Lady Ruin

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Whenever you’re ready, Osten,” Captain Lirra Brochann said.

The man nodded, his brow furrowed in concentration. Coiled in his right hand, the tentacle whip pulsed softly as blood-a mixture of its own and that of its host-circulated through the symbiont’s rubbery red flesh. The barb at its tip quivered slightly, as if it enjoyed the taste of Osten’s blood and looked forward to sampling someone else’s-namely, Lirra’s.

Two men stood on opposite sides of the room, swords belted at their sides, hands resting on the pommels of their blades. One was a handsome man in his late twenties, close to Lirra’s age, while the other was a white-haired lion of a man in his mid-fifties. General Vaddon Brochann, the older man and Lirra’s father, wore full armor with a series of runes engraved upon the breast plate, while Rhedyn, the younger, wore only a mail shirt over a tunic and leggings. Despite the illumination of the everbright sconces set along the cold, gray walls, the younger man’s features were indistinct. Still, Lirra didn’t need to be able to see his face clearly to know that he-like Vaddon-watched the fight intently, ready to step in at the first sign that something was about to go wrong.

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