The candle flickered. The sound of heavy boots stepping on the floorboards echoed in the room. Elira looked to her side. Garrick stood there, his eyes unfocused, lost in his own world. Nyx yawned, her left hand rubbing her eyes while her right scratched her back. Sera hummed along to Oren's quiet beat. Mira fidgeted in the corner, her boots tapping frantically. Great. What plan did the Empire have that required all these monsters? A full-scale attack on the Holy Kingdom?

  The silence broke as Major Viktor walked into the room. He offered no greeting and no useless pleasantries before he announced his orders.

  "Pack your bags. You all are going on a trip."

  Major Viktor dropped a map onto the table. The parchment was heavy, curling at the edges from the humidity of the room. It showed the Northern Bastion, the iron shield of the Holy Kingdom. He tapped it with a gloved finger.

  "The Empire is launching attacks on the eastern and western fronts. You six are the distraction. Attack the Bastion. Make noise. Draw their elites."

  Elira stared at the map and blinked slowly. The suicide order barely registered in her mind. Mira stood beside her, shivering slightly. She watched Elira with concern, but Elira kept her gaze fixed forward. Garrick stood perfectly still, showing no reaction. Sera frowned. Oren raised his eyebrows, his fingers pausing on his lute. Nyx grinned, her sleepiness vanishing instantly.

  "Try not to die," Viktor added. It sounded less like a wish and more like an inventory management instruction.

  The journey was quiet.

  Without the numbing fog of alcohol, the world felt too sharp. The colors were too vivid, and the sounds were too loud. Outside the carriage window, the borderlands rolled by in a blur of dead trees and gray snow. It was an ugly world. Elira leaned her head against the cold glass, watching her breath fog the surface. A cigar rested between her lips, puffing out thick smoke every so often.

  Inside the carriage, the seating arrangement was a study in dysfunction.

  Sera sat next to Garrick. She looked out the window with her hands clasped tight in her lap. Normally, she would be pestering Garrick by now. Today, her boundless energy seemed completely drained. Garrick was massive, a mountain of muscle squeezed into a uniform that didn't fit. He sat perfectly still, his large, rough hands resting on his knees. He resembled a statue, staring at the floorboards as if watching a tragedy play out on the wood grain.

  Opposite them sat Nyx and Oren.

  Nyx sharpened a dagger, the scrape of metal on stone providing a rhythmic torture.

  Oren sat beside her, a stark contrast to Garrick. He was thin. The shaking of the carriage shifted his hair, revealing a face with the faded traces of a womanizer. Now, that face was haunted by exhaustion and something far heavier. He held a lute in his lap, his long, slender fingers ghosting over the strings without making a sound. He kept his gaze fixed entirely on Nyx.

  Elira and Mira took the back.

  "You are shaking," Mira whispered.

  "So are you," Elira responded. Her voice was soft. It lingered for a second, then dispersed like the smoke escaping her lips.

  "Are you okay? You didn’t look well that morning, but I haven’t had the chance to ask."

  Elira took her cigar and flicked the ash onto the snowy floorboards, then put it back in her mouth.

  "I’m... fine."

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  They made camp at nightfall. A single pot of soup bubbled over a magical fire. The wind howled through the trees, carrying the scent of pine and old ice.

  Elira stirred her soup. The steam rose, twisting into shapes that looked like screaming faces before dissolving.

  The atmosphere didn’t change. It felt even more awkward.

  "So," Mira said, her voice shaky. "How did you all end up in this dump? I mean, besides being crazy."

  Nyx laughed. It was a sharp, jagged sound. "I tried to kill the Emperor."

  The spoons stopped moving. Even Garrick blinked, pulling himself out of his memories.

  "You what?" Sera asked, horrified.

  "I got close too," Nyx grinned, showing too many teeth. Her teeth were pointy, like a shark's. She twirled her dagger, the steel catching the firelight. "Missed his jugular by an inch. The guards swarmed me. They didn't execute me because they thought my talent was 'wasted on the gallows.' So here I am." She shrugged, entirely unbothered by the treason or the blood on her hands.

  "And you?" Elira looked at Oren. "You look like a stiff breeze would snap you in half. How did you get paired with the gremlin?"

  Oren smiled. It was a sad, gentle smile on a gaunt face. He plucked a silent chord on his lute.

  "I am her partner in crime," Oren said softly. "I helped her get in. Where she goes, I go."

  He didn't say more. He kept his eyes fixed on Nyx. A desperate, fragile devotion swam in his gaze. A sneer from Nyx was all he received in return. Mira's gaze moved to Elira, Nyx and Oren soon followed.

  "You know mine already," Elira said, continuing to eat her soup.

  Nyx leaned in. Her hand reached up to nudge Elira, the sudden movement almost making Elira drop her bowl.

  "Come on, tell us too. We don't know it yet."

  Elira sighed. "Fine. I was in the Academy. Then I killed all of my classmates. A room full of nobles. That's all."

  "And those scum didn’t execute you?" Nyx's eyes opened wide in surprise.

  Elira shrugged. "I wish they did. But you saw my magic."

  "And what about you? How did you get here?" Nyx turned to Mira, her curiosity piqued.

  After several sighs and a long hesitation, Mira started.

  "My father was curious," she whispered. Mira pulled her hood low, hiding her scaled jaw. "He was researching body transformation. The Empire provided him with many test subjects, but he wasn’t satisfied. He needed better subjects. Children with magic talent. They are an important resource for the Empire, especially in war, so he didn’t receive any."

  Mira took a pause to breathe. A hitch caught in her voice. "It was then he decided to turn to his own children. With his skill in bio-arts, it was easy for him to make his wife have triplets, even quadruplets. I was from the second batch. He called me Subject Seven. I had six siblings, and he often made us fight. Sometimes even to the death."

  She poked the fire with a stick. The flames reflected in her pale, cold eyes. "I froze him. Then I walked out, but I didn’t know that there were so many people outside. The Empire found me standing in a garden of statues."

  Mira curled her knees to her chest. The memory brought no anger anymore, just a bone-deep exhaustion and a lingering shame.

  Now that the ice had started to break, the group looked at the two who had stayed silent this whole time.

  "And what about you guys? How did you two get into this?" Nyx broke the brief silence.

  "I was exiled by the Holy Kingdom." Sera’s response was short, much less talkative than her usual self.

  Everyone's eyes turned to Garrick. The large man stared far away, lost in the past. Oren began to play on his lute, offering a soft and slow melody.

  "You seem distraught by the past. Maybe saying it aloud would make you feel better," Oren offered quietly.

  “...”

  "I was a lumberjack," Garrick said suddenly. His voice was deep, like stones grinding together.

  Everyone looked at him.

  "I had a wife. A daughter. We lived in the forest," Garrick continued. He looked at his hands. They were huge, calloused, capable of uprooting stumps. Now they trembled violently. "I got angry one day. I don't remember why. The rage... it just took over. When I woke up, the house was gone. My family was... pieces."

  Garrick squeezed his eyes shut. A single tear leaked out, rolling down his scarred cheek. He radiated a profound, paralyzing self-hatred. He sat perfectly still because moving might trigger the monster lurking beneath his skin. He was a prisoner terrified of his own flesh.

  Elira looked at them. A bunch of monsters, a bunch of miserables.

  "Well," Elira said, taking a sip of her soup. It tasted bland. "We are quite the collection of broken toys."