Brand-Bound: Hallowed Be The Menu [Rivals-to-Lovers Slowburn Fantasy Romance]

Jelena Turandot didn't like dwelling on her inner emotional landscape overmuch. Always felt like someone was peeking in, listening to her most private thoughts. There wasn't much of a choice now.

"C'mon. C'mon." The relic thief huffed as she hauled a heavily wounded Calaf, armor and all, out of the Demon Lord's fall signal tower.

Archpope Bede Breakspear's maniacal laughter hounded them in their retreat.

"Go on. Flee, ruined, crippled. You've voided the best ending to your tale you were going to get," the archpope cried. "Anything else shall be worse!"

These taunts faded into the distance as Jelena rushed to the stairs.

"Zilara? Zilara!" she cried.

Healing spells wouldn't work. Calaf's connection to the Menu was damaged. Possibly severed. They'd need a manual doctor, a Bishop trained in brand-restoration, not just a cleric with a mending spell. Perhaps it could be saved…

Blood seeped from Calaf's left arm, soaking Jelena's clothes. He was too heavy with all this damn armor, so she took her knife, the same knife that had maimed him, and cut the straps of his shoulder pauldrons to lighten the load. It all had to be manual. Calaf's good hand fumbled, instinctively reaching for the Interface that was no longer there.

"J-elena," Calaf managed. "By the…" his voice cut out.

"Keep moving," she ordered. She gave him a push. He was a church sentry. The tenor of a sergeant-at-arms ought to focus him. Activate that knightly discipline.

The endless flights of stairs didn't seem quite so insurmountable heading down. If they lost footing Calaf would fall down to the lower, outward-facing balconies in one fell-swoop.

There'd been no time to take Calaf's spear, or even his shield. Everything currently in the Paladin's inventory was safe. Once they pulled it out it wouldn't be going back in.

Don't die on me, Jelena begged.

She'd never truly prayed to the Menu. Her turn as a sister was more about the social aspects, the rebirth that had temporarily come to Japella. There were older gods, desert spirits of the old nomads. But even now she couldn't think of one to pray to. They would never hear this far from the sands even if they did exist. Instead, she redoubled her efforts to get the injured Calaf out of the Demon Lord's Fall.

Zilara was there at the bottom of the stairs.

"They're back to fighting in the council chambers!" said the holy child.

Distant sword clashing was barely audible, echoing off demonbone. Enkidu must really been giving them hell.

"Can you help carry him?" Jelena pleaded.

The holy child looked in horror at the gaping wound that remained of Calaf's brand.

"Times like this I wish…" Jelena stopped herself.

The Menu would help haul Calaf back down this demon-corpse cathedral. But the price. It was a demon's slave brand! Less worthy of prayer than those desert spirits that were so often a trick of the wind.

"Enkidu! We. Are. Leaving," Jelena put her full throat into bellowing out the order.

They ran the way they came, Zilara protecting the rear. Then, just before they reached a stairway down into the interior, a wall facing out over the Fellmarsh blew open, somewhere high above.

Enkidu fell, his heart pierced thrice: once by Perarde's golden sword, leaving a gnarly exit wound, a second time by Walter's long sickle, which remained embedded deep within the wild man. And a third time, dead center, by his own gladius.

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The wild man fell the impossible distance from the top of the Demonhead. Even now, the mortal blows drew no blood.

"C'mon." Jelena hastily prepped a flintlock as the Arbiters circled like dire-hyenas.

Zilara tried with great effort to help Calaf over the threshold and into the interior stairwell. Meanwhile, Baldr made a flying leap at the relic thief.

A blast of a flintlock sent the overeager Barriermeister sprawling backwards, stunned but unharmed. The echo off the demon bone halls left Jelena's ears ringing, but she had enough space to dive inside and bar the door before Perarde could rush up and splatter her against the wall with his shield.

Flintlocks could pierce all manner of Menu-based defenses. But they took too long to reload and required use of both hands during the process. It was impossible to prepare them while escorting Calaf. She tried to reload during this interregnum, but with her nerves frayed, she dropped the powder.

"Fuck!" She flung one of the guns aside in her anger.

Jelena's hair was still done up in its pristine ballroom style. A far cry from her thieving outfit and the muck and blood that now covered her face. She cut another layer of armor off Calaf's torso. It wasn't going to be enough. She lacked the strength to drag him out of the cathedral, let alone through the Fellmarsh.

The door cracked. Perarde was ready to bust it down. It would only take a few more strikes.

Calaf gently grazed Jelena's left cheek with his good hand. Just below her eyepatch, and the scar peeking out beneath.

"Leave me."

Another bash on the door. Wood buckled. Jelena's heart pounded.

With a single, silent shake of her head, Jelena pulled out another empty flintlock. She took a deep breath, then carefully loaded and prepped it to fire.

"Never was going to be a happy ending to this life." She aimed the pistol at the door.

Even if they fled, their team Paladin had one good arm and no working Interface. They were done the second they ran into the first group of church auxiliaries. At least this way there was a small chance to blow Perarde's helmet off his stupid, demonic face before getting skewered. Anyone that could slay Enkidu was basically unkillable by any means Jelena could devise. Victory was never in the cards.

Jelena's only regret, she thought as the door splintered, was that Bede had won. All that talk of narratives. People would be telling stories about the Outlaw Life of Jelena and Calaf. A risqué tale of intrigue, seduction, and heresy. Palatable for every church school with the knowledge that it ended with the outlaw pair impaled on the end of the Hammer of Faith's golden claymore.

"Maybe not," Zilara said, then shrugged. "All that about happy endings and all. Doesn't have to be the end. Think I can get Enkidu at this range, too."

Jelena looked to Zilara, dumbfounded.

The holy child belted out one last spell as the door disintegrated inward.

The hall around Jelena and Calaf began to shift, warping from cold stone to colder snow. The cathedral was rushing away from them, as if a doorway had opened up and now they were being flung across great distances.

"Glacier isn't the best place to ensure your survival," Zilara said. "But it's the only teleport point I've got, see?"

The barricade beyond splintered open, and General Perarde in all his demonic glory loomed over the holy child. His eyes glowed red.

Jelena thrust her torso through the rapidly destabilizing portal. She pointed at Zilara with her left hand.

"We're comin' back to get you." Jelena spat. "Promise!"

Perarde moved to shield bash Zilara aside and take one last thrust at Jelena and Calaf. Jelena whipped out her pistol and, as she vowed earlier, shot Perarde square in the helmet.

Gunpowder did little to stop the mighty Templar, and Jelena scrambled back. The sword jutted through the portal, landing a slicing hit between the relic thief's right breast and shoulder before the portal closed and the blade was forced back to the Demon Lord's Fall.

Their escape was complete. For what good it did them.

Night came early in the frigid north. A pincushion that may have been Enkidu lay over near a snowdrift. Teleport really did warp the entire party, save for its wielder. They found themselves upon a flat plain with evidence of prior dwellings in the form of tentpole holes in the ice. No shelter remained.

Where did she send us? Jelena wondered, as she desperately looked for somewhere warm and safe to tend to Calaf's injuries.

Cold winds howled. Jelena was left pulling Calaf along, hoping to find some, any shelter against the cold. The wound on Calaf's Brand continued to seep blood. So damaged, they would not have the Menu to aid them in this unforgiving wilderness…