Emah threw off the blankets covering her, reaching for her boots and sword, but Maly didn’t linger to help her friend. Instead, she dashed out of the bedroom, running past a startled Kami, with Destiny loping at her heels.

Inside the house, the panther intoned the warning in her mind. But they don’t smell like rats. In fact… hm.

As suddenly as the screams had risen, they now fell silent. Maly held the railing of the stairs and vaulted down several at a time, landing lightly. There, on the first floor of Sami Suttar’s shop, two figures stood over the City Watch members still accompanying them, the front door still open wide. Maly hadn’t really gotten to know either of the Watchmen assigned to them. In their favor, they were both Stone Islanders like herself, and around her age. Unfortunately, when she’d met them she had been exhausted from her time in the ratfolk warrens and unwilling to make small talk. Also, both had subtly leered at her when she said she’d needed a bath, which was gross and made her instantly avoid them. Now both were dead, laying in pools of blood. Maly had never even learned their names.

One of the murderers was a handsome Kaizukan man in baggy pants with hair pulled back in a long, black braid. He was shirtless, with a bandolier of some kind crisscrossing his chest, and red ribbons of cloth tied around each bicep. He wielded a long knife in each hand, each stained scarlet with City Watch blood.

His companion made Maly pause and gasp. He also wore loose-fitting pants, yet only to his knees. There the similarities between the two intruders ended. The second man wore a sleeveless shirt with a stylized symbol on it and carried no weapons or obvious gear. His head was like Destiny’s, that of a large black cat, and his arms and legs appeared human but covered in fine black fur. A long cat’s tail whipped side to side as he looked up at Maly, and he settled into a fighting stance, fists raised.

Maly wasn’t sure what was more shocking: The impossible cat-man standing nearby or the symbol on the cat-man’s chest, a symbol she had come to both recognize and loathe. These two men were members of…

“The East Bay Dragons!” Maly sputtered.

There was something unsettling about the eyes of both Dragons, a pulsing light of dull green. Maly saw it briefly, and then it was gone.

The knife-wielding assailant moved in a wide circle around her while the cat-man coiled and leapt, leg outstretched to kick her. She dodged to one side, but then pain lanced through her in a burning line of fire. She stumbled, grasping at her ribs where one of the Kaizukan man’s knives had cut her. He flicked blood off the blade and advanced, even as Maly fumbled to grab a dagger from her belt. She would be too late, she realized in a rush. There was another flash of green in the man’s eyes as he raised a knife for the killing blow.

From the bottom of the staircase, Destiny roared. The cat-man’s head whipped around to face the black panther, but it was the knife-wielding Dragon who winced and shut his eyes in pain. It gave Maly the opening she needed, and she danced away from the man before he could finish her. Fury replaced shock as she moved. She would not be killed by the East Bay Dragons, damn them all to the Nine Hells!

Footsteps pounded down the stairs as Kami descended. She gasped.

“Kura?” she said, her voice was heavier with emotion than Maly had ever heard it. “What are you doing here, brother?”

Brother?! Maly and Destiny thought at the same time.

The cat-man used the momentary hesitation to knee Destiny in the head. The panther yowled in surprise and pain, jaws clacking shut. Its yellow eyes focused on the acrobatic Dragon and growled. Despite his light feet and easy fighting grace, the cat-man stepped back, wary of the panther.

Maly wanted to help Destiny, but the knives of Kami’s brother prevented her from doing anything but staying alive. She feinted to one side, then stabbed out with her dagger. Neither opponent could make contact, however, and she and the Kaizukan man circled one another. Now that Maly considered him, he did bear a striking resemblance to Kami. Could it truly be her brother?

“Kura, please!” Kami pleaded. “Stop! Why are you here?”

Another momentary green flash filled the man’s eyes, and he shook his head, like a bee was pestering him. “Give us… the… box!” he mumbled, the words seeming forced.

Realization struck Maly. “He’s being controlled!” she yelped, dodging another long knife. “By the ratfolk priest!”

Maly hoped that Kami had heard her words, but just then the cat-man yelled a battle cry, spinning another kick to the side of Destiny’s head. This time the panther went down, sliding several steps across the wooden floor. The great cat moved weakly to stand, and his assailant kicked him again. Destiny went limp.

“No!” Maly cried, then ducked below the wide arc from a knife. She wildly stabbed at Kami’s brother, but it was meant to move him back more than do damage. It worked, and Maly leapt protectively towards Destiny’s fallen body.

With a roar, Emah took Maly’s place. Her friend stomped down the stairs, boots unlaced and still in Sami Suttar’s overlarge night shift. Emah had her ancestral sword in one hand, however, and that was more than enough to tilt the battle. Murder in her eyes, her blade flashed. Kura, the brother, had been unprepared for Emah’s skill. He blocked one strike, but the second thrust caught his thigh. The man grunted in pain, blood blossoming from the wound.

“Emah! It’s my brother! Don’t kill him! Kura, listen to me!” Kami implored, but her words were lost, it seemed in the din of battle.

The cat-man was a whirlwind of feet and hands. His black-furred limbs spun and struck from all angles, and it took every bit of concentration Maly possessed to avoid the blows. She couldn’t focus on the inert body of Destiny at her feet, Kami’s desperate shouts, or the clashing steel of Emah’s sword and Kura’s long knives. Instead, she ducked and dodged and bent as a series of precise strikes whistled past her. The man’s fighting was beautiful, in a way, using a dancer’s grace and skill.

That grace stopped abruptly. The cat-man’s yellow eyes went wide, looking past Maly. Eyes flashed green for a moment as he yelled, “Kura, no!”

Maly jumped back, which gave her to room to peer at the others. Emah’s sword was half-buried in Kura’s stomach. His knives clattered to the floor from limp hands. Kami was shrieking, her voice more frayed and high-pitched than Maly had ever heard it.

“Emah, no! He’s my brother!! Stop!”

Kami’s arms elongated, reaching out like grasping vines. Before Kura had fully fallen, she had scooped him up, arms coiling round and round for support. In that moment Maly could only watch, fascinated. Tears streaked down the unmasked side of her face as she effortlessly lifted the man into the air. It was such an odd thing to see her arms wrapped so impossibly around a man larger than her, his feet dangling over the floor. Kami ran into the next room with her brother’s body, leaving the cat-man and Emah to clash.

Maly’s attention focused on this new battle. The acrobatic Dragon attacked more carefully against a sword-wielder, but no less efficiently. One furious punch slipped past, slamming Emah in one shoulder and knocking her sideways. Emah showed little care. She growled, her sword spinning in her fist, and she pressed her opponent backwards with brutal slashes, bloodlust contorting her face.

Maly pulled her second dagger from its sheath and, with a curse, leapt to help her friend before someone else got killed.

Two daggers helped Maly not at all, unfortunately. The cat-man from the East Bay Dragons was impossible to hit, at least for Maly. She felt like a small child in the midst of two adults, with the Dragon and Emah trading blows and matching each other’s attacks with parries and deft footwork while she stabbed ineffectually. Maly could hardly fathom how an unarmed combatant could match skill with Emah, but the cat-man was doing it. She’d never seen someone so skilled, and at least twice Maly was sure that one of Emah’s blows would strike only to be deflected away at the last instant.

Eventually, Emah’s mastery of the blade won out. She kicked the cat-man unexpectedly, catching him in the chest and sending him stumbling. He looked up, yellow eyes wide, and Emah swept her blade horizontally. The cat’s head and furred body parted in a fountain of blood across the entryway.

Maly didn’t hesitate. She scurried over to Destiny’s still form, eyes searching for how to help. His side, she realized with relief, was slowly rising and falling. He wasn’t dead, then, despite the pummeling he’d taken. She lay her head across his flank and smoothed a hand over his head gently, stroking. Though she’d complained constantly about the panther’s growled voice in her head, its absence now felt like an empty hole. She still had so many questions about Destiny’s presence, why he had chosen her… and she had almost lost any hope of answers.

Unlaced boots stepped close.

“Will he be okay?” Emah’s voice asked from above.

Maly shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know, and I don’t know what to do for him,” she answered helplessly.

Emah grunted. “Stay with him. I’m going to go check on Kami and… the other one.”

Maly continued to stroke the great cat’s black fur. “Come back to me,” she whispered quietly.

The panther did not answer.

Next: Brother and Sister!