The net dropped like a curtain. The sand weights snapped the ropes tight. The skinless thrashed—red, dried muscles flexing under black veins. Its six-fingered claws bit the lines and made one rope sing as fibers tore.
I ran in.
I set my feet and drew a breath. I aimed for the temple, where bone sits close to the surface.
I punched.
The jolt ran up my arm and settled in my back. The skull held. The net lurched as the thing heaved. A claw scraped my wrap and kissed my forearm. Heat flashed under the skin. I didn't step back.
I hit again. Short and clean. Hand back faster than it went out. The head snapped to the side. A long black tongue flicked and tasted the air. Its milky eyes didn't see me, but its head tilted toward my breathing like a wolf catching a scent.
The net slipped a little. A corner rope burned across my palm. The skinless rolled toward the loosest side. A claw hooked rope and started to cut. If it freed one arm, it would be on me.
'Finish it.'
I sank an inch, found my center, and hammered the jaw hinge. The joint gave a little. Not enough. I hit the notch above the collarbone. One arm jerked. The other clawed for my face. I turned my head and felt claws pass with the sound of paper tearing. My cheek lit up. I stayed close.
Temple. Jaw. Cheekbone. Every thin place I had learned on husks, I tried here. Each strike stung through the wraps. Each one made the ropes sing as the body bucked in the net. It flexed like a bow and tried to roll me with its spine. A weight line creaked toward snapping.
"Stay down," I said, more breath than voice.
I set my feet and sent the next punch with the whole line—ground to hips to shoulder to knuckles. High on the temple. Something changed in the sound. Not a full crack yet, but close.
The skinless hissed through its wide mouth. Its tongue licked dust from the air. It pushed off the street and rolled hard. I slid and caught myself. I didn't give it space.
I hit the same spot again.
And again.
On the fourth, the bone went. A dull, flat sound, felt more than heard. The head sagged like a broken bell. The body still fought on reflex, claws sawing rope, but the power lost its aim. I drove one more straight shot between the milky eyes. The skull split like a dry gourd. The thrashing slowed, then stopped. Legs twitched in the mesh and fell quiet.
Wind carried ash down the lane. The sound of the ropes faded.
I waited six breaths. I tapped the skull once with my knuckles. No answer. I checked the ropes. One corner line was half-cut. I retied it with fingers that shook, then crouched by the chest.
The core sat at the solar plexus. I set my knife and pushed. The point slid, then met a wall. The muscles were tough and dry, like jerky stitched to bone. I changed the angle and sawed. My thumb pressed the knife spine until a cramp bit behind it. I shook my hand and kept going.
Black veins ran like cords across the flesh. Each time the blade touched one it slid to the side. I made short cuts and opened a small triangle, a scrape at a time. Copper and dust filled my mouth.
"Come on," I said.
I hooked two fingers in the cut and pulled. The flesh fought me. I slipped the blade deeper and turned it to pry the gap wider. Steel clicked on something hard. I felt the edge of the core with the point before I saw it.
"Got you."
I traced the edge where muscle met smooth. The core didn't want to leave. I found the bottom and levered slow. The knife slipped and nicked my knuckle. Blood spotted the red. I bit back a curse, changed my grip, and pressed again with patient force.
The core popped free like a stubborn tooth. It sat in my palm, clear and cold. I wiped it on my wrap and slid it into my pocket. My hand shook, so I pressed it against my thigh until it steadied.
[Well done.]
I let out a breath I hadn't noticed holding. The words landed clean.
[We should begin another ritual when we return. Not muscle—bone. Your next level of Bone Tempering.]
I looked at the broken head in the net. My cheek and forearm pulsed. The thought of another ritual sat heavy, but it didn't scare me the way it had.
'Bone Tempering?'
[Yes. We will strengthen your skeleton—more impact resistance, better flex, cleaner transfer of force. Your fists will carry more power without damage. Your stance will hold more weight.]
Curiosity moved under the ache.
'What do we need?'
[More ingredients. Several scavengers. We will roast their bones to brittle, grind them to powder, and press the powder along your bone lines while the runes pull it in and bind it.]
I nodded. The idea felt solid, like a tool with weight in the hand.
I cut the net loose, rolled it, and coiled ropes. I wrapped the weights and slid them into a sack. I left the body to the street. My legs trembled a little when I stood. I breathed, found center, and headed home.
ººº
We didn't go straight back. We cut through rooms the skinless didn't use. Twice I waited behind a cracked door while a husk shuffled past, head turning to taste the air. When it moved on, I slipped out and kept low.
I hunted as we went. Two small scavengers were picking at a pantry floor. The sling took one; a thrown slat pinned the other to a wall. I gutted them in a yard and kept the bones in a sack. In the next house, a kitchen wall had fallen and showed a room with a brick throat and a metal belly: an old forge. A cracked bellows sagged beside it, split but whole enough to breathe.
[Good. We can repair this. The forge will roast the bones even and clean.]
I brushed soot from the mouth. Hardened metal shone under the ash. I worked the bellows. A weak breath of air slid out. It would need patching. I made a list in my head—leather scraps, glue, wire.
We carried the sacks to the attic and set them by the wall. I placed the new core on a cloth near my bedroll. It caught the last light and held it.
We washed. We ate small. The meat was stringy and plain. I didn't complain. I saved the bones and cracked them with the hammer so the marrow would burn out. When night came, I lay under the beams and pictured the forge, the bellows, the bone powder, the lines I would draw.
Sleep came in pieces. When it left, it took the last of the fight-shake with it.
ººº
Dawn. Water. A few minutes of footwork in the new dust to wake my legs. Then the forge.
I patched the bellows with leather from a torn coat and glue made from boiled scraps. I stitched holes with wire and pulled the seams tight. When I pressed the paddles, the breath came strong. I stacked charcoal and old wood in the belly and fed the mouth until heat pushed at my face. Air shimmered above the throat. The brick glowed a hand's width in.
I set the bones on a metal rack and slid them into the heat. They clicked, sweated, and darkened. A smell like burned parchment rolled out. Dry. Bitter. I turned them with a bent rod until they went light and brittle at the edges.
Back in the attic, I let them cool and crushed them in a clay bowl with the hammer's butt. The sound was like stepping on thin ice. I ground the shards with a flat stone until they turned to powder like chalk. Dust coated my hands white. I tied a cloth over my mouth and kept working.
When the bowl was full, it looked like bone snow. I set it beside the chalk, the wire, and the little knife. The attic air felt cooler, as if the arrays above approved.
[We have enough. Draw the runes.]
I stripped and stood on old cloth. I reopened the small cut on my finger and let blood bead. I traced the lines I had learned, but now they ran along bone—across the knuckles, down the radius and ulna, up the humerus, along the ribs and spine, over the hips, down the femurs and tibias, to the ankles and toes. I moved slow where he told me to slow, curved where he told me to curve, and hooked the ends into small loops that tied the paths together. Each track felt like I was tracing a map that had always been there.
When the red dried, I dipped two fingers into the bone powder. I pressed white along each line. The powder clung to blood and turned pink, then pale as I added more. I did my hands last—knuckles, finger bones, wrists. When I was done, it looked like I wore chalk gloves.
I caught my reflection in the dark window. White bones traced over red lines. A lean frame under the marks. A mask that had become part of my face. Eyes steady.
'You look like a ghost.'
[You look ready.]
I stood by the bedroll with the core resting on the cloth. The forge smell still rode the air. The tank hummed soft. Outside, ash ticked against the glass.
I picked up the core.
I took a long breath and felt it reach my heels.
'Again.'
I set my jaw and nodded to no one.
The ritual waited.