Torbal crouched in the shadows and watched the guards on the street below. He couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face as fat one scratched his head.

The one in the middle, the leader he presumed, was unable to hide his displeasure at finding the street they’d chased him into empty.

But it wouldn’t do to gloat, that way lay hubris and tempted the Fates. He whiped the smirk form his face and kept one eye on the tall, slim fellow who held the lantern high and peered into the shadows.

Torbal made it a point to wear clothing that would reflect no light when he went on a job, but you could never be too careful. He wasn’t getting any further up this building with those guards directly below and he did not need the lantern-bearer to see the glint of light on buckle or a dagger hilt.

He shifted back a little further against the statue of some forgotten knight and settled in to wait. The night had been going so well until Sioned had decided to move in on his mark. He hadn’t even known she was back in the city! She was obviously keeping better tabs on his movements however.

Just as he’d been about to open the windows into the second-floor bedroom of the Latrelle Estate, they had been flung open and she’d lent out, smiled down at him-with a beauty so lovely it still had the power to take his breath away-and then screamed.

He’d slid back down the rope, and dashed across the dark garden and over the wall. But the grandees who lived on Sovereign Hill paid well to ensure that the city watch frequently patrolled the streets around their gold filled abodes.

Well he wasn’t finished with the Latrelle’s, they were the richest mark in town and he was going to have them.

As for Sioned; he’d have her too. One way or another.

Laeroth fell to one knee, his sword splashing into the creek beside him.⁠

He tried to catch his breath but the arrow-arrows, he knew there was more than one, each strike has felt like a hammer blow-shifted as his chest moved. The pain was excruciating.⁠

He couldn’t stop the cough when it came and blood dribbled out of his mouth. He swayed, but managed to catch himself on one arm before he collapsed face first into the creek next to his sword. ⁠

He had to focus!⁠

He’d lost his hold of Telumisere as soon as he’d finished off the Amarian blademaster. Thank Garnavaar he hadn’t lost it earlier or he’d have been a dead man. As it was, unless he could find his way back to the Sphere of Elemental Earth he’d likely die anyway.⁠

He’d been taught to focus on the Green using his breath, but he couldn’t breathe. The pain was too great. Even the swallow breaths he was taking now felt like his chest was being sliced open with blades of fire. ⁠

How could he find his way back to Telumisere if he couldn’t focus!⁠

He couldn’t use his breathing, couldn’t take the breaths to count… to count… ⁠

He listened. The sounds of battle were either further away than he’d thought or he was going to black out. But he could hear his heart beat. ⁠

Da-dum – focus!⁠

Da-dum, da-dum – he could feel the earth beneath his fist and knee.

Da-dum, da-dum – he pushed his senses into the cool soil.⁠

Da-dum, da-dum – the peace of the god of the earth teased his senses.⁠

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum – the green light of Telumisere began to line the edges of his sight.⁠

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum – it began to fill him. The pain in his back fading to a dull ache.⁠

He felt the arrows fall from his back and he breathed deeply, his lungs no longer burning. He coughed, blood gushing from his mouth but it was only his body expelling what had already pooled in his lungs. ⁠

He was a Knight of the Emerald Flame. He’d live.

The Font barely held any power. I should have known when I entered the facility and the place had been leeched of all colour. That was the tell, the most obvious sign of all and I had let my excitement get the better of me.

The Six Bitches had left Fonts across the galaxy, each one a monument to their failed experiments at creating life, at imitating the Gods who had made them – and then left them behind. Chasing them like the dogs they were.

Only one of the Firstborn had been successful. Had succeeded at creating life. My master had done what his brethren could not. But they did not praise his glory, or celebrate his achievement.

Instead they had been outraged at his methods. At his use of chaos instead of order. At is refusal to follow their strictures that had failed time and time again. So they had cast him out. Imprisoned him in the Void and abandoned us, his children, to grow and flourish on a godless world, watched over by their ‘Keepers’.

But my Lord had not been idle in his exile. He had called from darkness to darkness and those of us with the ears to hear, heard his call and vowed to set him free.

The energy that was left within the Font coruscated down my arm, quickening the soulsword as I forged it in the energies of order and chaos, a feat that had not been accomplished since before my Master had been exiled.

Behind me came the mewling cry of Romelda. She had lost her toy crystal when my fury at the state of the Font had got the best of me. The portal had closed too but no matter. Once the soulsword was quenched I would be able to use it to open my own portals, tears in the fabric of space time that would lead me anywhere I wanted to go.

I raised the sword, it’s violet glow blazing, almost blue. I turned to Romelda and she began to scream. A soulsword had not been created in millennia but she knew what I was going to do.

After all, it wouldn’t be a soulsword without a soul.

“There is the Font.” Romelda pointed across the cavern to the enormous stone hand that held the construct of the Firstborn.

It was older than I had imagined it would be. Most of the Firstborn complexes I had found were alive with light and colour. But here it was as though the very essence that made the Firstborns machinery what it was, had been leached out of it, leaving only the base minerals behind.

“Well?”

I turned at the impatience in Romelda’s voice. The portal we had stepped through glowed in the air behind her and I could tell she wanted to be gone from here.

“Well what?” I asked although I knew what she wanted. None of the Keepers, the pathetic wretches the Firstborn had left as stewards of the worlds and peoples they had brought into being, ever wanted to linger in the places they were supposed to rule.

“You… ” she swallowed and I had to bit my tongue to keep form laughing. “You said you’d pay me…”

“Oh, you mean this?” From a pocket I withdrew a somast crystal. It sparkled in the light of the portal. The somast had once been powerful relics, but they’d offer little of what she imagined in this world.

I tossed the crystalline sphere to her and she caught it eagerly, wrapping her hands around it as she stared into its depths. And stopped moving. She breathed still but she was effectively trapped. There she would stay until I released her.

It wouldn’t do to have the only person able to port in and out of a Firstborn facility to leave me stranded here, would it?

What if my Master could not be released from this location? I would be trapped as irrevocably as he.

I turned back to the construct. The avatars of the Six Sisters – the Six Bitches – stood around the upper ring, each with one hand raised as though giving permission for the power of the Font to rise. Well, rise it shall.

And when I finally free my Master from the prison in which they had placed him, they would rue the day they abandoned us, their children, to live or die without them.