance to ever experience—

  The curve of her breasts, bouncing and shaking. Her hot breath mixing with his, both of them panting loud enough to echo. The wetness of it all—sweat drenching him, thick streams of fluids at their pistoning connection. Heat—she was unbelievably hot, like an enveloping sun. Even her smell, the musk he had grimaced at, it was so thick in the air he could almost taste it, and it was intoxicating now, burning something basic and primal inside him.

  Isaac realized he’d stopped thinking about resisting, and, in fact, had completely lost track of time and his mission.

  And now it was building inside of him, a coming release more intense than any he had ever given himself before, seeming to coalesce from every fiber of his body. Zaria saw it, as watchful as a surgeon above him, and she intensified her efforts like an orchestra reaching crescendo. Her thighs closed around his hips, her mouth nibbled and licked at his neck, and she started pounding him even harder than any previous increase in force, as if she’d been saving her true strength for when he was helpless and writhing and beyond the point of no return. Pain and pleasure, soreness and ecstasy, all of it swirling together in a rushing speed.

  He came inside of her with such raw intensity that his soul seemed to leave his body. He almost went blind. Zaria pressed herself down on his battered pelvis, grinding him deeper, and his cock spasmed and lurched like a bucking horse, all his muscles contracting as he rode an overwhelming wave of euphoria, only relaxing when every single rope of cum was wrung from him. Isaac melted into the tiled floor, his skin tingling, gasping in exhaustion and pain.

  She waited above him, hands leaning on his shoulders, until he could focus on her face again. Then, when eye contact was made, she grinned, raised herself up his still hard length, and slammed her weight back down.

  Isaac gave a less than dignified moan, his cock unbearably sensitive, but she lifted him up by the shoulders until he was almost sitting straight, shoving his face between her breasts. Her chest fur was soft and almost fluffy, her breasts yielded around his head, and her musk was an overwhelming aroma burning into his brain. His entire world became her. Her smell and touch and warmth.

  “Almost there, love.”

  She alternated between rough pounding and insistent grinding, using him purely for her own sake, and Isaac’s groans of painful sensitivity were muffled by the valley of her breasts. Her arms wrapped around him, seemingly both to hug him intimately and stop him from squirming, claws digging into his back as her thrusts became more erratic and needful, lubricated with his cum. Finally, her breath hitched, her body shook, and she squeezed the air out of his lungs as she held him tight.

  Her insides undulated around him, her cry echoing down the chapel walls. His mind almost went mad with unbearable pleasure, but she pinned him in place as her loins contracted and gripped, scraping and sliding. Fur in his face, muscles flexing around him, he could only groan into her chest and ride out her climax.

  Slowly, she relaxed, her grip continuing to lighten until he was dropped unceremoniously to the tiled floor. She remained perched above him, blinking and panting. Then she seemed to recall his presence, grinned with delight and authority, and bent down towards him. He tried to turn away, but she gripped his head, holding him still while she licked his face one final time, dragging the tongue laboriously across his features as if painting him for ownership.

  “You know,” she whispered, “for such a powerful mage, you sure can make some cute moans.” She lifted herself off his cock, eliciting one last moan from him, and climbed back to her feet. “All the fight pounded out of you, then?”

  Isaac could only breathe and watch the ceiling.

  She glanced back towards the darkened stairway leading out of the chapel, looked down at him, and said: “Don’t go nowhere.” Then she walked down the aisle of pews with casual confidence, her ass still exposed and glistening wet, her tail perked and wagging. She disappeared into the darkness.

  Isaac didn’t get up off the floor. He didn’t feel capable of moving at all. The dull ache in his pelvis was growing in intensity, and he felt as if he’d run across a country. There was no part of his body that was not covered in some combination of sweat, blood, saliva, and both of their cum.

  Instead, his mind drifted away. Away from the tomb, away from the desert, and away from his father. He had never felt such a strong sense of clarity before.

  He imagined fields of golden wheat shining in the sun. He imagined towns of stone and brick, towers and castles, palaces and temples. He imagined uncharted jungles teeming with life and danger. He imagined waterships sailing through storms, horsemen galloping through mountain passes, airborne machines flying through the heavens with magic and metal.

  He imagined meeting friends at a tavern. He imagined fighting duels with bandits, swords clashing in mud and rain. He imagined meeting grand sorcerers so wizened and old that they marked generations of people as most do the seasons, he imagined meeting kings and queens wearing luxurious furs and studded crowns, entrusting him with tasks of kingdom-saving importance, and he imagined meeting fabled knights and brilliant generals, each of their scars suggesting adventure, honor, and glory. He imagined bedding many women, of all shapes and species and temperaments, showing them the wonders he had just experienced.

  The old shame burned at his face. These dreams had been a comfort to him all his life. Every night, he had laid in bed, tired and wounded, imagining the things he might accomplish. But they had always been fantasies. Something he would be punished for if he ever spoke them aloud. Always, he would go to sleep and wake up and begin his routine again. Year by year, the dreams receded further from his mind. Only his father mattered. Only his training mattered. That was his purpose. That was his duty. That was why he was born.

  But now, lying before the altar of a mortuary chapel, staring up into a ceiling buttressed with giant vertebrae, Isaac dreamed his old dreams and finally allowed himself to want.

  Footsteps echoed at the entrance. Zaria came out of the darkness wielding her poleaxe in one hand, trying to dislodge the sphinx’s head with the other. After a few failed attempts, she struck the lion head into the tiled floor, placed her foot on it, and yanked the spear tip free from its third eye.

  “Come now,” she called out. “Up you go. Quit lyin’ about.”

  He didn’t move. He didn’t feel ready to stand. She continued to saunter over to him, pausing only to grab at the carpet lying in the aisle. She wiped the ancient fabric between her legs, digging out the drying streams of fluid.

  Isaac grimaced at the sight.

  “What? You think the sorceress’ll be mad?”

  He leaned his head back against the floor, returning his focus to the present.

  She came over and stood above him, green firelight shining on leather. “Sheathe yourself, at the very least.”

  He pulled his pants back to their proper position. She held down an open hand, flicking her head upwards. He shoved it away and climbed back to his feet, wincing at the pain in his groin. He would be amazed if his pelvic girdle wasn’t cracked. He was certainly amazed that she hadn’t severed any arteries in his neck. Frankly, he was amazed that he had survived the experience at all.

  “Oh, come on,” Zaria said. “Don’t look so broken. I’m clean. Won’t be no pus coming from your yogurt slinger.”

  He shook his head and looked away.

  “Hey,” she said, clamping an arm on his shoulder. “You got uppity, and I had to put you back in place. That’s all. Standard business.” She paused. “Well, mostly. Can’t say I’ve elected for that method of punishment before, but it’s got its favors.”

  He rubbed his bloody throat, unwilling to meet her gaze. He tried to move away, towards the transept and the hidden stairway that must lead further down, but she held firm to his shoulder.

  “Isaac.”

  He looked down at his sweaty and ragged clothes. He could now smell her scent on them.

  “Hey. Look at me.”

  He met her gaze, and found the whites of her eyes starting to show, ears flicking back and forth.

  “Was that . . . really your first time?”

  Isaac didn’t answer. He couldn’t stop blushing. He couldn’t stop imagining how disheveled and pitiful he must’ve looked.

  She blinked, as if certain thoughts were only now seriously occurring to her, and released her grip from his shoulder. She stepped back out of arm’s reach, holding up her hands. “You know I’m just teasing you, right?”

  He wiped blood from his neck.

  “Look,” she began to say, but stopped. She sighed and cleared her throat. “I’m aware this wasn’t the best—”

  An explosion shook the room.

  It was felt more than heard. A wave of pressure slapped through the chapel, shaking pews and quivering the organs. Above, the ceiling quaked, old tiles of stone sliding loose and crumbling to the ground. One segment of the vertebrae cracked open, just enough for the load it was bearing to slowly snap the fissure wider and wider until the bone splintered like wood.

  Immediately, another explosion crackled out, a cacophony of smaller ones erupting together, and there was a great rumbling above, sounds of deep thuds and cracks and collapses of giant structures. One series of thuds, in particular, seemed to increase in intensity, bouncing fast and hard.

  “Get down!”

  Zaria pulled him to the floor just as something rushed from the darkness. He only caught a brief glimpse of a splintering pew before a sharp wind gusted at his face, the altar shattering behind him. When he looked, he saw the crude and dull iron of a cannonball sticking out of the carved reliefs. In the green light, it almost didn’t look real, but there it was—black and round and heavy enough to sunder a hull. Or destroy a tomb entrance.

  “Oh, no,” Zaria said. “Oh, please, no.”

  Above, another cannon salvo began, and this time it was louder, as if much of the structures between it and them had collapsed. More thuds echoed out, punctuated with the shattering of stone, and more bouncing crashes came rushing down the long stairwell, almost too fast to react. She forced him down again. He could only brace and close his eyes and listen to screaming balls of metal smash their way through ancient architecture, thinking of geometry and angles of impulse and what direct hits did to soft targets.

  When he looked again, the entrance to the chapel was little more than piles of shards and dust. Multiple arcaded piers had been hit directly, leaving shattered stubs where support beams had once been. Small streams of light shined down from the stairway. If they could see the light from down here, then the destruction was far worse up above.

  “They weren’t supposed to—” Zaria’s ears flattened, neck fur rising. “They never come near this place. I thought they wouldn’t—even she would never think to—”

  Another explosion above their heads. More ceiling tiles fell, more quakes and dust. It sounded like barrels of blackpowder, probably placed at the back of the skull on the surface. They must be using an ear-splitting amount of explosives to feel it this deep in the earth.

  Isaac tried to get up, but she was still holding him down, frozen in place. Watching the chapel entrance with wide eyes and panting breath.

  “We need to go,” he said. “Now.”

  “Fuck me. Soren’s here. The Black Eye, the Saber, all of her—I thought they wouldn’t—”

  “Get off me!”

  And, above, echoing down the crumbled passage of the stairwell, voices began to be heard. A multitude of them, an overlapping tumble of shouts and cheers and roars. Some of them were singing shanties and battle hymns. He imagined an entire crew of pirates gathering in the mouth of the skull, cutlasses and daggers and crossbows held below snarling teeth.

  Then they stopped. All at once, like snuffing a flame. An eerie silence descended down.

  “Zaria!”

  A small voice, distant and singular. The hyena immediately tensed.

  “I know you’re down there! Don’t bother staying silent!”

  Isaac couldn’t identify the species. She was too far away, her voice too obstructed by the wreckage, but, even still, the silence around her words made them echo through all the clearer.

  “Were you not satisfied with the lives of my crew? Was it purpose or vengeance that drove you to sunder a ship of the fleet? Were you truly brash enough to think you could slaughter all her hands and live to tell the tale?”

  Isaac cleared his throat.

  “I want no more pirate blood on your hands!” Soren called down. “You come out with whatever hostage you’re dragging in tow, and we fight proper! Dueling blades! Otherwise, I’m bringing this skeleton down on your head!”

  “There’s no way out,” Zaria whispered, almost to herself. “No door down here. I can’t go up there. She’ll slaughter me. She’ll make it slow, deliberate, a bloody spectacle—”

  “Listen to me—”

  “You got one minute!” Soren yelled. “One minute to bare your furry visage, traitor!”

  “This is a mortuary chapel,” Isaac said. “There are hidden doors. It’s supposed to fool grave robbers. She’ll never know where we went.”

  Zaria only looked at him.

  “Do you want to die or not?”

  She shook her head stiffly.

  “Get the fuck off me, then.”

  They stood up off the floor, shaking off bits of stone and dust, and Isaac guided her to a transept over to the side. In the little alcove, there were rows of friezes and cornices on the back wall, smooth lines of stone rising and falling in subtle patterns. Isaac trailed his hand down over the decorative grooves, searching for the hidden trigger. A pressure plate nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the architecture.

  “Best not be craven!” Soren yelled. “I got enough booming powder to split open a palace!”

  He found the spot. He pressed into it, and a small rectangle of stone sunk into the recesses of the wall, triggering a shudder of mechanisms. But nothing happened. No hint of a doorway emerged from the wall. It remained as smooth and seamless as any other edifice.

  “Hurry this along now, Isaac.”

  “It should’ve worked.” He pressed the square again. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Time’s up! Light the fuses!”

  He bashed his shoulder into the wall and felt the slightest bit of give. A fine crack of darkness emerged in a vertical line. “It’s stuck. Help me push.”

  They braced against the door, digging their feet into smooth tile, and pushed together. The crack of darkness slowly grew into a thick line, some bit of ancient and broken machinery audibly straining against their efforts. It was taking all their strength just to budge it inch by inch.

  An explosion ripped through the chapel. The shockwave pulsed through his guts, nearly knocking him to the floor. Around them, stone and masonry crumbled, shaken loose or broken apart. Two gigantic chunks of vertebrae snapped off the spine and crushed an entire column of pews, including the twin statues. Isaac noted, almost absently, that he’d never had the chance to study the figures. He’d missed their significance.

  The crumbling continued, a quaking of earth and stone that was growing louder and louder, building upon itself. A coming cascade.

  The crack in the doorway was now almost as wide as a bookshelf. Zaria squeezed through first, scrapping the cavalry hook of her poleaxe across the wall. She disappeared into blackness, gone immediately, and, for a moment, Isaac was left alone with a growing avalanche of falling stone. Then her arm reached out from the void, grabbed his elbow, and yanked him bodily through the gap.

  They collapsed into dirt just as the roof of the chapel split apart with another explosion. Large chunks of ceiling piled up at the open doorway, admitting through only slivers of green light. The door groaned to a stop with the heavy rubble pressing against it. As the destruction of the chapel continued, and more wreckage flooded to the floor, it did not budge a single inch further. It was stuck again, and for good this time.

  Eventually, the rumbling ceased, and all he could hear was the gentle fall of dirt and dust, the last little bits of collapse settling into place.

  Orange fire blazed through the dark. Zaria had lit a torch, stuffing the flint back in her pack. She handed it to him. With his wrists still tied, he had to grasp it with a doubled fist, fingers pressing against each other. The hyena unsheathed her poleaxe and turned away from the door.

  Ahead of them was a dirt-floored hall that continued far past the end of the torchlight. The walls were lined with horizontal niches like the holes of a beehive—loculi, Isaac remembered. Inlets to rest the bodies of the deceased. They rose in sequence towards the ceiling, stacking over each other. If the hall continued for long enough, there would be enough loculi to store hundreds of bodies.

  Catacombs. The tomb of an ancient necromancer.

  “Nothing for it now,” Zaria said, holding her weapon tight.

  There was no light ahead. The hall was blacker than night. Isaac took a deep breath, feeling a chill in the air.

  They ventured into the dark.