Tin stepped in front of Solynn.

Picking up Sorsei in one arm, Sanie pumped Reverse Spiral Ties from the soles of her feet and landed in front of them in an instant.

“Don’t,” pleaded Solynn. “Don’t fight, please.”

Sanie met Solynn’s eyes. Her choice would irrevocably change how Solynn saw her.

She put her hands in surrender. She couldn’t use Tyistry in front of Solynn. If Solynn stopped seeing her as an equal, with whom would she exchanged letters during her travels, when this all came to pass?

The Tyist herded them into an alleyway, where two more rebels stood over a dozen more civilian hostages.

“They’re not human,” whispered one of the captives in a trembling voice. “They’re Demons bred by the Academy.”

“No—look at their insignia,” said Solynn. “They are Imperial Tyists. They fought for us in the war.”

“Quiet!” one of rebels barked at the group. “You are acting as hostages to serve a great cause, to bring about a new era of the Centralian Empire.”

“Traitors!” cried out a boy who appeared no older than fifteen. His bloodied fingers clutched the side of his head where his right ear should have been. “You’re with the False Messiah. Demons!”

The third rebel, the shortest, picked the boy up by the scruff of his shirt. He then pressed a Focal Tie slowly, steadily into the boy’s face, disintegrating his head from front to back.

Even Sanie was stunned to silence. Kaleb was holding Sorsei again, her face pressed against his neck as he cooed into her ear, “Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to fish. We’ll catch the biggest fish in all the world…”

“We need Imperial Officials as hostages,” said the female rebel. “These commoners are worth less than dirt.”

Next to Sanie, Solynn suddenly groaned, doubling over and holding onto her protruding abdomen.

“Be quiet, or I’ll make your face explode!” yelled the short Tyist.

The hostages around Solynn instinctively formed a semicircle between her and the Tyist.

Solynn whimpered into her hand. Sweat ran down her temples in rivulets.

The Tyist took a step towards her. “I said SHUT UP!”

Tin slowly began to rise to his feet.

“For the mercy of Meira, the woman is with child!” cried an elderly woman among them.

Sanie pulled Tin back down. She couldn’t afford to have him lose control as well.

The Tyist scowled but said no more about Solynn’s cries.

Tin sat behind Solynn, his arms and legs around her.

“If you must, let it go,” he whispered. “Maybe Meira-yuno does not mean for this to be our time. We will try again. There will be others.”

“We named her already.” Solynn gasped.

Reisa. Loyalty and charm.

“Tin, put your jacket over her front,” Sanie whispered.

Tin was confused but obeyed. Sanie slipped a hand under the jacket, over Solynn’s distended abdomen.

“Solynn, you have a baby girl.” Sanie’s soft voice surprised even herself. “Do you want her to live, even in this imperfect world?”

“I want her to live,” breathed Solynn, her tears mingling with sweat at the crook of her neck, “so long as there is hope.”

“Even in the midst of fear and discrimination?” asked Sanie.

“I want her to live, so long as she can love and be loved.”

“Your girl will be just fine,” said Sanie as she weaved an Acupressure Tie.

“That is for Anshtar to decide,” groaned Solynn. “If I lose her, then it is Anshtar’s way of justice.”

“That is nonsense.”

“The demonstrations. I knew about them.”

“So what? I knew. The Headmaster knew. The entire school knew!”

Sanie’s source energy danced around Solynn’s womb, forcing the muscles to unclench.

“Listen,” whispered Gouffer. “There are twenty of us, and only three of them. We can take them!”

“Stupid, they’re Tyists,” Kati hissed back.

Sanie’s source energy enveloped Solynn’s fetus. She was giving out, her cells shutting down.

“I’m making a run for it,” whispered Gouffer.

“Gouffer, don’t be a fool!”

“They used my dissertation,” gasped Solynn. “They used the information from my dissertation to support their cause.”

Sanie groaned. Why are mortals so emotionally labile?

“I don’t want to die here,” said Gouffer frantically. “I don’t!”

Sanie grimaced. She could let the fetus die in peace. Or she could attempt to bring into this world a creature who shares her power and is similarly crippled by it.

Gouffer made the sign of Meira, goddess of mercy, and looked towards the sky.

“Please don’t,” muttered Kati. “Gouffer, look at me.”

Then he dashed off, arms pumping, body leaned toward, long legs kicking up dust behind him.

Sanie had always thought that she would be an endpoint in the procreation of Tyists. Yet here she was, imbuing Solynn’s fetus with her source energy. In all likelihood it would not survive, for neither parent was a Tyist. But she had to try.

The renegade Tyist closest to them turned his Focal Tie towards Gouffer. A beam shot out of its center, missing Gouffer by a few thumb spans. He cursed and ran after him.

Sanie then felt her source energy being drawn away from her hand. The prenatal creature grasped at the tethers that anchored it to life.

So, let it be.

Another man leapt up and began darting away. Before he could take more than a few steps, one of the two remaining Tyists shot a Focal Tie at him, and he crumpled to the ground.

Sanie concentrated on her hand over Solynn’s abdomen. Her source energy infused little Reisa’s body, pulsating and merging into a Core. The trial had been passed!

Another hostage sprung up, in the process knocking into Kati.

“Watch it,” she cried out.

A Focal beam penetrated the man and then through Kati’s left shoulder. The indignant look drained from her eyes as she crumpled to the ground.

Solynn shrieked her friend’s name, and Tin clamped a hand over her mouth, his own teeth clattering uncontrollably. A fresh wave of cries swept through the hostages. The Tyist with the Focal Tie roared at everyone not to move.

The transformation was complete, and a new Tyist now kicked in its mother’s womb.

But who could notice? The hostages took off in every which direction.

--

The sky was dark now, and Sanie was tired. She had lost sight of Solynn and Tin. She held tightly Kaleb and Sorsei’s hands. They were crowded into the unfinished, underground basement of the old library of the Academy.

Imperial Tyists loyal to the throne stood near the entrance, assuring the civilians that they were safe. But the civilians continued pushing deeper into the library, over books strewn about the ground, pages torn out, spines trampled over.

A girl in a pink hat that matched her dress sat against a wall, crying. Both Sanie and Kaleb ignored her. They couldn’t manage two small children.

“NOT YOUR WAR MACHINES. NOT YOUR TOOLS!”

Suddenly, from the back entrance, rebel Tyists appeared. The crowd reversed direction, pushing back up against the loyalist Tyists. The loyalists fired Focal Ties at the rebels, haphazardly hitting civilians in the process.

As they squeezed out of the basement library, the crowd around her lurched, and all of a sudden, her hands were grasping air. She saw Kaleb a few steps in front of her and Sorsei to her right. She reached for her daughter first, and then spun around to scan the crowd for Kaleb. His hand was in the air, waving to her. Then a Spindle Tie caught his arm and spun and disintegrated him into specks of human flesh.

While Sorsei was shocked into silence, Sanie took seconds to reflect on her decision. She could replace a lover more easily than a daughter.

Kaleb was gone, so nothing remained to hold her back. For years, she hid her source energy for fear of frightening him and her friends. Now, she let it out. She Tied Reverse Spirals, long lashes emitting from her hands. She flung her Ties at the Spindle Tie that came towards her, sending them spinning into the distance.

The crowd was backing away from her. Holding onto Sorsei with one arm, she Tied Reverse Spirals from her feet to propel her to the nearest rooftop. Three Imperial Tyists surrounded her.

As if they stood a chance! She swatted away their Extension Ties with her own. She flicked them off the rooftop as one would dispose of a fly.

Ah, what a relief to release waves upon waves of silvery white source energy from her Core. She was a beast, and she was beautiful. She was a Tyist! For too long she had suppressed, repressed, fettered the urge.

But the sight of the Celestial Sect’s air ship, with pale blue sails and a likeness of Ava at its hull, floating towards the eye of the storm, cut short her moment of ecstasy. The Celestial Tyists began dropping Spindle Ties indiscriminately onto the people below. Whose side they were on?

Both civilians and the Imperial Tyists redirected their attentions to the air ship, the greater threat at hand. Extension, Focal Ties, and Spindle Ties lit up the sky with hues of grey, green, and blue. On the ground, the masses continued uphill with fervor, convinced that the Imperial City was still a safe haven.

Sanie had buried her hatred of the Celestial Sect alongside her Tyistry in the frozen tundra of her mind. Now, this grudge swelled up inside her. The Celestial were destroyers, not creators. Murderers. Above all, they were incompetents.

But revenge was for the insecure. Sanie allowed herself to melt into the background.

---

It was dark and quiet at the periphery of the Valley of Heroes, but the hysteria of the masses still rang in Sanie’s ears. She could still smell the bits of flesh sprayed all over her as the Spindle Ties cut into mortal bodies. In the end, they were just flesh flakes and brittle bone, like the fish they dressed for the dining table.

She tasted sour in her mouth and heaved out the bass, shrimp, and sorghum wine onto the grass. Being free from attachments only made more room for the guilt and disgust that threatened to choke her. The only thing that kept her from puking up all of her guts was Sorsei clinging to her leg, her embroidered shoes now covered with vomit.

“Lady Sanie!”

Whoever called out her name from the darkness repeated it a few times before she could be sure that it wasn’t a cat crying out in the dark.

She didn’t bother to reply.

She turned away but had to stop after a few steps because Riley had Tied an Extension around her ankle.

“Last of the Shadow Sect,” said Riley. “Daughter of the False Messiah.”

She turned to face him.

“Who sent you?” she asked. “The Celestials?”

Did they hate the Shadow Sect so much that they had to eliminate every last one of her kind?

“No one. I’m alone. I want to work with you. Celestials and Shadows—together we can bring the Five Nations under the rule of Tyists.”

Sanie rarely looked directly at children. Their snot and doe eyes nauseated her. But now she had to look at this boy to fully appraise him.

His eyes were devoid of trivial human attachments—eyes that were the same as hers. He was her true opponent during this fiasco of a night.

“We could have made quite the pair,” she said. “But you are a hundred years too young.”

She turned away again, but the boy dropped in front of her from above, landing on his Reverse Spiral Ties.

“Kid, I’m the last person in the world who would take you in! No one loathes you more than I do. It takes a monster to know a monster.”

“Then you should know that I won’t take no for an answer,” he replied.

Sanie didn’t think it possible to laugh after today. But at the insolence of this brat, she let out a pained guffaw.

A few seconds passed, with the ding of the ongoing battle in the background, as Sanie and Riley held their stares.

Then, Sanie Tied Reverse Spirals from the soles of her feet. As she flew upwards and backwards, Riley shot Extension Ties at her. Tucking Sorsei securely to her chest, Sanie used her free hand to Tie a Blade and cut away his Extensions. Riley Tied a Focal, shooting a ball of source energy at her.

Sanie Tied a Convergence, which caught the energy ball and threw it back at him. She also blew source energy from her mouth and weaved it into a Blade Tie. The youth, in turn, simultaneously Tied a Blade from his mouth, which clanged against Sanie’s, and his own Convergence, which redirected the energy ball once again at Sanie.

Sanie caught the energy ball again and trembled her hand, as if it lacked the strength to contain the power on its own. She let out a gasp, “Oh!” and let go of Sorsei so that she could support the Convergence Tie with both hands.

In an instant, Riley dashed forward to catch her child. The momentum brought him down to the ground. He looked up to see a Blade rushing at his face. He hastily weaved his own Blade, but the force of Sanie’s knocked him backwards.

Before he could reorient himself, Sanie applied pressure at his neck, and he fainted to the ground.

As Sanie stretched her limbs and checked the nascent life inside her, Sorsei had crawled over. She clung to Sanie’s leg and buried her face in her trousers.

Sanie picked up her daughter and patted her back absentmindedly. The skirmishes were far away enough that the boy would regain consciousness before they could get to him.

She would head east. It was a pity that Kaleb was gone. Traveling along the shore in the east would give her the best chances of finding another sailor like him.

As she sped along through the night, her thoughts returned to the youth. If at his age he had forced her to use both hands, how much stronger would he grow in a few years?

“When you grow up,” she said to Sorsei. “If you meet that boy again, stay far away from him.”