“You know better than I do, daughter. So tell me, what was in my pack.” Anarres felt lighter after their run in with the bandit and her decision to be more candid with her fellow, Maggie. It was as though another weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Walking beside her, equally as unburdened, was her devoted Daughterdoll, a single-minded protector who would never let her down.

“All of the meat, a costrel of water, and one of the tents. Suppose we’ll have to share the remaining one tonight, and live off rock-hard bread until we get further south and find more opportunities for trade.” Dahlie could practically feel the simmering heat emanating from her Mother; Anarres had inherited her Godmother’s carnivorous heart.

“It would have been worse, had she taken yours. Guess I should be lucky for making myself so unthreatening. Do I really appear so toothless…” Anarres almost smiled at her own childish insecurity. Since when did she wish to take pride in her rougher features? Did she truly wish for her scars, and her hardened spirit, to inspire fear in others? No, she wished, truly, to be adored as nothing but a prize. A royal Doll. So why, then, did she have all this useless fucking pride smothering her truth? It was as though there were two Anarres Báncourtes; the unblemished, perfect Doll, and the other. The monster; the mother; the killer. The one constant they shared was that both sides of her were egoists to a fault. One deft enough at self-deception could so easily shift that fault elsewhere, however, and make it somebody else’s burden to bear.

“Why don’t you ask Miss Haine?” There was a hint of sadistic glee in Dahlie’s question, which betrayed her true nature. There were not two Dahlie’s, only one: a Devil bound in loving servitude to a god who could smite it with a single word. It was a word Dahlie committed to spirit, and seared onto flesh. Only Mother could hide the ugly words on her body, covering them over with battered porcelain hands.

Anarres ignored the impish nature of her daughter’s words and turned to check on Maggie, who was flagging a few metres behind them on account of carrying a heavy knapsack over each shoulder. “You look exhausted,” the woman remarked coldly. “We’ll stop to eat soon, and then make one final push until it gets too dark to see ahead. It’ll be bread for dinner, Maggie. Our meat was stolen.”

The squirely sellsword stared down at her feet as she fought to keep up with her companions. The harsh tone of Anarres’ candid statement wrought havoc on the appointed pack mule’s confidence. Their meat was stolen, and—whether she was truly to blame or not—the situation had been engineered in such a way that all three women knew who to blame. Not the thief, no, but the mule; a traitor to her own high standards as a sniper. Maggie kept her head low and sighed, gritting her teeth to bear the painful weight pulling on her shoulders. Why was she putting up with this again?

“Ana, I-I’m not your fucking—” The woman had raised her head to protest her treatment, and the words died inside her throat—murdered by the sight before her. Dahlie was holding her Mother’s hand as the two walked side by side, a few metres ahead of Miss Haine. For reasons she did not intend to address, the sight struck Maggie’s heart like an arrow. Bullseye; at least her jealousy was still an expert marksman. Remaining quiet after all, Maggie sought to use the digging pain in her flesh as a distraction from the pain in her incorporeal heart. Not the beating muscle, but the yearning soul. All she wished to know, in the self-destructive musings that slipped through the cracks in the castle ramparts of her distraction, was who reached out for who.

Maggie wished, pointlessly, to know whose game she was losing to.

“Come on, you little fucker.” Maggie Haine stood with her legs wide apart, listening to the sound of rustling leaves as she waited for her mark to once again make itself known. “Big fucker…” She corrected herself proudly, staring at the blood drying against her hunting sword and feeling her heart jump at the prospect that she might regain her lady’s favour.

Of course, Anarres was not truly Maggie’s lady, nor was this hunt assured to return the desperate mercenary to the woman’s good graces, but it seemed worth the gamble. If nothing else, it would be worth it for the meat. Maybe. Boar meat was gamy, which Maggie liked, but the pork derived from male boar—as her prey most assuredly was—had a chance of tasting tainted. Or, as the leader of the now disbanded mercenary clan, ‘The Split Tongues’, often put it: the men tasted like shit, literally so.

Still, meat was meat and as it stood, they had none. More than that, Maggie needed a tough hunt to stake her bleating pride against, for she was beginning to feel like the runt of a very small litter. She had excused herself from that sad meal of teeth-shattering bread to go and take a piss, disappearing into the woods with her sword conspicuously drawn. This was what she had to do to prove herself. Not to Anarres, and certainly not to Dahlie, but to her own damnable self. Maggie stood still, knowing all too well that if she dropped her guard the incensed beast could gut her with its monstrous tusks. Those, she could keep for barter.

If she survived. Even with a sword designed for such a purpose—with a cross guard applied near the end of the blade to prevent the charging game from running up its length—hunting boar was a near-suicidal enterprise. Boar are vicious and unrelenting; impossible to stop with anything less than a direct strike to their heart. Maggie had just missed that damned pumper on the first charge, and brushed with death as the creature grazed her with its unstoppable bulk. It dashed into the treeline as her sword, and the rest of her arm, were flung violently aside. Maggie knew it’d be back for her though, and maintained her stance—ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Would this death be good enough, she asked herself tiredly, wondering if she should make a last ditch prayer to check if any gods yet listened to her pleas. Like they ever had before.

A rustle of leaves in the dense wood halted the breathing of Maggie Haine, and she focused all of her attention on the source of the growing sound. It was coming. The huntress, in over her head, gripped her specialised sword tight and swallowed for what could well be the last time. Why couldn’t it have been a fucking hare? It was her own fault for seeking out a worthy kill; perhaps the gods were answering her after all, jeering as they did so.

“Come on, you piece of shit swine. Have at you.” Her bravado was a poor killer, failing to execute her flailing nerves cleanly. The boar revealed itself with a foul grunt that Maggie mirrored, gripping the handle of her blade so tight she was to develop deeper callouses on that rough, battle-born skin of hers.

The boar charged, so fast you would be forgiven for thinking that time itself had sped up were you not familiar with their species. Speed and weight that would prove too much for most aspiring trophy hunters barrelled towards the resolute Miss Haine, who had decided that this would be a terribly lonesome, and pathetic death. In that sense, it was perfectly befitting for her. Her arm raised, and steel glinted in the low light of her dense thicket tomb.

“I’d never hunt hogs without a pack, let alone wild boar.” The boss’s words echoed uselessly through Maggie’s head. She had set all the hunting hounds free from the kennels shortly after her poisoning act was through. Now, she wished she had kept a few around. Would a hound be a better, more loyal protector than the would-be knight? Who gave a fuck, thought Maggie, who was about to die in just a handful of seconds. She no longer needed to compare herself to anything but a corpse.

Between one heartbeat and the next—in the blink of an eye—the wild boar was upon her. Maggie Haine felt her self-loathing being run through in another, deeper hunt, as survival instinct and raw umbrage became her new gods. She wanted to live, no matter how low she felt, and that meant she could not afford to surrender to this force of nature that was just as eager to be the last beast standing. Maggie saw brimstone reflected in the animal’s pale brown eyes and she knew that god was there after all. Unworthy of prayer and its blessing, Maggie intended to earn back the respect of the divine. She would send this wounded creature to Hell in her place.

Maggie dropped her sword; it wasn’t her. The woman quickly lifted her heavy crossbow and crouched down to take the shot. At this short a distance she had not a moment to spare. It was harder to aim at closer targets with ranged weapons like these, which typically fired their bolts in a steep arc, but Maggie always aimed too fucking low anyway. It was difficult to make a pinpoint strike on a boar’s vital organs, because they are much lower than most would choose to aim. Again, not a problem. Maggie went for the balls, and now the habit she’d been mocked for half her life had been the very thing to save it.

The quarrel loosened… and struck the demon’s heart! Except it wasn’t a demon; Maggie could not label the animal she had slain as any more evil than herself. She had won because she wanted it more. She needed it, this victory over nature, so that she could remember how it tasted to be a killer. There was god-like power in taking a life, especially through strenuous effort and great danger. Maggie’s heart was pounding vaingloriously in her chest, and the boar collapsed with its momentum sending it careening into the supernal hunting hound’s extended right foot. She felt fire in her ankle as the beast managed to maim her posthumously; no doubt cursing her name from the hell she’d unfairly sent it to. A pig cried Maggie, but her ears were ringing too loudly from her own pained cry to hear it.

“There you are.” Anarres Báncourte’s voice; it was unmistakeable to Maggie. The tortured girl—whom Maggie always felt far superior to until the day neither of them chose to visit Tavia’s tent—had a distinct reediness to her voice that none could match. It used to be unpleasant, then it became soothing. Here, it was frightening. Anarres was a mountain. Maggie felt like a thing of thirteen.

“Here I am… got lost looking for a good bush to squat over, hah, and this fucker came to greet me, begging to be put on tonight’s spit.” The errant sellsword was haggard, her face bright red and damp with exertion. She loosened her collar as she fought, just as hard as she had during her hunt, to regain her breath. It was perhaps immature of her, but she needed to look good in front of her charge.

“We don’t even have a fucking spit. Suppose your sword would do. I’m not eating it if it tastes like piss again, though. Auntie Tav always said to hunt the women.” Anarres sighed, planting her boot on the animal’s carcass without care for respect and pushing it free from Maggie’s twisted ankle. “That looks painful.”

Miss Haine was still a thrall to her adrenaline, heart pounding in her chest, so had yet to register the pain. “I’ll be okay, don’t worry about m—”

“Don’t slow us down, Maggie. I expect a bodyguard, not a limping squire.” Anarres wanted to bite her tongue. She knew that she was being too cruel, and had to control herself before the mounting frustration became all she was. The woman wasn’t a mountain, but an active volcano. She wanted to bite her tongue, but she knew as well as her godmother what Maggie Haine needed: a firm hand.

“Yeah, you’re fucking welcome. You’re not your godmother, you know…” Maggie stood and drew breath. She wanted, badly, for Anarres to stop looking at her like she was a slow animal. “Can you go ahead and fetch your brainwashed serving girl so we can drag this thing over to the fire?” The woman grunted, picking up her sword and returning it to her hip. It was an awful strain on her damaged ankle when added to the weight of her arbalest, and when she considered the two bags she had been tasked to haul on top of her weapons Maggie grew bitter. And still, when she turned her head, Anarres was giving her that look. Like she only had herself to blame.

“Come here, Maggie.” The woman commanded her protector. Maggie’s bitterness blossomed.

“Yeah?” The last remaining member of The Split Tongues, if only in spirit, began her approach. Her face spelled indignation but her body told only of obedience. “Gonna hit me again? Hell, you should be kissing my—agh! Fuck!” As though smote by one of the many gods Maggie would oft gamble on, the raven-haired killer collapsed onto one knee before Anarres Bancourte. She had, in truth, simply underestimated the strain in her ankle. As she fell, the prayer beads she wore around her neck like a sardonic noose fell from her loosened collar and hung down in a gentle sway that glinted multicoloured light into Anarres’ eyes.

“Oh, Maggie.” A soft hand cupped the woman’s rough cheek, and Maggie glared up at the woman holding her face like she was saving her. “You’re still wearing this silly thing? I told you I hated it, remember?” There was so much happening behind Anarres’ stare, thinly veiled by a mosaic of baby blue. She had found something, in those beads, to channel her wrath into. Maggie would be spared. But Anarres was no saviour, she was far more destructive than that—she was eruptive. And worse still, for the history that Maggie wore around her neck…

Anarres wasn’t just a volcano; she was the apocalypse.

“I’ll show you, tonight, that the only thing you need believe in is me.” The former Doll spoke in an unnaturally perfect cadence for the blackguards they were. Maggie was at a loss for all words but one.

“What?”

There was too much happening behind Anarres’ eyes; the irises had dulled, giving rise to the conflagration of thought occurring behind their clear blue curtain. A twisted ambition was turning the key in Anarres’ back, and she was going to let it send them both to hell; not the afterlife the boar had been ferried to, but a personalised pandemonium they could both enjoy—and endure—while they yet drew breath.

“I’ll teach you to place your faith in me, my ‘knight’, so that no false divinities may ever distract you from your purpose. You keep your eyes down on your master, like a good dog, and leave the heavens to distant dreamers.” Anarres gripped the beads tight in her free hand and Maggie found herself too frozen to move.

“I’ll be your god from now on, so you better start praying I’ll forgive this pitiful, desperate hunt of yours…” Benevolence tightened her grip, and Maggie shuffled forward awkwardly, wanting to spit on the damnable deity’s boots for speaking such foolish, delusional things. Instead, she was quiet. “But you’re not allowed to die here, not without my say-so. Like I said before, stupid girl, you’re mine.”

“Ana. I don’t think—”

“You shouldn’t think. You’re a sword, kneeling at the boots of a saint. You’ll see… tonight. Soon. Even without the blue, I’ll do it just like she did.” Anarres could not be sure, even in that moment, whom exactly she was referring to. It could have been the Princess, back before the tincture saved Her forever; it could have been Auntie Tav, who always knew how to keep her girls under thumb; or, it could have been the Dollmother, who fashioned beautiful, regal daughters out of waifish young commoners. She just knew that she would fix Maggie Haine, or she would break her. Both. Experience told her that the latter would forge a path for the former.

“Whatever… you’re not the boss… she was special, okay?” The merc swallowed. “Can I stand up now?” Maggie’s teeth picked at the cracking skin on the surface of her lower lip. She’d not meant to ask for permission, but now it was too late.

“In a moment. First, I’ll free you from the past.” Anarres’ smile was both anticipatory and nostalgic; she had never felt so present. Her fingers tightened, and tightened, as she seized Maggie’s irreverent faith so hard the beads began to grind and chatter. She was going to kill the past. This was just an advance—a taste. Anarres was, like any good mother, a god to her flock. Follow me, dear. Adore me, dear. Fear me, dear.

Anarres yanked her arm back…

…and the leader of The Split Tongues caught it.

“Why must my two prettiest girls always be itching to ugly each other up, eh? I welcome the competition, it really does get me going, but you little shits should aim for the ribs next time. I can still get off to a gal with a few broken ribs, but rough your faces up too bad and my cunt’ll dry up.” Tavia Von Durenburg snorted at her own crass speech, which was her best attempt at dissolving a fight she’d usually sit back and watch with a chicken leg in hand. Both Maggie and Anarres blushed at the fact they were apparently too precious to be made into such violent entertainment; Tavia had even been pulling her punches lately with that infamous backhand.

“She’s looting my kill!” Anarres hissed, though her vitriol had been significantly doused by her Godmother’s praise. Pretty? She’d have argued, but Tavia was not a woman who lost arguments, even if she had to play dirty sometimes; the mercenary leader taught her flock well that honour and victory are often worlds apart.

Maggie was giving both women her best incredulous stare. It was a competent performance. “You can clearly see my quarrel in the knave’s chest!”

Tavia hummed to herself, still holding her goddaughter’s arm to prevent the white-haired freak from socking her fellow mercenary in the jaw. “Now, now. There’s enough gold ready to line our coffers for this job that the feast we’ll be having is going to run until morning, and here you two are squabbling over some poor sod’s jewellery. Is this what catches the eye of girls your age?” The woman chuckled, seizing the dead man’s rosary and hanging it from her finger. “Do either of you even know what faith this ugly thing belongs to? I sure as fuck don’t. Ah, but, these are precious stones. Even as small beads they’ll fetch a decent price, so I can see why you’re at each other’s throats now. Never did teach you kids how to share.” The older woman released Anarres’ arm, only to wind her with a blow to the stomach when her foolish goddaughter attempted to swipe the beads from her hand. “And I ain’t starting now. Better to teach you religion, the only way vain and materialistic little brats like you will understand it.”

Maggie cocked her head, leaning her back against the wall and waiting for the woman she adored above all else to elaborate. Anarres, after recomposing herself, spat onto the floor and then fell quiet too. Tavia knew how to grab their attention, that much was certain.

“Clasp your hands together, girls.” Tavia grinned wickedly, and made no attempt to hide her own amusement as she ordered her two most loyal dullards to make fools of themselves to prove their own religious devotion to greed.

“Oh, come on.” Anarres felt exasperated as she watched her boot-licking competitor place her palms together in mock prayer without a second thought. Feeling challenged, and letting that override her already anaemic self-respect, Anarres followed suit.

“Hahahaha. Very good, girls. You look born-again. It’s almost creepy when I know all too well your long list of sins.” Tavia seated herself on the dead clergyman’s torso, wrapping the rosary around her wrist in such a way Anarres was almost surprised it didn’t sear the fiend’s skin. “Now, kneel before me. Bare those pious hearts of yours.”

This time, both girls hesitated. They considered stopping there and surviving the encounter with their prides wounded, yet whole. Instead, when Maggie’s knees caved to an avaricious gravity and dropped onto the stone floor, Anarres once again shortly followed. It was automatic; the white-haired theist-in-training was just as surprised as Maggie. Tavia was not so shocked; she had been the one to create this rivalry between the two, after all, to make them easier to control. This was to be expected. Anarres wasn’t strong because she whined more. All that meant was that she sometimes needed a meaner backhand, or the sight of her Auntie Tav’s hand eclipsing Maggie Haine’s ass, to set her straight.

So there they were, the bitter rivals Anarres Báncourte and Maggie Haine, kneeling in mirrored prayer poses to keep their idol entertained. To keep themselves manipulable and pretty, at least for members of The Split Tongues.

“I did it first, right? So can I have it?” Maggie kept her hands clasped together firmly, raising her head to look upon divinity itself—much grislier than you might expect.

One look from Tavia told them both that her game was not yet over. Her lips curled viciously, and the hulking woman crossed one leg over the other atop the corpse she crushed. “Prostrate yourselves. Kiss the ground I walk on.”

Anarres scoffed, prying her hands apart and crossing her arms as she shifted onto her backside and stared daggers at her incorrigible guardian. “Oh just keep them, you cur. I think I’m starting to get a good mental image of the sort of horrible fantasies you have about me now.”

Tavia ignored her goddaughter, pointedly, knowing how much her ashen haired failure of a surrogate daughter turned fuckdoll craved the woman’s attention even after dropping out of the game. Anarres was willing to debase herself for Tavia in oh so many ways, but while her true icon of worship yet drew breath, perhaps religious ardour was a bridge too far. Miss Haine, on the other hand, had nothing else. She kept her knees together—her hands clasped—and deliberated on how badly she wanted to win this humiliating game. Tavia’s eyes narrowed in glee, while Anarres gave the whelp a look of disgust.

Maggie knew as well as the other two women that there was no winning, not really. Were she to bow out, like Anarres, she would leave her leader unsatisfied and forsake her precious stones—treasure she could easily barter for luxuries with on the road ahead. Were she, instead, to continue obliging the boss, not knowing when her sick little game might end, she’d be subjecting herself to enough embarrassment that her pride would be as a pig on a spit. Would she make roast pork of her self-worth for money and affection? Maggie answered the question with movement, lowering her head to the ground and prostrating herself worshipfully.

Had Anarres not cared about losing, about being outdone and falling down in Tavia’s favour, she might’ve laughed. Instead, she scowled.

Maggie kissed the ground, her body trembling with doubt that the subspace would soon take care of. She could already feel it creeping in, that fuzzy sensation in the back of her head telling her that all of this could be fuel for her midnight wanderings. It made the ritual much more bearable. Almost enjoyable, even.

“Ana, make yourself useful and remove my sword’s doublet. Shirt too.” The humour had dropped from Tavia’s voice, and she spoke with a sternness that betrayed just how turned on she was. The more strict and dominant Tavia became, the more into her role she truly was. Just as Maggie felt that submissive fuzz, Tavia, too, was a slave to feverish desire.

“Wh-what?” Maggie cried out, her voice muffled by the stone. Neither acknowledged her. Anarres did as she was told, her motions fuelled by a curiosity she could not presume to name. She wanted to see where this was going. Gently, with the tenderness of a royal Doll, Anarres reached her arms around Maggie’s prostrate form to undo the buttons of her doublet. When it came to the girl’s chemise, Anarres did not wish to disturb the woman from her prayer and so used the edge of her sword to relieve the woman of her garment.

Maggie’s back was bared, the loyal sword shaking from the breeze that came to greet her. Anarres was intoxicated by the sight, stepping back as she watched her Auntie Tav approach the sellsword’s side and run coarse fingertips across her naked skin. She leant down, speaking calmly—giving the girls a taste of what true religion was: fear and majesty, married together in a love so volatile it made victims of any who approached it and peered too deep. Her voice was low as a whisper, yet hard as steel.

“I’ll be your god, lass, if only for the afternoon.”

“I-I uhm—”

“Shut up. That mouth’s not for speaking with right now, pretty. You’re a sword, kneeling at the boots of a saint. Better show your reverence.” Tavia thrust her worn leather forwards and Maggie’s lips met it without further hesitation. She kissed the toe as demurely as she could stomach as Tavia’s rough hand continued to stroke across her back, already flinching at the thought of what she had guessed would soon follow.

“If you want these beads so badly, you have to prove that you can bear the force of them, alright? It would be dishonest of you to carry them without the commitment to suffering that your average religious fuckwit lugs around on their shoulders, so I’ll let you earn it without having to devote your life to any silent fucker in the sky who won’t answer your prayers. It’s better to worship your leader, eh? You always know where my tent is, girl.” Tavia wrapped the rosary around her knuckles and gave the girl’s arching back one last gentle stroke. Then, she turned to Anarres, who was just as stunned into silence as the girl still kissing her master’s boot. “I trust you to take care of her after, so play nice for the rest of the day.”

Ana nodded, feeling pride bloom dangerously inside her chest. Tavia always gave her aftercare directly, in the woman’s own private chambers, but Maggie’s was being outsourced. What a horrible thing to celebrate, she thought with an errant little smile.

And then, the beads struck Maggie’s back.

Maggie Haine was kneeling in mud, hair hanging loosely around her face as she stared down at the prayer beads strewn across the forest floor. Her ears were ringing, or at least, she heard ringing. In her head. Her head was… she was floaty again, like she sometimes got when Tavia took things too far.

“I can’t believe you never sold these off. Auntie Tav said they would fetch a good price, no?” Anarres dropped the broken necklace and pressed it into the dirt with the toe of her boot. “I’ll not share anything with that wretched woman, Maggie. So take whatever feelings you held in these beads and kill them like you did that pig. We both know you’re nothing without a leader… you think I want to treat you like this?”

The merc lifted her head, wanting to curse Anarres for such an insulting accusation but finding the words offing themselves inside her throat. Would this, too, fuel her midnight wanderings? With just the one tent between the three of them, she might not get the chance to do much wandering at all, lest she took a walk to have a riverside wank.

“We’ve wasted too much time. Pick these up for barter and catch up with us on the road. Forget the meat. It’ll take more than shit-tasting swine to impress me, Maggie.” Anarres turned her back, and Maggie stared down at the loaded crossbow on her hip.

Then, she clasped her hands.