Lexin sits in a tree branch, far from the mud at the bank of the river. She breathes out, releasing her inmut like breath, a dark cloud that cleans grime from her gambeson. Yittabel scurries up the tree, teeth chattering her displeasure.

Grounching, she reminds Lexin they’re on a quest‍ ‍‍—‍ he should really save her emyra for important things, not grooming. Lexin insists it’s not grooming, and Yitta laughs or growls, grabbing the girl claw‍-​pinchingly by the wrist.

“I forgot, it’s not grooming behavior when humans do it, is it?”

The building argument is interrupted by the arrival of a handsome boy. Jan calls over with a friendly wave.

“They’re almost loading up the boat, he says. You ready?”

The question is aimed at Lexin. This mission hinged on her, after all.

This quest had taken them to a small town of little note‍ ‍‍—‍ Bronval‍ ‍‍—‍ which bore a prolific copper mine. Refined metal floats down the river toward the port city of Axmilla, standing proud at the edge of the highland rim.

Between Bronval and Axmilla lay a treacherous, hilly swamp. Years ago, a crew of river pirates took up residence somewhere in the swamp caves. At first they had lightly molested trade, but they grew bolder as knights fail to catch them. Now as they rise into infamy, the realm calls them the Ghosts of Stonewinding.

Their ships appear to materialize without warning, sinking and pilfering trade ships, ferrying their plunder to a secret base no alchemist assigned to the task has succeeded in scrying out.

When men are sent to guard the boats, the pirates still emerged victorious, but in so doing revealed the source of their power: twistedblades, alchemists recruited to illicit causes.

When vesselblades guard the boats instead, the Ghosts make no appearance. Again unsurprising; alchemists cannot hide their aura‍-​flame from other alchemists‍ ‍‍—‍ but merchants can hardly offered to enquest vesselblades for every routine shipment.

Investigators have ridden up and down the swampy stretch of Stonewinding, but no hidden cave or outpost had revealed itself. Unsurprising. If the outlaws have twistedblades in their service, they must be using transmutation to obscure the entrance to their hideaway. Burrow deep enough, and you escape even a second compleation alchemist’s sensory field.

Looking the river up and down was one thing, but rooting through the soil across days and days of river to search of a supposed underground base is a nonstarter.

But when Lexin heard the the growing rumors, she had one thought. She knew how to find them. You can’t hide a base like that perfectly. The bandits need to breathe‍ ‍‍—‍ their underground lair must have holes somewhere they let air in and out.

Ever since Lexin had awakened her innate mutation, she’d thought it was next to useless. But for once, there might be a quest only her worthless power could resolve.

• Atlad is a second compleation vesselblade knight, training a team of young alchemists: the humans Lexin and Jan, the freemouse Yittabel, and the djramul Cthal.
• Atlad is a harsh taskmaster, but his helmet is gilded from his exemplary service. He is a shining example of a vesselblade in his prime.
• Lexin is the daughter of a priest who demanded she be faithful and useful. She struggles to stay loyal to the order of knights, afraid she lacks both the virtue and power to succeed.
• Yittabel is an alchemist’s daughter, pursuing the art as a means to transcend limits, so she doesn’t die like her parents.
• Jan is a beloved hero, handsome and kind, and determined to use alchemy to save the weak.
• Cthal is lowborn, used to making peace among those larger and angrier than him, so he’s afraid of being dominant or demanding.

Inside their base, Jan takes point and with adequate tactics, commands the team to outmaneuver the bandit. (Lexin has a better idea, but it’s dismissed.) When cornered, the twistedblade is beyond their abilities, forcing Atlad to save them, showing off what a real vesselblade can do.

In the wind down, it’s discovered Lexin had chosen to spare a bandit‍ ‍‍—‍ but their orders were to kill them.

The sun is setting when they arrive at the gates to Axmilla. As alchemists, they are afforded a special passage into the walls and toward the minifort. They march elevated above the filthy slums at the fringes of Axmilla. A vigner watches over them as they deliver a debrief. They kneel before their superiors, Lexin is reprimanded for her insubordination, assigned menial cleaning duty, and they are dismissed back to their quarters.

Yitta sneaks out, and Lexin follows after. They drop by a underground mouse bar where she buys some beer, then climb up buildings and sit together under the stars. (Yitta writes something on a piece of paper she glances at, but hides it when Lexin looks. It’s a diary?) At length, Yitta asks if Lexin ever thinks about running away from all this blood and servitude.

Lexin says that staying here is the right thing to do. Yitta counters by asking: Was coming out here the right thing to do? If I left, would you follow?

Chapter three. A week passes as Lexin keeps toiling, until Atlad finally informs the squad they have a new quest. Three pilgrims wish to visit a shrine of the old empire, but they need protection. The squad arrive to be introduced to their strange charges: Ru!Annat, an old lady, harsh‍-​voiced and infirm, requiring assistance to move; Ro!Adomita, a mother speaking clearly and wisely; and Ra!Ipip, a young fidgety girl, seeming shy until her mother mentions she is mute. Once they’re acquainted, the party sets out.

When they make camp, Atlad reveals this is more than an escort mission. They have secret additional orders from up high: to gather information. See, one alchemist might’ve sufficed to protect pilgrims under ordinary circumstances‍ ‍‍—‍ even you rookies could have pulled it off, Atlad says. But these woods have gotten dangerous. The strategists are saying it’s a hive.

Chapter Four. Jan gets along especially well with Ipip; she laughs at his jokes, lets him brush dirt off her robes. One night, they’re caught sleeping in the same bedroll.

It causes a commotion, and the next morning the pilgrims stop the journey to engage in an quasi‍-​alchemical rituals of purification‍ ‍‍—‍ during one the ritual, Annat declare that Jan is impure. She and Adomita immediately refuse to touch or be near him, and forbid Ipip from talking to him. She demands Atlad send him away, but Atlad is dismissive the pilgrim’s superstitious beliefs.

Lexin chats with the pilgrims, and graviates toward Ro!Adomita, who notices how overlooked the girl is. She dispenses motherly advice.

As the days go on, Jan grows sick, and arguments are had whether the pilgrims were right. Then it’s discovered that the pilgrim girl was sneaking medicine to him at night. Was he actually being poisoned? Are the pilgrims desperate to get rid of him and his foul energy?

Jan is weakened and needs to ride on Cthan’s back just to keep up with everyone. Atlad calls for the team to split up slightly, Lexin and Yittabel guarding the pilgrims, while he walks between the two groups.

So when chrylurks ambush the group, Jan is already snatched before the rest of his squad arrives to his defense.

In the twilight, the fight against the chrylurks is a chaotic mess: the alchemists unable to track the bugs except when their exoderm projects its impossible, mind‍-​bending geometry. Cthan sustains a crippling injury to one leg, and even Atlad takes a claw directly to the eye, half‍-​blinding him. In the chaos, the girls are ordered to stay back and protect the pilgrims.

The next day, they discuss whether they even have strength enough to continue their mission. But they’re one day out from the shrine‍ ‍‍—‍ too close to turn back now. Yittabel says fuck the shrine, we need to save Jan! But Atlad declares it outside mission parameters.

Lexin initially agrees with her: it’s a matter of saving the life of their teammate. But Atlad insists there’s no saving those the chrylurks have taken. More important that we survive and report our sighting to the order. With that, Lexin is convinced, but she loses the support of her bestie‍ ‍‍—‍ Yittabel goes quiet.

In the morning, Yittabel is gone. She left a note addressed to Lexin alone‍ ‍‍—‍ she went to do the right thing. Will you follow me? Atlad gives Lexin a hard look. He says: You were a scoundrel when I first met you, girl. I thought you’d never turn out to much. That you’d flunk or find your death out here. But you know how to follow orders. Do what you’re supposed to. You’re better than her.

Atlad begins writing a letter to the higher‍-​ups announcing Yittabel’s desertion, how she’ll be branded a criminal. A twistedblade. But Lexin asks: Does she really deserve to lose everything for trying to save someone? Atlad rejoins: It’s a chrylurk hive, girl. If she lives and loses everything because of her choice, that’s a cause for celebration. If she dies, that’s a cause for celebration! She has betrayed us in a deeper way than you can understand.

He continues: But take heart! Tonight, the pilgrims get to see their shrine. It’s a monument on an island in the center of the river. Once there was a dam erected here, but only the island remains now. The alchemists transmute a bridge. But in alcove, hidden from sight, a dark form had awaited them. The chrylurk queen.

The queen says I’ll allow the pilgrims time to pray, and Lexin time to kneel‍ ‍‍—‍ after all, only two of of you exscient beasts are guilty of harming my children.

Atlad launches into an attack while the queen is still giving her speech‍ ‍‍—‍ how rude! Lexin is the next to move, feeling insecure about how she was useless last time chrylurks attacked, but the queen gives an alien smirk. Stand down, miserable pawn, and I won’t harm you. You’ve made no move against me‍ ‍‍—‍ yet.

Atlad shouts something about mind‍-​games‍ ‍‍—‍ Follow your orders, Lexin! The battle rages across the river; the alchemists are forced to transmute platforms to stand on, while the chrylurk can swing from a web anchored to the monument. Atlad is the prime example of an effective vesselblade, and the queen makes a mockery of him.

When he’s doubled over on the ground gathering his remaining strength, she laughs.. He asks the creature why she’s doing this.

Do you not yearn to be free of the emptiness of your flesh? The loneliness that gnaws at you? But his question was bait‍ ‍‍—‍ he was buying time. Building up power for one last transmutation. The queen is on‍-​guard, but doubted that the alchemist could devise anything to threaten her.

She’s right‍ ‍‍—‍ instead, he had devised a threat to his own students. He strikes and his transmuted blades split Cthan, already toppled over, killing his own student. Lexin screams out. What are you doing? Atlead replied: If we die, it’s cause for celebration‍ ‍‍—‍ the alternative is becoming hers. Atlad aims his transmutation at Lexin, but the queen throws herself in its path, protecting her.

The queen readies her counterattack, but Atlad has already killed himself. He is smiling proudly, even in death. The queen turns to regard Lexin, but at this point, she has lost enough blood that her vision fades.

Lexin awakes in a cell that stinks of insectoid musk and bloody waste. She weeps. It had all fallen apart. Cthan is dead. Atlad is dead. The pilgrims were helpless without them. And Yitta‍— She had been helpless as Jan was snatched away, useless as her best friend left her. She was all alone in this dark, dark pit. Alone to face whatever vile fate Atlad had deemed death worth celebrating if it spared them from it.

But doesn’t she deserve this? She didn’t follow Yitta when it mattered‍ ‍‍—‍ Yitta must have already endured this same end. Lexin was useless.

She hears skittering motion in the dark‍ ‍‍—‍ a chrylurk comes to her, bringing her a ceramic bowl, then vomits thickly into it. It smells… sweet? Savory? But disgusting. And yet… she is hungry. And if she is at their mercy anyway? What if… she had just a taste?

In the dark, in the throes of her despair, she drifts in and out of dreams. Was their poison in that vomit? Did they bite her with their venom before throwing her in her? She keeps thinking about Yittabel, missing her so badly. Lexin didn’t tell her‍ ‍‍—‍ it’s so obvious, now that she’s been aching from the hole torn in her mind, but she didn’t even try to tell her. They sat under those stars, her core had fluttered. They were drunk together, and she still didn’t try to say it.

Then Yitta greets her. Lexin thinks it’s a dream at first, but then Yitta is opening the gate, untying the ropes binding her. Yitta is freeing her. The mouse explains that she was playing along, pretending to submit to the bugs‍ ‍‍—‍ they want to suck our blood, like vampires‍ ‍‍—‍ and they’ve started to trust me to be a good little pet. The drones aren’t too smart, it seems like. I think I found a way out of here. Think you’ll actually follow me this time?

Lexin starts apologizing, but Yitta just smacks her. Look, fuck you for allat, but I’m not leaving you here. We’ll fight about it later. And just like that, they end up crawling through chrylurk tunnels, creeping over rope bridges. They steal torchbugs to use as a lantern

Yitta keeps explaining. Knights say things like ‘hive’ or ‘swarm’, but there’s not really all that many of them. They suck up a lot of blood, must not be able to sustain too many of them. Or maybe. Maybe this isn’t the whole hive? Just an outpost? Dunno.

When they emerge, it’s at the mouth of the river. In the dark of night, navigation is treacherous, and they don’t have the limina to transmute anything, but they pick a path and climb up to the banks. They follow the river till they reach the waterfall.

They stand, gazing down from atop the Loardscrest mountain range. Yitta has something she needs to tell Lexin, and so does Lexin. But they’re interrupted by a familiar buzz.

Lexin startles into a fighting stance, and the queen laughs at her. You would lose, exy. You’d have better luck running. Want to give it a try? Lexin asks why she’d let her. Why not kill me, or whatever it is you creatures do? Is it just to fuck with us?

Because we’re not so different. Lexin laughs nervously at the ridiculous statement. But it’s true. Your alchemy is no more than an art you brutes stole, copied and weaponized from a species of coward called scholar. Our parascixion is the fearless completion of its promise. You are nothing more or less than our larval form.

Are you saying‍— Yes. And to answer your question, I am so accomodating because… why shouldn’t I be? We are superior. We need no coercion to make you serve us‍ ‍‍—‍ it would only discourage you. Slaves make restless servants, in the end.

This is what Yitta wanted to reveal all along‍ ‍‍—‍ she had lied about wanting to help Lexin escape. Everything that has happened did so because the queen willed it. Everything.

Umbel, Yittabel’s mother, had encountered this hive a year ago, and though she was captured, like a loyal vesselblade, she comitted suicide rather than listen to the queen speak. The queen‍ ‍‍—‍ her name is Nerraph‍ ‍‍—‍ had found a picture of her daughter (me) in her belongings, and penned a letter. And she talked to me, consoled me. Told me… told me my mother would still be here, if she only she hadn’t believed all the church’s nonsense. I‍—

I didn’t want to be that foolish. I didn’t want to let some hulking brutes tell me what to do for the rest of my life. I‍— it’s stupid, but… I don’t want to live a short life! We‍ ‍‍—‍ freemice, they don’t live as long as you humans and‍ ‍‍—‍ being an alchemist doesn’t help at all. We’re supposed to be compleat and immortal, but fuck. Killing ourselves is standard doctrine! They want us to give our fucking lives for the Consecremon!

So I made my choice, Lexin. I‍— Will you follow me? Please?

The queen cuts in. I know this is a lot to take in. I’ll allow your Lexin some time to make her decision. Together, we’ll travel north‍ ‍‍—‍ this outpost is hardly suitable lodging for a queen, and I shall not spend another night here! If you do decide to refuse, exy, I trust you’ll find your own way back to Axmilla.

They are joined own by the three pilgrims‍ ‍‍—‍ everything was the queen’s design, from the beginning. Adomita smiles when she sees Lexin again. The drones join them, carrying a comatose Jan.

They sleep during the day and travel at night. Nerraph has a simple technique that lets her dig burrows. Yitta is eager to show Lexi the changes that have already started to take her body, contrasting them with what’s happened to Jan, who chose to take a faster route of metamorphosis.

Lexin is perplexed. Jan chose? To join you? Yitta replies that the wiles of the pilgrim girl were compelling. What can I say?

Nerraph doesn’t fully shed her brutal allure; she tears through some a fearsome wild chimera, but mostly haunts the shadows while they travel. When Lexin finally finds her bathing in the river, she confronts the chrylurk.

“You’re saying I can… just leave if I want? Go back and tell the knights all about your hive?” / “But you don’t know all about it, morsel. And besides, I trust you.” / “Trust me?” / “You understand that you’d be hurting Yitta. Abandoning her would be one thing, but helping the cult of vines kill her? You’d never forgive yourself‍ ‍‍—‍ nor should you be forgiven, if you betray my brood.”

“But it’s still a risk,” Lexin insists. “Maybe I think Yitta is already dead, and you’re descrating her corpse. It’d be safer for you if you just killed me when I refused. Maybe you will actually, but if you so you’re lying about it! A threat would be more effective.” (It’s how the knights would‍ ‍‍—‍ did – keep her in line.)

“Do you think honoring your choice is so far beneath me?” / “I’ve been told beasts are beneath morality.” / “You will not insult me so again. I am no beast, and you have no deeper grasp on morality than I do. Quite the opposite. If you must know?” A deep breath through many throats. “I vehemently refuse to shackle another to my will‍ ‍‍—‍ because I know that yoke well. My mother‍ ‍‍—‍ the queen who gifted me parascixion‍ ‍‍—‍ snatched me from my home, and had me gnawed and torn at by her children. She viewed me as dirty ore and visceral torture was the fire to remake me. I was to be her faultness weapon, hers to wield.

“I ensured the blade was double‍-​edged. I killed that monstrous fool, and spat on her lineage. My children would never know the savagery she took so much pride in.”

Lexin doesn’t believe her. “Yitta said you things drink blood. This must be a pretense. There’s no way you can feed yourself just off blood given like coin spared to a beggar.”

“Oh, of course. On the matter of feeding I must make compromises. But our thralls do not even know they feed us. It’s a transactional, an obligation. I have already tasted your blood, but I have not gifted you my brood. And I will not, until you ask that of me. You must understand that parascixion is far more permanent, far more… violating, than mere extraction.”

“And what’s it all for? I become a bloodsucking monster, and I can’t even keep being an alchemist? I’ve seen you have no soul. I would never be compleat.”

“Have you never wondered if Yitta returns your feelings? Don’t sputter, I can smell it on you. Do you not wonder how deeply she cares for you? Have you not ached to be closer to her than even holding her might grant?”

“And if she doesn’t? If I’m nothing more than tolerable to her? If I’ve hurt her too much already?”

The queen laughed. “Foolish. But so what? There are others. If your heart yearns, others will yearn to soothe it. Have you seen how my children respond to my will? Do you comprehend how deeply we are entwined? No, no mortal can. We are one. We are never alone. We are never spurned. We could come to love you. I could come to love you. All that is you.”

It worked; raw wanting was plainly visible on Lexin’s face before she hid it.

“Like I said. Why would I threaten you, why would a enslave you, when anyone not lying to themselves would beg for what we offer? But you have an alchemist’s greed, don’t you? Then let this be our parting gift till we cross tongues again.” (Lexin blushes at the phrasing.)

The queen leaves Lexin with a vaneweb easily traced to yield a transmutation circle. A gift? Lexin finds herself at once curious and dreading to know what it yields.

The road curves away from Axmilla as they travel it, but this goes unremarked upon by everyone. Lexin is still dithering. Perhaps if pressed, she’ll realize her chance is slipping away and leave them.

Yitta’s body changes by the day; her flesh and fur peels away and you can see worms scurrying for their place. She smiles so rapturously about it. When visiting her spot in the burrow one night, Lexin catches a pilgrim‍-​drone saddled atom the mouse‍ ‍‍—‍ Ipip. Jealosy and betrayal flares in lexin, but the explanation is worse.

Chrylurk venom: it dulls pain, so that her flesh being actively devoured from the inside out doesn’t pain her. And it feels wonderful. Yitta giggles. “You should try it!” Lexin jumps to a conclusion: This is why. It’s not Yitta’s choice, not really, she’s being bewitched, enthralled! No wonder Yitta’s been acting strange, so silly and mindless; all of her edge is being wiped away.

Lexin says as much.

“Don’t be presumptuous, exscient. If our new sister acts out of character, consider that for once in her life, she is safe, free from the constraints your kind smother her with.”

Soon, they come upon a bridge like the one the bandits used to hijack ships. Somehow, Lexin uses her inmut, idly curious‍ ‍‍—‍ and they’re occupied. Fresh bandits have taken place of the ones her team took down.

“Of course they did. Do you think the knights ever truly solve problems? A doctor gets paid handsomely if all he does is prescibe balms for a sickness that never goes away.

“All this miserable, foolish conflict. Do you understand yet, Lexin? None of us would have to fight anymore if we all had a vast web drawn to bind us all as one‍ ‍‍—‍ if we could just understand each other.”

“I want to fight the bandits,” Lexin says. It’s the right thing to do. it feels right‍ ‍‍—‍ she was still a vesselblade, after all.

So she fights alongside Yitta and the drones‍ ‍‍—‍ and they implement the very tactic Atlad had shot down when Lexin suggested it. It all goes so well; the drones listen and react so fluidly, and most all, Yitta trusts her. (The queen opted to sit this fight out; she’s too large and alien to pretend to be mortal.)

When the bandit base has been cleared out, none of them have been killed. Something in Lexin feels lighter, but she trembles. What now? Are we going to…

“How about you decide?” one of the pilgrims says. “This was your idea, after all. If you want to kill them, then we will kill and eat them. We can them go free, naked and humiliated, even cripped. But… I would prefer we take them. Feed from them. Probe to see if they yearn to join our unity. This would please our queen.”

Lexi fills a vessel with blood, and brings it to where Nerraph waits. She offers all the captured bandits to the queen. Whatever you do to them… It’s better than them dying.

“So you’re beginning to understand, then? You’re coming with us?”

“I want to do the right thing. I always wanted to be a knight. But… I don’t want to be their pawn to move and sacrifice.” Lexin drops to a knee. “Would you like another knight to serve you, Nerraph? Would you be my queen?”

“Charming. Yes, girl.” The queen laughs deeply, then exposes her fangs. “May I?”

Lexin nods, and with a maw near the girl’s neck, the Queen’s laugh is an encompassing rumble. “From a certain point of view, chosing to become mine is the last choice you’ll make.” And Lexin smiles.

“From my point of view, it’s the only choice I’ve made.”