Tim Facciola

Copyright © 2023 by First Torch Books, LLC.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Design by Lunaris Falcon Studios

Publishing Services provided by Paper Raven Books LLC

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2023

“How many times do I have to tell you?” a father asked his son.

The boy shrugged. “Twice?”

This is for the stubborn dreamers,

the inquisitive souls,

everyone who dared ask for a second chance,

and those patient enough to grant it.

Thanks, Dad.

Prologue

He shook his head, steadying his swimming vision. Swirls of gold fended off an unrelenting blood-red sea until the shape of a balanced scale emerged, woven stark and clear against the crimson backdrop of the tapestry on the wall.

Foreign yet familiar, the scale insignia remained a mystery to him. If he had seen it before or knew its meaning, nothing came to him. Not just the forgetful nothingness of being unable to remember a symbol, but the oppressive void of a blank mind.

Sitting upon a wooden bench, he turned from the puzzling tapestry. A bandage encased his left palm but failed to stifle the flow of blood dripping onto the ground and pooling between his feet. His head throbbed with each plop from the saturated swathe as he tried recalling how he sustained the wound in the first place.

Surrounded by a dozen others in a stone, rectangular room—the air stained by the coppery scent of blood—he reached for the hilt of his short sword. But the others in the room bore similar dressings. The passive and amiable conversations did not resemble the sound of those trapped or abducted. No one was bound, yet he still felt imprisoned.

“You don’t look well.” A woman beside him rested her javelin against the wall to place her bandaged hand on his right arm. Her brow pinched atop sapphire eyes, a tight braid of silver-blonde hair draped over her cloaked shoulder.

A rush of blurry recollections flooded his mind, as if he should remember her, but like sand between the cracks of his fingers, the moments fled before memories could be grasped.

“Zephyrus?” she asked, readjusting a dagger on her hip to slide closer to him.

Zephyrus? Is that my name? It’s bad enough not knowing where I am, how I got here, or why my hand is bleeding, but not even my own name? He considered it, mouthing the word. Zephyrus… it felt familiar, but not quite right.

“Burn me, Zeph,” said the man sitting beside him. “Ya look worse than I feel.” His teasing tone contradicted what Zephyrus might have expected of someone with two curved sicas holstered across his back. His creased forehead, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and the letter “A” branded into his forearm foretold a difficult life.

Examining the stranger’s face, Zephyrus hoped for some glimmer of recognition, and although he felt like they had a rich past together, he could recall none of it.

Zephyrus shook free from the woman’s touch, looking between her and the man on his other side. “I don’t remember. Anything.”

Saying it aloud made the truth hurt more. He grimaced as his two companions exchanged glances of pursed lips and raised brows.

“You don’t remember us?” the woman asked.

“You remember me, though, right?” The man’s jovial eyes darkened as wrinkles furrowed his scarred mug.

Something in his face made Zephyrus want to tell him the right answers… to make him proud. He wanted to say, “Yes, of course,” but it wasn’t true. Whoever this man was to him in the past, each memory and every moment was scrubbed from his mind and scoured until not a trace remained.

“No.”

The man rubbed his face with his hand.

“Gory ghosts, Patrus, I knew we shouldn’t have come here,” the woman said.

“Probably just a bad reaction to the ritual,” Patrus said. “Just the tea they made us drink. We’ll be fine. Everything’ll be fine.” He put his unscathed hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder and glanced around. “It’s gonna be alright, kid. We’re at Tharseo’s Bastion. You, me, and Threyna.” He pointed at the woman with the silver-blonde braid. “We came… tip the scales…”

He blew out his cheeks and scratched at the scruff of his neck. “Come to think of it, I don’t remember anything since leaving the Templar. But we’re supposed to be here. Part of the Nine Acts or something.” He raised his own bandaged hand and gestured to it. “We’ll get our prophecies, see for sure if you’re the Wielder, and be on our way.”

Tharseo’s Bastion? Nine Acts? Wielder? Questions with answers he should have known landed like gut punches. A growing dread climbed from the pit of his stomach, tightening in his throat. Not nausea, not fear, but something far more sinister.

“No.” Zephyrus rose to his feet, drawing the attention of others in the room. “There’s something else. Something important.” It was there, on the tip of his mind. He reached for it.

Threyna pulled him back to his seat. “Easy now.”

Patrus raised his hand to calm the onlookers disturbed by Zephyrus’s behavior.

Whatever Zephyrus was reaching for in his mind fell away, dropped into the void. Lost to the abyss that his mind had become.

Threyna sighed, her gentle touch suddenly firm. “You are where you need to be, exactly when you must. We’ll figure this out. Together.”

Zephyrus’s nostrils flared, but he eased onto the bench.

“Check your pockets,” Threyna said. “Maybe we have a written order from the Templar somewhere.” She inspected her cloak and britches for any sign of their purpose.

“I got nothing,” Patrus said.

“Me neither,” Threyna said. “Zephyrus?”

Shaking himself from his maddening thoughts, he dug into his pocket with his unbandaged hand. His fingers closed around a slender cylinder. Hope filled his lungs. Yanking it from his pocket, he found a tightly rolled scroll. Unrolling it, he quietly read aloud.

King Varros Helixus,

The time has come for peace to reign. Your policies have pleased us and given us hope under the Six of New Rheynia. No longer shall we pursue vengeance or the Judges’ Treasures. Take this emissary of peace into your service as our sincerest gift.

AVR

Zephyrus shook his head. Not one bit of this meant anything to him. Not the names, places, or initials at the bottom. Nothing.

Who is AVR? Who are the Judges, and what are these Treasures?

“Burn me!” Patrus bolted upright. The others in the antechamber startled at the sudden outburst. Patrus winced and sat back down, allowing them to return to their conversations. He leaned closer to Zephyrus and Threyna to whisper, “This can’t be right.”

Patrus’s reaction only made the sinking stone in Zephyrus’s stomach grow heavier.

Threyna shook her head at Patrus. “The Templar wanted us to make peace with King Varros, to warn him about the—”

“Peace?” Patrus hissed. He stood up, jabbing his finger in Threyna’s nose. “Don’t you dare, Warlock. This is your doing, isn’t it?”

Threyna bolted upright with equal fervor and slapped Patrus’s hand from her face. “You think I’m responsible for why we can’t remember? And blood and bone, I was hardly with the Warlocks.”

Zephyrus’s confusion and frustration swirled into a tempest. Before he knew it, he was on his feet, separating Threyna and Patrus. He didn’t know who had the right of the matter, but the public argument they were about to have wouldn’t solve anything.

“Keep calm,” Zephyrus said. “We can figure this out together.”

Patrus reclaimed his seat first, elbows resting on his knees, fingers interlocked behind his head. Eventually, the ice in Threyna’s eyes settled, and she sat, arms crossed.

Zephyrus took a deep breath, sitting between them. “What do we know?”

“I know the Elders wouldn’t have sent us to give up,” Patrus said. “Not while our people are enslaved to build castles for King Varros Helixus, construct shrines to his Valencian Gods, and die in the fighting arenas. I’m tellin’ ya, this is a test. Or a trick. Or—”

Threyna inhaled through her teeth. “A trick? Do you hear yourself, Patrus? There is a threat greater than Drakes and Helixuses. If the Elders want peace, even a temporary one, we must obey.”

“No,” Patrus said. “You been with us all of a fortnight. Don’t claim to know what the Elders want. Zeph and I been with the Templar over ten years. This don’t make any sense.”

None of it made sense to Zephyrus. Ten years he’d known Patrus, yet he couldn’t remember anything before the balanced scale tapestry. He scratched his head, pulling strands of auburn from the knot on the back of his head.

The heavy wooden door at the opposite end of the room swung open.

Clad in a gray cloak, a portly gatekeeper with a hooked nose stood in the doorway. “The Seers will see you now. Line up according to your number and follow me.”

Excited chatter broke out amongst the other dozen people. They each held up their bandages, comparing the red numbers on the back of their hands. Zephyrus flipped his hand over, and on the back of his wrist, disguised in the scarlet blood, was the number thirteen. Patrus’s and Threyna’s bandages were scrawled with eleven and twelve respectively. When they got into line, Zephyrus followed, but tightness gripped his chest.

Threyna seized his trembling hand and squeezed. “We’re right where we’re supposed to be,” she said through a tight-lipped smile. “We’ll figure this out.”

He released a trepidatious breath. He was happy to be in the company of others who cared about him—even if he couldn’t remember why they did—but he couldn’t shake the unease that burrowed into his gut. Like leeches on his soul, the absence of his memory sucked the comfort from Threyna’s words. He could feel it in his bones; something was wrong.

The procession trailed from the antechamber and down the hall. The sullen temple corridors smelled of mildew. Dilapidated not only by time and neglect, Tharseo’s Bastion bore battle scars. Deep slashes traversed the walls where deflected swords and missed strikes left a token of their presence. Scorch stains sullied the exposed wooden beams overhead. Fine moldings and elegant stonework told of the temple’s former majesty, but now they remained a testament of man’s destructive nature.

Patrus stepped out of line, allowing Threyna to pass. The two exchanged a disdainful glance but said nothing. He put his hand on Zephyrus’s chest, stopping him from following Threyna. As the space grew between them and the rest of the procession, Patrus whispered.

“Have faith. The Judges will guide us. I don’t know if this is one of the Acts, but we’ll get to the bottom of this, Zeph. But whatever happens, we are not following that letter.” He nodded at Threyna ahead of them. “Regardless of what that Warlock says.”

He patted Zephyrus on the arm. “I know you’re the Wielder. And once the Seers of Celestia prove it, we’ll get the Treasures together and see our people to freedom.” Patrus smiled. “I believe in you, Zeph. You were meant to turn the tides of this war. Not serve the other side.” He scoffed, grinning. “If you’re an emissary of peace, I must be Tharseo himself.”

Zephyrus returned Patrus’s grin, but the sentiment Patrus expressed in words stopped at Zephyrus’s mind, never reaching his heart. Patrus knew who he was, where he’d been—he had people he loved and principles he believed in. Zephyrus didn’t know his own name. The Acts, the Wielder, the Treasures—they meant nothing to him. All he wanted from the Judges were his memories back.

As the two quickened their stride to rejoin the line, the gatekeeper shepherded the others through an archway and into a long, narrow room with a vaulted ceiling. Patrus caught up and took his place in front of Threyna before entering.

Zephyrus followed behind, ushered in by acolytes in white robes with three black, vertical lines upon their chests. The stone hallway was traded for wooden floorboards, warped by time and rotted by infestation. A threadbare runner stretched across the floor before equally worn and mismatched tables with unbalanced scales atop them. Despite the different tables and scales, the balances all tilted at an identical angle, one side weighed down by an offering of blood.

They filed in, stopping before the table marked with the corresponding number on their bandages.

Patrus rubbed his hands together. “Time to embrace fate.”

Zephyrus thumbed the scroll in his pocket. The sinkhole in his stomach threatened to cave in. “You are where you need to be, exactly when you must,” Threyna had said, but if Zephyrus was meant to be here, he wasn’t supposed to be doing this.

Two impossibly tall figures clad in black robes entered the narrow room. The Brothers, the Seers of Celestia, assessed the first scale.

Looking down the line of eager participants, Zephyrus’s skin crawled. Clammy sweat clung to his brow. I don’t belong here… but if not here, where?

A thin man standing behind the first scale presented his unbandaged palm to the Seers. They dragged a white blade across his flesh, but not a single drop of blood fell onto the scale. After uttering a few words for the acolytes in white to record on parchment, they moved on to the next hand, the next scale, the next fate.

Something didn’t feel right about the ritual. Why aren’t they bleeding? The blood should have flowed to balance the scale.

Zephyrus’s stomach protested the closer the cloaked figures drew to him, but his feet might as well have melted into the floor.

Patrus was next. He thrust his hand at the dagger-wielding Seer. The blade bit into Patrus’s palm without ceremony, but his passion yielded the same result as every other—a bloodless wound. With the acolytes gathered around, quills at the ready, one of the Seers spoke.

“There is but one way to defy death,” the Seer said. “Live.”

Zephyrus had to bite back a scoff that tore from his lips. That’s their sage wisdom—live?

While Patrus bowed, thanking the Seers, Threyna hummed with a self-satisfied grin.

“I reckon that wasn’t the prophecy of the Wielder?”

Patrus grunted, glaring at her. He whispered something under his breath as the Seers moved on to Threyna.

Despite her mocking, the moment the Seers’ shadows loomed over her, her demeanor changed. Her fingers rubbed together at her side. She averted her gaze from the Seers as if they were distracting her from something else more important in the present moment.

“Your hand.” The Seer held out his long, dark, spindly fingers. Threyna took a deep breath, reaching for the Seers with the hesitance of touching a hot kettle.

Zephyrus’s stomach twisted in knots as the Seer sliced the dagger across Threyna’s palm.

She flinched as the flesh split before the blade, but no blood flowed. Instead, black vines spread from her wound, slithering outward. But when Zephyrus blinked, they vanished. Zephyrus pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before tracing the scruff of beard down his cheeks and chin. No black vines, just a bloodless wound.

Did I imagine it?

Neither Patrus, the Brothers, nor the gathered acolytes seemed to take notice of the slithering black tendrils that momentarily erupted from Threyna’s wound, but she continued to stare at the gash in her palm.

The Seer with the dagger said, “You shall find that which you seek, but you possess all you need.”

Patrus hmphed. “Suppose you’re not the Wielder either, Warlock.”

Threyna lifted her gaze from her bloodless palm to the Seers of Celestia, but they had already moved on, leaving an acolyte to tend to her fresh wound.

As the Seers stood opposite Zephyrus, with only an unbalanced scale between them, Zephyrus felt a chill run down his spine. Dressed in black, they loomed like shadows stretched long by the setting sun. Even their faces were concealed in the depth of their cloaks.

Beneath the hoods veiling the Seers’ faces, their voices came in perfect synchronicity—low in both tone and volume, but abundantly clear. “Step forward.”

Patrus, holding his freshly bandaged hand, nodded in encouragement, but the strangling sensation from deep within Zephyrus’s soul wanted none of it.

“You are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

Zephyrus inched closer to the two Seers, hoping Threyna’s words held truth. Thumbing the scroll in his pocket, his trust teetered.

“Your hand,” one Seer said, gesturing toward the scale. The other held a tremendous tome bound in dusty leather. Zephyrus reluctantly released the scroll in his pocket and extended his right palm. The Seer took him by the wrist. His touch, as cold as death itself, sent gooseflesh rippling up Zephyrus’s arm.

“Your other one,” the second Brother said, taking Zephyrus’s bandaged left hand in an equally chilling grip.

Zephyrus’s eyes locked onto the curved blade grasped in the Seer’s hand. Sharpened to a gleaming white, the dagger drank the room’s darkness and reflected the dancing torchlight. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. To whatever god would listen, he prayed. Please give me answers… a sign, a clue, a memory—anything!

Steel bit into his right palm. Searing pain coursed, not just through his hand, but his entire body. His knees buckled, and his jaw clamped tight. He wanted to scream, but as sudden as lightning, the pain vanished.

Blood flowed into the scale.

Excited murmurs filled the room as the weight of Zephyrus’s blood leveled the scale.

“What does that mean?” Zephyrus looked from the Brothers to Patrus. Patrus’s eyes were wide enough to stretch the wrinkles of his crow’s feet.

The Seers’ black eyes flashed bright white, and their hands flared with the warmth of life. Thunderous voices erupted from beneath their cloaks, reverberating off the stone walls.

“The son of the Fallen will rise to prey upon the unworthy. Under cloaks and shadows he hides to bring light to those hoping. When the rivers and streams run dry, he will summon the unworldly to sever the chains that bind the realm to the holy.”

Zephyrus balked. He didn’t know what he was expecting after the cryptic responses Patrus and Threyna received, but he wasn’t expecting this. He only had more questions. And another bloody hand.

The acolytes, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, frantically wrote each word as it was stated. Another acolyte wrapped Zephyrus’s newly bloodied hand in a fresh bandage.

“Zeph!” Patrus’s bandaged hands held his own temples. “I always knew it, but burn me!”

The other ritualists cheered. Acolytes opened the door beneath the red tapestry of the balanced scale and led Zephyrus into a sanctuary with three immaculate statues upon an altar.

“Behold, Judges!” one of the acolytes said to the statues, hoisting Zephyrus’s bloody palm in the air. “Your chosen Prophet!”

Cast in bronze, the statue on the left depicted an old man with a long beard clad in an elegant cloak, a large book cradled to his chest. A woman in elaborate scale armor held a short sword in one hand and a scepter in the other. The Judge in the center—taller and broader than the other two—reached his sword for the sanctuary ceiling.

Smiling faces surrounded Zephyrus, but their excitement didn’t stop the cold sweat from clinging his tunic to his back. His mind worked to grasp something forgotten, something important, but his memories failed him. The more he tried to remember, the faster the thought slipped through his fingers.

There’s something here. Something I’m supposed to do…

“Tip the scales and burn me!” Patrus said, parting through the flock of people still chattering like squawking birds. “I knew it. From when you were a boy, I knew.”

Zephyrus wrenched free of the acolyte’s grip and seized Patrus, smearing blood down his arm. “Patrus, there’s a reason we’re here. Something else. Something important. Why else—besides the prophecy—would we come here—”

A shrill horn echoed through the chamber.

Silence fell. Again, the horn trumpeted.

“Slavers,” one of the ritualists said, his face drawn.

Acolytes in white scrambled to the Seers in black, spiriting them toward the statues. The gatekeeper ran back the way they’d come from. But the rest were paralyzed.

An acolyte urged Zephyrus toward the statues, but when some of the ritualists went to follow, the acolyte stopped them. “There’s no room for you to hide with us.”

The ritualists protested, red-faced with fists shaking.

“Wait, what?” Zephyrus asked.

“There’s not enough room for everyone,” the acolyte said, taking Zephyrus by the wrist. “The Harbinger comes with us.”

Patrus seized Zephyrus’s other wrist. “He’s not the Harbinger. You heard his prophecy. He’s the Wielder.”

The acolyte didn’t back down. “Not one moment after his prophecy is spoken, the slavers come to Tharseo’s Bastion. And you think he’s the Wielder? No. He’s the Harbinger. The Age of the End must come.”

Murmurs carried the words harbinger and wielder, but they didn’t mean anything to Zephyrus.

The gatekeeper returned, pushing open the sanctuary door. Panting, he lifted a finger. “One ship. At least thirty slavers.” He weaseled through the crowd, heading toward the statues where the acolytes and the Brothers sought refuge.

“What about us?” a ritualist asked. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Run. Hide,” the acolyte said. “But you can’t come with us.” He tugged on Zephyrus’s wrist, dragging him toward the statues and away from Patrus.

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s neck, blood coursing through his veins. Prophecies and memories aside, he knew in his bones he couldn’t abandon these people. He couldn’t leave Patrus and Threyna.

Zephyrus set his feet and wrenched free of the acolyte’s grip. His lips curled into a snarl. “You want me to hide? Thirty slavers come to your door, and you forsake the people you prophesy over?”

The horns continued sounding, louder with a shorter time between each—more and more urgency behind every blare.

The acolyte exhaled, dark skin contrasted by his white cloak. “Your fate is sealed. The Judges’ plans for you will come to pass. Exiled or enslaved, the Three Prophets will usher in the Return. So hide.” His eyes fell to Zephyrus’s sword. “Or fight. And may the Judges preserve the rest of us.” The two swiveled and ran across the sanctuary, following the Seers of Celestia and the other acolytes behind the statues.

Patrus addressed the ritualists. “He is the Wielder. We can fight.”

“Thirty men,” Threyna said, drawing her javelin from the holster on her back. “We can take them.”

All eyes fixed on Zephyrus. With the Seers and acolytes only focused on saving themselves, and no one searching for guidance from Patrus or Threyna, it fell upon Zephyrus to lead. Grinding his teeth, he glanced at the warrior statue with the sword, its stony gaze staring straight at him. If he wanted to escape this place, it would not be by running. It would not be by hiding while others were left to fend for themselves. The king’s jester or the Judges’ prophet, Zephyrus would not forsake others in need.

He seized the hilt of his short sword. Despite the sting of his slashed palms, its heft and grip felt familiar in his hand. It rang as he drew it from its sheath to the cheers of the ritualists.

They exited the sanctuary and returned to the main foyer. Beyond the weakened temple walls, men called out orders. Thunder struck against the barred wooden door, threatening to cave it in. Each blow from the battering ram rattled the iron chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, raining dust upon the ritualists. Some had weapons of their own—swords or daggers—but others had to settle for whatever they could find—candlesticks or broom handles.

Boom!

“We make our stand here,” Zephyrus said, before the fracturing door. Beside him, Threyna dropped her stance low, gripping her javelin with both hands.

Patrus drew his twin sicas on Zephyrus’s right. “They want to sell us.”

Boom!

Patrus leaned closer. “They won’t make much if we’re dead, so they’ll attempt to surround us—take us alive. But whatever happens, don’t do that thing.” He extended his fingers from the grip of his curved sica, wiggling them. “They’ll take us alive if they don’t know what you can do.”

Zephyrus shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “What does tha—”

Patrus leaned close, finger raised. “Worst comes to worst, we surrender.”

Boom!

The walls of Tharseo’s Bastion quaked as the battering ram splintered the front doors. The reverberations rattled Zephyrus’s teeth, but Patrus’s words shook his resolve.

“We’ll live,” Patrus said. “Just like the Seers prophesied. We’ll defy death. We’ll get our memories back, find the Treasures, free our people—whatever the Acts require. The Judges have determined your path, as long as you live to walk upon it.”

Boom! The bar holding the door snapped. Slavers clad in black, boiled leather charged in with sword and shield. They splayed out, forming a line.

A slaver with a scar across his upper lip stepped ahead of the rest, lowering his steel. Condescension dripped from his presence even before he opened his mouth. “Drop your weapons. Only tellin’ ya once.”

Ritualists loosened their grip on their weapons, glancing between one another. Moxie wavered with each passing moment; hope quivered in time with fluttering knees.

No future—no life—awaited beyond those doors if they surrendered. Only chains. Death.

“What’s it going to be?” the slaver asked. “Haven’t got all d—”

A javelin flew through the air and speared the slaver through the chest.

Sound ceased. Vision tunneled. Time slowed, and all choices evaporated. Zephyrus charged as the slaver fell to Threyna’s javelin. Two shields stepped forward, covering their fallen leader with swords raised in defense.

Zephyrus jumped, thrusting his steel into the first shield. Despite the pain in his palms, he shoved the shield backwards. Patrus swept in beside him, his sica hooking around the top of the other shield. With a yank, he lowered the shield. Zephyrus stabbed at the opening. Steel met flesh, piercing the slaver’s neck.

He dropped, sputtering blood.

As the slaver fell, clasping his hand over the gash in his neck, a numbness washed over Zephyrus. A cold, cruel emptiness invaded the space where the loss of innocence should have been, had he not killed before.

No time for sentiment, Zephyrus blocked an incoming slash and ducked another. Threyna rushed in beside him, punching his attacker in the ribs with a silver dagger.

Another fell. Another died. But Zephyrus felt alive.

He slipped between two slavers, blocking one hack and redirecting another. He shoved into a shield, sending its carrier stumbling. Patrus intercepted the stumbling slaver and drove his sica in the space between his neck and shoulder. Another stabbed at Zephyrus. He dodged and bashed against the shield. Once. Twice. His backslash carried the shield’s momentum out of the way, exposing his belly. Zephyrus rammed his sword, hilt deep, into the slaver’s gut.

Patrus carved into a slaver with several short swipes of his sicas. Threyna moved through them like a wraith of death, untouchable to their steel.

From over the line of slavers, beyond the broken door, a projectile blacked out the sky. Opening mid-flight, a weighted net descended, ensnaring Threyna.

Zephyrus rushed to her aid, but the slavers cut him off. He stabbed and hacked at their shields, but more nets flew through the air, raining down on the ritualists. Threyna fought with her bindings, but the net contained her long enough for swords to swarm around her.

Half a dozen ritualists struggled to free themselves, but with Threyna unable to hold the left side of the room, the slavers flanked Zephyrus, Patrus, and the unbound ritualists.

“Drop your weapons and yield!” said the slaver standing over Threyna, his blade under her chin. Blond hair hung to his shoulders, framing his thin face and crooked nose. “Do it, or they die!”

Threyna growled at the slaver. She lifted one hand in surrender, but the other still clutched the silver dagger.

“You’re bluffing,” Zephyrus said, adjusting his stance so he stood back-to-back with Patrus. The stalking slavers stood over the ensnared ritualists. Those still on their feet watched Zephyrus, unsure if they should fight or lay down their arms. “A slave trader with no slaves makes for a poor man.”

The slaver laughed. His sword pressed against Threyna’s throat, drawing a trickle of blood. “The three of you are fighters. Lanistas will pay decent silver for gladiatorial recruits, but we’ll get gold for the three of you. This lot won’t fetch more than a couple coppers. Still think I’m bluffing?”

“Live, Zeph,” Patrus said.

Zephyrus grit his teeth. There has to be another way. A better way.

But how many could he and Patrus slay before they were overtaken? Even if they somehow managed to fight their way free, how many others would die for them to live?

He couldn’t do it.

Zephyrus growled but lowered his sword. “Don’t hurt anyone. We surrender.”

“What?” Threyna spat. “Zephyrus, no. We can’t—”

“We must!” Zephyrus’s voice reverberated off the foyer ceiling. He set his blade down. Steel clanged to the ground as Patrus and the others did the same.

“Kick it over here,” the slaver said, beckoning toward Zephyrus’s sword. The grotesque grin beneath the slaver’s crooked nose fanned the flame of Zephyrus’s fury.

He wanted to fight. He wanted to remember. But Patrus said it might come to this. He had to trust Patrus, or he’d be lost.

“Zephyrus, don’t do this,” Threyna said.

He couldn’t look at her. Do you know what will happen to you if I don’t? To spare their lives, he kicked the blade to the slaver’s feet.

The slaver stepped on the sword’s hilt to stop its skid. “Good, now—”

Threyna tore the net with her dagger, bursting free from its bindings.

She swiped at one slaver, deflected the strike of another, and stabbed a third in the neck. It all happened so fast. Before Zephyrus could react, the blond slaver slashed diagonally across Threyna’s back.

A red tear streaked from her right shoulder down to her left hip. Her light gray cloak drank the blossoming blood, staining it scarlet. She dropped to her knees. Her dagger clanged against the stone floor.

“No!” Zephyrus strode towards her, but the slaver directed his sword to the apple of Zephyrus’s throat.

“Two Rheynians at a Celestic temple.” The slaver shook his head. “You’re gonna get it worse than she does.” He grabbed Threyna by the braid and slid his steel across her throat.

A scarlet crescent stretched. She clasped her neck, but blood spewed between her fingers from the fatal wound. Zephyrus dove and caught her in his arms before she hit the floor.

Anguish flooded her sapphire eyes. Her lips quivered as blood bubbled down her chin and choked the oxygen from her lungs. Life fled her, leaving a pale shell in its wake.

She coughed and choked until her final gasps. Despite Zephyrus’s pleading, or the pressure he placed on her wound, death claimed her.

A knot formed in Zephyrus’s chest, stealing breath from his lungs. He didn’t know what he lost in her, but a gaping hole opened within his stomach, and the stone of dread that had been growing there plummeted.

Patrus knelt before the slavers, his face long with accepted defeat. Zephyrus fixated on Threyna’s corpse. She stared to the heavens beyond, black lightning coursing through the whites of her eyes. He pulled her lids down, unable to look at her.

Dead…

Zephyrus lay Threyna down. His bandaged hands, soaked in her blood and his, trembled. The blond slaver loomed over Zephyrus, blotting out the sun through the entryway like a dark cloud. Blood dripped from his blade to plop to the ground. Threyna’s blood.

Dead…

Kneeling on the ground beside Threyna, Zephyrus couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

The slaver grabbed Zephyrus’s collar and pulled him close until they were nose to nose. He pressed the bloody tip of his blade against Zephyrus’s chest. He nodded in Threyna’s direction. “You’re a slave of New Rheynia, property of the Six of Valencia. You’ll die in the arena to the roar of the crowd.” He shoved Zephyrus away. “But we’ll be rich!”

The other slavers cheered, but Zephyrus felt sick.

Blood for gold. What scale could ever balance the two? What Gods would condone this?

Zephyrus ground his teeth, but he could do nothing to stop the slavers from binding him and the others in manacles. Nothing as they were dragged out the doors. Nothing as Threyna’s silver-blonde braid drowned in a sea of blood. Nothing but think about Threyna’s comforting words from earlier.

“You are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

Chapter 1

The Snake and the Mongoose

Danella

Stockhelm

Danella didn’t want to kill her husband, but he wasn’t leaving her any other choice. If she didn’t act soon, everything would fall to pieces.

But the thought of him dead and cold ruined her. Every time he spoke her name or touched her cheek, she imagined him splayed out before her, and her heart grieved.

Can I go on without him, the love of my life?

But the choice was his.

Danella’s lectica traveled the dirt road through the villages of Stockhelm toward the town square and the epicenter of the festival. She tore back the red curtain of her canopied sedan. Ahead, beyond the porters carrying her lectica, vibrant pavilions, colored to suit the emblems of their benefactors, lined the pathways where merchants, for both the plebeians and the patricians, sold their wares. Filled to capacity, not an empty lot from the Crystal River to the pulvinus of the makeshift tourney grounds remained.

People bowed in deference or waved as her caravan passed. She needed to remember the serenity of moments like these. The dancers’ beauty, the musicians’ talent. The intelligence of the plays and puppet shows. The gladiators’ determination and the knights’ strength.

This is what it’s all for—to preserve this.

The cheers surrounding Danella’s lectica swelled as horse hooves pounded the pathway, approaching quickly. Danella glanced out the window just as her husband, Varros—King of New Rheynia—rode past on his white mare. He reined in the blustering beast, rearing it back and circling around to the awe of the surrounding plebeians.

He looked as any king should. His graying blond hair hung wavy below his ears. The crown atop his head appeared placed by the Gods themselves. His blue velvet doublet with golden finery was draped underneath a majestic cloak, divided down the middle—white on the left with a blue pegasus of House Helixus, blue on the right with a white Drake chimera.

How many husbands honor the sigil of their wives’ house?

After Varros’s marriage was annulled so he could marry Danella, seal the Treaty of 940 with matrimony, and end the war that divided New Rheynia, she feared he would never love her. She pleaded with her father not to give her to a man twice her age, with a ten-year-old son. But despite it all, she grew to love him, and she’d never forget the day she realized it.

Following her father’s death, her brother’s time as king was cut short by the traitorous Hechts. While Danella wept, Varros’s first act as king was nailing every male Hecht to the Six Arrowed Star, proving he wasn’t like his weak and blaspheming forefathers.

Now their own son, Damascus, represented the unity of New Rheynian society and the everlasting harmony between Salmantica and Valtarcia. Damascus was nearly twenty now, and for the past two decades, peace reigned. But a new war loomed, and if Varros was no longer the man she believed him to be, he needed to be replaced. Even if that meant deposing him herself.

The porters carried her lectica past the statues of the Six Gods of Valencia as they neared the town square. It was the only redeeming quality about Stockhelm, but that was why they were here—why they needed a chancellor, and why Danella was prepared to give the order to assassinate her husband, should he not do as asked.

Varros swung his mare around, trotting alongside the lectica, beaming ear to ear in the glow of plebeian approval.

Danella’s stomach fluttered. This is my chance. Make him see reason. “Are you ready for your speech, my dear?”

Varros’s curls bounced with the rise and fall of his mount. He grinned with one side of his lip and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the tourney grounds. “Do you feel their excitement? They will cheer for anything I say if it brings them closer to seeing Aelon Ironpine in the melee.”

“So you’ll address it—what we talked about last night?” And every night since you exiled that mage a year ago.

“When the time is right, my love.” Varros took a deep breath as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “I love the fresh air of Stockhelm. Don’t you?”

Fear sat beside her, holding her in a cruel embrace. What does that mean, you confounding Helixus! When will the time be right?

Danella maintained her façade, aside from her twitching eye. She’d tried everything with this man—said everything a wife could say to her husband. Tear-streaked cheeks, red-faced anger, and composed dialogue were all dismissed, but today was his last chance. The Gods were clear, their will declared. The snake had won.

“It has the potential to be a beautiful day,” Danella said, but it could also be the worst day of my life.

The sun glimmered off Varros’s obsidian crown, his chin lifted to the clouds. “No castles, no slums, no filth staining the streets.”

No comforts, no temples, and these ‘streets’ are trails of dirt.

“It’s a refreshing change of scenery,” Danella said, longing to be back home in Salmantica.

“It’s a pity your father didn’t settle here instead,” Varros said.

Danella didn’t want to imagine how different life would have been if, after her father led the Great Migration from Rheynia’s disaster-ridden shores, he had built Castle Sentigard here in Stockhelm. Rheynian culture would have disappeared long ago.

The plebs enjoying the festival were proof that assimilation had already occurred. Rheynians garbed in flowing linens with leather sandals exposed their flesh to the Gods as if they didn’t know what lay beneath.

Father would roll in the crypt if he witnessed this. But if Father were still here, this would not be the case.

What began with accepting innocuous cultural elements such as clothing, music, and customs inevitably ended with religion. And that was dangerous.

How quickly people forget why we fled Rheynia in the first place.

The Celestic prophecies meant nothing to Varros—like most Rheynians—but Danella did not dismiss blasphemy’s validity. The unnatural Celestic magic was very much real, and she had no doubt if they allowed this Return of the Judges to happen, this kingdom would be doomed, just as Rheynia before. That’s why the Facets of Perfection were provided by the Six, to guide humanity in the way everlasting. Not to be forgotten so they could fall into the Judges’ hollow embrace and awaken the Six’s wrath.

The Age of the End… it will not come to pass. Not while I am queen.

Varros droned on, but Danella couldn’t allow him to ignore her. Not anymore.

“Varros,” she said, cutting off his societal ruminations. He woke from his daydreams to meet her gaze. “The mage.” The words were barely louder than her breath, but the way Varros swallowed, she knew he understood. “Timing aside, will you say something?”

He averted his gaze, just for a moment, but it was enough for the seeds of doubt to grow roots within her churning stomach.

“Aren’t you the one always telling me to have faith?” Varros said. With a bow of his head and that stubborn Helixus smirk, he clicked his teeth, urging his mare to canter.

Danella slumped into her seat. Have faith? After a year of asking—no, pleading—for you to admit exiling the mage was wrong only for you to deny me at every turn, faith is the only thing keeping me going.

Not leaving anything up to chance, she closed her eyes and prayed once more. Please, Gods of my father, show Varros the needs of the many. Let him see the error of his ways. The life of one mage is not worth starting another war. Please, Gods. I call upon you to provide him the intelligence to do what is right, the strength to do what is difficult, the determination to do what is best, and the faith to believe in the beauty and serenity of Valencia.

Her litter stopped. It was time. Moisture dampened her palms. She nearly stepped on her dress as she exited her lectica but managed to maintain her façade. She smiled and waved to the cheering crowd as her personal guard approached her side.

“Your grace,” Ser Daenus said, leading her to the pulvinus that overlooked the tourney grounds. Daenus’s graying, stubbled cheeks betrayed how lethal he still was with a sword, but that wasn’t why she chose him as her Queen’s Guard. She selected him because of his faith.

Daenus leaned in. “Are you unwell?”

Knots tangled her stomach. I may have the man I love assassinated; why wouldn’t I be unwell? She swallowed, composing herself. “If Varros does as I’ve implored, I’m calling it off.”

“As you wish, your grace.” His jaw tightened, but Danella knew what he was thinking—the snake won. The Gods had spoken.

Daenus escorted her to the base of the pulvinus where Varros waited. Varros took her hand, and together they ascended the stairs to the dais overlooking the tourney grounds where they sat upon their thrones. Atop the pulvinus, she couldn’t tell if she heard cheering or protests coming from the crowd at her feet.

Varros lifted his hands to silence the crowd.

Please, you stupid, affable fool, do as I have asked.

“Good people of Stockhelm. Citizens, who have traveled from Salmantica and Valtarcia to aid us in this glorious celebration, I thank you. This day marks the beginning of a new Stockhelm.”

Her hands trembled. A new Stockhelm? What does he mean by that? Her fidgeting fingers formed into fists. Patience, he will get there.

“Soon, we shall provide the Six with a display of our faith by offering blood and skill in the Valencian Arena.” Varros swept his arm in the direction of the newly constructed gladiatorial arena to the roar of the plebs.

The festival drew people of every background New Rheynia had to offer. The earls, counts, and barons would be fools not to be present for anything the royal family attended, not to mention they all had vested interests with the tourney knights they sponsored or the merchant tents they owned. As much as this festival had to offer the patricians, it might have had even more for the plebeians. The plebs hadn’t had this much excitement since the New Rheynian games ended four moons past. They would flock for any street brawl or display of barbarism.

Danella never favored the gladiators’ brutality, but the common people craved it. The tournaments testing the knights’ skills were much more impressive to her… but they would be called to arms if war erupted.

That won’t happen. Varros will do what is right.

“Since the Treaty of 940…”

This is it! Say it, Varros: mages will not be exiled, but executed.

“…we have had twenty years of peace and prosperity. Salmantica and Valtarcia have come together, united under the Gods of Valencia.”

Danella stiffened, chewing the inside of her cheek. Six save me, that was a perfect opportunity. Varros, what are you waiting for?

“Now it is time for a Stockhelm great house to better serve the people of this land and give the plebeians a voice in the senate.”

Danella’s feet tapped beneath the cover of her dress. Don’t change the subject. The Treaty, bring it back to the Treaty.

“Today the two men—you, the people have chosen to contend for the right to be the Chancellor of Stockhelm—are here to present the titans their houses were founded upon.” The king referenced each side of the square as the gladiators entered.

Beasts of men, layered in muscle and painted with scars, bore the colors of their owners. In black-and-white armaments, the gladiators of Baron Ebron Brusos entered from the east end of the tourney grounds. To the west, Earl Lentulis Cassius’s men took position, clad in purple and gold.

“People of New Rheynia, join me in prayer as we praise the divine with a moment of silence.” The king’s words evoked a stillness that enraptured the entire world. Even the winds died, contributing in prayer.

Danella’s hands quavered. Please, for the love you bear me, please, Varros. Say it.

The silence stretched on until once again Varros broke it. “Gratitude. Now onto the festivities. To peace and prosperity.”

The crowd roared, drowning Danella’s hopes.

Fear’s cold, callused grip seized her heart. Then rage roiled in her stomach. That’s it? He didn’t say anything about the mage, about the exile being a kindness that would not be offered again. He didn’t say it!

She feared this, but now it was reality.

Varros sat on the throne beside her, and her façade returned.

“Not the right time,” Varros whispered, failing to meet her eyes.

It will never be the right time. Forgive me, my love, but you leave me no other choice. Danella brushed the crushed velvet of his sleeve, willing herself not to crack under the moment’s pressure. “Wonderful speech, my love.” She nearly choked on the words.

“Don’t patronize me.” Varros’s voice was as unyielding as a storm, but he refused to look her way. “It will never be enough, you know. Nothing I say can stop what’s been set in motion. Peace bought by blood seldom lasts, for vengeance knows no end.”

Danella coughed. A thousand questions flooded her mind, but one rose to the surface. “You won’t even try?”

His slate-blue eyes fell upon her like the nightly rains—restrained wrath behind a veil of secrets. She fell in love with those eyes, but now she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

What are you not telling me, my love? How many secrets do we hold between us?

He was so close she could reach out and touch him, but she’d never felt so far away.

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Varros slumped to the other side of his throne, pulling his arm away from her touch.

Her hopes crumbled to ash. So this is how it ends—how we end? She swallowed the grief of what she was about to do. The time for idle chat was over. Action needed to be taken. She couldn’t let him welcome the Return of the Judges.

Every person’s life was about to be torn apart. Death and destruction were inevitable. She set her jaw, preparing for the pain she was about to unleash.

Yet it will be the death and destruction I cause, not the Gods’ wrath. I will do what must be done to uphold the realm Father built. I’m sorry, but you’ve left me no choice.

Ser Daenus waited for her command, but once she gave it, the chain reaction that followed couldn’t be undone.

She recalled the omenators’ ritual. A snake and a mongoose fought to the death. The snake represented the Revivalists’ mission to restore the ways of Valencianism—the mongoose, Varros’s leniency. The Gods chose the winner, and the future of New Rheynia. She had hoped the mongoose would win, as it had time and time again, but even the Gods had lost faith in Varros. The mongoose succumbed to the snake’s poison. The Revivalists would win, and Varros, her husband, the man she loved, would die.

Her face flushed warm, and pressure built behind her eyes. She squeezed the arm of her throne, grounding herself. She was stone. No. Stronger than stone. Steel.

Family, faith, future.

She met Ser Daenus’s eyes and nodded. He returned the gesture and raised the standard of Varros’s sigil—the blue pegasus and the white chimera—the signal to cue the assassin.

No turning back now.

Chapter 2

The Revivalists

Laeden

Stockhelm

Iylea warded Laeden away with a gentle touch on his chest, separating his lips from hers. “I must be going. The queen will have noticed my absence.”

Laeden tugged her back into his arms. “The queen will forgive you.” He kissed the crook of her neck, glancing out to the path from their sequestered position between two pavilions.

Iylea stifled a giggle and squirmed away. “Why don’t you come with me? Shouldn’t the prince be with his family, viewing the Festival of Stockhelm from the pulvinus?”

Laeden shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “Damascus is with his family. They would never admit it, but it’s easier for them when I’m not seen.”

Iylea’s focus fell to her red-and-black maid’s dress, and Laeden lifted her chin to look into her yellow-green eyes. He caressed her heart-shaped cheek with his knuckle, brushing a dirty-blonde strand behind her ear.

He’d turned down a dozen patricians’ proposals to wed their second or third daughters. He wouldn’t be locked into a loveless political marriage or strong-armed into caring for senate squabbles and court drama. Those women were all the same, but Iylea was different. He didn’t care if she was a handmaiden—to him, she was the only one in the world.

“What will you do, then,” Iylea asked, “if you won’t join me on the pulvinus?”

“There is a friend I would have words with.”

Iylea waited, as if expecting him to continue, but Laeden didn’t want to divulge more. She wouldn’t ignore him as everyone else had whenever he mentioned the Revivalists, but it would make her worry.

She placed her hand on his bearded cheek. “Be careful, would you? This business with the Revivalists…”

Six, save me. Nothing gets past her. Laeden stroked the curve of her jaw with his index finger and kissed her forehead. “I can hide nothing from you, can I?”

Iylea blushed. “No, I suppose not. But perhaps it’s worth speaking with your father. One more time.”

Laeden bristled. A lot of good that’s done so far.

“Groups like the Revivalists rise and fall like the tide,” his father had said. “They get together, voice their frustrations, but then they go home. They go to work. Life goes on.”

That wasn’t a good reason to disregard them. Unlike the Salmantic patricians, Laeden listened to the disgruntled and fear-mongering plebs. They spoke of a holy war, reclaiming New Rheynia from the “Celestic King” who spat on the Treaty. Laeden didn’t agree with his father’s decision to exile the mage, but did that make his father Celestic? No.

“It’s idle talk, Laeden,” his half-brother, Damascus, had said. “Relax.”

Laeden wasn’t convinced. Crown prince he might be, but Damascus’s patrician-bred, castle-lifestyle didn’t send him to the bowels of the city to hear the idle talk for himself. Laeden heard the whispers, and though the Revivalists had yet to act, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t.

Circumventing his family, Laeden sought Ser Daenus’s aid, the queen’s bodyguard and Captain of the King’s Guard Knights. When asked, Ser Daenus said, “Should we arrest them? Bring them up on treason charges?” Then he broke out in laughter, calling Laeden paranoid.

Laeden ran his hands through his hair, pushing it behind his shoulder. “No one believes me, Iylea. Every time I voice my concerns, they treat me like a court jester.”

Iylea traced a Six Arrowed Star on the breast of his blue-and-gray tunic. “I believe you, Laeden, more than you know. Be safe.” Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips against his. “May the Six watch over you.”

They parted ways; Iylea returned to serve Laeden’s stepmother, the queen, while Laeden pulled his tattered traveling cloak tight to conceal his fine clothes beneath. Where he was going, it wouldn’t serve him to draw attention to himself.

These festivals were odd events—a combination of two worlds that didn’t belong together. The plebeians and patricians, the tourney knights and gladiators, the Salmantics and Valtarcians—they mixed like water and oil… or like Laeden and the patricians.

The vast fairgrounds housed tents displaying merchants’ wares—stages for dancers, jesters, and actors to perform—and the arena where the melee would happen that afternoon. An air of excitement swirled through the atmosphere, yet Laeden couldn’t help but sense sinister intentions. Large gatherings, such as these, were opportunities to make statements.

What kind of statement might the Revivalists try to make today?

Laeden scanned the armorer’s pavilion. His informant should have been waiting, but he was nowhere in sight. Laeden examined the sun’s position and drummed his fingers on his arm.

He stopped himself from running his fingers through his hair like his mother used to do when he was a nervous boy. Securing the hood of his disheveled cloak, he strode over to the armorer’s pavilion.

The black-and-gold lion insignia, signifying the patronage of Atonus Allos, the Royal Master at Arms, marked the pavilion as a patrician’s armorer. No pleb could afford any of this, but that didn’t stop Laeden from looking around while he waited. Fine swords and elegant armors were emblazoned with gemstones or engraved with sigils of New Rheynia’s great houses.

“Have anything with the falcon of House Faire?” Laeden asked, keeping his hood low, and the falcon tattooed on his forearm well covered. Having something with his mother’s sigil would grant him comfort, or at the very least distraction.

“Faire?” The merchant’s bald scalp wrinkled. “On the wrong side of the festival, pleb.”

Laeden ignored the barb and picked up a small throwing knife with the Six Arrowed Star of Valencianism embossed into its hilt.

Is there anything yet untouched by the Gods these days?

The hilt was heavy and solid, the blade four inches of obsidian death.

The merchant stalked over. “Put that down. You have no business touching anything you can’t afford.”

Laeden bit back a retort. Coin was the least of his worries—one of the few benefits that came with his father’s marriage to Danella Drake—but now wasn’t the time to brandish gold.

“Apologies.” Laeden put the blade back where he found it and retreated from the merchant, only to bump into the person he was waiting for.

Aelon Ironpine. That wasn’t the name he had growing up in Valtarcia’s lower city, but no longer was he the bright-eyed, mud-wrestling champion of the Vale. He was Salmantica’s most renowned tourney knight.

Aelon’s blue eyes twinkled with mischief as he sauntered past Laeden with the type of arrogance only a lauded tourney knight could possess. Wearing a fine red-and-black doublet embroidered with the chimera of House Drake, he appeared as if he ruled New Rheynia.

Aelon picked up the throwing knife Laeden had set down and examined it.

“Ah, Ser Aelon,” the merchant said. “It would be my honor if you were to wield any of my wares in the melee this afternoon. Is there anything you would like to see?”

“This blade,” Aelon said. “I’ll take it. Your finest sheath as well.”

“Of course, Ser Aelon. Right away.”

As the merchant hurried to find the appropriate sheath, Aelon scoffed at Laeden. “Imagine how quickly he’d move if he knew you were a Prince of New Rheynia?”

Laeden sank deeper into his hooded cloak. So much for being inconspicuous.

The merchant returned with the sheath, beaming. Aelon flipped the merchant a gold coin.

“Gratitude,” the merchant said, but frowned once Aelon handed Laeden the throwing knife.

“Let’s go,” Laeden said, dragging Aelon from the pavilion. “We have matters to discuss.”

Once they were far enough away from the pavilion, Laeden nudged Aelon in the ribs. “Was that necessary?”

“What good is celebrity if you can’t use it to dissatisfy people?” Aelon asked, brushing back his honey-colored hair. “If you wanted the knife, you could have just announced yourself, and he would have given you half his wares for the honor of looking at it.”

Laeden laughed it off, as he always did whenever his place in court was mentioned. He knew what they called him behind his back: a pseudo-prince. He wasn’t accepted by the patricians because of who his mother was—wherever she was now—but Laeden was proud of his heritage and didn’t envy his half-brother Damascus one bit.

“Perhaps, if I were Damascus,” Laeden said. “Besides, I don’t want anyone knowing about our conversation.”

Aelon lowered his brow. “Is that why you’re wearing such a soiled cloak? It’s certainly off-putting enough.”

The two walked through the excitement and glee of the fairgrounds. While it was good to see Aelon, the reason for their conversation was anything but joyous. Aelon joined the Revivalists when they first formed—the haphazard fool. Once he realized they weren’t just some social group, he was in too deep, but that made him Laeden’s ideal ally.

“Make way for Earl Lentulis Cassius!” a voice said from across the path. The people applauded as a dozen gladiators in purple-and-gold linens waved to the onlookers. The men were bestial giants, corded with muscle and covered in scars borne from hard training and the punishing lessons of the arena.

“Absolute carnage,” Aelon said, as they stood off to the side to let the procession of gladiators pass. “The old way has got to die at some point.”

“Tournaments have their place for the patricians, but the plebs will always idolize the gladiators,” Laeden said. “Can you blame them? We once watched the games together as boys.”

Gladiatorum was still a way of life for the plebs that kept the kingdom running. The plebs had free entertainment to divert their minds from the trivialities of their daily lives—a gift from the middle-class lanistas, who were honored to display barbaric shows to mingle with the patricians. In turn, the lords used the lanistas’ patronage to gain political influence within the senate to make appeals to the king. It was a broken system, but it worked as it was intended to.

“I suppose,” Aelon said. “Albeit a lifetime ago.”

“A lifetime, indeed,” Laeden said. “But without the ludi to keep the plebs happy, the great houses wouldn’t receive the coin that goes to paying the pampered tourney knights to ride around on horses and poke one another with wood.”

“Harsh.” Aelon paused, then snorted. “But if it keeps me getting paid, I’ll take it.”

They secreted themselves between two canopied pavilions—out of sight and beyond earshot, if they remained discreet.

Laeden wiped sweaty palms on his britches. “What can you tell me of the Revivalists?”

Aelon took a deep breath. “Laeden, don’t get involved. It’s dangerous enou—”

Laeden gave him a leveling stare. “You said you’d help. Why else are we here?”

Aelon scuffed the ground with his finely cobbled boots. “Hoped you’d recall what friendship was.”

Laeden exhaled. “Come on, Aelon. Tell me.”

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Aelon asked, but Laeden’s tapping foot was his only answer. “Fine then,” Aelon said. “You were right. The Revivalists are planning an attack. Today—during the melee.”

A rush of exhilaration filled him. The naysayers were wrong. “Chimera’s breath, I knew it.” His father didn’t listen. None of the senators would hear him absent a marriage to their daughters. Damascus would hear none of it. Even the guards were ignorant. But Laeden was right.

“This is serious,” Aelon said, putting his hand on Laeden’s shoulder. He seldom inflected sternness in his tone, but there was no denying it.

“What can you tell me?” Laeden asked, settling his fraying nerves. “What kind of attack? A specific target, general chaos?”

“You don’t understand.” The apple in Aelon’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes darting back and forth before whispering, “They’re going to assassinate your father.”

Laeden’s jaw fell agape, and his stomach seized. No… He furrowed his brow. They would be so bold as to attack the king in broad daylight? And you weren’t going to tell me? There would be time for that later, but not now. The Revivalists needed to be stopped.

Laeden stepped closer. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

Laeden growled. “Tell me what you do know.”

The audacity… Kill the king? Laeden understood the Revivalists’ frustrations after his father had disregarded the mandates of the Treaty of 940, but to assassinate him?

“There will be some sort of diversion, but the strike will come from one of the handmaidens.”

The apprehension coiling within his gut struck like a serpent. As if venom flooded his bloodstream, Laeden remained transfixed—paralyzed. Iylea… Laeden fought through his shock and whipped around, making his way to the pulvinus with Aelon on his heels.

“Which handmaiden?” Laeden asked.

It couldn’t be Iylea, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his father was the target. He needed to stop the Revivalists.

“I don’t know,” Aelon said. “But slow down.” He grabbed Laeden by the wrist and yanked him off the path. “You can’t take on the Revivalists by yourself. This is madness, even for me. Six, when did I become the voice of reason? Just warn the guards to be on the lookout.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? They won’t listen to me. Only I can stop this now.”

“Why do you think I didn’t want to tell you? You’re going to get yourself killed, or worse—me!”

Laeden put his hands on his hips and pursed his lips. Aelon was right, but Laeden needed help. Allies, trustworthy ones, were difficult to find. The only ray of light was that the melee wouldn’t begin until later in the day.

“What can I do to help?” Aelon asked.

Laeden appreciated Aelon’s concern, but he’d already helped enough. Without this information, Laeden’s father was as good as dead. “Last I checked, you’re still Aelon Ironpine. You’ll be in this melee, no?”

“Winning it, but yes, I—”

“Gratitude, but I need to find more inconspicuous aid.” Laeden surveyed the fairgrounds, searching for any semblance of help. Priests enrobed in fanciful vestments knelt before the statues of the Six. No chance. Squires buffed their knights’ armor to a radiant shine. Too busy.

“What will you do?” Aelon asked.

In the distance, on the outskirts of the festival, a row of wagons pulled to a halt. Not just any wagons—slavers’ wagons. Laeden slid his coin purse from his belt. “I’m going to buy the most desperate man I can find and make good use of him.”

Chapter 3

A Note, A Prophecy, And So Much Death

Zephyrus II

Stockhelm

Shackled. Prodded. Beaten. Zephyrus, Patrus, and the rest of those discovered at Tharseo’s Bastion were transported—first by boat, then by wagon—to be delivered to the flesh dealers. They weren’t the only ones. Zephyrus sat in a cramped wagon amidst a line of others, each filled to capacity, with the long faces of soon-to-be slaves as they bumped along the rocky road.

Patrus hummed a tune, deep and slow. His eyes closed, face a veil of utter calm.

Zephyrus tried to yank his manacled hands apart, but the chain would not give. He maintained a stoic expression, but on the inside, a tempest roared. Swirling questions encircled him. The Templar, the Warlocks, the letter to the king. And that was just the beginning. The prophecy—the Wielder, the Harbinger. But most oppressive was the emptiness beside him.

Threyna is dead.

“Patrus,” Zephyrus said. “She’s gone.” He clenched his hands into fists, despite the pain inflicted by the Seers’ blood sacrifice. His bandaged hands were stained crimson, both with his and Threyna’s blood. “Why did she do that?”

Patrus returned from his reverie. “It’s okay, Zeph. We’re okay. We’ll get out of this.”

He wanted to believe him. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“That slaver,” Zephyrus said. “The one who…” His voice faltered. No sound came forth. He swallowed the knot in his throat. “He said I was going to get it worse than her… ‘Two Rheynians at a Celestic Temple.’ What’s that mean?”

Patrus took a deep breath. “You were born Rheynian, but you’re not a Valencian. You took to the Judges, and they have chosen you. But don’t worry about that. You’re not gonna end up like her. We’re getting out of this.”

“How?” Zephyrus asked, his voice a low growl amongst the whimpering captives.

“Your prophecy,” Patrus said.

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s ears. He wished he could remember something about the Judges, their treasures, the Return, or any of what was going on. “What does it mean? The Wielder? The Harbinger?”

“And the Herald,” Patrus said. “Burn me, that tea messed you up, eh?” He huffed. “The Three Prophets of the Return. We of the Arcane Templar have protected the Treasures, makin’ sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands, waitin’ for the one to be named the Wielder and gather the treasures of Stockhelm, free the people, and save us from the Rheynians. The Herald will commune with the Gods and weaken our enemies. And the Harbinger—the Judges’ wrath incarnate will usher in The Age of the End.”

Zephyrus’s head fell into his hands. The chain of his manacles clinked together as the wagon bounced over the bumpy road. His mind wanted to piece the overload of information into digestible quantities, but it was too abstract, intangible. Familiar, but distant in the faraway reaches of his shattered mind.

“You said I was to turn the tides of this war,” Zephyrus said. “Why? You said I could ‘do’ things prior to the slavers bursting through the door. What did you mean?”

Patrus shook his head, short and fast. His eyes darted side to side before leaning close, his voice no louder than a breath. “Can’t talk about that here.”

Of course. Zephyrus pulled the letter from his pocket, his patience waning thin. “What about this? Can you talk about this?”

“I told ya to get rid of that,” Patrus said, reaching to snatch it away.

Zephyrus pulled it back. It was the one piece of tangible evidence that suggested who Zephyrus was. He wasn’t going to get rid of it. “This says the exact opposite of the prophecies. You called me the Wielder—to find the Treasures and free the people. But this says I’m an emissary of peace. That we won’t seek the Treasures or vengeance, let alone bring about ‘the Age of the End.’”

The wrinkles framing Patrus’s face hardened, and his dark eyes burned like coals, but he moved his hand with tender care, cupping the back of Zephyrus’s neck. The heavy chain binding his hands hung between them. He pulled Zephyrus close until the crowns of their heads were resting against one another. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry this is happenin’ to ya, but I’m on your side. Ya gotta trust me.”

The anger and frustration within him broke like a dam. Embraced in Patrus’s protection, Zephyrus blew out a trembling breath. His face flushed warm; his eyes and nose began to water.

Patrus gave his neck a squeeze. “Fate ain’t always fair. Burn it—rarely is it ever. I wish it weren’t the case, but this is no time for peace. We’re at war.” He pressed his index finger into Zephyrus’s chest. “You—a Rheynian boy, but a man of Celestia. You are our hope. When that scale filled…” He shook his head. “I knew they’d choose you. But seein’ it with my own eyes, proudest moment of my life. We’re in this together. You and me. And we’re gonna get out of this, ya hear me?”

Patrus’s speech layered more pressure upon Zephyrus’s shoulders, but at the same time, it gave him the support to bear it. I’m not alone. Zephyrus nodded, their heads still joined together. Patrus gave Zephyrus a pat on the back of the neck and let go to meet his eyes.

“So what’s the plan?” Zephyrus asked.

Patrus squinted his eyes and bit his lower lip. “I know I called ya the Wielder, but truth is… I don’t know which of the Three you are. Your prophecy shared words or even lines from each of the prophecies of the Three.” He shrugged. “I’m no scholar, but I know what these people believe you could be. The Wielder is a symbol to rally behind, but you gotta lean into it. Help fate along. If you take that step, these folk will follow you anywhere.”

Zephyrus blew his lips out and rested the back of his head against the jarring wall of the wagon. Patrus was right; it wasn’t fair, but he didn’t want to be enslaved or end up like Threyna.

“I’ll be your Wielder,” Zephyrus said. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“That’s the first step of faith,” Patrus said, half a smile cracking across his face. “For now, just listen.” He cleared his throat and began to sing in a deep voice. As he sang, his voice grew louder, and the groans of the other captives ceased. After a few lines, many joined in to add their voices to the choir.

Oh Judge, hear me. I am the seed, give me your love to grow like the trees.

Oh Judge, believe. I will redeem all of those who gave up on thee.

Back in the lands we once called home,

where balance ruled and mothers would sow.

We will return, we will return.

Oh Judge, see me, I am in need. Give me the strength to help the weak.

Oh Judge, believe. I will succeed, lifting up those on fallen knees.

Back in the lands we once called home,

where balance ruled and fathers came home.

We will return, we will return.

Oh Judge, tell me, where I find the Three,

to take back what’s ours!

Oh Judge, believe, I will defeat those who sought to make us bleed.

We will return. The Judges return.1

The melancholic rise and fall of the tune matched the lyrics in a wonderfully tragic story of faith, redemption, and inspiration. A swell of camaraderie overwhelmed him, joining him with those he suffered alongside. Whether he was the Wielder or not, he could help these people.

“Do you really think we can escape?” a man asked Patrus. He wasn’t one of the ritualists from Tharseo’s Bastion, but the same chains bound him.

“Of course we can,” Patrus said. “All is possible with the Judges.” He put a hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “We have the Wielder.”

“That didn’t help us when the slavers came,” said a woman from the Celestic temple.

“We were outnumbered then,” Patrus said. “He surrendered to save our lives. Isn’t that right, Wielder?”

Zephyrus’s mouth dried up like a desert.

Give them something to believe in.

He didn’t believe it himself, but if it meant freedom and answers, he would play the part Patrus presented him with.

Zephyrus forced himself to swallow. “There are more of us now, and many more in the wagons ahead and behind. We will escape.” He looked at the letter A branded into Patrus’s forearm. “You were once a slave, Patrus. How did you escape?”

“Burn me,” Patrus said, massaging his temples.

“That’s the mark of Invinius Auros.” A man pointed at Patrus’s brand. “He freed his slaves. You didn’t escape.”

The rest of the people in their wagon deflated. Hope was a fickle thing. Patrus nodded at Zephyrus and gestured to the rest of the wagon’s occupants, as if willing him to do something—anything to regain the crowd.

To make them believe, I must first. Zephyrus hammered the wooden seat with his joined fists. “Patrus might not have escaped slavery, but he found freedom, and so will we.”

His outburst jarred the captives from their self-pity. Sullen gazes rose to meet his eyes. Now I’ve got their attention, but I must stoke this flame.

“Freedom is only found by those who seek,” Zephyrus said. “Will you seek?” The long faces on the group of bound men and women tightened into stern looks of determination. “Freedom only answers the door for those who knock. Will you knock?” Heads nodded, and mouths lifted words of praise to the Judges. “I will not go passively into slavery. I will fight. But what will you do? Will you wait for the chains of servitude to destroy you? Or will you join us? Who is with me?”

“To freedom!” Patrus said.

Trembling hands tightened to fists. Quivering lips became shouts of resolve. More and more, the cowed men and women rose from despair and set their purpose on the horizon.

“We fight,” Patrus said. “But we’re not an army. First chance you get, you run. Help each other, and by the grace of the Judges, we will make it out of this.”

“For the Judges!” Zephyrus said, and the others joined in the call.

Patrus clapped Zephyrus on the shoulder. “If this ain’t the Act of the Shepherd, I’m not sure what is.” His crow’s feet spread as his grin widened.

Zephyrus returned the sentiment, but the smile never reached his heart. Although Patrus was right that the people would draw strength from him leaning into his prophecy, that didn’t ease his vacillations or assuage his doubts. Nor did it help him recall these Acts Patrus kept referring to.

One thing at a time. For now, we fight. And that I can do.

The wagon rolled to a halt. Beyond the wooden doors, a calamity of voices, the groaning and snorting of horses, and the clash of steel overwhelmed him. When the wagon doors swung open, Zephyrus stepped into a whole new world. The sun loomed overhead, illuminating a circus of pandemonium. Wagons filled with soon-to-be slaves unloaded before a stage where onlookers bid on people, shaking fists of coins at the auctioneer. Past the stage, pastel-colored pavilions housed exquisite linens, metal suits of arms, and weapons of every style. Dancers twirled ribbons through the alleys between pavilions, filing onto a stage of actors and singers.

Is this some kind of celebration?

Bile climbed to his throat. He expected this slave trade to be some seedy underground business, not an attraction at the local fairgrounds. He was certain, even before losing his memories, he never saw anything like this before—at least he hoped not.

Men and women, in whatever mismatched clothing they wore during their abduction, cowered on the stage before the bidding slave owners. One by one, they were escorted to their new masters like sheep toward a lifelong slaughter. The slaves outnumbered the slavers three to one in this area of the fair. If they all fought together their chances would be significantly greater, but too many faces were long with accepted defeat. One after the other, they were sold off for just a few coins. They needed something to believe in.

I’m not alone, Zephyrus reminded himself. He took solace in Patrus’s composure. We’re gonna get out of this.

“Next up, martial men!” the auctioneer said, gesturing to two broad-backed men. One with a square jaw and thick, angled brows, the other as slender as a sword with piercings through his ears. “Carsos and Ixion—sound additions to any ludus. These future gladiators might be the next champions of New Rheynia! See the bloodlust in their eyes? How many will fall beneath their blades? You could be the owner of one of these titans.”

Gladiators. The slaver who robbed Threyna of life said this would be his fate. A fate worse than hers. He shook his head. No. I will escape this fate or die trying. Sweat beaded on his brow and down his back, but he was determined.

“We make for the pavilions,” Patrus said. “Once you see an opening, you run, ya hear? You run, and you don’t look back ‘til you’re clear.”

Zephyrus bit his lip and nodded.

“Fifty silver for Ixion,” a slaver said.

But as Zephyrus examined the crowd, the slaver who spoke was a native of Stockhelm.

“Fifty to the bodyslave of House Brusos,” the auctioneer said. “Do I hear sixty?”

Zephyrus bristled. Even the slaves are buying slaves? Anger bubbled from his belly to his brow. How is this possible?

Another man bid, then another, each raising the cost of the fighting slaves until a hunched man with thin gray hair and a crooked smile stepped forward. “200 for both slaves.”

Gasps filled the crowd at the amount he was willing to pay, but the casual callousness with which he spoke made Zephyrus grind his teeth. He so flippantly bought people like they were clay pots. Zephyrus would not be a clay pot or any tool that served these vile people.

“Sold to Liario of House Cassius!” the auctioneer declared. “The Head Lanista only grows stronger, leaving Brusos empty-handed… again!”

The crowd sniggered.

Patrus leaned in. “We’re next.”

The slavers pushed them onto the platform. Men pointed and jeered, bidding on them by shaking coin purses in their direction.

Threyna’s blood on Zephyrus’s hands made him wonder if she knew something he didn’t.

She fought to the end to escape this.

“Next, we have several slaves who were found at the heretic island temple,” the auctioneer said. He gestured at Zephyrus and Patrus. “Two of which slew nearly a dozen men between them. We will start the bidding at 200. Each.”

Patrus and Zephyrus exchanged a glance. Anxiety bubbled in his stomach. Sweat clung to his tunic. He closed his eyes, only to see the slaver’s blade carve across Threyna’s throat. If he fought, he was far more likely to receive a spear in the guts than reach the pavilions. But if he stayed, he and Patrus would be enslaved—a fate worse than death.

No turning back.

Zephyrus began to sing. The other slaves from their wagon joined him. “Oh Judge, believe, I will defeat those who sought to make us bleed.”

The jeering crowd fell silent. The auctioneer’s eyes widened. “Guards, silence them!”

Zephyrus stepped to the edge of the dais. “I am the Wielder. Follow me to freedom!”

He leapt from the stage and charged at the nearest slaver. The others from his wagon followed, shouting in unified chaos as the slavers scrambled to stop them. Zephyrus surveyed the other wagons. Their success was contingent on more than just their number to join the fray.

A moment passed. Then another. With a roar, another wagon of manacled men and women began to rebel. One after the other, more lifted fists in defiance, and order devolved into mayhem.

Zephyrus’s momentary relief ended as a slaver stepped in front of him. Instincts took over, and he bowled into the slaver, shoving him onto his back. Bidders stepped out of the way, afraid of what he was capable of.

Zephyrus rounded the stage and looked to the pavilions. If we get to the fairgrounds, we can hide. Make our escape. Zephyrus sprinted, his worn leather soles pounding the dirt path to his chance at freedom.

A slaver armed with a short sword jumped in front of him, cutting off his escape. “Halt!”

Zephyrus didn’t stop. He charged at the slaver rearing back his sword. The slaver’s steel swept horizontally, attempting to cleave him in two. Zephyrus slid underneath it on his knees, then popped to his feet.

He was the wind. The wind could not be cut. He clenched both fists. He was stone. Within his shackles, he swung both hands into the slaver’s cheek like a hammer. The slaver fell to the ground, sputtering and unable to breathe. Zephyrus resumed his flight to the pavilions, but Patrus wasn’t behind him.

Zephyrus skidded to a stop and wheeled around. Chained men and women ran amok. Slavers gave chase to corral them, but Patrus was nowhere to be seen. Zephyrus scanned the tumultuous scene until he found Patrus behind an unopened wagon.

Patrus pulled the lever and swung the doors wide, waving for the imprisoned to flee to safety. That damned fool…

Zephyrus turned to the pavilions in the distance leading to freedom and the uncertain future. He whipped back to find Patrus again. Not only did Patrus hold the key to unlocking Zephyrus’s amnesia, he meant something to him. He didn’t need his memories to know that Patrus was more than just his friend—a brother in arms, a mentor, a father-figure.

I can’t leave Patrus.

Patrus unhitched a horse from its bridle and slapped its rump. The horse reared and charged into a group of armed reinforcements. The guards scattered, but their leader directed them right at Patrus.

Burn me!

Zephyrus charged back into the center of the slavers’ auction as guards reformed around Patrus. At full speed, Zephyrus sidestepped another slave fleeing in the opposite direction, jumped over a downed guard, and closed in on Patrus. Patrus opened another locked wagon and ushered the prisoners into the madness.

Before Zephyrus could reach Patrus, a guard with an iron half-helm and black leather armor leveled a spear at Zephyrus’s belly. “Don’t move!”

“Patrus!” Zephyrus shouted.

“On your knees!”

Patrus spun to lock eyes with Zephyrus, but he was too far away. Upheaval, everywhere. Fighting, fleeing, chaos—chaos he caused. Zephyrus knelt down and put his hands up. His fear vanished. His resolve was all that remained, but the guard didn’t know that.

The guard raised his spear point. “Hands on your hea—”

Zephyrus lurched to his feet and lunged at the approaching guard. The guard’s eyes widened as he repositioned his spear to thrust. Too late. Zephyrus wrapped the spear shaft in his manacles. With a pivot, he wrenched the spear from the unsuspecting guard, casting it to the ground, but another advanced. Zephyrus raised his manacled chains to catch a vertical slash of the approaching guard’s short sword. Out of the corner of his eye, a third stabbed at him with his sword. Zephyrus lurched out of the way, diving to the ground outside of their reach.

Where did they come from?

The newest swordsman leered at him. Blond hair framed his thin face and crooked nose. The slaver who murdered Threyna. “You just don’t know when to quit.”

Distracted by the slaver, he barely sidestepped a stabbing spear. Reeling, Zephyrus ducked and stepped over the advances of the two guards and the slaver. He kicked the slaver away and rolled inside the spearman’s reach to work his way around the spearman’s backside. Wrapping the chain of his manacles around the guard’s throat, Zephyrus forced the guard to drop his spear. Zephyrus torqued at the last moment to use the guard as a human shield, blocking the slaver’s incoming stab. The disarmed spearman screamed as the slaver’s short sword pierced his belly. Zephyrus dropped the screaming spearman and picked up his fallen weapon.

With the advantage of reach, Zephyrus pressed the guard back, jabbing, slashing, and thrusting with fury. The spear felt like an extension of his arm, a part of him he couldn’t imagine ever being without. The guard fell, leaving only Threyna’s murderer to stand between Zephyrus and Patrus.

“You’ll never win,” the slaver said. “Even if you defeat me, you’ll nev—”

Zephyrus hurled the spear at the slaver’s leg. He attempted to swat it aside, but the spear pierced his thigh, protruding out the back of his leg. He howled in pain, but Zephyrus was already on him. He tore the sword that slew Threyna from the slaver’s hands and spun, building momentum. The sword slashed across the slaver’s neck. Through flesh and bone, the steel sang, sending the slaver’s head rolling to the ground in a spray of gore.

“That was for Threyna.”

Zephyrus dropped the sword and retrieved his spear, but Patrus had already moved on, deeper into the slavers’ auction. He helped two young children out of yet another wagon. Zephyrus turned to the pavilions in the distance.

“First chance, run…” Why didn’t Patrus take his own advice?

With freedom so close, it felt foolish to go back. But with Patrus nowhere near safety, Zephyrus couldn’t leave.

Most of the freed people were running for the fairgrounds or the shoreline, but some had seized weapons. Their plan had worked, but none of it mattered if he and Patrus couldn’t escape. Zephyrus ground his teeth and pushed onward, cutting down every slaver on his way to Patrus. Patrus helped a little girl over a wooden fence about twenty paces away. Already, a number of those still chained had made it beyond the fence to descend the dunes to the coast below.

He’s going to get us killed…

A guard clad in purple and gold swung his short sword at Zephyrus’s midsection. Zephyrus lifted his spear to block, but the shaft cracked in two under the stress of the blow. He kicked the guard away and countered with two jabs. The guard chopped down, blocking Zephyrus’s thrust, but when his steel met the shaft, the spear shattered.

“Kneel!” the guard said, poised to strike. Just then, Patrus charged into the guard’s back, catapulting him, face first, to the ground. The sword flew from the guard’s grasp. Zephyrus seized the sword and buried it into the prone guard’s back.

“You were supposed to make for the pavilions,” Patrus said over the dying guard’s wails. A wall of pikemen, clad in black scale armor, closed in, blocking off the road to the pavilions. “Too late now.”

Those Patrus helped escape ran down the beach, and while some guards gave chase, others remained to make sure no one else had the opportunity to run. They were trapped.

“Fate has led us here,” Patrus said, taking a deep breath. “Drop your sword, Zeph. We surrender.”

“Surrender?” Zephyrus didn’t let go of the sword. He scoured the landscape, searching for a way out, but there were none. Guards, some in black scale, others in purple and gold, closed in on all sides. Other slaves, who had yet to flee, were cowed, forced to their bellies, and hogtied. Nearly a dozen guards surrounded the two of them.

No. This can’t be happening.

Patrus knelt down and put his hands up. “Put it down, Zeph. It’s over.”

“Drop the blade!” a guard in black scale said. “Down on your knees.”

“Six hells, enough!”

The soft sound of steel biting into flesh was accompanied by a forced breath of air. Zephyrus whirled in horror to find a guard in a purple-and-gold surcoat standing over Patrus’s kneeling form.

On his knees with his hands up, Patrus’s eyes widened. His jaw fell open. Blood spilled down the front of his tunic. The guard’s blade was buried to the hilt in Patrus’s shoulder, its point protruding out of his belly.

“No!” A wave of incomprehensible emotions flooded Zephyrus. Memories rich with love, respect, and admiration entered into his mind, overwhelmed his heart, and dissolved in his hands like ash, leaving nothing to take hold of. Beyond the man himself, the vault of truth and memories that he represented swayed in the throes of death.

Patrus mouthed something to him, but Zephyrus couldn’t make out the words. A whirlwind of fear, guilt, and fury replaced the emotions he couldn’t process.

Rage exploded in his chest with each beat of his heart. The soldiers shouted, but he didn’t care. He dodged a thrust, blocked a hack, and countered with a flurry of jabs and slashes, landing one in his nearest adversary’s neck; he fell to Zephyrus’s feet, screaming as he died.

The swordsman who butchered Patrus removed his blade, letting Patrus fall prone.

Zephyrus erupted in a blood-curdling cry and charged the swordsman, stabbing with reckless abandon. The swordsman deflected, but now, the surrounding soldiers were just toying with him. One spear sliced across Zephyrus’s back. Pain raced through the flesh between his shoulder blades. Zephyrus roared, turning to meet them. He blocked another thrust, swiping the tip aside and down, plunging it into the earth. He jumped on the downed spear, fracturing the shaft. Spinning, he slashed at the other pikeman’s face, catching him in the chin and sending him sprawling to the ground. But the swordsman struck.

Fire slashed diagonally along Zephyrus’s chest as the blade blazed a red comet across his tunic. He blocked another thrust, another slash, and made space for himself. But more soldiers closed in, replacing the fallen.

Patrus lay prone on the ground. Zephyrus begged to see signs of life, but his motionless dead eyes stared through him. The blood in Zephyrus’s veins became viscous.

He lost.

It was over. The swords closed in. Zephyrus dropped to his knees at Patrus’s side. He reached for Patrus’s still body. With Threyna’s blood on Zephryus’s hands, the puddle pooling beneath Patrus’s body was even more painful. Zephyrus touched his fallen friend’s shoulder, not knowing the full extent of what he lost.

The swordsman who murdered Patrus sauntered over to Zephyrus, his bloodied blade leading the way. He had a squashed nose and black hair peppered gray at his temples. A smug smile stretched across his face.

“Any last words?”

Zephyrus closed his eyes trying to see in his mind’s eye what Patrus tried to say to him. With Patrus’s last breath, he mouthed the word “live.”

Zephyrus didn’t want to. He’d rather die a free man with a quick death than suffer a lifetime in slavery.

“You can’t die,” a voice whispered. “You will be my chosen Prophet, but first, you must be an Emissary of Peace.”

Zephyrus swallowed. Pain lanced through his stomach. No one around him spoke these words, but they echoed in his mind.

“Who are you?” Zephyrus channeled back.

“I am Vykannis the Brave,” the voice said. “The last Judge of Celestia.”

His stomach twisted at the words, nearly doubling him over.

“Pull the scroll from your pocket. Live. And together, we will remake the world.”

Zephyrus didn’t understand. He couldn’t. But at the behest of one of the Judges, he reached into his pocket and pulled the scroll addressed to the King of New Rheynia.

“I am a gift to King Varros Helixus,” Zephyrus said, holding up the scroll, his stomach still roiling. His fingers, sticky with his, Threyna’s, and Patrus’s blood, stained the parchment.

The guards didn’t seem to care. Their blades closed in.

This was the end. He had failed. Fate had failed. Even Vykannis, a Judge of Celestia, was not enough to help Zephyrus fulfill Patrus’s dying plea. He closed his eyes, ready to die, fate and purpose left unfulfilled.

“Stop!” A man stepped forward, clad in a travel-worn cloak with the hood covering his face. He pulled back the cloak to reveal an elegant blue-and-gray doublet.

“Prince Laeden?” The auctioneer pushed through the guards to follow.

The prince had shoulder-length brown hair and a close-shaven beard. He held his hands out to stay the steel directed at Zephyrus, but the guards and slavers kept their weapons level.

“What did you say?” Prince Laeden asked Zephyrus.

Zephyrus eyed the prince.

“Repeat after me,” Vykannis said, “I am a gift.”

“I’m a gift,” Zephyrus said. The knots in his stomach constricted.

“For King Varros Helixus.”

Repeating Vykannis’s words, Zephyrus extended the scroll to Laeden. The prince plucked the bloody scroll from Zephyrus’s fingers and read it, his eyes darting left and right over the bloodied parchment.

Laeden turned to the auctioneer. “Name your price, but he will not be harmed. He’s leaving with me.”

“Prince Laeden,” the auctioneer said, “I know it’s not customary for a distinguished patrician such as yourself to frequent the trade, but this is… unprecedented. This slave incited a riot. Men are dead and slaves escaped because of him. He should be stoned on the Six Arrowed Star for his crimes against the Six.”

“Chimera’s breath,” Laeden said. “Precedence be damned. I said lower. Your. Weapons.”

One by one, the surrounding swords thirsting for his blood slunk back to their scabbards.

“Another chance at life, Zephyrus,” Vykannis said. Each word echoed in Zephyrus’s mind, sending a sharp pang through his gut. “Do you still deny your fate?”

A note, a prophecy, and so much death, but still alive. He should have been grateful. But the Judges chose the wrong man. Patrus lay dead, Zephyrus kneeling in his blood.

“Live,” Patrus had said, but Zephyrus wished he were dead too.

To hear The Rebels’ Rhyme, flip to the final page and scan the QR code.

Chapter 4

Handmaidens

Laeden II

Stockhelm

“You’ve certainly made a mess of things,” Laeden said to the most expensive slave ever purchased in the history of New Rheynia. He handed him his travel-worn cloak. They stood between the temples on the far side of the fairgrounds, as far away from the commotion as possible. The only passersby were the Faceless—the black-clad, masked servants who dedicated their lives to the Six.

The slave didn’t say a word. His fiery eyes were cloaked in smoke after the ordeal, smoldering as he eyed the statues of the Gods. Besides his eyes, his face was just as expressive as the Faceless’s masks.

This was the largest mass escape of slaves since the Treaty. The auctioneer said nearly fifty escaped, half as many were retained, and the remainder were killed. Laeden had to pay for the whole lot of them to walk away with the man’s life, but the Gods were at work. Laeden was never particularly devout in his faith in the Six, but he wasn’t foolish enough to ignore when they made their presence known. Coin would come and go, but fate—that was something he couldn’t afford to waste.

“What is your name?” Laeden asked.

The slave stared at his boots, covering himself in Laeden’s tattered cloak. “Zephyrus.”

Laeden held the bloody note up to him. “Who gave you this, Zephyrus?”

Zephyrus didn’t meet his gaze. Didn’t speak.

Laeden drummed his fingers against his thigh and pursed his lips. “My father’s name is on this letter. The Gods sent me to the slavers’ market, and there I find you—the ringleader of the largest slave outbreak in history, with a note declaring you an emissary of peace.”

Nothing. The slave might as well have been listening to the wind.

Fate can be downright insufferable at times…

“I’ll ask you again,” Laeden said, his patience and his time waning. “Who gave you this? Who is AVR?”

Still nothing…

“If you’d rather, I can deliver you back to the slavers. I’m sure they’d be happy to hold an execution to—”

“I don’t know,” Zephyrus said, his voice as cold and flat as a block of ice cut from the Silver Summits. “I don’t remember anything before waking up at Tharseo’s Bastion.”

“Chimera’s breath…” Laeden considered this. The man could fight, that much was clear, but the letter spoke of the Judges’ vengeance and the Treasures of Stockhelm. With fair skin and red hair, Zephyrus looked more Rheynian than the Six Arrowed Star.

“I will deliver you to my father,” Laeden said, “but for now, you work for me.”

“And why would I do that?” Zephyrus asked.

Laeden hmphed. “Because you need protection from the slavers. I separate you from the slavers’ justice—and they will be seeking it, I promise you that. They won’t challenge you if you are in service to me, but, in exchange, you will help me defend my father.”

Zephyrus ran his bandaged palm over his red hair tied back in a shaggy knot. Caked with blood, he looked like he’d been through all Six Hells and back.

Zephyrus rubbed his scruffy beard with the back of his hand. “What’s to stop me from running?”

Laeden snorted. He reached past Zephyrus, pointing with his index finger. “See those two, there, in the yellow cloaks? They’re Jackals, a branch of the King’s Vigiles who hunt down escaped slaves. You’ve given them quite a bit of work to do. They’ll be howling for the rest of the week with all the bounties they’ll collect. You can run, but escaped slaves tend not to remain as such for very long.”

The two Jackals dragged the body of a dead man toward the slavers’ market. Alive or dead, it made no matter—Laeden’s point was made.

Zephyrus bit his lip, watching the dragged slave. “If I work for you and fail?”

“You won’t,” Laeden said, patting Zephyrus’s shoulder. “For if you fail, and my father should fall, he won’t need you as a gift. And I will have no more use for you.”

“The strike will come from one of the handmaidens,” Aelon had said. Laeden couldn’t let that happen. He lost his mother as a boy. He wouldn’t lose his father too.

Examining the pulvinus, everything appeared as it should. Iylea attempted to conceal her grin as she spotted him, pouring a goblet of wine for the king and queen. The King’s Guard Knights stood close, everyone on edge since the slave outbreak. But other than that, no one—handmaidens included—gave reason to rouse suspicion.

Someone will look conspicuous. Someone must. But no one did. He tried to think which of the queen’s attendants might have a motive, but nothing came to him. The least he could do was talk to his father again. He wished to ask of this AVR person, but that would have to wait until the Revivalists’ plots were foiled. If fate brought Zephyrus to him, fate would keep his father alive.

Laeden waited to speak with his father while Pelitus, commander of the Jackals, clad in black-and-gold armor, addressed the king.

“Many got away, your grace, but we will scour the countryside and recapture every last one. Captain Heclan Allos has assured me that we will have the Vigiles and the Lions’ support in making certain all slaves are brought to justice.”

“Six save us,” Queen Danella said, putting a hand to her chest. “That’s what all that noise was—a rebellion?”

“Not a rebellion,” King Varros said, “just a few people seeking freedom.”

“That’s how all rebellions start,” Danella said, in a quieter tone, speaking more to herself.

“They rallied behind someone who claimed to be the Wielder,” Pelitus said, his beady eyes darting back and forth between the king and queen.

Danella leaned forward in her throne. “A Prophet of Celestia?”

“A man,” Laeden said, stepping forward. “Just like any other.” Almost imperceptibly, his stepmother’s eyebrows narrowed. “Many escaped to the beaches, heading to the southern jungles. They will be caught, and the rebellion will be over; however, there is something I would like to discuss of a more urgent nature. Father, a word, before the festivities commence?”

King Varros nodded to Pelitus in dismissal, then raised his goblet to the parade of gladiators entering the temporary arena. “My son, the festivities have already begun.”

“Just a moment of your time, your grace.” Laeden never called his father by his title. He hoped it would be a subtle enough cue that this wasn’t a laughing matter.

His father smiled and motioned Laeden to come closer.

“A private moment,” Laeden said. He whispered so not even the queen beside him could hear, “It pertains to the Revivalists.”

His father sat back and fixed Laeden with a reproachful glare. “I believe nothing more needs to be said on the matter.”

Laeden pursed his lips and exhaled through his nostrils. Of course. Why would you ever listen to me? If Damascus brought this to your attention, would you dismiss him too?

Laeden stood up, straightening his doublet. King Varros was many things—charismatic, competent, honorable, and always fair—but he was also ignorant and mercilessly stubborn. This was not the time for those qualities to present themselves. Being dismissed was nothing new to Laeden, but that didn’t mean he liked it. This would have to be done the hard way.

“Your grace,” Laeden said with a bow.

What good is being a prince without the power to protect anyone? He scoffed at himself. Pseudo-prince.

As Laeden turned from his father, he saw Markus Cassius waving from the other end of the pulvinus. He gestured to an open seat beside him.

Seeing that his father wouldn’t listen, Laeden hoped Markus might be more accommodating. Making his way past Damascus and his guests, Laeden approached Markus. He took his seat and turned to see Zephyrus, still at his post.

When Laeden had filled Zephyrus in on the Revivalists’ plot, he realized Zephyrus was telling the truth about his lack of memory. From social hierarchy and etiquette to common history and current events, Zephyrus was either an utter fool, or exactly what he appeared to be. The auctioneer warned him that Zephyrus declared himself the Wielder, but Laeden didn’t place stock in the Celestic prophecies. There were already six Valencian Gods to worry about; he wasn’t going to concern himself with three more Judges.

Zephyrus only wanted his freedom. He was a soldier of some kind, so if Laeden gave him the proper combination of freedom and direction, Zephyrus would be as obedient as any within the king’s barracks.

“Is everything all right?” Markus asked, noticing Laeden’s distraction.

“Fine,” Laeden said, forcing a smile.

Markus’s sister Nallia leaned over from beside Damascus. “You missed Baron Brusos’s gladiators, pitiful showing as it was. Where have you been?”

“The question of the decade,” Damascus chided, sun glinting off his golden Drake eyes.

Just trying to stave off a slave rebellion and regicide. Laeden smiled but failed to offer an explanation. Within a moment, the interest shifted as the herald introduced each of the Cassius gladiators. Onlookers cheered with pride and waved the purple-and-gold banner with the scorpion of House Cassius as Stegavax, the Champion of the house, was announced.

“I expect this year will be his last as Champion,” Nallia said. She pointed to another gladiator a few men down the line from Stegavax. “That’s Fenyx.”

Fenyx had the prototypical physique of a gladiator, but that’s not what caught the eye. The entirety of his left side was burned and scarred like something out of a nightmare.

“Our doctore has been working with him since his procurement at the age of ten,” Nallia continued. “After a decade of study, he will be the finest gladiator to step onto the sands.”

“You certainly know your gladiators,” Damascus said. “And your dueling, if the rumors are true.”

Nallia’s cheeks blushed against the amethyst jewels adorning her ears and neck.

Markus guffawed. “If you speak of Aemos Horne’s attempt to court my sister, then yes, the rumors are true; he dueled her from sunrise to the nightly rains and still could not make her yield. Not once.”

The pulvinus broke out in laughter, but a shrill cry erupted from somewhere in the crowd. Laeden stood, scanning for any sign of distress. His hands gripped the banister of the pulvinus. The distraction! He spun toward the king.

Nothing.

He wheeled to locate Zephyrus.

Nothing.

He looked back to the crowd to find a boy had picked up a girl and whirled her around.

Laeden settled back. He turned to check Zephyrus again, but he was no longer there.

Six curses. Laeden stood to get a better look, but a loud crash redirected his attention. His heart exploded in his chest. He whipped around, reaching for his sword.

A spilled goblet.

“A bit jumpy, are we?” Markus asked.

“Apologies, your grace,” the handmaiden said, attempting to clean her mess.

Laeden took a deep breath. Looking back to the base of the pulvinus, Zephyrus returned to his post. Laeden exhaled, reclaiming his seat.

“Cantella,” Danella said to the jittery handmaiden, “take a moment to settle yourself. All is well, dear. No sense fussing over spilled wine.”

“Speak for yourself,” Damascus said, evoking a laugh from his retinue.

Cantella removed herself, allowing other handmaidens to finish cleaning.

Laeden pulled Markus close. “The Revivalists. They’re planning something.”

Markus nodded. “They are a threat not to be ignored. Soon, after my father wins the omenation against Brusos and becomes chancellor, he will rally the plebs together. The Revivalists will dissolve before they do anything reckless.”

“They plan to attack the king—today,” Laeden said. “During the melee.”

Markus’s jaw hung slack. “Six save us.” He ran his hand through his black hair, pushing it behind his ear, inspecting the sun’s position. “That doesn’t leave much time. What’s the plan?”

“Do you have any men from the academy with you?” Laeden asked.

“I’m the apprentice Master at Arms,” Markus said. “I don’t have a retainer of Lions.”

“Iylea?” Danella said. “Where has that girl gone?”

Laeden whipped around. Where did she go? She was here a moment ago. He was so consumed with the threat of the Revivalists he hadn’t noticed her absence. Is she in danger?

He turned back to Markus. “Stay here and watch my father. Remain as close to him as you can without drawing notice. Keep an eye on the handmaidens.” Without further explanation, Laeden descended the stairs of the pulvinus.

“Where are you going?” Markus asked.

“I’ll be right back!”

Laeden’s feet raced to keep pace with his hammering heart. He made his way to Zephyrus, hoping that if Iylea ran from the pulvinus, he would have spotted her. Praying she wasn’t in danger, his mind churned in search of another explanation as to why she’d left the viewing dais. Before he could arrive at one, he was struck by the thought of having left his father. In the game of Reign, pawns were traded all over the board for the king’s sake. Handmaidens didn’t even warrant a tile, but Laeden couldn’t just leave her.

Laeden approached Zephyrus, looking around for any sign of Iylea. “See anything?”

“Armed men to the east,” Zephyrus said, “suspicious-looking, but that’s all.”

“Have you seen a young woman, a handmaiden wearing a black-and-red dress?”

Zephyrus nodded at the chancellor’s tower to the east. “One went in there.”

“Alone?”

Zephyrus shrugged.

Laeden’s feet were already moving. The sandstone tower climbed to the sky in the distance, but the melee would begin any moment. Time mocked him with each grain of sand through the hourglass.

Find Iylea. Father next.

He rushed into the chancellor’s tower. Still under construction, the windows were covered, leaving Laeden in darkness. The hard-packed earth, from the entrance, turned into marble flooring; a flickering light illuminated the corridor ahead.

Why would she come in here?

Laeden leaned forward, listening for any sign of Iylea, but his foot slipped on the wet marble. He barely caught himself. Though it was too dark to see, he put his finger into the puddle and brought it to his nose.

Sticky to the touch and tinged with the unmistakable scent of copper—blood. A trail of it, leading to the lit corridor as if a body had been dragged.

Laeden quickened his step, drawing his sword.

A loud horn blared in the distance. Laeden wheeled.

The melee. The Revivalists could strike at any moment, but he’d come too far to leave without Iylea. Hoping Markus and Zephyrus would be enough in his absence, he returned to the trail of blood and rounded the corner, sword at the ready.

Sprawled on the ground—naked, with appendages bent at odd angles, a woman’s body lay still. Matted, blood-soaked hair covered her face.

Nausea climbed Laeden’s throat. “No, no, no!” He knelt and brushed back her hair.

Cantella…

Laeden hung his head. He felt guilty for his relief that it wasn’t Iylea, but Cantella, a girl who had served in Sentigard for years, was dead. Deep purple bruises encircled her neck from strangulation. The killer took her clothes, then slit her throat and ditched the body.

The assassin isn’t a handmaiden—she’s disguised as one!

Laeden ran for the pulvinus.

Chapter 5

The Right Thing

Zephyrus III

Stockhelm

“Live.”

Patrus’s plea clung to his mind like a curse. First Threyna, then Patrus, now even Vykannis had seen fit to abandon him with his ceaseless questions. Since telling Zephyrus to present the scroll, the Judge had gone silent. Without his memory or Vykannis’s aid, Zephyrus couldn’t absorb the gravity of Patrus and Threyna’s deaths, nor could he discern the scroll’s true meaning. Laeden seemed equally confused about its contents, which didn’t inspire confidence that any direction would be coming from him. On every front, Zephyrus felt hopeless.

Live… but how long can one live without hope?

Yet attempting to run now and risking the slavers’ retribution or the Jackals’ wrath was a slight to Vykannis’s protection and Patrus’s last wish.

Why didn’t the old man just run for the pavilions like he told me to do?

No amount of fist clenching or teeth grinding was going to bring him back, and with Laeden’s father as the only source of potential answers, Zephyrus had no choice but to sit and wait for the Revivalists to make their move.

An armed group of men by an armorer’s pavilion grew from four to six. With each passing moment, they appeared more and more like the distraction Laeden feared would expose the king to the true assassin. Zephyrus gripped the pommel of the sword Laeden procured for him. Zephyrus’s job was to disrupt the distraction, to allow the guards to protect their king. He thought it strange for Laeden to run off in search of a girl, but he didn’t attempt to understand a prince’s priorities.

Zephyrus didn’t want to risk his life to save a king who allowed people to be bought and sold as pets, used as tools, and discarded when they lost their purpose.

Perhaps I should be helping the assassins instead of stopping them.

Patrus had spoken of war against New Rheynia, and Vykannis had said together they would remake the world, but first, he had to play the part of an emissary of peace. For now, he was Laeden’s slave, at least until he made it far enough away from the slavers and Jackals to attempt another escape.

The horn blared signaling the start of the melee. Knights in fine armor charged one another before a crowd of onlookers. Zephyrus eyed the six armed men by the pavilion, but they didn’t move.

A morning star crashed against a horned-bull helm, sending a combatant to the mud. Another horn sounded as attendants dragged the woozy bull-helmed knight from the arena grounds. A second trumpet followed for a different knight’s departure. Again. Again.

The horns! The armed men shifted their weight, ready and waiting for the signal.

Zephyrus’s neck prickled at the anticipation of another battle. He didn’t need his memories to know how to wield a sword. Within Tharseo’s Bastion and at the slavers’ auction, Zephyrus had cut down dozens while protecting others or manacled. Now, untethered and angry, he could take his rage out on these Revivalists. He wanted to fight.

Zephyrus swallowed. Does that make me the Wielder? Or the Harbinger?

A blur of motion darted by. Laeden bolted from the chancellor’s tower towards the west side of the pulvinus.

The horn blasted for the sixth time, and the armed men drew their swords and charged.

Zephyrus pulled his steel from its scabbard and stepped into the path of the charging men. They didn’t slow, but he would not step aside. Zephyrus let out a cry, born of frustration and imbued with fury. Their footsteps closed the distance, stampeding toward him.

Zephyrus took a deep breath and gripped the hilt of his sword with his ritual-ruined palms. In another few strides, the charging men were upon him.

He knocked the first swordsman’s blade aside and, with an outstretched arm, caught the saboteur across the chest. The swordsman’s momentum sent his legs up to the air and his back to the ground with a thud. Zephyrus sliced at the back of another attempting to run by and slammed his hilt into a third. While the armor absorbed most of Zephyrus’s strike, the force sent the man sprawling.

One got by him, but he hacked his ankles, grounding the swordsman. Four more continued in pursuit. Zephyrus backpedaled to the pulvinus to keep the saboteurs in front of him. He stood before the stairway and called for aid.

The four swordsmen advanced as one. Help wasn’t coming.

Zephyrus dodged a stab, sidestepped a thrust, and ducked a swinging blade. He countered. His edge caught the nearest swordsman right under the elbow, dropping the appendage to the ground. He kicked the screaming one-armed man away and squared off against the remaining three. The one who Zephyrus had sliced the ankles of crawled to his feet.

“Outta the way!”

Zephyrus took the offensive, spinning and slashing between two of his opponents. He sliced one across the leg and the other along the arm, but the third got by him to climb the stairs.

“Laeden!” Zephyrus shouted.

Zephyrus kicked one of the men’s knees out and chopped into his neck. The body fell from his sword. A panicked thrust reached for him, but he avoided it and plunged his blade through the swordsman’s stomach. He retracted to slash at the wounded man whom Zephyrus had taken down earlier. Both fell to the earth.

He took in the carnage, as men died before him. Whoever he was before, he wasn’t just some emissary. A messenger couldn’t do this. Without any time to ponder, Zephyrus climbed the stairs of the pulvinus as fast as he could. If the king died, Zephyrus’s answers died with him.

Chapter 6

The Assassin

Laeden III

Stockhelm

Laeden climbed the stairs two at a time, praying he wasn’t too late.

“What is it, Prince Laeden?” a guard asked.

Laeden pushed past him. The melee was in full swing, several people already eliminated.

Any moment now…

“All handmaidens, report!” Laeden said.

The queen sat upright. “What’s the matter?”

“Don’t cause a scene,” his father said.

But Laeden intended to. He flipped a tray holding carafes of wine. “Now!”

Markus came to Laeden’s side. “What can I do?”

“The east staircase—guard it.”

Markus moved to purpose, but too late. Zephyrus shouted Laeden’s name in warning.

The distraction!

One of the men made it by Zephyrus. Blood-stained and weakened, but armed and angry, the swordsman advanced, poised to strike. Earl Cassius stood closest to the stairs. Cassius’s wife shrieked as the attacker closed in. Cassius yanked his bodyslave in front of the assailant. The blade erupted through the slave’s back and out his belly in a spray of blood and gore.

Panic.

Markus confronted the man, his weapon level, but Laeden was watching the wrong thing. The distraction. Even knowing what to expect, he fell into the trap. Heart thumping in his ears, he spun to face his father.

Behind him.

Wearing Cantella’s dress. The assassin’s black hair framed stone-gray eyes intent on murder. The red-and-black dress hung off her, too big for her slight frame, but with all eyes on the melee, and swordsmen swarming the pulvinus, she might as well have been a ghost. The king didn’t see her. The King’s Guard Knights focused on the distraction. Laeden’s breath caught in his throat. The assassin drew a short stiletto from her hairpiece, a mere stride behind the king.

Laeden pulled his new throwing knife from his belt and reared back. The assassin stepped closer, readying her stiletto to deliver a killing blow.

Six save me.

Laeden flung his knife. The obsidian blade flew through the air, toppling end over end. His father’s eyes widened as the blade flew at him. He turned away from the incoming blow.

The knife flew past and bit into the assassin’s shoulder just as she was about to strike. She stumbled backwards, her face a mask of bewilderment.

“Protect the king!” Laeden shouted.

The King’s Guard Knights toppled the would-be assassin, pinning her to the ground. Markus disarmed the attacker who killed Cassius’s bodyslave and forced him to yield.

“Another one!” Damascus shouted, leveling his sword at Zephyrus.

“Stop!” Laeden said. “He’s with me.”

Damascus lowered his blade, but Zephyrus did not.

The melee continued, though the crowd was more concerned with the events on the pulvinus. The king put his hands up to the crowd and cheered on the knights. Onlookers roared with approval, and all interest returned to the melee.

With attention off of him, the king said to his guards, “See them gagged and bound, then escort them to…”

“Your grace.” Earl Cassius came to the king’s side. “My ludus is only a short way past the Crystal River. The dead and detained can be put to cart and held within my barracks, where you may question those still drawing breath.”

“How very kind,” the king said. He turned to the guards securing the assassin and the swordsman. “See them delivered to Earl Cassius’s ludus.”

“Varros?” The queen wrinkled her brow and shook her head. “You can’t mean to stay here and send our guards away. We’re in danger! First a slave outbreak and now this?”

Laeden couldn’t believe his ears either.

“Settle down, my love. You know what they say of lightning. The danger has passed. Now set your mind to clearer skies.” He sat and resumed watching the melee. When no one else sat, the king addressed everyone on the pulvinus. “Sit, lest we draw attention away from the melee.”

Laeden didn’t move, but watched as the two subdued were carried off.

“Everyone sit,” the king said in his king’s voice. This time, everyone obeyed, spare Laeden and Zephyrus.

Laeden strode over to Markus. “I need those captives to talk.”

Markus stood after barely touching his seat. “I shall accompany the wagons. Nothing will happen on my watch.”

Laeden let out an uneasy breath and nodded his appreciation.

Markus, Ser Daenus of the King’s Guard Knights, and a few of Cassius’s men left to escort the Revivalists to Cassius’s ludus.

A hand on Laeden’s shoulder forced him to whip around and reach for his dagger. Zephyrus forced the dagger back into its sheath before it could be fully drawn.

“It’s just me,” he whispered. “The handmaiden who ran past earlier…” Zephyrus pointed to Iylea, standing on the other side of the pulvinus, her arms wrapped about her waist as if trying to console herself.

Relief washed over Laeden like the ocean’s spray on a hot day. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and praise the Six for her safety, to tell her how he loved her and assure her that he would never let anything happen to her. But he was a prince, and she a handmaid. Though she stood mere strides from him, she may as well have been a realm away.

He tried to catch her eye, but she was lost in thought. Later, he promised.

“She’s safe,” Zephyrus said. “Your king is safe.”

Laeden released his breath and stepped back. “Gratitude, Zephyrus.” He gestured to Markus’s empty seat beside him. Hesitantly, Zephyrus sat, covered in the blood of the slain. Damascus, Nallia, and a number of other guests atop the pulvinus eyed him, shifting their weight in the opposite direction, but none gave voice to their inward thoughts.

Laeden took his seat, scouring the buzzing fairgrounds for signs of danger. The onlookers of the melee cheered as Aelon swept Haedron Allos’s leg out from under him and met Aemos Horne’s hack. Even as the final three contestants traded blows, they failed to offer Laeden a temporary distraction. Every lingering eye in the crowd was a cutthroat, plotting another assassination attempt, every shout a siren alerting of the next attack.

Between Aelon’s information, Zephyrus’s aid, and Laeden’s refusal to listen to the naysayers, they narrowly avoided a tragedy. Laeden was unsure who to thank—the Gods, the Judges, or whoever AVR might be. Either way, they intervened to make this outcome possible, and Laeden was grateful. However, the path forward was shrouded in mystery. What now? The Revivalists were no longer something to be taken lightly. They would strike again.

But when they do, I will stop them. Whatever it takes.

Chapter 7

The Sentinels

Laeden IV

Stockhelm

“I underestimated the Revivalists,” King Varros said from atop his white mare. They rode side by side as they crossed the wooden bridge, fording the Crystal River. His father attempted to gain eye contact, but Laeden kept his gaze on the horizon. The clip-clap of the horses’ hooves and the creaking wagon wheels carried them closer to the haven of the Cassius ludus.

“If it weren’t for you and your man—” His father nodded to Zephyrus walking beside Laeden’s horse. “—I don’t know what would have happened.”

Zephyrus kept darting nervous glances at the king. Laeden thumbed Zephyrus’s scroll in his pocket. His father was the only one capable of providing Zephyrus with answers, but Laeden wanted answers himself—who this AVR was, and what in Six Hells the scroll was talking about. Regardless, Laeden couldn’t help but commiserate with Zephyrus. He didn’t want to imagine not being able to remember Iylea.

He returned his attention to his father. “You live to make amends.” Laeden wanted to point out this was his father’s fault. If he had listened to him to begin with, or just killed the mage instead of exiling him to Klaytos, the Revivalists may never have formed in the first place.

The king was the law, and this precedence threatened the fabric of society. The Treaty of 940 was clear: Celestics were enslaved, mages were executed. The Salmantic Senate helped write the treaty, and the Vigiles and Jackals were charged with enforcing it. His father’s decision, absent the Inner Council or the senate’s approval, was a kick in the shin to everyone.

And for what?

His father left his mother in order to marry Danella and bind the Treaty in matrimony. He hated his father for it, but he also understood. For peace and prosperity, for honor and justice. What was love in the face of duty to the realm?

But if that was the case, why violate it? Doesn’t he realize his hypocrisy?

“I know what you’re thinking, Laeden.”

“That I wish you’d say what you mean and mean what you say?” Laeden asked, attempting but failing to keep the heat from his voice.

He met his father’s eyes. For a moment, he looked tired, haggard in a way he’d never seen before, but beneath Laeden’s stare, his weariness solidified into the king’s steely gaze.

“You’re a Helixus and a Faire,” his father said. “You’re more like your mother than you’ll ever know. Your heart is true for all to see. You fight to ‘defend the weak,’ as the Faire words say. But no, I do not regret my past decisions.”

How dare he speak of Mother. Laeden had already pressed past prudence with his last comment and wasn’t prepared to jab at the wounded Chimera, but how can he be so blind? How many will die in Revivalist plots?

Seven had already fallen: five mercenaries attempting to distract the guards, Danella’s servant Cantella, and Cassius’s bodyslave. Seven.

How can the life of one mage be worth seven already dead? Laeden considered his own hesitation in choosing between his father, the king, and his lover, the handmaiden. Is there something personal—something more that I’m missing? His father was always reserved, never sharing more than needed. Does he have something to hide? The scroll in his pocket certainly suggested so. When the time presented itself, Laeden would show him the scroll, and he expected answers, but now was not the time.

His father’s head drooped until his obsidian crown fell to his brow. Repositioning the crown, he sat up tall. “One day, perhaps, you’ll understand, but there’s been too much bloodshed. If I killed the mage out of fear of groups like the Revivalists, then they’ve already won.”

Laeden began to protest, but his father raised his voice to cut him off.

“At this point,” his father said with a sigh, “all we can do is start a coalition charged with keeping the peace.”

“A task force?” Laeden asked. “Like the Jackals, but targeted toward the Revivalists?”

“Aye, you have made your case. How do you measure Ser Daenus?”

Laeden shrugged. Ser Daenus served as Danella’s bodyguard, her stern and stoic shadow—skilled with a blade and as honorable as they come, but he ignored Laeden when he warned of the Revivalists.

Attempting to keep the bitterness from his voice, Laeden asked, “What about him?”

“I am of a mind to name him leader of this task force,” the king said.

Laeden’s grip on his reins tightened. His eye twitched as he swallowed the words he wanted to say. If it were up to Ser Daenus, you’d already be dead. I positioned Zephyrus, I discovered the assassin would be disguised as a handmaiden, and I stopped her from burying a stiletto in your neck. You would be dead if not for me.

“The Sentinels, charged with the protection of the royal family and uprooting the Revivalists’ threat,” Father mused. “The honorable Sentinels and the Revivalists’ syndicate, that could be a song for the ages, don’t you think?”

Laeden pulled on his reins. A signal coursed through the ranks beyond them until the entire caravan stopped. The king turned his horse to face Laeden. He eyed Zephyrus, who had been silent this entire time, and coughed.

Zephyrus took the hint and backed away, giving them privacy.

With the composure of having spent most of his adult life within castle politics, Laeden held the king’s steely gaze. “I should be the leader of this coalition.”

“You’re in the royal family,” his father said.

It took all of Laeden’s might not to scoff. Another battle for another time.

“All the more reason why I can’t fail,” Laeden said. “Father, I’ve been the only one to see the Revivalists for the threat they are. They aren’t just some gaggle of perturbed idealists thinking they could do better if they were in power. They tried to assassinate you, and they would have succeeded had it not been for me. Not Ser Daenus. Me.”

His father tossed his head like a braying horse. “Laeden, this is above you.”

As soon as the words passed his lips, the king grit his teeth and raised his fist to his mouth. “My words do not match my meaning. My concern rests in your safety.”

Laeden’s ears grew hot. The collar of his doublet felt like it tightened around his neck, but it was only the angry words he chose to swallow. He knew what his father meant—he doesn’t believe in me. Nothing new. But Laeden couldn’t trust this task to anyone else.

“I can do this, Father. I will not fail you.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Danella asked as she and Ser Daenus approached from the wagon. “Why have we stopped?”

King Varros repositioned the crown atop his graying waves. “We are discussing a task force concerning these Revivalists.”

“Surely that can be done once we are out of harm’s way,” Danella said.

“Laeden wishes to lead this task force himself.”

Danella balked before fixating on Laeden. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Laeden, it’s too dangerous.”

“If my father, my king, and the future of our country is in danger, I am the only one I trust to see him protected,” Laeden said. “If it weren’t for my paranoia, this conversation would have been very different. But fortunately, I stopped them.”

“But Laeden,” Danella said, inflecting her words with a mother’s pleading.

But she’s not my mother.

Danella put her hand on Laeden’s arm. “What if they aren’t just after your father? What if they’re after all of us? Six save us, but think of the pandemonium if both you and Damascus were ensnared in the Revivalists’ schemes. I was thinking perhaps it would be best if you two were separated. Gods forbid you both be taken and New Rheynia is left without an heir. You could stay with your grandfather Hallon, in Valtarcia.”

Laeden jerked his head back, scoffing. Heir? “Are you serious?”

“I will name you second behind Damascus’s claim,” Danella said.

Laeden couldn’t believe his ears. A true prince? But at what cost? He saw through Danella’s plot. She’s patronizing me. As long as someone else leads the Sentinels. He turned from his stepmother to his father.

“I will not be sent into exile out of fear. If you are afraid the entire royal family may be targeted, then the best place for me is here, leading the Sentinels.”

“Laeden, darling, think about the well-being of the realm. Anyone can lead soldiers, but not everyone can lead the country. Why not leave such work for… I don’t know—someone like Ser Daenus?”

Laeden bit his lip, heat rising up his neck to his ears. “With all due respect,” he said to Ser Daenus, “the king would have been slain today, had the task for his safety been left in Ser Daenus’s hands.”

Ser Daenus glowered at Laeden, but Laeden didn’t care. It was true.

“Why don’t we wait until we get home to discuss this?” Danella asked. “We can—”

His father cut Danella off. “Laeden will be named captain of the Sentinels.”

Warmth blossomed in Laeden’s chest. His shoulder blades fell away from his ears to settle back down his rib cage. “I will not let you down,” Laeden said before Danella could retort.

The king nodded. “It’s settled then.”

“That Helixus pride.” Shaking her head, Danella picked up her skirts and swept off without another word, Ser Daenus brooding in her shadow.

The king sagged beneath the weight of his crown, but this was how it needed to be. After today’s events, Laeden was convinced he was the only one capable of protecting his father. He could handle himself just fine, and he wouldn’t be bribed into hiding in exile.

“Let us continue to the Cassius villa before we get caught in the nightly rains,” the king said, looking to the darkening sky.

The road west to the Cassius ludus continued to snake through the Stockhelm countryside, gradually gaining in elevation. The sun colored the skies an ominous orange as it descended to cast long shadows over their caravan. They rode in silence as they approached the Cassius ludus embedded in the Hylan mountain range, but the silence gave Laeden a moment with his thoughts.

A swell of satisfaction filled him, but the weight of responsibility hung overhead. He would need aid in many different forms, but no one would have a stronger resolve than he. However, never again could he put Iylea’s safety before the king’s. The thought ate at him until they arrived at the mountain villa.

As they approached the sandstone fortress’s outer gate, Markus, two of Cassius’s men, and a few of the Drake household guards waited to greet them. Like the shadows cast by the setting sun, their faces stretched long in dismay.

A stone sank in Laeden’s stomach as Markus stepped forth.

“We have a problem.”

Chapter 8

Trust

Zephyrus IV

Stockhelm

“What do you mean, dead?” Laeden asked, veins bulging from his neck as he examined Cassius’s men.

“What happened?” asked an older man styled in elegant purple-and-gold robes. Earl Cassius, the slave owner, lifted his chin to the darkening sky. “Liario, explain.”

Liario stepped forward, hunched and weathered—the slaver who outbid all the others at the auction. The guard beside Liario wore the same purple-and-gold surcoat as the man who murdered Patrus.

The thought of his bloodied blade ripping from Patrus’s shoulder set Zephyrus’s knees quivering. The man’s face burned into his empty well of memories: a squashed nose, black hair—peppered gray at the temples—and a smug smile.

He’s here.

Zephyrus no longer cared about the scroll in Laeden’s pocket or what the king had to say about it. It didn’t matter if he was the Wielder, the Harbinger, the Herald, an emissary, or nothing at all. Patrus, at the very least, was his friend—maybe his only remaining friend—and Patrus’s murderer was here. Somewhere.

While Laeden and the king argued with Earl Cassius and Liario, Zephyrus hid beneath his hood to conceal his face. It would not do well for him to be recognized here. Within the gates, the yellow sandstone walls of the mountain the ludus was carved from enclosed a courtyard. Erected wooden stables extended off to the right side of the gate, where the back end of a wagon was just visible.

Zephyrus snuck past the arguing men, inspecting every guard in purple and gold.

I will find you. And I will kill you.

Slinking away, he clung to the long shadows of twilight, relying on their aid to cloak him. Approaching the corner of the stables, incomprehensible whispers hid behind the argument in the distance.

Closer he crept, entwined in the encroaching nightfall. He peeked around the corner. Two more wagons lay ahead. Zephyrus snuck behind the last wagon, the voices growing louder. He stalked up to the middle wagon until he could hear.

“The omenations were wrong,” a man whispered, “but we will not fail. We cannot. If one stands in the way of the Gods’ will, that one must die… even a king.”

A second voice gurgled an incoherent response from the back of a wagon, the scent of death thick in the air.

I thought all the captives were dead. Apparently not all—not yet at least.

“The Six will watch over you. Your assignment has ended, but you will be rewarded for your faith. For the Six.”

Zephyrus prowled closer like a predator in the wild. The soft sound of blood gushing from a mortal wound hung in the air. He leaned around the wagon to glimpse the back of a man in a purple surcoat, his dagger embedded in the assassin’s chest.

The Cassius guard set the body down and wiped the blood off his dagger. He turned, resheathing his blade to face Zephyrus.

Him. Black hair, graying at the temples. A squashed nose. Patrus’s murderer.

Zephyrus’s teeth ground together, and heat rose to his cheeks. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and forks of lightning stretched across the eastern sky. Yet Zephyrus’s anger bellowed louder and struck harder than any storm.

Recognition washed across the murderer’s eyes. He ripped his gladius from its scabbard.

Zephyrus drew his steel, slow and purposeful, ready and waiting for vengeance.

“Guards!”

Zephyrus charged before any could try to stop him. A tempest of steel. A storm of hacks and slashes. He thrust at the golden scorpion sigil over the guard’s breast, but the murderer blocked. He chopped, only for his attack to be deflected. Zephyrus slashed again, but the guard met his force. He shoved the Cassius guard away and struck again.

The clang of steel rang shrill against the thunderous resonance off the mountain, but after another short exchange of blows, their swords collided. Deadlocked, the two measured their strength against one another.

Earl Cassius and several of his men ran to their position. “Cease!”

Laeden followed close behind. “Zephyrus, stand down!”

Close enough to feel the warmth of the guard’s breath, Zephyrus glared.

Patrus surrendered. And you killed him.

Neither released the deadlock. Zephyrus’s muscles tensed against the sustained output.

“This slave started the riot at the slavers’ market,” the murderer said. “Called himself the Wielder!”

“Him?” the queen asked, pointing at Zephyrus. “The Wielder started the riots…”

“He serves Prince Laeden,” Markus said. “Father, tell your man to stand down.”

Earl Cassius did not acquiesce, despite his son’s insistence.

Through bared teeth, Zephyrus hissed. “He spoke with one of the dead captives before stabbing her in the heart, silencing her forever.”

“Your slave is mistaken,” Earl Cassius said. “Lenox’s loyalty is beyond reproach.”

With the tension too thick to cut with a sword, the king stepped into view. “Set your blades down. Now.”

Lenox’s black eyes flared with an all-consuming rage across from Zephyrus’s gladius. Not for a second did Zephyrus trust him. If he lowered his defenses, he would die. Lenox would kill him. Just like Patrus.

“Enough.” Laeden stepped between Zephyrus and Lenox, forcing them apart. “Sheathe your blades.” Laeden nodded to Markus. “Inspect the assassin for wounds you didn’t see earlier.”

“A stab wound to the chest,” Zephyrus said. “Identical to Lenox’s dagger.”

“The slave doesn’t know what he saw,” Lenox spat. “Yes, I finished her, but she spoke nothing but nonsense in the last gasps of life.”

Laeden snarled. “We needed her alive.”

“There’s a stab wound to the heart,” Markus said.

Laeden’s grave glare settled upon Lenox before he addressed Cassius and the guards. “Everyone, away from the bodies. No one goes near them without my leave. And you…” He stabbed his index finger at Lenox. “You will submit to questioning.”

“Him?” the queen asked. “This Wielder leads a revolt, and you trust his word over Earl Cassius’s loyal man?” She lifted her palms skyward in the king’s direction, as if hoping he would intervene, but the king’s focus remained on Laeden.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Laeden said. “But we will get to the bottom of this. Earl Cassius, if you please, allow me to examine the bodies. Alone. Take your men inside before the nightly rains arrive, but leave Lenox with me.”

“On whose authority?” Lenox asked.

“The captain of the Sentinels,” the king said. “Prince Laeden speaks with my authority on all matters pertaining to the Revivalists.”

“My king,” Lenox said, “I am no Revivalist.”

“Then you should not fear my questions,” Laeden said.

Lenox growled, but backed down, sheathing his steel.

Cassius furrowed his brow as if he were about to protest but thought better of it. “Very well. We will await you inside.”

The queen whispered something to the king. His nose wrinkled, but he beckoned Laeden aside for a private word, drawing a scowl from Laeden. After the tense exchanges, Cassius and the rest of his men escorted the king and queen indoors. The grounds outside the stables emptied, leaving Zephyrus, Laeden, Markus, and Lenox alone with the bodies.

Lenox cast a leveling stare at Zephyrus, promising death. Zephyrus clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. The setting sun fell beyond the horizon, and a light rain began to descend, but nothing could defuse Zephyrus’s rage.

“Markus,” Laeden said, “question Zephyrus on his account of these events. I will speak with Lenox.”

Markus placed a firm hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “Consider it done, Captain.” Markus steered Zephyrus away from Lenox and Laeden, escorting him to a vacant stable out of the rain.

“We can trust no one,” Markus said, crossing his arms before Zephyrus.

Markus was tall and broad of shoulder. His narrow face looked too small for his body. Shoulder-length dark hair hung straight and neat behind him. Clad in a black-and-gold doublet with a roaring lion embroidered into the breast, he didn’t share the same colors or sigil of his father’s purple and gold.

Markus pointed to the wagon of the dead. “If not for you, Zephyrus, those six men would have killed more than one slave. For that, I will hear you out, but you must know… the two captives were dead upon arrival. I’m certain. Checked them myself.”

Zephyrus didn’t balk. He had nothing to hide. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard.”

Markus pursed his lips. “Very well. You saw Lenox kill the captive—stab wound to the heart. I believe you. That puncture wasn’t there upon my initial inspection. But my question is why were you by the wagons in the first place?”

Zephyrus’s composure cracked. First a twitch of his eye, then a wordless gaping.

“You serve Prince Laeden, correct?”

“For the time,” Zephyrus said.

“What were you doing so far from his side?” Markus stepped closer to Zephyrus. Zephyrus opened his mouth, but again, no words came to mind. The truth wouldn’t do in this case. I was looking for Lenox. Vengeance. Blood.

“The way I see it,” Markus said, “you and Lenox met once already today.”

The sight of Lenox’s blade buried to the hilt in Patrus’s torso flashed in Zephyrus’s mind.

“You knew he would be here,” Markus said.

“He wore the same colors as the guards out front,” Zephyrus said. “I thought I would find him here, somewhere.”

Markus advanced closer, his arms still crossed before his barrel of a chest. “And what did you hope to do once you found him?”

Zephyrus blew out his cheeks. “I hoped to kill the bastard.” His fingers curled into his palms, digging into the raw wounds from the blood sacrifice the Seers took to reveal his inconclusive prophecy.

Markus stepped back but reset his jaw. “Why?”

“He murdered my only friend,” Zephyrus said through his teeth. His mind might not have been able to process the loss, but his body certainly did. His chest hurt. His face flushed hot, and tears welled in his eyes. “He surrendered… he rescued people. He never lifted a sword…”

Markus put his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “What happened between the wagons? You said you heard Lenox speaking with the assassin. What did you hear?”

Zephyrus took a moment to recall. He was so fixated on avenging Patrus he hadn’t been paying attention and struggled to remember the words. Steadying his breath, he gathered his recollections. “He spoke about killing the king… in service to the Six.”

Markus blanched, his bewilderment palpable even in the dim light of the torches. Zephyrus didn’t know anything about the Six, but men who killed in the name of the Gods were the most dangerous type. Either they were fanatical extremists, or their Gods were worse than their believers.

“You’re sure that’s what he said?” Markus asked.

Zephyrus nodded. “Told her she would be rewarded for her faith. Then stabbed her through the heart.”

Markus rubbed his narrow chin, then ran his fingers through his hair, stretching the skin of his forehead. “Apologies for your loss, Zephyrus, but take peace knowing that if what you say is true, the murderer of your friend will be brought to justice. If Lenox is found guilty of treason, he will be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star.”

Markus’s words should have pleased him, but only a callused numbness remained. Justice? A murderer’s life for Patrus’s? This very day Patrus saved fifty from enslavement. How could the weight of their lives balance any scale?

“Markus,” Laeden called over the rain pattering down on the roof of the stables.

Before Zephyrus could retort, Markus held up a finger, instructing Zephyrus to wait while Markus and Laeden spoke. The two stood close, whispering to one another under the awning of the stables. The rain continued to fall, heavier with each passing moment, pelting the wooden roof. Thunder roared, and lightning cracked in the distance, leaving little chance for Zephyrus to make out the words between them.

Zephyrus ground his teeth as he and Lenox exchanged glares across the stables. Being nailed to a symbol of the Gods he served was a kindness Lenox didn’t deserve.

Eventually, Laeden and Markus broke apart. Laeden waved at Lenox. Expecting Laeden to wave Lenox toward them, he waved Lenox away. Zephyrus didn’t believe his eyes.

They’re letting him go.

Lenox grinned as he tossed his purple cape over his shoulder, turning his back on Zephyrus. Zephyrus swallowed as Markus and Laeden turned toward him—their faces long, eyes cold. An uneasy pressure built in Zephyrus’s chest as the two stalked toward him.

Zephyrus could barely contain himself as he bore into Markus. “You said—”

Laeden held up his hand as the two stopped before Zephyrus. “Lenox is lying. Markus is convinced you’re telling the truth, so I have little doubt Lenox is in the Revivalists.” Laeden paused long enough for Zephyrus to fear the coming of the word but.

“You let him go.” Zephyrus could barely speak the words, the injustice salting his wound.

“Let me explain,” Laeden said. “Considering your absence of memory, I’ll spare you the finer details, but Earl Cassius is vying for the chancellorship—a political office in Stockhelm that would make a favorable ally in bringing the Revivalists to their knees. If Lenox is involved—as we believe he is—he’s likely not the only one beneath Cassius’s roof. I can’t trust Cassius if I can’t trust his men,” Laeden bit his lip. “Unfortunately, this is where things become complicated.”

Zephyrus’s toes curled, gripping the soles of his leather boots. Complicated?

Laeden shuffled his feet but lost none of the sternness in his voice. “Because you led the outbreak at the slavers’ auction and declared yourself the Wielder, my father has forbidden you from my service… but you’ve proven too dangerous a threat to be allowed to go free.”

The tension Zephyrus held in his feet climbed his bones to the base of his neck. Anger thickened his blood until his veins bulged like a dam threatening to burst. You wish to deliver me to the Jackals, then? I’d like to see you try.

“However,” Laeden said, “you’re far too valuable an asset to remain unutilized.”

Bile climbed Zephyrus’s throat. Utilized. Like a tool. He kept his face placid, steadying the thunderous beating of his heart to a rhythmic drum. He swallowed, afraid to ask, but needing to know. “What do you plan to do with me?”

Laeden exchanged a glance with Markus before meeting Zephyrus’s eyes. “You will serve as a gladiator.”

From deep within him, fury gathered, collecting pressure that threatened to explode.

“You’ll die in the gladiatorial arenas,” said the slaver who slew Threyna.

Tremors overtook the muscles of Zephyrus’s face. No. His eyes darted between Laeden and Markus. I’ll take my chances with the Jackals if I can get past these two. Just need to wait for the right moment to make my move.

“We need to know which of the guards we can trust,” Laeden said. “From the barracks, you’ll be able to spy on the guards, and with your information, we can purge House Cassius of the undesirables and ensure the Sentinels have a trustworthy ally as chancellor.”

“Observe and report,” Markus said. “Once we know who we’re dealing with, we’ll strike them from this world.”

They stand too close together for me to push past, but within the stall of the stables, perhaps I can use that to my advantage. If I fight first, then flee—

Laeden and Markus stared at Zephyrus, waiting for a response.

“A gladiator? A spy?” Zephyrus asked. “For honesty and loyal service, you enslave me. What of Lenox?”

Laeden and Markus exchanged a look before Markus stared at his boots.

“He will remain in House Cassius,” Laeden said. “If we’re right, and he is the Revivalist we believe he is, he’ll lead you to the other traitors.”

Zephyrus fixed Markus with a smoldering stare, but Markus wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“Treason is rewarded with patience. I see.”

There is no justice in this world—only fate.

Zephyrus’s taut muscles relaxed as Threyna’s words from Tharseo’s Bastion revisited him. “You are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

“Is this where I must be?” Zephyrus channeled to Vykannis. “Is this what you want?”

No answer.

Laeden stepped forward, holding out a pacifying hand. Now. This is my chance. But Zephyrus didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

Perhaps it’s right—I’m meant to be here.

As a gladiatorial spy, Zephyrus would get another chance at Lenox. Another opportunity to avenge Patrus.

Laeden placed his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “Lenox will meet his end. As will all the Revivalists. But your service will not go without reward. I will speak to my father about the scroll and report my findings to you, as you will to me.” Laeden pulled the scroll from his pocket and placed it against Zephyrus’s chest.

Zephyrus accepted the scroll, Patrus and Threyna’s blood forever stained to the parchment. Patrus wanted me to get rid of this, but it keeps finding its way back to me. He cradled it within his bandaged palm.

Laeden patted Zephyrus’s shoulder. “I owe you a debt, Zephyrus. One that will not be forgotten. But now, I need your trust.”

Trust?

Markus stepped forward, the clinking chains of manacles held before him.

“You’re not my slave,” Laeden said. “You’re my ally. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t have to—if I didn’t think you were capable.”

Zephyrus grit his teeth as Markus offered the chains of his enslavement. He didn’t trust Laeden, but Lenox was here. If he served Laeden well, answers would come—but whether he was the Wielder, Harbinger, or Herald, Zephyrus was something to be feared, and Lenox would learn the full extent of the beast he’d awoken.

“Very well,” Zephyrus said, embracing his fate. He extended his wrists toward Markus. “Send me in.”

Chapter 9

Hope

Zephyrus V

Stockhelm

“I trust you found what you were looking for, my prince?” Cassius asked upon their entrance.

Thunder roared, resonating through the vestibule of the Cassius villa. Windswept rain careened down the angled roof into the bath underneath the sky window of the atrium. White marble traced with gold fineries made the entranceway to the villa appear larger than it actually was, but it still amazed Zephyrus. He couldn’t help but compare the threadbare rugs and tapestries at Tharseo’s Bastion to the fine purple cloth his wet boots now sullied.

“Earl Cassius,” Laeden said over the noise of the storm’s wrath. “These present circumstances place us at an interesting crossroad. Might we speak in a more secluded setting?”

Cassius nodded, beckoning them deeper into the villa, speaking trivialities for the sake of hearing his own voice. Laeden, Zephyrus, and Markus accompanied the Earl of Stockhelm through the atrium and around the bath. Paintings of gladiators, golden-tipped weapons, and busts of past champions littered the walls.

“How long since you were last home, Markus?” Cassius asked.

“Too long, Father. Before my apprenticeship with the Lions.”

“Ah, but soon you shall no longer be the apprentice.” Cassius waved them inside a room opposite the atrium. “Let us convene in my tablinum.”

Liario, the hunched man who bid on Cassius’s behalf at the slave auction, waited outside the office. He opened the door, escorting them inside with an obsequious grin.

The floor of the room had a tile mosaic depicting a golden scorpion. Cassius took a seat behind an intricately carved mahogany desk; his pet, Liario, took his place behind him, like a scowling crow perched on his shoulder. Cassius gestured to two cushioned chairs before him, instructing Laeden and Markus to sit.

Zephyrus stood between the two chairs, biting his lip and testing the strength of the manacles about his wrists. He supposed he’d better get accustomed to being treated as a hound.

If it gives me the opportunity to avenge Patrus, I will suffer the indignity.

“Earl Cassius,” Laeden said, sitting forward in his chair.

“Please call me Lentulis,” Cassius said. “No need for titles, my prince.”

Zephyrus stifled a scoff at the hypocrisy, but that was what this society was founded upon. The king spoke of peace and prosperity, but for whom?

Slaves toil for the masters. Masters toil for the royals. Who must the royals bow to?

“Lentulis,” Laeden said, directing his glare at Zephyrus. “Unfortunately, my slave lied, slandering the good name of your guard, Lenox. I offer my sincerest apologies if my diligence offered any insult, but please understand that was not my intent. I favor you to win the chancellorship, and once you take office, I hope to have your support in bringing the Revivalists to justice. For tonight’s misunderstanding, I offer you this slave as recompense.”

Zephyrus dropped his gaze to the tiled floor, his fists curled, straining against the iron links of his bindings. Laeden had instructed him how this would go. This was just posturing—a way to convince Cassius to welcome a spy under his roof. Didn’t mean Zephyrus liked it.

“He’s a capable fighter,” Liario said from behind Cassius. “A promising gladiator, no doubt, but he led the outbreak, the largest in our nation’s history. Is it wise to accept such a gift?”

Cassius raised his wispy white brows. “It seems more like you are passing your burdens off to me. Why should I accept your headaches and make them my own?”

Markus leaned forward in his seat. “Father, you are the only lanista capable of forging him into something of worth—perhaps the next Champion of Stockhelm, if not all of New Rheynia. With a little discipline and the proper motivation, there’s no telling what could become of him under the finest lanista in the land.”

Cassius’s grimace softened.

Flattery is the fastest way to any inflated man’s heart.

Cassius licked his thin lips. “I will not suffer insubordination or blasphemy. If even the word freedom passes his lips…” Cassius slid his finger across his throat. “He will be executed—gift of the prince or not.”

“He’s your slave,” Laeden said with a shrug. “Hopefully, he serves you better than he served me. And once again, my sincerest apologies for doubting the trust of your guards.”

Zephyrus ground his teeth until his head hurt. The muscles between his shoulder blades wrenched into knots. Even though this was all a farce, it didn’t change the truth. Lenox was a liar and a murderer. All Zephyrus did was wake up in the wrong temple and receive a prophecy from the wrong Gods.

“Live…” Patrus’s curse upon him. What is life without freedom? The wounds on his palms ached with the injustice of it all, the rolled scroll still clutched within.

Cassius’s face twisted into a self-satisfied grin. “Very well, I accept.”

Liario’s eyes twitched. His crooked smile melted, but he remained silent.

Cassius turned his flinty gray eyes on Zephyrus. “Renounce the Judges and accept the true Gods of Valencia. Submit to the Facets of Perfection and yield to my authority.”

Laeden’s knee began to bounce beside him. Markus tensed, gripping the arm of his chair.

Zephyrus held Cassius’s gaze. He didn’t yet know what he believed, but he was not about to be forced into choosing. He’d heard the voice of Vykannis the Brave, a Judge of Celestia. He wasn’t sure if that made him the Herald, but he wouldn’t forsake the Judge, despite his absence since saving his life at the slavers’ auction. Zephyrus’s flesh was already bound and chained as a slave. He would not so easily give up his convictions as well.

When Zephyrus didn’t respond, Cassius shrugged. “Nothing a night out in the rain can’t fix. Fear not, my prince. I’ve broken many resistant slaves. He will be no different. Guards!”

A handful of Cassius’s guards manhandled Zephyrus out of the tablinum and down a flight of stairs into the barracks of the gladiatorial ludus. Voices echoed off the stone walls, and cell bars rattled as they passed men stuffed into cells barely large enough to lie down in. The inhabitants pressed their faces through the bars as the guards shoved Zephyrus past.

“On you go!” a guard said, shoving Zephyrus down the hall of barred cells to a wooden door. Another guard unlocked the door and swung it open. A rush of windswept rain buffeted against him. Lightning cracked the sky. Thunder roared overhead.

“Move it!”

With Zephyrus’s hands bound, the scroll from AVR still clenched in his palm, the guards shoved him beyond the cover of the door. The rains cascaded upon him, soaking him within moments. Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating what appeared to be a large rectangular training area. A row of wooden crosses thatched with hay and cloth stood before him—some sort of training dummy.

“Secure him to the palus!” the guard shouted over the rain.

Zephyrus’s feet squished into the wet sand with each resisted step. One of the guards undid his manacles, but the other four shoved his back against the wooden cross. Zephyrus struggled hopelessly against them. His hands were once again secured behind his back, binding him to the palus.

“Hold him still.” One guard pulled a dagger from his belt. Zephyrus’s eyes widened as distant lightning reflected off the blade’s edge. He struggled against his bindings and the men securing him, but to no avail. The dagger drew closer. The guard with the knife grabbed Zephyrus by the collar of his wet tunic and pulled it towards him, the blade aimed at his throat.

He wished he died fighting. He wished he died beside Patrus. He’d come this far, and for what?

The guard slashed through the tunic, cutting it from the collar down to the sleeve. The wet tunic hung in tatters from Zephyrus’s other shoulder before the other guard tore it free. Next, his britches were slashed and stripped from his body, leaving him nude in the downfall of rain.

“Dogs don’t wear clothes.” The guard spat in his face. “Neither will you.” He sheathed his dagger, and the other guards relinquished him from their grasp, leaving him to slide down the palus. The five guards clad in purple and gold strode from the training square, retreating inside.

Zephyrus released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Gasping for air to pay back the deficit, Zephyrus was content to still be breathing.

Still alive…

Zephyrus looked to the angry sky as the rain poured down. Is this my fate? A Prophet of Celestia, drowned by the rain.

Threyna’s words returned. “You are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

“Is this what you want?” Zephyrus shouted against the storm.

No response.

Did I only imagine hearing Vykannis? Did I agree to Laeden’s plans on a falsehood?

Perhaps the scroll of parchment crushed within his fist had the truth of it. I am just a gift to the high and mighty—a tool to be used, abused, and discarded. The rains persisted, the unrelenting storms raged, and no answers, no memories, and no hope came to him.

Chapter 10

Visions

Iylea

Stockhelm

New Rheynia was not a safe place for people like Iylea. If anyone—even Laeden—were to discover her curse, she could be nailed to the Six Arrowed Star.

Iylea was a dreamer. She thought everyone dreamt the way she did, but she couldn’t believe that lie anymore—not considering how frequent, accurate, or debilitating they’d become.

Last night, before the Festival of Stockhelm, she dreamt of a sword piercing meat, a snake eating its tail, and Laeden holding his father’s crown. She ignored them, as always, but today’s events were too real to deny.

Cassius’s bodyslave—the piece of meat—pierced by the Revivalists’ sword. The Revivalists’ assassins—captured and sent ahead to Cassius’s ludus—were murdered, perhaps by the Revivalists’ own men, just like the snake eating its own tail. And if not for Laeden’s efforts, the king would have lost his crown.

These weren’t just dreams. They were prophecies.

Iylea thought after the king exiled the healing mage, perhaps times were changing, and people like her might be safe. The formation of the Revivalists set everything back.

While Earl Cassius’s slaves prepared the showroom for the royal family’s retinue, Iylea distracted herself in the high arched ceilings painted with a mural of the New Rheynian houses. In the center of the dome, the red-and-black chimera of House Drake reigned with the crown atop the lion’s head and the words Family, Faith, and Future over the ram’s horns.

Amidst the many sigils, Iylea focused on those of Laeden’s heritage. The blue-and-gold winged horse of House Helixus flew underneath the chimera, their words Honor and Justice written in flowing cursive in the majestic creature’s wake. Below, the white falcon of Laeden’s mother’s house flew across a blue backdrop with open wings and outstretched talons, carrying the banner of House Faire’s words, Defend the Weak.

Once, the Falcons of Faire were among Valtarcia’s elite, but after Geraldus Faire denounced the practice of bestowing the bastard name on those born out of wedlock, he had cast down the entire Faire name. To protect the few, he had jeopardized the many. Now, noble or baseborn, all Faires were labeled plebeians. Such was the cost of lending aid to the downtrodden.

Laeden embodied the words of his parents’ houses so well.

That’s what made her nervous. She told him to be careful. The only problem was that he believed volunteering himself to lead the Sentinels against the Revivalists was the careful thing to do. He could handle himself, but what worried her was he would not hesitate to sacrifice himself to save his father, his half-brother, or even his stepmother in the line of duty.

Queen Danella strode into the showroom, Ser Daenus on her heels. Try as she might to hide it, the day’s events even wore on someone as strong-willed as the queen. Be that as it may, Iylea needed to remain composed, lest she end up on a Six Arrowed Star.

The queen summoned Iylea with a wave. “You’re shaking, Iylea. Are you well?”

Iylea clenched her trembling fingers, not realizing they were moving on their own accord. “Yes, your grace. Apologies.”

The queen gave her arm a gentle squeeze, lifting Iylea’s eyes from the floor. “Apologize for nothing, dear. This day has tested us all, but the Six will prevail, and peace will reign. You have nothing to fear.”

Iylea swallowed, wishing it were so. She bobbed her head, thanking the queen for her encouragement. The queen smiled and took her seat upon the dais overlooking the showroom’s center stage.

Iylea always held a prejudice against the people of Salmantica. Her father was slain in the New Rheynian War, and her mother was murdered by Salmantic soldiers during the occupation that followed. Their country of zealots placed the Gods so far above people that they lost sight of what the Gods truly wanted for their people in the first place, but Queen Danella was different. If she and King Varros were the first rulers of New Rheynia instead of her father, Damascus Drake, perhaps things would be different. Perhaps she would have been safe. But with the rise of the Revivalists, no one was.

It wouldn’t be long before this conflict turned into a full-fledged war. She had seen it. He had shown her. She shuddered at the thought of the pale man with the red eyes from her recurring visions. It wasn’t his appearance, or even his demeanor, that frightened her when he visited her dreams. No matter how kind a God was while showing her dreams of the future, it didn’t change the danger it put her in.

“Soon,” he would say, his red eyes burning like the sun. “Soon, Iylea.”

She was not eager to learn what that meant.

Earl Cassius led Laeden and Markus into the showroom. The change in Laeden from this morning was already drastic. He could no longer linger amongst the plebs if he were to fulfill his role as captain of the Sentinels. He stood proud, shoulders back, brown hair flowing in his wake as he climbed the dais reserved for the most honored guests beside his family.

“Let us provide a spectacle while we feast,” Cassius said, plucking a goblet of wine from a serving tray. “But first, a toast. Everyone raise your cup to the King and Queen of New Rheynia. Long may they reign!”

The guests raised their cups. “Long may they reign!”

Cassius ordered his men to prepare gladiators for entertainment. Iylea didn’t want to see more fighting. There wouldn’t be blood in this exhibition, but the risk of such, which made the contests so entertaining for others, made her want to vomit. She had attended numerous games in her time as a handmaiden, but of late, she had seen too much bloodshed.

She curtsied before Queen Danella. “My queen, I am feeling unwell. May I—”

“Go rest, my dear,” the queen said. “It has been a difficult day. Earl Cassius’s slaves will have us well attended.”

Lady Cassius beckoned over a slave girl. “Odetta will lead you to the house-slave quarters.” Iylea bowed her head. Odetta approached, her bronze skin glowing. Something in her pale, mint-green eyes unnerved her. Stifling a shiver, Iylea met Laeden’s gaze as Odetta led her past his seat to exit the showroom.

They returned to the atrium before a broad marble staircase. Odetta stretched her arm across the stairwell, barring Iylea’s path, a peculiar look in her eyes.

“Soon,” Odetta said.

Iylea contorted her brow and leaned closer. “Soon what?”

Odetta shrugged. “That is all he told me to tell you… Soon.”

A cold sweat trickled down Iylea’s spine, and every hair on her neck stood erect. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words were choked off. She wiped the moisture of her palms on her dress and clenched her fists. “Who told you that?”

Odetta blinked, as if she didn’t understand the question.

“Iylea?” Laeden’s footsteps clamored off the Cassius atrium until he stopped before the staircase. “Is everything well?”

She stifled a shiver that threatened to shake her entire body. Laeden can’t know… Iylea couldn’t look at Odetta. Keeping her composure, she said, “Everything is fine.”

Laeden addressed Odetta. “I would speak with Iylea, alone.”

Odetta bowed. “The chambers are up the stairs, to the right, third door on the right.”

Iylea nodded, refusing to lift her eyes until Odetta took her leave.

Once they were alone, Laeden wrapped his arms around her. “Everything will be okay.”

She let him hold her, knowing he was wrong, but unable to tell him otherwise. She didn’t want to believe it herself, but that didn’t change the truth. War. Terrible war. Soon.

A sudden dizziness struck her.

It’s happening again. No. Not here. Not now!

“I know,” Iylea said, pulling away from him and turning toward the stairs. She grabbed the railing to steady herself, but it seemed to move with her. “I’m just tired. Overwhelmed by the day’s events.” She gave him a shy smile, her vision becoming fuzzy around her periphery.

I need to get away from him. He can’t know…

Laeden stepped closer and cupped her cheek in his hand. She closed her eyes, sinking into his embrace, praying to the Gods he wouldn’t notice what she felt inside.

“Goodnight.” He kissed her forehead.

“Goodnight.” She spun, and the stairs swayed beneath her. Keeping her feet, she ascended, never looking back at Laeden. She couldn’t.

To the right… Her heart exploded within her ribs as if it were too large for her chest. Pressure grew behind her eyes, making her lids feel heavy. She needed to get to her room. Then she’d be safe. Her secret wouldn’t be discovered.

Down the corridor… She staggered down the hallway, using the walls to pull herself forward. She was afraid to look through the veil of her mind into the window of the Gods. The pressure behind her eyes grew as if they were being pressed out of her skull from within. Almost there. Third door on the—

Iylea caved. Her eyelids snapped shut, unable to open them. It was only when her eyes were closed that she saw what the Gods wanted her to see.

With the hallway of the Cassius villa still visible, black wisps of screaming souls floated like ghosts through the walls to swirl around her like a tempest. A pale man with a crown on his head stepped through the wall—his face gaunt, eyes dead. Black veins slithered down his forehead like rotten vines. Gooseflesh pimpled Iylea’s arms as his dreadful gaze and haunting grin fell upon her.

Iylea’s scream caught in her throat. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. She wanted to run, but knew he wasn’t there. He can’t hurt me. Even still, she wanted to run as fast as she could. I just have to get to my chambers…

Only two doors away from the haven of her room, she fell to all fours. She struggled to her feet, but cloaked in black, a figure leaned against her door, waiting—always waiting. His red eyes peered at her from under his hood.

“You?” Iylea’s voice trembled.

“Your abilities have progressed beyond my expectations.”

Iylea swallowed hard enough to choke on her tongue. She wanted to run, but the storm of souls and the haunting man with the crown surrounded her. She fought to lift her eyelids, to look away from the red-eyed man, but it was impossible.

His bony finger stroked down her cheek. A tear streaked from the corner of her eye, following his touch.

“Don’t be afraid, my child,” the God said. “Together we will make right all that is wrong in this world. The Creator’s Reckoning comes. Soon. We will meet again. Face-to-face.”

With a flash, they were all gone—the red-eyed God, the skeletal king, and his ghastly army. Her eyes opened, and she saw clearly again. Iylea whipped her head back and forth, scouring the corridor for any witnesses to her ordeal.

She was alone.

The pain behind her eyes persisted, but she forced herself to her feet and entered the slave quarters. Limping inside, she closed the door behind her and collapsed onto the bed.

Safe…

She yearned for Laeden, but he couldn’t help her. No one could. No one could know. Her sight was her curse. Her burden to bear.

No one can know, she reminded herself. No one.

Chapter 11

Omenation

Zephyrus VI

Stockhelm

The rain slowed as the storm traveled past. Soaked to the bone, Zephyrus shivered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. As warmth fled his body, so too did his desire to fight. Exhausted but unable to sleep, his eyes closed, but all he saw was Patrus’s fallen form. He shook the thought away, only for it to be replaced by the gash in Threyna’s throat.

How long before I suffer the same fate?

The door to the barracks swung open, the light from within illuminating part of the training square. One guard strode out, a different one than those that strung him up. He looked around conspiratorially before pulling a curved metal tool from his cloak. He crept close.

“I’m Saulus,” the guard whispered. “I’m getting you out.”

“Getting me out?” Zephyrus couldn’t believe it. With large eyes, high cheekbones, and a pointed chin, Saulus didn’t look like a god, but he must have been sent by one. Zephyrus forced himself to his feet while Saulus made his way around him to break the chains of the manacles securing him to the palus.

“Gratitude,” Zephyrus said while Saulus wedged the metal tool between one of the links of the chain binding him.

“This is gonna hurt, but it’ll be over soon,” Saulus said. He torqued the metal tool, tightening the chain of the manacles. Zephyrus grunted as iron bit into his wrists and yanked his back into the palus. With a snap, the chain broke, and the tension holding him captive released. Saulus’s eyes darted side to side as if to make certain no one saw, but no alarms were raised.

Zephyrus sighed in relief. “What now?” He scoured the training square, searching for an avenue of escape. The moon’s persistence outlasted the dark clouds, shining light through the thinning shrouds, but Zephyrus didn’t see any way out.

Saulus reached back and cast the metal tool over the cliff. The tool of his freedom disappeared into the night.

“Time to set you free,” Saulus said.

Zephyrus turned to thank him when the edge of a dagger caught the gleam of the moon. Zephyrus attempted to secure Saulus’s wrist, but too late. The dagger sliced across his bare chest, crossing another slash he suffered earlier that day. Zephyrus stumbled back, but Saulus advanced. “Guards, help! He’s trying to escape!”

“Bastard!”

Saulus thrust again, but this time, Zephyrus seized hold of Saulus’s wrist. The doors to the barracks burst open, and half a dozen guards advanced with swords drawn. Saulus wrenched his wrist free and reared back to stab again, but Zephyrus punched Saulus across his pointed chin. The thin man teetered. Zephyrus launched himself at Saulus. He seized the blade and tore the hilt from Saulus’s grasp. Zephyrus stabbed him in the stomach. Again and again, Zephyrus reared back with short, sharp punches into Saulus’s midsection. Blood spouted from his mouth as the would-be assassin fell limp. Still. Cold.

Dead.

The other guards pointed their blades, demanding Zephyrus to drop his. He let the bloody dagger fall from his red hands. The pouring rain couldn’t wash away the death staining his bare flesh fast enough.

One guard, the size of a house, stepped forward; his face hid behind a thick brown beard that concealed all but his beady eyes and bulbous nose. “By the Gods. Send for Earl Cassius.”

Zephyrus allowed himself to breathe… Still alive. But for how much longer?

Zephyrus was bound again, for perhaps the fifth time that day. Given a loincloth, he was escorted through the now-empty barracks, up the stairs, through the villa, and into a large showroom. He stood beneath high, arched ceilings covered in a mural from end to end. The cavernous room was elevated on the outskirts, with steps descending to the floor where a giant pool with a granite slab at its center sat beneath a sky window. Cassius, his family, the king, queen, princes, guards, and knights sat on the elevated outskirts of the room, while the gladiators stood at its center. All around the circular room, jaws stretched to the floor.

Cassius wheeled on Laeden. “This is your idea of a gift? A fighter who can’t be controlled is no gladiator.”

Laeden was speechless, but the gladiators, standing in a line at the center of the showroom, muttered amongst themselves.

Liario emerged from behind Cassius. “Perhaps a quick death is the only fitting solution.”

“What’s happened?” Cassius’s daughter asked, examining Zephyrus, covered in blood.

“This slave killed one of my guards after trying to escape,” Cassius said for all to hear. “And an example will be made of him.”

“An example, indeed,” his daughter said. Her full lips parted in a smile of straight white teeth. She tossed her waves of chestnut hair over her shoulder as she twisted an amethyst ring about her finger with her thumb.

She inspected him how a craftsman might admire a useful tool, or how a dog might a piece of meat. “He escaped his bindings and killed a trained, armed man. And you would execute him? Father, this is what we do. We are lanistas! I would make an example of him, yes, but one to follow. Doctore…”

A dark-skinned man standing straight and tall, a leather whip in hand behind his back, approached the dais, head bowed. “Yes, Domina?”

“Could we not make use of a man with such skills?”

“Discipline can be taught,” the doctore said. “Obedience can be trained. I can forge him into something of worth if you command.”

Zephyrus inhaled sharply. Something of worth? Something of worth! Even their slaves are brainwashed.

“He led the slave outbreak,” Liario said. “There’s no disciplining this dog. He called himself a Prophet of Celestia! You said, ‘If he mutters a word of freedom, he will be executed.’ Kill him, my earl, and be done with it.”

Zephyrus’s muscles tensed. Laeden’s lips drew to a hard line, but he gave no objection.

“Enough!” Cassius barked. He turned to the king and queen. “I apologize for such ill diversions.”

“No apology necessary,” the queen said. “He should be executed. Not for who or what he is, but his actions.”

Laeden’s nostrils flared. He bit his lip, rising to his feet. “Might I suggest an alternative, Lentulis? We are all followers of the Six, but we have yet to ask them for their counsel. Ignoring blasphemous prophecies and heresy, why not let the Gods decide his fate?”

Zephyrus glared at Laeden, disbelieving that this was his form of aid in the matter.

“An omenation,” the king said. “The only appropriate recourse. But what question do we pose the Gods, and how shall we see it measured?”

“I would like to measure his skill with a blade,” Cassius’s daughter said.

“Very well, Nallia,” Cassius said. “If he wins, he is worthy of training. If he dies, then…” He shrugged. “All in favor?” The cavernous room echoed with cheers.

Zephyrus swallowed the growl forming in his throat. Laeden had given him an opportunity to prove to these people that he was worth more to them alive than dead. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Yet it was the best he was likely to receive. Again, his life hung on the whims of Gods and the balance of fate, but if he had steel in hand, he had a chance.

Laeden gave Zephyrus the slightest of nods. Another chance to stay alive.

Fate… what a cruel jape.

“Who will stand against him?” Cassius’s daughter, Nallia, asked.

“I will.” Lenox stepped from his position along the wall and descended the stairs to stand before the Cassiuses and the royal family. “Let the Gods guide my blade.”

Zephyrus’s apprehension dissolved, replaced by a wave of determination.

“How fitting,” the queen said. “Let us pray.”

The queen droned on, calling for the Gods of Valencia to guide the true path of the impending match. An omenation they called it, to discern the will of the Gods. But Zephyrus saw it as fate. He was still alive for this purpose: to see Patrus’s murderer put to ground. Wielder, Harbinger, or Herald, he would kill Lenox and avenge his fallen friend.

The queen finished her prayer. The guards undid Zephyrus’s manacles while Lenox drew his sword.

Let us see whose Gods are stronger.

Zephyrus—wet, bloody, clad only in a loincloth—stood across from Lenox in his purple-and-gold armor. Eyeing the finely forged steel in Lenox’s hand, Zephyrus didn’t suppose this was going to be a fair fight.

Laeden drew his blade and descended the stairs. “He may wield my sword.”

Cassius stopped him with a raised hand. “He can use mine.” Cassius pulled a cheese knife from a nearby servant’s platter and tossed it into the air.

The tranquility of the moment shattered as the cheese knife bounced down the steps with the clank of metal on marble. It toppled and spun before coming to a stop at Zephyrus’s feet.

Zephyrus eyed the rounded edge. Even the cheese was safe from such a blade.

Cassius lifted his hand. “Begin.”

Before Zephyrus could seize the dulled knife, Lenox charged. Lenox hacked down with a savage cut intending to cleave him in two. Zephyrus fell back, creating separation. He scuttled across the floor, pulling himself backwards with his hands to regain his footing. His heart throbbed in his ears. A chorus of disgruntled shouts filled the vaulted room, but Zephyrus was only focused on Lenox’s blade, chopping down at him. Sparks flew as steel met marble, narrowly missing Zephyrus’s thigh. He managed to his feet, just in time to avoid Lenox’s second attack. The blade passed mere hairs away from where Zephyrus was.

“The perfect dodge is just beyond your opponent’s reach,” reminded a familiar voice.

Lenox continued to press, but Zephyrus’s instincts took over. He was no longer the hunted. He was the hunter.

Zephyrus stepped back, allowing the blade to cut the air before him. He moved just enough to dodge, never overextending himself or misjudging the reach of the attack. He continued to back away as Lenox pressed.

Slash, hack, thrust!

Zephyrus evaded each but let Lenox believe he was getting closer to finishing the fight. Lenox was not without skill. His footwork precise, his cuts intentional, he struck in an unpredictable pattern, but Zephyrus was better. Zephyrus backed away, retreating up the stairs toward the Cassiuses to keep space between Lenox and himself.

He will tire. He will make a mistake, and when he does, I will kill him for it.

Lenox lashed out with more frustration behind each swing. Fighting against an unarmed man, Lenox would want to end the fight quickly, but his haste would be his undoing. Stab, slice, slash, chop! Each cut had more fury behind it. Lenox’s breathing became short, ragged grunts.

He’s losing patience. Wait for him to rush. Wait… Wait…

Lenox charged.

Wait…

Zephyrus rolled beneath an overzealous lunge and claimed the cheese knife. Lenox launched, but Zephyrus side-stepped, slashing across Lenox’s cheek. Blood sprayed, causing a red tear to trickle down Lenox’s face. Lenox let out a cry and thrashed with his sword. Again, Zephyrus dodged, slipping his heel just behind Lenox’s. With a slight shove, the armored guard went down with a thud.

“You will die!” Lenox barked, getting to his feet. He slashed low to high, but Zephyrus pivoted out of the way and countered, nicking Lenox’s sword arm in the gap of his leather armor. Lenox followed up with a horizontal slash, attempting to part Zephyrus’s head from his shoulders. Zephyrus ducked under the blow and sliced across the inside of Lenox’s thigh, dropping him to a knee. Grabbing Lenox’s sword arm at the wrist, Zephyrus twisted, forcing the blade from his grasp. He kicked the sword aside and stood over his now-unarmed opponent.

Blood trickled from Lenox’s wounds, but his pride suffered the greater defeat.

“You killed Patrus,” Zephyrus whispered. “And now you’ll die for it.” He reached the cheese knife back to deliver the final blow. Vengeance is mine. Patrus can rest eas—

His arm froze, suspended in mid-air. He pulled, but he couldn’t move. With all his strength, he tried to slam the cheese knife into Lenox’s neck, but to no avail. A powerful force jerked his arm backwards, spilling him onto the granite slab.

“I said enough!” The doctore unwound his whip from around Zephyrus’s wrist. Zephyrus tried to locate the cheese knife, but he lost it in his fall. Lenox stood, reclaiming his sword, face red with fury.

“Stand down, Lenox,” Cassius said. Lenox glared at Zephyrus, shoulders heaving with labored breaths. Zephyrus wasn’t ready for the fight to be over yet. He didn’t need a dull cheese knife to kill. For Patrus! He charged at Lenox.

Not two steps into his attack, the doctore’s whip snagged him around the throat with a snap. Zephyrus gagged. He coughed, but the tension around his neck didn’t relent. He grasped at his throat, but the whip was too tight for his fingers to pry it away. Pressure bulged behind his eyes. His vision faded at the edges. His heartbeat echoed in his ears like a war drum.

“You shoulda quit while you were ahead, Zeph,” said a familiar voice. But it wasn’t just a voice. He was a person. Patrus stood over him, holding out a hand to help him up. He was younger and more muscled, but had the same kind eyes. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll teach you everything I know. Everything your old man showed me.”

Zephyrus reached his hand out for Patrus’s, but Patrus wasn’t there. His peripheral vision blinked out, and everything faded to black.

Chapter 12

The Three

Nallia

Stockhelm

After the day’s excitement, Nallia couldn’t sleep. With a cheese knife, Zephyrus not only survived, but would have killed Lenox had he not been restrained by Doctore Auron. Zephyrus had survived countless scenarios that should have killed him. In one day. Regardless of what her father believed, he was a Prophet of Celestia. Never had she seen a fighter with more raw talent than he. The Gods had spoken.

He will be a gladiator of House Cassius.

After the guards dragged Zephyrus to the medicus’s chambers, the festivities were brought to an abrupt end. The royal retinue stayed the night, but departed at dawn, leaving Zephyrus to her. Not Lenox, nor her father, not even the queen could overrule the Gods’ will.

Zephyrus will be mine.

“You are incorrigible,” Father said. “Why can’t you let Doctore deal with the slave? Why must you speak with him yourself?”

“He needs to know who he’s fighting for,” Nallia said. “Didn’t you teach me that?” she mocked in a playful tone—enough to disarm, but not so much that she forfeited her upper hand.

“You’re more manipulative than the senators,” he said, a hint of a smile upon his lips.

“I have to be if I’m to lead the ludus once you become chancellor,” Nallia said, knowing how to appease her father.

“I suppose so. If he gives you trouble, see his insufferable nature beaten from him.”

Nallia nodded, but doling out beatings was not her way. She left her father’s tablinum and traversed the villa to the medicus’s chambers.

After her father spent months on tedious campaigning for the chancellorship and equal time neglecting his ludus, Nallia took it upon herself to uphold her forefather’s legacy. Their rival lanista, Ebron Brusos, had been jostling for her father’s title of Earl and Head Lanista of Stockhelm for the last dozen years. Now he attempted to vault over her father by vying for the chancellorship, but to do so, Brusos’s champion would have to beat the Cassius champion in the omenation at the Games of Stockhelm.

Luckily for her father, Nallia did not sit idly by. While he busied himself with speeches, bribes, and concessions, she took a more hands-on approach to the role of lanista.

Regardless of the omenation, Nallia didn’t want her family’s trade to be lost. With the increased popularity of the tournaments, many amongst the patricians were less inclined to pay for private gladiatorial entertainment. While it had never been more popular amongst the plebs, the patricians possessed the coin needed to remain profitable. Nallia took it upon herself to make sure her gladiators were not just the highest stock, but the most motivated. Her father oversaw them with the whip of discipline, but Nallia realized that men could achieve greater things if prodded by more personal incentives.

For many it was coin; they were the easy ones. A purse to be spent on women, wine, or other desires of baser nature was enough to keep them content. Others, especially those condemned to slavery because their fathers fought on the wrong side of the New Rheynian War, sent that coin to their families. Some wanted to be remembered, and having an artisan carve their likeness into tile after a victory was enough to motivate them to achieve another.

Every man wanted something, and Nallia made it her job to discover it and leverage the most out of every man. Other than Stegavax, that lost cause. Despite being the Champion of their House, he was uncontrollable, irrational, and lacked an honorable bone in his body. Perhaps that’s why Zephyrus interested her so much. The Gods delivered him to her for a reason. But putting a sword in a slave’s hand didn’t make him a gladiator. Lighting a fire in his heart would.

She walked past the door descending to the barracks and towards the medicus’s quarters, where a guard bowed as she entered. The medicus popped his head up from his vials of herbs at her intrusion. His sniveling nose and weary eyes made him appear like a timid mouse. Scanning the room, she found what she was looking for. In the back corner of the medicus’s dingy chambers, Zephyrus was chained to a wooden cot.

“Unchain him and leave us,” Nallia said, sending the guard into a wide-eyed stammer. “It’s okay. He won’t harm me. You too,” she said to the medicus. Both hesitated but did as ordered.

“I’ll be right outside,” the guard said, letting himself out.

The door closed behind him, leaving her alone with Zephyrus. His red hair, tied back in a loose bun, contrasted with his fair complexion. Glowing torchlight flickered across his muscled physique and the host of fresh lacerations and old scars that painted his body.

He’s no stranger to combat.

Zephyrus stood, rubbing his wrists where the manacles chafed him raw.

“Good morning, Zephyrus.”

He examined her but said nothing. He didn’t avert his gaze as she expected. Proud. His eyes followed her as she sauntered around his wooden cot. Bold.

“How are you feeling now that the medicus has tended your wounds?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. He barely breathed. He stared at her like a gargoyle forged from stone.

Just get him talking. Men of talent only need to be reminded of their triumphs; that’s all it takes to break their dam of silence.

“I hope you have recovered from last night’s omenation. Quite the spectacle. A cheese knife versus a gladius.” Nallia chuckled. “I doubt Lenox will eat a slice of cheese again.”

The gargoyle didn’t move.

“You are special,” Nallia said, unperturbed by his silence. “The Judges of Celestia know it, the Gods of Valencia know it, and I am not so blind as to stifle that which can burn so brightly. You fascinate me—a Rheynian plucked from Tharseo’s Bastion, a Prophet of Celestia. Tell me, how did that come to be?”

He didn’t blink. A flush rose to her cheeks. Gods, how frustrating.

He hung his head. “I don’t know.” His voice was soft, like a secret to the wind.

“Care to elaborate further?”

“I don’t know,” he said louder. “I don’t remember anything before the temple.”

The enigma continued. “You remember nothing? Surely, there must be—”

“No. Nothing.” Zephyrus failed to meet her eyes.

No amount of gold, drink, or pleasures of the flesh would satisfy one who only knew his name. A healer in the northern village of Nesonia used herbs to unlock the secrets of a lost mind. Perhaps she can help? If Nallia could give him back his memory, he would be hers to wield—a true Champion.

“But you received a prophecy?” Nallia asked, stepping around the table, within arm’s reach of him. She held out her hand and pointed at her own palm. “Did it hurt?”

Zephyrus held up his bandaged left hand. “I don’t remember this one, but this one…” He elevated his right, equally dressed. “Pain lanced through my entire being. But my blood ran, balanced the scale.”

“Then you received your prophecy?”

Zephyrus raised an eyebrow. “You’re interested in blasphemous Celestic rituals?”

“I’ve always had an interest in the Judges,” Nallia said. “Don’t tell my father.”

Zephyrus snorted but didn’t divulge more.

Nallia bit her lip. If I’m going to connect with him now, without the help of a healer, the Judges are my path. She tried to remember the prophecies her mother had taught her when she was a girl, but then it came to her. “Out of the darkness, born into the light, to balance the scales of Perillian’s plight, a wielder of the lost to summon the three back to the land of the Judges, home to the free.”

As proud as she was for remembering the prophecy, Zephyrus gave no reaction.

“That wasn’t my prophecy,” Zephyrus said.

Nallia’s face fell. “That’s the prophecy of the Wielder. I’m sure of it.”

Zephyrus’s eyes lit up like seeing the sun for the first time. “What are the others?”

Nallia pursed her lips to hold back her smile. She twisted the amethyst ring about her finger, trying to recall. Once upon a time, she knew the prophetic poems like the Facets of Perfection, but she was out of practice.

“Hmm, ‘through whispers and visions, the Herald will rise. Communing with Gods to the Judges’ delight, a beast will feed upon the unworthy to usher in the age of uncertainty.’ That’s the Herald. And the Harbinger…” She trailed off when she noticed the consternation on Zephyrus’s face. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing… the Harbinger?”

She narrowed her eyes but didn’t press him. “The Harbinger… ‘From the depths of hell to glory on high, the chain that connects will no longer bind. When rain does not fall and crops do not rise, the harbinger has come. The Age of the End is nigh.’”

Zephyrus’s face paled beneath his red beard. Waking up to a prophecy, being swept into slavery, and remembering nothing that came before… Nallia pitied him.

Sullen as he was, Nallia feared she’d said something wrong. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said, but his eyes remained downcast. “It’s just…” He took a deep breath. “Patrus said my prophecy contained words and phrases from each of the Three. I suppose I hoped for answers instead of more questions.”

Each of the Three? She hadn’t thought it possible, but this made him more interesting.

“Fate can be cruel,” she said. “But it’s not absolute. You have more control over your fate than you might think. These prophecies, they’re just holes in the future, waiting to be filled. If your prophecy contains elements of each of the Three, it sounds like you are destined for greatness, regardless. But what you do with that greatness is up to you.”

Zephyrus frowned. “Patrus said something similar.”

“Sounds like a smart man,” Nallia said with a smile. “Where is he now?”

The defeated look in his eyes told her all she needed to know. He’s dead.

She grit her teeth. “I’m sorry, Zephyrus.”

Silence.

Idiot. Keep him talking. “Patrus—who was he?”

Zephyrus snorted again. “That’s the worst part… I don’t remember. And the only thing I have left of him is…” His eyes went wide again. “Burn me, I must have dropped it when the guard attacked me.”

“When you tried to escape?” Nallia asked.

“I didn’t try to escape!” Zephyrus’s soft voice became as cold and cruel as iron. “Saulus broke my manacles, shouted that I was trying to escape, then tried to kill me.”

Nallia bit her tongue in thought. Saulus… but why? “Because you’re one of the Three?”

Zephyrus shrugged.

“What did you drop?” Nallia asked.

“It’s gone,” Zephyrus said. “Probably for the best…”

Nallia nodded, not wanting to pry any further. She’d gathered what she came for and learned a few interesting tidbits along the way. She placed her hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“Zephyrus, I will find you a healer who can help with your memories. And from now on, one of the guards I trust will keep an eye on you just in case someone else attempts the same thing as Saulus.”

Zephyrus’s brow narrowed. “Why? Why are you helping me?”

Nallia smiled. “Because everyone deserves to know who they are.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Nallia said, seeing the stone shell fall from the gargoyle. “I will be back, and I’ll bring answers.”

Chapter 13

The Docks

Laeden V

Salmantica

Laeden didn’t feel good about leaving Zephyrus without speaking again, especially considering how his night ended, but his new duties could not wait. There was no time to waste when it came to securing his father’s kingdom. He named Markus his lieutenant, and the two began discussing strategy the moment they left Cassius’s ludus.

In the first few days, they set to work on garnering support and rallying troops to join the Sentinels’ cause. The Revivalists had the upper hand in terms of time, numbers, organization, and ruthlessness. Laeden needed to be resourceful if he were to have any chance of stopping them.

“More potential threats.” Markus filtered through parchments delivered by their scouts.

“Credible?” Laeden asked, jotting in his notebook. They had been following up on threats all morning, but only one of the four stops seemed to be an act of the Revivalists. Citizens attempting to help protect their king were becoming difficult to distinguish from those wishing to turn the hysteria into personal mage-hunts.

Markus shrugged. “They all seem credible on paper: an explosive fire in Marstead, stolen crops in Southgrove, a dead body upon the docks.”

“Only one,” Laeden said. “I suppose that’s an improvement.”

After a few misleading tips to start the day, they investigated Count Elrod Horne’s petition: six dead slaves in his apothecary. Laeden expected to find bodies, but he didn’t anticipate five of them being children.

“Anything would be better than that,” Markus said, looking up from his scroll.

“I don’t know,” Laeden said, thinking of what would have become of his father had Aelon not given him the information to stop the Revivalists’ plot. Laeden kept Aelon’s name secret, even from Markus. Until he was certain Cassius’s ludus was secure, he didn’t want Markus’s knowledge to jeopardize Aelon. Laeden was to meet Aelon under the docks at low tide, around noon, but he would have to go alone.

Laeden observed the sun’s position in the sky. Almost noon. “Where to now?”

Markus scanned the scroll of petitions. “Closest to the docks.”

Now is as good a time as any. “Why don’t we split up?” Laeden said. “We’ll cover more ground. I’ll take the docks. You investigate the explosion in Marstead. We’ll reconvene at Sentigard before the nightly rains.”

With a salute, Markus made his way east towards the outskirts of the city to the borough of Marstead. Laeden pulled up the hood of his travel-worn cloak to cover more of his face. His beard had grown thick in the past week, further disguising his visage, but he was involved in a dangerous game, and it was best to play it safe. Beneath his cloak, he wore boiled leather armor, a short sword, and a dagger. Now that his title of captain of the Sentinels was public knowledge, any Revivalist grunt aiming to climb the ranks could target him, so every possible precaution needed to be taken.

Laeden strode along the Street of Silk, home to the finest textile shops of Salmantica, but the well-swept cobblestone streets and the fanciful storefronts did little to comfort him. Safety no longer existed. The Revivalists’ ranks would be swollen with the rich and poor alike.

The Street of Silk emptied into the Gilded Gauntlet, the statue of the first king, Damascus Drake, erected at its center. But the circular road of commerce was better known as the Haunted Hollow. Before the end of the war, hundreds of mages were nailed to Six Arrowed Stars on these very stones. He’d been spared the sight, but he heard the screams all the way from Sentigard. The memory reminded him of the children’s bodies strewn about the apothecary floor. Their young faces marred with terror as life fled from them. Another six dead.

All for one mage to be exiled.

If Laeden didn’t succeed, the Haunted Hollow would scream again.

“You have to stop them,” Iylea had said, her eyes wet with fear.

He would protect her, defend his father, and uproot the Revivalists. I must. At any cost.

He arrived at the docks to discover what he could about the body that had washed ashore. The docks, as always, were busy. Imports, exports, ferries to and from, and always a toll to be collected. The docks were home to the greatest swindlers in New Rheynia.

The Vigiles of the city watch who first arrived at the scene were joined by their commander, Heclan Allos.

“My prince.” Heclan removed his helm and bowed to greet Laeden. Despite the smoky gray of his temples, he bowed deep and long—a sentiment often abbreviated when honoring Laeden. As he inclined his head, the crow’s feet framing his deep-set dark green eyes creased deeper.

“Good day, Commander,” Laeden said.

“I wish it were so,” Heclan said. He gestured for Laeden to follow him and led him past the fisheries to the lighthouse where the body was kept. “We cannot ascertain if the murder is linked to the Revivalists, but there is something you should see. The fisherman that found the body cooperated, answering all our questions. We did not hold him, but he can be found for further questioning if you believe the Revivalists may be behind the murder.”

Laeden nodded. “Anyone know who he is?”

“We wheeled the body around on a cart,” Heclan said. “Asked any who passed if they recognized the man, but no one had seen him before.”

“You and your men have done fine work,” Laeden said. As they approached the lighthouse door, a Vigile of Heclan’s Cohort Prefectus hurried to open the door for Laeden.

Walking inside, it took a moment for Laeden’s vision to adjust to the change in lighting. Blinking away sunspots, his vision refocused as Heclan led Laeden to a storeroom off the staircase that led up to the top of the lighthouse.

Heclan opened the door to the storeroom. “Prepare yourself, my prince. Something about the body isn’t quite right.”

“What do you mean?” Laeden asked as he entered.

The body, wrinkled and pruned, was slumped in a one-wheeled cart with two rear legs. Laeden approached, standing over the desiccated body, a deep slit carved into its forehead.

“He didn’t receive that from Aquarius’s wrath,” Laeden said, lifting his index finger to his own forehead as he examined the man.

“Indeed,” Heclan said. “Drowned men usually bloat in their time at sea. It’s as if all his blood was drained from him.”

Laeden screwed up his lip. “Some sort of ritualistic sacrifice?”

Heclan shrugged. “That’s not all.” He nodded at the Vigiles.

The two city watchmen lifted the Helm’s sleeves, turned his arms over, and put them down. Next, they pulled back his ripped cloak to reveal his bare chest, but aside from wrinkled skin not brought on by old age, Laeden didn’t notice what Heclan was alluding to.

“No brands,” Heclan said. “None.”

The Treaty of 940 branded every Helm on every isle of New Rheynia. Salmantica, Valtarcia, or Stockhelm—all were branded. But this man’s lack of a mark meant only one thing.

“How did a Klaytonian end up here?” Laeden thumbed the scruff of his beard.

Klaytos was a span south of Stockhelm’s most southern border. If a body had washed up on Stockhelm’s shores, he wouldn’t have thought much of it. But for the body to drift all the way to the Salmantic harbor was beyond unlikely. Considering the condition of the body and the lack of bloating, Laeden searched for possibilities in which the Klaytonian man’s murder didn’t pertain to the Revivalists.

“You have to stop them.” Iylea’s voice resounded in his ear.

Six save me, I’m falling into the same trap as everyone else. I can’t blame every cloud in the sky on the Revivalists’ plots.

Laeden shuffled his feet. “Coincidence, or do you suspect the Revivalists’ involvement?”

Heclan heaved a deep sigh. “In my line of work, nothing is a coincidence, but Six save us all—Revivalist or not, whoever did this is dangerous.”

Laeden nodded. “Have a medicus do a full examination. Perhaps we can derive how this was done. But, if the Revivalists are behind this, I have little doubt they will do so again.”

“Very well, my prince. Any specific medicus?” Heclan asked.

It was a sound question. If Laeden gave this body to a medicus in league with the Revivalist movement, he would learn no more from it than if he sent it back to sea, but he didn’t know who he could trust. He would start where he was most vulnerable—the Prefectus Medicus of the royal family.

“Bring him to Sentigard,” Laeden said. “Be on the lookout for any unmarked Klaytonians, anyone with stab wounds to the forehead, or people drained of blood.”

Heclan bowed, and Laeden took his leave.

With his mind racing, he set off to meet Aelon. He exited the lighthouse, navigated the busy docks, and descended onto the beach, where Aelon waited beneath the docks in the wake of the receding tide. Aelon’s back was to him, his hooded cloak covering him.

As Laeden approached, Aelon turned to meet him, but the figure was not Aelon. Laeden seized the pommel of his short sword and jabbed his finger at the man. “Who are you?”

The man held his hands up to reveal empty palms, startled by Laeden’s outburst. Surveying the rest of the docks to make sure no one else waited to take him unaware, Laeden drew his short sword.

The man dropped to his knees and pulled back his hood. “No, please! Chimera’s breath, he said you could help me. Please?” Gray hair hung in a tangled web past his ears, his eyes wide with terror.

“Who said?”

“I don’t know his name,” the man pleaded. “He just said you’d protect me if I gave you information.”

Aelon…

Although Laeden didn’t appreciate Aelon making promises on his behalf, perhaps this would be safer. He sheathed his sword and advanced to yank the man to his feet.

“That depends on the information.” The man nodded, blinking, trying to gather the words to speak. “Let’s start with your name.”

“Gareth.” His voice trembled.

“And why, Gareth, should I protect you?”

Gareth swallowed, looking down at his feet as the waves rolled in. “I was with the Revivalists…” He backed away, flinching as if Laeden had reared to strike. When he didn’t, Gareth continued. “We didn’t think they’d be like this. Didn’t think they’d kill people. Just thought they wanted change, ya know?” Gareth put his face in his hands. “We were against the mage getting exiled, but we never signed up for… this.”

How many idealists were roped into the Revivalists’ cause? How many remained out of fear of reprisal?

If Aelon could help Laeden find those who might turn against the Revivalists, perhaps the Sentinels could discover who was behind their schemes. This war would not be fought with swords and shields but words and promises. It wasn’t Gareth’s fault he got ensnared in the Revivalists’ ideals. Laeden imagined there would be many more like him who deserved a second chance. Punishment wouldn’t be justice. Getting them to fight on the right side, the honest side—that is justice.

“I will protect you,” Laeden said, “but you will tell me everything you know about the Revivalists. Everything.”

Chapter 14

The Ferryman

Threyna

Salmantica

Threyna’s gloved fingers traced the scar across her throat as her other hand loosened the purse from her belt. With its heft in her palm, she wondered how little it would have cost to make the ferryman betray his own people. As he held out his greedy palms, she doubted he felt any guilt over the lives he’d condemned to slavery.

Part of her longed for the freedom of that selfishness. It would have made things easier. But the other part of her knew—that selfishness, that ease with which treachery came—that was a fate worse than death. If all she wanted was numbness, she might as well have let the slaver slit her throat, or just waited in Klaytos for the Skeleton King to consume her. But she wouldn’t lay down and die or become a heartless brigand living only for herself. She would fight.

Standing on the shore beside the quiet docks in the pre-dawn light, she tossed her purse to the ferryman. He caught it, testing its weight by shifting it from hand to hand. The precious stones within rattled against one another.

“This isn’t gold,” the ferryman said. He opened the purse to find the bright green gemstones. “What is this?”

“Viridite from the limestone Gullies of Rheynia,” Threyna said. “It absorbs and retains light. Far more valuable than gold. You’ll be the only one on this side of the world with it.”

She hoped that was true. If it wasn’t, that meant she had even less time than she thought.

The ferryman plucked one stone from the others and held it before his eye. His smile shone brighter than the moonlight that guided their evening excursion through the low-tide tunnel in the Hylan Mountains.

Placing it back into the pouch, he bowed his head at Threyna. “Pleasure doing business.”

Threyna ground her boot into the sand. Blood—her blood—stained the leather. Zephyrus held her as she died. The horror painted on his face haunted her. It needed to be worth it. She needed to be worth it.

“You did what had to be done, Threyna,” Paxoran, the God of Peace, said in her mind. “Claim the Treasures. Together, we will stop the Skeleton King.”

Threyna gulped. He had not led her wrong in the time since he began speaking to her. If not for him, Threyna never would have survived the Skeleton King’s attack on the Warlocks of Sage. Tyrus, Erowen, and everyone else were likely dead, joined to the One True God in eternal undeath. Paxoran had spared her that and led her to the Arcane Templar to learn where the Treasures she needed to defeat the Skeleton King were hidden. Paxoran gave her a way, a hope at defeating the Skeleton King—for good this time.

The Elders of the Templar didn’t understand. Neither did Patrus or Zephyrus. They rejected her. They made her choose this way. They didn’t see, didn’t comprehend. What good was reclaiming their motherland from the Rheynians if every soul was under the Skeleton King’s control? She needed the Treasures more than Zephyrus, more than the Warlocks, or the Templar. There were monsters worse than Drakes and Helixuses, and it was up to Threyna to kill him.

Again.

She just wished she didn’t have to do it alone.

The ferryman whistled a tune while preparing his boat to sail back to Klaytos, bearing none of the guilt that burdened her shoulders.

“Why did you condemn your own people?” Threyna asked.

She couldn’t let it go. She needed her heart, mind, and Inner Throne right if she were going to stop the Skeleton King. Any affirmation that the collateral damage she’d caused was somehow deserved would give her some semblance of peace.

The ferryman cocked an eyebrow. “My people? Burn me, you think all Helms share the same beliefs?” He spat into the foaming waves. “Do all Rheynians get along?”

She closed her eyes and traced the scar along her throat. The weight stooping her shoulders and drawing the corners of her lips downward grew heavier.

“All sacrifices will be redeemed,” Paxoran said. “For now, do as you must.”

She wanted to believe she didn’t have a choice, but part of her wondered—did she have to separate herself from the Templar? Was telling the ferryman to warn the slavers about the ritual at Tharseo’s Bastion her only option? What about poisoning Zephyrus’s and Patrus’s tea? Or forging a note to misdirect them toward King Varros if the ferryman failed to bring the slavers?

“You cannot let him leave,” Paxoran said. “A loose end. Besides, you must consume.”

Threyna lifted the sleeves of her cloak to examine her left arm. Between her sleeve and her leather gloves, black veins slithered down her arm like corrupted snakes—the byproduct of using the cursed blood magic. She needed to feed, or it would devour her.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Threyna channeled to Paxoran. “He won’t stop us.”

“Consume him.”

“I can just siphon a little,” Threyna said. “I don’t need a whole soul—”

“Threyna… All of him.” Paxoran’s tone inflected the last of his patience.

Threyna sighed, tugging the gloves from her fingers one by one. As the ferryman prepared to shove his rowboat past the break, Threyna called out. “One more thing.”

The ferryman inclined his head, and before his eyes could focus on her, her dagger toppled end over end through the air and thudded into his forehead. He staggered in the surf, reached for the side of his rowboat, and fell face first into the sea.

Threyna dragged her feet as she strolled to the ferryman’s corpse in the shallows. The cold water numbed her toes but did little to assuage her grief. Despite all the death she’d doled out, the calluses surrounding her heart never thickened. Tapping into her Inner Throne, she sat herself at the center of her power. Within the temple of her mind, she was a queen of cataclysm, a goddess of destruction; a body’s blood, bone, and soul were hers to command.

She lifted the ferryman from the sea and drew in breath. Her Inner Throne opened its doors to his departing soul, but instead of escaping to the afterlife, his soul—his essence—became the sustenance of her survival. Blood fled his body through the wound in his forehead, evaporating into a mist that Threyna inhaled. The ferryman’s blood healed the poorly closed wounds she’d sustained at Tharseo’s Bastion. As his body desiccated before her, she yanked her dagger free from his forehead, reclaimed her Viridite glowstones, and released him to the ocean’s rising tides.

“Now we can be on our way,” Paxoran said.

Threyna resheathed her dagger, tied her pouch of gemstones, and admired her hand. The black vines that had slithered down her forearm abated to her elbow. The cuts on her palms from the Seers’ sacrifices sealed shut, leaving only a callused line. She prodded the scar where the slaver had slit her throat. Only dense tissue remained.

It wasn’t the first time she had died and defied death—only the latest. By using the Skeleton King’s blood magic to siphon the vitality of the other patrons and slavers at Tharseo’s Bastion, she had restitched her open throat and saved her life. But every time she went to such extremes, she felt like a part of her died and never came back.

Perhaps that’s why the Skeleton King is the way he is.

Her sister, Laela, had left her with the Warlocks and set off to find a cure for the curse coursing through their veins. Threyna had wanted Laela to stay, to buy into the Warlocks’ war against the Valencians who stole their home and enslaved their people, but Laela, for all her martial prowess, never wanted to fight. She did what she had to in order to escape Rheynia, but she never wanted to fight. She had no use for the Skeleton King’s cursed blood magic and sought a cure.

While Threyna doubted a cure existed, she was glad her sister left when she did. There was still a chance she was alive out there, somewhere. If she had stayed, if she had been at the City of the Judges when the Skeleton King attacked, Laela’s soul might have been taken by the Skeleton King too.

Threyna’s fingers fell from her throat as the ferryman’s boat drifted out to sea, and his body sank into the undercurrent. The rowboat shrank into the horizon, and so too did Threyna’s assurance that her ends justified the means. She hoped Zephyrus would be able to forgive her, but if the Skeleton King wasn’t stopped, none of it mattered.

I did what I had to. Zephyrus and Patrus will have to fend for themselves.

The sun crested the horizon. Orange rays bled across the placid sea to point at her, as if raising an alarm of her endless crimes. She needed to leave. She needed to claim the Vykane Blade before anyone from the Templar learned of her treachery.

She pulled her hood up, turning away from the rising tide, the waking harbor, and her mounting guilt. She set off toward the tolling bell tower of Salmantica’s Temple District, hoping that in the end, when all this was over, she could watch the sun rise without death on her mind, rot in her veins, or guilt in her heart.

Chapter 15

What Would a Champion Do?

Fenyx

Stockhelm

The ceaseless prickling woke Fenyx. Again. He rose from his cot, scratching at the burned skin along his left arm in a fruitless effort to end the tingling that greeted him every morning.

To the chain with these straw cots.

He paced within his cell, flexing his burned hand to pump life into the stiffened joints. The other gladiators were sleeping, but dawn approached, and with it his morning delivery.

Fenyx leaned against his cell door, grasping his hands around the bars. Today was a new day, another opportunity to prove his valor. The Games of Stockhelm would soon be upon them, and he would be damned if they passed absent his victory. Every day of training was a gift of the Judges, an opportunity that would not be squandered.

Footsteps approached signaling the start of his day. Auron’s shadow graced his door, and with his presence, the delivery of relief. A hand shorter and two stone lighter than Fenyx, Auron drew a pouch from his pocket and passed it between the cell bars.

“Dreams still elude you?” the former gladiator asked.

Fenyx dug into the parcel, tore a strip of whiteroot from the stalk, and shoved it into his mouth. At last. Relief would soon be delivered.

“Dreams are for those too lazy to seek glory.” Fenyx chewed the thick root. “How do the recruits fare—any future Champions who would stand in my way?”

“They will be what they will be,” Auron said. “Focus on yourself and your future glory.”

Fenyx grunted. “What about this Zephyrus—the Prophet of the Return?”

“Lower your voice,” Auron said through bared teeth. “Better yet, speak not of the Judges or the Return. Zephyrus is a man like any other, regardless of prophecy. Now, set mind to purpose. I will greet the rising sun with prayers.”

“And who shall hear them?”

Auron gave him the same reproachful glance he always did whenever Fenyx asked. It was an honest question. Did he really pray to the Six of Valencia? Or did he still cling to the Judges in secret?

Fenyx hadn’t uttered a prayer since the day he was captured. Some fools believed the Six killed the Judges, and the only way for Celestics to bring them back was to overthrow their Rheynian captors. This nonsense that began at Tharseo’s Bastion kept Celestics grasping at false hopes. The Wielder, the Harbinger, the Herald—all of it was complete rubbish.

The truth: the Judges delivered them into the hands of the Valencians to serve penance for their sins. Once they earned the Judges’ forgiveness, their enslavement would end. Some lit candles in silent prayer for the Judges’ mercy, but Fenyx did not. He kept his idols—the last possession of his childhood—hidden away, but Fenyx didn’t seek forgiveness. He would prove his worth in the blood of the slain.

Fenyx gnawed on the whiteroot as he moved around his cell, rolling his head to loosen his neck, and reaching his arms up to open his back and shoulders. Shagren stirred in the cell across from him. He ran his meaty fingers through his tangled reddish-brown hair and matching barbaric beard.

Shagren was Rheynian but enslaved all the same. The bastard sons of those who fought on the losing side of the war were given an opportunity to redeem the sins of their fathers as gladiators of the arena. Fenyx didn’t pity men like Shagren; he was second only to Stegavax in terms of victories in the arena. Here, bastards could rise higher than anywhere else in the world.

Give me a life of glory as a slave to a bottom-feeding pleb any day.

Shagren leaned on the bars, waiting for Auron’s call as well. He spat in Fenyx’s direction. “Watchya lookin’ at?”

Fenyx continued to stare him down, chewing on the whiteroot with one side of his mouth. “I’m looking upon your face… I want to remember how it looks before we meet on the sands. Before your eyes bruise and your nose breaks—while you still have teeth between your mats of fur.”

Shagren shook the bars of his cell, cursing and spitting.

“Silence!” Auron’s voice bellowed through the barracks. “Cease babbling tongues and set minds to purpose. Rise from sleep and see dreams of glory become reality.”

Auron released them from their cages to assume formation in the training square. Once released from his cell, Fenyx strode past the cells of the barracks. All empty, except one.

He stopped at the last door on the right—the Champion’s cell. Home to Stegavax, it was twice the size of the other cells with a door for privacy instead of open cell bars, a double-wide feather bed, and a small, barred window allowing fresh air into the room.

Fenyx peeked inside. Stegavax lay in bed, one arm behind his head, feet elevated.

Fenyx shook his head. When I become Champion, I won’t rest on past laurels. I will train harder than ever—perfection knows no bounds.

He left Stegavax and exited the barracks.

The training square welcomed him. He imagined the roar of the crowd every time he graced the sands. The purple of twilight gave way to burnt oranges as the sun crested the eastern horizon, cutting like a spear through the sky to light his path to glory. The rest of the men stood in formation, awaiting Auron’s direction.

Auron paired off each of the proven gladiators to spar against one another while he trained the recruits on the basics of footwork and swordsmanship. As Fenyx had hoped, Auron paired him with Shagren. Once armed with their wooden weapons, training began.

Fenyx smiled, lifting the two-handed great sword in his burned hand. He swept it around in giant arcs before leveling the blade at Shagren’s face, holding the sword in one hand as proof of his strength.

Doctore’s whip cracked, and the world went silent and still. Everything happened in slow motion as the Burning—the unquenchable thirst for blood and the insatiable drive for victory—took control.

Shagren charged like a crazed bull, swinging his dual axes with fury. Fenyx sidestepped the first and ducked under the second. The wood whisked through the air but found no connection. Shagren kicked up a cloud of sand and chopped upward with one axe, then downward with the other. Fenyx raised his arm to shield his eyes from the sand and reared back to avoid the axes.

Fenyx swung the two-handed great sword in a wide arc, forcing Shagren to retreat. With the advantage of reach, Fenyx’s blade cleaved through the air again. Shagren raised his axes to block, but the momentum of Fenyx’s strike shoved Shagren off balance. Fenyx closed the distance and struck with the pommel of his sword. The hilt crashed into Shagren’s cheek.

Stunned and unable to defend himself, Shagren stumbled backwards. With a grunt, Fenyx seized Shagren by his belted pauldron and dropped the crown of his head into Shagren’s nose.

Cartilage crunched.

Shagren recoiled, but Fenyx sliced horizontally across Shagren’s chin. Blood spurted from his mouth like water from the Stormburn Geyser. The axes fell from Shagren’s hands as he crumpled to the sand.

Fenyx placed the blade over his shoulder and looked at Shagren’s cronies—Wardon and Aelixo. They stared as their woozy leader spat blood.

“Medicus!” Auron called for Shagren’s aid.

Fenyx lifted his burned hand up to the sky as if celebrating victory in the arena. “Is there another who would stand against me?” This caught Domina’s attention. She and a guest stared down at him from their place upon the balcony. Yes, take notice of your future Champion. Fenyx had more to prove—the Burning wasn’t sated by the quick victory.

“I will stand against you.” Stegavax emerged from the barracks, growling. “Bring me swords.” Long braids of hair hung behind his massive frame. Black eyes glowered atop a bestial smile of pointed teeth. Once, his ferocity intimidated Fenyx, but no longer. Stegavax would be the Burning’s next victim.

“Doctore!” Domina called from the balcony. “Send Fenyx to the villa.”

Auron nodded and gestured to the guards.

Fenyx set his feet. No… Why now?

Stegavax laughed as Nortus, the burly guard, hauled Fenyx away from glory. He wanted to fight. If he defeated Stegavax, everyone would see he was ready to assume the mantle of Champion.

Why am I being summoned now?

He released his great sword and curled his burned fingers into a fist.

Act like a Champion, he reminded himself.

Nortus returned him to the barracks and escorted him up the stairs to the villa. Retracing their footsteps to the showroom the gladiators had fought in the night before in honor of the royal family, Fenyx released his slave’s anger and assumed his Champion’s stoicism.

As they entered, Domina, her bodyslave, and the other woman from the balcony waited on the dais.

“You may leave us, Nortus,” Domina said, plucking a grape from the bodyslave’s tray. Nortus bowed and left.

“Cerberynn, this is Fenyx,” Domina said. “He’s been training in this ludus since the age of ten.”

Fenyx bowed his head, tucking his chin to the left to hide his burns.

Cerberynn sauntered over to him, gliding down the stairs with aethereal grace. As beautiful a woman as he’d ever seen, a shade between the light-skinned Rheynians and the darker complexions of the native Stockhelm people, she approached Fenyx. She reached her hand for his shoulder, caressing his skin as she walked around his good side.

He flinched at her touch but caught himself.

A Champion would not recoil.

He stood tall and stared straight ahead, allowing her to examine him, but something about the way she prowled set him on edge worse than Stegavax’s twin gladii ever had.

“He is quite the man now,” Cerberynn said in a singsong voice. “I imagine he’s worth a hundred times the initial investment. How did these wounds come about?” She gestured to the burns along the left side of his body.

Fenyx’s lip twitched, and he shifted his weight from left to right, glancing to Domina for guidance. Should I respond? What do I say? He felt more vulnerable than he had wielding a dagger against a Poker’s spear.

Domina nodded.

Fenyx swallowed. “My village burned…”

What would a Champion say?

“A boy was burned before he became a man and a gladiator under the roof of House Cassius,” Fenyx said, holding his head high.

Cerberynn smiled. “Cleotra, you have him so well trained. I see how he fares in the art of swordsmanship… How well trained is he in the art of women?”

Domina sputtered on a half-chewed grape. “What do you speak of?”

“I love my husband, but sometimes a woman has needs that can’t be met by a mere man,” Cerberynn said, looking at Fenyx in a way no woman had ever looked at him before.

A bead of sweat formed on his brow. Be a Champion. Show no fear.

Cerberynn continued to pace about him until she stood toe to toe with him, gazing up with aquamarine eyes. He felt naked, vulnerable—clad in only his sublingaria and sandals, he wilted beneath her stare.

“Sometimes, a goddess needs a god inside of her,” Cerberynn said.

Fenyx tensed. Is this what it means to be Champion? Fenyx reviewed every lecture Auron had ever given him on the conduct of a Champion, but came away as empty as a poor Trapper’s net.

Domina guffawed in bewilderment. “You can’t be serious.”

Fenyx wiped the moisture of his palms on his thighs.

Cerberynn turned to her hostess. “Have you never?”

“Have I ever… what?” Domina asked.

“Shared a bed with one of your titans?”

Fenyx choked back a cough. Staring straight ahead, he counted down the moments until he could return to the training square, where he belonged.

“I would never!” Domina spat.

Cerberynn shrugged, sauntering back to Domina.

Fenyx’s tension released. Thank the Judges for Domina…

“Do with him what you will—or won’t,” Cerberynn said with a wink. “I had best return to my husband before my lust consumes me.” She turned to Fenyx. “I hope we meet again.”

Fenyx stood motionless, unsure of what to do or say. So he did nothing, said nothing as the ladies bid their farewells. In all his bouts in Teluvar’s fighting pits, with life hanging in the balance, he never felt more uncomfortable than he did in this moment.

Once Cerberynn left, Domina marched down the stairs to stand before Fenyx just as Cerberynn had before. Fenyx stiffened. For a moment, he thought she might hit him. She put her hand on his burned cheek and inspected him with discerning eyes.

What would a Champion do?

Before he could do anything, she shoved his face away, forcing Fenyx to step back.

“Remove him to the barracks.”

Fenyx released a full exhale for the first time since arriving in the showroom. Nortus collected Fenyx and returned him to the training square. As his feet graced the sands once again, he was glad to be back where he belonged—where he could trade sweat and blood for glory—where things made sense.

Chapter 16

Ally

Zephyrus VII

Stockhelm

“You don’t owe the Arcane Templar anything.” Threyna placed Zephyrus’s hand over her heart. It raced like horses from an all-consuming fire. “You might not believe in him, but this is real, and he is coming. I have to stop him… no one else will. Not the Warlocks, not the Templar. Me. And I don’t know if I can do it on my own. So please, Zephyrus—will you join me?”

The door crashed into its jamb, startling Zephyrus from his dreams. He whipped around to see the door, but his shackles bound him to his cot in the medicus’s chambers. His reality returned to him like a kick to the chest.

No, no, no.

He tried to commit his dreams to memory, but like sand through his fingers, they slipped into obscurity. He closed his eyes and ground his teeth.

What did Threyna say?

“Good afternoon,” Nallia said from behind him. “I hope you’re resting well despite the accommodations.”

“You mean these?” Zephyrus asked, lifting the manacles binding him to the cot. “I hadn’t noticed.” With his wrists chafed raw and an itch on his nose that even sleep couldn’t ignore, he most certainly noticed.

“I trust no one’s tried to kill you since my last visit?” Nallia asked.

“Besides the medicus?” Zephyrus asked.

“No one’s killin’ no one.” The medicus shuffled past. “But ya need new bandages or else ya risk infection.”

“I’ll change his bandages,” Nallia said. The medicus opened his mouth to object. “I have watched you do more difficult things a thousand times before. I’ll summon you if needed.”

The medicus bowed and left the room, muttering to himself along the way.

Nallia grabbed fresh bandages and set them down on the edge of the cot. “You’ve kept me quite busy today.” She slipped something between his fingers. “Found this out by the palus.”

The scroll addressed to the king.

The parchment was weathered but still intact. Zephyrus didn’t know what to say. After Vykannis’s absence and surviving—and nearly killing—Lenox with only a cheese knife, he thought perhaps his prophecy was real. Not just a trick, or a myth to inspire hope. When he realized the scroll was lost, it almost provided him with a sense of comfort. His past didn’t matter if he trusted where he was going. Twice now, it’d been removed from him, once by Laeden, and once on his own accord, yet somehow, it found its way back to him.

“Any idea what it means?” Zephyrus asked.

“I didn’t read it,” Nallia said. “But I don’t think anyone else lost a parchment covered in blood exactly where you said you lost something.”

“Gratitude,” Zephyrus said, unsure if he could trust her. For all he knew, she was one of the Revivalists Laeden asked him to uproot. She could be just as bad as Lenox, for all I know. Then again, in a way she was worse; Lenox worked for the slavers. Nallia was one.

“Of course,” Nallia said. Beginning with his right palm, she removed the old bandage, washed the wound with wine, and applied a new dressing. “I have a healer coming this afternoon who I hope will be able to help reclaim your memories.”

Zephyrus scoffed. She didn’t make sense to him—a Valencian who recited Celestic prophecies. A slaver who served him. “What do you want? This isn’t charity or goodwill; this is transactional. You want something.”

“Don’t we all?” Nallia asked with an unnerving smile. She walked around to his opposite hand. “What do you want? Besides your memories.” She repeated the same process on his left.

There were many things he wanted. Of course he wanted his memories back. Then he could make sense of these prophecies and his fate. With his memories, he could understand this scroll without having to rely on Laeden or the King. He wished Patrus and Threyna were still alive. He wished Vykannis answered his prayers. And above all, he wished he had killed Lenox when he had the chance.

“Don’t dodge the question,” Zephyrus said. “What do you want from me?”

She finished wrapping his left palm. “Consider it a gift.”

Zephyrus snorted, yanking his hand away from her. “I don’t want your gifts without knowing the price of them.” She put down the bandages and moved close until their noses nearly touched. Her emerald eyes gleamed at his defiance as if she welcomed the challenge.

She hasn’t seen anything yet. I will—

“I’m a lanista, Zephyrus. We train men to fight for the honor and glory of the Gods. The price of my gift—I want you to fight for me. Not just because you’re without another choice, but because you want to.”

His nostrils flared. Because I want to? “I’m a slave. What I want is irrelevant. Bandaging my hands and summoning a healer won’t make me want to bow and scrape beneath you.”

“Yet here you are, beneath my roof,” Nallia said, reclaiming the bandages and addressing his chest wound. “I don’t know where you come from, but around here, I have a duty to the people of my house. The Facets of Perfection demand…” She stopped her work and cocked her head. “You don’t know what the Facets of Perfection are, do you?”

She listed off a series of societal values that were, at best, idealistic fantasies propagating acceptable justifications to drag people from temples, throw them in a wagon, and sell them at auction—as long as they were made to feel like they were contributing to the welfare of society.

“You see, the gladiators demonstrate their strength and determination, but they also contribute to the household, the local establishment, and the pride of the country. The laurels of victory inspire works of beauty—songs, art, and stories that will last for generations. So by me providing you a healer, it’s a gift borne of my civic responsibility to bring out the best in you.”

“So it’s your civic responsibility to uphold a society that condemns people to slavery because they worship different Gods?”

A smile broke out across Nallia’s face.

Zephyrus growled. “What?”

“You’ve finally answered my question,” Nallia said. “What do you want? Freedom. You’re not the first to want that. But equality? That is a first.” She placed the bandages down to meet his gaze. “I’ll admit, the anti-Celestic movements go too far, and progress is slow. Even with a king as tolerant and accepting as Varros, it’s difficult to change people’s minds, let alone their hearts. Many fear the Judges that sent you here because of the Disasters that befell Rheynia. The Valencian Gods are jealous, and their wrath swift. The Return… Valencians who believe in it fear it. If Aeryss the Affectionate, Orsius the Wise, and Vykannis the Brave were to return… the Age of The end doesn’t exactly sound welcoming.”

Zephyrus set his jaw. He didn’t like being played for a fool. He didn’t appreciate how she prodded him for information. “The Age of The End. If you believe in the Return, why keep me here?”

She pushed a strand of wavy chestnut hair behind her ear. “You are destined for greatness. If you believe in fate and prophecies, then there’s nothing I can do to stop you from becoming whatever you will be. If you believe in free will, then I’d hope you’d look upon me with the same kindness I showed you.”

Zephyrus licked his lips, wanting to retort, but finding he had none. Is she being genuine? He bit his lip. She’s trying to charm me, but I won’t fall for it. “Leaving a lot to chance.”

She finished the last of the bandages and walked around the table to admire her work. “There. ‘Now ya won’t risk infection, eh?’” She impersonated the medicus with a laugh.

Zephyrus didn’t join in her laughter.

Nallia cleared her throat. “Some things you can’t know. Some may call it ‘Leaving it up to chance,’ but I think you just have to have faith.” She twisted the amethyst ring on her finger. “The healer will be here soon. I hope you remember everything that makes you who you are.”

She smiled again. The kind of smile he wished wasn’t held up by the backs of slaves. If she was with the Revivalists, or with Saulus, she would have killed him by now. He didn’t trust her. How could he? But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be his ally. At least for now.

Chapter 17

Three Notes

Danella II

Salmantica

The mongoose won. The latest omenation’s result made her wonder if she needed to kill Varros. The Six knew she didn’t want to. If she could secure her father’s kingdom without having to lose her love, there was little she wouldn’t do. But the Gods had spoken, and Varros would live.

For now.

Even without having to orchestrate another assassination attempt, there was much to be done now that Laeden had inserted himself into the mix. She attempted to send Laeden away to live with his grandfather in Northridge. He would have been safe in Valtarcia, far from where he could stick his nose into matters that would only get him into trouble. But now, Varros foolishly named him captain of the Sentinels. And to make matters worse, he was working with a Prophet of Celestia.

She wanted him dead—this one they called the Wielder—but he skirted death, not once but twice. First she sent Saulus, then Lenox—both failed.

Lost to a cheese knife.

Lenox assured her the Prophet wouldn’t survive the week, but he failed her again. After leaving Cassius’s ludus in Stockhelm, Varros detoured their retinue to Valtarcia, where he rallied the people of his homeland to join Laeden’s Sentinels. The world was conspiring against her, creating more trouble for her while stealing the time necessary to carry out her plans.

After returning to Salmantica, much of her time was spent organizing Count Elrod Horne’s black powder operation. A brilliant chemist he might have been, but his organizational skills left much to be desired. Meanwhile, moles within her ranks needed to be dealt with, and the only way to catch a mole was to tell it a lie and wait.

Whoever told Laeden about the assassination attempt on Varros was one of three primary messengers. Despite her careful planning and considerable precautions, a leak posed serious danger. If the Sentinels discovered her involvement, everything would come crashing down. Danella shuddered to think of the look on her husband’s face if Laeden exposed her betrayal.

There were a thousand reasons not to get involved with the protestors and lead the Revivalists. Only one reason compelled her, serving the Six—and they would not tolerate the Celestics much longer.

I must exterminate the pests before the Prophets bring about the Return and doom us all.

Danella sat upon the balcony with Varros, admiring all of Salmantica below as the sun set on another day. Varros held his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

What thoughts occupy your mind, my love?

He turned to her with his steely-blue eyes. She took his hand and smiled. The omenation granted him more time in this world, and for that, she was grateful.

A knock at the door.

“Your Grace,” Iylea said. “Lady Cerberynn Brusos is here to see you.”

“Set her up in the study, and I will join her momentarily. We will watch the nightly rains roll in. Fetch wine instead of tea.”

Iylea nodded and took her leave. Danella sighed and gave Varros a kiss on the cheek.

“She knows the omenation will choose the chancellor, right?” Varros asked. “Regardless of how many times she comes by, if her husband loses—”

“It’s just a social visit.” Danella waved a dismissive hand. “Cerberynn and I are friends.”

“Friends who have become much more social now that her husband wishes for office.”

Danella gave him another kiss. “She knows.”

Her bodyguard, Ser Daenus, escorted her to the study. The study was the highest room on the eastern side of Sentigard’s tower with the best panorama of the incoming easterly storm each night. She found the rain soothing, the lightning beautiful, and most importantly—the study was always empty.

They entered to find Iylea setting wine before Cerberynn.

“You may take the rest of the night off,” Danella said to Iylea.

Iylea bowed and took her leave, and they got to work.

The glow of the hearth set shadows dancing around them as they sat at a long table facing the impending storm. Danella found the room fitting to their mission. It was their light which would beat back the encroaching darkness, their illumination on which the hopes of the entire kingdom hinged.

“The moles are our biggest problem,” Daenus said. “If they are not dealt with, everything could be undone.”

“Leave the moles to me,” Danella said. “Whoever gave Laeden information will do so again. And when they do, we will strike. A healthy dose of fear in our messengers will straighten the rest out. What else?”

Cerberynn smiled. “As for the Games of Stockhelm, my husband is pleased with Tursos.”

“As he should be,” Daenus said. “Targarus practically wanted his own kingdom in return for that slave.”

Danella cast him a sharp look. “And a kingdom we all shall have once Ebron Brusos is declared chancellor and we restore strong Valencian values to this country.”

Cerberynn ignored Daenus as she drank her wine. “I have no doubt Tursos can beat Stegavax. He has become arrogant and slothful in his time as Champion.”

“He is still the best in Cassius’s ludus,” Daenus said.

“If all goes as planned,” Danella said, “Stegavax will no longer be breathing at the time of the Games of Stockhelm.”

Cerberynn laughed. “I would love to see the look on Cleotra’s face when my husband eclipses hers. Tell me, how will you do it?”

Danella pursed her lips. The joy Cerberynn took in this was unbecoming. This wasn’t a game. This was life and death. Salvation and damnation.

Daenus spoke in Danella’s silence. “Our agents within House Cassius will prod preexisting relational tensions between old rivals. Savages being savages. No foul play or suspicion. Then Tursos just needs to finish whoever Cassius chooses as his second.”

“Fenyx,” Cerberynn said, “I took measure of him just the other day. Just a hunch, but I believe he has a fear of fire.”

Cerberynn laughed as if they’d already won. She didn’t see the Wielder fight. She didn’t watch him disarm and nearly kill a trained soldier, guided by the Six, before her eyes… but Danella had.

“Unless that new gladiator surpasses him,” Daenus said, as if reading her very thoughts.

Cerberynn’s smile melted. “New gladiator? Who? From where?”

Danella forced a smile. “He will be tended to.”

At least I hope so.

Lenox was a spirited fighter and a passionate ally, but he was outmatched. It would take more than a knife in the night to stop the Wielder’s terrible fate. She needed a plan, and the sooner the better, but Laeden’s informant was a more immediate threat to her.

They continued down the list of what needed to be done, but already, the company had grown tiresome. She knew this noble mission could not be accomplished by her alone. She endured more of Cerberynn’s idle chat until she had nearly drunk herself into a coma. Daenus escorted Cerberynn to a guest room, allowing Danella to get back to work.

She walked down the rows of shelves covered with books from floor to ceiling. At the sixth row, she stopped, walked down six dividing shelves, counted up from the floor to the sixth line of books, and felt for the release button. With a satisfying click, the false drawer built into the shelf opened.

Inside were dossiers of every contact the Revivalists had. Each plan she hatched was borne from this secret shelf. She grabbed her black leather-bound journal. The pages were filled with well-documented instructions telling who to do what, when, where, and how so her underlings could do her bidding while giving her plausible deniability, and limiting those who knew of her involvement.

She sat down with her journal.

Time to trap a mole.

Her three prime messengers were well-placed men. Banis was a baseborn child orphaned by the war and taken in by the Harbormaster. As the apprentice, Banis had access to ledgers with records of every man who stepped foot on the docks. With Banis on her side, her borders were protected by sea. She hoped he hadn’t betrayed her.

Danella wrote a note for Banis, instructing him to reduce the tariffs on the newest Revivalist member, Count Elrod Horne. Elrod was in fact already a supporter, although his identity remained anonymous to most. Yet the volatility of his business with the black powder suffocated her faith in him. Not to mention Horne’s pride over his lands and income relative to his contributions had become grating. So if Banis were the mole, Horne would take the fall.

Addition by subtraction.

Laegus was another messenger. Dutiful, but that didn’t mean loyal. Laegus played a significant role in connecting the Revivalists to the lower merchant class. What they lacked in power and resources they more than made up for in numbers. Having the plebs accept the wave of changes Danella had in place was paramount for the Revivalists’ success. If he was the leak, he had the power to rally many and more to the Sentinels’ cause.

In her letter to Laegus, she instructed him to provide more resources to the Master at Arms, Atonus Allos, for joining the Revivalists. Atonus had no role in the Revivalists, although she wished he did.

If Laegus had been bought, Atonus would be seized by the Sentinels, letting his tasks fall to his apprentice, Markus Cassius—Laeden’s second in command. With his hands filled with added responsibilities, he would be more likely to make mistakes. Atonus would have to plead his case, but that didn’t concern Danella. Another win-win scenario.

Her last messenger was the most concerning: Aelon Ironpine—her connection to the knights of Salmantica and the aristocratic merchants. She needed them to create a smooth transition of power to Damascus if Varros needed to be… dealt with.

Aelon’s skill and celebrity were invaluable. When he revealed his identity at one of the protests, his passion for Valencianism was so palpable, it encouraged others to do the same. Aelon was the type of leader who inspired followers, but whether he led them to or away from Valencianism remained to be seen.

In her letter to Aelon, she told him to deliver a message to High Priest Vellarin—one of the more troubling and lenient ministers within the Salmantic clergy. Although he had done her no wrong, if he fell ill to the collateral damage of her scheme, it would not be the end of the nightly rains.

Laeden could have known any or all of her vessels. As a rebellious boy, Laeden kept questionable company outside of the castle. He could have forged strong relationships with men across all different walks of life. Six Hells, if Laeden bought a rebel slave claiming to be the Wielder to aid him in stopping us, is there any low he wouldn’t stoop to?

She sealed the envelopes and put them back in the secret drawer, where they would wait to be taken down the chain of command to the messengers who worked outside the castle.

“All I do, I do for the glory of the Six. Let these three notes deliver the righteous and condemn the corrupt.”

Chapter 18

The Guardians

Threyna II

Salmantica

Threyna’s new gray cloak swished behind her as she strode along the Street of Silk toward the Gilded Gauntlet. After pilfering a few purses from passerby between the harbors and the Temple District, Threyna had acquired enough coin to purchase a new wardrobe. She settled instead for fresh white linens, a hooded cloak, and boots that no longer held the soot of Rheynia, Klaytos, or anywhere else she’d set foot before.

Though the light color palette reminded her of simpler times when she wore the Premius’s uniform in the Underground’s legions, the complexion wouldn’t age well on Salmantica’s dirty streets. Luckily, Threyna didn’t plan on staying long. If all went to plan, she would be receiving a new sword, cloak, and armor in short order.

With her hood pulled low and her silver-blonde braid concealed within, Threyna’s gaze wandered up and down the street, searching for any sign of someone watching or following her. She’d taken the long way to the Gilded Gauntlet, which wasn’t an easy task, being that all roads in the city inevitably led to the statue of Damascus Drake. By the time she reached the golden statue, Threyna decided that either no one was tailing her, or they had earned the right to follow.

“No one is following,” Paxoran said. “The Treasures await.”

Threyna grunted, eyeing the statue of the man who led the Great Migration. If he hadn’t left, could he have challenged King Bohen? Could he have stopped him from becoming the Skeleton King and condemning two generations to survive in a wasteland?

They were questions without answers. But the undead bodies wandering Rheynia were reason enough for her grandfather Bohen, the Skeleton King, to be stopped.

The first Treasure, the Vykane Blade of Vykannis the Brave, rested beneath the cobblestone circle surrounding the statue. In the catacombs of what became known as the Haunted Hollow rested the remains of the mages nailed to the Six Arrowed Star following the Treaty of 940. Though Warlocks and Templars seldom agreed on anything, this one bit of history they both believed, and while Damascus Drake might not have been as dangerous as the Skeleton King, he was his own brand of monster.

Threyna’s gaze traveled from the statue’s face to his golden boots where the entrance to the catacombs waited. For whatever reason, she assumed the three Templar Guardians assigned to protect the Vykane Blade—from people like her—would be standing out front like proper sentries. But no. They would be underground, guarding the Treasure with their lives. No distraction would serve her. If she wanted to leave with the Vykane Blade, she would have to kill. Use her blood magic. Consume their souls. And this was only the first of three Treasures.

As the sun began to set over the Hylan mountains, the Gilded Gauntlet emptied. Patrons funneled out. Merchants closed their shops. Before the orange glow could disappear behind peaks, the circle emptied, aside from a pair of patrolling white-cloaked Vigiles.

As the Vigiles headed south toward the Temple District, Threyna skulked to the north side of the circle. By the time the Gilded Gauntlet was clear, the first drops of the nightly rains pattered against the shingled rooftops.

Threyna scaled the stone base of the statue to stand over the entrance to the catacombs that the New Rheynians thought they had sealed away forever. The way was paved shut for most, but to Threyna, it served only as a momentary inconvenience. She tapped on the base, searching for a weakness between the stones they mortared over to cover the descent to the catacombs.

Sensing a fault line in the structure, Threyna conjured a hooked blade and drove the point into the concrete. With a rip and a drag along the outskirts of the square stone covering, she carved the stone from her path.

Letting her hooked blade dissipate to ash, Threyna conjured a web of grasping, fingerlike projections. Her blood spawn seized the stone and lifted it from the statue’s base to set it beside Damascus Drake’s foot.

As the rolling thunder of the nightly rains echoed throughout the Gilded Gauntlet, Threyna descended the ladder to the catacombs beneath the Haunted Hollow. Halfway down, Threyna dragged the stone covering over the entryway, leaving it slightly ajar.

Surrounded in darkness, confined in close quarters, and breathing the dank air of the hollow shaft into the catacombs, the weight of the moment settled upon Threyna’s shoulders. Three of the Templar’s best mages were the only remaining obstacle between her and the Vykane Blade. Her slick palms clung to the metal rungs, but down she went, grateful she didn’t have to look at the black rot slithering along her forearm from her use of blood magic.

About ten rungs down, Threyna placed her foot on solid ground. The hard-packed and unyielding earth smelled of death and decay. Two sconces glowed with the dim light of the smokeless Celestic magic fire to illuminate the dingy corridor.

Bare except for wood beams and iron supports, the hall was an unceremonious mass grave. The Valencians had dumped bodies into the ground to rot, but it was the Arcane Templar who burned the bodies and sent their souls to the afterlife.

Threyna flared her sense within her Inner Throne to seek the Templar’s Guardians. As expected, three heartbeats awaited her. Sinking deeper into her seat of power, Threyna differentiated the three: one with warm blood, the byproduct of using water magic; one with cold blood, a fire mage; and another one who Threyna supposed had other abilities beyond her discernment.

Likely a force, manipulation, or healing mage.

Her time with the Warlocks taught her that the Templar’s Guardians had complementary skill sets. She would need to take them out, and quickly.

Creeping along the corridor towards their beating hearts, Threyna held her breath. When she rounded the corner, the hallway opened into another, with branching paths on either side. The catacombs were larger than she had expected, considering she had thought it was just a hole in the ground with a chest for the Vykane Blade.

She passed a room with two makeshift beds, another with a door that Threyna assumed from the stench must be a privy, and a third with salted meat and wilting vegetables that smelled almost as bad as the privy.

And this was the life Zephyrus refused to give up to aid me…

Threyna was used to being alone, but she wasn’t meant to be. She’d spent most of her life alone after her father was caught and detained by the Skeleton King to serve as his regenerating blood bag. Her mother and Laela had fled the Underground for the Wraith, no longer hoping to defeat the Skeleton King, but to flee Rheynia. Fate had brought her and Laela back together; they defeated the Skeleton King and ferried hundreds to safety beyond the cursed, undying island. Together, they found the Warlocks, but while Threyna was happy to find a mission to live for, Laela refused to endure the Skeleton King’s curse without seeking a cure.

It’s better this way.

Threyna approached the last room on the right. Three heartbeats—slow, calm, and strong—resounded beyond the entryway. Either they didn’t speak, or a manipulator was bending the sound waves of their voices.

Threyna swallowed the knot in her throat and wiped her palms on her britches.

“The Vykane Blade waits within,” Paxoran said.

If there was any other way, she would have taken it. She tried to play the Templar’s game. She went to Tharseo’s Bastion, but her prophecy didn’t name her the Wielder. It didn’t say anything.

“You shall find that which you seek, but you possess all you need.”

The Seers were blind if they thought her blood magic would be enough to defeat the Skeleton King. In Rheynia, with infinite hollowed, shades, and darklings at her disposal to consume whenever she needed, she barely managed to kill him.

Or at least she thought she did.

Since leaving the cursed island and arriving in a land where souls died true deaths and didn’t linger in the mortal realm, Threyna had to consume more and more to abate the rot.

I need the Treasures to stop him. And if I don’t, he’ll consume far more than these three.

She didn’t want to think about what families, lives, or dreams they had. It only made what she needed to do harder. It was easier if they were nameless, faceless obstacles in her way that she could dispatch without a second thought, but if that were the case, she’d be no different than the Skeleton King.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, she conjured a double-bladed blood glaive, and rounded the corner. The Guardians sat at a table, one with his back towards Threyna—the non-elemental mage, if her assumptions were correct. A woman, the water mage—if her warm blood was any indicator—looked up from whatever she was doing on the opposite side of the table. Her eyes fixated on Threyna, but the men beside her and across from her didn’t stir.

The woman stood, but before she could open her mouth, Threyna hurled the double-bladed glaive at her. The point dove into her chest and pinned her to the back wall of the room. The other Guardians gained their feet and crouched into combat stances.

Threyna drew the bloodspear back towards her, ripping it from the wall and the woman pinned against it. Before the Guardians could attack, defend, or speak, the double-sided glaive rammed into the closer man’s back. The tip exploded through his back and out his chest, dropping him to his knees. Eyes wide and heart racing, he wrapped his hands around the blood-borne spear in his chest cavity.

As Threyna reared back her dagger to fling it at the third Guardian, he disappeared.

A light bender.

His manipulation magic wouldn’t save him. Threyna listened for his heartbeat and hurled her dagger straight at it. Before she could follow the dagger’s trajectory, a tremendous force hit her square in the gut, lifting her off her feet.

The room fell away as the force launched her backwards into the opposite wall. The mage with her glaive protruding through his torso bared his teeth in a gory smile. With his force magic, he drove her back into the wall, splaying her limbs. Her rib cage compressed; her shoulders and hips felt like they were being ripped from their sockets. Threyna fought against his pressure, but couldn’t move against the invisible bindings.

Blood dripped from his lips, draining into his thick black beard. His eyes glared with hatred as if her attack was personal.

“I will break your bones,” the force Guardian said through his teeth. The exertion against her body flared. Invisible punches thudded into her stomach, against her ribs, and across her face. Bile climbed her throat, her body breaking beneath the will of the force mage’s power.

Threyna retreated into her Inner Throne. Her body’s pain became her mind’s driving force. From her seat of power, she commanded the bloodspear to twist in the Guardian’s chest. She wrenched the angled blade, severing the force mage’s spine.

The pressure against Threyna evaporated. She crashed to the floor, limbs aching, chest heaving. Her ribs protested each inhale, but before she could catch her breath, the water mage she’d struck first doused her in a torrent of water.

Again, Threyna flew into the back wall of the corridor outside the room. Water crashed against her already-bruised body and into her mouth and nose, invading her lungs. She conjured a curved blood wall before her. Threyna fell to the floor, no longer held against the wall by the water mage’s stream. With Threyna’s curved wall flooding the Guardians’ room, the water mage ceased her spray.

Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne. From where the cursed blood artifact once took the shape of a bangle, rot spread up toward her shoulder, and down toward her wrist. She needed to put an end to this. Focusing on the beating of their hearts, she conjured an arrow.

In one fell swoop, she’d kill the remaining two.

She dropped the curved blood wall, letting it dissipate to ash. Before she could fire her arrow at her invisible opponents, electricity surged through her entire body.

Threyna seized, dropping to the ground in a fit. Like a fish out of water, she flopped. Lightning surged through every fiber of her being. When it should have ended, it didn’t. The current continued. Her bruised and beaten bones convulsed into the muddy floor of the catacombs.

“Do something!” Paxoran said.

The black rot encroached on her heart. If it reached her heart, she was as good as dead, but if she did nothing, the Guardians would kill her anyway.

Threyna dove into her Inner Throne, deeper than she dared. She found the water and lightning mages’ beating hearts, thundering with triumph. But blood, bone, and soul were hers to command.

In the physical plane, Threyna, floundering on the ground, could not reach the Guardians. But within her Inner Throne, their hearts were just beyond her seat of power. She blocked out her imminent defeat in the physical world and strained, reaching for the source of the Guardians’ lives in the immaterial plane.

The walls of her Inner Throne quaked, threatening to crumble. The stained-glass windows shattered, allowing the black rot to flood into her throne room. The sludge slithered like a sentient beast, dividing and converging, coiling, and extending. With each motion, it reached to claim her.

Rain, thunder, and lightning raged outside her walls, but she could end them all.

The black rot slithered up the dais of her throne, wrapping its tendrils around her legs, her torso. She stretched, straining to grasp the Guardians’ hearts just beyond her reach.

“Do it for the Vykane Blade,” Paxoran said.

Threyna extended. Not for the Vykane Blade. Not for Paxoran. But for her father, her mother, Laela, and everyone else who suffered under the Skeleton King’s reign.

The black rot climbed her neck, cinching like a noose.

She seized the Guardians’ hearts and squeezed.

The rain and lightning outside her throne room subsided, but the rot devoured her.

Threyna returned to the physical plane, still twitching in the mud. But in the room beyond, three bodies littered the ground around her. Blood spattered the walls, dripped from the table, and puddled on the sodden floor.

Threyna drew in a shallow breath, but ejected from her Inner Throne, she could not consume the Guardians’ blood to restore herself or their souls to dispel the rot. Still twitching from the aftershocks of the electric current, her consciousness waned. As close as she was to the first Treasure of Stockhelm, her eyes closed, and sleep took her.

Chapter 19

The Uprising

Laeden VI

Salmantica

“Silence!” Laeden raised his voice to regain control of the throne room.

It was the end of a painfully long day. King Varros usually held court at the beginning of each new moon, yet with the demand so high, this was the second time this week. The royal court generally heard violent acts like murder or significant theft, allowing the local courts and their senators to deal with less malicious disputes, but everything related to the Revivalists came straight to the royal court.

Some cases were from paranoid farmers every time their animals were spooked. Others were shopkeepers who suspected secret plots against them. Most were nonsense. This one, however, resulted in the deaths of six Celestics.

Six bodies littered the inside of Elrod Horne’s Stockhelm Inn. They found a scroll with a poem called “The Rebels’ Rhyme” on the floor between the deceased. The killer or killers even took the time to write on the walls in the blood of the slain, “Join the Six, or die.”

“Count Elrod Horne,” Laeden said, “I permit you the floor, but if anyone else speaks out of turn, they shall be removed from this courtroom.”

Once the room quieted, Elrod Horne took position, his son, Aemos, by his side. “Blood is bad for an inn’s business. What are the Sentinels doing to protect our investments?”

Laeden stilled his breath before answering. “My lord count, the Sentinels were established to protect the royal family and root out Revivalists. We cannot guard every inn and tavern in New Rheynia. Investigations will continue to take place to learn more of the attack, but in the meantime, I would encourage you to hire men you trust to guard your own well-being and vested establishments to prevent future acts of violence.”

The crowd groaned at Laeden’s verdict.

“Is this your answer for everything?” Aemos asked.

How quickly they turned into helpless, sniveling children, pointing the finger to hide from their own responsibilities. Laeden held his tongue.

The king raised his arms. “My lords.” An uneasy silence hung over the room. “Investigations are taking place. Honor is our guide, justice our goal. The swiftness of which hinges on your cooperation. Our nation depends on each and every one of you. Help your neighbor and look out for one another. Do what you can to assist the Vigiles, Sentinels, and Jackals working to keep you safe. Soon, a chancellor will be appointed to defend your interests in Stockhelm. Yet we must remain vigilant. This opponent will not be an easy foe. We must be as one, for peace and prosperity.”

The speech quelled their grumblings, but that was enough for one day. The king dismissed the court, and the throne room emptied, leaving Laeden, Markus and the king.

The king took off his garnet-studded obsidian circlet and set it on his lap. “Markus, would you excuse us?” Markus bowed and took his leave.

Varros Helixus’s gray hair appeared thinner than usual, the creases in his face more pronounced. Sitting in the elegant throne that matched his crown, he looked small.

The burdens of responsibility.

With the crown off, his father, no longer a king, closed his eyes, grabbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Laeden, is this too much for you?”

Laeden huffed. “What? No.” Why does he never believe in me? “We have several leads, and we’re optimistic they will result in significant finds.” He looked around to make certain no one lurked in the shadows of the throne room.

The sunlight filtering through the stained-glass windows cast eerie shadows around the obsidian columns. No one was there, but these past weeks had made Laeden paranoid that someone was watching him, following him, or eavesdropping on his conversations.

He continued in a low voice. “We’ve found traces of black powder in Marstead, a Revivalist defector here in Salmantica, and we placed a man inside Cassius’s ludus.”

“And this desiccated unbranded corpse in the Prefectus Medicus’s chambers?”

Laeden shrugged. “Another angle should other wells run dry.”

He took a deep breath. “Look at me, son. I show you how I truly feel. I show them—” he waved his hand at where the patricians stood moments ago, “—what they need to see. Give me an honest telling of what’s going on.”

Laeden pursed his lips. “They’re well-organized, meticulous, and calculative. But so am I. Father, I will not let you down.”

His father nodded. He put his crown back on his head and stood with a groan. After a deep breath, his back straightened, his shoulders broadened, and his father transformed back into the king. “Let us hope so, Captain. I will let you get back to work.”

Laeden cleared his throat. “There’s one thing I wished to inquire about that may aid my investigations.” He’d shirked this off for too long. “Who is AVR?”

The king’s steely eyes examined him. “I haven’t the slightest clue.”

Laeden had learned not to trust his father’s brand of truth at a young age. When he was seven, he was told his father died in the Sun Sea off the southern coast of Stockhelm. Oh how he wept. His mother could do nothing to console him. Yet, three years later, at the conclusion of the war, his father returned… without a scratch on him, and no explanation.

Biting his lip, Laeden pushed through his father’s lie. “Allow me to recite a note addressed to you from a certain AVR. Perhaps you can help me make sense of it. ‘The time has come for peace to reign. Your policies have pleased us and given us hope under the Six of New Rheynia. No longer shall we pursue vengeance nor the Judges’ treasures.’ Signed, AVR.”

Color drained from the king’s cheeks. “Where did you hear this?”

“What does it mean?” Laeden asked. “Did this AVR coerce you into exiling the mage instead of executing him?”

“Laeden, these are dangerous people,” his father said. “How did you come by this letter?”

“Answer the question.”

“Don’t be a fool, Laeden. Who gave you this message?”

Heat swelled within Laeden’s collar. Me the fool? You exiled the mage. You denied the Revivalists as a threat, but me—I’m the fool. Laeden swallowed the words he wanted to say. “I only wish to protect you, my king.”

The king fixed him with an icy stare, his jaw working behind his closed lips. “Who. Gave you. That message.”

The clench of his jaw, the cut of his brow—on any other man, Laeden would not have looked past the anger, but on his father, he saw it for what it was… Fear.

“Zephyrus,” Laeden said. “At the slavers’ auction at the Festival of Stockhelm, he declared himself a gift to you. An emissary of peace.”

The king blinked, his steely eyes softening. “The Wielder?” A father’s concern broke through the kingly façade. “Laeden, you stay away from him. Forget you ever heard this message. He is dangerous. The men he serves are dangerous.”

“More dangerous than the Revivalists’ assassins? The letter spoke of peace.”

His father shook his head. “The only peace they’ll accept is the destruction of everything Rheynian. If there is anything you love in this realm, you’ll trust me. Stay away from Zephyrus.”

Laeden blew out his cheeks. He was glad he didn’t say Zephyrus was his man inside Cassius’s ludus. How could any threat be more dangerous than the Revivalists?

Laeden bristled. “You expect me to quell the anarchy you started, yet you refuse to tell me—your son—who or what we’re up against. I don’t even understand why you exiled the mage in the first place.” He tossed his hands in the air. “Yet you expect me to play a game of Reign with half the tiles against loaded dice.”

The king glared but offered no answers. “You focus on the Revivalists. Leave AVR to me.” Without another word, the king strode away, leaving Laeden in the empty throne room.

Laeden styled a mocking salute to his father’s back. As always, I will have to figure it out for myself. But as he stood in the vacant hall, he pondered whether or not he could trust Zephyrus—even without his memories.

Later, Laeden joined Markus in the war room. Decorated with paintings and tapestries of Damascus Drake and the leaders of the Great Migration, the war room told the history of New Rheynia. Laeden’s efforts against the Revivalists would one day be enshrined in this very hall.

Or so he hoped.

Markus sat at the long table in the center of the room, ledgers, maps, and notes opened before him. “We should have updates from the squadron leaders regarding their reconnaissance. Pirus should be here any moment with—”

A knock at the door heralded Pirus’s arrival.

“Enter,” Laeden said.

The sandy-haired gatekeeper of Sentigard slipped beyond the precipice of the doorway, a proud smile on his face, and a stack of the reports in his hands.

“Gratitude, Pirus.” Laeden took the scrolls. “Dismissed.” Pirus saluted and left them to their business. The two dug into the scrolls, praying for good news.

“Wexler’s Ravens provided a list of suspicious individuals,” Markus said. “Some names of note.”

Laeden nodded. More leads. “Titus’s Riders uncovered a potential Revivalist hideout. More names and places to look into—a good start.”

“Blue Bird has a witness to the fires in Marstead, willing to talk,” Markus said. “Hmm… that’s disturbing.”

“What?”

His green eyes traveled across the page again and again before averting to meet Laeden’s gaze. “Cavix’s Shields have been tracking isolated incidences of escaped slaves in coordination with the Jackals. They started out few and far between, but now with exponential frequency.” He handed the scroll to Laeden.

“The Uprising?” Laeden asked as he read. “He believes Celestics may be uniting to defend themselves against the Revivalists. That’s the whole point of the Sentinels.”

“Clearly, they don’t trust us to the task.”

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Chimera’s breath. If the Uprising continues to grow, even if I defeat the Revivalists, the Sentinels will have another opponent to repress… Unless this Uprising has something to do with AVR. Could they be one and the same? Either way, this only gave the Revivalists’ cause more merit. As far as Laeden was concerned, the Revivalists didn’t need further justification. Though he disagreed with their tactics, he understood their displeasure.

Laeden pulled at the collar of his doublet. He hadn’t had a quiet moment alone with Iylea in what felt like weeks. How long will my duty separate me from my love?

Laeden recalled his father’s words when asked about letting the mage live in exile.

“There is no need for more unnecessary death.” Laeden couldn’t understand the king’s thoughts. He couldn’t read his mind. But how many will die if I can’t stifle these embers before they’re stoked to an inferno?

If it weren’t for the progress his men were making with the information they received from Gareth, he didn’t know where they would be. Gareth provided them with one of the Revivalists’ messengers. If Laeden could get a hold of Aelon again, they would have two solid sources to follow.

For now, Gareth’s contact, Banis—the Ratman, they called him—was being tailed by Allaron, a seasoned man long loyal to the Helixuses. Banis had already led them to several others involved in peculiar operations.

An unexpected knock resounded against the door. Laeden and Markus looked at one another, but before they could react, the door creaked open. A boy entered, wearing an apron caked in flour. At perhaps ten years old, he appeared just as confused as Laeden felt.

“Apologies, my prince. I have a message.” He strode into the war room and placed a folded letter into Laeden’s hand, before sticking out his own palm. “He said you’d pay.”

“Who said?” Markus asked.

Laeden opened the note.

Ranger,

Sandy-haired kid, peach-fuzz cheeks—front gate.

Revivalist. Careful who delivers your reports. New lead: High Priest Vellarin. But wait until all other leads are exhausted. The hammer is coming down on noisy rodents. Burn after reading.

Freebird

Laeden curled the scroll in his fist. My own men? Pirus, that snake.

Aelon went by the nickname Freebird when he worked as a Hecht delivery boy as a child. Eyeing the nervous boy, Laeden understood where the term “Don’t wreck the runner” came from. He pulled a silver coin from his pouch.

“He said gold. Not silver.”

Laeden smirked, pulling out a gold coin. Of course Aelon promised gold. “What’s your name?”

“Royce,” the boy said. “I make bread.”

Laeden knelt down to the boy’s level, rubbing the silver and gold coins together. “If one day I wanted to pay you another coin to deliver a message for me, would I find you in the kitchens?”

Royce nodded, eyeing the coins.

“And you’d do that for me, the same way you did this note?”

Royce nodded more vigorously.

Laeden pressed the coins into the small baker’s palm. “Good. Run along now.”

Royce escaped the room in a hurry as if he were afraid Laeden would think twice about his payment.

“What’s going on?” Markus asked. Laeden handed him the crumpled note from Aelon and paced the storied stones of the war room. After a moment, Markus slammed his fist on the table. “Is this true about Pirus? Laeden, who sent this?”

“A trusted source, using a moniker I would recognize.” He didn’t want to reveal more. If Aelon took such care to avoid detection, Laeden wouldn’t expose him now, especially after mentioning the hammer and the rodents. The Revivalists know they have a mole.

Markus jumped to his feet. “If this is true, we must arrest Pirus at once.”

“No,” Laeden said, rubbing his chin. “We will play their games. Let them think we don’t know. Perhaps we can give them the same type of subterfuge.”

Markus sat back down, and Laeden joined him at the table. With papers, maps, and a thousand questions between them, they had their hands full.

Is this what Father’s crown feels like? An anchor confining me to the impossible. The impossible that I chose.

“You have to stop them,” Iylea had said. Six, he missed her, but the Revivalists needed to be brought to justice first. Iylea would have to wait.

“We have work to do,” Laeden said with newfound determination. “Let’s get it done.”

Chapter 20

Fear and Consequence

Iylea II

Salmantica

“Laeden!”

Iylea bolted upright in bed, her sheets damp with sweat as gooseflesh pimpled her arms. She shuddered, trying to shake away the nightmare’s images. Scorpions surrounded her, covering the floor of the queen’s study. They snapped at her ankles with their claws and jabbed their stingers at her as she tried to climb a bookshelf in the corner to escape them. The queen and Baron Brusos stood on the tabletop, skewering the scorpions with daggers, killing them one by one. They beckoned for Iylea to come to them for protection. But just as she made it to the long table, Laeden barged through the door, sword drawn.

What could it all mean?

It took all her morning chores to shake herself free from the dream’s torment. But the look on Laeden’s face didn’t leave her. Disappointment, disgust, and rage all blended into one. Despite her every desire, she couldn’t tell him about her dreams and visions; it was too dangerous—for both of them.

Though she convinced herself it was noble to withhold the truth from Laeden, deep down she knew it was cowardice that kept her lips sealed.

Would he accept me—a seer? He didn’t agree when his father exiled the mage. Why would he make an exception for me?

She’d barely seen Laeden since returning to Salmantica. Her heart ached at the growing distance between them, but perhaps it was better this way.

Cerberynn Brusos had become a frequent visitor of late. Perhaps that’s why I dreamt of her husband. But why the scorpions?

Even if she wished to discuss her dreams with Laeden, he wasn’t home. He left with Prince Damascus that morning to connect with the potential chancellors of Stockhelm. Iylea had the afternoon off from her duties but didn’t know what to do with her free time that wouldn’t drive her mad. She found herself walking about the castle, alone with her thoughts, until she arrived at the queen’s study. The look on Laeden’s face in her dream made her shiver.

It’s like he knows the truth about me. His disgust at her betrayal deflated her.

But what if he wasn’t looking at me?

Staring at the door to the study before her, Iylea rubbed her forehead with her palm, trying to recall the details of her dream. What if his disgust was aimed at the queen or Brusos? Or maybe Markus. He was a scorpion of House Cassius. Could the Cassiuses be part of the Revivalists?

She opened the door and walked into the study. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or what she would find, but fate or happenstance brought her here. The windows flooded the library with the sun’s warmth. Oriented parallel to the windows, a long mahogany table stretched the length of the wall. To her back, rows of bookshelves called to her.

This is the bookshelf I tried to climb.

She approached the back corner of the room and sat at the base of the shelf. A cart with old books stacked high created a tiny alcove for her. What am I supposed to see here? It was a riddle with one too many missing clues. Feeling silly, she stood to leave, but the door swung open.

Iylea froze. Her heart thrummed within her chest as several footsteps entered the study. She sat back down, sinking into her alcove. The door closed again, and Iylea held her breath.

“Three letters, through the typical channels,” a man’s gruff voice said. She recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. Markus Cassius? She heard rummaging on one of the shelves, then a resounding click. “Your instructions are inside. Make sure to follow them exactly as written.”

“Yes, my lord,” a new voice said.

“Is there anything else, my lord?” another added.

“That will be all,” the gruff voice answered.

More footfalls, followed by the opening and closing of the door. Iylea still held her breath.

Who are they? What are they doing in the queen’s study?

Iylea’s head throbbed with the familiar pressure behind her eyes that always accompanied a vision.

No, not now!

“Be still, child,” the man with the red eyes said from beside her, but his lips didn’t move. His voice resounded in her head.

Iylea nearly jumped out of her skin, backing into the wall with a thud.

“What was that?” the lord with the gruff voice said.

Iylea’s heart raced, reverberating in her temples. The God with the red eyes and ashen skin held a finger to his lips.

Slow footsteps approached, making their way to her hiding spot behind the cart.

“My lord?” another voice asked.

“Shh.”

The footsteps crept closer until he stood beside the cart. She closed her eyes. The God wrapped his arm around her shoulder, holding her close as if to protect her. Despite herself, Iylea shrank into his arms to avoid the lord’s detection.

The lord bent down and picked up the book that fell from the cart. He placed it back atop the cart and strode away.

Iylea’s held breath released in a slow tremble. The God beside her patted her arm.

The lord with the gruff voice spoke again. “Take this. Make sure it’s one of the new messengers. One we can trust.”

“A sharp blade. Simple, vicious thing.”

“Have it sent to the Cassius guard with these instructions.”

Cassius?

Iylea looked into the God’s red-eyed stare.

After the lord dismissed his underlings, the door opened, and the footsteps retreated before the door closed again to seal Iylea inside with the God of her visions. Petrified, Iylea’s mouth was too dry to speak.

“Do you see?” the God asked aloud.

Iylea shook her head, listening for any sign of the lords’ return.

The God stroked her cheek. “Fear clouds your vision, but soon, my child. Soon you will see all. The Reckoning comes.” He gave her a sad smile, and as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone.

Iylea didn’t move. She couldn’t. After a time, she drew a full breath for the first time since the others entered the room. She put her head in her hands.

Revivalists. This is what he wanted me to see?

She attempted to piece together what she thought she heard in relation to her dreams. Could it really have been Markus? Shouldn’t he have been with Laeden? Why would a knife need to be sent to the Cassius guards?

Iylea needed to tell Laeden. She didn’t see faces or names, but she could tell him what she heard, and perhaps he could make sense of it.

She waited for what could have been hours, alone with her thoughts, fears, and anxieties, before forcing herself to move. Gathering herself, she took her leave, but just as she opened the door, a figure stood, waiting.

Iylea jumped back, raising her hand to her chest, panic surging through her like a tempest.

Ser Daenus held his hands up, palms exposed. “Apologies, my lady. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The whiskered knight clad in the black-and-red plate of the King’s Guard Knights towered over her.

“I’m sorry,” Iylea said, with a sigh. “I’ve been so on edge ever since—”

His voice…

Low, stern… gruff. Her breath caught in her chest. Him. A King’s Guard Knight…

Unlike the red-eyed God, Ser Daenus wasn’t a vision—he was a Revivalist.

If the Revivalists attempted to assassinate the king, what would they do to a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Then it hit her. Cantella… Strangled to death and left naked in a heap on the floor. Wrong place. Wrong time. Iylea’s heart fluttered in her chest.

“Are you well, my lady?”

Iylea cleared her throat, regaining her composure. “Ever since the attack on the king, I’ve been a bit jumpy, I suppose.”

“Precarious times we live in,” Ser Daenus said, crossing his arms over his cuirass. “But we are safe here.”

She forced a smile, but the muscles of her face quivered. She wasn’t safe here. No one was. Chimera’s breath, he could be leading the Revivalists.

Her dream returned to her, mixing with the information she’d just learned of the knife being sent to the Cassius guard. She had thought Markus, a scorpion of House Cassius, was a Revivalist that the queen and Lord Brusos were trying to stop, but she had it backwards. The queen, Brusos, and Ser Daenus were the Revivalists leading an attack on the Cassiuses.

“What were you doing?” Ser Daenus asked, nodding to the door. “In the study?”

Iylea wiped her sweating palms on the hips of her dress. “Cleaning. Making sure everything is clean.”

Ser Daenus’s brow twitched as his eyes fell on her empty hands.

“Straightening up, really. I must be going, though. Many rooms in this castle.”

Iylea curtsied and scurried off as fast as she could without drawing more attention. She wanted to run into Laeden’s arms, but he might as well have been a world away. No longer could she hold him at arm’s distance out of her own apprehensions. She needed to speak with him. She needed to tell him the truth.

Chapter 21

Nightly Rains

Zephyrus VIII

Stockhelm

“Drink this.” The healer offered Zephyrus a concoction of herbs mixed with water. “It will make you sleep deeper and dream more; you will relive your memories through fragmented dreams.”

Zephyrus examined the cup’s contents. His nostrils recoiled from the pungency. The healer had half a century of wisdom beneath her gray hair and wrinkles, but drinking this didn’t seem like a prudent choice.

“Drink.” She lifted the cup to his lips. It tasted like river water downstream from a beaver dam. “You must drink this every day.”

He gagged on the thick slog, but his memories would be worth it. He made a fist and downed the cup’s contents.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he returned the cup to the healer. “Why did I lose my memory?”

She didn’t meet his eyes as she began packing her vials. “It was not from the ritual at Tharseo’s Bastion. To our understanding, the pagan ritual is harmless. Something else was in your system, but the combination could have killed you.”

Zephyrus wrinkled his nose. “What do you mean—something else?”

“I mean I would be careful,” the healer said. “Someone either tried to kill you and failed or made precisely sure you wouldn’t remember anything.”

Zephyrus swallowed her words and the bitter tonic. Patrus was suffering from a headache and memory loss too, but mine was worse. She continued talking, but Zephyrus wasn’t listening.

Who wanted us dead? Or what did they want us to forget? He tried to recall his dream with Threyna. She had said something about him not owing the Arcane Templar.

Threyna asked me to join her. Did I agree? Would the Templar sabotage us if we abandoned them for Threyna’s purposes?

The questions swirled in his mind until his head hurt.

“Live.” Patrus’s last word. As long as Zephyrus lived, there was still hope. Answers would come and, with them, the ability and knowledge to walk out his fate.

Still alive, Patrus… I’m still alive.

The healer vacated the medicus’s chambers, leaving Zephyrus alone in the dingy cellar. His head began to swim, and the room twisted and turned as the tonic’s effects took hold.

Zephyrus’s dream state transported him into a boyish body, gripped by panic. No longer was he in Cassius’s ludus, but chains about his wrists, ankles, and throat bound him to the sandstone wall at his back.

Torches lit the surrounding walls and central columns of the room, but the light failed to fend off the darkness. Glowing glyphs emitted a bright green aura from a stone pillar at the center of the room. From the boy’s eyes, Zephyrus tried to explore his surroundings, but the boy’s fright kept him as trapped as his chains.

The boyish body struggled against the manacles, shouting for his mother, crying for home. Zephyrus didn’t understand what was going on, but he felt the child’s fear. The dream continued to unfold as a figure stalked from the shadows of the chamber. Clad in a long cloak that dragged in his wake, the concealed figure approached.

His conscious mind attempted to speak, wanting answers, but though he felt the boy’s fright, the boy gave no indication he sensed Zephyrus’s questions.

The figure drew closer, his outstretched hand leading the way. It glowed orange before erupting into flames. The boy turned away from the sudden brightness, but intrigue captivated his conscious mind. He tried to turn back to see the face behind the fire, but the boy controlled the body.

With a flaming hand raised high, the figure’s fingers danced, causing embers to swirl into the air like ascending feathers. The feathers levitated through the shadows until a chandelier burst to light, illuminating the cellar and the figure’s face.

Dark wrinkled skin surrounded pale, gray eyes. A trimmed gray beard framed his sly grin.

“Let him go!” a voice called from the shadowed recesses of the room. “You said you’d teach ‘em, not torture ‘em!”

The man pulled three small throwing knives from his cloak. “If he is what you say he is, Patrus of The Fallen, then we will teach him.”

Patrus! Zephyrus’s conscious mind sharpened to attention as he pieced the situation together. This is the Arcane Templar. This isn’t some boy… it’s me!

“You don’t hafta hurt him!” Patrus roared.

The cloaked man spread the throwing knives like a fan. “We cannot waste the Judges’ time on our own people if they have no purpose to bear, let alone a Rheynian. You may forget, but we are at war, and our secrets are not easily given.”

The knives levitated before him in a similar fashion to the embers moments before. Instead of traveling upwards, they drifted closer and closer to Zephyrus’s boyish body as he struggled within his bindings.

The lazy arcs and gentle circles of the knives suddenly struck like a viper, zipping through the air at impossible speed. Patrus screamed as each one sliced Zephyrus differently, one his arm, the second his leg, and the third nicked the side of his neck. Zephyrus was not immune. The knives’ metallic chill, the warmth of the blood trickling down his neck—he felt all of it.

The boy cried out in pain, turning to Patrus in the shadows. “Patrus, help!”

“Use it,” the cloaked man said. “Show me what our relatives taught you.”

“Stop!” Patrus cried, fighting his way into the light, seemingly restrained by invisible bindings. “He can’t heal himself.”

“Judges preserve me,” the boy said, tears streaking down his cheeks.

The cloaked man inclined his head and lifted his finger to his bearded chin. “The Judges? How does a Rheynian boy find Celestia?”

Zephyrus had wondered the same. He’d figured his connection to the Judges was a product of Patrus. But even at such a young age, I followed the Judges. This wasn’t just Patrus’s faith, but my own.

“Elder Vellarix,” said another cloaked figure as he slunk from the darkness behind Patrus. “If he can’t heal himself, perhaps he can heal someone else. Someone in need.”

Patrus floated in the air in front of Vellarix, contorting to free himself from the invisible bindings.

Zephyrus’s conscious mind couldn’t believe it. Could this possibly be real—a memory?

The cloaked figure stalked toward Vellarix and lowered Patrus from the air. A dozen paces from where Zephyrus was bound, the invisible magic forced Patrus to his knees before the two cloaked mages. Patrus’s muscles strained, his veins bulged, and sweat dampened his brow.

Patrus nodded at Zephyrus. “It’s gonna be okay, ya hear?”

Zephyrus’s boyish dreamself didn’t nod, didn’t blink—paralyzed by fear. Tears fell from his bleary eyes, and blood trickled from the wounds inflicted by Vellarix’s floating knives.

“What a fine idea, Elder Aikous,” Vellarix said. “Let us see if this boy possesses the magic you say, Patrus.”

Vellarix reached out his hand, summoning the knives that pierced Zephyrus. The blades ripped free from the stone behind Zephyrus and bolted toward Patrus’s stomach. All three punched into his flesh at once with a thickening thud. Patrus let out a sharp gasp and fell to the floor in a heap.

With another wave of Vellarix’s hand, the chains securing Zephyrus snapped open. Zephyrus’s conscious mind was slow, confused, and weighed down with questions, but the boy scampered to Patrus’s side. The smell of blood and filth filled his nostrils. Patrus’s intestines were eviscerated.

This isn’t a memory. Not even a dream—a nightmare.

His dreamself pushed Patrus onto his back and yanked the knives free from his stomach.

Patrus’s eyes, wide with fear and pain, bore into Zephyrus’s soul. His conscious mind couldn’t watch Patrus die again. Zephyrus tried to wake himself from this nightmare, but despite his struggle, he couldn’t break free.

The boy hovered his hands over Patrus’s stomach, and white mist emanated from his palms. His conscious mind could only watch in awe as Patrus’s stomach wounds sealed together.

A tremendous stabbing pain seared through Zephyrus’s conscious mind, while his dreamself doubled over in pain. His conscious mind panicked, but the child in the dream was prepared as if he knew this was coming. As quickly as the pain came, it dissipated, leaving Patrus’s stomach with only a scar. Patrus pawed at his stomach and let out a relieved chuckle.

Patrus grabbed the boy’s hand. Alive and brimming with pride.

Perhaps this was real…

Patrus survived. He had healed him.

The image of Lenox’s sword protruding from Patrus’s belly impressed upon his dreamscape, threatening to shatter it. I had the power to heal him. I could have saved him.

Guilt invaded his conscious mind with a greater grip than Vellarix’s hand on his dreamself’s shoulder.

“You’re a talent, my boy,” Vellarix said.

“Told you.” Patrus huffed, straightening his ripped and bloody tunic. “This mean you’ll train ‘em? Help him to fulfill the Acts?”

Aikous exchanged a glance with Vellarix.

Patrus examined them. “The Champion of the Nine… Tharseo born again.”

Vellarix snorted, pulling Zephyrus by the shoulder closer toward him. “Despite what your Rheynian masters told you, Patrus, Tharseo will not be born again. Only the Prophets can save us now. But yes, the boy shall be trained.”

Patrus grimaced but didn’t speak. Zephyrus’s conscious mind struggled to make sense of the names and titles, but his dreamself’s shoulders slouched at something Vellarix said.

Vellarix squeezed Zephyrus’s boyish shoulder and turned him around. He squatted until they were eye level. “Tharseo is gone, but take heart. We are not lost. You shall be reborn to bring honor to the Judges. Whatever name hailed you before, it’s no more. You are now Zephyrus, son of the Arcane Templar. And we shall have our vengeance.”

What’s my real name if not Zephyrus?

He searched his memory, but before he could even process the scene, he woke in a cold sweat with Nallia standing over him, clutching at her ringed finger.

“Zephyrus, thank the Six, I thought you’d never wake.” Nallia turned to the others in the room. “He’s awake!”

Zephyrus attempted to look around, but chains restricted him.

Cassius’s padded feet slapped at the stone floor as he marched over to Zephyrus’s cot. “You’ve enjoyed my hospitality for far too long. I will not suffer a heathen beneath my roof. Renounce the Judges and accept the true Gods of Valencia. Submit to the Facets of Perfection and yield to my authority, or suffer the consequences.”

Zephyrus’s mind, still foggy from sleep, sharpened to focus. Nallia looked at him with pleading eyes—shining emeralds in the dim light of the medicus’s chambers.

Cassius loomed over him, the torchlight bathing him in an orange glow. “My patience will outlast your insolence. If you wish to be beaten in the rains every night, it will not bother me.”

Zephyrus grit his teeth, straining against his bindings. He wished to tear free and deliver the Arcane Templar’s vengeance right there and then.

Cassius hummed to himself as if enjoying Zephyrus’s ire. “Moons may wax and wane, but I will not tire of watching my men abuse you. Eventually, you will submit, so whether your body or spirit breaks first…” He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

Zephyrus’s breath came short and sharp.

If my actions dictate my fate, how will the Judges look upon me—a Prophet of Celestia—if I renounce them?

He examined his arm where Vellarix’s knife had nicked him in his dream. A remnant of an old scar lined the skin. The healer told the truth; it wasn’t just a dream, but a memory. The Arcane Templar sought vengeance. No wonder why Patrus refused to believe I was an emissary of peace for the king. The Templar couldn’t have written that letter… unless the plan was to lie to get close to the king to exact vengeance.

While there were still too many questions, Zephyrus was confident his past would return to him, and with it, answers would flow like a river. He would learn the meaning of the scroll, who he was, and who he was supposed to be. He would avenge Patrus. Wielder, Harbinger, Herald—all three, or nothing at all—he would not renounce the Judges that gave him the gift of healing.

“You shall be reborn to bring honor to the Judges,” Vellarix had said. “We shall have our vengeance.”

Zephyrus wanted vengeance. Vengeance on those who took him captive at sword point. Vengeance on Lenox for murdering Patrus, and Cassius for trying to dictate his beliefs. Vengeance on the king for upholding this injustice, and Laeden for being party to it all.

They all deserve to suffer.

“Father,” Nallia said, tugging on the purple silk draped about him. “Allow me to educate him in the ways of Valencianism. Look at him—he’s Rheynian.”

Cassius swatted her away. “I’ll hear none of it. If you’re going to lead this ludus, your time can not be wasted teaching barbarians. He accepts, or—”

“He lost his memories,” Nallia said, flat and stern. “Give me time and I’m sure I can—”

“You can obey!” Cassius wheeled on her. “He’s had his time. Now he must decide: the easy way or the arduous.”

Nallia lowered her eyes, but Zephyrus’s resolve would not be so easily broken.

“The Judges are with me,” Zephyrus said, glaring daggers into the withered owl of a man. “And I am with them.”

Cassius smiled. “Have it your way. Lenox, he’s all yours. Don’t maim him or kill him, but otherwise… have fun.”

Lenox stepped into Zephyrus’s view, a twisted smile upon his face. “Let’s see if your precious Judges can protect you.”

Dragged into the training square. Tied to a palus. Beaten in the pouring rain. Nallia protested Zephyrus’s mistreatment, but her efforts bore no fruit.

Punch after punch, Zephyrus endured, but with each strike, his anger grew. The taste for vengeance was teased by Vellarix, but Zephyrus would make it a reality, and he would begin with Lenox.

I should have killed him when I had the chance. But one day, I will claim his life, along with every other slave-owning bastard.

“Break him,” Cassius shouted over the rain from the balcony overlooking the training square. “He must be forged into something of worth in the eyes of the Six. If not tonight—tomorrow, or the next night, but he will fight for House Cassius, or he’ll die in his denial. We will see how long before he begs the Six to save him.”

Zephyrus channeled to Vykannis, but none of the Judges offered any response.

A cacophony of curses joined the thunder and rain for hours. Zephyrus’s left eye swelled shut, his lip split, and his ribs ached with every labored breath, but he would not renounce the Judges. The Rebels’ Rhyme remained in his head, Patrus’s voice singing with each blow to Zephyrus’s body.

I will persevere. I will overcome.

He would bring honor to the Judges and fulfill his fate as a Prophet of Celestia. But despite the self-talk and positive affirmations, the beatings took their toll.

The guards grew tired from the effort of pummeling him, and eventually, despite Lenox’s fervor for beating him, even he needed a break.

Zephyrus welcomed the reprieve. His entire existence pained him, but he would not let them see his weakness. He forced his eyes open to glower at the guards.

Lenox strode away from the others, heading towards the main gate Zephyrus had entered through following the Festival of Stockhelm. Zephyrus couldn’t see clearly through the rain and his swollen eyes, but a man cloaked in black waited for Lenox at the gate. The storm and the heavy breathing of the other guards muffled the faraway voices, but this was the type of behavior one might expect from a Revivalist underling.

Who has private conversations in the rain during the dead of night?

The man slipped a small parcel through the barred gate, handing it to Lenox.

“Hey!” Zephyrus shouted. “We’re in the middle of something over here.”

Lenox scowled at Zephyrus before sending the hooded man away. He marched over to the other guards. “Why don’t the rest of you get some shut-eye? I can take care of him from here.” The other guards retreated indoors, leaving the two of them alone.

Zephyrus snarled at Lenox, blood bubbling from his mouth. “Why don’t we finish what we started? Unchain me. Come on—just me, you, and the Gods we fight for.”

Lenox shook his head and opened the parcel. A small unornamented blade caught the torchlight, but carved into the hilt was the balanced scale insignia from Tharseo’s Bastion.

Lenox leaned in and grabbed Zephyrus behind the head with one hand and placed the blade against his throat with the other.

Zephyrus sucked in breath. His heart pounded within his breast.

“Still think you’re tough?” Lenox’s breath, stained with the scent of bitter ale, filled Zephyrus’s nostrils.

Zephyrus’s fingers curled into fists. He can’t kill me. Cassius said so himself. Zephyrus furrowed his brow in determination. “Go ahead. Do it. Unless you can’t deal with your master’s consequences.”

Lenox backed away, but another cruel smile crept across his lips. “I don’t have to kill you myself.”

Chapter 22

Clever Lies

Zephyrus IX

Stockhelm

Lenox pushed Zephyrus through the door to the barracks, his knife against the small of his back. Zephyrus wanted to fight back, but his body failed him. He was fortunate Lenox didn’t accept his challenge because he wouldn’t have had the strength to defeat him.

Before a cell already crowded with men, Lenox lowered the knife to locate his key. If Zephyrus believed he could win, this was his opportunity to initiate, but he could barely stand. The door opened, Lenox shoved him inside, and his opportunity vanished.

Zephyrus fell to the floor, jostling the others from sleep. Lenox shut the barred door. His grin should have been enough to make Zephyrus’s blood rise and return the fight to his spirit, but he felt so weak. So tired. He tried to think of the Rebels’ Rhyme to give him strength, but in his fatigue, he couldn’t harness the words.

“Behold,” Lenox said, “the prince’s chosen, the Judges’ Prophet. Thought himself better than you lot. Said ‘No,’ to Earl Cassius’s face. Take a good look.”

Voices muttered as they surveyed Zephyrus’s state, sizing him up.

Lenox leaned against the bars. “If he doesn’t survive the night, I’ll bring Stockhelm’s best brothel for the man who ends his miserable life.” He grinned at Zephyrus, as if knowing he were seeing him for the last time. He stalked away, leaving Zephyrus in a cell with eight men.

Time stood still as everyone contemplated their options. The familiar faces of Carsos and Ixion—two men from the slavers’ auction—emerged from the shadows.

“Burn me, Carsos, it’s the Wielder,” Ixion said with a voice like gravel.

“More like the Harbinger for all the trouble he’s caused,” Carsos said as he and Ixion advanced.

Zephyrus was too tired to fight. His arms hung at his sides, his head spun, and the pain in his ribs made it feel like he had fallen from the sky and landed on a boulder. “I’m not your enemy.” He extended a trembling hand to stop them. “They’re the enemy. The ones outside the cells.”

“Maybe,” Carsos said, “but they offer the best brothel in Stockhelm. What do you offer?”

Others in the cell began to snicker.

“Whatever ya do,” said a gladiator from a nearby cell, “just get on with it and shut yer burning mouths.”

No help. No protection.

Vykannis, if you can hear me—

“I was at the slavers’ auction,” another man in the cell said. “He tried to free everyone, but he only got them killed, then saved himself by saying he was a gift to the king. All he offers is death. If we kill him—”

“If you could kill him, you mean?” A man stepped into the light before Carsos and Ixion. Long black hair fell across pale skin. A scar slashed across the bridge of his nose down to his lip. The letter T was burned into the underbelly of his forearm. “Maybe he ain’t your prophesied savior, but if he’s trying to get me outta irons, he can call himself whatever he likes.”

Zephyrus eyed the scarred man. Smaller than Carsos or Ixion, his size didn’t seem to even their odds. Still, a fierceness in him slowed their advance.

“He’ll get you killed,” Carsos said. “You won’t see a day of freedom pass before you’re worm food, just like the rest of those men at the auction.”

An older man with dark skin and graying hair held his hands out. “If we kill the Harbinger, then the Wielder will never rise to defeat him. Maybe we should leave him be. The Age of the End has to happen if the Return is to come.”

Zephyrus balked. Is that right? If I am the Harbinger, does that mean I’m fated only to give rise to another?

“Burn your Prophets of the Return,” Ixion said.

“You willing to risk the best brothel in Stockhelm?” Carsos asked the older man. “I ain’t.”

Carsos and Ixion advanced on Zephyrus, fists clenched, but Scar blocked their path. Carsos reared back to punch, but Scar grabbed Carsos’s punching arm and yanked it behind his back, dragging him to the floor. From his back, Scar swept Ixion’s leg out from under him. Another man stepped up to grab Zephyrus, but Scar jumped to his feet to stand between Zephyrus and the rest of the men. Carsos and Ixion regained their footing, ready to come at him again.

“If ya want him, you go through me,” Scar hissed.

“Still seven against two,” Carsos said with a sinister grin.

“Seven recruits who’ll die before they gain the mark of the dominus, against a gladiator of Targarus and a Prophet of Celestia.” Scar laughed. “I’ll take my chances. Six, I’ll wager on it.”

His confidence made the others think twice. After some grumbled curses, Carsos and Ixion sat down in the corner opposite Zephyrus.

Zephyrus collapsed. Still alive, Patrus… barely, but still alive.

Scar sat down beside him. “The name’s Jechtaric. Friends call me Jecht.”

Zephyrus nodded. “Gratitude, Jecht, for coming to my aid.” He felt broken. Body, mind, and soul. For the first time, he understood why many of the slaves’ faces were long with accepted defeat.

“Your aid?” Jecht spoke loud enough for the whole cell to hear. “Six, I thought I was protecting them. Fools can’t hold a sword without cutting themselves and they think they could have taken you?” With a chuckle, he leaned closer. “I heard about the slavers’ auction and watched you nearly kill Lenox with a cheese knife. You might be as crazy as I am—going to Tharseo’s Bastion—Chimera’s breath, even crazier.”

“I suppose so.” Zephyrus sank into the wall, too tired to say much else.

“So what’s the plan?” Jecht whispered, all laughter gone from his voice. “How do we escape, join the Uprising?”

Zephyrus had to turn his entire body to look at Jecht due to his swollen eye and aching ribs. “There’s no plan.”

“What do you mean, no plan?” Jecht asked. “Aren’t you the Wielder? Find the Treasures, free the people, and all that?”

Patrus and Nallia thought he could be any one of the three. After hearing each of the prophecies for himself, Zephyrus understood why. “I don’t know which Prophet I am.”

“So?” Jecht shrugged, his arms hugging his knees.

The question took Zephyrus aback. He didn’t know how to explain. Where to even begin. “How long have you been a slave?”

“All my life,” Jecht said. “Born a traitor’s bastard, I went from womb to cell, but suppose I was lucky to be a Finn and not a Hecht. Ya know, hammers and nails and all that.

“Never stopped looking for a way out. And this place? Don’t get me wrong. Targarus’s ludus wasn’t great, but he looks like Invinius burning Auros compared to Cassius. If there’s a way outta this, I’m taking it.”

“You must be worse at escaping than I am,” Zephyrus said with a laugh. The pain in his ribs made him regret the joke.

Jecht smirked. “Hasn’t worked yet, so you ain’t wrong. But don’t mean I’m not still trying.”

“How?” Zephyrus asked, struggling to stay awake.

“Ya gotta keep your head down. Can’t take every hit they throw. Sometimes that means bowing, but the best intentions live behind clever lies.”

Clever lies…

His eyes drooped as exhaustion seized him, and he fell immediately into dreams.

His conscious mind understood that the longer his eyes remained closed, the more likely someone was to smother him in his sleep, but his fatigue got the best of him. His dreamself—older than before, but still a skinny, scrappy boy—fought against other apprentices under the watchful eyes of Vellarix.

“Very good,” Vellarix said after calling an end to combat training. “Go to Master Ronar and resume your study of the elements.” Young Zephyrus did as commanded and walked through the sandstone temple with Patrus at his side.

“Yer getting good,” Patrus said. “A quick study, like yer mother. I swear, she memorized the Spirit of Divinity in a moon’s turn.”

Young Zephyrus nodded, but his smile fell at the mention of his mother.

Zephyrus’s conscious mind searched for any trace of his mother or father but came away empty.

Patrus cleared his throat. “You been practicin’ balancing the scales?”

The torches lit along the way cast eerie shadows of himself along the corridor. His dreamself used the manipulation magic he’d learned from Master Aikous to bend the candlelight around him, eliminating his shadow.

“Alright, Zeph, no one likes a showoff.”

His conscious mind was amazed, but a thought struck him.

Aikous, Vellarix, and Ronar. A, V, and R.

He thought they were initials for one person, but what if they were three? Still, it didn’t make sense; they spoke of vengeance but offered a letter of peace.

Somewhere between now and arriving at Tharseo’s Bastion, something went wrong.

The bending light caused the dream to twist, teleporting him into a different time and place. A woman’s auburn hair and blue eyes hung over him. His dreamself reached out for her with little hands.

“Momma,” a child’s voice called. His conscious mind melted.

Mother?

She picked him up, and the world spun around him. She nestled him into her warm embrace. She danced, spinning him around, bringing him through a doorway to a balcony. His dreamself giggled with glee. Zephyrus couldn’t remember a time of such peace.

“One day, son, your daddy’s going to come home, and we’re going to be the happiest family in New Rheynia.” She kissed his forehead and bounced him up and down.

“Domina,” a voice called behind them. His mother turned, and Zephyrus saw where the voice came from. A young woman of Stockhelm descent stood before them, holding an open parchment—her mouth aghast. Her mouth continued to move, but the words didn’t make any sense. The voice was wrong too.

Zephyrus woke to the sound of Doctore’s booming voice. He rubbed his eyes, trying to remember what he saw.

My mother was a slave owner.

She was gone now, probably dead, but more questions arose. How did Patrus and I end up at the Arcane Templar? How did I end up following the Judges?

Beside him, Jecht contorted his spine.

“At Targarus’s ludus, the gladiators slept on featherbeds,” Jecht said, stretching. “Now I can’t wait to earn Dominus’s mark just so I can getta cell of my own with an itchy straw cot.”

Doctore eyed Zephyrus as he let the others out of the cell. He placed an arm out to stop Zephyrus from following the others. “You have until sunset. The dominus will demand you to declare for the Six. Refuse and you will be beaten. It will only get worse. I implore you to think on this. Pray on it. But do not let your life fall forfeit absent meaning.” He lowered his arm. “You will work the palus with sword and shield until you are well enough to spar.”

Zephyrus limped to the training square, too preoccupied with his dreams to consider Doctore’s words. Once upon the sands, Doctore organized them into pairs while his assistant delivered wooden weapons to the gladiators.

Lenox emerged from the barracks, a smug grin upon his squashed face. He strode over to a gaunt-faced gladiator. Discreetly, Lenox pressed something into the man’s hand.

Zephyrus narrowed his eyes. What was that?

Doctore shoved a wooden sword and buckler into Zephyrus’s bandaged hands. “To the palus.”

Zephyrus begrudgingly did as commanded. Clever lies, he told himself. The combination of rest and Jecht’s words restored his vigor. The questions surrounding his mother swirled around him, but answers would come. Son of a slave owner or not, he was set on a path, fated to free people, or give rise to the one who would…

Either way, all was not lost. His personal vendetta against Lenox was still within reach. Lenox’s late-night rendezvous coupled with his interaction with the gladiator roused additional suspicion. If Zephyrus could connect Lenox to the other rogue elements within House Cassius, he could trade Laeden information and get some clarification concerning the note addressed to the king.

Zephyrus worked against his wooden opponent. He hacked and chopped, picturing Cassius and Lenox dying beneath his sword.

Nallia emerged from a gold curtain upon the second-story balcony overlooking the training square. Her green eyes seemed to follow Zephyrus’s every strike, but he ignored her.

Despite the aches and pains of his beatings, moments turned to hours, and the sun rose into the sky.

“You are of a form despite outward appearances,” said a dark-skinned mountain of a man with curly black hair. He approached the neighboring palus holding a heavy wooden mace. “I am Cerik.”

Zephyrus hacked at the palus again, not wanting to engage in conversation. “Zephyrus.”

Cerik laughed as he clubbed the wooden challenger. “Everyone knows who you are. Word has it you don’t remember things.”

“I see word travels.”

“It always does when speaking of the Judges,” Cerik whispered. “Some say you are one of the Three. Is this true?”

Zephyrus only shrugged, unsure of how Cerik would view him. Last thing I need is another enemy. “That’s what they say.”

“Well, any man trusted by the Judges is trusted by me,” Cerik said. He smashed his mace into the palus. “If there’s anything you need, you can count on Cerik.”

Despite being the size of a house, holding a mace that likely weighed as much as Zephyrus himself, Cerik’s easy smile comforted him.

Perhaps I am not as alone as I feared?

“Gratitude, Cerik. I appreciate that.”

Doctore’s whip cracked, and the clack of swords stopped. All eyes inclined to the balcony, where Cassius joined Nallia to rest his hands on the banister. Zephyrus glared at the villain.

“Doctore,” Cassius said, “take measure of our wares. Stage a tournament between all who till my sands.”

“At your will, Dominus.”

Doctore gathered the men into a circle. Zephyrus stood between Jecht and Cerik. For hours, men squared off for the entertainment of the entitled elite upon the balcony. Zephyrus clenched his fists. His palms still hurt from the Seers’ scars, but he couldn’t help himself.

Every matchup ended the same: one emerged victorious, and the other sulked off in the shame and pain of defeat while the Cassiuses on the balcony applauded.

“Live…” Patrus’s last word. This is no way to live. How many accepted this without a second thought? How many, like Jecht, desire something more?

“Vossler, Taric—to the sands!” Doctore gestured for each to enter the circle. Taric assumed position with sword and shield in hand. His gaunt face and narrow eyes were set to fire as Vossler stood across from him armed with a spear.

“Begin!”

The two met with vicious grunts. Taric blocked Vossler’s spear and kicked its owner to the sands.

“Do you know this man?” Zephyrus asked Jecht and Cerik. Taric was the one Lenox spoke to earlier. Zephyrus hadn’t thought much of Taric at first look, solemn and reclusive. During sparring, he went through the motions, but now he fought like a man possessed.

“Taric was a legend in years past,” Jecht whispered to Zephyrus. “Have you heard stories of Laytonus?”

Zephyrus shook his head as Taric threw Vossler once again to the sands.

“Laytonus was once Champion here,” Cerik said. “Feared, but respected by all.”

“Even in Targarus’s ludus,” Jecht said, “no one spoke ill of Laytonus.”

“Taric and Laytonus were closer than brothers,” Cerik said. “Lovers, to tell it true. But Stegavax cut Laytonus down in the arena.” Cerik nodded across the sands.

Zephyrus followed Cerik’s gaze across the circle to Stegavax. Larger than Cerik, Stegavax was monstrous. Layered with muscle, the Champion had long, thick braids of hair that made him look like a feral beast. Jagged teeth filed down to points split through his grin. Dark, narrow eyes cut like daggers at Taric’s back. His ham-sized fists clenched as if waiting to join the fight.

“You fight your own in the arena?” Zephyrus asked.

“No,” Jecht said. “Never. Stegavax and Laytonus were on the same side. He stabbed Laytonus in the back.”

Zephyrus’s jaw dropped. He jerked his head in Jecht’s direction, but Jecht’s gaze remained fixed on Taric and Vossler’s bout.

“To some,” Cerik said, “the brotherhood of gladiators is sacred. But nothing is sacred to Stegavax. Taric will never forgive, but vengeance eludes him. And now Vossler must endure his wrath for keeping company with Stegavax’s shadow.”

Vossler jabbed with his spear, but rather than attempting to block it, Taric lifted his arm and pinched the shaft in his armpit. Wrenching around, he snatched it from Vossler’s grasp. He followed through with his sword, slamming it into Vossler’s chin. Vossler collapsed.

Taric stood over him and spat, throwing the spear to the sands at Stegavax’s feet.

“Taric, victor!” Doctore shouted. Vossler stumbled to his feet and exited the circle as Doctore called the next two gladiators.

Nallia and her father clapped as they viewed the spectacle from above. Zephyrus could see how some who only knew a slave’s life could be grateful to be a gladiator, to have a brotherhood. They weren’t alone in their suffering. Yet if they knew of freedom, they would not stand for it.

Perhaps some of the men longed for freedom. They just told their clever lies, hiding behind a disguise of drunken glory.

A stirring turned Zephyrus’s sights back to the circle of gladiators. Taric and Stegavax stood nose to nose on the opposite side of the circle.

“Settle it like men, with sweat and blood.” Doctore pointed with his whip to the center of the circle.

“Your day comes,” Taric said, leveling his finger at Stegavax. “As does Laytonus’s justice.”

Stegavax spat. “You shall leave this world as he did—a relic.”

Before Doctore could raise his whip to signal the start of battle, the two charged at each other. Stegavax hacked with his twin swords in a ferocious attack. Taric backpedaled, then sprang forward, striking Stegavax across the back with his shield. Stegavax turned the momentum into a counterattack and swung his swords. Taric slammed them down and once again struck Stegavax with his shield, this time to the face.

Blood trickled from Stegavax’s nose and lip. He stepped back, but Taric continued his charge. He stabbed, dodged, countered, blocked, hacked, and retreated. Stegavax escaped without further scathing.

“This is how you honor his memory?” Stegavax flashed his pointed teeth.

He charged, chopping high, but was blocked by the shield. Struck low, but Taric’s blade deflected it. Attacked high again, then kicked low. The kick buckled Taric’s knee. Before he could reset, Stegavax slashed both wooden blades across his chest.

Taric stumbled backwards, and Stegavax kicked him to the sands. Taric reclaimed his feet quickly, only to take a vicious slice across the cheekbone. Taric retracted again, raising his shield, but Stegavax’s first blade knocked the shield out of the way. His second came across Taric’s face on the other side, dropping him to his knees.

Stegavax circled Taric. “You learn your place before me. On your knees.”

Taric struggled to get up, but before he could, a swift kick cast him back down to the sands, this time upon his back.

“Or better yet, on your back!”

“The body will break before the spirit,” Cerik whispered.

Zephyrus grunted. Cassius had said something similar the night prior. How many beatings will I take before Vykannis answers me again?

Stegavax hacked. Taric blocked and countered, coming down hard on Stegavax’s hand, forcing him to relinquish his blade. Stegavax used his now free hand to take Taric by surprise with a hard hooking punch to the face.

Blood flew from Taric’s mouth. Stegavax punched him again, then followed through with his left blade arcing from low to high to catch Taric under the chin.

Taric fell, the sands now stained with his blood. He attempted to stand, mounting one last fruitless effort, but Stegavax once again hurled him to the ground.

“You are half the man I am!”

Taric raised his hand as if to signal mercy, but instead pointed at Stegavax. “And you are half the man he was.” He attempted to stand but fell.

“Cease!” Doctore shouted. “Stegavax, victory is yours.”

Taric laid in a heap upon the sands. Stegavax walked off. None of the men made a sound.

“I will defeat you!” Taric coughed, spitting blood at Stegavax. “You’ll fall to judgment for what you did.” Stegavax smirked as he walked away.

“Guards, bring him to the medicus.” Doctore growled, looking to the sun. “Rest. We’ll resume the tournament after the sun’s crest.”

The guards dragged Taric off, inciting chatter from the other gladiators. Zephyrus couldn’t believe his eyes. He frowned, following Jecht and Cerik into the shade.

If Taric sought justice for Laytonus’s murder, he would not be able to levy that sentence himself, at least not with brute force. To avenge Laytonus, Taric would need to tell clever lies and become accepted by Stegavax. And once he gained the villain’s trust, then, and only then, could he strike Stegavax from this world.

Zephyrus realized the error of his own ways. Clever lies. If the Judges could see the intentions of his heart, they would not forsake him if he lied to his masters.

Live.

He needed to stay alive to fulfill his destiny and bring honor to the Judges.

One clever lie, and I shall have my vengeance.

“Doctore,” Zephyrus said. “I’ve made my decision.”

Chapter 23

A Bloody Demonstration

Laeden VII

Stockhelm

Laeden was relieved to have left Baron Ebron Brusos’s ludus. While Damascus inspected Brusos’s gladiators for the Kings’ Day Games, Laeden took measure of the vying chancellor, but something about him gave Laeden a deep, dark disquiet. Laeden prayed his meeting with Cassius went better. If the Gods were good, Zephyrus would have information that gave him confidence in the Cassiuses.

Their litter followed the road south towards the Head Lanista’s home carved into the Hylan Mountains. Due to Stockhelm’s vastness and diversity, the need for a chancellor well immersed in the culture was imperative. He couldn’t imagine the difficulty of eliminating the Revivalists if they were organized throughout Stockhelm, making this visit with Cassius all the more important.

“We’re nearly there,” Damascus said beside Laeden, at the head of their caravan.

The setting sun sank behind the peaks of the Hylan Mountains. The nightly rains would soon be upon them.

Beside Damascus rode his sworn sword and knight of the King’s Guard—Ser Ellus. Behind them, Damascus’s squire, Haedron Allos, and Damascus’s friend, Ser Aemos Horne, sat atop their mounts. A number of guards followed on foot in their wake.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Nallia again,” Haedron mused, his head in the clouds.

Damascus smirked over his shoulder. “She’s easy on the eyes.”

“She’s nothing special,” Aemos said, with a dismissive wave. “She looks like her brutish brother.”

Laeden frowned at the developing conversation. In truth, Aemos was only jealous of Markus because Markus bested him at everything. Atonus Allos appointed Markus his apprentice instead of Aemos, and he had yet to get over it. Aemos also tried to court Markus’s sister, years back. Nallia Cassius challenged every one of her suitors to a duel to see if they were worthy. Needless to say, Aemos wasn’t.

Damascus huffed. “Don’t be petty, Aemos. After all the coin you’ve spent on sparring lessons, I’m sure, if given another chance, you’d be able to last a round or two against Nallia.”

Haedron burst into an obnoxious cackle, chiding Aemos.

Before Aemos’s short temper could be set off, Laeden intervened. “Let’s remember why we’re here. Our nation is on the brink of war. War requires allies. Allies who have the support of the people. People who can either rally to or against our cause.”

“Easy, brother,” Damascus said. “It is not like tonight is about finding you another senator’s daughter to reject.”

More snickers.

Laeden ground his teeth, his cheeks flushing. Firstborn, castle-bred, entitled, patrician snobs. Crushing his reins between white-knuckled fists, he hissed out his breath.

“We will be on our best behavior,” Damascus said. “Cassius’s gladiators never disappoint, and I’m sure he will make a fine chancellor when Stegavax wins the omenation. So sit back, relax, and if the Six are merciful, we may get to see Nallia carve up Aemos again.”

Aemos stifled a growl as all but he and Laeden laughed. Aemos was always hotheaded, and his training under the eyes of Targarus’s Doctore only made him more dangerous once he reached his boiling point.

Still, as they rode, while the others spoke of girls and tourney knights, Laeden’s thoughts were with Iylea. The Revivalists. The Uprising. And his father.

The silhouette of the Cassius ludus stood against the orange hues of the setting sun as their retinue ascended the hills to the mountain fortress’s front doors where Earl Cassius and his wife waited.

“Prince Damascus, Prince Laeden, it’s my great honor to receive you,” Cassius said, arms open wide.

Following the Cassiuses through the villa back to the showroom where Zephyrus nearly killed Lenox with a cheese knife, Laeden hoped this night would not be filled with the same type of excitement.

“How fares your newest gladiator?” Damascus asked. “The cheese slayer.”

“He renounced the Judges and swore allegiance to the Six,” Cassius said. “He needed a little convincing, but aside from a few bruises, he will be fine if you wish to see a fresh demonstration tonight.”

Laeden bit his lip. He had gotten rid of Zephyrus—the Prophet of Celestia—at his father’s orders, but that didn’t mean he wanted his asset to be mistreated. His father’s warning stuck with Laeden, but as long as Zephyrus remained absent his memories, he was too valuable to be left to waste.

If Cassius was to be chancellor—and chimera’s breath, he hoped he would—he needed to make sure the Revivalists had no hooks in him. The chancellor could shift the power within the senate, and his father needed all the allies he could get.

Damascus nodded. “I would like to see him fight again.”

“He will need to be summoned from the barracks.” With a wave of Cassius’s hand, his advisor, Liario, scurried off.

Nallia soon arrived, and the competition for her affections began. Aemos bowed stiffly, Haedron blurted foolishly, but Damascus—as always—drew the attention of the blushing maiden.

The festivities began. They ate as the doctore chose matches, pitting the gladiators against each other either in single combat, free-for-all, or partnered battles so Damascus could select the most entertaining men for the games. The burned gladiator, Fenyx, impressed against the former Targarus spearman, Jechtaric, and Cassius’s traditional bruiser, Cerik. Although no clear winner emerged, Damascus was pleased. However, the rest of the gladiators did little to hold Damascus’s attention.

“Now that gladiators have been selected,” Laeden said, “I would like to speak concerning the chancellorship—”

“I’m not done,” Damascus said. “I would see your new man—the cheese slayer.”

Nallia fidgeted within her seat. “He has not yet recovered from his—”

“Nonsense, the man can fight,” Cassius said. A clap of thunder signaled the beginning of the nightly rains. “Doctore! One more contest.” He raised a cup, gesturing to the guards at the entrance to the courtyard.

The gladiators, still stationed within the hall, murmured as four guards escorted Zephyrus into the courtyard.

Laeden held back a wince. Still bandaged from the wounds he suffered during his revolt at the slavers’ auction, fresh bruises about his eyes and around his ribs marred his flesh.

Zephyrus’s stoic gaze fell upon Laeden.

“Prince Damascus,” Cassius said, “against which of my titans would you like to see his skills tested?”

A light rain fell through the sky window, creating ripples in the bath and painting the marble slab within it.

“Who better than the Champion of the house?” Damascus asked.

Another clap of thunder echoed off of the mountains and reverberated through the fortress.

Stegavax took position on the marble slab. The rain came down with greater fervor, drenching the Champion in moments.

Liario leaned down besides Cassius. “My earl, perhaps our guests would like to see an offering of blood. If wood were exchanged for steel, perhaps—”

Damascus raised his goblet. “I second that. Let us see steel.”

Laeden examined Liario, then Zephyrus. After Zephyrus’s supposed escape attempt that night, and Lenox’s volunteering to fight against him in the omenation, this sudden offering of steel seemed suspicious. He looked across his host towards his half-brother.

“That’s not necessary, brother,” Laeden said. “There will be a time for blood—”

“Our guests desire steel. Steel they shall have.” The smell of wine cascaded from Cassius’s mouth. The doctore bowed his head, and steel weapons replaced their wooden counterparts.

Thunder roared as rain fell harder.

Stegavax, the greatest Slicer-style gladiator in the history of New Rheynia, twirled his two steel blades. Laeden swallowed. He’d seen Stegavax send dozens of men to the afterlife.

Zephyrus is beyond a competent swordsman, but can he stand against Stegavax?

The rain poured down.

“Now we meet, Harbinger,” Stegavax shouted over the rain. He leveled his swords at Zephyrus as the attendant armed him with a sword and buckler.

Zephyrus said nothing. He glanced at Laeden, a serenity in his gaze—a calm before the storm. Bruised and battered as he was, with the world conspiring to kill him, Zephyrus didn’t seem in over his head. Perhaps he is the Wielder. Laeden never believed in such folktales before, but Zephyrus made him rethink them.

Zephyrus set his sights on Stegavax, but before Cassius gave the signal to begin, Stegavax lunged and stabbed, drawing gasps from the onlookers. Zephyrus blocked with his shield and parried a sweeping slash. He ducked under another chop, stepped over a leg sweep, and sidestepped a front kick. Stegavax continued the onslaught with masterful efficiency, but Zephyrus remained unscathed.

“He is a talent,” Damascus said, raising his voice over the falling rain.

One of Stegavax’s blows splintered Zephyrus’s iron-rimmed shield. He cast the shattered shield at Stegavax and charged. Stegavax slapped the shield away with his blades and recoiled just in time to catch a vicious downward chop between his own two swords. Zephyrus planted a kick to Stegavax’s chest, separating the two for a moment before they were nose to nose in another deadlock.

Stegavax headbutted Zephyrus, spewing blood from Zephyrus’s nose. Stegavax seized the advantage and swept Zephyrus’s leg, toppling him onto the wet marble slab. Stegavax swiped downward but struck nothing but the stone where Zephyrus had been moments ago. Zephyrus sprang to his feet.

Laeden pulled at the fabric of his doublet. Come on, Zephyrus…

Stegavax jabbed, but his footwork faltered. Zephyrus caught Stegavax’s wrist between his arm and his ribs and torqued, sending one of Stegavax’s blades clamoring to the slab and skidding into the pool. Stegavax chopped with his other sword, but Zephyrus caught his pommel and punched with his sword hand, sending Stegavax stumbling back.

Stegavax once again took the offensive and assaulted Zephyrus with a barrage of hacks, cuts, and slashes. A savage slice by Stegavax cleaved through Zephyrus’s cheap steel sword. The blade fell from the hilt—a useless defense against Stegavax.

Laeden couldn’t believe his eyes. “Cease!”

No one listened.

Nallia gasped, putting her hand to her chest as Stegavax moved in for the kill.

Zephyrus ducked under Stegavax’s swipe and punched Stegavax in the gut. Seizing Stegavax’s wrist, he wrenched the blade from his grasp. The blade splashed into the pool.

Both unarmed, the two wrestled, thrashing for their lives as Aquarius rained down upon them. Stegavax’s advantage in size began to take shape.

Come on, fight…

Nallia whimpered as Stegavax wrapped a large bloody arm around Zephyrus’s throat. Zephyrus resisted but couldn’t escape Stegavax’s chokehold.

Laeden stood. “Stop this!”

No one answered his command.

Zephyrus’s face purpled. Stegavax didn’t obey. Stegavax will kill him.

“Cease!” Damascus shouted, clapping with approval. Cassius gave a signal to his doctore, and with the snap of a whip, Stegavax relinquished Zephyrus from his grasp.

Laeden slumped back in his chair, releasing his breath as if Stegavax had strangled him.

“Well fought,” Damascus said. “You have quite the ludus, Earl Cassius. I imagine if your skill as a lanista translates to your role as chancellor, the Revivalists won’t stand a chance. I would have Stegavax, Fenyx, and Zephyrus each take position in the Primus on Kings’ Day.”

Cassius bowed. “You honor me, my prince.”

The gladiators were escorted out, the slaves began cleaning, and the guards led the Salmantic guests to their chambers for the evening.

Earl Cassius turned to Laeden. “Shall we discuss your strategy and how I might best serve as chancellor?” His servile grin was a mockery of true respect.

“I would have liked nothing more,” Laeden said, matching Cassius’s false deference. “Yet I’m afraid I must have words with Zephyrus first.”

A twitch of annoyance rippled across Cassius’s face. Laeden didn’t even pretend to care. At this point, he trusted Zephyrus more than the earl, regardless of his father’s warning.

“A slave over an earl?” Cassius’s crow’s feet deepened.

“I intend no disrespect, my earl,” Laeden said. “He led the largest slave outbreak in our country’s history, and the increasing number of escaped slaves—this Uprising—is putting a strain on the Jackals’ resources. I have questions only he can answer, lest the Sentinels be drawn into the Jackals’ quarrels. Will you grant me an audience with him?”

Despite his obvious displeasure, Cassius nodded, permitting Laeden to speak with Zephyrus. Dismissed by Cassius, Laeden accompanied the large, bearded guard, Nortus, down the stairs to the barracks.

“I would speak to him outside,” Laeden said as they descended.

“As you wish.” Nortus stopped before a cell crammed with half a dozen men jostling for space. “Come on, Zephyrus.” Nortus unlocked the door.

Zephyrus allowed Nortus to shackle him, his expression as unreadable as the masks worn by the Faceless. Nortus escorted them past the other cells to the door at the end of the corridor. He held the door open, gesturing out into the rain. Stepping outside, they took shelter under an awning.

“Gratitude, Nortus,” Laeden said. “You may leave us.”

Nortus hesitated but did as Laeden ordered.

Once alone, Laeden examined Zephyrus, wondering if he was the monster his father feared, or the ally he needed. “You’ve looked better.”

Zephyrus shrugged. “Still alive…”

“Praise whatever God responsible. What has happened?”

In previous interactions with Zephyrus, he was enslaved to his passions, his emotions as easy to read as a book, but now Zephyrus’s eyes were a cold impasse, betraying none of his inward thoughts.

“Last you were here, one of Cassius’s guards by the name of Saulus feigned to free me. After breaking my chains, he tried to kill me, saying I attempted to escape. Didn’t work. Lenox tried to finish the job, but you saw how that ended.”

Laeden massaged his beard. Saulus, Lenox—how many more? “And since my departure?”

Zephyrus frowned. “Lenox received a delivery in the night. A dagger with the balanced scale of Celestia embossed into the hilt. I think he gave the dagger to a gladiator.”

Gladiators… with the Revivalists? Laeden shook his head. Why? To kill Cassius? No. It would be easier for Lenox to do it himself. Why go through all the trouble? And why a dagger with ties to the Judges?

Regardless, it was too dangerous to permit. “Which gladiator?” Laeden asked. “A gladiator can’t have a concealed weapon; it must be confiscated at once.”

“I saw Lenox hand him something, the morning after he received the dagger, but—”

Laeden huffed. “But you didn’t see him hand the gladiator the dagger…”

“No. I’m not sure what he handed him. But what else could it be?”

Laeden nodded. “We need more.”

Zephyrus gestured toward the door. “Search him. You’ll find it.”

“At the risk of letting others know we’re on to them, no. If anything, I would bring Lenox in for—”

“Don’t,” Zephyrus said. The desperation in his tone gave Laeden pause. Zephyrus continued in an attempt to conceal it. “I need him to lead me to the other Revivalists, right?”

Laeden grunted but couldn’t disagree. “So be it. Keep up the good work. Markus says we can trust Nortus, so if you must send word, he’s your man. Besides the two of you, there’s no one under this roof I trust.”

Zephyrus nodded, eyes downcast to the puddles beneath his sandals. “Did you ask the king about my letter?” Zephyrus pulled the scroll from his sublingaria.

Laeden valued integrity. He considered his word the equivalent of law. But if the information his father gave him were true, whoever Zephyrus worked for prior to losing his memory was an enemy of the crown.

“He is dangerous,” his father had said. “The men he serves are dangerous.”

Some truths were better left untold. Laeden didn’t want to deliver his asset the information that could turn him into an enemy.

“Apologies, Zephyrus,” Laeden said, looking Zephyrus in the eyes. “My father had nothing to share concerning the contents of your letter.” The breath seemed to seep from Zephyrus’s lungs. “But don’t lose heart. I’ve shared it with the brightest minds in New Rheynia. This very moment, they are scouring tomes to connect the dots of this mystery.”

Zephyrus nodded and managed a half-smile, but Laeden didn’t like how easily the lie came to him.

For the good of the realm…

Chapter 24

The Marionette

Laeden VIII

Salmantica

“Laeden,” Iylea pleaded. “I know how it sounds, but I’m positive. It was him!”

Laeden closed the door to his chamber after ushering her inside. He massaged his temples, trying to make sense of the cryptic description she’d provided on their walk up.

Not two minutes after returning to Sentigard, Laeden had been informed that the Prefectus Medicus had received another desiccated corpse from the Vigiles—this one, a Rheynian vagabond. As if the first body wasn’t perplexing enough, the second conflicted with his theory that this was some sort of ritualistic sacrifice by the Revivalists. And before he could even take his traveling cloak off, Iylea pulled him aside with the desperate need to speak to him.

Now in his chambers, away from prying eyes and ears, Iylea’s gaze darted left and right as if expecting someone lurking in his rooms. Iylea’s hysteria made it difficult for Laeden to remain calm, but he couldn’t feed into her energy—it would only make things worse.

With a deep breath, he took her by the hand and led her into the sitting room before the hearth. Iylea sat on the edge of a cushioned sofa, so far forward she was practically standing. Her hands fidgeted with the hem of her dress.

“Start over,” Laeden said, resting his hand on her knee as he sat down opposite her. “From the beginning.”

Fear and paranoia were spreading like a plague through the city already, so it was nothing new for him. It amazed him what people could convince themselves of once an idea entered their minds. People would see ghosts and hear whatever they feared most, but this was Iylea—not people. She needed him to listen, and so he would.

“…After the others left,” Iylea said, “he addressed another man, telling him to deliver the package using a new messenger. Then the voice said, ‘A sharp blade… simple vicious thing.’ And sent it to a guard at House Cassius. At first, I thought perhaps it—”

“Wait, what?” Laeden held his hands up to stop her. “A blade… to House Cassius?” He thought back to what Zephyrus had told him. Lenox received a blade from a messenger in the middle of the night, and the next day, he delivered it to a gladiator.

Six save us…

He returned his attention back to Iylea. “Who? Names, faces?”

Iylea trembled. “I don’t know for sure. I hid until they were gone. I waited for…” She looked up to the ceiling as if the Gods held her answers. “I don’t know, Laeden. I thought I waited long enough, but I didn’t.”

A chill washed over Laeden’s cheeks as blood drained. “What do you mean—did someone catch you?”

“No, Laeden. Calm down.” Iylea took his hand and pulled him back to his seat. “I hid, but when I left, I stumbled into Ser Daenus.”

“Ser Daenus, as in Danella’s sworn sword?” Laeden asked in disbelief. “You think Ser Daenus is the leader of the Revivalists?” He shook his head.

No. Impossible. Father wanted him to lead the Sentinels. He can’t be with the Revivalists.

“I swear, Laeden. I know how it sounds, but it was him. I’m sure of it.”

“Iylea, this is important…” Laeden gently squeezed her hands. He closed his eyes. Six, what kind of trouble is she in? “Does he suspect you might know of his involvement? Has he been following you, watching you?”

Iylea began to tremble. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes to roll down her cheeks. “I don’t know.” She stifled soft sobs. “I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I feel the weight of lingering eyes.”

“Have you seen him following you, though?”

“He doesn’t have to, Laeden. We both serve the queen. He clings to her like a shadow, and I must attend her. He is always watching me.” Iylea put her face in her hands. She dried her eyes and took a deep breath.

A secret gathering of men, the discussion of messengers, and the blade corroborated by Zephyrus’s story. Iylea wasn’t making this up, but Ser Daenus? If it were him, he had plenty of time alone with the king and queen. If he wanted to strike, he could do so himself with little to no resistance. Why go through all the trouble?

The marionette had too many strings, too many unknowns that Laeden couldn’t presume to understand, but he didn’t need all the facts to know Daenus was dangerous.

“Stay here.” Laeden lurched to his feet, letting Iylea’s hands fall from his own.

“But there’s more I must te—”

Laeden bolted out the door.

“Captain Laeden.” The Sentinel waiting outside saluted.

“Call a dozen men to the king and queen’s chambers,” Laeden said, not breaking stride. “An arrest will be made. Now.”

Without question, the Sentinel took off down the halls of Sentigard.

It was late afternoon; Danella and his father would be upon their balcony awaiting the setting sun. And so would Ser Daenus. He didn’t have a plan, but this wasn’t a time for posturing. The threat was too near and too powerful to go unchecked. Laeden couldn’t wait for the other Sentinels to arrive.

Already, nightmarish thoughts tore through his mind. He tried to dissuade such notions as irrational. If Daenus wanted to strike, he could have done so at any point. Sensible reasoning aside, the thought of Daenus’s sword through his father’s back sped Laeden’s pace up the west tower stairway. Bounding two at a time, Laeden approached their chambers.

Two sentries stood guard outside of their door.

“I request an audience with the king and queen,” Laeden said, through labored breath. “It’s urgent.” The sentries bowed, then knocked to alert the inner guards. Once the doors opened, Laeden pushed through, advancing towards the balcony.

As expected, the king and queen sat, hand in hand, watching the sunset over the Hylans. His intrusion broke the serenity of the moment, but Laeden didn’t care. His father’s bodyguard, Ser Ostrey, and Danella’s, Ser Daenus, both reached for the pommels of their swords at Laeden’s sudden entrance.

“Chimera’s breath, Laeden,” his father exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

Laeden held a finger towards Ser Daenus. “You dishonor yourself.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Daenus asked, his hand still on the hilt of his sword.

Ser Ostrey drew his sword. “My prince, lower your blade.”

Laeden examined Ostrey, not realizing he’d drawn steel. He lowered the tip, but kept it drawn. “Ser Daenus is under arrest for conspiracies against the crown. He will come with me on his own accord, or by force, if necessary.”

Daenus held out his palms. “My queen, I don’t know what he speaks of.”

“Laeden, explain yourself,” his father said.

“Daenus has conspired with the Revivalists and will be taken in for questioning,” Laeden said. The footfalls of Laeden’s bustling Sentinels filed onto the balcony. “Ser Daenus, will you comply, or must we take you by force?”

Danella put her hand to her mouth.

“He lies,” Daenus said. “I don’t know of what he speaks, my queen.”

“Then go with them.” Danella glared at Laeden. “This will all be set right.”

Laeden’s men moved in and disarmed Daenus before manacling him.

“Hold him in the dungeons.” Laeden sheathed his sword. “I will be down to question him once I’ve concluded my search.”

“Surely this is some mistake,” Danella said. “Varros, I warned you of this, didn’t I?”

His father gave Danella a silencing stare. “Leave us.” He waved off the guards. Laeden stood under the brunt of their harsh glares as the Sentinels and guards fled the balcony.

“On what grounds is Ser Daenus under arrest?” Varros asked once they were alone.

“What proof do you have, to take away my bodyguard?” Danella asked, gravitating towards her husband. “Surely, you must have three witnesses who are willing to testify under oath if you can present no evidence.”

“One of my informants overheard Ser Daenus assigning messengers to deliver various packages. One such package was confirmed by another informant,” Laeden said, looking from Danella to his father. “While I don’t yet have proof, I have enough to know you will both be safer with him secured in the dungeons.”

“Separating us from our sworn protectors… on whispers and hunches?” Danella asked. “This is our safety we’re talking about. Laeden, I appreciate what you are doing, but you are mistaken. I trust Daenus with my life. If he wanted me dead, he could have done so half a hundred times, today alone. Be reasonable. If the Revivalists wanted to expose us to another attack, framing our personal guards would be the easiest way to clear a path for their assassins.”

“My men will protect you,” Laeden said, but even as he said it, he thought of Pirus, the Revivalist within his ranks. Stifling his doubt, he stood his ground. “Until I’m certain Daenus is not a threat, I must trust my informants and do my due diligence.”

“So it only matters if you trust the men guarding us?” Danella scoffed, shaking her head—not in anger, but disappointment. “Varros, this experiment has gone on long enough. Deal with this.” Danella stormed from the room.

His father put his face in his hands.

“Father, I have just cause for my actions. Once I investigate the study and interrogate him, I will find proof.”

His father chuckled. “She said you would do this, you know?”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Do what—my duty?” His father didn’t react to Laeden’s outburst. He didn’t need to. “Apologies, Father, I…”

The king held up a silencing hand. “She said you would make this your personal mage hunt, arresting whoever you wanted without proof.” Laeden opened his mouth to object, but the king’s glare stopped him. “She’s just worried about you.”

“I can handle myself,” Laeden said.

The king nodded. “Let us hope so. Provide proof, a confession, or three witnesses to corroborate your case against Ser Daenus, and no explanation will be necessary.”

Laeden bowed, his fists clenched at his sides. “I will not let you down.”

“I expect not, but if you don’t have anything by midnight, Ser Daenus will be released and returned to his post. Is that clear?”

Laeden took a sharp inhale. “As clear as the Crystal River, my king.”

Chapter 25

Final Warning

Danella III

Salmantica

Danella’s mind raced her feet as she descended the stairs of the west tower. Twice, she nearly tripped over herself in her hurry; her mind suffered the same consequences attempting to consider what information Laeden had on Daenus.

She thought he was chasing down bad leads after she’d witnessed the Prefectus Medicus performing an exam on an unmarked slave. While she understood why Laeden would pin it on the Revivalists, he couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hoping his other leads would run dry, she hadn’t concerned herself too much with Laeden playing the part of the Sentinel captain. But Ser Daenus’s arrest proved Laeden was far more competent than she’d believed.

He knew about the dagger sent to House Cassius, but how? She used different messengers to avoid the mole, but still—not one, but two of his informants confirmed the truth.

How did he know? The Wielder?

Despite numerous attempts on his life, the slave had yet to be put to the funeral pyre.

Could he still be loyal to Laeden?

If so, Laeden was even more resourceful, ruthless, and reckless in his pursuit of the Revivalists than she could allow. She believed Daenus would be protected by the reasonable doubt she wove through Laeden’s accusations, but Laeden was becoming a problem she couldn’t allow to run unchecked.

There was a reason for the elaborate plots. Overthrowing the king overtly would sow discord throughout the kingdom, disrupting the peace the Gods desired. The threat of the Revivalists couldn’t come from within the castle. If Laeden managed to gather evidence against Daenus, the delicate balance of her plans would be destroyed beyond redemption.

She traversed the inner bailey and descended the south tower towards the dungeons. She needed to speak with Daenus. She needed to know what other information Laeden had at his disposal, but as she approached the dungeon guard, she stopped herself.

Her first instinct was to get involved, create a diversion, and interrupt Laeden’s investigation, but that would only draw attention to her, her people, or her other plans.

Trust the precautions we’ve taken. Laeden won’t find anything.

She needed to be alone, wait this out, and trust the Six to watch over her. She left the south tower and sought her study, but to her horror, Laeden’s men were already in there.

If he found the ledger in her hidden compartment, Daenus was as good as dead. Her mind filtered through every strip of parchment in the ledger—every word she had written held her fate. Could anything incriminate me? Or would Daenus tell Laeden of my involvement? The thought of Varros’s grief-stricken face at the knowledge of her betrayal haunted her, but what can I do now? She felt helpless—nothing to do but worry. Or pray.

She fled the study for the Gods’ counsel. The city of Salmantica had six different temples, one erected to pay homage to each of the Valencian Gods. Sentigard, however, had the Royal Basilica. Carved into the Silver Summits along the north side of the castle, the bell tower reigned over Sentigard and the rest of Salmantica. Her father constructed a grand foyer with intricately carved statues of the Six at the altar. Oriented in a row, their visage brought her peace. At this time in the evening, it would be empty, but their presence never left.

Danella knelt down before Phaebia, the Goddess of hope, life, and light. Her youthful face smiled down at her. The Goddess’s windswept dress flowed behind her, a basket filled with flowers in the crook of her arm. In her outstretched hand, a single flower reached down for any humble enough to accept it.

Danella lowered her eyes. “My trust is in you, Phaebia. I trust your plans, your provision, and your providence. This present moment is no different than this morning. Only you know the future laid before us mortals, and your guidance through omenations is a gift. Forgive me in my moments of doubt, my desire to control and stoop to self-reliance. Let me be a vessel for your will. If you wish to stop me and my plans, I submit. I only wish to serve you and your siblings. Forgive me if I have transgressed and misinterpreted your will.”

Danella raised her eyes to Phaebia’s stoney face. Just once she wished to hear an audible reply to her prayers—some validation or confirmation for everything she worked for in honor of the Gods who led her father from the Disasters of Rheynia.

Phaebia didn’t reply. Neither did Moterra, Ferrocles, Incinerae, Aquarius, or Hameryn. She stood from the altar, unsure of how much time had passed while she prayed. The nightly rains stormed beyond the walls of Sentigard, but Danella’s foundation was restored. She would not blow in the wind of Laeden’s accusations. She returned to the inner bailey, secure in her stance; whatever Laeden threw at her, she would overcome.

She walked through the inner bailey and towards her chambers in the west tower, passing her study. Books were strewn about—stacked on the desk or thrown on the floor. The shelves were nearly bare.

Her stomach seized in knots. Six, what did they find?

“Keep searching,” Markus said. “We’ll keep at it all night if we must.”

While Danella gaped at the disarray of her study, Varros approached.

“You may continue your search if you wish,” the king said, loud enough for the Sentinels in the study to hear. “However, Ser Daenus has been released. Until more reasonable claims are made, witnesses come forward, or evidence is presented, there is no case against Ser Daenus, his honor, or his legacy.”

Laeden and his Sentinels escorted Ser Daenus down the corridor. The satisfaction on Daenus’s face gave Danella solace, but not nearly as much as Laeden’s scowl did.

He found nothing. Praise the Six.

The Sentinel guards released Daenus from his manacles, but Laeden intended to keep him secured with his deadlock stare. Despite the tension in his jaw and the creases lining his face, Laeden could do nothing against the law.

“May I return to my post now, my prince?” Daenus asked Laeden. Laeden mumbled something incoherent beneath his breath. “Apologies, my prince, I could not hear you.”

Laeden snapped. “I said…” He took a breath to compose himself before continuing in a much more diplomatic tone. “I said, ‘Don’t get comfortable.’ I’ll be watching you, and when you slip up, I’ll take you down.” He stalked up to Ser Daenus and stabbed his finger into the larger man’s chest. “You return to your post, but if anything happens to her on your watch…” Laeden shook his head threateningly.

Varros fixed Laeden with a disapproving stare.

His misconduct will be his undoing.

“I want your mess cleaned up,” Varros said, surveying the state of the study. “Next time you make an arrest, is it too much to ask that you have something?” He turned on his heel and strode away.

Laeden’s clenched fists shook at his sides.

Danella pitied him; she always had. Even as a boy, Laeden hadn’t belonged. His parents’ annulment allowed Danella and Varros to secure New Rheynian peace through matrimony, but Laeden was pulled from his mother’s arms and delivered to Sentigard. At the age of ten, Laeden lost everything he ever knew. The first time she met Laeden as a boy, he looked much the way he did now. Danella never wanted this for him.

Laeden’s love for his father, his commitment to his duty, and the fervor for which he sought honor and justice were admirable. But if she had to choose between removing Varros from the kingdom or Laeden, it wouldn’t be a difficult decision. His position within the Sentinels made him a problem she had to deal with despite the difficulty of it. She had tried to talk him out of this role with the Sentinels once before; she would have to try again.

Danella placed a hand on Laeden’s flexed arm. “Laeden, might I speak with you… alone, just for a moment?” She didn’t wait for a reply. Taking him by the arm, she strode down the corridor. Laeden complied, and Daenus followed at a safe distance behind. Once they were out of earshot of the other Sentinels, Danella opened up.

“I know you’re frustrated, but misinformation is the Revivalists’ greatest strength right now. These diversion tactics are meant to bait you, because once you bite, you’re hooked on an idea they can continually use against you. You can’t—”

Laeden stopped walking and yanked his arm free of Danella’s grasp. “But what if this isn’t misinformation? What if I’m not wrong?”

Danella put her hands on her hips. “Laeden, I didn’t want you in this role in the first place. It’s too dangerous. You’re playing with fire and—”

“And I’m gonna get burned?” Laeden shook his head. “Everyone laughed at me when I said the kettle was hot. Everyone mocked me when I tried to warn them. But if not for me and my ‘paranoia,’ my father would be dead.” He let the words hang in the air, echoing off the black stone walls of Sentigard. “I’m the only one who can stop the Revivalists. And I will if it’s the last thing I do.”

His icy Helixus stare met hers. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but this was his final warning. If she were willing to sacrifice the love of her life to keep her father’s kingdom safe from the Gods’ wrath, she could live with herself if all she had to do was sacrifice his son.

“Take this advice,” Danella said, imagining herself speaking to her own son. “Squeaking mice attract the cat’s claws. You may have saved your father’s life, but you put a target on your back in the process. If you continue on like this, attempting to stop the Revivalists may be the last thing you do.”

Laeden narrowed his eyes. “What would you have me do—hide like a craven? Run off to Northridge, and wait for the Revivalists to kill my father?”

“No,” Danella said, returning to his side to put her hand on his arm. “Fight, assist, serve—but let those with experience lead.” Laeden pulled away from her touch. “I just want you to be safe, Laeden.”

“And who would you put in charge—him?” Laeden scoffed, gesturing towards Daenus. “I’ll take my chances, and you’ll take yours.” With that, he stormed off, his footsteps fading into the void of silence.

Danella remained unmoved for a time in the darkened corridor. She tried to spare him, but his defiance—his hubris—would be his undoing. Poor Laeden. She shook her head. “Come, Daenus. There is much to do.”

Chapter 26

A Promise Kept, A Debt Paid

Fenyx II

Stockhelm

“Repeat after me.” Auron’s voice cut through the noise of the rain and thunder. He turned the brand in the fire until it gleamed red-hot. “I stand before Gods and men.”

Auron dictated, and Jechtaric and Zephyrus repeated as Fenyx looked on with disgust from the corner of the break area sheltered from the rain.

“…To proclaim my mind, my flesh, and my soul to my dominus, Lentulis Cassius.”

Fenyx grew up in this ludus. It took years surviving against other boys in Teluvar’s fighting pits and over half a decade of blood and sweat in the training square for him to earn Dominus’s mark. Fenyx dedicated his life to becoming a gladiator.

“I swear to give my life for the glory of this house and die in defense of it,” the two men repeated after Auron.

Zephyrus had barely been here a week and didn’t deserve the honor of being named to the brotherhood. Jechtaric had been branded by another lanista prior to his arrival, but Fenyx felt no swell of pride from the addition. To make matters worse, he’d have to share the glory of the Primus with Zephyrus.

After Jechtaric and Zephyrus recited the last of the words, Auron placed the glowing brand upon the back of their left hands. The skin bubbled to form a raised red C—a badge of honor they didn’t appreciate or deserve.

“You may rise as new men—gladiators of House Cassius.” Auron embraced the newest members of the brotherhood. Fenyx spat on the ground as they clasped each other’s forearms.

The other gladiators kept their distance from their newest brothers as well. Normally when a recruit joined the brotherhood, everyone celebrated, but Zephyrus divided the barracks in ways they’d never known. Sure, Taric and Stegavax had their tensions ever since Laytonus’s death, but Zephyrus was polarizing in a different way. But this talk of the Prophets of Celestia meant nothing; Zephyrus was a man just like any other, but he stood in Fenyx’s way.

All but Stegavax—who didn’t care about anyone but himself—and Taric—who spent the last few days in the medicus’s quarters—were present. Even with over a score of gladiators, it felt like a hollow affair.

Auron raised his fist. “In celebration of three of our own being selected to the Primus on Kings’ Day, Dominus has given us the leftover wine from last night’s feast! Observe this moment, take pride in what you have accomplished, and set sights to future accolades.”

The men rejoiced as they moved from the sheltered break area to the barracks. Fenyx remained unmoved, leaning against a thick wooden column that supported the shelter.

Auron approached. “Why so glum?”

Fenyx snorted. “Zephyrus barely survives Stegavax, and he is rewarded with the mark of the brotherhood. He didn’t win, yet he is treated like Vykannis the Brave.”

Auron looked around to make certain no one was within earshot. “Rein in your wagging tongue. Even to me, you must not speak of the Judges. If you were heard, you would pay with your life, and there’d be nothing I could do to save you. There are whispers of war on every lord’s lips with this Uprising rabble.”

Auron was right, but Fenyx didn’t want to admit it. He stared into the black abyss of rain. Every once in a while, the sky would fracture, cleaved in two by giant forks of white lightning illuminating all of Stockhelm. Some bolts lasted long enough for him to see the arena in the shadows of the Stormburn Geyser.

“I shouldn’t worry about the successes of others,” Fenyx said. “I only wish to honor you when I take to the sands for the first time. I wish for the world to know the name Fenyx, his instructor, Auron, and the ludus of House Cassius.”

“I pray the same.”

“I will be Champion,” Fenyx promised. “One way or another, I will overtake Stegavax.”

They returned to the barracks, Auron retreating to his chambers down the hall. On such nights of celebration, casks of wine were left for them to consume. To Fenyx, it just meant his opponents would be slow on the morrow for spending the night in their cups.

Fenyx laid down on his cot listening to the jests of his fellow gladiators. Even Taric returned after spending the last few days with the medicus. He still looked a bloody mess, but Fenyx respected him for standing up for what he believed in, though he lacked the skill to back it up. He closed his eyes and gnawed on his whiteroot.

After the last of the wine, even the rowdiest of the gladiators took to dreams. Fenyx lay motionless in the dim candlelight, but sleep would not come. The drone of snores were interrupted by the occasional clap of thunder. If he listened closely, the rain continued to pour down. But something else disturbed the night.

The candle in the hall winked out. Fenyx sat up in his cot.

A shape moved in the darkness with brisk purpose. A moment passed, but a feeling gripped Fenyx’s throat in the silence that followed. An unfamiliar sensation he had not felt in many years returned to him, coiling around him like a strangling snake.

Fear.

He listened to the darkness. Did I imagine a figure in the shadows?

A clap of thunder rattled the cell bars, but something else—the tail end of a cry—resounded from down the hall.

Before he could think, Fenyx bolted from his cell, following the screams to the Champion’s quarters. Unlike the other cells gated with bars, the Champion’s cell had a wooden door with a small, barred window. A struggle from the other side of the door accompanied curses and yelling, but he couldn’t see anything in the pitch black. Fenyx tried to force the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

Through the window, the flash of lightning illuminated the Champion’s cell. In the brief moment of light, two shapes wrestled in a room painted with scarlet blood. Fenyx shouted and threw himself into the door, blowing the wood into splinters. He didn’t see the face of Stegavax’s attacker, but he had to be stopped. Stegavax could go to the chain for all Fenyx cared, but he was still a brother who deserved to die a glorious death in the arena. Not a knife in the night.

Fenyx charged into the pitch black and lunged, searching for a body to grab onto. He found one, slick with blood and weak. He shoved the body to the corner.

A shout came and the second body ran into Fenyx. The two grappled, and Fenyx wrestled the shadow to the floor. He grabbed onto what seemed to be wrists, but a sharp sting bit into the side of his arm.

“Laytonus! Laytonus! I must for Laytonus!”

Another bolt of lightning cast a white glow upon Taric’s blood-smeared face. He held a small but sharp blade. Darkness returned. Fenyx’s eyes widened to let in light, but the shadows reigned.

“I must… For Laytonus!” Taric shouted, spitting blood into Fenyx’s face. Taric’s wrist, slippery and slick with blood, slid from his grasp. Fenyx headbutted Taric’s already-broken nose, sending him rearing back. The knife clattered to the stone floor. Fenyx needed to get it first. He fumbled, searching blindly with his hands.

A glimmer of light shone off the blade. Fenyx reached for it but found Taric’s hand grasped around it. The sliver of light darted towards Fenyx’s face. He lurched away just in time, but his foot slipped on the bloody stones beneath him. He toppled to the ground as the blade slashed above him. Fenyx kicked at Taric’s knee, dropping him to the floor. He grabbed Taric, attempting to seize the blade, but his grip slipped. Taric twisted, rolling Fenyx onto his back.

The glimmering edge stabbed downward. Fenyx seized Taric’s hands, the blade’s tip less than a hand’s span from his face. Taric growled, driving the killing instrument closer and closer.

Fenyx spat into Taric’s face and wrenched. The blade sparked as it stabbed into the stone beside him. With a quick jerk, Fenyx turned Taric’s wrists and shoved.

The blade slipped into flesh.

Warm blood showered down on Fenyx as Taric let out the soft sound of a fatal wound.

Lightning struck to illuminate Fenyx’s blood-soaked hands holding Taric’s wrist. The glimmering edge was nowhere to be seen, buried deep in Taric’s neck.

Taric sputtered. “For Laytonus…”

His body convulsed as his speech became slurred. His words dissolved into the guttural noises of death. He fell from atop Fenyx to the stone floor.

Fenyx shoved Taric’s limp body off him and scooted, hands and feet, away from the fallen form, his stomach in knots.

Burn me… Fenyx had killed before, but the fighting pits weren’t like this.

I killed a gladiator of the brotherhood.

The warm glow of torchlight entered the room.

“By the Gods…” Nortus stood with the entire brotherhood at his back, their faces barely recognizable through the flickering torch. But with the light, Fenyx could take in his surroundings.

Taric lay dead—a small blade, embedded to the hilt, protruded from his neck. The balanced scale of Celestia was embossed into the wooden handle. Blood covered the floor. And in the corner, Stegavax heaved labored breaths, clinging to life.

Covered in blood, it was impossible to tell where Stegavax’s wounds were, but there were many of them.

“Seize him.”

Expecting the guards to go to Stegavax’s aid, he was surprised when they grabbed Fenyx and dragged him outside.

“I didn’t do anything!” Fenyx shouted. “Taric did it. I defended Stegavax.”

His own words returned to him. “I will be Champion,” he had said to Auron. “One way or another, I will overtake Stegavax.”

This was not what Fenyx had in mind.

Chapter 27

Undone

Nallia II

Stockhelm

“No one can know!” her father said for the thousandth time. “If anyone learns of Stegavax’s…”

“He may yet live,” Nallia said. “The medicus said the most dangerous time has passed.”

They woke to a living nightmare. Stegavax clung to life, nearly murdered in his sleep at the hands of his brother. Had it not been for Fenyx’s intervention, he might have succeeded.

Her father paced in furious circles around his tablinum.

“Even if he lives,” Auron said, “the Games of Stockhelm are out of the question.”

“Chimera’s burning breath!” her father shouted.

“My husband, don’t worry,” her mother said. “The same man who saved our Champion’s life might be the one to claim his mantle.”

“Fenyx is yet untested upon the sands,” her father said. “This isn’t Teluvar’s pits—this is the omenation for the chancellorship. Just when we’re about to climb to heights never imagined…” He growled before wheeling on Nallia. “This is all your fault!”

Nallia put her hand to her chest, her eyes wide. What in Six Hells is he talking about? “My fault?” She reached for her ring but caught herself and put her hands down at her sides. She had no reason to be nervous. I did nothing wrong.

“Yes, your fault. You think you can govern these men with kindness—herbs for their pain, healers for their memories—and it’s a wonder to you when disaster strikes. You are too soft on them, and they have run amuck!”

Nallia’s cheeks flushed. She couldn’t believe her ears. “How can you blame this on me? What does a healer have to do with Taric’s vengeance? You haven’t left for the chancellor’s tower yet, but you blame this on me?”

Her mother gasped.

Her father glared. “You dare speak to me in such a manner?”

Nallia twisted the ring about her finger with her thumb. I did nothing wrong.

When she didn’t beg for her father’s forgiveness, he shouted, “Everyone out!”

Her mother, Odetta, Auron, and Liario left in a hurry, but Nallia would not bend beneath his injustice. His bushy eyebrows furled. Like a bird of prey descending on a hare too prideful or too stupid to seek shelter, he advanced on her.

She didn’t back down but had to clench her fists to keep herself from spinning her ring.

“What do you think the senators say when I tell them, ‘My daughter will govern my ludus,’ hmm? They laugh. They say, ‘How can she control the beasts of the arena?’ I admit you have the eye for identifying talent and bringing out the best of the men, but…” He shook his head. “Perhaps they have been right all along.”

The flush in her cheeks rose to her ears. Her toes curled into the soles of her sandals. No words came to mind, but silence would only condemn her. “Beyond a keen eye, and the ability to motivate them, what more could a lanista possess?”

“Discipline!” Her father turned away from her, running his hands through his wispy hair. “Those savages must be forged with firm hands, or they will run wild like the animals they are.”

“They are people,” Nallia said.

“They are slaves! To be beaten, broken, used, and discarded at profit. This is a business.”

Nallia glared at her father.

Of course it’s a business, but there are other ways to inspire men besides beatings. Maybe I am too soft, but I had nothing to do with what Taric did. Father is just stressed because of the omenation and the pressures of the chancellorship. He will realize he is wrong.

Her father’s shoulders slumped, and his face fell into his hands. “Perhaps the fault is mine in placing too much responsibility on your shoulders.”

Her anger boiled within, threatening to erupt. “Too much responsibility? Taric attacked Stegavax out of vengeance! Nothing I—”

“With a blade of Celestia!” Her father’s face darkened. “How do you think the patricians would view me—the Chancellor of Stockhelm—if Celestics infest my own house? Your tolerance. Your softness.” He turned from her, lifting his hands to Valencia to let them fall and slap against his hips. “If Markus were here, none of this would have happened.”

Nallia erupted. “That’s what this is about?” She stamped her foot, fists coiled at her sides. “I’m a woman, so I’m incapable of levying discipline? I’m soft and weak, and only Markus can lead? What does that say of you, Father?”

His predatory eyes narrowed. He advanced on her, index finger leading the way. “You dare speak to me in such a manner?”

Nallia backed away and dropped her eyes. Seize hold of yourself, Nallia. You know how to speak with him. She let out a slow, steadying breath. “Apologies, Father. This is my fault, but let me make this right. Zephyrus has been showing promise since arriving. Let him fight in the omenation, and you—”

“Fenyx will take to the sands.” Her father’s eyes bore into her, as if daring her to challenge him again.

“But Fenyx has been paraded before Brusos and his wife,” Nallia said. “No one outside of the royal family knows of Zephyrus. He stood against Stegavax for the sake of the Six.”

“I’ll hear no more,” her father said. “This is long overdue, but your time in the ludus is over.”

Nallia stammered. What? No! How can you do this?

“You will join Prince Damascus in Salmantica and attend the Salmantic Games.”

Nallia’s heart seized in her throat. But then I’ll miss the Games of Stockhelm.

She’d never missed any of the games, not since she was a little girl. Her defiance withered beneath his shadow.

“Perhaps there, you will serve some good to this house,” her father said. “Enough with these duels. This foolish pride. Get married and be someone else’s problem.”

Nallia’s stomach churned, and tears stung her eyes. He uses me. Offering me—my body—to the prince for his advancement. “Father, please. I—”

“That is final.”

“Father, what about—”

“Question me again and I will remind you that Lentulis, not Nallia, is dominus of this house. If you wish to help, send in Doctore and Liario so I might set them to purpose.” He waved her away like a horse’s tail would a fly.

“Is that all you’d have of me?” She blinked away tears.

He sat down at his desk, shuffling papers about.

He won’t even look at me. She bit her lip as the heart and soul she poured into this ludus was stripped away, disregarded. I’m just a commodity. A trade piece for his gains. Not knowing what else to do, she dropped her eyes. “As you say, Father.”

Cowed, her meek exit from the tablinum became a storm by the time she reached the atrium. How can he do this to me? My fault? The skin beneath her amethyst ring was raw from twisting it about her finger. Perhaps this is my fault. How many times did I speak of the Judges as a means of motivating the men to fight? How many times did I wish someone—anyone—would overtake Stegavax as Champion?

After sending Liario and Auron back to her father, Nallia’s mother came to her.

“Nallia, dear. Come with me.” Her mother led her out to the balcony overlooking the training square. Watching the gladiators had always been a comfort, but now Nallia gripped the banister with white knuckles. Mother placed her hand atop Nallia’s.

“Calm yourself. I will speak with him. All will be right. Fenyx will prevail in the Primus and secure our position as the Head Ludus. Soon, your father will be chancellor, and he will be begging you to take over the ludus in his name, if you still desire it.”

She squeezed the rail tighter. If I still desire it? “It’s all I’ve wanted since I was a girl.”

Her mother chuckled. “Never have you had the affections of the prince to distract you.”

She gave Nallia a kiss on the temple and left her to speak with her father.

Just two nights ago, Damascus asked her to join him in Salmantica in the week leading up to the Salmantic Games. It felt like a dream.

“You will be my honored guest,” he said. Damascus was gallant, handsome, and chivalrous—he possessed everything a woman could want. But could I leave this life behind to be with him? Why do I have to choose?

It felt like her father took the decision from her. “Get married and be someone else’s problem.” How dare he?

Zephyrus sparred against Jechtaric and Cerik below. A quick study to Auron’s tutelage, Zephyrus ascended the ladder within the ludus. Whoever taught him the ways of the sword instructed him well. He hadn’t spoken to her or even met her eyes since the beatings, but he trained harder than ever.

Perhaps Father is right.

She turned away from the sands and walked back to her father’s tablinum. As she neared, voices teeming with pent-up aggression resounded in the atrium.

“I wish to rise beyond the station of a mere lanista,” her father said. “And I will use every advantage to achieve that!”

“You would use our daughter as an advantage?”

“Why is everyone questioning my authority? And yes. If all Nallia has to do is spread her legs to secure the position of our family for generations to come, I’d have had her flat on her back, legs spread for the prince’s inspection.”

Nallia’s throat constricted, putting her hand to her mouth. Nausea churned her stomach, but she swallowed the pain and grit her teeth. Betrayed, disgusted, and used, she marched up to the entrance to give her father a piece of her mind, but the sound of an open palm whipping across an old cheek carried from the tablinum to the corridor.

Before she could enter, a grunt accompanied a loud smack. The thud of a body hitting the floor made Nallia’s feet turn to stone. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

He hit her…

She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“You dishonor yourself, husband.” Her mother’s tone made the word a curse. She stormed from the room into the atrium, stopping for the briefest moment to eye Nallia. Her mother held her hand to her left cheek, a bruise already forming underneath. Without a word, her mother strode off.

Nallia retreated back to the safety of the balcony, unable to speak to anyone. Her world was falling apart. Her ludus, her family… my identity.

The sound of her father’s violence and the wounded look on her mother’s face haunted her. Auron taught her the basics of swordplay, and although she could have an honest tilt with unpracticed knights, she was no warrior. But she promised herself she would never let a man harm her. She tried to distract herself in the sparring below, to block out her parents’ fight, her father’s crude remarks, and her failure as a lanista… but never before had she felt so alone, so isolated, or so used.

Chapter 28

The Ratman

Laeden IX

Salmantica

The game of Reign required both strategy and luck. Laeden’s tiles were perfectly positioned to take his father down in a few more turns, but it all depended on the dice. King Varros slid three ivory tiles—his foot soldiers—across the board, just as Laeden expected. As long as his father didn’t roll two sixes, he’d be positioned to win in two turns. The first roll toppled and turned before landing.

Six.

Laeden closed his eyes and grabbed his pant leg beneath the table. His father grinned as he tossed the second die.

Six.

Laeden rolled his eyes as his father swiped two onyx tiles from the board. “The dice, forever on your side.” He picked up the die to begin his turn. His plan could still work if he positioned his mounted knights to the right side of his father’s castle. It would take longer to win, but victory was inevitable. He needed to roll a total of eleven with three rolls.

“Ambitious,” his father said as Laeden moved his tiles into place.

“I will not give ground.” Laeden rolled the first die.

Five.

“Retreat is always an option. Regroup, refortify, strike again when the enemy least expects it.”

The second die landed. Four.

Just one more roll. He smiled at his father. “Why retreat when victory is imminent?” As long as he didn’t roll a one, he’d secure victory. He tossed the die. It tumbled and spun on one corner before readjusting.

One.

Laeden dropped his head.

Father plucked Laeden’s mounted knight tiles from the board. “My luck has not passed on to you. Your aggression must be tempered if it’s to outlast the enemies’ defense. You wield a glass sword, swinging it about trying to end the game as quickly as possible.”

He wasn’t just speaking of the game but of the Sentinels. Laeden had instituted a common uniform—a navy-blue surcoat with a gray sash, a sigil of a silver shield atop a navy-and-crimson backdrop, and the words Shield The Righteous, as if the Sentinels were a great house.

“The glass sword is to lull the enemy into comfort,” Laeden said. “If they believe they see the threat, they won’t suspect the hidden dagger.”

His father moved his pikemen forward into the space where Laeden’s mounted knights were taken, but Laeden was prepared. Before his father could reach for the die, Laeden scooped them up and rolled for opportunity.

“You didn’t see my archers,” Laeden said. He only needed a three to once again expose the right side of the castle. The die toppled end over end before spinning to a stop.

Two.

Laeden smacked his forehead with his palm.

“Clever move,” his father said. “Unlucky.”

Laeden saw the parallels between the game and his own pursuit of the Revivalists. Yes, he made an ostentatious display of the Sentinels. The uniforms were to make his enemies underestimate him while providing a presence on the streets to comfort the people. His hidden daggers were the ones he expected to win him the war. Aelon, Zephyrus, and Gareth all provided leads that would uncover the Revivalists’ plans, avert potential disaster with the Cassiuses, or catch the miscreants in the act. If only he had evidence on Ser Daenus, he’d be able to leverage more information toward his cause.

After having the queen’s study turned upside down in search of clues, and having Ser Daenus tailed, his men found nothing on him. All his time was spent guarding the queen, as was his duty.

Perhaps Danella was right.

He had no doubt Iylea told him the truth, but perhaps the voice she heard belonged to someone other than Ser Daenus. After Laeden had made a scene of Daenus’s arrest, he spooked the true villain away. More information would turn up, but he couldn’t be so brash in the future. Still, things had been tense with Iylea ever since. It wasn’t her fault, but Laeden needed space from her. She compromised his decision-making process, and he couldn’t let that happen. Not anymore.

“Speaking of unlucky,” his father said as he moved his tiles to refortify his defenses. “I’m assuming the Prefectus Medicus has no news on these bloodless corpses?”

Laeden cleared his throat. It wasn’t a subject he wanted to talk about. He’d hoped something would have come from the autopsy, but in the case of the Klaytonian and the vagabond, the Prefectus Medicus offered only more questions, citing magic more than medicine as to how the subjects were drained. Even though nothing had come of it, Laeden expected the Revivalists would attempt to tamper with his investigation, especially since they had access to the castle, but the men he had spying on the medicus’s chambers had nothing to report.

“I no longer believe the Revivalists are the source of our bloodless corpses,” Laeden said, regrouping his tiles to prepare for his father’s counterattack. “Perhaps they are the result of these ‘dangerous men’ you refuse to tell me about. Maybe AVR?”

King Varros jostled the dice in his hand, his steel gaze and iron jaw revealing none of his inward thoughts. After a time, he set the dice down on the edge of the table. “You still blame me for the predicament we’re in with the Revivalists.”

“The Sentinels will triumph. The mages will go into hiding or flee, and the extremists will be eradicated.”

His father leaned closer. “Be that as it may, if another mage were to turn up, I would exile them again. And that is not a secret over a game of Reign; I would have that known by the people, the Uprising, and anyone else who opposes my rule.”

Laeden shook his head, at a momentary loss for words. Still you will not admit the error of your ways? “Don’t you see how many are dying at the expense of one mage?”

“A task you’ve volunteered to handle.”

“I have, and I will,” Laeden said. “But that’s not the point.”

A long pause hung between them. They examined one another, each wondering if they could truly trust the other.

“Did I ever tell you what happened to me back in the New Rheynian War?”

Laeden scoffed. “You know you haven’t.”

His father never spoke of what happened during the war. All he knew was what others told him. His father was believed dead after his ship had been set upon by the Salmantics. Somehow, he survived the shipwreck, wound up on the northern coast of Klaytos, and ferried himself back to Stockhelm just at the end of the war three years later. It was not a heroic story, at least how others told it.

“If you knew, perhaps you would understand the monsters kept at bay by exiling one mage.”

Laeden glared at his father. He always kept his secrets.

A knock at the door interrupted them, and Markus poked his head in. “Apologies for the intrusion. Urgent news from Stockhelm.”

Laeden leveled his gaze at his father. “Whatever needs to be said can be said here. I have no secrets.”

Markus nodded, glancing between Laeden and the king. “Word from House Cassius… A gladiator named Taric, armed with a small blade marked with the scales of Celestia, attacked and nearly murdered Stegavax in his cell.”

Laeden ran his fingers through his hair. Six save us. Zephyrus and Iylea were right. The puzzle fit together. “Someone is trying to sabotage Cassius. The Revivalists are attempting to put their own man in the chancellor’s office.”

Laeden rubbed the back of his neck, recalling his time at Brusos’s ludus. “Tursos, a seasoned and talented gladiator under the tutelage of Targarus, is sent to House Brusos, just in time for the omenation at the Games of Stockhelm. In the same week, the Cassius Champion is attacked by an armed gladiator, with the same weapon seen in the hands of a Revivalist suspect.”

If they couldn’t kill or control the king, they would secure the other political offices they could. As his father said, “…regroup, refortify, strike again when the enemy least expects it.”

“We need proof on Brusos,” Markus said. “Lenox could be his pawn. We have enough on him now. We can force him to talk.”

Another knock at the door—a messenger. “Urgent news from the docks.”

Allaron’s men were the ones watching Gareth and his leads. Laeden gave instructions that if he needed to alert him, to send him to the docks, although they arranged a specific rendezvous point in advance.

“We shall have to resume the game later, Father.”

“Be careful, son.”

Laeden and Markus took their leave of Sentigard and went to the predetermined meeting area in the slums along the city’s southern wall.

Allaron greeted them, old scars lining his face. “We have a problem.” Despite his graying hair and thinning physique, Allaron’s time spent fighting under the Helixus banner during the New Rheynian War made him a trustworthy ally.

After ensuring they weren’t followed, Allaron led them through the slums to the hideout. “Gareth tried to make contact with the Ratman, but we caught them.”

A pit formed in Laeden’s gut. All the tiles in the right places, but no luck. “Why would Gareth betray us?”

Allaron opened a dilapidated wooden door and gestured inside the shanty house. “Think he thought to protect his friend. Told ‘em to leave the Revivalists. Go into hiding. At least that’s what he’s telling us.” Allaron directed them deeper into the hideout. “Through there.”

Laeden marched into the poorly lit room. Gareth and the Ratman were gagged and secured to chairs. Laeden stalked over to Gareth, angry enough to strike him.

“A little cooperation and you would have been protected.” Laeden yanked the gag from Gareth’s mouth. “Why?”

“I told him to get out while he could,” Gareth said. “I wanted him to switch to our side.”

The Ratman fought against his gag, scowling at Gareth.

“Silence!” Laeden hissed. He turned back to Gareth. “You put your future in jeopardy. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t nail you to a Six Arrowed Star?”

Gareth’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “Banis can help. He can tell you more than I can. He’s a messenger!”

“So you’re telling me you’ve exhausted your purpose?” He glared at Gareth. “You better hope he talks.” Laeden shoved the gag back into his mouth. “Has he said anything of worth yet?”

“Not yet,” Allaron said.

Laeden pulled out the throwing knife he’d received at the festival of Stockhelm. It already saved the king’s life. Could it save the lives of these men too? Laeden flipped the knife around in his hand before aiming it at Banis the Ratman’s throat. With his other hand, he tugged the gag from his mouth.

“I will not betray the Gods and speak to the likes of you.” He spat at Laeden’s boots. “Gareth might be a coward, but I ain’t!”

“Ratman has a wife and son,” Allaron whispered in Laeden’s ear.

The Ratman’s mismatched eyes glowered at Laeden. If he was scared, he didn’t show it. Laeden twirled the knife in his hand. “You might not be willing to talk to save your own life, but how about the lives of your wife and son?”

The Ratman’s face remained placid, but a bead of sweat dampened his brow.

Laeden touched the blade to the Ratman’s cheek. “Speak one name, and I will deliver you, Gareth, and your family from this land. Just one name.”

Gareth groaned through his gag at the Ratman. The Ratman’s yellow-green eyes drifted back and forth as if trying to see every possible future.

“There’s only one situation where you make it out of this alive,” Laeden said. He didn’t want to resort to threats and violence, but he was losing this war. Come on, you bastard. Just work with me… “No one needs to get hurt. Just one name.”

Chapter 29

Courting

Danella IV

Salmantica

The omenation for the chancellorship was three days away. Danella’s plans were in place, leaving no more to do but wait and pray. She ordered Targarus to send one of his best men to Brusos, arranged the assassination attempt on Cassius’s Champion, and separated Nallia from her gladiators. Everyone knew the ludus’s successes rested upon her shoulders, but Nallia couldn’t help the scorpion retain its title of Head Lanista from here.

Encouraging Damascus to invite Nallia to Sentigard was easy. However, she undoubtedly would have only accepted after the omenation. Yet her spy within House Cassius manipulated the earl into blaming his daughter for recent events. With Stegavax out of the picture and Nallia here in Salmantica, the rest was up to Brusos.

If Brusos lost, the Gods didn’t want him as the chancellor. She did everything she could to give him the power of the plebs in the senate. Overnight, Brusos could become one of the richest men in Stockhelm. His title of baron would turn to duke, and all he had to do was make sure his man won the rigged contest.

She sat in the throne room beside her husband awaiting Nallia’s arrival. She wondered if it were possible, with Brusos in power, to turn the people and the senate against Varros. If the people called for stricter enforcement of the rebel-rousing Celestics, could Varros oppose? For now, she canceled every plot against him. If her husband could live and the Gods could be sated, Danella would not complain.

As it was, each morning she woke with guilt, and every night, she suffered a crisis of faith. Chimera’s breath, she still loved Varros, but she couldn’t disobey the will of the Six.

If only I could keep him and Father’s kingdom…

Varros held her hand as Damascus walked arm in arm with Nallia Cassius into the throne room. The expression on Nallia’s face was all too familiar: smiles on the outside, panic within. Were it not for the twisting of her ring about her finger, she might have fooled Danella. She did well to conceal her concern for the future of her ludus.

Danella pitied her. She knew what it was like to have the fear of a father’s disappointment looming overhead, but more so, she understood how it felt to be used by a father like a form of currency. However, when Brusos won the chancellorship, if Damascus and Nallia were to be wed, the Cassius threat would be nullified. If she were as easy to manipulate as her father, Nallia would be the perfect bride to Damascus.

“Welcome, Lady Nallia,” Varros said.

She smiled and curtsied, but her eyes reflected what Danella already knew. House Cassius is in trouble.

After exchanging pleasantries, Damascus offered to give Nallia a tour of Sentigard, but Danella interrupted. “My son, where are your manners? It would be unchivalrous of you not to make your intentions known. Nallia is renowned for her abilities as a duelist. Does she not duel any who would court her?”

Nallia stiffened.

Damascus glanced between her and Danella before finding his tongue. “It’s true, my lady. I offer challenge, if you choose to accept.”

Nallia put her hand to her chest as if she hadn’t expected this.

Genuine surprise. My, my, the girl must be preoccupied.

Nallia accepted with a devilish grin.

Damascus offered her a shirt and trousers, but she refused, saying she could fight in anything. Sparring swords were brought to them.

“Fetch some water, Iylea,” Danella said. “I have a feeling this will be quite the duel.”

“Is there a mercy word you would like to announce?” Damascus asked.

“I will let you choose it, since you will be the one saying it,” Nallia said, inspecting the wooden sword.

Varros laughed. “She has more fire than Incinerae.”

Damascus grinned. “No mercy then. Shall we begin?”

Chapter 30

The Duel

Nallia III

Salmantica

Nallia slid into the combat stance Auron taught her as a girl. She stood side-facing and dropped her center of mass, making her body a smaller target. Damascus stood square to her with both hands upon his sword in a modern knight’s stance.

She let her mind go, forgetting her father’s cruelty, Stegavax’s condition, and Zephyrus’s mysteries. Only Damascus’s defeat mattered now.

“Begin,” the queen said.

Damascus advanced first, as men always did. Auron taught her how best to utilize her speed against larger, stronger opponents with greater reach. She stayed light on her feet, watching his hips and shoulders for the first sign of attack. He reached his sword back toward his right shoulder as he stepped forward. Nallia sidestepped to Damascus’s backside and lunged with a stab of her own. Damascus adjusted, switching his stance to block the incoming blow.

He countered. High to the left, low to the right. Nallia met each stroke, deflecting his blade. He moved with practiced grace yet struck with fury.

He’s not taking it easy on me. Good.

After an initial approach testing her defenses, Damascus’s cuts and hacks came faster. Harder. Nallia could keep up, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to continue at this pace.

I will not back down.

She blocked left, right, sidestepped a vertical strike, and countered. Damascus riposted, but retreated as Nallia blocked and continued her advance.

Jab, step, slice, step, jump, sweep, strike.

Her feet led the assault. Damascus spun away from her attack, separating them. They circled each other in ever-tightening arcs. Damascus advanced with even more fury this time.

Thrust, hack, slash!

Nallia dodged, deflected, and blocked again, catching Damascus’s sword on her own. They paused then, deadlocked.

“Are you sure you don’t want a mercy word?” Damascus asked, his voice low. It wasn’t a taunt, but she hated what it implied.

Nallia snarled.

Her father’s words entered her mind. “…if all Nallia has to do is spread her legs…”

I’m not a tool to be used. This is my life!

She quickened her step and seized control of her emotions. She cut, hacked, evaded, and slashed until sweat dripped down her face. Damascus only smiled at her. She lunged, but he turned her aside, throwing her out of position. Letting her momentum carry her, she tucked into a tight roll.

He will press, thinking me off balance, but I will turn it against him.

When she sprang up from her roll and stabbed, her sword met nothing but air.

His sword leveled beneath her chin. “Mercy?” he asked from beside her.

No. I can’t give up.

She spun away, striking upward to knock his sword away from her. Hoping to catch him off guard, she lunged with a flurry of blows. He blocked the first, dodged the second, and, on the third, his free hand caught her hilt. Nallia attempted to wrench free of his grip, but his own blade pointed at her throat.

“Mercy?” he asked again.

No! She tore free from his grasp and retreated from his reach.

She let out a battle cry and came at him with everything Auron taught her. She fought with all her might, maneuvered with grace, and struck with precision, but he was better than her. He turned her blade aside, exposing her back. He grabbed her and placed his wooden blade across her neck.

His lips were practically against her ear. “Just say the word.”

There was no mocking tone in his voice. No bravado or condescending malice one who expected this outcome might have inflected. Even in victory he was gracious. He did not embarrass her. He did not strike her.

How long would he go on like this, waiting for me to surrender? Of all the possible outcomes, is there a better way this can end?

As defeat rested on the tip of her tongue, she thought of her father, the ludus, and the gladiators.

“Would it be such a terrible thing,” Damascus said, “if I were to court you?”

She wanted to fight, but why? What am I proving? Would I spite myself and my desires to make a point to Father? Would it be such a bad thing, to have Damascus’s affection?

Her grip on her sword loosened; the tension in her jaw dissipated.

“Mercy,” Nallia whispered.

Damascus relinquished her and spun her around.

Her face felt flushed, sweaty, and tearful. I must look utterly foolish.

However, the look Damascus gave her made her stomach flutter as if she’d swallowed a hummingbird. His golden eyes beamed, not with pride or showmanship, but genuine… respect?

Have I ever seen that in a man’s eyes before?

“You are a magnificent fighter,” Damascus whispered. “And a tremendous competitor. It is no wonder your ludus stands in such high regard.” He bowed his head.

She tried to thank him but couldn’t find the words.

The queen stood, clapping. “Bravo!”

“Well fought,” the king said.

Nallia managed a smile at first, but soon it became genuine. “You are most kind.”

Damascus wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Now may I show you the rest of the castle?”

Nallia’s grin overcame her defeat. She let him lead her away. Not because Father wants me to, but because I want to. Thoughts of the ludus fell away in Damascus’s presence.

Chapter 31

White Mist

Zephyrus X

Stockhelm

“Turn, shield, counter!” Doctore instructed, and Zephyrus executed. In the days following Stegavax’s fall, Fenyx was selected to Champion the House in the coming Games of Stockhelm to determine who would be crowned the Head Ludus of the island. The games were foreign to Zephyrus, but to his understanding, the gladiators were able to earn coin based on how they fared in the arena. However, only Head Lanistas secured the popular matches warranting a high purse. Some were motivated by gold and others by glory, but Zephyrus set his sights on a loftier laurel.

Freedom.

He grew closer with Jecht and Cerik with each passing day, but many of the others held him at a distance. To earn the trust of his owners, he needed to fight well. To earn the trust of Laeden, he needed to deliver information on the Revivalists. He did, and he would, but hidden behind clever lies, he wanted vengeance. He wanted his freedom.

He and Patrus led the single largest slave outbreak in history, but they didn’t do it alone. If Zephyrus were to achieve his freedom, he needed to earn the respect of the gladiators and have them rally behind him.

But who can I trust?

After Taric’s attempt on Stegavax, there was no telling who among the gladiators held ties to the Revivalists. A whisper in the wrong ear could get him killed, but Jecht and Cerik proved not every gladiator enjoyed their chains. Still, he needed something they could rally behind. Being a Prophet of Celestia wasn’t enough. If anything, the uncertainty of which prophet made others trust him less and created division within the barracks. If he could unlock the secrets of his past and uncover his mysterious fate, he would become a leader worth following.

Even without him, slaves around Stockhelm were escaping their bondage. As a result, the guards were given extra shifts to ensure none of the Cassius slaves thought to join the rebellion. Though only mentioned in whispers, the Uprising was gaining traction. As much as the extra guard duty unnerved the other gladiators, it allowed Zephyrus to keep a closer eye on the guards.

“Step into the blow!” Doctore shouted. “Use his strength against him.”

Zephyrus deflected Fenyx’s wooden great sword with his gladius and stepped into his opponent, levying a brutal shield bash into Fenyx’s ribs. As he recoiled, Zephyrus hacked with his short sword and struck Fenyx’s back with the flat of the blade.

Fenyx roared, slamming his great sword into the sand.

“You overreach,” Doctore said to Fenyx. “Your strength betrays you. Harness that which makes you formidable.”

Fenyx stood and charged at Zephyrus, not heeding Doctore’s instruction. Zephyrus parried, exposing Fenyx’s back, and attacked with a quick combination of strikes. Fenyx blocked the first, but the second met flesh with a thwack.

Fenyx growled. Doctore counseled a calm mind, but his frustration got the better of him. Zephyrus pitied him. After the guards presumed Fenyx was the one who attacked Stegavax, they beat him. Once they stopped hitting him long enough to realize Fenyx saved Stegavax, it was too late to take back the bruises. As much as Fenyx would not admit to his pain or use it as an excuse, it slowed him down.

“Doctore,” Dominus said from the balcony. “Have we chosen the wrong Champion?”

“No!” Fenyx charged Zephyrus with reckless abandon. He jumped and reached his great sword overhead, preparing to cleave the earth in two. Zephyrus rolled into the blow to get inside his reach. He lifted his shield to catch Fenyx on the hands. Bones crunched, and Fenyx bellowed, but Zephyrus’s vertical slash clipped Fenyx under the chin.

Fenyx fell to his back, groaning. He rose, grasping at his hand and spitting blood. Smashed between the hilt and shield, Fenyx’s fingers were already swelling.

Zephyrus reached to aid him, but Fenyx slapped him away with his good hand. Fenyx spat more blood, hobbling towards the barracks. Doctore shouted for him to go to the medicus, but Fenyx ignored him.

Dominus swore before disappearing behind the balcony’s curtain.

Doctore glowered at Zephyrus. “Do you think you are helping? Days before the most important match in the history of this house, you injure the Champion?”

Zephyrus blew out his cheeks. He took no pride in it. “Burn me, should I have let him land a blow? Build his confidence?”

Doctore scowled, shaking his head. “You know not the honor of the brotherhood.” He stormed off, leaving Zephyrus at the center of the other gladiators muttering curses.

Zephyrus let his wooden weapons fall to the sand. Really winning their respect.

If Fenyx couldn’t fight, and whoever took his place lost, the blame would rest on Zephyrus’s shoulders. Fenyx’s fingers were likely broken. The medicus couldn’t mend that; it’d be weeks before Fenyx could hold a sword, let alone fight.

Zephyrus remembered his dream at the Arcane Templar. I healed Patrus. Could I heal Fenyx? Zephyrus followed Fenyx. Other gladiators mocked him, but they didn’t matter right now. Fenyx mattered. I can help him. What better way to earn the trust and respect of a gladiator than to help one in need?

Zephyrus approached Fenyx’s cell to find him pacing.

“What do you want?” Fenyx snarled, a strip of whiteroot already in his mouth.

Zephyrus did not wait for Fenyx to refuse him. He grabbed Fenyx’s hand, unsure how the magic would work. He’d seen it only once, and only in his dream.

“What are you doing?” Fenyx asked.

Zephyrus visualized Fenyx’s bones straightening, his joints aligning, and his swelling fading. Tendrils of glowing white mist trickled from Zephyrus’s hands and swirled into Fenyx’s misaligned fingers. Fenyx’s eyes lit up as the bones began to reform, and the swollen knuckles shrunk back to their regular size within Zephyrus’s white aura.

Zephyrus couldn’t believe his eyes.

“You can’t. They’ll kill us!” Fenyx tried to pull his hand away, but Zephyrus didn’t let go.

Zephyrus felt the pain of his own fingers breaking, though they did not appear to be maimed. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” Zephyrus grimaced. “You are our Champion. You must win for the glory of this house.”

For the first time since meeting, Fenyx looked upon him without contempt.

Glory was the only language Fenyx understood. He flexed and extended his fingers, testing their dexterity. Zephyrus attempted to do the same, but his own fingers ached.

“How?” Fenyx whispered. “How do you know the healing magic of Celestia?”

He spoke so quietly Zephyrus had to read Fenyx’s lips to understand.

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t a lie. One day, he hoped to learn, but his memories hadn’t revealed any new information.

“You should be killed,” Fenyx said.

“Not today.” Zephyrus smiled, rubbing his own fingers to alleviate the soreness. “They can make us renounce our gods in favor of theirs, but the Judges will return.”

To his surprise, Fenyx only scoffed. “There is no us. And the Judges aren’t returning because they never left. The Valencians are our punishment for losing the elemental magics and the Treasures.” He shook his head at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus contorted his brow. “You think the Judges allow us to be cowed as slaves, bowing and scraping instead of living free?”

Fenyx narrowed his eyes. The burned side of his face twitched. “My people—not yours, not ours, mine—failed the Judges. This is our penance. Here, I have the opportunity to restore honor and receive redemption. But to dream of a life beyond these walls is the path to an early and meaningless death.”

Zephyrus wanted to say he’d heard Vykannis’s voice. The Judge had saved his life. But Fenyx’s exclusion gave him pause before speaking such a dangerous truth. He shook his head. “What meaning can you have here, spilling blood for gold?”

“I am a titan within these walls.” Fenyx’s burned skin stretched around his smile. “If you want to live free as a beggar, go ahead, but I won’t join you. Here, there is glory to be won.”

Zephyrus fumbled for words.

“You have my gratitude, but this does not make us friends,” Fenyx said.

Zephyrus retracted his chin back.

“There are no friends within these walls and no Gods who wish to see us from this fate.”

“You’re wrong,” Zephyrus said.

Fenyx leaned into Zephyrus, speaking directly into his ear. The eye on the burned side of his face cut through him. “If I see you use magic, or hear you speak of freedom or the Judges again, I’ll turn you in. I won’t be dragged down by your disobedience.”

Zephyrus nearly choked on his disbelief, but before he could formulate a response, Fenyx strode out of the cell and out to the sands. “All for glory.”

This society brainwashes their slaves into believing they are responsible for their suffering. How many share that view? And how can I convince them otherwise?

Fenyx would not be an easy ally, but Zephyrus needed more than just Jecht and Cerik to make any significant impact.

He massaged life back into his fingers.

There’s still hope. My memory returns and, with it, the power to turn the tide of this war.

He returned to the sands, returned to training, and returned to his clever lies.

Chapter 32

The Games of Stockhelm

Fenyx III

Stockhelm

The chants of the crowd grew as people from all over New Rheynia flocked to behold the Games of Stockhelm in the newly erected Valencian Arena. Dominus sat upon the pulvinus overlooking the sands with the lesser lanistas of Stockhelm. The exquisite arena held enough rows of inclined benches to accommodate every person in all of Stockhelm. Most of the walls on the inside of the arena were blank, but some were ornately carved depictions of the Valencian Gods. Rumors speculated that each year after crowning a new Champion of Stockhelm, the victory would be enshrined in one of the blank inlays of the wall to be remembered forever.

Today, I will become a Champion of Stockhelm. My likeness will be carved into the wall.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for since being brought to House Cassius as a boy. All the years of training, every match in the fighting pits, it all culminated in this contest.

Fenyx wiped the dampness from his palms onto his britches. The omenation of the chancellorship depended on him. I must win.

“This ain’t the training square, eh, green boy?” Shagren spat.

Fenyx closed his eyes and released his breath. He hadn’t heard Shagren’s approach. The sweat of his palms turned to steam as his fingers curled into fists. The Burning wanted to take over. He stepped aside, motioning his hand to the sands to let Shagren pass through the gate.

“After you,” Fenyx said. “The veteran takes to the sands before the green boy… to fight against the lesser men. In the contests of inconsequence.”

Shagren hissed, stepping forward, but Aelixo and Wardon held him back.

“Shag, no. Save it!” Aelixo said.

“Aelixo’s right,” Wardon said. “He ain’t worth it.”

“Listen to your pups,” Fenyx said. “Now retreat with your tail between your legs.” Ice returned to his veins and the fire to his heart.

Auron strode up to the gate. “Cease quarrelsome tongues and set minds to purpose, or you will all die in disgrace.” He set in on Shagren. “Have you no honor? You had best fare well in your contest or die in the trying, because if you fail, I’ll make you wish the Judges claimed you!” Auron’s face flashed with anger, but then quelled in realization of what he said. “The Gods—burn you!”

“Apologies, Doctore,” Shagren said.

“Flee from sight.” Auron pointed to where Zephyrus stood with Cerik and Jechtaric.

Shagren and his shadows returned down the ramp into the dimly lit barracks.

“What has you so stirred?” Fenyx asked once they were alone. It was rare for Auron to be quick to anger, and a rarer thing for him to speak of the Judges.

Auron shook his head. “You are not the only one with rivalries.” He gestured up to the pulvinus. “Sinion, the lanista, once fought as a gladiator. Never a champion of swords, but a warrior of the mind. His cunning allowed him to never cross blades with one he could not best.”

Sinion owned Stockhelm’s southern ludus, Arux held the east, and Brusos the north. Aside from Brusos, they were just names, and Fenyx was unsure which face owned which. A rotund dark-skinned man in blue-gray robes sat beside Dominus. At first glance, Fenyx assumed him a server, but adorned in jewels and fine silks, he couldn’t be anything short of a patrician.

“I fought against him a lifetime ago,” Auron said. “He begged for mercy after I defeated him, but his dominus had the ear of King Damascus II. As the editor of the games, he let him live. I defeated him, yet now he stands above me.”

“How did he become a dominus if he was a slave?” Fenyx asked.

“Another tale for another day,” Auron said. “You should heed these words instead. You may become Champion, but Stegavax held that mantle too. Now he clings to life for how he behaved as Champion. You will have many enemies, but you do not need to create more beneath the same roof.”

The Burning grew within him. A lecture. Now? “They mocked me—”

“So you insulted them?” Auron asked. “How one earns respect is just as important as what one does with it.”

Fenyx clenched his teeth, biting back his complaints, but before he could reply, horns blared and banners rose as the opening ceremonies began.

The purple-and-gold scorpion of House Cassius hung over the earl’s seat. The standards of the gray wolf of Sinion, the orange bull of Arux, and the white-and-black snake of Brusos were erected in a line. The clamor of the crowd bellowed through the acoustics of the arena as the lanistas raised their hands to incite more cheers. The arena shook with the people’s stamping feet. Dust descended from the corridor ceiling to rest on Fenyx’s pauldrons.

Fenyx’s rib cage rattled within his cuirass, but he absorbed the energy, feeding off the crowd’s bloodlust. I will provide them a spectacle, the likes they’ve never seen. Glory and honor await. I will be Champion. I must not fail.

Dominus stepped forward, and a hush fell over the crowd. He explained the rules and format of the games and how the omenation would be determined.

Points would be distributed to the victorious house for each match. The house with the most points at the conclusion of the day would select a champion to stand against Fenyx, the Champion of the defending Head Lanista. Though Arux and Sinion had a chance to compete for the chancellorship, everyone speculated that House Brusos was the only realistic challenger.

Most of the morning games contained the lesser lanistas’ stock. Steel clashed, and blood spilled, but after each match, only one house celebrated in victory. Arms outstretched, the victors basked in the crowd’s cheers. Bathed in the sun’s light, and the glorious spray of the fallen’s blood, they paraded about the sands to roaring adoration until the next match began.

Soon I will taste victory’s sweetness.

Fenyx had won matches before, but only in Teluvar’s fighting pits. A fraction the size of even Cassius’s training square, the sands of the pits were only large enough for single combat, and a score of spectators at most. And even then, they were the men waiting to fight, their Dominus, and the gamblers betting on the results. In the pits, it wasn’t about the crowd, but survival. Only the strongest survived, and even then, few ever truly became gladiators.

Fenyx would be the exception.

Bout after bout, shouts filled the air, and blood soaked the sand until the sun began to set in the western sky. As expected, Brusos towered over Arux and Sinion in the standings. After the final match before the Primus, Fenyx would face Brusos’s Champion.

Fenyx set his jaw. They will sing songs of my victory.

In the last match before Fenyx’s glorious moment, Zephyrus, Cerik, and Jechtaric entered the arena. Dominus highlighted the implausibility of their ascent within House Cassius and promised they would make mockery of Arux’s, Sinion’s, and Brusos’s men. Each lesser lanista would send a wave of four men at Cassius’s three, one after the other.

As they took to the sands, part of Fenyx envied them. The opportunity to face twelve men, twelve potential trophies, twelve offerings to the Judges—it was enticing. But he would have to make do with just one.

And it will be a tale for the ages.

Sinion’s four men were up first against the Cassius three. While Sinion’s blue-and-gray adorned wolves wore the more modern armor of knights, Cassius’s purple-and-gold scorpions favored the trim leather armor of years past.

The horns blared, and the clash began—metal and might against speed and skill.

Zephyrus stepped over the modern Bruiser’s spiked flail and countered with an upward swing of his buckler. The shield caught Sinion’s gladiator across the helm, sending him sprawling to the earth. Before the Bruiser could find his feet, Cerik’s mace came down on the fallen warrior’s breastplate. Metal bent, bones crunched, and the heavy armor folded before Cerik’s strength.

Zephyrus ducked under a Warden’s swinging sword and sliced at the inside of his thigh, dropping him to a kneeling position with a scream. Jechtaric spun and thrust his spear over the Warden’s shield and into the space between his helm and gorget. He collapsed to the ground, blood spouting from his neck.

Fenyx had the pleasure of watching Laytonus and Taric fight side by side for years, may the Judges grant them rest. But absent their bond or the time spent training together, this trio, led by Zephyrus, was as smooth and polished as any he’d seen fight side by side. Zephyrus’s movements flowed from one into the other. No missteps. Nothing wasted. And whenever an opening presented itself, his blade struck deftly.

Somehow, Zephyrus knew the healing magic of Celestia. Fenyx learned the same magic long ago back in Klaytos, when he still believed in the Return of the Judges and had never even held a sword before. So much had changed. Now glory was all that remained. Fenyx was grateful for Zephyrus healing him so he could fight today, but he didn’t like feeling indebted to another.

Another adversary fell to Zephyrus. Despite the Slicer’s armor, Zephyrus found a gap between the bracer and pauldron and severed the limb clean off at the elbow. The three Cassius titans set in on the remaining Poker, and the spearman quickly yielded, resulting in the loss of another point in the standings. Not that it mattered.

Arux’s gladiators posed even less of a threat. Zephyrus continued to expose his opponents’ weaknesses while protecting his brothers’ flanks, allowing Jechtaric and Cerik to dispatch the lesser lanista’s offerings with ease.

When Brusos’s gladiators took to the sands, all four charged straight for Zephyrus, ignoring Jechtaric and Cerik. But Zephyrus emerged unscathed in victory. The showing was impressive, but Fenyx would do better. I must do better…

The end of the contest dropped Sinion one point for yielding. All of Arux’s men fell in defeat, leaving no survivors and no change in their standings. Brusos’s men didn’t fare much better in their attempt to overwhelm Zephyrus, but at least one of their men was granted life after surviving long enough for the editor to be entertained.

Auron clapped his hand over Fenyx’s pauldron. “It is time for the omenation. This is the moment you have been training for. Win and become Champion of Stockhelm. Win and you elevate this House to one of the greatest in New Rheynia. Are you ready?”

Energized by the crowd and intoxicated with the scent of blood, Fenyx’s muscles coiled, ready to spring forth. So much hinged on this contest, but Fenyx would not disappoint. The Burning demanded blood, and the debt would be paid.

“Yes,” Fenyx said, never averting his eyes from the sands. “Glory awaits.”

Chapter 33

For the Chancellorship

Zephyrus XI

Stockhelm

Still alive…

The crowd roared in approval for the Cassius victory. The Brusos gladiator granted life stared at Zephyrus as if he were evil incarnate. All four of them swarmed him. For some reason, it didn’t feel quite so personal with Sinion’s or Arux’s men, but with Brusos’s gladiators, they seemed to want him dead.

Jecht grabbed Zephyrus’s wrist and punched it up to the heavens. “Victory!”

“We did it!” Cerik shouted, thrusting his mace into the air.

Zephyrus looked at the broken bodies strewn on the ground around him. Ten dead. It was different standing over an enemy, but these men were just slaves. In the eyes of the raucous fanatics in the stands, the only differences between the bodies on the ground were the sigils on their armor. But to Zephyrus they were people forced to fight. He felt no swell of pride, and certainly nothing to celebra—

“Watch out!” Cerik shoved Zephyrus aside. The crowd gasped and booed. Zephyrus whipped around just as Cerik deflected the remaining Brusos gladiator’s sword and countered with his mace. The spiked ball crashed into the face of Brusos’s last man to the eruption of the arena. He dropped to the ground. Cerik put his foot on the man’s shoulder and tore the mace free from his skull.

Eleven dead bodies.

“What in Six Hells?” Jecht asked.

“He attacked Zephyrus while his back was turned,” Cerik said.

Zephyrus’s breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t just a contest after all—it was personal. Zephyrus looked to the pulvinus to see Cassius and Brusos standing and shouting at one another with animated gestures.

Doctore shouted from the tunnel gate, but with the crowd’s uproar, it was impossible to hear his words. He waved them back to the gate, beckoning their return.

Zephyrus exited the arena alongside Jecht and Cerik before the outraged but still cheering crowd.

Doctore embraced Zephyrus arm in arm once they were through the gate. “Burn me, that was close. Did he get you?”

Zephyrus tried to catch his breath, but his lungs were empty. Still alive…

“Brusos doesn’t have a shred of honor.” Doctore examined him. “You seem fine.”

“Thanks to Cerik,” Jecht said.

Zephyrus managed a nod, but cold encompassed him. First Saulus, then Lenox, and now this… A shiver ran down his spine, as if fear itself slithered down his back. Even before nearly being stabbed in the back, he hadn’t felt good about slaughtering slaves for sport, but now the combination was almost too much to bear.

“They’re eager for Brusos’s blood now,” Jecht said to Fenyx, looking out to the crowd. “Best give them what they want.”

“Weapons,” Nortus said with outstretched arms. They each handed him their weapons, which were passed off to servants to be cleaned, sharpened, and used again to butcher more slaves. Yet absent his sword and shield, Zephyrus’s hands trembled at his sides. He felt exposed, vulnerable, and one sharp blade away from being amongst the dead.

Lenox marched up the ramp from the barracks, naked steel in his hands.

Zephyrus stumbled back, trying to hide between the other gladiators.

Lenox drew closer. “Out of the way.” He parted the crowd of gladiators gathered around the gate, coming straight for Zephyrus.

Zephyrus swallowed, clenching his fists, ready to defend himself.

Lenox strode past Zephyrus without a passing glance and handed the great sword to Fenyx. “Kill the bastard and we all celebrate under the chancellor’s roof.”

Zephyrus let go of his held breath. I’m being paranoid. But he couldn’t calm his broken nerves. His stomach churned, and bile climbed his throat. I’m going to be sick.

The herald held his arms up until the crowd quieted. “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for—the Primus!”

Cheers erupted from the stands, forcing the herald to raise his hands for silence again.

“In first place, House Brusos will challenge Head Lanista Cassius in the omenation for the chancellorship of Stockhelm. Representing Baron Ebron Brusos, I give you the savage of Salmantica, the slayer of thousands—Tursos!”

Tursos emerged out of the tunnel opposite the Cassius gate to the roar of the crowd. Wearing a horned helm in the likeness of a bull, he seemed more demon than man. His steel breastplate with matching bracers and greaves reflected the glow of the dying sun.

“Tursos?” Doctore spat. “He is one of Targarus’s. How did he end up with Brusos?”

Arena guards dragged the bodies of the dead from the sands to the west gate, leaving crimson streaks in their wake.

Zephyrus gagged. He removed himself from the gate while everyone else watched the omenation for the chancellorship. Hands shaking, knees quivering, and stomach roiling, he strode down the declining slope into the barracks. Once alone, he retched in the corner.

He’d killed men before and hadn’t thought twice, but they weren’t slaves. He didn’t question his sanity when he woke without his memories. Nor did he doubt his abilities when Laeden purchased him from the slavers. He didn’t give up when forced to fight for House Cassius. But now, for the first time, Zephyrus didn’t believe he was enough for the tasks his fate demanded of him.

What would Patrus think of me—slaughtering Celestic slaves for Rheynian delight? If I’m supposed to be the Wielder, I need to save these people, not slay them. If I’m the Herald, why does Vykannis remain silent? Perhaps I am the Harbinger…

He retched again. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat against the wall. Pulling the bloody scroll from his pocket, he rolled it back and forth within his palm.

It would have been easier to just be an emissary of peace. If he never learned of the Arcane Templar or their quest for vengeance, he could have served the king.

I don’t know if I can do this, Patrus. I am lost. The Judges chose the wrong person.

The sound of soft voices stole him from his lamentations. Everyone should be watching the omenation. Zephyrus pocketed the scroll and crept along the wall, careful not to make a sound or cast any shadows. The voices were just outside the barracks.

“If the broken sword doesn’t do the trick, we’ll take secondary measures,” the voice whispered. “Which one of you will do the honors?”

After a pause, another voice answered, “I’ll do it.”

“Very well,” the first voice said. “Once the deed is done, you will flee. It will be assumed you killed your master and joined the Uprising. I’ll arrange for you to be picked up. No longer will your talents be wasted in the arena.”

“You picked the right man—”

“Only if this plan doesn’t work,” the first voice said. “Do not be hasty. You’ll have your opportunity to prove your loyalty soon enough. Now return to the gates, or your absence will be noticed.”

Zephyrus didn’t breathe.

Revivalists. But who?

He couldn’t let them get away without knowing who the speakers were. Poking his head out into the corridor, he saw two shapes climbing the slope back toward the gate to the arena.

Carsos and Ixion.

It didn’t surprise him they were willing to betray their own people if it benefited them. But who is the third person? They went the other way, so they must have a key—either a guard or a slaver. It wasn’t Lenox. He would know that voice anywhere.

His nausea gone, Zephyrus returned to the gate to see the rest of the omenation. To his horror, he understood what Carsos and Ixion were talking to the other man about; Fenyx stood against his opponent, armed with only his hilt.

The broken sword…

The same happened to me when I fought Stegavax after Liario had suggested we fight with steel. Zephyrus scanned the pulvinus for Liario, but he wasn’t there.

The remainder of Fenyx’s blade rested on the sands, glinting in the light of the setting sun. Fenyx backed against the Cassius gate. Tursos advanced, wielding a flaming sword.

“Get inside his reach,” Doctore said. “Disarm him. Advance!”

If Fenyx heard, he showed no sign. He trembled before Tursos’s flaming sword.

Upon the pulvinus, Dominus tore his hair while Brusos stood in anticipation. Liario appeared behind Dominus, a cold calculative expression on his weathered face. Carsos and Ixion were speaking with Liario. He and Lenox orchestrated the broken sword. But all this, for the chancellorship?

They conspired to kill Stegavax, disarmed Fenyx, and made sure, if somehow Fenyx won, Earl Cassius would die and never take the chancellorship. I must tell Laeden.

Fenyx held the hilt of the broken sword in front of him. Useless. He rolled to the left to avoid a strike but was unbalanced for the next attack. Fenyx raised the hilt to block, but Tursos’s blow tore it from his grasp. The hilt sailed end over end into the distance.

Fenyx fell to his back.

It was over. Fenyx had accepted it. The other gladiators awaited the final blow. But Zephyrus had a strange feeling as if he’d been here before, watching someone defenseless before impending doom.

He had. He had been here before. A memory…

At the Arcane Templar, one of his classmates, Ceres, was losing to Vellarix in his final test. Zephyrus used force magic, just enough to slow Vellarix’s strike without anyone knowing, giving Ceres a moment to escape.

Tursos reared his blade back, preparing to plunge it into Fenyx’s midsection, but Zephyrus focused all his might into resisting Tursos’s arm. Zephyrus’s own arm went limp from exertion. Tursos paused midswing—just for a moment.

Fenyx rolled to the side just as Zephyrus released Tursos. Tursos’s flaming blade pierced the sand, extinguishing the fire.

Fenyx rolled back over the hilt, wrenching it from Tursos’s grasp. He sprang to his feet, and, with new vigor, he launched himself at the flameless Tursos. They punched, kicked, and grappled one another.

“Zeph, are you okay?” Jecht asked from beside him. “You don’t look too good.”

Zephyrus’s vision fuzzed, but he stood his ground. “I’m fine.” His arm tingled, burning with exhaustion. It wasn’t how he remembered it, but this magic—this force—worked.

Tursos punched Fenyx in the jaw. Fenyx spun and fell to the ground, but his hand closed around something. As Tursos advanced, Fenyx flung sand in his attacker’s face.

Fenyx picked up a sliver of the broken steel and plunged it into the side of Tursos’s neck. Once, twice, again, and again. The crowd roared as Tursos stumbled backwards, grasping at his throat. But Fenyx followed, continuing to thrust the broken blade into Tursos. He fell to his knees, his breastplate now a deep crimson. Fenyx cast the horned helm from Tursos’s head to the sands and grabbed him by his black braids.

Poised to strike the killing blow, Fenyx turned toward the pulvinus.

The crowd chanted, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Zephyrus didn’t watch as Fenyx slit Tursos’s throat. Instead, he watched Liario’s reaction from the pulvinus. He stroked his beard in observation, not showing his displeasure, but not celebrating with the rest of the Cassiuses.

Another Revivalist.

Zephyrus blinked through his dizziness. I must keep Cassius alive… for now. One day, he will fall, but not to the Revivalists. To me.

At least for now, the Revivalists’ plans would be delayed. He needed to get word to Laeden and recruit more help within the barracks.

“Fenyx! Fenyx!”

Fenyx basked in the glory of the kill under the crowd’s cheers. The gladiators shouted in praise. Zephyrus joined in, despite the aching of his arm, and the dread of what lay ahead.

Chapter 34

Mask

Fenyx IV

Stockhelm

The villa and barracks alike were alive with wine, women, and performances, but to Fenyx, such distractions only interrupted his memories of the day. In a moment of silence, he could still hear the crowd chanting his name. When he closed his eyes, he could see blood spouting from Tursos’s open throat. The Burning was sated. Glory was his. He didn’t even need whiteroot to experience peace. Fenyx couldn’t remember a time he ever felt so pleased.

While others were consumed with diversions, Fenyx was to be bathed in the villa. He’d never been offered such before, but it was a concept he could grow used to. One of the many benefits of being Champion. On his way out of his cell, Zephyrus barred his path.

Fenyx growled deep within his throat. Unlike the other gladiators, Zephyrus held no cup, no woman.

“What do you want?”

Zephyrus grimaced. “Victory may not have happened if all things went as planned.”

“What nonsense are you speaking of?”

“Who gave you the sword?” Zephyrus asked.

Fenyx huffed. Seeing no other way of getting out of this, he played along. Auron’s advice about not making enemies is difficult to heed in moments like this. “What are you talking about?”

“The sword that broke the moment you stepped onto the sands,” Zephyrus whispered, his eyes darting left and right. “Similar to the steel that gave out on me in my match against Stegavax for the princes’ pleasure. Who gave it to you?”

The left side of Fenyx’s burned cheek twitched. “One of the guards. What of it?”

“Which guard?”

Fenyx crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot.

Zephyrus stepped closer. “They gave Taric the knife to kill Stegavax, rigged your sword to break, and why? They’re trying to steal the chancellorship.”

Fenyx clenched his teeth. “They failed.”

“They will try again,” Zephyrus said. “I overheard voices beneath the arena. Voices of men in these very barracks. People who conspired to have Stegavax butchered in his sleep, you killed in the arena, and Dominus assassinated.”

Fenyx scoffed. “Is this your way of getting me to seek freedom?”

He tried to get past Zephyrus, but Zephyrus sidestepped to block his path.

“Brusos’s man tried to kill you, not me,” Fenyx said. “Perhaps he tried doing us a favor. Stop trying to push your troubles onto me. Can’t you just enjoy my victory? Drink, find a woman.” Fenyx gestured to one of the masked and silk-clad women prowling the barracks. “Do whatever you must, to be content with the life you have. Quit fretting over conspiracies and do what gladiators do. Kill.” Fenyx pushed past Zephyrus without another word.

He climbed the steps leading to the villa, where a guard escorted him to the baths. Typically, Fenyx would be given a linen cloth, a bowl of water, and a strigil to wipe the filth from his body, but standing before a steaming pool of water beneath a sky window surrounded by marble floors and columns, Fenyx knew he was Champion.

His guard left him with two masked women wading towards him through the steaming water. Though there were two, his eyes fixed on one. Despite her mask, Fenyx recognized her—Domina’s bodyslave Odetta. With smooth bronze skin and long black curls that hung behind her to skim the water’s surface, she slowed, allowing the other masked woman to lead.

“Don’t make us come out to get you,” said the masked woman. “Water’s warm.” She cupped the steaming water and poured it down her chest. Beads trickled between her breasts.

Despite her attempts to lure him, his eyes remained fixed on Odetta, cowering behind the other girl. Her pale green eyes stared at the water’s rippling surface instead of at him. He’d never taken interest in women before. They were only distractions. But Odetta was different. The maiden bodyslave, to be gifted to the Champion of the House at the age of eighteen.

She was supposed to be Stegavax’s, but Fenyx was Champion now. She was his. As if she were thinking the same thing, she inclined her gaze to his. Even beneath her mask, he could see her revulsion as she stared at the burned side of his body. His fleshly desires fled in the presence of shame.

He coiled his fist at his side. “Why are you here?”

“We are to bathe you, Champion,” the other woman said.

Fenyx snorted. “Must you wear the masks to hide your disgust?”

“Disgust?” The other woman removed her mask. “The domina has every woman in the villa wearing these. We meant no offense.”

Fenyx recognized her but didn’t know her name. Nor did he care to learn it. She was nothing. Less than nothing. He was Champion, and he would have all that the Burning desired—all that he was owed for his blood, sweat, and tears. First a bath, then Odetta, and there was nothing Zephyrus could do or say to separate him from his glory.

With a satisfied grunt, he removed his sublingaria and sauntered into the water. Submitting, he allowed them to wash him. Warm and soothing, the water eased the tension from his muscles. The women scrubbed him at first, but then massaged oils into his skin. By the time they were done, Fenyx had never felt so clean.

As the women began to exit the bath, Fenyx grabbed Odetta’s wrist. “You, stay.”

Odetta attempted to twist free, but Fenyx held her.

“I am Champion now. Soon we will be betrothed.”

“You’re not Champion yet,” Odetta hissed. She splashed water at Fenyx with her free hand and wrenched herself free.

Fenyx scoffed and settled back into the water, leaning his arms on the bath’s edge. “True. But soon enough, I will be Champion, and Domina will give you to me. You will be mine. Not Stegavax’s. Not Shagren’s. Mine.”

Odetta scowled, her disdain visible beneath her mask. “You will never have anything in this world. Or the next.” She stormed from the bath and wrapped herself in a linen before disappearing from the room. Without so much as a word, the other woman followed in Odetta’s footsteps, never looking back.

Free of distractions, Fenyx relaxed, sitting on a ledge within the water. He closed his eyes and relived the final moments of his victory. Enraptured in glory, he didn’t hear a new masked woman’s approach. Startled, Fenyx splashed about.

“No need for alarm,” said a familiar voice from behind a mask identical to Odetta’s. She had fairer skin than the slave girls, but by her voice alone, he could tell she wasn’t from a brothel.

She disrobed, older than the others, but by no means less beautiful. While the others were girls, she was a woman. Admiring her feminine form, Fenyx reacted to her temptation.

“I don’t need your company,” Fenyx said in a half-hearted dismissal.

The woman laughed, slipping into the water with deliberate care. “Are you not pleased with my appearance, Champion?”

“I am,” Fenyx said, wishing he could disappear into the marble at his back. “But a Champion must not succumb to distractions. I will wait until the domina gifts me my prize.”

She snickered. “Did Auron tell you that? Saving yourself, are you?”

Fenyx cowered as she approached from the opposite end of the bath. “I am to be wed to one of the domina’s chosen,” Fenyx said as she waded nearer. She drew close, inserting her knee between his legs.

She lowered herself deeper, the water coming up to her breasts. “What if the domina didn’t choose a slave for you?” The seductress hummed beneath her mask, luring him in with her siren’s song. He wanted to back away. He should have made an escape, but he remained, entranced by her beauty.

Fenyx swallowed the knot in his throat as she lifted the mask from her face. Chestnut waves spilled out from the string of her mask, falling past her shoulders. Her green eyes flashed with a hunger he’d never before seen on a woman’s face.

Recognizing her, Fenyx coughed. Fear unlike any other coursed through him, and even in the warm bath, cold overtook him. “Domina?” He splashed, trying to slip away, but she seized each of his thighs.

“Not tonight.” She climbed on top of his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m just a woman, wanting more than a man.”

The thunder in his chest did little to stop the reaction of his manhood. Stronger than the Burning and more furious than any flaming sword, the insatiable want—need—for her seized him and refused to relent. What would a Champio—

She pressed her body against his, whispering in his ear. “Call me Cleotra, Champion.”

Chapter 35

Elemental Magic

Zephyrus XII

Stockhelm

Zephyrus did his best to protect Jecht and Cerik by disarming or maiming their opponents, but he couldn’t slay a single man on the day. Vellarix had given him a gifted curse—a double-edged sword. He possessed incredible ability, but he wielded it against the wrong people. That, paired with the undeniable fact that Brusos’s men were assigned to kill him, even in defeat, kept Zephyrus from wanting to partake in the festivities.

“Cheers!” Jecht carried three clay cups towards him. “Drink. You are now a man of the arena.” Despite Jecht’s contagious smile, Zephyrus couldn’t return the sentiment.

If only Fenyx could be so accommodating.

If not for Zephyrus’s intervention, delaying Tursos’s strike with force magic, none of this would be happening. Fenyx would be dead. No one would be celebrating. Only the Revivalists.

Zephyrus accepted the cup from Jecht despite wanting nothing to do with its contents. “Gratitude. It wouldn’t have been successful without you and Cerik.”

Jecht looked around, spilling wine as he did. “Where is Cerik?”

Zephyrus shrugged. Women purchased from brothels prowled the barracks, each clad in transparent silks with jewels decorating their necks, ears, and wrists. Aside from the masks obscuring their faces, little else was left to the imagination.

“Perhaps he found better company,” Zephyrus said, swirling his cup’s contents. The wine was a deep red. The same shade as the blood-soaked sands.

“He might have the right of it.” Jecht downed the cup he took for himself and then the one reserved for Cerik. “Come on, Zeph, don’t make me drink alone…” He trailed off, his eyes following one of the women walking past. “Six Hells...”

Zephyrus grunted.

“Why so glum? You should be celebrat—”

A dark-skinned woman approached Jecht with a seductive touch. Tall and thin with a purple-and-white silk draped around her, she took Jecht by the hand and began to lead him away.

“I’ll find you later,” Jecht said, disappearing into the chaos of the barracks.

Zephyrus examined his cup again but set it down. Air will suit me better. Zephyrus made for the training square, but guards were stationed near every other cell. After Taric’s attempt on Stegavax, Dominus took every precaution. Lenox, however, wasn’t present, which only made Zephyrus more nervous for Cassius’s life, but at least Carsos and Ixion were too indisposed in their cups to carry out any Revivalist order.

Zephyrus exited the barracks into the cool night air. Rain pattered against the awning sheltering the doorway. Drops fell off either side, creating two puddles. Flashes of lightning cracked the black sky to accompany the thunderous shouts of the Gods.

Zephyrus exhaled against the storm.

“Vykannis… if you’re listening, I could really use your courage.”

No answer.

“The Judges aren’t returning because they never left,” Fenyx had said. “The Valencians are our punishment for losing the elemental magics and the Treasures.”

Fenyx couldn’t be right. Vykannis had spoken to him. The Rebels’ Rhyme said the Judges would return, and Vykannis had. But why have you abandoned me now?

After a time of watching the night sky, the sounds from within the barracks died out. Zephyrus eventually became tired enough to ignore his guilt, stifle his curiosity of what his magic was capable of, and give up on his frustration with Fenyx to go to bed.

He reentered the barracks as guards shoved drunken gladiators into their cells. Zephyrus entered his cell on his own volition.

A candle flickered by his cot, alone and forgotten. Beside it rested a vial containing the healer’s potion. He was surprised to find it by his bedside, considering Nallia had been away from the ludus, but somehow she’d made arrangements with someone to keep him plied. Most nights, he drank the swill eagerly, hoping to unlock his future by discovering his past. Tonight, he only wanted rest, but he no longer had the luxury of wants. He needed his memories.

Zephyrus tore the stopper from the flask with his teeth and downed the foul-tasting contents. After swallowing the swill, he blew out the candle. Before the wisps of smoke disappeared into the night air, he drifted into dreams.

A kick to the stomach knocked the breath from his lungs. He fell to the ground in the darkness. Attempting to locate his opponent in the pitch black, his vision failed him.

“Again!” Aikous said. Zephyrus used manipulation magic to cancel the sounds of his movement. If he failed, Aikous would hear and strike. He leapt from his back to his feet in one swift jump.

Zephyrus punched where he thought Aikous would be but found only air. He threw a second, but it yielded the same result. A third, a fourth, a fifth, a kick, but none connected with his target. He tried again, but then he was falling, falling endlessly into a sea of black.

Zephyrus woke up covered in a sheen of sweat. The room flickered, bathed orange in the candle’s glow. Zephyrus examined the flaming wick.

I could’ve sworn I blew it out.

He extinguished the flame with his thumb and index finger. By the time he lay back down, he fell immediately back into fitful dreams.

He stood in a dimly lit room before the glyph stone. He placed his hand on the cold black-and-green pillar. Power flowed into him, wrapping its aura around him like a blanket. His dreamself felt a rush of cold, and the room bloomed with light as fire formed in his other hand. He raised it to the ceiling, and a blaze shot forth from his palm; a fiery vortex swirled around the room like a striking viper.

His conscious mind watched in awe, but his dreamself expected this. His other hand became transparent like a clear oasis. A stream of water spouted from it to intertwine with the flame before the two came together, forming a steam cloud. The glow of the room died, and darkness reigned.

Elemental magic…

“You’re ready,” a voice said from the corner. Zephyrus expected to see one of the cloaked Masters, but Patrus beamed at him. Ceres and Sybex, two of the Templar’s most talented mages, stood behind Patrus.

“If you’re not the Wielder, you’ll make a fine Guardian,” Ceres said, brushing his curling black hair out of his dark green eyes.

Sybex slapped Ceres with the back of her hand. “He is the Wielder.” She smiled at Zephyrus, her cheeks dimpling. “He must be to receive all this special treatment.”

Ronar emerged from behind them, stroking his gray beard. “No one receives special treatment. Prophet or no, Guardian or not, we all have a part to play. The Judges will return. And we will have our vengeance.”

Their faces became a blur, and Zephyrus woke again. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. Frustratingly tired, he lay back to stare at the ceiling, but the flickering orange hue of the candle by his bedside made him bolt upright. The flame danced, casting eerie shadows across the wall. Only this time he was sure he had extinguished it.

Chapter 36

Urgent News

Laeden X

Salmantica

Celebration filled the feast hall, and for the first time in a while, Laeden allowed himself to enjoy it. With the help of Gareth and Banis, the Sentinels and Vigiles were able to apprehend Elrod Horne for his Revivalist ties. Aemos, Elrod’s son, brooded in the corner, but Laeden wouldn’t let his sulking bother him now.

For their loyalty, Banis and Gareth were on their way to a safehouse in Valtarcia. Cassius secured the position of chancellor with victory in the omenation, despite the Revivalists’ attempts to sway the Gods’ favor. Zephyrus supplied the names of three more snakes beneath Cassius’s roof. All in all, his Sentinels had accomplished much in the past few days.

Earl Cassius arrived and greeted Nallia, Prince Damascus, and King Varros.

Laeden still didn’t understand why the Revivalists wanted Brusos to win. Is he already within their ranks, or do they believe him easier to bribe?

Either way, Brusos would be Laeden’s next person of interest.

Despite the small successes, Laeden worried for the safety of the soon-to-be chancellor. Zephyrus warned of plans for a gladiator to assassinate Cassius and join the Uprising. The Uprising was another threat, but small, nothing to stop him from taking an evening to himself.

The colors of the royal family decorated the feast hall: blue and gold for House Helixus, and red and black for House Drake. Laeden wore his customary blue, but the darker blue of House Faire—his mother’s house. The hall buzzed with excitement as musicians played and patricians danced. The vibrant fabric of the ladies’ long dresses reminded him of spring, lively with a breath of hope. To celebrate the inauguration of Cassius as chancellor, purple-and-gold banners lined the dark stone pillars of Sentigard.

With the chancellorship, Earl Cassius would be elevated to the Duke of Stockhelm. The Cassiuses would become a Great House of equal standing to the Helixuses of Valtarcia.

What impact might that have on court politics?

The progressives in the senate pushed for an evolution from the barbarism of gladiatorium to the more modern sport of tourney knights. They thought to repurpose the gladiators to be a part of a standard army across all three islands. Some even sought to use this new army as a mechanism of exploration and conquest to the unknown lands beyond the Hylan mountain range. But now that Cassius, a lanista, would have a major chair within all senate meetings, nothing was certain. Of course, the senate’s plans meant little if the Revivalist anarchists got their way.

A cheer reverberated out from where Damascus and Nallia stood. Laeden removed himself from the safety of the balcony overlooking the hall and entered the party. He shook a few hands and engaged in pleasantries on his way to join Damascus and the others. Though the people of the court all smiled at his face, behind his back, they still called him a pseudo-prince.

They can call me whatever they like.

It upset his stepmother more than him. She adamantly and publicly, on several occasions, declared him a true prince and offered to have him legitimized at least twice. But Laeden never wanted her love. He wanted the love of his own mother, but they separated him from her, for peace. Part of him pitied Danella. She had always been good to him, yet Laeden seized every opportunity to be a difficult, reclusive youth.

Even in her opposition to Daenus’s apprehension, she was only trying to protect me.

As he approached, Danella hugged his father, and people congratulated them. Markus embraced Nallia.

Such a display must not be due to the chancellorship.

“What news?” Laeden asked Damascus’s squire, Haedron.

“A royal wedding,” Haedron said. “Damascus and Nallia. Can’t wait to see the look on Aemos’s face when he learns that Damascus beat her in the duel.”

Nallia and Damascus. Court politics just got even more interesting.

Laeden pushed past Haedron to congratulate Damascus and the Cassiuses.

Meeting Danella’s eyes, he smiled and embraced the queen. “Congratulations, Mother.”

“Mother?” she asked, pushing him away and putting her hand to her chest. “Have you ever called me that?”

Laeden blushed. “Consider it a thank you of sorts. For everything.”

Danella pulled him back in and wrapped her arms around him again. “You’re my son, just as much as he is.”

Laeden closed his eyes in his stepmother’s embrace.

Damascus gave Laeden a pat on the back. “It’s good to see you out from the safety of the corner of the room, brother.”

Laeden and Danella separated, allowing him to hug his younger half-brother.

Nallia was a good woman, strong and poised. She’d make a suitable match for Damascus and, eventually, a befitting queen.

“I know the Cassiuses,” Laeden said, gesturing to Markus. “If she’s anything like him, you’ve found a fierce companion.”

Markus laughed. “Careful, though, she’s tougher than a Bruiser in plate mail.”

Damascus grinned. “I witnessed the strength of her will… and her sword.”

Holding Damascus’s arm, Nallia’s cheeks reddened.

It was nice to see people smile for a change, a reprieve from blood, death, and fear.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Laeden said, bowing to Nallia.

“A day for celebration indeed,” the king said, clasping both of his sons on the shoulder. “We must be glad for such opportunities to rejoice considering the current climate.”

“Not all are so fortunate,” Danella said.

“Aye.” Cassius slapped Markus on the shoulder. “Certainly not Brusos!” Cassius’s laugh was joined by most, but not the queen.

Danella folded her arms across her chest. “I hope you are referring to your victory in the omenation and not the tragedy that has befallen his house.”

Something in her voice gave Laeden pause. Tragedy?

“Have you not heard?” she asked Cassius. “Brusos’s villa was burned to ash. Scorched corpses lay in its foundation.”

Laeden’s joy melted. He massaged his temples, trying to sort through the conflicting information between what he thought he knew and what he’d just heard. Laeden wasn’t alone in hearing this for the first time.

“What terrible news!”

“The Revivalists?”

“Are Ebron and Cerberynn okay?”

“My sources couldn’t confirm or deny their safety,” Danella said. “But they suspect the Uprising is responsible.”

Damascus looked to Laeden, like he wanted something to be done about it. Cassius and his wife both stood dumbstruck.

“Nothing our new chancellor won’t be able to handle,” the king said. “For now, let us turn thoughts to celebration, new positions, new love, and future peace and prosperity.”

The tension settled, but Laeden’s mind wouldn’t relent.

The Uprising has yet to strike such an offensive blow. Surely the rebel slaves wouldn’t have murdered their own.

Markus rubbed the back of his neck.

“How did we not know?” Laeden asked as he pulled Markus off to a servants’ path away from the prying eyes and ears.

His contentment from moments ago vanished. The vibrant colors of the banners and dresses dulled with the disturbing news, and the weight of his badge of office flattened him to the floor.

Markus shook his head, waving his black mane. “I don’t know.”

“We need answers. Was it the Uprising or the Revivalists? We cannot become divided in our efforts.”

Laeden felt someone standing too close behind him. He whirled around, fists clenched.

“We’re in the middl—?”

Iylea.

She flinched, stepping backwards. “Apologies, my prince.” She stared at her shuffling feet, gripping the hem of her serving dress.

Laeden’s fists uncoiled into skyward palms, before running his fingers through his hair. “Apologies, Iylea, I didn’t suspect you to be…” He exhaled before whispering to Markus. “Give me a moment.” Markus bowed and excused himself.

“I’m sorry, Iylea, I—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Wrinkles borne of stress furrowed above her brow. “I need to tell you something. And you must listen.”

“What is it?” he asked, surveying the feast from the servants’ hallway.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

A knot constricted Laeden’s throat. He coughed. What dishonesty are you capable of? He returned to scanning the crowd, refusing to meet her eyes, too afraid to listen to whatever came next.

She grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her, an iron resolve in her yellow-green gaze. “I need you to listen.”

Laeden could take on the patricians. He didn’t balk before the Revivalists. The king, the queen, nor anyone else had such power over him, but before Iylea, beneath the intensity of her stare, Laeden’s composure threatened to crack.

No. I can’t put her first.

She’d gotten him in trouble too many times.

Laeden swallowed. “Out with it, then.”

Iylea winced at the bite in his tone. “I love you, but what I’m about to tell you is no joke, and it can be the difference between life and death.” She leaned in closer. “Nallia is in trouble. The Cassiuses are in trouble. The queen’s men—”

“You’ve told me this,” Laeden said, putting his hands on his hips. “I looked into the study and found nothing. I made a fool of myself chasing Ser Daenus and found nothing. And what do you mean the Cassiuses are in trouble? Who isn’t in trouble? Chimera’s breath, the Cassiuses know what’s at stake.”

“You don’t understand! I’ve seen it. Brusos, Ser Daenus, and… the queen.”

Laeden stepped closer and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What have you seen? What are you saying?”

Her mouth moved, but no words came forth.

“Speak.” It wasn’t a command, but a plea. He wanted a reason to believe he was wrong to have distanced himself—that love held the answers to conquer all things…

“Laeden… I am a seer.”

Laeden stepped back, retracting his chin. “A what?”

Iylea seized both of his hands. “I have dreams, and I know the queen, Brusos, and Ser Daenus are up to something.”

She isn’t joking… Iylea, a seer? The queen a Revivalist? Preposterous.

Laeden didn’t believe her. He couldn’t believe her. The collar about his neck tightened, strangling him with trepidation. He wrenched free from her grip.

If she’s a seer, she’s a mage… an outlawed mage. One who, even a few moons ago, would have been nailed to a Six Arrowed Star at the Gilded Gauntlet. But if she’s a seer, and she’s been right, this entire time…

Laeden eyed Danella.

The queen beamed, her black hair pin-straight beneath her garnet-studded crown.

She is trying to kill the king? Doesn’t she have everything she ever wanted?

Danella took his father as a husband to seal the Treaty of 940, breaking up Laeden’s family, separating him from his mother.

If this is true, my entire life was built on a lie. My father gave up love for duty to the people of New Rheynia—for peace. Laeden struggled throughout his childhood to accept his father’s actions as noble.

Why would she want him dead? Was everything we sacrificed for peace all for nothing?

Laeden tried to piece it together. He paced the servant’s hall, his head in his hands. If Danella and Daenus are both Revivalists, of course she would come to his defense and have a plan in case one of them became a person of interest. But Iylea… a seer?

He shook his head. “No… this can’t be. You’re wrong.”

Iylea grabbed him by the front of his doublet. “Laeden, you must believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said, prying her wrists away from him. “I believe you think you know something, but these are just dreams. Not prophecies. Not visions.”

“Laeden, please. I know what this means.”

She extended her hand, waiting for him to take it.

Laeden exhaled, but remained still, leaving Iylea’s empty hand hanging between them. Her eyes pleaded for him to take it, to trust her. He wanted to believe her. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. To take her hand, to accept her words—he would lose her forever.

The silence stretched on. Iylea dropped her gaze and her outstretched hand. “I was trying to protect myself, to spare your involvement… I know what will become of me, and you know what you must do. But you must trust me. If you arrest them, the Revivalists’ crimes will stop.”

“You will not be executed, and you will not be exiled because you’re not a…” He shook his head. Impossible. “We followed Ser Daenus—he’s clean. Brusos is supposedly missing, but he’ll be found. And the queen… she’s my family.”

“Laeden, I know how it seems, but—”

“Captain,” a voice said from behind him. Laeden spun to find Markus with a Sentinel messenger beside him. “Apologies for the interruption, but this cannot wait.”

Laeden looked back to Iylea. “That’s fine. We’re finished.”

He turned from her before she could react. He didn’t want to see her look of rejection. Deep down, he wanted to hold her, to remind her everything would be all right.

I can’t look back.

The ground around him threatened to cave in. At least that’s how it felt. Leaving her there, alone, felt like a crime.

Nothing the messenger could say would be as disarming as Iylea’s words, so by the time they made their way to the war room after Markus insisted they be alone, Laeden’s patience had run dry.

“Chimera’s breath, what in Six Hells is so important?”

The messenger glanced at Markus before speaking. “Banis and Gareth… they’re dead.”

Chapter 37

Secret Dungeon

Danella V

Salmantica

Danella had no need to keep up appearances today. She drank to the celebration of her son’s new match, applauded the Targarus gladiators as they were presented to the feast hall, and enjoyed the company of people she’d otherwise have suffered through. Even food tasted sweeter now that the climax of her plans rested on the horizon.

Her seed was planted. Laeden bought it. Somehow, whether by fate, consequence, or desire of the Gods, her plans had suffered. She wanted Brusos to be the chancellor, but that was impossible now. She needed to move forward with the pieces she had, and she would. Binding Nallia to Damascus would allow Danella to have more influence over the Cassiuses and their sway within the senate.

As far as Danella was concerned, she traded pawns with Laeden, but it allowed her to move her tiles to opportune positions. She traded Elrod Horne to discover her mole. The victories Laeden thought he won, she let him have. He’d been a troubled boy, but he had grown into a good man. Varros was a good man too, yet she would sacrifice more than a few good men if it meant quelling the wrath of the Gods and keeping this way of life her father established. Gods willing, it wouldn’t come to that. Cassius would be dealt with soon, and the Uprising would take the fall for it.

The formation of the Revivalists gave rise to the Sentinels, but the development of the Uprising couldn’t have been more perfect. They didn’t trust their Sentinel defenders, so they took it upon themselves. The rebels would reveal themselves for the destructive beacons they were. Everyone would realize how the Celestic disease had corrupted society. The plebs would turn on the rebels, and the Revivalists wouldn’t need to push any further. Varros could live, and the Gods would be sated. Everything would work out as the Six intended. They spared Varros thus far—stayed her hand just enough that her plans could take effect without the dire consequences she feared.

The only broken link in her chain of plans was Zephyrus. Lenox, Saulus, Liario, even Brusos’s gladiators—they all failed. Like a hydra with nine lives, this gladiator, this Prophet of Celestia, refused to die. One of the Three or not, Zephyrus had stopped nothing, changed nothing, and in a matter of time, he’d be nothing. Perhaps he never was a Prophet of Celestia, or maybe Cassius broke him as he claimed he did.

“More wine?” Varros asked, pouring a goblet for himself. Normally, Varros performing servant tasks would have bothered her, but not today. She nodded, and he filled her cup. “It’s wonderful to see you in such spirits, my love. I haven’t seen you so lively since the Hechts bled out upon the Six Arrowed Star.”

“It’s not everyday your son gets engaged to a beauty such as her,” Danella returned. “But that was a glorious day, wasn’t it?”

Varros chuckled. “Justice was served. I don’t know if I’d call it glorious, but it brought us where we are now. I often wonder what life would be like if your brother were still king.”

Danella nodded. “You wouldn’t be wearing a crown.”

Varros hmphed. “Perhaps the realm would be safer.” He sighed. “I apologize. At times I get torn between love and duty.”

“It’s just how you are,” Danella said. “The same stubborn naivety true of all Helixuses. But everything will work out as it should, and I will love you all the more.”

He smiled at her, a hint of sorrow in his faraway gaze. She examined him, tilting her head to the side. What darkness clouds your mind?

“My queen,” Daenus said, breaking Danella from her thoughts. “Might I have a word?”

“Is everything well?” Varros asked, concern creasing his crow’s feet.

Danella swallowed. Daenus is never so direct. Something’s wrong.

“Everything is fine, your grace,” Daenus said, clearing his throat. “Nothing of import. Just the… I fear one of the queen’s handmaidens has been drinking more wine than serving it to others.”

Danella didn’t need to mask her frustration. You couldn’t have thought of anything better than that? She gathered her skirts and stood. “Someone just earned themselves Six readings of the Facets and privy duties for the next three moons.”

Varros raised his goblet and smiled curtly. “Go easy, my love.”

Danella excused herself and followed Daenus out of the hall and into a back entryway.

“You better have good reason for such a disruption,” Danella hissed once they were alone.

“Your grace, we have a problem,” Daenus said. “One of our spies overheard Iylea speaking to Laeden.”

Danella swallowed. Not another Cantella situation. What did Iylea stumble into? What did she tell Laeden? She wished someone had only drunk too much wine.

“What words were exchanged?” Danella asked, fearing Daenus’s reply.

“She’s a seer.”

Danella’s heart skipped a beat.

A seer? Impossible! Iylea had been in her service since she was a girl. Daenus continued to talk to her, but half a hundred worst-case scenarios flooded her mind.

Danella clutched her Six Arrowed Star pendant in her palm. “How did Laeden respond?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It doesn’t seem like he believed her, your grace.”

She nodded, the gears of her mind turning with frustrating lethargy. What if he believes her? What else could she tell him? A Celestic seer, a mage—under my nose this entire time. Heat coursed through her veins. Too much was at stake. I can’t take any chances.

“Take her,” Danella said, the arrows’ edges cutting into her palm. “I don’t care how, just keep it quiet. The secret dungeon. No one but you and I will know.”

Chapter 38

Blood Leads to Blood

Laeden XI

Salmantica

Blood leads to blood. The cycle continues with more malice behind each attack in a vicious circle of anger, vengeance, and death.

The gladiators fought on the sands of the Six Spear Arena, but Laeden’s thoughts were consumed by what he saw on the wall of the isthmus dividing Salmantica and Valtarcia the day before. Gareth, Banis the Ratman, and his family were so close to reaching freedom and protection. The two men Allaron assigned to escort the party also suffered, but perhaps not quite as long.

“The Gods punish traitors,” the wall read in the blood of the slain. Two Sentinels were stabbed half a hundred times, their blue-and-gray uniforms painted with the rusty red of dried blood. As gruesome as it was, Laeden forced himself to look upon the four bodies hanging from nooses atop the wall. When he looked at the body of Banis’s wife, he saw his own mother’s face. Not the queen, but his real mother… what he remembered of her.

How did they know? The Revivalists are always a half-step ahead of me.

A traditional Bruiser slammed a great axe into his opponent’s head, splitting his iron half-helm down the middle. The fallen warrior twitched in the sands to the roar of the crowd.

Blood leads to blood.

This all started with one mage. If he received the justice he deserved, if Father ordered his execution as he should have, perhaps Gareth, Banis, and his family would still be alive.

Laeden glared at his father watching the contest below.

No.

This wasn’t his father’s fault. His father spared the mage. He hadn’t spilled his blood. If he had, perhaps the Uprising would have started their assault sooner. The Revivalists would have risen to oppose them, and the Sentinels to deal with both. It seemed inevitable. But the blood was not on his father’s, or the mages’ hands. The fault rested with the Revivalists.

I need to stop the violence, not perpetuate it. But how?

The next bout of gladiators took to the sands, but Laeden had no doubt of what fate awaited them. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but eventually, the victors of today would be the deceased of tomorrow, and with their blood, the crowds would cheer.

A handmaiden strode past with a carafe of wine, but it wasn’t Iylea. Following her alarming warning and admission of being a seer, Iylea disappeared. Laeden couldn’t find her anywhere. No one knew her whereabouts, or if she was safe.

What if I never see her again? I didn’t even look back after I dismissed her. How many other awful things did I say? She probably ran away… from me.

“I’ve seen it,” she had said, “Brusos, Ser Daenus, and the queen.”

He glanced at Danella out of the corner of his eye. The garnets of her crown glimmered in the setting sun. Could she really be such a monster? Laeden couldn’t believe it. She was always so kind to him. To everyone.

Laeden shook his head, still trying to deny it. He attempted to rationalize any possible motive as to why Iylea would make this up. He couldn’t, and that made it worse. But a seer? He didn’t want to believe her.

How can the woman I love be the monster so many fear? I feared her kind. I wanted the mage executed. How many things did I say to her exclaiming that viewpoint? How could she have ever loved me?

The Primus of the Salmantic Games began. The games Laeden once enjoyed now made him ill. Zephyrus would be fighting in this very arena soon in the Kings’ Day Games. There was a purpose to the gladiatorial games, he knew, but now he had difficulty seeing it. He sighed as the games came to their conclusion with no surprises; Targarus’s men were left unstained, while the runner-up returned home with more dead men to burn.

The king clapped before standing to silence the crowd. “Another year, Targarus reigns supreme! To conclude a day of spectacular glory, there is good news. My son, Laeden, the captain of the Sentinels, has tidings to share.”

The king took his seat as Laeden stood to address the onlookers.

He had no good news to share, but appearances needed to be maintained.

He stared out over the bloodthirsty crowd. The statues of the Six held their spears over the arena, casting a shadow in the sands that appeared like the spokes of a wheel. Patrician and pleb, Valencians and Celestics, free and slave, they all looked to him wanting peace, but there was no peace in this world, only vengeance—and vengeance was a spinning wheel.

The patricians would be on top until the plebs revolted. The Valencians were on top, but the Uprising was proof that the Celestics would fight back. The sweetness of vengeance was ephemeral, but his father set a tone for justice. Laeden would make sure justice reigned.

“Good people of Salmantica,” Laeden said, looking out over the grandstands of the arena. “Many strides have been taken in the Sentinels’ objective towards freeing New Rheynia from the Revivalists’ shadow. These cowards believe they’re safe from justice, but their brief revolution of tyranny will not see the Great Houses of New Rheynia fall.”

Laeden paused, expecting a cheer, but none greeted his words. And that was the easy part of my address. Clearing his throat, he continued.

“We’ve learned from the Disasters that befell us before the Great Migration. The Six reign in New Rheynia, and that truth must be upheld. Yet the traditions of the Treaty of 940 have lost touch. Let it be known: practicing other faiths is outlawed, but the reprimand for the use of magic will not be death as it has been in years past, but exile from our great society.”

The buzz of a few thousand murmurs cluttered the silence over Six Spear. Laeden swallowed. He raised his arms to settle the crowd before they became unruly, but it wasn’t until his father stood that silence returned.

“This is the decree of our king, Varros Helixus.” Laeden gestured to his father with a trembling hand.

The king met Laeden’s gaze and nodded. Laeden took a deep breath, settling his frazzled nerves. The faces of the audience were far enough away that he didn’t have to look upon them, but the thought of how many eyes were on him made his stomach flip.

How many of those eyes gaze upon me with cruel intent?

The same anxiety that percolated beads of sweat along his back during the Festival of Stockhelm bubbled up. The thought of how many assassins lurked in the grandstands made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Laeden clenched his trembling hand into a fist. “To those who defile these laws, or take justice into their own hands, the punishment will be death. One such man has been taken into custody by the brave Sentinels; Count Elrod Horne will be put to trial. Honor and justice will be served as we fight for our families, our faith in the Six, and the future of New Rheynia!”

Laeden punched the air, but the crowd’s reaction, expectedly so, was mixed.

Father smiled and clapped. Danella mirrored his sentiment, but Laeden could no longer trust the validity of her outward appearances. He only hoped Iylea heard him, wherever she was. Laeden backed away from the edge of the pulvinus, happy he wouldn’t have to answer questions about Brusos, the Uprising, or what happened upon the isthmus wall, but those were problems for a different day.

A glowing ember arced over the arena.

What in Six Hells is that? It streaked straight for them.

A flaming arrow fell onto the pulvinus.

“Move!” Laeden shouted, but too late.

Laeden draped himself over his father as more flaming arrows fell from the sky. Another landed, then another, until the pulvinus burst into flames. The audience panicked, scrambling to safety. Shrieks and cries clashed in calamity.

A wall of fire blocked the doorway to the staircase, but more arrows fell. He covered his father as Markus tore away the burning banners to lead people to safety.

“Protect the king!” Laeden shouted. The stands of the arena were in utter chaos. He scanned the crowd for Revivalist archers, but he saw nothing through the smoke and flame. No more arrows rained down, but that didn’t mean the threat was over. As Sentinels and King’s Guard Knights spirited the royal family to shelter, Laeden remained on the pulvinus. Vigiles came with buckets of water, extinguishing the flames before they could spread too far, but the damage was done. The statement was made.

Always a step ahead. Like they know my every move.

Brusos, Ser Daenus, and the queen.

They attacked the pulvinus. Ser Daenus and the queen were nearly caught in the crossfire. Would they be so bold in order to cover their tracks? So many questions and no answers. Six save us, Iylea. He wanted her comfort. He wanted the peace only she’d ever been able to offer him. If only he could speak to her now.

Where are you?

Too many questions. He needed to stop wondering and start finding answers.

Chapter 39

The Voice

Zephyrus XIII

Stockhelm

The sun scorched hot, even though it had only just risen. Zephyrus stood abreast with the rest of Cassius’s gladiators before Doctore, preparing for another day of clever lies. Another day in which Lenox drew breath while Patrus lay dead, and another night absent Laeden’s fulfillment of his promises to dispatch the Revivalists beneath Cassius’s roof.

“We have but a few days of training before our selected gladiators compete in the Kings’ Day Games,” Doctore said. “To stand in the Primus against the best in all of New Rheynia, I give you the defier of death, Stegavax!”

The gladiators cheered. Stegavax always had his followers, but since Fenyx claimed his mantle, others were flocking to Stegavax’s support in solidarity against Fenyx. Doctore attempted to return Stegavax to form slowly to avoid the plight of setbacks, but Stegavax would have none of it. Despite his vigor, he only appeared to be a shell of his former self.

“To stand beside him, I give you the unproven, but undeniable, talent of Zephyrus.”

Other than Jecht and Cerik, no one gave voice towards Zephyrus’s standing.

Doctore cleared his throat and hurried onto the next introduction. “And of course, the slayer of Tursos, the broken-blade hero of the Stockhelm Games, your Champion, Fenyx!”

Unenthused applause, more dutiful than celebratory, answered Doctore’s introduction. While no one—not even Stegavax—openly crossed Fenyx, there was no debate as to where the brotherhood’s loyalties lay.

“Now, to training!”

Just as Doctore reared back his whip, Nallia’s voice called from the balcony.

“Doctore, send Zephyrus to the villa.”

Zephyrus wiped sweat from his brow. To the villa—why? Zephyrus hadn’t spoken to Nallia since Lenox and the other guards beat him in the rain.

“Apologies,” Doctore said, “but I must incline to the importance of his training.”

At least someone has some sense around here…

“Just for a moment. I swear it.”

Unrelenting. Such is the nature of the entitled—they get what they want or persist until they do.

Spotting Lenox close by, an idea formed in Zephyrus’s head. It was rash, but the man who killed Patrus had lived too long. Zephyrus sent word to Laeden of Lenox and Liario’s betrayal to House Cassius, yet nothing had been done. This wasn’t out of selfish vengeance. This was his duty to Laeden. I live to serve…

“I’ll go,” Zephyrus said, letting his wooden sword and buckler fall to the sands.

Doctore grunted but gestured for Lenox to escort Zephyrus to the villa. Lenox gripped Zephyrus’s arm and shoved him towards the barracks door.

Back inside, Zephyrus’s eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light. He’d been led to the villa before—up a flight of stairs, where a locked door waited. While Lenox unlocks the door, I’ll throw him down the stairs. With no one to witness and Zephyrus’s position in the games, he could get away with a mild punishment. But with Lenox dealt with, he’d sleep easier knowing Patrus received justice.

Expecting Lenox to lead the way, Zephyrus stopped at the base of the stairs.

Lenox paused, narrowing his eyes at him. “Get going.”

“You have the key,” Zephyrus said.

Lenox laughed. “So clever, you are.” He reached for the dagger at his belt, but Zephyrus grabbed Lenox by the wrist, forcing the dagger to remain sheathed.

Lenox snickered. He reared his head back to headbutt Zephyrus. Zephyrus’s trained instincts took over. He leaned forward and tucked his chin. Instead of Lenox bringing the crown of his head into Zephyrus’s nose, he slammed his nose into Zephyrus’s head.

Lenox stumbled back, stunned by the blow, but the separation allowed him to draw his dagger. He spat blood. “You’re dead.”

“You can’t beat me,” Zephyrus said.

Lenox’s black eyes absorbed the darkness of the barracks. With a twisted grin, Lenox drew the dagger across his forearm, slashing through the purple cloth above his golden bracer. A dark stain blossomed on his uniform.

“Guards!” Lenox shouted. “Help. I’ve been attacked.” He tossed the dagger at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus inhaled sharply and instinctively snatched the hilt from the air as Lenox drew his gladius. The clanking of armor and the clamor of voices filled the barracks. Coming from the sands outside and the stairs to the villa above, they swarmed upon him like wasps.

Zephyrus dropped the dagger and put his hands up.

“Seize him,” Lenox said, spitting blood and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “He stole my dagger!”

“He lies!” Zephyrus yelled. But what good were the words of a slave against those of a guard? Zephyrus had no choice but to submit.

“Tie him to the palus,” Lenox said. “He will be whipped for this.”

The guards dragged Zephyrus through the barracks and back onto the sands’ heat.

Jecht and Cerik advanced, questioning the guards as they tied Zephyrus to the palus.

“Guards,” Nallia shouted from the balcony. “What is the meaning of this?”

They didn’t answer. Tighter and tighter the ropes dug into Zephyrus’s skin, driving his wrists into the splintered wood.

Dominus emerged onto the balcony, Nortus and Liario beside him. “Silence!” Dominus cast a furious glare at the scene before him. Everyone obeyed, other than the ominous squawking of a vulture circling overhead. “Speak, Lenox, explain yourself.”

“The slave attacked me in th—”

“Liar!” Zephyrus fought against his bindings but couldn’t escape. The familiar cold that accompanied using his elemental fire magic froze the blood in his veins.

No. Not here!

Patrus’s words back at Tharseo’s Bastion suddenly made sense. “They’ll take us alive, if they don’t know what you can do. But if they find out…”

Zephyrus bit off his protests, and the chill of balancing the scales fled him.

I can’t let them know I’m a mage.

“Silence!” Dominus bellowed again. “Lenox, speak.”

“The slave seized my weapon and attacked me,” Lenox said, displaying his slashed forearm. “He should burn on a Six Arrowed Star for this, but he’ll settle for a good lashing.”

Nallia scoffed beside her father. “You’d have him whipped… days before the Primus? Father, we can’t—”

“Enough!” Dominus bared his teeth, cursing under his breath.

Zephyrus struggled to free himself, but there was no escaping his fate.

Dominus shook his head. “We cannot afford to send injured men to the sands, but he shall be whipped for this. Fifty lashes upon our return from Salmantica!”

Zephyrus closed his eyes and pursed his lips. Fool. Stupid fool. He didn’t have a plan. He left too much up to chance. What was I thinking?

“Henceforth,” Dominus continued. “All slaves summoned to the villa must be secured by manacles.”

Lenox growled. “My duke, is he to return to the sands, absent punishment?”

Dominus tossed his hands to the scorching sun. “Six save me, see him to the Hill.”

Zephyrus didn’t know what the Hill was, but he breathed a relieved sigh as the guards removed him from the whipping post.

“You are fortunate that you fight in a few days,” Dominus said to Zephyrus, his wispy hair swirling in the wind. “Otherwise, you would have been whipped until my coronation. This punishment is a kindness. Too kind.”

His hawkish eyes fell upon the guards from up in his perch. “Feed all slave rations to the horses. Disobedience will not be tolerated beneath my roof.” He turned and disappeared into the villa, Nallia quick at his heels in complaint.

Lenox eyed Zephyrus with venomous disdain. He leaned close. “You will die, Prophet. I’ll nail your corpse to a Six Arrowed Star, and the Gods will smile.”

He underestimated Lenox. Zephyrus had done everything asked of him, by everyone. He played along, told his clever lies, kept his secrets well, and did as he was supposed to. But this time, he was outwitted. He happily would have accepted punishment for Lenox’s death if he avenged Patrus, but this sentence was magnified by his own condemnation.

I brought this upon myself. I deserve this.

Two guards began to escort him to the back gate of the training square.

Jecht stepped forward. “If you send him, send me too.” He looked at Cerik expectantly.

With a groan, Cerik advanced to Jecht’s side. “Aye, and me.”

The two guards escorting Zephyrus stopped, looking to Doctore and Lenox for confirmation.

“Honorable fools,” Doctore said, shaking his head. He gestured for Lenox to take Jecht and Cerik as well.

A pit yawned within Zephyrus’s stomach. Why would they subject themselves to stand with me in punishment?

The three were escorted away from the training square through the back gate to the Hill. The Hill wasn’t a hill, but the Hylan mountain range House Cassius was etched into. The yellow slate and dirt ascended in an impossibly steep climb.

Lenox pointed to the crest where the slope of the mountain reached the highest point of the villa. “Get climbing, slave. All the way to the top and back down. You go again and again until the nightly rains.”

Zephyrus, Jecht, and Cerik went in silence. They made slow progress, the ground eroding with each step. Spiny green-and-red plants with purple flowers grew from the thorny brush littering the hillside.

“Beautiful, but poisonous,” Cerik said, breaking the silence as he led the way on all fours. “Lover’s Dream. The flower petals have healing properties, but the thorns will make you numb. Too much in your bloodstream, you may even hallucinate.”

“This is madness,” Jecht said behind Cerik. “At Targarus’s ludus, punishment meant half rations or sleep deprivation. Never poisonous hikes up the burning Hylan.”

Cerik grunted, hauling his bulk up the mountain. “Not my first time on the Hill. Eventually, we will have to grab the vines to pull ourselves up.”

Jecht guffawed. “You just said the thorns are poisonous…”

“Precisely why it is a punishment,” Cerik said.

The pit that opened within Zephyrus’s stomach spouted bile. They suffer because of me. “Why did you subject yourselves to this?”

Jecht and Cerik stopped to look back.

“Honestly, I don’t know what you were thinking,” Cerik said to Jecht.

“That Lenox makes Damascus burning Drake seem like a Faceless saint,” Jecht said. “We all know if you got the drop on him, he’d be dead.”

Zephyrus snorted. “He cut himself with his dagger and called for the guards.”

Cerik raised a brow. “Tip the scales…”

Jecht’s scarred face parted in a wide grin. “Six save me, you can’t be serious?”

Zephyrus shrugged, and they all shared a much-needed laugh.

“Let’s go,” Cerik said, “or they’ll burden us with packs to carry if we’re too slow.”

Jecht chortled, but his laughter choked off. “Wait, really?”

Despite Zephyrus’s own disappointments and failures, he counted himself lucky to have friends by his side. What other paths might they walk with me? Perhaps not all of my clever lies need to be told to everyone.

They spent most of the afternoon climbing up and down the sun-scorched mountain. By the time the sun set, Zephyrus’s fingers were numb, his skin burned, and his head ached, yet he was content to have been amongst friends.

Once they were bathed and the medicus cleared them to return to the barracks, Doctore came to check on them. “I respect what you two did today,” he said to Jecht and Cerik. “It’s honorable to share the burdens of your brothers. However, this walk Zephyrus must do alone.”

Zephyrus contorted his brow. What now?

Doctore held out a pair of manacles. “You’ve been summoned by Lady Nallia. I told her you needed rest, but she can be… persistent.”

Zephyrus grimaced. “Who will escort me?”

“Nortus.”

Nortus led Zephyrus, bound at both wrists and ankles, through the villa. Torches lining the walls fended off the encroaching night, casting dancing shadows along the marble pillars.

“Tell me true, what happened earlier?” Nortus asked.

Zephyrus stopped, his clinking chains coming to rest. “He cut himself and blamed me. I warned you about him.”

“Aye, we’ll hafta be more careful—”

“I told Laeden about him,” Zephyrus hissed. “I told you to tell Laeden about the others, but what’s being done?”

“Aye,” Nortus said. “Don’t wreck the runner. I told ‘em.”

“And what’s being done?” Zephyrus asked. “Laeden sits in his castle while the Revivalists plot murders, and yet I’m the one punished. How many times must I escape death? If Laeden doesn’t do something, either I kill Lenox, or he kills me.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Nortus said.

Zephyrus grunted. The two walked in silence until they arrived at Nallia’s chambers.

Nortus drummed his knuckles on the door. It swung open after only the second knock.

“Gratitude, Nortus,” Nallia said, turning to Zephyrus. “I trust there was no trouble getting you here this time.” She wore a pale yellow night silk that hung loosely from her body. She pointed to his chains. “Is all this necessary?”

“Duke’s orders, milady.”

“Take them off—my orders.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Nortus did as instructed. He stood idly, even after she dismissed him, unsure if he should leave her alone with him. She shoved Nortus out into the corridor, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

“Come now.” She took Zephyrus by the hands and pulled him into her chambers.

The room smelled of lavender. Purple drapes and carpets ornamented with gold trim adorned her sleeping chambers. Candles flickered dimly around the room, and a brazier burned in the corner.

“Apologies for today,” Nallia said. “After what happened at Brusos’s ludus, and the attack at the Salmantic Games… I suppose everyone’s on edge.”

Zephyrus didn’t know what she was talking about. More attacks? “The Revivalists?”

“Supposedly, the Uprising attacked Brusos, but the Revivalists are responsible for the attack on the arena. Oh, but I believe congratulations are in order! Word of your heroism upon the sands has spread. I’ve heard such praise that you might be Vykannis born again… or perhaps the Wielder.” She beamed at him.

Zephyrus stared at her, unsure what game she was playing. He bit back a retort. Whatever game it is, play along—clever lies. He tried to reason out what this news of the Uprising and Revivalist attacks could mean, but his head still felt fuzzy from the Lover’s Dream.

“Many would say I resemble more of the Harbinger,” Zephyrus said, contorting his lip.

Nallia shook her head. “Tell me your prophecy and I will put this to rest once and for all.”

Zephyrus swallowed, then stifled a cough. He didn’t trust her. He couldn’t trust her.

She raised her eyebrows and nodded in encouragement.

So persistent. He sighed. “The son of the fallen will rise to prey upon the unworthy. Under cloaks and shadows he hides, to bring light to those hoping. When the rivers and streams run dry, he will summon the unworldly to sever the chains that bind the realm to the holy.”

Nallia nodded, her eyes narrow, deep in thought. She sauntered over to a desk beneath a window and pulled several inkwells and parchment from the drawer.

“Again,” she said. “And slower this time.”

Zephyrus repeated, and she wrote everything down in a flowing cursive. Nallia opened the second drawer of her desk and pulled out a thick tome, earmarked to a certain page.

She pointed. “These are the prophecies of the Three,” she said, encouraging Zephyrus to lean over her shoulder. The sweet smell of rosewater filled his nostrils as he looked past her waves of chestnut hair. “Your friend Patrus was right. Your prophecy has elements of all three.” She pulled the stopper from a red inkwell and dipped her quill. She painted a red line under certain words of Zephyrus’s prophecy.

“Here, here, and here, your prophecy overlaps with the Wielder.”

She underlined under cloaks and shadows, then to bring light. Nallia pointed back to the tome scrawled with the prophecy of the Wielder. “This pertains to the line ‘out of the darkness, born into the light,’ and here…” She underlined summon the unworldly, then pointed to the words in the book: a wielder of the lost to summon the three. “The unworldly refers to the Treasures of Stockhelm—the Vykane Blade of Vykannis the Brave, the Orsion Cloak of Orsius the Wise, and the Aeryean Armor of Aeryss the Affectionate.” Nallia smiled at him, but meeting his eyes, her face fell. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Nallia stood from leaning over her desk, quill still in hand.

Zephyrus exhaled, placing his hands on his hips. Patrus believed people would rally behind the Wielder. Seeing his prophecy side by side with the Wielder’s made it feel real, but everything else was lost on him.

“I supposed I must have known it once,” Zephyrus said. “But I don’t remember.”

“Those are the names of the Judges,” Nallia said, “and the Treasures they gave to the Celestics to save their tribes from monstrous beasts—if you believe the legends. Tharseo, the first Wielder, defeated the beasts with the three Treasures.”

“So what happened to them?” Zephyrus asked, testing her.

Patrus had told him that the Arcane Templar protected the Treasures from those unworthy of wielding such power, but playing coy could give him greater insight as to what Nallia knew, or at the very least reveal her as a liar if she contradicted Patrus.

“Where are the Treasures now?” Zephyrus asked.

Nallia shrugged. “Hidden somewhere, I suppose. Perhaps for the same reasons why the elemental mages were exiled; the elders of Stockhelm feared their powers.”

Zephyrus massaged the scruff of his chin. “The elders exiled the mages?”

“The elemental ones,” Nallia said. “Prior to the Great Migration. I imagine if the mages remained in Stockhelm, the New Rheynian War would have had a drastically different outcome. That’s why most Celestics don’t believe in the Return. They believe their enslavement is punishment for losing the Treasures and abandoning the elemental magic.”

Zephyrus had witnessed the elemental magic himself in his dreams. The Arcane Templar must have originated from the exiled elders…

“How do you know all of this?” Zephyrus asked.

Nallia smiled and pointed at the book. “I’m actually named after the Vykane Blade and Vykannis the Brave. I suppose that always drove my curiosity.”

Zephyrus raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite the stretch from Nallia…”

Nallia blushed. “It’s an abbreviation. No one but my family knows my true name. Just before the treaty of 940, while my father fought in the war, my mother named me. I suppose she found the Judges of great interest too. My father, on the other hand, would not accept having me named after a dead God in an outlawed religion, so Vykinallia became Nallia.”

“Vykinallia,” Zephyrus said, trying out the name. “What do you believe—about the Judges, the Return, the Treasures?”

Nallia shrugged. “I believe the Judges are real. Although I’ve never seen their magic, I’ve heard stories of it. I think the Treasures are real—romanticized by myths and legends, but real.”

“And the Return?” Zephyrus asked.

Nallia turned back to the book and Zephyrus’s prophecy. “I don’t know.” She began underlining more lines of text with blue ink and then other phrases with green ink. “The Three, the Prophets—it’s definitely scary, but if it’s fated to be so, what can I do to stop it?” She turned to Zephyrus. “I don’t think I’d want to even if I could.”

Zephyrus looked at his own prophecy, painted with mostly blue, a few red, and one green underline. “It seems the blue favors my fate. Which prophecy does this coincide with?”

Nallia pointed to the tome. A black portrait of a cloaked man holding a black sword covered half the page.

The Harbinger.

Zephyrus felt his hopes settle at the pit of his stomach, and his shoulders slumped. If I’m the Harbinger, I’m fated only to give rise to another.

The scroll from the Arcane Templar, stained with Threyna’s and Patrus’s blood, still held secrets—mysteries of his past that might guide his future. Laeden said the brightest minds of New Rheynia were scouring tomes to help him reconnect his past. There was still hope, if not from his Prophecy, from the Arcane Templar. If he just had one more clue, perhaps this would all fit together.

“You’re just as likely to be either of the other two,” Nallia said.

“Which do you believe I am?” Zephyrus asked, pointing to the blue lines beneath his prophecy. “Seems I’m more suited to the terrible sort.”

“I will have to give you my answer after I see you upon the sands with my own eyes,” she said, grinning. “Then clouded choices will give way to clarity.”

Zephyrus grunted. Crossing his arms over his chest, he turned in a slow circle to admire her chambers. Paintings, carvings, and mosaics dressed the walls, each depicting a gladiator.

“You love the arena, don’t you?” Zephyrus asked.

“I do,” she said, unabashed. “It’s a place where the lowborn can rise, common men can become legends, and it honors the Gods. Whatever Gods you hold dear, they all value the strength of warriors.”

Zephyrus fought to keep his face stoic.

“It’s a shame I’ll be giving it up,” Nallia said with a sigh. “I’ll miss it.”

“You’re leaving the ludus?” Zephyrus asked.

“Not yet. My father… he…” She looked at him and swallowed. “I just imagine there will be no role for a queen in a ludus.” Her gaze fell to the floor.

Zephyrus nodded. Queen of the slaves. Yet even as he condemned her, he couldn’t comprehend; if she were leaving the ludus, why concern herself with his memories? His prophecies?

Nallia’s cheeks fell sullen. She twisted the amethyst ring about her finger as if she were trying to screw it off.

“Is something wrong?” Zephyrus asked.

Like a dormant volcano that suddenly exploded, Nallia stood and blurted, “I’ve wanted to be the Head Lanista of Stockhelm since I was a girl.” She began pacing about the room. The intensity of her voice continued to grow with every word.

“My brother never wanted it, but I did. My father overlooks me and blames me for his own shortcomings. And now he’s found an excuse to marry me off.” She shook her head and covered her mouth. “The prince is wonderful, but…” She paused looking at him. “Surely, you don’t care about this.”

You’re being used too. In a way, you’re as free as I am.

After a moment of silence and twisting her ring some more, she asked, “Have your memories returned?”

Though he didn’t understand her, he found himself wanting to tell her of his dreams. The hooded men, the combat skills, and the magic he learned in the Arcane Templar. The magic that healed Fenyx’s fingers, ignited his bedside candle, and restrained Tursos’s sword, allowing Fenyx to escape death.

That Lover’s Dream is making me a fool. She’s one of them—a slave owner.

She cared a little more than the others, but he was just a vessel to earn her family more gold and glory. To share such details would be death.

“No memories,” he said.

Looking down at the spinning amethyst ring on her finger, she approached him until their toes touched. Her eyes met his gaze, glowing in the candlelight.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Zephyrus. I will purchase more of the healer’s tonics.”

There was an innocence in her, a kindness. No one ever looked at him the way she looked at him now. She placed her hand on his shoulder.

Am I hallucinating? Cerik warned him of the effects of Lover’s Dream, but this seemed so real. She uses you, he reminded himself. Part of him stirred at her touch, but another part of him wanted to fulfill his fate and bring about the Age of the End of New Rheynian power here and now.

“You could do it, you know?” a voice in Zephyrus’s head whispered. He froze, his stomach lurching at the familiar voice. “I can help you.”

This was not a hallucination. This voice was real. The same one that saved him at the slavers’ auction. Pain lanced through his stomach, accompanying Vykannis’s voice.

Zephyrus swallowed. “Where have you been?” he channeled to the Judge.

“I have been waiting for your memories to return so your full potential could be realized,” Vykannis said. “Now you know enough. It could all begin tonight. Free yourself, gather the Treasures, free the slaves. Together, we can fulfill your destiny.” The voice grew stronger, and so did his stomach pain.

“Kill her and it begins tonight,” Vykannis said.

Zephyrus groaned as the stabbing pain in his gut seemed to twist like a knife.

“Zephyrus?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

Zephyrus wanted to hate her. It enraged him that so many lives were cast aside without a second thought. These slave owners placed no value on human life. Patrus died seeking freedom. Threyna killed herself to avoid being enslaved.

“Kill her.” Vykannis spoke with the even-keeled and utterly calm voice of reason. “This is why you were spared—to free yourself, claim the Treasures, and remake the world.”

His stomach roiled, as if resenting Vykannis’s words. Sweat bubbled on his brow. The muscles between his shoulder blades tensed. His jaw clamped shut. Heat rose to his cheeks, and anger burned within him.

“Zephyrus?” Nallia took his hand in hers. “What’s wrong?”

Vykannis offered Zephyrus everything he wanted: freedom. The ability to fulfill his fate and remake the world. It was tempting, but something felt wrong. He met Nallia’s eyes, green as shining emeralds. Her brow wrinkled; her lips hung open and angled downward. She squeezed his hand, calling his name a third time.

This anger isn’t mine.

Nallia was far from innocent, but that didn’t mean he wanted her dead.

“There must be another path to freedom,” Zephyrus channeled.

“All paths require sacrifice,” Vykannis said. “To remake the world, many a flower must fall. Spare none of these Rheynians—they do not deserve it.”

Zephyrus felt like a dagger was carving out his insides. He swallowed bile. “Not all Rheynians are the same. Those who deserve it will fall. Not her.”

“Who are you to decide?” Vykannis’s voice boomed in Zephyrus’s mind, no longer the voice of reason, but one of malevolence. “Kill her!”

“No!” Zephyrus shouted aloud. Frustration boiled up, and something within him snapped as if the knot in his stomach ruptured. Nallia backed away, raising her hands to defend herself.

He suddenly went cold. The dimly lit candles of the room and the brazier in the corner roared to life, becoming momentary infernos.

Nallia’s chin fell, her eyes wide. She inhaled to scream, but Zephyrus seized her and cupped his hand over her mouth. She fought against him, but he held her. The flames died down, and warmth slowly returned to his blood.

A heavy hand thudded on the door to Nallia’s chambers. “Milady, I heard a shout.”

Burn me. They’ll kill me for this. His mind raced, but each avenue remained void of solutions. Vykannis’s presence was gone, but so was the pain in his gut.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zephyrus said. “I haven’t been forthright.”

How will I talk my way out of this?

“Lady Nallia,” Nortus said, hammering his meaty fist against the door.

Against Zephyrus’s better judgement, he released her. She scrambled away from him, holding herself, but she didn’t raise her voice or even speak.

Zephyrus held his hands out in front of him. “My dreams have told me of my training.” He did his best to appear relaxed, but prepared to pounce if she cried out to Nortus.

Oh, Patrus, was I always such a fool?

He tried to think of the words to say, the words she would want to hear—the words that wouldn’t see him nailed to a Six Arrowed Star—but in the end, only the truth came to mind.

If she calls the guards on me, I will use my gifts and fight for my freedom here and now. I’ll give her this one chance.

His heart thundered in his chest, unsure what ramifications might follow.

“I’m a mage of Celestia,” Zephyrus said. “But I swear on the Judges, I won’t harm you.”

Nallia’s cheeks flushed, and a slow trickle fell from the corner of her eye. She glanced at the door and opened her mouth but closed it again.

Nortus yanked on the doorknob, jarring the lock. “Open the door!”

Nallia fixed her gaze on Zephyrus. She swallowed and cleared her throat, twisting the ring on her finger.

Zephyrus’s blood went cold as heat radiated in his palms. He bit his lip, preparing himself for a fight.

“Everything is fine, Nortus,” Nallia said. “I just, uh, stubbed my toe.”

A pregnant pause suspended time. Zephyrus balked, allowing the heat in his palms to dissipate. Warmth returned to his blood, and he let out a trembling breath.

“Milady, I heard Zephyrus cry out too.”

Nallia never took her eyes off Zephyrus. “Everything is fine, Nortus. Gratitude.”

“Unlock the door,” Nortus said. “I’m comin’ in, and that’s fin—”

“Nortus, I said I am fine. Leave us.”

They remained still as statues. Nortus’s footsteps didn’t retreat, but Nallia took a deep breath and straightened her posture.

She closed the distance between them, reaching out with a tentative hand. “I knew you were special from the moment I laid eyes on you,” she whispered. “The Gods and the Judges must have seen the same in you to put you on such a perilous path.”

She came closer, taking his hand in hers. His breath caught in his throat.

“Your courage to share this with me, the trust you have bestowed upon me… will not be betrayed. I pray one day I’ll have the confidence to do the same…” She trailed off.

Zephyrus’s pounding heart stopped as silence stretched between them. She sounded as if she weren’t finished speaking, but the moment continued absent words. He didn’t know if he should respond, what to say. Searching for words, he found none.

“You should go,” she whispered, letting her hand fall from his.

Zephyrus nodded, mind as blank as his hand was empty.

“I look forward to seeing you in the Kings’ Day Games,” she said, “but I think I know my answer.”

Zephyrus found his tongue. “What answer?”

She smiled. “I believe you’re the Wielder.”

Tension fled Zephyrus’s corded muscles. She could have me killed, but instead she offers encouragement, praise—acceptance.

Zephyrus couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“Goodnight, Zephyrus.”

“Goodnight, Vykinallia.”

As she approached the door to let him out, a sudden realization washed over Zephyrus. Before her hand settled on the knob, he caught her by the wrist. She met his gaze, her smile fracturing beneath his stern expression.

“There’s more I must tell you,” Zephyrus said. “There’s going to be another attack. On your father.”

Chapter 40

In the Shadows

Fenyx V

Stockhelm

It was nearly the end of another long day of training, but it wasn’t over yet. With only two days remaining before the Primus, Auron drove them harder than ever. Fenyx, Zephyrus, and Stegavax would stand together against the three best gladiators from Kaelus’s and Targarus’s ludi.

Perhaps once the three of them could have been a fearsome trio. Now however, between Stegavax’s rust and Zephyrus’s hesitance, Fenyx was prepared to slay all six men who stood against them.

Domina looked down from the balcony. Cleotra—the precious forbidden fruit he never realized he wanted. Part of him wished he never found his way between her thighs. She distracted him from his purpose, but she was so intoxicating.

You can have her in a few hours. For now, focus!

“You must fight as one,” Auron said to the three of them. “The men you stand against will be your equals in skill, but stand above you in knowledge of one another. They will protect each other. You must know your strengths and weaknesses—when to attack and when to defend, when to press and when to retreat—not just for yourselves, but for your brothers.”

Stegavax glared at Zephyrus. “The Harbinger does not deserve to fight beside me.”

“The princes of Salmantica thought otherwise,” Auron said.

Stegavax ignored him and pointed his wooden blade at Fenyx. “And you’re no Champion. When you fall, all will see that your time in the sun was a lie.”

Fenyx bit his lip. The Burning blended with Cleotra’s allure, and together, they had enough of Stegavax. Fenyx reared back his two-handed great sword and swung at Stegavax, forcing him to raise his swords to block. Auron yelled something, but the fight had begun.

Stegavax reeled back, conceding ground. He deflected every blow, but not completely. Fenyx’s tremendous great sword glanced off Stegavax’s shoulder, hip, and thigh. If it were steel in place of wood, he would have painted the sands scarlet with Stegavax’s blood.

Stegavax parried a blow and attempted to counter, but before he could, Fenyx swung again, forcing Stegavax to abandon his attack and lurch out of the way. Stegavax fell to the ground. He lifted his wooden swords like a shield to defend himself, but with two quick swipes, Fenyx discarded them from grasp. He stood atop the once fabled Champion and tossed his great sword off to the side.

“This is my house now.” Fenyx spat on Stegavax. Whether out of breath, or his pride too wounded to reply, Stegavax made no refute.

“Fenyx,” Auron shouted.

Domina applauded from the balcony. “An excellent showing!”

“Did you not hear me?” Auron growled. “You must fight together.”

Stegavax got to his feet.

“I did hear,” Fenyx said, catching Cleotra’s seductive gaze. “We must know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.” He glared at Stegavax. “And now I know the many weaknesses of Stegavax.”

Auron grunted, rubbing his hand over his scalp. “Focus. Together this time!”

Fenyx was bathed and escorted to the villa, this time by Odetta. While Dominus attended to whatever tasks a chancellor did, Fenyx would content himself with the comforts of his wife.

Odetta eyed him nervously as she led him through the halls of the villa to the dominus’s chambers on the third floor. Just before the door, she turned to face Fenyx, her bronze skin reflecting the torches’ glow.

“I was long promised to the Champion of the house,” she said. “I was to be his wife, but I know you are Champion now…” Her eyes were downcast, shoulders slumped. “Is it too much to ask you to… protect Stegavax on Kings’ Day?”

Fenyx guffawed. Is this woman serious?

Her eyes remained fixated on the floor. “He has not yet returned to strength, and I fear his pride will be the death of him. I loved him once, as I’m sure I will love you one day, but if you could keep him safe…”

He needs this timid wisp of a girl to plead for his life. Fenyx couldn’t contain himself any longer. He laughed at Odetta. “I fear he won’t last the week, regardless of what I do. Besides, I have no use for you. You can have Stegavax.”

Without another word, Fenyx pushed past her and opened the door to where his domina awaited him. He closed the door behind him, shutting Odetta out.

“My Champion,” she said, her long, bare legs entwined in a sheet on the bed. “You kept me waiting far too long.”

Fenyx’s desire groaned within him. The Burning was an unquenchable voracity that could only be quelled by the kill, but this new sensation could only be sated by her.

He advanced and lost himself in her rapture. Time was static, concerns were void, and life blossomed. Their euphoria was something only the Gods could understand. He lost himself in her. Moonlight cut through the window, illuminating her body against his. Slick with sweat and desire, they danced upon the pillows as the nightly storms thundered against their own bellows of pleasure. Moments stretched on until the hour grew late.

“You should go,” Cleotra whispered, her legs still entwined with his. She traced her index finger down his chest.

He took her hand in his. “It might kill me to leave.”

The sound of horses reining up outside shoved them from the moment. Cleotra tugged his face towards her one last time. Her lips met his, as delicate as flower petals, but as fervent as the sun.

“Go,” she whispered. “We will meet again soon.”

Fenyx gathered himself and fled her chamber. He looked left and right for Odetta but couldn’t find her. Burn me, where is that pathetic girl? Fenyx flew through the villa as if Jackals were chasing him. What if I’m caught or questioned? What would I—

Rough hands grabbed him from behind. Fear stole his enraptured peace. Fenyx attempted to whirl, but the attacker’s grip was too strong. He bucked his head back, but his strike found no purchase. He attempted to stomp on his assailant’s instep, but, during the strike, he lost his balance and fell into the wall. His attacker pinned his arm behind his back.

Fenyx’s breath came in short sharp stabs like Taric’s knife in the dark. No time to think, no breath to scream, Fenyx waited for the cold steel to pierce his flesh. Auron was right—too many enemies. How can this be my end, so far from the glory of the arena?

“Be still,” the voice hissed. “It’s Zephyrus.”

Fenyx growled. Zephyrus? He struggled to free himself, but Zephyrus’s hold did not relent. “Let go of me!”

“Silence.” Zephyrus released him.

Fenyx wheeled around, ready to clobber him. “You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you,” Zephyrus said, scanning their surroundings. “What are you doing?”

Fenyx seethed. The insolence. “I am Champion. I go where I please.”

Zephyrus gave Fenyx a harrowing scowl. “The Revivalists are going to attack Dominus.”

Fenyx’s nostrils flared. “More conspiracies. What are you really playing at? I know you want your precious freedom.”

The creaky door from the stables announced Dominus’s return. He climbed the stairs. Zephyrus beckoned Fenyx to a darkened corner of the corridor opposite Dominus’s path. Dominus grumbled with each step until he summited the stairway and went to his chambers.

“I warned you of this,” Zephyrus said once Dominus left earshot.

“There is no attack. You are delusi—”

Zephyrus held up a silencing finger. The sound of soft footfalls ascending the stairs disturbed the quiet villa. Cloaked in darkness, a figure followed in Dominus’s wake.

Zephyrus stalked after him.

Fenyx couldn’t believe it. He followed, taking caution to be as quiet as Zephyrus, but Zephyrus’s feet barely seemed to contact the floor in his pursuit of the hooded figure.

The gleam of a blade caught the flickering torchlight, and the hooded figure became an assassin. The assassin disappeared into Dominus’s chambers.

Fenyx’s stomach tightened. Cleotra!

Fenyx shoved Zephyrus out of the way. A moment later, a shrill cry erupted into the night. Fenyx charged into the room. The assassin stood over Dominus, the two struggling with a small blade clutched between them. Fenyx launched himself at the assassin and threw him away from the bed. Dominus swore, and Cleotra cried for the Gods.

Zephyrus entered just behind Fenyx and grappled the assassin. Fenyx yanked Cleotra and Dominus from the bed and shoved them to the doorway.

“Guards!” Dominus shouted.

Zephyrus wrestled the assassin. With a jerk of his wrist, the assassin’s fingers broke, joints dislocating. The assassin let out a cry, dropping the knife. Zephyrus bent the assassin’s wrist backwards and wrenched his shoulder behind him, shoving him to the ground. He groaned but was unable to escape Zephyrus’s grasp.

Burn me... he was right!

A stampede of guards stormed into the dimly lit chambers. Fenyx held his hands up while Zephyrus subdued the attacker.

“Stop!” Nallia pushed her way through the guards, Odetta close behind. Nallia balked at the sight of Fenyx before turning to Zephyrus.

“I’ve got him,” Zephyrus said.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Dominus shouted, shoving his way back into the room. His glare found Fenyx.

Fenyx’s shallow breathing stalled. What would a Champion say?

His gaze fell to the floor; his tongue felt foreign between his cheeks. Despite the movement of his mouth, no words came.

Nallia put her hand on Dominus’s arm. “Zephyrus warned me of a threat against your life, plotted by the Revivalists. I instructed Nortus to let him out of the barracks to protect you.”

“And I summoned Fenyx to watch over you,” Cleotra said. “You denied yourself a bodyslave. Is it any wonder we procured your finest fighters to protect you?”

Breath flooded Fenyx’s choked lungs. Thank the Judges for Cleotra.

Dominus nodded, absorbing the information, but the bloodlust in his eyes failed to subside. “Who is this traitor? I would see his face.” He motioned for Zephyrus to pry the assassin from the floor. Zephyrus forced the man into the light and drove him to kneel before Dominus.

Dominus removed the hood covering the attacker’s face. Thick, angled eyebrows sat atop a square jaw. Despite the sweat and blood obscuring the assassin’s face, Fenyx recognized him immediately. Fenyx’s burned cheek twitched.

Carsos! But why?

“One of my own gladiators?” Dominus asked, seizing Carsos by the collar of his cloak. “Who put you up to this?”

Carsos’s eyes darted around the room. “If I tell, what will happen to me?”

Dominus picked up the knife meant to kill him and aimed it at Carsos’s chest. “If you don’t tell, you die!”

The stone in Carsos’s throat bobbed.

Cleotra’s eyes were wet with tears, but she was safe. Zephyrus was right.

“Chimera’s breath, who?” Dominus jabbed the blade before Carsos’s face. “Say the name! I will spare you, but only if you give me the name.”

Trembling overtook Carsos’s kneeling form. “Liario. He forced me to!”

Dominus’s wily brow contorted above his hawkish eyes. He drove the knife into Carsos’s chest.

“You try to murder me?”

The blade retracted and dove back in.

“In my own bed?”

Again. Again.

“You Celestic filth!” Again and again, Dominus stabbed, until the spray of Carsos’s blood drenched tattered cloak and silken toga alike. Cleotra and Nallia looked away as Carsos fell from Zephyrus’s grasp to the floor.

“Another one, Dominus,” Nortus said, dragging Ixion up the stairs and forcing him to his knees. “Zephyrus was right. He was readying horses to make their escape.”

“How many horses?” Zephyrus asked.

“Four,” Nortus said.

Dominus wheeled on Ixion, the blade, slick with Carsos’s blood, leading the way. “Where is Liario?”

“Where’s Lenox?” Zephyrus asked.

Fenyx clenched his jaw to still his twitching burns. Judges preserve me, what is happening?

The other guards looked around, realizing Lenox and Liario were both missing.

“Find them!” Dominus’s roar bellowed louder than the thunder echoing off the Hylan peaks. The guards scattered to do as they were bid, but Fenyx couldn’t move. His feet felt like they’d been welded to the floor.

“Is it true?” Dominus asked Nortus. “Liario and Lenox?”

Nortus nodded.

Dominus didn’t hesitate. He slashed the knife across Ixion’s throat. Ixion dropped to the floor, sputtering his final breaths. Fenyx couldn’t believe his eyes.

Promising gladiators, dead—butchered so far from the honor of the arena. What if Dominus found me in his bed?

Ixion croaked on the floor as life flowed from the gash in his throat.

That could have been me…

Fenyx eyed Zephyrus, his eyes more aflame than his red hair. He was right. What else might he be right about?

Chapter 41

The Temples

Laeden XII

Salmantica

Three days after the Salmantic Games. Three days—come and gone—and Laeden had nothing. No prisoners, no suspects, no leads—nothing. The attack sent the entire realm into a panicked frenzy, and too much time passed without resolution.

“Surely you must know something,” the king asked. “The senate won’t keep waiting.”

He couldn’t meet his father’s gaze.

“What about this Uprising business?”

“I don’t know.” Laeden’s heart couldn’t sink any deeper.

Three more days and still not a word from Iylea. No one cared that she was gone. Aside from Danella, no one even mentioned her. Their conversation still perplexed him.

“She always had a heart towards the disenfranchised,” Danella had said to Laeden. “Is it any surprise she left for the Uprising?”

“She said something strange to me, the last time I saw her,” Laeden had said. He didn’t want to share everything, but he wanted to test Danella to gauge her reaction. “She told me she was a seer.”

Danella raised her hand to her lips, speechless for a time. “Perhaps it’s better this way. Your father would be faced with a difficult decision if a seer were discovered in our court.”

Was Iylea right about Danella? Was Danella right about Iylea?

“My son,” Varros said, putting a hand on his shoulder, dragging Laeden’s focus from his self-pity. “You’re doing all you can, but you don’t have to do this on your own.”

Laeden was speechless. Since when was ‘doing all I can’ ever enough?

“You will see this through.” His father patted his shoulder. “And the realm will be safe because of your efforts, but there is strength in knowing when to ask for help.”

But no one can help. As much as he felt like a failure, he was the only one doing anything to stop the Revivalists. Even Zephyrus had disappointed him. While his plans to bring the Revivalists within House Cassius to justice were still in motion, Zephyrus took matters into his own hands and beat him to it. Now with two dead and two missing, there was no one to interrogate. No one to question. Zephyrus’s impatience was a setback—not a victory. He’d exhausted every lead the Sentinels had.

Other than Aelon’s lead.

“Thank you, Father,” Laeden said, as an idea formed. “I will keep you updated.”

With renewed vigor and restored purpose, Laeden left his father. He’d been sitting on Aelon’s information for too long, but now his patience would pay off.

He sent for Royce, the kitchen boy Aelon once used to serve as his messenger.

“Deliver this to Markus at the Lion’s Academy,” Laeden told Royce, handing him a tightly rolled scroll. Royce pocketed the scroll and held his hand out. Laeden placed two gold coins in the boy’s hand. With the glint of gold in his eye, Royce nodded and moved to purpose.

Next, Laeden summoned Pirus and went to his chambers. He scribbled a note and dressed himself in his Sentinel cloak in preparation for his night out in the city. It wasn’t long before Pirus arrived. Laeden busied himself in his chambers, making it appear like he was rushing.

“Captain.” Pirus saluted.

“Pirus, I need you to deliver this to Lieutenant Markus Cassius at once.” He handed Pirus a roll of parchment. “No one can know where I’m going but Markus, am I clear?”

“Yes, Captain!”

With his plan in place, Laeden set out into the city to go to the Temples of the Six.

Laeden didn’t frequent the temples. He went with his mother as a boy, but ever since his father took the throne in Salmantica, going to the Temples didn’t feel right. His father wasn’t particularly devout, but he made Laeden go anyway. In Laeden’s stubborn youth, not attending was one way of acting out.

The nightly rains fell and thunder rumbled overhead as Laeden made his way through the city streets. While the nightly rains kept some at bay, patrons still crowded the Street of Ale. Although the tavern-lined road was the most direct route to the Temple District, Laeden needed to be alone for his plan to work.

He stopped at the Gilded Gauntlet where the statue of Damascus Drake rose to Valencia. The savior of the Rheynian people, the first king of the new world. His hand extended, he pointed to the future. He didn’t question himself. What great leader would? But how many died to build his empire? How many like Iylea—if her confession were true—suffered on Six Arrowed Stars, praying for death? Did Damascus Drake question himself then?

Laeden trudged through the puddles of the cobbled streets until arriving in the Temple District. The first temple enshrined Phaebia, Goddess of air, wind, and light. Tall columns ornamented with white banners held up the statue of her likeness; she extended her hand in peace as a symbol of hope and forgiveness.

His mother prayed to her often. While his father fought in the war and before they presumed him dead at sea, Mother prayed incessantly. Her prayers brought him home, but she lost him either way. Faith failed, and Laeden never forgave Phaebia.

Wherever Mother is—if she’s still alive—does she still pray to Phaebia?

He walked past the second temple erected for Incinerae, Goddess of fire, love, and affection. After his parent’s annulment, Laeden wasn’t sure if he believed in love anymore, let alone a Goddess of Love. But he met Iylea, and everything changed.

He shoved the feelings aside.

Focus.

Next he passed Moterra, the Goddess of Earth. People prayed to her for a bountiful harvest, but also for wisdom and family affairs. He gave up on Moterra first. Laeden looked away from the statue to avoid reliving the painful memories of unanswered prayers.

The temple of Aquarius, the God of Water, was next. It was the first temple erected in Salmantica after the Great Migration. Deep blue-and-purple banners rippled like waves beneath the statue of the bearded sea God. He recalled his first voyage from Valtarcia to Salmantica after being separated from his mother. He’d been praying to Aquarius for safe travel when his father silenced him. Laeden didn’t understand at the time, but the shipwreck his father experienced during the war led to his own disbelief in Aquarius.

Beyond Aquarius, Ferrocles, the God of War, pointed a sword to the sky. Worshiped for his courage in battle and perseverance—if there was a God of War—Laeden needed him now. But if Ferrocles was anything like his siblings, Laeden didn’t need another disappointment.

Finally, Laeden stopped before the last of the temples—Hameryn, the God or Goddess of Harmony. No columns or banners adorned the temple, just a statue of the hooded, faceless deity. It was said that Hameryn changed shape, presenting themself to mortals in an acceptable way to change the hearts of the people they touched. Laeden wondered how long Hameryn had been lost to the mortal realm because there was no harmony to be found in any reach of the wide world.

Approaching Hameryn’s temple, Laeden didn’t need to look behind him to know Pirus was following him.

The Six-damned bastard probably read the scroll the moment I dismissed him.

But that’s what Laeden had counted on. If Aelon were right about Vellarin being part of a mole-sting operation, then Laeden’s letter to Markus about investigating the temples would have sent Pirus to his Revivalist superiors. However, if Pirus did his job, he never would have found Markus, who had already been sent here, thanks to Royce.

Laeden entered the temple. Simple, peaceful, and unadorned compared to the rest of the temples, Hameryn’s was a sanctuary of acceptance. A priest knelt in prayer before the shrine. Laeden didn’t disturb him. Instead, he sat down at one of the pews at the front of the temple.

Moments later, the door opened again. Footsteps entered—three or four men, by the sound. Laeden resisted the urge to turn around.

The priest, however, did not. “What is the meaning of this?”

Laeden glimpsed four men wearing Sentinel blue out the corner of his eye. They approached the priest.

“Official Sentinel business,” Pirus said.

Laeden’s palms moistened. He dried them on his thighs, ready for a fight, but not willing to start it four against one.

Markus, where are you?

“Stand back, priest!” Pirus warned, “Prince Laeden is under arrest for aiding the Uprising and disturbing the king’s peace.”

Out of time. Laeden stood and drew his sword, assuming a defensive stance. “Traitors.” He eyed the faces of men who served him, or at least pretended to. They drew their own swords.

The priest ran to the corner, pleading for them to take the fighting outside, but Pirus and his men ignored him, advancing on Laeden.

They don’t need me alive to frame me. He needed to play it safe until Markus arrived, but his fists shook on the hilt of his sword. These men are the reason why our country is in shambles. Their fear of the Gods’ wrath led to the New Rheynian War. That war divided Salmantica and Valtarcia. And the peace treaty that reconciled those kingdoms tore my family apart. I will have my justice.

The four advanced. Laeden blocked a hack from his left and spun, slamming his elbow into the attacker’s jaw. He dodged a vertical strike from another and ducked a horizontal slash from Pirus. He kicked Pirus in the gut, shoving him away. Laeden chopped down at the fourth false Sentinel. The man cried as steel bit into his thigh, his blue trousers drinking the blood.

Laeden blocked, dodged, and vaulted over a pew to give himself space. Unsheathing his throwing knife with the Six Arrowed Star embossed into the hilt, he threw it into the shoulder of one false Sentinel. As the Sentinel stumbled back, Laeden charged forward. With a flurry of blows, he struck the sword free from Pirus’s grasp. Thunder boomed outside as Laeden levied his sword at Pirus.

“Stand down,” Laeden shouted to the others. They didn’t. They attacked, all at once, sending Laeden reeling. Pirus picked up his sword and rejoined the fray. The four backed Laeden against the shrine. He deflected and dodged, but there were too many for him to hope to force their surrender.

The doors to the temple burst inward. Lightning pierced the sky, and light flooded into the dark nave. Markus and six men entered, swords drawn.

“Weapons down!” Markus shouted, as he and his men surrounded Pirus’s traitors.

Laeden let out an uneasy breath. “I want them alive! I need answers out of them.”

The true Sentinels disarmed and subdued the false.

Markus nodded at Laeden as the prisoners were manacled and forced to their knees before him. “We got them, Captain.”

“Perhaps arrive a little sooner next time,” Laeden said.

“Perhaps a little more notice,” Markus said. “Or don’t use yourself as bait.”

Laeden grinned, standing over the kneeling men. “Who wants to talk? The first to tell me who shot the flaming arrows at the Salmantic Games won’t get sentenced to death.”

The men looked at each other, but none spoke.

The priest emerged from the shadow, away from the corner’s safety. Old enough to have seen the Disasters of Rheynia, he bowed as he approached. “The Revivalists didn’t attack the pulvinus, my prince.”

“What do you mean?” Laeden asked.

“I’ve seen many things.” The priest rubbed his gnarled knuckles with his palms. “But I know the elemental magic when I see it. Those arrows were not lit by natural fire.”

Laeden narrowed his eyes at the priest. “Magic?”

“Celestic magic, yes.”

Breath escaped Laeden’s lungs, and his grip on his sword hilt faltered. Six save me.

Chapter 42

Ghosts of the Past

Threyna III

Salmantica

“You’re wasting time,” Paxoran said.

Threyna let her head loll to the side, as if he were lying on the Guardians’ table beside her. Blood and bone, just leave me be.

Threyna had murdered three Guardians of the Arcane Templar—three talented mages, single-handedly. After she’d regained consciousness, she claimed the Vykane Blade, consumed what was left of the Guardians, and, by all the ghosts in Rheynia, all she wanted to do was rest.

“You are not the only one seeking the Treasures,” Paxoran continued. “If you consume more souls, you can continue.”

Bruises faded. Bones mended. Wounds healed. Such were the benefits of being alive.

Back on the cursed island of Rheynia, things weren’t so simple. Death inside the curse meant one of three fates. After suffering a death of any kind, a soul could be trapped within its body; the hollowed would live for eternity in a decaying husk unable to heal or regenerate, going mad with pain. Shades had the fortune to leave their bodies, floating like haunted specters left to wander aimlessly, absent sentience. But worst of all were the darklings. Sometimes, when a soul departed its dying flesh, it retained its sentience, longing to live again by invading a host body and assuming control.

After surviving the ghosts of Rheynia, Threyna was content to allow her body’s natural healing process run its course. Especially when the alternative was stealing life from others. It was one thing to take from the dead, but it was another to consume the living. After draining the Guardians, she had returned to the surface to consume more souls, hoping to abate the remaining rot and heal her wounds prior to setting off for the second Treasure. She found a vagabond, weak and sick, but still very much alive. Consuming his soul, she barely managed to get the rot to retreat from her wrist to her forearm. There was no equivalency of exchange.

What is a life in comparison to me waiting a few weeks?

Paxoran said she was wasting time, and perhaps he was right, but she was saving it for someone else.

With her bruises lightening to yellows instead of deep purples, and her corrupted veins ebbing back to the scars where the cursed bangle afflicted her, she finally felt well enough to leave the catacombs.

She groaned, sitting upright. “Ghosts, are you happy now? See, I’m leaving.”

Paxoran grunted. “The Stormburn Geyser in Stockhelm. The Orsion Cloak.”

Threyna swung her legs over the side of the table and set her feet down on the earthen floor. She knew where she needed to go. She knew who and what would be waiting. More Guardians. More mages doing their duty. More men and women willing to die to defend the Treasures until the Wielder arrived.

As Threyna walked past the desiccated corpses, she wondered if Zephyrus really was the Wielder. She didn’t pretend to be a Celestic scholar or study the prophecies of the Return, but there were several instances in his that didn’t seem to coincide with the Wielder. While she put little credence into her own prophecy and knew beyond doubt she wasn’t the Arcane Templar’s version of the Wielder, she was the one with the Vykane Blade at her hip.

The blade possessed a simple elegance to it, but nothing about it seemed extraordinary. She only hoped Paxoran was right that the Treasures were worth killing for. Worth dying for.

Her feet scuffed the sodden ground, squishing as she returned to one of the many ladders she’d discovered throughout the catacombs. Climbing the rungs one by one, she left the death and decay behind to return to the surface.

She ascended into a sealed-off portion of the sewer system and followed the clean, albeit dank, tunnel until she reached the end. A metal case of spiral stairs wound to the surface, adjacent to the Aquarian River. Though it was in the opposite direction of her path to Stockhelm, it put her furthest from the Gilded Gauntlet and anyone who might have been watching it.

The fresh air of the grimy city was a welcomed joy compared to the thin air of the catacombs and the scent of death that drenched it. Dusk had settled on Salmantica, and with it rolling claps of thunder loomed from the east. But that was where she needed to go.

Pulling her hood up, she tucked her braid within her cloak. Head down, she fled the alleyway and entered into the busy street along the channel with others attempting to avoid the rain. She kept to the main roads, hiding in plain sight as she made her way north, bypassing patrols of Vigiles, Sentinels, and Jackals. By the time she reached the rotunda before the moat of Sentigard, a light rain had begun to fall.

She turned off the main road, heading east towards Marstead. The foot traffic thinned, made lighter by the rain’s growing urgency. With only a few people on the street, a follower would be easy to spot. Tapping into her Inner Throne, she attuned to the heartbeats of those nearest her and quickened her step. Such a thing against an encroaching storm shouldn’t have drawn attention, but a heartbeat began trotting behind her.

Threyna lengthened her stride. If someone was fool enough to follow her, she’d put an end to it in short order.

The heartbeat sped to a canter.

Threyna bristled. How could the Templars know? How did they follow?

The rain fell harder. Lightning streaked across the sky, and thunder bellowed in response.

Threyna looked over her shoulder. The street had emptied, and two figures, cloaked in black, strode side by side, keeping pace with her.

Threyna released her grasp on her Inner Throne and turned down a side street. Nestling into the arches of a doorway, Threyna waited to see if they would pass. Not wanting to be wasteful with the use of her Inner Throne, Threyna resisted. She took a deep breath and peeked around the corner.

The figures turned down the same street as her.

She bit her lip. In a few more paces, they would see her.

Patience.

The figures turned to her, their faces dark beneath their cloaks, but they did not stop. They continued down the street, walking past her.

Threyna released her held breath, shoulders sagging.

She exited the cover of the arches and returned the way she had come, but the moment she set foot on the path, four figures emerged from the shadows, blocking her path. The two she thought had passed turned around to box her in.

Gory ghosting dammit.

“Stop there, Threyna,” said one of the two hooded figures behind her.

The rain’s patter quickened. Gusts swelled between the buildings, whistling against the wooden façades of storefronts and the dark stone stoops of the more elegant living quarters. The hanging oil lamp lights swayed on their hinges, casting the puddling streets in an eerie glow.

Threyna glanced over her shoulder at the woman who spoke.

Sybex.

Slender and fierce as a whip, Sybex strode closer. Her pronounced cheekbones and smooth skin made it appear as if she were etched from onyx. The hard lines of her face paired with the combat-ready stance of her posture to send a chill down Threyna’s back.

“I knew Vellarix shouldn’t have trusted you,” Sybex said. “All Vykannis’s courage and none of Orsius’s wisdom. He didn’t see you for what you were, but I did from the moment I saw you.” She drew her gladius with her right as lightning crackled in her left.

“I need the Treasures,” Threyna said, reaching for the hilt of the Vykane Blade. “Unless you want to end up like the Warlocks in the City of the Judges, just let me have them. My fight is not with you. It’s—”

“Oh, we know,” Sybex said.

All six Templars advanced on Threyna.

“The Skeleton King,” Sybex said. “Your fight may not be against us, but ours is certainly against you.”

Swords, daggers, and Celestic magic encroached. Threyna’s feet felt rooted to the cobblestones beneath her—not from fear, but force magic.

“We protect the Treasures,” said the man beside Sybex, “from people like you.” His black curls spilled out from under his hood to catch the rain.

Threyna recognized him, less from his appearance, and more because of the strength of his force magic, binding her feet to the street: Ceres, the Templar’s most talented force-mage.

She recalled Zephyrus telling a story to Patrus how Aikous had assigned them to pick a lock with force magic. While Zephyrus was able to move the pins into place with care, Ceres elected to knock the door from its hinges.

Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne. She couldn’t waste time, energy, or her blood magic fighting six mages. She’d barely survived three. If she killed them, the Templar would only send more.

I just need to get out of here.

The time between lightning strikes and subsequent claps of thunder quickened.

“You must think you’re brilliant,” Sybex said, needing to shout over the pouring rain. “Learning the Treasures’ locations, betraying Patrus and Zephyrus.” She aimed her sword at Threyna. “I’m assuming Makaryk, Kuhnae, and Brooxus are dead, then.” Sybex nodded at the Vykane Blade at Threyna’s hip. She shook her head. “Judges preserve them. But their deaths will not be in vain.”

The ghosts of the past will always catch up to us, won’t they, Laela?

Threyna sank into her Inner Throne. Unwilling to give them the initiative, she conjured a snare of grasping tendrils that rose from under Ceres’s feet. In his distraction, the force magic binding her soles to the cobbles relinquished.

As Sybex’s crackling fingertips aimed at Threyna, Threyna conjured a spider’s web before her. Sybex’s bolt of electricity surged into Threyna’s net, but never reached her. Lurching out of the way, Threyna hurled the electrified web at the four mages standing between her and her escape. The unsuspecting group convulsed as Sybex’s energy rattled through them.

With the other mages ensnared, Sybex lunged for Threyna with her gladius. Drawing the Vykane Blade, Threyna deflected the thrust aside. Thunder blared overhead, and lightning cracked the sky as they traded blows, the rain drowning out the clash of steel.

Conjuring a manacle around Sybex’s sword arm, Threyna jousted for Sybex’s midsection. Before she could strike, Ceres, now free from her trap, launched Threyna backwards and to her left with a powerful blast of invisible energy.

She thudded into a building. Her left shoulder crunched under the impact and hung limp as she struggled to her feet.

Just as the four mages blocking her way regained themselves from Threyna’s electrified web, a pair of Vigiles in their white cloaks stepped onto the street behind Sybex and Ceres.

“Hey!” a Vigile shouted over the rain.

Another raised a horn to his lips. The trumpet pierced through the rain’s downfall and the thunder’s clamor. The call continued, blaring through the streets and echoing off of the buildings.

Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne. The rot sprouted down her arm and up her shoulder like a cursed weed in spring, but she couldn’t afford to continue the fight if she was to escape Salmantica and make it to Stockhelm. Threyna conjured a thorny tangle of vines. The bloody tendrils snaked around the four Templars’ legs and ripped them from their feet. The vine tugged, dragging them up the street to the approaching Vigiles. Though they attempted to free themselves, her grip on her blood magic was too strong.

Ceres’s force magic fought against her conjuring, but it opened her path.

Threyna ran towards the intersection to continue her way to the northeastern gate.

“Don’t let her get away!” Sybex shouted. But the Vigiles were on them.

Ceres flung the horn blower from his feet, lifting him into the air as high as the awnings of the storefronts, but the trumpet’s blare was enough. A group of Sentinels in gray and blue stampeded in her direction, coming from the west. Threyna looked over her shoulder before she dipped around the corner. Her conjures would fail, but they bought her the time she needed.

Sheathing the Vykane Blade, Threyna took off to the northeastern gate. She hoped the Sentinels would at least slow down the Templars, but she had no doubt this was not the last time she would see Ceres or Sybex. With her shoulder hanging limp as she ran, and the rot spreading from the scars left by the Skeleton King’s cursed bangle, she just wished it wouldn’t be soon.

Chapter 43

Prophecy

Danella VI

Salmantica

Danella crumpled up the scroll and tossed it into the hearth. The flames licked at the parchment and scorched the edges before engulfing it in a swell of heat. Two days after losing her foothold within House Cassius, her spies within the Sentinels’ ranks were caught by Laeden’s cleverness.

Pirus, the fool, walked right into his trap.

“I can take care of them,” Daenus said from behind her, speaking of Pirus and the other three Revivalists in the dungeons. “Dead men never speak.”

“No.” Danella framed her chin with her thumb and forefinger. “Laeden holds them within the castle intentionally. He’s trying to bait us into doing just that.”

“Do we just let them speak and undermine all we’ve accomplished?”

“No,” Danella said, taking her seat by the fire. “It’s time to pray and let the Gods guide our next steps.”

She closed her eyes. “Gods, I come as your humble servant. I uphold the Facets of Perfection and honor your strength, determination, and intelligence. Your beauty grants me serenity and faith. Almighty and all powerful, everything I am, everything I have done, and everything I will be is only at your allowance. Gratitude for your guidance.

“I ask you for your infinite wisdom. Help me discern the intentions of my enemies, lead me to do your will, and eradicate these false Judges so your rule over this land can reign supreme.” She bowed her head. “Phaebia, grant me hope. Moterra, guide me with wisdom. Incinerae, let my actions be led by love. Ferrocles, grant me the strength to persevere. Aquarius, have compassion for those I have failed to guide to your will. And Hameryn, lead us into a future of peace and harmony.”

Danella cleared her mind and waited for the Gods to speak with her. She opened her eyes and watched the tongues of fire dance before her within the hearth. As if directed by Incinerae, the flames split into two sections, mirroring one another before joining back together.

Laeden used Pirus to lead him to other Revivalists within the Sentinels. Perhaps I can use Iylea to make Laeden appear to be aligned with the Uprising. But I can’t risk letting her out.

Laeden lured her into a trap and took her pawns, but he made one crucial error. Laeden knew Iylea was a seer but did nothing about it. With the fall of House Brusos and the attack at the Salmantic Games, the Uprising had become a more feared villain than the Revivalists.

I can fan that flame.

“We could poison their rations,” Daenus said of the Sentinels’ prisoners.

“No,” Danella said, “they might still prove more use to us alive.”

“My queen, Pirus knows my involvement.”

“The others?”

Daenus shook his head.

Danella nodded. “See it done then. Just Pirus, though. The others might be our most compelling witnesses.” Daenus didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to; the gears of Danella’s mind churned. “Take me to the seer. It is time we make use of her.”

They strode from the study and made their way to the secret dungeon. Danella’s father had been secretive with the designs of Sentigard, but she grew up in this castle—she knew every stone, hidden corridor, and trapdoor. Not even Varros knew of this dungeon.

Ser Daenus escorted her down the staircase that emptied onto a landing. The staircase continued down and to the left, but Danella kept to the dark stone wall on the right. When the stairwell was clear, she kicked the third stone from the left, and the lever clicked into place. The stones fell away into a steep, narrow stairwell down to the right.

She picked up her skirts and descended with Daenus following close behind. Daenus pulled the lever inside the cramped corridor, and the stairwell above disappeared, reforming the wall. A narrow spiral staircase constructed of black stone glowed in the torchlight, guiding Danella’s descent into the dungeon.

Once at the bottom of the spiral stair, Brusos’s pale blue eyes and tight-lipped smile greeted her. He sat beside the cell where a filthy Iylea tossed and turned in fitful sleep.

Brusos bowed. “My queen, you have found yourself quite the prize.”

“Right under my nose all these years,” Danella said. My best handmaiden. Other than her trysts with Laeden, she was dutiful, proper, and pleasant. What will become of her now that I know the monster she truly is?

“Has she woken?” Daenus asked.

“She has opened her eyes,” Brusos said, running his hand through his short black hair. “Muttering, groaning, speaking nonsense—but not awake.”

Danella stepped closer to examine Iylea. Haggard and disheveled, she looked more beast than girl. Tangles of hair matted to her forehead. The grime of the dungeon floor stained the serving dress she had worn to the feast. The way her eyes darted back and forth beneath her lids made Danella feel as if she were being watched by the sleeping girl.

“What are your plans for her?” Brusos asked.

Danella averted her gaze from the mage. “That depends. We must wake her and go from there. Before we do that, I trust your accommodations are suitable?”

“Very,” Brusos said with another bow. “Your grace is an exquisite host.”

After torching his own ludus and villa to lay the foundations for her plans, the least she could do was give the man and his wife a place to stay in her dungeons.

Danella nodded. “Any developments on your end?”

Brusos squinted, and his lips spread into a flat reptilian grin. “Your plan worked magnificently. The Sentinels believe it to be the work of the Uprising. My bodyslave, Falcos, set the fires and led the rest of my slaves to the southern jungles while they wait for orders.”

“We will have to provide him with a gift to deliver to the Uprising. Earn their trust.”

“And once he is within their ranks, we will dismantle them from within,” Brusos said.

“Yes,” Danella said, the gears of her mind turning. “I will have to think on that. Unfortunately, our machinations inside House Cassius have fallen to disarray.”

“Cassius lives?” Brusos asked, his grin waning.

Danella scoffed. “The weasel lives. Lenox and Liario have taken to the wind as well.”

Brusos rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. His pale eyes provided little emotion, but Danella could sense his displeasure. He couldn’t be chancellor until Cassius was dead or framed.

“Don’t worry,” Danella said. “All will fall into place. For now, you may take your leave. Daenus and I will watch over the seer. We have some questions for her.”

Brusos bowed and took his leave to one of the other cells within the dungeon. Danella did her best to make the accommodations welcoming to Brusos and Cerberynn for their sacrifice, but a dungeon was still a dungeon regardless of the finery.

“You place too much trust in him,” Daenus said once Brusos left earshot.

“I don’t trust people,” she said, glaring at her former handmaiden. “I trust the Gods. Now wake her. It’s time to see what this seer knows of the Uprising.”

Daenus rattled the cell door, trying to jar Iylea awake, but she continued to sleep fretfully. Danella gestured for Daenus to go in and wake her up. He unlocked the cell and went to Iylea, but as he neared, her eyes snapped open. Daenus lurched backwards.

“Too many links on the chain,” Iylea said, her eyes rolling to the back of her head, revealing only the whites. “The last rains come. Six will become five. The Harbinger swift to rise. The chain must be undone.”

Gooseflesh pimpled Danella’s arms. The Return of the Judges! “Silence!”

Iylea didn’t seem to notice. She continued babbling, repeating the same words like an incantation. Her voice grew louder with each iteration. Daenus advanced to silence her, but she snapped to attention, staring straight at Danella, eyes hauntingly white.

Daenus tried to hold back Iylea’s advance, but, as if she bore Ferrocles’s strength, she shrugged him off. She came to the cell bars, reaching her arms through for Danella. Daenus, realizing the futility, retreated outside of the cell and locked Iylea within. Her body began to shake as if the Disasters of Rheynia were upon her. Even as she shook, the whites of her eyes stared straight at Danella.

Danella’s breath caught. A chill ran down her spine, freezing the breath in her lungs.

Six save us.

The girl spoke in a voice, deeper and raspier than her own. “Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

Daenus slashed his sword into the bars of the cell. The loud clang of steel on steel broke Iylea from her terrifying trance.

Danella backed away. Fear opened its arms to her and wrapped her in its cruel embrace. Iylea, opened her eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. Blood drained from her face, and she fell to the ground in a heap. Danella felt like she might collapse, herself.

“My queen,” Daenus said, trying to lead her away from the cell. He continued to speak, but Iylea’s prophecy repeated in her head, drowning Daenus out. He led her up the spiral staircase. “I will rid her from the castle.”

Noise from the stairwell beyond the false wall broke her from her daze. She shushed Daenus and waited for the bustle to pass.

“Do no such thing. I must think.” She raised her hands to her temples. Stay strong. What I do, I do in the name of the Gods. She nodded for him to pull the lever. They ascended the stairs through the false wall and returned to the stairwell. They continued down the stairs until they met Laeden, Markus, Damascus, Varros, and a host of other guards applauding in the foyer.

Gods, what now? “What news?” she asked her husband.

Varros clapped a hand on Laeden’s shoulder. “Laeden caught two of the archers who made the attempt on us at the Salmantic Games.”

“The Sentinels brought them to heel,” Laeden said. “If not for Markus and my squadron leaders, they may have struck more fires in our city.” Laeden looked into her eyes.

Danella’s mask splintered. He knows.

“The success of an army rests with its leader,” Damascus said, breaking Laeden’s stare from her. “Do not shroud your achievements in modesty, brother.”

“This is great news,” Danella said, fighting to keep her voice even-keeled. “Celebrations are in order!” She blocked out Iylea’s threats and Laeden’s stare. “Where are the villains now?”

“They wait in the dungeons to be executed at the Kings’ Day Games,” Damascus said, beaming at Laeden.

“Brother will fight brother,” Iylea had said.

Will they turn against one another because of my manipulations?

Varros embraced both of his sons with pride.

“Father will turn against son.” Iylea’s voice echoed in her mind.

But which son? Danella fought away her tears and forced a smile to join in the Sentinels’ victory, but Iylea’s deeper, raspier voice resounded in her mind. “…all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

Daenus had interrupted her.

Unless I—what?

No. She was grateful she hadn’t heard the rest of Iylea’s prophecy. The Judges powered her abilities, not the Gods of Valencia, not the Gods of her father. It’s not true. None of it. The Uprising would be seen for the violent savages the Treaty of 940 attempted to protect New Rheynia from. When Brusos assumed the role of chancellor, the people would rally for stricter enforcement of the treaty. Varros would see. Laeden would see.

This is the only way. I will not falter.

Chapter 44

Into the Lion’s Den

Nallia IV

Salmantica

The haze hanging over the Salmantic harbor had yet to burn off despite the arrival of midday. The whole world seemed shrouded in thick fog, obscuring all that lay ahead. A dark omen.

Nallia’s father made certain all of New Rheynia knew about the Revivalists’ failed attempt on his life. He believed it would inspire fear in those who would seek to try again. She feared it would only prompt a more calculative plot against him. He barely lived to tell this tale as it was.

If not for Zephyrus, Father would be dead.

She didn’t know how Fenyx fit into the equation, but she was happy her parents escaped unharmed. Still, as long as men like Liario and Lenox were out there, no one was safe.

She witnessed the Revivalists’ assassination attempt on the king at the Festival of Stockhelm and survived the pulvinus when they set it ablaze at the Salmantic Games, but for our own men to conspire against us…

Liario had tutored her as a girl. He had served as her father’s advisor for as long as she could remember. Carsos and Ixion were promising young gladiators. Lenox was rough around the edges, but she hadn’t thought him capable of this. If not for Zephyrus, Carsos could have murdered her whole family.

Sailing into the gloom over the Salmantic harbor, Nallia couldn’t help but wonder what else Zephyrus’s Celestic magic was capable of. It was the most brilliant yet terrifying thing she’d ever seen. She should have told her father about Zephyrus. She was supposed to. Perhaps she would have once she was out of the imminent danger of his abilities, but she showed him grace, and he rewarded her with the information that saw her father’s life extended. Now she felt as if she owed him. She couldn’t possibly turn him in now. The thought of him nailed to a Six Arrowed Star made her grip the ship’s rail with white knuckles.

“Does Laeden know?” she had asked after he explained everything to her. He didn’t. She was the only one in all of New Rheynia who knew his capabilities. As a lanista, his potential in the arena titillated her, but as a Valencian who kept to the Facets of the Six, she confronted the same dilemma that started the New Rheynian war: Did allowing Celestics to practice their faith anger the Valencian Gods to the point of a new wave of Disasters?

That’s what doctrine taught. The Gods destroyed Rheynia because the people worshiped Neutreen, the Goddess of Justice. Damascus Drake, chosen by the Six, led the people away from Rheynia. He forewarned of the impending wrath of the Gods, but it wasn’t until the Disasters struck that everyone abandoned Elysianism and Neutreen the Just to follow Damascus Drake to New Rheynia.

Nallia always aligned politically with what her father believed without giving it much thought. Celestics were enslaved, mages who didn’t flee were killed by the hundreds, and she never thought twice about it.

Am I on the wrong side?

Zephyrus changed her understanding of everything she’d known in one night.

Nallia felt uneasy as they docked in the Salmantic harbor. They transferred to smaller ferries, where they were escorted up the Aquarian river to the moat of Sentigard. People cheered as the Cassius purple-and-gold banner rippled in the breeze, but she couldn’t help but feel that not all the lingering eyes were of adoration.

They arrived at Sentigard to attend the Kings’ Day Feast the eve before the games. Twice the size of the Salmantic games, the Kings’ Day celebration welcomed every family of note throughout New Rheynia. Every senator, patrician, or well-connected pleb would be at the feast, which only made the prospect of another Revivalist attack more frightening.

Generally, she loved feasts like this, but with everything going on, she couldn’t help but feel danger lurking beyond every corner. With so many high profiles in attendance, guards—and not just those of Sentigard, but lords’ own household guards—would be stationed throughout the feast hall.

After changing out of her traveling clothes, she saw to her preparations prior to the feast. Presented with a golden dress that Damascus himself had tailored for her, Nallia should have been ecstatic. Despite the gemstones adorning her ears, neck, and wrist, the exquisite silk gown wrapped around her, and her gallant betrothed awaiting her, all she felt was fear.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Markus promised as he escorted her to the feast hall. “Well, perhaps not nothing, but one less thing to fear—the Revivalist archers who fired upon the pulvinus at the Salmantic games were apprehended.”

“What will become of them?” Nallia asked, her chest still tight despite the news.

“They will be executed to commence the games tomorrow,” Markus said.

Nallia chewed her lip as they approached the entryway where Damascus awaited her. Wearing a black doublet with the silhouette of the Drake chimera stitched in red, he struck an imposing figure. The long sword sheathed at his hip, the blade of his grandfather—Damascus Drake—and the garnet-studded obsidian crown atop his short cropped black hair made him look like a man fit to be king of the realm. Beneath the crown, his golden eyes marveled as he spotted her, glowing like she was more precious than the kingdom itself.

Damascus accepted her stiff hand from Markus’s arm. “You’re as radiant as ever, my lady. I hope you favor the dress as much as it favors you.”

Nallia curtsied, her muscles still tangled in knots. “You are too kind, my prince.” She smiled curtly, but as he welcomed her into the feast hall, continuing to talk, Nallia had difficulty paying attention. She saw past the tables lined with guests in fancy dresses and exquisite doublets to where Zephyrus stood along with the other gladiators chosen for the Primus and displayed before the court.

With his red hair braided into a tight knot behind his head, and his physique glistening with olive oil between the purple-and-gold accented bracers and spaulders, he appeared a God fit to rule over not just the arena, but the world.

The tension along her spine melted away. Allowing herself to smile, she clutched Damascus’s arm.

Chapter 45

A Better Way

Zephyrus XIV

Salmantica

Bathed in rosewater, scented with oils, and dressed in the finest linens and armors, they were presented before the New Rheynian elite. Zephyrus had never seen the extravagance of high society. Now being amidst it, he was certain there was no justice in this world. They put no value on human life other than the coin that could be drawn from it.

Zephyrus stood between Stegavax and Fenyx, elevated on a dais off to the side of the feast hall. The Kaelus and Targarus Champions were presented on steps of their own to be gawked at by their betters, but Zephyrus seemed to be the only one bothered by it.

Fenyx spent most of his time sneering at their opposition, concerned only with the competition. Stegavax chose to direct his aggression towards Fenyx for his obvious jealousy. The Targarus gladiators, clad in red, jeered at them, while the Kaelus men in blue assessed their stock.

Zephyrus felt the tightly rolled scroll from the Arcane Templar tucked between his belt and his britches. Patrus told him to abandon it, but it had stuck with him this far, and tonight, Laeden would have answers for him.

The king and the Arcane Templar were connected, but how?

The king had nothing to offer, but Laeden said the brightest minds in New Rheynia would be able to connect the dots. Perhaps, Laeden would arm him with the knowledge he needed to understand his prophecy, to give the gladiators a symbol to rally behind. His time telling clever lies would soon be at an end.

Vykinallia walked into the feast hall, yanking him from the scroll’s mysteries. Arm in arm with her brother, she was passed to Prince Damascus. Zephyrus admired her visage as she entered in a flowing gown of gold. Gold jewelry studded with amethysts were wreathed in her hair, hung from her ears, or clung to her neckline.

She’s still a slave owner…

She was the enemy, but deep down, she didn’t feel like one. When Vykannis encouraged him to kill her, he realized it was the last thing he wanted. At first, he thought his feelings toward her were just a product of the Lover’s Dream toxin from climbing the Hill, but he couldn’t disregard it as such anymore. After he told her of Lenox and Liario, she trusted him.

She was kind and compassionate. She could have had me killed… but she didn’t. Instead, she positioned him to protect her father, and he did. He gained her trust that night, but he also gained something even more important; his interaction with Vykannis revealed to him that how he achieved what he set out to accomplish mattered just as much as the end result.

He would have his freedom, but he wouldn’t corrupt himself to achieve it. Maybe that’s the only difference between becoming the Wielder or the Harbinger? There were many questions he didn’t have the answers to, but his dreams continued, and his memories would return.

He recalled his latest dream of his mother’s smiling face, her auburn hair and light blue eyes singing of love and sorrow. “I have to leave you,” she said. “I must find your father. I will be back. We both will. But in the meantime, you can never forget who you are or where you come from.”

How disappointed she must be, if she’s even alive. He wrote her off when he realized she owned slaves, but if Vykinallia deserved better, perhaps his mother did too.

“You look like you’re plotting the Age of The End, Harbinger,” Stegavax said.

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s cheeks, but he didn’t avert his gaze. “And you look at Fenyx like a jealous worm.”

Stegavax grabbed Zephyrus by the arm and squeezed, his black eyes narrowing atop his pointed teeth. He jammed his finger up under Zephyrus’s chin. “You’re the worm. Bad enough you wriggling, writhing, and lying to elevate your standing, but now, Carsos and Ixion are dead—because of you.”

Zephyrus grit his teeth. Striking with lightning speed, he snatched Stegavax’s finger and wrenched it backwards. Stegavax bent to alleviate the tension, but Zephyrus pressed further.

“What are you doing?” Fenyx hissed, pulling Zephyrus off Stegavax. “You dishonor us.”

“I stopped Carsos and Ixion from killing the dominus to…” The words died on Zephyrus’s tongue. I killed slaves to save a slaver, to gain information from another slaver.

“You’re the worm. Everyone knows it.” Stegavax huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Zephyrus pursed his lips. Is it true? He was so caught up in his victory over the Revivalists and his own advancement, he hadn’t considered how the other gladiators would interpret the deaths of two of their own.

Everyone knows it?

“A word, Zephyrus,” Laeden said, yanking him from his thoughts.

He hadn’t even noticed Laeden’s approach.

Laeden cleared his throat. “A private word.”

This war with the Revivalists weighed heavily on the prince. Lines borne of stress streaked his forehead. Frown lines creased around his clean-shaven jaw.

“Wriggle away, little worm,” Stegavax whispered.

He ignored Stegavax and followed Laeden out of the feast hall.

“You have gone above and beyond,” Laeden said, once they were alone.

“I saw an opportunity, and I struck,” Zephyrus said with a bow, despite no longer feeling as good about his success after Stegavax’s comment.

“Indeed you did. I wish we could have captured or questioned them, but House Cassius is safe because of your efforts.” Laeden’s tone indicated he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about Zephyrus’s results. “The entire realm owes you a debt.”

Zephyrus nodded. He gave the prince what he wanted; now he wanted his end of the bargain. “Any luck with the scroll?”

Laeden narrowed his eyes. “Right, yes, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid the scholars had little to offer in the way of insight. But, I must say, I owe AVR for sending you; you have served me well.” Laeden’s eyes searched Zephyrus’s, waiting for something, expecting something.

A flicker of his eyes, the subtle change to the rhythm of his breathing. He’s lying…

After moons of telling his own clever lies, Zephyrus recognized the same in Laeden. He pasted a smile onto his face, giving Laeden the benefit of the doubt. “There must be something you can tell me?”

“Apologies.” Laeden shrugged. “It’s as I said, but I do have good news on another front.”

Muscles along Zephyrus’s spine clenched. He’s changing the subject. He trusted Laeden. Did everything he asked. Laeden saved him from the slavers, in large part due to the mystery of the scroll in his pocket. He hoped it would lead to answers, but here, he finally met the dead end, or at least that was what Laeden wanted him to think.

For a long time, Zephyrus’s hope clung to this parchment. The role of a king’s servant provided him with safety and security, a tangible truth to hold on to. But he didn’t need it anymore. He didn’t want it. His prophecy, his faith in the Arcane Templar, the Return, the Judges—each was more real to him than the scroll in his hand.

My fate is still mine to choose. Vykinallia helped me see that. His prophecy, although destined for greatness, even terrible greatness, still left room for choice. Laeden lied, trying to take his choices away. But that lie told Zephyrus all the truth he needed to know.

I am no emissary of peace. We shall have our vengeance.

“In light of your service,” Laeden continued, “I will purchase you from Duke Cassius and promote you to a position within the Sentinels—Second Lieutenant. Once the Revivalists are put down, you will be awarded land and titles for your service.”

Zephyrus snorted. It was supposed to be an honor. Perhaps it would have been, if Zephyrus didn’t realize Laeden was lying to him, attempting to steer him away from his destiny.

No. Zephyrus would not give up on his fate. And if he could choose, as Vykinallia believed he could, he would be the Wielder—to gather the Treasures and free the people, so that never again would any live and die beneath the heel of a master.

Patrus gave his life to save others. Zephyrus might have failed to kill Lenox and avenge Patrus’s murder, but this was what Patrus truly wanted: freedom. And not just for himself, but for others. For all.

“Let him free you,” Vykannis said.

His presence brought on a new wave of abdominal pain. Zephyrus hadn’t heard the voice since he lit the candles of Vykinallia’s chambers ablaze.

“You don’t need the other slaves to bring about the Return.”

Zephyrus considered, meeting Laeden’s eyes. Is Vykannis right? Laeden offered the position to be the change he wanted to see in the world. If the barracks won’t accept me, why should I fight it? But as much as Zephyrus was Rheynian, Laeden’s people were not his people. His parents had abandoned him. The Rheynians would never accept him either. If there was still hope within the barracks, that’s where he would make his appeal.

“Accept. Use him as he has used you,” Vykannis said.

No, Zephyrus channeled back. There’s a better way.

Chapter 46

Free the Slaves

Laeden XIII

Salmantica

“What do you mean, free all the slaves?” Laeden scoffed.

Zephyrus’s stoic expression implied no hint of jest, but surely, this was a joke.

“My time in your service has taught me firsthand how your society treats those different from you.”

His diplomatic tone could only get him so far. He asked for the impossible. Even if Laeden wanted to, no one man could just snap his fingers and abolish a system that upheld the entire society. It would be anarchy. Destruction.

Laeden bristled. Free all the slaves?

A dull ache impressed upon his forehead, beginning to throb.

“Zephyrus, what you ask is impossible. I’m offering your freedom. Not the freedom of every Six-damned slave in the country.”

Zephyrus shook his head. “We had a deal: information for information. I found your Revivalists, I dispatched them for you, and in return—”

“In return, I offer a high-ranking office within the Sentinels—a position that would catapult you into the heights of the patricians. With such status, you could petition the king for better slave conditions and eventually convince the senate to set them free. If you want change, that’s how you do it—not this fairytale idealism in the middle of a war.”

“Freedom is not fairytale idealism.” Zephyrus shook his head. “All this talk of the Revivalists, but that’s not what any of you fear. The Uprising is the real threat…”

Laeden couldn’t believe his ears. He raised his hands to the heavens and let them fall to slap against his thighs. “Regardless of what you think you know, the Uprising pales in comparison to the threat of the Revivalists.”

“Then why lie to me?” Zephyrus asked.

There was no threat in the question, no malice, but despite Zephyrus’s stoic demeanor, Laeden felt like he got punched in the stomach.

Heat rose to Laeden’s cheeks. His heart hammered in the veins of his temples, exacerbating his headache. He remembers his past…

Laeden took a step back, turning sideways. Behind him, he clenched his twitching fingers into a stilling fist. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The scroll? I speak the truth; my father doesn’t know you, or AVR.”

The lie felt weaker a second time.

Zephyrus’s jutting jaw showed no signs of amusement. Whether his memories returned, or someone told him the truth, the seeds were sown. Nothing left to do but collect the harvest.

“We both know you never gave this scroll to the brightest minds of New Rheynia.” Zephyrus pulled his hand from his pocket and dropped the bloody, crumpled scroll to the floor between them. “So what did King Varros Helixus actually tell you?”

Laeden swallowed the growing stone in his throat. His headache pounded with each thunderous beat in his chest.

“He is dangerous,” his father had said. “The men he serves are dangerous.”

When Laeden didn’t object, Zephyrus continued. “We had a deal. I fulfilled my side of the bargain, so trust I will do so again. Free the slaves, Laeden. Every last one.

“If you don’t, I will. And I promise you: blood will rain from the skies if you make me do it. Perhaps not in a day, a week, or even a year. But mark my words. There will come a day of reckoning—a flood of blood through your streets, and you will wish you had set the slaves free.”

Laeden inhaled sharply through his nose, gritting his teeth. This is not a threat, but a promise. Six save us, how has it come to this? But there was nothing to be said, nothing to be done to make up for Laeden’s lies. He couldn’t have afforded to tell Zephyrus, a Prophet of the Return, the limited truth he knew, yet he couldn’t free the slaves.

The two maintained a deadlocked stare, until too much time passed without resolution.

A shout from the feast hall redirected Laeden’s attention. Without sparing another look, Laeden left Zephyrus with haste. What in Six Hells is going on now?

Shouting and punching their fists, a crowd surrounded Markus and Aemos Horne. Aemos—his face flushed with wine—stood nose to nose with Markus, hand hovering over his sword pommel.

“You’re a traitor!” Aemos shouted.

“You’re drunk,” Markus said. “Find a brothel and sleep it off.”

Aemos seethed, his sword hand twitching beside the dagger at his belt. “I will not stand for this. My father, jailed beneath us, sharing a cell next to the Six-cursed archers from the Salmantic Games. A count in the Salmantic court sits imprisoned, while your Sentinels present no evidence, nor the three witnesses required by law.”

Aemos wasn’t drunk enough to stumble over his words, but his inhibitions were lowered enough that he might do more than just brandish the steel at his hip.

“All you’ve done is impose tariffs and taxes while establishments are threatened by fires, murders, and Sentinel inspections,” Aemos said. “You’ve caused as many problems as the Revivalists, and I will not rest until my father is free!”

Things were getting out of hand. People were rallying to Aemos’s protests.

I need to stop this before things get worse. Laeden stepped between Aemos and Markus. “What is the meaning of this?”

“That’s it, Markus.” Aemos stabbed his finger at Markus. “Hide behind your betters.”

Laeden held out a restraining hand. “That’s enough, Aemos. I don’t wish to throw you out of here—”

Aemos shoved Laeden out of the way.

“I challenge you to a duel, Markus! For the honor of my father.” Aemos’s words ignited the onlookers.

Laeden resituated himself from Aemos’s shove, but he did not strike back. He glared at Aemos but knew better than to resort to violence.

Markus strode over to where Nallia and Damascus stood, taking his sister by the arm. “Time to go.”

“Go on, run away,” Aemos shouted after him.

Laeden summoned guards. Aemos resisted, but they carried him out without issue. However, the damage was done, and the feast was ruined.

The king steepled his fingers together behind the high table. Lines of consternation wrinkled his brow. The queen held herself beside him. Although she appeared unnerved, Laeden couldn’t help but wonder: does she have a role in this?

Frustrated, betrayed, and angry, Laeden located Zephyrus standing beside his fellow gladiators.

“There will come a day of reckoning—a flood of blood through your streets, and you will wish you had set the slaves free.”

Laeden would make certain that never came to pass.

Chapter 47

Evil Tools

Zephyrus XV

Salmantica

The walls were cold and slick with condensation as he ran his hand along the stone, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the pitch-black corridor. His feet stalked down the hallway, but he could sense Ronar lurking in the shadows.

Zephyrus’s heart drummed rhythmically in his chest. His breath slowed as he tapped into each of his senses. The scent of wax clung to the humid air. Ronar must have been reading by candlelight. The beginnings of a smile curled at the corner of Zephyrus’s lip.

A throwing knife whooshed by, toppling end over end. Zephyrus sidestepped, letting it sail past and clatter to the floor. A second and third flew through the air, but each met the same fate. Suddenly, warmth licked at his back, and a glow illuminated his own shadow.

Reflexively, Zephyrus canceled his shadow with light-bending manipulation magic. He whipped around, shooting a jet of water from his hands to engulf the flame. A resultant cloud of steam obscured the darkness.

Ronar’s silhouette, visible for a moment, disappeared in the smoke. The smoldering flames overcame the scent of wax.

Where did he go?

Another glow of fire, this time closer and to his left. He countered by creating a shield of water, but a crackling bolt of lightning flashed before his eyes. He clenched his fists, and his flesh became stone, nullifying the bolt in his palms.

“Very good,” said Ronar’s raspy voice. He snapped his fingers, and the training grounds began to glow as a hundred candles ignited overhead. The winding maze and sandstone columns of the training grounds had been his home for how long now? How many years of practice did it take to master the elements? Yet now, absent sight, he defended himself.

“It is time,” Ronar said. “You are ready.”

Vellarix, Aikous, and Patrus approached from the shadows to join them.

“It would seem the Harbinger has arrived in Perillian,” Vellarix said. “It is time for the Seers to determine if the Wielder is among us.”

Patrus crossed his arms over his chest. “Elders, I don’t like this plan.”

“I’m ready, Patrus,” Zephyrus said. “How long do you expect me to wait?”

“I’m not talkin’ ‘bout you,” Patrus said.

Another pair of footsteps echoed throughout the training grounds. Stepping into the light, a woman tossed her silver-blonde braid over her shoulder.

Threyna!

His dreamself didn’t know her, but Zephyrus’s conscious mind would never forget how the life faded from her sapphire eyes.

“This is Threyna,” Vellarix said. “A former Warlock of Sage.” He glared at Patrus until Patrus’s defiance was driven to submission. “She has brought news of the Warlocks’ demise and perhaps the rise of the Harbinger. She believes she is the Wielder, but there can be only one.”

“You will both journey to Tharseo’s Bastion and seek the counsel of the Seers,” Aikous said, placing his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder.

Patrus cleared his throat.

“The three of you,” Aikous corrected. “If she is the Wielder, as she believes she is, you will accompany her to the Treasures’ locations.”

“And if she’s not?” Patrus asked, grimacing in Threyna’s direction.

“There can be only one Wielder,” Ronar said.

Zephyrus turned his gaze to Ronar, but the face beneath the cloak was wrong. This was not Ronar.

“You’ve been summoned.”

The voice is wrong too.

“Wake up. C’mon now,” Nortus said.

Zephyrus sat up in his cot. The dream seemed so real. Questions raced through his mind. The Warlocks of Sage… Patrus spoke of them with distrust, Threyna among them. Could they have betrayed us? Set the slavers on us? Poisoned our minds and stole our memories?

“You don’t owe the Arcane Templar anything…” Threyna had said.

She wanted me to do something else, but what? And what did anything have to do with King Varros?

Nortus unlocked the cell and showed Zephyrus out. Fenyx was awake, as usual, but some others took notice of Nortus’s arrival. Many eyed Zephyrus skeptically as Nortus escorted him.

Perhaps Stegavax was right after all.

Following the deaths of Carsos and Ixion, all the gladiators seemed to keep their distance from him. Even Jecht and Cerik. He’d dismissed it at the time, but after Stegavax’s words, nothing pertaining to his status in the brotherhood could be thought of as a coincidence.

Nortus tossed Zephyrus a brown rough-spun cloak. “Put this on.”

Zephyrus donned the cloak and followed Nortus out of the barracks. Detached from the castle, the barracks were constructed beside the basilica adjacent to Sentigard. The nightly rains fell with a chill seldom found in Stockhelm, for which Zephyrus was glad to have the cloak.

“Bet you’re relieved Lenox is gone, eh?” Nortus asked, as he ushered him past the basilica to the castle.

Zephyrus huffed. I’ll be relieved when he’s dead. He wasn’t the least bit pleased to have allowed Patrus’s murderer to escape retribution, but no good would come of giving it voice. Instead, he gazed upon the grand temple bell tower that stretched higher than the castle. Built of the same dark stone, the ominous shadow loomed over the barracks.

One day I will tear it down, stone by stone.

“Still can’t believe it,” Nortus said, when Zephyrus failed to reply. “Lenox and Liario? Anyway, Lady Nallia’s eager to speak with ya.”

Since catching Carsos and Ixion in their assassination attempt, Nallia entered Zephyrus’s thoughts more than he cared to admit. After nearly setting her room ablaze with magic, she accepted him, marveled at him, and commended his bravery. She wasn’t like the others. He would see Patrus’s dream of freeing the Celestics to completion, but he wouldn’t burn all of New Rheynia in the process, even if Vykannis was willing to do so. It was easier to believe his purpose was black and white, but that was a lie.

Zephyrus promised himself he would live by his code and no one else’s. Not even Vykannis the Brave’s. The destination would be achieved, but his journey to get there would not be paved with the same blind violence the Rheynians brought to Stockhelm. Only those who deserved the sword would get it. Nallia did not, but Laeden’s last words to him showed which side of the blade he was on.

I was never more than a tool to him, but no longer.

Nortus nodded to the Salmantic guards in black scale armor as they entered the castle. They walked in silence until they stopped before a high arched doorway with the outline of a chimera carved into the cornerstone. Two guards in Sentinel blue crossed their spears from either side of the door, barring Nortus and Zephyrus’s path.

“We’re here at the lady’s request,” Nortus said. Both guards straightened their spears. One drummed his knuckles on the thick wooden door. A moment later, Odetta appeared, a disapproving frown upon her face. She beckoned him forward, but once Zephyrus breached the doorway, she slipped out and pulled the door shut behind her.

A fireplace crackled at the opposite end of the chamber. Tapestries emblazoned with the sigils of different houses hung from the wall above the hearth. Vykinallia sat by the fire, wrapped in a red-and-black shawl, staring into the flames. She said nothing. Eyes puffy, cheeks flushed. Zephyrus waited to be addressed, but she failed to acknowledge him, turning the amethyst ring endlessly around her finger.

“Vykinallia?”

She turned to him with a fire in her eyes Zephyrus had never seen from her before. Lines of worry framed her face. She returned her gaze to the fire and pulled the shawl tighter around her, exposing her elbow, bloodied and bruised.

“You’re hurt,” Zephyrus said, coming closer to her.

She reared back. The reaction stopped Zephyrus in his tracks. Something is wrong. Never before has she been afraid of me. “What happened?”

She stood and began to pace, continuing to spin the ring about her finger. His growing affection for her soured with each passing moment. Did she change her mind about me? Will she turn me in?

Finally, she stopped pacing. “What are you not telling me?”

Zephyrus balked. Did Laeden tell her of our conversation? He cleared his throat. “I’ve told you all I remember.”

She shook her head. “I long thought the elemental magic lost to the world, until you…” She turned her palms to the ceiling. “The attack on the pulvinus during the Salmantic Games…” Her voice trembled; fists formed at her sides. “Those responsible were held in this very castle, set to be executed on the morrow, but now, magically they’ve escaped.

“They weren’t Revivalists, as everyone seemed to think. They were Celestic mages of the Uprising. Elemental mages who set the pulvinus aflame with magic fire. The same magic that scorched Elrod Horne to ashes in his cell.” She pointed her finger at herself. “Am I a fool to have spared you? Are you the Harbinger everyone fears you to be?”

A part of Zephyrus cringed at the mention of the Harbinger. But this was an enemy he’d faced before. He wrestled with doubt, struggled against adversity, questioned his identity, and even though he didn’t know who he was before, he knew who he wanted to become. And what he would do. The enslavement Threyna died to escape from, the brutality Patrus suffered in an attempt to free others from it, would end.

Her lower lip quivered beneath watering eyes. Zephyrus advanced, but she retreated.

“Are you involved with them?” she asked.

“No,” Zephyrus said, hands presented as if to show his innocence.

“You didn’t plot with them or aid their escape?”

“No.”

She held Zephyrus’s gaze until the tension melted from her face, and she collapsed into the chair before the hearth. “Tell me all magic isn’t evil. That it isn’t just a force of destruction.”

Zephyrus didn’t defend himself, or his magic. He felt Vykannis’s presence in his mind, as if he were trying to force his way into his head, but another entity resisted him.

“Kill… her…”

Like a door shutting out an intruder, Vykannis vanished, and a serenity came over him.

“Tell me all slave owners aren’t evil,” Zephyrus said. “That there is more to slavery than just death for coin.”

She crept closer, hands twitching as if to strike. “Do you believe me evil?”

“Do you, me?”

She grabbed his hand, her skin silk against his calluses. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Instead, she stared at their joined hands. “No. You’re not evil.”

Another pause. The glow of the hearth cast dancing shadows around her chambers.

He took a deep breath, allowing himself to relax. “Magic is a tool,” Zephyrus said, admiring her hand within his. “As evil as a sword. It’s up to the wielder to decide how it is used.” He put his hand on her elbow.

She flinched.

Zephyrus pulled back. No, she needs to see. “You’re not afraid of me. And you shouldn’t fear magic.”

Vykinallia swallowed, but when he took her elbow in his hand, she didn’t retreat.

Feeling the bruised and swollen tissue, the scrape upon her flesh, Zephyrus focused. White mist emitted from between his fingers and swirled around her elbow.

Vykinallia gasped as the cut sealed. The black and blue of her bruise abated into nothingness, while his own elbow throbbed and stung as if he’d just fallen on it.

“Six save us,” Vykinallia said.

“Magic has a balance. Can you say the same of slavery?” His hand fell away from hers. Vykinallia’s mouth hung agape. When she didn’t reply, he continued. “Am I—like magic, or a sword—a tool to be used?”

She moved her lips, but no words came forth because none would suffice. He proved his point. Slavery tore apart families, sent people to early graves, and forced those too stubborn to die to live in squalor.

“What good can come from slavery?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at him. Her eyes fixated on the smooth flesh around her elbow.

Zephyrus strode to the door, elbow stiff and sore, and let himself out.

Chapter 48

The Kings’ Day Games

Zephyrus XVI

Salmantica

Iron bars separated them from the other gladiators, but nothing stopped the threatening words that flowed between them. If their jousts and barbs could locate their true enemies, they might have some worth. Instead they fought one another for the pleasure of patricians.

How many will die for their entertainment today?

The Cassius gladiators were dressed and readied in armor fit for the Gods. Each golden plate, ornamented with purple trim, glowed like the sun. The Cassius scorpion decorated the bracers and greaves—the cuirass, belt, and skirt were as fashionable as they were functional. Holding the purple plumed helm in his hands, Zephyrus began to understand the vanity of glory that went along with fighting for a head ludus in the Primus of the Kings’ Day Games. But he would gladly trade golden armor for robes of freedom.

Once dressed, they followed Doctore up the sloped path to the sands of the arena. A gate barred their ascent any further, but onlookers were already filling the stands. It wasn’t long before patricians and plebs occupied every seat in the arena, and the sun reached its zenith in its journey across the sky.

Horns blew to the cheers of the raucous crowd, signaling the commencement of the games. The king raised his arms upon the pulvinus to summon silence. His two sons stood beside him.

Zephyrus glared at Laeden. He will regret the day he denied me.

“Good people of New Rheynia,” the king said once the crowd had quieted. “Today, we celebrate our unity as a nation.”

He wore an elegant cape, divided down the middle—on one side the white winged horse of the Helixuses atop a blue backdrop, on the other half, the Drake Chimera, blue atop white. His cape represented New Rheynian society, the strong united to rule the weak.

The king rattled off a history of the kings who came before him to the audience’s cheers. Clad in vibrant colors, waving banners of the houses they favored—the plebs and patricians alike shouted their support.

Had I actually been given to the king as an emissary, perhaps I would be out there thirsting for blood with them. My mother owned slaves. Why would I be any different?

The thought of his mother watching from the stands made him sick.

“You can never forget who you are or where you come from,” his mother had said.

I’m not one of you, he reminded himself.

“This world we have built has been divided by war—a war that would tear husband from wife, father from son, and brother from brother. Pulling babes at the breast from loving arms, leaving widows and orphans to survive amidst cutthroats and thieves. No, this will not be our fate. I, King Varros, choose peace!”

The king’s words moved the crowd, but they only made Zephyrus’s blood boil. Does he not realize his hypocrisy? Slavery has killed more people in the past moon than the Revivalists and the Uprising combined.

“We have captured the two archers who rained flaming arrows on the pulvinus during the Salmantic Games. They will be shown no mercy for their atrocities. Let this serve as a message to the Uprising and the Revivalists alike; New Rheynia will not bow, bend, or break!”

The crowd roared as the gates opened, and two Helms were paraded around the outskirts of the arena. Clad in chains and escorted by six armed guards adorned in the black and red of House Drake, they dragged their feet as they marched towards their deaths. Boisterous fanatics threw rotten foodstuffs and small stones as they cursed the condemned to the afterlife.

As the guards dragged the prisoners by their chains past Zephyrus’s gate, Zephyrus got a closer look. A man and a woman. They stared at the ground as they dragged their feet. Their tear-streaked faces were swollen, cut, and bruised.

Zephyrus strangled the bars that separated him from them. Vykinallia had said the mages escaped, but here they were—broken and defeated. Nothing Zephyrus could do would spare them from their fate.

“Good people of New Rheynia, if this is the Uprising’s rebellion, let it die here!” King Varros shouted, and his subjects responded with a droning chant.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

The guards’ spearpoints drove home, impaling each of the prisoners. Three spears entered each of their backs and protruded through their chests. Their screams were swallowed in the crowd’s cheers as their blood stained the sands. Two guards drew swords and simultaneously hacked through the impaled mages’ necks, lopping their heads off. They rolled, spewing crimson blood to the audience’s roar, teasing the onlookers’ appetite for death.

The afternoon went on with match after match, each more bloody and brutal than the preceding fight. Gladiators of lesser houses fought and died. If the Gods were anything like the people of New Rheynia, their hunger for gore was insatiable. The entirety of the sands would be dyed red by the time the nightly rains came.

With each fallen slave, Zephyrus took a personal account. I will avenge you.

As the sun began to set in the western sky, Doctore told Zephyrus to see himself readied. Zephyrus returned to the armory where he found Fenyx and Stegavax standing toe to toe.

“You had your time,” Fenyx hissed through bared teeth. “This is my house now.” The burns along the side of his face twitched.

Stegavax held both hands up defensively. “I only wish to make a peace offering.” He tossed a pouch to Fenyx. “Whiteroot.”

Fenyx glared at Stegavax but accepted the gift. Reaching into the pouch, he inspected Stegavax’s offering. He shoved a strip in his mouth before sauntering off with a snort.

Zephyrus released a held breath. As Fenyx left the barracks, Zephyrus donned his armor.

With each piece he put on, the Rebels’ Rhyme sang louder in his mind.

Would Patrus still be beside me if we hadn’t tried to escape?

He recalled the bodies staining the sands after his last time in the arena. He didn’t want a repeat of that. With his newfound purpose to free the slaves, killing them was the last thing he wanted. Perhaps Stegavax and Fenyx will spare me from having to do the deed myself.

Regardless of how slowly he put his armor on, eventually, the horns would blow, and he would have to take to the sands. He would have to fight and survive against six of the deadliest slaves in New Rheynia.

“Zephyrus!” Doctore said. “It’s time.”

Zephyrus gulped. Clever lies. Wishing Jecht and Cerik fought alongside him instead of Fenyx and Stegavax, Zephyrus ascended the slope to the gates of the arena, but as he neared, Vykannis’s voice filled his head.

“You refused to kill the Rheynian lanista and take your freedom. You refused to accept the freedom offered by the Rheynian prince. Now if you wish to live long enough to fulfill my purpose for you, you must slay the very people I sent you to save.”

A shiver rippled down Zephyrus’s spine. A cold sweat dampened his brow. He longed for the days when Vykannis left his prayers unanswered. Now the increasing frequency of the Judge’s presence haunted him.

“I will not kill other slaves for sport,” Zephyrus channeled back.

Doctore spoke to the three of them, but Vykannis’s voice drowned him out.

“You are destined for greatness, Zephyrus,” Vykannis said. “But twice, you have denied me. Twice, you have chosen your will over the calling placed on your life. Now you must decide: die and free no slaves, or kill, survive, and live to fulfill your destiny.”

Zephyrus hated to admit it, but Vykannis was right.

“Live,” Patrus had said.

He could free no one if he died, but he didn’t trust Vykannis, or the stabbing pains he felt in his stomach whenever the Judge spoke to him.

What are the deaths of a few more slaves in comparison to my fate?

He groaned.

That seems like something the Harbinger would think…

“Zephyrus, listen!” Doctore clapped his hands in Zephyrus’s face. “You must fight as one. Show the Gods what you’re made of. Are you a leaf to blow in the wind, or are you a tree that plants roots in history and lives on forever?”

“I will honor this ludus,” Fenyx said.

“Don’t… kill…” Weak and faraway, a new voice filled Zephyrus’s mind. “Patience.”

“Kill, survive, live,” Vykannis said, drowning out the weaker voice.

“Who are you?” Zephyrus channeled back to the weak voice.

He’d felt this presence the night before when Vykannis urged him to kill Vykinallia a second time. It had somehow closed the door of his mind to Vykannis’s influence.

“You’ve given the Gods of Valencia a foothold within your mind,” Vykannis said. “They’ve already killed Orsius and Aeryss. They’ve tried to kill me as well. Don’t listen to them. You must fight. The hope of Celestia rests on you.”

Zephyrus ground his teeth. Why would the Valencian Gods counsel patience? He listened for the weak voice’s rebuttal, but none came.

The last remnants of the setting sun served as the final grains of sand in an hourglass. Zephyrus was out of time. Attendants ignited torches along the perimeter of the arena, and horns blared, signaling the commencement of the Primus.

The initial wave of cheers subsided, to allow the king to introduce Targarus and Kaelus’s gladiators. Arena attendants handed Zephyrus his gladius and buckler, Stegavax his dual blades, and Fenyx his two-handed great sword. For a moment, Zephyrus thought he recognized the attendant who handed him his sword, but the attendant moved on.

Focus.

“To challenge them,” the king said, “Duke Chancellor, Lentulis Cassius, offers Zephyrus!” Zephyrus closed his eyes in silent prayer to the warring Gods within his head, but they remained absent as if they had taken their quarrels elsewhere.

He took the first step beyond the precipice of the gate’s safety. The crowd roared, but Zephyrus’s thoughts drifted to Vykinallia.

“You are more suited towards the hero,” she had said.

He looked to the pulvinus as he walked upon the blood-soaked sands. Vykinallia met his gaze, clutching at the elbow he had healed the night prior. A smile touched her lips.

“To stand beside him, the Champion of the Games of Stockhelm—Fenyx!” Fenyx strode out to join Zephyrus, basking in the glory of the crowd’s favor.

“Last but not least, I give you the reigning Champion of New Rheynia. The savage, the beast—Stegavax!”

Out of the corner of Zephyrus’s eye, Fenyx stiffened, letting out a hoarse croak.

“Everything alright there, Champion?” Stegavax asked, stepping up beside Fenyx.

Fenyx shook his head, gagging.

“Bad whiteroot, eh?” Stegavax smirked.

Zephyrus’s jaw unhinged. “You poisoned him?”

The roar of the crowd drowned out the king’s voice as the gates closed behind them.

Chapter 49

Betrayed

Fenyx VI

Salmantica

“I will take back my mantle,” Stegavax hissed.

The skin tightened on the burned side of Fenyx’s face as his lips curled back in a snarl. He ignored the shallowness of his breath, his blurred vision, and the twitch in his fingers.

You can’t do this…

But the poison was already running through his veins.

Zephyrus put his hand on Fenyx’s shoulder and said something, but Fenyx couldn’t make out the words. There were supposed to be nine men on the sands—three Cassius gladiators in gold and purple, three Kaelus men in blue and white, and three Targarus champions in red and black—but his eyes betrayed him. There might as well have been an army before him.

The king’s voice continued, but the words were unintelligible.

This was my opportunity to prove to Auron his labors weren’t wasted on me, to demonstrate to the dominus that I was worthy of the mantle of Champion, and to earn the love of the people… Stegavax ruined everything.

The Burning took hold of him, radiating through his body like an inferno. It wanted blood more than glory, revenge more than justice.

Stegavax will die.

All eight gladiators on the sands turned south to face the pulvinus, but Fenyx faced Stegavax instead. He was supposed to salute the king, but if Stegavax wasn’t going to fight fair, neither would he.

Fenyx reared back his great sword and swung at Stegavax. Stegavax lifted his swords to absorb the attack, but Fenyx’s strength threw him off balance. Stegavax rolled across the sands. The crowd gasped and cheered, but Fenyx no longer cared for their desires.

He lifted his great sword overhead and chopped down in a sweeping arc.

Did he expect me to lay down and concede?

He lifted the blade again and slashed down with all his might. Making large, circling arcs with his great sword, he had the advantage of reach. He didn’t need to see; he knew how Stegavax would attack. He struck again and felt the vibration through the steel as Stegavax’s gladii wilted beneath his blade.

The coward sought to weaken me… fool should have killed me!

But with each strike, his sword became heavier, his arcs slower. He pressed his attack, but it was no use. Stegavax was faster.

Fenyx’s head spun. He swung and missed, losing his balance and falling to the sands. Stegavax stabbed down at him, but Zephyrus caught the blow on his shield. As soon as Zephyrus came to Fenyx’s aid, he was consumed in a whirlwind of red-and-black and blue-and-white gladiators.

With Zephyrus preoccupied, Stegavax returned. Fenyx scampered away from Stegavax’s effortless attack, grinding his teeth. He’s playing me for the crowd’s spectacle.

His sight, his balance, his strength—betrayed him. He needed help.

Where is Zephyrus?

Stegavax kicked Fenyx, sending him sprawling face down to the sands. Fenyx pushed himself up, but steel sank deep into the back of his right shoulder. He cried out and reared back, raising his blade in defense, but there were three Stegavaxes. Fenyx chose the center one and blocked, but Stegavax again shoved him to the ground.

His only reprieve came when Stegavax lifted his swords to the crowd.

In the distance, the blurred shapes of gladiators surrounded the lone figure in gold and purple. Zephyrus isn’t coming to my aid. I’m on my own.

Fenyx, still on his back, rolled away as Stegavax’s steel raked the sands where Fenyx had just been. He stumbled to his feet and stood his ground. I need to disarm him if I am to survive.

The Burning wouldn’t let him die.

Stegavax leveled both weapons and charged with reckless abandon. Fenyx planted his great sword into the sands and rolled over his maimed shoulder to avoid the fury of body and blade that came his way, his helm flying off in the process.

Stegavax bore down on him again, but Fenyx sidestepped a stab, ducked under a slash, and high-stepped a hack aimed at his shin. With a well-timed shove, Fenyx took advantage of Stegavax’s momentum, sending him off balance.

His arm throbbed. Blood trickled down his ribs inside his armor. His right shoulder hung limp, a useless appendage that only served as an easy target for Stegavax.

Stegavax barreled for him again, his braided hair flying behind his plumed helm as he slashed right, left, right, left. Fenyx backpedaled, turning aside the strokes of the assault, but Stegavax relentlessly lunged after him and kicked him in the chest.

Fenyx’s great sword slipped from his weakened fingers as he fell onto his back in front of the Cassius gate.

Auron shouted commands, but he could offer no help from behind the steel bars.

Stegavax aimed one blade at Fenyx’s chest, the other poised like the venomous tail of a scorpion. Fenyx rolled at the last possible second into one of the false blades of his blurred vision, but the true sword only found sand. Fenyx rolled back the way he’d come, using his body weight to leverage the blade free from Stegavax’s grasp. The other blade came for him, but with no other options, Fenyx grabbed the razor-sharp steel with his hands.

He shrieked as blood poured from his palms.

For a moment, they were deadlocked, but Stegavax’s persistence and the bite of the sword in his palms overcame Fenyx’s will. Blood drenched the blade and flowed onto Fenyx’s cuirass, rolling off to trace his outline in the sands.

This is how I die.

The blade inched closer to his golden cuirass, bearing down on him.

It’s over.

The Burning within him faded. The point of Stegavax’s blade pierced the cuirass below the navel with a shrill cry.

“Judges save me!” Fenyx shouted to the purple sky.

A white bolt of lightning stretched across his field of vision. The crowd screamed, and Stegavax broke focus for the briefest of moments. Fenyx summoned the strength to shove the blade from his armor and rolled. Fenyx forced Stegavax off him and staggered to his feet, grains of sand clinging to his bloody palms. He grabbed the blade he pinned away from Stegavax. The hilt felt strange in his shredded palm, but life pumped through his veins.

“You will die by my blade!” Stegavax screamed. The two clashed as another bolt of lightning flashed. Screams filled the arena, unlike the cheers of the crowd.

Their blades crashed together. Stegavax kneed Fenyx in the groin. Fenyx stumbled back, and the scarlet steel slashed across Fenyx’s limp arm and again across the back of his thigh. He fell to a knee and plunged the blade at Stegavax’s gut. Stegavax dodged, but too slow. Fenyx’s sword pierced the plate and struck flesh. He ripped the blade free and thrust it deep into Stegavax’s thigh, forcing him to lose his footing as well. Fenyx slashed but missed just as Stegavax jabbed his sword up and sliced Fenyx in the side of the neck.

The shock came before the pain, but if it were a mortal wound, Fenyx would not die before Stegavax met his end. Fenyx stabbed at Stegavax again, but his blurred vision caused him to miss.

Stegavax punched him in the chin. His sword fell from his grasp. Dazed, he reached to locate the hilt with his bloody palms, but Stegavax climbed atop of him. Stegavax raised his sword high overhead, the point aimed at Fenyx’s belly.

One moment, Stegavax was there, and the next, he was gone. Fenyx’s head fell to the side, his vision a blurry nightmare. He looked to the pulvinus, searching for Cleotra, but only three shadowy figures graced the pulvinus. His vision narrowed, and unconsciousness seized him.

Chapter 50

An Early Storm

Nallia V

Salmantica

“No! What are they doing?” Nallia’s father shouted as Fenyx attacked Stegavax.

Nallia gasped, digging her fingernails into the wooden arm of her chair.

“Another Laytonus episode,” Targarus scoffed. “You ought to teach your gladiators more discipline.”

Kaelus grunted. “Or more respect.”

Her father glared daggers at the rival lanistas, but Nallia couldn’t look away from the sands. Worse than Fenyx attacking Stegavax, the other six champions surrounded Zephyrus. The Kaelus and Targarus champions joined together to make sport of the lone Cassius contender. She twisted the amethyst ring around her finger like a maelstrom.

No, please! Zephyrus…

“A pity,” Laeden said.

“Are you kidding?” Damascus asked. “If every contest were this exciting, I wouldn’t miss the tournaments!”

Nallia clasped her hands and prayed. Ferrocles, grant Zephyrus strength. Phaebia, bestow hope upon his heart. Good Incinerae, be merciful. Moterra, demonstrate your temperance and leave him amongst the living. Hameryn, cease whatever madness has divided Fenyx and Stegavax that they may aid Zephyrus in this fight. Aquarius, I need your compassion. I pray to you!

Zephyrus rolled away from the onslaught of the opposing champions. He blocked, dodged, and countered, fighting against all six. He looked like Vykannis the Brave born again. She looked down at her elbow. It didn’t have the cut and bruise she had suffered last night. Not even a faint reminder of her fall remained after he healed her using Celestic magic.

I am praying to the wrong Gods. She closed her eyes, rubbed her elbow, and whispered to the Judges of Celestia so no one could hear.

“Vykannis, Orsius, and Aeryss, watch over your Prophet. He needs you. I need you. Judges, please deliver him from this carnage.”

She returned her gaze back to the arena. Zephyrus fended them off, despite the odds, a speck of gold in a blood-red sea of Targarus gladiators. He ducked under a swiping spear, rolled away from the Trapper’s weighted net, deflected a hack of a sword, blocked an axe, and kicked a Targarus Slicer in the chest.

“Fenyx looks drunk,” Nallia’s mother said as Stegavax cast Fenyx to the ground.

How could this happen?

Zephyrus is going to die.

All of her love for the games evaporated. These weren’t games—this was carnage. Brutal, bloodthirsty carnage. No glory. No civic duty.

“Tell me all slave owners aren’t evil,” Zephyrus said. “That there is more to slavery than just death for coin.”

I can’t. He was right. How did I ever love this?

Zephyrus parried a thrusting trident with a well-timed backhand of his buckler to spill a Kaelus Trapper to the sands. A violent axe swing aimed at his lower leg forced him to lurch out of the way, but he managed to counter, slicing the Bruiser across his inner thigh. The Bruiser cried out, dropping to a knee, but just as Nallia expected Zephyrus to deliver the fatal blow, he didn’t. Instead, he drove the hilt of his sword into the back of the man’s head.

Targarus’s Slicer charged, forcing Zephyrus to retreat to the arena’s western wall. While it would protect his flank, there was no escape. His five remaining opponents jostled for position.

He’s going to die.

She couldn’t watch. She turned away, but she glimpsed an arena attendant standing in the gateway adjacent to Zephyrus. He took off his helmet. Black hair, peppered gray at the temples. A squashed nose over a smug smile.

Lenox!

Nallia stood to her feet and pointed, but everyone’s focus remained on the battle.

The gladiators closed in around Zephyrus. With one block of his sword, the blade fell from the hilt to the gasps of the crowd.

Broken.

Horror seized her with grasping hands, threatening to pull her into the deepest depths of the Six Hells. No. Judges, no!

“Not again,” her father said.

Zephyrus was defenseless. A spear sliced his thigh. A sword chopped down on his pauldron. An axe glanced off of his ribs. Nallia couldn’t watch.

Lenox cackled before fading into the shadows beneath the arena.

No, no, no! This can’t be happening.

Another slice across his shield arm. A swipe of the spear sent his golden helm toppling to the sands. Zephyrus pushed with his shield, forcing his five attackers to step back.

Defeat weighed heavily on his slumped shoulders.

A tear trickled from the corner of Nallia’s eye. Don’t give up. Please, don’t give up.

The Targarus Slicer charged, one blade leveled at Zephyrus’s gut. Zephyrus sidestepped the thrust, grabbing the blade with his bare hands. He ducked under the second strike and wrenched the Slicer’s sword from grasp. Zephyrus spun, plunging the blade into the belly of his attacker. He kicked his dying opponent away from him and let out a thunderous shout that reverberated throughout the arena. He yanked the fallen Slicer’s sword from his stomach and advanced on the others.

Hope reignited in Nallia’s chest. She wanted to cheer, to shout. But she couldn’t breathe.

The Kaelus Trapper flung his net at Zephyrus, but inexplicably, it never opened, flying harmlessly past. Zephyrus deflected a spear thrust with his buckler and charged the Kaelus Bruiser, kicking him to the sands.

The Bruiser dropped to his knees and fell into Targarus’s Warden. Zephyrus blocked the Trapper’s incoming trident with his sword and sliced his knee out from under him, severing his lower leg. As the Trapper fell, Zephyrus stabbed downward through his chest. Zephyrus tore the blade free and spun to block an overhand hack from the Warden. The gladiators continued to attack despite their diminishing numbers.

Zephyrus’s buckler of painted oak and iron splintered into a pile of tinder before the Targarus attack. Yet he did not falter beneath the impending wrath. With a quick counter and a flick of his wrist, he chopped down, deflecting a Kaelus Poker’s spear into the Warden’s sword arm. The Warden cried out and raised his shield to defend himself, but Zephyrus vaulted over the Warden’s shield and away from the Poker’s spear.

Zephyrus abandoned his corner. No longer defending, he pressed his attack against the remaining three gladiators. He dodged, blocked, and countered until his next opportunity revealed itself. The Poker stabbed with his double-edged spear but overextended himself. Zephyrus blocked the thrust down with his splintered shield and jumped over the downed spear to avoid a hack of the Kaelus Slicer’s dual blades. When Zephyrus landed, he slammed down hard on the downed spear’s shaft, fracturing it in half.

The Poker fell back, and the Warden stepped forward. Zephyrus hacked and slashed with an unmatchable fury. On the fourth cut, the Warden’s throat sprayed blood from Zephyrus’s gladius. The Poker reared back to throw the broken spearpoint at Zephyrus’s blind side.

Nallia shouted in warning, but Zephyrus whirled, deflecting the spear away.

Only the Poker and the Slicer remained. Nallia joined in the crowd’s cheers for Zephyrus. He fought like a man possessed, an unstoppable force—a Prophet of Celestia.

Zephyrus, however, turned from his opposition. He didn’t continue his onslaught at the remaining champions. Instead, he ran for Stegavax and Fenyx.

Stegavax sat atop Fenyx, his blade raised above his head. Just as he was about to deliver the killing blow, Zephyrus struck the blade from Stegavax’s hands and shoved him off of Fenyx.

Suddenly, light flashed and electricity coursed through Nallia’s body. She seized and fell from her seat, losing all control. Panic gripped her, but she couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. She wasn’t the only one. Everyone fell from their seats, writhing on the floor of the pulvinus.

Lightning?

Pain sizzled through her helpless body, tingling, and burning. Even once the electricity stopped flowing through her, she found herself numb and unable to move. Her heart thudded in her chest, in her ears, and behind her eyes as she stared at the cloudless sky.

The nightly rains haven’t arrived yet.

Nallia attempted to get up, but only managed to roll onto her side.

Footsteps approached, and worn leather boots came into view.

“Grab him,” said a woman’s voice.

“I’ve got him,” a man said. “Let’s go!”

As they marched away, they entered her field of vision. The man and the woman strode to the exit—the true mages of Celestia that had escaped the dungeons to be replaced by runaway slaves for the sake of the execution.

Nallia tried to cry out. She wanted—needed—to stop them, but she was paralyzed.

The mages strode to the exit. Between them, they dragged the helpless body of the King of New Rheynia.

Chapter 51

King

Danella VII

Salmantica

Her head spun, her body ached, and her rage was uncontainable. The scent of antiseptic and charred flesh woke her in the medicus’s chambers. The electrocuted victims of the mages’ attack suffered in varying degrees. Ser Daenus was gravely wounded but would live. A handful of servers, three lower guards, and Ser Ellus of the King’s Guard Knights perished during the attack. The Prefectus Medicus’s chambers, while large, were filled to capacity.

Danella needed to think, and the groans of the injured weren’t helping. She massaged her temples with her palms. The bright white was the last thing she saw before waking up in the medicus’s quarters.

She ignored her dizziness as she stood and forced herself out of the medicus’s chambers. Her feet wobbled, and the walls seemed to shift with every step, but walking through Sentigard’s halls, the gears in her head whirred to piece together the puzzle of all that had happened.

The mages were in her dungeons for the flaming arrows shot at the pulvinus during the Salmantic Games. Had she known they were mages and not just archers of the Uprising, she would have demanded Laeden nail them to the Six Arrowed Star—even if Varros wouldn’t have allowed it.

But how did they escape the dungeons? They burned Count Elrod Horne to a crisp within his cell to ensure no witness lived to tell the tale, but the fact that the Uprising had elemental mages—and they abducted Varros—meant that the time for posturing was over.

They had Varros. There was cruel irony in that. She thought perhaps her plans could be achieved without Varros needing to die. All she wanted was to appease the Gods, uphold the Facets of Perfection, and secure her father’s kingdom. But now the Uprising had revealed itself, and questions abounded.

Why did the Uprising want Varros? If anything, he defended the Celestics, offering them clemency. If the Uprising wanted him dead, they could have killed everyone on the pulvinus. Why leave everyone and take Varros?

Days had passed, and still they sent no ransom note.

Danella’s hand traced the dark stone walls for support. Loneliness and isolation weighed on her. Her mother and father were gone. Her brother, dead. Her husband…

She shoved the pain of her loss down. She could only push forward. If she looked back, she’d be lost. She needed to put Damascus on the throne and unite the New Rheynians against the mages. The Uprising would fight on her terms, not the other way around—not anymore.

Damascus would be king. The strife between the Sentinels and the Revivalists would end, and united, they would destroy the Uprising. Damascus would reinstate the enforcement of the Treaty of 940 and ensure no mage walked the lands of New Rheynia ever again.

I need allies if I am to pull off this plan.

Yet friends would be difficult to come by. Between Ser Daenus needing time to heal and Ser Ellus not surviving the attack, there was only Varros’s personal bodyguard Ser Ostrey Wingfoot. With Varros gone, and in light of Ostrey’s failure, he would need replacing as well. Protecting Damascus was now her only priority, but the best defense was a unified New Rheynia.

She stepped into the study and closed the doors behind her as her ideas took shape. Retrieving her writing utensils from her hidden stash, she plotted her most daring scheme yet.

Confidence borne of necessity burned within her in ways she never felt before. She loved Varros, but he held her back. She couldn’t have lived with herself had she been the one to rob him of life. Yet the mages did her dirty work for her. This was the only way the Six would have allowed it. Now she would finish what she set out to do, unabated, unabashed, and undeterred.

She finished the letter and sealed it with wax. She needed to find Damascus and set him to purpose. A Drake must sit on the throne, and Damascus, regardless of his surname, would lead New Rheynia to safety against the temptations of the false Gods.

Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for—it was all for this purpose. And no one, not even Laeden, will ruin it.

She exited the study and descended the west tower. She waved off the handmaidens and guards who attempted to speak with her and made her way through the great hall, past the throne room, and down to the armory, where she expected to find Damascus.

Though Damascus was nowhere to be seen, she found Aelon Ironpine.

He bowed upon seeing her. “Your grace, it’s good to see you well.”

“And you, Ser Aelon,” Danella said.

She needed a new King’s Guard Knight. Ser Aelon would serve well. She was relieved to discover he wasn’t the mole she suspected.

“It’s fortunate you were spared from the carnage. Unfortunately, Ser Ellus and Ser Ostrey were not so lucky.”

He tilted his head. “I knew Ser Ellus succumbed, but I hadn’t heard of Ser Ostrey’s misfortune.”

“Oh, well that’s because it hasn’t happened yet,” Danella said. “He is a King’s Guard Knight, yet he remains unscathed while the king has been kidnapped. That cannot be tolerated. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I suppose not.”

“That leaves two spots open on the King’s Guard—three if you exclude Ser Daenus while he recovers—not to mention the additional three swords I hoped to add to protect our new king.”

Aelon’s tourney-knight smile gave away his interest.

She already had him wrapped around her finger, but there was more she wanted.

Danella approached Aelon and straightened the collar of his doublet. “An esteemed knight of your abilities is required during such perilous times.”

He smiled curtly. “I live to serve, your grace.”

Danella returned a tight-lipped smile of her own. “That is what I like to hear. In that case, there is something else I would ask of you. It is of the utmost importance and urgency.”

Aelon bowed his head. “Anything, my queen.”

With Aelon’s future in her service secured, she continued her search for Damascus. However, holding her forged scroll in hand, she came across another who could serve a pivotal role in her schemes.

Aemos Horne, the heir—however disappointing he might be—of the late Count Elrod sat on the sill staring out the window overlooking the inner bailey of Sentigard. His pale skin contrasted with his dark hair and flinty gray eyes. Aside from being handsome, he had little else to offer; he had fallen short of every position he attempted to gain. Despite his shortcomings, his quickly ignited passion could be useful if aimed in the appropriate direction.

Aemos’s hand supported his cheek as he gazed out into the distance.

Danella cleared her throat. “Apologies, Count Horne, I do not mean to disturb.”

“Your grace.” Aemos stood, bowing. “Apologies, I did not see you.”

“It is I who must apologize,” Danella said. “I offer my deepest sympathies for your loss. Your father was a good man.” In truth he hadn’t been much use since her father was still king, but Aemos didn’t need to hear that now.

“Gratitude, your grace. My condolences as well... I can’t believe they abducted King Varros.”

“The entire realm will grieve if we cannot reclaim him,” she said. “I promise you. We will not stand by and let the death of your father or the abduction of my husband go without punishment.” She held out her arm, inviting him to walk with her.

She needed to light a spark to make Aemos’s pugnacity hers to wield.

“How you respond in these trying times may shape the future of your house and your legacy as Count Horne. I trust you will be up to the challenges ahead.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

“I’ve been wondering, though…” She stopped, inspecting the halls conspiratorially.

He surveyed their surroundings before returning his flinty eyes to her.

Tightening her grip on her proverbial mask, she whispered. “Is it possible someone within the castle could have helped the mages escape… and your father witnessed it?” She lifted her hand to her heart. “Why else burn a defenseless man behind bars?”

Aemos tensed.

“Six save me, I hope Laeden didn’t have anything to do with this. Gods know he has a soft spot for mages and their sympathizers.” She paused to gauge Aemos’s reaction, but she didn’t need to. The look on his face was easier to understand than the Facets of Perfection.

Damascus wasn’t in the armory, the training yard, nor the dining hall. It could only mean the Heart of Sentigard. Damascus always favored the grassy nook enclosed within the castle walls, and he’d become even more infatuated with it after bringing Nallia there. Sure enough, that’s where she found him, fighting against the air with his sword in the shadow of the great oak tree the castle was built around. The wind sang with each steel strike.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said from the sill overlooking the small courtyard. “There are matters of import we must discuss.”

He paused to look up at her. “There are.” Rage burned in his golden eyes.

She frowned. “Come, attend me.”

Damascus stirred but did not obey. Instead, he jostled the hilt of the sword in his hand.

“Come, my son. There’s—”

With a grunt, he flung his sword sidelong. It spun in tight arcs before clattering against the solid oak’s trunk and falling to the ground.

She scowled. Now is not the time for a tantrum. As king, he couldn’t afford to be governed by his impulses. He didn’t have the wartime upbringing she and Varros shared. His spring flowers only knew summer’s kiss, not winter’s bite. She understood that the boy had lost his father and needed time to grieve, but now was the time for action. Not pouting.

Men were so ill-tempered and unruly when it came to managing their emotions. They couldn’t separate one from the other, as if the colors on a painter’s palette all mixed together. Men seemed incapable of showing their sadness when they grieved. Instead, they resorted to anger as if it would transform their woes into something tangible they could beat into submission.

“Pick up your sword,” Danella said with none of a mother’s patience.

Damascus mumbled under his breath but collected his blade and resheathed it. Still grumbling, he ascended the rope ladder to the windowsill. Once he summited, he swung his legs around, landing on the floor in full stride.

Danella lurched into motion to keep up with him. “Where are you going?”

Damascus didn’t answer. Despite her attempts, he wouldn’t speak. Only their footsteps bothered with hurried conversation. He brooded silently as they crossed the bailey, ascended the west tower, and made their way to her study.

But as they approached, panic set in. Has he discovered my secret?

He opened the door and ushered her inside. Danella forced a small smile, but once within the study, Damascus slammed the door shut.

Danella shuddered at the crash. “Six save us, must you tear down the entire castle in your wrath? Cease your sulking and—”

“My father is missing,” Damascus said, “stolen by mages. My betrothed returned home in fear from their attack. And…” Damascus’s shoulders rounded, and his hands tore at his short hair. “I feel helpless.”

Danella sighed—in part because her secret was safe, but mostly because her boy needed his mother.

“Consider it a blessing,” Danella said, hugging him from behind. “She could have suffered a more grievous injury like Ser Ellus.” She came around him and took his hands in hers. “But your father…”

Danella allowed her eyes to water before taking her hands from his to wipe the tears away. They weren’t real tears. She didn’t have time to process the loss of her husband. She used her tears knowing they would break Damascus’s wrath. After three sobs, his arms wrapped around her. She composed herself, pulling her hands away from her face to look up at him.

“Your father isn’t just missing…” she whispered. “He’s gone, Damascus.”

He backed away from her. The shape of the word “What” framed his lips, but no sound came forth. She pulled the scroll with the broken seal from a pocket of her dress and handed it to him. He took it slowly, his glossy golden eyes like morning dew in the rising sun.

“They mean to kill him?” he asked. “I don’t understand. He protected them. Why would they—”

Danella lowered her gaze to stare at the floor. “Keep reading.”

The note said the Rheynian people were foreigners who worshiped false Gods. That they took the Helms’ lands and enslaved them. King Varros’s attempt to offer exile instead of death was not good enough for the mages. So they killed him.

“He’s dead? After all he tried to do for them?” Damascus’s expression drooped at first, but then hardened. “They will pay for what they’ve done.”

Those were the exact words she wanted to hear. “They will, my son.” She pulled him into an embrace. “You are now the Duke of Salmantica and the King of New Rheynia. You will announce that the mages have demanded we lay down our arms against them. A servile life or exile is not fitting for a superior race such as they,” she said, quoting the forged letter. “You will tell the people the mages killed your father and wish to rule New Rheynia in his place.”

She stepped back to observe her son. “We cannot let these savages of the Uprising condemn our people to a life of fear. We’ll declare war on the mages for what they’ve done!” A tear streamed down her cheek. Yet these tears were not feigned.

She sacrificed much for the Gods of her father, plotted against her husband, and positioned others against Laeden, but this was her sacrifice—her burden to bear. Now, Damascus would be king.

“All will worship the Six, and you will be the greatest king ever to rule.” She stroked his cheek with her hand. The muscles of his jaw clenched, making his pointed chin beard appear like a weapon of vengeance.

“I am so proud of you.” The time for sulking was over, and the time for amending Varros’s poor decisions had come. Damascus wiped the water from the corners of his eyes and stood to his full height.

“They will die. All of them. On the Star at the Gilded Gauntlet—just as Grandfather did. I swear to the Six, every last mage will die for this!”

The pieces were all in place. She felt the burden fall from her shoulders as Damascus accepted the load. “I’m so proud of you. My king.”

Chapter 52

Double-Edged Sword

Laeden XIV

Salmantica

“Laeden?”

His head throbbed, and his body felt like it had been taken apart and pieced back together all wrong, like a suit of armor constructed from different-sized men of different armies.

“Laeden?”

He opened one eye, but the world blinded him. The walls echoed with every sound. The beating of his own heart throbbed in his ears and behind his eyes. Chimera’s breath, let me rest. He didn’t want to hear the call of the world. Six Hells, I never want to move again.

“Laeden, if you can hear me, wake up!”

Unable to hide from duty any longer, he turned to the familiar voice. Markus’s face took shape above him, his long black hair a tangle. Laeden rubbed the sand from his eyes to wake to the world he’d long been absent from. Markus handed him a clay cup.

Laeden drank and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Tell me it was a dream.”

Markus shook his head. “A nightmare. What do you remember?”

Laeden rubbed his temples. The Kings’ Day Games. The fight between the Cassius gladiators. The…

A distant memory of a white bolt sent ice through his veins.

The mages took Father.

Laeden jumped out of bed, not knowing how long he had been incapacitated.

“Any leads, reports, sightings—anything?” Laeden dressed, putting on the first articles of clothing he could find.

“That’s the problem,” Markus said. “There are too many leads. Some from honest citizens trying to do their part, but others could be the Revivalists trying to distract us. Odds are they have nothing to do with the mages or the Uprising, but their cause is one and the same at the moment. Disarray for the crown and befuddlement for the Sentinels will only serve to strengthen their respective resolutions even if they oppose each other ideologically.”

If Iylea told the truth about Danella conspiring with the Revivalists to kill the King, how did the Uprising play into it? Or was Danella right about Iylea being with the Uprising? She knew the ins and outs of the castle, the arena, and where everyone would be positioned.

“There’s more.” Markus ground his teeth. “According to King Damascus—”

“King Damascus?” Laeden shook his head, unable to make sense of it.

Markus drew close. He placed his hand on Laeden’s shoulder and pursed his lips.

“Laeden, your father is dead.”

Laeden’s knees buckled. His breath caught. The ground seemed to fall out from under him. They killed him? Laeden let the words sink in. The knowledge squirmed like worms inside a rotten apple, wriggling to get to the core.

They killed him. Father… I’ve failed you.

“At least that’s what the mages say,” Markus said. “My deepest condolences, I—”

“Save them,” Laeden snapped. “You said it yourself. The Revivalists and the Uprising both have something to gain through spreading lies. I won’t accept it till I see proof.”

A bustle from the corridor redirected their attention.

A Sentinel barged through the open doorway. “Lieutenant Markus!” With a quick salute, he dropped his hands to his knees, panting. “Captain Laeden, thank the Six you’re awake.”

“What is it?” Markus asked.

“You must come. Quickly!”

The three of them ran through the castle to the throne room.

“He talks of war,” the Sentinel said. “Count Horne’s lost his mind. He’s gonna kill her!”

After being bedridden, it took all of Laeden’s strength to keep up. He couldn’t process what the messenger said, but by the time they arrived at the throne room, it all became clear.

Damascus stood before the throne, his arm raised in the air and a crown atop his head. Not the crown prince’s circlet, but a thicker, heavier, badge of office—his uncle’s crown. Danella stood beside him as they addressed the court packed wall to wall with patrician lords and ladies. Jeers filled the vaulted ceilings, but they were all aimed at a woman bowing on the floor at the center of the throne room.

Damascus held something in his outstretched hand. “They expect us to bow down. To them. But they have forgotten what we are capable of.”

What’s the meaning of this?

“We will remind them that they are the savages.” Damascus flailed his arms to ignite his audience. “They worship false Gods!”

The raucous crowd’s approval grew to a crescendo. Laeden had woken to a nightmare in which his father’s levelheaded temperance was replaced by Damascus’s inflammatory impulses.

“But that’s not all,” Damascus said. “They claim superiority, demanding we abandon the Six and grovel before them.” He scoffed. “I will not bow. Will you?”

The throne room echoed with the patrician’s anger. Every voice that would have counseled patience was far from Damascus’s side. Those who could have offered prudent advice remained silent. Laeden’s eyes focused on Danella.

“We must bind the wounds of our nation’s division,” Damascus said. “No more will the Sentinels fight the Revivalists because our true enemy has revealed itself. Together, we must rise to bring the Uprising to its knees. We will not falter because our cause is just!”

Laeden slunk forward, weaving through the crowd of cheering patricians. Hardly believing his ears, he attempted to devise a plan that could defuse the mob Damascus had incited. He needed to say something. If he didn’t, the very war their father attempted to stave off would erupt.

“There will come a day of reckoning,” Zephyrus warned. “A flood of blood…”

“Now I ask…” Damascus paused to gauge his audience. “Who will help me purge our land of the Celestic rot?” Damascus shouted to the roar of the mob. “Who among you will aid me in converting the barbarians to the Six? Who will scorch the villages of Klaytos so none of your children nor your children’s children have to live in fear?”

The patricians shouted with bloodlust. Laeden might as well have been surrounded by Revivalists.

“We will take back our country!” Damascus yelled. “Who is with me?”

Everyone in the throne room erupted to take up Damascus’s cry. He basked in the support of the Salmantic patricians. It was worse than Laeden imagined, but more concerning than Damascus’s warmongering speech or the full support offered by the patricians was Danella’s calm contemplative smile.

Laeden’s stomach twisted in knots.

She looks… pleased. Her husband was supposedly dead. Does she smile believing this is the path to vengeance? Or is this the war she wanted all along?

“The queen, Brusos, and Ser Daenus are up to something,” Iylea had warned.

He hadn’t listened.

He couldn’t let it come to war. Not like this. Not after he’d lost his mother. Not after all his father risked to maintain the tentative peace between the Uprising and the Revivalists.

Laeden emerged from the crowd and stepped into Damascus’s view.

The crowd went silent.

Aemos Horne stood above a girl crumpled in a heap on the floor at the foot of the dais. She was covered in soot and grime, disheveled beyond that of any to have set foot in the throne room before. He only hoped she would not be the scapegoat for his father’s abduction like the runaway slaves sacrificed in place of the escaped mages who attacked the pulvinus during the Salmantic Games.

Laeden turned his trembling palms skyward. “Where? Where is our father’s body? Where are the hard truths the talk of war should wait on?”

Damascus examined him, his mouth a thin lipless line. The woman bowing on the floor lifted her gaze to Laeden. His heart sank even further. Dirty, thin, and disheveled as she was, Laeden recognized her immediately.

“Iylea!” The euphoria that came with her name on his lips soured at her state of disarray. Gods, where have you been? What have they done to you?

She stood to her feet and ran to him, but Aemos grabbed her by the wrist, wearing the black-and-red armor of a knight of the King’s Guard.

Laeden gritted his teeth and snarled. “What is the meaning of this? Let her go!”

“All the answers you seek are here,” Damascus said, holding up a letter. “Written by their own treacherous hands. Read it for yourself.”

“I have no doubt you know your letters.” Laeden spoke to the room, but his eyes remained fixed on Iylea.

Stay strong, my love, I’m here.

“My doubt lies in circumstantial evidence, hearsay, and collusion. But this has nothing to do with Iylea. Let her go!”

“This has everything to do with Iylea,” Danella said.

The queen’s voice pried his focus from Iylea. He met her cold gaze.

“You knew she was a seer,” Danella said.

The patricians erupted in murmurs. Laeden cursed himself, darting his eyes back to Iylea. She reached for him. Laeden stepped toward her, but Aemos drew his sword.

“Whose side are you on?” Aemos asked.

Laeden clenched his fists. “The side of truth.”

Aemos turned back to the crowd. “Tell the good people the truth then, Laeden. Tell them that my father is dead because you’d rather protect Celestic mages than a Valencian lord!”

The patricians roared in Aemos’s support.

“Laeden, this is what it has come to,” Damascus said. “They attacked you, twice. They abducted and killed Father. We must act now if we are to stop these heretics.”

Laeden’s fists opened. He splayed his palms before his brother. “Please, Damascus. Look at this.” He gestured to the angry mob behind him. “Is this how you will rule?”

“Laeden, Father tried to be civil with these people. Your attempt with the Sentinels was admirable, but they’ve shown their true intentions. I must protect our people. Can’t you see that? The time for peace has ended.”

“This war you speak of is exactly what the Revivalists want!” Laeden was grasping at straws. I must change Damascus’s mind. But if Danella is a Revivalist, could Damascus be too? Was he in on it all along, or is he just his mother’s puppet?

“Perhaps you should worry about yourself rather than the Revivalists,” Aemos said. “She’s a mage. You knew she was a mage, and the only other mages we know have killed my father and the king.”

“Iylea is not a—” Laeden’s voice cut off.

“A what?” Aemos asked. “Not a mage, you say?” His flinty eyes smoldered like hot coals in a brazier. A smile twisted his lips. “She’s already admitted as much. And you—you are worse than her. Your job was to protect. To serve. To ‘Shield the Righteous.’”

“I have done every—”

“You’ve conspired with the mages!” Aemos bellowed, his one hand still grasped around Iylea’s wrist, his other brandishing a sword. “The penalty is clear.”

Laeden looked to Damascus. “Father’s last decree was exile. Not the sword. Please, Brother, don’t do this.”

“I must defend my people,” Damascus said. “She admitted to being a mage. The penalty is death. Let this be a warning to the rest of the Uprising.”

The air in the throne room became thin. Laeden’s lungs constricted; his heart seized.

“Damascus, this isn’t just a war with the mages you’re considering; we still fight the Revivalists. Have you even spoken to Grandfather Hallon? What does Northridge say of you going against Father’s decree?”

Damascus swallowed.

“You haven’t even spoken with him.” Laeden shook his head. “This could divide all of New Rheynia. Again. Outright civil war!”

Iylea’s eyes were wide with panic.

Stay strong, my love.

Laeden glared at Danella. “Is this not the same war your father worked so hard to end? The marriage between you and Father, was that not intended to mend the wound that divided us? Can’t you see—if we fail to learn from the past, we will again fall prey to it.”

It became abundantly clear, however, that the old rivalry still lived on. Despite Damascus being half Drake and half Helixus, the Salmantic patricians booed Laeden.

“Pseudo-prince!”

“Craven pleb!”

Blood pumped into his ears. Like a tempest swirling within him, fury and fear moistened his palms and flushed his cheeks. I must stop this.

Damascus settled them down. “There will be no civil war. Not between the Sentinels and the Revivalists or Salmantica and Valtarcia. Don’t you think Grandfather will want justice for his son?”

Laeden closed his eyes, searching the inside of his eyelids for the words that would make Damascus see reason. “Yes. Justice. Not blind vengeance!”

Damascus shook his head. “It is you who is blind, brother, but you will see. Valtarcia will side with us. The mages will fall. And never again will we make concessions; the treaty will be upheld. We must kill the mage.”

Heat flushed Laeden’s cheeks. His hands trembled at his sides. Kill the mage? Kill Iylea?

“No. No. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be,” Laeden shouted. “Do honor and justice mean nothing to you? What honor is there in killing a helpless woman? This is what Father tried to stop!”

“And he failed!” Damascus shouted. “He died for it, Laeden.”

“Why are you so quick to defend the mage but so slow to defend the people?” Aemos spat. His face reddened beneath his black hair. “When did you become the mages’ puppet?”

“I never—” Laeden was cut off by the shouting patricians.

“He’s a mage!”

“He freed the assassins!”

“That’s enough!” Damascus’s voice cut through the rest. “Prince Laeden had nothing to do with the mages’ escape.”

Ser Aelon Ironpine stepped from the crowd. Time seemed to stand still as he examined Laeden. His sullen expression hardened as he set his jaw.

The people will listen to Aelon. He can stop this madness.

Aelon turned his gaze from Laeden to the queen.

“Do it, Aelon,” Laeden said. “Tell the people the truth!”

Aelon held up his hands to silence the crowd. He cleared his throat. “My lords and ladies, you’ve been betrayed.” The stone at his throat bobbed. He took a slow deep breath.

“I freed the assassins from the dungeons the night before the Kings’ Day Games.”

Gasps and shouts filled the throne room, but Laeden’s stomach fell to the floor.

What in Six Hells are you saying?

“I replaced them with common criminals,” Aelon said.

Laeden felt a stabbing pain between his shoulder blades.

This isn’t true.

“I did this at the command of Prince Laeden,” Aelon said.

The sting of betrayal seared through Laeden as the angry, bloodthirsty crowd hurled insults at him. Aelon’s treachery boiled into anger.

“I did no such thing!” He glared at Aelon, Aemos, Damascus, and Danella.

“Am I to believe his words, or yours?” Aemos growled. “I can only believe what I know. Our fathers are dead, and the one responsible for the mages still has no idea how they escaped. So this mage will die, along with the rest of her kind, and it will be justice!”

“There will be justice,” Laeden said. “Once we apprehend the true criminals. The ones who tell lies for their own gain.” He scowled at Aelon. “The ones who would divide us and prevent us from seeing the true enemy.” He snapped his attention to Danella. “This woman didn’t kill our fathers…” Laeden looked between Aemos and Damascus.

The crowd silenced for a moment, and Laeden turned to address them.

I can not fail. Not here. Not now.

“The Revivalists believe they’re protecting the Six—a noble cause without dispute. Yet they do so by inflicting fear upon the innocent and targeting those with oppositional beliefs.” Laeden took a moment to stare at Danella. “There’s no honor in that. Magic can be dangerous. And this woman may possess such magic…”

His eyes fell upon Iylea, his heart hammering in his chest. He walked towards her despite Aemos’s threatening steel.

“Yet she has not brandished it against us. Caused us no ill will. To blame her for what she is to cast her into the same lot as those who killed Count Elrod Horne, the legendary Ser Ellus, and…” He choked on the words, unable and unwilling to add his father’s name to that list.

“It’s not fair, and I will not be party to it.”

A painstakingly long pause hung over the room as his words settled on the audience, leaving behind the eerie stillness that accompanied the weight of difficult words to hear and hard truths to accept. Defiant eyes and stern jaws softened in the face of humility.

“Have you forgotten the scripture of Valencianism?” Danella asked, breaking the silence. “The Treaty of 940 that our peace was founded upon.”

“I once asked Father the same,” Laeden said. “I thought he should have killed the mage as the law states. But now, standing before you, I see what King Varros saw. This is not how it has to be. There’s been enough blood. There’s been enough war. It’s time we find another way.”

“You speak heresy!” Aemos said.

“If it’s heresy to ask for a woman to be judged for her crimes instead of being murdered for someone else’s deeds then yes. I speak heresy!”

“Laeden, what are you doing?” Markus attempted to grab his arm, but Laeden’s rage couldn’t be contained. I should have seen it sooner. Danella was at the head of the Revivalists, under his nose the entire time. She wanted war with the mages. She wanted to finish the war her father started.

I should have listened to Iylea from the beginning, but it’s not too late.

“Heretic, sympathizer.” Aemos jabbed his sword with each barbed word. “They were your prisoners, your responsibility. They killed my father… and our king!”

“Laeden, you are accused of heresy and treason against the crown, but…” Danella paused as the crowd softened to hear her words. “Part the mage’s head from her shoulders and I am sure these accusations will be dropped. You must choose which side you’re on.”

Tremors coursed through his corded muscles. Fear, anger, failure coalesced into a whirlwind that surrounded him and Iylea.

“I love you,” Iylea said, her voice shaking. “I always have. Do this. Live.” She held out her hand to Laeden and slipped free of Aemos’s grasp.

Laeden caught her in his arms and held her. She was so frail. He tried to speak, but his voice died in his throat.

“The flood of blood is coming,” she whispered. “You must kill me.”

Laeden balked, Zephyrus’s promise returning to him. His mind faltered. His mouth worked, unable to form words.

She backed away and knelt before him. “Do it, Laeden. Please.”

The crowded throne room yelled, gawking, and threatening, but Laeden heard none of it. He unsheathed his sword. He had no choice. He glared at Damascus.

“Her head!” Aemos spat.

“Do it.” Iylea begged from her knees. “Live.”

The silver steel gleamed in his hand. “Judge the sword by its actions. Not what it is capable of.” Laeden let his sword clatter to the floor. He took Iylea’s hand again and pulled her to her feet.

“No,” Iylea whispered. She wrapped her arms around him. “Be humble in your sentencing. Survive this, my love.” She shoved away from Laeden.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aemos struck. A flash of white steel. A whooshing slash through the air.

Time stood still.

Steel met flesh. Iylea’s head parted from her shoulders.

An unnatural ear-piercing screech filled the hall and persisted even after her head thudded to the floor. Her decapitated body crumpled a moment later, spraying blood upon the floor and showering Laeden in the purest extent of his failure.

Her head rolled, leaving a scarlet trail in its wake. A beautiful, horrible comet across the dark stone floor of the throne room.

Laeden fell to his knees. “Six save us.”

The head of the woman he loved rolled to a stop before him. Her yellow-green eyes staring sightlessly. Her mouth hung open.

In this moment, Laeden discovered the true meaning of despair. The ear-piercing screech finally subsided, but it continued in Laeden’s head as he held Iylea’s face in his hands. “Gods, Iylea… I’m sorry. I love you…”

He should have told her more. He should have said it more often. Now he’d never have the chance again.

Danella’s heels clapped upon the stone as she came to stand beside Aemos. “Laeden, you will be tried for heresy and treason towards the crown.”

Chapter 53

At Death’s Door

Fenyx VII

Stockhelm

The days and nights following the Kings’ Day Games were a blend of waking dreams and living nightmares. He woke and slept and woke and slept so many times that frustration consumed him, but now he was certain he was awake because Stegavax slept on the cot beside him.

In his dreams, Stegavax died beneath his blade. Fenyx walked tall, hoisting Stegavax’s long braid like a trophy to display in the Champion’s quarters of the ludus, where Cleotra would be awaiting him. But that was the dream, and he’d woken to a nightmare.

“Release me from this damned place!” Fenyx shouted, hoping someone would hear him. Nobody came. How long have I been here? The construct of time meant nothing. Moments or hours later, the door to the medicus’s chambers swung open.

Auron and the medicus entered.

“He’s alive,” the medicus squawked.

Auron grunted, arms crossed over his leather cuirass while the medicus examined Fenyx’s bandages.

“We thought you for the afterlife,” Auron said. “You may yet restore your honor.”

Fenyx wilted beneath Auron’s stare, a dash of relief in the stew of disappointment.

The medicus peeled back the bandages. “Good, good. No rot. Looks to be mended in no time.” He prepared new bandages to re-dress Fenyx’s wounds.

“You should be dead,” Auron said. “You owe the medicus your life and your gratitude.”

“How long have I been here?” Fenyx asked, half afraid to know the answer. A day? Two days? Certainly it could not have been more than…

“A week.”

Tip the burning scales. “A week!”

“For the first few days, the medicus had you quarantined to prevent risk of infection,” Auron said.

Re-dressing his wounds, the medicus examined him over his beaked nose. “The worst should be over. If you were gonna die, you’d have done it by now.”

Fenyx grunted, not realizing how dire his circumstances had been. “What of him?”

“Not so fortunate.” The medicus shook his head, limping away.

“His wounds weren’t as grievous as yours, but where you have recovered, he has dwindled,” Auron said. “I must admit he’s not one I’d name friend, but he’s a gladiator all the same. Your petty quarrels should have brought an end to both of you fools. Nevertheless, he does not deserve to die like this.”

Fenyx hung his head. So far removed from honor and glory. A whole week, lost. “Auron, when can I be gone from this place and rejoin my brothers?”

“You will not return until you are given leave by the medicus. But to regain standing, you have a long way to go. You have dishonored your name and this house.”

Fenyx’s shoulders slumped. He’d have coiled his hands into fists if not for the bandages lining his palms. I didn’t choose to be poisoned by my own brother, yet I suffer the punishment all the same. “Apologies, Doctore. How can I rectify my standing?”

Auron shook his head. “After attacking your own brother before the commencement of the games?” He scoffed. “You have built yourself quite the pyre. I raised you to be better than Stegavax, not become him.”

Fenyx ate his tongue. The truth doesn’t matter. What good would come of blaming Stegavax for poisoning me? His only means of redemption was proving himself more honorable than his previous actions.

“I am nothing if absent my opportunity to become Champion,” Fenyx said. “Whatever it takes, I will prove to you I am still worthy.”

“Spoken like a true Champion.” Auron patted Fenyx’s good shoulder. “You’ll have your opportunity soon enough. For now, settle for my companionship.”

“It would be most welcomed.” Unless I must suffer more lectures. Fenyx yanked against the manacles binding him to the cot. “But rid me of these irons.”

After a bit of hollering and mumbling from the medicus, he unshackled Fenyx. Fenyx hadn’t realized how liberating it would be to be out of chains.

Auron brought a chair beside Fenyx’s cot. “There’s a story I promised I’d tell you. Remember Sinion?”

The gladiator who rose to become a lanista. Fenyx nodded.

“Sinion is a swindler and a thief, yet a clever one. Never fought a match he couldn’t win, always bending the rules in his favor. He pitted gladiators against one another, took bets and fixed the games to profit his dominus. His dominus was no fool. He knew what he had in Sinion and made the most of him.

“It’s said that every coin he paid for Sinion he made back before he even left the slavers’ market. His sticky fingers and silver tongue pulled him from the dredges of the ludus to the villa as a trusted advisor. Over the years his dominus fell ill and succumbed to his ailments. With no wife or trueborn heirs, he left the ludus to Sinion and declared him a lord.”

A history instead of a lecture…

“Why tell me this?” Fenyx asked. At one point he cared, but it seemed trivial now.

“Because despite everything you’ve learned, you’re still too thick to understand.” Muscles along Auron’s jaw tensed. “As Champion you’ll have many rivals, but you don’t need enemies under your very roof. Yet still, you shun your brothers.”

Fenyx bit his lip. Now the lecture. “Who have I shunned, other than death this past week?”

Auron shook his head. “He could have let you die. By all means, he should have let you die, but he risked all to save you from Stegavax. And it’s clear why he’s been visiting.” He gestured to Fenyx’s wounds.

Zephyrus. In fractured moments between his broken dreams, he recalled seeing Zephyrus standing over him. My wounds were worse than Stegavax’s, but I improved, and he floundered. Has he been healing me?

Auron leaned in and whispered, “His secret is safe with me, but if not for him, you’d have been lost to us.”

Fenyx didn’t know what to say. He opened his mouth, but words failed him. Auron continued before he could phrase a reply. “I tell you of the rise of Sinion because he couldn’t have done it without friends. He made allies with gladiators from other ludi, gained his brothers’ trust, and his dominus’s favor without inspiring hate from others. He has friends within the barracks of every ludus, at the tables of lords, and, some say, even the ear of the king.” Auron paused. “Well, the old king. Point is, should you regain the title of Champion—”

“Regain? Who took my—”

“Who do you think?” Auron asked. “Listen to me, Fenyx. Continue down this path, Champion or not, your life will be fleeting. Without the love of your brothers, who will defend your back?” Auron clapped Fenyx on his left shoulder. “You’re not alone, Fenyx. At least, you don’t have to be.”

Fenyx stewed in silence. Alone. Even within a brotherhood, Fenyx had never welcomed anyone but Auron within arm’s distance. Since my village burned, since my enslavement, I’ve always been alone. But I wasn’t when Stegavax tried to kill me.

“You’re right,” Fenyx said. “I will become the Champion you believe I can be.”

Auron nodded, giving Fenyx’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll speak with the medicus about your release.” He strode to the other end of the medicus’s chambers, where the stooped old man trifled about.

Though they were in the same room, Fenyx couldn’t hear their quiet conversation across the quarters. Sitting on the edge of his cot, Fenyx stared at Stegavax lying on the cot beside him, motionless—at death’s door.

I could kill him right now and put an end to one of my enemies.

It’d be as easy as clamping a hand over Stegavax’s nose and mouth. There was no fight left in Stegavax, and the medicus would believe he succumbed to his wounds. It would only take a moment. Fenyx glanced to the other side of the chambers where Auron exchanged whispers with the medicus. Obscured in dim candlelight, they wouldn’t see.

No one would ever know.

Fenyx lifted his hand towards Stegavax’s face.

What would have happened if Stegavax woke first? He wouldn’t have hesitated to end my life. If I walk away, Stegavax might die of his injuries. But should he survive, how long before he makes another attempt on my life?

Fenyx’s hand hovered over Stegavax’s mouth. He could feel the slow warmth of life exhaling from his nostrils. It would be so easy.

“Do it!” a voice inside him shouted. “Kill him.”

Then Odetta’s voice filled his head. “Keep him safe.”

His hand shook above Stegavax’s mouth. Auron and the medicus remained engaged in hushed conversation, oblivious to Fenyx.

“How one earns respect is just as important as what one does with it.” Auron’s voice joined the conflict in his mind.

Fenyx lowered his hand to his side. I can’t do it.

Killing Stegavax here would be the furthest thing from honor. If anyone found out, people would spit after saying his name. Auron would never forgive him.

Could I even forgive myself?

A memory of his mother’s touch returned to him. After a brawl with another boy in the village, his mother rubbed the tender and swollen rim of his eye, white mist trailing from her fingers. “We fight a different kind of battle, Fenyx.”

Fenyx took a deep breath. Hovering both hands over Stegavax’s wound, he used his body to block Auron and the medicus’s line of sight. He envisioned the corruption in Stegavax’s blood fading, his torn flesh restitching. Preparing to endure the pain he had inflicted upon Stegavax in the Kings’ Day Games, he channeled white mist into the man who tried to kill him.

Curling tendrils flowed from fingertips to bandages and the wounds beneath. Fenyx hadn’t used his healing abilities in years. It surprised him he could summon the energy to do so, but the pain he absorbed in balancing the scales blinded him. He bit his lip.

“I long to see your blood upon the sands,” Fenyx whispered. “Yet your life is not mine to take.” Once he’d done enough to aid without attracting too much attention, he pulled his hands away. He didn’t heal every wound, but Stegavax would survive.

The room spun from the exertion of using his healing magic. Fenyx lay back on his own cot. This will pass, he told himself. And I will become the honorable Champion Auron has always wished me to be. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes and contenting himself that death would not be receiving Fenyx or Stegavax. Not yet at least.

Chapter 54

Black and White

Nallia VI

Stockhelm

“Nallia?” Damascus’s black brows narrowed over his golden eyes.

A gentle breeze swept her hair across her face, giving her an excuse to look away from his stare.

“I’m listening.”

She hadn’t been, but Damascus continued anyway. Sitting on the balcony watching the sun die in a fiery glow on the horizon, she couldn’t help but think of how Zephyrus turned the candlelight into a blaze.

The sun fell beyond the Hylan mountains. The purples of twilight consumed the oranges of day—and likewise, Damascus smothered the light of her hope.

“The mages must be leading the Uprising,” Damascus said.

Damascus arrived at the Cassius villa that morning with Markus, the queen, and their retinue for her father’s coronation as the Chancellor of Stockhelm. Nallia and her parents were among the first to recover from the aftermath of the electrocution. They were far enough away from the epicenter of the attack to not suffer lasting effects, but in the few days between their return and Damascus’s arrival in Stockhelm, much had changed.

The mages murdered King Varros. The court jailed Laeden for conspiring with the Uprising. And Damascus was crowned King of New Rheynia.
“The Sentinels must be repurposed,” Damascus said. “Together, your brother and father will lead the Sentinels to root out any other mages and bring them to justice.”

“Magic is a tool,” Zephyrus had said. “It’s up to the wielder to decide how it is used.”

He was right. She hadn’t visited Zephyrus since the attack. After watching him fight to survive against six gladiators, she couldn’t stomach her guilt whenever she thought of him. She feared the Revivalists would make another attempt on his life after Lenox gave him the broken sword. She sent Nortus to check in on him, but there was little else she could do.

Damascus wants people like Zephyrus ‘brought to justice,’ like he did something wrong.

“Nallia, did you hear me?” Damascus asked, his voice tight. “Are you listening?”

Nallia snapped from her reverie. “Apologies, my prince, I—”

“My king. Apologies, my king.” Damascus rested his face in his hands. His fingers dragged down his cheeks, stretching the skin. “It is I who should apologize. Surely you care not about such matters.”

“Please, my king. You have my undivided attention.” She gave him her best smile, but as much as she tried, she couldn’t listen to her betrothed. His provincial outlook, specifically as it pertained to faith, grated on her.

He wouldn’t demand the murder of children in Klaytos, would he?

“In other news,” Damascus said, “we will be wed a week after the New Rheynian Games. Now that I am king, Mother says it’s imperative I have an heir. If my Uncle Damascus had fathered an heir, the throne never would have passed to my father or me.”

Nallia winced. He speaks of genocide and children without a breath between. “Surely you can be more gallant when we speak of making a son?” she teased, hoping he was still the man she thought.

Damascus huffed. “Apologies, my lady. I didn’t intend for it to sound so…”

“Duteous?”

“I suppose that would be the word.”

A long pause hung between them. She couldn’t look at him. Things used to make sense. Everyone played a role in the Facets of Perfection. Nallia’s role was simple: take care of those beneath her roof and develop gladiators to inspire the people. But soon she would be queen. The responsibility, although overwhelming, wasn’t what bothered her.

Do I still believe in the Facets of Perfection, or even Valencianism?

At the cost of extinguishing magic from the world, she wasn’t sure. She rubbed the elbow Zephyrus healed.

Damascus neared, wrapping his arm about her shoulder. “I know you’re scared, but I promise you, you’re safe.”

Nallia contorted her brow. “How can I be safe? Nobody is safe. The streets will be littered with violence. You’ve all but endorsed the Revivalists!”

Damascus cleared his throat but had the grace to hold his tongue.

“Apologies, I…”

“It’s fine,” Damascus said, despite the tension in his jaw. “I understand why you’re upset. Believe me, going against my father’s wishes hasn’t been easy, but they killed him. Why should I waste resources protecting the people who ought to be tried for regicide?”

Damascus’s embrace sent shivers down her neck.

Like every Celestic in New Rheynia is to blame for your father’s death?

She squirmed away from his touch to pace the balcony. “I understand you wanting to find the mages who killed your father, but do you not see a difference between hunting down two murderers and declaring genocide?”

Lips pursed in a tight line, his golden eyes burned like two suns ready to implode.

Nallia refused to shrink beneath his gaze. “Do you believe all magic is evil?” She rubbed her elbow. “Aquarius be patient, Incinerae be kind, and please, Phaebia forgive me, but do you truly believe the world to be so black and white?” Her heart pounded in her chest.

Damascus’s pointed chin beard bristled. “The Six are merciful, but they are not without their limits. Our ancestors lost their home.” His voice came in tight trembles, as if he couldn’t believe he had to explain himself. “The Six brought destruction down on us for the worship of false Gods, yet they gave us the opportunity to start anew, here in New Rheynia. How would they embrace us if we fell victim to the same mistakes of our ancestors? Would history not be doomed to repeat itself? Nallia, I can’t allow that to happen. The mages have tremendous power, I won’t deny—but they don’t know Valencia’s retribution for their use of it.”

Damascus wanted Nallia to open her eyes and see the light which must have seemed so clear to him. But she didn’t believe in his fears. She saw the magic with her own eyes—the destruction it was capable of, but also the life it could restore.

The Six delivered us here, but were we meant to come as conquerors?

She examined him, cradling his cheek within her palm in search of a soft spot in his heart—an opening through which she could speak to the prince she loved and not the king he’d become. No opening revealed itself.

“I must remove the few to protect the many,” Damascus said. “Otherwise, my father will not be the last of their victims.”

Nallia took a deep breath. Damascus was committed to the safety of his people. He wasn’t good or evil. He did what he thought was right. But he’s wrong.

She nodded in acceptance of his speech despite disagreeing. She conceded, but the time would come again where she would need to be more assertive if she hoped for him to see things differently.

It wasn’t until later, during dinner, that she realized she might be too late.

“Tell me, my king,” her father said, slicing his roast boar. “How am I to serve you? I imagine the Sentinels have, well…” He placed his fork in his mouth to allow himself a moment to figure out how best to proceed, but Damascus beat him to it.

“I thank you for your hospitality. It’s under terrible duress that I must bear my father’s responsibilities. I hope you will serve me as well as you would have served him.”

“It would be my honor,” her father said with his most obsequious grin.

“If I may,” the queen said. “We must begin to learn who these practicing Celestics are and see if they have ties to the mages. They may be our best insight towards toppling the Uprising. Perhaps it would be best to start small, say here—in your own ludus.”

Nallia’s throat constricted, but she kept a placid demeanor.

“Consider it done,” her father said. “I will begin first thing in the morning to ensure there is no disruption for the coronation ceremony in the afternoon.”

Damascus put down his fork and knife. “Search for false idols, prayers, or anything that could be linked to Celestia, the mages, the Uprising—anything. I am sure many of your slaves have such things stowed away.”

Her father began to deny it, but Damascus held up a silencing hand.

“I do not doubt your faith or the rules you have in place, but it wouldn’t be fitting if a practicing Celestic were to turn up beneath the chancellor’s roof. If anyone is found to be in possession of such blasphemous material, give them the opportunity to swear their allegiance to the merciful Six.” Damascus smiled before returning to his meal.

Nallia looked at Markus, hoping he would speak up, but he said nothing, the flesh around his knuckles as white as the Silver Summits.

Damascus continued. “If any provide trouble, see them punished until their Judges answer them.”

Nallia shuffled her feet beneath her chair. Oh, Damascus. What have you become?

“Wasn’t one of your slaves found at that dilapidated Celestic temple?” the queen asked. “The one who once served Laeden?”

Her father swallowed a half-chewed morsel of boar. “Yes, my queen, you speak of Zephyrus. He has since renounced the Judges, sworn allegiance to the Six, and become Champion of this house.”

The queen raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps begin with him. We would not want the Champion to be of ill repute.”

Nallia’s fork slipped from her meat and scraped across her plate. She winced at the metal’s screech and offered her apologies to the rest of the table.

Once the attention was off her, her thoughts turned to Zephyrus. Her entire life, she did what was expected, what was best for her family. She did so never questioning what or why, but Zephyrus made her realize the type of bystanding monster she’d become.

Magic wasn’t evil. And she would not stand idly by while evil measures were taken to eradicate it. Her heart sank into her stomach.

I don’t want to let Zephyrus go, but he is in even more danger now. It’s bad enough that the Revivalists are after him, but if he were discovered as a Celestic mage…

She rubbed her elbow.

I must warn Zephyrus.

Chapter 55

Idols

Fenyx VIII

Stockhelm

Fenyx woke long before dawn. Now that his wounds had healed, he was eager to get back to training. If not for Zephyrus, he would still be in the medicus’s chambers—or worse. But he had yet to thank him, and not for a lack of trying; Zephyrus had barely stepped foot beyond the Champion’s cell since Fenyx’s return. He hoped Zephyrus would stay another day. His sloth would only give Fenyx more opportunities to win back his mantle.

However, as dawn rose, instead of Auron rousing the gladiators from their rest, the Sentinel guards greeted them with the sun.

“Wake up!” shouted a Sentinel, banging the hilt of his sword on his shield. “Step back. Face the wall.”

The Sentinel forced Auron to open the cells. Once he opened the first cell, two Sentinels rushed in. Fenyx couldn’t see, but he heard Aelixo resisting them.

“Hands on the wall!”

A short whip snapped, unlike Auron’s, and Aelixo groaned.

“I won’t tell you again!”

They opened the next cell, and two more rushed in. They tore the cell apart, inspecting the cot, the walls, the corners.

Fenyx’s heart fell to his stomach.

Auron was right.

Last night, Auron had encouraged all the gladiators to discard any idols, scales of balance, or possessions related to Celestia.

“This is your last chance,” a Sentinel shouted. “Cast aside your false Gods or we’ll take them from you. If you give them to us, no one’ll get hurt. But if we have to find them…”

They forced Zephyrus to exit the Champion’s cell as a team of four men entered.

“Is that necessary?” Markus, the son of the dominus, demanded of a Sentinel inspecting Zephyrus’s sublingaria with his blade. “I doubt he has anything hidden in there besides what one might expect beneath a man’s smallclothes. Blades away.”

Fenyx walked over to the wall of his cell, placing his hands on the cool stone. His burns prickled as a chill ran down his back.

Mine are well hidden. They won’t find anything. Just do what they say.

The Sentinels approached Fenyx’s cell. The door was flung open, and Fenyx closed his eyes. Be still. Each moment felt like an eternity as the Sentinels searched Fenyx’s quarters. They inspected every crack in the stone walls.

“All clear,” one said to the other.

Fenyx released his held breath.

As the Sentinels made their way out, one of their feet scuffed the loose stone in the floor.

“What’s this, eh?” the Sentinel said. He knelt to examine the stone.

Dread coiled around Fenyx’s chest like a strangling serpent. He turned to face the Sentinels.

“Ay! Hands on the wall!” The other Sentinel pointed his many-tailed whip at Fenyx.

“Found something!” The Sentinel tore the loose stone free of the floor to find the carved idols within the hollowed rock. “Think you’re clever, eh?”

The child who first came to the barracks with nothing but his idols and his hopes of glory died within Fenyx.

Judges, why?

More Sentinels rushed into his cell.

The dominus’s son, Markus, entered last. “Give up the idols and profess your faith to the Six.” He held out his hands to keep the other Sentinels back. “Do this and you won’t be harmed.”

Fenyx tried to remember the sound of his mother’s voice, the embrace of his father—but they slipped away like water through his fingers as he tried to gather the memories. He was four or five years old, sleeping between his parents, when they awoke to screams. His father jumped to his feet and ran outside, his mother close behind.

“Stay here!” she said to Fenyx. “Hide!”

Fenyx hid, but eventually the deer-hide tent began to glow a bright orange. A putrid smell and an unreal heat bore down on him. Fenyx draped the wolfskin blanket over him and peeked outside as a slaver ran by, dragging a screaming child by the hair. Fenyx retreated into the burning tent, tears streaming down his cheeks.

The tent filled with thick black smoke. Heat gripped him in a chokehold. Boiling oil burned through the deer hide tent—a few drips at first, but then it poured in, sliding down Fenyx’s face.

Fenyx cried out in agony and ran, but in his panic, he knocked into one of the support posts. In a rush of pain and flame, the tent caved in, engulfing him in an inferno. He scrambled from the tent’s remains and dove into the sand, attempting to smother the flames, but the oil continued to burn. He thrashed about until the flames died and his fatigue overtook his agony.

He awoke to more screams. The smell of his own charred flesh made him throw up, but the sight before him was more sickening; they razed half the village to the ground.

“Mother! Father!” He prayed for them to come embrace him, tell him everything would be fine. That they were safe now and the bad men wouldn’t hurt them anymore. But that was just the wishes of a child.

Fenyx found his father lying on the ground, a spear through his belly. His mother, drowned in a pool of her own blood, her throat slit to the bone. Dead. Even if he had been there with them, he couldn’t have healed them through such injuries.

Fenyx took the small leather pouch from his mother’s hip. Inside were his father’s carvings of the three Judges. They hadn’t protected them, but they were the last things he had of his parents.

“You won’t be needing these anymore,” the Sentinel said, examining Fenyx’s idols.

“Profess your faith for the Six,” Markus said again. “No one needs to get hurt.”

Fenyx looked to Auron for aid, but the doctore only nodded.

This can’t be the way of things. “No!” Fenyx said, “I will not.”

Something struck Fenyx in the side of his head. The world went black halfway through his collapse to the ground.

In and out of consciousness, Fenyx was shackled, dragged, and bound to the palus out in the training square. Too dazed to stand without the support of his chains, he rested his head against the wooden post.

“Embrace the Six,” the Sentinel said, unfurling a whip with multiple strips of knotted leather.

Fenyx had endured Auron’s discipline before. He would not denounce the Judges nor profess faith in their Gods. “No.”

The whip cracked, and pain seared like hot irons across his back. Fenyx screamed, despite himself. He felt as if he’d been whipped half a dozen times in one lash. Fenyx grit his teeth. His bound hands curled into fists.

Crack!

The whip ripped across his back. It burned as if he were ensnared in the oil-soaked tent all over again. Again and again, the whip rose and fell. Each time Fenyx promised himself he wouldn’t scream, but he did. He lost count after the twentieth lash, blinded by pain, rage, and every injustice he ever suffered.

When will they stop? When will it end? Judges, what must I do to regain your favor?

He clenched his fists into balls of hopeless hatred.

“Good,” a voice said in his head. “Let your anger temper you into fine steel.”

Fenyx didn’t know what he was hearing, but he could no longer stand. He hung limp from where his wrists were shackled to the palus.

“Enough,” Dominus said from the balcony. “Leave him there to find his faith in the Six.”

Fenyx cried. Perhaps from the pain, the loss of his idols, or even in relief that the lashes were over—but he did not find the Six as he hung from the palus, nor during the coronation ceremony. Even after the sun set behind the Hylan mountains, Fenyx found nothing but fury.

Overhead, the angry orange sky gave way to purple, and night settled over Stockhelm. Fenyx waited for the nightly rains, but for the first time in his life, they did not come.

Chapter 56

Family, Faith, Future

Danella VIII

Stockhelm

Danella hadn’t been eager to travel to Stockhelm in light of recent events, but she knew better than most. Now was the time to be bold. She needed Cassius’s support against the Uprising, and until Brusos’s plans could be made reality, she would have to settle for Cassius. If he could at least threaten the Uprising to be more cautious, it would buy her Revivalists time to find Varros—dead or alive.

Now that her forged letter placed Damascus on the throne, she would have a difficult time explaining if Varros happened to return. Part of her held out hope he still lived. That he might free himself and return to her.

Maybe now he’ll understand what I’ve been saying and do the Gods’ will.

But with each passing day, the odds of that possibility diminished.

Despite the commotion, Danella could not rid herself of Iylea’s voice in her head. Even after Aemos Horne painted the throne room with her blood, her words still rang in Danella’s ears. The way Laeden glared at Damascus made her shudder.

“Brother will fight brother.”

Her only path was forward. She plotted with Aemos and Aelon to discredit Laeden’s standing within Damascus’s eyes. In the eyes of the law, she had the three required witnesses to ensure Laeden would no longer be a problem. With their oathbound testimonies, the trial would be an open-and-shut case, but that didn’t please everyone.

Markus accompanied their trip to Stockhelm to see his father’s coronation, but he remained quiet, distant, and unreadable. She didn’t expect someone like Markus to understand what had happened, or why it needed to happen as it did, but Laeden needed to be taken out of the picture. If Laeden put the idea of diplomacy in Damascus’s head, the Uprising would continue to grow, the mages of Celestia would become a greater threat, and the Gods would unleash their wrath upon the lands just as they had back in Rheynia.

Earl Cassius welcomed them, in full support of Damascus’s decrees, upon their arrival at the ludus. But the next morning after discovering one of his top gladiators with idols of the Judges, he stopped his whipping as if his punishment was for simple insubordination. Danella wanted the slave hung by the thumbs and whipped until he renounced the Judges and took an oath to Valencianism. But Cassius sent the slave to the medicus after a few lashes and some time chained to a post. For all the fervor he spoke of last night, Chancellor Cassius was soft.

Soft men will not save us from the Gods’ wrath.

To her disappointment, Zephyrus, the supposed Prophet of Celestia, had no attachments to the Judges. Danella found it difficult to believe that out of nearly twenty gladiators, only one had ties to Celestia. However, if Zephyrus actually did renounce the Judges and swear an oath to the Six, perhaps she could make an example of him—from the bowels of Tharseo’s Bastion to a Champion of Valencia.

At this point, he might be of more use to me alive.

But Zephyrus wasn’t her only concern beneath Cassius’s roof. Damascus’s impressionable mind was susceptible to manipulation, and Nallia needed to be a positive influence, always guiding him back to the Six. Prior to the coronation, Danella went out of her way to speak with Nallia, to give her a nudge in the proper direction.

“You are strong,” Danella had said, hoping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I can see it in your eyes. My son needs that strength. Behind every powerful man is a strong woman who got him there.”

“Thank you, my queen,” Nallia said.

Danella looked down at the floor, letting her mask develop a tear at the corner of her eye. “I am queen no longer… because I did not have the strength or the wisdom to guide my husband. If only I spoke sense to him. If the mage was executed, perhaps my Varros would still be among us.”

“King Varros was a good man and a wise king,” Nallia said, embracing both of Danella’s hands in her own. “He stood up for what he believed in, against terrible adversity. He sought to protect people. He embodied strength and determination in his quest to create more inclusive citizenship. A unified society is a beautiful one.”

“Those are five of the six Facets,” Danella said. “Yet the absence of faith led to his downfall. We weren’t alive during the disasters of Rheynia, but we are not so far removed to have forgotten what the Gods do when their worship is threatened by lesser deities.

“Varros’s death is our punishment for our lack of faith. He believed he knew better than the Gods, and we went away from the scripture. ‘We must remain favorable in the eyes of the Gods by spreading the Facets of Perfection. It’s our duty to guide those in squalor towards the righteous path.’ How far we have strayed.” Danella shook her head. “I failed my husband.”

Danella slipped away from Nallia’s grip. “My wish for you is to never know this pain. To stand by your husband, support him in his causes, and guide him back to scripture if he strays from the Gods’ path.” Her mask began to break, and real tears fell from her eyes. “I have sacrificed much, but that is what it means to rule.”

My poor Varros.

Danella wiped her eyes. “Family, faith, and future, those are the Drake words, but the three are difficult to honor, when in supporting one, you may end up failing another. Apologies, I hadn’t intended to unburden such sentiments on you, but one day soon, you will be queen, and his yokes will become yours. He will become your family—even more so than your own blood. Your faith will guide you both as you rule. And the future may hinge on every choice you make.”

Her words were true and earnest. Danella couldn’t remember the last time she spoke with so much candor. She only hoped Nallia would accept, aid Damascus in his responsibilities, and be the queen her father’s kingdom needed.

Yet only a few hours later, following the ceremony, Damascus came to Danella in her chambers of the Cassius villa.

“What is it, my king?” Danella asked.

His eyes remained on the floor, looking every bit the boy and not the mighty king she needed him to be. “Nallia suggested having the inquisition end after our wedding. If we spill enough Celestic blood or bring enough to follow the Six, could our matrimony commence a period of peace and stabilization?”

He desired peace—she could see it in his face. Everyone desired peace, but no one was willing to do what it took to secure it. Varros’s weakness shone in his eyes.

Nallia’s weakness.

Danella’s mask smiled, concealing the anger building beneath. “She is a wise woman.” And she’ll be the end of us all. “I suppose your wedding could be as good a time as any, yet we will need to consult the Gods.”

Damascus’s raised shoulders slackened as he let out a deep breath. With his ease, Danella reaccepted the burden she’d only just shared with him.

I’m not done. It must be me, and me alone. Nallia is no longer a potential ally, but an adversary. There is only one way to spur Damascus to do the Gods’ will: Nallia must perish at the hands of the mages.

Thoughts raced through her mind until an idea formed.

“We will have an omenation then,” Damascus said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lip. He embraced her. “This week would have been impossible without you.”

Danella hugged her son. “I love you.”

Yet even as she said the words, she plotted to kill his betrothed. It could be done, and she knew just how to do it. He would never forgive her if he found out, but he would never know.

My country needs me, and I will deliver—regardless of the cost.

“Family, faith, future.”

She held him, afraid to let go. But he released her and strode over to the windows. The skies were an ominous black, separated by glowing orbs of light.

Has there ever been such a starry night?

“Mother,” Damascus said. “Shouldn’t the nightly rains have started by now?”

Danella followed him to the window to inspect the skyline. No thunder rumbled in the distance, no clouds stretched across the horizon—no threat of rain at all.

It’s already happening, she thought. The Gods’ wrath is beginning.

Chapter 57

Brothers in Freedom

Zephyrus XVII

Stockhelm

“Attend!” Doctore shouted, interrupting the sparring gladiators. They broke apart and stood in formation. All but Fenyx, of course.

“The New Rheynian Games fast approach,” Doctore said. “Since the Kings’ Day Games finished absent a Champion…” He glared at Stegavax. “We must restore honor to this house.

“Eight will compete upon the pebbles of the Chariot’s Arena, each to fight the gladiators of Kaelus and Targarus of equal seed. Our eighth will fight their eighths, our seventh will fight their sevenths, and so on. Those who are victorious in their match earn a point. The victor of the Primus is awarded two points. The house with the most points after all eight have fought wins. If Valencia smiles upon us, perhaps recent disgraces can be redeemed. For now, rest. I will announce the seeding at the conclusion of today’s training.” Doctore dismissed them for lunch, and so began the competition to get to the bowl of gruel first.

“If Valencia smiles upon us…” Zephyrus scoffed.

With Stegavax finally healthy, and no one clinging to life in the medicus’s chambers, the gladiators of House Cassius were the healthiest they’d been since Zephyrus’s arrival—no thanks to the Gods of Valencia. Yet Fenyx was back there once again. The wounds he suffered weren’t fatal, but they would leave worse scars than those he suffered in the Kings’ Day Games.

Zephyrus tried to warn everyone after Vykinallia’s bodyslave, Odetta, alerted him of the impending search. Zephyrus told Doctore, and he gathered the idols, symbols, and texts from more than half the men. Even Doctore possessed idols, but they were tossed over the cliff along with everyone else’s. Everyone but Fenyx relinquished their possessions, and no one would soon forget what happened to him.

If the Gods bore witness to what happened and did nothing, they were more evil than King Damascus.

Amidst such thoughts, food nor rankings offered any reprieve. Zephyrus had run out of time. Hunted by the Revivalists, unwelcomed by the gladiators, and no longer within Laeden’s good graces, Zephyrus was on his own. Even with Lenox cast out of House Cassius, he still nearly managed to get Zephyrus killed.

Another broken sword…

Besides Lenox, Zephyrus didn’t think he’d be able to lift steel against another slave again. He wanted to be patient. He wanted to spare the lives of the slaves fighting against him. But he couldn’t. He killed to survive, as Vykannis had commanded. He told himself it was for the greater good, but he didn’t believe it.

Still alive, Patrus… but did I choose the path of the Harbinger to do so? Is there any redemption after what I’ve done?

His dreams had become nothing but nightmares since the Kings’ Day Games. He kept seeing the faces of the slaves he slew and his mother begging him to listen to her. But he wasn’t interested in what she had to say. Maybe she could have helped the king’s emissary, but Zephyrus let that potential fate go when he dropped the scroll at Laeden’s feet. He gave up one possible future to set his foot on the path Patrus left off: freeing the slaves.

One dream, however, gave him inspiration. Master Aikous taught him, Ceres, and Sybex how to pick a lock using force magic. Though Ceres could move mountains with his telekinetic strength, he lacked the control and dexterity to move the pins into position. Sybex, while brilliant with elemental magic, couldn’t harness force or manipulation magic. But Zephyrus managed to open every lock Aikous put before him.

Having such an ability was only as useful as the people willing to follow. Right now, he didn’t even think Jecht and Cerik would go with him. Things were different within the barracks ever since Carsos and Ixion were killed because of his involvement with Vykinallia. Although Jecht and Cerik didn’t say or do anything outright, they seemed to hold him at a distance.

Zephyrus followed the other gladiators to the shaded break area, keeping a respectful distance behind Jecht and Cerik.

At least they still let me sit with them, even if they barely speak to me.

“I hate these exhibition fights,” Jecht said, fawning over his wounds from the coronation ceremony. “I don’t get a glimpse of steel on skin when it’s a matter of life and death, but these exhibition games…” He rolled his eyes. “At Targarus’s ludus, we were taught to fight and kill, not play pretend. But here, because we must put on a farce for the crowd, I am to suffer the bumps and bruises of a lesser gladiator.”

“I assume I’m of the lesser stock then?” Cerik asked, referencing his bandaged foot.

After sustaining an injury during the Kings’ Day Games, Cerik had returned to training, but still walked with a limp.

“You know what I mean,” Jecht said, but Cerik shoved Jecht’s bruised shoulder.

“Ow!” Jecht grimaced. “No, not you.”

“That’s what I thought.” Cerik sat down beside Jecht and across from Zephyrus, waiting for the gruel line to shorten. Conversation shifted to the impending announcement of the rankings, but Zephyrus had no ear for it.

If they knew a life before their bondage, they would not be so consumed with the trivial glories of their enslavement. I must convince them of the righteous path, but how?

Stegavax and Vossler devoured their gruel a few tables down, but they would sooner step into the Stormburn geyser than join Zephyrus. Shagren, Aelixo, and Wardon whispered amongst themselves, undoubtedly creating their own rankings. Similarly, they were more likely to listen to a Lover’s Dream’s thorns than to Zephyrus.

Zephyrus continued to scan the shaded area adjacent to the training square, but he’d done a poor job of making friends since his arrival. His eyes fixed on Doctore standing in the shade beneath the water well’s awning.

If I could convince Doctore, the others would follow him. He might be my only hope.

Zephyrus pressed his hands into the wooden table and stood. Jecht and Cerik’s eyes followed him, but neither spoke.

He strode over to the water well. “Doctore, might I have a word?”

Doctore didn’t look up from the well. “You will find out your ranking with the others.” He dipped his cup back into the water and refilled.

“That’s not why I’ve come.”

“Why then?” Doctore asked, leaning back against the well, lifting his cup to his lips.

Zephyrus glanced side to side to make sure no surrounding guards or Sentinels could hear. “I don’t know what to make of yesterday’s events. The search and seizure of our idols, the unjust punishments doled out to the gladiators, the absence of rain. Any and all are more pressing than the seeding of a game.”

Doctore smirked, putting his cup down. “That’s where you’re wrong. Your mind should be set to the coming match. The days will evaporate quickly. Your time will soon be upon you.”

Zephyrus wouldn’t be dismissed. If he garnered Doctore’s support, the other gladiators would follow him, regardless of his past deeds or prophecies. Together, they could rebel from their masters. He needed to appeal to his beliefs.

“You relinquished your own Celestic possessions. You hold the Judges in your heart as well as anyone.”

“Shush! Would you have us both whipped?” Doctore scanned the training square to make certain no one heard. He leaned closer and whispered, “This isn’t the first purge of mages, nor the first time Celestics were persecuted. This type of talk, this way of thinking, this Uprising—there’s only one way for it to end: it’ll be the Haunted Hollow all over again.”

Zephyrus pursed his lips. Silence will not serve me. I must convince him. “How bad must things get before the reward of freedom outweighs the risk of seizing it?”

Doctore set his cup down on the lip of the watering well. “You think this life we have is cruel, but it’s a kindness compared to how much worse it can get. Cassius may not be Invinius Auros, but he provides for us and rewards prowess.”

Auros. The dominus who freed his slaves, Patrus among them.

“You have the skills to become Champion,” Doctore said. “Not only of this house, but all of New Rheynia. Focus on your training. Live in glory with a roof over your head and food in your belly. You could do much worse. Turn from this path, this siren song the Uprising whispers to you. Embrace your fate here and live.”

Live. Patrus’s last word. Surrounded by armed slavers, Patrus’s command saved Zephyrus’s life, but now Doctore’s same advice was a death sentence.

“You have taught me to survive, but what happens when survival isn’t enough? Surviving is not living. Living is the freedom to worship, the freedom to speak of my beliefs—to make my own choices of where I have a roof over my head and what I put in my belly. I’m one of the Three. A Prophet of the Return. I will not be another tool, bowing and scraping for the Rheynians while others are fighting for our freedom.”

Doctore’s nostrils flared. His dark eyes narrowed into slivers.

It wasn’t enough. Be bolder. Zephyrus leaned closer. “Auron, this life has more for us than enslavement. Join me. Fight with me. Free our peop—”

“You are to be Champion of this house,” Doctore growled. “The first seed in the Primus of the New Rheynian Games. Embrace your fate, Zephyrus, not as a Prophet of the Return, but as a Champion. You can accomplish great things. Do not cast your life to the fire.”

“But I’ll never be free.”

“You can earn your freedom,” Doctore said. “The absence of rain proves anything is possible. I’ve lived in Stockhelm my entire life. Never has a night passed without the coming of rain. Anything is possible.”

“Anything…” Zephyrus agreed. “Anything is possible for those who believe. I believe in a world where you and I embrace as free men who don’t have to earn our freedom. Where we speak of the Judges we praise openly, without fear. I’m willing to fight for that belief.”

Doctore bit his lip and furled his brow, but Zephyrus couldn’t back down. If he were to lead a rebellion, it would start here. And if Doctore joined him, the men would follow.

“Auron, I know what you believe in. But are you willing to fight for it?”

Doctore stepped up to Zephyrus, his glare smoldering. Close enough that Zephyrus could feel the heat of his breath, he spoke through bared teeth. “You will walk away, and I will pretend this conversation never happened. But if you speak of freedom, attempt to rouse the others in your mischief, or question my honor again…” He shook his head. “Flee from sight.”

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s temples as he swallowed his failure. Laeden wanted Zephyrus to become a member of the Sentinels and abandon his people. Doctore wanted Zephyrus to become a dutiful gladiator who accepted undeserved abuse at every turn. Vykinallia wanted her Celestic mage gladiator to conquer the arena.

I am alone. I must forge my own way.

“You disappoint me, Doctore.” Zephyrus turned his back and spat in the sand.

Returning to the shade, he collected his bowl of gruel and sat with Jecht and Cerik. Spooning the lukewarm sludge into his mouth, he didn’t want to listen to talks of rankings, seedings, and matchups.

I must be free, and I will take as many as I can with me.

With the threat of the Revivalists and the impending New Rheynian Games, he could stay here no longer. He couldn’t promise anyone safe passage, especially with the increased number of guards and Sentinels left in the new king’s wake, but he needed to try. People would die but they would do so in the quest for freedom, not for entertainment.

Patrus’s voice sang the Rebels’ Rhyme in his head; Zephyrus began to hum as he twisted his spoon through his bowl of gruel. Those who knew it would approach him or ignore him. Those who didn’t would think nothing of it. He wouldn’t speak of freedom or rebellion as Doctore warned against. He would just hum and let fate take care of the rest.

Hope…

Zephyrus’s throat resonated with the melancholic tones of the Rebels’ Rhyme Patrus had taught him—the song of freedom, redemption, and the Return of the Judges. Zephyrus closed his eyes and let the melody consume him.

Faith…

Visions of loss, death, and Rheynian cruelty flashed before him. He couldn’t succumb to that. He needed to continue moving forward regardless of the path before him.

Trust…

He finished the song and looked up from his bowl to find Jecht and Cerik staring at him. Zephyrus set his spoon down. Cerik’s eyes darted side to side, and Jecht leaned in.

“Did you hear what I heard?” Jecht asked Cerik.

“Aye,” Cerik said, his face drawn as if he’d seen a ghost.

Jecht’s eyes narrowed, the scar across his face wrinkling. “Is this some game you’re playing at?”

“No game,” Zephyrus said.

Cerik raised an eyebrow. “Are you a spy or one of us?”

“You owe us the truth,” Jecht said.

Zephyrus closed his eyes. “You’re right. I haven’t been honest. I’ve been an organization’s emissary, a prince’s spy, and I still have no idea how to be who I’m supposed to be, but you both have been true friends to me. Friends I never deserved.” He leaned closer. “I thought I could tell my clever lies and escape with my freedom, but all my machinations have failed because my aims were too low. However, I can no longer remain here in bondage. I leave to join the Uprising.”

Jecht guffawed.

Cerik examined Zephyrus. “What you’re considering is madness. We’ll be killed if they even hear us speaking of this, and there are more eyes and ears now than ever. You’ll never make it out of here.”

“The risk is great,” Zephyrus said, “but I’ve run out of time. You two have been brothers to me. I ask nothing of you, but I beg you to consider joining me. I don’t know if I’m destined to be the Wielder, the Harbinger, or nothing at all—but I will not remain here.”

“Join you?” Jecht laughed. “Now? You crazy bastard.” A grin stretched across his face, distorting his scar. “Now, Cerik. Of all times, now.”

“Regardless of timing,” Cerik said, “how do we know we can trust you? Prophecies aside, we need proof of whose side you’re on.”

Zephyrus smiled. If Jecht and Cerik came with him, all of this would have been worth it. Although he hoped to free all of Cassius’s slaves from bondage, to free two from a life of slavery was worth his sacrifices. He would give them the full truth and let them decide their fate.

“You want proof?” Zephyrus reached under the table and extended his fingertips towards the wrapping of Cerik’s wounded foot. He looked around to make sure no one could see beneath the table. Just as he’d done with Patrus in his dream, and Fenyx several times now, Zephyrus visualized the wounded flesh along Cerik’s foot. Zephyrus’s own foot began to ache as he balanced the scales. He grimaced, but the pain eventually subsided.

“Cerik, your foot seems to be faring better, does it not?”

Cerik screwed up his face. “It continues to heal, but…”

Zephyrus tapped his index finger on the wooden table. “Check your dressings.”

Conspiratorially, Cerik did so, undoing the medicus’s wrapping. “Burn me,” Cerik whispered. As soon as Cerik saw his healed flesh, he rewrapped the bandages twice as fast.

“You’re a…” Jecht looked side to side before mouthing the word mage. Zephyrus nodded. “You mad bastard.”

Cerik’s mouth moved, but his tongue remained silent.

“I suppose so,” Zephyrus said. “But I have a plan, and I’ll be getting out of here. Will you join me?”

Chapter 58

The Divine Realm

Iylea III

Unknown

A sea of black threatened to drown her. Not like it had when she’d been thrown in the secret dungeons of Sentigard; this darkness was beyond the lack of sight, but an abyss. An absence of sight. Void of sound. She took in breath, but even her sense of smell failed her.

Where am I?

Iylea’s head ached. She put her hands to her face, trying to recall her last memories as if she’d woken from one of her peculiar dreams, but when she did, her hands glowed a cerulean blue. She gasped, not comprehending what she was seeing.

Then it hit her. The flash of steel. Screams, high and shrill. Laeden’s broken expression. A turbulence that seemed to rip her apart.

I am dead.

She searched the blackness, but it surrounded her in all directions. She cried into the void, but even her voice was soundless. Panic set her translucent hands trembling. The familiar pressure of a coming vision built behind her eyes, but that was the last of her concerns. Her heart raced within her chest as a cold dread pimpled the back of her neck with gooseflesh.

Even in death I am denied rest.

A white hole appeared in the abyss above her as if she were trapped at the bottom of a well. She reached for the light but found she could actually move upward. Like swimming to the surface of the pool she’d drowned in, she kicked and splashed, fighting for the freedom beyond the darkness. Despite her effort, the bright portal of her escape remained equally as far away. She fought the abyss until her legs were numb and her lungs wheezed, but still, the light was denied her.

Seeing no other option, she closed her eyes and submitted to the pressure from within, only this time she didn’t just see into the window of the Gods—she entered it.

Standing in a massive circular foyer with a domed ceiling that stretched impossibly high, Iylea felt as if she had shrunk. Before her, cascading down the wall like a waterfall, a glowing liquid of bright cerulean, viridian, and lilac hues overflowed from one oblong pool to the next. As beautiful as any sight she’d ever seen, and as peaceful as any song she’d ever heard, the display left her in awe.

Beneath her feet, gleaming white tiles with intricately carved glyphs reflected her visage. No longer radiating a cerulean blue light, she was flesh and bone once again, dressed in a gown that would make the patricians of court quake with envy. Iylea didn’t believe it.

This is Valencia.

Iylea spun, dwarfed by the grandeur of her surroundings. Behind her and across from the wall of the falls was a circular hole in the floor, wider than she was tall. Adjacent to it, constructed in a gold marbled ivory that matched the columns encircling the outskirts of the atrium, stood a crank. Iylea approached the crank and the glowing chain it held. The links, each as large as her head, were forged of a similar glowing substance as the glimmering liquid descending the wall behind her. Darker hues of purple, green, and blue rippled through the chain, but what caught her eye was what lay beyond.

Iylea neared the outer rim of the circular hole in the floor to follow the links in the chain as they descended to the world below.

Oceans crashed against mountains, winds blew clouds across the sky, and cities stood stark against the green fields of the land. Iylea’s breath caught, identifying the Aquarian River that stretched from the Salmantic harbor to wrap around Sentigard.

How am I here? Why am I here?

Feeling a sudden spell of vertigo, Iylea backed away from the hole in the floor.

Voices in the distance drew her attention. Several rooms and hallways branched from the atrium, but Iylea slunk toward the voices. Taking cover behind a column nearest the open doorway the voices came from, she crept closer with a handmaiden’s silence.

“Creator’s wrath,” said a singsong voice beyond the open door. “What do we do?”

Iylea approached the doorway and pressed her back to the edge. Holding her breath, she peeked into the room beyond. Two men and three women stood around a long rectangular table that seemed to be carved from a gargantuan crystal. Furrowed brows and tense shoulders indicated that Iylea arrived in the middle of an argument… between the Gods of Valencia.

Iylea felt like a child by comparison to the towering Gods around her, but that made it easier to remain hidden. If they noticed Iylea, they showed no sign of it.

“Thirteen of us,” said the woman with the singsong voice. Long and slender, her fingers traced from her brow and down her onyx cheeks. Her long white hair seemed to blow in the breeze, despite the lack of a current. Sparks of electricity seemed to crackle with her every motion. Though the goddess did not appear anything like the depiction of any of the statues in the Royal Basilica, Iylea assumed—if she were one of the Six—she was Phaebia.

“Thirteen of us, gone,” Phaebia said. “Only we remain.”

“Why did he kill her?” said a large gruff man across from her. His muscled frame, the bracers on his forearms, and untamable black beard could only belong to Ferrocles.

Iylea held her breath. Visions were one thing, but to be in Valencia, to see the Gods face-to-face, was something else entirely. She wanted to run, to hide, but she was unable to move. She swallowed her fear, trying to piece together what she heard.

Thirteen gone…

“I don’t believe Aquarius could help himself,” said the other man beside Phaebia. Iylea had to adjust her vantage point to see around Ferrocles’s bulk, but when she did, she almost staggered into the door.

Ashen skin. Red eyes.

The man from my visions.

“What do you mean, Hameryn?” Phaebia asked.

Hameryn? The red-eyed man is the Valencian God of Harmony?

His skin was cracked, unlike how she’d seen him in visions before. A red glow gleamed through his shattered skin like a candle in an intricate holder.

“Aquarius acquired the taste for divine blood,” Hameryn said. “He killed her to absorb the power bestowed on her by the Creator.”

Iylea didn’t understand. If Hameryn sent me the visions, then I’m not a seer of Celestia.

She swallowed, examining the five Gods around the table—youthful Phaebia, matronly Moterra, beautiful Incinerae, burly Ferrocles, and the red-eyed Hameryn.

But who were the thirteen others, and who did Aquarius kill?

“He killed her just for power?” Incinerae stuttered, her voice crackling like a hearth.

“Just?” Hameryn hmphed. “With the addition of just Courianne’s power, he could have come for you next, and nothing would have been able to stop him.”

Incinerae shuddered.

Courianne? I’ve never heard of any such God before.

“But now—” Hameryn held up his cracked hands as they bled red light. “Aquarius’s and Courianne’s life-force flows through me. The Creator never intended us to hold such power. This could trigger the reckoning we’ve long feared.”

Moterra leaned forward, pressing her hand into the crystal table. She appeared as if she were carved from a thick tree trunk. Bark formed a carapace armor over her chest and shoulders, and moss and leaves covered her body like clothing, but it was her glare that separated her from how the texts portrayed her.

Moterra spoke, her voice like a falling tree. “How is it Hameryn, our beacon of harmony, managed to defeat such an empowered and wrathful Aquarius?”

Phaebia, Ferrocles, and Incinerae glanced at Hameryn.

Hameryn lowered his chin, peering at Moterra with his browless red eyes. “Perhaps you doubt the lengths I would go to keep the peace among those who still believe in it. I did what I had to.”

Only when Moterra averted her challenging gaze and placed her hands on her hips did Hameryn break his stare.

“You did the right thing,” Incinerae said, crossing her slender igneous arms over her chest. “He could have picked us off one by one had you not stopped him.”

“Perhaps,” Hameryn said, “but Aquarius’s death will not come without consequence. It will not rain, and the seas will remain treacherous for his passing.”

“For how long?” Phaebia asked.

Hameryn shrugged. “Ask the Creator. It seems when one of us is killed, the mortal realm suffers. Remember Arcamedes and what happened to the beasts of the field? It answers some of the questions concerning the undying in Rheynia all these years. Perhaps Aquarius killed Neutreen back then as well?”

Iylea had never heard of Arcamedes before. But Neutreen? Undead in Rheynia? Iylea recalled the vision she’d received at Cassius’s ludus—the tempest of screaming souls and the crowned man with the ghoulish grin and black veins slithering down his forehead.

The mortal world suffers when a God dies.

Iylea stifled a shiver.

The Disasters. Is it possible they had nothing to do with the Six’s jealousy of Neutreen’s worship? If that’s the case, Celestics are being persecuted out of misguided theology!

Heat rose to her cheeks, and tears stung her eyes. The theological war that saw her father slain and her mother murdered, the treaty that followed—tearing Laeden from his mother—all of it was based on lies.

“I thought Neutreen abdicated her dominion,” Ferrocles said as a question.

“That was her intent,” Hameryn said, “but I didn’t escort her to the Lost Plane myself. He could have killed her on her way and taken the Creator’s power from her.”

“Poor Neutreen,” Incinerae said.

“If that’s true, what of the others?” Phaebia asked. “The Corners of Kataan, the Giver and Taker, when they left their seats, they left no ruin in their wake.”

Iylea wanted to ask a thousand questions. How am I here? Why am I here? And what of these other Gods, this Lost Plane, and the Disasters?

If the Disasters of Rheynia weren’t a punishment by the Gods, everything they understood about Valencianism was wrong. How many mages died? How many still live in fear? How many more will be nailed to Six Arrowed Stars?

Anger built within her. The Revivalists’ reign of terror was borne out of fear of the Gods’ wrath. Even in her own circumstance, Damascus gave the order, Aemos swung the sword, and Danella saw to her capture—but all based on the same lie.

“They left for the Lost Plane,” Moterra said. “They willingly abandoned their positions, taking the Creator’s power with them.”

“This reeks of Vykannis’s mischief,” Ferrocles said. “Every moment his soul clings to the mortal realm, he sows discord. He wants the Creator’s Reckoning.”

Hameryn nodded. The glowing red lightning that illuminated from his cracked flesh pulsed. “Vykannis bound himself to mortal flesh to see us punished.”

“As long as he remains in Perillian, there will be no peace,” Ferrocles said, making a fist. “We must end him and the Celestic threat.”

It was strange for the Gods of Valencia to speak of the Judges of Celestia. All this time, she believed her abilities were the gifted curse of the Judges—that’s why they executed me. Yet it was always Hameryn she saw. Her mind raced as she struggled to put the pieces together.

“Yes, but what of Courianne?” Phaebia asked. “What trouble has her death brought?”

“She linked us to the mortals,” Hameryn said. “Without her, we can offer the mortals nothing but a passing voice through the Whispering Wall. With Invinius and Arkadia refusing to aid in the breaking of the chain, we will need help if we are to stop Vykannis and prevent the coming Age of the End.”

Invinius and Arkadia… Auros?

Before Iylea could wrap her mind around what he had said, Hameryn turned to Iylea.

His red eyes burned into her. The light from his cracked skin flared, bathing her in a red glow. His smile made the hair on the back of Iylea’s neck stand.

“That is why I have spared Iylea from death and brought her here,” Hameryn said. “She can reconnect our realms so that we might guide the mortals to righteousness.”

Iylea fell to her knees, gasping. The utterings that had echoed in her mind these last weeks suddenly came together like a puzzle.

“Six will become five. The Harbinger swift to rise. The chain must be undone.”

“Too many links on the chain,” Iylea said.

“Yes,” Hameryn said with a sad smile. “Every incomplete soul becomes a link in the chain. Separating us from the mortals, weakening our ability to influence them. To stop The Age of the End, to prevent the Reckoning, the chain must be undone. We need you, Iylea. Will you help us?”

Hameryn held a glowing hand out to her. The other Gods eyed her, awaiting an answer.

It was all too much—her dreams, her beliefs, why she was killed. But she was positioned for a purpose, to make a difference—to stop the lies that Queen Danella and the Revivalists justified with false doctrine.

She met Hameryn’s crimson gaze. “I will.”

Hameryn smiled. “We have much work to do.”

Chapter 59

A Summer Night’s Dream

Nallia VII

Valtarcia

Nallia, her parents, and her brother made the trip by sea to the shores of Valtarcia to attend the games. Along with the eight gladiators who would be fighting on the morrow, the household guard and a dozen of the chancellor’s newly appointed Sentinels accompanied their party. Although they made the trip several times in years past, this one felt nothing like the others.

The distance between her parents grew—literally and figuratively. They spent more time apart than not, but when they were in forced proximity, if they bothered to speak, they bickered. Markus brooded by himself, unwilling to hold a conversation with anyone longer than a few grunts. And Nallia felt torn between who she was and who others expected her to be.

The only one content was her father. He marveled at the bonfires all over Stockhelm. As the confiscated idols, symbols, and texts of the Judges burned to ash, her country seemed to be falling apart. But the more she thought about it, perhaps it was just her worldview that was unraveling.

Hallon Helixus, the Duke of Valtarcia, had closed the gates of Northridge to guests in light of recent events, so when they arrived in Valtarcia, they were spirited by wagon from the docks to an inn near the Chariot’s Arena.

They took up residence in the Winged Helm—the only inn with barracks beneath for lanistas to have convenient lodging close to the arena. Although convenient, the accommodations were by no means extravagant. Her father took one look before deciding he would be sleeping elsewhere. He strode out cursing Hallon for denying him admittance to the castle. Her mother, however, chose to remain at the Winged Helm, further fanning the angry flames between them.

After Odetta helped settle her into her room, Nallia descended the stairs of the inn to the tavern where she found her mother. Surrounded by fools, miscreants, and honest men spending their hard-earned coin, her mother seemed out of place. Her form-fitting wool dress stood out like a bruised thumb next to the Valtarcian women clad in loose layered gowns more suited towards the cold winds. If her mother noticed, she didn’t care, throwing back another drink.

Already in her cups.

A bard in the corner plucked a note on his lute, drawing the crowd to gather around, opening a path for Nallia. She approached the bar, her boots sticking to the ale-sodden floorboards with each step.

Nallia took a seat beside her mother. “Mother, may I ask you something?”

“What is it, my sweet?” Her mother examined her with heavy-lidded eyes, a half empty carafe of wine before her.

“Things were once so simple,” Nallia said. “I rejoiced to be Damascus’s betrothed, but now everything is so complicated.”

The left corner of her mother’s lip curved upward in a half smirk. “Men are a summer night’s dream… when they are present. It’s when they get caught up, concerning themselves in their future legacies or the bravado of their past accomplishments, that they become hellish nightmares. But you have yet to ask a question.”

Nallia twisted the ring on her finger. “Damascus is like a different person since they put a crown atop his head,” Nallia said. “With everything that’s happening, I’m questioning everything I know about myself, everything I thought I wanted. I don’t know if it’s because of Damascus, the chancellorship, you and Father, or…”

She almost said Zephyrus, but she caught herself.

“I don’t know,” Nallia continued quickly. “There’s just so much changing. What if I can’t manage it all?”

Her mother swirled her goblet, examining the contents. “Unfortunately, Nallia, I might not be the one to ask about how to ‘manage it all.’ I doubt drinking is sage advice.”

She shrugged and lifted the goblet to her lips. With a grunt, she set it back down.

“You didn’t always drink,” Nallia said. “What has you so downtrodden?”

Her mother lifted her gaze to the wooden beams of the tavern’s ceiling. “The same things all mothers worry about. I never wanted you to marry a king—especially a Drake.”

Nallia cowered, glad for the bard’s playing to attract the other patrons’ attention.

Her mother continued as if she hadn’t noticed. “I didn’t want Markus to lead the Sentinels, or your father to wrest power beyond our station. We were a happy family. We attended the games together, watched from the grandstands with the plebs. I never wanted jewels and the façade of power. I wanted love! I wanted my children to have love. I gave up on everything I believed in for that love…”

Love. The absence of it in her parents’ marriage twisted in her heart like a dagger.

“Mother, I lov—” Nallia cut herself off. She loved Damascus, but the summer night’s dream of Damascus, not the hellish nightmare he now represented. Is it still love, if I only love the good in someone? She bit her lip, taking her hand from her ring and resting it on her elbow. “I will have love, once peace is restored.”

Her mother raised her eyebrow over the brim of her goblet as she drank again. “Peace is a summer night’s dream—short and fleeting. The moment you believe it’ll last, you’ll wake to another hellish nightmare and realize we live in a vengeful realm where war is a long and painful reality. And once it’s over, the wounds still linger.”

She drank again, her shoulders curling under the weight of her words. “I grew up in Salmantica, through the New Rheynian war. I thought once the war ended, once the treaty was signed, once Helixus and Drake were bound by matrimony, things would be different.” She shook her head. “I named you Vykinallia.”

Nallia looked around, jaw hanging, to make sure no one heard her full name.

“Your father nearly killed us both when he returned home to find you named, but I always liked the stories of the Vykane Blade. Even if they were just stories, they were stories of hope. Holding you in my arms…” Her mother closed her eyes, smiling, as if she were transported back to those moments of bliss. “Vykinallia—it’s a beautiful name, a strong name with character. Nallia doesn’t suit you.

“You were named after the Treasure of the Stockhelm people—a symbol of hope. I named you wanting to believe peace could last. Your father poisoned me against those beliefs, and I’ve become no better than he.” She downed the rest of her wine. “Now the Gods see fit to drown our lands in more blood.”

Nallia didn’t know what to say of her mother’s pain. It hurt to see her so, but her pain was greater than just her own. She drank for the woe of the world.

All she wants is hope—something to believe in.

“The Gods can be cruel.”

Mother scoffed. “We are cruel to each other. Are we denied rain because of our weak faith in the Six? Or is this a punishment for blaming the Judges for our shortcomings? The scales have been disrupted. The world is out of balance.”

Once again, Nallia had no reply, but her mother presented ideas she’d never considered before. The tavern-goers erupted in cheers as the bard finished his song.

“And now,” the bard said, “has anyone heard ‘The Hero of Kings’ Day?’”

The crowd cheered, and the bard began to pluck his lute.

“Nallia?” Mother put her hand on Nallia’s forearm. “Do you love Damascus?”

Nallia paused. Her stomach didn’t flutter at the mention of his name. The sight of him didn’t make her swoon. Do I love Damascus? Did I ever?

Nallia swallowed the knot in her throat. “I don’t know.”

Her mother gave her a sad smile. “What does your heart desire?”

“Selfless love,” Nallia said. “A man who is trusting, courageous, and honorable. One who sticks to his convictions—who isn’t afraid to stand up for himself or others but realizes there’s more to life than distinction and glory. I want a love that listens. A love that sacrifices.”

Mother shook her head. “There’s no love like that, my sweet. Only in the songs.”

The bard continued to sing:

Backed to the corner with nowhere to go,

Our hero alone, surrounded by foes

He leapt into action, with sword and fury

Fighting for all but never for glory,

Saved his brothers, one by one

Vict’ry for life, now all have won

Zephyrus the Red. Zephyrus the Red.

Only in the songs… but what if the songs were true?

There were many things Nallia desired that she knew she might never receive. She wanted Damascus to be merciful, her father to be reasonable, her mother to be happy. But the selfless love she desired she had already received, and it wasn’t only in a song.

The night before Father’s coronation as chancellor, after she warned Zephyrus of the imminent search for items of Celestia, she had considered setting Zephyrus free. Part of her wanted to run away with him, to escape her fears, her problems, and start a simpler life. She told herself she was being childish, but now, she knew in her heart that she loved him.

She wasn’t running away from her problems; she was running towards what she believed in. He who did not harm her when she discovered his secret, he who trusted in her at his own peril and healed her to provide comfort. Zephyrus recognized the brokenness in the world and sought to change it. He had the courage to stand up for what was right and not what was accepted. She could never run away with him, but no longer could she hold him against his will.

“I hope you find a love that fulfills the songs, Mother,” Nallia said, looking away from the bard to face her. “But I think I’ve already found mine.”

Nallia left the tavern of the Winged Helm, ascending the stairs toward her rooms.

Tonight is the night. I will see him one last time. Then I will let him go.

She recalled one of her first conversations with Zephyrus. All he wanted was equality—freedom—not just for himself, but for everyone. Even though he wasn’t able to articulate it, she knew it, yet she did nothing.

If only I saw it sooner.

She called for Nortus to summon Zephyrus up to her rooms and began to ready herself. She longed for him in a way she never did with Damascus, regardless of his crown. Zephyrus was her slave, but she belonged to him.

Her cheeks flushed red as she examined herself in the looking glass. Her heart throbbed in her ears; her stomach fluttered with anticipation. He was the first ray of daybreak. The drop of rain to end the drought. He was the man she would love above all others.

She took a deep breath. If this is the last time I am going to see him, I must make it count.

Chapter 60

For Luck

Zephyrus XVIII

Valtarcia

Tonight, they would escape from their Rheynian masters. After arriving in Valtarcia, they were delivered straight to their cells in the barracks beneath the inn. Although the chancellor had more than tripled the guard in recent weeks, the inn’s sentries stood watch here.

“Valtarcia seems untouched by the chancellor’s scourge,” Cerik whispered through the bars of his shared cell with Jecht.

“Fewer guards throughout the city too,” Jecht said.

“Even so, the Jackals will be our most pressing concern,” Cerik said.

Zephyrus’s knew little of the Jackals, but in light of recent events, word had it that they brutalized escaped slaves, often sending less-valuable slaves back to the house that branded them in pieces to serve as a lesson for others thinking of escape. Even still, the Jackals weren’t Zephyrus’s biggest concern.

He eyed Fenyx lying on the cot within their shared cell. Fenyx had been distant of late, unusually docile, yet weighed down with something. Zephyrus had never seen him like this. Perhaps the punishment from the chancellor’s men had a more profound effect on him than originally thought. Maybe now he would hear reason and join them in their flight from captivity.

Yet the risks couldn’t be overlooked. Fenyx had promised Zephyrus he would turn him in if he spoke again of freedom. Doctore, perhaps the only person Fenyx confided in, also threatened the same. If Fenyx denied him again, and word of their plans reached Doctore’s ears, they were doomed. However, Fenyx never slept much and was bound to witness their escape. At the very least, Zephyrus needed assurances that Fenyx wouldn’t summon guards to impede their path to freedom.

While Jecht and Cerik continued to talk in hushed voices in the cell across from them, Zephyrus took the opportunity to ensure Fenyx would not obstruct.

“How do you fare?” Zephyrus asked, but Fenyx seemed off in another world.

After a moment, Fenyx grunted. “If I open that door, I will be lost.” His gaze remained fixed to the ceiling.

“Or you will find what you have been closing your eyes to,” Zephyrus said. He knelt at Fenyx’s bedside and whispered. “You think the Judges are watching this happen to their people, letting the Gods of New Rheynia exterminate us as punishment? Do you still believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Fenyx said. “It changes nothing.”

Zephyrus bit his lip. I too shared that same belief at one point. Zephyrus put his hand on Fenyx’s shoulder. “It changes everything.”

“There is nothing to be done.”

“You can fight back,” Zephyrus whispered. “We don’t have to stay here. There is life beyond the ludus, one with purpose, protecting those who still hold the Judges in their hearts.”

Fenyx only shook his head.

Frustrated, Zephyrus drew closer. “Fenyx, we leave tonight. Jecht, Cerik, and I. We seek the Uprising.”

Fenyx perked up and turned to face Zephyrus for the first time. His upper lip on the burnt side of his face twitched before forming a tight line. His brow narrowed as he rose from his bed to stand over Zephyrus kneeling beside him.

Fenyx held out his hand. “I wish you luck, Zephyrus. Do what you must.”

Zephyrus, momentarily baffled, stood to his feet and took Fenyx’s forearm in his hand. “If I leave, and you stay…”

“Then it will be easier for me to regain my place as Champion,” Fenyx said. “You have your destiny, and I have mine. A few lashes doesn’t change that.”

Zephyrus wrinkled his nose. It should change everything. But Zephyrus was in no position to argue. For now, it was enough that Fenyx wouldn’t complicate their escape.

“I hope you find what you seek.”

“And I, you,” Fenyx said. “You’ve been a better friend than I have deserved, yet I must stay. Perhaps, one day, our paths will cross again.”

Zephyrus nodded. Fenyx released their embrace and returned to his cot to face the wall. There was nothing left for Zephyrus to do but wait.

As the hour grew late, part of him wished he could thank Vykinallia for sending Odetta to warn him of the chancellor’s search. To see her one last time. Yet those thoughts were foolish. She would be wed to the king in a matter of days, and he would be joining a rebellion.

Despite her being a slave owner, she was different than the others. She carved a place of her own within his hardened heart. He imagined a different life where people chose to support each other rather than pursuing power, glory, or greed.

In a world like that, maybe she could have loved me too.

“Zephyrus,” Jecht said, “it’s time.” He gestured to the vacant guard post. They only had a few moments while the guards switched shifts.

Zephyrus crept to the door of his cell and placed his hands through the bars to the keyhole in the metal sliding door. He channeled the energy of the force magic as he did in his dreams. Visualizing the pins of the lock, he felt the shape it sought. His fingers began to tingle as he pressed the pins into place.

After a click, he slid the iron cell door open, canceling out the soundwaves of the grinding metal with manipulation magic. Jecht and Cerik gaped at one another as Zephyrus knelt before their cell and did the same.

“Praise the Judges,” Cerik whispered.

“Time to go,” Jecht said. They began to stalk down the corridor, away from the sleeping gladiators, but torchlight flickered around the corner.

“Someone’s coming,” Zephyrus said. “Back in your cell.”

They resituated themselves into their cells as the torches neared. Footsteps approached. After silently closing the doors, Zephyrus climbed into bed and feigned being asleep.

The footsteps stopped in front of his cell.

“Zephyrus,” Nortus said. “You’ve been summoned.”

Zephyrus pretended to stir from sleep before facing the burly guard with bleary eyes.

“Now?” Jecht asked. “He’s fighting in the Primus tomorrow. Leave us be.”

Burn me. Of all times, why now? Seeing no other options, Zephyrus got up to comply, but an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

Nortus put his key into the lock of the cell door. “Hmph, that’s odd. Door’s unlocked.” He shrugged. “C’mon now. We’ll have you back in no time.” He handed Zephyrus manacles to place on himself.

While Nortus secured the locks, Zephyrus turned to Jecht and Cerik and mouthed, “Go!” Jecht nodded, but Cerik shook his head. As Zephyrus followed Nortus from the barracks, he prayed Jecht and Cerik would be able to escape without him.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Anxiety percolated within his gut.

What if I can’t get out in time to find them? What if they get caught trying to escape? What if the Jackals find them in the streets?

Nortus led Zephyrus up to the inn before one of the rooms. He began to take Zephyrus’s chains off. “Lady Nallia ordered ya be unchained. No funny business, though, ya hear?” Nortus said. “No stubbed toes or whatever.” He knocked on the door.

Odetta opened the door and slipped out, passing right before Zephyrus. “Be careful,” she whispered.

Zephyrus cocked his brow and opened his mouth to speak, but Nortus nudged him into Vykinallia’s chambers. The moment he breached the threshold, the door closed behind him.

Be careful… of what? Zephyrus’s swallowed, but standing before the window, Vykinallia, bathed in moonlight, stole the thoughts from his mind. As she gazed out at the rainless night sky, a gentle breeze blew her golden nightgown and tossed her chestnut hair.

She turned to face Zephyrus. Dimples formed in her cheeks, but a growing sadness hid behind her eyes. “Good evening, Zephyrus.”

As frustrated as he was with the timing, he was glad to see her one last time. “Hello, Vykinallia.”

She smiled, beckoning him closer. “It’s not often I hear my true name.” She twisted the amethyst ring about her finger a few times, then rubbed the elbow Zephyrus had healed. “You must be curious as to why I’ve summoned you…”

He needed to speed this along. “To wish me luck in the coming games, I suppose?”

“On the contrary, actually.” Vykinallia’s gaze fell to her bare feet.

The silent moment stretched on as he waited for her to continue, but his thoughts were consumed with Jecht and Cerik’s escape.

“Apologies, but this isn’t easy.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Zephyrus, it’s difficult to admit when you’re wrong. Harder yet to offer restitution once you realize the error of your ways.” She sighed. “The treaties, the laws—Six save me—even the games, they’re all warped cogs in a broken system.”

Her emerald eyes were glossy with tears yet to fall. She took his hands in hers. “I am releasing you. Tonight.”

Zephyrus’s jaw dropped, and his brow creased. Did I hear correctly? The sentiment in her eyes told him all he needed to know. She’s freeing me?

She released his hands and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest. Her tears dampened his tunic.

“What will you do?” Vykinallia asked, her words muffled against his flesh. Zephyrus, still in shock, couldn’t find his tongue.

“Unite the three,” Vykannis said. “Find the Treasures of Stockhelm and become the Wielder.”

Zephyrus’s stomach flared with pain. Grimacing, he stifled any audible form of discomfort. His arms closed around her. He rested his chin atop her chestnut crown.

“I must free the slaves,” Zephyrus said. “I planned to flee with Jecht and Cerik tonight… for the Uprising.” He pulled away from her so he could look her in the eye. Knowing that this might be the last time he ever saw her, ever spoke to her, he searched for the right words.

“When I was lost, you helped me rediscover who I was. You didn’t bend my prophecy against me. You didn’t turn me in when you figured out what I am.” He shook his head. “You could have denied me the healer who aided my memories, left my scroll upon the training square to blow away with the wind, or kept your knowledge of the Judges and the Return to yourself. Others in your position would have.”

Others did.

“But you didn’t. And you taught me much.” He took her hands in his. “The Uprising forged me into a weapon of vengeance, but I know vengeance is only the easy way out; if we are to be better than the Valencians, we can’t do to New Rheynia what they did to Stockhelm. There has to be a better way than blood for blood. You showed me that, and I… I will never forget you.”

He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her the whole truth. It felt right to say so, but the words were trapped within him.

“Don’t listen,” the other voice strained, faint and weak.

Zephyrus could feel the two presences struggling for the ability to speak within his mind. He tried his best to ignore it, but his stomach pains only worsened.

“Don’t listen to him,” the weak voice said.

“Ignore the God of Valencia,” Vykannis said.

Zephyrus attempted to ignore them both as Vykinallia’s hands slid up his arms to frame his cheeks. The stone in his throat tightened as his hands traced her golden dress to her hips.

“You’ve changed everything,” Vykinallia said, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner, but you’ve opened my eyes.” She shook her head, sniffling. “Soon, I will become queen, and I will advocate for change. I will help you free the slaves and bring equality to the people.”

Breath escaped his lungs.

Burn me. I love her.

He knew it a while ago, wrestled with it, hated himself for it, but it was true. Yet it didn’t change the fact that she was betrothed to the king. As badly as he wanted to ask her to come with him, she had her place in this world, and he had his. It wouldn’t be fair for him to tell her he loved her. He could never offer her more than a life on the run. She would be queen, using her power to accomplish Zephyrus’s own goal.

He loved her, but he could never have her.

His one hand slid to the small of her back, while his opposite thumb and index finger traced the curve of her jaw as their eyes entangled in one another. Her beauty was unparalleled, her heart true, but even in freedom, he would forever be enslaved to her.

I love you, Vykinallia. Even if I can never tell you… I love you.

He leaned in, and she craned her neck. Their lips met. Hers, soft and warm, did not recoil as he feared they might. Her hands held firm to his face. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

Here, with Vykinallia in his arms, Zephyrus was free.

While the voices in his head contended against each other, Zephyrus lost himself in the warmth of Vykinallia’s mouth, the taste of her tongue, and the gentle hums that came from deep within her throat. Desire yearned, but the moment could never last.

Eventually, their lips parted, and reality returned.

“You must go,” she whispered, her hands falling from his face and her head to his chest. “It’s not my wish, but the time has come. To say goodbye.”

He didn’t want to leave her either. He kissed the top of her head, but her embrace fell away. She strode to her bed and knelt beside it. Reaching underneath, she retrieved a satchel.

“There’s a cloak, a dagger, and enough coin to get you by,” Vykinallia said, returning to him.

Again, Zephyrus couldn’t manage words, but not solely due to her generosity. The war of the Gods within his mind became violent. His stomach lurched with a stab of blinding pain.

“He’s mine!” Vykannis boomed, his voice reverberating through his skull.

“Zephyrus?” Vykinallia asked, concern rippling across her face.

Zephyrus tried to ignore the voices, to focus on Vykinallia, but his vision began to blur. He forced himself to remain upright. “I’m fine,” he lied as the two presences fought within him.

“He’s MINE!”

Vykinallia took the amethyst ring from her finger and held it before him. “I want you to have this. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, but I want you to take it… to remember me by.”

Fresh tears came to her eyes, but Zephyrus’s vision darkened. Her beauty fell away from him as the fight within consumed him.

“Zephyrus?” Her voice began to fade into the distance. “Zephyrus!”

The world went black, and all he heard were the voices.

“He will do my bidding.” Vykannis’s voice took over the entirety of his consciousness.

“No!” the other voice argued. Weakly at first, but its strength surged. “You sought to make him your evildoer, but your plots have failed, as all of your schemes will!”

Zephyrus felt a tearing from deep within him as if his soul were being ripped in two. Vykannis’s presence waned as the other God’s grew.

“You can’t defeat me,” Vykannis said, his voice straining. “Not without destroying yourself.”

Vykinallia shouted to Zephyrus. She might as well have been a world away with how soft her voice was. In the black void of his mind, he reached for her, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Clayvorine found you,” the other voice said. “She showed me your past and your future. You will be defeated, but not by me, Paxoran.”

An explosion tore through Zephyrus’s head, thrashing him about as if he were toppled by a tidal wave of fire. But Vykannis’s voice, his presence, was banished from his mind.

Vykinallia’s rooms in the inn returned to him. The ceiling swirled behind Vykinallia’s concerned face, but he felt as if he were at the bottom of a well, looking to the sky. He extended his hand out for her, but he couldn’t reach her.

“We have won,” the voice said, weak again. “But your battle is just beginning.”

Too tired to speak, too exhausted to move, he channeled to the victor God. “Who are you?”

“I am the last of the Judges,” the voice said. “But you will be our legacy.”

Zephyrus didn’t understand, but his fatigue was greater than his ability to formulate the questions he needed to ask to make sense of it.

“I will fade,” the Judge said weakly. “But no longer will Paxoran have access to you. You are free of him. Now the rest is up to you.”

Like clouds being swept away by the wind, the presence of the last Judge waned until no trace remained, leaving Zephyrus drained. He attempted to move. He tried to cry out to Vykinallia, but his voice didn’t carry. Exhaustion piled on top of him like a rising tide that sought to drown him.

I can’t rest now. Jecht and Cerik are waiting. Freedom is calling.

At the top of the well, far away, Vykinallia’s features blurred. His vision narrowed to nothingness, and all went black.

He awoke to the sound of humming. Lying in a comfortable bed, wrapped in Vykinallia’s warm embrace, Zephyrus didn’t want to leave. He attempted to move, but he felt so weak.

“What happened?” Zephyrus asked.

Dawn light filtered into the room through the open window.

“I don’t know,” Vykinallia said. “You just collapsed. I was afraid you—”

“I’m fine,” Zephyrus said, despite his body aches and the headache that filled the void left behind by the false Vykannis and the last Judge.

“It’s too dangerous for you to flee now,” she whispered.

Zephyrus closed his eyes. Jecht and Cerik…

Vykinallia stroked his arm with her fingertips. “Win today, and once we are back in Stockhelm, I will set you free. I promise.”

“I cannot fight today,” Zephyrus whispered. “I can’t kill another slave.”

Vykinallia turned him toward her. She examined him, her lips a tight line. “Zephyrus, you must. If two more must fall for you to set so many free, won’t it be worth it?”

Zephyrus found himself wishing for the Judge’s guidance, but he was gone. As was Vykannis, or Paxoran, as the last Judge had called him. Now, he was alone.

He bit his lip. What I achieve matters, but how I accomplish it is just as important.

“Come,” Vykinallia said, kissing his cheek. She got up from bed and grabbed the satchel she had given him the night before.

Zephyrus forced himself from bed and found Vykinallia’s amethyst ring clutched in his palm. He offered it back to her, but she shook her head.

“Keep it,” she said, closing his hand around her ring. “For luck.”

Chapter 61

Punish Me

Danella IX

Valtarcia

Danella took a moment upon the docks after stepping off of The Chimera to examine the flagship’s beauty. It would be the last time she ever saw it.

At the beginning of the Revivalists’ gatherings, Elrod Horne pushed his chemical experiments, using the black powder to inspire fear. Yet the explosive nature of the powder had yet to be confined, and without the ability to contain the blasts, Danella wasn’t willing to sacrifice the entire city for his experiments. While his studies made progress in the spaciousness of Marstead, she never trusted it enough to include it in any of her plans. But after Elrod’s death, he left her with stores of the black powder. Finally, she knew what she’d do with it. She’d set fire to every ship in the Valtarcian Harbor.

Part of her wanted to bring one of her other ships, but she feared it might arouse suspicion if she didn’t lose something as well. The explosion she hoped would be misinterpreted as magic fire. She could sway the Valtarcians, who were so quick to defend the Celestics during the last war, and prove to them that they had chosen the wrong side. If she could get Duke Hallon to join Damascus in their opposition of the mages, the war was as good as won.

She took one last look at The Chimera, hoping her sacrifice would be enough for the Valtarcians, but feared her father would disapprove of her plan.

No. He would have me sacrifice life itself for the Six.

“Your grace.” Ser Daenus approached her on the Valtarcian docks. She was happy to have him back in her service after being bedridden in the wake of the Kings’ Day attack but couldn’t help but notice the twitch in his fingers.

Curse that Celestic magic. She raised her gaze to meet his eyes. “Yes, Ser Daenus?”

“Duke Hallon closed Northridge… to all.”

Damascus, engaged in conversations with the newest members of his King’s Guard Knights—Haedron Allos, Aelon Ironpine, and Aemos Horne—snapped to attention at Ser Daenus’s news. “What?”

“He’s afraid, my son. That’s all,” Danella said, sensing his anger. “He lost his son, he’s disappointed with us for Laeden’s imprisonment, and an old man can only handle so much.”

“Yes but he’s my grandfather too. How am I to take this slight?”

“We’ll take up residence in the Royal Inn and think nothing of it,” Danella said. “Your pride must not be shaken at such posturing.”

Damascus nodded, the anger melting from his face.

He was trainable. It would take time, but he could learn.

Once Nallia is dealt with, he’ll be more tenable.

Instead of a short lectica ride to the castle, they boarded a covered wagon to escort them to the Royal Inn on the opposite side of the city. Danella and Damascus were seated inside while the knights and guards ushered their caravan. The white stone city, normally alive with commerce, was quiet. Too quiet. Shops were closed, boarded up with signs out front.

“Closed by order of Duke Hallon Helixus.”

According to her sources, Duke Hallon had closed much of the pleb’s lower city, distributing coin from his own coffers and grain from his stores to support them. Such an act was dangerous. Foolish. Arrogant.

The Gods rewarded the diligent, the courageous, and the strong. Not the fearful. But in closing much of the lower city, Chancellor Cassius’s search and seizure of Celestic symbols was slow, if not halted altogether. Hallon should have been wiser after the New Rheynian War.

He must come to reason, lest the Uprising gain a fierce ally. And I a formidable enemy.

The wheels of their carriage kicked up dust from the lower city’s dirt roads. Danella waved her hand through the air before her. Gods, deliver me to the paved upper city.

“Six, I don’t remember these streets ever being so dusty,” Damascus said.

“They’ve never been so,” Danella said. “We need rain.”

The prolonged absence of rain worried many people, but it would get worse before it got better if the Gods were not sated.

Damascus coughed, flapping a kerchief in front of his face to avert the dust. “The Gods are withholding from us. Perhaps tonight the rains will return.”

“Only if we please them,” Danella said. “Our interactions with your grandfather cannot descend into disagreement. He must see that the Uprising is a threat greater than we, as a people, have ever faced. We must unite.”

As they approached the outskirts of the lower city and the beginnings of the upper city, chatter grew outside the carriage. Their conversation inside the wagon stopped as Danella listened. Though she couldn’t make out the crowd’s words, the tenor was far from welcoming.

“Clear the way!” Ser Daenus shouted.

Damascus slid open a window and pulled back the curtain. Where the dirt road of the lower city became the cobbled streets of the upper city, Valtarcians barred their access. Holding pickaxes and fishing spears, they stretched from wall to wall.

“Murderer!” one voice cut through the crowd.

“Killer King!”

“Stand down or you’re gonna get it!” Aemos shouted, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“No swords!” Danella cried. “Keep us moving.”

“We can’t, my queen,” Daenus said. “They aren’t letting us through.”

Damascus furrowed his brow, his face flushing red. “Then make a way through.”

Danella grit her teeth. Six, we can’t brawl with civilians in the streets.

Just then a wave of white horses descended the cobbled streets of the upper city. Clad in blue and gold, the Knights of the Ridge, Duke Hallon’s honor guard, reined up behind the gathered crowd.

“Let them pass,” a familiar voice said from beneath the plumed helm of the captain of the Ridge Knights.

Danella peered out the window of her wagon. Ser Ostrey Wingfoot, the King’s Guard Knight she had dismissed from service following Varros’s abduction, waved to the gathered crowd. They stood aside without so much as a second thought.

“Get us out of here,” Danella said. “Don’t stop until the king’s inside the inn.”

The wagon accelerated, thrusting Danella back into her seat.

Though the Ridge Knights had broken the blockade, the damage was done. Hallon was showing his strength and making his grievances known. Such a demonstration was no accident.

She placed a trembling hand over her chest, taking hold of the Six Arrowed Star pendant her father had given her before he died.

Danella prayed, and the Six provided. They made it to the inn without further escalation. Once they arrived, Danella and Damascus were spirited into the foyer. The Royal Inn was no standard tavern. Specifically designed for noble guests who didn’t wish to stay, or were not welcomed, in Northridge, the Inn was Danella’s preferred accommodation when compared to staying with Varros’s family.

The high arched ceilings of the foyer were held up by intricately carved white columns. Ornate red carpets ascended the winding twin staircases on either side of the foyer. At the top of the landing, a portrait of her father loomed. From the entryway, the golden eyes of Damascus Drake watched over his Royal Inn. The portrait reflected his later years with his black hair salted gray, but age did nothing to stoop his shoulders. Now he watched over her from Valencia.

The overseer, dressed in a red velvet doublet, stepped from behind his desk and greeted them with a flourishing bow. Two knights in full plate stood sentry behind him.

“My king,” the overseer said. “I welcome you to the Royal Inn. Is there anything I can do for you before escorting you to your suite?”

Damascus pointed back to the entrance. “I want guards stationed outside of the Inn and at the door to every room.”

“Yes, my king.” The overseer bowed again before nodding to his knights.

While Damascus and his new retinue of guards coordinated with the inn’s sentries, Danella—accompanied by Daenus—ascended the stairs to the royal chambers.

“Find him and report back his status,” Danella said to Daenus. “I want to make certain everything is in order.”

Daenus nodded.

Once she was situated in her rooms, Daenus left her. She poured herself a glass of wine and stood by the window overlooking the south side of Valtarcia.

She was displeased by the malcontent of the Valtarcian plebeians, but such was the case when ruling. Not every decision made everyone happy. The plebs didn’t know what they needed. They were the equivalent of insolent children complaining of the injustices their parents imposed upon them, not realizing it was for their own good. Once she flattened the Uprising, appeased the Gods, and returned the nightly rains, the common people would have no recollection of ever complaining about the king.

But Hallon will not be held blameless in this ordeal.

She turned away from the streets and placed her goblet down on a table. A portrait of her father’s bodyguard—Ser Darrow, the Reaper of Marstead—hung on the wall. She needed a warrior like him now if she were going to stop the Celestics.

This war with the Uprising wasn’t personal; it was cosmic. The laws of the world were designed around creating order for the masses, not for all. She hoped Varros would understand that, but he was an idealist. Even now, she knew in her heart that he wouldn’t.

“Gods punish me, if I’ve acted outside of your will,” Danella said aloud. “I’ve given everything for you. My husband is lost to me. Even if he lives, the man I grew to love would never love me if he knew my deeds. I sacrificed my love, for you. Spare me Damascus. Please, Gods, let me have Damascus.” She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him as well. “Take me now if I have not done your will. Take me, and do as you wish, but do not harm my son.”

The burden of these past months seemed at its end just a couple of weeks ago. Damascus was on the throne, enforcing the Gods’ will. Yet from Laeden’s defiance, seeds of adversity bloomed underground, and her obstacles to overcome only seemed to sprout like weeds.

She put her hand to her face. A knock at the door made her jump.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, your grace,” Daenus’s gruff voice said through the door.

She stood and straightened her dress. “Come in.”

Daenus entered and quickly closed the door.

“Well?” she asked.

“Brusos’s thirty slaves, under the direction of Liario and Lenox, loaded every ship in the Valtarcian Harbor with black powder,” Daenus said.

Danella nodded. “Very well. Perhaps this will aid Hallon in deciding which side he is on. Liario and Lenox may yet redeem themselves in the process as well.”

And soon, Nallia Cassius will be out of the picture, breaking whatever softness remains in Damascus.

Danella plucked her goblet from the table and raised it to her lips. All would be as it was meant to.

Chapter 62

The New Rheynian Games

Zephyrus XIX

Valtarcia

Standing at the gateway to the arena, Zephyrus wrapped his cloak about himself. Unlike the warm breeze of Stockhelm, these northern winds had a bite to them. Even after the morning frost burned away, the air remained frigid. Since none of the Cassius gladiators were fighting until later in the day, Zephyrus stood alone, craning to see the pulvinus—to see Vykinallia.

The impossible had happened—she set him free. Doctore told him anything was possible just a few days prior, but this wasn’t what he was referring to. Vykinallia, a slave-owning Valencian, set him free, knowing exactly who he was and what he would do. Not only would she let him, but she would help. Her words repeated in his head. He replayed their kiss over and over again. His hands upon her face, his lips upon hers. Had all gone to plan, he would have joined Jecht and Cerik and been halfway to finding the Uprising by now. Yet the Gods had interfered.

Now, at sunset, Zephyrus would have to face two Champions—two slaves whom he had vowed not to kill.

“If two more must fall for you to set so many free, won’t it be worth it?” Vykinallia asked.

His stomach churned at the thought. He retched after the first time he graced the sands. After the second, the faces of the men he’d slain, to save Fenyx from Stegavax, haunted his nightmares. He didn’t know if he could do it again.

Can I be the Wielder if I’m slaying the people I’m meant to free?

Paxoran, the deceiving God who had saved his life at the slavers’ auction, had wanted to use Zephyrus. He wanted me to be the Wielder. He wanted what I wanted.

But the last Judge didn’t want Zephyrus to claim the treasures. But if I’m not meant to be the Wielder, does that make me the Harbinger, the Herald? Or something else altogether?

Leaning against the bars of the arena, Zephyrus felt more confused than ever before. If he had escaped with Jecht and Cerik, or been able to leave after seeing Vykinallia, he wouldn’t have concerned himself with such thoughts. But now, they were better diversions than thinking of the two men he’d have to fight. To kill.

Part of him wished he wasn’t alone, but he took comfort in the fact that Jecht and Cerik had made it out.

“How did they escape?” Doctore demanded of the guards when he realized their absence. Zephyrus overheard reports that three Jackals were killed last night. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, but Zephyrus accepted it as hope.

Fenyx benefited the most from Jecht and Cerik’s departure, vowing to fight and win in their respective places in addition to competing in his own seeding. Fenyx was more than capable of surviving the task. Zephyrus only wished Fenyx could take his place as well.

Vykinallia’s amethyst ring, looped through a thread on the inside of his waist, pressed against his flesh.

“For luck.”

He peeked beyond the gateway to see if she was on the pulvinus, but she was nowhere to be found. He grimaced and returned his gaze to the arena where three lesser houses fought two on two on two.

Unlike Stockhelm or Salmantica, the arena wasn’t filled with sand, but the pebbles that lined the Valtarcian coast. The early matches had less well-known gladiators, but the raucous crowd cared more about the blood on the pebbles than the name of the man it came from. Zephyrus turned away as an axe split through a spearman’s shoulder blades to the roar of the onlookers.

The entire day would be filled with the same savagery.

The sun rose high and burned through the shroud of clouds, signaling that the Primus would begin soon. Eight rounds of three gladiators—one from each of the head ludi—would compete for points. To men like Fenyx and Stegavax, this was a prodigious honor.

Zephyrus dressed during the recess. Each of the Cassius gladiators were clad in white padded britches and a matching leather vest. The britches were chased with golden thread and purple ornamentation. Embossed on the vest, the purple-and-gold scorpion of House Cassius raised its stinger high, poised to deliver the killing blow.

“No other armor?” Aelixo asked Doctore.

“No,” Shagren said. “Valtarcian tradition. You, your opponent, your weapons.”

Once the Games began, the rounds were swift and brutal. Aelixo was first to set foot on the Valtarcian pebbles in the eighth seeding, but also the first to die. Vossler took to the arena next and, although defeated, was granted life for a match well fought. Fenyx fought next in Cerik’s seed, easily cutting down his foes, before fighting again in his own seed.

“Four kills and two points!” Fenyx boasted after his second bout.

“At the fifth and sixth seeds,” Stegavax said.

Fenyx and Stegavax exchanged a disdainful glare.

Fenyx’s burned lip twitched. “Yes, and I have one more at the third seed. A glorious day for House Cassius!”

Shagren fought in the fourth seed and won after a long-fought duel. Then, Fenyx took to the sands for the third time, in place of Jecht. The crowd cheered for him, their mouths still salivating from his last display. The two men united against Fenyx, but they stood no hope. The blood on Fenyx’s great sword from his first bout hadn’t even had the chance to dry before it drank more of Kaelus’s and Targarus’s men.

“Well fought!” Doctore embraced Fenyx as he strode from the arena, the crowd cheering his name. “No one has ever won three contests in this tournament.”

“For the honor and glory of Cassius!” Fenyx shouted.

Stegavax fought next. For a time, he looked every bit the gladiator that won him the mantle of Champion, but as the match persisted, he began to wane. His hubris eventually outmatched his endurance, and a trident stabbed him through the belly. Stegavax’s lifeless eyes stared at Zephyrus as the arena attendants dragged his corpse from the bloody pebbles. He was no friend to Zephyrus, yet he died an unnecessary death—a slave’s death. Despite being a former Champion, there was no ceremony, no celebration of his sacrifices or achievements. Just death, and cheers for the victor who delivered him to the afterlife.

Seven matches came and went.

Doctore put his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “It’s time.” He handed Zephyrus the finest gladius and buckler he’d ever held. The blade was sleek and light, sharpened to a fine edge. He beat the sword against the shield to make sure it was not rigged to break again.

“That is Auros-forged steel,” Doctore said. “It shall not fail you, and you shall not fall. Embrace your fate as Champion. Win, and your life begins anew.”

Zephyrus swallowed, plagued by thoughts of his prophecy and uncertain fate.

“It’s four to three,” Shagren said. “Kill the damned Targarus brute first, and we win no matter what.” Zephyrus ignored Shagren.

“Kill them and become Champion,” Fenyx said. “You deserve it.” Fenyx leaned in close so only he could hear. “I don’t know why you stayed, but I wish you luck. Even if you stand in my way, you are my true brother from this day forward.”

Zephyrus didn’t understand the change in Fenyx, but his words were earnest. He nodded, accepting them for what Fenyx meant rather than what they were—encouragement to kill other slaves.

When the horns finished blaring and the crowd settled down, the herald bellowed for all to hear. “To stand in the Primus Maximi, representing House Targarus, the legendary Octus!”

“Zephyrus.” Doctore put his hands on each of Zephyrus’s shoulders. “This is your moment. Become the man I know you can be and perhaps one day, your longings will be answered. But it all starts now!”

“From House Kaelus, I give you Saurus!” the herald announced.

The Kaelus champion entered to the crowd’s applause.

Zephyrus thought of Vykinallia… Jecht and Cerik… the Arcane Templar and their pursuit of vengeance. Patrus’s “Rebels’ Rhyme” and the Return of the Judges.

“You are where you need to be, exactly when you must,” Threyna had said.

I will have my freedom. But first he needed to become the slave, the gladiator everyone wanted him to be. One more clever lie was all it took. He felt Vykinallia’s amethyst ring within his belt.

For luck.

“Representing House Cassius, the Chancellor of Stockhelm has chosen one who stares death in the face and defies its embrace. I give you Zephyrus!”

Zephyrus set his jaw. The crowd’s noise faded into a dull buzz and then complete silence. The gate opened before him. Men patted his back and wished him luck, but Zephyrus couldn’t hear them. His vision narrowed, focusing on the red-and-black spearman and the blue-and-gold axe man standing between him and his freedom. His heartbeat assumed a steady, purposeful rhythm as he faced the pulvinus.

Vykinallia’s emerald eyes soaked up the sun and burned with the fire of the torches illuminating the arena. She mouthed something to him, yet he heard her voice as if she whispered in his ear. He could feel the warmth of her breath as the words vibrated into every fiber of his being. “Freedom.”

Zephyrus closed his eyes. The signal to begin must have sounded because the ground shook as his two opponents sprinted for him.

For Patrus…

The pebbles beneath his feet trembled. He took a deep breath.

For Jecht and Cerik…

The bloodthirsty gladiators charged, their battle cries leading their assault.

For the last of the Judges…

His eyes snapped open just in time to duck under a vicious swing of Octus’s spear. He rolled away as Saurus chopped down, smashing his axe head into the pebbles.

Octus possessed long reach and deadly precision with his double-sided spear, while Saurus’s great axe had power that neither Zephryus’s sword or shield would be able to block. Block the spear, dodge the axe.

Another spear thrust stabbed at him like an angry swarm of hornets. He blocked, sidestepping a vicious axe cut. Saurus’s breath heaved; his feet dragged.

He’s not tired. He’s scared.

Zephyrus grunted, shoving the pity and guilt from his mind.

Focus. Fight. Kill.

He waited for his opportunity to present itself. Octus jabbed, spun, and sliced with the other side of his blade. Zephyrus blocked the jab with his gladius, deflected the slice with his buckler, and planted a kick into Octus’s chest, sending him backwards. Zephyrus stepped over a sweeping axe cut and took Saurus’s leg out from under him with the flat of his blade.

Octus returned with a stab, slice, stab, stab, reverse slice! As Octus turned his back to him, Saurus found his feet and attempted to take Zephyrus from behind. Saurus grunted, reaching the great axe overhead. As he began to hack down, Zephyrus dropped low and swung his buckler into Saurus’s knee. Octus’s blind spin met Saurus’s stumble, and the jagged spearhead slashed into the side of Saurus’s neck.

Saurus’s eyes went wide, his fingers reaching to stem the tide of blood flowing from the wound. He fell, nearly wrenching the spear from Octus’s grasp. Octus attempted to wriggle his spear free of Saurus’s neck, but Zephyrus pressed. Zephyrus cleaved down on the spear haft, attempting to separate Octus from his weapon altogether, but just as he connected, Octus released the spear and drew a hooked sickle from his belt.

He slashed upwards.

Zephyrus reared back just as the gleam of the blade passed his nose, so close he could feel the wind of it. He slapped it away with his buckler, blocked a punch, and headbutted Octus on the bridge of his nose. Octus stumbled back in a daze, but by the time he found his footing, Zephyrus stabbed his gladius through the arc of the sickle. He twisted the blade, creating torque, and flung the weapon from Octus’s grasp.

Octus scrambled backwards, but there was nowhere to go, no place to hide. He let out a cry and made one last attempt at Zephyrus, but a quick punch with the rounded edge of his buckler stopped Octus in his tracks, dropping him to the pebbles stained with Saurus’s blood.

If the crowd cheered, Zephyrus didn’t hear it. If the gladiators shouted in victory, they could not raise voice over the pounding in Zephyrus’s ears.

Zephyrus picked Octus up and placed his gladius against his throat, looking to the pulvinus. Octus trembled within his grasp.

Vykinallia cheered. Dominus celebrated. The king made an elaborate gesture, pointing his thumb downward. Zephyrus’s hearing returned, and his vision widened.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” the crowd demanded.

“Please, Judges, don’t forsake me,” Octus said, the apple of his throat quivering.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

The barbaric mantra continued, growing louder with each passing moment. Saurus bled out on the pebbles, gasping for breath in the throes of death. Octus quivered within Zephyrus’s grasp.

He didn’t want to kill Octus. He wanted to kill the crowned man with his thumb turned downward, but he knew what he needed to do. Even still, his hand didn’t move.

Just do it. Stick to the plan, gain your freedom.

It would be easy. A quick slip of his arm and Octus’s life would spill from his throat in a dark red fountain. Just end it!

“Vykannis, spare me,” Octus pled. “I fought bravely. Orsius, Aeryss, save me!”

Zephyrus clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the hilt of his gladius. The “A” of House Auros was imprinted into the pommel of the blade. The same “A” branded on Patrus.

Bile rose within his throat. I must do this.

“You will not be forgotten, Octus,” Zephyrus said. “Your sacrifice will set Celestics free. The Judges will return.”

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Octus inclined his gaze, and for a moment, Zephyrus saw Patrus’s face.

“Zeph,” Patrus said, “don’t do this.” He blinked away tears. “You were supposed to free us. Not turn on us.”

“Patrus,” Zephyrus whispered. “I’m sorry…”

Patrus shook his head. “You aren’t the Wielder… Everyone who follows you dies.” He slackened, eyes staring blankly ahead—dead.

Patrus’s scarred face morphed into Threyna’s.

“This blood is on your hands,” she said. Her throat opened in a crimson line.

Threyna’s face turned into Jecht’s, but the entire left side of his head was caved in. “You told us to go, and we went. Why didn’t you come with us?”

“Where were you?” asked a voice from behind him. Zephyrus found Cerik’s face on Saurus’s body, a terrible gash through his forehead. “We needed you.”

Zephyrus returned his gaze to Octus’s body, but this time Vykinallia’s face stared back at him. She was pale with a black-and-blue ring around her throat, her neck bent at an odd angle.

“I was wrong…” she said. “You’re not the hero. I never should have trusted you.”

Zephyrus closed his eyes, unable to look at her. “Forgive me.”

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” The unrelenting crowd echoed throughout the arena.

“Don’t,” Octus said. “Have mercy.”

“Go to the Judges,” Zephyrus said. “But you will be avenged.”

He slid the blade across Octus’s throat.

Chapter 63

Bitter Victory

Nallia VIII

Valtarcia

Nallia clasped her hands over her mouth. He did it!

The crowd erupted as Octus fell to the bloodstained pebbles. Zephyrus raised his sword arm to raucous applause, but she knew it to be a bitter victory he never wanted.

Once we are back in Stockhelm, I will free you. She rubbed her elbow.

The crowd praised Zephyrus’s name. Her father cheered, before getting up to shake the hands of the other lanistas.

“Well fought,” Damascus said. “I suppose once the Uprising is stomped out, we can have our tournaments back,” he said to Ser Aelon. “In the meantime, you will have to be the king’s justice.”

Ser Aelon nodded. “It would be my honor, your grace.”

Hallon eyed his grandson. “By justice, do you mean sentencing your brother?”

Damascus held up his hands. “Grandfather, we haven’t had his trial.”

Hallon grumbled to himself, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife. While the queen whispered something in Father’s ear, Nallia met Zephyrus’s gaze.

I will help you. She wanted to hold him and console the broken heart she knew he had. The hours couldn’t pass fast enough for her to be reunited with him, even if it would be for the final time.

Her father returned to his seat beside her. “We will be accompanying the king back to Salmantica to attend the trial of the pseudo-prince,” her father said. “She wants Zephyrus to Champion the crown during the sentencing in place of Ser Aelon.”

Nallia turned back to Zephyrus, her heart sinking to her stomach. How am I to free him now? She closed her hand into a fist, cursing herself.

“He will provide solidarity behind the crown’s sentence,” her father continued. “Laeden was a hero to the plebs. If it should come to a death sentence, Zephyrus swinging the sword would limit any backlash.”

Damascus grabbed her by the hand and stood, but her troubled thoughts only grew. He raised his other hand to silence the crowd. “It’s my honor to present the people of Valtarcia with the Champion Lanista of the year, Duke Lentulis Cassius, the Chancellor of Stockhelm.”

Father stood and bowed.

“Zephyrus of House Cassius shall forever be enshrined in this marvelous victo—”

Far-off eruptions interrupted Damascus. The pulvinus shook, and the grandstands quaked. Nallia had to hold onto Damascus to keep from losing her balance.

Another attack?

Everyone turned to the source of the sound, but the explosions echoed throughout the arena. Dark plumes of smoke billowed into the air in the distance, declaring where they had come from. More explosions, more smoke—coming from the harbor.

Chaos.

Panic.

Damascus attempted to settle the crowd, but his voice was lost in the din of their screams as they ran for exits, trampling each other in the hopes of saving themselves.

“The docks!” Hallon said. “Ridge Knights, to the docks!”

Damascus resituated the crown on his head. “The Six-cursed mages.”

The King’s Guard Knights ferried the guests on the pulvinus to safety, but Nallia doubted such a place existed. They were rushed through an exit leading back to Northridge.

“Where is the safest place?” Damascus asked.

“The crypts,” Hallon said as they hurried along.

“Ser Daenus,” the queen said to her bodyguard, “escort the women and I to the crypts.”

Hallon waved to the others. “Everyone else with me to the east wall.”

The group split as the women were led to safety and the men to the harbor. They turned a corner in the dark torchlit corridors leading to the crypts until they came to a sudden stop.

Ser Daenus drew his sword. “Who goes there!”

A figure, cloaked in shadows, thrust his hand at the King’s Guard Knight. Ser Daenus backpedaled as if a tremendous unseeable force shoved him. He crashed into the wall, his sword falling to the ground.

The queen staggered back. “Mage!”

Nallia turned back the way they’d come, pulling her mother along, but the mage pushed past the others and chased them.

“Nallia, go!” Her mother let go of her hand and turned to face the mage.

“Mother, no!”

The mage struck her mother across the face, dropping her to the ground.

The mage didn’t stop.

He wants me.

Nallia ran as fast as her feet could carry her, trying to recall the hallways in which they’d come, but in her haste, she made a wrong turn. Damp stone and a locked door greeted her. She yanked on the iron handle, but the door didn’t budge.

Dead end.

Her heart raced, blood pumping in her ears with the ominous accompaniment of footsteps growing louder behind her. She couldn’t run. She would have to fight. Unarmed, she rubbed her elbow. Vykannis grant me courage.

Unsure whether the Judge would answer her prayers, she raised her trembling fists.

The mage approached. He stared at her from beneath his cloak with gray eyes Nallia swore she’d seen before.

Before she could place him, he lurched, shoving a wet rag towards her face. She blocked it away, but he came for her again. She struck him hard in the nose. The mage stumbled backward, creating an opening.

She ran past, but he tripped her. The two fell to the ground in a heap. She swatted at him, but he climbed atop her and pushed the rag into her face. Smelling of something she might have found in the medicus’s chambers, the wet rag made her gag. The corridor began to spin.

She punched, but suddenly disoriented, she missed.

No. Her arms flailed, weak and out of control.

No, no, no.

She swung for the mage again, but her limbs disobeyed, and her head lolled to the side.

Not like this… Zephyrus…

Her mind raced, but her body wouldn’t respond. Paralysis seized her, harnessing everything but her eyes.

Someone, anyone. Please!

The mage leaned close, examining her face.

Gods, where have I seen him before?

He pressed the rag over her nose and mouth. Unable to fend him off, unable to even scream, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. The shouts of her mother attempting to follow chased them through the corridors, but they faded.

Everything dissolved, until all was black.

Chapter 64

The Caverns

Threyna IV

Stockhelm

The world was burning.

At least that’s what everyone from Marstead to Stockhelm said. The absence of rain and the fire that sank the Valtarcian Harbor spoke to the literal sense of the phrase, but the abduction of King Varros and the prince’s betrothed suggested the figurative sense as well.

In Marstead’s taverns, many attributed the world’s troubles to the lack of patrician leadership. In Stockhelm’s town square, the blame lay with the Uprising. Threyna didn’t care who was responsible, but if the Uprising the plebs referred to included the Arcane Templar, they were wrong; the Uprising was too busy chasing her to be responsible for New Rheynia’s woes.

After spending her entire life growing up in Rheynia’s Underground, Threyna was used to lying low—fighting when the odds were in her favor and running when they weren’t. Hiding and waiting for the right moment was instinctive at this point. But they had not made it easy. Every plan she hatched, every precaution she took, they all backfired, taking longer than they needed to, all because she had refused to consume unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Consume him,” Paxoran said. His voice echoed in her mind as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

The rot climbed her left shoulder and stretched down to her elbow. It was manageable, all things considered. But she had no idea how many Guardians would be waiting for her within the Stormburn Geyser where the second Treasure waited.

The boy, sickly and frail, clung to a threadbare blanket despite the sun’s warmth. Nestled between two barrels beyond the bustle of Nesonia’s dock, the boy shivered. He’d been on her overnight voyage from Marstead to Stockhelm days ago, speaking of change for the plebs and liberation for the Celestics. She recalled having similar idealistic fantasies of what would happen in Rheynia when the Underground overthrew the Order and gave the Skeleton King a true death.

Just fantasies.

Maybe it was his starry-eyed optimism and defiant insolence to being told he was wrong, or perhaps it was just because the talk of the boat’s voyage centered around Zephyrus’s victory at the New Rheynian Games, but when she looked at the boy, she saw Zephyrus. They didn’t particularly look alike, but when Paxoran told her to consume him, she saw the man she betrayed and condemned to slavery.

“He is sick,” Paxoran said. “He has not moved in days. Hasn’t eaten. He will die whether you consume him or not.”

In the beginning, the more she consumed, the easier it became. But back in Rheynia, those were hollowed and shades. Rarely people. Never children. Somewhere along her journey, the selfish nature of her curse became more and more apparent.

“The Skeleton King will not hesitate,” Paxoran said. “And if you are not strong enough when the time comes—with or without the Treasures—he will defeat you.”

Paxoran was right. She didn’t have a choice. Either I consume this boy, or the Skeleton King will consume the world.

Threyna sighed.

“Will you do what you must for peace to reign?”

Tapping into her Inner Throne, she told herself that with the balance of the boy’s youth, she could make the future he dreamed of possible. As she drew his weakened soul from his body, she convinced herself that without him, she could never defeat the Skeleton King. And once she absorbed the last of his blood to heal her wounded shoulder from when Ceres’s force magic hurled her into a building, she promised peace would reign.

As she finished, her connection to her Inner Throne winked out. Crouching down, Threyna surveyed her surroundings, her heart surging in her ears. She attempted to tap back into her Inner Throne, but like trying to put a key in the hole in the dark, she couldn’t find the entrance.

Only two people could eject me from my Inner Throne.

Scouring the docks, she saw neither of them. If the Skeleton King were here, he wouldn’t have wasted time lurking. But Tyrus was dead.

At least she thought he was.

Regardless, she was not eager to reacquaint with either of them. Seeing Tyrus again after she had fled the City of the Judges to infiltrate the Arcane Templar would yield a similar result to confronting the Skeleton King without all three Treasures.

Threyna tried a third time to tap into her Inner Throne and immediately sank into her seat of power. She sighed.

Hoping it was just a fluke, she left the docks and her anxiety behind, along with the husk of the boy and her memory of him. She set off for the Crystal River and the Stormburn Geyser as the sun crested its zenith on its journey west. Just as no rain would follow the sun, no fear or guilt could accompany her.

Everything will be worth it once he’s dead and gone for good.

She repeated the words like a mantra until she arrived at the river. As she entered the cool water to swim upstream into the cenote that emptied into a pool within the Stormburn, her thoughts drifted to her sister, Laela.

What sacrifices have you made on your journey to find a cure?

Threyna swam until she reached the mountainous base. Holding her breath, she submerged, diving underneath the stone, away from the sun’s warmth, and toward the fate she’d never chosen but always arrived at—blood.

As she breached the surface on the other side, she found herself in a cavern. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, dripping runoff from the geyser’s spray. The droplets fell, rippling upon the water’s slow-moving surface.

She swam to the shore where a tunnel, resembling the one within the catacombs, waited.

Threyna’s feet squished within her wet boots upon the slick and stony floor. Though there were torches placed on sconces, gloom reigned over the cavern. Threyna took a handful of her Viridite glowstones to light her path, but not three steps onto solid ground, six guardians emerged from the tunnel’s mouth.

Blood and bone…

Last to exit the tunnel was Sybex. The lightning mage smirked, shaking her head. “I’m not certain if I’m impressed at your determination or amazed by your foolishness.”

Threyna shrugged, tapping into her Inner Throne to see if any more mages lurked deeper within the tunnel. If they did, she couldn’t sense them.

Six. Only six.

Threyna dropped her glowstones. “I’m the one who should be impressed,” Threyna said, wringing out her braid. “I heard a handful of Sentinels apprehended two mages when last we met. How did you let them catch you?”

Sybex snarled. “Yet here we are. And here, no one will come to save you. Not after what you did to Makaryk, Kuhnae, and Brooxus.”

Threyna tossed her wet braid to her opposite shoulder. She drew the Vykane Blade in her right hand and conjured a double-bladed glaive in her left. The other five mages eyed the blood-borne spear she’d summoned into existence, but Sybex’s eyes remained fixed on Threyna’s—exactly where she wanted them.

“You mean how I drank their blood and feasted upon their souls?” Threyna asked, sinking deeper into her Inner Throne. With their gazes fixed on her, Threyna conjured an orb behind them.

Sybex’s left eye twitched. “After we take the Vykane Blade from your lifeless fingers and return it where it belongs, we will free the Wielder from the chains you delivered him into. The Judges will return, and the valor of all who gave their lives to defeat you will be sung about through the ages.”

“Is that right?” Threyna said, not allowing her gaze to shift to the growing orb at their backs. “I love a good song. Too bad no one will ever hear it.”

From her seat upon the Inner Throne, she curled her fist around the blood orb she’d conjured behind Sybex and the Guardians. It exploded into a thousand shards of broken glass.

Chapter 65

Rigged

Laeden XV

Salmantica

The day had come. Weakened from hunger, soiled from weeks in a dungeon cell, and broken by the betrayal of those he called friends and family, he was manacled and led out of his cell.

Iylea was dead. His father was gone. Damascus was surrounded by the men who condemned Laeden to this fate. And Danella orchestrated all of it. His time spent staring at the walls gave him the opportunity to reason most of it out. He wasn’t sure if he was going mad, or seeing clearly for the first time, but there was no escaping this conviction.

A pair of guards escorted Laeden outside. After being locked away for so long, he forgot the warmth of the sun. Its gleam blinded him, forcing him to look at his trembling legs, his joints stiff and muscles weak from inactivity. The guards delivered him to the rotunda beyond the moat of Sentigard for all to witness his trial and sentencing. Several Six Arrowed Stars were erected around the moat.

I hope one of them isn’t for me.

Six priests sat on an elevated pavilion before the court. The seventh judge would be Chancellor Cassius, representing the plebeians.

I must convince four of them of my innocence. Hopefully, Markus persuaded his father to vote on my behalf.

The people booed as Laeden drew closer.

The guards delivered him to a box erected before the people on the rotunda. They chained his manacles to an iron ring at the base of his box. As if he had a chance at escaping. Rows of seats angled toward him, all filled with patricians eager to view his trial and see his end.

“The flood of blood is coming,” Iylea had said.

She had wanted him to kill her. He couldn’t have. Even after these weeks, not once did he question himself. He never could have struck her down, not even to save himself. His only regret was dropping his sword. If he’d held onto it, he could have defended her.

I could’ve died with her instead of living on only to…

The shadow of the Six Arrowed Star loomed over him.

“Be humble in your sentencing,” she said after he refused to slay her. He still saw her dead eyes looking up at him every time he slept.

Humility. Laeden shook his head. As if that will save me. There’s no justice in this world.

Aemos stepped forward, settling the crowd before addressing the priests. “Merciful Six, please deliver me the justice I seek.”

“What are your grievances?” High Priest Vellarin said, following the script of formal trials.

“For aiding and abetting the release of the mages who murdered my father, Count Elrod Horne, I charge the false prince, Laeden of House Helixus,” Aemos said.

“And what penance do you seek for such a crime?”

Aemos met Laeden’s eyes. “Death.”

They read Laeden his rights, the order of the procession, and reminded him he would not be allowed to speak unless someone asked him a direct question.

The morning was filled with several convincing lies, each more incriminating than the last. Aemos built an entire narrative demonstrating Laeden’s abuse of power or neglect of responsibilities.

Ser Daenus took the stand first. “Without proof, three witnesses, or any probable cause, Prince Laeden had me arrested at sword point,” Daenus said. “With little regard for the laws of our country, he sought to establish his rule above the justice system.”

Laeden cursed himself. If I only dug deeper, I could have stopped this before it all started. If only I listened to Iylea. He had no doubt Aemos’s procession would have more than enough lies to convince the priests.

Next to take the stand was Dedrik, one of the traitorous Sentinels who accompanied Pirus when Laeden lured him into a trap at the Temple of Hameryn. Dedrik claimed they learned of Laeden’s involvement with the Uprising weeks ago, but Laeden outwitted them and kept them chained in the dungeons as prisoners under the pretense that they were Revivalists.

“He left us there for weeks,” Dedrik said. “One of us, Pirus, died in that cell.”

The crowd groaned. One of Danella’s handmaidens took the stand next, explaining how she overheard Iylea tell Laeden she was a seer. Laeden’s eyes fell to his feet.

I failed you, my love.

Once she established Laeden’s connection to a known mage, Aelon delivered the killing blow. Laeden glared, but his poisonous gaze did nothing to stop Aelon spewing the same lies he told in the throne room the day Iylea was murdered.

All for the title of a King’s Guard Knight…

The betrayal stung. His own men, his brother, his stepmother, and his oldest friend—they had all turned their backs on him. But the shame of his failure hurt worst of all.

Finally, Aemos took to the stand, manipulating the story of the Kings’ Day Feast. He blamed the Sentinels for the wrongful imprisonment of his father, Elrod Horne. Aemos’s account supported Dedrik’s, citing that his father also died in Laeden’s care absent evidence of his Revivalist involvement.

“If you need proof in addition to the witnesses I’ve provided,” Aemos said to the priests who sat in judgement, “here is a letter found in Laeden’s possession.” Aemos began to read Zephyrus’s bloody, crumpled scroll signed by AVR.

“The time has come for peace to reign,” Aemos recited.

Laeden groaned. Of course, he neglected to read the part addressed to King Varros.

“Your policies have pleased us and given us hope under the Six of New Rheynia,” Aemos continued. “No longer shall we pursue vengeance or the Judges’ Treasures.” Aemos rerolled the scroll and cast a venomous glare at Laeden. “Servants of the Six, people of New Rheynia, the false prince Laeden has been appeasing the mages of the Uprising for some time now. Perhaps he didn’t know he was being used by them. Perhaps he mistakenly put his faith in their honor instead of the Six of Valencia, but intention aside, his guilt remains.”

Laeden’s eyelids felt heavy. Fate was cruel. The scroll that led him to purchase Zephyrus to save his father would be the final nail securing him to the Six Arrowed Star. Weighed down by guilt, shame, and failure, he couldn’t bear to look any longer. He closed his eyes, wishing they would take his head and be done with it. He would join Iylea and leave this world of lies and deceit to rot.

But he couldn’t let them win.

Will anyone come to my defense?

Markus brooded behind him. Grandfather, Hallon Helixus, was also present—his lips in a constant snarl. But the crowd had already condemned Laeden. This trial was rigged. He couldn’t prove that everything brought against him was a lie. They had the witnesses, and each had enough truth to make it believable. Nothing Markus or Hallon could say would change that.

“People of New Rheynia,” Aemos said, “I seek only justice. These mages have been given too much leash under the Sentinels’ governance. It’s clear Laeden has worked with them to undermine our peace and prosperity. Attacks like the one on the Valtarcian harbor will not be isolated incidents if those who conspire with mages are still left in positions of power.”

Laeden froze. Attack on the harbor—what is he talking about?

“Laeden’s time as the captain of the Sentinels demonstrated how power corrupted him. His unchecked desire for control spiraled into silencing those who stood against him. Judges of the court, please do not let this villain walk free.”

The crowd turned from disappointed to angry. The priests appeared as if they’d already made up their minds. Markus and Hallon watched with long, forlorn faces.

They have no chance at defending me. If they try, what lies would be constructed against them? They would change nothing and join me atop a Six Arrowed Star.

Laeden glowered at Danella. She orchestrated all of this. From the beginning, she used her position as the loving stepmother to manipulate him.

“You may have saved your father’s life, but you put a target on your back in the process,” Danella had warned. “If you continue on like this, attempting to stop the Revivalists may be the last thing you do.”

She warned him from the beginning, and he played right into her hand. This was never about the truth, honor, or justice; it was about the narrative Danella needed to wipe out the Celestics. The Revivalists were in charge now, and everyone opposed would be swept up in the flood of blood.

“Laeden Helixus, son of Varros,” High Priest Vellarin said. “Your defense?”

Laeden’s empty stomach roiled.

“Be humble in your sentencing,” Iylea had said.

Laeden cleared his throat. “I will not defend myself.” Nothing he, Markus, or Hallon could say would change their minds. His only chance was groveling. “I throw myself at the mercy of the throne.”

“There will be no mercy,” Aemos said. “My father is dead because of you.”

Laeden ignored him, focusing on the priests. “Search your hearts. I have conspired with no one. I sought to protect all with honor and justice, but I failed.”

The crowd booed.

Each cry against him served as a grating reminder of his failure. He’d been outplayed. In the game of Reign, he’d played his tiles strategically, but the dice—like always—failed him. He’d been outmatched, not because he underestimated the Revivalists’ cunning, organization, or their skill at arms. He’d made a graver error.

He underestimated their cruelty. He didn’t believe a loving woman could orchestrate an assassination attempt on her husband. If only I had listened to Iylea.

Danella held all the tiles. Now Laeden’s only choice was to roll the last of his dice.

Laeden glared at Danella. “Nothing I say will sway you from the narrative created. I choose not to defend myself with words but by omenation.”

A hush fell over the crowd.

“Laeden, no!” Markus said from behind.

“I request a trial by steel. The Gods will prove my innocence!”

Aemos seethed. His pale cheeks glowed red, but the crowd demanded Laeden’s blood.

After the priests called for order upon the rotunda, Vellarin addressed Laeden. “That is your right. Who will fight for your honor?”

“I will be your champion,” Markus said to Laeden. “Let me fight for you.”

Laeden’s tension abated. Even after all this, he would still die for me. He grinned at Markus, but he wouldn’t let another fall for his failings.

Laeden addressed the dais where the priests and Cassius sat in judgement. The sun felt warm and comforting on his skin. This is my last chance. “I will fight for myself.”

Declaring his innocence would accomplish nothing, and it was far from true besides. His father tried to protect him from the truth, but now, Laeden finally understood; his father wasn’t coerced into exiling the mage. He had wanted to. He chose peace instead of war. Life instead of death. But he had failed too.

Laeden had been so fixated on the word of the Treaty, and following the laws of his people, that he never questioned if they were right in the first place. He was just as guilty as the rest of the blind sheep. King Varros questioned the system, and the Revivalists tried to kill him for it. If the Gods bore witness to this omenation, and there was any wisdom in his father’s defiance of the status quo, he would live. And he would attempt to bring about the changes his father risked everything for.

“And who will represent the crown’s prosecution?” Vellarin asked.

A hush fell over the crowd as they stared at the dais where Damascus, Danella, and the King’s Guard Knights sat.

Danella stood. “We are here today for the people. The Gods will reveal the claims brought forth to be true and just. To defend the crown’s claim, Zephyrus, the Champion of the people, will represent our cause in the omenation.”

Laeden’s heart stopped. Zephyrus?

He expected to fight Daenus. He hoped to fight Aelon. He hadn’t considered they would choose a gladiator—let alone Zephyrus.

Zephyrus stepped forward from behind Chancellor Cassius, radiating anger, his sword of vengeance already in hand.

“There will come a day of reckoning—a flood of blood through your streets, and you will wish you had set the slaves free,” Zephyrus had said.

“The flood of blood is coming,” Iylea warned. And now, it was here.

Chapter 66

Vengeance & Justice

Zephyrus XX & Laeden XVI

Salmantica

Zephyrus

Laeden’s time in bondage hadn’t favored him, but the irony of the situation did little to please Zephyrus. Zephyrus didn’t know or care how true the charges brought against Laeden were, but if Laeden had any knowledge of where Vykinallia was being held, he needed to know.

Two guards released Laeden from his manacles. Laeden had been all scowls during the trial, but now, before Zephyrus, he only stared wide-eyed and mouth agape.

Laeden will meet his just end, but it can wait a moment longer. Zephyrus stepped close so no one else could hear. “Is it true, any of it?”

“Some,” Laeden said.

Zephyrus inhaled through his nostrils. Judges, let him help me. “Do you know where the Uprising is hiding?”

Laeden narrowed his eyes. “No. I never conspired with them.”

Zephyrus’s heart plummeted to the depths of despair. He’s telling the truth… How will I ever find her—ever save her—if I don’t know where she’s being held?

He didn’t even know if she was still alive. If they killed the king, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill one not yet named queen.

“It’s the truth, Zephyrus,” Laeden said. “I’ve been dishonest with you before, and I’m—”

“Then you’re of no use to me,” Zephyrus said, turning away.

Laeden grabbed Zephyrus’s sword arm at the wrist. Zephyrus wheeled around, teeth clenched. He strangled the hilt of his sword in a death grip.

“I’m sorry,” Laeden said, letting go of him, palms raised. “I lied to you. My father feared you. He bent the rules of the treaty to try and appease AVR, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tides of vengeance. I see that now. Zephyrus, you were right. About everything.”

“It’s too late,” Zephyrus snarled. “You’ll get what you deserve.” He strode to the opposite end of the rotunda where their trial by steel would be held.

Laeden failed me. Two guards forced a plain gladius and shield into Laeden’s hands, as if there were any defense against Zephyrus’s wrath.

The high priest prayed for the Gods to guide the omenation. Laeden’s eyes never left his feet. He could sulk all he wanted, but it was too late for him to see the error of his ways now. He used Zephyrus as a tool for his own benefit. Lied about the one thing that could have made the difference for him.

How many others has he used? How many others died believing his lies?

His death would be the first of many in the breaking of this society. Not all needed to fall. Vykinallia had shown him that. But she was the exception. Laeden was the rule.

“We will have our vengeance.”

“May the Six condemn those whose testimony is false and leave only the truth left standing,” the Valencian priest said.

Zephyrus never enjoyed killing, at least as far as he could remember. He wasn’t proud of the slaves who fell beneath his sword, but they were necessary to maintain his clever lies—a sacrifice for the peace he would bring when New Rheynia fell. He would never cease mourning those he couldn’t save, but he wouldn’t mourn for Laeden.

Laeden would die beneath his blade. Not for the crown’s truth, but for the lives of every slave who fell as a tool wielded by their masters. Their deaths would be redeemed in Laeden’s death, and that he would enjoy.

“Begin!”

At the priest’s signal, Zephyrus charged into striking distance.

Laeden lowered his sword and knelt. “I will not fight you.”

Zephyrus reared back his sword and slashed downward.

Laeden

Laeden raised his shield to block Zephyrus’s downward strike. The shield buckled beneath the force of the blow, and he fell to his back to the cheers of the onlookers. Zephyrus pressed his advantage. Laeden struggled to regain his footing amidst Zephyrus’s onslaught. He could barely withstand the speed and strength of his blows.

Hack, slash, stab!

Zephyrus shoved Laeden with his shield, sending him sprawling to the stones of the rotunda yet again. The jeering crowd cast curses, each reminding him of his many failures.

“Laeden, this is above you,” his father said when Laeden convinced him to name him captain of the Sentinels.

Father was right.

The truth pierced deeper than any sword. He was in too deep. He always had been. Ever since he was ripped from his mother’s arms and sent to Salmantica with his father, Laeden had lived a lie. He tried to prove himself worthy of attention, affection, and love. Yet he never could admit it when he wasn’t enough.

His father had said, “There is strength in knowing when to ask for help.” But he could never hear it. He became a pawn to his pride.

Wars were never meant to be fought alone.

“I’ve failed,” Laeden said to Zephyrus, standing a few paces away. “I failed you, I failed my father, I failed the only love I’ve ever known.”

Zephyrus ignored Laeden, closing the gap between them with a new storm of attacks.

Sweat dampened his brow, and his deconditioned arms ached from the effort of meeting Zephyrus’s steel. His only hope was to survive long enough for his words to break through Zephyrus’s armor.

After barely deflecting away another barrage of strikes, Laeden seized advantage of the reprieve. “This all started because the Revivalists were angry that the king exiled a mage instead of executing him. Of those options, both were wrong.”

Zephyrus came at him again. He slashed across Laeden’s shield, then backhandedly struck with his own shield, tossing Laeden’s from his grasp and spilling him to the ground. Zephyrus circled him, not speaking a word, just doing his duty.

He just wants freedom for his people. Now he’s a cog in the machine I placed him in.

Laeden stood, keeping his blade down but his other hand up. “You were right, Zephyrus. All along you were right. Men are not tools to be bought and used.”

Zephyrus stopped circling.

Laeden continued, this time speaking for all to hear. “I should have fought alongside you to free all the slaves.” Laeden turned his back to Zephyrus to face the crowd. “We let fear of the Gods’ wrath drive us. We killed in the name of the Gods and called it honor, but we are cowards! We force our faith upon others under threat of exile or punishment. We torture and execute mages, and for what? To appease the Gods?”

Laeden shook his head. “My father, King Varros, chose life. He chose peace, but only in a half-measure. We continually choose war, torture, and death—claiming it in honor of the Gods.

“I am guilty,” Laeden said, “of many crimes. But so are you.” He stabbed his sword at the dais. “And so are you!” He pivoted, addressing the crowd.

Laeden turned back to Zephyrus and spoke for all to hear. “I deserve to die for being a pawn in the games of kings and queens. I deserve to die for my mistakes.” Laeden dropped his blade and knelt before Zephyrus. “But I pray you all open your eyes and see that we have lost the path to Valencia if we must kill the innocent to walk upon it.”

The crowd went silent. Maybe Laeden’s words reached their hearts, but Zephyrus stalked closer, like a lion to its prey. If he heard Laeden’s words, they had no impact.

The cold steel of Zephyrus’s blade touched the side of his throat as he circled behind Laeden, awaiting the king’s orders. Damascus’s mouth formed a thin line. Danella’s golden eyes seemed to glow with eager anticipation.

Laeden closed his eyes and thought of Iylea. “I love you,” he whispered to the wind, hoping she could hear him in Valencia. “I will see you soon.”

Zephyrus

With his blade at Laeden’s throat, Zephyrus looked to the dais. Dominus nodded with smug satisfaction from beside the priests. He wouldn’t care if Zephyrus spilled Laeden’s blood. If Vykinallia were here, she would have protested this. She was nothing like her father.

She was a slave owner, but she saw the light. Before she was taken, she swore to him that once she was queen, she’d seek to end slavery. Zephyrus convinced her of a better way, and she would’ve changed the world because of it. If he had killed her, as Paxoran wanted, that potential future never would’ve been possible.

Tied within his garments, her amethyst ring pressed against his skin.

“For luck,” she said, but it brought him nothing but misfortune.

Zephyrus grabbed Laeden by the hair to expose his throat for the blade.

The bloodthirsty crowd’s shouts echoed as they had in the arena. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Zephyrus looked down at Laeden, the same way he did Octus. Down on his knees, eyes closed, and palms up—his lips moving in prayer.

“You’ll receive the justice you swore to uphold,” Zephyrus said.

The Celestic people deserved vengeance for what the Rheynians did to them. Laeden deserved death. But if Vykinallia could change to help his cause, so could Laeden. Zephyrus failed to create an army of gladiators. He wouldn’t topple the kingdom with a legion of dead men. But with a handful of changed people...

“You will die, Laeden.” Zephyrus adjusted the blade at Laeden’s neck. “But not today… not by my hand.” He lowered his sword.

Laeden

“What are you doing?” Aemos shouted at Zephyrus. “Kill him!”

Laeden couldn’t believe his eyes. Zephyrus stalked around him, coming to a stop between him and his accusers. The jeering crowd fell silent. Cassius commanded Zephyrus to comply, but he remained a statue.

Laeden grabbed his own sword and stood beside Zephyrus.

“Kill them both!” Damascus shouted.

The King’s Guard Knights stepped into position, but Markus came to Laeden’s side with exposed steel.

“Markus!” Cassius stepped down from his dais. “This is not your fight, son.”

Markus ignored his father, glancing at Laeden. “I will not stand idly by while everything I love is taken from me.”

A swell of unfamiliar emotions washed over him. He didn’t deserve to be spared by Zephyrus. Zephyrus didn’t need to sacrifice himself for Laeden. Markus didn’t need to stand beside him. These two men—these good men—would die, choosing to defend Laeden.

Laeden had never before felt so humbled.

Aemos, Daenus, and Aelon unsheathed their swords before Markus, Zephyrus and Laeden. Other Salmantic soldiers surrounded them, pikes aimed. They were outnumbered and poorly equipped, but where Laeden had no fight in his heart against Zephyrus, he had a well of resolve to fight against these traitors. He knew who his enemy was now. They declared themselves to him, and it was time justice was served.

Laeden let out a battle cry and charged at Aelon.

He slashed high to low, then followed across. Aelon met his blade with his own steel as Zephyrus and Markus clashed with Daenus and Aemos. Laeden lunged for the gaps between Aelon’s plate mail; the armpits, elbows, behind the knees, and the neck were all vulnerable. He chopped at Aelon’s lower leg, but Aelon parried and stepped inside Laeden’s reach, shouldering him backwards.

“Give it up, Laeden!” Aelon said over the clang of battle. “You’ll never beat me.”

Laeden growled. He shoved his shield into Aelon’s and chopped downward. Aelon sidestepped the blow, but Zephyrus redirected Daenus in the same direction. Aelon and Daenus collided. Laeden slashed at Aelon, but Haedron Allos and two other King’s Guard Knights joined the fray, forcing Laeden to retreat.

“There are too many!” Markus parried Aemos’s fury of attacks.

The pikemen encircling them drew closer, forcing them into tighter quarters. Laeden deflected Aelon’s thrust and raised his shield just in time to block Haedron’s blade.

We’re losing ground.

“True Sentinels!” a voice called from the crowd. “Defend your captain!”

Laeden’s grandfather, Hallon Helixus, vaulted over a divider that separated the crowd from the rotunda, drawing his long sword. Allaron, one of Laeden’s Sentinel Squadron leaders, joined the battle, an axe in his hands. More men in their gray-and-blue Sentinel uniforms abandoned their post to the crown and surrounded the pikemen in black.

The spears aimed at Laeden, Zephyrus, and Markus redirected to the new threats. With the fight rebalanced, Laeden charged with new vigor, pushing Aelon back and hacking at Aemos’s knee. Aemos squealed as Laeden’s strike took purchase in the gap between the armor. Markus pushed Aemos over and stabbed one of the other guards through the throat. Laeden struck down at Aemos on the ground, but Aelon caught his sword mid-chop.

Engaged with Aelon, Laeden was in a poor position to defend as Haedron approached his back side. Haedron reared his sword. Laeden attempted to dodge, but he saw Haedron too late.

The sword streaked towards Laeden’s side, but somehow, an invisible force seemed to stop Haedron’s stroke. Zephyrus stood behind Haedron, hand raised.

He did something to make Haedron pause.

Aelon surged at Laeden again with a fresh series of strikes. Aemos, hobbled by his wounded knee, continued fighting against Markus, while Zephyrus went blow for blow with Daenus and another one of the King’s Guard Knights.

Hallon, Allaron, and the Sentinels who came to Laeden’s aid fought the Vigiles and Drake guards. All around them, men fell and died. The coppery smell of blood accompanied the wails of the fallen, sending nearby onlookers fleeing for safety.

“Kill them!” Damascus shouted, directing his reinforcements toward their position. More Drake guards came.

“Ridge Knights!” Hallon Helixus shouted. “Defend Laeden!”

Men in Helixus blue and gold stormed the rotunda to meet the black-and-red Drake guards.

“King’s Guard Knights, retreat!” Danella shouted. “Protect your king!”

Daenus stepped back after fending off a flurry of blows from Zephyrus. A Drake guard in black scale stepped in to defend him but fell as Zephyrus drove his sword up under his arm. The guard fell—dead before he hit the ground.

“Let’s go!” Daenus ordered the others. Hesitantly, Aelon, Aemos, and Haedron followed.

Blood covered the ground all around them. Allies and enemies, they died the same—screaming in agony. We must make a way out, or we’ll join the dead. There was no chance of winning this battle, only surviving long enough to fight the next.

“We must escape,” Laeden said.

“This way.” Grandfather Hallon waved them down an alley away from the rotunda.

“Markus!”

Laeden wheeled around to find Duke Cassius calling out for his son. Cassius staggered before collapsing to his stomach, a dagger protruding from his back.

“Father!” Markus rushed to his side.

“We’ve gotta g—” Zephyrus cut himself off, wheeling around.

A crossbow bolt zoomed past Zephyrus, but he continued staring into the fray, searching for something. He held up his shield as a bolt punctured through.

Laeden lifted his own shield while searching for cover, but a cry behind him stopped him in his tracks.

Hallon hit the ground—a crossbow bolt lodged in his stomach.

“Gods, no!”

Zephyrus

Lenox.

It was only for a moment, but Zephyrus was sure he saw him. Where did he go?

More arrows flew through the air as archers fired down from the priests’ dais. Zephyrus growled. Laeden called for his grandfather’s aid, but none of the troops would be able to protect them. As long as the archers controlled the high ground, they were doomed.

Lenox would have to wait. Zephyrus charged the dais. Bolts flew by, cutting the air beside him. He channeled his force magic, redirecting incoming arrows to sail past. His arms tingled, already weak from stopping the attack on Laeden.

The archers stepped back to reload as the second row of bowmen took aim. Zephyrus vaulted off one of the viewing benches and dove onto the dais, closing the ground too quickly for them to fire. The panicked bowmen struggled within the close confines.

Zephyrus slammed his shield into the crossbow of the first, throwing him from the dais. He lunged, stabbing the second archer through the belly. Standing, he pivoted, building momentum. With a swing of his gladius, he severed the next archer’s head from his shoulders. The remaining bowmen scattered, but Zephyrus was not about to let them get away. He chased down the closest, slashing him across the back, then stabbed another through the ribs.

With the archers disbanded or dead, the Ridge Knights surrounded Laeden’s grandfather and spirited him out of harm’s way.

Markus rejoined the fight. Cassius lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood—dead. With nothing left to lose, Markus fought like a madman. Bodies fell around him like leaves in autumn. His black-and-yellow tunic, heavy with the weight of the blood of his enemies, might as well have been red. Yet there were still too many enemies.

The King’s Guard Knights returned with reinforcements.

Laeden rushed to Markus’s position. Within heartbeats, they were surrounded. One of the knights slashed from behind, cutting Markus across his back. Markus staggered into Laeden.

If Zephyrus didn’t get to them, they would die. He jumped from the dais and ran towards them, but he felt a presence behind him.

He spun just in time to deflect Lenox’s blade away.

Veins throbbed in Zephyrus’s neck. A vindictive fury roared within him like a tempest.

Patrus’s murderer.

Zephyrus unleashed a reckless onslaught on Lenox. Ignoring his fatigue, Zephyrus abandoned all patience. He hacked and slashed, shoved and stabbed. Lenox met each strike, turning them aside.

His arms were heavy, not yet recovered from the exertion of balancing the scales, but he pressed. Lenox had lived too long. He would not let him escape again.

Lenox jabbed, overextending. Zephyrus saw his opportunity and lunged. Lenox feinted, rearing back in time to block Zephyrus’s overeager counter on his shield. Zephyrus pulled back to defend, but too slow.

Lenox’s blade pierced Zephyrus’s side.

Pain replaced fury. Fear consumed anger.

Zephyrus gasped, dropping to a knee, with Lenox’s blade still embedded beneath his ribs.

Lenox twisted his sword. Bile climbed Zephyrus’s throat.

Zephyrus roared, but Lenox punched him with the edge of his shield. Glowing orbs swirled in Zephyrus’s vision. He fought for focus, but another strike slammed into the bridge of his nose. Pain lanced through his skull, and blood spilled down his face. He tried to stand but couldn’t. Tried to lift his sword, but strength fled from him. His vision narrowed on Lenox’s smug face as the villain who robbed Patrus of life stood over him.

The same man who killed Patrus would claim his life as well. He closed his eyes.

Patrus… Forgive me.

Within his mind’s eye, Patrus fell again beneath Lenox’s sword. Zephyrus was supposed to lead him to freedom, but he failed. Not just Patrus, but every Celestic. Blood pooled beneath Patrus’s fallen body, his dead eyes staring at Zephyrus.

This is it. I’ve lost. Lenox, the Revivalists, this society—they’ve won.

Vellarix, Aikous, Ronar, Threyna… I’ve failed them too.

The dream of Zephyrus’s mother returned to him. Her auburn hair swayed in the breeze. “You can never forget who you are or where you come from,” she had said. Zephyrus failed her as well. He never found out who he was, nor did he become anyone who could make a difference.

His mother seemed so real before him now, as if he could reach out and touch her. Her cheeks rounded into a gentle smile. She reached out her hand.

Zephyrus took her hand in his. “I will see you soon, Mother.”

“Soon,” she said with a smile. “But not yet.” She brushed back his hair, tears welling in her eyes.

He shook his head, dropping his eyes in defeat. “It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” she said. “You’ve been afraid to discover who you were, who you are. You’ve closed me out, but it’s time you learned the truth.” She lifted his chin with her index finger until their eyes met.

“The truth?”

His mother shook her head. “Zephyrus is not the name I gave you. You are Vykanicus Auros. Son of Invinius, the first to free the slaves.”

Zephyrus recalled the A branded into Patrus’s forearm. “He freed his slaves,” one of the slaves from Tharseo’s Bastion observed after they were first abducted.

His mother cupped his cheek with her hand. “You were born to do this, my son. The world can only be freed through you.”

Zephyrus tried to make sense of it all, but his mind swam amidst the flood of memories.

“I’m the only one who can stop the Rheynians?” he channeled.

She smiled, but her eyes were forlorn. “Not the Rheynians… the Gods. Return home. Claim the sword your father forged for you. Become the man you were born to be, the one you have been all along.” She kissed his forehead. “For luck.”

She winked and disappeared in a flash.

Lenox stood before him, his blade still embedded in Zephyrus’s side.

“Now you die, Zephyrus,” Lenox spat.

Zephyrus bared his teeth. “That’s not my name.”

His arms went numb as he balanced the scales, building a surge of force. The same magic he’d used to save Fenyx from Tursos and Laeden from the King’s Guard Knight rattled within him until he couldn’t contain it any longer.

With a roar, he released a concussive blast into Lenox’s chest. The force hurled Lenox through the air, toppling him onto his back. Still kneeling, Zephyrus pried the sword from his gut and climbed to his feet. He aimed Lenox’s sword at him.

“Mage!” Lenox shouted, but no one was listening amidst the chaos. Unarmed, Lenox turned and ran for the alleyway. Zephyrus began to give chase, but Laeden yelped behind him.

Laeden and Markus were surrounded. Zephyrus could run down Lenox and finish him once and for all, but vengeance left him.

This was never about killing Lenox. This was never about vengeance.

Lenox wasn’t his future. Zephyrus lost Threyna before their friendship could have become something. He lost Patrus before he remembered him. Even Vykinallia was lost to him, now. Zephyrus wouldn’t let Laeden join them.

Surrounded by a relentless sea of soldiers in red and black, Laeden in his soiled tunic and Markus in his gold surcoat fought back the tide.

Time to balance the scales.

Zephyrus charged the men surrounding Laeden and Markus.

The guards turned to face Zephyrus, but too late. He barreled into them with all his might, staggering a few. One of the soldiers struck at Markus, but Zephyrus used his force magic to stop him mid-swing. His arm went numb from the exertion, but Laeden seized the opportunity and stabbed Markus’s attacker in the chest. Zephyrus used more force magic to lower one of the other soldiers’ shields and stabbed over the top of it, slicing where the neck met the shoulder.

The soldier fell to the ground, crying the guttural groans of death.

Laeden and Markus fought for their lives as Zephyrus cut his way to their aid, but pain lanced up his arm as steel bit into his skin. It was only superficial, but blood blossomed to trickle down his left arm. Zephyrus recoiled, swinging violently at his attacker. His blade sank deeply into the soldier’s ribs. He yanked his blade free as a group peeled away from Laeden and Markus to engage him. Against the wall of shields, Zephyrus sliced and hacked, but was unable to pierce their defenses.

One of the soldiers overextended himself. Zephyrus dodged the blade and hacked down, separating him from his hand. Zephyrus spun around him and drove his blade up the armpit of the handless soldier. He went limp and fell. Zephyrus tried to yank his sword free, but the dead weight of the soldier, combined with his magic-fatigue, wrestled the blade from his grasp.

Zephyrus grabbed the fallen soldier’s shield just in time to block an assault from the others. He hid behind the large shield, but one strike glanced off the top of his hip bone. Pain flooded through him as he stumbled backwards.

I need a sword.

A man fell at the edge of Laeden’s blade, then another to Markus’s, but they were still outnumbered.

“Give up, Laeden!” one of the King’s Guard Knights said.

“You’re a traitor, Aelon. I’ll never surrender to you.” Laeden continued to duel, but Aelon was better. Laeden took a slice across the arm, and another along the ribs.

“Surrender now and you’ll get a painless death,” another knight said to Markus.

“Never, Aemos!” Markus fought, but his fervor weakened as exhaustion took hold.

The largest of the King’s Guard Knights advanced on Zephyrus. “All you had to do was kill him and all of these lives would have been spared.”

So much death. Death followed him wherever he went. Fatigue weighed on him, his arms heavy, his wounds aching and bleeding. The knight swung at Zephyrus. He tried to defend himself with the fallen soldier’s shield, but it wasn’t enough.

We’re all going to die, Zephyrus realized.

The knight’s vicious swing struck the shield from his weak fingers. The knight kicked him to the ground and another one advanced.

“Grab him, Haedron,” the large knight said. Zephyrus tried to get to his feet, but he was broken, beaten, and hopeless.

Haedron stalked behind Zephyrus and yanked his hair back. Markus was in a similar posture before Aemos. Laeden was still on his feet, bleeding from a dozen different wounds.

Cold steel pressed against the side of Zephyrus’s neck.

This is the end.

The steel grew warm against his flesh.

Incredibly warm, even hot.

Zephyrus must die, so Vykanicus can be reborn.

He raised his hands to the knight before him. A stream of fire erupted from Zephyrus’s hands, engulfing the knight.

Haedron released Zephyrus. Zephyrus whipped around, and with a sudden return of warmth to his body, he sent a torrent of water bursting into Haedron’s breastplate, sending him flying onto his back.

“He’s a mage!” Aemos shouted, but in his distraction, Markus lunged forward and slashed Aemos across the face.

The knight on fire screamed and ran for the moat. Aemos fell to the ground. Laeden still eyed Aelon, but Aelon backed away.

The drawbridge lowered, and more soldiers clad in black and red rushed their way.

Zephyrus was so tired. He couldn’t fight any longer.

“Grab him,” Laeden said to Markus. “We’re leaving.”

“He’s a mage,” Markus said.

“And?” Laeden snapped. “Grab him!”

Zephyrus’s eyelids drooped. Markus and Laeden each seized Zephyrus under his arms and dragged him away, a trail of blood following in their wake. Zephyrus’s body went limp as he fell into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

Chapter 67

Goodbye

Danella X

Salmantica

Danella sat alone by the hearth, a small table with two stools for Reign beside her. Danella never cared for the game; one could make all the proper strategic moves but get shorted with the roll of the dice. She didn’t appreciate a game that weighed chance over strategy.

All she did, she did for Damascus, the Gods, and the safety of New Rheynia. She thought if she could turn a Prophet of Celestia into a weapon of her own, no one could stand against her.

How was I to know Zephyrus was a mage? How was I to know he wouldn’t kill Laeden?

Laeden escaped with Markus and Zephyrus. Hallon’s defiance meant war with Valtarcia. Zephyrus’s open use of elemental magic would inspire others within the Uprising, and Laeden’s open declaration for freedom and equality would summon the sympathizers to their cause.

How did everything get so out of hand?

Even now, Daenus clung to life in the medicus’s chambers suffering from the burns of Zephyrus’s magic fire, alongside Aemos, whose face was nearly cleaved in two from Markus’s blade. Her tiles were perfectly positioned, but the dice ruined everything.

She walked from the hearth into the bedroom. The bed was modest, unlike many of the others in the castle tower. It possessed no veiled canopy, no exuberant carvings, a common headboard, and no footboard whatsoever—quite fitting for Laeden.

A blue banner with the gold winged horse of House Helixus hung from the right side of his bed. The words Honor and Justice were stitched into the banner below the sigil. To the left hung the white-and-blue falcon of House Faire. The words, Defend the Weak, were written below. Laeden had done just that. He defended Iylea to her death.

I had no choice but to discredit him. I never would have let them sentence him to death, but he chose a trial by steel.

Laeden was always a petulant child. She couldn’t blame him. His father was forced to divorce his mother to marry the daughter of the King of New Rheynia, to make an everlasting peace between Salmantica and Valtarcia. Damascus’s reign was meant to be that peace, but now Laeden ruined that.

The irony… and where is Varros now?

She forged the mages’ letter to convince Damascus that the time to strike was now. Varros was likely still alive. Her Revivalists had scoured the farmlands of Salmantica to the mountains of Valtarcia, but none found him.

If he’s dead, at least he never has to learn what I did to him and his son.

“I had no other choice,” Danella whispered. She walked from the bedroom to the balcony. The sun had long since set, but the rains remained absent. A fortnight without rain. The Gods were delivering their disasters even now. War was coming. The drought would slowly starve them if war didn’t claim them first. The circumstances would bring out the lowest form of humanity.

She returned to her seat by the hearth and went to drink from her goblet, but it was empty. The carafe she reached for, to pour herself more, was empty too. She cast it into the hearth, shattering the glass and creating a swell of fire.

She took a deep breath. She thought she’d succeeded. Her pride blossomed to think of her father’s approval, but it all came crashing down.

A knock came, and the chamber doors creaked open.

“Your grace,” Brusos said. “May I join you?”

Danella wanted to be alone, but she waved him in.

Brusos held something in his hands as he entered, closing the door behind him. Danella took a seat before the hearth, gesturing for Brusos to join her. He sat across from her, resting the cloth-wrapped package on his lap.

“How fares our young king?” he asked.

Danella stared at the fire. “His brother’s treachery and the disappearance of his betrothed are heavy burdens to bear.”

“I imagine the death of his chancellor to be of some consequential load as well.”

Danella met his gaze, swallowing to contain her shock. “Cassius is dead?”

“Stabbed in the back during the fray after the trial. I offered Lenox the opportunity to redeem himself, and he has done so splendidly. We can tell the people Laeden and Markus rigged the omenation to make Cassius the chancellor.”

Danella was impressed. She didn’t want to let him know how impressed. She wouldn’t hold back all praise, but she wouldn’t give him time to gloat either. “You’ve done well. So, Duke Chancellor, have you any news on the whereabouts of Markus, Laeden, or Zephyrus?”

“Apologies, your grace, the scouts haven’t found them yet. I assure you, they will be caught.” Brusos sat up in his chair. “Yet I didn’t come to tell of Cassius’s demise and my ascent. I come bearing gifts.” He handed her the wrapped package.

It was heavier than expected. She unwrapped it to find the tattered cape of Varros Helixus inside. Danella looked to Brusos, tears welling in her eyes.

Divided down the middle, Varros wore the sigils of his father and his wife. On one side the white winged horse of the Helixuses soared across a blue backdrop. On the other, the Drake Chimera roared, blue atop white. Dirt marred the white half, but upon closer examination, it wasn’t dirt, but dried blood. She sniffled, holding back her tears, pulling the cloak towards her. As she moved, something heavy fell out of it. Varros’s crown dropped from the death-stained cloak to land on her lap. Danella gasped, as air ceased to exist.

My husband…

“His remains were recovered,” Brusos said.

Nausea bubbled in her stomach, and a knot rose to her throat. “Remains?”

“One of Liario’s men found him in the Salmantic countryside. His cloak and crown hung from a spear lodged into his burning body.”

Danella hung her head. It was something she set out to do nearly a year ago. She plotted and schemed to make this happen, to put Damascus on the throne, to appease the Gods. At one point, she thought the Gods would allow her to keep him, but the mages took him. The man she loved. The man she still loved.

He’s truly gone.

Danella swallowed her grief. “As the new chancellor, you may take Cassius’s ludus as your own.”

“Gratitude, your grace.” Brusos bowed. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

She hoped this would be the end of her duties. Her plan succeeded. Damascus was upon the throne, no one was whispering words of blasphemy in his ears, and the Celestics were being put down. But this was only the beginning. So much needed to be done, but she wanted—no, needed—to grieve.

“Bring me word once your bodyslave delivers Nallia to the Uprising,” Danella said. “Until then, unless you apprehend Laeden, Markus, or Zephyrus, leave me be.”

Brusos bowed before taking his leave. The moment he closed the door, the weight of loneliness settled on Danella’s shoulders like never before.

She clung to Varros’s cape, wishing he were here to console her. Slowly, she began to crack. Like a bird hatching from its shell, her dam of emotions broke through her mask, fracturing her entire being. The tears seeped through the cracks until the pressure was too much. She shattered into a million brokenhearted sobs, clutching the bloodied cape as if it were the only thing left for her in the world. She wept as if her own tears supplied the nightly rains. She cried until she was breathless, then cried more.

What was it all for? She sacrificed everything for the Gods. Still, she sat in failure. Her husband was gone, yet her father’s kingdom was in no less jeopardy than it was the day before. Still so many enemies, so many threats. No peace.

Her husband would still be alive if her father had eradicated the Celestics to begin with. In his old age, he had forced them to sue for peace. He should have wiped them from this world. If he had, his kingdom wouldn’t be on the verge of war with Valtarcia, mages, and escaped slaves. No treaty would ensure peace. Only the death of her enemies would allow peace to reign.

There was no more time to cry. She set Varros’s crown down on the couch beside her and walked to the fire.

She looked down at her husband’s cape one last time. “Goodbye, my love.”

The cape fell from her hands into the hearth, and the life she knew before burned to ash.

Chapter 68

The Greater Good

Threyna V

Stockhelm

Threyna knelt down beside Sybex’s desiccated remains. Her prominent cheekbones, so beautiful in life, were equally unnerving in death. The quiet flow of the cenote and the steady drip from the stalactites were the only disturbances against the Guardians’ silent stares. Four bodies littered the slick stones. Two more floated face down in the bloody water.

Threyna examined the black rot along her arm as it abated to the scars left behind by the bangle. The exposed blood she’d gained access to after her shattered glass conjuration carved into the Guardians had sourced most of what she needed to finish them. In the end, there were no defiant last words. No begging. No valiant efforts.

Only death.

Brutal, cold, silent, still, lonely—death.

“The second Treasure waits,” Paxoran said.

The flickering torchlight from the sconces, bordering the tunnel into where Threyna assumed the second Treasure waited, danced across the cavern ceiling. Threyna picked up the last of her Viridite glowstones from under Sybex’s arm and returned it to her pouch. Sybex’s empty eye sockets stared blankly up to the cavern ceiling.

She hadn’t wanted to kill the Templars. She hadn’t wanted to condemn Zephyrus and Patrus to slavery. All she had wanted was a purpose after the horrors she’d experienced escaping Rheynia. She thought she found that with Tyrus in the City of the Judges, aiding in their pursuit to reclaim their homeland from a foreign tyrant. Her skills, her abilities, even her cursed magic, all served a purpose for bringing good to the world. But the evil she thought she’d vanquished still lived.

She asked the Arcane Templar for help. They could have aided her in defeating the Skeleton King, but they chose their beliefs and traditions over joining her. They chose this death instead of the Skeleton King’s.

Now, instead of serving the greater good, she was enslaved to the lesser evil.

I must kill the Skeleton King. Nothing else matters.

Threyna followed the tunnel to its end, where a chest rested in a room much like that in the catacombs beneath the Gilded Gauntlet. She approached the chest. Absent the ornamental stylings of New Rheynia’s patricians, the plain chest held power she’d never felt before, even holding the Vykane Blade.

One step closer to her goal, Threyna swallowed and threw the lid of the chest open.

Inside, the Orsion Cloak glowed with power. White with silver trim intricately woven in a floral pattern, the cloak appeared like moonlight given form.

Recalling the first time she’d seen the moon after she and Laela escaped the curse of Rheynia, her thoughts drifted to her parents and the sacrifices they made to keep her and her sister alive. Now her parents were gone, and Laela was...

It didn’t matter.

She was the only one left, and only she could make sure the Skeleton King took no more souls to the One True God.

She took the Orsion Cloak in her hands.

“Yes,” Paxoran said, wrenching her from her thoughts. “You have found the second Treasure. Only the Aeryean Armor remains. Then you will bring about the end of the Skeleton King’s reign, and we will reforge the world anew.”

Remnants of the black rot tinged her fingertips holding the Judge’s artifact.

How can something so corrupt hold something so perfect?

Ignoring her doubts, Threyna cast her own wet cloak aside and placed the Orsion Cloak over her shoulders. The dank cavern tunnel felt warmer and brighter despite the bleakness in her heart. She thought after claiming two of the Treasures, she would feel different.

“You shall find that which you seek, but you possess all you need,” the Seers of Celestia had said. But they were wrong. She needed the Treasures.

The elders of the Arcane Templar were wrong too.

Only I can defeat the Skeleton King. And once he is dead and gone, then everything I am, everything I’ve done—it will all have been worth it.

“One more Treasure,” Threyna said.

Epilogue

The First Brother

Varros

Stockhelm

Varros stared out the window of Sinion’s tower. He squeezed the sill, wishing that if he possessed the strength, he could crush the stone between his fingers. He couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t stop this war between the Arcane Templar and the Revivalists.

“Is it true?” Varros asked Sinion.

Sinion shuffled his feet behind him. “I’m afraid so, old friend.”

A tear trickled from the corner of Varros’s eye to roll into the scruff of his bearded cheek. He sniffed, wiping the tear with the back of his hand. “If I wasn’t your prisoner, I could have stopped this.”

Sinion approached, placing his hand on Varros’s shoulder. “You’re not a prisoner. And we both know you tried to stop this. I’m afraid it has always been fated to come to this. Nothing you could have done would have prevented this war.”

Varros hung his head as the last of the sun faded from sight. Dusk crept in, and with it, all the light of the world seemed lost beyond the Hylan Mountains.

His father, Duke Hallon Helixus—dead.

His son Laeden, a fugitive.

Damascus, his heir—a tyrant.

And Danella, his love. His life. She had seen to all of it.

The cannon fire echoed in his head, transporting him back to that fated day on the Winged Wind. He, Sinion, and the rest of their crew celebrated a small victory, sinking a Salmantic galley. But their celebrations were cut short as two Salmantic warships swept through the fog on either side of them.

Like a walnut placed between the nutcracker’s jaws, cannon fire crushed their ship. Splinters blew through the air, and fires burned as oil-soaked torches devoured the sails. It wasn’t a battle, but a massacre. Those who weren’t impaled by debris or burned by the flames drowned in the dark waters off the southeastern shores of Stockhelm.

Varros took a deep breath and squeezed the window frame with both hands to reorient himself back in Sinion’s ludus. The cannon fire echoing through his mind faded, but the reality of his present situation seemed as doomed as when he had woken up on the shores of Klaytos with Sinion pumping the water from his lungs.

“Sometimes I wish I never would have survived,” Varros said. “It would have been better—if you had let me drown, if we would have died of starvation or dehydration upon the Klaytonian sands.”

Sinion hummed. “You had said you’d do anything to return to your wife and son. And you did. The Arcane Templar gave you that.”

Varros’s teeth ground together at the mention of his order.

They ‘gave’ me nothing but a double-life of looking over my shoulder and fearing my own web of lies.

He pounded his fist against the sandstone wall of Sinion’s tower.

“I lost Lenara the moment I returned to New Rheynia,” Varros said. “And Laeden never trusted me again. How could he after all the secrets I was forbidden to speak of?”

“Yet you lived,” Sinion said. “Better had you died or not, the Judges were not done with you. They gave you a great purpose—the liberation of Stockhelm, the freedom of its people.”

“Twenty years,” Varros said, turning from the rainless night to face his old friend. “Everything has only gotten worse.”

Sinion crossed his arms over his chest, swishing his silken robes in the process. He nodded toward the hearth in the opposite corner of the room and led the way. Before a feather-cushioned sofa patterned with the gray and blue of his house, Sinion plopped down. Varros sat beside him, sinking into the cushions as he sank into his misery.

“Worse, you say?” Sinion said. “For whom?”

Varros’s gaze rose to the sigil of the wolf Sinion had adopted as his own above the hearth. It stared down at them, an apt representation of Sinion’s role in the Arcane Templar. A lone wolf. A Helm amidst New Rheynia’s patricians. A lanista who moonlighted as a liberator for the Arcane Templar. While the display of wealth in his villa and incompetence in his ludus made him the brunt of the patricians’ jokes, it allowed him to recruit, train, and hide the Fallen’s best fighters beneath New Rheynia’s nose.

Being partial to such secrets was one of the many things that kept Varros up at night.

He was part of a rebellion he wanted to stop. He never expected to find love in Danella’s arms, but he did. She treated Laeden as her own. They had their own son together, and he was happy again. But playing his two roles as the King of New Rheynia and the First Brother of the Templar put him at constant odds. Their oppositional goals inevitably forced him to choose between his family or his duty. Nothing was enough for the Templar, yet his leniency toward the Celestics in the eyes of the Valencian devout led to the formation of the Revivalists. Love and duty, forever at odds.

“I suppose it’s only worse for me,” Varros said with a sigh. “I must go speak with Danella and Damascus. If they know I’m alive—”

Sinion sat up, cheeks blubbering. “You told me she attempted to have you assassinated. Why do you still protect her?”

Varros bit his lip. “She doesn’t know the full truth.”

“She knew you were aiding us,” Sinion said. “You believe that if she knew the truth—the whole truth—that she would listen? An assassin—she sent an assassin when she believed you were a sympathizer. What do you think she would do if she knew the truth?”

Varros shook his head. “You don’t underst—”

Sinion stood faster than Varros had ever seen him move. “You’d be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star, Varros.” His nostrils flared with each heaving breath.

He sat back down, smoothing out his silks. In a much calmer voice, Sinion said, “It is time you chose a side, my friend. This peace you fight for will be won with no half measures.”

Varros grunted. “They wanted me to frame innocent people, Sinion. Frame patricians for ties to the ‘Uprising’ and execute them, until there was no one left to stand against the Templar. What honor is there in—”

“That is your problem.” Sinion glared at Varros. “You believe them innocent. No one is innocent while people are enslaved.”

“You know what I mean,” Varros said.

“I’m not sure I do,” Sinion snapped. “If you did, you would have done as the Templar ordered. You would have released Zephyrus as you were told. But you were more interested in abiding by the queen’s fears than the Judges’ prophecies.”

Varros blew out his cheeks and ran his fingers through his hair. In truth, he’d hoped Zephyrus, absent his memories and the Templar’s brainwashing, would be just another man in the arena. That had backfired.

Sinion scooted closer to Varros on the cushions. “You have been on the inside for far too long. You have lost your way, but I will help you find it again. The Templar won’t do anything rash while I vouch for you.”

“Tell that to Ceres and Sybex,” Varros said. “I freed them from the dungeons, burned Count Elrod Horne alive after seeing me, and still they nearly killed me on half a dozen instances in the time between abducting me and delivering me to you.”

Sinion grinned. “Your fight for ‘peace’ is viewed by many as a betrayal. It is time you fight for the vengeance you vowed to claim for the people of Stockhelm.”

Varros shivered.

Vengeance is the worst thing to fight for. Fight for your home, your land, your people, your rights—but not for vengeance.

When the chill didn’t abate, Varros balanced the scales. He drew heat into his chest to prepare for the drop in his core temperature. With a flick of his wrist, he ignited the empty hearth in flames, and the scales tipped back to balance.

Sinion smiled. “You may have failed to free the Wielder, resisted being a saboteur, but you are still a weapon of war. Fight for us. We will win this war. And then you shall have the peace you desire.”

Varros chewed the inside of his lip, knowing there had to be a better way.

A knock at the door broke them from their conversation.

Sinion beckoned the messenger inside. A Rheynian boy, probably no more than twelve years old, entered in ragged clothes. He wiped his dirty sleeve across his soot-stained forehead.

“What news?” Sinion asked.

The boy bowed. “Ceres has located the Wielder. He will free him, and, together, they will find the Warlock and reclaim the Treasures.”

“Very well,” Sinion said. “And then we will have our vengeance.”

“We will have our vengeance,” the boy said.

Sinion and the messenger both turned to Varros expectantly.

Pick a side…

There was a fire in Sinion’s eyes. Not a raging wrathful one that would consume all and burn out, but a slow, steady, patient smoldering that would outlast and persist. Unyielding, unrelenting, undying. The Arcane Templar would never rest, never give up on its quest for vengeance. But Varros would find another way, a better way, than blood for blood. Outside the extremes, there was a middle ground that wasn’t being considered. He would bridge the gap between the two sides and forge a path to peace. He only hoped he wasn’t the last one in the world who had yet to declare for one side or the other.

“That is still what you want, Varros?” Sinion asked. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Varros said, hiding his true feelings. With love and duty forever at odds, Varros cleared his throat. “We will have our vengeance.”

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

After my band broke up, I wanted a creative project that I could do all by myself. I thought that project would be writing. Boy, was I wrong. This trilogy, this story, and this journey never would have come to be what it is without the help of many along the way. A special thank you to my mom, my very first reader and always my biggest fan. To Chersti Nieveen and the team at Writer Therapy who taught me everything I know about story, thank you for your patience, encouragement, and guidance; A Vengeful Realm would not have existed in any readable capacity without you! To my fellow writers of the Creators’ Conclave, thank you for being my support system, my sounding board, and my think-tank. To my critique partner and friend, L.D. Hudson, thank you for being my most avid cheerleader, my word-count pacer, and my writerly companion; you’re the Sam to my Frodo, and I never would have made it to Mordor without you. To the team at Paper Raven Books who shared my creation with the world, Landon Soelberg who brought my characters to life in the audiobook, and Taylor Ash who turned the Rebels’ Rhyme into a masterpiece—from the bottom of my heart, thank you! And of course, it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to create a universe, write a book (let alone a trilogy), and put it out into the world. But it takes a greater degree of patience and love to be the spouse of a writer. Thank you to my wife, Colleen, for believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

About the Author

When Tim isn’t writing epic fantasy, he can often be found in his garage-gym or in the mountains where he lives. A virtual fitness professional by trade, he integrates his creative passions into movement, training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords to unlock his inner gladiator. To inquire about Gladiator Training, reach out to him at TimFacciolaFit@gmail.com.

More than writing, reading, gaming, playing music, hiking, and paddle-boarding, Tim loves story. If he’s not working on his own story, he’s helping others develop theirs as an author coach. To inquire about Author Coaching services, visit firsttorchbooks.mykajabi.com.

Living in Arizona with his wife, Colleen, Tim continues writing epic fantasy novels while exploring different storytelling mediums so he can inspire others to hope. To live. And to believe.

The Rebels’ Rhyme by Taylor Ash

taylorash.com

TIM FACCIOLA

Copyright © 2023 by First Torch Books, LLC. 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. 

Cover Design by Lunaris Falcon Studio

Publishing Services provided by Paper Raven Books LLC

Printed in the United States of America 

First Printing, 2023

“Why?”

For every kid willing to question everything

and every parent gracious enough to play along.

The Scales of Balance

Book 1 Recap

After 20 years of tentative peace, the kingdom is on the brink of theological civil war. Those of the Celestic people that weren’t exiled were enslaved—their mages nailed to the Six Arrowed Star of Rheynia. But still, the prophecy of the Return threatens the safety of the kingdom.

Zephyrus wakes in a Celestic temple with no memory of who he is, how he arrived, or why he’s there. If not for his companions, Patrus and Threyna, Zephyrus would be lost. Even Patrus’s memories are fuzzy, but he still has his faculties. Patrus informs Zephyrus they’ve come to Tharseo’s Bastion to see if they are one of the three Prophets of the Return—The Wielder to claim the three lost Treasures and free the slaves, the Harbinger to bring about the mysterious Age of the End, or the Herald to commune with the Gods. While awaiting his prophecy, Zephyrus finds a letter in his pocket addressed to the New Rheynian King identifying him as an emissary of peace. Patrus is appalled because Zephyrus was supposed to be the one to turn the tides of the war, not serve the other side. Still confused, Zephyrus receives an equivocal prophecy indicating he could be any one of the three Prophets.

When the Celestic temple is attacked by New Rheynian slavers, Zephyrus, Patrus, and Threyna lead the others to fight for their freedom. Outnumbered, they are forced to surrender to spare the lives of the others. Threyna, however, refuses to surrender and is murdered. Zephyrus, Patrus, and the others are manacled and prepared for auction. Reeling from Threyna’s death, Zephyrus struggles to accept what is happening. Despite the complexities of his prophecy, Patrus convinces Zephyrus to declare himself the Wielder to inspire the soon-to-be slaves to rebel and escape. At the auction, Zephyrus orchestrates an escape attempt, but Patrus tells him to run the first chance he gets. While others are fighting the slavers, Patrus helps to free those still locked inside the wagons. With freedom before him, and the answers to his past left behind, Zephyrus turns back to make sure Patrus reaches safety, but before they can, they are surrounded. Unarmed, Patrus surrenders, but is cut down by Lenox, a household guard of Earl Cassius. Patrus’s last word to Zephyrus is, “Live.” Zephyrus emotionally fights to avenge Patrus, but is severely outnumbered. Before Zephyrus can be executed, a voice declaring himself Vykannis the Brave, a Judge of Celestia, tells Zephyrus to pull the scroll addressed to the king from his pocket and declare himself an emissary of peace. While the guards prepare to butcher him anyway, Prince Laeden, believing it is fate, purchases Zephyrus as a mercenary to protect his father, the king, from an assassination attempt by the Revivalists.

After King Varros exiled a mage instead of executing him as the Treaty commands, the Revivalists, secretly led by his wife, Queen Danella, plot to assassinate him. With Zephyrus’s aid, Laeden foils the Revivalists’ public assassination attempt on his father. Cassius, a renowned lanista who trains gladiators and the front-runner for the political office of the chancellorship, volunteers to detain the subdued assassins for questioning at his nearby ludus. Laeden convinces the king to let him lead the Sentinels, a regiment formed to stop the Revivalists. King Varros appoints Laeden the Captain of the Sentinels despite Queen Danella’s protests.

Upon arriving at Cassius’s ludus, the assassins are reportedly dead without explanation. Zephyrus sees Lenox, Patrus’s murderer, speaking with, and inevitably killing, the supposedly already deceased assassin. Seeking to avenge Patrus’s murder, he fights Lenox, drawing the attention of the royal retinue. While Zephyrus claims he witnessed Lenox’s betrayal, Lenox voices Zephyrus’s identity as the Wielder from his escape attempt at the slavers’ market. Laeden questions them both and determines that Lenox is lying. However, with Zephyrus’s identity as a Celestic Prophet, the queen forbids him from entering Laeden’s service. Laeden elects to position Zephyrus inside the Cassius ludus as a gladiator to see if the soon-to-be chancellor can be trusted. Without much choice, Zephyrus agrees to be Laeden’s spy in exchange for his freedom while harboring the hopes of avenging Patrus. Laeden promises to speak with the king concerning Zephyrus’s scroll that named him an emissary of peace to help him understand his forgotten past. Zephyrus struggles with Patrus’s last request to live if he must serve the people he’s prophesied to wage war against. Fearing the Return, Danella orders her agents within House Cassius to kill Zephyrus.

While Laeden investigates the Revivalists, he asks his father about Zephyrus’s scroll. The king warns Laeden that the men who wrote this letter are dangerous—speaking of peace but promising war, they speak of the Judges of Celestia. Laeden asks if they coerced him into exiling the mage instead of executing him, but the king only tells him to deal with the Revivalists and let him deal with these “dangerous men.” Meanwhile, Laeden’s lover, Iylea, a handmaiden of Queen Danella, suspects the queen’s bodyguard, Ser Daenus, to be involved in the Revivalists. Laeden arrests Daenus, but Danella demands proof be brought forward to warrant his incarceration. When Laeden is unable to substantiate his claims, Daenus goes free. Danella, not wishing to have to harm Laeden, attempts to dissuade him from continuing as the Captain of the Sentinels. After he refuses to step down, she warns him that he must be careful or the Revivalists will target him. He takes no heed of her warning.

Nallia, Cassius’s daughter, takes special interest in Zephyrus’s talent. She educates him on the prophecies of the Return and even attempts to explain his prophecy. Because his prophecy contains phrases from each of the three prophecies of the Return, Nallia explains that he’s destined for greatness, even terrible greatness, but he has a choice in which prophet he becomes. Identifying that he’s without his memories, Nallia hires a healer. The healer gives Zephyrus a tonic that will allow his memories to return through dreams. Zephyrus’s dreams are filled with himself learning combat and magic and his upbringing with Patrus. Upon waking, Cassius demands that Zephyrus renounce his faith and accept the Valencian Gods. When Zephyrus refuses, Cassius orders him to be punished every night until he changes his mind. Fending off Danella’s assassins and surviving Cassius’s guards, Zephyrus witnesses Lenox receiving a knife from a cloaked messenger.

When Laeden returns to House Cassius with his half-brother, Prince Damascus, to select gladiators for the coming Kings’ Day Games, Damascus requests to see Zephyrus fight again. Liario, Danella’s henchmen and Cassius’s adviser, encourages the exhibition match be fought with steel in place of wood. Pitted against the Champion of House Cassius, Zephyrus’s sword breaks at the hilt. Managing to skirt death and disarm him, Zephyrus impresses the audience and is selected to take position in the games. Afterwards, Zephyrus asks Laeden about the scroll, hoping to discover secrets of his past. Laeden, however, knowing Zephyrus is without his memories and not wanting to serve his ally the information that could turn him into an enemy, lies to Zephyrus to buy himself time.

The same knife Zephyrus saw Lenox receive is used in an assassination attempt by another gladiator on Cassius’s Champion. Piecing together other clues, Laeden determines the Revivalists are attempting to rig the omenation—a contest to discern the will of the Gods—for the chancellorship by sabotaging Cassius and aiding his rival. Prior to the omenation for the chancellorship, Zephyrus fights in the arena for the first time. Conflicted by his memories and his prophecy, he fights alongside two other Cassius gladiators, Jecht and Cerik. Although he refuses to kill other slaves for fear of becoming the Harbinger, he still feels responsible for their deaths when his comrades strike them down. With the match over, Baron Brusos’s gladiator attempts to murder Zephyrus. Barely escaping with his life, Zephyrus retreats to the barracks after the overwhelming episode and overhears Revivalists within House Cassius speaking; should their plans to rig the omenation fail, they will kill Cassius in a short time and make it look like an act of the Uprising, a group of escaped slaves and mages fighting for Celestic freedom. As Fenyx, the stand-in Champion for the house, fights in the omenation with a broken sword, Zephyrus discreetly uses his magic to aid Fenyx’s victory. Cassius wins and becomes chancellor.

Nallia summons Zephyrus, asking about his memories. Still wrestling with which of the three Prophets he is and what his role to the king is supposed to be, he pretends to be a dutiful gladiator and not an outlawed mage plotting vengeance. However, who he believes to be Vykannis the Brave tells him to kill Nallia and claim his freedom now. Zephyrus refuses, believing it will set him on the path of the Harbinger. In his refusal, the candles in the room roar to an inferno in a flare of magic, revealing him as a mage. Zephyrus tells Nallia the truth. Instead of reporting him as a mage—a crime punishable by death—she commends him on his bravery. Zephyrus decides to trust Nallia, telling her of the plot against her father. Together, they stop the assassination attempt and catch the traitors in the act, but Lenox and Liario escape.

Meanwhile, Iylea tells Laeden a secret she’s been keeping her entire life; she is a seer—a mage who sees visions and gives prophecies. However, Laeden refuses to believe his lover is one of the greatest threats to the kingdom. When Iylea warns him that Queen Danella is the leader of the Revivalists, he denies her admission as a seer and disregards her accusation because, if it were true, Iylea would be executed. One of Danella’s spies overhears Iylea’s admission, so Danella instructs Daenus to lead Iylea into a trap, imprisoning her in a hidden dungeon. After Iylea’s disappearance, Laeden mourns, believing she ran away because he didn’t listen to her. Meanwhile, the Uprising is causing trouble. Laeden addresses the people, but flaming arrows rain upon his podium. Although no one is seriously injured, Laeden doesn’t know if the attack came from the Revivalists or the Uprising.

After Zephyrus successfully rids House Cassius of Revivalist spies, he hopes to receive information from Laeden regarding his scroll addressed to the king. With more knowledge of his past, and finally accepting his own role in relation to his fate, he hopes the scroll will provide him with the missing link to choose his path. When Zephyrus asks Laeden about the scroll, he’s certain Laeden is lying. Laeden offers Zephyrus a position in the Sentinels for his service within House Cassius, but feeling betrayed and not willing to ignore his true fate, Zephyrus refuses Laeden’s offer. He calls Laeden out on his lie, dropping the scroll on the floor between them. He extends an offer of his own: “Free the slaves, or I will.” Laeden tells him it’s impossible. Their disagreement devolves into an argument, severing their relationship.

Laeden discovers that mages attacked him with flaming arrows during his address. The mages are apprehended and held prisoner in the same dungeon as incarcerated Revivalist underlings. One such member of the Revivalists is the father of Aemos, a rival to Laeden’s right-hand man and Nallia’s older brother, Markus. The mages are set to be executed during the commencement of the Kings’ Day Games, but the night before, they escape, killing Aemos’s father in the process. Disturbed by the escaped mages, Nallia confronts Zephyrus, asking him if she were a fool to have kept his secret. Vykannis again attempts to convince Zephyrus to kill her and take his freedom, but another presence seems to silence him. Nallia asks if magic is an evil force of destruction, to which Zephyrus asks about slavery’s destructive nature. Zephyrus uses his healing magic to care for a wound Nallia suffered earlier, explaining how magic has a balance, but no good can come from slavery.

The next day during the Kings’ Day Games, Zephyrus is set to fight alongside the former Champion and Fenyx. When the former Champion attempts to poison Fenyx to regain his standing, the two begin to fight, leaving Zephyrus alone to fight the remaining six opponents. Fearing if he kills other slaves he will no longer be on the path of the Wielder and condemned to be the Harbinger, he attempts to survive without killing, but again, his sword breaks. Nallia is mortified; the games she once loved now seem cruel, and just as things can’t seem to be much worse, she notices Lenox disguised as an arena attendant. Zephyrus outlasts the other gladiators, but must kill in order to survive. During the contest, the arena is assaulted by the escaped mages. Nallia and the royal family are electrocuted by magic, and the mages abduct King Varros.

Forging a letter from the mages proclaiming that they killed the king, Danella puts their son and Laeden’s half-brother, Damascus, on the throne. Believing his father dead, and manipulated by his mother, Damascus declares war on the mages, repurposing the Sentinels to oppose the Uprising. Laeden objects, but Danella reveals Laeden knew Iylea was a mage. Aemos accuses Laeden of conspiring with the Uprising and sentences Iylea to death. Iylea tells Laeden he must be the one to kill her, but he refuses to do so. Fearing for Laeden’s future, Iylea tells him he must be humble in his sentencing if he’s to survive. Before Laeden can defend her, Aemos executes her, and Laeden is arrested for treason.

As Damascus’s decree takes effect, Nallia, recently betrothed to Damascus, attempts to soften his impositions on the Celestics. As her affections for Damascus wither and her feelings for Zephyrus blossom, she fears for Zephyrus’s safety. When Nallia attempts to set him free, they share an intimate moment. However, Vykannis returns. Another entity, calling Vykannis by the name of Paxoran, declares itself the Last Judge of Celestia. As the Last Judge and the false Vykannis battle within him, something within him breaks. Though Paxoran, the false Vykannis, is banished from his mind, and the Last Judge is too weak to remain, Zephyrus is unable to escape and must wait for Nallia to free him the next night, after the gladiator games.

Zephyrus wins the games and becomes the champion of the people, but at the conclusion of his victory but before Nallia can set him free, the arena is attacked by Danella’s henchmen, disguised as Celestic mages. In Danella’s plot to separate Nallia from Damascus while simultaneously ensuring that the Celestic threat will be destroyed, Nallia is taken captive by Danella’s men.

Awaiting his trial, Laeden realizes how he played into Danella’s trap. Once the trial is underway, it’s clear that it’s rigged, leaving him no chance to defend himself. Aemos uses Zephyrus’s scroll as evidence against Laeden, linking him to the mages. Remembering what Iylea said, he humbly pleads for mercy, but is denied. Instead, he demands a trial by omenation, where he must fight the crown’s champion to prove his innocence. To Laeden’s horror, Zephyrus is selected to be his opponent. Laeden humbles himself before Zephyrus, realizing that his father wasn’t coerced into exiling the mage; he wanted to. His father chose to be on the side of life instead of death and hope instead of fear. Laeden asks the gathered people to open their eyes and realize that they have lost the path to Valencia if they must kill the innocent to walk upon it. Zephyrus sees the change in Laeden and refuses to execute him. Instead, he chooses to defend him. The trial turns into a battleground in which Lenox emerges from the crowd and attempts to kill Zephyrus.

After Lenox stabs Zephyrus in the side, Zephyrus sees a vision of his mother. She tells him his true name, Vykanicus Auros, son of Invinius, the first to free the slaves. With a new well of inspiration, Zephyrus uses his magic to defend himself from Lenox. Realizing Zephyrus is a mage, Lenox attempts to escape. While tempted to chase him down and secure his vengeance, Zephyrus lets him go, electing instead to protect Laeden. While Cassius is murdered in the fray, Markus fights his rival, Aemos, and Laeden contends with his childhood friend turned traitor, Aelon. After saving Laeden’s life and setting Ser Daenus on fire, Zephyrus is weakened by the expenditure of his magical abilities. Unable to escape on his own, Laeden, finally seeing Zephyrus as a person and not a tool to be used, brings him to safety, where they are able to flee Danella’s grasp.

In the aftermath, Danella fears what Zephyrus’s display of magic and Laeden’s defiance will mean for the safety of her kingdom. A war is coming, despite her best efforts to stamp out the sparks of rebellion. But now she fears the flames of war will consume all. She receives confirmation that King Varros is dead. She finally allows herself to break down and cry.

King Varros fakes his death to carry out his orders as a longtime member of the Uprising. With civil war breaking out politically and theologically, the flood of blood that King Varros tried to prevent has finally come.

Meanwhile, Threyna is still alive after saving herself with blood magic. Following the return of the Skeleton King, whom she thought she’d killed, and with the rot from using her blood magic corrupting her, she is determined to find the Celestic Treasures to defeat the Skeleton King once and for all. She reflects on poisoning Zephyrus and Patrus, forging the letter to misdirect them, and the bodies she left in her wake to claim two of the three Treasures. With the guidance of Paxoran, she will claim the final Treasure and ensure that when the Skeleton King comes for her, she will be ready.

Iylea returns to consciousness in a room of Rheynian Gods. She remembers her death, but the Gods tell her they need her. The souls of those unworthy for eternal rest are forged into links in the chain that separate the divine realm from the mortal realm. The Gods have chosen Iylea to break the links of the chain so that they can be closer to the mortals and show them the path to enlightenment.

PROLOGUE

Iylea

Iylea held the glowing link before her, knowing what she must do, but dreading it all the more. It hummed a sweet song of ever-changing colors, but it wasn’t just a pretty artifact; the link, about the size of her head, contained the entire life of a mortal—every memory, every emotion, each victory, and flaw. As beautiful as the soul-forged link was, the Creator deemed this person incomplete—unworthy of peaceful rest in the Valencian Falls. Thus it remained, condemned to suspension for eternity as a tether, connecting the divine realm to the mortal plane.

Iylea felt small holding the ovular link in the center of the grand, circular atrium. Marble covered everything in sight: the intricate tile floors, the pillars that ringed the contour of the room, and the walls that stretched to the impossibly high-domed ceiling. Amidst the grandeur of the anchor room, the link in her hands, the soul awaiting its final destination, seemed trivial. But even if it wasn’t enough for the Creator, it meant everything to her.

Iylea took a deep breath, staring through the hole in the anchor room floor to the hundreds of thousands of links just like it, entombed on the chain.

Waiting.

Waiting for her to break them. To free them from their eternal burden.

“This is humanity’s only chance at survival,” Hameryn had said. “The chain must be undone so that we might guide the mortals back to righteousness. If we cannot show them how to live, the Creator will destroy everything and start anew.”

Spared by Hameryn, the God of Harmony, Iylea survived her execution. One moment, only an arm’s length separated her and the safety of Laeden’s embrace in Sentigard’s throne room. The next, she was here—in the Celestial Halls of Valencia.

Iylea clenched her jaw. Closing her eyes, she hugged the link to her chest. It burned brightly like a dying star as the soul merged with her own. In a blur of images, a man’s life flashed before her eyes—his smiling mother, his favorite toy, the first time he held a sword, his father’s death, his abduction by slavers. She experienced each thought and every emotion in explicit detail. From the heartbreak of enslavement to the elation of victory in the arena—Iylea lived Octus’s life until the final collapse.

Within Octus’s body, Iylea knelt upon the pebbles of the Chariot’s Arena. The crowd roared around them, demanding blood. Cold steel against their throat. They inclined their shared gaze. Iylea gasped. Octus trembled.

Zephyrus stood over them, holding a gladius. To Iylea, Zephyrus was the slave Laeden purchased to defend the king during the Revivalists’ attack at the Festival of Stockhelm. To Octus, Zephyrus was a symbol of hope. A Prophet of the Return of the Judges, but with Zephyrus’s blade beneath their chin, hope ceased to exist.

“You will not be forgotten, Octus,” Zephyrus said. “Your sacrifice will set Celestics free. The Judges will return.”

Iylea’s racing heart mirrored Octus’s. “No!” she shouted, but Zephyrus slid the blade across their throat. Their eyes widened. Breath became liquid as blood flooded their lungs, choking the life from them. Their hands grasped at the gash, but nothing could stem the tides slipping between their fingers.

No one can escape death. So why did Hameryn spare me?

Iylea knew what it felt like to die. She’d died at least a thousand times now. It never got easier. She and Octus fell to the pebbles together. The crowd that once cheered their victories relished their death.

Iylea’s eyes snapped open to stare at the tiled floor of Valencia’s anchor room. She staggered, leaning against the crank and slumping to her knees.

Covered in sweat, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand and heaved labored breaths. She rested her head against the crank, watching the glimmering liquid of the Celestial Falls cascade from bath to bath as the souls deemed complete descended the center wall in eternal rest.

After living Octus’s life, Iylea didn’t understand why the Creator deemed him unworthy. Now, the link and Octus’s soul were gone, as if he never existed. Erased from time itself. Yet Iylea would never forget Octus. She’d never forget any of the lives she’d lived these past… How long has it been?

She wanted to stop, but Hameryn chose her. After years of haunting her dreams and showing her visions, he summoned her to Valencia to do this very job.

The links must be broken.

Iylea pressed herself to her feet and dabbed the clammy sweat from her brow.

If I don’t connect the realms, people like Zephyrus will continue to wreak havoc in the name of Vykannis, and I will remain here, so far from Laeden.

She shuddered, recalling the vision Hameryn had sent her after Queen Danella’s men abducted her—her own death. It was inevitable. But Laeden’s wasn’t. If Laeden didn’t kill her, he would die too…by Zephyrus’s sword. In the end, she begged Laeden to let her go—to kill her and save himself. But he couldn’t.

What’s become of him now?

She’d been afraid to ask Hameryn. Afraid that if she knew the truth—if Laeden was dead—she wouldn’t be able to continue.

Iylea took a stilling breath to fend off her growing apprehension. She wasn’t ready for the next link in the chain. Another life to live. Another death to suffer. It would be one thing if they were bad people—murderers, thieves, blasphemers to the Facets of Perfection—but most were just people. Trying, failing, flawed people. Valencians, Celestics, Rheynians, and Helms. They were all judged. All flawed. All incomplete.

Who could possibly measure up?

She stepped closer to the hole in the floor to gaze at the mortal realm below. Oceans clung to land masses like children to their mother’s skirts. From the height of the heavens, everything seemed so small. So insignificant. What she wouldn’t give to go back to such an existence—ignorant of the Gods’ squabbles, humanity’s misguided attempts to make sense of them, and how many suffered because of it.

A knot in her stomach tightened and tugged, unsure if it were the heights or the realization that perhaps no soul would be pure enough for the Creator. She imagined Laeden’s link waiting for her in the chain. She closed her eyes and turned away.

He is still alive. He has to be. My death was wrong. Maybe Laeden’s was too.

For years, she thought her visions were a Celestic curse. That was why Aemos Horne decapitated her, why Damascus Drake burned mages on Six Arrowed Stars at the Haunted Hollow; they believed they needed to purge New Rheynia of all things Celestic to prevent the Valencian Gods’ wrath. Only her gifts were not from the Judges of Celestia, they were from the Valencian Gods themselves.

She traced her fingers along the collar of her dress where the scar from Aemos’s blade should have been. All based on a lie. The line between truth and falsehood, once as clear as the Crystal River, blurred and fell like the leaves of autumn.

The Disasters of Rheynia weren’t a display of the Gods’ wrath for the mortals’ misplaced faith. It was the Gods’ rivalries and men’s interpretation of it. Interpretation became doctrine, and doctrine propaganda that Queen Danella used to justify plotting against her husband, colluding against her stepson, and turning a peaceful and prosperous nation into a warzone.

“Impressive work.”

Iylea spun. Startled, she stumbled near the hole in the floor where the chain descended to the mortal realm. She flung her arms out to steady herself. A hand seized her wrist, wresting her from the edge.

Thin and frail, Hameryn held her with surprising strength. Despite his ashen skin, cracked by glowing crimson light, and his deep-sunken red eyes, his touch provided comfort Iylea never expected to find.

Iylea scampered away from the edge and exhaled. “Chimera’s breath, I didn’t hear you.”

Hameryn chuckled. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you. Just wanted to check on your progress. You have done well, Iylea.”

The hint of a smile touched Iylea’s lips, but the sheer volume of links remaining countered Hameryn’s compliment as if to say, “But it’s not enough.”

Iylea rubbed the back of her neck and strode over to the crank, not ready to turn the shaft and lift the burdened souls so she could live and die again.

Hameryn held out his hand. “That’s enough for now. It is difficult work, passing the souls. I don’t want you to succumb to the same madness that claimed the previous breaker.”

Iylea’s eyes fell to the tile floor. But what if Laeden is the next suffering soul? She put her hands on her hips and huffed. “I can keep going.”

“You can, but—”

“So I will not rest.” Iylea attempted to walk around Hameryn, but he blocked her path.

Hameryn put his hand on her shoulder. “Tell me why not, Iylea.” He lifted her chin until she met his gaze.

Tears welled, deep behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall.

“You can tell me,” Hameryn said.

Iylea bit her lip. Once, the prospect of speaking with a God frightened her beyond explanation, but now, serving in Valencia, she had no other choice. She swallowed. “I received a vision. Before I died. Of my death, and… Laeden’s.” A tear broke from the corner of her eye and rolled down the curve of her cheek.

Hameryn’s thumb caught the tear before it reached her jawline. “Laeden Helixus has not joined the chain. He lives. And you will see him again.”

Iylea’s breath caught. “I will?”

Hameryn nodded, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Yes, child. Once the links are unmade and the chain is shortened, we will be able to clarify the confusion that plagues the mortal realm.”

He pointed to the iridescent archways above the Celestial Falls. “Once the chain is shorter, these gateways will allow us to travel between realms so we can show the mortals what it takes to enter the Falls. Then the chain will never need breaking again. I wish I could send you back now, or bring him to you, to prove that your efforts will not be in vain, but with the chain so long, and absent Courianne, not even the Gods can make it safely, let alone a mortal.”

He gestured to the red light breaking through the fissures in his skin. “It nearly ended me, bringing you here. To summon him would forfeit his life, but to send you… I would not wish such a fate on any.”

“What would happen?”

Hameryn gave her a sad smile. “If you returned to the mortal realm, with the chain in its current state, your soul would be trapped. Barred from ever returning to Valencia. Forever denied the peace of the Falls.”

A new tear fell from her other eye, but she wiped it herself. “But if the chain is shortened…”

“Then I can reunite you with Laeden,” Hameryn said. “But until then—” He waved for her to follow him. “There’s something I wish to show you.”

Hameryn led Iylea out of the anchor room and down the corridor. She held herself as she followed the God of Harmony. The vaulted ceilings glowed with constantly changing, moving murals—glimpses into the moral realm.

In Iylea’s early weeks here, she’d stared at the ceiling, hoping to spot Laeden alive and well, but she supposed there were more than a few mortals across the realms. Beyond the people, there were more continents than Iylea had anticipated. Everyone knew of Rheynia, Klaytos, and New Rheynia, but there were lands entirely etched from ice and others where the sea held more ground than the islands between them.

“The windows are only one way in which we keep an eye on the happenings of the mortal realm,” Hameryn said. “Once upon a time, there were enough of us to oversee all the people of the Creator’s world, but not anymore.”

Iylea came to a halt, shuffling her feet on the plush burgundy-and-gold runner.

Sensing her pause, Hameryn turned to her.

“What became of those you no longer watch over?” Iylea asked, fearing the answer.

Hameryn’s gaunt cheeks and ashen skin seemed to stretch further and pale a shade lighter at her question. “They wait. Preserved in time.”

Iylea blinked, her mind searching. “The land of ice.”

Hameryn nodded. “A temporary measure. I sought to buy us time, slow the rate of the chain’s growth.”

“What about the people?” Iylea asked, her throat constricting.

“Imagine the same things you lived through in Perillian,” Hameryn said. “Treachery, betrayal, murder in the name of the Gods… that is only the beginning. They at least believe that their actions were in accordance with ours, but what happens when everyone loses faith in salvation?”

The words hung heavy in the air, sullying the pristine halls. Her skin prickled beneath her too-perfectly embroidered dress that no mortal seamstress could fashion. She scuffed her heel on the thick carpets lining the corridor.

Hameryn touched her shoulder, his long, spindly fingers drawing her from the dark thoughts she didn’t want to think. “Lawlessness, Iylea. The worst types of deception. Believing themselves Gods, they would bring humanity to ruin. So the people remain, but frozen. Preserved, as I said. But with the chain shortened, we can restore the lands of Azorath. We can save the mortal realm. But that’s why I need to show you something.”

He smiled and waved her on.

They continued down the hall in silence, but a corruption clung to Iylea. Though she was spotless, she couldn’t help but feel like her feet were too dirty to tread on such a carpet, her skin unworthy to wear such a dress, and her soul too tainted to walk these halls. Yet as much as she had no place in Valencia, there was no way she could return to the mortal realm. Not without sacrificing her eternity.

Hameryn approached a doorway to a tower stairwell. Opening the door, he led Iylea inside. Lined with Incinerae’s smokeless torches, the stairwell cradled her in warmth, giving Iylea reason to let go of herself as she followed Hameryn up the stairs.

“This is the Tower of Whispers,” Hameryn said.

Lifting her skirts, Iylea struggled to keep pace with Hameryn’s long legs, but eventually, she joined him at the top, where a stone wall blocked their path. Engraved in the stone, a double-sided arrow pointed up and down. Hameryn traced a line with his index finger along the stone, an ambient light chasing his touch to illuminate a glowing white glyph. The stones of the wall separated, retracting into themselves to reveal a room beyond.

Iylea’s jaw hung slack.

Hameryn smiled, gently lifting her fallen chin with his index finger. “Come, child. You must remember what awaits you, why you must endure.”

He held out his hand, ushering her into the room behind the false wall. Iylea hopped through the threshold as if it were going to close at any moment.

Hameryn chuckled. “Think of it as a key to a lock. The path will not close without command.” Again, he traced the same glyph in the empty air, and the stones reconverged, sealing them within the room.

Solemnity forgotten, Iylea marveled at the possibilities within Valencia. Even the walls were alive. She stepped into the circular room. Bookshelves followed half its contour, each stacked from the floor to the vaulted ceiling. Glass-covered display cases sat at the center of the room with more tomes enclosed within. On the opposite side of the room, a low table, stacked high with books, scrolls, and loose parchments sat between two cushioned chairs before a curved hearth, long enough to serve as a funeral pyre.

Though only a fraction the size of Queen Danella’s study, Iylea suspected there were more books here than in all of New Rheynia.

“What is this place?” Iylea strode around the glass-encased display table.

“This was once the study of Courianne, the Messenger Goddess—may she rest in the Creator’s care. Around you are the true histories of the world documented over the centuries.”

“And what about these books?” Iylea asked, noticing the wear on the glass-encased books compared to the ones on the shelves surrounding her.

“Those are the histories as told by mortals. Flawed by time, prejudice, and told only by the victors of war. Unlike Courianne’s texts, those written in the mortal realm will decay. Valencia is no place for a mortal.”

Iylea bit her lip. “What will become of me?”

Hameryn put his hand on hers atop the display case. “You too will wither, my child. That is why you must break the chain. Complete this task, and I will return you to the mortal realm where you belong. That is why we are here. You must remember why you endure, who you endure for.”

He gestured behind him to the back wall, adjacent to the way they’d entered. The wall was covered in an iridescent, viridian and cerulean, mirror-like crystal that distorted her reflection.

Again, Iylea’s lips parted, but no words found their way through as she admired the crystalline mirror.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Hameryn said. “The Whispering Wall.”

Iylea approached the Whispering Wall. She caressed the textured mirror. “You can communicate through it—to the mortal realm?”

Hameryn nodded beside her. “Not just that. While the murals along the ceilings of the castle will show a mortal displaying intense emotion, from this room, before this mirror, you can see any person you wish. Speak his name and you will see him in his present moment.”

Iylea jerked her head to meet Hameryn’s gaze, but he stared straight ahead at his own reflection in the mirror.

“Speak his name,” Hameryn said. “You can see Laeden, even speak with him.”

Iylea gulped. “Will he know it’s me?”

“If you declare yourself.”

The light in Hameryn’s cracked skin flared to life. He winced.

Iylea reached out to help, but he turned away.

“I’m fine.” He took a deep breath. “Apologies, I must take my leave. Stay as long as you need, but you must return to the chain. I trust you can find your way back to the anchor room?”

Iylea nodded.

“I’m sorry it must be this way, for this to be your burden.” He gestured to the light emitting from his skin. “And this to be mine.” He returned to the wall and drew the glyph again. “Close the wall on your way out.”

With a sad smile, Hameryn took his leave, his footsteps retreating down the stairs.

Once alone, Iylea met her reflection in the Whispering Wall, her breath fogging the mirror. She tapped the crystal with the nail of her index finger and whispered, “Laeden Helixus.”

The Whispering Wall flared to life, and its crystalline iridescence peeled away to reveal a darkened alley. With cobbled streets underfoot and familiar storefronts bordering her periphery, Iylea recognized Armorer’s Way, but it was empty, except for Laeden and Markus, and a body slung over Markus’s shoulder.

Running. Limping. Laeden’s breath came ragged and labored. He wore a burlap tunic, stained scarlet. Markus’s black-and-yellow surcoat was weighed down with…

Blood.

Iylea’s chest tightened. The flood of blood. She warned Laeden it would come with Zephyrus’s wrath as Hameryn had foretold, but there was nothing she could do to help Laeden now.

“Chimera’s breath.”

“What now?” Laeden spun around, sword at the ready.

Iylea clamped her hand over her mouth.

“I didn’t say anything,” Markus grunted under the burden of the person he carried.

“Never mind,” Laeden said. “Keep going.”

Iylea backed away from the Whispering Wall. Her lungs pumped—fresh air in, hot air out. What happened to them? Who is chasing them?

Laeden hobbled, blood leaking from half a dozen different wounds to litter the ground in his wake. He appeared thin and frail. His eyes were wild, hair matted, and beard thicker than she’d seen, but he was alive.

Iylea’s smile spread, and her cheeks flushed warm. Her heart fluttered, but the sensation was fleeting. She massaged her temples as she considered what could have happened in the time since her death.

Laeden would have been arrested. Put on trial. He would have chosen a trial by steel and been pitted against Zephyrus. If Laeden defied fate and defeated Zephyrus, why is he running?

Laeden was losing a lot of blood. Blood that would leave a trail. It should have been raining, but Aquarius was dead. No rain would conceal their escape.

But the Aquarian River could.

“The Aquarian River,” Iylea said. “Hide your tracks.”

Markus stiffened, coming to a halt. Laeden stopped as Markus did, each glancing around. But when he turned, Iylea caught sight of who Markus carried.

Her mouth went dry. The hope that fluttered in her stomach at seeing Laeden alive floundered at the sight of the man who killed him in her vision.

Zephyrus.

“Markus,” Laeden said. “The Aquarian River, we can lose them there!”

Without notice, the image in the Whispering Wall faded, as if parchment were lit aflame, burning away at the corners.

“No!” Iylea put her hands on the wall to hold the vision a little longer, but Laeden disappeared. Her fingers curled to fists and pounded against the Whispering Wall, and to her shock, the mirror presented something new.

No longer was she on Salmantica’s streets. She stood in the Tower of Whispers, before the Whispering Wall, but although she spoke no name, a woman’s face appeared before her.

Auburn hair tied back in a tight braid. Blue eyes that held a wisdom far too old for the lack of wrinkles surrounding them. She was in a dark room filled with what appeared to be animal bones of some kind.

“Can you hear me?” the woman asked.

Iylea stumbled back, falling to the stone floor.

“Good, you can hear me. Listen, we haven’t much time.” She beckoned Iylea closer, her eyes wide and jaw tight.

Iylea’s chest rose and fell as heavily as Laeden’s had in his flight through Salmantica. “Who are—”

“You must not break the chain.” The woman glanced over her shoulder, and Iylea did the same. “It’s not yours to break. There is an evil in Valencia. A traitor in your midst. One of the Gods isn’t who they say they are. Find who, before more Gods die.”

Iylea pushed herself to her feet and shook her head. “It was Aquarius. He killed Courianne. He’s been dealt with.”

The woman’s face fell. She ran her fingers through her hair, grabbing a handful. “It’s already happening. We’re running out of time.”

“What’s happening? Time for what?” Iylea asked.

“When rain does not fall, fires consume the earth, and blood comes for all—the Age of the End has come. The mortals aren’t ready. They must be warned. I need your help.”

Iylea sputtered. “Hameryn said—”

“That you must break the links to connect the realms and save the mortals from becoming links in the chain?” the woman finished. “Yes, I know.”

Iylea narrowed her eyes. How? “What are you saying?”

The woman snapped her head over her shoulder before leaning closer to whisper. “I was the breaker before you. Now I’m in the dungeons. Help me save the mortal realm. I beg you.”

Before Iylea could respond, the Whispering Wall melted away until she was staring at the reflection of herself. Breath escaped her lungs, and her shoulders sagged.

Six Hells, what was that?

The former breaker who had supposedly gone mad had opposed everything the Gods told her. A traitor in Valencia? She shook her head. Aquarius was the traitor, but he’s gone now.

“What are you doing here?”

Iylea spun toward the gap in the wall. Accompanying the gravelly voice, a towering figure darkened the way to the spiral staircase. Nearly as tall and broad as the gap in the wall, Ferrocles, the God of War, loomed, but the shadow he cast was greater. Bathed in orange torchlight, he crossed his thick arms over his barrel of a chest. His black beard and matching bushy brows framed his tight expression.

“Speak.”

Iylea cleared her throat and stumbled over her words. “Hameryn—he said I could—”

Ferrocles groaned. “He shouldn’t have.” He stood aside so as not to block the way out. “Back to the chain.”

Iylea set her eyes on the floor and strode past Ferrocles.

“You must not break the chain,” the former breaker had said. “It’s not yours to break.”

“Don’t let me catch you in here again,” Ferrocles said as Iylea squeaked past him and onto the spiral staircase. “I don’t care what Hameryn said. You’re here for a job. See it done.”

Iylea swallowed but kept her pace steady. She’d served impatient and angry lords before, but serving the God of War was different. She nodded, keeping her eyes downcast.

“There is an evil in Valencia… a traitor in your midst.”

Iylea clenched her fists at her sides as she spiraled down the winding stairs. I don’t know what is true, but I will get to the bottom of this.

Part I

Chapter 1

Hunted

Zephyrus

Salmantica

Zephyrus’s eyes shot open as cold encompassed him. He flailed as water invaded his lungs and threatened to drag him deeper into the abyss. Light above and faraway voices called to him, beckoning him toward the surface, but as he reached for it, hands yanked him back. He struggled, panicking to free himself from his attacker. Bubbles billowed from his nose and mouth, but a hand clamped over his face.

Squirming, Zephyrus worked himself free and spun to face his attacker. Zephyrus reached through the bubbles between them, but stopped once he saw who was on the other side.

Laeden?

He who saved Zephyrus from the slavers’ auction, condemned him to be a gladiatorial slave to spy on Cassius’s ludus, and then withheld information from Zephyrus that could have helped unlock his cryptic past. The same Laeden who Zephyrus defended in trial by steel and fought alongside against the King’s Guard Knights. His addled mind pieced together their situation.

We’re being hunted.

Laeden held a finger to his nose and lips. He let go of Zephyrus and waved for Zephyrus to follow him. Markus Cassius pumped his arms and legs in Laeden’s wake. Despite the burning in his lungs, Zephyrus followed. The protesting of his sore arms wasn’t half as bad as the pain lancing through his stomach with each stroke. Tendrils of dark liquid escaped a wound in his gut.

As Zephyrus swam through the river soured by dredge and debris, he recalled Lenox, the Revivalist bastard who tried and failed to murder him countless times, stabbing him in the stomach upon the rotunda. Anger replaced the pain, but there were many things more important than vengeance, and most pressing of all was survival.

If we’re caught, they’ll nail us to the Six Arrowed Star.

The lights and voices above the surface weren’t calls to salvation, but torches and soldiers chasing them.

The shouts from the surface became more discernible—closer. “I found them!”

Two splashes disturbed the flow of the river behind Zephyrus.

Zephyrus willed himself to swim faster, but his injuries and fatigue were too great to overcome. They’ll surround us. We won’t get out.

Threyna’s throat slit open. Patrus’s eyes stared blankly.

More men jumped into the river. Jackals—hunters of escaped slaves.

The water above him thrashed as a Jackal in black-and-gold leather armor jumped atop him. Hands swiped at his arms and hooked around his shoulders. Lungs already screaming, Zephyrus rolled, freeing himself from the Jackal’s grip. The Jackal’s dagger caught the light through the murky water. He punched the blade at Zephyrus’s chest. Zephyrus instinctively reached out his hand. He lost feeling in his arm as if it softened into gruel, but his hand became stone before him. The dagger struck and glanced off Zephyrus’s magic-fortified flesh. With his other hand, Zephyrus reared back, his blood burning hot. He struck forward, and a stream of water burst forth from his palm, jettisoning him back and sending the Jackal sprawling through the grimy river.

With veins throbbing in his neck from holding his breath, Zephyrus swam for Laeden and Markus’s backs, but all around them, more and more Jackals plunged into the water.

Zephyrus grit his teeth. Balance the scales. He focused all his remaining energy into forming the fire he had shot at the knight on the rotunda. His blood went cold, but he held back his fire. His fingers and toes went numb, but still Zephyrus drew more heat into his casting. His body slowed, and his energy waned. Hold it.

The Jackals closed in on him.

Now!

Zephyrus flipped the scales and called upon water. The ice in his blood became steam as a torrent of water blew the Jackals back and propelled Zephyrus in the opposite direction. The river tossed and turned with the ocean’s wrath, but feeling returned to Zephyrus’s body. Following the current, he caught up to Markus and Laeden.

Together, they surfaced, gasping for breath, but Jackals howled, alerting more of their kind. Sentinels shouted orders to cut them off. Guards in black and red ran adjacent to the river.

“We can’t outrun them,” Markus said.

Laeden grunted. “We can’t fight them either.”

Empowered by his magic, Zephyrus gathered even more heat. I can do it again. Bigger this time. He nodded to Markus and Laeden, struggling to catch his breath. “Grab on to me.”

Markus wrinkled his brow but acquiesced as Laeden wrapped his arm around Zephyrus.

Pikemen reached for them, archers raced to position themselves, and other guards ran ahead to cut them off.

With a chill radiating through his entire body, his arms and legs became heavy as iron. If not for Laeden and Markus holding on to him, Zephyrus would have sunk to the Aquarian’s litter-ridden floor.

“Zephyrus, what are you doing?” Laeden asked.

Archers took aim, but power grew within Zephyrus’s weakness, storing a strength he’d never conceived. His heart became a block of ice in his chest.

“Do something!” Markus shouted.

Zephyrus flipped the scales. Heat surged through his arms as he held his hands out in front of him. Just as the thrum of bowstrings snapped, water erupted from Zephyrus’s palms, launching them backwards.

Laeden and Markus shouted as the three of them cut through the water, faster than the swiftest ship. The force throttled Zephyrus’s weakened body, and a stream of blood followed in his wake. The water rose and crashed down, splashing on their unsuspecting pursuers, but Zephyrus, Laeden, and Markus, were swept up in the current, shot down the river and beyond their reach.

Out of the Jackals’ line of sight, they climbed from the river that ran from Salmantica’s southern docks to the castle’s moat. Weakened, Zepyrus followed Laeden down the empty cobblestone streets.

“This way,” Laeden said as they jogged. “I know a place we can lay low.”
Whether due to the strain of his magic, his blood loss, or the fatigue of their flight, Zephyrus struggled to keep up. Markus glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and, with a huff, quickened his pace to Laeden’s side.

“We’re lucky the entire city came to watch my execution,” Laeden said as they approached a storefront on the corner of an intersection. The sign over the door read “Horne’s Tinctures and Herbs,” but a sheet of parchment nailed to the door read, “Closed by order of the Sentinels.”

“Here?” Markus asked between pants. “After the carnage we witnessed in the cellar?”

“Who would think to look for us here?” Laeden gripped the iron handle and tugged, but the door didn’t budge. He yanked harder, but locked doors were more stubborn than princes. His chin fell to his chest, fingers curling into fists against the thick wooden door.

Markus ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Where now?”

Laeden rested his hands on his head. “Docks?”

Zephyrus swallowed. His vision waned at his periphery, and the ground seemed to shift beneath his feet. I won’t make it to the docks. Zephyrus leaned against the apothecary door, reaching for the handle.

“It’s locked.” Markus grabbed Zephyrus.

Zephyrus’s arm went numb, but using his force magic, he felt for the pins within the lock and adjusted them.

“We need to move,” Laeden said. “We can’t sit here and wai—”

The lock clicked, and Zephyrus fell from Markus’s grasp and through the open door.

“Chimera’s breath.” Laeden knelt down to lift Zephyrus, then looked up at Markus. “Help me with him.”

Markus grunted but did as ordered. They each seized Zephyrus under the arm and dragged him inside to rest his back against a cabinet. Markus shut the door and secured the lock before wheeling on Zephyrus. “Anything else you can do you’d like to tell us about?”

Zephyrus was too tired to answer.

Laeden sifted through the apothecary’s drawers and cupboards. “Never mind that. Help me find something for him—herbs, remedies, bandages—something!”

“We can’t stay here, Laeden,” Markus growled.

Laeden continued plucking vials from the shelves. “We can hide in the cellar until the embers smolder, but he won’t make it anywhere if his wounds get infected. And neither will we.”

Markus and Laeden continued to argue, but Zephyrus’s head was swimming. His chin lolled to his chest, and he winced as he attempted to draw in a deep breath. The stab wound in his stomach throbbed. Now that they weren’t on the run, the glancing blow off the top of his hip screamed. His once-white linens from the New Rheynian Games were stained dark by blood and the river’s grime.

Laeden pulled a stopper from a flask and lifted it to Zephyrus’s lips. “Drink. This should perk you up.”

The tonic smelled of bitter root and tasted of sour soil, but Zephyrus downed it. It burned his throat and momentarily made the room spin faster.

“You’re all right.” Laeden set a jar and a roll of gauze on the floor beside Zephyrus. “We’ll clean ourselves up. Figure out a plan.”

Markus scoffed and began to pace the apothecary entry. “Then what? We attacked the King’s Guard Knights. We incited a riot. For the sake of the Six, we’re harboring a Celestic mage.”

Zephyrus sucked down air, but it didn’t stop the room from spinning. In spite of his ails, he forced himself to glare at Markus. Markus’s black brows tightened over his green eyes, but they were nothing like his sister’s. Vykinallia was no longer his domina, but part of him still belonged to her. The thought of her, out there—somewhere—made his stomach churn. He felt at his waistline and found the protrusion of her amethyst ring threaded through the fabric.

He sighed, content he hadn’t lost it in the filthy river.

“For luck,” Vykinallia had said when she gave it to him, but it had brought them nothing but pain. Now he was on the run from more than half the realm with her brother, Markus, who seemed more likely to deliver him to the Jackals than help.

Zephyrus forced himself to his feet, using the countertop for leverage. “Aye, you’re harboring a Celestic mage, one who saved you from your own people. Twice.”

Laeden stepped between Zephyrus and Markus, his hands out. “We’re on the same side. That’s all that matters. We’ll figure the rest out.” He pointed at Zephyrus. “All I know is that Celestic mage is the reason my head isn’t decorating a pike. As far as I’m concerned, he’s no more an outlaw than we are.”

Markus grunted but shifted his weight and turned his palms to the shop’s ceiling. Markus stormed off without sparing Zephyrus another look.

Laeden’s gaze followed Markus across the dark and dingy apothecary to the cellar door.

With Markus’s back turned, Zephyrus’s fists—that he hadn’t realized he was clenching—released and, with them, all the tension that held him upright. Once Markus opened the cellar door and his footsteps eroded down the stairs, Zephyrus slumped against the counter and slid toward the floor.

A slow exhale seeped through Laeden’s teeth. “Don’t mind him. He’ll come around.” He approached Zephyrus and knelt down beside him. “We all just need rest. I don’t think anyone was prepared for what happened today. I certainly wasn’t.” He smiled, but it wilted quickly. He clapped Zephyrus on the shoulder. “Thank you, Zephyrus. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

Zephyrus eyed the former prince, because after the trial, no one would consider him a prince ever again. The bags under his eyes and the pasty complexion of his skin didn’t convey health and clairvoyance, but absent his Sentinels’ uniform and his puffed-up pomposity, he seemed more genuine than ever.

Loss can do that to a man.

In a matter of weeks, he’d lost his father, the only love he’d ever known, his freedom, his grandfather, and nearly his own life.

Now he will be hunted, same as me.

The world had a strange way of serving justice, but it gave Zephyrus no glee to witness Laeden’s pain. Zephyrus nodded. “You meant what you said—back at the trial?”

Laeden held Zephyrus’s gaze. “Every word. Now that we are free, together, we can join the Uprising and free the slaves.”

Zephyrus cocked his eyebrow, but Laeden’s expression remained stoic—unfettered by his declaration. He’s serious.

Laeden’s gaze fell away, his chin shaking against his chest. “My father—Six Hells, even my grandfather—never wanted to enslave the Celestic people. That was Danella. Her father. The patricians. To change the way things are, we can’t do the same things that got us here.”

Zephyrus nodded, recalling his last conversation with Vykinallia. He inhaled through his nostrils and let the air escape his mouth. “Vykinallia spoke of freeing the slaves too… right before she was abducted by the Uprising.”

Now the very people she intended to free have taken her captive. What will become of her? He remembered her changing his bandages, reading him the prophecies of the Return, and asking him about his past. The Uprising won’t know her as Vykinallia, the person.

Zephyrus closed his eyes. He remembered her hands upon his cheeks, her lips against his.

They will only know her as Nallia Cassius, the slaver.

Laeden narrowed his eyes, his head tilting to the side. “Who?”

The cellar door swung open, and Markus reemerged, with no regard for the silence of fugitives. Standing at the opposite end of the apothecary, he jutted his chin forward.

“What did you say?”

Laeden bolted upright at Markus’s sudden reentry.

Zephyrus only closed his eyes, realizing his mistake. “Nallia Cassius,” Zephyrus said. “Her real name is Vykinallia.”

Markus’s wet boots marched toward him. “Her name is Nallia. And if you speak one more word of my sister, I will—” Markus stomped over to Zephyrus and grabbed him by the collar of his padded tunic, wrenching him to his feet.

The thought of Vykinallia awakened a reserve of strength. Zephyrus seized Markus by the wrist. “Your mother named her after the Vykane Blade. A symbol of hope to unite divided people.”

Markus’s brow narrowed, and his snarl widened, his face a darkening red. “How do you kno—”

“She told me,” Zephyrus said. “Right before she attempted to free me prior to the New Rheynian Games.”

“Nallia would never. She—” Markus’s complexion paled. “This is some mage-work, Laeden. He knows things he shouldn’t. He’s lying!” He jostled Zephyrus, his hands still on his collar, murder in his eyes.

Zephyrus’s fatigue washed away, and years of training instincts took over. He snaked his arm between Markus’s hands and drove his elbow through, dislodging Markus’s grip.

Laeden wrapped his arms around Markus’s shoulders, slipped his foot between Markus’s, and threw him to the dusty wooden floorboards with a thud.

“He’s a mage,” Markus shouted as Laeden pinned him. “You trust him over me?”

“Silence!” Laeden growled. “You’ll get us caught.”

Markus’s breaths came short and sharp, but under Laeden’s weight, he simmered. He shook his head. “We must go to Valtarcia. Your grandfather, Hallon, will take us in. We can rally an army and create real justice. Not the Uprising, Laeden.”

Though Markus’s face remained red, tears seeped from the corners of his eyes onto the dusty apothecary floor. “I won’t join the Uprising. Not after they… murdered my father.”

Laeden let Markus go, and the two sat side by side on the floor. “We don’t know that—”

“Who else would have?” Markus spat.

Laeden bit his lip. “Apologies. We’ve all lost a great deal in these past weeks.”

Zephyrus readjusted his padded tunic. The purple-and-gold scorpion of Cassius’s house emblazoned upon it was stained a dirty red. Soiled with blood from the battle and muck from the river, Zephyrus felt no despair at the lanista’s passing. He couldn’t blame the Uprising for killing Cassius, not after the torment he’d imposed on the Celestic people. Nor could he hold Markus’s prejudices against him. He shouldn’t have to follow Laeden down a path he doesn’t believe in anymore than I should have been forced into chains. We each do as we must—as we choose.

As much as Zephyrus had wanted to join the Uprising with Jecht and Cerik, and as desperately as he wanted to locate Vykinallia and free her as she freed him, his conversation with his mother returned to him.

“Zephyrus is not the name I gave you,” his mother had said after Lenox stabbed him. “You are Vykanicus Auros. Son of Invinius, the first to free the slaves. The world can only be freed through you.”

He thought she had meant from the Rheynians, but she clarified; the world didn’t need saving from the slavers, but from the Gods.

Joining the Uprising and fighting the Rheynians was noble. Imperative. But not his fight. He wanted to find the Uprising, save Vykinallia, reunite with Jecht and Cerik, and lead his people to freedom. But there were, at the minimum, dozens, if not hundreds of rebels.

There is only one Lord Auros.

Zephyrus exhaled, drawing both men’s attention. “I can’t join the Uprising either.”

Laeden reared back, his chin dropping. Markus licked his lip and tilted his head.

“What do you mean?” Laeden asked. “Why not?”

Zephyrus considered how much he should share and how it might be received. The truth. I owe him that much. “More of my memories have returned.” He paused, clearing his throat. “My name isn’t Zephyrus, but Vykanicus Auros—son of Invinius.”

Laeden and Markus’s jaws unhinged.

Zephyrus shifted his weight from one foot to the other, turning toward Markus. “You can go to Valtarcia and serve who you will. You may see the Uprising as a threat, but they’re not the ones hunting you.”

Markus wrinkled his nose but offered no reply.

Zephyrus addressed Laeden. “And you can join the Uprising—they’d be lucky to have you. Perhaps other Valencians will rally to you too, but I can’t join you.”

Zephyrus leaned against the apothecary’s counter and ran his fingers through his wet hair, turning his back to Laeden and Markus to stare into his reflection on a glass flask. He closed his eyes, not wanting to think about everyone he was forsaking—the Arcane Templar, Patrus, Jecht and Cerik, Vykinallia, and now Laeden.

“The world can only be freed through you,” his mother had said. “Return home. Claim the sword your father forged for you. Become the man you were born to be.”

He didn’t know if it was noble or selfish, but he only envisioned one option, one path forward. “I must go to House Auros. I must go home.”

Chapter 2

Into the Void

Threyna

Valtarcia

Buffeted by wind and the thrashing seas, Threyna jumped from her conjured blood boat to the cliff’s face. She summoned claws that extended from her fingers to cleave purchase into the smooth stone and began her ascent. After allowing her blood boat to dissolve to ash, the angry ocean swallowed it with little regard for how much it cost her to create.

Sprayed by the crash of waves, Threyna climbed the isthmus cliffs of Valtarcia. Though there were other—safer—ways to access the third and last Treasure of Stockhelm, this was the fastest way from the Stormburn Geyser, and the last way in which the Arcane Templar’s Guardians would expect an attack.

Black rot crept down her left arm, the darkened veins snaking towards her crimson claws and up toward her ear. The Skeleton King’s blood magic came at an ever-inflating cost, but it was the only reason she was still alive—and yet it would ultimately be her demise.

Threyna ground her teeth as she climbed. With the Orsion Cloak on her back, the Vykane Blade sheathed at her hip, and the Aeryean Armor only a short distance away, she nearly had the tools she needed to stop the Skeleton King. She thought she had defeated him once. She’d watched him die in a land of undeath—dead and gone, body and soul. But somehow he came back, and he came searching for her.

How many souls did he add to his horde when he attacked the Warlocks of Sage? If he followed me to the Arcane Templar, how many more souls joined his ranks?

Threyna dismissed the growing dread. Find the Treasures. Defeat the Skeleton King. Then I can die a true death and join Father, Mother, and… blood and bone, I hope Laela is still alive.

She hadn’t seen her half-sister for years. While Laela went off in search of a cure to the Skeleton King’s cursed magic, Threyna committed herself to the Warlocks of Sage and their war against New Rheynian rule. She wished Laela was with her now.

Focusing on the task, she scaled the vertical drop until the muscles of her forearms burned and the rot stretched across her cheek and into her chest. She couldn’t afford for it to reach her heart again. It happened twice before. Whenever she used her blood magic recklessly, the rot reached her heart. Her whole body would freeze, leaving her unable to fight, unable to stand, barely able to breathe.

She looked past her feet to the breaking waves below. The rolling tides attacked the cliff with undeterred fervor. She didn’t want to imagine what would become of her if she overextended herself here. She grunted, quickening her pace toward the hidden cave.

A few short weeks ago, the sea was as calm as freshly blown glass, but now it raged with unrelenting ire. I knew I should have come for the Aeryean Armor first. But if Threyna could change the past, she would go back way further than deciding which Treasure to seek first.

With one final bout of exertion, she crested the cliff to the cave, hidden by an overhanging rock formation. Threyna let her claws dissolve to ash and shook the soreness from her corrupted hand. The rot had nearly reached her heart.

I’ll need to consume again. She never thought she’d miss the days of shades and darklings roaming the land, but now, to replenish herself, she needed to draw upon the living.

Pulling her dagger from its sheath, she ventured into the cave’s darkness, but the smoke of a smoldering torch stained the air.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she tapped into her Inner Throne. She channeled her sixth sense bestowed upon her by the Skeleton King’s magic, but as she attuned, she sensed no heartbeats.

There should be at least three Guardians.

She’d defeated three beneath the Haunted Hollow, six within the caverns of the Stormburn Geyser.

She didn’t lower her guard, but her grasp on her Inner Throne slipped. She stopped in her tracks, squeezing the hilt of her dagger until the soreness from her climb protested. She reached for her Inner Throne again, but this time, Threyna couldn’t find it.

Threyna stepped back, dagger held out in front of her—poised to strike.

Silence. Unnatural silence. Neither the wind’s whistle nor the sea’s wrath disturbed the stillness despite their proximity. She hadn’t climbed that high.

One of the Guardians could possess manipulation magic—the ability to distort light and sound. She listened intently, forced to rely on her natural senses, but heard nothing. Her eyes strained, searching for a glimpse of movement or a flicker of light. But nothing.

Then she smelled the scent of burnt flesh.

Covering her nose and mouth, Threyna advanced. Breath ceased; sweat accumulated. The quiet danger of the cave and what awaited within grew more ominous.

Stalking deeper inside, she found the bodies of three people. Scorched black and still smoldering, they were splayed about. Discarded weapons littered the ground around them.

Threyna wheeled around, dagger held before her. Breath short and sharp, she tried and failed again to connect to her Inner Throne.

Only one person could ever prevent me from tapping into my Inner Throne. But he’s dead. Then again… I thought the Skeleton King was dead too.

Threyna swallowed. “Show yourself, gory ghosting dammit.”

A figure advanced through the gloom. Slow and purposeful, a glowing red orb emerged from the shadows. The red Aeritan scale that replaced Tyrus’s missing right eye.

Threyna gasped, lowering her dagger. “Tyrus—you’re alive!”

Tyrus’s close-cropped gray hair seemed lighter against his dark skin, but his expression was darker yet. Once upon a time, the wrinkles framing his mouth were always set in a grin, and his pale gray eye glowed with a fervor for life and learning beside the red placeholder.

But that was before the Skeleton King slaughtered everyone in the City of the Judges… searching for me.

She thought he was consumed by the Skeleton King. Though Threyna had seen her fair share of shades, this was no ghost. Tyrus stood before her, flesh, bone, and scale. And if he wanted to fight, he didn’t need the element of surprise to defeat her.

He hummed deep within his throat. “Alive… yes, I suppose I am. The same cannot be said for all. The City of the Judges fell when your friend came to visit.”

Threyna winced. She didn’t want to imagine what carnage the Skeleton King left in his wake. She knew all too well what he was capable of.

She opened her mouth to speak, but a glow of fire illuminated the darkness. A blast of heat shot off to Threyna’s left. The flare caught a row of unlit torches and set them ablaze, casting the hidden cave’s entrance in flickering orange light and dancing shadows.

Tyrus placed his hands behind his back. A sad smile touched his lips before descending into a scowl as he stepped past the bodies of the Arcane Templar’s three Guardians. Erowen, his shadowless confidant, squatted on a raised platform behind Tyrus, her palms still radiating with the embers of her fire magic. Dual braids of black hair framed her disdainful glowering as she spat on the ground in Threyna’s direction. If a look could inject venom, Erowen’s would be the most poisonous Threyna had encountered across three continents.

A bead of sweat trickled down Threyna’s back, the strong winds and cool spray of the sea forgotten. This won’t be a happy reunion. Threyna clenched the pommel of her dagger but kept it at her side. “I thought he was dead. I killed him.”

“You didn’t,” Erowen hissed. “And when your unfinished business returned, you scampered off and joined the Templar!”

Threyna shook her head. “I thought you all were dead. I hoped the Templar would help, but they refused, so I sought the Treasures for myself. To defeat hi—”

Tyrus held up a silencing finger. “Your intent matters not in the wake of the death you delivered to our home. We welcomed you. Fed you. Provided you shelter when you needed it most. Then you abandoned us in our greatest time of need.”

He pointed to the cloak on Threyna’s back and the sword on her hip. “While so many are dead—or worse—here you are, in possession of two of the three Treasures we dedicated our lives to finding.”

Threyna turned sideways, as if protecting the Vykane Blade from Tyrus’s eye. She stepped backwards, but then it struck her. “Wait, how did you know to come here?”

The shadow Tyrus cast grew as he drew closer. “We’ve made a new friend. One who believes in our cause and wishes to see the Treasures to my hands.”

“Look at her,” Erowen said, jumping down from her position on the platform. “Trembling in her corrupted flesh.” She dropped into a low and wide stance—the combat stance Tyrus had taught them both. If her posture didn’t warn of her intent, the predatory look in her eyes did. “And tremble you should, monster, because our friend has led us to you. And once we have all three Treasures, we will do what you could not—we will defeat the Skeleton King.”

Threyna sputtered to defend herself, not wanting to resort to violence, but every retort birthed and died before she could organize her thoughts into words.

Who is this friend?

Threyna’s mouth went dry as the ghosts of her past refused to leave her alone. “I thought he was dead. I thought I killed him. How was I supposed to know he would come for me?”

Tyrus crossed his arms behind his back and began to pace the cave. “You killed a Skeleton King. But another has risen to take his place.”

Threyna wrinkled her brow and shifted her weight. “Who? How?”

Tyrus halted before her. “He announced himself as King Belrich.”

A wave of nausea settled in her throat. The air felt suddenly thin, and the cave began to rock like her conjured blood boat on the choppy sea.

Impossible. “Belrich?” Saying her uncle’s name brought bile to her breath.

“Yes, Belrich,” Tyrus said. “He told the people of the City of the Judges that we have you to thank for his arrival. Do you know what he’s done since you fled? While he and his soldiers hunt down the last of my people, he has caught and corralled the others on his farm.”

Threyna shuddered, but Tyrus stalked closer. “He keeps them alive so he can use your cursed magic, draining them of their essence whenever he needs. He won’t leave. He will continue to haunt my home and build his army with the souls of my people. Then he will come here, to this land, and deny us the future we dreamt of. But I will succeed where you have failed. With the Treasures in my possession, I will defeat him and free Stockhelm from the Valencians.”

Threyna swallowed her sour spit. A whisper in the back of her mind made her think Paxoran was speaking to her, but it was too quiet to understand, as if far away.

Can Tyrus’s magic separate me from Paxoran?

She took a stilling breath. “We want the same things, Tyrus.”

In truth she didn’t care for the Valencians. As far as she was concerned, they left her people to rot on the cursed island of Rheynia while they pursued greener pastures. Though she didn’t particularly agree with what they had done upon arriving in Stockhelm, she never felt like it was her fight—especially after the Skeleton King’s return.

A burst of fire swelled before her. Heat sucked the moisture from the cave, singeing the air. Threyna lurched out of the way just in time to avoid Erowen’s attack.

Threyna held her hand out to Tyrus and Erowen. “Blood and bone, we can help each other. Even with the Treasures, the Skeleton King will not go down easily.”

“We don’t need your help,” Erowen said, preparing another fiery blast.

Tyrus lowered Erowen’s arm and chastised her with a glare. “He will not be an easy foe.” He strode around Erowen to stand behind the platform she had squatted upon earlier. “But you are not an honorable ally.”

Threyna choked on her response. He wasn’t wrong. Anyone who had ever aligned with her had suffered. The Underground, the Warlocks and Templars, Zephyrus and Patrus.

The walls of the cave seemed to close in on her.

Tyrus lifted his loose gray tunic over his head and tossed it to the cave’s floor. As if etched from stone, his physique belied his years. The dancing torchlight sent rippling light along his ridged form.

“I can help,” Threyna said. “With your void magic and my blood magic we can—”

Erowen stalked closer. “You could have stood with us in the City of the Judges.”

Threyna’s fingers twitched around the hilt of her dagger as she began searching for a way out of the cave. If it came to a fight, she’d end up like the Arcane Templar’s Guardians.

“It grieves me to say this, Threyna,” Tyrus said from behind the platform. A latch clicked into place.

It’s not a platform. It’s a chest.

“But I no longer trust you. And we don’t need you.” Tyrus lifted the lid and seized a scaled vest from within. White and gray with silver etchings that matched that of the Orsion Cloak on her back, the Aeryean Armor glowed in the cave’s torchlight.

Threyna opened her mouth to object, but Erowen bared her teeth. Tyrus donned the vest. Its straps expanded and contracted to fit the mold of his build.

She would never beat Tyrus in single combat. As long as he stopped her from tapping into her Inner Throne, she was powerless against him. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d also have to contend with Erowen’s ability to bend light and hurl fire from her hands. But worst of all, now Tyrus had the Aeryean Armor.

I need to find a way out of here and fast. Climbing down would be a death sentence, but there was another entrance deeper within the cave that emptied into the mountains… if she could get past them.

“Goodbye, Threyna,” Tyrus said.

Erowen screeched and hurled a ball of fire at Threyna.

She dove to the stone floor to escape the blast, but a second followed her. Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne, but Tyrus’s void magic sealed her out. Like a door in her mind that wouldn’t budge, she couldn’t gain access to her seat of power.

Rolling onto her back, Threyna leapt to her feet, but Tyrus was on her in an instant. His fist connected to her ribs; then another struck her chin. Her feet left the ground, and she landed hard on her back. Air escaped her lungs, but she held onto her dagger. She rolled away from Tyrus’s stomping foot, but heat licked at her side as Erowen created a wall of fire to close off Threyna’s escape.

Threyna reclaimed her footing and slashed at Tyrus to slow his aggression, but he dodged and countered with a punch and a spinning backhand. Threyna dodged the first, but the backhand glanced off her cheek, throwing her off-balance.

Threyna dropped to a knee but swept her leg at Tyrus’s ankles. Tyrus stepped over her strike but retreated, giving Threyna much-needed space.

Seizing her stance, she squared off with Tyrus, scouring the cave for any sign of the other exit. As she scanned, she couldn’t locate Erowen.

Ghostdammit.

She stabbed at Tyrus, but he blocked her aside. If she was going to survive, she needed access to her Inner Throne. She feinted left, before slashing right. Tyrus caught her first strike, blocking her wrist, and dodged out of the way of the second before she could connect.

With a moment to breathe, Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne. There was an opening, however small, and she pried her way in, but a kick to her stomach jarred her from gaining access and shoved her against the far wall.

Blood and bone, curse you and your void magic.

Beside Tyrus, a floating ball of fire roared to life. Threyna’s eyes widened, and she sprang to the side. Sparks exploded against the wall where she’d just been. She took shelter behind the chest that once housed the Aeryean Armor. Another inferno blasted into the wall just above the lid of the chest.

Erowen was using manipulation magic to obscure her sight. She wasn’t particularly adept in the craft, but it was enough to conceal her from Threyna in the dark cave. If Threyna had access to her Inner Throne, she could just attune to her heartbeat, but Tyrus kept her sealed out.

Another fireball skidded off the floor beside her and crashed into the wall. Threyna vaulted over the chest and slashed at Tyrus, simultaneously tapping into her Inner Throne.

Tyrus blocked her strikes, but utilizing his distraction, Threyna slipped in. Just enough. Erowen could conceal herself from sight, but not from her Inner Throne.

Threyna continued to strike at Tyrus, but he turned her away as he always had. Too quick, too strong, and too disciplined to be defeated.

My only chance of getting away is to—

Another bout of flame blossomed behind her. She didn’t see it, but she didn’t need to. Threyna attacked Tyrus, positioning herself directly between Erowen’s magic and Tyrus’s fists. With a rush of wind, the fire flew at Threyna’s back, but she launched herself out of the way.

The fireball struck Tyrus in the stomach. Threyna seized her opportunity. Implanting herself into her Inner Throne, she conjured a bloody dagger and sent it zipping through the air to sink into Erowen’s shoulder. Erowen staggered back, her illusion magic faltering.

Tyrus fell to the ground but was already climbing to his feet—the Aeryean Armor absorbing most of the impact.

Threyna conjured a snare of bloody vines beneath Erowen’s and Tyrus’s feet. As they struggled, Threyna ran for the back of the cave. Rot spread towards her heart, but she couldn’t risk getting to the bodies of the Guardians behind Tyrus. She couldn’t fight. She needed to run. Her boots slapped the hard stone floor, and her breath echoed in the dark, narrow tunnel.

“To the chain with you, Threyna!” Tyrus shouted, his voice trailing in her wake. “I will hunt you. I will claim the Treasures!”

Threyna let her snares holding Tyrus and Erowen dissipate to ashes just as the black rot encroached upon her heart. She continued running in the dark until the light of her escape guided her path, but even beyond Tyrus’s reach, the helplessness that his magic evoked in her remained.

Chapter 3

The Breaker

Iylea II

Valencia

Iylea examined the link of the chain before her, but she did not want to live through the memories it contained. It seemed darker than the others, its glow a dull hue instead of a vibrant sheen. Its colors morphed, but unlike the hum of different hues characteristic in previous links, this one groaned a sullen dirge. She hoped its lack of light wasn’t an omen for the life the soul had lived.

Stop making excuses.

Her progress had been slow of late. Besides the soul-burdening exhaustion of living and dying over and over again with each link in the chain, the Whispering Wall’s secrets ate at her.

“It’s not yours to break,” the former breaker had said.

She hadn’t stopped contemplating every word of her conversation with the woman. The more she thought about it, there were several reasons why the former breaker, currently residing in Valencia’s dungeons, wouldn’t want Iylea to break the chain—especially if she still believed it hers.

Even still, she searched for the dungeons—found nothing. Followed a few of the deities—heard nothing. If even one clue had supported the former breaker’s claims, Iylea would have stopped breaking the links, found the dungeons, and freed the former breaker to save the mortal realm from the traitorous God. Yet she found no clues.

Hameryn mentioned that the burden of breaking the chain had driven his last breaker mad. She was sure whatever accusations the woman made could have been retorted by the Gods and easily explained. But as much as her rational mind reasoned away everything the woman had said, she kept returning to one particular quote: When rain does not fall, fires consume the earth, and blood comes for all—the Age of the End has come.

Iylea shuffled her feet. You’re doing it again; stop dawdling or Ferrocles is going to come back and scold you. Or Moterra will remind you how the mortals are suffering. Or Incinerae will perform another disjointed monologue to inspire your service.

She exhaled, staring at the tiled stone floor beneath her feet. Every few slats, a tile was carved with an intricate glyph of angled lines, circles, and something that resembled the Six Arrowed Star. One marking for each of the eighteen Gods. But Valencia only remained home to five deities now.

Unable to stall any longer, Iylea held the dim link to her chest. Instead of burning brightly, the link enveloped her like a shadow, and unlike the flashes of images she saw in others’ lives, all she saw was death.

Unable to pull away, she was forced to endure.

A beautiful mother, a proud father—Bherus Fayte was born a Prince of Rheynia with a thriving kingdom to inherit. His first steps, his first time atop a horse, bouts of swordplay and archery filled her mind’s eye as Bherus’s life fused with her own. Flashes of a childhood shared with a baby brother played before her. Glimpses of an adolescence spent in lessons of leadership, law, and how to maintain order consumed her—realer to her than her own past. A life of promise.

She hated to think how such a promising young boy could end up as a blackened soul damned to the chain. Her time as the breaker proved time and time again that it didn’t take much to end up as a link in the Gods’ failures, but she had yet to see a soul so tarnished.

The gateway into Bherus’s life widened, and the visions flowed faster. Damascus Drake’s rise, his profession of faith for new Gods, and his dream of lands to the west overwhelmed her senses. Bherus’s father’s kingdom became divided; the parliament dissented to disrepair. Then the Disasters of Rheynia—a terrible earthquake and a massive tidal wave devastated the land. A years-long drought wreaked havoc on the villages, but they could have endured that if not for the curse of the undying.

Bodies withered, and people died, but the souls were denied rest. Trapped in decrepit flesh or ejected from their bodies to walk the land as spectral shades, the souls remained in Rheynia.

Iylea’s body tensed as if her rib cage tightened around her, squeezing her insides into a paste. She’d read about the Disasters. She’d heard stories. But seeing the starved forms of children—more skeleton than flesh—was too much to bear.

She grit her teeth, hoping it would be over soon, but it only got worse. Bherus’s mother died in childbirth and attempted to tear his baby brother to pieces. His father struggled to lead as fear reigned the country, but just as the land began to falter, so too did his flesh wither and fall away. Yet impossible powers became his to wield after he started wearing a red-and-black pendant about his neck.

Blood and bone bowed to him. Rebellions rose, but each fell to his father’s blood magic. Despite Bherus’s pleas to change the kingdom’s path, fear ruled Rheynia from his father’s skeletal fist. Believing his father made a deal with some kind of deity to gain this awful power, Bherus stole his father’s pendant. But when he attempted to destroy it, the pendant morphed into a reddish-black, snakelike being that slithered up his arm, around his neck, and down his other arm to sink deep fanged prongs around his neck.

Iylea saw a vision within a vision, witnessing what the strange artifact showed to Bherus so many years ago. A woman lay staring at the ceiling. Flowing blonde curls framed her pale face like a golden halo, but her eyes held the emptiness of death. Painted beneath her chin, a crimson crescent divided her throat, denying life from her lungs.

Dead.

Another body was sprawled prone beside her—a man’s—his skull caved in. His arms and legs were bent at odd angles. His fingers twitched in the throes of death. A pair of broken round-rimmed spectacles rested on the tile floor between the two bodies. Blood seeped into the grooves of a glyph etched in the stone tile.

The same glyph as...

Iylea screamed, dropping the link and ending the vision. The link bounced with a clang and rattled to a stop on the tile floor. Sweat poured down her face, though she’d only been in the vision for a moment. She stared, wide-eyed, at the link of death and the tile it landed on.

Those people were murdered in Valencia. No—not people—Gods.

Iylea’s arms folded around her shoulders to keep herself from shaking.

“There is an evil in Valencia,” the former breaker said.

Iylea shook her head. No. That was Aquarius, and Aquarius is dead.

But then, just like every other time Iylea attempted to make sense of her conversation with the former breaker, she recalled her warning.

“When rain does not fall, fires consume the earth, and blood comes for all—the Age of the End has come.”

A stone formed in her stomach and sank to her feet. If Aquarius’s death signaled the end of the rains and the terror of the seas, did ‘fires consuming the earth’ refer to the deaths of Incinerae and Moterra—the Goddesses of Fire and Earth?

“A traitor in your midst,” the former breaker said. “One of the Gods isn’t who they say they are. Find who, before more Gods die.”

If Aquarius was the traitor as Hameryn said, and he was dead, then more Gods wouldn’t die, and the Age of the End would never come to pass. Unless Hameryn was wrong.

Or he lied.

The door at the end of the cavernous anchor room swung open. A red hue entered the arched doorway as Hameryn strode in. “Iylea, is everything well? I heard a scream.”

Sweat slickened her palms, but gooseflesh laced up her arms and down the back of her neck. Her chest was too tight to breathe, let alone speak. Could he be the traitor?

He continued to approach, but even as he was mere steps away, she hadn’t responded. Hameryn scanned the atrium, his eyes settling on the dull link on the ground between them.

“Hmph, a stubborn soul?”

Iylea swallowed the knot in her throat. I can’t tell him what I saw. If Moterra and Incinerae could be the next to die, that means he, Phaebia the Sky Goddess, or Ferrocles the God of War, could be the murderer. She nodded, continuing to hug herself.

Hameryn approached, holding out his arms to embrace her. “There, there. I know how tiresome this work can be.”

Iylea hesitantly stepped into Hameryn’s arms. She didn’t expect to find comfort there, but she did.

“Courianne often came to me in the face of our failings. It is difficult work.”

Iylea blinked. Courianne? She stepped back to examine Hameryn. “Did she break the chains before… before Aquarius…”

Hameryn shook his head. “No, she couldn’t break the links any more than I could, but unlike the rest of us, she could see the story of their soul. She had such… passion—tenderness for broken beings of the world.” He sighed, but his pale hand, cracked by red light, curled into a fist. “Taken from us by Aquarius’s lust for power.” He strode away from her, reaching down and picking up the link.

Iylea chewed the inside of her lip. She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t give away too much. She couldn’t trust him as much as she wished she could. “Did the former breaker serve Courianne?”

“As a matter of fact, she did,” Hameryn said. “Courianne was a far better mentor than I could ever hope to be.”

Iylea nodded. Not wanting to seem too eager, she hung her head, feigning the same demure posture of any trained handmaiden. “Will I go mad too—like the breaker before me?”

Hameryn blinked. He approached again and placed his hand on her arm. “No, child. Take rest. I’ll put this link aside for now. You can come back to it when you’re ready.”

Iylea balked. “I thought you said links absent their connection to the chain can be dangerous?”

“They can be.” Hameryn smiled. “But I won’t tell if you won’t. It can be our secret.” He tucked the dull link inside a fold of his robes.

Iylea bowed. “Thank you, Hameryn. You are too kind.”

He swatted her compliment away. “Why don’t you revisit the Whispering Wall? Take your mind off of—” He gestured to the glowing chain.

Iylea shuffled her feet. “Ferrocles warned me not to visit the Whispering Wall again. He said you shouldn’t have allowed me there in the first place.”

Hameryn narrowed his red eyes. “He is a God of War, Iylea. He knows nothing besides violence or the threat of it. He may think he rules here—” Hameryn pointed to his chest. “But I do.” He winked. “I will speak with him. You are our guest, performing a task that no one else can. The least we can offer you is the opportunity to watch over your loved ones.”

She wanted to trust him, but she couldn’t. Not until she learned more. Iylea pasted on her best serving smile. “Gratitude. But, if I may, what was the name of Courianne’s breaker?”

Hameryn raised a thin eyebrow, his red eyes burning.

Iylea cleared her throat, but no words came. Say something, you stupid girl. Moments seemed like eternity under his inspection. “It’s important to remember who came before. I don’t want to lose myself… go mad.” She hung her head. “Fail.”

“You will not fail, Iylea.”

Iylea allowed herself to breathe once again.

“Though I have every confidence that you will not end up like her, there is wisdom in your words. Courianne’s breaker was Arkadia Auros.”

Iylea smiled and bowed again to the God of Harmony. “Arkadia Auros.”

Hameryn swept aside the train of his robes and exited the anchor room, leaving Iylea in the room alone, aside from the thousands of unsaved souls connecting Valencia to the mortal realm.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and exhaled, settling her fragile nerves. I may not know where the dungeons are or how to find them, but the Whispering Wall will. I’m coming, Arkadia. I will help you find this traitor God.

Chapter 4

Old Friends

Zephyrus II

Salmantica

“You are free, and you always will be free.”

Zephyrus knew he was asleep in the apothecary’s cellar, but even absent the healer’s tonic, his dreamscape unfolded before him. His conscious mind didn’t recognize the speaker standing over him—a man in his mid to late thirties with grays slipping through his amber-colored, shoulder-length hair and beard—but his dreamself did.

Father.

Invinius Auros—Earl of Valtarcia and the finest steel merchant in New Rheynia.

His father placed his hands on his dreamself’s boyish shoulders while he clung to the spindles of the balcony overlooking the courtyard of their manor. Dozens of people stared up at them—Celestics and Valencians, Helms and Rheynians—together.

“We may have lost the war,” his father said to those gathered below, their heads hanging. “Damascus Drake may have decreed that I put you in chains. He may have threatened to seize my manor and enslave you anyway, should I fail to do my ‘duty.’ But we—you and I—will not lose the path to the afterlife out of fear of them.”

While his dreamself ran his fingers along the smooth wooden spindles of the balcony, Zephyrus’s conscious mind was in awe at the command with which his father spoke. This must be shortly after the Treaty of 940. I was perhaps only four years old.

“If you trust me,” his father said. “I have a plan. A dangerous plan. But one in which we can restore freedom for all in this land.”

The downcast and sullen expressions of the men and women in the courtyard perked up.

His father lifted a hand from Zephyrus’s shoulder to point at the lands below. Nestled high within the mountains, House Auros overlooked a steep climb, a dense forest, and a narrow patch of land that eroded into the sea.

“A boat bound for Klaytos awaits at the southern docks,” his father said. “From the ashes we will rise, reborn to fight for those who can’t defend themselves.”

A man in the crowd, tall and broad with dark skin, stepped forward. A bandage covered half his face, wrapping around his left eye. Framing his smithing apron, his corded arms crossed. “Invinius, Klaytos is a wasteland.”

“Iberion is right.” His father nodded, addressing the others. “But you will be safe from the Rheynians. You will be able to hide. Forge weapons. And grow strong. Yet not all of us can go. I must remain here so as not to draw attention to what we are doing. To keep up appearances with the king, I need ten volunteers to serve my house.”

Iberion growled. “As slaves?”

Zephyrus’s father’s grip tightened on Zephyrus’s boyish shoulders. “If the king is here, yes. But otherwise—no. You will stay as brothers and sisters—to eat at our table and sleep in your beds within the manor as you always have—until it is time for us to join those preparing our rebellion in Klaytos.”

Iberion’s eyes narrowed. “How can we trust you when so many other Valencian lords have already enslaved every Celestic they could get their hands on?” Others rallied around Iberion, nodding and adding their voices in protest.

Zephyrus’s father lifted his hand, and they stilled. When his hands left Zephyrus’s shoulders, his dreamself turned to look up at his father. His father’s fingers closed around a medallion on his chest, the Six Arrowed Star carved into it. With a yank, he snapped the leather tie that held it around his neck. He held the medallion out over the edge of the balcony.

“I refuse to follow any Gods that beseech their people to enslave others different than themselves.” He opened his fingers and turned his palm down, letting the medallion fall to the ground. “Therefore, I am no Valencian.”

His father unclasped the cloak draping his shoulders. It fell to the balcony floor. “Pass me my cape, son.”

Zephyrus knelt to lift the heavy white woolen cape. Holding it out before him, he admired the emblazoned sigil—an upright sword piercing a flaming heart.

He passed the cloak to his father.

“Gratitude, Vykanicus. Now remind the people of our house words.”

Vykanicus, the boy Zephyrus once was, leaned against the balcony’s spindles to face the gathered people. “Make straight the blade. Make straight the path.”

“These have been the words of my family for generations,” his father said, holding the cloak beyond the balcony’s banister. “But we know the path, and it has failed us.” He dropped the cloak, and it unraveled, landing in a heap on the ground before the gathered crowd. “From this day forth, I am no longer an earl.”

Iberion and the others in the courtyard gasped or muttered, all eyes fixated on the fallen cloak.

“If I am no longer Valencian,” Zephyrus’s father said, “and no longer a lord—will you trust me?”

Some people cheered at his father’s display, but none were more surprised than Zephyrus.

All this time, I thought my parents owned slaves. While the truth that they freed their slaves was new to him, the realization that enslaving them in the first place was all for show only made his heart ache worse.

I had it wrong. Dead wrong.

Iberion’s square jaw and crossed arms remained unmoved. At his reaction, or lack thereof, many others within the courtyard stilled. “You may not be a Valencian lord, but you’re still not one of us. You don’t know what we’ve lost.”

Zephyrus’s dreamself wrinkled his nose, but his father’s expression remained placid.

The balcony door opened, and Zephyrus’s dreamself turned to face a woman. Auburn hair like a setting sun and blue eyes like the noon sky.

Mother.

She’d come to him when he was most in need. Her last words to him were, “For luck.” Just like Vykinallia said when she gave me her ring. If she saw that—from wherever she was—she must have been watching me for a long time.

Shame crept into his conscious mind to entwine with his guilt, but his dreamself glowed as his mother placed her hand on his head and smiled. Something was behind her back, but his dreamself wasn’t as concerned with it as his conscious mind was.

As she approached the balcony, she held up the balanced scale of Celestia. Murmurs broke out amongst the people of the courtyard, and even Iberion’s defiant posture slackened.

She began to hum, a slow, melancholic tune young Vykanicus had never heard before, but Zephyrus knew it well.

The Rebels’ Rhyme.

Before she could finish, the dreamscape flickered.

No. Not yet.

He fought to force himself back to sleep—to live in the dream, the memory, a little while longer, but a hand closed around Zephyrus’s nose and mouth, and his eyes snapped open.

He seized the wrist of the figure atop him but couldn’t free himself. With his breath burning in his chest, he struggled, but the figure leaned down until his face came into view.

Looming over him, deeply set dark green eyes glared beneath a thick black brow. Dark curls framed his face, and an unkempt beard encircled his frown. A finger rose to his lips.

Ceres! Zephyrus only remembered seeing him in his dreams at the Arcane Templar, but he was unmistakable. Zephyrus stilled, and Ceres released his grasp. Ceres nodded at the door leading upstairs and waved for Zephyrus to follow.

The Templar, the Uprising—answers at long last. He wished Ceres hadn’t disturbed his dreams, but there would be time enough to process that.

Zephyrus glanced at Laeden and Markus sleeping beside him. Their ribs rose and fell with tides of breath. Taking care not to disturb them, Zephyrus propped himself up. The wound in his stomach protested, but he persevered, stifling a groan as he stalked up the stairs after Ceres.

Once through the door leading to the apothecary’s storefront, Ceres nudged the cellar door closed, not allowing the hinges to squeak. His pupils dilated within his catlike green eyes, and his brow narrowed with predatory hunger. Before Zephyrus could move, Ceres leveled his dagger’s tip against Zephyrus’s neck.

His jaw tightened. The apple of his throat bobbed.

If he wanted me dead, he would have stabbed me in my sleep.

Zephyrus cocked an eyebrow and lifted his index finger to the flat side of the blade. With a gentle prod, he guided it away from his neck. “Hello, Ceres.”

Ceres grunted. He lowered his dagger, but his glare held its edge. “‘Hello, Ceres’—that all you have to say for yourself? Ya have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? We’ve been following you all over burning Perillian.” He buried his finger into Zephyrus’s chest. “You and Threyna, that traitorous burning Warlock.”

Zephyrus inhaled, closing his eyes. The memory of Threyna bleeding out on the floor in the foyer of Tharseo’s Bastion made his mouth go dry. He forced himself to swallow.

“I’ve lost most of my memories. Some have come back through dreams, so no—I don’t know the trouble I’ve caused. But it wasn’t my plan to be sold into slavery or have to fend off assassins at every turn.”

Ceres blinked, shaking his head. “Burn me, you really don’t remember anything, do ya?”

“Not much.” Zephyrus chewed the inside of his cheek. “And Threyna… she’s—” His voice failed him. After all this time, Patrus and Threyna’s deaths still ate at him. He swallowed his grief. “Threyna’s dead.”

Ceres smirked and strode away. “I wish ya had the right of it, but she ain’t dead.”

Zephyrus shifted his weight side to side and rubbed the back of his neck. There’s no way she survived that. He followed Ceres over to the storefront window he peeked out of. “I watched her die. I held her in my arms as she bled out.”

Ceres shushed him, glancing back to the cellar door before fixing him with a level stare. “Keep it down, will ya? I saw her myself. She sure ain’t dead.”

His chest inflated, and the corners of his lips lifted. Tip the scales. She’s alive?

“Street’s clear of patrols—for now. Let’s make our break while we can.” Ceres let the curtain fall and squared up to Zephyrus. He shoved Zephyrus’s shoulder. “What’re you smilin’ about? She betrayed us, Zeph. She’s killin’ Guardians so she can take the Treasures for herself. She already has two of ‘em by now. We need to find her and stop her before she gets the Aeryean Armor, so let’s go.”

Zephyrus bit his lip as if to clamp down on his swirling thoughts. How did she survive? Why would she betray the Templar? He had hoped Ceres would give him answers, not more questions. Then he recalled Threyna speaking of needing to stop someone—something worse than the Rheynians. She had asked him to join her. He didn’t know if he had. She died before he could learn the truth.

Or at least that’s what he’d thought.

Ceres unlocked the front door and slipped into the night, leaving the door ajar.

Zephyrus glanced back at the cellar door. I can’t just leave Laeden. He stepped outside, not bothering to close the door, and hissed, “Ceres!”

Ceres was already halfway down the street, keeping to the shadows.

Zephyrus groaned. He pulled the door closed as silently as he could and stalked after Ceres. He caught up to him at the corner of the next street.

“Hold up,” Zephyrus said. “I can’t come with you.”

Ceres wheeled on him, brow cocked. “Tip the scales, Zeph, I’ve spent the better part of a year tryna get you out of irons. Followin’ you to this arena and that, lookin’ for an opportunity to get you out. Do you know how many times I risked my neck tryin’ to save yours? And now you’re sayin’ you can’t come with me?”

Zephyrus bit his lip. If Ceres had managed to free him, perhaps this would have been a different conversation, but as far as Zephyrus was concerned, Vykinallia, Laeden, and his mother had more to do with how he survived to this point.

“Gratitude for your efforts, Ceres, but too much has changed. I must go home.”

“Home?” Ceres asked. “You go to the Arcane Temple and they’ll send you right back here—to stop Threyna and protect the Treasures.”

Zephyrus shook his head. “No, my home. There is something going on. Something bigger than the Treasures, the Warlocks—even the Rheynians.”

Ceres closed the distance between them and wrapped his knuckles in the collar of Zephyrus’s tunic. His breath was hot against Zephyrus’s face. They stared at each other for a long moment. Ceres’s brow twitched, and the corners of his lips hardened.

“You don’t remember much,” Ceres said, “so let me help you out. You’re comin’ with me. We’re gonna stop Threyna, reclaim the Treasures, and then, if you wanna tell the Elders that the Judges were wrong in pickin’ you to be the Wielder, be my burnin’ guest, but till then, there ain’t nothin’ more important than protectin’ the Treasures.”

Zephyrus grinded his teeth. He’d been at the receiving end of such stares ever since he stepped into Tharseo’s Bastion. Like I wanted to lose my memories. Like this is my fault.

Ceres released Zephyrus and smoothed out his collar. “Now let’s get outta here before those Jackals come back.” He spun to cross the street.

Zephyrus didn’t follow. His soles melded into the cobblestone streets. He’d made oaths to the Templar, promises to avenge Patrus and free the slaves—but he couldn’t fulfill any of those vows, not with a manor in the hills of Valtarcia yearning for him. He no longer had Vykannis’s spirit to guide him, but somehow, something deep within him assured him of his path.

I must go home.

Zephyrus cleared his throat, stopping Ceres in his tracks. “Apologies, Ceres, but I’m not going with you.”

Ceres glared at Zephyrus, nearly halfway across the street. A wicked grin cracked his bearded face. He shook his head, grounding his feet into the cobblestones, fists at his sides.

“Burnin’ Rheynians, you’re all the same.”

Zephyrus growled. For a moment, he wished he were back on the sands of the training square at Cassius’s ludus with Ceres standing opposite. Then I’d set things straight. But now was not the time or a place for a fight.

Zephyrus held his hands out in front of him. “I’m not against you. But I can’t come with you. There’s something I must—”

Ceres assumed a combat stance. “No. You’re comin’ with me. One way or another.”

A blunt force slammed into the soft spot in Zephyrus’s throat.

Zephyrus gagged, shooting his hand to his neck. He stumbled backwards, crashing into the side of a building. Wheezing breath into his lungs, he scanned the empty street, searching for the source of what struck him.

“You can wield all the Judges’ gifts, but I was always better at balancing the scales.”

Before Zephyrus could process, an invisible blow struck him in the ribs. Then another slammed into his chin. His head jerked back, slamming into the building behind him. Pain branched out like a fork of lightning across the back of his head. The impact forced his jaw shut on his tongue, and blood filled his mouth.

He spat on the ground and wiped his bloody lips with the back of his hand. Force magic.

He’d used it before—to slow Tursos’s strike on Fenyx and lower the shields of his opponents upon the rotunda. He’d more recently channeled it to unlock the cell door to the apothecary. But what Ceres was wielding was different—force production beyond anything Zephyrus conceived possible.

But how do I defend against it?

Zephyrus braced his arms to block the incoming strikes, but as Ceres stalked closer—his hands at his sides—a flurry of invisible punches collided into Zephyrus’s stomach.

The impact sent him staggering. The stab wound he’d suffered from Lenox reopened, sending bile to join the blood in his mouth. I can’t block what I can’t see. If only I—

Another strike collided into his nose. Blinding pain lanced through his skull, making his eyes water and his nose run bloody. Zephyrus dropped to a knee, cradling his head in his hand.

Ceres laughed, and the attacks stopped. “Not even gonna fight back?”

Zephyrus ignored the taunt. Balancing the scales, his blood burned hot, his temperature rising to offset the impending cold. Fire burst forth from his palm, and all heat escaped his body.

An invisible force cleaved the flame in half just before Ceres. The fire divided, framing him, but leaving him unblemished.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ceres said.

The effort left Zephyrus dazed and accomplished nothing. Tremors seized his muscles and sent his teeth chattering. Think. I must have learned to fight this way.

Nothing came to him.

“You were always weak,” Ceres hissed. “Yet they favored you—you and Patrus. Always you and burning Patrus.”

Zephyrus’s fingers curled into his fist at the mention of Patrus’s name. Patrus who looked after me at the Arcane Templar. Patrus who believed in me at Tharseo’s Bastion. Patrus who died telling me to live.

A memory returned to him. I never learned to fight with force magic, but Patrus taught me how to survive against it.

Every time he’d channeled force magic to interact with a physical object, his arms went practically numb, as if he’d lifted a hundred times the weight of what he’d moved. Ceres balanced these scales with greater efficiency, but his arms remained at his sides—the cost of exerting force.

I can beat him, but not at his own game. Use his force against him.

Zephyrus sank to the ground, supporting himself with his hands and knees. His core temperature restabilized, allowing him to quiet his mind and slacken his muscles. Wait for it.

Ceres closed the distance. “It shoulda been me, but no. They chose you instead. Son of an earl. A symbol to rally behind. Tip the scales, things coulda been different. But I’ll show them the truth when I drag you back to Sinion’s—you’re nothing! To the chain with your Rheynian-led Fallen.”

Ceres’s force magic yanked Zephyrus up to his feet, but rather than resist it, he let it move him. He listened to the wind and waited. Another strike came at his ribs from the side, but Zephyrus anticipated the blow. He turned with it, allowing the force to move him, but not impact him. The air shifted again, this time from above his left shoulder. He ducked, spinning with it to dissipate the force.

Ceres grunted, and his attacks came with greater power and less time between.

Zephyrus high-stepped a swipe at his knee, rolled with a shove on his shoulder, and bent backwards to avoid a blow meant to knock him out.

Ceres panted. Sweat dampened his brow.

He can’t keep going like this.

But neither could Zephyrus. Suffering magic fatigue, with blood gushing from his nose and his stomach wound reopening, he only had one opportunity to end this fight.

Ceres snarled. “They thought you were the one, Zephyrus—the one to turn the tides of the war.” He laughed—too loud considering the empty streets and nearby Jackals. “I will take you down and prove them wrong!”

A disturbance on the wind bore down on him from the left—larger, more powerful than any of Ceres’s other attacks. Zephyrus spun with the force, flaring his own force magic—not to stop it, but to harness it. He caught Ceres’s blow in his arms, stepping around it. Spinning and building momentum like the spiked ball of a flail, he set his feet and hurled Ceres’s energy back at him.

Ceres’s eyes widened, but too late. The blow hit, catapulting him across the street. He slammed into the building. Wooden planks cracked, splintering on impact. Ceres collapsed in the rubble, but it was too loud.

Shouts echoed through the streets.

Burn me!

Zephyrus’s chest heaved as he surveyed the darkened streets. Laeden emerged from the apothecary, Markus behind him.

“Zephyrus?” Laeden drew his sword. “What in Six Hells was that?”

“There’s no time,” Markus said as the two neared. “We must leave now. Jackals coming!”

Voices drew closer. Torchlights served as a beacon of the incoming patrol. Zephyrus wouldn’t be able to outrun them again. Nor would he be able to fight them. He swayed, but Laeden caught him by the shoulders.

“Keep to the shadows,” Laeden said. “Head north along the Street of Steel, then take Darrow’s Dawn west. You’ll need to find a way past the wall of the isthmus, but House Auros is located in the Silver Summits halfway to Valtarcia.”

Zephyrus examined the former prince. Gaunt despite his scruff and pale beneath the dirt that clung to him, the set of his brow and the square of his jaw steadied Zephyrus.

Markus seized Laeden by the elbow. “Laeden, we need to go.”

“No,” Laeden said. “We’re going to lead the Jackals away from Zephyrus.”
“What!”

Amidst Markus’s bewildered protests, Laeden shoved Zephyrus. “Go. I’ll meet you at House Auros.”

While Markus argued with Laeden, and Ceres struggled to gain his feet, Zephyrus limped away in the direction Laeden pointed, barely believing what had happened.

“This isn’t over!” Ceres shouted after Zephyrus.

The encroaching patrol drew closer, but Zephyrus turned, and didn’t look back. His path was chosen, and nothing would stop him from going home.

Chapter 5

Captain and Commander

Danella

Salmantica

Dawn came, but no one slept last night. In the aftermath of Laeden’s trial, the city might as well have been under siege. With Zephyrus—a Prophet of Celestia, a mage, and a trained gladiator—on the loose, no amount of Vigiles, Sentinels, Jackals, or guards were going to make Danella’s people feel safe.

The slave had proven resourceful, and her plan to leverage him as a means of Laeden’s demise had backfired in the worst of ways. Now with Laeden and Markus unaccounted for, Chancellor Cassius dead, and Hallon’s attack on the King’s Guard Knights, everyone feared the worst—civil war.

The throne room was already filled to capacity with senators and patricians shouting over one another. Everyone of status or self-import cawed, desperate to be heard. Damascus stood before the throne—his throne—with his arms outstretched, summoning silence that would not come. He would let them speak, and he would do his best to listen, but it would make no difference.

Standing by the entrance to the court, Danella had greeted each patrician who entered, but that was the last they’d see of her this morning. She had more important matters to tend to than watching her kingdom fall victim to calamity. She nodded to the two guards stationed at the doorway. They bowed and closed the door, sealing her son inside a cage filled with scorpions.

He will have to handle himself while I fix this.

Danella set her jaw, picked up her skirts, and swept across the tiled floor towards the west tower. While Damascus would pander to the needy patricians, Danella would direct the people who could actually do something about their present circumstances.

Ascending the tower stairs and arriving at the doors to her study, she took a deep breath. Six, let someone have good news. Beyond the door, her closed council argued, their speech muffled despite their shouting. Danella didn’t need to hear their words to know the truth—without her, they were little better than the patricians.

Danella threw open the doors, and silence fell. Aemos’s bandaged face met her gaze first. Markus Cassius had nearly cleaved him in two; Aemos was lucky to be alive. As was Ser Daenus. Daenus was still in the medicus’s chambers after nearly being cooked within his armor by Zephyrus’s magic.

While Aemos only stared at her entry, Brusos bowed, and the rest followed. Brusos, Aemos, Lenox, and Aelon—the sum total of the men in this world she could trust.

Danella closed the doors behind her and stalked over to the long mahogany table at the center of the study. Maps of the city, the harbor, and New Rheynia sprawled across the tabletop with tokens representative of garrisons arranged about.

She pursed her lips. I haven’t seen strategy maps since the Treaty—since I was a girl. If she wanted peace, she would need to put an end to their enemies.

She sat at the head of the table. Wooden legs skidded against stone as each took their place around the table. Once they were settled, Danella eyed each of them, but still said nothing until the knock on the door she’d been waiting for finally arrived.

“Enter,” Danella said.

In walked Heclan Allos, Captain of the Vigiles, and Pelitus Batiatus, Commander of the Jackals. They both carried plumed helms under their arms, but while Heclan stood straight and proud in his Vigile whites, Pelitus gimped like an old crone in his black-and-gold uniform. It, and the man himself, lacked their former luster. Having held his office since the Jackals’ inception after the Treaty of 940, the man appeared as wrinkled and disheveled as Salmantica’s streets were riddled with runaway slaves. Danella’s eyes flicked to the obsidian stripes on his golden pauldrons, denoting his station.

She frowned as they came alongside her chair. Perhaps time for a new commander.

The captain and the commander each bowed to her. The dark stubble framing Heclan’s cheeks and the deep bags under his eyes told the tale of a long night spent searching for the fugitives. Valiant as his efforts might have been, effort would only carry him so far. Pelitus, on the other hand, withered and sunken of cheek as he was, appeared as well rested as any man of his years was like to be.

Pelitus rose from his bow, not as low or as straight as Heclan’s. “You summoned, my queen.”

Why else would I suffer your presence? Danella smiled, gesturing the two men to the one remaining chair on the opposite end of the table.

Though Heclan outranked Pelitus, he offered his seat to his elder. Danella could practically hear his bones grinding against one another as he sat at the head of the table across from her. Danella examined him, but his dark brown eyes failed to meet hers, electing instead to admire the cartographers’ skill.

Danella cleared her throat, and Pelitus met her gaze. “Updates, Commander—where are Zephyrus, Laeden, and Markus?”

Pelitus’s lips formed a tight line, but he at least had the stones not to look away despite the bobbing apple in his throat. “We have reason to believe Laeden and Markus are still somewhere within Salmantica.”

Danella cocked her eyebrow. “Reason to believe?”

Pelitus cowed beneath the stares of the other lords. “Laeden and Markus were last seen heading west on Darrow’s Dawn. We lost them when the slave attacked the upper gate.”

Danella pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “You lost them?” She turned on Heclan. “Six preserve me, where were you during this attack?”

Heclan’s deep-set green eyes didn’t blink. “There were several dead upon the rotunda, your grace. Riots in the Temple District. A fire at the Gilded Gauntlet. And the Valtarcians stole a handful of ships from the harbor in their haste to flee following the trial. The Vigiles’ efforts were to protect the people within the walls, not prevent three people from leav—”

Danella scowled and waved an incessant hand. “Enough. Merciful Six, I understand. What happened at the gate, Commander?”

Pelitus’s tongue darted out, licking his thin lips. “The survivors say the gate lifted on its own. Then he attacked the sentries and charged past. We followed him to the isthmus wall, had him surrounded, but he…”

“Out with it,” Aemos said, his gray eye, not covered by the bandage, smoldering like the ashes of his father’s scorched remains.

Pelitus looked at the others seated at the table. He steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. “He burned the wall down. Slew six Jackals, four Sentinels, and three Vigiles.”

Lenox growled. “Chimera’s breath.”

Danella maintained her mask, but a fissure ripped through her. Burned. Down. The wall? Thirteen dead. And he is still out there! It was worse than she thought.

“Why would he risk traveling to Valtarcia?” Aelon asked. “Everything we know of the Uprising suggests they are based in Stockhelm.”

“He’s a Celestic Prophet,” Lenox said. “What do we know about their prophecies?”

“Blasphemy!” Aemos spat. “That’s where you turn?”

Lenox shoved himself to his feet, pointing out the window. “I don’t believe it—they do!”

Aemos grumbled, preparing to snap back, but Danella lifted a hand. Men complain women are too emotional—how ironic. “Level heads will win the day, my lords. Sit down and consider. If the slave is so desperate to go to Valtarcia, how can we capture him?”

Silence.

“Any ideas?” Danella met Pelitus’s eyes. “Dead or alive, I don’t care. What do you need to see him nailed to a Six Arrowed Star?”

Pelitus glanced at Heclan as if searching for aid. “We’re not equipped to capture mages. We hunt down unarmed runaway slaves. What do I need?” He shook his head. “I don’t know—more men, more supplies—would it make a difference?”

Danella sucked air in through her teeth. Not the answer I wanted to hear. “What about the Vigiles. Captain, can you spare more men to apprehend the mage?”

Heclan pursed his lips to a flat line. “With all due respect, your grace, there are enough troubles within our walls. The Vigiles’ duty is to protect and serve the people here. Not hunt a lone mage out there.”

Danella closed her eyes, inhaling slowly. “I didn’t ask what the Vigiles’ duty is. I asked—can you spare the men?”

If Heclan had any emotions, he showed none. “No, your grace. I fear such a tactic would jeopardize the rest of the city. There have been plebeian protests. Looting. We’d be trading trouble out there to trouble within our walls.”

Danella inhaled sharply. Right or not, Heclan’s response was disappointing. She snapped her gaze to Lenox. “What say you? Without additional men or more supplies, how would you deal with the mage?”

Lenox’s expression darkened, and his cheek twitched, but he did not rush to answer. Instead, he only stared until an answer worth speaking formed between his graying temples. “The Celestics believe in the Return—a three-headed prophecy that will return the Judges to Stockhelm.”

“You know an awful lot about blasphemous prophecies,” Aemos said.

Lenox stabbed his index finger at Aemos. “Question my faith again and I’ll cut out your other eye.”

Danella closed her eyes. Must it always come to their pissing contests? When they continued bickering, Danella spoke, her voice a sharpened knife against their blabbering tongues.

“My lords!”

Aemos and Lenox both sat back, muttering under their breaths.

Danella’s gaze flicked back and forth between them. “We must know our enemies, Count Horne, if we are to defeat them.”

Aemos fidgeted in his chair at her chastisement. She beckoned Lenox to continue.

Lenox glared at Aemos. Addressing the map, he pointed towards Valtarcia. “He called himself the Wielder when he led the slave outbreak at the Festival of Stockhelm. The Wielder is to find three Treasures said to be scattered about New Rheynia. If the slave is looking for them, he will need access to transportation. We set up checkpoints along roadways, secure the docks. He’s desperate. Rather than chase him, we can set up and wait for him to come to us.”

Danella nodded. Impressive.

“Securing anything in Valtarcia won’t be easy, my queen,” Brusos said, stroking his chin with his thin fingers. “Reports indicate Duke Hallon was shot upon the rotunda. If he were to perish… his death would lead to anarchy.”

Aelon leaned forward. “Anarchy that Laeden could take complete control of. If he claims his grandfather’s dukedom, the people will rally to him.”

Danella chewed the inside of her cheek, unsure if it were better or worse that Laeden and Zephyrus had split up. We must catch them both. She leaned forward in her chair to rest her elbows on the tabletop, her mind searching for the pieces to complete the puzzle of this situation. “If Laeden is still here in Salmantica, we must make certain he never leaves. If Hallon is gone, it may make things easier. I will go to Valtarcia to treat with Hallon or his brother, Horus. If Hallon is still alive, I will forgive his attack upon the rotunda if he joins Salmantica against the Uprising. If Horus is in control, he may wish to make amends for his brother’s actions.”

Brusos wrung his hands together. “Considering that the mages burned the Valtarcian Harbor, whoever is Duke of Valtarcia will be desperate for ships. The Six know how dependent they are on Salmantic harvests and goods from Stockhelm.”

“If they refuse,” Aemos said, “we can starve them out.”

“Starve them out?” Heclan scoffed. “They are our people.”

Danella didn’t appreciate Heclan’s tone or his forgetful nature. Valtarcia rebelled once before. She held out a hand to settle the Captain of the Vigiles. “They won’t refuse.” She shoved her chair away from the table. “I will depart for Valtarcia at once and ensure we remain united.” The others stood to join her. “Aemos and Aelon, find Laeden. I want his corpse decorating a Star on the rotunda by the time I get back.”

“Yes, my queen,” Aelon said.

Aemos touched the bandage covering his face. “Markus Cassius too.”

“Lenox, you will accompany me to Valtarcia. Secure the roadways and the docks as you suggested. It would be poetic justice for you to catch the false prophet.”

Lenox nodded, but before he could answer, a knock at the door disturbed the closed council. Brusos scurried towards the door. He opened it just enough for his head to peek through. After exchanging a few hushed words, he returned with a pair of scrolls in his hands.

“Apologies, my queen, my lords,” Brusos said, unrolling one of the scrolls. “But perhaps my newest seeds will sprout.”

Pulling the parchment taut, his pale blue eyes scanned the missive.

Aemos cleared his throat. “Duke Chancellor Brusos, perhaps it would be best to read your gossip on your own time.”

No one else acknowledged the young count’s chiding, but as Brusos’s smile grew, the closed council members drew closer.

Danella inclined her head as Brusos finished reading. “How fares your crop?”

“I know where the mage is going,” Brusos said. He strode to Danella and pressed the scroll into her hands.

Danella read through, hardly believing her eyes. The surrounding council members waited at her side, but they would have to wait longer. She reread the scroll, willing the gears of her mind to churn faster. Brusos’s Sentinels interrogated the gladiators of the old Cassius ludus. She reread the last line again and again until the words sank in.

“Zephyrus is the son of Invinius Auros. We believe he may be heading to Stoneside.”

Auros. Of course. A Rheynian slave to free the Celestic people. She put her hand on Brusos’s shoulder. “We march for House Auros. Everyone—as many troops as we can muster. By midday.”

“What about Laeden and Markus?” Aelon asked.

Danella tapped her chin with her index finger. If they are still within the city and they see a force marching east, Laeden would seek another way to Valtarcia. “Take a dozen men in plain garb and wait at the docks. And when you find them, cut out their tongues and nail them to the Star.”

Aelon swallowed but bowed his head. “As you command, my queen.”

Danella nodded. “Brusos, prepare my ship; I will treat with Horus at once. Lenox, take command of the Jackals. Aemos, the Sentinels. Together, you march on Stoneside while Heclan and the Vigiles stamp out the fires within the city. Am I clear?”

Nods and assent answered from each of the lords.

Pelitus stumbled forward. “What about me, your grace—what should I do?”

Danella snorted, examining the withered excuse of a man. “What is it that you said earlier? ‘Would it make a difference?’ I think not.” She spun on her heel and left the study, determined to take down every threat to her kingdom.

Chapter 6

The Dark Abyss

Iylea III

Valencia

Racing thoughts outpaced her galloping heart.

A traitor in Valencia.

She scurried along the corridors of the castle to the Whispering Wall. Although Hameryn had given her leave, Ferrocles had threatened her the last time she was there, and then she hadn’t done anything wrong—at least not intentionally.

This time, however, was a different story. Aiding and abetting a so-called madwoman to unveil a supposed murderer in Valencia, she certainly would not be let off with a warning. Especially since she’d already received one from one of the Gods with potentially the most to hide.

Ferrocles, Hameryn, and Phaebia.

She had thought Salmantic politics were bad. Danella’s plotting, Brusos’s deception, and Ser Daenus’s treachery were nothing compared to the divine realm’s feuds. Though the scale was greater, the motivation likely remained the same: power. Control. And the fear of being without.

Summiting the tower stairs, she drew the glyph on the wall to open the way to the study. The stones retracted, grinding loudly enough to let everyone in Valencia know what she was doing.

Six! Iylea wheeled around, listening, waiting for someone to storm up the stairs after her. No footsteps, no shouting—silence. She allowed herself to breathe, realizing how foolish it was to swear by the Six at this point.

The five, and a murderer amongst them.

Iylea slipped inside and redrew the glyph to close the gap behind her. Sealed inside, she approached the crystalline Whispering Wall. Her breath trembled between her lips, the muscles of her back stiffened, and her stomach flitted like a caged bird. She glanced over her shoulder at the wall, half-expecting it to grind open at any moment.

She wanted to pray for resolve, for hope, for peace—but she knew whose ears such utterances would fall upon. They won’t help me now. Staring at her reflection, she wondered how Laeden would have dealt with this situation if he were here in her place. The mortal and divine realms would be in better hands. So why me?

Because you’d be simple enough to listen to what you were told and do what was asked. They didn’t choose you because you were special. They chose you because you’re nothing more than a dutiful handmaiden.

Iylea closed her eyes and shook her head as if to rattle the words within. As always, her inner monologue struck with the same tone and with the same lash as her mother’s words would.

I am more than what I do. She opened her eyes and met her gaze in the distorted crystal mirror. I can do this. “Arkadia Auros.”

The cerulean tint of the mirror unraveled to reveal the dingy dungeon that held Arkadia. She sat on the stone floor of the cellar, surrounded by the remnants of animal bones. A man rested his head upon her lap as she hummed a somber song and stroked his graying hair. His breath came in labored gasps; his skin clung to his gaunt cheeks—sick, beleaguered, dying.

“Valencia is no place for a mortal,” Hameryn had said.

Iylea recalled petting her father’s head after he came home from the war. That was about all he could do—stare at the ceiling, eat when someone fed him, and bathe when someone washed him. The man who fought in the war never returned home. Only a shell of him did.

Iylea cleared her throat. “Arkadia, it’s me… from the Whispering Wall.”

Arkadia froze, her fingers twitching mid-stroke through the man’s hair. “Clever girl, learning my name.”

“I searched for the dungeons,” Iylea said.

Arkadia chuckled, resuming to caress the man’s head. “But you found me either way.” If the man in her lap could hear her, he made no response. He only lay there. “Does this mean you’ll help me?”

Iylea swallowed. “It means I need to know more.”

Arkadia nodded. “So what’s changed? You didn’t believe me before. You saw something—in the chain?”

Iylea’s fingers hadn’t stopped trembling since she saw the woman’s throat slit and the man’s skull bashed in, but she tightened her hands to fists. “I saw death. Dead Gods. In Valencia.”

“A man and a woman,” Arkadia said. “A broken skull beside the face of an angel?”

A shiver coursed through Iylea’s body. She closed her eyes, and her voice came as a breathy whisper. “Yes.”

“Veritus and Aphelia,” Arkadia said. “Gods who ruled long before the Six of Valencia, the Judges of Celestia, the Corners of Kataan, Neutreen, or any of the others. Once, there were only three—Veritus, Aphelia, and Paxoran.”

Iylea had never heard of them, nor the Corners of Kataan. But I hadn’t heard of Courianne either. “Courianne told you this—while you broke the chain for her?”

“Yes and no,” Arkadia said, inclining her head to the ceiling of the stone box they kept her in. “My Gods, the Corners of Kataan—they discovered a discrepancy within the sands of time. They sent Courianne to equip me to one day save the mortal realm.”

Iylea’s throat tightened. When rain does not fall, fires consume the earth, and blood comes for all… “That day is coming.”

“Yes, the Age of the End.” Arkadia’s head hung heavy. “But now I’m here. And Courianne is dead.”

“But who if not Aquarius, and why?”

Arkadia snorted. “Wrathful as he may have been, it wasn’t Aquarius—regardless of what the other Gods say.” She paused, no longer stroking the man’s hair. Her fingers furled to a fist before they released. “I should have used the Whispering Wall. If I would have, they never would have known. Courianne would still be here, and maybe…”

Iylea shook her head, stepping closer to the mirror, wishing she could comfort Arkadia. “What did they do to her? To you?”

Arkadia took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Do you remember when you were first summoned to Valencia?”

Iylea’s fingers brushed against her neck. Do I remember Aemos’s sword decapitating me? She swallowed, trying to remember something she’d spent the last weeks hoping to forget. An empty black abyss, a glimpse of light far away as if I were at the bottom of a well.

“I watched him grow up… for years,” Arkadia said. “He forgot his parents, who he was, who he was supposed to be. I made Courianne connect me to him, so I could remind him, but... they killed her. And when I emerged from the connection, surrounded by darkness, I drifted towards the light, but that light brought me here.”

Iylea’s shoulders slumped. She rested her hand against the mirror, unable to console Arkadia. I can help. I will help.

Arkadia resumed caressing the man’s head. “I came to Valencia to break the chains, to save my husband from this fate.” She gestured to the empty walls and scattered bones on the floor of her stone prison. “Now we’re both trapped. And my son is no closer to preventing the mortal realm from wasting away than his father.” She stroked the man’s sunken cheek.

“Can’t you connect to him like you did to me?” Iylea asked.

Arkadia huffed. “I left a part of me in the Whispering Wall so I could connect back if the traitor God caught me and brought another breaker to replace me, but I can’t communicate with the mortal realm from here.”

Iylea bowed her head. She can’t, but I can. She rested her hand on the mirror, then looked back to the door, recalling her conversation with Hameryn. If I break the links of the chain, he will reunite me with Laeden.

It would be easier—safer—to trust the Gods than a woman rotting in a cell, yet guilt twisted in her stomach like a knife wound.

You are so weak. So selfish.

Iylea ignored the voice that had haunted her since she was a girl and returned her gaze to the mirror. Arkadia sat with the man she loved, watching him die, knowing all she needed was a little bit of help.

She knew what Laeden would do if their roles had been reversed.

Iylea swallowed, grounding her feet as if to stamp out the embers of apprehension sparking all around her. Not this time. I won’t let fear stop me.

“I will help you, Arkadia. Tell me what to say and I will speak to your son.”

Chapter 7

Shield the Wicked

Laeden

Valtarcia

One man was responsible for every plume of smoke that rose to mar the blue sky and stain the white clouds: the king.

Pyres in the streets burned Celestic symbols. Fires throughout the slums destroyed people’s homes. Infernos upon the Haunted Hollow, where supposed mages were burned alive upon the Six Arrowed Star.

My brother’s orders. My Sentinels’ work.

After being chased through the streets and only narrowly escaping the Jackals and Sentinels by hiding in the cistern beneath the city, he’d woken to this nightmare of a reality. He’d put Markus through all Six Hells to allow Zephyrus a head start on the Sentinels and Jackals chasing him in the hopes that he would make it to his ancestral home. Laeden wasn’t certain of Zephyrus’s lineage, but the thought of it churned his stomach.

If a prince can be jailed, framed, and then hunted as a traitor, is it impossible to believe that the son of an earl could end up enslaved?

The thought stuck with Laeden as he and Markus followed the trail of bodies left in Zephyrus’s wake. After his scuffle with the mage in the streets, Zephyrus took advantage of Laeden and Markus’s distraction and went to the city limits, slaughtering his pursuers and leaving the isthmus wall in ashes.

At least that was one fire that wasn’t started by Damascus.

After shaving their heads and stealing travel-worn cloaks to obscure themselves, Laeden hoped they might slip past the snapping jaws of Salmantica’s search parties to follow Zephyrus to House Auros. But as a large force, greater than any that had amassed since the war, marched through the upper gate towards the isthmus, Laeden realized following Zephyrus would only put him in the beast’s mouth.

Jackal yellow and black strode side by side with Sentinel blue and gray. Once, he viewed the Jackals as a necessary entity that kept the people safe from the violence of escaped slaves. Now, he realized his folly.

Laeden spat on the ground.

“If they suspect we’re still with him,” Markus said, “we should go the opposite way.” The two leaned against the wall of the lower gate, hoods raised and heads bowed. “With how many men are in formation, there might be only a handful left in the city. If we avoid the Vigiles, we could head to the docks, steal a small vessel, and sail straight to Northridge Harbor.”

Laeden massaged the scruff of his chin and shook his head. “I told him I’d meet him at House Auros.”

“Laeden,” Markus said, separating himself from the wall and closing the short distance between them. “There’s nothing for us at Stoneside. Six Hells—there’s nothing for him either.” He nodded his hooded head toward the army of swords marching in search of Zephyrus. “If we go, we might as well return to Sentigard and present ourselves to the queen.”

Laeden tugged at the hem of the sleeve of his ragged roughspun cloak as the procession marched past. I gave my word. He saved my life. He cleared his throat, knowing Markus wouldn’t like what he was about to say. “It was the queen who arranged the attempt on my father’s life. The same woman who ordered Iylea’s death and orchestrated the farce that was my trial. And I will be damned if I run and hide while she—”

Laeden bit back his words. He’d raised his voice. He and Markus shuffled their feet and observed their surroundings to make certain no one took notice. To their fortune, a crowd had gathered around the lower gate to Marstead, where a man with a cart of cabbages argued with the sentries who refused to grant him passage.

“See reason, Laeden,” Markus whispered. “The path to justice is through Valtarcia. We must get back to Duke Hallon. With the Ridge Knights, we can hope to stand against her, but it would be madness for us to take on an entire army. Yes, he spared your life, but that’s no reason to cast it aside just to—”

“Just to what?” Laeden asked. “Save a slave—a mage?”

Markus raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “I was going to say, ‘Just to keep your word,’ but that too. Maybe you forgot, but the mages killed your father.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well they certainly abducted my sister, and you can deny it, but I know they murdered my father.” Markus’s face appeared thin in his hood without his dark hair to fill it out, but the angle of his brow and the tension of his jaw portrayed no frailty.

“I will not die to save him, Laeden. I already told you I will not join the Uprising. I’m going to Valtarcia, and if you don’t want to be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star, you should too.”

Laeden bit his lip. His heart and his head wrestled with the concept of his friend and his most trusted adviser not remaining at his side. But he understood.

He let out a deep breath and patted Markus on the arm. “You are right, and I understand. Following a force this size wouldn’t be wise. The only other way to Valtarcia is by boat. Once we get there, you can join Hallon and Horus, but I will be heading to Stoneside.”

Markus snorted, but his features softened. “Then I suppose I have until then to convince you not to throw your life away.”

Laeden grunted. His life was already forfeit; he didn’t have one left to throw away. He’d lost his mother as a boy when the Treaty of 940 annulled his parents’ marriage. He and his Sentinels failed to protect his father from his stepmother’s cruelty. And now his own men wanted him dead. They didn’t know he was already gone. He died the moment he let Aemos murder Iylea.

Honor and justice. That’s all I have left. If I can help Zephyrus, if I can stop Danella… I can make this right.

Markus rested his hand on Laeden’s shoulder. “We must get to the docks.”

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Danella has always been a step ahead. Is this what she expects me to do? He met Markus’s imploring stare. “If I were in my right mind, is that what I would suggest?”

“Yes,” Markus insisted. “We’ll set a distraction and take as small a ship as we can find.”

Laeden nodded. “Then that is precisely what Danella expects us to do.”

He averted his attention to the man with his cart of cabbages as the guards turned him away and dispersed the gathered crowd.

As Captain of the Sentinels, Laeden had ordered strict inspections to sniff out Count Elrod Horne’s black powder operation, but there was always one cargo he had trouble stopping. Everything detestable and despised under the Facets of Perfection was sanctioned outside the protection of the city walls on the lowland peninsula of Marstead. Of course, there were still taverns and brothels within Salmantica for the plebs, but the prudish patricians kept their vices far enough away not to draw scrutiny, but close enough to still be within reach. Laeden had argued with his father about shutting Marstead down altogether, but he had said it was a concession the patricians wouldn’t make. Therefore, all flesh peddlers had to obtain and regularly recertify their cargo, but were given extreme leniency at the gate to allow for discreet passage.

“Flesh peddlers,” Laeden said.

Markus balked. “Pardon?”

Laeden leaned closer. “Flesh peddlers. Each caravan has to receive Sentinel certification to pass the gate. We wait for a wagon with the Sentinel shield sigil stamped on the side and board it. Once in Marstead, we can secure a vessel to take us to Valtarcia.”

Markus shook his head and looked up to the sun’s position, high in the sky. “That cargo only moves at night.”

“Then we have plenty of time to figure out how to sneak onto one.”

This close to Marstead, bribes went a long way. Though Laeden had nothing but the stolen clothes on his back, Markus had everything he’d brought to Laeden’s trial as an apprentice of the Royal Master at Arms. Whether it was Markus’s gold that bought their silence, or they didn’t recognize him in plebeian travel garb with shorn hair, it purchased the information they needed to find which seedy brothel-keeper had a score to move and where to intercept it.

While most of the city’s forces searched for Zephyrus, Laeden and Markus had little difficulty remaining undetected. With the last of Markus’s gold, they bought passage on a wagon marked with the Sentinels’ shield.

As the sun began to set in the western sky, they boarded the covered wagon stamped with the Sentinels’ seal of approval. The Sentinels’ words, “Shield the Righteous,” mocked him. Laeden enjoyed none of the irony of boarding a wagon packed shoulder to shoulder with victims of a different kind of slave trade. Far be it from righteousness. But he’d stomach the dishonor if it got him out of Salmantica safely.

Keeping his head down and his eyes low, Laeden sat between a plebeian man and woman—both young and attractive by conventional means. The rest of the passengers were similarly fair. None chained, none coerced—all demure.

Surely, they aren’t willing participants?

But no one possessed the rotten teeth of whiteroot extract or the bleary eyes that accompanied Lovers’ Dream dozers. They weren’t drugged into submission. They weren’t the slaves he’d expected them to be. This was a choice.

Why would they choose this life—to subject their bodies to patrician whims beyond the city and the protection of law?

The threadbare shifts and patched tunics stained with soot suggested they’d once hailed from the slums. Few raised in the slums ever left. The opportunities were few and far between, but the one thing they could hold onto was the fact that at least they weren’t slaves.

A sour taste bubbled into Laeden’s throat.

They might not be slaves in the strictest sense of the word, but if they feel that this choice is the best opportunity available to them, then they are enslaved all the same—to a failed society, a broken system, and corrupt leaders. Myself among them.

Laeden’s head fell into his palms as the horse-drawn wagon wobbled into motion.

I judge them when I’m part of the reason they are here. While patricians sip wine and discuss the current fashions, which tourney knights they support, or how their business ventures fare, the plebeians suffer. The slaves suffer.

Before Zephyrus, Laeden only saw the line between Salmantica and Valtarcia. He saw the merit of gladiatorial games to please the plebeians long enough for them not to realize that they were barely free themselves. All so patricians like me can retain control.

A warm pressure massaged a light circle on his back.

“It’s going to be okay,” the woman beside him whispered. “It’ll be better out there. You’ll see. Things will turn around.”

Laeden bit his lip. More irony. She comforts me when I represent the system that put her here, that never created opportunities for her to get out, and judged her for not being able to.

“Shield the righteous,” Laeden said aloud.

Markus, sitting across from him, nudged Laeden’s shin with his boot, but Laeden didn’t care. He had thought it ironic that the Sentinel seal protected prostitutes being smuggled into the lawlessness of Marstead. But the seal didn’t protect them—it damned them and protected the people profiting off of them. These women and men were being exploited for their bodies with the crown’s discretionary blessing.

The Sentinels shield the wicked. Not the righteous.

Laeden lifted his head to meet the eyes of the woman consoling him. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a loose braid. Her gray-green eyes searched him—not as if she recognized him, but as if she were looking for the source of his pain.

Laeden put his hand on her knee. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Markus cleared his throat, his eyes wide as if to ask, “What in Six Hells are you doing?”

Laeden ignored him.

The woman before him jutted her lower lip out and shrugged. “No?”

Laeden shook his head. More irony. Here I am hiding myself thinking these people care that Damascus and Danella are after me. That they’ll rat me out to put themselves ahead. Laeden looked around the wagon to see if anyone would recognize him. But if they did, they made no reaction.

They don’t know or don’t care. And why should they when they’re worried about putting food in their bellies?

Laeden rubbed the scruff of his chin. Zephyrus had opened his eyes to the mess. He wouldn’t close them now. He wanted to promise the people in the wagon that he would stop the patricians from preying on the plebeians, that he would topple the injustices of New Rheynia and bring about the dawn of a new age. But he couldn’t.

He returned his gaze to the woman who had rubbed his back. “Gratitude. You’re right; it is going to be okay.”

Laeden straightened his posture, leaning back against the wall of the wagon. A second chance at life, an opportunity to bring true honor and justice to this world. I will not let you down, Zephyrus.

The wagon creaked to a stop, and the horses whinnied, hoofing the ground.

The lower gate.

Markus closed his eyes in silent prayer, but Laeden turned his ear to the wall.

The two gate guards spoke to their driver. After brief pleasantries and a tense, moment-too-long pause, the cranking gears signaled the opening of the gate.

Markus let out a deep breath, and Laeden allowed the tension in his back to dissipate as the horses hauled them into motion once again. The gates closed behind them; they had made it out of Salmantica.

Out of direct danger, at least for the moment, Laeden’s mind drifted to Zephyrus and the army after him. His magic had saved Laeden’s life twice already, but his abilities came at a cost. Fatigue aside, a stab wound to the stomach would slow him down. If he managed to get far enough ahead, no one would look for him at House Auros.

Laeden still couldn’t believe it. Vykanicus Auros. Heir to Stoneside. A mage.

Bouncing along with the wagon, Laeden closed his eyes. It would be a while before they arrived at the coast where Marstead’s evening district awaited them. But just like every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Iylea’s face in his hands.

Not as he held her in life, but in death.

Blood dripped from the base of her neck where Aemos’s sword parted her head from her shoulders, separating Laeden from his love. He set out to defeat the Revivalists to protect his father, but he failed. He distanced himself from Iylea so he could focus on his duty, but in doing so, he lost them both.

If only I had listened.

Laeden’s ears popped, and a tender feminine voice whispered, “Be still, my love.”

Laeden flinched away from the woman beside him, but his sudden movement startled her and Markus. She examined him with a wide-eyed inquisitive stare, and Markus scanned the inside of the wagon as if searching for danger.

“Apologies,” Laeden said. “I thought I—”

“Be still, Laeden,” the voice said again.

This time, Laeden froze, and a cold sweat beaded on his brow. I’m not hearing this. It’s in my head. A lump formed in his throat, but he sat back, recognizing the speaker for the first time.

“Iylea?” he whispered.

“It’s me, Laeden.”

The lump in his throat swelled. Heat rose to his cheeks, and water welled in his eyes. He never thought he’d hear her say his name again.

He leaned his head back against the wall of the wagon. A tear trickled down his cheek to fall to his roughspun cloak. A thousand questions invaded his mind, but before any could find their way to his lips, she spoke again.

“There’s something I must tell you.”

Chapter 8

Heir of Stoneside

Zephyrus III
Valtarcia

Smoke rose in the west as the sun climbed the eastern sky. He trudged onward, too exhausted to bother shielding his eyes, electing instead to close them to the sun’s fury.

Keep going. One foot in front of the other. To the mountains. Just get to the mountains.

He didn’t know where he was going, but with dead Salmantics behind him, a steep plummet to the raging sea on his right, and a sheer cliff face to his left, he had only one path. It was a miracle he’d made it this far. Stabbed by Lenox, chased by Jackals, beaten by Ceres, chased by more Jackals, and surrounded at the isthmus wall—Zephyrus was lucky to be alive.

He wasn’t safe yet; he needed to keep going, but the lack of sleep, the degree of his injuries, and the burden of magic fatigue threatened to drop him every time he lifted his foot.

He barely remembered running from the Jackals, reaching Salmantica’s city limits, or burning down the isthmus wall dividing Salmantica and Valtarcia. It felt more like a dream than reality—more like a nightmare—but the entire day had. He wanted to give up, but he couldn’t.

“The world can only be freed through you,” his mother had said. Not from the Rheynians… from the Gods.

He had difficulty imagining contending against the Gods. After all, he’d failed to free so many enslaved people.

Patrus died before my eyes. Jecht and Cerik are Judges-only-know where. I left Laeden and Markus. And Vykinallia…

The thought of her hand upon his chest and her lips against his straightened his stride. He felt for Vykinallia’s amethyst ring sewn into the inner waist of his britches. The gemstone dug into his skin, but the pressure brought him comfort.

She’s still alive. I know she is. She must be.

Captured by the Uprising after the assault on the Valtarcian Harbor during the New Rheynian Games, Vykinallia had only been gone a few days, but in the hands of those hurt by people like her, she was in danger. He didn’t want to imagine what they were doing to her.

He doubted they nailed people to Six Arrowed Stars, but the Uprising had killed King Varros. What would they do to a woman who owned slaves?

The Uprising’s justice will be no better—no more just—than the Rheynians’. We’re no better than they are. No one was innocent in this world. The trail of bodies in Zephyrus’s wake proved that he certainly wasn’t.

Zephyrus halted and opened his eyes. Orange light pierced through the purple clouds, illuminating the sky. Crashing waves thrashed the isthmus’s cliffs below, and the sea’s salty breeze ruffled the hairs that spilled free from his loose bun. But despite the ever-flowing current of change, one thing remained constant.

“The world can only be freed through you,” Zephyrus said aloud, echoing his mother’s words. The world. Not the Celestics—the world.

Freeing the slaves from the Rheynians would be a temporary justice, but what came after would be war, chaos, devastation. Perhaps they’d win, but nothing would be solved. The scales would tip, and the pendulum would swing—the victors might change, but balance would never reign.

“That’s what you meant, isn’t it, Mother?”

The wind whistled, but Zephyrus didn’t interpret that as divine intervention.

He took a deep breath, drawing a spike of pain along his ribs, but whether that was from Lenox, the fight on the rotunda, or Ceres, he had no idea.

“Mother, if you can hear me…”

No response.

His vision swam, and his balance wavered. So tired. He dropped to one knee and crossed his arms atop his other thigh to rest his forehead against his wrists.

“Become the man you were born to be,” his mother had said, but all he wanted to do was sleep. To dream. He’d dreamt of her before, but he had dismissed her because he thought she was a slaver.

“I should have listened to you. I didn’t know the truth.” He shook his head, but the motion sent the ground tossing and turning like the ocean’s tides. His hand caught him just before his face hit the hard-packed, earthen road. To steady his vertigo, he closed his eyes.

Just a moment of rest. Then I’ll keep going.

Dreams replaced reality before he could regain his stability. No longer passed out on the road between two warring kingdoms, a young Vykanicus lay in bed, his mother sitting at his side.

“Tell me the story of Tharseo again,” said Vykanicus.

His mother smiled, but the expression never met her eyes. As a boy of seven, Vykanicus didn’t notice, but Zephyrus’s conscious mind saw the burdens of loss written on her face.

“You could tell me how Tharseo slew the beasts with the Treasures in your sleep. No, tonight, you will hear a new story.”

Vykanicus clapped his hands before settling himself into his linens and leaning close.

“This is a story that hasn’t reached its end yet. Is that okay?” his mother asked.

Vykanicus twisted his lips as if considering the acceptability of a story without a proper ending. “Will the hero triumph in the end?”

His mother chuckled, but a tinge of sadness stained the resolute note. “I said this isn’t Tharseo’s story, but maybe—I hope so.” She examined her son. “Maybe you’re not old enough ye—”

“No, no, no!” Vykanicus waved his hands. “I am. I want to hear it.”

This time, his mother smiled in earnest. “Very well. Once upon a time, in a distant land, there were four Gods who loved their people—Gods of Sun, Moon, Time, and Space—but they needed help. You see, one jealous, greedy God wanted the powers of the other Gods for themself and began stealing power from them. So the Sun, Moon, Time, and Space Gods chose a child, only a few years older than you, to protect them from the selfish God. To become Champion of the Nine.”

Vykanicus narrowed his brow. “How could a child protect the Gods?”

His mother shrugged. “The child didn’t know either, but when the Gods ask for help, you help. So the child did what they told her. But just like the child was chosen before she was ready, she had to choose another before he was ready to do what she could not.”

Zephyrus gasped, waking up face down in the dirt. The wound in his stomach burned like fire, and a cold sheen of sweat clung to his skin. Groaning, he rolled to his side, to the protest of his ribs.

The mountains rose to the sky, but embedded within the cliff face, a stone fortress overlooked the isthmus and the sea beyond. Zephyrus pressed himself to sit upright and rubbed his bleary eyes. Despite the haze clouding Zephyrus’s vision, he was certain of what he saw.

House Auros.

Mind fuzzy, body exhausted, he climbed to his feet.

“The world can only be freed through you,” his mother had said. Not from the Rheynians. From the Gods. One jealous, greedy God. His thoughts drifted to Paxoran, who had introduced himself as Vykannis the Brave, then the Last Judge of Celestia who had liberated him from Paxoran’s influence. Is Paxoran the jealous, greedy God?

Not understanding what his dream meant or how it connected to what his mother shared with him on the rotunda, he knew that his future could only be found by understanding his past.

From the road, a narrow stairwell cleaved through the cliff. Limping towards the base, he set one foot in front of the other, and one step at a time, Zephyrus climbed. Every time he summited one flight and reached a clearing, he’d find another set of stairs, steeper than the last. Layered in terraces that perhaps once yielded crops, the cliff was littered with overgrown brambles decorated with winter roses and laced with thorns. Persevering through his fatigue, the fortress grew the nearer he came.

The sun had passed its zenith by the time Zephyrus ascended the winding stair to stand before the keep. Set deeper into the mountainside than it appeared from the isthmus, the fortress was far larger than he had expected. Towering double doors inlaid with an inscription of an upright sword piercing a flaming heart stood before him.

This is it.

Along either side of the door, tall columns held the balcony he stood upon in his dreams, overlooking what was once a grand courtyard. Vines grew in the absence of people, snaking along and covering the entire cliffside.

Zephyrus’s exhaustion subsided in the face of returning to his past. He walked to the front entrance and placed his hand on the sigil carved into the wooden door.

Zephyrus took a deep breath. “Mother, Father—I’m home.”

He pushed the doors open and stepped inside.

Expecting to find it ransacked or destroyed by time, Zephyrus couldn’t have been more wrong. Dusty, unkempt, and covered in cobwebs, the Auros Keep otherwise appeared frozen in time.

Similar to how the entrance to the Cassius villa immortalized their successes in the arena with gilded weaponry, depictions of their victories, or carved busts of their champions—House Auros celebrated their smithing. Lining the walls, the forgemaster’s wares hung in nearly every shape and style. Great swords, long swords, short swords, curved daggers, stilettos, sicas, axes, spears, tridents—every weapon conceivable hung on the wall.

Leaving the front door ajar to allow light to filter in, Zephyrus examined the craftsmanship. Simple, utilitarian, and vicious, the Auros forge displayed nothing nearly as fancy as Zephyrus had witnessed at the tournament during the Festival of Stockhelm or even in the gladiatorial arena. Nothing golden, nothing jeweled, nothing engraved.

“Claim the sword your father forged for you,” his mother had said.

Zephyrus lifted a gladius from its place on the wall and gripped the black leather wrapped around the hilt. Exceptionally balanced, from its tip to the rounded pommel. He held it out in front of him and swung it with practiced grace. Though the blade felt right in his palm as he whisked it through the musty air, this was not the blade his mother spoke of. It was here—somehow, he could sense it. Like the awareness of something behind him without needing to turn to see it, he could feel the sword yearning, but in the distance.

Glimpses of memories flooded his mind. The first time he held a sword, training with his father, a blade he sharpened and polished every night before bed.

On the precipice of purpose, Zephyrus swallowed. He placed the gladius back on the wall and entered deeper into the keep. His footsteps echoed off the stone as he walked beyond the light from the open door. The foyer opened into an atrium, and though sunlight slipped through the windows, the abandoned fortress was consumed by a dreary gloom. Hearths lined the walls, while long tables ornamented the rectangular atrium. Suspended from a chain in the high vaulted ceilings hung a candle chandelier.

Zephyrus balanced the scales, allowing heat to build within him. A glow of fire formed in his palm, and a coldness entered his bones. Controlling the flame, Zephyrus raised the orb of fire toward the chandelier. The orb fractured into dozens of tiny fireflies, igniting the old wicks and casting the atrium in dancing light.

As if the walls of House Auros could speak, a moment flashed before Zephyrus’s eyes. A living dream replaced the empty hall. Laughter filled the vaulted ceilings as Rheynians and Helms alike lined the long stone tables. Smiths, farmers, and servers sat together—eating, drinking, singing, and dancing.

A smile split Zephyrus’s cracked lips.

His father, several years younger than he had dreamt, raised a goblet. Men and women cheered all around him, and their names populated his mind at the sight of their faces. Talius, a blademaster who had trained Zephyrus as a boy with every weapon he was able to lift. Unari, who tilled the terraces and always gave him the first figs she harvested. Dankar and Sett, the burly blacksmith brothers who always sang the loudest. Then Zephyrus identified Iberion, the forgemaster from his dream. The stern glare and challenging questions he had asked in the dream seemed out of character to the man of merriment he now saw dancing on the tabletop. And…

Patrus.

Patrus’s voice filled the vacant hall with a drinking song that everyone, including his parents, joined in on. He appeared much younger than even how Zephyrus remembered him at the Arcane Templar.

He sat in a chair at the middle of the long stone table, observing those around him. In his heart of hearts, he knew he was in an empty room. There was much to be done, but he was too tired to move, and in the presence of family and friends, he never wanted to leave. He remained seated, enjoying a sliver of the life he could have had if not for the war.

Moments stretched long as the candles in the chandelier burned out their wicks, and the sunlight through the windows simmered to an orange glow.

“I wish you were here,” Zephyrus said to the empty room. “I wish all of you were here.”

The living dream faded, and the ensuing silence suffocated, leaving Zephyrus alone in a desolate feast hall.

They’re probably all dead.

Zephyrus closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. The memories were worse than never remembering. The growing tally of all he’d lost weighed upon his shoulders, but there was no changing it. The only path was forward.

Find the sword. Redeem the fallen.

He located a torch bracketed to the wall and set it ablaze. Seizing the torch, Zephyrus set off down the corridor at the end of the atrium. He strode past the chambers where the laborers slept, reached the stairwell, and climbed.

The stale air of the atrium now felt alive. The hair on his arms stood on end, his heartbeat quickened, and his palms began to sweat.

Zephyrus climbed the stairs, three at a time. His thighs burned in protest against the effort, but after enduring his wounds and magic fatigue, he would not falter. Supporting himself on the stone walls of the winding staircase, he reached the top floor of the fortress and pressed onward, past two doors, until he arrived at the third.

My chambers.

Stopping at the doorway, Zephyrus leaned against the jamb.

His ears popped, and a woman’s voice said, “Vykanicus Auros.”

Zephyrus’s breath caught. Mother? He shoved the door open and burst inside. His eyes darted—left, right.

No one.

Zephyrus halted in the doorway. “Mother—is that you?”

Nothing. It was just his vacant room, exactly how he remembered it. Bed made, a chest at the foot of it. Bookshelves lined the walls everywhere a window wasn’t. And one south-facing window that, if he peeked out at the right angle, revealed the towers of Northridge.

Zephyrus entered, still searching for the source of the voice.

His chambers were empty. He placed the torch in a sconce on the wall, then approached the bookshelf. Laden with thick tomes bound in leather, it seemed out of place in a child’s room, but he remembered it well.

While most of the books were neatly arranged, one book remained askew. With his thumb, he wiped the dust away from the spine. Words embossed into the leather read, The Corners of Kataan by Ark of the Nameless Isles. Zephyrus slid the book from its place on the shelf and opened it. Dried out by the burdens of time, the binding crinkled. Zephyrus blew dust from the pages, but as he leaned closer to read, his ears popped, and he heard the voice again.

“Vykanicus Auros.”

Zephyrus closed the book and wheeled around, but again—no one. He leaned out the south-facing window, half-expecting to find someone clinging to the outer wall, but aside from the departing embers of sunset, no one was there. He placed the book down on the bed and tried to channel as he once had with the Gods warring in his head. Still, nothing.

Find the sword.

A vial of oil and a whetstone rested on the bedside table, but no blade. Zephyrus approached the chest at the foot of the bed. The sigil of House Auros was encircled by a ring and burned into the flat top of the rectangular wooden chest. Black iron fortified the corners and latch, similar to the weapon chests that housed the wooden practice swords at Cassius’s ludus.

With a twitch in his fingers, Zephyrus twisted the knob and lifted the latch. He pulled back the lid to see what contents lay stored within. Searching the chest at the foot of his bed, he found children’s clothes and boots, a suit of leather armor of equal size, and a satchel.

But no sword.

Zephyrus slid the boots and armor aside. He was meant to be here. The sword his mother spoke of had to be close. A cold sweat dampened his brow. His breath grew more ragged each time he moved the contents of the chest aside, but each attempt failed to unearth the sword.

A growl resonated in his throat. It must be here. Somewhere.

With greater urgency, Zephyrus tossed the clothes, armor, boots, and satchel onto the floor. He stared at the empty chest, but examined closer. Running his fingers along the smooth coarse wood, his nails caught a curved seam in the planks.

A false bottom.

He licked his lips, tracing his fingertip along the hidden compartment’s edge; it was a circle—far too small to hold a sword, but whatever lay within must have been important enough to hide. After trying and failing to pry it open, Zephyrus searched the outside of the chest for a mechanism that might release the compartment. He pressed against the black iron corners, pulled the handles on either side of the chest, and inspected every plank in its construction.

Zephyrus ran his hand through his hair, eyeing the circular compartment in the center of the chest. Narrowing his brow, Zephyrus closed the chest to take a closer look at the top. The black ring around his family crest was the same size as the compartment.

When he placed his hand on the sigil, it rotated. Stifling a gasp, Zephyrus continued spinning the symbol until a resounding click came from inside the chest. He flung the lid back to find the false bottom lifted.

His stomach fluttered as he removed the circular door to the compartment.

Inside rested the hilt of a sword attached to a brown leather harness. With a straight golden crossguard and round gilded pommel emblazoned with the balanced scale of Celestia, it made the forged swords of the atrium seem like children’s toys. Zephyrus gripped the banded brown leather along the hilt and held it up before him. Recognition blossomed within, like reuniting with an old friend.

Once secured within his palm, a blade materialized before him. As if sprouting from the crossguard, a glimmering white gleam elongated, illuminating the room in radiant light. In awe, Zephyrus basked in its glow until it faded to reveal a silver blade. He reached out his other hand to touch the sleek steel. Inlaid with gold along the fuller were letters written in the old tongue of Stockhelm.

He recognized the word Timaeus, but its meaning, if he ever knew it before, escaped him.

A memory returned to him. His father stood over the forge beside his mother, a dagger in her hand.

“Where I’m from,” his mother said, “it is customary to forge our weapons from the ashes of our ancestors. To carry their blood and bone into battle with you, so that they might share in the honor of your victories.”

She drew the dagger across her thumb and a bright bloom of blood followed its edge. Holding her hand out over the forge, she pinched her thumb with her forefinger, allowing the blood to fall into the forge. It bubbled and sizzled at her offering.

His father held out his hand for his mother. The dagger flicked across his thumb, and more blood flowed into the forge. “This blade will only answer to those who are part of it. Do you wish to be part of the sword, Vykanicus?”

Zephyrus marveled at the memory, but his ears popped, and the voice invaded his thoughts.

“Vykanicus Auros!”

Zephyrus spun, leveling his blade. His eyes darted back and forth, but no one was there. He’d heard enough voices in his head to know what was happening, but this time felt different.

Zephyrus steeled his breath. “Here I am!”

“No,” the voice said. “You’re Zephyrus, not Vykanicus.”

Zephyrus lowered his magic-forged weapon. “I am both. Who are you?”

A pause hung in the room before the voice cleared her throat and spoke again. “It doesn’t matter who I am. I have a message for you—a message from your mother.”

Zephyrus stiffened. He stepped towards the center of the room as if she were going to reappear as she had on the rotunda. Why does she need a messenger now when she didn’t before?

Like smoke filling the air, dread seeped into his chest. Zephyrus scanned the room, searching for the messenger. “Where is she?”

“There isn’t time,” the messenger whispered, her voice tight. “There is a God in Valencia killing the other Gods. When rain does not fall, fires consume the earth, and blood comes for all—the Age of the End has come. Aquarius is dead, so it will not rain. If they kill Incinerae and Moterra too, the mortal realm will fall to chaos.”

Zephyrus pursed his lips. The world can only be freed through you. Not from the Rheynians... the Gods. Zephyrus’s fingers squeezed the hilt of his sword. His mother’s words corroborated the messenger’s warning. Yet here in his ancestral home—in his own bedroom—overwhelmed by memories and visions of his past, his first concerns were not the fate of the Gods or what would become of the mortal realm. He thought of his father’s rebellion, Patrus’s commitment to the Arcane Templar, Laeden’s intention to join the Uprising, and Vykinallia’s desire to free the slaves.

He wanted to speak with his mother. He wanted to know the truth. The whole truth.

“Where is my mother?” Zephyrus asked.

The messenger grumbled. “I told you. There isn’t—”

“Is she in danger?”

“The Gods have taken her prisoner.”

Zephyrus inhaled, but no breath filled his lungs. He forced himself to swallow, tension building between his teeth.

“I will try to free her, but seeing as you’ve found the sword, now you must go to Tharseo’s Bastion. There’s a relic containing the powers of Gods from a distant land. You’ll need every advantage to ascend to Valencia and defeat the traitor God… once we figure out who it is.”

Zephyrus seethed. For months with no memories, all he had were his ideals. He’d survived and forged unlikely bonds—with Jecht and Cerik, Vykinallia, and even Laeden.

I can’t just abandon them, but…

“When the Gods ask for help, you help,” his mother had said.

“Burn me,” Zephyrus said, realizing that this had been his fate all along—to carry out what his mother could not. The Champion of the Nine. He recalled Patrus speaking of it, but it still meant nothing to him.

Go to Tharseo’s Bastion.

In an instant, he was transported back in time to the temple. The warning horns echoed off of the walls. The slavers’ swords blocked their path to freedom. And Threyna died in his arms—at least so he thought. But perhaps he could help the woman trying to free his mother.

“I think the traitor God is named Paxoran,” Zephyrus said. “He tried communicating with—”

“We know that,” the voice said. “We don’t know who he’s disguised as. Leave that to us. You go to Tharseo’s Bastion.”

Zephyrus grunted, again feeling helpless. “Once I arrive at Tharseo’s Bastion, how do I find this relic?”

“The Seers of Celestia are protecting it. Tell them—”

Her voice cut off in a gasp.

Zephyrus blinked. “Hello?”

No answer.

Time stood still, and each moment of silence dragged on. He strained his ears, listening, waiting, but no reply came.

“Tip the scales, you can’t—”

Voices.

Not the voice of the messenger, but of men. Many men.

His eyes widened, and he ducked, sneaking to the window to peer outside. A procession of torch-bearing, yellow-clad Jackals and blue-garbed Sentinels ascended the stairs, filing into lines within the courtyard.

Zephyrus gasped, retreating backwards.

How did they find me? Laeden and Markus are the only ones I told. If they were caught and tortured to speak…

The thought of Laeden being nailed to the Six Arrowed Star on the rotunda sent shivers down his spine, but if he didn’t act now, he’d be right beside him soon.

Sweat clung to his back and beaded on his brow. Zephyrus glanced back out the window. A hundred Jackals and Sentinels already filled the courtyard, with more ascending the steps.

I can’t fight my way out of this.

He squeezed the hilt of the sword. As if it sensed it was not needed, the blade retracted into nothingness. Without time to marvel, he secured the hilt to the leatherbound hip holster from the chest and fastened it around his waist.

There must be an escape route.

The thought of running—abandoning his home to the Jackals—made his chest tighten.

He stalked around the bed to look out the window facing east. The steep drop down the side of the fortress sent his stomach tumbling. If I climb down, perhaps I could slip past them. It wouldn’t have been an easy climb on his best day, but injured and fatigued as he was, such a descent could be a death sentence.

“Vykanicus Auros!” a voice shouted from the courtyard. “I know you’re here.”

The use of his proper name choked the air from the room. Zephyrus snuck back over to the south-facing window and glimpsed out.

Drenched in the glow of torchlight and dressed in a yellow surcoat with black-striped pauldrons, Lenox stood on the front steps of House Auros, his arms outstretched.

Zephyrus’s breath came short and sharp, his lips curling back in a snarl.

“Would you prefer I call you Zephyrus... slave? How about mage?” Lenox’s voice carried throughout the mountains, his mere presence a disgrace. “Whatever you want to be called, you can come out and submit to public execution, or we can come in and hunt you down and drag you to your public execution.”

Zephyrus clamped his jaw shut. If Lenox had arrived before the messenger’s voice, Zephyrus would have fought to the death, taking as many Jackals down with him as he could. But now, with his mother imprisoned by who he assumed was Paxoran in disguise, and the fate of the mortal realm hanging in the balance, he had a responsibility, not to only Jecht and Cerik, Vykinallia and Laeden, or even to his father’s rebellion—but to everyone. I can’t die here fighting mortals. He glanced at the eastern window. Climb down. Sneak out. Get to Tharseo’s Bastion.

Zephyrus swung his leg over the side of the windowsill. The dizzying height unsettled his stomach, but he was out of options.

“Fine,” Lenox shouted from the entryway. “We’re coming in.”

Zephyrus lowered himself down, forcing his fingers into cracks and jamming his toes onto any stony protrusions he could find. His palms were slick with sweat, his vision blurred by flashing orbs.

Focus.

Ignoring the shouts of the men destroying his home in search of him, he made progress. Halfway down to a landing he could rest at, he continued.

One step at a time.

He stretched, reaching for a foothold, but the wound in his stomach seized, sending a spasm up his back. He grunted, but his fingers slipped on the smooth stone.

He didn’t want to scream. He didn’t mean to. But when the empty night sky opened its arms to him, he did.

Part II

Chapter 9

The Falcon and the Phoenix

Vykinallia

Unknown

Chained, gagged, blindfolded—Vykinallia lost track of time, but she would not lose herself. Shoved in a crate, tossed on a wagon, loaded onto a ship and spirited by sea, she had no doubt who had taken her prisoner.

The Uprising.

Always moving, her captor only stopped to feed her once a day, at least so far as she could tell based on the growling of her stomach. Every time she wasn’t entombed in some transportation vessel, she’d protest, hoping to speak. But each time, he’d shove that same wet rag in her face, and her body betrayed her.

She recognized her captor when he first assaulted her, but it wasn’t until the third day that she figured out where she knew him from.

Brusos’s bodyslave.

She couldn’t remember his name, but it made sense that he’d be with the Uprising. House Brusos fell after their slaves had rebelled from within, setting the ludus aflame. Neither Brusos nor his wife, Cerberynn, had been found—dead or alive—and all of their slaves were gone to the wind.

He’ll bring me to the Uprising, but I’ll tell them the truth: my name is Vykinallia. I’m in love with a Celestic mage, and I will help set the enslaved people free.

But as long as she remained gagged, chained, and blindfolded, so too was the truth. Today was the fourth day since her abduction, and she was back on a wagon.

Her gag chafed the corners of her lips raw. Her wrists ached where the shackles closed around them. The disorientation of being blinded, deprived of food, and continually drugged made her head spin. Lying on her side and breathing through her nose, Vykinallia stilled her mind, trying to focus on where she was.

He took me by wagon from the arena and then by boat. If the mages had attacked the harbor, it made sense to go to the southern docks. Then we were at sea, but the trip was too short to be to Salmantica, and too long to be to Northern Stockhelm. That only left the eastern coast. Which means now we’re heading south. To the jungles.

The jungles of Stockhelm were untamed. Rich in resources, but far enough from civilization that it was the perfect place to hide rebels. She didn’t know what they would want from her when she arrived, but she had ideas, and none of them ended well. Though Zephyrus taught her that not all magic was dangerous, there were some who would use it as a weapon.

She attempted to rub the elbow Zephyrus had healed, but manacled with her hands behind her back, she only thrashed against the wooden floor of the wagon. Accepting the futility, she longed for Zephyrus’s arms, his healing, his comfort—but she had no doubts that the mages she would be delivered to wouldn’t be interested in healing her.

As the wagon bumped along the treacherous terrain of the ungroomed jungles, Vykinallia wondered how Zephyrus must be feeling. A few short days ago, she’d nearly set him free. Then after he collapsed and couldn’t flee, she swore once they were back in Stockhelm, she would help him. She hoped he’d found a way to break himself free. To join Jecht and Cerik with the Uprising. Not just for her own sake, but his.

I failed, but I will not fail to help you in freeing others. I just need to prove to the Uprising that once I get back to Salmantica, I can help them.

The wagon rolled to a stop.

Vykinallia’s heart ceased to beat, but her breath became ragged through her flaring nostrils. Her hands curled to fists behind her back. I can do this. I am Vykinallia. I will do this!

The weight of the wagon shifted as her captor jumped off the seat. His footsteps drew nearer, and his knuckles rapped along the side panels of the wagon. More footsteps approached. Several more.

“Show us your mark,” said a woman’s voice.

Her captor answered, calm and smooth like silk ribbons. “I am Falcos. Former bodyslave of Count Ebron Brusos.”

Hushed murmurs broke out until the first voice silenced them.

“Burn me—settle down, eh?” the Uprising woman said. “You may’ve taken down an entire ludus, but where’ve you been since? That was weeks ago.”

Fingers drummed on the wagon’s door. “I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”

The wagon door swung open, and dim light filtered through Vykinallia’s blindfold. Falcos reached for her. Refusing to flinch at his touch, she let him seize her by the neckline of the soot-stained dress she wore to the New Rheynian Games. He dragged her from the wagon like she was a sack of maggot-infested flour.

Her balance swayed as her feet touched the ground. Absent sight, and after days of being cooped up, she didn’t think she’d be able to stand if Falcos weren’t holding her up by the shackles binding her arms behind her back.

Through her blindfold, the shapes of several figures approached, looming over her in the glow of torchlight. The scent of burning oil filled her nostrils.

Falcos shoved her. Falling and turning at the last moment, she fell to the earth. Her shoulder absorbed most of the impact, but unable to stop herself, her head bounced off the dirt.

Her ears rang, and the sideways figures before her seemed to spin. Groaning, she attempted to gain her feet, but with her hands pinned behind her back, she couldn’t pick herself up. With a violent yank on her scalp, she winced as she was lifted by her hair up to her knees. Through her blindfold, a dozen figures stood before her, their shadows dancing in the torchlight. Each was undoubtedly armed with swords, spears, short bows, or magic.

“Brothers and sisters,” Falcos said, standing over her, a fistful of hair clutched in his hand. “This is not just any Rheynian slaver, but a butcher of our brethren and a blight on the Judges’ lands.”

The tension on the back of her head that anchored the blindfold in place lessened before falling away.

“I give you Nallia Cassius, daughter of the chancellor, betrothed to King Damascus.”

Men and women gawked, muttering amongst each other, but one man, tall and broad with dark skin and a scar passing through a blind eye, remained fixed—his arms folded across his chest. He strode forward and cupped Vykinallia’s chin, his touch firm but not forceful.

Chomping down on her gag, Vykinallia prevented her jaw from trembling. Keep it together. Show no weakness. She slowed her breathing until it was calm and composed, unlike how she felt within. She’d seen gladiators deny their inward thoughts and display an unconquerable resolve—she could do the same. She met the man’s good eye through her swimming vision.

Wrinkles creased his forehead, and crows’ feet framed his eyes. A pendant hung from his neck with an unfamiliar sigil inscribed upon it: a bird over a fire, wings spread, head held high.

“Are you who he says?” he asked, removing the gag from her mouth with near gentleness.

Vykinallia worked her jaw to alleviate the tension from days of mistreatment. She nodded, clearing her throat and swallowing sour spit. “Yes and no. I am—”

The one-eyed man wagged a thick finger before her. “You are. Or you aren’t. Which?”

Vykinallia stammered. “I am Nallia Cassius, daughter of Chancellor Cassius and betrothed to Damascus Helixus. I was a lanista, but—”

“I’ve heard enough, Iberion.” A bearded giant with black braids streaked gray strode forward, an orange-tipped rod in his hands. “Let her see what it’s like on the other side of a brand.”

Vykinallia’s eyes widened. She attempted to lean away, but Falcos held her firm. Perspiration blossomed on her forehead, a bead trickling down her brow.

Iberion held a hand out, stopping the brand’s advance. “She can be ransomed for a high price, but not if you spoil her.”

The bearded man ground his square teeth but didn’t continue forward.

A woman, tall and thin with dark skin and a face like a glaive, flung her arms out to the sides. “Iberion, she’s betrothed to the king. She will fetch a high price, branded or not.”

Vykinallia didn’t like where the conversation was going. “I can be an asset to your cause. I tried to free one of my men—”

“Slaves,” Iberion said. He didn’t bark the word, only said it, but he might as well have shouted it. “You tried to free one of your slaves, but it sounds like you failed to do so.”

She flinched. “Yes, but—”

“Brand her, Dankar,” the sharp-faced woman said to the towering bearded man.

“Still yourself, Unari,” Iberion said to the woman.

“Zephyrus! His name is Zephyrus. If he escaped, he would have tried to find you. He will vouch for me. Is he among you?”

Unari’s lips peeled back in a predatory snarl. “Zephyrus? You’re the one who enslaved him and poisoned his mind?” She reared back her hand, and a ball of fire formed in her palm.

Vykinallia inhaled sharply.

A hand seized Unari’s wrist, holding her back. A Rheynian woman in a brown leather jerkin stepped forward. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Her dark eyebrows angled over her pursed lips. “Enough, Unari. All of you, settle down.”

Everyone did as told—no questions asked, no disagreements offered. While the others backed away, she approached Vykinallia and eased her way down to the ground with a grunt, until they were both kneeling, eye to eye.

“I’m in charge here,” the woman said. “My name is Lenara.”

A Rheynian, in charge of the Uprising. That wasn’t the only odd thing about Lenara. Something about her was frustratingly familiar, but unlike how she had recognized Falcos without knowing him, she was certain she’d never seen Lenara before.

But why do I feel like I know her?

“You say you can be an asset, Nallia Cassius,” Lenara said. “How?”

Vykinallia opened her lips, but words escaped her. She worked saliva into her dry mouth and cleared her throat. “People call me Nallia, but that was not the name I was given at birth. I was raised in a ludus, but never did I butcher my gladiators. And while I am Valencian, never have I disrespected Vykannis, Orsius, or Aeryss.”

She held Lenara’s gaze, but if the older woman was impressed, she showed no sign of it.

“My name is Vykinallia, after the Vykane Blade. I vowed to Zephyrus that I would help him free the slaves and bring equity to the Celestic people. Betrothed to the New Rheynian throne, as queen, I could help you bring about peaceful, lasting change.”

Lenara’s thin lips parted in a tight smile. She leaned forward, revealing a brand on her chest: the falcon of House Faire. “Those are sweet words, Vykinallia. I’m even inclined to believe you. But peaceful, lasting change is a dream for ladies of the court, while war is the only reality the people before you will ever know. You will not be harmed in my care, but you won’t be staying with us long.”

Putting her hands on her knee, Lenara pressed herself to her feet, leaving Vykinallia in the dirt. She addressed Falcos. “You’ve done well bringing her here. She will serve as excellent leverage against that beast of a Drake.” She nodded her head at a few of the others. “See Falcos is given food and wine. Find him a place in the Sanctuary.”

Falcos bowed.

“What about her?” Iberion asked.

Lenara shrugged. “See that no harm comes to her. I will draft a ransom letter tonight.”

As Lenara turned to go back the way she’d come, Vykinallia realized how she knew her and nearly choked at the realization. She crawled on her knees, following the older woman.

“Lenara Faire.”

Lenara stopped. She turned and raised an eyebrow.

“Wife to Varros Helixus. Mother to Laeden.”

Lenara’s eye twitched, but that was the only sign of distress. She licked her lips and examined Vykinallia with an oppressive stare. After a long moment, Lenara averted her gaze and walked away.

Chapter 10

Nightmare of Truths

Danella II
Salmantica

The Six Arrows. Bobbing beside the creaking dock in the ever-raging tides, the vessel was nothing compared to her former flagship. She’d sacrificed The Chimera to the black powder bombs that sank the Valtarcian Harbor. It was a necessary exchange to turn the Valtarcians against the mages. If only it had worked.

Danella drummed her fingers on her crossed arms and tapped her foot as the crew rushed to prepare the ship for travel. Nothing made men work faster than the wrath of an impatient woman. She hadn’t given them any notice, of course, so she wasn’t actually upset about having to wait—but they didn’t need to know that.

She breathed in time with the ebb and flow of the ocean. Her kingdom couldn’t afford another drawn-out war. I must convince the Valtarcians to join us. With their support, I’ll crush the Uprising. Lenox will apprehend Zephyrus, Aelon will find Laeden, and all of New Rheynia’s threats will be vanquished.

Hurried footsteps tramped down the docks. Danella glanced over her shoulder to find Brusos trotting in her direction. With the ship still being prepared, Danella strode away from the crew to meet Brusos in the middle.

Brusos held a scroll. “I didn’t believe the rest of the closed council needed to know of this.” He passed her the rolled parchment.

Danella took it. Imprinted in the red wax seal, a bird hovered over a flame, its wings spread wide. A rising phoenix. Curious. Danella cracked the seal and unrolled the letter to find a lock of chestnut hair in it.

Chimeras of Salmantica,

Nallia Cassius is alive and well. For now. If you wish to see her again, you will evacuate all Jackals from Stockhelm, suspend the burning of Celestic symbols, and cease the torturing of people upon your Six Arrowed Star. Only then will we exchange your chancellor’s daughter and king’s betrothed for the inventory listed below. If you fail to meet these demands, the next letter will be accompanied by a box. And it will contain more than just her hair.

The Fallen

The inventory list contained swords, spears, bows, arrows, helms, jerkins, and boots. 600 swords, 600 helms, 400 pairs of boots.

Have that many slaves escaped?

The letter meant three things: one, their forces were larger than Danella had anticipated, but two, they were mostly unarmed and underdressed. Thirdly, and most importantly, Brusos’s slave had found the Uprising.

She chuckled to herself. With his information, I won’t need Nallia. In a week’s time, they’ll send back her head. Damascus will be furious, and all I’ll need is Brusos to discover where they’re located.

Danella lifted the scroll before Brusos. “Does Damascus know about this?”

“No, your grace. Only you have read its contents.”

Danella smiled. “When your slave writes back, I want a location. I want to know where their infestation is hiding. Then we’ll catch them—all of them and everyone loyal to their cause.” She tore the letter in half, then half again. “The Gilded Gauntlet will scream again with the purifying fires of Incinerae. And this time, there will be no one left to rise from the ashes.”

She tore the parchment into tiny pieces before releasing them to the wind to be swallowed by the sea.

Brusos bowed.

Actually… Danella tapped her chin with her index finger. “Can you get a message to your slave?”

Brusos nodded. Having finally caught his breath, the pinkness faded from his cheeks. “Of course, your grace. What message would you like sent?”

It was never meant to come to this, but having Damascus’s betrothed snatched up by the Uprising was meant to drive him to action, not wait upon ransom letters. Retribution would be a fine enough motivator. Despite the fact that no one besides Brusos and the Gods could hear her, she leaned closer.

“We no longer need Nallia Cassius. If The Fallen believe they have leverage, let’s take it away. Kill her.”

Brusos bowed. “Yes, your grace.”

Danella dismissed him and returned to the end of the dock. The command had come quickly. Easily. She supposed she should feel some guilt, some pang of regret for condemning the life of a young woman, or even a hint of satisfaction for a successful plan. But she didn’t. She felt nothing.

The captain of The Six Arrows descended the ramp. “We’re all set, your grace. Winds are against us, but we can make it.” He stroked his gray mustache, examining the otherwise empty dock—no luggage, no attendants, no guards. “Is your retinue prepared for travel, your grace?”

Danella climbed the ramp to board The Six Arrows, walking past the captain. “Only I will be setting sail, Captain.” Not that that’s any of your business.

The captain coughed. “A smaller ship would make it to the city port faster.”

Danella halted just before boarding. “You’re mistaken. We are not going to the port. You will take me to Northridge’s harbor. And this ship will do just fine.”

Swirling her skirts, she climbed aboard. She didn’t expect a captain to understand the intricacies of such a power play. Valtarcia relied heavily on trade and fishing, two things that were difficult to accomplish without ships or allies.

Whichever Helixus is in charge will have no choice but to obey my every command, lest their entire city devour itself.

Danella climbed the stairs to the chambers located on the second deck but needed to hold the railing to steady herself against the ship’s sway. With the absence of rain came the tumult of the sea. If the drought persisted, the Crystal River beneath the Stormburn Geyser in Stockhelm would be one of the only sources of fresh water.

Valuable territory. As Danella pushed aside the door to her chambers, she decided she would not wait for others to realize the same thing. I have the men. I have the ships. I have control.

She breached the threshold and closed the door behind her to enter the chambers. Perhaps not as luxurious as The Chimera, it was more than suitable to pass a few hours.

As she stepped deeper into the room, a hand clamped over her mouth.

Panic burst in her chest. Heat rose to her cheeks. She clawed at the hand holding her, but it didn’t release.

“Shh, shh, shh,” said a voice in her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Danella jabbed her elbow into her assailant’s ribs. He groaned but didn’t let go. She stomped down on his toe, but still he was unmoved.

“Ugh, suppose I deserved that.” He let her go.

Danella flung herself away from him and wheeled, wide-eyed, to face her attacker.

Blood drained from her face. Her knees quivered, and the room began to spin.

No. Impossible.

She shook her head, blinked again and again, but it didn’t change the vision before her.

“You’re not real.” Danella’s voice trembled.

Varros stepped closer, that infuriating Helixus grin upon his face. “It’s me, my love.” His beard was thick, his wavy locks shorn. He wore a plain woolen tunic beneath a long black cloak that matched his britches and boots.

It can’t be him. But the slate-blue eyes that examined her belonged to no one else.

Danella stepped backwards. “You died. I held your cloak—your crown.”

Varros’s smirk darkened. “I died a long time ago. Before we ever met, in a fashion—on the shores of Klaytos in 937.”

Danella shook her head, unable to process.

“I should have told you a long time ago. Many times I wanted to. Countless times I tried. But how could I, after the terrible things I’d done?”

“Varros…” Danella never thought his name would touch her lips again, that his eyes would fall upon her. She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist. When his arms closed around her, tears bled down her cheeks onto Varros’s tunic.

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

Varros placed his hands on her shoulders and extended her away. “Perhaps it would have been better that way. Perhaps some things are better left unspoken. But it must be said. We may be the only two people who can stop the flood of blood that’s coming.”

Danella gripped his hand on her shoulder. Is this a dream? It must be. But if it were, this isn’t how I would have pictured him. “What is it, my love?”

His eyes narrowed on hers, and his lips tightened to a hard line. “The truth. My ship was destroyed by the Salmantic fleet. My men were killed by cannon fire, slaughtered by the sword, or drowned by Aquarius—but I survived. Washed up on the shores of Klaytos. I was taken in, fed, clothed, and indoctrinated.”

Danella released Varros’s hand and stumbled backwards, her hand reaching for her chest. A cold came over her. Shock wearing off, she processed his words but couldn’t understand.

No. Not a dream. A nightmare. “What are you saying?”

“They call themselves the Arcane Templar,” Varros said. “They sent me back to Valtarcia after the war was over. I was only supposed to be a lesser lord. They wanted me to spy, send reports, and inform them of New Rheynia’s weaknesses. But the Treaty—our marriage—put me in line to the throne.”

Danella set her jaw, her breath seething between her clenched teeth. Her fists balled at her sides, but she couldn’t speak.

“Then they didn’t just want information. They wanted power. They ordered me to murder your brother, to take the throne and systematically frame senators for conspiring with mages.”

Danella’s breath caught in her throat. No. Air didn’t exist. Because this was a lie. A false vision. But the sullen draw of his cheeks and the creases cornering his eyes told her he was telling the truth.

But if this is true... You bastard. Everything else was a lie. The entire time.

The flutter in her stomach at seeing him died, replaced by knots. Teeth bared, she shook her head, wishing she could wound him as deeply.

“Did you kill my brother?”

Varros held out his hands. “I didn’t, Danella. Let me explain—”

Her voice trembled. “Explain?”

“I refused them,” Varros said. “I was supposed to, but I didn’t—I wouldn’t. Danella, I never expected to fall in lov—”

“Don’t you dare!” Danella shook her head, her stomach sinking like a stone in the sea. “Love? You speak to me of love? Lies, Varros—all lies!” Her fingernails dug into her palms; her shoulders trembled.

“No.” Varros stepped forward, reaching for her.

Danella reared away, and new tears she didn’t realize she’d formed rolled down her cheeks. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again.”

Varros closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “They manipulated the Hechts into doing what I would not. Twelve years, I refused them. Twelve years, I made excuses, empty promises, and all the while, I sought to find a balance between love and duty. But then I became king. Their expectations grew greater. Their patience evaporated. Then came the threats. I tried to stem their pursuit of vengeance while appeasing the overzealous senators.”

Finally, it made sense. All of those conversations in which she’d begged, and he’d listened, but never acted.

Danella sniffled, not bothering with the tears that streaked her makeup. “So you exiled the mage.”

“Yes,” Varros said, rubbing the back of his neck. “The Templar realized I was no use to them as a king, so they abducted me to give me a chance at redemption, but I escaped.” He took measure of her, but she refused to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Danella. I should have told you. We could have faced them together, but—”

“But?”

If the word were a weapon, she would have stabbed him with it.

I should have had you killed. I should have killed you myself.

The guilt for even considering assassinating the man she loved had grated away at her. His death, or at least what she thought was his death, had liberated her. But now, staring at the man she called husband, all she felt was shame.

The snake beat the mongoose. The Gods wanted you dead, and I failed them.

“It’s not too late,” Varros said. “These mages—their vision is just, but the lengths they’re willing to go to achieve them…” He trailed off, looking at the floor.

She wanted to hit him—to make him hurt the way he’d hurt her.

“Danella, this cycle of vengeance will only destroy our realm.”

Danella’s lips curled back in a snarl. “Our realm? You’ve been undermining our realm since before the Treaty was even signed.”

“We can—”

“No, Varros.” She couldn’t take it anymore—the lies, the secrets, the betrayal. “There is no we. There is no us. Don’t you see? I led the Revivalists. I plotted your assassination. I put Damascus on the throne. And I framed Laeden because he was infected by your ideals.”

Her rant left her breathless—her chest heaved, and her fists shook at her sides. She glared at Varros, waiting to see him break the same way he’d just broken her.

His eyes left hers to stare at the ground. He shuffled his feet, put his hands on his hips, but said nothing. He didn’t break. He didn’t even crack.

As if he doesn’t even care that I—

“I know.”

Danella narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, you know?”

“I know,” Varros said. “Took me long enough; I didn’t realize until you named Damascus king. I thought you figured out my deception… that’s why you wanted me dead.” He wrinkled his nose. “I thought you knew why I deserved it. I couldn’t blame you.”

“If you knew, why come back? Why trust me now?”

He closed the distance between them in two quick strides until their toes were practically touching. “Because we might be the only ones who can stop this war. If this persists, Damascus’s reign will only end one way. This war will destroy him. It will destroy New Rheynia. Danella, my love… please. You must make him stop, or we will drown in Celestic vengeance.”

Her mask was broken. Truth bared for all to see, and yet, with everything laid before him, he still did not understand. Danella scoffed. “I would rather burn alive in Celestic fire than incur the Gods’ wrath.”

Varros’s thumb brushed her cheeks, his touch as warm and gentle as it had always been.

She wanted to melt into him, even now, knowing his truth. But those were the sentiments of a lonely woman. Not a queen. She turned from him, but he readjusted her chin to make her face him.

“What if there is a balance between vengeance and blasphemy?” Varros asked. “We could find it—together.”

He leaned down and kissed her. Warmth blossomed in her chest, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes again. Together. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. But she couldn’t. Never again.

She turned away, separating her lips from his. The gears in her mind spun. She paced her chambers, searching for a way to make this work, but they met the same resistance each time. She stopped before him and stared into his slate-blue eyes for what could be the last time.

“In another world, another time, or even if here and now we were ever on the same side… we could have ruled the world in peace. But together, our divergence has only set the world aflame. The Gods have spoken. And I know, deep within my bones, that what I am doing is their will for New Rheynia.”

Varros stepped back, biting his lip as he examined her. “Set the world aflame. Have you ever wondered why Celestic magic harnesses the elements of the Valencian Gods?”

She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. And she didn’t appreciate what he was insinuating. Before she could lash out at him, he raised his hand before her, and a candle’s flame plumed into existence within his palm.

Danella staggered backwards, her hand covering her mouth. Her heart broke. Her knees wobbled. And her world, the parts of it she loved, died. “You’re a…”

“Incinerae.” Varros closed his hand, extinguishing the flame, only to open it again to reveal a single drop of water swirling in the air. “Aquarius.” He snapped his fingers, dispelling the droplet, and squeezed his fist, which hardened to stone. “Moterra.” He opened his palm again, and it crackled with white lightning. “Phaebia.”

She wanted it to stop. She couldn’t bear it anymore.

“They’ve poisoned you,” she whispered. But she knew it wasn’t true.

This poisoned version of Varros is the only one I’ve ever known. I was just too ignorant—too foolish to see. I thought I wore the mask, but he held the secrets.

Varros shook his head. “Stop our son, Danella. This war will ruin him, and he will destroy everything your father built—everything I tried to save. If ever you loved me, please, stop him.” He turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Laeden… before you do.” Varros looked back over his shoulder. “Or Damascus does if you won’t stop him.” He opened the door and exited, closing it behind him.

Momentarily dumbstruck, Danella paused before lurching after him. She flung the door open, but Varros was gone.

Chapter 11

Blood of a Slaver

Vykinallia II

Stockhelm

The sanctuary Lenara spoke of wasn’t exactly a sanctuary, but more of an ever-expanding hole in the ground. Reinforced by stone, wood, and iron supports, the Sanctuary was huge; the Uprising must have been burrowing beneath the New Rheynia for years—decades even. Serving as the barracks, the mess hall, the war room, and the prison, the Sanctuary housed scores—if not hundreds.

“How is this possible?” she had asked Iberion as he escorted her to the dirty alcove that would be her cell for the next two days.

Iberion had only grunted. “Hard work. Unity. And half a century of oppression.”

Supposedly, the Rheynians who did not accompany Damascus Drake on the Great Migration had burrowed underground to escape the tyrannical reign of an undead monarch. Those who escaped Rheynia to Klaytos sought refuge with the Helms, who fled Stockhelm at the turn of the century and were thus indoctrinated into their pursuit of vengeance, but the refugee Rheynians offered their own ideas on how to achieve it.

Now it had been five days, one meal a day—three shoved in crates or the back of wagons, and two chained to an iron support beam on the hard-packed earth. Unable to get comfortable, she tossed and turned, her mind spinning circles into the oblivion that accompanied the exhaustion, hunger, and isolation that gnawed at her.

What if Damascus doesn’t pay the ransom, and the Uprising loses its use for me?

She’d begged the woman who brought her food and water to let her speak with Lenara. She’d asked if Zephyrus had arrived, and if Jechtaric and Cerik were within the Sanctuary, but every question met the same sullen silence. Vykinallia scarfed down the leftover morsels of whatever they managed to steal, forage, or hunt in the jungle, but her keeper offered little else.

The thin air of the underground prison made her light-headed. Her hands were chained behind her back to the support beam she rested her head against. Her tailbone prickled with numbness, and her neck ached from lying on the ground.

Based on when she received food, it was night, but with dawn would come a new day. She hoped it would bring her Zephyrus too, or, at the very least, Damascus to take her home.

She adjusted her legs to try to find a comfortable way to lie, but she had better luck finding the Treasures of Stockhelm down in this pit. She groaned, but a flickering torchlight illuminated her alcove.

She propped herself up, craning her sore neck to see beyond the bend outside of her room. Besides those who delivered her food, no one had been down this corridor. No one.

The footsteps accompanying the torch came heavy and unsyncopated. Breathing short and labored grunts between incoherent grumbles, her visitor drew closer until his shadow darkened her alcove.

A behemoth of a man, with shoulders so broad he barely fit through the entryway, held an oil lantern in one hand and a carafe in the other. The lantern cast an orange light on his scarred face—two parallel lines beneath his right eye.

Those aren’t scars. Those are brands.

She’d only ever seen such a mark at the Valtarcian Games—the mark of Secundus, a lower lanista who always lost to Kaelus. She didn’t know this man by name, but she recognized his stature. A modern bruiser, heavily armored and wielding a war hammer, he’d shown well in the bouts she’d seen. Though she’d never concerned herself with the gladiators of lesser lanistas in Valtarcia, now she wished she had.

He said nothing, but his creased brow and unnerving glare never left her.

Vykinallia gulped, readjusting her chains to turn towards him.

“Nallia Cassius,” he said, his voice like a grindstone. He shook his head, raising the carafe to his lips. He lowered the carafe and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. “Untouchable. A valuable trade piece.”

He scoffed and drank again, his words already slurring. “Yet another concession. While my people are nailed to Six Arrowed Stars, people like you are traded for supplies. Never held accountable for your actions, never made to balance the scales—always untouchable.”

Vykinallia pursed her lips, a stone forming in her throat. He stepped further into the room. Vykinallia resisted the urge to scuttle back, as if there were a place to go.

“Eleven of us died trying to get here. Only three of us made it.” A sinister smirk split his lips. “Imagine my surprise to find the new leader is another Rheynian. And not the good kind. All the good kinds are gone.” He grunted, his massive boots inching closer to her.

The crick in her neck protested as she strained to look up at the former gladiator. The stone in her throat sank to her stomach.

“My friends died, fleeing one master in search of freedom. Lucky for them, they died before they realized it was only to serve another.” He dropped to a knee and set the lantern on the ground beside her. The scent of wine tinged his breath. “She says she wants to use you in the same way you used us—flesh for coin. But how would she—a Rheynian—know how you used us? She can’t balance the scales any better than you.”

“We’re not all the same,” Vykinallia said, her voice trembling.

“If you think blood for gold is the same as trading you for a few swords, then you’re just like them.” His index finger pressed into the parallel lines branded at the corner of his eye.

Vykinallia swallowed. She’d spoken to gladiators before, but never before had she been the one in chains. “You’re right. It won’t balance the scales, but I’m worth more than a few swords. As are you. As were your friends. But as queen, I will work to free your people.”

He chuckled and drank again. After finishing the carafe, he tossed it aside. Despite kneeling, he still loomed over her. He licked his lips and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Invinius Auros promised freedom too.” The big man shrugged, his words slurring. “I haven’t seen him in close to twenty years. And after spending my last fifteen in chains, I know that your promises are as empty as Lenara’s—as empty as Auros’s.”

Vykinallia didn’t understand the connection to Earl Auros, but with wine hot on his breath, she didn’t wish to antagonize him with questions.

“Apologies,” Vykinallia said. “But please don’t lose your faith in people.”

The gladiator scoffed, wheeling on her. She immediately regretted her decision to speak.

“I got faith in people. Just not in you! You speak of worth… the only worth you know is gold. How much was Laytonus worth, eh?”

Laytonus. Vykinallia stuttered, “I don’t understand.”

“Your Champion. Murdered. Was he worthy of justice? Was he worthy of remembrance? No. You dishonored him. You named his murderer Champion. And you speak to me of worth?” His voice grew louder, and the wine—thick on his breath—wasn’t helping. His nostrils flared as he ground his teeth.

Her heartbeat quickened, and her eyes darted left and right, but there was no escape. And escape was what she needed. She knew that look in a gladiator’s eye. Blood.

“Laytonus was my friend. And you killed him. You let his murderer become Champion so you could salvage more coin for your coffers.”

Vykinallia didn’t know where to begin. He was right. Stegavax received little more than a stern lecture after he stabbed Laytonus in the back. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t make up for sixty years of slavery, forced labor, and gladiatorial sacrifices. She bit her trembling lip. “What is your name?”

His eyes darted side to side as if inspecting the room for some sort of trick. “Setarius.”

“Setarius.” Vykinallia smiled, though the muscles of her cheeks strained at the unfamiliarity of the motion. “People like Lenara and I will never be able to balance the scales of what you and your people have suffered. But if you let us, we can try to help. I will be queen one day. And I’ve vowed, with the Gods of Valencia and the Judges as witnesses, that I will work to free your people.”

Setarius snorted. “More lies. He was right. We weren’t ransomed—neither should you!”

Before Vykinallia could consider which “He” Setarius spoke of, his hand struck like a viper for her throat.

Air escaped her lungs, and the sudden pressure made her eyes bulge. She thrashed, but with her hands bound behind her back, she created no separation. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she strained to suck down oxygen. Setarius raised his other hand to her throat and squeezed tighter.

She shuddered, her chain rattling against the iron beam that restrained her. Her vision blurred at the corners, but Zephyrus filled her mind’s eye. She jolted again, as if to reach him, to hold him one last time. Her chain rattled again with a metallic clang.

The chain!

Vykinallia jerked the chain against the iron beam.

Clank! Clink! Clank!

I will not die down here! Vykannis, grant me strength.

She strained for extra moments of consciousness.

Clank! Clink! Clank!

Zephyrus… I will escape this. I will free you. I will—

The pressure around her throat was torn away. She gasped as air flooded her lungs. She fell to the side as three shadowy figures fought in the small alcove.

Vykinallia wheezed, but retreated away from the scuffle as far as her chains would allow. In the lantern light, Setarius shoved one dark, broad figure, but a slender, pale man struck at his back. Setarius spun, swinging a backhanded fist at the pale man. The pale man ducked beneath the blow, hooking his heel behind Setarius’s foot. Off-balance, Setarius fell, and the broad man pounced on him. They struggled, but her broad defender got the better of the exchange, wrapping thick arms around Setarius’s neck from behind.

Setarius shouted, tearing his way free. He got to his feet, but the pale man struck with three quick punches to the ribs. Setarius turned with an elbow and this time connected with the pale man, knocking him into the wall.

Her breath returning and her vision normalizing, she gasped.

Cerik and Jechtaric!

Setarius and Cerik traded blows. Cerik ducked a hook, blocked a cross, and countered with an uppercut, but Setarius didn’t flinch. He reared back and slammed the crown of his head into Cerik’s nose. Cerik recoiled, and Setarius reached for him, but Jechtaric leapt onto his back. Setarius’s footing faltered, and they crashed into the far wall. Then, Setarius charged forward, straight for Vykinallia, and hurled Jechtaric over his shoulder.

Jechtaric slammed into the iron beam above her and fell on top of her. Vykinallia tried to scream, but her throat was too raw.

Setarius grabbed Jechtaric by the hair and yanked him to his feet. He reared back to bash Jechtaric’s head into the beam, but Cerik held a dagger to Setarius’s throat.

“Let him go.” Cerik spat blood.

Setarius growled. “I’m not the enemy here—she is!”

“We have orders,” Cerik said. “Now let him go.”

Jechtaric’s eyes were wild, but Setarius relinquished his grip on him.

Jechtaric backed away, dusting himself off. “You’re piss drunk, ya mad bastard!”

Setarius’s gaze fell to Vykinallia, his shoulders heaving from the fight.

“Let it go, Sett. Return to the barracks. We never need speak of this.”

Setarius spat on the floor at Vykinallia. “If it were the other way around, would she have fought for you? Bled for you?”

Cerik and Jechtaric exchanged a glance, but neither spoke a word.

Setarius scoffed. “He was right. She shouldn’t be allowed to live.” He turned from her and Cerik’s dagger, leaving the alcove.

Breath returned to her lungs at the sight of Setarius’s back. Still alive. Vykinallia resituated herself, sitting up before her former gladiators. She pushed through her feet and slid up the iron beam.

“You saved me.” It hurt to speak, to even breathe, but they were the only reason she was still alive. “Gratitude.”

Jechtaric grunted. “Save it. Sett’s right—if it were the other way round, you wouldn’t’ve fought for us.”

He may as well have stabbed her. Vykinallia stammered, her lips moved with thoughts of retorts, but no words came. Because none would defend her.

“Let’s go,” Cerik said, picking up Setarius’s empty carafe. Without a second glance, Jechtaric took the lantern, and together, they left Vykinallia in the darkness.

She sank to the floor again. Alone.

Is this how Zephyrus felt?

She recalled when he first arrived at the Cassius ludus. He’d fought with Lenox before they even stepped foot inside the villa. He was stripped, chained to a palus, and left out in the rain. Then, Saulus made it look like Zephyrus was trying to escape and attempted to kill him.

Her chin fell to her chest. No. This isn’t how Zephyrus felt. No one was going to ransom him. No one listened when he said the Revivalists were trying to kill him. He fought for his life. Every single day.

She grit her teeth, water welling in her eyes. Jechtaric and Cerik are right. I thought I treated them kindly, but I never fought for them… or for anyone. Damn my ignorance.

Chained and alone, her tears were her only company. Whatever hope she had pertaining to the coming dawn—that Zephyrus or Damascus would come to rescue her—bled out. She didn’t want it anymore. She didn’t deserve a second chance.

Chapter 12

Withered Trees and Cracked Masks

Danella III

Valtarcia

Her heels clicked along the tiled floor of Northridge’s great hall. The mosaic arched ceiling depicting the Six of Valencia watched over her, but despite their comfort, Varros’s admission—his truth—hadn’t left her. It gnawed at her like rats at a rucksack; soon its teeth would tear holes in the fabric of her resolve. But with Horus sitting upon the seat of the Valtarcian Dukedom, Danella curled her twitching fingers into fists.

It changes nothing. Varros changes nothing. Focus.

She pursed her lips as she approached Horus in the otherwise empty hall, wondering if Hallon’s absence meant he was recovering, he was dead, or he didn’t deem her worthy enough to meet with her himself.

Horus sat tall, straight and broad in the Valtarcian duke’s chair, though fortunately, neither he nor his brother filled it out quite like their father. Harrow Helixus was the only duke of the Rheynian Parliament who joined her father on the Great Migration, but he was also the first to preach assimilation with the natives of Stockhelm.

How many Rheynian deaths stain Valencia’s halls because of Harrow’s so-called tolerance? No more. Valtarcia will come to heel or be ground beneath it.

Horus’s white hair and gnarled knuckles didn’t make him an easy opponent. The familiar stubborn Helixus grin crept across his wrinkled face. He inclined his head to look down his nose at her. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you in a dungeon and wait for my nephew to grace me with his presence?”

Danella’s stomach twisted—not at Horus’s words or his icy glare, but because seeing Varros’s uncle made her wonder what he would look like if he lived to Horus’s age.

Focus.

Danella sealed the cracks of her mask. “Only one reason?” Her gait slowed to a stop before the high-backed throne and the withered tree stump that sat upon it. Silence filled the great hall as she bore into him.

Too proud a man to look away, Horus held her gaze, but his smirk shriveled into a hard line. “Why are you here?”

Danella made a show of glancing around the hall as if there were a host of other people waiting to speak with Horus. “I imagine the same reason so many of your countrymen are not.”

“Aye, their duke is dead.” He waited for her to give a reaction.

Danella hmphed. “The folly of betraying your king. That at least allows us to move past the legal ramifications and onto more pressing discussions, like how his brother plans to make amends.”

Horus leveled a curled knuckle at her. “He was your law-father. Despicable. Just like your fathe—”

“Caution, Horus,” Danella said. “I apologize for your loss. The realm will grieve. But not today. Not tomorrow. Not while the Uprising gathers against us. Now we need leaders.”

Horus grumbled, shaking his head. “I am leading. You want to know where everyone is, Danella? Valtarcia prepares for war.”

You’ll lead your people wherever I tell you to, you withered stump. “I’m pleased to hear Valtarcia prepares for war. But whom shall your Ridge Knights march upon?”

Horus’s nose wrinkled, and he leaned forward within his chair, resting his forearm on his knee. “You framed my nephew, sentenced him to death, murdered my brother—” His voice grew louder with each clause until he was shouting. “—and you think there is any question who the Valtarcian people wish to fight?” His face glowed red, his nostrils flaring in time with the rise and fall of his chest. “Praise the Six Varros will never have to know what you’ve done to his sons. You—you have put us in this impossible situation.”

Danella’s insides twisted at Varros’s name.

“Stop our son, Danella,” Varros had said. “This war will ruin him.”

She maintained her façade, pushing past the insults to the matter at hand. “Yes, in fact, I do question who the Valtarcians wish to aim their steel at.”

Horus was the fire to Hallon’s ice, and he would be hers to wield. First, a pinch of leverage. She strode closer to the throne, her footsteps echoing in the canopied hall.

“You see, Horus, when I sailed past the city’s port in my galley, I found it quite empty. Then, when I docked in what remains of Northridge’s harbor, I was surprised to find mine was the only ship afloat.” She tapped her index finger to her lips in mock-thought. “I seem to recall Valtarcia being rather dependent on trade and fishing, but without ships… well I suppose you can rely on your… hmm, remind me, Horus—which Valtarcian farms yield grain? Which pastures do your livestock graze? Not to mention the absence of rain. I’ve been informed that the water of the Vale has become contaminated—that not even the fish can abide it. Is that so?”

Horus only stared, his mustache bristling.

“The drought will get worse before it gets better, which will make obtaining water rather difficult. I suppose the only viable source will be from the Stormburn Geyser. Perhaps obtaining water wouldn’t be an issue if the Uprising hadn’t set fire to your fleet.”

Horus growled. “Chancellor Cassius will not let us starve.”

Danella wagged a finger. “Chancellor Cassius is dead. Ebron Brusos is chancellor now, a rather staunch supporter of the king.”

Horus gave no reaction, but Danella had no doubt as to what he was thinking; he was trapped. They both knew it. Stubborn Helixus pride.

His crooked, arthritic fingers clenched once he finally realized he was cornered. “Gods have mercy on you, you wicked woman.”

Danella shook her head. “The Gods will have mercy on none of us, Horus.”

Now a hint of flattery.

She approached the throne and knelt. “That’s why I need your help; we must unite and rid New Rheynia of the Celestic infection. I cannot defeat the Uprising alone. They destroyed your ships, kidnapped the king’s betrothed, and corrupted Laed—” Her voice cut out, and her eyes fell to the floor.

They corrupted Varros too.

She cleared her throat, pushing past it. “I didn’t frame Laeden. He conspired with the mages—and worse—a Prophet of Celestia. He even declared that all slaves should be freed. Can you imagine such a thing, Horus? How would your shipping business ever recover?”

Horus sat back in his chair, his glare softening beneath his bushy white brows.

“I suppose you could tax the plebs to make up for the loss of your enslaved workforce,” Danella said. “But then, you would just be like us greedy Salmantics, wouldn’t you?”

Horus leaned forward again, his cheeks flushed red. “Just speak what you want, woman.”

Danella smiled. She’d gotten his attention.

Now the final piece: a dash of humility.

“The Disasters will strike again, Horus. The absence of rain only proves the Gods’ wrath. If we are to preserve our way of life—the world our fathers built together—we must put differences aside and unite. Hallon didn’t see it, but you still can. Together, we can stop Laeden from propagating more Valencians to the grovel at the feet of the Celestic Prophet. Help me capture them, defeat the Uprising, and restore the Gods’ favor. You shall rule Valtarcia as Duke as long as you pledge fealty to Damascus, and we can brush all of this… misunderstanding aside.”

Horus fixed her with a level glare. “Misunderstanding?” He bristled. “In exchange for ships?”

Danella fought the urge to lift her brow. Give you ships—so you can betray me? I don’t think so. She chuckled, feigning amusement. “I can’t just give you ships, Horus. No, in exchange for supplies—food and fresh water, provisions to weather the Celestic storm and stave off plebeian riots. Until we appease the Gods and they return the rains, you will depend on me.”

Horus grunted, his swollen knuckles gripping the arms of the throne. “Don’t speak to me in veiled threats. Not in my house.” His stubborn grin returned. “Ridge Knights!”

Danella’s mask shattered. She pressed herself to her feet and stepped away from Horus. Two double doors located on either side of the throne burst open. Two rows of knights strode into the great hall in dyed blue leather armor ornamented with golden finery. The faceplates on their golden helms hid their faces, but the blue plumes and the winged horse etched into the iron marked them as the best of the Valtarcian Ridge Knights.

Heat rose to Danella’s cheeks. She clutched her skirts with both hands. Her anger-fueled panic set her heart galloping. You dare oppose me? Danella glared at Horus, but the smirk on his face stretched to either side of his white beard.

The Ridge Knights, twelve in total, took formation before her on either side of Horus. Closest to Horus’s right, the Ridge Knight took off his helm to reveal a familiar face with dark eyes and close-cropped gray hair flecked with black.

Ser Ostrey Wingfoot—the former King’s Guard Knight that Danella had forcibly removed from duty following Varros’s abduction by the mages. The default posture of his clenched jaw and stern glare made it difficult to discern if he held any grudges towards her or if he took any pleasure in their current role reversal.

“Ser Ostrey,” Horus said, his eyes never leaving Danella’s.

She ground her teeth and forced air through her nostrils, her stomach constricting in knots. If he dares imprison me, I will tear down this castle brick by brick and see him entombed in the rubble.

Horus licked his thin lips. “Queen Danella has spoken. Take every Ridge Knight and find the traitor—Laeden Helixus.”

The tension in Danella’s shoulders eased, but the cramping in her stomach refused to relent. Very funny, Helixus. Danella forced a smile, though her lip twitched with the effort.

Ser Ostrey bowed and strode from the great hall, his knights following in formation.

Horus’s grin fell as the last of them exited. “What will become of my nephew when they find him?”

Danella measured the man, his feeble power play having run its course. His shoulders stooped, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Men—always trying to prove they’re in control, even while dancing on the marionette’s strings.

Danella released her hold on her skirts and smoothed them out. “Find him and you’ll receive your first shipment. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about much else.”

Danella turned on her heel and strode from the great hall, her footsteps seeming to reverberate louder walking out than they had walking in.

Chapter 13

Judge, Jury, Executioner

Laeden II

Marstead

“There’s something I must tell you,” Iylea’s voice whispered in his mind. “There is so much I must tell you.”

Laeden’s jaw unhinged. This is real. He buried his face in his palms as the rickety wagon wheels creaked along the dirt roads toward Marstead. His head felt heavy, his mind overwhelmed. His fingers ran down his shaved scalp to comb through his scruffy beard as he bounced his knee up and down to expel his nervous energy.

He heard her, as clear as the Crystal River, but it didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Iylea was dead. He held her decapitated head in his hands after Aemos Horne parted it from her shoulders. She was dead. Gone.

The pragmatic side of him wanted to reason it out, but after spending weeks in Sentigard’s dungeons on treason charges following Iylea’s death, he had already wasted too much time contemplating things that didn’t make sense.

Thinking the words in his mind, he attempted to channel back to her. “Iylea, can you hear me?”

Iylea let out a sigh of relief. “Yes, Laeden. It’s so good to see you.”

Warmth flooded his body, making his skin tingle. His eyes darted side to side as if expecting to see her shy smile admiring him from the corner of the wagon. She was nowhere to be seen, but his cheeks strained to conceal his grin at the sound of her voice.

“Six save me, I can’t believe this.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Iylea said. “The Six won’t be saving anyone.”

The severity in her tone dispelled his elation. Rarely did she speak with such pessimism, let alone such authority. Something’s different. Something’s wrong.

Laeden licked his lips. “What do you mean?”

“The Gods spared me for a purpose. A chain forged of incomplete souls connects the mortal and divine realms. Most—practically all souls—are judged incomplete and forged into the chain’s links to serve as a reminder to the Gods of their failure to guide the mortals to live balanced lives. They’ve tasked me with destroying the souls, to close the expanse between the two realms so that they might once again lead the mortals to live as intended.”

Laeden blinked, his mind too sluggish to comprehend all that she said. He shook his head as if he were speaking face to face with her but stopped when the woman beside him slid down the bench away from him.

“You… destroy souls? Iylea, I don’t understand. Where are you? How are you commu—”

“I wish there was time. I wish I could explain everything, Laeden. Just know that I love you, and I’m doing everything I can to get back to you, but…”

The possibility of reuniting with Iylea set his heart racing, but he didn’t like how she trailed off. “What is it?”

“Shh.”

The cautious tension in her tone unnerved him, and waiting for her to reply only exacerbated his racing heart. He glanced between the passengers bound for Marstead as each bobbed along with the rise and fall of the horse-drawn wagon. The moment stretched on, and still no word from Iylea.

Laeden’s palms began to sweat. “Iylea?”

Still no answer.

He gripped his roughspun cloak, drying his hands on the scratchy fabric.

Markus examined Laeden and leaned closer. “Almost there. Keep it together.”

Laeden nodded but took no comfort from the sentiment.

The horses whinnied, drawing an exasperated “Whoa!” from the driver.

With his breath shaking, Laeden channeled again. “Iylea?”

“I’m here,” Iylea whispered, her voice quieter this time, though she seemed out of breath. “I thought I heard someone.”

Laeden let out a slow breath at her return, but her state didn’t settle his growing anxiety. “Are you not safe?”

“No one is, Laeden. I need to hurry, but there is a traitor amongst the Gods, and an escaped slave is our only hope at defeating him. There is a relic at Tharseo’s Bastion with the power to defeat the traitor God, but the Jackals are after him.”

Knowing he only had time for the most pressing questions, he suppressed his inquisitive spirit. “What can I do?”

Silence.

She wasn’t safe. He identified the strain in her voice. It had the same desperation when she warned him about the queen, Ser Daenus, and Brusos. I couldn’t protect you from the Revivalists. How can I defend you against the Gods?

“I have to go, Laeden.” She spoke even more quietly, a sharpness to her tone. “I’ll check in on you when I can. I love you.”

No. He wasn’t ready to let her go. There were so many questions, but only one that mattered at that moment. “How can I help?”

“Distract the Jackals. Anything you can do to keep them off of Vykanicus Auros.”

Vykanicus Auros?

Laeden’s ears popped. Six curses, no. “Iylea? Iylea!”

She was gone. As quickly as she’d entered his mind, she was gone again. He leaned his head back against the wagon, tears welling in his eyes. His thoughts warred like a melee, each interrupting the others before any could land a convincing blow.

An escaped slave. Tharseo’s Bastion. Vykanicus Auros. All signs point to Zephyrus.

The more Laeden considered it, the more it made sense. If rumors were true, his prophecy suggested he could bring about the Age of the End. Perhaps he is the only one who can stop it.

Laeden knew what Zephyrus was up against, though. Tharseo’s Bastion was on the opposite side of New Rheynia, and an army of Jackals and Sentinels marched upon the isthmus, searching for him.

How can I distract them all?

The horses screeched, and the wagon came to an abrupt stop, hurling Laeden into the woman beside him.

Everyone composed themselves, but Laeden’s stomach twisted in knots. Why have we stopped? Markus must have been thinking the same because the color drained from his face. Even some of the others in the wagon glanced around, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

“Show us your hands!” a voice shouted.

Laeden’s jaw clenched. Unarmed, undoubtedly outnumbered, and far from any cover, there was as little hope in fighting as there was running.

“What do we do?” Markus hissed.

Laeden closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. Our best hope is the driver. He lifted his index finger to slow Markus’s reaction. “Be still.”

The wagon shifted, but the driver spoke. “This is the property of the king. You have no jurisdiction here.”

“We are sent by Duke Horus by order of the king.”

The knots in Laeden’s stomach tightened, and his mouth went dry. Duke… Horus? No, impossible.

The thrum of a crossbow bolt resounded in his mind. The fletching protruded from Hallon’s stomach, but the bolt sank deep.

It could have killed a lesser man, but not Hallon. He had to have survived. He must have!

“We are searching for two traitors wanted on charges of high treason.”

Laeden’s knuckles curled around the pant legs of his dirty britches. How did they know?

Markus swore under his breath. “Laeden, we have to—”

The back door of the wagon swung open. Torchlight flooded inside, and two Ridge Knights in blue-and-gold leather armor emblazoned with the winged horse of House Helixus climbed up. The men and women held up their hands and pleaded, but Laeden would not let them suffer for him—not anymore.

“I’m the one you want,” Laeden said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Do not harm these people; they’ve done nothing wrong.”

Rough hands grabbed him by the wrists and yanked him from the back of the wagon. Laeden hit the dirt, and three more Ridge Knights closed in around him. They dragged Markus out next and tossed him to the ground beside Laeden. Chest heaving, Markus’s eyes darted left and right before meeting Laeden’s.

Laeden’s heart raced, but there was nothing he could do.

We’re dead. I’ve killed us.

“Thank you for your service,” a Ridge Knight said to the driver. “We have what we came here for. Be on your way and I’ll leave you out of my report as to where we found the traitor-scum.”

The driver offered no argument. The back door slammed shut, the whip cracked, and the wagon tore off down the road scattering dust.

Laeden coughed, lying face down on the ground, with his hands up over his head. A dozen Ridge Knights surrounded them. Their stern, stoic, golden faceplates withheld whatever malice waited beneath. Unarmed, unarmored, and twelve against two, Laeden and Markus stood no chance.

Looking over his shoulder, the wagon disappeared into the distance, and the cloud of dust left in its wake settled to the ground. None of the Ridge Knights moved, spare one—the one who spoke to the driver.

With the winged pauldrons signifying his captaincy over the Ridge Knights, the commander broke ranks, his blue-and-gold cape flapping in the wind. He strode over to Laeden and knelt down before him. He lifted his golden helm to reveal a familiar face beneath.

Gray hair flecked with black, shrewd dark eyes, and a cleft chin—Ser Ostrey Wingfoot—his father’s stalwart defender.

My judge, jury, and executioner.

Ostrey bowed his head. “Six save us, am I happy we found you, Prince Laeden.” He held out his hand. “We… the realm… needs you.”

Laeden blinked, looking from the outstretched hand to the man who held it before him. His mind slogged, attempting to understand what was happening.

Prince? The realm… needs me?

Laeden swallowed. Taking Ostrey’s hand, he feared he’d be kicked back down, but Laeden was hauled to his feet. The other knights assisted Markus as well.

Once Laeden was standing, Ostrey bowed before him. “Apologies, my prince. It needed to seem convincing.”

“You’re not arresting us?” Markus asked.

Ostrey shook his head. “We’re getting you out of here.”

The Ridge Knights escorted Laeden and Markus to the north shore of Marstead under a starry night sky. Despite the absence of rain, hope was written in the constellations. But the words “Duke Horus” tinged his mind, souring his optimism. Like a drop of poison in the well, the implications of what that meant were far-reaching. He restrained his bucking mind as they trekked to Reaper’s Bay, where a small corsair ship awaited them, bathed in moonlight.

Once aboard, Ostrey and a handful of the other Ridge Knights gathered around Laeden and Markus on the deck of the ship, while the others prepared to set sail.

“Where to, Captain?” asked a knight with short blond curls and freckles.

“That depends.” Ostrey bowed before Laeden again. “I apologize for my terseness, but you must appreciate the severity of our situation: your grandfather… Duke Hallon… is dead.”

Laeden let out a deep breath. He knew it the moment the wagon stopped, and he feared it the entire way to the boat, but now it was real.

He came to my aid, my defense—and he died for it. For me.

“It’s all my fault,” Laeden said.

“No.” An uncharacteristic bite accompanied Ostrey’s tone. “It is Queen Danella’s fault. She came to North Ridge and blackmailed Horus into turning on you.” He shook his head. “That is not honor. Not justice. We Ridge Knights take pride in our vows, and two of the most honorable men in the realm have died in recent weeks… I will be damned before I let you become the third. Horus has assumed control of Valtarcia. The same orders King Damascus gave to torment the Celestics have been issued in Valtarcia: you two and the slave-mage, Zephyrus, are wanted—dead or alive.”

Laeden hung his head. Damascus, Uncle Horus—how could you? A pang of guilt spiked through his throat. Because I failed to stop this.

Iylea’s voice filled his head. “The queen, Brusos, and Ser Daenus are up to something.”

I didn’t listen.

Laeden cleared his throat, his feet scuffing the wooden planks before standing firm. “You say you need me, but what can I do if half the realm is trying to execute me?”

Ostrey looked around at the other knights, all of whom paused what they were doing to hear his words. “Horus failed to defend Duke Hallon’s honor. He has become the king’s puppet in his genocidal mission to destroy the Celestics. If nothing is done, the tenets we live by as Valencians, Ridge Knights, and men will also mean nothing. People are searching for a leader.”

The knowledge weighed heavily on Laeden’s shoulders. He exchanged a glance with Markus. Markus had hoped once they returned to Valtarcia, they could rally behind Hallon, raise an army, and return with strength. But without Hallon and in light of Horus’s betrayal, a dozen Ridge Knights couldn’t hope to fight back.

Ostrey stepped closer. “Too long have we been under Salmantic rule. The realm needs a leader, Laeden of House Helixus. We here believe you can be that leader. It is time Valtarcia had a king. A true king.”

Laeden balked, backing away. Me—a pseudo-prince, a son of a plebeian mother—King of Valtarcia?

Ostrey closed the distance again. “Declare yourself King of Valtarcia in opposition to Horus’s rule; the people will rally to your cause. You are the son of Varros, son of Hallon, son of Harrow.”

Laeden tried to process, but he shook his head. “The patricians and senators never accepted me. Why would they now? Without their support, how would I ever hope to—”

He cut off as an idea struck him. I don’t need them.

When Laeden didn’t finish his sentence, Markus cut in, his arms across his chest. “We don’t have the numbers to take back Northridge—an army would have a difficult time. With Salmantica’s support, Horus is untouchable, and until we have allies to sway the tides of war, fighting is a losing battle.”

But that wasn’t true. Laeden did have allies. The plebs, the slaves, the Uprising, the mages—all were potential allies. I just have to prove myself to them. And what could serve as a better distraction for the Jackals than an army of freedpeople and Valtarcian patriots?

Ostrey, the other knights, and Markus broke out in hushed arguments, but for the first time, things were becoming clear for Laeden. This is how I help Iylea and Zephyrus. This is how I redeem my honor and deliver Danella the justice she deserves.

“I’ll do it,” Laeden said, silencing the men on the boat. He eyed each one of them individually as he stood at the center of their circle. “I’ll declare myself king, but Markus is right; we need allies. I won’t buy my allies with a name, a title, or a claim. A king without people is no king, so first, I’ll be a rebel for the people.”

Some of the knights nodded their heads. Others rapped their fists against their chests.

“We will free the slaves,” Laeden said. “All of them. By diplomacy or by force, they will be liberated. We will aid the plebs and make sure they do not suffer in squalor. Then, together—united—we will take Northridge from the senators bending to Salmantica’s whims. And once we have become a true kingdom, we will end the injustices my brother has wrought.”

“Yes!” Ostrey said, drawing his sword and thrusting it to the night sky. “Hail King Laeden!”

The other knights drew their swords, echoing Ostrey’s cry.

All but Markus raised their voices. Transfixed, Markus was a gargoyle—arms crossed, lips drawn tight. Whether because he had no sword to draw, or because he had no faith in the one he was declaring for, Laeden didn’t know. But despite the elevated tenor of the knights, a sinking sensation welled within his stomach at Markus’s lack of a reaction.

This is the right way. Markus will see. For my father. For my grandfather. For Iylea and Zephyrus. This is the way.

“Where shall we set sail, my king?” Ser Ostrey asked.

Laeden lifted his eyes to the horizon. Not a cloud marred the perfect night sky. The gleaming stars were a pleasant diversion from the omen they represented; the drought that had overtaken the nightly rains seemed intent on continuing. A shiny distraction. He examined Ser Ostrey’s pristine armor.

An idea began to take shape in Laeden’s mind, one that could turn a dozen soldiers into a budding army before sunrise, announce his claim as King of Valtarcia, and serve as a distraction to help Zephyrus get to Tharseo’s Bastion.

“Valtarcia,” Laeden said. “The Bay of Bastards. I have an idea.”

Part III

Chapter 14

Of All the Lost Souls

Threyna II

Valtarcia

Breathless, disheartened, and corrupted by the use of her blood magic, Threyna exited the caves concealing the Aeryean Armor from the world. Once again beneath the starry sky, Threyna lay back on a flattened boulder to stare at motes of light suspended in the distance. Similar to the night, her arm was more black than white, the veins darker and thicker than before. Her heart throbbed in her throat and radiated throughout her body like an ominous drum.

She barely escaped with her life, but she was far from safe and needed to find a soul to consume. Even at full strength, she would still need a plan to take the Aeryean Armor back from a man she’d never been able to beat in a fight and a woman who always hated her.

Threyna found herself longing for the cursed island of Rheynia—where the shades of disembodied souls roamed, hollowed attacked the living, and darklings sought to possess them. At least there, sustenance was readily available. Here, she would have to take from the living to preserve herself.

Threyna propped herself up from the boulder that supported her. Regaining her feet with a wobble, she used her hands to stabilize and propel herself through the difficult terrain of the Silver Summits. As she descended the cleaved stone path, she considered her options. There was likely no one this far from Northridge to consume, but the prospect of venturing all the way to Salmantica or even to Valtarcia seemed a steep task.

She emerged from the crags of the Silver Summits onto the isthmus road connecting Valtarcia and Salmantica. She sniffed the sea’s salt air, the metallic tinge of blood from her scrape with Tyrus, but there was something else—acrid, pungent, distinct.

Smoke.

She wheeled around, searching for ascending wisps from a campfire that stained the clear night. To the northwest, tendrils of gray swirled over the peaks in the distance, but too large to be from a campfire. Threyna willed her legs into motion, traveling west along the winding isthmus road. She strained her ears, attempting to block out the whistling wind and the crash of the sea against the cliffs. Unable to hear, Threyna picked up her pace despite the stiffness in her sore feet and fatigue in her thighs.

As she rounded a bend and the isthmus road opened up, torchlight illuminated horses, wagons, and armed men. Dozens of wagons, scores of horses.

Ghosts. Threyna ducked, nestling herself along the slopes to remain unseen. As weak as she was with the rot spreading, she couldn’t afford to waste her blood magic, but no longer could she rely on her senses alone. She tapped into her Inner Throne.

Heartbeats thrummed in the distance before her, but a chorus of hundreds were nearby. She slunk away from the cover of the mountain base to peek in the direction of the smoke. Elevated and tucked into the mountains, the open windows of a stone-carved fortress spat the billowing smoke into the night.

With her senses flared, shouting voices accompanied the beating hearts. Closing her eyes and sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, she searched for her sustenance. All she needed was one or two separated from the pack. If she could pick off a couple and refuel herself, she could sneak past them and at least defend herself if she got caught. If successful, she would be somewhat more prepared to deal with Tyrus and Erowen when she inevitably met them again.

Scanning the mountains, she found what she sought. A single heartbeat, rapid and weak, isolated from the rest. As much as she hated consuming others to survive, this one would be a kindness. Based on the pulse, they probably wouldn’t survive anyway.

She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to know why an army had chased someone into the mountains and set a fortress aflame to smoke them out. It would be easier this way. It always was. A healthy distance benefited all parties. She wouldn’t use the people close to her, and they wouldn’t weigh her down with guilt so she could do what needed to be done.

As she neared the entrance up to the mountain pass, she needed a distraction. Despite the rot encroaching on her heart, Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne and conjured a swarm of snakes at the feet of the nearest horses.

Whinnies and shrieks accompanied the horses’ stomping and rearing. Once the soldiers attempted to steady their mounts, Threyna let the blood serpents dissipate to ash and, using their distraction, snuck up the mountain pass.

Ignoring her fatigue and the growing dread that always accompanied consuming another soul, Threyna powered her way to the weakened loner. Whoever they were, they weren’t moving, as if waiting to die. As she climbed the terraced stairs, the shouting soldiers grew louder.

Better to be found by me than them.

Closing in on the fortress and the soldiers gathered around the entrance, Threyna climbed off the path to wrap around the side of the stone-carved castle. She struggled to keep her heaving breaths quiet, sucking down smoke-sullied air, but she crept through the crags beneath the level ground the keep was founded upon. With each step, she drew nearer to the weakened heart and closer to relieving the plaguing rot.

Over a small crest, around a jagged rock, and down another descent, she found the huddled form of a body, lying fetal between the narrow pass. Threyna let out a sigh—partly relieved that she’d soon quench the thirst for souls, but mostly despondent for having to rob another of life.

She approached, loose stone grinding underfoot. The huddled body rustled as she neared.

Stay still. It will be over soon.

Stopping a few feet away from the figure’s back, Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne and began to draw on the soul reluctant to be pried from its mortal form.

“No.” The figure groaned, moving for the first time.

Threyna closed her eyes. Please, don’t make this harder than it has to be. She increased the draw but met even more resistance. She opened her eyes. How can one so broken resist?

The figure, a man, pushed himself to his feet. With his back still toward her, he pressed his hands into either wall of the narrow pass to stabilize himself.

“When it’s my time to die,” he said, his words slurring. “I’ll die on my feet.” He attempted to turn to face her but dropped to a knee.

An exasperated exhale passed her lips. They never make it easy. “It’s okay. Just let go.”

Through labored breath and effort, the man pulled himself back to his feet. “I can’t. I won’t.” He eyed her, glancing over his shoulder. Moonlight cascaded down off the rocks to illuminate his face.

Threyna froze. A pit yawned deep within her stomach, threatening to swallow her whole.

No. Impossible.

Threyna lost hold of her Inner Throne and stepped backwards away from the ghost before her. She couldn’t believe her eyes. A pang of guilt writhed within her, like a worm within her rotten core. She’d made many mistakes in her life—she’d done terrible things to survive, and even worse in her efforts to defeat the Skeleton King. Along the way, she’d hurt more people than she cared to account for, but staring at what had become of her deeds left her speechless.

Of all the people and all the lost souls of the realms…

“Zephyrus?”

Chapter 15

The Ghost of Memories Lost

Zephyrus IV & Threyna III

Valtarcia

Zephyrus

Zephyrus steadied himself before the talking shadow.

It spoke my name.

He attempted to turn around to face the figure, but he staggered, collapsing to his hands and knees. His bones felt like gruel—partially from the force magic he’d expended to absorb the impact of bouncing down the cliffside, and partially because his shoulders, ribs, and hips bore the brunt of what magic could not. He pressed his hands into the stone to stand, but his elbows slackened. Unable to regain his composure, he eyed the approaching shadow.

“Zephyrus, is that really you?”

A woman’s voice. The shadow prowled closer, moonlight glinting off her silver hair. Zephyrus’s vision swam, too erratic to focus. Stepping into the light, she knelt down until they were nose to nose. Her skin, a mix of black and white, played tricks on his eyes, as if lightning were cracking across her flesh. Her eyes, blue aside from the black veins that invaded them, examined him.

Where have I seen that before?

She reached her hand for him, and Zephyrus flinched. Vertigo throttled his equilibrium, and he slunk back to rest on his hip, his arm defending his face.

She recoiled. “Zephyrus, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Zephyrus reached for the bladeless hilt on his belt, but her fingers closed around his wrist, her grip firm, but not threatening. He met her eyes, examining the pinch of her brow, and the height of her cheekbones.

“Ghosts, do you not remember me?”

Zephyrus blinked. For a moment, he thought Threyna knelt before him, but if it were her, she had fallen on worse times than he had. His vision stabilized, and Threyna’s features became clearer. “Threyna…”

The corner of her lip curled upwards. “Blood and bone, I thought you forgot me too.”

Zephyrus shook his hanging head until the motion disoriented him. “Ceres was right.”

The howling Jackals and shouting Sentinels still reverberated in his mind. The scent of smoke stained the air. He struggled to discern what was real from imaginary, as if his soul were trapped where his body fell.

He stretched his fingers for Threyna’s neck. She allowed him to touch her, and he traced his thumb over the apple of her throat.

The scar.

Threyna

Threyna took Zephyrus’s hand in her own. The pit in her stomach plummeted to her feet. She needed to feed to survive, but looking at Zephyrus—broken, bleeding, and weak—she couldn’t take from him.

I’m the reason he’s here. I set him on this path.

His hand was cool and clammy, his fingers weak and clumsy. It was just supposed to be one soul. One weak, dying soul. Consume and go.

Any other man in Rheynia and I’d have consumed him already.

She should consume him or, at the very least, leave him. But she’d already lost so many—too many. She’d given up Zephyrus once before, and she knew in her heart she couldn’t do it again.

She slung his arm over her shoulder and hauled him to his feet. The combination of his unsteadiness and deadweight made him difficult to support.

“We need to move,” Threyna said. She couldn’t go back, though—Tyrus would find her if she had to slow to Zephyrus’s pace. Her only path was forward, deeper into the Silver Summits.

Not two steps up the mountain, Paxoran’s voice resonated in her mind. “What are you doing? The Skeleton King nears. You only lack one of Stockhelm’s Treasures. Consume him, confront Tyrus, and secure your destiny. Consume him—body and soul.”

Threyna swallowed, knowing Paxoran was right. He was always right. Her withering soul churned with ravenous thirst for the sustenance Zephyrus’s essence could offer, but she resisted.

I’m not a monster. I can overcome this curse.

“I can’t, Paxoran,” Threyna channeled. “There has to be another way. Guide me.”

“Out of the darkness, born into the light.” Paxoran’s voice echoed through her mind, reverberating against every fiber of her being. “A wielder of the lost to summon the three. Three. You have two, and you will die if you remain tethered to one such as he.”

Zephyrus limped along, his hand tracing the contour of the jagged rocks alongside them to steady himself. His head lolled towards her, chin resting against his shoulder.

“You hear him too?” he asked.

Threyna’s feet failed to move. She blinked, examining Zephyrus. How can he hear?

“Consume him,” Paxoran said. “End him. He is controlled by the spirit of the Gods who would see all our efforts end in ruin.”

Zephyrus’s heavy-lidded eyes battled through fatigue to search her. His head shook, and his eyes closed for a long moment as he swayed within her support.

“Lies.” Zephyrus focused on her through heavily lidded eyes. “Vykannis is dead. The last of the Judges died saving me… from him. Paxoran.”

Threyna balked at the mention of his name. “Is this true?”

“Yes, Zephyrus could have aided us. I tried to make him see reason, but he chose to abandon his potential. He is no more use to us. Consume him.”

Zephyrus grunted. “Use. That’s all they ever want: to use us.”

Threyna bit her lip. With Paxoran raging in her head, shouts of soldiers raining down upon them, and ash from the fires dusting the stones around her, Threyna needed to make a decision: trust Paxoran—or herself.

Since the Skeleton King’s attack in Klaytos, Paxoran had been her guide, keeping her a step ahead of Belrich, the Warlocks, and the Templar. She had asked Zephyrus to help her defeat the Skeleton King, but he denied her, the Templar’s interests and his need to go to Tharseo’s Bastion a more pressing concern. But Paxoran was also the one to suggest betraying Zephyrus and Patrus in the first place.

“Finish him!”

Threyna ignored Paxoran. “Zephyrus, why are you here?”

His gaze traveled upwards, his index finger reaching towards the stone fortress being scorched from within. “This was my home. I forgot, but now I remember. I must go to—”

“Tharseo’s Bastion.” Threyna’s throat constricted. I’m the reason he lost his memories.

“He doesn’t matter,” Paxoran said, his tone becoming a low growl. “Consume him.”

“No,” Threyna said, meeting Zephyrus’s eyes. She’d made the mistake of believing things could only be done one way before. It had nearly cost her everything. I can’t force Zephyrus to join me, no more than he can force me to join him.

“He will only slow you down,” Paxoran hissed. “Tyrus will hunt you and take the Treasures of Stockhelm for himself. The Skeleton King’s shadow will cover the world.”

“I will get us out of here,” Threyna said. “I’ll find someone else to consume, and then I’ll claim the final—”

Threyna’s airways closed. She gasped for breath, but none entered her lungs. She tried to cough, but no sound came forth. Zephyrus slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. Threyna reached her hand to her chest, her mind racing to understand what was happening. She looked down at her skin. The rot spread, encapsulating her entire body.

“Consume him,” Paxoran said. “Or I consume you.”

Zephyrus

Threyna dropped to her knees, clawing at her throat. The black lightning streaking across her flesh moments ago became a void. The whites of her bulging eyes darkened, and she fell onto her back, squirming, dying.

No. Not again.

Zephyrus willed himself onto all fours and crawled the short distance towards her until he was eye to eye with her. He didn’t know what Paxoran was doing to her, or what he wanted from her, but Zephyrus had suffered from his haunting voice too. Whatever he wanted with her, it wasn’t good, and Zephyrus would be damned before he watched her die again.

Zephyrus placed his hands on Threyna’s cheeks. Her black eyes widened, mouth open in a soundless scream.

Ignoring his weakness and magic fatigue, he prepared for the pain that would come in balancing the scales. He ground his teeth, and white mist emitted from his hands into her skin.

Like a torch against the night, his healing magic beat back the darkness shrouding her face. The blue of her irises fought through the shadows of Paxoran’s corruption, but pain, pain unlike anything Zephyrus had ever imagined, lanced through his skull. Worse than when Vykannis sacrificed himself to spare Zephyrus from Paxoran. Worse than every wound of the arena combined. His teeth clamped, and tears streamed down his cheeks, but he kept his eyes on Threyna.

Paxoran continued to shout in Threyna’s mind, the echoes of which were somehow bleeding into Zephyrus’s, but he couldn’t focus on the words. His other sensations disappeared as pain overtook him. Flames exploded behind his eyes. He wanted to stop. He needed to stop, but she would die if he did. He endured.

Her face returned to normal, how he remembered it—fair of skin, blue of eye—but the panic in her expression hadn’t retreated. She thrashed, tearing at her neck with her fingernails as the black veins strangled her.

Zephyrus strained, his voice revving within his throat. He’d failed her once before. He’d failed too many others. A noose of sharpened steel cinched around his neck. The pain magnified, worse than before. Zephyrus screamed as the white mist from his hands entangled with Paxoran’s tendrils of darkness, but his voice was cut off. No sound left his lips, but Threyna’s screams replaced his own.

An inferno roared to life in Zephyrus’s lungs. The flames licked at his rib cage until it felt like his entire torso was engulfed in fire. He closed his eyes, wishing the pain would end, but it spread down his arms like electricity. He opened his eyes. Black veins snaked down his forearms, encroaching on his fingertips.

Zephyrus released Threyna from his grasp. And the moment he let go, similar to the night he spent in Vykinallia’s arms after she attempted to free him, something within him snapped. Like falling down a well, Threyna’s screams, the trample of Jackals’ footsteps approaching their position, and the memory of pain faded away into nothingness.

Threyna

Zephyrus’s fingertips slipped from her cheeks. His eyes rolled to the back of his skull. He teetered and slumped from his knees, falling to a heap. Threyna was still screaming, but her voice was the only one rattling around in her head. Paxoran was gone.

Threyna bolted upright. Her hands clean, the rot gone. Ghosts, how did he—

“Down there!” a voice shouted from above. “Don’t let him get away.”

A man in a yellow surcoat with black pauldrons stood on the cliffs of the mountain fortress, overlooking Threyna and Zephyrus’s position. Soldiers in black, guards in blue, and more in yellow weaved through the crags, closing in on them in all directions.

Threyna’s mouth went dry. Gory ghosting dammit. Zephyrus was supine, eyes closed. The black rot that fled her pulsated through the veins of his neck. His chest rose and fell in short sharp breaths, but if all the shouting wasn’t enough to stir him, nothing she was going to do would.

Blood and bone, out of Aranoc and into the Gullies.

She searched for a path of escape, but armed men filled every vacancy.

“Zephyrus, if you can hear me, now would be a good time to wake up.”

No motion.

The men tracking Zephyrus closed in around her, swords leveled. No escape. She stood over Zephyrus, her eyes darting left and right to ward off their encroachment.

The man in the yellow surcoat and black pauldrons slid down an angled cliff face to land on a boulder only a dozen paces away. He jumped down onto a smaller rock and settled on the stone path between the crags. The gray hair salting his temples caught the moonlight. Black hair and thick brows darkened the features around his flattened nose. He extended his left hand towards her as his right reached for the pommel of his sword.

“I am Lenox Stromedus, Commander of the Jackals in service to King Damascus Helixus. Stand aside, woman. He is the one we want. We got no quarrel with you. Don’t give us one.”

She hadn’t realized the Vykane Blade was clenched in her hands aimed at the men closing in. She waited for Paxoran to weigh in, to tell her what to do. Only silence.

He’s gone.

She glanced at Zephyrus, the black rot receding into nothingness. Questions flooded her mind as to what he did and how he did it, but there was no time. She needed to find a way out.

“Lower your weapons,” Lenox said. “Let us have him, and you can go.”

Threyna met Lenox’s stony glare. Her lower jaw pressed forward, and her eyes narrowed to a sword’s tip. She shook her head. “You can’t have him.”

Lenox laughed. The cackle spread to his men until they were all heckling, following their leader like a horde of hollowed under Order control.

“Then we’ll take him,” Lenox said. “And once we’ve finished nailing him to the Six Arrowed Star, we’ll string you up beside him.”

Lenox continued talking, but renewed by Zephyrus’s efforts, Threyna sank into her Inner Throne. Heartbeats thundered around her, brimming with overconfidence, languishing in conceited ignorance. She didn’t need Paxoran to gain access to the cursed blood magic; she just needed to still her breath, calm her mind, and let the blood do the rest.

“Have it your way,” Lenox said. “Kill them both.”

Threyna’s lips curled in a darkling’s grin. Lenox’s soldiers advanced, sharpened steel leading their way. But from Threyna’s Inner Throne, she commanded the blood from Zephyrus’s wounds to rise before her. The droplets coagulated into a single sharpened arrow.

This one’s for you, Laela.

With her eyes closed, but her sixth sense open wide, the arrow zipped through the air, going from one beating heart to the next. Shouts, gurgles, and last words filled the crags one after the other as Threyna’s arrow darted through the chest and out the back of each of the six men blocking the way forward. She opened her eyes and met Lenox’s wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. The men at his back shrank away, attempting to take cover behind things that wouldn’t protect them. Their best protection was the fact that they would slow Tyrus’s pursuit.

She smiled, pointing the Vykane Blade at Lenox. “Lower your weapons,” Threyna said, repeating his words. “Let me have him and you can go.”

Lenox’s lips split into a snarl. He drew his sword, but before he could step forward, Threyna summoned the blood of the newly fallen, draining them to create a current of blood in the narrow space between the crags.

Lenox reared in horror as the flood of blood rose before him to become a spear-tipped barricade that drove him backwards, creating more space for Threyna and Zephyrus.

“Six save us,” Lenox said, eyeing the blood. “What kind of monster are you?”

I’m not a monster. Not anymore. Threyna hoisted Zephyrus up over her shoulder. “If you follow us, I’ll turn your insides into a Six Arrowed Star.”

With black veins slithering up to her shoulder and down towards her elbow, she turned with Zephyrus’s limp form slung across her back and stepped over the fallen, drawing upon their souls as she went. Though it took the souls of six men, the rot receded back to the scars left on her upper arm, where the bangle’s prongs attached to her.

Lenox wouldn’t wait forever, and neither would Tyrus.

Zephyrus saved her from Paxoran and separated her from him—for better or worse. But the fact that he could heal her completely opened up a new world of possibilities.

Together, we can defeat the Skeleton King. But first, I will get him to Tharseo’s Bastion.

Ascending the winding crags leading northeast, she whispered to Zephyrus, “I’ve got you. Now we just need to find somewhere safe.” If such a place still exists.

Chapter 16

The Price of Obstinance

Fenyx I

Stockhelm

The purple dawn broke with orange ripples through the windowed cell of the Champion’s quarters. With it brought the end of another night without rain. Another night without sleep. And, worst of all, the potential of another day without training.

The burn scars along the side of his face prickled. Another day without whiteroot. Another day for the Burning to torture him. Fenyx grunted, pacing the five-stride path he had for the last several hours, his eyes fixated on the sky beyond the window.

Three days had passed since the New Rheynian Games and the three victories Fenyx secured to help House Cassius win the laurel of the best ludus in the realm. He’d felt on top of the world, but he wasn’t Champion. Zephyrus defeated Octus and Saurus. Zephyrus received the glory. Zephyrus went to Salmantica to receive the accolades that should have been Fenyx’s. Yet while Zephyrus was out there, he was here—in the Champion’s cell he didn’t deserve.

Fenyx growled, breaking rank from his pacing to approach the wooden door with the barred window. With his knuckles resting against the splintered wood, he peeked down the corridor of the other cells.

Too many were empty.

With Jechtaric and Cerik having fled for the Uprising, Stegavax and Aelixo dead on the pebbles of the Chariot’s Arena, and Zephyrus still out parading his victory, the barracks were barren.

After they’d returned from Valtarcia, the barracks were alive with celebration, and for the first time, Fenyx and Auron shared in the festivities together. For a night and a day, they had celebrated. He hadn’t thought twice when the Sentinels came in and spirited them into their cells the following night, especially after they’d escorted him into the Champion’s quarters. But when the sun rose the next morning and Auron didn’t exit the barracks to greet the sun with morning prayers, Fenyx knew something was wrong. They had already spent an entire day in their cells; they’d skipped a full day of training without any explanation. Now, Fenyx wanted answers.

Many of the other gladiators were awake and waiting at their cell doors as well. Tongueless Vossler gripped the iron bars of his cell, shoving his narrow face through to glance down the corridor. Shagren glowered in the neighboring cell, tugging at the knots in his tangled reddish-brown beard. Wardon was beside him, the bald moon of a man as slow of wit as he was with a war hammer.

“Where is Doctore?” Fenyx growled, the burn marks on his face twitching.

Wardon blinked his bleary eyes. “Doctore’s still in the villa.”

Shagren spat. “Who cares ‘bout Doctore? I wanna know where Zephyrus is. Probably eatin’ at the king’s table while we been holed up here—that bastard.”

Fenyx ignored Shagren. Still in the villa? Auron never chose to be in the villa, nor did he stay any longer than he had to. “How do you know Doctore’s still in the villa?”

Wardon exchanged a glance with Shagren, like a hound seeking its owner’s permission.

Fenyx lowered his brow on the unburned side of his face. “Speak.”

Wardon let out a weasel of a laugh for such a large man. “You don’t see much through your Champion’s door, eh? Them blue guards took him upstairs. To the villa. Hasn’t come back.”

The Burning wanted to rip the door off its hinges and drag Wardon’s thick skull through the cell bars. Blue guards, the Sentinels, they’ve been the ones bringing us food as well. He hadn’t seen a guard in Cassius purple and gold since they’d returned from Valtarcia. His patience withered in the Burning’s demand for blood.

“What do you mean he hasn’t come back?” Fenyx asked.

Shagren chortled. “You have a whole brain behind that half face?”

Fenyx pounded the hammer of his fist on the wooden door. “You’d best hope today is not the day we return to the sands.” But they wouldn’t be returning to the training square without Auron. Why’s he been up there so long? Why hasn’t he come back?

The Sentinels took him.

Shagren opened his mouth to retort, but Fenyx punched his wooden door again. “Enough of this. Guards!”

Shagren rattled the door to his cell, shouting incoherent drivel, his cheeks matching the hue of his matted reddish beard. Fenyx raised his voice to summon the guards over Shagren’s noise. Wardon barked, and even Vossler grunted, adding his tongueless voice to the calamity.

The door separating the villa from the barracks swung open and slammed into the wall. A stampede of footsteps heralded the line of guards clad in blue. A Sentinel led the way, his soft jaw dressed in softer fuzz—more boy than man. He drew his sword and dragged the flat of the blade against the iron bars, forcing the gladiators to retreat deeper into their cells. “Silence!”

The gladiators were cowed. They sank to the shadows of their cells as if this man-boy were some sort of red-scaled chimera from the stories.

The least of us could best him absent sight and sword. Fenyx didn’t back away from his door, knuckles still pressed into the wood. Perhaps, absent the door’s protection, he would have backed away as well, but backing away wouldn’t change anything. If he wanted his questions answered, Auron returned, or to get back to the training square, he needed to be bold.

“Where—” Fenyx’s voice came out small. He cleared his throat. “Where is Doctore?”

The man-boy sauntered over to Fenyx’s door, looking up through the barred window, his eyes narrow and lips pouty. “Your doctore has been relieved of duty.”

Fenyx’s chest tightened. He inhaled sharply through his nostrils, the air’s rush nearly painful. Relieved of duty? The implications were too many to digest. Through bared teeth, Fenyx spoke the only question that mattered. “Where is he?”

The Sentinel’s lip curled into a twisted smile. He whistled. “Bring him down.”

In the silence of the barracks, the clank of manacles rang against the stone walls. Out of Fenyx’s line of sight, the ominous sound sent a series of twitches down his burned side.

“A mage lived among you for far too long for no one to have noticed,” the Sentinel said, resheathing his sword. “The truth will come to light. Those who aid us in uncovering mages will be rewarded. Those who resist us…”

Two Sentinels escorted Auron down the corridor of the barracks. His eye was swollen shut, his lip ballooned to twice its size. His jaw hung slack, and his arm dangled limp within his manacles. Bloodied and beaten with lacerations along his arms and bare torso, Auron limped toward the man-boy captaining the Sentinels. Auron’s escorts shoved him to his knees at the feet of their pouty-lipped leader.

Auron collapsed to all fours—his breathing shaky, posture vapid.

Fenyx’s fists trembled. He couldn’t look away from his doctore, his mentor, his friend. Fenyx had suffered punishment several times. Often, he even deserved it. He’d been demoted for charging Stegavax in the Kings’ Day Games. He’d been whipped when they found his idols of the Judges. Fenyx had been foolish and reckless, but not Auron. Never Auron.

“You see the price of obstinance,” the man-boy said. He placed his foot on Auron’s shoulder and shoved him onto his back.

Fire rose within Fenyx’s belly, the smoke of which stung his eyes. He pressed harder into the door until the hinges creaked.

The Sentinel leader glared at Fenyx. “Zephyrus, the Champion of New Rheynia is a mage.” He crossed his hands behind his back and stepped over Auron. “Either the former House of Cassius is full of fools, or you’re all sympathizers. But we will find out one way or another.”

Former House of Cassius…

The emphasis on the word narrowed Fenyx’s brow. He settled back, easing his force off of the door’s hinges. Is Cassius no longer Dominus here?

Auron regained his stance on all fours but inclined his head to catch Fenyx’s eye. He shook his head. The gesture was minute, barely noticeable, but Fenyx caught it. Auron mouthed the word, “No.”

Not knowing what Auron meant, Fenyx didn’t have time to inquire. The Sentinel returned, walking behind Auron to stop before Fenyx’s door.

“In our search for sympathizers,” the Sentinel said, “we will continue our questioning with the only person here found with physical ties to the Judges.” His smile twisted, making Fenyx’s insides churn. The Sentinel turned towards his men and jerked his head in Fenyx’s direction. “Bring him upstairs.”

Chapter 17

Reunion of Revenants

Threyna IV

The Silver Summits

Wind whipped across Threyna’s exposed skin with a frosty bite. Despite the Orsion Cloak’s embrace and the effort of lugging Zephyrus up the incline, cold crept into her bones. Each step through the snow-swept crags tested her waning will.

In all her travels—from Rheynia, across Klaytos, and between the islands of Perillian—never had she experienced this type of cold. She’d spent most of her life under gray skies, absent the sun’s warmth, but here, it was as if warmth didn’t exist.

Guided by moonlight and a fistful of her dimly lit Viridite glowstones in place of Paxoran’s whispers, more questions filled Threyna’s mind than there were stars in the sky. Once upon a time, seeing the stars brought her joy. The stars were her haven, her send-off, her window to the future. But now the vast expanse only made her feel small, and the Gods smaller still.

Paxoran tried to use Zephyrus. He wanted to use me. Why?

Threyna tucked her chin, attempting to hide from the open sky as if the stars were the window the Gods peeked through to spy on her. A shiver snaked up her spine, as welcome as the rot in her veins.

The terrain plateaued up ahead, but Threyna didn’t think she could make it another step. She tapped into her Inner Throne, searching for Lenox and his men, but she couldn’t sense them. The only heartbeats belonged to her and Zephyrus, his slow and weak.

She lowered Zephyrus to settle against a flattened rock formation, hoping for some reprieve from the wind. She set down the glowstones to provide some light and propped him upright. Touching her palm to his forehead and cheek, Threyna felt his chill. Eyes closed and lips blue, he trembled in his soiled linen garb. He had saved her and nearly killed himself in the act.

He should have let Paxoran consume me. Ghosts know I deserve it.

Threyna drew in a deep breath, but the cold air nearly burned her windpipe, causing her to sputter into a coughing fit. She sat down beside Zephyrus and draped the Orsion Cloak over his shoulders, but it wasn’t wide enough to cover them both. She was cold, but Zephyrus was freezing, and she hadn’t saved him from Lenox and his army of Jackals just to let him perish to the elements.

She reached for the silver clasp at her neck that fastened the Orsion Cloak. A part of her balked at the prospect of taking it off—of giving it to him. What if this is a ruse—a clever attempt to separate me from the Treasure?

Threyna placed her hand on Zephyrus’s cheek. Plumes of breath clouded the air between them, but they only came from her lips. He was no longer shivering.

Threyna gasped. “Zephyrus?”

No answer.

No motion.

No breath. Nothing escaped Zephyrus’s lips or nostrils.

“No, no, no.” Threyna released the clasp of her cloak and swept it over Zephyrus’s torso. He didn’t stir. She rubbed her hands against his chest to create warmth.

“Come on, come on.”

Threyna’s teeth chattered, the wind seeming to bite with icy fangs absent the cloak’s embrace. The chill in the air clung to her skin, sapping her strength.

She tugged the cloak tighter around Zephyrus. “Zephyrus, can you hear me?”

If he did, he showed no sign of it. The darkness closed in around her, enfolding her in its grim embrace. The moonlight now felt like an arcanatek, shining a light on her to highlight her shame. Threyna shook her head, denying the truth before her eyes.

It’s not supposed to be like this.

Tearless cries heaved her trembling shoulders. The pit in her stomach yawned; the floor she thought she could never surpass sank lower into the abyss of her guilt. She wrapped her arms around his neck, cradling his head.

Still, he did not move.

Another lost to her. Another dead and gone.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You didn’t deserve this.” She fastened the clasp behind his neck.

The silver etchings along the white cloak caught the moonlight, illuminating the crags that would serve as their coffins. Threyna closed her eyes, wishing to block out the world and numb herself to what Belrich would do if left unimpeded.

It didn’t matter anymore. The cold would soon take her, just like it took Zephyrus. She’d go quietly, and when dawn came, Belrich would be someone else’s problem.

After all she’d survived, it was all for nothing. She thought she’d die to the Skeleton King as her parents had before, or that her curse would take her. It seemed a fitting end, but no. She’d die here, on a forlorn mountain in a foreign land. A failure.

Zephyrus gasped, sucking in air, his eyes wild.

Threyna startled as he tore himself free from her grasp. Before she could process, Zephyrus stood, extending his arms out to either side of the narrow crag. A stream of water hissed out of his palms, streaking down the rockface on either side of them.

Shoulders shivering, teeth rattling, Threyna stared in disbelief as color returned to Zephyrus’s cheeks. Through labored breaths, he examined her.

“Hold still.” Zephyrus released the wall, his palms now glowing a fiery orange. Waving his arms in wide arcs, lines of flame followed in his hands’ wake. As if he’d set a ring of oil all around them and put a torch to it, a circle of fire encompassed them. The icy ground and frost-covered stones caught like tinder, and warmth radiated not just around her, but through her.

Threyna hugged herself, but already, her lips stopped trembling, and the muscle tension along her spine began to subside. She exhaled, resting her hands on her knees.

A seed of doubt sprouted in the dawn of Zephyrus’s apparent revival. Was this a ploy to take the cloak? The silver etchings along the Orsion Cloak, still fastened backwards on Zephyrus’s chest, continued to glow a bright white.

Zephyrus grunted but didn’t meet her gaze. He placed his hands to the ground between them, summoning a pillar of flames to roaring life. He crumpled into a cross-legged heap before the fire, his shoulders slumped. The flames reflected off the pupils of his bleary, heavy-lidded eyes.

Observing him, Threyna felt foolish for suspecting he was going to run off with the Orsion Cloak. Threyna knelt down, raising her hands to the fire’s licking tongues. She wanted to say something witty and sarcastic—something about there being more efficient ways to get a girl out of her cloak—but her mind felt frozen, slipping over how to execute the delivery. Instead, she smiled, and when Zephyrus met her eyes and returned the grin, her stomach fluttered.

Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut more often.

Zephyrus’s gaze drifted from the fire to the glowing green glowstones absorbing the light. Picking one up, he examined it closer.

“Viridite,” Threyna said, gathering up the others that she had dropped. “Glowstones. They absorb light and store it. For a time.” She beckoned for him to pass it to her.

Zephyrus nodded, handing it back to her.

Threyna grinned. “Not all of us can conjure fire.”

When Zephyrus didn’t answer, Threyna exhaled, their breath no longer clouding in the fire’s vicinity. “I thought I lost you again.”

Zephyrus bit his lip and nodded. “I was about to say the same to you. What happened?”

Threyna averted her stare to the woodless, smokeless fire. I poisoned your mind and faked my death to claim the Treasures of the Celestic people for my own. She didn’t know where to begin, but she couldn’t start there.

“You died in my arms,” Zephyrus said, staring at the fire, his hands receiving its warmth. The flames reflected off his pupils in his faraway gaze. “That moment haunts my dreams, but now, I can’t discern dream from reality.”

Threyna swallowed, touching the scar upon her throat. “It was real. As is this moment.”

“How?” Zephyrus met her eyes over the licking tongues of flame between them.

They should have been past the point of lies and half-truths. She needed to be honest, but she couldn’t, not fully. She drew in a deep breath, examining him over the dancing fire.

“I told you about the Skeleton King. What he’d done. What he’d do.” She slid back her sleeve to reveal her blackened arm, sullied with the blood magic’s corruption. “I didn’t tell you that the same power he unleashed upon the Warlocks plagues me as well.”

She inched into her Inner Throne just enough to conjure a small throwing knife. It floated through the air before him. Zephyrus narrowed his eyes, inspecting the blood-born blade before taking the hilt in his hand.

“It’s real.” He hefted the knife, testing its weight.

Threyna let it fall to ash, and it disintegrated in Zephyrus’s palm. “For as long as I will it to be.” She pointed to a growing black vein descending her forearm. “But it comes at a cost, one that I can’t repay myself. I draw on the vitality of others; I must consume, or the rot will take me. That day, at Tharseo’s Bastion, I restitched my throat by drawing upon everyone else.”

Zephyrus’s stone face betrayed no emotion. “Ceres was right. You survived.”

Threyna’s gaze fell to the fire, heat rising to her cheeks despite the cold. The mention of Ceres’s name reminded her of what she’d done to the other members of the Arcane Templar to claim the Vykane Blade and Orsion Cloak. She hadn’t wanted to, but they didn’t give her any other choice.

She nodded, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand. “I survived.”

“What happened this time?”

Threyna readjusted her seat. “Paxoran, the God of Peace—he wanted me to consume you… to save myself.” She shuddered at the control he had over the rot in her veins, the pain he could inflict at a moment’s notice.

“You refused him,” Zephyrus said, massaging his hands together. “He’s not easily denied.”

Threyna swallowed the lump in her throat. Paxoran had come to her in her greatest desperation. He’d saved her from Belrich, led her to the Templar, and provided her a way to claim the Treasures for herself. Since the fall of the Warlocks of Sage, he’d been her only ally. But now she considered his words. He’d used Zephyrus. Was he using me too? “What demands did he make of you?” Threyna asked, hoping Zephyrus’s answer would shed light on her shroud of questions.

Zephyrus grunted. “He demanded nothing. He offered what I wanted all along.”

Threyna crawled around the fire, closer to Zephyrus. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted my freedom. I wanted to fulfill my prophecy and lead a rebellion against the Valencians who enslaved me.” Zephyrus’s shoulders rounded as he stared into the fire, as if something within reminded him of a terrible loss.

Threyna placed her hand on his. “So why did you deny him?”

He met her gaze, his eyes sparkling with a fervor absent before. His red hair, torn loose from its tie, danced in the whistling wind to frame his stoic face.

“He wanted me to… to kill someone who didn’t deserve to die.”

It made sense. Paxoran had similarly offered her the most pragmatic choice to achieve what she wanted: consume Zephyrus, confront Tyrus, claim the last Treasure, defeat the Skeleton King. But just as Zephyrus couldn’t kill someone who didn’t deserve it, neither could she.

Still, Threyna had questions. Paxoran’s motivations didn’t make sense. “It’s as if he’s more ruthless about our own ambitions than we are. But why—why should the God of Peace care about your rebellion or my fight against the Skeleton King?”

“The traitor God,” Zephyrus said. “Paxoran’s killing other Gods in Valencia, but he needs something from us for his own machinations. So what would my leading a rebellion have in common with your fight against the Skeleton King?”

Threyna raised an eyebrow. She didn’t know what he was talking about regarding traitors or murdered Gods, but she pieced together what Paxoran needed from them. She gestured to the Orsion Cloak draped around Zephyrus’s shoulders and pointed to the Vykane Blade at her hip.

“The Treasures… he’s after the Treasures.”

Zephyrus reoriented himself to face her, his brow narrowing. “He used my prophecy and desire to topple the kingdom to make me claim the Treasures.”

“And my hatred for the Skeleton King and Tyru—” Threyna swallowed her tongue, realizing what she was about to say to a member of the Arcane Templar.

“Who?”

It dawned on her; she had thought she had heard Paxoran’s voice before she fought with Tyrus and Erowen. She believed Tyrus’s void magic prevented him from speaking to her effectively, but Paxoran wasn’t speaking to her.

Paxoran is the friend guiding Tyrus and Erowen. I overheard him speaking to Tyrus.

The realization punched her in the stomach, forcing the breath from her lungs. He just wants the Treasures. He’ll use anyone to get them.

She shook her head. “Paxoran is guiding two of the Warlocks to the Treasures as well.”

Zephyrus examined the Orsion Cloak around his shoulders, then the blade at her belt. “They fought you for the Aeryean Armor.”

Nodding her head, Threyna fixated on the fire. Ghosting Tyrus. I nearly had all three. Her fists clenched, splitting her dry knuckles. “They’ll keep coming for me ‘til they have all three.”

The wind howled through the crags, whipping the tongues of Zephyrus’s magical fire.

He slid closer to her, placing his hand on her forearm. “Let them come then. Join me in returning to Tharseo’s Bastion, and when they come, we’ll face them together. Then we’ll have all the weapons we need to stop Paxoran from whatever his plans are.”

Warmth radiated from Zephyrus’s hand to her arm. She looked down at it, puzzled. How long since someone touched me with affection? Threyna met Zephyrus’s eyes, his passion burning brighter than the fires they reflected. He wanted her to journey with him, fight beside him. He genuinely believed they could help each other.

Guilt slithered across her torso, constricting worse than the rot in her veins. She shrank away from his touch. If he knew the truth—if he knew what I’d done to put him here—he’d reopen the scar on my throat. Part of her wanted to run away from him, from her shame, but she couldn’t afford to. Tyrus and Erowen, Belrich and his horde—she couldn’t defeat them alone.

I can make up for the wrong I’ve done. As long as he never learns the truth.

Zephyrus began to retract his hand, but Threyna seized it in her own. “Apologies. I’ve grown accustomed to… being alone. But you’re right. We can do this. Together.”

The word felt strange on her tongue, like she didn’t deserve to say it. The guilt constricted around her, but what he offered was something she couldn’t turn down.

The journey to Tharseo’s Bastion would not be an easy one. They’d have to travel leagues of difficult terrain to get to Valtarcia, then sneak through the countryside to the southern coast. With Zephyrus’s healing magic, even if she couldn’t consume, she could conjure a raft to escort them to Stockhelm. But then they’d still need to traverse another country filled with men like Lenox Stromedus, evade Tyrus and Erowen—at least until they regained their strength—and hope they did so before the Skeleton King arrived on Perillian soil.

Ignoring her many doubts, her bubbling fears, and the guilty tension in her chest that only the truth could free her from, she forced a smile.

He can never know.

Again, Zephyrus grinned back, but unlike previously, when it made her stomach flit like a bird, this time, it only made her insides churn.

Chapter 18

Hide

Iylea IV

Valencia

“The Gods have taken her prisoner,” Iylea said, resting her hand against the crystalline façade of the Whispering Wall.

On the other side, Zephyrus absorbed the gravity of her words as he stood within the chambers of Stoneside. Iylea had always believed the abandoned Auros fortress was haunted by the ghosts of a family lost to the world. She was only half wrong; though not haunted, the family was indeed lost to the world—Arkadia and her husband to a Valencian dungeon, and their lone son, their only heir, enslaved as a gladiator, going by another name.

His silence droned on, but in it, the air in the Tower of Whispers seemed to move. She looked over her shoulder to the wall she’d entered through.

“I will try to free her, but seeing as you’ve found the sword, now you must go to Tharseo’s Bastion. There’s a relic containing the powers of Gods from a distant land. You’ll need every advantage to ascend to Valencia and defeat the traitor God… once we figure out who it is.”

“Burn me…” Zephyrus remained silent, brooding like a petulant child who didn’t want to do his chores. A distant creak echoed off the stone walls of the Celestial castle, and again, Iylea looked over her shoulder. She was about to tell him she needed to leave, but he broke his silence.

“I think the traitor God is named Paxoran,” Zephyrus said. “He tried communicating with—”

“We know that,” Iylea said. “We don’t know who he’s disguised as. Leave that to us. You go to Tharseo’s Bastion.”

“Once I arrive at Tharseo’s Bastion, how do I find this relic?”

“The Seers of Celestia are protecting it. Tell them—”

The image of Zephyrus burned away. How? Why?

Iylea’s eyes widened. She recalled the last time she stood before the crystalline mirror. The last time its view into the mortal realm winked out. Someone was coming.

Ferrocles will hang me by the chain if he finds me in here again.

Hair prickling along her arms, she searched left and right for a place to hide. The bookshelves and display cases offered no protection. The low table and chairs weren’t positioned to conceal her. A knot formed in her throat. Her knees trembled.

Move, you foolish girl!

She scurried behind a chair, but she might as well have stood in the center of the room and waved her arms. She attempted to slide under the table, but it was barely an improvement. Time was against her, and she’d already wasted too much of it.

Her eyes fell upon the hearth. Iylea ducked underneath the mantel as the stones of the false wall began to separate. Panicked, she wedged her hands and feet against the front and back walls of the fireplace and hoisted herself up.

Footsteps entered, thundering against the stone floor. A deep grunt filled the high ceiling and reverberated through the hearth.

Ferrocles.

Iylea held her breath, shoving her hands and feet outward with all her strength. Jaw clenched, her arms trembled against the strain. One slip and she’d end up in the dungeon beside Arkadia and her husband.

Ferrocles’s footsteps came louder, nearer before retreating. He continued to pace, his footfalls echoing off the stone or sinking into the carpet. Twice now, he’d even shoved furniture aside looking for her.

Her chest burned with her held breath. She needed to breathe, but fear sealed her mouth shut. Slow, shallow, inhales entered her nostrils, but her hold on the wall was slipping.

“You’re not breaking the chain,” Ferrocles said. “So where in the Creator’s realms are you?” His feet pounded the stone as he moved in the direction of the Whispering Wall. “Show me Iylea Faire.”

Iylea’s breath seized. She nearly crumpled into the hearth.

He’ll find me. He’ll rip me out of here, drag me down the stairs, and toss me from the anchor room.

“What is this?” Ferrocles growled.

“Free me!” Arkadia’s voice filled the tower ceiling. “If you are not the traitor God, release me from this cell, or it will be your blood that paints Valencia re—”

“Silence your conniving,” Ferrocles said.

Doubting Arkadia obeyed Ferrocles’s command, Iylea imagined the Whispering Wall returned to its crystalline appearance. She needed him to leave. Then she could slip back down the spiral staircase, return to the anchor room, and come up with a lie about where she was when Ferrocles came searching for her.

“You Arcamedes-cursed beast…” Ferrocles continued to swear, but he took no steps toward the exit.

He’s not leaving. Iylea’s palms were tingling; her legs were burning. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to breathe. She’d done her part. She told Laeden she loved him, told Zephyrus where to go. Zephyrus will have to discover who Paxoran is himself. May he succeed where I have failed.

“Show me Iylea Faire.”

Just as Iylea was about to let go, Ferrocles shouted.

“No! Not you again.”

“—isten to me long enough, then maybe—just maybe—you’d get it through your half helm of a skull that I’m on your ripping side, you fumbling fool of an oa—oh, you’re back!”

Ferrocles shouted in frustration before his footsteps charged toward the exit as if he were galloping into battle.

The moment the grinding stone walls rejoined, Iylea slid down the wall to collapse on the floor of the empty hearth. She lay there, her chest heaving with trepidation.

She recalled searching Sentigard’s study for the meaning behind her dreams involving Queen Danella and Baron Brusos stabbing scorpions, the sigil of House Cassius. Ser Daenus and his Revivalist underlings had entered just as she was about to leave, forcing her to hide behind the stacks. Hameryn had rescued her then as Arkadia had now.

Iylea composed herself and regained her footing. Legs still trembling, she tiptoed towards the Whispering Wall and summoned Arkadia. As her face filled the mirror’s reflection, so too did her slumped posture and the dark bags under her eyes.

“Thank you,” Iylea whispered.

Arkadia smiled upon hearing her. “Clever girl.”

Iylea feigned a smile, but it was more effort than it was worth. “I told Zep—Vykanicus, I mean.”

Arkadia nodded. “Well done. I’m proud of you. Klayvorine and Courianne would be too.”

Her feet shuffled against the stone, uncertain why Arkadia’s words made her want to retreat. “Thank you,” she said, in her diminutive handmaid’s voice.

“Go now. Return to the chain, but you mustn’t break the links. Find who Paxoran is disguised as. The realm depends on you.”

Iylea nodded, wondering how far the mortal world had fallen to be left in her hands. Forgetting herself, where she was, or who she was, she bowed to Arkadia and took her leave.

Chapter 19

House of the Horselord

Laeden III

Valtarcia

The sea’s wrath tossed their corsair ship with each tumultuous wave. Laeden steadied himself on the rigging lines, observing the cruel cliffs along the isthmus connecting Salmantica and Valtarcia. His stomach heaved and fell with each wave, and the prospect of what they were about to embark on only added to the turmoil.

He’d failed his last calling. As Captain of the Sentinels, it was his job to stop the Revivalists’ anarchy and bring them to justice to restore the king’s peace. Now they controlled the kingdom, and he was the anarchist. His father was dead. His grandfather was dead. Iylea was… he wasn’t even sure what Iylea was.

Though Aemos Horne slashed through her neck and Laeden held her decapitated head in his hands, he heard her speak to him from beyond the grave. She’d given him a new assignment, a new calling, and another opportunity to redeem his failings.

I can’t fail her again.

He swallowed back his nausea, held firm the line, and grounded his feet. Once they made landfall, he would make a spectacle to draw the attention of every Jackal in New Rheynia. He recalled the first moment he’d laid eyes on Zephyrus at the slavers’ auction at the Festival of Stockhelm. Zephyrus had cited a letter, declaring himself an emissary of peace for the king. Laeden had thought that fate had crossed their paths. A dozen times since that moment, he’d questioned fate’s intentions, but now as their corsair ship approached the Bay of Bastards with the intent of freeing the enslaved people along its shores, he believed he understood.

The Bay of Bastards wasn’t always named such. Once upon a time it was Hecht’s Bay, but that was before the whalers conspired against King Damascus II. After their treachery, every male heir was nailed to the Six Arrowed Star. Laeden only hoped he wouldn’t arrive at a similar fate entering the traitors’ territory.

As their ship sailed around the jutting coastline, the ocean’s anger subsided, allowing Laeden to relinquish his grip on the rigging line and take a deep, calming breath.

Two Ridge Knights approached Laeden from the bow. A similar height to one another, both with dark brown, shoulder-length hair, deep-set blue eyes, and jaws that could crack walnuts. As they neared, the only difference Laeden discerned was that one was wearing his armor, while the other was holding his.

The two knights bowed before Laeden, and the one holding his armor spoke. “My king, it would be my privilege for you to don my armor during this mission.” He presented his blue-and-gold leather cuirass.

Laeden had requested armor for him and Markus to keep their faces obscured, but he hadn’t anticipated it to be an honor for anyone to offer up their own. “You have my gratitude. First, tell me your names. I will not wear a nameless man’s armor.”

Wearing only a padded tunic, the knight holding his armor bowed his head again. “I am Kherus Paragus, your grace.” He gestured to the knight beside him. “This is my brother Dheran.”

Dheran bowed his head. “It is an honor to once again serve a man of esteem. I know you will rule with the same honor as your forefathers.”

Mention of his father and grandfather reminded Laeden of the emptiness left in their absence and the void he would have to fill. He cleared his throat. “May they rest with the Six. Thank you, Ser Kherus, Ser Dheran.” He accepted the cuirass from Kherus. “We will restore justice to this realm, together.”

The Paragus brothers assisted Laeden into his armor, while two others aided Markus with his. It wasn’t long until they arrived in the Bay of Bastards. The rolling tides settled enough to reflect the moon’s beams. Laeden accepted the sight as an omen of good fortune. The Gods knew he needed it.

After making landfall, Laeden restated the plan and made certain everyone knew their role. Once prepared, he led Ser Ostrey’s Ridge Knights up the road to the Ulysius ludus on the outskirts of the city. Despite the cover of night, Laeden did not need to keep to the shadows. His blue-and-gold armor declared him one of the Duke’s most trusted men, and if he marched to any gate and ordered it open, it would open. At least that was what he was counting on.

As they approached, the modest house of the lesser lanista came into view. Standing stark against the night with enough torches to diminish the need of the sun, the ludus appeared well defended. Guards in green and gold manned not only the gates but the grounds, though none barred their passage. When they arrived at the barricaded gate of House Ulysius, the two guards standing sentry raised their spears.

“My Lord Knights,” one guard said, his black mustache long enough for him to chew on. “The hour grows late. State your business with Baron Ulysius.”

Ser Ostrey took off his helmet in case the winged pauldrons of his office didn’t clearly announce his status. “I am Ser Ostrey Wingfoot, Captain of the Ridge Knights in service to Duke Horus of House Helixus. Apologies for the late intrusion, but the safety of the realm is at stake—something Baron Ulysius can surely understand.”

“State your business,” the other guard said, lowering his gold-capped helm, his hand repositioning on his spear.

Laeden had gone over the plan with Ostrey multiple times, and though he trusted the veteran knight to execute it, it didn’t stop his palms from sweating.

“With the Jackals searching for the traitors, the duke cannot abide any more escaped slaves. We have orders to inspect each of Valtarcia’s ludi to ensure you are not susceptible to an Uprising attack or a slave rebellion from within.”

The guard’s mustache bristled. “You’ve entered our grounds. I assure you no one is leaving or entering Ulysius land without our knowledge.”

“That may be,” Ostrey said, “but I have my orders as you have yours. Are you unwilling to comply with Duke Horus’s decrees?”

The guards exchanged a glance before Mustache answered, “No, of course not.”

Ostrey approached the guard with casual confidence. “If everything is as you say, we will be in and out without ever concerning the baron. We’ll inspect your barracks, your points of entry—if everything is clear, we write a report. We leave.”

Mustache nodded to the other guard, who slid a peephole open to communicate with a guard on the other side of the gate. Moments later, the chain to raise the gate rattled.

Laeden let out a slow exhale. We’re in. Now for the hard part.

The inner gate guard escorted them to the half-asleep captain of the guard inside the villa. As planned, Ostrey urged the process along, feigning impatience while gathering useful information. Ostrey asked questions while Laeden took notes, recording the guard’s answers. Details such as the number of fighting and house slaves on the premises, how many guards were in the baron’s employ, how well armed they were, the state of their provisions, and their ability to relay information in the event of an Uprising attack or slave revolt.

Bleary-eyed, the captain of the guard answered everything between yawns. “Why at this hour?” He adjusted his loose tunic and readjusted his belt about his waist.

“This is the ripest hour for revolution,” Ostrey said. “We intend to keep that well in hand.” He turned to his Ridge Knights. “Dheran, Malachi, Gensus—inspect the walls and points of entry.” Pointing to Markus and the knight beside him, he ordered them to inspect the armory and the storehouse respectively.

Before the captain could protest, the Ridge Knights were already on their way.

“Captain, lead me to the barracks,” Ostrey said. “This way, I presume?”

The captain sputtered, attempting to keep up.

“Where do you keep the keys?” Ostrey asked.

“Only I keep the keys.” The captain jostled a keyring about his hip.

Ostrey frowned, still moving towards the barracks as the captain directed them onward. “Any copies? What about your doctore—does he have keys?”

“No, no. Only me.”

The captain led them down the stairs into the barracks where two other men in green and gold stood guard. Laeden kept count of how many they’d passed versus how many were unaccounted for—three pairs outside, two inside the gate, two at the barracks, the captain…

Only one remaining.

Laeden considered if the lanista would have a guard outside his chambers. Twelve guards were more than enough to secure the ten gladiators and six house slaves within the ludus. In different times, Laeden would have deemed it overkill—an unnecessary expense, but this was likely the new norm.

They entered the dingy cellar, and Ostrey shuffled his boots on the hay-topped, hard-packed earth. As Laeden inspected the sleeping gladiators, the smell of excrement soured his nostrils. Recalling Zephyrus’s treatment by the guards of House Cassius, Laeden had little faith that these men received any degree of dignity from their jailers.

Laeden ground his teeth. I’m just as culpable. My father and grandfather too. We never should have allowed this.

Ostrey demanded the torches be lit for his inspection, and when one guard moved to comply, Laeden followed. As they lit the torches between the cells, Laeden strode down the corridor, dragging his bracer along the metal bars with a repeated clang. The gladiators stirred from sleep, but Laeden was searching for an empty cell, eventually finding one and stopping before it.

Ostrey took the cue. “You run a tight ship, captain. But where is your honor?”

At the code phrase, Laeden drew his dagger and placed it to the guard’s throat. Simultaneously, the Ridge Knights seized the other guard and the captain. With steel tickling the apple of the guard’s throat, he dropped the torch to the dirt floor.

“Don’t move,” Laeden hissed in his ear. He slid the guard’s sword from its sheath and let it clatter to the floor. The dagger followed a moment later.

“What is the meaning of this?” the captain asked as the Ridge Knights disarmed him.

Ostrey plucked the keyring from his hands. “I warned you, Captain.” Ostrey approached the empty cell beside Laeden. “This is the ripest hour for revolution.”

Gladiators clung to the bars of their cells, poking their heads through to see what was happening. Confused murmurs accompanied their slack jaws and wide eyes.

Once Ostrey unlocked the cell, Laeden led his guard, at knife point, inside. The captain and the other guard joined shortly thereafter. Laeden backed out of the cell and closed the barred door, allowing Ostrey to lock the men inside.

“Remove your uniforms,” Laeden said. “Boots, gloves—everything. Pass them through the bars and you will not be harmed.”

The captain spat, “You will not get away with this!”

Ostrey began unlocking each of the cell doors, allowing each of the gladiators to step from their prisons, but few were eager to move. Those that did leave their cells retreated back inside when the door from the villa swung open, but it was only Markus who came down the stairs, a dozen swords bundled in his arms. Markus let the steel clatter to the floor.

“Do not be afraid,” Laeden said to the gladiators, though his eyes remained fixed on the captain. “Arm yourselves, sons of Stockhelm. Your captivity is over.”

The captain strode towards the bars. “Who in Six Hells do you think you are?”

The gladiators emerged from their cells, approaching the naked steel, one by one seizing a sword from the pile on the floor. Each man didn’t just pick up a weapon—they took up their pride, their humanity, and their future. Laeden’s doubts melted away as mountains of fear eroded into the sea.

This is my purpose.

Laeden approached the captain. “I am the breaker of chains. The future of Valtarcia, New Rheynia, and any land near or far that enslaves its people.” Laeden removed his helm. “I am Laeden Helixus, and this ludus is mine.”

Chapter 20

Obey

Iylea V & Laeden IV

Iylea

Iylea bit her nails, pacing the circular window in the floor of the anchor room. She had no idea how much time had passed since she snuck out of the Tower of Whispers, but her nerves had not settled, despite the peaceful rippling of the iridescent water descending the Falls. Between what she’d learned from Arkadia, Laeden’s ragged appearance, and Vykanicus Auros actually being Zephyrus, Iylea’s mind held her captive. But nothing frightened her as much as the God of War.

Ferrocles could return at any moment.

Iylea scuffed the carved sigil in the tile and swallowed the stone in her throat. She closed her eyes, remembering the dead Gods in the vision of Bherus’s corrupted link.

More Gods will die if I do not discover who Paxoran really is.

She had her suspicions. Ferrocles was an easy choice, but she had to be certain. If wrong, she’d reveal herself to the traitor and condemn not only the wrong God, but herself, Arkadia, and the mortal realm to the Age of the End. She didn’t know where to begin, but she knew the answers weren’t likely to be found in the links of the chain. She needed to explore the castle, but how could she with Ferrocles checking in on her?

He would come and demand to know where she was last time he came searching for her, and she still didn’t have an answer.

What lie could fool a God?

Iylea didn’t trust her cunning enough to try. Even if he decided to let it go, he and the other Gods would demand progress on the chain. The same chain Arkadia told her not to break.

Iylea ran her fingers through her hair. She wanted to scream, but no one who mattered would hear. She fell to her knees.

The door creaked open, and a shadow that only Ferrocles could cast darkened her door.

Iylea stifled a whimper, afraid to face the God of War. He cleared his throat as if his mere presence wasn’t enough to announce his arrival. Iylea set her jaw, placed her hands on her knees, and pushed herself to her feet before turning to face Ferrocles.

With one hand on the doorknob and the other gesturing to the open hall, Ferrocles beckoned her forward. “You remain idle even when you are here.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. She wanted to refute, to impress upon him the burden of each link in the chain, but they were the least of her concerns right now. She held her tongue, letting Ferrocles steer the conversation.

He grunted. “Come, then. Perhaps I need to prove to you why you must listen.”

Laeden

The Ridge Knights and the newly armed gladiators returned to the villa, leaving the shouting guards locked in a cell. The moment they opened the door to the villa, alarmed voices greeted them.

As planned, Malachi, Dheran, and Gensus overwhelmed the two inner gate guards, locking the remaining six guards outside. With the gates barricaded and two more guards unarmed, only the lanista and one other guard remained within the walls of the ludus.

Laeden nodded at the two disarmed gate guards. “Escort each of them to an empty cell.”

As the two guards were hauled off to the barracks, they gawked at the freed gladiators brandishing steel and wearing the colors of their brethren. The gray-bearded gate guard struggled against Dheran. Gensus left Malachi’s side to aid in restraining the man.

Crow’s feet framed his wild eyes as his bushy gray brow narrowed. “So it’s true, eh, Pseudo-Prince?” He spat. “I didn’t believe it, but here you are. Conspiring with mages, betraying your country, slaying your own people.”

Laeden absorbed the baseless claims and rumors. He’d defend his honor through action, not words. He nodded for the knights to continue escorting the guards, but the graybeard resisted.

“Pseudo-Prince son-of-a tavern wh—”

The graybeard’s voice choked off. Fingers strangled his throat.

Laeden’s fingers.

He didn’t think. He couldn’t think. It happened too fast for processing, but Laeden didn’t let go. Blood thundering in his ears, Laeden jerked the man forward by his throat. He wanted to say something noble—something to defend his mother’s honor. Words came and went through his mind. Ideas attempted to consolidate into a righteous retort, but his anger burned them away.

Purple blood vessels blossomed along the whites of the graybeard’s eyes, but still Laeden didn’t let go. He clawed at Laeden’s grip, but to no avail.

Men like you are why Iylea is dead.

He squeezed tighter.

But she’s not gone.

The graybeard’s strength waned, his resistance failing.

Laeden let go. Hands trembling, jaw clenched, he wanted the man dead—not for what he said, but what he represented: fear. The fear that Laeden’s mixed blood would have made him an unfit duke. The fear that Iylea’s visions made her a danger to the kingdom. But it was this guard’s words that revealed in Laeden his deepest fear: failure.

He’d been named a failure from the moment he was born to a plebeian house. He’d failed as a Sentinel, as a leader, a son, and a lover. His fear of failing his father separated him from Iylea long before Aemos’s sword cleaved her head from her shoulders.

I will not be a king ruled by fear. If I let it govern me, then I’m no better than they are.

“Get him out of here,” Laeden said.

The Ridge Knights did as ordered.

Laeden stilled his breath and turned to face one of the gladiators wearing the guards’ uniform. “Is there an exit besides this one?”

The gladiator shook his shaved head, the moonlight contrasting his midnight complexion. “No, Dominus.”

The tension in Laeden’s jaw dissipated. Free of his chains, he is still bound in servility. He bit his lip. “What is your name?”

“My name?”

“Yes, your name.”

The gladiator looked to his brothers as if unsure if Laeden were playing some sort of slaver trick. He returned his gaze to Laeden, but quickly averted his eyes downward. “Joru.”

Laeden approached Joru. “Lift your eyes—all of you. From this day forth, you shall call no man Dominus. Beyond this gate, your freedom begins. A ship awaits you in the Bay of Bastards. Where you go from there is up to each of you; whether you join the Uprising or seek freedom in Klaytos, your story is your own.”

Joru’s nose wrinkled and lower lip quivered. “This is a trap?”

Laeden shook his head and drew nearer, close enough to rest a hand on the lean muscle of Joru’s shoulder. “No trap, but I would ask something of you in return.”

Joru tilted his head and cocked his brow.

“Help me disarm your captors and place them in the cells they kept you in. Do so without killing or maiming them.”

Joru narrowed his eyes as if waiting for there to be more. “Why—why should we let them live?”

Laeden took a deep breath. He didn’t have a good answer, and once he unleashed the gladiators on the six guards beyond the gate, there was little he could do to stop a dozen armed and trained men from enacting revenge on their jailers.

“Because you are better than we are,” Laeden said. “And because I asked you to.”

Joru grunted. The other gladiators whispered amongst each other, but silenced once Joru faced them. “The Judges have returned, and they have touched this man.” He met Laeden’s gaze. “It will be as you say.”

Laeden nodded. Whether or not the gladiators would keep their word remained to be seen, but too much time had passed. Too much noise spread through the night. If Ulysius didn’t know they were there yet, he soon would, and Laeden needed Ulysius’s testimony if he were going to gain the favor of the plebs. Freeing the enslaved people would distract the Jackals and give Zephyrus and Iylea a fighting chance, but if he wanted to have any hope of taking back Valtarcia, he needed the cooperation of people like Ulysius.

Markus put a hand on Laeden’s shoulder. “Laeden, are you sure about this?” He leaned closer and whispered. “We can’t trust them. They don’t serve you.”

Laeden’s eyes fixed on the gate and the six men on the other side clamoring to get in.

“You’re right,” Laeden said. “They don’t serve me. I serve them. I serve you. I serve the men on the other side of the wall. If we can take this ludus and free these people without drawing blood—”

“You think releasing armed slaves on the countryside will be bloodless?” Markus asked. His voice was too sharp, his words too loud—they carried through the courtyard. Laeden didn’t expect everyone to understand why he needed to do this, not just for Iylea and Zephyrus, but for himself. For his father and grandfather. But he hoped Markus wouldn’t be one who needed convincing.

Now was not the time.

“Open the gate,” Laeden said to the other Ridge Knights. He drew his sword, leveling it toward the gate. “Our lives are not worth more than theirs. We take them alive.”

Iylea

Her legs trembled with each step up the winding staircase of the Tower of Whispers. Incinerae’s smokeless torches lined the ascent, but Ferrocles’s shadow following behind her stole the warmth from her bones. She clutched her hands together, breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

“If I can’t keep you from the Whispering Wall, I will show you how dangerous it can be,” Ferrocles had said.

She didn’t want him to show her anything. One whisper could alter the flow of the future—she knew that. She’d sent Laeden through the Aquarian, and somehow he’d escaped those hunting him.

How many futures had that changed? How many more would it impact?

That power at the fingers of the God of War made her stomach churn. The thought that he might have instigated countless wars over his reign sent shivers down her spine.

Arriving at the top of the stairs, Iylea bowed her head, fidgeting with her fingers.

Ferrocles grunted. “Don’t play the fool. You know the glyph; open the door.”

Iylea shuddered. He hadn’t raised his voice, but in the tight confines of the stairwell, he might as well have been yelling, the way his thundering echoed off the walls. She traced her finger along the stone, drawing the glyph Hameryn had inscribed. Upon completion, the stones parted, retracting into the walls.

Ferrocles huffed, shaking his head. “He gives a mortal access to the Tower of Whispers.”

Once the walls separated, Ferrocles ushered her inside the study and marched her up to the Whispering Wall. Iylea’s mind went blank. The tremors in her hands climbed up her arms, tension knotting throughout her back.

“Who did you speak to?” Ferrocles’s bearded jaw clenched in the crystalline reflection.

Iylea swallowed. She couldn’t allow Ferrocles to learn about Zephyrus. There was no telling what damage he intended to inflict in the teaching of her lesson. She considered summoning Arkadia, since Ferrocles already knew of her, but association with her could spell her own demise.

“What is his name?”

The sternness in Ferrocles’s soft voice was worse than his booming. His name? Iylea attempted to draw in breath, but found the air thick, her lungs blocked.

He doesn’t mean Laeden. He doesn’t know of Laeden.

She tried to think of someone else. Anyone else. But her mind slogged.

“Speak. His name?” More urgency soured Ferrocles’s words.

Iylea opened her mouth, but no words came. No names or faces entered her mind. Only Laeden. Always Laeden. The lack of air in her lungs became a lump of coal in her throat, burning her from the inside. She swallowed hard but felt like she was choking.

Ferrocles bent down until his eyes were level with hers. Iylea’s gaze fell to the floor as she cowered in a handmaiden’s subservience.

“You play games as if we don’t know exactly who you are, Iylea Faire. As if we haven’t been watching you since your first dream, your first vision.” Ferrocles shook his head. “Every shouting match with your mother, every disapproving glare from the other handmaidens, and every stolen kiss from your pseudo-prince.”

Iylea’s face flushed warm. A silent tear welled in the corner of her eye before spilling over her cheek. She inhaled sharply through her nostrils, then turned to face the God of War. His eyes were fire beneath his bushy black brow, his lips a tight line surrounded by his thick beard.

Too long she’d lived afraid. Too long she’d suffered in silence, too weak to stand up to her mother, the other handmaidens, or the people of court. If she’d had the gall to tell Laeden the truth sooner, to make him see, perhaps things would have been different. She would not give Laeden up. She would not remain powerless.

“Leave him out of this,” Iylea said. “Punish me however you like but spare him.”

Ferrocles turned from her. “Creator’s judgment, must every mortal believe themselves a God?” He placed his hand on the Whispering Wall. “Laeden Helixus.”

Laeden

Mere moments passed since the gate swung open, but already, the weapons belonging to the guards of House Ulysius littered the ground. Reluctant to surrender as they might have been, outnumbered by the combined might of Ridge Knights and gladiators, they had no choice. The Ridge Knights took the guards into custody without a drop of blood spilled.

“Secure them in manacles,” Laeden said to the Ridge Knights, resheathing his blade. He strode over to Joru, clad in the green and gold of House Ulysius. “Gratitude for your honor and courage. We could not have done this without your aid.”

Joru inclined his head, but still had his sword at the ready. “We have kept our word. Will you keep yours?”

A number of the gladiators eyed the open gate and the freedom that awaited beyond it. Some held their swords at the ready; others turned to the open gate, prepared to run.

Laeden bowed. “You are free. The road will not make for easy travel in these treacherous times, but go where you please.”

The point of Joru’s sword angled toward the ground. Some gladiators dropped to their knees in muttered prayer, while others embraced one another. Not all were natives of Stockhelm. Not all were Celestic. But they all bore the mark of Ulysius branded upon their breast, and that made them brothers—more so than the blood Laeden shared with Damascus, the years spent with Aelon, or his friendship with Markus.

Joru’s narrow cheeks split into a wide grin. “I will tell tales of you, Laeden Helixus.”

Laeden held out his hand to embrace Joru. For a moment, Joru’s smile drooped. He observed Laeden’s open palm, but made no motion to accept it. Still, Laeden held his outstretched hand.

Joru placed his sword in his left hand and seized Laeden’s forearm with his right, meeting his eyes.

Laeden grinned at the freedman, a swell of warmth budding within his chest. “Go.”

As Joru and the rest of the gladiators filed past the manacled guards and out the gate, the Ridge Knights who had been waiting for Laeden to take the ludus returned, led by Kherus.

Kherus bit his lip, watching the procession of armed gladiators jog into the night. “I thought we were building an army.”

“We are,” Laeden said. “The right way.”

“You’re letting them take our boat?”

While the Ridge Knights escorted the guards to the barracks, Laeden fixed his gaze on Kherus. The man had given Laeden the Ridge Knight armor off his back, but he didn’t understand the game of Reign Laeden was playing. This wasn’t just about taking back Valtarcia from Horus, claiming justice on Salmantica, or being able to survive against the waves of Sentinels and Jackals hunting him. According to Iylea, Laeden was against even the Gods. As much as he wanted to build an army and storm Northridge to claim his grandfather’s seat, building an army without the provisions to keep them or the means to hide them would spell out a quick defeat and a slow death on a Six Arrowed Star.

“We don’t need the boat,” Laeden said to Kherus. “All we need is to inspire hope—hope for the slaves suffering beneath New Rheynian rule, hope for the plebs struggling to survive. If we show them a path to a new future, we won’t need to lead them in battle for them to fight for us. We just need Uly—”

“Laeden Helixus!”

Baron Ulysius stood in the door frame of his former ludus, holding his sword to the throat of an enslaved woman. His last remaining guard stood, sword drawn, at his side. Ulysius’s close-cropped gray hair glinted in the moonlight as he glared at Laeden, his hard face weathered by time and battle. Dressed in a night tunic without even sandals upon his feet, the old soldier glared at Laeden with a hateful rage.

Markus, Ostrey, and the four remaining Ridge Knights drew their swords.

Laeden held his hand up. “Lower your swords.”

We haven’t needed to resort to bloodshed yet. We won’t now.

“Baron Ulysius,” Laeden said, his voice calm. “Let her go. I have a message for you and every lanista in New Rheynia.”

“Save your messages.” Ulysius spat. The woman squirmed within his grasp, a trickle of blood dripping down her neck.

Laeden held his hands out to the sides, palms skyward. “If not a message, how about some advice? Eleven of your twelve guards are in the cells of your former slaves. A dozen of your gladiators have been stricken of chains and set to the wind. You are no longer a lanista, but you can still be a baron. I will take back this land from my Great-Uncle Horus’s cowardice and Salmantica’s cruelty. I will become King of Valtarcia and rule with honor. You can be part of that change, but only if you put down your sword and let her go.”

Ulysius readjusted the sword in his hand but gave no indication of lowering it. “I lived through the Disasters of Rheynia. I fought the Celestics and their sympathizers, defended king and country for fifteen years. Yet in less than one year as Captain of the Sentinels, you let your king die. You betrayed your people and let the Uprising grow into a monster capable of burning the world down. I will not trade my honor for life and let you manacle me like a slave.”

Malachi, Dheran, and Gensus returned from the barracks, emerging behind Ulysius and his guard.

“Not like a slave,” Laeden said. “Like I said, I have a message for you. You’re surrounded. Lay down your arms and cooperate or— ”

Ulysius laughed. “Or what, you’ll kill me? A pleb who failed at being a prince wants to become king.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. See, I know your weakness.” He tilted his head at the squirming woman in his arms, sword at her throat.

Laeden met the woman’s eyes. Despite being tall and lean with short black hair and dark skin, all Laeden saw when he looked at her was Iylea. His throat went dry, tightening in knots.

“I’ve heard tales of your display in the Salmantic court. Your mage lover.”

Heat radiated throughout Laeden, encapsulated within his armor. He clenched his fist.

“Tell me, Pseudo-Prince,” Ulysius said, unperturbed by the Ridge Knights closing in around him. “What did they do to her after you lowered your sword?”

A gleam of white steel. A swish and a thunk. The unnatural scream that filled the throne room long after Iylea’s body fell to the floor, twitching. Her head rolled to his feet again.

The sword at his hip called to him. The steel within begged for Laeden to deliver it to Ulysius’s neck for even speaking of Iylea, but he swallowed his rage.

He’s trying to bait me into a fight. I will not give him one.

He’d nearly ruined his plan on the graybeard guard, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. He couldn’t. His vision of the future depended on it.

“I hear her rotting head still decorates a pike on the ramparts,” Ulysius said. “Allow me to reunite you with her.”

“Kill him,” whispered a voice within his mind. “Kill him.”

Laeden drew his sword. He wanted to obey the soft whisper and do to Ulysius what Aemos did to Iylea.

Ulysius’s head will deliver just as clear a message as his testimony.

But that wasn’t true. He needed to take the ludus without blood to gain the support of the plebs. Still, the whisper offered him what he wanted, what Ulysius deserved.

No. If Joru can put aside his retribution, so can I.

Laeden lowered his blade.

Ulysius snickered, shaking his head and leveling his sword at Laeden. “I only wish I swung the sword that parted her head from her shoulders, but I suppose I can do the same to this one. I think I’ll call her Iylea.”

Iylea

“Kill him,” Ferrocles said again, louder this time. Iylea attempted to shout, but with Ferrocles’s hand clamped over her mouth, her muffled and distorted cry would never reach Laeden’s ears. She tugged at Ferrocles’s fingers, but she might as well have been attempting to bend steel. Whimpering and thrashing in futility, she had no choice but to watch the Whispering Wall.

“Give me the girl,” Laeden said, voice tight. He stalked closer to Ulysius and the terrified woman held at blade’s edge. “I’ve harmed none of your men. Don’t give me a reason to. Let her go, join your men, and after we’re gone, I will deliver word to Northridge. You will continue to live, even if it’s not what you deserve.”

Iylea stilled. Even in the aftermath of all Laeden had suffered, he was still an honorable man. Her death hadn’t calloused his principles. Ferrocles, try as he might, could not corrupt Laeden. A swell of pride blossomed from the pit of her stomach, unraveling her anxious knots, but a simultaneous pang resonated in the back of her mind. This path she’d chosen—aiding Arkadia, communing with Zephyrus—jeopardized the possibility of being reunited with Laeden.

“Kill him!” Ferrocles shouted.

Laeden didn’t listen. He extended his open hand for Ulysius’s hostage.

Ulysius growled, his eyes burning like embers.

Whatever satisfaction Iylea had at Laeden’s resistance toward Ferrocles went up in a pillar of smoke as she examined Ulysius.

He’s not just speaking to Laeden. He’s speaking to Ulysius.

Ulysius shoved the hostage woman at Laeden’s sword arm. Laeden caught her before she could fall, but with her in his sword arm, he was exposed. Ulysius charged, blade reared to strike.

Iylea’s eyes widened. Her body turned to stone. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, or even breathe. Ulysius’s blade tore through the empty air, aimed at Laeden’s exposed side.

Ferrocles let her go as the picture on the Whispering Wall burned away. Iylea stumbled forward, reaching for the crystalline mirror with outstretched arms.

“Laeden! Laeden! Show me Laeden!” Iylea pounded the crystal mirror with her open palms, but the wall didn’t listen. It only revealed her horrified reflection.

Why isn’t it working?

Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks as she turned to Ferrocles. He stood before the mirror, an empty bracket in the frame beneath it that she hadn’t noticed before. Ferrocles held an iridescent, viridian, marquise-shaped gemstone in his palm, the same shape as the empty bracket.

He placed the gemstone in a pouch belted to his hip. “That is why you cannot be trusted with the Whispering Wall; you never know who is listening.”

Iylea collapsed before the Whispering Wall, uncontrollable sobs wracking her body.

“Return to the chain,” Ferrocles said. “You no longer have a reason to be up here.”

He strode to the wall, drew the glyph, and left her there. Alone. With nothing left to live for.

Part IV

Chapter 21

Force and Fury

Danella IV

Salmantica

Tendrils of smoke escaped from the crackling hearth as it awaited its fuel for the third day in a row: another ransom note and another box, which only meant that Nallia was still alive. Sitting in a chair before the fireplace in Laeden’s chambers, Danella tapped the rolled scroll against the box in her lap. They’d already sent a lock of hair, an earlobe, a pair of thumbs, and eighteen fingernails and toenails.

She didn’t want to open this box. The wooden crate was large enough to contain a decapitated head, but, when jostled, nothing moved. She swallowed her nausea.

Danella had warned Nallia about the Celestics, but she didn’t heed the lesson. She’d sent Brusos’s bodyslave an order to assassinate Nallia—a kindness in light of the torture she had endured. Danella never intended for the girl to suffer, but many more would endure worse fates if Nallia had succeeded in counseling Damascus’s tolerance of the Celestics. What is one girl’s pain in the face of the Gods’ wrath?

She squeezed the parchment, wondering if it were worth reading or if she should just toss it into the fire, unread. It likely offered the same proposal as every other scroll stamped with the rising phoenix—one that she would not accept and Damascus could not know about.

At least the Uprising is punctual with their responses.

The past few days had been trying. Since returning from Northridge after her conversation with Horus, she’d yet to hear of any news pertaining to Laeden’s capture. Nor had she received word of Lenox’s progress in apprehending Zephyrus. The absence of information was clear enough as to their results. She’d busied herself in arranging for water to be collected at the Stormburn Geyser and distributed throughout New Rheynia. There weren’t enough ships, enough vases, or enough men to complete the task, but it needed to be organized and overseen, as thankless a job as it was.

Despite the recent turmoil, Laeden’s rooms had become a safe haven of sorts for her. No one thought to look for her there, and somehow, it brought her a strange comfort. Less than a week ago, she burned Varros’s cloak, believing him dead at the hands of the mages. Now, she knew better, and the wasted tears served as a reminder as to her enemy’s ruthlessness.

Seeing Varros again unnerved her. But knowing he was a mage ate at her. All of his actions—or the lack thereof—now made sense. His leniency towards the mages, his tolerance of the Celestics, his impiety towards the Six—every mind-numbing dismissal of her pleas was an attempt to right his wrongs.

He failed.

Twenty years of marriage—a lie. Eight years with an agent of the Uprising on her father’s throne—an outrage. Varros wanted her to be grateful that he didn’t kill her brother and frame the senators as the Uprising wanted him to do. She had no gratitude in her heart, only animosity, yet his parting words lingered with her as she stared at the fire.

“Stop our son, Danella,” Varros said. “This war will ruin him.”

Danella closed her eyes and stilled her breath. She opened the Uprising’s letter.

Chimeras of Salmantica,

Your Water God continues to deny you rain, but Stockhelm remains lush. Your crops will wither; your livestock will die. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance. Should you, again, not comply, more of your ships will sink, and each body that rises to the surface will be cast to the foot of your throne. You’ve failed to call off your persecution of the Celestic people, and our patience has ended. Meet us in the town square at midnight with our requested provisions, or your reign ends tonight.

The Fallen

Danella’s throat tightened. The words were empty threats, but there was something about the phrasing that possessed a familiar ring. She read the letter again and again. By the fourth time, it hit her.

In the secret dungeons of Sentigard, Iylea suffered a seizure. Her eyes rolled to the back of her skull, and she spoke in a deep, raspy voice that did not belong to the handmaiden who had served Danella for years. Danella wished to forget the memory, but it returned with clairvoyance.

“Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

Ser Daenus had silenced Iylea before she could continue.

Unless I what?

Danella wanted to deny Iylea’s utterings as nonsensical, not prophetic. But she was executed for being a seer, and this phrasing was far too specific to be a coincidence. Iylea’s prophecy mixed with Varros’s warning, resonating in a chorus of calamity.

Breath trembling, Danella turned the knob of the crate’s latch. Biting her lip, she pulled back the lid, turning away. No foul scent wafted from the box. Slowly, she examined the contents. There was no severed head, but suddenly, the letter made more sense. Patches of the Sentinel’s sigil embroidered with the words Shield The Righteous filled the box, covered with dried blood. Danella displaced dozens of them.

The Sentinels I assigned to ferry the water shipments…

Beneath the bloody sigils, lamb’s wool and grain filled the rest of the crate. She thought the warning about crops and livestock pertained to the drought, but again, she had underestimated the Uprising.

Danella screamed, throwing the box into the hearth. Sparks sprayed, and the fire devoured the Uprising’s taunt, but it did nothing to soothe the inflicted wound. Doubt seeped into the cracks in Danella’s mask. Betrayed by Varros and Iylea, disappointed by Horus and Lenox, Danella needed to ensure that the Uprising would not survive this.

Damascus must strike with steel and fury. No more waiting. No more games.

Seething, Danella smoothed her skirts. She needed to be tactful in how she presented this to Damascus, but she couldn’t wait for the perfect plan. There was no time left for posturing. The Uprising would be stamped out.

Danella stormed from Laeden’s chambers, pushing her way through the double doors. With the Uprising’s letter in hand, she entered the halls of Sentigard, startling a pair of handmaidens walking past. Danella didn’t even know the names of her new attendants, even if she trusted them enough to acknowledge them. She strode past.

“My queen, is everything well?”

Without breaking stride, Danella called over her shoulder. “Summon Duke Brusos and the King’s Guard Knights to the throne room.”

Damascus’s golden eyes scoured the parchment, darting left and right across the words for what must have been the sixth time. He shifted in his seat upon the garnet-studded stone throne, one of his black brows rising to the circlet atop his forehead.

“It doesn’t even mention Nallia,” Damascus said, looking down on Danella, Brusos, and the King’s Guard Knights. “They speak of crops, ships, and provisions, but not one mention of my betrothed.” He glanced between Danella and Brusos.

Brusos cleared his throat to speak, but Danella stepped closer to the throne. “My son, this isn’t the first time they have taken a captive; they murdered your fath—” Her tongue seemed to swell within her mouth, as if the lie was poisonous. She coughed, attempting to compose herself, but Damascus spoke first.

“You believe they murdered her?”

Silence fell upon the inhabitants of the throne room. Damascus stood to his feet, examining her, but she couldn’t speak. Danella wanted to. She needed to. She couldn’t afford to let Damascus’s emotions govern his response, and without her guidance, there was no telling what he’d do. Yet still, moment after moment passed, and her lips remained pursed.

Brusos came to her side, head bowed. “Your grace, we must not trust their words or the lack of them.”

“Is what they say false?” Damascus asked. “Have they sunk my ships? Have they killed my men?”

Brusos’s head tilted further forward until his chin melted into the collar of his robes. “Vessels meant to deliver water from Stockhelm to Southgrove have not arrived, Your grace.”

Damascus’s pointed chin beard appeared like a weapon below his hardened jaw and narrowed brow. He lifted the other sheet of parchment to eye level to read the provisions they demanded. After a moment he tossed the papers into the air, letting them float to the floor.

“Your grace,” Brusos continued, “we must meet them with forc—”

“They have my betrothed!” Damascus’s voice reverberated off of the pillars, rattling the stained glass windows of the throne room. His ragged breath was the only interruption to his echoing shout. The fists at his side suggested he was ready for war, but that fire needed more stoking. He had neglected to attack the Uprising out of fear of what they would do to Nallia. He’d been waiting for a ransom that Danella withheld from him. Now he had one, but they were not the terms he expected.

Danella seized her composure and solidified the cracks in her mask. She strode up to the throne’s dais and knelt. “As your mother, I mourn for you, but as your adviser, I implore you—do not withhold your wrath out of fear of Nallia Cassius’s well-being. Six preserve her. If she is still alive, the horrors she must have had to endure.”

Danella rested her face in her palm, shaking her head as if she had to imagine what the Uprising had done to her. Nallia would have been a weak queen. She would have led Damascus and this kingdom to ruin. I had to…

Danella lifted her gaze to the crown atop Damascus’s head, rejecting what Varros said of her boy. This war will not ruin him. This war will forge him into the king he needs to be. “My son—my king—your country can wait no longer. Duke Brusos’s counsel is wise. We meet the Uprising and make a show of their demands, but attack in force and fury.”

Damascus examined her and she him. He was no longer the gallant prince she had raised. Hardened by loss and burdened by duty, the man before her was cold as iron and sharp as steel. His next moments would define his reign.

Varros’s parting words returned to her, mixing with Iylea’s haunting prophecy. Doubt began to constrict around her ankles, slithering up her thighs, her hips, her torso until Damascus appeared ready to speak.

Six, grant him strength.

Damascus’s gaze drifted to his King’s Guard Knights. “How many men stand ready? The Jackals have not returned with the slave-mage’s head. The Sentinels have yet to deliver Laeden to justice.” He glared at Aemos and Aelon. “How many men will set sail with me?”

Aelon knelt before the throne. “The Royal Master at Arms can have 500 men ready to sail by nightfall.”

Damascus grunted. “Force and fury, you say?” He strode from the dais, his black-and-red cloak splaying behind him, forcing Danella and Brusos to step aside. A few paces past them, he turned to face them, fire smoldering in his golden eyes. “I want a thousand men. By sundown.”

The tension encircling Danella’s chest released, the doubt eroding like shadows to the light in Damascus’s display of the Facets of Perfection.

“Yes, my king,” Aelon said, standing.

“All of you will accompany me.” Damascus pointed to his King’s Guard Knights, absent Ser Daenus, still recovering from his injuries. “I will return with my betrothed, or we will raze Stockhelm to the ground.”

The knights’ armor clinked together at the joints to accommodate their salutes.

Danella concealed her smile by bowing low. They were wrong about him—Varros and Iylea, both. The path to peace is through victory, and victory will be ours.

“Where will you go, my king?” Brusos asked.

“To the basilica,” Damascus said. “I will pray for our victory. And the death of our enemies.”

The doors to the throne room swung open. In walked a figure, tall and broad, casting a shadow with each clank of the black-and-red armor of a King’s Guard Knight with a lion emblazoned upon the cuirass.

Danella gasped. Impossible.

Helmet on and visor closed, the knight approached Damascus, who spun to face the newcomer. Stopping a few paces before Damascus, the knight knelt, bowed his head, and removed his helm.

“I am ready to resume my service, King Damascus.” Ser Daenus’s voice carried throughout the throne room, but the kneeling man who looked up did not have Ser Daenus’s face.

Danella inhaled sharply. It took all of her strength not to back away. Her knight, her bodyguard, her most trusted ally—mutilated. His skin bubbled in disfigurement, marred red and pink with puckered indentations. Most of his lips were burned away, as was the skin around his left eye.

A chill coursed through Danella’s chest. The scars of Celestic magic. The same magic Varros cradled like a candle in his palm.

Damascus nodded, clearing his throat. “Rise. Join your brothers.” He held his hand out for Daenus to take. “We sail for Stockhelm at dusk. Let us take our vengeance on those who have wronged us.”

Daenus took Damascus’s hand and stood. Eye to eye with the gruesome remains of the King’s Guard Knight, Damascus didn’t flinch. Part of Danella was proud that her son could look past the scars to the character of the man who bore them. But Varros’s voice filled her mind, doubt accompanying the unwelcome presence.

Does Damascus even see the scars, or just another sword, another suit of armor for him to command?

Danella remained in the throne room long after Damascus left for the basilica and the King’s Guard Knights went to convene with the Royal Master at Arms. Staring at the empty throne, hugging herself, she hadn’t realized Brusos’s presence until he spoke.

“My queen, there is another matter we must discuss.”

Danella closed her eyes, squeezing tight as if it would silence Iylea’s prophecy ringing in her ears.

“Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son.”

Danella tore herself away from her poisoned thoughts. “Not now. I have—”

“I must insist, your grace.” Brusos’s thin lips pursed, but his pale eyes avoided hers. “It’s about Laeden.”

Chapter 22

Valencia Awaits

Laeden V

Valtarcia

Ulysius shoved his hostage at Laeden. He lurched forward, catching her before she hit the ground. With her weight on his sword arm, he attempted to redirect her to safety, but too late. Ulysius bellowed a war cry, his blade singing the song of death as it cut through the air, aimed at Laeden’s neck.

Laeden lifted his left hand just in time to absorb the blow. The sword crashed into his bracer, the impact casting him to the courtyard floor. The woman crawled to escape Ulysius’s range, but the lanista had forgotten her. He stood atop Laeden, preparing to strike again. Laeden attempted to raise his hand to block again, but pain lanced up his arm.

The strike came but clanged against steel inches from Laeden’s neck. Ser Ostrey’s sword separated Ulysius’s from Laeden’s flesh.

With a pivot and a sweep, Ostrey steered the sword away from Laeden. The last of Ulysius’s guards charged in swinging, and Laeden seized his sword from the ground just in time to deflect his incoming slice.

“Stop!” Laeden shouted, leveling his sword between Ulysius and his lone guard. He cradled his left hand close to his body. Without the armor, he might have lost the hand altogether, but the bone was undoubtedly bruised. Swallowing his anger, he regained his senses. Moments ago, he had wanted to murder Ulysius, but he needed him alive. With three Ridge Knights still in the barracks, and three more accompanying the gladiators to the boat, they still outnumbered Ulysius and his guard eight to two.

“You’ve lost, Ulysius,” Laeden said. “Submit, and no one needs to get hurt.”

“Rot in all Six Hells!” Ulysius swung at Ostrey and spun to attack Laeden again.

Ostrey blocked, Laeden dodged, and the other Ridge Knights advanced, surrounding Ulysius and his guard.

“Take them alive,” Laeden said.

Doing so would not be easy. The older swordsman was not without skill; his years spent with a blade in hand were evident through his footwork and even-keeled breathing, but surrounded and unarmored, he was at a severe disadvantage.

“It’s over,” Ostrey said. “Surrender and you will be escorted to the barracks.”

“Never!” Ulysius swiped Ostrey’s sword aside and stabbed at the unarmored Kherus.

Kherus blocked, maintaining his position, but changed his stance to make himself a smaller target. “Get him before he kills one of us.”

“Hold,” Laeden said, encroaching on Ulysius’s dwindling space. He needed Ulysius alive if he didn’t want to lose the favor of the plebeians. “We take him alive and unharmed.”

“Cowards!” Ulysius spun, chopping at Kherus again. His guard stabbed at the midsection of the other unarmored knight who had given his armor to Markus.

Laeden slid closer to the adjacent unarmored knight. “Back out.” He gestured with his head to direct the knight out of the circle. The knight backed away, and Ostrey, on the other side of him, filled the gap.

“Kherus, back out,” Laeden said. Adjacent to Kherus, his brother, Dheran, and Markus closed in, but Kherus didn’t move. “Kherus, back o—”

Ulysius and his guard both lunged for the weak point in the circle. The guard slashed low, and Ulysius chopped high. Markus caught Ulysius’s downward slice, and Dheran stepped in to defend his unarmored brother, but the guard’s low sweep caught a gap in Dheran’s armor at the knee. Dheran dropped with a cry. He raised his sword to defend himself, but Ulysius followed up his chop with a stab Markus couldn’t reach.

Ulysius’s steel streaked across the side of Dheran’s neck, drawing a red comet in its wake. Dheran’s cry was cut short in a bloody gurgle. His hand seized the wound, but his fingers could not stem the tide. He fell onto his back.

Laeden’s voice died in his throat. He advanced on Ulysius, but Kherus screamed.

Kherus stepped over his fallen brother, his blade a blur of vengeance. While Markus traded blows with Ulysius, Kherus carved the guard into ribbons, felling him in three short strokes. Markus caught a ferocious downward chop and thrust Ulysius back. Ulysius built his momentum and crashed down on Laeden’s sword. Deadlocked with Ulysius, a spike of agony radiated up Laeden’s wrist to his elbow. Straining, he held Ulysius, but he wouldn’t for much longer.

Laeden slid down the blade and pivoted. He kicked the inside of Ulysius’s knee, and as Ulysius countered with a hack, Laeden caught him by the wrist with his left hand. He leveled his steel at Ulysius’s chest.

Ulysius grunted, resisting Laeden’s waning strength. If Laeden hadn’t taken the chop to the bracer, he could have held Ulysius until sunrise, but his own arm felt on the verge of snapping.

“Give it up, Ulysius,” Laeden said through his teeth. Ulysius didn’t relent, and the pain splitting Laeden’s wrist begged for a reprieve. Kherus drew near, eyes afire, his face spattered in the guard’s blood. “Kherus, take his sword.”

Kherus seethed, his nostrils flaring with every breath, but he did not reach to disarm Ulysius. He reared back and skewered Ulysius through the side of his ribs.

Ulysius gasped; his resistance faltered.

“No!” Laeden’s hold on Ulysius failed. The lanista fell to the ground, Kherus’s blade still embedded in his organs. Kherus twisted the blade before jerking it free and tossing it to the hard-packed earth.

Life fled Ulysius’s eyes as color drained from his face. Blood bubbled from his lips in the throes of death only to cease, leaving the courtyard with the overbearing buzz of silence.

No one moved; no one breathed, spare Kherus, who stepped over the fallen guard to kneel at his brother’s side. Dheran didn’t writhe, didn’t blink—he joined Ulysius in staring into the starry sky above.

Dead.

Laeden’s held breath broke into a shallow pant. His ears echoed his thudding heart. Failure tightened in his throat. Ulysius was dead. The plebs would never rally to a butcher of their own people, and despite the truth, the result was the same, and the blame fell at Laeden’s feet.

All because Kherus disobeyed. One guard could have been explained, especially with Ulysius’s testimony, but now, everything had fallen to ashes. Laeden’s fingers clenched around his sword hilt. His other hand throbbed too much to even form a fist. He wanted to throttle Kherus, but one look at his fallen brother robbed him of his wrath.

Laeden sheathed his sword and knelt down beside Kherus. He didn’t want to apologize; he didn’t know any kings who would bother to. But though Kherus was wrong to take Ulysius’s life, Dheran’s death was not his fault. The other Ridge Knights gathered around, heads hung. They had been esteemed knights during times of peace, but now they were rebels at war.

“Valencia awaits, Ser Dheran,” Ostrey said.

Then the Ridge Knights joined him in saying, “Six, guide him on horses’ wings.”

One by one, the Ridge Knights patted Kherus on the shoulder, leaving him to mourn. Laeden and Markus exchanged a glance. Laeden got the sense that they were intruding on a private moment, but when he got up, Kherus turned towards Laeden, tears welling in his eyes.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed his lips and exhaled through his nostrils. Laeden swallowed. He didn’t have any words that would suffice either. None that would return Dheran or Ulysius from the dead. Laeden nodded, patting Kherus on the shoulder. He hoped that would do.

Laeden strode over to Ostrey and Markus, speaking to the woman Ulysius had used as a human shield. At his approach, Ostrey broke away to meet Laeden.

“What is next, my king?”

Laeden sighed. They’d been victorious in taking the ludus, but failure followed him wherever he went. Without Ulysius, he needed a new plan, but the woman Markus was speaking to might be the key to future success.

“We stay here tonight,” Laeden said. “Everyone can use the rest. But first, search the villa. There should be five other house slaves inside. See them liberated but ask if they wish to aid us in freeing their neighbors.”

Ostrey saluted. “At once, my king.”

The title resonated in his head like a foreign language. It felt familiar, but misplaced—an honorific wasted on a man who didn’t deserve it and couldn’t live up to it. Before he could refute it, Ostrey had already strode into the villa.

“I will fight for you, King.”

Laeden wheeled around to find the woman Ulysius had used as a human shield. She stepped forward, head bowed, but something in her voice disarmed him.

“What is your name?” Laeden asked.

She inclined her heart-shaped face. A row of white teeth shaped in a smile offset her tear-streaked cheeks. “Aurellia.”

Laeden stiffened. She looks too much like Iylea. Sounds too much like Iylea.

He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the thoughts that bound his tongue. Bowing at the waist, he said, “Aurellia, you may fight with me, but it is I who will fight for you.”

Chapter 23

Different Colors, Same Pain

Fenyx II

Stockhelm

The burly Sentinel rolled up the sleeves of his surcoat as if he hadn’t been hitting Fenyx with everything he had. Fenyx spat blood onto the marble floor, but grinned, imagining the Sentinel’s knuckles hurt worse than his jaw. The skin along the burned side of his face twitched, and the Burning within him prickled, wanting a fight.

“We can do this all night if we have to,” said the boyish Sentinel in charge, thumbing the fuzz of his chin. He folded his arms across his chest, shifting his weight into one hip as if time wasn’t of the essence.

He could feign patience all he wanted; Fenyx knew the truth—they were desperate to find Zephyrus. They could beat him from sunrise to sunset until the nightly rains returned, but Fenyx wouldn’t tell. Not to protect Zephyrus. He was to blame for all of this. No, Fenyx wouldn’t tell because he couldn’t tell.

“I told you already,” Fenyx said. “I don’t know.”

The Sentinel’s soft face smushed into a grimace. He pushed back a lock of blond hair with the crux of his forearm. He nodded to one of the two men standing on either side of him.

Another fist smashed into his jaw.

His ear rang. His face throbbed. But Fenyx swallowed the pain, bit back his fury, and fed it to the Burning. He adjusted his neck, the joints popping and cracking. Shrugging, the links of his manacles clinked against one another behind the back of the wooden chair they secured him to—as if that was enough to stop him from breaking free if he wanted.

“I would tell you if I knew,” Fenyx said matter-of-factly. “Zephyrus kept the company of Jechtaric and Cerik. Both men fled for the Uprising before the New Rheynian Games.”

“Well, how did they escape?” the Sentinel asked.

Fenyx cocked the lone eyebrow he had, but inside, his stomach knotted. If they learn that I knew he was a mage, they’ll kill me as a sympathizer. He let out an exasperated breath. “If I were a seer, you’d be less concerned with Zephyrus and more concerned with me. But, alas, I am only a gladiator, and I can’t—”

The back of the other Sentinel’s fist thudded across Fenyx’s cheek.

The bell in his head rang louder and reverberated through each one of his teeth. Blood leaked from his split lip. Fenyx licked the blood and swallowed the copper taste. The Burning feasted upon his pain, wishing to pay it back double.

Fenyx leaned back in the chair. “Auron is a doctore, a trainer of gladiators. What care has he for those who don’t heed his instruction? His honor is boundless; if you have no answers after questioning hi—”

Another fist batted his cheek in the opposite direction.

The bell hadn’t even settled before being struck again. Fenyx clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut until the resonance faded. He let his head loll, more from fatigue of this fruitless charade than the pain afflicted by the man-boy and his pets.

“I don’t know where he is,” Fenyx said. “I don’t know where he went. If any of us did, we wouldn’t be here. If I knew where the Uprising was, and I wanted to join their rabble, why would I still be here?”

The Sentinel’s soft jaw split into a smile. He took a deep breath and unsheathed his dagger. As his henchmen stepped back, the man-boy stalked closer, looming over Fenyx. The hilt and blade were simple if not finely made, the edge sharpened to a razor.

He placed the tip against the unburned side of Fenyx’s face.

The stone in Fenyx’s throat bobbed.

“I will ask the questions. You may be a gladiator, but there is plenty I can do to inflict pain without upsetting Duke Chancellor Brusos.”

Fenyx swallowed. Brusos is the new dominus?

Without warning, the blade pressed into Fenyx’s cheek, just beneath the corner of his eye. With his cheeks swollen from being beaten, he barely felt the dagger’s edge. He wasn’t sure it broke the skin until a single drop of blood trickled down his face. Fenyx’s scarred skin crawled, and heat radiated through him as the blood rolled down his cheek like a tear. The Burning demanded retribution, and too long had he been without a sword in his hands.

Just a few days prior, he had been the center of the crowd’s praise after slaying three men on the pebbles of the Chariot’s Arena. But now, after days in the Champion’s cell, which he hadn’t rightfully earned, it took every promise of glory not to break free from his chains and kill all three men where they stood. But Brusos?

“Your doctore wasted too much of my time,” the Sentinel said. “So we must achieve more immediate results, so I’ll ask you one last time: where is Zephyrus?”

Fenyx seethed, more frustrated than frightened. “The Uprising!”

“Disappointing.” The Sentinel pressed the dagger deeper into his flesh and carved a streak from Fenyx’s eye down his cheek to his jawline.

Fenyx roared as fire lanced through the good side of his face.

“Anything else you’d like to share?” He repositioned the dagger’s edge adjacent to the sliced flesh, ready to slash a twin line down his cheek.

“I don’t know anything,” Fenyx said. It wasn’t a lie. He’d been returned to Stockhelm after the New Rheynian Games. Zephyrus was brought to Salmantica to be paraded around as Champion. How was he supposed to know how Zephyrus escaped and where he’d gone?

His knuckles cracked, his fists confined within the manacles. Zephyrus uses his magic. Zephyrus flees for the Uprising. Yet I bear the punishment.

Blood dripped down his face to plop onto his bare chest. The warm liquid of life cascaded down his torso, staining his britches.

The Sentinel again pressed the blade into Fenyx’s flesh. “You didn’t know he was a mage? You didn’t see how Cerik and Jechtaric escaped?”

“No!” Fenyx said, his nostrils flaring.

That was a lie. Zephyrus had healed him on two separate occasions. The first time, Zephyrus set Fenyx’s broken knuckles after suffering an injury while training for the Games of Stockhelm. The second, Zephyrus had saved Fenyx’s life after Stegavax poisoned him on the sands of Six Spear Arena. But, aside from his healing magic, he had used force magic to unlock their shared cell in the barracks of the Winged Helm Inn, then did the same to liberate Jechtaric and Cerik.

Sweat beaded on Fenyx’s scalp as the Sentinel’s cruel smile twisted.

“You shared a cell with Zephyrus the night of Cerik and Jechtaric’s escape, did you not?” asked the Sentinel.

“Yes,” Fenyx said, grunting through the pressure of the knife against his good cheek. “But I was asleep. I didn’t see.”

The Sentinel leaned closer to Fenyx. “That’s not what the last slave said.”

Fenyx’s stomach twisted in knots. Auron gave me up? He recalled Auron’s condition upon being returned to the barracks, the way he shook his head after meeting Fenyx’s eyes.

“I don’t sleep well,” Fenyx said. He winced as the dagger dug deeper. “But I had whiteroot. I was asleep. I swear it.”

“You swear—by what Gods?” The Sentinel’s blade began to slice downward with slow, merciless intent. The tip of the dagger scraped against Fenyx’s cheekbone, sending electric pain to each of his teeth.

“I believe I know where Zephyrus went,” a voice called from the outskirts of the showroom.

The Sentinel wheeled to locate the source of the voice, pulling the dagger’s edge, along with his attention, away from Fenyx’s cheek. Fenyx let out a trembling exhale, relieved for the reprieve. He glanced toward the voice that bought him the respite.

Expecting to find Cleotra, he found Odetta, the domina’s bodyslave, clutching her hands to her chest, on the stairs descending into the showroom. Odetta’s bronze skin and mint-green eyes might as well have belonged to Aeryss the Affectionate for all the mercy she brought him, speaking up when she did.

“Bring her here,” the Sentinel barked.

The two other blue-and-gray-clad Sentinels each seized her by the arm and brought her to their leader. Odetta stared at the floor, waiting to be spoken to.

“Where?” the Sentinel asked.

“Zephyrus is not his real name, Dominus,” Odetta said. “He is Vykanicus Auros. I believe he might have gone to the mountain fortress in the north.”

Auros? Fenyx didn’t know if Odetta spoke the truth or made it up to spare Fenyx’s torment, but he didn’t care.

The Sentinel grinned, flicking Fenyx’s blood from the dagger’s blade. “Stoneside…” He rubbed his boyish cheeks with his freehand. “How did you come by this?”

“I heard him say it to Jechtaric and Cerik,” Odetta said, still gazing at the marble floor stained crimson with Auron’s and Fenyx’s blood.

“And you didn’t tell your dominus this before?” asked the Sentinel.

Odetta shook her head. “Apologies, Dominus. No. I did not believe it relevant. But I did not know he was a mage.”

The Sentinel strode over to where Fenyx was chained to the chair. Blade still slick with Fenyx’s blood, he wiped the side of the dagger on Fenyx’s bare shoulder.

“I’d say this slave just saved your face, but…” He shrugged, turning to the other Sentinels. “Fetch the domina. We have what we came here for.”

Fenyx slumped into the chair, releasing his held breath. Blood continued to leak down his face, but his eyes locked on Odetta. She met his stare for a moment before the Sentinel leader seized her by the chin, sending heat to the top of Fenyx’s scalp.

“If your lead proves false,” the Sentinel said, spittle flying from his lips onto her face, “then I’ll put my blade to your cheek.”

The Burning returned to Fenyx’s veins. His self-preservation forgotten, he wrenched his wooden chair in the Sentinel’s direction.

The Sentinel smirked at Fenyx, as if daring him to attack.

The Burning wanted him to break free and attack—demanded him to—but the new domina entered the showroom. Clad in a black silken dress, the lady Cerberynn Brusos sauntered down the stairs. With lace wings that fell from the straps of her shoulders to the loop around her thumb, she appeared like an angel of death.

Behind her, with head bowed, unkempt hair, and dressed in similar serving linens as Odetta, the former domina, Fenyx’s lover, Cleotra followed. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her skin pale and splotchy absent the paint she typically wore to conceal the wrinkles that framed her eyes.

She met Fenyx’s gaze before looking away.

“Have everything you came here for?” Cerberynn asked.

The man-boy Sentinel bowed. “Yes, my lady.”

“Excellent,” Cerberynn said. “Do run along now. I have much redecorating to do. Out with the purple and gold, in with the black and white.” She glanced at Cleotra. “Don’t you agree?”

Cleotra sniffed, her eyes downcast. “Yes, Domina.”

Cerberynn cleared her throat. “What, slave?”

“Yes, Domina,” Cleotra said louder.

Fenyx barely recognized her. Demure, where once she was powerful. Shy, where once assertive. It seemed he was not the only one who suffered since Zephyrus became Champion.

Cerberynn smiled, a devilish look in her eyes. “Out you go, then.”

The Sentinels took their leave. As the blue-and-gray officers left, guards wearing black-and-white surcoats decorated with the snake of House Brusos marched into the showroom.

“Release our new Champion,” Cerberynn said to the guards before turning to Odetta. “Odetta, see him bathed, feed him the very best, and return him to the Champion’s cell. Cleotra, clean up this mess and return to me.”

“Yes, Domina,” Odetta said, echoed by Cleotra a moment later.

As the guards unfastened Fenyx’s restraints, Cerberynn approached Fenyx and wiped the blood flowing from his cheek until her pale hands were stained scarlet.

This wasn’t the first time she had touched Fenyx. Nearly a year ago, in this very room, she had visited House Cassius prior to the Games of Stockhelm.

Cerberynn stroked his cheek. “Apologies, Champion. You should not have been touched. But I promise you, once the Uprising is put down and things return to normal—as they will—you will be the finest gladiator New Rheynia has ever seen. And you will be rewarded as such, as you should have been under House Cassius.”

Cerberynn glared at Cleotra, but the former domina gave no response. The new domina eyed Odetta. “You were the bodyslave to the former Lady Cassius?”

Odetta bowed. “Yes, Domina.”

“And why haven’t you been given to the Champion as a bride?” Cerberynn asked.

Fenyx stiffened, eyeing Odetta, but Cleotra bristled, pursing her lips at Cerberynn.

Odetta glanced at Cleotra before returning her gaze to the marble. “I do not know, Domina.”

Cerberynn shrugged, a self-satisfied grin painted upon her lips. “Guards, see the other gladiators put to work. Chain them in a line and oversee the new defensive reinforcements. We wouldn’t want any others fleeing for the Uprising, would we?”

The guards saluted, exiting the showroom in an orderly line.

As they left, Cerberynn addressed her house slaves. “See your chores done.” She wiped the blood on her hands from Fenyx’s cheek on Cleotra’s skirts.

With one last glance at Fenyx, Cerberynn spun, tossing the black train of her dress in a flourishing swirl before ascending the stairs. Once she was gone, Odetta took Fenyx’s arm in her own. Her touch sent a chill down his spine, silencing the Burning like a strip of whiteroot.

“Might I have a word with Fenyx?” Cleotra whispered, a hint of her former defiance peeking through the intensity of her stare. “Alone.”

Odetta paused for a moment, but eventually released Fenyx and backed away. “A word. Then we must do as ordered.”

Fenyx made no objections, but as Odetta backed away and Cleotra neared, the Burning returned. Not the form of the carnal excitement it had once taken the shape of, but the itching sensation that crawled along his skin before a fight.

Cleotra took his hand, but the electric polarity that existed between them only days earlier had vanished. Then, Cleotra had been the forbidden fruit, a trophy of conquest, but now, she was just another woman to him. Another slave.

When she didn’t speak, Fenyx prodded her. “What?”

Cleotra inhaled sharply, the center of her brow lifting as her lips turned down. “Is that all you’d say to me after what we’ve been through?”

Fenyx grunted. “Seems Rheynian cruelty has not changed. Purple and gold, black and white—what difference does it make?”

Cleotra lifted her fingers to her lips and retracted from him. “You compare this to—”

“The whip marks that line my back?” Fenyx asked. “The scars hurt the same regardless who delivers the discipline.”

Cleotra took his hand in both of hers. “Then let us leave. Let us run away. We can join the Uprising and—”

Fenyx ripped his hand from her. “Things may have gotten worse for you, but they are the same for me. I am positioned to be Champion and receive everything I have worked for. Why should I leave now to join a fool’s cause?”

Cleotra stammered, searching for words.

“The Uprising will fail,” Fenyx said. “And when things return to normal, I will bask in the glory of victory. As Champion.”

Cleotra scoffed. “Glory—is that all you care for?”

Fenyx grunted. He didn’t expect her to know anything of a slave’s life. She would never understand everything he had trained for.

“What about me?” Cleotra asked. “Us?”

Fenyx raised the burnt flesh where an eyebrow should have been. “A Champion is given a wife for his triumphs in the arena.” He nodded his head in the direction Odetta had retreated. “What need have I of you?”

Cleotra stepped away from Fenyx. “You don’t care for her. You only care for what you can win—what you can earn.” She shook her head, no longer the demure house slave, but a domina again. “The Uprising will not fail. And when they come to free you, what then, Champion, will you have?”

Fenyx’s slit cheek burned, and his head ached from where the Sentinels had struck him, but Cleotra’s nagging imposed the greatest affliction.

“Are we done here?”

Cleotra stormed past Fenyx. “Finished.”

As the former domina left and Fenyx’s future bride entered, a smile touched Fenyx’s lips. Time was the only thing standing between him and everything he had worked for. He would get what he was owed, and nothing—no one—would stand in his way.

Chapter 24

Humility and Choice

Vykinallia III

Stockhelm

Vykinallia lost track of the days within the Uprising’s underground base. After Sett’s attack and Jechtaric and Cerik’s defense, two guards were posted by her alcove at all times. At first she was relieved to not be alone. She called for Lenara, asked for Zephyrus, demanded to speak to Jechtaric and Cerik, but her sentries never spoke to her or even bothered to look in her direction. It seemed the louder she cried, the less they heard.

Chained to a vertical beam, Vykinallia stood, sat, paced the few steps her tether would allow, and repeated endlessly. With each day that passed, her hopes of Damascus meeting the ransom faded. The realization that she wasn’t worth leftover supplies to him told her everything—not just about him as a person, but the value system he represented in New Rheynian society.

She cursed herself for a starry-eyed foolish girl, duped by gallant princes, fancy dresses, and pulvinus seating. But it was worse than that. She wasn’t just intoxicated by Damascus, Salmantic court, and the prospect of social advancement; she’d been conditioned as a fool long before that.

Zephyrus opened her eyes to the truth, but she saw it too late.

Jechtaric and Cerik were right; I never fought for them.

Vykinallia paced the few steps adjacent to her beam, her chains rattling with each step. Each passing day, her dreams that Zephyrus would enter the Sanctuary and strike the chains that bound her dwindled, and her fears, wondering if he were still alive, mounted. She’d failed to free him. There was no telling if he’d ever get another chance to escape. And even if he managed to find his freedom, it was beyond ignorant to expect the first place the Wielder would go would be to find her. She was nothing to him. Nothing… but one kiss.

She needed to do something.

If I prove to Lenara that I can be an ally—

Her train of thought fractured, realizing she didn’t want freedom from this place. The same pomposity that served well amongst the patricians of court would only condemn her here. She couldn’t pretend to understand the plight of Lenara’s people without experiencing it herself.

She dropped to her knees. Breathing the dank, soiled air of her own filth and the hard-packed earth, she wrinkled her nose and swallowed her false pride. She wouldn’t fight against the chains that held her. She’d allow them to humble her, so that when her time came, she would be ready to fight for the oppressed.

Thoughts and memories of her time in the ludus flooded her mind. From watching the gladiators with her father, and practicing dance steps with her mother, to heeding Liario’s tutelage on history, and Doctore’s instruction in swordplay, she recalled a hundred instances where she could have been an ally to the Celestic people. A hundred opportunities and an equal number of failures.

Vykinallia hung her head. She stayed there for what could have been hours before torchlight illuminated the hall outside her alcove.

Footsteps approached, and her guards allowed the oncomer to pass. Bathed in dancing orange light, Lenara entered the alcove to stand before Vykinallia. The crow’s feet cornering her eyes deepened as her dark brows narrowed and her thin lips pulled back in a curt smile.

Vykinallia fought the familiar urge to make demands and impose her will. She was no longer a domina who held such power. She never should have been a domina. She let her eyes fall to the ground between her knees and Lenara’s boots.

“Given up?” Lenara asked.

She fixed her gaze at Lenara’s feet. “No, Lenara. Just learning my place.”

Lenara chortled. “Hmm. Shame you can’t stay longer.”

Vykinallia inclined her head, brows raised. “The king met your demands?”

“We offered different terms.” Lenara’s stoic expression gave no indication as to how she felt on the matter. “He didn’t seem interested in paying for you, even after we sent body parts.”

Swallowing, Vykinallia parsed through the details.

He believes they tortured me, and still he didn’t agree to terms?

Her jaw tightened, and heat rose to her cheeks. “If he didn’t agree to pay the ransom for me, what did he agree to?”

Lenara snorted. “He didn’t agree to anything yet. But if he shows and finds you whole, he may be more inclined to a civil exchange.”

Vykinallia’s teeth ground together. I’d rather rot in here than return to him. “And if he doesn’t show, or if my presence doesn’t stay his hand as you hope?”

Lenara placed one hand on her hip and shrugged. “That will be up to your betrothed. But if he doesn’t want you, you’re…” Lenara raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “For your sake, I hope he wants you.”

Bound, blindfolded, and returned to the wagon Falcos escorted her in, Vykinallia was once again on the bumpy road. Several wagons and scores of men and women accompanied them. It wasn’t until several hours later when her blindfold was removed that she realized where she was.

The town square of Stockhelm was empty beneath the starry, cloudless sky. The wagons were oriented in a semicircle. Many of those who marched alongside her wagon were hidden from view by the time they’d taken her blindfold off. Whether concealed in the shadows of the statues or the many pavilions on the outskirts of the square, Vykinallia couldn’t be certain, but she knew one thing: they were preparing an ambush.

At the center of the wagons, Lenara spoke with Iberion, the half-blind man with the scarred face. With Iberion’s burly arms folded across his chest and Lenara’s palms skyward, their postures hinted at a disagreement, but they were too far away for Vykinallia to overhear. Unari, the Celestic fire mage, ordered Cerik to aid in lugging something heavy out of the back of another wagon. Vykinallia’s former gladiator joined Sett, the man who wanted to bludgeon Vykinallia to death in the Sanctuary, in hauling a massive chest from the wagon. Cerik set his side down gently, but Sett dropped his from knee height. The wooden chest crashed to the cobblestone, startling everyone around.

Realizing it was just a dropped chest, many deep breaths released and tense shoulders settled. Iberion had drawn his sword, ready for a fight.

Jechtaric strode by muttering something under his breath, a stack of what appeared to be curved wooden slats piled under his arm. He shoved one of the slats into Sett’s stomach. “Make people more nervous, why don’tcha?”

Sett grunted but lifted the slat to his face. With cutouts for the eyes and a tether slotted through the sides, the wooden mask concealed most of his features. Though it reminded Vykinallia of Valencia’s Faceless servants, these masks wore a distinctly eerie expression.

Jechtaric continued to pass out the masks, tossing one to Cerik and Unari, before handing more to Iberion and Lenara.

A figure popped his head out from the cover behind the statue of Phaebia, his face covered by a wooden mask. Clutching a short spear in his hands, he looked toward Lenara.

Lenara, donning her own mask, waved him back into hiding. “Everything is fine. Wait for the horn. Only come out if they attack first.”

Vykinallia balked.

They’re not setting an ambush; they’re expecting one.

The masks were not for intimidation, but anonymity. The wagons were positioned to offer cover on their flanks or to make an escape. Those in hiding were a defensive tactic.

Dankar, the bull of a man who attempted to brand her the moment she was brought to the Uprising’s camp, held a dagger before her, dissolving her thoughts of tactics in an instant. Crude steel sharpened to a cruel edge caught the flickering torchlight. She wanted to raise her hands in defense, but they were bound behind her back.

Dankar examined the blade between them. He shook his head, swinging his black braids left and right. “It ain’t Auros-forged, but try anything funny, and I’ll bury it in your back.”

Vykinallia swallowed. She didn’t believe it would take anything funny on her end to provoke Dankar’s wrath, but she had no intentions of disrupting the exchange. As wounded as she was that Damascus hadn’t ransomed her, Lenara made it clear that it was in her best interest to leave with him.

She nodded.

Sheathing his dagger with a grunt, he retrieved a wooden mask that was tucked into his belt and pulled it over her face. “Not a word outta you.”

Trumpets sounded from over the Crystal River, their cries shrill through the crisp night air. The sound, once a familiar herald of excitement and gladiatorial games, now sent gooseflesh up Vykinallia’s arms. In the distance, footfalls landed in syncopated rhythm, adding an ominous percussion to the blaring horns.

“Take position,” Lenara said from the front of their gathered party.

Iberion, Sett, and Dankar drew swords, while Cerik wielded his mace and Jechtaric his spear. Unari’s fingertips glowed orange with the remnants of magic, but they all seemed of little consequence against the encroaching army.

The torches came into view first, followed by the King’s Guard Knights clad in crimson-and-onyx plate mail. The Salmantic knights followed in black ring mail, carrying the red-and-black banner of the Drake chimera. At the center of their procession, clad in brilliant blood-red armor atop a white stallion, Damascus, the King of New Rheynia, approached.

Though her savior had come, Vykinallia felt no swell of relief. She didn’t want to go with him, but whatever fate awaited her if left in the Uprising’s care was a far worse proposition.

The horns continued their trumpeting until the Salmantic front stopped fifty paces away. The King’s Guard Knights separated, the Salmantic soldiers fanned out, filling the town square, and Damascus, atop his white stallion, trotted forward to greet them.

He flipped up his visor. “I am Damascus Helixus, King of New Rheynia and Duke of Salmantica. To whom I must entreat, you and two others may approach the center.”

The sound of his voice wasn’t what she remembered, but her memories were poisoned by her time spent chained to a beam while Damascus ignored the Uprising’s ransom notes. Once, his voice set her stomach fluttering; now, it grated on her. Her fists curled within her rope bindings. She didn’t know how she could marry him now, but it was that or remain the Uprising’s prisoner, or worse. Her mother had warned her about men: a summer night’s dream, she had called them.

How could he have left me to be tortured…

Now she saw Damascus for the hellish nightmare he was.

Lenara nodded at Iberion and Unari, and together, they met Damascus at the center of the square, equal distance from the gathered Salmantic troops and the Uprising’s hidden fighters.

The muscles along Vykinallia’s spine quivered, and her jaw hurt from clenching, but no amount of strain would allow her to hear the words that passed between the two leaders. Moments felt like hours with her fate hanging in the balance, but eventually, Damascus raised a hand, and four carts were brought forward, each pushed by half a dozen men. Iberion and Unari inspected the contents of the carts, but still, no signal was made for Vykinallia’s exchange.

Lenara raised her hand, signaling for Vykinallia.

Vykinallia let out a shaky breath, but as she stepped forward, Dankar’s massive hand seized her shoulder.

“Not you.”

From the shadows of the statues of the Six, a score of masked Uprising men and women filtered into the square. They met Damascus’s troops and accepted the carts, wheeling them towards the Uprising’s wagons. The Salmantic troops returned to their formation, but Damascus, his knights, and the leaders of the Uprising remained at the center of the square.

Vykinallia’s knees began to tremble at the thought of what would happen to her if Damascus returned to Salmantica without her.

What terms did they agree on, and how could they not involve me?

Uprising fighters unloaded the Salmantic carts into their empty wagons, but even their rummaging didn’t drown out the shout that came from the center of the circle.

“What! Bring her. At once!”

Vykinallia’s heart skipped a beat at Damascus’s shout, but so too did her mind. As Dankar escorted her to the center of the town square, her balance swayed beneath the unsteadiness of her legs. She tried to discern what could have been said to make Damascus suddenly aware of her presence enough to demand her be brought forth. Dankar delivered her to Lenara’s side at the center of the square before she could figure it out.

The white stallion’s hooves scuffed the cobblestones as the beast tossed its head, snorting. Damascus sat tall atop his steed, his red armor reflecting the torches’ glow. He appeared like every knight in the stories she’d read as a girl, but as Vykinallia’s gaze traveled up to the eyes behind the helm, she realized they did not belong to Damascus. Not gold, but smoky gray.

Vykinallia attempted to form words, but none found their way to her lips as her tongue tangled over itself.

“Remove her mask,” Not-Damascus said.

Dankar tore the mask from her face, the wood scratching her cheek and mussing her knotted hair. Vykinallia looked past the man masquerading in Damascus’s armor for the man himself but couldn’t find him.

The nearest King’s Guard Knight advanced, examining her through the slit in his visor.

“She is whole,” Lenara said. “If you had answered any of our previous letters, we could have made this exchange without resorting to killing your men and sinking your ships.”

As Dankar sawed through the binds at Vykinallia’s wrist, the knight standing across from her whipped his head up to the man who styled himself King of New Rheynia.

Not-Damascus cleared his throat. “This was the only correspondence we received.”

Lenara chuckled beneath her wooden mask. “Then you, King of New Rheynia, have an allegiance issue within your castle. In any light, we have what we came here for. You have her, and our word; we will no longer attack the water caravans.”

Lenara spun on her heel.

“I’m not done with you!” Not-Damascus shouted.

Lenara paused, looking over her shoulder. “But I am done with you, Drake. If you wish to know who withheld the ransom, look no further than your own mother.”

The King’s Guard Knight opposite Vykinallia slid a dagger from within his vambrace. Using Vykinallia as cover, neither Unari, Iberion, or Lenara saw it.

Vykinallia’s eyes widened as she attempted to catch the knight’s gaze, but he wasn’t focused on her, too intent on the steel in his hand and what he planned to do with it.

With his left hand, he seized Vykinallia’s wrist. Pulling her towards him, he strode past her, dagger poised for Lenara’s back.

Without thinking, Vykinallia flailed, reaching for anything she could grab. Her fingers caught on the knight’s pauldron, throwing his attack off-balance.

At the sudden motion, Iberion drew his sword. “Steel!”

Unari lifted a horn from around her neck and blew.

At the sound of the trumpet, a storm of masked men and women hiding amidst the statues erupted into the town square. Swords and spears raised, their war cries filled the night. More and more poured in from the surrounding woods in greater numbers than those who journeyed from the Sanctuary.

A spear flew through the air and struck the man pretending to be Damascus in the shoulder.

“Protect the king!”

The King’s Guard Knights and Salmantic soldiers charged forward as Lenara, Iberion, and Unari backed towards their gathering screamers.

The square divided in two, Vykinallia and the knight who attempted to stab Lenara at its center. The man in Damascus’s armor fell from his rearing horse, spear still embedded in his pauldron.

The knight in black-and-red armor turned towards her, dagger still in hand. Through the slit in his visor, eyes as gold as the midday sun glared at her. “What have you done?”

Vykinallia stared at Damascus. Her betrothed. Her future.

In his eyes, an entire lifetime played out before her. A life in which she was his queen, and he her king. A life with children, laughter, and love. The summer night’s dream smoldered to ashes. She’d be a prisoner with a crown, as likely to create change as she was chained to an iron beam in the Sanctuary.

Vykinallia shook her head. “No, Damascus. What have you become?”

She ripped free from his grasp and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Not only away from Damascus, but towards Lenara, Iberion, and Unari.

The moment Vykinallia got to them, the Uprising’s masked fighters swarmed around them as the Salmantic force enclosed around Damascus and his fallen body double, forming a defensive perimeter.

Lenara gave the command, and with another blow of Unari’s horn, the Uprising retreated, scattering south into the surrounding woods.

Chapter 25

Moths to the Flame

Danella V

Salmantica

Kneeling, head bowed, fingers interlocked, Danella tried to pray. She’d failed to find peace in her study, had just as little success visiting the shrines in the garden, and now was at her wit’s end in the Royal Basilica. Whether for wisdom, guidance, patience, or strength, none of her prayers arrived at their conclusion. Every time, halfway through, doubts crept in—slowly at first, but they soon became a cascade.

Memories of Varros, Iylea’s prophecies, Horus’s promises—each one had played her for a fool. Once, she thought the strings of the world were at her fingertips, but all along, she was just someone else’s marionette, dancing for the crowd’s amusement.

She had no one to blame but herself, especially in her latest failure. She trusted Horus and his Ridge Knights to find Laeden, and they had. She wasn’t counting on them to join Laeden in rebelling against the crown. Now three ludi had fallen in three days, and the number of escaped slaves swelled.

This is all because of Zephyrus. I should have killed him when I had the chance.

Danella opened her eyes and slammed her fists on the back of the pew in front of her, again too distracted to pray. The statues of the Six loomed over her, each at least three men high, but even their presence offered her no comfort.

“How could you have let the Judges’ prophet escape me so many times?” she asked, but their stone faces offered no reply. Despite the stained glass’s beauty, the glow of candlelight on the canopied ceilings, and the smell of incense filling the empty temple, the Gods were absent. Part of her began to wonder if they had ever even been here.

Danella shook her head and buried her face in her hands. Faithless, blaspheming imbecile. She hated that her circumstances made her question her faith, but from the moment Zephyrus arrived on the pulvinus at the Festival of Stockhelm, he had been a thorn in her side that she couldn’t remove. Saulus, Lenox, Liario, countless gladiators, and even Ser Daenus failed to dispatch him from this world, and now he had poisoned Laeden into believing his blasphemy.

He will not claim me too.

She had to stop him and Laeden before any others answered their rallying cry. Lenox and the Jackals would have to deal with the slave-mage, but Laeden she would handle herself. According to Brusos’s sources, Laeden was styling himself King of Valtarcia. In freeing the slaves over the course of three incursions, sparing all but two—Baron Ulysius and one of his guards—he was declaring himself a king of all people. Those who doubted her, especially the plebs and Celestic sympathizers, would flock to Laeden’s banner like moths to the flame, especially in Valtarcia.

Perhaps I can send a few moths of my own.

Finished with trying to pray, Danella exited the pews, knowing how to put a stop to Laeden’s revolution. She strode down the nave of the basilica to the main entrance, where the two guards given to her in the absence of the King’s Guard Knights awaited her. While the King’s Guard accompanied Damascus to Stockhelm to deliver justice to the Fallen—as they called themselves—the men she was given were of a different variety. While not the finest graduates of Atonus Allos’s militant academy, they were low enough to be lured with the offer of elevation. And unlike a King’s Guard Knight, they would not draw Laeden’s suspicions if they deserted their posts to join his rebellion.

Chin held high, shoulders pinned back, Danella pushed through the double doors of the basilica to find the two men standing on either side of the portico. They both turned as the doors swung open, saluting at attention.

Danella pursed her lips into a tight grin. Green as dewy grass. She paused in the entryway of the basilica, hands on her hips. “At ease, my dutiful guards.”

Neither slackened, as if in a contest with one another to prove more obsequious.

Danella exhaled through her nostrils, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Accompany me inside. The Gods have bestowed their wisdom, and I have an assignment for the two of you… that is, if you wish to prove yourselves?”

Danella woke early after a restful night of sleep, stretching her arms to the canopy of her four-poster bed. Sliding her feet into a pair of slippers and wrapping herself in her robe, she exited her bedchambers and strode out to the balcony overlooking the Hylan Mountains to the west and all of Salmantica to the south.

Though the sun had not yet risen and a dark fog settled over the moat of Sentigard, warmth radiated through Danella. Her guards, Aponius and Roderick—her newest allies—had left in the night and were well on their way to dismantling Laeden’s rebellion before it gained more traction. Whether they would succeed or not remained to be seen, but as the deep purple sky lightened with the rising sun, so too did her prospects. She had nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain in casting the two men to Laeden’s fire. Soon, Damascus would return in victory over the Uprising, Lenox would deliver her Zephyrus’s head, and before the new moon, all would be right with the world.

Danella sniffed the air. The sulfuric scent of char stained the dawn, but it smelled sweet. Nothing like the fragrance of burnt Celestic idols and a crushed rebellion in the morning.

Through the fog, the red-and-black banner of House Drake flew along the Aquarian River, heralding Damascus’s return.

Danella hurried inside to prepare herself, eager to hear of her son’s triumph. Summoning her handmaidens to dress her hair and clothe her, Danella found herself grinning. All of her doubts melted away, and for the first time in days, her mind remained silent. She found herself appreciating details she hadn’t allowed herself to notice in some time: the serenity of thoughtlessness, the beauty of a rising sun, the courage, strength, and determination of the men in her service. Everything from the softness of the crushed velvet red dress that graced her skin, to the shine of the golden Six Arrowed Star pendant on her neckline, filled her with a joy she hadn’t experienced since her brother was still King of New Rheynia.

Once prepared, Danella descended the tower stairs and traversed the torchlit halls of Sentigard, her handmaidens following close behind. With her hair pinned up in elaborate braids and the train of her dress following her, Danella approached the tall double doors of the throne room. The doors opened as she neared, but the sounds within did not greet her the way she’d anticipated.

Expecting casks of wine and raucous celebration, Danella’s splendid mood soured at the long faces and chorus of curses filling the court.

A knot formed in her throat, and the corset around her ribs seemed to tighten as she tried to swallow it. Danella dismissed her attendants in the foyer and quickened her stride toward the throne room. As she entered, Damascus tore the vambrace from his arm and chucked it into the stone pillar adjacent to the dais, a fresh bout of swears fleeing his mouth. Many of his men shied away, shielding their faces or casting their gaze downward to avoid accidental eye contact with the raging king.

At her entrance, Damascus paused to meet her eyes. He huffed, snatching the other vambrace from his arm and tossing it to clatter along the stone floor.

“Fetch wine!” Damascus sat down on the edge of his throne and motioned his young squires to remove his armor.

Danella continued to approach the throne, clicking her fingernails together. She hadn’t witnessed Damascus in such a state since he believed Varros was taken at the hands of the mages. Her mind raced, attempting to discern what could have gone wrong.

The soldiers filling the throne room appeared unscathed by battle. Did the Uprising not show? Was the meeting a trick—a distraction? What fresh treachery could they have committed?

Damascus fixed her with a glare reserved for Hechts.

Danella worked saliva into her dry mouth. “What’s happened?”

She didn’t want to know the answer. The peace that accompanied her on the other side of the door to the throne room had vanished, replaced again by her closest companion—doubt.

The squires removed the red-and-black King’s Guard cuirass from his chest as an attendant held out a tray with a goblet of wine. Damascus snatched the goblet and lifted it to his lips. The apple of his throat bobbed, gulp after gulp. Once emptied, he slammed the gilded goblet to the arm of his throne, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Everyone out,” Damascus said. His voice was no louder than a whisper, but all heard the command. As the soldiers began to file out in neat rows, Damascus addressed his King’s Guard Knights. “You too.”

Helmet under his arm, Ser Daenus’s burnt face turned towards Danella. She nodded, and he followed his brothers out of the throne room. Damascus held her with his golden eyes until every last soldier and attendant had fled the throne room, leaving only the two of them.

“What happened?” Danella asked.

Damascus ignored her, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Were there other ransom notes?”

Danella narrowed her brow and tilted her head, hoping he wouldn’t see through her façade. “What do you mean?”

“Nallia is alive,” Damascus said through his teeth. “Whole and unharmed. They sent correspondence wishing to make an exchange for the same supplies I just handed over.”

Danella’s corset constricted enough to tighten her throat. Nallia. Alive. Unharmed. She shook her head, not believing the words. “You gave them the supplies?” Six preserve me, you were never supposed to speak—you were supposed to attack. She forced the desperation from her voice. “They got away?”

Damascus scowled. “They were ready for us. Thousands—concealed in the square or hiding in the woods, they outnumbered us two to one. They had better positioning and the element of surprise. Aemos took a spear in the shoulder for wearing my armor.”

Danella balked, her hand clutching her chest. “They attacked you—at least they believe they attacked you?” She bit back her surprise, but too late.

Damascus shook his head, bolting upright, arms extended out to the sides. “That is what astounds you? They killed Father! Why would they hesitate to attack me?” He approached her with such force Danella had to resist the urge to step backwards.

Her feet felt like stone, her knees like stalks of grain, blowing in the wind as Damascus drew near—too near. He leaned in, the wine on his breath souring the air between them.

“Someone is withholding information from me.”

Danella didn’t dare breathe. She wanted to deny his claim, to scoff as if it were the most preposterous suggestion she’d ever heard, but she couldn’t. Her mask threatened to shatter, the long-concealed secrets begging to rip free in a torrent of truth. Danella didn’t respond.

“Who delivered the ransom to you?” Damascus whispered in her ear.

Danella blinked, backing away until she could meet Damascus’s eyes. The harrowing gold held the sun’s intensity, but no blame.

He doesn’t suspect me.

He continued to whisper. “Laeden must have agents within Sentigard, filtering through the Uprising’s messages, choosing which should make their way to me. They’re toying with me.”

Danella, regaining composure, grabbed Damascus by the shoulders. “Why do you believe this? They want you to not trust your advisers, to divert your focus to fighting ghosts. If we wage a war amongst ourselves, they reap the benefits, but with Nallia returned, she might be able to aid our—”

“She didn’t come back.”

Danella gasped, lifting her hand to cover her mouth. She’s dead. He watched her die. No wonder he is so furious. “Damascus, I am so sorry for your loss. The realm will grieve her—”

“She’s not dead.” Damascus’s tone stabbed like a dagger through chainmail. “She stopped me from killing their leader. Then she ran back to them, retreating into the jungles. That’s where they’re hiding, but not for much longer.”

Danella’s jaw hung open, her mouth dry. Her mind felt sluggish, attempting to fill the blanks Damascus neglected to share.

“And you may be right—perhaps the Uprising wants me to turn against my own, but, see, Mother, I’ve learned something after last night. Rats can’t hide in the shadows if you cast a large enough light. And with this drought, one spark is all it takes to set the sky on fire.”

Danella swallowed the lump in her throat. The sulfuric scent of the dawn air, the dense fog over the Aquarian. Those weren’t bonfires and fog—Damascus set the jungles of Stockhelm aflame.

“Whether rats here in Sentigard or in Stockhelm’s jungles, there is only one way for them to hide amongst the ashes.”

Danella worked her mouth to produce sour spit. Varros’s voice returned to her. “This war will ruin him, and he will destroy everything your father built—everything I tried to save.”

“I will find the one who withheld the Uprising’s letters from me, and I will hunt the Uprising to the last corners of the realm.” The look in Damascus’s eyes gave credence to Varros’s warning.

Danella’s gaze fell to the floor. This was the king her father’s kingdom needed, the man she needed him to be, but he was no longer her little boy, and it hurt to look at him. What would he do if he learned I was the one who hid the Uprising’s letters from him? She cleared her throat and met his gaze again.

“What will you do when you find Nallia?”

Damascus’s stern glare did not waver. “She will receive the same justice as any who dare defy me. Nallia Cassius may be alive, but she’s dead to me. As is Laeden, and every other rat.”

Danella embraced Damascus—her son, her king, and the hope of Valencianism. She closed her eyes and exhaled, releasing Varros’s contagious worry with it. “We will end them all. For the Six.”

“For the Six.”

Chapter 26

Deaths of Inconsequence

Fenyx III

Stockhelm

The setting sun marked the end of Fenyx’s time in the baths, but it did not signal a close to the forced labor for the rest of his brothers. Skin clean and smelling of rosewater, and with a sack of food pilfered from the kitchens, Fenyx returned to his Champion’s cell.

The stitches sewing shut the tears carved down his right cheek by the Sentinel itched worse than the Burning’s prickling. The scar would never fade. He’d no longer have a good side of his face, but if he was Champion, he didn’t care.

The crack of a whip snapped outside his window to the training square. Where once such a sound signified the beginning of a sparring match or the end of the day’s training, now it was a spur to speed his brothers to action. While Fenyx joined the chain line in the mornings to assist in refortifying the walls of the training square, he was spared the hottest part of the day and the extended duration that the other gladiators endured.

Instead of toiling in the sun, his afternoons were spent fighting with steel against men who didn’t deserve to pick up a sword. His new domina, Cerberynn, purchased the slaves caught by the Jackals to keep her Champion sharp. While spilling their blood satisfied the Burning, and kept him from the laborers’ line, their deaths would do nothing to refine his edge for when he faced true gladiators again, but he supposed these bouts were more for Cerberynn’s entertainment than his training.

Fenyx laid out the morsels Odetta had taken from the kitchens on his bed. A few chunks of cheese, a vine of shrunken grapes, a handful of withered figs and dried dates, and a couple scraps of bread—nothing for gladiators to live off of, but Odetta’s efforts in securing food for his brothers would keep them from hating him. It was what a Champion ought to do—look out for the brotherhood—but somehow, it never seemed enough.

Fenyx grumbled, looking at the meager stash. Shagren would complain, Vossler’s silence would sting his ears, and Auron would still attempt to pull him aside to convince him to flee and join the Uprising. Auron had a better chance of crumbling the Hylan Peaks than convincing Fenyx to throw away everything he had earned, everything that would come to him, but that didn’t stop his former doctore—his former friend—from trying.

Fenyx wrapped up the stolen goods and hid them under his bed with the same regard as he had for his relationship with Auron. Auron had told the Sentinels that Fenyx shared Zephyrus’s cell on the night Jechtaric and Cerik escaped. Fenyx would have told them everything about Zephyrus if he didn’t think they’d nail him to a Six Arrowed Star for not saying so earlier, but he didn’t understand why Auron gave him up to the Sentinels.

He pressed his tongue into the raised flesh on the inside of his freshly scarred cheek and put his hands behind his head. Staring out the window at the darkening, cloudless sky, Fenyx considered how Zephyrus and the Uprising had made everything worse. For everyone.

Things will return to normal. Soon.

Yet the starry sky gave no indications of the nightly rains ever returning.

It wasn’t long before the Brusos guards, including the former Cassius guards now wearing the black-and-white snake, called for the end of their labor. The gladiators were escorted inside, unlocked from the chain line, and shoved in their cells. Only once they were all locked away were they ladled their ration of gruel and left for the night, though it wouldn’t be long until they repeated the same ordeal on the morrow.

Once the guards left and the torches were put out, leaving them in the still darkness, Fenyx approached the barred window of his wooden door. Through the gloom of the shadowed barracks, the whites of every eye were visible between their cell bars.

“What’ve you got for us this time?” Shagren asked.

“What I could,” Fenyx said, unfolding his sack of stolen goods.

One at a time, he flung them through the bars to Vossler’s cell opposite him. Vossler would take a bite, then pass the rest along to Shagren, then Shagren to Wardon, and so on until all of the gladiators had something.

“No meat?” Shagren asked.

“Honeyed ham?” Wardon said. “I’d kill for swine.”

“You ain’t ever had honeyed ham,” Daegan, a younger gladiator said.

“Did so,” Wardon hissed back. “My mother used to work in Count Horne’s kitchens.”

Shagren grunted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, then they realized you’re a traitor’s bastard. We know, Ward.”

“Daegan didn’t,” Wardon said.

“Shut up and eat, all of you,” Fenyx said. “Leave not a crumb behind.”

The gladiators returned to a sullen silence, too burdened by their labors or too dismal in their outlook to argue, but it did not last long.

“Don’t take his food,” someone said. “See it for what it is.”

Unable to see who spoke because of the location of his cell or the darkness that shrouded them, Fenyx recognized the speaker’s voice and growled. He knew what this was. He’d seen it enough to recognize it when it began. Every time a new Champion rose and the old became a relic who had outlived his former glories, the old would seize any opportunity to regain favor in the eyes of the brotherhood and retain any bit of influence over the barracks. Fenyx just never believed this song and dance would be between him and Auron.

“And what is that, Auron?” Fenyx bit back his contempt, feigning disinterest.

“You offer scraps to appease our suffering,” Auron said. “You think you are doing the duty of a Champion, providing for the brotherhood, but you are selling a lie. And I will not buy.”

Murmurs broke out amongst the barracks.

“I lie about nothing,” Fenyx spat, unable to keep the venom from his tone. “You should have lied when the Sentinels put you to the question. You speak of brotherhood, but you forsook us the moment they stripped you of being Doctore.”

The mutters silenced. The whites of eyes darted back and forth between the Champion’s cell and wherever Auron was positioned down the hall.

“I told them nothing,” Auron said. “But you have chosen a path of denial that I will not walk. You lie to keep us here, condemned to the chain, while we build the walls that will forever entomb us to this fate. And once you’ve run out of scraps and we realize that the ‘return to normal’ that they promise will never come, it will be too late to flee. And instead of lives of meaning, we will suffer long, slow deaths of inconsequence.”

Fenyx snorted. “Do you hear yourself? ‘Lives of meaning?’ You would have us join the Uprising, the very reason we must build those walls. You once told me ‘To dream of a life beyond these walls is the way to an early and meaningless death.’ There is glory to be won here.”

“There is only glory in a house of honor,” Auron said. “This house has no honor.”

Fenyx pressed his knuckles to the wooden door of his Champion’s cell, but in Fenyx’s silence, the other gladiators’ grumbles took root and sprouted thorns.

Feeding off of their malcontent, Auron continued. “We are gladiators, yet he is the only one who fights. We toil beneath the sun, absent the honor of honing our skills or preparing to battle upon the sands, and he gives you scraps from the duke’s kitchens and promises future glory. Things are getting worse—the king has lost control. The kingdom fears the Uprising, what we could become. Imagine… an army of gladiators; what greater glory than fighting for freedom? The time is now!”

A few gladiators gave hushed voices of support, while others looked to Fenyx as the politics of the barracks divided. Fenyx couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was bad enough when Zephyrus spoke in whispers, but for Auron to address the entire brotherhood about the Uprising…

He needed to put a stop to this. And now.

“The only thing that’s changed is you are one of us now,” Fenyx said. “No longer our doctore. No longer holding the whip. It has been a few days, and you contradict every lesson you’ve ever taught. Now if I hear one more word about the Uprising—I don’t care who speaks it—I will deliver you to the Sentinels myself. Hear me?”

The barracks went silent, spare Auron’s lone chuckle.

“My greatest failing,” Auron said. “My deepest disappointment.”

“You are the disappointment,” Fenyx hissed, stretching the stitches of his wounded cheek. “I’ve become everything you’ve trained me to be. Hypocrite.” He punched the door.

Auron’s laughter continued, slow and droning. “I am disappointed in myself. I failed to teach you that without the love of your brothers, there is no one left to defend your back. Continue down this path, Champion, and you will walk it alone. You will die on it alone.”

Heat rose to Fenyx’s burnt and scarred cheeks. He punched the door, again and again, drowning out Auron’s words. His knuckles cracked and bled, and his fists went numb, but he continued punching the wooden door until light flooded the corridor between the barracks’ cells.

“Ay! What’s the meanin’ of this racket?” said Nortus, the burly, bearded guard who used to serve Cassius. He descended the steps to the barracks, torch in hand.

Many of the gladiators retreated into their cells, but Fenyx paced, barely containing his grunts. The Burning wanted blood. Auron’s blood.

Nortus strode through the barracks before stopping at Fenyx’s door. Despite Fenyx’s time in the villa, sparring for Cerberynn, stealing glances at Odetta, or avoiding Cleotra’s eyes, he hadn’t seen Nortus.

“Why you hittin’ the door?” Nortus asked through the barred window. A bandage stretched over the bridge of his bulbous nose. “Haven’t you had enough? They barely finished cleanin’ up the blood upstairs.”

Fenyx’s nostrils flared, his bloodied fists clenched at his sides, but he offered no answer.

Beneath Nortus’s bushy brown brows and amidst his thick beard and mustache, it was difficult to see the dark purple rings under his eyes.

“What happened to you?” Fenyx asked.

Nortus’s lips twisted. He dragged his index finger down his cheek. “Somethin’ similar. Now don’t go wakin’ up any of the guards who wouldn’t miss an opportunity to do the same to you lot. Keep it quiet. Gods know you need the rest.”

When Fenyx resumed his pacing, Nortus neared the window.

“Please. Not tonight.” Nortus’s beady eyes seemed hollow. “It’ll get better. Back to normal, eh?”

Fenyx grunted before taking a deep breath. He nodded at the guard. And though Nortus’s warning did little to simmer Fenyx’s anger or assuage the Burning’s desire for blood after Auron stoked his ire, Fenyx sat down on the edge of his bed.

Silence again reigned over the barracks even after Nortus’s footsteps and torchlight retreated down the hall, up the stairs, and beyond the door that separated the villa from the barracks.

“Back to normal,” Auron said, his voice barely carrying the short distance between them. “One by one, every liberty will be stripped, and normal will mean something very different from what it once was. The time to decide is near. Soon, it will be too late for us to tell the difference between the glory of a gladiator and the delusions of a slave.”

Fenyx lay back and rolled onto his side, facing the wall, unwilling to hear Auron’s words. Unwilling to believe them.

Chapter 27

Mark of the Dominus

Vykinallia IV

Stockhelm

Acrid fumes filled the morning air. The horizon, once obscured by dense forests, was now clouded in smoke, ash, and the remnants of the jungle’s former life. The absence of the nightly rains had done enough harm, but Damascus’s torches ensured there would be no recovery.

Nallia coughed, searching through the smoke for any sign of his troops.

No army could walk through that.

If the clank of armor or the march of soldiers trekking through the burning forest could be heard, the sound of trees cracking in the fire’s consumption dampened all else. What once sheltered the Uprising’s hideout rose to the orange-tinged sky in the form of embers and ashes, leaving the Sanctuary and the hope of their rebellion exposed. The supplies Sett, Dankar, and Cerik unloaded from the Salmantic wagons didn’t seem worth the exchange.

A gentle touch on Nallia’s elbow spun her around. Lenara examined Nallia with heavy-lidded eyes. Perspiration bubbled beneath the soot staining her wrinkled forehead. Her shoulders slumped forward, but whether weighed down by the night’s events or the ramifications it left behind, Lenara didn’t appear inclined to share.

Lenara averted her gaze to the burning jungle. “You saved my life. I’m not certain it was the best decision for you, but I am in your debt, and that’s not something I take lightly.” She turned back to Vykinallia and folded her arms over her chest, wrinkling her tunic and exposing the falcon of House Faire branded beneath.

Vykinallia sniffed and wiped her runny nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Whatever your reasons, you’re fighting for the disenfranchised. You didn’t deserve to be stabbed in the back.”

Lenara grunted. “Your slaves didn’t deserve to be branded, whipped, or forced to fight each other. Don’t attempt to make this about righteousness or justice. You don’t know the first thing about it.”

She unsheathed a dagger from her hip with exceptional speed, her haggard expression now replaced by wide-eyed intent. She pressed the flat of the blade to Vykinallia’s cheek. Vykinallia’s breath caught, but she didn’t back away.

Passersby became surrounding onlookers. Conversations died, the shuffling of supplies ceased, and all other distractions fell away.

Lenara raised her voice for all to hear. “I fight for the Fallen because the Drakes take what they want when they want. Like a disease, they spread their corruption until even good men dance to the tune of their lies. You chose to leave your king. You chose to save me. But people like you only care about themselves. You could have let that guard bury his steel between my ribs. You could have returned to your castle, become queen, and brought about your ‘peaceful, lasting change’ if you were so inclined. So why—why choose to save me?”

Vykinallia glanced at the gathering crowd, then to the knife at her cheek before meeting Lenara’s stony gaze. If she were going to prove herself to Lenara and the Uprising, this was her opportunity, and though the weight of the moment rested on her chest like a boulder, something Lenara had said ignited in her mind.

The Fallen.

She’d never heard the Uprising referred to as the Fallen before. It wasn’t an appropriate name for the Celestic people who’d escaped their enslavement and chose to fight back, nor did it make particular sense with the phoenix sigil.

“The Fallen,” Vykinallia repeated.

Lenara cocked her brow.

Vykinallia realized why the name stuck out to her. Her lips parted in a smile, her cheek pressing into the flat of the blade. Hours she’d spent researching Zephyrus’s prophecy and the connections it might have had to the Prophets of the Return. That research had yielded more questions than answers, but Lenara just solved a riddle Vykinallia had given up on.

She recited Zephyrus’s prophecy. “The son of the Fallen will rise to prey upon the unworthy. Under cloaks and shadows he hides to bring light to those hoping. When the rivers and streams run dry, he will summon the unworldly to sever the chains that bind the realm to the holy.”

Silence greeted her conclusion, but soon, the crowd broke into excited murmurs.

Lenara shrugged, shaking her head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“The Wielder!” a voice called from the crowd. A thin, dark-skinned young man with close-cropped hair and a gash along his jawline stepped forward. “I was there—at Tharseo’s Bastion and the slavers’ auction. He and another set us free.”

Lenara frowned before returning her glare to Vykinallia. “What is the significance?”

“You asked why,” Vykinallia said. “Why would I save you, why would I choose to be with you—the Fallen—over becoming Queen of New Rheynia. He is my answer. A man touched by the Gods and Judges alike. A man gifted with magic capable of burning down the world, but who chooses instead to heal, to help… to save. He told me that he wanted to find you, to join you. He and his friends—” She found Jechtaric and Cerik in the crowd. “—they opened my eyes to my shortcomings and society’s failings. I see you, Lenara. I believe in you.”

Lenara’s knife fell away from Vykinallia’s cheek.

Vykinallia turned to Iberion. “I believe in your cause.” And then to Unari. “I believe in how you wish to achieve it. But I know your enemy, and I can help.”

Scoffs and derisive snorts broke out around her. Vykinallia bit her lip. A bead of sweat dripped down her spine, her muscles clenching in its wake. What can I possibly say to prove myself?

“I know the ludi,” Vykinallia said, “how they’re guarded, what procedures they have in place, and where they’re vulnerable. I can help free your people, gladiators—those instructed in the art of swordplay and motivated by the pain of oppression.”

Lenara exhaled through her nostrils, her lip contorting to the side. If she were impressed, the hand on her hip and the dagger held in her slackened grip said otherwise. She looked to the crowd, glancing about for someone in particular.

“Show yourself, Sinion.”

Vykinallia’s chin dropped. Sinion? Baron—Lanista—Sinion?

A large man concealed in a cloak shouldered his bulk into the center of the circle surrounding Lenara and Vykinallia. He lowered his hood, revealing the man she’d sat beside on the pulvinus of the Games of Stockhelm for years.

Vykinallia’s infinite questions jumbled into a soundless, incomprehensible movement of her lips.

The former gladiator-turned-lanista examined her, his lips a hard line despite the softness of his cheeks. “Greetings, Lady Nallia.”

Vykinallia shook her head. “How… when… for how long?”

“Always,” Sinion said. “Before the Treaty was even signed.”

So they know. Everything she hoped she could offer, the only value she could provide, was redundant. Nausea bubbled from her stomach to her throat. Her lower lip began to quiver.

“Why, then—why haven’t you freed your slaves? Why haven’t you attacked the other ludi?”

Lenara circled Vykinallia. “Sinion has provided us supplies, shelter, and men for small operations. His position as a baron has afforded us information and preparation until we are ready to wage war with the Drakes, while your father used his station to burn idols and nail the Celestic people to the Six Arrowed Star.”

Vykinallia’s gaze fell. Her knees felt weak, threatening to collapse alongside whatever hope she had for aiding Zephyrus’s cause. Some wrongs don’t deserve to be redeemed.

“We don’t need you,” Jechtaric shouted from the circle.

He’s right. They don’t need me. She looked around at the gathered people, soot-stained and ill-equipped in a burning forest. They don’t need me. They need shelter, anonymity, and time. Her eyes widened, and she spun to face Lenara.

“You don’t need me,” Vykinallia said. “But you need shelter. There are dozens of smaller ludi throughout Stockhelm. Take them, run them, and hide your people until the time is right. Just like Sinion’s ludus, you can claim strongholds from which to defend or launch an attack.”

Lenara’s stoic stare remained placid. Sinion eyed her, his arms folded across his chest. Vykinallia looked from them to the gathered crowd of freedpeople and mages. If they were considering her words, it was a vast improvement from their prior despondency. Vykinallia needed to stoke their embers.

“House Arux has barracks to house at least twenty gladiators and another dozen guards,” Vykinallia said. “Include the chambers for the servants and the guest rooms in the villa and you can comfortably conceal a hundred people. Most of the lesser lanistas often make the mistake of quantity over quality and have larger accommodations. If we take a few ludi and can do so quietly, no one will be the wiser—until the time is right.”

“We?” Iberion asked.

Unari guffawed, saying something in the old tongue of Stockhelm.

Sinion and Lenara exchanged a glance, and more murmurs spread throughout the crowd.

Lenara lifted her hand, summoning silence. “Our time in the jungles will soon be at an end. They’ve taken our cover, and soon they will come.”

Sinion nodded. “You should not remain here when they sift through the ashes, and no place is better than a ludus for keeping secrets.”

Unari entered the circle, jabbing her finger in Vykinallia’s direction. “And how will she help? What can she do for us?”

Vykinallia inclined her head and closed the distance between her and Unari, forcing the mage to acknowledge her presence. She found Jechtaric and Cerik shoulder to shoulder amongst their brethren. She intended the words for all but spoke directly to them. “I will fight for you.”

Jechtaric crossed his arms and spat on the ground, but Cerik nodded his head.

She located Sett and Dankar. “And for you.”

The two beasts of men glanced at one another but offered no outward rejection.

Then she turned to Falcos, the man who abducted her and brought her to the Uprising. “And you, Falcos. I will fight for you as well.”

Falcos averted his gaze to stare at the ground, backing behind two taller freedmen.

Vykinallia met Lenara’s flat stare. Cold, cruel, unconvinced. Vykinallia clenched her jaw, squaring herself off to the woman, finally aware of what she needed to do. She held out her hand in Dankar’s direction.

“Dankar, you offered me a brand once. Bring it here.”

The mutterings around her became a storm that drowned out the fires burning to the north. Dankar blinked, running his hand through his braids of black-and-gray hair. He opened his mouth but failed to speak.

Iberion approached Unari, drawing his stiletto. “Unari, fire.”

“She won’t do it,” Unari said, but Iberion’s single-eyed glare offered little refusal. She rolled her eyes and huffed, but fire burst forth from her hand, engulfing the tip of Iberion’s narrow dagger.

Vykinallia swallowed. She corkscrewed her feet into the dirt as if to prevent herself from running away. She closed her eyes.

“Are you sure about this?” Lenara asked.

Vykinallia thought of Zephyrus. It pained her that even in this regard, she couldn’t relate to him. She still had a choice, one that Zephyrus nor any of the people gathered around her received.

“I am.”

Lenara nodded at Jechtaric and Cerik. “Hold her still.”

Vykinallia’s former gladiators did as ordered, coming alongside her to pin her arms back.

Jechtaric yanked her in his direction, his breath moistening her ear. “This won’t change anything.”

Cerik grunted. “This changes everything, Vykinallia.”

Hearing her full name, her true name, upon Cerik’s lips invited her to see him differently. He wasn’t just a reliable traditional bruiser or an aggressive brute with more strength than sense. For the first time in all her years of knowing him, she felt like she was seeing him for the first time. Not seeking what would motivate him to fight or discerning how much potential he had in the arena, but actually seeing him. The curls in his hair, the dimples that accompanied his easy smile, the kindness in his eyes.

This changes everything.

Vykinallia set her jaw, ground her feet, and heaved through her nostrils as Iberion brought the orange glowing dagger before her.

“Bare her left breast,” Iberion said.

Cerik pulled back the collar of her tunic, exposing her clavicle and the flesh beneath. Iberion offered none of the ceremonious words, fanciful oaths, or the honorifics that accompanied a gladiator joining the brotherhood. The thought of them reciting her father’s oath now made her sick, but all thoughts ceased as Iberion pressed the flat of the stiletto to her chest.

Fire lanced throughout her entire body. Through her clenched teeth, her scream threatened to chase off the dawn. Water burst from her eyes, but Cerik and Jechtaric held her fast. Her heart hammered against her ribs, demanding to be let free.

Iberion removed the blade, only to reangle it and press it against her flesh again.

Vykinallia’s vision narrowed as night crept into her periphery. She wanted to escape her body, to faint and wake up when the pain was over. No reprieve came. Unlike anything she’d imagined, the pain cut her to her core. The scent of burning flesh brought on a wave of nausea.

Iberion pulled the blade away. “It is done.”

Vykinallia went limp within Cerik and Jechtaric’s grip. She would have collapsed to the ground if not for their aid. It was only a matter of seconds, and though it was over, the pain persisted. She looked down at Iberion’s work, the red raised flesh in the shape of a “V.”

Blurred by tears, she found Iberion’s good eye. “For Vykannis the Brave?”

“No,” Iberion said. “For Vykinallia. Be what the Judges intended you to be.”

Fresh tears fell, and a new wave of heat rose to her cheeks. The eyes fixed upon her seemed to hold less contempt than they had moments before. She wasn’t one of them. She might never fully be accepted by them, but some small measure of respect was won.

Vykinallia fought through labored breaths to find the words. She steadied herself and claimed her feet, allowing Cerik and Jechtaric to let her go. Clutching her chest, fire still coursing through her veins, she addressed the gathered freedpeople of the Uprising.

“House Arux must fall,” Vykinallia said. She turned to Lenara. “With your permission, I would lead an assault on the ludus.”

All eyes drifted to Lenara.

Lenara sucked her teeth, coming beside Vykinallia. She let out an audible exhale before addressing the crowd. “Vykinallia is right; if we stay here in such numbers, they will find us. We must take House Arux.”

She met Vykinallia’s gaze, examining her. “Iberion will lead the charge.”

Vykinallia nodded. Still too proud. She would have kicked herself if she weren’t so tired.

“Take rest today,” Lenara said, facing the Fallen. “Iberion and fifty fighters will march on House Arux. Tonight.” She placed her hand on Vykinallia’s forearm and spoke so only she could hear. “You will be among them. This will be your arena. Win and you will be rewarded. Fall and…” She shrugged, striding past her to the Sanctuary.

Dismissed, the crowd dispersed, returning to their tasks or following Lenara toward the Sanctuary, but Vykinallia remained fixed. She’d made her choice; now she’d have to prove herself. Again and again. A gladiator had to prove himself worthy of life every time he graced the sands.

This is my arena…

But as people passed, she was greeted with an assurance that she wouldn’t be taking to the sands alone. Cerik patted her back with a gentleness she couldn’t imagine from someone who had taken as many lives as he had. Sett and Dankar gave her a nod as they passed, and Falcos even smiled at her.

When night came, she wouldn’t disappoint them. As the dawn light fought its way through the smoke over what remained of Stockhelm’s jungles, she looked to the purple-and-orange sky, her thoughts returning to Zephyrus.

Chapter 28

Wreck the Runner

Laeden VI

Three ludi in three nights. Scores of enslaved peoples set free. Some left to join the Uprising, while others swelled Laeden’s ranks, accompanying the Ridge Knights in their assault on the Valtarcian ludi. Though they’d suffered no casualties since Dheran’s death, Laeden and his budding army had a new problem to contend with.

He eyed Markus, Ostrey, and Aurellia, standing before him in the tablinum of the former lanista of House Ruhlar.

“It’s just one man,” Markus said

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He’d just sat down on the burgundy cushion, hoping he would get a chance to rest before embarking on the next phase of his plan to treat with the Valtarcian plebs and speak of revolution. But like so many of his machinations, those too would not come to fruition.

Laeden stood, placing his hands on the mahogany tabletop, visible through Ruhlar’s clutter. “Who is he?”

“We don’t know,” Markus said. “But he is unaccompanied. We welcomed him in and put him in the barracks with the others.”

Ostrey stroked his mustache. “That doesn’t solve the underlying problem.”

The grim tone from the Captain of the Ridge Knights spurned Laeden from his fatigue. He strode around the desk to join Markus, Ostrey, and Aurellia atop the mosaic tile floor depicting the Gryphon of Ruhlar.

A pause hung in the air between them, triggering Laeden’s eye to twitch. He rubbed the shorn stubble atop his head, wishing he still had hair to run his fingers through. “Whatever the problem is, the solution is on the other side of it. Speak.”

Aurellia bowed as she always did when addressing him, regardless of how many times he reminded her she was no longer a slave. “He asked for you, Laeden—King of Valtarcia.”

Intending to correct Aurellia’s servile gesture, Laeden balked as the words registered.

How could anyone know? His mind failed to spin up a scenario in which anyone could have known that Laeden styled himself as such. “How did they find us?”

No answer.

Laeden growled, slamming his fist onto the table behind him. “Bring him in here. Keep two knights at the gate to watch for any sign of treachery. Then summon the knights and the freedpeople to the villa’s showroom. I will address everyone before speaking with the messenger.”

Ostrey saluted, his footfalls retreating with brisk purpose, but he would have to hurry to catch up with Aurellia, who was already out the door.

Markus didn’t move. “We never should have released the slaves.” He shook his head, massaging the scruff of his cheek. “Some may have found the Uprising, but it’s just as likely that the Jackals found them first.”

Laeden let out a shaky exhale. He strode past Markus and from the tablinum on his way to the showroom. Markus accelerated to return to his side.

Markus wasn’t wrong. Laeden knew it was more than a possibility, but he couldn’t force the freedpeople to join him—morally or logistically. Not only were stealth and surprise their greatest strengths, which too large a force could never leverage, but he needed to distract the Jackals.

“Keep them off of Vykanicus Auros,” Iylea had said. She didn’t know that Zephyrus was Vykanicus Auros, but she knew more about what was going on in the divine realm than any mortal had the right to know.

Is this what you had in mind, Iylea?

As it had been every time he attempted to speak to her since she’d established contact from the realm beyond, she didn’t reply.

Laeden rubbed the back of his neck as they walked through Ruhlar’s halls. “I know, Markus.” He shook his head. “But if they know we’re here, why send only one man?”

It wasn’t long before Ostrey assembled seven of the Ridge Knights and the two dozen freedpeople from Ulysius, Wraelen, and Ruhlar in the villa’s showroom. Laeden paced the dais overlooking the fighting circle while explaining the significance of their gathering.

“A messenger has come to this house,” Laeden said. “That means there are people who know who we are. They know what we’re doing. Some of the freedpeople may have been caught by Jackals, but if anyone has any information that could explain otherwise, make it known.”

No one stirred. No one spoke.

“Did anyone spot a witness to our travels?” Laeden asked.

No response. Aurellia and the rest of the freedpeople, too conditioned to staring at the floor when spoken to, barely seemed to breathe.

“Did a guard slip through our fingers?”

Another moment of silence ensued. The Ridge Knights standing at attention might as well have been statues.

Just as Laeden was about to escort himself to the tablinum to deal with the messenger himself, the shuffle of leather soles on the marble floor stopped him.

Kherus stepped forward. “One of Wraelen’s guards got away.”

Laeden blinked. “What do you mean he got away?”

Kherus, adorning his brother’s bloodstained breastplate, his helm under his arm, knelt before Laeden, head bowed. Yet when he lifted his gaze, his raised eyebrow defied any posture of servility.

“I couldn’t have stopped him without lethal force,” Kherus said. “As you have said, my king, our lives are not worth more than theirs.”

Laeden’s nostrils flared. His fingers curled to fists as he glared into Kherus’s ice-blue eyes. Insolent, patronizing bastard. “Yes, in that one should think before taking another’s life. Six Hells, why didn’t you tell anyone of his escape?”

If guilt or foolishness plagued Kherus’s heart, his outward appearance betrayed none of it. “A lapse in judgment, my king.”

Every time Kherus said “my king,” Laeden’s nails dug deeper into his palm.

“Your lapse in judgment may have doomed us all,” Laeden said. He descended from the dais and strode for the exit to meet the messenger.

“Should I have killed the man?” Kherus’s voice rang loud and clear throughout the showroom, stopping Laeden. “Should I have spilled his blood before he did harm, my king?”

Heat rose to Laeden’s neck at the implication that Dheran’s death was his fault. A vein throbbed in his temple. He was used to being challenged. His failings with the Sentinels, his inability to protect his father, and the loss of Iylea were all shortcomings he would need to answer for. None of that bothered him—he deserved to answer for what he’d done. But he grew tired of answering for what he was. He never chose to be born to a pleb mother in Valtarcia, nor did he choose to be Salmantica’s pseudo-prince, and he certainly did not ask to be made king.

Laeden swallowed his rage. “Dheran’s death was a tragedy, one I would not see repeated. I grieve with you, but I will not permit the reckless endangerment of us all.”

Kherus scoffed. “Us…” His eyes passed over the freedpeople.

Laeden’s instinct was to walk away. If Kherus were just a patrician in court, Laeden would have swallowed the insult and ignored the impropriety as he always had. But Kherus pledged his allegiance to Laeden. Laeden was no longer a pseudo-prince, but a king—at least, that was what the dozen Ridge Knights called him.

Kherus needed to be reprimanded for challenging Laeden’s authority, but he hesitated. Do the other Ridge Knights feel the same? How would they respond if I punished Kherus? Ostrey’s gaze remained as stoic as ever. Even Markus, always quick to chastise one speaking out of turn, gave no reaction.

Laeden bit his lip. He imagined the Ridge Knights losing faith in him, choosing instead to do their duty to his Great-Uncle Horus. They could easily deliver him to Valtarcia to be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star, and who would stop them? Markus had been more obstinate than even Kherus of late, and the freedpeople would sooner return to their manacles than fight on his behalf. Without the Ridge Knights to help free their people, they might as well leave to join the Uprising.

They don’t need me.

Laeden cleared his throat, glowering at Kherus but addressing the entire audience. “We’ll finish this later. Prepare as if an army will follow in the wake of this messenger because that may very well be the case.”

He stormed past Kherus, hoping against hope that he hadn’t brought doom to their doorstep. With each stride towards the tablinum, Laeden’s stomach roiled with the implications of the messenger’s arrival. By the time he returned, sweat beaded on his brow. Wiping it with the back of his hand, he nodded at Malachi and Gensus standing outside the former lanista’s office.

“Has he said anything?” Laeden asked.

Malachi, tall and broad with short black hair and a wide-set jaw, saluted. “He’s said he will only speak with you and you alone, your grace. Otherwise he has cooperated.”

Laeden narrowed his brow. “Alone?”

“He’s been adamant about it,” Gensus said, pawing at the scruff on his chin. “Won’t speak to us, or even look at us.”

“Haven’t gotten a good look of him either,” Malachi said.

Laeden straightened the leather skirt of his armor and adjusted the breastplate that once belonged to Kherus. Waiting wouldn’t make the messenger’s news any better. “Remain here and await my summons. Don’t enter unless I call for you.”

Malachi and Gensus saluted before standing aside, allowing Laeden to enter.

Laeden took a deep breath, tugged the iron handle of the stained wooden door, and entered the tablinum. Inside, a cloaked figure sat in one of the two chairs before the lanista’s mahogany desk. Hooded and hunched, the messenger didn’t rise at Laeden’s entrance or even stir.

Laeden closed the door behind him. The messenger remained motionless, facing the Ruhlar’s empty chair. He had seen such power plays before, and he would not fall victim to them. By sitting before the table, the messenger attempted to dictate where Laeden should sit. The messenger already held the higher ground; to enter, alone and unarmed, he had to have something that offered him assurance or protection. Laeden didn’t have time to play games.

“State your purpose,” Laeden said, standing before the door.

The messenger still didn’t move. “King Laeden—I admit it has a nice ring to it. Though it is my greatest failing that it’s come to this.”

“Who sent you?” Laeden asked, ignoring the messenger’s posturing.

“If anyone knew I were here, I’d be in more trouble than you are.”

Laeden attempted to read through the cryptic phrasing, but lost interest in the puzzle. He rested his hand on the hilt of his short sword. “Speak. Or I’ll throw you in a cell with Ruhlar.”

A heavy sigh emitted from beneath the messenger’s cloak. They sat up straight, their shoulders broadening with the increased height. The messenger lowered their hood to reveal a shaved head beneath.

“I just want to play a game of Reign,” the messenger said, turning around to look over the back of the chair at Laeden.

Laeden stumbled back, placing his hand to his chest. He blinked, not believing his eyes or the face they beheld. He tried to speak, but his voice came out as more of a breath than a word.

“Father?”

Despite being supposedly dead, Varros Helixus—King of New Rheynia, Duke of Valtarcia—stood to his feet before Laeden, arms spread. “Hello, Laeden. There is much to discuss.”

Chapter 29

Unmade and Reforged

Fenyx IV

Stockhelm

Fenyx lay in his bed, staring out the barred window of his Champion’s cell. Smoke, not clouds, marred the night sky following the Uprising’s scorching of the southern jungles from the night before. Their newest infliction of terror had only soured the air he breathed for another morning of stacking stone and afternoon of slaying apprehended fugitives.

Another day came and went, but the nights never departed so swiftly. Last night, Fenyx stared at the wall until his bleary eyes closed in spite of the ceaseless Burning. It might have only been a moment afterwards that guards had woken them to return to the labor line. They continued to build the walls of the training square thicker and higher, but Auron’s uttered whispers of rebellion spread throughout the brotherhood.

After Fenyx had threatened to turn in any who spoke of joining the Uprising, the blatant disregard of his brothers to heed his warning magnified Auron’s closing remarks.

“Continue down this path, Champion,” Auron had said, “and you will walk it alone. You will die on it alone.”

Fenyx scratched at his burnt skin. No number of rosewater baths would stop the phantom itches that crawled over his flesh like maggots. There was only one solution; whiteroot would silence the sensation, but getting it proved to be difficult with the Uprising’s recent activities. Without it, he would experience no reprieve, and without acting on his promises, he would never earn the respect of his brothers.

He huffed, slapping the top of the bed with both palms. Auron had put him in an impossible position.

What would a Champion do?

If he spoke against Auron—his mentor, friend, and, in many ways, his father figure, would be put to death. But Auron wasn’t just those things to him; all within the barracks held Auron in high regard. How many of his brothers would be pleased to see Auron put to death?

Fenyx shuddered, not wanting to imagine it. Frustrated and angry as he was, he couldn’t do that to Auron.

Perhaps another. A less influential brother.

If someone like Daegan, young and without the years of training that forged the bonds of the brotherhood, were to take the fall, Fenyx could deliver on his threat, keep his word, and provide Auron with the opportunity to see clearly once again. But even the prospect of condemning a promising gladiator to an inglorious death made his stomach churn, and there was no guarantee that doing so wouldn’t turn the rest of the brotherhood against him.

He had fought his way into a battle he couldn’t get out of, and now the best thing to do was cut his losses and hope he could talk sense into Auron and the others.

He clenched his teeth, flaring a pang of pain along his newly scarred cheek.

“Burning Auron,” Fenyx said. “The burning Uprising.”

A timid knock drummed against the wooden door of his Champion’s cell.

Fenyx spun to the door.

Nortus’s bruised eyes were visible through the barred window as he fumbled with his keys. “Make it quick. Can’t push our luck.”

Standing to his feet, Fenyx faced the door, unsure who Nortus was speaking to. The door opened, and in slipped Odetta. Her linen shift clung to her, leaving little to the imagination of what lay beneath. The dark curls that hung past her shoulders contrasted with her ivory clothing. In her hands she held a sack of food, larger than she’d secured for him in previous days, as he had asked.

She closed the door behind her, then presented Fenyx with her haul, her mint-green eyes fixed on the floor between them. “We don’t have much time.”

Fenyx narrowed his brow and held out his hand to accept the leftover scraps from the kitchen. “We don’t need any time.” He nodded at the door. “I have what you came here for.”

Odetta shook her head. “If I only wanted to give you food, Nortus would have brought it. There is another matter we must discuss.”

Fenyx grunted. “Does it involve whiteroot?”

Odetta shook her head.

“Does it involve our marriage?” Fenyx asked.

Odetta lifted her gaze. “I suppose. In a sense.”

“It can wait then,” Fenyx said. “Be gone.”

Odetta examined him. “I see how you look at me. I don’t believe you wish me to leave.”

Similar to how Cleotra had once stirred something within him, Odetta had awakened a new lustful Burning, but in truth it had more to do with him winning her, earning her, rather than having her. The way she was throwing herself at him, Fenyx had little care if she stayed or went.

“Out with it then. What do you want?”

Odetta gestured to the sack in Fenyx’s hands. “Open it.”

Fenyx growled but did as instructed. He set the sack down on the bed and unraveled the linens that wrapped it. Heavier than previous days, with more solid contents within, Fenyx wondered if perhaps she had happened upon morsels of meat. But as he stripped away the last of the linens, Fenyx saw the last thing he wanted to see.

“What is the meaning of this?” Fenyx stabbed his finger past the scraps of food and loaf of bread to a medallion inscribed with the Celestic scale of balance. “We’ll be killed if found with this.”

“That’s why we must leave,” Odetta said. “Auron is planning an escape, and we are almost out of time. If you support Auron, the barracks will be unified and—”

She strode over to the bed and tore open the loaf. The blade of a small paring knife protruded from the baked bread.

Fenyx shook his head, mouth agape as Odetta pulled the knife free.

“Together, you and Auron, can lead us to safety,” Odetta said. “If we don’t leave soon—”

Fenyx snatched the knife from her hands and tossed it onto the bed. “Take that and return it to the kitchens. Then throw that—” He pointed at the balanced scale medallion. “—from the cliffs. They will nail you to a Valencian Star.”

Odetta closed the distance between them with surprising agility. She lifted her hand to Fenyx’s burnt cheek, and stared him in the eyes. “Why do you resist? Why do you stay? If it is for me, then we can leave together. You will have me either way.”

Momentarily lost in the trance of her touch, Fenyx regained himself. He scoffed, tearing her hand away from his cheek, and seized her by the wrist.

“I’m not leaving,” Fenyx said. “You’re not leaving. Auron’s not leaving. If you have any faith in the Judges, you know our penance will come to an end once we’ve balanced the scales. War with the Valencians is not the way. We will all die, and the Judges will never be able to redeem us.”

Odetta met his eyes, the demure girl gone. She wrenched her wrist free of his grip and jabbed her index finger at his nose.

“The Judges are gone.”

Fenyx shook his head, raising his palm to his forehead. “You believe in the Return? This nonsense of a Wielder who saves us all?”

“I don’t believe,” Odetta said, her voice low and sharp. “I have seen. The Gods show me. Death—with or without the scales, I die. But if you fail to leave here, everything you are afraid to lose will be taken.”

Fenyx backed away from her. A seer. He pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Odetta closed the space again. “You get out, before…”

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, her voice deepened to something unrecognizable. “You will be unmade and reforged—a champion of far more than blood and sand, regardless of your stubbornness.”

Fenyx backed away from her until his heel met the wall of his cell. Odetta shook her head and glanced around as if unsure of where she was.

“Tip the scales,” Fenyx said beneath his breath. “What was that?”

Odetta’s eyes went wide. She hurried towards him, grabbing both his hands in hers.

“What did I say?” She shook him. “Tell me!”

A knock at the door accompanied Nortus’s deep voice. “Time to leave.”

“What did I say?” Odetta asked again, pleading.

The stone wall of his cell felt cool against his back, but the heat radiating from Odetta, who he once thought just a timid, wisp of a girl, sent him reeling.

“Nothing.” Fenyx’s voice came out hoarse, his mouth dry, mind barren. He didn’t know what he’d just witnessed, but he wanted nothing to do with her plans, nothing to do with her magic. “You said nothing.”

“Let’s go,” Nortus said from beyond the door.

Fenyx steered Odetta to the wooden door. He didn’t want the incriminating medallion or the knife in his cell, but above all else, he wanted her gone. He opened the door just enough to shove Odetta out before pulling it shut behind her.

Nortus inserted the key into the lock. The clinking metal offered Fenyx a degree of security, a barrier between him and her. He placed his back against the door and slid down, ignoring the splintering wood that pricked at his skin.

Nortus and Odetta’s footsteps retreated, but even after they’d gone, the Celestic artifact and the knife she had brought to his cell remained. Worst of all, her words and the meaning they carried lingered. He didn’t believe her.

Auron… he put her up to this.

The desperation in her eyes seemed genuine. Mad. But genuine.

Fenyx pulled his knees into his chest, hugging them close.

“Unmade and reforged,” she had said. “A champion of far more than blood and sand.”

Fenyx pressed himself to his feet. He strode over to the bed, seized the knife and the medallion, and wedged them between his bed and the wall.

I will deliver the knife and Celestic artifact to Domina and tell her Odetta brought them to me. She will find a new bodyslave to be the Champion’s wife. I keep my promise to the brotherhood and send Auron my warning without poisoning the barracks against me.

He let out a slow, shaky breath.

All will return to normal.

Gathering the food into the linen, he stored the sack under his bed. He lay down and returned his gaze to the ceiling, knowing full well sleep would not come to him this night.

Part V

Chapter 30

A Failed Rebellion

Iylea VI

Valencia

Iylea stared at the next iridescent link in the chain. The beautiful rippling colors did not hide what they represented. Each link was proof of the Gods’ failures, their mistakes given form.

She wanted to believe Laeden avoided Ulysius’s strike, that he’d survived Ferrocles’s cruel point, but she couldn’t; every time she closed her eyes, she saw the scene from where the Whispering Wall left off. Ulysius’s blade cleaved through the air, through Laeden’s armor, and sank into the space between his shoulder and his neck. She never saw it happen, but until she saw him again with her own eyes, she couldn’t fathom any other result.

But because Ferrocles took the gemstone that powered the Whispering Wall, the only way she’d know the truth was if Laeden appeared through the windows into the mortal realm or if she found his link in the chain. The thought of his link on the chain sickened her. He didn’t deserve an eternity of punishment while Ferrocles pranced around Valencia, killing any deity or mortal who inconvenienced him.

She stamped her feet on the tile marked with the sigil of the Gods, knowing it would do no damage to the one she wished to inflict it upon. She didn’t want to be here anymore, doing the Gods’ dirty work. She wished someone would take her soul and consume it so she wouldn’t have to think about the traitor God, Arkadia’s incarceration, Zephyrus’s mission, or Laeden’s demise for one moment longer.

Iylea huffed. She wouldn’t consume another link. Her primary motivation to succeed was to return to Laeden. Turning away from the chain to the closed door of the anchor room, a rebelliousness she’d never known flared to life.

If Ferrocles wanted me to destroy the links of the chain, he never should have harmed the one person I would have done it for.

Iylea tugged at the hem of her dress as if the divinely stitched cloth needed her help to straighten. She marched past the Hall of Mirrors, adjacent to the anchor room, and over to the oversized crystalline door at the other end of the atrium. Iylea pressed her ear to the door to the main corridor, opposite the Celestial Falls.

No sound.

She waited, listening for any sign of Ferrocles’s presence. If he were still standing guard, he might as well be a gargoyle. She took a deep breath and shouldered the thick door open.

She peered down the corridor, searching for any sign of Ferrocles or the other Gods. With the way clear, Iylea tiptoed down the corridor in the opposite direction of the Tower of Whispers. Her careful prowling paired with the lush carpet to silence her escape from the anchor room.

Iylea hadn’t explored much outside of the path from the anchor room to the Tower of Whispers, but if she were going to find answers, she would need to stop playing by the rules. With nothing left to lose, Iylea increased her speed, sneaking down the hall, but first, she’d have to find a more discreet way to move about the castle. She didn’t want to turn a corner and walk directly into one of the Gods. Lined with fine art and ornate sculptures, the corridors weren’t dissimilar from Sentigard or Northridge. And just like any mortal fortress, Valencia was sure to have its secret passageways as well.

Turning down a side corridor with far less decoration, Iylea slowed. The hall was lined with golden sconces with smokeless flames flickering. This section of the castle seemed like Incinerae’s domain. Iylea considered what indicators there might be to point her in the direction of Ferrocles’s chambers. He was hiding something, and she was going to find it, but first, she’d have to find a way into Incinerae’s quarters.

She approached the long line of torches. The golden fixture—a pattern of overlapping angles that reminded Iylea of the forests of cypress trees along the Valtarcian lowlands—reflected the torchlight’s flickering dance. Inspecting the sconce, she felt for any movable sections that might open a hidden pathway.

Nothing.

She moved onto the next fixture and the next, but no luck. Continuing down the wall of torches, she touched too close to the fire and retracted her hand reflexively. To her surprise, it didn’t burn. Upon closer examination, no warmth radiated from the torch at all. The fire was practically cold.

Iylea hummed. Do the rules of nature not apply in Valencia, or is my form in this realm immune to such sensations? She reached towards the neighboring torch but retracted as the flickering tongues bit at her fingertips. I suppose I’m not immune, after all. Perplexed, Iylea tried another torch, and another, but they all bore the heat she’d come to expect from fire.

Returning to the heatless torch, Iylea reached her hand into the flame. She felt a gentle chill, but found a switch at the bottom of the sconce.

With a gasp, she flipped the small lever and stepped back.

Nothing happened.

With caution, she searched for another torch burning cold. Knowing what she was looking for, an eager anticipation grew within her. She gasped as she found a second fire burning cold. On her tiptoes, she reached into the fire and flicked the lever.

At once the neighboring golden sconces melted, dripping down and converging together. Iylea backpedaled, wanting to look over her shoulder to make sure no one was coming down the hall, but was unable to avert her gaze.

The converged gold hardened into a plate as flat and smooth as glass in the size and shape of a door. Iylea stood between the gold sections on either side of the hall. She reached out to touch one, but her hand went right through it, disappearing on the other side.

Iylea gasped. She yanked her arm back, holding it before her eyes. Counting all five fingers, she exhaled. Turning to face the golden wall, she set her jaw and marched through.

Emerging on the other side, Iylea found herself in a cavern of candles. The room made Queen Danella’s royal chambers seem like a sty. Though it possessed many elements found in a patrician’s chambers, such as a four-poster bed, a desk, and a sitting area, there was nothing ordinary about them. In place of wood, everything was constructed of a glossy, volcanic rock, and instead of a mattress, the bed was made of a collection of smoldering coals.

Iylea stood upon a giant fur rug of some monstrous animal she didn’t know existed. The moment she stepped forward, a massive hearth burst to life along the length of the adjacent wall, as tall as it was wide. Simultaneously, the golden entryway she’d passed through sealed shut behind her. A raging but soundless fire licked at the finely carved mantel. Ruby-encrusted gold fineries adorned the onyx surfaces everywhere a candle was not.

Mesmerized, Iylea drew closer. She picked up a golden sculpture of a man’s bust, and a peculiar quiet came over her. Distinctly humanoid, the textures of the piece were anything but. Spotted fur covered the sculpture’s left side, scales and fins his right, both with encrusted rubies.

It seemed strange and out of place for the Goddess of Fire, but many of the other pieces had similar animalistic qualities. Returning her gaze to the sculpture of the man-beast, Iylea recalled her arrival in Valencia.

Hameryn spoke of a God in connection to the beasts of the field and sea. She closed her eyes, attempting to remember the name, but nothing came to her. Looking closer at the sculpture, Iylea realized it was not decorated with rubies, but fragments of bright red scales.

Not knowing which extinct beast such scales could belong to, she set the sculpture down. The moment she set it on the mantel, the peculiar quiet she had experienced fled, only to be replaced by a torrent of sound, light, and pressure. Iylea doubled over and stumbled back, nearly falling to the floor. Her sight narrowed as pressure behind her eyes mounted.

A vision?

She hadn’t experienced any since arriving in Valencia, but the symptoms were unmistakable. The Gods wanted to show her something, and here, no one could nail her to a Six Arrowed Star because of it. No longer afraid of her gift, she let go, closing her eyes and opening her sight.

The walls of Incinerae’s chambers faded like morning mist before the sun. In its place, the Tower of Whispers took shape around her, a number of Gods gathered before the Whispering Wall. Unlike the dreams and visions she had in the mortal realm, this seemed real. Instead of glimpses, symbols, or riddles, she felt like she was living in someone else’s memory.

The Tower of Whispers at this time lacked the same collection of tomes, but it was otherwise unchanged. The artifacts from the mortal realm had yet to receive time’s punishment.

How long ago was this?

Hameryn stood at the back of the crowd. Though his complexion was perhaps a shade paler than his typical ash, and his skin did not yet possess any of the forking red lightning it did now, he looked much the same. With his fists at his sides and his jaw clenched, the tension in the room was palpable. Iylea attempted to follow his gaze to the Whispering Wall, but she couldn’t see over the other Gods.

Iylea slipped between and around the gathered Gods, taking a headcount of all present. Moterra and Phaebia stood on either side of a quietly weeping Incinerae at the center of the crowd. Ferrocles stood directly before the crystal mirror, blocking Iylea’s view.

Seventeen Gods.

A beast’s shrieking roar erupted into the Tower of Whispers. Iylea staggered back. She maneuvered around Ferrocles to see what they were watching.

A massive, turtle-shelled monster covered in broken red scales burst forth from an aquamarine sea, destroying an oared longboat in its path. The ship’s occupants, either ejected from the destroyed boat or fleeing from it, swam away from the creature, only for smaller ones with purple-and-green scales and shells to attack.

Blood spilled into the beautiful water. Cries and commotion filled the open ocean. But the beast did not stop. It slashed a clawed arm at a girl seemingly standing on the water, but just before impact, she disappeared.

One of the goddesses beside Iylea, a woman with bronze skin and golden hair, raised her own arms as if to deflect the blow. Another God, hidden beneath a dark cloak, put his hands on her shoulders.

“She can do it, Klayvorine,” the hooded God said.

Klayvorine straightened her black-and-gold cloak and nodded before returning her gaze to the Whispering Wall.

The girl reappeared a dozen paces away from where the beast attacked. It raised its finned arm to strike again, but like a blur, the girl disappeared again, leaving only tendrils of mist and the splash of water in her wake.

“The gifts won’t be enough,” Ferrocles said, glaring at the woman beside Iylea. “Hameryn, we must intervene.”

Everyone turned to Hameryn, but his stern stare remained unbroken.

“Let me speak with him,” Incinerae stuttered, approaching Hameryn, hands clasped. “One more time. I’ll make him see reason.”

Ferrocles grunted. “It’s too late for that. You had your chance. He won’t listen.”

Incinerae ignored him, pleading before Hameryn, her voice cracking like popping fire.

Hameryn said nothing, staring past Incinerae, jaw tense and nostrils flaring in rhythmic succession.

The girl in the Whispering Wall dodged another strike by disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, but this time, she remained floating in the air. She reared back her hands, and a bright white light overtook the crystalline mirror. The beast shrieked again. When the light faded and the picture returned, the monster thrashed blindly through the bloody water. Men with spears and axes attacked the red-scaled monster, but their weapons glanced off the scales.

With Incinerae’s pleading falling upon deaf ears, she turned to another God with a flowing white beard that swayed as if it had a life of its own. “Aq-Aq-Aquarius, please. Do something.”

Aquarius stroked his beard, shaking his head with slow deliberateness. “We’ve given the mortals magic the likes this world has never seen. Provided them with weapons capable of killing a God. ‘Do something?’ What more can we do?”

“Not for them!” Incinerae shouted through her tears. “He’s one of us.” She pounded her fists on Aquarius’s chest. “We can’t let them kill him.”

Aquarius’s calm composure vanished, his eyes wild with anger. With a backhanded shove across her raised fists, he sent Incinerae stumbling back into Moterra’s arms. “Arcamedes made his choice. How many mortals’ souls will join the chain? Do you not see the death and destruction his insolent pride has caused? We warned you he was dangerous, but you refused to listen. You defended him when he gave the creatures sentience. You sided with him when he melded them together into horrific monstrosities. Now he will fall with his petty rebellion.”

Incinerae sobbed into Moterra’s chest, but another God, lean and muscled with a warrior’s build, pushed his way through the crowd to the Whispering Wall.

“Show me Tharseo,” the God said.

“Vykannis, no!” Klayvorine, the blonde-haired Goddess, cried.

Iylea balked. Vykannis… one of the Judges of Stockhelm.

The image on the Whispering Wall burned away, only to be replaced by another scene moments later. A world away, creatures shrouded by cover of night and the fall of rain attacked the mortals. Blood and gore covered the ground, and bodies were strewn about. Wolves covered in fins and scales tore at the living and dead alike. Scorpions, half as tall as a person, chased after screaming mothers attempting to protect their children. Winged, serpent-like horrors set upon people wielding fire and lightning magic.

The scene was a nightmare, but on familiar ground. The Stormburn Geyser rose in the distance against the night sky.

The mages of Stockhelm fought with the elements, defending one man dressed apart from the rest. While the others wore flowing linens, this man, Tharseo, was dressed in white and silver, with a gleaming sword in his hands. Tharseo charged towards a massive beast covered in red scales. With the head and chest of a lion, a second head and the hind legs of a goat, and a viper for a tail, it roared at the Stockhelm people.

Iylea gasped at the sight of the chimera, but the Gods began arguing all around her.

“Go back to Palogia,” a young woman with silver hair cried.

Incinerae wailed, screaming Arcamedes’s name over and over.

The hooded God consoling Klayvorine earlier attempted to approach the Whispering Wall, but Phaebia held up her hand, crackling with electricity, to stop him in his tracks.

Overwhelmed by the scene, Iylea didn’t know where to direct her attention. The Gods, the Whispering Wall, or something else? At once, the image of the Whispering Wall burned out.

“Enough!” Hameryn shouted, the iridescent gemstone that powered the Whispering Wall in his hand. “Have you learned nothing from Arcamedes? Peace! The Creator wants peace.”

As the arguments between the Gods died, Iylea sensed a shift in the air. The glyph wall she used to enter and exit the Tower of Whispers was open. Iylea blinked, momentarily dumbstruck. Ignoring Hameryn’s lecture, Iylea counted the room’s occupants.

Fifteen. Klayvorine and one other are missing.

Iylea left the Whispering Wall and descended the stairs two at a time until she reached the bottom. Klayvorine craned over a shorter Goddess, whispering in her ear. Iylea crept as close as she dared. Before she could get close enough to hear, Klayvorine paused, glancing at Iylea. Iylea froze, but Klayvorine only stared through her.

The shorter Goddess jutted her chin forward. “Paxoran? An old God? It’s impossible.”

Klayvorine returned her gaze to the other Goddess, stroking the curve of her youthful cheek. “I wish it were so. But he is disguised as someone in that room.” She pointed back up the staircase.

The shorter Goddess shook her head. “Who?”

“I don’t know, Courianne,” Klayvorine said. “He has tampered with the sands of time.”

“But why?” Courianne asked, glancing up the stairs past Iylea conspiratorially.

Klayvorine followed Courianne’s gaze, but met Iylea’s eyes as if she could see her. “The only thing I can presume is to turn us against each other. This madness with Arcamedes is no coincidence. More conflicts will arise. We need answers. Contingency plans because we will not make it.”

Courianne blinked.

Klayvorine swallowed. “That girl in Palogia, fighting against Arcamedes… I’ve seen it in the sands. She might be our only hope… her name is Arkadia, and I need you to connect me with her. Before it’s too late.”

Incinerae wailed, her screams echoing down the spiral staircase. As they grew louder, the vision began to fall apart. Iylea opened her eyes and found herself in Incinerae’s chambers. Her breathing came short and shallow. She placed her hand to her forehead and attempted to slow her breath, but the air in Incinerae’s chambers was thick and hot. She turned for the exit, only to remember it sealed shut upon her entry.

Iylea’s heart fluttered within her chest. She scampered over to the wall she’d entered through. Her fingers scoured the stone surface, searching for a seam or any sign of a doorway. Her rib cage constricted, quickening her breath. No air reached her lungs. It moved from the space before her mouth to the bottom of her throat before being expelled again.

Stupid girl. Who do I think I am—spying on the Gods?

She didn’t want to think of what would happen when Incinerae found her here. She needed to get out, but the walls seemed to be closing in around her. There was no escape.

She put her back to the wall and slid down to the floor in a heap.

Just breathe. You’ll find a way out. Just breathe.

Sucking down air, she released a trembling exhale. The next one came easier. Then the next, even more so. The panic subsided, leaving only the erratic tension she held in her muscles. With her body calming, her mind began to process again. The histories she’d learned as a child held more fiction than the stories she’d believed about knights and princesses. Every war, every lie, every bad thing that happened in the mortal realm held the stamp of the Gods’ reckless pride.

And now I’m caught in the middle of it.

She struggled to piece together why she had such a vision, or who had given it to her. It was clearer than any she’d ever experienced, yet it revealed less than her most cryptic dreams. Sitting on the ground, she pulled her knees in towards her chest and held them tight. She rocked back and forth, searching the details for something she missed.

Incinerae can’t be the traitor. Arcamedes died years ago. Klayvorine and Courianne spoke of Arkadia coming…

She thought back to Arkadia’s dungeon cell. Bones, tusks, horns—animals.

Iylea bolted to her feet. She’s not in a dungeon. She’s in Arcamedes’s chambers.

She looked around, searching for a way out. Surveying the room, it became clear to her. Iylea marched over to the roaring fire. No heat. A smirk split her lips. She crossed the threshold of the hearth and entered the fire. As expected, the flames didn’t burn her. Standing in the inferno, she turned around to face the center of Incinerae’s chambers, but instead, four gold sconces burned before her.

Iylea peeked down the corridor in both directions, smoothing out her skirts.

No one.

With a new spring in her step, she strode down the hall.

I’m coming, Arkadia. We’ll find who Paxoran is. We’ll stop him.

Chapter 31

Kindling to the Pyre

Zephyrus V

Silver Summits

“Unbelievable,” Zephyrus’s dreamself said, setting a newly sharpened sword into the armory’s rack. “What do you mean I’m not ready? Shouldn’t the Seers of Celestia be the ones to tell me that? I could take back Stockhelm in a fortnight, but no, I’m here sharpening swords.”

He snatched the next dulled blade and slammed it down on the table between him and Patrus. With a grunt, he grabbed a fresh vial of oil and set to work.

Patrus set his whetstone down, examining Zephyrus over the single flickering candle between them. He raised an eyebrow. “A fortnight, eh?”

Zephyrus glared at Patrus. “A fortnight. I’d kill every lord in Perillian.”

Patrus frowned. Zephyrus’s conscious mind noticed it too: an anger in his dreamself that he couldn’t reconcile. The clench of his jaw, the force behind each swipe of the whetstone—it was uncharacteristic, bordering on unrecognizable.

His conscious mind considered the circumstances he’d endured since leaving the Arcane Templar. Being enslaved, beaten, and betrayed, he retained control over his anger. But this was more than anger. This was hatred.

“Your father was one of them once,” Patrus said, tilting his head to the side. “Would you slay him as well?”

Zephyrus scoffed, striking the stone against the blade. “You know what I mean.”

“Not sure I do,” Patrus said, ignoring the dull blade before him, choosing instead to strike at Zephyrus’s stubbornness. “If you wanna paint Perillian with Rheynian blood, you shoulda joined the Warlocks. That’s not what we do here. Not why we came here.”

Zephyrus slammed another sharpened sword into the rack before seizing the next, failing to acknowledge Patrus. The rack adjacent to Zephyrus was nearly full, while Patrus’s had more empty slots than not. As Zephyrus reached for another sword, Patrus stretched across the table and rested his hand on Zephyrus’s arm.

His dreamself was only a few years younger than he was now—by three, maybe four years—a man in body, but not quite in mind. His hair was shorter, beard patchier, but his defiance bolder.

Zephyrus narrowed his brow over the glowing embers of his eyes. “Let go.”

Patrus didn’t. “I understand your frustration, but it’ll be your time soon enough.”

He shook Patrus off. “The Fallen are waiting for me.”

“And you’ll rejoin ‘em when you’re ready,” Patrus said. “But trust me when I tell ya you’re not.”

Zephyrus exhaled through his nostrils, but Patrus stepped around the table, coming closer to Zephyrus before he could speak.

Glancing to the door of the armory, Patrus whispered, “While the Fallen and the Templar both wish to see our people free, how they wanna go about it is different. From Klaytos, it’s easy to hate the Rheynians, but we lived together once. Celestics and Valencians, Helms and Rheynians—in harmony. You’re not ready because killin’ ain’t the answer that balances the scales. It only breaks the scale. Can’t ya see that?”

Zephyrus’s dreamself snorted, but his conscious mind saw the value in the lesson. He hadn’t learned it from Patrus. He learned it from Vykinallia. It took being enslaved—countless beatings, witnessing and delivering cruel deaths—to learn a lesson he could have accepted in the Templar’s armory.

Guilt and shame infected his conscious mind.

I’m sorry, Patrus.

“The king is the one breaking the scale,” Zephyrus’s dreamself snapped. “If he hadn’t forsaken his duty to the Templar, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe Mother wouldn’t have had to leave.”

Patrus put his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “I dunno. I worry ‘bout her too, but I promise ya she’ll be okay; she’s more capable than you think.”

“It’s been almost five years since we’ve heard anything from her,” Zephyrus said.

Patrus nodded, his lips pursed. “I can’t claim to understand everything your mother’s tryna do, but she sees more than we can, knows more than should be possible. Wherever she is, whatever she’s doin’, trust that her reasons are good.” He pulled Zephyrus into an embrace. “It’s gonna be okay, Vy.”

His dreamself didn’t hug Patrus back.

Watching the scene, reliving the memory, Zephyrus’s conscious mind writhed. If only I’d appreciated him while I had him…

The dream faded. Zephyrus awoke with Threyna beside him. Her cloak was draped over both of them, their bodies too close for comfort or propriety to allow. He scuttled away from her on the wet rocky ground, her cloak coming with him.

Threyna groaned, pushing herself to sit up beside the low simmer of Zephyrus’s fire. “It’s about time. I’ve been trying to wake you for ages.” She nodded to the east, where the orange tinge of dawn crested over the mountaintops.

Fatigue still gripped him. Whether from dreams, sleeping on the ground, the preceding days’ events, or sustaining the fire, his lethargy would make their journey difficult.

“We’d best be going,” Zephyrus said. “Lenox will not wait for daylight.” Undoing the clasp of Threyna’s cloak, he removed it from his shoulders, and a greater sense of fatigue took hold. With a labored exhale, he handed the cloak back to Threyna.

She accepted it, the ice of her blue eyes examining him. “Gratitude. I wasn’t sure a Templar would give it back so easily.”

Zephyrus grunted, letting his fire go out. “I’m as much a Templar as you are a Warlock. You gave it to me, and it saved my life, but it’s yours. If we are to travel together, we must help each other. Trust each other.”

Threyna dropped her gaze, clearing her throat. She nudged her foot in the direction of the fire. “You saved our lives. Without that fire, all Lenox would have found up here were corpses.” She shuffled her feet again, before nodding up the mountain. “Shall we go?”

Without waiting for a reply, Threyna walked past Zephyrus, up the slope.

Zephyrus followed in her footsteps, his feet already sore before a single stride. He lifted his sights to the rising sun as it fended off the diminishing night. It would be a long way to Stockhelm, longer yet to Tharseo’s Bastion.

“You know the way?” Zephyrus asked.

Threyna pointed east. “We’ll have to make it to Valtarcia first. If the Warlock scouts were any use, there should be a trail through the mountains cutting east. We take it until we reach the Vale. The river runs from the Summits all the way to the harbor. From there, I can conjure a small boat to carry us to Stockhelm.”

Zephyrus blew out his cheeks.

“Then we’ll have to cut across all of Stockhelm to get back to Tharseo’s Bastion.”

He didn’t begin to know how long such a trip would take. The only reference points he had in terms of the distance New Rheynia spanned was based on his travels from House Cassius to the different arenas. It took half a day by wagon and sea to reach the Chariot’s Arena in Valtarcia, and then he wasn’t a traitor to the country being chased by an army of Jackals.

“How long do you reckon?”

“Long,” Threyna said. “Longer yet if any of our enemies catch up to us.”

Zephyrus figured that was the best answer he would receive. He considered Lenox’s force attempting to follow them through the mountains. Any leader would know better than to give chase, but Lenox was not just any leader, and his motivation for hunting Zephyrus was more personal than duteous.

He’ll attempt to cut us off. If he sends a small party to force us onward but backtracks with the bulk of his force to take the main road, he’ll reach the base of the mountains long before we do.

The jaws of the trap were closing in around him, yet there was no other path but forward.

After cresting the ridge, they cut right, heading east into the rising sun. As they traveled in silence, his thoughts drifted to Laeden. If not for him, Zephyrus may not have even escaped Salmantica. He hoped the former prince’s gambit to see him to safety wasn’t his end. He’d endured much since he’d rejected Zephyrus’s petition to free the slaves—imprisonment, a rigged trial, and a trial by combat he was never meant to survive.

Laeden was many things, but he was a man of principle, doing what he thought best. Zephyrus was glad he finally learned Patrus’s lesson that killing would only break the scale because Laeden was nearly an undeserving casualty of his vengeance.

And now Laeden wishes to join the Uprising.

The thought made him chuckle. He hoped he made it—the Uprising would be stronger with his aid. If Zephyrus weren’t entangled in a war between Gods, he would have liked to join them. He would have done anything to reunite with Jecht and Cerik and find Vykinallia, but fate had handed him a different part to play.

The rising sun offset the altitude’s chill and broke Threyna from her despondence. She looked over her shoulder at him, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lip. “I hear you giggling back there. Is it about Vykinallia?”

Zephyrus balked. His footing slipped out from under him. He flung his arms outward to regain his balance as loose stones clattered down the side of the steep trail. “What?”

Threyna half turned around, sidestepping up the incline. “You kept saying her name in your sleep. ‘Vykinallia. Vykinallia.’ She sounds lovely because either I slept with a rock in my back or you—”

Zephyrus sputtered. Heat rose to his cheeks, and his retort came out in a nonsensical jumble. Eventually, he found his tongue. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then tell me,” Threyna said, waving him up the trail.

Zephyrus quickened his pace to catch up to her. “If we’re talking about anything, why don’t we start with how many enemies we have chasing each of us?”

Threyna groaned. “Come on. You’re no fun.”

“I’d rather be alive than fun,” Zephyrus said. “Go on.”

Exchanging stories of the rivalries they’d created to get to this point, they ascended the next ridge. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, so too did their opposition. Between Paxoran, the Warlocks he was using to claim the Treasures, and the Skeleton King, Threyna had her hands full. Add that to the army of Jackals at Lenox’s disposal, the Sentinels wanting to nail Zephyrus to a Six Arrowed Star, and the traitor God keeping his mother imprisoned, and together they might have been the most wanted pair in all the realms.

“It will be okay,” Zephyrus said, as much to Threyna as to himself.

The rocky mountain trail descended, narrowing into a more wooded path just wide enough for them to walk abreast. Sunlight filtered through the swaying branches of birch trees.

“We’ve survived this long on our own,” Zephyrus said. “Now we’re together again.”

Threyna snorted beside him, scrunching her face in his direction. “Watch out, world, Zephyrus and Threyna are here to save the da—”

A snapping twig in the distance silenced them both.

Threyna stopped, but Zephyrus put his hand on the small of her back, encouraging her forward. With a flare of his manipulation magic, he created a sound bubble around them, preventing sound from entering or escaping.

“Act natural,” Zephyrus said. “We’re being followed.”

“Ghosting obviously,” Threyna hissed. “Are you well enough to heal me if I need?”

Zephyrus nodded.

“I’m going to see how many there are and how far behind.”

Not understanding, Zephyrus let down his sound bubble. Threyna pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes in apparent consternation. No blood formed around her, but the effort of whatever she was doing caused a black vein to slither up the left side of her neck.

“About twenty behind us,” Threyna whispered.

Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder, he asked, “How can you tell?”

“Their heartbeats.”

Zephyrus surveyed the trail ahead. The brush and brambles offered too many places for an ambush to lie in wait. If they were surrounded, even with their magic, it left too much up to chance.

“Anyone ahead? It could be an ambush.”

The corruption in Threyna’s blood spread up her neck. Zephyrus grabbed Threyna’s hand, channeling his healing magic into her.

At his touch, Threyna whipped her head in his direction.

“Keep going,” Zephyrus said. With his other hand, he gripped her shoulder, white mist flowing into her. Zephyrus braced himself for the pain. Expecting an affliction similar to healing her through Paxoran’s torment, Zephyrus was pleased to only feel a slight heat and pressure spreading up and down his arm.

Threyna nodded, refocusing. “There are people up ahead. Dozens.”

A bead of sweat followed the contour of Zephyrus’s brow. The trap closes.

“How far ahead?”

Threyna blanched. “Ghosts, I don’t know, but the ones behind are gaining ground.”

Straining his ears, Zephyrus listened to the wind, but heard nothing discernable. As they approached a clearing before a steeper descent, Zephyrus scanned the horizon. A valley lay before them filled with jagged hills, tall trees, and the faint sounds of rushing water.

“We need to hurry,” Threyna said, but Zephyrus shushed her.

“The river is up ahead.”

As he pointed, a tree cracked and fell away from the other treetops on the horizon.

Threyna stammered. “Did you see—”

“Woodcutters,” Zephyrus said.

“They’re cutting the trees and shipping them down the river,” Threyna said.

A breath of hope filled Zephyrus’s lungs. If we can outrun the Jackals behind us and avoid the ones ahead, we can ride downriver. There was a chance Lenox and the remainder of his force would be waiting for them downriver, but that was a problem for later.

“We need to make a run for it,” Zephyrus said. “Get to the river.”

Threyna gestured ahead to a bend in the path as it snaked down into the valley. “When we get around that corner.”

Zephyrus nodded, releasing her hand. The black rot receded beneath her collar, and aside from the general fatigue of using his magic, he felt no worse for the effort. If he needed, he’d be able to balance the scales.

If Threyna was listening, Zephyrus’s heart hammered in his chest as adrenaline filled his veins. He patted the hilt of the bladeless sword he’d taken from House Auros at his side, hoping he wouldn’t need it, but ready to use it.

As he and Threyna rounded the descent, out of view of their pursuers, they ran. Bounding down the rugged terrain, Zephyrus kept his focus on his next footfall. One wrong step and the Jackals would be on them. Over rocks, downed branches, and around uneven ground, his soles slapped against the downward slope. Threyna kept pace at his side.

“They’re running!” a Jackal shouted.

Their pursuer’s voice was closer than Zephyrus hoped. Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder, he doubled his efforts, pumping his legs to take advantage of the downward momentum without letting it overcome him. Up ahead, a barricade of Jackals barred the swooping path that entered into the valley.

Dozens was an understatement. Forty to fifty men armed with spears formed a sea of yellow and black waiting to swallow them.

“There are too many!” Threyna said.

She was right. Zephyrus grabbed Threyna’s wrist and slowed to a halt, a score of Jackals rushing down the mountainside after them. “We stay and fight them, or we go this way…” He pointed to the steep cliff angling down the mountainside.

“There are too many of them.” Threyna looked out over the steep drop. “But this…”

“This way!” Decision made, Zephyrus leapt off the path and dug the outer portion of his left foot and the inner of his right into the steep slope. He skidded down the mountainside, Threyna just behind him, eroding loose stones with their force.

“Get ready to jump,” Zephyrus said as they approached a sheer two-story drop into the valley.

“Are you insane?” Threyna barked from just behind.

“Just do it!” Zephyrus leapt from the mountainside, ejecting himself into the empty air. His stomach lurched in the moment of free fall, but he channeled his force magic. As he neared the ground, he thrust downward, the energy slowing their fall. He tucked into a less-than-graceful roll but landed without harm. He sprung up, searching for Threyna.

She was nowhere to be found.

Rubble slid down the cliffside, but she didn’t land behind him. The army of Jackals waiting to ambush them charged in his direction.

Where did she—

A shadow blotted out the sun. Overhead, the silhouette of a woman with wings twice as wide as she was tall sailed across the sky.

“Burn me.”

Zephyrus sprinted on the valley’s flat ground. Threyna’s blood-conjured wings were deteriorating at the tips and slowly dissipating into ash as the momentum of her glide carried her forward. More falling than flying, she plummeted through the sparse trees left behind by the woodcutters toward the valley floor. Zephyrus willed himself forward, jumping over stumps and fallen branches to catch up to her, but she was falling too fast.

He shouted for her, but Threyna crashed to the ground in a tumble of ash and limb. Her momentum carried her until she rolled to a stop against an exposed root.

“Threyna!”

In another few strides, he reached her. She groaned, struggling to regain her feet. Zephyrus helped haul her up, but black veins stretched up her jaw and across half her face.

“I’ll be fine. We need to keep moving.” She nodded at the scores of Jackals in pursuit.

Zephyrus reached out to heal her, but she slapped his hands aside. In the process, however, she stumbled, reaching for her foot.

Attempting to catch his breath, Zephyrus knelt down to examine Threyna’s ankle. Even with the support of her boot, it hung limp at an odd angle. Knowing they wouldn’t get very far on three legs, he balanced the scales and prepared for the pain. A sharp pang shot up the outside of his left ankle as he absorbed her injury. Threyna’s ankle straightened as the shouting Jackals encroached.

“Can you run?” Zephyrus asked, grimacing through the pain of his own ankle.

“I’m going to have to,” Threyna said, limping away from the Jackals’ approach. “Any other tricks you have?” She limped her first few strides as if anticipating pain, but eventually broke out into an even trot.

Zephyrus fell in beside her, his own gait hobbled at first. “I can’t sprout wings if that’s what you mean. Why didn’t you trust me?”

Picking up their pace, Threyna shrugged. “Used to doing things on my own. Spare me the lecture.”

Zephyrus began lagging behind, the effects of his prolonged magic fatigue taking its toll. He willed himself onward through the wilderness. They charged toward the tree line and the river beyond, Jackals nipping at their heels.

“Can you sense the woodcutters?” Zephyrus asked between heaving breaths as they approached the tree line.

Threyna shook her head, panting. “If I tap into my Inner Throne, I’ll need your healing.”

The thought drained him to the point of exhaustion. As they entered the woods, Zephyrus considered hiding from the Jackals, but the trees were too sparse to assure success. We can’t hide. We need to reach the river. “I can’t. Not now.”

“Then I need to consume.”

“How?” Zephyrus asked.

“Kill the first person you find,” Threyna said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The shouting Jackals grew nearer, but they could not drown out the thud of axes pounding into trunks.

“The slavers,” Zephyrus said. “We take out the slavers and set the woodcutters free. If they join us, we can overwhelm the Jackals.”

“We can escape,” Threyna said. “We can’t win this fight.”

Following the thwack of axes biting into wood, Zephyrus located the first woodcutter. Where there are slaves, there will be slavers. The man was razor-thin, weighing little more than the axe in his hands. At the sound of Zephyrus’s approach, the woodcutter lowered his axe and spun to face him.

The slaver revealed himself, whip in hand. Donning a blue surcoat, he reared back his whip. “Get back to work!”

Reangling himself to the slaver’s position, and with Threyna at his back, Zephyrus seized the bladeless hilt of the Auros-forged sword. The sword thrummed to life in his hand, pulsating in time with his beating heart. The white edge protracted, glimmering in the sunlight that filtered through the branches.

At full sprint, Zephyrus closed the distance quickly. Just as the slaver reared his whip, Zephyrus lashed out with a vertical strike from behind. The slaver’s hand, still gripping the whip, flew into the air, accompanied by a spray of blood. Before the hand could even fall to the ground, Zephyrus continued his momentum, spinning his sword in a horizontal slash that cleaved through the slaver’s neck.

As the slaver’s headless body dropped to its knees, a cloud of red mist funneled from the two wounds toward Threyna. As she inhaled, the black veins coiling around her neck receded before Zephyrus’s eyes.

“Wielder,” the thin woodcutter said in awe of Zephyrus, a Six Arrowed Star cruelly carved into his forehead. He was just a boy, with more scars on his body than years to his life.

Other surrounding woodcutters left their trees to gaze upon the fallen slaver. Drawing nearer to Zephyrus, axes lowered and jaws dropped, they each possessed the same scarred forehead.

The sight brought stinging tears to Zephyrus’s eyes. He slashed his sword at the loose manacles binding the boy’s arms and legs together. He cleaved the manacles of the next nearest Celestic boy, then the next.

“Zephyrus,” Threyna said, “there’s no time.”

He fixed her with a level glare. He understood why he couldn’t free every slave boy and girl under New Rheynia’s heel; he needed to stop Paxoran, or else all men—Celestic and Valencian alike—would perish. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t aid those he met along the way.

Patrus wouldn’t have left them.

“Then help.” He whipped his steel through the air, severing the chains of the next nearest boy.

The Jackals closed in, surging through the tree line with swords raised. Threyna stood before them, arms outstretched.

As Zephyrus chopped through the iron links of the next boy’s chain, blood streamed from the fallen slaver’s neck into Threyna’s hands. She conjured the available blood to form a giant spiderweb between the trees to slow the oncoming horde of yellow and black.

“Zephyrus, hurry!” Threyna conjured a bow and arrow and loosed at the Jackals fighting through her snare.

Zephyrus freed the next boy. “Make for the river!”

The freed boys didn’t run; they looked down at the axes in their hands, but none cast them to the earth. Even after he freed the last of their group, they remained put.

As other slavers noticed Zephyrus, Threyna and the incoming Jackals, they shouted orders, but they fell on deaf ears.

The first boy Zephyrus freed raised his axe high overhead. “For the Judges!”

The other boys surrounding him took up the call, and together, they charged the nearest slaver. The call caught like wildfire, echoing throughout the forest. Those unbound and those still in chains raised the tools of their servitude with defiant retribution.

“Out of time!” Threyna shouted as the Jackals carved their way through her blood web. She loosed another arrow, taking a Jackal in the chest, but more broke through.

Zephyrus balanced the scales, releasing all the heat from his body. Despite his exertion, a chill racked his bones. Holding out his hand, a torrent of water showered the incoming Jackals. Lacking the force to do any damage, the spray merely wet them, evoking jeers and taunts as the Jackals fanned out around them.

Threyna glanced at Zephyrus. “That’s it—are you kidding?”

Zephyrus smirked. Enduring the reflexive wave of heat from using his water magic, he allowed his body to go slack from sole to fingertip. His knees threatened to buckle, and it required rigorous determination to keep his arm outstretched, but he held. Electricity coursed through his body until he released it. An eruption of forking lightning struck the nearest Jackal, cutting short all jeers. Before any of the others could respond, the bolt crackled and jumped to the two most adjacent Jackals, then to the next, and the next, until all were seizing in fits.

Feeling returned to Zephyrus’s limbs as the scales swung back. “Come on!” Zephyrus jerked Threyna away from the Jackals and towards the river.

The forest rang with the cries of vengeance to the rhythm of falling axes. Green moss and brown dirt were painted with blood and blooming with blue surcoats hacked down by the woodcutters.

A horn trumpeted in the distance.

The alarm’s been raised. How long before these woods are teeming with slavers and Jackals? The electrocution was enough to slow them, but it wouldn’t keep them down for long.

“We need to get out of here,” Zephyrus said, but the magic fatigue slowed him. His vision blurred, and his knees wobbled. Threyna wasn’t faring much better; the spider’s web she summoned to slow the Jackals had saved their lives, but the cost of it marred her skin.

As the trumpets blared, the wiser woodcutters dropped their axes and ran to lose themselves in the crags of the Silver Summits. The bolder boys would fight to their last breaths, be they in chains or wreathed in the laurels of freedom.

As he and Threyna made their way to the river, they passed more laborers fighting their whipping masters with whatever tools were available to them. Whether they were chopping limbs, stripping bark, treating the wood into usable timber, or loading the boats to ferry the lumber downstream, the enslaved battled their overseers.

Zephyrus wanted to join them. Wanted to die with them if need be. But this was not his battle nor his purpose. It was never Zephyrus’s intent to use the enslaved as a distraction to service his escape.

“Get to the river,” he had said.

He couldn’t blame them for wanting to fight instead of run, but as he and Threyna used the distraction to board a small barge prepared to head downriver, he couldn’t stave off his guilt.

Once they cut the ties and reined in the anchor, Zephyrus expelled his heat and launched a torrent of water into the river behind the barge, jettisoning them downstream until the logging yard disappeared into the distance.

With the current taking them and Zephyrus’s magic fatigue demanding the scales be rebalanced, he collapsed onto the deck. Lying on his back, staring at the spinning sky, Zephyrus’s peripheral vision darkened.

“We did it,” Threyna said.

Zephyrus’s head lolled to the side to face her. “How many did we send to their deaths?”

Threyna shrugged, ducking down beside Zephyrus between the loaded timbers. “A few Jackals and that slaver. The woodcutters chopped down at least a couple dozen on their own.”

Zephyrus shook his head. “How many enslaved did we condemn to death so we could escape?”

Threyna didn’t answer. The Gods offered no insight. Zephyrus closed his eyes and reached for Vykinallia’s amethyst ring, hidden in the thread of his belt. Clutching it in his palm, he imagined he was resting in the warmth of her arms before a hearth. But even the warmth betrayed him because he knew he’d sent boys to their deaths. Kindling to the pyre.

Chapter 32

A Part to Play

Laeden VII

Valtarcia

Laeden’s boots scraped the dusty road north as he led the procession of freedpeople and Ridge Knights into his newest mad plan. They hadn’t been pleased to leave House Ruhlar mere hours after its conquest, but desperate times—desperate measures. And these were certainly desperate.

Laeden peered over his shoulder at the Ridge Knights behind him whispering beneath their newly acquired roughspun cloaks. As he looked in their direction, the hushed voices silenced. Not in the way a child ceases their insolence upon being reprimanded, but the way a child stops cursing their father when he enters the room.

With a grunt, Laeden quickened his pace. He didn’t make any friends with his decision to leave the ludus, nor did he improve his standing when he revealed the truth Varros risked all to deliver to him.

“Word of your assault on the ludi has reached Northridge,” Varros had said, ignoring all of Laeden’s prior questions about what had happened to his father. “They won’t come for you here. They will wait. When you strike the next ludus, they’ll be ready and waiting to trap you.”

Without Varros’s warning, Laeden would have been as good as dead in a night’s time, but that’s where his gratitude ended. It would have been easier to continue believing the lie of his father’s death. He never fully believed that the mages were responsible, but the truths his father told him were worse.

He couldn’t stop replaying their conversation in his head. Their whole trek, fleeing the pebbled shores of the Bay of Bastards for the southern hamlets on the outskirts of Valtarcia’s city walls, the thoughts plagued his mind.

“Flee for Klaytos,” his father said. “Already, plebs are revolting in the streets, championing your name. Continue and this will only escalate tensions and further the divide. Give me time to forge a path of peace.”

He argued with his father, attempting to explain that no peace could be brokered with the likes of Danella, Damascus, or the Salmantic patricians, but Varros would hear none of it. Even when Laeden shared the truth of Danella’s involvement in the Revivalists, Varros did not bat an eye. He knew of her treachery but did nothing about it.

He had never known a messenger to deliver good news. The truth only raised more questions, more doubt, more disbelief. His father was a mage long before he was king. Working to stem the tides of the Uprising’s vengeance and the Valencians’ fears of the Gods’ wrath, Varros lived a double life. Now he asked Laeden to turn tail and run until he could forge a peace between two peoples who had been at war or plotting one for longer than Laeden had lived.

As frustrating as that was, it was his father’s parting words before taking his leave of Ruhlar’s ludus that made Laeden continue to ball his fists to the cloudless night sky.

“You believe you must fight—” Varros said, his hands on Laeden’s shoulders inside Ruhlar’s tablinum, “—to avenge your grandfather, to punish Horus, to stop Danella and Damascus from eradicating the Celestics—but there are other ways. All I can say is if there comes a time when you can choose between forgiveness and punishment, I hope you choose to forgive and work toward peace.”

Then he left. The Ridge Knights escorted him beyond the ludus’s walls, and he disappeared into the night, hoping to go to Northridge and speak sense to Horus.

There were so many more things Laeden wished he had said—sentiments he might never receive another opportunity to share. He understood his father’s desire for peace, but peace took more than signing an agreement not to fight. If true peace were to be achieved, people would need to change. People would need to realize the brokenness of intolerance and the emptiness of vengeance. But people did not change easily. Laeden lost Iylea, was jailed by the Revivalists, and, if not for Zephyrus’s mercy, he might never have seen the light.

I must remember that, he thought, looking back at some of his more stubborn followers. Varros said no one was going to attack him at House Ruhlar, that they wanted to catch him attempting to seize another ludus, but Laeden didn’t want to wait for them to change their tactics. It hadn’t taken him long to decide their next course of action; there were only so many places in New Rheynia abundant in slaves but secluded from civilization.

“They’re waiting to ambush us at the next ludus,” Laeden had told the Ridge Knights and freedpeople. “So we’ll attack the shipyard instead.”

Few were keen on the idea. Markus attempted to talk him out of it. Ostrey begged him to reconsider. But it was Kherus’s sly grin at everyone’s outrage that gave Laeden the most pause. The recipe for mutiny required far less. The Ridge Knights and freedpeople didn’t walk together, let alone converse.

Laeden exhaled his frustrations, but decided if he wanted to create change, he needed to lead by example. The road ahead was long; it would be hours before they reached the shipyard.

A perfect opportunity to change people’s hearts.

Laeden halted, allowing Ostrey, Markus, and the Ridge Knights, as well as Aurellia and the rest of the freedpeople, to catch up. In the dark, they were difficult to discern beneath their mismatched cloaks. The Ridge Knights, having left their armaments behind to better obscure themselves, were less than pleased with the wardrobe change.

As they approached, Markus lowered his hood and put his hands on his hips. “Thought of a better plan?”

Laeden’s nostrils flared. What does it say of me when even my best friend doesn’t trust me? He cleared his throat and forced a smile. “Just searching for better company.” He turned to Aurellia and bowed his head. “Aurellia, will you walk with me?”

Aurellia blinked in a moment of hesitation, but scampered to Laeden’s side. Choosing to believe Markus didn’t bristle as Laeden walked ahead, Laeden thanked Aurellia for joining him.

Aurellia bowed. “Of course, Domin… apologies, such habits aren’t easily broken.”

“Neither is the spirit of your people,” Laeden said, glancing over his shoulder at the former gladiators and servants who followed. “They look to you for guidance.”

A curt, uneasy chortle escaped Aurellia’s lips. She pulled the cloak’s hood lower over her face. “They look to me because you keep my counsel.”

“And I keep your counsel because I want to understand what you and your people want,” Laeden said. “This only works if we come together. The kingdoms of Salmantica and Valtarcia will not be shaken by a fractured army.”

Aurellia nodded, looking at her feet, but offered nothing in return.

“What are they saying?” Laeden asked. “I need to know what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling.”

Aurellia inclined her head, her dark eyes reflecting the moon and stars. She averted her gaze, scratching behind her ear.

Laeden’s heart twisted. Iylea did the same when nervous. He needed to encourage her, to make her feel safe speaking with him. “Go on. Speak freely.”

Aurellia hugged herself. Her strides became shorter and faster, but she kept pace with Laeden. “They don’t understand—why you’re here, why you save us. But you do, and so they want to believe.”

She examined him, gauging his reaction. When he didn’t offer any, she continued. “But hope is dangerous. Kindness usually comes with a price. Dominus’s kindness always had a cost. We just don’t know yours yet. They hope they are wrong, but they are scared.”

Laeden could understand that. Maybe not to the scale of the freedpeople, but he could relate; after decades of being the jest of patrician’s games, he developed his own prejudices. His actions made little sense to the Ridge Knights, let alone the freedpeople, but how could he explain Zephyrus’s mission or Iylea’s request?

Father’s secrets started this mess; I can’t make the same mistake. He extended his hand toward hers. When Aurellia only stared at it, he clasped her hand in both of his.

“I understand the mistrust,” Laeden said. “I know it seems like my motivations must be self-serving.” He struggled to form the difficult truth into words without sounding like a madman hearing voices of dead lovers. He grunted. “Do you know of Zephyrus?”

Aurellia’s eyebrow wrinkled. “Yes?”

“He is a… a friend,” Laeden said. “He saved me in more ways than one, but I believe he is a Prophet of the Return.”

A pause, both in conversation and in step. Laeden gestured with his head for her to continue, to stay ahead of the procession. Aurellia regained her composure and resumed walking.

“The Wielder…” she said in a breathy voice.

“Yes.” Laeden released her hand and lifted his palm in front of him. “I believe he is the thread that binds our future together: Rheynian-born, Celestic-raised, a former slave, and a mage. He may look like me, but he thinks like you. Without him…”

Laeden shook his head and exhaled the rest of his breath. A traitor God will unleash devastation beyond comprehension… He couldn’t say that. He reached his fingers to his scalp without the hair to run them through. Out with it already.

“Zephyrus is in trouble,” Laeden said. “Once, he asked me to set the enslaved people free, and I refused him. Now he is out there—somewhere—trying to save us all with an army of Jackals hunting him, and we need to—”

Aurellia held her hand to her mouth, silencing Laeden. Her eyes grew wide, watering at the corners. “For so long, I believed the Prophets would come and save us. How foolish to think that they would not need us to do anything at all.”

A grin parted her heart-shaped face. “We all have a part to play, yes?”

Laeden allowed himself a grin. “I believe so.”

At the crunch of footsteps nearing behind him, Laeden turned to find Ser Ostrey. His brisk approach, the tension in his jaw, and the grim faraway look in his eyes foretold trouble.

“What is it?” Laeden asked.

Two men were brought to the front of the procession, veiled in black with their hands raised, each escorted by a pair of Ridge Knights.

“Caught them following us,” Gensus said, ripping back one of their hoods to reveal a narrow-faced man with auburn hair and freckles on his nose and cheeks.

“We weren’t hidi—ah!”

Gensus twisted Freckles’s arm, forcing him down to his knees. His face contorted as his shoulder wrenched forward in its socket. Malachi wrested the other black-clad prisoner down beside him.

Laeden examined the two. The man beside Freckles was broader of stature with a wide-set jaw and a cleft in his chin that a few days of stubble couldn’t conceal. They both wore cloaks, too new for the wear of travelers, and bore lean black leather armor, too fine a cut to be anything but castle-forged. Yet they were too young to earn a knighthood. Their skin—smooth, absent the weathering of age or battle—contrasted with the pile of confiscated blades dumped at Laeden’s feet.

Markus examined the blades, six in total. A pair of long swords, short swords, and daggers littered the ground. Markus plucked a dagger from the ground and held the hilt up for Laeden’s inspection. A roaring lion marked the rounded pommel.

“Look familiar?” Markus asked.

“The royal armory,” Laeden said, leveling his gaze on Freckles and Chin. “Who sent you?”

“No one sent us,” Chin said, too loudly for the time, location, or circumstance.

Malachi drew his dagger and placed it to Chin’s throat. “Keep quiet.”

Freckles held his hands up and spoke in a low voice. “You misunderstand. We came to follow—”

“You came to spy.” Markus stalked around the kneeling men. “I recognize them. Low-level recruits in the Lion’s Academy. Atonus must be desperate for men if these two were promoted to a mission of any import.”

“We weren’t promoted.” Chin’s voice trembled, his eyes never leaving Malachi’s dagger. “We deserted the Academy, stole the arms and armor. We’re not spies.”

“We want to join you,” Freckles said.

Laeden’s mouth puckered. In building an army, he hadn’t considered any amongst Salmantica’s soldiers. Danella is more than capable of sending spies, but would she send such unproven men? Or is that exactly what she’d want me to think?

Laeden resisted the urge to run his fingers through his too short hair. With the Revivalists, she was always a step ahead of him, every scheme layered with contingencies and backup plans. If he let them live and they were Danella’s spies, their rebellion was as good as over. But if Laeden killed them and they weren’t spies, what did that say of his leadership?

The Ridge Knights and freedpeople eyed Laeden, awaiting his decision, but it was too important to be made in haste. Considering their deaths, Laeden would not deliver such a sentence absent the knowledge of their names.

Laeden inclined his head at the two men. “What are your names?”

“Roderick Persius,” Chin said with all the pomposity Laeden had come to expect from a Salmantic patrician.

Freckles bowed his head. “Aponius.”

Gensus prodded Aponius for neglecting to give his surname, but Laeden knew what that meant. Better to be nameless than a bastard. Perhaps not a patrician after all.

Laeden nodded at Gensus before addressing Roderick and Aponius. “Attempt to run, you die. Cry out, you die. So much as even look at a blade—you die.”

Roderick and Aponius nodded.

“Markus, Ostrey, Aurellia, let us discuss the fate of Roderick and Aponius.” Laeden turned from the others and strode away.

Once assembled and far enough from the group, Laeden exhaled.

Markus spoke first, crossing his hands before separating them as if to wave the entire idea away. “It’s too risky. As unlikely as it might be for the queen to choose these two, we can’t ignore the possibility that she sent them here.”

Ostrey sputtered. “And what do you suggest we do based on possibility?” When neither Markus or Laeden answered, Ostrey shook his head. “Are you suggesting we kill these men? What honor is there in—”

“There’s no honor in being stabbed in the back either,” Markus said, teeth gritted. “I don’t want to kill them any more than you, but we’re at war. It could be them or one of your men.”

“Could be? Could be!” Veins bulged in Ostrey’s neck as he restrained his volume. “It is not impossible for good men—honorable men—to be rendered passive by corruption. We all bear the responsibility for allowing this to happen to our realm, but who are we if we turn away those who wish to fight on the side of restoration? Who are we if we kill those who want to believe in a better future? Cowards, I tell you.”

“Spare me the honor code,” Markus said. “Sometimes, in the real world, you need to get your hands dirty.”

Ostrey leaned in, closing the distance. “Dirty? Or bloody?”

Laeden put a hand to each of their shoulders. “This isn’t helping.”

Markus and Ostrey retreated—Markus crossing his arms, Ostrey shuffling his feet. Aurellia had yet to make a sound.

“How about you, Aurellia?” Laeden asked.

The whites of Aurellia’s eyes grew to the size of moons. “Please, do not ask me.”

“You have been lied to more than anyone,” Laeden said. The thought of all of his father’s lies over the years gnawed at the back of his mind. He shoved them aside. “Do you believe they’re telling the truth?”

Markus and Ostrey stiffened, but Laeden ignored them.

Aurellia put her hand to her lips, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “They lie.”

Laeden hmphed. “You’re sure?”

Ostrey’s lip twitched in a barely perceptible bristle, but he said nothing. Regardless of Ostrey’s reaction, Laeden was inclined to agree with Aurellia. He didn’t trust them. Couldn’t trust them. But that still left the question of what to do with them. Executing them in cold blood wasn’t an option, but leaving them posed its own risks.

“Hey!” a shout came from behind them.

Laeden wheeled toward the group. Obscured by distance and darkness, Laeden couldn’t make out the details, but a struggle ensued. Drawing his sword, Laeden charged toward them, Markus and Ostrey wielding their own steel behind him. As they approached, Gensus tore one black cloak away from the other, leveling his blade at Aponius’s freckled nose.

“Drop it!” Gensus hissed.

Aponius released the bloody dagger, letting it fall to the earth, bloody hands raised. Laeden’s eyes fell to Roderick gasping for breath on the ground. Life spouted from a puncture in the side of his neck in rhythmic pulses. Eyes wild, he grasped at the stab wounds, but he didn’t have enough fingers to stem the flow of life escaping between them.

“We were sent by the queen,” Aponius said. “She wanted us to kill you. I saw it as a way out, but he—” He pointed to Roderick, gurgling in the throes of death. “—he saw it as a way of gaining favor, elevating his house.”

Laeden examined Aponius. His life dangled in the space between Laeden’s word and Gensus’s blade. Gensus angled his edge against Aponius’s neck. A single drop of blood slid down the apple of his throat, but he did not cry out. He did not wince. He only stared at Laeden.

Laeden didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t know what to trust. Words like honor and justice used to mean the world to him, but now they felt like foreign concepts.

My mother abandoned me. My father lied to me. Aelon betrayed me. Danella framed me. And Iylea… Iylea hadn’t done anything to him. The only thing she was culpable for was trusting him. And he failed her. Now, standing before Aponius as judge and executioner, Laeden didn’t trust himself.

“I only wish to join you,” Aponius said. “I swear it.”

Laeden looked past Markus and Ostrey, fixating on Aurellia.

She nodded. “I believe him.”

Chapter 33

Death to the Slaver

Vykinallia V

Stockhelm

Night rolled in, but the fires Damascus set still glowed like a polluted sun. Though the southerly winds off the shore prevented the flames from consuming all of Stockhelm’s jungles, the damage was done. As Vykinallia trudged east toward House Arux under a veil of smoke, she considered how many generations would suffer because of Damascus’s recklessness.

She coughed into the crux of her arm, sending a lance of pain through the “V” burned into her breast. She and forty-eight Fallen fighters followed Iberion through the night’s gloom. Only a few hours of jungle-trekking separated the Sanctuary from House Arux, and soon her time would be upon her. Vykinallia wiped the moisture from her palms on the leather jerkin Lenara gave her. The short sword strapped to her belt jostled against her thigh with each step, its presence a reminder of what she would have to do with it when the time came.

“This will be your arena,” Lenara had said. “Win and you will be rewarded. Fall and…”

Vykinallia knew too well what fate awaited her should she fail. She’d sparred with Auron and dueled a dozen suitors wishing to win her hand in marriage, but never had she fought in a battle; never had she pointed a blade at someone else with the intent to kill.

She massaged her elbow where Zephyrus had once healed her, wishing he were here.

With Jechtaric and Cerik beside her, they weaved between tree trunks, ducked under hanging vines, and circumvented shrubs and brambles. She attempted to strike up the nerve to ask them how they felt the first time they took to the sands, the first time they had to kill or be killed. The silent journey didn’t provide a proper segue. There was no way to ask without jeopardizing what little respect she’d earned by marching with them. A knot formed in her throat, balled up with the words she couldn’t utter.

They weren’t given a choice, she reminded herself. I could have gone with Damascus if I wanted to keep my hands clean. I chose this.

She didn’t know who Jechtaric and Cerik were before arriving in the barracks. Cerik must have been a child when the Treaty of 940 enslaved him. Jechtaric was born a Finn, a Hecht bastard condemned to a life of bondage due to the sins of his father; he likely had a childhood spent hiding with his mother before rumors led to him being scooped up by the Jackals.

That’s how it happened with Rheynians who fought on the wrong side of the war. She winced at the thought. Not the wrong side—the losing side.

Jechtaric and Cerik never had a choice. Vykinallia grew up with infinite opportunities. Markus was on track to take over for Atonus Allos as the Royal Master at Arms at the Lion’s Academy. Vykinallia positioned herself to take over the family business and become the first woman lanista. She once thought she was so progressive, but despite all her opportunities and choices, she was only intent on continuing a tradition of blood for coin. No gladiator beneath her roof ever had choices. No options. Fight and win. Survive…or die.

The brand on her chest burned. V for Vykinallia.

Iberion’s words returned to her. “Be what the Judges intended you to be.”

She swallowed the knot. This is my arena, but my battle will have a cause. The death I deliver will bring good to the world and not just coin to another’s purse.

She set her jaw, determined to fight on the right side, even if it ended in defeat.

Ahead, Iberion raised the silent call to halt. As Jechtaric readied his spear and Cerik removed his mace from the iron ring at his hip, Vykinallia’s nerves crackled. She reached for the hilt of her sword, her mouth dry, palms clammy. With visibility limited by the descending smoke, she listened past the night’s call and the jungle’s hum.

Unwelcomed voices intruded on the stillness.

Breath ceased to exist. Her heart fluttered in weak, rapid beats. Slowly, taking care not to make noise, she drew her short sword from its scabbard. No one in the Fallen made a sound, but the rustling of feet drew closer, and the voices, quiet as they were, became discernable.

“They must be out here, somewhere,” a man’s voice said.

“They haven’t eluded capture by just sitting in the woods,” a second voice said. “They must have a place to hide.”

They drew closer, coming straight at Vykinallia. She gripped the worn leather hilt of her borrowed blade. Kill or be killed. This is my arena.

The footsteps stopped. The sound of a sword sliding out of its scabbard set Vykinallia’s skin on fire. Sweat percolated above her brow, but she remained still.

A melodic hum carried through the smoky air. Slow and melancholic, it rang low but clear only to cut off without resolution.

At once, Jechtaric, Cerik, and the rest of the Fallen answered the hum with a chorus of their own, startling Vykinallia. After a few notes, they resolved the first half of the dirge.

“Brothers,” the voice called with an exasperated sigh. “Praise the Judges.” The footsteps encroached, and a dozen figures emerged through the smoke. The man leading them, dark-skinned and wearing a green-and-gold surcoat, sheathed his sword, and his followers did the same. Some wore similar armor, while others were dressed in nothing but a sublingaria. Regardless of their garb, all were spattered with smeared blood, though none appeared injured.

As the Fallen stowed their weapons, Vykinallia exhaled, following suit. The newcomers were undoubtedly gladiators given the definition of their battle-trained forms. Vykinallia examined their skin, searching for a recognizable brand. Each of the men had a horseshoe stamped on the lateral aspect of their left shoulder.

The Horselords of Ulysius.

Iberion stepped forward to greet the men. “We feared you were Rheynian scouts.”

“As did we,” their leader in green and gold said. “We encountered one party, but they will never raise swords again.” He ran both hands over his shaved scalp, tears welling in his eyes. “By Orsius’s wisdom, I can’t believe we found you.”

Iberion clasped the former gladiator by the forearm. “You have made it, brother. You are safe. I am Iberion.”

“Joru,” the gladiator said.

Inspecting the mark of Ulysius, Iberion tilted his head. “How have you managed to escape Valtarcia?”

“You would not believe if Aeryss told you herself,” Joru said. “Ridge Knights took the ludus, chained the guards and put them in our cells, and then left us a ship and told us to seek you.”

Vykinallia blanched, not believing what she heard. She crept closer. “Did you say Ridge Knights set you free?”

Joru nodded. “Led by King Laeden.”

Vykinallia’s jaw dropped. “King Laeden?”

Iberion grunted. “There will be much to discuss, but we have a mission, and you must return to your ship. We have a cove of stolen vessels off the coast of the Isle of Fate. There you will meet Braska. Tell him ‘Iberion sees the way.’ Braska will take you to the Sanctuary where you may rest.”

Vykinallia attempted to process all she’d heard. Laeden named himself king. He’s leading the Ridge Knights. And he’s supporting the Uprising? For all of her disbelief, it made perfect sense. Lenara is his mother after all. But where does that leave Markus?

A thousand questions concerning Laeden, Lenara, and even King Varros clouded her mind. The mages who electrocuted me and abducted King Varros that day—were they with the Fallen too, and if so… where is Varros now?

The thoughts remained with her long after Joru and his gladiators departed back the way they had come, returning to their ship while the Fallen resumed their march on Arux’s ludus. Even as the outer walls of House Arux came into view, she hadn’t pieced together the puzzle of Laeden and his parents. But as Iberion began dividing their force into groups, the severity of the circumstance and her purpose within it overwhelmed all other thoughts.

Vykinallia had petitioned Lenara and Iberion to take a tactful approach, but she was denied. In place of careful planning, brute force and numbers would have to do. House Cassius was more of a fortress than a ludus. Etched into the Hylan Peaks, it made forced entry or escape difficult. House Arux, on the other hand, was more of a villa with attached barracks than a fortress. Too far from the town square and the port of Esonia, the wooden wall defending the sprawling lot would not hold.

Sett held a grappling hook before her, Jechtaric, Cerik, and the half dozen other people in their group. “We scale the far wall. Stick together and cut down anyone with a sword.” He met Vykinallia’s eyes. “Time to put steel behind your words.”

Vykinallia stammered, unsure if Sett was expecting a response. Unable to form a reply before he turned away, her gaze fell to her feet. She gripped the hem of her jerkin to keep her hands from trembling, but it didn’t help.

Jechtaric patted the mace at Cerik’s hip. “Time we put that to better use, eh?” The grin that broke across his face held an untamed madness she’d never noticed in him before.

Cerik nodded. “Time we put Arux’s gladiators to better use.”

The others shared her jitters, but theirs were born of excitement—an eagerness to fight, to kill. As they’ve been trained—their bloodlust, the product of years of brainwashing with illusions of glory. By people like me.

“For the Judges,” Sett said.

Vykinallia only swallowed as the others echoed in quiet unison. Iberion’s group, twice the size of the others, would climb the walls on either side of the south gate, Dankar’s group would take the east wall, Unari the west, and Sett the north. With a wave, Sett led the way as they fled the cover of the tree line and broke for the ludus’s west wall at a low trot.

Vykinallia’s heart hammered in her ribcage, each beat burning the “V” branded to her chest. Her breath came in ragged gasps as her legs carried her closer to Arux’s walls.

This is my arena.

She repeated the words, hoping it would give her strength or courage, but it only increased her panic. Her fingers squeezed the hilt of her sword within her scabbard, knowing soon she would have to draw it—to use it with deadly purpose.

They reached the southwest corner of the wall, Unari’s group just behind them. If there were watchers on the wall, they didn’t see the encroaching intruders through the haze. The torches lining the wall did little to burn through the smokescreen, but it guided their path. Hugging tight to the wall, their pace increasing, Sett and Jechtaric led the way.

“Stay close,” Cerik whispered beside her.

Vykinallia’s dry mouth made her tongue feel thick and clumsy. Unsure if she could find her voice, she only nodded. Unaccustomed to running as she was, the last week spent cramped in Falcos’s crate and chained to Lenara’s beam didn’t help. She struggled to keep up; her lungs burned with exertion and smoke inhalation.

They rounded the wall’s northwest corner. The other members of the group passed her. This was her moment, her chance to prove herself. But the pressure, the expectations, were too great. As Sett stopped at a portion of the north wall and heaved the grappling hook over, Vykinallia slowed.

I can’t do this.

Sett hauled himself up the wall and disappeared into the smoke.

I am too weak to lead. Too slow to make a difference.

Jechtaric scaled the wall next. One by one, the Fallen overcame the wall, prevailed through the smoke, and entered into their destinies. But Vykinallia couldn’t move.

As the stress of the moment mounted, her mind slowed, and she found herself in her rooms at the Winged Helm Inn the night before the New Rheynian Games. Zephyrus stood before her, his eyes burning like a summer sunset as he searched her soul.

She had just set him free, but in truth, it was that moment that she set herself free—free from her father’s rules, society’s expectations, and the lies she believed about herself.

She recalled his hands on her shoulders, his callused strength making her feel small but safe. She should have told him the truth then. She knew she wasn’t promised another opportunity, but she didn’t take it. Now she wished she had.

I love you, Zephyrus.

She returned to the north side of Arux’s wall. Only Cerik remained at the rope attached to the grappling hook. With one hand, he held the rope, and with the other, he reached out for her.

“You can do this, Vykinallia,” Cerik said. “For Zephyrus.”

Vykinallia blanched, but Cerik nodded and bounded up the wall in three long strides.

Alone outside the walls—grunts, shouts cut short, and the clang of steel awaited within. The rope quivered as she seized hold of it, but she did not let go.

Vykinallia blinked away tears yet unformed. For Zephyrus.

She planted her boot into the wall, and hand over hand, step by step, she scaled the wall. When she dropped onto the other side, she landed on a battlefield.

A guard lay on the ground, staring blankly to the smoke overhead. A red gash beneath his chin drained down the front of his orange-and-black surcoat. All around her, people fought and died, or ran and were cut down. Already, a dozen of Arux’s guards littered the courtyard, limbs splayed at odd angles.

The familiar scent of death tinged her nostrils, but this was different. She had witnessed more deaths from the safety of the pulvinus than she could count. She’d attended innumerable funeral pyres for fallen gladiators, but this was close, visceral—personal. Auron taught her stances, forms, and technique, but never death.

Nearby, Cerik caved in a guard’s skull with a viscous swing of his mace. A man ran screaming away from Unari, his cloak afire. Sett held a man’s arm in the air, the severed limb still holding a sword while the body it once belonged to fell to the ground.

Carnage.

Footsteps approached, charging fast along the stone entranceway. She turned just as the orange bull sigil bore down on her. Vykinallia stumbled back, drawing her sword just in time to deflect a two-handed vertical chop. Gaining her footing, Auron’s many lessons seized control. She made herself a smaller target by turning her side to the swordsman. His long sword had greater reach, his armor offered better protection, and his absence of fear gave him advantage.

It’s just a duel.

Men didn’t like fighting women. Overeager, they always tried to end the fight quickly. The Arux guard was no different, and it would be his undoing.

Vykinallia parried a diagonal slash, dodged a thrust, and rolled inside the swordsman’s reach where her short sword could seize advantage. She sliced low, carving a scarlet crescent across the guard’s thigh. He grunted, stumbling past her. He repositioned, swinging his long sword in a wild arc that sought to cleave her in half, but she retreated. The tip of the blade whisked through the air before her navel, but its momentum carried. Vykinallia followed the miss with a lunging stab, piercing the guard’s gut.

As the gladius’s point pierced the surcoat, the leather beneath, and the flesh within, Vykinallia froze. The squelch of organs being severed accompanied the slack-jawed expression on the guard’s face. Blood bubbled from his lips and dribbled into his beard.

He raised his sword, rearing back to take her down with him. Vykinallia gasped. She tried to wrench her blade free from his stomach, but too late.

She dodged, releasing her sword at the last moment to roll away, hoping to spare herself a mortal blow. Steel met flesh again, but as Vykinallia sprung to her feet, she was unscathed.

A spear tip burst through the Arux guard’s chest. He dropped to his knees, his long sword falling from his grasp.

Jechtaric yanked his spear free. “You tryna get yourself killed?”

The guard crumpled to the side, Vykinallia’s gladius still embedded in his stomach. She blinked as life fled the guard’s convulsing body.

“Get your sword!” Jechtaric snapped.

She didn’t move. Jechtaric scoffed, leaving her standing above the dying guard.

The battle was already won. Iberion emerged on the balcony, having fought through the south gate and into the villa. Dankar had chased the off-duty guards out of their quarters to die with their brethren in the training square or the courtyard.

As the last of the guards fell to the Fallen’s steel, Vykinallia noticed motion out of the corner of her eye. Two figures rummaged through the tablinum. She couldn’t discern their features, but no guards or Fallen would be searching through the lanista’s office.

Arux!

Vykinallia claimed her gladius from the fallen guard and sprinted across the courtyard to the tablinum. Leaping over bodies, dodging guards engaged with the Fallen, Vykinallia tore through a pair of manicured hedges and kicked through the double doors of the tablinum.

Vaulting over the desk, she burst through the office into the atrium. Just as she entered, two shadows disappeared around a corner, heading west into the guards’ quarters. She couldn’t let them get away. Their entire plan of hiding in the ludi was contingent on their discretion, and if Arux escaped, Damascus and his army would be here in a heartbeat.

She charged after the shadows, her borrowed soles slapping against the marble tile. Smeared blood decorated the walls and pooled beneath still bodies, most of which were Arux guards.

As she rounded the corner in Arux’s wake, torchlight illuminated him and his wife. Dressed in night silks, Arux held a sword in one hand and his wife’s hand in the other. Looking both directions down the halls of an intersection, he paused.

At Vykinallia’s approach, Arux’s wife turned and screamed. Arux yanked her down the hall and out of sight. Sword in hand, Vykinallia bounded after them. They turned right, down a hall with rooms on either side, their path interrupted by the strewn bodies of half-dressed guards.

Giving chase, Vykinallia closed the distance. Arux and his wife reached the end of the hall and barreled through a door exiting into the night, but Vykinallia was just behind them.

The thick, humid air filled her lungs as she left the ludus, and a noxious scent made her gag. A row of outhouses lined the narrow gap between the outer wall and the villa, but ahead were the stables. Vykinallia couldn’t let him make it to the horses.

Approaching the door to the stables, Arux shoved something at his wife. “Open the door!” He spun to face Vykinallia, sword in hand. His stance firm, glare hard, Arux—like most who found their calling as lanistas—was no stranger to combat. His wife, Lady Callia, if Vykinallia recalled, continued to the door, her flowing golden hair and billowing nightgown trailing behind her.

I might be able to beat Arux in single combat, but if Callia leaves…

Vykinallia ground her teeth. She charged at Arux, feinted going right, and then cut back left in an attempt to get around him. Arux remained like a stump, not falling for her juke. He reared back and slammed his sword like a battle-axe into hers. The force of the blow sent reverberations up her arm, nearly wrenching it from her grip, but she was past Arux. He slashed at her again, but with youth no longer on his side, he was too slow.

Callia fumbled with the keys to the stables. Arux shouted a warning, and Callia shrieked as Vykinallia closed in on her. Callia inserted the key and yanked the door open, but Vykinallia grabbed Callia’s golden curls and tore her away from the stables, tossing her to the ground.

“Leave her be!” Arux said. “Or I swear I’ll—”

The crow’s feet framing Arux’s dark eyes deepened before stretching wide. The leathery skin of his forehead wrinkled as his brows raised. “Nallia Cassius?” He blinked, shaking his crown of graying hair. “Let us go. Please.”

Vykinallia shook her head, blocking the door to the stables, her chest heaving. “I can’t do that. Submit. You and your wife won’t be harmed.”

“Kill her, Ilian,” Callia said, tears streaming from her eyes as she regained her feet. “Kill her so we can leave before other—”

“Don’t do this,” Vykinallia said. “Surrender and—”

Arux scoffed. “And what—free my slaves?”

“They are already freed,” Vykinallia said. “There’s no reason for you to join the dead.”

He leveled his sword point at her. “You think you’re better than me, joining this rabble? Hundreds died under your roof. Thousands died for you to afford that roof. You are a lanista!”

He made the word sound like a curse, but the truth remained. He was right; she had prospered at the suffering of others, but no more. No longer. She chose her side.

“I was a lanista,” Vykinallia said. “I won’t let you leav—”

Callia lunged at Vykinallia’s side. As Vykinallia turned, slashing with her short sword, Callia’s steel punched deep into the meat of Vykinallia’s right shoulder. So fixated on Arux’s blade, she never saw Callia’s knife. Vykinallia cried, yanking the knife from her shoulder. Blood spilled down Vykinallia’s arm, but Callia backed away, holding her stomach.

A red comet streaked across her midsection, staining her ivory night silk.

“No!” Arux shouted.

Callia staggered back, attempting to keep her organs from slipping through her fingers.

Before Vykinallia could blink, Arux was on her. Rage and loss accompanied every swing of his sword, swears and spittle flying as fast as his steel. Vykinallia blocked a vertical chop, countered a diagonal cut, but Arux dodged, punching with his free hand. His fist connected with Vykinallia’s cheek, spilling her to the side.

The world spun. Her ears rang.

Vykinallia pushed the ground away, seizing her unstable feet just in time to deflect a horizontal strike meant to cleave her head from her shoulders. The brand on her chest burned, and the stab wound on her shoulder screamed, but she would not allow Arux to leave these walls.

Gripping her short sword with both hands, Vykinallia swayed.

“Ilian…” Callia reached a weak and bloody hand for Arux.

Arux turned to his wife on the ground, her face a stark white against the pool of crimson that drowned her nightgown. Her outstretched arm fell to her side; her head hung limp.

Dead.

For a moment, Arux stared at his dead wife before setting his glossy eyes on Vykinallia.

The momentary distraction was enough. Vykinallia’s gaze steadied, her feet took purchase, and her grit returned. Arux let out a cry, and the two swords met with a clang.

Slash, stab, slice—Arux evaded. Thrust, punch, swing—Vykinallia dodged, ducked, and blocked. Arux’s wild attack careened off her sword, carrying him off-balance. Before he could resettle, Vykinallia thrust her point through Arux’s chest.

His eyes widened, looking down at the blade embedded beneath his collarbone.

Unwilling to make the same mistake twice, Vykinallia ripped the blade free and slapped Arux’s sword from his weakened fingers. With his steel no longer a threat, Vykinallia leveled her short sword at the apple of Arux’s throat, dropping him to his knees.

“You monster,” Arux said.

But when Vykinallia looked at him, all she saw was Nallia Cassius.

Fine amethysts adorned her neck and dangled from her ears. A gold-and-purple scorpion barrette pinned her hair to the side of her head, allowing her delicately braided hair to rest on her shoulder. Her emerald eyes, welling with tears, searched her.

“Why have you done this to us?” Nallia asked. “Why?”

Vykinallia swallowed. “Because we were wrong. What we were doing, how we were living—all of this…” She gestured to the ludus around her. “All of it is wrong.”

A group of Fallen stampeded out of the guards’ quarters into the area leading to the stables, Jechtaric, Iberion, and Unari leading the way. They jogged over to Vykinallia and the lanista kneeling before her.

Vykinallia returned her gaze to Nallia Cassius, blood leaking from her collarbone to stain her gold dress.

“I tried to save you,” Vykinallia said. “Why couldn’t you have just let them go?”

“They’re slaves,” Nallia growled. “You killed us… for slaves!”

A knot formed in Vykinallia’s throat. She looked up from Nallia to the gathered Fallen behind her. Bloodstained, scarred, branded—people. People worth killing for. Worth dying for.

If only you could see what I see.

Vykinallia closed her eyes and pressed the tip of her blade into Nallia Cassius’s throat. She kept her eyes closed as she retracted the blade and the body slumped to the ground. She kept her eyes closed as cheers erupted from the Fallen.

Finally, she opened them. She didn’t see Nallia Cassius bleeding in the dirt. She saw Arux and his wife. But deep down, she knew; Nallia Cassius was dead.

Chapter 34

Unwelcome Visitor

Threyna V

Valtarcia

Threyna sat cross-legged on the deck of the barge, hugging her knees. The black rot snaking through her veins hadn’t abated since conjuring the web to ensnare the Jackals. Her eyes fell to Zephyrus, lying on his back, hands clutched to his chest as it rose and fell in the tide of dreams.

If only sleep could cure my afflictions.

The magic Zephyrus wielded differed from what she’d witnessed from Erowen or any of the other Warlocks. He didn’t just possess one element, but several. He wasn’t limited to only elemental magic; he had healing, force, and manipulation magic as well.

Perhaps one will be effective on Tyrus.

Beyond his abilities, his selflessness struck her most. Tasked with saving the mortal realm from the Gods, he never lost sight of others in his path. He’d healed her to prevent Paxoran from consuming her, mended her ankle with an army of Jackals in pursuit, and freed the woodcutters—not to serve in his escape, but to liberate them.

The more impressed she became with him, the more her guilty conscience battered her. Since the Skeleton King’s return, she’d justified her deeds and misgivings as part of a greater good that no one else could understand.

But Zephyrus did.

And in the face of such odds, Zephyrus didn’t poison the people trying to help him, robbing them of their memories. He didn’t forge a letter to lead them away from his trail. Nor was he responsible for condemning others to slavery. He found a way when there was no way.

I did what was best for me. Easiest for me.

Zephyrus fidgeted in his sleep, again, muttering Vykinallia’s name.

Threyna wrinkled her nose. What’s so special about her?

The pang of jealousy added shame to her guilt. Threyna tossed her hands up and let them slap against her knees. She pushed herself to her feet under the darkening sky and nudged Zephyrus with her foot.

“Wake up, Zephyrus,” Threyna said, eyeing the riverbed for signs of Jackals.

Zephyrus groaned, stirring from sleep. He rubbed his eyes with his fists before sitting up and taking in their surroundings. “What is that smell?”

Threyna sniffed the air. The water was far from clear, so Threyna had dismissed the smell as the river. She shrugged. “We need to get off the river; don’t wanna meet Lenox again.”

“He’ll be scouring the countryside for us,” Zephyrus said. “All of Valtarcia will be teeming with Jackals.”

Threyna grunted. “There’s a village up ahead to the east. The river is too wide to ford, and we have yet to pass any bridges for them to cross. We can hide out, I can consume, and we can figure out next steps to avoid more encounters with the Jackals.”

Zephyrus stood, dusting himself off. “Should be safe for the night. I can heal you.”

“We don’t have time for you to take another half-day coma,” Threyna snapped. As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Zephyrus stammered, but offered no response, which only made Threyna feel worse.

“Come on,” Threyna said in a more affable tone. “Let’s see what we find in the village.”

Agreeing to let the barge continue to float downriver to not arouse suspicions of their whereabouts, they dove into the river and swam to the eastern shore. Their feet squelched through the mud of the riverbed, and they realized the source of the foul smell. Dead fish lined the shore, bloated and rancid.

“Gory ghosts.” Threyna wrapped the Orsion Cloak’s hood over her nose, but the river water wasn’t much of an improvement. “What could have caused this?”

Zephyrus gestured skyward at the encroaching night. “Aquarius is dead. It won’t rain, and the seas will continue to rage. Is it any surprise that the rivers have soured? Soon, fires will consume the earth, and blood will come for all, heralding in the Age of the End.”

“The traitor God’s doing…” Paxoran played me for a fool. Yet another area where Zephyrus succeeded and I failed.

Zephyrus tiptoed around the dead fish and onto the dying grass, heading south. Threyna wrinkled her nose as she wrung the water from her cloak, following in his footsteps. With their clothes wet, the setting sun brought an unwelcome chill, but the riverfront village in the distance would offer a more proper succor than they received in the Silver Summits.

They took the long way around the village, giving their clothes more time to dry and creating the illusion that they’d come from the city and not the river, should anyone bother to notice. The two walked in silence. The entire time, Threyna resisted the urge to ask Zephyrus about Vykinallia. It wasn’t until they approached the sign that read “Welcome to Valenforth” that Zephyrus spoke.

“If we come across Lenox again,” he said, “if the opportunity should present itself without putting us in any more danger than we already are, let me kill him.”

The sternness in Zephyrus’s tone and the hard line of his brow took her aback.

“What happened between you two?”

Zephyrus huffed. “He tried to kill me on… five separate occasions?” Opening his cloak, he lifted his tunic to show a canvas of old scars. He pointed to two different scars. “Here and here, when he sent me into the arena against six other gladiators with a broken sword.” He turned and raised his tunic higher to reveal a gash, more wound than scar, under his ribs. “And here, when he stabbed me during a melee.”

Threyna winced. Lenox might have inflicted the injury, but I am the one who put you in irons. “That one looks fresh. You can’t heal yourself?”

Zephyrus shook his head.

“We need to dress that,” Threyna said.

“Don’t wanna risk infection, eh?” Zephyrus said in a clear imitation of someone Threyna didn’t know. When she didn’t respond, Zephyrus cleared his throat. “Sorry, just… that reminded me of someone, that’s all.”

Threyna forced a smile and nodded. She didn’t need to ask who.

She cleared her throat. “So you and Lenox have quite the history.”

Zephyrus, remembering himself, turned back to her. “It’s not about me. I could forget what he did to me, but I’ll never forget nor forgive what he did to Patrus.”

Threyna balked. The only person Threyna wanted to discuss less than Vykinallia was Patrus. Throat tight, she forced the words out. “What happened to Patrus?”

Zephyrus took a deep breath. “He didn’t survive the slavers’ auction. Lenox would have killed me too if I didn’t have that letter promising me as an emissary of peace to King Varros.”

The rot in her veins seemed to stop her heart. I told the slavers we’d be at Tharseo’s Bastion. I sent Patrus to his death and Zephyrus down a tortuous path. She swallowed the knot growing in her throat as if guilt could be ingested.

With Threyna unable to talk about it anymore, and Zephyrus unwilling to, they continued in silence until they arrived in Valenforth.

Though Zephyrus was surprised there were no guards to get past, Threyna wasn’t. In her experience, those who lived this far from the protection of city walls tended to live equally as far outside the laws. Walking the few dirt tracks between shoddily built structures only proved her theory. The village—more of a rest stop on the way anywhere else—appeared to be more a home for gamblers who didn’t pay their debts, drunkards who’d been kicked out of all the taverns in the city, or thieves looking to take advantage of either.

“I don’t like this,” Zephyrus whispered, tugging his damp cloak tighter around himself.

“This is perfect,” Threyna said. The crowds of people benefited her; she could siphon off others’ vitality as they passed. It wouldn’t be enough to abate all of the rot, or even most of it, but every bit helped, and this way didn’t require consuming a soul.

She patted Zephyrus on the back, taking care not to draw from him. “We fit right in. Besides, no one here will want to talk to anyone who looks like they wield the king’s steel. Lenox probably wouldn’t want to be here anymore than you.”

Zephyrus grunted as a young man ran past with a freshly cut purse in his hands, a much larger man with fists balled following in his wake. He secured his belt. “Yeah, we’ll fit right in.”

“Relax,” Threyna said. “We have nothing worth stealing, and it’s not like we don’t know how to handle ourselves in a fight. Let’s see if we can get that wound cleaned up and find a quiet place to eat and lay our heads—preferably somewhere without fleas.”

“You’re forgetting one thing—we don’t have any coin.”

Threyna smiled, flashing the tip of a silver dagger hidden beneath her sleeve. She began to stumble, feigning drunkenness, and as they walked past a band of men wearing silver brooches marked with five vertical arrows, Threyna bumped into the last one in the group. She slashed the purse strings with a flick of her wrist, caught the heavy pouch with her other hand, and slipped it beneath her cloak.

“Apologies,” Threyna said, holding up her empty hand.

The grizzled man growled, his eyes searching her with an unfocused diligence, having been too deep in his cups. He shoved her away and moved off as Zephyrus and Threyna continued onward.

“What was that about?” Zephyrus asked.

With the pouch tucked into her belt beneath her cloak, she nudged Zephyrus’s arm. “We’re going to eat a proper meal.”

If a proper meal was possible in Valenforth, she would have kept her word, but the dining selection was similar to her time with the Underground back in Rheynia. The options were simple: eat what they had or don’t eat. With only one inn to choose from, they entered The Lion’s Bane.

Candles placed at the center of long tables did little to illuminate the crowded room, but sound filled the small tavern. Threyna opened up her Inner Throne, siphoning more vitality from the large gathering in the confined space.

A bard plucked strings on his lyre, singing about how death had come to visit the royals of New Rheynia. Each noble name he mentioned was greeted by a cheer. Threyna considered the bard’s song and the crowd’s response. If they’re cheering for death, they’ll be pleased when the Skeleton King arrives.

Zephyrus and Threyna cut between tables topped with food and drink, weaving their way to an open table by the hearth on the opposite side of the tavern from the bard. Surveying her surroundings, Threyna scanned the crowd for any threats. In the flickering torchlight that adorned the back wall, a barman served drinks to an impatient crowd, and a barmaid carried trays of stew to handsy men, but no one appeared to be an imminent threat.

She and Zephyrus took seats on rickety chairs before an unbalanced table by the fire.

“Should be fine here,” Threyna said.

Zephyrus grunted, but sitting up tall and staring at the crowd, his alertness was conspicuous in a place like this.

She put her hand on his arm. “Keep your head down, stay quiet, and let me do the talking.”

“Not the talking I’m worried about.” Zephyrus nodded at the bard and the bar. “The names?”

Between siphoning vitality from others and inspecting the crowd for threats, Threyna hadn’t noticed names on the wall. Behind the barman, between the shelves of spirits, names lined the wooden planks, each accompanied by a number. Some of the names were crossed out.

King Varros Helixus 1000

Laeden Helixus 800

Queen Danella Drake 1000

Markus Cassius 400

King Damascus Helixus 1000

Nallia Cassius 400

Duke Lentulis Cassius 750

Baron Ebron Brusos 250
Duke Ebron Brusos 500

Duke Hallon Helixus 600

Count Elrod Horne 400

Duke Horus Helixus 500

Zephyrus 250 500 1000 1500

Threyna yanked Zephyrus down towards the table. “Gory ghosts, why is your name on a wall with nobles?”

“Why is Vykinallia’s?” Zephyrus hissed, ripping his arm free.

Threyna looked back at the board, having not noticed Vykinallia. Seeing Nallia’s name, Threyna exhaled through her teeth, understanding.

The barmaid leaned down, whispering to another man while jotting notes in a ledger. She held out her palm, and the man handed over a coin purse.

“It’s gambling,” Threyna said. “On who will die next.”

“So she’s still alive,” Zephyrus said. “And so is Laeden.”

“You won’t be for much longer if anyone recognizes you,” Threyna said. “Wait here. I’ll buy us a room. You can hide up there. Then I’ll bring your food up to you.”

Zephyrus grunted. “We eat, and we leave.”

“We’ll see. Just wait here,” Threyna said. “Don’t talk to anyone.”

She stood from her wobbly chair and approached the bar as the barmaid made her way behind the counter. The barmaid was too young for life to have gobbled her up and spat her out in a ghost-forsaken place like The Lion’s Bane, but here she was, collecting bets on which noble would die first in a blood sport that made gladiator fights seem mild.

The barkeep threw a grimy rag at the barmaid and slid a newly washed, albeit still dirty, goblet in her direction. As she began drying the goblet with the sullied rag, she met Threyna’s gaze. The barmaid had short black hair, a narrow chin, and a knife strapped to her hip, doing her best to make it look like she belonged here.

“Whatcha havin’?” the barmaid asked.

“How much for a room and two bowls of stew?”

The barmaid’s lips parted in a wicked grin. She placed the goblet down and leaned over the bar. “I don’t recognize that accent. Where ya from?”

Threyna swallowed the urge to reply with snark. Wine will suit me better than Valefyre. “Here, same as you. But my uncle’s Rheynian accent is still thick.”

She raised a black painted eyebrow. “Old Rheynia, eh?” She smiled at Threyna. “Very few women come here. Ya know that, right?”

Threyna glanced around, nodding.

“I’ll tell ya what,” the barmaid said leaning closer. “Keep your coin and you can share my room if you like.” She took the hood of the Orsion Cloak between her thumb and forefinger.

Threyna smiled curtly. “Afraid I’m traveling with my… husband.” As the barmaid turned toward Zephyrus, Threyna redirected her chin with the touch of her index finger. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t sneak out of my room, does it?”

The barmaid hummed. “A room and two stews?”

“Make it four stews,” Threyna said. “And some bread. Salt beef if you got it.”

When the barmaid raised her eyebrow, Threyna hefted her stolen purse onto the countertop. “He’ll fall asleep faster with a full belly.”

It wasn’t long before the barmaid escorted them upstairs into the inn and unlocked a door at the end of the hall. Using a candle that brightened their way, she lit two others, on either side of the sunken mattress. The room was small, dark, and dingier than the tavern downstairs, but it would beat freezing in the Silver Summits or sleeping on the riverbed of dead fish.

“I’ll bring your supper up soon,” the barmaid said, as she paused in the doorway. “Anything else?” She winked at Threyna.

“That’ll be fine,” Zephyrus said, closing the door on the barmaid. He waited for her footsteps to retreat down the hall before looking at Threyna. “What was that about?”

“Don’t ask. But a little flirting should get some extra food.”

Zephyrus stiffened. “I wasn’t flirting.”

“Gory ghosts, are you sure?” Threyna chortled. “I was talking about me.”

Zephyrus scratched the back of his neck and sighed. “You should get some rest before we leave. I’ll wake you when our food arrives.”

“We’ll be fine,” Threyna said. “There’s no reason why we can’t spend the night.” She held the candle to inspect the lumpy bed. “I don’t even see any fleas.”

She plopped down onto one side of the bed, placing her hands behind her head and crossing her feet. Her aching arches eased, pleased to be unburdened. Zephyrus’s pacing, however, didn’t allow for much relaxation. He stalked over to the window and wiped the pane to peer outside. After a moment, he pulled the curtains closed.

“Lie down,” Threyna said. “We won’t get many beds to sleep in after this.”

“Bed,” Zephyrus said. “Singular.”

Threyna snorted. “I might not be Vykinallia, but that didn’t stop you from snuggling up last night.”

Zephyrus’s glare fixed her before he finally deflated. Shoulders slumping, he crashed down to sit at the foot of the bed, burying his face in his hands. “Apologies. The more my memories come back, the more I wish I would have… I don’t know. Done things differently, you know? It’s almost as if I needed all this to happen—to humble me before…” He gestured with his hand. “I don’t know. Whatever lies ahead.”

Threyna turned onto her side, looking away from Zephyrus. The affable tenor of her teasing dissipated to ash. He thinks fate enslaved him… to humble him for a greater purpose. The notion that there was a purpose for his pain was almost comical, or at least it would have been if it didn’t make her stomach churn. Even after an entire day without food, her appetite shriveled.

“I don’t know about that,” Threyna said. “Sometimes, bad things just happen, I suppose.”

Zephyrus shrugged. “I don’t believe anything is random. There are no coincidences. Things happen for a reason, even if we don’t understand how or why. Maybe one day we will. Maybe we’ll never know.”

Threyna swallowed, hugging herself. You can never know.

Spared by a knock at the door and the arrival of their supper, Threyna and Zephyrus ate in silence. Zephyrus slurped down the last of his second stew before Threyna had managed half of her first. Though the salty stock filled with poultry and vegetables tasted fine, her stomach protested each bite. Realizing she wasn’t going to touch her second helping, she offered it to Zephyrus.

“This beats the gruel they served in the barracks,” Zephyrus said. “I haven’t had a—”

Another knock at the door.

Zephyrus locked eyes with Threyna.

She settled him with a wave of her hand. “Probably just the barmaid.” She got up from the bed to answer the door, but when she opened it, the barmaid wasn’t on the other side.

A glowing red eye pierced the dimly lit hall. “Did you think we wouldn’t find you?” Tyrus asked.

Threyna gasped, stepping backwards as Tyrus entered the room, Erowen at his side. Zephyrus bolted upright, spilling his stew to the floor as he drew his bladeless hilt, the sword forming at his touch. “Tyrus.”

Tyrus ignored Zephyrus. “Give me the Treasures, Threyna. No one needs to get hurt.”

Threyna reached for the Vykane Blade at her belt, but Tyrus shoved the hilt back into its scabbard. He opened his mouth to speak, but Zephyrus leapt around Threyna and stabbed at Tyrus’s chest.

Upon impact, a concussive blast sent all four of them flying in opposite directions. Threyna slammed into the adjacent wall. Zephyrus flew over the bed, across the room, and bounced off the far wall to catch himself in a low crouch. Tyrus and Erowen were ejected from the room, back into the corridor.

Not knowing what force had blown them all apart, Threyna searched for someone else. Another mage? No one was in the room. If anyone else was in the hall, Tyrus and Erowen gave no indication of noticing as they charged back inside.

Threyna stepped back, drawing her dagger, and slashed at Tyrus. He avoided the first, dodged the second, and, with a spinning backhanded strike, sent Threyna reeling into the wall.

Zephyrus vaulted over the bed to attack Tyrus, but Erowen shot a pillar of fire at him. Zephyrus raised his left arm, a shield of water appearing just in time to nullify the blaze.

His magic is working!

As Zephyrus positioned himself between Tyrus and Erowen, he stabbed at the back of Tyrus’s legs and threw Erowen back into the hall with a kick to the chest.

Threyna used the distraction to plant her dagger into Tyrus’s thigh.

Tyrus roared. Zephyrus slammed the door shut and locked it, sealing Erowen in the hall. Two on one, they pressed their advantage. Zephyrus conjured a fire dagger in his left hand and jabbed at Tyrus. Tyrus blocked, countered, and punched Zephyrus in the chest, but Zephyrus held his ground and planted the fire dagger into Tyrus’s neck.

Tyrus’s red eye glowed, but showed no other sign of pain from the lethal blow. The fire in Zephyrus’s hands extinguished without a tendril of smoke. Tyrus kicked Zephyrus’s hip, shoving him backward. When Zephyrus came away, there was no sign of the strike he’d landed on Tyrus.

“Impossible,” Zephyrus said.

The outline of the door glowed orange as heat emanated into the room.

Sweat beading, heart pumping, Threyna kicked at the side of Tyrus’s knee. He buckled, but as Zephyrus charged in, the door blew off the hinges and crashed into him, knocking Zephyrus off target. With flames ringing the doorframe, Erowen stepped inside and hurled a ball of fire at Zephyrus. He dodged and conjured a new water shield to douse the flames, but fire caught the linens of the bed and the window curtains.

Threyna swiped at Tyrus again, but he caught her wrist with one hand and seized her by the throat with the other. Her breath ceased. Pressure built behind her eyes. She attempted to wrench her wrist free, but Tyrus’s grip was too strong. With her free hand, she tore at Tyrus’s chokehold, but he was unrelenting.

He leaned close, his red eye glinting in the fire’s light.

“Kill them both!” Paxoran’s voice bled into her mind as if he were shouting from the other end of the hall.

“Didn’t have to be like this,” Tyrus said, squeezing. “I’ll do with the Treasures what you never could; I’ll reclaim Stockhelm. I’ll kill your Skeleton King. And with his cursed magic, I’ll rule Perillian. I won’t fail—like you did.”

As the pressure behind her eyes grew and her periphery narrowed, even the fires consuming the room fell from view. Unable to claw his hand free, she attempted to tap into her Inner Throne, but as always, Tyrus prevented her. With one last gambit, she reached for Tyrus’s face. Her nails dug into the flesh around his orbital bone.

He reared, grunting, but Threyna reached for his false red eye. Tyrus roared and threw her to the floor, but in the process, she ripped his false eye free from his socket. Tyrus screamed.

Air flooded Threyna’s lungs, her throat aching with each labored gasp. Smoke filled the room as tongues of fire licked at the ceiling. Wood cracked. Smoldering plaster fell, casting embers to the ground.

Zephyrus stabbed Erowen through the shoulder and kicked her into the burning wall. He wheeled, his eyes wild as they took in the sight of Threyna on the ground, Tyrus standing over her. He held his hand up, and a torrent of water crashed into Tyrus’s back.

Tyrus was jettisoned off his feet. The force of the blast hurled him through the inn’s thin walls into the neighboring room.

His magic… it worked?

With Tyrus’s red false eye in one hand, her dagger in the other, she wondered if he was now vulnerable to magic. Threyna attempted to center herself on her Inner Throne. She could finish Tyrus off once and for all, claim the Aeryean Armor, and have all three Treasures to defeat the Skeleton King.

She pushed herself to her feet, facing Tyrus through the hole in the wall. He panted, water dripping down the Aeryean Armor. Lines of blood framed his empty right eye socket.

Zephyrus shouted to her, but Threyna couldn’t hear. Ears ringing, the world burning around her, she blocked it all out, but still couldn’t seat herself on her Inner Throne.

Tyrus launched himself at her. She stabbed at his chest, but her dagger couldn’t penetrate the Aeryean Armor. He seized her wrist, the one holding his false eye. As he yanked it from her fingers, she slashed at his neck. He jerked at the last second, her dagger slicing his cheek. Tyrus stumbled back, falling through the hole in the wall into the adjacent room.

A bolt of lightning shot through the air, but fizzled out before it reached him.

It’s the eye…

“Threyna,” Zephyrus shouted. “We have to get out!”

Erowen’s fire had consumed the room. Cries from neighboring rooms suggested they’d spread. With Tyrus gaining his feet in the other room and Erowen clawing herself up the wall in the opposite corner, Zephyrus stumbled toward the window.

Whatever progress he’d made recovering from his magic fatigue was gone. Threyna didn’t want to leave. Not without the Aeryean Armor.

The beam supporting the ceiling cracked, showering a rain of embers around them. Conceding, Threyna followed Zephyrus to the window as he flung it open.

“You first,” Zephyrus said.

She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

“I don’t trust you to leave on your own. Out!”

With a grunt, she swung her leg through the window, ducked her head underneath, and lowered herself down until her hands held the windowsill. She let go. Far enough away from Tyrus, she conjured small blood wings to slow her fall. She landed hard but unharmed, amongst a gathering of people in the street gawking at the fires swallowing the inn.

Zephyrus leapt through the window, headfirst, as an explosion of flames tore after him.

People cried out, pointing as he soared through the air.

Threyna’s stomach lurched as if she were the one falling.

Zephyrus tumbled through the air, crashing through a pavilion’s roof on the opposite side of the street. Threyna ran to him, her throat aching from being choked, her lungs heaving in the aftermath of smoke inhalation. Her heart hammered in her chest, but the corruption spreading through her body paled in comparison to the fear of Zephyrus’s well-being.

Shocked onlookers surrounded the pavilion Zephyrus crashed into. Threyna forced her way between them to find Zephyrus hauling himself to his feet.

Threyna sighed between her panting as she closed the distance between them. He staggered, blood dripping from his nose, eyes, and ears.

Gory ghosts.

Threyna wrapped her arm around his waist and slung his over her shoulder. “We need to get out of here before someone recognizes you.”

The roof of The Lion’s Bane Inn caved in, drawing gasps from the gathered onlookers. But as many flocked to witness the destruction, Threyna and Zephyrus limped out of Valenforth.

“That’s what Paxoran wanted to turn me into,” Zephyrus said once they’d gotten south of the village. “If not for the true Judge who saved me from him, I might’ve been worse than Tyrus.”

Threyna shook her head, still holding him close as they walked. “You could never be like him, Zephyrus.” It hurt to speak, but he needed to hear. “You’re nothing like him.”

Zephyrus grunted. “He needs to be stopped. The way he nullified my magic—I’ve never seen anything like it. We need the relic. It might have magic that can defeat him.”

“It’s his eye,” Threyna said, thinking of what had transpired. “His eye nullifies magic. When I held it, I couldn’t tap into my Inner Throne, but you were able to hit him with water.”

Zephyrus nodded, his eyes half-opened. “Then we must take his eye when we meet again.”

Threyna pursed her lips. Bleeding out of every orifice, he’s still willing to fight with me. When she held Tyrus’s eye and thought she could use her blood magic to kill him and seize the Aeryean Armor, her future passed before her eyes. She envisioned killing the Skeleton King, but she saw nothing of returning to Tharseo’s Bastion with Zephyrus. If I claimed all three Treasures, would I have abandoned him again? Would I let him claim the relic and face Paxoran alone after all he’s done for me?

She hated herself for it. Never again. I won’t leave him.

Yet even as she affirmed herself, a small, soft voice in the back of her head spoke. “But if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t take another step beside you.”

She held Zephyrus closer to her as they walked along the river. Then he must never know.

Chapter 35

A Light in the Dark

Vykinallia VI

Stockhelm

Vykinallia scratched at her bandaged right shoulder. The scabbing flesh stuck to the linens; it would need to be changed again, but Vykinallia didn’t mind. Cerik had dressed her wound the first time with a tenderness she still was not accustomed to seeing from him. Unari had the second time and even managed a compliment of sorts, commending Vykinallia for “...not dying…”

There was something about the smell of antiseptic and the texture of the bandages that reminded her of when she had first gotten to know Zephyrus in the medicus’s chambers.

She rubbed the elbow he had healed the night of the mages’ escape from Sentigard’s dungeons. The tension in her back subsided at the touch and the sentiment that accompanied the memory, but the developing conversation made her stomach twist in knots.

Lenara, Sinion, and a group of about fifty freedpeople and mages arrived at House Arux three days after their assault on the lesser lanista’s ludus. Since then, Iberion had led two more assaults on even smaller ludi in the surrounding countryside. The smaller ludi provided little resistance. Relegated to the fighting pits and unable to compete upon the sands, low lanistas didn’t have the coin for more than a handful of gladiators and a few guards. But with each victory, their numbers grew—as did their hideouts and their strongholds to launch future attacks from. With such footing, the Fallen were positioned to take action otherwise unimaginable, but with growth came growing pains.

“It’s too risky,” Sinion said, shaking his jowls as he sat atop a dais overlooking the showroom and the twenty or so Fallen included in the conversation. “The dead are still being buried in the training squares after these victories. It is too soon to attack a ludus as well fortified as Brusos’s.”

Vykinallia winced. It wasn’t Brusos’s ludus. It was her father’s. But he was dead. Sinion told her that her father was found dead in the aftermath of Laeden’s trial, Zephyrus’s defiance, and the outbreak that followed.

She thought she would have cried upon hearing such news. She felt guilty that it didn’t pain her as much as it ought to have, yet she couldn’t separate the father who’d raised her from the power-craving tyrant he’d become. Unable to reconcile the two, fact replaced emotion, and the fact was Brusos had taken over her family’s ludus, and her mother was still there—his prisoner, or worse.

Arux and Callia’s still and bloody bodies flashed before Vykinallia’s eyes. She squeezed them shut, nervously pinching her earlobe with her thumb and forefinger, but the image remained.

“Sinion is right,” Lenara said. “Caution is our greatest ally, and that fight is not one we can win alone.”

Joru, the freed former gladiator from Ulysius’s ludus, stepped forward, head bowed. “We have allies in the north. King Laeden liberated us. How many more has he freed? We might not be so alone.”

Vykinallia had spoken with Joru once they’d both arrived at House Arux. Asking about Laeden, she hoped to glean some insight as to what he was doing, what he was planning, and who else was with them. She’d held out a small hope that perhaps Zephyrus—the chosen champion to deliver the crown’s justice during Laeden’s rigged trial—was still with him. Though Joru had no knowledge of any mages in Laeden’s company, and he didn’t recognize Vykinallia’s description of Zephyrus, he did recognize that of her brother.

Markus was alive. A fugitive but, so far as she could tell, a living one. Did you cry when you learned of Father’s death? As much as she hoped the pressure their father had imposed on Markus was enough to stem his tears, just so she wouldn’t feel so alone in her guilt, she knew it wasn’t true. Despite the numerous disagreements that led her brother to abandon his birthright and pursue becoming the Royal Master at Arms, he was a good son. A good man. She knew he cried for their father, and even in a crowded room, that only made her feel more alone.

Lenara cleared her throat as she considered Joru. She adjusted in her seat at the mention of her son’s name, clearly uncomfortable.

So much for Laeden doing this on behalf of his mother.

“While we may have a common enemy,” Sinion said, “do not confuse King Laeden for an ally. He will do what serves him. He is a crownless usurper concerned only with the pursuit of his own legitimacy.”

Joru pursed his lips, slipping back into the crowd in the silence that followed.

“If I may…” Falcos stepped into view, his hands clutching the hem of his tunic. “How many of us are there? How many, like Joru, are freed and searching for us? I spent three days scouring the jungles before finding my home here. If we took the ludus in the Hylans, we could defend it. We could announce ourselves as a haven for refugees, instead of hiding and waiting for our potential allies to fall to our enemies.”

Sinion bristled. “There is no potential in an alliance. Unless you wish to bow to King Laeden in place of King Damascus? Return to chains under the thumb of a new master?”

“No,” Falcos said, bowing. “I am not suggesting an alliance, merely that we cannot afford to let the enemy of our enemy fall. But if we wish to hold ground like the Hylan ludus, we cannot take it alone. With this King Laeden, if he were to join us, even for a short time, we could take the Hylan and fight for freedom from under one roof; we could become an army capable of defeating an empire. But if we wait, King Laeden could fall into the snares of our more immediate enemies, and then they could consolidate their focus on exterminating us.”

Falcos’s words faded, but the hush it left over those gathered continued. Vykinallia had difficulty removing her personal feelings towards Laeden, and the possibility that Zephyrus might be with him, in order to consider Falcos’s request without bias. She couldn’t imagine how Lenara felt discussing her estranged son. She wanted to say something, but her feet remained anchored to the floor, her lips sealed.

“What are you proposing?” Lenara asked.

“Send a messenger to Valtarcia to treat with King Laeden,” Falcos said. “Invite him to join us so that, together, we can claim ground worth defending… instead of hiding.”

Sinion’s nostrils flared as he seethed, but mutters broke out amongst the others, considering Falcos’s proposal.

Joru raised his voice again. “I will go as messenger.” Once the room quieted, he bowed his head and spoke in a lower voice. “I would not be here without King Laeden.”

Sinion exhaled, but his demeanor remained placid. “It is too great a risk.” He glanced at Lenara. “Personal relationships aside, we cannot send even one ship to Valtarcia. There are too many variables we cannot account for.”

Iberion approached the dais. “Sinion is right. We don’t need everyone together to be unified. We have existed since 940 without being under one roof, and look at the progress we’ve made.” Iberion held his hands up to the domed ceiling of the showroom.

Vykinallia bit her lip. They were hiding underground three days ago. This progress wouldn’t have been made without being bold. Her weight shifted towards her toes, but Iberion spoke again before she could muster the courage.

“We can take Stockhelm back on our own,” Iberion said. “We can create a true sanctuary. But we have work to do here. If King Laeden comes to Stockhelm and wishes to join us, let him, but we should not risk our position for a dozen Ridge Knights and a self-styled king.”

Vykinallia’s chest reverberated with words left unsaid. Falcos was right. Before Falcos delivered her to them, the Fallen’s greatest contribution to the Stockhelm people was providing a hole in the ground in the middle of a jungle.

They’re not fighting to win. They’re fighting not to lose.

Vykinallia rubbed her elbow. Zephyrus wouldn’t wait for an army to come to him. He would build it—in spite of the risk. To wait is to die.

“Some believe the Judges permitted the enslavement of Stockhelm’s people,” Vykinallia said. Those around her turned in her direction, mutters rippling throughout the crowd. Her throat tightened, but she pushed through.

“How many here share that belief?” Vykinallia asked. When no one answered, she weaved through the crowd to join Iberion at the front of the dais. “You see, those who believe their enslavement to be the Judges’ punishment will not take action. Lured into passivity, they will live and die in slavery. Their children will live and die never knowing freedom.”

The mutterings grew again as if she hadn’t earned the right to speak. Iberion’s one-eyed glare held her, but he didn’t silence her. Sinion steepled his fingers over his belly. Lenara inclined her head as if curious to see where Vykinallia was going.

Vykinallia climbed onto the dais. “You all believe the Judges have been silenced, imprisoned, or slain by the Valencian Gods. And so you fight. You do not wait for the Judges to regain their voices, break free from their bindings, or be resurrected—you fight to speak. You fight to break chains. You are the revival they wait for.”

“She’s right,” Falcos said.

Joru raised his fist before him. “We balance the scales.”

As more chimed in, Vykinallia waved her arm at their surroundings. “Look where we are. You dwell, absent chains, in the house of a slaver. Did this happen through passivity—waiting?”

“No!” a chorus cried, echoing off the columns upholding the vaulted ceiling.

With the knot in her throat gone, Vykinallia pointed at Joru. “Did Laeden liberate House Ulysius without a fight—without risk?”

“No!” the former gladiators of Ulysius’s ludus shouted.

Vykinallia turned to Lenara and Sinion and stepped backwards off of the dais with a bow.

“Laeden is freeing the enslaved,” Vykinallia said. “You might see him as a future enemy, and… maybe that is true. But if we were to add him to our cause, we could take back Stockhelm. He is already fighting for us, but like Falcos said, we can bring him here to fight alongside us.”

Many cheered in support of Vykinallia, but Lenara gave no indication of conviction.

Lenara stood, quieting the showroom. She released a long exhale. “Some of you know, but most don’t. Some rumors have circulated, so allow me to put a stop to them. Laeden is my son. But I have not seen him since the Treaty was signed. I have not had contact with him in nearly twenty years. Whatever he is doing in Valtarcia is not on my orders but his own volition.

“I will not risk any of the ships we commandeered or send anyone on a reckless mission without careful planning. But, Vykinallia, if you and Joru wish to take Laeden’s ship, you can take six others for one night. If you cannot find him to deliver your invitation, or if he will not come with you, you return. Is that understood?”

Vykinallia had to purse her lips to keep herself from smiling. “Yes, Lenara.”

Lenara took her leave, and soon, those gathered in the showroom followed. Joru, three of his men, Falcos, Jechtaric, Cerik, Sett, Dankar, Unari, and Iberion remained.

“Do you believe Zephyrus is with him?” Cerik asked, pulling Vykinallia off to the side.

Her stomach fluttered at the mention of his name. “I don’t know. But whether he is or isn’t, Laeden and the Ridge Knights could help us.”

Cerik nodded.

Jechtaric draped an arm around Vykinallia’s and Cerik’s shoulders, tugging them into an awkward group hug. “We’re in.”

Cerik grunted. “Not eager to be on a ship again, but if he’s in—”

“That’s the spirit,” Jechtaric said.

Vykinallia grinned at the familiarity. Ever since the battle outside Arux’s stables, Jechtaric had treated her differently—one of the few positives to offset the image of Arux’s and Callia’s fallen forms.

“I will go,” Joru said.

Iberion grunted at Falcos. “Not you?”

Falcos smiled obsequiously. “Can’t one make a suggestion without carrying it out?”

Iberion crossed his arms. “Anyone else?”

Sett thumped his meaty fist against his chest. “I’m going.”

As Dankar was about to raise his hand, Unari shoved his arm down.

Iberion tilted his head. “You too?”

Unari grinned. “I’ll make sure they don’t waste one of our ships.”

With their party assembled, Iberion dismissed them to leave once they’d gathered supplies. As they left the showroom to move to purpose, Falcos tapped Vykinallia on the elbow.

“Might I have a quick word?”

Vykinallia nodded at the others, allowing them to go on ahead. Once only the two of them remained, Vykinallia said, “I actually wanted to speak with you too. I wouldn’t have had the courage to say something if you hadn’t first.”

Falcos smiled, his pale gray eyes narrowed to slits. “Though I’m pleased with the result, it shouldn’t be you going to Valtarcia.”

Vykinallia examined him. Not much taller or broader than her, he wasn’t intimidating, but something in his gaze sent her stammering. “What do you mean?”

“You’re too valuable,” Falcos said, crossing his arms over his chest. “They’re foolish for not seeing it, but they need you. Lenara, Sinion, Iberion—they’ve been fighting this war for so long they lost sight of what victory could look like. They only wish to hold what little power they have until the inevitable, but you—” He shook his head. “You believe we could win.”

“Of course I do,” Vykinallia said. “For whatever reasons, you brought me to them. Now, fate has intervened. There is a purpose for all of this, bigger than we can understand, but I believe we are fighting on the winning side. That’s why I must go to Valtarcia, and you should come with me.”

Falcos hummed, unfolding his arms to caress the side of her cheek. Vykinallia pursed her lips. The proximity of his hands to her face reminded her of the rag he covered her mouth with when he attacked her at the Chariot’s Arena. She held her breath as nausea rose to the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, shaking away the thought. She didn’t want to relive what he put her through or blame him for what he intended for her.

“I’m not much of a fighter,” Falcos said. “You’ll be better protected by the others, but please, be careful, Vykinallia. You are a beacon of light in a dark world, but eventually, all candles burn out.” He let his hand fall away from her cheek and strode from the showroom.

Vykinallia remained fixed long after he’d gone. She took a deep breath, attempting to stifle the trauma of her abduction at Falcos’s hands. Shaking her head, she turned her thoughts toward Zephyrus’s prophecy.

Under cloaks and shadows he hides to bring light to those hoping.

“Even a dim candle can light others,” Vykinallia said to herself. “Together, Zephyrus, we can fend off the darkness.”

Chapter 36

Crack the Sky

Zephyrus VI, Threyna VI, Laeden VIII, Vykinallia VII

Valtarcia

Zephyrus

Torches lined the river to cast dancing shadows along the rows of tents. Seeing them splayed out on either side of the river, the yellow-and-black sea of Jackals seemed insurmountable. Zephyrus punched the ground between the roots of the tree they crouched behind.

“We never should have taken a day of rest,” Zephyrus said.

Threyna squatted beside him, resting her back against the tree’s trunk. “Yeah, we shoulda marched out of Valenforth and challenged them before they set up camp. Oh, wait, you were bleeding out of your ghosting eyes, remember?”

Zephyrus growled. “We both will be if we can’t find a way around them.”

“There’s only one way,” Threyna said. “The same way.” She pointed past the tree, beyond the Jackals, to the shipyard. “Those ships didn’t build themselves, just like the trees upriver didn’t fall on their own. Past the bow of that ship, see that longhouse? I’d bet all the darklings in the soul jar that there are scores of people chained within.”

Zephyrus scrunched his brow. “The what in the what?”

“Never mind that,” Threyna said. “The only way past the Jackals is freeing the enslaved.”

“We’d still have to get past the Jackals,” Zephyrus said. “And besides, we’re not putting more people at risk to save ourselves.”

Threyna put her hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. Her angled sapphire glare cut through him. “Then we’re not saving anyone else—not from the Skeleton King’s horde, Paxoran’s plots, or the Age of the End.”

“There’s got to be another way.” Zephyrus considered every memory he had of using his magic. He could bend sound and light to obscure their approach, but that was difficult with the noise of the camp and the flickering torches. Even in perfect conditions, it was a gambit that, should it fail, would leave them surrounded.

“We can go back,” Threyna said. “Cross the bridge we slept under, head back to the isthmus, scale down the cliffs to the water, and then pray you can heal me long enough to conjure a boat that can reach Stockhelm against the wind. But we’re likely to run into Tyrus and Erowen again.”

Zephyrus closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his palm. “As much as I enjoyed your friends, I’m not eager to see them again.”

“Me either,” Threyna said. “So our options are to create a diversion, unleash the enslaved, and steal a boat without anyone noticing, or try our luck entering Valtarcia’s walls.”

Zephyrus massaged his temples. He couldn’t afford to waste more time. His mother, imprisoned by the Gods, couldn’t afford more time. Threyna was right, but there had to be a better way than using the enslaved as fodder. A thought took shape into a plan—a mad plan—the type that only Jecht would be brash enough to consider.

He turned to Threyna from his crouched position. “I have an idea. You’re not going to like it. But I need to try something first.”

Laeden

“There are too many,” Markus said.

Laeden couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen so many Jackals in one place before, but there they were—camped on either side of the river on the opposite end of the shipyard. There was no way they could defeat the shipyard masters or liberate the enslaved without summoning the entire pack of Jackals.

“Zephyrus must be near,” Laeden said.

“Even more of a reason for us to turn back.” Markus grabbed Laeden’s shoulder, pulling him behind the hull of a half-constructed ship. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to us when they catch us?”

Laeden turned away. “Such thoughts won’t help us, Markus. Besides, we can’t go back.”

According to his father, Horus wouldn’t be sending men to Ruhlar’s ludus, but was setting a trap at other ludi along their way. Regardless of the Valtarcian threat, Aponius and Roderick were sent by Danella.

“Danella knew where we were,” Laeden said. “Even if Aponius is telling the truth, that doesn’t mean he and Roderick were the only ones she sent.”

As Markus grumbled, Ostrey and Aurellia approached, their respective scouts trailing at their sides. The tight expression Ostrey wore gave Laeden the inclination that whatever Kherus saw surveying the river did not bode in their favor.

“How many?” Laeden asked Ostrey as they neared.

Kherus cleared his throat, stepping up beside Ostrey. “If I may, your grace, there are two…”

Laeden bristled. If only you had died instead of your brother. “What do you mean two?”

Kherus gestured to the small-oared boats just offshore at the river’s mouth.

Ostrey cast Kherus a reproachful glare, but it possessed half the malice of Laeden’s.

“There are over 300 Jackals encamped,” Ostrey said. “Not including the guards in the shipmaster’s barracks and the men guarding the ships. Attempting to liberate the enslaved will have dire consequences. What Kherus is trying to say is we may be better off stealing a ship. We can row east beyond Northridge, then north to the Silver Summits. The mines have just as many laborers to be set free.”

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before meeting Aurellia’s gaze. “What did you find?”

Aurellia motioned her scout forward—a girl, no older than twelve. Her hair clung to her scalp in tight braids, but the sharpness in her eyes was tighter yet.

“No sign that the Jackals have caught anyone,” the girl said. “But they don’t have anyone patrolling either.”

“Thank you,” Laeden said to the girl. Aurellia patted her on the back and dismissed her.

“Shall I prepare the men to take the boats?” Kherus asked.

Laeden curled his fingers. “I will give the orders, Kherus. Dismissed.” He turned his back on Kherus before he could add a parting quip. He peeked past the ships at the Jackal encampment.

I can’t run if Zephyrus is near. But just because the Jackals are here doesn’t mean Zephyrus is too.

“Stealing the ships is our best bet,” Markus said. “But sailing around Northridge against the wind will be dangerous. Stockhelm would be safer. My old ludus—”

Laeden huffed. “If Danella knows what we’re up to, so does Brusos.”

“We could go to the Uprising,” Aurellia said.

Laeden was tired of hearing every idea that involved running. “This could be the dagger to the heart they’ll never see coming. We could attack, liberate the laborers, and then escape to the sea. Why must we—”

A bolt of lightning forked across the sky. Even from a league away, the sound of 300 men gasping at the same time carried across the shipyard.

“Lenox!” a voice shouted into the night, evoking a shivering silence.

Shouting filled the night air, horns trumpeted, and the Jackal camp buzzed as men formed rank to march upriver. Laeden, Markus, Ostrey, and Aurellia peered around the ship’s hull, leaning out for a better glance at what riled them up.

Another bolt of lightning shot upward, as if it had come from the ground.

“Did you see that?” Aurellia asked.

“For the sake of the Six,” Markus said. “Of course we saw it. It’s streaking acros—”

“Not the lightning.” Aurellia hissed. “The person it came from!”

Laeden’s heartbeat thudded in his ears. Another burst of light illuminated the night, but the bolt did not come from the heavens.

“Lenox!” Zephyrus cried, lightning shooting forth into the sky.

“The Wielder,” Aurellia whispered.

Laeden denied his eyes the first two times, but there he was—standing by the river, his arm extended skyward with the power of the Gods at his disposal.

“Distract the Jackals,” Iylea had said.

“This is our chance,” Markus said, pointing to the Jackals as they charged on Zephyrus. “We can leave. They’ll never know we were here.”

Ostrey pointed to the laborers’ barracks. “They’re distracted. If you want to attack, the time is now.”

Aurellia’s pupils, still dilated from Zephyrus’s lightning bolt, examined Laeden. She bit her lower lip. “We all have a part to play, yes?”

Laeden nodded. “He needs our help.”

Threyna

Lightning coursed through the sky as Zephyrus shouted at Lenox. The Jackals assumed marching formation, just as Zephyrus said they would. Not liking his plan, Threyna stalked along the outskirts of the encampment, waiting for the Jackals to take Zephyrus’s bait.

Threyna wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her cloak. The things he could do with his magic amazed her, but if he made one wrong move, there was nothing she could do to help him. Though Zephyrus had healed her of her rot once, and he’d recovered from his own magic fatigue, she couldn’t take down 300 armed men on her own.

Not anymore.

The Jackals charged upriver, converging on Zephyrus’s location.

Threyna lurched into motion, staying down, hood drawn low. She approached the tents and the row of torches erected beside them. Grasping the torch, she yanked it free from the ground and tossed it into the nearest tent. She repeated the process again and again. The tents each took a moment to light, but once they caught, they blazed against the night.

Wishing she had fire magic of her own to expedite the process, Threyna seized two torches and snuck between two rows of tents, lighting both at the same time. She peeked upriver to find the Jackals’ torches separating.

It worked. Now he just needs to stay hidden long enough for me to prepare the boats and free the enslaved.

With dozens of tents billowing black smoke into the sky, Threyna turned to the harbor. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. Bright orbs obscured her focus, and the dancing light cast by the fire didn’t help. She blinked, attempting to reacclimate as she padded along the foul-smelling riverbed toward the boats that would ferry the laborers and themselves to safety.

Men in blue surcoats exited the shipyard barracks. Whether they heard the Jackals’ horns or saw the fire, they took torches and began patrolling in pairs.

While they were easy to spot, something else was out there. Shadows moved on the opposite side of the river, absent the erratic sway caused by firelight.

She paused, rubbing her eyes before scanning the shipyard again, this time tapping into her Inner Throne to sense for heartbeats.

This isn’t a trick of the eye. Those are people.

Veiled in the night’s embrace, the dark figures snuck around the patrols.

Gory ghosting dammit, who are they?

Not knowing whose side they were on or what their intentions were, Threyna didn’t know what to do. She spun, turning upriver, but the inferno consuming the encampment didn’t allow her to see beyond it.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, the cacophony of too many heartbeats overwhelmed her, but she managed to locate Zephyrus’s resolved pulse amidst the Jackals’ bloodlust. She wanted to head back, to help him, knowing the Jackals scoured the riverbed, hoping to flay the flesh from his bones.

Stick to the plan. If I don’t secure an escape, we’re all doomed.

She climbed out of the riverbed and streaked through the shipyard. Listening for heartbeats, she ran when she could and crept when she had to; she passed half-built vessels, supply sheds, and piles of lumber until she neared the harbor.

Looking over her shoulder through the smoke canopying the river, she whispered to herself, “If there’s any God worth trusting, please keep Zephyrus safe.”

Zephyrus

Zephyrus’s limbs felt like lead following his electric display, but it didn’t matter. As the Jackals charged him, Zephyrus didn’t run. He didn’t even move. Balancing the scales, he prepared to manipulate light to shroud himself in darkness. He wouldn’t be able to see through his shroud, but he didn’t need to see the Jackals to hear their approach. They howled as they stormed up either side of the river, swords at the ready, torches lighting their way.

Their stampeding footfalls foretold their impending arrival, but Zephyrus remained still, storing up as much light manipulation as he could. Just as he had moments ago, disappearing before Threyna’s eyes, when the Jackals drew near, he would seemingly vanish. Manipulation magic was not as demanding as conjuration, so if he could remain hidden and let his sword do the work, he could cut down half their number before Threyna freed the enslaved. Training at the Arcane Templar, he’d fought Master Ronar absent sight in his final test. He only remembered it through dreams, but he’d done it. This would be no different. Or so he hoped.

Zephyrus’s fingers twitched. The leaden sensation in his joints melted away only to be replaced by the apprehension of battling blind.

“Burn me, this is a terrible plan.” Zephyrus reached for the amethyst ring pressed against his skin. His index finger traced the edge of the gemstone beneath the fabric of his britches, calming his quivering fingers.

“For luck,” he said, repeating Vykinallia’s words. “By the Judges, I’ll need it.”

As the ground trembled and the howls grew louder, heralding the Jackals’ arrival, Zephyrus released the ring and drew the hilt of the sword his father forged with his family’s blood. The sword came alive, pulsing with a resonant energy, a life force of its own, yet at the same time, it felt like an extension of his arm.

“There he is!” a Jackal shouted. “Get him!”

The Jackals fanned out, surrounding him, but still, Zephyrus waited. Then, once he could feel the heat of their torchlight, Zephyrus bent the flickering lights around him, cloaking himself in darkness.

“Where did he—”

Zephyrus slid in the direction of the sound and opened a sliver of his cocoon just enough to see the Jackal in front of him. The Jackal met his gaze, his eyes widening, but Zephyrus slashed horizontally across his neck, silencing the Jackal before he could speak. He closed the cocoon, yet the thud of the Jackal’s head hitting the ground confirmed what his eyes could not.

Panic ripped through the ranks, commencing the games of this new arena. Zephyrus danced between the Jackals, his blade singing the dirge of the dead. He swiped and sliced, jabbed and hacked, opening his cocoon just enough to find the gaps in the Jackals’ armor.

He moved through the crowd of flailing swords, never staying in one place too long. If anyone caught a glimpse of Zephyrus through the eye slit in his shroud, it was the last thing they saw before falling to the ground.

Zephyrus slipped behind one Jackal, driving his sword up into his armpit. The Jackal went slack but spun, slashing. Zephyrus turned with him, and the Jackal’s sword arced, slicing another Jackal across the chest.

Zephyrus released the body and slunk between the Jackals, weaving his way towards the river. Heads swiveling side to side in search of their invisible enemy, the Jackals backed away from their fallen brothers in arms as well as each other.

“Where is he?”

“How is he doing this?”

As the Jackals squared off with one another, waiting for the next to fall, Zephyrus peered through the gap in his shroud, turning his attention to the encampment. Plumes of smoke marred the clear night sky as fire consumed the camp on the east side of the river, courtesy of Threyna’s passage.

With a vicious grin, Zephyrus set his sights on the Jackals on the opposite side of the river. Standing at the center of the men, adorned in the black-and-gold pauldrons worn by the Captain of the Jackals, Lenox gnashed his teeth.

“Find him!” Lenox shouted. “Find him and—”

Zephyrus released the heat in his body, balancing the scales in preparation for what he was about to do. He leapt into the river, but before he broke the water’s surface, he shot a jetstream of water behind him, propelling him to the opposite riverbank.

The Jackals backed away, but not fast enough. Manipulating the river water while conjuring his own propulsion, Zephyrus redirected the current to create a wave that lifted him high enough to tower over the gawking Jackals. He released his light-bending. No longer obscured in darkness, he allowed himself to be seen.

“Lenox!” Zephyrus screamed. With one last burst of water propulsion, he launched from the wave and jumped over the Jackals lining the riverbank.

The wave crashed down, tossing the first row of Jackals onto their backs and disorienting all of them. As the water drenched the Jackals, Zephyrus landed behind them. He allowed all the tension in his arms and legs to dissipate until they felt gelatinous.

The river-soaked Jackals turned their blades in his direction, tendrils of sizzling smoke rising from their extinguished torches. Before they could close in on him, Zephyrus released a charge of crackling electricity. White forking lightning burst from his fingertips and surged through the army, conducting from one to the other.

With his arms and legs feeling like tree roots, he channeled his skin into stone and charged into the electric current. His sword cleaved through the two nearest yellow-and-black-clad slave-hunters, their bodies seizing. With a punch, he caved in another’s breastbone, then followed up with a downward chop, slicing from shoulder to navel.

Bodies fell around him on this side of the river as easily as they had on the other. A weapon of magic and malice, he tore through the Jackals, fighting his way to Lenox’s position.

The moment the electric current dissipated throughout the large group, Zephyrus released his elemental magic and returned to his cocoon. Absent the flickering torchlight, it was easier to bend light and conceal his movement. Like death’s shadow, Zephyrus lurked through the panicked army, cutting men down with each stride. The Jackals’ hunting howls became wails, but fatigue crept into Zephyrus’s muscles.

Between magic and swordplay, he was nearing his maximum. Drenched with sweat and the blood of the dying, he glanced downriver. He expected the west side of the camp to burn with the same ire as the east, Threyna’s signal for him to flee, but no smoke rose in the west.

She needs more time.

“Lenox!” Zephyrus shouted, as he stabbed and slashed his way through the unseeing soldiers. If Lenox heard over the cries of his dying men, he didn’t answer the taunt.

“You hide behind your men, you cowar—”

A sword swipe caught Zephyrus’s shoulder, evicting a yelp from his clenched teeth.

“I got him!” a Jackal shouted. He stabbed in Zephyrus’s direction. Zephyrus dodged, but others in the vicinity jabbed their steel at his last known location. The Jackals drew close, cutting off any escape route between them.

Another sliced Zephyrus’s thigh. His knee buckled; his light-bending illusion faltered. Time slowed, but Zephyrus’s labored breath and hammering heart did not. The river’s babble, the wind’s whistle—they ceased as the Jackals’ eyes widened to behold Zephyrus, bathed in moonlight on the riverbank.

“Six Hells, enough!”

A voice that haunted Zephyrus’s dreams. The words that answered Patrus’s surrender.

Lenox shouldered his way through the Jackals, sword drawn, smug satisfaction painted on his face.

Panting, surrounded, unable to move, Zephyrus had overextended himself. But at the sight of Lenox, heat fled his body. A chill washed over him beyond his control. The unbalanced scale unhinged, narrowing his peripheral vision to a tight tunnel that only revealed Lenox.

Lenox grit his teeth, rearing his sword to aim the killing blow.

Zephyrus closed his eyes. Ice flooded his veins. Beyond his eyelids, light exploded, and the screams began.

Laeden

Aurellia ran up the hill to where the others hid amongst the boulders of the countryside.

“Ostrey,” Laeden said, “gather the Ridge Knights. We’re taking the shipyard and the harbor by any means necessary. Is that clear?”

Ostrey saluted. “What of Aponius?”

“Release him and give him steel,” Laeden said, “but keep an eye on him.”

Ostrey saluted again and followed in Aurellia’s wake, leaving Laeden and Markus alone behind the ship’s hull.

Markus shook his outstretched fists at Laeden. “Laeden, what is going on—Zephyrus, Aponius? Take the shipyard?”

Laeden seized Markus’s wrists and leaned in until their foreheads practically touched. He wanted to tell Markus the truth, but he needed him to believe it. Only one of those was possible.

“I need you to trust me,” Laeden said. “This is bigger than any of us.”

Fire blossomed to life beyond the ship’s hull. Tents within the Jackal camp on the east side of the Vale burst into flames, spewing acrid fumes into the night.

Markus shook his head, yanking his hands from Laeden’s grasp. “How can I trust you when you share more with slaves than me?” His black brows angled over his dark green eyes to mirror his spear-pointed hairline, made more apparent by his shorn hair. “First Zephyrus, now Aurellia. Ever since Iylea, you’ve—”

The door to the shipmaster’s barracks swung open. Laeden yanked Markus behind the hull’s cover just as men filed out. Torches ignited, and a man barked orders at the soldiers.

“I don’t know what is going on over there,” the shipmaster said, “but it will not reach these ships. Pair off and set up patrols. You find anyone not wearing Helixus blue—anyone who doesn’t belong here—cut them down. Anything happens to this fleet, it’ll be our heads on pikes.”

Laeden peeked around the corner. Helixus blue? Sure enough, bathed in orange torchlight, the golden-winged horse sigil of his father’s house decorated their surcoats.

His mouth went dry.

Horus is rebuilding his fleet. With slaves.

Just as Aurellia and the freedpeople charged upriver, Ostrey and the Ridge Knights descended the hill into the shipyard. Laeden waved his arms, trying to gain their attention. Luckily, Ostrey saw Laeden before the Helixus guards noticed them. Ostrey redirected his men to the shadows.

“We can’t stay here,” Markus whispered.

The Helixus guards split into pairs and began their patrol. If Laeden and Markus remained by the ship’s hull, they’d be spotted in moments, but if they attempted to join the Ridge Knights, they’d be noticed immediately.

Laeden unsheathed his dagger.

“What are you doing?” Markus asked. “Those are Helixus guards.”

Laeden released a trembling exhale. If we’re caught here, we die. If Aurellia somehow manages to aid Zephyrus in escaping the Jackals, we can’t afford to be slowed down by the shipyard guards. He squeezed the hilt of his dagger, realizing what his father must have felt like as a mage-king tasked with both the destruction and protection of his kingdom. His father’s inaction and inability to make difficult choices led to his fall.

“It’s them or us,” Laeden whispered. “We can’t spare everybody. Now draw your dagger and steel your resolve.”

Markus ground his teeth but did as instructed. The two pressed their backs into the ship’s unfinished hull as torchlight illuminated the ground beyond the shadow of their hiding place. Footsteps grew louder, accompanied by soft words spoken with tension.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” one patrolman said.

“Doesn’t matter,” the other responded, drawing nearer to Laeden and Markus’s location. “He might be a mage and a champion gladiator, but he’s still just a man. No man is taking down an entire army. Foolish to try.”

A chill crept along Laeden’s skin, but this was a fight diplomacy couldn’t win. There were too many over too large an area to shackle and detain. He swallowed his ideals and held his breath. The guards passed the ship, only a few paces away.

“What if he’s not alon—”

The patrolman froze as he rounded the ship’s hull, his eyes fixating on Laeden. Laeden lunged for the nearest guard. He plunged his dagger into the man’s throat and covered his mouth with his other hand to silence his guttural groans. The Helixus guard dropped to the ground.

“Wha—”

Markus, only half a breath slower, seized the other guard, and wrapped his hand over his mouth, jabbing his dagger into the man’s heart.

Both were dead before they could draw their swords. Their torches fell to the ground. Warm blood dripped down Laeden’s right hand as it dribbled from the guard’s mouth. He wanted to imagine they were bad men. Men without families or loved ones. But such was never the case in war. A different emblem on a cloak, a different color skin, a different God—it didn’t matter what the lines were. They always divided. And that division justified murder, vilified the opposition, and allowed those of the same ilk to celebrate it as glorious victory. His was far from the first life Laeden had taken, but the first as a king, and the first since Iylea’s warning.

Laeden forced himself to stare at the man’s face as it drained of color. His blue eyes bulged, staring blankly at the sky as if discerning the Gods’ secrets.

“We have to go,” Markus said, sheathing his dagger and smothering the downed torches.

Laeden holstered his own dagger before seizing the wrist of each of the Helixus guards and dragging them into the hull’s shadow. They deserved better, but the world had failed them long before Laeden and Markus cut their lives short.

Checking both directions, Laeden waved Markus to follow. At a low jog, they stalked towards the barracks, taking advantage of the shipyard’s natural cover. With the dark as their ally and the torchlight offering up the guards’ positioning, Laeden and Markus dispatched another patrolling pair to the afterlife.

After they doused the torches and stowed the bodies, Laeden and Markus joined Ostrey outside the laborers’ barracks, Gensus, Malachi, and Aponius in his company.

“One entrance on the east side of the longhouse,” Ostrey said. “Two guards stationed at the door.”

“Where is everyone else?” Laeden asked.

Ostrey jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Securing the harbor to make our escape once we free the slaves.”

Laeden shook his head. “We need to clear the camp so Aurellia and—” Figures approached from the south. Laeden drew his sword.

“It’s Kherus,” Ostrey said, though that didn’t encourage Laeden to sheathe his blade.

As Kherus and the others drew near, Kherus held his palms skyward. “They were all dead before we got there. A dozen of them. No alarm raised, no sign of struggle.”

Ostrey’s mustache quivered. “What? Who?”

Before he could consider who, what, or how, a crimson blade appeared out of thin air before Ostrey’s throat. An identical one formed against Malachi’s, then Aponius’s, and then his own, until they were all held at knife point by invisible assailants.

“Whose side are you on?” A woman’s voice cut through the night.

Following in Kherus’s wake, a shadow, steeped in moonlight, emerged. She pulled back a white hood etched in silver to reveal a braid of glistening silver-blonde hair that draped over her shoulder. Black markings streaked up her neck like grasping tendrils or some kind of intricate war paint. Harsh and piercing, her blue eyes, sharper than the blades at their throats, only added to her harrowing appearance.

“One more time—what are you doing here?” the woman asked.

Laeden swallowed. His apple bobbed against the blade at his throat. “Freeing the enslaved and clearing an escape path.”

She snorted. “Well, do help, then.” She ran east, the blades at their throats falling to ash.

“What in Six Hells was that?” Markus asked.

“You heard her,” Laeden said, following her around the backside of the laborers’ barracks before she disappeared around the corner. As he neared the east entrance with the Ridge Knights at his back, Laeden paused.

A guard in Helixus blue stumbled and fell in their direction, his hand grasping at the gash under his chin.

Turning the corner, Laeden saw no sign of the painted woman with hair the color of moonlight. Instead, he found the other guard on his knees, one hand at his throat, the other grasping a rope. Laeden’s realization came too late. The guard yanked, tolling a high-pitched bell that rang throughout the shipyard.

Laeden shoved the dying man away from the bell, but the damage was done. In the distance, the sentries guarding the shipmaster’s barracks rang their own bell in response.

“We’re under attack!” a guard shouted. “To arms!”

Threyna

With the same fury as the rot climbing through her veins, Threyna stormed through the shipyard. She’d already wasted too much time with the harbor guards and the men sneaking through the shadows. Though the harbor was secure, the shipyard was not. The enslaved were still in chains, but she’d have to trust that the sneaking men would do as they said because if she didn’t signal for Zephyrus to leave, he’d fight to the death on that riverbank.

Alarms rang throughout the shipyard, alerting the sleepers to arms. She couldn’t discern how many would come forth from the barracks with drawn steel, but she couldn’t afford to use her blood magic to find out. The ones she’d consumed did little to offset her corruption.

What a stupid plan. Why did I let him suggest separating?

Even if she made it out of this alive, if Zephyrus didn’t, what would become of the mortal realm? If she no longer had access to his healing, what chance did she have of stopping Tyrus, let alone the Skeleton King or Paxoran?

Drawing the Vykane Blade, Threyna rushed through the shipyard, prepared to cut down any who crossed her path back to the Jackals’ camp. She pumped her arms and legs, wishing the legendary blade was lighter than a typical sword. Regulating her breath as she ran, she found an even tempo.

As a dozen patrolling guards rallied to answer the tolling bell, Threyna took shelter behind a pile of wood planks next to the frame of a small vessel. She stilled her breath, waiting for them to pass. Once they did, she rounded the corner, heading north to the Jackal encampment.

Not a moment after regaining speed, a group of four straggling guards blocked her path. She skidded to a stop before the four blue-clad soldiers, armed with swords and torches.

“We got one! Over here!” a soldier shouted.

Threyna charged them, hoping to cleave through them before support could arrive. Gripping the Vykane Blade’s hilt with both hands, she swung in a wide-arcing diagonal slash at the second guard from the right. As he raised his sword to block, Threyna conjured a dagger that stabbed into his gut. As he doubled over, surprised by the blow, Threyna drew upon the exposed blood, transmuting it into a crescent-shaped sword. Releasing the Vykane Blade with her left hand, she seized her newly forged bloodspawn, and with a slash, she severed the lower leg of the rightmost guard.

Drawing in breath and consuming their blood, the corruption’s chokehold on her lessened. With one guard stumbling, a dagger embedded in his stomach, and another falling to the ground grasping at his stump, the other two flanked Threyna. She blocked one thrust with the Vykane Blade and another with her blood sword. She drew upon the dark blood staining the blue surcoat of the guard she stabbed in the stomach, but it barely offset the corruption.

The dagger ripped itself free of the guard’s stomach after carving up into his ribs. He stumbled back, falling over the one-legged guard. Threyna turned her to focus on the two left standing.

I don’t have time for this.

Fearing the clash of steel would draw other guards, Threyna drew upon the souls of those bleeding out but clinging to life. The effort grated on her, the expenditure spawning new black veins along her neck as she fought with blood and steel against the two still standing. Grunting through the exertion, Threyna tore the soul free from the stabbed man. Vitality surged within her.

She blocked a diagonal hack that intended to part her head from her shoulders and infused her blood sword with greater power. The curved blade twisted, wrapping around the guard’s edge, wrenching it from his grasp, and casting it to the ground. Defenseless, the guard watched in disbelieving horror, but before Threyna could finish him with a thrust, his ally deflected.

“Mage! We need hel—”

Threyna turned both blades on the armed man, cutting short his cry for aid. After a flurry of hacks and slashes, the Vykane Blade struck just above the guard’s collarbone. Flesh tore, bone crunched, and the guard fell to the ground.

The disarmed man staggered in the direction of his fallen weapon, but Threyna closed the distance between them. Letting her curved blade dissipate to ash, she plunged the Vykane Blade deep into the guard’s chest. Before she yanked the sword free, she drew upon the souls of the four fallen guards. Consuming their vitality, the unquenchable thirst remained.

At the clash of steel behind her, Threyna spun. The shipyard’s laborers emerged from their cells, unchained, to join with the men who freed them against the men who kept them there.

Hoping they would clear the way, Threyna resumed her charge upriver toward the Jackal encampment to signal Zephyrus’s retreat. Adrenaline fueled her beyond the shipyard as she fended off exhaustion. The fire she set on the eastern side of the river raged.

Hold on, Zephyrus. Just a little longer.

Nearing the southern end of the west camp, Threyna scanned the river ahead. Tiny dancing glints of reflected moonlight charged upriver in a horizontal line. While the torches along the east side were scattered, the west side was dark. Too dark, as if shrouded in smoke.

Threyna slowed, straining her eyes, but her heaving breath caught in her chest.

A bright star birthed amidst the darkness, illuminating long shadows in nearly every direction. Even from this distance, Threyna had to squint against its blinding radiance.

Suddenly, the star exploded.

Blood and bone, what was that?

Giant torches blossomed to life all around the dying star, flitting about in chaotic circles. It wasn’t until a choir of screams filled the night that Threyna realized that the torches were people, and Zephyrus was the star.

Laeden

Laeden searched the fallen Helixus guards for a keyring, instructing Markus to do the same. Their precious little time evaporated as more guards filed out of the shipmaster’s barracks, the bell still tolling throughout the shipyard. Scanning left and right, Laeden lost sight of the woman with the silver-blonde braid.

Though Laeden didn’t claim to possess much knowledge on mages, the magic she wielded was unlike anything he had ever heard of. Powerful and dreadful, her magic could have slaughtered the whole brigade, but with her nowhere to be seen, they would have to defend themselves.

Laeden found the keyring and wrenched it from the guard’s belt loop. “Hold them off until I release the enslaved,” Laeden said to Ostrey as he went to the locked door, trying to find the appropriate key.

Markus yanked the other guard’s keys free. “Got them.”

“We won’t be able to hold them long,” Ostrey said.

Laeden inserted a key, but it didn’t fit. “As long as you can.” He tried another, and it clicked into place. “Aponius, Markus—with me.”

Swinging the door open, he rushed into the laborers’ barracks, Aponius and Markus at his back. The noxious smell hit like a gut punch—excrement, sweat, and sick poisoned the air.

Half-expecting it to resemble the barracks of a ludus, Laeden could not have been more wrong. Cells a fraction of the size were stuffed with three to four people, each chained together at the wrists. At their entrance, many grabbed the bars to peer out. Most were thin, exhausted—their faces long, eyes sunken.

They won’t stand a chance in a fight. We need to get them out of here.

Swallowing his disgust, Laeden said, “We’re here to free you from this place.”

The laborers didn’t cheer, didn’t cry. They only stared in disbelief.

“Aponius, you want to join us?” Laeden asked. “Take Markus’s keys and start on the other end.”

Markus tossed Aponius the keys. “What about me?”

Laeden approached the first cell, key in hand. He nodded at Aponius running to the other end of the barracks to free the suffering people. “We can’t trust him yet,” he whispered. “I need you to take these people to the harbor.”

Markus grunted. “But you’ll be alone here… with him. What’s to stop him from stabbing you in the back the first chance he gets?”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.” Laeden unlocked the door and waved the cell’s inhabitants out. “When we get out of this, I’ll explain everything.”

“Thank you,” said a bent-backed man who appeared much older than he likely was. Three other scrawny men dragged their bare feet along the hay-covered earthen floor.

“Markus will escort you to the harbor,” Laeden said. “You’re free.”

The clash of steel outside the barracks doors didn’t portend well for that to remain the case, but Laeden pressed on to the adjacent cell and the next. Between Laeden and Aponius’s efforts, a score of laborers were ready to depart to the harbor.

Markus waved at the freedpeople. “Follow me!”

With two times as many laborers still in their cells, Laeden and Aponius continued to unlock the doors, but the clang of steel outside the barracks intensified. Laeden’s fingers trembled attempting to unlock the cell as doubt invaded his thoughts.

How are we going to get out of here?

Zephyrus was surrounded. Aurellia’s passion wouldn’t overcome her lack of men or their inexperience in battle outside of the arena. The Ridge Knights were too few to hold back the shipyard guards, and the freed laborers would be no use in turning the tides.

As he and Aponius released more laborers, Laeden instructed the newly liberated to wait for Markus’s return. With the fighting growing louder outside, however, the released laborers took matters into their own hands, fleeing for the harbor.

“Laeden!” Ostrey shouted. “We can’t hold them any longer.”

With five more cells left to be unlocked, they needed more time.

I can’t just leave them.

Penned like livestock but used like tools, they would not survive much longer if Laeden left them. But if the Ridge Knights fell, they would all die. With a grunt, Laeden unlocked the next cell but shoved the keys into a young man’s scarred hands. His dark eyes met Laeden’s. A defiance dwelled within, a tiny ember in need of stoking.

“Free the others,” Laeden said, closing his hands around the young man’s. “Lead them to the harbor… and if you have to, don’t wait for us.”

The young man blinked but nodded.

Laeden patted him on the shoulder. “Aponius, leave your keys. Time to prove yourself with a sword.”

Laeden drew his blade and charged out of the barracks. The Ridge Knights fought in a semicircular formation, standing shoulder to shoulder to defend the entrance to the barracks from guards wearing Helixus blue. Heat rose to Laeden’s temples. His father’s family had never used slaves. Had never been cruel. And now they were both.

After witnessing the state of the enslaved, and knowing it was the men bearing the winged horse of House Helixus that did this to them, tears bled from the corners of his eyes.

Laeden shouldered his way into the Ridge Knights’ formation. “Honor and justice!” He slashed at the nearest Helixus guard. “Does that mean anything to you?” He battered the guard away, then hacked at the one who filled the void. “How have you strayed so far?”

Treating his sword like a battle-axe, Laeden beat back the nearest guard. Ostrey stabbed one through the shoulder, and Kherus followed through with a killing thrust to the chest, but as one fell, another took his place.

“We need to fight our way free!” Ostrey said. “Or the harbor will be lost to us.”

No sign of Aurellia. No sign of Zephyrus. Laeden stalled for time. “We must wait for the freedpeople,” Laeden shouted. “Hold!”

Gensus blocked a jab aimed at Ostrey. Kherus struck, felling the guard who failed to reach Ostrey. Before Gensus could reposition, another guard attacked, stabbing Gensus through the gut.

“Gensus!” Ostrey shouted.

Gensus stumbled back. Ostrey broke formation, swinging in wide arcs to defend his fallen brother in arms. The guards attempted to press their advantage, but Aponius filled the gap. With a stab, Aponius pierced an overeager guard’s neck, then slashed at his neighbor, cutting him down as well. As the guards fell, it created an opening.

Kherus abandoned his position. He hoisted Gensus under his arm and charged through the gap in the guards, heading for the harbor.

“No!” Laeden cried, but it was too late.

Their formation withered; the battlefield became a melee. Flanked on all sides, Laeden dodged a thrust, deflected a jab, and blocked a chop. He kicked one guard away but stumbled into Malachi. Malachi wheeled on Laeden and just barely stopped himself from ramming Laeden through the belly. Returning to their marks, they fought. Outnumbered. Overmatched.

Laeden sliced at one guard’s knee, hacked at another’s sword to bat it away, and then drove his point into the guard’s heart. Though the blood of four slain guards soaked the ground at Ostrey’s feet, other Ridge Knights fell, dying to those who swore oaths to the same banner. The guards were too many to take on their own without Aurellia and the freedpeople.

In the chaos, the freed laborers attempted to escape the barracks. Four bands of three laborers still chained together entered the skirmish, seeking passage to the harbor’s sanctuary.

As the guards turned their attention to the escapees, Laeden slashed one across the face and skewered another through the back, but one laborer was cut down. Still chained to two others, the laborer’s limp body proved too heavy for them to overcome. The guards fell on them like jackals to a fresh kill, hacking the defenseless men to pieces before they could reach freedom.

The world seemed to close in around Laeden. He let out a battle cry fueled by the pain of loss and failure. Thrusting himself into the thickest of the fight beside Ostrey, Laeden knew he was going to die in this shipyard.

Malachi lay dead on his side, gazing north to the Jackals’ encampment, now consumed by flame. If Zephyrus was still alive and Aurellia managed to spirit him free of the Jackals, they could still win this. But the horizon held no promise of Zephyrus or the freedpeople.

Laeden ducked a horizontal swing and sidestepped a thrust before countering with an upward slash. He caught one guard in the chin, sending him reeling, but the soft gasp of steel puncturing a lung escaped someone behind him. Laeden spun to find a guard. His sword was raised to strike Laeden, but he didn’t move. Blood oozed between his teeth before Markus ripped the sword from his back.

Laeden panted. “You should have left!”

“Then you’d be dead.” Markus caught another guard’s strike by the hilt and kicked him backwards. Laeden sheathed his blade in the guard’s belly. “We need to retreat.”

Ostrey gave no sign of retreat. He staggered with fatigue, but bodies continued to pile around him. As Laeden turned to face Markus, he spotted a guard attacking Markus’s blind side. Laeden’s eyes widened, his mouth opened, sword sweeping to intercept the incoming blow, but he was just out of reach.

At the last moment, the guard’s trajectory was thrown off. Spun around by Aponius grabbing the guard’s free arm, the guard whipped into the ground. Aponius mounted the downed guard. His dagger pumped into the guard’s chest, once, twice, thrice before the guard’s resistance faltered. Before he could acknowledge Aponius for saving Markus’s life, Ostrey wailed.

Laeden spun as the legendary Captain of the Ridge Knights, the former Knight of the King’s Guard, fell to his knees. A bloody sword point protruded from his back. Ostrey raised his sword, unwilling to depart for Valencia without dispatching another with him, but another sword hacked into his ribs.

The blow sent Ostrey to the dirt, his sword flying from his grasp.

The fight was over. Lost. Despite the noise of clashing steel and shouting men, Laeden couldn’t hear anything but blood pumping in his ears.

My fault.

Ostrey lay dying. Malachi was already dead. Three other Ridge Knights rested prone in the dirt, never to rise again. Laeden, Aponius, Markus, and the four Ridge Knights who didn’t retreat to the harbor backed towards one another.

No sign of Zephyrus, Aurellia, the ex-gladiators, or any of the freedpeople. It was just the seven of them, the score of shipyard guards that surrounded them, and the dead.

So many dead.

He needed to say something—to rally his men, to strike fear into their opposition. No words came to mind, only images, and every one was of Iylea. The soft curve of her cheek, the dimples framing her mouth when she smiled.

Her severed head in his hands.

“The flood of blood is coming,” she had said, and chimera’s breath, was she right. From the rotunda to the Aquarian, the Bay of Bastards to the Vale, Laeden brought the flood of blood with him wherever he went.

The Helixus guards closed in around them.

This is the end.

The sky exploded in the distance. A bright white that made the moon seem pale in comparison drew the attention of everyone bearing steel in the shipyard. Then fire. Screams rose in the distance.

In the momentary pause, a ball of orange flame flew over Laeden’s head and hit a Helixus guard in the chest. Then, all around them, more immediate screams joined the chorus.

Vykinallia

Vykinallia drew her sword as she charged up the riverbank with Jechtaric and Cerik at her side. The apprehension of impending battle sat heavy in the back of her throat. Her nerves sparked with the same panic that accompanied her over Arux’s wall, but she could not freeze this time. She would never do so again.

If the Ridge Knight told it true, Laeden was dead already, but she refused to believe it. With nearly fifty freed men on boats bound for Stockhelm, he couldn’t be among the dead. She needed him alive—the Fallen, the freedpeople, and those still in chains needed him to be alive.

Following the growing clang of dancing swords, they found bodies strewn on the ground. Some wore Helixus blue surcoats, others simple roughspun cloaks, but the runaway slaves were the easiest to identify. Bloodier than the fall of House Arux, the Battle of the Vale had nearly reached its conclusion. Up ahead, a circle of blue-clad guards surrounded a much smaller force.

Fires burned in the distance, and smoke rose high into the horizon, but something even further upriver brightened the sky like a second sun.

Magic.

Odds were it wasn’t Zephyrus, but it didn’t stop her from pumping her arms and legs faster. Vykinallia ran, but not as fast as Joru. The former Ulysius gladiator galloped through the shipyard like a stallion in a joust, bearing down on his foes’ flank, but Unari struck first.

A ball of fire formed in her hands and launched through the air, pelting a shipyard guard in the chest. A moment later, Jechtaric flung his spear through the back of another. Then Joru reached the back of the circling guards. With two swords, he slashed and tore at their backs, dropping two to the ground in the blink of an eye.

At the fall of the guards, the surrounded men surged, fighting back with reckless abandon. Vykinallia closed in on a guard engaged with a man in a blood-soaked roughspun cloak.

With a low slash, she severed the tendon along the guard’s heel, allowing who she assumed was one of Laeden’s Ridge Knights to finish him off. She carried her momentum forward, stabbing another distracted guard through the ribs. A man in black leather armor drove his point home, forcing the guard to the ground.

Sett’s battle-axe cleaved through a spine. Cerik’s mace caved in a skull. Jechtaric reclaimed his spear to disarm one guard and sweep the leg out from another. With the battle rebalanced, and half the guards pinned between the Ridge Knights and the Fallen, Vykinallia took a step back.

Scanning the melee for Zephyrus, Laeden, and her brother Markus, she spotted Laeden. Hair shorn short, beard grizzled, and thinner than she remembered him being, he was still alive and fighting like a madman. Markus, absent his fine clothes or long, straight hair, was barely recognizable, but Vykinallia knew it was him by how he moved with his sword against two attackers.

Vykinallia leapt over a dying guard to attack one of the men engaged with Markus. Markus turned aside the first and dodged the second. He parried a strike aimed at his midsection and countered to deliver a killing blow. As he ripped his sword free to contend with the other, Vykinallia buried her sword up to the hilt in the guard’s back. As the guard fell to the ground, Markus saw her for the first time.

“Nallia?” Markus asked.

“Stop!” Laeden shouted.

There were only a few guards left standing. Between Laeden’s men and Vykinallia’s crew, they were thirteen against the shipyard’s six. All combatants held their ground, but more figures were approaching in the distance.

Despite the tension and the fight not over yet, Markus stared at her, a thousand questions wrinkling his brow.

“Surrender,” Laeden said to the guards. “There has been enough blood. Don’t add your deaths to the toll. Lay down your arms and let us pass.”

One guard raised his sword. “Honor and justi—”

“Don’t you dare,” Laeden hissed. “There is no honor in what you’re doing here.” He jabbed his blade at a shoddily built longhouse that most likely housed the shipyard’s laborers. “My Great-Uncle Horus has sullied your honor. When did any under the Helixus banner own slaves? Never before Horus became duke. Mark my words. He will be held accountable, but you do not have to fight on this side of the war. Lay down your arms, join us, and together, we will restore honor to this land.”

With reinforcements approaching from the north, Vykinallia didn’t have time for diplomacy. She needed to get them out to sea now. Her nerves still sizzling, she stepped forward.

“Listen to King Laeden,” Vykinallia said. “Drop your swords by the count of three. Or we will drop you and pry them from your corpses.”

Markus and Laeden each fixed her with a perplexed stare, but she began counting.

“One.”

The guards looked between each other.

“Two.”

The Fallen positioned themselves to take aim at the few remaining guards. She didn’t want to kill anyone else. She still saw Arux’s and Callia’s faces whenever she closed her eyes too long, and part of her was glad for it. It meant taking their lives wasn’t easy. It meant that life mattered. But somehow, she feared with each life she took, the easier it would get—the less life would matter, and the more she would be willing to follow through on what she promised would happen if she reached the count of three.

“Thre—”

The first sword fell to the ground, followed by the second and third, until all six guards relinquished their steel.

Vykinallia released a quavering breath.

Laeden hissed at the guards. “Flee from sight and know it is our combined mercy that spared your lives. King Laeden and…” Laeden looked to Vykinallia.

“The Fallen,” Vykinallia said.

“Spared by King Laeden and the Fallen,” Laeden said. “Tell all who will listen that true honor and justice is coming.” He pointed to the walls of Valtarcia in the distance.

Vykinallia and Markus stepped aside to allow the guards a path. Without a second’s hesitation, the guards sprinted for the safety of Valtarcia.

Laeden watched them go, but Vykinallia had come here for a reason. If they’d been a moment later, Laeden likely wouldn’t be leaving this shipyard alive. But in the distance more reinforcements were coming.

Vykinallia placed her hand on Laeden’s arm. “We can give you shelter, but we need to leave now. More men are coming.”

Laeden turned toward the incoming reinforcements. “They’re with me.”

As the approaching force neared, moonlight illuminated them. Two dozen sword-bearing freedpeople slowed as they approached, led by a young dark-skinned woman with short hair.

Vykinallia took Cerik by the arm. “Get the injured to the boats. I’ll make sure they come with us.” Cerik nodded, grabbing Sett and Jechtaric to aid him in escorting the remaining Ridge Knights to their ship.

Once the Fallen were set to purpose, Vykinallia turned back to Laeden and Markus, but they were speaking with the freedpeople.

“Where is he?” Laeden asked. “I saw him. He has to be here somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” the woman said between panting breaths, her eyes bleary with tears yet to fall. “The Jackals retreated at our arrival. The others on the east side of the Vale traveled north, I suspect in order to cross the bridge. We searched for him. The river, the tree line. When we couldn’t find him, we came back before the Jackals could regroup.”

Vykinallia’s throat tightened. Her lips narrowed together, leaving a small opening. Her mouth formed the word who, but she couldn’t give it voice.

“Did they take him, Aurellia?” Laeden asked, placing his hands on her shoulders. “The Jackals—is it possible they took him?”

The desperation in Laeden’s tone answered Vykinallia’s unspoken question. The tenor surrounding Laeden’s line of questioning, paired with Aurellia’s emotional display, only made the knot in Vykinallia’s throat plummet to her stomach.

“Zephyrus…” Vykinallia said. “The Jackals have Zephyrus?”

Part VI

Chapter 37

Death and Loss

Laeden IX

Victory was a precarious thing. While they had rescued so many laborers from a terrible fate, the presence of those not aboard the ships bound for Stockhelm left a sullen silence over the group.

Ostrey was dead. Malachi—dead. Gensus—dying.

Laeden’s knuckles whitened as he strangled the bow of the ship. It was on this very ship that Ostrey and the Ridge Knights declared him king after finding him in Marstead. The same ship that allowed Joru to find the Uprising and lead them back to Valtarcia to save him, Markus, and the others.

It should have felt like a victory, narrow as it was, but Ostrey’s death weighed on him.

If Kherus had not defied me… if he had held his ground…

With each rise and fall of the waves, Laeden’s stomach lurched, but he kept his eyes on the oared boat in the distance—the boat Kherus was on. Despite their head start, the corsair ship would catch up. Eventually, they would reach land, and Laeden would lay Ostrey’s death at Kherus’s feet. Nostrils flaring, he imagined how the conversation would go, attempting to predict Kherus’s responses and rehearsing his own.

I should have punished Kherus’s insolence earlier.

He had been afraid of losing the Ridge Knights if he dealt with Kherus too harshly, but with the loss of Ostrey, he might as well have already lost them. And without them, what did he have left?

A group of laborers, their chains newly broken, approached Laeden with gratitude, but despite their liberation, Laeden feared the cost. After curt nods and shorter smiles, Laeden stole away from the bow towards the stern. With Nallia and Markus conversing on the starboard side, Laeden kept to the port. By the time he reached the stern, Valtarcia’s harbor disappeared in the distance, but the smoke upriver from the Jackals’ camp stained the black sky with smog. Zephyrus had to be out there—somewhere.

Laeden knew full well the effects Zephyrus’s magic had on him. Too much at once, or sustained over too long a period, it would falter, and when it did, he became weak—too weak to fight. Too feeble to run or even stand.

Zephyrus’s power had pierced the sky with oppressive light. Nothing, and no one, spare the Gods themselves, were capable of such a display. He’d hoped Aurellia would find Zephyrus, even in a weakened state. But she found no sign of him or the woman who aided their escape.

Maybe she found him and took him to safety?

Laeden, on a ship bound for Stockhelm, could only hope. He hung his head. Iylea… please tell me he is safe. Aside from waves crashing and sails whipping in the wind, no answer came from the heavens. He thudded his fist against the wooden railing.

“We need to talk,” Markus said from behind.

Laeden glanced over his shoulder. Markus and Nallia mirrored each other’s crossed-armed posture, but the sizable distance between them made Laeden suspect there might be more separation than just physical.

“Yes. Of course.” Laeden pursed his lips, but he didn’t address Markus, bowing instead at Nallia. “Gratitude, Lady Nallia. Without you or your warriors, your brother and I would be lying in the dirt.”

“I’m no longer a lady, but you may call me Vykinallia.”

Having only ever seen Nallia adorned with jewels and dressed in flowing silks, the blood-soaked leather jerkin belted across her bodice presented a stark contrast. Sweat, dirt, and grime painted her skin in favor of makeup, and though she was perhaps a touch thinner, she otherwise appeared no worse for the wear in the Uprising’s care.

“Very well. Gratitude, Vykinallia.”

“Don’t thank her,” Markus said. “And don’t call her that. She brings only more trouble and treachery.”

Vykinallia cast him a glare that, if this were court, would have been judged improper, but Nallia Cassius had never been known for following the rules. It seemed Vykinallia held propriety with even less regard.

“She saved our lives,” Laeden said. “Is life anything but trouble and treachery?”

Markus bristled before turning to his sister again. “How could you join them? They killed our father.”

Vykinallia inhaled sharply. “So quick to blame the refugee escaped slaves and mages seeking asylum in underground dirt hovels, yet you never once thought that perhaps Brusos, who always had a rivalry with Father—who is now living in the villa we grew up in, sleeping in Father’s bed, and doing Gods-only-know what with our mother—might be the one responsible for his death. Chimera’s breath—with what Joru told us, I thought we were fighting for the same things.”

“You’re murdering lanistas,” Markus said. “The same crime you refuse to believe your precious allies could have committed against our father.”

“Enough,” Laeden said. “Family matters aside, I believe we do want the same things. It seems our mutual friend, Zephyrus, has had quite the impact on us both.”

Vykinallia blanched at the mention of his name. She stepped closer to Laeden, her hands reaching for the hem of his bloodstained cloak. “Did you see him?”

Laeden exhaled, putting his hands on his hips. “Only from a distance. To be honest, there was no way to tell for certain if it was him. But between his magic and the army of Jackals—”

“So close…” Vykinallia said.

Markus cleared his throat as if to remind them that he was still there. Stepping around Vykinallia, he leaned close. “Tell me, Laeden. I’ve waited long enough. The truth. What are we doing here? What are you planning?”

Laeden glanced from Markus to Vykinallia. As mad as it sounded, he wouldn’t lie. All his father did was lie, and it reaped nothing but destruction. Nothing good would come from hiding it any longer. He massaged the words floating in his head into an order that he hoped wouldn’t make him seem quite as crazy as he felt at times.

Before he could speak, Markus continued. “You said we’d take back Valtarcia from your uncle. You said we’d liberate the gladiators to forge an army.” He pointed over his shoulder. “Those men will never make an army. They’re two steps from the pyre, and you know it. None of your tactics have made sense since we left the rotunda, and now half the Ridge Knights are dead, Ostrey butchered, and, for all we know, Kherus is up ahead planning to stab you in the back before Aponius gets the chance. So, what was it all for?”

Markus was right. Laeden sniffed, wrinkling his nose. “It was all for Zephyrus.”

As their corsair ship sailed past the first of the oared boats, Laeden shared his experience with Iylea and explained the state of the divine realm and what would happen to the mortal realm should Vykanicus Auros not reach Tharseo’s Bastion.

After Laeden had finished, Vykinallia and Markus fixed him with two different expressions. Vykinallia stared blankly, mulling over Laeden’s words with slack-jawed consternation, her hands cupping her cheeks. Markus folded his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing to slits as he shook his head.

“That’s why we needed to attack, Markus,” Laeden said. “Distract the Jackals.”

“I believe you,” Markus huffed. “At least, I believe you believe that.” His standoffish posture softened as he seized Laeden by the arms. “Do you hear yourself? Iylea spoke to you?” He shook his head. “Iylea is dead, Laeden. It was terrible, but she’s gone—never coming back. You’re gambling with the lives of good men… based on… your imagination.”

“I know how it sounds,” Laeden said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. But it’s not my imagination. You have to—”

“Trust you?” Markus snapped. “Do you think the Ridge Knights will believe you when you tell them that their commander, Ser Ostrey Wingfoot, died as a distraction, so that a gladiator slave could save the realms from a traitor God?”

Laeden’s stomach twisted. “Ostrey’s loss will be felt throughout the realm, but he did not die in vain.”

Markus released Laeden and snorted. “Kherus won’t believe that. And I don’t blame him.” He glowered at Laeden before casting an equally disgusted look at his sister. “I wanted the truth. But I fear this only makes things worse.” He spun on his heel and walked away.

“Markus, please.” Laeden called after him.

“Let him go.” Vykinallia took both of Laeden’s hands as her brother stormed off. “I believe you. The Fallen will believe you, and together we can free the people, stop Damascus, and make this world a better place.”

“You believe that?” Laeden asked, thinking of his father’s failed ideologies.

Vykinallia squeezed Laeden’s hands. “I believed it before, but after what you just shared—everything with Zeph—” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I knew he was special the moment you brought him to the villa—I just didn’t realize the extent. Blinded beyond my uses for him as a lanista…”

This time when she trailed off, Laeden spoke. “I used him too.”

Vykinallia nodded, eyes downcast. “If everything you say is true, stopping the traitor God will make this world a better place. That is why we must join together. If we take the old Cassius ludus from Brusos, we can claim Stockhelm and clear a path for Zephyrus, but we can’t do that alone.”

Chewing his lower lip, Laeden exhaled through his nostrils. Their corsair ship passed the second ship as Stockhelm’s northeastern coast came into view.

“It might already be too late for Zephyrus,” Laeden said. “If the Jackals have him, he’s as good as—”

Vykinallia put a finger to Laeden’s lips. “Death could have claimed him countless times before. Nothing is impossible, King Laeden.”

Laeden released himself from Vykinallia’s hands to scratch the back of his neck. Again thinking of his father, still alive after being reported dead, Laeden nodded. “I suppose—who are we to distinguish between possible and impossible? If a pseudo-prince can be a king and a lady lanista can be in the Uprising, I suppose a gladiator mage touched by the Gods can survive the Jackals. But you’re right. We must do our part. Together, we may be able to take back your ludus and, with it, all of Stockhelm.”

Vykinallia smiled. “Speaking of impossibilities, there’s something else I have to tell you.”

Laeden inclined his head.

Vykinallia’s disposition shifted. She shuffled her feet and rubbed her elbow with her opposite hand. She opened her mouth, but closed it, absent words.

“What is it?” Laeden asked.

Vykinallia swallowed. “There’s no easy way to say this… It’s about your mother.”

Chapter 38

Traitor

Iylea VII

Valencia

The Celestial Halls of Valencia were far broader than Iylea thought. Though its size made it difficult to search whenever she managed to sneak out of the anchor room, it also facilitated her ability to hide from Ferrocles. In the time since investigating Incinerae’s chambers and discovering the whereabouts of Arkadia’s dungeon, she’d searched for Arcamedes’s hidden compartments within the castle. After scouring the entirety of the bottom floor, she came away with no hints as to the location of Arcamedes’s chambers. Though she found the entrance to Aquarius’s rooms, it had not proven as fruitful as Incinerae’s.

She had hoped to find more clues left behind by Klayvorine or Courianne in the Tower of Whispers, but after sifting through the tome-stacked shelves and inspecting the various artifacts of both the mortal and divine realms, nothing out of the ordinary presented itself.

Sneaking through the halls on her way to the second floor, she watched the windows into the mortal realm, hoping for any sign of Laeden. This time was no different than any other. Though the mortal realm appeared brighter through the window than she remembered, it was probably due to something burning. Often it was bonfires that scorched Celestic idols to cinders, or wildfires that incinerated the jungles of Stockhelm. But this time, it was a Valtarcian inn collapsing to the ground, the barman trapped beneath a beam within.

Another soul to the chain.

Iylea averted her eyes. She had enough problems up here to contend with, but the situation in New Rheynia had grown dire. Throughout the cities, water shortages and dying crops plagued the slums with disease and famine. Skirmishes broke out between those who had and those who did not. Soldiers accosted protesting Celestic sympathizers and nailed them to the Six Arrowed Star when they failed to disperse. Even in Valtarcia, a pleb rebellion had risen from the slums to storm the upper city.

As much horror as she’d seen, she never once glimpsed Laeden, and she wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Padding along the plush velvet runner toward the tower opposite the Whispering Wall, Iylea considered what she would do if she managed to free Arkadia from her tomb. They still needed to confirm who Paxoran was masquerading as and find the gemstone that powered the Whispering Wall to relay the information to Zephyrus. Then came the matter of leaving Valencia.

She shook her head, not allowing herself to get distracted by a future that might never come to pass. Reaching the corner and the entryway to the tower, Iylea peeked down the hall in both directions. Shadows entered, accompanied by voices. Iylea scampered to the tower door and turned the knob. Slipping inside, she pulled the door closed, but left it open a crack.

Don’t let them come up this way…

She waited, crouching down and peering through the slit in the open door. The voices grew nearer, one identifiable.

Phaebia’s singsong soprano voice resonated through the corridor despite her best efforts to remain discreet. “It’s time. This farce has gone on long enough. Tell me what you know.”

Iylea perked up, pressing her ear towards the door.

The other voice spoke in a lower tone, and despite moving in Iylea’s direction, it was still too soft to hear.

“...and that’s it. The Corners always kept to themselves, Klayvorine most of all.” The voice swayed like branches in a breeze—soft but powerful. Moterra.

Phaebia’s rhythmic voice sharpened to emphasize the consonants. “She confided in you. There must be more. I need to know!”

Iylea raised her eyebrow at Phaebia’s urgency. The footsteps grew louder as the two goddesses neared the corner.

“The sands of time have been altered,” Moterra said. “That is all Klayvorine told me.”

“But why tell you?”

The footsteps softened, then stopped altogether.

Iylea resisted the urge to stick her head out the door, but the ensuing silence tested her. Three breaths passed before Moterra spoke again.

“Perhaps because she knew I wouldn’t do anything rash.” Her voice no longer sounded like swaying branches and more like a trunk dividing a gale. “She told me because she knew—because she saw—that all of this would come to pass. Whoever tampered is attempting to rewrite the past, to change the future. Continue on this path, Phaebia, and you will play right into their devious hands. Or if this is your game, and you are attempting to throw the others off your trail by using me, I will not be moved. I will weather your storm, and we will see who possesses the greater fortitude.”

“Moterra, I—”

“Take your hands off of me.”

The footsteps stomped down the hall, and Moterra entered Iylea’s field of view. Phaebia exhaled, but didn’t move, so neither did Iylea. Holding her breath, Iylea waited. It wasn’t until Moterra disappeared that Phaebia followed her, humming a tune as pretty as a birdsong.

Once both goddesses were far enough away, Iylea closed the door and leaned against the rounded wall of the spiral staircase up to the tower. She replayed the conversation in her head, taking note of their disposition towards one another.

Was Phaebia’s line of questioning to unveil the villain or hide her own deceit?

Iylea ground her teeth. She needed more information, and the only way she was going to find it was by searching. Pressing herself to her feet, she tiptoed up the winding stairs. She’d never seen anyone enter this tower. Not knowing what lay ahead, she approached with the caution every experienced handmaiden did when entering a door. At the peak of the staircase, a stone wall, marked with what appeared to be a feather, blocked her path.

Considering the glyph Hameryn taught her to enter the Tower of Whispers, Iylea attempted the same pattern. Nothing happened. Iylea grunted, rubbing her forehead. She recalled the tile on the floor in the anchor room, picturing the different symbols.

If a glyph from that symbol opened Courianne’s room, perhaps another will open this one.

With her eyes closed, she placed her hand against the feather. The symbols represented the Gods, which allowed for some process of elimination. The symbol had two groups of four—the Elementals and the Corners. One group of three—the Judges. Two groups of two for the Giver and Taker of Palogia, and Ferrocles and Hameryn of war and harmony. The other three symbols were off on their own—Courianne, Neutreen, and Arcamedes.

One for each tower.

Iylea’s breath quickened, and she opened her eyes.

A feather. This must belong to the God of Beasts.

She didn’t know which of the other two symbols belonged to Arcamedes, but one was a two-sided arrow, and the other was a spiral. Iylea scratched her head.

Neither really screams God of Beasts.

Not sure which would work, Iylea drew the spiral first. She stepped back, waiting for the stone door to retract and allow her entry, but nothing happened.

Contorting her brow, she replaced her hand on the feather, this time drawing the double-sided arrow. The stone wall growled with friction as the way parted before her.

Iylea gasped, turning sideways to slip through the opening the moment she could fit. Expecting to find the animal skeletons she’d seen through the Whispering Wall upon first meeting Arkadia, Iylea was surprised to find she wasn’t in Arcamedes’s chambers at all.

These are Neutreen’s.

The Goddess of Justice’s chambers were much smaller than the other Gods’. Lacking the decor of Incinerae’s, the size of Aquarius’s, or the eclecticness of Courianne’s, Neutreen’s rooms were a cold, utilitarian pragmatism. The narrow walls, lined with bookshelves on both sides, hugged the corners of a large, plain wooden desk that sat against the back wall. Upon it, an ornately crafted gold scale sat below a rectangular window that stared out into the endless sky. A single feather rested on the right side of the scale, tipping it slightly.

Iylea approached the scale.

Just like the Celestic symbols in Stockhelm.

The scale’s base was marked with three vertical lines, the same symbol in the Gods’ glyph on the floor of the anchor room. Reaching out to touch the scale, the window came to life, startling her. Similar to the ones displayed around the halls of Valencia, the window revealed the happenings of the mortal realm.

Through the window, a man—dark-skinned with close-cropped gray hair and a matching beard—sank to his knees. Shoulders heaving, blood leaking from a hundred different lacerations, something fell from his grasp to tumble to the sandstone floor. A cube with a rippling metallic sheen toppled end over end before coming to a stop against a pile of rubbish.

Out of the heap, a five-fingered claw hung limp.

Iylea choked on her breath. That’s not rubbish. Those are bodies. Iylea backed away from the window, holding herself.

More like husks, or the chaff that remained after the grain had been reaped, dozens of shrunken, desiccated human remains stopped the cube’s momentum.

Iylea wanted to look away. She wanted to help—but she could do neither.

The dark-skinned man peered up, defiance and white-hot anger burning in his pale eyes. “You will never succeed. We will have our vengeance! The Judges will—”

The man’s voice cut off as the blood, dripping from his face, was pulled by some invisible force to congeal into a bloody crescent-shaped blade before him. Before he could speak, the crescent sliced across his throat. The man fell to his side, clutching the gash in his neck.

Iylea shuddered, hugging herself. As many deaths as she’d witnessed through breaking the links of the chain, never before had she seen one like this.

A maniacal laugh echoed off the columns of the sandstone temple. Footsteps approached until a figure in a black cloak came into view next to the pile of desiccated remains and the glimmering cube.

“That’s the last of you,” the cloaked figure said to the dying man. “At least your lot had the pride to put up a fight. We had to chase most of the Warlocks down.”

With his last guttural gasps, the man stretched out his arm for the cube. His weak bloodstained fingers closed around it. The cloaked figure bent down and swatted the dying man’s hand away to claim the cube for himself.

“Your people, your magic, your false Gods—” He brought the cube close to his hidden face to inspect it. “—they will all join the One True God.”

Blood rose from the dying man to congeal into a gauntlet around the cloaked figure’s hand. With his blood-gauntlet-reinforced hand, he squeezed, and the cube crumbled to dust.

Iylea’s hands cupped her cheeks as she shook her head at the bloodsucking monster. Wishing she had walked in a few moments later to have spared herself this visage, she closed her eyes and hung her head.

The sound of steaming liquid pouring into a cold vial drew her attention back to the window. The vision melted into a glimmering cerulean-and-viridian mixture that spouted from the window into the left side of the scale.

The same colors as the links of the chain.

Iylea drew near, crouching level with the scale. As the window emptied, the scale filled, raising the feather a sliver beyond balanced. The liquid rose, took shape, and formed into another link in the chain.

Iylea gasped. The link dematerialized before her, but Iylea knew where it went.

Unfit for the Falls. Condemned to the chain.

Finally seeing glimpses of how the divine realm was designed to work, the way the Gods were supposed to rely on one another, it made sense that the remaining deities were in disarray. Remembering how she had received a vision in Incinerae’s rooms, she reached for the base of the scale, hoping to be gifted with another.

The moment she touched the gilded scale, the familiar pressure behind her eyes returned. Her vision narrowed.

As she caved to the pressure, the room darkened around her until she saw nothing. Typically, once she allowed herself to join the vision, her sight returned, but this time the world remained dark. Absent sight, her other senses took over.

Seated, her elbows rested on a hard, flat surface with her palms turned skyward. The sound of decanting liquid and the warmth of steam anchored her. A gentle pressure imposed itself on her eyelids, above her ears, and at the back of her skull.

Considering that Rheynian histories often depicted Neutreen as a blindfolded woman, Iylea realized who and where she was.

Attempting to determine how much control Iylea had over the vision, she tried to remove the blindfold. Neutreen did not abide. She couldn’t will her finger to twitch. Rendered a passive observer, Iylea’s conscious mind began to wander.

Why did Aquarius kill Neutreen?

The rivalry between the Valencian Gods and the Judges made sense to her. After witnessing the relationship between Arcamedes and Incinerae, there was no telling what could have transpired between Neutreen and the Judges.

They must have worked closely together for her to use their scale. Was Aquarius jealous?

Her pontifications crumbled as the sound of grinding stone signified the entrance of someone else.

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” Neutreen said. “You should know better than to enter while I sit in judgment.” As the liquid finished pouring, the weight of the scale fell into her left hand—heavier than the feather.

“Too many links on the chain,” a voice said from behind. “But it must be done.”

Neutreen tsked. “That is why I am the Goddess of Justice, and you are not.”

“The scale is unbalanced; regardless of how slight, they are incomplete.”

Neutreen hummed but continued her mulling. Iylea wished she were privy to Neutreen’s thoughts, but as the intruder’s footsteps drew closer, a muscle in Neutreen’s neck twinged; Iylea didn’t need to read Neutreen’s thoughts to intuit her growing apprehension.

“That is the beauty of the Creator’s justice,” Neutreen said, her tone not conveying the perspiration soaked up by the blindfold. “We get glimpses through the windows, but only they see and know all. But as each soul passes from their realm to ours, I get to see the mortals’ whole picture.”

The footsteps drew closer.

A lump formed in Neutreen’s throat, but she spoke through it. “This soul is weighed down, but by love. Compassion. And an unmet desire to see the world grow. She is not incomplete—the world we govern for her is. It is only our failure that we see in them.”

Neutreen pressed her finger down atop the feather until the left side of the scale lifted from her palm.

“To the Falls,” Neutreen said.

“Our failure?” the voice said, his presence looming over Neutreen’s shoulder. “Not the Creator’s?”

Neutreen untied her blindfold to reveal the glowing liquid as it became a bright orb of radiant light. It fluttered about, like a butterfly over a flower bed, before entering into the window and disappearing.

“No,” Neutreen said, setting the blindfold down on the table. Her hands trembled. “But I wonder—what will your soul present, when you fall from grace?”

Neutreen turned in her chair to face Hameryn.

Iylea balked, taken aback by his line of questioning. Staring through Neutreen’s eyes, feeling Neutreen’s fear, Iylea searched Hameryn’s ashen face.

No… it can’t be.

“So it’s you,” Neutreen said. “You tampered with the sands of time. You drove the Corners into abdication.”

“I do what I must,” Hameryn said. “Out of love. Compassion. And an unmet desire to see the world grow.” He smiled, not with cruel disdain, but sad honesty.

“You will never succeed,” Neutreen said. “There will be justice! The Judges will—”

Hameryn slipped something sharp into Neutreen’s chest.

Fire exploded in Iylea’s soul, burning her from the inside out. She screamed, as she and Neutreen died together. They fell from the chair, sprawling to the ground. Looking up at Hameryn with a jagged red-and-black blade clutched in his hand, Iylea wished for the vision to end. But it didn’t, not until Hameryn knelt down and placed his hand on their forehead.

“I will consume you,” Hameryn said. “And there’s nothing you, the Judges, or anyone else can do to stop me.”

The vision ended.

Iylea had fallen to the floor, in the exact spot Neutreen had died. She scuttled away from the location until her back hit the bookshelf. Despite the futility, she continued trying to distance herself from where Hameryn stood even though he wasn’t in the room with her. Tears streamed down her face. She hugged her knees, burying her face in the perfectly embroidered fabric of her divine dress.

Not Ferrocles. Not Phaebia. Hameryn is Paxoran.

Chapter 39

Deals with a Darkling

Threyna VII

Valtarcia

Surrounded by shades and hollowed in Rheynia while fighting the Skeleton King’s horde, Threyna had battled against all odds, but this was an entirely new brand of helplessness.

She had been delayed in delivering the signal for Zephyrus to leave. A few moments. But she might as well have been a lifetime too late. They should have been fleeing Valtarcia and heading to Tharseo’s Bastion, but instead she traveled north, searching for Zephyrus.

She had scoured the riverbanks and sifted through the bodies Zephyrus left behind. Some were charred with electricity’s shock. Others burned with the ire of magical flames. Most were ripped open by steel. Blood pooled in the mud along the river or the dying grass in its vicinity. Yet aside from the feast left behind for the crows, there was no sign of Zephyrus.

The Jackals retreated north, and a gaggle of what appeared to be escaped slaves to the south, but neither party had Zephyrus. No howls echoed through the river valley. If Zephyrus had been killed or apprehended, the Jackals, in spite of suffering so many losses, would have been alive with celebration. The southbound party hadn’t been able to find him, based on their defeated conversations as they raced back to the shipyard.

After they had passed, Threyna consumed the souls of the freshly fallen. She needed what was left of their vanishing vitality if she was going to find Zephyrus. Flush with power, Threyna dove deeper into her Inner Throne than she’d ever dared before, searching for any sign of Zephyrus.

Her senses came alive. Her eyes focused through the gloom, ears sharpened—listening for any signs of life—yet Threyna found nothing but death and decay on the barren riverfront. Her sixth sense, however, felt three heartbeats heading west out of the river valley—one thudding as if spurred by fear, another by vengeance, but the last was quiet.

Weak. Dying. Zephyrus.

Threyna took off in their direction. She climbed the hill out of the river valley with reckless abandon, her mind racing faster than her legs.

The one is too powerful to be human—a whipped horse, perhaps, but not human. The vengeful rider… Tyrus. Could he have followed us from Valenforth? If Erowen never made it out of The Lion’s Bane Inn, Tyrus would blame Zephyrus as much as me. But if he wanted Zephyrus dead, why go through the effort of dragging him away?

Threyna charged onward into the tree-lined cliffside. With the moonlight failing to filter through the branches, Threyna relied on her amplified senses to traverse the difficult terrain. Still, Zephyrus’s fading heartbeats were too far away.

Then the realization hit her square in the chest.

Tyrus took Zephyrus to lure me.

Distracted, Threyna stumbled leaping over a downed branch. Her foot landed awkwardly. Her ankle rolled and nearly buckled underneath her before she caught herself. Pulling up lame, Threyna cursed. She exhaled through her nostrils with a growl, but her frustration didn’t prevent her ankle from throbbing with a beat of its own.

Zephyrus had already healed this same leg through worse, but if she were going to get to him before Tyrus did something to him, she would have to heal herself. With no one else to source her healing, she would have to deplete the vitality she’d consumed from the graveyard surrounding the Vale if she wanted any hope of finding Zephyrus.

“Gory ghosting dammit.”

Threyna stayed on her Inner Throne, but rather than healing herself, she conjured wings twice as wide as her own wingspan. Hopping on her good foot, she raced toward a clearing in the brush. With three flaps of her blood-spawned wings, Threyna took flight. Three more and her feet were in line with the treetops. Ankle still throbbing, she continued to flap until she soared over the jagged landscape. She endured the discomfort through gritted teeth and recalibrated herself to sense Zephyrus’s heartbeat.

Locating them, Threyna turned south to follow the contour of the cliffs descending into the bay. The black rot slithered up her arm as if the wings were infecting her.

A blur charged from the tree line, galloping into the lowlands of the bay. While a few isolated villas sat nestled on the peninsula, Tyrus wasn’t heading toward them. He raced his horse down the coastline.

Not knowing where Tyrus planned on taking Zephyrus, her own heart surged in her chest. She needed to stop them.

If they take to the sea, I’ll never be able to keep up.

As the black snakes strangling her bloodstream stretched into her upper arm and traveled down towards her wrist, she set her jaw, ignoring the corruption and the swelling of her foot. She’d never been able to beat Tyrus before. She and Zephyrus barely made it out of their last encounter.

I can do this. Remove his eye. Finish him.

With no idea how she’d manage to get close enough to extract Tyrus’s false eye without him pummeling her, Threyna dove. Tucking her wings in tight, she cut through the air, hoping to intercept Tyrus and Zephyrus before they could reach the small boat bobbing in the bay.

As she plummeted, wind rushed past her face, and tears streamed from her eyes. She remained in her dive until the black horse came into view. Her ears popped as she dove, but, nearing the ground in front of the charging horse, she opened her wings to their full length. Slowed by the wind resistance, she was still flying too fast. She adjusted her angle to control her landing, but that carried her closer to the horse’s galloping hooves.

Threyna’s feet hovered above the ground. She kept her throbbing ankle elevated and touched down with her good foot. As she hopped to a stop, she let her wings dissolve to ash. The corruption in her veins pulsed up her arm and into her neck, but Tyrus’s steed didn’t seem intent on stopping as it bore down on her.

Another few heartbeats and the beast would trample her. Stopping it without jeopardizing Zephyrus wouldn’t be easy. She channeled power from her Inner Throne. The veins in her neck thrummed. Under the strain, she dropped to a knee, but through a shout of effort, she conjured a curved wall in front of the mount.

The horse screamed behind the wall of blood as it skidded to a stop. Loose stones scattered to escape the sliding hooves.

“Burn me!”

Threyna let the wall dissolve to ash, black veins now stretching across her cheek. As the wall disintegrated, the man attempting to calm the horse was not Tyrus. Midnight shoulder-length curls framed a bearded face. Moonlight glinted off his deeply set dark green eyes.

Ceres…

Zephyrus had mentioned his run-in with the Templar. His expert use of force and manipulation magic made him a dangerous foe, but Threyna didn’t want a fight. Yet he knew what she’d done to the Guardians of the Arcane Templar. There was no way this didn’t end with one of them dead, but injured as she was, she held her hands up.

“Ceres… I can’t let you take him.”

“You’re worse than the Skeleton King,” Ceres said, staring her down while patting the horse’s neck. “You came to us, askin’ for help. You came to us, warnin’ of the Skeleton King’s cursed blood magic. But look at ya. Yer everything he is.”

The black rot pulsed with a life of its own within her veins. Her ankle, swollen and stiff, refused to bear weight. But Ceres’s words wounded her most.

He shook his head. “All this nonsense, claimin’ you believed you were the Wielder, all to gain access to the Treasures’ locations. You used us. Used Zephyrus. Poisoned him against us.”

Threyna swallowed the knot in her throat. She looked away from Ceres’s glare to Zephyrus strapped to the horse’s haunches, seemingly unconscious.

“Let him go,” Threyna said.

Ceres scoffed. “No, Threyna. You let us go. You’ve done enough.”

“I know what I’ve done,” Threyna said. “But I need to take Zephyrus to Tharseo’s Bastion. You don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand,” Ceres snarled. “You thought you were the Wielder, but when the Seers passed over you, you poisoned Zephyrus. Got Patrus killed and Zeph enslaved. Then you stole the Treasures for yourself and killed everyone in your way.”

She recalled Sybex’s blood—the tendrils of red polluting the clear water within the cenote. A chill crept up her spine. Will I ever crawl out from the depth of my sins?

“That’s not the whole truth,” Threyna said, but correcting him wouldn’t have made it better. She had forsaken the Arcane Templar not out of jealousy, but out of prophecy. The Skeleton King, the supposed Harbinger, needed to die a true death. The artifact that birthed new blood mages needed to be destroyed. To her, the Treasures were tools she hoped could accomplish those things, but for the Templar to let her have the Treasures, they needed to believe she was the Wielder, and according to prophecy, the Wielder could not kill the Harbinger.

“There is no ‘whole truth’ with you.” Ceres secured the reins of the blustering horse. “If you want to help Zephyrus, give him the Orsion Cloak and the Vykane Blade, then leave.”

Threyna hobbled towards Ceres’s horse, still hoofing the ground and tossing its head.

“Ask him then,” Threyna said, nodding towards Zephyrus. “If you don’t trust me, listen to him. He’ll tell you the same thing I will. He must go to Tharseo’s Bastion. There is a God, Paxoran, who has been manipulating us both. He’s killing the other Gods, and the mortal realm will suffer because of it. Your war with the Valencians, even my battle with the Skeleton King—neither of them will matter if Zephyrus doesn’t stop Paxoran.”

Ceres inspected her. The throbbing in her veins was exacerbated under his narrowing gaze.

“You don’t have the Aeryean Armor.”

Threyna resituated her good foot, keeping her swollen and throbbing ankle elevated behind her.

“No.”

“Well, it’s no longer in the cliffs.” Ceres walked his braying horse forward. “The Guardians are dead. If not you…”

Threyna stepped backward, putting weight on her twisted ankle. She winced and shifted all her weight to the other side. There was no easy way to deliver the truth—a truth that would only give Ceres more cause for anger.

She swallowed. “A Warlock has it. He’s been hunting me. I thought he was the one who took Zephyrus, to lure me so he could claim all three Treasures.”

Ceres’s dark green eyes flared. “Why couldn’t you just murder him, like everyone else who got in your way?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’ve never been able to defeat him.” Lowering her gaze, Threyna hoped the truth would convince Ceres of their path. “Listen, Zephyrus must go to Tharseo’s Bastion to claim a relic of long-dead Gods in order to stop Paxoran an—”

“Wait.” Ceres leaned down in his saddle to examine her. “Which Gods?”

“I don’t know.”

“What does the relic do?”

“I don’t know!” Threyna said. “All I know is Zephyrus needs my help, and I need his.”

Saying it out loud rattled her. Despite the rot coursing through her body and the aching of her ankle, she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders she hadn’t realized she was carrying.

Ceres grunted, blustering like his horse. The lines framing his pursed lips deepened as he exhaled out his nostrils.

“Together, we will find this relic,” Threyna said. “Together, we will defeat the Warlock. With the Treasures and the relic, we might be able to stop Paxoran and the Skeleton King. Ceres, I’m not asking you to forgive me, but please realize, in this, we want the same thing—we’re on the same side.”

“No,” Ceres said. “We’ll never be on the same side.” He shook his head, looking down at his lap. “I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this.” He met her gaze. “I will take you to Tharseo’s Bastion. But when we come across your Warlock, and we claim the Aeryean Armor from his corpse, you will give me the Treasures. No lies. No deceit. You help the Templar. You give us the Treasures, and you repay your sins in service to the Judges.”

A pull from within squeezed her ribs as if she were being fitted for a corset.

All I’ve done. All I’ve sacrificed for. Can I give the Treasures away once I have what I need to defeat the Skeleton King?

She was in no position to bargain, but she had to ask. “What about the Skeleton King?”

“If he’s the Harbinger, he will make straight the way for the Wielder,” Ceres said. “As terrible as he may be, as much as he may deserve to suffer, the Skeleton King’s actions will allow Zephyrus to balance the scales and set all right.”

Threyna grit her teeth. “And if he’s not the Harbinger?”

“Then by joinin’ us, your vengeance will be ours,” Ceres said. “And together, we will defeat the Skeleton King. Do we have a deal?”

Threyna grunted. Never trust a deal with darklings… From her Inner Throne, she listened to Ceres’s heartbeat. Slow, steady, truthful.

If I hadn’t been so rash, so willful… if I would have been honest, would they have helped from the beginning? The thought chilled her. Had I not listened to Paxoran, how much heartache could I have avoided?

She looked at Zephyrus, lying unconscious on the back of Ceres’s horse. With blood and ash staining his face and loose strands that escaped his messy bun blowing in the wind, he was more marvelous than the Orsion Cloak, the Vykane Blade, and the Aeryean Armor combined. She’d forsaken him in search of the Treasures, but now, she’d give the Treasures away to have him back.

The Seers of Celestia’s prophecy returned to her. “You shall find that which you seek, but you possess all you need.”

Were they right all along?

Threyna released her hold on her Inner Throne and met Ceres’s eyes.

“Deal,” Threyna said.

Chapter 40

Wrath

Danella VI

Salmantica

Damascus paced back and forth in Danella’s study, his fist pressed to his lips. The veins in his neck throbbed as his breath hissed between his clenched teeth.

Brusos fumbled with his fingers, glancing between Danella and the king. “Apologies, your grace. I never intend to be the bearer of bad news. I understand your anger, but—”

“I’m not angry,” Damascus snarled, turning on Brusos with his draconic gaze.

Danella fidgeted in her seat adjacent to the head of the long table. Damascus’s words aside, he was likely to breathe fire if prompted any further. She gestured her head at Ser Daenus.

The Captain of the King’s Guard nodded, his face concealed in his full helm with the visor lowered. Since the burns he’d suffered at Zephyrus’s hands, she’d barely seen Ser Daenus’s face. Part of her appreciated that, but it was just one more thing the mage had taken from her.

Ser Daenus strode from his place beside Danella towards the adjacent chair at the head of the table. He pulled back the chair, sliding its mahogany feet along the red-and-black carpet. “Would you care to sit, your grace?”

Damascus growled. He cast one more predatory glare at Brusos before throwing himself into the seat, next to Danella. “Horus is incompetent. Lenox—incompetent. First Zephyrus’s defiance. Now Laeden is liberating slaves, and Nallia…” Damascus pounded his fist into the table. “How could she do this… to me!”

He inhaled sharply through his nostrils, preparing for another outburst.

Danella placed her hand over Damascus’s. “They will all meet their end. We have traded pawns, my son. They are well at hand.”

“I want them dead!” Spittle flew from Damascus’s mouth. He tore his hand free from Danella’s touch, startling her. “By the Six, every day they live makes me appear weak. Me! Not you—” Damascus jabbed his finger at Brusos. “Me!” He stabbed at Danella. “Not you!” He smacked his palm against the breast of his velvet doublet. “Me! If their heads are not decorating pikes along the rotunda by tomor—”

“Patience, Damascus,” Danella said. “Examples will be made of them and—”

Damascus’s glowing, golden eyes threatened as if he were about to pounce, stopping her midsentence. “Interrupt me again, Mother. I am King of New Rheynia. I am Duke of Salmantica. No one speaks over me.”

Danella pressed herself away from the table, away from Damascus. She blinked, so taken aback that her mask melted and her emotions swirled. She opened her mouth, unsure if she wanted to scold him or apologize.

Gods, what has gotten into him?

Reclaiming her straight-backed posture, Danella folded her hands over her lap, but beneath the table, she bounced her knee. His glare bored into her like a knife. She wanted to turn away, wanted to ask him to stop. Never before had she seen him like this.

Forcing a curt smile, she said, “Apologies, Damas—”

“My king.” Damascus’s black brows angled, as pointed as his chin beard. “Apologies, my king.”

Danella bowed her head. It felt like a betrayal to herself to submit, but his anger unnerved her. All she wanted was his eyes off of her, his anger aimed elsewhere. “Apologies, my king,” Danella said, her voice small. “I intended no offense.”

Steam might as well have come from Damascus’s nostrils as he exhaled. He grumbled something under his breath, but whatever sentiment it carried, Danella didn’t care to hear it. Her bouncing knee slowed to a stop as Damascus turned his gaze on Brusos.

“What good will patience do me?” Damascus asked. “You speak as if you know something I don’t.”

Brusos remained a dozen paces away at the opposite end of the long table. Shuffling his feet, he seemed keen on remaining there.

“I didn’t want to bother you with the trivial details of espionage,” Brusos said. “But we have an agent inside the Uprising, and two more dispatched to infiltrate Laeden and the deserter Ridge Knights, yet…” Brusos tapped his fingertips together.

“Yet what?” Damascus snapped.

“We’ve yet to hear correspondence from those in Laeden’s camp.” Brusos’s eye twitched before lowering his gaze.

“What of your plant inside the Uprising?” Damascus asked, pressing himself to his feet.

Brusos glanced to Danella.

“Don’t look at her,” Damascus roared. “Look at me.”

Danella gave Brusos one slow nod. She glanced at Ser Daenus, but his steel-plated face hid whatever Damascus’s wrath birthed in him. Danella almost wished she had a suit of armor to crawl in and hide behind.

Brusos cleared his throat. “Yes, my king. One of my own is with the Uprising now. He has afforded himself well and gained their favor. Nallia’s assault on the Valtarcian shipyard was prompted by him.”

Damascus stammered. “Why? Now they’re fighting together.”

“Yes, exactly,” Brusos said. “But we know where both of them will be.”

Damascus jutted his chin forward, waving his hand in a rolling motion.

Brusos’s thin-lipped smile returned. Danella only hoped it would be enough to dampen Damascus’s fire.

Brusos rubbed his hands together. “The Uprising overtook House Arux and a number of low ludi throughout southeastern Stockhelm. My agent has suggested uniting the leaders of their rebellion together to decide if they should attack my ludus in the Hylan Peaks. So by afternoon tomorrow, Laeden, Nallia, and every leader of the Uprising will be at House Arux.”

Damascus’s tight lips parted in a smile. Danella’s posture slackened. She hadn’t seen his teeth without snarling ever since Nallia was abducted after the New Rheynian Games.

“I want every knight, guard, and stable boy able to hold a sword on a ship bound for Stockhelm at midday tomorrow,” Damascus said. “Send a messenger to Horus as well. Give him one last opportunity not to fail me.”

Danella pursed her lips. She didn’t want to risk raising Damascus’s wrath, but she was more afraid of botching this opportunity to exterminate their enemies than her son’s ire.

“If I may, my king,” Danella said. “Wars are not won with swords alone. Wit and tact may be stronger allies. Might I suggest—”

As fast as swirling winds changed direction, Damascus’s smile morphed into a scowl. He turned on her. Standing abruptly with enough force to cast his chair clattering to the floor, he closed the distance between them.

Stricken by panic, Danella shrank into her chair. He raised his hand, and Danella lifted her arms to shield her face.

Damascus slammed his palm on the table in front of her.

Danella released a trembling breath. For a moment, she thought he was going to strike her, but his aggression might as well have had the same effect. A stone formed in her throat, denying breath.

“This war will destroy him,” Varros had said. “Danella, my love… please. You must make him stop.”

As her son’s stare bore into her with an unrecognizable rage, Danella swallowed the stone and stared at Damascus’s flattened hand on the tabletop.

“Are you suggesting that I lack the wit and tact to win this war?” Damascus asked, craning his neck to force her to look at him.

She didn’t want to. The sight would only confirm Varros’s fears. This war, the loss of his father, the abduction of his betrothed, the betrayal of his half-brother—everything she had set in motion had made Damascus what he was.

We just need to end it. End it quickly. Then he will return. My sweet, loving boy.

She met his gaze, but looked through him, remembering the way he once was. She recalled teaching him the popular dances of court, the laughter they shared having picnics in the Heart of Sentigard, the way he’d grin whenever he wore Varros’s crown.

I just want my boy back.

Danella took a deep breath. “No, King Damascus. No one would question your abilities as a general. I only meant to say that the element of surprise is our greatest weapon against the combined force of Laeden, Nallia, and the Uprising.”

“Oh, I will take them by surprise,” Damascus said, his predatory grin returning. “I will surround them on all sides. I want to witness their dread when they realize that it’s over—that I’ve won and they’ve lost. I will watch the hope flee from their eyes as I stand on their throats and bring their futile resistance to an end. I will lead the troops myself and put an end to this. And when I return, everything will be how it was.”

Damascus swept his hand along the tabletop and spun towards the door. As he stormed through the study, forcing Brusos to step aside, Danella’s tension did not ease. Nor did it once the door closed behind him.

“Everything will be how it was.”

She repeated the words in her mind, over and over again, willing them to be true. But how could they be?

Damascus will never have his father again. Nallia will never be his wife. And Laeden’s name will become as synonymous with traitors as the Hechts’. Who is Damascus without his father, his love, and his brother?

“Are you well, my queen?” Ser Daenus asked from behind his mask.

Danella straightened her skirts. “I will be, once Damascus returns victorious.” And he returns to himself.

Pushing her seat away from the table, she stalked over to the window. Salmantica lay beneath her, a sleeping giant on the verge of waking. The Aquarian ran low and murky, the streets surrounding it—dusty and unkempt. In recent days, crime had increased despite Heclan Allos’s efforts with the Vigiles. But as crops withered and the slums went thirsty, it was only a matter of time before troubles abroad struck closer to home.

With the absence of rain and not enough ships to ferry water and soldiers, something would have to give. The sooner the Uprising was stamped out, the sooner more ships could be dedicated to delivering food and water. Anything to keep the sleeping giant at rest.

Danella closed her eyes, praying that Damascus was right—that things could return to how they were. She hoped such a thing was still possible—that Varros was wrong, and she hadn’t traded her son’s soul for her father’s kingdom. But doubt sat beside her, whispering of Varros’s parting words and her every shortcoming.

Chapter 41

Choose

Laeden X

Stockhelm

The only thing Laeden trusted was betrayal. Regardless of relationship—storied pasts, oaths, honor-bound duty—they all ended the same way, yet he always seemed to be on the receiving end of the treachery. His childhood friend, Aelon, framed him to become a King’s Guard Knight. Laeden’s sworn brothers in the Sentinels, Pirus and Dedrik, drew swords on him in the Temple of Hameryn and then condemned him in his trial. His father never trusted him with the truth but allowed him to insert himself into the middle of the decades-old conflict between the Uprising and the devout Valencian patricians. It was just a matter of time before Kherus, Aponius, or even Markus stabbed him in the back next. But those he was prepared for. It was the betrayal he never saw coming that hurt the most.

Laeden stood before his mother as she sat in what was once Arux’s seat. They had arrived at the ludus between midnight and dawn. Though torches and candles were lit in the showroom, they were not enough to beat back the darkness.

Sitting in the shadows, with her legs crossed, arms on the rests, drumming her fingers on the wooden chair, she examined Laeden. Her gaze felt colder than the empty showroom. Twenty years had passed without a visit, a note, or a care in the world. Now he stood before her, covered in the stains of death, and it seemed twenty more years would pass without a word.

She didn’t appear how Laeden remembered, and she hadn’t aged as well as his father. Her once-brown hair was now completely gray; wrinkles framed her eyes and decorated her scowl. He knew his mother’s life had not been an easy one. Though accepted by Hallon, she was otherwise not welcomed by the Valtarcian patricians. Matters only worsened when her husband left for war and didn’t come home, only to reach new depths when he finally did and their marriage was annulled by King Damascus Drake as part of the Treaty of 940.

Laeden often wondered what became of her after he had been stripped from her care. While he had suffered the indignities of being a pseudo-prince, and though he would have preferred to return to Valtarcia to be amongst the plebeians who raised him, he still received the comforts of castle life. Lenara Faire, the mother he’d given up hope on, had not. Yet somehow, she joined the Uprising and became a leader of the rebellion against the kingdom her former husband ruled.

Though Laeden had a thousand questions, his frazzled emotions inhibited him from speaking. Part of him wanted her to descend the dais and embrace him. Another part of him wanted to hate her for abandoning him and moving on without making any effort to contact him. A different, darker part of him didn’t think she deserved the polarity of either emotion. And so he mirrored her stoicism. He crossed his hands behind his back, unwilling to play her games. He would wait.

Lenara’s stern mask parted in a curt smile. “My, you’ve grown.”

Laeden grunted. “Twenty years will do that.”

“Twenty years,” Lenara said, elongating the words as if the sounds were from a foreign tongue. “So much has changed, hasn’t it?”

“And nothing at all,” Laeden said. “Still fighting the same war.”

“War is constant,” Lenara agreed.

Laeden hmphed. “War… and betrayal.”

Lenara fixed him with an icy glare that she must have learned from his father, but she seemed to have perfected it. A silence stretched between them longer than the years that divided them. Laeden ground his teeth, feeling more like an insolent child than a king meeting with a potential ally.

He released his held breath. “You’re leading the Uprising—”

“The Fallen.”

Laeden cleared his throat. “The difference?”

“The Uprising is a patrician label given to people fighting to make a difference,” Lenara said. “You know very little about the Arcane Templar, the Warlocks of Sage, or the Fallen, but you label us all the same. The Fallen are the false slaves of Invinius Auros, and you would do well to know the difference.”

Laeden inclined his head, his lower jaw releasing its clench.

Auros… Zephyrus’s father.

“False slaves?” Laeden asked.

“He branded them with an ‘A,’ but they were never his property,” Lenara said. “They were his army. They escaped to Klaytos, joined with other Helms—of the Arcane Templar—who fled south prior to the Great Migration.”

Laeden nodded. “And now you lead?”

“Some say that,” Lenara said, pushing herself to her feet to stand on the dais. “But we have no kings or queens here. At least, we didn’t.” She pulled down her collar to reveal the falcon of House Faire branded to her chest.

Laeden grunted. He winced, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a similar tattoo darkening the underbelly of his forearm. “I wasn’t always a king, if you recall.”

Lenara allowed herself a small smile, but it faded as quickly as it came. “Vykinallia’s was the loudest voice among those wishing to bring you here, and it sounds like you were fortunate she arrived when she did. You have been freeing slaves—fighters as well as laborers. If you were trying to get our attention, you’ve succeeded. So what do you want?”

Laeden bit his lip. Simple question, but it required a complicated answer, made even more difficult by the lack of familiarity Lenara would have with the involved parties. Markus knew Iylea and Zephyrus personally, and even he didn’t believe Laeden.

“Now’s not the time to play a war of secrets,” Lenara said. “You may have to tell your followers different things to get them to buy in, but here, I need truth.”

Ironic. Never a two-way street.

Laeden crossed his arms. “Tell me first—what do you know of Vykanicus Auros?”

Lenara raised an eyebrow, a sliver of a smile touching her lips. “Perhaps you are more informed than I credited you for.”

She stepped off of the dais to be on flat ground with Laeden. She wasn’t as tall as Laeden remembered, but he was much smaller last he laid eyes on her.

“Vykanicus Auros, Zephyrus, the Wielder—he goes by many names,” Lenara said in a low voice. “All of which are true. The son of Invinius Auros, raised by the Fallen from a young age. After displaying a unique ability to balance the scales with healing magic, he was brought to the Arcane Templar, the defenders of the Treasures. There, he demonstrated a rare ability to do so across multiple disciplines. He trained with them for over a decade, learning how best to channel his gifts, until the time was right. While we waited, we helped people escape their chains.”

Laeden couldn’t believe it. For twenty years, they’ve been freeing slaves? “How come your existence is only now coming to light?”

“We kept our operation small so as not to rouse suspicion; a few missing slaves here and there, from low ludi and lesser lanistas too shamed to admit they’d lost their investments, don’t exactly become court gossip. All the while, we prepared until Vykanicus was ready to become the Wielder and take Stockhelm back from the Drakes.”

Laeden framed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, trying to fill the gaps in Zephyrus’s story. “All of that changed when he lost his memory.”

Lenara nodded, peering over Laeden’s shoulder. Laeden followed her gaze, but no shadow darkened the torchlit entryway into Arux’s showroom.

Lenara, regaining focus, continued. “Without his memories, and enslaved… by you.” The ice returned to her eyes.

“So you began freeing more slaves,” Laeden said.

“And the ‘Uprising’ was born.” Lenara smiled. “But the Fallen have been rising since before the Treaty was signed. Now, I’ve shared some truth. Your turn. Why are you freeing enslaved people, Laeden the Crownless?”

Laeden sniffed, rubbing his palms on the hem of his sleeves. The connection Zephyrus had to the Fallen was deeper than he could have realized. His mother’s knowledge of Zephyrus was greater than his own, but he still had questions.

“Because they shouldn’t be enslaved,” Laeden said. “How long have you been working with the Fallen?”

Lenara’s expression softened. She drew nearer and reached her hand for Laeden’s cheek. “Is that my son asking or the king?”

Laeden turned away from her touch, but knew she was right. As king, he didn’t need to know when, how, or why she started working with them, but as a son, he did. If she’d been with them since the beginning, it would explain where she’d been, why no messenger he’d sent ever found her. She wasn’t dead, but she had become a ghost.

“The day you were taken from me,” Lenara said. Her voice barely carried the short distance between them.

A knot formed in Laeden’s throat.

“Ser Ellus Pythe of the King’s Guard came to me and said if I ever tried to contact you, you’d be killed. The queen would make it look like an accident.” She shook her head, mouth open, but no words came forth.

“What was I to do?” she asked once she settled herself. “Husband stolen from me, son snatched from my grasp—I couldn’t bear it. To have a son, but not be able to have him…”

Twenty years of abandonment and neglect. Twenty years of questions and ceaseless wondering. He swallowed the knot in his throat, blinking.

She sighed. “Just as I finished stringing a noose, Lord Sinion came to me.”

Laeden retracted his head. “Sinion?”

Laeden knew the lesser lanista of Stockhelm spent more of his coin on luxuries than gladiators, that he’d fought in the arena before becoming a lanista, and that he’d served aboard his father’s ship in the war. But in the Fallen?

“He offered me a new chance, Laeden. And I took it. I dedicated my life to stopping Queen Danella from taking that which wasn’t hers, and every slave plucked from her grasp is a victory as sweet as this one.”

She wrapped her arms around Laeden’s waist, pressing her cheek to his bloodstained chest. The knot he’d swallowed choked the breath from his lungs. A thousand more questions bloomed and wilted in his mind, never quite reaching his tongue, but for the first time in his life, the answers didn’t matter.

She didn’t betray me. She protected me.

He allowed himself to hug her back.

“We’ve been through Six Hells,” his mother said, after a time. She pressed herself away from him to meet his gaze. “But we no longer have to go through it alone.”

As the sky lightened through the sky window in Arux’s showroom, Laeden shared his story. Leaving his father out of the conversation, he told her everything about Zephyrus and Iylea. From Iylea’s death and speaking to him from beyond the grave, to Zephyrus sparing him at his trial and declaring himself Vykanicus Auros, Laeden told all.

“That’s why,” Laeden said. “Iylea is trying to help Zephyrus. I hoped by liberating ludi, it would distract the Jackals. But seeing Zephyrus upon the Vale, I knew if I did nothing, he would die. I had to attack… but I’m not sure it made a difference. The Jackals likely have him.”

The recount left him more drained than when he shared it with Vykinallia and Markus.

Lenara raised her eyebrow, her gaze as sharp as the falcon of House Faire. “If the Wielder is dead, we will know. But I believe you—about what happened.”

Doubt saturated her tone, causing Laeden to stiffen.

“But, if you wanted to distract the Jackals, you would have made a spectacle of taking the ludi and drew attention to yourself. You didn’t. You were thorough, systematic, and merciful, but by keeping your attacks contained, you didn’t distract the Jackals. So why attack the ludi?”

Heat rose to Laeden’s cheeks. Laeden folded his arms across his chest and shuffled his feet. Realizing what he was doing, he stopped himself.

What does she want me to say—that I don’t know what I’m doing?

“You’re more like your father than you know,” his mother said. “But you can’t please everyone, as your father eventually learned. Ridge Knights and freedpeople, Celestics and Valencians, every decision you make will appease one and disappoint the other.”

He felt like a boy again. A boy named king, with no idea how to bridge the gap between divided people.

“I’ve only told Markus,” Laeden said. “The other Ridge Knights don’t know. They wouldn’t believe me if I told them.”

His mother nodded. “They wouldn’t. But building an army to take Valtarcia back from Horus—they’ll believe that. So why did you let Joru and the others go?”

“It was their choice to make,” Laeden said. “To force them to join me against their will would only enslave them to a new master.”

“And the Ridge Knights,” his mother said, “how did they feel about letting them go?”

Laeden pursed his lips. “As you’d expect.”

“And your change of tactics? From planned assaults on ludi in search of fighters for your army to reckless attacks on shipyards, how well do you expect they understood that?”

The heat in his cheeks spread, a vein beginning to throb in his neck.

This is worse than a conversation with Father. Just a different brand of lecture.

The worst part, he knew she was right. “I need to speak with them. And I will.” Laeden wanted to check in on Gensus to see how he was recovering from his injury. The men’s morale would be dismal in the wake of Ser Ostrey’s death and the fall of their other brothers.

If Kherus hadn’t disobeyed orders…

His mother’s stiff nod didn’t portend well. She crossed her arms and shifted into her hip to mirror Laeden’s posture.

“I suggest you get your house in order,” Lenara said, her motherly tone from moments ago gone. “Tomorrow, every Fallen leader will be here to discuss if we will take the former Cassius ludus. Not when, but if. You, and the Ridge Knights who follow you, may be the difference between a unified attack or a divided retreat.”

Laeden nodded. “I know.”

“This war has only ever been about reclaiming Stockhelm,” Lenara said. “Freedom. Not kings, castles, and crowns. And while you may not be against us, our objectives do not align. Whether Vykanicus Auros is alive or dead, whether Iylea ever speaks from the heavens again, you must decide what is more important to you: your crown or our mission.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “You can’t play both sides, King Laeden. You must choose. You have until nightfall to decide if you and your men are staying or going.”

She tugged his shoulder downward, pulling his cheek to her lips before walking away.

As her echoing footsteps retreated into the dark recesses of the showroom, Laeden remained at its center. From taking Ruhlar’s ludus, speaking with his father, their night march to the shipyard, and the ensuing battle, the night’s events left Laeden exhausted, but tomorrow would prove more difficult. Even without a crown, the weight on Laeden’s head slumped his shoulders.

Looking out the sky window of the showroom, Laeden’s thoughts drifted to Iylea and what she was doing in the divine realm. He had promised Zephyrus he would join the Uprising and free the slaves, but that was before the Ridge Knights offered him a way to take back Valtarcia.

If Zephyrus is gone, and I can no longer help Iylea, all I have left are the Ridge Knights and the Fallen.

For so long, all he had were duties. Choices were a luxury. But now, absent obligation or his own pride and independent of duty, he questioned himself for the first time.

What do I want?

He could reaffirm his commitment to the Ridge Knights and return to Valtarcia. Once he forced Horus to surrender, he could undo the Salmantic decrees oppressing the Celestics east of the isthmus. He’d take the fighting slaves to join his army in opposition against Salmantica while improving the conditions of the other Valtarcian slaves. After he defeated Damascus and Danella, he could work towards restoring the country to how things were prior to the New Rheynian War. He’d free all who fought for him and implement a steep graduated tax on those who still owned slaves all over New Rheynia. In a few short years, he’d appease the patricians by giving them time to change their business practices, use the tax revenue to create services for the plebs, and pave the way toward a slave-free country.

Laeden huffed, staring at the stars. It wouldn't be easy, not one part of it. But what were his alternatives?

He could join the Fallen in earnest. He was a better soldier than a leader, and without patricians to appease, he could deliver the enslaved the freedom they deserved with greater immediacy. Perhaps he could even reunite his mother and father.

If Father announced he was alive and told the truth of Danella’s betrayal, how many would join our cause?

Somehow, that prospect seemed more difficult than taking Valtarcia, winning a war, and governing all of New Rheynia.

“We all have a part to play, yes?” Aurellia had said.

Whatever part Laeden played, it would need to be decided soon.

Laeden’s chin fell to his chest as doubt wrapped cold arms around him. The dancing torchlight did little to fend off the chill. He stared at the floor, but something moved within the shadows cast by the flickering light.

Laeden looked over his shoulder toward the entryway.

Searching the darkness with the skin-crawling sensation that he was being watched, Laeden found nothing.

He walked to the servants quarters where the other Ridge Knights were offered rest. Laeden rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, knowing the burden of choice would still be waiting for him come morning.

Chapter 42

Champion of Blood and Sand

Fenyx V

Stockhelm

The chains that bound Fenyx’s hands to one another clinked as he picked up the stone block and set it atop the others along the existing wall. Irons secured his ankles as well, with barely enough links between them to work, let alone run away. Yet the bonds around his hips that connected him to Vossler, and Vossler to Daegan, and Daegan to Shagren and so on, carried whispers of Auron’s rebellion.

Every water break—as few and far between as they might have been with the lack of water due to the drought—was filled with sideways glances, hushed whispers, and coded speech. Fenyx was tired of the nonsense, but this afternoon, he’d put an end to it. Odetta had delivered him the tools he needed to stamp out Auron’s foolishness before it got underway without condemning any within the brotherhood.

Fenyx bent down to lift another block, moving it from the pile beside him to the wall before him. The whip cracked, snapping at the heels of Auron at the other end of the line.

“Hurry it up!” said the guard.

Fenyx grit his teeth and continued transferring the blocks from his pile to the wall. It was the only way to keep the guards’ attention off him. If everyone just did their work, no one would be disciplined. One block at a time was all it took to purchase safety from the guards, but some were either too foolhardy or too proud to accept that simple truth.

If they weren’t chained together, the work would go much faster, but this was less about getting the job done and more about keeping the gladiators busy, tired, and broken of spirit. Such tactics might work against most men, but not someone like Auron. And as long as he spoke of a life of purpose beyond these walls, there would be others who would listen.

Just a few more hours.

The sun was already rising over the eastern wall of the training square in its journey across the sky. Soon he would be removed from the chain line and returned to the villa, and shortly after that, the Sentinels would arrive to do with Odetta whatever Sentinels did to Celestic mages who didn’t know how to keep their heads down and mouths shut.

The Judge’s magic lived in his veins, but no one knew it but him. And it would stay that way. He wished Odetta had the sense to conceal her secrets better, but soon enough, another would take her place, and she would serve just fine as the Champion’s wife.

As Fenyx was midway through picking up another block, a clamor escaped the villa’s balcony, redirecting the attention of every guard and gladiator. The new dominus, Duke Chancellor Ebron Brusos, emerged from beyond the curtain, and all went quiet.

Since Cassius’s fall and Brusos’s rise, the dominus had yet to grace the ludus with his presence until now. Brusos’s short black hair contrasted with the wispy white of his predecessor. His stern glare took measure of the gladiators-turned-stone-haulers.

Cerberynn followed her husband onto the balcony. She whispered inaudibly, her hands gesturing emphatically to the sands below. Behind her stood Odetta, but Odetta’s gaze fixed on Fenyx. A slight smile touched the corner of her lips.

Before Fenyx could question the expression, the door to the barracks flung open, and a dozen Sentinels, led by the man-boy who carved the tear down Fenyx’s right cheek, stormed onto the sands of the training square.

“Halt,” the Sentinel leader said, striding over to the chain line, something clutched within each hand.

The sight of the man made Fenyx’s scar scream and his burns prickle. When the Sentinel’s gaze fixed on him, the block in his hands slipped from his grasp and sank into the sand with a thud. Fenyx’s eyes darted from the Sentinel’s face to what was clutched in his hands.

In one fist was the sharp curved edge of the paring knife Odetta had delivered in a loaf of bread. In the other, the medallion inscribed with the balanced scale of Celestia hung from its leather strap.

Fenyx swallowed, looking up to the balcony, where Odetta’s grin had spread to either ear. His chest seized, sending a spasm through his mid-back.

She set me up.

The Sentinels fanned out, creating a semicircle around Fenyx with their swords drawn, as if he weren’t already bound with his back to the wall and tethered to a man on either side of him.

“We meet again,” the Sentinel said. “I don’t think you’ll get off with a whipping this time.”

“It’s not mine,” Fenyx said, pointing to the balcony. “I can expla—”

“Release him,” the Sentinel said to the Brusos guard.

“That’s not his,” Auron said. “It’s mine. It’s mine!”

The guards and Sentinels ignored Auron, but Fenyx met his friend’s concerned gaze. If this was part of Odetta and Auron’s sick plan to force Fenyx to join them, he was selling it well, but why he would attempt to redirect the attention to himself didn’t make sense.

The Brusos guard seized the chain around Fenyx’s waist and unlocked the tether to Vossler on one side and Wardon on the other.

Fenyx raised his hands, still bound as the Sentinels seized him. “I can explain.”

Four Sentinels shoved Fenyx towards the palus on the west side of the training square. Fenyx looked over his shoulder to the balcony. Cerberynn continued speaking to her husband, but to no avail.

“It was given to me,” Fenyx said as they pressed his back against the splintered wooden training dummy. “I swear it by the Six—those aren’t mine. They belong to the house slave, Odetta. Odetta!”

They didn’t listen, wrapping a chain around his ankles, his knees, and his hips, binding him to the palus.

“You have the wrong man,” Auron said. “I’m the one you want.”

All eyes were on Fenyx, though, as the Sentinels continued to wrap the chain around him. The metal snaked up his arms, pinning them to his sides and ascending to his shoulders and neck.

Fear bit into him, tighter than the chains constricting his flesh. “Dominus, mercy! I am your Champion. You must believe me.”

Tears stung his eyes, the salt of which drained into his scabbing flesh. Helplessness ate away at him worse than the boiling oil that burned through the deer-hide tent and scorched the entirety of his left side as a child. The dominus gave no sign of intervention. The guards watched, not lifting a finger to uphold justice. The gladiators, his brothers, remained fixed—unable or unwilling to interfere on his behalf.

With everyone’s attention on Fenyx, no one saw Auron pick up a stone block. No one stopped him as he lifted it high overhead. And no one cried out to warn the guard before Auron slammed the heavy stone atop the guard’s half helm.

The guard crumbled to the sand, but Auron wasted no time in raising the block again to smash it into the side of the fallen guard’s face. The guards reacted, but too slow. Shagren seized the guard’s short sword and tossed it to Daegan. Daegan caught the blade and, in one swift cut, slashed at the nearest guard’s neck. Blood gushed. Screams erupted.

“Stop them!” Brusos shouted from the balcony.

Fenyx struggled within his bindings, but the Sentinels locked him into place before running across the training square to assist the Brusos guards. The tension of the chain provided no room to draw deep breaths, let alone the slack to wriggle free. He watched in horror as his brothers lifted their stones and hurled them at the incoming guards. Vossler seized another sword, and Shagren claimed the fallen guard’s keys.

“No!” Fenyx shouted. He wanted someone to stop the Sentinels from punishing him unfairly, but this was not the solution. Everyone would die, and for what? It would change nothing, but his cries fell on deaf ears.

Auron called out commands, and the tethers that served to limit them became their greatest weapon. They circled one guard, tripping him. Once they downed the guard, Daegan’s sword point drove home, piercing the fallen guard through the chest. Meanwhile, the other half of the chained gladiators attacked the Sentinels. Unarmed, without armor, and chained together, they fought with stone, sword, and chain against the guards and Sentinels.

Auron lifted his manacled wrists to block a vertical slash. With the guard’s ribs exposed, Shagren thrust his sword into the guard’s side. With the guard’s grip weakened, Auron wrested the blade away from the guard and turned it on another.

Fenyx slammed against the chains, straining the foundation of the palus within the sand, but to no avail. Veins bulged in his neck, and a visceral roar bellowed from his mouth. He didn’t know what he would do if he managed to escape his bondage—aid his brothers or attempt to stop the fighting and spare them from inevitable death—but his indecision didn’t hinder his fruitless efforts.

Wardon raised another stone to duel a Sentinel, but his weapon—too heavy, too slow, to contend with the Sentinel’s sword—fell from his grasp as steel stabbed into his belly. Blood belched from the wound. The weight of Wardon’s stone weapon hurled him off-balance. As he fell to the ground, so too did the rest of the gladiators chained to him. Sentinels climbed atop them, sword points leveled at their downed foes, demanding they yield.

Fenyx screamed for mercy. Cried for an end to the pointless death of his brothers. But no one—man or God—called for an end to the butchery.

Across the square, Vossler and Daegan overwhelmed a Brusos guard. Blood spat from the guard’s chest, staining the white of his surcoat scarlet. Auron fumbled with the guard’s key on his tethering manacles and worked himself free. Hands and feet still bound, Auron seized the sword of Daegan’s latest victim and advanced on the Sentinels.

“Auron, end this!” But Fenyx’s pleas did nothing to stop Auron’s advance or prevent more Brusos guards from charging into the training square.

While Auron raged like a storm, hacking and slashing any in his way with the skill of a former Champion of New Rheynia and the fury of the scorned, the others still chained together faltered without his instruction. Vossler went for one guard at the same moment Daegan squared off with another. Their disunity sent them both off-balance.

The guard nearest Vossler sliced upwards, severing the tongueless gladiator’s hand from his wrist. A wordless scream filled the training square as the sword, still clutched in the amputated hand, fell to the sand.

Auron continued his reckless charge, leaving bodies in his wake as he fought his way towards Fenyx, chained on the palus. But behind him, Daegan’s foe kicked Shagren backwards, wrenching Daegan even further off-balance. Before Daegan could recover, the guard beat the sword from his grasp, allowing the reinforcements from the barracks to surround the unarmed group of Shagren, Daegan, and Vossler, forcing them to yield.

“Auron!” Tears streamed down Fenyx’s cheeks. “Yield!”

Auron heaved labored breaths. Blood drained from the corpses encircling him, staining the sands crimson, but now, over a dozen guards surrounded him. His eyes darted between targets, but there was no hope in winning.

“It won’t get better,” Auron shouted.

“This is not the way,” Fenyx said.

“I want him alive,” Brusos shouted from the balcony.

Auron attacked the nearest guard. He slashed at one’s midsection, wheeled around to block a feint at his backside, then spun again to thrust at a third guard, but there were too many. One blade sliced along his shoulder. Another swiped across his arm. As he felled one guard, three more attacked. One got in close, stepped on the chain between Auron’s ankles. With a shove, Auron was sent to the ground, and like the Six Spears of the Salmantic arena, a wheel of blades aimed at the man on the sands.

“No!” Auron shouted, but the blade was ripped free from his grasp.

His rebellion was over. Regardless of how many Brusos guards littered the ground, the battle ended. Senseless, foolish—lost.

“Alive!” Brusos said again. “Tie him to the palus. He will serve as an example for all who wish to defy the Duke of Stockhelm.”

The guards did as ordered, yanking Auron from the sands and dragging him, despite his resistance, to the palus adjacent to Fenyx. Auron cried for them to fight him, but they would not grant him the glory of dying in battle. The other cowed gladiators watched with broken spirits and long faces as the guards shoved Auron against the palus. They hoisted the chain binding Auron’s wrists over the projections of the wooden dummy so that he dangled, face-first against the rough wood, his toes barely hovering over the ground.

“Secure him,” Brusos said over Auron’s protests. “Bring the rest to their cells. No rations for a week and no water for two days.”

The guards and Sentinels did as ordered. The gladiators’ gaze remained downward as they were escorted to the barracks in chains, none bothering to spare a glance at Auron or Fenyx one last time.

“What of him, Duke Chancellor?” the man-boy Sentinel asked, pointing at Auron.

Brusos tapped his thin lips with his index finger as Cerberynn whispered in his ear. Brusos nodded and inclined his head. “Strip the rebel nude and whip him. 100 lashes.”

Fenyx balked. Such was a death sentence. No man would survive that.

“Plus,” Brusos continued, “six additional lashes for each man injured by his hand.”

Fenyx turned from Brusos to the dead men littering the sands. He didn’t bother to count. Auron would be dead before they reached anywhere close to his sentence.

“And what of this one?” the Sentinel asked, speaking of Fenyx.

Brusos rubbed his smooth chin as if he were deciding which color drapes he preferred for his chambers. In his silence, the wind picked up, carrying an ominous chill.

Odetta’s warning last night in his Champion’s cell resonated in his mind, sending gooseflesh down his unburnt side.

“If you fail to leave,” Odetta had said, “everything you are afraid to lose will be taken.” Then her voice changed, deeper and darker. “You will be unmade and reforged—a Champion of far more than blood and sand, regardless of your stubbornness.”

Fenyx had never been one to mire through the complexities of discerning the will of any deity, but never before had they impacted him so personally. He looked to the sky as if someone, somewhere, was looking down on him—laughing at the fact that Fenyx, for however close he might have come, would never receive what he was owed.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered to the wind.

He didn’t know which God haunted Odetta or what they wanted with him in the first place, but he would be Champion of nothing should he share Auron’s fate.

Brusos cleared his throat. “Let him see the treatment of rebels. He may be a slow learner, but perhaps after this, he will accept that the Judges of Celestia are no more. The Gods of Valencia have given him one last chance.”

Brusos rolled his hand, giving the Sentinels the order to proceed.

Fenyx didn’t understand. I’m not being punished? He should have been relieved, but his mind felt numb and sluggish.

Auron eyed him as the guards stripped him nude. He pursed his lips and scrunched his face, but, as if it wounded him to look upon Fenyx, he turned his head to face the opposite direction.

The gesture hurt worse than any word Auron could have spoken. Fenyx called out to Auron—his mentor, his friend, his brother—but the only response was the crack of the whip and the grunts that followed.

With each lash and every wince, Fenyx questioned what would have happened had he joined Auron. Would he have shared the same fate, or could he have been the difference between freedom and death? But as the whip was passed from one Sentinel to the next, and as Auron’s grunts became cries, his cries screams, and his screams silence, Fenyx lost count of how many lashes Auron had received.

As the sun rose and fell behind them, stretching the shadows of the paluses long, Fenyx understood the severity of his punishment.

By the time the Sentinel whipped his last lash at Auron’s corpse, Fenyx was hanging slack within his chains. The fight within him died with Auron as the Burning had consumed all and left him with nothing but ash. What remained of Auron drooped from his manacles.

The guards and Sentinels finished disposing of the bodies within the training square and retreated inside, leaving Fenyx with Auron as dusk set in. The sky, purple and gray, shed no light on Fenyx’s shame, but he felt it all the same.

“I’m sorry, Auron,” Fenyx said. “I’m so sorry.”

He couldn’t look at him any longer. He was hardly recognizable. Auron died a slave’s death, absent the honor of the arena, void of his triumphs, and denied the many laurels he’d achieved as a gladiator and doctore. Now he was just a corpse. Carrion for the crows. The waste of an empire that lost its use for him.

As dusk darkened to evening and evening lightened to dawn, Fenyx wondered where Zephyrus was—if he realized the unrest he’d wrought. When the sun rose again in the east to blind his sleep-deprived eyes, and the vultures circled over Auron’s lifeless body, Fenyx began to believe that perhaps Zephyrus was right. Whatever glory he could have won honored the men who owned him more than himself.

If I am going to bleed, let it be for me.

He’d been unmade, as Odetta had predicted. But if or when the time came for him to be reforged as a champion beyond blood and sand, Fenyx would not miss his calling. To the chain with anyone who dared stand in his way.

Chapter 43

Treason

Laeden XI

Stockhelm

Laeden woke with a gasp, seizing the dagger he kept beneath his pillow.

Eyes wild, he scanned the servants’ quarters for any sign of movement. Nothing but three empty bedrolls and Gensus propped up in the lone bed in the room.

Laeden sighed, lowering his knife, and sinking back onto the stone floor. He stared at the ceiling. Light filtered in through the window. By the look of it, he must have slept until noon. Steadying his breath, he pushed himself to a seated position.

His bones ached. His head throbbed with the dull buzz of sleep deprivation, but he had already wasted too much of the day to linger any longer.

Despite his fatigue, sleep had not greeted Laeden until well past dawn. Perhaps his nightly endeavors had disrupted his sleep schedule, or maybe the impending conversations he’d have to have with the Ridge Knights proved too difficult to put from his mind, but as many excuses as Laeden made for himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

“Didn’t think I’d live to see another sunrise,” Gensus said.

“Thank the Six,” Laeden said, but the phrase felt wrong knowing that a traitor God was murdering the others.

“I half hoped it was a nightmare.” Gensus grunted, attempting to sit up to face Laeden. “But it’s true, eh—about Ostrey and Malachi?”

Laeden bit his lip and nodded, unable to release his grip on his dagger. “Afraid so.”

“And Kydan, Merlo, Pennant too?”

Laeden’s head hung heavier. He’d never taken the time to get to know them, and now he never would.

Gensus sighed. “Valencia awaits. Six, guide them on horses’ wings.”

Laeden pushed himself to his feet despite his stiff back’s protests. Strapping on his sword belt and sheathing his dagger, he made his way to Gensus’s bedside to place his hand on the Ridge Knight’s arm. “We lost a lot of good men, but I’m glad you were not among them.”

Gensus clapped Laeden’s hand with his own. “We took more than we lost and liberated many more in the process. By the looks of it, our army has grown tenfold.”

“Not sure it’s ours,” Laeden admitted.

He pulled away from Gensus to find a pair of folded tunics on the floor by the door. Plucking it from the ground, he examined it. The lion sigil of Atonus Allos’s militant academy marked the breast. They continue to prove resourceful.

Not knowing how they’d managed to acquire such things, Laeden slipped his arms through one at a time, before pulling the tunic overhead.

“They have fresh arms and armor too,” Gensus said. “The Uprising’s kept busy.”

“Then I hope to see you on your feet and donning new armor soon,” Laeden said as he turned to leave.

“King Laeden?”

Laeden stopped before the door’s knob. Retracting his hand, he faced the bedridden soldier, allowing Gensus to speak.

“Kherus… He was just trying to save me,” Gensus said.

Laeden’s eye twitched at the mention of his name. “Would you have disobeyed an order—even to save a brother?”

Gensus didn’t answer.

“He saved you,” Laeden said. “And for that I’m grateful. But Ser Ostrey, Malachi, the others—they might not have fallen if Kherus obeyed.” Or if we weren’t there in the first place.

Markus, Ostrey, and Kherus all warned him, but Laeden didn’t listen. He couldn’t distract the Jackals, protect the Ridge Knights, and spare the lives of those who saw them as traitors.

“You must choose,” his mother had said.

Just like his father, Laeden hadn’t.

“Do you understand why we needed to attack?” Laeden asked.

Gensus shrugged. “I don’t need to. I swore an oath. My honor is yours to command.”

Laeden frowned, unsure which part of Gensus’s response bothered him more: the fact that he’d blindly followed an order based on an oath, or the fact that Laeden found himself agreeing with the one who did not—Kherus.

“Did Kherus not swear the same oath?”

“He did, your grace. He should have left me.”

Gensus’s blunt honesty took Laeden aback. He repositioned his feet, resting his thumbs in his sword belt.

Gensus let out a deep breath, then winced, grabbing his stomach wound. After a grunt, he met Laeden’s eyes. “If you can find it in your heart to pardon him, he did so, not out of defiance, but compassion. He didn’t want to lose another brother. He hasn’t been the same since Dheran. I know I shouldn’t be asking, but he saved my life.”

Laeden nodded, considering Gensus. On one side of the blade, Laeden’s friction with Kherus was born of his own inability to speak the truth. Had he been forthright with his intentions, the Ridge Knights may not have crowned him king. If his concerns over his own honor hadn’t gotten in the way, he could have slain Ulysius and spared Dheran in the first place. He couldn’t want people to speak their minds and follow blindly.

He needed to choose.

Wondering how much of his current situation was his fault, Laeden bowed to Gensus. “Gratitude, Gensus. I will speak with Kherus.”

Laeden exited the servants’ quarters and searched for Kherus with new perspective. Prior to speaking with Gensus, Laeden would have laid into Kherus with ire, but now, he strode through the corridors of Arux’s villa with hope for unification. He’d gotten entangled between the power of being king and the responsibility bestowed by Iylea. He couldn’t expect, nor did he want, people to follow without question, but conversely, he couldn’t be upset when his orders were challenged, especially when he was withholding information.

Still not knowing whether he wanted to pursue the seat of Northridge or join the Fallen’s order, Laeden fell into the familiar pattern of wondering why he had to choose. Confident that if he came to Kherus with humility, he could bridge the gap between the Ridge Knights and freedpeople, Laeden considered what a true merger might look like.

Perhaps the Fallen are only interested in reclaiming Stockhelm, but what about its people? With so many still enslaved in Valtarcia, I might be able to convince the Fallen to aid us in taking Northridge from Horus. Then together, with a true army, we could take back Stockhelm and challenge Salmantica once and for all.

The burden of his mother’s imposed choice felt less daunting as he reasoned ways of positioning the argument, but first, he had to speak with Kherus and the Ridge Knights. Shoulders no longer confined by the weight of choice, and with new hope in his step, Laeden searched but did not find Kherus in the villa.

The more he thought about it, Laeden barely saw anyone since he left Gensus. Standing in the entryway to the barracks, Laeden called Kherus’s name, but there came no answer.

Listening to the din beyond the silence, shouts from the training square carried through the barracks. Not shouts of warning or calls to arms—the shouts of fighting.

Laeden’s stomach knotted.

He descended the stairs into the barracks, two at a time. He bounded past the empty cells, drawing his sword, unsure what chaos awaited him on the other side. He flung open the barracks door to the training square.

Light blinded him as he charged into the unrelenting day. Blinking away the sunspots, Laeden took in his surroundings. Men and women formed a circle, jostling one another to get closer to whatever was at its center. The jeering and swearing crescendoed as if Laeden walked into the Primus of the New Rheynian Games.

Surveying the scene, Laeden realized this was no battle. He sheathed his sword and broke through the bustling circle to find the cause of the ruckus at the center. Shoving his way through, Laeden’s shoulder was yanked from behind. He shrugged off the pull and forged onward, afraid of what he might find.

A rogue elbow connected with Laeden’s nose.

His head jerked back, and stars filled his vision. He blinked away tears and roared.

“Enough!” Laeden broke through the last few onlookers between him and the fighting at the center of the training square.

The cheers died. Joru and Kherus, each bruised and bloodied, paused their fistfight to stare at Laeden. Joru balked, lowering his clenched hands.

Kherus spat a red glob of phlegm on the freshly tilled sand. “I’m not finished!”

Laeden filled the space between the two men, blood gushing from his nose to stain his new tunic. He held out his hands to either side, preventing the Ridge Knight and the freed gladiator from engaging any further.

“You’re finished,” Laeden said. “All of you—disperse.”

No one moved.

“We don’t take orders from you,” called a voice from the crowd. “Laeden the Crownless.”

Laeden grunted, whipping his head in the direction of the voice, but he couldn’t discern who it belonged to as others took up the call.

Lenara, Vykinallia, and a dark-skinned man with a scar through his blind eye emerged on the balcony overlooking the training square.

“What is going on here?” the half-blind man asked.

Laeden glowered at Kherus.

Just when I was about to fall on my sword and blame myself…

First, he made a blubbering fool of himself before his mother last night, and now, Kherus’s bare-knuckle-brawl proved his merry band of Ridge Knights were more problems than they were worth.

So much for getting my house in order.

Laeden wiped the blood from his nose. “Whatever it was, it’s over now.”

He needed to defuse this situation before it got any worse. Kherus was surrounded. Laeden had no doubt that if the gathered onlookers decided to join the fight, he and Kherus would be ground to pulp long before his mother or anyone else with authority could save them. If they even bothered to do so.

Teeth bared, Laeden marched towards Kherus.

Kherus turned his palms skyward. “It wasn’t my faul—”

Laeden seized Kherus by the collar with his left hand and slammed his fist into his cheek, drawing cheers from the crowd as if they were in an arena. Kherus stumbled back, reaching for his already bruising face. Before he could respond, Laeden locked his arm around Kherus’s neck and dragged him to the edge of the circle.

Kherus struggled, but against Laeden’s fury, the Ridge Knight stood little chance. The gathered crowd parted, making way for the entangled Laeden and Kherus to pass. Fending off Kherus’s resistance, Laeden dragged him to the barracks door and threw him against the wall.

Laeden snarled through his teeth. “Inside.”

Kherus’s nostrils flared. A primal anger filled his eyes, and for a moment, Laeden suspected Kherus was going to attack him.

“I didn’t start it,” Kherus said. He reached for the door handle and threw it open.

Kherus disappeared inside, and Laeden followed him, slamming the door behind him. The solid wood bellowed as it thudded against the jamb and rattled the cell bars.

Laeden paced back and forth in the narrow space between the cells lining either side of the corridor. Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, he wiped the blood from his nose, his knuckles still throbbing. Whatever hope he’d had prior to finding Kherus was gone now.

Seems I won’t have a choice to make after all. The Fallen will toss us to the Jackals before they join us against Valtarcia.

He stared at the Ridge Knight, fists balled. He didn’t know where to begin.

“You insolent bastard,” Laeden said through his teeth. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you think before you act, or do you let your emotions run wild like some unbridled animal?”

Kherus’s face reddened. His jaw clenched and quivered, holding back whatever retort he wanted to say. His fingers curled into a fist, but his feet remained stone beneath him. Moments passed as the two remained deadlocked in a wordless glare.

The door opened behind Laeden, and Aponius slipped through, closing the door behind him.

Laeden barely spared him a glance before returning his gaze to Kherus. Without looking in his direction, Laeden spoke to Aponius. “Did you see what happened?”

“You ask him?” Kherus’s speech was more guttural than words. “A turncloak sent by the queen—you trust him, over me?”

“Enough,” Laeden hissed. “You have disobeyed me at every turn, challenged my every order, and you have the gall—after picking a fight with the freedpeople—to question why I would trust anyone over you?”

Kherus bristled, but Laeden turned to the Lion’s Academy deserter.

“Aponius, speak.”

“Ser Kherus confronted the sl—former slave.” Aponius cleared his throat. “He called Joru a wasted sword—a craven for not taking vengeance on Ulysius.”

Laeden closed his eyes, not believing his ears. “What in Six Hells would possess you?”

“That slave with the pale eyes said he called us a waste of food and water,” Kherus said.

“That man,” Laeden corrected, but then he paused, tilting his head. “Wait, what man with the pale eyes?”

Kherus shrugged. “He said the gladiator that we saved first doesn’t welcome us.”

“Measure the man’s actions,” Laeden said. “Not the words you think he might have said. Joru led the Fallen back to us. He saved our lives.”

Kherus shook his head, staring at Laeden. “Not the ones that mattered.”

Laeden bit his lip. The coppery taste of blood draining from his nose filled his mouth. He spat on the barracks floor before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leveling his index finger at Kherus.

“I was searching for you,” Laeden said. “I wanted to tell you why we needed to attack, why I didn’t have a choice—why I was wrong not to confide in you all sooner. But you’ve proven yourself unworthy of my confidence. And now, you may have proven us all unworthy.”

Laeden needed to do something. He couldn’t continue to let Kherus jeopardize his tenuous relationship with the Fallen. He needed them if he were going to take back Valtarcia, but that was seeming more and more like an impossibility.

“Exile or execution,” Laeden said. “Those are the punishments for treason, and your actions have been nothing short of treasonous.”

“Treason?” Kherus scoffed.

“I suggest you leave this place before Joru and the others get their hands on you,” Laeden said. “Or I do the prudent thing and part your head from your shoulders.”

“You can’t be serious,” Kherus said. “I’m a Ridge Knight.”

“Not anymore, you’re not.” Laeden pushed past him.

Kherus spun to follow Laeden. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“Klaytos,” Laeden said as he continued toward the stairs ascending to the villa. “Danella and Horus will have the sense to take your head if you go anywhere else. Now, flee from sight before I come to reason and do the same.”

Laeden quickened his stride, pulling away from Kherus as he bounded up the stairs, leaving Kherus at the base. At the top, he turned. “Aponius, escort Kherus beyond the south gate. If you’ll excuse me, I have amends to make with the Fallen.”

Hoping that letting Kherus live wouldn’t be another mistake he’d learn to regret, Laeden shoved through the door to the villa. Though the fear of being watched left him, a new one filled its place; if he continued not to make the difficult decisions, sooner or later, the choice would be made for him. He only prayed he wasn’t too late.

Chapter 44

Poison

Vykinallia VIII

Stockhelm

Vykinallia hadn’t been in a room with this much tension since Taric attempted to murder Stegavax. Then, it had seemed like her world was falling apart. What she wouldn’t give to contend with those troubles now.

In a room filled with the leaders of the Fallen, all here at Vykinallia’s request, this was her opportunity to rally them to take back Stockhelm. But that was before a Ridge Knight and a former gladiator turned the training square into their own private arena.

Unari crossed her arms, pacing Arux’s tablinum. Iberion stood like a statue, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his eye never leaving Lenara, across from him. She sat with her fingers steepled, elbows elevated on Arux’s desk. Sett rested his knuckles on the tabletop across from her, shaking his loose braids. But the people Vykinallia most needed to impress were the new arrivals—Sinion and Teluvar.

Sinion, the Baron and lesser lanista of Stockhelm’s southern ludus, was one of the earliest Brothers of the Arcane Templar. Dressed in flowing silks with wide sleeves, the heavyset man had hidden his operation well for years. While he sent condemned criminals or the terminally ill willing to die for the cause to the sands of the arena, he used his ludus as a front for smuggling true fighters to the Templar and the Fallen.

Teluvar, similarly, hid in plain sight. The owner of the largest fighting pit in Stockhelm did his best to remain nondescript. Thin but not frail, homely but not so much so as to arouse attention, Teluvar was ignored by everyone in Stockhelm politics, but perfectly positioned to aid the Fallen. Though the pits offered little coin or glory, they offered plenty of disposable slaves. After years of coating the weapons in paralytic poisons, he faked the deaths of hundreds of would-be-dead slaves and instead ferried them to the Fallen’s ranks.

“We have precious little time,” Sinion said, sitting in a chair across from Lenara. “None for matters such as these.”

Teluvar leaned against the wall opposite Vykinallia, picking at his teeth with his dagger. “Not safe for all of us to be here, so let’s make this quick.”

“Apologies,” Joru said, head bowed at the center of the tablinum. The sand on his sandals from his tussle with the Ridge Knight dirtied the mosaic tile floor that depicted the orange bull of House Arux.

“It’s them who should be begging forgiveness,” Sett said.

“They believe themselves above us,” Unari said. “The whole lot of them. We never should have brought them here.”

Vykinallia leaned against the back wall, wishing she could melt into it, but knowing she couldn’t. She was the one who fought to bring Laeden here to unify the factions of the Fallen and take back her family’s old ludus. How quickly that plan had fallen to ash. Despite a common enemy, the Fallen and the Ridge Knights had different goals and different ways of going about them.

Even the sweetness of her reunion with Markus had quickly soured. She thought he was going to strike her when she revealed the brand she willingly accepted.

“They’re slaves and mages,” Markus had said. “Even if they didn’t kill Father, they’ll never accept us. We must carve our own place in this world.”

But that’s what Markus didn’t understand; she already had.

“I warned you of this recklessness,” Sinion said. “There is but one path forward now.”

Not willing to admit Sinion was right about the Ridge Knights, Vykinallia swallowed her doubt. “Laeden, the Ridge Knights, and the freedpeople loyal to him liberated almost fifty laborers, three dozen gladiators, and another half as many house servants in the span of three days. Their recklessness has garnered results. And that was with inferior numbers and little to no supplies, all while being hunted by Salmantica and Valtarcia.”

Sett scoffed. “More mouths to feed and backs to clothe—those are the results.”

Vykinallia pushed herself from the wall to confront Sett. “How can you look at it like that? Nearly 100 souls are free from bondage.”

“This isn’t the arena,” Sett said. “This is war. A war we can’t win without provisions.”

“So we secure them,” Vykinallia said, looking for support from Lenara. Lenara remained unmoved, betraying no indication of which side of the argument she supported.

Sett removed his massive fists from the tabletop to stand to his full height. He towered over Vykinallia and Joru.

Vykinallia set her jaw, refusing to back down. “If we take the old Cassius ludus—”

“Brusos’s ludus,” Sinion said.

Inhaling through her teeth, Vykinallia continued. “If we take Brusos’s ludus and the chancellor’s tower, we’ll control Stockhelm from the Hylan Peaks to the Sun Sea and the Crystal River from the town square all the way down to the Sanctuary. To take Stockhelm, we must control the river and the roadways, but to keep Stockhelm, we need its most valuable resources—people, and the ability to provide for them. We’re not in a position to be casting away trained knights.”

Sett growled but backed off.

Lenara exhaled. “To take and hold Stockhelm, we will need fighters, but more so, we need people we can trust. Joru, what happened in the training square?”

Joru lifted his eyes. “The knight called me craven for not taking my dominus’s life. That I was a wasted sword.”

“Did you provoke him?” Lenara asked.

Joru shook his head. “No. Of course not. I would be in chains if not for those men.”

Iberion moved from his statue’s position to approach Lenara behind her desk. “They are few. We don’t need them. If we marched with our combined force, we would have enough to take the Hylans without them.”

“More trouble than they’re worth,” Unari said.

“Agreed,” Teluvar said.

Sinion stroked his chubby chin. “Taking them on is less of a gamble than attacking the Hylan ludus. It wouldn’t be prudent to attack with or without the Ridge Knights—even if they weren’t causing trouble.”

Iberion turned to face Sinion. “We can’t hope to hide forever.”

Iberion’s physique, solid and sculpted as if from stone, stood in stark contrast to Sinion’s curves, but Sinion did not cower. “We have hidden for twenty years through tact and careful planning—never biting off more than we could chew and never threatening them with anything they couldn’t afford to lose. Haste will only lead them to our doorstep. A few overzealous newcomers who think they know the way of things will only bring us to an early departure from this world.”

Vykinallia frowned. It was bad enough that the leaders were so quick to throw the Ridge Knights to the Jackals, but if they didn’t strike now—if they allowed Salmantica to get a foothold in Stockhelm—they would lose everything.

“We can’t hide any longer,” Vykinallia said. “Without the jungle’s cover, the Sanctuary is exposed. There are only so many places to hide, and eventually, Damascus will come searching. As long as Brusos holds the west, Damascus will have a stronghold and can force us to fight a war of attrition. We don’t need to forsake tact and careful planning, but we can’t hope to hide. We must attack, with all of our strength—Ridge Knights included.”

Lenara’s scrupulous eyes darted between Vykinallia and Sinion. “We must trust and respect everyone who fights with us. Whether we fight or hide, we cannot hope to survive our enemy looking over our shoulders.” She waved her hand at the door. “Bring him in.”

Vykinallia clenched her jaw. That’s it? She’s just going to throw the Ridge Knights—her own son—to the winds? More concerning was how much pull Sinion possessed. If he convinced the others to hide, they would remain divided, hiding in different ludi to be picked off one by one. Not only would their rebellion fail, but if Damascus reclaimed all of Stockhelm, Zephyrus would never reach Tharseo’s Bastion, and the traitor God would usher in the Age of the End.

As Iberion strode to open the door to the tablinum, Vykinallia approached Lenara’s desk. She was out of time. She needed to act quickly.

She leaned down so she was close enough to whisper, “Laeden and the Ridge Knights are with us. We can trust them. One scuffle doesn’t change that.”

Iberion opened the door.

Lenara met Vykinallia’s gaze. “One spark is all it takes to ignite a fire. It was a sound plan, Vykinallia, but it’s too late for that now. If you wish to attack Brusos and claim Stockhelm, focus your efforts on convincing the others of tactics. The fate of the Ridge Knights has already been decided.”

Vykinallia’s stomach twisted, but as Laeden entered the room, she lost Lenara’s attention. She backed away from the desk Lenara sat behind and turned to Laeden. His eyes tinged black and blue, his nose swollen, Laeden appeared more beast than man. With his shoulders hunched like a mountain lion ready to pounce, he prowled into the room. He surveyed the others the way a caged beast might its captors.

“Apologies for my appearance,” Laeden said.

“This isn’t court, King,” Sett said. “We don’t care what ya look like.”

“It’s your actions,” Sinion said, “that we’re interested in.”

Aside from a stiff nod, Laeden paid neither Sett or Sinion a glance. “Kherus, the man who instigated the fight with Joru, has been dismissed from my service and banished. Any who speak ill or do harm to the freedpeople of the Fallen will not be permitted in my ranks.”

“You let him go?” Teluvar asked, his wide eyes erupting from his narrow face. “What’s to stop him from going straight to Salmantica or Valtarcia and leading them to us?”

“Either would hang him for treason,” Laeden said. “His only hope is to reach Klaytos.”

Sinion blustered, his wide-sleeved robes swishing with the rise and fall of his arms. “This is exactly the type of nonsensical foolishness we can’t afford.”

Laeden continued to ignore the others, eyes trained on his mother. “I’ve made a decision. I’ve chosen a side.”

Lenara shook her head. “It’s too late. The decision has been made for you.”

Laeden’s eyes smoldered like coals. His jaw clenched, his brow angled atop his blackened eyes, but Lenara’s stoic expression remained.

“I advise you to head for Klaytos as well,” Lenara said to her son.

Vykinallia wanted to scream. Despite Lenara’s warning of choosing her battles, she knew deep down that if she allowed Laeden to leave this room, the others would never rally to fight. His action, his desperation—regardless of intent—yielded the impact the Fallen needed, but if she came to Laeden’s side, she might be bound for Klaytos as well.

She turned away from Lenara, biting her tongue. Facing the doorway, she spotted someone outside, peering through the crack in the door. The figure retracted behind the door’s shelter, but she was sure someone was there. She marched over to the door and swung it into the eavesdropper.

Prepared to take her anger out on the person, Vykinallia stammered when she saw who cowered behind the door with their hands up.

“Falcos… what are you doing here?”

Falcos lowered his hands but retained his subservient posture. “I should go. Apologies.”

His light gray eyes flicked upwards to meet hers, but they immediately returned to the ground. Gone was the power he had inside the crypts of the Chariot’s Arena. The man who smothered her with the wet rag that made consciousness flee was not the same man before her now. Somewhere along the line, from the time he threw Ser Daenus into a wall with his Celestic magic to now, as he cowered behind the door, he had changed, and Vykinallia was unsure which was the real Falcos.

“Apologies,” he said again.

But as he was about to run off, Vykinallia’s fingers closed around his tunic. Something he had said to her when they had last spoken in the showroom of House Arux returned to her.

“I must go to Valtarcia,” Vykinallia had said, “and you should come with me.”

His response should have struck her then, but it only hit her now.

“I’m not much of a fighter.”

The mysterious fire that burned down House Brusos, the fact that no bodies were found, the systematic way she had been abducted by Brusos’s bodyslave after the harbor was supposedly attacked by the mages. Not a fighter… what Celestic mage with the ability to throw people into walls with their mind isn’t a fighter? Unless he’s no mage at all…

Her mind clicked the puzzle pieces into place. Falcos knew she was going to be in the crypts. He came for her specifically. He went out of his way to bring Laeden here. He wanted the leaders gathered in one place. The puzzle pieces began to connect, but she couldn’t see the completed picture.

She dragged Falcos into the room by the tunic. “Why did Kherus attack Joru?”

“What are you doing?” Sinion asked. “Leave him be.”

“He was eavesdropping,” Vykinallia said. “Answer the question,” she demanded of the room’s occupants. “Why did Kherus attack Joru?”

“He said—” Laeden began but froze when he met Falcos’s eyes. Laeden stepped closer and grabbed Falcos by the cheeks with one hand. “Kherus said a freedman with pale eyes told him that Joru called him, ‘A waste of food and water.’ That we weren’t welcome.”

Joru whirled, mouth agape. “I said nothing.”

The rest of the puzzle snapped into place, but Vykinallia’s throat had gone dry. Everything about her abduction had been planned. Arranged. When Sett attacked her in the Sanctuary, he had said, “He was right. We weren’t ransomed—neither should you.”

She never knew who he was. But with Falcos, Brusos’s bodyslave before her, she understood. He wanted us all under one roof. He wanted us to be fighting amongst ourselves. This is a distraction. This is all part of his plan.

Vykinallia threw Falcos to the tiled floor of the tablinum. “You wanted us all here. You wanted us distracted, fighting amongst ourselves. Why?”

Before he could answer, a commotion in the corridor drew their attention. Heavy footfalls, panting, and indiscernible shouting echoed off the marble. Markus, Kherus, and another of Laeden’s men with red hair and freckles ran towards the tablinum entrance.

“What is going on?” Lenara asked.

Vykinallia glared at Falcos, sprawled on the floor. The obsequiousness eroded from his face, replaced by smug satisfaction. He grinned, a devilish look in his pale gray eyes.

“What have you done?” Vykinallia asked.

Markus breached the doorway first, followed by Kherus. Kherus’s chest heaved with labored breaths, unable to speak.

“There’s an army marching over the Crystal River,” Markus said. “Hundreds. Thousands. Flying every banner in Salmantica.”

The air in the room evaporated.

“We hold,” Iberion said. “Prepare the defenses.”

“There are too many,” Kherus said, shoulders still rising and falling with the tides of panting. “We’ll be overrun.”

Silence swept over the Fallen’s leaders until Falcos’s maniacal laughter cut it short.

Vykinallia grabbed him by the collar with both hands and shook him. “How many?”

“Six.” Falcos’s grin spread from ear to ear. “Six Gods of Valencia.” He laughed again, a shrill cackling that wriggled through her ears, poisoning her mind.

Vykinallia drew her dagger and held it to his face.

“Cut me. Kill me. It won’t change the truth. By now, Duke Brusos will have cut you off to the south, and Duke Horus the coastline. You’re as dead as I am, but Valencia will reward me. The Facets of Perfection protect me, for I was their instrument of the Celestic downfall.”

Vykinallia strangled the hilt of her dagger. Everything she had done, everything she’d overcome to get to this point—it all felt like part of some master plan.

But whose? Why?

Falcos sighed, closing his eyes, and placed his hand to his chest. “Like guiding moths in the dark… I never could have done it without your light.”

Laeden muttered, as if to himself, but the words carried to her ears. “The queen, Brusos, and Ser Daenus…”

The last pieces of the puzzle snapped together.

Her last conversation with Queen Danella returned to her.

“Stand by your husband,” Danella had said, “support him in his causes, and guide him back to scripture if he strays from the path of the Gods… That’s what it means to rule.”

I asked Damascus to end the Celestic incursion. So she got rid of me.

The air escaped from her lungs as she recalled Queen Danella staggering back into the crypt’s wall as Falcos stormed past, coming for her. Falcos was no mage. Only the crown’s pawn. And he had used her—played her. Falcos had rounded them up, poisoned them against each other, and delivered them to their enemies.

“You are a beacon of light in a dark world,” Falcos had said. “But eventually, all candles burn out.”

Vykinallia snarled. “Give my regards to Queen Danella. She’ll be joining you soon.”

She stabbed her dagger into Falcos’s chest.

Though it silenced his laughter, and the glimmer in his eyes faded, it did nothing to stop the crown’s armies closing in. The room went quiet as he gasped his last breaths, his blood spreading through the grout of the mosaic tile underfoot like tiny rivulets. The Arux bull drowned in blood, and soon, so too would they in Salmantica’s fury.

“We’re ruined,” Sinion said.

Chapter 45

A Rebellion Divided

Laeden XII

Stockhelm

The flood of blood keeps running.

Laeden had thought his and Zephyrus’s escape from the rotunda had satisfied Iylea’s prophecy, but it was only the beginning of it. Everywhere Laeden had gone, death followed. House Arux would be no different. Outnumbered, ill-equipped, and surrounded, they couldn’t hope to hold the ludus. Once the walls fell, the red river would drown them all.

Judging by the long faces in the tablinum, he was not alone in his dark ruminations. His mother paced, chewing her fingernails. Sinion complained of their recklessness. Iberion spoke of preparing defenses, but they all knew the inevitable.

Danella was always a step ahead of him, and this time was no different. An entire continent away, she managed to physically position all of her enemies under one roof while keeping them ideologically divided. Laeden blamed himself. He had mismanaged the Ridge Knights by withholding his true intentions and sown discord with the Fallen and freedpeople by planning to use them to supplant Horus.

I deserve what is coming.

“What do we do?” Markus asked Laeden.

“We can’t hope to defend this place,” Kherus said.

Laeden couldn’t listen. As Markus, Kherus, and Aponius argued with the leaders of the Fallen about what to do, Laeden’s thoughts drifted to his father.

He warned me not to be a part of the problem. Flee to Klaytos. Wait out the storm. How many could I have spared from the misfortune of crossing my cursed path?

Even now, Laeden didn’t see any path to peace that wasn’t paved with blood. But at the end of the battle, it wouldn’t be the peace he wanted, but the peace Danella and Damascus imposed on the world—a world without any culture, belief, or thought that opposed the Facets of Perfection.

His father’s voice rang in his head. “If there comes a time when you can choose between forgiveness and punishment, I hope you choose to forgive and work toward peace.”

He couldn’t forgive Danella for what she’d done. He couldn’t forgive his father or Damascus either. His father did nothing to smother the glowing embers, but Damascus had fanned the flames to an inferno.

And I am the wind that spreads it.

Laeden closed his eyes and imagined Iylea were with him, her hand on his cheek. She always helped him make sense of the world, and without her, he felt like a ship without a sail, drifting with the tide.

What would she say in a moment like this? “You would never let anyone treat me the way you treat yourself.” That sounds like something she would have said.

Then it hit him.

He might not have been able to forgive Danella or Damascus, but he could forgive himself.

Is that what Father meant?

Vykinallia put her hand on Laeden’s forearm as she addressed the room, jarring him from his thoughts.

“I don’t know battle of this magnitude,” Vykinallia said. “But I know that a gladiator is most vulnerable the moment he believes his victory secure. And most dangerous once he’s staring death in the face. Can we bait them into overextending themselves and seize advantage?”

“Yes,” Laeden said, realizing what they must do. “Maybe not to win, but perhaps we can do enough to allow others to escape.”

“You expect people to stay here,” Sinion asked. “To die?”

Laeden met his mother’s eyes. “If the Fallen survive, if the rebellion continues—yes. But we all have to work together.” Laeden held his hands out to address everyone in the tablinum. “If Brusos’s forces are denying us the south and Horus’s the coast, that means—”

“They’re both undefended,” Vykinallia said.

“Exactly,” Laeden said. “If the queen wants us under one roof and against each other, then let us divide but with a common cause. Kherus, take the ships and lead the Ridge Knights and any willing fighters to Northridge’s harbor. If you can slip past Horus’s ships, Valtarcia could be ripe for the taking.”

Kherus stammered, but Laeden moved on. “We’ll need a small force to charge Brusos in the south. Once they converge, the bulk of the Fallen should be able to slip between Damascus’s army and the fray to the south to reach Brusos’s ludus. If you manage to take the undefended fortress, you can mount a true defense.”

“And what will you be doing?” Sinion asked. “While you send our people as bait for Brusos’s trap and the rest of us to be caught between the Hylans and an army, where will you be, King Laeden?”

Laeden glanced between Kherus and Sinion. His mother had condemned his father for not being able to make a decision, but Laeden didn’t believe that was entirely true. His father didn’t like either option and tried to forge a new one. It didn’t work, but that didn’t mean he didn’t choose.

Finally, the many directions he’d felt he was being tugged in reached the end of their respective ropes. And with their tension, the knots unraveled to stretch out and become the web connecting everyone and everything together.

“I will hold House Arux until you can escape,” Laeden said.

Markus and Vykinallia began to object, but Laeden cut them off with a raised hand. “There’s no time.” He looked at Kherus. “Someone must take back Valtarcia.”

Kherus blinked through his swollen eye from when Laeden had hit him. “Yes, King Laeden.”

“Someone must lead the vanguard south,” Laeden said.

Iberion stepped forward. “I will do it.”

Laeden nodded, meeting his mother’s eyes. “And someone must stay behind while the rest of you head for Brusos’s ludus.”

Pursing her lips, his mother’s crow’s feet tightened. She bowed her head in one stiff nod, but when she lifted her gaze, she was no longer his mother, but Lenara—leader of the Fallen.

“What do we need to do?” she asked.

Chapter 46

Together

Iylea VIII

Valencia

Hameryn. The one who had shown her countless visions and dreams. The one who had spared her from death’s sting. The God who had groomed her to be the breaker. She hadn’t thought he was capable of being Paxoran, the traitor God Arkadia sought, but her visions since arriving in Valencia were too powerful, too real, and too convincing to believe anything else. He altered the sands of time. He killed Neutreen.

But why?

Iylea paused at the bottom of the stairs after descending Neutreen’s tower to listen for any passerby in the halls. With the corridor silent, Iylea opened the door just wide enough for her to slip through. Pulling the door closed behind her with the cautious quiet of a thief, Iylea stole away towards the anchor room. Though she finally knew where to find Arkadia in Arcamedes’s tower, she couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

Zephyrus, Vykanicus Auros—whatever his name is—he needs to know.

The only way to communicate with humanity’s last hope for stopping Hameryn was through the Whispering Wall, but Ferrocles held the stone that powered the crystalline mirror. She would have to tell him the truth and hope he listened.

That... or steal from the God of War.

Iylea crept down the hall, but the sound of her name stopped her in her tracks.

“Iylea?”

Iylea’s feet became stone. She would have believed she’d been turned into a statue if not for her racing heart.

Hameryn.

Willing her feet into motion, she retraced her steps, rounding the corner opposite the entrance to Neutreen’s tower. Iylea got around the corner just as Hameryn called her name again. She didn’t dare breathe. She pressed her back against the stone wall.

“Enough fooling around.” Ferrocles’s voice boomed into the hall.

Iylea’s fingernails pressed into her moist palms. Ferrocles is with him. Pursing her lips, she allowed the back of her head to rest against the stone.

“You’re not where you’re supposed to be,” Ferrocles said. “You have a responsibility.”

“You’re not in trouble, Iylea,” Hameryn said. “But time is of the essence.”

By comparison, Hameryn’s tone was soft and understanding, encouraging and welcoming, while Ferrocles’s grinding stone voice was punishment in itself. They drew nearer.

How can Hameryn be the traitor I’ve been searching for?

Without the time to ponder, Iylea slunk down the hall, away from Hameryn and Ferrocles. She needed to tell Ferrocles the truth, but first, she’d have to separate them. Ignoring the windows into the mortal realm, Iylea charged forward, as fast as she dared, toward the tower at the end of the long corridor. Ferrocles’s and Hameryn’s voices resounded throughout the stone fortress as she increased the distance between them.

She glanced over her shoulder as she approached the rounded tower entrance similar to Courianne’s and Neutreen’s. With the corridor empty, Iylea gripped the knob. Smooth, white, and rounded, the handle felt unfamiliar in her hand. Still clutching it, she examined the asymmetrical shape and texture.

She gasped, releasing the knob at the realization of what it was: bone. A chill coursed from her fingertips to her shoulder, making the hairs along her arm stand.

“Iylea, please,” Hameryn said, his voice growing nearer again. “We need you.”

Iylea didn’t know how breaking the chains helped him in his betrayal of the other Gods, but she would no longer be his pawn. Setting her jaw, she seized the bone knob and twisted. The mechanism ground open. Praying it wasn’t as loud as it seemed to her, Iylea snuck inside and closed the door behind her.

Guided by Incinerae’s torches, Iylea bounded the spiral stairs up the tower. Nerves prickling as she ascended, her breath heavy and legs on fire, she reached the block wall that barred her entry. A scaly, finned, amphibious-looking beast was etched into the wall. Having deduced Arcamedes’s glyph, Iylea drew the spiral ward over the embossed stone.

The wall eroded into itself, opening a black abyss before her. Iylea plucked a torch from the sconce and entered the rooms of Arcamedes’s tower.

Despite the torch’s glow, it did little to stay the cavernous dark. Barely seeing two steps beyond her, Iylea crept into the silent stillness. Whether due to the absence of sight, or the ever-building sense of smallness, Iylea felt like the God of Beasts’s rooms were unending.

Wondering if she’d made a mistake as to Arkadia’s whereabouts, she whispered to the surrounding night.

“Hello? Arkadia, are you here?”

A rustling off to her left startled her. She jumped back, holding the torch before her.

“Iylea, is that you?”

Arkadia crawled out of the darkness. Her auburn hair, tangled and disheveled, clung to her tear-streaked cheeks. Her blue eyes, puffy and bloodshot, examined her as if they didn’t believe she were real.

The sight of the former breaker brought Iylea to her knees until she was level with Arkadia. Iylea held out her free hand. “Yes, it’s me.”

“You found me.” Arkadia took Iylea’s hand in her own. “Corners keep you, this is real.”

Arkadia’s lower lip trembled as she met Iylea’s gaze. Torchlight flickered across her face, making her freckles dance upon her cheeks. Though time was difficult to discern in the divine realm, something terrible had befallen her in the time since Iylea had last seen her.

Iylea looked past Arkadia to the surrounding darkness. “Where is your husband?”

She raised her torch, its light cleaving through the darkness, but Arkadia grabbed Iylea’s wrist, preventing her from exploring Arcamedes’s chambers any further.

Arkadia hung her head. “He’s gone. Too long from the mortal realm. Denied the Valencian Falls, denied even the chain. Just… gone.”

Arkadia’s ragged appearance was not just from her captivity, but her loss. Iylea didn’t know what was worse—to be trapped for eternity as a link in the chain, or to cease to exist, as if never having lived at all?

“I’m sorry,” Iylea said. She wanted to say more, but what was there to say?

Arkadia nodded, still staring at the floor. “May the Creator have mercy and give him rest.” She lifted her gaze to meet Iylea’s. “But you found me. How?”

“I located Incinerae’s rooms,” Iylea explained. “I received a vision—”

“From Paxoran?” Arkadia asked.

Iylea shook her head, coming closer to Arkadia, who still clutched her hand as if fearing Iylea might disappear if she let go.

“I don’t think so. These visions are different. They’ve led me to discovering who the traitor God is.”

Arkadia’s eyes widened. “Clayvorine is gone. Courianne is gone. Who could have shown you these visions?” She shook her mind. “Never mind—who?”

Iylea bit her lip, not wanting to believe the truth Neutreen’s memory had revealed. No amount of wishing or wanting would change the facts. “Hameryn is the traitor. I saw him murder Neutreen. He is Paxoran.”

Arkadia’s eyes watered, spouting fresh tears. “You’ve done it. Thank the Creator for you.” She pressed her dry lips against the back of Iylea’s hand. “Have you told my son? Has he retrieved the Relics from Tharseo’s Bastion?”

Iylea swallowed. “I haven’t been able to reach him. Ferrocles took the stone powering the Whispering Wall. Now he and Hameryn are searching for me.”

Arkadia nodded, her eyes glazing over as she stared at the ground. “Can you get me out of here?”

“Yes,” Iylea said. “But without a way of telling Vykanicus—”

“There’s another way,” Arkadia said. She lifted her chin. The tremble in her lip vanished; the weeping of her eyes ceased. Hard lines formed at her jaw as her brow angled. Gone was the prisoner. In her place was the heroine who slew the red-scaled beast Arcamedes inhabited to terrorize the mortal realm.

“How?” Iylea asked. “What can I do?”

“Get me out of here,” Arkadia said, her hands sliding up Iylea’s arms to her shoulders. “Then hide. Hide until Vykanicus comes. Hide until Hameryn is dead and all is set right.”

The intense but faraway look in Arkadia’s eyes made Iylea’s throat tighten.

“What are you going to do?” Iylea asked, afraid of the answer.

“I’m going to finish what I came here for,” Arkadia said. “I’ll sneak to the anchor room and follow the chain back to the mortal realm.”

Hameryn’s warning returned to Iylea. She shook her head. “But you’ll be trapped—a disembodied soul barred from Valencia. The chain… it’s too long to have any hope—”

Arkadia placed her hand on Iylea’s cheek, her touch warm despite the tower’s emptiness.

“I have all the hope I need,” Arkadia said. “You’ve given me that, Iylea. I’ll see my son again. He will stop Paxoran from destroying what the Creator built.”

“You’ll wander the mortal realm for the rest of time,” Iylea said, lip quivering.

“If that’s what it takes.”

Arkadia was willing to sacrifice everything to give the world a glimpse of hope, but Iylea found herself wondering what would become of her once Arkadia left. She glanced towards the darkness, not wanting to end up like Arkadia’s husband, Invinius.

What if Zephyrus doesn’t come, can’t come? What if he comes but fails? What will become of me?

Arkadia cupped Iylea’s chin. “Stay hidden. Stay strong. When my son defeats Paxoran, he will redeem us all.”

So much was left up to chance, yet it was all they had left.

“Tell me how to get back to the anchor room from here,” Arkadia said. “But you can’t stay after I’m gone. If they catch me, they will bring me back and find you.”

Iylea bit her lip. Her thoughts drifted to Laeden. She watched again in her mind’s eye as Ulysius shoved the enslaved woman at Laeden. As Laeden went to catch her, Ulysius’s sword swished through the air, aimed at Laeden’s neck.

Iylea closed her eyes. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She didn’t want to hide. She wanted to help, even if it meant her end.

“I’ll bring you to the anchor room,” Iylea said.

Arkadia opened her mouth to object, but Iylea cut her off.

“We finish this. Together.”

Chapter 47

Regret

Zephyrus VII & Threyna VIII

Unknown

Zephyrus’s veins ran cold as he knelt beside the small fire he’d birthed. Its tongues licked around the base of the cauldron Patrus placed at its center. Heat radiated against the cold desert night, and its light contrasted the barren darkness of the Klaytonian wild. Warmth returned to him as a steady stream of water passed from his fingertips to fill the bowl.

“Only a few peppers left,” Patrus said, pulling them from his pack to sit next to Zephyrus.

“They’ll have to do,” Zephyrus said, unsheathing a dagger.

Patrus handed him a pepper, and together, the two sliced them, tossing each sliver into the already steaming water. From behind them, footsteps approached, but neither he nor Patrus turned around.

Threyna stepped into view, a pair of rabbits dangling by the ears from her hand.

Patrus and Zephyrus exchanged a glance.

“How’d ya find two rabbits out here?” Patrus asked.

“In the dark,” Zephyrus added.

“They just came running up to me,” Threyna said, sarcasm dripping from her every word. “It’s quite the sight, really. Just a dozen little bunnies hopping around my feet.”

She shook her head, pointing to the sky. The stars overhead, bright and innumerable, prevented it from being pitch black, but they were not a good explanation as to how she’d been able to find them, let alone catch them.

While his dreamself and Patrus continued marveling, asking questions as to how she’d actually done it, Zephyrus’s conscious mind pieced together her ability to hear heartbeats and conjure a blood bow and arrow.

Threyna prepared the rabbits, while Patrus and Zephyrus continued cutting peppers by the fire. It wasn’t long before they were ladling the stew into bowls and eating beneath the stars.

“We’ll arrive at Tharseo’s Bastion tomorrow,” Patrus said.

Zephyrus’s conscious mind perked up. This must be one of the last memories I had before losing them. He tried to recall what the healer Vykinallia had procured him had said, but he couldn’t focus while paying attention to the dreamscape.

“Then how long before we claim the Treasures?” Threyna asked.

Zephyrus’s dreamself snorted. “Still sure you’re the Wielder? You realize why I’m going, don’t you?”

His conscious mind noted his dreamself’s confidence, bordering on arrogance. It made him cringe, but this wasn’t the first dream he’d witnessed of that side of him he wasn’t particularly proud of.

Threyna’s sharp eyes glared at Zephyrus over her bowl the way an owl would stare down a mouse. “You might be able to make a fire and fill a bowl with magic, but that doesn’t make you some kind of hero.”

“The Relics will, though,” Zephyrus’s dreamself said. “And I’ll become Champion of the Nine.”

Zephyrus’s conscious mind searched his memories. He’d heard that title before. Patrus had mentioned it, but he still didn’t know what it meant, what it pertained to, or how it worked with the prophecies of the Return.

Threyna rolled her eyes. “You believe you’re some chosen one, but I bet you’ve never even fought outside the comforts of the Arcane Templar’s walls, have you?”

Zephyrus bared his teeth, but Patrus put his arm out to prevent him from getting up.

“He’s been training, true,” Patrus said. “But you don’t know his journey.”

Threyna mumbled into her stew. “Yeah, well, you don’t know mine either.”

“Why don’t you share then?” Patrus asked. “We’ve been on the road for near half a moon, and you’ve barely said three earnest words.”

Threyna grunted. “Forgive me for not entrusting my fate to a few men in robes and their prophecies. I told you about the Skeleton King. I told you what he’s capable of. What he did to the Warlocks. Yet here we are. Instead of finding the weapons, we’re going to a temple to prove I’m worthy of having them.”

Zephyrus’s dreamself shook his head. “They’re not just weapons. They’re sacred. The Templar’s been protecting them since long before you showed up to prevent them from falling into the hands of someone who didn’t respect them, Warlock.”

Threyna exhaled through her nostrils as she chewed on her lower lip. “Apologies.” She looked between Zephyrus and Patrus. “I don’t mean to offend. I just want him stopped. Warlock, Templar—I don’t care about your rivalry. I just want the Skeleton King dead and gone. And if I need to be the Wielder to do that, I will honor your customs.”

Zephyrus’s dreamself and Patrus exchanged a look. Their lingering narrow-eyed expression made Zephyrus’s conscious mind feel as if he’d missed something important.

“What?” Threyna asked.

Patrus sucked on his upper lip. “You said you thought the Skeleton King was the Harbinger…”

Threyna shook her head. “I never said that. Your Elders did, but I doubt the Skeleton King checked in with Tharseo’s Bastion to confirm.”

Zephyrus’s dreamself snorted. “You do know that the Wielder needs the Harbinger, right? The Harbinger sets the Age of the End into motion, and the Wielder balances the scales. They don’t fight each other. They each have a part to play.”

Threyna pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “So you’re telling me, even if I am the Wielder, no one will help me defeat the Skeleton King?”

“Not if Aikous, Vellarix, and Ronar believe he is the Harbinger,” Patrus said.

Threyna raised an eyebrow but nodded. An uncomfortable silence fell over the group.

While Zephyrus’s dreamself spoke with Patrus about claiming the Relics and turning the tides of the war to aid the Fallen, his conscious mind kept his focus on Threyna. She finished her stew in silence. The faraway gaze in her eyes hinted at a darkness beyond.

Was this when Paxoran infected her mind? Is that what she’s focusing on?

After they had finished eating, they cleaned and stowed their supplies. While Patrus and Zephyrus unfurled their bedrolls, Threyna pulled a stack of three small clay cups from hers and lined them up in her palm.

“Before we call it a night…” She held up a flask. “A toast to our fortunes.”

Patrus set down his bedroll. “She’s been holdin’ out on us, Zeph.”

“Typical Warlock,” Zephyrus said, approaching Threyna with a grin.

Threyna bit down on the flask’s stopper and yanked it free to fill the three clay cups. But while Zephyrus’s dreamself joked with Patrus, his conscious mind kept his focus on Threyna.

Did she poison me? He didn’t believe it was possible. He refused to believe it.

Ceres’s voice entered into his dreamscape. “She betrayed us, Zeph. She wants the Treasures for herself.”

She put down the flask but immediately picked up another vial. It happened so quickly that it was no wonder he and Patrus missed it. With the speed of a scorpion’s striking tail, Threyna poured the vial’s contents into two of the cups.

No… It can’t be.

She passed the contaminated cups to Zephyrus and Patrus.

“May the light of our futures brighten the dark of our pasts,” Threyna said.

“To the Judges,” Patrus said, clinking his clay cup against Zephyrus’s and Threyna’s. His conscious mind watched in horror as Patrus downed the contents in the time Zephyrus took a sip. “I’m off to sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

His conscious mind winced as his dreamself raised his cup to drink, but Threyna stopped him with a light touch on his wrist.

“Would you mind staying up a bit longer?” she asked. “Just to keep the fire going?”

His dreamself shrugged, and together, they sat beside the fire.

Don’t do it. Please.

He knew what came next. The only thing that made sense. Threyna would betray him. She’d rob him and Patrus of their memories and set them down a path of blood and death.

Just as he raised his cup again to drink, Threyna stopped him once more.

“Don’t you think the Fallen would want you to fight, regardless of your fate?” Threyna asked. “What if you’re not the Wielder—would it change anything?”

Zephyrus’s dreamself considered. His conscious mind had wrestled with his fate, his prophecy. He’d forsaken it, ignoring the Treasures to find the Relics left behind by his mother. Freeing Perillian from its plight, the war for Stockhelm had fallen from priority in lieu of stopping Paxoran.

No. He willed his dreamself to say it too—to hold to his convictions regardless of any prophecy—but his dreamself would not abide.

“But I am the Wielder. That’s what they’ve been training me for. Why else am I the only one who can do this?” Zephyrus’s dreamself doused the fire with a splash of water, set a zap of electricity through it, then smothered it with stone before restoring it with greater fervor. “I can also use force, manipulation, and healing magic. If I’m not the Wielder, who other than Tharseo reborn is worthy of the Treasures?”

His conscious mind lamented at living within his dreamself’s memory. So arrogant. So foolish. If only I had seen the error of my ways sooner. Why did it take losing myself to learn what was important?

Threyna shook her head before raising her clay cup to her lips. Zephyrus drank.

The second sip of poison.

“What if you’re not, though?” Threyna asked. “What if I am?”

His dreamself scoffed, drinking again, poisoning himself one sip at a time.

“I must kill the Skeleton King,” Threyna said. “Regardless of prophecy, I need those Treasures. Help me defeat the Skeleton King, and then together we can take back Stockhelm, free the Celestics, destroy the Warlocks—whatever you want to do, but the Skeleton King must fall first or else—”

“You think you’re the only one with musts?” Zephyrus’s dreamself asked. “The Fallen have been waiting for me to be ready for nearly fifteen years. The Templar have trained me to claim the Treasures or, at the very least, defend them from people like you who don’t believe they’ve been hidden for a reason. Your Skeleton King is no more of a tyrant than the Drakes. And tomorrow, when I am named the Wielder, we will send word to King Varros Helixus that it’s time to join the war he’s been too craven to involve himself in. I will claim the Treasures, win back Stockhelm, and wait until my mother sends for me.”

Zephyrus’s conscious mind connected the last of the missing pieces.

The letter to King Varros… she must have written it.

Threyna looked at him with a desperation for him to see the world as she saw it—to lay down his pride and help her. But Zephyrus’s dreamself didn’t see it. He shook his head and drank again as if he had the entire world figured out.

“You don’t owe the Arcane Templar anything,” Threyna said.

He’d seen this moment before. He’d dreamt it in the medicus’s chambers at Cassius’s ludus.

She placed Zephyrus’s hand over her heart. “You might not believe in him, but this is real, and he is coming. I have to stop him… no one else will. Not the Warlocks, not the Templar. Me. And I don’t know if I can do it on my own. So please, Zephyrus—will you join me?”

This was the moment which would condemn him to slavery, the one that would deliver Patrus to his death at the hands of Lenox.

“I can’t,” Zephyrus’s dreamself said. He downed the last of the cup’s contents.

As the memory faded, the words from Vykinallia’s healer returned to him. “Someone either tried to kill you and failed or made precisely sure you wouldn’t remember anything.”

Now he was here, lost in dreams.

The last thing he remembered before passing out was Lenox’s flesh melting from his bones, his own screams filling the night air with cries of vengeance achieved. He thought he’d finally avenged Patrus.

Though Lenox served Patrus the killing blow, it was Threyna who poisoned him. Threyna who delivered him into the slavers’ hands. Threyna who was responsible for everything.

Threyna

Threyna and Ceres rowed in silence, fighting against the waves. Aside from the occasional grunted curse from the effort of pulling the oar through the tenacious tides of the raging sea, no words passed between them. Her ankle throbbed, but she persevered. Her eyes remained fixed on Zephyrus lying between the thwarts of Ceres’s canoe. Though he slept fitfully, he was alive, and for now, that was all that mattered.

We’re together. We’re going to Tharseo’s Bastion. All will be set right.

The wind wrestled his strands of fire free from their tie to swirl around his ear. His jaw was clenched, his body cramped and folded in on itself. The cost of balancing the scales.

When he burst to light along the riverbed, his internal temperature must have plummeted.

“Hold on a moment,” Threyna said to Ceres.

“What are you doing?” Ceres groaned as a wave tossed the canoe, splashing all three of them.

Threyna unclasped the Orsion Cloak and draped it over Zephyrus. She winced as she transferred her weight to her unstable ankle. It nearly rolled again on the uneven canoe floor, but she reclasped the cloak, securing it around Zephyrus’s neck.

“You’re gonna sink us all!”

“It won’t matter if he dies before we reach Tharseo’s Bastion.” Threyna plopped back onto the stern’s seat.

Ceres muttered something, but it was swallowed by the crashing waves and whipping winds. He shook his head. “It won’t make up for what you’ve done. You know that, right?”

Zephyrus stirred in his sleep, shaking his head and whimpering as if enduring a nightmare.

Threyna swallowed, tasting the salty spray upon her lips. “I did what I thought I had to. That doesn’t mean I don’t have regrets.” She had a great many of them, dating back long before she betrayed Zephyrus and Patrus and killed the Guardians defending the Treasures. “I was wrong. You’re right. Nothing I do will change that.”

But I’ll be damned and cursed back to Rheynia before I look back. Only forward.

The sea carried them west from the Valtarcian Bay. After traversing between Stockhelm and Salmantica, Ceres guided them through a narrow passage in the Hylan Mountains that Threyna didn’t know existed. Once they passed through the narrow canal, only accessible at low tide, they followed the western coast of Stockhelm, out of sight and beyond the reach of their pursuers.

Beyond the Hylans, the sea’s wrath calmed. Though it was far from placid, the waves no longer threatened to throw them into the jagged rocks along the coast. The sky brightened beyond the Hylans, but it was hours before they saw the sun, and hours more before Zephyrus’s ashen complexion returned to normal. Still, he slept.

Threyna’s stomach growled, and her eyelids felt heavy, but she continued onward while the sun crested the mountain’s peak and began its descent into the west. With the sea’s relative calm, Ceres and Threyna took shifts rowing, allowing for much-needed rest. Despite half-expecting Ceres to throw her overboard the moment she closed her eyes, she fell asleep anyway.

Lulled to dreams by the sway of the canoe, Threyna’s subconscious displayed a world she’d never known existed—a place of hope. Prior to escaping the cursed island of Rheynia, she hadn’t known peace could exist. She’d never afforded herself affections other than duty. But here, in this peaceful realm, she imagined a life with Zephyrus. A small villa along the cliffs that overlooked the sea, a home filled with laughter, children, happiness. They were all foreign concepts. The kinds of things she’d heard people talk about, but never understood. They were luxuries that a life in the Underground never afforded her. Gifts that were meant for people deserving of them.

But not her. Never her.

The image of Zephyrus filled her mind’s eye. They sat atop a cliff at the edge of the world, their legs dangling over the crashing waves in the pre-dawn light. Her hand, absent any stain of rot, caressed the stubble along his jawline. He nestled into her touch, his cheek warm against her skin. His fiery eyes met hers, reflecting the glow of the rising sun, and her heart, once corrupted by rot, melted.

“We made it,” he said, a smile touching the corner of his lips. “I didn’t think it possible, but here we are—together, even after fate, war, and the Gods tried to rip us apart.”

She reached out her other hand to cup both of his cheeks. A gold-and-purple ring decorated her left ring finger. Threyna examined it, blinking, until Zephyrus’s lips pressed against hers. She closed her eyes, sinking into the moment, reveling in it.

The rising sun bathed her in warmth as the chirping gulls celebrated the coming dawn. The continual rise and fall of the waves below ensured that this moment would not be a singular event, but a daily one, worthy of celebration.

“Can this be our everyday?” she asked, opening her eyes to drink in Zephyrus’s.

The way he looked at her was unlike anything she’d received from anyone else. Her heart fluttered, free of rot’s embrace and swathed in a love she never should have deserved.

“As long as each day brings a new dawn,” Zephyrus said. He kissed her again, and she melted into him. Their lips parted, and he rested his forehead against hers. He took a lock of hair between his fingers.

Chestnut…

“I will always love you, Vykinallia.”

Silence swallowed Threyna’s senses. What did he say? Before she knew it, she was falling. Plummeting to the jagged rocks and crashing waves. He’s not talking to me. He’s not with me. He’s with Vykinallia.

Threyna startled awake, salty water dripping down her face.

“Burn me,” Ceres said, “I thought you’d never wake up. C’mon, my turn to sleep.”

Threyna’s surroundings returned to her. Ceres sat on the bow’s bench, Zephyrus slept between the thwarts, and Threyna lay half-sprawled between sitting and lying down. She rubbed her sore neck from the awkward position, but it didn’t hurt anywhere as badly as her dream.

“Why couldn’t you have woken me a moment sooner?” Threyna asked, tossing her wet braid over her shoulder. She repositioned her oars as Ceres took his in.

“We’ll be there soon,” Ceres said. “We’re already east of the Hylans. Just keep us straight on this course. First flat land you see is the Isle of Fate. Can’t miss it.”

Threyna nodded, still shaking the dream from her mind.

With his oars inside the canoe, Ceres wagged his finger at Threyna. “Nothing stupid, eh?”

“Yeah, yeah, go to sleep.” Threyna pulled the oars with her raw and blistered hands. She just wanted to be alone, yet she had no choice but to stare at the man who, a moment ago, made her feel like she had everything. Then he snatched it away and gave it to someone else.

What is so special about Vykinallia?

The moment she posed the question, the answer she didn’t want bubbled to the surface of her mind. She probably didn’t poison you, summon the slavers to chain you, or lie to you at every turn. She probably didn’t have a corrupting black rot slithering through her veins. And she certainly wasn’t the reason Patrus died.

Threyna released a heavy breath, deflating her shoulders. Her ankle throbbed, and her hands hurt, but her heart felt broken. Happiness and love were real; they just weren’t for her. She didn’t deserve them.

It wasn’t long until Ceres fell asleep, and Threyna had exactly what she wanted; she was alone. But being alone with her thoughts was even worse than the distraction of bad company. Fortunately, her self-imposed torment didn’t last too long. As the sun disappeared behind the Hylan Mountains to cast long shadows before her, the jagged mountains began to flatten, and the Isle of Fate came into view.

The last time she’d set foot in this temple, she had already planned to betray Zephyrus and Patrus. This time, she would make things right.

As she neared the island, Tharseo’s Bastion came into view. The dilapidated structure seemed more weathered than she remembered. The red sandstone fortress bore the scars of attempted destruction—smoke-stained scorch marks climbed the base, chunks of the walls were broken free to fall to rubble along the foundation, and the doors, if they could be called doors anymore, were more like splinters on hinges. But even against the test of time and Valencian intolerance, the foundation remained intact.

Zephyrus stirred. Soon, his fate would be upon him, and everything her actions had prevented him from would be realized. The cruel irony was that Zephyrus never would have met this Vykinallia woman if Threyna hadn’t set him on this path.

Threyna huffed, averting her gaze from Zephyrus. She rowed around the stony shore until the sands came into view, but with them was another ship. Threyna reflexively tapped into her Inner Throne, listening for heartbeats. The rot crept up her arm, but she sensed no one aboard. There were about a dozen heartbeats inside the temple.

Threyna flicked the oar into the water to splash Ceres. He jolted, nearly launching himself overboard. The canoe rocked, threatening to capsize, but regained its balance.

“Burning Warlocks,” Ceres said.

Threyna nodded in the direction of the ship. “We have company. Could it be the Seers and their acolytes?”

Ceres frowned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He craned his neck to examine the boat.

It’s too small for the dozen or so people inside.

“The Seers wouldn’t come or flee by sea,” Ceres said. “Could it be your friends?”

Threyna gulped. Tyrus and Erowen. Paxoran knew where they were going. She had expected they’d be chasing her, but she didn’t expect them to beat her here. “Could be.”

Ceres grunted, nudging Zephyrus with his foot. “Wake up.”

Zephyrus bolted upright. Eyes wild, a sheen of sweat covering his brow, his dreams appeared to have been worse than hers.

“You’re okay,” Threyna said. She paused rowing, releasing one hand to reach for him, but he jerked away.

Threyna shuddered, hating how he recoiled from her. “Ceres found you after you fought the Jackals along the river.”

Zephyrus’s brow angled. His nostrils flared as he looked over his shoulder at Ceres.

“We made a deal,” Threyna said.

Zephyrus’s eyes burned a hole through her. “You made a deal.” The tone of Zephyrus’s voice made Threyna’s skin crawl.

Ghosts, what happened to him?

Ceres nodded. “Yeah, I bring you here, and together we fight the Warlock, but once he’s dealt with, I take the Treasures. All three.”

Zephyrus scoured the coastline before returning his stare to her, his jaw clenched. “You’d give them up?”

“For you,” Threyna said. For us, she didn’t.

She hoped it would bring a smile to his lips—that it would soften his brow or reduce the tension that kept his fists clenched between the thwarts. It didn’t.

Zephyrus’s eyes narrowed. “Once, the Treasures were the only things that mattered to you. Why now? Why not then?”

Threyna balked. Her throat went dry, and her stomach fell through the bottom of the canoe to sink like steel to the bottom of the sea. She stammered, attempting to form words, but none succeeded.

Did he remember the truth? Does he know what I did?

They didn’t move. Aside from the swaying canoe and the tides drifting them closer to the Isle of Fate’s shore, nothing stirred as they remained in a deadlocked stare.

“What do you mean?” Threyna asked, hoping against hope that her worst fears were all in her head, that he didn’t know—would never know.

“I didn’t remember,” Zephyrus said. “Maybe I didn’t want to. You poisoned us. You stole our memories. You planted the note to the king to send Patrus and me on a fool’s errand.”

It was worse than she thought. Threyna shook her head. “Zephyrus, let me expla—”

“Patrus is dead!” Zephyrus’s voice boomed across the ocean, echoing off the mountains.

Ceres tried to quiet him, but Zephyrus shrugged him off, his sights locked on Threyna.

A knot formed in Threyna’s throat, more suffocating than the rot in her veins. “I know, Zephyrus. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. But Paxoran, he—”

Zephyrus stabbed his finger at her. “We both know Paxoran only shows you the way to the things you want. You. You’re the one who made the choice.”

If the truth were a blade, Zephyrus punched it into Threyna’s heart. The dream she’d had, even the lie of it, vanished. Only death, pain, and guilt remained.

She hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely a squeak. But no words could turn back time. No apology would undo all the wrongs she’d done.

Ceres cleared his throat. “Hate to break this up, but we’ve got company.”

Two unmistakable figures strode from the temple to the shoreline: Tyrus and Erowen.

Part VII

Chapter 48

A Torch Against the Night

Laeden XIII

Stockhelm

Plans were in place, but Laeden took little solace in that. After all, plans were made to be broken, and it wouldn’t take much to make this one go awry. Sweat coated his brow and dampened his back as he and Markus dragged a heavy wooden pillar before the northern gate to bar the encroaching Salmantics.

“This has got to be your worst plan ever,” Markus said as he heaved the pillar into place.

They didn’t have the numbers to hold House Arux. Only a couple dozen brave, foolish, or infirm souls remained. Much of their number accompanied Vykinallia, Lenara, Iberion, and the other leaders of the Fallen, divided into small groups. Laeden hoped while Iberion led the vanguard to distract Brusos’s force to the south, the other smaller parties would be able to slip through the cracks between Salmantica’s approaching army and Brusos’s standing trap.

Laeden wiped the sweat dripping from his nose. “If they storm the walls, we’ve done our job. We just need the walls to hold to buy the others time.”

They made their way back inside the barracks to join the others in the courtyard where they were outfitting their defenses.

Pushing through the door to the barracks, Markus bit his lip. “Do you think Kherus and the others will be able to take Northridge? That the Uprising can overtake House Brusos?”

Laeden thumbed his nose. “They’ll have a better chance than staying and dying.”

Markus cleared his throat, giving Laeden a side-eyed glance as they ascended the stairs to return to the villa. “I was hoping you had a plan to get us out of here before that happened.”

Quickening his stride, Laeden’s feet scuffed the marble floor. Still stained with blood from when the Fallen had taken House Arux by force, this villa would see more death before the day was done.

“I do,” Laeden said, “I’m just not sure it’s going to work.” He hadn’t intended for Markus to stay. He didn’t presume to survive the night. His plan wasn’t to save everyone; it was to preserve the Fallen, to retake Northridge, and keep the rebellion against Salmantica alive. Everything else was a gamble.

My life is not worth more than anyone else’s. But can I condemn Markus to die as well?

He couldn’t order anyone to stay and die. Aside from Markus, Aponius, and himself, only the injured who knew they would hinder the escape of others remained. He wished Markus hadn’t stayed behind, that he joined Kherus, the Ridge Knights, Aurellia, Joru, and the other freedpeople who volunteered to return to Valtarcia. But Markus, ever the fool, even when he disagreed with Laeden, remained by his side.

He patted Markus on the shoulder. “We just have to survive long enough for them to realize they’ve been tricked.”

Markus nodded. “You think we can do it?”

Laeden had his doubts. The Fallen took House Arux with fifty fighters, barely armed. Damascus marched with an army of steel-clad knights and Atonus Allos’s Lions. Thinking would do Laeden no good. If they were going to survive, they would need more than clever tactics, but sometimes leadership meant lying.

Oh, Iylea. If you can hear me, I need your help.

Laeden stopped before the door that exited out into the courtyard where the rest of their meager defenders prepared. He met Markus’s eyes. “I believe we can do this.”

Markus bit his lip and nodded.

With a shove, Laeden opened the door. The orange light of the setting sun spilled into the villa, casting long shadows that stretched behind Laeden and Markus. The others awaiting them in the courtyard limped and hobbled to form a semicircle at the foot of the stairs.

Gensus stood front and center, a feverish sweat beading on his forehead. “We’re ready.”

Beside him, Aponius wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Everything’s in place on the south, east, and west walls.”

“Very good,” Laeden said. “Any more oil?”

Gensus winced as he repositioned himself to address the others in the courtyard. “Oil?”

All scarred and bandaged, nursing one wound or another, their small group looked between each other. Some had been with the Fallen for a short while, but most were the laborers Laeden had liberated from the shipyard. They weren’t soldiers. They didn’t know the first thing about how to wield a sword, let alone the nuance of formations or battle strategies.

When shrugs and shaken heads were the only responses to Gensus’s question, Laeden took matters into his own hands. “Search the villa, the barracks—everywhere. Bring anything flammable to the north wall, and hurry. We haven’t much time.”

The sky was more purple than orange by the time they returned to the courtyard. After draping the north wall with linens from the villa and lining the base with hay from the stables, Laeden addressed his ragtag group of dead men yet to fall. They held torches against the approaching night, awaiting his orders.

“No one will sing songs about us,” Laeden said. “No one will remember our deaths, and no one will care for how we lived before this night. Everything we believe in, every principle we uphold, every cause we support—they will not survive the night.”

Markus glanced sidelong at Laeden, nudging him with his elbow, but it was the truth. And this truth they needed to hear. Laeden lifted his finger to the sky, but stared into the long faces bathed in torchlight.

“We are surrounded,” Laeden said. “The Salmantic army marches from the west, Brusos from the south, and Horus from the east, all to ensure that you and your beliefs die tonight. Our worst fears will come to pass… If…”

He let the word hang between them like smoke on a windless night. “If we fail to hold this ground. If we fail to outlast the night. We will let the kingdom that’s already taken everything from us write an end to our story. But this is not where it ends! Is it?”

“No!” Gensus, Markus, and Aponius shouted, though they were the only ones.

Laeden paced the ground between the injured defenders of the former Arux ludus. “Here, where countless of your brothers and sisters were condemned to lives of enslavement and deaths of the cruelest variety, here where men lauded over your people and spilled their blood, here we will defend as if it is sacred ground. Because if we don’t keep their eyes on us, the Fallen will not reach the Hylan. Their mission, their dream to reclaim Stockhelm and free the Celestic people, will fall if we cannot hold. If we cannot hold, the Ridge Knights will not make it back to Valtarcia. They will never usurp Duke Horus and install a government for the people founded on honor and justice.”

The freedpeople’s heads began to nod. No longer did their chins droop. Hard lines formed around their jaws. Their brows narrowed in defiance of their impending deaths.

Laeden drew his sword. “If we hold these four walls—if we keep the enemy at bay long enough for our allies to survive—then our beliefs, traditions, and principles will live on. We hold the villa, and they will remember us. They will tell the tales of our lives. They will sing songs of our valor, and our deaths will have meant something. Will you fight for them?”

The gathered assortment of people—from Ridge Knights to freedpeople, and Salmantic deserters to traitors of the crown—erupted with cheers that rose to the purple twilight sky. Steel, gripped in fists, punched the air.

There was no king without a kingdom, and there’s no kingdom without its people. Though their coalition was fractured, their cause had never been more united.

“They can have the walls,” Laeden said, “but we will keep the ludus!”

With their meager defenses in place, Laeden waved the poor excuse for an army inside the villa, leaving Laeden, Markus, Gensus, and Aponius in the courtyard. The moment the majority of their force took shelter inside, the horns and drums of the encroaching Salmantics sounded.

The thrum echoed off the villa’s walls, its depth booming through Laeden’s chest, rattling his ribs. The pit in his stomach sank to the ground and spread like a fissure, ready to swallow him whole.

Markus ran to the wooden pillars of their first line of defense and peered through the cracks in the wall. When he turned back toward them, his face was pale. “They’re here.”

Laeden clamped his teeth shut to prevent them from chattering. He steadied his breath, looking at the falcon of House Faire tattooed into the belly of his forearm. It didn’t give him the strength it once did. Instead, he inclined his gaze to the sky.

Iylea… If you can hear me, watch over me. If you can’t, watch over Zephyrus. Watch over Vykinallia. I love you.

“Let them come,” Laeden said, plucking a torch from a sconce on the column outside the villa’s entryway. He nodded for Gensus and Aponius to do the same. “Once they unsheathe their steel, set fire to the walls.”

Chapter 49

The Hill

Vykinallia IX

Stockhelm

Vykinallia backpedaled as House Arux shrank in the distance. As the setting sun cast a long shadow in her wake, she only hoped that shadow didn’t descend on Laeden, his plan, or their collective fate. She was leaving Laeden, her brother, and the infirm who remained behind as a distraction, a ploy… a sacrifice.

I brought them here, and now they’ll die here.

Falcos had played her. Used her. And now the means of the Fallen’s destruction encroached on their last known location. Laeden would hold House Arux for as long as he could, but what hope did he stand? Iberion’s odds fared little better. Charging Brusos’s force with a few dozen men was a different kind of death sentence.

All so we can have a chance at reaching House Brusos.

“Best not to delay,” Cerik said, gripping her forearm with a gentle firmness.

Vykinallia exhaled her held breath. “I thought Falcos believed in this. In us.”

Jechtaric snorted. “You should know better than to trust anything out of House Brusos.”

Vykinallia met the scarred former gladiator’s sharp-toothed grin. “I suppose you’re right.” She took one last look at House Arux, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time she’d see those inside its paltry walls.

She, Jechtaric, and Cerik followed Lenara’s force west to ford the Crystal River downstream from where the Salmantic army crossed the bridge. If they were lucky, they’d be able to sneak between the trap set for them to the south and the encroaching army from the west. Chasing the setting sun, the rolling hills of the Stockhelm countryside were both a gift and a curse; while it concealed their travel, it also didn’t allow them to see their enemies.

By the time they reached the Crystal River, the sky was a burning purple, and though their journey by night would keep them hidden, they couldn’t afford to slow their pace. They followed the river until it was narrow and slow enough to wade through.

Though she had been intent to bring up the rear to watch for signs of scouts at their backs, the nearer Vykinallia came to her old home, the more her anxiety crept up the back of her neck to settle on her shoulders. As the front of their procession began to cross the river, Vykinallia, with Jechtaric and Cerik following close behind, couldn’t contain the length of her strides. Making her way to the riverbed where Lenara and Sinion were waving people through, Vykinallia cleaved through the masses. She forged through the river, bounded up the riverbed, and surged toward House Brusos.

The silhouette of the ludus, carved into the Hylan Mountains, stood stark against the night sky. Bathed in moonlight, the home she was raised in called to her like a beacon. It wasn’t long ago that she thought House Cassius was blessed, but with her father dead, her mother trapped under Brusos’s thumb, and her brother prepared to die to allow her to reclaim their former home, she knew the truth of the matter. They were all cursed. Every house in New Rheynia was set to fall. Built on a foundation of slavery, what society could hope to stand?

Weighed down by her wet clothes from the river, with her feet squelching through her boots, her anxiety morphed to anger. Not just anger with society, Brusos’s treachery, or Damascus’s cruelty, but the fact that she was party to all of it. She had thought herself a good person, but she’d seen the light. Her anger was with Nallia Cassius.

I killed Nallia at House Arux. She felt the scarred flesh of her brand. V for Vykinallia.

Allowing the memory of Zephyrus’s voice to whisper her name, her true name, she closed her eyes. She marched to House Brusos not just as a member of the Fallen, hoping to keep their cause alive. Not just as a woman cowed beneath the rule of men, fighting for survival, but as a slave, bound in the shackles she placed upon herself.

Break the chains.

By the time the torches of House Brusos came into view, the night had swallowed the last remnants of dusk. They needed to take the mountain villa quickly in case Laeden’s plans faltered or Damascus’s forces realized the Fallen had slipped through.

With their plans in place, their force divided, and an army on their heels, there was no time for speeches. The bulk of the Fallen, mostly those without skill wielding a sword, marched on the front entrance, while the mages and skilled fighters divided. Some took the lowland path up to the training square, while the others flanked to enter through the stables.

Brusos’s guards sounded the alarm and prepared their defenses, causing the nausea to rise in Vykinallia’s throat. It came the same as it had before attacking Arux’s ludus or the Valtarcian shipyard, but she swallowed it down.

“Good luck,” Lenara said. “We’re counting on you.”

Vykinallia nodded. She would drive the dagger through the heart of Brusos’s defense and take down Damascus’s hold over Stockhelm. As the Fallen moved to their own purposes, Vykinallia waved Jechtaric, Cerik, Sett, Dankar, and Unari around the outskirts of the villa’s grounds toward the Hill.

The hike up the Hylans was a favored form of punishment for unruly gladiators. Forced to scale the steep, crumbling sandstone in direct sunlight, the ascent required the gladiators to seize handfuls of the Lovers’ Dream flowers that sprouted along the mountain range, despite the toxin in its thorns. But the apex of the Hill provided their entry to the tallest of the towers etched into the Hylans.

“Just like old times, eh?” Jechtaric said once they arrived at the base. “Back at House Cassius, climbing the Hill. If Lenox shows up, it’ll really be a real party.”

“If Zephyrus would show up, we wouldn’t have needed to leave the others,” Cerik said.

Vykinallia stiffened at the mention of his name. How she wished he would come. His abilities as a fighter, a leader, and a symbol would inspire hope amongst the fearful, but she knew such a thing was impossible.

“Zephyrus isn’t coming,” Vykinallia said, addressing her gathered few. She tore a strip of fabric from her tunic beneath her leather jerkin and began wrapping her hands, nodding for the others to do the same. “No one is coming. We are the Fallen’s only chance. If we do not claim this ludus before the army returns over that bridge, we’re done. Dead or worse.”

A razor-thin smile accompanied Unari’s sharp glare as she wrapped her palms. “Then let us take from them what they took from us.”

“For Invinius Auros,” Sett said, securing his hand dressings.

“For Patrus,” Dankar added, pressing his covered knuckles together.

“For Auron, Fenyx, and all enslaved within,” Cerik said.

“Burn me,” Jechtaric said. “For my own ass.”

Vykinallia’s group of gentle killers laughed, but time was of the essence, and no moment could be wasted.

For Zephyrus. “Let’s go.”

Vykinallia climbed the Hill as quickly as she could, but Jechtaric and Cerik soon overtook her. No stranger to the punishing ascent, they led the way up on all fours, guided by moonlight. Shouts echoed off of the Hylans as the freedpeople stormed the villa from all angles. She doubted any would get through; even a few guards could secure the choke points.

But they’ll never see us coming.

As they ascended, the path grew steeper, and they became more reliant on the barbed stems of the poisonous flowers. If not for her wraps, Vykinallia had no doubt she’d be dizzy from the thorns’ toxins.

“A kindness,” her father had said when Zephyrus was sent to the Hill after Lenox attacked him. The memory made her sick, but the fatigue in her thighs, the “V” on her chest, and the sword at her belt brought her closer to Zephyrus than she’d ever been, even when she held him in her arms.

The cries echoing off the sandstone grew louder as the desperation to get inside mounted. They were running out of time. Pushing through the burning of her calves, she crested the Hill.

The adjacent tower had a west-facing window, and as Vykinallia expected, it was unguarded. Only a leap away… Though the divide was larger than Vykinallia had remembered.

Storm inside. Open the exit to the stables. Take control of the atrium and let the others in.

“Not all at once,” Jechtaric said as the others looked at the jagged drop in the space between the structure and the mountain it was carved from. Jechtaric removed the linen wrappings around his palms and took a few steps back, shaking his hands out. He took a deep breath, and with a running start, he charged the precipice. Flying from the hilltop, Jechtaric extended his arms, reaching for the base of the tower’s conical roof. He fell through the air.

Vykinallia’s stomach lurched. He’s not going to make it.

His fingers grasped the stone lip of the windowsill. He caught himself, his feet against the wall like a cat climbing a tree. He hauled himself up and swung his leg through the window. Once both feet were firmly on solid ground, he dusted himself off and beckoned for the next.

Vykinallia remained fixed to the top of the Hill.

Sett exchanged a glance with Dankar. “We shoulda just broke the front door down.”

Unari shoved them apart. “You know the way down.”

Following Jechtaric’s trajectory, Unari launched herself through the air. With a grace as if this wasn’t the first tower she’d scaled, she caught the window’s lip. Jechtaric hoisted her by the wrists to bring her inside.

“I won’t make that,” Dankar said. “No chance.”

Vykinallia understood the fears of the two burly former blacksmiths. At half their size, she wasn’t confident that she wouldn’t end up in the black abyss below.

“You?” Sett asked Cerik.

Cerik, at least a decade younger than Sett and Dankar, was of a similar size. With a deep exhale, he tore the linens from his palms. Without a word, Cerik scuffed the ground and charged toward the tower. At the last possible moment, he leapt, soaring through the air.

One hand latched onto the windowsill, but the rest of him crashed into the tower wall.

Vykinallia shuddered.

His legs swayed over the drop, but he held fast. Jechtaric wrapped both hands around his wrist and heaved until Cerik’s other hand found purchase on the window’s ledge. Together, with Unari’s help, the bruiser climbed in through the window. Only then did Vykinallia allow herself to breathe.

With Sett and Dankar electing not to jump, it was up to Vykinallia. Her mouth was bone dry, but her palms were slick with perspiration. Excuses and reasons why the others didn’t need her flooded her mind, but she could justify none of them. She couldn’t let them go on without her. She needed to be there. She needed to open the front doors and let her people—the people she chose to be her people—inside.

This was my home. A place of slavery and cruelty. But it will be a bastion of freedom. Just beyond this leap…

Vykinallia grit her teeth. She tossed her linens to the ground, but a gentle breeze carried them into the canyon between the top of the Hill and the Westernmost wall of the ludus.

The winds are with me. The Judges are with me…

She pawed the ground and rubbed at her elbow where Zephyrus had healed her. She let out her held breath and ran for the ledge. Keeping her eyes on the window where Jechtaric and Cerik beckoned her, she leapt.

The moment she was airborne, the emptiness beneath her yawned open like a maw wishing to engulf her. She extended her arms for the windowsill, but her momentum was dying. Her eyes widened. She reached as far as she could, but her arms ran out of length. Panic seized her as the window fell away and gravity opened its waiting arms to drag her back down to earth.

Her shoulder jerked as pressure closed around her wrist. Her momentum yanked her downward, but she was no longer falling. She looked up to see Jechtaric’s scarred face above her, half his body suspended from the window with both hands grasped around her arm.

“You’re as crazy as I am,” Jechtaric said with a grin that only an insane person could bear while hanging from a window.

Cerik and Unari hauled Jechtaric up through the window, Vykinallia still in his grasp. Vykinallia didn’t breathe until she planted her feet on the solid stone of the tower floor, but she didn’t let go of Jechtaric.

Instead, she hugged him. “Chimera’s breath, thank you, Jechtaric.”

He hugged her back. “Jecht,” he whispered. “Friends call me Jecht.”

Vykinallia gave him a squeeze. “Jecht… Gratitude.” Stifling the emotion of just how much that meant, she released him and turned back to Sett and Dankar. “Join the others at the door to the barracks. We’ll open that door first.”

The blacksmith brothers nodded, disappearing from view, leaving Vykinallia, Jecht, Cerik, and Unari to their purpose. Her thoughts drifted to Laeden defending a ludus they didn’t need from Damascus’s wrath and Iberion fighting a battle he could never win against Brusos.

It was up to her to make sure their distractions, their sacrifices, were worth it. The burden didn’t fall on those pounding on the door to the atrium, those attempting to force their way through the entrance by the stables, or those attacking the barracks—it fell on the four of them. If they didn’t open the doors, even if Laeden and Iberion bought them all the time in the world, Damascus’s army would realize that Vykinallia and the bulk of the Fallen had slipped past and would come for them. If they were caught between Damascus’s army and the walls of her former ludus, they’d be crushed like a bent blade between a hammer and an anvil.

There can’t be many inside, but still—four against how many?

The odds didn’t matter. They couldn’t afford such luxuries. Win or die, this was their only option.

Looking around the tower, it had seemed years since she’d last been here in her own home. Mere weeks in actuality, but a lifetime had come and gone in that span. House Cassius was gone. Nallia Cassius was gone.

“Be what the Judges intended you to be.”

She unsheathed her sword. Cerik drew his mace from where it was strapped to his hip, and Jecht his short spear.

“Everyone is relying on us,” Vykinallia said. “The survival of the Fallen is dependent on—”

The tower door swung open. A guard in the black-and-white surcoat of House Brusos had his hand on the knob.

“Remain in here until—” The guard’s voice cut short as he met Vykinallia’s gaze. Stupefied, the two of them only stared. Time stood still, but in that precious moment, Vykinallia’s eyes betrayed her because what they saw didn’t make sense.

No, he can’t be here. He and his men are holding the south.

Behind the guard, the unmistakable thin lips, pale blue eyes, and close-cropped black hair belonged to only one man, the snake that likely killed her father to take the Chancellorship and Dukedom of Stockhelm for himself—Ebron Brusos.

Vykinallia’s blood boiled, but a cold sweat dampened her brow.

If he’s here, how many more are too?

In spite of the odds stacking higher against them, Vykinallia reared back her sword, and, with a shout that shook the tower walls, she thrust her gladius at the white-and-black serpent coiled around the guard’s breast.

Chapter 50

The Harbinger

Fenyx VI

Stockhelm

With the brothers condemned to the cells, Auron silenced by death’s disgrace, and the guards content to let him wallow upon the palus, hunger and dehydration were Fenyx’s only company. He had run out of sweat to drip down his scalp, and his stomach growled like a ferocious beast on the prowl, but he ignored the presence of looming defeat.

This torture was temporary. His time would come. Odetta prophesied it. Brusos declared it; Fenyx, regardless of his stubbornness, would be Champion. Perhaps not the Champion he thought, but one all the same.

Despite the limited view of the half-finished stone wall lining the wooden barricades of the training square, Fenyx’s view of the Sentinels and guards was unobstructed. Whatever was happening beyond the smoky haze of the horizon, the men loyal to House Brusos were preparing. Guards in black and white joined Sentinels in gray and blue and black-clad soldiers decorated with golden lions as they marched east, the sun at their backs.

Fenyx attempted to massage moisture into his tongue, but to no avail. The Burning within him was gone, replaced by the sun’s eternal oppression. His skin was scorched, his eyes dry, and his mouth tasted of the medicus’s swabs, but something different, something new, had awoken in him—a patience, a calm, a peacefulness he’d never known. But the thirst for blood, vengeance, and the desire to prove himself worthy of whatever Champion the Gods ordained him to be was alive and well.

It gave him the stomach to endure the crows and vultures pecking strips of Auron’s ruined flesh from his bones. The defiance not to call for the guards with his weak and hoarse voice.

I will endure. I will be reforged.

He repeated the mantra until the Gods were ready to raise him from the ashes.

The sun had begun to set beyond the Hylan Peaks before the door to the barracks creeped open. Nortus’s hairy mug poked out beyond the entryway before Odetta slipped past, a carafe clutched within her grasp. Nortus disappeared and closed the door behind her. Odetta eyed the balcony and the half-walled-off gate that exited the training square to the east. With no one in sight, Odetta approached Fenyx with hurried steps.

As she neared, her lips pursed, and her face soured as her eyes drifted to what was left of Auron. Swallowing with difficulty, she lifted the carafe to Fenyx’s lips.

The wine stung his cracked lips and felt more like poison than sustenance as it trickled down his throat. Once, Fenyx would have refused wine in lieu of water, but thirsty as he was, he was in no position to make requests. Without the nightly rains, he imagined wine was easier to come by than water.

Once he had drunk his fill, she dabbed his lower lip with her thumb and cupped his burnt cheek in her hand.

“It’s nearly time,” Odetta said.

“Time for what?” Fenyx’s words grated against his raw throat, and he barely recognized the sound of his own voice.

“Your ascent,” Odetta said. Her mint eyes searched him beneath the surface and seemingly beyond this present moment.

Fenyx shook his head. He wanted to ask her a dozen different questions but didn’t believe his eviscerated vocal cords would tolerate the effort.

“How?”

Odetta shrugged, tilting her head to the side. “I don’t know, but you are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

She lifted the carafe to Fenyx’s lips again, and he drank. The acidic liquid sloshed around his empty stomach. A slight vertigo tinged his focus as the effects of the wine went straight to his head. She inclined her eyes to the sun sinking in the western sky behind him, her smooth skin reflecting its orange light.

“Apologies,” she said, casting a glance at Auron and wrinkling her nose. “I couldn’t let you deliver me to the domina.”

Fenyx nearly choked on the half-swallowed wine, his cough chafing his sore throat.

Seer.

That was the only way she could have known his intentions.

“I warned you,” Odetta said. “But all will be as it should. You will ascend. You will be Champion of the One True God, and you will usher in the age of a new world.”

Fenyx’s heart hammered through his ribs and against the palus at his back. “When?”

She looked to the door of the barracks. “Soon.” She returned her gaze to him, again stroking his cheek. “I would have, you know?”

“Would have what?” Fenyx asked.

“Been your wife. Even if just for a short while.” She smiled, though the sentiment never reached her eyes. Her hand fell away, and the door to the barracks burst open, slamming against the wall.

Fenyx snapped his head in the direction of the two Brusos guards, but Odetta didn’t bother to even glance.

“Time to come dow—” The bearded guard froze upon seeing Odetta.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” the other guard said, his face lined with the scars of old age.

The guards exchanged a glance before the bearded man spoke. “We don’t have time for this. The Uprising—”

“Get her inside,” the older guard said as the two strode over to Fenyx’s palus. “Then get back out here and help me.”

The bearded guard took Odetta by the arm. She didn’t flinch at his touch. She didn’t move. Nor did she when he tugged on her arm. His brown mustache bristled, and he yanked harder, but Odetta might as well have been stone.

Her eyes bored into Fenyx.

“Quit your dawdling,” the older guard said as he took a key from his ring and inserted it into the lock that bound Fenyx to the palus.

“I’m not,” the bearded guard said. “She’s not moving.”

“So move her!”

As the chain slackened around Fenyx’s chest, Odetta’s mint-green eyes hardened before rolling to the back of her skull. She convulsed. The carafe in her hands fell from her grasp and sank into the sands, spilling blood-colored wine down her white linen shift.

With the same raspy depth she had spoken with the night before, Odetta’s voice echoed off the stone walls Fenyx and his brothers had built. “From the depths of hell to glory on high, the chain that connects will no longer bind.”

The guard holding her recoiled. “Mage!”

He drew his sword, but Odetta, ignorant or unconcerned by his actions, continued, staring at him through the whites of her eyes.

“When rain does not fall and crops do not rise, the Harbinger has come. The Age of the End is nigh.”

“Stop her!”

Before Fenyx could cry out, the guard drove his blade through Odetta’s side. It erupted out the other, spattering Fenyx.

“No!” Fenyx shouted.

Only then did Odetta’s mint-green eyes return to Fenyx’s. The guard tore his sword free. Odetta staggered, hands reaching to keep her eviscerated guts from spilling out. Gore soaked either side of the wine stain.

The chain that draped around Fenyx unraveled around him, falling in a ring to the sands. Fenyx dropped to all fours.

The guard who had released him wheeled on Odetta, drawing his sword and thrusting it through her chest in one swift motion.

Odetta’s eyes went wide before the lids drew heavy, and she fell backwards, leaving the guard’s blade slick with dark blood.

“No!” Fenyx exploded with fury.

Something beyond the Burning—more ravenous, more carnal—awoke within him. But unlike the Burning’s blind bloodlust, this was personal. Not just against this man for stabbing Odetta, not just against the Sentinels, the guards, the Rheynians, the Valencians, the Uprising, but everyone. For too long he had denied the Burning, but now, he would unleash this new beast.

The Hate within him throbbed, wishing death, personal death, on everyone. No one was immune. No one was protected. Everyone had wronged him. And everyone would repay the debt he was owed, starting with Brusos’s guards.

He seized the older guard from behind, his wrists and ankles still bound by chains. Wrapping the links around the guard’s throat, Fenyx yanked backwards and wrapped the chain around a second time. The guard gagged, releasing his sword to pry at the chain biting into his neck. The bearded guard, standing over Odetta as she writhed in the bloodstained sand, advanced on Fenyx.

Beard attempted to flank Fenyx, but Fenyx moved with him, keeping the strangled guard between them.

“Guards!” shouted Beard. “Help!”

The gagging guard within his clutches struggled to breathe. His hands and feet thrashed and flailed like a fish on dry land, but Fenyx held.

“Call your friends.” Fenyx’s voice was raw and ruined, unrecognizable to his own ears. “You two will not suffice.”

Fenyx strained against the chains, pulling tighter and tighter. The links tore into the guard’s flesh, drawing blood from his neck and purpling his cheeks. The bearded guard seemed content to watch his fellow die while he waited for reinforcements.

Coward. I hate cowards.

Fenyx wrenched, breaking the guard’s windpipe. He unraveled the chain around his throat and shoved the limp body at Beard. He caught his fellow, but that was his mistake. Fenyx advanced with short steps, ankles bound. As the strangled guard fell to the sands, his brother in arms struck at Fenyx.

Fenyx caught the blade in his manacles and wrapped the chain around it. With both hands, he torqued the sword free from the guard’s grasp and sent him tumbling to the ground. His half helm spilled to the sands, and Fenyx climbed on top of the downed guard. He raised both fists high and slammed them into the guard’s bearded face.

Bones broke, cartilage crunched, and the Hate fueled Fenyx. His fists rose and fell again and again until blood and gore replaced the features of a face.

The door to the barracks swung open, and four more guards poured out, swords and torches before them.

Sitting atop two dead guards, Fenyx’s scowl split into a sinister grin.

The guards surrounded him, swords drawn, but Fenyx was already on his feet, a discarded sword in hand.

“Come then,” Fenyx yelled.

The guards advanced as one, using their torches as a weapon just as much as their swords. Such a tactic would have sent Fenyx reeling once, but the Hate cared not for fear. He stepped into the nearest guard’s outstretched torch and hacked down on the guard’s wrist. The hand and the torch fell to the sands as the guard’s scream rose to the heavens.

Fenyx shouldered the handless guard out of the way and with a spinning slash clanged into another guard’s half helm, knocking him off his feet.

Fenyx lurched aside from a swipe, blocked a slash from the opposite direction, and stabbed the downed guard through the breast. The handless guard rejoined the fray, but with too much zeal and not enough skill. As he charged in, Fenyx tore his blade free from the downed guard and thrust it up into the handless guard’s belly. The guard’s eyes widened. Fenyx twisted the blade and ripped upwards through the breastbone. As he went limp, Fenyx shoved him into the next.

“You need more men!” Fenyx shouted despite the soreness in his throat.

The two remaining guards stepped around their fallen comrades, glancing at one another. They were no match for Fenyx. He knew it. They knew it. Even on their best days and Fenyx’s worst, the Hate within would not let him fall.

“Call for reinforcements,” Fenyx said, the links of the chain connecting his ankles clinking as he advanced. “Bring me a challenge.”

One guard glanced at the door to the barracks. Whether he wished for his salvation to come from beyond it or he desired to be behind the protection of it, he was a coward. In his momentary distraction, Fenyx jumped forward with both feet, closing the distance too quickly for the guard to bring his sword up in time. Fenyx’s edge bit into the side of the coward’s neck, spilling him to the ground.

The other guard backed away.

Fenyx could taste his fear. The flickering torch illuminated the craven’s quivering brow. The sand behind his heels ebbed from his weight transfer. He was already dead.

The door to the barracks swung open again. The clamor of the shouting gladiators erupted from the barracks as two more guards emerged in the doorway. They hesitated.

Cries filled the night air as shadows climbed up the half-reinforced walls of the training square.

The Uprising.

“Get in! Get in!” shouted a guard in the doorway.

The man before Fenyx spun in the sands, turning his back to Fenyx.

“Cowards!” Fenyx shouted.

He hurled the sword end over end. It sank between the shoulder blades of the runaway guard, sending him sputtering to the ground.

As shadows poured over the walls, flooding into the training square, the two remaining guards in the doorway yanked the door shut. Fenyx charged for the door as fast as his chained legs would allow, but the Uprising’s fodder threw themselves against the door before he could get there.

Fenyx’s breath came dry and arrhythmic, not from fatigue, but fury. More and more of the Uprising’s fighters surged past him, paying him no mind. They ignored the bodies on the ground: six guards and one slave girl. They didn’t notice Auron suspended from the palus, or, if they did, they didn’t care.

After a fight, the Burning would typically leave him, sated for a time. But now, the Hate only grew. He turned to the mismatched, leather-clad backs of the Uprising’s fighters, throwing themselves against the walls of the ludus as if they could tear the mountain fortress down with desire.

Stupid. Foolish. Pointless.

Fenyx hated them as much as the guards on the other side of the wall.

“Peace,” a voice echoed in Fenyx’s mind. “Your war against slavers and slaves matters not. Such pursuits will not bring you what you want. What you deserve.”

Fenyx bit his dry lip. “You are the one Odetta spoke of?”

“Yes. I am Paxoran.” The voice in his mind echoed as if reverberating off the walls within his skull.

“You told her I would be reforged,” Fenyx said.

“A Champion of the Gods, yes.”

“Why should I be your Champion?” Fenyx snarled, searching the sky as if a face would appear from it. “The Gods have done nothing but piss on me.”

More and more fighters of the Uprising flowed over the wall, filling the training square, but despite their battle cries, they did nothing to drown out the God’s voice in his mind.

“There is a corruption amongst the Gods,” Paxoran said. “Wicked Gods who rob those deserving of glory to ingratiate themselves. I will put an end to them, but I need you to succeed where all before you have failed.”

Glory.

Fenyx had already promised himself he would not remain unmade; when he was offered another chance—his reforging—he would take it. This was that chance.

“What do you ask of me?” Fenyx asked.

“To do what you do best,” Paxoran said. “Kill. Kill the Gods.”

“I do this, and you will reforge me?” Fenyx asked.

“Follow my instructions and you will be a God among men. A legend for the ages. I will make you into an idol that will never fade from this world, to be glorified for all time.”

Glory beyond blood and sand. Beyond the test of time. Fenyx nodded. “Tell me.”

Chapter 51

Sacrifice

Threyna IX

Stockhelm

Threyna focused on Tyrus’s red-scale eye and the scratch marks she’d made around it. The scale held the key to his defeat, but she could feel Zephyrus staring daggers into her back after rediscovering the truth of her treachery.

With the tides drawing them closer to the shore where Tyrus and Erowen approached, there was no time for Threyna to explain, to make amends. As if reading her mind, Ceres spoke, though she didn’t dare look away from Tyrus and Erowen.

“You got stuff to sort out,” Ceres said, low enough that only she and Zephyrus could hear, “I get it. But the three of us, together—that was the deal. You wanna tear each other apart afterwards, fine by me. But we fight them together.”

Zephyrus grunted, but it wasn’t clear if that was a confirmation to Ceres’s words, or a threat aimed at Threyna.

“Ghosts, I’m sorry, Zephyrus. Just let me make it up to—”

Not knowing or caring for his inopportune timing, Tyrus spoke, the dagger wound to his cheek slurring his speech. “It seems you’re sharing with everyone but me.” Tyrus eyed Zephyrus and the Orsion Cloak about his neck. “Three of us, but there can only be one Wielder.”

A dread climbed Threyna’s neck, filling her ears with a voice she’d hoped never to hear again. As if listening through a wall, Threyna overheard Paxoran’s voice in Tyrus’s head.

“Kill them. Kill them all. Then with all three Treasures, we will destroy what is here and rebuild from the ashes a new world.”

Threyna shook her head. Fear constricted the back of her throat. The powerlessness he exerted over her returned. Though the rot didn’t spread as it had when he demanded she consume Zephyrus, it might as well have. She found herself rooted to the canoe’s seat, frozen with her hands on the oars, as helpless as she’d ever felt under the Skeleton King’s gaze.

“He’s using you,” Threyna said to Tyrus.

His red-scale eye glimmered in the light of the dying sun. If he heard her, he didn’t care.

“Give me the Treasures,” Tyrus said. “Or I will pry them from your corpses.”

Even without Paxoran’s influence, convincing Tyrus of a nonviolent solution would be a near impossibility. With Paxoran speaking in Tyrus’s ear, Threyna would be more likely to team up with the Skeleton King than find a peaceful resolution.

As the canoe rode the waves into shore, Tyrus took off his black cloak, revealing the Aeryean Armor beneath. As if molded to his sculpted physique, it appeared to be forged specifically for him. A ball of orange flame formed in each of Erowen’s hands.

Ceres slipped his arms free of his cloak, and Zephyrus positioned himself in a crouch, ready to spring into action. Threyna searched for the words that could stop this fight before it began, but they were nowhere to be found, if they existed at all. Whether to smooth things over with Zephyrus or Tyrus, it was too little, too late.

Before she could speak, Erowen hurled the balls of fire at the canoe. Zephyrus and Ceres leapt from the boat, each using force magic to propel them onto solid ground in the shallows of the shoreline. Threyna was too slow.

Jarred by Zephyrus and Ceres’s force magic, the canoe rocked. Unable to stabilize herself on her weak ankle, she couldn’t jump free of the canoe. She fell over the side, and the shallow water swallowed her just as Erowen’s fiery blasts exploded above the surface.

Threyna pushed off the loose stone of the silty shore with her good ankle to resurface. Zephyrus fought Tyrus in single combat, his white-and-silver cloak whipping in the wind. Ceres fruitlessly attempted to use his magic against the Warlock.

I told him it wouldn’t work.

Before she could remind him, another blast of fire streaked her way. Threyna threw herself headlong into the water. The flaming bolt struck the surface, heating the swirling tides around her. Reemerging from the rolling waves, Threyna blinked the salt water from her eyes and located Erowen, just in time to duck underneath another swiping blade of magic fire.

Threyna remained underwater, crouching down. She blocked out the shouts above the surface, seeking the solace of her Inner Throne, hoping Tyrus would be too preoccupied to bar her access. Though she could sense it, she couldn’t quite reach it.

Out of time.

Another wave sent her off-balance, the riptide towing her back. Even buoyed by the water, her ankle screamed to protest the unsteady surface and erratic movements. The wave broke upon her, thrashing her under its unyielding strength. Eyes closed, she rolled. Her hands clawed at the ground to discern which way was up.

With a grunt she burst forth from the water. She was further from the shore than before, feet barely touching the ground. The remnants of what was once a canoe fractured; some planks rode the waves to shore, while others were sucked further out to sea.

Zephyrus and Ceres fought against Tyrus, a dance of swords and fists along the sloping sands of the Isle of Fate. Erowen stood knee-deep in the tides, readying another bolt of fire.

“There’s nowhere to go, Threyna,” Erowen said. Her taunting voice cut against the sea’s breeze and the breaking of the waves. Though her left shoulder sagged, injured during their last encounter at The Lion’s Bane Inn, Threyna wasn’t in any condition to contend with her.

If Threyna went to shore, she wouldn’t last a minute. Absent her mobility, and with no place to hide, she would be a liability on land. Out here, at least, Erowen’s fire magic would be negated. But if she remained in the water, and Erowen joined the fight against Zephyrus and Ceres, she would be no help.

They need all three. As long as I have the Vykane Blade, they will come to me.

She didn’t expect Zephyrus to trust her, but she’d be no use to him as a scorched pile of cinders on the beach.

“You can’t be the Wielder without all three,” Threyna shouted. She took a deep breath and sank below the surface, not waiting to see if Erowen took her bait. She swam away from the shore, her ankle throbbing with each kick. After a few strokes, she rose for air and looked back over her shoulder.

Erowen chased her into the water. Threyna continued swimming, deeper out to sea, but intentionally slowed, allowing Erowen to close the distance.

She didn’t want to imagine what Zephyrus was thinking, seeing her leave him again. But she wasn’t leaving. She’d never leave again.

She turned back to the shore. Erowen tore through the water after her, but Threyna focused on the figures fighting on the shoreline. Zephyrus stabbed with his sword, but Tyrus deflected. Ceres slashed, but Tyrus ducked underneath it and countered at Zephyrus with a flurry of blows. While Tyrus and Zephyrus seemed equally matched, Ceres, absent his force magic, didn’t measure up.

Finish Erowen. Finish her quickly. Then take Tyrus’s eye and—

Tyrus blocked Zephyrus’s strike, then sidestepped around him, putting himself between Ceres and Zephyrus. The two advanced on Tyrus at once; Zephyrus stabbed, and Ceres hacked, but at the last moment, Tyrus ducked under Ceres’s blow and deflected Zephyrus’s. Tyrus spun, dropping to a knee, and thrust his sword point through Ceres’s chest.

Threyna gasped.

Ceres put his hand to his breast, but blood gushed from between his fingers. He dropped to his knees and fell face-first into the sand.

Zephyrus shouted, charging to Ceres’s aid, but Erowen’s splashing strokes drew near, reclaiming Threyna’s attention. Threyna grit her teeth and drew the Vykane Blade from its sheath. The sky purpled overhead as the fading light reflected off the water’s surface.

“You’ll never get away from us,” Erowen said, struggling to tread water with one arm before Threyna. Paxoran’s voice echoed her own as she continued. “Too long you believed yourself more than a pawn.” With each word, Paxoran’s voice grew louder, drowning out Erowen’s. “But you are nothing. Despite every divine gift, you’re a disappointment. A failure.”

She ignored Paxoran, speaking instead to the woman before her. “He’s only using you too. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Yes it does,” Erowen said, Paxoran’s voice echoing in the background. “It always has been. Since the dawn of time, the strong have commanded the weak. But once we have the Treasures, the Warlocks will become the strong. We will have the power, the control to set the world the way we want it. And who will stand against us?”

“The Skeleton King,” Threyna said. “The Arcane Templar, the New Rheynian lords—everyone will rise against you. Don’t you get it?”

The Vykane Blade felt heavy in her hand as she tread water. Erowen was a few strokes beyond striking distance.

“It can’t be about that,” Threyna said. “Strength and power are relative, but control is an illusion.”

Her powers had only ever brought her trouble. She thought she wanted control over it, but the more she harnessed its strength, the more desperate it made her, and the more it enslaved her. In the end, she’d chosen the illusion of control over trusting others.

Erowen swam closer, teeth bared. Her hand rose from the water, fingertips glowing a bright orange that stood stark against the night as dusk swallowed the purple twilight.

“Erowen, please,” Threyna said. “Paxoran, the God you’re listening to, murdered the Judges. I don’t know why, but if I had to guess, it’s because he’s afraid of the same things we are: someone else being in charge. Someone else dictating the way of the world, stealing all we hold dear and forcing us to live in fear.”

Erowen’s magic fire blossomed in her palm.

It wasn’t getting through to her.

“Even if you succeed, how long before the ‘weak’ rise against you? How long before you become the very thing you’ve dedicated your life to tearing down?”

Erowen snarled. “Like you’re any different?” She pumped her upper body out of the water and hurled the handheld blaze at Threyna.

She took in a short breath and dove. Blackness surrounded her. Erowen’s fire magic plunged into the sea, hissing, steaming, and heating the water around her. Threyna kicked, reaching for Erowen with her free hand, the Vykane Blade poised to strike in the other.

Her fist closed around Erowen’s cloak and wrenched. She yanked Erowen below the water’s surface and towards her blade as she stabbed the magic sword at Erowen’s midsection. Erowen turned. Threyna thrust past her. Erowen seized Threyna’s hand about the hilt, grappling her for control over the Treasure.

Bubbles blew out their pursed lips as they wrestled for the blade. Erowen twisted Threyna’s wrist, but she maintained control over the sword. The edge sliced Erowen’s forearm, drawing tendrils of blood to darken the swirling water.

Threyna squeezed the knot she’d made at Erowen’s collar, digging her knuckles into her windpipe. The bubbles escaped Erowen’s lips at a faster rate than Threyna’s, but Erowen’s hand, weakened as she was from Zephyrus’s stab to her shoulder, began to steam upon the hilt of her sword. Heat screamed through Threyna’s fingers. Her knuckles burned, and she cried out. The crossguard of the blade illuminated orange from Erowen’s heat, but still, Threyna held. Her flesh bubbled and sizzled in Erowen’s scalding grip as they struggled to gain control over the blade.

Her lungs burned. Her vision narrowed, but she couldn’t let go first. Erowen would need to balance the scales, just like Zephyrus. Threyna just needed to hang on. To endure longer than Erowen.

The salt water surged into Threyna’s burning and peeling flesh. Erowen’s grip only tightened, and the heat she emitted seemed to intensify. Threyna tried tapping into her Inner Throne, and though she could claim it for a second, she couldn’t take her place upon it.

Ankle throbbing, lungs burning, and hand boiling beneath Erowen’s touch, Threyna met Erowen’s gaze and realized the answer to all of her problems.

Her hope was fighting for his life on the beach, not clutched in her hand.

Threyna released her grip about the sword’s hilt and let it fall from her grasp.

The Vykane Blade hung, suspended in the water by the currents for a moment, before plummeting to the darkness below.

Chapter 52

Sympathizer

Damascus

Stockhelm

“I don’t care if it’s on fire,” Damascus said, his temples throbbing beneath his crown. “They could be buying time to source their evil magic. Knock the walls down and stop them!”

“At once, your grace,” Aemos said with a salute before shouting instructions to a garrison of troops.

Damascus clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. Between his shoulder blade and his spine, a twisting pinch dug at him. It started as a dull nagging ache after Laeden was arrested, but it had only grown worse. Following Nallia’s abduction, Laeden’s trial, and the slave’s disobedience, it felt like a scorpion’s stinger was embedded in his back. But when Nallia betrayed him after he had ransomed so much to get her back, the stinger had become a dagger. And after the latest news of Laeden and Vykinallia working together to depose him, the dagger had become a long sword, buried to the hilt.

Sitting atop his white stallion, Damascus attempted to put his composure on display for his men, but the licking tongues of fire had him more spooked than his mount. His hands gripped the reins as if he were saddled to the kingdom, and it was trying to flee from his grasp to escape the burning walls of House Arux.

Atonus Allos led the charge on the walls. The Lions’ axes rose and fell in an asynchronous rhythm, but each thunk grated on Damascus’s fraying nerves.

Once the traitors are dead, I will sleep.

Each axe fall promised to deliver such a moment. Vykinallia, Laeden, and the Uprising were within. The slave was lost, but Damascus had no doubt the cursed prophet of Celestia would return. Aside from him, however, most of the Uprising was within Arux’s walls.

Duke Brusos’s man reported that Baron Sinion had long been using his position as a lanista to serve the Uprising. There were others of his ilk who would not be apprehended tonight, but eventually, they would suffer the same fate.

The Arux ludus was surrounded. Men in the black leather armor of the Lion’s Academy, Drake guards in black plate mail, Sentinels in their blue-and-gray surcoats, and each of the King’s Guard Knights stood awaiting his orders. No one within those walls would escape this time. No one would survive. He was done with taking prisoners, putting traitors on trial, ransoming hostages, or trying to take someone alive to have a public execution. He was done with the antics. He would stamp out this rebellion, avenge his father’s murder, and rebuild peace.

The charring wall splintered before him, but not fast enough. The soldiers did as ordered with dutiful efficiency, but if the mages within gained the time they needed to do whatever Six-cursed blasphemy they hoped to achieve, it would all be for nothing.

“Faster!” Damascus screamed at the row of soldiers with the axes. He kicked his stallion into motion, running alongside the chopping troops to spur them on.

He didn’t care to savor this. At best, this would be no victory, just the latest installment of the greatest militaristic failure of the New Rheynian throne since the Hechts assassinated his uncle, Damascus II.

Damascus didn’t care for glory, chivalry, or honor. Just an abrupt end. And sleep.

The first posts began to splinter under the force of the axe and the torture of the flames.

“Knock it down!” Damascus shouted, his horse rearing and snorting.

The axes increased their pace, and the structure of the walls began to deteriorate, but smoke rose—not just from the wall itself, but beyond. He kicked his horse away from the walls to gain a better vantage. A greater fire beyond roared to life at the center of the burning walls.

The villa…

“Get us through!” Spittle flew from Damascus’s mouth as he drew his sword.

The first pillar fell, and his army cheered. The next fell a moment later. Then the next and the next until a gap formed in the western wall. Men surged inside, charging the villa, but Damascus didn’t trust Laeden’s devious mind.

What am I missing? Why is the villa on fire?

While his men’s war cries filled the night air, Damascus found his voice shrinking within his throat. He was never good at the game of Reign, and not for a lack of luck. Despite how many times his father tried to teach him the ways of strategy, it seemed either Laeden had received all the wit Varros Helixus had to give, or he had gotten it from his plebeian mother. As the rest of the wall fell and the bulk of his force surged past one wall of fire to stop before another, Damascus couldn’t help but feel he’d been outwitted again.

Smoke billowed from the open windows of the Arux ludus and seeped through the cracks of the closed doors.

Did their magic backfire on them?

Such a thing was possible. Multiple accounts said the slave had been unable to sustain his magic, first with Ser Daenus, then again upon the Vale, but such fortune did not belong to Damascus.

Was it a trick—did they escape and leave me here standing around an empty pyre?

He strangled his sword hilt. “Search the grounds! Find a way in and—”

A swell of fire burst forth as a section of the roof fell, wafting acrid smoke through the night air. He held up his hand to shield his eyes. His horse staggered backwards, snorting and scuffing the ground. Damascus coughed into his armpit as smoke filled his lungs. He tried to speak again to finish his orders, but, racked by a coughing fit, the words would not come.

A figure emerged from the smoke and flame, crawling out an open window. The man heaved labored breaths, crawling on all fours away from the burning building. He held what was once perhaps a white cloth, but soot-stained and dragging through the dirt, it did nothing to slow the array of swords directed at him.

“Halt!” Aelon shouted, aiming his sword at the man.

Damascus searched the burning building for others attempting to escape the conflagration, but none presented themselves. More clay shingles fell from the fractured roof, clattering to the ground. Beams cracked and splintered, and the villa threatened to collapse.

Atonus seized the man by the collar but kept his sword point aimed at the apple of his throat. The man wiped the soot from his face to reveal pale skin, peppered with freckles.

A Rheynian?

Upon closer examination, he wore the same black leather armor as the graduates of Atonus Allos’s Lion’s Academy.

What in Six Hells?

Another beam fell from the roof of House Arux, and the structure whined as fire consumed the former ludus. Aemos ordered men to back away from the inferno, but Damascus questioned what he should do next. His doubts swirled around him, licking with the greedy, molten tongues of the fire before him. He questioned his doubts, but then even doubted his questions.

“Who are you?” Atonus demanded. “What happened here?”

The man squinted through bleary, bloodshot eyes as he saluted. “I am Aponius, Lord, of the 51st cohort.” His breath wheezed, but he spoke through his obvious discomfort. “I was sent by Queen Danella alongside Roderick Persius to infiltrate the traitor Laeden Helixus’s Celestic sympathizers.”

Atonus lowered his sword, momentarily dumbstruck. “Aye, I recognize you.”

Damascus’s eye twitched. He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. He knew there was an agent within Laeden’s ranks, but he’d fallen for too many lies. Fury clenched between his teeth, he jumped down from his horse and forced his way through the men. Sword in hand, he seized Aponius from Atonus’s grasp and placed his blade against his face.

Through gritted teeth, Damascus hissed. “Where is he then? Where is Vykinallia? The Uprising?” He jostled Aponius, his blade pricking his soot-stained cheek.

Another beam fell, belching forth a wave of heat and smoke from the collapsing villa.

Aponius handed something to Atonus that made the battle-hardened veteran blanch beneath his black beard.

Atonus blinked before swallowing and clearing his throat. “Your grace, you’re going to want to see this.” He held out the stained cloth Aponius had dragged out of the ludus. Damascus released Aponius and snatched the cloth, keeping his blade against the Lion’s cheek.

The cloth was heavy, smooth, and sticky, unlike any fabric he’d held before. He held it up before Atonus, shaking his head. “What is this supposed to be?”

Atonus swallowed, color draining from his face.

Damascus took a closer look, using the fire’s rage to illuminate his view. He flipped it over. Bristles stuck free of the fabric, and a smudged shape marred the canvas. Holding it before him, the blue outline of a falcon became clear. He wasn’t holding fabric. This wasn’t a canvas.

It was skin. Bloody skin.

Laeden’s tattoo…

Bile climbed Damascus’s throat.

“The pseudo-prince traitor is dead,” Aponius said. “As are most of the Ridge Knights. Some headed east to attempt to return to Valtarcia, but the Uprising escaped north via underground tunnels. They’re heading for the Stormburn Geyser.”

Damascus’s fist curled around what remained of his half-brother. His mind turned Aponius’s words over and over. Is it true? He didn’t dare to believe it, even as he held a fistful of Laeden’s skin in his hand.

Another beam crashed down, and a crater formed in Arux’s roof.

“We can’t let them get away,” Aemos said.

“What are your orders?” Aelon asked.

Damascus bit his lip and swallowed the sour spit. He shoved his balled fist, still clutching Laeden’s flayed flesh, into Aponius’s chest. “What about Vykinallia?”

“The tunnels north, your grace,” Aponius said, head bowed.

“Where do their tunnels go? How many are there? How do you know they’re going north?”

Aponius shook his head. “I don’t know, your grace. They just said north. The geyser. Maybe a couple hundred.”

Damascus shook his head. I knew it. Always a trick. A ploy. A Six-cursed game. But this time, whether because of the dice or the tiles, Laeden didn’t win. Oh, brother, how could you have ever fallen so low? Damascus let Laeden’s tattooed flesh fall to the ground, a swell of mixed emotions bubbling within.

“We march north,” Damascus said, swallowing his emotions. “The Uprising does not escape. We put an end to this. All of it. Now!” He released Aponius and resheathed his blade.

Atonus, Aemos, and Aelon repeated Damascus’s orders, and the soldiers filed out of the scorched remains of the Arux compound to return to marching formation.

Damascus remounted his stallion and cantered away from the smoke and flames, eager to be gone from this place. Laeden’s death brought him no joy, no closure. As he trotted ahead of the marching soldiers, he wondered if Vykinallia’s would either.

Family, faith, future. The Drake words repeated in his mind, only to be confronted by the Helixus mantra, Honor and Justice.

Is it honorable to kill your family if there’s justice in doing so? But what future is there, absent family? Most of his family was gone. Uncle, dead. Father, dead. Grandfather, dead. Brother, dead. Betrothed…

He shook himself from the thoughts and emotions warring within him. He shoved them down beneath his armor—unreachable, protected.

It wasn’t long before they were heading north at a grueling pace, but mere minutes after they’d set off, a call to halt was shouted from the rear. Damascus circled his mount to gallop to the back of the procession.

A guard wearing the black-and-white snake of House Brusos panted, hands on his knees.

“What news?” Damascus asked.

The guard couldn’t breathe, but he’d already told Atonus Allos.

The scars beneath the Master at Arms’s beard twisted with the burden of bad news left unspoken. “It’s the Uprising. They didn’t go north. They went for House Brusos.”

Damascus’s jaw clamped shut. The long sword between his spine and his shoulder blade screamed. He squeezed his fingers into a fist to keep them from trembling, but his fist only shook more violently.

If they take House Brusos, they could survive a siege for months.

The greatest failure in the history of New Rheynia’s military would become a ballad sung for generations. Sleep would never come to him again. And Vykinallia would taunt him from her perch in the Hylans.

Heat rose from his neck to his cheeks and through his scalp. He wheeled his horse around. “Aponius! Where is Aponius?”

Chapter 53

Slither

Vykinallia X

Stockhelm

Blood drained down the front of the black-and-white snake stitched on the guard’s surcoat. His eyes went wide beneath bushy brown brows, but as Vykinallia ripped the blade free, he fell to the floor.

“Intruders!” Brusos shouted, retreating into the stairwell behind his guards. “Seal the door. Don’t let them in.”

Vykinallia thrust at the lanista’s back, but another guard stepped over his downed brother in arms to deflect her strike. He swiped at Vykinallia, while another guard reached for the doorknob. It would be difficult enough to fight through countless men in the narrow confines of the tower, but if another locked door barred their way, they were in no better position than the rest of the Fallen.

Vykinallia blocked the guard’s horizontal slice but jammed her foot into the base of the door to prevent the other guard from pulling it closed. A breeze at Vykinallia’s back accompanied a splintering thwack as Cerik’s mace crashed into the half-open door. The guard attempting to seal the door shut lost his grip on the handle. The door swung open, slamming into the wall. Jecht jumped over her, thrusting with his spear. The tip slashed a crimson line through the side of the guard’s neck. Without the door’s handle to steady himself, he fell into the guards behind him.

“Kill them!” Brusos shouted.

With the Fallen’s fiercest at her back, Vykinallia surged forward. Even as two men staggered, there were still half a dozen others blocking their path. Drawing a dagger from her belt, Vykinallia stabbed with her short sword, then slashed with the dagger. In the tight space, the guard’s long swords clanged against the sandstone walls. Her dagger tore through the black-and-white surcoat but couldn’t take purchase through the ring mail beneath.

A hand grabbed her by the elbow and tore her away from the fight. As Cerik yanked her aside, Unari stepped into the space left behind. Hands raised out in front of her, Unari sent a burst of flame vortexing down the winding staircase. Guards screamed, shielding their faces. They fell over one another in an attempt to escape the flames.

Cerik barreled into the stairwell, mace leading the way. Using the weapon like a battering ram, he caved in the first guard’s breastbone. Jecht followed behind, using the height of the stairs and the length of his spear to stab at the retreating guards.

“Fall back,” Brusos shouted. “Seal the tower.”

Vykinallia charged after Jecht, but Unari grabbed Vykinallia’s elbow.

“Brusos wasn’t supposed to be here,” Unari said. “If he’s here, so is the bulk of his force.”

Vykinallia knew the warrior mage was right, but they didn’t have a choice. The only retreat they had was south down the mountain range, but they would be hunted.

“We make our stand here,” Vykinallia said. “We need to open the doors, or it’s all over.”

She made to leave, but Unari held her. “You misunderstand. If we take Brusos captive, we might be able to force their submission.”

The only thing on her mind was driving her sword through Brusos’s spine, but Unari made a fair point.

She nodded, and together, they charged into the winding staircase, following Cerik’s bullish rush and Jecht’s scorpion-like strikes. Bodies fell, but three more guards stood between Cerik and Brusos.

“We can’t let them seal the door,” Vykinallia said. “Push forward.”

“Take Brusos alive!” Unari said.

Brusos stumbled down the last few stairs, crashing to the floor a few feet before the door. He scrambled to his feet and yanked the door open. He slipped out of sight, pulling the door closed behind him. The lock clicked into place.

“No!” One of the guards hammered his fist on the door. “Let us out.”

Cerik smashed his mace into the temple of the leading guard’s half helm. He crumpled into the wall and slid down, half his face dented in. Jecht speared the other guard through the belly and drove him down the last remaining stairs to crash to the ground.

Vykinallia slipped between the two former gladiators. The guard pounding on the door, begging for Brusos to let him in, turned, raising his sword, but Vykinallia rammed her blade through his belly. Steel scraped through the chainmail rings, then punctured flesh. The guard gasped as blood drained from his pudgy face. The light faded from his eyes, but he was one of many who would fall tonight.

For Laeden. For Iberion. For Zephyrus.

She ripped the blade free and let the guard fall to the floor, grasping at his gut. She left him to die in a pool of his own blood and filth.

“Knock that door down,” Vykinallia said.

Cerik’s mace wasted no time. The steel club bit into the wooden door, peeling away splinters with each heavy strike, but shouts rose on the other side of the door as guards mobilized. She could picture them beyond the door, swords and shields at the ready, gathered in a semicircle. They’d give them a wide berth, welcoming them to step beyond the cover of the doorway and into their trap. There was no choice. They needed to attack.

As Cerik’s mace hammered into the door, Vykinallia addressed Jecht and Unari. “Here’s what they’re going to do, and here’s why it’s not going to work.”

Chapter 54

Cradle of the Currents

Threyna X

Stockhelm

Erowen’s eyes widened. She reached for the Vykane Blade as it floated for a moment, aligning itself until the tip pointed straight to the surface. Threyna’s unburnt hand swatted at Erowen’s outstretched arm, and the Treasure of Stockhelm plummeted, hilt first, into the swirling darkness.

Erowen pumped her arms and kicked her legs to chase the sword. She probably would have swum to the ocean floor. Threyna knew she would have.

But not anymore.

As Erowen dove, swimming with her injured arm, Threyna cupped her burned fingers and flapped for the surface. She broke through the water’s unbreathable veil and gulped down the air beyond. She inhaled deeply, swallowing down each breath. She tread water, her arms and legs heavy. Her chest burned nearly as bad as her scalded hand. Spinning, she searched for signs of movement beneath her. There was no telling how deep the sea floor was this far out, but Zephyrus and Tyrus were barely visible shadows beyond the breaking waves.

She won’t find it. No one will.

Rising and falling with the bobbing waves, she turned to the shore. On the coastline, two shapes danced with moonlit steel and radiant light. Two on one, Threyna and Zephyrus could defeat Tyrus. She could explain everything and set the past right. But she couldn’t allow Erowen to return to shore—with or without the Vykane Blade.

Hold on a little bit longer, Zephyrus.

A wave rolled over her, submerging her in darkness. She opened her stinging eyes in search of Erowen. Blackness. As silent and dark as the night sky absent the stars, the sea permitted no hint as to Erowen’s whereabouts. Knowing her sense could best her sight, she searched for her Inner Throne. She just needed it for a moment. One heartbeat and she’d make sure Erowen never drew breath again.

But her Inner Throne eluded her. Like attempting to insert a key into a locked door absent sight, she felt for it, searching blindly through the interference of Tyrus’s red scale, but she couldn’t find it.

Abandoning her Inner Throne, she reached into her pouch of Viridite glowstones and pulled out a handful. Threyna dropped one. Its light fell away, but illuminated the darkness below.

A shape flickered momentarily through the glowstone’s light.

Erowen’s been underwater for too long. She’s coming up for air.

Threyna came up for air, took a deep breath, and descended beneath the surface, determined to make certain Erowen never did so again. Scattering glowstones by the handful, she searched for Erowen.

Cast in the soft greenish hue of the glowstones, Erowen appeared a ghoulish sea monster as she swam to the surface, arms flailing.

No blade.

Glowstones in hand, Threyna swam into the depths to meet Erowen. Erowen tried to swim away, but Threyna released the stones and clawed her way to wrap her forearm around Erowen’s neck. Erowen flailed, but Threyna coiled about her like a snake around a branch. Legs crossed around Erowen’s torso, she secured her in a chokehold.

Erowen thrashed, fighting for the surface. Threyna’s weakened ankle couldn’t endure the stress of binding Erowen any longer. Erowen broke free from Threyna’s grasping legs and attempted to wriggle free, but she couldn’t escape Threyna’s chokehold.

The Warlock’s skin, cold and clammy against her own, grew colder. She tore at Threyna’s grip about her throat, but Threyna didn’t release. Erowen’s fingers dug into Threyna’s forearms.

Spikes of heat clawed into her flesh, but still, she didn’t let go. Erowen’s mouth opened, but no bubbles rose. Ignoring the heat lancing through her flesh, Threyna endured, squeezing tight until Erowen’s resistance waned. Her erratic kicking slowed. The heat radiating from her fingers dissipated.

Still, Threyna held on.

She held Erowen until her own lungs began to burn, and only then did Threyna search for her Inner Throne again. Claiming it, she listened for a heartbeat, but nothing emanated from Erowen’s body.

Dead.

With a deep draw, Threyna consumed Erowen’s life force. The pain in her ankle subsided, the burns on her hand and forearm where Erowen scalded her faded, and the Warlock withered within her grasp.

Only then did Threyna let go.

The sea spun her lifeless corpse about until her empty eyes stared back at Threyna.

She never hated Erowen, though they’d never gotten along even at the best of times. Then, seeing her suspended in the cradle of the currents, Threyna realized why. Fear. Anger. Desperation. They were more alike than she cared to admit. That could have been me, but not anymore.

As Erowen sank to the depths of the sea to join the Vykane Blade in the abyss, Threyna returned to the surface. With renewed vigor, she swam for the coastline. One stroke at a time, one wave after the other, she propelled herself onward.

Attempting to remain seated on her Inner Throne, Threyna eluded Tyrus’s efforts to swat her away. She reached the shallows, and, upon her restored ankle, she charged towards Zephyrus and Tyrus, dagger in hand. At her emergence, they both turned towards her.

Dripping wet, chest heaving in labored breaths, she came alongside Zephyrus and squared off at Tyrus.

Tyrus’s eye darted from her, to the empty scabbard at her belt, to the sea. “Where is the Vykane Blade?”

Threyna grunted. “Wrong question. Better to ask, ‘Where is Erowen?’ But I suppose they’re both in the same place.”

Tyrus’s red scale glistened in the moonlight, but his eye cast her a glare as ghoulish as the Skeleton King’s. “This changes nothing.” Paxoran’s voice echoed from Tyrus’s mouth. “I have waited nearly a thousand years for this. Do you think the ocean will stop me? Do you truly believe you can stop me?”

Threyna’s gaze drifted to Zephyrus. She shook her head. “No. I don’t. But he can.”

Zephyrus met her eyes. “But what about—”

“I’ll take care of Tyrus,” Threyna said. “Go. Do what you came here to do, Zephyrus.”

Tyrus snarled through his injured cheek. “No one but me is leaving here with that cloak.”

She advanced on Tyrus, stepping between him and Zephyrus. “Leave me the cloak, Zephyrus. Then go. The realm depends on it.”

Zephyrus hesitated but unfastened the cloak from his neck. Coming up behind her, he draped the cloak over her shoulders. Her heart quickened at his proximity. She had thought if he ever got this close to her again, he’d be just as likely to strangle her, but with gentle care, he clasped the Orsion Cloak around her neck.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” he whispered.

Threyna bit her lower lip. “I never should have left.” She wasn’t talking about this time, but every time she’d left him in pursuit of her own needs. “I never will again.”

Tyrus leveled his blade at them but spoke with Paxoran’s voice. “The Age of the End is upon us. I will not let you delay it any longer.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Zephyrus said.

Threyna didn’t avert her eyes from Tyrus’s. “For once, I think I do. Now go.”

As soon as Zephyrus backed toward Tharseo’s Bastion, Tyrus advanced, a predatory smile across his mug. Slow, cautious, and patient as death, Threyna sidestepped to circle Tyrus.

I don’t need to win. I just need to last long enough for Zephyrus to reclaim the relic and get back here.

Tyrus attacked.

Chapter 55

Return to the Bastion

Zephyrus VIII

Stockhelm

A hollowness ached within Zephyrus’s stomach; a sheen of sweat coated his flesh. Zephyrus hadn’t felt matched in single combat since Vellarix, but even against him, he could still use his magic. Fighting Tyrus, he’d been unable to land a blow, unable to even sense the scales while that horrid red eye focused on him. Even with Ceres’s aid, he wasn’t able to seize advantage. Now Ceres was dead, and Threyna, the one who left him and Patrus for dead, volunteered to fight Tyrus alone.

Zephyrus squeezed the hilt in his hand. The blood-bound blade obeyed, retracting to the hilt. He secured it to his belt and backed away from Tyrus and Threyna, but a pang of dread snuck beneath his tunic to wrap its arms around him.

Now I’m leaving her…

“Go,” Threyna said, never taking her eyes off Tyrus as they circled each other.

“I’ll be back,” Zephyrus said.

He turned his back on her, and the clang of steel rang shrill against the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves. The sand squished beneath his feet as he ran towards the dark structure where everything had gone wrong. Guided by moonlight, Zephyrus approached the splintered wooden doors hanging off their hinges. Beside the entryway, an array of balanced scales were oriented in neat rows where the ashes of the dead were likely laid to rest.

Zephyrus recalled the slavers’ battering ram; its repeated thud thundered in his mind. Returning here, he could almost taste the fear of the temple’s patrons. Their trembling knees, their long faces of impending doom. Their meager attempt to defend themselves after the acolytes forbade them from taking shelter with the Seers.

He slowed as he stepped through the splintered doors, haunted by the memories. Though the atrium was cleaned and cleared, blood did not wash away easily. Those who came searching for hope left in irons or never left at all. The ashes of the dead were buried in the sand beside the temple.

If I had claimed the Relics, as I was supposed to then, how much of that could have been avoided? If I remembered my magic, would the slavers have taken anyone?

As he stalked through the seemingly empty halls of Tharseo’s Bastion, he found himself torn between blaming Threyna for everything and wanting to return to her aid.

“Go. Do what you came here to do,” Threyna had said.

Why now, after everything she’s done to claim the Treasures, would she put my mission above her own?

Zephyrus grunted, forging forward. He quickened his pace, barreling through the narrow halls off the main concourse of the temple. Nothing moved; nothing stirred. Zephyrus’s anxiety prickled at the back of his neck. If the Seers and the acolytes weren’t here, he didn’t know the first place to look for these Relics. He didn’t know what they were, what they looked like, or what they were capable of, just that they were left for him and he needed them to defeat Paxoran.

“Hello!” Zephyrus shouted. “I’m here for the Relics.”

His echoing voice was his only answer. He retraced his footsteps from the last time he entered Tharseo’s Bastion. He passed the holding cell where he and the rest of the patrons waited to complete the blood ritual and followed the corridor into the narrow room where the Seers proclaimed his prophecy.

Nothing. No one.

Zephyrus stormed onward, pushing through the door that spilled out into the back atrium where the statues of the Judges presided over the temple. Aside from the stony faces of Vykannis, Orsius, and Aeryss, the room was barren. Slivers of moonlight filtered through the windows and cracks in the roof, but not enough to illuminate the outskirts of the chamber.

He sniffed the air. The hint of smoke tinged his inhalation.

Torches.

He inspected the shadows lining the walls where tendrils of smoke rose in hesitant spirals from the sconces. Nothing moved, and nothing disturbed the wind, but someone watched him.

Zephyrus’s fingers buzzed as he used his manipulation magic to bend the moonlight to the corners of the cavernous chamber. Shadows fled his search; darkness crawled the walls to escape the light he cast. A quiet stillness remained, but Zephyrus’s time spent sparring with Aikous reminded him that eyes could deceive. He wasn’t the only one who could bend light.

“I know you’re here,” Zephyrus said. “I’ve come for the Relics. Come out.”

Silence. Unnatural silence.

Zephyrus continued to cast the bent moonlight around the room, but contorted it, bending it again and again until his hand felt numb. Defying all laws of nature, the light swirled, twisting in on itself.

An acolyte in white robes flickered into existence as Zephyrus’s light found its way through the acolyte’s defenses. Illusion broken, the acolyte attempted to conceal himself, but Zephyrus directed all his light at the acolyte, bending it to point from infinite angles.

The acolyte bowed his head.

“The son of the Fallen,” the acolyte said. He stalked toward Zephyrus, head bowed, hands steepled within his wide sleeves.

“Why are you hiding?” Zephyrus asked, releasing his control of the moonlight.

The acolyte in white emerged from the shadows. Three vertical stripes lined the front of his cloak, one for each of the Judges of Celestia.

“You have returned, but your fate has not yet been fulfilled.” The dim light and the acolyte’s low hood concealed his face, covering all but his shaven chin and thin lips.

Zephyrus glanced to either side. There were others in the room. One attempted to move, but miscalculated the trajectory of the sound. Zephyrus spun in their direction and shot a sparking ember at a nearby sconce. The torch caught, and the rippling light broke through a second acolyte’s illusion.

Zephyrus backed away to keep them both in his line of sight. Now the second assumed a similar posture and advanced on him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the second acolyte said, peering at Zephyrus underneath the hood of his ivory cloak.

A chill ran down Zephyrus’s spine. I’ve heard those words before.

He held out his palms to show he was no threat. “I come in peace. I was sent to reclaim the Relics. There is a traitor God, Paxoran. He slew the Judges. Now he’s murdering the other Gods.”

A third acolyte emerged from the shadows, then a fourth, from opposite corners of the chamber. Zephyrus could no longer keep them all in front of him.

“You intend to deceive,” said the fourth acolyte to appear.

An eerie hiss accompanied his voice, nearly inaudible. If Zephyrus hadn’t been straining to sense any sight, sign, or sound, he might have missed it.

Paxoran…

If he were whispering to the acolytes, telling them lies about him, they would not let him leave with the Relics even if he knew where to find them. His muscles tensed; the hairs along the back of his neck prickled.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Zephyrus said, hands out.

More white cloaks crept from the darkness, their fingertips pressed together. They formed a circle around him, and though they gave him a wide berth, it narrowed. He tried to count, but lost track at ten.

“I know the voice you hear,” Zephyrus said. “It is not who you think it is.” Though he hoped diplomacy would work, he lowered his hands, closer to the hilt at his belt. The acolytes enclosed, twelve in all, but they left a gap to his left and right.

Where are the Seers?

He scanned the darkness beyond the acolytes. In the gap to his left, a glowing pair of white orbs stared back at him.

“The son of the Fallen will rise,” a voice bellowed from the shadows on the opposite side of the atrium.

Zephyrus startled, his head whipping to locate another pair of misty white eyes.

“To prey upon the unworthy,” the other Seer said in an equally thunderous tone.

Head on a swivel, a trickle of cold sweat beaded down the center of Zephyrus’s back.

The Seers closed in on either side. Impossibly tall and clad in black robes, their skeletal hands extended out beyond their sleeves.

They spoke in perfect unison at a volume loud enough to quake the temple’s stone walls. “Under cloaks and shadows he hides to bring light to those hoping. When the rivers and streams run dry, he will summon the unworldly to sever the chains that bind the realm to the holy.”

Their prophecy made more sense than the first time they’d spoken it to him, but the accompanying dread was worse. The Seers completed the circle around him.

“Listen to me,” Zephyrus said. “I must stop Paxor—”

The acolytes splayed their steepled fingers, and an unseen force unlike anything Zephyrus had ever experienced seized him by the wrists. Stronger than Ceres’s force magic, the combined power of the acolytes yanked him in opposite directions. His muscles, tendons, and ligaments strained against the invisible force threatening to tear him apart. Zephyrus fought against the unseen manacles, but they rendered him powerless.

All at once, the Seers and the twelve acolytes spoke with one voice—Paxoran’s voice.

“You will not. I will not let you.”

Chapter 56

The Red Eye

Threyna XI

Stockhelm

Threyna focused on Tyrus’s red scale as they circled one another. His sword glinted in the moonlight. He lurched forward again, feinted left, and lashed out right. Threyna jumped backwards, her dagger raised in defense. The tip of Tyrus’s sword kissed the edge of Threyna’s dagger.

She tightened her grip and reset her feet. Keeping her distance from him would be challenging in the soft sand, but with his sword possessing the longer reach, she couldn’t afford to let him draw near.

“You’ll run to the end of the earth,” Tyrus said, closing the distance again. He slashed diagonally from her upper left to lower right. Threyna sidestepped towards the water. The sand gave way beneath her foot. Sinking ankle-deep, the tide’s pull smothered her lower leg. Tyrus jumped and stabbed downward. She lifted her dagger in time, but she gave beneath his force.

She crumpled to the ground, wrenching her foot free of the sand’s grasp. He sliced at her with low, upward-cleaving hacks, but she scrambled on all fours beyond his reach before regaining her feet.

“You should have let him help you,” Tyrus said through his ruined cheek. “You should have let me help you.”

Paxoran echoed the second half of Tyrus’s taunt, his voice bleeding through Tyrus’s skull and invading hers.

Threyna bared her teeth, snarling like an undead hellhound back on the cursed island of Rheynia. “You never wanted to help me. You only wanted to use me.”

She wasn’t sure if she were talking to Tyrus or Paxoran. It didn’t matter.

Tyrus closed the distance again. Jab. Slice. Thrust.

Threyna reeled, her right foot sloping down to the rising tide. He advanced again, too quickly for her to retreat. His horizontal strike careened off her dagger but glanced off of her hip.

She stumbled back, but the pain didn’t hit her yet. Like sparks catching on drapes, it took a moment for the flames to consume the fabric. Within moments, pain lanced through the left side of her body. She limped away from Tyrus’s approach.

“Give it up, Threyna.”

Tyrus slashed again. She dodged, but his fist connected with her cheek.

The world spun. The ground fled from her feet and jumped up to slam into her chin, knocking the wind from her lungs.

She gasped, pushing herself to all fours.

Tyrus circled her. “Give me the cloak. Help me retrieve the sword. And I may even let you live.”

Her vision swayed. Fire burned through her hip. But she had taken tougher beatings. She spat a red gob to the sand and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She pressed herself to her unsteady feet and stared down Tyrus’s red-scaled eye. Her wet clothes weighed heavily upon her; the water in her boots squished between her toes.

I just need to knock it loose.

Reassuming a fighting stance, she said, “What makes you think I’m done?”

“More courage than sense,” Tyrus said.

He reengaged with new ferocity. His cuts came fast with more force behind each swing. Instead of stabs, thrusts, and quick turns of his blade, he swung in wide sweeping arcs that carried momentum from one strike into the next.

Threyna dodged, afraid that if she blocked one of Tyrus’s slashes, it could wrest her dagger from her grasp. She ducked left, sidestepped right, and reared back just out of Tyrus’s reach, close enough to feel the wind of the slice.

“He’s not coming back for you, Threyna.” Paxoran’s voice bled into her mind. “He’ll never leave that temple. Just as you’ll never leave this beach.”

Threyna high-stepped over a low slice, but Tyrus stepped in. With his free hand, he shoved his open palm into her chest. She stumbled backwards, losing her footing. She rolled onto her back and sprung up to her feet, but Tyrus’s onslaught didn’t slow.

She sidestepped a vertical chop, but Tyrus swept her leg. Again, she hit the sand. He stabbed down at her as she rolled to the side. He whipped his sword, chasing her roll, and struck across her ribs.

Lightning lanced through her torso. She reclaimed her feet and lifted her dagger just in time to turn aside a thrust. The deflection wasn’t enough. She guided the blade away from her stomach, but it pierced her tunic just below her collarbone. Pain raced up her neck and down her arm. The wet, dirty cloth drank the blood with ravenous thirst. She stared at Tyrus’s sword, her blood draining down the bevel of the blade.

He twisted. Steel raked against her ribs, and pain blinded her. She reached for her Inner Throne, but it might as well have been sealed shut with only cracks in its defenses. Adrenaline and the will to survive drove her to reach her dagger for Tyrus’s red-scale eye, but Tyrus ripped his sword free and slashed at her again. She lifted the dagger to prevent him from cleaving her head from her shoulders, but the momentum tore the hilt from her grasp.

The dagger flung through the air, toppling end over end, to land harmlessly on the sands out of reach of the rising tide.

Threyna’s knees felt weak, but she held her ground. She pressed her hand to the bloody wound beneath her collarbone. It didn’t stem the crimson river that flowed from her breast.

So much red.

Considering the black rot that corrupted her veins, she was surprised to find her death would be as red and bloody as anyone else’s. The scent of blood joined the salty sea air.

Tyrus grinned, blade poised at the bridge of her nose.

“You’re wrong,” Threyna said. Her voice sounded weak, even to her. “I may never leave this beach, but you will not stop Zephyrus.”

Tyrus snarled. His fingers wrapped around her neck. Threyna was too weak to stop him. His cruel touch dragged down her throat until his fist curled around the Orsion Cloak’s clasp.

“It’s too late for him,” Paxoran said. “It’s too late for you.”

Tyrus unclasped the Orsion Cloak and yanked it from her shoulders.

She dropped to her knees, suddenly weaker absent the cloak’s embrace.

“I’ll find the Vykane Blade,” Tyrus said. “I’ll become the Wielder. I’ll finish this war.”

He didn’t see, not with his red scale or his good eye. He might use the Treasures to end the war between the Celestics and Valencians, but it would reawaken the war that broke the world.

“Paxoran,” Threyna said. “He’s using us. He’s using you.”

Tyrus scoffed, stepping back and sheathing his blade to don the Orsion Cloak. He clasped it around his neck to drape over the Aeryean Armor.

He shrugged. “We’ve lost use for you.”

He redrew his sword and twirled it.

Eyelids heavy, head woozy, Threyna eyed the blade. Blood drained down her arm to her fingertips. So much blood. If I could just reach my Inner Throne…

Threyna searched for the cracks in the wall barring her from her Inner Throne as Tyrus reared back to deliver the killing blow. Her father, her mother—everyone she’d left behind waited for her, but she wasn’t ready to join them.

She could sense her throne, feel the safety, security, and power it offered. She stretched, but she couldn’t secure it. The moonlight kissed Tyrus’s scarlet-tipped blade as it thrust for her heart.

Chapter 57

Seers of Celestia

Zephyrus IX

Stockhelm

Zephyrus’s arms overextended in opposite directions. The veins in his forearms bulged. A scream tore loose from his chest, but the effort stole all the breath from his lungs. Their combined strength was enough to rip him in two. The Seers strode into the circle on either side of him, each holding a curved white dagger.

With his joints popping and muscles on the verge of tearing, he didn’t have time to balance the scales. Mustering all the force he could channel, he tugged against the acolytes’ bindings, drawing his hands in towards his chest.

The acolytes repositioned their feet all around him to gain greater leverage, but Zephyrus didn’t relent. He couldn’t give in.

If I fail, everyone suffers. Everyone dies.

The muscles in his neck cramped as his hands neared his chest in spite of the acolytes’ efforts. They leaned backwards with wide stances, attempting to keep him in place. The Seers raised their curved white daggers in unison, prepared to plunge their blades into Zephyrus’s chest.

Zephyrus released his force, his arms shooting out to either side again.

At once, the straining acolytes lost their footing, and the tension that threatened to separate Zephyrus’s arms from their sockets surrendered. At their slack, Zephyrus slammed his hands together. With the acolytes still tethered to him, his force magic tossed them in towards the center of the circle. They crashed into the Seers, half of them sprawling to the floor.

Zephyrus stored the heat within him. His veins dilated, and a fire rose within his chest. He jumped backwards and released a jet of flames upon the acolytes. The cloaks of the nearest white-clad temple servants burst into glowing torches.

Screams erupted in the atrium, but Zephyrus didn’t stop his spray of fire. He scorched the men in front of him, but one seemed impervious to the fire. His skin took on the ashen shade of limestone.

Stoneskin.

He hadn’t considered that they might also have mastery over more than one discipline. He continued projecting his wave of fire, directing it at the others. One acolyte raised a water shield, and another created a wall of stone from the floor to protect the Seers.

Zephyrus didn’t stop his fiery assault, allowing the scale to teeter, then plummet in the opposite direction. All the heat fled from his body. Gooseflesh raced from his fingertips to the back of his neck, and blood drained from his face. He sidestepped around the flailing arms of the burnt men and unleashed a torrent of water straight into the three vertical black stripes of the acolyte with stoneskin, jettisoning him into the raised wall the other acolyte had formed.

Before the acolyte with the water shield could drop his guard, Zephyrus allowed his legs to go weak and unsteady. The scales tipped back as he shot a bolt of lightning at the watery shield. The acolyte couldn’t drop the shield in time. The bolt electrified the water and conducted throughout his entire body.

With two burned, and one electrocuted, Zephyrus advanced. Taking advantage of the heaviness in his limbs from his lightning magic, Zephyrus turned his right fist to stone. He reared back and punched the stoneskin acolyte in the face. The acolyte’s head snapped backwards, connecting with the stone wall behind him. With the acolyte momentarily stunned, Zephyrus seized his arm, wrenching it behind his back. He bent his knees and jerked upwards until the acolyte’s stoneskin-shoulder popped, dislocating from its socket. With a pivot, Zephyrus wheeled around. Lifting the dislocated arm by the wrist and using his other hand for leverage, he drove his stone-reinforced knee into the extended elbow, snapping it backwards.

Bone, stone, and will cracked under the force.

The acolyte who raised the wall to defend the Seers let it fall. With four felled, it was still ten against one. Unable to afford another bout of magic fatigue, Zephyrus allowed his scales to balance on their own. Facing the two Brothers and eight more acolytes, he tore his bladeless hilt from his belt, and the Auros-forged sword extended before him.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Zephyrus shouted. “I’m here to hel—”

The Seers conjured blades of fire into their hands. Both dual-wielding, they circled Zephyrus.

“He does not escape our walls,” the Seers said simultaneously. Their voices echoed off the sandstone pillars of the atrium, but the reverberations could not hide Paxoran’s haunting voice.

“You’re being deceived!” Zephyrus shouted.

Zephyrus’s cries fell on deaf ears as the acolytes circled him. The Seers—two bodies and four swords—moved with one mind. They attacked and defended at the same time. While one struck, the other blocked Zephyrus’s riposte. While one darted in, the other created separation. All the while, the acolytes pushed and pulled with force magic, redirected light or sound with manipulation magic, and kept Zephyrus off-balance.

Like standing in an ever-changing current, Zephyrus was buffeted in every direction. He turned aside one flaming sword, dodged another, but before he could strike, he was forced to retreat back only to have his foot snagged in the invisible clutches of the acolyte’s bindings.

Tip the scales. I can’t keep going like this.

Part of him hoped Threyna would come storming in, clutching Tyrus’s red scale as a trophy. Zephyrus hadn’t managed to scratch Tyrus’s armor with a sword and Ceres’s aid, let alone level a killing blow. As if the odds weren’t against Threyna enough, she only had a dagger.

Zephyrus was on his own.

A fire blade whisked past his face, radiating heat. Beads of sweat dripped from Zephyrus’s brow. He spun away, using his own force magic to keep his footing. He blocked one Seer’s horizontal slash and met a two-handed vertical chop from the other. Deadlocked against the Brother’s strike, Zephyrus was exposed.

He released the heat from his body. The sweat beading on his brow and clinging to his back chilled him to the bones until a torrent of water burst from his hand, dousing the fire-conjured blades into hissing steam.

He wheeled, raising his sword just in time to meet the other Seer’s onslaught. He blocked two swinging slashes, but he couldn’t keep up. Scales already tipped, Zephyrus shot a stream of water at the Brothers’ blades, extinguishing them. Zephyrus’s blood began to boil. His mouth went dry, and his vision narrowed as he overheated. He swiveled, retreating away from the Seers. Swinging his arm like a scythe, he released his stored heat. A gale of fire forced the acolytes in the ever-closing ring around him to retreat or defend. In either case, it gave Zephyrus a temporary respite from having to resist all of their manipulations to light and force.

With his temperature stabilizing, Zephyrus attacked the bladeless Brothers, but a pillar of fire rose before him. Zephyrus lurched backward, nearly charging right into the inferno. The column of flame released a moment later. Their misting white eyes glowed with cruel intentions. He prepared to cast more water to dispel their flames, but building heat to balance the scales became more difficult with each attempt.

He lunged at the nearest Seer, but another pillar of fire rose before him. This time, Zephyrus was prepared. He dove through with a watery shield held before him. As he jumped through the fires, unburnt, he landed and slashed, but his blade betrayed him.

The steel came to a stop before the Seer’s neck, resisted by an invisible force. Zephyrus strained against the acolytes’ force magic, but too slowly. The Brother’s hand glowed with smoldering embers. Zephyrus raised his watery shield to defuse the blast, but out of the corner of his eye, electricity sparked in the other Seer’s hand.

Before he could do anything, lightning coursed through his veins. His body refused him. Limbs jolted in erratic futility. Every fiber of his being was set on fire, unable to release. Pain surged through him in rapid, recurring waves. He attempted to turn to stone, but he couldn’t control the scales.

The source of the electricity ceased, but the current continued to flow through him. The Auros-forged sword fell from his grasp. The blade retracted, and only the hilt struck the sandstone floor. His body crumbled next. On all fours, he willed himself to get up. To fight. But there were too many of them, with too many magical abilities to contend with.

He glanced up at the Brother before him. There was nothing he could do to stop the double-fisted stoneskin hammer strike that thudded into the crown of his head.

He fell face-first to the floor.

Chapter 58

Cannon Fire

Varros

The Eastern Shore of Stockhelm

Varros clutched his thighs to his chest. Wedged between two barrels strapped to the side of the ship’s hull, Varros’s knees ached, his back whined, and his neck cricked. Men of his years weren’t meant to hide below deck of war galleys, but in such desperate times, comfort needed to be sacrificed.

He’d tried everything. He’d petitioned the Fallen’s leaders, only to be ignored and disregarded. Lenara refused to speak with him. Even his old friend Sinion took no heed of his warnings. He’d visited Danella, hoping to sway her from the path she and Damascus had set upon by appealing to her love for her son, but his pleas once again fell on deaf ears. His visit with Laeden fared little better. All of his lies and withheld truths did little to inspire trust. He wanted Laeden to lay low in Klaytos so Varros could assuage the people that they were all on the same side. He wanted to believe peace could be struck without war, but he was wrong. Horus, his own blood, denied him.

There is nothing left but war.

The waves crashed against the walls of the ship, tossing Varros’s stomach with each rise and fall. The stubble on his cheeks rubbed against the inseam of his britches as he buried his head between his knees. Bile climbed his throat, but he swallowed his nausea.

His memories from the last time he’d been on a war galley thundered within his mind. Cannon fire. The Winged Wind blown to splinters. His crew shipwrecked, left for the sharks. The war had never truly ended. Not with the Treaty of 940. Not with his marriage annulled and his matrimony to Danella. That was all just a show. An intermission. But the final act would soon be upon them, and no longer could Varros sit idly by.

At this very moment, his son, Damascus, marched on House Arux with the combined strength of Salmantica to ensure his firstborn, Laeden, and his first wife, Lenara, didn’t live to see sunrise. His uncle, Horus, gathered what few ships he had to prevent their escape.

Peace did not exist. Hameryn, God of Harmony, was a lie, if he even existed at all. No one wanted peace, in the mortal or divine realms. And so the God of War, Ferrocles, remained unchecked. His demands of war called all of New Rheynia to arms, and no one had the sense to see beyond the battle. To see what was left standing in the aftermath.

Nothing.

No one.

Lenara had always told him to choose a side. He thought he had. But peace didn’t have the dice or tiles to play the game of Reign. Ferrocles offered peace no seat at the table. So Varros hadn’t played. But after speaking to Horus, he realized his folly: the game would go on without him—whether he was dead or alive, obstinate or participating. He could no more stop this war than he could tell the rains to fall again from the sky. The only thing he could do was deliver what available water he could to the areas he believed needed it, deserved it—even if that meant choosing one son over another.

A horn sounded. The trumpet was accompanied by shouts and footsteps above deck. He didn’t need to hear the orders to know what they meant. He’d heard the plans. The Valtarcian fleet would lay in wait, assuming the Uprising and the deserter Ridge Knights would attempt to flee from Damascus’s land assault. The horns meant his son was falling into the trap set for him.

The captain shouted commands overhead, directing the sails and spiriting the vessel to intercept whatever ship Laeden or Lenara managed to secure. The ship redirected its course, causing the choppy waves to turn his stomach. Varros’s insides lurched, and his mouth began to water. He heard cannon fire, unsure if it were in his memories or in the present.

It will be The Winged Wind all over again.

“I won’t let that happen to you, son,” Varros whispered into his thighs.

He bit back his bile and pried himself from the space between the two barrels that helped conceal his travel. For too long, the gifts he’d received from the Arcane Templar had rested dormant. Aside from cheating at dice, he never used his manipulation magic. Besides reviving a hearth or setting Count Elrod Horne ablaze, he hadn’t used his elemental magic since he’d left the Templar. But all of that was about to change.

Gaining his feet, his aching knees wobbled on the swaying ship. He steadied himself on the walls and spat sour spit onto the wooden planks of the cargo hold. One step at a time, he strode towards the staircase that would return him to the ship’s deck. The planks creaked beneath his feet and whined against the sea’s wrath, but they had yet to experience his wrath.

The salty spray of wind and water greeted him as he reached the deck. The blue sails of the Ridge Knights’ corsair ship cast long shadows against the setting sun. Five Valtarcian ships converged on the small escape vessel. Sailors were too busy rigging sails and preparing to board to notice Varros in his dark cloak with the hood pulled low.

Spurred by the wind, their ship streaked towards the corsair ship. The other warships would be there soon, and there would be no escape for the refugees. The men and women on deck became visible—a blend of Rheynians and Helms, Valencians and Celestics, freedpeople and their liberators. Peace came with cooperation, acceptance, and tolerance of differences. If there was one side Varros trusted to eventually work towards peace, it was the one that found peace amidst their differences, not the side that made peace by executing and eliminating anyone who disagreed.

As the ships converged on the escape vessel, Varros anchored his feet to the deck. He felt his arms and legs stiffen as he tipped the scales. Staring at the center mast of the flagship of what remained of the Valtarcian fleet, Varros’s muscles knotted. Pressure built within his neck as he held his breath against the strain. With a shout, wood splintered and cracked as the center mast snapped at the base.

Varros’s legs turned to seaweed. He dropped to a knee.

The bent mast’s sails caught a gust of wind, but the off-angle spun the ship off its course. The captain and crew cried out. Some near the rigging lines were thrown overboard. The bowsprit charged directly at the hull of one of its allied ships.

Spinning the wheel, the captain hoped to offset the broken mast, but with force magic, Varros twisted it the opposite way. The wheel, twenty paces away, rotated against the captain’s will. The soldiers aboard the onlooking ship panicked, running away from the incoming figurehead of the winged horse of House Helixus, but too late.

The mass and momentum of the ship crashed into the other’s hull. Bodies and anything not tied down were launched across the deck, Varros included. The impact sent him sprawling backwards, but he caught himself with the assistance of his force magic. Others were not so lucky. Sailors were hurled overboard to disappear into the choppy surf.

The ships’ wooden planks groaned against one another, as both began taking on water faster than anyone could bail out. Varros slid down the angled deck to the side of the ship and launched himself overboard. He shot a powerful stream of water into the ocean, using it to propel himself along the surface. Heat built in his veins, coursing through his body. Each beat of his heart pumped with a burst of fire, but the sustained jetstream carried him toward the next ship.

Only a few more sustained moments of output away from reaching the corsair ship, the heat radiating through Varros’s body felt like he’d been forced to swallow hot coals. With one last burst of water, he flung himself away from the ocean’s surface. He flew through the air to land in a three-point stance on the deck of the next ship.

“Mage!” a Valtarcian soldier shouted, drawing his sword.

Fool.

With heat burning through him, Varros tipped the unbalanced scale back the other direction. With a flourish of both hands, he sent parallel lines of fire along the deck toward the foremast. Sailors hurled themselves out of the blaze’s path. Within moments, the deck burned, but Varros had more heat to cast off. Forming a ball of fire in his palm, he wound back and hurled it into the sails of the center mast. The white sails decorated with the blue winged horse sigil of his father, grandfather, and all who came before him went up in a plume of orange flame to rival the dying sun.

More screams. More terror.

The cannons boomed, but Varros knew they were all in his mind. He couldn’t afford to fall prey to them now. He shoved the memories, the doubts, and the fears—real and imagined—to the back of his mind to focus on what mattered most.

Laeden and Lenara. Laeden and Lenara.

Their names became a symphony in his head as the ship burned around him. Sailors sought guidance, but the captain was equally lost.

What could one do when fighting the Gods’ fury? Danella was so afraid of what the Gods would do if people placed their faith elsewhere, but what she missed all along was that the Gods had already given their wrath to people. People like him.

His internal temperature dropped as the scales tipped again. Despite being surrounded by a conflagration that swallowed the ship, a chill rattled his bones. He searched the horizon for the blue-sailed corsair ship, but fire and smoke obscured his vision. Ash from the scorched sails fell around him like snow.

The cannons fired again. Louder this time.

Focus. Laeden and Lenara.

Tipping the scales the other direction, Varros shrouded himself in water and charged through the inferno. He dove over the side of the burning ship. Jettisons of water burst from his hands, preventing him from falling into the surf. Once outside the obscuration of the rising smoke and descending ash, Varros searched for the ship that held his first loves.

Soldiers in blue uniforms boarded the corsair ship from two different white-sailed ships. Fighting erupted on deck.

Too far to discern anything but shapes and colors, Varros imagined Laeden on The Winged Wind with him as cannons fired from either side. Boards cracked and splintered, bones broke, and limbs with the misfortune of being in the cannon’s path were torn away. Men screamed. Men died. The water rose. The ship sank. And the red-and-black sails of the Salmantic fleet faded into the distance.

Varros screamed with the pain of loss, the guilt of survival, and the helplessness of twenty failed years to make a difference. He soared along the water’s surface like a gull, his black cloak fluttering behind him. Using the water magic returned warmth to his face, but the effects of magic fatigue began to take their toll. His vision narrowed, and his head throbbed, but he could not fail.

Not again.

He reached the corsair ship and launched himself from the surf. He landed between a sword-wielding Helm and two Valtarcian soldiers. He cast off his black cloak and flung it at the two soldiers. With his force magic, he wrapped the cloak around their blades. The soldiers watched in horror as the cloak wrestled their weapons from their grasp. Varros’s arms went heavy, falling to his sides, but the Helm seized advantage. Sword raised, he chopped down into one of the soldier’s collarbones, then slashed across with a two-handed swing that cleaved a gash in the other soldier’s face.

They both dropped to the deck, dead or dying. The Helm, young and thin of face, nodded at Varros before engaging with another soldier.

Varros couldn’t move. He surveyed the deck, a battlefield of carnage. Men in Helixus blue fell all around him as the Fallen and Ridge Knights defended their ship with unrelenting fervor. So much death.

“You must choose a side.” Lenara’s voice filled his head.

Varros couldn’t tell which side he was on. Bloodstained Helixus blue surcoats fell to the deck or were sent overboard to the ravenous sea. He scanned the faces of those around him, searching for Laeden, Lenara, or familiarity to reposition his compass as to which side was the right side.

Cannons exploded. The ship sank. Blood in the water. The nightly rains rolled in to drown them all, but the sharks were faster.

Over twenty years had passed, and he still couldn’t shake the memories.

I shouldn’t be alive. Why am I alive?

Varros fell to his knees, unsure if magic fatigue or his broken mind were to blame. A trio of soldiers encroached around him, but each bore Laeden’s likeness. Varros looked between them, but they were all Laeden. Flowing brown hair. Dark brown eyes he’d inherited from his mother. His close-cropped beard that only served to remind Varros of how much of his son’s childhood he’d failed to be there for.

Varros was paralyzed as their swords drew closer. Unable, unwilling to fight against his son, he cowered. As they neared, their features morphed. Narrower jaw. Sharper, more angled, cheekbones. Golden eyes.

Damascus replaced Laeden, but Varros felt equally powerless.

How can I support one son if I must fight another?

“You must choose a side,” Lenara’s voice urged, more loudly this time.

I can believe in a side, but I can’t fight one of my boys…

“Kill the mage!” Damascus shouted.

Varros didn’t move at Damascus’s cry. Didn’t stand as his son’s sword lifted overhead.

Better to fail. Better to die.

He bowed his head, accepting the coming death sentence he deserved.

Just as the steel swung down, someone stepped in front of Varros, sword raised. Varros looked up, but didn’t believe his eyes. Laeden cut, hacked, and kicked the first soldier away. He ducked the second’s attack and slashed at the third, slicing across the inside of his knee. Spinning between the first and second soldier, Laeden deflected a thrust and returned a backslash that split the second attacker’s face in two. He stumbled back and fell into the other downed soldier.

Neither of the fallen soldiers bore Damascus’s likeness.

Laeden cut down the last of the three men and knelt to Varros’s side.

Varros realized himself—where he was, what was happening. He gazed into his son’s eyes, but they were wrong.

Blue.

“Laeden?” Varros asked.

The man’s wrong eyes went wide. “Chimera’s breath, you’re King Varros.”

Varros examined the face before him. It wasn’t Laeden. Laeden had cut his hair. His eyes were burnt almonds. Varros contorted his brow, trying to understand what he saw.

The battle sounds around them faded as the defenders staved off the attackers. Men in blue uniforms surrendered or were subdued.

“I’m Kherus Paragus. Your son Laeden...”

Varros looked around the ship. Laeden was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Lenara.

“Where are they?” Varros asked. “The others… where is my son?”

Chapter 59

Carry My Soul

Iylea IX

Valencia

Iylea crouched at the corner, listening for any sign of Ferrocles or Hameryn. The stillness of the halls sent a chill down the back of her neck. If the Gods were calling out to her, she could at least go in the opposite direction of their voices. The anchor room was on the opposite side of the castle. One misstep and they would walk right into Hameryn’s waiting arms.

“This way,” Iylea said.

She slunk along the walls, wishing she could disappear into them, and followed the way Hameryn and Ferrocles had gone. It made no sense for them to double back until they’d surveyed the whole castle.

Arkadia followed close behind. Together, their feet padded silently along the runners lining the corridor. Despite Arkadia’s captivity, she kept pace with Iylea’s nervous energy.

Iylea stopped short at the corner of the next doorway and listened for any motion on the other side. Silence—aside from her heart ramming against her ribs. She waved Arkadia onward. She didn’t know enough about the castle’s hidden pathways to traverse with confidence. She was a guest in Hameryn’s home. He likely knew the secret of every stone in the castle. He’d have to, to keep sneaking up on and assassinating the other Gods.

After working most of her adult life in Sentigard, she thought she knew all of its secrets. But that was before Queen Danella jailed her in a dungeon she didn’t know existed.

They stalked over to the next door, and again, Iylea paused, pressing her ear to the door.

The only sound was her own breathing.

“We need to hurry,” Arkadia whispered.

Iylea wasn’t in a rush for Arkadia to depart the divine realm, leaving her and her flesh behind. Not wanting to imagine how long she’d have to wait in hiding for Zephyrus to come, nor eager to learn what the sensation of being a disembodied soul felt like, she pressed onward. The windows into the mortal realm were rife with turmoil. The slums of Salmantica were overrun with thievery. The plebs in the lower city of Valtarcia waged war with the patricians in the upper. Salmantic soldiers marched across Stockhelm, naval battles erupted along the coast, and—

“Vykanicus…” Arkadia’s voice was too pained to be a whisper, too soft to be a cry.

Iylea followed her gaze to a window above them. Zephyrus was surrounded by men in white cloaks and two more in black wielding swords of fire.

“Why would they attack him?” Arkadia asked. “I told them one day he would come. Vykanicus…”

Zephyrus fought with sword and magic, and although bodies in white cloaks were sprawled on the ground around him, he was outnumbered and overmatched.

Arkadia seized Iylea by the shoulders. “He doesn’t know the words. If they won’t give them to him, he must know the words!”

Arkadia ran past Iylea. Iylea reached to stop her, but Arkadia was already bounding down the hall. Iylea swore, spurring herself into motion. Not knowing what words Zephyrus didn’t know or what that meant, Iylea chased after Arkadia. The woman was too fast, too desperate, and, by all the Six-cursed lies she’d been led to believe, way too loud.

As Arkadia neared the corner to Courianne’s Tower of Whispers, Ferrocles rounded the turn. Arkadia attempted to slow down but ran right into Ferrocles and fell to the floor. Iylea gasped. After momentarily decelerating, she sped up to come to Arkadia’s defense.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ferrocles leaned over her.

“Wait!” Iylea reached out her hand as if to stay Ferrocles’s advance. “I can explain.”

Ferrocles’s gaze locked on Iylea, though he loomed over Arkadia. “You have explaining of your own to do.”

Arkadia crawled backwards, away from the giant, bearded God’s encroaching footsteps.

Iylea ran past Arkadia and inserted herself between the God of War and the woman who once saved the world from Arcamedes’s wrath. She held both hands up, her breath attempting to catch up to her after the sudden burst of exertion.

“Please,” Iylea said. “Let me explain.”

Ferrocles pointed to the windows into the mortal realm. “Can’t you see what is happening without our guidance? You were both brought here for one job—break the chain, help us reconnect with the mortals, and you—”

“You don’t understand,” Iylea shouted. “Hameryn isn’t who he says he is. He’s killing the other Gods. Klayvorine and Courianne figured out that someone tampered with the sands of time. He is Paxoran. He killed Neutreen. I think he killed Courianne and blamed it on Aquarius to cover his tracks. But Arkadia, her son—he can stop Hameryn, but we—”

We don’t need to get to the anchor room. We just need to get to the Whispering Wall.

“We just need the gemstone that powers the Whispering Wall to tell him…” Iylea’s voice trailed off as a smile crept across Ferrocles’s lips.

The bearded God’s face parted to release a deep belly laugh. His hands clasped to his stomach, and his head rolled back. His hysterics reverberated off the walls.

Iylea didn’t understand. She turned to Arkadia, regaining her feet.

“That is preposterous,” Ferrocles said, grinning. The faint trace of red light emitted from cracks in the stretched skin of his smile. “Hameryn didn’t kill Courianne.”

His expression darkened as the light radiated from him. “I did.”

Iylea’s jaw unhinged. Blood drained from her face, and her stomach sank to her feet.

“You… you’re in on it too.”

Ferrocles placed his hand on her shoulder, his fingertips digging into her flesh. “All you had to do was break the chain, one link at a time. Now you’ll both waste away here.”

Arkadia took two strides, leapt to plant her foot on the wall, and vaulted off. She chopped downward, her forearm smashing into Ferrocles’s wrist. Ferrocles growled, pulling his hand away and losing his grip on Iylea.

“Iylea, run!”

Arkadia jumped and kicked into the inside of Ferrocles’s knee. Ferrocles buckled, clearing a narrow path for Iylea to run past. She charged, feet racing before she had time to think. Ferrocles swiped at her, but Arkadia shouldered into his elbow.

Iylea ran as fast as she could to put as much separation between her and the God of War as possible.

“Light my path!” Arkadia shouted as she struck again at Ferrocles.

Iylea peered over her shoulder, still running. Arkadia punched at Ferrocles, but he blocked and threw her into the wall.

“Darken my stride!”

Ferrocles’s ham-sized fist struck the stone where Arkadia’s head had been a moment ago.

“Carry my soul!”

Iylea didn’t understand. She stopped, staring back at Arkadia. Ferrocles’s hand, as wide as Arkadia’s chest, shoved her into the wall. Even from this distance, the wind displaced from her lungs was audible. Arkadia’s hand waved at Iylea, as if swatting her away.

“Go.” Arkadia’s voice came out hoarse, crushed between the wall and Ferrocles’s strength. “Tell him.”

The words. He doesn’t know the words.

She repeated what Arkadia had said in her head.

Light my path. Darken my stride. Carry my soul.

“Go…” Arkadia said weakly. “Buy me time.”

Iylea knew what would happen if she left Arkadia here with Ferrocles. But she knew what would happen to the world if someone didn’t deliver these words to Zephyrus.

She bit her lip, tears rolling down her cheeks as she turned and ran for the anchor room.

Ferrocles let out a ferocious cry before his fist connected, sending reverberations through the wall. Iylea left Arkadia. She didn’t want to imagine Arkadia’s broken form slumping to the floor.

She sacrificed herself. For me. For Zephyrus.

Her feet felt heavy as she plodded down the hall towards the anchor room, weighed down by the guilt, pain, and loss left in the aftermath of Arkadia’s last act. As she approached the anchor room door, she glanced back down the corridor. Ferrocles charged after her, his every footfall like an earthquake. But beyond him, Arkadia lay on the floor—still and quiet as death.

Light my path. Darken my stride. Carry my soul.

She had to make it worth it. She needed to tell Zephyrus.

Iylea swung the door to the anchor room open and slipped inside, closing the door behind her. She slid the lock into place with trembling fingers, hoping against hope it would be enough to slow Ferrocles long enough for her to make the jump.

But before she turned to the hole in the floor where the chain to the mortal realm passed through, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

“You only know half the story,” Hameryn said, standing between her and the chain, his ashen skin separated by red forks of lightning.

The man who’d appeared to her in dreams, who’d treated her with kindness and spared her life, stood before her. Iylea pursed her lips, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “How could I know more? I know the half I found for myself. You’ve been lying to me… for years.”

“I’ve been lying for the better part of a millennium,” Hameryn said. “Allow me to explain.”

“Ferrocles killed Arkadia,” Iylea hissed through her teeth. “You killed Neutreen and how many others? And all for what?”

Hameryn exhaled, allowing his head to sag as he paced before the hole in the floor. “We want the same things, Iylea.”

A hammering on the door drew their attention away from one another.

“Open up!” Ferrocles yelled.

“Be still, Ferrocles,” Hameryn said. “I will take it from here.”

The assurance in his tone made Iylea’s stomach churn, but she held her ground. “I want to stop you. Tell me—what common cause do you and I share?”

“Peace.”

The immediacy of his response took her aback.

“That’s all you ever wanted,” Hameryn said. “Peace. Peace of mind, peace of heart.” He paced like a sentry manning the battlements before the chain, blocking her access. “The ability to be open and vulnerable. To share yourself with Laeden and hold nothing back. A peaceful world where you could tell him of your dreams without fear of judgment or reprisal.”

Iylea’s fingernails bit into her palm at the mention of Laeden’s name.

“Peace is all I’ve ever wanted,” Hameryn said. “It is what I was made for. But the very being that made me attempted to have me killed. Veritus and Aphelia were murdered.”

Iylea recalled her vision of the dead Gods. A woman stared blankly at the ceiling, her flowing blonde hair drowning in a pool of dark blood. A man lay beside her, his skull caved in.

She shuddered.

“The Creator wanted us dead because we failed to secure peace in the mortal realm. Yes, we failed, but replacing us did not secure peace. Peace cannot exist while everyone is only out for themselves. For peace to reign, the mortals need a beacon, something higher to set their sights upon—for clarity and guidance. Not some unseen Creator, but a committed presence to oversee their lives.”

Bile rose in Iylea’s throat. Despite its burn, she swallowed. “Someone like you.”

His fiery eyes held her. “The Creator’s assassin tried to kill me. But I killed him. I cast off my Godhood and wore the assassin’s face.” He pointed to his own nose.

“You tampered with the sands of time to conceal your identity.”

Paxoran—Hameryn—the God of Peace nodded. “I am the only one who knows what it takes to forge peace, but everyone else is consumed with meaningless notions—love, truth, justice.” Hameryn wagged his finger in front of her. “Without peace, love fades. Without peace, truth will only lead to harm. Without peace, justice will seek vengeance.”

Iylea shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

But her thoughts convicted her. Once Laeden became concerned with the Revivalists, he all but forgot about her. He said he loved her, but as he became more entrenched with the Sentinels, he stopped listening to the truth. When she warned him of Danella, he dismissed her. Ignored her. And justice…

She felt Aemos Horne’s blade sink into her flesh and slice through her spine. Her vision spun as her head toppled through the air and thudded to the ground. She continued to roll until she came to a stop in Laeden’s hands.

Laeden whispered something to her, but she didn’t hear it. His face blurred with red ribbons of light until Hameryn’s likeness blotted out any sign of Laeden.

“You see,” Hameryn said. “I am the way to the Creator’s peace.”

She hadn’t realized, but Hameryn had approached and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“It has taken centuries of careful planning, forming alliances, and disposing of those who wish to stand in the way of peace, but I have been gathering the Gods’ power to one day defeat the Creator and bring peace to all.”

Steering her by the shoulder, he escorted her over to the hole in the floor of the anchor room. Even from this dizzying height, the horrors of the world were too much to bear. The seas ravaged the coastlines, fires burned across New Rheynia, and blood soaked the rain-deprived fields.

“I am not yet ready to provoke the Creator,” Hameryn said. “But I can no longer harness the power I’ve gained. The other Gods must die, but not by my hands lest I warn the Creator of my actions before I’m prepared to defeat them. I’ve done what I can to limit the chain’s growth and brought you here to break the links so I could summon a mortal assassin.”

Iylea’s mouth went dry as she struggled to process Hameryn’s truth.

She shook her head. “What do you mean, ‘limit the chain’s growth?’”

Hameryn’s glowing red light flared from the gaps in his ashen skin. “You’ve seen him. I know you have. They call him the Skeleton King.”

Iylea recalled her vision of the crowned skeletal monster and his army of wraiths that floated through the walls of the Cassius villa after the Festival of Stockhelm.

Iylea swallowed. “What did you do to him?”

“I answer prayers,” Hameryn said. “You have witnessed what happens when a God dies by divine hands—there are ramifications. Upon Neutreen’s death, Rheynia became cursed, so I gave a king who would do anything to unite his people a tool to see his mission to completion by gathering the undying souls of the world.”

“While I break the chain.”

Secrets within secrets. Lies within lies. Wars within wars. It was worse than Iylea thought. Hameryn had planned his takeover from every angle.

Hameryn smiled. “Precisely. By stalling the growth of the chain and summoning you to break the links, we can invite the Harbinger and begin the purging of the Creator’s tyranny. That is why I need you, Iylea.

“Do you understand why I had to conceal the truth from you?” Hameryn asked, removing his hand from her shoulder to point to the door where Ferrocles was undoubtedly brooding on the other side. “Even Klayvorine for all her foresight and Neutreen for all her wisdom could not see what needed to be done. But you… you have always seen what others could not.”

Iylea nodded, staring at the mortal realm below. He was right—about a great many things. But there was one thing he was wrong about.

She closed her eyes and pictured Laeden above her, her face in his hands as he held her severed head. Tears obscured his dark brown eyes and streaked his flushed cheeks. “Gods, Iylea… I’m sorry. I love you…”

She opened her eyes again, tears welling in the corners. He might have forgotten her for a time as war arose. He might have doubted her as fear clouded his judgment, and even distanced himself from her in the hopes of protecting her, but never—not for one second—did he stop loving her. And neither did she him. Whether Laeden fought in the burning world below or was trapped in the chain she was supposed to break, Iylea would not fight for Hameryn’s brand of peace.

Light my path. Darken my stride. Carry my soul. Iylea took a deep breath. “You’re right, Hameryn. I do see what others cannot.”

She stepped beyond the precipice of the stone floor of the anchor room. Hameryn gasped, reaching for her, but gravity opened its arms to her, and she fell through the hole separating the divine realm from the mortal realm.

Hameryn screamed after her, but even he was powerless to stop her as she plummeted from Valencia. She fell, following the light of the chain. Wind rushed through her hair.

Tears streamed from her eyes, and her stomach lurched to the bottom of her bowels, but she fell faster and faster until the wind felt like fire.

Light my path. Darken my stride. Carry my soul.

She repeated Arkadia’s last words like a mantra as she continued to build up speed. But eventually, the fire of her descent stripped the words from her mind as pain invaded her very essence. She screamed as her eyes burned out, and her skin peeled away. She continued screaming until her lungs withered and her soul was stripped from her body.

Eventually, even the pain subsided. And all that was left was absolution.

Chapter 60

The Snake and the Scorpion

Vykinallia XI

Stockhelm

Cerik’s mace crashed through the splintered wooden door, breaking the sliding lock. With a kick, the door blew open. Vykinallia charged through first, sword at the ready, with Jecht, Cerik, and Unari following close behind.

As expected, the Brusos guards surrounded the door to the western tower in a wide semicircle. Brusos stood on the elevated stairs that led up to the atrium on the opposite side of the empty bath. Moonlight filtered in through the sky window, and torches illuminated the pillars. Clad in black-and-white surcoats, a dozen Brusos guards glowered over their drawn swords and raised shields.

“They do not leave this room,” Brusos shouted, his voice echoing off the high ceiling. “Kill th—”

Vykinallia didn’t wait for him to finish the command. She charged between the two men who separated her from Brusos. Though she was ahead, Jecht’s spear made first contact. As the guard raised his shield, Vykinallia slashed low. Her steel sliced through muscle and tendon. The guard dropped to a knee with a cry. As his shield fell, Cerik’s mace hammered down on the guard’s half helm, spilling him to the floor.

At their advance, the other guards attempted to flank them, but Unari remained by the door. She released two cones of fire in both directions, preventing the guards from surrounding them. With their backs defended, Jecht jabbed, stabbed, and then swung his spear into a guard’s shield. Cerik battered the shield aside, and Vykinallia plunged her short sword through the guard’s belly. She ripped her blade free. Blood and gore painted the black-and-white checkered surcoat.

With the two guards downed, her path to Brusos was clear. Lit by Unari’s blaze and spurred by the symphony of Jecht and Cerik’s song of death, Vykinallia charged for Brusos. In four long strides, she bounded onto the ledge of the empty bath and leapt over it.

Brusos’s pale eyes widened. He turned to run but stumbled on the stairs. His foot caught on his loose linen toga. Vykinallia closed the distance, vaulting over the bath to land in a crouch.

Brusos gained his feet and scrambled up the stairs into the atrium.

With a grunt, Vykinallia climbed the stairs after him. She followed his fear-stricken wails for aid, but the Fallen would keep his men occupied. He turned, heading for the safety of the tablinum.

I take him, I take the ludus.

Her soles slapped the marble floor as she narrowed the gap between them. Their shadows raced across the torchlit walls until Vykinallia’s was only a few strides behind his. Brusos looked over his shoulder, just as Vykinallia launched herself at him.

She seized a fistful of his toga and wrestled him to the ground. Climbing atop him, she leveled her sword point at the stone of his throat.

He held his thin-fingered hands up before him. “Please—”

“Open the doors,” Vykinallia shouted, spittle flying. “Tell your men or I’ll open you from gullet to groin.” Anger gripped her trembling sword. This was the man who murdered her father, organized her abduction, and was responsible for the deaths of Laeden and countless Fallen.

“I will,” Brusos said, voice quavering. “I will, just don’t—”

Footsteps sounded behind her. She wheeled around to discern friend from foe. In the dim torchlight, three figures strode in her direction.

Cerik, Jecht, and Unari? She couldn’t be sure.

She spun back on Brusos and lifted him to his feet. Forcing him between her and the incoming figures, she held the blade at his throat. Beneath the canopy of wilting flowers that once made the atrium so beautiful, three snakes slithered from the shadows, swords drawn.

Vykinallia’s breathing quickened; her heart raced. “Stay back.” But they continued marching toward her.

Brusos held his hand out to stay his men. “Do as she says.”

They stopped in their tracks.

“Surrender,” Vykinallia said. “Open your doors and no one will be harmed.”

One of the three guards, with gray hair spilling out from under his iron half helm, spat on the ground. “Lies! We know what you did to Arux and his men.”

“Your gladiators and house slaves will be freed. You will be locked in their lodgings until the king’s army arrives. Cooperate and you will be ransomed.”

Brusos trembled within her grasp. “Listen to her. The king will come for us.” The guards glanced between each other. “What are you doing? Obey me or—”

“Duke Chancellor,” the gray-haired guard said. “King Damascus’s army approaches.”

Vykinallia’s jaw clenched, and her grip on her short sword tightened, but her knees wobbled.

We’re out of time.

Brusos’s quivering ceased. Instead, he snorted. “You’re dead. All of you. Dead.”

She’d been counting on Brusos’s cowardice to secure safety for the rest of the Fallen. If he wouldn’t open the doors, they’d be slaughtered. Laeden had bought them time, but not enough.

Jecht and Cerik rushed into the atrium, slick in the blood of Brusos’s guards. Unari followed behind. The sight of them a moment ago would have flooded her with relief, but now it was too late. Though they’d breached Brusos’s walls, they’d be dead within the hour if they didn’t take the villa.

“The Salmantic army is here,” Vykinallia said. “Open the front doors.”

Jecht’s scarred face appeared more disfigured in the torchlight. He examined the guards opposite her and opened his mouth to object, but Brusos cut him off.

“It’s over, Cassius,” Brusos said, the apple in his throat bobbing against her edge with each word. “Submit to me. Surrender… King Damascus may have mercy on you.”

Mercy… Damascus has lost all sense of the concept, if he ever understood it at all.

Vykinallia snarled. “And what of my people?”

Brusos scoffed. “They are not your people. We are your people, Nallia.”

Heat flushed her cheeks. She ground her teeth.

The tablinum door opened behind her. Vykinallia spun, Brusos still in her clutches. In the light of the open door, Vykinallia’s mother stood, hands clasped together. Wearing a loose-fitting shift, her hair tied back, her mother stepped beyond the precipice of the door. Brusos’s wife, Cerberynn, clung to the door, allowing only her head to stick out.

“Vykinallia?” her mother said. “Is that you?”

“Think about your mother,” Brusos said. “Return to your people. Submit to the king’s mercy, Nallia.”

Vykinallia’s eyes darted from Brusos, to Jecht, Cerik, and Unari, then back to her mother.

The last time she had spoken to her mother, they were at the tavern of the Winged Helm Inn outside the Chariot’s Arena. She thought her mother was sad—lost—but she was speaking from the heart for the first time in a long while.

“You were named after the Treasure of the Stockhelm people—a symbol of hope,” her mother had said. “I named you Vykinallia.”

Vykinallia leaned in to whisper in Brusos’s ear. “Nallia is not my name.”

She dragged her short sword across Brusos’s throat and let him fall to the floor, grasping at the river of blood that flowed from his neck.

Cerberynn shrieked as Brusos slumped to the marble, face-first. He slithered to the floor, blood gushing from his open throat.

His guards charged at Vykinallia. As Jecht, Cerik, and Unari moved to cut them off, Vykinallia pointed to the opposite end of the atrium.

“The door!” Vykinallia shouted over Cerberynn’s wails. “I’ll handle them.”

The guards encircled her, but Jecht, Cerik, and Unari did as ordered and set out towards the front doors.

Vykinallia drew her dagger and dropped it to the floor. With a kick of her heel, she slid the dagger along the marble in her mother’s direction.

“Go back inside, Mother,” Vykinallia said, staring down the guards.

Steel scraped against stone as her mother plucked the dagger from the ground. The tablinum door creaked shut, dampening Cerberynn’s cries. Brusos’s guttural groans weakened as the throes of death came to an end.

She slowed her breath and narrowed her eyes. The guards charged, and her steel met theirs. The familiar sounds of battle rang through House Cassius, but never before in the atrium, and never before by her.

Vykinallia retreated, turning blades aside in quick succession, but with the tablinum behind her, she would soon be out of room to run. She backed toward the opposite wall, keeping the guards in front of her.

“Don’t let her ou—”

Vykinallia lunged, too fast for the armor-ladened guards. The wind of a narrowly missed strike rushed past her hair as she darted by, rounding the corner. She passed the door that descended to the barracks and charged down the steps into the circular showroom.

The clinking of ring mail and plate chased after her, but she raced onward into the center of the moonlit showroom. She jumped onto the ledge of the bath beneath the sky window. The bath, once a pool, was now reduced to a puddle. Vykinallia hopped into the water, then stepped up onto the granite slab at its center. With her boots wet, she spread the water around the smooth stone and backed to the opposite ledge of the bath.

The three guards charged in, one from either side and the other right over the top of the slab. The guard approaching from the left struck first. She blocked and spun, creating distance between her and the one coming from the right. The guard who charged head-on vaulted onto the slab, but his feet slipped on the wet surface.

He fell to his back, armor clanging on stone.

Vykinallia ducked a slash from one attacker and kicked the gray-haired guard’s knee backwards. The joint buckled, and he stumbled with a cry. Vykinallia deflected another thrust and stabbed her point into the other guard’s ribs, between the armored plates. He gasped and dropped.

The guard who had slipped regained his feet and launched himself at Vykinallia. She shoved the stabbed guard into his path. Their armor clamored together.

Vykinallia used their disunity to press the gray-haired guard. He reared his long sword and cleaved down with two hands, hoping to split her in two. Vykinallia deflected the blow, just enough, and slipped inside his reach. She thrust just above his collarbone, and the point took purchase.

She ripped her sword free. The guard’s gauntleted hand went to his shoulder as blood seeped through the white of his surcoat. Vykinallia maneuvered around the edge of the bath to retreat back to the atrium and put as much space between her and the uninjured guard as possible. But he rounded the other corner of the rectangular bath to cut off her escape. The other two, bloodied but not downed, took position behind her.

The uninjured snake stood at the edge of the moonlight, long sword aimed at her chest. His face parted in a cruel grin. The surrounding torches flickered.

“Pretty skilled with a blade,” said the guard blocking her escape. “But time you learned a little humility.”

Vykinallia’s palms were slick with sweat. Perspiration beaded on her forehead and dripped past her brow. She attempted to slow her breathing to still her racing heart. The doubt in the back of her mind clawed to the forefront.

I’m going to die.

“This will be your arena,” Lenara had said. “Win and you will be rewarded. Fall and…”

Her thoughts drifted to Zephyrus fighting Lenox with a cheese knife in this very room, while everyone watched… for entertainment.

Anger and desperation raged within her. Greater than her doubt was her will to survive, to live.

The three advanced as one. She met the uninjured guard first. She deflected a thrust and blocked a horizontal slash, then spun to step over a low sweeping strike aimed at her leg. The gray-haired guard advanced last, thrusting for her midsection. She dodged, but too late. The sharpened steel sliced through the side of her leather jerkin. Adrenaline surging, she pushed past the pain yet to come and planted her short sword in the guard’s belly. He stumbled back, but as she attempted to wrench her sword free to defend her flank, the guard’s weight wrested the blade from her grasp.

She spun at the last moment, ducking under an arcing slice that intended to part her head from her shoulders. She reached for her dagger, but it wasn’t there. Two swords darted for her at the same time, but she could only dodge one. As one narrowly missed her, she stared the second down the bevel. Coming right for her heart, there was no way to stop it. No way to avoid it.

Halfway through his thrust, the guard blocking her escape stiffened, staggered, and lowered his sword.

Not knowing what happened, Vykinallia lunged for the stunned guard and yanked the dagger from his belt. She whirled and thrust. The point pierced the guard’s eye, sinking deep into his skull. His two-handed, vertical chop faltered, and he and the guard from whom she’d taken the dagger both slumped to the marble floor, their armor clanging against the marble.

Breathing heavily, Vykinallia scanned the shadows.

A figure strode into the moonlight spilling through the sky window. Loose skirts stained red and a shift more crimson than white slid into view.

A bloody dagger clattered to the ground. Vykinallia recognized the blade.

Mine.

“Mother—”

Her mother closed the distance between them, stepping over the fallen Brusos guards, and wrapped her arms around Vykinallia.

“You’re alive, my sweet girl.”

Vykinallia’s knees went weak in her mother’s arms. Adrenaline fading, fatigue setting in, the anger and desperation she fought with crumpled into tears of equal fervor. Streaming down her cheeks to dampen her mother’s bloodstained shift, Vykinallia’s tears, silent at first, became rib-rattling sobs.

“It’s okay, Vykinallia,” her mother shushed in her ear. “You’re alive. We’re alive.”

Vykinallia sank to her knees. Her mother followed her to the ground. She clutched her mother’s shoulders, pressing her cheek to her bloody shift.

She wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. Even if she could, her sobs wouldn’t allow them a chance to pass her lips.

The fighting in the atrium reached a crescendo. In the distance, heavy, towering doors swung open, and hundreds of cheers flooded the atrium.

“You did it, Vykinallia. You did it.”

Chapter 61

Fate

Zephyrus X

Stockhelm

Blood pooled between the cracks in the stone floor, falling in a rhythmic plop from his split lip. His skull throbbed from where he was struck on the head and where his chin slammed into the ground.

“Kill him!” Paxoran’s voice escaped the Brothers’ heads and filled Zephyrus’s mind.

“The Judges have spoken,” the Seers said in unison. Simultaneously, they redrew their white-bladed daggers.

One kicked Zephyrus onto his back. The acolytes’ force magic splayed him out on the sandstone floor of Tharseo’s Bastion, exposing him to the Seers’ cruel instruments.

The room spun, but Zephyrus didn’t need to see clearly to know this was the end. The statues of the Judges loomed overhead—Vykannis’s sword raised high, Aeryss’s scepter aimed forward, and Orsius’s book of wisdom clutched under his cloak. But as Paxoran’s urgent demands of Zephyrus’s death grew louder, blotting out all other sounds, a bright white light descended from above to signal the inevitability of what was to come.

He’d failed the Judges. Fate’s jape was cruel. Everything he’d been through—everything he was supposed to do—it was all for nothing. Used. A pawn to be sacrificed in the game of Gods. A tool to be used and discarded. Everyone depending on him would suffer.

His mother would remain in Paxoran’s prison. Her messenger would likely befall the same fate for attempting to aid him. Threyna would die to Tyrus outside. The Fallen would be overwhelmed by the New Rheynians who hunted them. Laeden and Vykinallia were likely dead already. All that was left for him to do was die, and Paxoran would go unchecked, killing the other Gods until the mortal realm crumbled.

The light got brighter, but Paxoran’s commands faded as a thunderous voice echoed through the chambers.

“Light my path.”

The bright light condensed, from an all-consuming white to a small orb. “Say the words, Zephyrus. ‘Light my path.’”

The Seers paused in their assault, their glowing white eyes trained on the light.

“Kill him!” Paxoran screamed.

Zephyrus spoke the words. “Light my path.”

From the tightly held book in the statue of Orsius’s hands, a glowing sun broke free from the stone and zipped toward the Brother on Zephyrus’s left. The Brother dodged out of the way, and the golden projectile missed the mark, landing instead on Zephyrus’s forearm.

The acolytes and Brothers reared back, covering their eyes, but Zephyrus saw flashes of a life not his own. People of bronze skin and black hair, their flesh tattooed in intricate designs. A clear and calm ocean filled with massive shelled reptiles covered in cerulean and purple scales. The setting sun atop an empty funeral pyre. And a girl with red hair clutching her braid over the precipice of a cliff.

Mother?

He stared at the bronze bracer on his left forearm, a radiating sun engraved into it.

Knowledge. His mother’s knowledge flooded Zephyrus. A power, ancient and vast that his magic couldn’t hold a torch to, came alive in his fingertips. A scale that didn’t need balancing.

“Kill him!” Paxoran shouted. “Now!”

The Seers lunged for Zephyrus with their blades, but Zephyrus opened his palm.

The power of the sun blossomed to life in his hand, brighter than the messenger’s white orb and hotter than any fire he could conjure. The acolytes backed away. The Seers shot streams of water at the sun, but they evaporated to steam before reaching Zephyrus’s creation.

“Darken my stride!”

Zephyrus repeated the words.

Through his bracer’s glow, something else broke free of the statue, coming from Aeryss’s scepter. The Brother on Zephyrus’s right, still attempting to put out the sun, was struck by an obsidian bracer that wrapped itself around Zephyrus’s right forearm.

His mother’s memories flashed through his mind; her experiences became one with his own. Jet-black hair, shorn short, she lifted her arms to defend herself from an incoming axe, but a shadow formed before her. The axe struck the shadowy shield and clanged off.

“Kill him!”

The Seers gave up on the futility of extinguishing Zephyrus’s sun and rushed to obey Paxoran with daggers reaching for his chest. But with the acolytes distracted by the burning sun, Zephyrus tore his right arm free from their grasp. Just as his mother had, Zephyrus brought his arm up before him, and a shield born of shadows caught the Seers’ twin daggers.

Zephyrus ripped his other arm free and raised his burning sun to the Seers’ faces. They scrambled backwards, shielding their eyes.

With the glowing sun held before him, Zephyrus felt a kinship with the shadows they cast. They came alive—constructs for him to command. As if he’d done it a thousand times before, he ordered the shadows to grapple the bodies that cast them. Darkness coiled around the acolytes and the Seers.

Freed from the acolytes’ grasp, Zephyrus regained his feet and seized his bladeless hilt from the floor. Once in his hand, the sword came alive.

“Carry my soul!”

Zephyrus shouted the words.

Another bond broke free from Orsius’s cloak to attach onto Zephyrus’s right ankle. Wrapping around his shin, a greave with the pattern of a starry night sky brought him a rush of new memories.

His mother leapt from the side of a longboat, toward the enemy ship. They aimed strange handheld objects at her and fired projectiles of some kind, but she vanished only to reappear on the opposite side of the enemy vessel. She shot a beam of radiant light from her palms, blasting the ship to pieces. As she fell through the air, she jumped, teleporting beside another ship and repeating the destructive sunburst.

The ability returned to him as if it were something he’d only forgotten how to execute. Just as the Seers crackled with electricity and prepared to fire at Zephyrus, Zephyrus’s body dipped from the physical plane of existence. He was still in Tharseo’s Bastion, but it appeared like a reflection on the water, rippling and ever-changing. He flew, more than ran, through the bodies of the Seers and acolytes seemingly moving in slow motion. Past them, he whirled to face their backs from the opposite side of the statues. As he turned, a cerulean-blue, translucent figure of a young woman with a heart-shaped face floated near Vykannis’s feet.

Who is—

Before he had time to finish the thought, the edges solidified, and the temple before him was no longer rippling. Back in the physical plane, he let his conjured sun fade, his shadowy constructs disappearing with it.

“Where did he go?” an acolyte asked.

With Zephyrus lurking in the shadows, the acolytes and Brothers scoured the atrium. When they couldn’t locate Zephyrus, they set their sights on the glowing white orb that had spoken to Zephyrus at the feet of Vykannis’s statue.

The orb is the woman. I just can’t see her in this plane.

He didn’t know who she was, how she was doing it, or what she meant to his mother, but Zephyrus would use the gifts she’d delivered to him.

Unseen, Zephyrus drew his ancestral blade and slashed at the acolytes, drawing red streaks across the back of their white robes. Fading in and out of the physical plane to avoid the Seers’ elemental magic and the acolytes’ force magic, Zephyrus picked them off one by one, until the acolytes’ blood painted the sandstone temple.

With only the Seers remaining, Zephyrus opened his left palm, letting the sun illuminate the atrium. “I don’t want to hurt you. I only came for the Relics.”

“He cannot claim the last.” Paxoran’s roar bellowed beyond the Seers’ minds into Zephyrus’s.

“There’s one more,” the orb woman said. “I don’t know the command words.”

Zephyrus’s mouth went dry, unsure if Paxoran could hear the orb.

His mind raced, searching his own memories and his mother’s. “The Corners of Kataan—the Sun God Helios, the Moon Goddess Lunellia, the God of Space Kosmar, and Klayvorine—”

“Goddess of Time,” the orb said. The light seemed to buzz.

The Seers’ eyes glowed white-hot, emitting tendrils of mist. “The Judges chose us to protect the fate of Celestia. You will not be its doom.”

Before the orb could think of the words to summon Klayvorine’s greave, one Brother raised both hands. Water rose from the temple floor, pooling at first, but then it covered the entire atrium wall to wall. As the water rose to Zephyrus’s knees, climbing quickly, so too did the floating bodies of the acolytes. The Brother’s cloak began to smolder, his white eyes reddened.

How is he doing this?

“I’ve got it,” the orb said. “Buy me time.”

“Time for what?” Zephyrus asked. He dipped from the physical plane rather than wade through the waist-high water.

“No, that’s what I thought too,” the orb woman said, her hands animatedly gesturing with each word in the immaterial plane. “‘Buy me time.’ That’s the command phrase.”

Zephyrus reappeared behind the Brother with the smoldering cloak. The water rose to Zephyrus’s chest. He reared back his sword to strike, but, too focused on the rising water, he didn’t realize until too late that the Seers had morphed the submerged parts of their bodies to stone.

He faded from the physical plane, just as a current of electricity surged through the water. In the immaterial plane, he floated upwards to perch on Orsius’s outstretched arm.

Just as he reappeared, he shouted, “Buy me time.”

From above, breaking free from Vykannis’s raised sword, the fourth and final relic of the Corners of Kataan launched toward Zephyrus. Just then, the Brother who had nearly burned himself alive to drown the temple tipped the scales back in the other direction. An inferno blossomed above and descended from the ceiling, consuming the air in the atrium. Zephyrus peered up at the conflagration, just as Klayvorine’s essence merged with his own, attaching as a greave to his left shin.

The wealth of wisdom from his mother’s time spent with the Goddess of Time overwhelmed his senses. Instinctively, he dove away from the encroaching flames, but there was no safe place to teleport to. Using the time magic, Zephyrus slowed the flames and his fall.

With the power of more Gods than he had fingers, he still couldn’t think of a way out of this situation. He couldn’t produce a water shield to outlast the fire. He couldn’t manipulate the licking tongues away from him forever. He couldn’t teleport, hide, or enter the electric flood beneath him. His mind raced as he fell in slow motion.

No single magic will save me, but a combination might.

He turned his flesh to stone until he had more resemblance to the statue of the Judges than a man. He released his time magic and plummeted from the blaze to sink to the atrium floor. Lightning crackled through the water, but Zephyrus withstood it. Fire consumed the air above the surface and its heat emanated through the water, but Zephyrus was unharmed. He endured as the bodies of the dead acolytes floated around him crackling with the glow of lighting.

As the water began to eat away at Zephyrus’s porous stoneskin, he pressed outward with his force magic, creating a buffer between him and the water’s electric current.

The Seers waned. Their stoneskin appeared more like wet sand. The fire above faded, and the water level began to fall.

Zephyrus’s own magic fatigue began to take its toll. His arms weakened against the force of keeping the electrocuting flood at a distance.

Just a little bit longer.

He slowed time around him but allowed time to occur at a normal pace outside his aura. Gritting his teeth, he extended his arms against the electric flood attempting to swallow him.

Flashes in his mind revealed his mother, radiant as the sun, emitting tendrils of shadows as her outstretched arms held back the maw of a giant beast covered in red scales. A voice, one he somehow knew to be Klayvorine’s, echoed in his mind.

“She is the one,” Klayvorine said. “Arkadia. The Unifier. She will help us find who altered the sands of time. And through her, a savior for all of the Creator’s worlds will rise.”

Zephyrus’s mother, Arkadia, cried as the beast’s mouth closed shut around her.

Zephyrus almost lost control of his manipulation magic. No. Impossible.

His arms felt like they were about to break. The water encroached; his buffer between flesh and swirling waters narrowed.

In his mind’s eye, his mother burst free from the giant sea creature’s mouth.

Hope erupted within him. Tears streamed down his face, and with an echoing cry, he forced the waters back.

The beast fell back to the water, disappearing beneath the surface.

The Seers collapsed from magic fatigue. The electricity fizzled out. The fire consumed itself. The water drained, no longer contained to the atrium. But Zephyrus was still alive.

On his knees before the statues of the Judges, Zephyrus bowed his head—part reverence, part exhaustion. Everything that brought his mother to that moment, everything he’d been through to arrive here, it seemed an intricate puzzle with too many solutions.

Did I defy fate? Or did I fulfill it?

Threyna’s words returned to him from the last time he was at Tharseo’s Bastion.

“You are where you need to be, exactly when you must.”

He thought Paxoran was pulling the strings, but there was something greater at play. He didn’t fully understand it. But for the first time, he didn’t need to. He just needed to believe he was enough to do what was set before him.

Zephyrus rose to his feet. The sword with his, his mother’s, and his father’s blood forged in the steel thrummed with life in his hand.

I believe, Mother. And I will finish what you started.

Part VIII

Chapter 62

The Last Dance

Vykinallia XII

Stockhelm

Vykinallia leaned against the windowsill overlooking all of Stockhelm as her mother stitched the wound in her side. She winced, digging her nails into the wooden frame, but the pain in her side wasn’t half as bad as the blight before her.

Thousands of torches illuminated the grounds outside of the Cassius villa, seeming to spawn more with each passing moment. Not every soldier held a torch, which only made the sea of flickering light all the more intimidating. When white tents began sprouting up in neat rows, Vykinallia had been initially grateful for the respite, but as the reality of a siege weighed on her, she realized her folly. If Damascus did what was prudent, he could wait and starve them out. Without rain, they’d be out of water in a day and out of food in less.

She lifted her gaze to the horizon. Not a single rain cloud marred the sky. The moon and stars showered the landscape with silver light. With all of Stockhelm before her, the Stormburn Geyser stretched to the heavens beyond. Adjacent to the geyser and just past the Crystal River, smoke rose in billowing plumes from where House Arux once stood, but try as it might to look like a dark cloud, it carried with it nothing but ash.

“It’s possible they made it out, though, right?” her mother asked in regards to Markus, Laeden, and those who remained behind.

“Anything is possible,” Vykinallia said, but she had trouble believing it.

Markus stayed behind with Laeden, faithful to the end. They, along with a score of others unable to travel with haste, remained at House Arux.

Bait. Distraction. Fodder.

Their gambit allowed the bulk of the Fallen to pass between Damascus and Brusos’s forces, but with Brusos’s forces split, it begged the question if perhaps Iberion’s southbound assault was less of a suicide mission than originally thought.

The door opened. Vykinallia turned toward the door. The motion evoked another grunt as she stretched the skin along her wounded ribs.

“Hold still,” her mother said.

Jecht, Cerik, and Lenara entered what was once Vykinallia’s parents’ bedchambers.

Lenara cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, it’s as we feared; the Brusos provisions are ill stocked. If they attempt to starve us out, we won’t last long.”

She approached Vykinallia and her mother by the window. “But with Ebron and Cerberynn Brusos among the dead, we have two fewer mouths to feed. Your plan worked, Vykinallia. You’ve saved many lives… at least for this night.”

Vykinallia grunted as her mother sewed another stitch in her skin. “Laeden’s plan.”

“You got us inside,” Lenara said. “Laeden allowed us a way out, but you’re the reason we got in.”

Vykinallia puffed out her cheeks, returning her gaze to the army outside. The praise did little to lift spirits. Though she possessed the higher ground and sturdy defenses, time was not on their side. Damascus didn’t need to do anything but wait, and that dread wriggled through her skin worse than her mother’s sewing needle.

She winced again.

“Sorry, sorry,” her mother said. “I wish you would have let the medicus tend to this. It’s deeper than ‘just a scratch.’”

The medicus attended to Unari. Without her fire magic clearing the way, Jecht and Cerik never would have made it to the front doors. She’d overexerted herself and was shivering as if she’d slept at the top of the Silver Summits.

Vykinallia exhaled. “You’re doing great, Mother.” She nodded her head in Cerik and Jecht’s direction. “What of the gladiators and Brusos’s men?”

“The Brusos guards who surrendered have been confined to the barracks,” Cerik said.

“Gladiators and slaves are freed,” Jecht added. “Less of ‘em than I remember, though.”

Vykinallia bit her lip, recalling the times when empty cells in her barracks were her worst nightmare. Following Laytonus’s murder, Taric’s attack on Stegavax, and Fenyx’s brawl with Stegavax during the Kings’ Day Games, she had worried, not about the men who’d lost their lives, but the lost investment. Now the thought made her sick.

“Could you send Auron up?” Vykinallia asked.

Vykinallia’s mother paused her stitching. “He’s gone, Vykinallia.”

Gone?

Vykinallia’s mouth went dry. She wanted to say something, to ask what happened, but with an army within a stone’s throw, now was not the time.

“Fenyx too,” Cerik said. “Shagren said he was chained to the palus prior to our attack. Many Sentinels and Brusos guards surround the palus, but Fenyx is nowhere to be found.”

“Is he dead?” Vykinallia asked.

Her mother shrugged.

“No one knows,” Jecht said. “But Odetta’s body was found.”

Vykinallia hung her head. She didn’t understand how or why, but now was not the time. “I suppose a great many things have changed.” Her thoughts drifted to Zephyrus, hoping he was not another whom she wrongly believed invincible.

Turning her thoughts of the past to more pressing current events, Vykinallia asked Lenara, “What is the plan?”

Lenara’s footsteps drew near until she stood beside Vykinallia to stare out the window to the troops and their white tents below. “Sinion and Teluvar sent word to their people. If we’re lucky their messengers reached their destinations and will know we’re here. It’s possible Falcos didn’t know of their strongholds and they can aid us…somehow.”

The momentary pause was wide enough for doubt to slip in and wedge a pry bar.

“What about Sinion?” Vykinallia asked. “What is he saying?”

Cerik grunted. “Don’t worry about Sinion.”

“He’s wishin’ he never let anyone talk him into coming outta his shell,” Jecht said.

Vykinallia closed her eyes. “We can’t wait for them to starve us out. And we can’t hope to rely on reinforcements.”

Lenara crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you propose?”

Vykinallia recalled her first time visiting Salmantica as Damascus’s guest. He was kind and gallant once. Before the mages took his father, before Danella tricked him into believing her lies. Vykinallia took the thoughts captive.

No. He was never kind. The mages didn’t do this to him. Danella didn’t do this to him. It only revealed what he truly was all along: a prideful, entitled narcissist who believed he was doing the work of the Gods.

Then it hit her.

She held out her hands to stop her mother’s sewing. “I have an idea… but you’re not going to like it.”

Lenara and Vykinallia’s mother protested at first, but they eventually submitted. In the dead of night, they would sneak from the ludus, pass the guards, and assassinate Damascus in his tent. If successful, many of the Salmantic troops might abandon the siege. An army absent its leader and a kingdom absent an heir would create unrivaled dissidence within the patricians. Anarchy. Chaos. The Senate would have to take control, but Salmantica and Valtarcia would likely divide, giving the Fallen the opportunity to claim Stockhelm for its own, and that was something Lenara couldn’t turn down.

Her mother agreed with the plan but objected to Vykinallia’s involvement.

“There are hundreds of fighters with more experience than you,” her mother said. “Why does it have to be you? I can’t lose you again—I won’t.”

But it had to be her. It could only be her. Damascus was to be her husband. It was her job to guide him, and just like Danella had to her husband Varros, Vykinallia would do what she must to ensure that his rule would not ruin the kingdom.

Danella’s last conversation with her returned to her. “The future will hinge on every choice you make.”

Vykinallia’s choice was made.

Jecht, Cerik, Sett, and Dankar volunteered to join her, five fighters under each of their commands. Unari offered to accompany them as well, but with her health still in question, Lenara forbade the fire mage from leaving the medicus’s chambers.

And so, disguised in black cloaks, the four leaders, their cohorts of five fighters, and Vykinallia left the safety of the villa. Each from different exits and heading in different directions, they hoped to take the Salmantics unaware. While the others set out in groups, Vykinallia climbed the west tower by herself. She descended the Hill, the opposite way in which they had come to steal the ludus from Brusos, and slunk through the darkness to circumvent the north side of the Salmantic camp.

The tents protruded from the ground like whitecaps from the choppy sea. Seemingly as many as the stars in the sky, their enemies were boundless. But only one needed to fall this night, and when his crown clattered to the ground, a new age would rise with the dawn.

As she neared the northeast edge of the camp, crawling on her belly, she peered over a mound in the landscape. Two sentries leaning on spears stood watch. Just beyond them, the red-and-black pavilion with the Drake chimera stood stark above the surrounding white tents. Two King’s Guard Knights paced the perimeter of Damascus’s tent.

Her stomach fluttered. Her palms were slick with moisture as she gripped the hilt of her dagger. One well-placed blade was all it would take. She just needed to wait for the others to set their distractions.

Keeping her black hood low, she scanned the outskirts of the camp.

Smoke rose over the southwest end of the camp.

A distant horn sounded, stirring the sleepers. As half-armored, bleary-eyed knights poured from their tents, another trumpet blared, this time from the northwest edge of the Salmantic siege. Fire chased the smoke towards the sky as the clank of clamoring soldiers and the shouts of their leaders filled the air.

Another pillar of smoke to the south. Another horn.

While the sentries and the King’s Guard Knights had the discipline not to leave their posts, they turned in the direction of the most recent horn.

Vykinallia took deep steadying breaths. Her heart hammered against her leather jerkin.

One more…

This fire, lit by Jecht, was much closer than the others. On the eastern end of camp, the glow of the flames were visible before the smoke.

“They’re behind us!” one sentry shouted.

Damascus emerged from his tent, armored in full plate, sword in hand. “Men, on me!” The King’s Guard Knights and the sentries ran to Damascus’s side and charged east.

With their backs toward her, Vykinallia crept into the camp. Eyes darting left and right, she weaved between the empty white tents to approach the black-and-red pavilion.

A group of soldiers charged in her direction. At their approach, she snuck inside an empty tent and crouched, waiting behind the flap with her dagger poised to strike. Their armor clanked, and their feet stomped the dry ground, but they ran past, following in Damascus’s direction. Once their clanking was beyond earshot, she poked her head out of the tent and looked both directions.

No one guarded Damascus’s tent. All she had to do was sneak in and wait. Once the fires were put out and the Salmantics returned to their tents to slumber, long after Jecht, Cerik, Sett, and Dankar had led their fighters safely back to the ludus, then Vykinallia would strike. If she failed, her name would be muttered in the same breath as the Hechts who assassinated King Damascus Drake II. But if she succeeded, the Drake name would fall from history’s mouth, never to be uttered again. The death of one empire, the beginning of something new.

She spirited herself between the last few tents that separated her from Damascus’s pavilion like a black wraith. Outside the tent, she pulled back the flap and slipped inside. The interior, however, was not what she had expected.

In the wide expanse of the pavilion, there was only one cot at its center. Plain, unadorned, ordinary. She had expected a lavish layout with area rugs, a desk or table of some kind, and a bed worthy of a king. Doubt wriggled through her mind and ate at her plan.

Where am I going to hide?

Perhaps she’d struck too early. If servants were still setting up Damascus’s tent, there was no hope for her to remain hidden, even if she could find a place to conceal herself.

Vykinallia punched her thigh and bit back a curse.

But wait …the King’s Guard stood sentry. Why place a cot within if they were going to set it up later? And why, if he was preparing for a siege, would Damascus not want every available comfort?

There was only one answer. Vykinallia shook her head, wishing she’d realized it sooner. When Damascus had ransomed her from the Fallen at the Stockhelm town square, he hadn’t worn his armor.

He dressed as a King’s Guard Knight.

Whoever was masquerading as Damascus would sleep here and wear his armor, but that meant Damascus would sleep somewhere else. Somewhere close. Vykinallia slipped between the tent flaps and returned to the shadows. Fires blossomed at all corners of the camp, but if she couldn’t find Damascus’s tent before the Salmantics realized it was a farce, her whole plan would implode. She searched the neighboring tents for any discrepancies.

One will stand out, different from the rest. It must.

Vykinallia peeked inside the three tents that faced the front of the king’s pavilion, but they held little else besides three to four bedrolls and half-eaten rations. She moved onto the next along the south side of Damascus’s fake tent, but nothing. One by one, she searched, and with each empty tent, the wriggling worm of doubt grew into a snake large enough to devour her.

Due east of the black-and-red tent, one tent faced the opposite direction as the others. Where every other tent was oriented to face the Hylan Peaks and the Cassius ludus, this one’s flap was positioned east.

Vykinallia slowed to a prowl as she neared the flap. Listening intently for any sign of life inside, she held her dagger at the ready just in case an unsuspecting servant waited within. Her heart raced, but she didn’t have time to calm it. With a deep breath, she pressed the flap in and followed inside.

She stepped onto a plush carpet. Dim candlelight illuminated the inside of the tent. Though the fabric outside was white, the inside was lined with black. One proper bed, one desk, one dresser, and two sets of armor oriented on mannequins filled Damascus’s true tent.

Slipping inside, she let the flap close behind her. A smirk drew across her lips. There were plenty of places to hide. Even with the candle, the jam-packed tent left nooks and crannies for her to lie in wait until Damascus returned.

When he does, I’ll—

“Come to kill me, have you?”

Vykinallia wheeled to her left toward the corner where the voice had come from. Golden eyes glared from beyond the darkness. They rose as he stood from his seated position. Vykinallia backed away. One step, then two. Her heel pressed against something hard and unyielding.

Damascus stepped into the flickering candlelight. He wore a black satin doublet. In his hand, the ruby embedded in the pommel of an obsidian dagger caught the light. His brows angled as his lips opened, but his teeth remained clenched.

“I would have given you the world,” he hissed. “And this is how you repay me? A dagger as I sleep.”

Vykinallia swallowed. Her free hand felt along the wooden desk behind her. Plan in shambles, her mind raced, searching for any way out of this alive. She raised her hand clutching the dagger and slowly sheathed it at her belt.

“I only want to talk,” she said, her free hand still feeling along the desktop for something—anything—to strike with should she not be able to make him see reason.

Damascus growled, his cheeks burning red. “Talk? You betrayed me. You made me look like a fool. And now you want to talk?”

He spat the words like poison and made talk sound like the most reviled of all curses.

“Damascus, you don’t understand.” She shook her head. She didn’t need to feign fear, but sadness she did. She allowed her lower lip to tremble. A tear welled in the corner of her eye. “I couldn’t go back with you.”

Damascus stepped closer, his knuckles white around the dagger’s hilt. Vykinallia sidestepped, following the edge of the table. She traced its top with her fingertips until she found something. Scooping it in her fingers, she clutched what felt like a letter opener in her palm.

She stepped around the desk, running out of room to maneuver in the crowded tent. Backing past the dresser toward the candle on the bedside table, she cupped her fist before her mouth as if the words were difficult to say.

“Your mother, Damascus,” Vykinallia said, sniffling. “She arranged for Brusos’s bodyslave, Falcos, to abduct me.”

Damascus’s advance paused. His feet rooted to the plush carpet as if he were posing for a portrait. His chin jutted backwards, and he shook his head.

“It’s the truth, Damascus,” Vykinallia said, speaking into her hands as if she were praying. “You have to believe me.”

“But why—”

“She didn’t want me to marry you!” Vykinallia blurted. “She thought I would turn you against the Six and…” Her voice trailed off as if the words were too difficult to speak.

She closed her eyes.

I’m running out of time. Either I must convince him or kill him.

The letter opener dug into her sweat-slicked palms. Damascus shook his head over and over again as if he were trying to process the words, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get them to make sense.

“Damascus, none of that matters now.”

Damascus came closer, his dagger low, but still in hand. Vykinallia backed away and turned her shoulder to him.

“It’s too late. Don’t you see? I did what I had to… to survive. But she gave me no choice. And now, there’s no going back. I can never be queen.”

Damascus lowered his dagger to his waist, its tip angled down.

“They sent me to kill you,” Vykinallia said. “But I came to ask you.” She stepped closer, a tear escaping down her cheek. She crept in until their toes were nearly touching. Within striking distance, she inclined her head to look him in the eye. “Please leave. Let them have Stockhelm. Let me make the most of this life your mother has forced me into.”

Damascus’s shoulders deflated as his held breath escaped his lungs. He sheathed his dagger and lifted his left hand to her cheek. She nestled into his touch, though it made her skin want to crawl.

“Nallia,” he whispered. “I won’t let them win. I won’t let them have you. I’ll defeat them, and together—”

Vykinallia let her gaze fall, her hands held before her chin. There’s no other choice. She took a deep breath. “We’ll never be together.”

She drove the letter opener clutched in her left palm into Damascus’s left wrist. Damascus gasped, but before he could react, she reached her right hand for the dagger at her belt. Rearing back, she plunged the dagger for his stomach.

He stepped backwards and caught her wrists in his hands. Warm and sticky blood drained down his left hand, covering her wrist. Anger tinged his cheeks; betrayal burned in his eyes.

As she attempted to drive the dagger home, he snapped back his head and brought the crown of it down on the bridge of her nose. Cartilage crunched, and she stumbled backwards, slipping free of Damascus’s grip. She crashed into the bedside table and the mannequins next to it that held Damascus’s different armors. The plate mail clanged against itself as it spilled onto the carpet.

Damascus turned from her and made for the corner she’d found him sitting in upon arrival. He returned with his scabbard and drew his long sword, tossing the scabbard aside. He directed the blade at her, breathing heavily.

Vykinallia spat blood. Head still spinning, she regained her feet and passed her dagger to her left hand to draw her short sword in the right.

Damascus charged in. Too fast, too angry. His strikes came with a fury beyond form. Vykinallia staggered backwards to meet each blow, again knocking into the bedside table, scattering its contents to the floor.

“Everyone is a liar!” Damascus spat as his onslaught continued.

He swung right, chopped left—each attack bashing Vykinallia off-balance.

“There is no one—” He slashed again and again, their steel clashing together. “No one I can trust!” Blood continued to pour from Damascus’s wrist, covering his hand and dripping onto the carpet below.

Vykinallia couldn’t respond. The air of the tent became hot and acrid. Heat radiated at her back. Absent her mobility, it took all of her strength to turn Damascus’s strokes aside. Her arms already ached; her ribs were still too raw from where Brusos’s guard pierced her.

Damascus reared to load a two-handed overhead strike, but his long sword caught the tent’s roof. Vykinallia seized the moment and stabbed at Damascus’s stomach. Stumbling back, he kicked her in the midsection. The blow sent her staggering, but she lunged to strike again. Damascus yanked his sword free at the last moment to deflect her away and followed up with a punch.

His bloody fist slid off her cheekbone. Though it wasn’t a direct hit, it was enough to send her reeling. She crashed into a low dresser at the foot of the bed and was upended. She pressed herself to her feet, disoriented from the blow to her head and the tumble thereafter. But as she regained her surroundings, the back wall of the tent by the bedside table had ignited into a wall of fire.

Smoke filled the tent.

She made her way to the tent flap to escape, but Damascus cut her off with a horizontal swipe. The force behind his strike took him off-balance, but when Vykinallia caught the blade on her short sword, the reverberation nearly jarred the hilt from her hand. She held but allowed the momentum to aid her spin. She ducked and slashed at Damascus’s thigh with her dagger. The steel sliced through his britches, drawing a scarlet line across his outer thigh. Damascus stumbled back, giving Vykinallia the opportunity to duck out of the flaming tent.

Fresh air flooded her lungs as she escaped into the night, but so too did the clash of steel.

Fighting? They should have retreated.

The fires her men set raged on the outskirts of the encampment, but she had not expected to find skirmishes between the tents.

Damascus charged out of the tent, his sword sweeping in vicious arcs. Her momentary distraction almost cost her her head. She lurched backwards, out of the tip’s reach. She raised her short sword to block a slash aimed at her shoulder, deflected a thrust that sought to skewer her through the navel, and high-stepped over an uppercutting swipe that would have severed her leg below the knee. Damascus’s forms were erratic—all fury and no technique. He lacked the gracefulness he’d demonstrated when sparring for the right to court her. Now he was all brutality.

Whoever ordered the attack from the east had prevented Damascus from summoning reinforcements, but the camp became a battlefield as more fighters pushed the Salmantic soldiers backwards.

Sweat dripped down her neck, and blood poured from Damascus’s bloody hand. Vykinallia dodged a thrust and slipped inside Damascus’s reach. She stabbed with her short sword, but Damascus’s block carried both their blades too far. Vykinallia plunged her dagger into Damascus’s shoulder.

The blade pierced Damascus’s doublet just above his right collarbone. Damascus roared, but he shoved her away, tearing her dagger free. Sword arm drooping, Damascus gripped his long sword with both hands and cleaved down at her. She dodged, moving inside his range, but he elbowed her in the jaw.

Her vision swam, and the world turned upside down as he swept her leg. Her back landed hard on the ground, knocking the wind from her lungs.

“You murderous bi—” Damascus stabbed at her belly.

Vykinallia rolled out of the way and slashed—more at the air between them than at him. She’d lost her dagger somewhere in the fall, but with another chop aimed at her head, she had no time to search for it. She blocked Damascus’s strike and swept his leg out from under him with a well-placed kick to the back of the knee.

Damascus fell to his side, and Vykinallia pounced. She shoved him onto his back and drove her right knee into Damascus’s bloody left wrist, pinning it to the ground. He struck at her with his long sword, but her left hand grabbed his right wrist. He grit his teeth, straining against her, but she had him pinned, short sword aimed at his throat.

She felt like she was supposed to say something like “Yield!” or look to the editor of the games to see what fate Damascus’s performance had earned. But this wasn’t the arena. This was war. His golden eyes glared daggers into her because he knew this was his end.

She reared back to drive the sword point home, but something punched her in the back. She glanced in its direction, but a bloody sword point emerged through the front of her shoulder.

Her body went rigid. Her mind couldn’t process what her eyes beheld.

Her grip on Damascus’s wrist faltered, and she fell on top of him. Blood had sprayed across Damascus’s face, but she didn’t understand.

As the sword that pierced her body was ripped free, the pain lanced through her like a bolt of lightning that had caught fire.

Damascus shoved her off of him. She rolled, unable to resist his force until she came to a stop on her back, staring at the starry night sky. Smoke billowed, racing to Valencia, but a sudden chill came over her. A knight in Damascus’s armor stood over her, a bloody sword in his hand.

The knight hauled Damascus to his feet. Damascus claimed his sword and stumbled atop her, straddling her.

The knight flipped his visor up to reveal flinty gray eyes. “We’re under attack, your grace. We need to leave. Now.”

Aemos Horne. Stabbed in the back by Aemos Horne.

She was so close. She’d beaten Damascus. But he would live. And she would die. He would keep his crown, and the Celestic people would remain in squalor.

Damascus didn’t listen to Aemos. He loomed over her, sword gripped in both hands, tip aimed down at the center of her leather jerkin.

Vykinallia let her head loll to the side. She didn’t want to look at Damascus. She didn’t want to think about Damascus. The fires raged all around her, but they did nothing to stop the cold that clung to her like a wet blanket. Figures approached in the distance, but Vykinallia closed her eyes to them—to the pain, the cold, the world.

Her thoughts drifted to Zephyrus. When he healed her elbow. When he held her after he’d lit the candles into infernos in her chambers. When they kissed.

All the tension fled her body as she sank into the ground.

I’m sorry, Zephyrus. I should have told you the truth… I love—

A cold spike lanced into her midsection, as Damascus plunged his long sword into her stomach.

Chapter 63

Fall of Honor, Death of Justice

Laeden XIV

Stockhelm

Covered in filth from hiding in the latrine while the villa burned, and drenched in the blood of Brusos’s men after reuniting with Iberion’s fighters in the south, Laeden charged alongside Markus and Iberion toward the fires of the Salmantic camp.

His foul-smelling boots squelched with each footfall. The blood-soaked linen covering his forearm dripped, leaving a trail in his wake, but Laeden forged onward, prepared to make sure Damascus reaped what he had sown.

“Why would they attack?” Markus asked through labored breaths. “If they took the ludus and forced a siege, why attack?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Laeden said. “We join!”

Their numbers, bolstered by Sinion’s and Teluvar’s men, who had received messengers to seek refuge in the Hylan ludus, were enough to make a decent fight. After cutting down the first wave of Salmantic scouts, they surged into the camp, where more heavily armored knights awaited in defensive formations.

Laeden grit his teeth, leading the charge, but as they neared the black lion shields, Iberion pulled ahead of him. With a shout, the half-blind man leapt and thrust his bastard sword over top of the shield wall. Laeden, Markus, and the other freedpeople crashed into the knights.

Swords met shields. Cries filled the air as steel slipped between plate mail or through leather armor. Knights fell. Freedpeople fell. Death was indiscriminate, but once the element of surprise had worn off, the Salmantics’ superior training and better equipment would win the day.

Damascus must fall. They must retreat, surrender, or die quickly.

Laeden blocked a sword thrust and slashed at the knights’ shields, but another thrust pierced the freedman next to him. More freedpeople stormed into the burning camp from all angles. Their only hope was to surround the knights and not give them the chance to refortify.

Iberion stabbed one knight through the slit of his visor, creating a gap in the shield wall. Laeden pressed through, shoving one black-clad knight into Markus’s waiting sword. He blocked a short chop and a cross hack before countering. He bashed the knight’s sword into the adjacent enemy’s helm. With the knight’s arm raised, Laeden drove the point through the gap in the armor.

Bone crunched and organs tore as Laeden ripped his blade free, but for each knight that fell, two, even three freedpeople were sent to the afterlife. Markus broke through the shield wall, pinning a knight’s arm down and striking him over the head, but it wasn’t until the freedpeople flanked around the burning tents to attack the knights from the rear that they made progress.

As the Salmantic defense faltered, Laeden and Markus pushed through. People died all around them as the living greedily gasped acrid air into their lungs. Bodies pressed together, a mess of limb and steel, but through the turmoil, Laeden saw Damascus.

His red-and-black plate mail, as imposing as it was beautiful, reflected the flames and the night sky. Damascus charged and stabbed someone in the back only a short distance away.

The person turned to examine the blade protruding from their shoulder.

Laeden’s breath caught.

Vykinallia!

“No!” Markus shoved past Laeden in the scrum of bodies until he broke through the knights’ crumbling formation and the flanking freedpeople. Vykinallia fell to the ground, and Damascus hauled a man, dressed in black, up to his feet.

Damascus?

Laeden’s mind was cloudy. A bloodied Damascus stood before someone else dressed in Damascus’s armor. Damascus seized his long sword and limped over Vykinallia, his sword tip just above her navel.

Markus broke through the bodies and charged for Damascus, but too late. Damascus raised his hilt to the sky and slammed the point into Vykinallia’s stomach.

Vykinallia let out a languishing cry, but it was nothing compared to Markus’s.

Her brother ran to her aid, closing the distance between them to attack Damascus with reckless fury. Damascus never saw the attack coming, but the knight, masquerading as the king, met Markus’s strike. As the two deadlocked, Laeden charged past to attack Damascus.

Damascus twirled at the last second, meeting Laeden’s strike and sending them both off-balance. If not for his fatigue and injuries, Laeden would have kept his feet, but as it was, they both fell to the ground.

Damascus found who had hit him and hammered the dirt with his fist. “I knew it was too good to be true for you to be dead.” He nodded at Laeden’s bloody forearm as he forced himself to his feet. “Clever trick. But it changes nothing!”

With two hands on his long sword, Damascus slashed at Laeden just as he stood, but the strike was clumsy, lacking the sure-footed approach such an all-out attack required. Laeden turned it aside and countered. Damascus reeled to deflect, but Laeden’s steel, having already acquired a thirst for blood, sliced the side of Damascus’s left arm.

Bleeding from half a dozen other wounds and paler than usual, Damascus’s golden eyes struggled to focus on Laeden. He wobbled but held his ground.

Markus traded blows with the man in Damascus’s armor until the two separated and he lifted the visor of his helm. Aemos Horne’s flinty gray eyes stared back at Markus, a cruel grin painted across his mug.

“For everything you’ve robbed me of,” Aemos said, “now I have taken something from you.” His laughter belted forth from his armor, poisoning the air around him.

This was no place for laughter. Mired in death, stained by smoke. This was worse than the Haunted Hollow.

Markus charged at Aemos, and their battle resumed with greater animosity than before. Vykinallia wheezed on the ground beside them, attempting to drag herself away from the thick of the fighting.

Laeden advanced on Damascus. Damascus thrust, but Laeden swatted his sword aside and aimed his own point at Damascus’s throat. Damascus still attempted to strike at Laeden with his injured arms, but Laeden caught Damascus by the wrist and twisted.

“Yield!” Laeden yelled. “Surrender. End this!”

Damascus’s blood-spattered face contorted. “This is what you always wanted, eh? You wanted to be king.”

Laeden hissed. “I wanted none of this!”

A bolt of lightning exploded to the north only a short distance away. Rows of knights broke formation as electricity coursed through their metal armor.

“Do it, then,” Damascus spat. “Traitor. I will never submit to you and your mages.”

Another bolt of lightning, this one closer, caused all four of them to shudder.

“No. Stop!”

Laeden couldn’t imagine there was one person on this battlefield who didn’t want this to stop. But war was not a place for wants. Only a place for death and loss.

“You leave me no choice, Damascus,” Laeden said.

Just as he prepared to slip his point through Damascus’s throat, Aemos’s bulk slammed into both of them. Damascus fell from Laeden’s grasp to the ground. Laeden turned to Aemos, but it appeared as if Markus had thrown Aemos off-balance as opposed to Aemos charging into them voluntarily. Markus slashed at Aemos. Steel bit past plate, finding purchase beneath the armor. Aemos grunted, but as Markus attempted to yank his sword free, it remained wedged in Aemos’s armor.

Laeden reacted too slowly.

Aemos stabbed Markus through the chest and twisted the blade.

Markus’s green eyes widened. His face drained of color.

He staggered backwards, losing his grip on his sword. Aemos’s sword emerged from Markus’s torso drenched in dark blood. Markus’s hand clutched his chest. He stumbled before falling to the ground, unmoving.

Heat rose within Laeden. Fire flowed through his veins. The pressure that had been building since his father’s abduction, that grew with Iylea’s death and multiplied with every failure he’d endured afterwards, erupted.

Laeden screamed.

He hauled Damascus to his feet and placed his blade at his throat.

“No!” the voice that had cried earlier shouted again.

His father, Varros Helixus, charged at them, his hand outstretched. A torrent of water burst from his hand and crashed into Aemos. The force lifted Aemos from his feet and sent him sprawling prone and sliding across the ground.

“Father?” Damascus asked.

“Put the sword down, Laeden,” Varros said as he came near. “Please.”

Laeden’s hand trembled on his hilt. His eyes darted from Damascus to his father, then to Markus lying supine, staring at the sky. Vykinallia crawled over to her brother, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

“I can’t do that,” Laeden said to his father. “He won’t surrender.”

Damascus’s breath quivered. “You’re alive?”

“You must both call for an end to this,” their father said.

The camp all around them was a bloodbath ringed in fire. Freedpeople and Salmantic knights littered the ground. The Ridge Knights and freed gladiators Laeden had sent to Valtarcia returned. Led by Kherus and Joru, they forced back the Salmantic knights. In the distance, the doors of the Cassius ludus yawned open as more Fallen and freedpeople surged to join the fray.

“The realm needs stability,” Varros said. “Unity. The people will listen to you.”

Damascus grunted. Laeden didn’t lower his sword—he couldn’t.

“Please,” Varros said, drawing close, within arm’s reach. “You are my sons. What peace can exist in a realm if it cannot be held between brothers?”

In his father’s slate-blue eyes Laeden saw the future Varros believed in. One of compromise, accepted differences, and tolerance. Laeden wanted to believe it too, but he didn’t.

Varros’s fingers touched Laeden’s hand as he strangled his sword hilt.

Reluctantly, Laeden allowed his father to pull his sword away from Damascus’s throat.

“End this,” Varros said. “Let peace reign.” He clasped a hand on each of their shoulders.

Damascus shook his head. “I can’t believe, after all this time… you’re alive.” He met their father’s eyes. “Mage.”

Damascus punched Varros in the stomach—once, twice, a third time. Each time, his hand came away bloody. Varros stumbled backwards. His hands dropped to his stomach, but Damascus drove him backwards, continuing to jab an obsidian black dagger into Varros’s flesh.

“I won’t make peace with liars and mages!” Damascus screamed.

Laeden, as if he hadn’t already lost everything that mattered in the world, slashed across his brother’s back, blazing a red comet through the black satin doublet.

Varros fell to the ground. Honor, justice, and every ideal Laeden thought he’d ever lived for fell with him. As his father crumpled to the ground, clutching the stab wounds in his gut, Laeden shoved Damascus to the earth. He strode over to his half-brother’s downed form and stepped on his wrist holding the dagger.

Markus dead. Varros dying. Everything ruined. If only I’d killed you sooner.

He chopped down at his brother’s neck, intending to cleave his head from his shoulders.

As he swung his blade down, a long sword interrupted its path, and a shove sent him backwards.

Aelon, wearing the black-and-red armor of the King’s Guard Knights, stood over Damascus. An emptiness that began in Laeden’s belly seeped into every fiber of his being. A dread of inevitable failure weighed heavily upon his tired shoulders. The overwhelming seeds of betrayal and loss sprouted into anger, his anger into stalks of wrath, and his wrath into the thorns of vengeance.

“You bastards,” Laeden shouted. “All of you.”

Aelon held his gaze but ignored him. “Aemos, escort the king to safety. We will deal with Laeden.”

Laeden glanced to Aelon’s left and right, then over his shoulder. Laeden was surrounded by Damascus’s King’s Guard Knights. Beyond them, the Salmantic knights had regrouped, and even surrounded by freedpeople, former gladiators, and a handful of Ridge Knights, they still had the upper hand.

With the swords of the King’s Guard Knights aimed at Laeden, Aemos stalked around him to help Damascus to his feet.

Damascus glared at Laeden. “When you’re done, bring me his head.”

Chapter 64

The Vykane Blade

Threyna XII

Stockhelm

Tyrus’s blade darted towards Threyna’s chest, but just as the tip was about to pierce her flesh, a shadow shrouded her view of him.

Tyrus’s steel careened off the shadow as if he’d struck a shield. The shadow evaporated, but Tyrus lost his grip on Threyna. She wriggled free and scrambled backwards along the sand. He slashed again, but a new shadow interrupted the path of his strike.

Tyrus roared, whipping his head left and right to locate the source of the shadow shields. Threyna didn’t care. She reached for her Inner Throne again and for a moment found it. With the available blood Tyrus had spilled, Threyna conjured a double-sided blood spear.

A number of shadow shields sprung into existence all around Tyrus. Each faded in the time it took Tyrus to cast his red-scale eye upon it. But with Tyrus distracted, Threyna charged towards Ceres’s fallen form and drew in breath. Consuming his essence, Threyna restitched her wounds and squared off against Tyrus.

“Reveal yourself!” Tyrus shouted.

No sooner had the words come out than a blinding sun spawned to life on Tyrus’s left. He lifted his arm to shield his face. Threyna saw spots, but Tyrus’s preoccupation allowed her to sink deeper into her Inner Throne. Blinded by the light, Threyna sought Tyrus’s ever-quickening heartbeat. She found it but felt Zephyrus nearby as well.

She sensed more than saw Tyrus swinging blindly. She held her blood spear before her, and his sword clanged off it. She let it dissolve to ash and launched herself at Tyrus. Momentum on her side, she dragged him to the ground. With her hands feeling at his already-scratched face from the first time she tore the scale free from his face, she jammed her thumb into Tyrus’s right eye socket.

Her Inner Throne vanished. It ceased to exist, as if she’d never felt its power before. But here, she didn’t need it.

Tyrus screamed as he flailed, but she flipped her body away from his errant sword strokes so her feet were opposed to his.

Digging her thumb deeper, she felt the scale dislodge. She snaked her index finger around it and ripped the scale from Tyrus’s skull, flinging it as far as she could. Blinded by light, Threyna dove into her seat of power. Searching for available blood, she found it contained in steel. She tugged on it and sensed it elongate. It flew through the air towards her, obeying her command.

Tyrus wrenched free of her grasp, but his pounding heart drummed the dirge of the fearful.

“No! Stop them!” Paxoran cried.

Threyna caught the hilt of the blood-forged steel. Once it met her flesh, courage flooded her veins. It drowned out the rot of the Skeleton King’s corruptive blood magic, and similar to how she felt donning the Orsion Cloak, a rush of something greater than herself was birthed within her chest.

This is the Vykane Blade.

Once within her grasp, it made sense. She recalled the concussive blast that happened when Zephyrus struck Tyrus’s Aeryean Armor at Valenforth.

They can’t harm one another.

Tyrus, still blinded by the burning sun that spawned on the shore, slashed at the air, but Threyna didn’t need to see him to know where he was. Threyna sensed Tyrus’s thundering heart beneath the Aeryean Armor. She stalked around him, giving a wide berth from his erratic cuts until she was behind him.

“Behind you!” Paxoran cried to Tyrus.

Threyna slashed a handspan higher than Tyrus’s thudding heart.

The steel met flesh, slicing through bone, brain, and Tyrus’s empty eye socket.

Tyrus crumpled to the ground. Paxoran’s voice faded as if he had fallen down a well.

Threyna released her Inner Throne, and the blood of the Vykane Blade refused her call. The blade retracted into nothingness, and the hilt fell from her grasp.

She winked one eye open, but the sun had swallowed itself, leaving her and Tyrus’s corpse bathed in moonlight on the shore. A bright green aura emanated from the pouch at her hip. Threyna plucked the last of her Viridite glowstones from it and held it up before her. Radiating a brilliant emerald green, its steady light illuminated the beach.

Soft footsteps approached in the sand. Threyna held the Viridite up as Zephyrus approached, a white orb floating over his shoulder.

Threyna smirked. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

Zephyrus nodded. The combination of the glowstone’s green and the orb’s white illuminated his bruised and bloodied face.

“I see it didn’t exactly go as planned,” Threyna said.

“Not quite,” Zephyrus said. “Or perhaps perfectly to plan. Still not sure about that part.”

Threyna snorted, not entirely sure what he meant by that. She nodded at the white orb. “And that?”

“I’m the Guardian,” the floating ball of light said.

Threyna raised her eyebrows. “And where’d you come from?”

“Long story,” the Guardian said. “And we haven’t the time.”

Threyna looked at Zephyrus, but he only shrugged. She mirrored the gesture, then bent to pick up the hilt of the Vykane Blade. Standing, she handed it to Zephyrus. She unclasped the Orsion Cloak from her neck, but when she held it out to him, he shoved it back towards her.

“Take it,” he said. “The armor too.”

Threyna shook her head. “But you’re the Wielder.” She pointed out to sea. “I thought I had the Vykane Blade, but you had it all along. I had a fake. I didn’t realize until I held yours, but I’m sure of it. You are the Wielder.”

Zephyrus hmphed, but still didn’t accept the Orsion Cloak. “I’m not convinced the Wielder is a person anymore.”

Threyna screwed up her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Perhaps the Wielder is a cause,” Zephyrus said. “An idea. And as long as we’re together, and the three Treasures are united, we can do anything. Like kill the Skeleton King and stop Paxoran.”

Threyna inhaled sharply, but her breath caught in her throat. Together? She stepped closer, their fingertips touching around the Orsion Cloak. An electricity surged through her.

“As long as we’re together,” she repeated.

Her other hand reached for Zephyrus’s neck, and her fingers slid into his hair. She pulled him down and pressed her lips to his. The lightning in her fingertips coursed through her body and crackled in her stomach, making her chest rattle.

Zephyrus pulled away.

The euphoric moment ended too quickly.

The inner portions of Zephyrus’s brows steepled. “Not that kind of together.”

The electricity fizzled. Emptiness expanded inside her. She deflated, but not fast enough, not small enough. She wished she could shrink into nothingness and disappear.

She wanted to apologize, but she didn’t want to apologize. She wanted him to see what she saw. She wanted him to feel for her what she felt for him.

He stepped backwards, his fingertips falling away from hers. A loneliness invaded her mind like the rot in her veins.

“Zephyrus,” the glowing orb said. “You must ascend to Valencia. There are three gateways. I can vaguely sense them, but the nearest is in Stockhelm.”

“To Stockhelm then,” Zephyrus said. He turned towards Threyna.

It hurt to look at him.

Just go… leave me here.

She averted her gaze. Blood stained the sand beneath Tyrus’s half-severed head. It was an easier sight to behold. Tyrus could no longer hurt her, but Zephyrus would. The Orsion Cloak felt heavy in her hands. With the Vykane Blade and Aeryean Armor in reach, she had everything she’d sought, and nothing at all.

“Threyna, will you come with me?” Zephyrus asked, extending his hand for hers.

Threyna’s stomach twisted in knots. Together, but never together. She needed him like she needed to feast on souls to stop the spread of rot in her veins. She needed him, but couldn’t have him, and though he could heal her, this was one wound no magic would mend.

And yet, if Zephyrus was right—if the Wielder was a united cause, and not a person—could she deny him… again?

Chapter 65

Powerless

Zephyrus XI

Stockhelm

After Threyna stripped Tyrus of the Aeryean Armor and donned it with the Orsion Cloak, she took Zephyrus’s outstretched hand with the hesitance of touching a hot kettle. Zephyrus pursed his lips, still unsure what had just happened between them, but there was no time to deliberate—and even if there was, it was the last thing he wanted to address.

He cleared his throat, pulling Threyna closer than was comfortable. Channeling his mother’s memories of the magical boons bestowed by the Corners of Kataan, Zephyrus envisioned the grounds beyond the Cassius ludus. He concentrated on the mountain fortress, the rolling hills to the east, the Crystal River and the Stormburn Geyser in the distance.

The dark shores of the Isle of Fate faded, and Zephyrus’s stomach lurched. He felt like he’d fallen again from his bedroom window at House Auros, but instead of falling, he flew. Not through air, but through a rift in space.

With Threyna clutched close, and the Guardian practically sticking to his shoulder, the three of them were ejected from the rift into a hellscape.

The fumes of smoke and the coppery scent of blood stained the air rotten. Fires rose all around them, and ash rained down from above. The clash of steel rang against the cries of the dying as the formations of battle descended into unorganized skirmishes.

“Ghosts,” Threyna said. “There’s so much blood.”

“Burn me,” Zephyrus said. This was the rebellion he thought he was meant to lead. Freedpeople, gladiators, mages—an army of them, against soldiers and knights, but they were losing.

“You were meant to turn the tides of this war,” Patrus had said.

Zephyrus glanced at the Guardian. “Valencia will have to wait.” He nodded at Threyna. “Take down anyone in plate mail or black armor.”

“Where are you going?” Threyna asked.

Without a reply, Zephyrus teleported, taking the Guardian with him. From one area of the burning grounds to another, he jumped through the immaterial plane to scan the battlefield. The Fallen attacked from all sides, but the Salmantic forces, better trained and better equipped, pushed back.

The Guardian gasped from his shoulder. “Laeden!”

Zephyrus surveyed the grounds ahead, spotting Laeden. Surrounded by six knights in full plate, Laeden lowered his sword. But adjacent to Laeden, Vykinallia lay on the ground in a pool of her own blood.

Zephyrus’s breath caught in his chest. His eyes widened. A knot formed in his throat, threatening to choke him.

No, no, no.

When he didn’t teleport to Laeden’s side, the Guardian tore from his shoulder and rushed to Laeden, her light radiating like a dying star.

Zephyrus spurred himself into motion. He jumped through the rift and returned to the physical plane at Vykinallia’s side. Black blood spouted from her stomach like a fountain. Her face was pale, the light in her eyes fading. Zephyrus tapped into Klayvorine’s control over time and slowed everyone and everything down.

The knights’ swords swung in slow arcs toward Laeden. The Guardian trickled through the air absent the urgency at which she set off. Tongues of fire licked lazily at the air around them, but, most importantly, Zephyrus slowed Vykinallia’s death.

Moving in real time, Zephyrus knelt down beside her. “Stay with me, Vykinallia.”

Her eyes looked at him, but if she saw him, her expression gave no sign. With both hands hovering over her wound, he channeled his healing magic. He’d saved Patrus from a stomach wound once before, but he’d come to his aid sooner. Vykinallia was already at death’s door, having already lost a great deal of blood.

White tendrils of mist flowed from his fingertips to her stomach.

Steel drove through his gut as it had through hers. The pain of flesh, muscles, and organs ripping seared through his body. Tears leaked down his cheeks, blurring his vision—a blend of pain and fear. He knew mending a wound of this severity could kill him, but he couldn’t let her bleed to death.

The pain of her eviscerated gut surged through his flayed nerves and burned like poison in his veins, but he did not let up. He could sense his control over time slipping away, like a heavy object he just couldn’t hold any longer. As the Guardian’s light drew near, the knights squinted through their visors against the severity of her glow, but the shadows she cast were Zephyrus’s to command. Releasing his right hand from healing Vykinallia, he aimed his bracer from Lunellia at the knights surrounding Laeden.

The knights’ shadows came to life just as time reverted back to its normal pace. Blinded by the Guardian’s light and held back by Zephyrus’s shadows, the knights failed to strike Laeden.

Laeden raised his sword and slashed the knight in front of him.

“Zephyrus?” Blood bubbled from Vykinallia’s lips.

“I’m here, Vykinallia.” His voice was as weak as hers. The pain lancing through his stomach ate away at his innards, but he couldn’t let go.

He’d dreamt of their reunion, but never imagined this. In none of his dreams did blood stain her lips. Her skin wasn’t pale and cold to the touch. And when her emerald eyes held him, they weren’t covered with heavy, quivering lids.

“Zephyrus, help!” the Guardian cried.

Next to him, Laeden battled against the knights while the Guardian floated over him with the same helplessness Zephyrus did over Vykinallia. Zephyrus’s conjured shadows slowed the knights’ advance, but the grappling darkness wouldn’t hold. Laeden did his best to fend off the encroaching swords, but there were too many with too much skill for him to outlast. Four Knights of the King’s Guard and two Salmantic knights swiped at Laeden, landing glancing slices across his arms, legs, and back.

Zephyrus grit his teeth against the pain in his stomach, the fear of what was to come, and the frustration that, despite having all the abilities of a God, he felt powerless.

He met Vykinallia’s emerald eyes. “Don’t you dare let go.”

Tapping back into Klayvorine’s greave, Zephyrus slowed time, but only for Vykinallia. He tore himself away from her and drew the Vykane Blade. The blood-forged steel came alive in his hand as he jumped through the rift of the material plane. Passing through the knights, Zephyrus returned to the physical plane inside the circle with Laeden, his back pressed against the former prince’s.

Laeden startled, but the knights balked. Balancing the scales, Zephyrus didn’t wait for them to regain their composure. With sharp claws still scratching from the inside of his stomach, he took the blooming heat and allowed it to swell. With a thrust of his left hand, a blaze of fire engulfed three of the knights at Laeden’s back.

The scales tipped back, and Zephyrus relented. He left the screaming knights to burn within their armor and wheeled to come shoulder to shoulder with Laeden. Laeden’s efforts, concentrated in defense, kept the knights at bay.

Without a word, a glance, or even a grunt of acknowledgement, Laeden and Zephyrus took the offensive. Zephyrus used his manipulation magic to bend the Guardian’s light into the knights’ visors. His left arm went weak as he used force magic to thrust the center knight backwards. Zephyrus filled the space and slashed at the adjacent knight blinded by the Guardian’s light. The Vykane Blade cleaved through the red-and-black steel plate, biting deep into the flesh beneath. The knight screamed and crumpled as Zephyrus yanked the sword free.

Laeden’s steel clanged off either side of the knight’s helm in a flurry of quick blows that sent the King’s Guard Knight reeling. The center knight charged at Laeden and Zephyrus to take the place of his stunned and fallen Brothers.

The knight stabbed at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus entered the immaterial plane, passing through the knight. As the knight spun to locate Zephyrus, Laeden’s sword smashed into the back of the red-and-black helm. Zephyrus reappeared behind the knight just as the other returned to attack Laeden from the side. Tapping into Lunellia’s bracer, Zephyrus summoned the Moon Goddess’s shadows to conjure a shield to defend Laeden’s blind side.

The knight’s strike on Laeden careened off Zephyrus’s shadow shield. Zephyrus drove the Vykane Blade up under the knight’s armpit until the sword point erupted out of the space between his neck and shoulder. Zephyrus ripped the blade free and kicked the knight away. Dead before he hit the ground.

Laeden took all his vengeful rage out on the other knight. With heavy two-handed strikes, his sword dented the knight’s helm, then his pauldron. Dazed, the knight couldn’t keep his feet as Laeden kicked him to the ground. Another knight in red-and-black plate helped him up, dragging him away from Laeden.

Seeing the battle lost, the knights turned heel and ran from Laeden.

Laeden aimed his sword at the knights’ retreating backs. “Run, Aelon!”

Zephyrus scanned the battlefield. They weren’t the only ones. The Salmantic force disappeared into the night, heading north. Whether a retreat had been ordered or not, the men too brave or too foolish not to run screamed and died as Threyna’s blood-conjured arrows zipped through the air and thudded into their hearts.

Cheers from the Fallen rose with the smoke. The army of Valencians and Celestics, Rheynians and Helms, knights, princes, and former lanistas had won.

Zephyrus ran to Vykinallia’s side. Kneeling in the dirt beside her, he inspected her wound. As he placed his hand to the raw flesh, her hand seized his with surprising strength.

“Zephyrus…” She smiled. Color had returned to her face. Her eyes held an acuity he feared he might never see again. “I knew you were still alive.”

Her breathing came slow and even, absent Zephyrus’s influence on time, but to him, it felt as if time stood still. The knot in Zephyrus’s chest untangled to release a heavy sigh.

She’s going to live.

A smile split his lips. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. He thought she was gone, that he would never see her again, but here she was. She had promised to work to free the slaves as queen, but taken by the Uprising, she’d found a different way. A better way.

“You joined the Uprising,” Zephyrus said. “You freed the slaves.” He reached out his other hand to cup her face. Her emerald eyes never left his as he stroked her cheek with his thumb, wiping the blood from her lips.

Her grin cracked wider. Her unwounded shoulder shrugged. “Civic responsibility.”

Zephyrus snorted. “Let me finish healing y—”

She grabbed his hand as he had begun to take it away from her cheek and held him there.

“Not yet…”

Once, Zephyrus had imagined a different life. One in which she was not a slave owner, and he was not a slave. A world in which they could have been together.

Is this that world?

As he leaned down, bringing the tip of his nose to hers, he promised himself he would make this that world.

I will stop Paxoran, and I will return.

He pressed his lips against hers. And the feeling he thought confined to dreams and memories sprung to life in reality. A moment so perfect not even the Gods could take it away.

Chapter 66

Live

Iylea X

Stockhelm

Iylea hovered over Laeden’s shoulder as he stood over his father’s body. Amidst the array of corpses littering the ground, the former King of New Rheynia might have gone unnoticed. From where the Gods reigned on high, dead kings, knights, and slaves all equaled the same thing: another link in the chain. Another sign of their failure. But to Laeden, this man’s soul wouldn’t get lost in the masses of war casualties; he’d carry it with him for the rest of his days.

Markus Cassius’s body lay strewn about only a few strides away from where Laeden’s father was robbed of life. Half a dozen dagger stabs to the gut or a single long sword through the heart, the results were the same. Laeden knelt in the bloody dirt between the two men, as helpless as Iylea felt watching over him.

Laeden had called for a medicus or a healing mage, but even Zephyrus, for all his magical abilities, could not awaken the dead. While Nallia Cassius limped off with the aid of a pair of former gladiators and her mother, Varros Helixus and Markus Cassius remained in the dirt. And thus, Laeden did the same.

Long after the battlefield was scoured for injured, and the dead were relieved of their arms and armor, Laeden stayed. His mother—Lenara Faire—long thought lost to the world, wrapped her arms around Laeden as he wept. Iylea wished to hold him, but she’d have an easier time getting back into Valencia. She wanted to cry with Laeden, but aside from generating light and sound, she was incapable.

“Would a good king not weep for the loss of each man he served?” Laeden asked his mother. “What does it say of me that I only have tears to spare for two?” He looked back and forth between his father and his friend, never looking at his mother.

His mother rubbed his back. “A good king… I’m not sure any of us would know what such a thing looked like. But who cries these tears, my son?” She stroked a tear yet to fall to the ground from his cheek. “Do you weep as the King of Valtarcia? Or are these the tears of a son for his father and a man for his friend?”

Fresh sobs rattled Laeden’s shoulders as he sank into his mother’s embrace. If Iylea had a heart, it would have broken for him, but still she found something within her matterless existence fracturing. To be here with him and yet so far from him was torturous. She could do nothing to comfort him.

“First Iylea,” Laeden said through trembling lips. “Now Father and Markus too.”

Lenara turned to Iylea’s glowing form as if she knew who and what she was. Iylea’s light dimmed, but Lenara continued to stare at her. If she suspected Iylea’s presence, she said nothing.

Iylea had been waiting her turn to speak to Laeden, searching for the right opportunity to declare herself to him, but the living had more pressing business. She’d let them come to Laeden’s side, speak a few words of his valor, and leave him with a pat on the shoulder. Zephyrus, a Helm named Iberion, and a man clad in the leather armor of the Lion’s Academy named Aponius came and went, all while she waited patiently. All she had now was time, but listening to Laeden speak to his mother, the right time to reveal herself to him might never come.

Lenara’s eyes left Iylea and returned to her son. “Those whom we’ve lost are still with us, a part of us. They live on through us.”

Iylea resisted the urge to flee. Lenara couldn’t have been further from the truth. They don’t live on. They are jailed—entombed in a link to remind the Gods of their failures. But did that inspire them to change? No. The links were just stumbling blocks on Paxoran’s quest for vengeance on the Creator.

“What now?” Laeden asked.

“Live.” She rubbed Laeden’s back, but her eyes drifted back to Iylea’s position. “We must live for the ones who cannot. We honor them through our lives’ work.”

Live. What life—what future—would he have with me?

She’d reunited with Laeden, but for what? She, without her body, a soul trapped in the mortal realm for all eternity. And he, a mortal whose time in this world was limited. A mortal who needed to live—not just for himself, but for others.

The only thing I can offer him is more pain.

She knew if she revealed herself to him, if she told him the truth of all that had happened, he would never forsake her. Even if they managed to stop Hameryn and the Skeleton King, and save the mortal realm, Laeden would never move forward with his life. He’d never marry. Never father children. He would never live. Eventually, he would pass and go to Valencia, but she would remain here. Forever.

Iylea’s light darkened, reflecting her mood. She couldn’t have what she wanted any longer. She knew that the moment she stepped through the hole in the anchor room floor, her existence was no longer hers. Just as Arkadia was before her, she was now an immortal servant of humanity, and she had a job to do.

The only thing she could do for Laeden was leave. Zephyrus still had to stop Hameryn, and it was her task to guide him to the gateways to the divine realm. She could feel them, three in total. One close, and two farther off. They should have left already, but she couldn’t tear herself away from Laeden. Yet now, finally, she’d have to.

“Goodbye, Laeden.” She couldn’t say the words aloud. She began to drift away, but Laeden followed Lenara’s gaze towards Iylea, holding her in place.

“I’ll leave you,” Lenara said. “To your goodbyes.” She pressed herself to her feet with the effort of the aged, the blessing of a long life that Iylea would never get to experience for herself.

Iylea wasn’t sure if Lenara spoke of Laeden’s goodbyes for Varros and Markus, or for her. Her radiant light glowed, enraptured by Laeden’s stare. The aura of her light reflected in his brown eyes.

“Iylea… is that you?”

Whatever was capable of fracturing within her splintered into as many links in the chain as she had absorbed under the influence of Hameryn’s lies. The painful memories of each life lived and every death suffered burdened her soul.

How many Laedens have I loved? How many have I lost?

The only difference this time was that this would be her choice, and it would be best for everyone if he didn’t know the full truth.

Iylea augmented her voice, deepening it. “I have many names. I’ve lived many lives. But Laeden Helixus, King of Valtarcia, your Iylea is gone.”

Laeden’s lip quivered as he stared into her light. “But I heard her. I didn’t imagine it. She spoke to me.”

“She did,” Iylea said, barely keeping it together. “And you…” Her voice cracked. “Without you, Vykanicus Auros may not have made it to Tharseo’s Bastion. You have given humanity hope.”

Laeden wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “But where is she? Is she safe? Is she okay?”

Iylea’s aura pulsed, unable to control how much light she gave off. She was glad she didn’t have a face because she wouldn’t have been able to conceal her emotions.

“She’s at peace, Laeden,” Iylea said.

It wasn’t a lie. She made her peace with this decision, and she would have to continually remind herself it was the right thing to do, as difficult as it was and would be.

“She loved you,” Iylea said, her aura brightening to a sheen that illuminated Laeden. “She would want you to live for the future, not dwell in the past.”

Laeden’s gaze fell to the blood-soaked earth, his head shaking to either side as fresh tears slid down his cheeks.

“I thought she’d come back,” he said. “I thought we’d…” His voice faltered.

Iylea’s light faded. I thought so too, my love.

“Live for her,” Iylea said. “Live for them.”

She let her light wink out, and the life she had lived flashed before her. As if she pressed her own link of the chain to her chest, she relived her fondest memories, her darkest fears, and every moment in between. From secret kisses with Laeden, to the flash of Aemos’s sword. From the way her heart would flutter when she thought of Laeden, to the way her knees would wobble when Hameryn visited her dreams, it was as if she consumed her own soul.

When she finished, she found Laeden had sunk into the dirt, head in his hands. Absent her light shining upon him, she realized that no matter how many lives she’d lived, or how many loves she’d experienced, hers with Laeden would never be matched.

Goodbye, Laeden. I will always love you.

She wished she could leave him, to create distance for herself to grieve, but the world didn’t have time. Iylea was gone. Dead. Iylea couldn’t help anyone any longer. She needed to be something more. Something like Arkadia had been. The Guardian of the mortal realm. And what the mortal realm needed was heroes. Leaders for people to trust, beacons for them to follow.

Zephyrus would ascend to Valencia to fight Paxoran, but even if he succeeded, the mortal realm was doomed if no one could stop the Skeleton King and his horde.

Iylea wanted to drift away from Laeden, to leave her life and her love behind, but as the Guardian, she needed Laeden. The mortal realm needed Laeden.

“Laeden, this war is only just beginning,” the Guardian said. “You must fight for the living. The Age of the End is upon us.”

Laeden inclined his head. Tears streaked his cheeks, but his eyes remained lucid. He sniffed, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath and set his jaw.

“What can I do?”

Chapter 67

Death Comes

Threyna XIII

Stockhelm

It was times like these that Threyna was glad she wasn’t back on Rheynia. Here, death meant one thing, but there, it could have meant one of three—and each fate was worse than the preceding.

Surveying the battlefield, the dead remained still, but back on Rheynia, many would still be moving and crying out, their minds broken from the torture of their trapped souls in failing bodies. Other souls, fortunate enough to be spared feeling their mortal wounds for the rest of eternity, would depart their bodies, absent sentience. The shades would wander aimlessly, never knowing rest. And perhaps worst of all, the darklings—disembodied souls that retained their sentience—were condemned to an existence of wandering the cursed land forever, or overtaking a host body in order to live again.

Here, funeral pyres and a large hole in the ground could assuage the dead, but in Rheynia, it would have taken an army of arcanatek-wielding Justicus to cull the hollowed, disperse the shades, and eradicate the darklings. An army, or her.

She consumed another soul, and the rot that had stretched up her neck to her cheek while fighting with her blood magic receded to the scars on her arm left behind by the cursed blood artifact. Feasting on souls restored her, but it cursed her as well. While the consumption would allow her to tap into her Inner Throne again, the next time it would cost more souls to return to baseline. Yet no number of souls would heal her affliction. Only Zephyrus had been able to do that, and then only temporarily.

“Not that kind of together,” Zephyrus had said to her. That kind of together was reserved for Vykinallia.

Threyna spotted Zephyrus embracing a pair of men—one long and lean with black hair and a severe scar across his face, the other a burly brute with dark skin and darker curls. He helped a woman into their care. As the two men carried her away from Zephyrus, Zephyrus’s touch lingered on the woman’s hand.

Vykinallia.

Soaked in enough blood that she should have been among the dead, Vykinallia’s life was saved by Zephyrus’s magic. Yet she could feel Vykinallia’s heartbeat, pumping in a rhythm harmonious with Zephyrus’s. Threyna clenched her fist. Though the rot in her veins had abated, the bitterness in her heart had only spread.

Jaw tight with a throbbing vein in her neck, Threyna turned from Zephyrus and Vykinallia. Though she and Zephyrus held the Treasures between them, they would never be united—at least not in the way she wished them to be.

She spun on her heel, scouring the battlefield for means of distraction more so than souls to feed off of, but despite being surrounded by hundreds, if not a thousand freedpeople, Threyna still felt alone.

I deserve to be alone.

A dying Salmantic soldier reached for Threyna’s leg as she walked past. She grunted, kicking his hand away. With a gash in his neck and a broken spear in his gut, he was as dead as any of the others lying in the shadows of the Hylan Mountains. He just didn’t know it yet. She kicked his futile reach again.

“Of course,” Threyna said, more to herself than the dead man. “Only dead men want me.” She leaned down, seizing the sword just beyond the soldier’s grip. Unceremoniously and without hesitation, Threyna drove the sword point into the man’s heart. She waited the span of three breaths before drawing his essence into her Inner Throne.

“Pardon,” a voice said from behind her. “Threyna?”

Threyna let out an exasperated breath. Can’t you see I’m busy? “Hmm?” She didn’t bother to turn to address the voice.

“Laeden Helixus, King of Valtarcia, would like to speak with you.”

Threyna blew out her cheeks and turned around to face a man too pretty for the blood on his face. A strand of long brown hair escaped the half knot on the back of his head to hang beside deep, dark blue eyes.

She tossed the dead soldier’s sword to the ground beside him, her gaze centered on the pretty man. “Is King Laeden a dead man?”

The pretty man tilted his head to the side, pushing his hair back with his palm. “I suppose he should be—I suppose we all should be, but he is very much alive.”

He pointed to a group of men. She assumed the one doing the speaking was the king. With short shorn hair, a scruffy beard, and enough blood on his hands to rival the Skeleton King, King Laeden placed his hands on two Helms’ shoulders. Though they stood a head taller than the king, they bowed before him.

Threyna hummed, crossing her arms over her chest. “And this King Laeden sends you to do his bidding?”

“Indeed he does,” the pretty man said with an air of self-importance. “And on the off chance I agree with him, I’ll even see it through. I am Kherus Paragus, Captain of the Ridge Knights.”

He held out his hand to shake hers, but she let it hover in the space between them.

“It is my understanding that you were the reason we escaped the shipyard alive,” Kherus said. “And not only that…” He waved his arm at the fallen soldiers. “I believe you’re responsible for why many of us are still standing.”

Threyna grunted. She’d dealt with her fair share of leaders attracted to her power for their own means. She wasn’t eager to meet another.

“Think I’ll pass, Captain,” Threyna said. “Nothing personal, but I’ve yet to meet a king of anything that I didn’t despise.”

Kherus smirked. “Entitled, self-serving, egotistical overlords who view everyone beneath them as a tool?”

Threyna snorted. “Good, so you know the type.”

Neither Kherus’s grin or his outstretched arm fell. “I do. And I can say Laeden is not that king.”

Threyna cocked an eyebrow, looking over Kherus’s shoulder to King Laeden in the distance. He didn’t look like a king. Haggard and disheveled, bloody and limping, he had finished speaking with the two Helms and scooped up an injured freedwoman.

“He only wishes to extend his gratitude for your aid,” Kherus said.

As Laeden drew nearer with a wounded woman draped over his shoulder despite his own limping, Threyna recognized him from the shipyard.

A king… freeing the enslaved?

Threyna exhaled. “Fine.” She shoved Kherus’s hand back to his side. “But put your hand down. You look like a fool.”

Kherus lowered his hand, but his grin remained, dimpling his cheeks.

She accompanied Kherus to speak with Laeden. As they strode towards one another, Laeden unslung the woman’s arm from his shoulder and passed her off to Kherus.

“Kherus, please escort Aurellia inside,” Laeden said.

Kherus swept his arm under Aurellia’s and nodded, first at Laeden and then at Threyna.

As they walked off, Aurellia looked over Kherus’s shoulder. “Thank you, King Laeden.”

Laeden pursed his lips into a sad smile. “Rest, Aurellia. Tomorrow brings a new dawn.”

Threyna examined Laeden. His words struck a familiar chord she couldn’t quite place.

Once Kherus and Aurellia retreated to the mountain villa, she turned towards Laeden. He seemed to slump as he watched them leave.

Threyna cleared her throat. “You wanted to speak with me?”

Laeden inhaled sharply. “Zephyrus and… another… told me I should, but besides that—” He bowed before her. “I owe you a great debt, two times over.”

Threyna reared at the gesture.

“Thank you, Threyna. You’ve saved countless lives.” He stood, perhaps not as tall as he had before he bowed. “Zephyrus is one of the few people remaining in this world whom I can rely on. He tells me you are someone I can trust.”

Threyna stammered. She searched the battlefield for Zephyrus but didn’t see him.

Trust… me?

It didn’t make sense.

“That surprises you?” Laeden asked.

“I think you misunderstood his sarcasm,” Threyna said.

Laeden put his hands on his hips. Shaking his head, he smiled at the ground. “You betrayed him?”

Threyna pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. “More than once.”

Laeden nodded. “But you came back. Made right.”

Threyna shrugged. “Too little, too late.”

“Seems he has a type.” Laeden pressed his index finger to his chest. “I could say the same of myself, yet here we both are. Seems we all have a part to play in this cosmic jape.”

Threyna grunted. She knew what was coming next. He would attempt to leverage her for her cursed magic, to use her for his own devices, just as Tyrus and the Arcane Templar had.

“I’m not interested,” Threyna said.

Laeden tilted his head. “In?”

“Whatever you have to say next,” Threyna said. “You’re on your own from now on. I came with Zephyrus. He might be leaving to fight the Gods, but that doesn’t mean I’m yours to wage war against Salmantica. I have my own—”

“The Skeleton King,” Laeden said. “What can you tell me about the Skeleton King?”

Threyna waited for Laeden to scoff, to burst into laughter, but his face was creased with lines burdened by loss and the trials of leadership.

He’s not kidding.

Threyna opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the words. She searched for the jest, the careful manipulation that came with shrewd negotiators, but she couldn’t find it.

“I know he’s coming,” Laeden said. “But I don’t know when or from where. Zephyrus said you defeated him once before, that you have a way of sensing him. The Guardian believes he is connected to this traitor God, Paxoran. Anything you can share… I need to know what we’re up against.”

Threyna shook her head, not believing the words that came from his mouth. “So you can fight him? What about your war with Salmantica, Laeden Helixus, King of Valtarcia?” She didn’t bother to bite back her mockery.

Laeden met her gaze, steel in his eyes. “What is a king without a kingdom, and what is a kingdom without her people?” He took her hand in his. “I will fight for the living, Threyna, but I need to know everything you know about him. I need your help.”

This wasn’t an act. This wasn’t a king’s manipulation or a ruse to use her.

She nodded. “I’ll help…”

She scanned the graveyard of blood and bones. If she were ever going to be able to locate the Skeleton King before he arrived, now was her best opportunity. She closed her eyes and drew in breath. Calling upon all the blood around her, she tapped into her Inner Throne. Her senses flared, but she suppressed them, channeling in search of her Uncle Belrich’s cursed heart.

To her horror, she didn’t have to search far. Her Inner Throne collided with Belrich’s. The collision rattled the walls of her throne room, threatening to dislodge her from her seat of power. He was close. So close that she could sense his hunger, his power.

Greater than his father, Belrich’s aura surged north from Klaytos across the sea in a fleet of conjured blood.

How did he become so powerful?

It was impossible. She drew upon the available blood of the battlefield and sank deeper into her Inner Throne. She sensed the artifact that had gouged into her upper arm and felt the connection it formed to the other victims of its prongs.

She shuddered, her fingers touching the scars on her upper arm.

He’s not the only one conjuring the blood fleet.

There were hundreds of blood mages, each holding thousands of souls within their Inner Dungeons. Threyna trembled within her Inner Throne. It was worse than she imagined.

A pressure exerted itself against the door to her Inner Throne like a stiff, unrelenting wind. She willed the doors to remain closed against the invading force, but the doors burst open anyway. A thousand screaming souls charged into her throne room. They did not abide as she attempted to eject them from her seat of power. When they didn’t leave, she tried to abandon her Inner Throne, to return to the battlefield with Laeden, but the rushing souls thrust her against the back of her throne.

Trapped.

The screaming voices silenced their clamor, and one seized control over all.

“Threyna,” the thousand voices said together. “I was wondering when we would meet again. Last we met, you ran off before I could tell you.”

Threyna’s heart thudded in her chest and echoed throughout her Inner Throne. Fear pimpled the back of neck with gooseflesh, and the walls of her Inner Throne closed in around her. She was paralyzed.

“Oh, don’t be scared, niece,” Belrich said, all his voices echoing. “No hard feelings.”

His haunting laughter reverberated through every fiber of her being.

“Did you think I left Rheynia to search for you?”

He cackled in the tone of a thousand different voices. The sound seized her by the throat, choking the breath from her lungs and her connection to her Inner Throne.

“You taught me something invaluable, Threyna,” Belrich said. “While my father hoarded the power for himself, you taught me that it was better to share. And share I have. You see, I didn’t come for you, Threyna. I came for everyone else.”

His laughter thundered throughout her Inner Throne until the walls began to crumble. She tried to scream, to do anything to make it stop, but she was ejected from her Inner Throne.

Her blackened fingers clutched at her face as she screamed into her hands. She thrashed around, searching for Belrich, but he wasn’t there.

“Threyna! Threyna!” Zephyrus shook her, screaming in her face.

Threyna shuddered, realizing where she was. Beside Zephyrus, Laeden’s horror-stricken face was mirrored by a gathered crowd of onlookers.

“What happened?” Zephyrus asked, once she calmed down.

“He’s coming,” Threyna said. “He’s going to attack Valtarcia.”

Chapter 68

Ruin

Danella VII

Salmantica

Danella’s slippers padded along the length of her bedchambers enough times to groove tracks in the stone. She’d paced while she prayed at sunset. She’d paced while the moon and stars mocked her absent the nightly rains to obscure them. And she continued striding from her bed to her balcony and back again even as the sun rose to greet her.

No word had come.

She hadn’t expected Damascus to return yet; once the Uprising was stamped out, Damascus would need to ensure a peaceful transition after he left. After a battle, there would be new land and villas to bestow upon those who served him well. No, it didn’t concern her that Damascus’s ships hadn’t returned up the Aquarian in triumph. What concerned her was no messenger came to deliver word.

Danella wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders. The fire in the hearth had burned out, and the morning chill seemed cooler than the night’s embrace. She paused at the balcony’s edge. The city seemed too still beneath her.

Everything is fine, she told herself.

Yet too many failures had greeted her of late. Near misses and close opportunities would no longer sate her. She needed victory, and a decisive one at that. Damascus was already bordering on untenable. He walked a narrow path too crowded with dissonant patricians to hope to keep them in line if his military failures continued. Short temper and excessive lash-outs aside, he needed a victory if he were to retain the trust of the Senate. And without the Senate, her father’s kingdom was no more stable than it had been after the Hechts assassinated her brother.

A knock at the door broke her from her musings.

Ser Daenus entered, wearing the black-and-red plate of the King’s Guard. His visor was open just enough for his eyes to be visible without revealing his scarred skin.

“What news?” Danella asked as she moved briskly towards him. “Has Damascus sent word? Has a messenger arrived?”

Ser Daenus cleared his throat. “A runner from the harbor has informed me that a ship is approaching.”

Danella let out a sigh. Her shoulders, weighed by fatigue but stiffened by stress, slumped. “Thank the Six.” She rubbed her eyes before interlocking her fingers. “I will see myself readied and receive the messenger in the throne room.”

“Very well, your grace.” Daenus bowed.

Never having changed out of her red dress from the night prior, she required little time to make herself presentable. After a quick tidying of her hair and a touchup to her face paint, she placed the black, garnet-studded crown atop her head and centered the golden Six Arrowed Star pendant on her neckline. Examining herself in the looking glass, she decided after receiving news of Damascus’s victory, she would return to her chambers and sleep for a week.

Ser Daenus escorted her through the dark stone halls of Sentigard to the throne room.

“It seems we’ve finally done it, my queen,” Daenus said, walking arm in arm with her.

Danella attempted to swallow her budding smile. It felt like a lifetime ago when she first petitioned Daenus to chaperone her to their first secret meeting of the Revivalists. They listened in disguise as the masked faces spoke their grievances against Varros’s rule. She’d first gone to learn what they were saying so she could assuage their concerns diplomatically, but their heartfelt and genuine belief in the Six inspired her. Where they only spoke of change, however, Danella was a woman of action, and it was she who transformed the Revivalists from a group of grumblers into a movement that would change the course of New Rheynian history.

So much had changed since then, but much more would have to evolve before she would say they were finished.

“I will reserve celebrations until Damascus returns home to decorate the ramparts with the heads of Laeden, Nallia, and the slave prophet,” Danella said. “Then the true work can begin. Absent the Uprising, the mages, and the Celestic blight upon New Rheynia, we can restore our standing in the eyes of the Six.”

They descended the stairs into the main foyer and walked along the corridor to the throne room where the portraits of the past kings hung. Danella paused to admire her father’s likeness captured on the canvas. The spiked crown atop his narrow face gave him the grim look of a spear. The artist captured his shrewd severity and calculative wisdom in his short gray hair and golden eyes.

Her brother Damascus’s portrait, adjacent to her father’s, lacked the lines of experience. His rule, however short it might have been, was peaceful. Examining her brother, she appreciated how much her son looked like him. They shared the same striking features passed down from her father, but her brother’s portrait was dressed in a jovial smile.

Passing over Varros’s portrait to examine their son’s, Danella observed the sternness in Damascus’s jaw compared to his uncle. If her brother had taken his rule more seriously, perhaps he wouldn’t have been assassinated by the Hechts. But since she’d placed the crown on her son’s head, he had lost whatever joy once lived in him.

That will all change. Starting today. Beginning with this victory, our faith will be rewarded, our future will be secured, and our family can…

Her thoughts faded as she looked back at Varros’s portrait. King of New Rheynia, Mage of Celestia. Gripping her arms as she crossed them over her chest, she turned her back on him, as he had done to her.

Our family will rebuild. Damascus will marry. I will remarry, and Varros’s treachery will never need to see the light of day.

She strode from the portraits, away from the past, and through the open door Daenus held for her, hoping the future within held greater promise. She took her seat in the throne beside the obsidian stone, garnet-crested seat of the King of New Rheynia.

Leaning against the hard back of the stone seat, she considered Brusos’s schemes, Falcos’s execution, Aponius and Roderick’s infiltration, and wondered which delivered the killing blow to her enemies. As her pontifications drifted to what life might look like absent a war to wage in secret, the door swung open.

Danella bolted upright and put her hand to her chest. Her heart didn’t beat; the gears in her mind ground to a halt. She couldn’t make sense of what she saw before her.

Damascus, not a messenger, stood in the doorway, dressed in bloody bandages and a loose-fitting tunic not his own. He strode through the entryway, a twisted grin on his face.

Danella didn’t understand. Did he lose? Why is he smiling? Why is he here? She swallowed the meaning Damascus’s presence carried, but unable to discern it, it got stuck in her chest. Loss? Failure? Defeat? Every future she’d spent the morning hoping would come with the rising sun burned into ash and disintegrated in her hands.

She gripped her Six Arrowed Star pendant in her fist, its points digging into her flesh as Damascus strode beneath the chimera banners hanging from the columns.

“Damascus, my king…” She strode down the stairs of the dais toward him.

Damascus only grinned. One arm in a sling, he marched up to her and wrapped his bloody, bandaged arm around her.

Danella closed her eyes, burying her face in his shoulder. The tension in her chest constricted around her ribs into her spine like an iron corset. Six preserve me, what happened? She looked up at her son. “Damascus…”

His golden eyes met hers as he released his embrace. “You lied to me.”

She blinked, not understanding. No wrath. No anger. Only a twisted smile. Danella shrank from the accusation. “About what?”

Damascus emitted a cruel, wounded laugh. “You tell me, Mother. How much have you withheld from me?”

Danella didn’t know where to begin. Did he discover that I am the reason Nallia was abducted? Did he learn that I led the Revivalists against his father? Danella’s mask cracked. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “Damascus, what happened?”

“You could have told me. You probably thought you were protecting me, but you don’t need to protect me anymore. It’s over.”

It’s over.

The words might as well have sat on either end of the cursed scales of balance. On one end, it meant victory. On the other…

Lip trembling, Danella forced the words out. “Please, my son, what happened?”

Damascus chuckled. “Oh, where to begin?” He held up his fist and flicked out his index finger. “Brusos’s man within the Uprising gave us up.” His middle finger extended to join his pointer. “Your spy in Laeden’s camp betrayed us.” His third finger straightened. “Brusos failed me. He’s dead, by the way. Killed by Vykinallia, who—” He extended his pinky finger. “—tried to murder me.” His thumb opened. “Laeden did as well, but…”

Danella’s jaw unhinged, her head shaking. How could it have all gone so wrong?

“It’s not all bad.” Damascus closed his fingers into a fist, his upper lip twitching as he held his unnatural grin. “I did get to reconnect with my father.”

Danella stammered. Varros… She hadn’t considered what would happen if Varros approached their son. He had warned her what would become of Damascus should this war continue. Did he counsel peace? She clasped her hands together. “I know I lied, but—”

“It was bad enough finding out he was still alive. Worse yet knowing that you wanted me to believe he was dead.” Damascus examined his fingernails, the edges still tinged with dried blood. “The entire trip home, while the medicus sewed me back together, I thought about how you made me believe my father was dead. That the mages killed him. And all along, I bet you knew. You knew, and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

Danella swallowed, trying to figure out what transpired between them. “Tell you what?”

Damascus’s grin parted into a toothy smile that unnerved her worse than his anger ever had. He collapsed into the throne, slinging his leg over the arm of the chair. “You knew he was a mage, didn’t you?”

Danella blanched. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but he waved her off.

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t blame you. I even understand. But it’s done now. The Uprising can have Stockhelm—the Gods’ wrath will claim it soon enough, but we will remain. Salmantica will once again bask in the Six’s favor.”

Danella shook her head, her iron corset restricting her breath altogether. The Uprising can have Stockhelm? She wanted to throttle him, to make him speak sense, but dread rooted her to the spot. Her words were barely a whisper as she fixed on the blood lining Damascus’s nailbeds. “Damascus… what happened?”

Damascus met her gaze. His smile flattened to a thin line. “I finished what you started, Mother. The Gods will be sated. No longer does the blasphemer who sat upon the Six’s throne live. The nightly rains will return. The Celestic curse upon our lands will end, and all will be right in the realm.”

Danella’s mouth went dry. “Varros…”

Damascus sat up straight. “Everything you worked for, all the secrets you kept, the sacrifices you made—it will all have been worth it. The Gods will return their favor to us.”

Danella’s tongue felt slow and sluggish in her mouth. “He’s dead… Varros?”

Damascus drew a dagger from his belt, the one her father had given her brother when he died.

“I stabbed him,” Damascus said. A sly grin twisted his lip as he spun the hilt in his hand. “Again. And again. And again.”

Shivers ran down her spine. Her knees went weak. Her corset caved her bones into her heart. “You killed him?”

She put her hand on the arm of the throne to steady herself as she dropped to her knees before Damascus’s feet. She had plotted Varros’s death, arranged for it to be done, and even considered doing it herself, but never—at any point—did she take joy in it. She believed it a necessary evil. A horrible act for a wife to commit upon her husband, but a necessary one for a queen to spare her kingdom from the Gods’ wrath. It was a sacrifice the Gods demanded of her to prevent the Age of the End from coming to pass, one that she would grieve for the rest of her days. Even once she learned he was a mage, never would joy have accompanied his death.

Damascus took a deep breath as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. As if he hadn’t murdered his father.

“This war will ruin him,” Varros had said.

She refused to believe it, but here she knelt before the result of her deeds. Iylea’s haunting prophecy returned to her.

“Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

She never heard the rest of the Seer’s divination, but Varros’s pleas from the last time she saw him finished her former handmaid’s prophecy.

“Stop our son, Danella,” Varros said.

The burdens of failure, guilt, and loss joined her fatigue in weighing down her shoulders. She turned away from her son, unable to look at him.

“What now?” Danella asked, afraid of whatever answer he might have.

“We close our borders,” Damascus said. “By land and sea. No one in or out of Salmantica. And after the Six consume Stockhelm and Valtarcia, we will emerge and reclaim the kingdom the Six secured for us.”

Danella nodded, her mind slow, eyes blank.

“Are you well, Mother?”

She examined Damascus—her son, the King of New Rheynia, a devout Valencian—but all she saw was a monster. One that she had made. Instinctively, she wanted to fix what she’d broken in him, but everything she had done had turned him into this.

This is all my fault. She averted her gaze and stood to her feet, unable to bear the sight of him any longer. “Just tired,” Danella said.

“Rest,” Damascus said. “No longer must you bear the weight of the kingdom alone.”

Alone. She had never felt more alone, more helpless, more responsible.

She descended the dais on shaky legs. Exiting the way she’d come, she left the throne room and the monster she’d left in charge of it. Once the door closed behind her, her breath came in short, arrhythmic gasps as she sucked down air between her stifled sobs.

Ser Daenus came to her side, but she waved him away.

“I need a moment,” she said.

The placid expression of his masked visor provided no comfort, but the scarred man inside bowed and backed away.

She strode away from him, back down the hall she’d entered from. As she walked past the portraits, she stopped in front of Varros’s.

Several slash marks cut across the canvas of Varros’s face.

The last of Danella’s restraint broke, and shuddering sobs tore free. She pressed her forehead against the shredded image of Varros, wishing she could feel him one more time. The painting lacked his warmth, his comforting words, his stubborn grin. If she had taken a moment to look upon his portrait before entering, perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt as much, but now she’d never see him again—in paint or in person. Damascus saw to that.

“Why? Why? Why?”

She didn’t know how long she cried against Varros’s portrait before Ser Daenus dragged her away and brought her to her chambers. In spite of her fatigue, she denied herself from entering her and Varros’s bed. Even on the floor at the foot of their bed, she refused to let sleep take her, believing herself unworthy of its release from her guilt. But eventually, despite her protests, sleep took her, and by the time she awoke, the sun had completed its arc across the sky.

Worst of all, the terrible truths she’d avoided in her slumber came back with a vengeance.

Varros is dead. Damascus is lost. And there is nothing I can do about either of them.

Pulling herself to her feet, she flung open her balcony doors to see if the Gods would deliver rain in exchange for Varros’s death as Damascus believed. Not a single cloud marred the perfect sky, and still, Varros was dead.

She picked her crown up from the floor where she’d slept and examined the obsidian circlet. Once, it meant everything to her, but now, its significance was as hollow as the space between the garnet studs.

What good have I ever created with the power I’ve had?

She searched for a memory, a victory that she could look back at with fondness, but she’d sullied all of them. When nothing came to her, she set the crown down on the bed she and Varros used to share.

Everything I touch, I ruin.

With grief as her guide, she left her chambers, descended the stairs to the servants’ corridors, and found clothes suitable for a plebeian to travel in. Donning a pair of roughspun britches, a shift and a loose tunic, worn leather boots, and a thin black cloak, she floated like a wraith through the halls her father had built.

Mind blank, heart broken, she entered the hidden stairwell that exited to the back of Sentigard. With a shove, the stone wall at the base of the stairwell gave way, and Danella stepped out into the cool night air. Closing the wall shut behind her, Danella left the only life she’d ever known behind.

Epilogue

Fenyx VII

Stockhelm

Fenyx stood atop the crest of the Stormburn Geyser and looked out over Stockhelm below. Paxoran had led him past and around armies. Whether they were constructed of escaped slaves and mages, or Rheynian slavers, the Hate roiling within his veins was not meant for them. As mortals fought their petty wars, and fires raged on either side of the Crystal River, Paxoran positioned Fenyx for a greater purpose.

Weaponless, chained, and in the mortal realm, Fenyx was promised he would slay the treacherous Gods who ruined the righteousness of the world. He would restore peace and harmony, and every mortal for all of time would know it was Fenyx who made it possible. In the peace that followed, it would be Fenyx’s job to destroy any who challenged it.

Fenyx, the God of Death.

Shrines would be made in his image to remind people of the folly of disturbing Paxoran’s peace. People would enter temples grander than any the Rheynians could fathom to pray to Fenyx in the hopes of never having to cross his path.

“Are you ready, Champion?” Paxoran asked.

“I am ready,” Fenyx said, turning his back on the world burning around him.

He faced the bottomless crater within the Stormburn Geyser.

“Step through,” Paxoran said. “Descend the Falls and ascend to the Celestial Halls of Valencia.”

The Hate within him cared not for the height, the impossible depth of the plummet, or the doubt that a portal awaited at the bottom that would deliver him to the Celestial Halls of Valencia. Fenyx extended his foot over the precipice and leaned forward.

The open air accepted him. His empty stomach lurched. Wind buffeted his sun-scorched face, but he did not scream. For the first time in his life, in the free fall of hundreds of feet, Fenyx felt in control of his destiny. He soared more than fell through the darkness. The void below stretched on and on as he picked up greater speed.

The rushing wind began to snap at him. The air lashed, stripping at his flesh like the whip to Auron’s back. Fenyx grit his teeth through the pain and torment, as he always had. Faster and faster he plummeted. The winds seared like flaming flails against his skin. His eyes teared at the rush of air and the ever-increasing intensity of the pain that enraptured him.

Fenyx grunted as pressure closed in all around him, flaying the flesh from his body all at once. Unable to hold back his screams, Fenyx roared through the pain, determined to endure.

The pain became blinding as a white beam of light seared his vision. Growing wider by the moment, the white beam was accompanied by the sound of rushing water.

A light. An end!

Fenyx’s body felt like it was being torn apart and restitched back together simultaneously, but the light grew closer, and the water grew louder.

Then silence.

Pain ceased. The blinding light enveloped him. The rush of water became a gentle trickle.

“You have survived.” Paxoran’s voice entered his ears, not his mind.

Slowly, the harsh light faded, and more of Fenyx’s lost senses returned. Fenyx patted his body with his hands as if to make certain he still wore skin, but he wore plate instead.

Red-and-gold gauntlets and bracers lined his arms. The armor pulsated with a black electric tide that rolled like lightning on the horizon. The bracers stretched up his forearms where, on his right side, it met the extended layers of his pauldron. The straps of the pauldron slung across his chest down to his left ribs. An armor skirt fell to the tops of his greaves, and metal—lighter than leather despite appearing like steel—covered his feet.

Fenyx examined his skin. It was no more burnt and scarred than it had ever been despite the pain of his arrival in Valencia. He raised his gauntleted hands to his face. Though covered, the armor didn’t interfere with his sense of touch. Burns still lined the left side of his face, but they did not itch or prickle. The scar, carved by the Sentinel, lined his right cheek. His fingers traced up to the helm that rested atop his head.

Lifting his gaze, Fenyx found a black-robed figure emitting a red light across the iridescent marble of a vast atrium. The figure stood before a chain of glowing links that passed from a crank through a hole in the floor.

The gentle lap of flowing water rippled behind him. Turning in its direction, Fenyx beheld the most beautiful sight he’d ever witnessed. A series of descending pools lined an impossibly high wall. Each pool overflowed with a glowing liquid that cascaded into the pool below. The liquid was the same color as the links in the chain, though a brighter shade.

“The Celestial Falls,” Paxoran said. “And the Chain of Balance.”

Fenyx glanced over his shoulder toward Paxoran. Paxoran’s ashen skin was cracked by red webs that matched his glowing eyes. He pulsated with a power that the Hate within Fenyx craved.

“You appear a God already, Fenyx,” Paxoran said. “Now you just need a weapon worthy of one.”

Fenyx strode over to Paxoran and the chain beside him.

Paxoran took a deep breath, pulling back his cloak to reveal a frail torso of flesh and bone beneath. He dug his fingers into the red glowing cracks in his abdomen. The God winced, breathing through his teeth as he reached deeper into his flesh. The light emitting from his skin pulsated with waves of intensity.

Fenyx stepped back, uncertain how to help.

“It’s all right,” Paxoran said. “Painful, but fine.”

He took another deep breath, and his hand disappeared into the gap of red light. His cheeks trembled as he exhaled, but he persevered with a grunt. Paxoran groaned as he ripped free from his body what appeared to be a glowing red rib. The same forking black lightning as Fenyx’s armor crackled along the crimson bone.

As he pulled it further from his torso, the rib morphed, the tip squaring off into what appeared to be a pommel. Paxoran pulled his hand free of his abdomen. The red light of his eyes and skin faded as if it were being drained from his body and imbued into the sword.

Paxoran pulled further through labored breaths until a blade emerged. As wide as Fenyx’s hand was long, the blade rippled with glowing red and forking black life. It was so long that Paxoran’s reach couldn’t free the sword’s tip from his abdomen. He nodded at Fenyx for aid.

Fenyx seized the hilt and began to draw the blade from Paxoran’s thorax.

Power surged from the blade into Fenyx. Pulsing with the rhythm of life and thundering with the pursuit of vengeance, the freed sword exited Paxoran’s body and came alive in Fenyx’s hands.

Paxoran fell to all fours, his slender back rising and falling with heavy breaths. The God of Peace inclined his gaze, his red eyes meeting Fenyx’s, absent the throbbing flare from a moment ago. His cracked skin no longer radiated light. The life force that had flowed through Paxoran’s veins before now resided in the sword in Fenyx’s hand.

“It is done,” Paxoran said. “Now, the Age of the End begins.”

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

After my band broke up, I wanted a creative project that I could do all by myself. I thought that project would be writing. Boy, was I wrong. This trilogy, this story, and this journey never would have come to be what it is without the help of many along the way. A special thank you to my mom, my very first reader and always my biggest fan. To Chersti Nieveen and the team at Writer Therapy who taught me everything I know about story, thank you for your patience, encouragement, and guidance; A Vengeful Realm would not have existed in any readable capacity without you! To my fellow writers of the Creators’ Conclave, thank you for being my support system, my sounding board, and my think tank. To my critique partner and friend, L.D. Hudson, thank you for being my most avid cheerleader, my word-count pacer, and my writerly companion; you’re the Sam to my Frodo, and I never would have made it to Mordor without you. To the team at Paper Raven Books who shared my creation with the world, Landon Soelberg who brought my characters to life in the audiobook, and Taylor Ash who turned the Rebels’ Rhyme into a masterpiece—from the bottom of my heart, thank you! And of course, it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to create a universe, write a book (let alone a trilogy), and put it out into the world. But it takes a greater degree of patience and love to be the spouse of a writer. Thank you to my wife, Colleen, for believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When Tim isn’t writing epic fantasy, he can often be found in his garage-gym or in the mountains where he lives. A virtual fitness professional by trade, he integrates his creative passions into movement, training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords to unlock his inner gladiator. To inquire about Gladiator Training, reach out to him at TimFacciolaFit@gmail.com.

More than writing, reading, gaming, playing music, hiking, and paddleboarding, Tim loves story. If he’s not working on his own story, he’s helping others develop theirs as an author coach. To inquire about Author Coaching services, visit .

Living in Arizona with his wife, Colleen, Tim continues writing epic fantasy novels while exploring different storytelling mediums so he can inspire others to hope. To live. And to believe.

The Rebels' Rhyme by Taylor Ash

taylorash.com

Flip to page 639 to listen to the Rebels' Rhyme.

TIM FACCIOLA

Copyright © 2024 by First Torch Books, LLC. 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. 

Publishing Services provided by Paper Raven Books LLC

Printed in the United States of America 

First Printing, 2024

Paperback ISBN 979-8-9862855-6-6

Hardback ISBN 979-8-9862855-7-3

Dear reader, gratitude.

These were stories written for me, but it has been a dream sharing them with you. It warms my heart that you have made it this far through the journey across this vengeful realm. It is my hope that the ending warms yours in the time to come.

The Breaker of Chains

Book 2 Recap

Plunged into chaos following Zephyrus’s defiance at Laeden’s trial by steel, the realm is divided. Salmantica and Valtarcia prepare for war, Sentinels burn anything to do with the Judges of Celestia, slaves flee their masters in search of the Uprising, Jackals hunt them all over New Rheynia, and—worst of all—the nightly rains remain absent.

Zephyrus, an escaped slave, a Prophet of Celestia, and a known mage, runs from all of it to return to his ancestral home only to hear a voice. Iylea speaks to Zephyrus from Valencia delivering a message from his mother: there is a traitor amongst the Gods murdering the other deities and sending the mortal realm hurtling towards The Age of the End. Iylea tells Zephyrus he must return to Tharseo’s Bastion and claim the relic of long-dead Gods who have sacrificed themselves so that one day a mortal would possess the power to challenge the Traitor God.

While Iylea investigates the Gods to determine who the traitor is disguising themselves as, Threyna is influenced by Paxoran, the God of Peace. He uses Threyna to claim the Treasures of Stockhelm with the intent of making her his Harbinger to assassinate the other Gods. However, Threyna, suffering from the effects of blood magic and needing to consume, happens upon Zephyrus, recently weakened after trying to escape Lenox and the Jackals. Though Paxoran encourages Threyna to consume Zephyrus, she refuses. Exerting his control over her, Paxoran spreads the blood magic’s rot in her veins. Zephyrus, unwilling to lose Threyna again, heals her at his own expense. Witnessing Zephyrus’s magic, Threyna defies Paxoran and chooses to aid Zephyrus, believing he can help her defeat the Skeleton King.

While Zephyrus and Threyna fend off the Jackals and attempt to reclaim the Treasures of Stockhelm from Ceres of the Arcane Templar, and Tyrus and Erowen of the Warlocks of Sage, Laeden becomes entrenched in his own war. After the death of his grandfather at his trial by combat against Zephyrus, his great-uncle Horus has taken Valtarcia only to be strong-armed by Danella and King Damascus to oppress the Celestics. After being warned by Iylea that humanity’s only hope rests on Zephyrus crossing New Rheynia to receive the relics to defeat the Traitor God, Laeden and a group of knights loyal to the tenets of honor and justice begin liberating gladiator slaves to forge an army. Hoping his actions will distract the Jackals to allow Zephyrus passage across the country, while simultaneously vowing to the knights that they will take back Valtarcia, Laeden begins to stretch himself thin.

Meanwhile, Vykinallia finds herself a prisoner of the Fallen, the group of escaped slaves and mages labeled the Uprising by the patricians of New Rheynia. Ransomed back to Damascus, who had been led to believe that she was likely dead, Vykinallia realizes Salmantica intends to attack Lenara, the leader of the Fallen. Choosing which side she’s on, Vykinallia sabotages Damascus’s plans and runs off with the Fallen. She proves herself to them by allowing the leaders of the Fallen to brand her. Iberion, a leader within the Fallen, and a former friend of House Auros, brands her with a “V for Vykannis the Brave,” telling her to become what the Judges intended her to be. After Damascus sets Stockhelm’s jungles aflame, exposing their underground sanctuary, Vykinallia petitions the Fallen to attack other luduses, liberate them, and hide in plain sight. After a few successes and the arrival of slaves telling the tale of how Laeden liberated them, Vykinallia, with the help of Falcos (Brusos’s former bodyslave and Vykinallia’s captor), encourages the Fallen’s leadership to invite Laeden and his Ridge Knights to join them.

However, Laeden’s successes are fraught with trouble. Though they have liberated many slaves and created a following of freedpeople, some of the Ridge Knights—most notably Kherus—begin to question Laeden’s motivations and tactics. Hesitant to share the truth of the mission Iylea told him from Valencia, Laeden even begins to question Markus’s loyalty. All comes to a head when all parties converge on the Vale of Valtarcia. After Zephyrus and Threyna narrowly escape a scuffle with Tyrus and Erowen, Lenox and the Jackals bar their path. When Zephyrus uses his magic to distract the Jackals and allow Threyna the opportunity to arrange their escape, Laeden sees an opportunity to help. Though the Ridge Knights don’t understand why Laeden would command them to attack the shipyard and free its laborers, bound by honor, they do. Soon, the outnumbered Ridge Knights begin to fall. Not understanding why they are there, Kherus disobeys Laeden, abandoning his post to save a fallen knight. With their formation in disarray, more knights fall. Just as all seems lost, Vykinallia and her group of Fallen arrive to even the odds and spirit Laeden and his remaining allies to safety. Despite the risks, Laeden and his men help free scores of laborers, but at the cost of several Ridge Knights. To make matters worse, there is no sign of Zephyrus after he fought Lenox and the Jackals upriver.

Threyna secures the vessels of their escape, but absent Zephyrus, she can’t leave. Unable to find him despite the Jackals’ retreat, Threyna consumes the dead Jackals and uses her blood magic to locate Zephyrus’s heartbeat. Fearing he’s been abducted by Tyrus and Erowen, she runs after them, only to discover Ceres abducted Zephyrus while he was unconscious following his expenditure of magic to kill Lenox. Racked by her own guilt and realizing Zephyrus is more important than the Treasures, Threyna agrees to a deal with Ceres; they agree to go to Tharseo’s Bastion together to defeat Tyrus and Erowen and claim the relics Zephyrus needs, on the condition that afterwards, Threyna must give Ceres all three Treasures of Stockhelm.

Successful in retrieving Laeden and the freedpeople he’d liberated, Vykinallia returns to the Fallen, hoping to convince them to join forces and take back the Cassius ludus now under Brusos’s control. However, after sowing discord between the freedpeople and the Ridge Knights, Falcos, Danella’s spy, informs Salmantica that all of their enemies are under one roof. While Lenara, Laeden’s mother and the leader of the Fallen, and Sinion, a member of the Arcane Templar posing as a lanista, reject Vykinallia’s plan due to the divide Kherus and Laeden have brought to their forces, they realize they are under attack. Outnumbered, ill-equipped, and unable to defend their position, Laeden makes a plan to give the Fallen and the Ridge Knights the opportunities to reclaim what was taken from them. While Laeden volunteers to remain behind and serve as a distraction, the Fallen, led by Vykinallia, attempt to storm Brusos’s stronghold so that they might take it and have a place they can defend, and the Ridge Knights, led by Kherus, plan to take a boat and catch Horus and Valtarcia unaware.

Meanwhile, Zephyrus and Threyna arrive at Tharseo’s Bastion. Upon returning to where it all began, Zephyrus has a dream of how he lost his memories, his friend, and his freedom. Realizing Threyna is to blame for all that has happened to him, Zephyrus refuses Threyna’s apologies. During this exchange, Tyrus and Erowen arrive to take the Orsion Cloak and Vykane Blade from her. Threyna fights the mage, allowing Zephyrus time to claim the relic Iylea sent him to get. However, when he enters Tharseo’s Bastion, the Seers of Celestia and the acolytes, guided by the Traitor God, Paxoran, deny Zephyrus and attack.

Leading the assault on her own former ludus, Vykinallia leads the Fallen, and they manage to capture the mountain fortress and take shelter behind the walls before Damascus arrives after falling for Laeden’s clever ruse. As Damascus’s army sets up a siege to starve out the Fallen with their lack of provisions, Vykinallia plots to assassinate Damascus in the hopes that the rest of the army, absent their leader, will return home. With her most loyal allies setting fires around the Salmantic camp, Vykinallia attempts to sneak into Damascus’s tent and wait for him to return. However, when she arrives, he is already there. They begin to fight.

Fresh off of deceiving Damascus’s forces, Laeden charges to aid Vykinallia’s fight. But he and Markus arrive too late. Though Vykinallia defeats Damascus, Aemos stabs her in the back and Damascus finishes her with a thrust through her stomach. Her brother Markus runs to her defense and fights Aemos, while Laeden squares off with Damascus. Elsewhere, while Threyna attempts to outlast the mage and Zephyrus contends with the Seers of Celestia, Iylea discovers that Paxoran is none other than Hameryn, the God of Harmony who brought her to Valencia. Though she frees Arkadia, Zephyrus’s mother, from Paxoran’s holding cell, Arkadia sacrifices herself to allow Iylea to go tell Zephyrus the command words that will summon the relics needed at Tharseo’s Bastion. Iylea leaves the divine realm to help Zephyrus. With Iylea’s aid, Zephyrus claims the relics and defeats the Seers of Celestia. With his newfound magical abilities, he distracts the mage attacking Threyna, allowing her to defeat Tyrus. With the combination of Threyna’s growing affections for Zephyrus and his forgiveness of her past transgressions, she misinterprets what Zephyrus means when he says that perhaps the Wielder is not a person, but a cause, and that as long as they together have the three Treasures of Stockhelm, they can achieve anything. She attempts to kiss him, only for him to recoil.

Pressured by Iylea, who now calls herself the Guardian, Zephyrus asks Threyna to join him, despite her embarrassment, in defeating Paxoran. Reluctantly, Threyna agrees. As they teleport to the nearest gate to the divine realm in Stockhelm, they arrive to find the battlefield outside of the old Cassius ludus, only to find Aemos has killed Markus, and Damascus has killed his father, King Varros. Before Laeden can get revenge, Aelon, the King’s Guard Knight who betrayed him, intervenes, allowing the other knights to surround Laeden. Iylea, the Guardian, now a ball of light, attempts to aid Laeden in blinding his opponents, while Zephyrus tries to heal Vykinallia through her wounds. With the combination of his magic and the abilities granted to him by the relics, Zephyrus manages to save Vykinallia and Laeden. Threyna, surrounded by an army to draw from, utilizes her blood magic to force the rest of the Salmantic troops to retreat.

Damascus returns to Salmantica in defeat, and Danella learns that he murdered his father. Blaming herself for Varros’s death and the monster Damascus has become, Danella lays down her crown and flees Sentigard. Following the battle, Threyna senses the Skeleton King’s approaching horde. Meanwhile, Paxoran has found a new champion to be his Harbinger; Fenyx, having endured the torment of his enslavement without the glory he deserves, accepts Paxoran’s offer and ascends to Valencia, ushering in the Age of the End.

Prologue

Allaron stood above the dying Ridge Knight in the archway before Northridge’s throne room. Crimson blood seeped from the gash in the knight’s throat, spilling out between his grasping fingers to paint a silhouette around him. His life flowed—darkening the royal blue garb of Helixus’s elite guards.

The blue Allaron had dedicated his life to serve, the standard he hoped to don with pride one day, was now drowning in death. All around him, the white marble floor was littered with bodies belonging to both the Helixus defense and the plebeian revolution Allaron had helped lead. So much blood. So much death, but now they were here in Northridge. Once a hall of honor when Harrow and Hallon ruled, now it was an echo chamber for the cries of the dying.

The Ridge Knight before him twitched, gasped, gurgled, and breathed his last.

Only one more man must fall.

Horus Helixus. The traitor. The craven. The unworthy.

Allaron wiped the blood from his sword on the plume of the Ridge Knight’s fallen helm. He stepped over the bodies toward the door Horus hid behind and pointed his sword at it. “Knock it down.”

His second, Callonus, charged ahead to Horus’s hiding place. Behind him followed the other true Sentinels, who aided Prince Laeden at his farce of a trial, and the plebeians inspired by Laeden’s declaration to free the enslaved. Callonus had been the first to join Allaron in defying King Damascus to support Laeden. They had joined the Sentinels to protect. To defend their king and country. Somehow, it had come to this.

Back when Varros served as King of New Rheynia, Hallon reigned as Duke of Valtarcia, and Laeden led the Sentinels, things made sense. Now, King Damascus waged war against his own people and called it holy. Horus was duke, cowering beneath Damascus and his queen mother, Danella. And Laeden… Six only knew… fighting for freedom, change, and the restoration of valor.

Under Callonus’s instructions, men brought a ram. Stepping over the dead, and slipping on the bloody marble floors, the ram approached the towering double doors with the winged horse of House Helixus burned into the thick wood.

The men reared and struck. The ram bellowed. Wood whined, and the thud resounded throughout the hall. The blue-and-gold banners adorning the columns on either side of the door flapped, and dust rained from the rafters of the vaulted ceiling.

Allaron wiped sweat and blood from his brow with the back of his gray-and-blue Sentinel sleeve. The blood of his countrymen stained his uniform. He spat sour saliva to the floor, turning to face the men awaiting the doors’ collapse.

Boom!

“That’s the sound of tyranny fallin’, boys,” Allaron said.

Men cheered, punching their swords to the domed ceiling as the ram pounded into the double doors again.

Allaron’s teeth rattled. “Most of ya ain’t soldiers. Farmers, fishermen, merchants… but we are all Valtarcians! When honor and justice are threatened, we rise together.”

Boom! Wood splintered under the force.

“In the name of King Laeden Helixus, we will take Northridge! We will take back Valtarcia. And soon, we will restore honor to all of New Rheynia!”

Boom!

Chunks of the burned wood cracked and fell to the floor, joining the dead.

“For Varros!”

Boom!

“For Hallon!”

Boom!

The ram burst through the doors, cracking the splintered wood and whatever supports were intended to deny their entry. A handful of Ridge Knights barred their path, but beyond them, Horus Helixus drew his sword, his red face framed by his white beard and shoulder-length hair.

Allaron’s fist curled around the hilt of his sword. He was glad Hallon died before he could see his brother cast their family’s honor into the hearth. It was fortunate that Varros was taken from this world before he could see the misfortune that had befallen his house.

Laeden will make things right. Allaron pointed his sword at Horus. “In the name of King Laeden Helixus, Northridge now belongs to us. Surrender, traitor, and our king may let you live.”

Horus’s face burned with the fiery red of the Drake chimera. “You are the traitors.”

The corner of Allaron’s upper lip twisted into a wry smile. “Was hopin’ you’d say that. For Valtar—”

The blood on the floor in front of Allaron began to move, converging into a trickling stream that flowed through the atrium and back towards the front doors they had entered through. In the doorway, silhouettes stood, backlit by moonlight. As if at the delta of a river, the converging blood streamed towards the darkened figures.

Then the bodies of the deceased began to move.

Allaron stammered, not believing his eyes. Nearly slipping on the slick blood running beneath his feet, he staggered to compose himself, but the bodies’ motion was not a trick of the eyes. Twitching at first, the dead shrank, contorting inwards as if deflating like windless sails.

“Chimera’s breath,” Allaron said. “What in Six Hells…”

A gust of wind swept through the throne room, blowing downriver, toward the figures at the end of the bloody rivulet. As if robbing the air from Allaron’s lungs, the gale pulled Allaron and his men towards the main entrance.

Fatigue washed over him. Darkness invaded his vision, and fear unlike anything Allaron had ever experienced sank deep into his soul.

The figure at the center of the silhouettes strode forward, arms outward as if beckoning them towards him. As he walked into the light of the chandelier, whatever air was left in Allaron’s chest ceased to exist.

With a black crown atop his silver-blond head, and drawn, hollow cheeks that held up deeply sunken eyes, the man appeared more dead than the bodies on the floor. Black paint marred his horrific face in an intricate web. As the blood river ran towards his feet, it appeared to evaporate before Allaron’s eyes, turning into a mist. The figure inhaled the misting blood, and the black webbing along his face receded.

Allaron attempted to swallow, but a knot in his throat forbade him. The bodies littering the floor withered to husks within clothes and armor. The bloodstained marble was wiped clean.

The crowned mage held up his hand, rolling his fingers as if seeing them for the first time. “Northridge, you called it?” He sucked his teeth. “That certainly won’t do.”

“What are—who are you?” Allaron’s voice came out smaller, weaker than he intended.

“In the name of the One True God, Northridge—or whatever—belongs to me, King Belrich Fayte.” The crowned mage swished his black cloak in a flourishing bow. “Now surrender, traitors, and… well… I won’t let you live, per se.” He shrugged. “Tricky business—collecting souls.”

Receding footsteps echoed behind Allaron.

“Horus’s getting away,” Callonus said.

Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Allaron bit his lip. He didn’t know what evil this was. He hadn’t heard the name Fayte outside of history texts dating back to Old Rheynia, and Allaron had never been one for reading.

“All will join the One True God,” King Belrich said as the dozen or so figures accompanying him stepped into the chandelier’s light.

They each wore black uniforms chased with green trim, but their faces were concealed by skeletal masks.

Allaron spat what he couldn’t swallow. “To the Six Hells with your One True God. Men, form rank.”

The honor-bound militia of ex-soldiers and plebeians formed a curved double line from one end of the atrium to the other to stand against King Belrich and his dozen men. They still had sixty strong within the atrium, not to mention others who had attacked other entry points into Northridge.

We can take ‘em. “Let’s put an end to this self-styled king and find Horus, eh?”

The men stamped their feet and pounded their shields with their swords.

King Belrich cocked an eyebrow. “How inspiring.” He lifted his bony, skeletal fingers. Between each, blood rose, congealing into bloody red knives. Before Allaron could mock the parlor trick, Belrich reared back and threw the knives in a backhanded arc.

The daggers spun through the air, growing with each rotation until each became a scythe. The first scythe cut through the man on the left of their formation, severing him in half. Men screamed and dove out of the way. Their line fractured, but the scythes didn’t obey the laws of man or nature. Like hawks over prey, the scythes followed Allaron’s men.

Disarray. Disorder. Chaos.

Limbs flew from bodies, spraying gore along the white marble columns all over again. Blood spouted from headless torsos and legless hips. Tales of magic had never included such horror. Forty years of wielding a sword had offered no preparation for this.

Allaron dove away from a spinning scythe and raised his sword to deflect another one. The reverberation up his arm was like that of blocking a sword stroke from a glossy red weapon. He fended off another rotating blade, but men fell all around him.

His men, his militia, good people who believed in once again serving an honorable king—died screaming. They had been so close to victory. But looking at the hellscape before him, it didn’t feel close. Dozens were cut to pieces. Many were still alive, judging by their screams, but no one beside Allaron and Callonus were on their feet.

How can it end like this?

A sweeping scythe slashed down at Callonus. Allaron dove, tackling Callonus to the marble floor. The blood conjuration whipped through the air above them. Laughter joined the screams as King Belrich and his blood mage cronies watched the massacre like they were at the tourney grounds.

Allaron grabbed Callonus by the collar. “Get outta here. Find King Laeden. Warn him.”

Callonus’s brown eyes blinked, but Allaron shook him, causing black strands to spill from his tied-back hair.

“Go!”

Callonus pressed himself to his feet and ran over the strewn limbs and blood, his feet squelching on the blue-and-gold carpet, stained a murderous brown. He charged through the same doors at the back of the throne room Horus had used to escape.

Allaron sprang up, sword in hand. “Belrich!” He charged at the line of laughing mages.

Belrich raised a silver-blond brow. As if responding to his will, the three bloody, hawk-like scythes dove at him.

Allaron blocked the first with his sword, lurched backwards to avoid the second, and slid beneath the third. Only a few more strides from Belrich, Allaron reared back to strike. He jumped into the air, sword raised high overhead.

His momentum should have carried him forward. Gravity should have brought him back down. But a bloody tendril sprouted from the ground beneath his feet and coiled around his waist, stopping him in midair.

Cold sweat trickled down Allaron’s cheek. His breath came short and sharp, and his mouth went dry, waiting for the scythes to cleave him into ribbons. His eyes darted, searching for the bloody weapons, but they dematerialized, crumbling to ash.

“Quite impressive,” Belrich said, jutting his lower lip forward as he nodded. “Quite. Well, more impressive than…” He waved his hand at the remains of Allaron’s militia. “But let us see what true fortitude you have.”

Allaron grit his teeth. “Then let me go and fight me!”

Belrich chuckled. “It’s not the strength of your arms or your courage in battle that will demonstrate the mettle I seek. But what is in here.” Belrich pointed to his temple, then to his chest. “For too long the world has been ruled by brutes. But that age will come to an end.”

When Belrich took his hand away from his heart, a dark cloud followed the motion as if he’d pulled it from within himself. The cloud moved like an incorporeal, shapeshifting predator as it floated through the air towards Allaron.

Allaron attempted to wriggle free of the tendril’s grasp, but couldn’t. He raised his sword to slash at the dark spirit, but the cloud flew into his chest. A monster invaded his mind, his body. His soul.

Sifting through memories like flipping through pages of a book, the being smothered Allaron’s mind. He felt like he was drowning, not physically, but within. He fought against the force, trying to rebuff the incursion. Thrashing, even his limbs didn’t obey, as if this thing had its own intention for what to do with them.

“It’s been so long since I had a body,” the thing said within his mind. “I forgot how good it feels to live again.”

A passion, a hunger devoured whatever control or resistance Allaron had left. He tried to shake his head, but his eyes gazed straight at Belrich. He attempted to swing his sword, but his arms were no longer his to wield.

Six Save me. What is happening?

Belrich shook his head and shrugged. “Perhaps not so impressive.”

“I live again,” Allaron’s voice said, but they weren’t his words. “My king, how may I serve you and the One True God?”

Allaron couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing.

“Kill, consume, or farm the people of this city,” Belrich said. “The One True God says this war will be long. But fear not. All will join Him.”

“All will join Him,” said Allaron’s voice.

No. No. This can’t be.

But it was. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reclaim control.

“Start by killing the wounded,” Belrich said. “That seems to be all your new body is good for.”

The tendril released him, but Allaron still couldn’t move. He cowered within himself, wishing, wanting to reclaim control, but the dark being that inhabited him only laughed at his desires.

So close…

“You weren’t close at all, Allaron,” the dark entity said within his mind. Turning from Belrich and his skeletal minions, Allaron and his parasite strode over to the first of the downed men, bloody sword drawn.

A man, one of his—Gerald—held up his hand. “My lord, please…”

He was no soldier, just a fisherman who’d lost his boat in the attack on the harbor.

Please. Don’t.

Unceremoniously, as callous as Ser Darrow the Reaper of Marstead, Allaron’s parasite slid the steel he’d wielded for honor through Gerald’s heart. Gerald died. Honor died. Hope died.

Part I

Chapter 1

God of Death

Fenyx

Valencia

The glowing red sword crackled with black lightning along the blade. Pulsating in his palm, the hilt radiated hatred through his veins that set the burns along his cheek twitching. He’d waited his entire life for his moment—his chance to be seen, validated, justified. Everyone in the mortal realm had spat on him, robbing him of deserved glory, but now, Fenyx was ready to fulfill Paxoran’s wish and become the God of Death. The remaining Gods were all that stood between him and the laurels they stole from him.

His fist strangled the hilt of the blade, forged from Paxoran’s essence. It thirsted for vengeance, justice. Power. Soon it would drink the immortal blood of the Gods, and perhaps then the sword and the Hate would be sated.

“Are you ready?” Paxoran asked, his ashen skin made paler by the lack of red emanating from his eyes and skin now that he’d imbued a portion of his essence into the sword.

Fenyx grunted. “I have wasted a lifetime waiting for the Gods to give me what I deserve. I will wait no longer.”

“Are you sure you wish to contend with them all at once?” Paxoran asked. “I can summon one at a time.”

“No,” Fenyx said. “We do this my way. Summon them.”

Paxoran’s ghoulish cheeks spread into a grin. “Truly a God of Death.” From the folds of his robes, he pulled a large link from his pocket.

Similar to the links of the chain in size and shape, this particular link was darker, duller than the rest. Hameryn held it out over the hole of the anchor room floor and let it fall to the mortal realm below.

Brushing his hands off as if touching it sullied him, Hameryn turned from the hole in the marble and strode to the wall of pools. “Before we summon them, there is one more order of business I must see to.” He stopped before the Celestial Falls—the resting place of the souls deemed worthy of rest. The bright liquid, a mix of souls colored cerulean, viridian, and deep amethyst, cascaded down from one pool into the next. Above the pools, three archways glittered with a similar incandescence.

“We have no need of further guests at this point,” Paxoran said. He reached for a gemstone at the base of the elaborate golden display of oblong pools. As Paxoran removed the amber gemstone, the three doorways above the Falls lost their incandescent glow, leaving blank white marble walls in their place.

Paxoran placed the marquise-shaped gemstone in the pocket of his cloak. “Now it is just us… and our destinies.” He knelt down, his frail ribs protruding through his cloak as he hovered his hand over a glyph carved into the tile. Paxoran closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He whispered something to himself before pressing his pale, slender index finger into the center of the glyph. The tile glowed with a green-and-purple tint. One by one, other carved, glyph-marked tiles around the anchor room began to glow as well.

“Siblings,” Paxoran said into the glyph. “Attend me in the anchor room. There are matters we must address with haste.”

A brief silence hung in the air before another voice filled the anchor room, coming from the glyphs. “If this is about finding another Breaker, it can wait,” said a woman with a singsong voice.

Paxoran glanced at Fenyx but spoke into the glyph. “I am afraid, dear Phaebia, this is of a much more urgent nature. Please, join me.”

He lifted his finger from the engraved tile, and the glowing lights winked out one by one.

“They will be here momentarily,” Paxoran said as he pushed himself to his feet with the difficulty of an elderly man. “Remember, Ferrocles is with us.”

Fenyx nodded. “Phaebia, Moterra, and Incinerae.”

“Yes,” Paxoran said, forcing himself with some effort to stand upright. His eyes darted to the various entry points into the anchor room. “Do you wish to hide?”

Fenyx scoffed. Of course the Gods would prefer some honorless backstabbing. “I will look them each in the eyes as they die.”

“As you say,” Paxoran said, shuffling over to the chain. “As long as they die.”

Fenyx joined him to stand before the hole in the anchor room floor. Beyond the links of the chain, the mortal realm lay below. Fires burned across Salmantica and Valtarcia. Most of Stockhelm was scorched—by the king, the Uprising, or the lack of the nightly rains, it made no difference. Soon Paxoran would remake the world, and Fenyx would deliver those who sought to wrest control for themselves to death.

“I’ve waited many years for this,” Paxoran said. “Do not let your mortal sense of vainglory impede your purpose.”

“They will die,” Fenyx said.

The first door opened. Ferrocles, the burly and bearded God of War, strode into the anchor room clad in black armor traced with the same glowing cerulean light of the Falls of Valencia.

“Thank you for your promptness,” Paxoran said.

“Of course, Hameryn,” Ferrocles said, spanning the distance to the center of the anchor room.

Hameryn, the name the Gods knew Paxoran by—his false name. It seemed not even Ferrocles was privy to the truth of Paxoran’s hidden identity. That, or Ferrocles was keeping up appearances. Something I must do as well.

The rules for a Champion were different from those of a gladiator. The same was true for him here. No surprise that even the Gods had a hierarchy among them.

“How fares your new pet?” Paxoran asked as Ferrocles drew closer.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ferrocles stood opposite Fenyx, across the hole in the anchor room floor. His bushy brows narrowed as he looked down on Fenyx.

“I could ask you the same, Hameryn,” Ferrocles sneered.

Fenyx’s nostrils flared, but he bit back his words.

“The very cornerstone of our plans, and the nature of our discussion once the others arrive,” Paxoran said.

A stone silence hung between them, neither Fenyx nor Ferrocles willing to break the stare.

The door on the opposite end of the atrium swung open. Blustering in like a storm, a woman with dark skin and long white hair sauntered in. Her formfitting black-and-purple dress clashed with the flowing arm cape that draped from her left shoulder down to her wrist. Her feet seemed to crackle with electricity every time they contacted the ground. When her violet eyes met Fenyx’s, she came to a halt, and the static discharged.

“What is this?” Even in a short sentence, the woman’s rhythmic voice managed to drip with condescension.

The burns along the left side of Fenyx’s face twitched, and heat rose to the scar on his other cheek. He hadn’t felt so judged since the first time he was summoned to the villa of House Cassius for Cerberynn Brusos’s inspection.

“Peace, Phaebia,” Paxoran said. “This is Fenyx, and I will explain once all are present.”

Phaebia placed her caped hand on her hip and shifted her weight to scowl at Fenyx. As if his presence was an affront to her, she stood as far away from him as possible.

“Ferrocles,” she said.

“Phaebia.” Ferrocles’s response held equal disdain.

With the tension in the room palpable, Fenyx considered the divide between the Gods of Valencia. He had imagined the Six of Valencia, the Judges of Celestia, and whatever other Gods existed would be territorial, quick to argue, and faster to fight, but with their rivals—not amongst themselves.

Did the Judges hold such disdain for each other?

It no longer mattered. They were gone. And soon, so too would be the Gods of Valencia.

Opposite the cascading falls where the souls deemed worthy of the Gods’ glory flowed in eternal comfort, the double doors swung open. At the far end of the anchor room, two figures entered. One, short of stature, but as broad as Ferrocles. The other, long and tall, made taller by the tongues of fire that licked atop her short red hair.

The muscles along Fenyx’s spine clenched, sending a spasm up to the base of his neck.

Fire.

He’d never taken interest in the Six of Valencia, not enough to know each of their names or what they represented. But of all things, why fire?

As the two neared, Fenyx’s weight shifted from his left foot to his right. Though the Goddess’s flames were gentle and tender like candlelight now, he had little doubt they could roar to an inferno.

He closed his eyes, remembering the oil-laden deerskin tent that engulfed him in fire while his parents were murdered by Valencians. The scent of his own burning flesh returned to his nostrils. Bile climbed his throat. Every inch of his flesh prickled, but the Hate within him devoured his fear.

“Incinerae, Moterra,” Paxoran said. “Welcome.”

Moterra, the shorter, stockier woman with bulging tree trunks for legs and thick cords of bark-like carapace around her arms, took position beside Ferrocles.

Fenyx swallowed the bile in his throat as Incinerae, the Goddess of Fire, came to a stop beside him. The air ceased to exist in his lungs. Tursos’s burning blade severed his great sword at the hilt again, leaving him weaponless against Brusos’s Champion.

He took a deep breath, and the Hate burned away his memories. Be a Champion.

Even that wouldn’t be enough, though. He needed to be better than a Champion. If he wanted to be a God, he would have to conquer fear—conquer death, and become it.

I survived the tent. I survived Tursos. I will survive this.

He clenched his fist as Moterra’s barky gaze and Incinerae’s fiery one lingered upon him.

“Enough with the pleasantries, Hameryn,” Moterra said, her low tone like the groan of a tree’s roots against a gale of wind. “What is the meaning of this?”

Paxoran cleared his throat. “You all have borne witness to the troubles of our realms. The Creator’s Reckoning, this Age of the End—it must be stopped.” He held his hand out toward Fenyx. “Fenyx has volunteered to aid us in our time of great need at much personal expense.”

“Another one of your mortals,” Phaebia said, failing to regard Fenyx. “One failed you; the other two have betrayed you. Every attempt you’ve made to control the chain, manage the mortals, or preserve the Celestial Halls has backfired. Dressing this mortal as a God will do nothing to prevent the same result.”

Paxoran glanced at Fenyx, a grin twisting upon his lip. “Backfired, you say? Perhaps you have misunderstood my intentions. But allow us to clarify. Fenyx, if you please.”

Paxoran stepped backwards, away from the chain, clearing Fenyx’s path towards Phaebia.

“The world burns,” Fenyx said, glaring at Phaebia. “Yet as the smoke rises, the acrid fumes dissipate before they can stain the soles of your feet. I have come to make certain your ignorance comes to an abrupt end.”

Fenyx leapt across the hole in the floor, drawing the Paxoran-forged blade in one fluid motion. Phaebia lurched back with a gasp as he sliced the sword through the air. Before the red blade with the forked black lightning could reach the Goddess, Moterra pushed Ferrocles aside and jumped in front of Phaebia.

The edge slammed into Moterra’s bark-like carapace, sinking deep.

Moterra glared at Fenyx under the mossy foliage of her brows.

“Have you gone mad?” Phaebia shouted at Paxoran as she backed away.

Incinerae retreated several paces as well.

“You’re the traitor Klayvorine warned us about,” Moterra hissed through her square teeth. “You brought this Harbinger to end us. To keep your hands clean.”

Fenyx wrenched the sword free of Moterra’s bark and hacked downward. This time, she stepped into the blow and caught Fenyx by the wrist. Their faces were close enough for Fenyx to inhale the scent of soil that escaped Moterra’s mouth.

“You’ll pay for this, Hameryn,” Phaebia said. “Ferrocles, do something, you oaf of a—”

Ferrocles wrapped his corded arm around Phaebia’s waist. “I am.”

Incinerae stumbled back further, putting her fiery fingers to her lips.

“Run, Incinerae,” Moterra said. “Hide!”

The Earth Goddess shoved Fenyx away. Incinerae ran to the nearest door.

Fenyx repositioned his feet to attack again.

Moterra roared. Branches sprouted from her back to form two additional arms, each as thick as her own. “I will tear your Harbinger to pieces, Hameryn. Then I will break you.”

The Hate within Fenyx flared with renewed purpose. He charged Moterra, slashing at her nearest branching arm. The sword cleaved through the branch’s fingerlike projections. He ducked a swiping arm and planted a kick on the inside of her knee.

The impact rattled up Fenyx’s shin as if he’d kicked the side of a mountain, expecting it to move. Moterra didn’t budge.

Undeterred, Fenyx thrust at Moterra’s midsection. Her branches deflected the blade downward, and she countered with a punch. Fenyx ducked, spinning underneath her strike to whip his blade into the vines snaking up her lower leg. Vines severed, Moterra howled. She reached for Fenyx with all four arms, but Fenyx stepped backwards and hacked down.

The sword bit into the branch protruding from the back of her shoulder. Wood cracked, splintered, and hung limp. Moterra howled. Sparks flew behind her as Phaebia struggled against Ferrocles’s grapple.

“You won’t get away with this,” Phaebia shouted. “The Creator will—”

Ferrocles slammed the hammer of his fist on top of Phaebia’s head. She staggered.

Moterra swiped at Fenyx with her other branch, but Fenyx deflected it. He turned his momentum and slashed upward. The Paxoran-forged sword found a gap in Moterra’s carapace. Blood instead of splinters oozed from the wound.

The Hate burned within him, invigorated by the sight of blood.

Before Moterra could recover, Fenyx attacked more furiously. Putting his whole weight behind the strike, he cleaved diagonally across the joint in her elbow. She bellowed as the limb fell to the floor, and blood spouted from the wound.

With her left branch barely attached, and her right arm severed at the elbow, Moterra released the vines from her lower legs. The vines came to life; uncoiling like snakes, they slithered towards Fenyx.

Fenyx backed away, swinging his sword in sweeping arcs to fend off their approach.

A bolt of lightning flashed, and a clap of thunder echoed throughout the anchor room.

Orbs of light spotted across Fenyx’s vision. His ears rang. Phaebia escaped Ferrocles’s grasp and ran for the nearest exit, while Ferrocles knelt on the ground, his hands on his temples.

Before Fenyx could locate Moterra, something impacted his stomach, tossing him from his feet. He slammed onto the marble floor, ejecting the air from his lungs. Before he could regain his feet, the snake vines coiled around his ankles and slithered up his legs. He chopped at their tails, but they continued to squeeze his legs together.

The ground shook as Moterra approached. He tried to free himself from the vines, but before he could, she seized the end of the vines, outside of his reach, and dragged him towards the hole in the floor. Sliding across the marble, Fenyx drove his sword between his legs, severing the vines.

With the Hate pumping through his blood, he sprang to his feet. Moterra released the squirming vines to stand against him. He jumped and chopped downward. Slipping between her offset limbs, Fenyx brought the blade down in the gap between her severed branch and her neck.

The moss over her eyes rose as her left arm drooped. Blood drained from her broken collarbone to douse her torso. She staggered beside the hole in the anchor room floor, but Fenyx grabbed her by her bloody stump of an arm. As he yanked her away from the precipice of falling to the mortal realm, he drove the blade through the center of her breastbone.

The Goddess of Earth fell to her knees. Her vines withered; the green of her hair yellowed, reddened, and fell from her scalp, leaving only twigs. The furrowed texture of her barky skin sprouted a patchy, pale green fungus.

The Hate within Fenyx pulsated in time with the throb of the sword as it gulped the essence from Moterra.

“You won’t… get away… with this,” Moterra said, the life fading from her eyes.

Paxoran stalked over, behind Fenyx. “I will.”

“The Creator—”

“Will fall,” Paxoran finished. He leaned down until he was eye level with Moterra.

“Why?” she asked, the fungus spreading across her skin.

“Vengeance,” Paxoran said. He reached out a withered, bony hand for her cheek. The bark, weak and brittle, flaked off at his touch.

Fenyx twisted the blade and drove Moterra onto her back. Her knees buckled underneath her. Her head lolled to the side, and death—or whatever end Gods met—took her.

Fenyx tore the blade free to stand over the once-ferocious Earth Goddess, now a withered husk, rotten inside and out. The Hate thrummed within him, craving more. The glowing red sword gleamed, pulsing with each beat of his pounding heart.

“Move her body to the Hall of Mirrors,” Paxoran said, pointing a skeletal finger to the door of an adjacent room.

Fenyx sheathed his blade and did as instructed. Grabbing Moterra by her shriveled foot, Fenyx dragged her remains toward the door. Once he approached the door, he twisted the gilded knob and shoved the door open. The Hall of Mirrors was aptly named. The entirety of the rectangular room’s walls were covered in mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Fenyx dragged Moterra’s husk into the center of the room where each mirror angled toward him.

Everywhere Fenyx looked, he saw a man clad in golden armor with glowing red panels forked by black lightning. Though he wore the armor, the man was not him. His skin was wrinkled, drooping, and poxed. His muscles atrophied—his frame stooped.

Alarmed, Fenyx looked down at his arms, but they were the same as they always had been. Glancing back at the mirror, the lie remained. With a grunt, Fenyx left Moterra’s corpse in the Hall of Mirrors and closed the door behind him.

“Phaebia got away,” Ferrocles said.

“I see that.” Paxoran waved Fenyx toward him.

Fenyx approached, and the God of Peace placed his hand on Fenyx’s shoulder. “Can you feel her power entwined with yours?”

Fenyx nodded. The sword had a pulse that resonated with his own.

“There is more for you, Fenyx, God of Death. Find Phaebia. Kill her. Bring her back here. Your eternal glory awaits.”

Chapter 2

Return

Zephyrus

Stockhelm

Dawn light filtered through the barred window of the Champion’s cell in the former Cassius ludus. Though it was Zephyrus’s first time in a bed since the night before he served as executioner for Laeden’s rigged trial, even in spite of his fatigue, he could not sleep.

Vykinallia breathed softly in the nook between his arm and chest, a dream he didn’t believe possible. With their legs entwined and the taste of her lips still upon his own, he knew it was real, for if it were a dream, his heart would not ache.

Beside the double-wide feather bed, the Relics of Kataan—the bracers and greaves he and Threyna had ventured across the continent to secure—rested on the floor. So much had been lost in their retrieval. The Guardian traded her future in Valencia, and his mother died believing that, with the Relics, he could preserve humanity’s hope.

The Relics had saved his life from the Seers of Celestia, spared Threyna from Tyrus’s wrath, and practically brought Vykinallia back from the dead. He should have loved them, this gift from the Gods, but all he saw when he looked at them was a master he had to serve, a fate he couldn’t walk away from, and a purpose that would pull him away from the ones he loved.

Zephyrus’s chest rose and fell. His heavy breath rustled Vykinallia’s chestnut waves held back by a strip of purple cloth. The warmth of her body against his was a cruel comfort, for it was a pleasure he didn’t know if he would ever have again.

“You must ascend to Valencia,” the Guardian had said after saving him at Tharseo’s Bastion. Three gates—one in Stockhelm, Valtarcia, and Salmantica—yet no path allowed him to stay here.

Today, he would have to leave his friends, the members of the Fallen whom his parents had helped lead in rebellion, the freedpeople Laeden and Vykinallia liberated in Zephyrus’s name, and—worst of all—Vykinallia herself. Meanwhile, the adversary Threyna had sacrificed so much for and corrupted herself in order to defeat would soon be arriving on New Rheynian soil.

When Zephyrus followed the Guardian to the Stormburn Geyser, Vykinallia, Laeden, Threyna and the others would sail for Valtarcia where they hoped to overthrow Laeden’s great-uncle and mount a defense against the Skeleton King.

Zephyrus stroked the scar on Vykinallia’s back where the King’s Guard Knight stabbed her from behind. The magic-healed flesh was raised and red against her fair complexion. The tan of her sun-exposed skin did little to conceal the scar, but it was one of many she did not have the last time he laid eyes on her.

Calluses around her wrists where the traitor, Falcos, had bound her. Bruises purpled along her forearms, and scabs sliced across her limbs, each born from the battles she’d fought in. Yet the “V” branded into the flesh above her left breast wounded him worst of all.

“I chose to,” Vykinallia had said last night when his fingers traced over the raised flesh. “That’s more than you can say.” She kissed the “C” burned into the back of his hand.

He had loved her when she was still a slave owner. Now, she was a battle-hardened liberator of his people. She had vowed to help free the slaves and bring equality to the people as queen, married to King Damascus. She had gone above and beyond.

Now he had to leave her.

Zephyrus released his breath.

Vykinallia stirred. Her lips spread in a sleepy smile. She wrapped her arm around his ribs and squeezed. She winced and released her pressure.

“What’s wrong?” Zephyrus asked.

“Nothing,” she said, opening her eyes to gaze up at him. “Just a little sore from… nearly dying, I suppose.”

Zephyrus pursed his lips. “Come here. Let me—”

“No.” Vykinallia crawled on top of him. She nestled down with her elbows splayed across his chest, her fingers interlocked, and her chin resting on the back of her hands. “You can’t heal me anymore. You need to save your strength.”

Zephyrus grunted. “At least let one of the other healers look at you.”

“Everyone still alive needs the healers’ attention after the past days. I will be fine.” She tilted her head to the side, her emerald eyes examining him. “What do you need?”

A knot formed in Zephyrus’s throat. He wanted an escape from his duty, his fate, his prophecy. He wanted to lie in bed with Vykinallia Cassius until the world fell to ruin and Paxoran came for them himself. What he needed—what he wanted—was not a possibility.

“I need to know you will be careful,” Zephyrus said. “When the Skeleton King comes—”

“We have to deal with the Valtarcians first,” Vykinallia said.

“They’re not the ones who concern me.” Zephyrus ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling the loose knot on top.

Vykinallia bit her lip. “The blood mage.”

“The lengths Threyna went to in order to have a shot at defeating him…” Zephyrus shook his head. She had poisoned him and Patrus, robbing them of their memories. She’d condemned them to slavery and forged a letter to King Varros to mislead them from their mission in the event that they eluded capture. All to keep them off her trail so she could gather the Treasures of Stockhelm for herself.

Vykinallia dragged her index finger along Zephyrus’s chest, examining it as if expecting ink to spill out on him. When it didn’t, she twisted the amethyst ring she had given him the night she attempted to free him. It was back where it belonged, on her finger, after it had navigated half the realm with him. While it was wonderful to return it to her, watching her twist it knotted his stomach.

“What happened between you two?” Vykinallia asked, still twisting the ring.

Zephyrus grunted.

There were no easy answers. They had saved each other. She had denied Paxoran to pry him from Lenox’s clutches; then he had healed her through Paxoran’s torture when he spread the corruptive black rot through her veins. Together, they had survived Paxoran, the Jackals, Tyrus, Ceres, and Tharseo’s Bastion.

“It’s complicated,” he said.

Zephyrus thought their fates were entwined—two parts of one prophecy. But Threyna wanted more. He recalled her lips upon his after Tyrus fell.

“Zephyrus?”

Zephyrus cleared his throat. “I think… I think she thinks she loves me.”

Vykinallia sputtered. Her tracing finger paused and lifted to her lips. “I suppose that explains why she glares at me with a chimera’s hatred.”

“She’s been through a lo—”

“Is that an excuse?” Vykinallia narrowed her gaze. “We’ve all been through a lot.”

Zephyrus rubbed his temples with this thumb and forefinger. “No, I mean… I don’t know. But I promised her that I would help defeat the Skeleton King.”

Vykinallia sighed, her brow softening. “You will. You have. Just not in the way you thought you would. Just as Laeden keeps saying, we all have a part to play.”

Zephyrus averted his gaze from her to look at the bracers and greaves empowered with the magics of the Corners of Kataan. She was right. Zephyrus just didn’t like his role in this mummers’ farce.

“We will all be helping her,” Vykinallia said. “You shouldn’t worry about her. It’s you I worry about.”

Between the Kataanese magic, his elemental magic, and the Vykane Blade, Zephyrus should have been beyond the concerns of others. Yet these gifts had been bestowed upon him so he could defeat a God who had fed off the power of other deities.

Vykinallia’s hand cupped Zephyrus’s cheek, turning him from the relics to her emerald-green eyes. “You are Vykanicus Auros. The Gods chose you for a reason. Everyone here believes in you. But do you believe in yourself?”

Zephyrus gnawed on the inside of his cheek, but placed his hand on hers. “What if I ascend, defeat Paxoran, but I can’t…”

The words got stuck in his throat.

Vykinallia shushed him. “Don’t say it.” Water welled in her eyes but refused to fall. She slid her hand out from under his and removed the amethyst ring from her finger. “You will come back to me. And you will put this ring on my finger.” She pressed the ring into his palm. “Do you hear me?”

Zephyrus closed his fingers around the ring and held Vykinallia’s gaze.

To whoever has power over the Gods, let me return to her.

Vykinallia crawled upwards until their noses touched. “I love you, Zephyrus.” She closed her eyes and hovered her lips before his.

He pressed his lips to hers, squeezing his eyes tight and his fingers around the ring tighter. They broke apart just enough for him to whisper, “I love you, too.”

When their lips met again, a single tear escaped the corner of his eye and trickled down his cheek.

Chapter 3

Victory and Loss

Laeden

Stockhelm

Victory. Laeden had lost all understanding of the word. Damascus retreated, along with half the Salmantic fighting men he’d arrived with. Laeden had survived. Zephyrus had made it to Tharseo’s Bastion and claimed the relics Iylea had sent him to retrieve. His allies—the Fallen, the freedpeople, the Ridge Knights left standing, and even Aponius, the infiltrator Danella sent to kill him who joined their cause—had endured the night. But it was those who did not, and those he would not be able to protect in the coming days, who rested heavy on his heart.

There was little time or energy to organize the dead. Most lay where they died—staring up at the starry sky, or face down in the blood-soaked dirt. But Laeden couldn’t allow his father’s nor Markus’s corpses to lay there for another moment. While others took to the villa to rest and recover, Laeden found sleep would not come to him.

Standing over their bodies as they lay still on cots in the medicus’s chambers, Laeden’s head felt too heavy for his neck to support. His back stooped under the duress, and the various wounds he’d suffered since his wrongful incarceration stung with the pain of loss and fear.

His father’s slate-blue eyes stared blankly ahead. His skin, pale and stiff, had gone cold despite the candles around him. Markus fared no better. The vibrancy they both had in life had faded, muted into a grayscale reflection of Laeden’s growing dread.

He wanted to pray. He felt like he was supposed to. But his head felt empty, as did his heart.

“She’s at peace, Laeden,” said Zephyrus’s messenger, the Guardian.

Iylea wasn’t coming back. She’d ascended to Valencia, treated with the Gods, and now she was lost to him. Forever. Along with his father and his best friend.

“You deserved better,” Laeden said to them.

A light behind him cast his shadow across the wall. Laeden spun to see the source, but only the dim, pre-dawn gloom illuminated the window.

The door to the medicus’s chambers swung open, jarring Laeden from his grim thoughts.

Threyna’s silver-blonde braid hung before her as she leaned into the doorway. “There you are. I’ve been loo… I thought you’d be resting.”

Laeden released a held breath. He placed each hand on the edge of both his father’s and Markus’s cots and examined the floorboards between them. “It would seem sleep has not agreed with either of us.”

Threyna stepped into the chambers and closed the door behind her. The rot, as she called it, the black veins that corrupted her flesh whenever she wielded her blood magic, had abated since consuming the souls of the dead. At his request, she had not drawn upon his father or Markus’s souls. Though he wasn’t entirely sure they went to a better place absent her interference.

She tossed her braid over her shoulder as she stalked cautiously, reverently into the room, as if she were concerned with waking the dead from their slumber. “We’re not the only ones. Some are upstairs discussing how to take some castle back from your great-uncle.”

Laeden massaged his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “I suppose I should be up there.”

“I suppose,” Threyna said as she stopped before him, mirroring his posture by leaning on the cot. She bounced her heel, examining him with her piercing blue eyes. “They think the Skeleton King and his horde is a figure of speech—that he’s just another commander of a different army. Taking a castle will not protect us.”

Laeden took a deep breath. He shook his head. “Not here. The last thing they need to listen to is the talk of more death.” Laeden placed his hand on his father’s.

Cold. Dead.

After sparing his father and his best friend one last glance, Laeden gestured with a toss of his head for Threyna to follow him. They exited the medicus’s chambers and strode, side by side, down the corridor.

“Where is safe if not in a castle?” Laeden asked. For a moment, his only answer was the sound of footsteps scraping on stone.

“Nowhere.”

“Surely we’re safer in a castle than exposed out in the open.”

“Not if we’re trapped between the castle walls and the Skeleton King,” Threyna said.

Laeden grunted as they ascended the stairs leading to the villa. Her concerns were valid. Taking Northridge would not be easy with a fleet, smooth sailing, and a well-rested army. Their fleet—if it could be called that—consisted mostly of the ships Damascus left behind. The seas were anything but placid. And their force of freedpeople, rebels, and mages was far from fresh.

Laeden shouldered his way through the door at the top of the stairs, holding the bandage around his forearm where Aponius had carved off the flesh of his tattoo to sell their ruse of his death. “If we do nothing—”

Threyna grabbed Laeden’s shoulder, spinning him around to face her just outside the doorway to the cellar. “The Skeleton King will slaughter half the city.”

Threyna’s bluntness hinged on dramatic, but the bite in her tone and the angle of her brow suggested no hyperbole. “The other half, those who can’t fight—he’ll trap, farming them like blood bags whenever he needs souls to consume. And those who think themselves lucky enough to hide—those are just his toys. There is no hiding from a blood mage. He’ll make a sport of hunting them, one by one, until every last one joins his One True God.”

Laeden lowered his gaze to the marble floor of the villa. While some of the dead from Vykinallia’s assault on Brusos’s ludus had been brought outside to the training square, the bloodstains they left behind remained.

If a disjointed army of escaped slaves and underground rebels can cause this much damage to a villa, how much could an army of blood mages reap on Valtarcia?

Laeden waved for Threyna to follow him. “You defeated him once before, though.”

“Yes, but—”

“So you can do it again,” Laeden said.

Threyna scoffed, stepping in front of him to cut him off. “Like it’s that easy. He has hundreds, if not thousands, of souls at his disposal. For all we know, he could have consumed every soul in Rheynia before he left. I have none. Every time I conjure, the rot spreads faster, and it takes more consumption to clear it. And I am one, singular blood mage against his horde. Then I was with an army of trained soldiers who at least knew what they were up against. We had the arcanatek to contend against it.”

He hadn’t the faintest idea of what arcanatek was, but asking would prove her point. He put his hand on her shoulder. “We can help. You don’t have to do this alone. We may just need a little help.”

Threyna grunted and said something under her breath, casting her gaze to the marble.

Laeden stepped closer, and bent at the knees to fill her vision with his face. With both hands on her shoulders, he gave her a squeeze. “Talk to me.”

Threyna twisted her lip and shrugged him off.

When she didn’t answer readily, Laeden held his hands out in front of her. “I can’t help if you won’t tell me how.”

A sharp exhale hissed from Threyna’s nostrils. “I need Zephyrus to heal my rot as I fight the Skeleton King. But it seems he has more important places to be.”

She was referring to Zephyrus’s departure to ascend to the divine realm and stop the Traitor God from killing the rest of Valencia.

“We have other healers,” Laeden said.

“Who won’t be able to defend themselves if the Skeleton King attacks,” Threyna said. “I’ll expend more resources trying to protect them than attacking him. And what if he releases his darklings? Then what?”

Laeden bit his lip. He couldn’t appease her mistrust of his ignorance any longer. He needed to know what they were up against. “I know we are not the allies you wanted to take into battle against the Skeleton King, but we’re the ones you’ve got. I need to know what we’re up against. I don’t know what darklings and arcanatek are.”

Threyna lips blew out in a bluster and placed her hands on her hips.

“Help me to help you,” Laeden said.

Threyna crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight to one side. “Darklings are sentient souls that, when released, can enter another’s body and attempt to wrest control from them. Arcanatek are devices that contain magical energy. They have different functions—some eject souls from a person’s body, alive or dead. Rare ones can obscure time or space, but most are like bows and arrows that can obliterate souls altogether.”

A lump settled in Laeden’s throat. Having better technology was one thing, but another soul vying for control over his body made him sick. He nodded despite his inability to swallow. “So the Skeleton King can turn our own… against us?”

Threyna nodded. “Even with castle walls to hide behind. It is only a deterrent. We would still need everything to go right to have a hope of defeating him. That’s why we can’t afford to be caught between a castle’s walls and the Skeleton King’s army.”

“Then we’ll have to beat him to it,” Laeden said. “We’ll leave at once. Too much time has been squandered already.”

As Laeden and Threyna resumed their way to the tablinum where the other leaders were discussing plans, someone called his name. Laeden’s mother, Lenara, a leader amongst the Fallen, grimaced, running her fingers atop her gray hair. The knot at the back of her head was pulled tight enough to stretch the wrinkles of her forehead taut, but the lines of worry framing her mouth sent a chill down the back of Laeden’s neck.

Behind her, a man in a tattered Sentinel uniform hunched, resting his hands on his knees.

The stone in his throat that he’d been unable to swallow sank to his gut.

“This is Callonus,” Lenara said, her voice trembling. “He brings news from Northridge.”

Chapter 4

The Beginning of the End

Zephyrus II

Stockhelm

Zephyrus stared at the scorpion mosaic on the tile floor. The last time he had set foot in this room, Laeden had given him to Cassius as a gift to spy on the Revivalists within the house. So much had changed since then—between himself and Laeden, himself and Vykinallia. But even though Cassius was dead, the scorpion sigil lived on. Brusos’s short tenure in the villa didn’t afford him the time to make renovations.

And now no one would.

“We can set up our defenses here,” said Sinion, a leader amongst the Fallen who had posed as a lanista to aid the rebellion.

“You can’t mean to abandon the Valtarcians,” Laeden said. “They’ll die.”

“Would you have us risk all to mount a rescue mission?” Sinion asked. “They are not our allies. The plebs rebelled in your name, not ours.”

“Patricians and plebs won’t be the only casualties of the Skeleton King’s invasion,” Vykinallia said.

The crowded tablinum broke into more bickering. To stay and defend, to go and fight, the options were bleak in either case. Despite the gifts of the Gods, Zephyrus felt powerless to aid his allies.

The Guardian’s floating orb of light dimmed as she sank to rest on Zephyrus’s shoulder.

Zephyrus kept his gaze on Vykinallia as she petitioned to mount a rescue mission for the refugees of Valtarcia.

“If Paxoran succeeds in defeating the Creator, none of this will matter,” the Guardian said, barely a whisper in the crowded room.

Zephyrus pursed his lips and crossed his arms. He knew what she wanted him to do. But ascending now, abandoning his friends right at the Skeleton King’s arrival, felt wrong. “What if we defeat Paxoran, but the Skeleton King has taken all life in the mortal realm?”

Iylea’s light flared. “They have their fight. You have yours.”

Zephyrus bit his lip.

Laeden gestured with his hand towards Threyna. “The Skeleton King will harvest any he doesn’t kill, consuming as he needs. With every soul—slave, pleb, patrician, it doesn’t matter—the Skeleton King grows stronger.”

Threyna’s gaze flicked to Zephyrus. Though she had betrayed him in the past, the thought of abandoning her now after she’d gone so far to find a means of defeating the Skeleton King made his stomach turn.

“We must go to the gate,” the Guardian whispered. “I can sense them. Every moment we delay, we grant Paxoran more time to…” Her light dimmed, her hue barely perceptible.

Zephyrus turned to her as she trailed off. “What?”

“The gate,” the Guardian said, her voice breathy. “It—they… they’re gone.”

Before Zephyrus could inquire, shouting broke out, opposing Laeden and Vykinallia’s plan. Sinion the lanista, and Laeden’s mother, Lenara, stood at the forefront of their opposition.

“I will not risk Celestic lives on a Valencian prayer,” Sinion said, his jowls shaking. “Nor will I for a king’s crown, or a Rheynian’s vengeance. We are the Fallen.”

More shouting.

Zephyrus closed his eyes. “What do you mean they’re gone?” he whispered to the Guardian. “The gates are closed?”

Her light flickered. “I’m not sure. Paxoran. The Harbinger?”

“Is there another way?” Zephyrus asked, the pandemonium gathering all around him.

The Guardian’s orb shook. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

Vykinallia stepped to the center of the tablinum, jabbing her finger at Sinion. “If you want to stay here, fine. We don’t have the ships to escort everyone to Valtarcia. But if you think I’m waiting here while the world falls around us, you’re wrong.”

“You can’t defeat this enemy,” Sinion said. “I say let the Rheynian horde fall upon Valtarcia and Salmantica both. Then, when they are at their weakest, we defeat any left standing.”

Threyna seethed. “Have you not been listening? The Skeleton King won’t grow weaker after battles. He’ll grow stronger, adding more souls to his army, more fuel to his blood magic. If it is the slavers you wish to stop, he is the worst of all.”

Zephyrus uncrossed his arms. “Can the gates be reopened?” he asked the Guardian, her aura trembling. He felt her more than saw her now. Another tense moment passed in the tablinum, but still the Guardian did not speak.

“The Fallen have not endured by fighting battles not our own,” Lenara said. “I’m sorry, Laeden, Vykinallia, truly. But we cannot stand with you.”

The Guardian whispered, “I don’t know how.”

“If you wish to go to Valtarcia and throw your lives away in a fight with a hundred-to-one odds,” Sinion said, “you go alone.”

Vykinallia met Zephyrus’s eyes. He knew that look. Grim determination. Unyielding persistence. Zephyrus set his jaw to mirror her resolve.

“Find a way, Guardian,” Zephyrus said. “Until the path to Valencia is clear, I fight for the mortal realm.” He stepped into the center of the tablinum. Silence settled upon the room. Aside from the sound of his boots scuffing the scorpion mosaic, no one made a sound. Turning in a circle, he took measure of the tablinum’s many occupants.

“Hundred-to-one odds,” Zephyrus said. “Thousand-to-one.” He shrugged. “You can wait, you can run, but eventually, this is the only fight we have. You fear the odds, but how many among us have overcome them?”

Eyes darted around the room. Feet shuffled.

Zephyrus pointed his finger at Vykinallia. “A prisoner sent to the Uprising emerges as a leader amongst the Fallen. A thousand-to-one odds.”

Vykinallia grinned. Jecht and Cerik patted her upon her shoulders, murmuring in her ear.

“Jecht, would you take those odds?”

“Aye, and be a rich man,” Jecht said, drawing a round of chuckles.

Zephyrus nodded in Laeden’s direction. “A prince condemned to death is named Valtarcia’s first king. A thousand-to-one. Who among you would make that gamble?”

A handful of Laeden’s followers raised their voices in support.

Zephyrus pressed his own finger to his chest, keenly aware of Vykinallia’s ring pressed against his flesh within the waist of his britches. “I was brought to House Cassius a slave, yet here I am. Here we are.” He turned his palms skyward. “Thousand-to-one odds seems to be doing us well, Lord Sinion.”

“I will not sit idle and allow the Skeleton King to feast upon Valtarcia,” Laeden said.

“I’m with you,” Vykinallia said. “We’ll sail to the Bay of Bastards with any who wish to volunteer and help the refugees escape the Skeleton King.”

“And I with you,” Zephyrus said. Vykinallia’s questioning gaze fell upon him. “The gate to the divine realm in Valtarcia waits,” Zephyrus said, withholding the full truth of the matter. “But before I ascend, I will liberate those under the Skeleton King’s shadow.”

Vykinallia’s lips parted in a disbelieving smile.

“We will,” Threyna said, looking from Zephyrus, to Laeden, then back to Zephyrus.

“We all will,” Vykinallia said.

Threyna shook her head. “Zephyrus and I can teleport there. Right?”

This wasn’t what Zephyrus had planned, but he nodded. “Yeah, but—”

“Then we can go now,” Threyna said. “Get as many people out as we can until the others can get there. If we don’t, the Skeleton King will have consumed half the dukedom before we arrive by boat.”

Sinion shook his head. “Get people out and bring them where? Where could you hope to hide half of Valtarcia’s popu—”

A tremor rattled the floor. The walls began to shake.

Zephyrus widened his legs, spreading his base. Others in the tablinum stumbled into each other. Books spilled from shelves, and trinkets crashed to the tile floor. Gasps filled the tablinum, and screams echoed from elsewhere in the villa.

“What is happening?” Sinion shouted.

“The Disasters,” Vykinallia said, leaning against the shaking wall.

Plaster fell from the ceiling. The scorpion mosaic in the floor cracked, dividing the room in half. Columns fissured, and stone crumbled, but the quake only grew stronger.

“Not the Disasters,” the Guardian said to Zephyrus, her light a bright white. “The Harbinger has ascended and slain Moterra. This is the Age of the End.”

Chapter 5

Man of the People

Danella

Salmantica

Danella’s soles dragged on the cobblestone streets. She wrapped her cloak around herself, hugging tightly. Not because it was cold, not because she needed to conceal her identity—she just wanted to be held.

Never again would she see the gleam in Varros’s slate-blue eyes. Nor would she hear her name from his lips. What she wouldn’t give to glimpse that stubborn Helixus grin one last time. But he was gone. Lost to her. Lost because of her.

No family.

Damascus, the boy he once was, was lost to her too. She had no one to blame but herself. Every lever pulled, ever button pressed, they were all stained with her corruptive touch. From leading the Revivalists and forging the letter of Varros’s abduction, to staging Vykinallia’s kidnapping and framing Laeden, everything she had done had led Damascus to this ledge. Looking back, it was no surprise why he jumped.

The thought of him stabbing his father, her husband, slowed her stroll.

No future.

She leaned against the side of a building, and the silent sobs returned. She thought she’d cried enough to make up for the absence of the nightly rains in the pews of the Royal Basilica, but she was not done. After leaving Sentigard, she went to the temple searching for answers. But all she left with was questions. Doubts. Disbeliefs.

No faith.

Danella wiped her nose on the sleeve of her cloak. The pre-dawn streets were quiet. Aside from a squawking crow and the flight of sparrows, the morning went undisturbed by the plebs preparing for their day. Sentinels delivered rations of water to each doorstep. Bakers hauled sacks of flour from wagons to back entrances. Cobblers unloaded treated leather for their wares. Inn masters busied themselves in their taverns, preparing meals for their guests. Everyone went about their day as if Salmantica hadn’t suffered the greatest military defeat in its history. As if its king hadn’t been murdered. As if an army of mages hadn’t taken the most defensible position in all of Stockhelm.

They don’t care. They don’t even seem to notice.

Her sniffling attracted the attention of a shopkeeper. Danella put her head down and moved along. She didn’t know if people would recognize her absent regal attire or if anyone cared to find her, but she didn’t want to be found. She wanted restoration, healing—redemption. She was done ruling… or attempting to. Finished with politics and the manipulation that it required, she just wanted to suffer. To serve.

The temples would take me. I could join the Faceless.

The masked servants of the temples received no recognition for their service, but in their work, it was said they found their purpose. Danella couldn’t imagine what purpose the Gods would have for her after she had failed so tragically in guiding her people to the light of the Six. In many ways, she almost needed to guide herself back.

The Six Arrowed Stars erected around the city stood as beacons—not of guidance to the future but reminders of what became of traitors.

What a just end for me. To die, nailed to a Six Arrowed Star.

Danella chuckled to herself, but her laughter choked into more sobs.

I must go to the Temples. Serve as a Faceless. Then the Gods will see my humility and show me the path to peace Varros wanted me to walk.

Making her way to the Temple District, Danella noticed more birds flying north. The haze and smoke from the fires of Stockhelm likely drove them from their homes. In many ways, Danella felt a kinship with the refugee birds. The only difference was they didn’t start the fires.

The smoke and ash marred the sunrise’s beauty, but with the rising sun, Salmantica’s people flocked to the streets to go about their business. As Danella neared the Temple District, a crowd of plebs blocked her path.

Unable to circumvent them, Danella slipped through the crowd, taking care to keep her head down and her hood up. Nearly halfway through the gathering, cheers erupted as a man climbed atop a makeshift dais of stacked crates.

He held his hands up, bowing before the cheering crowd, but Danella didn’t recognize this man. Curling brown hair hung past his ears to frame a slender but comely face parted by a wide grin. His brown eyes glinted with hints of golden flecks.

An earnestness about the man stopped Danella in her rush to the temples.

“Brothers and sisters,” the man said, raising his hands to summon silence. “The lies and betrayals continue.”

Plebs barked their assent. Thin, dirty faces surrounded her in tattered clothes.

“This contamination that bleeds through our world is not alone,” the speaker said. “Do not believe the lies of our Prophet, Damascus Drake. He claimed the Gods chose him to lead us to this new world beyond the Disasters. Yet he condemned all others who heard the Gods’ soft whispers as mages, blasphemous servants of false Gods who sought to drive us from the light of the Six. Curious, is it not?”

The crowd lamented its support.

Danella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Blasphemy. In my own city. Standing on her tiptoes, she surveyed the streets beyond the crowd. Surely the Vigiles will not allow such inflammatory speakers to continue on.

“The falsehoods, the lies throughout the Facets of Perfection only ensured that Damascus Drake retained power. Control. Dominion over you, your children, and your children’s children.”

The speaker roared, and the crowd echoed. He wasn’t trying to keep his voice down. Not once did he glance up or down the street, watching for Vigiles or Sentinels to stop him. It was as if he owned the streets. The streets of her city.

“Some fought against such oppression, but the Treaty of 940 reinstituted a new age of lies and corruption. Damascus Drake’s death offered no reprieve. His son—the incompetent whoremonger—offended his way into an early trip to the crypts of Sentigard. His successor?”

Danella’s fists balled at her sides. Her eyes narrowed, threatening to spill tears. She couldn’t bear to hear a single word spoken against Varros. Not now. Not ever again.

“Varros Helixus—the last living son of Hallon Helixus, the survivor of the New Rheynian War—that, friends, was a king for his people. He challenged the Treaty of 940. He challenged Damascus Drake’s xenophobia and his prejudice against the Stockhelm natives with a simple act; he spared the life of a mage. And for once, I thought hope had arrived in New Rheynia.”

Danella’s fingernails released from her palms. The tension in her jaw dissipated.

The glistening golden flecks in the speaker’s eyes darkened. His lips pursed in a scowl, and his open hands clenched before him. “Then the Revivalists arrived, once again reinstalling a new brand of fear into the hearts of God-fearing Valencians. But King Varros did not bow. He and his son declared that mages would not be put to death, but the precedent of exile would continue. Why then would mages abduct him?”

The crowd grew fervent, mirroring the speaker’s enthusiasm.

A pang of guilt surged through Danella’s chest. The Revivalists, her answer to Varros’s Celestic leniency, fueled the fire that led to all of this. She couldn’t bear to hear anymore. She wanted the speaker to stop. She wanted to run away, but the crowd was too densely packed to slip through at this point. Danella scanned the streets, hoping to find someone to disperse the crowd. A pair of Vigiles stood on the outskirts of the gathering, seeming to listen rather than attempt to disband.

“I say they didn’t abduct him,” the speaker said. “They didn’t murder him as we have been told. I have heard tales that he has disguised himself, choosing instead to serve New Rheynia as a rebel instead of a king. In Valtarcia, he has rallied the plebs in rebellion against Horus for his crimes against humanity. The plebs call for a new leader in Northridge—Laeden the Crownless, Laeden the Punished, the pseudo-prince has been named King of Valtarcia, for he is a man of the people!”

Danella squeezed her eyes shut. Her chest hurt. She didn’t know truth from falsehood, or what was hyperbole versus factual. She recalled the prophecy her handmaiden, Iylea, had said before Aemos parted her head from her shoulders.

“Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

She never heard the end of it. At one point, she was glad she didn’t know the end of Iylea’s prophecy. Danella had dismissed it, diminished it, or outright denied its truth. She believed in the Facets of Perfection; the Valencian Gods would speak to no other after the Great Migration, and anyone who claimed otherwise was a blasphemer professing the words of false Gods posing as the Six. But after listening to this plebeian speaker, Danella’s questions abounded.

Everything Iylea had said had come to pass. Is it possible that she did not hear from false Gods? Was she warning of the Six’s wrath?

“While Laeden fights for the people in Valtarcia and Stockhelm, our King Damascus hides behind the closed doors of Sentigard,” the speaker said. “While our crops fail absent rain and our children starve, the king drinks wine and gorges himself on the suffering of others. And why, might you ask, why hasn’t our rebel-hero, the once King Varros, come to rally our insurrection?”

He paused, allowing the people to fall silent, looking at one another for answers.

“I believe King Varros is dead,” the speaker said. “Not killed by the mages as our supposed king wants us to believe, but killed by the Revivalists! The Revivalists killed our king of hope!”

Gasps broke out amongst the crowd.

Danella swallowed a wave of nausea. She imagined Damascus’s blade spearing through Varros’s back to burst out his belly. In her mind’s eye, blood bubbled from her lover’s mouth, dribbled down the lips she’d never again kiss.

The speaker wasn’t entirely right. But he wasn’t wrong either.

“How have I come to know these things, you ask? There is an answer—a difficult truth—that even many among you, my dear listeners, will struggle to believe.”

For the first time since he climbed his makeshift pedestal, he glanced down the street in either direction. A cohort of Vigiles and Sentinels surrounded the crowd on either side.

The speaker’s handsome grin spread wider than his outstretched arms. “I, good people of Salmantica, am a seer.”

The crowd broke into a bustle equally composed of questions and denials.

Danella felt equally conflicted. Her indoctrinated reflexes spat in instant denial, but in her brokenness, the seed of doubt sprouted into possibility.

He raised his voice to speak over the crowd’s noise and the encroaching Vigiles and Sentinels. “I have heard the voice of our beloved Incinerae. She has shown me the truth. Hear me. Believe me! And together, we may yet be spared the demise we deserve.”

Vigiles and Sentinels surged inward. The crowd attempted to disperse, but was cornered.

“Go peacefully,” the speaker said to the people. “Do as the upholders of the law say, but know that they cannot take from you your thoughts.”

His eyes met Danella’s in the crowd.

She didn’t know what to think, how to feel. But before she could get a grasp on her emotions, the Vigiles and Sentinels broke through. The speaker was ripped from his dais and dragged to the ground. The crowd ran, this way or that, but Danella remained rooted in place.

The speaker did not resist, but the Vigiles beat him with wooden rods anyway.

Tears streamed down Danella’s cheeks.

“Nail him to the Six Arrowed Star,” a Sentinel officer said to the others.

Danella wanted to do something, but she didn’t know what. She didn’t know why. Confusion overwhelmed her. She couldn’t watch as they dragged the speaker’s broken and bruised form away. She couldn’t move even after other Vigiles told her to move along.

Staring upward, more birds flew north, cawing.

Her inner turmoil collided with the pandemonium of her surroundings. It was all too much. Her legs began to tremble. She fell to her knees. But it wasn’t her weakness that gave out. On all fours, the cobbles of the streets began to shake.

It’s not me. It’s an earthquake.

Chapter 6

The Order

Threyna

Stockhelm

The earth’s rattling ceased, but the damage was done. Tempers boiled and nerves frayed as the leaders argued over the best course of action. If time wasn’t of the essence before, the notion that the earthquake was triggered by the death of another God only exacerbated their urgency. While indecision ruled over them, the Skeleton King would move unchecked through the land. As far as Threyna was concerned, there was only one option: find a way to stop the Skeleton King before his power grew beyond her ability to defeat him. To hide here and hope that the Skeleton King, Salmantica, and Valtarcia would weaken each other so that the Fallen could swoop in and defeat whoever was left standing was delusional. It would only add more power to Belrich’s blood magic and deliver more souls to the Skeleton King’s One True God.

“Enough,” Threyna said, stilling their arguments. “Zephyrus and I are going. Those who wish to help can follow when the seas allow. And those who wish to stay and wait for the end of the realms…”

Sinion glared at her. Zephyrus averted his gaze from her to Vykinallia. Laeden crossed his arms and contorted his lip, but if he had an objection, he didn’t give it voice.

“Fine then,” Threyna said. “Zephyrus?”

“Wait,” Vykinallia said. “Can you teleport more of us? We can help.”

Threyna stifled a growl. She needed to sell her intention of going to Valtarcia as a rescue mission to prevent the Skeleton King from growing in strength, but what she really wanted was for her and Zephyrus to fight him. Kill him. And if Zephyrus became torn between aiding Vykinallia in assisting others or helping Threyna defeat the Skeleton King, she knew his choice.

“I don’t know,” Zephyrus said.

“We’re running out of time,” Threyna said.

Vykinallia strode up to Zephyrus and took his hand. “She’s right. Go. We’ll meet you at the Bay of Bastards.”

The way they looked at one another made Threyna sick. You don’t even need him. Stifling her jealousy, Threyna snatched Zephyrus’s other hand and yanked him from Vykinallia’s grasp. “Bay of Bastards. Got it. Now let’s go.”

Ignoring Vykinallia’s sharp glare, Threyna turned to Laeden.

Laeden nodded. “We’ll meet you there.”

Without any further farewells, Zephyrus, the light attached to his shoulder, and Threyna came together. The air in the room became thin. With wind rushing past her, Threyna closed her eyes to the tablinum. The sensation of falling from a height made her stomach lurch.

Once her gut settled and the rushing wind died down, Threyna opened her eyes. They were in the rooms of an inn. Candlesticks, trinkets, and decor that belonged on the wall littered the rug. End tables had toppled over, spilling the drawers and their contents onto the wooden floorboards beyond the carpet’s reach.

“The earthquake,” Zephyrus said. “It reached here too.”

“Where is here?” Threyna asked.

“I needed a place I could picture,” Zephyrus said. “We’re at the Winged Helm Inn, adjacent to the Chariot’s Arena in Valtarcia.”

“A random inn?” Threyna asked.

Zephyrus crept by her. “It’s not random to me.”

He didn’t offer more.

“The gate is nearby,” the Guardian said. “I can feel its absence—”

A cry, shrill and wavering, pierced the night air beyond the window. Together, they slunk toward the window, the Guardian’s light dimming. Slowly, Zephyrus adjusted the curtain, enough to peek outside to the city streets below.

“Burn me,” Zephyrus whispered.

The roofs of buildings slanted at odd angles, spilling shingles onto the fractured streets below. Streets, littered with bodies. Not just bodies, but desiccated husks of what were once people. The horrors she once thought she’d left behind returned to her as people, yet of this world, ran for their lives.

Threyna’s heart pounded in her chest as the nightmares from when she fled Rheynia came alive before her. Men of the Order, the Skeleton King’s army, dressed in black uniforms cut with green trim chased after the runaways. The citizens had no chance. Their screams were evidence enough of that. Wielding handheld arcanatek, the Order legionaries were as dangerous to them as a blood mage.

“We’ve got to help them,” Zephyrus said, leaning against the glass as if ready to teleport to the street below.

Threyna grabbed his arm. “The best way to help them is for us to kill the Skeleton King.”

The orange ring around Zephyrus’s brown eyes burned hot. “That was not the plan. You said we’d help people escape.”

“And we will!” Threyna said. “But this may be our one chance to kill the Skeleton King. Together! If we escape now, sure, we’ll save lives, but he will still become more powerful, and when you leave me…”

“What about the plan?” Zephyrus said, stepping away from the curtain, palms upward and chin dropped low. “What about Laeden and Vykinallia?”

“I told them what they needed to hear,” Threyna said, jabbing her finger at Zephyrus’s chest. “Now I’ll tell you what you need to hear; Everyone—everyone—will die if we can’t kill the Skeleton King. Me, Laeden, Vykinallia—everyone.”

Zephyrus gritted his teeth. “Lies. It’s always lies with you.”

Threyna winced. She couldn’t get away from her past, but at this point, she would do what she must to secure the future.

Zephyrus pointed out the window. “People are dying out there. You want me to just abandon them?”

“I want you to help me, Zephyrus,” Threyna said. “If you want to do it to save lives, if you want to do it because you said you would, or if you just want to kill a monster before it ends the world—I don’t care why. I just want you to help me.”

Zephyrus grunted. The Guardian’s light ebbed and swelled.

The screams outside faded.

Zephyrus grit his teeth. “We kill him. But we help people along the way.”

“Fine.” Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne.

Heartbeats throbbed all around her, but there was only one she was searching for. The Skeleton King’s presence was a blight upon her senses, like a dark cloud on a blue sky, or a spot of blood on a white tunic.

“He’s close,” Threyna said. “Not alone, but we have the element of surprise. Follow me.”

Threyna led the way out of the inn. Heartbeats echoing in her Inner Throne gave away the hushed voices that didn’t reach her ears. There were dozens of people in the inn, likely patrons and workers, hiding from the Skeleton King and his army. Locked doors and thin walls wouldn’t protect them. Neither would sealed gates and castle walls, not if she couldn’t kill the Skeleton King.

Ignoring those in hiding, Threyna led the way down the staircase, through the tavern, and toward the kitchens. Beyond the door, a panicked heart waited. Threyna stopped Zephyrus with her hand.

“We’re here to help,” Threyna said, listening to the quivering beats. “I’m going to open the door. Don’t attack.” She gave Zephyrus a nod and pushed the door open. Beyond the precipice, a woman dressed in an apron held a knife before her with trembling hands.

Slowly, Threyna reached for the knife and lowered the woman’s hands. “It’s going to be okay. Just stay here. We will be back for you.”

Zephyrus glanced back and forth between her and the woman. “If we can’t, don’t wait here. You can’t hide from them. Take the first chance you get and head west.”

The woman’s brown eyes watered, but she nodded her head. Backing away and lowering her knife, she allowed Threyna and Zephyrus to pass.

Exiting the inn through a side doorway, Threyna stifled the annoyance that Zephyrus’s advice undermined her own. “If we can’t…” There’s no room for ifs.

As they stepped out into the alleyway, the metallic scent of blood tinged the damp air. Fog clung between the buildings, yet to be burned off by the rising sun.

Pressing deeper into her Inner Throne, Threyna directed her attention to the approaching dark cloud. Following the main street, eleven heartbeats neared their position, the Skeleton King among them.

“You take the ten legionaries,” Threyna whispered. “I’ll take the Skeleton King and call for healing when I need it. Watch for their arcanatek. Guardian, keep close and stay dark. Don’t attract the attention of their arcanatek.”

The Guardian’s light dimmed.

Fresh shrieks erupted through the city streets. Zephyrus began to charge toward the voices, but Threyna’s hand on his chest stopped him. He opened his mouth to object. Cutting him off, Threyna pointed to the figures moving through the fog like the shades of Rheynia.

“They’re going to the front of the inn,” Threyna hissed.

Stalking towards the shades approaching the front of the building, she neared the dark cloud hanging over her Inner Throne. Strike fast. Strike hard. I may never get a second chance.

She sank deeper into her well of power, conjuring a bloody double-bladed glaive in her right hand. Clinging to the corner of the alleyway, Threyna strangled the haft.

“I can sense them,” a voice said. “Hiding in the walls like rats. Bring them to me.”

A handheld arcanatek began to whir into motion. Threyna recognized the sound—an irradiator. With one charged blast, the front entrance would be cinders.

With Zephyrus behind her, Threyna rounded the corner. As the arcanatek’s warbles reached a crescendo, Threyna conjured a bloody cap over the barrel of the irradiator. The high-pitched cry exploded with a burst of light and force.

But with Threyna’s blockage, the arcanatek backfired.

The Order legionaries were blown backwards. Smoke rose with screams as the radiant eruption scorched their black uniforms. The Skeleton King conjured a shield to defend himself, but too slowly. Holding his face in his hand, the Skeleton King was exposed.

Zephyrus teleported into the fray of legionaries, drawing the Vykane Blade. The light from the blood-infused Treasure of Stockhelm burned through the fog, slashing and thrusting through the air to tear new screams into the dawn.

Threyna charged to Zephyrus’s light. Summoning blood-borne vines from the cobbles, she ensnared the Skeleton King, and hurled her glaive for his chest. Half-expecting her conjuration to fall to ash, she forged a second, but her first glaive struck the Skeleton King in the shoulder.

He drew in breath, and a vortex dragged upon her essence. The souls of the legionaries, dying to Zephyrus’s blade, were ripped free from their bodies to swirl toward the Skeleton King’s maelstrom.

“Guardian!” Zephyrus shouted.

Her light flashed, swelling with intensity as she too followed the current along with the other souls. The air fuzzed as time seemed to slow around the Guardian’s aura.

As the first souls flowed into the Skeleton King, he removed the double-sided glaive from his shoulder. The weapon and her vines dissolved to ash. But as Threyna neared, she realized the Skeleton King wasn’t the Skeleton King. The blood mage wore the Premius badge of an Order officer.

Black rings framed his eyes, and dark veins raked at his neck like corruptive claws, but it was the pendant on his neck that drew Threyna’s eye.

The scars on her arm where the blood artifact’s prongs sank into her flesh flared with pain. The Blessing, they called it, but it was nothing but a curse. She recalled the shapeless, red-and-black, liquid-like substance slithering around her body, searching for where best to sink its fangs. The black veins spreading up her forearms throbbed.

In Threyna’s momentary hesitation, the blood mage conjured a curved throwing knife and hurled it at her.

As it toppled end over end to split her eyes, Threyna lurched at the last second. Turning her momentum into a spin, she slashed her double-bladed glaive at the blood mage. Her glaive met the blood mage’s hooked sword with a clang.

“He said you’d come,” the blood mage said, the pendant around his neck pulsing. “Perhaps you will be the one to help me unlock the final prong before the Blessing passes to someone new.”

Threyna growled and shoved him away. They traded blows with their blood conjurations, but Threyna couldn’t waste her exertion on a foot soldier. Not when she needed to defeat the commander.

Over his shoulder, Zephyrus had wrested the Guardian’s soul from the blood mage’s grasp, and slain the last of the legionaries.

“Threyna,” Zephyrus shouted. “More coming.”

Her Inner Throne was under assault. Heartbeats streamed down the alleyways, converging on their location. With each grouping, a small dark cloud accompanied it.

If the black cloud is just a blood mage, and this one was bigger because of the blood artifact, where is the Skeleton King?

Threyna spun her glaive and slashed at the blood mage’s chest. At the last moment, he dropped his guard. She carved a crimson crescent across his chest. Following through, she thrust the other end of the glaive through the blood mage’s belly and twisted.

The blood mage crumbled over the glaive. Falling back, he drew in breath.

Recalling the first time she’d saved her own life to release the final prong, she realized what he’d meant. The tug on her soul, even greater than before, spread the rot around the blood mage’s face. Black vines snaked along his neck, coiling tighter and tighter until they had constricted the color of flesh from his face. The newly fallen souls of the men Zephyrus cut down rushed to the blood mage.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, Threyna drew in breath. As the souls flowed toward the blood mage, Threyna called to them herself. Though her rot spread in the effort to wrest the souls away from him, the newly departed obeyed her call.

As the souls flowed into her, her rot abated, but the blood mage no longer had the resources to heal himself. His blood seeped into the ground between the cobbles. Whatever light remained in his eyes darkened, and the black rot spreading through his veins devoured him.

“We need to go,” Zephyrus said.

Threyna didn’t want to pass up her opportunity. “No. Just give me time. I can find him.”

“Threyna, we—”

The blood mage died, and the artifact around his neck released, dematerializing into a pulsating red-and-black liquid. Slithering like a snake, it left the blood mage. Threyna gasped.

It needs a new host.

Just as the blood artifact coiled in preparation to strike at Zephyrus, Threyna dove deeper into her Inner Throne. It launched itself at Zephyrus. Zephyrus lurched backwards, slowing time. In the time afforded by Zephyrus, Threyna conjured a spherical container around it, trapping it before it could reach him.

“Tip the scales, what is that thing?” Zephyrus asked.

She couldn’t answer. She strained to contain the artifact, but it thrashed within her confines. Her veins bled with the corruptive rot as it branched from the scars of her arm. Some trickled down past her elbows while others stretched up towards her shoulder.

The longer she held it, the harder it fought to be free. Desperate for a new host, it launched itself at Zephyrus despite the walls she constructed around it.

“I can’t hold it,” Threyna said, the rot spreading up her shoulder and down her wrist. “Heal me.”

The first group of Order reinforcements emerged from the alleyway. The second came down the main street, blocking their escape.

“Zephyrus…” Threyna couldn’t let it infect Zephyrus. She had done too many things that she hated herself for, but she couldn’t—she wouldn’t let it corrupt his soul too. The rot spread up her neck. “Zephyrus, please.”

Zephyrus released a wave of force magic that flung an entire cohort of Order legionaries from their feet. He spun, and with a burst of radiant light, he blinded the other cohort as their arcanatek weapons whirred faster and faster. Zephyrus rushed to her side, but as he neared, he approached at regular speed. Meanwhile, the legionaries he lifted from their feet had yet to hit the ground, and the arcanatek blasts from the blinded soldiers shot through the air in slow motion.

White tendrils of mist surged from Zephyrus’s fingers and flowed into Threyna. The rot abated, but not fast enough. Even in slow motion, the prone legionaries regained their feet, and the blinding radiant light wouldn’t keep the others from firing again.

“What are you doing?” Zephyrus asked, his voice a higher octave at an increased speed as he manipulated time to expedite his healing.

“The blood artifact,” Threyna said. “It’s searching for a new host.”

“Let it go!” Zephyrus said. “I’ll teleport us.”

More legionaries approached. More blood mages.

“I can’t,” Threyna said. “This is how the Skeleton King creates more blood mages. We can’t let him have—”

The blood artifact burst through her bindings and latched onto Zephyrus.

Time returned. The blood artifact slithered around Zephyrus with fervent agility. Wrapping around his neck, his arm, across his hip, around his wrist, down his leg—the blood artifact zipped from place to place, unable or unwilling to take purchase.

Arcanatek whirred around them as black-clad legionaries encroached. Threyna rushed to Zephyrus’s side and conjured a dome over them. Shots rang out. Portions of the blood dome blew apart, but it protected them.

Threyna watched in horror as the blood artifact encircled Zephyrus. It slowed and, still unable to decide on a location to latch onto, released from Zephyrus, dropping to the blood-soaked streets.

Threyna couldn’t believe her eyes, but with the buzzing arcanatek preparing to fire again, she had no time to question. It began to slither away, but something held it in place.

“I’ll hold it,” Zephyrus said, exerting his force magic. “You fight! We’ll draw the Skeleton King. Guardian, lead the civilians to escape east.”

The arcanatek whirred to a climax.

Threyna tore the decimated dome apart. Its shrapnel launched in all directions just as the arcanatek fired. The shards of the blood dome absorbed some blasts and flew through the air to hurl legionaries from their feet. Zephyrus summoned shadow shields to negate the remaining projectiles.

“Go!” Zephyrus shouted as blinding radiant light tore from his bracer and illuminated the streets, heading east. The Guardian’s light zipped off, disappearing into the light Zephyrus cast.

With her rot abated, Threyna dove back onto her Inner Throne. Surrounded by dark clouds on all sides, she focused on the other blood mages—six in all. She felt their conjurations, their blood-borne instruments of her demise, but she was the Queen of Cataclysm—their summons were hers to command.

The nearest blood mage, at the mouth of an alley behind her and to her right, forged a javelin and threw it at her. Threyna didn’t need to see it to sense it. Before it could strike her, Threyna imposed her will on the javelin. Keeping its momentum, Threyna redirected the javelin toward the blood mage on the opposite side of the street.

The blood mage conjured a shield to deflect it, but the javelin ricocheted and pierced the adjacent legionary. The mage who threw the javelin approached with a long sword. As he reared back to swing, Threyna released the conjuration. He struck at Threyna, but by the time the blade reached her, it had dissipated to ash. Before he could recover, Threyna summoned a sickle, and slammed it up into his chin. The blood mage fell, writhing.

Five left.

Arcanatek buzzed as another round prepared to fire. Zephyrus, even while holding the blood artifact in place, teleported a handful of legionaries. They disappeared, only to return to the physical plane dozens of feet above the ground, shrieking as they fell.

Ignoring the rot creeping beneath her flesh, Threyna summoned a bow and three arrows. With all three bloody fletchings between her fingers, she released. Launched at different angles, Threyna controlled the paths of each arrow. One followed a sweeping arc that bent around a conjured blood wall to take the mage in the temple. A second shot straight ahead at a raised blood shield, but Threyna seized control of the conjuration and dissolved the center of the shield to ash as her arrow burst through, taking another blood mage between the eyes. The third arrow zipped from one legionary to the other under Threyna’s guidance, piercing through the hearts of the soldiers assaulting Zephyrus.

Three mages left.

More arcanatek whirred into motion, trained on Zephyrus. A burst of fire blossomed from his palm and shot across the street in a beam. Flames engulfed the legionaries. Even as their screams burned out their lungs, other legionaries broke rank to attack Zephyrus.

They don’t want him; they want the blood artifact.

Threyna conjured spikes that shot up from the cobblestone streets. Pikes impaled the approaching legionaries before they could reach Zephyrus. As he balanced the scales to shower the legionaries in a spray of water, Threyna squared off with the three remaining blood mages.

Together, the three conjured a thicket of entwining vines that reached with fingerlike projections. Starting at her feet, the vines entangled around her lower legs, fixing her in place. Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne to dissipate the conjuration to ashes, but against the three of them working together, she only managed to release a few tendrils.

Rot spread up her shoulder and blackened her hand, but she plunged deeper into her seat of power. Fighting against their collective will, she seized control of their conjuring. Before they could regain reign over it, their tendrils burned to ash.

A bolt of lightning crackled through the streets. Zephyrus’s elemental magic continued to decimate the legionaries. Broken bodies languished, corpses lay burning, and those electrocuted seized in fits.

So deep within her Inner Throne, Threyna sensed more dark clouds drawing near, but with them, almost as if attempting to disguise its presence, loomed an eternal darkness that threatened to blot out the sun. The Skeleton King.

With three blood mages remaining before her, Threyna charged to end them quickly. Forging her favored glaive, she closed in on their longswords. She met the center mage’s weapon with a clash, spun her glaive, and thrust at the mage on her right. Her glaive sank into the flesh of his thigh. She ripped the blade free and turned to block an attack from the left mage. As the right attempted to absorb the spilled blood of the fallen legionaries, Threyna redirected the red mist before he could use it to heal.

She slashed high, thrust the other end, and swung a backhanded blow that sliced the center mage from his chin to his scalp. The blood mage crumbled. As the leftmost mage came to his fellow’s aid, Threyna conjured a dagger from the right mage’s wounded leg, and sent it through his throat. Denying their attempts to heal, Threyna attacked the last mage while his brethren gurgled in the throes of death, but he backed away, a grin on his face.

“Threyna!” Zephyrus shouted.

She whirled around to find Zephyrus holding himself up with his sword as a crutch. His other outstretched hand struggled to keep the floating blood artifact in place.

Darkness descended over Threyna’s Inner Throne as a shadow blacked out the sun, fighting its way through the fog over Valtarcia’s streets. Wind buffeted against her in the rhythmic flap of giant wings as the Skeleton King came to a landing in front of Zephyrus.

The wide grin of her Uncle Belrich greeted her. His cheeks hollow, his skin sallow, the blood magic had aged him since last they met back in Rheynia.

“Niece,” Belrich said, making a show of looking around. “Where is your sister? I had thought you two would never part ways again. I suppose not.” He shrugged, turning his gaze to Zephyrus. “I see you’ve made a new friend.”

With the jerk of his fist, the blood artifact tore free from Zephyrus’s invisible grasp and flew to the Skeleton King. It came to a halt before him, as if obeying him, but the liquid, red-and-black artifact contorted as if it did so unwillingly.

Belrich tsked. “It’s a shame my father didn’t take to the seas earlier. These Westerners put up less of a fight than your Underground’s legions.”

Threyna strangled the haft of her glaive.

“They have no will to resist,” Belrich said. “No arcanatek to fight back.” He stretched his arms out as wide as his twisted grin. “And I have never felt better. I’m sure you remember how good it feels to have hundreds of souls at your disposal. But curious…”

He stalked closer, striding past Zephyrus as if he weren’t even there, the blood artifact squirming beside him. He allowed his leathery wings to dissolve to ash. Behind his wings, a long, blood-conjured tail coiled around a gagged prisoner, but Threyna couldn’t look away from Belrich’s ghoulish green gaze.

“You consume, but you do not keep the souls?” Belrich asked, examining the rot tingeing her skin.

“There is no curse beyond Rheynia,” Threyna said. “I take what I need, and I let them go. Maybe that’s why the years have weighed heavier on some of us than others.”

Belrich laughed, as more legionaries filed down the main street and blocked off the alleyways. “What are years, my dear, sweet Threyna, in lieu of eternity with the One True God?”

Threyna snarled. “He uses you. The same way he used me. You realize that, don’t you?”

“That he gifted my father so he could gather the lost souls, and you with the power over blood, body, and soul, so you could ascend to realms beyond to slay the false Gods? Why, yes, Threyna. Of course he uses us. Don’t you see? What good are we if we do not do as we were created for? You denied your purpose, so another has risen to take it. That is why even though you triumphed over my father, I am still here to fulfill his will, just as another has replaced you in the divine realm. You chose to deny your fate, but fate will be fulfilled.”

Threyna shook her head. “You’re wrong!”

“Am I?” Belrich sneered. He drew closer, his ensnared captive writhing against the strength of his conjured tail.

Charged arcanatek leveled on Zephyrus. He had regained his footing, but there were more mages and legionaries now than before, and Threyna would need healing again if she hoped to fight the Skeleton King and his legions.

“Haven’t you felt the earthquakes, seen the sea’s wrath?” Belrich asked, raising a silver-blond brow. “The One True God rises, but you…” He stared into Threyna’s eyes. “And you…” He turned towards Zephyrus. “It is not too late to be on the winning side.”

Threyna’s rot-infested blood boiled. She wanted to say that he would never win, his mission would fail, and she would defeat him—but she didn’t believe it. Doubt encircled her, encroaching tighter than the legion around her. She grit her teeth.

“Defiant till the end,” Belrich said. “I always admired that in you, Threyna. Your father, Bherus, had that too. Once I envied his strength of conviction. Too bad he chose the wrong side.” He shrugged. “I suppose everyone has their fatal flaw.”

Threyna growled. Cold sweat beaded down her back. Sinking as deep into her Inner Throne as she had ever dared before, the rot slid up her neck and crept along her collarbone, but the glaive in her hand crumbled to ashes in her grip.

“You won’t be needing that,” Belrich said. “I don’t want to fight you. You have shown me how valuable it is that we work together. Though you have never been able to play nice with others, yourself, at least for very long. I too have struggled, but I have found a means to gain allies. Allow me to show you how I do it.”

His tail whipped over his head, striking like a scorpion’s stinger. The captive, constricted within his tail’s grasp, slammed onto the ground between them. With white, shoulder-length hair and a bright red face, an older man, dressed in blue-and-gold armor too small for his bulk, forced himself up to his hands and knees. Bloody tendrils sprouted out of thin air to encircle his wrists and lift him from the cobblestones until his feet hovered above the street. He attempted to speak, despite the gag in his mouth, but the sound was unintelligible.

“Take, for example, the Duke of Valtarcia,” Belrich said, beaming. “Some call him the usurper, others—a traitor. Some believe he is a pawn in Salmantica’s game, and others think he is actually doing the right thing. So complicated. So interesting, isn’t it? How is poor old Horus even supposed to know who he is or what to do under such affliction?”

“Let him go,” Zephyrus said from behind.

Belrich turned to him, then back to Threyna. “Is your friend always so rude?”

Zephyrus raised his hand to cast, but before any flames, water, or lightning could come forth, a flow of blood wrapped around Zephyrus’s wrist, twisting his palm back towards himself.

“Quite rude,” Belrich said. “As I was saying…” Belrich released his hold of the blood artifact. Like a caged animal, the artifact bolted for Horus.

The red-and-black liquid zipped around Horus’s chest, encircled his arms, then latched onto his forehead, materializing into a red-and-black crown. Horus let out a muffled cry through his gag as the artifact injected its prongs into him. The black rot surged from his forehead, down his cheeks and into his neck, before retracting back into the corrupted crown.

Zephyrus whipped the Vykane Blade through the tendril binding his wrist and attacked the Skeleton King, but a blood-conjured sword rose before him. Zephyrus fought the invisible wielder of the blood-borne blade, but he couldn’t close the distance on the Skeleton King.
“You certainly keep low company, Threyna.” Belrich waved his hand, and a conjured hand snagged Zephyrus by the ankle and swept his feet out from under him. Zephyrus hit the ground with a thud.

Threyna attempted to forge a shield in Zephyrus’s defense as the blood sword hovered over him, but the Skeleton King dissipated her conjuration to ash. The blood sword struck downward.

Sparks struck along the cobblestone. Zephyrus teleported away from the Skeleton King’s grasp, but he had yet to reappear.

Belrich shook his head at Threyna. “Everyone abandons you, don’t they? I won’t, Threyna. The One True God won’t.”

Threyna bared her teeth, but her heart thudded in her chest. I can’t defeat him. Not without trapping as many souls as he has.

Horus ripped free from the tendrils holding him and tore the gag from his mouth. “You will not win, monster,” he shouted at Belrich.

“So defiant,” Belrich said.

A darkling poured from the Skeleton King’s chest and surged into Horus’s, beginning the battle for control over his body and mind.

“Until the end,” Belrich said.

Horus turned toward Threyna, and said in a voice not his own, “Join… or die.”

It was worse than Threyna imagined. With Zephyrus, the Treasures, and the Relics of Kataan, she still couldn’t beat him. She gulped.

Out of nowhere, Zephyrus reappeared above the Skeleton King, the Vykane Blade in his hand. He swung down at Belrich. Belrich spun and caught Zephyrus by each wrist. Blood spread out over the Skeleton King’s arms, reinforcing his strength.

Zephyrus struggled against him.

“And you,” Belrich said. “You think I don’t know you? I can hear your heartbeat. I can sense every change in temperature of your blood. You think you have power… against me?”

The Vykane Blade retracted into the hilt still within Zephyrus’s hand as the Skeleton King took control of the blood forged into his heirloom sword.

In Belrich’s distraction, Threyna screamed within her Inner Throne. She conjured a sword at Belrich’s back, but Horus conjured a shield to block it. Just as Belrich’s blood-borne sword was about to stab Zephyrus through the side, Zephyrus teleported beside Threyna. He wrapped his arms around her, and before she could object, the air became thin, and wind rushed past. And they teleported out.

Reappearing outside the gate on the outskirts of the city, Threyna glared at Zephyrus. “How could you? We—”

“Would. Have. Died!” Zephyrus shouted. He seized Threyna’s hand and held it up to her.

Black.

The rot within her veins, thicker than usual, covered her arm.

Zephyrus released her, placed his hands on his hips, and observed his surroundings. People—patricians and plebs, owners and slaves, Valencians and Celestics—hurried from the gates with nothing but what they could carry, guided by the Guardian’s light.

The Guardian flitted in looping circles, seeming more in need of guidance than the heads she fluttered over.

“Guardian,” Zephyrus called. She continued to flit around. “Guardian?”

After a moment, the orb of light descended on them.

“Apologies,” the Guardian said. “I seem to have lost myself for a moment.”

Zephyrus cast a glare at Threyna. “We all seem to have. Come on. Let’s get these people as far away from this place as possible.”

Zephyrus trotted off, running towards the front of the refugees, leaving Threyna rotten. The stain of the Skeleton King clung to her even on the opposite side of the city. In the distance, the Vale flowed through the shipyard where only days ago, Threyna and Zephyrus had fought against the Jackals and liberated countless slaves. But so much had changed since then.

Threyna bit her lip. I lied again, used him, and nearly got us both killed. And for what?

She’d run out of ideas for how to overcome the Skeleton King’s power. But she had an idea. And all she needed for it to work was the blood artifact. Biting her lip, she hustled to follow the flow of people running toward the Vale to escape the Skeleton King.

Chapter 7

The Sea Blade

Vykinallia

Stockhelm

The lands of her home were laid asunder. Cracks and fissures divided the Hylan peaks. The Crystal River’s winding path from the Stormburn Geyser to what remained of the burned-out southern jungles was interrupted by waterfalls that never used to exist. But worst of all was what the damage represented; Moterra was dead.

Between the Skeleton King’s arrival, the ascent of Paxoran’s Harbinger, and Threyna’s willful and domineering demands of Zephyrus, Vykinallia’s darkened mood spurred her to action. Luckily, some chose to join her, but too many others remained within the perceived safety of the Hylan ludus.

Not all were remaining out of callous disregard for others like Sinion and Lenara—someone needed to care for the infirm. Vykinallia’s mother volunteered to assist the medicus. Nortus, ever-loyal to the Cassius family, remained by her side. As did Gensus, a Ridge Knight not yet recovered from his injuries despite the healing mages’ efforts. Vykinallia was glad her mother wouldn’t be alone, but too many, able to help in the cause, refused to do so.

After saying her goodbyes to those who deserved them, she, Laeden, Iberion, Unari, and Kherus led groups of volunteers north for Nesonia’s docks and the ships left behind by the Salmantics.

Many wanted to accompany them to help those under siege, but the tumultuous seas would be risky. They were fortunate that a few with seafaring experience aided their cause, but beyond navigating the treacherous seas, the fear of what they’d find upon landfall accompanied their march. Despite nearly a hundred in their company, the way was silent.

Worse than the aftershocks of the tremors, the howling wind, or the crashing waves was the noise within Vykinallia’s mind. She hated how, despite herself, what bothered her most was the way Threyna tore Zephyrus away from her touch. The world was falling apart, but she couldn’t help but fear for him.

Will I ever see Zephyrus again?

As if sensing her thoughts, Laeden brushed the back of his hand against Vykinallia’s leather bracer. “They will be okay.” He pursed his lips and nodded. “We’ll get there soon enough and…” He shook his head. “We’ll see what we can do for the people of Valtarcia.”

Vykinallia’s gaze fell to the dry, torn earth before each footfall. Her stomach twisted, and she reached for the elbow Zephyrus had healed. Laeden’s presence of mind to focus on those in need only highlighted the contrast with her selfish thoughts.

“They will be okay,” Vykinallia said. “And we’ll do our part.”

Laeden grunted. They strode in silence for a few paces. “He’ll be back, you know.”

“I know,” Vykinallia said, but hearing her own voice, she didn’t sound convinced.

“He’s not one I’d bet against,” Laeden said, smoothing the dressings along his wounded forearm. “Gladiators, Revivalists, Jackals, Seers—why not add a blood mage and a Traitor God?”

Vykinallia forced a smile. The dried-out foliage crunched underfoot.

“We’ve lost too many,” Laeden said, his voice somber. “We both have.”

He was referring to Markus. She knew he was, but somehow it still didn’t feel real. For so much of her life, her older brother was just away. Away in Salmantica, training with Atonus Allos, studying to be the Master at Arms. Away from her father and the weight of expectations placed upon him. Away, but never gone. Though she’d clung to him as they both lay dying, it felt like a nightmare she’d woken from. But with each step she took alongside Laeden, reality set in, and their faces stretched as long as the shadows they cast against the rising sun.

“He was proud of you, you know?” Laeden said. “Perhaps not the best at showing it, but it doesn’t change how he felt.”

Neither does you saying it. Vykinallia swallowed the words. Laeden wasted his kindness on her, because that’s all it was—not truth—kindness.

Laeden sighed, his shoulders heaving. “He didn’t agree with everything I did either. Especially since the trial. But he thought you were abducted by the Uprising. He thought they killed your father. If he had gotten the chance to learn the truth, really know it, he would have supported everything we’ve been doing.”

Vykinallia hoped it was true, but a wrinkle of doubt creased her brow. Would he have? Or was he more like Father than I ever wanted to see? Not wanting to sully her memory of her brother, she chose to believe Laeden was right.

As they neared the docks of Nesonia, the degree of the earthquake’s destruction became more apparent. Though the land itself seemed unaltered, the resultant waves did the rest. Some ships had sunk—masts broken by the crashing swells. Others were wrecked upon the rocks of the north shore, or must have drifted out to sea, because the ships left riding the heaving tides did not match the scouts’ final count.

Eight ships. Nine less than they had at their disposal last night. If they were hoping to ferry people to the safety of Stockhelm, they would not have an easy time. The prospect was made more difficult by the thunderous crash of the waves slamming into the shoreline. Those still floating were nestled closest to the docks, somewhat protected from the brunt of the sea’s wrath by the curve of the coast.

Laeden addressed their company, shouting over the roaring tide. “We sail for the Bay of Bastards, but be prepared for anything. We do not know what awaits us, only that there is a force that cares not for kingdoms, customs, or life itself. We must unite if we are to weather the storm. And we must be vigilant in defending one another.”

Laeden lifted his gaze to the sky and ran his palm over his shorn hair. “The Gods will not guide our path. They will not aid our cause. We know that now. It is up to us. The way will not be easy, but we will persevere. We sail together, we fight together, and we will win together!”

Cheers rose throughout their number, fists punched the air, but the tumultuous tides and choppy waters sank Vykinallia’s enthusiasm.

Jecht jostled his spear beside Vykinallia as their group divided into four parties to take half of the remaining boats.

“Just a little water, eh?” Jecht said.

Cerik hefted his mace over his shoulder. “Enough to drown civilization itself.”

“Don’t be so grim.” Jecht grinned ear to ear, parting the scar that slashed across his face. “The sea is in my veins—I’m a Hecht bastard, remember?”

“You’ve been on the deck of a ship one time absent manacles,” Cerik said. “And that one time, you nearly sank us.”

Vykinallia stifled a laugh, glancing between the two as they approached their boat bobbing in the tide.

“Well if it weren’t for someone else over here—” He jabbed his thumb at Vykinallia. “—Zephyrus could have used his magic to get us to the sanctuary. As it were, we did jus’ fine, didn’t we?”

Cerik scoffed, but Jecht’s words transported her back to that night, the night before the New Rheynian Games in the Chariot’s Arena. Zephyrus, Jecht, and Cerik were supposed to escape together, but she had summoned him to her chambers to free him. She recalled what she believed was their first and final goodbye. He was off to join the Uprising, while she was preparing to marry Damascus. If not for Paxoran, he would have left that night.

How much different might things have been?

Laeden would have been dead. Who else would have defied the crown and defended Laeden in a trial by steel? If Zephyrus had escaped before she had freed him, would he have taken kindly to her when Falcos delivered her to the Fallen?

“You’re right, Jecht,” Vykinallia said. “You did just fine, and so will we.”

Standing on what was left of the docks, the surf swelled beneath their feet. Vykinallia walked the plank to board the bobbing Sea Blade, hoping it would deliver her and her crew to better fortunes than it had the Salmantic soldiers who abandoned it or died before they could return.

Laeden and Kherus’s crew joined together to take the largest ship. As their sail billowed out, catching the wind, the voyage to Valtarcia began. Iberion and Unari each took a mismatched group of Fallen, freedpeople, and even surrendered Salmantics who chose to aid in the sailing effort rather than be caged in the barracks.

Iberion’s and Unari’s ships opened their sails to the winds and set out into the white-capped breakers. All aboard the Sea Blade, Vykinallia gripped the netting around the center mast as the Salmantic seafarers prepared their vessel for launch. Though she knew her way around a boat, she had never navigated such treacherous tides.

She wanted to pray, but after Zephyrus’s mysterious Guardian had returned from the divine realm and shared about the happenings within the pantheon, no words would calm her nerves. She closed her eyes to still her churning stomach, swallowed the anxious bubble in her throat, and widened her stance. Though the rising sun offered a tranquil ray of hope, Vykinallia felt a shadow looming over her—over them all.

As the sails turned to catch the wind, they followed the other ships north and east towards the Bay of Bastards. Vykinallia’s mind raced, searching for something to keep her thoughts off of the fear of their boat capsizing, but nothing brought her comfort. The thought of Valtarcia’s people fleeing a blood mage more powerful than Threyna, the prospect of Zephyrus fighting the God responsible for the deaths of other deities, and the fact that the world she once knew was gone forever were not much better.

With each rise and fall over the waves, Vykinallia squeezed her inner thighs towards one another to offer some stability, but her stomach roiled. Cerik, too afraid to go near the side of the boat, vomited on the deck. Though Jecht chided him, Cerik wasn’t the only one. Despite the conditions, slowly, they made progress across the sound. The further they went, a thick fog developed, obscuring the way and shading the sun.

Vykinallia ground her teeth. The salty spray of sea air she once found so refreshing now only elevated her anxiety. Laeden’s, Unari’s, and Iberion’s ships disappeared from view.

Eventually, as the fog burned off, the masts of the others’ ships came back into view, and just beyond, Valtarcia’s coastline appeared. As the call for landfall ahead echoed throughout the crew, Vykinallia allowed her clenched grip on the netting around the center mast to subside. She released the tension in her shoulders, but the nearer they got to the coast and the more the fog lifted, the more apparent the dark clouds were over the city further to the east.

A black shawl seemed to hover over the city, blanketing the white walls in darkness.

Those aren’t clouds. That’s smoke.

She didn’t know if the fires were Zephyrus’s doing or the Skeleton King’s, but they did not portend well for the people of Valtarcia.

Steadying herself, Vykinallia left the safety of the center mast to get a closer look from the starboard side. The whistling wind sounded like screams, but it blew from the west.

Just my imagination playing tri—

The ship lurched over a rapidly rising wave.

Vykinallia lost her footing. She attempted to catch herself, but spilled to the deck. After falling prone, she pressed herself up to all fours, only to be rolled onto her back by the ship’s sudden turn. The deck angled diagonally. Others clung to anything worth holding. Anything not tied down slid across the deck.

“Vykinallia!” Jecht shouted, holding the center mast with one arm, while extending the shaft of his spear towards her. “Grab on.”

Shouts rose as the crew echoed the Salmantic seafarer’s calls. The sails swung to counter the unexpected change of direction.

Vykinallia reached for Jecht’s outstretched spear haft, but a wave surged over the gunnel. Water rained down upon Vykinallia’s back. The cold paired with her panic as she slid away from Jecht’s reach and tumbled into the side of the ship.

Her vision swam. Her ribs protested.

More shouts thundered all around her.

The ship thrashed again in the sudden change in the surf.

A crate slid down the deck and crashed into the gunnel beside her.

“Hang on!” the Salmantic captain shouted.

The sea tossed the ship out of the water. Vykinallia reached for the gunnel, but was lifted into the air. The deck rebalanced, and gravity slammed her back down.

Her ears rang, but before she could reorient herself, she was spinning again. Sliding down the deck the opposite direction, she flailed, attempting to find purchase anywhere. A hand seized her forearm. Her momentum nearly ripped her shoulder out of her socket, but she held.

Cerik hauled her back to the safety and stability of the center mast.

“Hold on,” Jecht cried.

Another wave rose as tall as the mast, blocking out the sun. Vykinallia’s jaw hung open, but no sound squeaked out.

The massive wave crashed in front of the bow. The front of the Sea Blade dipped then rose again, climbing the swell left in the aftermath of the wave. In the momentary stillness, Vykinallia noticed rock fracturing from the cliff face to the west. Huge boulders fell from the bluffs into the raging waves crashing into it.

Another earthquake.

She searched the horizon for the sails of Laeden’s, Unari’s, and Iberion’s ships. The quake divided them. While the other ships neared the Bay of Bastards, the Sea Blade was too far east.

We’ll never make it back.

As the Valtarcian Harbor came into view, she realized that the captain knew the same thing. They would make landfall anywhere the captain could. Then they’d be behind enemy lines. An enemy who could hear heartbeats, conjure weapons of blood, and take control over another’s body.

“We can’t go there,” said another Salmantic soldier to the one captaining the ship. “We’ll be stranded!”

Vykinallia swallowed. Zephyrus and Threyna teleported in to lead people out. They might have arrived slower, but they would do the same. She didn’t know if Zephyrus had found the gate and ascended to the divine realm, or if he even succeeded in helping others escape the Skeleton King’s torment. All she knew was that they could count on no one to come for them.

“There’s only one way out,” Vykinallia shouted over the waves. “We go through. And we don’t leave alone.”

Another wave rose before them, colossal in height and width. The sky disappeared beyond its bulk. No shouts were raised, no orders given. The wave curled like the jaws of a monstrous sea beast.

“Burn me,” Jecht said.

The ocean swallowed the sky, devoured the ship, and crashed atop her.

Chapter 8

Separated

Zephyrus III

Valtarcia

Zephyrus rubbed the back of his neck. His hand came away slick with sweat. The sun had risen over Northridge’s tallest tower, but it was not to blame for Zephyrus’s malady. As the hundreds of Valtarcian refugees traveled westward, many began to descend into disputes as to where they should be going. Zephyrus didn’t have a plan. He just wanted to deliver them to Laeden, Vykinallia, and the others. They would know what to do.

In the meantime, everyone thought they knew what was best. Some, namely patricians, wanted to flee to Salmantica. Plebeians thought to hide in the mountains to the north, while others, slaves among them, wanted to hide in the countryside to the southwest. Zephyrus didn’t know how he was going to keep them together. It wasn’t until another earthquake rattled the countryside that their bickering came to an end.

If the gates were opened, he wouldn’t even be here, watching over them like a doctore. The gates to the divine realm were closed, and every moment he was denied access granted the Harbinger another opportunity to slay more Gods. Yet even with such a threat, the Skeleton King was worse than Zephyrus had imagined—more powerful than he’d dared believe.

Despite his frustration with Threyna’s continual lies, he understood her fears as to why. The Skeleton King’s abilities scaled with the souls he consumed. And unlike Threyna who consumed them to restored herself, the Skeleton King hoarded them. The effects weighed heavily on his body, but the abilities he had because of the souls he kept trapped allowed him to seize control of Threyna’s conjurations. Even with two of the three Treasures of Stockhelm, she was vulnerable. And Zephyrus, with all the magic of the Gods at his disposal, didn’t feel like he helped balance the scales in her fight against the Skeleton King.

He can control the Vykane Blade. He can hear my heartbeat. I should have known better.

He would make sure he got a second chance, and when he did, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes. He wouldn’t let Paxoran’s puppet consume the mortal realm.

As they neared the Bay of Bastards over the fractured landscape, Laeden and Vykinallia’s party approached from the south. Yet as they neared, Zephyrus couldn’t spot Vykinallia.

A fist tightened in his stomach. Responding to him, the Guardian’s light dimmed over his shoulder. Zephyrus jogged ahead of their procession, keenly aware of the cold sweat clinging to his back. The strands of hair that broke free from its tie blew right to left across his face.

As he met Laeden, he glanced side to side down the line of those who had volunteered to meet them. Breathing in and out through his nostrils in a deep but short rhythm, Zephyrus wiped the hair from his face and met Laeden’s gaze.

The former prince’s lips formed a tight line.

She’s not here.

“Where is she?” Zephyrus asked as Threyna came up beside him.

Laeden dropped his gaze. “We got separated. The quake, the seas…”

Zephyrus hissed through his clenched teeth. “Where is she?”

Laeden lifted his eyes. “I don’t know. The wind swept them further east. I don’t know if they made landfall. At best they landed at the harbor—”

“At best?” Zephyrus asked, his mouth dry. If she made landfall at the harbor, that meant she was trapped inside Valtarcia’s city walls—as cornered and defenseless as every other person in the city. His mind went blank, numb, unable to fathom how she would make it out.

If that was the best-case scenario, he didn’t want to imagine what the worst was. Past the shoreline, the towering breakers in the distance might as well have rushed into his lungs because he was unable to breathe.

“Then we’ll go back for them,” Threyna said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

Zephyrus balked.

“You need to find a place to put these people,” Threyna said, looking at Laeden but gesturing to the Valtarcian refugees behind her. “There will be more, and we barely managed to keep them together as it was… barely made it out, if we’re being honest.”

Laeden examined the long faces of the refugees before turning back to Threyna. “Barely made it out—and you want to go back?”

“There are tens of thousands more in that city,” Threyna said. “Every person we leave behind will be added to the Skeleton King’s army.”

“Chimera’s breath,” Laeden said. “Where is he? Is he following?”

Zephyrus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“He won’t,” Threyna said. “Not until he has taken every last soul from Valtarcia.”

Zephyrus bit his lip. I had an opportunity to stop him, and I missed it. “We won’t let him.” He nodded at Threyna. “We’re going back. We’ll get everyone out if we can’t kill him.”

Threyna cocked her eyebrow at him for a moment, but let it fall as Laeden turned back to her. “But… if we should fail, these people need a place to go. And it doesn’t look like Stockhelm is a viable option.”

Laeden ran his hand over his short brown hair. “Doesn’t leave many choices.”

The ground rumbled beneath their feet. Laeden and Threyna took hold of one another to keep from falling, but the tremor soon stopped.

“It will only get worse,” the Guardian said, quietly enough that only Zephyrus could hear. “Maybe if we get close to where the gate is, I can see if there is a way of opening it.”

Zephyrus curled his fingers into a fist. “If you can, I’ll go. But I just need one more chance at the Skeleton King. I can do this. Once he’s dead, once the people are liberated, then we’ll ascend.”

The Guardian’s light bobbed up and down.

Threyna and Laeden separated once it seemed the aftershocks of the quake were over. The refugees and those of Laeden’s company also settled themselves, realizing they were safe—for the time being.

“A place to go,” Laeden said. “For a few hundred, scattering may be the best we can do, but thousands—tens of thousands? I can think of only one place, but I don’t think we’ll be welcomed.”

Chapter 9

King of Nothing

Laeden II

Valtarcia

Laeden adjusted the saddle atop the gray mare’s back and tightened the cinch. The poor beast hooved the ground and snorted.

“I know, girl,” Laeden whispered to the horse. “I’m scared too.”

He nodded to Naius, the gray-haired Valtarcian refugee who owned the horse. No one would sing songs of Naius, but he was a hero. After Allaron and Callonus had stirred up unrest in Valtarcia to overthrow Horus’s corruption, Naius dumped the grain from his wagon to gather orphans. Seeing the coming lawlessness, he took them beyond Valtarcia’s city walls. Little did he know what fate he had saved them from in leaving when he did.

“Good fortunes,” Naius said to Laeden. “May Starla serve you as well as she did me.” He placed his hands on the shoulders of two of the orphans he had rescued.

Laeden nodded. “Starla, eh?” He patted Starla’s neck. “I’m sure she will. I will bring her back to you upon my return.” Laeden placed his hand on the horn and his foot in the stirrup. As he vaulted onto Starla’s back, Kherus, Aponius, and Aurellia approached.

“You can’t be serious?” Kherus asked.

Laeden had named Kherus Captain of the Ridge Knights for his ability to think freely, for whatever worth such an honorific was now. The young captain’s discerning blue eyes examined him, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Do you know me to jest, Kherus?” Laeden asked, settling into the saddle.

Kherus shook his head and lifted his palms to the sky. “So if not a jest, you’ve gone mad. Returning to Salmantica. Alone? King Damascus will have you nailed to a Six Arrowed Star.”

“You might be right,” Laeden said, taking the reins. “But the fate that awaits these people if I don’t try is far worse.”

He knew what was at risk—both for him and everyone else. But he was out of options.

“Send me instead,” Aponius said. “Or… anyone else.”

Aponius’s jaw clenched beneath his freckled cheeks. The former Lion’s Academy soldier turned assassin sent to kill Laeden had become a trusted ally. But this was not his job.

“If my brother ever saw you again, you would receive far worse than the Star,” Laeden said. “No. It has to be someone he knows.”

In his mind’s eye, Queen Danella’s lying smile taunted him. He recalled the look on Aelon’s face, his oldest friend, as he betrayed Laeden—condemning him to a rigged trial. Memories became nightmares as Ser Aemos Horne’s blade slashed through Iylea’s frail neck. And just when Laeden couldn’t handle it anymore, Damascus’s steel surged through their father’s gut.

Laeden crushed the leather reins within his fist. He didn’t want to plead for aid. He wanted war with Salmantica, not peace.

“...if there comes a time when you can choose between forgiveness and punishment,” his father had said, “I hope you choose to forgive and work toward peace.”

His father’s words ate at him. He didn’t want to believe this was such a time, that such a choice existed, but amidst the Skeleton King’s reign of terror, there was no other time. He didn’t want to go to Salmantica—he needed to.

“But why you, King Laeden?” Aurellia asked. Her heart-shaped face wilted, the corners of her eyes and lips turning downward. The pleading look in her gaze reminded him of Iylea, begging him to listen. He hadn’t been able to then. He wouldn’t be able to now either.

“Why me?” Laeden asked. Starla began to stir as if sensing Laeden’s discomfort. “Because who am I… King of Valtarcia?” He shook his head and pointed to the white stone walls bordering Valtarcia. “What if Valtarcia falls? I am king of nothing.”

“But you could send an emissary,” Kherus said. “Kings don’t deliver their own messages—you don’t need to either.”

“Damascus won’t listen to a stranger,” Laeden said. “He might not listen to me either. But I have to try.”

Aurellia hung her head. Kherus put his hands on his hips. Aponius opened his mouth to object, but no words came forth.

Markus would have attempted to talk me out of it too, if Aemos hadn’t killed him as well.

The thought made his heart hurt, but it only strengthened his resolve. He couldn’t let anyone else fall. If he was going to be a king, he would be king for the people—not castles or cities—but people. What kind of king would I be if I’m not willing to sacrifice myself for them?

Starla bristled. Laeden patted the mare’s neck again.

“I appreciate what you’re saying, all of you,” Laeden said, looking up from Starla to his closest advisers. “But I’m powerless against the Skeleton King. The only thing I can do to help our cause is give our refugees a place for succor. If Damascus takes me, kills me, then we are no worse off than if I did nothing and waited for the Skeleton King to consume all of New Rheynia. I have the best chance of getting Damascus to see reason, to lend aid.”

Aurellia lifted her hand to her lips. Kherus ran his fingers through his brown hair, brushing it past his shoulder. Aponius bowed.

“What can we do, King Laeden?” Aponius asked.

Laeden gazed at the refugees. If Zephyrus and Threyna couldn’t defeat the Skeleton King, more would need to flee Valtarcia. He imagined them divided, fighting amongst themselves in the countryside, waiting for the Skeleton King to get them next.

“You must lead them,” Laeden said. “Divide them if you must. Take some north to the Silver Summits, others to the isthmus, and others to the countryside west of the Vale, but even separated, you must remain united in cause. Send messengers between each other, stay in contact, remain vigilant, and maybe… just maybe, we’ll see our way through this.”

Aponius and Kherus both nodded.

Aurellia dropped her chin to her chest. “I fear the refugees will not listen to me, King Laeden. In their eyes, I am just a slave.”

Laeden snorted. “They can follow you, or they can join the Skeleton King. If my name holds any authority amongst these people, you three speak for me. Is that clear?”

Aurellia, Aponius, and Kherus bowed, nodded, and saluted respectively.

“Come back soon,” Kherus said.

Laeden inclined his head. With a kick of his heel, he willed Starla into motion. At a gallop, he made his way for the isthmus, Salmantica’s city walls, and a reunion with the man who killed his father. For peace, he reminded himself.

Chapter 10

Resonance

Threyna II

Valtarcia

The blood artifact was the key. It wouldn’t save anyone in Valtarcia—it wouldn’t save Zephyrus’s precious Vykinallia if she did manage to reach land—but it could turn the tides of the battle. While she appreciated Zephyrus’s enthusiasm in wanting to kill the Skeleton King, she alone knew it wouldn’t be that easy. If she were going to find a way to defeat the Skeleton King, she couldn’t allow him to continue building his army of blood mages. She needed to stop him at the source, and he couldn’t create new mages without the blood artifact.

As she and Zephyrus walked away from the refugees toward Valtarcia’s city walls, she held out her hand to reveal the black rot still wriggling along her forearms. “Can you?”

Zephyrus grunted. Stopping his gait, he took her hand. White tendrils of mist flowed from his fingers into her flesh. As the rot abated to her fingertips, black marks tinged Zephyrus’s.

“What’s your angle?” Zephyrus asked.

Threyna narrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

Zephyrus scoffed, releasing her hand. He continued to walk towards the city walls. “Vykinallia, Jecht, Cerik—the people I care most for in this world—they disappear, may be trapped within the Skeleton King’s domain, and suddenly you want to help them? I don’t believe you. So what’s your angle?”

Threyna scowled. Their footfalls crunched the dead grass underfoot. “I told you. He will only get stronger if we don’t stop him.”

“And?” Zephyrus said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “It’s never what it seems with you. I’d rather not be blindsided.”

Threyna sighed. “The blood artifact. We take it. It has a host, but if we—”

“That host protected the Skeleton King,” Zephyrus said. “He’s not on our side. What do you propose—we abduct a blood-conjuring monster and teleport him to camp?”

Threyna shook her head, and hissed, “Real nice, Zephyrus.”

He rolled his eyes and massaged his temples with both hands. “You know what I mean. He’s on the Skeleton King’s side.”

“Not once I consume the darkling controlling him,” Threyna said, seething. “Listen, I know you want to kill the Skeleton King, and I appreciate that. But I was wrong. He’s already too powerful. And the only way we fight back is by creating blood mages of our own.”

Zephyrus stopped in his tracks.

Threyna’s momentum continued a few additional steps before she turned to look at him.

“You can’t mean that.” He shook his head as if he didn’t understand.

“I do,” Threyna said. “Three blood mages, half as skilled as me, combined their wills together. In isolation, I could slaughter each of them a hundred times, but together… together they nearly got me.”

“So if you had enough blood mages under your control, you think you could stop him?” Zephyrus asked, his eyes narrow, lip retracted in disgust.

“Not under my control,” Threyna said. “And that’s not even how darklings work. He has convinced them of his delusions. He doesn’t control them, and I wouldn’t either. I just need someone working with me.”

Zephyrus exhaled and resumed walking. “Why didn’t the blood artifact latch onto me?”

Threyna fell in step beside him, shrugging. She’d never seen the blood artifact reject a host before. They walked in silence for a time until they were well away from the refugees.

“So you don’t want to try again… to kill the Skeleton King?” Zephyrus asked.

Threyna bit her lip. She wanted nothing more. But it was too risky to fight on his terms.

“No,” Threyna said. “Not yet. I guess I’ll have to do this one without you.”

Zephyrus bristled.

“We have to go to the gate,” the Guardian said, her light barely visible in the sunlight.

“I know,” Zephyrus said, his tone bitter. “But not yet. We help people escape, like we were supposed to the first time. We find Vykinallia and the others.”

Threyna cleared her throat. “Then the blood artifact.”

Zephyrus nodded. “Then the blood artifact. And then the gate.”

The Guardian grumbled, but her light pulsed as if assuaged.

“Ready?” Threyna asked Zephyrus.

“We’ve wasted too much time already.” Zephyrus grabbed her by the arms. Wind rushed past, her vision blurred, and the disorientation of being ripped from one place and brought to another stymied her.

For the second time that morning, they were back inside Valtarcia’s city walls. Before her surroundings could even return to her, the Skeleton King’s dark, looming presence did. A patter upon the roof of her Inner Throne echoed throughout her chambers. The sound, like falling rain, began to pick up. The windows of her Inner Throne, all beautiful stained glass, seemed to bleed, but that was just the falling blood-rain.

Threyna’s vision cleared, but she still couldn’t place herself. The acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils. Smoke clung to the sea air, tainting the salt-scented wind. Her feet were submerged in cold water that stole the feeling from her toes. On the shoreline of a bay, she plodded her boots on the pebbled stones beneath the water’s surface.

The tides lapped gently against her shins, compared to where they slammed against the cliffs, but with every rise and fall of the waves, debris and broken boards floated. Rising from the water and dipping beneath, each splintered plank seemed to reach beyond the surface as if it were a hand calling for aid.

As the sea foamed upon the pebbly beach, white bubbles remained even after the tide retreated, stained with a tinge of red.

Blood.

Along the beach, bodies—or what was left of them—were strewn about, limbs bent at odd angles or laced with lacerations. Behind her, a crumbled tower of what was once perhaps a lighthouse receded into a barred gate that had been torn apart.

“Where are we?” Threyna asked.

“The Valtarcian Harbor,” Zephyrus said. “At least what’s left of it—it didn’t look like this last I was here. There were docks, boats… people.”

“The attack that sank the harbor didn’t do this,” Threyna said, gesturing to the bodies as they strode from the water. “He must have made landfall here. At least in part.”

Zephyrus bent down and picked something up amidst the pebbles. A purple strip of cloth. He crushed it in his fist. “Vykinallia wore this in her hair…” He stared at the rolling tides of the bay and the violent swells beyond.

Threyna bit her lip. “Just because that washed ashore doesn’t mean she didn’t.” She turned to the broken gate that led into the city.

“Can you feel her?” Zephyrus asked. “Can you hear her heartbeat?”

Threyna’s eye twitched. Even if I wanted to… “I don’t know her well enough to find her in a city full of people.”

Zephyrus lifted the cloth to his lips. She could sense his heartbeat—slow and steady, but thunderous. Angry. For the thousands of hearts she’d listened to, never had fear and anger presented itself with such composure.

Threyna put her hand on Zephyrus’s arm. “I’ll try.”

His dark eyes, ringed with a fiery orange, met hers. “Gratitude.”

She gave him a sad smile, then closed her eyes and sank deeper into her Inner Throne.

It wasn’t her first time listening to Vykinallia’s heart. She had felt her rhythm in the aftermath of the battle for Stockhelm. Her weak, rapid flutter beat like butterfly wings. She should have died, but Zephyrus saved her.

As expected, searching for Vykinallia’s rhythm amongst fear-ridden people of the city was like trying to find the Treasures of Stockhelm without knowing what they were or where they were hidden. Her heartbeat was too unfamiliar.

“I can’t,” Threyna said.

Zephyrus grunted. His heart’s pulse spiked, but there was understanding in his gaze.

“She’s not the only one who needs saving, Zephyrus,” the Guardian said. “She may very well be within the city, along with everyone else.”

Listening to Zephyrus’s rhythm, Threyna got an idea. Would he have imparted some part of himself into her when he healed her?

Rather than listening for Vykinallia’s pulse, she sought another like Zephyrus’s. Within her Inner Throne, the walls seemed to hum with a thousand unique vibrations. Sifting through them one by one, each was different. Similar to the patterns of an aeritan’s tortoise-like shell, no two were the same, but there were kindred segments within the rhythms. Not unlike recognizing dissonant chords within music, Zephyrus’s pulse stuck out to her against the natural progressions of others’ essences.

Within moments, one soul’s rhythm resonated with a similar pattern to Zephyrus’s.

“I think I found her,” Threyna said, her eyes still closed.

Vykinallia and Zephyrus’s shared rhythm overlapped slightly, but it was somehow growing, even by the barest of margins. Threyna’s feet pivoted within the pebbles, angling towards the rhythm’s location. She opened her eyes and looked at Zephyrus. “She’s in the city.”

Chapter 11

A Black Sea

Vykinallia II

Valtarcia

Vykinallia crawled, hands and knees, onto the pebbles of Valtarcia’s lowland coasts. She coughed water from her lungs. A hand on her back was accompanied by an encouraging tone of voice, but all she heard was the sound of crashing waves, cracking planks, and rushing water in her ears.

She coughed more water from her lungs. Her hair hung, wet and heavy, past her face, no longer tied back by the purple strip of fabric. She lowered her forehead to the pebbles. Exhaustion screamed through her strained and trembling muscles. Cold radiated through her chest, rattling her ribs, but she was alive. Alive and on solid ground.

“Burning Aquarius,” Jecht shouted as he threw a handful of pebbles into the ocean.

“The Rheynian Water God is dead,” Cerik said through heaving breaths.

Jecht kicked a rolling wave. “Bastard is lucky then. If he wasn’t, I’d kill ‘em!”

Vykinallia rolled onto her side. Others had gained the beach, a few before her, others behind her. But not everyone. She started to count how many of the twenty who had set sail had reached the pebbles, but by the count of ten, she closed her eyes. She shivered—too tired to move, too cold to think, too defeated to count again and hope for a higher number.

The mast splintered again. The sails swallowed her up like a giant maw, entrapping her in swirling darkness, dragging her to the depths of the sea.

Get up, she willed herself.

Her dagger sliced through the sail. She fought through the gap, and swam to the surface’s light, but the current of the sinking ship dragged her downward.

Get up.

The captain, the Salmantic soldier who volunteered to aid them, snagged her ankle, halfway through the slit she had cleaved in the sail. Through the salt water and the bubbles escaping his nose and mouth, Vykinallia realized he was trapped. He needed her help.

Get up!

Vykinallia rolled onto her stomach and pressed herself to her hands and knees. Setting her foot even with her hands, she lifted herself into a half-kneeling position. The scent of smoke clung to the air like a scared child to his mother’s skirts. The smell was nearly comforting compared to the seawater still dripping down her nose. It was at least the smell of land—safe, solid, land.

Lifting her gaze, she realized they were not alone on the beach. Mounds of desiccated corpses rested on the pebbles. Debris that had washed ashore framed the deceased like marks atop the crypts, denoting the dead below.

With a grunt she shoved herself to her feet. The ground swayed beneath her as if she were still underwater. Cerik extended his arm to steady her as she walked toward the broken gate beneath the crumbling watchtower.

“Twelve of us,” Cerik said. “The others…”

He didn’t need to say it. She knew.

She closed her eyes. If I had listened to Sinion, eight people wouldn’t have died. Unable to look back at the sea and the watery grave she’d led eight people to, she walked, continuing her unsteady stride to the city beyond the walls.

“We came to save,” Vykinallia said. “Let us not let their sacrifices go to waste.”

Jecht waved the others to follow them as he came up beside Vykinallia. He grunted. “Not to rain on your King’s Day Games, but no one’s got anything more than a dagger. Everything else sank to the—”

Vykinallia cleared her throat. “I know where it went, Jecht.” She didn’t want to think about her sword and shield plummeting into the abyss. Nor did she want to think about the bodies that accompanied them.

“So how are we going to help anyone?” Cerik asked.

Vykinallia recalled the expression on the Salmantic captain’s face as the ship’s mass dragged them further and further from the light of the surface. The fire in her lungs, the will to survive pumping through her heart. She kicked his hand from her boot. She saved herself.

I let him die.

Vykinallia wiped the water from her face and sniffed. “The same way we did on Stockhelm. Kaelus’s ludus is close. If they are still there, we take it. If not, we take what was left behind. Once armed, we’ll do what we came here to do. Nothing changes.”

Jecht nodded. “Only instead of having an easy retreat if we confront a blood-wielding ghost monster, we’ll have to fight our way through the entire city back to the Vale.”

Cerik scowled at Jecht as they walked through the broken barred gates into Valtarcia.

“What?” Jecht asked.

“Be on your guard,” Vykinallia said. “Threyna said blood mages can hear heartbeats, legionaries have magic bow-like machines that can rip your soul from your body, and—”

“And that’s not enough?” Jecht said. “And I thought Fenyx was a downer.”

Vykinallia scoffed. “Come on. This way.”

Smoke billowed overhead. Ash rained down. Scorch marks and burning rubble littered the lower city, but whatever fires consumed the slums had burned out. Only the dead were left among the remains, slumped against bloodstained walls or collapsed on the ground. These were fresh, evidenced by the mere fact that they weren’t desiccated to husks.

Vykinallia avoided their dead eyes. Ignoring the guilt of those who sank with the ship, she kept her eyes peeled for those hiding in the slums, clinging to a sliver of hope that they would not end up like their neighbors. None were to be found. They may have thought themselves safe. Perhaps from her they were, but she couldn’t hear heartbeats; their enemy could.

Sneaking between the narrow alleys of the abandoned slums, she led their diminished company along the dusty streets of the lower city left untouched by the fires. Their wet footfalls were perhaps the only water Valtarcia had seen in several weeks. Unless blood counted as water.

Dagger drawn, Vykinallia peeked around the corner to the main road that climbed the hill from the lower city into the upper city where Kaelus resided. Unlike the lower city, people were visible in the upper city. Patricians peeking out windows in their stone towers. Plebs slipping between the alleys in hurried scampers, attempting to hide from the patrolling legionaries.

Up the hill, a group of slumming plebs fleeing the lower city looked over their shoulders as they crossed the dirt-paved roads to the cobblestoned streets, likely searching for a place to hide in the upper city or a path to escape.

Movement up ahead caused Vykinallia to jolt backwards, behind the safety of the corner of the building. She held her hand out to Jecht, Cerik, and the others behind her.

“Over there!”

Her breath caught. Did they see me? She knelt down to poke her head beyond the precipice. Men in black uniforms trimmed green at the shoulders and shins entered the main street, but their attention was aimed uphill. The group chased the plebs up the dusty hill to the cobblestoned streets of the upper city.

Their strange magical bows rattled into motion, humming like the wings of a large insect.

Vykinallia froze. Once again, she was ensnared in the sail. Water filled her lungs. The captain reached for her, but she was already swimming the opposite direction. As the sinking ship plummeted to the depths, she swam to the surface.

“What do we do?” Jecht hissed.

Vykinallia didn’t want to drown. How was she supposed to know when was the time to help others versus when to cut her losses and save herself?

The buzzing machines erupted with a flash of light, silencing the rapid hum. Screams rose. Bodies fell. The others ran, abandoning the fallen to the depths of the ocean. They tried to save themselves, but the black-clad legionaries chased them down and cut off their escape.

Vykinallia couldn’t move; she only watched in horror as those left standing were rounded up, and the others lying prone were left for the blood mages to drain at their convenience. All while she remained hidden in the alleyway.

The legionaries hauled off their catch, content to leave their visible but harder to reach prey for later.

Threyna was right. This is just a sport to them.

The thought made her stomach churn with the seawater she’d swallowed.

“We should go,” Cerik said. “Before another patrol sweeps through.”

Vykinallia nodded, absentmindedly rubbing her elbow.

After witnessing the hunt, their group moved with greater urgency and caution. Once on the cobblestoned streets of the upper city, they turned off the main road, hoping to avoid the dead left by the legionaries, and the prospect of encountering their blood-conjuring brethren.

If she had been asked a few days ago what monster was the single greatest threat to New Rheynia, she would have said Queen Danella—Damascus perhaps a close second. After last night, she might have said the Traitor God Paxoran. But his abstract influence on the mortal realm—drought and earthquakes included—paled in comparison to what was happening in Valtarcia. Without even encountering the Skeleton King, just by witnessing the efficient barbarism of his infantry, she realized how ignorant she’d been. In the sixty years since the Great Migration, an evil had grown in Rheynia, and now it was here to claim its recompense.

Navigating the back alleys of the upper city, they rounded a corner and came upon a small band of dirt-stained and blood-smeared plebeians. A woman led the way, a short bow in her hands. Two men were hauling a severely wounded woman through the streets, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. Another man brought up the rear. At Vykinallia’s company’s approach, the man in the rear spun, leveling his dual swords at Vykinallia’s raised dagger.

She held her hands up, showing she intended no harm. The man did not lower his swords. His stance was practiced, natural, and lethal—no stranger to the art of swordplay. Dark blue eyes glared beneath neatly plucked brows—brown with silver stalks between. His hair hung past his ears, more silver than his brows, but still more mahogany than moonlight.

“We mean you no harm,” Vykinallia said. “We’re here to help.”

“I know who you are.” The man glared, his gaze as hard as iron and as sharp as the blades in his hands. “I know what you’ve done.”

Blood splattered across his face in a diagonal line from his forehead down through his trimmed beard to his opposite cheek. “This blood is on your hands as much as theirs.”

Vykinallia’s nose scrunched in the face of the accusation. She didn’t understand. How does he know me? She examined him closer. His cloak, too fine to be plebeian, draped over blue leather armor cut with white finery. The matching vambraces about his forearms, jutting from his black sleeves, held a familiar sigil, but it was the silver broach pinning his cloak to him that revealed the man’s identity. Bearing the likeness of a ram’s curled horn, the broach presented to her what dirt, blood, and unkemptness attempted to conceal.

“I’m on your side, Earl Kaelus,” Vykinallia said, barely able to believe he was exposing himself to aid plebeians. “Yes, I have freed Celestics and liberated slaves.” She gestured to the people behind her. “Mages among them, yes, you’re right. But this…” She gestured to the city around her. “This blood magic is not of Celestia. It is not of New Rheynia.”

Kaelus did not lower his weapons.

“Dominus,” said one of the men supporting the wounded woman. “We must leave.”

At closer examination, Vykinallia realized the two men possessed the same broach cast in iron—Kaelus guards. The woman they supported wore a crudely cut long dress, common amongst the Valtarcian plebeians.

Kaelus didn’t take his eyes from Vykinallia, despite the protests of his men.

“Mavren,” said the woman at the front of their party. “More will come. We must return.”

Vykinallia recognized her voice. Urcilia Kaelus, his wife.

Kaelus backed away from Vykinallia, but kept his swords raised.

Vykinallia sheathed her dagger and kept her hands up, advancing on Kaelus with slow deliberation. “Let us accompany you, Earl Kaelus. We can help. We know what this enemy is capable of, and if we don’t band together, New Rheynia—all of the mortal realm will—”

“There they are!”

The shout echoed between the narrow side streets, reverberating off of the buildings of the intersection. The mechanical buzz of the magical bows whirred into motion. Legionaries in black approached from the east, some armed with glowing white spears.

Kaelus turned his weapons from Vykinallia to the new threat. “Chimera’s breath. Urcilia, run!” He turned and ran, but the woman his guards were supporting slowed their progress.

We’ll never make it out.

The sinking ship would drag them all down, but the expression on the captain’s face when Vykinallia swam away remained fixed in her mind. We must work together.

Vykinallia followed Kaelus. “Let us help. Give us your swords. We’ll defend you.”

“They followed you,” Kaelus shouted over his shoulder. “You led them to us.”

The mechanical whir crescendoed and fired. The air distorted before her, radiating heat. Pressure gripped her wrist, jarring her backward as a radiant blast exploded before her.

“This way,” Jecht said, his hand still on her wrist.

He dragged her away from Kaelus down a westbound side street, the legionaries still in pursuit as men with the glowing spears led the charge. They split up, some following Kaelus, others chasing Vykinallia’s company.

“Hurry,” Vykinallia shouted over her shoulder as she kept pace with Jecht.

They turned north at the next intersection just in time to see Kaelus trailing behind his party on the street parallel, legionaries licking at their heels. Vykinallia sped up, her feet squishing in her wet boots upon the cobbled streets with each footfall. Merchants’ storefronts, stoops to tavern entrances, and lamp posts streamed past on either side as they approached the next cross street.

“This way!” Vykinallia turned east towards Kaelus and the legionaries giving chase.

“They’ll corner us,” Cerik cried.

Jecht guffawed at her hip. “I’m beginning to think I’m not so crazy after all.”

Vykinallia ignored them and pushed onwards. Her leather vest rose and fell with each stride, chafing her underarms. Kaelus’s slower moving party crossed their path, still heading north towards his ludus. Just behind them the legionaries were gaining, half a dozen—three with spears, three with the magic bows.

Vykinallia’s breath heaved as her arms pumped and her feet pounded against the uneven road. She pointed left, following northbound to flank the legionaries. Her band followed behind her, as did the shouts of the legionaries chasing them. They rounded the corner, coming up on the legionaries from behind. One of the mechanical bowmen looked over his shoulder and spun to a stop, his brethren following suit. Their whirring machines whined as a glowing radiant orb blossomed at the mouth of the centermost machine.

Vykinallia released a battle cry as she charged to close the distance before he could fire. She drew her dagger, but the magic bow’s warbling reached its climax, ready to fire.

Flying over Vykinallia’s shoulder, a dagger toppled end over end at the bowmen.

The dagger bit into the shoulder of the center legionary just as he fired. Attempting to avoid the incoming dagger, the legionary adjusted, spinning as he pulled the trigger. Radiant light exploded from the mouth of the magic bow and scorched off the stone façade of the adjacent building.

The other two bowmen’s machines approached its charge, nearly ready to fire.

Vykinallia leapt at the centermost bowmen. With one hand she thrust the mouth of his conical weapon downward, and with the other she drove her dagger into the man’s pale neck.

Jecht crashed into the bowman on her right, tackling him just as his weapon fired. His shot tore into the sky between the buildings.

The bowman on her left backed away as he aimed his weapon at Vykinallia. Vykinallia spun, bringing the bowman she’d stabbed into the line of fire to use as a human shield.

The shot burst forth. The blast hit the legionary Vykinallia grappled with in the back.

Cerik slammed into the bowman. His dagger plunged into the legionary’s chest again and again, spouting blood each time he ripped his blade free.

“Help Kaelus!” Vykinallia shouted to the others in their company.

They charged past, chasing down the spearman in pursuit of Kaelus.

Vykinallia shoved the legionary she’d stabbed in the neck to the side. The light faded from his eyes as blood drained from his face. She yanked her and Jecht’s daggers from his flesh and went to Jecht’s aid as he slammed fist after fist into the bowman’s head.

He didn’t need any aid. The combination of the former gladiator’s fists and the cobbled streets had smashed the legionary’s skull to pieces.

“Let’s go,” Vykinallia said, dragging Jecht from the body. More legionaries were behind them. Up ahead, Kaelus and Vykinallia’s party swarmed the three spearmen.

As Vykinallia, Jecht, and Cerik hurried to their aid, Kaelus slashed through the throat of the last spearman, his silver-speckled beard dashed with blood. His shoulders rose and fell with heavy breaths. His midnight-blue eyes met Vykinallia’s.

“More coming,” Kaelus said. “My ludus is near. Come.”

Without waiting for a response, the earl took off after his wife and guards. Enemies they might have been had the Fallen aimed to liberate the Valtarcian slaves instead of those in Stockhelm, but with the invasion of the Skeleton King’s legions, they were as close to allies as such times permitted.

The legionaries’ blood filled the grout between the cobbles, but more were still in pursuit.

After assessing the well-being of her people, Vykinallia waved for them all to follow Kaelus. Jecht picked up two spears from the fallen legionaries and handed one to Cerik. Bringing up the rear, Vykinallia claimed a spear of her own, and ran towards the sanctuary of Kaelus’s ludus. Sweat mixed with the ocean’s salt upon Vykinallia’s skin. Her legs felt heavy in her wet clothes, and her arm burned holding the weight of the spear.

Just a little farther.

Turning down another side street to face the main road, Kaelus’s stone manor became visible. Recessed from the street and three times the size of the typical lot sizes, the earl’s domus had the benefit of high walls, a barred gate, and a tall white stone tower that stood above most of the other slate-topped roofs of the city.

They just needed to cross the main road and they would be there.

The shouting legionaries behind them attracted the attention of more black-clad spear and magic-bow-wielding soldiers. Dozens.

A legionary with blood-borne wings landed before Urcilia.

Their party, nearly a score in total, came to an abrupt stop. The blood mage’s wings dissolved to ash. His eyes, black as death, fixed on them. His outstretched hand, equally as shadowed by corrupted veins, extended beyond his cloak’s sleeve towards Urcilia.

“Your futile efforts come to an end,” the blood mage said, brushing a strand of dark hair from his pale face. “All will join the One True God.”

A black sea of soldiers converged around them in moments. Whirring machines and glowing spears aimed at them.

Vykinallia didn’t need to be a blood mage to hear the thudding hearts of those around her. She released a trembling breath, but her fear did not release its grasp on her throat. She held her spear in both hands, her palms slick with sweat upon the shaft.

She scanned her surroundings, searching for any means of victory or escape. The prospects were bleak. Outnumbered and ill-equipped against a blood mage and trained soldiers, what hope was there? Over the heads of the legionaries blocking their escape south, a black wisp slithered on the wind like a shadowy serpent.

A bloody dagger spawned before her, redirecting her focus. The point reoriented, positioning itself to aim at her nose. Others dangled before each of her companions as if held by invisible assassins.

“Lay down your arms,” the blood mage said.

Chapter 12

The Farm

Zephyrus IV

Valtarcia

The wind off the sea whipped with less ferocity within the city walls, but the air was worse. Ashes rained down from clouds of smoke like the falling snow upon the Silver Summits. Though the wooden homes along streets to the north were left unburned and the sky above them was a hazy blue beyond the smoke, Threyna led him east through the burned-out slums.

“She went north,” Threyna said, jogging ahead of him. “We’ll head that way once we’re beyond the patrols.”

Zephyrus followed behind her, using his manipulation magic to cancel out the sound of their voices and hurried footfalls. Between her ability to sense heartbeats, and his ability to silence their way, he hoped they could catch up to Vykinallia before she found herself in any real danger, but that didn’t ease Zephyrus’s anxiety.

He had sent the Guardian to search for survivors or any in hiding to tell them to escape, but if the patrols were as numerous as Threyna explained, making it beyond the west gate would not be an easy feat.

“Why north?” Zephyrus asked. “Why not west?”

Threyna grunted as she leapt over a pile of rubble from a burned-out building. “I sense heartbeats. I don’t read minds.”

Zephyrus hissed out an exhale.

“The Order will burn people out of hiding,” Threyna explained. “The legionaries will herd people into chokepoints, then…”

She paused.

Unable to see Threyna’s expression, Zephyrus was left to assume how she knew this.

She’s seen it before. Lived through it. How much ruin has she survived?

He didn’t pressure her to finish. She’d already told him once. The Skeleton King would collect people, farm them for their blood, drain their vitality bit by bit to sustain himself. And that was just for one blood mage. Now he had an army of them and an artifact that could make more.

“We’ll stop him,” Zephyrus said. “We’ll get the blood artifact, and free as many people as we can from his grasp.”

Threyna came to an abrupt halt. “Legionaries. Six. No blood mage.”

“Where?” Zephyrus asked.

“Two streets over.” Threyna looked over her shoulder at him. “They have a whole group with them—weakened, terrified. It’s as if they were half consumed by a mage before they were sent off with the legionaries.”

“Too weak to resist,” Zephyrus said. “Too scared to fight.” The defeated faces of those prepared to be enslaved at the slavers’ auction returned to him. All it took was a show of violence against one and the threat of it at the rest to make all fall in line.

“Is Vykinallia okay?” he asked.

“For the time being,” Threyna said, examining the rot coursing through her hand. “But they’re taking those people to be farmed like blood bags.”

Zephyrus came alongside her. “We won’t let that happen.” He took her hand in his and focused on dissipating the black veins. The veins along the back of his hands darkened as white tendrils of mist wrapped around Threyna’s. Within moments, her rot had abated, and his began to slowly recede.

“Lead the way,” Zephyrus said.

Threyna started out at a trot, conjuring her double-bladed glaive as she built up speed. Zephyrus’s focus strained to maintain their sound bubble as he bent the light around them, attempting to mask their approach. Obscuring their shadows and the sound of their footsteps, Zephyrus charged ahead, drawing the Vykane Blade.

They rounded one turn, then another. Before them, a herd of shackled men, women, and children hobbled through the dusty streets under the duress of glowing spears and humming arcanatek.

“Move it!” A legionary shoved a man in the back with the shaft of his spear. The man fell to the knees of his bloodstained britches, dragging the boy before him and the woman behind him down with him. “Get up!”

Zephyrus growled, his grip tightening on the hilt of the Vykane Blade.

“You take the spearmen,” Threyna said as they neared.

“With pleasure.”

With the shackled train stopped, Zephyrus and Threyna caught up within a few strides. Zephyrus let his manipulation of light and sound falter. He charged the spearman who shoved the man. Before the legionary could react, Zephyrus was upon him. His eyes went wide, and his jaw unhinged. The Vykane Blade surged through his open mouth and erupted out the back of the legionary’s skull. Blood conjurations whipped through the air around him like dagger-shaped birds.

The shackled people ducked and covered themselves. Zephyrus leapt over them to land on the other side of the chained procession. Two legionaries wielding arcanatek fell before they could even take aim at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus blocked an incoming spear thrust from one, then ducked a slash from the other. The glowing spearhead dulled before the Vykane Blade’s radiance. He countered. His blood-forged sword blurred through the air. The edge met the neck of the reaping spear, severing the tip from its shaft. He spun on the other spearman as a thrust darted for Zephyrus’s side.

Conjuring a shadow shield, Zephyrus deflected the joust and riposted. Before the legionary understood what had happened, Zephyrus’s sword bit through his leather armor, spilling blood and gore down the bevel of the blade.

Zephyrus ripped his sword free, and the spearman fell to the ground. He spun, searching for the spearless legionary. He was running.

Threyna’s double-bladed glaive sank into a legionary’s torso. She wrenched the blade free and then struck with the other side. The blood-borne spear sliced through armor and bone. The whirring arcanatek in his hand fell to the ground, its hum sputtering to a stop.

Zephyrus aimed his right hand at the runaway legionary. The bracer on his right arm pulsed with the power of Helios, the Sun God. A ray of light burst from his palm, singeing a hole in the running legionary’s back. His momentum carried him forward another two to three strides. Dead before he hit the ground.

The bound Valtarcians inclined their heads.

“You’re safe,” Threyna said. “At least for now.” She slashed through the chain that linked them together.

“Head west,” Zephyrus said, allowing the Vykane Blade to retract. “You can’t hope to hide from the blood mages. So run. There are refugees outside the city; don’t stop until you find them.”

“Thank the Six,” a woman said as her chains fell to her feet.

Threyna grunted, glancing at Zephyrus, but she didn’t lift voice to object.

“Stay safe, stay together, and help whoever you can on the way out of the city,” Zephyrus said as he ushered them west.

The people voiced their gratitude as they went. Zephyrus and Threyna waited until they were out of sight before turning towards one another.

“Cloak us in shadow,” Threyna said. “We need to go.”

Zephyrus’s throat tightened. A knot twisted in his chest. “What do you sense?”

“Vykinallia is continuing north. And quickly.” Threyna didn’t make eye contact. She started heading north, trudging through the puddles of blood surrounding the legionaries.

“Is she in danger?” Zephyrus asked, trotting to keep up.

She glared at him. “Everyone is in danger. They’re being chased.”

Vykinallia’s ring stitched into the thread of his waist pressed into him. Chased? “How far away are they?”

Threyna shook her head, picking up her pace. “Too far. With too many between us and them. We’ll never make it before—”

Zephyrus mouth was dry. “Before what?”

Threyna came to a stop. Zephyrus skidded to a halt. Before them, a light zipped through the narrow side streets, its flight erratic, hue pulsing.

“Guardian?” Zephyrus asked.

“Chimera’s breath,” she said, her light stabilizing in both flight and color. “I never thought I’d find you. It’s like I lost myself.”

Zephyrus didn’t know what to make of that. “We need to go,” Zephyrus said. “Vykinallia and the oth—”

“But wait,” the Guardian said. “The farm—it’s close.”

Threyna’s eyes widened. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. They snapped open a moment later. She grabbed Zephyrus by the shoulder. “That’s it. It’s close. We go there. Hit it hard. The Skeleton King will divert his resources to us and maybe it buys Vykinallia and the others time to escape.”

Zephyrus’s heart hammered within his chest like a caged animal caught inside a trap.

“It’s the only way.”

“Where is it?” Zephyrus asked.

There were more people on the pebbles of the Chariot’s Arena than there were in the stands when Zephyrus fought Octus and Saurus in the Primus of the New Rheynian Games. They sat in circles, bound by blood ties to pillars erected within the arena. Legionaries armed with arcanatek walked the grandstands, patrolling to make certain no one got in who wasn’t supposed to, and no one got out. Blood mages flew in on conjured wings, or entered through the gate from the underground tunnels gladiators used to grace the pebbles.

Zephyrus was glad that the Cassius entrance he’d envisioned to teleport into the arena wasn’t the pathway the blood mages were using. However, what time he’d saved them by teleporting was trickling away. Vykinallia was in danger. Jecht. Cerik.

Everyone.

There were hundreds if not a thousand people within the arena, but instead of the raucous, blood-lusting cheers that typically filled the stands, pleas for mercy rose from the pebbles to the pulvinus. As it often did when slaves cried for clemency, the Valtarcian people’s laments fell upon the Order’s deaf ears.

Zephyrus took no joy in the irony.

“We don’t have much time,” Threyna said. “Teleport us in. I’ll release their chains. You clear a way for their escape… just make certain you can teleport us out when you’re finished.”

Zephyrus nodded. “I’m ready.”

Rot began to grow like vines up Threyna’s arms as she sank deeper into her Inner Throne. “Let’s go.”

Seeing his target location, he didn’t need to focus to teleport them to the pulvinus. They shifted from the immaterial plane, back to the physical. Reappearing behind an Order legionary, Threyna conjured a curved blade and parted his head from his shoulders. The legionary fell limp. His head tumbled from the pulvinus to the pebbles below.

Balancing the scales, Zephyrus’s joints stiffened. His muscles hardened, and mortar encased his flesh as if he were cast in stone.

The rot grew, spiraling around Threyna’s neck like a noose and splayed across her cheek. The blue of her eyes cracked with forked lightning. One by one, the blood bindings securing the Valtarcians set to be harvested by mages crumbled to ash.

Alerts rose all around them. Legionaries shouted at their prisoners demanding they stay down, but the people didn’t listen.

Zephyrus let the world fade to black around him. Maintaining his stoneskin, he concentrated all his focus on one spot within the archway of the arena: the cornerstone that held up the second and third tiers of the grandstands. Tapping into as much of his force magic as he could muster, Zephyrus directed all his effort at the cornerstone of the southwest gate of the arena.

Stone crumbled beneath his force.

The pulvinus quaked. The entire arena seemed to rattle. Then, brick by brick, the grandstands over the western gate crumbled. Rubble poured into the arena, burying a pair of legionaries in a wave of falling stone. The debris formed a makeshift ramp, out of the arena and out to the street level on the opposite side.

The stoneskin countered the reflexive weakness from his force magic, but the rebalancing of the scales would leave him weak if he did not dissipate the aftereffects of the stone magic. As it wore off, Zephyrus’s knees turned to rubber.

He aimed his hands at the nearest legionaries attempting to corral the freed civilians. Electricity crackled through his fingertips, and a bolt of lightning exploded from him. Three legionaries dropped to the ground, seizing, clearing the path for Valtarcians to escape.

As whirring arcanatek aimed in their direction, Zephyrus grabbed Threyna. As radiant bolts of energy sizzled in their direction, they left the physical plane, phasing into the immaterial. They flowed through the mist of the immaterial plane to return to corporeal form on the pebbles of the arena.

As spearmen charged at them, and blood mages with varying degrees of black rot already flowing through their veins prepared conjurations, Threyna seized them in a blood-borne spider web. Before they could dissipate Threyna’s web, Zephyrus released a wave of jolting sparks across those ensnared in the web. They fell from the ashes of Threyna’s web, spasming with electric current.

The effort threw Zephyrus’s scales back the other way. As his joints stiffened, he followed the magic’s momentum. Allowing his stoneskin to redevelop, Zephyrus turned his attention to the northwest gate. As Threyna drew in breath, consuming the souls of those weakened by Zephyrus’s magic, and captives fled the Order’s prison, Zephyrus used his force magic to crush another cornerstone to dust.

The arena rumbled. The ground shook.

This time, the rebound of the tipping scales nearly brought him to his knees.

“Zephyrus,” Threyna shouted. “He’s coming.”

A blood mage charged at Threyna with a conjured scythe. The Guardian’s light grew to a blinding flash and zipped across the blood mage’s vision. Disoriented, the blood mage stumbled back. Threyna conjured a bow, and shot an arrow through the blood mage’s eye socket.

“Zephyrus!”

The ground beneath him felt unstable. They’d dealt a blow to the Skeleton King’s farm.

But is it enough? Will it buy Vykinallia an opportunity to escape?

Zephyrus used Klayvorine’s control over time to speed up his internal time, shortening his recovery. Threyna fired arrows in slow motion at spearmen and blood mages. An arcanatek hummed in a distorted cadence. Valtarcians fled the crumbling arena. But it wasn’t enough.

I will send a message to the Skeleton King. A message that the Harbinger and Paxoran will see from the divine realm.

He sank into the ground, allowing his bones to turn to liquid. Formless, pulsing, he radiated with potential energy that pleaded to be unleashed. Even still, he let time speed past. He allowed the scales to fall to the ground on one side, raising the other to the corrupted heavens. Electricity crackled within him, but he contained its wrath.

“Zzzeeeppphhhyyyrrruuusss!” Threyna’s time-distorted cry washed over him.

He turned to follow her outstretched finger. Floating down on blood-spawned wings, Belrich the Skeleton King descended upon the upper tier of the eastern wall of the grandstands.

Zephyrus grinned. He released his grasp on time. Aiming his outstretched arms at the Skeleton King, Zephyrus screamed as the stored energy of a thousand storms burst from his fingertips.

Bolt upon bolt surged at the Skeleton King. Blinding white forking light struck the upper tier of the grandstands. The Skeleton King was lost in the continual bolts of brilliant light. The stonework of the grandstands shattered, exploding outward to rain down.

The lightning’s energy fled Zephyrus, leaving him empty. He felt like a statue, barely able to move. He only stared at the smoldering stone, now a smooth glossy black sheen compared to the surrounding white limestone.

The Skeleton King was nowhere to be seen.

“Zephyrus!” Threyna stood before him; her hands seized his cheeks. The rot had bled her eyes black. Her silver-blond hair and slivers of her flesh were the only areas not infected by the use of her blood magic.

“Did I get him?”

“We need to get out of here.” The Guardian’s light buzzed around Zephyrus’s head.

People were fleeing. The Order was in disarray. The Skeleton King was…

Please, let him be dead.

Zephyrus imagined Vykinallia’s lips on his in the room of the nearby Winged Helm Inn. The material world around him faded. The arena that had robbed so many slaves of life now lay in ruin—its walls open, paving the way for freedom for the Skeleton King’s captives.

They returned to the physical plane in the inn’s chambers. He and Threyna both collapsed to the wooden floorboards.

“We did it,” Threyna said, holding tight to him as they knelt.

Zephyrus let out a deep breath, folding into Threyna’s embrace. He felt so tired. So weak.

Let it be enough.

Chapter 13

Ashes

Vykinallia III

Valtarcia

Vykinallia stared at the dagger’s point as it floated before her. The conical mouths of the magic bows filled with the glow of radiant light as they rattled into a buzzing din.

Nowhere to go. No way to fight.

Jecht backed into Cerik. The legionaries’ bright spear tips encroached closer. Behind them, the slithering black wisp she’d seen at a distance floated closer, over the top of the legionaries’ angled spears.

“Lay down your arms,” the blood mage said. “Come with us, or we will make you come with us. Either way, you’re going to the farm—”

The black wisp came alongside the blood mage and struck like a coiled snake, disappearing into his torso. His body convulsed, the muscles of his face contorted, and his eyes rolled back to reveal the whites. As quickly as the shadow had struck, it left the blood mage’s body, flying on the wind, heading north.

The daggers before them dissipated into ash. The blood mage’s eyes returned to lucidity, but his focus left their group to address the legionaries. “To the farm! Everyone—now!” He pointed east.

A legionary with green pauldrons added to his uniform asked, “What about—”

“Leave them,” the blood mage shouted, resprouting the leathery wings he’d flown in on. “We know where to find them.” With three great flaps of his conjured wings, the blood mage took flight. The legionaries didn’t ask another question or spare them a second glance.

Vykinallia’s mouth went dry as they ran off, leaving the path to the ludus wide open.

Zephyrus…

Vykinallia didn’t know what he did or how he did it, but she had no doubt that whatever emergency had summoned them away was his doing.

“What in Six Hells was that?” Urcilia asked.

Kaelus sheathed his swords. “Doesn’t matter. Everyone, inside.”

Not giving the legionaries any time to change their minds, they advanced on the barred gate at the front of the Kaelus manor. Guards bearing the blue-and-white ram of Kaelus raised the gates. Vykinallia looked over her shoulder as she followed the party inside the walls.

As the gate was lowered, Vykinallia knew it would not hold the Skeleton King or his legions out. She’d seen firsthand what they had done to the gate at the southern docks. They were not safe here. No one was.

She closed her eyes. The Salmantic captain’s outstretched arms reached for her. His open mouth filled with seawater, but, still ensnared in the sail, he disappeared into the sea’s abyss.

How many more will join him? We can’t save everyone—we’ll be lucky to save ourselves.

She licked her salty lips and swallowed. Dabbing the sweat from her forehead with her bracer, the thought of the farm made fresh beads replace the wiped ones. Holding her spear with one hand, she rubbed her elbow.

Zephyrus, how are we going to survive this?

“Nallia Cassius,” Kaelus said.

The sound of her old name ripped her from her thoughts.

“Come.” Kaelus motioned to her. “You know more of this enemy than I. If you are the ally you claim to be, then there is much to be discussed.”

Vykinallia nodded. She and the others followed Kaelus inside the false protection provided by stone walls and slate roofs. While his guards delivered the injured woman to the medicus, Kaelus brought the rest of them through the atrium.

The atrium reminded her more of Sentigard’s construction as opposed to that of her villa. In place of white marble columns and pools of water beneath sky windows that flooded the villa with natural light, the atrium was dark, lined with stained glass murals, each depicting a Kaelus champion. The likeness of Elend and Vinius slaying Targarus’s champions in the King’s Day Games danced in the flicking torchlight from the sconces lining the walls. Chandeliers hung from the pointed ceiling, spilling dim light where the stained glass denied the sun’s entrance.

The groans of the maimed that Kaelus had rescued marred the majesty. Wounded lined the gray stone walls, clutching bandaged limbs or cradling a more severely injured loved one. As they navigated the infirm, Vykinallia couldn’t believe how many people Kaelus had offered sanctuary. Scores. And just in the atrium.

“We’ve run out of places to put everyone,” Kaelus said to Vykinallia in a low tone. “After the fires… you would not believe…” He shook his head.

“They are monsters,” Vykinallia said.

A child coughed, a weak dry hack from lungs weakened by smoke inhalation. A man with a bandaged stump where his hand should have been attempted to aid a woman in adjusting her splinted leg.

“These are the lucky ones,” Kaelus said. “Those still recovering have taken rest in the servants’ chambers. The medicus is tending to those in the severest conditions, Six save them.”

Arriving at the end of the atrium, Kaelus took off his cloak and handed it to a servant in a traditional toga dyed the dark Kaelus blue.

Vykinallia swallowed. “Earl Kaelus, it is nothing short of remarkable what you have done here, but you can’t stay. These people can’t stay.”

Kaelus’s expression darkened. “We can. And we will as long as we must. King Damascus will send aid. We will hold out until we can fight back.”

Vykinallia stepped closer. He was taller, broader, but in the Skeleton King’s shadow, Kaelus didn’t scare her. Heat rose to her cheeks, and she pursed her dried lips. They clung together, peeling apart slowly.

“If you think Damascus is coming, you’re wrong,” Vykinallia said. “And all these people—” She gestured to the filled atrium. “—they will die, or suffer a fate far worse.”

Kaelus’s stern jaw clenched. He pushed past Vykinallia. “Urcilia,” Kaelus said to his wife. “Provide our guests with what food and water we can. They will not be staying long.”

Vykinallia’s salty, chapped lips, and sore, dry throat yearned for fresh water after coughing up what she’d swallowed at sea, but it would not save any of them when the Skeleton King came to their gates.

Urcilia’s narrow face pinched further. Her honeyed eyebrows rose over the bridge of her nose but angled downward to steeple her green eyes and wrinkle her forehead. “We’re out.” Urcilia’s words were softer than a whisper. Barely a breath. She spoke as if someone heard her, it would make her words true.

Kaelus grunted. “Wine then.”

Urcilia shook her head.

It was worse than Vykinallia had thought. The Skeleton King had only arrived the night before, but between the shortages in ships, trade, the drought, the plebeian rebellion, and Damascus’s focus on destroying Stockhelm, Kaelus was in no position to be so generous. Considering the number of refugees beneath his roof, it was no wonder whatever dwindling supplies he had were depleted.

“Earl Kaelus,” Vykinallia said, her voice a stern whisper.

Kaelus’s fist clenched at his side as he turned to face her with a menacing deliberateness.

Vykinallia stood her ground. “These walls will not keep the Skeleton King or his legions out when they return. You may think you can find somewhere else to hide, to lie low and wait for Salmantic reinforcements, but even if Damascus came to your aid, you’d never last long enough to receive it.”

Kaelus growled. He glanced left and right before leaning close. “Not here. Follow me.”

He stormed through a doorway, exiting the atrium. Down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, and through another door that led to a spiral staircase inside the tower.

Ascending the stairs, with his back to her, Kaelus said, “Speak plainly. What do you know that I don’t?”

Vykinallia didn’t know where to begin. She did her best to parse out the details that Threyna had imparted on the Fallen before she and Zephyrus took their leave. She told Kaelus about the blood magic and how the Skeleton King uses people’s vitality to source his power, and the near-limitless potential of his conjurations. In addition, after the Fallen’s victory over Damascus’s force in Stockhelm, it was unlikely that Salmantica would send aid.

Kaelus didn’t say anything as they ascended the stairs. Once they reached the top, he opened a heavy wooden door and gestured for her to go inside. A cool breeze greeted her through the many windows in the tower. The room was bare except for a circular rug at the center, blue with gold tassels.

Vykinallia entered, and Kaelus followed her. He spun in a slow circle, pausing to look out each of the windows. Smoke rose to the south and east. She didn’t know what he hoped to find out the west-facing window. Perhaps he hoped to see the red-and-black chimera. But here, Kaelus would learn the truth. He must.

Kaelus finally came to a stop, facing her. His grave expression softened. “These blood mages… they hear heartbeats.”

Vykinallia nodded.

The stone in his throat bobbed.

“They know where every Valtarcian is,” Vykinallia said. “At all times. They will make sport of catching every last person in this city before moving onto the next, draining their blood, absorbing their souls—growing stronger with each and every one.”

Kaelus chewed his mustache and seethed through his nostrils. He turned away from her and strode to the eastern window to rest his hands on the sill. “What would you have of me, hmm? I will not lay down and watch my city fall to ashes beneath this Skeleton King.”

“I would have you save your people,” Vykinallia said to his back. She came to his side. “If you’re going to risk your life—your wife’s life, your people’s lives—do so by leading them to safety. Not by defending stone buildings.” She placed her hand on his shoulder.

Kaelus bristled at her touch, but Vykinallia leaned in closer.

“Lead your people to safety.” She turned him around to face west. “If the Gods are good, Salmantica will provide sanctuary, and we can mount a true defense. But not if we all die here.”

Kaelus brushed her hand from his shoulder. “You want me to run away. From people in need. People who it is my duty to defend.”

Vykinallia shook her head. “You are Earl Mavren Kaelus. Where you go, others will follow. Lead. Take your people—guards, patricians, plebs, slaves, everyone—head west. If we, Laeden, and Damascus work together… we just might survive this.”

Kaelus met her gaze. “You’d have me free my slaves.”

Vykinallia pulled the collar of her leather cuirass away, exposing the “V” branded onto her breast. Kaelus’s eyes glanced down at it before meeting hers again, his statue-like features betraying none of his inward thoughts.

“We’re all enslaved to something,” Vykinallia said, thinking of Zephyrus. “I chose to help people instead of joining in on one man’s theological prejudice. I let my past die to step into the future I believed could be built. But it won’t be built on the back of slaves.”

Kaelus grunted, but said nothing.

“I know what side of the war you fought on, Earl Kaelus. I know what you once valued. All I ask is that you do what is best for your people now. All of them.”

Chapter 14

The Seer

Danella II

Salmantica

Danella’s ears rang, and her vision fuzzed. Head still spinning, she lifted her hand to a deep burning sensation above her ear. Through the disorientation of her troubled senses, she had difficulty finding her head.

Her fingertips brushed the hair over her ear only to come away warm and wet. She held her trembling fingertips before her swimming vision. Blood.

Covered in a layer of dirt and dust, she examined the loose and uneven stitching of the sleeves of her threadbare cloak. Six save me. What am I wearing? She inclined her head. She was on the ground in Salmantica’s Temple district. What in Six Hells am I doing here?

She wasn’t the only one.

Horns trumpeted. Vigiles in white rushed to people’s aid, pulling rubble off of screaming piles of debris. Limbs stuck out at odd angles beneath the splintered wooden beams and crumbled stone façades of buildings. A crack divided the road, splitting like a fork of lightning. The columns in front of the temples toppled, spilling wreckage everywhere.

Danella attempted to gain her feet, but her vertigo sent her back down. She tried to remember what had happened, how she arrived in the Temple District in pauper’s clothing. Before she could, the ground shook beneath her, and she fell onto her back.

The Disasters. The Celestics, they did this. Varros, he allowed this to—

The thought of Varros awakened something within her that shook her more than the aftershock of the earthquake. Varros is dead. Damascus killed him.

She recalled donning servants’ travel garb and leaving Sentigard. It all felt like a dream. A nightmare. She wanted to believe that lie, but this was real. The emptiness in her heart echoed with the betrayal of truth. This was all her fault.

She buried her head in her hands, wanting to hide, but dropping her chin made her woozy. More blood covered her hand. She tried to wipe it off on her opposite sleeve, but in her lack of coordination, she smeared it on the back of her other hand. The blood seemed to spread. Not dividing from one hand to the other, but multiplying, growing. At first a trickle, and then—

A flood of blood.

Iylea’s prophecy drowned her, condemning her worse than ever before.

“Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

She crawled onto her knees and interlocked her fingers, spreading the blood between them. Danella closed her eyes and inclined her head toward the sky. She wanted to pray, to repent—anything to stop the flood of blood. Her lips moved, but no words came forth, as if she were choking on the tide of her mistakes that had come to drown her father’s kingdom.

My father…

Even her father’s memory was tainted as it entered her mind. Something… she’d heard something. Something that could change everything.

The sensation that it was all just a dream washed over her again. She wanted to wrap herself in the comfort of that falsehood. To lie down. Sleep. And never wake up. But she recognized the lie within the comfort, and the sharp blade of truth raked upon her heart, gouged out her eyes, and sliced out her tongue. She deserved its cruel deliverance after everything she’d done. For conspiring against Varros, abducting Iylea, framing Laeden, sending Nallia Cassius as a pawn to manipulate Damascus. The pile of her sins mounted higher than the rubble burying her father’s city. The guilt of which stained her hands crimson.

No longer could she close her eyes to the hard truth. She unclasped her hands, letting them fall to the cracked and ruined street.

On the ground in the distance, half entrenched in a pile of rubble, the man with the brown eyes flecked with gold attempted to free himself. The speaker. The seer.

He condemned her father, her brother, and the Revivalists, but supported Varros and Laeden. He claimed to have received visions from Incinerae.

Was the earthquake because he spoke blasphemy, or because the Vigiles attempted to silence his truth?

Unable to stand, Danella crawled to him. Her knees scraped on the cobbles. Her hands left behind bloodstains that diminished with each step as she circumvented the debris and the wounded lining the street.

The seer’s leg was trapped beneath a fallen beam. On either side of him, the bodies of the two Vigiles escorting him lay still, their white uniforms drenched in scarlet blood. Crawling closer, Danella approached the seer.

As she neared, the carnage became more visible. The seer’s leg was bent at an impossible angle. His left shoulder slumped, no longer in its socket. A gash along the back of his head rained blood down his neck, soaking the back of his tunic. The closer she crept, the more the seer’s adrenaline faded. Unable to free himself, he sank to the ground to lie prone.

He turned towards her. The rise and fall of his ribs came in a short, sharp tide. Each exhale blew a cloud of dust from the ground before him.

Danella collapsed to the ground at his side, staring into the golden flecks of his mahogany eyes. She extended her hand for him, but misjudged the distance and fell short of his cheek.

Her fingernails scratched at the ground. “Is it true? Any of it?”

The lucidity began to dwindle in his gaze as his cheeks paled. “All of it. The Reckoning is here. The Celestics call it The Age of the End.”

“The Reckoning…” Danella’s tongue felt thick and clumsy in her mouth.

“Moterra is dead,” the seer said. “The earthquake… because the Harbinger killed her.”

The gears of Danella’s mind clunked, unable to process what he was saying.

“Fourteen gone,” he continued, his breath becoming more erratic in depth and rhythm. “Only four left. Then… the Harbinger’s goal will be complete.”

Danella’s fingers closed around the loose dirt and stones as if all she needed was to feel them to make sense of his words. Fourteen? Fourteen Gods?

“How do we stop this?” Danella asked, her tongue as heavy as the seer’s eyelids.

“Death marches from the east,” the seer said, his voice straining.

“I don’t understand…” Danella said. The seer’s face began to blur, and the surrounding buildings in her periphery darkened. “How do we stop…”

The seer’s gold-flecked eyes stared blankly ahead. Not at her. Through her. His chest no longer rose and fell with breath. Aside from the curls of his dark hair dancing in the wind, he did not move. His jaw hung slack, drooping into a crossbite as he lay on his side.

Dead.

Danella couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to. She wanted him to open his mouth and speak sense. The longer she stared, the more assured she became that he wouldn’t. The world blinked out around her, but she opened her eyes again. A moment later, her surroundings disappeared again, taking longer to reappear.

Am I dying too?

She wanted to raise her hand to the side of her head to check her wound, but couldn’t manage to lift the weight of her arm. Voices came near, urgent in tone. A hand gripped her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. A white-clad Vigile filled her spotting vision.

“She’s alive,” the Vigile said. “She’s—Six save me… Queen Danella?”

The silver in the Vigile’s beard darkened as if covered by a shadow. She tried to speak, but the shadow grew, stretching out over everything and everyone, until all the world was covered in darkness.

Chapter 15

Rot

Laeden III

Salmantica

The sea wind gusted, swirling the dust kicked up when Laeden reined Starla to a trot. What was once the isthmus wall that divided Salmantica and Valtarcia lay in ruin for the second time in short order. First, Zephyrus had burned it down in his flight from Salmantica. Many of the scorched timbers that weren’t too structurally deficient were hastily restacked to at least keep the appearance of some kind of initial line of defense.

The earthquake saw an end to that. The shoddy construction crumpled. It seemed no men were manning the wall anyway, and for that Laeden was fortunate. It was one less checkpoint he would need to bypass to speak with Damascus.

Laeden led Starla around the collapsed wall’s debris, trotting cautiously. He was sure the mare was pleased to have the respite. He’d ridden her hard enough that his legs were saddle-sore. Paired with the anxiety of navigating the isthmus amidst the earthquake’s aftershocks, he would need more than a few carrots and cubes of sugar to reward her.

That is if they don’t plug us both full of crossbow bolts…

Once past the rubble, the city walls and the northeast gate were not much further. Even from this distance, it was evident that buildings, temples, and statues had not survived the quake. Part of him wished a portion of the city walls had collapsed to circumvent the inevitable confrontation that would come with his arrival. But such a hope was rooted in foolishness… fear. If the walls were already compromised, they would stand little resistance against the Skeleton King’s eventual assault.

Laeden patted Starla’s neck. He should have kicked her back up to speed; their slow trot was more for him than for her at this point as his doubts grew the closer he got to the city and the people that betrayed him. Danella had plotted to kill his father, abducted and executed his lover, and framed him for trying to stop her. Damascus had murdered their father. Aemos had murdered Markus. Aelon had condemned him to death. And, worst of all, Iylea was lost to the world.

Yet now, Laeden had no choice but to return. Begging for help.

Regardless of his doubt, the dirt road crunched under Starla’s hooves one fateful step at a time until Salmantica’s city wall stretched overhead. A pair of Vigiles stood on the parapets of the gatehouse alongside a Sentinel. Two more Vigiles stood on either side of the gate while another Sentinel stood inside.

“Halt,” the Sentinel atop the parapets said. “Declare yourself.”

Laeden took a deep breath. Here goes… everything. He patted Starla on the neck before dismounting. The mare tossed her head and whinnied, scuffing the dirt, acting out Laeden’s anxiety. He shushed her, stroking her side. Leading her by the reins, he turned her around to face her back the way they had come.

“Declare yourself!” shouted one of the Vigiles before the gate. He leveled his spear at Laeden. “Take off your hood.”

Laeden held out a hand at the Vigile, still shushing Starla. “Good girl. Go back to Naius.”

Starla tossed her head.

“I know, I know,” Laeden said. “It’s a long way back. But I have a feeling you might be better off there than where I’m going.” He slapped Starla’s rump.

The mare blustered and took off at a canter, kicking up a cloud of dirt.

No longer able to delay his fate, Laeden dropped his head and turned to face the gate guards. He lowered his hood, fingers trembling. “I am Laeden Helixus.” He dropped to his knees and placed his hands on his head. “I must speak with King Damascus.”

The Vigiles did not treat him kindly. Neither did the Sentinels they passed him to. Nor did the newest King’s Guard Knights who dragged him through the rotunda outside of Sentigard in enough chains to break the drawbridge and sink him to the bottom of the moat.

Though the bridge held and he did not plunge into the Aquarian, he still felt like he was drowning as the King’s Guard Knights hauled him through the front doors. He was fully capable of walking himself, but that information wasn’t passed from Vigile to Sentinel or Sentinel to Knight, and thus his feet barely scraped the dark stone floor or the thick red carpets that ran the length of the atrium to the throne room.

Laeden’s stomach knotted with each false step, but it wasn’t until he reached the portrait of past kings that it plummeted. The canvas depicting his father was slashed through. Not once. Not twice. But too many times for Varros’s face to be recognizable.

Laeden’s feet planted into the floor, jarring the King’s Guard Knights. His manacled fists clenched until his joints hurt. The muscles of his jaw seized, sending a spasm down his neck and beneath his collarbone.

“Move!” The King’s Guard Knight shoved Laeden, but he shrugged it off.

His eyes remained fixed where his father’s slate-blue gaze should have been. Traveled down to where his dimpled cheeks should have held a sidelong smirk. Fell further, until Laeden stared at the floor.

This time when the King’s Guard Knight shoved him, Laeden let it propel him toward Damascus—his father’s murderer. Lurching into motion, the knights had to speed up to catch Laeden before he barged past the two Sentinels manning the double doors to the throne room.

“Open these cursed doors.” He didn’t bother to keep the poison from his tone.

The knights grabbed him by the shoulders. “The king won’t be receiving you in the throne room, traitor.”

They dragged him past the throne room toward the east Tower. The ceiling vaulted, and Laeden was led up the familiar staircase toward his bed chambers. As they ascended the first landing of the staircase, one knight released him, while the other moved towards the dark stone wall. With a shove of his foot and a resounding click, one of the stones receded into the wall. Grinding stones slid, and a hidden stairwell descended on the opposite side of the false wall.

Laeden’s chin fell. He only stared, mouth agape.

A secret staircase…

If not for the knights’ persistence, he would have remained fixed in place, but they shoved him inside the wall. Stone steps descended in a tight spiral down the tower. Windowless and lit only by the glow of a few sparse torches, the darkness enveloped him. The air was thick, sullen, and as welcome in his lungs as the peace-forging words he needed but did not want to speak to Damascus.

The knight pulled a lever, and Sentigard’s interior disappeared. The grinding stones sealed them inside the dark, dingy bowels of the tower. The knights prodded him down the narrow stairwell. In single file with Laeden leading the way, he couldn’t help but feel like each step he took was closer to his last.

They’ll chain me down here, lock me in a cell, and never let me see the sun again. Will they even permit me to speak to Damascus?

He didn’t know on whose orders he was sent down here—Damascus’s or Danella’s—but it made no matter; if he failed to convince Damascus to admit the Valtarcian refugees, they were as good as dead. Worse than dead. All would join the One True God.

The dungeon grew colder the further he descended, but eventually, he ran out of stairs. While the base was larger than the stairwell, Laeden couldn’t explore beyond the cage before him. His heart sank, lower than the dungeon.

He opened his mouth to object, but the knights threw him into the cell. Unable to break his fall with his hands manacled, he crashed shoulder first onto the filth-stained loose hay strewn atop the cold stone floor.

The sickening scent of excrement invaded his nostrils. Flies buzzed. Unseen rats scurried in the shadows beyond the torch light. Rusty metal hinges screeched to a halt. The jangle of keys and the clink of a lock solidified his fate.

Laeden scrambled to his feet. “I must speak with Damascus. Punish me if you must but at least hear what I have to say. Valtarcia is under attack.”

The knights disregarded him. One seized a torch from the sconce and returned to the stairs, his brethren right behind.

“You must listen to me,” Laeden shouted.

No response. Their light retreated; their footsteps receded. The darkness encroached.

The foolishness of Laeden’s plan hit him like a lance to the chest. His manacled hands reached for the bars of his cell. With all his might, he attempted to rattle them, but they didn’t budge. No sound escaped. As the grinding stones of their return to Sentigard echoed off the walls, a new depth dawned on Laeden.

His eyes struggled to adjust to the shadows, but he didn’t need to see clearly to make sense of it. All those days Iylea was missing… said to have fled for the Uprising… she was here. All along. Right under my nose. I didn’t even look.

Laeden’s knees buckled. The tension in his muscles melted, and he puddled onto the stones, his hands still grasping the bars of his cell. Alone. Scared. Helpless.

He closed his eyes. A tear slipped past his eyelashes and rolled down the front of his cheek, disappearing into his beard.

I’m so sorry, my love.

Resting his forehead against the bars, he couldn’t help but feel like he wasn’t alone. Aside from rats, fleas, and whatever other vermin wanted his blood, he sensed a predator’s prowling presence. He lifted his gaze to the darkness, but a single candle held it back.

Footsteps approached. The figure holding the candle was barely visible, dressed all in black. Above the candle’s flame, golden eyes glinted.

Damascus’s soft footsteps approached. “The nerve you must have. Showing up here.”

A wave of hatred replaced his despair. Laeden stood to his feet, hands knotted.

Damascus’s features became more defined the nearer he drew. His slender face seemed haggard. His pointed chin beard—not as neatly trimmed as usual. But the hollowness in his eyes made him nearly unrecognizable. His chivalrous, could-do-nothing-wrong brother appeared a shell of himself. His arm holding the candle was in a sling. Bandages stretched beyond the cover of his clothing, concealing the wounds he and Vykinallia had inflicted the night prior.

Laeden bit back the venom he wished to inject. “There are many other places I would rather be, but the realm—”

“Do not speak to me of the realm.” Damascus jabbed the words and his index finger at Laeden like a knife. “You have destroyed everything.”

Laeden scoffed. Of course you will not accept the blame. He gripped the bars before Damascus’s face, wishing he could wring his neck rather than the cold iron.

“If there comes a time when you can choose between forgiveness and punishment, I hope you choose to forgive and work toward peace,” his father had said.

Laeden released his curled fingers from the cell bars and dropped his gaze. Would you still counsel peace, Father?

His father had known Danella was behind the Revivalists. He had known she tried to murder him and frame Laeden. Yet he still pursued peace. Laeden didn’t understand how his father could forgive, even while she was still working against him.

The floating orb of light that accompanied Zephyrus and Threyna’s arrival, the Guardian, had given him the answer after telling him that Iylea was gone. At peace. But gone. Lost.

“She would want you to live for the future, not dwell in the past,” the Guardian said.

Laeden took a deep breath, letting his exhale seep between his clenched teeth.

He met Damascus’s eyes. “I’m sorry, brother. For everything. Truly.”

It wasn’t a lie. He was sorry for the fear, hate, and violence that had led them to this moment. His mind raced, imagining how things could have been different if he had listened to Iylea, trusted her, and apprehended Danella before she could sink her claws into Damascus. Laeden wouldn’t have been framed. Damascus wouldn’t have been king. And their father wouldn’t be dead.

His body lay in the dirt alongside Markus’s. Ostrey fell beneath Helixus swords. Hallon took a bolt to the chest attempting to save Laeden from his rigged trial. Iylea’s head flew from her shoulders, her body crumpling as her head thudded to the ground and rolled to his feet, leaving a flood of blood in its wake.

Laeden took another steeling breath. “I wish it never came to this, Damascus. But here we are. The past cannot be undone, but the future does not have to drown in blood. Valtarcia is under attack. The people, your people, are fleeing west for sanctuary or trapped within the city walls praying for aid.”

Damascus’s lips parted in a smile. His black brows rose, and a sarcastic chuckle spilled from his mouth. “My people? Don’t you mean your people, King Laeden?”

His brow angled over his golden eyes like a diving falcon about to catch its prey. “They stopped being my people the moment they took up arms to usurp Horus in your name. If you can no longer control the mages you allied yourself with, then Valtarcia and all of its people can follow you to the lowest of the Six-cursed Hells.”

Laeden bristled. “I have not set foot within the city walls of Valtarcia. If they have taken up arms against you, is that more of a reflection on me… or you?”

Damascus opened his mouth to speak, but Laeden continued. “And the mages I allied with are not the ones who attacked Valtarcia. They came from the east.”

“The east?”

“Rheynia,” Laeden said. “Led by King Belrich Fayte. He leads an army of blood mages who can conjure anything imaginable into existence. They feed off the souls of the living to power their—”

Damascus threw back his head in laughter. He backed away, turning from Laeden and the cage they put him in, to rest his hand on the wall to support his hysterics. “Rheynia. Fayte.” He shook his head and made for the stairs.

Panic sank into Laeden’s stomach. He felt as if the floor gave out from underneath him. I can’t let him leave me here. “Damascus, I’m serious. They call him the Skeleton King. He has come to claim not just the land, but the soul of every last person.”

The shackles on his wrists slid down his forearms with a clank as he raised his hands to his chin, fingers interlocked, pleading. “I’m not lying. I swear it. By the Six.”

“By the Six…” Damascus paced the short distance between the staircase and Laeden’s cell. “Do you even remember who they are?”

Laeden grimaced. He hadn’t wanted to go this route. If Damascus didn’t believe him about the Skeleton King attacking from Rheynia, how could he fathom that a God he’d never heard of was killing the Six one by one? But he was out of options. He had no other choice.

“Aquarius,” Laeden said, “was killed by another God. Ever since the nightly rains have stopped, the waters have soured, and the seas have raged.”

Before Damascus could interrupt, Laeden continued.

“Moterra too. The earth quakes absent her steady hand. Damascus, listen to me. Things will only get worse. More Gods will fall. More people will suffer. Valtarcia cannot stand against the Skeleton King, and once he consumes every soul in the city and every last person in the countryside, he will come to Salmantica.”

Damascus smirked.

Laeden’s mouth went dry. He doesn’t believe me. He pressed his face between the bars of his cage. “Please, Damascus, if you will not aid the Valtarcians, at least grant the refugees sanctuary when they arrive.”

A pregnant pause filled the dank dungeon air as the two brothers stared at each other, Laeden pleading, Damascus grinning. The growing silence was filled by the buzz of insects and the rustle of rodents.

“You must think me some special sort of simple.” Damascus’s grin morphed to a scowl, the lines of his face made darker by the glowing candle before him. “You and that traitor bride of mine belong together—with all of your lies.”

“I’m not lyi—”

“You would love me to open my walls to your plebeian rebels, wouldn’t you?” Damascus shook his head. “What is your grand plan? To enter as refugees, riot as rebels, and then, once your mage, slave, and pauper army has ruined everything under Valencia, you can dine on my stores—as king? I think not, Laeden. I will not fall for your falsehoods. Not this time.”

Laeden’s breath trembled between his quivering lips. His voice came out small. “You must believe me. I don’t wish to be king—not of Valtarcia, Salmantica, or anywhere else. All I want is to save our people. Father wanted peace between us. United, we may stand a chance against the Skeleton King and this Traitor God destroying Valencia. But alone…”

As Laeden trailed off, the quiet was once again owned by the dungeon’s vermin.

Damascus took a deep breath, fixing Laeden with his golden Drake eyes. “Once, I pitied you. Then I was envious. But now, I finally see clearly. You are worse than our lying, treasonous, mage of a father.”

Damascus’s cloak swished as he spun towards the spiral staircase, leaving Laeden speechless. Hopeless. Afraid.

“You will rot in here,” Damascus shouted, climbing the stairs. “You hear me? Rot!”

Damascus’s candle retreated, his footsteps receded, and he ignored each of Laeden’s last-ditch cries. The grinding stone entryway opened and closed, leaving him alone in the cold, dark depths of the hidden dungeon.

Laeden sank to the floor before the bars. Doubt blanketed him. Fear consoled him. But it was his oldest friend who would be his final companion—failure.

INTERLUDE I

Laela

Azorath

The swirling winds howled, whipping Laela’s cloak back and forth with icy claws. Tears streaked from her squinted eyes as she used her good hand to secure the hood atop her head. Her boots crunched down on the white snow, though she could no longer feel her toes within. Looking up at the frozen city ahead, Laela pursed her lips and trudged onwards, toward the tall ice-covered castle in the center of the city.

The fact that this place even existed was motivation enough. Through desert, sea, and tundra, the most difficult terrain to traverse was her doubt. Tyrus, the void mage, wasn’t even certain the city existed when he had told her and Threyna about it in the City of the Judges. But there it was, and here she was—marching toward it.

The frozen city was just that. A bustling city, with its people amidst their chores, frozen in time. Human icicles protruded from mounds of windswept snow. Regardless of what people were doing, it was evident that no one suspected being turned to ice. Why else would they have so casually walked the streets? Absent thick cloaks, caps, gloves, or any other apparel fit for such a climate, it seemed as if the people of Azorath had never seen a flake of snow in their lives.

Neither had Laela before she set out on this journey. Now she was sick of the thickened water that made her nose runny and her skin chapped. She just hoped it was worth it.

She didn’t know what she would find within, but Tyrus had not led her astray thus far. If he was right, if the legends told it true, there was an artifact similar to the Skeleton King’s. An opposite, that she hoped could cure her and Threyna’s curse.

Maybe then Threyna will stop fighting.

“It’s all I’ve ever known,” Threyna had said when Tyrus offered them to join his rebellion against the Drakes and Helixuses who had abandoned them in Rheynia and stolen the land from the Stockhelm natives.

“What else are we going to do with this?” Threyna raised her curse-marked hand. “We might as well fight for a cause. Why waste our lives searching for a cure that may not exist?”

“Why waste your life on a war that doesn’t involve you?”

A gale of wind blew back her hood, spilling her black braid behind her. Laela reached with her stump to pull her hood back up, but the handless nub proved ineffective. With a chill-induced whimper, Laela seized the hem of her hood and yanked it down to block the blustering wind.

Almost there.

She dropped her eyes to the snow and ice before her. The crowds of human icicles were thicker the closer she made it toward the castle, which made avoiding their frozen gazes more difficult. The wind shrieked louder, whipped harder, and cut deeper with each step she took.

She navigated around the ice sculptures that were once Azorath’s citizens. Passing beneath an archway, she neared a gate that granted access to the castle grounds. Manned by two sentries standing guard, the barred gate was frozen shut.

Laela scanned the limited visibility offered by the wintery conditions, but saw no other means of entry. She bit her cracked lip.

There’s no other choice.

She closed her eyes, inhaled the bitter cold air, and tapped into her Center of Silence. Her blood warmed, returning feeling to her fingers and toes. Even her stub of a hand seemed to come alive with phantom fingers. With the returned feeling of sensation, so too did the Skeleton King’s curse spread through her veins, weaving its corruptive black ichor towards her heart.

Persevering through the growing rot, Laela rooted into her Inner Calm and spawned a battering ram. As her conjuration took form, she backed away from the gate. Eyes closed, arms outstretched, she commanded her conjuration from within her mind’s eye to rear back.

Power surged within her. Strength she never possessed—even when she was the First Sword of the Wraith back in Rheynia—flowed through her veins.

The conjuration obeyed. The battering ram flew through the air and struck the ice-covered gate with a thunderous boom. Ice shattered, icicles fell, and the world reverberated outward from the battering ram’s impact.

She reared back again.

Boom!

More ice fractured and fell, but the gates remained firm.

Laela sank deeper into her Center of Silence. The rot radiated up her arm, but soon it would no longer matter—she would find the cure for her affliction, or die searching for it.

Boom!

The gate gave way beneath her force, but it was not enough. Iron crunched, but she wanted to obliterate it. She reared back again.

Boom!

Again and again and again.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The power surged within her, intoxicating her. She could level the entire city if she wanted. She would if she needed to.

But why—so I can cure this… be rid of this strength? Why would I ever—

Laela released her hold of her Center of Silence. She opened her eyes, her body trembling. It happened again. She had lost herself in its rapture. The black veins of her corruption coiled around her throat; the rot was close enough to her heart to tickle it.

She opened her eyes. The gate, the parapet overtop, and the walls around it were a pile of rubble that had buried the frozen sentries who manned it. Her battering ram fell to ash, soiling the pristine layer of snow before the pile of rubble.

Gory ghosts, not again.

It happened every time she tried to use it. She didn’t know how Threyna had the will to control such a terrible temptress, but Laela certainly did not. She shuddered, less because of the cold and more at the thought of what would have happened to her had the rot reached her heart.

I would have come all this way just to freeze to death at the gate.

Pulling her cloak tight, she trudged over the rubble and through where the gate once stood. Once within, the castle grounds were beautiful. Had she not been on the verge of certain death, perhaps she might have even been able to appreciate the white-capped trees and frost-covered grotesques in the shape of winged women that lined the path through the courtyard. Instead, she spared them a passing glance, electing to quicken her stride to the front door and the promise of shelter from the wind.

The moment she released her hold on her Center of Silence, the cold returned with a vengeance. The feeling in her fingers and toes numbed before she could reach the massive front doors to the castle.

Encased in ice, the door stood three times as tall as her. Carved runes embossed in the stone frame glittered in the refracted light through the rime. Foreign as the symbols were, the rot in her blood pulsed as if it held a familiarity with what lay beyond. Hope blossomed in her gut, and her phantom fingers tingled at the prospect of finding the artifact Tyrus spoke of.

Before she could reach for the frozen iron ring on the door, the runes along the frame glowed a bright blue. Laela balked, retracting her hand, but the azure gleam grew stronger, more fervent. The door began to hum, emitting a dark crimson aura fractured by black forks.

She looked down at her palm.

The door is not glowing. I am.

This time when she reached for the door handle, ice along the seam of the two doors cracked. The door creaked open. Laela gasped, lungs choking on cold and shock. She backed away, allowing the double doors to open before her. Like open arms, the impossibly high doors invited her into the castle of Azorath.

The atrium within the ice castle was dark except for a single radiant white light in the distance that cascaded outward. Laela stepped inside, her footsteps slow despite her urgency to be sheltered from the elements.

As she strode inside, the doors closed behind her on their own, blocking out the wind and the sun’s light. The atrium was dark. Little light found its way through the clouds, let alone the rime-encrusted windows. The only source of illumination fending off the bitter darkness was her pulsing red, and the white beacon in the distance.

This has to be it. The cure.

Ice covered the ground, slowing her progress towards the light, but each careful step brought her closer to an answer. As she neared, she found the kneeling forms of human icicles. Heads bowed, hands interlocked in prayer, they sat in concentric rows around the white light. Taking caution not to touch the frozen people, Laela made her way through the rows. With each step, her glowing red aura pulsed with a higher frequency. So too did the beacon.

But as she drew close, she realized the people were not centered around the white light in prayer. The white light was a crown atop a woman’s bowed head, as she too faced a statue erected in the center of the atrium.

Laela flexed her stiff fingers, ignoring the twitch of jealousy in her phantom hand. The rot in her veins thrummed, calling toward the gleaming white crown. Streaks of blue radiated from the diadem in rhythmic tendrils. Compared to the chaotic forks of black lightning rippling through her red aura, the diadem emitted a calming energy.

Stepping around the train of the kneeling woman’s dress, Laela reached for the crown atop her head. Three points protruded from the crown, the centermost taller than the others. In a land covered in ice and snow, Laela expected the crown to be as well, but it appeared untouched by the frost. Her red aura met the crown’s white, and the two blended together as if entwining in a dance, or clashing in battle.

The fingers of her left hand closed around the crown. It wasn’t even cold. Warmth radiated into her fingers, and as it traveled up her arm, the black rot of the Skeleton King’s cursed magic flowed towards the diadem.

The white-and-blue hue consumed the red and black.

Laela’s breath trembled. Tears flowed down her cheeks as the rot receded into the crown.

Once the red aura was extinguished, the crown melted within her hands, liquefying. The white-and-blue fluid coursed between her fingers, and washed up her arm. She recalled how the Skeleton King’s artifact had slithered along her body, searching for a place to inject its prongs.

The opposite…

Slow, methodical, meticulous—the artifact searched her entire upper body before it traveled down her torso. Taking shape, it became a braided belt around her waist, cinching firm but not tight. Laela braced herself for the prongs to inject into her, but they never came.

Confused, Laela attempted to tap into her Center of Silence. After a few deep breaths, she was in. Still cursed.

No… how can this be?

Laela sank to her knees beside the kneeling woman and the dozens of icicles in prayer before the statue. The rime-encrusted plaque on the statue’s base read, “Paxoran, our God of Peace. The One True God.”

Laela shook her head. The One True God. That is who the Skeleton King served. She conjured a hand to replace her nub. The blood-red fingers took shape and closed into a fist. But the rot did not spread up her arm.

Laela gasped. “It worked.” Her breath fogged before her. She stood to her feet, a smile breaking across her face. “Threyna… I found it.”

A beacon came alive within her—a sense of direction toward another location.

The opposite.

An evil presence like dark clouds on the sea’s horizon loomed in the distance. She had felt such a presence only once before, but this was worse—grander in size and scale, darker, and multiplying.

The Skeleton King…we killed him. How could he…

Laela’s mouth went dry. Her stomach, yawning with hunger, suddenly turned sour.

“Threyna…”

Laela took off towards the castle’s front door.

PART II

Chapter 16

Live as Lightning,
Still as Stone

Fenyx II

Valencia

A strength surged through Fenyx’s body as he navigated the still and silent corridors of Valencia. As if wearing a cloak that shrouded him in invincibility, the power that fled Moterra’s body entered his own. If the glory he deserved in the mortal realm had a tangible feeling, this was it.

His flesh prickled, but not with the burning, itching sensation his scarred skin afflicted him with in life. It pulsed, exuding a fearlessness he had never truly known. Though he did not glow as Paxoran had upon Fenyx’s first arrival, the sword did—red with black lightning.

Moterra was dead. Phaebia would be next.

The hallway, long and narrow, with plush red carpets running its length, stretched on. No building of mortal construction could ever have been so vast, so grand. But he was not among mortals. This was a castle built by and for the Gods—not just his Judges or the Rheynians’ Six, but several more.

As Fenyx stalked the corridors, searching each room he passed for Phaebia, he came upon a number of moving tapestries—windows into the mortal realm. He recognized the white city of Valtarcia with tremendous waves crashing along her shores, but smoke and fire stained the white stone walls. The Chariot’s Arena lay in rubble. Bodies littered the ground, but no blood stained the pebbles.

Fenyx grunted, squeezing the hilt of his sword. He didn’t know if this was Valtarcia’s present, the future of what would happen, or a possibility of what could. After dragging Moterra’s corpse into the Hall of Mirrors and seeing his reflection shriveled and poxed, Fenyx learned not to trust everything he saw in the Celestial Halls of Valencia.

He stopped before a series of four doors, each a pale wood with black hinges and a simple iron handle, far too plain compared to the others. Most doors he’d seen thus far were constructed of thick dark wood, paneled with elaborate engravings and banded with studs. In addition, the four, two on each side of the corridor, were also too close together.

No locks.

Fenyx doubted the Goddess would run into a room without a locked door to cower behind. Unwilling to leave any stone unturned or any door unopened, he seized the vertical iron handle of the first room and shouldered his way through. The door flung open, slamming into the wall.

Before him, the plush red runner stretched the length of the long corridor. Windows into the mortal realm were offset by smokeless torches dancing in their sconces upon the walls.

Fenyx shook his head, stepping backwards into the hall. Looking either direction, then back into the open door, he balked. The hallway was the same, whether he stared straight ahead, or glanced to the right.

Growling, Fenyx slammed the door and seized the handle of the next, half-expecting it to reveal the same thing. But as he shoved against the door, it didn’t give. It didn’t budge.

A shadow danced upon the wooden door. Fenyx spun, expecting to see someone, but he was alone in the hall. He glared at the door and the mocking shadow. He growled and moved onto the next door, but as soon as he reached for the handle, he was back before the door with the dancing shadow.

What foolery is this?

He growled and moved onto the next door.

He growled and moved onto the next door.

He growled and moved onto the next door.

“Burn me and this cursed door!” Fenyx’s voice echoed down the hall, but no one else was present to hear him. He glared at the four doors—the one that opened back into the hall, the second that mocked his shadow, and the third that trapped him in a time loop. He didn’t even want to fathom what the fourth door would do to him.

Fenyx snarled and left the four doors to continue down the corridor. At the end of the hall, a doorway entered into a tower at the castle’s corner, the stone door, slightly ajar. Fenyx smirked and shoved his way through to find a winding spiral of stairs ascending and descending.

Grunting, he followed the dark path upwards. The winding stone steps of the tower groaned beneath his feet, as if protesting his ascent. The very walls, the very tenets, this pantheon was founded upon whispered their malcontent at his presence. No. At his existence. Even now, though he brandished a God-forged blade, wore armor suited for a God, and walked the castle corridors unimpeded, the Gods mocked him.

If Phaebia were up here, believing herself safe, she was trapped. He hoped she was. He wanted her to feel how he felt, ensnared in the burning deer hide tent. Scared. Hopeless. Alone.

The Hate built in Fenyx again.

She thinks she can hide from me.

The sword pulsed, its red gleam dancing on the walls brighter than the flickering torchlight. He climbed up. Up. Up. And up. The tower, a monument to the Gods’ pride that he would topple.

The staircase came to an abrupt halt. A rounded stonewall blocked him from progressing further. Engraved into the stone was a double-sided arrow, pointed vertically. The blade’s aura bathed the stone in a bloody crimson light. Fenyx pressed the blade’s point into the mortar gap in the stone. The blade pierced the cement with ease, sliding through with little resistance. With both hands on the blade, he carved downward. The mortar split; the stones parted. Like flesh before a cracking whip, the stonewall gave way to Fenyx’s sword.

After another vertical slice and a horizontal slash, Fenyx shoved the carved block into the tower chambers. Ducking, he slipped through and entered the room. There was no sign of Phaebia, but she was here, somewhere amongst the bookshelves, glass cases, and furniture. The sword knew it. The thrumming Hate within him knew it.

Fenyx’s footsteps, slow and purposeful, echoed within the chambers. A giant crystalline mirror followed the rounded contour of the wall, casting a distorted visage of Fenyx’s reflection, but not like the lying portrayal he saw of himself within the Hall of Mirrors. The gold-and-red of his armor appeared harsher in the viridian-and-cerulean glint of the looking glass.

Fenyx hummed with validation as he stalked between the bookshelves. “Your hiding honors me. It shows that you too know what is coming.”

No answer. No ragged breath, no skulking shuffle. Only the sound of his feet, his breathing, and the beating of his heart.

He wove between the glass cases and approached the sitting area before the hearth.

“You have had your time,” Fenyx said, his patience waning. “But you have failed. The Reckoning has come.”

Lifting his boot to the arm of a purple velvet sofa, he shoved the furniture. The opposite arm of the sofa crashed into the wall, toppling an end table to the stone floor along with the contents atop it. A book’s pages fluttered, inevitably coming to a stop face down.

Fenyx growled, kicking the book into the base of the hearth.

The moment he did, blinding light exploded out of the hearth. Fenyx wheeled, shielding his eyes. The moment he turned his back, electricity shot through his body. His momentary paralysis became a seizing fit on the floor. His golden armor rattled against the stone.

“You are an abomination!”

A shape appeared over top of him. His eyes couldn’t focus through the spots that obscured his vision in the aftermath of the brilliant light.

Another blast of electricity surged through his body. Fenyx’s teeth chomped down hard on his tongue. Blood filled his mouth. His hands shook, and his sword clattered to the ground.

“I should have known!” Phaebia shouted.

Just as one bolt of lightning dissipated, another struck. Fenyx spasmed, helpless. The tremors that racked his body grew more intense with each subsequent charge. Every time he attempted to reach for the sword, the surge of electricity contorted him in the opposite direction.

“Hameryn. Always Hameryn. I should have—”

Another wave of spasms overtook his body. Heat radiated from him, just as destructive as fire. The back of his head slammed onto the stones in his convulsions. By the time his body’s twitching slowed to a manageable degree, his eyes claimed focus. Phaebia’s flowing white hair, as bright as the lightning coursing through his veins, contrasted against her obsidian skin. Her violet eyes bore into him with a violence he had seldom seen in the arena.

“You never should have come,” Phaebia said. “Stupid mortal. How many lies has Hameryn sold you? And for what… the promise of divinity?” Phaebia burst into laughter, her fingers crackling with electricity.

Fenyx lurched, seizing the blade and bringing it before him just as the next bolt struck. The lightning coursed through the blade, but it dissipated the sparks before it could reach flesh.

Phaebia gasped, jolting backwards. Fenyx gained his feet and advanced on her. Lightning struck again, but not at him. A brilliant radiance surged between them.

His eyes spotting again, Fenyx held Paxoran’s sword in front of him as a blind defense. Motion blurred to his right. His free hand lunged for her. A shockwave zapped through his arm, sending a stinging pain up his neck and into his jaw.

Bearing through the pain, Fenyx slashed at the blur moving impossibly fast. He missed. Reflexively, he brought his sword up to defend himself. Not a moment later, another blast of light crashed into the sword and dissipated. Beyond the crackling edge of his blade, his vision focused on Phaebia.

“You killed Moterra,” she said, “but you won’t—”

Fenyx attacked. The glowing red aura illuminated Phaebia’s face as the blade aimed to cleave her in half. She reared back. A spear of pure electricity appeared in her hands, catching the red sword before it could strike. In a blink, she had blocked, ducked under his second strike, and spun into striking range.

She struck, faster than any fighter Fenyx had ever fought against. He had no time to react. He moved on instinct—guessing on where she might strike instead of reacting to where she did.

Phaebia pressed her attack. grunting with each thrust of her electric spear.

Fenyx retreated, only vaguely aware of where the glass cases were behind him. He didn’t have time to attack, too preoccupied with blocking and dodging to attempt to gain advantage.

Phaebia paused her assault. To his chagrin, she dazzled him with a cruel row of white teeth while he sucked down gulps of air.

“Not bad,” Phaebia said. Her eyes narrowed, and her tone darkened. “For a mortal. But you will claim no one else. Hameryn can go to the chain, and you with him.”

The Hate gathered within him. With such power, the Gods could have done so much good for humanity. Yet they indulge themselves, bathing in their own self-satisfied pride. Paxoran may have lied to them, but the need for the realms to be remade was the truth.

Fenyx roared. He rushed her, swatting her spear aside and barreling his shoulder into her chest. Phaebia flew backwards, crashing into the crystalline mirror. Fissures branched out along the curved mirror as Phaebia fell to her knees. She stood to level her spear, but Fenyx launched himself at her. Feigning a brutal strike that would leave him exposed, he attacked. As Phaebia positioned her spear to counter Fenyx’s overzealous reach, Fenyx retracted, contorting midair to cancel his swinging momentum into a precise thrust.

Phaebia attempted to readjust, but even her speed was not enough. The red blade sank into Phaebia’s chest and erupted out her back. Her violet eyes widened. The electric spear in her hands fizzled out.

She looked down at the blade through her chest, then up to Fenyx’s gaze. Her lips trembled. The bright white of her hair grayed. No longer flowing like the wind, her strands of hair hardened, becoming stiff, stone-like projections. Blood drained down the front of her formfitting black-and-purple dress.

Fenyx twisted the blade.

Phaebia’s complexion grayed. She didn’t go limp as bodies typically did when struck with a killing blow; she became rigid.

Her lips moved slowly, as if willing slate to bend. “Li… ar.”

The Hate within him throbbed with greater amplitude as Phaebia’s life force faded, her vitality consumed by the sword. Fenyx grunted and ripped the blade free. Her body didn’t fall, unsupported. It remained standing. Her hands cupped her chest around the wound, her eyes wide, still as a statue.

Dead.

Fenyx grunted. With the sword in one hand, and the elbow of Phaebia’s statue in the other, he dragged her across the chamber towards the entrance he had carved. She was lighter than he had expected. She slid easily enough, leaving a trail of dusty clay in her wake.

Liar. She is the liar.

Approaching the top of the winding stairs, he considered carrying her down, but then thought better of it. He tilted her onto her side, seized her by the foot, and dragged her down the first step.

Phaebia’s head slammed onto the stone. Cracks splintered out along the impact site. One step and one thud at a time, Fenyx hauled Phaebia down the stairs, unconcerned with how much remained of her statue by the time she reached the Hall of Mirrors.

Chapter 17

The Gathering Storm

Iylea

Valtarcia

They were out of danger, but they were far from safe. In the inn adjacent to the arena Zephyrus had just practically leveled, they were well within any blood mage’s ability to sense their heartbeats, and Zephyrus was in no condition to conceal their sound. Yet if by some miracle Zephyrus had managed to kill the Skeleton King, Iylea hoped the disarray amongst the legionaries, combined with the number of people they had just freed, would provide enough of a distraction to allow for a moment’s respite.

Iylea dimmed her light, floating back and forth across the bedchamber as if she had legs with which to pace. Nearing the window, she peeked out to the street below. Distant shouts filled the air, but no one—legionary or blood mage—encroached on the front door to the inn.

She flitted about, her light pulsing despite her desire not to attract attention to their room. Like it had been in every other room of people, it was as if no one noticed her presence. Her very existence. She couldn’t blame them. Veiled in mystery to protect Laeden from the truth, she had distanced herself from everyone. No longer Iylea, but the Guardian, she couldn’t fault others for directing their attention to those around them—living, breathing people compared to… whatever she was now.

“Are they safe?” Zephyrus asked Threyna. “Vykinallia and the others.”

Threyna crawled to Zephyrus’s side and took a seat, hugging her knees. The rot of her curse had spread up her arm, around her throat, and into the whites of her eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t go deep enough into my Inner Throne to find her.” Threyna held her black-veined hand up before her. “I can’t risk searching for her.”

Iylea was glad for Threyna being unable to help. Perhaps now Zephyrus would focus on what he needed to do instead of what he wanted to do. They needed to find a way through the gates to stop the problem at the source—Paxoran. His love for Vykinallia, his concerns for his people were only going to make it more difficult for him to do what he needed. What Arkadia sacrificed herself to give him the chance to do.

If only he were more like Laeden.

The moment the thought entered her mind, she discarded it. She had promised herself she wouldn’t dwell on him. She couldn’t. It would serve no one and only torture her more. But the sentiment remained. The selflessness with which Laeden set off for Salmantica in the hopes of providing shelter for the Valtarcian refugees was why she loved him in life. Why she loved him still. Why she always would. Not knowing what awaited him in Salmantica, he was prepared to sacrifice himself to give people hope.

Is Zephyrus prepared to do the same?

He’d gladly keep fighting the Skeleton King, never bothering to even search for another option to ascend to the divine realm if it meant staying with the people he cared for.

If the gates were open, would he have taken it? If I find a way now, will he fulfill his duty?

“I can heal you,” Zephyrus said, after a time. “Then you can—”

Iylea’s light flared. “No, you can’t. You need to rest. You did what you could for Vykinallia and the others. You went above and beyond, dealing a great defeat to the Skeleton King and his legions by freeing those in the arena. But now you must think of your fate—the fate of the realms! Your mother died to give you a chance—to give the world a chance. Every moment you toil in the matters of your personal desires, you jeopardize the fate of everyone.”

Zephyrus’s head rolled in the opposite direction, away from Iylea’s light. She had unintentionally cast the room in an orange hue. Her light dimmed, softening to a pale yellow.

Zephyrus exhaled. His fingers ran through his tangled, dark red bun.

“The Guardian is right,” Threyna said. “Vykinallia and the others should be able to escape the city, especially with how distracted the legions are. For now, we rest. Once you’re able to heal me, then we can abduct the host of the blood artifact.”

Iylea’s light flared again. “Then we have to find a way to reopen the gate.”

Threyna glared at Iylea. “Reopen? The gate isn’t even open?” She spun back to Zephyrus, who closed his eyes and dragged his palm down his face.

Iylea cursed herself. The truth was bad enough. More people knowing it didn’t make the burden any lighter, but now it was out. “No. Paxoran likely closed it after the Harbinger ascended. That’s why we can’t be worrying about saving everyone else. If we can’t find a way to open the gate, if Zephyrus can’t ascend to stop Paxoran, the entire mortal realm is doomed.”

Threyna huffed, glancing between Zephyrus and Iylea. “You don’t know that. We may still have a chance even if…”

Threyna trailed off, but all three of them knew what she was thinking.

If Zephyrus can’t. If Zephyrus fails. If Paxoran kills him.

Silence claimed the room. Zephyrus stared at the floor while Threyna inspected her curse-marked flesh.

Iylea didn’t know what to say. She had supposed it didn’t matter—if Zephyrus failed, Paxoran would remake the world in his own vision. And if the Skeleton King was any indication as to what his vision was, it wasn’t a future she wanted to endure for eternity. Yet, at the same time, she had neglected to consider the possibility that Zephyrus could fail. If he did, those in the mortal realm—given a fighting chance—could they defeat the Skeleton King? Stop Paxoran?

“Fine,” Iylea said. “But we’re running out of time. Rest, recover, then claim the blood artifact.” She floated toward the window.

“Where are you going?” Zephyrus asked.

“To find a way to open the gate,” Iylea said. “So when the time comes, nothing else stands in the way of you and your fate.”

The malice in her voice tugged at the downward curve of Zephyrus’s lip. Iylea wasn’t proud, but each delay threatened greater destruction.

“I’ll be back,” Iylea said. “Please, just rest.”

They let her go without another word.

Floating out the window and along the Valtarcian rooftops, Iylea surveyed the destruction the Skeleton King had caused to her home. The slums were laid to waste, the lower city appeared crowded with those attempting to flee west, but the chaos in the upper city hurt worst of all.

Before becoming Danella’s handmaiden, Iylea had served many Valtarcian families. With bloody bodies and desiccated husks littering the streets, Iylea didn’t want to consider what fate had befallen the people she once knew.

Attempting to separate herself from the emotions reserved for the living, Iylea concentrated on the remnants of the gate’s power. Like searching a familiar room in the dark, she had an idea of where to go, but finding exactly what she was looking for wouldn’t be easy. The reality was, even if she found it, even if she found a way to open it, she would never be able to return to Valencia. Denied a body in the mortal realm, and a soul in the divine realm, this was one journey she could not accompany Zephyrus on.

Hovering over the rooftops, she looked ahead to the tallest of Northridge’s towers. An outline of an archway streaked across the tower, glowing with the viridian, cerulean, and purple colors that the Celestial Falls and the links of the chain consisted of. Like seeing the light through the crack of a closed door, she was sure this was the gate.

Now I just need to find a way to open it. And get Zephyrus through…

Beyond the tower, black clouds loomed. Lightning crackled, and thunder boomed.

Rain? That is impossible. Aquarius’s death brought a stop to the nightly rains.

The dark clouds consumed the sky, blotting out the sun and shrouding the city in shadows within moments. If not for the sparking electricity that coursed through the clouds, Iylea’s spectral form was the only source of light.

No rain fell. Not a single drop. This was not a storm, but a sign.

Phaebia…

Another God of Valencia was dead, and time was running short.

She flew towards the gate’s luminescent sheen. Order legionaries marched through the inner bailey of Northridge. Piles of husks in bloodstained Helixus blues and Sentinel grays littered the courtyard. Northridge was lost, and gaining access to the tower would require Zephyrus’s teleportation magic.

She needed to get closer to see if there was a way to open it for Zephyrus. Swimming through the electric-charged air towards the tower, she prayed there was something she could do.

Lightning struck. Iylea, unsure if it would have any effect on her in this form, lurched out of the way. Zipping ahead towards the tower, Iylea climbed higher into the sky. More streaks of forking lightning invaded her path, but she persevered. Nearly at the tower, she felt a current pushing against her, as if Valencia were rebuffing her. She forged ahead until she floated before the closed gateway.

Inspecting the fluorescent outline of the door, she searched for purchase but found none. As she swam around the tower to see it from another angle, a sudden fuzziness washed over her.

Disoriented, Iylea spun around.

What was I doing?

It was something important, but all other details evaporated from her mind. Dizziness confounded her. She didn’t know which way was up. She felt claustrophobic, enclosed in this dark cave of stone ceilings and electric floors.

Her light pulsed and flared. She didn’t know where she was, where she was going. She couldn’t remember anything.

Think, think, think. What is the last thing I remember?

She stared into Laeden’s pleading eyes. Then something bit her in the side of the neck and Laeden spun, as if tumbling in cartwheels. It wasn’t until she fell and the floor smacked into her that she realized it was she who was tumbling. She rolled, vision twirling back and forth between the stone floor and the vaulted ceiling of Sentigard’s throne room until she came to a stop.

Laeden towered above her, his jaw slack, tears streaming from his eyes. He sank to his knees. “Six save us.” He reached down and held her face in his hands.

“Laeden,” Queen Danella’s voice said. “You will be tried for heresy and treason towards the crown.”

Lightning stormed all around her, and Iylea was in the lowest of the Six Hells.

Chapter 18

Unless…

Danella III

Salmantica

Light flashed bright enough through her eyelids to wake her. She bolted upright, but the sudden movement sent the room spinning. Thunder clapped, rattling the very room around her. A splitting pain wedged into the side of her skull above her ear.

When the room stopped spinning, Danella recognized where she was by the scent of antiseptic: the Prefectus Medicus’s chambers in Sentigard. Questions filled her aching head, but none had answers that weren’t painful.

Lightning cracked outside the window, followed by another bellow of thunder. She couldn’t remember the last time it had rained. Then again, she couldn’t remember anything.

Danella lifted her right hand to scratch an itch above her ear. Short bristles of hair prickled against her fingers. She winced as her fingertips brushed against a metal coil thread—stitches along the side of her skull. She yanked her hand away from the raw and sensitive flesh.

An attendant opened the door. The moment his dull gray eyes flicked to hers, he dropped the roll of bandages in his hands and ran from sight.

Danella shook her head trying to remember what had happened, immediately regretting the action. She recalled being unsteady on her feet. Being in the city, outside of Sentigard’s walls. The Temple District flashed into her mind’s eye, but not the way she had remembered it.

Rubble lined the streets. Twitching limbs stretched out beneath piles of stone. A crowd dispersed. A young man’s face with gold-flecked brown eyes.

Danella gasped. The seer.

“Moterra is dead,” the seer had said, blood draining from his face. “The earthquake… because the Harbinger killed her.”

Danella clawed her way from her bed in the medicus’s private quarters. A gown she knew she didn’t dress herself in flowed behind her as she neared the open window. Despite her dizziness, she made it to the windowsill to stare at the black clouds over Salmantica.

Lightning surged along the horizon like she had never seen before. Thunder rolled both near and far. But no rain fell.

Another God has fallen. Lightning. Darkness. Phaebia.

Her breath caught in her chest. Her knees buckled. If she wasn’t holding onto the windowsill, she would have collapsed to the floor.

“My queen, you should not be from bed!”

Danella spun. The Prefectus Medicus and two attendants in gray cloaks entered the room. The attendants, including the one who had run from her chambers a moment ago, came to her and helped her back into bed.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You’ve suffered a concussion and a severe laceration,” the Prefectus Medicus said, sitting on the bed beside her, made more difficult by the size of his belly. His timid brown eyes searched hers, as if assessing her acuity.

Danella shook her head. “What happened to the city? We have not had storms for…” She didn’t know how long. Not since Varros… She swallowed her nausea, unsure if it was a side-effect of her injury or the death of her husband. Shoving the emotions aside, she stared at the medicus.

He ran his chubby fingers through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. “The Disasters have struck again, my queen. Some are saying the traitor, Laeden, has brought this upon us. Ever since he returned to the city—”

Danella lifted her hand toward the medicus as if reaching for the answers hidden behind his double chin.

He placed his hand atop hers and set it down at her side. “You must rest, my queen. King Damascus has been terribly worried since your disappearance.”

Danella ignored him. “Laeden was caught?”

The medicus drew in a deep breath, his jowls trembling as he exhaled. “You need not concern yourself with such matters, your grace.”

Danella closed her eyes and hissed through her teeth. “Tell me what happened.”

The medicus cleared his throat, his eyes milky. “The stories conflict. Some say he was delivered by Duke Horus after burning Valtarcia’s slums with fire magic. Others say he surrendered at the gate of his own volition. But all agree that his presence in our country is an affront to the Six, and they have seen it just to ravage us with Disasters anew.”

Danella didn’t understand. Varros had counseled peace. Laeden only tried to stop the Revivalists—her group, her plot to please the Gods. And she was wrong. If anything, the Disasters were her punishment.

She traced her finger along the edge where her hair met the shorn bristles the medicus had shaved to sew her stitches.

The medicus winced at her touch. “You should leave those alone.”

Laeden returned. Of his own volition?

It didn’t make sense. Neither did burning down the slums of Valtarcia. He was not the sort to harm the plebeians for his own gains. If he wished to become King of Valtarcia, he wouldn’t burn the homes of his future people, even if he did have fire magic.

Why would he surrender? “Where is Laeden now?”

The medicus shrugged. “He was rumored to have been brought into Sentigard, but he has since disappeared. Or so it seems. I don’t know, your grace, but it is not your concern. You must rest and get well soon. Our country needs its queen.”

Danella listened to the words, but didn’t hear. The Gods are dying. And Laeden has returned to Salmantica. He is here. And I know where he is.

She smiled at the medicus. “You are right. I think I will return to sleep.”

Danella lay down and rolled onto her left side, facing the window and the lightning storm outside. As the medicus and his attendants left, closing the door behind them, Danella sat back up. She would not lay down and watch the world collapse. This Reckoning, this Age of the End, could be stopped. The last words of Iylea’s abbreviated prophecy said so.

“...unless you…”

She didn’t know what she needed to do to stop the deterioration of the world, but the answers would not come in the medicus’s chambers. There was something she could do. She still had a chance. A chance at the peace Varros pleaded for… died for. An opportunity for redemption—if not in the eyes of the Gods, at least in her own heart.

I must speak with Laeden.

Swinging her legs from the bed, she placed her bare feet on the cold, stone floor. The secret dungeon and its captive waited.

Chapter 19

A Good King

Laeden IV

Salmantica

Laeden woke, huddled in the corner of his cage with his face resting on the metal bars. The sound of grinding stone up the spiral staircase signaled company. With the aid of his hands, he hauled himself to his feet, prepared to greet whoever came for him. His jaw, already tense from his awkward sleeping posture, clamped down. Rubbing his cheek to massage away the indentation from the bar, he listened to his visitor’s approach.

Soft footsteps padded down the stairs, unhurried by the pressures of time or the urgency of the approaching devastation. Their approach grew louder, nearer, and the anticipation built in Laeden like a tempest. Part of him prayed it was Damascus, but another part of him knew such a hope was wasted on him. A serving girl with a cup of water would have been a more realistic prayer, and a godsend besides.

His dry throat, irritated from the stale air and putrid scent of the dungeons, yearned for water. He swallowed the sour spit of sleep as he clutched the bars and attempted to peek beyond the winding stairs to glimpse his visitor, but to no avail.

A torch heralded the approaching footsteps’ arrival. Black leather boots descended the stairs, followed by black britches, and a belted sword.

No water…

His fingers curled around the bar in disappointment, but his displeasure morphed to disdain when Aelon’s face became visible beyond the torchlight. The sore muscles of Laeden’s jaw clenched.

“You have seen better days,” Aelon said as his finely made boots graced the grimy stones. The smug grin across his clean-shaven face set Laeden’s nerves on fire.

“You’ve traded honor for a fancy title and coat of armor.” Laeden spat on the floor at Aelon’s feet, further irritating his sore throat.

Aelon didn’t even have the decency to feign an apologetic wince. He stared at the glob of phlegm and cocked his brow. His pale blue eyes rippled with the orange tongues of the torchlight in his hand.

“I have chosen my fate,” Aelon said. “And you, yours.”

Laeden glared at his old friend, strangling the bars that separated them, wishing his hands were around Aelon’s throat. But this was not the time for grievances. He released his grip and a seething breath to compose himself.

“A fate no one would choose is coming,” Laeden said. “Damascus didn’t listen; soon half of Valtarcia will be here. Not with sword and fury, but desperation and fear. Not as an army but as refugees. Patricians and plebs, Valencians and Celestics—this army from the far east does not care. Valtarcia will fall, and Salmantica will be next if we do not band together.”

Aelon gave Laeden a sad smile. “The time for ‘we’ has passed, Laeden.”

Laeden only stared.

Aelon’s lip twisted. His head nodded, as if encouraging himself to speak. “Why couldn’t you have just stopped? Queen Danella would have slapped you on the wrist. She wouldn’t have let Aemos execute you. It was a show—a farce. You needed to be stopped before you sowed any more discord. Had you not petitioned for a trial by steel, none of this would have happened.”

Laeden bristled, not knowing where to begin his counterargument. Instead, he elected to focus on the true topic of import. “Aelon, that doesn’t matter anymore. An army of blood mages have come from Rheynia. The desiccated bodies I found—the unmarked Celestic man, the vagabond. That was the result of blood magic. The blood mages source their abilities with the blood, bodies, and the souls of anyone in their way.”

Aelon shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You are unbelievable. Now you realize the mages are a problem—after you allied yourself with them? It’s too late, Laeden. The rain does not fall, the ground quakes, and now thunderstorms blot out the sun.”

Thunderstorms…

Aelon continued. “The Disasters have come. If this mage army comes to Salmantica, the Six will defend our walls. But you will face the Gods’ judgement before the mages do.”

Laeden narrowed his eyes, not following Aelon’s meaning.

“It’s too late for you, Laeden. The senate has advised the king to execute you. Many blame you for the Disasters and believe your sacrifice will appease the Six.”

Laeden rattled the bars between them. “That’s not true. The Gods are dying—”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Aelon stepped close enough to the bars that his torch bathed Laeden in warmth. “What’s true or right doesn’t matter. The winning side tells the tale. You have been too blind, too stubborn, or too stupid to realize you were on the losing side.”

Laeden glared at Aelon. “Perhaps if more had upheld their vows and stood on the side of righteousness and truth, things could have been different.”

Aelon exhaled a weary and hopeless sigh. “I came as a courtesy for an old friend. Come the dawn, you will be executed. No trial. No crowd. Just your head on a pike.” He shook his head and turned his back on Laeden to make his way to the spiral staircase. “Make your peace, Laeden. Perhaps the Six will take pity on you.”

“The Six are dying by the moment,” Laeden shouted at Aelon’s back, his voice echoing off the stones. “Look around you—first Aquarius, then Moterra, now Phaebia. By morning I might even outlast the Gods.”

The only response was the echo of his own voice and Aelon’s retreating footsteps. Gripping the bars, staring at the stairs, Laeden felt the darkness enfold him in a cold, heavy embrace. Aelon’s footsteps faded. The grinding stone of the secret passageway came and went, leaving Laeden alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how much time he spent gazing into the void, pondering his death.

Though it was the only thing he had left, time ceased to matter.

Before he knew it, before he could process what death meant or if he’d be able to reunite with Iylea, the stones above ground together once again, signaling dawn had come to deliver him into death’s waiting hands.

Hefty, armored footsteps clamored down the stairs.

Despite himself, Laeden’s heartbeat quickened. A cold sweat beaded on the back of his neck despite the cellar’s chill. He closed his eyes and thought of the others. Zephyrus’s contest with the Traitor God Iylea had warned of. Vykinallia’s mission to rescue as many Valtarcians as possible from the Skeleton King’s horrors. His mother and Sinion’s foolhardy selfishness that they would be able to swoop in after the coming battle between the Skeleton King and Salmantica and claim victory over whoever was left standing. Then Threyna… The silver-blonde braid that hung past her shoulder. The blue of her eyes that fought through the pain behind them to cut through the darkness of her cursed magic.

He wished he could have helped them. Any of them. Yet he had failed all of them.

The footsteps drew closer, and torchlight once again bathed the staircase. However, the pair of feet that descended first were bare—slender and pale. A loose embroidered gown hemmed just above the ankles glided down the stairs. Behind the flowing gown, an armored pair of boots clanked with each step.

Emerging at the base of the winding stair, a woman held a torch in front of her. Her hair, long and black, hung in tangled knots over her left shoulder. A nasty gash cut across the right side of her head, the hair around it shorn short. Her face, long and narrow, was made longer still by her unhinged jaw. But it was her eyes that gave her away. Gold.

“Danella?”

Laeden didn’t intend to speak, but his surprise overtook his contempt for her. He had never seen her face absent the dark paint around her eyes or the wet crimson of her lips. Pale at the best of times, her skin tone possessed a milky complexion that matched the white of her gown. The fabric, embroidered with Helixus blue, made her appear more ghost than queen, but it was the blue of his father’s colors that set his jaw clenching.

Behind her, a King’s Guard Knight stood sentry in full plate. Despite the gloomy darkness, the knight kept the visor lowered, revealing only his eyes through the slit.

Ser Daenus.

Danella and Daenus drew nearer.

“I was afraid I would find you here,” Danella said, barely above a whisper.

Laeden had no words for this woman. He would not play her games or give her whatever cruel satisfaction she gained by torturing people. Turning his back on her, Laeden strode to the farthest reaches of the small cell. Bugs and mice chittered, scattering at his movement as he sat down on the floor.

Danella came closer to the bars, wrapping her fingers around one. Her golden eyes watered in the flickering torchlight.

“You were with him,” she said. “When he… died?”

She said it as a question, as if she didn’t believe the validity of it.

He didn’t need to ask whom she was speaking of. The cold sweat clinging to his back disappeared as heat flushed his cheeks, but he wouldn’t give her the pleasure of taunting him with his father’s murder. He stared at the crevice between the stones in the floor.

“I’m so sorry, Laeden. For everything.” She sniffled. Soft sobs trembled from her lips in waves.

Laeden inclined his head. Danella rested her forehead against the cell bars, her eyes downcast, tears rolling down her cheeks. He couldn’t discern if it was the lack of makeup, the broken appearance, or the white-and-blue gown she wore, but this was not the stepmother he had grown up with. In over twenty years, he had only witnessed her cry once—a single dignified tear during her brother’s funeral after he was murdered by the Hechts.

“I don’t know how much you know,” she said, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand. “But this, all of this—” she gestured up to the dungeon ceiling “—is my fault. The Revivalists. Iylea. Damascus’s coronation. Your trial. Nallia’s abduction. The war with the Uprising. Varros’s dea—”

Sobs swallowed her words. Her shoulders rounded, her knees folded, and she sank to the floor until she was at his level in the dungeon’s filth.

“My queen.” Daenus attempted to lift her from the floor, but she swatted him away. Trying again only yielded the same result. Instead, he took the torch from her, retracting from the flames as he placed it in a nearby sconce.

Danella continued to convulse. Her bony shoulder blades winged and flapped with each shuddering sob. Her ribs protruded through her gown, thin and frail as if she hadn’t eaten in recent weeks.

She pounded the heel of her fist into the floor and screamed, startling Laeden. Tears dripped from her eyes to plop onto the dirty ground. She inclined her head, cheeks flushed pink. “Please… You don’t owe it to me, but Laeden, I need to know.”

For all the lies she’d hidden over the years, her grief was real. He could only stare at her, barely recognizing her, and entirely unable to reconcile this woman before him and the cruel monster who had propagated so much hate, pain, and death.

“How did he kill him?” Her words came amidst choked sobs.

Laeden stiffened. He didn’t need to recall the moment; the wound was too fresh to look away from. It plagued his thoughts, consumed his mind.

“End this,” his father had said. “Let peace reign.”

Damascus punched their father in the stomach—over and over again. The black dagger in Damascus’s hand plunged deep. Deep enough that Laeden felt the cold steel slipping between his organs even now.

Laeden’s father stumbled backwards. His hands dropped to his stomach, but Damascus’s assault continued.

“I won’t make peace with liars and mages!” Damascus had shouted.

Laeden shuddered, unable to look at Danella. Nausea billowed up his throat until he tasted bile. He swallowed it down.

“I need to know,” Danella said, crawling along his cage in an attempt to get closer to him. “As terrible as I’ve been, despite all the awful things I have done, believe me when I tell you I loved him, Laeden. I loved your father.”

Fury erupted through him. “No!” Laeden shouted. He was on his feet, stabbing his finger down at her with no recollection of standing up. She cowered beneath him, clutching herself, dirtying the white gown on the soiled floor.

“You don’t get to say that,” Laeden said. “Not after what you’ve done.”

Danella paused her bawls to look up at him through glossy, bloodshot eyes. “You’re right,” she croaked. “I don’t deserve the right. I will bear the burden of that for the rest of my life.” She shook her head, stammering. “I’m sorry. I thought I was serving the Gods, but I was wrong. Terribly wrong.

“Now the Gods are dying. Death marches from the east. And my manipulative rule...”

Laeden balked, dropping his outstretched accusatory finger. Gods dying, death marching? He knelt down, scooting closer to Danella until only the bars separated them.

“How do you know that?”

Danella’s lips quivered, her chin wrinkled, and fresh tears fell. “I thought I was protecting New Rheynia from The Age of the End.” She reached her fingers through the bars to brush along his knuckles. “I brought this upon us.”

Laeden’s lips moved, but only exasperated syllables came forth.

“The Reckoning is here,” Danella said. “Varros tried to stop it. You tried to stop it—to stop me…”

Her hysterics were too genuine to be all an elaborate ploy to taunt him, but he searched her for any hint of jest. Finding none, he asked, “How do you know of dead Gods and the Skeleton King’s army?”

Danella sniffed. “Skeleton King?”

“Marching from the east,” Laeden said, shaking his head. “Did Damascus tell you?”

She shook her head, the muscles of her face twitching with restrained tears. “A seer, Laeden. A seer said he spoke with Incinerae. That is what she told him. I don’t understand, but I know it is my fault. Not yours.”

Laeden grabbed her hand. “If you know the Skeleton King is marching westward, why haven’t you listened to me? People in Valtarcia are dying. More will die with every moment of delay, and with each soul, the Skeleton King only grows stronger.”

Danella searched him. “Do the Gods speak with you too?”

Laeden shook his head. “No. Not with me, but a messenger from Valencia has. The Six are dying. A Traitor God named Paxoran has summoned a Harbinger to kill them. The divine realm is falling, and the mortal realm will too if you do not send help to Valtarcia.”

Ser Daenus’s armor clinked as he examined Laeden from beneath his visored helm.

He must believe us both crazy.

Danella’s lucidity, however, returned his focus.

“We’re doing everything we can to help people escape,” Laeden said. “But the refugees will have nowhere to go if Damascus doesn’t open his gates. Even if we banded together to fight the Skeleton King’s legions, we’d stand little chance. But divided…”

“That is why you surrendered,” Danella said. “Unity. Peace between us, so that we might survive this Traitor God.”

Laeden nodded.

Danella’s lips parted in a droopy-eyed smile. Fresh tears fell. “You are just like…” Her voice trailed off. She wiped her eyes, but more tears replaced them. “You have become a good king, Laeden.” A pitiful chuckle escaped her mouth. “A king should serve his people, not the other way around. I learned that from my father, though I’m not sure how much he truly believed it. But your father… If only I had seen it sooner…”

She sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand again. “I will speak to Damascus. It is time Salmantica had a good king as well.”

Laeden pursed his lips. She looked different, acted different, but this was still the same woman who ordered the assassination of his father, abducted Iylea, commanded him to execute her, and then framed him for treason when he didn’t. He pulled away from the bars, away from her. “Why are you doing this?”

A faraway gaze washed over Danella’s expression. She stared into nothingness for a long moment before meeting Laeden’s eyes. She swallowed.

“Brother will fight brother,” she said, her voice a timid whisper. “Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you. Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you…”

Laeden leaned closer, not understanding. “Unless you what?”

Danella set her jaw and stood to her feet. “That, we are about to find out.”

She turned and strode from the cell to the stairs with purpose, Ser Daenus in her wake.

“Where are you going?” Laeden asked.

Danella spun, her foot atop the first stair. “To convince Damascus to fight on the right side.”

Chapter 20

The Host

Zephyrus V

Valtarcia

Zephyrus bit his lip as the rot from Threyna’s veins slithered into his own. The white tendrils of healing mist flowed into her while the corrupted byproduct of using her blood magic transferred to him. It didn’t hurt. Not like when he had healed her through Paxoran’s torture that day outside of House Auros. Even though the rot staining his skin black would soon fade, there was no way absorbing such evil was healthy. That only made Zephyrus more uncomfortable with Threyna’s plan.

Threyna would consume the darkling controlling Horus, the Duke of Valtarcia and Laeden’s great-uncle, and then Zephyrus would teleport the three of them out of Valtarcia, along with the blood artifact that had taken the shape of a crown atop Horus’s head. While Zephyrus had plenty of issues with that part of the plan, his concerns were elsewhere.

Threyna wanted to forge blood mages of her own to improve their odds against the Skeleton King. The notion of subjecting others to such a curse made his stomach roil, but he had no better ideas. Considering that the Guardian was searching for a way for him to ascend, he likely would be leaving soon, so he lacked the authority to oppose Threyna even if he had thought of another way of defeating the Skeleton King.

His mind felt as blank as the skies were black.

Not long after the Guardian left in search of the gate, thunderclouds rolled in, blacking out the sun and shrouding Valtarcia in darkness. The dreary gloom fitted his mood and added to the Order’s grim presence in Valtarcia, but the rolling claps of thunder and bolts of lightning were beyond anything forged in the mortal realm. The terrible storms could only mean one thing; another God had been killed.

Threyna examined her hands as the black rot abated. “How do you feel?”

Zephyrus shrugged. “Well enough.”

“Worried about the plan?” Threyna asked.

Zephyrus snorted. “I’d be mad not to have my concerns, but my thoughts are with the Guardian; she should have been back by now. She said the gate was near.”

“She will come back,” Threyna said, getting to her feet. She patted off her britches, spattering faint clouds of dust.

“She had said earlier that she lost herself… the last time we were apart.” Zephyrus gained his feet and strode over to the window to stare at the black sky. “I can feel her, but faintly.”

Threyna put her hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “We’ll find her. Or she’ll find us.”

“Would you be able to tell if she’s near?” Zephyrus asked. “Can you sense her?”

She shook her head. “The Guardian has no rhythm. No pulse. I can sense other souls, even disembodied, if I know what I’m looking for, but hers… It’s like her soul is no longer alive, if that makes sense.”

Zephyrus grunted. It didn’t. But somehow, he could sense her, even if Threyna couldn’t. He forced a smile. “I’ll be able to sense her if we get close enough, I suppose.”

Threyna nodded. “We’ll find her.” She pointed toward the white castle with blue shingled slate roofs in the distance. “Horus is in Northridge. I can sense his power growing. They’re training him to unlock the prongs quickly so he can pass the blood artifact onto the next host.”

“How long does it take to unlock the prongs?” Zephyrus asked.

Threyna shrugged. “I didn’t realize at the time. I was alone, figuring it out for myself. Horus is being taught by other blood mages. It could be days. It could be hours.”

The thought haunted Zephyrus. Not just the implication of how quickly the Skeleton King could amass an army, but also how quickly Threyna could do the same.

“Are you sure this is the best way to defeat him?” Zephyrus asked. “Spreading the curse.”

Threyna cast a tight-lipped glare in Zephryus’s direction. “Even if there is a better way that doesn’t involve forging blood mages of our own, we still need to stop the Skeleton King’s legions from growing more powerful.”

Zephyrus exhaled. He couldn’t deny her in that regard. He massaged the stubble of his chin with his fingernails. “What about the Skeleton King—can you sense him?”

Threyna rested against the windowsill, crossing her arms over her chest. “No. But that doesn’t mean he’s gone. His Heart of Darkness can be… impregnable, when he wants it to be. We must be ready for him.”

Zephyrus nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Shrouded in a sound bubble and augmented light to conceal their heartbeats and obscure their visibility, Zephyrus and Threyna teleported from rooftop to rooftop on their way toward Northridge. Coming to a stop atop the outer bailey, they surveyed the scene.

Half-expecting the wounded from their assault on the arena to have been brought here, Zephyrus was surprised to find nothing of the sort. No limping legionaries, no bandaged Order soldiers, no bodies laid to rest—just movement. As some legionaries marched in with slumped postures and long faces, a new group, fresh and well-rested, marched out. Wisps of black smoke sailed on the wind, slithering like serpents.

“What is that?” Zephyrus asked.

“Darkling scouts,” Threyna said. “Messengers, relaying information. They could be searching for us, relaying intel between blood mages, or telling the legionaries where pockets of people are holed up.”

The resources available to the Skeleton King’s army seemed insurmountable. How are we going to defeat him? If we can’t defeat Paxoran’s pet, how am I supposed to contend against the Traitor God himself?

Swallowing, he shoved his doubts aside. “Where is Horus?”

She pointed to an adjacent rooftop. “The inner bailey. Three blood mages are with him.”

Zephyrus ripped them from the physical plane. They floated through the immaterial plane, moving towards the opposing rooftop. All the while, Zephyrus kept an eye out for the Guardian’s translucent human form. Though he felt a closer proximity to her, she was still far.

Reemerging into the physical plane atop the roof overseeing the inner bailey, Zephyrus’s boots scraped along the shingles. Lightning cracked overhead, and thunder rumbled the slate underfoot. In the grounds below, separate buildings lined the inner bailey—storehouses, armories, barracks likely used by the Ridge Knights. Erected at the center was an empty fountain with gargoyles in the shape of the winged horse of House Helixus. A white stone walking path exited Northridge’s atrium, encircling the waterless fountain to lead to the outer bailey.

On the stone path, four blood mages stood before a group of men in Helixus blue bound by blood-conjured chains on the outskirts of the bailey. A pile of husks were strewn off to either side.

“Gory ghosts,” Threyna said.

Zephyrus’s fists clenched until his knuckles cracked. They were using people as test subjects, fodder to empower their army, chaff for their experiments. This form of enslavement was worse than any the Rheynians had conceived. It was as if they were throwing recruits at trained gladiators to hone their abilities.

The artifact, in the shape of a crown, sat atop Horus’s white hair like blood on snow. Three Order legionaries who had already learned the blood magic instructed Horus on the art of curse-wielding.

“Slow your mind,” a blood mage said. “Focus only on your Stronghold.”

Horus extended a rot-stained hand towards the crying servants of House Helixus.

“What is he doing?” Zephyrus asked Threyna.

Threyna’s eyes never left Horus. “They’re teaching him to consume souls.”

Unwilling to wait a moment longer, Zephyrus yanked Threyna once more from the material plane. Zipping through the air like the Guardian’s light, Zephyrus positioned them behind the blood mages. The moment they emerged from the immaterial plane, Zephyrus drew the Vykane Blade and Threyna conjured her double-bladed glaive.

The Vykane Blade extended from the hilt in a gleam of white light. Before it even reached its full length, Zephyrus released his sound and light manipulations and slashed through the back of the nearest blood mage.

His torso went one way as his lower half flopped the other. Zephyrus lunged for the second mage before he could react to his fallen comrade. The Vykane Blade exploded through the back and out the belly of the blood mage.

A draw on Zephyrus’s soul dragged on him like a stiff breeze as the dying blood mage attempted to heal himself. Zephyrus ripped the blade upward, tearing through bone as easily as flesh. The Vykane Blade erupted out of the space between the legionary’s neck and shoulder, spouting blood like a fountain. The wind tugging on his soul faded as the blood mage dropped to the ground, his skin blackening with rot.

Shouts spread throughout the bailey. Soon the entire courtyard would be flooded with legionaries and blood mages. They needed to act fast.

While Threyna dueled against Horus’s blood-conjured axe, she attempted to wrest the darkling within him free. Before Zephyrus could come to her aid, the third blood mage conjured a sword in each hand and lunged at him.

Zephyrus blocked the first slash, then the second. Something sliced across his cheek. A sharp spike struck him in the back, nearly hurling him into the blood mage’s incoming attack. Zephyrus ducked and rolled beneath the blow. He spun just in time to see a swarm of daggers flying straight at him, conjured from the fallen legionaries’ exposed blood.

He tapped into Klayvorine’s time greave. The daggers’ flight slowed. Zephyrus lifted his left bracer, summoning a shadow shield from Lunellia’s relic. Time returned, and the daggers thudded into his shield. The daggers fell to ash, and Zephyrus released his shadowy defense.

More legionaries stormed into the bailey. Blood mages floated down on conjured wings.

“Threyna!” Zephyrus shouted.

The rot had spread past her elbow, but the darkling remained in Horus, and they were out of time. From the outer bailey, the atrium, and the air, they were surrounded in moments. As blood-borne edges closed in around them, Zephyrus threw himself at both Threyna and Horus. He latched onto each of their arms, formed a clear image in his mind of where he wanted to teleport, and just as the nearest legionaries closed in, the three fled the material plane.

Pain detonated in Zephyrus’s chest. Fire ripped through every fiber of his being, and something within him broke. Just like when the Last Judge had protected him from the false Vykannis or when Zephyrus had saved Threyna from Paxoran, a binding snapped.

The Guardian…

Zephyrus, Threyna, and Horus emerged from the immaterial plane, collapsing into a tangled heap on the outskirts of the river village of Valenforth. Threyna climbed atop Horus and slammed blood-reinforced knuckles into his face.

Zephyrus couldn’t move. He lay on his back, staring at the black sky. The excruciating pain, short and fleeting, left behind a gaping hole. An emptiness. The Guardian…

With Horus beaten into a bloody pulp, Threyna drew the darkling from his limp body and consumed it. “That was close,” she said, sliding off Horus’s unconscious form.

“I have to go back,” Zephyrus said, pushing himself to his feet.

“What?” Threyna stammered. “We can’t go back. We got him—we got it!”

“The Guardian,” Zephyrus said. “I felt her. It was like she was… torn from me.” His legs trembled beneath him. Fatigue, weakness, emptiness.

Threyna shook her head, reaching for Zephyrus’s arm. “Zephyrus, you’re—”

Zephyrus dipped into the immaterial plane and teleported back to Northridge.

Chapter 21

Darklings

Iylea II

Unknown

Lightning surged all around her, striking in every direction. She didn’t remember arriving here—wherever here was. Surrounded by brilliant white forks, she was paralyzed, unable to move, yet she couldn’t stay here.

Her light disappeared amidst the constant streaks of electric charge. Fluttering within the storm, she needed to leave, but didn’t know which way led to her salvation.

A bolt of electricity sizzled in her direction. Her reflexes chose for her. Diving down and to her left, she swerved in between and around the crackling static. She wove through the clouds, hoping to see any sign of the city that lay below.

She was supposed to do something in the city, but she couldn’t remember what. She tried to remember anything. Attempting to picture Laeden’s face, his features were obscured like a smudged painting. Panic accompanied her flight through the clouds.

Why can’t I remember? Why did I come into the clouds?

Lightning struck, illuminating a dark silhouette floating through the fog. Iylea’s light flared and trembled as sharp, angled wings flapped through the air. Then it returned to her. The legionary, carried by blood-conjured wings, had chased her. She’d come to the clouds to escape him, but he followed.

A presence, a tether, pulled taut. Her memories came back in a flood, anchoring her back to reality.

Zephyrus! I’m going the wrong way.

Somehow, she could feel him. He called to her like a beacon in the distance, a source of light in a world shrouded in shadows. Iylea spun around, sailing through the thunderous clouds towards Zephyrus’s light.

Ignoring the charge on the air, the flapping wings disturbing the wind behind her, and the return of fear that accompanied clairvoyance, Iylea zipped through the clouds. Faster and faster she soared. She could sense her distance from Zephyrus shortening.

Laeden’s features became more defined in her mind’s eye. The sensation of his caress upon her cheek, the brush of his lips against hers. Memories she thought she’d never be able to forget had slipped away. Still they were fuzzy, but they sharpened the closer she came to Zephyrus.

She broke through the clouds to find the blue shingled rooftops of Northridge. The glowing outline of the gate in the window of the tallest tower pulsed as if reminding her of her purpose. It was too late for reconnaissance. All she wanted was to remember who and what she was, and Zephyrus was the key.

She didn’t need to search for Zephyrus; he glowed as brightly as the links of the Chain of Balance, but instead of iridescent green and purple, he exuded an orange aura that shone like the sun. His sword drawn, two bodies bleeding atop the white stones at his feet, he fought a third legionary. As she descended upon the scene, wind rushing past her, dozens of legionaries funneled into the inner bailey. Blood mages flew over the walls on conjured wings, others charged through the doors from the atrium, and more entered from the outer bailey.

Iylea tore through the air, flying as fast as she could.

Almost there!

Zephyrus lunged for Threyna and the blood mage she fought against. Zephyrus’s orange aura encompassed Threyna and Horus before all three disappeared.

“Wait!” Iylea shouted.

The orange light vanished, and something snapped within her. The tether anchoring her soul ceased to exist. A gale of lashing wind whipped against her. Pain she didn’t realize her disembodied soul could feel ripped through her. Screaming, she looked down at her own spectral body, a cerulean blue, unlike Zephyrus’s orange. Tendrils of what appeared to be smoke emanated from her as if her incorporeal flesh was evaporating. Her fingers dematerialized into dust, escaping upwards.

Blood mages hovered around her; legionaries stared up at her. But no one helped. They just watched as her soul—trapped in the mortal realm and denied from the divine—began to dissipate into nothingness.

Her hands went next, along with her feet and her wraithlike hair.

“Zephyrus!” she cried. He was gone. She didn’t even know where.

The aura of her light expanded, bathing the legionaries and blood mages in blue. They backed away, shielding their eyes as Iylea’s soul consumed itself like kindling tossed onto an already raging fire.

The speed of her decay and the excruciating pain of it increased exponentially the further up her body it crept. Knowing this was the end, she tried picturing Laeden one last time. Worse than before, the only thing her mind came up with was a vague outline.

Defeat washed over her, greater than the pain. Her limbs were gone. She just wanted it to be over, to end. To forget everything so she wouldn’t have to be aware of what was lost.

The sky cracked. Not just with thunder and lightning, but with a bright beam of orange.

The pain stopped. Unlike a mortal wound that continued to sting after its infliction, the pain ceased. At a rate much faster than she dissolved into dust, she began to reform.

“Guardian!” Zephyrus shouted from atop the rooftop.

“Zephyrus?” Iylea floated towards him.

He staggered on the blue shingles. For a moment, she feared he might fall, but he caught himself by dropping to a knee.

“Don’t let it get away!” shouted a blood mage.

Iylea flew as fast as she could for Zephyrus, but as she neared, a shadow stretched over him. A black wisp on the wind slithered around Zephyrus before striking.

It disappeared into Zephyrus’s body.

His face contorted, twitching erratically. The tremors traveled into his torso and down his arms. He dropped prone and nearly slid off the angled roof.

Iylea gasped, but before she could reach him, the Skeleton King descended on horned and scaled wings to stand over Zephyrus’s fallen form.

A grin slashed across the Skeleton King’s gaunt face. Silver-blond hair hung behind his ears in loose curls, rustled by the wind. Ghoulish green eyes bore into her with a recognition reserved for the living.

“You’re the one who tried to stop us…” the Skeleton King said.

She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement, but his voice, smooth and silver-tongued, was flecked with a touch of cruelty. Joy.

“And this is the one you gave up everything for…” The Skeleton King glanced down at Zephyrus, still writhing, struggling to control his own body, before casting his gaze on Iylea again. “You traded eternity… for him?”

He pointed his skeletal finger towards the glowing outline of the gate atop Northridge’s tower. “So he could go beyond. So he could stop us.” He waggled his finger at her. “The One True God will not be stopped.”

Zephyrus jolted. He leapt from the rooftop to where Iylea floated.

Before he could reach her, bloody vines snared around Zephyrus’s wrists and ankles, suspending him over the courtyard.

The Skeleton King tsked.

“Guardian!” Zephyrus shouted, still twitching. “Help… me…”

A wave passed over Zephyrus’s face. The angle of his brow narrowed; his cheeks spread as his lips parted in a grin that didn’t fit Zephyrus’s brooding nature or the situation at hand.

“This one is no match for the One True God,” Zephyrus hissed in a voice not his own.

Iylea gasped.

A new wave rippled, washing away Zephyrus’s expression. “Guardian, it keeps takin—”

Zephyrus choked off in a new rush of seizures within the Skeleton King’s grasp.

“Let him go!” Iylea shouted.

“Fear not, Iylea,” the Skeleton King said, beaming. “Soon you shall be reunited with him, as all must be with the One True God. But first, something was taken from me. And Vykanicus Auros will bring it back.” More dark wisps escaped the Skeleton King’s body as if he permeated smoke. Each tendril slithered through the air before striking at Zephyrus from different angles.

The tremors rattled Zephyrus in his suspended bindings, but more and more darklings flowed from the Skeleton King into Zephyrus. Dozens, hundreds, too many to count. His body thrashed violently against his bindings and the souls attempting to gain control over him, but eventually, he fell still.

Iylea trembled. “Zephyrus?”

The Skeleton King chuckled. “Not any longer. Tell me, who has won control over the Creator’s false prophet?”

“I am Zephyrus.” A new voice spoke from Zephyrus’s lips.

The Skeleton King’s bloody bindings returned Zephyrus onto the rooftops before dissipating to ashes. Unrestrained, Zephyrus made no move to attack or escape.

Iylea’s light flickered. “Zephyrus, no…”

The Skeleton King spoke over her. “And what must you do, Zephyrus?”

The darkling in control of Zephyrus held his palm up before him. “I will find Threyna,” the wrong voice said. A candle’s flame sprouted from his palm. He cleared his throat. “I will take the One True God’s blessing from her.”

The voice was closer to Zephyrus’s this time.

Arkadia’s son, Vykanicus Auros, Zephyrus—the man on which the fate of the realms hinged—examined Iylea.

“Then I will kill Threyna,” the voice said in Zephyrus’s exact voice. “Then Vykinallia. Then Laeden. And anyone else who wishes to stand in the way of the One True God.” He closed his fist, extinguishing the fire magic.

The action made Iylea’s light all but extinguish.

No. This can’t be.

“Very good,” the Skeleton King said. He turned towards Iylea. “As for you, Iylea, the One True God wishes to speak with you.”

The Skeleton King drew in breath, and a terrible current tugged on her soul, dragging her closer and closer toward him.

Chapter 22

Survival

Vykinallia IV

Valtarcia

Whatever had called the blood mages and the legionaries away from Kaelus’s ludus had kept them preoccupied. After convincing Kaelus to free his gladiators and lead everyone west, their group left the upper city quickly, not wanting to wait for the legionaries to return.

As Vykinallia spirited them through the lower city, she was surprised to find no one in their path. Aside from picking up more refugees in need of aid, they didn’t encounter a soul on their way to the southwest gate.

“That was too easy,” Jecht said, no hint of jest in his tone as the two passed under the gate, bringing up the rear of their party.

If said by anyone else, Vykinallia would have thought nothing of it, but it wasn’t a common occurrence for Jecht to take anything seriously—even this. Somehow, Vykinallia felt in her bones that he was right. Despite feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter, she didn’t know what else they could do, where else they could go.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Vykinallia said, still holding one of the legionaries’ spears. “I suppose we should take what we can get.”

Cerik looked over his shoulder, a mace from Kaelus’s armory slung over the other. “We nearly drowned.” He jabbed a thick finger at Jecht. “And tip the scales, spare me the burning ‘Sea in my veins’ bit.”

Jecht held out his open palm, a glowing legionary spear in his other. “We made it out, didn’t we? And besides, you know what I’m talkin’ about.”

The saltwater in her lungs agreed with Cerik, but she understood what Jecht meant. Kaelus aiding plebeians, and being so amenable to freeing his slaves, was a pleasant surprise. Pair that with the legionaries being recalled at their moment of need, and that they still were not out, patrolling the streets, did make it seem too simple.

“Zephyrus,” Cerik said. “It’s the only explanation.”

A stone formed in Vykinallia’s dry throat. “You think he ascended?”

“Perhaps they were trying to stop him,” Jecht said, dragging his feet on the dead, trampled grass that led beyond the walls to the Vale.

Vykinallia looked back at Valtarcia’s city walls. Smoke billowed over the slums of the lower city. Despite the great number they were leaving with, many more were still trapped—doomed to be consumed by the Skeleton King and his blood mages. The trampled grass that funneled out of the gates implied that either Zephyrus, Laeden, or both had been able to deliver others to salvation, but how many? And how many were left?

Cerik inclined his head toward the blue skies unstained by the black smoke. “If Zeph has ascended, I’m not sure if that puts us in a better or worse place.”

Vykinallia pursed her lips. She caressed her elbow where Zephyrus had healed her. It was selfish—foolish—to hope Zephyrus hadn’t ascended, but Vykinallia agreed with Cerik.

He can prevent more Gods from dying, and he’s one step closer to defeating Paxoran, but what does that mean for the rest of us?

She’d witnessed what the Skeleton King’s legions were capable of in several hours. Now unable to return to Stockhelm, and without the help of the Fallen, where were they to go? Many were unarmed, unarmored, tired, sick, malnourished, or worse.

How are we to fight if we can barely survive?

While the immediacy of those questions ate at Vykinallia, they helped her hide from the answer to the question she was too afraid to allow herself to think, What if Zephyrus never returns?

As if in response to her dark thoughts, thunderclouds appeared overhead, blotting out the sun. Thicker than the smoke over the slums, a black shroud with crackling electricity spread overhead, spanning the horizon until the sky was no longer visible.

The entire procession came to a halt to stare at the harrowing sky.

Vykinallia’s feet sank into the grass, her shoulders stooped as if weighed down by iron chains. Her heart felt ten times heavier.

Another dead God…

“Judges preserve me,” Cerik said.

Jecht’s pale complexion blanched. Mutters broke out amongst the refugees who knew less than Vykinallia did. Part of her wished for such ignorance. Then she could ask questions like “How?” or “Why?” instead of the much more complicated, “What does this mean if Zephyrus has already ascended?” Or worse, “If he didn’t ascend, what did he do to draw the attention of the Skeleton King’s army?”

Resuming their march, they forded the Vale and traveled north in uneasy silence. The cover of darkness made visibility and, therefore, travel difficult and slow. They followed the Vale to guide their way. The stench of rotten fish along the riverbanks mired their journey. Worse than her wet feet sloughing in her boots, Vykinallia still felt like she was drowning. And every step she put between her and the walls of Valtarcia was like leaving the Salmantic captain to sink with the boat.

It was impossible to discern whether it was day or night by the time they saw the others before the isthmus. Absent the sun’s trajectory under the blanket of storming, black clouds, it could have been midday or midnight. The Silver Summits no longer wore the white caps of their namesake. The earlier earthquakes jarred the snow from the mountaintops loose to cascade down, covering the isthmus in an ivory coat.

As they neared the group of people making camp on the trodden grass before the snowy trek across the border, Vykinallia hustled to the front of the procession to join Kaelus. When she arrived at his side, he cast her a grim glare.

“They look more unorganized than we are,” Kaelus said.

The grumbling lanista wasn’t wrong. The camp, if you could call it that, was a sprawl of small groups huddling together around poor excuses for campfires. Whatever cohesiveness she and Laeden had created between the Fallen, Ridge Knights, and freedpeople had not reached the refugees. Even the refugees seemed unwilling to collaborate amongst themselves.

Walking through the camp, her party—half the size of the refugees freed by the others—was on the receiving end of pursed lips and scowling brows.

Vykinallia tugged on the collar of her leather cuirass, searching for Laeden or any of the leaders. They didn’t exactly have a standard-bearer or a pavilion denoting command. Amidst the scattered pockets of people, finding Laeden wouldn’t be easy.

“It may be worth encouraging our people to see if they can reunite with loved ones if they were separated,” Vykinallia said. “They can rest while we discuss plans with Laeden.”

Kaelus thumbed the brown-and-gray whiskers framing his lip. “This is not a safe place to stop. If you don’t know it, you should. And if Laeden doesn’t—” Kaelus snorted.

Grumbling under his breath, Kaelus strode over to his wife, Urcilia. They exchanged a quiet word before he nodded his head in Vykinallia’s direction. Urcilia nodded and squeezed her husband’s arm.

While Urcilia addressed the newest refugees to the camp, Kaelus joined Vykinallia in searching for the leaders of the rabble on the outskirts of the isthmus.

Kaelus was right—this wasn’t a safe place to stop, but Vykinallia was sure there was sound reasoning behind it. Threyna had previously emphasized that the Skeleton King wouldn’t rush—he would stay in Valtarcia, consuming every last soul and gathering power before he moved on. Even if they weren’t concerned about the threat of being within half a day’s march of the Order’s legionaries, the options for retreat if necessary were extremely limited. Yet all options were limited.

Unable to retake Valtarcia, their options were to divide throughout the countryside and employ guerilla tactics to liberate more from under the Skeleton King’s heel, or retreat. Returning to Stockhelm was out of the question. That only left Salmantica… and traversing the snow-covered isthmus in the dark, on feeble legs and empty stomachs, would be a difficult enough journey. That still left the looming “if.”

What if, after traveling all the way to Salmantica, Damascus doesn’t admit us?

Before she had to answer the question for herself, a nearby argument rang over the din of the camp. Kherus paced, tugging at his long locks of brown hair. Iberion rested his hands on the pommel of his sheathed sword; his remaining eye stared into the fire. Unari sat on the ground, her arms hugging her legs, shivering while two mages knelt beside her. White tendrils of healing magic flowed from their fingertips into Unari’s trembling body.

Callonus, the Sentinel who had delivered news of the Skeleton King’s arrival in Valtarcia, held his arms out to either side. “How long are we supposed to wait—for either of them? We have to do something!”

“We are doing something,” Kherus snapped.

Callonus put his hands on his hips. “You realize it is possible that neither of them will come back. You realize that, right?”

Kherus pursed his lips, ready to retort, but his eyes fixed on Vykinallia as she and Kaelus approached. The scrunched skin around his eyes and lips softened and he took a deep breath. “Thank the Six.” He held out his hand towards Vykinallia. “Vykinallia, Earl Kaelus, welcome.”

Vykinallia and Kaelus entered the circle surrounding the small fire. Her eyes scanned the gathered leaders and noticed the emptiness around the fire. “Where is Laeden?”

He wasn’t the only one missing. Aponius—the Lion’s Academy soldier sent by Danella to infiltrate Laeden’s rebels, only to become one of his most trusted allies—was also absent. So too were Aurellia and Joru, the freedpeople from House Ulysius.

Grim glances were traded over the fire, accompanied by an uneasy silence.

“King Laeden went to Salmantica to petition for aid,” Callonus said.

Kaelus cleared his throat. “He went himself? By himself?”

Kherus shuffled his feet. “He wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. Absent your presence, Vykinallia, Laeden left me, Aponius, and Aurellia in charge.”

“And where are they?” Vykinallia asked.

“Aponius led a band of refugees to the north,” Kherus said. “Aurellia and Joru to the Bay of Bastards.”

Kaelus shook his head. “Why divide?”

Callonus mumbled something under his breath, but Kherus ignored him. “We believe the Skeleton King is drawn to large crowds,” Kherus said. “Dense populations.” His feet continued to rustle in the dead grass as if he were squashing beetles. “There was also some dissent between the freedpeople and the patricians. But we have messengers between us. Physically divided, but united in purpose.”

Callonus snorted. “And what purpose is that?”

“Survival!” Kherus hissed through barred teeth.

“If we don’t fight, we can’t hope to survive,” Callonus said.

“And if we fight before we’re ready we’ll end up cut to ribbons by blood mages who feed on souls,” Kherus said. He gestured at the refugees. “These people aren’t soldiers. We are not an army.” He pointed to Unari. “We’re exhausting our mages to keep people warm and sustained.”

Kherus strode around the fire and stabbed his finger into Callonus’s chest. “I know you want revenge. But that is not what we are about. We will wait for Laeden.”

Callonus shook his head, looking to Vykinallia and Kaelus to support him. “King Laeden is already dead for all we know. We can’t wait here. If you won’t fight, we must retreat.”

Iberion’s low voice cut between them. “Retreat where? To the doorstep of a tyrant who ordered the genocide of my people, murdered his father, and would kill his brother? If we are not welcome, we cannot afford to be caught between two armies.”

Vykinallia rubbed her elbow. There were no good solutions. Without Laeden, Zephyrus, even Threyna—for all the trouble that came with her—they needed a miracle. And Valencia was unlikely to provide one.

The fire went out. It didn’t simmer or smolder to embers; it just vanished. Not just their fire, but every fire in the camp. Groans rose all throughout the refugees.

“Apologies,” Unari said, trembling. “I can’t do it any longer.”

The mages, who had healed Unari to aid her in balancing the scales, drooped—their shoulders slumping forward.

Absent the warmth of the fire, a chill swept over Vykinallia.

Kaelus leaned over to whisper to Vykinallia. “This is going to get worse. If you don’t take charge, I will.”

Vykinallia’s jaw tightened. She didn’t know what to do. Retreat seemed like the only option, at least for the masses. Kherus was right—they weren’t an army. Absent provisions, shelter, numbers, or superior weapons, this wasn’t a fight they could win without a plan, and even then…

In her mind’s eye, she ripped free of the sail’s snare and swam to the surface. The captain, caught in the maelstrom of the sinking ship, stretched out his hand for her. This time, she went back for him. She followed the current, swimming deeper and deeper into the darkness, but despite how hard she swam, the ship sank faster, and the captain along with it.

She shook the thought and the darkness of the sea, but standing around the extinguished campfire, indecision held her tongue.

“So we must fight, then,” Callonus said. “We can’t wait here, and we can’t retreat without King Laeden.”

The uneasy silence returned.

“No,” said a voice behind Vykinallia.

Everyone turned to face the voice. Vykinallia didn’t know the man, but he had been one of the refugees who had accompanied her and Kaelus beyond Valtarcia’s gates.

Callonus stumbled towards him. “Allaron, is that really you?”

Allaron, a grizzled man covered in wrinkles and scars, embraced Callonus.

“Six save me,” Callonus said, pulling away from Allaron. “How did you survive? I thought you were dead.”

“So did I,” Allaron said.

Callonus shook his head. Addressing the others, he gestured towards Allaron. “Allaron led the plebeian army against Duke Horus. He is the one who sent me to find you.”

Vykinallia nodded, but a disquiet groaned in her stomach.

“Now’s not the time to be stupid,” Allaron said. “King Laeden’ll return. He’ll succeed. Until then, we hunker down, gather supplies, prepare defenses any way we can. Best we be ready when that monster comes for us, eh?”

Kherus cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Allaron grunted. “Who am I, or how long have I been doin’ this?” He strode up to Kherus, but addressed all those gathered around. “I fought for the Celestic people on behalf of Valtarcia in the war. I’ve been leading men in battle since before most of ya were born. I joined the Sentinels the moment Prince Laeden made the call to arms. And I led the plebeian rebellion on Duke Horus before Laeden even declared himself King of Valtarcia.”

Allaron surveyed the gathering of leaders. “Now unless ya got any good ideas, we should get some rest. Gotta long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Vykinallia exchanged a glance with Kherus and Kaelus. Neither offered an objection. Iberion nodded his assent. Unari, if she had thoughts on the matter, didn’t voice anything. And Callonus seemed content to do whatever Allaron said. To his credit, Allaron’s words were reasonable, yet there was something about him that made Vykinallia’s skin slither.

Before Vykinallia could think of what to say, a disturbance in the camp rose behind her.

“Zephyrus,” a voice shouted.

Vykinallia’s chest tightened. Before she knew it, she was running towards the commotion. A crowd had gathered, forming a circle around Zephyrus. Vykinallia shouldered her way through, until she got to the front of the crowd.

Zephyrus wasn’t at the center of it.

Her heart sank as her eyes met Threyna’s—blue, streaked with black vines that stretched out, down her cheeks, and up her forehead. Aside from her silver-blonde braid, she was nearly unrecognizable. In her possession, entombed in conjured blood chains, was an unconscious older man with black veins streaking from a red-and-black crown that seemed attached to his scalp.

“Where is Zephyrus?” Threyna asked, iron in her tone. “I need a healer.”

A knot formed in Vykinallia’s throat. A dread sank deep into her bones. “I thought… if he didn’t ascend to the divine realm… he would be with you.”

Chapter 23

Monsters of Iron
and Satin

Danella IV

Salmantica

Danella stared into the looking glass, not examining herself or the handmaidens brushing her hair and applying powder to her cheeks, but to Ser Daenus. Once, his stern stoicism and iron-willed resolve served as her greatest ally. He followed her in all things; he served as her faithful shield, her devoted sword, her Valencian devout. He had not balked when she spoke of regicide or cowered when she asked him to be the face of the Revivalist leadership. His faith had brought him this far, but would he follow her any further?

After explaining her flight from Sentigard, her doubts as to her actions, and her growing disbelief in everything her father and the Facets of Perfection stood for, he’d offered no response. Absent words, she could discern nothing from the red-and-black visor shielding the burned and scarred face of her closest companion these past years.

He had followed her into madness… based on faith. Based on a lie. Absent the scaffolding that held her house of cards together, her world crumbled like the Temple District in the quakes. The truth’s shattering power had nearly broken her.

What would such a truth do to Ser Daenus?

He didn’t speak. Standing sentry with one hand on the hilt of his longsword, he might as well have been a hollow suit of armor.

The handmaiden’s brush snagged on a tangle in Danella’s hair, yanking her head to the side. The handmaiden winced. “Apologies, my queen. I didn’t mean—”

Danella held up her hand. “It is quite all right.”

The two handmaidens returned to their work, until Danella’s face was painted and her hair was braided and pinned into an elaborate flower behind her left ear. Danella examined her reflection. The ugly stitched wound and the shaved hair along the right side of her scalp contrasted with the elegance of the girls’ handiwork. Though the weight of her hair off to one side of her head felt strange, it served as a reminder of the bitter truth within the comfortable lies.

Some ugly things couldn’t be hidden. They needed to be addressed. Confronted. Dealt with.

As the handmaidens packed up their pins, clips, and brushes, a third handmaiden presented a box of jewelry. Staring at the gemstones and precious metals, Danella’s stomach twisted within the confines of her corset. Each piece was either a relic of her mother’s, a gift from her father, or a token of Varros’s love.

Danella frowned, attempting to swallow the nagging knot in her throat that surfaced every time she thought of Damascus’s dagger in Varros’s gut.

Daenus grunted. “Leave the jewels and vacate.”

The handmaidens shuddered at Daenus’s gruff, grinding voice. The girl holding the jewelry box looked to Danella, unsure if she should comply.

Danella placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her eyes were a pale green like a flower’s stem, but soft and timid, absent the thorns. She reminded Danella of Iylea—the seer, Laeden’s secret lover—the handmaiden she’d executed.

Danella forced a smile and gave the girl’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thank you. Thank you all. You have done well with me, all things considered. Leave with my gratitude.”

The three girls glanced at one another before gathering their things and cowering past Daenus as they exited.

Once the door closed behind them, Daenus’s steel-clad boots clanked on the stone floor, drawing nearer to her. Danella watched his approach in the looking glass, never averting her eyes from his helmet’s cold stare, his eyes barely visible through the slit.

Coming to a stop, he placed his gauntleted hands on the shoulders of the high-backed chair Danella sat in. For a moment, they only gazed at one another through the mirror’s reflection without a word.

His breath seeped through his helm in a slow hiss. “How can you believe any of this?” Tension strangled his voice. “Dying Gods, this ‘Reckoning’ of the Six… it is blasphemy.”

Danella pursed her painted lips. The sticky texture, still wet, clung together. She nodded, understanding Daenus’s doubts. “It is, Daenus. But where has our faith brought us?”

Daenus shook his helmed head, rustling the armor’s joints. “You cannot blame our actions for this.” He pointed across her rooms to the window and the black crackling sky beyond. “This is the work of Celestics and their sympathizers. People like Laeden who turned from the Six to ally with mages are the ones responsible—not us. We must not lose faith but double our efforts to enforce the Facets of Perfection before it is too late.”

Danella understood his defiance—his faith. Part of her envied him for it; things were simpler when all she had to do was follow the Facets of Perfection and uphold them. Not necessarily easier, but simpler. Now, the lines of black and white blurred with gray.

“We both know that is not entirely true,” Danella said. “Did Laeden turn from the Six? Or did we frame him for it? Would he have mounted a rebellion—would others have rallied to his cause—had we not orchestrated his demise in court?”

Daenus huffed through his helm, but said nothing.

“In our fear of the Celestics—The Age of the End—have we not created it?” Danella asked. “In our concern over Varros’s leniency toward the Treaty during a time of peace, did we not strike first? Was it not our hand that drew first blood?”

Daenus stepped around the chair and leaned down to grip either arm, meeting her eyes. Deep from within the shadows of his helm, his stare bored into her, but she did not look away.

“We did what we had to do,” Daenus said, straining through gritted teeth. “Peace would not have lasted.”

“Can we be sure?” Danella asked.

Daenus growled low in his throat.

She lifted her hand to the cheek of Daenus’s helm. “Please, remove your helmet.”

Daenus’s outstretched neck retracted. “Your grace, I…” After a moment’s hesitation, Daenus lifted the helm from his head.

The scars from Zephyrus’s fire magic grizzled his cheek, burned the hair from his brows, and scorched the flesh of his scalp. Hair no longer grew along the left side of his head, but the rest had become untamed, matted down, and greasy.

His gaze drooped. “This is what they have made me. A monster.”

Danella raised her hand to Daenus’s burned flesh. The skin was smooth if not disfigured. Patches of dried skin flaked off at her touch.

“They didn’t make you a monster,” Danella said. “I did.”

Daenus shook his head and squinted his browless eyes at her. “Why are you doing this?”

Danella lifted her other hand to caress the hair on the right side of Daenus’s head. “You were there when Iylea spoke her prophecy. Everything she said has come to pass. Brother will fight brother. Father will turn against son. Families bound by blood will tear each other apart, and your pride will be the end of you.”

“You can’t listen to that blasphemy,” Daenus said, pleading for her to believe once again. “It is not of the Six.”

She recalled her last meeting with Varros. The tiny flame he birthed in his palm. The swirling droplet of water he conjured and controlled. The way his skin turned to stone as he clenched his fist, only to open it again to hold a crackling electric charge before her.

A soft smile touched Danella’s lips. “Have you ever wondered why Celestic magic harnesses the elements of the Valencian Gods?” she asked, quoting Varros.

When Daenus didn’t answer, Danella continued. “Aquarius’s water, Phaebia’s electricity… Incinerae’s fire.” She caressed the burns. “If the Celestic magic is of the Six, isn’t it possible that so too are the seers’ visions?”

Daenus pulled away from her touch. “I will hear no more of this—this heresy.”

“Consider this,” Danella said. “If Iylea’s prophecy holds the truth, there is a way to stop this. Daenus, our kingdom, our country, is falling to ruin. Everything will fall to pieces unless something changes. Laeden warns of an army marching from the east—mages wielding blood magic gifted by a vengeful Traitor God. The same as the seer in the Temple District claimed. If they are right, how long do you suspect we will survive?”

Daenus turned from her, pointedly avoiding his reflection in the mirror.

“We won’t,” Danella said. “None of us will. Laeden is right; we must band together.”

“With mages?” Daenus snarled. “Join with blasphemous mages to defeat vengeful ones? Forgive me, your grace, but do you even hear yourself?”

Again, Varros’s words from their last encounter returned to her. “What if there is a balance between vengeance and blasphemy?”

Daenus shook his head. “King Damascus will never agree to this. And neither will I.” He replaced his helmet atop his head and stormed from the room, leaving Danella before the looking glass with jewels and gemstones laid out before her.

The golden pendant of the Six Arrowed Star her father had made for her glimmered in the nearby torchlight. Once, it had been her favorite, but now the thought of it on her skin made the corset constrict tighter. She averted her gaze from the jewels, looking instead to the golden eyes in the mirror: hers—the same as her father’s.

I cannot be like my father. And I cannot allow Damascus to be either.

Determined, she left the jewels and her chambers behind.

She and Daenus walked in a distant silence toward Damascus’s chambers after being told the king was no longer in the throne room or the war room. They were greeted by Aemos and Aelon, standing guard outside Damascus’s bedchamber. As she neared, Aelon held up his hand.

“Apologies, my queen. I’m afraid the king is currently preoccupied.”

Danella fixed her best queen’s stare, boring into Aelon with the promise of punishment.

Aelon exchanged a glance with Aemos.

“The king is… grieving,” Aemos said. “You may speak with him in the morning.”

Danella scoffed, stepping toward the door between the two King’s Guard Knights. Aemos seized her arm, stopping her. Danella stared at the knight’s hand before glaring into Aemos’s stormy gray eyes. The scar Markus Cassius had cleaved across his face wilted under her stare.

“Unhand me at once, or you will be a cripple in addition to an eyesore.”

Aemos released her, but Aelon held out his arm to bar her access. “The king explicitly demanded no visitors, my queen.” He lowered his voice. “You do not want to go in there.”

Danella’s brow pinched but she maintained control over her mask. “Open this door, Ser Aelon. Need I remind you who named you Knights of the King’s Guard?”

Aelon hung his head.

Aemos’s scarred face twisted in a scowl. “We are King’s Guard Knights, Queen Mother.”

A knot twisted between her spine and shoulder blade. Queen Mother. The title was correct. It was true. But what it represented stole the breath from her lungs, worse than the corset. “I will speak with my son. Now.”

The King’s Guard Knights exchanged a glance, but neither stepped aside or moved to open the door. When Danella attempted to step between them, the two closed in, barring her path. Danella’s fists clenched at her sides. She spun towards Daenus.

Her faithful ally for all these years spoke not a word. Hiding behind his visor, his hands resting on the hilt of his long sword, he did nothing.

Danella scowled. I am truly on my own. Returning her gaze to Aemos and Aelon, Danella placed her hands on her hips. “I am not leaving until I speak with Damascus.”

Aemos crossed his arms over his chest. Aelon spared her the dignity of hanging his head and at least appearing abashed. The four of them stood in the corridor outside of what was once her chambers only a few short days ago. Inside lay the bed she shared with Varros, the balcony they used to watch the sunset from.

A squeal on the other side of the door nearly made Danella jump out of her skin. She pointed at the iron-studded double doors inlaid with the carving of the Drake chimera.

“Who is in there with him?” Danella demanded.

Another voice squeaked between the cracks of the door from the chambers within. Laughter. A playful slap, followed by a fresh gale of giggles.

“You said he was grieving,” Danella snarled, glancing between the knights.

A set of light footsteps scurried towards the door. The lock clicked, and the double doors swung open. Beyond the precipice, three girls in threadbare shifts with tousled hair, flushed faces, and beaming smiles stood before her. Each clutched a handful of gold coins.

Heat rose to Danella’s cheeks as a scream built from deep within her stomach. The girls’ smiles drooped, glimpsing at one another. They ran between the knights and past Danella, laughing. Danella’s fury couldn’t focus anywhere else. Their long bare legs moved beneath the loose shifts, leaving little to the imagination of what lay beneath.

Danella stormed past Aemos and Aelon, into her former bedchamber. “How dare you!”

Damascus stood at the water basin in the corner. Dressed in a pair of loose-fitting britches, he turned to her. Bare-chested aside from the bandages that bound the wounds he’d suffered from his battle with Nallia and Laeden, her son only looked at her.

As Danella seethed, Damascus returned to the basin, splashed water on his face, and ran his fingers through his short black hair.

“You dishonor yourself,” Danella said, her face practically trembling with anger. “Grieving. You call this grieving?”

Damascus snorted. “I see you’ve returned from your trip to the lower city. Keen on giving me a lecture now?”

Danella shook her head. Platters of half-eaten food lay atop the bedside table. Breadcrumbs smothered in jam, candied walnuts, and honey-drizzled fruits stained the strewn bedsheets. Her bed. The bed she shared with Varros. The bed where their son was conceived.

The son who murdered his father.

Bile climbed Danella’s throat. “Your kingdom is starving. Your people worry if they’ll have water to survive. Rumors of war and an army marching from the east are on every tongue. All the while, the king is burying himself in…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Damascus rested his hand on the edge of the water basin. His golden eyes reflected the nearby candlelight. The bandage on his wrist, a bloody red as deep as the satin curtains, was in need of changing. As were the bandages around his ribs. His other arm hung close to his torso, as if suspended in the sling he should have been wearing.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Damascus said. “I am the king, remember?”

“Then it is time you began acting like one.”

“Oh, and how shall I do that, Mother?” Damascus asked sarcastically. “Shall I drown myself in wine and women like your brother? Or shall I become a mage like your husband?”

Danella released an audible growl. “If you want to follow in your uncle’s footsteps, I’m sure it won’t be long before others plot your assassination.” She marched up to him with her finger angled at his nose. “But you will not speak ill of your father. Not in front of me.”

Damascus shook his head, closing the distance between them. His breath stank of wine. His body of sweat and sex. He jabbed his index finger down at her. “My father was a liar. A traitor. A mage. And now he’s the best kind of mage—a dead one.”

Danella glared at the man who had once been her son. She barely recognized him, but he was exactly what she had made him.

He turned his back on her and snatched a carafe of wine and a goblet from the bedside table. Pouring himself a tall glass, he continued. “And I already told you once; the Gods will be sated. The traitor mage who once sat on the throne of their kingdom in the mortal realm is dead. The Age of The End will come for the Valtarcians and the Helms, but we will be spared… once the traitor’s traitor son is offered up to the Six as well.”

Damascus lifted his goblet. Several gulps later, the red liquid dripped down the corner of his lip to be caught by his pointed chin beard. Emptying the goblet, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now, no more trips into the lower city, Mother. It is not safe, but this will pass. The peoples’ concerns will fade. These rumors of war from the east are lies told by our enemies. But I will not fall for any more of their lies. And neither will you.”

He filled his goblet again, pouring until the carafe emptied.

“You’re right,” Danella said. “I will not fall for any more lies. Lies like ‘The Gods will be sated.’ Lies like, ‘There is no army in the east.’ Look around you, Damascus.” Danella referenced the black sky of eternal lightning beyond the window. “We cannot wait and hope we will be spared the Gods’ wrath. We will not. No one will be. The rains will not fall, the ground will continue to quake, and the sun will be denied us. If we fail to act, ruin will consume us all.”

Damascus raised an eyebrow before returning his interest to his goblet and its contents. He drank, deep and long. By the time he set his cup down, his eyes were heavily lidded and his cheeks a warm pink.

“How do you propose we act?” Damascus asked.

“Listen to Laeden,” Danella said. “If he is telling the truth—”

“I appreciate the bedtime story, Mother,” Damascus snapped. “Did you hear it from the seer spouting blasphemy in the Temple District?” He shook his head. “Laeden’s head will be on a pike by sunrise, and his body will be nailed to the Six Arrowed Star by the evening. And I will hear no more about it.”

“Damascus, ple—”

“Oh!” Damascus tapped his index finger to his temple as if he’d just remembered something. “If you ever jest again about my assassination, you’ll follow Laeden. Is that clear?”

Danella pursed her lips. She had no doubts as to the truth of that statement. Despite her desire to glare, she feigned a slumped posture of defeat.

“Clear as the Facets of Perfection,” Danella said. She strode from the room, never looking back at the boy she’d lost and the son she’d ruined. Passing the three King’s Guard Knights who heard every word of their exchange, she stormed off without a glance.

When Daenus fell into step behind her, Danella whipped around to face him. “I believe we are done, King’s Guard Knight.” She bowed stiffly, and with a swish of her skirts, she strode down the hall. With each step, the gears in her mind turned, building momentum and gaining clarity. A smile cracked her painted lips. For the first time in months, she felt sure of herself.

Chapter 24

Paxoran’s Promise

Zephyrus VI

Valtarcia

Horror flooded Zephyrus as his limbs moved absent his control. The souls within him raged like a swirling tempest, each climbing over top of one another in an attempt to seize ownership from the darkling that had usurped his body from him.

During the time Zephyrus fought the darkling for control, their souls became entwined, and Zephyrus remembered every memory, felt every emotion, and read every thought of Gailus Kaine. The son of a Premius in the Order’s legions, he was too young to stop the Underground’s rebellion, the Wraith’s escape, or the silver-haired witch that ruined Rheynia.

“I will find Threyna,” Gailus said with Zephyrus’s lips. Murderous hatred dripped like poison from his tongue as he said her name. With his hand outstretched, Gailus attempted to use Zephyrus’s memories to balance the scales. Their blood ran cold as a candle’s flame sprouted from their palm. Gailus cleared their throat. “I will take the One True God’s blessing from her.”

Gailus’s voice lowered. His intonation changed, becoming less like his own and more like Zephyrus’s. The Guardian’s light quivered before him, surrounded by blood mages flying on conjured wings.

Panic rose in Zephyrus. Burn me. I have to regain control.

“Then I will kill Threyna,” Gailus said, matching Zephyrus’s voice. “Then Vykinallia. Then Laeden. And anyone else who wishes to stand in the way of the One True God.” He curled his fingers into a fist, extinguishing the fire.

Zephyrus’s heart sank further. Desperation clawed at his throat as if the thoughts and emotions of the darklings dwelling in his body were stealing the oxygen from his lungs.

I cannot let them use me. I won’t be their weapon.

Their blood remained cold, a testament to Gailus’s inexperience balancing the scales, despite having access to Zephyrus’s skills. The fatigue Zephyrus arrived with, brought on by his separation from the Guardian, only weighed heavier on their shared shoulders. Despite his fatigue, the other souls swirled with fervent energy. They buffeted against him, impeding his progress back to the Inner Calm within his mind. He focused on Threyna, Vykinallia, and Laeden to keep him going, to keep him fighting against the surrounding souls’ torment.

But his progress was slow. Too slow.

The Skeleton King drew in breath, and the Guardian’s light began to drift towards the Skeleton King. The current drew her in towards the Skeleton King, towards Paxoran, the One True God.

Zephyrus pressed with greater fervor. Each labored step towards his Inner Calm drained him worse than the previous, yet he persevered. Surging against the souls in his way, Zephyrus nearly fell as the souls came to a sudden stop and a sullen silence.

Zephyrus’s soul cringed as a familiar presence forced its way into his mind. Vykannis had sacrificed himself to sever Paxoran’s connection to Zephyrus, but the Skeleton King’s darklings provided the bridge over the gap. The hundreds of voices, thoughts, and feelings melded to one booming but familiar voice.

“Zephyrus,” Paxoran said. “It was never my intent for it to come to this.”

The rush of souls in his mind’s eye came together to form the shape of a face, its mouth moving in time with Paxoran’s voice. Beyond the massive convergence of souls, Gailus stood before the window of his Inner Calm.

“The other Gods have poisoned you against me, Zephyrus,” Paxoran said. “But I have only ever done what was best for you, for the realm. Look around you… Death, destruction, ruin. I only ever wanted peace. If you had joined me, claimed the Treasures, ascended the divine realm and slew the other Gods—your true enemies—the mortal realm never would have suffered.”

Zephyrus stared at the dark souls and the face they combined to form. “You’re a liar, Paxoran. A murderer and a tyrant.”

Paxoran’s soul-forged apparition shook his towering head. “The Vykane Blade is not the Judges’ weapon—none of the Treasures of Stockhelm are. They were the Creator’s, given to an immortal named Hameryn to slay the first Gods of Valencia: Veritas, Aphelia, and myself. You see me as the tyrant, Zephyrus, but I was the victim.”

Lies. Lies stacked on top of lies.

“It is the truth, Zephyrus,” Paxoran said. “I survived Hameryn. I killed him, cast off my Godhood, and became him. I returned to the Creator victorious, and they elevated me from immortal to God of Harmony. But I witnessed how Hameryn murdered Veritus and Aphelia; no harm came to the mortal realm because he wielded what you call the Vykane Blade. That is why I needed the Treasures. I wished to spare the mortal realm. Had you obliged, had Threyna kept her resolve, or Tyrus succeeded, perhaps the world might have been spared.”

Zephyrus refused to believe Paxoran. Beyond the plane of his internal struggle, the Guardian thrashed against the Skeleton King’s draw, but it was as if everything around him was occurring in slow motion.

“This was not how I had planned,” Paxoran said. “But another has risen in your stead. I have deprived myself of great power to provide my Harbinger with what the Vykane Blade could have done easily, painlessly—for both of our realms. Do you not see how your selfishness has wrought ruin?”

Zephyrus stammered, struggling to form the words for his outrage. “My selfishness? You have damned all of creation to oblivion for your petty vengeance!”

“Consider this,” Paxoran continued, unperturbed by Zephyrus’s outburst. “I asked you to kill Vykinallia Cassius—how many mortals has she slain? How many have died to her sword or fallen to her followers? I asked you to kill Laeden Helixus—again, how many have met their doom because of his orders?”

“How many have they freed?” Zephyrus spat.

“I would have peacefully freed this world, Zephyrus,” Paxoran said, “absent the death and destruction that has followed in your wake.”

“Freed the world,” Zephyrus said, “through the Skeleton King—and you call that peace?”

Paxoran’s floating head sighed heavily. “Every mortal believes he knows all… The Skeleton King is my collector of souls. My messenger to ferry the spirits from this broken realm to the new one I will create after I have destroyed the Creator. I know it is an ugly business, but flesh and blood matter not. What matters are the souls.”

Zephyrus didn’t understand. The walls all around him seemed to close in.

He’s wrong. He’s a liar.

Paxoran’s voice softened. “I cannot make you trust me, Zephyrus. But I will only ask this one more time. Join me. Help me defeat the Creator and together we can remake the realms.”

Zephyrus’s clenched fists softened. With Gailus in control over his Inner Calm, Paxoran’s army of darklings before him, and the Guardian entering the Skeleton King’s current, doubt infected his mind.

“You fight for freedom,” Paxoran said. “You fight for family, love, friends, but have you considered what would happen if you were to succeed in your mission? If you succeeded in making it to the divine realm and murdering me—what then? Yes, you will have saved the Creator from my schemes, but what has the Creator ever done for you? For anyone? The Creator is not here because they do not care. They divide their power amongst Gods that war with one another instead of instilling true peace throughout the realms.”

Zephyrus didn’t have a reply. He wished he could blame the absence of his counterargument on his fatigue, but that was no excuse.

The souls of Paxoran’s face swirled, reforming into the shape of a man of a height with Zephyrus. The darkling-constructed humanoid walked towards him, arms outstretched.

“The mortal realm is confused,” Paxoran said. “Conflicting ideals, warring philosophies—this religion, that faith, this relic, that magic—can’t you see? This world has only ever needed one God to clarify the path to eternal bliss, but the way has become strained, convoluted, and now souls burden the chain between realms. Together, we can guide mortals on the path to righteousness and salvation. But if you succeed in your objective, if you kill me, what is the mortal realm left with? A distant Creator who has no interest in the lives, deaths, or eternities of the souls in the realm. What would happen in such a Godless world?”

Zephyrus considered the many benefits of what life could look like absent the interference of the divine. How many wars have been fought in the name of the Gods?

Yet not all the Gods were bad. Vykannis had saved Zephyrus. The Corners of Kataan sacrificed themselves for him. The Gods inspired hope, created beauty, and oversaw the forces of nature. And to Paxoran’s point, if there was one ever-present God guiding souls on the path to righteousness, there would be no war over theology.

Zephyrus didn’t know what would happen if he killed Paxoran. Would the Creator make new Gods just as flawed as the previous? Would they abandon the mortal realm entirely?

“Join me, Zephyrus,” Paxoran said, his wispy form close enough to touch. “End this suffering and help me defeat the Creator. Together we’ll rebuild the realms to how they were always supposed to be.”

Zephyrus bit his lip. “You’re right, Paxoran. Things need to change.”

But if there’s to be one God, it won’t be you.

“Does that mean you’ll help me defeat the Creator?” Paxoran asked.

“Yes,” Zephyrus said, telling his clever lies. And once I get to the divine realm, I’ll stop you before you—

“He’s lying,” Gailus said.

Paxoran’s darkling form examined Zephyrus. He shook his head. “Foolish mortal. How many more will you let die for your pride?”

Paxoran’s hand closed around Zephyrus’s throat and squeezed.

Zephyrus went to strike, but Paxoran seized his wrist with his other soul-forged hand. Zephyrus punched with his other fist, but a third hand sprang from Paxoran’s darkling-constructed chest.

“You have no power here,” Paxoran said. “You are mine! Now you will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes. You will feel the flames of your own magic scorch the people you helped free.”

Zephyrus thrashed against Paxoran’s grasp, but even within the confines of his own mind, the darklings had too much power. The light of his Inner Calm dimmed around Gailus. Through his eyes into the world beyond his mind, the Guardian’s light flowed towards the Skeleton King and disappeared.

Just as all faded to black, a bright light, more brilliant than the sun, burst to life within his Inner Calm. A glowing cerulean blue.

Chapter 25

The Inner Calm

Iylea IV

Valtarcia

Iylea fought against the Skeleton King’s lure, but the current doubled its efforts to drag her to her demise. She looked to Zephyrus for help, but he, controlled by another, only stood and watched.

It’s not him. They’ve taken control. Threyna had said this was possible. A contest of wills.

His mannerisms were wrong—everything from the angle of his brow to the tilt in his neck, as if his twisted grin weighed down one side of his head.

She couldn’t let it end like this. Not after everything the Corners of Kataan sacrificed. Not after what Arkadia endured to give humanity hope. Zephyrus was that hope, and Iylea would not let the Skeleton King or Paxoran have him.

Iylea released her resistance against the Skeleton King’s draw. The current took her, like water downriver, straight towards the Skeleton King’s chest. Iylea tore through the air, building her speed with the momentum of the current until her acceleration was too fast to control

At the last moment, she torqued. Her orb of light ripped from the current just before entering the Skeleton King’s body. Instead, her momentum carried her into Zephyrus’s chest.

Like entering into another world, Iylea found herself in a cavernous stone palace within Zephyrus’s mind. Darklings joined together to form a physical form that grappled an orange-glowing Zephyrus on the ground floor. Dozens, hundreds, of darklings set their sights on her at her arrival, but one was detached from the others.

While all were focused on Zephyrus, one darkling remained at the top of the cavern, bathed in light filtering in through a window. The salty scent of the sea wafted in on a gentle breeze.

He is the one with control.

Though Zephyrus struggled with the darklings below, this was the one she needed to dethrone. Iylea’s light flared, illuminating the cavern. She loosed an animalistic scream as she charged for the lone darkling.

Her light crashed into its darkness.

Hatred, vengeance, and the sense of duty slammed into her as her essence collided with that of Gailus Kaine. Gailus thought he knew pain. Loss. He was practically a stranger to the concept. She was the Breaker of Chains. She had lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths. She’d slain more souls than Tharseo and Ser Darrow the Reaper of Marstead combined. She had endured countless heartbreaks, on both the giving and receiving end.

Gailus was a petulant child.

Within moments, her light overwhelmed Gailus’s dark as she flooded him with the many memories she’d absorbed while breaking the links of the Chain of Balance. She drowned him in loss, guilt, pain and suffering he had only glimpsed in his brief lifetime in the Order’s legions.

He fled from her, screaming.

Iylea ascended to take control of Zephyrus’s body for herself. Light filtered in through the window. Practically tasting the salty sea air blowing in off the coast, she glimpsed out the window. The ocean glimmered to reflect the sun’s radiance. The sound of waves crashing into the cliffs below ebbed and flowed in a gentle rhythm of power and grace.

Zephyrus’s essence joined with her own. Memories of Arkadia, his mother, blurred past. Recollections of his time in Stoneside as a boy. The formation of the Fallen. His training under the Elders of the Arcane Templar. His friendship with Patrus. His respect for Laeden. His love for Vykinallia. Zephyrus resisted her at first, but perhaps realizing who she was, he let her into his Inner Calm.

She had never touched a soul so close to her own. The memories of the people they shared in their lives seemed to coalesce together, entwining and becoming one, in a beautiful array unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

Just as she was about to seize control of Zephyrus’s body, something snagged around her ankle, tugging her away from the window of the Inner Calm.

The darklings had abandoned Zephyrus and surged towards her. The orderly man-shaped mass assailing Zephyrus had fractured into hundreds of darklings, and their sights were set on her. Beyond the swirling tempest of darklings, Zephyrus lay in a heap on the floor, so far from his Inner Calm. He no longer radiated orange light. He barely gave off any light at all.

By dethroning Gailus, she’d created a power vacuum. The innumerable souls fought against her to seize control over Zephyrus for themselves. Iylea pummeled them with loss after loss. The links in the chain she had broken were like arrows she’d made for her quiver. One by one, she fired them into darklings, keeping them at bay.

The light of Zephyrus’s Inner Calm began to dim. His incorporeal body had not moved.

Iylea’s light flickered. The darklings were closing in on her from all angles. If a contest of wills was what they wanted, she would not break easily. But if Zephyrus expired, all was lost.

Iylea flared her light until it filled the upper reaches of the palace that was Zephyrus’s mind. She abandoned the window of the Inner Calm and dove, charging through the darklings, toward Zephyrus. Fending them off, she surged through the tempest.

The darklings abandoned her, electing instead to fight each other for control over Zephyrus. Iylea reached Zephyrus’s incorporeal form—cold, still… lifeless. The orange aura he gave off was more gray than anything else.

“No!” Iylea shouted.

She reached for him, but her hand passed through his shoulder. Her light blue went through his gray, sparking the orange hue he always exerted in incorporeal form. Iylea reached deeper into Zephyrus until her arms disappeared into him. More flashes of orange blossomed, mixing with her blue. She reached deeper still, until she had crawled into him.

Zephyrus’s orange came to life, combining with her blue to create a mosaic-like pattern of both colors. Iylea sprang to her feet without intention. Zephyrus had moved, and she had followed. Their minds, their bodies, their souls became one. Fully distinct from one another, but entirely inseparable.

“What is happening?” the Skeleton King’s voice called from the distance beyond Zephyrus’s Inner Calm.

Zephyrus and Iylea launched into the air, bathing the stretches of the stone palace in blue-and-orange light. The darklings retreated, repelled by the combined essence. One by one, swirling souls fled from the window of the Inner Calm. Even the most willful darklings could not bear to be in the presence of their light and ejected from Zephyrus’s body to fill the air around Valtarcia’s rooftops.

Zephyrus stood before the window of his Inner Calm. Iylea recognized it from Zephyrus’s memories as the window from his bedroom in Stoneside. To the east were Valtarcia’s walls, Salmantica’s to the west.

A memory flooded into her consciousness. Arkadia held him, a boy of perhaps four, and pointed out the window. “One day, you will look out over this land and see freedom from east to west, and peace from the heavens to the seas. One day, my love.”

Zephyrus seized control of his Inner Calm.

They stood opposite the Skeleton King on the Valtarcian rooftops. Darklings spiraled in a panic above while blood mages encircled them on blood-conjured wings. The Skeleton King opened his mouth to speak, but Zephyrus spat forth a wave of fire.

The Skeleton King retreated from the flames, but Zephyrus shot a burst of radiant light upwards, vaporizing the darklings in an instant to rain ashes down upon the rooftops.

Conjuring a scythe, the Skeleton King reared back to slash at Zephyrus and Iylea. Time slowed as he swung the bloody scythe at their midsection, but the babbling brook of the Vale populated in Zephyrus’s mind. They entered the immaterial plane, glowing blue and orange. The Skeleton King screamed as his scythe passed through their incorporeal bodies and they teleported from the rooftops.

Chapter 26

Worked for Good

Laeden V

Salmantica

The torchlight flickered with less and less enthusiasm as the night droned on. Even the oil-soaked torches had grown tired, but despite his fatigue, Laeden could not sleep. This wasn’t the first night he’d spent in a cell. Nor was it the first time believing the next day would be his last. But his impending death was not what denied his slumber; the thought of what would become of Valtarcia, what would happen in Salmantica once the Skeleton King arrived, and how long it would take for Stockhelm and the rest of the known world to join the One True God—that kept him tossing and turning.

Damascus was his only hope. His last chance. His brother. But Damascus was no longer his brother. The only thing they shared was their father, and their father was dead.

Despite Danella’s revelations, her teary-eyed apologies, or broken appearance, Laeden didn’t believe anything she could say would convince Damascus to change his mind. At first, Laeden hadn’t believed her either. After all the lies she had told for so long, he would have been a fool to believe any word that passed her lips. The sincerity in her eyes, the guilt that stooped her shoulders and brought her to crawl, barefooted, along the soiled dungeon floor, was not an act.

But too little too late. Her tears, her admission of fault—it wouldn’t bring his father back from the dead. It wouldn’t sway Damascus from executing Laeden, and it certainly wouldn’t encourage him to aid the refugees against the Skeleton King. Not even in the furthest reaches of Laeden’s imagination could he fathom Damascus believing the Disasters were caused by a Traitor God murdering the Six. If anything, Danella speaking on his behalf was likely to get her thrown into the cell with him.

Laeden rolled over to face the wall. The hay strewn about the stone floor did little to soften the pressure on his hip and shoulder. The crick in his neck ached absent support, but soon it would be the least of his worries.

He pressed himself into a seated posture. His face felt heavy, drooping as if weighed down by his fatigue. Massaging his temples with his dirty hands, he just wanted the waiting to end—for Aelon to save his false kindness and escort him to the Six Arrowed Star, just so he wouldn’t have to wait any longer. Or for Damascus to return to the dungeon and stab him in the stomach just like he did their father. Or Aemos to descend the stairs and cleave his head from his shoulders just like he did to Iylea.

Helplessness sapped his soul, robbed his strength, and drowned his hope. When the dread encroached, he thought of Iylea’s heart-shaped, smiling face. But not even her light could dispel this darkness. Every time he pictured her, a moment later he was back in Sentigard’s throne room, surrounded by powerful patricians and warmongering senators demanding Iylea’s blood.

A flash of steel.

The thwack of Aemos’s blade.

The thud of her head hitting the floor.

“She’s at peace,” the Guardian had said.

Perhaps she was at peace, but Laeden couldn’t believe it. With the Skeleton King consuming souls in the mortal realm and Gods being murdered in the divine realm, what peace could be found anywhere?

He supposed he would find out soon enough.

The grinding stone of the secret stairwell entrance joined the chorus of chittering insects and scurrying rodents. Laeden’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. Fatigue fled him as adrenaline pumped through his veins, faster than the hurried footsteps descending the stairs.

As much as he wanted to expedite his inevitable death a moment before, the sound of his approaching demise changed everything. He climbed to his feet and backed away from the cell bars, as if he could hide from his executioner. Unable to run, with nowhere to hide, he scanned the cell for something to use as a weapon. The manacles around his wrists were the closest thing to merit acknowledgement.

The footsteps grew louder. Faster.

How many men?

He couldn’t hear over the sound of his racing heart and his short, rapid breaths.

It doesn’t matter how many. I will fight.

His fists clenched. Disarm one, take the weapon, and kill the others. Then I can…

The glow of torchlight illuminated the spiral stairs. There was no time to think of next steps. Laeden bared his teeth and set his feet as wide as his shackled legs would allow, balled fists held before him.

Feet appeared on the steps. Plain boots, absent Aelon’s finery or Daenus’s armor. Boots became legs obscured by a long black cloak. Legs gave way to a slight frame beneath an oversized cape.

The figure reached the bottom of the stairs, and Danella’s golden eyes peered out from a black hood, pulled low. Her face was clean, unlike before, but unpainted, dissimilar to how he’d seen her at any other point in his life. Her hair was tied back into the recesses of her hood.

Laeden’s fists uncoiled, but the rest of his body refused to release its tension.

The torchlight flickered, its glint catching on something metallic in her other hand. Danella paused, glancing back up the stairs before approaching with near hesitancy. She placed the torch in the sconce. Its dancing orange glow illuminated the keyring in her hand. The iron keys clinked against one another as she neared the lock.

“Damascus won’t listen,” Danella said, her voice a breath above a whisper. She shoved a key into the lock and jostled it, but it didn’t open. “He plans to wait out The Age of the End, believing the Six will exterminate the blight and leave Salmantica standing amidst the ruins.”

She tried another key, but it met the same result.

“I don’t understand,” Laeden managed, his throat tight.

Her golden eyes met his, the lock and key momentarily forgotten. “This will not make up for all the wrong I’ve done.”

She returned her attention to the lock. The key clicked into place, and the lock unlatched. Pulling the key free, she grabbed the barred door and slid it open with caution. Laeden only stared at her as she opened the door just wide enough for him to slip through.

She beckoned him forward.

Laeden’s mouth went dry. She’s saving me. He should have ran out of the cell and up the stairs as fast as he could, but his soles felt anchored to the ground. “I can’t leave.”

Danella shook her head. “Laeden, Damascus will execute you. What of your people?”

Laeden swallowed. He had come to Salmantica with a purpose. If he left absent a sanctuary to deliver Valtarcia’s refugees to, it made no matter if he lived or died. Kherus, Aponius, and Aurellia had urged him not to go himself, to send another should this exact circumstance arise. They viewed him as the rightful King of Valtarcia. But Laeden hadn’t come to Salmantica as a king. He came as a brother.

“They are not my people,” Laeden said. “I didn’t come here as King of Valtarcia. I came as Damascus’s brother, pleading for aid for our people.”

He shuffled towards Danella. “If Salmantica does not open her gates to the Valtarcian refugees, I am nothing. We are nothing. You can free me, but this will not save me, the Valtarcians, the freedpeople, the slaves—anyone. I can’t leave here without being able to return to them with hope.”

“Damascus won’t open the gates,” Danella said. A wry smile curled her lips. “But if a king will not support his people, the people must support their kingdom.”

Laeden narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

She took Laeden’s hands in her own and led him out of the cell. “Bring your people. All of them. I will make sure they have a place to go.”

“More time will not convince Damascus,” Laeden said.

Danella shook her head, her hands still on Laeden’s. “I don’t need to convince Damascus. Just the people who man the gates, those who have family in Valtarcia, and any who believe that this Age of the End doesn’t have to mean our end.”

Laeden balked. Is she serious? He bore into Danella’s golden Drake eyes, searching for any sign of falsehood. Would she free me only to lure me into a trap?

If such malice existed, she hid it well.

“How?” Laeden asked. “Why?”

Danella gave his hands a squeeze. “The Revivalists plotted to kill the best king New Rheynia has ever known to stop The Age of the End when they believed he was the reason for it. That was before the rains stopped, the earth quaked, and lightning clouds denied the sun.”

She leaned closer, peering up at him. “You have no reason to trust me. And for that I am sorry. I’m sorry for Varros, for Iylea, for Damascus—I’m sorry for a great many things. But if you will not trust my word, will you trust that I will do anything to stop The Age of the End?”

Danella Drake was many things—crafty, devious, manipulative, and dangerous, but she presented an argument he could not deny.

“Let me use the Revivalists for something good,” Danella said. “Something right.”

Laeden bit his lip. She killed Iylea. Tried to kill Zephyrus. But from her place in Valencia, Iylea gave Zephyrus a chance to stop the Traitor God.

A glimmer of hope sparked in his chest. He nodded and grinned at Danella. “Perhaps all the bad that has happened can still, somehow, be worked for good.”

“Perhaps.” Danella returned his smile. “Let me free you. Return to your people and be the king New Rheynia needs.” She pressed the key into the lock of his manacles, and they came undone. She knelt to unchain his ankles.

“New Rheynia doesn’t need a king,” Laeden said. “No man should have the power of a kingdom. If we win, when all this is over, we need to find a better way.”

Danella inclined her head from where she knelt. But as his shackles came undone, the grinding stone of the spiral staircase opening again reverberated into the dungeon.

Laeden and Danella’s jaws unhinged, their wide-eyed gawks mirroring one another.

“Who is that?” Laeden whispered.

“I don’t know,” Danella said.

The glimmer of hope that had warmed Laeden’s chest burned out, replaced by dread. A cold sweat trickled down his back.

Laeden pulled Danella into the recesses of the dungeon. Concealed in shadows, he clutched the manacles in his moist palms, taking care that the links didn’t clank or make sound.

“What do we do?” Danella whispered.

Laeden held his finger to his lips.

The footsteps descending the stairs took their time, allowing Laeden’s held breath to burn in his chest. With both hands, he wrung the manacles, pulling the chain links taut.

If I get the jump on him, choke him until he passes out, we can escape. But if he sees Danella with me and remembers her involvement in my escape, she’ll be jailed and won’t be able to get Salmantica’s gates opened for the refugees.

He needed to be quick. Strike fast without dealing a lethal blow that could be used against him in the court of public opinion. The Salmantic people needed to believe that he was on their side.

The footsteps drew closer. Laeden willed himself to breathe, forcing his tense muscles to relax so he could spring into action. Danella clung to the walls beyond the torch’s gleam as the intruder’s light shifted the shadows. Quiet slashed through the dungeons. Even the critters and vermin respected the stillness.

Their visitor paused on the spiral stairs, not far from the bottom. One boot stepped down, followed by another. Traveling boots, of fine make, but simple and unadorned. Again, they halted on the stairs. The light extended further, sending the darkness slithering away. The unmistakable sound of a sword slipping free of its scabbard stalked through the otherwise silent dungeon.

“My queen,” whispered the man atop the stairs, his voice gruff like grinding gravel.

Laeden glanced at Danella, her eyes the only thing visible in the gloom. Neither he nor Danella moved to answer the call.

The footsteps crept closer, led by steel and a glass-enclosed lantern. “Queen Danella?”

Ser Daenus’s fire-marked face emerged from the shadows, illuminated by his lantern and the torch on the wall. No longer wearing the black-and-red armor of a King’s Guard Knight, Daenus crept forward, his eyes darting left and right of the empty cell. His gaze lingered on the darkness opposite Laeden.

Now’s my chance.

Yanking the manacles taut to prevent any sound of his approach, Laeden prowled toward Daenus’s back. Breath held, he drew near, but the closer he got, the sharper Daenus’s sword appeared. Laeden steeled himself, ready to strike, but Daenus sheathed his sword.

“I know you’re here,” Daenus said, staring into the darkness. He set the lantern down on the stone floor and dropped to a knee, bowing his head. “I know what I said before, but I was wrong.”

Laeden’s approach faltered. He had no love for Daenus, but his presence and posture gave him pause. Blade sheathed and head bowed, he was here—not as a King’s Guard Knight, but a man.

Danella released her clutches from the wall and fled the shadows’ shield to come beside Laeden. Daenus did not acknowledge the sound of motion, remaining bowed.

“I don’t believe in this ‘Reckoning’ or the deaths of the Six,” Daenus said, “but I’m not so ignorant to believe Salmantica will be safe from the Disasters.”

Laeden released his held breath, allowing the manacles in his hands to droop, the links clinking together. Jaw unhinged, he stared at Danella.

She didn’t persuade Damascus, but she convinced Daenus.

Danella strode past Laeden to stand before Daenus.

The grizzled knight inclined his head. “The Six value strength, determination—faith. There is no strength in hiding while others suffer, no determination in a king who would give up on the people he was meant to guide to the Six. I don’t know what I believe anymore. But I have faith that—” He glanced at Laeden. “—through unity, we will persevere.”

Daenus bowed his head again. “I’ve come to pledge my life to you.”

Laeden didn’t believe it, but he should have. Danella’s influence had sparked the greatest threat to New Rheynia. Now she would ignite a new type of revolution.

She can do this. Others will follow. The refugees will have a place to go.

Danella bent down and lifted Daenus to his feet. “We will persevere. But do not pledge your life to me; aim for something higher.”

Danella met Laeden’s eyes. “Hope.”

Chapter 27

Blood Mage

Threyna III

Valtarcia

Threyna stared at Vykinallia, not comprehending her words. The rot in her veins pulsed. Her head throbbed. The effort she’d exerted fighting against Horus and then conjuring tendrils to drag his unconscious form over the river and to the isthmus left her drained. She’d promised herself she’d never entrap souls again, and she hadn’t since she defeated her grandfather, King Bohen, but if she were going to have any hope of defeating his son, Belrich, she would need every tool in her arsenal. Yet she’d already had to devour those souls to make it this far.

She released the tendrils, allowing Horus to collapse in a heap.

If Zephyrus isn’t here, where could he…

Threyna turned east. Lightning rolled like the tides across the black clouds. Valtarcia’s city walls and Northridge beyond were obscured by distance and darkness.

The corruption in Threyna’s body might as well have congealed into a single mass and plummeted to the pit of her stomach. “The Guardian…”

Vykinallia seized Threyna by the arm, wheeling her around to face her. “What about the Guardian?” Vykinallia’s eyes—wide, alert, glaring—bored into Threyna’s soul deeper than a darkling in her Inner Throne.

Too tired to shrug off Vykinallia’s touch, Threyna’s arm flailed in the other woman’s grip. Her mind felt equally as addled. “Zephyrus teleported us out, but went back for the Guardian.”

Vykinallia grabbed Threyna’s shoulders and shook her. “How long ago?”

Threyna’s knees buckled. “Healer. Please.”

“How long?” Vykinallia asked. Her chestnut hair flicked back and forth as if searching for Zephyrus amidst the crowd gathered around them.

“Wait,” Kherus said. “That’s Duke Horus. What is he doing here?”

Absent Threyna’s tendrils, Horus began to stir.

Threyna wriggled free of Vykinallia’s grasp. “Everyone stand back. Horus is dangerous.”

The clamoring crowd gathered around. Too close, their proximity denied air from Threyna’s rot-choked lungs. If anyone heard her over the din of the camp, no one acquiesced.

Callonus seized Horus by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Horus’s dark blue eyes struggled to focus, but, regaining lucidity, a snarl wrinkled his withered face. Horus’s lips moved, but Threyna couldn’t hear over Callonus shouting for Horus’s blood.

Horus’s lips formed the same shape again, repeating the utterance, unperturbed by Callonus’s accusations or the bloodlust-filled crowd around him. Faster and faster, Horus’s lips moved until Threyna was able to pick out the word.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

A blood dagger was conjured before Horus and darted straight for Threyna’s chest.

Reaching into her Inner Throne to dissipate Horus’s conjuration or create a shield to block it, the rot closed in on her heart. Threyna froze.

Just as the bloody dagger zipped through the air, Vykinallia’s blade slashed it away. Threyna fell, no longer able to stand. Her vision narrowed; orbs of colored spots blurred.

“Healer!” Vykinallia shouted.

Ash descended upon Threyna like falling snow from Horus’s conjured dagger. She tried to move, but her body betrayed her as darkness closed in all around her.

Screams tore through the air. Cries of pain and panic. Shrieks of terror and distress. But no voice was louder than Horus’s.

“Monster! Monster! Monster!”

Threyna’s head lolled to the side.

The crowd surrounding Horus disbanded. Many wrestled with a blood conjuration that clung to them like a weighted net. Others lay on the ground, bleeding from lacerations. A great-axe congealed into existence in Horus’s hands as he stalked towards Threyna.

Vykinallia jumped in his path, wielding a gladius.

Threyna could only watch as Vykinallia dodged a downward chop, then ducked a horizontal hack that intended to cleave her head from her shoulders.

Hands grabbed Threyna from under the armpits and dragged her away from Horus. Threyna attempted to protest, but she couldn’t even do that. The world grew dark. Too dark. Vykinallia’s shape became a blur, then a colorless outline.

White tendrils of mist cut through the haze of her vision. The rot’s clutches abated from her heart. A healing mage hovered over her, but her brown eyes darted away. Threyna followed the healer’s gaze.

Horus conjured a battering ram that slammed into three swordsmen, hurling them from their feet. A broad man with a mace and a pale spearman attacked the blood mage from behind, but a bloody shield appeared just in time to deflect their attacks and bowl into them.

Horus set his sights on Threyna. He took one step towards her, but again, Vykinallia intercepted. She lunged and stabbed with her gladius, forcing Horus back. Horus countered with a backhand, bloody spikes emerging from his forearm. Vykinallia ducked the blow, but a conjured vine formed at her feet.

Threyna reached for Vykinallia. She attempted to speak, but no words passed from her rot-stained lips. Vykinallia thrust for Horus’s heart, but the vine struck like a hellhound, wrapping around Vykinallia’s ankle. Off-balance, Vykinallia was wrestled to the ground. Her sword fell from her grasp as the vine coiled up her torso to wrap around her throat. Clawing at the strangling conjuration, Vykinallia writhed.

Horus stalked towards Threyna.

The healer backed away.

No. I need more.

She wasn’t going to receive any.

“Monster!” Horus shouted. “All of you!” Black veins rippled like fractured stone throughout Horus’s face, emanating from his crown. “You have brought ruin to our country, and turned me into one of you!”

The rot spread through Horus as he reached deeper into the source of his blood magic. He glared at the armed fighters and mages around him, each as powerless to stop him as the dead and dying behind them. Pools of blood began to puddle at people’s feet, each congealing into a sharpened pike.

He’s going to kill us all…

Vykinallia’s kicking feet and gasping struggle were the only sounds of resistance. Her face purpled. Helpless shouts filled the air.

Threyna reached for her Inner Throne. The windows outside her Inner Throne room darkened as if Horus’s conjurations blotted out the sun. Threyna ignored the rot and sank deeper, attempting to seize control over Horus’s conjurations. The blood artifact made Horus formidable, but Threyna’s experience, her will, wrested the congealing pikes from Horus.

She let them fall to ash. A gust of wind blew the ash away.

Threyna climbed to her feet. The rot pounded in her veins, throbbing with enough force to make her woozy. Ignoring her blurring double vision, Threyna reached for the conjuration securing Vykinallia, but Horus resisted.

As Threyna and Horus battled for control, Horus’s eyes, nearly black from rot, went wide. Horus’s grip on his seat of power waned, and Threyna ripped control away from his conjurations. The vine strangling Vykinallia fell to ash. Vykinallia sucked down gulping breaths.

Horus spun, turning his back to Threyna. A dagger was lodged between his shoulder blades.

Threyna held up her hand. “No!”

Horus contorted to remove the dagger, but couldn’t reach.

“Stop!” Threyna shouted. “If he dies, the blood artifact—”

Callonus’s long sword plunged through Horus’s side. Another blade slashed across Horus’s chest, sending him spinning to his knees to face Threyna once again.

Threyna’s mind felt slow and sluggish. “No! You don’t understand.”

She tried to conjure something to pull Horus’s attackers off of him, but the moment she sank deeper into her Inner Throne, the rot reached her heart again. She dropped to a knee, then to her hands. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

The wind picked up like a vortex, Horus at the center of it. The draw on her soul from Horus attempting to heal his wounds increased. Too weak to hold on, she felt her soul slipping from her body’s grasp. She inclined her head towards Horus as someone struck him in the back of the head.

Horus fell to all fours across from Threyna. His white hair drank the black blood dripping from his crown, but his skin was scarred with rot. The draw on her soul stopped, and Horus froze. The rot reached his heart.

Horus was no longer a threat, but no one else knew. No one else understood what would happen when he died. Threyna attempted to speak, but only a choked gasp came forth.

Vykinallia grabbed a fallen long sword from the ground.

Threyna crawled towards Vykinallia, her hand outstretched. But too late.

Vykinallia chopped across the back of Horus’s bowed neck with a sickening crunch. The blow did not sever the spine. Black blood, thick and corrupted, puddled beneath him. Before Threyna could stop her, Vykinallia’s sword fell again, cleaving Horus’s head from his shoulders.

The crown remained atop Horus’s head as it thudded to the ground, the prongs of the artifact embedded into his skull. The severed head rolled in a semicircle, painting the ground around Horus’s body with a black arc.

The blood artifact glowed red; the forking black lightning within it raged like the storms overhead. Threyna hung her head. She knew she needed the blood artifact to curse others. But she wanted them to choose.

Not like this.

It dematerialized, melting into a slithering red liquid.

Chapter 28

The Blood Artifact

Vykinallia V

Valtarcia

Vykinallia’s shoulders heaved, her throat on fire. Horus’s body slumped into his pooling black blood. His feet twitched. His head rolled. But it was over.

She glared at Threyna. “Why would you bring him here?”

Vykinallia shook her head, looking around at the carnage one blood mage had wrought against their best fighters. Her fingers touched her neck where the blood vine had threatened to choke the life from her. Threyna had saved her life, but only after she’d jeopardized everyone.

Threyna wheezed. Her blue eyes, streaked black, inspected the space around Vykinallia as if she could barely focus on her.

Vykinallia grit her teeth. Reckless woman. What was she thinking, bringing a blood mage here? She shook her head. Scolding Threyna would accomplish nothing. Vykinallia wasn’t even sure Threyna would comprehend her given her current state.

“Chimera’s breath,” Vykinallia said. “Healers, tend to the woun—”

“Watch out!” Allaron shouted. He shoved into Vykinallia, spilling her to the ground.

A glowing red serpent struck out of the corner of Vykinallia’s gaze, narrowly missing her. Disoriented, she sprawled away from it, but it doubled back and struck again. Launching itself past Allaron, the red creature latched onto her leg. It coiled around her, lengthening faster than should have been possible. She grabbed at it, but, made of some type of fluid, it eluded her grasp.

Gasps joined the rolling thunder as the red liquid slithered around her upper thigh, climbed her waist, and encircled her torso, seeming to grow with each revolution it made around her body. Vykinallia shoved herself to her feet, but the fluid continued to cling to her.

Allaron attempted to pull it off, but it ignored him. Jecht and Kherus tried to help, but nothing seemed to make a difference. It slithered down her arm, then back up to her shoulder. Vykinallia shuddered in short rasping breaths as it slunk across her collarbones and around her throat.

“What is this?” Vykinallia cried.

“The crown!” Jecht said. “It came from Horus’s crown.”

Vykinallia didn’t understand. The red fluid snaked around her neck and slid up her cheek and around her ear.

Fangs sank into her lobe.

Sharp pain radiated through her skull and surged throughout her body. A scream tore from her lungs as she tried fruitlessly to yank the creature from the side of her head.

“Vykinallia!” Cerik shouted. His large hands gripped her shoulders, and gasps rose all around them.

Nothing stopped the pain. Fire. Lightning. Pressure. Her senses overwhelmed, the torture that had spread throughout her entire body began to recede, closing in to centralize around her ear. Vykinallia trembled, lifting her hand to her face.

Black veins crawled up her hands and snaked around her arms.

Her breath caught. Her heart ceased to beat. The rot receded, but the panic remained.

Cerik shook her. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Vykinallia could, but she couldn’t frame a response. Tears welled in her eyes, and a knot twisted her stomach, but with each passing moment, the pain and the rot in her veins subsided. Her fingertips traced up her cheek and towards her ear where the thing had bitten her.

She gasped as she touched something foreign. A metal point pierced her earlobe, exiting out the back. Cold like metal, a spine followed the contour of her ear with four ring-like projections that gouged her cartilage as it ascended to curl around the top.

“Vykinallia,” Cerik said, shaking her shoulders.

She released a trembling breath. “What is this thing?”

“I tried to warn you,” Threyna said.

Something passed from Horus’s body to Threyna’s. Invisible, but undoubtedly there. Vykinallia didn’t know how, but she could feel it. As it did, the rot around Threyna’s face retracted, tracing down her neck.

“What have you done?” Vykinallia asked, her voice laced with venom. She ripped free from Cerik’s grasp and stormed over to Threyna, pointing at her ear. “What is this?”

Threyna at least did her the kindness of looking abashed. Hanging her head and releasing a slow breath, she rubbed her upper arm. After a moment, she slid up her sleeve to reveal a row of dotted scars that encircled her arm.

“That is the blood artifact,” Threyna said. “The source of blood magic. The means with which the Skeleton King has built his army of blood mages.”

Kaelus stepped forward, applying pressure to a fresh wound on his shoulder. “And you brought it here?”

“It was that or let the Skeleton King continue to build his army,” Threyna said. “Believe me, this is not how I wanted this to happen. I tried to warn you, but the artifact needs a host.” She pointed to the scars on her arm. “Four prongs, each released upon the gaining of a new ability. Once the host accomplishes control over their Inner Throne, the artifact will release and search for a new host.”

“Like a plague,” Vykinallia hissed.

Threyna pursed her lips. “Like a curse.”

Vykinallia’s fists coiled at her sides. You wanted this. She shook her head. “You’ve endangered all of us.”

“I had to,” Threyna said through gritted teeth. “Zephyrus agreed. We tried to kill the Skeleton King. It’s possible that maybe we did. But even if we killed him, he is one among many. And though the other blood mages are not as strong as he or I, when they work together—when they put their will behind something—they’re too powerful to stop.”

Mutters rippled throughout the camp. Questions rose. Panic percolated.

Vykinallia bit her tongue. “Zephyrus agreed… to this?”

“Where is he?” Jecht asked.

“Has he ascended?” Iberion shouldered his way into the circle, clutching a laceration on his forearm.

Threyna met Vykinallia’s eyes. “I don’t know.”

The silence that followed only made the thunderstorms overhead all the more ominous.

“That’s why we need to do what we must,” Threyna said. “Everything in our power. To stop him.”

“Even cursing ourselves?” Callonus asked, exchanging a hesitant glance with Allaron.

Kherus crossed his arms over his chest. Jecht rubbed the back of his neck, and Cerik scuffed the ground.

The heat in Vykinallia’s cheeks began to simmer. She hated it, but Threyna was right. Threyna’s abilities were undeniable. One decent elemental mage was worth ten trained swordsmen. And one blood mage could turn an entire battle.

How many cursed ones does the Skeleton King have? What hope do we have of surviving… especially without Zephyrus?

Swallowing her pride, Vykinallia met Threyna’s gaze. “Yes, Callonus. Even if we must curse ourselves.” She came to Threyna’s side, fist clenched, to address the gathered camp.

“We don’t have the luxury to decide which weapons we wish to fight with,” Vykinallia said, loud enough for all to hear. She nodded in Allaron’s direction. “We can’t run if we have no walls to hide behind. Fighting is our only hope at survival.”

She turned to Threyna and swallowed the knot in her throat. “Threyna will teach me how to use the blood magic. And once I learn it, another will need to become the next host.”

Murmurs spread throughout the camp like the wildfire Damascus set on Stockhelm’s jungles, but Vykinallia doused them before they could consume all hope.

“This is our only chance,” Vykinallia said. “If what Threyna said is true…” Threyna glared daggers at Vykinallia’s side, but she ignored them. “When the blood mages work together—when they put their combined will behind something—they’re too powerful to stop. We must become more united than them.”

“And we don’t have long,” Threyna said. “The Skeleton King will not let his precious artifact go easily. He will abandon Valtarcia and come for it.”

An uproar surged throughout the camp.

Vykinallia drowned out the noise. She closed her eyes, stilling her breath. It made sense. If they wanted to stop the Skeleton King from harvesting the Valtarcians one soul at a time, they needed to lure him away.

Towards us.

The rest of the camp didn’t understand. More divided than ever in terms of where they should run to, arguments broke out in every direction. Vykinallia could practically feel their panic, like the rumbling of the stands of the arena when she stood upon the pulvinus.

Her clenched fist released.

He will come for us. For the artifact. For me.

A calm came over her. The Skeleton King will come, but he’ll expect us to run.

Vykinallia lifted her arms. “Enough!”

Silence rippled out around her, and all eyes fixed on her and the cursed metal on her ear.

“The Skeleton King is coming,” Vykinallia said. “So we must join together.” Looking to Kherus, she said, “Send word to Aponius and Aurellia. We will lure the Skeleton King and his legions onto the isthmus, and when they arrive, we had better be prepared.”

Slow nods surrounded her. The assent rippled through the camp just as panic had before, but idea and implementation were two very different things.

“Allaron, Kherus, and Iberion,” Vykinallia said. “Take charge in strategizing defenses. Everyone else, rest. It will be a long day ahead of us.”

The crowd around Horus’s body disbanded.

The others walked away. The rumbling floor of her pulvinus stilled.

Threyna touched Vykinallia’s arm. “We must get to work.”

Vykinallia pursed her lips. She didn’t like the idea of working so closely with Threyna. Zephyrus had warned her such a day would come when they would need to rely on each other in his absence. She only wished it hadn’t been so soon.

She looked up to the crackling sky, wondering where he was.

As she turned to face Threyna, Threyna’s eyes trained on something behind her. Vykinallia spun.

Zephyrus stood a dozen paces away. At first, Vykinallia didn’t trust her eyes.

I must be dreaming.

But as Zephyrus’s focus fell on her—on her ear—the rapid blink of his eyes, the slow unhinging of his jaw, and the slump in his shoulders proved he was no figment of her imagination. He was real—all fear, failure, and disappointment.

INTERLUDE II

Arkadia

Valencia

Ferrocles pinned her to the wall, his hand around her throat.

“Go.” Arkadia wheezed, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at Iylea, stock-still in the hallway. “Buy me time.” She uttered the last of the command words, the last of the relics bestowed upon her by the Corners of Kataan. Klayvorine had sacrificed all to prepare her for what she must do. Now it was her turn to pass the burden along.

She will warn Vykanicus. They will stop Paxoran.

Iylea’s hurried footsteps retreated from Ferrocles. The momentary peace that came with knowing the mortal realm still had a chance vanished along with the air in her lungs. The God of War’s fingers squeezed around her neck. She groaned, gasping for breath. Pressure built behind her eyes as she clawed at Ferrocles’s hand. Her suspended legs kicked to no avail.

He reared his fist back, and struck.

The world shattered. Cartilage crunched. Stone cracked. And all went dark.

Arkadia blinked her eyes open to a black void. Light did not exist, only pain. Despite the inability to see, she felt like she was spinning. Lying on a cold stone floor, she attempted to find which way was up, but her vertigo got the better of her.

It hurt to breathe. No air entered her nose, and breathing through her mouth felt like drinking a funeral pyre—corpse, wood, and fire. She forced herself to cough, but immediately regretted the decision. Whatever had lodged in her nose fell into her throat, making her gag.

She spat, further aggravating her sore throat. Reaching her fingers for her nose, she had difficulty finding it. After a few failed attempts grasping for her face, she slid her hand up her torso, neck and cheek. Dried blood coated her chin and lips. As she touched her nose to clear the obstruction in her airway, pain lanced through her entire skull, radiating from her nose to the back of her head.

A broken nose.

Wincing, Arkadia gently felt the shape of her smashed nose. Crooked and in need of resetting, she prepared herself for the impending pain with short sharp breaths through her mouth. With a jerk and the crunch of cartilage, Arkadia groaned. Heat rushed through her body, and agony throttled her bleak existence, but the flow of air returned through her nose.

Gasping for breath, she lay on her back until the black void around her stopped swirling. As if striking from the darkness, the memory of Ferrocles’s knuckles slammed into her face.

How am I still alive?

Arkadia rolled to her side and propped herself onto all fours. Her black prison, stained with the scent of death, stretched on for infinity and yet confined her to the extent of her reach. Crawling, she searched for a wall, an edge to her bounds. Still on hands and knees, unable to stand, she crept until her fingers met resistance. With no room left to venture that direction, she followed the edge of the wall.

The vile fragrance of decomposing flesh grew stronger until she found something that allowed her to place her location. A tattered, threadbare cloak. A cold, stiff form slumped against the wall. Tears fell, though she didn’t see his face. She didn’t need to.

Her husband—the best man she’d ever met over nearly four centuries and across three different continents—was dead.

She curled up beside him, though his corpse offered none of the warmth it had in life.

Burying her head in his shoulder, Arkadia whispered, “I’m sorry, Invinius.”

He sold his soul when he made a deal with Ferrocles: indestructible steel to defend the Celestic people from Damascus Drake’s tyranny, in exchange for a future favor. They had known it would mean breaking the chain, but not what it meant. In her foolish pride, she believed Invinius could break the links of the chain and discover the Traitor God Klayvorine warned of. She would lead the Fallen while Invinius spied on Valencia, repaying his debt to Ferrocles. And once he uncovered the traitor and opened the gate to the mortal realm, she would ascend with the Relics of Kataan and the Treasures of Stockhelm to save the Creator’s realms from Paxoran.

How foolish.

Invinius could not bear the burdens contained within the chain’s links. To spare his life, Arkadia volunteered to take on Invinius’s debt, making sure their son, Vykanicus, could ascend in her stead, when the time came.

But she’d been rash. Too aggressive, too driven to play the part of the spy as she had as a girl in the Palogian Isles. She’d gotten caught. After nearly 400 years of life, serving as Klayvorine’s immortal guardian over the mortal realm, she’d done everything she could, but failed to spare the life of the man she loved.

And here I will die too.

Back in Arcamedes’s tower as Paxoran and Ferrocles’s prisoner, Arkadia’s only hope rested in Vykanicus. If Iylea found her way to him, if he claimed the Relics of Kataan, if he ascended… The mortal realm may yet survive this.

Grinding stone startled her from her place beside Invinius. Flickering torchlight slipped into the tower cell, its sheen blinding. Arkadia shielded her eyes, afraid to see which of her captors intruded.

Blinking away spots, Arkadia gained her feet, using the wall to support her unsteadiness. She would not cower. She would not grovel. If Paxoran came to put an end to her, if Ferrocles wished to finish her off, she would die on her feet.

The torchlight entered, accompanied by soft footsteps and heaving breaths. The grinding stone sealed shut again, leaving Arkadia standing opposite the flame.

“Y-you… I th-thought you were dead.”

A woman’s voice, tinted with a mix of both surprise and hostility, flickered like the flame. Incinerae’s hair, like tongues of fire, approached, too fast for comfort.

Arkadia’s fists clenched, her back to the wall. “Incinerae.”

Her eyes adjusted to the light, drinking in the Goddess’s glare of smoldering coals. Incinerae had hated Arkadia ages before Klayvorine elevated her to the status of Immortal. Centuries before she’d taken Invinius’s place as the Breaker of Chains. She hadn’t understood before, but now she did; Arkadia would never forgive Paxoran and Ferrocles for Invinius’s death. No passage of time, no tally of years—no matter how great—would diminish her fury. And so was Incinerae’s hatred of her, ever since she slew Arcamedes.

Incinerae strode closer. Tears of magma sizzled down her cheek. “It is a c-c-cruel thing for them to place you here, where h-h-he once reigned.”

Arkadia’s understanding of Incinerae’s rage did little to unfurl her fists. “He attacked my people. Not the other way around. His greed, his grasp for power, is why he rests at the bottom of the sea, yet you blame me for his death.”

Incinerae scoffed. “S-s-oon it wo-won’t matter.” She wiped a sizzling tear away. “The Harbinger has come. Hameryn has sealed the gates. Not even Klayvorine’s Champion will be able to save us from Hameryn now.”

Arkadia gasped. Forgetting herself, her hands rose to her face, drawing a flare of pain from her broken nose. Eyes watering, she shook her head despite how it made the room spin.

“He closed the gates?” Arkadia asked. “No… How?”

Incinerae held her hand out before her, fingers half curled. “A gemstone, about this size, embedded at the base of the Celestial Falls.”

Arkadia’s eyes widened. Just like the one in the Whispering Wall. “Where is it now?”

Incinerae shrugged. “Hameryn has it. As we speak, the Harbinger is likely murdering Moterra and Phaebia. He’ll come for me next.”

Arkadia examined the floor, and Invinius’s corpse upon it. Vykanicus is still out there, my love. We have not failed yet, not while hope still lives. She stepped around him, closing the distance between her and Incinerae.

“Can you get me out of here?” Arkadia asked.

“Out?” Incinerae asked. When Arkadia fixed her with a glare, she nodded. “W-what are y-y-you going to do? There’s nowhere to r-run.”

“I’m not going to run,” Arkadia said. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the gemstones. Then I’m going to open the gates.”

Laela

Azorath

Laela’s boot skidded along the slushy snow in her haste. Drops of melting ice fell from tree limbs. Puddles gathered underneath the melting icicles clinging to rooftops. With the wind no longer as harsh and the snowfall relenting, she hugged herself despite the warming climate. A chill ran down her spine and rippled through her arms to terminate in her phantom fingertips.

The Skeleton King is still alive.

It didn’t make sense. It made less sense than the sudden change in weather. She glanced down at the braided belt around her waist. The moment she touched the white-and-blue, prongless artifact, the beacon in her mind came to life, pointing to the blood artifact that cursed her and her sister. She had no doubt that obtaining the artifact hadn’t awakened the Skeleton King, but rather just revealed him. Yet she wasn’t so sure that removing the crown from the ice queen’s head hadn’t been causal to the change in Azorath’s conditions.

Hurrying along the streets of Azorath, Laela pressed past the thawing human icicles. She didn’t want to be around to see what would become of them—whether they would be alive and confused, or dead and finally allowed to decompose.

She shuddered, following the path to her boat on the southern coast of Azorath where she hoped the Klaytonian pirate who had escorted her still waited. The beacon in her mind—south and west—could only be in Stockhelm, or New Rheynia as Tyrus said the tyrants called it. Having no idea where Threyna would be, considering Tyrus’s schemes to steal the Treasures of Stockhelm and reclaim Stockhelm from the Drakes and Helixuses, her best bet was following the Skeleton King. Wherever he is, Threyna will be there. Fighting him.

Her phantom fingers tingled as memories stole her from the wintery wasteland of Azorath and transferred her back to Rheynia. She recalled Aylenia’s touch. The warmth of her breath in Laela’s ear. Her love, lost too soon. Their future, stolen by the Skeleton King, the Order legionaries, and the cursed isle of undeath.

Aylenia wasn’t the only one Laela had lost. Her father. Her mother. Aedile Rance. Dracus, Canton, Fawkes, and countless others—all gone too soon. All she had left was Threyna.

Now the Skeleton King was back, and no longer confined to Rheynia’s borders. She had no doubt that Threyna was in danger. The known world was in danger.

He must be stopped.

By the time Laela reached the edge of the plateau overlooking the coastline, she had taken off her cloak in the budding warmth. To her relief, the ship bobbed in the bay below where she had left it, protected from the worst of the treacherous tides and tremendous gusts. But in the distance, black lightning clouds fanned out, darkening the sky. Ominous rolls of low rumbling thunder carried across the ocean, heading in her direction.

Leaving for New Rheynia would not be an easy journey. Following the beacon to the Skeleton King would be more difficult yet, but choice had been removed.

Laela turned back to the snow-covered city and the surrounding countryside of Azorath, now a slushy mess. Similar to what had become of Rheynia, she wondered what it might have looked like had the Gods not abandoned it.

As she descended the hillside leading to the bay, the beacon in her mind winked out.

Laela gasped. What happened? She adjusted her belt, inspecting it to see if perhaps she had done something to make the Skeleton King’s location disappear. Before she could discover anything, the beacon reappeared, but further west.

Gory ghosts, how did he do that?

With too many questions and no answers, only one thing was clear: if the Skeleton King could move that fast, she could not afford to delay. She raced down the hillside, hoping against hope that she could find Threyna before the Skeleton King did.

PART III

Chapter 29

Only the Victors

Fenyx III

Valencia

Fenyx tossed what was left of Phaebia’s stone body beside the withered husk that was once Moterra and stared at their remains. He had not imagined the Gods, the Judges—deities of any kind—to be so vulnerable. Despite their abilities and appearances, they were so… human.

Fenyx snorted. The flesh of his burned cheek twitched. The scar on his right cheek tightened. They were not worthy Gods.

As Fenyx turned to leave, he caught his reflection amidst the Hall of Mirrors. He closed his eyes and snarled. The lie of his appearance remained, burned in his mind’s eye. Earlier, his skin had hung off his slight frame, scarred and poxed. Now, his marred flesh was bone-white, ashen. His face skeletal within the helm Paxoran had given him. But worst of all, his bones twisted at odd angles. Crooked and warped, he shouldn’t have been able to move, let alone slay two Gods. More Valencian lies.

Fenyx opened his eyes, keeping his gaze on the ground. The gravel and dust of Phaebia’s once-divine form blew atop Moterra’s sap-stained corpse as Paxoran’s cloak whisked into the doorway.

“You have afforded yourself well,” Paxoran said, his red eyes glowing like cinders against his pale flesh.

“One more.”

“Indeed,” Paxoran said. He waved towards Ferrocles within the anchor room. “Ferrocles will aid you in defeating the Goddess of Flames. Incinerae may not appear like—”

Fenyx reached for the hem of Paxoran’s sleeve but caught himself before touching the God of Peace. Composing himself, he took a stilling breath. “I do not need aid.”

Paxoran held up a long, thin finger as Ferrocles strode closer.

“You do not,” Paxoran said, his brow narrowing. “But Ferrocles will accompany you in any case.” His tone offered no room for argument. “Ferrocles, show Fenyx to the Hall of Torches. Incinerae has likely locked herself in her chambers, but we must not let her linger long. Vengeance will not wait on her behalf.”

Fenyx crossed his arms and grunted.

Ferrocles nodded, slinging a bracered forearm over Fenyx’s shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”

Paxoran inhaled sharply. “Might I have a private word with our Harbinger?” Paxoran said, rather than asked.

Ferrocles bowed his head and backed away.

Fenyx glanced aside, but something in the reflection of one of the many mirrors caught his eye. As Ferrocles backed away, Fenyx didn’t see the large bearded God of War. Instead, donning his leather armor was a black-feathered birdman. Blinking his disbelief away, Fenyx refocused. As the birdman spun on his heel, the inky-black beak stretched forward.

A carrion crow.

Fenyx didn’t understand. He attempted to find a mirror that reflected Paxoran, but every angle was either blocked by his position in the doorway or Fenyx’s frame.

Once Ferrocles left earshot, Paxoran leaned in, licking his thin lips. “I know you do not require aid—that is not the reason why I am sending Ferrocles with you.”

Fenyx grunted, shifting his weight to the side to find an angle at which to see Paxoran’s reflection. Paxoran leaned closer yet, pulling Fenyx’s brow down to his own before he could glimpse the reflection.

Paxoran tilted his head until his lips were practically against Fenyx’s ear. “Before Incinerae, you must kill Ferrocles.”

Fenyx inclined his head from the bowed posture Paxoran pulled him into. He adjusted the helm on his head and swallowed the tension in his throat. How long has Ferrocles been Paxoran’s ally? Why turn on him now?

Phaebia’s singsong voice rang in his head. “How many lies has Hameryn sold to you?”

He scanned the God of Peace’s red eyes. “I thought he was with us.”

Paxoran’s lips parted in a placating smile. “A God of Peace, a God of Death—why should we need a God of War?”

Fenyx looked past Paxoran to the bearded God in the anchor room.

“Kill him,” Paxoran whispered. “Before he realizes that he was never part of the long-term plan.” He patted Fenyx’s pauldron and walked away. “Return once it’s done.”

Fenyx watched the God of Peace walk away, but then directed his attention to the mirrors opposite the entryway. Stepping aside, Fenyx removed himself from the mirror’s line of sight to Paxoran’s back.

Fenyx blinked. He didn’t see anything. No black cloak. No shadow. Nothing.

Paxoran’s footsteps paused. “Oh, and Fenyx…”

A pair of red eyes stared into the Hall of Mirrors. Nothing else, just faceless, disembodied eyes. Fenyx continued to stare at their reflection, but answered the God of Peace.

“Yes, Paxoran?”

“Make haste,” Paxoran said.

Fenyx couldn’t look away from the floating red eyes in the mirror. He didn’t know what the reflections meant, but doubt wriggled beneath his armor.

I will not end up like Ferrocles. He needs me, and I am no threat to him.

Fenyx tore his gaze from the mirrors and their lies to meet Paxoran’s stare. “They will all rest in the Hall of Mirrors, Paxoran.”

He strode from the hall and joined Ferrocles. They exited the anchor room together, a less-than-companionable silence accompanying them. More than once, Fenyx caught Ferrocles glancing at the burns along the left side of his body as they stalked the corridors of Valencia.

The Hate within him yearned for another fight. Ferrocles was next to die anyway. What difference does it make where I kill him?

Ferrocles cast another sidelong glance at Fenyx.

Fenyx growled. “If you have something to say, speak.”

Ferrocles chuckled. His meaty hand stroked his black beard. “I have seen every Breaker and potential Harbinger Hameryn has ever kept an eye on. Mortals with the power of Gods, mages who could single-handedly flatten armies. But you…” Ferrocles scoffed, shaking his head. “You are just a man.”

Fenyx planted his feet.

He was wrong. Fenyx possessed magic. Healing magic, but magic all the same. Not that it strengthened his argument.

Ferrocles took a few more steps before stopping to glance at Fenyx over his shoulder.

“I only require a blade,” Fenyx said. “Even a broken blade is enough for me to kill anyone—mortal or God.”

Ferrocles hmphed. “Have I offended you, God of Death?” He mocked the title.

When Fenyx didn’t answer, Ferrocles continued. “You may have killed Phaebia and Moterra, but should Paxoran ever set you on me, understand this: I will kill you.” He turned to face Fenyx. “If he wishes to betray me, so be it. But that doesn’t mean you have to die too.”

Fenyx’s nostril quivered as the skin of his burned cheek twitched.

Ferrocles came closer and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “He speaks of vengeance on the Creator, but what care do you have of the Creator? Should Paxoran instruct you to kill me, tell me. To the chain with his vengeance. Join me and we can defeat him and rule the Creator’s world—War and Death. Imagine the glory of mortals fighting in constant battle, proving their worth to us.” He made a fist and gently punched Fenyx’s chest.

Fenyx grunted. “Why do you think Paxoran would wish to kill you?”

Ferrocles’s beard widened as his lips parted to reveal a beaming grin of white teeth. “The only peace Paxoran knows is one of solitude. He concealed his plans for centuries before I discovered his secret. But I wasn’t foolish like Klayvorine and the Corners, trying to gather proof before communicating with the Creator. I confronted Paxoran—told him I wanted in. Blood and battle are in my nature—our nature. He saw the value in what I could do for him.”

The Hate clenched the muscles of his jaw. These prideful Gods. “What value is that?”

Ferrocles’s smile receded into a snarl. “War, Fenyx. War. War is the great uniter of the mortal realm. What better motivator is there to innovate than survival? What else would break down rivalries and bring culture, customs, and ideas together? The victors learn from their defeated enemies and repurpose their strengths, then apply them against the next foe. Win or lose, the strong survive. Society progresses. It is not until one victor dominates the world that the true peace the Creator longs for can be achieved.”

The Hate within Fenyx throbbed. “You chose the Rheynians.”

Ferrocles shook his head, tossing his black beard left and right. “I do not choose. The strong decide. I may instigate the battles, but I choose no sides.” Ferrocles scoffed. “Choose the Rheynians? How do you think the people of Stockhelm came to possess the elemental magic?” He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “I stole it from the Elementals and gave it to the Judges. Why do you think the Rheynians migrated west to settle the Judges’ lands?”

Again he jabbed his thumb into his chest.

You? You.

Ferrocles might not have chosen sides, but he propagated the war that tore his family to shreds. The memory of his parents—slain on the sands of Klaytos by Rheynian slave traders—burrowed into his mind. The burns all along his body prickled. His nostrils flared. Fenyx pursed his lips to keep his cheek from twitching.

Through bared teeth, Fenyx said, “If you are so valuable, then why do you believe he would ask me to kill you?”

The Hate wanted Ferrocles dead and added to the heap of Gods on the floor of the Hall of Mirrors. Fenyx restrained himself, awaiting Ferrocles’s answer.

“All things lose their value eventually,” Ferrocles said. “Remember that.” Ferrocles began to walk down the corridor again.

“Wait,” Fenyx said as an idea formed amidst the swirling Hate.

Ferrocles cocked an eyebrow.

Fenyx approached, glancing over his shoulder as if to make certain no one was listening. He leaned in, close enough to feel the heat of Ferrocles’s breath.

“He told me to kill you,” Fenyx said. “After Incinerae.”

The lie, laced with so much truth, came easily. The smile that broke across Ferrocles’s face, even easier. He shook his head and exhaled through his teeth. Clapping Fenyx on the shoulder, he guided Fenyx to continue down the corridor.

“Very well,” Ferrocles said. “After Incinerae, we’ll return to the Hall of Mirrors. Together, we’ll defeat Paxoran.” He nodded at Fenyx. “Let the strong emerge victorious.”

Fenyx did not bother to return Ferrocles’s grin. He would be removing it from his smug face soon enough. Absent Ferrocles’s suspicious glares, they followed the corridor to the Hall of Torches. The ceiling was lower than the main corridors, absent the lush carpeted floor or the windows into the mortal realm along the walls. Aptly named, the Hall of Torches was lined with golden sconces in close proximity on either side of Incinerae’s domain. The bright flickering orange glow and the accompanying heat given off by the torches closed around Fenyx like the oil-laden deer hide tent that caved in on him as a boy.

Fenyx’s throat went dry. He allowed Ferrocles to take the lead so he could follow in the very center of the hall, as far away from the flames as possible.

“Where is the door?” Fenyx asked, looking past Ferrocles to the seemingly endless corridor of fire ahead.

Ferrocles shrugged. “Somewhere in here.”

“There’s no door,” Fenyx said.

Ferrocles turned, casting a glare as hot as the surrounding fires in Fenyx’s direction. “You are not in the mortal realm anymore, little Godling. This celestial castle is filled with secret passages and hidden doors.”

“You don’t know?” Fenyx asked incredulously. “You live here and you don’t know?”

Ferrocles’s bushy brows angled over his dark eyes. “We all have our secrets, and where a God rests is not something shared.”

Fenyx recalled the four puzzling doors he encountered in his search for Phaebia.

He grunted. “I hate puzzles.”

“And fire,” Ferrocles said, laughing. “How did you plan on defeating a Goddess of Fire if you quiver in fear at the torches of her domain?”

Fenyx snarled. “Fear and hatred are far from the same.” It didn’t change the fact that Ferrocles was right. Fenyx had dreaded his confrontation with Incinerae since the moment she walked into the anchor room.

He held his unburned right hand toward the flame, attempting to inoculate himself to the fire’s consuming tongues. The heat licked at his palm, but did not harm him. That didn’t stop a cold sweat from trickling down the center of his spine. He kept his hand held to the fire, following Ferrocles as he inspected the golden sconces.

“What are you looking for?” Fenyx asked.

Ferrocles traced his finger down the angled triangles that ornamented the sconce’s base. “Something to stand out.”

Fenyx grunted, swallowing the Hate that made him want to draw Paxoran’s sword and stab Ferrocles through the back here and now.

Continuing down the Hall of Torches, Fenyx stopped. With his hand held before the flame, no heat moistened his palm. Believing his body had acclimated, he held his opposite hand to the fire. Despite not having been held to the torches, this hand sensed no heat from the torch.

Fenyx drew closer, inspecting the torch. It and the sconce appeared no different than its neighbors. Testing the nearby flames, all but this one emitted heat. Fenyx reached toward the flame, half-expecting it to roar to life and scorch his fingertips. But it didn’t. Even touching the flickering fire, no heat radiated.

“I found something,” Fenyx said.

Ferrocles abandoned the sconce he was fiddling with to join Fenyx. Seeing Fenyx’s fingers in the fire’s grasp without pain, Ferrocles extended his own hand toward the torch.

“Cold.” Ferrocles held his hand to neighboring torches, the same as Fenyx had, but met the same result—all hot, as fire ought to be. Going to the opposite wall, it wasn’t long until Ferrocles found another heatless torch.

“Here,” Ferrocles said. “See if there’s anything different about the sconce.”

While Ferrocles inspected the sconce, Fenyx reached into the fire. At the bottom of the golden dish holding the flame, Fenyx felt an angled switch.

“There’s a lever,” Fenyx said. He flipped it with a click.

Nothing happened.

He growled. “Burn me and these cursed puzzles.”

“I see,” Ferrocles said. “Clever fire-nymph.” Click.

Suddenly, the golden sconce melted, as did the others around it. On the wall opposite him, the same thing happened on Ferrocles’s sconce. The neighboring torches melted their golden holsters as well, the metallic liquid dripping and converging into a reflecting sheen as smooth as glass. Fenyx hesitantly extended his hand to the molten gold. No heat emanated from it.

“This is the door,” Ferrocles said. His arm disappeared into the golden glass up to the elbow. He pulled his hand back out, unharmed. He nodded his head at the golden wall before Fenyx. “You go that way. I’ll take this way. I’ll do what I can to help, but you must be the one to kill her.”

Fenyx nodded, his jaw clenched. The Hate burned hotter than any fire. Like Phaebia and Moterra before her, Incinerae would join the dead. He drew the red sword forged from Paxoran’s body, and with a deep breath, he stepped into Incinerae’s domain.

Born of his nightmares, the room burned orange. Fire in all directions. Fenyx’s breath came short and sharp. His heart hammered inside his ribs, and the Hate was all but forgotten. Sword drawn in trembling fingers, he scanned the room for Incinerae and was relieved to find it void of the Fire Goddess’s presence.

Across the bedchamber constructed of smooth volcanic rock and glowing coals, Ferrocles surveyed the quarters, his axe at the ready. Meeting one another’s eyes, they both lowered their weapons.

“You said she’d be here,” Fenyx said.

Ferrocles grumbled. “Make sure she’s not hiding anywhere.”

Glancing around the room, Fenyx didn’t see any place to hide. Candles illuminated every crack and crevice of the chamber, reflecting off the polished obsidian that made up the furnishings. A monstrous fur adorned the floor, made of some beast Fenyx contented himself to never see alive. Other animal heads were mounted to the wall with dagger-like teeth or spear-tipped horns. On the mantle atop the hearth, twice as wide as Fenyx’s wingspan, sculptures of scaled or winged creatures caught the flickering light.

“She’s not here,” Ferrocles said.

Fenyx seethed through his teeth, but before he could respond, the hearth roared to life, startling both him and Ferrocles. The gold entryway through which they had arrived began to close. From floor to ceiling, the portal shrank in on itself.

Gasping, Fenyx threw himself towards the wall he’d entered through, only to meet stone as the way sealed shut. Fenyx’s breath choked off.

The Rheynian slavers’ boiling oil poured through the deerskin tent, dousing him in agony all over again. The walls seemed to close in around him in a great conflagration. Trapped. Sweat beaded on his brow, and a sudden claustrophobia quickened his already rapid heart.

He forced himself to breathe.

Inhale.

Exhale.

He allowed his fear to be swallowed by the Hate. The Gods’ condescension, the injustices of the mortal realm—he needed to end it. All of it. He would not let an old fear impede his future. Clenching his teeth, Fenyx stormed across Incinerae’s rooms and seized Ferrocles by the collar of his leather armor. “Where is she if not here?”

Ferrocles grabbed Fenyx’s wrist. “I don’t know. Now unhand me.”

“Think,” Fenyx snarled, not letting go.

Ferrocles shoved Fenyx off. Readjusting his leather cuirass, Ferrocles fixed Fenyx with a threatening glare atop a stabbing index finger. “Lay a hand on me again, and I’ll cut it off and mount it to the wall with the rest of the beasts.”

Fenyx growled, but eyed the creatures a second time. “Why would a Goddess of Fire have such displays?”

Ferrocles’s eyes widened. “Arcamedes. The God of Beasts—Incinerae’s lover. She took his possessions after he was killed.” He turned from Fenyx, holding his hands out to the candles the same way they had to the torches in the corridor. “She’s not here. She’s in his chambers.”

“Where?” Fenyx asked.

“Help me find a way out,” Ferrocles snapped.

The two searched for flames absent heat.

Ferrocles held his hand to the hearth. “The fire is cold.” He reached his arm inside, then ducked his head. Before Fenyx could question, Ferrocles disappeared into the hearth.

Fenyx followed, but stopped before the fire. He gulped, then took a deep breath before the roaring flames. It won’t burn me. It’s not real. The sweat dripping down his brow said otherwise. It won’t burn me. I am a God of Death. Before his nerve could fray again, he ducked his head and charged into the hearth.

The flames didn’t burn, and he emerged unscathed in the Hall of Torches. He placed his hands on his knees, panting. I am fine. Tip the scales… to the chain with this Fire Goddess.

“This way,” Ferrocles said, waving Fenyx to follow.

Fenyx wiped the sweat from his brow and, setting his jaw, chased after Ferrocles’s shadow. Back the way they had come, past a wall of windows into the mortal realm, and up the winding stairs of a tower, Fenyx kept pace with the God of War until they reached a stone wall. Engraved with a scaled amphibious beast, the wall blocking their path was no different than that of the one Phaebia hid behind.

“Get ready,” Ferrocles whispered. “First Incinerae, then Hameryn.”

Fenyx nodded, drawing his sword.

Ferrocles gripped his axe, then hovered his hand over the embossed stone in a spiral pattern. Following the arc of his hand, a white glow illuminated, and the stones began to divide, retracting into the walls to open for them.

Fenyx seized Ferrocles’s axe haft with his right hand, and with the other, he plunged his sword into the God of War’s back. Bone crunched. Organs tore. And whatever lifeforce flowed through the Gods’ veins departed, bleeding into the red-and-black sword.

Ferrocles let out a choked, gagging breath and coughed blood onto the dividing stone wall. Before he could turn, Fenyx ripped the axe free from his hand and twisted his sword. The blade scraped against the bones of his spine, dropping Ferrocles to his knees.

The Hate drank deep, sucking down Ferrocles’s vitality, his arrogance, and his power. Fenyx reveled in the overflow of energy, greater than Moterra’s and Phaebia’s combined.

Ferrocles tried to speak, but Fenyx twisted the blade, denying the God of War any last words. Fenyx leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“The victors learn from their defeated enemies,” Fenyx said, repeating Ferrocles’s prideful words back to him. “They repurpose their strengths, then apply them against the next foe. Win or lose, the strong survive.”

Ferrocles attempted to speak, but blood filled his lungs and came forth, bubbling down his black beard.

“The strong, Ferrocles, have won again.” Fenyx tore the blade free as the wall retracted open. Ferrocles fell forward, into the dark chamber. His flesh withered, aging decades by the moment. His hair grayed, his muscles deflated, and his skin eroded until only a skeleton donned the God of War’s armor.

Dragging Ferrocles’s remains into the stairwell and out of the entryway, Fenyx strode into the dark chamber. A woman’s whimpers resounded within.

“Show yourself, Incinerae,” Fenyx said. “Now your time has come.”

Chapter 30

The Slums

Danella V

Salmantica

Danella clutched the hem of her hooded cloak to conceal her face. It was the second time in as many days that she had left Sentigard with no intentions of returning. After witnessing Damascus, the man he had become—the man she had made him to be—she couldn’t stand to be around him. Besides, aiding Laeden in smuggling the Valtarcian refugees inside the shelter of Salmantica’s walls would be no easy task, certainly not one she could hope to achieve hiding behind others. No. This was her mission. Her purpose.

Leaning against the corner of a building in view of the lower gate of the northeast wall, however, she fidgeted at the prospect of fulfilling that purpose alone. Daenus was taking longer than expected to return. After freeing Laeden from the cell, the former King’s Guard Knight escorted the once-disgraced prince and now the King of Valtarcia from the city limits.

Having Daenus declare himself to her was a victory in its own right. One she didn’t deserve. But if Laeden was spotted, if they were caught sneaking out of the city, nothing she could do would save them. She was no longer queen. No longer queen mother. She abandoned those mantles the moment she chose Laeden over Damascus.

The Vigiles and Sentinels manning the gate changed shifts, but still—no sign of Daenus.

It was morning in name alone. The black thunderclouds either did not obey the wind’s commands, or the rainless storm had encompassed the entirety of the known world. The cover of darkness did little to diminish her growing apprehension. By day’s end, she would speak before a gathered crowd of Revivalists in the cellar of the late Count Elrod Horne’s Chimeran Inn. She only hoped Liario, the sniveling former adviser to Lentulis Cassius, could serve better as an organizer for her than he had as a war counselor to Damascus; otherwise, she would be preaching her blasphemy to an empty room.

She’d thought long about how best to phrase her words to gain support. The truth was too unpalatable, evidenced by Daenus. No, gaining the support and motivating the Revivalists that this was The Age of the End they had always feared required careful manipulation if she hoped to inspire them to turn against the very king they helped coronate. Too much truth, and she would have a riot on her hands. Not enough and they might find Damascus’s plan of sitting around and doing nothing too appealing to pass up.

The most pressing concern, and the greatest of their challenges, came at the risk of the expedited nature of such a gathering. Unlike when the Revivalists first formed, they were on a timeline. And if Laeden were right about the death of the Gods and the army of blood mages from Rheynia, they did not have time to hand-select invitees, or parse the wheat from the chaff to take the most useful, dependable, or well-positioned allies. They only had who came. Who Liario found. Or who she could convince between now and then. And there was no way of telling how many of them would come to join her, or come to stop her.

The new Sentinels and Vigiles took turns frisking a man at the gate. Danella had no doubt as to who it was. Despite his face’s concealment, no one but Daenus—or Laeden before him—would attempt to return through the gates after Damascus ordered the city under lockdown.

Danella released her held breath as the gate was raised, and the guards allowed Daenus through. Head down and walking briskly, Daenus made his way—not towards her, but past her—moving west as if returning to Sentigard on the strict orders of the king he had explained to the unsuspecting Vigiles and Sentinels.

Danella waited for him to disappear from her line of sight, as well as that of the gate guards. It would not do well to draw attention to herself. News of Danella’s departure and Laeden’s apparent escape would reach Damascus soon enough, and she had no doubt every Jackal, Vigile, and Sentinel would be scouring the city searching for them.

After the gate guards returned to minding the empty road into Salmantica, Danella left the lower gate, but didn’t follow Daenus’s path. She knew where he would be going: the slums. To speak with Laegus, a poor merchant to whom Danella credited much of the Revivalists’s early growth. Once one of her three primary messengers, along with Aelon Ironpine and Banis the Ratman, Laegus’s perceived lack of wealth had never been due to reckless business ventures, but his piety. A man of the people, owed more favors than the Six themselves as some had said, he gave most of his earnings away to help those less fortunate. Considering the state of the city, everyone needed someone like Laegus. If Danella could convince him to rally his people to her cause of aiding the Valtarcians, perhaps there was hope for them yet.

South from the gate, west toward the Aquarian, and further south toward the slums, Danella saw firsthand what had become of her city. Piles of ash remained where Celestic idols were torched. Six Arrowed Stars erected on street corners were dyed red with dried blood. The bodies hanging from them—dead. Not from dehydration, starvation, or the torture of being suspended from the nails in their hands and feet, but from stab wounds to the belly.

“And now he’s the best kind of mage,” Damascus had said. “A dead one.”

Danella swallowed her nausea.

Dust and debris littered the streets. Some buildings were broken by the earthquakes that began after Moterra’s death, but others met more mundane ends. Broken storefronts and dismantled carts, the result of riots and looting amongst hungry and scared people, were more prevalent in the slums than elsewhere in the city.

Once away from prying eyes, Danella joined Daenus.

“Worse than I thought,” Daenus said.

Danella nodded, as they passed a body slumped in the gutter of the street. She hoped the boy was just sleeping, but skinny and pale with bleary, bloodshot eyes that stared blankly ahead, she knew the truth. She wanted to believe that if Damascus left Sentigard and walked these streets, perhaps he would see reason, but she didn’t believe it any more than she believed that boy in the gutter was dreaming.

As they neared a bakery Laegus once used to distribute instructions to Revivalists in the lower city, the acrid scent of smoke filled Danella’s nostrils and stung her eyes. Rounding the corner, the source of the stench billowed out into the street in clouds as dark as those above Salmantica. Ahead, a group of Vigiles dragged a body from the smoking building.

“What happened here?” she asked.

“Six save me,” Daenus said. “That’s Laegus.”

Buckets of murky river water splashed to douse the last of the embers of what was once Laegus’s bakery, spewing a fresh plume of hissing noxious vapor. While Danella stood back, Daenus spoke with the Captain of the Vigiles, Heclan Allos, cousin to Atonus, the Royal Master at Arms. He ran his hand through his short black hair, salted gray around the temples, wiping back sweat.

The Vigiles under his command had stopped the spread of the fire from neighboring buildings, but so far, no one knew what started the inferno.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Heclan said to Daenus. “I have half my men putting out fires the Sentinels started, and the other half stopping riots that the people can’t be blamed for. There’s no food. No water. Ser, you have seen the streets. We need more resources. I’ve petitioned the king, but to no avail. All I ask is for the recruits in the Lion’s Academy to aid us in keeping the king’s peace. Atonus has agreed to the matter, but twice, the king has denied me.”

Heclan gestured to Laegus’s body on the ground beneath a white sheet, soiled with grime. He leaned close to Daenus’s burned face and whispered.

Danella approached, posing as a nosy passerby to listen.

“This wasn’t an accident or a riot,” Heclan said. “This was murder.”

“Murder?” Daenus asked.

“Murder,” Heclan said. “Stabbed in the belly. Six times. Six save us, if Saint Laegus isn’t safe in the slums, no one is.”

Danella’s throat went dry. As more passersby stopped to gawk, Heclan and Daenus moved away from the growing crowd. Unable to follow them, Danella peeked inside the burned-out bakery. Within, a pair of Vigiles assisted a girl from the wreckage.

No older than her youngest handmaiden, a girl with either deep black or soot-stained hair coughed her way to the street. Same as her hair, her skin was dark, made darker by what remained in the fire’s wake. As she neared, Danella noticed the manacles about her wrists and ankles.

“Sit down and wait,” a Vigile said. “Try to run and you’ll never make it to the Six Arrowed Star.”

The girl sat, fists balled between her knees, covered in blood. Silent tears cut through the soot on her narrow cheeks and down her pointed chin.

As the Vigiles walked off to assist in moving people along to not block the street, Danella snuck behind them. As Danella neared, the girl glanced up with bleary eyes.

“Are you okay?” Danella asked.

The girl’s angled features sharpened further, but she didn’t open her mouth to speak.

Danella knew a mask when she saw one. Adjusting her cloak to conceal her face from those on the street, she sat down beside the girl. “What’s your name?”

Nothing. She only stared.

“What happened?”

Nothing.

Danella leaned closer, unprovoked by the girl’s obstinance. Laegus was murdered, but Danella did not believe for one moment the one responsible hid behind this girl’s teary eyes.

“Laegus was a friend of mine,” Danella said. “Now he’s lying in the street—dead. You just emerged from his burned-out shop with blood on your hands. So if it’s not what it appears to be, you need a friend who will listen. I’ll ask you one more time. What happened?”

Her black eyes glowered, but the smoke in her lungs forced its way out, breaking the dam of silence. “You won’t believe me.”

The gathered crowd began to whisper as blood seeped into the white sheet atop Laegus’s body. Amidst the clamor of gasps and disbelief, Danella heard utterances of the same name.

“Ispara,” Danella said. “That’s your name, right?”

Ispara’s nose wrinkled, sniffling. She nodded, barely moving her head.

“What happened, Ispara?” Danella asked, glancing towards the Vigiles. “We haven’t much time.”

The girl glared at her. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know, girl,” Danella said. “So what happened?”

Ispara examined Danella. “He came asking for food, but Pap—”

The mask cracked. She was going to say Papa.

Danella glanced at Laegus. “But Laegus had no more to give…”

Ispara nodded, hanging her head. “I tried to stop the bleeding.” Her shoulders shook.

Danella rubbed Ispara’s back. She knew what it was like to lose a father, though she doubted Laegus sired her. With as much loss as Danella had suffered in recent days, she knew such details didn’t matter. She also knew that anyone that close to Laegus likely knew many of his contacts. She told herself her kindness would have extended to the poor girl even if such potential had not existed, but she knew that was a lie.

She bit her lip, not proud of the realization, but this was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to pass up.

Tracing soft circles on Ispara’s back, Danella shushed her. “I know, I know.” Danella sighed. “I know this is difficult, but do you know who did it? Did you see him?”

Ispara nodded her head.

“Did he see you?”

The girl shook, not just her head, but her entire body. The chains about her ankles and wrists clinked with each shudder.

Danella wrapped her arm around her, her mind working. If someone stabbed a local hero and set fire to his establishment, the best way to hide would be to return. Hide in plain sight.

“Is he here?” Danella asked, glancing at the Vigiles speaking with Daenus.

Ispara inclined her head and scanned the crowd. Her eyes fixed on a point in the Vigiles’ direction. Danella followed her gaze, but there were too many people to discern which was the culprit. Before she could ask, a man with curly brown hair and gaunt cheeks that made his face look like a spade stared back. In the moment their eyes met, the curly-headed, shovel-faced man’s throat bobbed as if he’d swallowed an onion whole.

“His name?” Danella asked, careful not to spook Shovel-Face.

“Rhemus,” Ispara said.

As if reading the name on Ispara’s lips, Rhemus took off. Before she knew it, Danella was on her feet, shouting.

“Stop Rhemus! Stop that man. He murdered Laegus.”

Her voice carried through the slums, echoing off the dilapidated buildings and cutting through the clamor. People moved at once, but none faster than Ser Daenus. In a few long strides and a blink of an eye, Daenus tackled Rhemus to the ground, driving his shovel face into the dirt road.

With all eyes on the commotion, Danella took Ispara by the shoulders. “More scum like Rhemus will murder good people like your papa. The world is falling to ruin and it will only get worse. Unless we do something about it. I need your help, Ispara.”

Ispara’s mouth gaped open; her dark eyes twinkled with recognition. As Danella had stood to point out Rhemus, her hood had fallen off. Danella pulled her hood back up, but not before Ispara saw.

“You’re the—”

“Not anymore,” Danella said, putting her hand to the girl’s cheek. “But I have a plan to protect this city, and I believe you can help me.”

Chapter 31

Seat of Power

Threyna IV

Valtarcia

Threyna had never been described as a people person. It shouldn’t have been hard to believe. After her father was abducted by the Skeleton King, and her mother and sister abandoned her to form the Wraith, Threyna was left to be raised by the militant Underground. Her tough, blunt pragmatism wasn’t a negative when it came to climbing the ranks of the Underground’s legions, surviving the wastes of Rheynia, or fighting her way across Perillian. But now it was a negative.

At least that was what Vykinallia would have her believe.

Of all the world’s cruel japes, why did the blood artifact choose her?

Threyna crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not focusing.”

“Can you read minds now too?” Vykinallia hissed, her eyes closed.

“No,” Threyna said, her patience waning. “But I can hear your heartbeat, and it is not relaxed, calm, or still.”

Vykinallia’s eyes snapped open. “Maybe I would be calm if you weren’t barking at me.”

“No one is barking!” Threyna tossed her hands in the air. “I’m trying to help you. Whatever happened to, ‘We must come together?’”

Vykinallia grumbled under her breath a word that didn’t bear repeating. She likely thought Threyna couldn’t hear. But Threyna could heighten her senses. Why? Because unlike Vykinallia, Threyna could tap into her Inner Throne.

She is more stubborn than Laela. Ten times worse.

It didn’t make it better that Vykinallia’s heart quickened every time Zephyrus stalked past, to “check on her,” each time the wind blew. He should have been resting.

“Find your Inner Throne,” Threyna said again. “We can’t waste time.”

“I told you already,” Vykinallia said, eyes still closed. “It’s not like a throne room.”

“Then you’re not focusing.”

Vykinallia huffed, her lips pinched and cheeks drawn. She began clapping in a slow steady rhythm.

Threyna rolled her eyes. “Gory ghosts, what are you doing?”

Vykinallia kept clapping. She opened her eyes, staring at Threyna with as much disdain as she felt for the woman. Her clapping began to speed up, slightly at first, but the acceleration increased with each passing moment.

“That is your heartbeat,” Vykinallia said. “Don’t tell me I’m not focusing.”

Threyna hmphed. Vykinallia was right. She had clapped out each beat of her escalating pulse despite the clamor of people around them setting up the camp’s defenses. “Fine. So it’s not a throne room. What is it?”

Vykinallia closed her eyes again, focusing what energy wasn’t centered on Zephyrus into her inner… whatever she wanted to call it.

“It’s like a pulvinus,” Vykinallia said. “Within a massive arena. I feel the roar of the crowd, the tremble of the stands. I hear the clash of steel, taste the blood in the air, and smell the sweat of the gladiators fighting beneath me.” She opened her eyes and swallowed, her lips furling as if a bitter taste had entered her mouth. “I don’t want this to be my Inner Throne.”

Threyna scoffed. What an entitled princess. “I didn’t want to run halfway across the world to be chased by a fiendish sociopath, but here we are. That is your seat of power. Whether you like it or not, that is the place where you are in control, so if you want to get that cursed thing off your ear, you’ll get used to it. Or you can just hang onto it and wait for the Skeleton King to take it off your corpse.”

Vykinallia hung her head. She spoke so low that Threyna had to strain her heightened senses to hear. “I don’t want my seat of power to be as a slaver.”

Her perfect cheeks flushed pink, and her green eyes welled with water. Blinking away the tears, she tousled her chestnut waves, looking like a right and proper damsel in distress.

Threyna had no pity for this woman. But she needed her to be a mage, and a talented one at that. She took a deep breath, stepping forward. “What do you want it to be?”

Vykinallia met her gaze. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Threyna shook her head. “You’re impossible. Wouldn’t understand what—having a past I regret? Yeah, I think I understand a thing or two about that.” She’d sentenced Patrus to death, Zephyrus to slavery, killed nearly a dozen mages, all to be made Paxoran’s fool.

“Apologies,” Vykinallia said. “It’s not fair of me. To shut you out.” She exhaled.

Threyna grunted. Impossible. The apology didn’t change anything. She didn’t want it, didn’t need it. She needed Vykinallia to learn this and then help her.

“You were the one who said we needed to come together,” Threyna said. “You. And if we’re lucky, it will come down to our combined will against the Skeleton King’s, so we had better learn to understand one another.”

Like it or not. And Threyna did not, but, like many things in her life, she either didn’t get a choice, or she had already made one and didn’t like the result.

“I was a slave owner,” Vykinallia said. “A lanista. Paid coin for slaves’ blood, sweat, and tears to be sacrificed in the arena.” Her eyes flicked to Zephyrus, passing again. “Zephyrus nearly died. Half a dozen times at least.”

Yeah, but you weren’t the one to sell him out to the slavers in exchange for passage.

“It is your seat of power,” Threyna said, pushing past her own guilt. “Make it what you will. It needs to be a place you long for, a place you’re deeply connected to. It may be easy to find when you’re calm and safe, but it is something else entirely when the rot is spreading, you’re under attack, and darklings are attempting to claim it from you.”

News of Zephyrus’s latest encounter with the Skeleton King horrified Threyna. The others didn’t understand when he had explained, but if a darkling-possessed Zephyrus had returned to the camp, every last one of them would have been killed. All it took was one darkling in the body of someone trusted, and their entire plan would fall to pieces with multiple shivs in the back.

“Return to your Inner Pulvinus,” Threyna said. Vykinallia did as instructed without argument, closing her eyes. “Make it what you want it to be.”

Threyna could feel power emanating from Vykinallia in increased waves as she sank deeper into her Inner Pulvinus.

“Describe what you see,” Threyna said. “What you feel.”

“The stands are filled,” Vykinallia said. “The entirety of the arena is lined with men and women, Rheynians and Helms, patricians and plebs.”

“An army,” Threyna said, considering how different their seats of power were. “What are they doing?”

Vykinallia’s lip contorted, biting the lower, lateral corner. “They’re not doing anything.”

“Then they’re waiting for a command,” Threyna said. “Focus; block out every other sound and isolate Zephyrus’s heartbeat.”

Faster than Threyna believed possible, Vykinallia said that she had found it.

Threyna cocked her eyebrow. “Describe it.”

Vykinallia inhaled, her lip curving upward. “Slow. Deep. Powerful, but gentle.”

“Very goo—”

“There’s more,” Vykinallia said. “A hesitance at the start of each beat. As if he’s holding a drum, but is afraid to beat it.”

Threyna cocked her eyebrow. I don’t sense that. She tapped deeper into her Inner Throne and attuned to Zephyrus’s rhythm. Low, steady, and strong, she could sense, but the hesitance—the fear—she described she could not.

A pang of jealousy caused her hand to cramp.

“Try someone else,” Threyna said, pushing past it, not wishing to dwell on Vykinallia’s connection to Zephyrus and how it was somehow stronger than her own.

Vykinallia didn’t listen. At least that’s what Threyna assumed given the smitten grin spreading across her face.

“Try someone—”

A bloody circle small enough to fit around a finger formed before her. A ring, Threyna realized. She stared at it. Threyna should have been pleased. She wasn’t. The one thing she had going for her that Vykinallia did not was the power afforded her by her curse. And now she didn’t even have that.

Vykinallia’s eyes widened as the conjured ring drifted towards her outstretched hand and slid onto her finger. The blood artifact on her ear clicked. One of the ringed prongs piercing her outer ear released.

“The first prong!” Vykinallia beamed as if the Skeleton King was dead, Paxoran was defeated, and the world would never know a dark day again.

“Well done,” Threyna said, stiffly. “From there, command the armies in your Inner Pulvinus to siphon vitality and consume souls to abate the rot.” She pointed to Vykinallia’s blackening cheek. “Then you’ll have to devour blood and bone to heal yourself to release the third. And lastly, conjure beyond your line of sight. Once the fourth prong releases, you’ll be as cursed as I am. You’ll be a blood mage, and we’ll have someone else to teach.”

Their time together left Threyna exhausted—drained the way Zephyrus felt after expending his magic. She turned to leave, but Vykinallia’s hand closed around her wrist.

“You can’t go,” Vykinallia said. “You’re the only one who can help me.”

Threyna’s eye twitched. She just wanted to be alone, but she was back on the clifftop in her dreams, sitting beside Zephyrus. The tranquility of the rising sun stretching across the rolling waves paired with the chirping gulls to form a peace she had never known existed. It was as if her forever had come calling and placed her in eternal bliss.

“Can this be our everyday?” she had asked Zephyrus.

Zephyrus smiled. “As long as each day brings a new dawn, I will always love you, Vykinallia.”

Bliss shattered. The dark lightning clouds owned the morning and night, and if the sun rose or fell, it made no difference.

Their love remains, the Skeleton King lives, and I am still cursed.

“Threyna, please.”

Threyna took a deep breath, buying herself time to come up with a better excuse than, “Because I don’t want to look at you.”

“I shouldn’t practice conjuring if I can’t heal it,” Vykinallia said, using safety and responsibility as a means of manipulating Threyna into more instruction. The fact that she was right only made Threyna’s eye twitch more.

“How do I abate the rot?” Vykinallia asked.

The wounded part of her wanted to tell her to run to Zephyrus so he could heal her whenever she needed, but he wasn’t going to be around much longer. This plan was their last best shot at killing the Skeleton King. With the gates closed, and Valtarcia lost to them, the Guardian and Zephyrus would have to try the gate in Salmantica—where Laeden went and hadn’t returned. If they had any hope of defeating the Skeleton King, Vykinallia needed to learn how to abate the rot and consume souls, and she couldn’t rely on healers alone.

Threyna closed her eyes and blew out her cheeks. “You can draw upon the essence of others. Siphoning a little will placate the rot, at least in the beginning. Then you’ll need souls.”

“What do you mean?” Vykinallia asked.

Threyna nodded in Zephyrus’s direction. “Our healing is not like his healing. The price of his magic he pays in that moment—equal and opposite. Our toll escalates. The more you use your blood magic, the more souls you’ll need to sustain yourself. You’ll grow stronger, but the debt you accumulate…” She held up her rot-stained hand compared to Vykinallia’s blackened ear. “His is a gift… ours, a curse—paid over a lifetime, and bought by the lives of others.” Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne and referenced all the people around them. “With so many to source from, no one will notice if I siphon a little.”

She held her hand up for Vykinallia to watch the rot abate as she drew in an infinitesimal amount of vitality from those in the camp. The black veins receded slightly. “Feel that?”

Vykinallia shrugged. “Barely, but only because I was focusing on it.”

Threyna nodded. “It can help in a bind, but stealing the essence of your allies won’t make you many friends. Taking from the Order’s legions, however, absolutely, but it won’t be enough long-term, especially if you’re conjuring a lot.”

Threyna drew in breath, focusing her efforts on Vykinallia’s soul. Vykinallia’s nose wrinkled, and a choked grunt escaped her mouth as her life force flowed into Threyna’s. With her hand held before Vykinallia, the black veins receded from her wrist to her knuckles.

Threyna released. “Draw enough and you’ll kill someone. You can resist a draw, the same way you resist a darkling, whether you have the blood magic or not—it’s your will versus theirs.” She waved her still-blackened fingers at Vykinallia. “Try to retake what I stole from you. But take any more and I’ll feed you to the Hellhounds.”

“The what?” Vykinallia asked, her posture stooped.

“Never mind,” Threyna said, remembering her references of Rheynia would be lost on anyone, save Belrich or his legionaries. “On with it.”

Vykinallia’s face scrunched in consternation. Mimicking Threyna, she drew in breath. Threyna felt the familiar draw. To prove a point, she resisted at first, but Vykinallia reflexively increased her force. A spike of competitiveness edged out the teaching opportunity. She would not lose in a contest of wills with her.

Vykinallia redoubled her efforts, the rot growing through her cheek as opposed to receding, but Threyna matched her.

“Going up against a strong-willed person can be wasteful,” Threyna said. “Weakening them—either through forcing them to expend too much effort that their rot overcomes them, or physically damaging them so they’re more focused on their pain than resisting—can make it easier. The newly deceased are easiest of all.”

Vykinallia did not give up.

Despite herself, Threyna lowered her resistance, allowing Vykinallia to siphon back what Threyna had taken. The rot abated to her ear.

“When you draw someone’s whole soul,” Threyna said, “you can either consume it entirely, trap it and save it for later, or let it roam within your Inner Pulvinus. That is what the Skeleton King is doing—that’s why he’s so powerful. But it’s dangerous. At any point, a soul free within your seat of power can attempt to wrest control from you. Work against you.”

Vykinallia swallowed, her face paling. “Trap them?”

“I call it my Inner Dungeon,” Threyna said. “Strong-willed or not, the voices can be distracting if left to roam your seat of power.”

“You trap souls in a dungeon?” Vykinallia asked, disgust painting her face.

A wave of heat rushed to Threyna’s cheeks. “It’s what I did to defeat the first Skeleton King, and I’ll do it again if it means killing this one too.” Vykinallia’s gaze continued to cut through her. “Don’t judge me,” Threyna spat. “Not after you kept men in cages and made them fight to fill your coffers.”

“I didn’t judge you.” Vykinallia’s fists balled at her sides. “Chimera’s breath, why do you hate me?”

Threyna shook her head.

“It’s because of Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said. “Isn’t it? What happened between you two?”

Blood rushed to Threyna’s cheeks.

“As long as we’re together, and the three Treasures are united, we can do anything,” Zephyrus had said on the beach outside Tharseo’s Bastion.

She had kissed him then.

Together. But never together.

“Hey!”

They both spun to find Zephyrus approaching. Threyna glared at him.

“Might I have a word with Vykinallia?” Zephyrus asked. “Just for a moment.”

Threyna didn’t believe either of them deserved a response. Without another word, she stormed off, half-wishing the Skeleton King would arrive sooner rather than later.

Chapter 32

Strife

Zephyrus VII

Valtarcia

Vykinallia shoved past him, in the opposite direction of Threyna’s storm. Zephyrus stammered, glancing back and forth between them. A moment ago, they were fine, and all of a sudden, they were nearly at each other’s throats.

Zephyrus found himself glaring at Threyna’s back with a simmering anger he couldn’t place. There was plenty to be upset with her about—from as far back as Klaytos and as recently as allowing Vykinallia to become cursed by the blood artifact—but this anger was not his own.

The Guardian’s light approached, casting his shadow. “Something’s wrong.”

The Guardian—Iylea—Laeden’s lover, the queen’s handmaiden, a seer. When their souls entwined, Zephyrus saw every truth she hid from the others, plus one she hid from him; if they found a way to reopen the gates and ascend to the divine realm, she could not go with him. She was sending him to face Paxoran alone.

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s neck. “Of course something is wrong. Nothing is right.”

He followed after Vykinallia, leaving the Guardian the same way Vykinallia had left him. Chasing after Vykinallia as she made her way to the cliffs’ edge, Zephyrus’s frustration gathered as he realized he didn’t know what to say, or where to begin. He needed to talk to Vykinallia.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes,” Paxoran had said. “You will feel the flames of your own magic scorch the people you helped free.”

Now Vykinallia wore the very artifact the Skeleton King wanted—the One True God’s blessing, as Gailus Kaine called it. She would be their primary target, and it wasn’t just a matter of the artifact—it was personal. Paxoran would punish Zephyrus, and no part of him was more sensitive than Vykinallia.

She needed to know. That’s what he wanted to tell her. She wouldn’t have liked it under the best of circumstances, but after whatever had transpired with Threyna, he feared how the information would be received now.

He stood beside her at the cliff’s edge, hands on his hips. For a time, they stared in silence at the raging sea beneath the nightmarish sky. Her arms crossed, Vykinallia didn’t say anything.

He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. There were an infinite number of possibilities plaguing her—the curse she never wanted, the Skeleton King’s approach, or trying to keep a divided people together chief among them. And that didn’t include the fact that he had only narrowly escaped the Skeleton King and would soon need to leave her again. Finally, she’d have to work with Threyna who Zephyrus knew better than most was not the easiest to deal with.

Rather than speaking, Zephyrus bit his lip and waited. Commotion across the camp drew his attention. Disagreement devolved to shoving and finger-pointing before Iberion and Kherus broke the instigators apart.

Vykinallia huffed, massaging her brow with her thumb and forefinger. Zephyrus met her eyes, but quickly dropped his gaze, which only drew a flustered snort from her.

“You can’t even look at me,” Vykinallia said.

Zephyrus shook his head. “What do you mean?”

Vykinallia pointed to the blood artifact crawling around her ear and skewering her lobe like a scorpion. “Is it this? You won’t look at me because I’m cursed now?”

Zephyrus stammered. “No. What are you talking about?”

“Admit it,” Vykinallia said. “You hate that I’m cursed, same as Threyna.”

Zephyrus opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“But I don’t!” Her voice was a hiss, void of all warmth. “Given the choice, I would have nothing different. Now I can fight—not just with steel, but magic. Magic that could make the difference.”

What has gotten into you? Zephyrus’s teeth clenched, and his brows invaded the top of his peripheral vision.

“Now I can come with you,” Vykinallia said, stepping closer to Zephyrus, her tone softer. “We can find a way to reopen the gates and ascend together. After we defeat the Skeleton King, we can go and fight Paxoran—together.”

Zephyrus’s throat went dry.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes.” Paxoran’s voice echoed in his mind. The thought made his stomach sour, the muscles along his spine threatened to seize.

“No.” Zephyrus said, as forgiving as stone and blunt as a battering ram. “You will not.” His fists were clenched at his sides. Anger he didn’t understand boiled within him.

Vykinallia buried her index finger in his chest. “You want me to wait—to stay here and pray for you to come back?” Teeth bared, tears in her eyes yet to fall, she jabbed her finger again and again. “You won’t come back. I know you won’t. I know it.”

It would have been better had she slapped him. Punched him square in the face.

He grabbed her wrist and snarled, glowering into her emerald eyes. “Why would you say something like that? I will come back.”

She shook her head, jarring loose a welling tear that slid down her cheek. “You don’t know that.”

The Guardian’s light cast Zephyrus’s shadow across Vykinallia’s face.

“Not now,” Zephyrus snapped, releasing Vykinallia to glare at the Guardian.

“Zephyrus, this rage isn’t yours,” the Guardian said. “The entire camp is acting strange. This aggression can only mean one thing—the God of War is dead.”

Zephyrus’s emotions simmered, suddenly self-aware. He had noticed it before, but hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Vykinallia’s index finger, which had been digging into his chest, dropped, along with her chin.

“It’s influencing everyone’s temper,” Vykinallia said. She placed her hand on Zephyrus’s arm, her gentle touch a salve for the influence on his heart. “I’m sorry.”

“As am I,” Zephyrus said.

“We must tell the others,” the Guardian said. “Before—”

Shouting broke out in the camp. This time, Iberion and Kherus were not able to keep the freedpeople and the Valtarcian refugees separated. Callonus threw the first punch, striking a former Kaelus gladiator across the face. Within moments, half the camp was brawling.

Zephyrus faded into the immaterial plane and returned on the outskirts of the fight. Shouting for them to stop, he separated a refugee from a healing mage. Adjacent, Cerik swung his forearm into the chest of a Sentinel, knocking him off his feet. He grabbed another man by the shirt, prepared to punch a hole in his chest, but Zephyrus grabbed his friend’s arm.

“Cerik!” Zephyrus shouted. “The God of War is dead. This anger isn’t yours.”

Cerik’s clenched fist relaxed. But the man Cerik was about to punch slammed a wooden crate of miscellaneous supplies against Cerik’s head. As the former bruiser recoiled, Zephyrus seized his attacker by the collar, shouting for him to stop.

No one heard, or no one listened. Not wanting to waste his expenditure on his own people, Zephyrus didn’t have a choice. Tapping into Klayvorine’s greave, Zephyrus slowed time around him. Too many people were entwined for Zephyrus to separate all of them before his control over time subsided, but he tore through the brawl, ripping men from each other’s belligerent grasps. Speeding from one engagement to the next, he tossed freedpeople and Valtarcians alike to the ground.

Callonus, the messenger who warned them of the Skeleton King’s attack on Valtarcia, held Kaelus by his collar, his hand reaching for a dagger at his belt. Zephyrus’s eyes widened. If it came to blood, their plans would be over before they could begin.

Zephyrus lunged for the dagger, attempting to reach it before Callonus’s fingers could close around the hilt. His control over time began to slip. Callonus’s movements accelerated, reapproaching regular speed. Just as time reverted back to normal, Zephyrus and Callonus’s hands met on the dagger’s hilt.

Callonus’s wide-eyed alarm at finding Zephyrus suddenly beside him was cut short by Kaelus drawing his short sword. Steel scraping scabbard sounded throughout the Silver Summits.

“No!” Zephyrus shouted. From Helios’s bracer, a beam of blinding light radiated upward, casting shadows around the brawlers. Tapping into Lunellia’s bracer, Zephyrus commanded the shadows to stay the murderous hands spurned by the God of War’s death. Everyone around him shielded their eyes to the light, but before they could follow through on their barbarous intentions, the shadows came alive.

Those nearest Zephyrus’s light were restrained by his shadow spawn. But they would not last. He didn’t have much time.

“Stop!” Zephyrus shouted, still wrestling with Callonus for control over the blade. “This is not your anger. Another God has passed, and his rage has become ours.”

He couldn’t sustain the shadow spawn much longer. Soon, they would dissipate to nothingness, and he would be at the center of a ferocious feud.

Kaelus tore free of his shadow spawn’s grasp and reared back his sword. With no time to balance the scales, Zephyrus stayed Kaelus’s hand with force magic. His fingers went numb. The very fingers holding back Callonus’s dagger.

Callonus ripped Zephyrus’s fumbling fingers from the hilt and drew his dagger. The shadow spawn faded, but no truce had been brokered. Zephyrus doubled his efforts, restraining both Kaelus and Callonus with force magic. His knees went weak. Around him, fighting resumed.

“Stop this madness,” Zephyrus said between the two men. “We’re on the same si—”

Something crashed into the back of Zephyrus’s head. His feeble knees were too unstable to catch him before he fell to the ground at the feet of Kaelus and Callonus. Pain lanced across his skull, flaring his senses. Sounds became incoherent noises. Sights became blurs, people barely distinguishable from trees in storm winds. Blood filled his mouth from where he bit his tongue. He turned to face his attacker, but disorientation spun him onto his back.

The blurs fought against the black sky beyond them. Streaks of light and rolls of thunder accompanied the clash of steel.

A shrill cry exploded throughout the camp. Spiraling red spires stretched to the sky, carrying with them terrified screams. Zephyrus’s hazy vision settled back into focus. Kaelus and Callonus hung, suspended from blood-red stalks that sprouted from the ground. They were not the only ones. The brawl ceased, its combatants electing instead to fight against their bindings.

“Enough!” Vykinallia yelled, loud enough to threaten a new wave of avalanches from the Silver Summits.

Zephyrus inclined his head to peer through the bloody trunks of trees that didn’t belong along the cliffs. Threyna stalked forward, her black-veined arm outstretched, controlling the conjurations at her disposal.

“Everyone stop!”

Threyna’s mouth moved, but Vykinallia’s voice came forth. Zephyrus blinked his bleary eyes. When they didn’t show him anything different, he rubbed them, but Vykinallia—not Threyna—stood before him. Her face, black with rot, and emerald eyes afire, unlike anything he’d ever seen, Vykinallia laid into the suspended brawlers, repeating Zephyrus’s words that had fallen on deaf ears. Others not ensnared in the clutches of Vykinallia’s blood conjurations backed away from her as she continued yelling.

“And you!” Vykinallia allowed the spires to wither, lowering its captives slowly before dissolving to ash—all but one. Nearest to Zephyrus, the blood-borne spire, taller and thicker than the others, had multiple branches holding its captive in place.

A gray-haired man clutching a short sword with white knuckles stopped hacking at the spire’s limbs to glare down at Vykinallia. The rot stretched down her arm and across the side of her face as if spreading from the artifact’s placement on her ear.

“You would strike him?” Vykinallia asked, the rot snaking through her veins to frame her right eye. The limbs of the spire twisted, curling around the man’s wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. “You wish to kill him!”

Zephyrus reached his hand to the back of his head where he had been struck. Blunt trauma. No laceration, but even touching his hair hurt. The short sword in the man’s hand didn’t make sense.

If he wanted to kill me, he could have. Why hit me with the hilt of the blade?

“Allaron!” Callonus shouted. He turned to Vykinallia. “Let him down.”

Vykinallia didn’t comply. She didn’t warrant him a response. She raised her clenched fist towards Allaron, and the bindings of her conjured spire constricted around him. Allaron struggled, drawing gasps and winces from the gathered crowd.

From the other direction, Threyna approached, her sharp features drawn in a pinch. “Let him down, Vykinallia.”

The two glowered at one another.

Burn me. Zephyrus forced himself to his feet, but the ground felt uneven beneath him.

“Let him down,” Threyna said again, no argument in her tone.

“He tried to kill Zephyrus!” Vykinallia shouted.

Threyna shook her head. “He tried, but he didn’t.”

Vykinallia hissed. “He would have if I didn’t conjure a shield to stop the blow.”

Threyna directed her attention away from Vykinallia and toward the spire holding Allaron. After staring at it for a moment, the bloody tendrils spiraling around Allaron’s limbs dissipated to ash. The trunk of the spire lowered, crumbling to dust on the ground around Allaron, his sword still in hand.

“I didn’t attack him,” Allaron said, sheathing his blade. He raised his hands in a display of innocence. “I came to Callonus’s defense.”

“Liar!” Vykinallia shouted, marching toward him.

Zephyrus ambled on wobbly legs to intercept her, but Threyna beat him to it.

Threyna stepped between Vykinallia and Allaron, placing a hand on her chest. Vykinallia bristled, but didn’t challenge Threyna further. With Vykinallia placated for the time being, Threyna crossed her arms over her chest and spun on Allaron. “But she is right… You are a liar.”

Bloody ropes appeared out of thin air, coiling around Allaron’s raised hands and yanking him up until his feet hovered above the ground.

Callonus advanced on Threyna, but a dagger blossomed to life before Callonus, aimed between his eyes.

“You’re not Allaron, are you?” Threyna asked. She shook her head. “I should have expected this of you, Belrich.”

Zephyrus’s breath caught. Murmurs spread throughout the camp. Allaron pleaded his case, his gray eyes wild, limbs thrashing against their bindings. Threyna ignored him, and whispered something to Vykinallia.

Vykinallia closed her eyes and drew in breath.

Allaron contorted as Vykinallia drew a black spectral wisp from his chest. It resisted the current, flowing into Vykinallia, but it could not escape. As it disappeared into Vykinallia, the black veins along the side of her face recoiled, and the rot in her arm retreated.

Zephyrus let out a slow breath. The Skeleton King wanted to send me back to the camp as a weapon. How many did he send as spies, saboteurs, or murderers?

“Thank you,” Allaron said as Threyna lowered him to the ground. He knelt between her and Vykinallia, grasping at their feet. “Six save me. Thank the Gods for you.”

Besides Allaron’s whimpering, silence filled the camp. It only broke with a resounding click.

Vykinallia raised her hand to the black-and-red, scorpion-like blood artifact on her ear. The second prong retracted. Her eyes met Zephyrus’s. One more prong. One more reason she would use to justify why, when the time came, she should accompany him to the divine realm.

But she couldn’t.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes,” Paxoran had said.

Zephyrus wouldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t.

Chapter 33

Death of Hameryn

Danella VI

Salmantica

Danella swallowed more than breathed the thick, stale air of the cellar beneath the Chimeran Inn. Packed wall to wall and stone floor to rafter, the turnout could not have been better. Between Liario’s efforts with the patricians, and Ispara’s ability to round up those outraged by Laegus’s murder, what seemed to be hundreds of people filled the cramped space. Though in actuality it could not have been more than several dozen, Danella’s shortness of breath and trembling fingers made her feel as if she were about to address the entire country.

Danella hugged herself behind a row of shelves in an alcove off the main area cleared out for her address. The makeshift dais constructed for her and those gathered around it taunted her. She clenched her jaw, but winced. The act sent a jolt of pain across the stitches above her ear. Stroking at the shorn hair surrounding the wound, she forced herself to focus on her address, despite the insistence of all that could possibly go wrong attempting to invade her thoughts.

The crowd parted for Daenus as he made his way through, his hood back so everyone could see his burned face. As he strode towards her, with Liario—Cassius’s gray-bearded, former adviser—and Ispara in his wake, Danella’s stomach twisted in knots. She was out of time.

Daenus drew near and placed a hand on the small of Danella’s back. “They grow restless, and our time is short. Vigiles, Sentinels, Jackals—too many eyes and ears. Even amongst this many people, there are snitches willing to rat us out for a scrap of bread from the king’s stores.”

Ispara fixed Daenus with a glare that made her angled face appear even sharper. She spoke with a tone darker than her black eyes. “If a rat squeaks, it won’t be one of mine.” She glanced at Liario.

Liario smoothed his slicked-back hair with both hands, but let out a troubled breath. “The patricians are a nest of vipers snapping at one another for any chance to elevate their standing.”

Ispara’s brow scrunched. “Vipers don’t stand.”

“As children shouldn’t speak,” Liario countered. “Yet here you are.”

An unwarranted anger burned within her belly. Her trembling fingers became fists.

Daenus cast a scolding stare at both of them. “It’s not too late to call this off.”

“It is,” Danella said. “If we do nothing, we will face far worse than squeaking rats.”

Daenus bowed his head. “May the Six watch over us all.” He took Danella’s hand and shoved something into it.

Danella examined it to find the golden Six Arrowed Star pendant her father had given her as a girl. Stammering, she stared at Daenus.

“I figured you may need it.”

Without another word, he approached the dais and climbed atop it. His head nearly touching the rafters, Daenus held his hands out, summoning silence. The casual conversations and murmurs died out. The only disquiet came from shuffling feet or the anxious fidgeting of those who knew they were about to receive unfortunate news.

“Friends,” Daenus began, “it has been a long while since I stood before you. You may have noticed, but I have seen better days.” He gestured to his burns, and the crowd broke out in hushed murmurs. “I suppose we all have. Yet here we are. Many of you I’ve never had the fortune of meeting, but your service to the Revivalist movement, your presence here—it demonstrates your faith in the Six, your belief in Salmantica, and your resolve to forge a future for your families.”

Danella drummed her fingers on the pendant as Daenus paced the small dais. If her former Knight of the King’s Guard had any apprehensions, he betrayed none of them. She wished she could say the same for herself.

“I desire nothing more than to say we have succeeded,” Daenus said. “In some ways, we have—the leniency toward the Celestics and their dangerous magic has ended. We have demonstrated our resolve to the Six of Valencia, yet our circumstances are direr than ever before.”

Plebeians nodded, and the servants sent by patricians assented.

“The Gods are punishing us as if we prayed to the Judges ourselves,” Daenus continued, crossing his hands behind his back. “Denied rain, beset by torrential seas, earthquakes, and a thunderous sky that forbids the sun to rise or set upon our lands… The Age of the End we sought to stop, friends, has come.”

Danella’s throat tightened at the mention of the Celestic prophecy—the Reckoning, the seer had called it. Iylea had named it the rolling tides of vengeance. But by any name, the intent was the same. The result, the same: death to the Gods, an end to the mortal realm.

“Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost… unless you—”

Nervous chatter spread throughout the cellar.

Daenus ceased his pacing to still the crowd. “Our good king believes the traitorous Valtarcians and the rebellious Celestics in Stockhelm will be judged in these end times. That they will be judged and we, the true and faithful, will be spared their wrath. That we must wait for their judgement to be complete before we rise to restore our realm.”

Downturned thumbs and dissenting grunts filled the cellar.

Danella swallowed. He will introduce me soon. Their queen no longer, but their leader all the same. Will they listen? Will they follow?

She closed her eyes, donning the Six Arrowed Star pendant. Varros’s reassuring grin filled her thoughts, followed by the image of his portrait outside the throne room—slashed to ribbons by Damascus. Murdered. By Damascus.

“Our crops die within our walls of faith—same as theirs,” Daenus said. “How long will we, the people of Salmantica, survive absent food and water?”

He allowed a pregnant pause to weigh heavily on the gathered crowd. He shook his head.

“We will not survive, friends,” Daenus said, casting his eyes downward, his gravelly tone somber. “While the king contents himself to wait on the Six—dining on stored food, bathing in gathered water, and inviting flesh peddlers to the royal chambers of Sentigard—we will die!”

Danella’s gasp joined the others’ of the Chimeran Inn. This was not part of the plan… Her cheeks flushed warm. The muscles of her throat constricted, denying the flow of air.

“But!” Daenus said, stabbing his index finger to the rafters. “The Gods have delivered their people a means of hope, a prophet to lead us beyond the Disasters. Recall the Facets, my fellow Valencians. Just as Damascus Drake was chosen to deliver us from Rheynia, another has been gifted clairvoyance to guide us from squalor.”

Danella’s breath came in short rasps. What is he doing? Her mouth went dry, jaw unhinged.

Plebeians’ faces, gaunt and dirt-smudged, fell long. Questions spread like the black powder explosions across the Valtarcian Harbor.

Daenus raised his voice to speak over the crowd. “And who better to deliver us from destruction than the very daughter of Damascus Drake?” He extended his arm towards her.

From wall to wall, gasps rolled like thunder across the blackened skies. All eyes followed Daenus’s gesture to fix on her.

With her hood still up, Danella resisted the urge to run. She understood this was her cue, but mortified, her feet remained planted. He lied. He named me a prophet. After his lectures of blasphemy, this is the most blasphemous thing he could have said.

They were supposed to say the Gods had abandoned them. Not the truth, but a more believable lie than the fact that the Six were being murdered. But this…

When she didn’t move, Liario steered her forward, ushering her with a hand on her back. He pulled back her hood. Suddenly vulnerable, Danella stared at Daenus, unable to meet the gawks of the gathered people as she was pushed onto the dais into Daenus’s embrace.

“What have you done?” Danella whispered.

“Given the people something to believe in,” Daenus said. He pulled away and presented her to the gathered crowd before leaving the dais.

If there was any blood left in her cheeks, Danella couldn’t feel it. Every drop seemed to leave her body as a sudden cold washed over her.

“Queen Danella?” asked a voice from the crowd.

“Is that really her?”

“It doesn’t look like her.”

“No, that’s definitely her!”

The voices bounced around her skull. Her mask fractured. The gears behind it came to a grinding halt as every word she had prepared now contradicted everything Daenus said.

She wanted to make this about the Gods’ disappointment in them—not for tolerating the Judges as the Facets declared, but for losing sight of what they represented: hope. A hope born in the aftermath of the Disasters that, if people came together, they could start anew. She wanted to blame her father for his fearmongering toward the Celestics. To admit that she fell prey to it, electing to have her own husband assassinated under the false pretense that he was inviting the Gods’ wrath upon them.

Quotes of misunderstood or misrepresented tenets within the Facets of Perfection would now be useless. All she wanted was to remind people to look after one another, to love and pray for one another. To realize that the Gods would not stop these Disasters, and the only way to survive them was to band together.

But now, her only hope to bring about the change she believed the world, the realm, and her people needed was to lie.

Absent her plans, all other words fled her mind, leaving it as empty as the city’s grain stores. She mirrored the gawking expressions aimed at her. Her fingers brushed along the shorn hair on the side of her head, as if willing her mind to work again through gentle coddling.

Staring out over the crowd bathed in the uncomfortable silence of Danella’s pontifications, an idea reached her addled mind. Perhaps Daenus’s preamble was exactly the lie I needed to tell the truth. She cleared her throat and inclined her chin, squinting into the crowd.

“How many of you believe the Gods wish you to be hungry?”

Muttered nos and nays filled her pause.

“How many of you believe the Six take joy in denying us rain, quaking our city, or storming our skies?”

“It is punishment,” called a voice from the crowd.

Danella lifted her hand toward the direction of the speaker. “I once believed it too—that the Six punish us for our failures to uphold the Facets. It brings them no joy, the same way it brings a parent no joy to discipline an unruly child, but it must be done. You see, I have heard the truth from Incinerae’s lips, and the truth cannot remain silent behind Sentigard’s walls.”

Hushed voices rippled through the crowd.

“In my prayers for hope, Phaebia remained silent. In my prayers for guidance, Moterra did not reply. When I asked for patience, I found only wrath, absent Aquarius’s compassion. When I asked for harmony with our Valtarcian brothers and sisters, Hameryn left me stranded. Yet amidst the silence, Incinerae has come to me.”

Laced with enough truth, at least according to the seer she spoke to, she had bought the fickle trust of her audience. She hoped it would be enough to retain it as she prepared the lie. She glanced at Daenus.

Two can play at this game.

She swallowed, preparing to speak the truth she thought too blasphemous to believe. “A murderer marches through Valencia.”

Gasps, questions, and cries erupted from the crowd. Daenus started towards the dais, but Liario and Ispara impeded his path.

Daenus had given her the platform; now she would do with it what she would. Holding out her arms, she spoke over her audience until they quieted to listen.

“The Gods remain absent,” Danella said, “not because they wish to punish us, but because there is little they can do to help us. Aquarius denies us rain because he cannot provide it—killed at the hands of Ferrocles! Moterra prevents the world from rattling beneath us, but after the God of War struck her down, she can no longer stay nature’s cataclysms. Phaebia has lost dominion over our skies—another victim of Ferrocles’s pursuit of power and control.”

Hands reached for gaping mouths. Tears clung to the corners of people’s eyes. Fingers interlocked in prayers that would not be answered. Danella saved the best for last: the lie she hoped would bind people together, to undo the wrongs of her father’s reign and her own.

“But worst of all,” Danella said, “worst was the first God to be taken from us. After twenty years of peace, Ferrocles killed Hameryn, our God of Harmony. Ever since, our vision has been clouded. When did fear and hate become our most favored of the Facets of Perfection? That is what we have become absent Hameryn’s love and compassion, and I, the leader of the Revivalists, have sinned worst of all.”

Danella rolled over the gasps, not wanting to focus attention on their surprise, but rather the significance of her failure. She needed them to believe that she, their leader, was wrong, but together, with humility, they could change. They could see the truth that Varros and Laeden wanted them to see.

“Absent Hameryn’s harmony, I waged war on the Celestics,” Danella said. “I sought to assassinate my own husband, a man of honor who valued peace and prosperity, patience and progress. He is gone from this world, and we are worse off for it.”

Danella pulled back her stooped shoulders. The public declaration unburdened a guilt in her gut that made it easier to breathe.

Her voice carried, louder and stronger. “I wished to stamp out Celestic hope, but I ignited the Uprising in cries for freedom. I framed Laeden for trying to stop me, and in doing so, I instigated the revolution of Valtarcia, giving us a new enemy instead of an ally.”

Danella swallowed, surveying the Revivalists before her. All eyes fixed, all mouths silent. These were her people, but they were not the only ones.

“Now, an army of death has assailed Valtarcia,” Danella said, telling the seer’s last words, corroborated by Laeden. “They have taken the city. They’re holding—not our enemies, our brothers and sisters—captive, harvesting their blood in some occult offering to their One True God. But that God has a name, and it is Ferrocles.”

Danella pulled the pendant of the Six Arrowed Star out from behind her cloak to show the crowd. “My love remains with the Six, but they can no longer be our future. Ferrocles has seen to that, and his army will do the same to us if we do not band together. Not just amongst each other, not just as a city.” She pointed east. “Those who have fled Valtarcia to escape Ferrocles’s army are on the run. Laeden liberated them, then surrendered himself to King Damascus so that he could warn us of Ferrocles’s army. Do you know what our good king did?”

She allowed the room to fill with an uncomfortable pause. Shrugging, she shook her head. “Nothing. He did nothing to prepare our defenses. Nothing to investigate Laeden’s claims. Instead, he drank a carafe of wine, lay with any woman coin would buy, gorged himself on food—all the while, here you are, starving in his streets.”

The crowd’s anger began to grow. Brows hardened, fists clenched, and shouts assented her claims. I have them. Now to unite them.

“But that’s not the worst part, good citizens. King Damascus sentenced Laeden—a man willing to sacrifice himself for the good of his people, who only sought sanctuary for the Valtarcian refugees—to death. No trial, no public sentencing, no opportunity to speak of the army marching on our walls at this very moment.”

Outrage with Damascus, anger with Ferrocles, and fear of a marching army drove the crowd’s clamor to echo off the cellar walls, forcing her to pause. Holding one hand out to summon silence, she pointed to the pendant on her chest.

“This is exactly what Ferrocles wants,” Danella said. “For us to do nothing, while our only allies—even our old enemies—are ripped from this world. One by one, every faction will fall until Ferrocles’s army is the last left standing. Incinerae warned that I may never hear from her again because he will come for her too.”

Danella hung her head. “My son, Damascus, has chosen to wait. To take his chances. To die alone rather than aid the Valtarcian refugees and fight back.” Again, she pointed to the pendant on her chest. “For the other five arrows on this star, we must fight. We must unite, or the lives of Phaebia, Moterra, Aquarius, Hameryn, and Incinerae will have meant nothing.”

She eyed each person in the crowd. “If we are to win, if we are to survive, we must unite. Salmantic and Valtarcian. Valencian and Celestic. Patrician and pleb. Free and slave. It will take every last one of us to stop Ferrocles’s treachery. I believe we can do it. I believe we can stop The Age of the End, but it begins with us in this room. I wish to sneak Valtarcia’s refugees beyond the safety of our walls and strategize a defense, form an army of our own, so when Ferrocles’s force comes, they are met with a resistance they cannot defeat! Will you help me?”

Cheers answered her. Applause filled the rafters, and relief flooded Danella’s heart. But surveying the crowd, her eyes locked on one man whose face remained placid. One man whose fist was not raised in support.

Beneath his hooded cloak, his graying temples framed deep-set, dark green eyes and a stern jaw. Captain of the Vigiles—Heclan Allos.

Danella’s joy died in her chest.

Daenus’s fingers curled around her wrist and yanked her from the dais. Ispara was speaking with the beggar girl who had served as one of the lookouts.

“What’s happening?” Danella asked.

“Sentinels are closing in,” Daenus said, pointing to the corner of the cellar. “Back exit over th—”

Overhead, splintering wood signaled the Sentinels’ arrival.

Chapter 34

The Last Helixus

Laeden VI

Isthmus

Laeden had never considered himself a lucky person. Fatherless by the age of seven. Motherless after his father returned from the dead. Accepted by neither the plebs that raised him nor the patricians who inherited him, he had spent his entire life proving he was worthy of acceptance. Whether at court or the sparring grounds, he had difficulty making friends, and what few he had made either betrayed him or abandoned him for an early grave.

Trudging through the snow that had slid down the Silver Summits during one of the earthquakes, Laeden decided he had not inherited his father’s luck—with people or dice. With each frozen footfall, Laeden wondered if perhaps his father’s luck, at least in dice, was influenced by his magical abilities.

Laeden snorted, barely able to feel his toes. “You cheated, didn’t you, Father?” He chuckled to himself. “Perhaps I did inherit your luck after all. Would that I had the ability to control which side the die landed on.”

No response.

Iylea hadn’t responded either.

“She’s at peace,” the Guardian had said.

Under the blackened sky that could only mean Phaebia had joined Paxoran’s death toll, there was no peace left in this world. No peace, no luck, no friends—only people doing their best. But their best wasn’t good enough.

Laeden hugged himself, willing one foot in front of the other. Wishing he were atop Starla’s back on his return journey, he supposed he should have been grateful for Danella’s surprising change of heart. He had hoped to speak with Damascus absent Danella, believing he would have better chances appealing to him without her interference. He did. But he had vastly overestimated Damascus’s capacity for civility. If not for Danella, he wouldn’t be freezing his Six-cursed toes off. Instead his head would be decorating Sentigard’s ramparts on a pike.

For that, he supposed he was lucky. But with what little hope he carried back to the refugees—that Danella Drake, the reason for most of their suffering, might be able to usher some of them past Salmantica’s walls—all Laeden felt was anger.

The blackened sky crackled with lightning and roiled with thunder, mirroring his dark mood. He hoped the others had managed to liberate more people from the Skeleton King’s clutches, Vykinallia had survived the storm that swept her crew east of the Bay of Bastards, and that by the time Laeden led them west to Salmantica, Danella and Daenus had found a way to fulfill their promises.

As he walked the cliffs, buffeted by the sea breeze and slowed by the snow, he kept his head down and plodded, one foot in front of the other. Unable to see the sun to track time of day, he didn’t know how long it had taken him from when Daenus snuck him beyond the hidden hole in the wall. The legendary Ser Darrow had used that same hole to win the Battle for Marstead; Laeden only hoped his return to Salmantica would be even remotely as triumphant.

As the isthmus began to widen, the refugee encampment came into view.

By the time Laeden reached the camp and got his feet out of the snow, the others had spotted his return. A crowd greeted him, filled with new and familiar faces. Faces he was pleased to see again, and ones he knew he shouldn’t have been. Kherus stood at the center of the crowd, his dark blue eyes awash with relief, but off to the side, Zephyrus’s tight-lipped expression—and his presence alone—portended bad news. Worst of all, the people didn’t look ready to march to Salmantica. If anything, the crudely fashioned stockades behind them made it seem like they had already given up on his return.

A knot of anger formed in his throat. Laeden swallowed it down, knowing he couldn’t blame them for believing anything other than his demise after how long he had been away, but the heat in his wind-chilled ears remained.

“Chimera’s breath,” Kherus said, “please tell me you have better news than we do.”

Warmed by the fire and rejuvenated by a healing mage, Laeden listened as Kherus, Iberion, and Zephyrus explained what had transpired in his absence. From victories like Zephyrus and Threyna’s liberation of the Skeleton King’s farm, and Vykinallia’s trek to lead Kaelus and other refugees beyond the Order’s reach, to the detrimental losses of Phaebia’s and Ferrocles’s deaths, he had missed much.

After Laeden imparted the abridged version of his time in Salmantica, he asked the question gnawing at the back of his mind, “So why are we still here?”

Iberion and Unari exchanged a glance. Kherus’s gaze remained downcast, his thumb and forefinger framing his chin. Callonus grumbled something beneath his breath, and Kaelus bristled, crossing his arms over his chest. Zephyrus met his eyes, but didn’t speak.

“If we can’t risk going back to free more people from Valtarcia,” Laeden said, “why are we still here?”

No answer.

“I understand,” Laeden said. “I’m hesitant to trust her too. But why else spare me? We don’t seem to have many other options.”

Still, silence.

Scanning the camp, Laeden shook his head. “And chimera’s breath, where are Vykinallia and Threyna?”

Kherus bit his lip. “There’s something else. Something you need to see to believe.”

After a short walk through their poorly defended camp, their group reached the outskirts where a pile of bodies lay heaped at the foot of the mountains. Some were grievously maimed—cut to unrecognizable ribbons, missing limbs, or desiccated to human husks.

“What happened here?” Laeden asked.

After a pause, Zephyrus spoke. “The Skeleton King uses an artifact to make more blood mages. Like a plague, it attaches to a host, injects it with prongs—” Zephyrus cleared his throat. “It infects them, curses them with the blood magic. Then once all the prongs are released, it searches for a new host.”

“That doesn’t explain this,” Laeden said, referencing the pile of bodies outside their camp. “What happened?”

“Threyna and I stole the artifact,” Zephyrus said.

Laeden lowered his brow. Despite knowing Ferrocles’s death thrust an external burden of anger on his emotions, his own impatience began to mount. “How does that equate to bodies?”

Zephyrus grunted, glancing at the others. “I wasn’t here when Threyna returned.”

“For the sake of the Six.” Laeden growled. “Will someone tell me already?”

“The artifact was attached to someone when Threyna brought it here,” Kherus said. He tiptoed around the bodies until he found the particular one he wanted.

Black blood drained down onto headless shoulders. Dark veins overcame sallow flesh anywhere not covered by his blue—

Helixus blue.

Laeden followed Kherus’s finger to the head resting beside the body. The man’s white hair and beard could have belonged to any man in his sixties, but only one man wore the belt with the winged horse emblazoned on the buckle.

Laeden sank to his knees, inspecting the disturbing pieces of his Uncle Horus. He had betrayed his grandfather, Hallon, forsaken his father, Varros, and branded Laeden a traitor. If not for Ser Ostrey’s honor, Laeden would be rotting in the ground instead of the former Captain of the Ridge Knights.

Though distanced by years and deeds, Horus was still his family. And now he, like so many others, was dead.

“Threyna did what she could to restrain him,” Kherus said. “But he attacked the camp… killed these people.”

Laeden continued to stare into his uncle’s sightless blue eyes, veined black.

“Vykinallia cut him down,” Kherus said. “There was no other choice.”

Laeden bit his lip and nodded. If I had been here… His shoulders slumped, not just for his uncle, but the bodies surrounding him. And not just for those here, but those in Valtarcia. What can any one man do against such tyranny?

He exhaled slowly and pressed himself to his feet. He ran his fingers through his short hair, wishing again he had not been forced to cut it. Then it dawned on him—the significance of Horus’s death, and why it connected to their current predicament.

“The artifact needs a host,” Laeden said. “Where is it now?”

Zephyrus scratched the back of his head.

“It attached to Vykinallia,” Kaelus said.

Zephyrus’s chin sagged to his chest at the words. Laeden was all too familiar with the sentiment. The same thoughts likely plagued his mind—if I had been here… except he might have actually been able to do something about it.

“Threyna is teaching her how to…” Unari held her hands out like she were balancing scales, but halfway through, she shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s teaching her.”

“She shouldn’t even be here,” Callonus said. “Neither of them should be. What’ll happen when the artifact needs a new host? Are we just gonna let it curse all of us?”

Kaelus growled. “If you wish to have a fighting chance, then yes.”

The ice in his tone and the subsequent glare Callonus cast on him said more than words could do justice. Whether Ferrocles’s rage started the animosity or only fueled it, the tension was thick enough to require a great sword to cut it.

“How long do we have?” Laeden asked. “Before the artifact needs a new host.”

Iberion, the one-eyed leader of the Fallen, shrugged. “We don’t know. But that’s not the most pressing concern.” He glanced at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus crossed his arms over his chest. “The Skeleton King will abandon Valtarcia before consuming it completely to recover the artifact. It can spare lives, limit how much more power the Skeleton King can consume, and lure him out of his defensible positioning.”

“Lure him?” Laeden asked. “Here!”

Kherus nodded. “While we draw the Skeleton King’s attention, Aurellia and Aponius will attack the Order’s flank. We planned to make our defense here, but…”

“But… but what?” Laeden asked, the word sounding more and more like a curse every time someone mentioned it.

“But that was at Allaron’s prodding…” Kherus said.

“Allaron?” Laeden asked, examining Callonus. “He’s alive! How?”

Callonus stammered, and Kaelus grumbled.

“The Skeleton King sent him here,” Zephyrus said. “A spy. A saboteur. A…” He paused, leaving something unsaid.

After working with Zephyrus to uncover the Revivalists within House Cassius what felt like ages ago, he knew the man enough to realize what he left unsaid was purposeful. Something perhaps too descriptive for so many ears to hear.

Laeden didn’t press him. “And where is Allaron now?”

“Recovering,” Kherus said.

Unari muttered something to Iberion. Something that drew a glare from Callonus—whether he heard it or not.

“Very well,” Laeden said. “So we defend here. With every person able to fight. Everyone else should flee to Salmantica’s walls. If not for sanctuary, at least to put distance between them and the Skeleton King’s legions.”

Hesitant nods greeted his words.

“See it done,” Laeden said. “Zephyrus, a word?”

While the others set off to distribute the news of the migration west, Zephyrus accompanied Laeden around the eastern outskirts of the camp.

“Something else?” Laeden asked when Zephyrus didn’t volunteer the information.

“Too much else.” Zephyrus grunted.

The Guardian’s light, low and dim, flared bright, announcing her presence. Until then, Laeden hadn’t realized she was near.

Zephyrus glanced at the orb of pale light before continuing. “The reason I wasn’t here with Threyna was because when we teleported out of the city, I got separated from the Guardian. It left me weak and dazed, as if a part of me had splintered off.” He shook his head, teeth clenched. “I don’t know if it was because I was weak, or because of my former connection to Paxoran… Threyna says it is a matter of will, but the Skeleton King took over my body.”

Zephyrus stopped walking. Laeden met his stern gaze.

“He wanted to send me back to the camp,” Zephyrus said. “To kill Threyna, kill everyone…” He shook his head. “He wanted me to claim the artifact and return it to him. If not for the Guardian, I don’t know if I would have been able to stop it.”

Laeden blanched. He didn’t want to imagine Zephyrus wielding his magic against their mismatched group of refugees and freedpeople.

Zephyrus’s nostrils flared. “If he sent Allaron here controlled by a darkling, if he wanted to send me…”

“There could be others,” Laeden said.

Zephyrus nodded. “Threyna and Vykinallia can sense them, if they focus on each individual person, but there are too many.”

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

“Just promise me something,” Zephyrus said, placing his hand on Laeden’s arm. “If a darkling seizes control of me again… don’t hesitate to kill me.”

“Kill you?” Laeden scoffed. “Zephyrus, even if I wanted to… Besides, the Guardian will be with you.” He referenced the Guardian’s pulsing light, following a short distance behind. “The realms are depending on you, Zephyrus.”

“Not if the gates are closed and I can’t ascend to the divine realm,” Zephyrus said.

The gates are closed. Things were worse than Laeden had thought. He patted Zephyrus’s hand. “We’ll find a way. Together, we’ll find a way.”

Chapter 35

Battle of the Isthmus

Vykinallia, Threyna, Laeden, Zephyrus, Iylea

Valtarcia

Vykinallia

She missed her Inner Pulvinus—the power it offered, the control she wielded, the safety it shrouded her in. Threyna told her to relinquish her grasp on it once their scouts returned with word that the Skeleton King’s legions were mobilizing.

“You’re a quick study,” Threyna had said. “But I would rather have you fresh.”

She had released the first two prongs within the first several hours, but Threyna warned her the next two would not come as easily. Healing herself of a mortal wound by devouring the blood and bone of another, and conjuring beyond sight—when she accomplished those feats, the artifact would release. Though Threyna told her the curse and the abilities it afforded would remain with her, there was a certain boon of accessibility to her Inner Pulvinus that the artifact provided. Vykinallia intended to make good use of it.

Now, the Order marched westward. The trail of lights approaching from the east—sourced by arcanatek, as Threyna described it—glowed a steady radiant white as opposed to a torch’s flickering orange. The nearer the lights drew, the more anxious Vykinallia became.

The Skeleton King was coming for her. Her, and the artifact piercing her ear.

Unlike the nerves she experienced before storming Arux’s ludus or sneaking into Damascus’s tent to assassinate him, this sensation was less a sickness and more a fluttering in her stomach. Less nervous and more excited. She knew she shouldn’t have been, but such was her curse.

Threyna described it as an addiction—a habit that grew worse with use, requiring more effort to sustain and a steeper debt to repay over time, but the power was intoxicating. Gone was the weak, helpless girl who her father made feel small, used, powerless. On her Inner Pulvinus, she led. Not her father, not Damascus, not even Nallia Cassius—Vykinallia was the unquestioned leader, the Champion of all the realms.

She had taken Threyna’s advice as well. The gladiators on the sands were not slaves made to fight within her arena; they were soldiers who followed her, believed in her, and would die—not for her, but the cause she represented. And that cause was defeating the Skeleton King.

With the Skeleton King dead, perhaps the gates to the divine realm would reopen, and together she and Zephyrus would ascend and defeat Paxoran. Together.

Staring out at the encroaching lights, Vykinallia and Threyna held the front lines in companionable silence behind their poor excuses for stockades. Vykinallia doubted Salmantica’s city walls would do anything to impede the Skeleton King’s assault, let alone the hastily constructed tinder gathered and prepared in the camp’s defenses.

Regardless of what good it would do, occupied hands and minds bested idle ones. Once Laeden had returned from his suicidal journey to Salmantica, greater than half the camp fled west in the hopes that Danella, of all people, would be able to sneak them inside the city walls. Not trusting her villainy for a second, Vykinallia supposed the journey and what little hope it offered was a better option than leaving them on the isthmus where they could be exploited by the Skeleton King or his darklings.

Following the attempted murder by Allaron’s secret indweller, Threyna taught Vykinallia how to search others’ seats of power to make sure they were the only ones sitting upon them. While they didn’t have the time or energy to search everyone’s seat of power, they made sure each leader and each scout was in control of their own actions.

Vykinallia realized her fortune of having Threyna to guide her through. She imagined what it must have been like for Threyna to sort all of this out on her own. She brushed the elbow of Threyna’s crossed arm with her fingertip.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Vykinallia said. “For teaching me. Apologies for being… difficult at times.”

Threyna grunted. “Don’t thank me. It is a curse. One that, if we’re lucky enough to survive the Skeleton King and Paxoran, will kill us both in due time.”

“A curse, yes,” Vykinallia said, removing her hand from Threyna’s arm to touch her blackened ear. “Yet one that gives us a fighting chance. We can win.”

“We’re outnumbered,” Threyna reminded her. “There’s no telling how many blood mages he has. And for every mage we have, they have a score of arcanatek-wielding legionaries.”

Threyna’s pessimism wasn’t unwarranted, but how many times had Vykinallia faced death in recent days? And how many of those times had she and the others emerged victorious?

“We have Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said.

Threyna scoffed. “For now.”

Threyna’s answer, as terse and unyielding as her icy stare and as sharp as her angled brow, presented a bitterness Vykinallia couldn’t ignore.

Vykinallia averted her gaze from the unnatural train of white lights on the horizon to turn towards Threyna. With more assertiveness, she seized Threyna’s arm to encourage her to meet her eyes. Threyna’s pursed lips and jutting chin gave Vykinallia the distinct impression she didn’t wish to be touched—not by her—but that was exactly why she needed to.

“I don’t want to lose him either,” Vykinallia said. When Threyna’s expression remained fixed, Vykinallia pressed harder. “I know how you feel about him.”

“You don’t know anything,” Threyna said, returning her gaze to the horizon.

Vykinallia didn’t let go. “I know how you feel about him. And I know how he feels about me. And that is why I say thank you. This is difficult for you. I can tell.”

Threyna

Threyna’s fingers curled into fists against her ribs. With her arms crossed, and Vykinallia’s hand upon her, Threyna felt ready to let the Skeleton King have her—Ferrocles’s anger or not.

“No,” Threyna said. “This is difficult for me.” She pointed to the lights heralding the legionaries marching toward them. “I’ve spent my entire life fighting or running from the Skeleton King, and—”

“And Zephyrus was the one thing that gave you hope for something more than fighting or running.”

The words hit her like a horse’s hoof to the chest.

She supposed Vykinallia was right, but what difference did it make?

Teeth clenched, cheeks flushed, and with Ferrocles’s imposed anger besides, Threyna had had enough.

“Please,” Vykinallia said. “Just listen.”

Resisting her every impulse not to thrash free of Vykinallia’s grasp, Threyna grunted.

“For a time, I questioned my own feelings for Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said. “Daughter of a lanista, a slave owner, betrothed to the King of New Rheynia—did I love him?” She shook her head. “I didn’t love him. I loved the idea of him. The safety and security I found in his presence. I loved getting to be myself without fear of reprisal, judgement from my father, or the gossip of patricians.”

Threyna did her best not to roll her eyes, but away they rolled in spite of her efforts. “Oh, the trials and tribulations.”

Vykinallia ignored her, pressing on. “I didn’t love him. I loved who I was with him.”

She removed her hand from Threyna’s arm and hugged herself, as if consoling herself for the treacherous life she had to live on feathered cushions and golden thrones.

“You see,” Vykinallia continued, “it wasn’t until we were apart—when I was abducted by the Fallen—that I came to learn the truth. I did come to love myself in his presence, but I also loved him. The two are not the same.”

A stone formed in Threyna’s throat. They truly are made for each other. This gory ghosting lecture. She shook her head.

Either ignoring Threyna’s derision, or powering past it, Vykinallia continued.

“Everything from the way he looks, not at me, but at others—his genuine care, his desire to help. I love Zephyrus, not for what he can do for me, but what he does for others. Can you say the same… honestly?”

Threyna’s head stopped shaking. Her fists unfurled. Suddenly, Vykinallia’s stare weighed enough to bury her underground.

Is she right?

The question shattered her reality. She had attached her hope from one thing to the next, all in pursuit of defeating the Skeleton King. First the Treasures, under the influence of Paxoran’s lies. Then to Zephyrus, believing he could heal her through the curse’s effects so she could kill Belrich and end this for good. Zephyrus couldn’t. He wasn’t enough.

Is that why I’ve found myself less allured? She expected it had been due in large part to his repeated rejections of her—that, paired with having to see him with Vykinallia, was reason enough to distance herself.

Do I love him, or do I love the promise of a future without the Skeleton King? If the Skeleton King was dead, if my curse was gone… would I love him if I no longer needed him?

How was she supposed to know what love was? When had she ever witnessed it? Certainly not between her parents; the two had more secrets between them than shared smiles. No one had time for love, surviving in Rheynia. There was no love in the City of Judges either. The only thing the Warlocks of Sage loved was vengeance.

“I love Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said. “He is the drop of rain that ends the drought. The first ray of sunlight on the horizon. He is my hope—for what I can be. What the world can be.”

Threyna took no interest in Vykinallia’s poetry, but the sentiment behind it revealed the void that hid behind her infatuation with Zephyrus.

Perhaps I don’t love him? Perhaps I never did…

Despite the clamor of the camp’s final preparations, silence stretched between her and Vykinallia. Threyna didn’t know how long it lingered, but the line of marching lights had drawn near enough that scouts reported back, returning to Threyna and Vykinallia to verify that they were not harboring a darkling within them.

After searching both scouts’ seats of power, Threyna asked, “How many march?”

The scout, a long-limbed Sentinel, shrugged. “If they left anyone in Valtarcia, then our initial estimates were short. Most, if not all.”

Threyna nodded, allowing the two scouts through.

Once they passed, Vykinallia returned her emerald stare to the horizon. “This will work. We can do this.” Breaking away from the marching legions in the distance, she met Threyna’s eyes. “Together.”

Threyna hmphed.

It was not the together she thought she wanted. But somehow, she took solace in that. She allowed a half grin.

“Together.”

The word even tasted better. She just hoped Vykinallia was right.

This has to work.

Zephyrus

Zephyrus didn’t like using Vykinallia as bait, but choice eluded him. As did warmth. Crouching in the snowy slopes of the Silver Summits overlooking the isthmus, Zephyrus and the Guardian hid, bending sound to conceal his heartbeat from the Skeleton King’s approach.

They took particular care making certain no one but he and the Guardian knew where he would strike from in the event a spy had slipped within their camp. The plan was to lure the Skeleton King out. Once Zephyrus spotted him, concealed in manipulated light and sound, he would teleport beside the Skeleton King and stab him through the heart.

It must work. This needs to work.

The hardest part of the plan was staying still. Waiting. While the others fought the Skeleton King’s blood mages and legionaries, Zephyrus would have to watch. He couldn’t afford to show himself before the Skeleton King did. He needed to make sure the Skeleton King was dead. Truly dead. Though he had the Guardian to protect his mind from darklings attempting to control him, he could take no chances.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes,” Paxoran said.

He stifled a shiver. No, I will not.

The Skeleton King’s legions drew near. Near enough for the call for archers to nock their arrows to roar against the whipping wind, rumbling thunder, and crashing waves.

For all Zephyrus’s fighting, he’d never been in a battle of this size. Single combat—too many to count. A skirmish, dozens at the least. Even bouts of him on his own against many, a handful of times in the last day alone. But never anything like this.

Hundreds of brave men and women stood in the way of the marching legions. Their white-tipped reaping spears and arcanatek firearms glowed brighter with each encroaching step. Soon enough, those brave men and women would do what brave men and women did—they’d fight. They’d die. A trading of pawns. His friends were such pawns. Jecht and Cerik had survived lifetimes in the arena, but now they were on the front lines, prepared to fight against blood mages. While Jecht continued to wield a confiscated reaping spear, Cerik preferred to wield his customary mace, a mundane weapon against the cursed magic and devious mind of the Skeleton King and his minions.

They weren’t the only ones. Iberion, Sett, Dankar, and the other members of his father’s original group of Fallen would fight with sword and shield, great sword, and axe respectively. Aside from Unari and a few other elemental mages at their disposal, they had little in the way of firepower. It was as if they had brought sticks to a sword fight.

Most vulnerable of all was Laeden. The faraway look in his eyes had not left since he had set off for Salmantica. Armed with the reckless peace bought by too many scrapes with his own death, he wore the expression of a man with nothing left to lose. While he was no stranger to combat, Laeden hadn’t made his life as a knight, a soldier, or a revolutionary. Skilled with a sword, no doubt, but did he belong on the front lines against a horde of blood mages? No.

All the while, Vykinallia and Threyna stood at the center of their defensive front line. The healing mages would be close to them, but that didn’t make Zephyrus worry any less. That was the thing about battle that he hated most. When it was just him and his opponent, there were no worries, no concerns. Standing with allies, that’s all he had.

His friends would fight and die, all while he hid in the mountains, waiting for the Skeleton King to show himself. He wanted to be down there with them, shoulder to shoulder, but the Skeleton King would not be on the front line. The Skeleton King would content himself in the trading of pawns; he wouldn’t trade strategy for relationships the way Zephyrus wanted to. He wished they could settle this in single combat—Zephyrus versus the Skeleton King. If it truly were one on one, he wondered if he could do it. But no such contest could be trusted. All it would take was the Skeleton King to hide one darkling, and without the Guardian, he was sooner to murder his friends than spare their lives of a needless battle.

And so, the battle needed to be fought.

The isthmus’s geography funneled the marching legions to a pointed formation as they approached archers’ range.

“Draw!”

The call echoed off the mountains, and their mismatched force of fighters obeyed.

A similar command rang out along the mirrored army’s ranks. Radiant light sparked to life against the dark backdrop of the angry sky as the Order’s whirring arcanatek contrasted the thunder’s bellowing.

“Tip the scales…” Zephyrus said.

“Loose!”

The combined sound of dozens of bowstrings thrumming at once was offset by the whirring arcanatek. The volley of arrows disappeared against the black sky, but reappeared just as a bloody curtain descended before the marching legion. Zephyrus had seen them before, but illuminated by lightning, blood mages on conjured wings hovered over their marching legionaries. The arrows met the conjured shield, snapping, splintering, and falling to the ground like harmless rain.

Threyna said this would happen, but forcing the blood mages to expend their resources in exchange for arrows was a worthy trade.

“Nock!”

As the second volley prepared, the whirring arcanatek neared its crescendo and approached firing range.

“Draw!”

The charging arcanatek reached their climax. A wall of light exploded from the Order’s front, surging towards Vykinallia, Threyna, and the rest of the front line. A shield of their own appeared before Threyna and stretched across the length of the isthmus. Sizzling bolts of radiant energy struck the shield and fizzled, burning holes in Threyna’s wall before she let it fall to ash.

“Loose!”

The second volley sailed through the air to crash against the Order’s curtain, but a section of the curtain fell as a blood mage on conjured wings fell from the sky.

“Fire at will!”

A less-organized array of arrows sailed through the air, some finding purchase through the part of the shield that had fallen to ash in the blood mage’s absence. Men in black uniforms fell, screaming. But not enough. Other arrows plucked against the bloody curtain to fall ineffectively to the ground. Legionaries advanced, another round of charging arcanatek already glowing white.

Arrows continued to fly, but either the blood mage healed and returned to their post, or another took his place to block the slew of shafts.

As the arcanateks’ warbles neared peak velocity again, Threyna conjured another shield, thicker this time to compensate for the proximity of the legionaries’ blasts. Blinding light surged into the conjuration, sending ripples through the already dematerializing shield. Ash descended before the front line, but sustained by the healing mages, Threyna remained unscathed by the curse. For now.

Only a few dozen paces away now, the time for posturing ended. The bloody curtain dropped. The Order’s spearmen replaced the arcanatek-wielding legionaries—and charged.

Zephyrus’s knuckles cracked as his fingernails bit into his palms. Useless at this distance, he could only wait and watch. He scanned the Order’s formations for any sign of the Skeleton King, but he was nowhere to be found.

A bloody scythe formed before their front line, wide enough to cleave every one of his friends in half. Before it could slash across their ranks, it fell to ash, dissipated by Threyna’s efforts. The Order’s vanguard met the front line. Jecht, Cerik, Laeden, and the others disappeared in a fray of stabbing spears and swinging swords.

While Threyna focused on defenses, Vykinallia targeted the blood mages. She flung a trapper’s net at the nearest blood mage flying over the front lines to attack the archers still firing into the Order’s back line. The net closed around the blood mage and dropped him from the sky. As the blood mage fell, Vykinallia conjured a trident and hurled it at the trapped legionary. The impact redirected the blood mage’s trajectory. Instead of falling to the ground between the front and back line, the blood mage tumbled from view beyond the cliff.

Screams filled the air, louder than nature’s punishment for the fallen Gods.

Jecht’s reaping spear disappeared into a legionary’s chest. Cerik’s mace crashed into an overextended spear and fractured the shaft. Iberion deflected a thrust with his shield and countered with a stab of his long sword. The blade burst from the back of a legionary’s head before retracting in a spray of gore.

The snow-sodden ground they’d set the blockades around slowed the Order’s progress. A shower of water doused the Order’s vanguard, immediately followed by a bolt of lightning. Men sizzled and dropped to the ground only to be replaced by more men.

Zephyrus’s fist drummed against his thigh, his nerves unraveling with each passing moment. With more arrows felling the Order’s back line, some blood mages shifted tactics toward defense, blanketing the legionaries with an angled wall to absorb the shafts. While it allowed Threyna an easier time of contending against the blood mages’ most threatening conjurations, and it granted Vykinallia the ability to focus her blood-borne attacks on the vanguard, it blocked Zephyrus’s chance of seeing the Skeleton King.

Burn me.

He considered teleporting behind the legions, but then he would lose sight of the others. He bit his lip, but waited.

A blaze of fire from Unari’s palms created a row of human torches. More legionaries fell and died, but they were instantly replaced by others. Though more bodies in Order blacks littered the ground, and the chorus of screams hailed more from their front, watching and doing nothing was a form of torture Zephyrus had never known.

He wanted to act. He needed to act.

“Patience.” Patrus’s voice filled his mind, and for a moment, he was back in the sandstone walls of the Arcane Templar. “There can be no ego inna fight. Strike quickly and draw first blood? Ah, no. Wait. Strike right and end it.”

Zephyrus bit his lip, but waited.

The arrows stopped flying as the last of their shafts broke against the bloody curtain. Absent the archers’ threat, the blood mages let their shield fall to ash and returned to the front, once again revealing the back half of the Skeleton King’s forces.

Zephyrus scanned the formation, searching for any sign of the Skeleton King. He’s hiding, that coward. The irony wasn’t lost on Zephyrus, but he hated this plan. He hated hiding, hated waiting while others fought. Bled. Died.

As the blood mages returned to the front, Threyna’s demands increased. The two healers behind her took turns in mitigating the rot that coursed through her veins. Black vines snaked up their arms and faces. Even Threyna’s arm was stained rotten up her neck and down to her elbow.

Vykinallia was only marginally better off. The two healers at her back wouldn’t last much longer, and then the curse would have nowhere to go but through her veins to her heart.

All while I wait here.

Again he scoured the formation. Burn me, where are you?

A blood mage conjured a pike that exploded from the ground up, impaling Sett through the gut. The burly blacksmith roared.

Threyna directed her attention to it, but she couldn’t dissipate it to ash. Sett cleaved the pike in half with his great sword and charged over the blockade, a bloody shaft protruding from his stomach.

He spun in a tremendous arc and cleaved through three legionaries, dropping them to their knees to collect their spilling intestines. Blood drained down Sett’s abdomen, but he continued his onslaught, charging deeper into the Order’s ranks. His brother Dankar and others followed Sett’s reckless charge, opening a gap in their front line.

The battle devolved from organized lines to chaos. The Order’s reaping spears surged through their defenses as Sett’s charge divided the legionary formation into left and right halves.

Legionaries struck at Threyna and Vykinallia. Jecht, Cerik, and Laeden peeled from their front line duties to defend the mages. Bodies fell all around Threyna and Vykinallia, but more pikes burst from the ground, skewering leather-armed Sentinels as easily as the unarmored freedpeople. Screams filled the air.

The bravery of battle broke into the quest for survival. And still, the Skeleton King was nowhere to be seen.

Sett fell. Dankar roared, raising his great-axe against the reaping spears. He chopped through one shaft and brought his axe around to split a skull. Before he could retract the blade, a reaping spear plunged into his shoulder. Then another through his side.

Zephyrus inhaled sharply. He could teleport to Dankar’s aid—use his force magic to shove the legionaries back, and spirit Dankar to the back of the formation where he could heal him. But he couldn’t. Not without jeopardizing their entire plan.

A third spear dove into Dankar’s chest.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

Zephyrus’s fist strangled the Vykane Blade’s hilt. How much longer am I supposed to wait? How many must die before I can end this?

He scanned the Order’s formation. Movement in their back line drew his attention. Aponius and Aurellia’s divided forces converged, attacking the Skeleton King’s army in the rear.

A concussive blast of force magic blew a handful of legionaries over the side of the cliff. Their shrieks erupted only to be silenced by the thrashing waves below. The Order’s lines adjusted to defend their flank with blood mages abandoning their assault on the front lines to aid their back line.

This will draw the Skeleton King out. It has to!

Zephyrus surveyed the grounds as the Skeleton King emerged. Hovering over the isthmus on draconic, blood-borne wings, the Skeleton King lifted his arms to prepare some horrific conjuration.

Zephyrus didn’t wait. Encased in his soundless bubble to conceal his heartbeat, enshrouded in darkness from manipulated light, Zephyrus used Kosmar’s greave to enter the immaterial plane with the Guardian at his side.

He tore through the air, everything moving in slow motion around him. Once behind the Skeleton King with his arms raised and wings flapping, Zephyrus returned to the material plane, slowing time around him. He drew the Vykane Blade. The blade extended from the hilt in a glowing white light. Before anyone could see him, before anyone could stop him, Zephyrus drove the Auros-forged sword of the Judges into the back of the Skeleton King’s skull. The hilt slammed into the back of the Skeleton King’s head.

His black crown fell from his silver-blond hair. His blood-conjured wings eroded to ash. The Skeleton King fell from the sky, and Zephyrus drove him down to the ground. Tapping into Helios’s bracer, Zephyrus shot forth a beam of light that irradiated blood, bone, body, and soul into nothingness.

By the time Zephyrus landed in the gap in the Order’s formation, the Skeleton King was gone. Dead. Killed.

It was too easy. Too simple. Too—

“There you are.”

The familiar voice sent a shiver down Zephyrus’s spine. A legionary. A grunt. Black hair, a cleft chin, poisonous green eyes. But inside, he was the Skeleton King. Before Zephyrus could move, a black cloud of darklings erupted from the legionary, and a terrible draw yanked upon his soul. The Guardian screamed, caught up in a current towards the Skeleton King’s stolen body.

The Guardian resisted the flow, but the darklings zipped into Zephyrus’s body in droves. Hundreds upon hundreds. Thousands. An arena’s worth of people’s shouting invaded his mind. His Inner Calm within the Auros manor became inundated with angry, vengeful spirits.

“Guardian!” Zephyrus shouted, but in a moment, he couldn’t even see her past the swirling black darklings.

Fear. Dark, bleak, suffocating fear choked off his cries for help. He could no longer speak. He couldn’t move. More and more souls stormed the walls of his home.

Within the palace of his mind, the darklings combined to form Paxoran’s floating head.

“Fool,” Paxoran said. “All your physical strength and abilities, yet you still do not realize. What is a body, but a vessel for a soul? Whatever gifts you have are nothing compared to my tether to Belrich. Blinded you are… gratifying yourself with the trinkets of Gods. You believe yourself one—a God. But you are not. You are weak. And you will see for yourself what happens to the prideful.”

Paxoran’s floating head fractured into a tempest of infinite black souls.

No.

Zephyrus knew what was about to happen. A contest of wills, a fight for control over his mind. He also knew the stakes.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes,” Paxoran promised. “You will feel the flames of your own magic scorch the people you helped free.”

With the Guardian fighting against the Skeleton King’s current, he was alone, but he would not fail again. For love. For hope. For freedom from this cursed traitor of a God.

He braced himself as the myriad souls merged with his own, each vying for control.

Conqueron, a Premius in the Order’s legions who sacrificed his body to the Skeleton King before they set sail from Rheynia, rose to the top first, seeking glory. Zephyrus rebuffed his petty purpose, casting him from the window overlooking the isthmus’s cliffs below.

Warsius struck next. A battle-hardened captain killed by Zephyrus on the streets of Valtarcia, Warsius sought to overtake Zephyrus and claim his vengeance. Zephyrus once imagined retribution a noble pursuit. He, himself, had nearly undone himself seeking to avenge Patrus’s murder, but vengeance was a trophy centered on the past. Zephyrus set his sights to the future. A future past Paxoran. A future he and Vykinallia could forge together.

He hurled Warsius from the top of his Inner Calm.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Faminius attacked next. She was not a soldier, not an Order legionary. She was just a Valtarcian child.

“You!” Faminius’s voice hissed.

Taken aback by the rush of rage and hatred, Zephyrus stammered, but resisted her imposition. Her memories, few as they were, flooded Zephyrus’s mind.

“Bring her to the farm,” said a legionary with black veins across his face.

Shackled by bloody manacles, brought to the Chariot’s Arena where her mother and brother never allowed her to go, Faminius trembled.

“The gladiator games are no place for a child,” her mother had said.

“You’ll have nightmares,” her brother agreed.

Yet there Faminius was, standing on the bloodstained pebbles of the arena. Not a farm as the scary man had said, but the arena. Her mother and brother wouldn’t object; they were already dead. Killed by glowing spears.

Praying for the Six to save her, Faminius spotted two figures on the pulvinus. Her shackles burned to ash. The arena began to shake. Before she knew it, she was running, swept up in a stampede of others attempting to flee.

She fell.

The first foot stomped on her fingers, crushing the bones. The second on her back, cracking her ribs. She fought to stand up, but a knee bowled into her side, tossing her to the pebbles. She didn’t feel the rest. But no one stopped to help. The Six didn’t help. The two on the pulvinus didn’t help. The people trampling over her didn’t bother to glance.

Guilt rattled the walls of Zephyrus’s ancestral home.

“I tried,” Zephyrus shouted to her.

“I never got a chance,” Faminius said. “You had your chance to live. I want mine!”

Her will thundered against his Inner Calm. She deserved another chance. It wasn’t fair. Zephyrus even understood why she blamed him for being trampled to death, but how many more would suffer to give this girl another chance at life?

“I’m sorry.” Zephyrus threw her from the heights of his Inner Calm to fall back into the tempest of souls vying for control over his mind and body.

Faminius fell away, replaced by Destrus, a Celestic slave under the lesser lanista Mordus’s roof.

Destrus crashed into Zephyrus with a blaze of anger and hatred. “You burning mages! You are all the same. You think you’re helping, but you only make things worse for us. They hate us because they fear you.”

Zephyrus had met such resistance before. How many times had Fenyx resisted him on the basis that things could be worse, saying they were fortunate to have the opportunity to fight for honor and glory?

“And you hate me because I will not content myself with the meager life of bowing and scraping?” Zephyrus asked. “Because I refuse to suffer beneath New Rheynia’s heel?”

“Don’t you see?” Destrus hissed. “If not under the Rheynians, who will you bow and scrape for? There is always another boot. Is the Skeleton King, as you call him, a better master? How about the Gods—who only seem to tip the scales in their favor?”

Destrus’s force grew with each passing word, but Zephyrus resisted.

“That is why the Gods need to be stopped,” Zephyrus said. “And I can stop them. Then no one will have to bow and scrape.”

“Impossible!” Destrus shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls of House Auros. “The only answer is death. Eternal, unyielding equality in death.”

Depression had stolen Destrus’s sense long before he was consumed by the Skeleton King. He’d given up on life—abandoned hope.

Zephyrus would not give up. Not on himself, not on those who still held hope in their hearts, not even on lost souls like Destrus.

“I’ll still fight for you,” Zephyrus said. With a final shove, he ejected Destrus and his death wish from his Inner Calm.

Preparing himself for another soul to challenge him, he was given a moment’s respite. He needed to reclaim control. Focusing on his father’s mission, his mother’s sacrifice, Patrus’s hope, Threyna’s relentless determination, and Vykinallia’s love, Zephyrus ejected the darklings from his body.

Zephyrus returned to the present moment. Darklings swirled in the air around him, darting back towards the legionary they’d come from. The Guardian’s light glowed between him and the legionary, suspended in the Skeleton King’s current.

“Zephyrus!” Laeden slashed across a legionary’s chest and stabbed another through the gut, fighting his way towards him.

The Skeleton King glared at Zephyrus through the legionary’s eyes. A twisted grin parted his lips. “If you want something done right…” The current dragging the Guardian away from Zephyrus ceased. The legionary’s face slackened.

“Zephyrus!” Laeden shouted again.

A single darkling burst from the legionary’s chest and struck into Zephyrus.

“No!” the Guardian shouted.

Laeden

A blood mage rose into the air on scaled wings. Black-veined hands extended past black sleeves. The black crown atop his head branded him the Skeleton King. With his palms turned upwards as if summoning something worse than the hellstorm surrounding the isthmus, the Skeleton King made the first move.

This is it. This has to be it.

Laeden didn’t have time to watch. The light of a reaping spear blurred past his vision, making him see spots. Close enough to feel the heat off the soul-rending spearpoint, Laeden sliced defensively to keep the enemy at bay. Another reaping spear darted past him, this one coming from behind. Jechtaric, one of Zephyrus’s former brothers bearing the Cassius mark, thrust his stolen spear into the legionary before Laeden.

The glowing spear tip disappeared into the gut of the black uniform. The legionary’s eyes grayed. Dead. While it might have been a killing blow, no one died that fast from such a wound. Gut wounds were slow, agonizing deaths, but not at the end of the Order’s arcanatek spears.

The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Light blossomed overhead.

Before Laeden’s vision could refocus, the Skeleton King was gone. Legionaries parted as Zephyrus fell to the ground amidst a corpse more dust than body.

For a moment, the battle seemed to halt. All eyes stared at the red haired man and his sunlight sword standing in the Skeleton King’s ashes.

He did it. He—

A reaping spear stabbed at him. If not for Iberion by his side to deflect the blade away, the light of the spear tip would have been the last thing Laeden saw. Cerik’s mace crashed into the skull of Laeden’s attacker. The legionary crumbled, his temple caved in.

The Order hadn’t given up at the fall of their leader. If anything, the onslaught of blood-conjured pikes erupting through the ground increased. Threyna dissipated most of them before they could do too much harm, but there were too many to prevent all casualties. Vykinallia didn’t let up either as her own conjurations crashed into the Order’s formation. Blood-borne battering rams crashed down from the slope of the Silver Summits to scatter legionaries or send them hurling to the raging sea beneath the cliffs.

Laeden had hoped with the Skeleton King dead, the fighting would stop. But it was only just beginning. Unari sent a fiery gale into the Order’s ranks. Flaming legionaries thrashed like ambling torches, but in the clearing, Laeden saw Zephyrus, ringed by legionaries, their arcanatek spears and incendiary bows trained on him.

He didn’t move.

As if transfixed or frozen in time, Zephyrus did not shift his weight, he did not tense—he didn’t even breathe.

Zephyrus!

His warning returned to Laeden. “If a darkling seizes control of me again… don’t hesitate to kill me.”

No, no, no. He shouted to Threyna and Vykinallia, unsure whether what he said was intelligible or not. Before he knew it, he was pressing forward, crying Zephyrus’s name as loud as his raw throat and chapped lips would allow.

The certain victory of a moment ago vanished. He needed to get to Zephyrus and stop whatever was happening to him. He cut down another legionary, shoved past burning men thrashing to put their flames out, and bounded over their forgotten spears. His steel met one arcanatek spear, deflecting it aside. With a quick turn, he countered, slashing a gash across the legionary’s gullet. Redirecting his momentum, he stabbed another through the gut and kicked him out of Laeden’s path.

He was only a few paces away from Zephyrus now. The Guardian floated between him and the legionary that held Zephyrus in a deadlocked stare.

Suddenly, darklings poured out of Zephyrus. Too many to count, too many to fathom, but he had won his contest of wills.

“Zephyrus!” Laeden shouted, closing the distance between them with another cleaving strike.

Everything happened so fast after that. He didn’t know how or when, or what he could have done differently, but one moment after Zephyrus ejected the innumerable darklings, a single one zipped from the legionary to Zephyrus. Before Laeden could make sense of it, he was staring at Zephyrus, eye to eye. Zephyrus’s left hand held Laeden’s right wrist. His right held the Vykane Blade.

Laeden looked down, but he only saw the hilt. Zephyrus’s hand. Blood.

He stared. The moment lingered, giving Laeden time to make sense through his shock. He reasoned out where the blade must have gone. If the hilt were pressed to his stomach and Zephyrus’s hand was bloody…

He met Zephyrus’s eyes.

Zephyrus’s mouth moved, but a voice that didn’t belong to him passed his lips. “All will join the One True God.”

Before Laeden understood, Zephyrus ripped the blade free.

Absent the blade’s support, Laeden found his legs no longer worked. He fell to the ground, his hands grasping at his stomach as pain flooded every fiber of his being. Blood flowed through his fingers. Like waves in time with his failing heartbeat, warm blood belched from the wound, mixing with the gore of his eviscerated intestines. His hands attempted to hold back the blood, but his fingers leaked, unable to stem the tide.

Zephyrus stared down at him and drew in a deep breath that seemed to tear Laeden in two, as if his soul were being stripped from his body.

Nothing made sense. The sky was black. His hands were sticky. He felt suddenly cold despite the warmth of his bloody blanket. An undertow called to him, beckoning him to follow its path toward Zephyrus.

“No!” a familiar voice screamed.

Laeden would have let go. He should have. The mere fact that he even questioned what he heard confirmed for him how lost he already was. Yet he didn’t follow the tide towards Zephyrus’s drawn breath, because he heard something he thought he’d never hear before.

Iylea…

Iylea

The Skeleton King, Zephyrus—whoever held the sword drenched in Laeden’s blood, whoever attempted to consume Laeden’s soul—needed to be stopped.

Iylea charged into Zephyrus’s chest, leaving the waking world around her to enter Zephyrus’s Inner Calm. She might as well have burst into a nightmare. No longer was she in Zephyrus’s ancestral home of Stoneside. She was in the darkest of the Six Hells.

The walls, if one could call them that considering the way they rounded and sloped, glowed a greenish hue. Bones littered the ground. Bloody claw marks lined the walls as if someone whittled their fingertips to the bone attempting to climb out to the gray sky above. Narrow and confined, Iylea felt like she was trapped in a maze. Behind her, darkness. Ahead—darkness.

A canyon.

“Zephyrus?” Her own weak, echoing voice was her only answer.

Iylea charged forward. Her cerulean feet ran along the rocky crags carrying her into the glowing green abyss that lay ahead. The canyon forked. Iylea hesitated at the divide.

Zephyrus could be anywhere.

She looked left, then right—each becoming darker and more ominous with every glance between.

Laeden is dying.

She charged to the right, shouting Zephyrus’s name.

The Skeleton King’s voice answered. “Cease your screaming. You are here because I permit you to be here, Iylea.”

The way her name slithered from his venomous tongue made her hate her name. He said it as if he knew her, everything about her. He likely did. Paxoran watched her for years, invading her dreams, giving her visions, even appearing before her. And the Skeleton King was very much connected to the traitorous God of Peace.

“Where is he?” Iylea shouted, ignoring him.

“You will never find him in the Gullies,” the Skeleton King said. “Few of those unfortunate enough to wander in ever find their way out. With hollowed and shades skulking through the passages, you are much more likely to find them before Zephyrus. And you’ll never find me.”

A glistening luminescence approached through the shadows. A ghastly visage of a person, translucent and drawn, floated towards her. A man with sunken eyes, a crooked jaw, and a limp, though his spectral feet never contacted the ground.

A guttural growl roared off the canyon walls, but where the sound originated from was impossible to tell. Iylea startled, glancing behind her. When she turned back around, a skeletal hand with rotten flesh slashed through the glowing ghost. Her scream ripped through the canyon like a torrent. Whether the creature reached for her or the specter, she didn’t wait to find out. Iylea scrambled around the ghost, and the hideous monster behind it. She ran as fast as she could.

With a grunt, the monster lost interest in the ghost and chased after her.

“Oh, don’t scream,” the Skeleton King said, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “That will attract more hollowed and ruin the fun prematurely. Now do keep quiet. You wouldn’t want to spoil the fun, would you?”

The hollowed, as the Skeleton King called them, followed in her wake. Labored breaths and hobbled steps echoed throughout the Gullies. From elsewhere in the maze, the grumbling hollowed took up the call. They knew there was an intruder.

Iylea shimmied down a narrow passage she hoped would be narrow enough that only she could fit. Sidestepping through the gap, she emerged on the other side in a different passageway through the Gullies.

I have to find Zephyrus. I have to stop the Skeleton King.

Every moment’s delay was one moment less she could use to save Laeden. She didn’t want to imagine him lying on the ground, staring at the crackling black sky, bleeding out.

Ahead, a stone tumbled free from a collapsed wall of crumbled canyon. The rubble moved again. Iylea’s breath caught. She ran towards it, praying to the Creator that it was Zephyrus beneath the rubble and not another hollowed.

“Zephyrus, is that you?”

Zephyrus’s muffled cry crept through the cracks, but the words were indistinguishable.

Iylea tore stones away, sending them rattling to the ground behind her. She clawed at the pile until a glowing orange hand pushed through.

“Laeden!” Zephyrus cried through the gap. “I stabbed Laeden. Leave me! The Skeleton King is that way.” His finger pointed back the way she had come. “Take control, balance the scales! Heal Laeden!”

Iylea stumbled away, tripping on the loose stone she’d cast aside to liberate Zephyrus. Running as fast as she could, the groans of the hollowed drew near, encroaching around her from seemingly every direction. She reached an intersection. A glowing green emitted through a narrow crack in the passageway ahead, but hollowed were approaching on either side.

Through the crack, the ghastly green spectral form of the Skeleton King sat on a throne at the bottom of carved stone stairs.

With the hollowed drawing near, Iylea slithered into the crack in the wall, but the hollowed spotted her. Their groans became growls. Their hobbled strides became uncoordinated bounds. Her heart hammered in her chest as she forced her way deeper into the fissure. Their approach grew louder. She couldn’t spare a moment to look. Wriggling through, she scooted sideways, out of reach of the crack in the wall.

Not a moment later, half a dozen decaying maws chomped at her, fighting against one another to shove their arms through the crack in the wall first.

Their eyes a pale green, their skin sallow and drooping, they appeared more dead than alive. She’d seen this before; Paxoran had showed her. She witnessed it during her time in Valencia, but seeing it face-to-face was entirely different.

With no time to ponder the nightmarish hellscape of what became of Rheynia after the Great Migration, Iylea forced her way through the crack in the wall and entered the rounded room with layered seats, or stairs, that descended to the throne at the center.

The Skeleton King grinned at her before standing to address her. “You defied the One True God, defied me. But for the last time.”

Iylea descended the stairs, one at a time, never taking her eyes off the Skeleton King’s.

“I’ve given up my body for this one.” He grinned, all too pleasantly. “There is so much I wish to do with it. Killing your, Laeden… was it? Ah, yes. Laeden. He was just the beginning. You may think it facetious when I say, ‘All will join the One True God,’ but I am—”

Iylea charged at the Skeleton King. She threw her soul at him with the full weight of the thousands of lives she’d lived and died behind it. With their souls merged, fighting for the seat of power that was once Zephyrus’s Inner Calm, their thoughts, memories, and feelings clashed.

Belrich, son of Bohen, murdered his brother. Iylea remembered his brother; she had come across his corrupted link in the chain when she was the Breaker. Bherus, Threyna’s father, sacrificed everything to try and stop Bohen’s evil, but Bohen’s evil became Belrich’s obsession, and Belrich’s obsession became Paxoran’s key to victory. The collector of souls would prevent the growing of the chain, allowing Paxoran to lead a Harbinger to Valencia.

Anger flooded Iylea for having been a part of Paxoran’s plot. Deceived as she was, she would not let them succeed.

Belrich poked at her wounds, tearing free memories of Laeden’s inability to protect her, his failure to listen to her. He manipulated memories to incept the idea that he never loved her.

But that was where Belrich’s deceptions would never gain ground. A thousand lovers she’d had and lost, but none fought for her like Laeden. His failures were not his weaknesses, nor were they hers. The fault rested solely with Paxoran. The fear he inspired for his own vengeance sought to render the world to ashes, and she would stop it.

Denying Belrich his foothold, Iylea took advantage. Belrich’s inferiority, his cowardice, hid behind twisted grins and sarcastic remarks. He wasn’t the son Bohen wished to gather the souls of the world with. Bherus, for all his defiance, was Bohen’s pride and joy. Belrich was an afterthought. Playing with his Order like a toy, treating his war with the Wraith and the Underground as a game, it was no wonder why Bohen preferred his firstborn.

“You were never Paxoran’s first choice either,” Iylea shouted through the tempest of their clashing thoughts, memories, and emotions. “Threyna was. And even if you kill her the same way you murdered Bherus, you will never be accepted by Paxoran. He tolerates you the same way your father did.”

Belrich’s hold on his seat of power slipped, and Iylea claimed the foothold.

“You think Paxoran will reward you,” Iylea continued. “Collector of souls.” She scoffed. “He will forsake you the moment he is done with you. He will abandon you. Because just. Like. You.” She emphasized each word, preparing for one final push. “He only cares about himself.”

Belrich screamed as she ejected him from the seat of power.

Iylea sat in Belrich’s throne.

With complete power over Zephyrus’s Inner Calm, she pictured how it once looked. The walls of Stoneside. The window overlooking the cliffs and the crashing waves. The glowing canyon of the Gullies, where Belrich entrenched himself in Zephyrus’s mind, faded—replaced by the Inner Calm of Zephyrus’s ancestral home.

“Zephyrus!” she cried into the abyss of House Auros.

He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t wait for him any longer.

Returning to the physical realm, Iylea stood atop Laeden. Pale and gasping for breath, he didn’t have long left. Darklings swirled around them. Reaping spears aimed at her in all directions.

“Hang on, Laeden,” Iylea said.

Grabbing Laeden by the wrist, Iylea did as she’d seen Zephyrus do dozens of times before. Tapping into Klayvorine’s Time greave, she stemmed the flow of Laeden’s blood. With everyone moving in reduced time around her, she called upon Kosmar’s greave to flee the material plane. Envisioning the isthmus behind their back line, she and Laeden disappeared from the center of the Order’s formation.

Not a moment after returning from the immaterial plane, Laeden’s gore seeped into the snow, polluting the ground around him.

“Hold on, Laeden.”

Laeden only stared through bleary eyes. Dark blood bubbled atop his pale lips.

Iylea held Zephyrus’s hands out in front of her, imagining Laeden’s wounds stitching back together. Attempting to balance the scales, she winced and prepared herself for the pain. White tendrils flowed from Zephyrus’s fingertips to Laeden’s stomach.

A moment later, pain lanced through Zephyrus’s midsection. Iylea gasped, nearly doubling over. Acid burned through their shared gut as steel severed her organs. Suddenly, it was as if she’d fled the divine realm again. Remembering the sensation of wind lashing against her, stripping her flesh from her bones, she endured.

Laeden’s stomach began to restitch, but his wounds were deep. She continued, pouring Zephyrus’s healing magic into him, but their shared vision began to wane. She wanted to whisper encouragement to Laeden, but found she couldn’t form words. No longer able to stand over him, she dropped Zephyrus to a knee.

Fire scorched her from the inside out, but she couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t let Laeden die. Color returned to Laeden’s face, but he wasn’t breathing.

Gods, no. Please, no.

Zephyrus awoke within her, attempting to seize control, but she rebuffed him. The pain hurt them both, but she couldn’t afford to give him control.

Just a little longer. He just needs a little more.

Zephyrus’s eyelids drooped, obscuring Iylea’s vision. Their shared periphery narrowed, as the pain became too much to bear.

Again, Zephyrus fought for control over his own body, but his fight dwindled. As did hers. Unable to remain upright, they slumped to the ground beside Laeden.

“Breathe,” Iylea tried to say, but no words came forth. Laeden’s chest did not rise. Then the weight over Zephyrus’s eyes became too much to hold open. Cold swallowed her. Darkness opened its arms to her. And death called from beyond the void.

Vykinallia

Vykinallia didn’t believe her eyes. One moment, Laeden was fighting his way towards Zephyrus. The next, the Vykane Blade erupted from his back. And then he and Zephyrus vanished. If there was time for deliberation, there might have been panic, but battle afforded no such opportunity. Soldiers fought on, but Vykinallia froze.

With rot spreading across her face and down her neck from her earring, plus black veins snaking down her arm to her wrist, she didn’t know what to do. Many followed Laeden’s charge and were now surrounded by legionaries in black.

But where is Zephyrus?

Threyna conjured a double-bladed glaive and hurled it into the chest of a flying blood mage. Embedded in the blood mage’s torso, the blade bent, wrapping around the legionary’s back. His wings fell to ash that rained down on the battle as Threyna called her conjured glaive back to her, dragging the hooked blood mage with it. Threyna drew in breath, abating the rot that, even with the healers’ aid, encroached upon her eyes.

“Come on!” Threyna shouted, draining the last of the blood mage. “Leave them.” She pointed to the healers marred in black veins, same as them.

“What about Zephyrus?” Vykinallia asked.

“What about the Skeleton King?” Threyna said, taking Vykinallia by the arm and dragging her past the blockades and into the fray of battle. “If the Skeleton King sent that many darklings into Zephyrus, he is vulnerable. We just have to find which body he crawled into.”

Threyna’s glaive struck like a viper at an approaching foot soldier. The first blade pierced his chest. She ripped it free and, with a tight arc, slashed his head from his shoulders to fall amongst the smoldering corpses burned by fire magic.

“Now consume more souls,” Threyna said, “or the rot is going to reach your heart.” She drew in breath as they wove through the battlefield. The surrounding dead offered up their souls freely for her consumption.

Vykinallia attempted to do the same, but she couldn’t focus.

An arcanatek whirred to life beside her. Vykinallia spun, conjuring a javelin in her hand. Before the machine could reach its crescendo, Vykinallia flung the javelin at the legionary.

More skilled with a sword than a spear, Vykinallia exerted more force upon the conjuration to straighten her aim and aid in its velocity. The javelin struck the legionary through the eye socket, dissolving to ash before he hit the ground.

“Hurry,” Threyna said.

Vykinallia grunted, too much time wasted.

Threyna struck down another blood mage with a conjured bow and arrow and consumed him. The rot had already abated to her elbow.

Vykinallia focused on the fallen legionary with a javelin-sized hole in his head and drew upon his soul, but another legionary struck at her with a reaping spear. Vykinallia lurched out of the way, forming a morningstar in her hand. Dodging a second strike, she whipped the spiked ball around in a quick revolution, the chain a blur. She brought the spiked ball down on the spearhead, shattering the glowing blade to pieces. Before the legionary could recoil, Vykinallia whipped the spiked ball back into motion and slammed an uppercut into the legionary’s chin.

“He’s going to get away!” Threyna shouted.

The rot closed in around her, but she couldn’t focus, her thoughts consumed by Zephyrus and Laeden.

“Go!” Vykinallia said. “I’ll catch up.”

Without another word, Threyna sprouted wings like the horse of Helixus’s sigil. She took flight and soared over the army, blood-borne bow raining hell upon any in her path.

Vykinallia grit her teeth, willing herself to focus. She recalled how she had drawn the darkling out of Allaron, but then, Zephyrus hadn’t been possessed. She hadn’t been surrounded by an enemy army. Rot hadn’t ravaged her veins.

Focus!

She drew in breath. The soul of the last men she’d felled came loose, its healing properties floating towards her. Before it reached her, two blood mages descended on either side of her. The soul she’d drawn was wrested away and entered the blood mage on her left. The black veins beneath his blond, sideswept hair retreated as he stole the soul she needed. He grinned at her, revealing a gap between his teeth. Vykinallia glanced between Toothless and a person so plain nothing about him was worth noticing.

Vykinallia grounded her feet atop her Inner Pulvinus. The army at her command took heed, and two blood-spawned gladii formed in her hands. Ignoring the spreading rot, Vykinallia slashed at Toothless. Toothless conjured a pair of axes and parried. Vykinallia blocked Toothless’s counter, but Plain launched a series of conjured daggers at her back.

In command atop her Pulvinus, Vykinallia seized control of the daggers flying into her arena. They fell to ash before they could strike. She stabbed and slashed at Toothless again, this time slicing across his cheek. Blood dribbled down the side of his face, the upper portion of his ear cleaved off. He stumbled back. Threyna used Toothless’s available blood and conjured a blindfold across his sideswept bangs.

His axes crumbled to ash.

Just as Vykinallia thrust for him, Plain conjured a giant serpent that coiled around her legs. Before she could dissipate the snake, Plain attacked with a sword aimed at her stomach. Vykinallia’s gladii fell to ash, and she toppled from her feet in the snake’s grasp. Plain’s blood-borne blade passed over her, but now Toothless and Plain were both atop her.

With the two blood mages focusing on upholding the constricting serpent, Vykinallia couldn’t dispel it. Corrupted blood pounded in her ears. Black veins slithered down her chest toward her heart.

Vykinallia took control of the available blood on the ground around her, congealing it into a mace three times the size of any Cerik ever hoped to wield. As a spear appeared in Toothless’s rot-stained hands, lifted high, ready to strike, Vykinallia’s mace slammed into Toothless’s back. The momentum sent him sprawling. He tripped over Vykinallia on the ground and crashed into Plain. In their distraction, Vykinallia seized control of the snake, but instead of dissipating it to ash, she sent it at the two blood mages. It wrapped around their shoulders, squeezing them together.

A great-axe formed in her hands as she reclaimed her feet. With one wild swing, she hacked something memorable in Plain’s face. Plain’s knees gave out, and entangled with Toothless, they both went down. Before Toothless could reorient himself, rolling on the ground, Vykinallia brought the axe down on his neck.

Gasping for breath, Vykinallia dropped to her knees before the two dead mages. Chest constrained by black veins, she needed to consume. She drew in, longing for their souls. They flowed freely from their deceased bodies to her, offering immediate relief to her tight chest. But there was no time for rest. Threyna was nowhere to be seen.

She needed to help.

Vykinallia sank deeper into her Inner Pulvinus and drew in breath, drawing upon all the newly deceased souls around her. Energy, vitality, and relief flooded her veins. The rot retreated, crawling back to her cursed earring.

With a moment’s respite, she attuned to Zephyrus’s rhythm, searching for his heartbeat amidst the battlefield. She couldn’t find him. Not like she couldn’t locate him, she couldn’t hear him. At all.

Panic replaced the tightness brought on by the rot in her veins.

Did he teleport too far away, beyond my ability to hear him?

A heartbeat, angry and hateful, raged behind her. Vykinallia spun to find a reaping spear bearing down on her. She conjured a shield to block it, but the impact never reached her.

Cerik’s mace shattered the spear shaft, and Jecht’s own reaping spear plunged through the side of the legionary, driving him to the ground.

Cerik helped Vykinallia to her feet. “We lost sight of Zephyrus. Where is he?”

Vykinallia swallowed, unable to form the words. She only managed to shake her head.

“We got company,” Jecht said, ripping his spear from the fallen legionary.

Three more blood mages landed around her. One with a conjured long sword, another with a spear, and the third wielded an axe. The three encircled her, Jecht, and Cerik.

“So you’re the one who took the blessing,” said the swordsman before her. His protruding brow pinched beneath his bald scalp as he eyed her earring. Black veins crawled up his neck from where the blood artifact once attached to him.

“We’ll be takin’ it,” said the pacing spearman beside Cerik. His long limbs and narrow hawkish face mirrored the size and shape of his spear. With his hand entirely covered in black rot, Vykinallia assumed the artifact once took the shape of a ring or bracelet.

A man with the shoulders of a bull snarled, both hands strangling his axe. “For the glory of the One True God.”

The bullish axe man showed no signs of rot, but the blood-borne axe in his hands was evidence enough of his blood magic abilities.

Three blood mages.

Vykinallia met the swordsman’s eyes, but spoke to Jecht and Cerik. “Just like the Games of Stockhelm.” She conjured a gladius and buckler to mirror Zephyrus’s fighting style. “I’ll defend. You attack. Jecht, keep the axe off of us, and Cerik, get inside the spearman’s reach.”

“Ay, boys,” the swordsman said. “She’s got a bit of fight in her.” He licked his lips. “I like tha—”

Vykinallia lowered her shield into the trodden snow and flung a blend of blood, dirt, and slush into the swordsman’s face. Congealing a throwing knife out of the blood from the fallen, Vykinallia launched it at the spearman. Cerik used the distraction and charged inside the spearman’s reach. Jecht thrust at the axe man, staying his advance and giving Vykinallia the time to conjure a thicket of vining brambles at the blood mage’s feet.

The swordsman charged, slashing at Vykinallia. She lifted her blood-borne shield and caught the strike, countering with a thrust. The bald man deflected, and with his free hand swung with an open palm, reaching for her ear. With her shield, she shoved him backwards.

The hawkish spearman’s conjured weapon fell to ash, summoning a pair of gladii in its place. With Cerik’s slower, heavier mace, the Slicer-style fighter would have advantage. Vykinallia flung her shield at the swordsman and conjured a net and trident to counter Cerik’s opponent. She flung her net before it had fully formed, but it was enough. The bird-beaked blood mage lifted his swords to defend against the net, exposing his side.

Cerik’s mace crashed into the entangled mage’s ribs with a sickening crunch. Before he could heal, Vykinallia stabbed with her trident, but the swordsman closed the distance, forcing her to bring the trident to her defense instead.

Jecht’s opponent shirked free of her conjured brambles. His axe became a poleaxe, granting him equal reach to Jecht’s thrusts but with greater cleaving power. Reconjuring her sword and shield, Vykinallia stepped in front of Jecht and lunged inside the poleaxe’s reach.

Jecht replaced her against the swordsman, jabbing with his spear. The bald man deflected the thrust, but he had never fought against a Poker-style gladiator like Jecht. Jecht spun the haft of his spear, taking advantage of the deflection’s momentum to swing the reaping spear around his head and slice across the swordsman’s midsection.

Vykinallia pressed the poleaxe, closing the distance to force him back. With her back to Cerik, she couldn’t see how he was faring, but his heartbeat quickened. Vykinallia caught the pole of the axe on her shield, and slashed with her gladius, cleaving the bull-man’s arm off at the elbow. He roared, his poleaxe falling to ash.

He would heal, Vykinallia knew, but it was either kill him or aid Cerik.

She sprang backwards and found the Slicer-style fighter, no longer entangled in her net, pressing his advantage against Cerik’s slower weapon. Keeping her sword and shield, she deflected one thrust aimed for Cerik’s shoulder with her shield, then met a chop meant for Cerik’s ribs with her sword. Cerik sidestepped around Vykinallia, and flanked their opponent.

Cerik’s mace smashed into the Slicer’s lower leg. The shattering bone was met with a scream, but Jecht’s reaping spear silenced the blood mage with a thrust to his open mouth. His eyes grayed, and he fell limp. With her rot spreading again, Vykinallia drew in breath to consume the weakened soul. But there was nothing there to consume.

No soul.

Before her eyes, the fallen blood mage’s body broke down, withering like a husk, replaced by a cloud of red mist. The other two blood mages, the bald man with a slash across his midsection, and the bull with a severed forearm drew in breath, drawing upon the blood cloud.

The swordsman’s stomach restitched. The axe man conjured a bloody arm to replace his severed one.

“Burn me,” Jecht said.

The two blood mages attacked at once. The sword and poleaxe were accompanied by conjured ravens that dove at them with razor-sharp talons.

Vykinallia dissipated one to ash, but a second raked its claws across the back of her shoulder, deep enough to cut through her cuirass and draw blood.

Cerik swung his mace at the swordsman, but the poleaxe cut off his assault. Jecht stabbed a flapping raven, but as it fell to ash, another took its place.

The poleaxe swung horizontally, aiming to cleave Jecht’s head from his shoulders. Vykinallia lifted her shield to stop its arc, but her clawed shoulder didn’t have the strength to stop it. Jecht ducked the slowed axe, and Cerik blocked it with his mace. Vykinallia recoiled, her shoulder slumping. Jecht replaced her, and lunged at the blood mage with a one-handed thrust of his spear. The blood mage shoved the spear across his body, but Jecht released his weapon.

As the spear flew from his grasp, Jecht caught himself in a low, spinning crouch. With a dagger in a reverse grip in his other hand, he drove the blade into the blood mage’s ribs.

The bull screamed, but Jecht retracted the dagger and jabbed it again and again into his torso. The blood mage shoved him away, blood dripping down his black uniform. Vykinallia grounded herself on her Inner Pulvinus and commanded the bloody ravens to dissipate to ash. Their flapping wings became raining dust.

The swordsman lurched at Jecht, armed with only a dagger now. Cerik came to his aid, chopping down on the blood mage’s outstretched sword, allowing Jecht to roll away.

Vykinallia couldn’t allow the bull to heal again. She sank deeper into her Inner Pulvinus, but the skies were red. The walls of her arena trembled. The roaring crowds now screamed in fear. The floor of the pulvinus was drenched in black blood.

Vykinallia’s breath caught as the black blood slithered around her feet, up her legs, and encircled her torso.

“Vykinallia!” called a distant voice beyond the realm of her Inner Pulvinus.

Vykinallia abandoned her Inner Pulvinus and returned to the isthmus. Whipping wind and crashing waves joined the clash of steel, but all she saw was the poleaxe bearing down on her, aimed at her stomach.

Vykinallia’s eyes widened.

She lurched out of the way of the bullish blood mage’s charge, but too late.

Jecht threw himself into the poleaxe’s shaft at the last possible second.

Pain lanced through Vykinallia’s side as the axe’s spear-tipped top clipped her midsection, slicing a gash between her hip and her ribs. The impact wheeled Vykinallia around. She fell, face-first, to the ground.

Clutching her side, Vykinallia whirled.

Jecht stood between where she had fallen and the poleaxe, armed with just his dagger. The poleaxe swung in a wide arc that Jecht couldn’t block or dodge. The blood-borne axe-head slashed across Jecht’s belly.

“Jecht!” Vykinallia screamed.

Cerik roared.

Jecht spun towards her, his scarred face, paler than usual, contrasted with the deep red blood dripping from his lips. His arms hugged his midsection, attempting to hold back the wave of blood and keep his organs from slipping out. He dropped to his knees, coughing blood.

She was on her feet before she realized. Past Jecht, toward his fallen reaping spear. She seized it in one hand, her bloody ribs clutched in the other.

As Cerik’s mace rose and fell, smashing the swordsman’s conjuration to ash, Vykinallia charged the blood mage with the poleaxe. She dodged a wild swing, ducked a slash, and stabbed the blood mage in the sternum. He stumbled back and fell to the gory snow opposite Jecht, his eyes gray, soul destroyed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cerik’s mace swung up and down until the swordsman’s skull was bashed in. He fell beside Jecht, his eyes blinking, limbs twitching.

Jecht didn’t move—lying prone, blood splayed out around him.

Vykinallia and Cerik rushed to his side and rolled him over.

“Healer!” Vykinallia shouted, ignoring the pain of her injured stomach. “Zephyrus!”

No one answered as the battle surged forward, pressing deeper into the Order’s formation. Only the dead on the isthmus surrounded them.

Jecht’s dark irises swam in the whites of his eyes. He stared at her, past her, through her. He extended his hand somewhat in her direction, fingers bloody and trembling. The coppery scent of blood mixed with the bodily fluids slipping out of his eviscerated organs. Vykinallia gagged, less due to the smell and more because of the knot in her throat.

She took Jecht’s hand in her own, but searched the surrounding battlefield for a healer.

“Look,” Jecht said, voice weak.

Vykinallia met his eyes and glanced down to the gash in his gut. Deep, vile. Deadly.

“Look,” Jecht said again.

Vykinallia didn’t want to. She couldn’t. Tears welled in her eyes. She felt cold. The raised “C” on the back of Jecht’s hand, the Cassius brand, made her nauseous.

Cerik knelt down on the opposite side of Jecht, taking his other hand. “Brothers. In this life, and the next.”

The words broke the dam of Vykinallia’s tears. No. No. No.

She couldn’t stop time the way Zephyrus could. She couldn’t heal him the way Zephyrus could. She couldn’t save him.

No more words passed between Jecht and Cerik, just a brief silence, but in that span, everything they needed to say was said.

Vykinallia finally met Jecht’s gaze. The scar across his face was the only strip of color across his milky complexion. The scent of death clung to him, too close to stave off. Too impending to deny.

Her gladiator, her protector—her friend.

“You’re crazier than I am,” Jecht said, coughing blood. His grin, stained crimson, still danced across his face.

She sobbed softly, bowing her forehead to their joined hands.

He coughed blood. “Promise me.”

Swallowing her grief, she met Jecht’s gaze through her teary eyes and nodded.

“Freedom,” Jecht said. “For all.”

The sobs returned, stronger than before, despite the protests of her slashed stomach wound.

“For all,” Cerik said.

Vykinallia sniffled. “For all.”

Jecht’s hand went slack in hers.

Threyna

“He’s going to get away!” Threyna shouted.

Vykinallia’s heart pumped too fast for focus, too thunderous for calm. She saw it too—Zephyrus’s blade through Laeden’s stomach. Then they vanished. There was no time to search, nothing they could do to help. But the darkling ejected the Skeleton King. And that meant he was out there, alone after sending that many souls into Zephyrus. He was vulnerable, at least for the time being.

“Go!” Vykinallia said. “I’ll catch up.”

Threyna never needed to be told twice, especially not when it came to ending the Skeleton King. Sprouting blood-borne wings, she took two strides before leaping into the air. With a few powerful flaps of her wings, Threyna took flight, attuning toward Belrich’s rhythm.

He was weak, exposed, and surrounded. Soaring up high, Threyna surveyed the battlefield. Darklings slithered across the sky, relaying battle commands to the blood mages. While some blood mages pushed forward, more seemed to be aiding the legions’ retreat. The other camps of refugees attacking from the rear attempted to keep the Order from escaping, but between their arcanatek and blood mages, they were outmatched. The Skeleton King and his horde would escape if she didn’t stop him. Escape, refortify, and return with more legionaries, more blood mages. More death.

Not this time.

A darkling slammed into her chest. The soul rattled around her Inner Throne, attempting to seize control, but she was queen here. She slammed the door on the darkling’s access to her thoughts, memories, and emotions, but sifted through the darkling’s, searching for any knowledge on where the Skeleton King was hiding within the formation.

Nothing. Useless.

She ejected it. The darkling attempted to fly away, but Threyna drew in breath, consuming it. She locked the soul in her Inner Dungeon with the rest of the souls she’d consumed, saving them for later in case she needed reserves against the Skeleton King.

With the darkling’s distraction, however, Threyna lost connection to Belrich’s rhythm. Other blood mages’ rhythms became louder. He’s cloaking himself. Threyna ground her teeth. She could not let him get away.

He hid in plain sight, drawing Zephyrus to strike first. He’ll attempt to do the same.

Locating the blood mage with the most souls, Threyna conjured a bow and six arrows. She drew back the blood-borne bow, targeting the legionaries around the blood mage. She loosed, all six at once. The arrows zipped through the air, guided by her control.

In short succession, the arrows thudded through black Order armor, dropping the men within them to the ground. If the Skeleton King hid among them, he did not eject from his borrowed body.

The blood mage, more focused on shielding the backs of his retreating legionaries from a fire mage’s attacks, turned his attention to her, sprouting wings of his own.

Ghosts. She didn’t have time to deal with grunts.

She flew away, targeting the next blood mage emitting the most energy from his seat of power. New arrows nocked along her bowstring. She drew back and loosed again. The blood mage who sprouted wings to give chase dissipated her arrows to ash before they could reach their targets.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, Threyna conjured a weighted net over the encroaching blood mage, the same as she’d seen Vykinallia employ. The net fell upon the blood mage’s open wings. Before he knew what hit him, he was plummeting to the soldiers below.

Three more blood mages took his place, flying through the sky on conjured wings. A bald brute, a pig with wings, and a long-limbed legionary with a beak of a nose squared off against her, the emerald pauldrons marking them as Premiuses on their shoulders.

She let her bow fall to ash and summoned her glaive.

“She’s not the one,” the bald one said. “Leave her.”

They abandoned her, without sparing a second glance.

They’re looking for Vykinallia. The artifact.

Hoping Vykinallia could fend for herself, Threyna continued her search for the Skeleton King’s rhythm. Too distracted by the blood mages’ cloaking efforts, she growled. Threyna set her sights on the legionaries cowering close to blood mages. She dove on the nearest unsuspecting legionaries, poised to strike with her glaive.

The blood mage saw her, but too late. With a series of thrusts and slashes, she cut down four legionaries. Drawing in breath, she consumed their souls, abating her rot slightly. The blood mage conjured a halberd.

How precious.

Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne and crushed his half-formed halberd to ashes. His eyes went wide, just in time to catch the tip of her glaive. He fell, offering up his soul to her. As arcanatek trained upon her, she launched herself back into the sky.

Radiant shots fired past her, sailing harmlessly past. But with each passing moment, the flank deteriorated, and the Order’s forces began to break through. Threyna’s heartbeat quickened.

“Belrich!” she roared at the top of her lungs. “Fight me, you coward.”

It was impossible to tell whose body he was in. He wouldn’t fight her without souls at his disposal. With the death toll amassing on both sides, the longer they stopped the Order’s retreat, the more souls the Skeleton King would gather.

She clenched her jaw. With vengeance so close, she felt it escaping along with the breath seething through her teeth.

The line broke. The refugees, across all their many factions, had suffered enough losses not to risk more for the sake of her vengeance. They didn’t realize how many more would die when the Skeleton King returned to Valtarcia to reclaim what was lost. How could they know that this was not a victory, but just the latest defeat in the war of attrition that would follow?

Cheers rose into the air at the Order’s backs. But there was nothing to celebrate. Again, the Skeleton King got away. And how many died for the opportunity? These were not her friends, her countrymen, her people, littering the grounds, but they were her allies. Perhaps from their position on the ground, they could not appreciate the innumerable bodies that lined the bloodstained isthmus, but Threyna could.

Threyna landed amongst the bloodied ground of the battlefield as the cheers of their supposed victory took heed to the lives it had cost. As people from the separate camps embraced their living comrades in celebration, many more found the bodies of their slain kin.

She attuned to Zephyrus’s rhythm, but couldn’t find him, which only concerned her more. She needed to consume the dead; she needed their souls for the battle to come. Because the next time would be the last time, and if she wasn’t ready—even if she was—it was already over.

Laeden

Snow crunched under Laeden’s boots. His musings earlier in the day concerning his luck were now more confounding. He was the luckiest man on earth to be able to walk again, to even draw breath. But it was his luck that he’d been stabbed through the stomach and out the back, grievously injuring every organ in the blade’s path.

He should have been dead.

Instead, with one arm slung over his shoulder, he aided his murderer—his savior—in their trek west. There was no time to bury the bodies, but they couldn’t leave them on the isthmus either. The Skeleton King would return, and every corpse in his path served as another vessel he and his horde could harvest from. And so, those who survived the battle dragged the dead to the cliff’s edge.

Words were spoken. Tears fell. And bodies… people of all walks of life—Fallen, freedpeople, Ridge Knights, Sentinels, patricians, and plebs—were sent over the cliffs to fall silently into the raging tides below. Friends and loved ones, brothers and sisters in arms, even perfect strangers fighting on the same side of the battle against despair, they all fell.

Among the dead was Sett, one of the Fallen leaders who joined Vykinallia in saving Laeden from the shipyard a few short days ago. Sett’s brother, Dankar, followed him over the cliffs, assisted by Iberion and Unari. Allaron, the former Sentinel who had come to his aid during his trial, raised a pleb rebellion against Horus in his name, and sent warning of the Skeleton King’s arrival in Valtarcia, was also amongst the dead. Callonus, his second, cast him to the waves with a teary eye.

Laeden grieved to hear that, of the freedpeople who attacked the Skeleton King’s flank, Joru, the former gladiator from House Ulysius who vouched for the Fallen to aid Laeden, had passed. Aurellia sobbed as Kherus shoved Joru’s body, still in the green-and-gold uniform of the Ulysius guard, to the waves below.

“Six, guide him on horses’ wings,” Kherus had said. The salute to a fallen Ridge Knight. The sentiment was a great honor, even if the words themselves rang hollow, considering that the Six were dead or dying, and Damascus and Laeden were all that remained of the Helixus line. No winged horses were delivering anyone, deserving or otherwise, to the Six.

Worst of all was Jecht’s passing.

Laeden didn’t know the former Targarus and Cassius gladiator well. He only knew him by who he stood by, and what he did when it mattered most. He was a man in Zephyrus’s closest confidence. He volunteered for Vykinallia’s rescue mission to save Laeden and the Ridge Knights from certain death. His quick smile and death-defying confidence would be missed, but he wasn’t sure by whom more. Vykinallia’s tears had yet to stop falling, but Zephyrus hadn’t spoken a word since the news.

“He died well,” Cerik had said.

It was true. He died saving Vykinallia’s life. If there was a better way to go then saving someone else, Laeden couldn’t think of it. She’d suffered a wound that, once she was able to reconnect to her Inner Pulvinus—whatever that meant—she’d healed, leaving only a slash in her cuirass, and a scar below. That act released the third prong of the cursed artifact on her ear, but Jecht would never recover.

Vykinallia and Threyna consumed the souls of the fallen legionaries, electing instead to let their dead rest.

“There’s a line,” Threyna had said to Vykinallia. “Is it wasteful? Yeah. But when you start taking the souls of your allies. Your friends. Your loved ones… how long before you become just like the Skeleton King?”

Pain painted on her sharp features as if she spoke more from experience than wisdom. No one objected. No one prodded. And so, after Threyna and Vykinallia consumed their fill of the fallen legionaries, they too went over the cliff for fear of what the Skeleton King could do with their corpses.

“He died well.”

Cerik’s words sat with Laeden on their slow and sullen march.

If the Guardian hadn’t taken control of Zephyrus from the Skeleton King, Laeden’s body would have joined the others over the cliffs. If the Guardian’s efforts to use Zephyrus’s magic to heal Laeden began even a moment later, the balancing of the scales might have killed Zephyrus. He couldn’t imagine what it would mean for their defenses if Zephyrus’s body was among those being pummeled against the thrashing surf.

Then again, with the gates closed, and Zephyrus being an easy target for the Skeleton King’s darklings, perhaps they would all be safer.

No, Laeden reminded himself. Zephyrus didn’t stab me; the Skeleton King did. Zephyrus… and the Guardian… saved me.

Walking beneath the black clouds forking with lightning beside the tumultuous sea with enough anger in his heart to want to challenge the Traitor God himself, he returned to Cerik’s words.

“He died well.”

Laeden touched his stomach where the Vykane Blade had entered. The wound he suffered left a scar he would bear for the rest of his days, however short that might be. Though he lived, he had died a death of sorts.

Did I die well?

His thoughts turned to his father.

“Let peace reign,” his father had said, clasping a hand on his and Damascus’s shoulders. Damascus’s obsidian dagger lanced into his gut. Again. And again. And again.

Did he die well—trying to forge a peace between brothers? Did it matter? A king or a slave, a craven or a martyr—could anyone die well if Valencia was ruled by treacherous Gods?

Laeden didn’t believe so. Not yet. One day, when Paxoran was defeated and a new world order had come, then maybe one could die well. But for now, all he could do was live well. Live with the second life he’d been given and lead for the sake of others.

And it begins with trusting Danella.

“I’m sorry,” Zephyrus said, interrupting Laeden’s pontifications. His voice was barely a whisper. If his arm hadn’t been draped over Laeden’s shoulder, he wouldn’t have heard it.

“I thought I had him,” Zephyrus said. “I thought I killed him… I failed.”

Laeden bit his lip. Live well. Lead well.

He gave Zephyrus shoulder a pat with his free hand. “We all fail. Every day, we fail. We fall short. But it won’t always be this way.” He glanced to the sky. “We have to hope for something more, an end to all this…”

“Hell?” Zephyrus finished.

“Yeah,” Laeden said. “Hell.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We’ll find a way for you to ascend. We’ll stop the Skeleton King. You’ll stop Paxoran.” He gestured with his head, referencing everything around them. “All of this, it won’t be for nothing.”

“No,” Zephyrus agreed, looking to the sky.

Laeden followed Zephyrus’s gaze, and even dared to hope that some of what he’d said would come true.

INTERLUDE III

Arkadia

Valencia

Arkadia buried her face in her hands, and she slumped her back against the wall of Arcamedes’s tower. The glow of Incinerae’s embers cast dancing shadows at her feet, but that was the only light the Goddess gave off. Every other word out of her mouth was “can’t,” “won’t,” or something equally as bleak.

“If we do nothing,” Arkadia said through her hand, “then Paxoran has already won.”

“There h-has to be a w-way to warn the Creator,” Incinerae said. “Instead of l-lo-looking to a mortal to save us, w-why not—”

Arkadia cast a glare that iced over Incinerae’s smoldering coals for eyes. “Because if we could speak to the Creator whenever we wanted, Klayvorine wouldn’t have needed me.”

She seethed, clenching her jaw enough to aggravate the injuries inflicted by Ferrocles and the wall he punched her into. “If the Creator could have stopped the traitor when Klayvorine discovered the sands of time had been tampered with, why did the Corners sacrifice themselves to imbue their power into the bracers and greaves? Why did the Giver and Taker of Palogia do the same to impart their divinity on the mortals?”

Incinerae’s short tongues of flaming hair grew to an inferno. “Look at the g-g-good it’s done!” Steam came from her ears. No longer did magma drip from the corners of her eyes, but at this point, Arkadia would have preferred somber, broken Incinerae to the adamantly defiant, nay-saying Incinerae.

“They sacrificed themselves for the mortals,” Arkadia said. “Not the Creator. Vykannis split his soul and bound himself to the mortal realm to impart the courage to fight back. You may mock their sacrifices, but what have you done while the pantheon crumbled?” She didn’t need to wait for an answer. “Nothing! And you may continue to do nothing, but I will not. Klayvorine wouldn’t have sent me to Perillian to replace the Vykane Blade with a fake and hide the Relics of Kataan for nothing. They will make the difference, but if—and only if—the one who bears them can ascend to the divine realm.”

Incinerae’s tendrils of flame retreated, as did her defiance.

“Please,” Arkadia said. “If I somehow manage to get a gemstone, from Ferrocles or Paxoran, and place it in the slot below the Celestial Falls…”

“The gates will open,” Incinerae said. “But if you c-can’t keep Paxoran and F-Ferrocles clear of the anchor room, they will kn-kn-know what you’ve done—they’ll take the gemstone and close the g-gates again.”

“Which means I’ll have to open the gate just as Vykanicus arrives at it,” Arkadia said, more to herself than Incinerae. She understood the Fire Goddess’s doubt; for any chance at success, she would need more than a few things to go her way.

“It’s im-impossible. Our only chance is to h-h-hide until Hameryn s-s-summons the Creator and hope the C-C-Creator defeats him.”

Arkadia released a slow and painful exhale, rubbing her sore ribs from where Ferrocles must have struck her. How is it that a Goddess can’t understand this? It is up to us.

She pushed herself away from the wall. “Fine, hide. But let me out.”

Incinerae’s ashen eyes relit to a blaze. “I c-c-can’t.”

Arkadia’s knuckles curled. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“If they f-find you,” Incinerae said, lifting her fiery fingertips to her lips, “they’ll c-come here, looking for m-m-me.”
Heat rose to her cheeks. Tension spasmed along her spine, but Arkadia couldn’t find the words. Before she could joust at Incinerae’s cowardice, the grinding stone that accompanied the opening of the door silenced her.

Incinerae gasped. Arkadia held her breath and dipped into the shadowy recesses of the room, away from Incinerae’s light and that of the torches from the stairwell.

Arkadia slunk to the wall beside the opening stone door. Incinerae’s flames burned out until not even an ember remained. Not a sound came from inside Arcamedes’s chambers, but, accompanying the grinding stone, a choked, guttural gasp came from the doorway.

“The victors learn from their defeated enemies,” said a voice Arkadia didn’t recognize. Deep and gravelly, but certainly not Ferrocles’s.

The Harbinger…

“They repurpose their strengths,” the Harbinger said, “then apply them against the next foe. Win or lose, the strong survive.”

As the stone wall finished sliding open, the sound of grinding stone was replaced by the sputtering of a man drowning in his own blood.

“The strong, Ferrocles, have won again,” the Harbinger said.

Ferrocles fell into the open entryway beside her. Blood spouted from his mouth. His flesh wrinkled, his complexion grayed, and his bulk shriveled. What once was the God of War was now a pile of bones in oversized black leather armor.

Incinerae whimpered on the opposite side of the Arcamedes’s empty rooms, but Arkadia clapped her hand over her nose and mouth.

The Harbinger dragged Ferrocles’s remains from the entryway. The clatter of his studded armor clanking on the stone stairwell echoed into the chamber. Heavy footsteps entered. The Harbinger stooped, ducking the plume of his helm through the entryway.

Glowing gold armor emitted red light fractured by black forks of lightning. A sword, the color of Hameryn’s eyes, pierced the black of the room.

Arkadia closed her eyes, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t see her.

“Show yourself, Incinerae,” said the Harbinger. “Now your time has come.”

Incinerae’s whimpers ceased, but her fiery complexion returned. Her hair and eyes roared to life. Magma dripped from her eyes. Steam hissed from her ears. “You k-k-killed Mo-t-terra? Ferro-c-cles?”

“And Phaebia,” the Harbinger said, aiming the cursed sword at the Goddess of Fire as he strode deeper into the room. “Now I will strike you down, and take my place as God.”

Arkadia eyed the entryway a few strides away. Just a few steps… She didn’t dare move, not yet. She continued to hold her breath despite the burning in her lungs.

Incinerae’s palms glowed a molten orange. “You b-believe you’ve already w-won. You act like, as we s-s-speak, a Champion of the Gods is n-not on their way to s-stop you.”

That was her cue. Arkadia half-feared Incinerae would point at her to give herself an opportunity to flee, but the Fire Goddess was distracting the Harbinger, allowing her to escape.

The Harbinger didn’t acknowledge Incinerae’s words. He assumed a fighting posture—feet wide, hips low, massive blade held in both hands, its point aimed at Incinerae.

“Very well,” Incinerae said.

A ring of fire encircled her and the Harbinger, the flames rising high enough that Arkadia couldn’t see over them.

This is my chance.

As the Harbinger roared and Incinerae shouted, Arkadia darted for the entryway. Once in the staircase, she spotted what was left of Ferrocles’s limp body, bent at odd angles.

She approached the body, recalling how Iylea had told her that Ferrocles had taken the gemstone from the Whispering Wall. Ignoring the battle taking place inside, Arkadia patted Ferrocles down until she found a large lump in a pouch belted to his hip.

Tearing it open, Arkadia reached inside and pulled out the viridian, marquise-shaped gemstone.

Screams burst from Arcamedes’s chamber. But according to the Harbinger’s word, it was only her and Paxoran left in the castle.

I’m coming, Vykanicus. I’m coming.

Bounding two steps at a time, Arkadia descended the stairs.

PART IV

Chapter 36

Fear and Fire

Fenyx IV

Valencia

The Fire Goddess glared at him with fiendish eyes. Amidst the darkness of the room, her light blazed, begging to be doused by the Hate flowing through his veins. He sank into the combat stance Auron had taught him a lifetime ago, aiming Paxoran’s blade at Incinerae’s chest.

Auron would still be alive if these so-called Gods cared for anyone but themselves. Auron didn’t deserve to die a slave’s death. He deserved to be glorified, enshrined as a legend of the arena, immortalized for all time as a Champion. Instead he died absent a sword in his hand. Denied the cheers of the crowd. Far removed from the laurels of the arena.

“Very well,” Incinerae said.

A ring of hellfire enclosed around Fenyx. The last of the corrupt deities stood between him and the glory he deserved. The lashing tongues stretched toward the tower ceiling, but he was prepared. The Hate absolved him of fear. Sweat beaded beneath his helm, but he would not be paralyzed as he had in the tent in Klaytos or against Tursos in the Games of Stockhelm. He survived them, emerged victorious, but never received the glory he deserved.

“Your death, Goddess of Fire, begins my reign,” Fenyx said. “And my Hate burns hotter than your embers. Prepare to meet your end.”

The Goddess tilted her head, perplexed, but the Hate grew tired of idle talk.

Fenyx closed the distance and slashed Paxoran’s soul-forged sword in an ascending diagonal arc. A blade of pure fire caught his strike. She spun, a second sword forming in her other hand. She thrust for Fenyx’s face. She was fast, but he was faster.

He ducked and swung horizontally.

She lurched backwards. The tip of Paxoran’s blade carved a slice in the volcanic, obsidian-like carapace that covered her slender stomach.

A single tear of molten lava dripped from the wound before it hissed shut, cauterizing itself. She backed away, stepping into the ring of fire surrounding them. She paced, circling him, up to her shoulders in vicious tongues of licking conflagration.

Fenyx growled. He didn’t need to get close to the fire to feel the heat of it. Unlike his reconnaissance in her chambers, there would be no tepid flames here.

“You call me Goddess of F-Fire,” Incinerae said. “But I’m the G-Goddess of m-many things.”

Fenyx snorted. “You were. But no longer.”

He lunged for her, but she stepped beyond the wall of fire. Fenyx stopped short. She gazed at him from the other side.

“Love and aff-affection, passion and p-pleasure.” She shook her head at him. Her short tendrils of flaming hair elongated into an overflowing blaze that adorned her shoulders and covered her breasts. “You have d-drunk from my c-cup on several occasions.”

The black carapace burned away, revealing her flesh beneath.

Heat burned within Fenyx. Anger. Rage. “You tempt me, seductress? I have only ever loved one mistress, and her name is—”

“Glory,” Incinerae said, the stutter gone from her voice. She continuing to pace around Fenyx. “You hide behind lies. You believe it keeps you safe. It does not.”

She allowed her twin fire blades to extinguish.

Fenyx stabbed at her, but she backed away. The fires impeding his path flared, forcing him back to the center of the flaming ring.

“I see the pain in you,” Incinerae said. “I feel it, Fenyx.”

Her smoldering gaze held him, a mischievous smile toying at the corner of her lip. The Burning, the Hate, wanted him to leap through the fires and plunge his blade through her until there was no magma left to bleed. The sweat beading down his back and the lump in his throat said otherwise.

“Pain—inflicted by you,” Fenyx spat. “And you shall serve penance.”

Incinerae’s laughter rang out, high, shrill, and forced. Her smoldering eyes glanced toward the doorway.

Fear.

He heard it in her laugh, saw it in her eyes. Beyond her composed words and her haughty act, fear ruled her. No longer whimpering as she had when he entered, she hid her fear behind a veil, but Fenyx saw through it.

“I admit,” Incinerae began, “we have failed you, but this…” She shook her head. “Your anger, your hatred, it is not at us—not the Gods… not truly. You believe we denied you glory. But glory is not your muse, Fenyx.”

Incinerae rounded the ring of fire, drawing nearer to the exit. Fenyx approached, feigning interest, pretending to listen. Nothing, not scorching fires or boiling oil, would save her. She would not step foot beyond this room—not alive.

“And what is my muse?” Fenyx asked, separated by an arm’s reach and a wall of fire.

“Love,” Incinerae said. “Love, and the loss of it.”

Fenyx scoffed. “I’ve never loved a woman.”

“I never said a woman.” Incinerae chortled.

Fenyx balked.

Incinerae strode closer toward the exit, her fingers dancing in the ring of fire.

“Auron,” Incinerae said. “He loved you like a son. He never cared if you were Champion. He wanted you to live. You believed becoming Champion would make people love you. Tell me, how much love did you receive as Champion?”

Her eyes flicked to the entryway.

Only a few more steps.

Fenyx strangled the hilt of his sword in his burned left hand.

“Glory will not nourish you, F-Fenyx,” Incinerae said, her stutter returning. “Love will. But I promise H-H-Hameryn will not l-love you. Nor will he glorify you.”

The tremble in her voice, the flicker in her smoldering eyes—more lies.

Fenyx took a deep breath, eyeing the flames that separated him from the lying Goddess.

“I know w-what you’ve b-been through,” Incinerae said. “To come so far, to sacrifice so m-much. But this is not what you want. It’s not too late. Let me go and—”

Fenyx threw the burned side of his body at the wall of fire. Heat wrapped him in a strangling embrace. Air became smoke in his lungs as the flaming tongues licked at his scarred flesh, but he emerged on the other side, standing between Incinerae and her escape.

She gasped, opened her mouth to say something, but Fenyx’s right hand cupped the side of her head. His flesh sizzled, but he slammed the side of her head into the wall. The burning coals in her eye sockets rolled, but Fenyx bounced her head off the stone again.

And again.

By the third time, she could barely stand. She stumbled backwards, but not out of reach of Fenyx’s blade. The red sword plunged into Incinerae’s belly. The fire in her eyes flickered out; the flames atop her head retreated, leaving only embers. From the wound in her belly, the obsidian tone of her skin ashened like the brittle, scarred logs at the bottom of a funeral pyre.

She tried to speak, but Fenyx had his fill of her words. He retracted the blade and kicked her in the chest. She fell to the ground. The ashen wound spread like a disease throughout her body as she attempted to crawl away. The ring of fire illuminating the room burned away. She might have hid herself in the darkness of the room if not for the trail of lava in her wake.

Taking care to avoid her molten blood, Fenyx kicked her onto her back and stood atop her. Without preamble, ceremony, or any flamboyance that could distract him from his purpose, he drove the blade into her heart. The blade drank her power. The Hate consumed her essence. And Fenyx’s task was done.

Chapter 37

Blasphemer

Danella VII

Salmantica

Sentinels in gray-and-blue uniforms flooded the tavern cellar, short swords drawn.

Daenus didn’t look. He grabbed Danella by her cloak and dragged her to the back exit, ignoring the orders to stop in the name of the king. Nearly at the door, it burst inward, despite the hinges swinging outward. The door splintered and fell before Daenus’s feet.

Danella’s heart hammered faster than the unceasing storms outside, and louder than the shouting Sentinels inside. We’re trapped.

More than fear, an anger swelled inside her. She couldn’t aim it at any one person or thing, but like a caged animal fighting against its bindings, her fury wanted to be unleashed.

As more Sentinels streamed in, Daenus raised his hands. Danella, Ispara, and Liario did the same, but those who heard her address did not. Even at sword point, many patrons spat on the Sentinels, cursed their names, or even shoved—not just the Sentinels, but each other.

I’ve started an uproar. But if she were to escape this, she’d need a riot. Otherwise, her hopes of uniting the city to aid the Valtarcians and stand against the incoming army were doomed before they started.

“Enough!” shouted a voice from the staircase. A tenuous quiet hung over the cellar as footsteps descended the stairs. In the red-and-black armor of a King’s Guard Knight, Aemos Horne emerged between the Sentinels standing at attention on either side of the escape.

Heat rose to her cheeks. The stitches on the side of her head tugged as she scowled at the smug boy she’d elevated. Aemos, son of Elrod, count, knight, and newest captain of the Sentinels, surveyed the cellar.

Not a moment later, Haedron Allos, Damascus’s squire turned King’s Guard Knight, darkened the broken doorway Danella had hoped would be their escape.

“Well, well, well,” Haedron said to Daenus. “So this is where you scurried off to?”

Daenus fixed the younger knight with a scathing glare. His lips remained tightly pursed.

“What terrible treasons are we plotting?” Aemos said, not yet aware of Danella and Daenus’s presence. “And under the roof of one of my establishments.” He tsked.

“No treason!” shouted someone from the amassed crowd. “Truth!”

Danella’s mind raced, searching for scenarios in which she didn’t leave this dingy cellar in irons, but she conceived none that didn’t involve her death. Even if every single person in attendance hid the truth of their purpose, denied that Danella had anything to do with Laeden’s escape from Sentigard, and withheld her other blasphemous declarations, Heclan Allos, Haedron’s uncle, and the Commander of the Vigiles had heard every word she said.

I’ll be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star. We all will.

Aemos strode onto the makeshift dais and raised his hands, summoning an uneasy quiet. Tension ruled the room, but Aemos spoke. “You know how this works. We don’t want bloodshed. We don’t wish to fight. But such gatherings are where rebellions are born, and now the king demands peace.”

Grumbles rippled throughout the cellar, stuffier now that the mouth-breathing Sentinels had sullied the air.

Aemos tapped his foot. His hand twitched on the pommel of his longsword. “You, good people, are not at fault for listening. It is the one standing up here we wish to speak to.”

The audience’s din grew. Danella swallowed. She gripped her wrist where the Sentinels would drive the iron spikes through her flesh and into the wood of the Six Arrowed Star.

Would Damascus allow it?

Nausea climbed her throat, burning as it clawed at her insides.

Damascus would do it himself…

“My father was a liar. A traitor. A mage. And now he’s the best kind of mage—a dead one.”

Danella shuddered as Haedron’s gold-flecked eyes locked on her. The anger in her heart magnified, consuming her fear. She would not cower before Aemos Horne, Haedron Allos, or anyone else.

“I’ve found the—” Before Haedron’s voice could carry, another spoke, too loud to ignore.

“I am the leader here,” a voice cried.

Danella sputtered. She exchanged a glance with Daenus and Ispara, but, dumbstruck, she could only watch.

From the audience, a man in a hooded cloak raised his hands. The crowd parted, allowing him to ascend the dais as a pair of Sentinels approached with manacles to subdue him. Unable to see past the Sentinels to determine who had volunteered for her punishment, Danella could only gasp at words.

Haedron blinked at her, but shared her inability to formulate a response.

Once the Sentinels shackled the leader of their discussion, Aemos ripped back the hood of his prisoner. Aemos took two steps back, nearly falling off of the dais. Gasps rippled throughout the cellar.

The man turned, looking in Danella’s direction with his deep-set eyes and stern jaw.

Heclan Allos.

Haedron’s jaw unhinged as he recognized his uncle. His lips babbled uselessly.

“Yes, I am Heclan Allos, Commander of the Vigiles, a devout Valencian, a keeper of the Facets, and a lifelong defender of Salmantica. If it is a crime for me to speak to the leaders of the communities struck hardest by the lack of food and water and guide them in how best to serve their people in the midst of crisis, then yes, Ser Aemos, I am guilty.”

Heclan held his manacled hands out for all to see. Outrage greeted his words and shackled wrists. The Sentinels nearest darted nervous glances between each other.

Haedron’s rubbery neck performed a similar double-take, glancing from Daenus and Danella to his uncle on the dais. His index finger lifted toward Daenus’s chest, but Danella stepped in front of him and closed the distance between her and Haedron.

“I needed to hear what the people were saying,” Danella said. “I made Daenus accompany me. Now I must return to Sentigard before your fruitless raid sparks a skirmish between our own people, you incompetent, worthless…” She shook her head and shoved past Haedron towards the door, not needing to fabricate her fury.

Two Sentinels blocked her path, but Haedron’s voice called from behind her. “Let them pass.”

Danella seethed through her mask as she slipped between them. Daenus, Ispara, and Liario followed close behind. They ascended the steps, and Ser Daenus took the lead. Beyond the Sentinels encircling the Chimeran, Vigiles approached in increasing numbers.

“We need to get you out of here,” Daenus said, voice low. “Heclan may have bailed us out, but word will spread. The Vigiles, the Sentinels—they’ll divide.”

“That’s what we wanted,” Liario hissed from behind, trying to keep up.

“There will be war within the walls and without,” Danella said, glancing over her shoulder as the Sentinels escorted the Revivalists out of the Chimeran Inn. “Tensions are high enough as it is. All it will take is one—”

“Let him go!”

Danella stopped in her tracks.

Aemos escorted Heclan Allos from the inn, his wrists still bound. Vigiles manning the streets jostled with the Sentinels forming a perimeter around the establishment.

“Disperse,” Aemos shouted. “Or more will accompany Lord Heclan to the dungeons.”

Shouts drowned out his command as outrage swarmed the slums. Revivalists, Vigiles, and Heclan himself protested. Sentinels rebuffed the influx of angry people mobbing Aemos.

A horn blew. The call seemed to echo off the buildings until Danella realized it wasn’t a single blare, but a chorus of horns. Vigiles in white flooded the street from every surrounding alley. Hard lines framed their faces; hands reached for their hilts—intent on violence.

Heclan would not have infiltrated the Revivalist gathering alone.

Chimera’s breath… this will become a bloodbath.

Sentinels in blue and gray, Vigiles in white—soon they would all drown in red.

Daenus took Danella by the arm. “We need to leave.”

Danella tore herself free. “We need to stop this!”

The shrill cry of steel scraping against sheaths ripped the night asunder. The drawing of steel replaced the trumpets. Lines separated once swords were drawn, but the stalemate would only last so long. Then it would be clamor. Chaos. Death.

Danella gripped her threadbare cloak in her moist palms. Her knuckles curled around the fabric the same way the Gods’ deaths had strangled her city.

“My queen!” Daenus seized her, firmer this time.

Danella wrenched free of his grasp and jutted her index finger under his nose. “This is not the time to run.”

Aemos held Heclan, his sword drawn. Haedron glanced around, the tip of his blade aimed at the ground as if unsure which direction to point it. Vigiles demanded their commander be liberated from the Sentinels’ unrighteous seizure, while the Sentinels shouted for the Vigiles to stand down.

Danella needed to do something. But what?

She surveyed her surroundings. Torches carried by the patrolling Vigiles and Sentinels were abandoned on the streets. The building on the corner, now a pile of rubble after the earthquakes, allowed a beneficial vantage, but her voice wouldn’t carry over the two sides’ shouting. Danella bent down and took up an abandoned torch.

“What are you doing?” Daenus asked.

She didn’t answer. Torch in hand, she set off for the pile of rubble that overlooked the street of armed men. She bounded across the dirt streets and climbed the loose stone of the collapsed building.

The heat of the torch licked at her wrist as she attempted to crawl to what would have been the top of the first story. Once she gained her footing, she lifted the torch. “People of Salmantica! Lower your swords!”

It began with a single outstretched finger, but soon others followed. Up and down the lines, Sentinel and Vigile took notice. She only hoped it would be enough to spare the bloodshed.

As the steel-wielding soldiers lowered their voices, the thunder rumbling overhead boomed to fill the silence. Lightning stretched across the sky, illuminating the people before her in bright white. The flickering light from the discarded torches danced around them. But neither the lightning nor the torches were the light her people needed.

“I am your queen,” Danella shouted. “Daughter of Damascus Drake, the first King of New Rheynia—Father of Valencia, and Captain of the Great Migration. In the name of the Six, I command you to lay down your arms, for you are not enemies.”

The meager distance that separated the men from tearing out each other’s hearts widened, but not enough to put her at ease. With weapons still drawn, death’s ever-present call loomed.

“The Facets of Perfection state that my father was the one, chosen by the Six, to lead the people from the Disasters of Rheynia,” Danella said.

Daenus’s curled fist and tight-lipped expression were joined by the slightest shake of his head. She could practically hear him pleading, “Please, my queen. Don’t do this.”

I must. I have to.

It was his lie after all. Now Danella had to own it. Laeden didn’t have time for her to speak to fifty people at a time and hope they would do the right thing. With an army marching on their walls, drastic measures were required.

“New Disasters have struck our home,” Danella continued. “And now the Six have chosen another voice to lead the people to peace and prosperity. That voice is mine.”

The lie came easier this time. The muttered gasps, the utterances of “blasphemy” or “seer” rang throughout the street, but for every moment they spent talking, it was one in which they weren’t painting the slums scarlet.

Danella raised the torch again, reclaiming the uneasy quiet. “The Sentinels have taken the honorable Lord Heclan Allos under false pretense. I am the one they want. I am the blasphemer. I am the seer. The mage. If you believe there is an enemy among us, it is me.”

A stabbing pain lanced through her stomach as Damascus’s eyes filled her thoughts.

“...the best kind of mage—a dead one.”

Danella swallowed the pain—Varros’s death, the loss of her son, the burden of regrets piled too high to untangle.

The gathered crowd—Revivalists, Sentinels, Vigiles, and people poking their heads from the windows of nearby buildings—broke out in more discord, but no one demanded she be nailed to a Six Arrowed Star.

“If you choose to believe that I am not a blasphemer—that the Six have chosen me as they chose my father before me—then I pray you will listen and listen well. Because, there are enemies coming for us.”

She held up an index finger. “Their names are hunger.” Her middle finger joined her index. “Thirst. Fear. And Death.” She counted off each finger until four were raised before her. “If we busy ourselves fighting each other, they will consume us. As we speak, an army marches from the east. Valtarcia has fallen. Salmantica will be next if we do not come together.”

Her fingers curled to a fist. “But if we unite—not just with each other—but with Valtarcia, as the Six are calling us to do, we will survive this Age of the End. Just as we found New Rheynia, a new kingdom, a new country, and a new future awaits us.”

Feet shuffled. Curled fists slackened.

“Sheathe your swords,” Danella said. “Leave tonight, search your hearts, and—”

The heat from the torch in her hand vanished. The sudden change in temperature startled her. Though the fire still burned, it emitted no warmth.

Incinerae…

Danella fumbled for words. Faltering, she couldn’t regain her place.

“You are under arrest!” Aemos shouted, relinquishing Heclan from his grasp.

The swords’ silence came to an abrupt end.

Shouts joined the clash of steel as battle broke out in the streets.

Danella lifted her hand to her mouth. The blood she tried to spare flowed, staining Vigile whites and Sentinel grays as carelessly as the Traitor God’s assault on Valencia.

“My queen!” Daenus shouted, standing beneath her, his arms out. “We have to go!”

Danella dropped the cold-burning torch to the rubble behind her. She jumped into Daenus’s arms, and the moment he placed her feet on the ground, they ran.

With Ispara ahead and Liario behind, Danella glanced over her shoulder at the fighting. Bodies fell; blood spilled. There was no peace, no unity even amongst Valencians.

“...We may be the only two people who can stop the flood of blood that’s coming,” Varros had said the last time they spoke.

He had tried to appease the Arcane Templar and the New Rheynian patricians. He failed. Now she tried to mend the rift she’d created between Valtarcia and Salmantica.

I will fail too.

Though her feet slapped against the dirt-packed streets and blood pumped through her veins, Danella felt as cold as the torch’s flame, and as numb and unfeeling as Damascus’s black heart.

Chapter 38

Freedom For All

Vykinallia VI

Valtarcian Isthmus

Footsteps squished, trudged, plodded, and dragged atop the slowly melting snow that once decorated the Silver Summits. The peaks, no longer visible beyond the thunderclouds, must have been bare in the aftermath of the earthquake—as bare as the conversations on their westbound journey were hollow.

Vykinallia stared at her wet boots, wishing the cold gnawing at her toes would numb her aching heart. Her shoulders sagged; the single prong remaining in her ear, and the noticeable quiet beside Cerik, taunted her.

If I consumed the souls when Threyna did… if I went with her instead…

So much could have been different. Perhaps the Skeleton King wouldn’t have escaped. Perhaps Jecht would still be alive. Threyna told her not to blame herself. Cerik’s lips said the same, but the pain in his eyes said otherwise.

The blood mages wanted the artifact. They came for me. They wanted to kill me.

They would have. Jecht saved her life. But now he was gone.

Watching his life fade before her eyes, and despite every ability at Vykinallia’s disposal, she could not heal him. There was cruel irony in that. If the blood mage had slashed through her innards, she could have healed herself.

She examined the scar in her leather cuirass and the seam in her flesh she’d restitched herself by devouring the blood and bone of the fallen after the battle.

“If he hadn’t tried to save me, he’d still be alive,” she had said to Threyna while consuming the souls of the bodies lining the isthmus.

“You don’t know that,” Threyna had said, pausing from her collection of souls. “If you’d been dealt a mortal wound, would you have had the presence of mind to focus and heal yourself through it? And what then? What hope would we have if you had fallen, they killed your friends anyway, and then took the blood artifact?”

Deep down, Vykinallia knew that Threyna was right, but something about the distance she kept—the guard she hid behind—nagged at her. It was a commander’s mindset; infantrymen were disposable. Losses were inevitable; no sense crying over them. The cold pragmatism of leadership was something she’d accepted as a lanista; gladiators died, investments faltered.

But Nallia Cassius died outside the stables of Arux’s ludus.

She had lost her father, her brother, and the closest thing she’d ever had to a friend in Odetta. Still, unlike those, Jecht’s death was her responsibility, and its burden accompanied her every step. Yet she was not the only one carrying a heavy heart.

Zephyrus and Laeden hobbled beside her, though Zephyrus had yet to speak. Not just to her, but to anyone. And aside from the occasional order, Laeden barely spoke either.

The wind’s bluster, the sea’s rhythmic crashing, and the sky’s unceasing rumble were the only voices raised along their journey, leaving Vykinallia with her thoughts. Her doubts. Fears.

“Freedom,” Jecht said with his last words. “For all.”

He didn’t say it to Cerik. He said it to me. Why me?

As they marched west on the prayer that Queen Danella, the woman whose life was built on slavery, would accept their freedpeople and refugees with the offer of sanctuary felt like the exact opposite way of fulfilling Jecht’s last words. For all they knew, they were walking into a trap. But choosing between two evils, Vykinallia agreed with Laeden; the Skeleton King would not underestimate them again, and when he returned from salvaging the poor souls trapped in Valtarcia, they would need every advantage to fend him off. Salmantica’s city walls were the best they could hope for.

“Freedom for all.”

The souls rattling around within the barracks beneath her Inner Pulvinus felt like a betrayal to Jecht. A betrayal to herself.

Threyna had explained that the Skeleton King derived his strength from the army of souls he’d united to his cause. The conjoined will, the shared belief in the One True God’s mission—that was his greatest weapon.

Was Jecht referring to New Rheynia’s slaves, or something much bigger?

The thought that Danella Drake—the leader of the Revivalists, a queen who waged war on her own people, a wife who plotted her husband’s assassination, and a mother who manipulated her son into genocide—would potentially aid them gave Vykinallia pause.

If she can change—truly change—could a soul in the Skeleton King’s army?

She turned to Threyna. “Is it possible to convince the souls in your Inner Dungeon to join you—to fight alongside you?”

Threyna inhaled sharply, her nostrils flaring. She pursed her lips then twisted them. “Yes, but no. Not enough of them to warrant the time it would take.”

“But it can be done,” Vykinallia said. “You’ve done it before?”

Threyna snorted. “That was different. I convinced souls who believed they were trapped for eternity that I could free them—to let them die true deaths and escape the curse of Rheynia. Half of them were never even on his side. But this…”

She shook her head. “This is different. This Skeleton King is different. These souls are different. No, you need to learn to conjure beyond sight so another can learn the blood magic.”

Zephyrus grunted on Vykinallia’s other side. He fixed Threyna with a glare.

“A volunteer,” Threyna corrected. “One we trust. Otherwise, we may just defeat one Skeleton King and give rise to another.”

Zephyrus, with his arm slung over Laeden’s shoulder, stopped as Laeden did.

Vykinallia and Threyna did the same, allowing others to pass between and around them.

“What?” Vykinallia asked.

“Are you okay?” Laeden asked Zephyrus.

Zephyrus nodded, taking his arm from over Laeden’s shoulder.

Laeden glanced from Vykinallia to Threyna, then back to the artifact clinging to her ear. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. When he opened them, he said, “I volunteer.”

Chapter 39

Volunteer

Laeden VII

Valtarcian Isthmus

Pairs of emerald, ice, and fiery brown eyes stared back at him. Vykinallia and Threyna glanced at one another, but Zephyrus remained fixed. The Guardian’s light flared as she flitted about Zephyrus’s shoulder.

“You said we’ll need a volunteer,” Laeden said. “Why not me?”

Zephyrus hissed through his clenched teeth. As if realizing the God of War’s influence still clung to him, he shook his head. “You can’t, Laeden. You’re the one who, once this is all over, can actually unite this country. If you become a mage…”

“You’ll lose whatever credibility you have with the patricians,” the Guardian said.

Laeden scoffed. “No one person is going to unite this country. Besides, that is a good problem for us to have. We can’t worry about who will lead tomorrow when the certainty of our survival hangs in the balance. We need another blood mage. We need someone we can trust. Someone who won’t become a new Skeleton King.”

Vykinallia rubbed her elbow. “There are dozens of warriors who may be willing. There’s only one of you.”

Laeden held his palms up. “But Vykinallia, how am I special? What makes me different from anyone else in this procession?”

“You may not want the responsibility,” Vykinallia said, “and you may not believe it is in your power, but it is. Zephyrus is right. One day, you could be King of New Rheynia. You could change the course of this country. You could free the slaves… forge a lasting peace. Iberion can’t do that. Kherus can’t do that.” She pointed her index finger at him, emphasizing each of her next words. “You can.”

Laeden bristled. Duty. She and every other pleb and patrician would use it as the manacles to bind him in a task doomed to fail. Has any one ruler ever forged a lasting peace? Why would I be any different?

Before he could formulate the argument, Threyna crossed her arms and bit the corner of her lower lip. He had been counting on Zephyrus and Vykinallia’s support because he already knew what Threyna was thinking; he was the last person she wanted to gain power. The dangers a king could create without the curse’s gifts were bad enough—pair that with the ability to single-handedly wipe out an army, and Threyna was right. The blood artifact in the wrong hands would only trade one Skeleton King for another.

But Laeden had no intention of ever being king.

Not of Valtarcia. Not of New Rheynia. Nowhere.

“Why?” Threyna asked. “Why you?” Her silver-blonde braid glinted with each lightning bolt that streaked across the sky. Her features were hard and angular where Iylea’s were soft, and Threyna reproachful where Iylea was warm and welcoming. She drummed her fingers on her exposed upper arm where the blood artifact’s prongs left its scars. Cold and cruel, she shrugged, waiting for a reply.

“Because the Skeleton King’s greatest weapon against us is us,” Laeden said.

Zephyrus hung his head. The Guardian, remaining silent, pulsed with nervous energy.

“He sent darklings into our camp,” Laeden said. “Positioned Allaron to manipulate us into doing exactly what the Skeleton King wanted. Is that right?”

Vykinallia inhaled, crossing her arms. Threyna bit her lower lip and raised her brow.

“Then, when we thought we had him nailed to the Star, the Skeleton King took control of Zephyrus. If you believe I have so much influence, then what do you think he believes?” Laeden jabbed his thumb east. “If the Skeleton King believes he can use me to position us in his favor, he will target me.”

“He’ll target you worse if you have the blood artifact,” Vykinallia said.

Laeden stifled a grin. His time in court politics, speaking in his father’s cryptic circular conversation, had prepared him to win an argument. Vykinallia made his point.

“Yes, but I’ll be able to defend against it,” Laeden said. “If I’m the next host, I make it more difficult for the Skeleton King to use me against you.”

Vykinallia opened her mouth to object, but closed it.

Staring at her shuffling boots, Threyna cleared her throat. “I only know one other person, not aligned with the Skeleton King, who willingly accepted the curse. Her sacrifice… it saved my life. It freed countless souls from eternal damnation, but once it was all over—at least we thought it was…” Threyna shook her head. “Either way, even if we defeat the Skeleton King—”

“When,” Laeden said.

Threyna stammered, but then her lip twitched—too quick to be considered a smile, but too distinct to be anything else. “Even when we defeat the Skeleton King, the curse will remain.”

Zephyrus stared at Vykinallia, but she refused to meet his gaze, electing instead to rub her elbow in sullen silence.

“The rest of your days,” Threyna said, “you’ll be a monster. A weapon. A curse forced to feed off the vitality of others.”

“Is that what you believe you are?” Laeden asked. “A monster?” He shook his head. “Is that what you think they believe?” He gestured to those walking by with the good fortune of not being corpses slamming against the cliffs in the surf below. “You’re a hero. A savior.”

The hard lines of Threyna’s face softened. Color rose to her cheeks, and she averted her eyes from Laeden’s, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Is that what you want to be?” the Guardian asked. “A hero?”

Laeden examined the orb floating over Zephyrus as he shifted his weight side to side.

What’s gotten into them?

When Zephyrus healed him, Laeden thought he had heard Iylea’s voice. He thought maybe she was still there, alive somehow within Zephyrus. A flight of fancy.

“She’s at peace,” the Guardian had said of Iylea.

Laeden shook his head, wishing he understood this mysterious Guardian sent by Zephyrus’s mother. There were a great many things he wished he understood—why his father waited so long to tell him the truth of what happened in the years before he returned from the dead. How his mother had been able to just give him up after Danella took him from her. And how Iylea could have ever found peace between a heaven and earth so intent on war.

Some mysteries would never be answered.

“I’ll never be a hero,” Laeden said. “But never again will I fail to act when I could have helped others in need.”

The Guardian’s light dimmed as she lowered behind Zephyrus’s shoulder, offering no rebuttal. Zephyrus’s lips remained pursed. Vykinallia’s elbow refused to speak, regardless of how fervently she rubbed it.

With her hands on her hips, Threyna nodded. “Fine.”

Chapter 40

Visitor

Iylea V

Valtarcian Isthmus

Iylea’s light flared the moment Laeden turned his back to her, walking side by side with Threyna and Vykinallia. Zephyrus lagged behind.

This is not the time for your sullen brooding.

“That’s it?” Iylea asked, low enough that only Zephyrus could hear. “Zephyrus, you can’t let him volunteer himself. He’s—”

“He’s what?” Zephyrus asked, more bite in his tone than usual. “You heard him. And he’s right—we need all the help we can get.”

“But…” Iylea searched for a reason, an excuse, but came up empty. He’s doing it because of me. That guilt weighed heavier than the thousand souls she’d broken in the Chain of Balance. Laeden blamed himself for what happened to her, and she’d lost her chance to say anything that might allow him to forgive himself when she claimed she was lost to him.

“She’s at peace,” she had lied.

She wasn’t at peace. Perhaps in that moment, but now she cursed herself for her martyrdom. And Laeden would do the same—cursing himself to make up for others he couldn’t protect.

She knew what became of Bherus, Threyna’s father. Even in death, his link bore the stain of the Skeleton King’s curse. She couldn’t let the same happen to Laeden.

“No, Zephyrus,” Iylea said, using his own argument to convince him to talk Laeden out of this. “You and Vykinallia are right; he is the ruler New Rheynia needs. If he’s cursed—”

“You’re only saying this because you love him,” Zephyrus hissed.

Iylea’s light flickered. Though she was only an orb of light in this realm and he could only see her form in the immaterial plane, she felt exposed.

“When you were in my Inner Calm, first in Valtarcia, then again trying to save Laeden, our thoughts mixed. Our memories,” Zephyrus said, his voice low, tone somber. “You love him. You love him enough to lie to him about you being here.”

Iylea flitted left and right like a trapped insect about to be clapped out of existence. “Are you going to tell him?”

Zephyrus shook his head. “Not my place. I understand why you did. I like to believe I would do the same in your situation. But if you want me to tell him to do something other than what he believes is right, I won’t—not based on a lie.”

Iylea would have chewed through her lip if she had one. But as much as she hated to admit it, Zephyrus was right. Laeden was right. She’d given up her right to a say. She wanted Laeden to live, and to do that, he needed to make his own choices.

“Besides,” Zephyrus said. “Perhaps then he’ll be safe from me.” The air fled his chest until his shoulders sagged.

“Not you,” Iylea said. “You did not do that to him. The Skeleton King did.”

Zephyrus scoffed loud enough to draw the attention of the freedpeople walking beside him. If Zephyrus noticed their side-eyed glances, he didn’t seem to care.

“I thought I had him,” Zephyrus said. “When I drove the Vykane Blade through him, I thought maybe it didn’t matter that the gates were closed. That if we killed the Skeleton King, perhaps we could deny Paxoran the power to take on the Creator.”

He shook his head.

Iylea knew how he felt. She too got a glimpse into his thoughts and feelings while their souls were entwined. His fear of leaving Vykinallia turned into relief that the gates were closed, then shame for feeling that way. It wasn’t fair, the expectations placed on him. But nothing in this life, or the next, was fair. Iylea knew that better than anyone.

“I thought I could help here,” Zephyrus said. “Now I only wish I could ascend to the divine realm, so then at least I wouldn’t…”

Though he trailed off, Iylea knew what he was thinking. She’d seen it herself in Zephyrus’s memories—Paxoran’s darkling-formed face, and the threat… the promise he made.

“You will watch your own hands strangle the life from Vykinallia’s eyes.”

Iylea hovered over Zephyrus’s shoulder, wishing she could offer greater comfort. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it.”

Zephyrus nodded.

Though she’d seen into his thoughts and memories before, she couldn’t tell if he took comfort in her words now. “There has to be a way to open the gates. Arkadia wouldn’t have sent me to you if there was no way of ascending. They were open before. They can be opened again.”

A sad smile touched Zephyrus’s lips as he stared at his feet trudging through the trampled snow. “Arkadia… I barely remember her. Even still, there are holes in my memories, gaps I may never be able to fill in.”

He inclined his gaze towards her, her light glowing upon his face. “What was she like?”

Iylea’s hue warmed at the thought of Arkadia, the woman who came to her in the Whispering Wall. She was everything I wish I could have been… courageous, selfless—faithful.

“She was… fierce, yet loving. Strong, even after being in Paxoran’s cells, watching her husband wither away. A mortal trapped in the divine realm, she never gave in. It’s no wonder the Corners of Kataan chose her.”

Zephyrus smiled, returning his gaze to the ground. “She seemed amazing… from what I remember, and when she came to me from Valencia.”

“She was,” Iylea said. “She never stopped fighting for you.”

Ferrocles’s fist smashed into Arkadia, shaking the walls of the Valencian castle.

Iylea’s aura darkened at the thought.

“She loved you,” Iylea said. “Even if you doubt yourself, she believed in you, Vykanicus. If you don’t believe for yourself, believe because she believed.”

Zephyrus’s head bobbed, his lips pursed. “Thank you, Iylea.”

The sound of her name on his lips made her shudder, but she took it for the compliment he intended it as—that she was human, and not some far-removed divine presence that cared not for the plight of mortals. As much as she wished she could be the Guardian, she was still Iylea. Still human. Still hurting.

Coming along beside him, Cerik placed his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “A word?”

Zephyrus nodded at Iylea. She floated higher, giving the two men some space.

As she rose over the isthmus, the sound of rushing wind drowned out all other noises. This wind, not the sea breeze or the Silver Summits’ chill, was unlike anything in the mortal realm, but she’d heard it before—in the space between.

The isthmus’s features faded, and the world went black around her. She was in her body, albeit the bluish incorporeal form she adopted whenever she joined Zephyrus in the immaterial plane. She examined her hands before searching her surroundings.

Nothing. Emptiness. The void opened its arms to her.

Fear quickened within her, her cerulean light trembling.

“Iylea!” A voice reverberated through the void. The sound waves crashed into themselves with a hint of distortion. “Iylea, can you hear me? Please, for the ripping Corners, hear me.”

Out of the blackness, a purplish incandescent figure appeared.

Iylea’s light flared. Tears trickled from her incorporeal eyes.

“Arkadia! Is that you? You’re alive?”

A thousand more questions crashed down on her, but the desperation in Arkadia’s voice silenced them all. Their incorporeal forms came together in as close to an embrace as two specters could manage.

“Burn me, I’m glad to see you, but there’s little time,” Arkadia said, examining her. “The mirror of the Whispering Wall is shattered. I tried contacting Vykanicus, but… is he…”

“He’s fine!” Iylea said. “I was just with him.”

“Thank the Creator,” Arkadia said, her voice trembling. Her purple hair floated behind her as if she were underwater. “I thought…” She composed herself with a deep, shoulder-shrugging breath. “I’m just glad he’s safe. But if he doesn’t ascend, no one will be.”

“The gates are closed,” Iylea said. “Can they be opened from the mortal realm?”

Arkadia took a shaky breath. “I don’t believe so. But I have a plan. I will attempt to open them, but I can’t promise they will stay open long. If Paxoran or the Harbinger see me or the open gates, they’ll close them for good. We only have one more chance at this.”

Iylea hugged herself. Her light flickered at the mention of the Harbinger, the God-killer she helped Paxoran bring to the divine realm.

Moterra, Phaebia, Ferrocles—their blood is on me.

“Where are you?” Arkadia asked, placing a hand against her shoulder.

Though she couldn’t feel the touch, the gesture provided comfort.

“Heading west, for Salmantica. The Skeleton King’s horde has forced our retreat.”

Arkadia nodded, her lips pursing. “There is a gate in Salmantica. I’ll check in with you to see your progress, and when you’re close, I’ll open the gates.”

Iylea considered Salmantica’s skyline. “The Hylan, the Basilica’s bell tower, and Sentigard’s peak are all nearly the same height. Which one is it?”

The stone in Arkadia’s throat bobbed, and the pause on the other end of infinity robbed the light from Iylea’s soul.

She doesn’t know. It could be any of them.

She’d found the gate in Valtarcia, but it had taken time. Time which they no longer had the luxury of. With one last chance at Zephyrus’s ascension, the last thing they needed was to chase their tails looking for the tallest point only to find it wasn’t the gate. It was bad enough that they had to circumvent Salmantica’s city walls; it wasn’t clear if Valtarcian refugees would be welcomed in, let alone Zephyrus, the Celestic Prophet of the Return. Now they had to find the gate too.

“I’ll get him there,” Iylea said.

In the back of her mind, Paxoran’s promise returned to her. “You’ll be trapped—a disembodied soul barred from ever returning to Valencia.”

The thought made her back away from Arkadia’s floating form.

What will happen to me?

Even if Arkadia knew the answer, Iylea didn’t want to know it. Everyone had a part to play; Iylea’s was to get Zephyrus to the gate.

She forced a grin, but then it became genuine. “He’ll be so pleased to know you’re still alive. I know I am.”

Arkadia’s lips parted in a smile that failed to reach her eyes. “There isn’t much time left; as we speak, Incinerae is fighting for her life against the Harbinger. If she falls, Paxoran will have everything he needs to challenge the Creator.”

Iylea’s light trembled as she stifled an involuntary shiver despite the fact she couldn’t feel cold. Time was short. Stakes high. And if Paxoran succeeded, everything and everyone would be lost in his pursuit of vengeance.

Zephyrus will stop him. He must.

“Tell Vykanicus I will see him soon,” Arkadia said. “Be safe, Iylea.”

“You t—”

Before she could finish, the rushing wind returned. Arkadia’s purple glow and the void beyond fell away, returning Iylea to the isthmus where existential dread and the plight of all human suffering awaited her.

Chapter 41

Grieving

Zephyrus VIII

Valtarcian Isthmus

Cerik hefted his mace over his other shoulder as if it prevented him from saying the words he wished to speak. The pregnant pause between them stretched, reminding Zephyrus of the companionable silence they once shared over gruel and the clack of wooden weapons.

It might as well have been a lifetime ago. So much had happened; so much had changed. But those days were dead, and so too was Jecht.

Jecht, who defended Zephyrus in the recruits’ cell after Lenox and the guards took turns beating him beneath the nightly rains. Jecht, who joined him in his punishment on the Hill. Who believed in him when Zephyrus had yet to believe in himself.

From the first day he arrived at House Cassius, Jecht was there for him. And the one time Zephyrus could have returned the favor for his friend, he wasn’t there.

He wanted to believe it wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing he could have done. After all, it was Jecht who convinced him to tell clever lies—to forsake his pride, to become a gladiator and one day restore honor to the Judges. It was too late for the Judges now. Vykannis was dead. All the Gods were. And the lie remained.

Zephyrus still lived, and it was his fault.

“Live,” Patrus had said with his dying breath. “Live.”

That last wish now felt like a curse.

Just the other day, kneeling before the statues of the Judges in Tharseo’s Bastion, he had released the desire to understand if he had fulfilled his fate or defied it, and chose instead to believe that he was enough—that he could do what his mother and the Corners of Kataan tasked him with on the Creator’s behalf.

Foolishness. How can I hope to defeat a God when I can’t even defeat his servant?

Cerik let out a sulking heave, as mighty as the swelling sea and dark as the thunderous sky. “Freedom,” he said at long last.

Zephyrus grunted.

It was difficult to believe such a thing existed. Here they were, free men, but Zephyrus had never felt so chained—so helpless. Twice now, another had taken control over his body. It was one thing to be caged by slavers, whipped by guards, possessed by lanistas—but then, he had control over his thoughts, his words—his actions.

“Freedom for all,” Cerik said. “Those were Jecht’s last words.”

Zephyrus’s nose wrinkled, his brow furrowed.

He wasn’t there. If he had been, he could have healed Jecht. If he was there, Jecht might not have needed to jump in front of the blood mage’s poleaxe to save Vykinallia. If he’d been there, he could have made a difference.

But he wasn’t. Instead, he nearly murdered one of the few living men who proved that patricians could change. All because he wasn’t in control.

Twice now, he’d lost control, and twice it had cost him. First when he had returned to Valtarcia after being separated from the Guardian, as Iylea fought to reclaim control of his body from the darkling, the blood artifact cursed Vykinallia. If he had been there, perhaps he could have spared her the fate he’d seen in Iylea’s memories; Vykinallia’s soul would be forever cursed, in this life and the next.

So many “Ifs” rattled around Zephyrus’s mind, but none, not even Klayvorine’s greave, could turn back time that far. He wished Jecht would interject and say something snarky to break his foul mood, but that only made it worse.

“We’ve come so far,” Cerik said. “Look at us—an army, freedpeople, mages, Rheynians. But now we march to Salmantica, on the word of a Drake?”

Zephyrus frowned. He didn’t like it either, but what choice did they have? “We have to trust Laeden.” He shuddered at the mention of Laeden’s name. The Vykane Blade pierced through Laeden’s gut and exploded out his back. Laeden’s eyes widened, not understanding how or why Zephyrus would do such a thing to him.

What would have happened if Iylea hadn’t been able to stop me? I could have killed Jecht myself. Along with Cerik, Threyna, and Vykinallia.

He shook the haunting thoughts away, tracing the outline of Vykinallia’s amethyst ring stitched into the waist of his britches. “I don’t think Jecht was worried about the Salmantics. The Skeleton King’s enslavement is a far worse fate.”

Cerik hummed. A wide smile dimpled his cheeks. “Perhaps Jecht did not mean freedom for all under the Rheynians, but I don’t think he meant the Skeleton King either. And I don’t think he was speaking to Vykinallia.”

Zephyrus cocked his brow. “What do you mean?”

Cerik looked to the lightning-streaked sky. “He was staring up. I thought it only natural for a dying man. But I believe he was speaking to you, Zeph. ‘Freedom, for all.’ Think about it. Who is the worst slaver of them all?” He pointed to the black blanket of storm clouds and the heavens beyond. “From every king and queen to slave boy and girl, we’re all enslaved. But you will free us.”

Zephyrus shook his head and snorted. “How?”

Cerik smirked. “You still do not trust the Judges, though they have taken you this far.”

“The Judges are gone, Cerik,” Zephyrus said.

“But their wisdom lives on,” Cerik said. “The son of the Fallen will rise to prey upon the unworthy. Under cloaks and shadows he hides to bring light to those hoping. When the rivers and streams run dry, he will summon the unworldly to sever the chains that bind the realm to the holy.”

Zephyrus examined the scars on his palms he’d received during the blood ritual at Tharseo’s Bastion. When everyone else’s blood remained thick after the tea’s contents, his had flowed, filling the tray until the scales were balanced.

Cerik raised his eyebrow expectantly. “What part of your prophecy has not come true, son of Invinius Auros, leader of the Fallen? Do you not conjure shadows and bend light? Are the nightly rains filling the riverbeds?” He pointed to the bracers and greaves on Zephyrus’s wrists and shins. “And burn me if those are not the unworldly.”

Zephyrus bit his lip, unable to argue.

Cerik glanced at the sky again. “How, you ask? All that is left is to sever the chains. I don’t know when, or how, or what it will look like, but I believe. You will bring us freedom. Freedom for all people. For all time.”

Zephyrus didn’t want to believe. He didn’t want to trust. He wanted to wallow in his doubts because that’s what he deserved. That’s what was comfortable. But he couldn’t.

As they always had, Jecht and Cerik remained by him, and between Cerik’s discernment and Jecht’s last words, Zephyrus couldn’t give up now. Suddenly, the levies of his fury broke, and the losses he’d been unable to grieve began to pour down like the nightly rains. With tears welling in his eyes, Zephyrus patted Cerik’s shoulder.

“Gratitude,” Zephyrus said. He took a deep breath, realizing that he and Cerik had drifted toward the back of their procession. “Go on. I’ll catch up. I just need a moment.”

Cerik returned the gesture, slapping Zephyrus’s shoulder with a gentleness only those closest to him had learned to expect from the bruiser. Without another word, Zephyrus broke from the party, retreating off to the side of the procession to be alone.

Kneeling down in the snow, Zephyrus slowed time, bent light to conceal himself, and sound to block out the world around him. Since losing his memories, receiving his prophecy, and watching Threyna and Patrus die, he hadn’t the time to grieve. Since being saved by Vykannis, freed by Vykinallia, and visited by his mother on the rotunda, he hadn’t the time to celebrate.

He’d been numb. Dutiful. Driven by fate, but simultaneously drowned by it.

The loss of control in the wake of the Skeleton King’s assault mixed with every other unprocessed loss he’d known.

The first tear came slowly, trickling from the corner of his eye to roll down his cheek. The second fell from his other eye, losing itself in his beard. But after that, they came more readily, chasing each other down his cheeks.

His shoulders heaved and ribs contracted as sobs, slow at first, but then with more fervor, racked his body. His fingers curled to fists, hammering into the snow-sodden ground. Cries became screams. Screams reverted back to sobs. And his sobs softened to whimpers.

But as he wept, a gratitude filled him.

I am not alone.

The slow-moving procession marching westward was evidence of that. And that was something Paxoran could never understand. Not truly. Not after centuries of lies and deceit, fixated on vengeance. A way would open. A path to ascendence would reveal itself, and when it did, Zephyrus would defeat Paxoran.

“Freedom, Jecht,” Zephyrus said. “For all.”

Zephyrus released his manipulation magic, allowing light and sound to reach him once again. Time returned to its typical flow. As the procession continued west, Iylea’s light, brighter than he’d ever seen before, zipped left and right across the isthmus as if looking for something.

“Zephyrus!” she shouted once he reappeared. “Chimera’s breath, you scared the—”

“What is it?” Zephyrus asked.

Iylea’s light pulsed. “Your mother… she’s alive!”

Zephyrus’s voice faltered. His lips stammered, unable to form sound. Hope blossomed in his chest and rippled throughout his body.

“There’s more,” Iylea said. “She’s going to open the gates.”

Chapter 42

Bloody Lessons

Threyna V

Valtarcian Isthmus

The cold steel raced across Threyna’s palm where the Seers of Tharseo’s Bastion had once taken her blood sacrifice. The scar reopened, leaving a stinging slit in its wake. She clenched her fingers in a fist to the wound’s protests, shunting the blood to escape beneath her pinky finger. The crimson blood fell in a steady, rhythmic plop from her fist to the snow, staining it with death.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Try again,” Threyna said to Vykinallia as they stood apart from the resting procession.

Vykinallia’s jaw clenched. Her dark brows pinched atop the sash covering her eyes.

“Visualize,” Threyna said, as much to Laeden listening as to Vykinallia practicing. “All that you imagine is possible from your Inner Pulvinus, but you can’t become reliant on sight, or any of your natural-born senses.”

Vykinallia’s nose wrinkled; her lips contorted.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Sense what is already there,” Threyna said. “You don’t need to create it. Use your environment. Time will come to conjure, but first, you must shape.”

The pool of blood melting through the soft snow grew, but nothing gave rise from it at Vykinallia’s command.

Laeden rubbed the scruff of his brown beard before running his fingers through his short hair, seemingly as invested in Vykinallia’s lesson as she was.

He continued to surprise her. From the moment she’d met him, he had not been what she expected. When he volunteered to take the artifact’s curse after Vykinallia released the final prong, she’d been suspicious—untrusting even. She knew all too well what such a power could do in the wrong hands. First her grandfather, now her uncle served as prime examples of the potential havoc wrought. As desperate as they were to have a fighting chance, it was not a curse all could bear, nor a power all should wield.

Laeden’s earnestness, however, struck her. He didn’t value having power over others, but the power to help others. A king who didn’t want to be king? Perhaps that was the best kind.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“I can’t do it,” Vykinallia said, ripping the sash from her eyes. Flustered and cursing herself, she kicked the snow. “Ugh! We don’t have time for me to fail.”

“You’re not failing,” Laeden said, gesturing toward Threyna. “It just takes practice, right?” He nodded encouragingly.

Threyna tapped her lip with her index finger. “Conjure something with sight. Anything, just something important to you.”

Vykinallia held out her hand. A ring, forged of blood, encircled her finger. The shape and style Threyna recognized as the amethyst ring Zephyrus carried around with him.

A pang of jealousy stabbed at her. She placed her hands on her hips and swallowed her envy. She spoke with a tighter voice than she intended. “Just close your eyes and do it again.”

Vykinallia attempted, but met the same result.

Threyna hummed. The smug satisfaction that she was still better than Vykinallia at something faded quickly. Every moment Vykinallia struggled was another lost for Laeden to learn to harness the blood magic before the Skeleton King returned in force.

Staring at the blood on the snow, Threyna commanded it to vaporize. The blood sublimated to a mist. She drew in breath, and the wound on her palm stitched itself shut. The skin was weak, brittle, but enough to stem the red tide.

“Look out at the ocean,” Threyna said.

Vykinallia’s brows rose, wrinkling her forehead, but did as instructed.

“What do you see?” Threyna asked, turning her back to Vykinallia to take in the view from the Salmantic cliffside.

Laeden and Vykinallia came beside her.

“An army of waves,” Vykinallia said, “wielding white-capped spears.”

“What else?” Threyna said.

“An assault—on the cliffs, the skyline, and anything foolish enough to stand in its way.”

Threyna nodded. “Now look at Laeden.”

Vykinallia and Laeden turned to examine one another.

“Describe him,” Threyna said. “Every detail.”

Vykinallia inspected Laeden, but guffawed uncomfortably. When Threyna didn’t acknowledge the gesture, Vykinallia cleared her throat. “Brown of hair, fair of skin. Thinner and paler than he should be.”

Laeden winced, but allowed her to continue.

“Shadows cling beneath his eyes. Lines of stress frame the corners. His beard is thicker than normal, with silver strands strewn throughout. His jerkin is too big for him.”

While Vykinallia rifled through her observations, Threyna found herself lost in her own.

Vykinallia didn’t see the way his brow hugged the contour of his eye like a bent bow, or how its darkness brought out the faint ring of blue that encompassed the depth of his brown irises. She looked past the blushed hue of his cheeks beneath his beard to take in the shape of his cheekbones that fed into his firm jawline. It was as if Vykinallia didn’t notice the way his ears hugged tight to the side of his head, and the lobe was just large enough to pinch between a thumb and forefinger. The gentle rhythm to the bob of the stone of his throat. The cords of muscle that rippled just beneath the surface of his skin.

Threyna cleared her throat, averting her gaze from Laeden. “Now return your sash. Describe the ocean.”

Vykinallia repeated the exercise, describing the sea, absent sight. Then Laeden.

“Find the available blood,” Threyna said, pointing to the stained snow. “Visualize your ring with the same level of detail you just described Laeden and the sea. Command it. Shape it to your will.”

The blood on the snow converged, congealing into a mass. Vykinallia let out an exasperated breath.

“Focus,” Threyna said. “Envision the details.”

The ring formed, collecting all the remaining blood on the ground.

Laeden took Threyna by the elbow and whispered in her ear, “You did it.”

His warm breath tickled her ear, and the sentiment eradicated her former jealousy. Biting back a smile, Threyna turned to Vykinallia. “Call it to you. Picture it sliding onto your finger.”

The formed ring, identical in shape to the one in Zephyrus’s possession, drifted towards Vykinallia’s outstretched hand. Absent sight, the ring slid onto her finger.

“I did it,” Vykinallia said, lifting the sash from her eyes. A smile spread, rounding her cheeks as she examined the ring on her finger.

A familiar click resounded from the crawler wrapping around Vykinallia’s ear. The blood artifact’s double scorpion-like tails retracted—one curling around the helix of her ear, while the other slipped through the hole it had created in her lobe.

“This is it,” Threyna said. She took Laeden’s hand and brought him toward the artifact as its red-and-black shape dematerialized into a slithering liquid.

“This will hurt,” Threyna said to Laeden.

He set his jaw, but nodded.

The red-and-black liquid slithered down the side of Vykinallia’s neck and onto Laeden and Threyna’s conjoined hands, snaking up their forearms.

The moment she slipped her hand free, the artifact took shape, splaying itself to cover Laeden’s hand and forearm like a scaled glove. As if it didn’t need to search for a better place to attach to Laeden, it clamped down on him. His hands, empty and gloved, clenched into fists. Jaw tight and breathing through his teeth, Laeden growled as black veins erupted up his arm, under his jerkin, and out his collar to coil around his neck. Corrupted vines slithered through his cheek and pulsed in his forehead.

Through short, sharp breaths, Laeden met Threyna’s eyes. The whites were now strangled by black forks of lightning that encroached on the blue ring around his irises.

She held his gaze, finding her own heartbeat thudding in time with his.

The rot receded from his eyes, drained from his face, and retreated to the black-and-red gauntlet on his left hand.

He examined the interlocking red-and-black scales of the artifact. “Teach me.” He flexed his armored fingers. “And together, we will defeat the Skeleton King.”

After a lifetime of trying and succeeding once, only to have him return worse than before, Threyna had suffered optimism in short supply. She’d placed her faith in herself and failed. Placed her faith in the Treasures of Stockhelm and failed. Attached her hope to Zephyrus and, even then, failed. But now, standing beside Vykinallia and Laeden, a fire in her dared to dream.

She nodded. “Together. We will.”

Chapter 43

For the Realm

Danella VIII

Salmantica

Lightning struck over Six Spear Arena casting eerie shadows across the sands. Danella leaned against the bars of the gates that led to the arena, staring at the crackling sky. She should have been sleeping. Daenus, Liario, and Ispara were. But she felt trapped in the barracks beneath the arena—unable to think. Despite her fatigue, sleep would not come until she’d made sense of the evening’s events.

After the brawl broke out between the Sentinels and Vigiles, they took refuge here in the hopes that no one would think to come looking. When the time came, it would also serve as a safe haven to bring the Valtarcian refugees to. With enough space to not only house people, but hide them, the arena was also conveniently located near Sentigard and the storehouses they would have to pilfer from in order to feed them.

The challenge with the location was how far it was from the city walls. They would either have to slip through most of the city undetected, or trickle in two and three people at a time. If that wasn’t troublesome enough, there still remained the biggest hurdle of getting people past the gates. Getting Laeden out of the city was one thing, but the gap in the wall Ser Darrow had forged to flank the Valtarcians and capture Hallon Helixus was a one-way path.

Danella gripped the bars of the gate that once separated gladiators from the bloodstained sands. A tickle in the back of her throat she couldn’t clear. A chill down her spine she couldn’t shake. Like standing at the ledge of the Basilica’s bell tower and staring at the fall below, her stomach clenched with the fear of a sudden drop.

Is this what the gladiators experienced—on the precipice of death, knowing that one ill-fated decision could be their last?

When Aemos Horne and Haedron Allos stormed the Chimeran Inn, she thought she was finished. She would have been if not for Heclan Allos. If they had been left to leave of their own volition, perhaps a deal might have been struck.

However, even if Heclan agreed to smuggle the refugees into the city, it didn’t mean the rest of the Vigiles would. One traitor and they’d be undone. One Hecht—one wolf posing as a sheep amidst the flock—and she’d be nailed to the Six Arrowed Star.

The thunderous sky bellowed with ominous intent. As lightning cracked across the sky, a spike of sharp pain lanced through her wrist as if the first nail had been driven home. Danella gripped her wrist.

To make matters worse, a traitorous Vigile was the least of her problems. Under current orders, every guard post was stationed with Sentinels and Vigiles. Having allies amongst the Vigiles alone wouldn’t be enough. Even if she could trust a pair of Vigiles, it mattered not if the Sentinels were loyal to Aemos.

The expression on Haedron’s face when he saw his uncle Heclan reveal himself as the organizer gave her hope. Perhaps Haedron wouldn’t be the only one with second guesses as to Aemos and Damascus’s orders.

Danella needed allies, and she would gain none hiding here. She needed to get back out there. Ispara’s and Liario’s connections to the Revivalists could only take their cause so far; it was her voice the people needed to hear, especially now that fire had lost its warmth. Though the conflict between the Vigiles and the Sentinels centered more around Heclan being taken prisoner, the fact that he took the fall for her meant something. Her speech of full lies and half-truths carried enough weight to inspire questions. The more people who questioned Damascus, and the more chaos she created within the city, the easier it would be to smuggle the Valtarcians in.

Chaos alone isn’t enough.

The gears of her mind began to turn. Perhaps it was only the optimism and sense of comfort that came with having a plan, but the sky seemed to lighten beyond the storm clouds.

“This is madness,” Daenus said after Danella told them of her plans. The permanent half-snarl left in the absence of his burned-off lip twitched.

Ispara shrugged, leaning against the door frame of the barracks. “I think it’s a good plan.”

Daenus pointedly ignored the girl from the slums. Liario smoothed his wispy gray brows only for them to bristle back up like a bird’s tailfeathers. Though his thin lips remained a tight line, his lack of support to Danella’s plan said enough.

“No,” Daenus said, shaking his lumbering head. “Not doing it.” He paced wall to wall within the narrow hall that led to the arena gates. Three strides left. Three strides right.

Danella crossed her arms. If I were still queen and you my Guard Knight, would you dream of such defiance? It didn’t matter. She was no longer queen. The excuse of her coming to the slums to hear what the plebeians were saying behind closed doors wouldn’t work again if they were caught, not after her speech atop the rubble.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Daenus said, stopping and crossing his own arms. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. More, even. But this? This is madness.”

“Which part?” Danella asked.

Daenus scoffed. “Which part? All of it!” He gestured with his chin to Ispara. “Her returning to the slums—madness.” He jabbed his thumb at Liario. “Him stealing from the House of the Faceless… Madness! And you? Preaching in the Temple District—lunacy. But the worst part is that you want to send me away.” Daenus crossed his arms and shook his head. “Not an option.”

“I’m not sending you away,” Danella said. “I’m sending you to Atonus Allos. You are the best swordsman he’s seen since the Reaper of Marstead. If Ser Darrow were here, I’d send him, but he’s not.” Danella strode up to Daenus and placed her hand on his crossed arm. “Atonus may listen to you, and with the aid of the Lion’s Academy, we could take the city.”

“Take the city?” Daenus guffawed, retreating from her. “I agreed to aid Valtarcia. Not usurp the throne.”

The stern stoic mask typically worn by the King’s Guard Knight melted away like his scarred face, showing his true character beneath. He wasn’t just a brooding shadow of obedience and duty as she had once believed, but a person capable of the full array of emotions.

“What throne doesn’t care for its people?” Danella closed the distance again. “It is a king’s duty to protect and defend his people. If he fails to do so, who will?”

Varros knew she was trying to kill him. He knew mages were coming for him. Yet he did not run; he remained, for if he ran, the country and its people would fall to ruin. He tried to stop the bloodshed peacefully—not through conquest as she and the mages of his order had desired.

“If we convince Atonus,” Danella continued. “If the Lions join us, who will oppose? No more blood need be spilled. We can welcome the Valtarcians in and mount a defense against this Rheynian army from the east.”

The glossy flesh where Daenus’s eyebrow should have been lifted. “And when this is all over, what then? Who will rule after you take the power of the throne out from under the king? You may believe this can be bloodless, but it won’t be. Even if we defeat this army, what comes next is either you or your son on a Six Arrowed Star.”

“Your son…”

Daenus’s choice of words struck her. As his stern, stoic mask fell, so too did her queenly one. He was speaking to her not as a servant of Salmantica, but as a friend. But that wasn’t the only reason the phrase resonated within her. She realized that Damascus no longer felt like her son. Her son—the sweet boy and gallant prince he was—died. Somewhere between his coronation and when he murdered Varros, he died, and the monster holed up in Sentigard was born.

The son I know may yet still live within him.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Danella said. “All I know is that I need you to convince Atonus Allos that claiming martial law and command over the Vigiles and Sentinels will allow us time to fight back against the true enemy.”

Daenus’s eyes narrowed. “And should I fail?”

Danella swallowed. “He won’t harm you.”

“He’ll jail me,” Daenus said. “You’ll be alone. Defended by gutter girls and old men.”

Ispara grumbled something under her breath. Liario cowered.

“I won’t ask you to do it for me,” Danella said. “Do it for the realm.”

Chapter 44

Return to the Rotunda

Laeden VIII

Valtarcian Isthmus

Ignoring the grumbling of his stomach, the ache in his feet, and the effects of whatever the blood artifact was doing to him, Laeden attempted to follow Threyna’s instructions.

While the rest of their group paused from their march, there was no time for Laeden to waste. Along the cliffs, staring out at the swells birthed in Aquarius’s demise, Laeden focused on the details, losing himself in the visualization technique that helped Vykinallia unlock the last prong. He narrowed his brow and set his jaw, taking in the sea and its breeze.

“You’re trying too hard,” Threyna said. She pressed his shoulders down, forcing them away from his ears. “You’re straining. You must relax.”

Laeden scoffed. “I’m not familiar with the concept.”

Threyna guffawed. “Clearly.” She took a deep breath.

Laeden mirrored the breath, following the rhythm of her tide.

“No,” Threyna said. “You’re breathing up here.” She pressed his shoulders down again. “I want you to breathe here.” She slid her hand down his back and around to his stomach.

Laeden recoiled. More because of where Zephyrus had stabbed him than Threyna’s touch, but based on the wrinkle her nose made in response, he assumed she believed the latter.

“Apologies,” Laeden said. “Wasn’t too long ago the Vykane Blade went through there.”

“Exactly why you need to breathe into it,” Threyna said. “He may have healed you, but that doesn’t mean the scars don’t remain.”

Laeden hummed. There was wisdom in that, a wisdom he had not expected from her. Nodding, he relaxed the muscles of his jaw. He blew out his cheeks to ease the tension in his face. With slow, deep breaths in time with Threyna’s, he worked the air into his stomach. The injured tissue protested the expansion his lungs imposed, but with time, it released.

“There you go,” Threyna said. “Now close your eyes. Try to locate your seat of power. For me it is a throne, for Vykinallia, the pulvinus.”

Threyna continued to speak, but Laeden felt himself leave the isthmus and teleport to a familiar place. The Aquarian river babbled through Salmantica’s streets and terminated in the moat surrounding Sentigard. The wheels of the drawbridge cranked to bring the way up and deny the castle’s access. A shadow loomed in the wake of a Six Arrowed Star. Laeden held a sword and shield in hand, but he had no wish to wield them.

I’m on the rotunda. My trial by steel.

“Where are you?” Threyna asked.

Laeden shook his head. How can my seat of power be where I lost everything?

The blinding sun. The ache in his back. The atrophy that accompanied his time spent in Sentigard’s dungeons. How his family, friends, and allies rallied the gathered crowd against him. Zephyrus’s cold, vengeful stare as he was announced as Laeden’s opponent.

“You must be humble in your sentencing,” Iylea had said.

“Laeden?” Threyna asked. “What do you see?”

“I see the rotunda,” Laeden said. “My trial.”

Threyna contorted her lip and bit it. “Not the seat of power I was expecting.”

Laeden considered it. Where else if not here?

Upon the streets of Valtarcia where he wasn’t accepted by the patricians or the plebs? Swept up into Salmantic court, where he was ridiculed with forced matches of patricians’ third or fourth daughters? In Sentigard’s war room where every decision he made led him, Markus, and the rest of the Sentinels down a path they couldn’t return from?

“It makes perfect sense,” Laeden said, taking in the surroundings of his Inner Trial. “Here is where I finally took a stand. For years, I thought myself a rebel. Content to be on the outside of the in-crowd, I believed by not conforming to them I was taking a stand, but I was only standing by; while patricians reaped what the plebs had sown, while people suffered in slavery—I did nothing.”

He let the dulled blade clatter to the rotunda’s stone floor and dropped to his knees.

“It wasn’t until I knelt that I knew where I stood,” Laeden said to Threyna.

He bowed his head before the temple priests who sat in judgement, the citizens who came to witness his sentencing, and Zephyrus’s wrath who would see it delivered. Remembering Vykinallia’s description of how she changed her Inner Pulvinus not to be an arena of slaves, but a united army, Laeden imagined what would have happened if he had convinced Damascus and Danella of their wrongdoings. The lives that could have been spared made his head spin, but here in his Inner Trial, he was in control.

He closed his eyes and held his hands out before him. In the distance, Threyna gasped, but Laeden remained focused. Kneeling upon the rotunda, he held Iylea’s head in his hands, as he had in the throne room after Aemos’s blade cleaved through her neck—his greatest failure, his biggest regret.

I’m sorry, Iylea.

Laeden opened his eyes. The wind atop the isthmus whipped against his cheeks. A tear escaped the corner of his eye, only half due to the salty spray of the sea air. He stared at the ocean’s crashing waves in the distance, too afraid to look at what he held in his hands, what he had created from memory.

He lowered his gaze, and dropped to his knees upon the snowy cliffs as he had upon the rotunda. Before him, Iylea’s heart-shaped face stared back at him. Conjured by blood, he couldn’t capture her beauty, but it was her.

Stifling a trembling breath, he bowed his forehead to hers. “I hope you are at peace.”

Heat rose to his ears, and tension balled in his chest. He closed his mind to the scene of his Inner Trial and let Iylea’s blood-conjured face crumble. Ashes slipped through his gauntleted fingers, and for the third time in Laeden’s life, Iylea was lost to him.

A whimpering sob tore free from his lips. His fists curled around the cinders, but they didn’t stop his ribs from rattling. He buried his face into his clenched knuckles.

A gentle hand, hesitant at first, but then more confidently, rubbed small circles along his back. If not for Threyna’s touch, perhaps he would have seized control of himself, muffled his sobs, and returned to his training. But her touch, intended or otherwise, welcomed him—allowed him to let fall the tears he’d not yet released.

Standing over his father and Markus after the Guardian told him that Iylea too was at peace, he had thought he’d loosed all the tears a man could cry. Yet here he was again, grieving all those he could not save. Again.

One click followed another as two prongs released from Laeden’s forearm. He wiped his eyes to examine the gauntlet.

Threyna knelt in the snow beside him, her arm around his back. “How did you do that—and on your first time?”

Laeden shrugged, shoving himself to his feet. “I don’t know. I have a good teacher.” He grinned as if to project a little levity after his emotional outburst. He should have felt shame. He barely knew Threyna. As much as he had been through, he couldn’t imagine her journey here had been easy, yet here he was crying before her. But instead of shame, he felt strangely comfortable.

Threyna scoffed as the two wiped snow from their britches.

“I did what you said,” Laeden said. “Plus what you taught Vykinallia earlier and it just… I don’t know… happened?”

Threyna nodded, but said nothing. Her warm back-rubbing kindness from moments ago felt like a distant memory.

“Your seat of power,” Laeden said, filling her silence. “You said it is a throne room.”

“Yes.”

When she didn’t offer anything further, he pressed. “Why—do you wish to rule?”

Threyna scoffed. “Gory ghosts, no.”

“Why is it your seat of power then?” Laeden asked.

Threyna tossed her silver-blonde braid over her shoulder. “Once I learned the Skeleton King was my grandfather, I thought if I took the throne from him, Rheynia would be a better place. I never wanted to be queen, just for him not to be king—for all the good that’s done.”

Laeden frowned. “Is it possible that a new seat of power would serve you better?”

She stared off the cliffs as if lost in a dream, but the consternation on her face made it seem more like a nightmare. Not wanting to lose her, he changed the subject.

“How did you learn the blood magic?”

Threyna grunted, kicking at the mound of snow left in the wake of their kneeling. “I didn’t choose it. I can tell you that much. I didn’t exactly have a teacher either.”

When she stopped, Laeden made a rolling gesture with his hand to encourage her.

Huffing, she placed her hands on her hips. “My father gave it to me. Before he died—sort of. He never meant to give it to me. He wanted it for himself, but it doesn’t reattach to a host it already had.” She shrugged. “Only he and my grandfather had it before me. And I wasn’t exactly going to ask him for help.”

“That sounds lonely,” Laeden said. “Having to learn by yourself. I imagine that must have been difficult, without your father.”

If Threyna had a shell, it might as well have sealed shut. Considering his own strained relationship with his father, he could understand why she might not be forthcoming about it.

Maybe if I share first.

“I too had a… challenging relationship with my father,” Laeden said. “I thought he died when I was young. My mother raised me, but when he returned from the dead, he was forced to annul his marriage to my mother and marry the Princess of Salmantica—sealing the treaty with matrimony. Forging a new peace.”

Threyna, hands still on her hips, smoothed the snow with her foot.

“Then I was ripped from my mother’s arms and sent off to Salmantica to be a ‘proper prince.’ You can imagine what that did to our family.”

Threyna kicked the snow. “At least you still had your father. I was just a girl when he was taken by the Skeleton King. Just a girl when my mother and sister left without me.”

“You were alone?” Laeden asked.

“If you call the Underground’s barracks alone, sure,” Threyna said. “But, sometimes being surrounded by others only made me feel more alone… you know?”

Laeden did. He felt the losses of Iylea, Markus, and his father more keenly in their marching army than he did in the hidden depths of Sentigard’s dungeons. “Yeah, I do. Where are your mother and sister now?” He grimaced the moment the words left his mouth.

A wave of long-buried memories rippled across Threyna’s angular features.

“Apologies,” Laeden said, “I shouldn’t ha—”

“My sister, Laela…” Threyna said, shaking her head. “She may still be out there. Somewhere. I don’t know.” She kicked a pile of snow over the ledge of the cliffs. “After we killed the Skeleton King and fled Rheynia, Laela wanted to find a cure.” She held up her blackened hand. “While I did the only thing I knew how to do—I joined an army looking to wage war. I would have too, if my uncle didn’t pick up where my grandfather left off.”

Laeden bit his lip. “There’s still hope. One day, you and your sister may reunite.”

Threyna sucked her teeth. “As long as it’s not under the One True God.”

“It won’t be,” Laeden said. “We will defeat him.”

The quickness of his reply drew a dagger-like glance from her.

A sudden pressure in his mind drew him back to his Inner Trial. Around the gathered crowd, a white fog settled, as if daring to push through the Ridge Knights’ perimeter.

“Is that you?” Laeden asked.

Threyna stammered. “Sorry. Bad habit to see if someone is lying. I shouldn’t ha—”

“No,” Laeden said, reaching out and touching her forearm. “It’s okay.”

She met his eyes with a stern stoicism as if attempting to discern if he were telling the truth even in this regard.

Within his Inner Trial, he commanded the Ridge Knights to stand down. After a moment, the mist approached slowly—guarded, as if readying to retreat at any moment. The white mist drew near, slipping through the crowd until it encompassed him.

“I have nothing to hide,” Laeden said.

Threyna licked her lips, then swallowed, before closing her eyes.

In his Inner Trial, her mist wrapped around him. He sensed a rhythm to her, like a pulse—a heartbeat. Short and sharp, the pulse quickened as it neared. He breathed the mist in, and the rhythm meshed with his own, filling in each other’s off-beats to create a steady melody.

“Do you believe me now?” Laeden asked.

Threyna opened her eyes and placed her hand on his. “Yes.”

Chapter 45

Strength In Doubt

Zephyrus IX

Valtarcian Isthmus

Zephyrus and a few other elemental mages capable of conjuring forth water magic filled old skins, horns, and anything that would serve as a container for water. The dehydrated group drank greedily, but the reflexive balancing of the scales dispelled the cold seeping into his bones.

Passing a water-filled wineskin back to Iberion, Zephyrus met the former Auros sword master’s remaining eye.

“Gratitude, Vykanicus,” Iberion said, accepting the skin.

Zephyrus bowed his head, his given name still strange to hear on others’ lips.

Iberion stepped out of the way to allow Zephyrus to fill a former gladiator’s waterskin. “Curious,” Iberion said. “You here, your mother still aiding us from there.” He pointed to the sky. “Remarkable. Fallen and Templar, liberated slaves and former masters—all following you.”

Zephyrus snorted, handing the filled skin back to the freedman. “They’re not following me. I’m not leading.”

Iberion grunted as a Sentinel passed Zephyrus a flask to fill. “Who leads then?”

Zephyrus shrugged; the heat given off by his water production caused a bead of sweat to dampen his brow. “Laeden, Vykinallia, you, Kaelus—half a dozen others. Not me.” He passed the flask back to the Sentinel and took an empty horn from a Valtarcian refugee.

The brow above Iberion’s eyepatch rose. “A prince who used you. A lanista who owned you. A follower of a cause birthed before you could hold a sword. And another slave owner; that’s who you believe leads us? Whose example do they follow?”

Zephyrus wiped his brow with his shoulder, ignoring the anger he knew came from the God of War’s death. It shouldn’t have made him uncomfortable, but it did—the notion that he deserved credit for what Laeden, Vykinallia, Iberion, or Kaelus ever did.

“It bothers you,” Iberion said. “It shouldn’t. We all need guidance. The torch you lit is now followed. Believed in.”

Vykinallia was next in line, holding out a skin. The holes in her blackened ear where the blood artifact had pierced her gaped open. As if she could sense him staring at it, she tossed her hair over her shoulder, obscuring it.

“Is it so bad?” she asked.

Zephyrus grimaced. “No. Apologies, I—”

“I’m teasing,” Vykinallia said, a sad smile on her lips.

Zephyrus sighed, taking the skin and filling it.

Ignoring the exchange, Iberion continued. “You know, when your mother left us, after she sent you and Patrus on a mission of your own, we all questioned what you were capable of—whether you were worth waiting for.”

Zephyrus paused from filling Vykinallia’s skin.

“You weren’t special with a sword,” Iberion said. “You had no knowledge of the forge. You were just a boy who we placed all our hope in on the off-chance that your mother was right—that you would be Tharseo come again to free us from the Rheynians.”

He glanced to the sky as if looking toward Zephyrus’s mother. “Over the years, I’ve had my doubts. Even upon our reunion, I hadn’t wanted to speak. But I have observed. I see you now. And all doubts...” He waved his hand out at the ocean as if his last words were lost to the wind.

Zephyrus opened his mouth to speak, but Iberion silenced him with a raised finger.

“Our doubt—mine, Lenara’s, Sett and Dankar’s, Unari’s, everyone’s—it made us strong. We prepared while Patrus watched over you. We planned whether you returned from the Arcane Templar or not. Whether Patrus taught you to overcome your pride or not.”

Zephyrus winced, recalling his memories of opposing Patrus’s wisdom.

Iberion put his hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “Doubt makes us strong. But you fear yours. It is time for you to embrace your doubts, Vykanicus Auros. They are where your greatest strength lies.”

Zephyrus worked his dry mouth, searching for words, but Iberion’s hand fell away. He turned his back and left.

Vykinallia placed her hand over Zephyrus’s holding her half-filled skin. “Are you okay?” Her emerald eyes examined him. Her gentle touch, soft and cool against his overheating flesh, invited his answer, but Zephyrus had none.

He grunted. Ever since he relayed to the others that his mother would try to reopen the gates, he feared this exact conversation. He knew where it began. He knew where it ended. Again, she would try to convince him that she should ascend the divine realm with him. She’d use her blood magic—her curse—as a means of justifying her rationale, but it was the very reason why she couldn’t ascend, even if he wanted her to.

“Can we talk?” Vykinallia asked.

Zephyrus nodded. Excusing himself from the line of mages filling water, he joined Vykinallia. They walked ahead of the camp on their snow-sodden westbound journey.

“I’m happy to hear your mother is still alive,” Vykinallia said. “The fact that she can still help us…” She shook her head. “All is not lost.”

Zephyrus allowed himself a brief smile.

“I’ve been thinking,” Vykinallia continued. “I—”

“Before you—” Zephyrus took a deep breath. “Apologies, I just…” He kicked a clump of snow, searching for the words.

He loved that she wanted to come with him, to fight alongside him. At first he questioned whether he would have been capable of doing what needed to be done. If he had to choose between saving Vykinallia or defeating Paxoran, he would save her. Every time. Regardless how many hypothetical situations he placed himself in, he couldn’t fathom letting her suffer, even at his own expense. Paxoran had been a part of him before Vykannis freed him. Then, he’d entered his soul again, twice more. Paxoran knew everything Zephyrus knew about himself. He couldn’t allow Paxoran to use his love for Vykinallia against him.

“What is it?” Vykinallia asked.

Zephyrus swallowed, recalling what Paxoran was capable of. “After I escaped Salmantica, I returned to House Auros. Lenox came for me. Trapped, I tried to climb down, but fatigued as I was, I fell.”

Vykinallia nodded along, listening intently with a patience he didn’t feel he deserved after interrupting her.

“Threyna saved me,” Zephyrus said.

Vykinallia’s eye twitched, and a flicker of too many emotions to guess at crossed her face.

“Paxoran wanted her to consume me,” Zephyrus continued. “When she refused, he somehow took control over the rot in her veins. If I didn’t heal her, he would have killed her. I nearly killed myself in the process.”

He stopped walking and turned to face her. Taking both of her hands in his, staring into her eyes, he hoped she would hear him, understand him. “I know you want to ascend to the divine realm, but you can’t. I know you’re afraid that I won’t come back. But I will.”

He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “And when I do, when it’s over—Paxoran, the Skeleton King, all of it—we can start anew. Have our own life, absent the blood and battle, the swords and magic.” He released her hand to push a lock of hair past her blackened ear. His finger traced the curve of her cheek and followed the contour of her jaw. “We can finally live. Maybe, I don’t know… start a family.”

Vykinallia’s lips pursed to hide a smile. Her eyebrow cocked.

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s cheeks. “What?”

“Can you imagine what kind of trouble our child would get into?” Vykinallia blinked away the water welling in her lashes.

Zephyrus chuckled.

“Where?” Vykinallia asked. “Where shall we begin this new life?”

Zephyrus shrugged. “Stockhelm, Stoneside—I don’t care.” He lifted her chin with his knuckle. “As long as I am with you. Forever with you. I don’t care where we are.”

Vykinallia placed her free hand on Zephyrus’s chest and closed her eyes. Heart fluttering, he leaned down until his lips hovered before hers. Her lips parted, inviting him closer. The warmth of her breath beat back the chill of the wind. She squeezed his fingers and pulled, ever so slightly.

He closed the remaining distance and pressed his lips to hers.

The hum in the back of her throat reminded him of the night they shared in the Champion’s cell of House Cassius. His finger under her chin slid along her jaw and under her ear toward the back of her neck. Her hand slid up his chest and behind his head, tangling in his hair.

With a gentle tug, she pulled him back to gaze into his eyes. A grin split her lips, revealing teeth. “Is this your way of not letting me say my part?”

Zephyrus stammered, holding his hands up defensively.

“I was going to say…” Vykinallia exhaled through her nostrils. “I can’t go with you.”

Zephyrus chortled. “You’re serious?”

“Jecht said freedom for all,” Vykinallia said, beginning to walk again.

Zephyrus’s grin faded. He followed her lead and fell in step beside her.

“The Skeleton King is trapping and using souls. Only Threyna and I, and maybe soon Laeden, can free them.”

“I had similar thoughts,” Zephyrus said, “but toward Paxoran. How can any of us be free if our world is bound to a corruption like him?”

Vykinallia hummed. “Who would have thought Jecht could have been so profound?”

They shared a brief chuckle before the heaviness of the past, present, and future suppressed it. Hand in hand, they continued to walk ahead of the stopped procession.

“We both have our trials ahead of us,” Vykinallia said. “But promise me one thing.” She fixed him with a level gaze, stopping their gait. “I will escort you to the gate once it is opened, so you can save your strength for the divine realm.” She held up her index finger. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Chapter 46

Broken

Danella IX

Salmantica

Danella’s knees shook. The ground didn’t quake as it had the last time she returned to the Temple District, but it might as well have. A heaviness rested on her shoulders, making it difficult to breathe as she climbed the makeshift dais of empty, overturned crates to address the people on the debris-filled streets. Some workers, hauling fallen stone from the piles of crumbled buildings, inclined their dirty faces. Others, too focused on their tasks, would see her soon enough. Taking the same position as the seer she’d heard on her journey to submit herself to the House of the Faceless, she hoped others would listen as she had.

The absence of the Gods paled in comparison to the emptiness beside her. While Daenus, Ispara, and Liario saw to their purposes in her plan, she would have to do this alone.

She swallowed with difficulty as more and more people noticed her atop the dais. Hood raised, Danella traced her fingers through the section of shaved hair over the scar above her ear.

This is my chance to make things right.

The weight atop her chest did not relent, but she removed her hood and spoke loud enough to summon every Sentinel and Vigile in Salmantica.

“Good people of Salmantica,” Danella cried, holding her hands up. “I am Danella Drake, daughter of Damascus Drake, wife to Varros Helixus, and mother of King Damascus.”

The people along the streets, no longer captivated by their labor, gathered around—murmurs on every tongue. A pair of Vigiles at the end of the street approached but made no move to stop her. The weight on her shoulders did not lessen, but the energy within her chest blossomed.

For Varros. For Laeden. For peace and prosperity.

“I come to you, not as queen, not as queen mother, but as a broken woman with a confession and a cry for help.”

The gathering grew, Sentinels and Vigiles nearing along the outskirts.

Unable to dally, she pressed through the confession that burdened her soul. “The Revivalists who plagued our lands—I led them. I believed, in service to the Gods, that my husband, King Varros, endangered all we hold dear. But I was wrong.”

Ignoring the gasps and the dropped jaws, Danella persevered. “My long-held belief that the Gods would punish our Celestic tolerance drove me to great lengths, but this—” She pointed to the thundering skies. “This is not our punishment.”

The Faceless within the gathered crowd, the masked servants of the Gods, would not take kindly to what she was about to say, but it needed to be said—even if it wasn’t entirely true.

“It grieves me to say, but the Gods have fallen!”

Hands raised to gaping mouths or to the Six Arrowed Star pendants around the necks of those gathered, but that part was true.

“The treacherous tides are a sign of Aquarius’s death. The quakes that ravaged our city—evidence of Moterra’s. Absent the nightly rains, yet beset by thunder and lightning, Phaebia no longer stewards us. Just yesternight, our Vigiles and Sentinels brawled in the streets. Why you ask? Look no further than the absence of Hameryn’s harmony.”

“Blasphemy!”

“Heresy!”

The weight atop Danella’s chest crushed down on her, but she would not fail.

“You do not believe me, but Incinerae has come to me,” Danella said. “Blasphemous you call it, but so too did the Faytes and Kaines when my father spoke of Neutreen’s death in Rheynia. In the absence of my father, Incinerae, in her desperation, chose me.”

Though this silenced the loudest of her hecklers, she could not rest. More Sentinels, Vigiles, and Faceless began weaving through the crowd, but in support or opposition, she couldn’t be sure.

“Incinerae has whispered in my ear of Ferrocles’s treachery; he murders the other Gods to secure power for himself. Before her flame burned out, she told me only together would we survive the Age of the End.”

In the distance, a host of armed guards in Lion’s Academy black leather armor approached. Her heart hammered against the anvil resting on her chest, but she pressed on.

“We have made war amongst ourselves, but now we must come together. And soon. An army from the east—a horde of death—has already taken Valtarcia. Salmantica will be next if we do not unite. Valencians, Celestics, patricians, plebs, knights and mages—we must all join forces if we are to survive Ferrocles’s wrath.”

Outrage. Fear. Denial.

The people were ignorant to the invasion Damascus refused to believe, but how long before they believed? Soon the refugees would be at their gates, an army at their backs. The Valtarcians would perish if Danella failed, and with them, their own hopes of survival.

A group of Faceless wove through the crowd, shoving their way toward her. Their black masks, void of expression, sent a chill down her spine. A pair of Sentinels attempted to stop them, but they were quickly overrun.

Danella’s chest tightened. Her throat constricted. The weight on her shoulders threatened to sink her through the stacked crates she stood upon. I must convince them.

More Sentinels. More Vigiles. More Faceless.

“Good people, if we do not unite, we will—”

Scanning the crowd, she saw it too late. Off to the side of the gathering, standing on a pile of rubble from a collapsed column, a slender figure beneath a black cloak and mask raised a small crossbow, its bolt aimed directly at her.

Danella’s eyes widened. Her jaw unhinged.

The thrum, short and sharp, punched her in the chest, driving the air from her lungs. The force of the impact sent her reeling. The stacked crates fumbled beneath her feet. Her arms reached, grasping for something—anything.

The crackling sky bore down on her, and the empty space between her and the ground yawned open. She crashed to the dirt floor, slamming the back of her head into the ground.

Her head spun. Her ribs ached. Shouts thundered all around her as fighting broke out. Unable to breathe, unable to focus, she reached for the bolt lodged in her chest, but there were too many to grab in her dancing vision. When she closed her fingers, they came up empty. Gasping for breath, her periphery faded. Sounds muffled. The weight on her chest pressed her into the ground, through it, into the abyssal void of unconsciousness.

Chapter 47

Champion of the Nine

Laeden IX & Zephyrus X

Valtarcian Isthmus

Laeden held Threyna’s gaze, their hands still connected, their souls still entwined. Hearing the crunch of snow underfoot behind him, Laeden pulled his hand away and whipped around.

Kherus and Aurellia approached, Aponius not far behind.

Threyna retreated from Laeden, body and soul alike.

“Apologies,” Kherus said. “But we are ready to leave at your command.”

Laeden cleared his throat, daring a glance at Threyna, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “At once, then.”

The procession trudged through the snow in only moderately restored spirits. Though food was in short supply amidst the failing crops and the state in which their makeshift army came together, the mages filled their water supplies, which was more than the rest of New Rheynia could say.

As they marched towards Salmantica, he wondered what state they’d find the city in. He hoped Danella convinced Damascus, or at least the people, to aid them. It was a long shot, but even if they did get beyond the perceived safety of the city walls, that still left the issue of food, supplies, and the ability to defeat the Skeleton King when he inevitably came for them.

Laeden examined the rotten veins slithering up his arm from the black-and-red gauntlet. The two remaining prongs bit into the outer portion of his forearm in a line from his elbow to his wrist. The ones at either end were the first to release. When he mastered the two remaining tenets of the blood magic, the scars left by the prongs would join the mage-healed flesh on the underbelly of his forearm where Aponius had sliced his Falcon of Faire tattoo to convince Damascus of Laeden’s death.

A small price to pay for a chance at victory.

Just as his pound of flesh had saved them from Damascus’s army, so too would his blood magic aid them in the impending battle with the Skeleton King.

After a time, the isthmus wall appeared on the horizon, broken and dilapidated as it was. Following in the footsteps of the refugees Laeden sent ahead of their last encounter with the Skeleton King’s horde, they would arrive within the day.

If all goes as planned.

Laeden’s gauntleted hand swung at his side as he walked in stride with Kherus, Aurellia, and Aponius. Though they each eyed it, none broached the subject. After sharing updates of what transpired after they separated at the Bay of Bastards, the hushed silence reserved for preoccupied minds took hold.

Aurellia broke the seal. “What will happen once we arrive in Salmantica?”

It was the question Laeden imagined everyone marching westward had thought at least once. If not for the cursed artifact attached to his arm, it was the only other thing on his mind.

“I don’t know,” Laeden said, more honest than a king should be. “I have no idea what fate awaits us, but I know our end if we continue to waste away in the elements while the Skeleton King grows stronger on the blood of our kin.”

“What if the queen betrays us?” Aponius asked, his freckled face blushing.

Laeden wasn’t sure if the wind or the question caused the reddening of his cheeks. After all, Laeden was only alive because Aponius betrayed the queen first. He couldn’t imagine his would-be assassin would be keen on returning to the woman he defied.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I had another answer. But absent the aid of the Fallen, the ships to go elsewhere, or the numbers to withstand another head-on assault, this is our last hope.”

“You have a backup plan, though,” Kherus said. “Right?”

Perhaps Kherus hoped for a similar gambit to when Laeden set House Arux’s walls on fire to delay their deception of sending the bulk of the freedpeople and the Fallen south, while Kherus, the Ridge Knights, and Ulysius’s former gladiators fled by boat.

This time, Laeden had no such machinations. He’d positioned his tiles. Now was time to throw the dice and hope for the best.

“No,” Laeden said. “I have hope that we will come together and outlast this evil. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“We all have a part to play in the Age of the End,” Aurellia said, using a discarded reaping spear as a walking stick. Her eyes fixed on Zephyrus walking ahead of them.

The Wielder.

“What do the Celestics believe about the Age of the End?” Aponius asked, wincing, as if afraid of the answer.

Aurellia shrugged. “I don’t know. I was born a slave. Speaking of such was… dangerous. I only know what I’ve heard. Some believed it would be the end of our enslavement. Others, the end of the world.” Inclining her head to the sky, she said, “I suppose both were right.”

A cough behind them redirected their attention.

Kaelus and his wife, Urcilia, strode side by side.

“We may know something about that,” Kaelus said, glancing at his wife. “After the treaty—when the decrees came down to enslave the Celestic people and burn their texts and idols… I kept one. An old one, from before the Great Migration—The Ghost of Divinity.”

Zephyrus, walking ahead beside Vykinallia with the Guardian floating over them, glanced over his shoulder, but kept walking.

“Earl Kaelus,” Kherus exclaimed, his tone teasing.

Urcilia blushed. “It felt wrong. It was wrong. Not to keep it, but to burn it. How could we destroy history? It was blasphemous—perhaps not to the Six, but certainly to the Judges.”

“What did you do with it?” Aurellia asked.

Kaelus stroked his brown-and-gray beard. “It was written in the old tongue of Stockhelm. But I had one woman translate it to me, as best she could. I transcribed it. Cover to cover.”

Others walking nearby leaned in to listen, Threyna included. He could still feel her rhythm despite whatever distance she attempted to put between them now.

“I thought the old tongue lost,” Iberion said, glancing at Unari, just behind Kaelus and Urcilia. “I only knew one who claimed to know it.”

“What did it say?” Vykinallia asked Kaelus.

Urcilia grinned. “Oddly enough, it was similar to the Facets of Perfection—without the Six’s jealousy of other Gods.” She shrugged. “Be gentle, charitable, kind. Remain humble, diligent, and open to the world’s wisdom. Pursue life with courage, live fully, and find the balance in all things.”

“Not far off from the Facets at all,” Kherus said. “Different words, but same sentiment.”

Laeden considered that. The Facets of Perfection were supposedly written by Damascus Drake before the Great Migration, and these sacred Celestic texts predated the Rheynian arrival.

Yet even still, they preach similar principles. If only both sides took the time to honor their similarities instead of fighting over their differences, perhaps things would be different.

Part of him wished they had, but another deeper portion denied the possibility. This was cosmic—far greater than humanity’s faults. Gods murdered and betrayed one another to instill their vision of the world as opposed to another’s. Even if they defeated the Skeleton King, reunited Valtarcia and Salmantica, made peace between the Valencians and the Celestics, and assuaged the Fallen from seeking retribution against New Rheynia, how long before a new problem arose?

Are we just prone to seek division and wage violence? Where in the Facets or these Celestic texts did it suggest war as a solution?

“What did it say of Tharseo born-again?” Unari asked, her tone riddled with skepticism. “Did this text speak of that?”

Kaelus nodded. “Yes, of course—the Champion of the Nine. The Champion would demonstrate three aspects of Orsius’s wisdom, three of Aeryss’s affection, and three of Vykannis’s courage before once again leading Perillian to freedom. Not just in this world, but to the Celestial Falls.” He contorted his brow. “Urcilia, do you remember the aspects?”

Urcilia tousled her hair with one hand while counting on her other. “The Provider. The Redeemer. And the Savior.”

“Those are Aeryss’s,” Kaelus explained. “Then the Avenger. The Martyr. And the Bane for Vykannis.”

Urcilia grimaced. “I’m forgetting one. The Unifier. The Warden.” She held up eight fingers, staring at them as if to divine the answer.

Zephyrus looked over his shoulder again, his mouth agape.

Zephyrus

His feet continued forward, but his thoughts were in the past. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why. But Zephyrus knew Kaelus’s translation was wrong. Not ‘The Ghost of Divinity,’ but ‘The Spirit of Divinity.’ Not ‘aspects’ of the Nine, but ‘acts’ the Champion would fulfill.

He also knew the last act of Tharseo born-again. He attempted to open his mouth to share, but a stone formed in his throat as memories flooded back.

“When will she come back?” Zephyrus had asked Patrus as he lay on his side, staring at the wall of the hide tent with his back to the fire.

“I don’t know,” Patrus said.

Zephyrus rolled over to face him. Tendrils of smoke rose from the fire in the center of the tent and wafted to the opening at the top. Zephyrus stared through the licking tongues at a much younger Patrus. While Zephyrus was just a boy, Patrus was still a seasoned warrior, with more scars than wrinkles, and more wisdom than gray hairs.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” young Zephyrus said. “I want to go home.”

“I know, Vy,” Patrus said. “Judges preserve me, I know. But you must be strong fer your mother. You practice your lessons, you learn the healing magic, and we check an Act off the list.”

Zephyrus grimaced, pulling his pelt under his chin. “But it hurts.”

Patrus smiled. “I know it does, lad. Embrace it. Let it bring ya closer to those who suffered before. I know it ain’t fair, but life is more than wishes and wants. And if yer mother is right—if she ain’t the Champion of the Nine—then it might be you.”

Zephyrus stared into the fire, wishing he had taken the leatherbound book written in the old tongue of Stockhelm when they’d left Stoneside. While he and Patrus fled to Klaytos to join the rest of the Fallen, the Spirit of Divinity remained in the hidden compartment behind the cornerstone over the hearth.

“What if I’m not the Champion either?” Zephyrus asked, sitting upright. “What if we’re wandering the world for me to complete the Nine Acts for nothing?”

“Nothing we do is for nothing,” Patrus said.

Zephyrus pulled the pelt tighter around himself. “How can anyone complete the Nine Acts in one lifetime?” He shook his head. “What if we made a mistake? We should have taken the Spirit with us.”

Patrus grinned. “Do ya needa hold the words of the Rebel’s Rhyme to sing it?”

Zephyrus cowed. “No.”

“No, indeed,” Patrus said. “We don’t need paper and leather when we keep it here.” He pointed his index finger to his breast, the “A” of House Auros branded into his forearm. “And here.” He raised his finger to his temple. “Do you remember the Acts of the Champion?”

Zephyrus nodded. “Unify the divided. Save the broken. Be the bane of those who would do harm. Avenge those unable to fight for themselves. Ward the needy. Redeem the misguided. Provide for the future. And deny death.”

Patrus nodded. “You’re forgetting one.”

Zephyrus swallowed the stone in his throat, staring through the snow-covered ground along the isthmus to whatever depths lay beyond. Vykinallia put her hand on his arm, but his thoughts were with Patrus. Patrus, his ever-faithful companion, the man who chided his pridefulness, who believed in him when memories failed them both—who died telling him to live.

“What’s wrong?” Vykinallia asked.

Tears welled in his eyes. The pit in his stomach turned like the swelling surf below the cliffs. But amidst his swirling emotions, his memories flooded back to him.

“Shepherd the lost,” he whispered.

Vykinallia startled, then squinted at him. “How do you know?”

“Ah,” Kaelus said, snapping his fingers as the revelation came to him. “The Shepherd.”

Vykinallia glanced over her shoulder, from Kaelus back to Zephyrus. “You remember.”

He remembered everything.

His time at Stoneside. The day his father left the Fallen to fulfill a higher calling. How his mother had led the Fallen in his absence. When she’d left him to aid his father. Saying goodbye to the rest of the Fallen in Klaytos as Patrus took him to a village where he could learn the healing magic. The day the village was set upon by slavers. How Vellarix and the Arcane Templar came to their aid and saved them. His lessons under the Elders’ watchful eyes. The anger, the abandonment, the purpose placed on him.

The Champion of the Nine.

He considered his life, trying to reason if he had completed any of the Nine Acts. They were so vague—too vague. They could apply to any one for any number of reasons.

What qualifies as providing for the future? What act would be enough to sate fate’s fickle mind? And how did this coincide with the Return and the Age of the End?

Then it struck him.

Cold raced from his fingertips to his chest as if he had cast an inferno without balancing the scales. His fate foretold by the seers never fully fit the prophecies of the Return. He wasn’t the Wielder, the Harbinger, or the Herald—not completely.

Paxoran commanded the Seers to attack me when I returned to Tharseo’s Bastion. Were they servants of Paxoran the whole time? Have we been following the wrong prophecies?

Paxoran needed a Wielder to collect the Treasures, a Harbinger to slay the Gods, and a Herald—someone like Iylea to make the divine realm accessible for a mortal to ascend.

Did Paxoran make up the prophecies for his own means… to distract anyone from completing the Nine Acts?

Still, something was different. Iberion had told him to embrace his doubt, but this was everything he’d spent his life preparing for, everything he’d longed to remember.

Was it all based on a lie?

Zephyrus blinked the tears from his eyes recalling the memory of him and Patrus in the tent in Klaytos.

“What if we made a mistake?” he had asked.

Kaelus called them Nine Aspects of the Champion, and referred to the roles as nouns.

Not acts. People. Not one Champion, but nine.

Vykinallia put her hand on his arm. “Zephyrus?”

As the conversation unfolded and murmurs spread throughout the procession, all eyes found their way to him. The words “Champion of the Nine” were on everyone’s lips.

Zephyrus stopped, and everyone came to a halt. He looked into the eyes of those surrounding him, viewing him like a God, but all around, all he saw were Champions.

Iylea, the Guardian, who had saved his life a handful of times. Laeden, who had cast off everything he’d ever known to free the slaves. Threyna, who had taken the burdens of the world on herself to defeat the Skeleton King. And Vykinallia… she was everything the future needed—a woman who saw past differences, who brought people together. The people before him—Helms and Rheynians. Celestics and Valencians. Freedpeople and lanistas—they were the Champions of the Nine.

“You’re wrong,” Zephyrus said, stilling the gathered crowd to silence. “You think it’s me, but you’re wrong.”

Disgruntled whispers broke out around him, but Zephyrus continued. “I long thought it was me. I trained to become enough to fulfill the fate I believed was placed before me. I spent my life trying to embody and achieve what I thought was the Nine Acts, but I’ve fallen short. As have all of you.”

Eyes fell. Lips pursed. Heads hung.

“You see,” Zephyrus said. “There is no Champion of the Nine—no Nine Acts. Nine Aspects. Not one Tharseo born-again, but Nine Aspects of him. There are Nine Champions. Not one.”

He pointed at Laeden. “A Warden who would shield those unable to defend themselves.” To Threyna. “An Avenger who would not rest until the blight on our world was struck down.” He inclined his head to Iylea’s orb of light. “A savior, who delivers hope from Valencia.”

He met Vykinallia’s emerald eyes. She who, even when he was a slave, brought him a healer to return his memories. She who, as a slave owner, witnessed his magic and kept his confidence. She, who freed him before he could free himself.

A stone reformed in Zephyrus’s throat. Patrus, you were my shepherd.

Setting his jaw, he raised his voice. “You are the Champions of the Nine. We are all Champions of the Nine!”

Iberion stepped forward, unsheathing his sword. Pointing it to the sky, he shouted, “I am Champion of the Nine.”

Cerik came up beside him, mace extended. “I am Champion of the Nine.”

“I am Champion of the Nine!” Aurellia cried.

“I am Champion of the Nine!” Laeden said, his cursed gauntlet raised.

As others took up the cry, Vykinallia only held his gaze, beaming at him. Reflected in her eyes, he saw himself clearly, perhaps for the first time. Imperfect, fallible, and never enough. But for the first time in his life, that was all he needed to be.

Vykinallia punched the sky. Champion of the Nine repeated, spreading throughout their force, loud enough to rival the thunder’s rumble, the ocean’s wrath, and the wind’s whip. Surrounded by such passion, such unity, Zephyrus began to believe.

We will defeat the Skeleton King. We’ll stop Paxoran. And we’ll do it together.

INTERLUDE IV

Cleotra

Stockhelm

Only days had passed, but the liberation of her house from Brusos and Cerberynn’s conniving claws might as well have been centuries ago. If she measured time in the passing of Gods, by her estimate four more had perished at the Harbinger’s hand. Moterra’s death quaked the foundation of the world. Phaebia’s blotted out the sun and shattered the sky with lightning. Ferrocles’s had set them all at each other’s throats. Now, even the fires in the hearths burned cold.

“Milady,” said Nortus as he approached her in the bloody atrium still stained with the gore of Brusos’s men.

Beside him, Gensus, the wounded Ridge Knight who stayed behind despite his desire to travel with King Laeden, placed his hand atop hers. “We don’t need this.” Gensus lowered the dagger clutched in her hands. “We just need to talk to them.”

Cleotra lowered the blade reluctantly, but her grip remained firm on the dagger she’d plunged into Cerberynn’s back. Cerberynn’s blood still stained the beds of Cleotra’s fingernails. She convinced herself water was too precious to waste, though, even if it wasn’t in such short supply, she might have elected not to scrub the blood clean.

It was a trophy of vengeance. She killed Cerberynn the same way Brusos murdered her husband. Then used the same dagger to save Vykinallia from Brusos’s guards.

It was perhaps the first act of courage she’d done in her entire life. It made her wonder where her fierce daughter came from. Abducted by the queen’s men and delivered to the Uprising as a prisoner, she fought for her life and became a leader of the Fallen.

Yet she couldn’t convince them to listen. Perhaps I can now.

Nortus glanced to the tablinum door, raised voices erupting on the other side. “Sure now is the best time?”

Cleotra snorted. She’d spent too much of her life not speaking up. When her husband wouldn’t relent in pressuring their only son to take a wife he never wanted for the sake of his legacy, she never spoke up. Even after her boy left home, vowing never to return, she had not found her voice. Then when Lentulis’s politics morphed from practical to hateful, she’d remained silent. She allowed her husband to berate her, tell her she was wrong, hit her, and sell off their only daughter just so he could rise high enough to buoy his fractured ego. All because she couldn’t find the best time to broach the subjects. She would wait no longer.

“Best time or not, we’re four dead Gods too late as it is,” Cleotra said.

Gensus leaned closer, wearing the black leather armor of the Lion’s Academy her son, Markus, was once the Apprentice Master at Arms at. She stared at the lion emblazoned on his cuirass, but that only made Cleotra choke the hilt of her dagger more firmly.

“Whether they agree or not,” Gensus said, “we don’t need to stay.”

Nortus nodded. The big burly guard who had served House Cassius was her only saving grace during Brusos’s occupation of her home. Now he would leave it with her.

Cleotra glanced from Nortus’s beady eyes to Gensus’s heavily lidded ones. The former Ridge Knight was of an age with Markus, but the bristles of his mustache overgrew his upper lip, and the scruff of his unkempt brown beard nearly rivaled Nortus’s. Though it hid most of his face, he spoke with nothing to hide.

He had told her the truth of his time fighting alongside Markus in his last days—the good and the bad. She blamed herself for the conflict in Markus’s heart. His hesitation to trust the Celestics, his distrust of mages—it was her fault. She would have held Lentulis accountable too, but there was no point blaming the dead.

“What if they won’t let us leave?” Cleotra asked the two bearded men.

Nortus grunted, looking to Gensus.

Gensus exhaled through his nostrils. “They will.”

She wished she shared his optimism. Perhaps that was why she held the dagger. It gave her the strength that wine hadn’t over these past months. Neither her childish tantrums pouring herself into bed nor her trysts with Fenyx could shake her from her guilt that she had let her children grow in such a hateful place. But after witnessing Vykinallia’s courage in the face of real adversity, she could not—would not—sit idly by, pitying herself any longer.

Cleotra forced a shaky breath, but nodded. “How many will come with us?”

Gensus shrugged. “Enough to field a ship across these waters. But if we can convince them…” Gensus shrugged. “Perhaps all of us together could make a difference.”

“Even if we can’t,” Cleotra said, “we have to try.”

She led them to the door of what was once her husband’s tablinum. She didn’t need to put her ear to the door to listen to the voices beyond.

“We wait,” Sinion said. “That was the plan. We let the Valtarcians, the Salmantics, and the Skeleton King slaughter one another. Then we attack whichever weakened foe is left.”

Teluvar sucked his teeth. “The plan wasn’t for Auros’s Fallen to abandon us.”

Cleotra’s teeth ground as her knuckles crushed the dagger’s hilt in her grip. They didn’t abandon us. We abandoned them. She forced herself to breath, sheathing the dagger at the belt around her shift.

“We have plenty of fighters,” Sinion said. “Your pit fighters, my gladiators—they will follow us. We don’t need Auros’s brood.”

“We have fighters,” Lenara agreed, “but not generals.”

Sinion stammered, clearly outraged at the insinuation.

“Hear reason,” Teluvar said, quieting the lanista. “We already lost the Arcane Templar and the Warlocks of Sage to this Skeleton King. For all we know, the Prophet of the Return, the pseudo-king, and the Cassius whelp are dead too.”

Cleotra’s blood boiled. She inhaled sharply, but before she could force her way through the tablinum door, Gensus held her back, lifting a patient finger.

She seethed. How dare he speak of my daughter. Hissing through her teeth, she waited for Lenara to defend her own son. It shouldn’t have surprised her that no such defense came. The woman hadn’t come to her son’s defense in two decades. Why would she start now?

Teluvar continued. “We should flee east. Search for a new home beyond the Skeleton King’s reach.”

“Flee?” Sinion spat. “You Rheynian cowards, always so quick to run. No. We have waited, we have endured, and we will take back our homeland. All of it.”

Cleotra had heard enough. She shoved the door open, blood still boiling. She eyed their supposed leaders with a disgust that rivaled her disdain for herself. Lenara’s hawkish stare found her first from behind Lentulis’s desk. Teluvar leaned against the back wall of the tablinum, arms crossed. Sinion placed his hands on his hips as if to make his tremendous bulk more imposing.

“You are the cowards,” Cleotra said. “All of you. Your plans.”

Gensus cleared his throat, but that would not make her bite back her ire or stifle the fire burned in her veins. Kindled by the death of her husband, the loss of her son, and the fact that her daughter was out there—fighting for the future of their very world—she would do her part. She would not be rendered helpless. Not while Sinion, Teluvar, and Lenara debated between running the other way and showing up when the fighting was done.

“There is a difference between cowardice and patience,” Lenara said. “But patience—”

“Don’t counsel me on patience,” Cleotra snapped, Ferrocles’s wrath present in her coiled fist. “I sat on the pulvinus and watched. I lost myself. Hated myself. But I accepted that this was just the way of the world now.” She shook her head. “Blind. Stupid. But as terrible as I have been, you… you are worse.”

She stabbed her finger at Sinion. “You sat beside me, biding your time, planning on doing something, but never actually doing anything. Then when the moment finally comes to act, your pride of sticking to your ‘plan’ prevents you.”

Before Sinion could reply, she wagged her finger and shook her head. “Tell me, Sinion. Did you prepare for the drought? How about the fires? Certainly not the earthquake, the blackened skies—none of it.” She scoffed. “Plans.”

The word tasted like a curse on her tongue.

Turning her attention from Sinion to Teluvar, she glowered. “And you… you wish to run—to go east? How many will you abandon to their deaths so you can save yourself?”

Teluvar sniffed. His upper lip curled as if he’d smelled something foul, but he dropped his gaze, unable to look at her—unable to formulate a response she wouldn’t lay into.

Lastly, she turned to Lenara.

The older woman held up her hand. “This may be your house, Cleotra Cassius, but take caution with your next words.”

Cleotra snorted. “Caution.” She glanced between Nortus and Gensus on either side of her. “The time for caution has passed. The Age of the End has come. And I will be damned if I spend it here, hoping for others to do what I will not. I’m leaving. I’m taking as many boats as I need to ferry those who would rather fight than wait for the world to end.”

Lenara held her gaze, but said nothing, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together. Stone. Cold. Too afraid to do the wrong thing so content to do nothing at all, Lenara only stared.

“Regardless of which Gods are still alive to listen,” Cleotra said, “you can tip the burning scales and swear by the Six all you want, but I’m leaving. With or without you. I’m going to aid our children. And believe me when I say, if after we win you dare show your faces…” She shook her head, fingers twitching near the dagger’s hilt in her belt. “It will not go according to your plans.”

PART V

Chapter 48

Nearly Done

Fenyx V

Valencia

Fenyx tossed Incinerae’s charred and ashen corpse on the pile of other defeated Gods in the Hall of Mirrors. Cooled molten lava hardened beneath every orifice of the Fire Goddess’s face. Her empty eye sockets stared into oblivion. Her open mouth gaped as if locked in an eternal scream.

Dead.

He lifted Ferrocles’s skeletal remains by the belt about his leather armor and flung his clattering bones atop Incinerae’s. Paxoran’s task was complete. Beneath Ferrocles and Incinerae, Moterra’s sap-stained and fungus-riddled stumps formed the base layer. Phaebia’s stony remains rested atop her divine sister, the polar opposite of the electricity she emitted in life. What remained of her sculpture after he had dragged her down the tower stairs reminded him of the sculpted busts on display in Cassius’s atrium—the greatest Champions of his house.

Long he hoped he would one day be immortalized in the villa. But now he would be enshrined in a far higher hall.

Everything he desired at House Cassius was as ephemeral as the nightly rains, but now, standing before the dead Gods who had withheld his glory in the mortal realm, he would receive the laurels a hundredfold.

Paxoran strode into the Hall of Mirrors, his frail features hidden beneath his billowing black cloak. “Well done, Fenyx. I knew you would find her. No one can hide forever.” He examined the slit through the back of Ferrocles’s armor. “And Ferrocles provided little trouble.”

Fenyx grunted. “He warned me that if you should ever command his death, together, we should kill you, Paxoran.”

“Did he now?” Paxoran hummed, inclining his gaze from the pile of dead Gods. Tsking, he returned to inspect Incinerae’s ashen corpse. “Such a prideful beast. Tell me, why did you choose me over him?”

He didn’t even bother to look at Fenyx standing behind him, sword sheathed at his ornate belt. As if he hadn’t a concern in all the reaches of the realms that Fenyx would turn against him. The God of Peace elected instead to observe Fenyx’s handiwork.

Fenyx straightened, accidentally finding his reflection in the mirrors. No longer withered, poxed, and scarred—a soot-stained skeleton in gold-and-crimson armor remained.

Fenyx averted his gaze. “While he denied me in the mortal realm, you chose me.”

“Ah.” Paxoran nodded. “Loyalty. Honor. Qualities Auron instilled in all his Champions.”

Fenyx winced at Auron’s name. Incinerae’s words lanced at him.

“He never cared if you were Champion,” Incinerae had said. “He wanted you to live.”

Fenyx shook the thought away, and cleared his throat. “Once we found her, and I no longer needed Ferrocles’s assistance, I put an end to him.”

Paxoran’s gaunt face met Fenyx’s. “And where did you find her?”
“The tower of her lover.”

Paxoran’s bone-white complexion paled. He gripped the belt securing Fenyx’s pauldron to his shoulder. “Arcamedes’s tower? Did you see anyone—a woman?”

The sudden urgency in his skeletal expression startled Fenyx. He shook his head. “No. Only Incinerae.”

Paxoran released Fenyx and snarled. He returned to the bodies and scoured Ferrocles’s remains, muttering to himself.

“Creator’s curses!” Paxoran shouted. “It’s gone.” He shook his head and pointed a skeletal finger into Fenyx’s chest. “Our job is nearly done, but there are still those who would seek to stop us from getting that which we deserve. I will summon the Creator, but you must guard the Celestial Falls. And do. Not. Move.” His index finger emphasized each of his last words. “There is a woman. You see her, you kill her.”

Fenyx nodded. “Then I will become God of Death?”

“Once the Creator answers for their crimes against the realms,” Paxoran said. “Yes.”

Chapter 49

Plans, Schemes, Blades

Danella X

Salmantica

Pressure jammed down on her ribs. Pain lanced into her sternum, and heat radiated throughout her entire body. She gasped for breath, but that was more painful than the hand on her chest.

“Hold still,” said a white-cloaked man, his face hidden by the hood of his cloak. With one hand on her shoulder, and the other wrapped around the crossbow bolt lodged in her chest, he heaved. The bolt tore free from the ring mail beneath her cloak.

Danella’s head lolled to the side, her vision obscured by a pulsing black ring encroaching around her.

The white-cloaked figure adjusted her chin and leaned over her. Gray eyes stared into hers, but she didn’t recognize their owner.

“You’ve got a concussion,” the Vigile said. “Likely a cracked rib.”

Danella wheezed out a hoarse breath. A sharp, stabbing sensation raced from where the bolt struck her, wrapping around her back and into her spine. Her throat felt raw as air flooded into her lungs, but each subsequent breath came with greater ease and less pain.

She eyed the Vigile. Sandy hair clung to his forehead. His brows, darker than his hair, perched atop gray eyes. With a strong jaw and a cleft in his chin deep enough to have been carved by a sword, he would have been handsome if not for his crooked nose.

Danella tried to sit up, but yelped and slunk back.

The Vigile winced, shushing her. He glanced over his shoulder as if to make certain no one heard her outburst. When no one burst through the door behind him, he turned back to her. “You need to take it easy. You’ve got half the city looking for you.”

Danella glanced around the room. She was back in the cellar of the Chimeran Inn. Though it didn’t appear as it had, she recognized the unfinished ceiling rafters. The cellar stores had been ransacked—cupboards flung open, shelves overturned. Her makeshift dais was dismantled to keep her and people like her silent, but it wouldn’t.

They tried to kill me.

She’d had a target on her back her entire life. Her father died, but not before leaving her with his enemies. Her brother fell at the hands of one such enemy in the Hechts, though Varros had been the one chosen by his order of mages to carry out the deed. All her life she’d known people would wish her dead—for who she was, for what she would inherit. But never before had any attempt been made on her life. The Faceless, no less… The order of men and women who had dedicated their lives to the Six, tried to assassinate her.

They tried to kill me… as I tried to kill Varros.

She tasted bile in her throat. Whether nauseous because of her reaggravated concussion, or because of the horrible parallel between the assassin she set on Varros and the Faceless’s attempt on her, she didn’t try to reason.

The back of her head ached where it met the stone behind her. Her fingers reached past the shorn side of her head and the copper wire sewing her scalp shut to the back of her skull. The flesh, tender and sensitive, wasn’t as painful as her ribs.

“Who?” Danella asked.

“Who’s looking for you?” the Vigile asked. “Everyone!”

“No,” Danella said, through heavily lidded eyes. “Who are you?”

The Vigile chortled. “Me? I’m no one.”

“You saved me,” Danella said. “Who are you?”

“Varros,” he said.

Danella blinked, not believing her ears. “What?”

“Borrus,” he said again, raising a dark brow.

Danella balked. Get a grip on yourself. She lifted her hand to her face to hide the blush climbing her cheeks, but somewhere along the way, her hand got lost.

“If you wait here, my queen, I will get help,” Borrus said.

“Why did you help me?” Danella asked.

Borrus shrugged, brushing his hair from his sweat-soaked brow with the back of his hand. “You’re just trying to help people. Seemed like you needed some help yourself.”

Danella’s eyelids drooped, her eyelashes invading her view of Varros’s face. His nose was wrong, his hair too dark, and his eyes lacked the twinkle found in her husband’s gaze, but still, she saw Varros.

“Thank you, Varros,” she said, closing her eyes.

“Wait here,” Varros said, his voice faraway and fading. “I’ll be back with help.”

The cellar of Elrod Horne’s inn morphed. The walls became pillars of fire, blazes that burned against the starry night sky. The overturned shelves and empty crates were replaced by bodies. Men in Lion’s Academy blacks, men and women in mismatched clothing bearing a dozen different colors and sigils. The clash of steel rose all around her.

Danella pressed herself to her feet, the ground unsteady beneath her. Heart galloping, she scoured the battlefield, searching for an ally. Daenus, Liario, Ispara—anyone.

In the distance, Laeden, dressed in Helixus blue, slashed his longsword at a man with his back towards her. Stumbling, she lifted her skirts and ran towards Laeden, waving her arm to get his attention.

Blood dripped down his arm. His blue surcoat leaked from half a dozen other wounds, but he attacked with reckless abandon. Bodies lay all around him; their arms and legs were bent at odd angles. Other corpses weren’t so fortunate with blood pooling around their severed stumps.

This is a nightmare.

Danella attempted to force herself awake, but the vision remained.

Laeden disarmed his foe and stabbed him through the shoulder. His opponent wheeled, clutching his wounded arm, but in his motion, he faced Danella. Golden eyes stared back at her.

She gasped, extending her arm towards her son.

Blood dripped from Damascus’s lip. A gash in his britches revealed a slash across his thigh. A series of slits ruined his doublet. Yet the blank expression in his eyes froze her.

Laeden seized Damascus by the collar, wrenching him around. He reared back, readying the killing blow.

Danella tried to scream, but no words came. No sound passed her lips.

“Stop!” shouted a voice behind her.

Danella spun. She tripped on her unsteady feet as a man rushed past her. Clad in a black cloak, arms outstretched, he inserted himself between Laeden and Damascus.

“Stop!” he shouted. “You are brothers.” He glanced back and forth between them. The black cloak faded, replaced by a blue-and-white cape—the Drake chimera on one half, the Helixus winged horse on the other. The crown sat atop his graying blond waves as it had when he was once king.

Danella fell to her knees. Varros!

Something heavy weighed down her clasped hands. Forming before her eyes, a sword’s hilt took shape, followed by the blade. Engraved in the hilt was the red chimera of House Drake.

Damascus’s sword. She flipped it over. The blue winged horse of Helixus should have been there, but it was scratched away.

Danella’s heart sank as she realized what was happening. Tears welled in her eyes before she gained her feet. Running toward the three of them, she attempted to scream, to warn Varros, but no sound came forth.

“Please,” Varros said. “You are my sons. What peace can exist in a realm if it cannot be held between brothers?”

Danella’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her feet moved in slow motion. She counted each arduous step ahead of her. I’m not going to make it…

Laeden lowered his sword. But Damascus’s fist closed around something. Barely visible in the dim light, she might have missed it if not for the flickering glow of fire that caught the obsidian dagger’s edge.

Danella charged, only a few paces away from Damascus’s back. “Damascus, no!”

If he heard, if anyone heard—if she even spoke—no one responded.

“End this,” Varros said. “Let peace reign.”

Damascus reared back his closed fist and the hateful dagger it held.

“No!” Danella screamed at Damascus’s back.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what she could do, but she couldn’t lose Varros. Not again.

She lunged. The point of Damascus’s long sword extended out before her, reaching for Damascus’s back.

Danella’s eyes snapped open as she bolted upright. Grimacing, she clutched her ribs.

Just a dream. It was only a dream.

The damp sweat trickled down her forehead. Wiping it with the back of her hand, she stared into the blackness around her. Aside from a dancing candle in a lantern a few paces away, it was too dark to see, but she recognized the cellar floor of the Chimeran Inn.

Her breathing, short and shallow, slowed. Her racing heartbeat steadied.

Borrus hasn’t returned.

Footsteps jostled the floorboards overhead. Too many to be Borrus alone. Too hurried to be coming to her aid.

Her breath choked off, and her barely slowed pulse spurred into rapid thuds that beat against her aching ribs. Before she could shove herself to her feet, the door swung open. Momentarily blinded by the orange glare of a held lantern, Danella squinted past the light to the man that held it.

Heclan Allos.

A handful of other Vigiles entered behind him. Their faces long, expressions grim beneath their white hoods.

Heclan approached, setting the torch down to kneel at her feet. “My queen, I am glad to see you well.”

Well was an overstatement, but she understood his meaning and appreciated the sentiment. “Thanks to your man, Borrus,” Danella said. “And some careful planning on behalf of Daenus.” She opened her cloak to reveal the damaged ring mail beneath.

“Thank the Six—” Heclan winced. “Or…” His dark brows lowered, then raised, wrinkling his forehead at a complete loss for words. “It doesn’t matter. We need your help.”
“What is it?” Danella asked.

“A host at the gates,” Heclan said. “Valtarcian refugees. Hundreds. I am with you, my queen, and I have men who will lend aid, but…” He shook his head. “How are we going to smuggle them past the gates and through the city? And where are we going to put them?”

Danella traced the shorn edge of her hair, careful to avoid the copper thread stitching her flesh together. A slanted grin tugged at the corner of her lip.

“I have a plan.”

Chapter 50

Goodbyes

Threyna VI

Salmantic Isthmus

As the city walls of Salmantica came into view, so too did the end of the road. Whether Laeden’s arrangement with the Salmantic Queen worked or not, whether they squared off with the Skeleton King on this side of the wall or that—either way, there was no more running. This would be their last stand.

The parts of Threyna’s feet she could still feel ached. Tired of running. Tired of surviving. Yet she didn’t know what living could look like, should they see a new dawn.

After enduring Rheynia’s curse, she and her sister, Laela, had discussed the future—join the Warlocks of Sage in another war, or continue running, this time in search of a cure for their blood magic. As they always had, they chose different paths. While she plotted with Tyrus and Erowen to claim the Treasures of Stockhelm from the Arcane Templar, Laela sailed north. Whether to escape Threyna, a lifetime of war, or maybe because she actually believed in the blood artifact’s opposite that Tyrus had told them about, she left Threyna.

Again.

To that end, Threyna seldom considered her future. Zephyrus had made her believe… once. Only days ago. But his rejection had reminded her that such prospects were not for her.

Vykinallia and Zephyrus walked ahead of her, hand in hand.

I suppose it wasn’t the curse then. But me.

Zephyrus and Vykinallia prepared to go to the highest point of Salmantica and wait for the Guardian’s ally in Valencia to reopen the gates; they would soon be separating. Vykinallia would lead him to the gate, and then he’d be gone. Lost to both her and Vykinallia. Yet the ache in her heart was less for her, and more for Vykinallia. She knew all too well what it was like to say goodbye, never knowing if a reunion was possible.

Perhaps it was Zephyrus’s clear rejection. Maybe it was seeing Vykinallia and Zephyrus together, or the conversation she’d had with Vykinallia in regards to him.

“I love Zephyrus,” Vykinallia had said, “not for what he can do for me, but what he will do for others. Can you say the same?”

She couldn’t.

Through Zephyrus she found hope, a belief that she deserved a future after a lifetime of denying the possibility. She loved him for that. But did she ever love him? No. Not really. But, walking amidst the crowd on the way to Salmantica’s city walls, she didn’t feel alone.

Something Laeden had said after tapping into his Inner Trial awakened a long-dormant piece of her. Innocuous as his words were, he made her realize how stuck in the past she was.

“Is it possible that a new seat of power would serve you better?”

The throne she sat on, the seat of power she made for herself, was a throne she never wanted. Since before she had wants, she only longed for the Skeleton King and the Order to meet their end. The throne was a representation of the end to her means, but it wasn’t one she valued.

She considered what her seat of power could be.

Walking along the isthmus overlooking the crags and the sea below, she recalled her dream of Zephyrus. They sat atop cliffs overlooking the water, the rising sun cresting the horizon. So vividly could she picture the shimmering sea, reflecting the sun’s golden ascent. She could feel the gentle breeze and the salty spray of the ocean. Gulls chirped, heralding the morning’s light and gift of warmth.

“As long as each day brings a new dawn, I will always love you,” Zephyrus had said.

But those words were reserved for Vykinallia. Not for her.

Yet, as she turned in her mind’s eye, Zephyrus was not on the cliffs beside her. No one was, but still, she didn’t feel alone. She felt peace. Patience. Hope.

“Are you okay?” Laeden came up beside her, summoning her from her reverie. His black-and-red gauntlet swung at his side; black rot tinged the flesh above its cuff.

“I’m fine,” Threyna said. “Just thinking.”

Laeden grunted, staring at Salmantica’s city walls. “It’s a dangerous habit I too find myself afflicted with.”

Threyna snorted, allowing herself a chuckle.

“What about?” Laeden asked, their footsteps falling in rhythm.

“The future,” Threyna said. “When we defeat the Skeleton King.”

Laeden ran his fingers through his hair, looking to the sky. “I like to imagine the world will look very different. Skeleton King gone. Paxoran defeated. Perhaps the realm—the world—can recover.”

Threyna hoped it would. Too much of her life was spent underground or beneath the gray clouds of Rheynia. She did not want to leave this world under black skies cracked by lightning. She wanted to see the sun again, feel its warmth upon her skin.

“What will you do,” Laeden asked, “when the realm is restored?”

Threyna shrugged. “I’ve never given it much thought, to be honest. But I like to think I deserve the chance to consider it—as dangerous a habit as that might be.”

Laeden grinned.

“How about you?” Threyna asked. “If—”

“When!” Laeden corrected.

Threyna fixed him with a playful glare. “When all goes to plan, you could be king.”

Laeden rolled his eyes. “If all goes as planned?”

Threyna cocked her brow. “You really don’t wish to be king, eh?”

Laeden puffed out his lower lip and shook his head. Leaning in, his eyes darting left and right conspiratorially, he whispered, “I struggle to imagine a worse fate… and I was stabbed through the stomach last night.”

Threyna scoffed. “There are far worse fates, I assure you. Why, though? Why not you?”

“Tell me,” Laeden said. “Have you ever met a king or queen you liked?”

Threyna found herself grinning. “Can’t say I have.”

An announcing cough invaded their conversation. Kherus came alongside Laeden, clearing his throat. “King Laeden, a word.”

Laeden nodded.

Kherus’s eyes flicked to Threyna, then back to Laeden. When Laeden made no move to make this word a private one, Kherus continued. “Scouts have returned. The refugees sent ahead have not been admitted to the gates. The guards turned them away.”

Laeden stroked his beard. “Have the guards made any threats, shown signs of aggression?”

Kherus shook his head. “No, but not exactly a welcoming party either.” Glancing at the widening isthmus and the city walls ahead, he said what they were all thinking. “We’ll be there soon. If they don’t let us in… what do we do?”

“Then we’ll defend their gates,” Laeden said. “Damascus can deny aid against an army he doesn’t believe in. But when fighting breaks out along his walls, he may yet change his mind. We’ll set up defenses, and prepare for battle.”

The calm in his voice did not reflect the rhythm in his chest. Kherus saluted, his heartbeat slowing to a steady pulse. Laeden’s stoic expression might not have alleviated his own doubts, but it had for Kherus.

As Kherus walked ahead to distribute Laeden’s orders, Laeden and Threyna fell into a preoccupied silence. She’d grown accustomed to not relying on anyone, not hoping for anything. The queen’s inability to come to their aid didn’t strike her, but Laeden’s rhythm rattled with disappointment.

As the city walls grew nearer, the silence spread over the rest of their procession. By the time they arrived at the poor excuse for a camp set up outside the gates, reality had set in for most. There would be no aid. No protection behind the walls. Just a final fight against a foe who had grown stronger off the blood, bone, and souls of their loved ones.

Their arrival, however, marked the end of their journey with Zephyrus and Vykinallia. While they would seek the gate, everyone else would prepare defenses. The shared hope was that if Zephyrus defeated Paxoran, the Skeleton King’s power would weaken. Which meant they didn’t need to defeat the Skeleton King, but outlast him long enough for Zephyrus to slay the Traitor God in Valencia.

If he can defeat him.

The thought soured the back of her throat. She swallowed her doubts as Zephyrus and Vykinallia said their goodbyes to others. To Iberion, Unari, and Cerik. To Laeden, Aurellia, and Kherus. Many came to see him off, to wish him luck, perhaps not realizing that they would need it themselves. Despite his Champion of the Nine speech, they still saw him as their hero. Their Wielder. Tharseo born-again.

“I’m not convinced the Wielder is a person anymore,” Zephyrus had said outside Tharseo’s Bastion. “Perhaps the Wielder is a cause. An idea. And as long as we’re together, and the three Treasures are united, we can do anything.”

Threyna winced at the memory.

Together. But never together.

Threyna glanced at the Aeryean Armor about her torso and the Orsion Cloak over her shoulders. She thought she needed them to defeat the Skeleton King. Then she thought she needed Zephyrus to do so.

But this was never about the Skeleton King, Threyna realized. This has always been about Paxoran’s revenge.

Her hand traced the Orsion Cloak’s clasp about her neck. Though her mind was hesitant, her fingers undid the latch. She pulled the cloak over her shoulder, and folded it.

The wind’s chill bit deeper. The cold seeped into her bones. A sudden fatigue fell upon her shoulders. She’d grown so accustomed to its benefits, she hadn’t considered what everyone else was enduring. Again, her mind questioned if this was really what she wanted to do, but her feet made their way through the crowd between her and Zephyrus. Weaving between people, she thought of what to say to Zephyrus, but by the time she got to him, she’d come up with nothing.

“I’ll sever the chain as soon as I can,” Zephyrus said to Laeden. “If my hunch is right, I won’t need to kill Paxoran to separate the Skeleton King from his power.”

Laeden patted Zephyrus on the shoulder. “We’ll hold out as long as we can. You take care. Come back to us.”

Zephyrus nodded, but his eyes drifted to Threyna. His fiery browns darted from her to the cloak in her hands, then back. She opened her mouth to speak, but when words failed her, she extended the cloak towards him.

Zephyrus examined the cloak as he had the blood artifact. Shaking his head, he held out his hand and pressed the folded cloak back towards her.

Threyna groaned, shoving it away. “Just take it. You were meant to have it.”
Zephyrus didn’t accept the cloak. “I think it’s where it belongs.”

“Then they won’t be together,” Threyna said, pointing at the hilt of the Vykane Blade at Zephyrus’s belt. “The blade, the cloak, and the armor—you should have all three when you face Paxoran.”

Laeden and Vykinallia glanced back and forth between Threyna and Zephyrus.

Zephyrus frowned. “I don’t believe in the Prophets of the Return.”

Vykinallia balked. Laeden’s head whipped back and forth, as if looking to see if anyone overheard.

Threyna narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“The Champion of the Nine, practically lost to time,” Zephyrus said. “The Prophets of the Return, on the tip of every Celestic and Valencian tongue. The Warlocks of Sage and the Arcane Templar, at each other’s throats. All of New Rheynia at war, and who is behind all of it?”

“Paxoran,” Vykinallia said.

Laeden blinked. “What does Paxoran have to do with the Prophets of the Return?”

“I think he made them up,” Zephyrus said.

Threyna bit her lip. The Seers of Celestia attacked Zephyrus at Tharseo’s Bastion. “It was all a ploy… to distract us.”

Zephyrus pursed his lips. “Yes, in part. I think he wanted the Wielder to claim the Treasures for him—to be his Harbinger and kill the other Gods.” He glanced at the Guardian hovering over his shoulder. “He found another way to arm his Harbinger.”

Sighing, he met Threyna’s eyes. “My point is, I want you to have it—the cloak and the armor. If I…” His brow wrinkled, his eyes drooped. “If I can’t…”

Vykinallia placed her hand on his arm. “You will.”

Zephyrus took a deep breath, dropping his chin towards Vykinallia. “But if I don’t.” He returned his gaze to Threyna, a forlorn distance in his eyes. “I want you to have a chance. And the Treasures could be just the thing to tip the scales in your favor.”

He gently shoved the cloak back towards her.

“And don’t say that we’re not together,” Zephyrus said. “That we’re not united. We may be separated by realms—but ideologically, we’re all united.”

Threyna lowered the cloak. She wrapped her arms around Zephyrus’s neck, pulling him into an embrace. “Then you had better come back.”

Zephyrus’s arms encircled her. “I will.”

In Zephyrus’s embrace, she met Vykinallia’s eyes. She released Zephyrus and pulled Vykinallia toward her.

“I’m not ascending,” Vykinallia said.

“No,” Threyna said, “but you’d better come back too.”

A shout from beyond the gate ended their embrace prematurely. The city gates swung open, and an army of white-cloaked Vigiles, armed with swords, shields, or crossbows, marched out. Dozens. Scores. Maybe even as many as a hundred poured from the gates. Dozens of figures clad in black masks and cloaks followed behind.

Laeden and Zephyrus moved at once to intercept the Vigiles and separate their people from the approaching army of city watchmen, Vykinallia and Threyna at their heels. While they drew swords, Threyna tapped into her Inner Throne.

A leader at the front of the Vigiles removed his hood. Deep-set, dark green eyes stared beneath short salt-and-pepper hair. He held up his hand. “I am Heclan Allos, Commander of the Vigiles of Salmantica. We intend no harm. Lower your arms.”

No one lowered their weapons.

A black-clad, masked figure, tall and slender, came alongside the Commander. They removed their mask. Billowing black hair fell from the hood’s shadows to hang past a woman’s shoulders. Golden eyes locked on Laeden.

Laeden stammered, beside Threyna. “Danella?”

Chapter 51

Redemptions and Reunions

Laeden X

Salmantica

Laeden pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger as Vigiles inspected the refugees, collecting their weapons. The Faceless, or at least those posing as Faceless, distributed wicker baskets filled with black robes.

“It’s the best we can do,” Danella said, her gold eyes peering out from her black mask. “There is fighting in the streets. Sentinels and Vigiles are divided, but not all Vigiles can be trusted, and I don’t know how many Sentinels will defy Damascus. We’re fortunate that the Sentinels agreed to allow the Faceless to distribute blankets and bedrolls.”

He shook his head. “You have no idea what they’ve been through to make it this far. They don’t deserve to be treated as prisoners.”

“They’re not prisoners,” Danella said.

Laeden gritted his teeth, but he’d already given the order. Whether people liked it or not— whether they trusted Danella or not—the choice was obey and hope it wasn’t a trap, or face the Skeleton King’s horde. Again.

He eyed the tent set up for Heclan Allos. Vigiles escorted the Valtarcian refugees in and out. To the watchers on the wall, or any prying eyes that might report back to Damascus, Heclan’s interrogations were to determine who was allowed to enter the gates. Then, the Sentinels would search those admitted and grant approval prior to entering the city.

While most Rheynian women and children would be admitted without so much as a second glance, getting the freedpeople or fighting-age men into the city required more finesse. Behind the tent’s cover, Revivalists disguised as Vigiles traded clothes with the Valtarcian refugees, and those hidden behind Faceless masks traded clothes with freedpeople who otherwise would have no way of entering the city.

“It will work,” Danella said. “The extra men should help you hold back the army should they arrive before Daenus can convince Atonus to take control of the city with the Lion’s Academy. If all goes well, we’ll have the gates opened before the Skeleton King arrives.”

Laeden nodded as the disguised Revivalists escorted another small group of refugees into the tent. “I hope so.”

Danella’s eyes lingered on Callonus, the former Sentinel, as he limped towards the tent.

She leaned closer to Laeden. “What happened on the isthmus?”

Laeden’s focus drifted; his eyes glossed over. His hand subconsciously reached for his stomach where Zephyrus had stabbed him under the Skeleton King’s control. “Nightmares came to life.”

An audible gulp came from beneath Danella’s mask. Its smooth black facial features turned to the dark stone of the city walls. “Without defenses, what chance do you have?”

Laeden inhaled sharply and released his breath slowly. “We can win.”

As long as the Skeleton King’s feasting upon the Valtarcians left in the city doesn’t bolster him beyond our abilities.

For those who couldn’t sense his heartbeat and read his thoughts, Laeden decided it better to leave that last part unsaid.

“We’ll need things to go right for us,” Laeden continued. “But we can win. Odds are better if we have the Lions and city walls to fall back to. But we just need to hold out long enough for Zephyrus to defeat the Traitor God. If we’re right, and the Skeleton King’s power is sourced from him, he will be weakened, allowing us to finish the Skeleton King and his legions.”

Zephyrus stood with Vykinallia, both clad in Vigile whites. Danella closed her fidgeting fingers to fists before releasing them.

“If you’re planning to double-cross us, I would reconsider,” Laeden said.

“No.” Danella’s answer came short and sharp, leaving no room for question. “I know which side I am on.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t blame either of them if they sought vengeance. If they knew the things I’ve done—”

“They do,” Laeden said. Danella winced at his bluntness, but she needed to understand what they were willing to do to survive. “They’ve put aside the past to look to the future. Our best chances hinge on the hopes that others are capable of doing the same.”

He meant Damascus.

He wished he could say that if his brother took up a sword beside him and aided in bringing the Skeleton King’s conquest to an end that all would be forgiven. That the nightly rains would be forgotten with a new dawn to look forward to.

Danella had tried to assassinate his father, but Damascus delivered the killing blow.

Could I forgive as Zephyrus and Vykinallia have?

“May we all have redemption, then.” Danella bowed. “If the gate is at the highest point of Salmantica, the Royal Basilica’s tower is the most likely location. Heclan, a full cohort of Vigiles, and I will escort Zephyrus and… Vykinallia.”

Laeden nodded. It was a better plan than they could have hoped for. Disguised as Vigiles, they could move, nearly unimpeded, through the city. That fact gave Laeden pause that perhaps Vykinallia accompanying Zephyrus wasn’t the most prudent use of her abilities.

“What if she betrays us?” Vykinallia had asked after Laeden explained to them Danella’s plan. “What if the Sentinels descend upon them and Zephyrus is forced to use his magic?” She shook her head, arms crossed. “This plan only works if Zephyrus can defeat Paxoran. He can’t do that if he’s wasting his resources getting to the gate.”

She wasn’t wrong, and though the isthmus lay in darkness, the Order would soon arrive. Perhaps Vykinallia could go and come back before the Skeleton King arrived, but they had no idea how long it would take him to consume the tens of thousands of souls in the city.

They could arrive within the hour, flying on conjured wings. Or it could be a day, or a week. Rationalizations aside, Laeden hadn’t been able to convince Vykinallia to remain with them on the front.

Heclan Allos left his tent. “Cohort Prefectus, form rank!”

Zephyrus and Vykinallia took place in formation with the rest of the Commander’s true Vigiles. Every other white-robed Vigile was a Valtarcian refugee. As they formed messy lines, their lack of training showed.

They just have to fool the Sentinel gate guards.

While the Revivalists took up arms along with the rest of their vanguard in defense of the city, those who would not be fighting mobbed the gate—hundreds of women and children. The freedpeople and Celestics who would have drawn the gate guards’ attention were concealed behind the Faceless’s masks.

Danella took a deep breath. “I must be going. Take care, Laeden.” She took his hands as any humble Faceless might have done in prayer. “May we both live to see another day.”

As she turned to leave, Laeden didn’t let go. “Danella…” His jaw hardened. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. He took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

Perhaps, beneath her mask, she smiled. Her eyes certainly did.

“Better late than never,” she said. “I hope it is enough… for me. For you. For Varros.”

The grinding chain wound to raise the gate. Sentinels in gray and blue accompanied Aemos Horne and Haedron Allos in the red-and-black armor of the King’s Guard Knights.

Laeden let her hand slip away. With a nod, she turned her back, blending into the rest of the Faceless that escorted the women and children through the city gates. He searched for Zephyrus and Vykinallia in their Vigile whites, but took heart that his inability to spot them was a positive omen.

The refugees—freedpeople, plebs, and patricians alike—funneled into the gate. Once the last of them were through, the gate closed again, and the great wooden doors beyond the iron bars sealed shut.

Those left in their absence, the Revivalists and the Vigiles supplied by Danella and Heclan Allos, were better suited to the coming battle, but they were still men. Not mages. Not armed with the gifts of the Gods. Just people.

Kherus, Iberion, and a Vigile Danella introduced as Borrus prepared the defenses as best they could. Absent supplies, towers to defend from, or walls to take cover behind, they would have to make do with formations and tactics.

Laeden ran his hand through his hair and placed his gauntlet at his hip. Staring out to the curve of the isthmus cliffs in the distance, he scoured the horizon for any sign of the Skeleton King’s horde. As bolts of lightning forked and thunder rumbled off the Silver Summits, the narrow pass became illuminated in momentary light.

A single torch came into view.

Laeden’s mouth dried. Stepping closer, he squinted and tapped into his Inner Trial. He didn’t know the Skeleton King’s rhythm, but he didn’t need to recognize it to sense the waves of power radiating from the single heartbeat.

His own pulse fluttered. No, not yet. It’s too soon.

Not wanting to imagine why the Skeleton King would come alone, Laeden attuned to Threyna’s rhythm. Sifting through their gathered force for Threyna, he found her and immediately wove through the crowd to find her at the far east portion of their camp. Her rhythm, sharp as a blade and equally as forgiving, joined the narrow pinch of her brow as she too stared into the distance at the approaching figure.

“Is it him?” Laeden asked.

Threyna stammered. “I’m not sure. It’s just one. The rhythm is familiar, but it’s distorted somehow.” She turned to Laeden, an unasked question on her lips. “The rhythm is nearly the opposite of yours, but not quite.”

Laeden shook his head. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“Me either,” Threyna said. Returning her focus to the approaching torch, black veins snaked up her forearms. She shook her head in bewilderment. “No. It can’t be.” She pointed at Laeden’s gauntlet. “It’s not the opposite of your rhythm, but the opposite of the blood artifact.”

Her blue eyes went wide. Her jaw unhinged.

Laeden flexed his gauntleted fingers. “What—what is it?”

She met his gaze, mouth still agape. Redirecting her attention back to the encroaching torch she swallowed. “It’s my sister. It’s Laela.”

Chapter 52

Trust

Zephyrus XI

Salmantica

“Easy,” Zephyrus whispered, as Vykinallia’s fist balled at her side within the white sleeves of her Vigile cloak. She glared daggers at the scarred face of Aemos Horne—her brother’s murderer—but they couldn’t afford to be sighted here.

Even Iylea, hidden within Zephyrus’s Inner Calm to conceal her light, bristled with indignation. With their thoughts, feelings, and memories interconnected, he couldn’t blame her for despising the man who sent her head rolling to the floor and her soul to the afterlife.

Aemos watched intently as Sentinels inspected the refugee women and children. His drawn sword served as a warning for all who entered the gates, or perhaps a dare.

The Sentinels made short work of their inspections, frisking the refugees for weapons. Children, the infirm, and the elderly were hurried along, but the liberties some of the Sentinels took with the women were beyond due diligence.

Zephyrus’s finger twitched, recalling when the Sentinels had invaded the Cassius barracks in search of Celestic idols. When one attempted to inspect his sublingaria, it was Vykinallia’s brother, Markus, who stopped it.

This time, it was Heclan Allos.

“Is that necessary?” the Commander of the Vigiles asked as a Sentinel groped a young woman. He directed the question not at Aemos, but at the other King’s Guard Knight present.

While the knight bowed his head, Aemos stepped in front of him, twirling his sword. “Why yes, of course. There is no telling what mischief the traitor pseudo-prince is capable of. These were the terms you agreed to, Heclan. You interview outside the gate. We search inside.”

Vykinallia’s teeth ground as if mirroring his own anger.

Zephyrus attempted to gain her attention with a shake of his hand at his side, but she took no notice with her hood pulled so low.

“It’s always been like this,” Iylea said within his mind. “Slave or handmaiden, pleb or patrician, King or God—the strong prey upon the weak.”

Zephyrus breathed through his teeth. “That’s why we must sever the chain.”

Aemos strode over to the Valtarcian woman, waving the Sentinel out of the way to examine her himself. “What if she were more than just another mouth to feed, Heclan? What if she attempted to smuggle a knife between her breasts?” Wedging his gauntlet between his opposite hip and elbow, he pulled his hand free.

“You tell me,” he said to the woman. “You can enter the great city of Salmantica if you submit to be searched. If not…” He jutted his chin toward the gate.

The woman’s lips trembled beneath dirt-smudged cheeks. “Please, my children.” She extended her arms to the children already cleared to enter the city.

Aemos’s scarred face split into a twisted grin. “The choice is yours, my lady.”

Vykinallia let out an audible growl.

Keeping his arm at his side, Zephyrus didn’t bother to balance the scales. Using his force magic, he created a gentle pressure along the backs of Vykinallia’s knuckles. The resultant weakness barely registered for an effort so slight, but it didn’t stop Vykinallia from snapping her sharpened gaze toward him.

“Stop it,” she hissed between her teeth.

“He will get his,” Zephyrus said out of the side of his mouth. “But not now.”

Vykinallia seethed as the refugee woman rounded her shoulders and submitted to Aemos’s inspection. She winced as Aemos lauded over her.

Heclan’s face reddened, and his nostrils flared, but no one stopped Aemos.

“I hope you’re right,” Iylea said.

“About?” Zephyrus channeled.

“That he’ll get what he deserves,” Iylea said. “Righteousness, justice, equality—they don’t exist in either realm.”

Other Sentinels shoved refugees along, but Aemos took his time.

“Aemos,” said the other King’s Guard Knight. “Ser.”

“Fine,” Aemos said. “Move along.”

Much of the search continued in the same fashion. While some did their work respectfully, others took advantage of their position. Every instance of abuse, each moment those without power trembled before those who did, Zephyrus took a personal account.

Heat burned against the back of his neck. He found his own teeth clamped together, his breathing tight. He’d felt the same outrage when he was enslaved, watching men die in the arena for others’ entertainment.

“No one is free,” Zephyrus said to Iylea. “Not while Paxoran lives.”

“No,” Iylea agreed.

The crowd of refugees dwindled, but Zephyrus’s resolve only grew.

Vigiles and Faceless accompanied the Sentinels as they escorted groups of people toward Six Spear Arena to be housed in the barracks beneath. With the crowd thinning, Heclan approached Aemos.

“If you have taken up enough of my time,” Heclan said, “please allow me and my men to resume our duty—keeping this city safe.”

“Safe?” Aemos laughed. “That’s what you call what you do?” He seized the older man by the clasp of his white cloak and hissed, “If one of these refugees isn’t who they say they are, if I find that you are involved in some ruse—” Aemos tsked. “We’ll put your head on the pike beside theirs. Isn’t that right, Haedron?”

The other Knight, Haedron, frowned, his cheeks deflating. “Yes, Ser Aemos.”

Aemos snickered. “Don’t make your nephew have to kill you.” He shoved Heclan away.

“You’re right,” Zephyrus said to Iylea. “Even amidst the King’s Guard Knights, there are divisions. Truly, no one, at any status, is immune to the predation of the powerful. No one safe. No one protected.”

Within his Inner Calm, Iylea floated up beside him, her blue cerulean light illuminating the windowsill that overlooked the isthmus’s cliffs. “That is why Paxoran must die.”

Even then, what would rise from Paxoran’s ashes? Would a new God be sent by the Creator? Would the divine realm remain empty while mortals fended for themselves?

Heclan straightened his cloak, glaring at his nephew Haedron. “Once, in the days of Ser Darrow, the King’s Guard Knights were second to none—honorable, courageous symbols of what it meant to protect and serve. Now you are just bullies with swords.”

He spat on the ground. “Cohort Prefectus!”

Heclan led a dozen, Zephyrus and Vykinallia included, into the city, a small accompaniment of Faceless in their wake. Keeping their heads low, Zephyrus and Vykinallia bypassed the Sentinels unmolested.

The dark stone of the city appeared darker absent the sun’s light. The lightning above the rooftops did little to illuminate the narrow alleys they kept to. Dust, dirt, and debris from the earthquakes were shoved aside, but ashes remained within the cracks of the cobbled streets. Worst of all, bodies—starved, sick, or beaten to death—littered the streets.

Nausea climbed Zephyrus’s throat as their party strode past a body slumped against the wall. The Six Arrowed Star carved into his forehead didn’t kill him. Neither did the “SYMPATHIZER” crudely burned into his flesh. The gash at his throat ended his life.

Did they bleed him before or after they carved his flesh and branded him? Even those who wish to help are tortured. How can anyone hope to make a change in this world?

As the alleys opened to proper streets and the Aquarian river came into view, so too did the remains of burned Celestic artifacts. As if stripping away freedom and safety weren’t enough, so too did the king’s decrees deny the Celestic people a history, a culture—a hope. Eventually enslavement would become genocide—all in service to a false ideal and a murderous God who didn’t concern himself with the mortal realm.

Sentinels ushered citizens inside their homes, declaring a curfew while the traitors were escorted to the arena. Jackals in yellow and black scoured the streets searching for escaped slaves. And Vigiles attempted to manage the disrepair of the city.

Once they reached the Aquarian and were safely away from the prying eyes and ears, a Faceless approached Zephyrus’s side.

“I am Danella,” she said, her gold eyes peering through the holes in her mask.

Iylea’s painful past flared, pressing into the back of Zephyrus’s mind. For all her wisdom, for as many lives as she had lived, she was still human.

“We will lead you through the city,” Danella said, “toward Sentigard and the Basilica’s bell tower. If this gate opens—”

“When.” Zephyrus’s tone left no room for question and hid none of his distaste for her. He had suffered enough at the hands of this woman. Laeden had. Vykinallia had. Iylea had. He wouldn’t suffer her doubts now.

“When the gate opens,” Danella corrected, “that’s where it will be—the highest point in Salmantica.”

Zephyrus grunted.

Vykinallia glared from beneath her cloak in Danella’s direction.

“I know you don’t trust me,” Danella said, dropping her gaze to the cobbled streets. “You shouldn’t. I have sinned.” She raised her hands to the blackened sky. “This. This Age of the End. This is what I sought to prevent. Yet it would seem that I only expedited the Disasters.” She sighed. “I cannot atone for what I’ve done, but if this is the one thing I do right, I hope it may aid the living against the army of the dead.”

Vykinallia scowled, but Zephyrus found his jaw slackening.

“You can’t trust her,” Iylea said.

“I couldn’t trust Vykinallia or Laeden either,” Zephyrus channeled back. “If she admits she was wrong and attempts to do something to redeem herself—to save others—isn’t that all we could ever ask of a person?”

Iylea stewed, her cerulean aura flaring within his Inner Calm, but Zephyrus ignored her.

Allowing the back of his hand to brush Vykinallia’s knuckles at her side, Zephyrus nodded at Danella.

“Gratitude,” Zephyrus said, earnestly. “Without you, hundreds of people would still be stranded outside the walls. We would be forced to sneak in or fight our way toward the tower.”

Danella’s black mask revealed no expression, but the sniffling sound that came from beneath it spoke volumes.

Zephyrus placed his other hand on Danella’s arm. “We all have a part to play. Isn’t that right, Vykinallia?”

Within his Inner Calm, Iylea bristled.

Vykinallia’s glare softened. “I’ll offer my gratitude once we’re at the gate.”

The Vigile Commander dropped to the back of their party. Continuing to stare straight ahead at the rotunda where Zephyrus and Laeden once squared off what felt like a lifetime ago, Heclan spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Once we are over the drawbridge, the cohort will follow me into Sentigard. While I address the king, you lead them to the Basilica. Do not leave until I return. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Danella said.

Zephyrus and Vykinallia exchanged a glance before returning their gaze to the black stone castle and the matching tower that rose to the mountaintops behind it.

A horn trumpeted through the streets, its call long and dreadful. Three shorter, sharper bursts followed.

“What does that mean?” Zephyrus asked as the horn repeated the pattern.

Color drained from Heclan’s face. “An army approaches.”

Vykinallia’s eyes widened. “We have to hur—” She cut off, wheeling around.

Atop a charging black warhorse, a King’s Guard Knight pointed toward them. The galloping hooves hammered the stone the way thunder rumbled along the mountain range.

“Heclan!” Aemos drew his sword, half a dozen mounted Sentinels at his back.

Heclan stood his ground. “Cohort Prefectus!”

The Vigiles took position, forming a triangular defense before Danella, Zephyrus, and Vykinallia.

“Go!” Heclan said to Danella. “We’ll hol—”

As he turned back to the charging Sentinels, another half dozen emerged onto the street beside the Aquarian. Then, on foot, an even larger unit.

“Retreat!” Heclan cried.

Chapter 53

The Opposite

Threyna VII

Salmantica

Threyna’s heart thundered against her chest as her sprint towards the isthmus came to a panting end. Hands on her knees, Threyna stared at the lone flame whipping in the wind’s gale. Lightning struck, illuminating the torch-bearer. The crackling sky glinted off of Laela’s raven-colored hair. A blue-and-white belt cast a pulsing aura about her waist.

Threyna heaved deep breaths, not believing her eyes. “Laela?”

Her words didn’t carry. Not over the crashing waves, the thrashing wind, or Laeden’s shouts from behind. Laeden stopped a few paces back. His black-and-red gauntlet cast a similar rhythmic glow. Threyna stayed him with a hand, unable to take her eyes from her older half-sister.

“Threyna?” Laela crept forward.

Gooseflesh pimpled the back of Threyna’s neck as memories from Rheynia invaded her thoughts. I won’t fall for another of the Skeleton King’s tricks. She repositioned her feet, turning her hips and shoulders to present a smaller target. After three deep breaths, she replied.

“Laela.”

Laela dropped her torch to the ground and held up her palm. The stump of her other arm rose as well. “Threyna, it’s me. Just me.”

Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne, though the throne room she envisioned within her mind felt more and more wrong by the moment. The corruption spread up her arm to her neck, but still, she could not enter Laela’s seat of power.

She felt the rhythms of tens of thousands of souls marching in the distance, but she couldn’t feel the rhythm of her sister standing before her.

“I haven’t seen you in nearly two years,” Threyna said. “Now you precede the Skeleton King’s horde. If you have nothing to hide, let me in. Prove it.”

Laela took two strides forward.

Threyna retreated an equal distance.

Laela held out her hand. “I know about the Skeleton King. I’m not stopping you. Go ahead; search me.”

“I can’t.” Threyna glowered.

Laela’s dark brow rose. “Interesting.” She examined the glowing belt about her waist.

As Laela struggled to unbuckle the glowing artifact, Threyna backpedaled. She didn’t know what it was capable of. It could deny her from her Inner Throne. It could dampen her power. For all she knew, it could latch onto her the same way the blood artifact had.

“Stop it,” Threyna said. “What is that?”

Laela paused from fidgeting with the belt. “Threyna, I found it—the opposite. It led me to you.”

“What are you talking about?” Threyna asked.

Laela nodded in Laeden’s direction. “I suppose it actually led me to you.”

Laeden glanced down at the gauntlet, then back to Threyna. Not trusting Laela, Threyna returned her focus to her sister and whatever darkling hid behind the belt’s magical defenses.

“Set it down,” Threyna said, jabbing her index finger at the flickering torch at Laela’s feet. “Then back away and let me search you.”

Laela fumbled with the buckle, but eventually lowered it down to the ground. The belt didn’t dematerialize. Didn’t coil and slither like a liquid snake in search of its next host. The mere fact that Laela could remove it from herself differentiated it from the blood artifact.

The moment the belt was out of her hand, Laela’s seat of power opened up to her. Threyna didn’t waste time. She inspected Laela for darklings, but found none. Her rhythm, undisturbed by the belt, sounded with the steady tenor she remembered.

Threyna released her grasp on her Inner Throne. In a few short strides, the two came together, wrapping their arms around each other.

“Gory ghosts,” Laela said. “What happened to you?” She pressed Threyna far enough away to look at her.

A thousand answers came to Threyna’s mind, but each dissolved to ash before they could reach her lips. So much had happened. So much had gone wrong. Reflected in the pale green eyes Laela inherited from their mother, Threyna saw the second scar across her throat.

Swallowing, Threyna backed away. “I could ask the same of you.”

Laela’s eyes flicked to Laeden behind her.

Threyna cleared her throat. “Laeden, my sister Laela. Laela, this is… Laeden.” She pointedly left out king, and that Laeden was a Helixus. Now was not the time for old prejudices.

Laeden approached with a bow. “I’m happy to see you both reunited.”

He gave Threyna a knowing grin, drawing a flush to her cheeks. He was right when he said we’d be reunited. What else could he be right about?

Laela returned the gesture. “Happy to see my sister hasn’t consumed your soul.”

Threyna stammered in disbelief. “Blood and bone, Laela.”

Laela shrugged, retreating to reclaim her belt. “Wasn’t that your plan—wage war on New Rheynia and reclaim Stockhelm for the Warlocks of Sage? What happened to Tyrus anyway?”

Laeden eyes widened, his jaw fell slack.

The heat in Threyna’s cheeks fell away as quickly as it had come on. She shook her head. “A lot has changed. I hope one day I have time to explain, but we should head back to camp. We haven’t much time.”

“A lot indeed,” Laeden said.

Laela awkwardly pinned the belt to her side with her wrist and wrestled the buckle into place. Threyna went to aid her, but Laela cut her off.

“I got it.” Cinching it tight, Laela continued. “Anyway, I found it. Just as Tyrus described—the opposite—on an island to the north, covered in ice and snow.” She picked up her torch from the snowy ground along the isthmus.

As Laela bent down to retrieve her torch, the white glow of hundreds of arcanatek reaping spears ignited along the horizon.

The Skeleton King.

“He’s coming,” Threyna said. “Let’s go.”

Laela glanced over her shoulder as she fell into step beside Threyna and Laeden. “I hope this—” She adjusted the belt. “—can make the difference.”

Threyna shook her head. “We don’t need a cure, Laela.”

Laela grinned. “It’s not a cure.”

She held her stump before Threyna and conjured a bloody hand to the end of her wrist.

Threyna shrugged. “So?”

Laela cocked her eyebrow, holding it before Threyna and Laeden. “See anything?”

Threyna glared at her sister. The momentary relief of their reunion already dissolved into an older, more familiar dynamic. “I don’t see anything!”

Laeden gasped. “That’s the point.” He pointed to Laela’s wrist. “No rot, Threyna.”

Threyna grabbed Laela’s wrist, inspecting it closer. Laeden was right.

No rot.

“What else can it do?” Threyna asked.

Chapter 54

The Escort

Vykinallia VII

Salmantica

The Cohort Prefectus of the Vigiles abandoned their spearhead formation to run.

They’ll never make it.

Elevated atop her Inner Pulvinus, Vykinallia felt the beat of each of the horses’ thundering heartbeats. The hard clack of their iron shoes struck the stone streets like a smith’s hammer to his anvil. The raised voices of the charging Sentinels drowned out the Vigiles’ blaring horns of warning. Zephyrus called to her, urging her to run as well.

She didn’t.

Despite the surrounding noise, each was a whisper compared to the corrupted blood pumping in her ears. Her feet remained planted. Her hands drew back the hood of her Vigile cloak, exposing the ear corrupted by the blood artifact. Yet it was times like these where Vykinallia accepted the artifact’s curse.

Too long had she cowed beneath her father, beneath Damascus, beneath the Sinions and Aemoses of the world who thought themselves above her because they were men and she was a woman. She thought Auron’s lessons would earn their respect; they hadn’t. She believed success as a lanista would have proved her worthy of her position; it wouldn’t have. No mantle she could reach wouldn’t have someone lauding over her.

She was tired of running.

Grounding her feet, she secured herself to the stone walk beside the Aquarian, and the lush carpets atop her Inner Pulvinus. Within, everyone obeyed. Not because they feared her, but because they loved her. Not for her power, but her compassion. Because the army within her arena—plebs, patricians, freedpeople, and mages all knew the truth:

She would fight for them.

“Vykinallia!” Zephyrus grabbed her wrist.

She shook him off. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

Defiance burned in his eyes. The same defiance that incited a rebellion, began a revolution, and would likely save the world. She loved him for his defiance, but not now. As if reading her thoughts, he released her wrist and nodded.

His hand slipped away from her, and the world felt suddenly colder absent his touch, but it awoke something in her more primal. Zephyrus asked her to run out of love, but he let her stay out of trust. And in that trust, her blood magic burned with vengeance for her brother’s murderer.

Aemos’s armored horse charged, drawing closer with each of Vykinallia’s slow and steady breaths. He would ride her down in mere moments, but she would not run. She waited. She wanted him to get close enough to see her face and know it was she who defeated him again.

The shame that followed him after she had beaten him in a duel, the lessons he took with Targarus’s Doctore, the disdain he held for Markus—all fueled the hateful man he’d become.

Vykinallia closed her eyes, visualizing not her vengeance, but their victory over the entitled patricians. The shouting men grew louder. Their horses’ hoofbeats drew nearer.

She conjured a bloody thread to the adjacent building and stretched it across the Aquarian to the buildings on the other side. The bloodborne wings of a Helixus steed sprouted from her back, and with two powerful flaps, she flew into the air.

Aemos’s eyes locked on hers. His jaw unhinged at the sight of her blood magic, but his shock was short-lived only to be replaced by a much more painful surprise.

The thin clothesline she conjured across the Aquarian snagged the mounted Knights and Sentinels across the chests. One by one, horses charged forward absent their riders as armor clanged to the cobbled streets in a messy tumble of dust and limb. The horses stampeded beneath Vykinallia’s feet as she remained suspended above the Aquarian on conjured wings.

She didn’t wait to admire her handiwork. Pumping her great wings, she spun and flew towards Zephyrus and the Cohort Prefectus as they made their way to the rotunda.

But as they approached, the Sentinels on the other side raised the drawbridge, denying their path over the moat. She’d bought them time by dismounting the cavalry, but they’d be trapped on the rotunda and surrounded in moments if they couldn’t cross the moat.

Though Zephyrus could teleport if he needed to, the rest of the Vigiles and the Faceless who had risked all to help them would be doomed.

Vykinallia grounded herself within her Inner Pulvinus as she flapped her wings to catch up with the Cohort Prefectus. Lightning struck overhead. Her winged form cast a shadow that gained on the white-cloaked Vigiles and the black-robed Faceless as they entered the rotunda.

The raised drawbridge caused them to slow. Heclan’s head turned, searching for another avenue of escape, but there was nowhere to run, not while the gate waited.

With three powerful strokes, Vykinallia overtook her party. Sailing over the moat, she constructed a blood-borne bridge plank by plank, across the water.

While some gawked at her as she flew overhead, Zephyrus waved them onto the bloody bridge. Despite the spreading rot that slithered across her cheek and down her jaw and neck, Vykinallia conjured a hooked staff.

The Sentinels manning the drawbridge ran from their station to cut off the Vigiles’ approach over the false bridge, but Vykinallia descended on them. She spun the staff and hooked the leading Sentinel behind the head. Dragging him towards her, she unhooked the staff and slammed it into his ribs. Thrown off-balance, the Sentinel screamed as he fell into the moat. Two more approached, but she landed between them. With the haft of her staff, she shoved one Sentinel into Sentigard’s outer wall. Then with a flap of her wings, she sent the other tumbling into the moat’s dark waters. Spinning the staff around, she looped the hook around the remaining Sentinel’s ankle and yanked him from his feet.

He shoved himself up, sword aimed at her, but Vykinallia swatted it aside, casting it into the moat. Breathing heavy, he held his hands up defensively.

She wanted to crack him across the skull. Though he took up arms against her, he wasn’t her enemy. No one in Salmantica was… at least they didn’t have to be. With the Skeleton King’s horde at their gates, they needed every sword they could muster.

“I’m not your enemy,” Vykinallia said. She hooked the staff around his waist, and tossed him into the moat to join his brethren.

As the last of the Faceless made it across the moat, Vykinallia allowed her blood bridge to fall to ash so no one else could follow. But there were more men within Sentigard. Aemos would return. And Zephyrus needed to get to the gate.

Thunder roared. Lightning struck. Horns trumpeted both near and far, and the clash of steel rang on this side of the city walls and that. The scent of coppery blood filled the atmosphere, but heartbeats, dozens of them, charged into the atrium beyond the great wooden doors of Sentigard.

Vykinallia inhaled sharply to warn the Vigiles, but too late.

The front doors swung open, and dozens of black-clad soldiers charged out, each with the lion of Atonus Allos emblazoned on the front of their leather armor. The Cohort Prefectus was cut off and outnumbered.

Chimera’s breath.

“Kill the traitors,” a Lion shouted.

Vigile met Lion. Steel clanged. And above all else, time wasted.

A Lion’s sword buried into one of Heclan’s men. Blood blossomed through his Vigile whites, and his scream filled the air.

Zephyrus came to his aid. Conserving his magic by fighting with borrowed Vigile steel, he deflected a thrust and bashed away a shield, allowing Heclan to thrust forward, felling a Lion. Danella cast off her mask and cried for the fighting to stop, but the words fell on deaf ears as blood stained the path that followed the moat’s contour.

Pumping her wings, Vykinallia flew towards Zephyrus and the others.

Beside the fallen Lion, another shouted in her direction. “Mage!”

Black rot traveled down her arm and throbbed in her ear, but she drew in breath, calling upon the souls of the fallen Vigile and Lion. Their essences flowed into her, abating the rot. She needed more, but there wasn’t time, not with a host of Lions standing in the way of Zephyrus and the gate. The longer they remained, the chances of getting Zephyrus to the gate diminished.

As more blood spilled to the ground, Vykinallia tapped into her Inner Pulvinus. Drawing upon the fallen blood, she gave it shape. Shackles and chains rose from the blood. Like a slithering serpent coiling around the Lions’ ankles, Vykinallia’s shackles latched on. Once all were engaged in her bloody chains, she yanked.

The Lion nearest the moat fell from sight first. In series, one dragged the next, then the next as they were all thrown over the edge to splash into the water.

“Run!” Vykinallia shouted once the way was clear.

“To the Basilica,” Danella cried.

Again, Zephyrus led the way, following Danella’s outstretched finger.

More Lions charged from the front doors. Some gave chase, while others lowered the drawbridge for Aemos and his men to follow.

Vykinallia kept her wings but allowed her other conjurations fall to ash. Her rot stretched down her arm to blacken her hand. The corruption pumped in her veins. Three dead Lions and two dead Vigiles lay at her feet. She drew in breath to consume the souls of the three she hadn’t taken to abate the rot, but the encroaching footsteps, the screech of steel scraping against scabbards, distracted her.

Come on!

The souls did not come to her.

Then she was back upon the isthmus. Jecht stepped in front of her again. The blood mage carved a gory crescent across his gut. His pale, scarred face blanched as entrails slipped between his fingers.

No. Not again!

Vykinallia tried to slow her breathing, but it only sped up. Thoughts raced. The uncertainty surrounding the gate. The questions pertaining to the Champion of the Nine and the prophecies. The doubts relating to the Skeleton King and the souls he trapped within his Inner Dungeon.

She choked on a knot in her throat. Will I ever see Zephyrus again?

The souls did not abide by her commands.

As the men approached, steel in hand, Vykinallia turned, abandoning the vitality she needed, and flew after the others. Cursing herself for her lack of focus, she rounded Sentigard.

The Royal Basilica towered in the distance. Zephyrus led the way, Heclan, his Vigiles, and a handful of Faceless in his wake. Vykinallia quickened her pace. As she rounded the backside of Sentigard, she ignored the furious heartbeats that raged at her back. The back exit of Sentigard opened, and anger incarnate spilled out.

Glancing over her shoulder, three King’s Guard Knights, a dozen Drake household guards, and a score of Sentinels exited. Behind them, in red-and-black plate, Damascus emerged atop a white stallion dressed in matching ornaments.

Air heaved from Vykinallia’s chest. I can take them. But first she needed to make sure Zephyrus ascended. Flapping her wings, she charged towards the Basilica. The Vigiles had already reached the front doors. Once inside, they could defend it, hold Damascus and his troops back until the gate opened and Zephyrus ascended.

The black spires of the Basilica rose above the mountain peaks they were built from. The Six Arrowed Star of Valencia towered above all—the king, the kingdom, the people the Gods failed to protect.

Corruption through her veins, Vykinallia abandoned her wings and dropped into a jog as she neared the open doors. Vigiles waved her in, but her eyes locked on Zephyrus waiting in the atrium. As she passed the threshold, the Vigiles closed and barred the doors behind her.

Zephyrus, breathing heavily through his nostrils, held out his hand for her.

Dressed in white, he stood stark against the dark stone behind him. The black-and-red tapestries of the Drake Chimera brought out the fire in his hair and beard. Above him, the Six Gods of Valencia towered, their likeness carved in stone, yet he eclipsed them all.

Vykinallia strode forward and took his outstretched hand, but something was in it.

“It’s time,” Zephyrus said. “My mother just told Iyl—the Guardian—that she’s going to open the gate. Any moment now.”

“Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said through labored breath. “You come back to me.”

He cupped her cheek in his other hand, his thumb brushing gently over her lips, his index finger tracing the curve of her jaw. “I will.” He rested his forehead on hers. He retracted his hand from hers, her amethyst ring clutched between his thumb and forefinger. “I will return this to you. We’ll marry. Start a family. Just believe. Even if… even if things get bad. Don’t give up.”

Vykinallia’s spiked adrenaline only intensified her emotion. As a tear spilled from the corner of Zephyrus’s eye, she broke. Her body’s demands for breath were denied as a tremble rippled down her ribs in withheld sobs.

“I won’t, Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said. “I knew… I always knew. I dreamed of a Champion for House Cassius. A man of honor. A warrior who valued life more than the taking of it. I knew you’d come one day and change everything.” She shook her head. “I just didn’t know what everything meant.”

She reached her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. Her eyes squeezed shut. Tight enough to block out the flickering torch light and the doubt written on the faces all around them, but not enough to hold back her tears.

Their lips separated.

“You,” Vykinallia said. “You are my Champion. You are our Champion.”

Brushing her hair behind her mangled ear, he kissed her then. Soft enough to treasure, hard enough to make it last a lifetime if it needed to. Vykinallia felt her stomach flutter as their lips parted again.

“I have to go,” Zephyrus said, glancing at the tower stairs at the back of the atrium. “The gate is open.”

Boom!

A battering ram slammed into the double doors of the Basilica, rattling the sconces on the walls and shaking dust from the top of the carved statues of the Gods.

“I love you,” Vykinallia said.

Zephyrus’s hand fell away from her cheek. He clenched her amethyst ring in his fist as he backed away.

Boom!

The water in the corners of his burning embers melted her.

Boom!

As Zephyrus retreated toward the tower stairs, Vykinallia felt as if her world were falling apart around her. Each jolt of the ram to the front doors might as well have collided with her heart.

“I love you, Vykinallia,” Zephyrus said.

Her heart broke at the sound of her name—her true name. It never sounded so sweet as it did on his lips. She watched him as he turned and ran for the tower stairs. Toward the gate, the divine realm, and his destiny.

Boom!

The battering ram rocked the hinges and splintered wood from the door behind her. Zephyrus disappeared into the spiral stairway, leaving Vykinallia suddenly numb.

Her love. Her future. Her hope for everything good in the world walked out of her life, potentially for good. Leaving her with the past.

Vykinallia faced the splintering door, her blackened fist coiling with the first emotion she knew how to feel. Rage.

Boom!

The Vigiles backed away as the ram beat at the cracking door and her last nerve. Heat burned her cheeks. Her lashes blinked away tears yet to fall. Tension radiated throughout her entire body, joining the rot corrupting her veins.

“I am Champion of the Nine,” she said to herself.

Boom!

She closed her eyes, grounding herself on her Inner Pulvinus, but as she pictured it, her feet did not rest upon the plush carpets of the elevated balcony. Sand squished between her toes. She didn’t have a crowd, or an army of gladiators before her. She was the only one.

That is enough. I am enough.

Vykinallia opened her eyes.

Boom! The doors crashed in.

Chapter 55

Oblivion

Iylea VI

Salmantica

The spiral staircase shook beneath Zephyrus’s feet as the battering ram struck the front doors. With each skipped step, Iylea felt like she was back in the Celestial Halls of Valencia, stealing away from Ferrocles to make it to the anchor room and the chain to the mortal realm.

But she couldn’t go back. She could feel it now. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t. As Zephyrus neared the gate to the divine realm, the ward against her soul grew stronger, like a headwind denying her progress.

For all his lies, Hameryn had told her one truth. “If you return to the mortal realm, your soul will be trapped, barred from ever returning to Valencia.”

When she’d jumped through the hole in the anchor room floor, she was the only one who could help Zephyrus claim the Relics of Kataan and give humanity a fighting chance. But now, her soul was bound to Zephyrus’s. Whenever he was too far away, she lost herself. All memory, vision, focus fled her as if she was never supposed to have command over them in the first place. And when he teleported out of Valtarcia and left her behind, her soul nearly consumed itself. This time would be no different, except even if Zephyrus defeated Paxoran and made it back to the mortal realm, it would be too late for her.

Joined with Zephyrus, his emotions swirled around her. Fear of leaving Vykinallia. Concern with what would await him in the divine realm. Dread over what would transpire should he fail. Each distracted him enough that he didn’t sense the existential terror that attacked Iylea.

As Zephyrus approached the top of the tower, his mind began to quiet. He dismissed his fear for Vykinallia, trusting in her abilities and focusing on his task. But amidst his focus and Iylea’s disquiet, he realized her turmoil.

Iylea exited Zephyrus’s Inner Calm as he crested the stairs to arrive at the tower room. Her light illuminated the dark stone chamber, but the shadows of doubt clung to them both.

Zephyrus stared at her. Her light bathed his white Vigile attire in a golden aura.

“When I teleported away, I felt something in me break,” Zephyrus said. “The bond. Maybe you’re no longer bound to me, but to this realm. Maybe you don’t need me anymore.”

Iylea’s light flickered. To wander aimlessly, absent memories or purpose. “I don’t know, Zephyrus. But there isn’t time. The window. Step through and jump. That is the gate.”

Zephyrus jutted his chin and raised an eyebrow. “Burn me… of course it is.” His jaw tensed. “I’ll come back, Iylea. I’ll—”

“Our minds were joined,” Iylea said, resigned. “We both know you will try.”

Zephyrus’s lips furled. “A tether. You just need a tether.”

“There isn’t time,” Iylea snapped. “Somehow, Arkadia opened the gate and gave the mortal realm a chance. Do not waste it on my account.”

He was making it harder than it needed to be. She’d lived more lives than any mortal deserved. And yet I never truly lived one at all, did I? Her light pulsed as she shook the thought away. “You can’t save everyone, Zephyrus,” Iylea said. “Now go, or you will save no one and Paxoran will win.”

Zephyrus turned from her and climbed into the windowsill. The tower shook as the battering ram crashed into the door below. Zephyrus glanced down before looking back at her. “If I’m right, if your soul doesn’t consume itself, find Laeden. He will be your tether… if you let him.”

Before she could chastise him, Zephyrus leapt from the window.

Iylea floated out over the precipice of the window. Zephyrus plummeted, his white cloak billowing behind him. Lightning cracked the sky, temporarily blinding her, but once the bright glare faded, Zephyrus was gone.

Iylea braced for the pain. She waited for her luminescent soul to consume itself like it had back in Valtarcia, but moments passed. The pain never came. Rather, a void enveloped her. Like numbness atop an old scar that she knew she should be able to feel, she sensed nothing.

Perhaps Zephyrus was right. The bond was broken. She stared down at the ground so far away. A host of soldiers roared as the door they slammed their battering ram into fell. The black-clad shapes charged inside, followed by gray and blue, then finally red and black.

Suddenly disoriented, Iylea twirled. Where am I? What am I doing up here?

She didn’t want to be here if they were looking for her. She floated into the thunderclouds, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was something she was supposed to be doing.

Find something? Find… someone?

Chapter 56

For Something More

Laeden XI

Salmantica

The legionaries approached, backlit by arcanatek lanterns and glowing white spears. Clad in black uniforms cut with green trim, they blended with the shadows cast by their light and the forking lightning overhead.

Laeden’s stomach lurched like the tossing waves breaking against the shoreline below. He clenched his gauntleted fist and wiped the moisture of his other palm on the mismatched armor plucked from the remnants of their battle on the isthmus. In Lion’s leather armor under a Sentinel’s surcoat and belted at the waist with a sword from Kaelus’s armory, Laeden felt like an imposter. He could have been clad head to toe in the blood artifact’s red-and-black mail, and it still wouldn’t have been enough.

Staring out at the isthmus and the approaching army, he couldn’t believe how many soldiers were in the Order’s legions. Despite the losses they’d dealt to the Skeleton King’s horde, a greater force marched on them now.

Laeden swallowed. This time they wouldn’t have the element of a surprise flank. They wouldn’t have Zephyrus to assail the Skeleton King, or Vykinallia to fight off his blood mages.

Looking over his shoulder to the unmanned walls and watchtowers behind him, he doubted any aid would come from Salmantica either.

The trumpeting horns signaling the Skeleton King’s encroachment did nothing to sway Damascus, Atonus, or Aemos Horne. Bolstered by Vigiles and Revivalists, their numbers were still paltry compared to the army from the east.

The radiant artifact Laela had worn as a belt took the shape of an arm bangle on Threyna. Fastened over the scars left by the blood artifact’s prongs, the blue aura it emitted made her eyes glow. The light caught the silver swirls in the Orsion Cloak, making the floral design in the fabric seem to dance in the artifact’s rhythmic pulse.

Beside her, Laeden’s gauntlet throbbed in time. He hoped the artifact Laela retrieved from Azorath, a land he had never heard of, would make the difference, but looking at the sheer numbers of the impending battle, doubt slipped into his Inner Trial.

“We just have to hold out,” Threyna said. “Zephyrus will sever the tether between Paxoran and the Skeleton King. He’ll defeat Paxoran.” She glared at the approaching legions. “And we’ll kill the Skeleton King.”

Laeden nodded, licking his dry lips. Their plan was for him and Laela to take the offensive, while Threyna focused on defensive measures. He continued to scan the skies searching for the winged monsters, but none were visible, which only made Laeden’s bouncing knee increase its tempo.

He immersed himself deeper into his Inner Trial. Though the rot spread up his forearm from where the prongs of the gauntlet anchored into his flesh, he could not sense the blood mages anywhere.

Perhaps they’re marching with the infantry, saving their strength.

Yet something in the air felt wrong. Beyond the curses brought down by dead Gods, something else stirred. Intangible. Prowling. Ominous.

“Something feels wrong,” Laeden said.

“It’s Belrich,” Threyna said. “He always has a trick.”

Laela frowned on the opposite side of Threyna. “He doesn’t need a trick. If what you said is true and he has hundreds of blood mages, thousands of legionaries, and enough souls entombed in his Inner Dungeon to populate a city, why would he need a trick?”

Threyna scowled. “Because he doesn’t think like the First Sword of the Wraith. He’s ghosting Belrich. He won’t settle for victory—he’ll make sport of us if we let him.” She returned her attention to Laeden. “What’re you thinking?”

Laeden eyed the sky. “I don’t sense the blood mages. I can’t tell if they’re hiding amongst the legionaries or not here at all.”

Threyna tossed her silver-blonde braid from one shoulder to the other. Though the artifact prevented the spread of rot coursing through Threyna’s veins, Laeden could tell by the set of her jaw that she was tapping into her Inner Throne.

Growling, Threyna released her focus. “I can’t feel them either.”

Laeden huffed. “We stick to the plan—outlast and hope Zephyrus can give us our opportunity. Remain vigilant and be prepared to adapt once the Skeleton King reveals whatever trickery he’s planning.”

Threyna nodded. Laela drew her sword.

Laeden looked down the lines of their front as others gripped their weapons. Their last stand. Others were glancing at him, waiting for him to rile the warriors with a speech for the songs. He took a deep breath and broke from the front lines to stride the length of their formation. Words came and went, fleeting thoughts absent the weight such a moment required.

Father would have known what to say.

Something that would appease the fears of those ill-equipped to stand against such a foe. Something that would inspire them not to fight for themselves. Not something so trite as duty or honor—something that mattered.

In that moment, Laeden found he didn’t truly know what mattered.

His whole life, he’d had it backwards. He thought family mattered. He thought justice and righteousness mattered. They were just ideals, constructs—things as fickle as the tides and unpredictable as the winds. Family changed. His father died in the war only to return, just so he could die in the mud at Laeden’s feet. He was torn from his mother’s arms, finally reunited with her, only for her to forsake him again. No, blood is not a strong enough bond.

Yet his found family—people like Aelon and Markus—were precarious at best. Aelon betrayed him for his own elevation, despite agreeing with Laeden. And Markus stood by Laeden even when he didn’t agree with his actions, until his death. There were too many others no longer with them. Whether they had fallen in battle or left for the divine realm, too many people had lost too many people to fight for them.

Found family, brothers in arms—neither will do.

Honor, justice, righteousness, duty—all were lies. Justifications for people to do what they wanted, when they wanted.

No. We have to fight for something more.

Laeden turned to face the crowd of men and women. Freedpeople joined Ridge Knights. Rebels joined refugees. Valtarcians joined a mix of Salmantica’s Revivalists, Vigiles, and Sentinels. Groups once divided, once at war, now stood shoulder to shoulder. Revivalists disguised as Faceless traded clothes with Celestic men and women unable to fight. Sentinels who disagreed with Aemos’s orders abandoned their posts, forsook their honor, and traded life inside the walls to stand alongside strangers outside of it. Vigiles, sworn to defend the people of the city, lined up outside the city walls to fight for something greater.

What is it all for?

The Order’s marching drew nearer, drowning out the thunder’s clap, the sea’s spray, and the howling winds, but Laeden ignored them. He strode back down the line.

“This will not be a story told to children,” Laeden began, voice booming to overcome the surrounding noise. He met every eye who held his own.

“This will not be a song sung in a tavern, nor a prayer uttered on holy days.” Keeping his gaze on the men and women about to die for the hope of humanity, Laeden aimed his gauntleted finger at the Skeleton King’s horde.

“This army does not come to forge tales for their children or songs for the bards,” Laeden continued. “They come not to win lands or titles. Not for king or country, honor or plunder. They come for one reason, and one reason only—death.

“They don’t want our cities. They don’t want our gold. They don’t want to make slaves of our people. They wish to end us—to take our souls and deliver them to their One True God.”

Laeden pointed over Salmantica’s city walls toward Sentigard. “Our own king has stood by while we have suffered and lost.”

Laeden’s fist clenched at his side. If only that was all Damascus had done. Damascus’s obsidian dagger punching into their father’s gut supplanted his line of thought. What he wouldn’t give to have his father to follow, to have Markus beside him… to be with Iylea one moment longer.

He shook his head. “I will not ask you to fight for the dead.”

Cerik hung his head, undoubtedly thinking of Jecht. Callonus sniffled, his thoughts likely remembering his time spent fighting alongside Allaron. Aurellia bowed her head, her lips moving in silent prayer as if any God would hear her sentiments for Joru.

Laeden swallowed his own losses and pushed past. “While we fled Valtarcia, unable to save our loved ones, while we threw our dead to the ocean’s wrath to prevent the Skeleton King from defiling their corpses to use against us, our king—our people—abandoned us. I will not ask you to fight for them either.”

The Order’s commands, close enough to overcome the elements’ cataclysmic symphony, prodded his speech’s end.

“Who, then?” Threyna asked, stepping from the ranks. “Who do we fight for?”

Laeden met her gaze. Her angled features sharpened to a point. The cut of her jaw betrayed the softness of her cheek, and the sternness of her brow—hard as steel—could do nothing to conceal the yearning of her soul.

Then it struck Laeden.

It was a simple concept. Not a person to disappoint or an ideal to fall short of, but the very reason why each of them—regardless of heritage, socioeconomic status, creed, or any other label of division they’d endured—stood side by side. Ready to fight. Ready to die. To preserve the one thing worth living for.

Hope.

Everything clicked. It was the one thing Iylea wanted—a seer living in New Rheynia. Hope for a future. Hope to live freely. Hope to be.

He had failed her. Everyone had. But he saw it in Threyna’s eyes now. The two women could not have been more different, yet deep down, their desires were exactly the same. As Laeden gazed down the line to Iberion and Unari, to Kherus and Aponius, to Kaelus and Urcilia, he realized it wasn’t just the unifying link between Threyna and Iylea—it was what bound them all together.

Laeden nodded at Threyna. “Not who do we fight for, but what. Not what we are, but what we could be. Not for today, but for tomorrow and the possibility that each day will bring a new dawn.”

Threyna’s cheeks reddened.

“We fight for hope,” Laeden said. “It is what brought us together. It is what will carry us through. We fight for hope!”

Shouts echoed his own, some crying, “For hope!” while others repeated the chant, “I am Champion of the Nine.” The rest simply bellowed their most animalistic war cries.

Laeden drew his sword as the whir of arcanatek blasters spun in the shortening distance. The scrape of steel leaving scabbards drowned out the warbles. From his Inner Trial, the thrum of hundreds of hearts beating in time with one another rallied around him.

“I’ll absorb the first wave,” Threyna said, coming alongside him, gesturing to the Legionaries approaching the arcanatek’s firing range. “Then we charge.”

Laeden nodded. “On my mark, we charge. Ready!”

The arcanatek blasters neared crescendo.

“For hope,” Threyna said, preparing her blood magic defense.

“For hope.”

The screeching arcanatek erupted.

Chapter 57

True Brother

Zephyrus XII

Valencia

The King’s Guard Knights and his company grew larger as Zephyrus tore through the open air. His stomach lurched as wind lashed at his face. Strands of hair ripped free from his messy bun to flap behind him along with his white Vigile cloak.

Zephyrus gritted his teeth as the ground approached.

What if we were wrong? What if this wasn’t the gate?

Part of him wanted to teleport out of the free fall. To abandon the madness of ascending to divinity so he could fight the evil here in the mortal realm. They were surrounded by it—Damascus’s hateful reign and the Skeleton King’s abominable one.

Zephyrus’s skin burned as the ground rushed to meet him. His gut screamed, begging him to escape his free fall. He closed his eyes, resolved to see his part through.

Breathing through his teeth, he endured the slashing air, the burning of his cheeks, and the pressure on his ribs. He fell for too long. The ground never came.

Zephyrus opened his eyes to find nothing but the same blackness he saw from behind his closed lids. Though the ground he fell toward and the Basilica’s tower he plummeted from were gone, the falling remained. Faster and faster, he flew into the depths of existence.

Pain seared against each of his senses. Utter darkness encompassed him. Like a thousand whips were striking at him, lightning forked across every bit of his flesh. He couldn’t tell if his clothes had been stripped away because all he felt was fire consuming him. The thrashing wind drowned out his screams.

White flashed across his vision, too bright to behold. Like diving into still water, Zephyrus breached a threshold. The torrent of wind thickened to a current of water streaming past him as he continued to fall. The white flashes overcame the black silence of sight and overwhelmed him, but now instead of it feeling like his flesh was being stripped away, it was as if he were being sewn back together.

Pain ceased. The rush of water faded, and light engulfed the darkness.

“Vykanicus!”

His balance swayed, vision swam. Muffled sound filled his ears as he took in his surroundings. Before him, a glowing chain of links passed from a crank through a hole in the floor.

Sever the chain...

The sound of labored breathing wheezed behind him. Zephyrus turned, drawing the hilt of the Vykane Blade from the belted folds in his Vigile cloak. Once in hand, the blade extended from the hilt, casting radiant light. Spinning, he leveled the white gleaming edge at the source of the noise.

Zephyrus balked, not understanding what he saw before him.

A woman in a tattered shawl stumbled towards him, blood bubbling from her lips. She clutched a wound in her stomach that further soiled her threadbare shift. Her red hair hung in a tangled mess. Tears fell from her blue eyes as they struggled to hold him in focus.

“Vykanicus…”

“Mother!” Zephyrus caught her as she fell into his arms. Spinning to catch her while directing the Vykane Blade aside, he lowered her to the tiled stone floor. The wound at her back leaked with equal disregard for life as the one through her stomach. Blood gushed from her wounds to stain his cloak.

Panic flooded Zephyrus’s mind. He released the Vykane Blade. As the glowing sword retracted absent his touch, so too did the color from her face. She blanched. The color of her lips faded until all that remained was the red of her hair, the blue of her eyes, and the dark blood spilling from her mouth.

She reached a weak and trembling hand for his face. “Vykanicus…”

“Hang on!”

Zephyrus tapped into Klayvorine’s time greave to stem the flow of blood escaping his mother’s body. Balancing the scales, he prepared for the pain. His hand hovered over her stomach as he poured the essence of life into her. Pain lanced through his stomach as if something cold and consuming pierced through him.

Grunting through the pain, he said, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’m here, Mother.”

“No…” Her eyes, unfocused and cloudy, searched for something past him.

Moving slowly, a shadow loomed over him from behind. Zephyrus spun. With no time to reclaim the Vykane Blade or balance the scales, Zephyrus hurled his force magic in the direction of the looming shadow.

Without sparing a moment to glance at his attacker, he seized the Vykane Blade. In response to his blood, the blade extended forth once again. Standing to his feet, doubled over in pain, he maintained the current of white mist toward his mother’s barely breathing body.

The hulking attacker’s back was toward him after being thrown back by Zephyrus’s force blast. A red plume rose down the center of his golden helm. He wore a golden pauldron and matching bracer that extended from his shoulder to his wrist. Between the gold segments were red-and-black plates with forking lightning similar to the blood artifact. In his left hand, a sword forged of the same pulsing red-and-black material extended with a cruel edge. In his right, a glowing gemstone large enough to fill his palm.

He turned to face Zephyrus, red-and-black sword at the ready.

Zephyrus met the man’s eyes. Burn scars poxed the left side of his face, neck, and torso, stretching down his unarmored arm.

Zephyrus’s hold on time slipped away. The pain of his mother’s wounds ate at his insides.

He lowered his sword. “Fenyx! Fenyx, help me. My mother, she—”

“You?” Fenyx barked. His teeth were bared. His stance didn’t slacken at seeing Zephyrus. Stalking nearer, posture and tone as menacing as ever, he crushed the gemstone in his palm and let it crumble to dust.

Zephyrus glanced from the sword in Fenyx’s hand to the wound in his mother’s abdomen. Hatred burned from his gut to the back of his throat. “You did this. You… You’re the Harbinger.”

Fenyx snarled. “Of course it would be you to stand in my way. Deny me my glory.”

Zephyrus shook his head. He didn’t understand. He examined the scar traversing down Fenyx’s unburned cheek like a tear. The pain behind his eyes foretold of worse horrors than whatever earned him that scar, but Zephyrus couldn’t understand how of all places Fenyx ended up here.

He stared down the former Cassius Carver. “Fenyx, why?”

He wanted to say more, but he could no longer speak through the pain of his mother’s mortal wound. Still wheezing, his mother reached for him, too far gone to speak.

“We have suffered,” Fenyx said, “beneath the care of selfish, entitled Gods.” He made the word a curse and spat it out like poison. “Paxoran promises a new beginning. I will be God of Death, and no longer shall those who deserve my blade not receive it. Those worthy of laurels will not be denied what they deserve.”

Zephyrus groaned. Pain lanced from his back through his ribs and into his organs. He could no longer stand. He dropped to his knee.

“Now you bow?” Fenyx scoffed. “Prophet of the Return. Wielder. Champion of New Rheynia. You kneel?” He shook his great plumed helm. “No. Finally you must prove yourself. That is how it should have been at House Cassius. That is how it will be now.

“Stand. Fight. And let him whose blade is deserving reign from Valencia.” His closed fist beat against his chest.

Zephyrus hung his head. His mother’s blood clung to his borrowed white robes as her hand fell to her side, too weak to reach for him any longer. Her head lolled to face him. He couldn’t tell if she shook her head or if his vision swam amidst her pain.

“What are you waiting for, God of Death?” Paxoran’s familiar voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling of the divine realm’s palace halls.

Unlike before, it didn’t resonate in Zephyrus’s mind. It filled his ears. Zephyrus turned from his mother to the source of the voice. Pale flesh and red eyes glared beyond the hood of a black cloak. Behind him, through a doorway, a wall of mirrors, each different sizes and shapes, reflected the scene of the anchor room where Iylea once broke the links of the chain.

Paxoran had used Zephyrus, Threyna, and Fenyx all for his own ends—vengeance. He imprisoned Zephyrus’s parents, murdered Vykannis, and was responsible for the destruction of the mortal realm.

Zephyrus gritted his teeth, but the Vykane Blade fell to the ground as he dropped to all fours, unable to take the pain.

Everyone was counting on him. Vykinallia, Threyna, Laeden, Iylea. Tip the scales, even Danella depended on him. Even if they managed to defeat the Skeleton King, would the mortal realm fall to ruin? Would it cease to exist once Paxoran was left unchecked by the Creator?

Paxoran must fall. The chain must be severed. The Age of the End must stop.

“Finish him, Fenyx,” Paxoran said. “Take your place beside me and together we will defeat the Creator.”

Fenyx extended his armored hand to Zephyrus.

Zephyrus stared at it through watery eyes before turning his glare on Fenyx. Nausea bubbled at the back of his throat. His mother lay still, eyes closed—breathing low and shallow.

She’ll live, but only if I defeat them.

Barely able to stand, he willed himself to stare back at the man he once saved from Tursos in the omenation for the Chancellorship. The man he’d rescued from Stegavax’s murderous attempt during the King’s Day Games.

The last time he spoke to Fenyx was the morning after Paxoran had murdered Vykannis. The same night Vykinallia had freed him, and he had freed Jecht and Cerik from their cells.

“I don’t know why you stayed,” Fenyx had said before the Primus of the New Rheynian Games, “but you are my true brother from this day forward.”

“True brother?” Zephyrus asked, his voice strained. “That’s what you called me.”

“Fenyx,” Paxoran urged. “Kill him and be done with this.”

Fenyx grunted. “You are my brother. That is why you’re not dead already.”

His outstretched hand remained, but Zephyrus only stared at it.

“You will fight me,” Fenyx said, his burned cheek twitching. “But I will be damned if I let you deny me my glory once again.”

Zephyrus eased a few labored breaths into his lungs. The hilt of the Vykane Blade rested beside him. The chain was only a few strides away. Paxoran, just across the room.

I can do this. I have to do this.

His fingers curled around the hilt of the Vykane Blade. Tapping into Kosmar’s greave, Zephyrus blinked from the physical plane. He zipped toward the chain that tethered the Skeleton King to Paxoran. Returning to the physical plane, Vykane Blade in hand, Zephyrus reared back to slash through the glowing links. As he swung, his blade clanged off a blood-borne edge and rebounded back.

“Thought it would be that easy?” Paxoran tsked.

Before Zephyrus could prepare another strike, Fenyx charged.

Chapter 58

Slaughter

Laeden XII

Salmantica

The Order’s round of radiant blasts slammed into Threyna’s conjured shield. Though her conjuration stretched across the entirety of their front, no rot spread from the blue-and-white bangle.

As the whirring slowed and stopped, Threyna dropped their blood-borne shield wall.

“Attack!” Laeden shouted, charging forward. Shouts followed behind him with the reckless abandon of humanity’s last hope.

Heartbeats thundered in Laeden’s Inner Trial. His borrowed boots drove through the dusty dirt outside Salmantica’s gates. Steel in hand, he conjured a spiked buckler with a blade extending along the back of his gauntlet. The Order’s arcanatek bowmen retreated into their formation, allowing the legionary spearmen to take position.

Laeden met their line first. Slapping one spear aside with his gauntleted blood shield, he drove his steel through the shoulder of the first legionary. Twisting back to the neighboring spearman, Laeden thrust the extended blade of his blood shield through the legionary’s throat. Blood spouted into the air and blossomed along his neckline.

The rest of their force met the legion. Men screamed. Bodies fell. People died.

Laeden reached from his Inner Trial and drew upon the exposed blood. He didn’t need to see the blood; he didn’t need to focus on it. It was his to wield. It called to him, begging him to be turned into something of use. He blocked a thrusting spear, deflected another jab, and stabbed a legionary through the gut. With a kick he shoved the spearman into the legionary behind him.

The blood obeyed, congealing into falcons. The blood-spawned birds bearing the sigil of his mother’s house rose from men still fighting through their injuries and attacked the nearest legionaries. More shouts, more distraction.

Laela wove through a hole in the front and slashed with steel and blood-borne blades. From her stump of a wrist, a blood-conjured hand wielded a double-sided sword that didn’t need to obey the laws of physics. Her wrist spun, slashing through flesh and bone in a revolving circle.

While Laela moved with the combination of practiced grace and cursed-magic experience, Cerik’s mace clubbed spears in half and caved in rib cages. Iberion’s long sword danced through ranks, exposing legionaries to attack. Kherus and Aponius followed Iberion’s lead and cut down the men who could barely defend against Iberion’s onslaught.

Waves of fire, bolts of lightning, and torrents of water crashed into the Order’s ranks. They fell by the dozen. All the while, Threyna shattered thrusting spears, shielded overzealous or undertrained allies, and still managed to rain blood-conjured arrows from the sky to fall upon their foes.

Laeden sent his storm of wings and fury at a legionary overwhelming Aurellia. The moment the legionary raised his arm to defend his face, Aurellia’s blade bit deeply into his neck.

Wasting no time, Laeden directed his falcons to a new foe.

Three spearmen focused their attention on him. He didn’t relish the challenge. He didn’t live for the blood or lust for the power, but he would use it.

He turned one thrust aside with his sword, blocked the second on his shield, and then shot the extended blade from his gauntlet into the middle legionary’s forehead. His eyes rolled back, dead before Laeden’s blade dissolved to ash. Laeden inserted himself between the two remaining spears, conjuring a new blade for his gauntlet. Within their reach, he sliced his steel across one thigh, then cleaved horizontally with his blood-forged blade to separate the legionary from his lower leg. He fell, screaming. Before his neighbor could avenge him, Laeden thrust two quick jabs into his side.

Death screamed all around him. Black rot within.

Laela’s arm was as black as the cracked sky. The same corruption spread up his arm towards his neck. He attempted to draw in breath, to claim the vitality of the fallen legionaries as Threyna had taught him, but the souls of the fallen didn’t obey. A resistance met his effort, and though he strained against it, it didn’t relent.

“Threyna, the—” His cry was cut short by whirring arcanatek.

The second wave.

Louder than any order they could shout, the blasters’ warbles signaled the retreat. Mid-joust, their fighters disengaged, falling back behind Threyna and the wall of cover she could provide. All heeded the order. All but Laela.

“Laela!” Laeden shouted.

She didn’t listen. She charged ahead, rot spreading through her neck and up to her raven-colored braid.

Laeden grunted, surging forward once again despite the arcanateks’ growing screech.

He shoved a spearman aside and slashed across his back. Kicked another just above the knee. The joint doubled back and cracked. With a backhanded cut, Laeden stopped the legionary’s scream short before it could pass his lips.

Only a few paces away, Laela conjured a crossbow with several bolts already loaded and several spearmen in black already littering the ground. Blood flooded the space between them like haunting rivulets. But the arcanatek blasters at the front of the next wave of the Order’s formation reached their crescendo.

Laela pulled the blood-borne crossbow’s trigger. The arrows absorbed blood as they flew, elongating into lances. Each of three newly forged lances found targets—direct impalements of powerful blasts that jarred everyone in their path.

Laeden took command over his Inner Trial and conjured a half-bubble shield before the two of them just as the blasters fired. Radiant bolts crashed into the shield they cowered behind. Black veins encircled Laela’s catlike green eyes like corrupted claws reaching for prey.

“We need to consume,” Laeden shouted over the blasts.

“I’ve tried,” Laela said. “Clearly, you have too. It won’t work.”

“Then we need to retreat.” Laeden glanced back to the radiant blasts that sent shockwaves through Threyna’s giant shield. “The healers can—”

“It’s a game of attrition,” Laela said. “Belrich wants us to slaughter his legions. Have you seen any sign of his blood mages?”

Laeden shook his head.

“That’s because he consumed them all,” Laela said. “He added their power to his. And if he has enough souls to deny our ability to consume, he has more than enough to dissolve our conjurations to ash as well. He wants this.”

A bead of sweat trickled down Laeden’s brow. Is she right?

The plan was to outlast. To wait for Zephyrus to sever the chain, defeat Paxoran, and weaken the Skeleton King enough for them to finish him. But if Zephyrus didn’t or couldn’t do his part, every moment they wasted killing the legionaries, the Skeleton King grew stronger.

The blasts ceased. Threyna gave the order to charge forward again, and Laela prepared to run around Laeden’s shield. He grabbed Laela’s wrist.

She glared at him. “We have to get to him, finish him quickly, or we’ll never—”

“No,” Laeden said, not releasing her wrist. “Trust the plan.”

“That someone who couldn’t defeat the Skeleton King will defeat the God that made him?” Laela asked. “I don’t know him. I don’t trust h—”

“But I do!” Laeden said through his teeth. “Wait for the healers. Trust.”

The rest of their army rallied past their position and met the front of the Order’s second wave. Laela breathed heavily, but her defiance dwindled. The healers came to them.

White mist flowed into him, and his rot abated, but while the others fought ahead of him, Laeden’s thoughts drifted to Zephyrus.

Come on, Zephyrus. You can do it.

Chapter 59

The Prophet and the Harbinger

Zephyrus XIII

Valencia

The Vykane Blade met Fenyx’s cursed sword. Light met dark as they traded blow after blow. Zephyrus’s movement faltered as he warred his way through the pain of healing his mother. Unable to keep up with the fury of Fenyx’s blade, Zephyrus had to turn his flesh to stone to absorb the hacks and slashes he couldn’t block.

“Fenyx, listen to me,” Zephyrus managed between cuts.

Fenyx didn’t relent. His sword crashed down, diagonal from the right, then back along the same axis slicing from low and left. Zephyrus deflected both with the Vykane Blade, but his arms tingled with the warning that if he relied too heavily on his magic, even if he defeated Fenyx, he’d never be able to stand against Paxoran.

Gritting his teeth, Zephyrus channeled the fire of his anger. Heat drained from his temples, and a chill washed through his body. In short sharp blasts, Zephyrus produced blasts of flame. With each wave of fire, Zephyrus followed it with a thrust or jab from the opposite direction.

Fenyx didn’t fall for the feint. The fires that once made him cower left him unfazed, unconcerned, undistracted. His focus, more furious than it had ever been upon the sands, zeroed in on Zephyrus.

Zephyrus lurched out of the way of the red blade, spinning to reposition. Moving with the momentum, Zephyrus used his force magic to augment his trajectory. Fenyx thrust where his body should have been, finding only air. Zephyrus countered. With a slice, he caught Fenyx across his golden pauldron, drawing a bloody crescent across his chest. As Fenyx stumbled back, Zephyrus allowed his knees to go weak and shot a fork of lightning, hoping to stun his foe.

Fenyx caught the bolt on his red-and-gold bracer. The black forks in the segments rippled as the cursed armor dissipated the electricity.

“Fenyx, I am not your enemy,” Zephyrus said. “He used you. He used me. Can’t you see—he doesn’t care wha—”

Fenyx roared. “You lectured me about freedom from the moment you arrived at the ludus. Yet now you’d have me turn on the one who seeks to free us from the Gods who enslaved us?”

“He hasn’t given you freedom.” He spared a glance at Paxoran, watching greedily from the outskirts of the anchor room. Black veins marred his pale face even after his one conjuring. “He gives you exactly what you want, Fenyx: glory—in exchange for your enslavement to him.”

Fenyx bellowed, charging again. His sword cleaved great, swooping arcs at Zephyrus. Zephyrus tapped into Kosmar’s greave and slipped through the immaterial plane to the unoccupied space behind Fenyx. With Fenyx momentarily distracted and Paxoran’s rot spreading, Zephyrus swung again for the chain.

Blood coiled around the links like a serpent. Black rot slithered through Paxoran’s face with the effort, but the Vykane Blade couldn’t find purchase. It clanged off Paxoran’s twisted steel of conjured blood.

“I have killed Gods,” Fenyx screamed. “I will not fall to you or your tricks, Zephyrus. I will not be denied.” Fenyx closed the distance again.

Zephyrus evaded a vertical slash, deflected a horizontal hack, and twisted away from a thrust aimed at his torso. His white cloak, stained bloody, whipped around him with the motion of his evasion, but his stomach and back stung with the effort.

Fatigue racked his mind, body, and soul. Yet he knew what was happening in the mortal realm; his friends were fighting. Dying. Waiting for him to fulfill his part of their entwined fates.

Paxoran must fall. The chain must be severed. The Age of the End must stop.

Zephyrus tapped into Helios’s bracer and shot a bright stream of light across the anchor room. Fenyx dodged out of the way, not knowing what it was. Calling upon Lunellia’s bracer, the shadows evading the light’s path rose in obedience to Zephyrus’s will. The beam of light sent a shadow spiraling behind Fenyx. The shadow rose from the stone tile to coil around him, binding his arms to his sides and his legs together.

A moment later, Fenyx snapped the shadow’s binding, but Zephyrus was already moving. He thrust the Vykane Blade at Fenyx’s midsection. He blocked the thrust, but Zephyrus called upon the darkness of Lunellia’s moon magic. Light ceased to exist in the anchor room besides the radiance of the Vykane Blade.

Zephyrus released the hilt, held it in place with his force magic, and slowed time around it to prevent the blade from retracting absent his touch. He escaped into the immaterial plane as time moved in slow motion around him. Teleporting behind Fenyx, he turned his fists to stone.

The first two punches connected to Fenyx’s lower ribs. As Fenyx spun, Zephyrus ducked, dropping low to slam his stone-fortified fist into the inside of Fenyx’s knee. As the joint buckled, Zephyrus drove upward, launching out of his crouched position to uppercut into Fenyx’s chin.

Fenyx stumbled back. Zephyrus released his hold on time. The hilt of the Vykane Blade clamored to the ground. He banished the darkness with Helios’s blinding light. Keeping his eyes closed, Zephyrus charged his disoriented and stumbling foe. He dropped his shoulder and crashed into Fenyx’s ribs. Absent sight, he reached for where he expected Fenyx’s arm to be and found his wrist. With a twist, Zephyrus dislodged Fenyx’s grip, spilling the cursed blade to the ground.

Zephyrus drove Fenyx from his feet and planted him into the stone. Dissipating the blinding light, he opened his eyes and sent his stone fist into Fenyx’s ear. The plumed helmet fell from his head, skidding across the marble. His second punch crashed into the opposite side of Fenyx’s head, sending his eyes rolling to the side.

Fenyx swung his bracer in defense, but Zephyrus swatted it aside and pinned it to the ground. He reoriented his body to drive his knee into Fenyx’s chest, pinning him.

“Enough!” Zephyrus shouted through labored breath. His arms felt weak. The onset of magic fatigue set in, but he refused to show any sign of weakness. Mounted atop Fenyx, keeping his arm pinned to the marble floor, Zephyrus poised his stone fist to strike again. “Fenyx, we are not enemies. You said it yourself. We are brothers.”

“No,” Paxoran said, stalking closer. “You are not. This is why you were my first choice. You have no equal. Chosen by the Gods to be their savior, their redeemer, their avenger…” He shook his head, his soft padded footsteps drawing nearer.

“Fenyx,” Zephyrus whispered, ignoring Paxoran. “Join me. Together we can—”

“Yet there is one flaw in your Gods’ plans,” Paxoran said, picking up the hilt of the Vykane Blade. It didn’t react to him, not without Zephyrus’s blood. “You, just as they did before you, and just as the Creator had done before them, have underestimated me.”

The Vykane Blade’s radiant edge extended from the hilt as he prowled around Zephyrus’s mother’s unconscious body.

Zephyrus stammered. The blood in the blade. He can control it with blood magic.

“That is why you will fail,” Paxoran said. “Why you, your Gods, and the Creator have already failed.”

Fenyx’s breaths wheezed under the weight of Zephyrus’s knee. He writhed, not in an attempt to escape, but in obvious discomfort.

Zephyrus shook his head, but the motion made the room spin. “No. You underestimate us. That is why instead of being your slave, I’ve come to kill you. That is why instead of Threyna being your Harbinger, she will execute your Skeleton King. And that is why Fenyx will join me in defeating you.”

His tongue felt thick in his mouth. His vision narrowed, and his ears throbbed with his own thundering heartbeat.

“You have already failed, Paxoran,” Zephyrus said. “Your manipulations, your false prophecies—they have failed.”

Paxoran chuckled. Black veins strangled his red irises. He allowed the Vykane Blade to retract into its hilt and passed it from one blackened hand to the other.

“Pity. Truly.” Paxoran took a deep breath. “I would have liked to be the one to kill you. I suppose I’ll have to settle for watching the life flee from your eyes.”

Fenyx grunted, moving with a sudden burst of speed.

Cold seeped between Zephyrus’s ribs. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t. His hand traced down his side to find Fenyx’s fist clutching the hilt of a blood-borne dagger.

Fenyx twisted the blade embedded in Zephyrus’s ribs. He gasped, but before he knew it, Fenyx rolled him, flipping him onto his back, the blade still deep within his side.

He tried to speak, but Fenyx retracted the blade and stabbed again. And again. And again.

Chapter 60

Cursed Valkyrie

Vykinallia VIII

Salmantica

The Drake household guards broke the threshold first. Brandished steel before black plate armor poured through the broken door. They fanned out, lining the entirety of the Basilica’s width. Sentinels in blue and gray rushed in next. A combination of archers and swordsmen took position on either side of the destroyed door. Lastly, the King’s Guard and Damascus himself entered.

Their red-and-black plate reflected the glow of the cold-burning candles throughout the dark stone temple. Their stride, slow and purposeful, entitled and prideful.

The Cohort Prefectus retreated from the door and into the nave between the pews. They assumed a triangular formation, Heclan Allos at the front, Danella and the other Faceless behind them, taking cover between the pews.

Vykinallia didn’t back away. Standing ahead of the Vigiles with rotten veins snaking from her ear into her cheek and down her neck, she glared at her countrymen. A breath trembled from between her lips, but there was no fear in her heart. She’d already done the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. She let Zephyrus go, never knowing if she’d see him again. Never knowing if he’d hold her, kiss her, or tell her he loved her ever again.

From within her Inner Arena, she could no longer sense Zephyrus’s rhythm. He was gone. Ascended. To fight Paxoran, sever the chain, and give them a fighting chance against the Skeleton King. She’d done her part, delivering Zephyrus to the gate, and she knew in her heart that he wouldn’t fail, but she still had work to do. Damascus would not impede her.

While Damascus and his cronies cornered her inside the Royal Basilica, Laeden, Threyna, Cerik, Iberion, and countless others defended his city from a far worse monster.

Vykinallia sniffed, wiping the back of her runny nose with the sleeve of her Vigile cloak.

“You have defiled our Gods in every possible way,” Damascus said from beneath his red-and-black visor. “You’ve turned from the Six, slain your countrymen, aided our enemies, and you still seek shelter before the Six?”

“The Six are dead,” Vykinallia said. “Murdered by one of their own. Now his vessels in the mortal realm seek to end us as well. If you’d look beyond your city walls, you’d see the truth. But you won’t allow yourself, will you, Damascus?”

Damascus didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Vykinallia shook her head. “You are lost. You will always be lost, because you are too stubborn to realize you were wrong. Wrong to condemn the Celestic people, wrong to murder your father, wrong to mistrust Laeden. Wrong.”

She eyed the array of soldiers pitted against her. She and her company were outnumbered six to one, even including those disguised as the Faceless who would be of little use in a fight.

“If you ever loved me,” Vykinallia said, “let us go. There will be enough death beyond the city walls. We don’t need—no, we cannot afford—more bloodshed within. Join Laeden against the Skeleton King’s army. Fight with us, and maybe, just maybe we can live to rebuil—”

“Enough,” Damascus shouted through his helm. “The Gods ravage your flesh with the Disasters of your corrupting lies.”

“Damascus, please,” Danella shouted from the back of the Basilica. “Please, listen.”

Damascus growled. “How dare you, Mother. You will grovel before the Six by the end of this. This ‘Skeleton King’ of yours will bow before the Six too. All of you will. Our faith will be rewarded, and your blasphemy will grant you the damnation you deserve.”

Vykinallia scoffed. She raised her hand to the armed men training their weapons on her. “I will not kill these men for your pride. Duel me, Damascus. Only one of us must fall.”

Damascus chortled. “And why would I do that?” After a moment, he raised his hand.

Vykinallia tapped into her Arena and conjured a rectangular shield just as the thrum of the bowstrings sounded. A dozen arrows from a dozen bows snapped into her blood-borne shield, snapping and clattering to the ground.

She let the shield fall to ashes at her feet. “Don’t make me do this, Damascus.”

“Mage,” Damascus said, the word a curse.

She glared at him.

“Kill her.”

The Drake guards in black plate flanked the outside of the Basilica and entered between the pews to attack from either side. While the Sentinel archers drew arrows from their quivers, the swordsmen advanced down the nave, converging into two rows of six.

“Defensive measures,” Heclan ordered the Vigiles.

Vykinallia extended her hand behind her. “No. Stand back.”

Heclan stammered, but the Vigiles’ approach ceased.

Vykinallia’s jaw clenched. Muscles in her back tensed. She stood at the center of her Inner Arena while men approached from every angle with steel in hand and hate in their hearts. She could hear it in their rhythms—short, sharp beats. More noise than rhythm. Though the black-clad soldiers could hide behind their helms, they could not conceal the truth of their hearts. The Sentinels’ faces hid nothing. Whether they had seen what she had done, or they weren’t eager to find out what she was capable of, lower lips quivered and sweat beaded on wrinkled brows.

This isn’t hate in their hearts…

It was fear. A misguided sense of honor and duty mixed with confusion.

Is it even me they fear—or Damascus?

Vykinallia conjured a sword and buckler. At that moment, she was back on the isthmus. As fighting broke out between the refugees and freedpeople, Zephyrus attempted to break them up. Allaron moved to attack him from behind. Too far away to help, the future she hoped they would build together fell to ash as Allaron, possessed by a darkling, reared to strike.

Pain. Fear. Loss. They invaded her Inner Arena and threatened to destroy everything she hoped for. For too long, she’d been separated from him—by society’s rules, by the expectations of her station, by leagues of distance, and armies who wanted them both dead. They’d shared one night before being separated again. And now, with the thought that he might have left for good this time, rage joined her in the Arena.

She pictured the barbs of the Lovers’ Dream flowers that lined the hill, their beautiful purple blossoms and the reddish thorns that grew from the stems. Bloody, thorned vines rose from the Basilica floor, ensnaring the black-clad guards closing in around her. More vines erupted from the walls behind the Sentinel archers, coiling around their limbs, and dragging them back to the stone. Swords and bows fell to the ground as they struggled within their bindings.

Ignoring the black rot spreading through her veins, Vykinallia rushed the dozen Sentinels before her. She slammed her blood-forged shield into the first swordsman, shoving him into his neighbor. She augmented the shape of her conjured sword, making it a dull-edged hook. She slipped it behind the nearest swordsman’s ankle and yanked his legs out from under him, toppling him into the other Sentinels. As she pulled back her hooked blade, she changed its shape again. Joining it with her shield, the blood-forged items combined and reshaped into a pike.

Vykinallia conjured a stumbling block across the temple’s nave, just behind the Sentinels’ feet. Using the shaft of her newly forged pike, she shoved the Sentinels back. All at once, their feet kicked into the air and their backs fell to the ground. Rather than falling to ash, Vykinallia commanded the stumbling block and her pike to become bindings that wrapped around the Sentinels’ wrists and ankles, securing them to the floor.

The effort of maintaining her conjurations spread the rot down her chest and into her ribs, but she held them in place. She stalked over them on her way toward Damascus in the doorway.

“These men are my prisoners,” Vykinallia said. “Do not make them corpses. Let’s finish this, you and me. A duel. No one else needs to get hurt.”

Heartbeats beyond the door were soon joined by the clank of armor and the sound of footsteps as Aemos and his men entered the Basilica.

Aemos’s flinty gray eyes staggered as they beheld the scores of blood-bound men.

Silence. In the absence of words, the guards and Sentinels struggling against their blood-borne bindings filled the Basilica.

“I accept the duel,” Damascus said.

Damascus’s head turned to the King’s Guard Knight beside him. The real Damascus.

Not-Damascus stepped forward, hidden behind his visor and plate armor.

Vykinallia snorted. She conjured a fingerlike projection and lifted Not-Damascus’s visor.

Blue eyes stared from beyond the helm. Aelon Ironpine closed the visor quickly, but it affirmed what Vykinallia already knew.

“Coward.” Vykinallia snarled, leveling the other King’s Guard Knights with a scathing glare. “Show yourself. Fight me.”

A King’s Guard Knight flipped up his visor. Golden eyes peered out, but they were hollow. Gone was the spark of life, the glow of enthusiasm and passion. Only pain remained.

“I will fight you,” Damascus said, drawing his sword. “We all will.”

He advanced, his King’s Guard Knights and Aemos’s Sentinels at his back.

Vykinallia stood her ground, but the rot beneath her cloak encroached closer and closer to her heart. I can’t keep them suspended and fight off half a dozen King’s Guard Knights and another score of Sentinels. Not without killing. Not without consuming.

“I tried to save you,” Vykinallia said. “I tried to save all of you.”

Damascus roared, charging straight for her.

Vykinallia claimed a pair of fallen swords from the entangled Sentinels before her. She raised them just in time to block Damascus’s horizontal hack. Shoving him away, she deflected a thrust from Aelon, and dodged a jab from Aemos, absent his helm. Damascus lunged and slashed. Vykinallia vaulted backwards, evading the horizontal slice.

Damascus continued his assault, chopping and hacking, attempting to cleave her in half. She couldn’t retreat fast enough. She blocked an Aemos thrust, parried an Aelon joust, and high-stepped over a low slash from another King’s Guard Knight, but she lost her balance.

Damascus’s blade stabbed at her midsection.

Before it could pierce her, Heclan’s sword flicked Damascus’s aside. The other Cohort Prefectus charged forward, meeting the other King’s Guard Knights.

Steel clashed as the two sides met. Vykinallia slipped behind Heclan’s cover.

The rot spread. She drew upon the vitality of her attackers, but the effort offset the rot’s abatement. Her chest tightened as the Skeleton King’s curse crept toward her heart.

“Haedron,” Heclan shouted, trading blows with a King’s Guard Knight. “Don’t you see what you’re doing?”

Haedron didn’t respond, but his heartbeat warred within his armor.

The armored knights had a significant advantage over the cloaked Vigiles. The clang of blades would only last so long before steel met flesh.

Vykinallia jabbed with a distancing blow, but her vine bindings began to falter, and the Drake guards she’d ensnared wriggled free.

“Get her!” Damascus shouted.

Two of the nearest Drake guards shoved past the Vigiles distracted by the Knights and came for her. Vykinallia thrust the first of her stolen swords at one guard, then slashed diagonally upward with the other. The guard met each in turn, but his second block left him exposed. Vykinallia pressed her attack, ignoring the second guard. Lunging forward, she seized advantage, feinted with her left sword, and thrust her right into the guard’s eye slit.

She ripped the blade free, and the guard fell to her feet. Whirling to meet the second guard, she turned just in time to shift. The sword point, aimed at her navel, glanced through her side as she lurched out of the way.

Fire raced across her ribs. Blood coursed through her veins. Rot enclosed her heart. Vykinallia hacked the guard’s sword aside and slashed him across the neck. Red blood spouted from the gap in the armor. As his free hand went to cover the wound, Vykinallia spun and kicked his leg out from under him. Falling prone, he had no defense. Vykinallia flipped her swords into a reverse grip and stabbed down and through the back of his cuirass. Her blades pierced his armor and reemerged with a spray of gore.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Vykinallia cried. Feeling the rot’s encroachment, Vykinallia grounded her feet on the sands of her Inner Arena and drew in breath. The souls of the dead and dying came willingly. Her rot fled from her heart, retracting back toward her shoulders, but she wanted more. She needed more.

She drew upon the exposed blood of the fallen men. It misted into a cloud and flowed into her, restitching the wound in her side.

More Drake guards approached. The Sentinel archers she’d bound earlier freed themselves and took angles along the outskirts of the pews, taking aim at her and the Vigiles.

Teeth bared, fists clenched around sword hilts, she glared at the mob. Heclan and the Cohort Prefectus would fall. Danella and the other Faceless would die—not to the Skeleton King’s wrath, but to fearmongering mortals.

A scream, carnal and savage, tore from her throat. “I tried to spare you all!” She tossed her bloodied swords to the ground. Wings sprouted from her back as she jumped into the air. Hovering above the Vigiles, knights, and guards, she reared back her arm, a spear forming in her hand. She flung the spear at the nearest archer.

Dumbstruck by what his eyes beheld, he barely moved before the blood spear took him in the chest. With two great flaps of her wings, she closed the distance between her and the others. Arrows flew through the air. She ducked one and wove between them, then barrel-rolled to evade a grouping of three. She landed on the outskirts of the Basilica and recalled the blood spear she’d just thrown.

The blood obeyed.

“Why couldn’t you have just listened?” Vykinallia shouted.

Her spear returned to her hands. The archers retreated from her, but they could not flee. She manipulated the point of her spear, lengthening it and curving it into a scythe. Flying over the archers, and with one tremendous arc of her scythe, three heads departed their necks. Three bodies followed their momentum to the floor. Three thuds hit the ground as their open-mouthed faces rolled across the stone floor.

The other two archers backed to the corner. Bows at their feet, hands in the air, faces long with horror they never knew existed. Vykinallia passed over them like an angel of death.

“Kill her!” Damascus shouted, still engaged with Heclan.

Guards and Sentinels moved towards her, but she was too fast. While the guards gave chase, Vykinallia sailed over their heads and flew at the archers on the opposite wall. Placing both hands on her scythe, she commanded it to morph. The shaft bent on itself and connected, forming a bow as long as she was tall. The blade of the scythe straightened and divided into three arrows. She was no archer, but blood obeyed her will.

Arrows zipped towards her, but with a flap, she lurched out of the way of each. After evading their volley, her corruption-stained fingers drew back her bowstring. She released.

Each arrow flew in the vague direction of a target, but from the sands of her Arena, she corrected their flight. One arrow found a target in the chest. The next in the throat. The third in the shoulder. The other three archers took aim again, but Vykinallia turned her bow into a shield and charged.

One arrow thudded into her shield, one missed high, but the third clipped her wing.

Her flight faltered. Her wings dissipated to ash, and she fell the remaining distance to the ground. Tucking into a tight tumble, she sprang up before one of the archers. With her shield, she bashed the archer’s bow aside and pulled a gladius from his belt. Before he could defend himself, Vykinallia plunged the gladius into his stomach.

Blood bloomed from where she skewered him, but two bow strings thrummed. She wrenched him in front of her, and their arrows thudded into their brother’s back. Vykinallia drew in breath, consuming the dying man’s soul.

The rot, which had crept down her ribs, retracted slightly, but not as much as she needed.

She shoved the soulless corpse aside and launched herself at the two remaining archers. They drew their gladii, but her approach was too fast. She slashed one across the thigh, and punched the rim of her blood-forged shield into his throat. He fell, gasping, to her feet. The other Sentinel, bow abandoned and sword in hand, struck.

She blocked the first blow with her sword, caught the second with her shield, and shoved his sword arm aside to open his guard. She slashed, and the sword she’d stolen from the belt of the other archer sliced deeply across his gut. His face blanched as he stumbled backwards, his free arm cradling his intestines as they seeped out between the cut in his gray-and-blue uniform.

Vykinallia took command of his soul. His vitality flowed into her. His life force bought her more time. A reprieve from the effects of her curse, however brief.

But it wasn’t enough. Drake guards and Sentinel swordsmen gathered around her in a semicircle, cornering her against the wall. Some stood between the pews, others along either side of the outer aisle, but all blocked her path.

Beyond them, bloodstained Vigiles fell to the King’s Guard Knights. Though they had outnumbered the King’s Guard two to one, the absence of armor and the confined space of the nave didn’t allow them to use their maneuverability or take advantage of their greater numbers.

The souls she’d consumed were not enough.

The souls she’d taken from the battle of the isthmus, those Threyna had convinced her to hold within the barracks beneath her Inner Arena and save for the final fight against the Skeleton King, raged against their confinement.

She didn’t want to use that power here. She didn’t want to waste it killing men who were following the wrong orders. The reason she’d enslaved these souls was to defeat the Skeleton King, not to fight against her own people, but she’d never return to Threyna and Laeden if she never left this Basilica.

“Freedom,” Jecht had said with his last breath. “For all.”

As the Drake guards and Sentinels closed in around her, Vykinallia entered the barracks beneath her Inner Arena. Souls lamented, longing for liberation, crying out for their loved ones resting in the afterlife. They didn’t know what she did—that Paxoran had ruined their hope of salvation. That incomplete souls were bound as links of the chain to serve as reminders for the Gods’ failures. That the Gods didn’t even care for the growing chain except as it related to their own fear of the Creator’s Reckoning.

Vykinallia didn’t know what, if anything, awaited these souls after she consumed them, but any fate was better than an eternity of longing. She had little to offer them, but Threyna had told her to make their power hers as the Skeleton King had. She would need to convince them to fight for her.

She released them from the barracks, and the souls swirled around her, a tempest of pain, loss, fear, and defeat. Their voices clamored all around her, a cacophony too entangled for her to discern any one plea amidst their number. Some dove at her like darklings, attempting to seize control of her mind and body, but Vykinallia rebuffed them, walling her thoughts, emotions, and feelings from them.

“I can’t help you,” Vykinallia said to the lost souls as they surrounded her in a vortex upon the sands of her Inner Arena. “Not because I don’t wish to, but because I don’t know what awaits you in the afterlife.”

The vortex roared in a discontented bellow that threatened to shake the stands around her. This time, more souls vied for the power to be Champion of her Inner Arena.

Again she hardened herself and denied their access.

No. How can I hope that they’ll join me if I won’t join them?

The vulnerability terrified her, but it was that vulnerability that allowed her and Zephyrus to know one another. She thought back to the night his Celestic fire rose from the candles of her bedchamber.

I could have turned him in. If I would have, he never would have told me about the plot against my father. I never would have known the depth of his heart. Without vulnerability, what intimacy can ever be achieved?

Knowing what she needed to do, Vykinallia grounded herself within the sands of her Inner Arena, and lowered her defenses. She exposed herself. Everything she was, everything she wanted to become. Her every thought, memory, dream, and emotion—laid bare.

Dozens of souls dove upon her. Inundated with the overload of their consciousnesses, Vykinallia found many with the same concerns. Unmet expectations. Fear of not being enough and never having another opportunity to prove themselves. Untreated traumas deeper than any wound. Loneliness and isolation, more frightening than death itself.

Perhaps in her, they saw her true desire to help—to free them as Jecht had asked with his dying word. Perhaps they too wanted to believe that Zephyrus could defeat Paxoran and provide a new alternative to their eternal fate. Maybe they realized she was as scared as they were, but one by one, the darklings who invaded her returned to the vortex.

The tempest slowed. The chaos of racing souls fell into a near-organized spiraling pattern.

“Believe me when I say I fight for you,” Vykinallia said. “For your futures, your families’ futures. So that in the end, you may know rest. Peace. All I can offer you is hope for tomorrow.”

The tempest shrank away from the sky and lowered towards the sands, stirring it up with each revolution. The gale stirred by the rushing souls settled, and with it, the cloud of sand fell.

All around her, an army of souls, glowing in bright shades of blue, green, and purple, stood at attention.

Vykinallia emerged from her Inner Arena with an army at her back. She returned to the Basilica and the encroaching swords of Drake guards and Sentinels. Rot receded, as souls absorbed the burden of her curse. Others grounded their feet in the sands, ready to stand and fight with her. Power coursed through her veins with each thunderous heartbeat, but she didn’t wish to use it on them if she didn’t have to.

“I’ll ask you one last time,” Vykinallia shouted. “Surrender. Or die.”

Sentinels eyed one another. Drake Guards hesitated in their black-capped half-helms.

“Attack!” Damascus shouted. “Attack!”

Vykinallia examined the eyes of the fifty or so men who stood before her. They didn’t have the look of men who wished to fight. Twitching lips, shuffling feet, and blinking eyes told her all they wanted was to return home to their families.

The first man shouted. The rest took up the call. They all charged.

Empowered by the other souls, Vykinallia conjured a spire as she had on the isthmus. A central pillar rose from the ground in the space between her and the encroaching soldiers, sprouting branches as it spiraled upwards. Each limb snagged a different soldier and hauled them from their feet. Their screams rose with her soul-empowered spire that climbed to the Basilica’s vaulted ceiling. One by one, every Drake Guard and Sentinel was swept up in the fury of limbs and vines until they were all bound in place.

The King’s Guard Knights backed away from the few remaining Vigiles.

While the other souls on the sands of her Arena held the conjurations and the men they held in place, Vykinallia strode out from beneath the screams of the twisted tree. Striding between the pews, she conjured a sword and shield and angled her blade’s point at Damascus.

“I’ve spared them,” Vykinallia said, rot sprouting from her ear once again. “If you end this now, no one else needs to die here. Fight me if you must, but don’t make me kill your men.”

The Knights backed away from Heclan and the two remaining Vigiles. While scars and scuffs marred their once-pristine armor, the Vigiles’ whites were painted scarlet. Ten bodies lay on the floor between the two sides—eight Vigiles, two Knights.

Vykinallia called to their souls, and their vitality flowed into her. The rot veining her cheeks slithered back to her ear.

“You’re a monster,” Damascus said.

“My king,” Heclan said, panting. “Please, your grace, stop this.”

Damascus didn’t even bother to glance in Heclan’s direction. He stood his ground, sword before him, his golden gaze a sliver through his closed visor.

“Damascus,” Danella cried from the altar, “think of your people.”

“I am!” Damascus snapped. “As you should have before you joined with mages and preached blasphemy. Now the Six must be sated—”

“The Six are dead,” Vykinallia said bluntly. “The true battle is outside the city walls, where your brother, your people, and even those you’ve oppressed stand together to defend you.”

Damascus’s head turned back and forth between Danella at the altar and Vykinallia between the pews. “A mage and a sympathizer… the Six will rejoice when I rip your blasphemous tongues from your mouths.” Too far away to reach with his jousting sword, his words stabbed at Vykinallia. “I’ll nail you to the Star myself. I’ll cleave your head from your traitorous neck. And I’ll mount it on a pike outside my window so I can watch the crows pick the flesh from your skull.”

Vykinallia’s stomach twisted. And to think, once I believed I loved him…

She shook her head. “You haven’t seen the sun for days. You haven’t had rain for weeks. The ground shakes beneath your feet, fires burn cold, and anger burns in the hearts of every man, woman, and child, yet you still believe the Six guide you? You’re lost, Damascus. But I won’t let these men die because of you. Fight me.”

“Fine,” Damascus said. “But there won’t be a mercy word this time!”

With a twirl of his sword, he charged at her.

Chapter 61

The Skeleton King

Threyna VIII & Laeden XIII

Salmantica

A Goddess of destruction. A Disaster with a heartbeat. Threyna felt invincible with Laela’s artifact bound around her upper arm. The power of the Skeleton King’s curse flowed from her bloodstream into the bangle faster than she could conjure.

Bloody pikes rose from the ground, impaling Order legionaries by the score. She didn’t bother to consume; she didn’t need to. Laela and Laeden could feast upon their souls when they needed, but she had everything in the bangle. If she possessed this power back in Rheynia, Belrich never would have gained the blood artifact. The Order never would have lifted a reaping spear again.

Legionaries attacked in droves, focusing their attention on her, but no matter how many attacked, her Inner Throne had an answer for them. Reaping spears snapped mid-thrust, broken by conjured hammers that rose and fell in time with every legionary’s heartbeat. Weaponless, they could not defend themselves when her infantry—composed of freedom fighters, refugees, Salmantic defectors, and Celestic mages—fell upon them with might and magic.

Bodies. Blood. But no Belrich to be seen.

Threyna threw her blood-borne double-bladed spear into the crowd of legionaries charging up their arcanatek blasters. Directing the blood from her Inner Throne, Threyna steered the conjured spear through the battlefield. It tore through a legionary’s chest and exploded out his back before reorienting to slash across another’s torso and stab a third through the gut. Maintaining her focus, Threyna summoned another bloody spear and hurled it into the battlefield to do her fighting for her.

Pikes rose from the ground. Arrows fell from the sky. Spears danced absent hands to hold them. They all moved in accordance with her will, slaughtering the Skeleton King’s feeble army. She kept checking for the Skeleton King’s rhythm to discern where he was hiding amongst his legion, but he remained obscured. So too did his blood mages.

It felt too easy. Knowing there was a trick behind everything Belrich did, Threyna couldn’t figure it out. She hoped he, again, underestimated them. Even if he sent his army ahead as a distraction, he couldn’t have foreseen this.

He couldn’t have known about Laela or this artifact. We’re just winning. We can win!

She conjured another round of pikes that impaled the Order legionaries one row at a time. Their choir of screams joined the shrill cry of the wind. Their flailing limbs reminded her of the Hollowed ensnared in the Underground’s barricades back in Rheynia; only here, they would be granted the mercy of death.

As she called down another storm of arrows, Laela called her name.

Laeden and Laela, healed from their rot, came up alongside her as their army continued to surge forward.

“Took you long enough,” Threyna said. “There are plenty of souls. Consume and prepare for when Belrich springs his tra—”

“This is the trap,” Laela said. “We can’t consume.”

“The Skeleton King consumed the blood mages,” Laeden said.

Threyna shook her head, stammering.

A spearman lunged at Cerik while he was entangled with another legionary. Threyna conjured a dagger before the charging legionary. Unable to stop himself, the legionary ran straight into the dagger. The spearman stumbled, the hilt of a blood-borne dagger protruding from his eye socket. He fell to the ground, dead.

“What do you mean?” Threyna asked. “I expect this from Laeden; he’s new. But Laela, for ghosts’ sake, consume.”

Threyna drew in breath as if to demonstrate. Bodies littered the ground around them, souls ripe for the taking. Yet, to her horror, when she commanded, the souls disobeyed.

Threyna’s mouth went dry. Jaw clamped shut, heat rose to her cheeks. She knew it had been too good to be true. Deep down, she knew Laela’s artifact wouldn’t be enough.

Without Celestic healers and Laela’s artifact, we’d already be doomed.

Threyna’s mind raced, attempting to see Belrich’s punchline before he could catch her off guard, but she found herself distracted by the prophecy she’d received from the Seers at Tharseo’s Bastion.

“You shall find that which you seek, but you possess all you need.”

At the time, she’d ignored the prophecies, and sought the Treasures. Though she’d claimed them, they weren’t what she needed. Though Laela had found the opposite to the blood artifact, it still wasn’t the key to their salvation.

She thought it had been Zephyrus, and she was right. She needed him. Just not the way she thought she needed him. She wanted him to fight alongside her. She wanted them to defeat the Skeleton King together.

Together. But never together.

“Sever the chain that binds the realm to the holy,” Threyna said, repeating the last line of Zephyrus’s prophecy, finally understanding how tightly their fates were entwined together.

“What?” Laela asked.

“Fall back,” Threyna said. “If he can stop us from consuming, he can stop us from conjuring too.”

“We can’t fall back,” Laela argued. “We need to force him out of hiding. The more bodies that fall, the stronger he grows. If we’re going to beat him—”

“We’re not going to beat him!” Threyna snapped. “Zephyrus will.”

Laela glared at her, but Threyna was unperturbed. Sinking into her Inner Throne, she held out her arms to either side and conjured a wall that spanned the width of the battlefield.

Fighters, unable to progress further, retreated towards their positioning.

“Fall back,” Laeden shouted. “Fall back!”

Though others echoed his orders throughout their ranks, Laeden continued barking, directing their mismatched army to retreat to the gates. As he turned, his command cut off mid-sentence. Threyna followed his gaze to a bright golden orb of light flying over the battlefield.

The Guardian.

Threyna blanched, unsure what that meant for Zephyrus and his ascension.

“Laeden!” the Guardian cried. “Laeden, where are you?”

Laeden

Laeden’s joints turned to stone. His insides, to water. A hundred questions, a thousand doubts, and infinite fears flooded Laeden’s mind as her presence drew nearer.

Why isn’t she with Zephyrus?

“Laeden?” she cried. “Laeden!”

Their retreating army slowed behind the safety of Threyna’s conjured wall to gawk at the Guardian. The implications of her presence were not lost on anyone as her light drifted overhead. Laeden swallowed the knot in his throat as he followed her light, floating across the lightning-cracked sky. She sailed over him, past him, still calling his name. Not as if she hadn’t seen him, but as if she weren’t even looking for him.

Like she doesn’t remember anything but my name…

Yet her voice was all too familiar to him. He thought he recognized it when she first arrived with Zephyrus outside of House Cassius. The Guardian denied his questioning.

“Your Iylea is gone,” the Guardian had said. “She’s at peace.”

It broke him, but he accepted it. He didn’t believe she was at peace—how could anyone be with the chaos in the mortal and divine realms alike?—but he believed the Guardian told him the truth. Time and time again, he denied it, despite every time he thought he heard her voice.

On the isthmus, as he lay dying with the Vykane Blade through his belly, he knew he heard her, but he’d believed she was calling him from the afterlife—the other side of the void—not from Zephyrus’s lips.

He nearly died. Only foolishness would have believed it was her, that she was here, alive. Hearing Iylea’s voice, unaltered by the Guardian’s attempts to conceal her true self, Laeden didn’t need to believe his ears. He listened to her rhythm. The resonance her soul gave off was undeniable. It vibrated within him, shaking him to his core.

“Your Iylea is gone,” the Guardian had said to him. Your.

It shamed him he didn’t realize sooner.

“She would want you to live for the future, not dwell in the past,” Iylea had said as he cried over his father’s and Markus’s corpses. “Live for her. Live for them.”

His heart broke a second time. Suddenly, it made sense. Why she challenged him, why she lingered over him when she could, why she opposed him when he volunteered to take the blood artifact.

Iylea…

Iylea flitted on the wind, sailing further and further away from him, still calling his name in desperation. The same urgency that tinged her voice when she begged to speak to him at the King’s Day Feast rang from her disembodied soul. He’d failed to hear her then, failed to listen when she told him she was a seer.

Not again. Never again.

Before he could think, he was running after her, bounding over the bodies of fallen Order legionaries. While the fighters of their army retreated at his own commands, Laeden ran the opposite direction, following Iylea’s light. Threyna’s and Laela’s voices shouted from behind, but he only half-heard them. Amidst the thrum of blood in his ears and the call of Iylea’s voice, their voices lost all sense, all meaning.

My Iylea…

She neared the blood-borne wall, already beginning to crumble to ash as their number had retreated to a safe distance. Colder than steel in his flesh, a pang of fear enclosed around his heart, thicker and more oppressive than the curse in his veins.

Where is she going?

“Iylea!” Laeden shouted. “I’m over here!”

Leaping over the black-clad corpses, Laeden couldn’t keep up. She was too far ahead, moving too quickly. Like a falling star, she disappeared into the glow of reaping spears beyond the ash of Threyna’s crumbling wall.

“No!” Laeden wouldn’t lose her again.

Amidst his heaving breaths, his pumping arms, and the squish of his boots through puddles of blood, he focused on the clarity of his Inner Trial. Blood-borne wings sprouted from his back like that of the Helixus pegasus. Airborne in three strides, buffeted by the wind off the sea, he flew towards her, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Jaw set, Laeden conjured a spear in his right hand and a rectangular shield in his left that extended past the gauntlet to shield his body from ground attacks. Rot slithered up his arm, but his heart beat with unrelenting fury. He charged through Threyna’s cloud of falling ash and met the radiant reaping spears on the other side.

With a roar, he raised his shield, and bowled through a column of legionaries. The combination of his mass and momentum paired with their unsuspecting postures sent them sprawling to the ground in droves.

Shouts rose up all around him, but Iylea’s cries rang louder.

“Laeden! Laeden!”

He spotted her light, her hue pulsing with panicked fervor. She zipped left and right atop the legions, searching, crying. Her yellow-green eyes flashed in his mind’s eye. The blush of her heart-shaped cheeks when he held her chin in his thumb and forefinger. The way her dimples framed her smile.

Veins throbbed in his forehead as he flapped his wings harder, faster, elevating above the legionaries’ outstretched reaping spears. Arcanatek whirred and fired, attempting to shoot him from the sky. His eyes remained fixed on Iylea’s light.

I will not lose you. Not again.

His curse wove through his bloodstream, slithering up his arm toward his shoulder, but he was gaining on her. Nearly there, he cried her name again. “Iylea, it’s me!”

Through the wind, against the clap of thunder, the warbles of arcanatek blasters firing into the sky, and the screams of the men shooting them, Iylea’s light stilled. No longer did she flit to and fro. No longer did she spin and zip. She remained still. The rhythm of her panicked soul smoothed into a beautiful melody that he’d happily spend the rest of his life learning to harmonize with.

“Laeden?”

Elation filled his heart as he charged for her.

Something surged into the sky behind her.

A legionary rose on bloody, spined wings. His black uniform blended into the dark abyss beyond. A blood-red carapace sprouted from his torso and wrapped around his body. Segments layered over his arms and down his legs until his entire body was covered. A horned helm with several points like a crested crown consumed the legionary’s shadowed face. Orbital bones framed black eyes. Gaunt features and bared teeth gave the blood mage the very distinct appearance of a skeletal king.

“Iylea!” Laeden beckoned her towards him, but it was as if she were frozen in place.

Her rhythm, a sweet song moments ago, crashed into discord.

“Iylea,” the Skeleton King said. “We meet again.”

Laeden’s breath heaved. His heart sank. And he was no longer in the clarity of his Inner Trial, but the hellscape of the Salmantic throne room.

Aemos’s white blade slashed through the air. Laeden’s reflection in Iylea’s pleading, yellow-green eyes hung slack-jawed. Immobilized. Helpless.

No. No. No!

His steel met her neck with a thwack.

Iylea!

Her head parted from her shoulders, spinning through the air in slow revolutions.

It thudded to the floor, spilling a trail of blood in its wake. Her body collapsed, twitching. Her severed head rolled to a stop at Laeden’s feet.

Failure.

“Don’t be rude,” the Skeleton King said. “We’re all going to the same place after all. Time to join the One True God.”

He drew upon Iylea’s soul.

Laeden screamed, and charged.

Threyna

Threyna’s feet left the ground as her blood-borne wings sent a torrent of wind beneath her. Already running after Laeden, she didn’t bother to see if Laela followed as she took flight. Air thrashed at her face and whipped her braid behind her.

Laeden shouted a name she only recognized from her time conjoined with Laeden’s subconscious—Iylea. The woman he loved. The woman he lost. The voice he thought he heard when the Skeleton King’s soul overtook Zephyrus’s body.

Flying with all haste, Threyna didn’t know if this was an elaborate trick by the Skeleton King to lure Laeden from the army, or if Iylea, the Guardian, had lost herself again.

She’d become confused and disoriented whenever she became separated from Zephyrus. If he ascended without her…

Laeden disappeared through the falling ash of her conjured wall. The flap of Laela’s wings disturbed the air beside her.

“What are we doing?” Laela shouted over the gale of rushing wind.

Threyna didn’t know. She didn’t have an answer. Not a good one. There was nothing logical about chasing after Laeden other than he’d need help if he were going to return.

“I don’t know,” Threyna said. “But we must do it together.”

They tore through the thinning ash. Threyna conjured her glaive. In Laela’s blood-forged hand, she held a bow, a slew of arrows already nocked.

A column of legionaries fumbled on the ground, struggling to regain their feet. The rest had their eyes set behind them where Laeden hovered in the air across from a ghoulish, blood-armored monster.

The Skeleton King.

Between Laeden and the Skeleton King, the orb of light, Iylea, drained of color as the Skeleton King drew in breath.

“Stop him!” Threyna said.

They surged toward Laeden, but not fast enough. Arcanatek whirred and fired, launching radiant bolts past them. Laela rose higher into the sky. Threyna swerved, narrowly avoiding a bolt.

Energy surged between Laeden and the Skeleton King as each fought to direct Iylea’s soul into them. Laeden might as well have been a drop of rain against the ocean’s wrath.

The curse blackened Laeden’s veins as he strained to hold Iylea from the vortex summoning her soul to join the Skeleton King’s.

Threyna sank into her Inner Throne as she flew as fast as she could to Laeden’s aid. The white walls of her seat of power pulsed as a throbbing red sun burned through the stained glass windows of her throne room. She shielded her eyes against the sheer volume of collected souls—more than she had freed from her Grandfather Bohen’s Heart of Darkness. Threyna climbed from her throne to peer out the windows and into the face of the blinding red sun.

She pressed against the walls, gazing into her Uncle Belrich’s seat of power. Unlike his father’s Heart of Darkness, his seat of power was an altar in the middle of a field. Belrich stood atop it while tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of souls ringed around him in a semicircle. Behind Belrich, a tall golden tower, set apart from anything else, stretched to the sky. Like a landlocked lighthouse, it glowed with a light that could only be what Belrich envisioned was the glory of the One True God. Around the top of the tower, the blackened souls of darklings circled like sentries.

Fear rippled through the kneeling and bowed worshippers. Not reverence. Not awe. Fear.

Threyna backed away from the window of her throne room and returned to her throne. She freed the souls she’d gathered from the isthmus from her Inner Dungeon. The doors to her throne room burst open, and a storm of souls surged into the room. Within moments, some tried fruitlessly to rip her from her throne, but she rebuffed them. Others crashed into her windows, attempting to break free from her seat of power.

She wished she had Laeden’s way with words. Even Vykinallia’s or Laela’s. But she didn’t. All she had was fear. Fear of being one of the infinite souls bowing before Belrich’s altar to Paxoran. Fear that, despite being surrounded by others in her circumstance, she would feel alone. Unlike the poor kneelers before Belrich’s tower, she had the power to do something about it. To topple the tower before it could be raised to Paxoran. To defeat Belrich and bring freedom to everyone.

“Silence!” Threyna shouted within her Inner Throne.

The swirling souls fell to an uneasy disquiet filled with frightened whimpering or puffed-up pride as if to prove that they weren’t scared.

“You’re afraid,” Threyna said. “But we all bow to the same master.” She glanced between the souls, no longer dark wisps or glowing motes of light, but in their stillness, they took on the translucent appearance of how Threyna imagined they must have looked in life.

“I am not your enemy. I am not your master. Fear is.” Threyna pointed to the stained glass window and the red sun beyond. “If you do not believe me, look to the red sun. See what fate awaits you should I fail.”

Souls, a few at a time, floated on soundless steps toward the windows. Others drifted towards the top of the window, swimming through the air, to view Belrich’s seat of power.

“He consumed his own soldiers,” Threyna said.

“Because the One True God wills it,” a soul said.

Threyna scoffed. “The One True God is named Paxoran. He lies. Manipulates people. Twists prophecies. He has murdered other Gods to get what he wants. Is this the will you wish to bow to?”

Silence greeted her.

Outside of her Inner Throne, she flew towards Laeden. His shield and spear fell to ash. Rot stained his outstretched arms as he strained to hold Iylea’s soul back from the consuming tides of the Skeleton King’s draw for one moment longer. Threyna was nearly there, which only meant she was running out of time to convince the other souls to join her.

“If we win,” Threyna said to the souls, “I don’t know what fate awaits us. But if the Skeleton King wins, if Paxoran, your One True God, wins—” Threyna swallowed.

Outside the walls of her Inner Throne, Iylea screamed for Laeden as the current tore her from his grasp.

“Then all hope is lost.”

Threyna didn’t have time to see if they’d join her. She didn’t have time to ask. Sinking into her throne, she joined her will to Laeden’s and strained to hold Iylea’s soul from entering into the Skeleton King’s hellish seat of power.

Iylea’s light—dimmed and drained as it was—flared to vibrant life, resisting the Skeleton King’s draw.

“Threyna,” Belrich said, “how kind of you to join us.” His black eyes locked on Threyna’s bangle. His tone darkened. “You should not have that.”

A tendril of blood extended from his hand and reached towards her. Threyna slashed at it with her glaive, but her blood conjuration fell to ashes before it could strike the Skeleton King’s grasping tentacle.

The tentacle divided in two on its own accord. One half coiled around her waist and squeezed. Her wings crumbled to ashes.

Beside her, Laeden groaned. The second half of the tendril grasped him, wrapping around his right leg and constricting his torso. His wings too, faltered in a raining cloud of ash.

Threyna strained. Her Inner Throne faltered around her. The souls from her Inner Dungeon, still divided, didn’t come to her aid.

The tendril snaked up her arm and entwined around her bangle.

“There is a certain queen who will be wanting this back,” Belrich said as the tendril tightened around her arm. “Besides, I don’t think you’ll be needing it. Not where you’re going.” The tentacle dragged the bangle down her arm towards her wrist.

Threyna spread her fingers and curled her wrist to keep the bangle from falling into Belrich’s possession, but the pressure constricting around her waist grew. The Aeryean Armor did not give beneath the Skeleton King’s force, but her bones not protected by the Treasure did.

Laeden grunted, continuing to fight for Iylea’s soul as she too struggled to save herself. Her light spiked with erratic shifts in luminescence and color.

Do something. Do something.

Her Inner Throne slipped from her grasp. She was ejected from her seat of power, and the souls she’d held and hoped to convince to join her in her fight against the Skeleton King floated into the sky. The Skeleton King drew in breath, and they all, like fish in a stream, flowed into his chest with barely a hint of resistance.

No. Threyna tried to regain access to her Inner Throne, but, like a double doorway sealed shut, she knew where she needed to go, but couldn’t get through. She clawed at the crack, trying to pry it open, but it didn’t give. A wave of exasperated futility crashed into her.

“Laeden!” Iylea cried.

“Iyle—” Choked off by rot and the bloody tendril wrapped around his torso, Laeden’s voice faltered.

Iylea’s light disappeared into the Skeleton King’s chest.

“No!” Laeden shouted.

Threyna’s muscles strained against the force of the tendril. Her mind struggled against the sealed door of her Inner Throne. Helpless.

Upon conjured wings, Laela flew around Threyna and released a volley of bloody arrows.

Hope bloomed in Threyna’s chest.

Each arrow crashed into the Skeleton King’s carapace-like armor, but none pierced.

Threyna’s hope withered and died.

Belrich laughed, dismissing the arrows to dust with a wave of his hand. “Laela! What a pleasant reunion.”

Her bow, blood-borne hand, and wings dissipated. She hung suspended in the air for a moment before a scream tore from her throat and she plummeted towards the ground.

“No!” Threyna cried, but her voice came out timid and small. Weak and powerless.

A third tentacle burst from Belrich’s hand and caught Laela by the ankle. Darklings erupted from the Skeleton King’s chest and flowed into Laela.

This can’t be happening. Threyna recalled her mother under darkling control. She couldn’t let it end the same way. She pounded on the walls of her Inner Throne, demanding to be let back inside. The crack in the wall tormented her, yet it would not acquiesce.

“Laela, fight it!” Threyna shouted. But more darklings poured from the Skeleton King into Laeden. “No, Laeden!”

The tendrils holding Laela and Laeden both released. Their conjured wings returned. Bloody blades formed in their hands, and hatred filled their eyes.

“All will join the One True God, Threyna,” Belrich said. The tentacle around her arm pried the bangle free from her wrist. “It is time to give up.”

Chapter 62

God Among Men

Fenyx VI

Valencia

The life fled Zephyrus’s eyes, but the betrayal lingered. Fenyx pulled Paxoran’s blood-forged dagger from Zephyrus’s ribs. The blade was long and thin, serrated and cruel. Such a blade was a death sentence.

Zephyrus tried to say something, but only blood and spittle left his mouth. Fenyx knelt atop Zephyrus, the victor. Yet the Hate within him did not rejoice. Here there was no cheering crowd, no clapping nobles. No love of the people or envy of the other gladiators. Instead of basking in the honor, glory, and laurels befitting a Champion, all he felt was emptiness.

“You’ve done it, Fenyx,” Paxoran said, tossing the hilt of the Vykane Blade to the ground. It clattered, flipped, and skidded to a stop near the base of the Celestial Falls trickling down the wall.

Paxoran picked up the sword forged from his own body, admiring the weapon Fenyx had used to slay the Valencian Gods. “Bring the false Gods to the anchor room. Let us display your trophies for the Creator’s arrival.”

Fenyx nodded, but he didn’t avert from Zephyrus’s gaze. Trophies. The word held meaning to him, but the concept it represented felt lost. The withered corpses of once-majestic beings did not fit the description for trophies.

“Do not delay,” Paxoran said. “I have waited long enough.”

Paxoran held the sword in both hands and reached it up to the vaulted ceiling of Valencia’s high halls. The sword melded to his hands and began to shrink. The power held within the blade emptied as the vessel, housing the essences of the Gods, melted into him. His ashen skin glowed scarlet; his pale crimson eyes flared back to vibrant life.

He groaned in satisfied pleasure. His frail body contorted as he grew not only taller, but broader. Seams stretched until his black cloak burst beneath the stress of Paxoran’s growing bulk of layered muscle. The red lightning beneath his naked skin stretched, forming around him like scaled red-and-black armor that put Fenyx’s golden helm, pauldron, and bracer to shame.

The sickly old man never appeared like a God to him before, but now, as Paxoran’s crackling, blood-red and deep black armor framed his imposing figure from head to toe, there was no question. Yet he was no God of Peace.

Kneeling atop Zephyrus, but before Paxoran, Fenyx felt small.

“Follow my instructions and you will be a God among men,” Paxoran had promised. “A legend for the ages.”

“Fenyx,” Paxoran said, a bloody crown forming atop his head, “I will not tell you again.”

Fenyx grunted, suddenly understanding the truth of their relationship. He should have noticed it earlier. A God among men. Not Paxoran’s equal.

The other Gods attempted to warn him, but he couldn’t hear them. He refused to listen.

“You won’t get away with this,” Moterra had said after Fenyx cut her down.

“I will,” Paxoran had said.

I. Not we. I.

That by itself wasn’t an indictment, but Phaebia, for all her brashness, spoke against Fenyx’s faith in Paxoran as well. “How many lies has Hameryn sold to you?”

Even Ferrocles said Paxoran would eventually run out of uses for him, and he’d been right. Fenyx believed he was above Ferrocles—chosen by Paxoran himself to be his right hand. But now, as Zephyrus’s blood stained the marble floor, Incinerae’s words returned to him.

“Glory will not nourish you, F-Fenyx,” Incinerae had said. “Love will. But I promise H-H-Hameryn will not l-love you. Nor will he glorify you.”

The conjured dagger, vicious with its serrated edge, fell to ashes in his hand. Everything he wanted, everything he thought he wanted—his plans, his purpose, his glory—crumpled to ashes as well.

His empty hand formed into a fist. I should have seen this coming. It was one thing to ignore the Gods who had ensured his life in the mortal realm ended in emptiness, but it was another to reject Zephyrus.

“He gives you exactly what you want, Fenyx,” Zephyrus had said. “Glory. He offers you glory in exchange for your enslavement to him.”

For all his faults, Zephyrus had been nothing but kind to Fenyx. He’d mended his broken fingers before the Games of Stockhelm, saved his life from Stegavax at the King’s Day Games, risked his own life by healing the wounds he shouldn’t have survived—and through it all, Fenyx still hadn’t been able to see past his vainglory to hear a friend.

The memory of Auron’s hand on Fenyx’s shoulder broke the callousness surrounding his heart. “Without the love of your brothers,” Auron said, “who will defend your back?”

Paxoran’s hand squeezed Fenyx’s shoulder. “Fenyx…”

The threat within Paxoran’s tone gripped him firmer than the ashen fingers cracked with red lightning. His touch lacked the compassion of a caring doctore, or the tenderness of a brother-in-arms. Absent warmth, his looming pressure offered only dread, like the hands of a master upon a slave.

Heat flooded Fenyx’s burned skin. The Hate, the Burning—they combined, morphing into something else, something greater.

“You’re not alone, Fenyx,” Auron had said. “At least, you don’t have to be.”

Fenyx stood to his feet and stared up at Paxoran’s red eyes beneath his pointed crown. He bowed his head, but defiance raged within. “Yes, Paxoran. At once.”

Paxoran nodded. “I will summon the Creator.” He strode away towards another room, opposite to the Hall of Mirrors. As Paxoran’s footsteps retreated, fading into the distance, so too did Zephyrus’s heartbeat.

The light in Zephyrus’s eyes simmered, like watching a once-raging fire smolder to embers with nothing left to consume. No pride. No glory. No victory.

“The chain,” Zephyrus said, his lips a bloody red in contrast to his pale flesh. “Sever the chain. Please.”

Zephyrus didn’t ask why he’d done it. He didn’t beg for life. He only stared at the vaulted ceiling of the anchor room, his gaze blank. Empty.

“Zephyrus…” Fenyx said.

No answer.

A stone formed in Fenyx’s throat. He dropped back down to a knee and placed his hand, wet and sticky with blood, on Zephyrus’s chest.

No heartbeat. No breath.

Burn me.

Fenyx balanced the scales, prepared for the pain. His Celestic magic, his healing abilities, had saved one life before, but Stegavax’s condition was never this dire.

This could kill me…

A sharp spike stabbed into Fenyx’s side. Jagged claws tore at the flesh between his ribs. No blade struck him, but the pain surged like lightning. Muscle tore. A razor’s edge scraped against his bones. Warmth trickled down his abdomen and drained from his cheeks.

Fenyx gasped through gritted teeth, but Zephyrus’s blank stare remained. His still chest didn’t dare rise. The silence born of the absence of breath echoed through Fenyx’s soul.

Wake up…

More flesh tore as if the serrated blood blade Paxoran forged had carved into his thorax and ripped free, ruining everything it touched in the process. Fenyx winced, but before he could prepare himself, another jagged puncture plunged back into his torso. The wind escaped Fenyx’s lungs. Bile climbed his throat.

Fenyx wanted to let go, to give up.

“You are my true brother from this day forward.”

His own words slashed across his mind as the serrated blade tore through his torso again. Already kneeling, his opposite hand fell to the ground, splashing into a pool of Zephyrus’s blood. His white robes drank the dark blood with utter disregard for Fenyx’s efforts to right one of his many wrongs.

“Continue down this path, Champion, and you will walk it alone,” Auron had said. “You will die on it alone.”

If Fenyx failed to save Zephyrus, he had no doubt Auron’s words would come to pass.

But with another thrust of the dagger in his side, Fenyx could no longer withstand the magnitude of pain. Groaning, he fell to Zephyrus’s side. The right side of his body sank into Zephyrus’s sticky blood. His left hand, burned and scarred as it was, clung to Zephyrus’s chest, white mist still flowing into his brother.

“Wake up,” Fenyx pleaded.

His eyelids felt heavy. The stabbing pain ended, but mending Zephyrus’s eviscerated flesh dulled his other senses. The metallic scent of blood faded. The taste of bile on his tongue disappeared. The pristine halls of the anchor room darkened to death’s door.

“Zephyrus. Wake up.” The sound of his own voice, muffled and distorted, lacked the conviction to make Zephyrus’s chest rise again or beat with life’s rhythm. Fenyx closed his eyes, but nothing stopped the room’s spinning. Nothing ended the pain.

“I’m sorry,” Fenyx said.

The healing mist that could save ceased. The pain echoed in a rhythmic aftershock of everything he’d endured—everything he’d put Zephyrus through.

Da-dum.

Da-dum.

As if from far away, a voice spoke, strong and defiant despite the distance. Anger, raw and unbridled, agonized through each word. “Light my path.”

Fenyx tried to open his eyes, but they denied him. It was a woman’s voice. Not Paxoran’s. Yet as she spoke, something in Zephyrus moved and warped like twisting metal.

“Darken my stride.”

Da-dum.

Da-dum.

Zephyrus’s arm nearest Fenyx rustled. Through slitted eyes, Fenyx could barely make out what he saw, but the bracer around Zephyrus’s wrist removed itself and shot toward a blurred figure, stained in blood.

“Carry my soul.”

Zephyrus’s leg twitched. One of the greaves about his shins came alive and flew from Zephyrus to the woman Fenyx had stabbed through the back moments ago.

Zephyrus saved her.

“Buy me time.”

The last phrase sent Zephyrus’s last greave toward the woman. Fenyx’s vision, despite his fatigue from healing Zephyrus, regained a degree of focus. Tears streamed from blue eyes beneath a sharp-angled brow to trickle down flushed cheeks. Red hair hung over stooped, quivering shoulders.

She glared at Fenyx, her breath coming in shuddered waves of repressed emotions too powerful to be held back.

Fenyx raised his hand toward her to plead for mercy, but his arm moved too quickly compared to the woman stalking towards him, who appeared to move in slow motion. A sudden burst of light radiated above Zephyrus. The warmth coming forth greeted Fenyx’s flesh like the rising sun. He shielded his eyes from the glow and turned away.

The woman strode over to Fenyx. Her unnaturally slow footsteps returned to a normal cadence that made Fenyx feel like he was no longer in a distorted time bubble. She knelt down beside Zephyrus.

“Live,” she whispered. “Vykanicus… you must live.”

Vykanicus? Fenyx’s mind sank below the surface of focus, drowning in questions.

The woman’s glare found Fenyx. She stood to her feet and pursed her lips. The love and loss lining her face when she looked at Zephyrus turned murderous once her gaze fell upon him. She stepped around Zephyrus’s feet and loomed over Fenyx.

A shadow stretched forth from the obsidian bracer about her wrist towards Fenyx.

This is how I die.

The shadow slithered towards him like a venomous serpent. It coiled around his wrist and snaked up his forearm, tightening as it ascended. With a tug, firm but gentle, the shadow hauled Fenyx to his unsteady feet.

He stared at the woman, unable to form words.

“Bring him to the Hall of Mirrors,” the woman said. “Go before—”

A door swung open in slow motion on the opposite side of the anchor room. Paxoran towered over a figure clad in a white gown. The flowing silks, and the woman within them, were strangled by bloody bindings that wrapped around her wrists and ankles and gagged her mouth.

“Fenyx!” Paxoran roared. “You too dare to defy me? Fine. Then you’ll all die.”

Chapter 63

Red Sky

Iylea VII

The Altar of Agony

Though Iylea had refound herself, guided by her connection to Laeden, she was still lost. The Skeleton King drew her soul into the hellscape of his seat of power, where all she could do was watch as Laeden and his allies waged war against the Order’s legions.

“All will join the One True God.”

Before her, within the mind of the Skeleton King, concentric semicircles of kneeling people bowed their heads before the altar where Belrich stood at the base of a tower that rose to the clouds. Encircling the tower, darklings swirled, as if defending something. Something the Skeleton King nor Paxoran wanted anyone to reach.

A pressure on the back of her legs, behind her knees, compelled Iylea to drop to the ground and bow to the servant of the One True God, as countless others already had. Resisting, she remained standing.

A whimpering soul beside her stole a glance at Iylea. The likeness of a woman trembled. Hands clasped, forehead resting on her conjoined fists, her complexion was a reddish gray. She squinted as if the cerulean blue of Iylea’s spectral form was too bright to gaze upon.

Before Iylea could mutter a word, the woman’s eyes squeezed shut, and her ribs racked with stifled sobs.

“It’s over,” said another lost soul, over and over again.

Iylea refused to accept that. Slowly at first, she strode between the columns of the kneeling. Her light drew the attention of those around her, but she quickened her pace. The Skeleton King stood behind a stone tablet stained with blood.

As the war waged outside the Skeleton King’s Altar of Agony, he summoned one lost soul at a time to the stone tablet. Some willingly, most reluctantly, but no one defied the Skeleton King’s orders. One by one, the Skeleton King sacrificed souls to the altar to continue sourcing his endless destructive power to use on Laeden’s allies.

I’m not lost.

The moment Zephyrus had left her, she’d lost her sense of purpose, sense of meaning. She just existed—a shade with only the distant memories of dreams and desires.

“Find Laeden,” Zephyrus had said.

She had to fight to remember that. She had to claw through her own mind to discern its meaning. Though she couldn’t remember who Laeden was or what he looked like, she knew he had given her hope before. She knew hope was worth fighting for again. She found him. He fought for her. And Iylea would not let it end here.

Iylea continued through the lines of people. An imposing force impressed upon her mind, compelling her to stop, to kneel, to beg and plead for meaning. Iylea ignored it. Her spectral feet ran through the fields of trampled grass toward the source of the oppression robbing the lost souls of their senses.

A soul struggled against an invisible force that dragged him to the Skeleton King’s altar. Iylea ran faster, but not fast enough.

I’ll never make it in time.

The soul lay down on the tablet, emitting a wave of fear throughout Belrich’s seat of power. The wave washed over her. Cries rippled throughout the kneeling souls. Similar to how Ferrocles’s death woke a combative aggression in the mortal realm, the Skeleton King’s mere presence aroused a growing dread made stronger by the supplication of others.

She’d lost everything several lifetimes ago. Self-preservation no longer mattered.

Iylea grit her teeth and charged forward. Her churning feet rose above the grass. Ignoring the laws of nature, she flew towards the Skeleton King.

The Skeleton King raised a blood-forged dagger over the chest of the soul laying on the altar.

Iylea surged forward, flying faster and faster. Just as he brought the blade down, Iylea charged through him.

The bloody dagger dissipated to ash. The Skeleton King stumbled backwards. Iylea turned with her momentum and circled around the Skeleton King, hovering to a stop atop the altar. Whatever force the Skeleton King had imposed on the soul released.

The soul stumbled free from the tablet, scurrying away.

The kneeling souls stirred, but did not break from their confines.

Iylea stared down the Skeleton King. “You won’t win.”

The Skeleton King laughed. “I already have. All will join the One True God. And I have made it possible.”

Iylea glared. Darklings circled the top of the tower. If there was a way of stopping him, of helping Laeden and the others, it was there. If the Skeleton King could take control of Zephyrus’s body, I could do the same to his.

With as much force as she could muster, Iylea crashed down on the bloody tablet. Stone cracked beneath her force, sending fissures to all corners of the tablet. She sprang upwards—half jump, half flight—towards the top of the tower.

“Stop her!” the Skeleton King shouted.

The patrolling darklings dove for her.

Iylea did not back down. Bracing for impact, she tore through the air towards them. Their souls collided with hers. These were the blood mages in the Skeleton King’s Order. Each held a number of souls still trapped within their own bindings, but none of them had lived and died as Iylea had. The strength of their wills, even amassed together, were no greater than a stiff wind against her progress.

“Stop her!”

Iylea surged past them, through them—towards the tower. Darklings invaded her, but she rejected each as they came. A conjured web of blood rose before her, but Iylea swerved, avoiding the snare. Another group dove for her, but Iylea’s light rebuffed them.

In the world beyond the tower, Laeden fought the Skeleton King. Rot stretched up his neck, corrupting the face she’d loved and lost.

I’m coming, Laeden.

She blew past a darkling, wove through a group of three, and bowled over another two attempting to bar her way. The light of her soul burst through them, dissipating them to mist.

She launched inside the tower window.

A glowing pair of red eyes stared at her. Absent a face, a body, or anything resembling humanity, the red eyes bored into her.

We all have a part to play.

Iylea engaged the red eyes in a contest of wills. Her mind entwined with Belrich’s. His life experience, extended by the curse of Rheynia and the blood magic, was greater than any one soul she’d encountered before. Yet he’d only used the souls he’d consumed. He hadn’t lived as they lived or died as they died—not as she had as the Breaker of Chains. His life—power-lusting. His rule—loveless. His reign—paranoid.

Despite his capacity for experience, Belrich’s life was empty.

Iylea surged into the void. Her compassion thrashed at his hollowness. Her hope assaulted his fear. Her love consumed his bitterness. Belrich’s soul cried out and fled the tower.

Iylea seized control.

Seeing the world from the Skeleton King’s eyes, bloody tendrils stripped a glowing white bangle from Threyna’s arm. Laeden and another woman Iylea only recognized from Belrich’s mind as Threyna’s sister flew on conjured wings and charged at Threyna, weapons in hand.

Swallowing her panic, Iylea called upon the Skeleton King’s blood magic. She dissipated Laeden’s and Laela’s weapons and drew in breath to resummon the souls Belrich had sent into Laeden and Laela.

“Laeden,” Iylea shouted with the Skeleton King’s lips. “It’s me, Iylea.”

Darklings poured out of Laeden and Laela, but not all. If she drew too much upon him, she could end up ripping his soul from his body too.

“I’ve taken control of the Skeleton King,” Iylea said. “Fight. Eject the others!”

Something crashed into Iylea with impossible strength, staggering her.

“Nice try,” Belrich said, his voice a chorus of a thousand others. A twisted grin parted his face, glowing red. Behind his eyes, the souls of all those kneeling in the fields gazed at her.

Before she knew what was happening, she was falling. Not from the tower in Belrich’s seat of power, but in the mortal realm. Lightning cracked across the sky. Wind wailed as it whipped from the raging sea to the walls of Salmantica.

“No!” Iylea shouted, powerless again.

Reorienting herself, she spun. The Skeleton King’s armored form held both arms out to the sides. A hailstorm of bloody spears formed across the sky, blotting out the black clouds and the lightning storm beyond.

“This ends now!” the Skeleton King shouted.

The red sky of spears began to fall.

Chapter 64

Sever the Chain

Arkadia II

Valencia

The sickly, red-eyed Hameryn who stalked the halls of Valencia was gone. A towering mass covered in blood-red armor with a pointed crown atop his head replaced him—Paxoran, the ancient God of Peace.

Dragged before him, bound at the wrists and ankles, the Creator’s silver irises contrasted their onyx skin. They stared, wide-eyed and unblinking. Though gagged, horror wrinkled their bare scalp as their pupils dilated to take in the scene of the anchor room. Blood soaked Arkadia’s soiled shift and pooled on the marble where she and Vykanicus had been struck down.

They chose us to stop this menace. We failed.

Arkadia’s fists clenched at her side as she snarled, her brow angling to a point. The spirits of the Corners of Kataan strengthened her resolve. Helios’s and Lunellia’s bracers, Klayvorine’s and Kosmar’s greaves armed her, but her son’s body on the floor before her and her husband’s corpse in Arcamedes’s tower flared the wrath within.

It’s not over yet.

“Go,” Arkadia whispered to the Harbinger. “Get him out of here.”

Paxoran’s gaze locked on his servant, Fenyx. “You utter fool. Do you have any idea—”

Arkadia didn’t wait. From Lunellia’s bracer, she conjured a wall of shadows that stretched across the anchor room, covering Fenyx as he dragged Vykanicus toward the Hall of Mirrors. Beyond the veil of shadows, Arkadia had no way of knowing what Paxoran did on the other side of her partition, but she knew what she had to do.

“Sever the chain,” Vykanicus had said.

She didn’t know why, but if it was her son’s dying wish, she would see it done.

Tapping into Kosmar’s greave, she entered the immaterial plane and zipped towards the chain where it passed through the hole in the anchor room’s floor. Arkadia reemerged from the immaterial plane beside the chain and conjured a shadowy sword in her hands. She reared back as the darkness took shape, materializing into what—she hoped to the Corners—could break the chain. Not just destroy a link, but the connection between realms.

Before it could form, something—many somethings—slammed into her wall of shadows. The bellowing sound that resonated from it disturbed the Celestial Falls. In Arkadia’s momentary hesitation, a dozen scarlet tendrils burst through the shadowy curtain, streaking for Vykanicus.

Arkadia tapped into Klayvorine’s greave and slowed time. The precious moment it bought her allowed her to slip back into the immaterial plane and reappear between Fenyx and the tendrils. Black sword in hand, Arkadia slashed at one, deflected another with her bracer, then summoned a solar beam from her other bracer to cleave three more in half. The clipped tendrils faded to ash.

Drawing more upon her control over time, she sped herself up. Between her hyper-speed and the tendrils’ lethargy, Arkadia carved through each. As the last fell to ash, Fenyx dragged Zephyrus into the Hall of Mirrors and closed the door. Her control over the shadows dissolved. The wall she’d conjured fell like a curtain, revealing the nightmare beyond.

Paxoran charged in slow motion. Stalks sprouted from Paxoran’s back and fanned out, bending and twisting like the horrific half-spider, half-scorpion beasts that once infested the Palogian Isles. With each stride, the limbs grew until they reached the ground and lifted the hulking Traitor God’s feet from the marble. As he closed in on Arkadia, a web-like cocoon ensnared the Creator and pinned them to the wall.

Her grasp on time slipped away, and no shadow-sword she could conjure would compete with the long, curved scythe forming in Paxoran’s armored hands.

Just as Paxoran slashed at her with his scythe, Arkadia dipped into the immaterial plane. The scythe passed through where her body was a moment before. She darted between Paxoran’s conjured legs and returned to the physical plane behind him. Helios’s bracer glowed bright before releasing a radiant blast of light and heat. The blast struck one of Paxoran’s back legs at one of the segmented joints. The leg crumbled to ash, but seven others remained to support Paxoran.

Paxoran spun, shooting a web of blood at her.

Arkadia jumped directly at it, once again dematerializing. She passed through the web, through Paxoran, and returned to her corporeal form. Another charge of radiant energy burst from her bracer, aimed at Paxoran’s back.

The shot singed two spider legs at the base where it attached to Paxoran’s torso, but the solar beam winked out of existence before it could strike Paxoran’s body.

Arkadia tucked into a backflip and landed on her feet in a low crouch.

How did that not hit him?

Paxoran twisted, whipping his scythe in a wide arc. Arkadia leaned back to avoid the slice, the wind of which rustled the tattered fabric of her shift. Before she could plan her next attack, the momentum of the scythe reoriented into a diagonal slash.

Arkadia dove out of the way. Springing to her feet, she formed a shadowy spear and buckler. She countered Paxoran’s slash with a thrust. The Moon Goddess’s shadow-conjured spear broke past Paxoran’s defenses and caught him in the midsection.

At least, it should have.

Before it connected, her conjuration dissolved to nothingness, leaving no sign of ever connecting with Paxoran.

The red scales of Paxoran’s armor were not born of the same blood conjuring as his spider’s legs, webs, or his scythe.

They’re red aeritan scales. Just like when I fought Arcamedes…

Paxoran laughed as she realized the ineffectiveness of her magic against him. He shot another web at Arkadia. She lurched out of the way. Avoided a second snare by leaping into the immaterial plane, then ducked under a third.

Before she could counter, a swiping spider’s leg caught her in the midsection and sent her rolling across the marble floor. Before she could press herself up, a web ensnared her, binding her to the ground.

“Arcamedes sure knew how to make armor,” Paxoran said. Holding his scythe in one hand, he held the hilt of the Vykane Blade in the other. “Too bad you don’t have this.”

The blade of Vykannis the Brave, reforged with the blood of her family, extended from the hilt. It shouldn’t have been possible, but his blood magic forced the blade to obey.

Paxoran’s severed spider limbs regrew. They bent, allowing his feet to grace the ground beside her. With the scythe over his shoulder, he aimed the Vykane Blade at her chest.

“The Creator’s best…” He scoffed and stabbed down at her.

Arkadia conjured a blinding white light before Paxoran’s eyes, casting a terrible shadow behind him. She called upon the darkness, and as Paxoran shielded his eyes, shadowy tentacles slithered around his spider legs and coiled around his torso.

It wouldn’t hold him long, but it allowed Arkadia to slip back into the immaterial plane and free herself from Paxoran’s web.

She reappeared across the anchor room, buying her time and space. Her breath rattled her ribs. A sheen of clammy sweat coated her skin, mixing with the blood soaking her shift.

How am I going to stop him?

Her magic couldn’t damage him. Without a weapon, her only option was stealing the Vykane Blade from him, and even then…

A scream roared from the Hall of Mirrors, but the door remained closed, offering no sign of aid. The Creator, gagged and bound to the wall in a chrysalis-like snare, could do no more than watch helplessly, their eyes glowing a bright silver.

The chain. Sever the chain.

Arkadia tapped into all four Corners’ relics.

With Paxoran’s arachnid legs bearing down on her, Arkadia conjured a shadowy axe in her hand. She closed her eyes. Blocking out the stampede of Paxoran’s charge, she listened to her breathing. She pictured the crank beside the hole in the anchor room’s floor.

Palm moist with sweat, heart thudding, Arkadia waited for Paxoran to draw nearer.

Wait…

The marble rumbled beneath her bare feet. The air rustled at Paxoran’s approach, disturbing the loose hem of her shift. She gripped the axe in both hands and lifted it behind her head. Paxoran was nearly upon her.

Corners, do not let me fail.

With a deep breath, she took two steps forward, reared back, and threw the axe in a high, arcing, end-over-end toss. Her momentum carried her forward into the path of Paxoran’s swinging scythe. The axe sailed over Paxoran’s head as Arkadia’s soul entered the immaterial plane.

She emerged behind Paxoran in full stride, her eyes fixed on the axe descending its arc. Arkadia slowed time as she chased the axe. She extended her arm, reaching for the haft as she approached the crank that held the chain in place.

She caught the handle. The momentum of the shadow-axe nearly sent her spilling to the marble floor, but she maintained her footing. Two strides away from the crank, she wound back the axe-head.

With as much force as she could muster, she brought the axe around and slammed it into the crank. Metal whined as the crank supporting the chain bent. The reverberation rang throughout the hall. Vibration rattled up Arkadia’s arms. She brought the axe down again with another clang. The metal twisted more, wrenching under the weight of the souls it held.

One more strike.

She wound back to deliver the final blow, but fire pierced through her back as the Vykane Blade erupted out her shoulder. The shadow-axe slipped from existence. Panting in strained gasps, her knees buckled as blood gushed down her already stained shift.

No. No. No.

“You lose,” Paxoran hissed. The scythe screamed through the air.

Chapter 65

Soldiers and Statues

Vykinallia IX

Salmantica

Vykinallia’s conjured sword met Damascus’s steel. The reverberation of his force shot up her arm. Before she could find a gap in his armor to think of attacking, his sword clanged against her shield. Once, twice. Vykinallia angled her shield to let the third strike skid off. Ducking beneath the ricochet, Vykinallia slammed her shield arm’s elbow on the back of the pew to her left. She winced, and Damascus took advantage.

As nerve pain shot from her elbow to her ring and pinky fingers, she could barely hold her arm up to defend against Damascus’s heavy blows. She reached across her body with her sword to deflect the next strike, but doing so opened her guard.

Damascus planted his steel boot into her stomach.

Vykinallia fell onto her back between the pews.

Damascus advanced, rearing a two-handed vertical strike overhead. Nowhere to move left or right, Vykinallia let her momentum carry her feet over her head in a backwards roll. Tangled in her Vigile cloak, she shoved it aside just in time to see Damascus’s thrust.

Her blade turned it aside, directing it into the pews.

Vykinallia countered, slashing at the joints in Damascus’s armor, but the segmentation of the King’s Guard Knights’ armor had few gaps. Her blood-borne blade blazed across the crimson plates, but found no purchase.

Elsewhere in the Basilica, steel met flesh. A pained groan erupted, joining the screams of the Drake Guards and the Sentinels secured in her soul-empowered binding tree. In the nave, Aelon’s sword ripped free from one Vigile’s chest, then slashed across Heclan’s thigh, buckling his knee. Heclan grunted, maintaining his footing, but his subsequent slash sent him stumbling off-balance.

He won’t last much longer.

Rot spreading from the effort of holding back the guards and Sentinels, Vykinallia conjured a fist that struck Damascus in the ear. As it tossed Damascus off balance, Vykinallia vaulted over the pew. Running along the row of seats, she leapt into the nave.

She slashed Aemos’s armored back, but Aelon, clad in Damascus’s armor, deflected her. The last standing Vigile besides Heclan took advantage of Aelon’s distraction, but Haedron stabbed him through the arm. With a quick turn and a horizontal hack, Haedron opened the Vigile’s neck with a spray of gore.

Vykinallia called upon the Vigile’s exposed blood and turned it into a round shield on Heclan’s forearm just in time to block Aelon’s overhead attack. Instead of cleaving through Heclan’s arm, the blood-forged shield caught the blow.

Before Vykinallia could see Heclan’s reaction, Aemos’s blade sliced at her throat. She dodged out of the way, only to find Damascus attacking from the rear. She spun away, trying to keep them in front of her, but she stumbled over a fallen King’s Guard Knight.

Catching herself before falling again, Vykinallia conjured a spider’s web around Aemos’s unhelmed face. It slowed Aemos’s advance, but Damascus lunged for her. She blocked a strike, deflected a thrust, and ducked a diagonal chop intent on parting her head from her shoulders.

“Haedron,” Heclan pleaded. “Stop this.”

“Kill him!” Aemos shouted.

Vykinallia shoved Damascus back with her shield, allowing Heclan room to retreat. Haedron pursued Heclan and the trail of blood leaking from his leg. Aemos tore the web from his face. Damascus squared off, ready to charge again.

But where is Aelon?

Tapping into her Inner Arena, Vykinallia sensed his heartbeat too late. She spun just in time for his blade to slip through her white robes, the cuirass, and her flesh beneath.

She gasped.

The chill of the steel sent ice through her veins. Scarlet blood blossomed around the tear in fabric at her midsection. Bile rose to her throat. She shoved Aelon away, reaching for her Inner Arena.

There’s blood, bodies, souls. I can heal.

Stumbling away, Vykinallia drew in breath. The bodies of the dead broke down, emitting a cloud of red mist that flowed towards her.

Not fast enough.

Damascus attacked. Vykinallia blocked, but her sword was torn from her hand. The blood blade fell to ash the moment it left her fingers. Damascus’s second strike battered her shield. His third rendered it a cloud of ash.

Tripping over her feet, she labored her way toward the cloud of blood she’d drawn from the bodies of the fallen. The blood cloud flowed into her nose and mouth. The wound began restitching itself, but Damascus’s assault would not wait.

She conjured a half-forged blade that blocked one more blow before Damascus sent her sprawling to the ground a second time. Ash fell around her. She crawled on black-stained hands. Though the pain in her stomach continued, the intensity subsided, and the cold faded. Yet the souls she used to entangle the guards and Sentinels wouldn’t hold much longer. She needed more time to heal, an extra moment to reground herself within her Arena so she could continue fighting. But the rot continued to spread, and there were no more souls to consume.

Unless I kill them all.

Her eyes drifted to the screaming guards and Sentinels.

She could do it. One command and every limb of her twisted spire could snap the necks of the bound guards. She could consume their souls and defeat Damascus with ease.

She bared her teeth. Damascus’s greedy heartbeat thundered as he approached. The lust of his rhythm, the rage of his tempo, the hatred of his melody—a song of destruction.

They don’t deserve it. Damascus does. Find another way.

They were victims. Damascus’s victims, society’s victims—Paxoran’s victims.

Freedom for all.

She didn’t know how Zephyrus did it—fighting other slaves he wished to save on the sands of the arena, where one misstep could have meant his life. She recalled the King’s Day Games. The broken blade Lenox fixed him with. The poisoned white root Stegavax gave to Fenyx. Zephyrus was alone. Surrounded. Hopeless.

Yet he held out hope until the last possible moment.

She turned to face Damascus. He chopped down at her. Sparks struck from the stone as she backed away, scooting backwards on her hands and feet like a crab. He thrust at her midsection. Vykinallia conjured a small buckler just in time to catch the strike. She wrenched to the side, throwing Damascus off balance.

Her spire began burning to ash, lowering the entangled soldiers to the ground. Vykinallia drew power from the souls in her Inner Arena, knowing it would release the guards from their grasp. The rot abated enough for her to conjure a swarm of stilettos. Razor-thin and small enough to slide between the plates of Damascus’s armor, the daggers dove for Damascus.

A dozen needle-like points thudded into his armor. Each plumed into ash, unable to pierce the plate, but they served as a distraction. With Damascus’s arm raised to shield his face from the flying daggers, two more stilettos formed in her hands. Healed enough to continue the fight, Vykinallia launched herself at Damascus.

Slipping inside the reach of his long sword, she gouged at the joints in his armor. He slashed blindly at her. The wind of the strike jostled her hair as she ducked under it. She stood and punched her dagger into the joint of his armpit.

Damascus barked. Aelon came for her, but Vykinallia slipped around to Damascus’s backside. She slashed at the back of his knee, drawing a ribbon of blood from the gap in the armor. He roared, swinging a two-handed strike at her head. Vykinallia rolled beneath it and swept her shin into Damascus’s ankle.

He fell back.

Vykinallia switched to a reverse grip and plunged the dagger at the gap between the helm and gorget.

Aelon thrust.

Vykinallia jerked away, unable to finish her strike. Her dagger hissed a shrill cry as the point of her blood blade scratched at Damascus’s breastplate, missing its mark. Damascus rolled to the side and clambered to his feet while Aelon, wearing the king’s armor, attacked. Vykinallia parried a thrust, sidestepped a second, and thrust at the gap in Aelon’s elbow.

Her point struck home.

Aelon’s arm went limp. The sword fell from his grip. Before Damascus could advance on her, she slipped around Aelon and held the dagger tip to the gap at Aelon’s neck.

“Stay back,” Vykinallia warned Damascus. “We can end this. We can fight on the right side. Together. It’s not too late.”

Damascus panted through his helm. His golden eyes searched her. They both knew she didn’t want to kill Aelon. She didn’t want to kill anyone.

Off to the side of the Basilica, the guards and Sentinels she’d secured returned to the ground, now covered in the ashes of her conjuration. The rot continued to seep through her bloodstream to her heart, but the souls trapped in her Inner Arena were free, at least from her.

Behind Damascus, Heclan slid his blade to Aemos’s hilt. In a quick twist, Aemos’s blade clattered to the floor.

As Haedron came to Aemos’s aid, Heclan drove the hilt of his sword into his nephew’s helm, knocking it from his head. Haedron wobbled, stunned. Heclan’s fist crunched into Haedron’s nose, and his armored body collapsed to the ground. Before Aemos could reclaim his discarded blade, Heclan’s steel stopped at Aemos’s scarred nose.

“Enough!” Heclan shouted, his shoulders heaving. His sword rested against the apple of Aemos’s throat, lifting his chin to the vaulted ceiling. Haedron lay on the ground, spitting blood, his nose crooked.

“Please, my king,” Heclan said, blood draining from several wounds, evident by his no-longer-white cloak. “I beg you, do not make me do this.”

Damascus lifted his visor. He shook his head and gestured to the side of the Basilica. The clamor of half a hundred Drake Guards and Sentinels ran through the pews to close in on Heclan and the King’s Guard Knights he put down.

Damascus glanced back and forth between Heclan and Vykinallia. “That’s the problem with people like you. You don’t realize when you’ve already lost. You fight. You waste. And yet you change nothing!” His voice echoed throughout the Basilica.

Aelon’s heartbeat galloped in a nervous, asynchronous rhythm. His breath trembled as it passed his lips. The guards neared, but they brought Aelon no comfort.

He doesn’t believe he’s won. He knows Damascus won’t stop.

Vykinallia eyed the guards gripping and regripping their swords with as much unease as Aemos held at sword point.

“No, Damascus,” Vykinallia said. “You’re the one who does not see. You hide behind the Facets of Perfection, but you don’t live by their commandments. You don’t care for your people. Not Aemos. Not Haedron. Not Aelon. Not your mother, your guards—the people who would have laid down their lives for you. You only care about yourself.”

Damascus’s golden glare fixed on her as he stalked closer. “I am king! They live to serve me. Guards, seize them!”

Time stood still in the Basilica. Men shuffled their feet, shifted their weight, or glanced between the pews at one another, but no one moved.

“I said seize them!” Damascus shouted, glancing down the line of black-clad guards and gray-and-blue Sentinels.

The guards and Sentinels remained as still as statues.

Vykinallia released Aelon. The King’s Guard Knight inhaled sharply, drawing breath as if he feared he’d never again have the opportunity. He stepped aside, removing his helm. His dirty blond hair clung to his forehead. His pale blue eyes searched her.

“Gratitude,” Aelon said, clutching his wounded arm.

He backed away, averting his eyes as Damascus glared at him. Damascus’s cheeks burned red, his eyes flared like blazing suns. He limped from the wound at the back of his knee as he spun to face Vykinallia.

“It’s over, my king,” Heclan said, lowering his blade from Aemos’s throat.

Vykinallia let her stilettos fall to ashes. The Drake guards and Sentinels sheathed their swords. The collective scrape of steel against leather as they put their unbloodied swords away brought a smile to Vykinallia’s face. Though rot invaded her bloodstream, hope thrived in her heart.

Chapter 66

A Different Kind of Battle

Fenyx VII

Valencia

Fenyx dragged Zephyrus inside the Hall of Mirrors and closed the door. The phantom pains in his stomach from balancing the scales of Zephyrus’s mortal wound persisted, but he would live. Fatigued as he was, he was still alive, still breathing—for now.

Shouts and grunts passed through the walls. The woman would only be able to hold off Paxoran by herself for so long. Zephyrus held breath in his lungs, but he remained unconscious—useless in a fight. Fenyx himself, unarmed against a God of Gods, would have put up a similar resistance.

Fenyx pressed his back to the door, breathing heavily.

I must do something.

He looked around the room for something to use as a weapon, but, upon seeing the mirrors, immediately averted his gaze. Every time he saw his reflection, it was worse. As if his sins weighed on his appearance, his reflection no longer seemed human but a haunting skeletal ghoul with Paxoran’s red eyes. He should have seen it before. He should have believed everyone who told him not to trust Paxoran.

I didn’t. And now I must bear the consequences.

The bodies of the Gods he’d slain littered the floor in a heap. Withered, decayed—a shell of their former glory. Fenyx couldn’t look at them either. Zephyrus’s stillness wasn’t a better sight.

Fenyx grunted. His fists balled at his sides, yet he had no one left to blame. Not the Rheynian slavers, not the Celestics fighting for the Uprising, not the Judges, the Gods, the Creator—only himself. Every fault, every failure, they all lay at his feet. A pile of bodies. And a friend he never appreciated or accepted. And, worst of all, he’d made him an enemy.

Fenyx closed his eyes as the fighting continued in the anchor room. He could help, even if Zephyrus could not. Getting in Paxoran’s way could give the woman a chance to defeat him. Otherwise, Paxoran would just kill him once he was done with her.

I am dead either way.

No Hate flared within him. The Burning remained as silent and still as the bodies piled on the floor. The strength he derived his fury from was gone, leaving not a void in its wake, but something else—something… other. Yet it did not give him the desire to fight or birth in him the unquenchable pursuit of glory.

Paxoran laughed in the anchor room beyond—a deep, bellowing mockery of a laugh.

Fenyx banged the back of his head into the door behind him. He slammed it again and again. And what began as a growl in the back of his throat rumbled into a scream. He ripped the bracer from his arm and threw it into the wall opposite him. It crashed into the mirrors, shattering glass, and sending shards of broken frames clattering to the ground. He stripped the belted pauldron next and launched it across the room, wreaking similar havoc upon the Hall of Mirrors.

With nothing left to throw, his back slid down the closed door as he sank to the floor. Head in his hands, he was a boy again, trapped in a burning deer hide tent smothered in oil. A helpless boy who couldn’t defend the idols of the Judges he’d taken from his parents’ bodies. A scared boy sold into slavery. A terrified orphan, given a wooden sword and a dream of glory.

No one in his village owned a sword. To his knowledge, no one had ever held one, let alone lifted one with anger in their hearts. They’d stayed away from the groups prophesying the Return, stayed away from rebel factions like the Fallen who’d hid throughout Klaytos. Yet the slavers came for his village anyway, slaughtering half and enslaving the rest.

We were mages. Healing mages.

He raised his gaze towards the mirrors along the wall, but it was not his reflection that stared back. Nor some ghoulish figure in his likeness.

A beautiful person with skin like the night sky and eyes like burning stars stared back.

The Creator…

Fenyx stepped around Zephyrus, never taking his eyes from the Creator’s.

“It is not over, Fenyx,” the Creator said, their voice echoing.

Fenyx bowed his head before the reflection of Paxoran’s prisoner. “I can’t fight.”

“You were raised to fight a different kind of battle,” the Creator said.

The words rang with familiarity. “We fight a different kind of battle,” his mother had said that night, before the slavers attacked.

“Before the sword,” the Creator said, “you wielded a different weapon.”

Fenyx inclined his head, meeting the Creator’s silver eyes. Their reflection filled every mirror in the hall.

“We do not always choose our battles,” the choir of Creators said. “But how we fight them—that is up to us. Become the man you were born to be, Fenyx. The one you have been all along.”

Fenyx glanced back at Zephyrus, lying still on the floor. We fight a different kind of battle. He had never understood what his mother meant, but he did now.

He turned to the mirror, but the Creator was gone. In their place, Fenyx saw his own reflection. Burns scarred his left cheek. A scar traced down his right like a tear. But he was not poxed, frail, or skeletal. He saw himself, his own reflection—spare one difference.

The eye on the burned side of his face glowed a pale silver like the Creator’s.

He strode to Zephyrus’s side. With a deep breath, he placed both hands on Zephyrus’s chest. “We fight a different kind of battle,” he said to Zephyrus. “Brother.”

Power radiated within Fenyx. Not the Burning. Not the Hate. Something far greater. From his fingertips to Zephyrus’s body, energy flowed in a white mist. As if the sting of pain had been taken away, the scales didn’t need to be balanced. Vitality surged into Zephyrus. A white aura burst from Fenyx’s fingertips, encompassing Zephyrus until he glowed with the ferocity of lightning, but the persistence of stars.

The unbalanced scales continued to pour healing life into Zephyrus, but the end of whatever the Creator had bestowed on Fenyx emptied. Zephyrus hadn’t woken yet. With the Creator’s power spent, Fenyx poured into Zephyrus from his own vitality.

“This is how I fight,” Fenyx said. “This is how we win.”

Fenyx’s eyelids grew heavy, and his arms grew weak, yet he didn’t stop. Just as the Burning had sustained him when all else failed, and the Hate had surged through him when all seemed lost, now Hope kept him conscious. Hope kept him giving. Hope kept him fighting.

Beyond fatigue, beyond exhaustion, Fenyx emptied his essence into Zephyrus. Just as unconsciousness began to strangle him, Zephyrus’s eyes snapped open. His right eye glowed with the Creator’s radiance.

Chapter 67

The Nine

Zephyrus XIV

Valencia

Zephyrus’s eyes snapped open.

Fenyx, kneeling beside him, wobbled before slumping to the ground. Zephyrus sprang up and rolled Fenyx onto his back. Eyes closed, chest rising and falling in the gentle rhythm of unconscious breath, Fenyx lived. Recalling his own last moments of consciousness, Zephyrus’s hands inspected his ribs.

Blood soaked his Vigile whites, but the flesh beneath didn’t protest his touch.

You healed me…

Looking around, broken bodies littered the floor adjacent to Fenyx. Along the walls, mirrors of different shapes and sizes reflected the gruesome scene. Some mirrors were cracked, others shattered completely, but as Zephyrus stood, they all reflected the same image.

Zephyrus recognized himself, but his right eye glowed with a silver sheen. Staring, his reflection changed. His left eye turned green; his hair darkened to a chestnut that fell to his shoulders in wavy locks. His beard faded; his skin tanned with the sun’s kiss. Vykinallia stared back at him.

Before he could react, the face morphed again. One eye browned, while the other remained silver. The hair straightened, shortening to a shoulder-length mahogany. Laeden’s clean-shaven, princely face stared back.

The face in the mirror changed again. A silver-blonde braid hung past a pointed chin. Lips parted in a devious grin below a bright blue eye and a silver one. Threyna’s visage departed as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a thin face framed with pin-straight black hair and one gold eye to join the ever-present silver. Contorting again, the eyes rounded, the gold iris yellowed and greened. Her narrow, pale face flushed; her cheeks filled to a full heart-shape following the contour of her honey-blonde hair.

Iylea.

Iylea’s complexion darkened, and her facial structure filled out. A glaring brow, a strong jaw, and a determined stare met Zephyrus’s gaze. Hair retreated, and burns scarred the left cheek, until Fenyx’s reflection appeared. The burns receded, but a web of scars blossomed. With almond-shaped eyes, bronze skin, and short-cropped black hair, Patrus nodded.

Patrus’s reflection dissolved to a sad smile beneath a sky-blue eye he recognized immediately. Before the rest of the figure could take shape, Zephyrus spun toward the door.

Mother.

Not looking back at the mirrors, Zephyrus charged through the doors and burst into the anchor room.

Before him, Paxoran, clad in red scale armor, erected by eight blood-spawned spider legs, thrust the Vykane Blade through the back of his mother’s shoulder.

His mother staggered. The shadow-conjured axe in her hands faded to nothingness.

Zephyrus’s eyes widened. Paxoran drew back a scythe with one hand and swung in a horizontal arc, aiming to cleave her in half.

No time to cry out. No moment to get to her aid. Zephyrus thrust his arm towards her. Force magic shoved her back. His mother left her feet and sailed through the air. The scythe whisked past, but missed as she crashed to the floor.

Paxoran whipped his crowned head towards Zephyrus. His disdainful red glare fell upon Zephyrus like a storm. Pale lips parted in a sinister grin. “I suppose I will get the pleasure of killing you after all.”

Zephyrus stared past Paxoran. His mother, Vykane Blade still embedded through her back and out the front of her shoulder, writhed on her side—still alive. Arm tingling, he pointed at Paxoran. “Let’s finish this, then.”

Paxoran’s scythe twisted into a spear. Rearing back, he flung it at Zephyrus’s chest.

Zephyrus stepped aside, catching the spear in both hands. With a spin, he hurled the blood-conjured spear back at Paxoran. It dissipated to ash before it made it halfway toward its target, but Zephyrus chased after it, charging at Paxoran. Atop his spider’s legs, Paxoran skittered across the marble towards him.

Zephyrus manipulated the light around him, obscuring him from sight. Silencing the beat of his heart, he hid from Paxoran’s blood-magic-senses. Allowing his tingling arm to go weaker, Zephyrus ducked underneath a swiping spider leg and launched upwards. His fist became stone as he punched through the joint of one of Paxoran’s blood-spawned spider legs.

Paxoran thrashed, seeking where Zephyrus had gone.

Ash from the broken limb fell around him. Zephyrus sidestepped a pair of stomping legs and turned his other fist to stone. With a horizontal hook, Zephyrus punched through another leg at a lower joint.

Paxoran stumbled, and Zephyrus leapt out of the way of a slashing limb.

“Show yourself!” Paxoran roared.

Zephyrus kept moving. With careful footwork, he navigated the six remaining limbs and slipped behind Paxoran.

Blood pooled beneath his feet as Paxoran prepared a conjuring.

Using his force magic, Zephyrus shoved into the ground and launched himself clear of Paxoran’s vicinity. As he flew through the air, bloody pikes erupted from the floor all around Paxoran. Zephyrus landed out of reach.

Paxoran spun, searching for Zephyrus. “You can’t hide forever!”

The crank holding the chain, bent and twisted, only needed a little extra persuasion to fall. Sever the chain. Zephyrus ran for the crank, silencing his footsteps. Paxoran released a spray of bloody mist from his hands. The manipulation magic that bent light and dampened sound couldn’t stop the mist. It clung to Zephyrus’s white cloak.

One of Paxoran’s spider legs swatted at him. The impact hit Zephyrus in the ribs, lifting him from his feet. He sailed through the air and crashed into the wall adjacent to the Celestial Falls before hitting the ground with a thud.

Air fled his lungs. He drew in short rasping gasps. Paxoran conjured a storm of spears that floated over his head.

Prying himself from the marble floor, Zephyrus lurched out of the way just in time to avoid the first spear. It crashed into the wall beside him, cutting off his path to the crank. Zephyrus retreated, attempting to outrun and evade Paxoran’s spears. The second and third chased after him, but the fourth slammed into the marble wall just behind him. Zephyrus stopped short, and the fifth skewered the white stone wall before him.

The sixth came straight at him. He couldn’t dodge. With his arms already weak from using force magic, he turned his hands to stone. His joints went slack, but he held his hands out in front of him. The spear point plunged into both his palms and broke through the other side, stopping just before it could reach his torso.

Pain exploded through his palms and raced up his arms. Heat rushed to his cheeks.

The spear bent, manipulating into twisted manacles that bound his hands and wrists together. Drawing upon the heat in his body, Zephyrus set the manacles on fire. It set the sleeves of his Vigile uniform aflame and burned his flesh. Zephyrus screamed. A chill coursed through his veins, but the manacles sizzled to cinders. His stone skin faded, and the twisted spear fell to ashes, leaving gaping holes in the center of Zephyrus’s palms. Spiraling burns snaked up his arms, leaving his sleeves in tatters.

Before he could defend, Paxoran was upon him, blood-borne sword in hand. Utilizing the tipped scales, Zephyrus placed his mangled hand to the wall behind him. Sending a stream of water into the wall, he propelled him towards Paxoran faster than the Traitor God expected. Zephyrus slid beneath Paxoran’s slashing sword. As Paxoran spun to locate Zephyrus, his spider legs slipped on the wet marble left in Zephyrus’s wake. Taking advantage of Paxoran’s disorientation, Zephyrus allowed his knees to wobble and his stance to waver atop the dry marble beneath him.

As Paxoran charged at him, Zephyrus unleashed a bolt of lightning.

The water conducted the electricity. Crackling bolts jolted up Paxoran’s spider limbs. The joints buckled and descended to ash, but if the electrocution reached Paxoran himself, his red scale armor showed no signs of wear.

Like Tyrus’s eye. Void magic.

Zephyrus glimpsed his mother’s fallen form as she struggled to get up.

If I can get the Vykane Blade, I can defeat him. But first…

Paxoran charged for Zephyrus, this time on two legs. A halberd formed in his hands, the spear-tipped point aimed at Zephyrus’s chest. The blood-spawned weapon had an elongated scythe-like hook on one side of the spike and an axe-like blade on the other. Paxoran’s towering form dwarfed Zephyrus, so he would have to make up for it with speed.

As the scales rebalanced, Zephyrus ran towards the crank. Paxoran adjusted his course, attempting to cut Zephyrus off.

Legs pumping, heart hammering, Zephyrus launched himself across the hole in the anchor room floor towards the crank on the opposite side.

With Zephyrus’s arms and legs propelling him onward, the hook of Paxoran’s halberd caught in his bloodstained Vigile cloak. His momentum slowed, only to be redirected as Paxoran spun. The hook flung Zephyrus into the air. Fabric tore, and Zephyrus flew.

Disoriented and unable to tell which way was up, Zephyrus crashed down hard. The marble drove the air from his lungs. He wheezed, fighting to get to his feet, but only found his knees.

Paxoran stood before him, separating him from the damaged crank. He aimed the halberd’s spike at Zephyrus’s heart, only a thrust away. “You cannot defeat me.” He angled the halberd toward Zephyrus’s mother and another woman ensnared in a bloody spider’s web on the opposite wall. “No one can defeat me.”

Struggling to breathe, kneeling before the Traitor God, Zephyrus balanced the scales. He wilted, allowing his strength, his defiance, and his will to submit. Energy coursed through him, but he held it back, letting it build into a furious storm. The contained tempest swirled, crackled, and begged to be released, but still, Zephyrus held.

Unable to support himself, his hips sank back to his heels. His hands—a bloody, gaping hole in each palm—rested on his thighs.

“You’re right,” Zephyrus said. “No one can defeat you. But all of us will.”

Zephyrus held out his mangled hands, no longer able to contain the electric fury.

A blinding bolt of lightning shot from his hands, illuminating the Celestial Halls of Valencia in gleaming radiance. The reflexive stiffness washed over him as the scales rebalanced, but he only saw spots. Blinking away the colorful orbs to steady his vision, Zephyrus found Paxoran standing before him.

The Traitor God released a bellowing laugh that filled the vaulted ceiling. “After all that—” Paxoran stalked forward and shoved Zephyrus’s shoulder with his foot. “—you missed.”

From the ground, Zephyrus glanced past Paxoran. “No, I didn’t.”

Metal twisted. Marble cracked. The crank supporting the chain that connected the mortal and divine realms snapped and fell into the hole in the center of the room.

Chapter 68

Peace

Threyna IX

Salmantica

Inner Throne—lost. Healing artifact—taken. The Skeleton King won.

Laela and Laeden charged towards her with darklings in their hearts and blood-borne blades in hand. The tendrils choking the life from her constricted tighter, yet in the back of her mind, as death closed in around her, all she thought about was what Laeden said on the isthmus.

“Is it possible that a new seat of power would serve you better?”

She didn’t want to be queen. She never had. She’d never wanted anything. Zephyrus was the only thing she’d ever wanted, and not even for the right reasons. Her dream of them sitting atop the cliffs, overlooking the ocean at sunrise, returned to her.

Peace. That is what I want.

Threyna reached for such a place within her mind. Her sanctuary atop the cliffs. The crash of distant waves, the scent of the sea breeze, the glimmer of orange ripples upon the gentle tides. The squawk of gulls as they sailed across the purple sky, the golden sun rising from the horizon to bathe her in its warmth.

Peace.

Her reality was anything but. Laeden and Laela neared on blood-spawned wings with corrupted magic in their veins, intent on murder. She would never know peace. After all her running, all her fighting, she would still join the One True God.

“Laeden!” The Guardian’s voice shouted from the Skeleton King’s mouth. “It’s me, Iylea.”

The tendrils around Threyna slackened. The healing artifact remained suspended before her. Darklings poured out of Laeden and Laela; their blood-borne weapons faded to ash.

“I’ve taken control of the Skeleton King,” Iylea said. “Fight! Eject the others.”

Threyna searched for a new Inner Throne—her Peace. It opened its arms to her, and she to it. She stood atop the cliffs before the rising sun, the sea breeze in her hair, and the birds’ song in her ears. She drew in breath, and the ejected darkling souls obeyed. She consumed each and drew upon their power.

She commanded the tendrils constricting her to slacken, allowing her to reclaim the healing artifact. Placing the bangle atop her scars, she rendered the tendrils to ashes. She fell a short distance before reanimating her wings. Swooping back around, she conjured her double-bladed glaive. As Laeden dove for her, another darkling ejected from his body.

“Threyna!” Laeden shouted.

“Consume it!”

Laeden drew in breath, drinking in the soul. The black veins stretching across his face recoiled.

Something crashed into her from above. A tangle of limbs and conjured wings sputtered, spinning her through the air. Laela clawed at her, screaming with a voice not her own.

“Laela, fight it!” Threyna cried.

Tapping into her Peace, Threyna sought for the soul warring within Laela’s Center of Silence. She reached within, sifting between her sister and the Skeleton King’s blood mage that robbed her of free will.

She drew in breath, draining the darkling from Laela’s body. No longer grappling, they both flapped their conjured wings to stabilize their fall.

In the moments since the Skeleton King’s emergence, armies converged on both sides of the Order. Those defending Salmantica’s city walls reengaged, but another front surged to attack the legionaries’ flanks.

The Fallen? A well of hope filled her reserves. We can still win this.

Overhead, a glowing light fell from the Skeleton King.

The Guardian.

“Iylea!” Laeden shouted.

“This ends now!” the Skeleton King cried, his arms stretched out to either side. The black sky, torn asunder by bolts of forking lightning, turned red with conjured spears.

The sky began to fall.

Spears streaked towards the ground, ready to skewer ally and enemy alike.

Threyna opened her arms, conjuring a shield wide enough to stop the Skeleton King’s rain of death. Her shield grew, but not fast enough to cover the span of the falling spears.

Spears thudded into her shield, but many more streaked past, surging towards the unsuspecting armies below. Laeden and Laela conjured shields of their own to intercept the missiles she missed, but they weren’t enough.

Spears rained down, and people—legionaries, refugees, freedpeople—would die. Threyna dove, attempting to buy her conjuration an extra moment to expand. Laeden and Laela followed, but too many spears fell.

Then, without cause, her shield began to dissolve. Holes broke through, and ashes rained down. A moment later, she was falling. Not flying. Falling. Her blood-borne wings left a trail of ash as she plummeted from the sky. Laeden’s and Laela’s conjurations smoked to ashes as they fell beside her.

Arms flailing, too terrified to scream, Threyna crashed into a group of legionaries, spilling them to the ground. Though their bodies broke her fall, pain lanced from her back to her sternum. She drew in breath, but a stabbing sensation stretched across her ribs. The legionaries she scattered gained their feet and surrounded her, Laeden, and Laela, who fell nearby.

She tried tapping into her Place of Peace, but it was gone. Unreachable. Not in the way Tyrus or the Skeleton King had been able to seal her out, but as if it never existed in the first place. Confused and wheezing, she gripped her ribs with one hand and forced herself to her feet. She drew the only weapon she had—her dagger. Stolen from her grandfather and passed down by her father, its hilt, embossed with the word Pure, felt familiar in her hand. Yet as she grunted into a fighting posture, the legionaries’ eyes weren’t on her.

The Skeleton King fell from the sky, red armor peeling away in a streak of ash. He crashed into a group of the screaming legionaries not too far away.

The bloody spears raining down upon them a moment ago dissipated to ash, falling in lazy arcs like gentle snow. The wind no longer whipped. The sea’s tides no longer crashed upon the cliffs. And beyond the falling ash, the black clouds and ever-present lightning storm cleared.

The blue-and-white bangle dropped from Threyna’s arm to the ground in a liquefied puddle. Like a snail, it slithered away from her. Legionaries backed away from it. As men parted, the red-and-black blood artifact approached. The two opposites crept towards one another.

Following the path of the blood artifact, Threyna met Laeden’s eyes. The rot staining his skin receded as the veins retracted down his neck, disappearing behind the collar of his surcoat.

A sullen stillness ruled over the battlefield. Legionaries backed away from where the Skeleton King had fallen. As he stood, the rest of his armor crumbled to heaps of ash at his feet. The bloody skeletal helm faded, leaving a man’s face. Not her uncle’s, just a man—the body his wretched soul inhabited.

He held out his hand, as if to conjure a weapon.

Nothing happened.

Threyna still could not sense her Peace either. Laeden and Laela appeared equally as estranged from their seats of power. The blood magic—the curse—was gone.

Zephyrus did it. He severed the chain.

Chapter 69

Temple of Lies

Danella XI

Salmantica

Danella didn’t dare move. Didn’t breathe. The temporary peace of the room was so fragile she didn’t trust it would survive such a disturbance. When the rumble of thunder, threatening to collapse the walls of the mighty Basilica, didn’t upset the balance, Danella granted herself permission to move once again.

Hand to her chest, she stalked along the wall. Long rows of pews separated her from where Vykinallia held conjured daggers to Aelon’s neck, begging Damascus to surrender.

“Stop our son,” Varros pleaded from beyond the grave. “This war will ruin him.”

Vykinallia released her captive, and Aelon backed away, one arm bleeding at his side, the other raised defensively.

“It’s over, my king,” Heclan said, lowering his blade from Aemos’s throat.

Vykinallia’s magic-incarnated daggers dissipated to ashes. The Drake Guards and Sentinels lowered their steel; many sheathed their blades at the sight of Heclan and Vykinallia’s mercy. But one sword remained level.

Damascus did not lower his guard. Wounded as he was, he kept the blade fixed at Vykinallia’s belly. His cheeks reddened beneath his raised visor. His golden eyes burned.

I have to do something.

Varros hadn’t been able to convince Damascus to stop the path she’d set him upon. Vykinallia—once his betrothed—wielding a magic that sent black blood through her veins hadn’t been able to sway him either. Despite the surrender of his King’s Guard Knights and the defiance of the Drake guards and Sentinels at his back, he still would not relent.

Thunder shouted louder as if the storm outside were descending on the Basilica.

Breath held, Danella remained crouched and slipped between the pews on the opposite side of the nave from the Drake guards and Sentinels.

As Heclan leaned down to help his nephew, Haedron, from the ground, spoke. “Enough blood has been spilled. For righteous reasons or wrong, too many have died already, and many more will suffer if we…”

Not watching where she was going, Danella stepped on something that didn’t belong.

A dagger’s hilt protruded from beneath her foot. The discarded blade, likely belonging to one of the dead archers along the outskirts of the Basilica, brought memories to mind.

Heclan continued speaking, but Danella was no longer listening. All she could think about was her dream: Damascus’s sword in her hand, an obsidian dagger in Damascus’s. Varros’s hands upon Damascus and Laeden’s shoulders, counseling peace.

“Stop our son,” Varros had begged her. “This war will ruin him.”

She hadn’t listened.

Damascus drove the dagger into Varros’s stomach. Again. Again. Again.

Danella shuddered.

“Your manipulative rule will crumble, and all you hold dear will be lost in the rolling tides of vengeance, unless you—”

The dagger was in her hands before she realized. Damascus’s back was towards her on the opposite end of the pews as all eyes were on Heclan.

Is this the only way to stop him?

Dread drowned Danella. Despair filled her lungs, and death climbed her throat, tasting of bile. Her stomach churned, and her knees buckled, but the dagger in her hands offered a solution.

“Stop our son.”

“An army is outside our walls,” Heclan continued. “An enemy that our enemies are dying to protect us from. My king, we must join with—”

“I will not join the mages,” Damascus roared, turning his disdainful glare on Vykinallia. “The Six will save us from this enemy and that. But only those who have faith. I have not lost mine!” Damascus’s voice echoed throughout the Basilica, rivaling the booming thunder outside.

Damascus jousted his sword in Aelon’s direction. “Have you?”

He spun on the Drake Guards and Sentinels. “Have you lost faith?”

Tears welled, held back by Danella’s lashes. The Gods are dead, but what will it take to convince him? Nothing would. Nothing could.

The hilt weighed heavy in her hand. There’s only one way. Her fist closed around the leather grip, but a chill ran through her heart.

With all eyes on Damascus, no one else saw Aemos’s lids blink over smoky gray eyes. Something sinister passed over his scarred face. Without a sound, his hand dropped to the dagger at his sword belt.

Danella’s eyes widened. She drew in breath to shout, but too late.

Aemos tore the dagger from its sheath and launched himself at an unsuspecting Heclan.

Haedron stepped in front of his uncle. He caught Aemos’s dagger in his gauntleted palm. His momentum threw them both to the ground in a fit of swinging armored limbs.

The back of Aemos’s head slammed onto the stone. Haedron’s armored fist smashed once, twice, thrice into Aemos’s face. Aemos slashed his dagger at Haedron, but it clanged off his armor and clattered to the ground. Haedron’s fists continued pummeling Aemos.

The Basilica went still. The only sound was the thunder outside the walls and the sickening crunch of metal breaking bone within.

Aemos was no longer moving, but Haedron didn’t stop punching. The crushing of bone and cartilage was replaced by the soft sound of steel-reinforced knuckles squishing through brain-matter. He didn’t stop until Heclan pulled him away.

Aemos’s arms and legs twitched, but only a mess remained where his head should have been upon the carpeted nave. With Aemos pulverized beyond recognition, Danella might have mistaken him for Damascus in his red-and-black armor. She couldn’t let this be his fate. He was still her son. Still her boy.

She dropped the dagger.

“Enough!” Danella shouted, drawing everyone’s focus. She strode through the pews to the red carpeted nave until she stood between Damascus’s blade and Vykinallia. “How many more must die, Damascus?”

Damascus lips curled back in a snarl. “As many as it takes.”

Danella sniffled, as a pair of tears broke from the corners of her eyes. “This is not you.” She shook her head, not wanting to believe him. “You were a good boy. A kind boy with love in your heart and faith in the Six. I ruined that. I poisoned the good in you. I led the Revivalists against your father, believing it was what the Six wanted. I had Vykinallia abducted and delivered to the Uprising so you would destroy them. It is my fault. I drove you to this hatred.”

Danella crept towards her son, fingers interlocked, pleading for him to listen.

Thunder crashed as if Valencia shouted its rejection of her.

“Damascus,” Danella said, shaking her head. “I wish it weren’t so, but I was wrong. This is The Age of the End; it has come for all of us. The Six of Valencia are dead.”

Damascus, her son, the boy she’d made king, stared at her, nostrils flaring.

“Please,” Danella said. “What will it take for you to see the truth? Please…” She held out her hand to him.

Damascus’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Blasphemy.”

He reared back his sword, its tip aimed straight for her stomach.

Danella closed her eyes, knowing his repulsion was the last thing she’d ever see.

Yet as she did, thunder boomed, and the world shook.

Danella opened her eyes to find everyone’s gaze, including Damascus’s, upon the ceiling. Fissures tore through the stone along the vaulted ceiling. Support beams cracked. Stone arches crumpled, and the ceiling above the altar collapsed.

Many shielded their heads and ran for cover, but Danella could only watch as glory rained down.

The falling debris crushed Aquarius first. From the top of his head down to the base, the statue crumbled. Beside him, more stone rained down, cleaving Moterra’s shoulder from her body. The next stone sent Moterra tumbling into Phaebia, and Phaebia into Ferrocles. Rubble fell, showering the altar in devastation. The statue of Incinerae was next to collapse as more of the ceiling fell in.

Shielding her eyes from the bluster of dust and debris, Danella cowered backwards into Vykinallia. When the dust settled, what was once an altar to the Valencian Gods was strewn asunder, buried beneath piles of rubble and smothered in the ceiling’s wreckage.

Hameryn’s head lay atop the pile, lilting to the side.

“He did it,” Vykinallia said, so softly that Danella barely heard.

Danella spun towards her. The black veins that invaded Vykinallia’s youthful face and slithered into the whites of her green eyes receded. Like shadows fleeing the light, the corruption slipped from her cheek toward her ear and disappeared.

A golden glow illuminated Vykinallia’s skin, and a smile split her lips. “He really did it.”

Danella didn’t understand, but followed Vykinallia’s gaze to the hole in the ceiling. Through the Basilica’s broken roof, golden sunlight poured in, backed by a blue, cloudless sky.

Damascus removed his helm and let it clatter to the floor. He fell to his knees, staring at the wreckage of the statues built for the Six.

Silence reigned. Men blinked at one another, unsure what to do.

“An enemy is at our gates,” Vykinallia said. “Will you join me in defending our city?”

Hobbled as he was, Heclan stepped forward. “I will.”

Haedron followed his uncle. “I will.”

“I will,” Aelon said, clutching his wounded arm.

One by one, every sword and shield rose to Vykinallia’s request, but Damascus remained kneeling, staring sullenly at the wreckage of the Gods.

Vykinallia patted Danella on the shoulder. Setting her jaw, she lowered her chin in the barest of nods. Danella returned the gesture.

As Vykinallia, Heclan, and the others left through the Basilica’s broken front doors, Danella remained with her son. Absent the thunder and lightning, the remains of the Royal Basilica rested, still and somber enough that soft stifled trembles of her son’s breath carried through the empty pews.

Danella knelt down beside him.

He turned to her, hair matted, cheeks flushed, and golden eyes bloodshot. “It’s true?” he asked. “Everything… all of it?”

Eyes searching her for answers, his hands fidgeted, holding the obsidian dagger that had murdered Varros. Passed down from her father, given to her brother, and left to her son, it had brought with it a flood of blood. Rolling tides of destruction brought on by pride, manipulation, or vengeance—it had drowned their kingdom.

Family. Faith. Future. All built on lies.

Danella put her hand over Damascus’s, holding his quivering fingers. Meeting his gaze, she swallowed her own grief. She shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s true anymore, Damascus. That’s the truth; I don’t know.” She blinked back more tears. “I only know that I was wrong. And I’m so sorry.”

Damascus hung his head. His armor clinked as he shook with soft sobs. “What now? What are we supposed to do now?”

Danella pursed her lips and sniffled. “I don’t know.” She pried the obsidian dagger from his hands. “But it won’t be found with this.”

She set the dagger aside and set her sights through the hole in the Basilica’s roof to the blue sky beyond.

Damascus inclined his head. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

Danella took a deep breath. Surveying the rubble left in the wake of the six collapsed statues, she shook her head before returning her gaze to the sky beyond. Somewhere, she hoped Varros was looking down on them—not happy, per se, but hopeful.

“Yes. And no,” Danella said, allowing a smile to crack her grief. “The Age of the End… but it brings with it a new beginning.”

Chapter 70

For New Rheynia

Laeden XIV

Salmantica

His Inner Trial—his seat of power—vanished. Conjured wings smoked to ashes, and he plummeted to the legionaries below. Ashen wings and tumbling limbs spilled out uncontrollably. Fear choked off his scream as he neared the mass of Order soldiers. Reaping spears angled, more in an attempt to escape than attack Laeden, but his body collided either way.

The gathered troops broke his fall, but leather armor could only absorb so much. His ribs crashed into a shoulder. Something popped. Someone screamed. A tangle of bodies sprawled beneath him, each fighting to regain their feet first. Laeden drew in breath, wincing as he shoved himself upright. He sought to reclaim his Inner Trial, but he couldn’t locate it.

Surrounded, he drew his sword.

Laeden’s eyes darted left and right. Threyna and Laela had fallen too, but their exact positioning was only a guess based on the sections of fallen legionaries. His ribs groaned as he inhaled. His left shoulder hung limp, sending tingling down his pinky and ring fingers, but as he prepared himself to fight, the legionaries’ focus was on the comet falling from the sky.

Higher than anyone else, the Skeleton King’s conjured red armor trailed behind him in a stream of cinders as he fell towards the earth. He crashed into a group of legionaries unable to get out of the way.

As the Skeleton King hit the ground, an uneasy quiet hung over the battlefield. Battle cries ceased. The clash of blades faded. Shouted commands were cut short. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as the ashes of the Skeleton King’s conjured spears floated in slow descension.

In the absence of the ever-tolling rumble of thunder that had persisted unceasingly in the past days, the hollow atmosphere made Laeden question if he’d lost the ability to hear.

The prongs of his gauntlet released with a pair of clicks.

The black-and-red cursed gauntlet melted into a noxious red liquid that slid from his hand and puddled on the ground. Legionaries backed away as the blood artifact slithered, but unlike when it had left Vykinallia to attach to him, it seemed utterly unconcerned with finding a new host. At least not of the men around it. Legionaries parted until the battlefield opened up.

Opposite Laeden, Threyna stood in the wake of the healing artifact. Blue and white, red and black—the two divine artifacts slithered towards one another.

Like blood draining from his face, Laeden felt the rot corrupting his veins recede and vanish. Through the falling ash, bright blue broke through the retreating black clouds, igniting the sky with hope.

Zephyrus did it.

Bathed in a golden aura that made her silver-blonde braid beam like a torch against the night of the Order’s black uniforms, Threyna must have known it too. Shoulders heaving, the pinch of her brow softened, and the angle of her cheek rounded into a rare smile.

A glowing orb, as bright as the sun, floated over Threyna, hovering over the battlefield.

Iylea…

“The One True God is dead!” Iylea shouted. “Surrender and—”

“Impossible!” the Skeleton King screamed.

Legionaries stepped aside to see their leader.

Absent the conjured armor, the draconic wings that sprouted from his back, or the blood-borne crown atop his head, he didn’t appear any different than any of the other legionaries, aside from the madness in his eyes.

“This is a test of faith,” the Skeleton King said. “Attack! All will join the One True God!”

Time stood still. The number of men surrounding Laeden was insurmountable absent the power granted by his Inner Trial. But it was gone as surely as the Gods.

Iylea floated over to Laeden until she hovered above him, but there was nothing she could do to protect him. Part of him half expected Zephyrus to stream down from Valencia with the power of the Gods and wipe out the army of legionaries, but such tales, such endings were for storybooks. There would be no defender to save the day, no hero to defeat the Skeleton King’s horde—spare the one he became.

I am Champion of the Nine.

In the momentary deliberation in the minds of every man holding a reaping spear, Laeden decided that if this was to be his end, he would die fighting for peace—true peace—as his father had.

The first legionary battle cry surged. Others took up the call, and the stillness brought on by Zephyrus’s victory in the divine realm shattered.

Absent his magic, Laeden gripped the pommel of his sword, but before he could take initiative, Iylea’s light exploded all around him.

The legionaries surrounding him shielded their eyes. Keeping his gaze down, Laeden seized advantage. He slipped inside the first spear’s reach. With a hack and a chop, he severed an arm and slashed across a throat, spraying hot blood across his own cheek. Dropping his level, he drove a thrust up into the armpit of another. He ripped the sword free and slashed, taking another blinded legionary across the face.

Iylea’s light flared directly atop him, blinding the men around him. Swiping and slashing, Laeden surged through the legionaries with vengeful fury. He dodged a blind thrust that took another legionary in the chest. Ducking under the shaft, Laeden drove his sword through the attacker’s gut and tore it free. With a kick, he shoved another off-balance and followed through with an efficient stab to the heart.

The world beyond Iylea’s aura didn’t matter. Anyone bathed in her light was his to defeat. Ignoring the numbness in his left arm, the growing fatigue in his right, and the pain in his ribs brought on by each tide of breath, Laeden fought.

For Iylea. For Threyna. For Zephyrus and Vykinallia.

He ripped his blade free from another screaming man and stabbed it through the throat of another. With a spin, he blocked a thrust aimed vaguely in his direction and countered with a slash that dropped a forearm to the ground and a thrust that sent another soul to the abyss between realms.

Laeden continued to fight. But there were too many.

For Markus and Varros. For Ostrey and Dheran.

Iylea’s light quivered. “Laeden, I can’t…”

Laeden grunted despite the pain in his ribs. He couldn’t either, but if he stopped, he died.

He cleaved a low swipe, severing one leg, then stabbed through the thigh of an adjacent legionary. Both men fell, but Iylea’s light dimmed. Reaping spears closed in around him. There was no telling how many stood between him and the Skeleton King, but absent Iylea’s aid, he’d never make it.

Laeden deflected one spear, hacked another’s tip off, and dodged a third, but he stumbled on a fallen body.

“No!” Iylea shouted.

Unable to catch himself, Laeden fell onto his back.

The nearest legionary reared back his spear to stab Laeden through the gut.

Iylea’s light disappeared into the legionary’s chest.

Absent her light, the world darkened. The spear tip neared.

At the last possible moment, the legionary whipped his spear to the side, deflecting another spear aimed at Laeden. With a spinning slash, the reaping spear swung in a wide arc, forcing other legionaries back.

“What are you doing?” a legionary shouted.

In response, the legionary Iylea disappeared into thrust the spear through his Order brother’s mouth. As the other legionaries turned on Iylea, Laeden regained his footing.

An arcanatek blaster whirred beside him and fired before it could be fully charged. The radiant blast caught Iylea in the shoulder.

Laeden screamed. With one swipe he severed the hand holding the arcanatek; with the next, he carved a red gash across the black leather armor. But the body Iylea inhabited fell.

The mote of light burst forth from the falling legionary and dove into the next, taking control of him. Side by side, Laeden fought with Iylea as she took host after host, leaving bodies in her wake. Every time she transitioned from one to the next, she flared her light, allowing Laeden to take advantage. The number of spears surrounding them thinned, yet the battle raged on around them.

An arcanatek whirred beside him as Iylea’s light flared in the space between hosts. Laeden spun to the warble to find it aimed at him. The blast fired, just past Laeden to a legionary behind him.

Laela stood before him, arcanatek still whirring. “I lost the Skeleton King!” In the clutch of her forearm, she levered a reaping spear between her severed wrist and the small of her back that kept the encroaching legionaries at bay long enough to fire another low-charged blast.

Laeden deflected another thrusting spear and countered, skewering his attacker through the belly. In the momentary reprieve, Laeden couldn’t hope to pick the Skeleton King out of the crowd. Absent his armor or his conjures, he could have been anyone.

A trio of legionaries advanced on Laeden. As Iylea and Laela engaged with their own assailants, the three forced Laeden to give ground.

“For the One True God!” shouted a legionary.

Others took up the call, and glowing spear tips lanced toward Laeden faster than he could defend. Continuing to retreat, his back met Laela’s. Several more surrounded Iylea, corralling the three of them into a tight ring.

Beyond the spear tips, another call rose. Above the black swarm of legionaries, higher than the descending cloud of ashes—incoherent shouts surged from the Salmantic walls.

Atop the Hylan peaks, the golden glow of the setting sun cut through the falling ash, and shone through the open gates of Salmantica’s city wall. Standard-bearers on horseback raised their flags and let them fly.

The roaring gold lion atop a black backdrop of Atonus Allos’s men-at-arms, the gray-and-blue shield of the Sentinels, and the red chimera of House Drake flapped in the gentle breeze.

Danella did it. They’ve come.

The cavalry charged, and the ground shook beneath Laeden’s feet, but the growing shout of the reinforcements rang clearer and clearer.

“For New Rheynia! For New Rheynia!”

Chapter 71

Just A Man

Threyna X

Salmantica

Threyna ripped her dagger through the neck of a legionary. As he went limp, and the reaping spear fell from his grasp, she caught it before it could fall. Spear in one hand, dagger in the other, Threyna charged past the glowing merger of the blood and healing artifacts. Like an imploding star, the two practically consumed one another, dissolving into nothingness.

While some legionaries stared at the entwined artifacts, Threyna took advantage of their distraction and ran past. Absent her Peace, the Skeleton King was also without his seat of power.

He’s just a man. Just Belrich in a stolen body.

Hoping that if the Skeleton King fell, the others would surrender, Threyna ignored the legionaries converging behind her. She reared back her reaping spear and hurled it at her uncle.

Belrich grabbed another legionary by the shoulders, yanking the unsuspecting soldier into the projectile’s path. The reaping spear took him in the back. As the legionary slumped to the ground, Belrich wrenched her thrown spear free and chucked it back.

The white spear tip bore down on her. At the last moment, Threyna rolled beneath it.

The spear thudded into a legionary pursuing her from behind, evoking a scream.

Springing to her feet, Threyna surged toward Belrich in his stolen body, dagger in hand, heart pounding in her ears. The Orsion Cloak flapped behind her as her boots crushed the ground beneath her feet. The segments of the Aeryean Armor adjusted to her movements, sliding over one another with efficient grace. Yet she did not need them to defeat the Skeleton King.

“You possess all you need,” the Seers had said at Tharseo’s Bastion.

Kill him and end this.

She squeezed the hilt of her dagger. Only a few strides away, a gleaming radiance burst to light. Hands raised, half-expecting an arcanatek blast, Threyna shielded her face.

The light didn’t fade; it flared brighter.

Iylea…

She continued her charge.

“Stop her!” Belrich shouted, dragging two men between her and him. The legionaries squinted in her direction, but she launched herself at them before they could raise their spears.

Her dagger drove into the legionary’s chest as she dropped him to the ground. Pulling his body before her like a human shield, Threyna rolled. A pair of spears thudded into the legionary’s back. She shoved him aside, wrenching her dagger free. With her free hand, she seized his relinquished spear. Gaining her feet with a swinging swipe of her dagger, she slashed across the nearest legionary’s thigh and thrust her spear through the belly of another one.

She released the spear embedded in the legionary’s stomach and, with her empty hand, grabbed the spear shaft of the soldier whose thigh she’d sliced. Before he could fight back, Threyna drove her dagger through his cheek with a hooking thrust. Weak fingers released his spear, and he fell in a heap.

Abandoning her dagger, Threyna took the newly acquired spear in both hands and thrust for Belrich.

Deflected at the last moment, the spear tip narrowly missed Belrich’s shoulder.

“Defend me!” he shouted.

The bright glare of Iylea’s light faded, not too far away, but Threyna couldn’t afford to see what was happening with Laeden or Laela as six legionaries blocked her path to Belrich.

Heat rose to her cheeks. Sweat dripped down her brow. Sticky, warm blood clung to her knuckles from where she’d stabbed the legionaries left in her wake. Yet there were always more men to hide behind. More chaff for the fires of his petty pursuit of power.

He uses you like a shield. He’d sacrifice anyone to save himself.

“There is no unity with the One True God,” Threyna said, tongue feeling thick in her mouth. “There is only death. Stand aside. Surrender, and—”

“Liar!” Belrich shouted. “Kill her and the One True God will make you a king when he makes the world anew!”

The legionaries didn’t stand down. Too proud to accept that there could be another possibility, too ignorant to see how they’d been used in another’s games, they aimed their spears.

Beside her, the legionaries had turned to address a greater threat. Laeden, Laela, and another legionary were encircled, their backs together, defending against the Order’s zealots.

As badly as she wanted to kill the Skeleton King, he was just a man. Absent his blood magic, absent his crown, he held no power. And unlike her uncle, Threyna wasn’t willing to forsake the people in her life for her mission. Not anymore.

With a harrowing scream, she struck at the back of one of the legionaries encircling Laeden and Laela. Blood spouted from the legionary’s back. Those adjacent turned towards her, but that opened opportunities for Laeden and Laela.

Steel and reaping spears blurred through the ashen air. Arcanatek warbles and the screams of the dying sang their horrid cry. The ground began to rumble as if another earthquake was imminent.

Ignoring the pandemonium around her, Threyna focused on a future, a life—her life, one that would only be possible if she survived. Freed from the curse’s snare, she wasn’t ready to die. She wouldn’t. The sea breeze atop the cliffs, the rising sun rippling on the tides, the warmth of someone beside her. For the first time, she found herself not wanting Zephyrus to be with her upon the cliffs, but Laeden. She didn’t love him, just as she didn’t actually love Zephyrus. But there was a chance. A hope. A future. And beyond the sweat and blood, past the spear and the death it wrought, the horizon held something for her, and she would not stop until she claimed it.

She thrust, slashed, and slipped between two legionaries. She punched the butt of her spear into the nose of one, then dipped into a crouching spin. With all the force she could muster, she jerked the blade of the reaping spear across the other’s midsection. Blood sprayed.

Laeden buried his sword into a legionary beside Threyna. Laela’s arcanatek released a blast that blew half a legionary’s face to cinders.

The ground shook with greater fervor, but Threyna ignored it and jabbed her spear through a legionary behind Laeden. The legionary fighting the other Order soldiers took a spear through the leg, then another through the chest.

Iylea—Laeden’s lover, the Guardian—burst from the legionary’s chest.

With a scream, her light flared, brighter than the stars. Brighter than the sun. Like a comet, she tore across the Order’s ranks just as the earthquake hit.

But it wasn’t an earthquake.

A knight with a burned face screamed past atop an armored warhorse. Laeden grabbed Threyna by the wrist, Laela at his side, and yanked her out of the way as an army of black-clad Lions, gray-and-blue Sentinels, and white Vigiles charged past on horseback. The cavalry crashed into the Order’s front.

With the space to breathe, Threyna scanned the battleground. Their army of mismatched warriors surged forward, following in the wreckage left by the cavalry’s assault.

Cerik’s mace crushed. Iberion’s blade cleaved. Unari’s fire scorched. Kherus and Aponius tore through the lines of downed legionaries, leaving death in their wake. Across the battlefield to the east, another force assailed the Order’s flank. Lightning and fire magic sparked across the back lines, and blocked off any hope of retreat.

“They came,” Laeden said, panting. “The Fallen actually came.”

Threyna couldn’t believe her eyes. Everywhere she looked, the enemy she’d spent her entire life fighting against, fell. Died. With no blood magic to corral their souls, each fatality was a true death. After the blood artifact and healing artifact consumed each other, there would be no new Skeleton King. The curse died on the severed chain.

And with all that death, a new beginning—a new dawn—would rise.

“We have to find the Skeleton King,” Laeden said.

But Threyna dropped her spear and seized Laeden’s arm. “No.”

“No?” Laeden asked, wiping blood and sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Threyna smiled. As she turned her gaze back to the battlefield, Laeden took in the sight as well. The Order’s legions were all but destroyed. The battle all but won. There was no escape. Somewhere amidst the array of legionary corpses, the Skeleton King, her Uncle Belrich, would be one of them. For the first time in her life, Threyna felt like she didn’t need to swing the sword.

It’s over.

“The Skeleton King, the threat he imposed, is dead.” She gave Laeden’s arm a squeeze. “And I have everything I need. Right here.”

Laeden grinned. A drop of water fell upon his cheek.

Threyna inclined her head toward the sky. A gentle rain began to fall from the clouds, rolling in from the east. The cool drizzle pattered upon her face and parted her lips in a toothy grin. She closed her eyes, allowing each drop to wash away the gore that stained her and the ghosts of her past.

Chapter 72

Worse Than Vengeance

Zephyrus XV

Valencia

Zephyrus’s unsteady vision focused upon the empty hole in the floor where the chain once connected the mortal and divine realms. Paxoran’s shoulders heaved, staring in the direction of the missing crank. The chain was severed.

Paxoran’s ashen lips curled back in a snarl, and a roar burst free from his chest that threatened to cave in the canopied ceilings.

Struggling to his feet, Zephyrus stared down Paxoran’s halberd. As he’d seen with Threyna a hundred times before, the tip of the blood-conjured spike disintegrated to ash.

“What?” Paxoran stammered. “No!”

The scythe-like hook crumbled. The shaft dematerialized in his hands, leaving them as empty as Zephyrus’s.

Unarmed, unstable, and fighting off magic fatigue, Zephyrus stood to his feet, allowing the unbalanced scales to tip in his favor. Sandstone rippled across his flesh, armoring him against Paxoran’s red scales.

“Your reign ends,” Zephyrus said. He bent the light around him, concealing himself from Paxoran’s sight. Absent his blood magic, Paxoran wouldn’t be able to hear Zephyrus’s heartbeat, but he masked his footsteps either way. Zigging and zagging in search of the best approach, Zephyrus clenched his stone-fortified fists.

Paxoran retreated a step. “Show yoursel—”

Zephyrus dropped into a crouch and exploded upwards. His knuckles drove into the bottom of Paxoran’s chin, throwing his head back and spilling his scaled crown from his head. As Paxoran staggered back, Zephyrus slipped behind him. With a stone-encrusted shin, he kicked the back of Paxoran’s knee.

The joint buckled, and the Traitor God lost balance. His arms reached for stability, but his hulking frame found no purchase in the center of the anchor room.

Zephyrus stepped out of the way and delivered a hook into Paxoran’s breastbone.

The impact sent fissures through Zephyrus’s stoneskin, but threw Paxoran crashing to the ground. Marble cracked beneath Paxoran’s fall.

With a frustrated grunt, Paxoran swiped blindly for Zephyrus’s leg. Zephyrus high-stepped the sweep and backed away from Paxoran. Surveying the anchor room, he searched for his mother and the Vykane Blade.

Where did she go?

Aside from Paxoran, the room was silent. The person who had been ensnared in the web of blood on the walls had fallen to the ground with the ashes of their bindings, but they lay still—unconscious or worse. Zephyrus’s and his mother’s blood stained the white marble floors, but the fact that she wasn’t lying in a pool meant she was still alive.

The loose strands of Zephyrus’s bun prickled. Noticing the disturbance in the air, Zephyrus glanced towards the vaulted ceiling.

Auburn hair stained scarlet flew behind his mother as she fell from the ceiling like a silent assassin. Blade in hand, she tore through the air, her loose shift, weighed down by blood, trailing behind her.

Paxoran inclined his gaze, but just as his crimson eyes fell upon her, she disappeared into the immaterial plane. He thrashed gauntleted hands, hoping to connect with his wraithlike attacker, but Zephyrus’s mother returned to the material plane just behind Paxoran. With a diagonal slash, the red scale armor parted.

Paxoran yelled, spinning to meet her, but Zephyrus seized advantage. Gathering as much force magic as he could produce, Zephyrus propelled himself onto Paxoran’s back. Just as Paxoran reared back to strike, Zephyrus caught his arm, pinning it back.

Paxoran roared. Reaching over his shoulder, he seized Zephyrus and flung him. Zephyrus sailed through the air. Controlling his fall with force magic, he caught himself in a tight roll and sprang to his feet.

In Paxoran’s distraction, Zephyrus’s mother stabbed Paxoran through the gut.

A vengeful howl erupted from the Traitor God as more scales fell to the ground. She ripped the blade free and wound back to stab again, but Paxoran backhanded her across the face, spilling her to the floor.

She skidded across the white marble, her bloody shift painting a red arc in her wake. The Vykane Blade released from her fingers to clatter to the stone. The radiant blade retracted into the hilt. As its brilliance faded, Zephyrus’s chest tightened.

“Now I’ll finally put an end to you,” Paxoran shouted, trudging towards her still form. With each step, Paxoran’s red-scaled armor shed, littering the marble with a trail of magic-resistant shards.

Motes of fire blossomed to life in Paxoran’s hands. “You, your son, your Creator—you’re all dead. You’ve lost!”

Heat rose to Zephyrus’s cheeks, but he transmuted it to water in his bloody, pierced palms. As Paxoran lashed out with Incinerae’s fire, Zephyrus responded with Aquarius’s water.

The two streams met with a hiss as steam climbed into the air between Paxoran and Zephyrus’s mother. Paxoran wheeled, sending a torrent of electrically charged water in Zephyrus’s direction. He dove out of the way just as the sparking jet crashed into where he’d been a moment ago.

Zephyrus’s blood became warm, thundering in his ears with each beat of his racing heart. Sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose, but he welcomed the gathering heat, allowing his scales to tip further.

Unable to hit Paxoran directly through his magic-resistant scales, Zephyrus doused the marble at Paxoran’s feet, slowing down the oversized God of Gods. The electric stream of water chased Zephyrus around as his mother forced herself upright.

The torrent ended, but Paxoran hurled a separate bolt straight at Zephyrus.

Zephyrus’s eyes widened. Using force magic, he launched himself out of the way. The lightning scorched the white marble tile black.

“It didn’t need to be like this, Zephyrus,” Paxoran said. “Arkadia.”

The two circled him, yet somehow, Zephyrus still felt like the prey.

His mother, face cut and bleeding, reclaimed the Vykane Blade. Her steps staggered slightly, but she was okay.

If she can break through his armor, I’ll burn him to cinders.

“You think you fight on the good and noble side,” Paxoran continued, “but you do not understand the truth.”

“The Creator sent Hameryn to kill you,” his mother, Arkadia said, her voice weak. “You killed him. Took his face. Became a God. A traitor.”

Paxoran scoffed, a shred of color tingeing his cheeks. “You know nothing of why.”

Zephyrus didn’t care. He didn’t trust Paxoran. He wanted him dead. Yet as Paxoran delayed, Zephyrus gathered fire in his veins.

“When once there were but three, Aphelia and I were in love,” Paxoran said. “What better bond than that between Peace and Love? Our child would have ruled the world, reigned in eternal peace. But Veritus, that insufferable worm, could not hold his traitorous tongue.”

Paxoran snorted, stifling a twitch of his shoulder. “Tell me, why should a Creator—too distant, too busy to care for the mortals—get to decide how they should live? They shouldn’t.” He glared at the person resting in a heap at the base of the wall. “Aphelia and I, together, with our daughter on the throne of the mortal realm, we could have—no, we should have ushered in the perfect civilization.”

Zephyrus stopped his pacing. His mother stopped on the opposite side of Paxoran, though her movement appeared distorted as if she’d placed herself in a time bubble. Still bleeding heavily from where Paxoran had stabbed her in the shoulder, she’d lost a lot of blood.

Just a little longer, Mother.

“You ruined this world,” Zephyrus said, gathering more heat. “You destroyed the mortal and divine realms… just so you could make the one you wanted.”

Paxoran’s red glare intensified as bloodshot veins streaked from his red irises. “They murdered Aphelia and Veritus.” He jabbed a gauntleted finger at the Creator. “They tried to murder me too. For the realm they wanted.”

Zephyrus’s eyes narrowed on the pinkish hue in Paxoran’s cheeks. His fire begging to be unleashed, Zephyrus realized what Paxoran was doing. He released his stored heat slowly, allowing his internal temperature to gradually decline.

I’ll never be able to balance the scales in time.

With his mother’s posture stooping and her stance practically wobbling, Zephyrus needed to buy more time, or he’d never be able to counter Paxoran’s magic.

“If it is justice you want, you’ve gained it,” Zephyrus said. “They killed your Gods. You killed theirs. Isn’t that enough?”

He knew the answer. It never was. More. Always more. Justice. Retribution. Vengeance.

The cycle would find a way to continue. Paxoran might have thought he’d forge a perfect society, and perhaps it would have been better than the Creator’s; New Rheynia was broken. Things would need to change, and even then it would be far from perfect. But the civilization, the new age Paxoran wished to create, would not be founded upon love and peace, but blood and vengeance. Born in the ashes of dead Gods.

No. This was worse than vengeance. This was control. Manacles, sturdier than steel. Slavery with a different name, misconstrued as peace and prosperity. The Creator’s neglect at least allowed mortals to make their own decisions, and they were capable of changing.

Vykinallia—lanista to liberator.

Laeden—prince to protector.

Even Danella—a queen of persecution to the voice of reason.

Even me…

Paxoran’s ashen lips parted in a twisted grin.

Out of time.

Blazes of fire exploded from his outstretched arms as he sent a vortex of flames at both Zephyrus and his mother.

Unable to move out of the way, unable to attempt to balance the scales, Zephyrus conjured a wall of water, but it wasn’t enough to hold back Paxoran’s tempest. With his body temperature spiking too quickly to maintain his water wall, Zephyrus lurched backwards and shot a stream of water for one of Paxoran’s fiery basilisks.

The tendril of flame exploded in a cloud of boiling mist, but more kept coming. With each expulsion of water, Zephyrus’s insides roiled. Paxoran’s flames scorched the air, but the expense of his water and the imbalance of his scales generated more heat within him.

For Vykinallia. For Laeden. For Iylea. For Patrus.

His insides burned, but he held the fire within him.

He dove away from one tendril, and used force magic to divert the course of another. The whole room seemed to be ablaze. He couldn’t locate his mother amidst the conflagration.

Still he held, waiting. Burning within.

The tendrils collided together, a monster of flame, hellbent on devouring him. Zephyrus exerted as much of his force magic as he could into the ground, catapulting himself into the air, above Paxoran’s torrent of fire.

As he fell, he felt like he was buoyed, descending too slowly to be natural. Below, the tongues of fire leaving Paxoran’s hands licked too quickly to not be under the influence of Klayvorine’s time distortion.

Zephyrus’s mother blinked into existence beside Paxoran. Between Paxoran’s outstretched arms, with the Vykane Blade in hand, she slashed vertically, from groin to gorget. Red scales exploded outward, cascading down to expose Paxoran’s bare chest.

Just as the heat burning within Zephyrus became too much to bear, he unleashed the fire and fury contained. The inferno burst forth from his ravaged hands with the rage of every wrong Paxoran had committed against him. Against humanity. Against the Gods.

Anger born of the war that robbed him of a life with his parents, wrath for the shackles that Patrus died freeing others from, and malice for Paxoran’s hateful justifications to rend the world asunder erupted from Zephyrus’s pierced hands to engulf the Traitor God.

Absent the red scale armor to protect him, the fire scorched Paxoran. His screams wailed in the high halls as his ashen skin burned black. As Zephyrus fell in slow motion, he kept his beam of purifying fire on Paxoran.

The God of Peace dropped to his knees. He attempted to conjure water to vaporize the flames, or stone to block them, but neither survived Zephyrus’s ire.

As Zephyrus’s scales balanced, he exterminated the flames. Time normalized, and he fell the short remaining distance to the ground where Paxoran’s flesh sizzled and smoked.

His mother stood behind Paxoran, leaning on the Vykane Blade for support. Staggering, Zephyrus made his way towards her. The Vykane Blade retracted into the hilt and dropped from her hand. Stumbling, she fell into Zephyrus’s arms.

“You did it, Vykanicus,” she said, sky-blue eyes searching his with a distant gaze.

“We did it,” Zephyrus said, holding her to his chest.

The Creator emerged from the smoke, their eyes glowing like silver orbs. They stalked past them to stand over Paxoran and stare down at the wheezing remains of the Traitor God.

“Centuries of plotting and schemes,” the Creator said. “Dozens of Harbingers manipulated and used in the name of your vengeance. Have you any idea, Paxoran, how many opportunities I gave you to see reason? To choose life?”

Paxoran rasped through scorched lungs. “You. You chose death.”

“I did not,” the Creator said. “You were made to serve the mortals, yet you, Aphelia, and Veritus sought only to serve yourselves—to enslave the mortal realm beneath your daughter’s rule and call it peace. You sought to rebel against me and your duty to the mortals. And you were punished for your infidelity.” They knelt beside him. “Yet when you slew Hameryn and took his face, when you manipulated Ferrocles into starting the war in Palogia, when you set the Corners against the Giver and Taker, and the Elementals against the Judges, I hoped you would choose to turn back. To choose life. Yet deception, division, and death have always been your way. Manipulating the Judges’ prophecies to serve your ends. Murdering Neutreen, Aquarius, and Courianne. Poisoning the most desperate mortals to your cause.” They shook their head. “You made your choice. You chose death.”

Paxoran’s wheezing weakened.

“They chose life,” the Creator said.

Zephyrus followed her gaze across the room to an open door where Fenyx emerged.

The Creator beckoned Fenyx towards them. “Arkadia has always chosen life. A trait she has passed onto her son, despite your attempts to sway him to your false cause. But even those you did poison are not beyond mercy.”

Fenyx came to the Creator’s side, head bowed.

“You have failed, Paxoran,” the Creator said, “but your test of redemption was not wasted. The realms will be renewed, as you desired, but how will not be up to you.”

Paxoran groaned. His weak breathing slowed, and the last remnants of life fled his red eyes. The Traitor God was dead.

His body crumpled, dissipating into darkling-like spirits. Unlike the black marred souls of darklings, these, however, glowed with the light of the links in the chain. They swirled into the air in lazy circles that rose up to the vaulted ceiling before converging together in a dazzling gleam of light.

“The divinity of the Celestial Halls of Valencia is not to be taken lightly,” the Creator said, turning their silver eyes on Zephyrus.

Zephyrus didn’t understand. As the gleaming light suspended over him, its tempest of power poured into him. Unlike how darklings attempted to overtake his soul, this was something different. These were not people, not souls, but ideals, virtues, values.

Honor, love, trust, faith, imagination, righteousness, respect, connection, and infinite others came alive in Zephyrus.

“You have within you the power to unmake the realms,” the Creator said. “But also, the power to restore them.”

Zephyrus nearly choked. His jaw unhinged. “Why me?”

The Creator smiled. “Because you will do what is best for all.”

Zephyrus swallowed. With the power to unmake or restore the realms, he knew what he wanted, but didn’t know what it meant, or what it would look like. He’d witnessed enough good in the world that it was worth fighting for, but he didn’t know how best to restore it.

“Freedom,” Jecht had said with his last words, “for all.”

Having seen how the Arcane Templar, the Warlocks of Sage, and the Fallen—throughout its various leaders—had sought to achieve freedom from the Rheynians, he realized freedom unchecked, freedom for the sake of freedom, was lawlessness. Chaos. But chains, bound to anything or anyone, would only lead to rebellion.

People needed guidance. Meaning. Purpose. Faith in something bigger than themselves. But no Goddess of Honor, God of Mercy, or any other deity could encapsulate what it meant to be human.

Zephyrus examined the Creator. He had thought them cold and distant, as Paxoran had described. Why else hadn’t they intervened to stop Paxoran? But they had. They had in ways that, even after touching divinity, Zephyrus still couldn’t completely comprehend.

“Did you know?” Zephyrus asked the Creator. “That we would win.”

He recalled waking in Tharseo’s Bastion absent any idea of who he was or what he was doing. He had been so wrapped up in becoming the Wielder or fulfilling the Acts of the Champion of the Nine, but both were wrong. If Paxoran hadn’t convinced Threyna to steal my memories, would I have arrived at the truth? Would I have gone about things the same way?

He thought of his mother visiting him on the rotunda at Laeden’s rigged trial after Lenox had stabbed him. How Iylea had come to him in her absence. The way Threyna had saved him from Lenox and the Jackals at Stoneside. How Vykinallia and Laeden had forged an army, despite their differences, to mount a defense against the Skeleton King. The timing with which his mother opened the gates just as Danella delivered them to the Basilica. Even Fenyx, the Harbinger, had denied his own glory to save him.

Was this all planned?

“Yes,” the Creator said. “And no.” They smiled. “Sometimes knowing only makes it more difficult. Where knowledge fails, faith guides.” They placed their hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “I had faith that you would choose. And you did. All of you did.”

Zephyrus nodded. With divinity at his fingertips, he understood the Creator’s words. He knew the chain of mortals’ souls deemed unfit for eternal bliss would not motivate Gods of singular ideologies to serve the people and lead them to sanctification. He knew if he gave all the knowledge of the world to the mortals, there would still be gaps. Holes and fallacies that would be twisted and used to divide.

There needed to be a different way. A better way.

Reconnecting the realms wasn’t enough. The mortals needed to be connected to life at its source.

Zephyrus strode toward the hole in the center of the room where the chain once tethered the mortal and divine realms together with the souls of the incomplete. His mother, Fenyx, and the Creator followed, joining him at the precipice.

Souls of the departed wandered, trapped in the space between realms. Even the souls flowing through the Celestial Falls on the adjacent wall were lacking, even in their bliss.

The empty space called to him. He knew what he needed to do. He knew what it would cost. Vykinallia was down there, and the Creator was right; that knowledge only made what he had to do more difficult.

Zephyrus took the Creator’s hand in his own and held it out over the hole in the floor. Closing his eyes, Zephyrus reached out with divinity’s touch to every soul in the Celestial Falls, each soul that had fallen with the severed chain, and all the newly departed denied Valencia’s welcome. The power of divinity flowed from him, reaching out like a thread to entwine with the fabric of every soul in creation—the living, forsaken, bound, and those at peace.

Zephyrus felt Laeden’s thread, a mix of Helixus and Faire, blue entwined with ivory. Iylea’s, a lavender-and-white strand as intricate and beautiful as the light she cast. Threyna’s, green and silver, brimming with dreams of hope she’d never believed possible.

Emotions bubbling, Zephyrus choked as he felt Vykinallia’s thread enter the weave. Purple and gold braided together like the sky at dawn. Life—abundant life—joy, pride, and, above all, love burst through every fiber of her tapestry.

Zephyrus sniffed. He set his jaw, but his lower lip quivered anyway. He knew that after touching divinity, he would never be able to return to the mortal realm. Once he passed the connections of the weave to the Creator, Vykinallia would be lost to him.

But there were gaps. Holes in the knowledge. And in those holes, he packed his faith.

I will find my way back to you, Vykinallia. I swear to you.

A tear trickled down Zephyrus’s cheek and fell through the hole in the floor.

I love you.

As the last of the souls connected to the weave, Zephyrus let the remnants of divinity’s power flow back into the Creator, leaving only his own thread to tie himself into the tapestry.

Zephyrus sniffed, blinking away more tears. Below, clouds rolled over New Rheynia, and rain began to fall.

PART VI

Chapter 73

Live

Laeden XV

Salmantica

Battle raged, waned, then croaked. The Order, absent the Skeleton King’s blood magic, was overwhelmed by the Salmantic reinforcements and the arrival of the Fallen. Though celebrations rose amongst the living, Laeden concerned himself with the dead.

Loved ones found one another across the battlefield, reuniting with joyful embraces. Threyna and Laela—too long divided by stress and survival to ever truly be sisters before—held each other in loving arms. Aurelia walked beside Kherus and Aponius as they supported Iberion—arm in arm—as he limped across the battlefield to survey their victory. Cerik and Vykinallia leaned their foreheads against one another’s, undoubtedly sharing the sentiments of Zephyrus’s apparent victory.

Yet Zephyrus was nowhere to be seen.

Laeden scoured the dark gray skies, half-expecting Zephyrus to descend on a white winged horse wearing a wreath of victory. The only sign of divinity descending upon them was the gentle rain that broke the drought.

Through the rain, the Fallen—led by his mother, Sinion, and Teluvar—traversed the battlefield, wading through the dead. Though the Salmantic reinforcements, led by Ser Daenus and Atonus Allos, did nothing to provoke the mages and freedpeople, the taste of victory felt tainted by the unresolved tensions between them.

“The fact that they haven’t already started fighting is a good sign,” Kherus said after he and Aponius passed Iberion off to Unari to come alongside Laeden.

“Give it a moment,” Laeden said, attempting to force a smile. His cheeks moved, and his lips parted, but it came with no joy.

“What happens now?” Aponius asked, hands on his hips, staring out at the same graveyard as Laeden.

With adrenaline wearing off, and the heaviness of the future drowning any elation of victory, Laeden’s shoulders stooped. “A question for tomorrow.”

Aponius rubbed his freckled cheek with the back of his hand, smearing dampened soot across his face. “I overheard a pair of Sentinels speaking while they searched for survivors; they were questioning if King Damascus would abdicate the throne.”

“If it’s true,” Kherus said, “they’ll make you king.”

Laeden frowned.

“Like it or not,” Kherus continued, “you may be the only one who can keep this tentative peace.”

The weight of duty upon his shoulders grew heavier.

Duty.

Securing peace in a world where blood was the only accepted currency was impossible. His father tried to be a voice of reason, and he died for it. Bound by secrets, ruled by lies and half-truths, his father was murdered by his own son. Accepted by neither side that he fought so hard to protect from the other. A king in name only. Despite having all the supposed power in the world, he had none where it mattered.

What king ever would?

“If all that we’ve changed is who wears a crown atop their heads, we truly have accomplished nothing,” Laeden said, staring at the sky.

The glow of Iylea’s light floated towards him with a regal majesty as she hovered over the battlefield. Laeden’s stomach twisted in knots. His mouth went dry, unsure if this was a new hello, or a final goodbye. Laeden didn’t know which was worse, or if he could handle either.

He cleared his throat, nodding to Kherus and Aponius. “If you’ll excuse me…”

Laeden stalked towards Iylea’s descending light. His every stride felt like a step into his own grave, yet Iylea might as well have descended on horse’s wings. Her mote of light came to a stop before him, her aura warm upon his rain-streaked face.

“Hello, Laeden,” Iylea said.

He’d lost her once when Aemos parted her head from her shoulders. A second time when the Guardian told him that she was at peace. But here she was, with his name upon her voice. Too many times he’d thought he’d never hear such a sweet song again, yet again, here they were.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “You saved me.”

Iylea’s light pulsed with a gentle hum. “No, you saved me. After Zephyrus ascended, I lost my tether to this realm. I lost myself, but I found my way back to you.”

Laeden winced. A wave of emotions he couldn’t comprehend toppled over him. It wasn’t fair—to have her so near, yet so impossibly far away. Elation to hear her voice again. Desperation to feel her touch. Anger that he couldn’t. Melancholy that he wouldn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally asked.

Iylea’s aura shrank, but rebounded, as if the world’s gloom could not contain her radiance. He could picture the empathetic softness in her yellow-green eyes, practically feel the tender touch of her hand upon his chest. Yet as much as she was there, she wasn’t.

Her light pulsed. “I spoke the truth when I said your Iylea was gone. But I lied when I said she was at peace. When I left the divine realm, I denied my ability to ever return. The truth is I will never live. Never rest. Never know peace.”

Heat rose to Laeden’s cheeks. Water welled at the corner of his eyes. The knots in his stomach tightened until it hurt to stand.

“I thought I could let you go,” Iylea said, “for both our sakes. I tried—believe me, I did. But I know you. I know our love. You would try to find another way, you’d break the rules that didn’t deserve to divide us, but you’d stop living your life to try to save mine… I can’t let you.”

Laeden’s lip quivered as he blinked away tears. His fists clenched at his side as he searched for an objection. He wanted to scream, to tell her she was wrong and she should have told him the truth.

But she was right.

She was always right.

“One day,” Iylea said, “after you’ve lived a full and long life, you will ascend to join Markus and Varros in Valencia. But I never will.”

“You don’t know that,” Laeden said, tears breaking free. “What if Zephyrus… I don’t know… there has—”

“Got to be another way?” Iylea asked.

He could hear the smile in her voice, but it only made his heart hurt more.

When he didn’t speak, Iylea continued. “In breaking the links of the chain, I endured the lives, loves, and deaths of more souls than I can hope to count, and yet mine with you is my favorite.”

Laeden hung his head, averting his gaze from her light as if he could hide his tears from her.

“But Laeden, my hope for you is that you know a love greater than ours. That you share a life with someone who loves you better than I ever could.”

Laeden shook his head. Too many times he’d grieved her loss. Too many times, and yet still never enough. “What about you? What will you do? Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Iylea said, “but for too long, we have worn cloaks that don’t fit us. I am a terrible martyr… try as I might to be.” Her light hummed. “But I’m no longer a handmaiden. No longer a servant or a Guardian. I don’t know what comes next, for either of us, yet I feel something—like a whisper calling to me. And I must follow it, as you must follow the yearnings of your heart.”

Laeden lifted his teary eyes to her light. This is it then. Goodbye. Through trembling breaths and the strain of tears yet to fall, he sought the right words to say. Searching for poetry, he found the only words he could—the only ones he needed. The only ones that mattered.

“I love you, Iylea.”

Her light pulsed in time with the heartbeat thudding within his chest.

“I love you too, Laeden.”

Her light drew closer. Her warmth enveloped him. For a moment, he felt as if their souls were entwined. Their shared memories played before them like mummers on a stage. Every thought, every dream, every desire.

Live.

Live.

Live.

Slowly, Iylea’s presence faded away. Her light vanished, but the warmth in Laeden’s chest remained. He opened his eyes, staring out to the coastline overlooking Marstead. The white peaks of rhythmic breakers hugging the darkened shore hypnotized him. Despite his desire to remain broken, to live in the void left in Iylea’s absence, the repeated melody of the sea paired with her last wish for him, lulling him into a peace he didn’t feel he deserved.

Live.

Gentle knuckles brushed along the backside of his hand.

Laeden glanced at the disturbance and met Threyna’s eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Laeden cleared his throat, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yeah. Fine.”

Threyna raised an eyebrow. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t press him. She just held her arms out. Her fingers flicked inwards, beckoning him into her embrace.

Lips pursed, Laeden closed his eyes, and Threyna wrapped her arms under his and around his midsection. Lowering his head to her shoulder, he allowed himself to breathe. To feel. To grieve. To live.

They remained there, her body pressed against his, without a word until he finally broke the silence. “No. I’m not okay.”

Threyna pulled him away to meet his gaze. “And that is okay.”

Laeden bit his lip and nodded. The burden on his shoulders lightened as her hands fell away. Clearing his throat, he asked, “What will you do—now that the Skeleton King is gone?”

Threyna turned to admire the sea with a contemplative sigh. “There’s a mountain range. Northeast coast of Klaytos.” She shrugged. “There’s a sunrise I’d like to see.”

Laeden’s head bobbed. “I’d say you’ve earned that.”

At the sound of footsteps and a forced, announcing cough, Laeden and Threyna turned. Gray strands fell from Lenara’s typically tight and tended bun. Blood speckled her jerkin beneath her folded arms.

“It lifts the heart to see you, son,” Lenara said.

Laeden chewed his tongue to bite back the words he wanted to say.

Threyna patted Laeden’s arm. “I’ll give you a moment.”

As she strode away, Laeden felt like she was leaving him to a pack of Jackals.

Lenara’s cold brown eyes fixed on Laeden, her cross-armed posture as unrelenting as ever. Her gaze softened and arms unfolded, but the change in body language did little to stem the chill Laeden felt in her presence.

Just behind Lenara, Vykinallia reunited with her mother, Cleotra, in a storm of hugs, kisses, and relieved tears. Laeden practically snorted at the contrast.

“Surprised you didn’t wait until after the battle was over,” Laeden said.

Lenara strode closer, boots scuffing the dirt beneath. “We came. We helped.”

Laeden scoffed. “What changed your mind?”

“The best interests of the Fallen,” Lenara said.

Laeden folded his arms. Of course. “And what is in the best interest of the Fallen now?”

Lenara strode closer with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes. “We won. But there is another battle coming. No longer will we stand idly by while others suffer in servitude. Nor will we submit to being treated as second-class citizens. You and I both know whatever changes are coming will not be enough. Even if the rumors are true and King Damascus abdicates, Danella Drake will never see reason. But together, you and I can—”

“No.”

The word was out before Laeden even realized he’d opened his mouth. Lenara balked, but he shrugged, and repeated himself.

“No. There is no together. There is no we. There is no us,” Laeden said, his tone growing more animated with each passing word. “There is you and your contempt for Danella Drake. And you’ve taken a cause intended for civil rights and made it your personal mage hunt. You may think you’re an ally, you may believe that you’re helping the Celestic people, but you’re only helping yourself.”

“Laeden,” Lenara said, her voice like a chiding parent. “If peace is to be restored—”

Heat rose to Laeden’s ears. “My father died trying to bring about peace. But it takes two sides to choose peace. Not a war, not a treaty—people. And if it’s another battle you want, you’ll have one, but that is one fight you’ll have to do on your own.”

Lenara only stared. The din of the aftermath on the battlefield rang louder in the silence that stretched between them. The whispering wind and the swell of the ocean entered the space where words could not.

Laeden shook his head, turning from his mother. As he began to walk away, she shouted after him.

“You might be the one person who could turn this around. If it’s peace you want, Laeden, do not turn your back. What about honor and justice? What about defending the weak? My son, do not turn your back on duty.”

Laeden stopped. A muscle in his neck twinged.

Honor. Justice. Duty.

Once, those words meant something different to him.

Ahead, Threyna spoke with Vykinallia. Flickering torchlight danced around them, yet Threyna held his eye. Like the sunrise over the water, he couldn’t look away.

Two lives passed through his mind’s eye: one in which he stayed, another in which he left. He felt the weight of a crown he never wanted, the touch of the same loveless political marriages he’d spent the last ten years denying. And, worst of all, the unending wonder of what his life could have been had he chosen to live.

Laeden turned back to his mother. “I’ve done my duty, Mother. I’ve lived that life. Now it’s time for my next one. It is finished.”

Leaving her upon the cliffs, Laeden strode towards Threyna, his stride light, his shoulders free. As he neared, Threyna excused herself from conversation with Vykinallia, Cleotra, and Cerik, and met him. Tossing her silver-blonde braid over her shoulder, she cocked her brow, her lips lined in a tight smirk.

“Those cliffs you mentioned,” Laeden said.

“What of them?” Threyna asked, her grin spreading.
Contagious, her smirk spread to his lips. “There wouldn’t happen to be room for one more, would there?”

Chapter 74

Zephyrus XVI

Valencia

“We did it,” Zephyrus’s mother said, curling one arm under his, and her other around his opposite shoulder. Leaning against Zephyrus, she gave him a squeeze.

Zephyrus settled into her embrace. “We did it. All of us.” He nodded at Fenyx across the hole in the floor of the anchor room.

Fenyx returned the gesture, his left eye glowing like the Creator’s.

“I’m so proud of you, Vykanicus,” his mother said, but her leaning was equal parts necessity as it was sentiment.

“You’re hurt,” Zephyrus said, assessing her wound. She waved him off. “Mother, let me heal you.”

She backed away, to the Creator’s open arms. “Save your strength. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

Zephyrus stammered. Where are you going? After all this time, they’d only just reunited. “What do you mean?”

Her lips parted in a sad smile. “To join your father.”

Zephyrus’s mouth went dry. He didn’t know where his father was, but the moisture at the corners of his mother’s eyes provided all the answers he needed, and none of the ones he wanted.

“I’ve lived in service to the Creator for over 300 years,” his mother said, her face pale in contrast to her sky-blue eyes and the crimson blood in her auburn hair. “It is time for me to rest. This is where my journey ends, but yours is just beginning.”

Zephyrus glanced from his mother to the Creator and back. He wanted to ask her to stay, even for a little while. He had so many questions.

A sudden loneliness washed over him. He didn’t have to imagine how lonely his father felt, waiting to be reunited with his love. His own throbbed through his chest, begging him to descend from the divine realm like Iylea had to return to Vykinallia.

Vykinallia’s amethyst ring pressed against his flesh.

He bowed his head. “I understand.”

His mother closed the distance between them. She stroked his cheek with the back of her knuckles. “Never again will I be too far from your side.” She glanced towards the Celestial Falls spilling down the wall, a cascade of vibrant colors of beautiful souls. “Whenever you wish, I’ll be but a whisper away.”

“Is that where all souls go?” Fenyx asked the Creator. “To the Falls?”

The Creator nodded. “Eventually. After they pass through me.”

Fenyx’s silver eye blinked. “Even those unworthy?”

The Creator smiled. “From the wicked to the righteous, all must pass through me, but all, eventually, will know my peace. The wicked might spend a moment longer with me, but what are moments over the course of eternity?”

“And the chain?” Fenyx asked.

“What chain?” The Creator smiled. “The Reckoning is complete. Balance Restored.”

Zephyrus considered that. At first, he had wanted his own freedom from the Cassiuses. Then he sought it for his people from New Rheynia. Then he believed his mission was to free humanity from the Gods. But it was more than that. It wasn’t just for the living.

Freedom. For all.

The Creator held their hand out to Zephyrus’s mother. “When you are ready, Arkadia, I will bring you to Invinius.”

His mother gave Zephyrus a sad smile. “One day, many, many years from now, you will join us.” She took his face in her hands and bowed his head so she could kiss his forehead. “Until then, I love you. We love you.” She wrapped her arms around him, but her embrace was weaker. She bled on his already bloodstained Vigile cloak.

“I love you too,” Zephyrus said.

After a time, Zephyrus let her go. She fell into the Creator’s arms, but the blood draining down her shift left no mark on the Creator’s immaculate robes. With a whisper, Zephyrus’s mother’s flesh glowed a gleaming violet filled with glimpses of dazzling white. Like the starry night sky through the clouds after the nightly rains, she shone bright enough that Zephyrus needed to shield his eyes.

By the time the gleam faded, his mother was gone, replaced by an orb of violet liquid. Cupping it in their hands, the Creator delivered his mother’s soul to the Celestial Falls.

“Now she is at rest,” the Creator said.

Zephyrus sniffed, lips pursed.

Fenyx placed a hand on Zephyrus’s shoulder. “Apologies, Zephyrus. For your mother… for everything.”

Zephyrus met Fenyx’s silver eye. Absent his golden helm, his red, black, and gold pauldron and bracer, the former Champion appeared more glorious than ever.

He patted Fenyx’s hand. “I’m sorry too. I know your journey has not been an easy one.”

“Neither of yours have,” the Creator said, returning to where they stood by the hole in the floor. “Different as they may be, they have prepared you for the dawn of a new age. Now there is one more order of business to attend.”

The Creator gestured to the mortal realm through the hole in the floor. A bright white light ascended, blotting out the world below. The brilliant glow softened to a cerulean blue that morphed from a mote to the shape of a person.

Iylea!

Her heart-shaped face formed beside him, materializing into not a soul in the immaterial plane, but flesh and blood, like the woman she once was in life. Her presence somehow felt lighter, in both body and spirit, than at any point during their journey together.

Holding her hands before her, Iylea examined them as if she didn’t believe her eyes. Her heart-shaped cheeks tugged her lips into a gentle smile as she turned to Zephyrus.

“Welcome, Iylea,” the Creator said. “And yes, this is very much real.”

Iylea stammered. “But Paxoran said—”

“And he was right,” the Creator said. “It was beyond Paxoran’s power for your soul to return to the divine realm. But Paxoran does not wield the power of creation. Paxoran said a great many things for his selfish and vengeful plans: that a Wielder would claim the Treasures of Stockhelm. A Harbinger would bring about an age of ruin. And a Herald would prey upon the unworthy. Yet in his schemes, he failed to realize that for every lie he told, my truth was greater. The true Treasures of Stockhelm were not items, but its peoples.

“And you, Zephyrus,” the Creator said, “have been that for the people in your life. I give you the charge to guide humanity toward progress and unity so that never again will the mortals become divided.”

Zephyrus swallowed, taken aback. Before he could respond, the Creator turned to Fenyx.

“Paxoran sought to reign with fear as his scepter, using The Age of the End to divide people as he did the Gods. Despite being intended for ill will, you sacrificed yourself and your glory to bring about the end of Paxoran. For that, I charge you with defending the realms from any who would once again wish to threaten freedom.”

Fenyx’s jaw unhinged momentarily before he collected himself and bowed his head.

“But you, Iylea,” the Creator said. “You have served as a handmaiden, a Breaker of Chains, a Guardian, and for your duty to the realms, I offer you the choice. You may enter the Celestial Falls of blissful rest, return to the mortal realm to finish a life cut short, or you may continue to serve as an intercessor between myself, the divine realm, and the mortals.”

Zephyrus’s breath caught. Return to the mortal realm?

Iylea’s lips contorted.

“You could return to Laeden,” Zephyrus said, though thoughts of his own return filled his mind.

Iylea took a deep breath. Staring at the hole in the floor, she shook her head, a sad smile adorning her forlorn gaze. “He has his place. I have mine.” She bowed to the Creator. “Gratitude. I never thought I’d live again or ever know rest. I lost myself in service, as any good handmaiden might… but I can’t go back.”

Iylea turned from the mortal realm to the Celestial Falls. “But I am not yet ready to rest.” Frowning, she met the Creator’s eyes.

“You may think yourself a servant,” the Creator said, “but that is not all you are. Not all I made you for. If you choose to serve, you must also choose to be.”

Iylea nodded, lips pursed, eyes down.

The Creator cleared their throat. “You can begin doing so by inclining your gaze.”

Iylea straightened, but her lips curved. “I would like to stay. To serve. To be.”

Zephyrus couldn’t believe it. Iylea and Fenyx beamed in the Creator’s light. Part of him felt he should be content, proud, pleased. As much as Fenyx lavished in this glory, and as much as Iylea believed this was her place, Zephyrus didn’t feel like this was his. At all.

The Creator continued to speak, but Zephyrus couldn’t hear. Couldn’t listen.

“I give you the charge to guide humanity toward progress and unity so that never again will the mortals become divided.”

How could he uphold such a charge, when he felt his own soul tearing in two?

He bit his lip, staring down at New Rheynia below. He pulled Vykinallia’s amethyst ring from the waist of his britches beneath his stained Vigile whites. The ring felt heavy in his palm, but the questions burdening his thoughts were heavier still.

“Will we ever be able to return to the mortal realm?” Zephyrus asked.

The Creator examined him. “Able to—yes.”

Zephyrus’s heart skip a beat.

“But,” they continued, “that which binds the realms is woven with the souls of angry and bitter Gods. Should you return, the way will be dangerous, and after touching divinity, you will not be able to remain long. It is no longer your place. And there is much to be done here.”

The momentary elation elapsed as quickly as it had come. He forced himself to nod at the Creator, and they continued speaking to the three of them.

But it’s not impossible. I can return. He squeezed the ring within his palm.

I will find a way. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but one day, I will find my way back to you, Vykinallia.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was enough. There was hope.

Chapter 75

A New Dawn

Danella XII

Salmantica

The gates were opened. To all. Rain washed away the blood and dust lining Salmantica’s city streets. Though there was much to be done following the destruction of the Disasters and the battles fought on either side of the city walls, The Age of the End had passed, and a new era had begun.

After Damascus opened the grain stores, he abdicated his throne without so much as a goodbye. Danella couldn’t blame him. She’d done the same. She hoped his last act of delivering food to everyone in Salmantica would encourage the stiffest Valencians to be more accepting of others. Change was coming. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better. Eventually.

Though the senate actually agreed and sought to name Laeden as the next King of New Rheynia, he had not been seen since his victory beyond the city walls. No one knew his whereabouts. He seemingly disappeared, and didn’t wish to be found. Though the High Priests and the temples tried to declare that the Six had saved the day, Danella was far from the only one who had their doubts. She knew the truth, at least in part: while the Temples lay in debris and the Six were executed in the divine realm, Zephyrus and Laeden had saved the day.

Danella found herself wondering how history would remember them. If it even would. How many nameless, faceless heroes had fought to secure a future for New Rheynia that they would never be known for? There were too many, and though history would neglect their story, Danella resolved that their service, the ideals they represented, would survive.

In the days and weeks after the defeat of the Skeleton King’s army, the people of Salmantica, the Valtarcian refugees, and even the freedpeople and mages of the Fallen joined together. Streets were swept. Homes rebuilt. The arena was opened for everyone without a home, either due to the earthquakes, forced migration from Valtarcia, or because they never had a home that wasn’t behind a locked door.

That was only the beginning.

Now, after a full moon had passed since the nightly rains returned, Danella took to the rotunda to address the people. The sun beamed down, bright and warm through a cloudless blue sky so clear it was impossible to tell where the mortal realm ended and the divine began. Basking in the light, people gathered. Patricians and plebs. Salmantics and Valtarcians. Former masters and freedpeople.

Gulls chirped as they flew overhead, following the newly renamed Iyleian River to the Laedian Moat. Cleaned by mages with the gift of controlling water, the river flowed, smooth and clear.

Standing upon the dais before the people, Danella traced her fingers through the freshly trimmed area over her ear. Though the copper stitching was removed, and the scar had healed, she fancied the feel of the bristly hairs. Wearing the honorary white robes of the Vigiles, Danella held her hands up to summon silence as Varros had once done.

She wished she felt as confident as he always appeared. But now that she knew him—truly knew him—how could he have ever felt confident? A man caught between worlds; a mage of the Arcane Templar, a son of Valtarcia, a King of Salmantica—fighting against the odds to keep the peace. She hadn’t seen it then, but now that she did, she would not close her eyes to everything he’d fought for.

A hush fell over those gathered, awaiting her words.

Danella cleared her throat. “Citizens of New Rheynia, long has it been since we gathered absent hate in our hearts. Perhaps it never was so. However, when we sailed across the sea and arrived on these shores, the people of Stockhelm welcomed us. Only together did we build this society. Yet, once a stronghold was established, it was not the many but the few who directed our path. And not united, but divided, we became.”

Danella surveyed the gathered people. Some nodded; others hung their heads. Shuffling feet and uncomfortable fidgeting rippled throughout the crowd. The patricians of the Senate, the High Priests of the Temples eyed her like hawks. Danella clasped her moist palms together.

“I say to you we were torn apart long before the first act of aggression in the heart and mind of one man. A hateful, fearful man who started a war that we never should have fought, against friends we never should have lost. War became treaty, but never have we felt peace again, for the trust between us was broken.

“I am guilty. I allowed fear to rule me. I impressed that fear upon my son. Never again can we become ruled by fear. That is why no monarch shall ever rule over New Rheynia ever again.”

Gasps rippled throughout the crowd. Murmurs accompanied snapping heads as neighbors voiced their disbelief.

Despite feeling the daggers of the High Priests and patricians, Danella continued. “The kingdom has failed us, and now it is dead. But from the ashes, new life has sprung. Laeden, savior of Salmantica, said no one should have the power of a king. No one.

“From this day forward, a new order—a new republic—will begin, where everyone is represented. I call to the dais a man willing to fight for what was right, regardless of who gave the order—Kherus Paragus.”

As Laeden’s stalwart Ridge Knight took to the dais, uneasy applause followed him, accompanied by side-eyed glances and murmurs from the patricians.

Once he joined Danella, she continued. “As a servant to Valtarcia, and now a Patrician of the Senate, will you represent not just Valtarcia’s interests, but what is best for the future of all people?”

Kherus bowed his head. “I will serve.” Stepping back from Danella, he remained upon the dais, hands clasped before him.

“To give voice to the freedpeople,” Danella continued, “I call upon Cerik of Stockhelm.”

Ignoring the rise in disgruntled muttering, Danella continued once Cerik stood before her. “For your unwaning heart and your gentle wisdom despite a life spent in chains, will you represent the Celestic people and the freedpeople of Stockhelm?”

Cerik bowed. “I will serve.”

Cerik took his place beside Kherus, and Danella called the rest of the representatives to the dais. Ser Daenus to represent the Salmantic Valencians. Earl Kaelus, for the Valtarcian refugees. Heclan Allos, a champion amongst the Salmantic plebeians. Aurellia—former bodyslave at House Ulysius and adviser to Laeden—to represent the freedpeople of Valtarcia.

With the crowd’s discontent placated, equal parts pleased and displeased, Danella took a deep breath. She believed in everyone on the dais, either through her own determination over the years, or the developing rapport they’d enjoyed in recent weeks, but there were two more names she would call whom she didn’t trust—personally or politically—but that was exactly why she couldn’t afford not to have them near.

“Recent weeks have proven that we are more than the differences that divided us,” Danella said. “Valtarcian and Salmantic. Rheynians and Helms. Valencians and Celestics. Patrician, pleb, or freedpeople—to forge a new future, it will require all of us to work together.

“I call to the dais lanista of Stockhelm and Uprising leader, Baron Sinion.”

His followers in the crowd roared, but the rest of the gathering looked on in stunned silence. She swallowed the knot in her throat as Sinion waddled atop the dais in his silken robes.

Bowing as he approached her as everyone else had, he spoke so only she could hear. “A hollow gesture if this proves the farce it seems.”

“No farce,” Danella whispered. “You knew a side of my husband that I only met but once. I wish to learn more of him. Of you. Perhaps if I had then, none of this would have happened. Perhaps peace would have reigned long ago. Perhaps it still can.”

Sinion’s political smile crinkled crow’s feet around his eyes. “Perhaps.”

As the applause died down, Danella spoke for the crowd to hear. “Will you represent the interests of Stockhelm, the freedpeople, and the mages of Celestia as we build a new future?”

The word mage rippled like a curse through the Valencian devout. It was a stereotype that wouldn’t be undone in a day, a moon, a year—it would be messy. It would take time. And it would not be without its setbacks, but the only step they could take on the path to restoration was the next.

The corner of Sinion’s lip twisted in a ghoulish grin. “It will never work,” he whispered.

Danella didn’t flinch. “With your help, it might.”

They stared at one another until the crowd’s noise simmered to a low din.

With a squint of his eyes, Sinion bowed his head. “I will serve.”

As he took his place beside Aurellia, Danella prepared herself for the last name she would call. Seven thus far. Three Salmantics including herself, three Valtarcians, and two of Stockhelm. Three to represent the freedpeople, three for the patricians, and two for the plebeians.

One more to balance the scales.

Though she had spoken to each of those with her upon the dais, prior to her address, the last person she had not. The last person she had been avoiding.

Am I crazy to believe they will wish to share a council seat beside me?

Danella looked down at her feet. For you, Varros. May this make right one of the many things my father got wrong.

Inclining her gaze to the gathered crowd, Danella examined the faces. For a moment, she thought she spotted Varros in the crowd. She thought she saw him everywhere she looked. But he was gone. Lost to her, never to return.

Steeling herself, she took a deep, settling breath. “There is one more name I would add to this Council of Nine. This is but one step on the long journey to right the wrongs of past generations and begin an age of true peace.

“Will Lenara Faire, leader of the Uprising, join me on the dais?”

The crowd searched for Lenara, but Danella found her glare immediately. Lenara’s dark eyes glared beneath bent brows. Her gray hair, pulled back in a bun tight enough to stretch the wrinkles from her face, gave her the grim appearance of a stubborn crone. That same stubbornness made Laeden the man he was, the man their country needed. That, paired with Varros’s sense of honor and righteousness, made him a force to be reckoned with. Yet with Laeden gone and Varros dead, she was all that remained of either man.

After Danella’s father disavowed Lenara’s marriage to Varros, she had found belonging with Stockhelm’s oppressed. But before that, she was raised a pleb in Valtarcia, and elevated to patrician through her marriage to Varros. Though she perhaps wasn’t accepted by any, her experience gave perspective no one else on the council could… should she accept.

Lenara strode towards the dais, still dressed in the brown leather jerkin she’d fought the Skeleton King’s army in. With each step Lenara took, Danella’s chest rattled with the thundering of her heart. Lenara approached stiffly, her falcon-like stare as unrelenting as the tides. The rippling conversations left in her wake amongst the crowd threatened to drown the dais.

Lenara came to a stop before Danella, close enough to whisper.

“Lenara,” Danella said, voice tight. “My father took everything from you. I took everything from you, and for that, I am truly sorry. Varros was a great man. And Laeden better yet. I know apologies do not turn back time, but I believe, together, we can work toward a brighter future. For all.”

Her predatory expression remained, as if etched in stone. If she were moved by Danella’s words or gesture, Lenara gave no sign of it.

“I fear you knew them both better than I ever got the chance to,” Lenara said. “Or ever will. But they are gone, and we are here. Hate as I might, I must admit you have impressed me. And while I’m not convinced that this council and this country will not once again devolve into war, you have earned the right to try and forge peace.”

Danella allowed herself to breathe. A slight smile split her lips.

Lenara chortled. “It seems not all of Varros is gone… You’ve adopted that same stubborn Helixus grin.”

Danella sniffed, pursing her lips to hold back the rush of mixed emotions Lenara’s words had on her.

As the crowd quieted, Danella spoke for all to hear. “Lenara Faire, will you—”

“I will serve,” Lenara said with not quite a bow, but a stiff nod.

After Lenara backed to Sinion’s side, Danella surveyed the leaders of New Rheynia’s Republic and the gathered people it would serve. It would not be easy. It would not be quick. But it would be better.

I’ll make sure of it.

“People of New Rheynia,” she said, “today marks a new beginning in our history. A day in which we do not forsake the cultures of our past, but we embody them; we take the best of them and carry them forward.” She lifted her arm as Varros once had. “To peace and prosperity. For all.”

Though the crowd did not cheer and shout as it had during one of Varros’s speeches, this time, it wasn’t just the patricians and plebs who took up the call. It was some people from every geographic and demographic group. And for now, that was enough.

Danella nodded to Laela, the new Commander of the Vigiles. After Heclan Allos had accepted Danella’s proposed promotion, the Rheynian migrant proved her time as the First Sword of the Wraith prepared her for more than just taking down the Skeleton King.

With a wave of her prosthetic hand, Laela relayed the command. The Vigiles pulled the ropes binding the banners that lined the buildings on either side of the Iyleian River. The sigil of the New Rheynian Republic rolled down the façades of buildings along the street. On white banners with a scarlet stripe across the center, the Six Arrowed Star of Valencia and the Balanced Scale of Celestia combined in a new symbol of brilliant gold. Nine streaks of swirling gold, one for each seat of the council, exploded outward to the banners’ edges, to fend off the scarlet sea.

Though the cheers had started out mild, more took up the call, shouting for peace and prosperity. Rheynians and Helms. Valencian and Celestic, whether they still believed or not, their cultures would not be abandoned. Though the extremists on both sides would need more convincing to maintain peace, the vast majority of people applauded, whistling and grinning.

Examining the faces of the gathering, Danella spotted golden eyes staring back beneath the hood of a black cloak.

Damascus.

The pain behind his eyes, the sullenness of his stubbled cheeks, and the slow rise and fall of his shoulders sent fissures through Danella’s heart.

He nodded at her, dropped his chin, and disappeared into the crowd.

My boy…

It wasn’t until she’d lost everything that she’d found herself. It wasn’t until her pride broke and she’d fallen to her knees that she realized where she stood. Despite her desire to call out to Damascus, to help him, this was one journey he would have to do alone. Just as Damascus needed to rediscover himself, so too did New Rheynia.

Blinking back tears, Danella looked to the blue sky and Valencia beyond. “To peace and prosperity, Varros, my love. To peace and prosperity.”

EPILOGUE

Vykinallia X

Valtarcia

Orange fire retreated, disappearing behind the pink and purple hues of the hungering twilight. In Vykinallia’s first days after returning to Stoneside, she had leaned out the window to chase the setting sun behind the Salmantic skyline and the Hylans beyond. But now, after nearly six moons of restoring the old Auros manor from the fires set by Lenox and the Jackals, she contented herself with the sky’s majesty. With the sea’s song in her ear, and the wind’s whispers in her hair, she felt a serenity at this time of day.

The dark clouds of the encroaching nightly rains from the east contrasted with the colors and textures of the western sky, and between them, it was as if Valencia had descended to treat with her.

Ascending the stairs to the courtyard below, Cerik, Unari, and Iberion arrived. After Danella had requested Cerik join the Council of the Nine in Salmantica, she had encouraged him, despite his martial prowess, to hire bodyguards. It was no surprise he selected Unari and Iberion, but Vykinallia had no doubt as to who Cerik would have preferred to have at his side.

Cerik’s jovial laugh echoed off the stone walls, but it transported her back to a time where she once watched him sparring with Jecht and Zephyrus on the sands of the training square. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. So much had changed. And yet some things never would.

Vykinallia rubbed her elbow.

Behind Iberion, another figure climbed the stairs to the courtyard. A flash of red hair escaped his black cloak.

Vykinallia gasped, leaning out the window to get a better angle. Zephyrus? She gripped the stone sill of the window, her belly pressed into the edge.

The figure removed his hood. Aponius.

Vykinallia released her held breath.

Her mother pulled her away from the window. “Vykinallia, dear. Careful. Come—”

Vykinallia met her mother’s gaze, water welling in her eyes. She shook her head and wiped the tears before they could fall. “Apologies. I thought I…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. That she thought she saw him. Again. Every time she did, it made her stomach turn, and every time she realized she hadn’t, her heart broke anew.

“I know,” her mother said, pulling her into an embrace. “It’s okay.”

Vykinallia pressed her forehead down onto her mother’s shoulder, but she didn’t know if it was true. Six months had passed. She was certain of Zephyrus’s victory. The blood magic and the curse of its use vanished. The black sky and its ever-long lightning storms faded. The hostile aggression in people’s hearts following Ferrocles’s death disappeared. Warmth returned to candles, torches, and hearths alike. Rain fell every night, and crops once again bloomed with bountiful harvests. Everything The Age of the End promised had come and gone, but still, Zephyrus had not returned.

“He’s out there, Mother,” Vykinallia said through stifled tears.

She stroked Vykinallia’s hair. “I know. It’s not easy.” She took a deep breath. “Sometimes I still think I hear Markus’s voice.”

Heat rose to Vykinallia’s cheeks. She pulled away from her mother’s embrace to meet her eyes. “You don’t understand. He is out there. I feel him. Not the memory of him, not the longing for him. I feel him. It’s like he’s trying, but…”

A new wave of tears broke against the dam of her lashes. “What if he can’t come back? What if he never comes back?”

Her nightmare was that he did kill Paxoran. But Paxoran killed him as well. What would become of him if that were true? She would have asked the Guardian that day after the battle, but she had disappeared. Did Zephyrus end up like her—denied flesh in the mortal realm, but never allowed to return to the divine realm?

She held the swell of her belly. “What if he never meets his child?”

Vykinallia’s mother drew her to the corner of the bed, and together, they sat down. She placed her hand atop Vykinallia’s. The child always moved within her womb more at this time of day. More whenever she thought of Zephyrus.

Her mother cooed, shushing her as much as the baby within.

She’d already picked out names. Jechtaria for a girl, Jechtanicus for a boy. She hoped it would honor Jecht, and please Zephyrus, but the more time passed, she felt more and more certain that Zephyrus wasn’t coming back. That this feeling, this presence, was as much as she was ever going to get.

Here. And not here. Close, but unreachable.

“Tell me one time, Vykinallia,” her mother said softly, “one time he ever fell short.”

Vykinallia sniffled. She knew he would argue; he would list a thousand examples where he wasn’t enough. But she couldn’t think of one.

“If there is a way, he’ll find it.” Her mother dried her eyes with a knuckle along her cheek. “And if there isn’t a way…” She shrugged. “He’ll make one.”

Vykinallia sniffed in a half-sob, half-laugh. She nodded, hoping her mother was right.

Her mother kissed her forehead. “Supper will be ready soon. Come downstairs when you’re ready. Urcilia attempted to make Cerik’s favorite dish, but Kaelus brought fresh-caught bass if she spoils it again.”

Vykinallia forced a smile. “It will be nice to see everyone again and hear all about Cerik’s progress with the new Republic.”

Her mother smirked and cocked her brow. “You think he’ll care to talk politics?” She kissed Vykinallia’s belly. “He’ll try to convince you to name your baby Cerik whether it’s a boy or girl.”

A true grin spread across Vykinallia’s lips, and she couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ll be down shortly. I just need a moment.”

Once her mother left the room, Vykinallia returned to the window. The purple of twilight devoured the last glimpses of the burning sun, and the rumble of the nightly rains neared. The blissful moment receded too quickly each day, and each day it came and went without Zephyrus by her side to share it.

“Just believe,” he had said before ascending to the divine realm. “Even if things get bad. Don’t give up.”

She swallowed her grief. We will always have tomorrow. She whispered to the wind. “Zephyrus, if you can hear me… we’re all here waiting for you. Me, Cerik, Unari, and Iberion. And our child, Zephyrus. Our baby. We’ll be waiting, my love.”

The first drops of rain fell to her cheeks, tracing the streaks left by her tears. The wind picked up, a sudden stirring that ruffled her hair. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, she thought she felt his hand take hers, a familiar ring slide onto her finger. She gasped as she felt his hand tangle in her hair. The warmth of his breath on her neck. The heat of his cheek nuzzling against hers. His arm slipped around her waist, and his lips pressed against hers.

Lightning struck beyond the lids of her eyes, and thunder bellowed overhead, ending the moment. Yet even as it passed, she still felt him. She reached her fingertips to her tingling lips.

I didn’t imagine it.

“I love you, Zephyrus,” Vykinallia said to the horizon.

Laughter echoed up the stairwell outside of the chambers.

“Vykinallia, ya comin’ down?”

“Be right there,” Vykinallia called.

She returned to the window and the horizon beyond, unsure where the mortal realm ended and the divine realm began. “Until tomorrow, then.”

With hope on her mind, love in her heart, and a smile on her tingling lips, Vykinallia joined the others around the long table in the feast hall of the Auros manor. Wine flowed, songs were sung, and laughter returned to the once sullen halls.

Upon the wall beside the Auros-forged weapons and encased in glass was Zephyrus’s copy of the Spirit of Divinity. Cerik had found it in the hearth, still intact, spared from the fires set by the Jackals after they had ransacked the place. The Champion of the Nine.

Vykinallia found herself smiling at the book, but then turned to the smiling faces around her. Her mother, who had helped every day to make Stoneside a home for her first grandchild. Nortus, whose bellowing laughter always brought life to the stone manor. Kaelus and Urcilia, who had taken up residence with them while they worked to rebuild Valtarcia. Cerik, Unari, Iberion, and Aponius, who never let too much time pass without a visit.

All nine of them sat around the table, but across from Vykinallia, one seat remained vacant. She smiled at the empty chair. Waiting. Hoping. Knowing one day it would not remain vacant.

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

After my band broke up, I wanted a creative project that I could do all by myself. I thought that project would be writing. Boy, was I wrong. This trilogy, this story, and this journey never would have come to be what it is without the help of many along the way. A special thank you to my mom, my very first reader and always my biggest fan. To Chersti Nieveen and the team at Writer Therapy who taught me everything I know about story, thank you for your patience, encouragement, and guidance; A Vengeful Realm would not have existed in any readable capacity without you! To my fellow writers of the Creators’ Conclave, thank you for being my support system, my sounding board, and my think tank. To my critique partner and friend, L.D. Hudson, thank you for being my most avid cheerleader, my word-count pacer, and my writerly companion; you’re the Sam to my Frodo, and I never would have made it to Mordor without you. To the team at Paper Raven Books who shared my creation with the world, Landon Soelberg who brought my characters to life in the audiobook, and Taylor Ash who turned the Rebels’ Rhyme into a masterpiece—from the bottom of my heart, thank you! And of course, it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to create a universe, write a book (let alone a trilogy), and put it out into the world. But it takes a greater degree of patience and love to be the spouse of a writer. Thank you to my wife, Colleen, for believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When Tim isn’t writing epic fantasy, he can often be found in his garage-gym or in the mountains where he lives. A virtual fitness professional by trade, he integrates his creative passions into movement, training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords to unlock his inner gladiator. To inquire about Gladiator Training, reach out to him at TimFacciolaFit@gmail.com.

More than writing, reading, gaming, playing music, hiking, and paddleboarding, Tim loves story. If he’s not working on his own story, he’s helping others develop theirs as an author coach. To inquire about Author Coaching services, visit firsttorchbooks.mykajabi.com.

Living in Arizona with his wife, Colleen, Tim continues writing epic fantasy novels while exploring different storytelling mediums so he can inspire others to hope. To live. And to believe.

The Rebels' Rhyme by Taylor Ash

taylorash.com

COMING SOON

If you enjoyed Threyna’s story, or you want to learn more about Laela, Belrich, and the curse of Rheynia, check out the first chapter of the stand-alone prequel to the

A Vengeful Realm trilogy, Ghosts of Rheynia.

Click this link:

https://www.timfacciola.com/prequel-preview

Ghosts of Rheynia

Tim Facciola

First Torch Books, LLC

Copyright © 2025 First Torch Books, LLC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Publishing Services provided by Paper Raven Books LLC
Cover Art by Lunaris Falcon Studio
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2025

ISBN:
Paperback: 979-8-9862855-8-0
Hardback: 979-8-9862855-9-7

For those with heavy hearts and unrelenting spirits.

Map

A Word From The Author

If we fail to address our traumas, we’re more likely to pass them, spreading the pain like a virus to the people we love most—whether we will it or not. In this story, a generational curse is given shape, physical form; it corrupts whoever it touches, forever staining their souls.

If you fear you might have been the victim of a generational curse, are at risk of passing one to someone you care for, or have already accidentally passed one onto someone you love—this curse doesn’t have to stain you. Speak with a licensed therapist who specializes in generational trauma, legacy burdens and/or carried emotions and begin your healing journey today.

Foreword

By Christie Hebert-Ashbeck, MS, LPC, NCC

The unspoken tragedy of early life trauma is the inability for the victim to become the fully realized Self due to the difficulty of splitting from those created to protect and support their evolution. As a result, once the child has split from their perceived protector, the child is forced to adapt to a very curious environment, never sure of their place, perception, relationships, their purpose, or their own identity. This dynamic unfolds throughout this story in both individual and shared challenges, sorrows, and victories, yet always with the presence of an underlying and unsettling question that accompanies their eternal aloneness: what is missing?

Unless already consumed with a debilitating level of shame and depression, there will become an urgent "call to action" in order to find what is missing. Most generally, the search to fill the void will include abusing alcohol and drugs, eating disorders, chronic people-pleasing, compulsive sex, shopping, gambling, over-working, the next relationship and the rest of the mood-altering behaviors humans reach for in order to feel "whole."  Unfortunately, these things only tend to expand “what is missing,” as these behaviors will push the seeker further away from their True Selves, creating an even higher level of despair and suffering and debilitating depression.

Working with a trauma-informed therapist versed in these losses of Self, the seeker is strategically guided back to the point in their lives where they "lost" themselves—the point in which they were forced to detach (mentally or physically) from their harmful caregivers while also abandoning and disowning their own perceived "unworthy" Selves. “What is missing” has always been the True Self, the Self that comes with all of the imperfect and incredibly perfect pieces; the part that was created to thrive and evolve in the presence of nurturing and patient caregivers, the Self that does have a purpose.

Prologue

Dracus

“To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to…”

Dracus didn’t remember the rest. His aunt had sung it to him when he was a boy. He remembered her voice better than her face. It was soft. Deep, but warm. She held him, his back against her chest as she’d sing. She was too sweet for this world. But then again, she wasn’t long for it. Times like this, he wished he’d turned around. Looked her in the eye as she sang those sad lullabies. Then, maybe he would remember her and not the monster death turned her into.

But time for that was gone. He doubted he’d live long enough to recall any of her songs. The only music left was that of the Order’s drums, the echoing shouts of their marching legions, and the moans of the poor undying souls who would remain trapped in their failing bodies after they left.

Dracus shuffled his feet, still clad in the Order-issued boots he wore the day he deserted. Standing in the valley of the Cut, side by side with soldiers who didn’t want to be there any more than he did, he knew all too well what awaited the rest of the Underground. But also what awaited him: the Final Demise. Hollowing by a hundred cuts, one for each man in the cohort, a fate reserved for deserters. Dracus’s own Vendetta dagger, Fang, rested on his hip.

Chewing on his mustache and not wanting to think about that, he considered how many of the brave souls beside him would be wailing the dirge of undeath once the battle concluded.

It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. How many laurels had he secured for King Bohen in his Order blacks? How many shrieking hollowed begged to be released from their undying bodies on the grounds of his victories? How many spectral shades fled their flesh to wander the battlefield, void of any recollections that made them human? He knew how many darklings were trapped in the soul jar on his hip. 804 tortured souls, denied their bodies and the release of not knowing what they’d lost, eternally searching to live once again by overtaking a host.

Those were his potential fates, and he wouldn’t have a choice when the time came: hollow and suffer for eternity, become a shade and wander aimlessly forever, or become a darkling and end up in a soul jar as some low-level Justicus’s trophy. If he was lucky, he’d be irradiated, and then he’d be done with this world.

“To dream is to die.”

He shouldn’t have been here. Most of them weren’t supposed to be. They should’ve been on a ship far from Rheynia and its undying curse—he, Fawkes, and the boy, Canton. The first settlement in Sansia had disappeared without a trace—so what? Dracus welcomed that darkling over the darkling he knew. Welcomed the newness over the monster that still haunted Canton’s dreams. The three of them, together, they would have made it. Found land, people, civilization—lived lives of meaning.

Those dreams died. Burned and went up in smoke along with Resilience and the rest of the Underground’s fleet. Now they were here, fighting for a cause only less than a quarter of them believed in.

“Divided, ruin will reign,'' Arilette had said, standing before the burning ships and the scorched and still-screaming remains of her father. The same credo the Skeleton King had used in an attempt to reunite Rheynia in the Dominion of Neutreen’s Holy Order was now the basis of Arilette’s rebellion.

Dracus ran his palm over his shaved head, moisture coating both surfaces. The woman beside him practically shook, holding her soul-scorching irradiator in both hands as the Order’s legions marched nearer, their voices growing louder. Swallowing, Dracus put his hand atop hers. Graeva, he thought her name was, but wasn’t sure enough to risk the mistake.

Dracus forced a tight-lipped grin. “Too far out to fire. Set that down. Before ya hurt someone.”

Graeva, or whatever her name was, nodded. She lowered the handheld arcanatek and put it in the holster at her belt. Flicking her black hair over her shoulder, she wafted the scent of burnt wood and human flesh to his nostrils.

Dracus cleared his throat, not wanting to swallow the acrid scent, or the ashes from the friend they came from. Arenius, Arilette’s father and the founder of the Underground—but above all, a good man—was gone. Burned alive and thereafter.

Arenius’s hope was to bring as many people beyond the curse and as far away from Bohen, the Order, and the hollowed as possible. His dream—ruined. Sabotaged by his own daughter. Her fires, birthed from the darkness of the Underground’s past, brought death to his dreams, and from their ashes, she sold the second-greatest lie in Rheynia; King Bohen, the Skeleton King, was weak. Defeatable.

“To hope is to lie.”

Graeva glanced in Dracus’s direction, eyes wet, cheeks and nose blushed a rosy pink. She nodded, subtly at first, but then with more assertion. “We can do it, right?”

“Course we can,” Dracus lied. Wasn’t his first. If he somehow managed to escape this deathless massacre unhollowed with his soul still in his body, it wouldn’t be his last either. Lying kept him living. Living through the War of the Seers, the Artificer’s War, coming face to face with the single greatest lie in Rheynia, and now this? He lied again. “Just stay close, eh? I’ll keep an eye out.”

Graeva’s lip appeared ready to warble like a charged irradiator.

“No more cryin’,” Dracus said. “Time enough for that later.”

Graeva nodded, sniffled, and tucked her lower lip like a right and proper legionary. Dracus would look after her. If he could. But he had a lot of people to keep an eye on, and Graeva wasn’t particularly high on that list.

Keep livin’. Return to Canton and Fawkes. We’ll find our own way off this rock, and gory ghostin’ Arilette can count on that.

“To live is to…”

Dracus released his breath from his nostrils. Blood and bone, what is the next word?

“That’s a good thing you did,” Theodyn said, leaning close from Dracus’s opposite side. He nodded at Graeva. “You’ve always done that.”

The war drums neared, bellowing deeper with each successive beat. The high walls of the Cut reverberated the sound, making the valley tremble worse than Graeva’s knees now that she’d buttoned up her lip.

“Wish I could’ve been more like you,” Theodyn said.

Dracus turned to Theodyn. The familiarity of his tone rang oddly unfamiliar. “How you  mean?”

Theodyn pushed a loose strand of silver-blond hair behind his ear, towards his messy bun. The muscles of his jaw clenched. Still staring straight ahead, he closed his eyes for a long moment. “I remember the day they brought you in after the fall of Cybellica. Couldn’t’ve been more than five.”

Dracus grunted. Cybellica wasn’t a name mentioned often. The last stronghold of Cadrow Wing’s band of Seers and murderers fell like every army did before the Skeleton King. A rush of muddy memories served as a temporary distraction from the army marching toward them now. But not enough to fool Dracus into believing there was any way Theodyn could have known him from back then.

Shaking his head, Dracus examined Theodyn. “Whatchu talkin’ about?”

Theodyn lifted his gaze to the gray clouds forever shrouded over Rheynia. A gentle drizzle fell, undeterred by the notion of spitting in their faces. “I know what you lost, Dracus. In the days before you arrived, on the eve you were born—if the stories tell it true.” Theodyn scoffed. “Difficult to tell. You’re more myth than man these days.” He grinned, shaking his head as if lost in memories he shouldn’t have had. “You continually outdid the others. Plenty of boys were bigger, stronger, faster, smarter. You always found a way to win.”

Dracus pursed his lips, trying to piece together how he knew anything about his Order past. Waiting for the eventual punchline to the old man’s musings, Dracus said, “I never found a way to win. Winning’s for stories with heroes, and this one don’t have any. If ya can’t win, just gotta find ways to keep playin’.”

Theodyn chuckled. “Keep playing.” He rubbed the back of his neck and took a deep breath. “Do you believe in the Purge?”

Dracus’s mustache bristled in the wind of his flustered exhale. “Theodyn, this ain’t the time for theology an—”

“You know as well as I what awaits us,” Theodyn whispered, quiet enough that no one else could hear. “If not now, never.”

Dracus snorted. If the Four Tenets of Elysianism ever stood, they fell long ago. Faytemarked be damned, Neutreen was long gone. He wished he was wrong, but after the things he’d seen, there was no Goddess of Justice. No deity waiting beyond the curse to grant the pious wings to fly to the divine realm. It was all a lie—perhaps the third greatest lie ever told—to get people up in the morning. There was no afterlife—only life, death, and the corruption between them.

The Tellers believed in the Purge—the lie that if all the hollowed were vanquished and every shade and darkling irradiated, Neutreen would return to Rheynia. Even before being indoctrinated into the Order’s propagative education, no hellhound would have sold him on that crock. If Dracus was going to buy any of the pedantic divergences of Elysianism, it was that the One True God had infiltrated Neutreen’s temples and needed to be struck down for the Goddess of Justice to return to her rightful reign. But Dracus had seen the One with his own eyes, and he was no God.

“Nah,” Dracus said. “The Purge won’t fix nothin’.”

Theodyn put his hand to the fatekeeper hanging around his neck. The octagonal arcanatek customarily held prayers to be read and burned for Neutreen. Parents generally wrote them for their children, to be opened upon their deaths. No one who’d lived long enough to have seen the Disasters had any business wearing one, but come to think of it, Dracus had never seen Theodyn without it.

Dracus put his hand on the man’s shoulder as the Order’s legions encroached, their drums growing louder. He gestured to Graeva trembling beside him. “Brave face, eh, Theodyn? For the rest of ’em.”

Theodyn turned to Dracus, a forlorn darkness in his blue eyes. “That’s not my name.”

Dracus searched the man’s face. The sunken eyes. The elegant cheekbones. The strong jaw. Piecing Theodyn’s ramblings together, he realized why the old man always seemed too familiar. The silver-blond hair should have given him away but hid within his age. The same hair of Belrich Fayte, the Legatus of the Order, the son of Bohen—Bherus, Prince of Rheynia.

A shiver rattled down Dracus’s spine and coiled around his ribs. “Hmm. Seems I’ve found the long-lost prince, eh?” He put his hands on his hips and stared at his Order boots. “All this time, Bherus ghostin’ Fayte right under my nose.”

“I’ve gone by many names—Bherus, Dreyus, Theodyn. Lived many lives, as have you. But this has to be the end. A Teller told me once it was up to me to stop my father. Stop my brother. Save Rheynia.”

Dracus couldn’t help himself. What began as a smirk turned into a sarcastic chuckle that drew the attention of those looking for a distraction from the piss in their boots and the army marching towards them. But said chuckle also attracted the eyes of Arilette’s Arch Premius, Lorath.

“Something funny, Dray?” Lorath asked, his thin lips parting in a snarl that made his default-darkling-stare seem like a smile. Shoulders too broad for his narrow mug, he stalked between the rows of Underground soldiers to the middle of the formation where those who didn’t want to be there were shackled into obedience.

“No, Premius,” Dracus said, standing to mock-attention. He pinched his thumb and index finger together, splaying the other three in the stocks.

Lorath stopped before Dracus, staring at the stocks.

Nearly a head and a half taller than Dracus, Lorath glanced down his crooked nose and cleft chin at him. “You’re lucky Neutreen’s no longer here. Do you honestly believe you’d measure up if you were in the stocks before her?”

Dracus shrugged. “Depends who's beside me.” He pointed at Theodyn, or Bherus—whatever he wanted to be called. “Him? Nah, she wouldn’t like me much.” He jabbed his thumb toward Graeva. “Her? Psh, not a chance. She's gotta lotta wings to pass out before I get mine. But you?” He snorted. “Yeah, I reckon she’d turn me into a dove next to you.”

If not for the slow patter of passing midday rains, the Order legionaries’ shouting, and the bellowing war drums marching their way, silence would have stretched across the Cut.

Dracus smiled. Lorath didn’t.

“Theodyn,” Lorath said, “you’ve chosen poor company.”

Theodyn cocked his head in the Arch Premius’s direction. “I preferred to be with Arenius.”

The bite in each of his words wasn’t how one typically spoke to a commanding officer in the moments before battle. But when that battle occurred shortly after a coup that the commanding officer partook in, well… typical took a swim in the Grotto and never came back.

Lorath’s nose wrinkled before turning on his heel and stalking to the frontlines to join Arilette and her mutineers.

Once he was gone, Theodyn lifted the fatekeeper from his neck and extended it toward Dracus. Dracus stared at it but didn’t accept the arcanatek.

His mother never had the chance to write him prayers. Died in the Disasters the day he was born. His father didn’t know how to write. Even if he did, he never bothered to hold Dracus before he marched off to join the War of the Seers. Odds were his father was still out there, somewhere. A wandering shade. A snarling hollowed. Or maybe trapped in the very soul jar on his hip. It didn’t matter.

“Ain’t those supposed to be personal?” Dracus asked of the pendant.

“Very,” Theodyn said, staring at the Order’s advance. “You might not believe in the Purge. You might not believe this story has a hero. But I need that Teller to have been right. I need the Purge to be true. We need a hero so my girls can live in peace.”

He turned to face Dracus, his expression as hard as the Spine and as twisted as the Gullies. “If I fail, should I suffer and the Skeleton King live—if the Order is still in power, you must open this. You must do what I could not. Finish this. My father. My brother. All of it.”

Fearing what it held, Dracus shook his head, thrusting the arcanatek back to Theodyn.

Theodyn persisted, shoving it towards Dracus. The Order’s war drums were now close enough to resonate with the dissonance between them.

“I can’t,” Dracus said.

“For my girls. Please.”

Dracus examined the black pendant.

Arilette’s shouts and Lorath’s echoes roared against the Order’s approach, each as insistent as Theodyn’s outstretched hand. Dracus had no idea what Theodyn was thinking or planning, but if he held what Dracus thought he held, he wanted nothing to do with it.

“If not for me,” Theodyn said, “for your boy, Canton.”

Dracus swallowed the knot in his throat, hoping Fawkes and Canton were as far from here as possible. But unless Theodyn’s fatekeeper held another ship that they could sail away from Rheynia, it couldn’t help them. Fleeing Arilette wouldn’t go unpunished. Hiding from the Order was their only hope until another escape attempt revealed itself.

“I’m gonna suffer the same fate as you do here,” Dracus said. “If you wanted to keep that safe, you shouldn’t have brought it.”

Theodyn took Dracus’s hand in his. His touch, warm despite the chill of the falling rain, sent a hum up his arm. Pressing the arcanatek into his palm, Theodyn leaned close. Against the thrashing war drums, the shouting legionaries, and Arilette’s attempts to rouse the Underground’s fighting spirit, Theodyn’s whisper drowned out all else.

“Find a way. Keep playing.” He closed Dracus’s fingers around the fatekeeper.

Light as it was, whatever it housed weighed him down. The soul jar on his hip contained 804 souls, but its heft was nothing compared to the fatekeeper. A darkness. A dread. A sentience denied of the hollowed and shades. Yet a power, far beyond that of any darkling, lived within the arcanatek.

Dracus met Theodyn’s eyes. Suspicions confirmed, he knew now what was inside, but he didn’t want to believe it.

Crestfallen, Theodyn nodded. A heart-rending tear trickled from the corner of his eye to conceal itself in the raindrops. The burden of his name, the weight of his self-imposed fate—they buried the man in shadows.

Dark veins sprouted up Theodyn’s chest and erupted through the blue of his irises.

Dracus balked. Blood magic…

“For Threyna and Laela,” Theodyn said.

Then the horns erupted. The battle for the Cut began. And everything went to gory ghosting ruin.

PART I

Chapter 1: Until the Cut

Threyna

Ten Years Later…

Threyna’s boots sank into the murky silt of the Cut despite following in the footsteps before her. Lit by a dim illuminator, her squadron traversed the infamous valley, irradiators drawn and charged in the event that the quiet graveyard still held secrets to share. Shrugging the strap of her pack higher on her shoulder, Threyna surveyed the gloom ahead, not willing to take any chances.

The mission had been a success. Each of her squadron, five in all, hauled packs of their own, filled with enough stolen power coils to create an arcanatek large enough to vortex half the hollowed in the Gullies and irradiate whatever shades and darklings it drew out. Now they just had to return to Octarius. Once they were through the Cut, they’d be home free.

Though they had slipped past the Order’s Justicus, infiltrated the silo, and navigated around Saltspire without incident, people didn’t say, “Don’t thank Neutreen till after the Cut,” for the fun of it.

Few places in Rheynia held positive memories. Anyone who had been in the Underground long enough knew there were few victories worth celebrating. But the scars of defeats suffered at the Order’s hands abounded, none worse than the Battle of the Cut. Not one of Threyna’s squadron escaped the ordeal unscathed, and the moment they entered into the valley for the last stretch of their return home, the typical banter between her crew hollowed, leaving them to pass through the haunted gorge like silent shades.

Threyna regripped her irradiator, fending off thoughts of the night she lost her father in this very valley. The night her mother and sister fled north. The way the hellhounds came for her from the shadows.

Stifling a shudder, Threyna peered past the arcanatek’s glow to the night beyond. “Stay sharp. Stick to protocol.” She nodded to Ebrus, the solemn, sensitive boy who lost as much as she had that night. “We’ll be back in the hold in no time.”

Ebrus’s lip quivered more than any Centuriot of the Underground’s should. As if realizing Threyna had noticed, he tossed the flop of his black comb-over to the opposite side of his head.

“Ay, that’s what I like to hear,” Yevon said, his ever-present grin dimpling his boyish cheeks. “The Legatus and Arch Premius get their power coils, Ebrus gets his poetry, Rivich the opportunity to salute some more, and Aylenia… hey, what are you doing once we get back?”

Aylenia, leading the way, whipped around as she continued to stalk forward. The white light of the illuminator did little to soften the sharpness of her high cheekbones or the glare of her dark green eyes. “If that’s an invite to your bunk, you’d have better luck with the Legatus than me.”

Rivich elbowed Aylenia. “Don’t encourage him. Focus on the mission.”

Yevon mocked Rivich the moment he turned his back.

Before Yevon could continue, Threyna tapped his shoulder and offered him a chiding shrug. Rivich was right, as he usually was, but despite all the darkness in the world, Yevon still found the light in it. His gentle teasing of Ebrus lightened the mood without attacking him, his levity softened Rivich’s sternness, and his continued attempts to lure Aylenia’s affections were one of the few forms of entertainment to be found within the Underground. This was not the time nor the place to become distracted, but better to be distracted by light conversation than the thoughts of their parents hollowing on the muck they walked upon.

“Keep it caged, Yevon,” Threyna said. “Besides, you couldn’t handle Aylenia. Once we make it back, a round of Valefyre on me. Perhaps then she’ll give you a shot.”

Aylenia scoffed. “I’d rather cozy up with Lorath. No offense, kid.”

Yevon groaned in mock insult. “His hellhounds don’t even bark anymore.”

“That’s the idea,” Aylenia said.

Rivich grabbed the strap of Aylenia’s pack and spun her around, glaring at Yevon. “Blood and bone. The mission.” He bared his teeth at Threyna as if demanding her to discipline them. Though the glow from Aylenia’s illuminator cast half his stone-chiseled jaw in shadow, it couldn’t conceal the dark scar rising from his collar to slash across his throat.

A scar Threyna knew he still blamed her for.

Rivich wished he was Premius. Oftentimes, Threyna did too. She didn’t enjoy leadership. She didn’t want to be responsible for making the tough call when others’ lives hung in the balance. But Arilette chose her. Not him.

Threyna returned his harsh gaze and lowered Rivich’s irradiator until it pointed to the ground. “You are the only one slowing the progress of this mission, Centuriot.” She seized his pack and yanked him forward despite the breadth of his shoulders.

He released his grip on Aylenia and allowed Threyna to draw his face close to hers. His furrowed brow and clenched jaw retained their tension, but he held her gaze.

He hated her. She saw it whenever he looked at her. Not out of jealousy. Not because Arilette favored her. Not even because he believed he would be a better Premius than she was, even though it was true. He hated her for the same reason she hated herself. But she couldn’t let him know that.

She snarled, blocking out the screams in the back of her mind. “Move out. Or the Legatus will hear about this.”

Rivich maintained his unyielding brown-eyed stare. “Yes, Premius.”

Threyna didn’t release him. Holding his stern gaze, she wished his grieving soul could recognize the same in her. That a look could speak in the space where no words could. But that was the point. She couldn’t give him that. Not through words, looks, or any other form of communication.

I did what I had to. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t haunt me…

Her grip slackened on his shoulder strap, but she didn’t let go. The moment stretched too long. The sullen stillness swirled with the eerie quiet in the absence of their squelching footsteps and hushed banter.

Threyna forced herself to let go. Rivich stood to his full height, the stone in his throat bobbing with swallowed words. As he turned, something else moved in the distance. A pebble rattled down the wall of the southern lip of the Cut ahead of them.

Threyna motioned to Aylenia, closing her fingers into a fist.

Aylenia dutifully powered down her illuminator, cloaking them in darkness.

As Threyna’s vision adapted to the absence of light, she tapped Ebrus beside her. Two gentle beats, a pause, another beat, then two more. Threyna drummed the same cadence on Rivich’s shoulder, then Ebrus to Yevon, until all five knew the order. Taking care not to make noise, the five moved into formation. Rivich and Yevon took the front while Threyna and Ebrus turned to face their flank, each leveling their irradiators at the surrounding dark. Aylenia took center, readying to charge whichever arcanatek would best help once the threat was identified.

The wind picked up to conceal whatever had stirred in the night. It could be a hellhound, a single hollowed, or an entire horde. Worse yet, if confronted by a cohort of patrolling Justicus, they’d find themselves in a firefight. She knew better than to pray to Neutreen that it was just a falling rock; no amount of matches lit to the Goddess of Justice would see those prayers answered.

Threyna chewed the inside of her lip, scanning the southern ridgeline. As the wind softened to a whisper, she still couldn’t hear anything. No voices. No footsteps.

Shoulder to shoulder with Ebrus, she felt the tremor of his arms, the slight rattle to his uneven breaths.

Gory ghosts, Ebrus. Not now.

Holding her irradiator steady and never averting her gaze from the horizon, she reached her left hand across her body to gently grip Ebrus’s arm. His quivering posture settled and his breath found a steady rhythm.

The aura of a shade approached, growing brighter as it neared the ridgeline’s edge, but this was coming from behind their position. Shades didn’t disturb the environment around them; they only cast a ghastly visage of the people they were in life. There was no way this shade kicked the stone ahead of them, but where there were shades, there were hollowed. And once within the Cut, there were only two ways out: back the way they had come, or through.

Threyna hurriedly tapped Aylenia with three quick beats. She relayed the message to Rivich, and together, they stalked forward in formation. Continuing to watch their flank, Threyna sidestepped behind Aylenia and Rivich, irradiator aimed at the shade’s growing aura.

A sharp inhale from Rivich’s positioning stopped their progress.

Three more taps.

Another shade.

Threyna responded with one tap. They quickened their pace. Feet squishing through the muck, they traded silence for speed.

“Multiple,” Rivich whispered, barely audible over the jostling of their packs and the shuffling of their feet.

Heart hammering, Threyna inclined her head to the glowing ridgeline. It didn’t make sense. No arcanatek could cast that much light. There would need to be dozens of shades to even come close, but shades didn’t travel in packs.

A low groaning breath droned behind her. Threyna looked over her shoulder just as a shade floated over the ridgeline to traverse the Cut. Behind it, a hollowed lunged for it. Its withered flesh passed through the incorporeal shade and plummeted down the valley’s wall. Before it could hit the ground, half a dozen others followed it off the ledge.

“Run,” Threyna hissed.

Weighed down by power-coil-ladened packs, they charged through the valley as more and more shades passed overhead, and more and more hollowed mindlessly pursued. The groans of the horde filled the Cut as decomposing bodies slammed into the ground and one another in their fruitless pursuit of the shades.

Threyna returned her gaze forward, feet sliding through the clay-like soot on the valley floor. As long as the hollowed were behind them, they’d be able to outpace them. If they were lucky, the shades would continue to occupy their attention and they’d never give chase. But it wasn’t the shades behind them that made Threyna’s chest tighten beneath the fatekeeper tucked against her breastbone; it was the ever-brightening aura of encroaching shades ahead that would bar their path and trap them.

“Dawnshards at the ready,” Threyna said, as quietly as she could over their ragged breaths and trampling feet. “Once the first shade crests the ridge.” The handheld light bombs wouldn’t distract every hollowed, but one less hollowed in their path could make the difference between returning home and wandering Rheynia for eternity.

Threyna unhooked a Dawnshard from her belt and looped her finger through the ring atop the arcanatek. Ebrus did the same beside her. One moment, he was reaching for his belt; the next, he was gone from sight. He fell, face first into the wet clay along the valley floor. 

Threyna inhaled sharply. Sliding to a halt, she turned back for Ebrus.

“Threyna!” Aylenia hissed.

“Keep going,” Threyna called over her shoulder. She wouldn’t let another member of her team hollow. Especially not Ebrus.

She charged back as he struggled to regain his feet. But the ticking of a live Dawnshard drew her attention.

Blood and bone.

Threyna scanned the ground for the black arcanatek. If it detonated, not only would she and Ebrus be blinded, but the radiant flash would draw every hollowed directly toward them. Feeling for the Dawnshard through the depressions of their footprints, Threyna’s time slipped away, faster and faster with each passing moment. Hands caked in muck, Threyna scrambled, following the sound.

Ebrus crawled towards her, doing the same.

Threyna’s hand closed around the octagonal shape absent its loop just as its ticking reached its crescendo. From her knees, Threyna closed her eyes and reared back to hurl the Dawnshard over Ebrus’s head, back the way they had come.

Not a half a moment after it left her hand, it exploded. White radiant light blazed through her closed eyelids. Stumbling back, she called for Ebrus.

“I can’t see!” he shouted.

Too ghosting loud. Eyes still closed, Threyna reached for him, sliding in the clay. Her muddy hands closed around his arm. Unable to see, she yanked him towards her, but he slipped, his weight dragging her off-balance.

The snarls of hollowed filled the valley. They were coming. Fast.

Threyna hauled Ebrus to his feet, sliding her shoulder under his arm. Charging back toward the others as quickly as she could, absent sight on the slippery surface, Threyna attempted to open her eyes. Flashes spotted across her vision. Darting halos swerved in the distance. Another blast of white light exploded in the sky to the shrieks of more hollowed.

Another Dawnshard. We’ll be surrounded by a horde if we don’t clear the Cut. “Come on,” Threyna said. “We have to catch up.”

“Threy,” Ebrus said, “I can’t see!”

“I’m here, but we need to move!”

The hollowed gained on them. Their decomposing maws gnashed, ready to tear them to pieces. Threyna kept her sparking vision ahead. In the distance, a vortexer warbled to life and released its charge, ejecting a new white aura into their path. Swords hacked into undead flesh, releasing fresh gales of haunted shrieks.

Swords wouldn’t stop a hollowed in their pursuit of clawing their way through a living body, but severed limbs, clipped tendons, and broken bones certainly slowed them down.

Still, hollowed closed the distance on their flank.

“Can you see yet?” Threyna asked Ebrus, doing her best to keep the fear from her tone. Now was not the time to trigger one of Ebrus’s episodes.

“No!” The panic in his voice tightened across her chest.

Blood and bone. With her own vision readjusting, she seized her blaster with her free hand. She pressed the button, switching it from irradiator to vortexer. The range on the vortexer wasn’t nearly as far as the irradiator’s radiant energy, but hitting a hollowed, even at its highest output, would only stun it. Meant for shades and darklings, shooting a body with an irradiator was a wasted charge. But if she could vortex a hollowed, the freed shade might distract the others long enough for her and Ebrus to get away.

A growling hollowed reached for them from its belly, its severed legs and mutilated arm slowing it down. Appreciating Rivich’s handiwork, Threyna steered Ebrus beyond its reach. A pair of severed heads snapped their jaws as they strode past, their decapitated bodies wandering like Order legionaries lost in the Gullies.

At the end of the Cut, white blasts of irradiator fire erupted from her squadron’s arcanatek, streaking through the air or stunning the few hollowed still ahead of Threyna and Ebrus. Threyna’s own blaster, set to vortex, warbled in her hand, nearing its max output.

Just as she was about to turn to fire, Ebrus cried out as he was torn from her grip. A hollowed crawled from the muck to wrap its arms around Ebrus’s leg. Its jaw hung slack, the muscles severed. Though it couldn’t bite him, it clawed through his britches.

Threyna passed her blaster to her left hand to draw her short sword. She slashed down at the hollowed’s outstretched arm, dislodging its grip from Ebrus. Sheathing her sword, she hauled a hyperventilating Ebrus from the hollowed’s clutches. Its silent attack was just what the other pursuing hollowed needed to catch up.

A hollowed reached for her, close enough for her to feel the wind. Shoving Ebrus aside, Threyna lurched out of its immediate grasp.

A bright white rail fired past her and struck the hollowed in the chest, giving her breathing room. Leveling her blaster at the dozens closing in behind them, Threyna aimed at the stunned hollowed. With no time to wonder if her father was one of these tortured souls giving chase, she swallowed the grief left unresolved after he never returned from the Cut and pulled the trigger.

Air distorted between her and the stunned hollowed. The white luminescent soul of a man who once feared the very thing he became ripped from his body. The shade hung suspended in the air even as his body’s momentum carried him through the incorporeal specter to fall motionless to the ground.

“Come on,” Threyna said, holstering her blaster and spiriting Ebrus forward as the remaining hollowed surrounded the shade.

His arm shook in hers, his fingers bent at odd angles with the awkward cramping his episodes imposed.

“It’s okay, Eb. I’m here.”

Ebrus didn’t respond. His blank, sightless eyes stared straight ahead, tears trickling down his cheeks. Following the path the others carved for them, Threyna led Ebrus beyond the Cut’s mouth and into the trees lining Cybel’s Tears where Aylenia, Rivich, and Yevon waited.

“Nice work,” Threyna said, not slowing down from her charge out of the Cut. “Good shooting, whoever took the shot.”

Aylenia bowed her head, falling in beside Threyna at a trot. “Is he prime?”

“He’s fine,” Threyna said.

“He’ll need to go to the medicus once we get back,” Aylenia said, gesturing to his lower left leg. “Those abrasions get infected, he’ll get dewskull.”

Yevon flinched at the mention of the disease.

“Yeah,” Threyna said. “Then he’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” Rivich scoffed. “Look at him. How can you say he’ll be fine? What is this—three of the last four missions?”

Threyna bared her teeth, giving Ebrus a defensive squeeze. “Enough, Rivich.”

“Oh, so this you’ll shut down.” Rivich snorted. “Anything goes when Yevon wants to shoot his mouth off mid-mission. You don’t say gore when Aylenia’s gotta be a know-it-all or when Ebrus hollows his eyes out to get you to notice him. But when I say he’s going to get one of us killed—I’m the one waking the hellhound.”

Heat rose to Threyna’s cheeks. Gory ghosting dammit, Rivich. Not now.

She could feel Yevon's and Aylenia’s eyes wandering between her and Rivich as they passed the remains of Fort Cybel to ford the bridge over the Tears. Gritting her teeth, knowing he was right—again—she couldn’t even meet his eyes. “I said enough, Centuriot. That’s an order.”

Rivich scoffed, muttering under his breath.

An uncomfortable silence followed. Threyna exchanged a sidelong glance with Aylenia over Ebrus’s shoulder. Aylenia’s lip contorted. She alone knew how Threyna felt about Ebrus. Holding him now, he felt as frail as he had ten years ago after his parents never returned from the Battle of the Cut. It wasn’t just his parents. Fawkes and Canton had fled. Threyna’s mother and sister, Laela, too. Arenius was burned, vortexed, and irradiated. After just one night, his whole life fell to pieces, and all he had left was her. She’d lost everything that night too, but where it only hardened her, it broke Ebrus. He wasn’t like her. He was too sweet for this world. Too kind for those left in it.

They walked in uneasy silence through the haunting woods along Cybel’s Tears.

“Race ya back?” Yevon said to Rivich once they broke through the tree line and Octarius’s ruins came into sight.

Rivich grunted. “Do we have your leave, Premius?”

Threyna pursed her lips. She didn’t want to leave it like this. The gaping fissure between them was spreading faster than the Grotto during the Disasters, but she didn’t know what she could say to mend the divide. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this way with someone she’d cared about, and it had been ten years since she last saw or spoke to her mother or sister.

“Go,” she said, soft as a shade.

Rivich took off, his long legs building to a sprint despite the pack on his back. Yevon followed in his wake but never caught up. None of them could keep up with Rivich when he was of a mood, and Threyna had no doubt she had triggered just such a mood.

Watching them run away, she felt like she was watching her father march off to join the Underground in the Battle of the Cut. Like she was watching her mother and sister evacuate Octarius to head north through the tunnels with the others who abandoned Arilette.

They all leave. They all run away.

“Always another fight,” Aylenia said.

Threyna was supposed to respond with, “Always another victory,” but the sentiment felt hollow. No victory was truly a victory; there was always a cost, and the price was always greater than what they’d traded for. Remaining silent and sighing through her teeth, Threyna, along with Aylenia, helped Ebrus the final distance to Octarius’s underground entrance.

Chapter 2: Test of Loyalty

Threyna II

With the choir of hollowed groaning in the distance, Threyna and Aylenia led Ebrus to the arcanatek-powered entryway that connected the ruins of what was once Victaryen Kaine’s castle. Now, it was the Underground’s subterranean bastion. Aylenia seized hold of the hidden spatial distorter. Disguised as a metallic hinge in what was once a doorway, the arcanatek was perfectly hidden in plain view. Aylenia pressed the buttons along the arcanatek’s rectangular spine in the proper order and walked through the crumpled remains of the doorway.

There one moment, gone the next, Aylenia passed through the spatial distorter. Similar to the fatekeeper technology that housed the gifts parents left to their children, the arcanatek of the doorway served as a portal, a ripple in time and space.

“In you go,” Threyna said, helping Ebrus through.

Together, they walked through the entryway. Like becoming a shade, their bodies glowed silver. But unlike the eternity of the shades’ demise, Threyna and Ebrus’s time in the strange ethereal plane faded. Over the course of a few steps, the dark gloom of Octarius’s ruins became the illuminator-lit halls of the Underground’s top level.

Aylenia greeted them with a grin. “Thank the Savior.”

Threyna snorted. “If only she’d brought us an arcanatek that allowed us to bypass the Cut.” She passed Ebrus off to Aylenia. “Get him to the medicus. Probably need a few hours in the warp to allow those hellscars to heal up.”

“I’m right here,” Ebrus said, as Threyna took his power-coil-filled pack from his back.

Threyna ignored him, continuing to speak to Aylenia as she slung Ebrus’s pack over her shoulder. “Oh, and make sure he takes the rads. We don’t need another dewskull outbreak.”

“Prime,” Aylenia said. “The others?”

Threyna hmphed, holding out her hand to take Aylenia’s pack and sling it over her other shoulder. “Leave them be.” She had no doubt Rivich delivered his pack to the quartermaster and made sure Yevon did the same. The last thing she wanted was to have to get between Rivich and Aylenia if he still had more venom to spit.

Aylenia nodded. “I’ll take care of Ebrus and meet you back at the bunk.”

“Still right here,” Ebrus said, misery in his pale blue eyes.

Threyna finally met his gaze, unsure if she was disappointed in him, afraid that Rivich was right about him, or angry with herself for not being able to turn him into a Centuriot she didn’t have to worry about.

His cheeks pale, face drawn, he gazed at the ground. “Apologies. Erm. Apologies, Premius.” He let out an exasperated breath. “Gratitude. For saving me.”

Threyna pursed her lips and nodded. She’d never look at him the way he looked at her. She knew that hollowed whatever small part of him still yearned for her to love him the way he did her. She wouldn’t, as sure as the daily rains.

Breaking under the weight of the extra packs and Ebrus’s hopes, she forced herself to smile. “Rest up, Eb.” She inclined her chin to Aylenia, and the two left her for the medicus’s quarters.

Waiting for their footsteps to recede down the south stairwell, Threyna sighed. Gory ghosts, what am I going to do about him? Setting off down the long corridor toward the armory, Threyna replayed the mission over and over again in her mind, knowing Arilette would expect details once she delivered their haul to the quartermaster.

Always the Cut. Everything goes wrong at the Cut.

She’d paced this very hall that morning after the battle ten years ago. Dracus had delivered her to the medicus after saving her from a pack of hellhounds. She’d asked where her father was, but Dracus said he didn’t know.

“Is he gone?” she had asked.

Dracus had rubbed his blood-speckled hand over his bald scalp, chewing his mustache. “He called you Little Dove, eh?” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Little Dove. But you’re here. You’re still kicking. That’ll have to do.”

The fatekeeper Dracus gave to her that night hung heavy on her chest, his words heavier yet. “This was your father’s, Little Dove. He said if he didn’t make it, if he were gone and the Order still in power, you must open this,” Dracus had said, quoting her father’s last words.

She didn’t believe he was gone. Not when Dracus said he didn’t know. Not when Arilette told her the Skeleton King got him. Not even after she’d paced these halls, step by agonizing step, clutching his fatekeeper, waiting for him to return for a full day and night. And still, not ten years later, did she believe he was lost. Shade, hollowed, darkling, or still alive in Saltspire’s farm—each was just as likely as the last.

Threyna trudged to the end of the hall and turned into the armory to find Old Man Marius sitting behind the table and reinforced cage. His bushy black brow inclined, and a toothy grin cracked his weathered face.

“If it ain’t Lady Darkling herself,” Marius said. “Ain’t ya gotta crew to turn in your haul? Are we supposed to drink this Valefyre by ourselves?” He lifted the bottle of grog.

Too tired to tell him not to call her that, she pushed past pleasantries and set Ebrus’s pack on Marius’s neat and orderly table. “Did Yevon and Rivich—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Marius waved his hand flippantly, setting the bottle down. “All these young Centuriots never care to swap stories. Not even over a few fingers of Valefyre. Dropped the power coils and stormed out all ghosting miffed. ‘Specially that big one.”

Threyna hmphed, shoving the first pack across the table to make room for Aylenia’s.

Marius’s broad hands dragged the first pack through the window in the cage and set it on the floor beside him with a whistle. “These are heavy. You lot did good work, Premius. Good work!” He greedily took the second pack, making room for Threyna to set hers down.

“All went well until the Cut.”

Marius chuckled. “Doesn’t it always?”

Unburdened by the weight of the power coils, Threyna’s other concerns felt heavier. Ebrus. Rivich. The fatekeeper on her chest.

Threyna patted the table. “Always does, Mar. I’ll see you later.” She turned to go.

The big man grumbled. “Later? You just got here. What about swappin’ stories, Valefyre?”

Walking backwards, Threyna shrugged. “Do you want to explain to the Legatus what kept me from delivering my report?”

Marius huffed, setting the last of the packs down inside the armory. “Just countin’ and stackin’ power coils for me then, eh?”

“Count ’em and stack ’em,” Threyna said as she exited the quartermaster’s chambers.

Setting back down the hall, her posture slumped. Though the mission had been successful, it left her exhausted. Halos encroached into her peripheral vision, her sight still distorted from Ebrus’s Dawnshard.

“He’s going to get one of us hollowed…” Rivich had said.

He still blamed her for Daeton’s suffering. Maybe she should have aborted the mission as he had asked. Perhaps she should have gone herself instead of giving the order. Maybe then, Daeton would still be Rivich’s bunkmate. Rivich would still smile. He wouldn’t be so angry.

She’d made a call. It was the wrong one. There were a dozen ifs and maybes that could have been different. And though Arilette told her there was no room for a Premius to consider maybes and perhapses, it was all she thought about.

Returning to the entrance, she headed down the north stairwell and trotted level by level through the switchbacks, passing the long halls of barracks to the Legatus’s chambers in the belly of Octarius’s subterranean fortress. Momentum aided her fatigue and beat back her dark thoughts.

Will Ebrus ever forgive me if I have him taken off the strike team? Will I ever forgive myself if my hesitancy to do so got Aylenia, Rivich, or Yevon hollowed?

She took a deep breath. Rivich was right. But Threyna knew all too well how Arilette Desius felt about those who lacked the mettle to survive this cursed world. Divided, ruin would reign, and nothing divided a people faster than those who couldn’t pull their weight. Even the safe jobs Marius and the quartermaster’s staff served were earned through hard years in the field. No one got a free pass. If Arilette had her way, she would have cut Ebrus loose and fed him to the hellhounds years ago.

“I need him,” she had said. “He was here for me after the Battle of the Cut.”

It wasn’t true. She didn’t need Ebrus. He wasn’t there for her. Arilette was. After her mother and sister left, Arilette took her in. After her father didn’t come back, Arilette taught her what she needed to survive. She didn’t need Ebrus. He needed her. But still, she couldn’t let Arilette dispose of him.

Arriving at the base level of the Underground’s barracks, Threyna stood before the wooden door taken from Arilette’s ancestral home. The butterfly crest of House Desius, the once-stalwart defenders of the royal Faytes of Elyngrove, was burned into the panels of the door. The stretched wings of the carnivorous moth revealed the pattern of a ferocious beast’s fangs.

Arilette was the inverse of the butterfly sigil. Where the butterfly’s outward appearances presented a harrowing predator to protect its frailty, Arilette was as delicate as a flower. And as venomous as its thorns. Though Threyna knew full well what her mentor was capable of, she had never been on the receiving end of the Legatus’s wrath, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Threyna drummed her knuckles on the door to her tablinum.

“Enter,” Arilette called from within.

Threyna pushed the door open and stepped inside. Arilette’s placid expression softened at seeing her. She folded a parchment in half, then half again before reaching for a match. Striking it, she angled the ember to the folded parchment until its edges blackened and curled. She flicked the match and the burning parchment to the stone floor before tossing her straight black hair over her shoulders to lean back in her chair and set her feet on the desk.

“You’re late,” Arilette said. Her dark green eyes glanced toward two empty glasses on her desk. “I figured you would be successful. Don’t mind me starting without you.” She beckoned Threyna in.

Candles lit Arilette’s tablinum, casting the room in a dim but warm orange hue. She had said something about how the candles reminded her of the old days, before illuminators. How her mother liked them. Others speculated she just had a fascination with fire, given her history. The lighting suited her, bathing her pale skin without revealing the wrinkles framing her eyes or the scars on her hands.

Threyna strode forward along the dark stone taken from Octarius’s foundation several stories above. Her boots, still caked in the Cut’s silt, managed to echo in the mostly empty stone room.

She saluted, lifting her fist to her chin. “Divided, ruin will reign.”

Arilette nodded, gesturing for Threyna to take a seat.

Threyna sat on the cold stone stool across from Arilette and the solid wooden desk between them.

In a land of eternal undeath, blanketed by clouds and rain, few trees received the sunlight required to survive. At least according to the Order, only in the arcanatek farms outside of Bheric’s Hollow could trees worth harvesting for timber grow. Without the aid of illuminators and time distorters, cultivating or sustaining vegetative life was a difficult task, making strong timber a rare commodity. A commodity rarely spared on something as trivial as a desk, yet it was the one luxury Arilette afforded herself.

Sitting, Threyna waited to be addressed.

Arilette eyed her, a playful grin tugging at the corner of her lip. “Report, Premius?”

“A solid haul, Legatus,” Threyna said. “Marius is counting the coils as we speak.”

“Any trouble?”

Threyna contorted her lip, debating if she should raise the question of Ebrus’s reliability in the field or share Rivich’s all-too-warranted outburst. It was another tough call, and indecision won out. “A little slippery in the Cut. Ebrus is in the warp, but otherwise—” She shrugged, her mind returning to the strange behavior of the shades. “Have our Artificers found a way to control shades?”

Arilette narrowed her eyes. “Not to my knowledge, and if they did, they’d best tell me about it. Right now, the focus is on the reaping arcanatek.”

The new technology would revolutionize not just warfare but how the hollowed were dealt with too. Whether in the form of the reaping spears or the Reaper’s Landmine, the arcanatek had the ability to vortex a soul and irradiate it in one fell swoop.

Threyna hmphed. “Any reports on the Order’s ability to do so?”

Arilette sat back, eyeing the empty glasses before her, a stoppered bottle of liquor in hand. “Decimus, that old bastard—he’s always looking for new ways to torture us, but controlling shades? Not that I’ve heard of. And you’ve got better luck getting me to believe there are still sea monsters swimming in Aeritan Bay.”

Threyna forced a poor excuse for a chuckle. She knew what she saw, and this wasn’t a story about carnivorous, humanoid sea turtles used to scare Order Boys at the Nest. “There were dozens, a horde in their wake.” Threyna shook her head. “Strange.”

“Indeed. But you made it back in one piece.” Arilette nodded at the empty glasses. “Valefyre all around.” She unstoppered the fermented swill. “You’re going to want a double.”

“A celebratory drink?” Threyna asked. “Or to deal with whatever news just came through?” She nodded at the charred remains of the parchment Arilette had lit aflame.

Filling both glasses to the brim, Arilette shrugged. “Bit of blood, bit of bone.” She slid one glass to Threyna and lifted her own in toast. “For the celebratory drink, cheers to enough power coils to blast half the Order to oblivion.”

Threyna stood to raise her glass. Together, they downed their drinks. Thick, bitter, and warm, the Valefyre burned from her nostrils to her guts. Wrinkling her nose and exhaling through her lips, Threyna set the glass back down. “And for the second drink?”

Arilette tilted the empty glass, rolling its edge to follow the contour of the knotted rings in the wooden desk. Resting her other hand on the table, she took Threyna’s empty glass, filling it with another three fingers of Valefyre. “You may want to sit for this one.” She passed the drink back to Threyna.

Arilette’s generosity with her pours didn’t come freely. Something had happened. Or something would happen. Yet the Legatus seemed content to hold the mystery captive a few moments longer.

With the buzz of the first drink flitting around her temples, Threyna took the second and tossed it back. The second always went down smoother, and that remained true for both bad drinks and feelings of abandonment. Inhaling through her teeth, Threyna set the glass down and slid it across the desk to rest beside Arilette’s still-full glass.

Threyna reclaimed her seat on the dark stone, resting her hands atop her knees, her feet beneath her. “Must be good for you to share from your private stores.”

Arilette smirked as she stalked around the desk to lean against it. Dancing shadows flickered across the walls, following in her wake. She sipped the Valefyre and licked her lips, as if she actually enjoyed the taste. “It’s… shall we say… heavy.” She took another sip.

Threyna tapped her thumb against her knee, attempting to wait patiently. If the drink was meant to dampen her nerves, Arilette’s performance was having the opposite effect.

Arilette sighed. “The Order is expanding their Dominion.”

Threyna raised an eyebrow. “Avengard?”

Arilette nodded.

Avengard had been vying for Order aid since Victarius Kaine lost the Artificer’s War almost twenty years back. Though this was certainly drink-worthy news to the people of Northvale, even if they didn’t fully know what they were agreeing to by entering into the Dominion, it didn’t change much for the Underground.

Threyna scoffed. “Finally getting what they always wanted. Good for the ghosting fools. That can’t be your big news, though.”

“Far from it,” Arilette said. “The Wraith, in the next of their unending schemes, is planning to utilize Avengard’s feast to stage a mass exodus.”

Threyna shook her head. The Wraith… Her jaw clamped down at the mention of them. “My mother and sister at it again, eh?”

Arilette snorted. “Not to worry.” She sauntered over to the nearest candle and lifted it from its sconce. “Their escape plans will end as they always have.” She tilted the candle and her glass of Valefyre until the flame touched the liquid, igniting the surface of her drink. Holding the glass up before her, her eyes reflected the licking tongues. “Fire. Smoke. Ash.”

Threyna had seen that look in Arilette’s eyes before. She was too young to remember when Arilette’s father burned her lover, Aarkos, in the fires he’d set to the Underground’s escape vessel, but she had witnessed Arilette’s retribution. She burned Resilience and its fleet. She watched her father Arenius hollow in the flames while his dreams of leading the Underground to freedom beyond the curse went up in smoke.

Ten years to the day.

That was the night Arilette took command of the Underground and led the Battle of the Cut. That was the night her mother and sister left to found the Wraith. The night her father never returned from.

If they had stayed—if they had fought—maybe we would have defeated the Order and stopped the Skeleton King.

Heat rose to her ears. “They still haven’t learned.”

Arilette shook her head as the fire of her glass extinguished, leaving the room a candle darker than a moment before. “Divided, ruin will reign.”

“So what’s the mission?” Threyna asked. “How will we stop them?”

“Don’t worry about that, Threyna. Taken care of. But there is something we must discuss.”

Threyna swallowed, her mouth still stained with the Valefyre’s spit. “I won’t hesitate if I see either of them.”

Arilette set the empty glass down and waved her hand. “I know, love. It’s not that.” She closed the short distance between them, kneeling down until she was of a height with Threyna. She scooped her hand under Threyna’s fatekeeper pendant, rolling it between her fingers. “You still believe your father is alive—out there, somewhere?”

Threyna balked, her mouth suddenly dry. She nodded.

Arilette’s dark green eyes met her own. “Applications to enter the Dominion are measured with a test of loyalty. The Order will give them one of ours. To be tortured. Hollowed. Vortexed and irradiated from the world. All to see if they are as committed to the Purge as the Order’s Justicus.”

Threyna nodded, warmth flushing her cheeks. The drinks, Arilette’s hesitancy, her line of questioning… followed by this. The Valefyre made her vision swim, or perhaps tears were welling in her eyes.

“He’s alive, Threyna,” Arilette whispered. “Your father is alive.”

Arilette placed a hand on her cheek, her touch soft, and loving in ways Threyna’s own mother never was. Her thumb traced the corner of Threyna’s eyes, dabbing the tears before they could roll down her cheeks.

“He will be Avengard’s test of loyalty,” Arilette said, softly.

Threyna’s lip quivered. Her ribs rattled. But words wouldn’t come. She fell into Arilette’s arms as sobs tore loose. Sinking to the floor in Arilette’s embrace, her cries echoed off the stone walls. The reverberations created a chorus as if the whole world cried for her and her father.

Arilette held her, rocking her back and forth. “Shh, shh, shh. It will all be prime. We’re going to get him back.”

Chapter 3: The Sun’s Warmth

Laela

Laela should have suffered six times by now. The first after her parents spirited her from the Roost before what would become the final battle of the Artificer’s War. The second when her father slashed her across the chest while teaching her how to wield a sword. The third when hellhounds set on her while chasing after her half-sister, Threyna, on her way back to Octarius the night Arilette Desius burned their fleets. The fourth after the tunnels the Wraith began digging from Avengard to Beak’s Bay collapsed in on her. The fifth when Tarus nearly killed her during the tournament to become the First Sword of the Wraith. And the sixth when Aedile Rance told her that this would be the day they would leave Rheynia and its curse behind. Forever.

Watching the Order legions march through Avengard toward Valefort, Laela only hoped this plan wouldn’t be the seventh. She crossed her hands over the hilt of the bastard sword holstered at her hip, shifting her weight towards her mother as they stood on the ramparts.

Her mother looked older than her fifty-five years. Thinner and frailer after years of forgoing meals for the sake of others, her generosity had caught up with her. Crow's feet creased her pale green eyes, and her hair was more gray than black now.

Laela wanted to tell her all would be well. That soon they’d be aboard The Relentless and on their way to join the others preparing The Dauntless and The Adamant for their journey south. Soon enough, they’d all be beyond Rheynia, the Order, and the curse. But saying so again wouldn’t change the doubt wrinkling her mother’s forehead or the lines of worry framing her lips.

“What did you always tell me?” Laela asked, adjusting her Avengard city-watch cloak. “When I was a girl and Father was in a mood?”

Her mother’s chest heaved, the exhale deflating her shoulders, but she kept her eyes trained on the Order legionaries. She forced what she likely assumed to be a smile but looked more like a wince. “Be strong. Be courageous.”

Laela nodded. “This will be the last time. I know we’ve been down this length of the Spine before, but it will be different this time. Rance will see us from this place. The Order will be here, feasting. We’ve taken every possible precaution. No one will know. Not even the Aeritans will stop us. So be strong. Be courageous.”

Her mother turned from the ramparts and the encroaching black-and-green banners of the Order to look at her. “I just wish we could have left with them.”

Laela placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “And leave Olerus in charge? The feast would be over and Belrich’s legions would depart before nightfall. No. We need to be here, Mother. Trust the plan. Trust Rance.”

After ten years of careful planning and living double lives as citizens of Avengard and leaders of the Wraith, now was not the time to doubt. They’d rebuilt Avengard’s relationship with Aranoc through careful politics and gaining the Order-appointed Governors’ trust. With prudent resource management and a fair amount of quota forging, they had gradually pilfered enough of Aranoc’s supplies to inflate Avengard’s potential in the eyes of the Order. For those citizens who believed the Order was still led by Neutreen, their lives would improve under the Dominion. Their walls would be rebuilt, their food supply would be bolstered by the Order’s arcanatek, and the hordes of hollowed surrounding the Sisters would be culled, making all of Northvale safer. After Avengard, Aranoc would be soon to follow, and no one would miss the Wraith once they snuck beyond the curse. Other than Arilette, in her twisted sense of unity.

“I do trust Rance.” Her mother sighed. “I just… I wish…”

Laela grit her teeth, stepping away from her mother. She knew what was coming. Ten years had passed. Hundreds of letters had gone unanswered. Laela had been by her through it all, but she wasn’t the daughter her mother wanted. Ever since Threyna eluded Laela that night, her mother had never looked at her the same way again. She had never said it, but Laela knew her mother blamed her.

“Threyna can’t come with us, Mother.” Her tone came out blunt and unforgiving.

“But I dreamed of her. Just last night, after burning matches to Neutreen.”

Blood and bone, I should have earned my wings by now, listening to you. Suppressing her frustration, Laela shrugged. “You always dream of her when you’re nervous. You’re scared, but Neutreen awaits beyond the curse.”

“This dream was different; I saw her. She was old. Older than I am now.” She shook her head. “I feared she’d never make it to old age, but there she was, sitting on a cliffside. With a man.” She smiled to herself as if it was the most pleasant of memories. “There was a golden sun, setting over the ocean. You wouldn’t believe the beauty.”

Laela swallowed. There was enough to worry about today. Between distracting the Order, organizing the Wraith, and making sure the Underground didn’t screw anything up, the last thing Laela needed was her mother becoming part of the problem.

“Maybe she’ll find her own way out of Rheynia,” Laela said. I’ll believe that when I see it. “But we need to focus on leaving with the people who want to escape.”

Her mother’s smile faltered, then wilted, somber. “That’s what I fear, Laela. What if… what if we’re not supposed to leave? What if Threyna grew old to overlook the cliffs because she stayed and fought?” She reached for Laela’s feather pendant hanging beside the fatekeeper her mother gave her as a child.

Laela’s fingers twitched at her side. It didn’t matter how many times she’d read through Faytemarked, praying that her mother would stop blaming her or herself for what became of Threyna. It didn’t matter how many matches she’d burned to Neutreen; the outcome remained the same. But for her mother to doubt the very mission they fled the Underground for in the first place…

She seethed, letting the anger dispel before it could be shaped into hurtful words. Composing herself, she set her gaze on the front of the Order’s procession where Aedile Rance, Governor Olerus, and the rest of Valefort’s greeting party escorted Prince Belrich through Avengard toward the remains of the old Helixus fortress.

“It was just a dream, Mother. Trust in Rance. Keep faith in the Tenets. By moderation, modesty, measure, and merit, we will earn our wings and fly to Valencia with Neutreen. We just need to get beyond the curse.”

Her mother looked up at her, slight and frail, yet somehow still talking down to her. “If she came, would you even let her leave with us?”

Laela closed her eyes. Her mother wanted her to say, “Yes, of course!” but Laela wouldn’t. Tossing her hands into the air, she turned from her. “It doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t keep the bite from her tone. “She’s not coming. Because she doesn’t know we’re leaving.”

Then it dawned on her. The hopeful staring at the horizon. The nervous energy. She’s not nervous about the Order. Gory ghosts, she’s not even worried about the escape. This is about Threyna. She seized her mother by her bony shoulders. “Mother. You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t tell Threyna we’re leaving.”

Her mother’s gaze fell.

The laughter of Laela’s father rang in her ears, cold and cruel. “Stupid. Weak.”

Heat rose to Laela’s cheeks as she attempted to block him out. Her eyes blinked while her mind attempted to process what this could mean. Every precaution. Everything they’d done. It was all for nothing.

They coordinated Aranoc’s city-watch shifts to make certain only their most trusted people were on duty. They’d worked around Aedile Verinius’s fearmongering and met every one of Prince Belrich’s ridiculous demands to avoid suspicion. They even hid the details of their plans from the majority of the Wraith to prevent a catastrophe if the Underground had a snitch inside the Wraith. Yet, careful plans be damned, her mother had told Threyna, a Premius within Arilette’s Underground, that they were leaving.

Laela shook her mother and leaned close. “Gory ghosting dammit. What did you say? What did you tell her?”

“I couldn’t leave her again,” her mother said.

Ten years of frustration bubbled under her cuirass, making the scar across her chest burn. The sword at her belt, the daggers on her hip, in her vambrace, and in her boot weren’t enough to win this battle. First Sword of the Wraith or not, this was one fight she’d never been able to win.

“You didn’t leave her,” she said through her teeth. “She left us.” She shook her head. “And now you’ve betrayed us. For her.”

Her mother, for all her talk of strength and courage, was weak. Brittle. Soft in a hard world, just as her father had said. Yet she stared at Laela, disappointment wrinkling the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. As if reading her mind, her mother said, “I know your father was a bastard. I know he hurt you. I know I let him hurt you. But there is strength in knowing when to drop your guard and courage in actually doing so. Must you always be so—”

Laela stormed off, unable to even look at her mother. The scar across Laela’s chest burned, and, despite her armor, she felt suddenly vulnerable. Now was not the time to drop her guard. Dropping her guard, like inviting an Undergrounder to an Order’s Dominion feast, was a quick way to an eternity of suffering.

She retreated into her Center of Silence—the place of calm and focus from which her father, for all his flaws, taught her to fight. It made her the First Sword of the Wraith. It kept her alive. It made her fierce in ways her mother could only talk about. Lower my ghosting guard. She’s going to get us all hollowed.

She needed to warn Rance, but not yet. First, Dracus, Canton, and Fawkes needed to know the new situation. Then she’d have to prepare the rest of the Avengard city watch for the Underground’s attempt to interfere with their entry into the Dominion. Laela had known this was a possibility. Luckily, she’d even managed to convince Rance not to share everything with her mother. Still, she knew too much. And now the Underground would too.

Laela descended the stairs from the ramparts two at a time, her fists still coiled at her sides. Once upon the parapet-walk that led to the chapel where Canton and Fawkes would be standing by, she forced herself to slow down. It would not do well to arouse suspicion. Below, Governor Olerus, tall and thin, wearing his best green cloak to appeal to Prince Belrich and the colors of the Fayte banner, ushered the Legatus of the Order and his elite guard of Inquisitors through the courtyard.

Prince Belrich’s curling silver-blond hair accented his high-cheeked grin as he passed his spiked helm to an Inquisitor. Belrich Fayte was the worst kind of handsome: eloquent, charming, hateful. The kind of man who would impale a supposed traitor and expect him to feel honored that it was he who gave the order. He was the son of the Skeleton King after all.

Neutreen’s blessings, at least he’s gone.

Avoiding the gaze of the Inquisitors’ skeletal masks, Laela opened the door that descended the stairs that led to the chapel. Twisting the knob and shoving her shoulder through the rotten wood of the old door, she entered the side door to the chapel.

Making her way to the nave, she passed the termite-ridden pews, eying the crumbling statue of Neutreen at the altar. Wings spread wide with her head inclined, she gazed through her blindfold to stare out at the empty chapel, judging all. With her left arm outstretched, holding a single feather, and her right, broken at the wrist, she—like much of Rheynia—had seen better days. Before Laela, but with his back to the statue, Fawkes nodded, his thick arms crossed over his chest. Beside him, Canton knelt before the statue, burning prayers.

Laela approached, holding the stocks with both hands, head bowed as she waited for Canton to finish his prayers.

“See me and what I share with your children,” Canton whispered, his breath causing the match before him to flicker. “For what is mine in this life is nothing like what awaits in Valencia. Keep me on bended knee when the One tempts me with false wings. Keep me vigilant when the Tellers attempt to burn me in their reckless Purge. Show me how I measure so that I might better serve and earn my merits. Above all, forgive me, for I have not yet earned my wings, but until then, I abide in the Four.”

The match burned out, its smoke and his prayers lifting to Valencia. As Canton stood, Fawkes patted him on the shoulder, gesturing toward Laela.

“Ay, Lae,” Fawkes said, his mouth hidden in his reddish-brown beard. “Everything prime?”

Canton spun toward her. His narrow face flushed beneath the fuzz on his cheeks and chin as they always did upon seeing her. “Laela, I didn’t hear you enter.”

Laela gave him a half-smile, hoping it wouldn’t go to his head and make him think she saw him any differently than she had since Dracus brought him to the Underground as a child. “It’s all blood and bone,” Laela said to Fawkes. “Order’s here, and you can bet the last darkling in the soul jar that the Underground will be too.”

Fawkes grunted. “Yer mother?”

“Yeah.” Laela scoffed. “Ghosting knew it. She had a dream.”

The moment the words passed her lips, she regretted them. Canton, prone to nightmares ever since the Tellers burned his village, hung his head, his cheeks a deeper shade of scarlet.

Cursing herself for her even mentioning it, she changed the subject. “Fawkes, go tell Dracus to be on the lookout for any Undergrounders. Canton, keep an eye on Erynia; she’s a nervous wreck every time she sees a legionary.”

“We should have sent her with Verinius,” Canton said as if trying to prove her comment hadn’t embarrassed him. “Then she’d be safe, and she wouldn’t be the Dreadroot wrapping around our ankles.”

“She’s Rance’s daughter,” Laela said, putting her hand on his shoulder—half as an apology, half as a means of keeping Canton measured before Neutreen. “She comes with us. She’ll be fine if you stay close to her. Lend her your strength. And don’t let Gatius rile her up.”

Canton’s cheeks remained red, but at least they formed a grin at her encouragement.

“Stick to the plan,” Laela said. “We’ll be watching the sunrise from Sansia soon enough.”

As Canton and Fawkes left the chapel to follow their orders, Laela lingered. Eyeing the feather in Neutreen’s outstretched hand, she brushed her finger over her own feather pendant, thinking of her mother’s dream.

The sun’s warmth isn’t for Threyna. It’s for me. It’s for us, Mother.

She told herself it was possible. She said it aloud, hoping that she could speak life into the words and make them come true. Yet she’d spared the last of her optimism on Fawkes and Canton, and all that was left for her was the darklings.

She had no more time to wallow. She had the Order to impress, Undergrounders to stop, and the Wraith to spirit to safety beyond the Curse.

Neutreen, watch over us all.

Chapter 4: For All the Darklings

Threyna III

Her boots didn’t fit. Neither did the britches or the leather armor of the Avengard city-watch uniform the Underground had in the armory. Too snug in the toes, too long through the inseam, and too broad at the shoulders, the ill-fitting uniform was a pleasant distraction to the more pressing concerns of her mission.

Walking alongside Aylenia through the overcrowded streets of Avengard, Threyna eyed each lingering gaze.

“What if it’s a trap,” she’d asked Arilette, “a lie to draw us out?”

Arilette only shrugged. “Then we’ll show those ghosting bastards they’re not the only hellhounds with fangs.”

Perhaps if Rivich had accompanied them, she wouldn’t have felt the need to question authority, but in his absence, she couldn’t help but fill the role. It hurt that he had met with Arch Premius Lorath, requesting a transfer to another strike team. It hurt worse that he didn’t even blame her for his reason for seeking another Premius to serve. When asked about why, he only said that he didn’t believe he was measuring up to the rest of Threyna’s team. That he didn’t deserve the merit associated with being in her squadron.

Quoting the Four Tenets might have appealed to Lorath’s faith in the Faytemarked, but it didn’t work on Threyna. She knew Rivich didn’t believe in Neutreen, Elysianism, the Tenets, the Purge—any of it.

He just realized he was fed up with me.

Aylenia elbowed her in the ribs as they made their way through the crowded streets of Avengard. “You prime?” Only her eyes were visible through the plumed helm and the gray scarf helping to conceal her Palogian heritage.

Threyna nodded. “Making hordes out of a single hollowed. Just worried about Ebrus.” It was only half a lie. Yes, she was busying herself with thoughts of Rivich so as not to consume herself with the spiraling thoughts of what would happen to her father should they fail, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t concerned with Ebrus.

“Did you speak to the Legatus?” Aylenia asked.

Threyna adjusted her oversized pauldron. She considered it, and would have after she’d finally worked up the courage, but that was when Arilette informed her that Rivich had requested a transfer. No, she couldn’t afford to do this mission with only two of her squad, and she didn’t trust the notion of adding two new people to the mix at the last moment.

“No,” Threyna said. “One more mission. Then I will.”

Aylenia nodded. “He’ll be fine. And we’ll finish this, just like any other extraction.”

Threyna smirked, wishing she shared Aylenia’s optimism. This wasn’t just any extraction. They weren’t here for power coils, arcanatek, or food. Their target was her father—a man the world thought lost. Arilette long believed he was dead and gone. Dracus wasn’t even certain he survived the Battle of the Cut. Threyna was the only one who held out hope that somehow, somewhere, he was still alive. It took all her will to resist the urge to reach for the fatekeeper beneath her leather cuirass.

As they continued through the streets of Avengard, it was no wonder why the people were so eager to come under the Order’s Dominion. Threyna had nearly rolled her ankle walking on the uneven street of broken cobbles. Yet people cheered from the windows of their crumbling stone homes. Children weaved through the rotting wooden structures lining the ravaged streets to wave at the procession of heroes who’d come to save them.

Soon, you’ll have what you want, and I’ll have what I want.

As the arched gateway of Valefort neared, Threyna wondered if her mother and sister waited within. Whether they were part of the distraction to host the Order or leading the escape plan out of Aranoc, it made no matter. She wasn’t here for them.

After Arilette’s deep-cover spy snuck them through the Wraith’s tunnel into Avengard, Threyna became more keenly aware that she might run into them. She hoped she wouldn’t, but she’d long learned wishes, wants, prayers, and the like had little bearing on outcomes.

Do they know that Father is the one they’re to hollow? Could Mother watch as he’s impaled and flayed? Could Laela? They had different fathers, but her father treated Laela more like a daughter than her own ever did. Still, she couldn’t put trust in either of them; they’d already abandoned her once before, and she wasn’t going to give them another opportunity to disappoint.

Threyna would not stand by while her father’s soul went mad, unable to flee its tortured shell. She wouldn’t watch as the Justicus vortexed his soul from his flesh or turn and run away as their irradiators charged.

As they passed through the gate, Threyna pinched the interlayer embedded on her earlobe. She whispered into the spatial arcanatek. “Yevon, Ebrus, you prime?” Like speaking into a void, her voice disappeared into the warper and reappeared in her strike team’s ears.

“Prime as an Order boy at the Nest,” Yevon said. After entering the city, Yevon and Ebrus, disguised as servants, infiltrated Valefort to get eyes on her father.

Tension gripped the back of Threyna’s neck, making her shoulders creep up to her ears in her bulky cuirass.

Perhaps sensing Threyna’s unease, Aylenia hissed into the interlayer. “Just say prime.”

Yevon sniggered. “Prime as a hollowed in the Gullies.”

Aylenia turned off her connection and spoke aloud to Threyna. “By Neutreen’s nads and Drake’s Six, I’m going to ghosting hollow him.”

“I heard that,” Yevon said in Threyna’s ear.

“Where’s Ebrus?” Threyna asked, doing her best to keep her body language as inconspicuous as possible. “We’re through the gate.”

“Might be outta range for you,” Yevon said. “Says he’s prime as a darkling in a soul jar.”

Aylenia huffed. “No he didn’t.”

“You don’t know,” Yevon said. “He’s inside Valefort. Got eyes on the package.”

Threyna’s throat constricted. She closed her eyes. Please, let it be him. Taking a slow, steadying breath, she asked for confirmation.

The interlayer went silent.

Aylenia and Threyna funneled into Valefort’s courtyard. At the center was a row of oubliettes where Avengard’s worst prisoners were once held. The subterranean cells allowed the prisoners to be ridiculed by all who passed over them. Though they were empty now, Threyna had little doubt that her father would be placed in one soon enough.

On either side of the oubliettes, several rickety, makeshift tables were arranged in rows—two on either side. The four long lines ran the length of the courtyard, one for each of Neutreen’s Tenets. Order legionaries sat on benches that looked as old as Neutreen herself, while at the back of the courtyard, the high table of Avengard’s esteemed guests joined tall and thin Governor Olerus and shorter and thinner Aedile Rance.

As they entered, Aylenia went left, Threyna right, each joining the Avengard city watchmen on the outskirts of what was to be the greatest feast in Avengard since before Damascus Drake led the Great Abdication.

Yevon’s silence stretched.

Taking position, Threyna scanned the courtyard. The bishop of Neutreen’s temple, his four priests, and each of their four deacons stood, head bowed, holding the stocks on the stairs of the chapel as their guests settled themselves. Beside Olerus, the Order weasel charged with governing Avengard’s backwater populace, sat Erynia—Rance’s daughter. Her painted smile never reached her dull gray eyes. Despite being the aedile’s daughter, her pale complexion and sullen cheeks didn’t foretell that she had received extra rations.

Threyna couldn’t help but respect Aedile Rance for that. Many in his position took advantage of overseeing supplies, making sure their bellies were the first to be filled and their supplies the last to be donated to the Order’s Collectors.

Beside Erynia sat a thinner and frailer woman. Threyna blinked, barely recognizing her.

Mother?

The black hair of her youth had fallen to ash. The full cheeks she had passed to Laela were gaunt. Sickly. In the Underground’s care, Threyna had never gone hungry. Gory ghosts, you left me for this?

She forced herself to look away. Focus.

Still waiting for Yevon or Ebrus to answer, Threyna had nothing to draw her attention. If Mother is here, that means Laela is too. She searched for Laela, but she wasn’t in Olerus’s or Rance’s retinue. Threyna bit her lip, memories of old wounds and petty arguments resurfacing to knot in her throat.

The smell of burned wood, the screams of Arenius Desius, a firm grip on her wrist.

“I see him,” Ebrus said in her ear through the interlayer, shaking her from her thoughts.

Threyna swallowed the knot. She slunk away from the other city watchmen to inspect a corridor that led to what were once the stables.

“Is it him?” Threyna whispered into the interlayer.

Silence. For several agonizing moments.

“Dunno,” Ebrus said. “He’s got a sack over his head. They’re bringing him to the oubliettes now.”

Threyna closed her eyes, retrieving her fatekeeper from beneath her cuirass to clutch it in her palm. Please, let it be him. Let it be my father. She shoved the fatekeeper beneath her leather armor. “Aylenia, signal the Legatus and the Arch Premius to be ready. Everyone else, to position. When they set the distraction, we need to be sharp. This is for all the darklings in the soul jar.”

Chapter 5: The Unwelcome Poet

Laela II

The feast had begun. Though the trays servants brought from the kitchens were likely as unimpressive to the Order legionaries as they were decadent to the men and women carrying them, this was the best Avengard had to offer. While the servers eyed the food with watering mouths and growling stomachs, most of the legionaries turned their attention to the wine they’d brought with them from the arcanatek-produced vineyards of the Grove.

Lord Premius Decimus, the Order’s second-in-command behind Prince Belrich, at least had the decency to taste what the Valefort staff had provided. His stern gray eyes narrowed, inspecting the potato-and-onion stew, smoked mutton, and the few shriveled tomatoes before him.

Laela diverted her gaze from Decimus, not wanting to attract his attention. The aged Lord Premius had been pivotal in both the War of the Seers and the Artificer’s War. Though time grayed his close-cropped hair and neatly trimmed goatee, he was still broad of shoulder. Had it not been for him and Dracus, in the time before he rescued Canton to join the Underground, perhaps Victarius Kaine and the Tellers would have prevailed over the Order. Perhaps the Skeleton King would have been defeated long before the Battle of the Cut. Perhaps her parents wouldn’t have fled the Roost, seeking asylum from the Order’s wrath in the Underground.

Things could have been different, but the Order would never be defeated. It was foolish to try. Neutreen wasn’t coming back. Their only hope for salvation was to make it to her.

We’ll be on the coast of Sansia by morning.

Laela circled the outskirts of the courtyard, searching for any sign of the Underground. Still furious with her mother, she couldn’t even look at her sitting at the high table beside her husband, Rance. Olerus let out a forced, weaselly laugh at something Prince Belrich said. He wasn’t involved in the Wraith. He had no idea what was truly going on below ground, but even appointed by Belrich to govern Avengard, he was still nervous around the Order blacks.

Laela turned from the high table to traverse the rows between the long tables. She knew the Underground’s tactics. They wouldn’t storm Valefort. They wouldn’t attack Avengard. They’d incept themselves within, hiding in plain view until their moment arrived. Laela wouldn’t let that happen.

Inspecting the face of every servant and guard, Laela felt a growing dread as time spilled like sand through the hourglass. With her tattered Avengard city-watch cloak flowing in her wake, she quickened her pace. She’d warned the other watchmen to be on high alert, but she couldn’t even trust them. Olerus had doubled the guard, adding new names and faces she couldn’t keep straight. Not to mention, her mother had expanded the kitchen staff to meet Belrich’s demands for the feast.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Arilette could have easily slipped someone into the kitchens or the city watch.

She spotted a servant she didn’t recognize, for all the good that did her. Pale of skin, with a coiffure of dark brown hair, a young man with a crescent grin and dimpling cheeks refilled an Inquisitor’s cup. By contrast, the expressions on the other servers’ faces were grim, worried, or at best—stoic. He wasn’t Wraith, but that didn’t mean he was Underground. Still, his comfort around Prince Belrich’s Inquisitors gave her pause.

She continued pacing between the rows of tables, never letting Dimples, the all-too-cheery server, leave her eye for too long. Passing over the oubliettes at the center of the courtyard, Laela took care to avoid the grates into the underground prison cells. She didn’t know which held the Underground prisoner of war.

What if it’s Threyna?

The thought made the scar across her chest burn and the scent of ash to fill her nostrils. She didn’t want to imagine what her mother would do. She’d attempt to stop it. She’d ruin everything to protect her, even though the only thing she’d accomplish is getting herself impaled and flayed.

Laela wouldn’t let that happen.

Spotting Canton, she made her way to him.

“See anything?” Canton asked.

She nodded in the direction of Dimples. “Keep an eye on him.”

“What’s the matter?”

Laela narrowed her eyes. “How many people do you know with something to smile about around Inquisitors? Don’t make any moves yet. Await my signal.” Slinking away before Canton could latch onto her, she returned to pacing the outskirts of the courtyard.

Behind the high table, Prince Belrich stood, raising his goblet.

Unable to continue inspecting the servers and watchmen without drawing attention, she stopped to hear his address.

“Dear, dear friends,” Belrich said, his curling hair bouncing behind his ears as he stood. His high cheekbones framed a wide smile. “Look at where we find ourselves. Valefort. Avengard. Northvale. My brothers in black, when was the last time we came here in such numbers absent steel in hand or blood on our minds?”

The circlet atop his head sat crooked in a near-playful casualness. He turned to Governor Olerus. “It lifts the heart to be welcomed back—to welcome you back to the Dominion of Neutreen’s Holy Order. For it is only together that we may rise to defeat the One and complete the Purge that stains these lands so that, one day, we might welcome Neutreen back to us.”

The legionaries lifted their goblets and in unison shouted, “Neutreen is watching!”

Laela maintained a placid expression, but her insides twisted. The way in which they used her Goddess to propagate their power and justify their rule was sickening. They didn’t want to defeat the One. If rumors were true, some believed the Skeleton King and his followers worshiped the One; others went as far to say that the Skeleton King himself was the One. Either way, though they said Neutreen was watching, it wasn’t their good deeds and valor she observed, but their vile treachery.

She gripped the belt at her waist with white knuckles. They will be judged.

“Aye,” Belrich continued. “Neutreen is watching. And she will lift us to Valencia on golden wings once the hollowed, shades, and darklings of our realm are expunged. But as you know, we can only do that together. Divided, ruin will reign.”

Again, the Order Justicus, Inquisitors, and Premiuses echoed the call. “Divided, ruin will reign.”

Laela stifled the desire to cringe at the mantra. The Underground had adopted the same ideology to justify the forced unification they wished to impose on the Wraith. As diametrically opposed as the two might be, the Underground and the Order had more in common than either liked to admit. A tyrannical ruler, an army of blind imbeciles, and enough arcanatek to usher in more destruction than the Disasters. 

Belrich strode around his chair “These lands fell to treachery long ago. First when Helixus followed Drake away from Neutreen, then when he forsook his responsibility as your liege to chase the Chimera across the sea in the Great Abdication. After years of strife that brought suffering to your families, insurrections that saw your loved ones hollowed, and decades of poverty that allowed your walls to crumple and your crops to wither, it is my honor—no, my privilege—to bestow my sincerest gratitude upon Governor Olerus for making this possible.”

Olerus stood to cheers, bowing to Prince Belrich.

Across the courtyard, a server clapped, but the joy of the sentiment never reached his eyes. His black hair parted, draping over the side of his head with the opposite side shorn short. Laela didn’t recognize him, but there was something familiar about him. Too familiar.

“Oh, come now,” her father teased. “You don’t remember? This is what happens when you—”

Laela retreated to her Center of Silence to focus on the server. His features were soft amidst his contemplative stare. As if he felt her eyes on him, he met her gaze before stiffening and turning away.

The scar across Laela’s chest constricted. She reached her hand for the feather pendant at her neck, recalling a time back at the Underground when Canton was pining after her, his little friend following in his wake. After Canton spouted a line about how pretty she was, his sad friend had taken her feather pendant in his hand and recited a poem—not about how she looked, but something about how Neutreen loved her.

Laela’s fist curled at her side. She couldn’t remember his name, but the sad poet was no longer a boy. Thin and undersized as he was, he was still an Undergrounder. An infiltrator. A saboteur who came to see Laela’s mission—her life’s work—burned to ash.

She remained still, not wanting to let the unwelcome poet know she was onto him. As Olerus spoke on behalf of Avengard, Laela slid behind the row of city watchmen to creep along the outskirts of the courtyard and close in on the Undergrounder. Whatever his mission, whatever his purpose, he would fail. She would stop him before he did whatever he was sent here to do.

Chapter 6: A Ghost from the Past

Threyna IV

Threyna’s heart quickened, its beats coming short and sharp. Blood pumping in her ears, she descended the stairs that led to the subterranean dungeons beneath the courtyard. She stalked slowly down the corridor, clinging to the shadows between the torches.

More accustomed to the brighter, even hue of the arcanatek illuminators, Threyna strained her eyes to focus past the flickering flames. The long corridor ended at an intersection. To the right, stairs would lead into Valefort’s barracks. To the left, the oubliettes and the precious cargo it held.

Voices ahead. Shuffling feet.

Threyna slipped into the dark recesses of the crackling torchlight’s reach, breath held.

“He’s already more hollowed than man,” said a husky voice. “This’ll be a kindness.”

“Ghostin’ right,” replied a pinched companion. “At least the poor bastard knows he’ll get a vortex and an irradiator. Better than either of us, eh?”

Two men, dressed in the same garb as she, strode from the cells, past her corridor, and toward the stairs into the barracks.

“An Inquisitor told me he’s been in Saltspire’s cells for the better part of a decade.” The man with the husky voice had the frame to match. His profile masked the other guard entirely.

“A decade?” the guard with the pinched voice asked. “Neutreen’s nads.”

Threyna pressed her back into the wall as they passed. Her held breath released. A decade. It had been ten years since the Battle of the Cut. It’s him. It has to be.

Their voices faded as their footsteps climbed the stairs. A lock clicked. Rusty hinges creaked. They were gone.

Threyna had no doubt there would be other guards. The Order delivered their Underground prisoner to them. Now it was their job to protect him until they completed their cruel test to enter the Dominion.

Likely two. I can take two.

Threyna pinched the interlayer earring. “I’m nearly in position.”

Something stirred behind her, prompting her to look over her shoulder.

Aylenia answered in a hushed voice. “Charges in place.”

Their plan was reliant on Lorath’s First Centuriots setting the explosives along Valefort’s western walls. Without their distraction, even after she broke her father free, it’d be impossible to escort him through the Wraith’s tunnels to the Cylian River outside of Avengard.

“Signal when you’re ready,” Yevon whispered.

“Ebrus, everything prime?” Threyna asked.

No answer.

Threyna’s throat constricted. The longer she took the more she left up to chance. Quickening her pace down the corridor, she turned left toward the cells. With her stolen city-watch cloak draped behind her and a reunion with her father just ahead, her path was blocked by two men in Avengard’s city-watch uniforms.

Threyna made a show of being out of breath as they noticed her. “Help. Underground. They’re in the tunnels!”

“What!” A guard, as young and fit as Avengard was likely to possess, strode forward. “Knew those bastards would interfere.” He drew his steel.

“Veryn, what about the prisoner?” the other guard asked, glancing back and forth between the cell they protected and his partner striding away.

Veryn ignored him.

Threyna waved him forward. “This way. We hafta stop them before they get too close. They’ll ruin everything.”

“C’mon, Davius,” Veryn said, waving his compatriot onward. “For Avengard!”

Threyna rounded the corner, drawing a dagger from her belt. Once around the corner, she tucked herself into the shadows. Not knowing how closely Davius was following behind, she needed to take Veryn down quickly.

Veryn turned the corner. Threyna reared back and struck. Lashing out with a vicious backhand, Threyna’s pommel crashed into Veryn’s helm at the temple. The big man took two more steps before his knees realized he had passed out. He crashed into the far wall of the corridor and clattered to the ground.

“Help!” Threyna shouted. “They’re here!”

Poor, sweet, dutiful Davius followed Veryn around the corner. The stocky guard lumbered past Threyna and came to halt before an unconscious Veryn and the otherwise empty corridor.

“Blood and bo—”

Threyna scooped the back of Davius’s pale city-watch cloak and draped it over his head and around his neck. Slipping the cloth through to cinch like a noose, she kicked the guard’s knee out and yanked upwards on the cloak. He gasped for breath, clawing at his neck with one hand while swatting at Threyna with the other. She wrenched to the side, out of his reach, and slammed him into the wall opposite Veryn. He toppled forward, but Threyna didn’t let go. Driving her foot into his back, she strained, strangling the man with his own cloak.

His choked desperation slowed. His grasping hands faltered. The thick-necked man slackened to the floor beside his brother-in-arms. Panting, Threyna loosened the chokehold to admire her handiwork. Davius wouldn’t hollow. Neither would Veryn.

She patted down Davius until she found the keyring on his belt. Yanking it free, she backed away and turned down the hall of cells. She pinched the interlayer. “Stand by. Almost there.”

Threyna quickened her pace, passing empty cells on her right. Sound from the feast above filtered through the grates of the oubliettes, echoing in the dingy cells and out into the corridor. With each passing cell, Threyna’s heartbeat quickened.

I’m coming, Father. I’m getting you out.

She stopped before a cell in the middle of the hall, her heart plummeting to her too-tight boots. A figure with a bag over his head slunk in the corner of the cell. Wearing soiled britches and no shirt, the man didn’t look like her father. Black veins slithered down his torso, creating a cage around his heart. Sections of fair skin stuck out between the dark corrupting vines. Scarred, burned, and wrinkled by age, his arms, manacled behind his back, didn’t appear like they belonged to her father.

As if hearing her breath, the figure drew closer to the bars separating them. Back hunched, he spoke as if through a gag, but the noises were indiscernible if he were trying to form words.

Threyna clenched her teeth to still her trembling lip. “Are you Theodyn?” Her voice quavered, fearing the answer.

The prisoner mumbled frantically, his body shaking.

Ghosts, what does it matter? Her fumbling fingers reached for the iron key on her ring.

“Threyna—” The urgency in Aylenia’s voice sent a shiver down her spine. “People moving in on Ebrus.”
“Give the sig—” Threyna cut off as cold steel pressed against the side of her neck.

A hand held hers, slipping the interlayer off of her earlobe. “Not another word, darkling,” a voice said, slow and raspy behind her. “Sorry, lass, nothin’ personal, but can’t let ya do that. Drop the keys. Turn ‘round.”

Threyna’s breath hissed between her teeth. So close. So far. But something about the voice rang with familiarity.

The flat of the blade pressed into her skin. “C’mon. Nothin’ stupid. I don’t wanna hurt you, but believe me, I will if ya make me.”

The prisoner—her father or whoever he was—mumbled with greater desperation.

Threyna dropped the keyring. The keys clattered to the stone floor as she lifted her hands toward the low ceiling. Slowly, she turned to find a ghost of her past staring back.

Ten years had come and gone. For ten years, ruin’s steady creep and death’s slow consumption had imposed their undeniable will on the living and hollowed alike. Only the shades were immune. The shades… and Dracus ghosting Alius.

Chapter 7: Desire for Death

Dracus II

If his heart still beat, it would have exploded in his chest. If he could still sweat, his palms would have moistened. With such responses reserved for the living, Dracus sniffed, bristling his mustache.

He knew it was her before she turned. Before she fixed those sapphire eyes on him. Maybe it was the silver-blonde braid he knew all too well. Maybe it was the fact that that was just Dracus’s luck. If she’d been some Teller troublemaker, an Order deserter like he was, or, ghosts, even if she was just any other Undergrounder, he’d have put her down first and asked questions after.

But no. She wasn’t just anyone. She was Bherus Fayte’s ghosting daughter. The reason why he fought. The reason why he wanted Dracus to fight in his stead, should he fail.

Time had melted the softness of her girlish cheeks. No longer was she a teen. Angular features, from the cut of her brow to her tight-lipped scowl, made Threyna appear related to a spear tip. His gaze followed down her neck to the black leather strap of the fatekeeper pendant her father had given him, and he had given her.

Don’t suppose I deserve to escape my past, eh?

Today was the day he was supposed to finally die. A true death. After all the wrong he’d done, the pain he’d caused, it’d all finally be over. The ache of his joints, the nagging discomfort of his unhealed nicks and bruises, the itch of the half-healed wounds he’d suffered a decade ago that he’d never been able to scratch. It was all supposed to end. Once he got Canton off this cursed island. After this one last mission, his desire for death would be granted.

If it’d been up to him, all three of them would have been aboard The Dauntless, traveling south to Sansia. Far from here. Far from the Order, the Underground, the curse, and every darkling that haunted him. Fawkes and Canton would go on to live full lives, and he’d finally stop ruining others’. That was the plan. That should have been the plan. But no. Canton had to play at being hero.

Same as his father—reckless idealist.

He shook his head at Threyna. “You shouldn’t be here. Your mother—”

“Save it,” Threyna snapped. “I know why you’re here. What you’re trying to do.”

“Then you know I can’t let you ruin our chance of gettin’ outta here,” Dracus said, his blade still pressed to her neck. “C’mon, Threy. Old time’s sake.” He nodded at the prisoner. “Let us have this one. And spare me the ‘Divided, ruin will reign’ bit, eh?” He gestured his head to the tunnels. “You and yours—” He shook the interlayer, a woman's voice still speaking in a hushed voice on the other end. “—cut your losses and go.”

Threyna shook her head. “Ten years I’ve waited. You, my mother, my sister—you might be content to let them impale him. But I won’t let you have him.”

Dracus chewed his mustache, flicking his eyes toward the prisoner. Hands shackled, head bagged, and wearing a soiled tunic, he groaned through a gag in unintelligible pleas. He was old enough to have witnessed the Disasters and watched the Great Abdication’s fleet sail west from Drake Point. Whoever he was, he’d endured enough.

“He’s had his time, Threy,” Dracus said. “Don’t trade your life for his. Let the Order have him. You come with us.” He shrugged. “I know there are darklings to deal with between you and yer mother, you and Laela, but—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Threyna said, her lips peeling back in a snarl. “Not without my father.”

Dracus’s blade fell away from Threyna’s neck. If blood pumped through his veins, it would have drained from his face. But it didn’t. So it couldn’t. He only managed to trip over his tongue, attempting to process what she’d said.

“Not without my father.” He repeated her line again and again in his head.

Slowly, he turned to the prisoner. In the dim torchlight, Dracus squinted, taking a better look at the man. Bherus? Impossible.

But was it? He’d been with the Order long enough. He’d walked the black cells of Saltspire’s dungeons. Blood and bone, he and Decimus were half the reason why they were never vacant. He was one of the few people to have seen the Skeleton King’s farm and walk out alive. They’d keep prisoners alive, barely—regenerating blood bags for the Skeleton King to consume.

Dracus examined him. What he had thought was a soiled tunic was not. Black veins, thick with rot, stretched across his flesh, leaving only pockets of the fair skin beneath.

Bherus… He reached for the sack covering his friend’s face. “Gory ghosting dam—”

Thunder exploded. The ground began to shake as if the Disasters had come again. Screams filled the night air.

Dracus fell away from Bherus’s cell. Threyna, holding onto the cell bars, kept herself steady, and drew a short sword.

She pointed it at the stone in Dracus’s throat. “Apologies, Dracus.”

Chapter 8: Traitors

Laela III

Laela focused within her Center of Silence as she moved through the crowd toward the familiar Undergrounder. Fists clenched, teeth grinding, hate coursed through her veins. Hate for the Underground, the selfishness of its people, the cruelty of their leader, Arilette.

She’s just as bad as the Skeleton King was. Just as bad as Belrich is now. Why must she always try to take from us?

The quiet poet knew she was coming for him. Head down, eyes darting, he tried to slink away, but he was in her territory. This wasn’t Octaven; this was the home she had made for herself after everything was taken from her. She’d shepherded the meager flock of sheep across all of Northvale in search of living grass, fended off hellhounds and hollowed, defended Avengard’s walls from the Tellers’ raiders, and dug the tunnels that led to Aranoc’s Gullies with her own hands. All for another chance to escape. Her father ruined the first opportunity. Arilette ruined her second. She’d be damned if she let this foolish boy stop her plans this time.

Laela quickened her pace to close the distance between her and the poet. Most didn’t notice her movement, their attention fixed on Olerus’s droning speech, but the poet began to slip away, shoving his way toward the stables.

Making eye contact with Fawkes, Laela gave him a hand signal to cut the poet off. Fawkes lurched into motion, but another servant seized the poet by the wrist, halting his flight. Laela couldn’t see the other servant clearly enough to make out his features. Whether the other servant was another Undergrounder or one of the servants her mother had hired for the feast, Laela wasn’t going to wait around and find out. The poet was speaking frantically. Then he turned and pointed at her.

Before they could turn and run, Fawkes caught them, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. Canton stood at his side, his hand on the hilt of his short sword.

No. Don’t make a scene.

Just as Laela closed in on the four men in the corridor to the old stables, another woman in a city-watch uniform arrived.

“These the Undergrounders?” the woman asked Fawkes. Though she attempted to soften her consonants, her Palogian accent bled through. Her face was hidden behind a plumed helm and a gray scarf. It was possible she was a new recruit to the city watch. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for a Palogian to hide their features and attempt to blend in, but they were rare enough that people took notice. It was just as likely that she was an Undergrounder disguised in an Avengardian’s uniform.

“We’re 'bout to find out,” Fawkes said, eyeing Laela.

“What?” the servant asked. “Us? Undergrounders?” His cheeks parted in a smile as if the indictment was preposterous. With his charming grin and dimpled cheeks, he might have gotten away with it if the poet’s quivering lip hadn’t given him away.

They were Undergrounders; Laela was sure of that much. But who else? And what about the woman? She nodded at the Avengard city watchwoman. “Escort them inside. Lock them in the storage closet in the undercroft.”

The woman seized both of the disguised servants by the elbows. “At once.”

Fawkes let her take them from his grasp, but Laela drew a dagger from her vambrace and held it to the woman’s face. The word True was embossed into the hilt, but the woman before her was a lie. One woman to escort two men. How foolish do you believe we are? She flicked her head towards Fawkes and Canton. “I was talking to them. The three of you will come with us. Quietly. You’ll wait in the undercroft until the Dominion feast is over. And then, maybe then, we’ll let you scurry back to your hole in the ground.”

The woman stiffened.

“Canton,” the poet said, attempting to face him. “Don’t do this. Please.”

Laela grabbed him by the collar of his servant’s robes and bore into him. He didn’t wilt beneath her stare as she expected. He barely even looked at her. He stared beyond, even through her. Behind his eyes, horror, pain, fear, and something deeper. Something darker. Knowledge.

“Ebrus?” Canton asked. “Gory ghosts… Ebrus?”

Ebrus. The poet. Canton’s friend. An Undergrounder—here to destroy her dream of a life beyond the curse.

Laela angled the blade from the woman’s face to his. “Don’t do this? You come here, to our home, knowing our plans. And you have the gall to beg?”

The stone in Ebrus’s throat bobbed. “If Theodyn falls… we all die.”

Laela blinked. Her mind slowed, attempting to process. Theodyn. A name she hadn’t heard in nearly a decade. Threyna’s father. But that wasn’t the worst part. She repeated his words again in her mind. “If Theodyn falls… we all die.”

She inhaled sharply. “What under Neutreen’s wings are you talk—”

Thunder tore the world apart. The ground quaked. The dilapidated stone of Valefort’s west wall crumbled. Screams filled the night air as watchmen fell from the ramparts and crashed to the courtyard.

Before anyone could react, crossbow bolts flew through the breach, striking unsuspecting Order legionaries and Avengard citizens alike. More screams. More panic. Men and women wailed, bellowing the cries of the undying. 

“Traitors!” Belrich shouted, wheeling on Olerus and Rance.

“It’s not us!” Rance cried. “The Underground.”

If anyone heard, if anyone cared, it didn’t matter. Legionaries flipped feast tables to take cover behind. Drawing their steel and charging their blasters as shades and darklings fled from corpses, the Order directed their weapons not at the Underground. Not at the people responsible. But the people too stupid to hope for something more than death and curses.

Before Laela’s eyes, dreams burned to ash. The scent of smoke filled her nostrils all over again as fighting erupted within the courtyard. Within moments, the feast had become a graveyard as bad as the Battle of the Cut.

Ebrus tore free of Laela’s grip. He and his Underground companions charged into the fray. Laela couldn’t let them leave. If this could be stopped, if Avengard’s entry into the Dominion could be salvaged, it began with the impaled corpses of those three Undergrounders.

“We can’t let them leave these walls!” Laela passed True to the other hand and drew her bastard sword. Fixed within her Center of Silence, Laela led Fawkes and Canton into the fray.

Chapter 9: Choose Your Battles

Threyna V

Screams filled the bailey as fighting erupted overhead. Threyna’s father fell into the bars of his cell, slumping to the corner and groaning through his gag. Above, a legionary fell atop the grate of his oubliette, blood leaking from his trembling lips to drip onto the cell’s floor. The crossbow bolt in his neck should have killed him, but he only wheezed, thrashing as if reaching for aid that wouldn’t come. Nothing could help him now. Trapped within his undying corpse, the legionary’s agonizing last breaths would only keep coming.

Threyna wouldn’t let this be her father’s fate. Keeping her blade leveled at Dracus’s chest, Threyna knelt to retrieve the keys. As she stooped, the fatekeeper pendant dangled from her neck. The explosions in the half-trenched tunnels along the west walls and the cover fire from Lorath’s cohorts were only diversions. If she didn’t get her father and leave now, neither of them would make it out of Valefort alive.

“We’re leaving. Don’t make me hollow you.”

Dracus didn’t look at the blade. Didn’t look at her. Not truly. His gaze fixed on the fatekeeper before flicking to her father. “Theodyn, is that really you?”

Her father strained through his gag.

Threyna fumbled with the keys in one hand, keeping her sword between her and Dracus. He’d saved her life once before. But that was ten years ago. And Threyna knew better than most, time changed people, and she wasn’t about to take a chance on Dracus being the man she once knew.

Through the oubliette’s grate, the fighting intensified. More arcanatek blasts. Dawnshards exploded and cries resounded as people hollowed and darklings shrieked as they tore from their torturous flesh.

She shoved a key from the ring into the lock, but it didn’t turn. She glanced at Dracus.

“Canton and Fawkes are up there. If ya don’t care about yer mother and Laela, fine. But I won’t leave mine to hollow up there while you run off. ”

Threyna snorted, trying a second key. “That’s the thing with you Wraith. You think you can pick and choose your battles. You won’t leave them to hollow, but you’ll leave the Underground to save yourself.”

Dracus shook his head. “C’mon, Threy. That’s Arilette talkin’.”

The second key didn’t turn. Clenching her teeth, she struggled to seize a third. “If you hadn’t fled, the Order might never have taken him. He wouldn’t be here.”

“Neither would you,” Dracus said, his voice cold.

Another gale of screams tore through the courtyard. She was running out of time, but she glared at Dracus, trying to accept that the same man who saved her life from the hellhounds was the one who abandoned her father at the Cut. Who condemned him to this fate.

“You take him, Belrich will impale everyone up there,” Dracus said as Threyna inserted the third key into the lock. “Everyone in Valefort. Blood and bone, maybe everyone in Avengard.”

Threyna growled. “Better than joining the Dominion.” Twisting the key, the lock clicked. She lowered her sword to undo the latch, but in the next moment, her arm was wrenched behind her back. Her sword clattered to the ground.

Dracus shoved her cheek into the cell bars. “Sorry, kid. Can’t let y—”

Grunting, Threyna shoved off the cell bars, launching her and Dracus backwards. Dracus’s back slammed into the opposite wall. Pain lanced through her arm and up her shoulder, but she was free of him. Arm limp, she spun and threw her opposite elbow at his jaw. He blocked with his forearm and chopped down between her neck and shoulder. The pain faded, replaced by numbness. Her arm hung at her side as she stumbled back.

He kicked the outside of her shin, buckling her knee, then lowered his shoulder into her sternum, dropping her to her back. Her head hit the metal bars of her father’s cell. Ringing filled her ears to replace the screams of the fearful and undying above. Her vision blurred, but she threaded her foot between Dracus’s legs. Coiling around his ankle, she twisted. Her world toppled, but Dracus slammed into the ground beside her. Head swimming, she pushed herself to her unsteady feet. Before she could ready an attack, Dracus speared her into the cell bars.

Holding her wrist with one hand and seizing her neck with the other, he held her against the cell. His flinty gray eyes glared. His mustache bristled through his snorted exhales.

“We surrender!” a voice shouted from above. “It’s done! We surrender.”

Chapter 10: Penance

Dracus III

Dracus would recognize that voice anywhere. Rance. The one voice of truth and reason in a world built on lies and propaganda. The one hope of the Wraith ever leaving Rheynia and creating a new life somewhere beyond the curse.

“To hope is to lie. To live is to…”

“On your knees,” Belrich said.

Another voice Dracus would know anywhere. If a sound could send chills down his spine, Belrich’s voice still would.

“All of you!” Belrich shouted. “If you wish to live to see the next Bheric’s Day, each and every one of you will do exactly as I say.” Groaning hollowed were his only answer. “Vortex and irradiate the fallen.”

Whirring arcanatek replaced the sounds of the battle above. Still, Dracus didn’t move. He held Threyna—firm, not tight—yet her glare might as well have strangled him. Her hellhound scowl didn’t beg, didn’t give up.

She’s searching for a way out.

But Dracus needed to search for a way in. Canton and Fawkes were up there. He didn’t know if they were alive or hollowed. If it were their souls being vortexed and irradiated, or if they were on their knees, watching as the legionaries did so to the people they’d come to know over these past ten years. He would have prayed to Neutreen, but if she existed, if she ever existed, she’d never answered him before.

Whether Canton was alive or hollowed, a shade or darkling, Dracus wasn’t leaving without him. If things went how he assumed they would, the trembling man behind Threyna might be his only hope. He couldn’t let him leave, and she wouldn’t leave without him.

The stillness and their proximity only embellished the sounds of their labored breaths. Eyeing the fatekeeper pendant about her neck, and hoping against hope that she wouldn’t do anything rash, he removed his hand from her throat to lift his index finger to his lips.

Her harsh stare refused to relent, but she didn’t attempt to strike him either. He released her wrist, and the two leaned their faces against the bars of Theodyn’s cell to glimpse what was going on in the courtyard beyond the grate.

As the last arcanatek warbled to a stop, Belrich’s voice rang throughout Valefort. “Governor Olerus. My, my. You have some explaining to do.”

Olerus whimpered loud enough that wherever he was, his blubbering reached the oubliette’s listeners.

“I pray on every feather of Neutreen’s wings that you will tell me the truth,” Belrich said. “Trust in the Tenets will set you free, for only on the truth shall you fly from penance.”

Dracus knew all too well of Belrich’s brand of penance. It was his mercy that saw Canton’s village burned. His mercy that impaled Canton’s parents and flayed the flesh from their bones. He only hoped Rance could avert a disaster, or Dracus would have to cause one.

He exchanged a glance with Threyna, then held out his hand, nodding at the dagger at her hip. Hesitantly, she handed it to him. Reaching through the bars, Dracus took hold of the sack over the prisoner’s head. He knew it was Theodyn, Bherus—whatever name he wanted to go by. He knew it. But as he cut through the sack to free his head from its veil, it wasn’t the face of the man he remembered.

It was Theodyn. But the man he fought beside at the Battle of the Cut was gone. Black veins enveloped his face. His nose was carved off. Both his ears were missing. A scar slashed across one of his eyes, replacing its blue with a milky fog. Gone was the twinkle in his remaining eye.

Beside Dracus, Threyna began to tremble. She didn’t know who he was. What he was. What he was capable of. To her, the walking corpse before them was a stranger wearing the tortured skin of a man she’d idolized. A man she’d abandoned her mother and sister to wait for. This was all that was left of him.

This was Belrich’s brand of penance.

Theodyn’s remaining eye found his daughter.

“For Threyna,” he had said that day in the mouth of the Cut. Dracus knew this wasn’t what he wanted for his little girl, same as Dracus never wanted Canton to grow, survive, and hollow in this cursed country. But here they were, and here they’d all suffer if they remained.

Threyna reached through the bars for her father’s face, a tear trickling from her eye.

It would have been a beautiful moment if the whole world hadn’t fallen to blood and bone.

Theodyn’s gaze fell to the fatekeeper about her neck, the one he had given to Dracus. Standing at the Cut, prepared to suffer so that others could live, he’d said, “If I fail… You must do what I could not. Finish this.”

Dracus had told him he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He had his own battles to fight. But he had taken the fatekeeper, and worse, he’d given it to his daughter, knowing the terrible evil it housed inside. The same evil he’d likely earned those scars attempting to protect.

Theodyn forgot his daughter then, turning instead towards Dracus. He mumbled something incoherent, rage coursing through his black-veined eyes.

It was then Dracus realized that Theodyn hadn’t been gagged. He didn’t need to be. He didn’t have a tongue.

Chapter 11: Disloyalty or Incompetence

Laela IV

With True in one hand, bastard sword in the other, Laela charged into the courtyard. The feast was now a battleground. Darklings screeched as they tore from their failing bodies. Shades floated by, unaware and unconcerned of the scene unfolding around them. Hollowed howled in legionary blacks and Avengardian ivory, attacking anything still lucky enough to be amongst the living.

Crossbows thrummed as bolts flew through the night over the rubble of the west wall. Already, bodies littered the ground or were strewn across overturned tables from the Underground’s attack, but it would only get worse.

While Belrich argued with Rance and Olerus on whether they betrayed him or not, their men, without commands, squared off with one another. All the while, the Underground’s bolts and arcanatek fired indiscriminately.

Soon they would leave as they always did. There was no winning against the Order—the Underground just made sure everyone else lost, leaving everything in ashes.

She didn’t have time to figure out what Ebrus was doing here. But if there was any hope of salvaging Avengard’s admittance to the Dominion, of proving their innocence in the eyes of Belrich, it hinged solely on capturing the Underground saboteurs. 

Laela leapt over a fallen legionary, chasing after Ebrus, the other servant, and the Undergrounder who disguised herself in the garb of the Avengard city watch. A crossbow bolt whisked past her face. She ducked as another zipped overhead, narrowly missing Fawkes.

The Undergrounders ran for the cover of the fallen walls, keeping low to avoid the spray of bolts. Staying focused within her Center of Silence, Laela skirted past a watchman dragging an injured servant from the fray. She passed the high table where her mother and Olerus cowered beneath. Belrich shouted orders to his Premiuses from behind the tight formation of his Inquisitors while Rance did the same behind the Swords of the Wraith. She should have been beside him. But she would have to trust Gatius and the others to see him protected.

A hollowed servant reached for Laela, a crossbow bolt through its chest. Laela sidestepped and slashed her sword across the hollowed’s lower leg. It fell to the ground, separated from its limb. She forged forward, with no time to turn back. Ahead, Ebrus and his servant-disguised companion followed behind the Avengard city-watch-clad woman as she cleaved through hollowed with her stolen blade.

“They’re going to get away.” Laela’s father’s voice invaded her Center of Silence.

Heart pumping, legs churning, Laela ignored her father and closed the distance. The Underground strike team was retreating; she just needed to make sure the saboteurs didn’t escape with them. Only a few strides behind Ebrus, she leapt. She buried True into Ebrus’s hamstring and swiped her bastard sword across his ankles. She tackled him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses.

With Laela’s momentum, they rolled until she sat atop him, True still embedded in the meat of his thigh. She ripped her dagger free, tearing a yelp from the prone poet’s mouth. With his face in the dirt, Laela drove her knee into his spine and pressed the flat of her blade to his cheek.

“Don’t ghosting move!” Laela spat.

Ebrus whimpered, but didn’t resist. A few paces ahead, Fawkes wrestled with the grinning pretty-boy, attempting to avoid his dagger while Canton squared off with the woman.

They’re not going anywhere. They won’t get away with this.

Her father’s laughter echoed in her mind. “You always celebrate too early. Never count the darklings until they’re in the jar.”

Laela walled him off, returning to her Center of Silence. But Rance’s voice cut through.

“We surrender!” Rance shouted. “It’s done! We surrender.”

The Underground had stopped firing, already taking to the wind even before their own soldiers inside the walls had a chance to get free. Order legionaries, city watchmen, and servers alike all paused at Rance’s words. Only the undead continued to move throughout the courtyard.

Laela wiped the blood from True on Ebrus’s servant disguise and sheathed it in her vambrace, but dropped her bastard sword. With her hands free, she displayed the stocks.

Belrich emerged from behind his wall of Inquisitors. “That was unpleasant. Now, if you wish to live to see the next Bheric’s Day, each and every one of you will do exactly as I say.”

Like bodies before a vortexer, the wind was robbed of every person in Valefort, and everyone not clad in Order black fatigues dropped to their knees. Every person except the Palogian woman clad in the pale uniform of the Avengard city watch. She held a short sword against Canton’s neck as she held him from behind.

A knot tangled in Laela’s throat. Ebrus shook beneath her, or did she tremble atop him? How did everything go so wrong?

Slowly, all eyes turned on the woman. Fawkes knelt, the grinning Undergrounder in hand. He spared Laela a panicked glance. Not knowing what to do, Laela searched for Rance between the Inquisitors surrounding him, but couldn’t locate him.

Belrich stared in her direction, not at Laela, but through her—toward Canton and the woman with the blade to his throat. He raised a silver-blond brow, a grin splitting his lips.

“Vortex and irradiate the fallen,” Belrich said. He gestured towards two men, one tall and broad despite his graying hair, the other, a stout boulder of a man by comparison. Green pauldrons marked their shoulders—Premiuses.

“Decimus, Nerus—with me.” Belrich waved them forward, a handful of Inquisitors in their skeletal masks followed close behind.

The scar across Laela’s chest tightened. Put me in the stocks, Nerus? Laela had only heard the name from Dracus and Fawkes. She didn’t know much of him; Dracus wasn’t one for talk. But she knew what Nerus had done, and what evils Decimus was capable of. She didn’t dare glance back at Canton.

As arcanatek whirred into motion all around them to contend with the grumbling hollowed and silent shades, Belrich and his escort approached the woman still standing.

“Do you not wish to see Bheric’s Day?” Belrich asked, coming to a stop a few strides from where Laela had tackled Ebrus. “I’m partial to Cybel’s Eve myself, but I wouldn’t say that is worth being flayed over, hmm?” His expression darkened. His brows creased to a predatory angle. “I said kneel. Yet you stand. Speak or I’ll have my Inquisitors help you find a stick to be impaled upon.”

“He’s an Undergrounder,” the woman said, her tone even-keeled. “I caught him trying to rejoin their ranks.”

Laela lurched from Ebrus’s back. “Lia—”

The tall, broad Premius had a blade to her collarbone before she could blink. Inquisitors leveled their whirring arcanatek irradiators on her.

Struggling to swallow the knot in her throat, Laela pointed at the true Undergrounder. Anger constricted her vocal cords, making her unsteady voice quaver. “Prince Belrich, if I may?”

Belrich examined her, brow cocked with an air of interest rather than offense. He rolled his hand forward with a flourish only Saltspire could cultivate.

“I am Laela.” She forced herself to work through the tension robbing her of voice and sense. “Laela Huron.”

She used her mother’s maiden name in place of the name she wore. Her father’s name. The lost name of Velar still held weight amongst the Wraith, but it also held bad blood with the Order. She’d be branded a traitor and suffer the same fate as every Kaine and those who aligned with him during the Artificer’s War if she wasn’t careful.

Laela ignored the scar burning across her chest, the ghoulish grin painted on Belrich’s too-young face, and the weapons trained on her. “I have lived in Avengard ten years. Ten years I’ve served. I’ve culled hollowed, shepherded flocks, and hauled crops with nearly everyone in this city. I have served in Neutreen’s temple and can tell you something about every Deacon who has ever lit a match by the Valefort hearth.” Hands still raised, she nodded at the woman holding Canton. “He is not the Undergrounder. She is.” She gestured toward Ebrus and the other server, still in Fawkes’s grasp. “They are.”

Belrich chuckled. A flippant, unapologetic snicker that either lacked awareness of the bodies littering the ground around him, or possessed a callousness that rivaled the Skeleton King’s himself. As the arcanateks’ warbling ceased, Belrich’s voice replaced it to echo off the crumbling walls of Valefort. “Governor Olerus. My, my. You have some explaining to do.”

He turned his back to her to direct his scorn at the high table, but the arcanatek and the sword tickling the torn seams of Laela’s city-watch collar remained. “I pray on every feather of Neutreen’s wings that you will speak the truth. Trust in the Tenets will set you free, for only on the truth shall you fly from penance.”

Olerus trembled beside Rance.

Belrich’s singsong and playful tone rotted. “Bring him here.”

Rough hands ripped Olerus from his cowering and dragged him before Belrich. The Inquisitors shoved the governor to his knees. Denied his height, the thin man looked small, but he shrank further beneath the stare of the Legatus of the Order. He wrinkled his hooked nose beneath bleary eyes as he groveled at Belrich’s boots.

“My prince, this was not us. The Underground…”

Belrich squatted beside the governor, an exaggerated smile bunching his cheeks. “Yes, the Underground.” He nodded in the direction of the Underground woman and Canton. “Can you tell me which of them should be impaled as a traitor—definitively?”

Olerus searched Canton’s face looking for recognition, but found none. The woman holding Canton, keeping her blade at his throat, removed her shawl and plumed helm.

With the tanned skin, strong cheekbones, and dark features from the distant isles of Palogia, the woman’s face wasn’t one people would forget once they saw. Laela certainly hadn’t.

Aylenia.

Though she remembered her from before the Underground, when they were both young girls in the followers camp of Victarius Kaine’s Artificers, she didn’t remember her like this. The skinny, quiet girl was replaced by a woman. As captivating as stained glass and just as sharp, Aylenia stared back at Olerus as if daring him to oust her as a traitor.

There was no way Olerus had ever lain eyes on her. Laela had. She knew she was an Undergrounder, but if she shared how she came by that knowledge, she’d be sharing the neighboring pike.

Belrich snapped his fingers. “The truth. Unless you truly cannot discern friend from foe?”

Olerus’s eyes seemed to shake in their sockets as he glanced between Aylenia and Canton.

“My prince,” Rance said from the high table. “If I may—”

“You may not,” Belrich said playfully as if he were speaking to a child and not Avengard’s aedile. “Olerus, you are governor of this city. I chose you to lead. Though I’m not certain which would be more disconcerting: your disloyalty, or your incompetence.”

Olerus turned on his knees and held the stocks to Belrich. “My prince, I swear by the Tenets, upon every feather of Neutreen’s wings, I am faithfully your man.”

Belrich hmphed. “Incompetent then?”

“No, my prince, I—”

Belrich put a hand on Olerus’s shoulder, still squatting beside the kneeling man. “Then tell me, why should I trust you if you don’t even know which of your servants wishes to enter our Holy Dominion, and which seeks to tear it down, hmm? You see, loyalty can be bought. But competence—” Belrich wagged a finger before Olerus’s hooked nose. “—competence can’t be bought. Can’t be scared straight or whipped into shape. No, there is only one way to deal with incompetence.”

Belrich stood “Nerus, escort Olerus to his tower. Let him think upon his grievances and ponder the gravity of his circumstances.”

“At once, Legatus,” the squat Premius said as he hauled a trembling Olerus to his feet.

“Decimus,” Belrich said to the tall, broad, older Premius holding his blade to Laela’s throat. “I don’t know who we can trust. So I suppose we can’t trust anyone, can we?”

“No, Legatus,” Decimus said.

Belrich hmphed, a self-satisfied smirk tugging on the corner of his lip. “In that case, I want every man, woman, and child within Valefort’s walls to be detained, questioned. Provide them an opportunity to prove their innocence.”

Laela pursed her lips. This wouldn’t end well. Sentillion applied for entry into the Dominion. After a group of Tellers led a peaceful protest outside the walls, Belrich ordered Sentillion’s lands salted. What would he do if he blamed Avengard for the Underground’s attack?

She knew of the Order’s form of questions. The Justicus had ways of making people talk. Even outside of the interrogations, the Doves, the Order’s spy network, would be all over Valefort. Not a single word could be uttered without Belrich’s discovery.

Erynia will crack. Gatius will speak out of turn.

The scent of ashes filled her nostrils. She closed her eyes, searching for any possible way out of this. Neutreen, if you have any power here, please. We need you.

Without matches to light, a hearth to ignite, or a pyre to burn, there was no chance Neutreen would hear her prayers. She met Rance’s eyes, hoping against hope that he would have something—anything—up his sleeve.

Rance stroked his gray goatee. Nearly imperceptibly, he shook his head at her.

“Take them to the cells,” Belrich said.

Chapter 12: Villains and Monsters

Dracus IV

Dracus was hollowed, but Bherus was a horror. Death would have been a kindness compared to the fate the former prince had suffered. Bherus hissed out of the hole where his nose used to be. Spittle flew from his lips as his severed tongue attempted to form words against Dracus.

Bherus didn’t need a tongue to give voice to the poison on his mind; Dracus knew his fury. He understood.

Ten years in the black cells. Torture. All the while taking peace knowing his failure didn’t mean the end of the war.

He gave Dracus access to the Blessing, the cursed blood artifact that gifted the control of blood, bone, and soul. He wanted Dracus to defeat the Skeleton King, stop the Order, and find a way to “keep playing.”

He hadn’t. Instead, he’d lied to Bherus’s daughter and passed the burden onto her.

The black veins in Bherus’s face pulsed as if, even now, he wanted to conjure bloody arms and tear Dracus to pieces. If Canton and Fawkes were safe, if they weren’t under attack in Avengard’s courtyard or held prisoner to Belrich’s brand of justice, perhaps it wouldn’t have been the worst fate he could suffer. But no true death awaited him here. If Canton and Fawkes are still alive, there’s only one way of getting them outta here.

Dracus held his hands up. “I’m sorry, Theodyn. I mean it. But this ain’t the time.” Blood and bone, I hope the time never comes. “I reckon ya feel like ya failed at the Cut. But ya didn’t. Skeleton King hasn’t been seen since.”

Bherus thrashed within his bindings. Snarling and grunting, he shook his head.

If Dracus’s flesh still lived, the reaction might have sent a chill down his spine. Whether Threyna noticed or not, Dracus didn’t know.

After all this time, the monster still lives? You poor bastard, he’s been living off of you.

Dracus swallowed. The Skeleton King wouldn’t be his problem if he got Canton and Fawkes out of this. They could still meet The Relentless on the north shore and be in Sansia by tomorrow. Dracus would have his true death, and Canton would have a chance at life.

Asserting himself, Dracus pointed through the grate of Bherus’s oubliette. “Listen to me. Lotta decent people are gonna suffer up there. You know Belrich. You know what he’ll do. You might be the only one with the power to do somethin’ 'bout it.”

Threyna shoved Dracus’s shoulder, twisting him to face her. “Are you insane? You want him to fight? Look at him. He’s in no state to—”

Dracus shoved her off, returning his focus to Bherus. “You want to finish this? You stopped your father. Now stop your brother. End this.”

Threyna grabbed Dracus by the collar with one fist. “What are you talking about? We can’t win this fight. This is an extraction. We need to leave.”

“Your people are up there too,” Dracus said, gambling. He didn’t mean the girl’s mother or sister. He knew they wouldn’t get through to her. But he didn’t believe Arilette sent her here alone, and he understood the battle she’d been fighting for the last ten years; after what she’d been through, she wouldn’t leave her team behind so easily.

Threyna glared at him, not knowing even half of the situation at play.

Belrich’s voice carried through the courtyard and bounced off the walls of Bherus’s cell. “I want every man, woman, and child within Valefort’s walls to be detained, questioned. Provide them an opportunity to prove their innocence.”

Dracus met Bherus’s harrowing gaze. “You know what that means, eh? Everyone will suffer. Only you can stop this. Only you can save us.”

“Do you believe in the Purge?” Theodyn had asked him that fateful day before the Battle of the Cut. He had said no. Truth be told, he still didn’t believe it, but he needed Bherus to believe that he believed it.

“You were right,” Dracus said. “This story has a hero. That Teller was right. But it’s gotta be you. And it’s gotta be now.”

Dracus grabbed the soul jar from his hip.

“What are you doing?” Threyna asked. “You can’t—”

He pressed the button, releasing the lid, and held the arcanatek to Bherus’s tortured face. 804 darklings, procured from a lifetime spent fighting in the Order’s wars and vortexing hollowed, flooded into Bherus’s cage.

Threyna cried, but Bherus inhaled. The tormented souls imprisoned in his soul jar rushed into the tortured victim confined in the oubliette. As each darkened soul crashed into Bherus, the rot corrupting his veins began to recede. It wasn’t until he’d consumed the last of them that he somewhat resembled the man who had handed Dracus the cursed fatekeeper ten years back.

Bherus convulsed, struggling against the darklings vying for control over his body.

“Father?” Threyna attempted to open the door to his cell, but Dracus held her back, pulling her away.

“Let me go! Let me—”

Tendrils of blood spawned out of Bherus’s back. The manacles binding his wrists and ankles creaked. Fresh vines of rot snaked through his veins at the cost of his conjuring, stretching up his neck and encircling it like a corruptive noose.

There were no heroes to this story. Only villains. Only monsters. But the only way to defeat a monster was to make another one.

Chapter 13: A Feast for Hellhounds

Laela V

Decimus, the Lord Premius of the Order, took Laela by the shoulder, steering her towards Valefort’s front doors. Behind her, Inquisitors disarmed Aylenia, Ebrus, and the other Undergrounder, as well as Fawkes and Canton. Guilty and innocent alike, all would suffer. All around her, the Order’s legionaries corralled everyone from Aedile Rance all the way down to the youngest of serving girls. The city watchmen were rounded up like sheep. The only difference was that when a shepherd led their flock, they sought only to provide, protect, and guide. In this case, the shepherd might as well have been a group of black-clad hellhounds.

“Only on Neutreen’s truth shall you fly free,” Belrich said, standing on the front stairs leading into Valefort’s foyer. “Speak true and pure. Cooperate and you shall be protected.”

Laela didn’t trust the lie. She still had a hidden blade in her boot and another in her vambrace, yet she followed the rest of the herd into the paddock and the slaughter awaiting inside. At least if she were a sheep, she would still have claws. She’d forge a way out.

Rance, ever the pillar of poise, stroked his gray goatee, smoothed back his hair in its horsetail, and encouraged Gatius to hand over his sword. He’ll find us a way out. I just need to be ready for his signal.
Laela met her mother’s eyes. Her mother averted her gaze, dropping her chin to her chest.

She sent the letter to Threyna. She told the Underground. Her mother’s words returned to her. “There is strength in knowing when to drop your guard.”

If there was strength in that, her mother didn’t have it. She’d lowered her guard at the worst possible time, and now many would pay with their souls. The scar across her chest burned. The fatekeeper on her neck threatened to weigh her down. Noxious smoke filled her nostrils as if she were back in Octarius, watching her father burn. Watching the fleet burn.

Be strong. Be courageous. We’ll find a way out of this.

Chewing her lip, she followed the crowd.

“Be warned,” Belrich said. “Those who speak falsely… will suffer.” He pointed to the tower overlooking the courtyard.

In the window, silhouetted shapes struggled in the torchlight of the tower.

“No. No, please. No!”

Gasps flooded the courtyard, followed by screams. A body fell from the tower window, arms and legs flailing within a green cloak. Olerus’s body hit the crumbling stone steps of Valefort’s front entrance with a sickening crunch. Dead on impact, Olerus still screamed, his broken remains mere strides from Belrich.

Laela’s stomach twisted in knots. Her chest tightened, unable to draw breath. The thin veil that held back her father’s commentary about this being her fault, her failure, her weakness—began to erode.

Olerus’s skull was caved in. His ribs protruded through his skin. Blood overwhelmed the green cloak and leaked down the front steps, cascading into a puddle. He continued to cry, to groan. His arms, bent at awful angles, still moved, reaching for aid. Hollowed.

Belrich didn’t spare him a glance. He raised his hand to still the horrified onlookers. “Be calm, good citizens of Avengard.” A cruel grin slashed across his face. “You will not share poor Olerus’s fate. Neutreen has judged him. In his pursuits of moderation, he fared well. But I fear in modesty, in merit, he did not quite measure up.”

Belrich strode down the steps to Olerus’s hollowed form. “Now I hope you all can appreciate the… gravity… of the situation. Or would it be gravitas?” He hmphed with a shrug.

“You murderer,” Cyb, a veteran city watchman, said from beside Rance at the front of the procession. He strode toward Belrich. “You are not Neutreen. You do not get to ju—” 

Belrich didn’t even move. The nearest Inquisitor drew a sword and stabbed the unarmed man through the heart.

Cyb stumbled backwards. His hands grasped at his chest, trying to keep the blood inside, where it belonged. It spilled between his fingers. His legs gave out, and he fell into Rance’s outstretched arms before he could hit the stairs.

Laela’s world tore in two, not because she couldn’t believe this was happening, but because this shouldn’t have been happening. This should have been a celebration. Now it was only a feast for hellhounds.

“Still, you stay silent,” her father said. “Still, you do nothing.”

Laela didn’t know what she could do if she didn’t want to end up like Olerus and Cyb.

Cyb wasn’t in the Wraith, but he was a good man. She’d served with him for the better part of the last three years. He’d lost his wife to dewskull, his daughter to a hollowed attack. All he wanted was to join the Dominion so others could live and grow under the Order’s protection. Before he could ever see that dream come to pass, he learned the truth of the Order’s lies.

“It seems your people are still not getting the point of this lesson, Rance,” Belrich said.

Cyb’s face went white as the purest shade. His blood drenched Rance’s cloak as he held the suffering man.

“We submit,” Rance said. He addressed the crowd behind him. “Everyone will submit.”

Cyb, still suffering despite there being more blood outside his body than in, reached for Rance. Life, what was left of it, fled his eyes. He slackened in Rance’s embrace, his Avengard city-watch uniform a crimson smear on the stairs of Valefort. A gray luminescent shade emerged from Cyb’s fallen form.

He wasn’t the purest soul Laela had ever seen, but he didn’t deserve this. Everyone had their inner darklings, their moments of weakness, their failures to measure up to the Tenets—but Neutreen was merciful. She wouldn’t have condemned him.

“Will you at least grant him release?” Rance asked Belrich.

That was what the Order’s so-called job was—the Justicus culled the hollowed to purge Rheynia of its undeath, and the legionaries protected the Dominion from the Tellers and the Undergrounders. Despite their propaganda for the sheep they ruled over, they didn’t care for the Purge. They didn’t protect anyone. They preyed upon everyone else while worshiping the One True God. They didn’t keep the Tenets. They didn’t light matches, hearths, or pyres to whisper prayers on the rising smoke. They didn’t long for Neutreen to grant them wings to fly to Valencia. All they wanted was power. Control. Dominion.

A smile split Belrich’s lips. Not one of pleasure, but one of genuine pity. “A unified Rheynia—that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Ever since I crawled from my mother’s womb as she hollowed, all I’ve wanted was peace. Fifty-seven long years. Fifty-seven years of undeath, decay, dissent, and war. My entire life, these lands have been cursed. Not Rheynia, but here.” He lifted his arms to Valefort behind him. “Valefort, Avengard, all of Northvale—you are nothing but traitors. Rheynia is not cursed. You are. Cursed to fight, to lie, to ruin everything. You conspired with the Underground to see the Dominion fall.”

“We did not,” Laela shouted, still in Decimus’s clutches. Whether due to her father’s prodding or her own anguish, Laela hadn’t been able to contain herself any longer. She’d waited for Rance to object, but he remained silent. They needed to do something, or Avengard would become the new Sentillion; the lands within the valley of the Sisters would be set to flame and salted, never to rise again.

Decimus tightened his grip on her. Belrich fixed her with his ghoulish gaze, but she needed to appeal to him, or they were all doomed.

“My prince,” Laela began, “Legatus of the Order, Neutreen’s chosen to rule the land of the living, we are not the enemy. We did not attack. We have no reason to try. We have struggled these past ten years to prove ourselves a productive and contributing asset to the Dominion. What have we to gain from siding with the Underground when we were so close to receiving your absolution? Please, my prince. Isn’t this exactly what the Underground wants?”

Belrich examined her, stroking his cleft chin with a gloved hand as if considering how to dispose of her.

“Ooh,” her father mocked. “Shouldn’t have done that. Now you’re in for it.”

Belrich strode towards her. “The Underground does seek to divide us, yes. Perhaps there is still a chance for unity.” He nodded to one of his Inquisitors. “Irradiate the shade.”

Laela let out a trembling breath. She could do no right in her father’s eyes, but Rance gave her an appreciative nod.

As the Inquisitor charged his irradiator to end Cyb’s eternal wandering, Belrich addressed the rest of the gathered Avengardians. “We shall continue as planned. You shall be questioned, but speak true and pure, and together we shall overcome the Underground and their treach—”

A shrill cry cut off Belrich’s declaration. Not the whine of a shade, the screech of a darkling, or the groan of a hollowed, but the terrible sound of twisting metal. People at the back of the crowd, more to the center of the courtyard, gasped, backing away. The iron grate of one of the oubliettes flew into the air to crash down on an overturned table.

Gasps became screams. Out of the darkness, from one of the subterranean cells, giant scarlet legs like that of a gargantuan spider hoisted a bare-chested monstrosity of a man. Nose cut off, ears clipped, and covered with scars and black veins, this monster could only be one thing.

The Skeleton King...

Chapter 14: Heart of Stone

Threyna VI

Memories of her father brushing back her hair and kissing her forehead goodbye, dreams of finally reuniting with him after all of her time alone, they both felt as pointless as prayers to Neutreen. His face mutilated, his body tortured, he was unrecognizable. Gone was the man she remembered. Gone were the dreams she foolishly allowed herself to envision for their future. All that remained was the weight of the fatekeeper around her neck, the knot in her throat, and the weakness in her knees.

Standing in the cell meant to hold her father until his execution, she stared out the destroyed ceiling at the creature her father had become. And what he was capable of.

Blood magic…

Suspended on blood-conjured spider’s legs that lifted him to the height of three times of any man, he towered above her. Blood materialized in his hands—a shield in his left, a scythe in his right.

Shouts filled the courtyard. Arcanatek whirred into motion. Irradiators fired at him, but he blocked with his shield. Those he couldn’t block himself were absorbed by conjured shields that bloomed to life only to fall to ashes moments later. The ashes rained down upon her, but as her father shifted from defense to offense, the shouting commands became wails.

Her father charged ahead, out of Threyna’s view. Blood sprayed. Darklings ripped into the sky. The light of shades filled the courtyard. But the screams.

It was horrible. Threyna had only ever heard of the Skeleton King’s blood magic. Never had she seen it. But Father? How?

Tears stung her eyes. She spun on Dracus. “What did you do to him?”

Dracus took her by the shoulders. “I gave ‘em the power to see us from this place.” His gaze fell to her fatekeeper. He pursed his lips. “I’m goin’ up there. Gettin’ Canton and Fawkes. Wait here. I’ll explain, I promise.”

Threyna tore from his grasp. Her head swam, but she knew Dracus’s plan. Get the people he cared about and run. Threyna wouldn’t leave her father. She wouldn’t abandon the mission, or her strike team. Shoving Dracus away, she leapt onto the wall with her left foot, planted her right foot into the adjacent wall, and reached for the lip of the oubliette. Seizing the metal edge, she hauled herself up and into the courtyard.

Bodies littered the ground around her. Darklings swirled overhead, and shades ambled between the living and the fallen.

Inquisitors, legionaries, and Justicus threw themselves at her father. His scythe carved through crowds, cleaving men in two and spewing limbs to the ground. It wasn’t just Order men who fell. Avengardians caught in the line of destruction suffered the same fate. Blood on the ground congealed into rows of blood-spawned pikes that rose from the ground, impaling all in their path. A rain of scarlet arrows appeared before her father before zipping into the people surrounding him.

The carnage, the destruction a single man could cause… It was no wonder how the Skeleton King remained in power. Her father was an army.

Black veins stretched along his flesh as it had before he consumed the darklings in Dracus’s soul jar, but with each fallen body, he summoned more souls into him to abate the spread of the rot.

He will be fine. But Ebrus, Aylenia, Yevon… She needed to get them out. Her father slaughtered indiscriminately. Dracus had unleashed a monster. A weapon. One that wouldn’t just turn the tables on the Order, but had the potential to obliterate them.

Dracus climbed out of the oubliette behind her. “Meet me back here. Please.”

When she didn’t respond, he charged into the fray in search of Canton and Fawkes. As if immune to the clamor of battle all around him, he sprinted into the onslaught.

Threyna took a more cautious approach. She couldn’t afford to run in the wrong direction. She had few allies here. Threyna ducked an irradiator blast aimed at her father. Scanning the battleground for any of the gray-robed servants, she couldn’t spot Ebrus or Yevon. That could have been a good sign.

Maybe they got out?

The west wall of Valefort’s courtyard was a pile of rubble. It was possible between Lorath’s distraction and her father’s assault that Aylenia, Ebrus, and Yevon were able to take advantage. She cursed Dracus for taking her interlayer. Right before he took it, Aylenia had warned that people were moving in on Ebrus. Threyna couldn’t take shelter until she knew for sure. She couldn’t lose another of her squad.

Threyna skirted a flying sword, a severed arm still holding the blade. Crouching, she again surveyed the battleground for the servants. Most retreated towards the cover of the outer walls of the courtyard, but they were actual servants. Ebrus and Yevon were not.

Unable to stay by the oubliette, Threyna scampered across the field of slaughter. She came across a servant lying prone. The gray robes drank enough blood to dye the fabric in death. Whoever it was, their soul had departed, their corpse as still as the doomed.

Biting back her fear of seeing Ebrus or Yevon’s face, she shoved the servant onto his back. Green eyes stared blankly to the clouds overhead. His slack-jaw fell agape. The torn flesh in the side of his neck where a crossbow bolt likely ripped through allowed a river to flow, draining all the color—all the life—from his face.

Threyna shuddered, releasing a trembling exhale.

Whatever soul inhabited this body once, it was not Ebrus or Yevon. Just some other poor sop struggling to survive in this cursed world. Not a fighter of the Underground, not a dreamer of the Wraith, just someone who believed the lie that everything would be better once they joined the Dominion.

Threyna left the dead man and continued her search.

Ebrus, where are you? She never wanted to take him. She knew this would happen. She knew, one day, she wouldn’t be able to protect him. Did he have another episode? Did he panic?

In the torchlight lining the front steps of Valefort, between the lines of legionaries, before the skeletal Inquisitors defending Belrich, a shade, as silver as steel, spun to face her.

Tension denied breath from her chest and dread stole the thoughts from her head as she stared into the face of a boy she’d known her whole life.

No. Gory ghosting blood and bone, no…

The ghastly visage of Ebrus floated towards her. Threyna stood motionless in a courtyard of cataclysm. Time slowed. Consequences ceased to exist. Ebrus was gone.

A single tear slipped from her fluttering eyelashes. Her teeth clenched together as she shook her head, denying what her eyes told her.

No. No. No.

She took a single step towards Ebrus as he continued to float towards her.

It was said that shades lost sentience. They lost who they were, what they’d done, everyone they’d loved—everything. Threyna always believed that to be true. She had no reason to believe otherwise. But the way the shade of her friend looked at her now, she knew the truth: he remembered her. He remembered every poem he’d ever written her but never shared. If not for Daeton’s teasing and Rivich finding where Ebrus kept his secret stash, she never would have learned of the love he had for her. Staring into the light of his soul, she knew he still felt every bit of love for her. But now he’d never be able to speak it.

Threyna reached for him. She didn’t know what happened to him, where his body had fallen, or if Yevon and Aylenia were with him when he died.

“Ebrus, I…”

The sadness in his stare mirrored the same he shared in life. His phantom arm reached for her. Threyna extended for him, but as she did, she felt a draw upon her, as if a vortex attempted to suck her soul from her body.

Ebrus’s form rippled. His face distorted like in the reflection of a trickling stream. As the current carried him away, Threyna reached out to grab him, but his spectral form slipped through her. A wave of cold washed over her hand. She spun, following his trajectory.

Ebrus’s shade disappeared into her father marching overhead on the massive legs of a gargantuan spider. He slashed at the legionaries around her with a scythe.

Threyna stumbled, falling backwards between her father’s spider legs. A groaning hollowed, severed at the waist, reached for her with both arms. Blinking away tears, Threyna scooted backwards on her backside. She gained her feet, but a path opened. Threyna located Aylenia. She’s alive!

Alive, but cornered. She traded blows with two men. Two ghosts of her past. A lanky boy who grew into a lanky young man, Canton struck with his short sword alongside Fawkes who blocked Aylenia’s riposte. Dracus was closing in on them.

Aylenia blocked Canton’s short sword, slipping between him and Fawkes. Her arcanatek whirred as it charged in her opposite hand, but it wouldn’t be enough against the three of them once Dracus arrived.

Threyna charged after them. Keeping low, evading bloody scythes that seemed to congeal out of the gore covering the ground, she weaved between the Order’s lines. They took no notice of her, their focus fixated on the black-veined blood-wielding monster above her. At some point, her father’s spider legs transformed into wings.

He soared overhead, consuming darklings and shades between conjuring death devices.

Threyna leapt over a downed legionary, his shade prying its way from his corpse. She landed in a crouch only for a dropped Dawnshard to land before her.

Inhaling sharply, Threyna lurched for it. With its ticking signaling its impending release, Threyna closed her eyes and tossed it behind her. It must have unleashed its radiant energy the moment she released it because a gale of disoriented shouts erupted behind her.

Threyna staggered in Dracus’s wake. He was nearly on them. She wasn’t going to make it in time.

Ghost dammit, where is Yevon?

Threyna drew her short sword as Dracus approached Canton’s and Fawkes’s backs. Just as Fawkes opened Aylenia’s guard, Canton prepared the thrust that would take Aylenia through the ribs. Threyna’s heart seized in her chest. She inhaled to shout, but it never came.

Neither did the strike.

Dracus seized Canton by the back of his collar, yanking him away. Canton’s strike missed by half a blade’s length. Spinning, Dracus hurled Canton behind him. “The oubliette. Now!”

Fawkes backed away from Aylenia, his guard still raised. Aylenia let him retreat, even as her arcanatek reached its crescendo.

Threyna continued towards Aylenia, but Canton stopped upon seeing her.
“You…”

Dracus again took a handful of Canton’s tunic and shoved him past Threyna. “Yeah, her. Move!” Shoving Canton, he met Threyna’s eyes. “Come with us, Threy.”

Another Dawnshard exploded overhead.

If it distracted her father from his massacre, it didn’t show. All around the courtyard, men fell, wailing even after they died. Shades tore from flesh, ambling through living and hollowed alike. Darklings ripped through the sky, charging into unsuspecting victims in search of a body to overtake.

“I can’t go,” Threyna said. “Not without my father.”

“He won’t leave,” Dracus said. “He’ll suffer here. Everyone who stays will. Don’t be one of them.” Once Fawkes caught up to him, the two ran for the oubliette.

Hissing through her teeth, Threyna let them flee. Cowards. Always running.

Arcanatek fired all around her. Wishing she had her interlayer, she ran toward Aylenia.

Aylenia aimed her arcanatek at a hollowed grasping at her ankles.

Not an irradiator. A vortex.

A gash across the cheek cut through where his grinning dimples should have been.

Yevon, so warm in life, was equally as cold in death. Not laughing. Not joking. He reached for Aylenia with a stump of an arm. A trail of blood followed in his wake, just as death had followed him everywhere he went.

First Ebrus. Now Yevon.

He’d joined the Underground after his sister hollowed from dewskull. On every mission, he never fired his last charge of his vortexer or his irradiator on the off-chance he ever found the hollowed remains of his sister to put her out of her misery. Now he never would.

Threyna came on this mission to save her father, but what was left of the man who hugged her tight and kissed her forehead? In coming to retrieve him, she’d lost two of her closest companions. Her friends.

Aylenia whimpered as she pulled the trigger.

Yevon’s soul tore free from his hollowed body, but a shade of their fallen friend didn’t come out. A darkling did. Before Aylenia could flip the switch of her arcanatek to irradiate him, the dark spirit dove into Threyna’s chest.

The world around her fell away as Yevon drove her into the deepest darkness of her soul. Though she’d never fended off a darkling before, Arilette had trained her for what to expect.

The Heart of Stone, she had called it, the last bastion of one’s sense of self. The deepest part of one’s soul where the battle for control over her body began.

The walls of Valefort were replaced by the lowest level of Octarius—Arilette’s tablinum. Yevon’s darkling thrashed at her, but bounced off, careening off the stone walls only to attack again. Threyna cast Yevon’s panicked soul away. She could feel his emotions pouring down on her, as tangible as if she were standing in the daily rains. His thoughts rattled around her, echoing off the walls of Arilette’s stone chambers, but they sought—no, they needed—to entwine with hers. The malevolence, the fear, the hate was unlike anything Yevon demonstrated in life.

His spirit charged into her within her Inner Underground, but Threyna rebuffed him again. He bounced off Arilette’s wooden table, crashed into the ground, and then rebounded off of the wooden door of House Desius.

“Stop!” Threyna cried to Yevon.

He didn’t.

He charged again with the vigor of having not been fended off thrice already. If anything, his desperation only grew. His thoughts and memories bled into her mind as she felt him searching to gain access to her own.

Threyna spun, hurling Yevon’s darkling into the far wall. Through Yevon’s memories, she watched his sister, Kyra, hollow from dewskull. She felt his tears sting her own cheeks. She experienced his rage at the Order for having the cure, but not sharing it. Helplessly, she lived through Yevon’s last moments, watching as he struck at Canton’s back while he attacked Aylenia. Fawkes deflected the blade. Canton spun and slashed.

The first cut severed his forearm. The second cleaved a gash through his thigh that cut to the bone. But the third stabbed Yevon—stabbed Threyna—through the gut.

“We were only here because of you!” Yevon shouted with a voice void of all that made him human. “You did this. This is your fault. Your fault!”

Threyna flinched, but Yevon charged again. This time, Threyna didn’t toss him off. She grabbed him by his spectral wisp of a throat, pulling his last modicum of humanity as close to her essence as possible. His soul, a swirl of deep purple, gray, and black, remained suspended within her grasp. Her hand glowed a bright evergreen within her Inner Underground, but holding him, wishing her friend would stop attacking her, she realized he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

This close, she felt his torment—the endless physical pain of being a hollowed and the spiritually harrowing experience of being a darkling.

Yevon’s thoughts bled through. I can’t go back out there. I can’t. I won’t. This is her fault! She owes me her body. She doesn’t deserve it. I do. I’ve suffered enough. Blood and bone, Kyra, forgive me!

Tears streamed down Threyna’s cheeks. Every moment he’s outside of a host body, he feels like he’s burning alive. She couldn’t give him what he longed for. No one who could would. But she had a mission to finish, and there was no place left for Yevon in those plans.

“I’m so sorry, Yev.”

Threyna ejected her friend from her Inner Underground. The stone walls of Arilette’s subterranean fortress fell away, and the calamity of the Valefort courtyard returned in a rush.

“Bherus!” Belrich shouted.

A vortex drew on Threyna’s soul. Though she could resist it, Yevon could not. His darkling surged away, caught in the current that led directly into her father. Just like that, Yevon was gone.

“Threy!” Aylenia cried, taking her by the wrist. Her panicked eyes searched Threyna’s. “Is that you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Threyna said. “We gotta—”

“Don’t you ghosting move!”

The tip of a blade pressed against Threyna’s back.

Threyna’s nostrils flared. Her heartbeat, already a whirring irradiator, reached its crescendo. She recognized the voice. Hated it and she who wielded it, just as she knew it hated her.

“Drop it,” Laela said. “Or I swear to Neutreen I’ll cut you down and burn your corpse.”

Chapter 15: True Scars

Laela VI

A monster climbed out of the oubliette. A horror. Worse than Laela’s nightmares of her father’s hollowed corpse burning on the pyre. Worse than the smell of fumes in her nostrils after another failed escape attempt.

Before her, in the flesh, a mangled monstrosity of tortured muscle and bone suspended itself on blood-conjured limbs. Black veins streaked down a scarred torso. His face was even worse. A milky, sightless eye. A snipped nose. Clipped ears. Yet despite his apparent torture, Laela recognized the man at once. Not the Skeleton King. The Undergrounder, the prisoner of war the Order demanded they execute to enter the Dominion—Threyna’s father, Theodyn. The man her mother loved more than she ever did Laela’s father towered over Valefort’s courtyard.

“Hollow him!” Belrich shouted.

Olerus—forgotten. Cyb—a distant memory. Peace, unity, and the prospect of escaping this cursed island withered to ash. Likewise, Lord Premius Decimus’s hand left Laela’s shoulder. Laela found her mother’s eyes through the crowd that separated them. Irradiators, set to stun, fired upon Theodyn, the man she loved, but there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

Sinking into her Center of Silence, Laela ducked as an arcanatek warbled past her ear. She staggered, fumbling through the crowd of legionaries, attempting to close the distance between her and her mother. Blood-conjured destruction rained from the sky or sprouted from the earth to rend flesh, bone, and soul.

A spearpoint jutted from the ground, skewering a legionary from groin to throat just beside Laela. She lurched out of the way, falling to the ground. The man didn’t even have a moment to scream. A darkling screeched into the air, tearing free of its body before the blood-spawned spear could even fall to ash.

Another legionary stepped on Laela to shoot his charged irradiator. Before he could pull the trigger, a bloody knife dove like a haunted hawk and cleaved his hand off. The finger still pulled the trigger. The shot burst directly into the neighboring legionary, sending him seizing.

Screams and the constant fire of irradiators overcame orders and commands. In the chaos, Laela crawled towards the front stairs of Valefort. Between legionaries and beneath the screeching wails of darklings, she made her way to her mother and Rance, but as she stood, a hand closed around her wrist with iron strength.

“You did this!” Belrich’s ghoulish eyes glared daggers into her. “You knew who the prisoner would be. You fed him the souls he’d need.”

“Please, we had nothing to—”

Behind Belrich, Gatius drew his blade. Taking advantage of the distracted Inquisitors, Gatius made for Belrich’s back.

It was never supposed to be this way. It never should have come to this. But the dead walked, and the living hid in underground tunnels. Neutreen was gone and not returning. Nothing was as it was supposed to be, but if Gatius did what Laela expected, Valefort would fall. Avengard would be burned, her lands salted, just like Sentillion. Belrich didn’t deserve to be spared, but if she let Gatius attack him, there would be no way of blaming this entire episode on the Underground. Everyone in Avengard would be impaled.

“Watch out!” Laela wrenched her wrist toward her, pulling Belrich in her direction.

Gatius thrust, but an Inquisitor deflected his strike. Two others pounced on him, stabbing their short swords into the gaps of his city-watch armor. Blood spurted through the segments of leather, drenching the pale surcoat in moments.

Erynia screamed.

Laela tried to locate her through the fray, knowing that Rance and her mother wouldn’t be far from her side, but before she could find her, Belrich spun on her.

“You try to murder me!” Spittle flew from Belrich’s mouth.

“No! I saved y—” Laela’s pleas cut off again as a swooping scythe forced them to duck. One Inquisitor didn’t react fast enough. His head rolled from his shoulders to bounce across Valefort’s front steps. His skeletal mask clanged even after his decapitated body fell to the ground.

Belrich’s glare intensified, but he didn’t release Laela’s wrist. She stood, twisting to wrench free, but another Inquisitor seized her by the arm, his blade drawn.

Laela’s hopes of peaceful de-escalation went up in prayerless smoke. If she didn’t fight, she would hollow, and Belrich would salt all of Northvale anyway. She drew True from her vambrace and spun. Ripping away from the Inquisitor’s grip, she stomped on Belrich’s foot, threw an elbow into his chin, and caught the Inquisitor’s pommel as he chopped down at her.

Laela drove her dagger into the eye slit of the Inquisitor’s skeletal mask. His body went limp in her grasp, and a shade slipped out of him before his body could fall to the ground.

She turned on Belrich, but before he could shout another order, a bloody scythe cleaved through two legionaries coming to his aid. Gore sprayed across Belrich’s Order blacks and splattered his face.

Laela didn’t give him a chance to command more Order attention to her. Luckily, the threat of Theodyn’s cursed blood magic drew more attention, allowing her to retreat into the mess of bodies in the courtyard. Servants and guards attempting to escape the abomination clashed with the Order Justicus attempting to defeat it. The living flailed and shrieked with eerie similarity to the hollowed.

Through the crowd, running from the collapsed west wall, Dracus shoved Canton past…

Threyna…

Heat seared across the scar traversing Laela’s chest. The betrayal stung as hot as it had when her father’s blade nearly hollowed her. Canton continued toward the open oubliette, Dracus and Fawkes behind.

Would they leave without us?

Dracus made a habit of running when convenient, and she didn’t want to wait around to see if he would include her, her mother, or Rance in his inner circle. No time for her rage toward Threyna, confusion as to why Gatius would attack Belrich, or her distrust of Dracus, Laela spun, searching for Rance and her mother.

Just as she spotted Rance on the opposite side of Valefort’s front stairs, a ticking Dawnshard exploded overhead. Laela closed her eyes, but not soon enough. Blinding light spotted her vision, even through her eyelids. Disoriented, Laela tripped over something writhing on the ground. She stumbled, landing hard on her back. The back of her head bounced off something metallic.

The spotted lights of her vision soared, her ears rang, and the wind was knocked from her lungs. Something crawled atop her. Unable to see, barely able to feel, Laela held True before her.

Pressure pawed at her thighs, climbing up to her torso. Before sight returned, Laela drove the tip of her dagger into flesh. Her attacker roared, but continued to rake its nails at her torso, clawing for her flesh but only finding armor.

Hollowed.

Feeling more than seeing, Laela drove True into flesh again and again, but it did little to stop the monster. Teeth sank into her hand. Biting back a scream, she clubbed the hollowed in the side of the skull. The vise-gripping maw released its hold, but pain lanced up her hand. She reached until she found purchase on what she assumed was its leg. Remaining in contact, she crawled up the hollowed’s back, driving True with quick punches. It thrashed, wrenching the blade free from her bloody grasp.

Not bothering to search for the knife in her blindness, she pinned it prone by driving her knee into its spine. She wrapped her left arm under its snapping jaw, and her right on the back of its skull. With a grunt, she twisted.

The hollowed’s spine snapped with a sickening crunch. Its body went limp, but its teeth continued to gnash.

Panting, Laela rolled off the monster to stare at the clouds overhead. Ears ringing, her vision returned; blurry silhouettes gave way to colors, shapes, and more horror. Part of her wished she was still blinded, but then she’d never get her mother or Rance out of this mess.

Retrieving True and gaining her feet, Laela scanned the battleground. Shades floated past. Darklings swirled overhead, entering into Theodyn’s vortexing presence. Legionaries fired off round after round of irradiator blasts. Those who got close enough attempted to slash at his spider legs, but they were as fruitless as Avengard’s crops.

Find Mother. Find Rance. Move.

Amidst the turmoil, she located Dracus. Half in and half out of the oubliette, he waved towards the eastern side of Valefort’s front stairs where Rance and Laela’s mother were running from Nerus. The Premius who shoved Olerus from the tower window bore down on Rance from behind. Despite already bleeding from a stab wound to the gut, Rance bowled towards Dracus and the oubliette.

He’s not going to make it.

Laela, the First Sword of the Wraith, the Mistress of Blades, pulled another knife from her boot and charged toward them. Rance held her mother’s wrist in one hand, and a discarded blade in the other. But Rance wasn’t a fighter. He would be cut to ribbons if Nerus got to him before he reached the oubliette.

Nerus closed the distance, his short sword a hair’s breadth from her mother’s back. But Nerus was focused on Rance. Three paces away. Two.

Blood pumping in her ears, Laela vaulted over an overturned table and leapt at Nerus just as he reared to strike. She crashed into her mother, Rance, and Nerus.

The four of them tumbled to the ground just before the oubliette’s busted grate.

Laela landed on her shoulder. Somewhere in her fall, either her blade, Rance’s, or Nerus’s slashed across her cheek. Blood dribbled down her face like tears, but Nerus gained his feet first.

He stood over Laela. “You gory ghosting traitors.” He reared back his sword, ready to stab her through the gut.

With only two daggers to defend herself, Laela searched for a means of escape, but red blocked out the sky beyond Nerus. Bloody wings stretched from Theodyn’s black-veined torso, and a tail-like projection coiled around Nerus, yanking him into the air.

Saved from Nerus, Laela crawled on hands and knees. Her mother was already up, but Rance was still on his back. Dracus attempted to haul him towards the oubliette.

Daggers in hand, Laela moved to aid Rance toward the oubliette’s entrance. “Rance!”

“I’m fine,” Rance said, though his thin, hard face was twisted in pain and his close-cropped goatee was stained bloody. “Your mother—”

“Threyna…” her mother said.

Laela followed her gaze as she lowered Rance down to Dracus in the oubliette. Threyna stood across from Aylenia, fending off a hollowed atop the rubble of the collapsed west wall.

“C’mon,” Dracus shouted. “No time.”

“My girl…”

Laela reached to stop her mother, but with True in hand, she couldn’t secure her before she ran towards Threyna.

“Gory ghosting dammit,” Laela spat. Her mother was going to get them killed. All for Threyna, who didn’t care about anyone but herself. She looked into the oubliette. “Get him out of here.”

Dracus nodded. “Hurry.”

“Erynia,” Rance said. “Find her.”

“I will!” Laela glanced around the courtyard for any sign of Rance’s daughter but found none.

“Aranoc,” Rance said, sputtering blood. “Meet us at Aranoc.”

Without another word, Dracus hauled Rance from the cell. Sparing no more time, Laela ran across the blood-soaked courtyard towards her mother.

Mother first. Then Erynia.

Her bloody hand from where the hollowed bit her throbbed, and her head pulsed in time with each beat of her heart, but the scar across her chest burned worst of all. Nothing good would come from this. They needed to run.

Aylenia fired a vortex into a hollowed, and a darkling tore free.

“No!” shouted Laela’s mother, slowing a few paces ahead of Laela.

Too late. The darkling dove into Threyna’s chest, and she froze.

“She’s gone,” Laela said. “We need to go.”

She hoped her mother would finally see reason. The feast, Avengard’s failed application into the Dominion, their escape to Sansia—everything was ruined. The massacre around them, the salting of Avengard that would follow—it was all Threyna’s fault.

She was of half a mind to scoop her mother from her feet and carry her back to the oubliette against her will. But first she had to catch her.

“She’s not gone. I won’t lose her again. Not my baby.” Her mother continued running towards the darkling-possessed Threyna.

She’s going to get us all hollowed.

Just as Laela overtook her mother a few paces behind Threyna, the darkling ejected. Theodyn swept by on terrible wings, the wind of which dragged on Laela’s soul. He consumed the darkling before circling back to slash his scythe at the gathered legionaries.

Laela squeezed the hilts of her daggers and stepped in front of her mother.

“Threyna?” her mother asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Threy!” Aylenia cried, taking Threyna by the wrist. “Is that you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Threyna said, still holding a sword. “We gotta—”

Laela pressed the edge of True to her half-sister’s back. “Don’t you ghosting move. Drop it, or I swear to Neutreen I’ll cut you down and burn your corpse.”

Threyna raised her hands, but she didn’t release her short sword.

Her mother stepped forward, but Laela held out a shielding arm.

“Threyna, you came…”

Laela hissed in her mother’s direction, unable and unwilling to take her eyes off her half-sister. She ruined everything. Again. Staring at Threyna’s back, it took all of her restraint not to hollow her, here and now. They needed to leave, but she knew that her mother wouldn’t leave without Threyna, and Laela wouldn’t leave without her mother.

“You’re coming with us,” Laela said. “One way or another. Don’t make me say it again.”

Her mother tugged on her arm, but something struck Laela in the back. Something cold. Cruel. The walls of Valefort fell away. The Order’s battle against the blight of what Theodyn had become disappeared. All sight, sound, and sense faded in the presence of the darkling that dove into her and thrust her from the world and into the bowels of Octarius.

Fires burned all around her. Their ships, their means of escape, scorched black, filling the tunnels with acrid smoke. The screams of her father, burning and hollowed, wailed in the distance, but before her, the darkling stood.

Angry. Jealous. Hateful.

Gatius.

He charged.

Though Laela was armed in the physical world, she wasn’t within this inner hellscape. The spectral wisp of Gatius throttled into her. He thrust his forearm into her throat and drove her backwards, slamming her into the burning hull of a ship.

“We could have killed him!” Gatius shouted. “You saved him. You ruined it.”

Flames licked at the top of Laela’s head, but Gatius’s forearm crushing her windpipe presented a more immediate threat.

Laela couldn’t find her Center of Silence in this place. Her father’s ever-demanding and never-appreciating voice wormed its way into her mind. Focus overcoming panic, she shoved Gatius’s elbow up with one hand, then wrenched his wrist down with her other. She twisted his arm, yanking it behind his back. Pivoting, she slammed Gatius, face first, into the ship’s hull.

“Why!” Laela asked. “We could have talked him down. We could have proved the Underground was behind this.”

Gatius’s thoughts and emotions bled into hers until it was difficult to discern which were his versus hers.

Hopeless idiot, she still believes Neutreen is waiting for her, Gatius thought. She probably still believes in Aeritans too.

Laela didn’t understand. He’d burned prayers before Neutreen’s altar as much as anyone. Before Laela could question Gatius’s thoughts, he kicked at her instep and spun into her. His elbow connected with her temple and sent her sprawling.

Her vision should have swam; her ears should have rung. But this wasn’t the physical plane. Replacing pain, Gatius’s thoughts—his desperate need for a host body—invaded her soul.

“Weakling.” Gatius spat on the ground. “Coward.”

She could feel him ripping control of her body away from her. Weaving through her thoughts and memories, he brought her most painful memories to the surface. They crashed over her, threatening to drown her.

Her father shoved her down again. “This is why we must run.” He stalked around her, circling her, his short sword jabbing at her to drive each barbed word home. “What hope do we have of defeating the Skeleton King if you can’t even defend yourself from me?” His disappointment was as real and raw in memory as it was in life.

“Aarkos,” her mother said, “please. Leave her alone.”

He wheeled on her mother. “I’m training her!”

“You’re hurting her!”

Her father snorted. “You’d have our daughter as helpless as you.”

Laela closed her eyes, attempting to block out the memory Gatius threw at her, but as soon as she fended off the first, another, just as painful, raced through her mind as vicious as her father’s steel carving the scar across her chest.

Laela felt weak, small, helpless. Be strong. Be courageous. But Gatius had already taken control. Through her eyes, Gatius glared at Threyna. Laela’s disdain for her sister melted into Gatius’s.

“She always favored you,” Gatius thought. “You got to be by her side while she sent me to live with the ghost damned Wraith. Not anymore. Not after this.”

Gatius strangled the hilt of Laela’s dagger.

No… Laela didn’t understand what Gatius was thinking, but she felt his wrath, his violence. She attempted to wrest back control, but Gatius had ascended the tunnel of her Inner Octarius, leaving her with the burning ships. Somewhere, far away from the smoke and ash within her mind, her mother screamed.

Laela could only watch as Gatius thrust Laela’s dagger at Threyna’s gut.

Chapter 16: Bloody Grudges

Threyna VII

“Laela? Laela!”

The franticness of her mother’s voice sent Threyna reeling. She spun and crouched, poised to strike. Laela’s stern expression contorted. Her eyes darkened as her full cheeks practically chewed on all the hateful words she had yet to say even as blood dripped down from an open gash.

Aylenia grabbed her by the shoulder, yanking her backwards. “Darkling.”

“Laela, fight it!” her mother pleaded.

“Threy, we need to go,” Aylenia said.

Threyna’s father flew overhead on blood-conjured wings, slaying legionaries at will. Nearly half the gathered legionaries were cut to ribbons. Their soulless bodies littered the courtyard while their hollowed brethren tore at the living. We can win this.

Threyna shrugged Aylenia off. “Not without my father.”

Without warning, Laela struck, stabbing at Threyna.

Threyna’s eyes widened, and her mother screamed. After freeing herself from Aylenia, Threyna wasn’t positioned to defend herself. She flailed, but Laela’s blade clipped her rib. Pain lanced through her side and radiated towards both her sternum and her spine. She recoiled, but before she could counter, Laela struck again, this time attempting to cut out Threyna’s throat.

Aylenia caught Laela’s dagger on her short sword.

Laela shrugged off their mother, spilling her to the ground. Without needing to reposition herself, she kicked Threyna in the chest and hacked at Aylenia with quick slices and stabs.

The kick stole the air from Threyna’s lungs. She caved, stumbling backwards and cradling her ribs with her sword arm.

“Stop!” her mother screamed.

Laela, or the darkling controlling her, didn’t. She slashed across Aylenia’s borrowed armor, and though the blade didn’t bite, the heavy strikes caused Aylenia’s shoulder to slump. With Aylenia’s guard broken and unable to defend herself, Threyna charged at her sister.

She had the advantage of reach—her short sword against Laela’s dual daggers—yet whatever benefit it provided was soon nullified.

Laela dodged a thrust and a slash before lurching into range. Threyna narrowly avoided a pair of slashes that would have spilt her guts on the ground. Aylenia filled the space, stabbing at Laela’s torso, more to keep her at bay than to strike.

Like a storm, Laela turned Aylenia's blade aside, shoved her away, and attacked Threyna. Her mother screamed for Laela to stop, but neither Laela nor the darkling inside her listened. Threyna dodged a stab, deflected a slash with both daggers, and ducked under a horizontal blow that sought to slit her throat.

Threyna was skilled with a blade, but she felt like a child against Laela. She was a nightmare of sharp edges, brutal strength, and bloody grudges. With nowhere to run and no place to hide in a battlefield she couldn’t leave without abandoning her father, Threyna jabbed at Laela’s midsection. At the same time, Aylenia chopped at Laela’s backside. Just as Threyna thought they had her, Laela deflected Threyna’s thrust, spun under Aylenia’s chop, and sliced across Aylenia’s thigh.

Aylenia fell back, tripping over Yevon’s corpse to fall to the ground with a heavy thud.

Threyna felt her own breath depart. She’d already lost Ebrus and Yevon. She couldn’t lose Aylenia too. As Laela launched herself at Aylenia to finish her off, Threyna jumped in front of her, sword leveled at Laela’s nose.

The two glared at each other.

“You don’t deserve her,” Laela said. “She’s mine now.”

Threyna didn’t understand, but she didn’t want Laela to step any further forward.

“Laela, please,” her mother shouted. “She’s your sister!”

Hatred flooded Laela’s eyes and flushed her cheeks. It was worse than the night of the Battle of the Cut after Threyna ran from Laela to return to Octarius. Threyna thought she was the only one harboring bitterness, but from Laela’s contemptuous stare, the resentment was more than mutual. Worse, the darkling wasn’t in control; Laela, her anger, her hatred, was.

Laela shoved Threyna’s blade away, casting her aside to turn on Aylenia as she attempted to regain her feet. With Threyna’s own frustration and disdain mounting, she lowered her shoulder and charged into Laela’s side. Laela shrugged her off, barely moved by Threyna’s attack. With a pivot, she used Threyna’s momentum against her, and tossed her to the ground on the opposite side of Aylenia.

Laela shoved their pleading mother away, and advanced on Threyna and Aylenia.

Chapter 17: A Darkling’s Hatred

Laela VII

Gatius’s reasons for hating Threyna were petty—selfishness, jealousy. She could feel his emotions swirling with her own as Gatius leveled Laela’s blade at Threyna’s face.

He was an Undergrounder. Undercover. Assigned to assassinate Belrich if he got the chance during the distraction or the ensuing extraction of the prisoner. All Arilette’s schemes.

The Underground never cared how many suffered in the collateral damages of their plots. It was one thing to extract one of their own; it was another thing entirely to attempt to assassinate the Prince of Rheynia. Had it just been an extraction, maybe—just maybe—they could have convinced Belrich that this was all a misunderstanding, an Underground ploy to divide the growing Dominion. But an assassination attempt… by one of Rance’s own supposed men… there was no explaining that. All of Avengard, the entirety of the Sisters’ Valley, would have suffered. But that didn’t matter to the Underground. It never did.

Laela hadn’t given up on regaining control over her body, but there was a part of her that accepted the relinquishing of power. A part of her that wanted Gatius to slay Threyna.

Mother would blame me, but it wasn’t me. It was Gatius. The darkling did it.

Her guilt mixed with Gatius’s darkling-magnified anger.

“Laela,” Mother cried. “Fight it. Please.”

Laela was glad she only had to endure Gatius’s pain, and not her mother’s. Eventually, she’ll see this is the best thing for her. Threyna wouldn’t come with them. She wouldn’t become the daughter her mother wished her to be. She’d always be the same willful darkling that thought she knew best.

Gatius strode closer in Laela’s body, blade leading the way toward Threyna’s black heart. As they stepped in range for the kill, more of his mind opened itself to her. Every mission of the Underground, every dream of defeating the Order, every shared smile—everything was tinged with the same dark signature. Laela searched through the memories, seeing the glimpses of Gatius’s past and the emotions that accompanied them.

Gatius was in the Order before the Underground. He, like Dracus before him, deserted after something happened. The frightful memory hid in a dark corner of Gatius’s mind, but it was there—alive, hungry, and contaminating everything it touched. All the joy that might have ever been inside of him was stained rotten by this single memory.

Laela sank deeper into Gatius’s mind, wading through the fear that encapsulated this memory.

A monster’s heavy breathing. The coppery scent of blood mixed with the foul fragrance of death. Corpses, piled on the floor. There was barely anything left of them, as if they’d been drained of blood, leaving only a husk of skin and dried bones.

The walls of fire within Laela’s Inner Octarius turned to blood, but the screams of her father only grew louder.

Fear gripped Laela, as if it were dragging her deeper into the harrowing hall of Gatius’s worst memory. She drew nearer to the monster breathing heavily beside the pile of desiccated corpses. Through the shadows, the bent shape of slouched shoulders and a hung head loomed over her.

As Gatius drew nearer to Threyna, Laela crept closer to the slumbering monster. A cold swept across her like the howling winds along the Spine. Shivers raced through her essence until cold, dead eyes opened from the shadow before her.

In a deep whisper, the voice said, “Bring me the next.”

Gatius forced a boy with more fingers to his hand than years to his life forward. The boy trembled, and Gatius flinched, but Laela crumbled.

Gatius extended True to Threyna’s throat in the physical plane, just as a bloody nail extended from a long, slender, black-veined finger in Gatius’s memory. The fingernail lanced forward, piercing the boy’s throat.

Laela, unable to take it anymore, ejected Gatius from the depths of her soul. Not even her father objected to Gatius’s removal. The chaos of the courtyard replaced the agony of her Inner Octarius, and instead of standing before the Skeleton King, Laela was looming over her sister.

Laela recoiled backwards, pulling her blade away from Threyna’s throat with a gasp. Gatius’s darkling swirled overhead, but Aylenia leveled her irradiator and pulled the trigger. With a shriek and a flash of white light, the darkling disintegrated into nothingness.

“Neutreen, Bheric, and Cybel be praised,” her mother said, helping Threyna to her feet.

Aylenia holstered her irradiator and staggered on her injured thigh. She came to Threyna’s side and whispered something, pinching a black earring on her lobe.

Threyna didn’t break her stare from Laela. “I’m not leaving. Not without my father.”

A scream tore through the air as Theodyn flew overhead on bloodborne wings rapidly deteriorating to ash. He bled from a dozen different wounds, black veins stretched along his torso and down his arms. The thick tendrils climbed his neck and framed his tortured face.

Despite all the carnage he had levied, there were still too many legionaries. The Order reformed its ranks. More reinforcements were pouring through the front gates of the courtyard.

We have to leave now.

Nerus jumped down the oubliette, after Dracus and Rance.

Another irradiator burned through the air. This time, Theodyn couldn’t conjure a shield to absorb it. The blast hit him right in the chest. Seizing, his wings dissipated, raining ashes from the sky. He crashed to the ground in a dust storm of black-veined limbs.

“No!” Threyna cried.

Aylenia wrapped her arm around Threyna’s shoulders. “We need to leave. We have orders.”

As much as it pained Laela, she needed Threyna to come with her if she wanted her mother to come willingly. “Follow your people—” She nodded towards the opening in the west wall. “—and you’ll run straight into more legionaries. If you want to get out, come with us.”

“Go then,” Threyna said to Aylenia, ignoring Laela. “I’m not leaving.”

Aylenia glanced at Laela.

Laela sheathed a dagger in her vambrace and extended her free hand to Threyna. “Stay, and you’ll lose two parents today. Leave, and you’ll spare one. Come with us. Last time I’m asking.”

Threyna wasn’t even looking at her. Behind Laela, the legionaries surrounded Theodyn. With their blades drawn, arcanatek whirring, there was no hope of victory. There never was. But Laela wouldn’t let Theodyn’s defeat or Threyna’s stubbornness mean her demise.

Having had no time to search for Erynia, she scoured the courtyard for Rance’s daughter, hoping against hope that she wasn’t already hollowed.

She spotted the young woman. Absent her guards, Erynia cowered in the corner by the steps to the main entry of Valefort. With her hands over her head and her focus drawn to the Order as they surrounded Theodyn, there was no way Laela could signal to her or manage to extract her. Not without announcing their position and condemning them all.

Failure gripped the back of her neck like her father’s firm hand.

They’ll question her. She’ll crack. Then the Order will know all about the escape. All about Aranoc.

Cursing to herself, Laela seized Threyna by the collar. Either too transfixed to fight, or finally realizing the truth, Threyna didn’t protest as Laela dragged her with their mother and Aylenia in tow towards the side door of the chapel.

Her mother opened the old, rickety wooden door, and she and Aylenia slipped inside.

“Where?” Belrich shouted over the wails of hollowed. A new scream filled the air. “Where is it? Tell me. Tell me!”

The lone scream grew louder.

Threyna didn’t enter the chapel. She stared past Laela, past the corner of Neutreen’s temple, past the ravaged courtyard to the men in black standing over the fallen form of her father. Laela kept a hold of Threyna’s stolen Avengardian uniform, but she didn’t wrench her away from what she knew was coming. She knew how it felt to watch a father die.

Tears had stung her eyes the same way they now did Threyna’s. The heat of fire and smell of smoke overwhelmed her senses the same way the hollowed’s groans and her father’s screams did now.

“Will you weep for him too?” her father teased. “Will he join me in here, laughing every time you—”

Laela closed her heart to him. Though Theodyn wasn’t her father, he’d been a better parent to her than Aarkos Velar ever was. True, the dagger he’d gifted her, remained clutched in the hand that wasn’t restraining Threyna. His suffering would grieve her, as it would her mother, but there was nothing more they could do.

“You have failed us for the last time,” Belrich said. “Goodbye, brother.” Belrich stabbed his sword through Theodyn’s hands and feet. His elbows and knees. Shoulders and hips. Each time, Threyna sobbed through clenched teeth, struggling against Laela’s grip. Each time, Theodyn’s shrill cries echoed weaker, losing his resolve to exist.

Laela prayed that this would be the moment Threyna realized the error of her ways, rejected the side she fought for and the fruitless war they waged. She wished this would be the beginning of something new. That perhaps, maybe this could be the catalyst she needed to come with her and her mother to escape this awful place.

But even as Belrich drove his sword through Theodyn’s gut… his chest… his throat… Laela knew this wouldn’t be the end of Threyna’s delusions. In fact, it would only motivate her to fight harder. She could feel it through Threyna’s stifled sobs, the tension held in her jaw—this was not the end of her fight, but the beginning of something worse; now it was personal. She’d seen it with her own eyes. And she would not leave this island while the Order still ruled and Belrich drew breath.

“We need to leave,” Mother said.

Laela pursed her lips. Her mother was right. But she had failed Rance and left his daughter in the Order’s hands. And to make matters worse, now that they had reunited with Threyna, her mother would never leave her again. Even if Threyna and the Underground allowed them to escape Rheynia, her mother wouldn’t leave.

It had all gone so wrong.

“Meet us at Aranoc,” Rance had said, even as blood dribbled down his graying beard.

Hopefully you have a plan, Rance. A frown tugged on the corners of her lips. Hopefully you’re still alive… and you can forgive me.

“C’mon,” Laela said, dragging Threyna away from the carnage of what was once her father. Like a shade of her former self, Threyna no longer resisted Laela’s insistence as she led her into the chapel.

PART II

Chapter 18: A Hollow Embrace

Threyna VIII

One foot in front of the other. One shallow breath after another. Numb. Had she not seen the life in the eyes of Ebrus’s shade, she might have said she felt like a shade, but he had more life in him than she did in her now. As they walked the Wraith’s tunnels beneath Valefort and beyond Avengard’s walls, she didn’t have the ear for Aylenia’s whispers of missions. She didn’t have the care for her mother’s fawning, nor the patience to oppose Laela’s demands of silence as they traveled. All she felt was the overwhelming weight of loss and the incomprehensible emptiness that followed the question: what now?

There were too many questions stabbing at her mind to allow herself to feel anything. How did Father learn blood magic? What happened to him over the last decade?

She replayed the moments in the dungeons before Dracus released the darklings of his soul jar into her father. “Skeleton King hasn’t been seen since,” Dracus had said in reference to the Battle of the Cut. “You stopped your father. Now stop your brother.”

Threyna didn’t understand. Belrich called him Bherus, brother? Is it true? If it is, that makes Belrich my uncle, and the Skeleton King my…

It was impossible. She rejected the idea, refusing to grant such vile thoughts access to her mind. But as Threyna’s feet squished through the soft earth of the tilled tunnels beneath Avengard, the fatekeeper around her neck hung heavily. The contents inside likely held the truth, and it threatened to drag her into the ground.

Father’s name is Theodyn. He named me after him. Yet Dracus’s and Belrich’s words mixed, combining into a poison that seeped into her bones. She gripped the fatekeeper Dracus had given her, the one her father wanted her to have in the event of his death. She recalled how her father’s eye fell upon it, the wrath in his tortured face.

Why?

Just as the air was feeling too thin to breathe, either due to the Wraith’s shoddy ventilation or the tension in Threyna’s chest, Laela led them out of the tunnels into a murky forest. Climbing out from between the rotted roots of a thick tree stump, Threyna took in her surroundings. The Cylian River babbled past, running east.

“We continue through Caius’s Bog,” Laela said. “Legionaries will be inspecting every one of our tunnels. We can’t risk it. Going will be slow, but we can follow the river through Caius’s to Aranoc.”

Threyna wanted to disagree, to tell Laela she was being stupid, wasting time. But it was a sound plan. If she wanted to go to Aranoc.

“Good luck,” Threyna said.

Her mother blinked at her, the crow’s feet over her gaunt cheeks creasing deeper. She reached her hands for Threyna’s. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you.”

Aylenia cleared her throat, placing her hand on Threyna’s shoulder. “A word?”

Threyna shrugged Aylenia’s hand away. “Escaping?” She scoffed. “No. We’re not coming with you.”

Laela’s grim expression hardened, but her mother’s blanched, taken aback.

“But, Threyna, you came—”

“I came to free my father,” Threyna said through her teeth. “I failed. But I suppose you Wraith know a thing or two about failure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Laela hissed.

Aylenia again reached for Threyna’s arm. “Threyna, please…”

Threyna ignored her. “What were you going to do?” Threyna asked her mother. “Did you know it was him?”

“No,” her mother said, placing her hand to her chest. “Of course not.”

“Would you have gone through with it?” Threyna asked. “Would you have hollowed my father to treat with the Order?”

“That’s enough,” Laela said, coming to their mother’s side. “This isn’t on us. This is on you.” She jabbed her index finger at Threyna, stabbing it as if it were a sword to cut her with. “Every life cut short, every tortured soul—your recklessness caused that.”

Threyna shook her head. “Of course you would have done it.” She smiled in disbelief, ashamed to have hoped for any other answer. “You left him once before. What’s a second time? All for your—”

“Threyna!” Aylenia barked, louder than she should have. Once all eyes were on her, she took a steadying breath. “A word. Please.”

Wanting to argue, but knowing better than to press Aylenia, she allowed herself to be dragged away despite the throbbing in her ribs from Laela’s glancing blow. Once they were a handful of paces away with enough distance for whispered words to dissipate on the wind, Aylenia released her grasp to fix Threyna with a serious stare.

“New orders from the Legatus. We have to go with them.” She glanced over Threyna’s shoulder to where Laela and their mother were locked in a hushed argument of hand gestures and disagreeable postures.

Threyna didn’t want a new mission. She wanted to be in her bunk. To sit in the dim illuminator’s gloom and read whatever secrets were held in the ever-strangling fatekeeper around her neck. She’d failed enough for one day, lost enough for a lifetime.

Aylenia leaned closer. “The saboteurs within the Wraith successfully crippled the escape attempt. Now it’s up to us to deliver the Wraith to Octarius. Not just them—” She nodded in Laela and her mother’s direction. “—all of the Wraith.”

Threyna lacked the heart to scoff. Blinking, she attempted to imagine a situation in which Laela listened to anything she said, let alone agreed to escort the Wraith back to Octaven. Better luck putting the darklings back in the soul jar. She turned her palms to the cloudy night sky. “They’ll never follow us.”

Aylenia pointed to her interlayer. “Arilette says they may just be desperate enough. Besides, orders are orders. Always another fight, right?”

Always another victory. Threyna couldn’t bring herself to say the words. How could she? Every fight ended in failure. Loss. Daeton screamed. Ebrus became a shade. Yevon hollowed. Now her father was gone. Again, she considered all the maybes and perhapses a Premius shouldn’t concern themselves with. Each hurt worse than the other. Each weighed her down to the depths of the Grotto.

She swallowed the knot in her throat, blinked away the tears stinging her eyes, and attempted to block out her failures. Divided, ruin will reign. She couldn’t let her troubled thoughts rule her. She needed to focus, or she’d lose Aylenia too.

She wouldn’t let that happen. Pursing her lips, she nodded. “Orders are orders.”

Aylenia patted Threyna’s shoulder, waiting for her to say her part of the mantra. When Threyna didn’t, Aylenia forced a smile. “Smooth things over and let’s go. We need to outpace the Order, and they will be following.”

Returning to Laela and her mother, Threyna did her best to issue as close to an authentic apology as she could manage. “Apologies.” She gripped the fatekeeper hanging from her neck. “I didn’t come to Avengard to flee. I didn’t come to fight either. I just wanted to…” Her voice choked off.

He’s really gone this time.

She couldn’t dismiss it as she had the night of the Battle of the Cut. Then, there was reasonable doubt; no one saw him hollow. No one witnessed a shade or darkling tear free from his flesh. There was a chance he could still be alive, and he was. But now…

Threyna took a deep breath. “I failed. Father’s gone, and I can’t bring him back, but you’re right, Laela.” She nodded at her sister, even though the tension in her neck barely allowed her to complete the action. “I won’t lose my mother today too. And if that means coming with you…” She shrugged looking at Aylenia. “Would the Underground even take us back?”

Aylenia contorted her lip. “Not in any way we’d want to be welcomed.”

Feigning to resign herself, Threyna hung her head. “Point is, regardless of what I want, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Threyna’s mother reached for her; the wrinkles framing her smile crossed the frown lines that had taken residence there. “You always have a place with us.” She embraced Threyna, squeezing her as tightly as her frailty allowed.

Threyna hugged her mother back despite the hollowness of the gesture.

She would have let them kill him. Then she would have left Rheynia on her boats without even a goodbye.

Suffering the indignity of the empty embrace, Threyna couldn’t help but notice the bones of her mother’s ribs jutting through her dress, the ridges as deep as the ravaged limestone of the Gullies after the Disasters.

Threyna retreated from her mother’s arms. “We should get going.” Behind her mother, Laela fixed Threyna with a discerning glare.

She didn’t care if Laela believed her lie or not. She had orders, and no matter what, the Wraith wouldn’t be leaving Rheynia this night or any night thereafter.

“Right,” Laela said. “Let’s go. Caius’s Bog is up ahead.”

Chapter 19: Two Kinds of Liars

Dracus V

“To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to…”

Dammit. Dracus couldn’t remember, but with Rance leaving a trail of blood with every hobbled step and legionaries giving chase, even if he remembered, it might be his last thought.

Already, the injured tissues from his scrape with Threyna were adding their complaints to the choir. His forearm ached from where he blocked her elbow, and the blade of his hand prickled where he struck her between her neck and shoulder. They would be the least of his concerns if Decimus or Nerus got a hold of him. If looks could kill, Decimus’s would have speared him through the chest. But if they were going to be caught, Dracus preferred to be caught by Decimus as opposed to Nerus.

Bastard would love to add my soul to his collection. But it wasn’t his soul he was concerned for. Canton and Fawkes led the way through the tunnels, but they’d never reach Aranoc at this pace.

Grunting, with one arm under Rance’s shoulder, he hurried to keep pace. “Gimme a hand, would ya?”

Fawkes took Rance under his other arm, drawing a hissing wince from their injured leader. Glancing at the wound before retuning his gaze to Dracus, Fawkes’s cheeks paled beneath his beard.

He saw what Dracus knew, but couldn’t allow himself to admit. He ain’t gonna make it.

Voices echoed in the maze of tunnels behind them. The Order was coming, and though some paths were longer than others, all roads led to Aranoc. It was only a matter of time, and at Rance’s current pace, it wouldn’t be long.

“We can head for the north shore,” Canton said. “If we can slip past them, we—”

“We won’t,” Rance croaked. “Aranoc. Must get to Aranoc.”

He was so pale, his cheeks the color of the white hairs of his light gray goatee. Dracus didn’t want to think what would be left for them at Aranoc. Aid? Protection? Sanctuary? If Verinius had done as he was supposed to, there wouldn’t be much left. Sure, perhaps once the others arrived in Sansia and realized Rance wasn’t with them, maybe they’d send an escort. Even if they did, that would take a night and a day. By then, if Rance even made it that long, all of Aranoc would be swarming with legionaries, Justicus, and Doves.

The Order’s pursuit grew louder.

“You have to make it to Aranoc,” Rance said.

Canton turned. “You’re coming with us. We’ll get you out of here.”

Noble, honorable corpse. No chance. The wound was worse than Dracus had originally thought. Otherwise, he would have left him in the courtyard.

“No.” Rance lifted his arm from Dracus’s shoulder, but couldn’t free himself from Fawkes’s. “You go. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.” He held out a hand, asking for a sword.

Dracus hesitated. He respected the man sacrificing himself for the lives of others. But with or without a sword, Rance wasn’t going to slow down Decimus or Nerus, even if he hadn’t already been stabbed.

“Here.” Fawkes let Rance’s arm down and handed him his sword.

Canton shook his head. “We can’t just—”

“We can,” Dracus said. “And we gotta.”

“He’s right,” Rance said, leaning on Dracus to support himself. “I’ve gotten us this far. Wish I could have made it beyond the curse. But you still can. Get to Aranoc. Escape with Verinius. Go to Sansia.” He pointed at Canton. “Turn it into a place of hope. You’re the future.”

The Order’s pursuit grew louder. Footsteps accompanied the shouts.

No time for sentiment, Dracus took Canton by the arm and beckoned Fawkes to follow. “You heard ‘em.”

They hurried down the tunnel, leaving Rance in their wake. If Dracus was a good man, maybe he would have looked back. Maybe he would have felt something, anything. But all he felt was relief. Relief that Rance didn’t make Dracus have to be the one to decide to leave him behind, relief that he didn’t ask Dracus to expend his limited charges to vortex and irradiate him. But like anything good in Rheynia, that relief was fleeting. It lay down and hollowed as sure as Rance would in the coming moments. In place of relief, dread spread through his still heart.

“To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to…”

Even as he repeated the lyrics in his head as they charged through the tunnels toward Aranoc, the lyrics for his aunt’s song didn’t come to him. Nor did they bring him comfort. Because just like the song reminded him, hope didn’t wait for them at Aranoc. If Verinius was still there, something went wrong. And if something went wrong, there was no way they were figuring it out.

Not without Rance.

Canton continued to ask questions as they ran. About the blood magic, about Bherus, the Skeleton King, and a hundred other things that didn’t matter. “That must be what Belrich is searching for—the Blessing. That’s where the blood magic comes from, isn’t it? ‘Where is it?’ That’s what he asked Bherus in the courtyard. So it must still be out there somewhere.”

Dracus bristled, chewing on his mustache as he struggled to keep up with Canton and Fawkes. “Yeah. Somewhere.”

Hanging from Threyna’s neck was the most powerful weapon in the world. A cursed weapon, but a weapon that turned a man into an army, a war into a graveyard, and a kingdom into ashes. Dracus didn’t know what fate was worse: if the Order defeated Bherus, and Threyna—unbeknownst to her—opened the fatekeeper Dracus had passed off to her, or if Threyna didn’t make it out, and Belrich took it from her corpse.

Even if Belrich doesn’t suspect the Blessing, if he learns that Threyna is his niece, he’ll wanna read whatever Bherus left for her in the fatekeeper.

Either way, Dracus couldn’t see a way in which another Skeleton King wasn’t created. His feet hurt, his legs ached, and Canton’s questioning only brought up old concerns.

“Where do you think it is?” Canton asked.

“Wherever it is,” Fawkes said, “it ain’t our concern. First Aranoc, then Sansia, eh?”

Canton opened his mouth to speak again, but Dracus cut him off. “Less talkin’, more runnin’.”

Glancing over his shoulder, he identified the split—a section of the tunnels where three converged to one. He slowed to a stop, putting his hands on his knees. Ahead, Canton and Fawkes stopped to look back at him in the dimly lit glow of waning illuminators.

“What’s the matter?” Fawkes asked.

“Cant, if ya got all that wind in your lungs, run ahead and make sure the way is clear. Get as far as the north bend then turn back, ya hear?”

Canton said something under his breath, but did as he was told.

As his footfalls receded ahead, Fawkes leaned in to Dracus. “You alright?”

Dracus hadn’t been alright since the Disasters, since his mother birthed him into this dying world. He thought he was doing well with the Order, but everything was based on a lie. “Yeah, Old Boy, I’m alright. Just gotta get him outta here.”

Through labored breath, Fawkes said, “Ya think they’re still there—Verinius, the others?”

Dracus would have chewed his mustache if he could spare the breath, but his dead lungs somehow required more air. “If they are, somethin’ went wrong, and we’re walkin’ into trouble. If they ain’t, we needa find another way off this rock.”

Fawkes approached, rubbing the back of his neck. Beside Dracus, he rested his forehead against the crown of Dracus’s. “We’ll find a way. We’ll get outta here.”

Dracus grumbled. “All this talk of the Blessing and blood magic, Canton ain’t gonna wanna leave. He’ll wanna stay and fight.”

They were so close. If only the Underground hadn’t interfered, they’d be on a boat bound to Sansia by now. Canton and Fawkes would start a new life, and Dracus could die a true death knowing he did at least one thing right. But now, all that felt like an impossibility.

Fawkes rubbed circles between Dracus’s shoulder blades as he struggled to breathe deeply. “And if he does?”

Not this again. Dracus pulled away and glared. “Then we talk ‘em out of it. End of discussion.”

A pregnant pause suspended in the thin air between them.

“How do you think he’s gonna feel, Dray? How ya think I’m gonna feel?”

“Ghostin’ grateful.”

Fawkes’s cheeks flushed beneath his beard. His dark eyes drank in the illuminator’s light. “If you told him—”

“If I told him, he’d pull what you pull and make the same excuses not to go.”

Dracus raised his fist to his mouth. His tone too dark, his words too forceful. “We don’t have time to get into this again. We needa get outta these tunnels and make sure no one’s followin’ us.” He nodded at Fawkes’s belt. “Ya got any explosives?”

Fawkes inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly, letting go of the oppositional words Dracus knew he wanted to speak. But like any good soldier, Fawkes swallowed it. “Some small ones. Why?”

Jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the split, he said, “Think ya got enough to collapse the tunnels?”

“Ya can’t be ser—”

“We ain’t comin’ back, Old Boy,” Dracus said. “And the only people following us through these tunnels are legionaries.”

Fawkes put his hands on his hips. “Can’t promise this won’t collapse the whole system. Even if we’re a league away, which we won’t be, there’s no telling we won’t get caught in the rubble.”

“Even better.” He patted Fawkes’s shoulder. “We’ll head topside, follow the river the rest of the way. Gotta lose ‘em one way or another. Otherwise, we end up like Rance.”

Fawkes shook his head before letting out a deep sigh. “That why you sent Canton ahead—so I could set the charges, and you wouldn’t have to explain to him that us getting out is more important than the others we’d be screwin’ over?”

Dracus grabbed Fawkes by the chin and kissed him. “You know me too damn well.”

Fawkes grumbled as he worked but rigged a trip wire that connected the three converging tunnels. Once set, he killed the illuminators leading up to the split. One misstep coming from any of the three tunnels and ten years of the Wraith’s work would come crashing down. But if for whatever reason Verinius hadn’t left yet and the Order showed up in Aranoc, they’d lose a lot more than wasted time.

Once Fawkes had finished, and after Dracus had recovered enough to continue, they resumed their run toward the north bend. Canton was on his way back by the time they met up.

“What took you so long?” Canton asked, only slightly out of breath.

Dracus snorted. “Hit fifty-some odd years, then come talk to me. Callin’ me slow.” He scoffed. The misdirection came easy.

There are two types of liars. For some, the more one lies, the harder it gets. The lies pile up and become difficult to keep straight. They get twisted and twist the liar’s insides. Dracus knew their type; he’d caught hundreds of them in his soul jar.

Lucky I’m the second kinda liar.

Without breaking stride and ignoring Fawkes’s side-eyed glance, Dracus continued. “Clear up ahead?”

Canton nodded.

“Alright then, c’mon,” Dracus said. “Let’s get topside.”

Chapter 20: Follow the Leader

Laela VIII

Laela’s boots squished through the muck of Caius’s Bog. 300 years of neglect soured the lands of what was once the palace of Caius Draakard. Following Bheric and Cybel’s victory for Neutreen over the sea-monster-worshiping emperor, the land was burned, salted, and flooded to serve as a reminder of what became of corrupt rulers.

Irony.

But the bog was no longer some hallowed ground of victory over oppression. Now it was home to the lowest of the oppressed. Hollowed and hellhounds roamed this marsh, and one wrong step could mean joining them in their eternal undeath. With each stride she took, the impressions from Gatius’s darkling weighed her down, threatening to sink her into the murky waters.

Gatius—Erynia’s guard, a high-ranking member of the Wraith—had been with them since the beginning. He didn’t flee the Underground the night of the Battle of the Cut with the rest of them, but he’d arrived shortly thereafter. Assigned by Arilette to infiltrate the Wraith. All these years he’d lain in wait. He’d been assigned to kill Belrich should the opportunity present itself. It had. Laela stopped him.

She hoped she didn’t come to one day regret that choice. But long before Gatius was Arilette’s hidden knife, he was an Order deserter.

He was only the second such deserter she’d heard of. Dracus had told her that few were willing to risk the Final Demise—the gruesome punishment doled out to anyone who forsook the black: death by a hundred cuts. No vortex. No irradiator. Just torment.

Laela’s skin crawled. Less because of the eerie wind through the dead tree branches and more because of Gatius’s memory that made him willing to risk such a fate.

The Skeleton King killed that boy. But that was before the Battle of the Cut. The Skeleton King is gone now. And so is Gatius.

It brought her little comfort. Belrich would question Erynia, discover their plans, and come for them. Additionally, for all she knew, there could be more Undergrounders within the Wraith. If that wasn’t bad enough, Laela had a worse and more immediate threat to contend with.

Threyna kept to the back of their formation, only making it more difficult for Laela to keep an eye on her. She was lying. Laela knew it. She didn’t know what about or what for, but she had no doubt that she had an ulterior motive.

Not knowing what they’d find when they arrived at Aranoc, if Rance was still alive, or if Tarus—the Second Sword of the Wraith—would be all-ghosting-over her if she arrived without him, Laela trudged through the bog. Sticking to the higher slopes and collapsed pillars of the fallen palace, the dark water’s depth varied from her ankles to her thighs. Holding a spare sword Aylenia had taken in their flight from Avengard, Laela led their silent procession through the gloom. She ignored the pain from the gash across her cheek and where the hollowed bit her hand, but every huff or grumble from Threyna was enough to drive her mad.

Inevitably, Threyna finally said what was on her mind. “Did you know too, Mother?”

“Know what, my dear?”

“About the blood magic?” Threyna asked, more bite in her tone. “That he was Bherus-ghosting-Fayte? That I am…”

Laela stopped, inspecting her half-sister, then her mother. Aylenia did the same, equally as confused. Mother balked, opening her mouth and shrugging her shoulders, but no words came out.

“I didn’t,” her mother stuttered. “I didn’t know.”

Laela grit her teeth. Too loud. “Not now, Threyna. Voices down, eyes up—”

Threyna scoffed. “You didn’t know? All this time Dracus just kept it to himself?”

“Shut her up,” her father said. “She’ll get you all hollowed.”

Laela stepped between Threyna and her mother. Half a hand taller than Threyna, she glared down at her. “Not. Now. Aren’t you some soldier? I don’t know how that darkling tends to her hearth, but here, you answer to me. You follow me. And by every feather of Neutreen’s wings, you will shut your ghosting mouth, or, so help me, I’ll leave you here.”

Threyna’s sapphire eyes darkened as her brow pinched atop them. Her lips pursed, angular features sharpening to a dagger’s point. If she feared Laela, she showed no sign of it, but Laela wasn’t afraid of her either.

“Laela, Threyna,” her mother said, stepping between them. “Please, sto—”

A gust of wind. A snapping twig.

Her mother cut off, and Laela and Threyna separated, each scanning the bog. Searching for any sign of hollowed or hellhounds, Laela slowed her breathing. She willed her racing heart to obey, but it continued to run wild as the wind rustled the branches and the surface of the water.

Was it just the wind… or something worse?

Gatius’s memory wormed its way into her mind. The pile of corpses. The black-veined monster. The blood-red fingernail that pierced the boy’s throat.

She shook herself, attempting to eject the memory from her mind. Be strong. Be courageous. Regripping her sword, she waved the others forward. “Come on. Just the wind. No more talking. Move.”

Just as Laela was about to continue trekking through the bog, Threyna interrupted. “Over there.”

Following her index finger, Laela spotted what drew Threyna’s attention. A shade floated out of a thicket of brambles and into a clearing to glide over the water on false steps.

“Leave it,” Laela said.

Threyna drew an arcanatek from her belt.

“It’s just a shade,” Laela said. “Leave it. If the Order managed to get ahead of us and you release a charge, it will bring an entire legion down on us.”

“Where there are shades, there are hollowed. That one’s far enough away not to be a threat, but the next one might not be so kind as to keep its distance. Now, I don’t know how you tend to your hearth, but where I’m from—” She held up her arcanatek. “—we don’t let the grunts do the thinking, so—” Threyna moved to step ahead of Laela, but Laela grabbed her by the collar and wrenched her close until they were nose to nose again.

“Call me a grunt again. See what happens.”

But out of the corner of her eye, something glimmered. Turning towards the light, Laela spotted another shade. Then another.

Threyna inhaled sharply and turned to Aylenia. “Just like at the Cut… they’re controlling the shades. Leading the hollowed.”

“Blood and bone,” Aylenia said.

Chapter 21: Dark Dawn

Threyna IX

“What are you talking about?” Laela asked, tone serious. “Who?”

“The Order,” Threyna said, warmth draining from her face. “It’s a trap.”

Shades never traveled together. Threyna knew something was off about the shades at the Cut, but this couldn’t be a coincidence; they had to be under control. That meant they had precious little time to get out of here, or they’d fall with the Draakard Empire.

“Orders?” Aylenia asked.

Threyna’s mind went blank. In her hesitation, she watched Daeton hollow again. My plan. My failure. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.

“How many Dawnshards?” Aylenia asked Threyna. “I have one left.”

Threyna stammered, taking one from her belt, leaving her with two. Aylenia can take the north. I’ll head south. We set off the Dawnshards, and maybe Laela and Mother can slip between. We meet at Aranoc. It was a sound plan, as sound as any in the ghosting bogs, yet all she heard were Daeton’s screams. She’d already lost Daeton, Ebrus, and Yevon. She couldn’t send Aylenia to her death too. “I’ll make a distraction. Take them to Aranoc. I’ll meet you there.”

“Are you out of your ripping mind?” Aylenia leaned closer to whisper. “Hollow that, you don’t have an interlayer. I’ll go. If need be, I’ll relay to the Arch Premius for reinforcements.”

Aylenia had never questioned an order before, only driving more doubt into her mind. Threyna’s palms were sweating. Ghosts… “Fine.” She shoved a Dawnshard into Aylenia’s hands. “You take the north. I’ll take the south. Meet at Aranoc.”

“Prime.” Aylenia splashed away.

Already, hollowed were filtering through the trees and trudging through the water. Voices followed behind. Legionaries’ voices.

Hoping this wouldn’t be the last time she saw Aylenia, Threyna grabbed her mother and Laela by the arm. “We’re going to make a distraction.” She pointed into the depths of the bog ahead, where, as of yet, there wasn’t a wall of hollowed. “Head east. Fast. We’ll meet at Ara—”

Laela wrenched free of Threyna’s grip, but before she could object, Threyna stabbed her finger at Laela’s chin.

“Do as I say, or you and Mother will never leave this bog alive.”

Laela seethed, but held her tongue.

“No,” her mother said. “I can’t—I won’t leave you again.” She wrapped her arms around Threyna’s waist and whispered in her ear. “You’re sisters. Divided, ruin will reign, but united…”

Something unhooked from Threyna’s belt.

“I love you,” her mother whispered. She released Threyna and pulled the last two Dawnshards from her belt. “Be strong. Be courageous!” she cried to Laela as she leapt into the bog, opposite of Aylenia.

“Mother, no!” Laela shouted after her.

Threyna stood, dumbstruck. Gory ghosts, what is she doing? Her body disobeyed her as if a darkling had taken control.

“Run!” her mother yelled, charging at the shades and hollowed. Her frail frame struggled through the water.

Helpless, powerless, Threyna stared, unable to move or cry out.

Time stood still, and Threyna was transported back to the night of the Battle of the Cut. Only this time, instead of her running away from her mother and sister to go retrieve her father, her mother was running away from her.

She’s going to get herself hollowed. Worse.

Simultaneously, Threyna and Laela charged after their mother into the wash. In their haste, they bumped into one another. Laela slipped, reflexively grabbing for Threyna to steady herself. Under Laela’s weight, Threyna’s footing slid out from under her.

Murky water invaded her mouth and surged up her nostrils. Her hands found the bottom of the shallows, and she pushed herself above the surface. Gagging out water and shaking the mud and rotten reeds from her hands, she chased after her mother, but Laela pushed her out of the way.

“Mothe—”

Laela’s cry cut short as the world flashed a bright white. Blinking away spots, Threyna couldn’t find her mother. Laela, ahead of Threyna, screamed, covering her eyes with both hands.

The legionaries, somehow corralling the shades, would have them surrounded in no time. Already, the light of shades and the shadows of hollowed closed in. Their mother was nowhere to be seen.

She shouted into the void, but the bog itself bellowed an answer. The ground shook with the force of the Disasters. Laela, unable to see, succumbed to the quake, falling into the shallows again. Threyna grabbed Laela by the arm, hauling her from the water, but a rift opened in the still marsh, creating a current.

The sudden tide ripped at her ankles, attempting to sweep her into the growing fissure, bisecting the bog. Another Dawnshard exploded behind her to the north, then another to the south.

Threyna shielded her eyes, but more spots blotted out her vision.

“Mother!” Laela shouted, her eyes wild and unseeing.

The ground’s rumbling stopped, but the current created in the tremor’s wake threatened to drag them under.

Threyna struggled against the growing current, searching through her distorted vision for any sign of her mother. Threyna was supposed to be the distraction. Laela and her mother were supposed to escape. Now the bog had become a cesspit surrounded by hollowed. She grabbed Laela and pulled her against the tide. “We have to get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving without her!”

“Then you’ll die here with her.” Part of Threyna felt inclined to leave her, to run north and find Aylenia. But her mother’s words and Arilette’s assignment clashed in her mind. Grunting, Threyna wrenched Laela to the east.

Whether because Laela couldn’t see after the Dawnshard erupted or because she knew Threyna was right, Laela allowed Threyna to steer her away.

Trudging against the surf, Threyna headed for a fallen statue half-submerged in the wasteland, but coming from the north, a wall of hollowed chased a shade in their direction. They’re going to cut us off. If they could climb the statue and run on solid ground to the bog’s edge, they could escape. They’d have to fight their way free, but there was a chance.

“Can you see?”

Laela blinked, her hand still half-shielding her eyes. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Can you see, dammit?” Threyna snapped as they approached the submerged statue.

“Barely.”

Threyna shoved Laela ahead of her, against the knee-high rush of the bog attempting to drag them backwards. “Climb.”

Laela clumsily climbed the statue of the Draakard sea-god. Unsteady on her feet, she crested the top.

Threyna vaulted up in front of her. There were more hollowed than she expected. It wasn’t just one line she’d have to cut past, but several, all while leading a blinded Laela through. But it was that or wait to be surrounded.

“Grab on.” Threyna took Laela’s hand and placed it on her belt. “Stay close, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”

Threyna drew her sword, trotting atop the fallen statue. Another Dawnshard went off in the distance. Perhaps they can still make it out… She couldn’t worry about them now, though, or she and Laela wouldn’t make it to Aranoc.

As they drew nearer to the hollowed, the horrid creatures lost interest in the shades they chased. The nearest, impossible to tell if it were a man or woman due to its decay, swiped at Threyna’s ankle. With a quick flick of her sword, Threyna severed the limb and continued forward. The hollowed wailed, attracting the attention of others nearby.

Another hollowed climbed the statue ahead of her. Larger and not quite as decrepit as the one before, it staggered towards her, arms reaching to tear the flesh from her bones.

“Slow down,” Threyna said to Laela.

The hollowed lurched towards her, but Threyna waited. In its lunge, Threyna steered it aside with a back slash that flung it to the swampy tides.

“Come on.” Threyna quickened her pace. More hollowed closed in on the embankment they needed to escape. “Can you see yet?”

“Shapes.”

She groaned. “Get ready to jump.”

Closing in from the south, behind the rows of hollowed, legionaries drove the last row of hollowed, impaled by pikes, forward. That’s how they’re doing it. The front follows the shades; the rear is driven from behind. But how are they organizing the shades?

“Over there!” a legionary shouted. “Don’t let them get away!”

“Blood and bone,” Threyna said. “Jump in three, two, one—”

Threyna leapt for the embankment. Laela landed hard, shoving Threyna forward into the first row of hollowed. Threyna ducked an openhanded swipe. She cut through an arm, slashed down at a leg, kicked another hollowed in the knee, buckling it backwards. She forged forward. Too fast and she’d risk exposing Laela, too slow and they’d both be caught by the Order.

Pain gripped her sword, loss drove her blade, and fear licked at her heels, but she fought through.

Threyna stabbed a hollowed through the neck and tore its throat in half. Black ichor drained down its gullet. It attempted to scream, but continued to reach for her. She slashed at one arm, then chopped down between its neck and shoulder on the other side, but more were encroaching.

There are too many.

She didn’t have any Dawnshards left. A Nightfall would do her no good. And one charge of an irradiator wouldn’t create the opening they needed. She needed Laela, even blinded as she was, if they were going to make it out of this before the legionaries caught them.

“Laela, sword!”

“I can barely see!”

“Anything that moves.” Threyna lurched forward, sweeping her blade in a wide arc. Her blade tore through the rotten flesh of the undying, spraying black blood and gore across the cursed bog.

Laela’s blade rang as she drew steel from scabbard. With a war cry, she cleaved through a shoulder, decapitated another hollowed, and wheeled on a third with a diagonal slice that carved the tortured ghoul into two.

Threyna, now free of Laela slowing her down, dodged a grasp and slipped behind the hollowed. She cut down on the hollowed’s ankles, felling it to its knees. Dipping beneath another swipe and evading a third’s chomping jaw, Threyna spun between two others. Limbs fell to the ground, but the Order’s shouts drew nearer.

A path opened. One hollowed remained between her and the open woods.

She leapt, thrusting her steel at the creature’s face. The blade took the hollowed in the eye socket. Brittle bones broke beneath the force. It fell to the ground, writhing—not dead, but so far from living. She ripped her blade free to attack another charging at her back. She hacked into its ribs, kicked it away, then stabbed it through the thigh to stop it from being able to chase her.

Wind rushed by her side and Threyna raised her blade just in time to catch Laela’s.

The clang of steel startled Laela’s tear-streaked, unseeing eyes.

“It’s me,” Threyna said, taking her by the hand with her free arm. “We need to run.”

They took off running, and hand in hand, Threyna led her sister through the woods of Caius’s Bog.

Chapter 22: A Soldier, A Dreamer

Laela IX

Feet racing, heart hammering, tears streaked down Laela’s cheeks. Guided by Threyna’s hand, they fled from the Order, their shades, and their horde of hollowed, but Laela left part of herself in the bog.

Mother… why? Of all the times to be brave, why now?

Not once had she truly stood up against her father. Not when he talked down to her. Not when he fought against Laela, trying to turn a child into a soldier. Not when she discovered he was sleeping with Arilette. But now.

She could have let Threyna be the distraction as she intended. She could have followed Rance and Dracus down the oubliette and never stepped foot near the bog.

Laela’s hopes soured. Her frustration boiled. And the mere touch of Threyna’s hand holding hers made her bloody cheek twitch.

If Threyna had just come with us ten years ago, if she hadn’t returned to Octarius to become Arilette’s pet, what could she have become? What could we have become?

Maybe childish insecurities and juvenile jealousies would have softened, and the shared suffering of both having lost their fathers would have brought them closer together. Perhaps together, they would have been a fearsome tandem, one which Tarus wouldn’t have dared cross. Together they could have guarded Rance. Together they could have left for Sansia. Together they could have had a mother, a future, a hope.

But the future was stabbed in the stomach; she didn’t even know if Rance survived. Her hope crumbled with Valefort’s western wall, and her mother…

Laela reached for the fatekeeper pendant at her chest, but found Neutreen’s feather instead. New tears leaked from her blurry eyes.

Neutreen, can’t you feel our yearning? Do you have any idea of our pain without you?

Neutreen didn’t answer. Threyna did.

“We’re almost there,” Threyna said. “The edge of the woods is just ahead.”

Laela didn’t know what to say or how to feel. Am I supposed to be grateful that she got me out when I’m in this mess because of her? Her fingers found the fatekeeper holding the prayers her mother wrote for her at birth. Maybe she’s still alive. Maybe she got out?

The blurry shapes of trees rushing past opened to an empty gray sky. In the distance through the fog, the torches lining Aranoc’s city walls burned, daring to be visible in such a dark world. Her vision improved just enough to make out the spires that rose above the shroud of fog.

“We made it,” Threyna said, panting slightly. She released Laela’s hand and took her arm instead. “You prime?”

Laela shook Threyna’s hand from her arm, stepping forward to hide her face. The emptiness beside her, the void where her mother should have been, burned a hole through her heart, letting her blood drain like the tears down her cheeks. Silent sobs trembled through the tension of attempting to contain her emotions because deep down, she knew; she would never see her mother again.

She clutched the fatekeeper about her neck. On the edge of her Center of Silence, she felt her father’s prodding. Despite how poorly he treated her mother, she felt his anger at her loss. He blamed Threyna. And for perhaps the first time in his miserable existence, he wasn’t wrong.

“Laela…”

Laela’s fist tightened about the octagonal pendant. “She’s gone…” She wanted to say it was all Threyna’s fault, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. For all her flaws, despite the role she played in causing all of this, Threyna had volunteered herself to be the distraction. Despite her swirling emotions, that wasn’t lost on Laela. She didn’t want this any more than I did.

A tentative hand slid up Laela’s back. “I thought my father was gone. Blood and bone, for ten years, that’s all anyone ever told me. I never believed them, and I was right. But now…”

Laela swallowed the knot in her throat. Her vision focused on her sister, the angular lines of her face, the sharp blue of her eyes. She too thumbed the fatekeeper about her neck. “She was always telling me, ‘Be strong. Be courageous.’ But I never believed she had any in her. She did. She sacrificed herself… for you.”

She meant to say, “for us.” She’d intended the words to be tender, loving, sisterly. But even as they left her lips, the subconscious poison she injected into the sentiment soured, making it come out more as a condemnation.

Threyna’s scowl deepened.

“Apologies,” Laela said quickly. “That’s not how I meant—”

“Open your fatekeeper and let’s keep moving,” Threyna said, her voice as cold as steel and just as sharp. “Or don’t. I don’t care. But I’m opening mine.” She shoved past Laela, shouldering her as she strode down the hill.

Laela closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Ghost dammit. Her mother’s words from earlier that evening came back to her. “Must you always be so—”  She hadn’t let her finish, but Laela knew what she was going to say, or at least something like it. So intense. So stubborn. So unforgiving.

“There is strength in knowing when to drop your guard and courage in actually doing so.” Now was the time. She couldn’t let it serve as a wedge to deepen the divide between them.

“Threyna,” Laela said to Threyna’s retreating back. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Save it.” She continued marching down the hill toward Aranoc.

“We both lost her,” Laela said. Bitterness rotted her from within. Vexed by Threyna but also frustrated with herself, she attempted to narrow the gap. “She wouldn’t want us to be like this. We should open them together.”

Threyna stopped her descent down the slope and glanced over her shoulder. “This isn’t Mother’s fatekeeper. This is my father’s. I opened hers years ago.”

Whatever warmth she had tried to kindle for Threyna for her mother’s sake burned to ash. Laela’s fists clenched at her side. “You what? How could you open it before she was gone? The bad luck—”

“Don’t give me that ghosting superstitious nonsense,” Threyna spat. “She was gone. She never came back for me. Never even tried. No attempt, not a single letter or—”

“Not a letter?” Laela snapped. “Not a letter!” She marched down the slope, her finger aimed at Threyna’s nose until she was close enough to jab her in the shoulder. “She wrote letters every. Single. Week.” Her index finger stabbed into Threyna’s shoulder with enough force to shove her backwards. “She lived and died for you. Not for me, the daughter who loved her, who comforted her when you never returned a single one of those letters. For you. She became a shade of herself without you. And you…” She shook her head. “Gory ghosts, you didn’t deserve a mother like her.”

Threyna’s lips twitched as if she were about to spit venom. “Letters or not, a mother who forces her daughter to abandon her father is no mother. Now open your mother’s fatekeeper, I’ll open my father’s, and then we continue onto Aranoc before it’s too late.”

Laela shook her head, unable to cope with Threyna’s lies a moment longer. “Enough. Tell me the truth. You don’t want to escape, so what do you really want, hmm? What’s at Aranoc that you need so badly?”

She extended her arms out to either side, holding the stocks. “You’re right. I don’t want to escape. And you won’t either once we arrive at Aranoc. We have orders to escort you and your people to Octarius.”

Laela’s mind raced, but she wouldn’t give Threyna the satisfaction of seeing her doubt.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Threyna continued. “But this is the only way. Mother, for all her shortcomings, she’s right about this; we are sisters, and if we remain divided, ruin will reign. We’ll end up just like our parents.”

Laela shook her head. “We took every precaution. We knew you Undergrounders would try something, but whatever it is, I promise you, it didn’t work. Arilette didn’t burn our ships this time.”

Threyna smiled. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Well, I am sure of what happened to Mother’s letters,” Laela spat. “When you return to Octarius—without the Wraith—ask Arilette about it?” She brushed past Threyna, continuing down the hill. 

Spinning, she aimed her finger at Threyna. “And if you think there is any chance I’m ever returning to Octarius, you better hope you have me locked in a soul jar. Because that’s the only way you’ll put me back in that hole in the ground.”

Threyna scoffed, lifting her blaster and leveling it at Laela. “Don’t tempt me.”

Laela drew her sword and in two steps had it leveled against Threyna’s neck. Breath heaved hot and heavy from her nostrils. Her head ached from the combination of crying and scowling, but finally, her vision had returned to normal after the Dawnshard’s explosion.

She would have cleaved Threyna’s head from her shoulders and let her decapitated, hollowed form attempt to bring her back to Octarius, but as she stared at her sister, all she saw was her mother staring back. Her lips, her cheekbones, the shape of her ears, the unrelenting stubbornness.

“You’re too weak,” her father said. “You won’t do it.”

Laela wanted to prove him wrong, but she couldn’t. She lowered her sword. “You’re lucky our mother raised one good daughter,” she said through bared teeth. She turned her back on Threyna. “Go hollow out.”

Storming down the hill, Laela lifted the fatekeeper from her neck. It fit in the palm of her hand, but it threatened to sink her to the depths of the bogs.

Her feet squished within her muck-soaked boots. The pale Avengardian garb was stained with grime and ichor from the hollowed that stood in their way, but her soul felt dirtier yet. Ruined by hate, soured by guilt, sullied by failure.

She held the fatekeeper to her lips, wishing she had a match for the smoke to deliver her prayers to Neutreen. “Neutreen, if you can hear me, please guide me. Have I not lived by your Tenets? Have I not sought forgiveness at your altar? Wherever I fall short—in modesty, moderation, measure, or merit—guide me that I might one day earn my wings.”

Only the sound of her own breathing, the wet squish of water through her toes, and the jostle of her mismatched leather armor answered her.

Laela closed her eyes, new tears slipping out from the corners. “Is she gone? Should I open this, or do you still have a purpose for her in this world?”

Squish. Scrape. Sniffle.

She needed something. A word of encouragement, a dream of something more than the horror behind her and the dread lurking in the shadows of her future. Squeezing the release triggers on either side of the octagonal arcanatek, she prayed her mother had more to offer than Neutreen.

The smooth black sides of the arcanatek clicked open, and a tightly rolled scroll emerged from within, larger than the device that housed it. Laela pinched it between her fingers and pulled the scroll free. Unraveling it, she blinked away tears to read the words in the dim light.

My dearest Laela,

You are the daughter of a soldier and a dreamer. You are the strength the world needs, the courage we all depend on, but in a bleak land, you are also the wings on which others will rise. It will not be easy, but Neutreen has given you life against all odds. Neither of us should be here. Neither of us should have survived your birth, but we did. She has chosen you, but don’t let the weight of purpose burden you, my love. Never stop searching for wholeness. Never let anyone keep you hurting—not because it is bad to be hurt, but because there is nothing that can’t be healed. One day, whether we defeat the One and Neutreen is restored or if we escape beyond the curse of this land, you will live a life of peaceful meaning. You are a soldier, but that is not all you are. Be strong. Be courageous, but fight for more. Dream for more.

I love you with every feather in Neutreen’s wings,

Your mother

Laela didn’t realize, but she had fallen to her knees. Her tears fell, staining the parchment. She dried her eyes and rerolled the scroll. Hugging herself, she knew her mother was wrong.

Nothing will heal this wound. This loss. This emptiness. Nothing. Ever.

Chapter 23: It Will Only Hurt A Bit

Threyna X

She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Not for her mother, not for her father, not for Ebrus, Yevon, or fear for Aylenia’s wellbeing. Stone hardened around her heart. Darkness devoured the light in the world, draining even the brightness stored in the Viridite glowstones of the Gullies. A hollow numbness stomped the feelings from her soul until only logic remained.

As Laela stormed off down the hill ahead of her, Threyna remained fixed. Overwhelmed, confused, hurt, her mind raced to make sense of what had just happened.

Mother sent letters?

“Ask Arilette about it,” Laela had said.

After a decade of thinking her mother had given up on her, the thought tore into Threyna’s stomach. At first, her mother’s sacrifice seemed a foolish gambit to make up for her failures, but now it seemed brave, loving. Maternal. But if that were true, if Laela was right…

Everything else was a lie.

The last hours rattled around in her head like darklings in a soul jar, trying to escape. Her father—not Theodyn, but Bherus. Bherus Fayte. Son of King Bohen, the Skeleton King. Brother to Belrich, the Legatus of the Order.

Dracus knew. How many others did? How many others lied to my face?

Anger replaced sorrow, but loneliness trumped all. Her bog-soaked clothes sent a shiver down her spine as the wind whistled through the trees and careened down the hill into the valley. She stifled a shiver that exacerbated the pain along her ribs.

I just need to get back home. I need to get the Wraith home. Focus on the mission.

Fidgeting with her father’s fatekeeper around her neck, she tried reminding herself that nothing had changed. Up until the other day, Threyna’s father was gone. Instead of speculating about it, now she knew it. Up until today, Threyna’s mother had left her. Now she knew she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d get home, and everything would be as it was.

But that wasn’t true either.

Rivich had left her strike team. Yevon hollowed and became a darkling. Ebrus became a shade, consumed by her father’s blood magic. Now Aylenia was out there, all by herself. Ghosts only knew if she was still alive. And to top it all off, now Threyna didn’t even know if she could trust Arilette.

She released the fatekeeper to run her hands over her braid. She wanted to scream, but she wouldn’t give Laela the satisfaction.

With her past in question and the future bleak, Threyna sat down on the hill. She stripped off the Avengardian leather armor to her clothes beneath—a sleeveless pale gray tunic and britches tucked into her boots. Soiled with a combination of blood and filth from the bog, Threyna wanted to be free from the garments and the memories they carried.

She pinched the octagonal sides of the fatekeeper, hoping against hope it held some long-lost truth that would pull her through the depths of her despair. She had always thought it strange that her father had left her a second fatekeeper. Back at Octarius, she still had the ones left to her by her parents. Her mother’s, scrawled with the feather of Neutreen, rested in the footlocker along with the note she left and her father’s unopened fatekeeper. He’d painted a small white dove on one of the eight sides.

She’d always thought he called her Little Dove because of their gentle beauty, but now she realized the truth. I’m a dove of House Fayte. Her stomach twisted in knots as she turned the octahedron in her fingers.

What did he feel the need to tell me after he left for the Battle of the Cut? If he thought he wasn’t coming back, he could have told her before he left; he could have given her the second fatekeeper then. So why give it to Dracus to deliver to me?

There were already enough mysteries in the world. Some would never be answered, but the question of what her father left her was only a button away.

“This was your father’s, Little Dove,” Dracus had said. “He said if he didn’t make it, if he were gone and the Order still in power, you must open this.”

Knowing this time her father was truly gone, she swallowed. “Apologies, Father. I couldn’t save you.” Threyna pinched the release triggers, and the fatekeeper opened.

Expecting a tightly rolled scroll to protrude from the arcanatek, Threyna hmphed. She shook it upside down, but no scroll loosed itself from within. Instead, a glowing red liquid emerged from the fatekeeper’s opening.

It didn’t fall downward, or drip as she expected. Instead, it almost slithered out and up her fingers. Threyna gasped. Extending like a ribbon, it practically floated as it wound its way between her knuckles, around her wrist, and up her arm. Like a living thing, the red liquid inspected her, searching for something. Forked with ever-moving black veins that crackled like a lightning storm, the creature circled her arm, wrapped around her neck, and tickled her ear as it passed to descend her left arm.

Gooseflesh pimpled her flesh in the wake of the mysterious entity. Watching it with fascination, Threyna reached for it with her right hand, but true to its purpose, it wriggled away from her touch. It traced down her arm, wrapping around her wrist and fingers again before pausing, coiling. The red liquid blackened as the dark veins within expanded.

Fascination forgotten, Threyna’s breath caught in her throat. Before she could react, the thing pounced. Threyna grunted as the liquid ribbon wrapped around her upper arm. She tried to pry it off, but tighter and tighter it wound. No longer a gentle energy of red liquid that wriggled away from her touch, it solidified—hardening, constricting, strangling.

Panicked, Threyna clawed at it, but it didn’t relent. She wanted to cry out for help, but who would hear? Who would help? She grit her teeth, fighting the beast that had invaded her father’s fatekeeper.

Fangs sank into her arm, tearing a reluctant wince from her lungs. Down the hill, Laela turned towards her, her face drawn, eyes wide.

Horror rippled through Threyna’s veins as black vines snaked from the solidifying cursed bangle embedded into her upper arm. Stretching down her arm and into her fingers, up her neck and across her cheek, and down into her torso, corruption burrowed its way into her.

Worse than being invaded by a darkling, worse than suffering a steel stab to the gut—hopelessness wormed around her heart and squeezed.

Threyna’s vision faded. She saw—no, she felt her father. Not kinship and familiarity, but the weight of purpose, the burden of responsibility, and fear. Terrible, crippling fear.

Loneliness circled her throat like a noose. Memories, flashes, glimpses of an isolated journey across the Scorch Lands flooded her mind. Hollowed were nailed to the mighty Pythwood trees. Their massive trunks smoked and popped as the hollowed screamed before submitting to the Purge. Then, a familiar face. Arenius, Arilette’s father, stared back at her, wide-eyed.

A wave of guilt, a wash of denial, a lifetime of bitterness. Then something worse. In the dark recesses of whatever this corrupted artifact constituted for a mind, another memory rose to the surface.

A gaunt man sat alone at the end of a long, dark, cavernous room. Rain pattered down on the roof. The stench of death clung to the air, thick like the humidity after the daily rains. Her footsteps passed over the cracked stone floors and around the rubble of collapsed pillars. Another walked beside her, a boy, smaller than her, barely old enough to walk. With silver-blond hair and high cheekbones, he turned to her, a deep dimple in his chin despite his youth.

Belrich.

Belrich smiled. “I’ll go first this time. First is always the worst.”

Tears stung her cheeks—her father’s cheeks.

At the end of the long throne room, heavy labored breaths awaited them from the shadows of the throne. Threyna’s heart rattled against her ribs; her breath trembled through every fiber of her being, growing more erratic the nearer she drew to the throne.

A gaunt man inclined his head. Black veins drained down from the obsidian crown atop his silver-blond hair. “I need you again, my sons.”

As her gaze fell upon the black crown atop his head and the dark pain in his sunken eyes, a new wave of emotions overwhelmed her. His spirit connected to hers through the artifact, the Blessing. A harrowing resentment, a wounded pride, an indignant wrath, all coming from her grandfather, Bohen Fayte—the Skeleton King.

The fangs of the red-and-black creature that spawned from her father’s fatekeeper sank deeper into her arm, but deeper than the Blessing’s prongs, something within her grew. She recognized it wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t her father’s, but her grandfather’s—an undeniable, unbridled, deep-seated fear of the One True God.

It wasn’t an old emotion. It wasn’t a distant memory.

This is here—now. The Skeleton King is still alive!

“It will only hurt a bit,” the Skeleton King said to the two boys before him. He drew in breath and siphoned vitality from Bherus and Belrich to sustain himself.

The patter of rain and the walls of the throne room fell away, replaced by the sound of her own screaming.

Chapter 24: The Inner Throne

Threyna XI

“Threyna! Threyna!” Laela stood over her, shaking her by the shoulders.

Gasping, Threyna pulled free of Laela’s grip. Rolling onto her belly, she crawled away from her sister, breaths coming in short, ragged spurts. The black-and-red bangle clung to her upper arm. Constructed of sharp angular lines, the bangle appeared like jewelry. But it was alive.

A stampede of hoofbeats like racing horses echoed in her head, but it was only her and Laela in the empty valley. The Order is coming to finish us off.

She hoped it was a dream. All of it. That she would wake in her bunk within Octarius. Aylenia would explain some new discovery in artifacy. Ebrus would poke his head into their room with some obscure comment comparing their discourse to the wind. Yevon would tease Ebrus with a grin on his face. And Rivich would roll his eyes, but steal himself a quiet smile after he passed.

Oh how she wished that was the world she’d woken to—one in which they never left for Avengard or learned of the Wraith’s plans for her father’s execution. A world in which her friends were still alive, still together, and she could live in the blissful ignorance that somewhere, somehow, her father was still alive.

Face-down in the soggy field of dead grass with Laela kneeling over her, a cursed bangle gouging into her arm, and a group of screaming Order horses charging through the murky woods to find and finish them, Threyna had woken to an entirely different reality.

“What happened?” Laela asked.

Threyna didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t know if she could. The pounding hoofbeats seemed to surround her. She wanted to retreat, to go to her Inner Underground as she had when Yevon’s darkling invaded her, but when she did, she was back in the Skeleton King’s throne room.

Yet, upon reentry, it wasn’t as it was even moments before. The shattered windows were replaced with stained glass. The crumpled pillars were re-erected and the stone floor replaced. The throne called to her.

Within her Inner Throne, she strode forward and climbed the dais to sit in the high-backed chair overlooking the long hall. Princess of New Rheynia, Heiress of Saltspire.

Father wanted this.

Dracus’s words returned to her. “...if he’s gone and the Order is still in power, you must open this.”

A sense of poise overtook her, settling her panic. The stampede of hooves were not hooves at all. They weren’t even horses, but the beating of frightened heartbeats.

Not the Order then…

She could hear, even feel Laela’s beating heart just outside the walls of her Inner Throne. Fear coupled with loss. Genuine care—for Threyna’s or her own wellbeing, she didn’t know, but the physical response was real.

A well of power called to her from just beyond her fingertips, but when she reached for it, it eluded her.

Is this how Father wielded the blood magic… from here in this seat of power?

The prospect didn’t scare her as it had her father. She saw what her father was capable of, what blood magic could do to turn the tides of war. This is the Blessing Belrich has been searching for. This could change everything.

“Threyna!” Laela’s shout ripped Threyna from her Inner Throne. She had flipped Threyna onto her back and was kneeling over her, attempting to pull the bangle from her arm.

Pain lanced from where the prongs sank into her flesh. She felt its panic. Something within her poised to strike at Laela. “Stop it.” Threyna shoved Laela away. “Get off.” Threyna turned her back to Laela, hugging her bangled arm, half horrified, half protective. Whatever defensive mechanism Laela had awoken within the bangle seemed to quiet.

“Blood and bone, what is wrong with you?” Laela snapped.

She didn’t know how to respond—where to even begin. “It… It would have…”

“What are you talking about?”

“It!” Threyna gestured to her arm. “It was in my father’s fatekeeper. It… the Blessing.”

Laela’s grim expression darkened. “He… cursed you.” Her fingers reached out to brush Threyna’s arm.

“He didn’t curse me!” But before she could explain, the thundering heartbeats approaching from the woods beyond the bog drew nearer. Turning away from Laela, Threyna propped herself to her feet. “There are people in the woods.”

“How can you tell?”

Threyna swallowed, understanding the burden her father carried, the responsibility that came with it. “No time to explain.” She reached for her Inner Throne again, trying to discern how near the heartbeats were and just how many were coming. They pounded on the front doors to her throne room. “We need to get moving befo—”

“Hey!” a figure shouted, emerging from the tree line.

Another figure, cloaked in shadows, followed behind. Through the gloom, Threyna picked out Canton, Fawkes, and Dracus bringing up the rear. Still tapped into her Inner Throne, Threyna picked out the individual heartbeats. Three… Yet, behind them, something stirred, rustling the underbrush of the dead forest.

“Canton?” Laela stepped in front of Threyna. “Is that you?”

“Blood and bone,” Fawkes said. “Ya alright? We heard screams.”

Questions raced through Threyna’s mind, unsure of what Dracus knew when he gave her the fatekeeper, but now was not the time. Once we get to Aranoc. Better yet, once I get them back to Octarius. Then there will be answers, and an army to finish this war with the Order once and for all.

“We’re…” Laela glanced at Threyna.

“Fine,” Threyna said. “But we need to keep mov—”

“Where’s Rance?” Laela asked.

Fawkes and Dracus glanced at one another. Canton hung his head.

Laela shook her head. “Neutreen, how can anyone earn their wings?”

“He wasn’t gonna make it,” Dracus said. “Bleedin’ out. Sacrificed himself so we could get to Aranoc.”

“Barely made it as it was,” Fawkes said. “Hadda collapse the tunnels and follow the Cylian to avoid the Order, and still had to fend off a pack of hellhounds.”

“The quake…” Laela said. “We barely made it through Caius’s Bog.”

“Ay, we heard.” Dracus gestured behind him as another figure, caked in the bog’s murk, descended the hill.

“Mother?” Laela asked.

From behind Dracus, Aylenia strode forward, holding her arm at her side. Blood stained the pale cloak of the Avengardian garb, but relief flooded through Threyna.

She ascended the hill to embrace Aylenia in a one-armed hug. “You made it.”

Aylenia sank into Threyna’s embrace. “Good to see you too.”

“We hoped she was with you,” Dracus said to Laela.

“Ghosts,” Fawkes said, rubbing the back of his neck and gazing at the ground. “Apologies, Lae.”

“What about Erynia?” Canton asked.

Laela shook her head. “I couldn’t get her out. She’s still alive, so it’s only a matter of time before Aranoc is crawling with legionaries. We need to go. Us.” She pointed to Dracus, Fawkes and Canton. “Not you.”

“What do you mean, not us?” Aylenia asked, separating from Threyna. “We’re comi—”

Dracus grabbed a hold of Threyna’s shoulders. “Before we go anywhere, give it here, ‘fore ya do somethin’ stupid.” He inspected her, undoubtedly searching for her fatekeeper. “Where is it?”

“This?” Threyna held up the empty fatekeeper by the leather strap.

His eyes examined it before falling to the bangle.

Threyna wrenched free of Dracus’s grip.

Stepping backwards, Dracus shook his head.

“What did you think would happen,” Threyna asked, “when you gave it to a ten-year-old girl who’d just supposedly lost her father? Did you know then, or just figure it out now?”

“Know what?” Canton asked, eyes passing back and forth between them.

“What’s going on?” Aylenia asked.

Dracus chewed his mustache as Fawkes came alongside him.

Mixed emotions blurred in Threyna. He had lied to her. Kept the truth from her about who her father really was. And though now he wanted to stop her from opening the fatekeeper, she had no doubt it wasn’t to protect her from the curse.

Threyna snorted. “Dracus knew. He knew who my father was and what he’d left me.”

All eyes drifted to the bangle.

Canton gasped. “That’s the Blessing.”

“You had it around your neck all this time?” Aylenia asked. “Ghosts.”

Dracus cursed to himself. He turned his palms to the cloudy sky, then rested his hands on his hips. Staring at her, he shrugged, resigning himself to what he was about to say. “Yer right. And ya can hate me all ya want. But what’s done is done. And nothin’s changed. We’re going to Aranoc and you can run back to Octar—”

“You knew about the Blessing?” Canton asked. “What do you mean nothing’s changed? Everything’s changed.”

Dracus winced, glancing at Fawkes.

Aylenia stepped forward. “We’re not going back to Octarius. We’re coming with you.”

Laela cast Threyna a hellhound’s side eye before setting in on Aylenia. “Spare us the act. I know about your assignment. You don’t want to escape, and we don’t want to fight, Blessing or not.”

“You won’t even consider it?” Canton asked.

Dracus growled. “Gory ghosting dammit. We’re not doin’ this.”

Fawkes stepped ahead of Dracus, hand raised. “What do you mean—assignment?”

Laela fixed Threyna with a glare reserved for the most treacherous of darklings. “Why don’t you tell them what you told me?”

“You told her?” Aylenia asked.

Threyna rubbed her temples with her hands, wishing she’d bit back her words earlier. No chance of getting the darklings back into the soul jar. She sighed. “You can go to Aranoc, but you won’t escape. You have no way to leave. One of your people has likely spilled all of Aranoc’s secrets, and when the Order comes, without us, you have nowhere to go.” Threyna put her hands on her hips. “The way I see it, we’re your best chance at surviving the night. So you can send us away, but it won’t be long before you’re marching for Octarius.”

Dracus and Fawkes exchanged frowns. Laela glared.

“So it’s settled?” Canton asked.

“We’re going to Aranoc,” Laela spat, staring at Threyna. “You better hope you’re right—that we need you. Because if you’re wrong, if we don’t need you, I’ll hollow you myself for even trying to stop us.”

Feeling the untapped potential of the power at the armrests of her Inner Throne, Threyna half hoped Laela would try. She forced a smile. “Fine then. Let’s go.”

Chapter 25: Living and Surviving

Dracus V

Dracus lagged behind the others. Not because of the aching in his foot or the throbbing in the back of his head from when Threyna shoved him into the wall in Valefort’s dungeons, but because there was no point of going forward.

Rance—hollowed or worse. The Wraith—long gone, if Verinius hadn’t mucked it up. If he hadn’t, and Threyna told it true, then things were even worse, and no one had managed to escape. But that only meant the best path forward was not Aranoc. Threyna was right; if the Order had Erynia, they knew everything they needed to know about the tunnels, Aranoc, the escape—everything. Pair that with even the talk of sabotage? Nothing good awaited them at Aranoc. Only more death. More legionaries. Nerus, Decimus, Belrich and worse would be coming to the labyrinth beneath the city, and Dracus didn’t want to be there when they arrived.

Laela led the way to the crumpled walls of Aranoc. Threyna and Aylenia trailed behind, with Canton following Threyna like a hollowed to a shade.

Dracus couldn’t believe she’d opened the fatekeeper. He supposed this was always inevitable, but he figured he’d have died a true death long before it came to this. Now, Canton had everything he needed to object to leaving. He’d want to stay and fight. He’d make it sound all high and noble, a song for the ages, history in the making—some such ghosting nonsense.

Just like his damn father.

“You prime?” Fawkes asked, putting his hand on Dracus’s shoulder as they followed several paces back.

Dracus snorted. “Lost the battle, losing the war, outta charges, and darklings are everywhere, but yeah—I’m prime.”

The hill began to flatten, but the pain in his foot didn’t abate. He trudged downhill one miserable step at a time, all the while considering how he was going to talk Canton out of his foolishness.

“You’re not,” Fawkes said. “I know what you’re thinking, and this reunion ain’t doing anyone any favors.” He gestured to Threyna and Aylenia. Whether he was referring to Threyna and the Palogian girl who’d lost her mother in the first expedition to Sansia, or Viesa’s daughters, it didn’t matter—these reunions weren’t good for Canton.

Viesa’s daughters had grown in the decade since they’d last exchanged a glance, but despite how much had changed, some things were exactly the same.

“Ya ain’t kidding,” Dracus said. “Don’t help none that Threyna threw me to the hellhounds back there.”

“You knew?” Fawkes asked. “About the Blessing? About Theodyn?” He toyed with the fatekeeper about his neck. It wasn’t one from his parents, but one Fawkes had written for Dracus. Dracus hoped he’d never need to read it.

Dracus wrinkled his nose, rustling his mustache. “Yeah. All of it.”

“Blood and bone,” Fawkes said. He didn’t ask why Dracus didn’t confide in him. He didn’t stoop to petty arguments or lecture him on the importance of sharing his burdens. Dracus would have if their roles had been reversed—bet every soul in the soul jar, Dracus knew he would. But Fawkes had better tact in terms of how and when to broach such subjects.

“Needa convince Canton this ain’t a fight we can win,” Dracus said. “More than that, gotta convince him that we needa leave. Now. No Aranoc. No Wraith. We gotta find our own way off this rock.”

Fawkes grumbled, rubbing his cheek. A slight bruise had formed. Whether he’d been struck during the fray in the courtyard or sometime in their flight from the hellhounds, it was starting to swell now.

Dracus caressed Fawkes’s cheek.

Fawkes took Dracus by the wrist. “I’m fine. I heal, remember?”

Dracus grumbled. “None of us will if we get impaled by the Order. Nerus gets his hands on me—forget it—he’ll make sure I get every slash of the Final Demise even if I invoke a Blood Trial.”

Dracus had only seen the traitor’s punishment doled out once despite the fact that every legion carried the wooden beams on every expedition. There were few enough deserters—only a handful in all his time with the Order. Occasionally, people managed to get away, start new lives. Gatius, one of Rance’s men, had managed a fresh start after leaving the Order—first with the Underground, and then in the Wraith. But most ended up like Lacius. Every legionary carried a Vendetta dagger, reserved specifically for traitors and deserters. Death by a hundred cuts, every blade tasted Lacius’s blood.

Dracus remembered the way Lacius screamed, the look in his eyes. He’d been a quota boy, same as Dracus. They’d climbed the ranks together, excelled together. He was one of Dracus’s best Tribunii before everything hollowed out.

“I’ve heard rumors,” Lacius had said.

Dracus hadn’t listened. If he had, maybe he wouldn’t have given the order. Maybe he wouldn’t have slashed his own Vendetta dagger, Fang, across his chest. Perhaps they would have deserted the Order together.

Dracus swallowed, blocking out Lacius’s hollowed-out eyes. “We can’t go to Aranoc.”

“We’re on our way,” Fawkes said. “Where else if not Aranoc? Besides, ya think Canton’s gonna let you walk away from the people he’s spent the last ten years with? Ya gotta shade’s chance of that. And if what Threyna says is true, what choice do we have other than Octarius?”

Dracus’s throat burned. It was the last time he tasted anything. He recalled the last living breaths he’d drawn. “I ain’t goin’ back there.”

“What if that’s where Canton wants to be?” Fawkes asked. “Will you let him choose?”

“I’ll convince him,” Dracus said. “I have to.”

Fawkes shook his head. “You know, we can just leave. The two of us. If he wants to stay, he can stay. He’s not a kid anymore, Dray.”

Dracus scoffed. Fawkes was a good soldier, a better man, but he was wrong.

“Ya can’t keep ignoring me on this,” Fawkes said. “Canton’s a man now.”

Dracus bit his lip. “I’m not ignorin’ nothing. Yeah, he’s a man? Boy still has nightmares. Sees Tellers in every shadow.”

Fawkes put a hand on Dracus’s arm, stopping him to let the others continue on ahead. With both hands on his shoulders, he stared into Dracus’s eyes. He bit his lip, thoughts churning behind his dark blue eyes.

“I know what yer gonna say,” Dracus said.

“You can tell the truth…” Fawkes said.

Dracus waved him away. That ship had burned to ashes a decade ago. It was too late to come clean after all this time. Canton would never forgive him. Never listen to him. Then he’d die on this cursed island out of spite.

“You still blame yourself,” Fawkes said. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to stay any longer.” He lowered his hand to Dracus’s still and silent heart. “How much longer do ya think you can deal with it? The pain.”

“As long as it takes,” Dracus said. He brushed his thumb down the contour of Fawkes’s bruised cheek. The Old Boy’s seen better days. Ghosts, I guess we both have. Fawkes’s face was marred by scars old and new. Crow’s feet peeked out from beneath his bushy brows, but the same glimmer of hope he’d always had was still alive and dancing within his gaze. Somehow, after all that those eyes have seen, Old Boy still has his soul.

“Ya don’t owe him anything,” Fawkes said. “Not anymore. Whatever debt ya feel you owe him, it’s paid. You’ve been a father to him longer than his own da. You’ve given him options, choices. Ya can’t control him. It’s his life. Ya gotta let him live it. Let him choose.”

Fawkes saw everything so clearly and always cut to the heart of any situation. But not this time. This isn’t life. This isn’t living. This is surviving. “I gotta at least try. I won’t leave him.” But that doesn’t mean you have to stay and suffer, Old Boy.

“It’s not. Your. Fault. You didn’t kill his parents. Belrich did. Nerus did. Not you.”

Fawkes had said the words before. Dracus had heard them. Didn’t make it true.

“You’ve done everything for that boy.” Fawkes pointed towards Canton’s back. “You’re a good man. You’ve done so much good.”

Dracus scoffed. “Not enough to make a difference.”

Fawkes inhaled slowly through his teeth. “You’ve made a difference to him. What if we did stay? What if this could actually work?”

“Fightin’ the Order?” Dracus couldn’t believe his ears. He tried to shake free of Fawkes’s grip on his shoulders, but the larger man held him. “If you think we’re fightin’, you’re losin’ it, Old Boy.” Dracus gently tugged on the beard of Fawkes’s cheek before brushing a few wild strands of reddish-brown hair behind his ear. “If he won’t come with us, you should still go.”

The words hurt to say. He couldn’t imagine Fawkes not being by his side, but if he didn’t say anything, Fawkes would stay with Dracus until the end, the same as he would with Canton. And the end was coming.

Fawkes pushed past Dracus to continue following the others. “How can you say that to me?”

“Because you can still live,” Dracus said, following after him. “This curse is the only thing keeping me upright. When I leave….” It’ll be over. No more pain. No more worry. No more.

Fawkes spun on Dracus. “When you leave, you’re gonna die, and that boy is gonna lose the only father he’s like to remember.” He shrugged. “Are you doing this for him? Or for you?”

Dracus leveled his index finger at Fawkes. “You know the answer to that.”

“Not sure I do.” There was no malice in his tone. “But I do know one thing: if we leave, we leave together. If we stay, then we fight together, but don’t think you’re sending me away.”

Dracus groaned, bristling his mustache. How’d I manage to surround myself with such stubborn bastards?

In contemplative silence, the two followed after Laela and the others, doing their best to regain ground before they arrived at the labyrinth beneath the city.

Aranoc was once a hub for trade, back before the Disasters. During the Artificer’s War, it became a distribution center for arcanatek, but after the Order won and outlawed arcanatek, Arenius led the Underground to steal Aranoc’s supplies. It was then that Decimus suggested placing the arcanatek under heavy protection at Order outposts throughout Rheynia. Although the product was gone, the infrastructure remained and the tunnels beneath had served as the Wraith’s base of operations these past ten years. Entering now, Dracus only hoped they weren’t marching to the same end as the Artificers.

As they neared the city, there seemed to be a commotion coming from within the walls. Despite the apparent turmoil, Laela and the others disappeared through the narrow gap in the gnarled roots and brambles that replaced the dried-up moat surrounding the city. Not too far behind, Dracus and Fawkes followed, lowering themselves through the gap and into the slender tunnel that would lead to the atrium and main cavern.

Once inside, the sounds from within were too loud for Verinius to have led the Wraith to the ships. Dracus and Fawkes exchanged a nervous glance before quickening their pace.

Don’t tell me the damned Underground did it again. Dracus charged through the atrium to the landing that overlooked the main cavern where Laela, Canton, Threyna and Aylenia stood. Coming up alongside them, Dracus saw what stopped the others in their tracks. If Dracus’s heart could still beat, it would have stopped. “Gory ghosting dammit…”

“How?” Fawkes asked in disbelief.

Laela balked.

Rubble filled the tunnels that led under the city to the cove where the ships waiting to spirit them beyond the curse to Sansia were docked. The tunnels to their salvation had collapsed. Along with their hopes.

Chapter 26: A Wolf in Wool

Laela X

Laela’s eyes watered. The cavern wasn’t filled with smoke as it had the night her father burned the Underground’s ships or when Arilette did the same when she executed her own father, but Laela felt like she was choking on acrid fumes all the same.

The scar across her chest burned hot. Her father’s screams filled her ears as real as the arguments happening on the cavern floor.

No Rance. No Mother. Gory ghosts, where is Verinius?

Her shoulders sagged, slumping forward to wrap around herself, but there was no comfort to be found. Not here. Not anywhere. The weight of failed expectations threatened to bury her beneath Aranoc as the losses piled higher.

The tunnels had collapsed. Even if their escape vessels were still intact, without the tunnels to get to them, they’d have to navigate through the Gullies. Over the past decade, they’d done well to cleanse the limestone crags of the hollowed that infested them, but still—there was no way they’d get hundreds of people through unmolested. It would be slow going at best, a slaughter at worst. And that would be before the Order arrived.

“This is all her fault,” her father said.

She glared at Threyna.

It was only fitting; she was the granddaughter of Bohen, Princess of Rheynia—was it any wonder she was such a darkling?

Beside her, Dracus stroked his black mustache with his thumb and forefinger as if he could pull from it the answers to all their problems—or at least some justification as to why Rheynia was so cruel.

“Ya can stop lookin’ at her.” Dracus nodded towards Threyna. “This wasn’t her doin’.”

“She is with the Underground; this is her doing.”

Dracus leaned close, speaking conspiratorially. “Rance took every precaution. No one coulda known. Yer smart. Tell me—how many of us knew the ships were moved? Us, Verinius, the Second Sword, a handful of others?”

Laela bit her lip. It was true; everyone outside of their inner circle would have believed they’d leave using the south tunnels that passed through the underbelly of the Spine and out to Cybel’s Tears. It was the easiest route of escape, but also the one Rance suspected the Underground would assume. Those who knew that the ships were moved to Beak’s Bay through the east tunnel were few.

“One of our own did this?”

Dracus raised a brow, glancing down at the chaos below.

Some were trying to move the rubble blocking the tunnel, but for every stone removed, two more fell to replace it. Laela winced. Remove the wrong stone and the entire cavern could come crashing down.

“So what do we do now?” Laela asked. “Where is Verinius?”

Dracus hmphed. “Forget Verinius. What do we do now? Blood and bone, we get outta here ‘fore anyone realizes we’re here. We go now, just us and we can still make it through the Gullies. Get a ship, get the ghost outta here.”

Laela couldn’t hide her bewilderment. Stammering, she asked, “What about the others? You’d just leave them?”

Dracus grit his teeth and grabbed her by the collar. “Haven’t you heard anything I said? ‘The others?’ Someone, in this room, someone among us, did this.”

She’d been the one to fall into Caius’s Bog, but at this distance, Dracus smelled of death—rotten and rancid—yet his words carried truth. What would Rance do? She wished her mother was here. She always knew who to look to in a pinch, but without Rance, with Verinius seemingly invisible, and Dracus only concerned for himself, who was left?

“We need a leader, Dracus. People will listen to you. People will follow.”

Dracus shook his head. “There’s no leading this disaster. Too much division. Best chance we have is—”

“I’m not abandoning everyone to save myself,” Laela snapped. “We can still do this.”

Dracus growled. “They sabotaged this escape, and now ya wanna shepherd this flock? There’s a wolf in wool here, ready to strike when we least expect.”

Heat rose to her cheeks, and a knot balled in her throat. She shoved Dracus away. “Neutreen would burn our wings to ash if we abandoned these people—our people—for one traitor. You can leave if you want. Run away like you always do, but don’t you dare take our ships. This isn’t over.”

She shoved past him and the others to descend the carved stairs down to the pandemonium of the cavern floor. She needed to find Verinius and tell him to take control. The Order was coming. They couldn’t stay here.

Verinius was nowhere to be found amidst the men and women tending to the injured in the tunnel’s collapse. Supplies were limited, but at least they were trying to do something productive; those with idle hands were at each others’ throats. Without leadership, without hope, they might as well have dissolved into hollowed.

Perhaps the living and the undead are not so dissimilar.

As she descended the stairs, the closest thing she found to a leader amongst the chaos was a tall man with broad shoulders. Though Laela didn’t know him personally, she recognized him in passing. There were few enough Rheynians with the tan skin and prominent features of the Palogian Isles for Laela to forget him.

“Stop moving the rubble,” he shouted to people pawing at the tunnel entrance. After addressing a man and woman in a softer tone, he sent them away and ran over to the base of the tunnel. “We need to reinforce these walls before we remove any more stones.”

Whoever he was, the others, the laborers—shipbuilders, tunnel diggers, and supply runners—did as they were told, absent questions.

Descending the last of the stairs, Laela jogged towards him, scanning the cavern in search of Verinius. Coming up empty amidst the squabbling Wraith, Laela approached the Palogian man and the laborers before the tunnel entrance.

“We’re not getting out of here tonight,” he said, his hands out in front of him in an attempt to placate the others’ concern. “We’ll find another way. Soon. But we can’t panic now.”

If Belrich didn’t have Erynia, if the Order wasn’t already on their way here, it would have been sage advice. But that wasn’t the case.

As Laela approached, focus shifted towards her, and murmurs spread.

“Rance’s First Sword,” a man said.

“Thank Neutreen,” another said. “Rance is here.”

“Where is Rance?”

Gone. Laela couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she needed to. Their leader was dead. He wasn’t coming back.

“Rance is gone,” Laela said. “I must speak with Verinius.”

Eyes blinked. Stern jaws unhinged, and silent lips parted absent words as the myriad of worst-case scenarios ran through the laborers’ minds.

Laela swallowed. “The leaders must discuss plans of recourse. Where is Verinius?”

The Palogian man’s shaved head and finely plucked brows attempted to conceal the typical curls and dark complexion of his ancestry, but nothing could hide his disdain. “Verinius… you’d have better luck speaking with a shade.”

Now was Laela’s turn to blink. Did he suffer in the collapse? Is he gone too? While she took a steadying breath, searching for the words to speak, someone else beat her to the glowstone.

“He’s over here,” a quiet, breathy voice said behind her.

Stifling a twitch of her eye, Laela turned to the familiar voice.

Tarus, the Second Sword of the Wraith, glared up at her from beneath his black hood. Half a head shorter than her, two stone lighter, and ten times as stubborn, Verinius’s protector pursed his lips, narrowing his already pinched face. “Follow me.”  With a swish of his cloak, he spun on his heel, quieter than a hellhound.

Before following him, Laela met the Palogian man’s grim gaze. “What’s your name?”

“Redge.”

“Redge,” Laela said, knowing it likely wasn’t his given name but some Rheynianized subversion of the truth. Probably more like Redggar Breakspear or Redgeforth Swordsoul or some such. “Forget the tunnels. Divide everyone into groups—no larger than a dozen. Take only the vital supplies. Prepare to leave Aranoc and never return.”

Redge stammered to phrase a retort, but Laela didn’t give him the opportunity, already attempting to find and follow Tarus to Verinius. She spotted him just before his black cloak disappeared behind a stack of crates of arcanatek scraps. Hurrying to keep up with the agile Second Sword, Laela wished Rance and her mother were here. That Threyna and Aylenia weren’t. That the Order wasn’t on their way. And a thousand other things that could have made this situation more tenable.

Navigating the injured and the strewn supplies, Laela located Tarus again as he approached Verinius sitting in a shadowy corner of the cavern. The Aedile of Aranoc, already small of stature, huddled close to himself, hugging his knees and pulling them into his body. He rocked forward and back, muttering to himself.

Her father’s laughter shattered her Center of Silence.

“Blood and bone,” Laela said, stopping before Verinius. If the aedile identified her presence, he made no sign of it, continuing to blink, murmur, and coddle himself. “What happened to him?”

“The Tellers call it shadeshock,” Tarus said, hands resting on two of the many daggers holstered on his belt. “Believe the Order calls is head-hollowed. Underground would just call it cowardice.”

Laela palmed her forehead. “How long has he been like this?”

“Since the tunnels collapsed. Hasn’t said a word of meaning. Keeps saying, ‘The Seers were right,’ over and over again.”

“What Seers?” Laela asked.

Tarus shrugged, then nodded at Verinius. “Ask him.”

Laela stooped closer to Verinius. Sweat beaded on his scalp. The wrinkles of his forehead crinkled and stretched as his graying brows raised and contorted, his lips mumbling continuously.

Laela put a hand on Verinius’s forearm. “Verinius, we need your help.”

He didn’t even look at her. “The Seers were right…”

“See?” Tarus said.

“What were the Seers right about?” Laela asked.

Verinius continued to stare sightlessly, rocking back and forth as he held himself. “The crown passes. Passes. Passes. The flood of blood is coming. No escape. No escape!”

Losing patience, needing a leader, Laela shook the aedile. “Snap out of it. We need to leave.”

“The crown passes, passes, passes.”

Tarus grunted. “Shadeshocked, head-hollowed, whatever you wanna call it. Like it or not, we’re the closest thing to leaders we got left, so tell me—what happened?”

Sensing his “if I were the First Sword, this never would have happened” bit, Laela powered past. “We don’t have time for this. Rance is gone.”

“Obviously. What now?”

Ready to defend herself, Laela was caught off guard by Tarus’s pragmatism. She looked past Tarus to the Wraith behind him, fist clenched over the stolen short sword at her waist. “We need to leave. Immediately. The Order is coming.”

“Blood and bone…”

“The ghosting Underground…”

Tarus shook his head. “Nah, no way. Tunnel just collapsed. No explosion, nothing. Just bad luck—a coincidence.”

“Tell that to my sister,” Laela said. She nodded in the direction of the overlook from the atrium, but Threyna was no longer there.

“She’s here?” Tarus asked, dark eyes widening.

“She sabotaged the Dominion ceremony. Got Rance hollowed, Erynia caught.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. She said this was Arilette’s plan. They’re here now to escort us to Octarius.”

Tarus ran his fingers through his short black hair, pulling back his hood. “Options?”

“The tunnel collapsed. The boats didn’t burn.”

Tarus licked his lip and pinched his brow. “What you thinkin’?”

“We’re not going back to Octarius,” Laela said. “Arilette can hollow. We’re getting out of here.”

Scoffing, Tarus tossed his hands in the air. “How? We’ll never make it through the Gullies, and if the Order is on their way, how long before Aranoc is crawling with Skulls and Doves?”

Laela considered, twisting her tongue against the inside of her cheek. The Skulls—Belrich’s Inquisitors—would be out for vengeance. The Doves—the Order’s spy network—would be looking for anyone they could lay blame on; people would disappear, be interrogated. If they were lucky, they’d be sent to the stocks. Unlucky, and they’d be sent to the fighting pits scattered throughout the Dominion where they would fight to earn Neutreen’s wings of freedom to return to society, or hollow and be the next training exercise for new Order recruits. Either way, no one was safe here—Wraith or otherwise.

“Hours if Erynia holds out and they come in force,” Laela said. “Moments if she caves and they only send a single legion. Either way, we need to act fast. If we send a small group, just enough people to man the ships, they may be able to navigate the Gullies.”

Tarus nodded. “I don’t see how that helps everyone else.”

“We need to get everyone out of here quickly. Then the ships just need to meet us. We can travel north, to the Roost.”

“You’ve been spendin’ too much time in Avengard,” Tarus said. “Justicus set up an outpost to mine Viridite from the Gullies. We’ll never make it past them.”

Laela grit her teeth. Then there’s only one other option. “We can follow Cybel’s Tears to Talon’s Grip.”

“Talon’s Grip?” Tarus scoffed. “We’ll be going straight through Octaven. Underground won’t just let us pass.”

It was all coming together. Threyna and Aylenia’s mission—Laela could use it to her advantage. “We just need to play along with Arilette’s game—let them think we’re heading south to seek shelter at Octarius. Then, once we pass Fort Cybel, we make a mad dash for Talon’s Grip.”

“Won’t be easy,” Tarus said.

“Is anything?”

He hmphed. “I’ll take twenty? Should be enough to get all three ships beyond the bay… factoring in a few casualties.” He tilted his head. “Guess I’ll see ya at the Grip.”

Laela gripped Tarus’s arm, stopping his progress. It wasn’t a bad plan, but she didn’t know the Aranoc people as well as he did. He was right; she’d spent too much time at Avengard these past moons. Part of her feared that she wouldn’t be able to shepherd the flock without his aid. Another part, despite their rivalry, wanted him around to watch her back if Threyna was going to be coming with her. But something else prickled the hair on the back of her neck.

“There’s a wolf in wool here,” Dracus had said, “ready to strike when we least expect.”

She thought of Gatius’s treachery. Erynia’s guard—an Undergrounder. But he wasn’t the only one. There was no way the tunnel’s collapse was a coincidence. She couldn’t tell if she wanted Tarus close because she could trust him, or because she couldn’t, but she couldn’t let him leave.

“No,” Laela said. “There’s something else. Gatius was Underground. I don’t think he was working alone. We need to stick together, watch each other’s backs.”

Tarus’s mysteriously stoic demeanor cracked. “Gatius?” Again, he ran his hands through his hair. “Gory ghosting dammit.”

There were few Laela could trust beyond reproach, but if she managed to lead the Wraith past the Underground to the Grip and there were no ships waiting for them, all of this would be for nothing.

“Send Rosler,” Laela said. “Him and Taggart.”

“The builder and the admiral?” Tarus asked. “You can’t be serious.”

“Rosler and his crew put too much of their heart and souls into building those ships to not wish them to reach Sansia. And Taggart loves the sea too much to wish to stay here.”

More importantly, Rosler, Taggart, and their men were not partial to the change in plans. So if one of them wished to sabotage the escape, they would have collapsed the tunnels through the Spine, not toward Beak’s Bay.

“Set them to purpose,” Laela said, turning to the chaotic cavern. “I’ll tend to the sheep.”

Chapter 27: To Live Is To Lose

Dracus VII

Canton stared at Threyna with two very different forms of desire—each more dangerous than the other. Whether he was lusting after the corrupted bangle injecting her with the Blessing’s malice or the girl who wore it, nothing good would come from it. Only an eternity of suffering.

With a grunt, Dracus strode past Fawkes to grab a fistful of Canton’s tunic.

“Dracus, what the—”

“Over here,” Dracus said through his teeth. Pulling Canton away from Threyna, Fawkes, and the commotion within the cavern, Dracus leveled his finger at the boy’s nose. “Answer is no. Not up for discussion. Not a debate or negotiation. We leave—now.”

Canton swatted Dracus’s finger away. “And leave everyone else?”

“Who else?” Dracus asked. “Who down there can we trust after this, eh?”

“You’re the only one you trust.” Canton scoffed. “You might be able to run away from everyone—everything—but I can’t. I won’t.”

Dracus’s lip twitched, but he swallowed the indictment. It wasn’t fair. Dracus running from the Order was the only reason Canton wasn’t a husk. If anything, he should have left the Underground sooner. Had he gone north with Fawkes and Canton the night of the Battle of the Cut, he never would have been there for Bherus to give him the fatekeeper. Never would have fled the lost battle to find Threyna fending off hellhounds on her return to Octarius. If he had just turned the other way, he never would have given her the cursed fatekeeper, never would have gone back to Octarius and shared that last farewell drink with Arilette. The only regret Dracus had from running away was not leaving soon enough.

Dracus exhaled, bristling his mustache. “Ain’t no way we coordinate an escape of a group this size without Rance. You might think that pretty armband means somethin’, but if it wasn’t enough for Bherus ghostin’ Fayte, what makes you think she’ll be any different? There ain’t a shade’s chance of beatin’ the Order. Wasn’t when the Seers tried, nor the Artificers, and definitely not at the Cut—this is no different.”

Canton scowled, his narrow face darkening just like his father’s did after Dracus caught him stealing from the Order outpost outside of Salingard. He looked more like his father every day. Same shaggy brown hair, heroic jawline, and martyr’s stubbornness. No matter how hard  Dracus tried to steer Canton away from becoming just like his father, darklings would never be shades and Canton would never change.

Dracus remembered it like it was yesterday. Cavus Kruso was silent when they held him in the stocks for public humiliation. Not a shade’s murmur passed his lips when he fought waves of hollowed on the sands of the gladiatorial arenas of Belgrave. It wasn’t until they readied the pike that would impale him that he finally raised his voice for Elyngrove’s masses.

“I’m not the villain they’ve made me. But if my suffering serves as the spark that wakes the sleepers from their slumbers, if my hollowing calls the courageous from their cowardice—so be it. Neutreen sees. Neutreen knows.”

That was when Canton, Cavus’s son, climbed the dais and stood before his father, arms wide. Dracus didn’t know where any of them would be if he hadn’t counseled Belrich to bestow mercy on the father and his son. So much would be different. Yet so much remained the same.

“Rance told us to get to Sansia,” Canton said. “Turn it into a place of hope. That we were the future.”

Still the martyr’s son. Dracus chewed his mustache. “Yeah. Rance said you were the future. That don’t mean everyone.”

Canton tossed his hands to the atrium’s ceiling. “You put me on a pedestal. Like I matter more than anyone else. ‘No, Cant, that’s too dangerous for you.’ ‘Not this time, kid. You’d have better luck in the fighting pits.’ ‘Don’t be a hero, Canton.’ ‘Someone else’s problem, Canton.’ When does it stop?”

His cheeks flushed pink. A vein in his temple throbbed. Breath steamed from his nostrils.

The gifted curse of being alive. Every “No” Dracus had put in Canton’s path ensured he could still feel the thrill of his blood running hot; everything he’d done kept Canton alive in spite of the boy’s affinity for wanting to be the one to jump on the Dawnshard.

Dracus didn’t flinch. “It stops when you get beyond the curse. Then if you wanna go kill yerself, be my guest. At least you won’t be stuck dealin’ with it for eternity. You’ll die a true death and be done.”

Canton said something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like the word coward.

“Call me a coward if you like, but it ain’t cowardice if it keeps ya alive.”

Canton’s eyes widened. He slapped his palm with an open-fisted backhand. “Yes. It. Is. Yes it is!”

Dracus took a steadying breath and put his hands on Canton’s shoulders. Not with force, but with pleading. “I know you think that maybe this time’ll be different. That the Wraith, the Tellers, the Underground—everyone with an irradiator to charge against the Order will join together. That we’ll unite behind a weapon like the Blessing and take the Order down for good. Believe me, kid, I wish it were true. But it ain’t. Near sixty years I walked this forsaken place, and time and time again I’ve been where you are now. Hoping.”

Dracus shook his head. “Ya gotta noble heart. It’s good. Better than anythin’ I could give ya. But that hope, that future where that noble heart of yours can do some good—it’s beyond this place. It ain’t here. So the best I can give ya is life. A chance, a hope for somethin’ better. But trust me when I say, it ain’t here. There’s no Rance. If Verinius is here, he ain’t getting us to Sansia; guy could barely find a hollowed in the Gullies. Nah. There’s no plan to escape. There’s no unity to fight for.”

He allowed himself a sad smile. Straightening Canton’s tunic, he gave the boy a playful clap on the cheek. “Wish it weren’t so. Really, I do. But if we’re gettin’ outta here, it’s you, me, and Old Boy. Can’t save everyone, ya hear? I need ya to trust me on this. We’ll find a way.”

Canton’s ire smoldered, then softened, crackling like the embers left after a bonfire. He nodded, dropping his eyes to the floor.

Dracus pulled him into a hug. Thank Neutreen, the One, Bheric, Cybel, Draakard—whoever still gives a ghost about us… Thank you.

He patted Canton on the back. “Let’s go get Old Boy and get on outta here, eh?”

“Yeah,” Canton said, slipping away from his embrace.

But as Dracus dared to hope he’d actually be able to get Canton beyond the curse, his aunt’s haunting lullaby returned. “To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to…”

The next words returned to him as he watched Canton walk away. With Canton’s footsteps fading into the din of the cavern’s chaos, Dracus wished so too did the memory.

“To live is to lose,” Dracus said aloud to the empty atrium. He sniffed, kicking a loose stone along the floor. “Good thing I ain’t alive.” He followed after Canton, eager to prove his aunt and her grim song wrong.

Chapter 28: Incoming Darklings

Threyna XII

Threyna clutched the rail of the overlook atop the cavern with one hand and held her stomach with the other. The scars she’d received from the hellhound attack the night of the Battle of the Cut seemed to burn, just as fresh as the prongs embedded by the Skeleton King’s Blessing in her arm. She found no humor in the irony that she had Dracus to thank for both. If not for him, the hellhounds would have finished her. He never would have given her the fatekeeper. He never would have lied to her face about what it held.

There was no changing the past. Father, gone. Mother, gone. Ebrus, gone. Yevon, gone. Nothing was bringing them back. Pointless to try. The only path was forward, and she would need every cursed blessing she could get to walk it.

Threyna inhaled the thick air of the poorly ventilated subterranean cavern. Difficult to breathe and in pain, her other senses flared with unwanted life. Absent arcanatek illuminators, the cavern was still too bright, the noise within the cave too loud. Worst of all, like waking from a nightmare only to remember it in glimpses throughout the day, Threyna felt a shadow over her Inner Throne. She could sense the Skeleton King’s presence, feel him in a way that stained her soul rotten the way the blood artifact embedded into her arm.

Aylenia put a hand on her arm, just below the bangle. “Legatus was right. It worked.”

Whatever it was, whoever was behind it, they’d made sure no one was escaping through that tunnel. Even if the Order wasn’t breathing down their necks like hollowed to a shade, it would have taken until Bheric’s Day to clear the debris. But they didn’t have weeks—they had hours at the most, and the time warp was against them.

Threyna nodded, attempting to block out the Skeleton King sitting in her Inner Throne. “Arilette or Lorath share who we have to thank?”

Aylenia grimaced. “She wouldn’t say. Said it’s better we didn’t know until everyone was back in Octarius.” She took a deep breath. “Do you think they’ll agree to come?”

“Agree? Laela won’t come easy.” She gestured in Dracus’s direction. “And you can bet the last darkling in the soul jar he won’t wait around.”

Aylenia tossed her black curls over her shoulder with resignation. “Divided, ruin will reign.”

“Divided, ruin will reign,” Threyna agreed.

“So what if they don’t comply?”

Threyna glanced over at Canton. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since he emerged from the woods. She didn’t want his attention, but perhaps he wasn’t the only one who would be curious about what she could do. She could use that if she needed to.

“They will,” Threyna said. “They have to. Or we’ve failed again.”

Leaning on the rail overlooking the cavern floor, Aylenia shifted her weight from hip to hip. “Times like this we could really use Yevon’s levity, eh?”

Threyna snorted. “Or one of Ebrus’s poems. Something like a ray of sunlight to burn off the fog?”

Aylenia chuckled. Threyna could sense from her Inner Throne the warmth resonating within Aylenia’s heart, but as quickly as it came on, it fizzled. The memory of their lost friends only highlighted the weight of what was lost.

Aylenia’s gaze fell to the bangle about Threyna’s arm. “Threyna, your arm…” She reached for it, but as if she were afraid to touch it, she came up short.

Black veins spread up and down her arm from the bangle like dark worms burrowing into a rotten onion. Threyna pursed her lips, remembering the corruption that scarred her father and the torture he’d endured to keep this very artifact from falling into the Order’s hands. That won’t be my fate. She wanted to believe it. Maybe one day she would, but now, all she could think about was failure. Loss. Anger.

“I’m prime,” Threyna said, turning away from Aylenia as Dracus dragged Canton off. Deflecting her dark thoughts, she nodded after Dracus. “See, what did I tell you? Already running.”

Aylenia fixed Threyna with a leveling stare, clearly seeing through the diversion, but also knowing better than to push it. “Should we stop them?”

Threyna shrugged. “As fun as this little reunion has been, I’m ready for it to be over. There are plenty of others here. We don’t need all of them. After the hurt my father put on the Order, if we can get back to Octarius and mount an attack, who knows… we might just be able to win.”

Aylenia nodded, but then gestured to the stairs where Laela was bounding up, two at a time. “Incoming darkling.”

Breaths only slightly labored, Laela came to a stop before Threyna. She tossed her raven-colored braid over her shoulder and placed her hands on her hips. “Offer still stand?”

Threyna cocked a brow. “It was never an offer.”

Laela glared. “Will you help us make it to Octaven?”

Threyna listened to her sister’s heartbeat. Heightened by the exertion from the stairs, the stress of the moment, or the duress they’d been through to get here, Laela’s heart throbbed—not with the irregularity of a lie, but the dishonest composure of a half-truth.

Not trusting Laela, Threyna bowed her head. “Of course. Divided, ruin will—”

“Blood and bone, we know,” Laela snapped. “We need to evacuate. I’m dividing the people into small groups to misdirect the Order through the Spine. We’ll regroup at Cybel’s Tears and follow the river to Fort Cybel, then cross toward Octarius.”

The pressure of Laela’s heart spiked as she said Octarius. Is it because she’s afraid to return, or something else—a deception?

Before Threyna could respond, Laela’s green eyes, the eyes their mother had given her, fell upon the dark vines snaking from the bangle on Threyna’s arm.

“Good plan,” Threyna said, pulling her arm behind her. “See it done. Quickly.”

Laela hmphed, and Threyna didn’t need her Inner Throne’s aid to identify that Laela hadn’t taken kindly to being ordered by her. “I’ll address my people. Just… stay out of my way.”

She shoved between Threyna and Aylenia.

Aylenia’s eyes followed her as she stormed away like Rivich from a good time. “I don’t remember her always being—”

“Such a ghosting hellhound?” Threyna finished.

Aylenia smirked. “I was going to say something else, but you are definitely related.”

Threyna shook her head. If her mother’s last words to her weren’t saying exactly that, she might have denied it. “We take after our fathers. Regardless… she’s lying. Or at least she’s not telling the whole truth.”

Aylenia cocked her brow, then tossed her head back and forth as if considering. “Does anyone ever?”

“No one with sense, I reckon.”

Aylenia put her hand on Threyna’s arm, the one without the bangle. “I’m gonna keep an eye on her, see who she talks to.”

Threyna nodded. “Good idea. I’m just behind you.”

“You prime?” Aylenia asked, examining her as if she too had an Inner Throne to hear heartbeats.

“Yeah, just need a moment.”

Aylenia gave her arm a squeeze before following after Laela, leaving Threyna alone on the cavern’s overlook. She didn’t know where Dracus, Fawkes, or Canton went. Frankly, she didn’t care. Good fighters they might be, but good soldiers don’t desert. As far as she was concerned, they were more trouble than they were worth. Not to mention seeing their faces brought back too many painful memories of the past.

Forward. Only forward.

Tapping into her Inner Throne, she attuned to the different heartbeats around her. The rest of her physical sensations seemed to dull as she focused on this other sense. At first, the sheer volume of people in the Wraith’s hovel beneath Aranoc overwhelmed her, but quickly, she was able to separate the individual beats. Each one had its own unique tenor and tone. As she became more acquainted with each one, connecting its sound to its owner, she expanded her reach.

The city above the surface buzzed despite the time of night, but something else came with it. A dull hum, a background noise, faint and faraway, but present. The more Threyna focused on it, the more she couldn’t unhear it.

Sinking deeper into her seat of power, she gripped the arms of her Inner Throne. The black veins wormed down her arm, reaching for her elbow, but she pushed further until she identified the source of the sound.

She snapped back to the cavern, having been so separated she hadn’t realized Dracus and Canton were standing only a few paces away, and all eyes were fixed on Laela addressing the entirety of the Wraith from the opposite end of the overlook.

Threyna breathed heavily. The Order. They’re in the tunnels.

Chapter 29: Strength, Courage, and Lies

Laela XI

Laela gripped the rail of the cavern’s overlook. “Be strong. Be courageous.”

Tarus set Rosler, the lead shipbuilder, and Taggart, the admiral of the small fleet, to purpose. They would lead their crews through the Gullies to the ships and prepare to rendezvous at Talon’s Grip. Now it was up to Laela and Tarus to get these people to those ships. If all went according to plan, even if Rance was gone, his dream could still live—they could make it to Sansia. They could have the fresh start they all wanted under Neutreen’s providence, beyond the curse and the Order’s reach.

But making that happen was easier said than done.

Threyna and Aylenia thought that Laela would be leading the Wraith south to Octarius, so she needed to keep up that illusion lest she create more strife for herself later. But her people would not take lightly the suggestion of returning to the Underground and Arilette’s rule. If anything, she expected backlash, but they didn’t have time for that. The Order was coming, and they needed to leave. Now.

Below, as Laela had ordered, Redge and Tarus had taken the responsibility of organizing people into small groups, but as of yet, the Wraith didn’t know why. Now was her turn to explain.

“This should be entertaining,” her father teased.

Laela closed her father out, solidifying her Center of Silence. But even still, her palms moistened, her throat constricted, and her mother’s words of affirmation were not enough to calm her mind or organize her thoughts. Prayers to Neutreen didn’t yield any better results, but time was of the essence.

Laela cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Her chest quivered, her lip trembled, and her hands rattled, but a leader could show no fear. She straightened her tunic beneath the Avengardian armor and raised her arms to the cavern ceiling.

“People of Aranoc.” Her voice boomed louder than she knew it could, echoing throughout the cavern and cutting through the chatter. Shouting was replaced by muttering as heads and pointing fingers turned towards her.

“We have been betrayed. But the time for arguing ends now. Though the tunnels have collapsed, there is worse news you must know.” She paused, knowing what she was about to say could leave the others in despair. By now, rumors had likely spread about Verinius’s shadeshock and Rance’s demise, but they needed to know the truth and they needed to hear it from her.

They need a new leader.

“Rance is dead.” Saying the words aloud hurt. Rance, who had given her hope, given her purpose, named her the First Sword of the Wraith… was gone.

Gasps answered her. People turned towards one another, palms lifted skyward, lips turned down. Mutters spread like a plague. Laela held up her hands to quiet the noise and recapture their attention.

“I know you’re scared, but we must prepare to leave Aranoc. Our enemy marches towards us. Belrich, his Inquisitors, and far worse horrors will enter our tunnels.” She gestured to the rubble blocking their escape. “Our plans have been sabotaged, but we are the Wraith. We do not give up. Grab only what you can carry. Prepare to leave and never return.”

Redge’s broad shoulders and chiseled face pressed through the crowd to stand at the front of them. “And go where?”

“South,” Laela said. “We spread out, navigate the Spine in the small parties you’ve been grouped into. We’ll follow the Tears and reunite at Fort Cybel.”

“We’ll be walking right into the Underground’s trap for us!” Redge spat. Many others shared his concern.

Laela feared this. She couldn’t tell them the whole truth, not without openly defying Threyna, Aylenia, and the Underground. Can’t afford to risk that. All it would take is one whisper on Aylenia’s arcanatek communicator and the Underground would come in force to collect us. They must believe we are desperate enough to cooperate.

“No,” Laela said. “We do not need to worry about the Underground, because we are going to Octarius. They have offered us sanctuary.”

If Rance’s death brought despair and news of traveling south brought outrage, this was enough to start a riot. Screaming voices shouted over one another in cacophony. Laela held her arms up for silence, but it was Redge who regained the crowd’s composure.

“Who are you to lead us?” Redge asked. “You are not Rance. You are not Verinius. You’re just a Sword.”

Redge was right. She wasn’t a leader. But she’d been around leaders since she could speak. First Victarius Kaine and Aarkos Velar. Then Arenius Desius and Theodyn Perill—or at least who she thought was Theodyn—before being First Sword to Rance himself. She’d been a part of strategic meetings, served in crucial operations, and been on the front lines for the Wraith. Were there better potential leaders? Laela certainly hoped so. But right now, someone, anyone, was better than no one, and they didn’t have the time to debate who should lead. She’d given them a piece of truth; now she would give them hope.

“You’re right,” Laela said. “I am not Rance, nor am I anything like him. Ghosts, we may never see his like again. And by every feather of Neutreen’s wings, you better believe I do not wish to stay and fight alongside the Underground for this cursed and forsaken land, but I will not let Rance’s dream die because we are unable to accept aid when we are in desperate need. We go to Octarius, but we will carry on what Rance rebirthed, what the Undergrounders were meant to provide to the people of Rheynia—a hope. A future. A kingdom beyond the curse.

“Today we have suffered many losses, but we are not defeated. We march for Octaven. We leave now. But believe you me, that is not where our story ends. We will not join the Underground’s war. We will escape Rheynia—but this night, we must only escape Aranoc and our pursuers.”

Redge clenched his muscled jaw, his dark brows pinched visibly even from this distance, but he offered no refute. Laela’s words were enough. At least for now. The Wraith wouldn’t be happy. Neither would Threyna and the Underground with her declaration to eventually escape. But for now, it would have to be enough.

“Get ready,” Laela said. “Take only what you must. We leave at once.”

As people began to move to purpose in disgruntled fear, Laela allowed herself a shaky breath. She felt naked absent her customary blades. With only the stolen short sword, a knife in her vambrace, and True in her boot, she needed to replenish before the long march. The way would be treacherous. With hollowed and hellhounds in their path, legionaries chasing them from behind, and the Underground lying in wait, she did not want to be caught empty-handed.

On her way, Canton intercepted her with Dracus pawing at him from behind.

“Tell me the plan,” Canton said.

Laela gestured to the rail overlooking the cavern where she’d just made her speech. “You heard me. I just told everyone.”

“See,” Dracus said. “There is no plan.”

“No,” Canton said, shaking Dracus’s grip from his arm. “Tell me the truth.”

Laela glared from the boy who had followed her around since their time at the Underground to the man she once idolized. “Fine. But tell Threyna, and so help me, I’ll hollow you myself.” She leaned close, glancing around to make certain no one was listening. She’d noticed Aylenia skulking earlier, but now she was nowhere to be seen.

“I sent Rosler and Taggart through the Gullies,” Laela whispered. “We’ll make our escape from the Underground’s escort, and meet them at Talon’s Grip. Then the only ones left to stop us will be the Aeritans.”

A grin slashed across Canton’s slender face. “We’re with you, then.”

Dracus tossed his head back, muttering under his breath.

Laela scoffed. “Prime news. If that’ll be all…” Turning from them to go see what was left in stock in the armory, Laela caught Threyna making her way towards them. With black rot stretching down her arm and the color drained from her cheeks. she looked as if she’d seen the Skeleton King himself.

Whatever courage she’d managed and composure she’d mustered for her speech—her foundation cracked. Before Threyna could open her mouth, Laela knew.

They’re here…

Chapter 30: Dewskulled

Dracus VIII

He hadn’t expected the elated relief he held in Canton’s embrace moments ago to last long, but he hoped it would last longer than a few breaths. The only things Laela’s address did was give Canton hope, and worse—options. Her plans to travel south to accept the Underground’s offer of sanctuary with thoughts of a future escape were preposterous. He knew better than anyone—Arilette didn’t let people leave. Not without paying a price. But this admission, the truth beneath her poorly veiled lies, was worse.

Escape the Underground’s escort? Make it past Octarius to the Grip? Even if the ships were still floating in the cove, even if the Underground hadn’t created some sort of blockade, Rosler and Taggart still had to make it through the Gullies. Too many ifs on both sides of the Spine. The chances of success were shades to a corpse, and now Canton had taken the bait of Laela’s false hope. To make matters worse, even if all went as planned, Canton could decide once they reached Octaven that Threyna and the Underground were worth fighting alongside.

Threyna shoved past Dracus and Canton, making for Laela.

“Ay, watch it,” Dracus called after her, but she didn’t acknowledge him.

Laela stopped, noticing her sister.

“They’re here,” Threyna said. “The Order. Hundreds of them.”

“Where?” Laela looked over Threyna’s shoulder as if she were half-expecting to see a legion charge in from the atrium.

“The tunnels to the west.”

Laela shook her head. “How can you tell?”

“I just can!” Threyna reached for the cursed Blessing on her arm.

Fawkes emerged from the stairway on the opposite end of the overlook from behind Laela, an armful of swords in his grasp. Aylenia followed not too far behind.

“Got swords from the armory,” Fawkes said. “Wanted to grab a few ‘fore everyone else got their hands on ‘em.” Seeing the long faces, he paused. “What’s wrong?”

“Order,” Canton said.

“How much time?” Laela asked.

“Not enough,” Threyna said. “Did you mean what you said… about going to Octarius?”

Laela’s steely gaze met Threyna’s. “Every word.”

Threyna inhaled sharply. “Fine. Aylenia, stick with Laela. Make sure she keeps her word.”

Aylenia jutted her head forward, cocking her brow. “Where are you going?”

“The tunnels,” Threyna said. “I’ll hold them off. You make sure everyone gets out.”

Dracus scoffed. Bad to ghosting worse. We need to get out of here and far away from these two hellhounds. He didn’t know which sister was worse—Threyna for believing she could take down the Order, or Laela for thinking she could outwit Arilette.

“By yourself?” Aylenia asked. “Blood magic or not, you can’t hold back an entire legion alone.”

Just as Dracus was about to grab Canton and pull him away from this ever-hollowing situation, Canton spoke up. “She won’t be alone. We’ll help.”

Fawkes blinked at Dracus, his arms full of swords.

Dracus stammered. “You lot must have dewskull. What darkling put this into yer head?” He dragged his hand down his face. “Nah. You’re on your own there. We’re—”

“We’ve already left Rance to die on his own,” Canton said. “We’re not letting Threyna do the same.”

“We can collapse the tunnels,” Fawkes said, meeting Dracus’s eyes. “I can collapse the tunnels.”

Dracus could only stare. Fawkes, what are you doin’?

Fawkes shrugged. “Like ya said, we ain’t coming back, and it’s kinda late to run away. If we’re gonna do this, we’ll need to do it together. Ya know; divided, ruin will reign—all that blood and bone.” He dumped the sheathed swords into Laela’s arms, keeping two for himself. “Gonna need more than one sword if yer gonna keep bein’ Mistress of Blades.”

Laela hmphed. “Fine, then. Blow the tunnels.” She nodded at Threyna. “Fort Cybel.”

“Fort Cybel.” Threyna turned to go.

Fawkes shoved a sword into Canton’s hands as the two made to follow. Laela strapped a long sword onto her back and another short sword onto her hip. Aylenia did the same.

“Looks like you’re in this now too,” Laela said.

Dracus growled. “For now.” He glared, chewing his mustache as Laela and Aylenia went the opposite way of Threyna, Canton, and Fawkes. He felt cursed. Hopeless.

Is there any way to stop this?

“Divided, ruin will reign,” he said aloud, repeating Fawkes’s words. He stroked his mustache. “I don’t reckon forced unity’s any better.”

Without another choice, he hobbled—sore foot, head aching, and hollowed to the core—after Canton and Fawkes, hoping against hope that this wouldn’t be their last mistake.

Chapter 31: The Stone Golem

Threyna XIII

The hum grew to a buzz as if a whirring arcanatek were strapped to her hip. There wasn’t. She’d lost it and all of her Dawnshards in the bog. All she had left was a Nightfall, and in a narrow tunnel packed wall to wall with legionaries, that was about as useful in a fight as a Teller. She was out of useful arcanatek, but she had a power much stronger. If she could harness it.

But blood magic or not, that wasn’t why she volunteered to collapse the tunnels by herself. She couldn’t risk sending another of her friends to their demise, but perhaps even more so than that, the prospect of facing down an entire Order legion was preferable over traveling all the way to Octarius with Laela.

Aylenia will get the Wraith there. I’ll catch up. One darkling at a time.

“We got some scraps tucked away,” Fawkes said, hurrying to catch up. “Get me a short fuse and a trip wire, and we’ll bury some skulls.”

Threyna hmphed. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

“Didn’t need to.” Fawkes winked. “Yer helpin’ our people escape. That ain’t lost on me.”

His grin was contagious. Once she had thought of him as an uncle, and he hadn’t changed a bit in ten years—quick to smile and calm while the world was burning. Not in a numb or disconnected way, but a wise, contemplative fashion. Like a less-literate Ebrus, he was too kind for this fallen world. But as the shade of a smile tugged at her lips, her sentiment soured.

Push comes to shove, he’ll leave me again. Everyone leaves.

“We want to help,” Canton chimed in.

Threyna quickened her pace, wishing they had just let her go alone. Unable to outrun them, she hid in her Inner Throne, but the Skeleton King sat in her chair. Threyna startled, but red lightning flickered outside the stained-glass windows, and in an instant, her grandfather was gone, replaced by her father. Another bolt of lightning struck, and she was back in power.

She shuddered before gritting her teeth. This connection, this kinship she had with the Skeleton King, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand. If I must deal with his presence, he could at least show me how to use the ghosting magic. But even after thinking it, cold sweat trickled down her spine. She shook the notion away as Fawkes jogged ahead.

“This way.” The big man waved over his shoulder as he bounded down the stairs.

Threyna stopped at the top of the flight. “They’re this way.” She jabbed her thumb in the direction of the approaching legionaries she could feel beyond the walls of her Inner Throne.

“Arcanatek stores are down here,” Fawkes said. He nodded at Canton. “You go with Threy. I’ll be back in a spell.”

As Fawkes charged down the stairs, Canton turned towards Threyna, his face split by a toothy grin. “A spell? Blood and bone, who talks like that?”

Threyna inhaled sharply. The mannerisms and timing reminded her altogether too much of someone else, but Yevon was gone. Hollowed and vortexed until his darkling attempted to take Threyna’s body for his own. All because Canton killed him.

It wasn’t fair to judge him for it, but when her mind melded with Yevon’s, she saw his last moments… and Canton’s slash that ended him.

With a grunt, she spun from Canton and set off down the hall towards the marching legions. The heartbeats echoed through the narrow tunnels, but there were others above as well. Enough arcanatek-wielding Justicus to pursue every last refugee who escaped Aranoc.

That’ll be Laela’s problem. For now, I just need to buy them time.

“Hey,” Dracus shouted down the tunnel.

Threyna and Canton stopped.

“Ya wanna stop them from gettin’ in, here’s where ya gotta wall it off. They’ll have to backtrack halfway to the bog before they can turn back.”

Threyna scoffed. Spoken like a true runner. All the Wraith were the same, looking for the easy way instead of the most effective. She had expected better of Dracus, but his time in the Wraith had dulled what made him formidable in the Order and what made him useful in the Underground.

“I’m not trying to block them,” Threyna said, continuing on her path. “I’m trying to bury as many legionaries as I can.”

Canton guffawed. “Gory ghosts, yes!”

As Threyna charged forward, she realized the Order was closer than she had originally thought. The heartbeats thundered outside the walls of her Inner Throne as she neared a section where two tunnels converged into one.

“Here,” Threyna said through labored breath.

Canton came up beside her and put his hands on his knees. “Which way?”

“Both.”

Before Canton could catch his breath or return his eyes to the appropriate level of openness, Dracus approached.

“Of all the bad ideas, this one’s gotta be the worst.”

“You don’t have to be here,” Threyna snarled. “You can run. I know that’s your specialty.”

Dracus grunted. “Can’t win 'em all so don’t make much sense fightin’ every ghost damned chance ya get.”

“Spoken like a true turn-cloak,” Threyna spat back.

“Stop,” Canton said. “We’re all here. Might as well work together. Now what’s the plan?”

Threyna’s glare softened, drifting towards Canton. She shrugged. “See if I can do half of what my father did in Valefort. Buy Fawkes time to rig the explosives.”

“See if…” Dracus threw his hands up. “Gonna get us all hollowed.”

Threyna ignored him. The Order’s legionaries were close enough that their footsteps echoed through the tunnel. Fawkes approached from behind, his arms full with an assortment of mismatched incendiary devices and a stretch of crimped trip wire.

“I’m here,” Fawkes said through labored breaths. He examined the convergence point before them, inspecting the stone framework and the rotting wooden support beams reinforced with iron. “This can work.” He gazed down the tunnel to the army of arcanatek-wielding men ready to hollow any who stood in their way.

“How long will you need?” Threyna asked, feeling the gale of heartbeats howling against the walls of her Inner Throne.

Fawkes shook his head. “Longer than we got.”

“Get to work then,” Threyna said. “I’ll hold them off.”

Fawkes began rigging the explosives. Dracus swore at how stupid this was. Canton bickered with him to be more helpful, but Threyna blocked them all out, tapping deeper into her Inner Throne.

Sitting alone, enthroned, she felt power at her fingertips, but it lay dormant beyond a veil she couldn’t see past.

How did Father do it?

She recalled the spider legs that stretched from his back, the wings that carried him above the courtyard, the shields he conjured as the Order attacked, and the weapons he forged out of nowhere in the blink of an eye.

I can too.

She imagined blood bowing to her will. Though she could sense the well of power prickling at her insistence, the approaching footfalls beyond the walls of her Inner Throne made her stomach churn. Panic flitted through her, but panic wouldn’t collapse the tunnels, wouldn’t stop the Order, wouldn’t allow the Wraith to escape and make it to the Underground.

Focus!

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, she blocked out the encroaching tide of soldiers threatening to drown her. She drew in breath, deep and slow, calming her mind. Red lightning sparked again beyond the stained glass, but this time, Threyna didn’t shudder. She allowed the energy outside to flow into her, coursing through her veins.

No longer was she sitting upon her Inner Throne, but standing on the dais. The magic the Skeleton King wielded to forge a tyrannical empire was the very weapon she’d use to tear it down. Rage for her father’s mistreatment throbbed in her heart. A gnawing guilt bit at her conscience for her mother’s demise. But strongest of all, a fury for the Wraith stirred within her like a tempest.

If they hadn’t run ten years ago, if they weren’t always trying to run now, we could have destroyed the Order a long time ago.

Her parents would still be alive. Maybe they’d still be together had they all stayed and fought at the Battle of the Cut. No more Order. No more Dominion. No more quotas or collections. She and Laela could have actually been like sisters. But no. Instead she only had lost parents, dead friends, and a sister already planning to betray her.

Threyna screamed down the tunnels at the charging legionaries, their arcanatek illuminators bouncing as they ran. Those approaching from the left came faster than the legion in the adjacent tunnel.

“Need more time,” Fawkes said as he ran the trip wire from the outermost wall of the left tunnel to the opposite side. “Get out ahead of me. Here.” He handed Threyna a handheld crossbow with a line of half a dozen small bolts mounted to the handle. 

Threyna stepped over the trip wire, fitting one of the short bolts to the bow.

“Careful,” Canton said, fixing a bolt to his own crossbow as he followed Threyna into the tunnel. “They’re laced with Dreadroot oil.”

Threyna grimaced. Not exactly the arcanatek bolts she was used to. These might slow an attacker, cause a limb to go limp, but they wouldn’t blow a hole through armor and scorch the man inside it.

“This ain’t gonna work,” Dracus said, drawing his own crossbow.

The legionaries were close enough now that they weren’t just bobbing lights in the distance, but a jumble of arms and legs churning forward. 

“Blasters ready!” a legionary shouted.

Arcanatek whirred to a charge, but Threyna struck first. She pulled the trigger. A grunt, a falling illuminator, and the yelp of others tripping over the downed legionary accompanied her reloading. Kneeling beside her, Canton and Dracus’s bowstrings thrummed into the crowd of incoming legionaries, but for every one that fell, three more charged over them. Ruthless, relentless—like hollowed after a shade, they kept coming.

“Shields!” a legionary cried.

The illuminators were near enough to cast the walls of the tunnels around them in an eerie glow. Threyna fired, wound the crank, and fired again, but her shots clanged off shields as the arcanateks’ buzz grew louder.

Threyna dropped to her belly and aimed lower, hoping to hit a leg below the shield wall. “Down.” Threyna yanked Canton to the ground as Dracus rolled onto his back to wind the crank of his crossbow.

Several stunning blasts of irradiator fire flew overhead, but none found targets.

“How much longer?” Dracus shouted to Fawkes, flipping onto his stomach to fire another bolt into the charging legion.

“Almost there!” Fawkes cried. “Company down the other tunnel.”

“Gory ghosts.”

Threyna unloaded another bolt from her belly. Her target fell forward with a cry, his shield clattering to the ground. More bolts snapped from bowstrings, but no matter how many legionaries fell, there was always another to replace the fallen.

Threyna reloaded her crossbow. Last one. Taking aim, she squeezed the trigger. They were nearly upon them now. Another wave of irradiator blasts fired through the tunnel, but this time, they aimed at the ground. The radiant energy scarred the ground only an arm’s reach from Threyna’s head. Another streaked the wall beside Dracus, and several others burned just overhead.

“Outta time, Fawkes!” Dracus shouted as the Order closed in.

“We have to retreat,” Canton said.

As the last blasters sizzled past, Threyna gained her feet and released Fawkes’s crossbow in exchange for her short sword. There was a time and place for retreat. She would—they would have to—but not yet. Not until she taught the Wraith that the Order could bleed.

“No!” Threyna said. “We stand.”

Only a few paces away, legionaries drew their steel. With five abreast, the Order’s formation was packed too tightly to allow movement. Their restriction was Threyna’s opening.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, she felt their heartbeats hammering, the bloodlust that drove them, and the accolades they’d receive for victory. Threyna would be their denier.

Shoulder to shoulder with Canton and Dracus, Threyna stabbed over an advancing shield. The legionary attempted to block, but his shield arm got caught on his neighbor. Her steel slashed through the side of the legionary’s neck. The wounded man staggered, creating an opening. Dracus thrust into the opening, striking a Justicus through the ribs. Canton slammed his short sword into the approaching shields—once, twice—but they continued to advance, pushing Canton back.

Threyna and Dracus backpedaled with him, keeping in formation despite losing ground. Deflecting a thrust, Threyna countered with a downward hack of her own that glanced off a shoulder. More blood filled the air, calling to her, pulsing with a life all its own. It begged her to use it. To harness it. To give it purpose and shape. Black veins snaked down her arm toward her elbow with the strain of obeying its call, but no blood weapons took shape at her command.

“Fawkes!” Dracus shouted. He kicked a knee, buckling it backwards, and slammed his short sword down, lowering the shield in his path. With a horizontal hack, he slashed across the legionary’s throat. Blood spouted from the gash, spraying Dracus before the hollowed man fell, gurgling.

“Got it!” Fawkes said.

But before they could retreat, Canton cried out. A crimson crescent followed the legionary’s steel across Canton’s arm.

“Canton!” Dracus slid behind Threyna, abandoning her right flank to yank Canton backwards. Dracus stabbed Canton’s attacker through the shoulder, then shoved the shield back. Instead of following up with a hollowing blow, Dracus retreated, shoving Canton towards the convergence of the tunnels.

With no one else to divert their defenses, all five legionaries collapsed in around Threyna. Before she could scold Dracus or cry out for aid, steel raced across her right arm. Blood dribbled down the wound as black veins slithered up from the bangle to her left shoulder.

She blocked a downward chop, but as the impact vibrated down her sword, pain sliced across her hip. Threyna backpedaled, but the legionaries corralled her, charging forward like juggernauts.

Blood filled the tight confines of the tunnel. The metallic scent of it flooded her nostrils. The intangible vitality called to her, begging her to command it.

Threyna sank into her Inner Throne, but within, she was drowning. Blood poured from the ceiling like the midday rains, rippling the surface as the gore climbed the walls to paint her Inner Throne scarlet. A force dragged her beneath the surface. But when she feared she wouldn’t be able to breathe, she realized she’d never drawn breath before. Every waking moment of her life to this point, she had been drowning, dying a slow, inevitable death. But now… now, she was alive.

She drank the blood within her Inner Throne, and without. She swung her unarmed left hand at the nearest legionary. Unthreatened by the unarmed strike, he barely reacted, but before her eyes, a bloody blade spawned in her closed fist. The bloodborne sword cleaved through the wide-eyed legionary’s neck.

A resounding click rang through the tunnel, but Threyna didn’t concern herself with it. More blood, more life flooded the tunnel. She roared, slashing with blood and steel. Bodies fell around her. No longer retreating, she took the offensive as legionaries, recognizing the blood magic, screamed in fear.

They were right to fear her.

But as she swung again with her blood-forged blade, she noticed the rot stretching down her arm to blacken her knuckles. Gasping, Threyna hesitated. Her bloodborne sword fell to ash.

A firm jerk on the back of her tunic sent her stumbling backwards. “C’mon, dammit!” Dracus hauled her away from the legionaries with one hand while he hurled a beeping Nightfall into their frontlines. The arcanatek exploded in darkness, blotting out the legionaries’ illuminators.

“This way!” Fawkes waved them down the tunnel where Canton nursed a bloody slash across his forearm.

As they neared the trip wire, Dracus pointed it out, and together they vaulted over it as the legionaries resumed their pursuit. Once past the convergence, Fawkes hurled another Nightfall into the tunnel.

“Run!” Fawkes shouted.

Panting, arms aching with fatigue, and wounds stinging with the memory of steel, Threyna retreated. Black veins devoured the entirety of her left arm. A hollow numbness throbbed within her chest.

“How much of the tunnel will collapse?” Canton asked, leading the way back to the cavern.

“Dunno,” Fawkes said. “Don’t wanna find out eith—”

The ground shook. The walls around them threatened to cave. Screams reverberated throughout the tunnel. A swell of heat roared at her back before the ceiling crumbled, devouring the heat like a stone golem. Yet it wasn’t satisfied. The snapping jaws of the collapsing tunnel nipped at their heels, threatening to bury them all.

A fault line rippled through the ceiling above their heads.

The exit to the overlook atop the main cavern was just ahead. The orange glow of torchlights illuminated their escape. Threyna pumped her arms and legs, pulling ahead of the others.

She wanted to run to the light, to make sure after all this, she survived to finish what her father started, but she retreated inward to the darkness of her Inner Throne to find she wasn’t alone.

Sitting in a puddle of blood on the tile floor before her dais, Threyna inclined her gaze to her throne. The Skeleton King leaned forward within her chair, his face gaunt, his eyes sunken. Weary as the old man appeared, his eyes, the same shade of blue as hers, rippled with recognition.

Dread ensnared Threyna’s heart like Dreadroot. Close enough to hear his breathing, smell the scent of death that clung to him, she couldn’t look away from the monster.

He took measure of her, inclining his head before standing to his feet. He towered over her, yet the amused expression splitting his pale, thin lips was practically inviting. As if he welcomed her to try, like every other who sought to take his claim before her.

He hmphed, turning his back on her.

Then the light of her Inner Throne winked out, and all went black.

Chapter 32: A Deal With Darklings

Laela XII

Tarus waved another group through the southern tunnels. “Go!”

Disgruntled, another band of confused and concerned members of Aranoc’s Wraith relented their arguments and demands for answers to obey Tarus’s orders.

A young girl, overburdened with a stack of blankets taller than she could see over, wobbled, dropping two onto the hard-packed ground. Laela bent down to pick them up, smiling at the girl with brown braids hanging behind her shoulder.

As if a smile could bring courage…

The girl was no older than she had been when she and her parents fled the Artificers after the fall of Victarius Kaine. She remembered how scared she was, and rightfully so. Nothing had gone right since. She’d been on the run or hiding her entire life. Sansia was supposed to be the hope for little girls like her. Rance had given them that hope. But now that hope was buried beneath a pile of rubble.

There’s still a chance. Be strong. Be courageous.

Laela stood, tucking the blankets under her arm. “I’ll take these. You need to watch where you’re going.”

“Are you coming?” the little girl asked, cocking her head. She too had a feather pendant next to her fatekeeper. Golden, and as beautiful as she was.

A knot formed in her throat. I’m going to get you to Sansia… She swallowed and nodded into the tunnel. “Right behind you. Run along now.”

Tarus growled at the stragglers of another group. “Hurry up. Order’s comin’, didn’t ya hear?”

“We should go too,” Aylenia said from beside Laela.

Laela gestured to the tunnel’s mouth. “No one’s stopping you.”

Aylenia smirked. Her thick, dark brow cocked, and she bit her lower lip as if something Laela said gave her pleasure. “Nice try, but you won’t get rid of me that easily.”

Laela rolled her eyes, waving another group into the tunnel. “You’ve already seen to it that we can’t escape. Where else would we go? You’ve got us trapped in the soul jar, so for Neutreen’s sake, give it a rest.”

Aylenia crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight into one hip. “You heard your sister. I go with you. I make sure you keep your promises.”

Laela pursed her lips and leaned in until she was practically nose to nose with the Undergrounder. “Oh, believe me, I keep my promises.”

If Aylenia was intimidated, she gave no sign. Being so close to her, Laela recalled when they were girls back in Octarius’s depths. She never backed down then either. Even after her mother never returned from Sansia’s lost settlement, Aylenia never lost heart. If only she’d come north instead of staying with Arilette… Instead, now I have a keeper.

Still smirking through her bit lip, Aylenia backed away, not letting Laela out of her sight.

“This is taking too long,” Redge said to Tarus, glancing up at the overlook as if the Order were going to charge in at any moment.

He was right, but she had already done everything she could think of. While most were funneled out the southern tunnels to the Spine, she’d sent Rosler, Taggart, and their company through the Gullies towards the fleet, and even sent a handful of groups up to the city for those who elected to hide rather than engage in the mad dash to Octarius. Short of sending more people through the Gullies, which was as enticing a prospect as volunteering to host a darkling, there weren’t any alternatives.

Redge had dragged Verinius from the corner to sit him by the tunnel, but he assumed the same position she’d found him in. Despite the change of scenery from the north wall to the southern exit, he offered no insight or ideas on how to expedite their exodus. Cross-legged, hugging his knees, and rocking back and forth, the aedile continued to mumble incoherent drivel.

Laela didn’t know what to do about him. Rance’s motto was, “no one left behind,” but at what cost? They’d emptied half of the cavern so far, but if Threyna was right and the Order was as close as she feared, then dead weight would have to be cut loose.

“Open to suggestions,” Tarus said to Redge. “Otherwise keep it shut.”

Redge grunted, but said nothing. As the crowd began to realize the same thing, people began shoving and arguing.

“Break that up,” Laela said to Aylenia. “Make yourself useful. Keep everyone calm.”

Aylenia narrowed her eyes.

“I’m not going to run away,” Laela said through her teeth.

Aylenia gave a mocking bow. “At once, Premius.”

Laela scowled.

“What’s her deal?” Redge asked. “Clearly, she’s not an Avengardian.”

Tarus scoffed, hustling people along. “What, ’cause she’s Palogian? Sorry, you’re not the only one.”

Redge’s finely plucked brows narrowed to daggers atop his dark eyes. “My family has been here since before the Disasters. We burned prayers on Bheric’s Day and made offerings in the Grotto on Cybel’s Eve just like everyone else. I’m Rheynian.”

For a moment, Laela thought she was going to have to break up a fight herself.

Tarus, considerably smaller than Redge, only grinned from beneath his hood, and good thing too. He didn’t become the Second Sword without the skill to back up his mouth. She had no doubt Redge wouldn’t be the first to mistake that size and strength could overcome skill.

Tarus shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

Just as Redge readied a reply, the entire cavern trembled. Loose stone vibrated, and whatever stalactites hadn’t fallen during the collapse of the east tunnel rained down on the gathered Wraith as the west tunnel collapsed.

“Stay calm!” Laela shouted, attempting to steady herself. But there was no hope in staying calm. The steady stream of small groups they’d allowed out to ensure they didn’t trample each other in their escape erupted into a flood. Flowing like the Bherian River after the midday rains, people charged into the tunnels and away from the falling debris.

Before Laela could stop them, she was swept up into the tide of screaming people shoving their way into the narrow passage.

She called for the people behind her to stop, but she might as well have been yelling for the cavern’s ceiling not to fall. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted Tarus before he too got lost in the dark tangle of screams and flailing limbs. Shoved into the back of the people before her, she never saw the body she trampled over.

Sorrow knotted in her throat, but though it was the first body she was forced to step over in the manic flight from the tunnels, it wasn’t the last. As the tunnels separated, diverging into different paths along the Spine, the pace slowed as the pressure dissipated.

She slunk off to the side of the tunnel, out of the way of everyone’s escape. Balling her fist, she rested her forehead against the stone, staring down at her boots. Even in the dim light, she could see the bloodstains on the leather.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she tore herself away from the wall. She wanted to blame Threyna. She collapsed the tunnel. She was the reason they were in this mess in the first place. But she couldn’t. She knew this wasn’t Threyna’s fault. Neither was what happened to her mother. But this was the Underground’s fault. And Threyna was an Undergrounder.

Fist still clenched, she started down the least traveled of the tunnels. She was a leader now, whether she liked it or not. She’d never seen Rance become so emotional, and it would not do her well to allow the others to see her in such a state. Not if she wanted the Wraith to follow her out of the hellscape Threyna and the Underground had put them in.

Be strong. Be courageous.

Putting up her boundaries, she followed the tunnel, hand tracing the stone wall as her feet dragged. There were people ahead of her, people behind, but not close enough to hear her prayers.

“Neutreen, get us through this. Guide me so that I might guide them back to your embrace beyond the curse. Do not forsake us. Do not let us fall into the hands of the Order or the Underground. Please. Please?”

Doubt drowned strength and strangled courage.

Laela’s nerves were frayed, yet her journey hadn’t even begun. It was a hard day of travel to Fort Cybel, then the better part of another to Talon’s Grip. How many of us will make it? How many have I already lost? She fought off the urge to look back, denied the desire to stare down at the blood on her boots. They wouldn’t serve her.

“No one left behind,” Rance had said. But he was gone now, and there was no way everyone could have survived this venture, yet she didn’t believe she would lose people within her own tunnels. Beneath her own feet.

Her stomach churned. Her back ached. She didn’t know if those who had perished could be restored by Neutreen, nor was she sure the goddess wouldn’t count their losses against her, but there was only one way forward.

She stared straight ahead, rubbing at her hand where the hollowed had bitten her.  Drawing nearer to an exit into the mountain pass of the Spine, she didn’t know if she should hurry forward to join one of the small groups she’d sent ahead, or hang back to join the next. But as she neared the exit to the tunnel, faraway screams filtered into the passageway.

Underground… or Order?

Laela was already running, sword drawn. The tunnel became a jagged set of short but steep switchbacks to the surface. Her legs, stiff and achy, forgot their misgivings and propelled her toward the screams.

Not knowing what she would find when she emerged from the tunnels to the crags, she crouched, surveying her surroundings. Arcanatek whirred and fired. Shadows ran. Exposed steel caught the glints of moonlight that fought through the fog’s shroud. The scent of blood tinged the air, proving this wasn’t the Underground’s doing, but the Order’s.

Threyna said they were coming through the tunnels! They couldn’t turn back. They couldn’t wait them out. Their only option was to run, and hope to be amongst the lucky few to escape the Order’s justice.

Below her, a handful of shapes descended the stony crags. Pursued by a group of sword and arcanatek-wielding Justicus, they’d never make it out.

“Hide if you know what’s good for you,” her father’s voice said, taunting her from the past. “That’s all you’re good for.”

Ignoring him, she grit her teeth, and leapt from the ledge. Wind rushed past until she landed atop the back of the rear-most legionary.

In a flail of steel and limb, the man crumbled beneath Laela’s gravity-aided attack. She flung off his plumed helm, grabbed the hair on the back of his head, and slammed his face into the stone path. Shoving herself off of him, she slashed twice at the backs of his legs, severing his tendons. A blood-curdling scream tore from him as she kicked the arcanatek free from his hand and ripped the sword from his grasp.

Two other legionaries turned to face her, standing shoulder to shoulder with warbling blasters trained on her, but three more pursued the Wraith refugees. Silent as a shade, deadly as a hellhound, Laela charged at the men taking aim, swords in either hand. The first fired. Bright radiant energy spotted the dark horizon, but Laela lurched left.

The blast sizzled past.

The second fired, but Laela spun, slicing through the air to close the distance. She backslashed with her stolen left sword, swiping the nearest blaster away, then followed with a diagonal chopping forehand. Her blade carved down atop his shoulder, cracking bone. As he fell to her blade, Laela torqued, ducking and thrusting to stab her left sword into the second legionary’s gut.

They fell like leaves of a tree withering in a Dreadroot’s grasp, but Laela didn’t stop to survey her carnage. Neither wound would hollow quickly; that meant no immediate risk of adding a hollowed or a darkling to the mix, allowing her to cleave a path for her people’s escape.

The fallen’s screams would alert the Order that not all of the Wraith’s flock were sheep.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, girl.” Her father’s voice grated her nerves.

Sidestepping a large rock and leaping over the trunk of a rotten tree, Laela ran, hoping to make up the distance. The Order gained on the party of Wraith refugees faster than she could catch up.

“Hey!” she shouted after them, hoping to distract them from their prize, but these weren’t the poor farmers or shepherds who’d taken up weapons to join the Underground’s hopeless war. These were trained soldiers, true fighters.

The first arcanatek blast hit a woman in the back. Her scream ripped through the night worse than any shrieking darkling. Something flew from her arms as she toppled to the ground. Two other shapes turned to help, but the legionaries’ steel cut them down for the attempt. They stabbed repeatedly, making sure if they hollowed, they wouldn’t be able to move, while the other charged an irradiator in the event of a darkling.

A little girl screamed.

No… Laela watched her father burn, Rance get stabbed through the gut, and her mother run into the darkness only to vanish in an explosion of light. She would not let this little girl suffer too.

Laela let out a battle cry, demanding any brave enough to stand against her. All three legionaries turned towards Laela. Slowing to face them, Laela began to pace left and right, pointing her sword at them. “Fight me.” She glanced past the men in Order blacks to the little girl behind them shaking her mother. Alive, but stunned from the irradiator’s blast, she wouldn’t be able to run yet.

Go… Run. Leave her.

Even as she thought the words, she knew the little girl wouldn’t. Just as Laela never would have left her mother if it were up to her.

“Leave them,” Laela spat at the legionaries, buying time. “Fight me. Unless you’re too afraid to fight someone who isn’t running away.”

Her father tsked at her, but Laela ignored him and the burning scar across her chest.

Two legionaries charged toward her while the third recharged his blaster. Their swords were wet with the blood of two men who only ever wanted to live and die with Neutreen’s love. Laela would make sure they paid.

One legionary grinned, a snaggletooth jutting beyond his lip. The other, as stoic as a carving of Neutreen, advanced more hesitantly. Before they could make their move, Laela lunged between them, aiming her first thrust for Snaggletooth’s thigh, and her second swipe at Statue’s torso. Caught off guard by her aggression, they both blocked, assuming defensive positions, but Laela slipped between them and closed the distance on the legionary with the blaster.

Before he could pull the warbling trigger, Laela hacked the arcanatek in two. Her backslash opened his throat. Praying his darkling would stay trapped in his prison of a body forever, Laela planted her foot and lunged at Statue. To his credit, he parried and countered with a thrust aimed at her head, but Laela was better.

She ducked beneath the thrust, blocked a trio of Snaggletooth’s cuts, and riposted with a glancing blow to his sword arm. As the limb went limp, Laela lurched forward, stomping her heel into his toes and driving her shoulder into his chest.

Snaggletooth fell. Before he could hit the ground, Laela repositioned herself to face Statue. She blocked his overhead charge with both blades, and kicked him in the stomach. Then, before Snaggletooth could regain his feet, Laela thrust her sword into his chest. Statue stood, witnessing the carnage she’d dealt with as much expression as his namesake.

Behind Statue, the little girl helped the woman who’d been shot by the blaster to her feet. Laela breathed heavily through her teeth. It wasn’t enough. All throughout these wooded mountains, legionaries would be cutting down her people. She was only one soldier in a war against an undefeated army.

If the Underground fought with us to help us flee, then—maybe then—we could make it.

“If the Wraith quit trying to run and actually learned to fight back—” Laela walled off her father before he could finish. Yet in the absence of his heckling, hope dwindled. Doubt ensnared her.

Rage replacing her helplessness, she charged at the remaining legionary. Her first strike opened his guard; her second sent him off-balance. She leaned back to avoid his poor excuse at a defensive strike. Then she made her move. She struck him first in the thigh, next in the shoulder, and lastly through his heart.

Skewered on her blade, Statue finally proved he wasn’t a face carved from stone. His eyes welled as he opened his mouth to speak his last words. Blood dribbled down his lips as he fell to his knees, releasing his sword.

“Neutreen watches,” he said, an affront to everything Neutreen flew for. He interlocked his fingers together, leaving them extended. “But the One knows.”

Laela snarled. “You will be judged.” She ripped her blade free and slashed across his throat. Blood sprayed from the opened gash, showering her in viscera. Breathing heavily, she stepped backwards as a shade climbed from his body.

Behind her a slow, steady clap resonated off the mountainside.

“Splendid. Truly magnificent,” Belrich said, continuing his mock applause. “I must say I am impressed. Now that’s not to suggest that you haven’t been—hmm, how to put this—quite the Dreadroot in the garden? No, that’s not it. Hmm, quite the…oh yes, the dagger in the heart.”

Belrich stopped clapping. His gray-green eyes hardened to a ghoulish glare, but he continued to smile.. “Your mother put up quite the fight.”

Mother…

“My men managed to save her from the hollowed, but… I put a blade through her heart.” He pointed to the dead legionary at her feet. “Just like you did.”

If he wanted a reaction, Laela didn’t give him one. Not out of strength of will, but out of sheer shock. She felt rooted to the spot. Screams shrieked in the distance. Shades wandered in her peripheral vision, and a semicircle of Inquisitors and legionaries spread out around her.

Mother’s gone? She wanted to ask, to know the fate of her mother’s soul. She wanted to cry and mourn her suffering, but at the same time, she didn’t trust one hollowed word that came from Belrich’s mouth.

“And your stepfather,” Belrich shook his head, advancing. “Can I call him your stepfather?” Not waiting for a response, he shrugged, drawing nearer. “He put up less of a fight, but entertaining all the same. See, you never quite appreciate privacy until you’ve had a darkling worm through your thoughts, do you, Laela Velar?”

Laela swallowed. Somehow, he’d learned her name—her true name. Not Huron, her mother’s maiden name that she went by. The bloody swords in her hands wouldn’t win her this battle. Can the Order control darklings? If that was true and Belrich had sent darklings into her mother and Theodyn, there wasn’t a single secret she could keep from him.

“You have broken every law of our land, spat on each of Neutreen’s Tenets, and betrayed your guests—your prince. You should be impaled. Flayed. And still your punishment would not be enough. Every one of your Wraith renegades should be put in the stocks in the Gullies and left for the hollowed.”

His ghoulish grin flattened, becoming a hard line. “That can be your fate if you wish it, but I will offer you this alternative, once and once only. Refuse me and I will make you watch as I impale everyone you’ve ever known, but work with me…” He held his palms to the shroud of clouds smothering Rheynia and tilted his head. “Work with me and I’ll let you leave. All of you.”

Laela took a cautionary step backwards as he continued to draw nearer, but the rest of his henchmen surrounded her. The threats entwined with the offer, but she couldn’t take one without the other. Trust Belrich? Believe the Order? Yet even still, what other options were there? She tried to speak, but her voice croaked. She cleared her throat. “What do you want?”

Belrich’s smile returned. The stuff of hellhounds and nightmares. “It is quite a small thing, really. Of inconsequence as far as you and your people are concerned.”

A scream tore through the wooded mountains that even gave Belrich pause.

“See, this is the sort of travesty I would like to avoid. I don’t want you, Laela. I don’t even want your people. If you don’t wish to be in the Holy Dominion of Neutreen, don’t. If you don’t wish to stay here in Rheynia, leave. I know what you think of me—” He held his arms out to gesture towards his Inquisitors. “—of us. But I also know that we are not your enemy.” Belrich pointed south. The direction she and her people were heading. “They are. Your sister is.”

Equally as entwined as Belrich’s threats and promises of passage, Laela’s emotions warred. She knew her father had an opinion on the subject, but she kept him walled off. She despised Belrich, hated the Order, and, though he wasn’t wrong, agreeing with him made Laela’s stomach turn.

The cries of her people running from the Order sent chills down her spine. We’re only running because of the Underground. She gripped the hilts of her swords. “You still haven’t said what you want.”

Belrich’s grin spread, sharpening the cleft in his chin. “Just like your mother, to the point. I like that, but it is important to me that I make myself as transparent as a shade. In times such as these, all it takes is a little misunderstanding to set the world aflame.”

His eye twinkled as if searching to get a rise from her. The scar across her chest burned, but she wouldn’t let him see that he was getting to her. Every word he said was a carefully crafted tactic, and though he liked to hear himself speak, there was an intention. He’s stalling…

“See, I know you didn’t want to attempt to kill me. It was…Gatius? Yes, Gatius.” He shivered. “Heinous name. Seems he should be grateful we put him from his misery. But the truth remains—though he shared your standard, he wasn’t with you.” He referenced Laela’s Avengardian attire.

“He was an Undergrounder.” Belrich began to circle her. “Just like your sister. Half-sister. I suppose she never was much of a sister to you, though, was she? Truly a Dreadroot in the garden—see, now that works! She ruins anything she touches. Always has. Always will. Your mother knew it. Your stepfather feared. I know it. You know it.”

“You want the Blessing,” Laela said. “You think she has it?”

Belrich wagged his finger at her. “Laela, Laela, Laela. Don’t play coy.” His expression darkened. “I know she has it. And so do you. Maybe she has figured it out as well.”

Laela pursed her lips, recalling Threyna’s ear-piercing scream as the cursed artifact coiled around her.

“We know she’s here,” Belrich said. “Give her to me. We let the rest of you go.”

Laela’s fragile façade threatened to fracture. If it were such an easy trade, she’d be a fool not to take it. Her mother would never forgive her for giving Threyna up. How many lives would be saved by giving her to Belrich? Wouldn’t Mother care about the rest of us, about me? She knew the answer. But even still, her mother was gone. The Order stood in her way, and eventually, Laela planned on leaving Threyna anyway.

“No one left behind.” Rance’s words might as well have been a blight on her soul as bad as the Blessing was on Threyna’s.

Belrich stepped closer. “What will it be, Laela?”

Another harrowing cry erupted along the Spine, sending shivers down her neck.

Laela grit her teeth. Can I trust Belrich? Could I live with myself if I gave Threyna up? She imagined escaping Rheynia, arriving in Sansia to be greeted by Neutreen. Would she deny me my wings even if I brought so many back to her? But if she refused, there was no escape. She couldn’t fight Belrich, half a dozen Inquisitors, and just as many legionaries at the same time.

“Time is of the essence, Lady of Blades,” Belrich said. “Choose. Your sister or your freedom?”

Her father was inexplicably silent. She didn’t like making a deal with such a darkling either, but it was the hard choice leaders needed to make.

Laela opened her mouth to speak, but stammered. A shrill beeping replaced her words.

Suddenly, the void opened, swallowing everything in pitch black. Darkness devoured Belrich and his men, the rocky crags of the mountains and the safety of the dying woods beyond. Belrich shouted commands, and arcanatek whirred to motion, but something—someone—grabbed Laela around the arm and wheeled her around. Caught off guard, Laela couldn’t have resisted if she wanted to.

She was dragged away from Belrich. The wind of grasping hands, lunging blindly, rushed by her. Somehow, she managed to slip between them. Before she could question what was happening, the darkness abated, and the cloudy scene of the Spine returned.

“Run!” Aylenia released Laela’s arm.

Bewildered, Laela followed, glancing over her shoulder at the sphere of darkness left behind by the Nightfall.

“You prime?” Aylenia asked.

But still, Laela didn’t have words. Unsure if she’d lost the best opportunity she would ever receive, or spared an impossible decision with damning consequences, Laela did the only thing she could; she put one foot in front of the other.

Chapter 33: Hollowed Out

Dracus IX

Dracus coughed, ejecting dust from his lungs as he dragged himself along the wall of the tunnel. The rumble of the collapsing stone still rattled his chest. One step at a time, he hauled himself out of the tunnel and onto the overlook of the main cavern. He fell to his knees, crawling, coughing, hollowing further.

His shoulder ached from where a falling stone hit him. His throat screamed, stripped raw from breathing in debris. He’d feel like this for the rest of his miserable existence, which was only growing longer by the moment, and would stretch longer yet if Canton and Fawkes kept electing to try to hollow them all.

On all fours, he shuddered out trembling breaths as Fawkes and Canton carried Threyna beyond the tunnel’s mouth.

“Wake up, Threy,” Fawkes said once they set her down. “C’mon now, yer alright.”

No response.

Dracus hoped she was dead, but that’s not how it worked. No shade, no darkling, and she wasn’t trying to claw at the nearest breathing thing? Still alive.

“She’s fine,” Canton said. “She has to be.”

“She’s breathing,” Fawkes said, “but that rock hit her good.”

Dracus shook his head. “Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m gory ghostin’ fine.” He shoved himself to his feet, wincing. Clouds of dust descended around him as he brushed himself off.

Fawkes tilted his head at Dracus. “You prime?”

“No,” Dracus said. “I ain’t ghostin’ prime. Now let’s get outta here before they try findin’ another way in.”

Canton bent down to pick Threyna up.

“No.” Dracus shook his head. “Leave her.”

“Leave her?” Canton’s eyes practically jutted from their sockets. “Did you not see what she did?”

“I did. And now look at her.” Dracus pointed to the black veins snaking up and down her arm from the cursed bangle. “Look at you!” He referenced the slash across Canton’s forearm. “If I didn’t pull her out when I did, she’d still be in there fightin’ and you’d be daydreamin’ your trouser fantasies, wondering how best to ask her to join ya on Cybel’s Eve.”

Canton balked.

Dracus continued in a lower voice. “I know ya think she can make a difference. That maybe, if we band together, we can win… we can’t. We won’t. We never have, and we never will. Her father wasn’t enough, and she won’t be either. And now that that—” he pointed to the bangle around Threyna’s arm. “—has resurfaced, the Skeleton King will make sure—”

“The Skeleton King hasn’t been seen since the Battle of the Cut,” Canton said.

Dracus scoffed. Like that means he’s gone. “Neither has the Blessing. Mark me. It’s back. He’ll come lookin’. Worse, so will Belrich, the Tellers, and anyone else senseless enough to try to wield it. So unless you want to stay here and hollow, our best bet is to leave now. Mark me—anyone found here will go straight to the black cells for the Skeleton King to farm.”

Fawkes stepped beside Canton. “Dray, Skeleton King and Underground aside, we can’t leave her here. The Order—”

“Yer damn right, the Order. Which is exactly why we gotta get outta here. If we quit jawin’ and get a move on, we might catch Rosler and Taggart. We get on those ships and get off this rock.”

Canton shoved past Fawkes to level his finger at Dracus. “You’re not just talking about getting on the ships. You’re talking about stealing one, aren’t you?”

The condemnation in his voice would have hurt, but Dracus had enough other hurts to distract him. He rolled his eyes, tossing his hands to the cavern ceiling. “You’d rather go to the Grip and watch Laela try to lead the Wraith away from Octarius? Do you not remember what Arilette’s capable of? Ya think she’ll let us leave after all the work she did to make sure we’d end up on this path? Blood and bone, Cant, she burned her own father alive. She poisoned—”

Dracus cut himself off, tasting the Valefyre all over again. He stammered, unsure how to continue without telling Canton the truth.

Behind Canton, Fawkes nodded, encouraging him as he had time and time again to do exactly that. But he couldn’t. Armed with the truth, Canton would use it as an argument to stay and fight. I can’t, Old Boy. I won’t.

“I knew it.” Threyna sputtered, rolling onto her side.

Dracus groaned. As much as she’d spared him from having to answer, her being awake presented a wealth of new issues.

“You’re all liars,” Threyna said, staggering to her feet. “Every last one of you. ‘You have my word.’ I should’ve known better.”

Threyna made for the stairs on wobbly knees. Canton followed after her.

Dracus hung his head.

“Tell him,” Fawkes whispered. “Tell him the truth. Trust him to make his own decision.”

Just like that, Dracus was transported back to Salingard a lifetime ago. The Artificers’ thief had taken power coils from three of the biggest depots from Drake Point to Bheric’s Hollow, hoping to reignite the Artificer's War after the fall of Victarius Kaine. Dracus had caught him. Not Nerus, not Decimus—Dracus. Another stripe on his pauldron. Another chapter in his storied career. Cavus Kruso would finally meet his end.

Dracus shook the thoughts away, pushing past Fawkes to follow Canton and Threyna down the stairs to the cavern floor, Fawkes on his heels.

“Threyna, where are you going?” Canton attempted to help her down the stairs, but she shrugged away from his touch. “Slow down.”

“Slow down? Slow down! You have slowed us down for ten years. Ten years we could have stood together, worked together, fought together. Blood and bone, we could have won this war by now, but you’ve wasted a decade trying to run away instead—”

Dracus grabbed Threyna by the back of her tunic and spun her around to jab his finger into her collarbone. “You wasted a decade of our hard work. You didn’t just slow us down—you stopped us.”

“I wish we wouldn’t have,” Threyna said. “Truly. Because what good is an army that won’t fight? What good are soldiers who turn and run when blood comes to bone? You say Canton was trapped in his trouser fantasies, but what about you, Dracus? You’re the one who pulled him back. You’re the reason I had to fight them all by myself, so don’t you dare think for a single moment that I owe you a hollowed’s shriveled—”

Dracus held the flat of his index finger against her cheek. “You don’t owe me? Let’s ask the hellhounds I saved you from, eh?”

Threyna wrenched free of him. “Go hollow out, Dracus. Oh…” She cupped her hand to her ear and leaned toward his chest where his silent heart refused to beat. “What’s that? Sounds like you—”

Dracus grabbed Threyna by the collar. “Don’t. Say. Another word.”

Threyna drove her elbow through Dracus’s wrist, tearing herself free of his grasp. Without a second glance, she spun on her heel and stalked away, leaving Dracus to clutch his forearm as pain stretched up his wrist. Had he been amongst the living, it wouldn’t have bothered him. He would have shaken it off; it might have ached for a bit, but it wouldn’t throb for the rest of time. But that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t living, and he would feel it for the rest of his miserable existence..

Gripping his wrist, Dracus could only snarl at Threyna’s back as she descended the stairs.

Canton sucked his teeth at Dracus before grumbling and chasing after her. “Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m going south,” Threyna yelled, her voice echoing throughout the cavern. “Like I said I would. Because unlike the Wraith, the Underground keeps its promises.”

Canton chased Threyna down the stairs and across the cavern to the southern tunnels. As Dracus and Fawkes reached the cavern floor, Dracus grabbed Fawkes’s shoulder.

“She’s gonna lead us all to a tragedy,” Dracus said. He chewed his mustache. “I know you want me to tell ’em the truth. I know it don’t seem right to take the ship for ourselves. I know it ain’t fair. But I know how this ends, Old Boy, and it ain’t good for any of us.”

Fawkes scrunched his bearded face. He took a deep breath, but his eyes flicked toward Canton and Threyna, marching back towards them.

“Order’s crawling all over the southern pass,” Threyna said as she stormed ahead of Canton towards them. “Where’s the entrance to the Gullies?”

“Does that mean you’ll come with us?” Canton asked.

“No,” Dracus and Threyna said simultaneously before exchanging a heated glance.

“I’m going to work around the Order and find my ghosting sister,” Threyna said. “You can get your precious boat and sail away for all I care.”

“Fine,” Dracus said.

“Fine,” Threyna sneered. “Lead the way. And for all our sakes, how about we keep our mouths shut?”

Chapter 34: Prisoner of Promise

Laela XIII

They ran. Laela struggled to keep up with Aylenia’s long legs though she was taller than her. Weaving through the dying woods, climbing over and through crags, they avoided the Order when they could, and cut through them where they had to. Together, they’d seemingly outrun the legionaries. For now.

Panting, Laela sheathed the sword she’d held onto after letting her other sword go. Not having a second scabbard to holster it, she wasn’t willing to let it slow her down. She hoped another of the Wraith would pick it up in her wake; Neutreen knew they’d need steel if they were to make the journey south. Order and Underground aside, there were more terrors in this countryside than any were likely prepared for.

It had been ten years since she’d traveled above ground for any length. Only the Justicus were equipped to handle the hollowed and hellhounds roaming the countryside, and only the Tellers were foolish enough to try doing so without arcanatek. Now, she wished they hadn’t collapsed the Underground’s tunnel through the Spine nearly a decade ago; it made sense at the time, but the Underground still managed to learn their secrets and plant a saboteur within their ranks anyway. Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere, sucking down air on her hands on her knees, while Aylenia stood over her.

To make matters worse, Aylenia was barely breathing heavily. Hands on her hips, and looking as if she’d just climbed a set of stairs rather than running for her life up and down a mountain, she made Laela feel like a child. Sweat dampened her brow, making her dark green eyes glisten.

“Now that’s a soldier,” her father said, looking for any opportunity to put her down. She quickly resealed her Center of Silence, closing him out. Yet she found herself admiring Aylenia anyway.

“How?” Laela said through labored breath. “How are you not…”

One of Aylenia’s dark brows dipped until there was no space between it and her eyelashes while the other raised halfway up her forehead. “If this is the setup for some Palogian Islander joke, spare me. How? Because I train.”

Laela wasn’t trying to make a joke about Aylenia’s heritage, but she took an affront to Aylenia’s insinuation. “You saying I don’t?”

Aylenia shook her head. “You’re not this ignorant, are you? Hmm, maybe you are. You were considering making a deal with Belrich Fayte after all.”

“I—”

Aylenia held her hand up. “What—were you looking for an escape?” She snorted. “If that were true, you would have seen me trying to get your attention. Certainly would have made my part easier, but you were too busy trading Threyna for a lie.”

Laela growled, but there was truth in Aylenia’s condemnations.

“Wouldn’t have worked,” Aylenia said with a shrug. “You saw what her father did with the blood magic. If you think Belrich and a few Inquisitors will be able to take her now, then you don’t know ripping anything about her.”

Laela hmphed, but again, Aylenia was probably right. Either way, she didn’t need a lecture from an Undergrounder. Finally catching her breath, Laela stood to scour the woods. There should have been more Wraith ahead, or bringing up the rear, but the only movement through the fog was the gentle sway of dying branches in the breeze.

“Will you admit it?” Aylenia asked. “About Threyna.”

Laela bit her lip, but stepped up to Aylenia to gaze down at her. “I was weighing my options, yes. That’s what leaders must do.”

Aylenia smirked in self-righteous indignation. “Your own sister.” She shook her head. “She figured you’d try to sell her out, but you barely made it ten steps outside of Aranoc. I thought you’d at least make it to Octaven before having second thoughts.”

Laela’s lips curled back in a snarl, but before she could tell Aylenia off, someone squealed in the distance. Their cry cut short. Barely a breath’s span passed before Laela and Aylenia were shoulder to shoulder with swords drawn, staring into the fog.

Without speaking, Laela nudged Aylenia’s elbow and nodded in the direction of a thick tree trunk. Together, they sidestepped towards the tree and out of the center of the clearing.

Dead leaves and rotten branches crunched underfoot. A dozen footsteps drew closer. Laela gestured her head to the south, suggesting they run, but Aylenia shook her head.

Laela clenched her teeth. The scar across her chest burned. Her father screamed while he burned alive. Her mother disappeared into the bog, only to be caught and stabbed in the heart by Belrich. She gripped her sword. Be strong. Be courageous.

“Watch out, more Dreadroot there,” one said.

“Keep your ghostin’ voice down,” another hissed.

Laela recognized those voices. Stepping beyond the tree, she called out, “Redge, Tarus?”

Emerging from the fog with blades drawn—Redge, Tarus, and a group of refugees from Aranoc strode forward. Some limped. Others clutched themselves, still on high alert from the tunnel’s collapse and the Order’s attack. Aside from Redge and Tarus, those who held weapons didn’t appear like they knew how to use them. Faulty grips, awkward postures, and quivering lips didn’t typically translate to sound soldiers.

Laela let out a relieved sigh. “You made it.”

“Some of us,” Tarus said. “More ahead, more behind, but we can’t wait.”

Redge stepped ahead of the rest of the group, curved daggers in each hand. “I won’t take another step until you tell us the actual plan. The real one.”

Laela wrinkled her nose. Maybe he’d heard about her intention to break from the Underground’s tether once they reached Fort Cybel, maybe he hadn’t, and that was his problem, but speaking of it in front of Aylenia wasn’t going to happen. “As I said, we’re going south. We can discuss the details on the way, but—”

“No,” Redge said. “Now. Not another step. This whole situation has the Underground scribed all over it. Convince me this isn’t the Underground’s plan. Convince me you’re not their puppet.”

Laela had enough to worry about without anyone questioning her authority. Yet those standing behind Redge and Tarus seemed curious enough to follow his line of questioning. Though she’d lowered her sword, she squeezed the hilt.

“We don’t have time for this,” Aylenia said. “You don’t want to take another step, fine, wait for the Order to come.”

“Spoken like a true Undergrounder.” Redge eyed Aylenia up and down, his lip contorted in apparent disgust. He stalked toward her, daggers pawing forward like razor-sharp claws. “I don’t know you. Does anyone? Course not. Who wouldn’t recognize a—”

Aylenia leveled the tip of her sword between Redge’s carefully plucked brows. “Choose your next words carefully, Redge.”

“Enough.” Laela lowered Aylenia’s blade and inserted herself between the two. “We’re going south.”

Redge inhaled sharply. “To our ships or Octarius? What about Rosler and Taggart?” He jutted his chin forward as if to assess whether the names meant anything to Laela. “You sent them east. I need to know—we deserve to know; are we heading towards salvation or destruction?”

Flustered, Laela tried to search for a means of shutting Redge up while still assuaging his concerns. Before she could, Aylenia chortled, biting her lower lip.

“Blood and bone, you really are a darkling,” Aylenia said to Laela. “Threyna was right not to trust you.” She shook her head. “Shame on me for actually believing in you.”

“See?” Redge said, jabbing his dagger in Aylenia’s direction. “Undergrounder! What’s the truth, Laela? We deserve to know.”

Seeing no other option, and having already wasted too much time as it was, Laela relented. “Fine. It’s true. The Underground planned to trap us, to give us no alternative other than going to them for protection.”

Aylenia threw her head back.

“I agreed to their plans,” Laela said. “But I arranged for an escape.”

Redge nodded, and others began to murmur amongst themselves. As always, Tarus’s mysteriously blank expression provided no inkling as to his inward thoughts.

“That’s just gory ghosting perfect,” Aylenia said. She reached for the arcanatek on her ear, but before she lifted her arm half way, Laela positioned her blade in Aylenia’s path.

“Take off the arcanatek,” Laela said. “Take it off and give it to me, or lose your hand. Try anything, and it’ll be your head.”

Aylenia smiled. Her amusement took Laela aback, but she hoped Aylenia wouldn’t be foolish enough to test her. Slowly, Aylenia removed the cuff from her earlobe and tossed it to Laela.

Laela caught it. Part of her wanted to keep it. It was unbelievable technology that could revolutionize the world, but she didn’t know what it was capable of. Would the Underground be able to track it? Would the Order? She couldn’t take the chance.

Between her thumb and forefinger, Laela squeezed, bending the soft metal until it snapped. Aylenia winced, but could only seethe through her teeth. 

Redge glared at her before turning his attention back to Laela. “You think she’ll let us leave?”

Laela bit her lip and gripped her sword. “She won’t be able to stop us.”

“I mean Arilette,” Redge said.

Tarus, typically stoic, practically flinched at her name.

Laela understood. Ten years ago, she’d ruined their lives. And every day between the Battle of the Cut and today’s sabotage of their escape, she’d made everything harder than it needed to be.

“No,” Laela said. “No, she won’t let us leave. But we won’t let that stop us.”

Laela gazed at Aylenia. The shape of her eyes, the disbelief in her grin, how the curve of her cheek flattened into the trim line of her jaw… Laela wished Aylenia glared back at her. Her hatred would have been more palatable than her betrayed disappointment. But like so many things in this cursed world, she would have to bear the burden of it.

Laela nodded at Redge and Tarus. “We’re getting off this cursed island. One way or another. And you…” She fixed Aylenia with a hellhound’s stare. “You are not the Wraith’s guide. You are our prisoner.” 

Chapter 35: A Hill to Hollow On

Threyna XIV

Threyna’s blood thundered in her ears and flushed her cheeks, but black veins stretched like rotten vines out of the bangle. Up and down her left arm, the corruption snaked. She hoped with time it would dissipate, but even after they’d spent hours worming their way through the Gullies, the rot had only managed to stretch further.

The green glow of the Viridite walls along the Gullies illuminated their path, but it cast her in a ghoulish hue that only made the black rot stand in starker contrast. She examined the bangle. It had clicked after she had conjured the blood blade. She’d done something, released something. But whether that was a good thing or not, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to worry about it.

They’d already found trails of fresh blood left in the wake of the shipbound party Laela had deceptively sent ahead. Severed limbs, the black blood of the hollowed, and discarded weapons littered their path. There was no telling how many of the Wraith had left on Laela’s mission, or how many were still pursuing it. Hollowed tended not to stay in one place too long, but one thing was clear; not everyone Laela sent was still alive.

Ahead, Canton dragged his feet. Fawkes’s gait lilted to the left, his broad shoulder occasionally brushing against the Viridite crags. Despite the length of the day, the emotional tax she’d had to pay, and the scars left behind by the battle in Avengard, the bog, or Aranoc, she didn’t feel tired.

That must be the blood magic too.

There was so much she didn’t know about her abilities. The Blessing seemed to have a mind of its own. She’d felt it stir when Laela attempted to pry it off her arm. If she hadn’t shoved her away when she did, there was no telling what it would have done. But one thing was certain; she could not let Laela lead the Wraith away. Her father had fought and nearly won all by himself, but he wasn’t enough to defeat the Order. If she wanted a different outcome, she needed help. As much as she hated to admit it, Laela and the Wraith were the Underground’s best hope and she couldn’t let them abandon rank just because Laela didn’t trust Arilette.

“You’re sisters…” her mother had said. Threyna only wished that counted for something.

Fawkes stumbled. Canton caught him, keeping him upright.

“We should rest,” Canton said, looking back at Dracus and Threyna. “Been too long on our feet.”

“The ships,” Fawkes said. “We need to catch up before they leave without us.”

“Do you think Rosler and Taggart are making better time?” Canton asked.

Dracus grumbled. “Yeah, you wouldn’t mind if they left without us, though, eh? Then we can stay and fight a losing battle, right?”

“Dracus,” Fawkes said. The two exchanged weary expressions.

Threyna didn’t have time to stop. Canton might not have cared if they got on the ships or not, but she did. If she was going to have any way of catching up to the Wraith and stopping Laela from betraying the Underground, she’d need to get out ahead of them. The only way she could ensure those ships didn’t carry the Wraith away from Rheynian soil was to make sure she was on one.

“Stop if you want,” Threyna said, “but those ships aren’t leaving without me.” She shoved past Canton and Fawkes to continue through the Gullies.

Dracus scoffed. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“I just need a moment,” Fawkes said, leaning against the walls glowing with the sun’s stored rays.

Threyna didn’t look back. “I can hear heartbeats now. I’ve got a better chance of finding your people than you do.”

Dracus grumbled something to Canton and Fawkes before he came hobbling and wincing after her.

Threyna rolled her eyes at his approach, but didn’t slow. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to burn your ships, and I don’t care if you leave.”

Dracus hmphed. “You don’t care? And you call Laela the liar. If that ain’t the shade calling the darkling dead, I don’t know what is.”

“No, I don’t care,” Threyna said, increasing her pace so that Dracus struggled to keep up. “You’re three people—two if we’re only counting the living ones.”

Dracus growled. “Keep yer ghostin’ voice down.”

“...and if Arilette let you go the first time, then I’m not about to try convincing you to stay,” Threyna continued, ignoring Dracus. “Better luck putting darklings back into a broken soul jar then getting Dracus Alius not to turn cloak.”

“Me the turn-cloak?” Dracus guffawed. “That the story she’s tellin’? She let me go? Ha!”

Threyna didn’t want to hear it. She approached a fork in the crags and turned left.

“Wrong way,” Dracus said.

“Like you’d tell me the truth anyway,” Threyna snapped, continuing down the leftward path. She held up her bangled left arm. “Just like you told me the truth about this? Or about my father?”

Dracus hustled to get close, then grabbed her by the blackened wrist and whipped her around. “I know yer ghostin’ mad. Ya even got the right to be. Hate me if ya want, but I haven’t lied about everythin’. And I’m not the worst of the liars in your life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dracus took a deep breath. “Your mother wrote letters. She loved you, Threy, whether you wanna believe it or not. She’d stamp the wax with a little dove, even though she never knew why yer father called ya that in the first place.”

Threyna bristled. A dove of House Fayte. Though the truth of her ancestry stung, it hurt half as bad as the knowledge that she’d never hear her father call her that again.

“I’m tellin’ ya, letters were sent,” Dracus continued. “So if you never received ‘em, who did? Who told ya that I left the Underground?” He spat on the ground and cleared his throat as if he’d swallowed a weevil in his bread. “Arilette didn’t let me leave.” He pointed to his chest. “How ya think I hollowed?”

Threyna chewed the inside of her cheek but remained as silent as the still heart in Dracus’s chest.

“All I’m sayin’ is—what are you fightin’ for?” Dracus asked. There was an honesty in his dark eyes, a solemnity in his sullen expression, but he wouldn’t understand. How could he?

Her father had left the fatekeeper, the source of the blood magic, to her. Even her mother had said with her last words, “Divided, ruin will reign, but united…”

Threyna pursed her lips. “I’m fighting to defeat the Order, the Skeleton King, and any other tyrant who’d enslave the world under their dominion. And I can’t do it alone. No one can. United—”

Dracus tossed his hands in the air. “There’s no winnin’ this. Even if ya could, you’d just put another tyrant in Saltspire. Please, Threy, forget this war. Join us. Leave with us.”

“Why do you care what I do?” Threyna asked. “I already said I don’t care if you stay or leave.” She narrowed her eyes. “Wait, what will happen to you if you go beyond the curse?”

Dracus chewed his mustache. “I’ll die. A true death. Dead and gone… I hope. But this ain’t about me. Canton’ll follow you… wherever you go. You fight, he’ll fight. You leave, he’ll leave.”

Threyna hmphed. “Strange hill to hollow on…”

“It’s the best I got,” Dracus said. “I got my darklings, you got yers. So I’ll ask ya one last time; for Canton’s future, for your mother’s and father’s sake, will you leave with us?”

Threyna didn’t want the blood magic. By fate, chance, or because everything in Rheynia was cursed, it came to her and dug its fangs into her arm. But now that it had, she’d be damned not to use it to defeat the Order. “My father wanted this.”

“Don’t give me that. He wanted me to have it. He wanted me to fight.”

Threyna took a deep breath. “I suppose we’re all fortunate he didn’t get what he wanted then. No. I won’t leave with you. I’ll stay. I’ll fight. And if the Skeleton King comes for me, I’ll fight him and kill him.”

Dracus shook his head. “It won’t be enough.”

“You’re right. I’ll need help. But I don’t need your help.”

Dracus sniffed, nodding past her. “Fine. Go. But leave now. I’ll say you went scoutin’ ahead. Blood and bone, if there’s any ghostin’ god that’ll listen, may our paths never cross again.”

Threyna shook her head. Without another word, she spun and left the coward in her wake. The fabled Dracus Alius, the youngest Premius in the Order, the battle-hardened commander who’d collected the most souls of any Justicus and single-handedly closed out the Artificer’s War, was nothing more than a coward.

She didn’t need him or his lies.

She’d make sure the Wraith couldn’t escape Rheynia. She’d deliver them to Octarius. They would stay and fight with the Underground as they should have during the Battle of the Cut. United, they would win, cleanse the curse, and together they’d usher in a new regime.

She set off into the Gullies alone, sinking into her Inner Throne and listening for heartbeats. But as she advanced further, questions arose about her mother’s letters, Arilette’s version of the truth, and whether or not the Wraith’s help would even be enough to clear the stocks against the Order. She clenched her fists at her side, one blackened by rot.

Can’t trust a darkling, can’t trust Dracus. “Go hollow out,” she said to the narrow crags.

A reverberation echoed faintly in her Inner Throne. Heartbeats. She could sense them, but they weren’t heading east as she expected. They were around her. Above her.

Threyna peered upwards through the gaps in the crags to the gray clouds above. Though the green glow of the Viridite shone eerily off the shroud of clouds overhead, something else illuminated the sky.

Shades. Lots of them.

Knowing what followed behind them, Threyna ran.

Chapter 36: Rest Is For Corpses

Laela XIV

One step at a time. Laela trudged forward, her feet dragging, but onward nonetheless. They hadn’t slept. With Belrich tailing her and the woods crawling with hollowed, staying still was a death sentence—only worse. After a short rest, Laela, Redge, and Tarus led the others on their journey south. They had found other groups of refugees along the way until their numbers were over fifty. Laela tried to learn the names of those who followed her.

Freyan, who’d joined the Wraith after she’d lost three children to dewskull. Landus, who’d once served as a medicus in the Underground before defecting to the Wraith. Taylas, whose last surviving son was taken by the Order collectors and never saw or heard from him again. They each had a reason to want a new start. They all had dreams of a future far from the pain they’d endured. She wanted to hold a special place for them in her heart, but by the time they’d found the fourth group, the names and faces began to blur together. In her exhaustion, she couldn’t commit any to memory.

Laela held the lead bound to Aylenia’s wrists, but despite appearances, she wasn’t a prisoner. Bound by thin straps of torn fabric that would struggle to keep a paddock door closed on a windy day, Aylenia walked in silence. If she wanted out, she would have little trouble, but for some reason, the Palogian woman Laela had known as a child went along with the farce. Though it gave Redge and the other Wraith who feared traveling to Octaven hope, Laela knew Aylenia was only biding her time.

We still have to bypass Octarius. Whether we’re in bindings or she is, we’re going in the same direction.

“Maybe you should quit running and fight,” her father said.

Laela ignored him and tugged the lead around Aylenia’s wrists. Aylenia scowled.

“Who is your mole?” Laela asked for the tenth time. She couldn’t conceal the fatigue in her voice any longer.

“Don’t know,” Aylenia said. “Can’t liars always tell when someone else is lying?”

Laela might have taken the bait if she had the energy, but she pushed past it. “You knew we wouldn’t be escaping.”

“Because that’s what we were told.” 

Same question. Different answers, same result. “There’s a wolf in wool here,” Dracus had said. On the run from the Order with the Underground likely waiting for them ahead, now she needed to concern herself with the notion that Aylenia wasn’t the only one in their group who didn’t want to flee Rheynia.

Their procession stopped as a groan resonated down the line.

What now? While Laela elected to bring up the rear of their procession, she sent Tarus and Redge to lead from the front. People identified Tarus as Verinius’s Sword, and others seemed to appreciate Redge’s outspoken demeanor, but by the reaction to this latest stop, they might as well have been the Order’s Collectors coming to take their boys, crops, and supplies.

“Come on,” Laela said, tugging Aylenia forward to see why they’d stopped. Aylenia didn’t grumble half as much as those they passed.

Hope was an ephemeral flame. It sparked to life with each group they found, but was quickly doused by the impossible march they continued upon. These frequent stops didn’t help.

Through the night, they’d trekked along the Spine, nearing the Cut, many with arms full of food, clothing, or various other supplies. Although she had instructed people to take only what they could carry, some goods—specifically arcanatek, low on charges or broken as they were—were still too valuable to leave behind. Loaded onto carts and sent with the first groups to depart Aranoc, the arcanatek likely wouldn’t make a difference if it came to a fight, but it gave people hope. Hope that if they encountered hollowed, Order, or Undergrounders, they could defend themselves. Hope that if they made it beyond the curse, they would have the means to aid their new beginnings. Yet that hope came at a cost.

Sure enough, while Laela and Aylenia neared the front of the procession, a group of men were assisting Redge in shoving a cart that had gotten stuck on a rock back onto all four wheels.

“Leave your scraps,” Aylenia said. “It won’t be worth it where we’re going.”

Laela inhaled through her teeth, but she couldn’t argue. If they made it beyond the curse to Neutreen, she would provide them with everything they needed. They wouldn’t require the Savior’s gifts to fend off hollowed or grow crops. They could live off the land as Neutreen intended. However, that wasn’t what Aylenia meant. “We’re not going to Octarius. So keep your mouth shut before I have you gagged.”

“Gag me then,” Aylenia said. “Because someone should be telling the truth around here.”

Laela seized Aylenia by the arm and dragged her forward.

“Can’t we just leave it?” a man asked through labored breath as he and the others attempted to free the cart. His messy gray hair clung to his sweaty brow.

“And let the Order have it?” a younger man asked, attempting to tow the cart. Laela couldn’t remember either of their names, and she was too tired to try.

“Better that than our lives,” Elisara said. Or is that Onaren?

Arguing broke out. Tired, frightened, and overwhelmed, tensions were too high to ignore.

Redge released the cart with a growl that caused everyone to go silent. His too-neat brows pinched in a scowl as he strode towards her. “We need to rest.”

She wanted to. Ghosts, she’d have traded a ship for an hour of sleep, but every moment they rested, Belrich gained on them. Every step they didn’t take separated them from Sansia. She looked up to the overcast sky. Surrounded by tall dead oaks that refused to fall, this was as good a time as any to rest.

“Rest is for the corpses,” her father said.

“Why won’t you leave me alone, then?” Before he could respond to her, she put up her walls, blocking him out.

“Fine,” Laela said. “We’ll rest, but don’t let anyone get comfortable.” She turned to the train of refugees behind them. “Give the order, but assign watchers for our flank.”

Redge nodded and addressed the refugees. The groans of relief waved through their party at Redge’s words, but like any bit of joy in Rheynia, it wouldn’t last—it never did.

“We shouldn’t stop.” Tarus appeared at Laela’s side like a hollowed in the Gullies, seemingly spawning from the shadows of the woods.

“Blood and bone,” Aylenia said. “Where did you come from?”

Laela stifled her own surprise. She didn’t want to stop, but Redge was right.

“Leave the scrap, but we needa keep moving,” Tarus said, not even acknowledging Aylenia’s existence.

“We need rest,” Laela said. “But then we’ll need to make up ground before the midday rains. We’ll take only what we can carry. Travel light.”

Aylenia scoffed. “You’ll listen to him…”

Now was Laela’s turn to ignore her. “Short rest.” She nodded at Tarus. “Can you watch her?” She handed Tarus the lead to Aylenia’s bindings. She mumbled something under her breath, but Laela was too tired, too heartbroken to care.

Laela separated herself from the group, returning to their flank. She needed quiet. She needed to pray. After finding a wedge between two gnarled roots with a thick trunk to lean against, she squatted down. Her legs ached as she nestled between the exposed roots, but she was relieved to have pressure off of her feet. Lying back against the trunk, she gazed at the clouds over Rheynia, lightening with the dawn of a new day.

We should have been in Sansia by now.

The knowledge pained her. They should have been free. Safe. But they weren’t, and they wouldn’t be. How many have we lost to even get this far? How many more will we lose before we reach the Grip?

This was Threyna’s doing. All because she didn’t want to accept that her father was gone.

Laela had lost her own father. She’d watched as Arenius had him staked to the hull of the ship he had burned. Her father wasn’t a good man. Perhaps not a bad man, but certainly not a good one. He deserved his punishment. He had earned it. It hurt to watch, but she owed it to him. She didn’t throw herself on the pyre just because he was willing to die for what he believed in. No, she wanted to live for what she believed in.

Threyna’s father wasn’t like her own. She recalled Theodyn giving her True, one of the two twin daggers he had made when Threyna was born. It was still tucked in her boot, and had saved her on more occasions than she could count. “You’re as much a daughter to me as she is,” he’d said. She’d never believed it. He might have loved her as his own, but she never wanted another father.

As different as the two men were, they were both willing to die for what they believed in. They died wanting to fight a losing war.

How different would things have been had he not agreed to fight at the Battle of the Cut? Threyna never would have run away. Maybe in time, we would have actually become like sisters.

The thought soured in the space between her mind and her heart, because where Laela listened to her father’s screams as he hollowed in the fires he started, Threyna refused to let her father go to his end. Instead, she’d condemned hundreds of people to a terrible fate…

“Fight for more. Dream for more.” The prayers of her mother’s fatekeeper kept her from sinking into despair.

Reaching into a pocket within her britches, she pulled out a match. Unsure if she’d be able to get it to light after her voyage through the bogs, she needed to try. She grabbed the feather pendant beside the empty fatekeeper and held its flinted edge to the match’s head. After a few failed strikes, the match lit.

Puny really, the small flame did little to fend off the gloom of the dying forest or the dark thoughts swirling around her, but tendrils of smoke rose from the flickering light to carry her words to Neutreen—wherever she was. With the match in one hand, she held the stocks with the other.

“Neutreen, judge me. Have I not languished in your name? Have I not shared your blessings with all who abide in your Tenets? If you find me a glutton where you’ve called me to practice moderation, deny me my wings. If you find me prideful where you’ve called me to practice modesty, deny me my wings. If I have overstepped my place within your measure, deny me my wings. If I have not provided to your people and have failed to earn my merit, deny me my wings. But if I have been faithful, answer my prayers.

“See Rosler, Taggart, and the others safely through the Gullies. Shelter them beneath your wings and defend their mission to help deliver your flock back to you. See the rest of us safely beyond the Order’s grasp, past the Underground’s clutches, and deliver us to Sansia. Please, Neutr—”

The match blew out. The fog devoured the smoke, denying it from carrying her words to Neutreen’s ears. Dejected, she turned her attention back to the camp. Already, their relief had dissolved into muttered complaints. She supposed she should be grateful they weren’t bickering. Give people any amount of idle time and they’d soon find a commonality to grumble about. Oddly enough, at least they were united—even if it was in lamentation.

Something stirred towards the camp’s flank.

Laela stood to gain a better perspective, but the fog was too thick. Heading back toward the others, she stopped as the crowd parted, moving out of the way of a lone shade. As mutters grew, so too did the swell of light emerging through the fog.

Another shade entered their camp. Then another. More shapeless motes of light approached through the fog in the distance.

The scar across her chest burned. She inhaled sharply, but all she smelled was charring flesh. She shouted, but all she heard was her father’s taunting voice.

The Order…

“Run!” Laela shouted. “Leave everything and run!”

Chapter 37: Out of the Soul Jar

Dracus X

Dracus dragged his feet back toward where he’d left Fawkes and Canton, partially because it alleviated the impact on his aching soles and partially because if he showed up without Threyna looking as chipper as he felt having sent her away, he’d catch an earful worse than Decimus ever gave him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. At least then Decimus and I were on the same side. Dracus couldn’t imagine leaving Rheynia without Canton. He’d sworn he’d get Canton off of this rock. Swore it to the ashes of Canton’s old man, to Arenius before he burned, to Fawkes, Theodyn—anyone who would listen. But now they were all hollowed or worse; only Fawkes remained, and he actively tried to convince him to let it go.

“To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to lose all we’ve come by…”

“Stupid song. What kinda lullaby is that anyway?” But he knew the answer to that. The kinda lullaby to prepare a kid born into a haunted world that he’d have a haunted life.

Dracus quickened his uneven gait, motivated to get back to the others and make sure their hellish existence at least had a happy ending. But as he neared where he’d left them, they weren’t there.

A nearby hollowed growled.

Eyes wide, Dracus crouched, surveying the diverging paths through the Gullies. He cursed to himself, knowing he never should have split from them, but it was too late for that. Drawing his short sword as silently as he could, he crept along the wall’s shadows.

Couldn’t’ve gone far. He peeked down one crevice then another. A loose stone skidded down the crags, descending from above. Each bounce of the pebble might as well have been a warbling blaster. Dracus held his breath, waiting for a horde of hollowed to come out of nowhere to chase the rock, but the Viridite walls’ glow was enough to keep their attention. Not wanting to know where the stone had come from, he glanced between the gaps in the limestone-green walls that led to the gray shroud over Rheynia.

Straining his ears, he listened for any sign of motion above. When he heard none, he continued moving down one of the branching paths Fawkes and Canton could have taken.

They’d have come lookin’ for me… unless somethin’ got in their way.

A gurgle coming down an adjacent path stopped Dracus midstride. He pulled up just in time to put his back to a rocky outcropping as half a dozen hollowed staggered past. If they saw Dracus, they gave no indication, but more were coming from the same direction.

Backtracking, he slid between a tight crevice just as several snarling hollowed turned down his path. Not having time to hope they didn’t see him, he wriggled his way through the crag. As he emerged on the other side, there were more roamers stumbling down another path and heading northeast as if intentionally cutting them off from their ships. Their limbs were bent at odd angles—not enough to stop them from ambulating, but enough to slow them down.

Another group of about half a dozen.

Dracus held his breath and waited for them to pass before he returned to the shadows. Taking care to be as silent as his dead heart, he advanced, heading east towards the shore and hoping Fawkes had the sense to do the same.

A flare from above, the sound of dragging feet and droning drivel. The shade passed over the crevice overhead, but the hollowed chasing after it dropped right into Dracus’s path. It bounced off each of the walls before landing with a sickening crunch on the ground. Bone broke through decrepit flesh. Black ichor oozed thick and viscous from around the wound. The hollowed screamed, but already, another was falling on top of it. Then another.

Blood and bone. Sword in hand, Dracus cut south. He didn’t have time to fight his way through a horde in the narrow passes, not while Canton and Fawkes were—

A scream tore through the Gullies, reverberating off the walls to tear the night asunder.

Canton?

Dracus spun towards the cry from the east. Not bothering to look up, he charged toward the yelling. It didn’t stop. It wasn’t the short, sharp burst of surprise or the roaring shout of a battle cry—this was the sound a man made as he watched his intestines get ripped from his gut.

Three hollowed blocked his path, but they were stumbling toward the sound of the screams too. They didn’t even notice Dracus. Not when he slashed across the back of the first one’s ankles, the second one’s knees, or even when he rammed his sword through the back of the third, shoving it to the ground as he trampled over it.

Dracus didn’t have a heart, but he could have sworn it was pounding in his ears. Not Canton. Not Fawkes. Not Canton. Not Fawkes. He charged through an intersection, his caution thrown to the Grotto, and turned northward in the direction of the growing shrieks. He didn’t know how much of whoever it was would be left, but Dracus needed to know either way who owned those hollowing screams.

A pair of fresher hollowed emerged just ahead of Dracus. Originally intent on following the excitement, the hollowed took notice of Dracus and sought to add screams of their own making to the Gullies’ haunting choir. Teeth grit, hilt choked, Dracus charged between the two. When one reached for him, he cleaved through the arm, dropping the severed limb to the ground. The hollowed, fresh enough to still bleed, screamed. Dracus followed the downward chop with a slice across its face. With a pivot, he thrust his steel through the second hollowed’s chest, kicked her away, and then spun, slashing at the first hollowed’s head. The poor bastard must have had dewskull, because Dracus’s blade cleaved through it in one fell swoop.

The half-headless hollowed crashed into the wall. The one he kicked buckled to the ground, but they’d both be back up. With the screams growing louder, Dracus didn’t bother to clip their ankles. He ran toward the cries, fearing what he might find. As he rounded the corner, he screeched to a halt.

A dozen hollowed climbed over one another to tear at a screaming red splotch between them. Blood painted the Viridite walls crimson. The hollowed themselves were drenched in gore. Dracus’s lower lip trembled. There was no way of telling who the poor soul was.

A firm hand gripped Dracus’s shoulder. He spun around, sword poised, but Fawkes stood opposite him. Face pale aside from the blood spatter freckling his cheeks, Fawkes managed a nod and gestured with his head to follow. Canton stood behind Fawkes.

No words were needed. The hollowed weren’t tearing through flesh to get to Canton’s soul. Whoever it was, Dracus thanked him. Before he could let out a sigh of relief, Canton whispered.

“Where’s Threyna?”

Unable to consider a reply, Dracus was spared when a group of hollowed fell into the Gullies from above, crashing to the ground and blocking their path east.

Fawkes waved him south. Dracus chewed his mustache, contemplating if they could fight their way through. He didn’t want to run south. Without a ship, they’d be stuck traveling through Octaven and hoping Laela managed to outmaneuver Arilette. He’d be stuck trying to convince Canton that fighting wasn’t an option.

As if Rheynia wasn’t cursed enough, more hollowed seemingly fell from the sky, landing atop one another in a mess of snapping jaws and flailing limbs. With a grunt, Dracus abandoned the eastward path and followed Fawkes and Canton south.

◆◆◆

After navigating the narrow crevices and steep crags, it turned out escaping the Gullies was the easy part. The Order patrolled the Spine. Legionaries armed with short swords, Justicus equipped with arcanatek—it seemed all were assigned to make certain the Wraith did not escape.

The fog that cloaked them offered little comfort. Though it concealed their slinking, it also prevented them from seeing those searching for them.

“Stay close,” Dracus said to the others. “If we get split, head for Fort Cybel.” He didn’t want to go to Fort Cybel. Didn’t want to join with Laela, the rest of the Wraith, or their Underground escorts, but after being cut off from the ships, that was their best chance for survival. He only hoped Rosler and Taggart managed to slip through to the ships. Otherwise, getting to Fort Cybel would only bring them out of the soul jar and into the irradiator’s blast.

Hiding behind a bramble of dead Dreadroot, Dracus waited until a group of legionaries, wearing the badge of the Second Legion, passed before waving Canton and Fawkes westward.

The Second Legion was once his. Now they were hunting him.

Ghosting Nerus, that bastard.

Had he known the Order’s numbers would be so thick through the Spine, he would have taken his chances with the hollowed. He understood the hollowed. But monsters like Nerus were another story entirely.

As they went the opposite way as the legionaries, the ground became softer the further they snuck from the limestone of the Gullies, but it only served to slow them down. Over fallen trees, under hanging vines, and around Dreadroot brambles, they crept through the forest in silence.

Hellhounds howled in the distance. Arcanatek warbled, but whether they were aimed at fleeing Wraith or the undead, it was impossible to tell.

Once seemingly away from immediate Order threats, Canton grabbed Dracus’s arm. “Where’s Threyna?” The cut of his brow and the scowl he wore did little to distinguish him from the hellhounds.

Dracus’s nostrils flared. “Not now, Cant.”

“Not now—when? Did you just leave her?”

Dracus glanced at Fawkes, but Old Boy wasn’t coming to his defense. He scoffed. “Ya think I’m some kinda hellhound? She left us. I was tryna stop her.”

Canton grunted. “Bet you tried real hard.”

Dracus prepared a rebuttal, but a twig snapped, too close for comfort. Spinning in the direction of the sound, he positioned himself between it and Canton.

Green slits for eyes floated through the fog, drawing nearer. Several others encroached in a semicircular pattern around them. Hellhounds.

Moving slowly, Dracus reached for the hilt of his sword. Canton and Fawkes did the same, but before any of them could draw, the first hellhound pounced. Bared fangs launched at Dracus’s throat. Unsheathing his sword and striking in one fluid slash, Dracus’s blade sliced across the ghoulish predator’s neck before it crashed into him. With a grunt, he threw the mangy beast aside just in time to skewer a second attacker through its open snout.

Fawkes finished stabbing one hellhound and flung a meaty backhanded fist at another attempting to take him from the side. Canton hacked at another’s ribs until it was as unrecognizable as the screamer in the Gullies.

Only one more remained, snarling at them, preparing to strike as the rest of its pack struggled to get up. Areas of matted fur exposed the corrupted flesh beneath. The rotting husk of what was once a small wolf or a large coyote snapped its teeth.

Don’t do it, ya ghoulish mutt. Don’t—

It did. Extending its bloodied claws and opening its maw of rotten teeth, it leapt at Canton’s back. Dracus gripped his sword with two hands and spun. With a grunt, steel met rotten flesh. Bone and cartilage crunched beneath the force of his blade, diverting the hellhound’s attack. It hit the ground with a thud a sword-length from Canton’s back.

“Oy! Over there!”

An illuminator cleaved through the fog, revealing the green pauldrons of a Tribunus in Nerus’s legion. Behind him, a wall of legionaries in their Order blacks snapped to attention.

“Blood and bone,” Dracus said. “Run!”

Caution to the wind, mutilated hellhounds in their wake, and a wave of warbling arcanatek chasing after them, they ran. Dracus led the way, legs churning, feet squishing through the murky lowlands at the base of the Spine. Despite the poor footing, Canton’s long legs soon overtook him. In a footrace, the kid could outrun anyone, but he just needed the sense to run and not to fight.

He looked over his shoulder. Fawkes was lagging behind. The Order was gaining on him. Dracus cursed to himself. They’ll let them go if they get their hands on me… It wasn’t a perfect plan; Canton might not listen long enough to let him stay behind. If he were caught, there was no way Canton and Fawkes wouldn’t come back for him. But those circumstances were better than this one.

“Canton, hold up.”

Canton slowed, and Dracus grabbed him by the collar.

“Don’t argue. Don’t question. You and Fawkes. Fort Cybel. Trust me.”

“What are you gon—”

“No questions!” Dracus shoved Canton as Fawkes caught up to them. “Go!”

Fawkes looked back at him but knew better than to argue. He and Canton disappeared into the fog, the Order closing in from behind. Scanning his limited visibility, Dracus charged up the hill, heading south east making as much noise as he could.

C’mon. Follow me, ya bastards. Willing himself onward through the pain of his affliction and past the dark thoughts swarming like darklings, Dracus shouted over his shoulder. “You know who I am? I’m Dracus ghostin’ Alius. Ya hear me?”

His whole life, he’d resolved not to wake sleeping hellhounds, not to poke the distracted hollowed. But in eternal undeath, he’d do just that to keep the living alive and well.

His legs burned as he summited the hill and continued further south. The Order gained on him, shouting at his back, charging their arcanatek as if the rumors they’d made about him were true.

He entered a clearing and stopped short. He’d been here before. Dracus, Arenius, and Theodyn had pillaged a Viridite caravan heading from the Gullies to Saltspire. He scanned the surrounding trees, searching for the entrance they’d taken back into the Underground’s southbound tunnel.

Past the trunk of a fallen tree, a wide stump with a gap between the roots called to him with the promise of succor. He could run, hide, and wait out the Order. They’d never find him, and it would be too late for them to resume their pursuit of Canton and Fawkes.

With the clamor of the Order closing in on him, he crept toward the entrance to the tunnel. But as he took his next step, his shin brushed up on something that didn’t belong there. Stopping in his tracks, he bent down to find the trip wire with his finger.

He blinked, not knowing if stepping away would cause whatever was rigged to blow. Taking a deep breath, he stepped backwards, releasing his finger. Nothing happened.

Blood and gory bone. That was close.

“Don’t move!” a legionary shouted behind him.

Dracus chewed his mustache. Out of the soul jar, into the ghostin’ irradiator.

Chapter 38: The Blessing’s Ire

Threyna XV

Chased. Cornered. Trapped. Threyna’s path east was cut off by hollowed falling into the Gullies from above. Turning northward, she hoped to circumvent them, but she only found more and had to retreat west. Now she had been turned around more times than she could count, and her sense of direction had corroded, as rotten as her blackened veins and as desperate as the screams that tore through the crags.

Part of her hoped it wasn’t Canton, Fawkes, or Dracus. Another part of her couldn’t afford to care. Despite the rot spreading up and down her arm, she decided she’d spent enough time in these cursed Gullies. Visualizing the conjurations she wanted to create, claws formed from her fingers and toes. She kicked into the Viridite walls, searching for purchase. As her claws took anchor, she climbed the smooth stone, hand over hand, toward the surface.

Once she was outside the maze and atop the mountains, she could conjure wings as her father had. She could fly to Beak’s Bay and intercept the ships, making sure none reached Talon’s Grip to lead the Wraith away from the Underground. Ignoring the fatigue in her arms and the heavy throb in her chest, Threyna crested the vertical Viridite climb and spun to orient herself.

A dense fog had settled over the Gullies. The shroud practically reflected the green glow of the Viridite as opposed to illuminating it, limiting her visibility to only a few paces before her. Letting her claws crumble to ash, she listened from within her Inner Throne.

Heartbeats deadened the silence around her, not exactly close, but their vibrations reverberated in the inky black vines that snaked around the pillars of her Inner Throne. Yet something else was there. Closer. Not quite a heartbeat, but the absence of one. She’d felt the same strangeness near Dracus, similar to the sensation of knowing you’re being watched without seeing anyone.

Her natural senses filled in the blanks of what her Inner Throne offered. The scent of rotting flesh, the low growl of ruined vocal cords—hollowed. Hollowed everywhere.

If they knew she was there, they gave no sign, but she didn’t see how she’d be able to navigate out of this. Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, Threyna imagined the wings that sprouted from her father’s back, the depiction of Neutreen’s feathers that every good Elysian prayed for.

Dark capillaries weaved through her hand, blackening her fingertips, but the wings of a great bird emerged from her back. Amazed at what she was capable of, Threyna flapped her newly formed wings and jumped into the air. Ignoring a growing ache in her chest, she took flight.

Wind and fog rushed past as she climbed higher and higher into the sky. Then, through the veil of fog and the shroud of clouds over Rheynia, she ascended to the heavens. Thousands of stars stared back at her. A moon she’d only seen the light of glowed brighter than any arcanatek illuminator she’d ever seen.

She felt like she’d left the dead and undying world behind and transcended life itself to the world beyond the curse. Suspended in the cool night air, flapping her wings, she wished the moment could last forever.

But nothing in Rheynia lasted. Only the dead.

The ache in her chest constricted like Dreadroot around her heart. She grabbed at her chest, but she was already falling. Her wings began to disintegrate, trailing ashes behind her. The moon’s beauty died as she plummeted down into the shroud of fog.

Threyna drew in a choked-off breath and willed her body to move. Her fading wings flapped, attempting to slow her fall. But they continued to melt away as her descent, more gliding than flying, carried her back towards the hollowed wishing to devour her and the Order looking to capture her.

The pain in her chest gripped harder, crumbling the walls of her Inner Throne until Threyna couldn’t take it any longer. She released her Inner Throne and her hopes of being able to slow herself down.

The ground fast approached. Trees whizzed by. Brambles reached their greedy limbs for her feet. Wings all but gone, she was a slave to momentum.

Unable to stop, unable to move, Threyna hit the ground hard. Impact slammed into her shoulder. Her world spun. Pain lanced from her back around to her sternum. Her leg struck something hard and unforgiving, sending her toppling in a new direction. Brush scratched at her exposed skin until momentum’s abuse relented, leaving her face-down, still in the mud.

Afraid to move, daring to draw breath, Threyna attempted to steady her swimming vision. She rolled onto her back, still clutching her chest. Her peripheral vision narrowed. If the moon existed, if the stars were ever real, they denied her now. Tall figures loomed over her, but as her consciousness waned, she couldn’t tell if they were trees blackened by undeath or men in Order blacks.

Chapter 39: Lucky

Dracus XI

The Order came with the steady march of assured victory. Any man still clinging to life should have run, but Dracus retained nothing so precious. The longer they spend on me, the more time Canton and Fawkes have to escape.

He smirked, standing before the trip wire. “Took ya long enough.” Dracus raised his hands in surrender, taking care not to glance at the entrance to the old Underground tunnel in the knotted tree roots. “Ain’t easy runnin’ on these old knees. Coulda done me the favor of chasin’ me down before I climbed the damn hill.”

Turning around slowly, he met the face of the man who ruined him. The one who, in many ways, set him on this doomed path. He might not have been sustained by the blood of children, and he might not have given the command to have Canton’s village burned, but he was the one who hollowed Canton’s parents. Perhaps if they were still alive, Dracus could have dumped the kid on them and been on his way. Maybe then he coulda been the weapon Arilette wanted instead of the protector Canton needed. Then he never would have threatened to leave the Underground. She never would have poisoned him. He’d still be able to taste the sweetness of food, sleep like he needed to, and, by Neutreen’s nads, he’d even be able to heal the minor bruises and scrapes that now plagued his existence.

The aches and pains he’d accumulated faded to a dull din once Dracus laid his eyes on the villain. The former Third Premius—now the Second, behind only Decimus—strode between his men to the front of the Order’s lines. His grin spread above his square jaw as if he and Dracus shared a past of more than blood, bone, and ruined souls.

“Darkling Dray,” Nerus mused. “I always knew we would meet again, but my, my, you’ve seen better days, old frie—”

“Spare me.” Dracus glared. The First Cohort of the Second Legion fanned out around him, trapping him. They drew closer, but not close enough. He resisted the urge to glance at the trip wire. Not yet.

“Do any of ya know the truth ‘bout me?” Dracus asked, stalling. “Don’t tell me ya actually believe this ‘possessed by a darkling’ bit?” He scoffed.

Arcanatek and swords drawn, they advanced on Dracus and the Underground’s trip wire.

Almost there…

“Ya think I got taken over by the darkling of Victarius Kaine?” He forced a laugh. “Why else would anyone possibly wanna leave the Order? Surely no one of their own volition, eh?”

“Drop the act,” Nerus said, his grin from moments ago crushed between his flat lips. “Sure, that was the story told to the hamlets, but we know the truth. Everyone knows the truth. You couldn’t handle it. So you ran.”

Dracus blinked. His breath, still tight from his attempt to outrun the legionaries, withered in his chest like hollowed’s flesh. Everyone knows… He shook his head. “Yet ya stay?” He glanced from Nerus to his Tribunus, then to the rest of the First Cohort.

Some had the grace to at least avert their eyes. Some swallowed their shame out of either their fear of reprisal or their misguided belief that perhaps the Skeleton King was a necessary evil to maintain the civility of Rheynia’s chaos. But most only stared. Blank. Emotionless. Soulless, as if they’d been vortexed and were just empty shells of humans.

They all know. And yet they still follow. Dracus shook his head. “Then I’m afraid I got no choice.” He pulled Fang, his Vendetta dagger, from his belt. “You’re all gonna have to die.”

Nerus and his men shared a laugh, closing the distance on Dracus. Dracus supposed it was funny and let out a chuckle himself. Nerus was only a few strides away from the trip wire.

“Not this time, old friend,” Nerus said as he and his men advanced. “It’s the Final Demise for you. Then we’ll find your lover. We’ll find your boy. And they’ll get it the same as you.”

Dracus snarled. Taking care to step over the trip wire without making it obvious, he backed away from the encroaching legionaries. “Come and try.”

If he turned and ran and the arcanatek’s blast wasn’t overly large, he might just be able to jump clear of the cliff. He’d have to be careful not to break every bone in his body in the fall down the hillside, but if he was lucky… Lucky?

“To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to lose all we’ve come by. The lucky, we fall. And the misfortuned, we cry, but forever and ever, it is we who survive.”

Dracus seethed through his teeth, wishing he’d stop trying to remember this cursed song, but hoping the lyrics held enough truth to see him from this fate. Fang in hand, he backed away, glancing to the hillside and a potential escape from Nerus and his legionaries.

“You might take out a few of us, but you won’t win, Dracus.” Nerus stopped before the trip wire. He held out his hand to signal his men. At once they halted, and Dracus’s still heart lost whatever hope he’d clung to.

“Certainly not to our own trap.” Nerus let out an amused sigh. “You didn’t really think that would work di—”

Dracus hurled Fang end over end at the trip wire. A low beep indicated he hit his mark. Spinning, he ran for the cliff, trying to put as much distance between him and the whirring arcanatek.

“Ghosts!” Nerus shouted. “Take co—”

Light exploded behind him. A concussive blast hurdled him through the air. Trunks cracked, branches splintered, and Dracus hit the ground. Covering his head with his hands, he didn’t bother to look in the direction of the shrill shrieks piercing the air behind him. A gust of wind too powerful to be anything but an arcanatek dried out his eyes. Even still, he couldn’t do anything but stare at the cliffside he didn’t make it to, hoping it wouldn’t be his last failure. The trees not obliterated by the blast and illuminated by the radiant light cast their ghoulish shadows around him. They reached for him, threatening to pull him into whatever underdark was worse than the curse of Rheynia.

Finally, the light winked out. The rush of wind faded. Somehow, only silence was left in its wake.

Disbelieving he’d managed to escape unscathed, Dracus patted himself down. No blood. No exposed bone. Somehow, the blast had missed him completely. He turned back to the trip wire and surveyed the scene.

Bodies lay silent. Still. Eviscerated by the radiant energy of the arcanatek’s explosion, the bodies offered no shades, no darklings. Yet they remained motionless. Not hollowed. Gone.

A reaping bomb.

The perfect one-two punch—a vortexer and irradiator blast within a singular device of desolation. Dracus couldn’t believe his eyes at the destruction one mine could do. Decimus had been experimenting with such technology years ago, back when Dracus wore the green pauldrons of office. Once, it wouldn’t even work on a single target, but now, two dozen legionaries were dead. Gone with the severing of a trip wire.

Dracus’s empty stomach churned at the thought of what Belrich could do with such technology. Underground doesn’t stand a chance. Do they even know about this?

Just another tally in the long list of reasons why they couldn’t take this fight. Threyna’s blood magic and Canton’s defiance be damned, there was no winning against the Order even if the Skeleton King was gone.

For better or worse, the blast fired in the opposite direction of him. Dracus was still alive, still fighting, still playing this cursed game. He pushed himself to his feet, eager to put as much distance between him and the death he left in his wake, but he couldn’t leave yet.

He stalked back to the trip wire and pulled Fang from the ground. Resheathing it, he stared at the wide-eyed expression of Nerus’s corpse. It didn’t feel fair—for Nerus to be gone and at peace while Dracus was still here, suffering in undeath. “Ya don’t deserve it. Ya got off easy, ya twisted bastard.”

He spat on Nerus’s face. “That’s for Canton.”

He stomped his heel down on Nerus’s nose. Bone crunched and blood leaked, but his surprised expression remained the same. “That’s for his da.” He stomped down again. “His ma!” He stomped down again and again, no longer taking the time to dedicate each strike.

Eventually, breathless, Dracus stopped. He smoothed out his mustache with his thumb and forefinger, then straightened his tunic. He didn’t bother to look at what was left of Nerus’s broken face. He didn’t glance back as he stalked off, dragging his right heel to get Nerus’s brains off his sole. He marched forward. To Canton, to Fawkes, to Sansia and the sweet embrace of a true death. He’d survived. He’d move forward. He was lucky.

Chapter 40: How It Ends

Laela XV

Tarus had warned her. She hadn’t listened. Laela cursed herself for stopping to rest. Behind her, shades seemed to emerge from all directions. If she bothered to stop and managed to ignore the pumping of her heart in her ears, she could probably hear the guttural groans of the hollowed following not too far behind. Fearing another trap like the one the Order had set at Caius’s Bog, Laela tore between the dying trees and bound over the decomposing brambles, shouting for her camp to leave everything and run.

Most people didn’t bother to look and see what Laela was screaming about. A lifetime in Rheynia hadn’t conditioned them to ask questions. The fatigue that made them stop to rest in the first place evaporated, replaced by a flood of adrenaline. Panic gripped the entire encampment in a chokehold. Spurred into motion by Laela’s shouting, people ran.

The carts that had slowed them were left, forgotten. Abandoned. Supplies littered the ground before her, creating stumbling blocks that threatened to trip her flight to safety and cast her to the hollowed’s snapping maws. Weapons, arcanatek, blankets—everything was left in lieu of retaining the most important thing in Rheynia: life.

Laela’s warning reached the front of the encampment. Praying that Redge or Tarus took the lead so they wouldn’t just run into a dead end in the Spine, Laela also worried that the Order would be waiting for them at any possible escape. With no time for such thoughts, Laela, bringing up the rear of the procession, glanced over her shoulder. 

The encroaching shades were everywhere.

“This is how it ends?” her father’s voice asked, tinged with cruel laughter.

Laela swallowed the knot in her throat. Be strong. Be courageous. She shut her father out. “Stay together. Help each other.”

Her cry fell on deaf ears. Their tight formation began to spread as runners attempted to circumvent the people in front of them. Pushing and shoving to stay ahead of their pursuers, regardless of whether they had to climb over their brethren, the Wraith weaved through the craggy woods at a grueling pace. Yet still, they couldn’t create any separation between them and the growing number of shades that followed.

A terrible howl pierced the woods, signaling that the glowing harbingers had delivered their promise—hollowed were close, and drawing nearer. The shades were moving faster than Laela had ever seen; it was as if they were spirited by the wind in coordinated flight.

Sweat clung to Laela’s brow. Her chest tightened with a mixture of physical exertion and the strangling grasp of fear. Her calves protested the effort of traversing the growing incline, but up ahead, a valley cleaved east through the Spine. The width of their party reconverged into the confines of the narrowing pass. The combination of their merger and the steep incline slowed their party and allowed the shades and hollowed to gain ground.

Fearing a trap, Laela scanned the peaks overlooking the mountain pass. Half-expecting an ambush, her relief that nothing was there was cut short as a shrill cry split the din of trembling breaths and pounding feet.

Up ahead, the crowd divided like a stream around a boulder.

“Help! Please!”

A dozen paces in front of her, a woman clutched her lower leg with one hand while reaching for the people moving past her, asking for help. No hand took hers. No one offered help. They ran. Too scared to stop. Too focused on survival to offer aid.

With the scar across her chest burning as it did every time it felt like the world was going to blood and bone, Laela hustled over to the downed woman. She yanked her to her feet, but the woman collapsed, wincing with pain.

“My ankle,” she cried. Her strawberry-blonde hair clung to her cheeks, wet from tears. In her eyes was a wild fear that made Laela wonder how she’d found herself involved with the Wraith in the first place.

Laela glanced down the incline she’d just climbed. From the gained elevation, the horde of hollowed were visible beyond the shades. The slope would slow the failing tissues of the hollowed, but eventually, they would ignore self-preservation, climbing tooth and nail until they caught the shades or found something more interesting to sink their teeth into. If Laela left, this woman was as good as hollowed.

Grunting, Laela lifted the woman and slung her over her shoulder. She was lighter than she should have been, likely underfed for most of her life. She clutched to Laela, determined not to be cast off. No one left behind. She tried to convince herself that Neutreen was watching, that her valor would earn her merit in the goddess’s judgement, but all she could think about was the horde of hollowed stripping her flesh from her bones.

She climbed, losing pace with the Wraith ahead. The woman praised her, thanked her, but Laela wouldn’t accept her gratitude—not until they were out. Not until they were safe in Sansia. The ascent into the pass only seemed to stretch longer, growing in steepness, and degrading in footing.

Ignoring her aching back and the cramping in her calves and thighs, Laela drove one foot in front of the other. Ahead, again the narrowing procession of running Wraith split. This time, instead of them moving out of the way of a fallen woman, Redge charged back the opposite direction. 

“Move!” Redge shouted, waving his arms to separate the herd. He spotted Laela, his dark brows rising as he took in the scene of the injured woman on her back and the encroaching threat behind them.

Beyond him, Aylenia, no longer bound, followed close behind.

With no time to concern herself with Aylenia’s freedom, Laela beckoned for Redge to help. He glanced between her and the pleading woman, examining the way she favored her ankle.

“We can’t take her,” Redge said.

“No, please!” The woman’s tear-streaked face stretched long at the prospect of being left.

“We can’t leave her,” Laela grunted.

“I can make it,” the woman cried. “Don’t leave me. I just need help.”

“She’ll get us all hollowed,” Redge said. “The hollowed won’t tire.”

Laela was done leaving people behind. “Help me and no one will hollow.”

“Come on,” Aylenia said, scooping her shoulder underneath the woman’s arm. “You take that side.” Redge grunted, glaring at his fellow Palogian, but he did as he was told.

Happy that Aylenia took her side and Redge acquiesced, Laela trudged up the incline absent the woman’s weight. Despite her attempt, she was unable to regain her former pace. Breathing heavily, she nodded at Redge. “Who’s leading?”

Redge’s lips were pulled back as he breathed through his teeth. “Tarus.”

If he did in the beginning, Tarus handed off his duty to someone else. As they summited the incline to the flattened mountain pass, Tarus knelt beside a man and a woman fiddling with an arcanatek as if telling them what to do. Sparing a glance at Laela and Redge, he quickly returned to his work.

“Outta the way,” Tarus said, snatching something out of the man’s hand. “I’ll do it myself, or you’ll get us all hollowed.”

“What in all the blood and bone are you doing?” Redge asked, snarling.

Laela didn’t need to ask. They’d wedged an explosive into a crevice at the base of the taller northern peak. A fuse extended from it all the way to the detonator in Tarus’s hand.

“You wanna get outta here?” Tarus asked Redge, nodding at the wounded woman. “You wanna pick up every straggler? Sometimes ya gotta fight if you want a chance to flee.” He examined Laela, as if awaiting her approval even as he lectured her.

She balked. He could collapse the whole mountain pass. Even if we didn’t hollow, we’d be buried in stone. Not to mention, this would alert every cohort from Drakhardt to Octaven of our location. But behind, the hollowed grew louder. Nearer. Climbing the hill behind them with unrelenting ire, the hollowed would not give up once they traversed the pass. 

Tired of waiting, Tarus struck a match and lit the fuse. “Move.”

Panic surging through each beat of her heart, Laela and the others chased after the Wraith ahead and the promise of safety that waited on the opposite side of the pass. With stone underfoot, clouds overhead, and the echo of the hollowed’s haunting howls resonating behind them, Laela pumped her tired arms and legs.

She could practically hear the fuse burning as the sand of the time-turner slipped through the neck, counting away her final moments. She ran harder, praying that saving this one woman wouldn’t lead to each of their deaths.

For Mother. For Rance. For—

Thunder erupted through the mountain. The ground quaked. Stone screamed. And the world began to collapse all around her.

Chapter 41: Rot and Ruin

Threyna XVI

Threyna woke in a coughing fit. Her body jerked, but as she attempted to raise her hands to her mouth, she couldn’t. Blood flew from her mouth to land on a rug of swirling green and silver. Her chin fell to her chest and lolled side to side as the room spun around her. There were figures in the room. They spoke, but she couldn’t understand them as if her head was held underwater. Again, she tried to move, but to no avail. No stranger to pain, she groaned as nausea entwined with agony, unlike anything she’d experienced before. Her head throbbed, her ribs ached, and something awful burned along her arm.

Turning towards it, she found the skeletal mask of an Inquisitor staring back. The eyes, devoid of a soul, were fixated on something else. He jerked on her arm, sending spasms of short, sharp stabs into her shoulder to wrap around her ribs. She tried to tap into her Inner Throne, but a stabbing pain lanced from her fingertips to the center of her breastbone. Again, a storm of coughs rattled her body; blood and mucus climbed her throat with a fury that burned worse than Valefyre.

She spat, and though she aimed for the Inquisitor’s faceplate, her accuracy was limited by her vertigo’s inability to steady the room. Her head hung, too heavy to hold. Her eyes fell upon the stain she’d left on the green-and-silver carpet.

Black.

As rotten as the hollowed’s ichor was, what came from her was worse. The memory of how she’d arrived here returned in a rush. Her escape from the Gullies, the wings she’d conjured… the rot reaching her heart.

“Ugh. Vile.”

The voice, still distorted from when she’d slammed her head into the ground, came from behind her.

“Gag her. Or get it off before she completely ruins my rug.”

The voice became more defined, easier to recognize. Belrich strode out from behind her.

Agony, fear, shame, and guilt swirled like a tempest within her. But absent her Inner Throne and secured to a vertical post with ropes wrapping around her legs and torso while binding her hands behind her back, she was helpless. She was in a tent—large and spacious, with lavish silver-and-green tapestries and rugs with the dove of House Fayte at its center.

Threyna fumed, angry with herself for not listening to the signs of her limitations. She finally understood where she was, what was happening, and why the Inquisitor was tugging on her arm.

The Blessing.

She glared at Belrich, though her vision hadn’t quite settled. Despite his smile, the sharp line of his cheeks and the cut of his brow foretold of his true feelings. He pinched his chin, creasing its cleft as he paced the tent, circling around her like a hellhound.

“Do you need to be gagged?” Belrich asked. “Or can you do me the pleasure of not spitting on my rug?”

Threyna hocked and spat—not on Belrich’s carpet—but directly at him. It spattered on his chest, glistening wet and gooey on his black Order uniform. He narrowed his gray-green eyes. Crow's feet creased at the corners, but his smile remained.

“Hard to believe we share blood,” Belrich said. “Then again, your father did his fair share of spitting… before I took his tongue. Wasn’t much of a spitter after that. Or a talker, I suppose.”

Heat burned up Threyna’s neck to her ears. Anger sobered her vision and cleared her mind, but before she could speak, the Inquisitor yanked again on the bangle, attempting to pry its prongs from her arm. Threyna winced.

Belrich tsked. “What a waste. He could have saved himself a lot of pain. An eye, a nose. Fingers and toes. Oh, the fingers and toes. You wouldn’t imagine the songs one could sing once they have their toes tickled by my Inquisitors. I’ve heard just about every song there is to sing, but not a single one from old Bherus.”

He shook his head, still grinning as if the thought warmed his heart like Cybel’s Eve memories. “Pity, though. All that tickling, not a single song, and yet here you are. I don’t know if it’s better to say you handed it to me or you fell right into my lap. Flew too high, did you?” He wagged a finger in her direction. “I suppose Neutreen didn’t feel as if you’d quite earned your wings.” He pouted his lower lip. “Poor Threyna.”

Threyna shook with rage. “If you think you’ll get a song out of me, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Belrich guffawed. “A song… from you? Gory ghosts, no. I have no questions for you, and I care not for any song you’d sing. Songs are for the pretty birds, niece, not for the hellhounds. No, no. We have everything we need.” He gestured to the pointed bangle on her arm. “However, if you wouldn’t terribly mind, could you tell us how to remo—”

“I’m not telling you anything.” Threyna snarled. Though she couldn’t connect to her Inner Throne, the Blessing also seemed to be on the verge of snapping. She could feel it preparing to strike like a hellhound sinking into its haunches, but it was chained to a tree.

Belrich’s smile flickered like the brazier in the corner of the tent. “I was going to ask if you’d be so kind as to take your bangle off. It’s not quite my style. I’d prefer something more regal. Stately. Not something so haughty. So… boorish. But I’ll take it as is. I’d hate for my Inquisitor to have to cut your entire arm off.”

The Inquisitor grunted, getting up from where he knelt at her side. He stalked over to a bag of what looked like silver surgical tools, searching for something he could use to separate the cursed bangle from her flesh.

Threyna’s nostrils flared as she attempted to think of some way out of this mess. Her father had consumed blood, absorbed souls. If she could too, she’d have Belrich on a spit over a fire before a vortexer could charge. But absent her Inner Throne, she’d be limbless. Again, she tried to sneak into her throne room, but pain gripped her chest.

Helpless, she needed to buy herself time. Threyna glared at the Inquisitor as he returned with what appeared to be a file and a pair of tongs.

“You even spill one drop of my blood and I’ll shape it into a needle,” Threyna said. “I’ll sew your lips shut so I don’t have to listen to you scream. Then I’ll pluck out your eyes one by one. As you bleed, I’ll turn that needle into a dagger and make snacks out of your fingers and toes. Then, once you’re a right and bloody mess, I’ll turn my dagger into a sword and cleave your—”

“Gory ghosts,” Belrich said, appalled. “Your father’s daughter indeed. How, under Neutreen’s gaze, could we ever share blood?”

Threyna snapped her attention to her uncle. “Don’t you mean the One’s gaze?”

Belrich’s smile returned. “Oh, pardon me. How well informed you are. I suppose we’re no longer in mixed company. We can speak freely. Why don’t I tell you about the One and, while I have you here, why don’t you tell me about your plan with the Wraith? Clever plan of yours, sabotaging their escape, but it seems that half-sister of yours isn’t entirely hollowed in the head either. What will happen next, I wonder? Who will outwit whom?” He clapped his hands together. “What a fun little diversion.” Belrich’s grin only spread, more evil than the rot in her veins or the artifact embedded in her flesh.

The Inquisitor pinched her with the tongs before getting a grip on the Blessing. He pulled, creating separation, and slid the file between her skin and the inside of the bangle. The cursed artifact sensed it was being threatened, similar to when Laela tried to pull it off, but this time, the chained hellhound within promised that something bad was about to happen.

Threyna hissed through her teeth, returning her gaze to her uncle. “What do you want, Belrich? Yeah, you want this—” She jerked her head in the direction of the bangle and the Inquisitor attempting to pry it from her flesh. “—but why not hollow me? Why not vortex me and be done with it?”

Belrich let out several gales of laughter before dropping his hands to his knees to support himself. After slowing to a hearty chuckle and flicking a tear from his cheek, he put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Oh, Threyna. Dear, insufferable, Threyna. One day I pray you outgrow this recklessness. Well, I suppose you probably don’t have much time left… But there are too many uncertainties. What if the Blessing dies as you do? What if it lashes out to protect you?”

He shrugged. “I can’t take such chances. This isn’t the Underground where we can rest on the laurels of our mere lack of extinction. This isn’t the Wraith where failure is a necessary part of life. No. I am the Order. I am the future of Rheynia. I have waited nearly six decades for my time. If you believe I will grow hasty just because the summit is in sight, you are terribly, terribly mistaken.”

The Inquisitor attempted to lever the bangle away with his file. The prongs pulled, but their anchors held fast to her muscle.

“It is securely bound, Legatus,” the Inquisitor said.

Belrich’s grin returned. The sly twinkle in his eye caught the glowing brazier. “Take your time. We’ll be on the road to Saltspire by morning. Then, back at home, we can be more… diligent in our experimentations. We’ll show my niece here to the black cells and… I’m sure she’ll enjoy the farm, don’t you think?” He strode towards the flap and threw it open.

The soft patter of the midday rains began to fall atop the tent. Threyna cursed herself. She’d lost too much time. There was no telling where the Wraith was now. She hoped Aylenia had managed to lead them to Octarius, or at least communicate with Arilette. Maybe, if all hadn’t hollowed out, Aylenia and Arilette were looking for her right now, but she knew that was a fool’s hope.

“Tribunus,” Belrich called out into the rain. “Assemble ten Centuriots, fully equipped. No one goes in or out of this tent without my leave.”

He turned back to face Threyna. “Oh, darling, don’t look so glum.”

“Ten won’t be enough,” Threyna said, smothering her fear. “And call me darling again and I’ll—”

“Oh!” Belrich’s grin flashed. “Would you prefer I call you Lady Darkling like your Underground minions? Or, hmm… how about Little Dove?”

Heat rose to Threyna’s cheeks. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t trust herself not to cry. She could only glower. Scared. Helpless. Alone. She’d heard of the black cells and the Skeleton King’s farm. If she didn’t get out, she would end up like her father, or worse.

Belrich’s cruel grin softened into something that could almost be considered genuine. “I would say rest well, niece, but I’m afraid you will not.”

As a group of Centuriots filed into the tent, Belrich addressed them. “I’m inclined to warn you to be on the lookout for any Wraith, but…” He shrugged, glancing at Threyna. “Something tells me the First Sword has more pressing priorities than a sister she never wanted.”

Belrich exited the tent, calling for another of his men to bring him a fresh uniform as his had become, in his words, “soiled.”

Panic rising, Threyna eyed the new Centuriots and their commanding Tribunus, searching for any sign of open wounds she could draw blood from. If they had injuries, they were hidden behind their black uniforms, and, unable to tap into her Inner Throne without afflicting herself with more pain, she couldn’t risk searching for one.

With Belrich a safe distance away, the Inquisitor’s experimentations became less cautious. Squeezing the tongs, he yanked, attempting to dislodge the prongs from her arm. The chained hellhound within the Blessing howled, but it did not strike out. Blood bubbled down her arm. Black blood. Seeing an opportunity to help herself, she sank into her Inner Throne, calling to the blood. Just as it began to congeal into an arrowhead, pain throttled her. The rotten noose around her heart constricted. Ejected from her Inner Throne, she vomited, her body betraying her.

Tired, wounded, and powerless, she’d hoped this was the opportunity she was waiting for. For all of her earlier threatening bravado, there was nothing she could do to stop the Inquisitor from his experiments.

Laela’s not coming for me. Dracus isn’t coming for me. I sent Aylenia away. I let Rivich quit. Yevon hollowed. Ebrus is gone. No one is coming for me.

Isolation would kill her faster than the cursed magic that blackened her soul.

The Inquisitor pulled harder, levering the file against her skin. The gentle patter of the rain outside began to fall faster. Harder. Winds whipped the tent’s flaps, but the tempest within the cursed artifact thrashed. Like a hellhound, it raked its claws against the inside of her ribs, crying, fighting—not to be let free, but to be left in peace.

Threyna screamed in place of the spirit that had dug its prongs into her arm. Tears streamed down her face. “Stop! Stop!”

He didn’t. He wouldn’t. Her father had suffered in the Order’s care because he wouldn’t tell them where the Blessing was. Now they had it in their sights, and they wouldn’t stop until it was theirs.

Thunder rolled in with the midday storms, heading west, but the hellhound within the artifact howled louder. The Inquisitor levered the file harder. Pressure built in Threyna’s arm where the prong threatened to tear free of her flesh.

“Silence,” the Inquisitor said, straining from beneath his skeletal mask.

Threyna bared her teeth. A primal, savage energy rose from deep within her—a concoction of desperation, fear, and a longing to complete a task left unfinished. The chain holding back the hellhound yanked taut, but it would not give. Neither would the hellhound.

“Please. Stop. Please.”

The pain that coursed through her body when she had opened the arcanatek pendant Dracus had given to her so many years ago returned with a vengeance. The cursed and bloody artifact didn’t want to be taken. Clinging to her flesh, it refused to be removed.

The Inquisitor didn’t care.

Thunder boomed beyond the tent’s walls. Rain poured down.

The Inquisitor put his full weight behind the file, and something bent. Something snapped. Not the bangle. Not the file. Not the chain holding back the hellhound, but the tree it was attached to.

Blood spurted from both eyeholes of the Inquisitor’s skeletal mask.

Before Threyna could understand what was happening, she was falling. The Inquisitor fell as she did, and the surrounding Centuriots released panicked exclamations. She fell to the floor, unable to break her fall with her hands tied behind her back. She spun so her shoulder took the brunt of the collision instead of falling face first. Rolling to her back, the sky fell atop her.

Blackness surrounded her. The beam that she was bound to had cracked, dropping her and the tent’s ceiling to the ground, but while the legionaries struggled to free themselves from the tent’s fabric, Threyna crawled free of her wooden bindings. Her wrists, still secured behind her back by rope, couldn’t aid her escape. Squirming like a snake, she kicked her legs in an attempt to propel herself away from the legionaries and toward the tent flap Belrich had exited.

Half-expecting a full cohort of arcanatek-wielding Justicus to come storming toward the fallen tent, Threyna was surprised when she crawled from beneath the tent’s flap to find the rest of the encampment in complete chaos.

Rain poured. Thunder roared. Lightning pierced the dark veil of clouds to illuminate the camp. The legionaries were preoccupied. Darklings swarmed overhead. Irradiators whirred to charge, but darklings dove on viable hosts, eager to reclaim living flesh.

Absent the Inquisitor’s prodding, the bangle seemed content to rest; the hellhound within went dormant, returning to hibernation now that the immediate threat had been dealt with. Threyna attempted to tap into her Inner Throne. Be it adrenaline, the darklings flying over the camp, or the prospect of escaping a terrible fate, Threyna focused through the pain that came with returning to her Inner Throne and seized control.

Enthroned upon her seat of power, Threyna drew in breath as her father had. The sharp inhale wrenched a nearby darkling off its course and pulled it towards her like a soul to a vortex. The darkling left the physical world and entered her Inner Throne.

The stained-glass windows of her seat of power were sullied black. The torches in her court smoldered and smoked, but cast no light in her Inner Throne. Through the shadows, a dark wisp stalked toward her, preparing to strike.

Similar to when Yevon’s darkling had attacked her in Avengard, she felt the soul’s thoughts, feelings, memories, and emotions. Likewise, it attempted to weasel its way into her own past. Determined to keep it out, she resisted its prying. She stood from her Inner Throne and let the darkling charge. Just as it was about to collide with her, she sidestepped out of the way. Grabbing hold of it as if it had corporeal form, she threw the darkling into the back of her seat of power.

The darkling crashed into the stone seat and crumpled, falling to the floor. Threyna stomped on it. Once. Twice. A third time. It cried out. But it was not welcome here. She needed it to abate the rot in her veins, not to challenge her for superiority within her seat of power. Lifting it from the floor, the dark wisp held a face from deep within its smoky façade. A child’s face.

Pressure built around her as their thoughts entwined. The darkling was just a girl. A sad, scared girl. As Threyna sifted through the child’s memories, the emotions she’d died with magnified into something savage. Sadness because her father had hollowed in an attempt to protect the Roost, the last bastion of the Artificers’ rebellion. Fear because Dracus Alius would come again to hollow the rest of them. Together, the two morphed into jealous hatred.

Sad or not, scared or not, child or not—Threyna needed to remove the rot so she could fight her way out of here. It wasn’t fair. But nothing was. Neutreen be damned; justice didn’t exist. She drew in breath as she had in the world beyond her Inner Throne. The child’s darkling faded into a mist. As she inhaled, the darkling vanished; its dreams disappeared, its fears evaporated, and the soul dissolved to nothingness.

She didn’t know what to think. What to feel. But in the absence of such, all she felt was the child’s jealous hatred. Not for the living as the child had, but for the Order. Belrich. Dracus. Laela. Everyone who’d abandoned her.

The inky black staining the painted glass of her Inner Throne melted away, letting light into the gloomy court and flooding her once more with the abilities gifted by the cursed blood magic.

A resounding click accompanied her return to the real world beyond her seat of power. Barely a moment had passed, but the rot had retreated down her neck and up from her wrist, back towards her bangle. Somewhat restored but still thirsting, Threyna conjured a dagger into her hand and tore through the rope that bound her.

Now freed from her bindings, she searched for another soul to consume. Not seeing a darkling, she conjured a whip and snagged the leg of a nearby legionary. With a yank, she ripped him from his feet and spilled him to the mud. Unraveling her whip and shaping it into an axe, she gripped it with two hands and brought it down on the fallen legionary’s neck. His head rolled through the mud. Blood spurted past the severed vertebrae to pool in the ground.

As a shade emerged from the headless corpse, Threyna drew in breath. Unlike when drawing upon the darkling, the shade passed easier, dispelling more rot and purging her Inner Throne from the black ink that covered her walls.

Behind her, legionaries scurried from beneath the fabric of their fallen tent. Empowered, Threyna converted her axe into a scythe. In a wide sweeping arc, she cleaved across the bellies of the three legionaries in front. As they dropped to their knees, attempting to prevent their guts from spilling between their fingers, Threyna allowed the momentum of her slash to sweep over and around her head. Following the momentum and lurching forward, she sliced horizontally again. The two unsuspecting legionaries in her way didn’t have time to widen their eyes before their heads were tumbling through the air.

With five bodies around her and another five Centuriots and their Tribunus in front of her, she charged. Morphing her scythe into a curved blade more suited to the closer quarters, she hacked off a hand as it drew a blaster. Both fell to the bloody, rain-soaked earth. Before the neighboring legionary could defend his brother-in-arms, Threyna clipped the handless legionary at the knee and conjured a second blade in her off-hand. With a thrust, she speared the collapsing legionary through the chest.

She drew in breath to claim his escaping shade, blocked a thrust of another legionary’s short sword, and countered with a vertical swing. The bloody blade split his chin and divided his lower jaw in half. He fell to her like a sapling ensnared in Dreadroot. Conjuring and consuming as she was, the rot danced up and down her arm, ebbing and flowing like the tides.

The marriage of power and corruption embraced within her veins. The shades sacrificed themselves to her on the dais of her Inner Throne. All around her, the Order’s men fell one by one, and whether she had to rip their essences from their hollowed forms or bend their darklings to her will, all bowed. All submitted.

The Tribunus stood before her, the last of the men Belrich ordered to watch her. His vortexer warbled in his shaky hands. Within her Inner Throne, she sensed his heart beating rapidly. She felt it. Seized it. Staring down the barrel of the blaster, she dared him to pull the trigger. Just as he gathered the nerve, Threyna squeezed from within her Inner Throne.

Blood dripped from his nose. Then his eyes. And his ears. The Tribunus’s blaster slipped from limp fingers. He staggered, swayed, and fell—hollowed before he hit the ground, his heart a mess of pulp within his chest.

Thunder echoed off the Spine as the winds carried the storm wall west, but lightning continued to strike. In the wake of nature’s power, Threyna once felt small. But now, with blood, bone, and soul bowing to her on her Inner Throne, she felt like a queen of cataclysm. A harbinger of death. A weapon to end the Order. And Belrich was near.

The Tribunus’s soul remained entombed in his body, but it didn’t take much effort on Threyna’s behalf to coax him out. As his essence wiped away the majority of the black rot staining her arm, she let her blood-spawned swords fall to ashes and sank deeper into her Inner Throne, searching for Belrich.

The camp was a horror—at least it would have been had she not received the gift her father never wanted for her. Here, surrounded by souls and mere mortals, she was the weapon the Underground needed. The difference-maker that could have finished off the Order years ago was now hers to wield.

She attuned to Belrich’s heartbeat amidst the chaotic, soul-swirling encampment. Just as she found him, he disappeared—not entirely, but as if he was hiding in the shadows. She sank deeper into her Inner Throne. 

More legionaries approached in formation from the direction Belrich disappeared in. She wanted to chase. She could, now that she’d learned to consume. She could kill and consume her way through the entire legion. Part of her prompted caution, but another part—a deeper, darker aspect of her soul—yearned to continue the slaughter.

Arcanatek warbled as darklings were irradiated from the sky or vortexed into soul jars. Her fuel was being spoiled. She would have to take more. Make more. Kill more.

A voice shouted her name. It seemed far away beyond the storm, as if it were a memory calling from the past. A dark tunnel. Ragged panting. Leather soles squished through the soft, muddy earth.

“Threyna, come back!”

It was Laela’s voice. Then her mother’s. But they faded, swallowed by the underground tunnel’s darkness and the bodies, distance, and time between them. The darker part of her whispered that if they wanted her to come back, they would have chased her. They would have come for her. Even if Dracus told the truth about her mother writing letters, it wasn’t enough, and she couldn’t trust Dracus besides.

Forward. Kill Belrich. Defeat the Order.

She started marching toward the Order’s reinforcements, but something snagged her arm.

“Threyna!”

She spun to find Fawkes, his cheeks flushed beneath his beard, his eyes bleary.

“Threy, come on!” Fawkes said, tugging her to follow him away from the advancing legionaries. “Blood and gory ghosting bone, I’m all outta soul jars. I been yellin’ attcha long enough. We gotta get.”

She wrenched free. “I’m not going anywhere. I can finish this.”

Fawkes took her shoulders in his hands with a gentle kindness despite his burly bulk. His eyes searched hers—milky, scared. “Yeah, ya might be able to take em’. But not on yer own. Ya got caught on yer own. But I came raisin’ death to get you out.”

Threyna glowered, but a part of her softened. You came… for me? She swallowed, not sure if she believed him, not understanding why he cared.

He glanced over her shoulder. “Threy, please. Let’s get outta here. Live to fight another day and all that, eh?”

Threyna growled. Still searching for Belrich from upon her Inner Throne, she couldn’t find him beneath the encroaching shadow. She didn’t understand how or why. Under Fawkes’s pleading stare, the dark hunger in her began to subside. The rot stretched up toward her neck and down towards her wrist.

Maybe he’s right. Live to fight another day.

She was a weapon. She had an army. Together, she and the Underground—with or without the Wraith—could bring the Order to ruin. Yevon and Ebrus were gone, but perhaps Rivich and Aylenia would rejoin her. With the combination of Arilette and Lorath’s strategic prowess and her new abilities, perhaps the war of attrition they’d been suffering through for over a decade could be brought to a decisive victory. It was possible, but not if she risked herself now.

“Fine.” Threyna glanced over her shoulder at the disarray of the Order’s camp and the wall of encroaching legionaries. “Lead the way.”

Fawkes nodded with relief. “Aye. Fort Cybel. Let’s go.”

Chapter 42: One Option

Laela XVI

Before the Suffering, people once said phrases like “dead man walking.” Having seen dead men walk, run, and attack the living all her life, Laela never fully understood the concept. But now, as she and her beleaguered group descended the eastern slope of the Spine with the ruins of Fort Cybel ahead to the south, she understood all too well. Heavy fell the feet of the hopeless. And with the Order flag flying above the decrepit ramparts of where they planned to rest, whatever hope they had after outrunning the hollowed and narrowly escaping the collapsing rubble of the mountain pass was gone.

The dark skies of the midday rains began with a drizzle, and at first, Laela thought perhaps it would be light today. But as thunder rolled in from the east and lightning illuminated the sky like Dawnshards, she knew she was only lying to herself again.

Laela’s shoulders sagged as if Tarus’s explosion brought the entire length of the Spine down on her. They’d emerged with their lives, but left behind were their weapons and supplies, which only made the prospect of circumventing the Underground more implausible.

She couldn’t help but tense her jaw whenever she glanced at Aylenia. Freed from her bondage by Tarus in their flight from the shades and hollowed, she’d yet to be put back in bindings. That only made Laela feel all the more like she—they—were the ones being led by the manacles. Now in Octaven, only separated from the Underground base beneath the foundations of Octarius by Fort Cybel and the Tears, Laela was running out of time.

Trudging along at the back of their procession—one tired stride at a time—she wondered if Rosler and Taggart managed to make it through the Gullies and secure the ships. Her head hung low at the thought that, even if they managed to bypass the Order and the Underground, there was still the chance that the ships wouldn’t be there when they arrived at the Grip. Not wanting to think about that, she put one foot in front of the other.

“Sent scouts ahead,” Tarus said, nodding at the front of their procession where Redge took the lead.

Laela startled. She hadn’t even realized he’d slipped back in their caravan to enter the shadow beside her. Composing herself and attempting not to appear as caught off guard as she was, she adjusted her sword belt. “East or south?”

“Neither.” Tarus nodded at Fort Cybel in the distance.

Laela shook her head. “The smoke of their fires was visible ten steps from the pass, the Order’s standards are visible from here—we can’t rest there. We can’t go near there. We should have sent scouts south if we wanted to follow the Tears to the Grip, or north if we needed to cross to the east side of the river. Nothing good will come back from Fort Cybel.”

If Tarus took any insult to Laela’s criticism, he showed no sign. Stoic as ever, the Second Sword of the Wraith didn’t even blink. “We weren’t the only ones to escape Aranoc. Could be more of us. Could be they found ’em before we did. Can’t hurt to check.”

Laela ground her teeth. He should have checked with her before giving orders. He never would have done so if Rance or Verinius were here. “We should have discussed it before you sent scouts ahead.”

“Should we have discussed me collapsing the pass too?” No malice. No arrogance. Just words uttered as simply as if he were asking about supper. “Or should I have waited for you to hollow?”

There’s the sarcasm. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and despite her fatigue, she found she had energy to put Tarus back in his place. She rounded on him. Resisting the urge to disrupt their caravan to scold him, she exhaled through her nostrils, and kept her voice low. “I saved someone’s life.”

“Right. ‘No one left behind,’ eh?” Tarus said. “My point exactly.”

“This is different.” But Laela wasn’t even sure if she believed that. It was one thing to abandon a woman pleading for help. It was another entirely to risk open conflict with the Order. “Whether we have people there or not, what are we going to do about it? We can’t fight the Order.” She lowered her voice, making certain only he could hear. “It is our duty to get as many people to the Grip as possible. That’s all we can do. The rest is up to Rosler and Taggart.”

“Ya might be right,” Tarus conceded. “But, the scouts will return with word of how many legionaries they got, and how many of ours they’ve captured. If it’s our duty to get as many people to the Grip as possible, ya can’t argue if they’ve got a horde full of Wraith and a paltry resistance.”

Laela shook her head. “Even if, and that’s a big if, we’re not fighters. Look around.”

The men, women, and children who had fled Aranoc and escaped the Order and the hollowed marched onward in sullen silence. Hoods pulled low to protect against the rain did little to conceal their drawn expressions. Who could blame them after their bleak trek across the cursed island?

Tarus shrugged. “Let’s see what the scouts say.”

“It won’t matter.” She quickened her pace, passing others to get to the front of the procession to make sure Redge too wasn’t taking Aylenia’s counsel. Of course she wants us to fight. She never wants us to leave. Pulling ahead of Tarus, she hissed over her shoulder. “If you think that’s going to convince me, you must follow the One.”

By the time she made it to the front, Laela had stewed herself into a rage. Luckily, her fears that Aylenia was in Redge’s ear too were assuaged by the fact that the two may as well have been walking on opposite sides of the Tears. Though both led at the front, Redge remained in the Spine’s shadows, while Aylenia clung to the brambles along the river valley to the east as if she were considering making a run for it.

Part of Laela wondered what was more dangerous—letting her leave so close to Octarius where she could summon Underground reinforcements, or forcing her to stay where she could convince the Second Sword of the Wraith that fighting was a viable option.

Laela approached Redge first. His finely groomed brow raised as she neared.

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching the flank?” Redge asked.

“I was.” She shot Tarus a disdainful glare. “But I grew concerned with how we were being led.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, echoing off the Spine as the rains picked up. Wind whipped through the river valley. It was no wonder why the Order had stopped to take shelter in the ruins. Though it meant they wouldn’t be able to rest at Fort Cybel, the midday rains also offered cover by which they could circumvent the Order altogether. If they were lucky, they could sneak by and continue toward the Grip.

“We’re heading south,” Redge said, more obvious than the Tenets of Faytemarked. He told her that they’d sent scouts ahead that should be returning soon. She hoped he was right, because if they weren’t coming back, that meant the Order had already found them.

Laela grit her teeth, sparing a glance to Aylenia to make sure she wasn’t eavesdropping. The more she thought about it, the more she realized Aylenia was likely just playing one of Arilette’s games.

If she suggests fighting the Order to Tarus, knowing I would refuse, would she counter with heading east? If the Underground had managed to infiltrate their ranks and sabotage their plans of escape, it wasn’t impossible to think that they could be preparing to seize their beleaguered party by force. The closer they drew to Octarius, the greater the chance that they were stumbling into another trap.

She dropped her chin and whispered to Redge. “To what end? We can’t stop at Fort Cybel with legionaries crawling all over. Unless the Undergrounder got to you too?” She scowled in Aylenia’s direction.

Redge’s dark eyes narrowed like crossed swords. Their time on the run hadn’t allowed him his typical grooming routine. The dark hair of his Palogian heritage began to prickle his shaved scalp and shadow his cheeks. “I don’t care if we have to tunnel beneath Fort Cybel. We are not fighting the Order.”

Laela nodded. “What other options do we have? Because we’re running out of time, and I believe the Undergrounder’s suggestion to take Cybel by force is a false one.”

Redge raised a brow, not following her meaning.

“She suggests we take Fort Cybel, knowing we’ll deny it. But when the time arrives, she’ll suggest a second option. A safer option. Head east. But we are not taking a single step east. She knows we’re trying to make it to the Grip. We know Arilette won’t let us leave. The moment we cross Cybel’s Tears, the moment we come within Octarius’s reach, they’ll have us just where they want us. They’ll never let us leave, Redge. So before we get to Fort Cybel, we need a plan.”

“Ghosts.” Redge took a deep breath as he massaged his scalp. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it, looking towards the gloomy horizon in the east. “I’d rather take my chances out there than fight the Order. There at least we have a chance to run. Here…” He nodded at Fort Cybel’s haunted remains. “No choice but to fight. They’ll catch us if we try to sneak past.”

Laela grumbled, fearing the same. “There must be another option. Think!”

“Incoming,” Redge whispered.

Laela didn’t need to turn to know Aylenia had cut across the procession, no doubt to attempt to bend Laela’s ear to whatever poison Arilette had injected into Aylenia’s head. Before Aylenia could speak or make her presence known, Laela spun on her. “Speak not a word, or I swear by Neutreen, I’ll hollow you out and send you into the Order camp on your own.”

To her credit, Aylenia did not back away; she barely seemed fazed by Laela’s sharpness. Without a word, she raised her finger to the figures trotting through the darkness heading in their direction.

The scouts.

Laela scowled.

Tarus placed his hand on the small of Laela’s back. “Let’s hear what they gotta say.”

His touch sent a shiver up her spine. His words made her heart sink. She knew what the scouts would say. She knew what Aylenia would suggest, how Tarus would respond, how Redge would fall right into whatever trap Arilette and the Underground had waiting for them.

“You thought I was a bad leader,” her father said. “Not so easy, eh? Don’t have all the answers after all, hmm? There’s a reason I taught you to fight. Runnin’ ain’t an option.”

Laela closed her eyes, shutting out his taunts, but darkness closed around her all the same. There is no escape. Neutreen, you’ve left us. You’ve abandoned us in a rotting world. The Goddess of Justice might have sent the Savior to deliver them arcanatek to combat Rheynia’s curse, but what good was any of it when the Order and the Underground only used the power to wage war against each other?

After instructing their procession to take rest in the undying forests along the river, Laela joined Tarus, Redge, and Aylenia in meeting the scouts who’d returned from Fort Cybel. Not knowing who Tarus had sent ahead, Laela was at least relieved to find familiar faces would be giving the report and not some potential Underground mole.

Asla, a girl who’d served as a messenger between Verinius and Rance, pulled back her hooded cloak. She had overcome the scratch marks that scarred her cheek after a scrape with the hollowed, but the loss of her brother to dewskull the previous winter left a sullen sadness behind her eyes. Now, after losing Verinius, Rance, and Erynia in a single day, hopelessness softened her brow as if she’d given up.

Bhen, a veteran in Aranoc’s city watch, crossed his arms over his chest beside Asla. His grim expression flattened his already grizzled features. Stern at the best of times, even at the feet of Neutreen’s shrine, Bhen’s disposition displayed dissension between him and Asla.

Today was supposed to have been their escape. Their triumph over the Order, the Underground, and the undying. The new hope of Sansia wasn’t far away. But now, at least by the look in Asla’s dewy-brown eyes and the set of Bhen’s clenched jaw, those hopes were crushed.

“A score of legionaries,” Asla said. “They got a dozen of our own, looks like. Least as far as I can count.”

Bhen bristled. “There could be a hundred Wraith in their clutches. It shouldn’t make no difference. Them in there are of the Eighth Legion. They’re not Order boys just flown the Nest; they’ve got arcanatek, defendable positioning, and—blood and bone—stop looking at me like that.”

Asla’s defeated expression hardened to hateful. “So you’re just gonna let them rot here—with them? While we scurry off? Whatever happened to ‘No one left behind,’ eh?”

Bhen tossed his hands in the air. “Here we go.”

Laela held up a silencing hand. She already knew Asla’s take on the matter. Maybe that’s why Tarus sent her, because he knew she’d side with him. Laela snuck a glance at Aylenia to see how she felt about the matter, but the Palogian woman’s face was a mask of hard lines and soft lips—impossible to read. She nodded at the former city watchman. “Could we sneak around, continue south?”

Bhen grunted. “They’d spot us. Trees are sparse. Brambles would barely cover us if we crawled on our bellies.”

Laela examined the dark clouds, wondering how long they’d last for. “They could move off once the rains pass. If they found us on our bellies, we’d be impaled and flayed long before we saw the Grip.” The scent of ashes filled her nostrils as every viable option brought her closer to the flames. “What do you suggest, Bhen?”

“Go north until we find a crossing. Follow the Tears down to the Grip. Even if the Order sees us, we’ll have a head start with the river between us.”

Asla bit her lip, clearly frustrated with the idea. Her scowl met Laela’s gaze, as if waiting for the answer she’d been fearing.

Laela snuck another glance at Aylenia. You’d love that, wouldn’t you? How far out are your reinforcements? After Laela had destroyed Aylenia’s interlayer arcanatek, there was no telling how Arilette would respond, but their goal never changed: don’t let the Wraith leave. We can’t go east.

Redge nodded at Bhen. “He’s right. No one left behind is a nice thought. But that’s all it is. We’d lose more than we’d gain attempting to take the fort. Crossing the river gives us the best chance of getting the most people to the Grip.”

Asla scoffed.

“Go on,” her father said. “Run away. Cry to your mother.”

Laela didn’t like the prospect. Waiting for Aylenia to weigh in and add a third voice assenting to head east, Laela found herself agreeing with Asla and Tarus. If these truly were their only two options, Laela would rather take the fight on her terms.

“Is there another option?” Laela asked. “Besides fighting or backtracking to head east?”

Silence.

Aylenia snorted. “There is only one option. There has only ever been one option.”

“We’re not joining you,” Laela snapped. “We’re not serving as fodder in your war against the Order. We will escape this ghosting curse.”

Aylenia’s nose wrinkled, her brow cocked. “Not what I was going to suggest.” She shook her head. “You fight. I’ve seen you fight. But you fight in order to flee. You’re not an army. I get that. But you have the numbers, the advantage of surprise, and with a decent plan, you could save your people.”

Redge scoffed. “At what cost?”

“Does it matter?” Aylenia asked, never looking at Redge. Her eyes glittered, a pleading in them as if she wanted so badly for Laela to see the world the way she did. “If you’re talking about lives, yes, odds are you’ll lose more than you reclaim if you try. But if you don’t…” She shook her head. “Then the cost is hope. And without that… what does the Wraith even stand for?”

Laela found herself without a response. She knew what the Wraith stood for, but Aylenia’s indictment sent the scar across Laela’s chest aflame. “No one left behind.” To Rance it meant something. It was an ideal, not an absolute, but the burdens of leadership required sacrifices, even for symbolic victories. It was one thing to go back to Aranoc and pick up every straggler along the way. But they were right here, in need of saving.

Laela pursed her lips, searching for Aylenia’s ulterior motive, but found none. Does she actually want us to fight in order to flee? Or is she trying to prove that if we fight and win here, we can defeat the Order if we join together?

“I know you’re afraid of losing more people,” Aylenia said, glancing between them. “Rance, right? And Verinius? Your mother.”

Laela swallowed, the wounds of their losses still too sore to pick at.

“We lost them because of you!” Redge snapped, taking full advantage of the roaring storm.

Laela held up a silencing hand.

Aylenia sighed. “I could say I lost people because of you too. But where would that get us? We’ve all lost people. We all will continue to lose people. So it’s what we do about it that matters.”

Laela didn’t trust Aylenia. She didn’t need to burn a match to divine Neutreen’s will on the matter, but still, she had a point. “What say you of Bhen’s plan, then? Go north, ford the Tears, then travel down the east side of the river?”

Aylenia shook her head. “You risk too much for not enough. Return north, through these forests, only to come back down the other side of the river? Yeah, you might evade the Order, but the hellhounds and hollowed will have twice as long to find you. Might as well do what you did in escaping Aranoc and send small groups south attempting to sneak past Fort Cybel at that point and hope the rains last long enough to keep the Order inside.” She shrugged. “But we can win this fight here and now. Take the camp. Rest a while. Then go from there.”

“Go?” Tarus asked. “Don’t you mean return with you to Octarius? Wasn’t that yer plan?”

Aylenia exhaled through her nostrils. “Me and what army? Divided, ruin will reign, but you’re not soldiers.” She waved her hand back at their resting procession. “Sure, we could use the help, but if all your efforts would be to escape from us, what good would it serve?”

Laela scoffed. “So you don’t want us to go east?”

Aylenia scowled. “When have I said go east?” She pointed at the shadow of Fort Cybel. “I already told you; there is one option. South. Whether you try to sneak past and leave your people or stay and fight to free them, that’s up to you. But if it were my people in there, my family… I know what I would do.”

Shame crept into Laela’s cuirass, making her fidget in an attempt to dissipate it. Am I so concerned with saving myself? How many am I comfortable leaving behind?

“Same as your mother,” her father said. “Run away. It’s all you’re good f—”

Encasing herself in her Center of Silence, she glanced from Aylenia to Asla. The scout nodded vigorously as if she were ready to join the Underground after Aylenia’s speech. Though Bhen’s frown remained firm, his crossed arms had settled on his sword hilt as if resolved to the inevitable fight. Tarus too, despite not needing any convincing, appeared ready to draw steel. Of their group, only Redge remained unconvinced.

Redge spat on the ground between them, closer to Aylenia’s feet than anyone else’s. “You say you lost people. Yeah. That’s what happens in war. That’s what happens when you pick a fight with a tyrant—you lose people.” He snorted, stalking closer to Aylenia, his index finger leading the way. “You enlisted. We didn’t. We just wanted to leave this cursed place. Don’t compare your losses to ours. Don’t act like you stand atop the Spine while we’re down in the Gullies just because we don’t take fights we can’t win.”

Laela put a hand on his arm, half to make certain Redge didn’t continue to attempt to lord over Aylenia to keep his ego intact, half because he wasn’t entirely right. Stepping into the center of their small circle, she nodded at Redge. “You’re right. We didn’t pick this fight. It hasn’t been fair, and it never will be. Reality is, whether we enlisted or not, we are up against a tyrant and a curse.”

Redge’s expression darkened once he realized she wasn’t on his side. “You too? You realize this is the first step, eh? First we fight for our own. Then we fight because we’ve proven we can. Next thing you know we’ll be wearing Underground whites and marching in Arilette’s legions.”

“No.” Laela met Aylenia’s eyes, thinking of her mother. “There is strength in being able to fight and courage knowing when to do so. We fight today and seek Neutreen beyond the curse tomorrow. We are not Undergrounders. We will not go with you to Octarius. We are not part of Arilette’s war. We do this. Then we go our separate ways.”

Aylenia held Laela’s gaze, not averting when Redge asked why Laela would let Aylenia go when she could warn the Underground of their location; not when Tarus asked about tactics or how they’d go about liberating Fort Cybel from Order control; not when Redge stormed off, muttering curses in a Palogian dialect she couldn’t understand.

Aylenia’s stare unnerved her at first, as if she’d played right into the Underground’s plan, but with each passing moment, Laela found the look in her eyes strangely comforting. 

“We do this together,” Laela said. She broke from Aylenia’s gaze to take Asla’s tattered scarf between her thumb and forefinger. “I have a plan. Tarus, Bhen, gather those who can fight and whatever weapons we can muster. We have a fort to take.”

Chapter 43: Shadows of Understanding

Threyna XVII

The threat of Belrich’s Inquisitors, the Order, and the darklings were gone, but despite the relative safety of the woods, Threyna’s fingers began to tremble. Surrounded by legionaries and the tempest of souls wishing to overtake her flesh, she’d been fine. Composed. Present in mind and body. But now, as she strode with Fawkes through the dead forests beyond the Gullies and along the Tears with the midday rains storming down on them, all she wanted was to hide in her bunk.

With Octarius too far away, she sank into the solitude of her Inner Throne. She breathed deeply, gazing out the stained-glass windows. There was a storm gathering in the distance—a circling black cloud, emitting forks of red lightning. Whatever it was, it was coming her way.

Fawkes placed his hand on her elbow. Startled, Threyna reared to strike.

“Gory ghosts, Threy.” Fawkes retreated his splayed hands. “Just wanted to check on ya.”

Threyna took a deep breath, lowering her fist. “Apologies, I—” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to feel or think. The thought of the Inquisitor’s hands poking and prodding her arm while his eyes hid behind his skeletal mask sent shivers down her spine.

“What happened to ya in there?” Fawkes gestured his head back the way they’d come.

Threyna swallowed a knot in her throat. Subconsciously, she reached for the bangle embedded into her arm. They resumed trudging through the mud. “They tried to take it.”

Unable to tap into her Inner Throne within Belrich’s tent, the bangle had reacted on its own accord to make certain it was not taken from her… with bloody results. It wasn’t exactly protective, but possessive, which only scared her more. There was no kinship between her and the artifact, no relational responsibility to care for her. Only an adamant and unyielding desire to finish its task with her. Whatever that was.

Another prong had released from her arm when she consumed the first darkling’s soul. Two down—the first when she’d conjured a bloody sword in the tunnels beneath Aranoc, and now again at consuming a soul. Two more prongs remained deeply entrenched in her flesh, but what it would take to unlock them remained to be seen. Whatever needed to happen, Threyna had no doubt that it would not part with her before it was finished.

Trudging through the puddles from the midday rains, Fawkes examined her arm. Aside from the black veins pulsing above and below the onyx-and-crimson artifact, she was marred with bruises and scrapes from when she’d fallen through the trees on the ashes of her failing wings. Her entire body ached, but she didn’t want Fawkes’s sympathy or his concern.

“I’m prime.”

Fawkes bristled. “Prime? Ya look like ya been spat outta a Dreadroot’s arse.”

Heat rose to Threyna’s cheeks. “What do you want, Fawkes? Why are you here?”

If before he bristled, now he outright blubbered. “What’dya think? Heard legionaries settin’ up camp. Saw they had an unconscious prisoner. Figured you were someone important when Belrich went into the tent with ya. What else was I supposed to do?”

Threyna scoffed, quickening her pace and stomping through puddles. “Someone important? Sorry to disappoint.”

“C’mon,” Fawkes called from behind. “It’s not like that.”

Threyna spun in the mud. “What’s it like then, hmm?” She made a mockery of looking behind him. “You can’t find Dracus or Canton to pick up after, so you assume I’m someone in need of saving—is that it?”

Fawkes furrowed his brow. “Dracus created a distraction so Cant and I could get away from the Order. Then Cant and I got separated by a horde.”

Threyna couldn’t help but chuckle. “So you thought I was one of them. Now it makes sense.”

“What are you on about? Someone needed help. Course I didn’t think you were Canton.”

“But maybe Dracus.” Threyna fixed him with a glare. “Who else would you waste an entire soul jar on?”

Fawkes tossed his hands in the air. “Threyna—girl, listen to me. Did I think ya might be Dray, yeah—it was possible. But ya don’t see me disappointed in findin’ ya. I didn’t waste no soul jar. I’m damn glad ya got out. So why are you layin’ this on me?”

A storm of memories poured down on her, heavier than the rains. Mornings spent in Octarius’s bunks not wanting to get up if her father wasn’t going to return home. Evenings before the last light fled the horizon spent staring north, waiting to see if her mother would come back for her. Long days and longer nights wondering if anyone even cared. They felt childish. They were childish. She’d sound ridiculous if she gave them voice, yet still, she wouldn’t release the anger that clung to the memories, or exonerate Fawkes from his association with them.

“Forget it.” Threyna whirled, unable and unwilling to give Fawkes an explanation he wouldn’t even begin to understand. She charged into the night. Away from Fawkes. Away from the Order. Away from her past and towards the future—the only thing that mattered.

“Where ya goin’?”

Threyna wheeled on him again. “Home. I’m going home. All you care about is escaping. So go. Run away with Dracus. Run away with Canton. Blood and bone, I don’t care. But stop pretending you give a ghosting damn about me.”

Thunder roared overhead, and lightning struck nearby.

Fawkes shook his head and took a deep breath. “None of that’s true.” He held up a finger. “One, Octarius ain’t your home. Two—” He held up a second finger. “Escaping don’t mean nothin’ without the people ya get to start anew with. There’s a time to fight. There’s a time to flee. I fought to free ya so we could run. Not to fight a whole ghostin’ legion. But if ya won’t even try to see the difference, then you’re not worth the charge.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, falling rain and dead foliage all that lay between them.

“Yer mad,” Fawkes said, holding up his hands. “I get that. I’d be mad as a hellhound too if I was you. Ya want us to fight. Ya want the lot of us to join you and Arilette cause you believe it’ll bring ya life. ‘Divided, ruin will reign,” and all that. But Arilette ain’t who ya think she is. She believes that mantra to a fault, killin’ any who threaten division.” He stalked closer, hands up as if he were approaching a rabbit ready to bolt.

“There’s truth in the words,” Fawkes continued. “We gotta unite, or we will fail. But yer someone who people will follow—who people’ll listen to.” He pointed to the bangle on her arm. “If ya told the Underground that we had the ships, that we could get everyone outta here, we could unite—in freedom.”

She bit back the pain of Laela’s betrayal again, focusing on the argument worth having. “In Sansia.” Her thoughts drifted to Aylenia. Her mother had gone on that voyage with dreams of establishing a new settlement for the rest of the Wraith’s refugees to come to. To start anew. Her mother, nor anyone else in the camp, was ever seen or heard from again.

“Yeah. Sansia.” Fawkes drew nearer with the careful caution of a hunter.

Threyna pointed to the dying earth beneath her feet. “Everyone disappeared the last time you went to Sansia. It’s either the darklings you know or the darklings you don’t. We don’t need to run to start anew. We can start anew here. If we join together, we can defeat the Order. We can make a new home here!” 

The desperation in Fawkes’s eyes threatened to overflow. “Even if ya did defeat the Order…” He squeezed his fists before him as if holding onto a terrible truth. “Dracus believes the Skeleton King is still out there. Waitin’, storin’ up souls, preparin’ himself for someone like you to threaten his reign. I’m tellin’ ya, Threy, if we don’t leave now…” He shook his head. “Even if you could defeat the Order, ya won’t beat him. He’s got limitless souls at his disposal, a farm of blood bags to siphon vitality from. This ain’t a battle that can end in victory.”

Frustration pulsed in her ears, in her fists, and behind her eyes. Hot breath seethed out from between her teeth. She considered her mantra with Aylenia. Always another fight, but victory had become elusive. She wanted to believe it was possible. She needed to believe it could be done.

She closed her eyes, blocking out images of Daeton’s death, Ebrus’s shade, and Yevon’s darkling. There will be victory. There has to be, or it was all for nothing. She fixed Fawkes with a darkling’s stare. “You only say that because it hasn’t happened before. You only say that because the last time someone tried—my father tried—you, my mother, Laela, and everyone else who could have made a difference ran away! Chasing their new start. Blood and bone—when will you learn from your mistakes?”

Fawkes inhaled sharply, wrinkled his nose, and spat off to the side of the path between them. He held her in his gaze, no longer attempting to get closer, no longer holding his hands out innocently. He only stood—resolved. Defeated.

“Dracus fought beside yer father. He woulda died beside him.”

“He didn’t,” Threyna hissed. “He ran away. Like he always does.”

Fawkes shook his head. “Ghosts, Threy. He only left ‘cause yer father told him to.” He pointed at the bangle on her arm. “So that wouldn’t fall back into the Skeleton King’s hands.” He inclined his gaze to the clouds overhead and scratched his beard in consternation as if deliberating whether he should say what was truly on his mind. “He found ya. Right around these here woods, aye? He didn’t run away then, did he?”

Threyna narrowed her eyes, not appreciating the darkening tone of Fawkes’s words.

“No. He didn’t run. Not even when yer wounds were dire. He coulda ran. He coulda returned to me and Canton. Alive.” Fawkes sniffed. If he hadn’t rubbed his face with the back of his hand, Threyna might not have even noticed the tears streaming silently into his beard. “He brought you back to Octarius because you wouldn’ta made it up north. He took ya down into that hole in the ground to the warps. He saved yer life, but he never came back.”

Threyna didn’t understand. Of course he came back.

“Ya can hear heartbeats, eh?” Fawkes asked. “But ya can’t hear Dray’s. Ever wonder why?” He pointed his finger at her, leveling it like a dagger’s tip. “She poisoned him. Said he was done after what she did to those ships, what she did to her own father… so she poisoned him.”

Threyna’s mind slogged through Fawkes’s words, attempting to deconstruct them and piece it all back together. No. Arilette wouldn’t. She couldn’t have… But it was true; she couldn’t hear Dracus’s heartbeat. He was hollowed, somehow managing the pain of death while clinging to sentience. She grasped for words, but her dry mouth and her addled mind formed none.

“So you ask if we’ll learn from our mistakes? Aye. We learned we can’t trust Arilette. So go back to Octarius. Convince the Wraith to join you if ya want, but understand this: forced unity will only build a fractured army. And we won’t be a part of it. Not Dracus. Not Canton. Not me.”

Threyna pursed her lips. She asserted herself onto her Inner Throne and listened to Fawkes’s heartbeats: deep, impassioned, but even. Honest. True.

“So I’ll ask ya one last time,” Fawkes said. “Come with us.”

Threyna released her grasp of her Inner Throne. She didn’t need it to determine the genuine desire in his voice. He wanted her to go with him and join them in their flight from Rheynia. But she couldn’t.

She afforded him a sad smile. “What is it you Wraith say? ‘No one left behind.’ We both know this will only end one way. I won’t live my life on the run. You won’t spend your life fighting for a cause you don’t believe in.” She shrugged, all anger towards him gone. The resentment she’d held all these years washed away, leaving only the stain of memory.

Fawkes nodded. He approached at a normal gait to place his hand on her shoulder. Behind his beard and tangled hair, beneath the hardened exterior of a man who’d lived a life of war and survival, a tenderhearted soul stared back at her. “Divided, ruin will reign. May we all escape its shadow.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and disappeared into the rain, heading toward Fort Cybel, his partner, and the boy they’d raised as a son.

Threyna watched him go, hoping they’d find what they were looking for. She understood why their journeys couldn’t continue together. Like a hollowed, some wounds would never heal. Threyna could forgive Arilette, if what Dracus, Laela, and Fawkes said of her lies was true. She could forgive Laela for not believing victory was possible.

If the Wraith see what I’m capable of, if I convince Laela to join with me, Belrich, the Order, and the Skeleton King—none of them would stand a chance.

She’d sent Aylenia with Laela to lead the Wraith south, but now it was up to Threyna to convince them to come to Octarius and join the Underground. Always another fight. I need this one to end in victory.

With her rot well abated, she tapped into her Inner Throne and conjured wings. Resolving herself to listen to the artifact and not repeat her own mistakes, she took flight, determined to find the Wraith and defeat the Order.

Chapter 44: True Justice

Laela XVII

Laela felt naked. No sword at her waist or strapped to her back. No dagger on her belt, no knife concealed in a vambrace. Only True was safely hidden in her boot. Otherwise, nothing. She couldn’t remember a time when the Mistress of Blades was so deprived, but it was necessary for her plan to work.

Tarus and Bhen hated the plan. Redge would have protested even worse had he not already stormed off. Though Laela had come up with it, she wasn’t even sure how she felt about it. It didn’t feel like something Rance or her mother would have considered, let alone allowed. Neither Asla’s staunch support nor Aylenia’s unreadable silence provided any confidence, but if they were to escape the Order’s stranglehold over Rheynia, it would not be without risks.

Yet as Laela, Aylenia, and Asla approached the front gates of the fallen fort, Laela began to wonder if the risks were too great. Unarmed, hands raised in surrender, they trudged through the rain toward the two legionary lookouts.

“Oi!” called one of the sentries over his shoulder. Three more legionaries hustled out through the broken portcullis followed by two additional stragglers.

“Play the part,” Aylenia whispered, as tears began to well in her eyes. “Don’t let them see the soldier.” Letting out a cry, she ran towards the legionaries.

Swords drew from five scabbards. “Halt!”

Aylenia collapsed to the muddy ground. “Thank Neutreen. Thank Neutreen!” Unleashing full sobs between each shout, Aylenia put on a performance that would make the mummers from the days before the Disasters quake with envy. She wailed as if attempting to rival the midday storms.

Despite the legionaries slackening at her supplication, they did not sheath their steel.

Following Aylenia’s lead, Asla collapsed to the ground a stride behind her. “Please, we’re sorry. We’ll never do it again. Mercy. Mercy!”

Laela knew what she was supposed to do. It was her plan after all. But bowing to the Order, even in a farcical manner, felt like a betrayal of everything she was. And just like that, she was a girl again. A scared girl gripping the hilt of a quivering sword with a dulled blade. Her father stared down his nose as if he were examining the underside of his boot after stepping in something foul. His lips moved. His head shook. He turned away. Anger burned within her. She wanted to use the sword in her hand. She wanted to stab him in the back. She wanted to prove him wrong.

Laela felt his voice at the edge of her Center of Silence, but she shielded her mind from him, returning to the present moment.

“What about you?” said a legionary with a fat lip and a bruised cheek. He jutted his double chin at her, scratching his stubbly beard. “Your turn to cry?”

Heat flushed Laela’s cheeks despite the cool rain.

“Run while you still can,” her father said. “Neutreen knows you’re no use in a fight.”

He was wrong. She’d proven him wrong time and time again. She was the First Sword of the Wraith. He was just a soldier in Victarius Kaine’s army—a bitter, selfish deserter and betrayer. He might as well have been standing before her because all Laela wanted to do was fight to prove him wrong. She could take all five if she’d brought her blades.

But he wasn’t there. Even his voice wasn’t real. He only existed because she refused to let go of him. As horrible as he was, he was still her father. He had left his mark on her and she had the scars to prove it, but she was tired of holding onto him. Especially when he only baited her into trouble.

Fists clenched, jaw tight, she forced herself to breathe. I fight to flee. Neutreen is watching. She swallowed her rage, ignoring the fire coursing through the scar on her chest.

“We just wanted to leave,” Laela said, her voice small. “We never wanted to fight. We just wanted to leave, but they wouldn’t let us.” She cowered. “My turn to cry? I have cried every moment since the Underground ruined our escape. I have left a trail of tears with every step from Aranoc’s safety. I have lost…”

“Rance sacrificed himself so we could get to Aranoc,” Dracus had said.

“Be strong. Be courageous!” her mother had cried before running into a horde of hollowed only to be stabbed in the heart by Belrich. She’d spent her last words—not on her—but on Threyna. All Laela had received was a shout over her shoulder and a fatekeeper that told her not to let anyone keep her hurting. She was injured beyond repair. Beyond time’s healing capabilities. She’d carry this pain for the rest of her days.

Bitterness knotted in her throat. “I’ve lost everyone… Neutreen knows we’re guilty. But guilty of wanting to run from this curse, not of opposing you. The Underground…” She feigned looking over her shoulder at the supposed legion on their tails. “They’re trying to drag us back to their stronghold in Octarius.”

The legionary with the purple bruise and split lip appraised her, searching her from head to toe in a way that made her skin crawl.

Stomaching his inspection, Laela pushed through her disgust. “You ask if I will cry; that depends on your next words. You can help. You can protect us from the Underground. We wanted to head west toward the Wing, but they collapsed the mountain pass with arcanatek!”

“That’s what that was?” one of the other legionaries asked. “Ghosts.”

“They’re coming,” Laela said, looking over her shoulder again. “Please. Defend us.”

“Don’t let them take us,” Aylenia said.

Asla crawled through the mud to the feet of the nearest legionary with a beaked nose and skittish eyes. “We beg you.”

The legionary shoved her with his boot. “What do we do?”

“Gotta tell Calyx,”  a short, stout ham of a man said over the storm.

“We must help them. We can put them with the others,” a younger man said, his wet blond hair clinging to his forehead. Still green with the propagandic do-goodery instilled at the Nest, his noble nature reminded her of Canton’s idealistic foolishness, but if he led them to the other captives, he might as well have been one of Neutreen’s angels.

The bruised leader bit his fat lip and grunted. He seemed to shrink at the mention of Calyx. He bent to grab Aylenia by her upper arm, hoisting her from the mud to yank her close. “How many?”

Aylenia’s tear-streaked cheeks quivered. “I don’t… I don’t know. 100. 200.”

The color of his cheeks surrounding his bruise paled. “From where? How far behind?”

Laela looked over her shoulder. “They’re here!” Torches flickered in the distance, barely burning through the rain. Dozens from the east, and even more from the north.

“Blood, bone, and black death.” The legionary shoved Aylenia toward the blond-haired boy. “Put them with the others. And hurry.” He advanced on Laela.

It took every fiber of her being not to grab him by his thumb and wrench his arm behind his back until he squealed. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she let him seize her by the arm and haul her through Fort Cybel’s dilapidated entrance.

“To arms! Underground—from the Spine and to the north!”

The camp, a cohort of closer to fifty legionaries, scrambled. The initial fumbling of men turned to straight rank and file. The discipline and the speed of their response sent a chill down Laela’s spine as doubt ate away at the foundations of her plan.

Be strong. Be courageous. This has to work.

The Premius, Calyx, strode from a tent at the center of the camp, sword drawn and arcanatek charging. “Report!”

Before Laela could assess their strategy for defense, she, Aylenia, and Asla were dragged deeper into the courtyard of the fallen fort. They passed crumbling structures where rotten wood collapsed upon fractured stone, ruins of what was once a chapel, and an old forge long past the state of repair on the way to the remains of horse stables. Once inside, a score of long faces looked up at them over their bound wrists.

“Bind them!” the split-lipped legionary said, shoving Laela to his blond-haired compatriot escorting Aylenia. Laela feigned weakness, allowing his push to send her sprawling. His heavy footsteps squished away to join the ranks with the rest of the Order’s Eighth Legion.

The beaked legionary’s flighty eyes darted between Laela, Asla, and the rest of the Wraith. Laela had already spotted familiar faces within their captives. She only hoped they wouldn’t do or say anything to give her away.

Beak beckoned for the younger soldier to pass Aylenia to him. “Give her here. I’ll hold these two. You tie her up first.”

Laela, prone in the mud, examined the Order boy playing at being an honorable servant of the realm, inspecting him for any signs of weakness. A droop in the shoulder, a shift in his hips that might have suggested a potential injury. The picture of health, he gave her no easy opportunities. The short sword in its scabbard, the arcanatek strapped to his hip, and the dagger in his boot only made her feel more vulnerable before him.

If there was any hesitation in him, it lasted but a moment before the Nest’s brainwashing tactics took hold. He passed Aylenia to Beak. “This is for your protection, my ladies. Stay here. We will protect you.” As he stepped close to help Laela to her feet, she eyed the dagger in his boot.

While Premius Calyx shouted orders, directing his men against the torches lit by the weak and infirm of their number, Bhen and Tarus would be leading any who could fight around to flank the fort’s weaker walls.

“Where there is order, there is justice!” Calyx shouted, rallying his legionaries.

Two men stand between twenty refugees and freedom. They will not stop us.

Laela felt his hand scoop under her arm to hoist her up. She pushed into the ground, snapping her head back. The back of her skull collided with the soft cartilage of his nose. Bone crunched as he yelped, but before he could step back, Laela ripped his dagger from his boot.

Simultaneously, Asla stomped on Beak’s foot, then kneed him in the groin. Aylenia elbowed him in the gut before drawing his short sword and plunging it into his lower stomach.

Laela continued her own assault. Grabbing at his nose, the legionary was in no position to defend her first stab. The dagger bit deep, chewing through the leather armor and into his shoulder. She tore it free and stabbed it into his other shoulder, rendering both arms useless. She kicked his leg out from under him and dropped her knee into his spine. With two quick slashes, she severed the tendons behind his knees and ankles. He cried out, not dead, not even dying, but incapacitated to the point that he wouldn’t be able to hinder their escape. Luckily, the rain, thunder, and wind prevented his voice from attracting others.

As Asla took Beak’s dagger and began cutting refugees free, Aylenia held her stolen short sword to Beak’s unfortunate nose as he attempted to hold his intestines in place.

Laela yanked the legionary up by his blond hair, exposing his throat to his own steel. “Keep silent and you will survive this. Scream and it will be the last thing you do.”

He whimpered, helpless as she stripped him of his arcanatek.

“Head to the river,” Asla said to those she liberated. “There’s a hole in the curtain wall.”

“Oi!” Beak screamed. “Hel—”

Aylenia slashed across Beak’s skinny neck, cutting short his shout. His skittish eyes went wide and still as she opened his throat. Despite his thin frame, dark blood gushed from the gash and bubbled from his open mouth.

Ghosts. Laela fumbled with the arcanatek. She’d held the magical tools provided by the Savior before, but the one in her hands wasn’t the same device as those she’d practiced with in Octarius’s underdark. She flipped the switch, and it began to warble, but whether it was set to vortex or irradiate, she couldn’t be sure.

Beak was fading fast. His gasps for air came shorter and sharper as blood filled his lungs. It wouldn’t be long before either his hollowed form tried to tear the life from Aylenia’s body or his soul departed his ravaged flesh. 

Aylenia ripped Beak’s arcanatek from his belt and flipped the switch. “He hollows, you fire. He goes dark, let me handle it.”

Laela nodded, gripping the arcanatek tighter as the warbling’s charge reached its crescendo. Asla continued to cut through the bindings of the Order’s captives. One by one, they took flight, running east towards their flanking force and the succor of reuniting with the rest of the Wraith. Yet as the first of Tarus’s force scaled the rubble on the northeastern edge of the fort, the Order boy at Laela’s feet whimpered.

“Liars,” he said, his gaze fixed on the shapes drawing crossbows. “Traitors. Murderers.” He took a deep breath, preparing to shout.

Laela dropped to a knee and plunged her stolen dagger into the back of his skull. Not a heartbeat had passed before Tarus’s volley of not nearly enough bolts collided with the backs of the unsuspecting legionaries. As screams erupted, so too did the Order boy’s darkling. It screeched as it leapt from his body into the air.

“Darkling!” Aylenia aimed her arcanatek and squeezed the trigger.

Radiant light exploded. Laela shielded her eyes, but glowing auras filled her vision, blinding her to anything and everything else. She blinked, falling onto her back to leave the dagger planted in the back of the legionary’s skull, the vibrating arcanatek still whirring in her hand.

More screams filled the night as a Dawnshard exploded elsewhere. The calamity of battle collided with the storm’s wrath to swallow Fort Cybel in cacophony.

Laela forced herself upright as her vision began to return. Aylenia tore another Dawnshard from Beak’s belt and hurled it at the legionaries attempting to reconfigure to defend their flank. Aylenia reached down to take another Dawnshard just as the light faded from Beak’s eyes. No longer dying, but fully hollowed, he seized her by the wrist and attempted to bite at her exposed neck.

Laela pulled the trigger.

Aylenia reared back just as a bluish-white shade was drawn from Beak’s body. He crumpled, absent a soul to keep him upright. Laela blinked, unable to look away from the ghastly visage of what was once a man. He appeared very much like he did in life. Poor bastard was cursed for eternity with his horrid nose.

“Come on,” Aylenia said, helping Laela to her feet.

“That’s the last of them.” Asla cut the last of the refugee captives free.

The Order had reformed and began their counterattack. Out of arrows, the Wraith charged with whatever weapons they had.

Laela drew the short sword from the fallen legionary’s scabbard. She pointed at Asla and Aylenia. “Run. Get to cover.”

Asla took off, following the path of those she freed.

Aylenia stalked past Laela in the other direction, toward the developing melee. “Let’s go, Mistress of Blades. We don’t run.” She flashed Laela a grin that made her appear half-mad. The other half tightened Laela’s throat and flushed her cheeks.

“You’d fight with us?” Laela asked.

Aylenia smirked. “We fight to flee, right?”

A mad smile stretched across Laela’s lips too. And when she expected her father’s commentary, nothing came. She drew True from her boot. “Let’s give the Order some true justice.”

Together, they charged in just as Tarus and Bhen led the assault on the Order front. With steel in one hand and an arcanatek in the other, Laela entered the fray, ready to finish what she’d started.

Bhen reached the legionaries first at the center of their triangular formation. The clash rippled down the line, but with the legion’s focus on the Wraith, Laela and Aylenia came in from the side. No battle cries. No flash or pomp. Just the swing of steel, the scent of blood, and the wails of the forsaken.

Closing in, Laela found her mark. The nearest legionary was engaged with an overmatched and undersized Wraith refugee, overextending from the formation. Laela struck at his neighbor, swatting his sword aside to stab through the back of the overzealous legionary’s shoulder. Thrown off-balance, the legionary’s parry missed. The refugee’s blade punched through the leather armor, but Laela was already onto the next.

She blocked. Kicked the back of a knee. Shoved her shoulder into one legionary while striking at another. Aylenia was right behind her, her short sword already stained scarlet. While Bhen’s long sword swiped the Order’s shorter gladii aside, he made room for Tarus’s dual daggers to punch holes in the leather. Decent enough as a duelist to be the Second Sword of the Wraith, Tarus was an absolute terror on the battlefield.

Shades and darklings rose from falling bodies on both sides. Those who were hollowed were eviscerated with multiple stab wounds to make certain they never regained their feet. Even still, groaning forms of the undying sprawled on the ground, grasping at ankles. Arcanatek whirred and fired all around her.

They were winning. Their numbers and the element of surprise overwhelmed the Order. But Laela fought from the silent sanctuary within her mind that earned her the title of Mistress of Blades and the First Sword of the Wraith. The battlefield melted away to reveal only the most immediate threat to her. Everything else was just a detail, a distraction that didn’t require her attention.

A sword swung for her. Laela blocked, slid down the blade, and thrust. Fresh blood dripped from her sword’s tip. Her opponent fell from sight, someone else’s problem now. Another blade came for her, swiping at her lower leg. She high-stepped over it and took a diagonal position to press her new target.

Not faces. Not people. Bodies and blades. They’re just bodies and blades.

Stab. Diagonal slash downward. Upward lashing backhand.

She closed the distance, driving True through a legionary’s wrist. He attempted to strike her with his unarmed fist, but she got there first. Steel bit through leather, flesh, and bone. His fist connected with her cheek, but it lost whatever force it began with. She shook off the blow and stabbed again. Again. Again.

Wind rushed beside her in the dark abyss of her Center of Silence. Before she could react, steel raked across her back. Pain streaked along her ribs like a hellhound’s howl through the Cut. She spun to the source but had to fend off a flurry of attacks. She blocked the first, but it threw her off-balance. The heavy hack sent vibrations down her arm. She repositioned her feet to steady herself, but she stepped on something in the slippery mud.

No. Not something.

Fingers curled around her shin. Sharp, cruel, hateful. They scratched at her britches, searching for purchase. 

“Focus!” her father shouted, breaking through her Center of Silence.

Reckless strength sought to tear the stitches from her clothes and the flesh from her bones. All the while, the legionary’s blade darted for her with an insatiable thirst for her blood. She stomped, attempting to kick free from the hollowed crawling up her leg, just as a horizontal slash aimed to part her head from her shoulders.

Unable to bring her sword around in time, she raised True. Though it didn’t block the strike, it bought her a precious moment to duck beneath it. She stabbed at the hollowed clawing at her, then kicked the beast in its snapping jaws. She froze. She’d assumed it was someone from the Order. Someone without a name. Without a face. But they weren’t in Belrich’s legions. They’d followed her from Aranoc, and she’d led them here.

Elisara? Onaren? She still didn’t know what name the woman had in life, but she was gone now.

“Gonna cry?” her father taunted. “ This is war, girl. Life is war.”

A flash of green. The swish of steel through the air. Laela reared. Her foot didn’t move with her. She fell back, tripping over the hollowed’s severed arm. The green returned, the pauldrons of an Order Premius. Calyx, leader of the Eighth. His face, hard and unforgiving, appeared through her Center of Silence. He roared as he stabbed down at her.

She slapped the strike aside and rolled in the mud. Caked in grime, the slash across the back of her ribs screamed, but she shoved herself to her feet and launched at Calyx. Her shoulder took him in the belly, forcing him backwards. Despite the effort she put into the attack, he barely moved aside from the rain-slick ground. Without reprieve, he struck with a quick combination of three light strikes. Laela met each, deflecting them aside. She countered with a quick jab, but Calyx deflected and began a new assault, this time of four cuts.

Calyx overextended. Opportunity presented, Laela lunged. Calyx turned at the last moment. Her blade glanced off his pauldron, but she brought it around to hack down, batting his sword away before stabbing him in the gut with True. As she went to wrench her dagger free, he shoved her away. Rain-slick and bloodied, the dagger’s hilt slipped from her grasp.

His sword came for her neck, but she caught his pommel in her free hand. She attempted to hack with her short sword, but he caught her by the wrist. She strained against him, but his strength was gradually overcoming hers.

Laela attempted to knee him in the groin.

“Don’t leave your feet!”

Her father’s shout came too late. Just as she drove her knee up, Calyx brought the crown of his head down on the bridge of Laela’s nose. Her Center of Silence fractured. Lightning split across her face, branching through her entire body. Tears exploded from her eyes, blurring her vision. The ground seemed to sway before punching her in the back.

“Your sword!” her father yelled. “Ugh! Just like your mother. Useless.”

Calyx stood over her, sword raised. True’s embossed hilt protruded from his stomach, but his grim expression and hate-filled eyes gave no indication of keeling over and hollowing.

“I told you to run while you could.”

Calyx began to swing down at her, intending to split her in half. Laela reared back her heel and kicked True’s hilt, still embedded in Calyx’s gut. His strike faltered, giving Laela just enough space to roll out of the way. She pressed herself to her feet, but Calyx shoved her down with one arm. He seized her by the collar of her tunic, blade poised to strike. Blood drained from his face. Sweat trickled down his brow. True struck deeply, likely clipping something vital. He would hollow from the wound eventually, but not before he made sure she suffered.

The blade’s tip came for her chest. Laela threw herself backwards, yanking Calyx with her. Using his momentum, she rolled onto her back and kicked up, launching him over her. Cold steel sliced between her ribs, robbing her of breath. Clutching her side, she wheeled. Calyx was on his back. His own sword had disappeared in the fray of bodies all around them.

He groaned, his exposed teeth painted red. Laela crawled through the mud to get to him first and finish the fight. Hands covered in muck, she tore her dagger from Calyx’s belly and plunged it back in. She reared back and punched the tip home again. Unable to breathe, barely able to see, she stabbed down again and again.

Warm blood spattered across her face as Calyx gasped. She continued to sink steel into the black leather armor until her arms gave out and she was drowned in white light.

A shade rose around her. Cold as the blade that pierced her, Calyx’s shade passed through her, uninterested. Dead. Gone.

The raging battle had faded into a dull din of warbling arcanatek and groaning hollowed. Faraway shouts calling for mercy were soon extinguished. So many bodies lay around her, so many shades drifted into the night, she couldn’t even tell who had won. Dark blood made everyone appear to be wearing Order blacks.

The scent of rain and eviscerated organs stained the air. Nausea rose, burning her throat. Why did we fight? Everyone loses. Everyone. Laela lowered her gaze, angry with herself for letting this be her end. This “No one left behind,” mantra, this notion—it was a lie. A black-and-white ideology just as bad as the Underground’s credo. Divided, ruin will reign. As if everyone could possibly work together. I should have run. I should have saved who I could. I’m no better than you, Father. She sank into the mud. Defeated.

Footsteps squished over to her, ready to finish her off. A figure knelt down beside her. The fight had left her. She didn’t want to look at her killer, not knowing whether their face would be etched into her mind for eternity if she did. A hand on her shoulder turned her.

Despite wanting to look away, Laela’s gaze fell upon Aylenia and she was the most beautiful thing Laela had ever laid eyes on.

Aylenia gave her shoulder a squeeze. “We did it. We did it.”

Chapter 45: Let Go, My Love

Dracus XII

Dracus’s footfalls squished deeply despite his best efforts not to sink into the sodden earth. As the worst of the midday rains stormed past, Fort Cybel lay ahead, and within, he would either find a hope to cling to, or an emptiness that would kill him as sure as the poison in his veins.

“To dream is to die,” Dracus said to the wind. “To hope is to lie.”

Fawkes and Canton could handle themselves; there was a chance they made it to Cybel’s without him. There was a damn good chance, but Dracus’s life had taught him not to trust the odds—not when they were in his favor.

He sighed, sinking deeper into the earth and his grief with each step. “To live is to lose all we’ve come by.” He wished his aunt had suffered sooner. Maybe then he wouldn’t be cursed with this half-hollowed rhyme that he couldn’t fully remember.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the thought of how Nerus razed Salingard. How Canton’s parents were scorched, not by the Tellers as he led him to believe, but by the Order. All because Dracus counseled Belrich to stay the mighty hand of the Order. Belrich had, but as Belrich did, it was only long enough to turn that hand into a fist. Cavus, Canton’s father, was right in stealing from the Order. Right in attempting to rise up against the Skeleton King’s tyranny. If only Dracus had realized that same truth sooner, seen through the lie the Order was built on. He’d failed time and time again. Yet now, he couldn’t help but hold out foolish hope.

They hafta be here. They’re waitin’. Just like I told ‘em to.

“The lucky, we fall. And the misfortuned, we cry, but forever and ever, it is we who survive.” Dracus neared the dilapidated fort, remembering the days when it stood triumphant. Now the ramparts were more rubble than anything else. He just wanted to believe they could still protect the last two souls he cared about on this forsaken island.

“Let go, my love,” Dracus said, remembering the chorus. “Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.” He hmphed before spitting out the sour words. He wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t let go. When Victarius held the Roost and full legions had fallen to his defenses, Dracus didn’t let go. He didn’t give up. When Arilette poured poison into his Valefyre and told him to hollow out, he didn’t let go. He made a vow, and by Neutreen, the One, or whatever other cosmic darkling, he was going to keep good on his word and get Canton out.

The foul stench of death tinged his nostrils before he was even in an irradiator’s range. By the time his eyes could make out the shapes on the ground, the scent of death was strong enough to choke on. Bodies—undying or void of their souls—marred Fort Cybel’s courtyard. Dracus’s stomach tightened, twisting in knots.

He drew his sword with one hand and lifted his tunic over his nose and mouth with the other, praying to anyone who’d listen that Canton and Fawkes would not be found amongst Cybel’s rubble. The bodies were fresh. Wearing Order blacks or the odds and ends the Wraith managed to assemble, they suffered together. And on both sides of the fight, Dracus found familiar faces caked in mud as he ventured toward the center of the courtyard.

Calyx, the Premius of the Eighth, had once been one of Dracus’s Centuriots. A good soldier if not a good lad, but it was hard to blame him; good lads tended not to survive in the Order. Calyx had afforded himself well in the legions—Premius of the Eighth—but he wore death in silence, his soul either wandering this Neutreen-neglected isle as a shade or a darkling.

Beside Calyx was his dutiful Tribunus. Wearing the striped pauldron that marked his office was Conorus, his black fatigues stained bloody as he sightlessly stared at the clouds overhead. Dracus had been with the collectors at Belgrave when Conorus had been recruited. Dracus could still hear the boy’s mother crying if he wanted to subject himself to the torment. Now her son lay dead.

As if wandering the graveyard of his own past deeds, Dracus found Niallus next. At least what was left of him. His torso was ravaged, nearly torn in half from shoulder to navel. His joints must have been ruined too. By the book, Calyx’s legionaries followed protocol; stab wounds to the knees and shoulders wouldn’t allow Niallus to walk or even crawl again, whether in life or undeath. He groaned as Dracus neared. He’d been a darkling to him the moment Dracus had arrived at the Underground with Canton. He’d wanted him flayed and burned. Nothing he did changed Niallus’s opinion of him—not after he fought at the Battle of the Cut, not after he’d joined the Wraith. Couldn’t even say he was wrong about him. But now here they were.

Dracus patted his arcanatek. Two charges left… “Sorry, Niallus. Ya weren’t worth the charge on the best of days.” He turned from him, scouring the battlefield, hoping he wouldn’t find someone who was.

Off to the outskirts of the courtyard, in the shadows of what might have once served as stables, a body—about Canton’s build—lay face-down. A dagger protruded from the back of his skull. Dracus’s heart might have skipped a beat if it bothered to beat at all. Instead, he just felt his guts twist.

What was Canton wearing? He racked his mind, trying to recall. From this distance and with minimal lighting, Dracus couldn’t tell if he wore black fatigues or a dark brown tunic. He   hurried closer and flipped the body over.

Mouth agape, face pale, eyes wide—the face looked eerily like Canton’s. But traces of blond hair stuck out from the rest of the bloodstained mop to catch the light of a flickering torch. Dracus allowed himself a deep sigh. Blood, bone, and gore. Just another Order boy.

Before he could celebrate the fact that it wasn’t Canton, another hollowed hauled itself towards Dracus. Even in death, he recognized her immediately. A woman whose kindness many within the Wraith thought wasted on Dracus—Liss.

Hollowed, she hauled herself towards him. One of her arms was cut short halfway up the forearm. The other was clipped at the wrist. Her face, a wash of agony, yawned open to let out a droning groan as she neared. She had a hole in her back that trailed blood. A stab wound to the spine that rendered her legs useless.

Why would the Wraith take this ghostin’ fight?

It didn’t make sense. It was insane. But for the Wraith to have less losses and emerge victorious, they’d have to have been the ones to initiate. For whatever reason they’d fought, the Wraith had done well. However, they were not without casualties, and unfortunately, Liss, among others, lay in defeat.

Guilt gnawed at him. Two charges left… He chewed his mustache. “Sorry, Elisara. Wish I could ease this pain. Wish I coulda been here to talk whoever thought this was a good idea outta their stupidity.” He shrugged. “Not that anyone ghostin’ listens to me.” He kicked the Order boy’s body.

He knelt down, inspecting the legionary for his arcanatek. Missing. Dracus moved onto the next body and the next, searching for a working arcanatek, but the bodies were picked clean. The only one he found was practically cleaved in half, and, as if Neutreen really wanted to punch him in the gut, the power coils that could have given him the charges to vortex and irradiate Elisara were taken too.

Dracus slammed the broken arcanatek into the mud. “Blood and bone! Mus—”

Something creaked. Dracus tensed. Whether it was the rusty hinge of a door or the whining of a hollowed, he couldn’t be sure. He spun toward the sound to find a figure cloaked in shadow.

“What took you so long?” the shadow said.

The stress held in his shoulders softened. His knees threatened to give out like Elisara’s. Canton stepped from the gloom, but it stained his expression.

Dracus snorted. “Took me so long? I got ‘ere first.” He stared past Canton expectantly, but Fawkes didn’t follow in his wake. The tension he’d released returned with dread.

Old Boy’s fine. He’s gotta be.

Composing himself, Dracus nodded behind Canton. “Where’s Fawkes? How’d you two get separated?” He shook his head, advancing on Canton. “How’d I beat ya here?”

“You didn’t.” Canton pointed west. “I just came from the Cut—”

“The Cut? Blood and bone, what’re you doin’ there?”

“I think they have Fawkes.”

Dracus’s eye twitched. His lip bristled. His mind buzzed, weighing the possibilities, but it couldn’t be true. The aches and pains he’d accumulated since his untimely death refused to quiet, denying him the ability to think. He swallowed, shaking his head again. “Nah, slow down. Why d’ya think that? First off, how’d ya get separated?”

“Hollowed. He went west. I ran south.” The words spilled out too quickly for his lips to form the proper sounds. Dracus held his hands out to slow him down, but Canton continued, barely comprehensible. “Figured he crossed the Tears, so I doubled back for him, but had to hide as legionaries marched past flying the dove standard. I retreated to the eastern bank just in case more came. Then I came here, hoping you’d be here so we could go after them. But you weren’t and I couldn’t stay here with all this—” He waved at the dead and undying that littered the courtyard. “So I went west. The Order’s in the Cut. I came back here to find you because we need to hurry. So let’s go!”

Dracus raised his hands to his temples. “Kid, yer not makin’ sense.”

There was only one reason Belrich would return to Saltspire. If he managed to get his hands on Threyna and the Blessing, Rheynia would fall into greater calamity. Though her loss would make it much easier to convince Canton to give up on this reckless dream of fighting alongside her, it brought Dracus no pleasure to think of what Belrich would do to her.

Hopefully, he puts her outta her misery sooner than he did her father.

Dracus twisted his heel in the mud. A wave of guilt washed over him at the relief that it was her and not Fawkes they’d taken, but he’d trade a thousand Threynas for his Old Boy.

“If they’re in the Cut, where ya think they’re goin’?” Dracus asked. “They’re headin’ to Elyngrove. Saltspire. Sounds like they nabbed her. Not Fawkes.”

“Her? You mean Threyna.” Canton shook his head. “No. I—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. ‘Can’t be her. She wields blood magic.’ Listen, I’m sorry, kid. Really, I am. But why else would they be headin’ west? Which means we gotta get as far south as we can bef—”

“They’re not heading west.” Canton’s fists were curled at his sides. “If you’d ghosting listen to me for once, you’d hear me. They’re camped in the Cut. They’re not going to Saltspire. They’re not going anywhere. They’ve got Fawkes, and they’re setting a trap.”

Dracus blinked, but Canton’s stern glare didn’t soften.

Camped. Trap? It didn’t make sense. And it certainly wasn’t enough to determine that it was Fawkes they had. It could just as easily have been Threyna or Laela. They could be setting a trap for the Underground or the Wraith. But a gnawing disquiet ate at the back of his mind.

His foot screamed. The back of his head howled. He ignored the pain, pushing past it as the realization that they very well could have had Fawkes began to sink in. Is the trap for me? There was no telling what they’d do to him in order to get to Dracus. They’d torture him, use him as bait—a combination of both. They would give Fawkes the Final Demise that Dracus deserved.

He inadvertently reached for Fang and closed his eyes, but that only made it easier for him to picture the last time someone had earned the Final Demise. The traitor’s death. The reason why every legionary carried a Vendetta dagger. Not the standard-issue short sword given upon graduation of the Nest, but their own personal blade only forged for the purpose of punishing a fellow legionary. Some chose serrated edges. Others selected dull ones that could barely cut through moldy bread. One didn’t just betray the Skeleton King or Belrich when they deserted. They betrayed the entirety of the legions. Flayed, piece by piece, cut by cut, the traitor hollowed a slow and agonizing death.

Dracus stammered. “How do you know it’s Fawkes? It could be Threyna. Laela even.”

Canton pursed his lips in a way that made him look like his father. “I don’t. But Fawkes went west. And never came south. If they don’t have him… what else would stop him from getting to Fort Cybel?”

Dracus swallowed and wrinkled his nose. He hated himself for thinking it. He knew Canton would hate him more for saying it. But it was what Fawkes would want. “If they have Fawkes. If they’re waitin’ for us, setting a trap as you said… we can’t fall for it, Cant. We gotta—”

Canton held a finger up before him, advancing on Dracus. “Don’t you dare say it. Don’t you ghosting dare. We can’t leave him. You know what they’ll do to him.”

Dracus swatted Canton’s finger out of his face. “Course I know. Blood and bone, I know better than any. But ask yerself this: what would he want, eh? What would Fawkes have us do?”

Canton backed away, tossing his hands into the air. He turned, taking in the ravaged remains of the battle that had befallen Fort Cybel. “Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. First you want us to take the ships meant to save everyone else so we can save ourselves. So we can have a new life. We, Dracus. You’re fine leaving the entire Wraith behind. You’re fine leaving Fawkes behind. What is it all for?”

Dracus chewed his mustache. His foot throbbed. His shoulder ached. The back of his head felt like it was splitting in two.

“Just tell ‘em.” Fawkes’s voice filled Dracus’s head. “He deserves to know.”

Dracus didn’t even know which secret Fawkes was referring to. Why he wouldn’t fight for Arilette after she’d poisoned him? That the very curse they were trying to escape was the only reason Dracus was still somewhat alive? Or why, after all this time, Dracus felt responsible for making sure Canton escaped? Maybe Fawkes didn’t need to specify.

Dracus nodded. “All right. Fine. What’s it all for? Ya really wanna know?” He buried his index finger in Canton’s chest. “Hope. The hope that you get to live a full life. To die a true death. The hope that there’s more to this existence than just wanderin’ around this hellscape. The hope that there’s something more than just death and an eternity of suffering. You say I’m selfish. Fine, call me selfish. Maybe I am, cause yer right; I don’t care how many I leave behind. I care ‘bout you. Care ‘bout Fawkes. But if I gotta choose—and ghost dammit, seems like I gotta—it’s you kid.”

Canton’s brow formed a wedge, his glare as unyielding as the worst sort of darkling. “You always do this. You act as if my life is worth more than anyone else’s. Why? Ghost dammit, why!”

“Tell him the truth,” Fawkes insisted.

Dracus released his breath, deflating until every ache and pain in his body threatened to hollow him completely. “You’re not gonna listen to me. Ya haven’t for years now, and maybe that’s on me. Neutreen knows I ain’t been the most honest.”

“Tell him.”

Dracus swallowed. Belrich’s mercy was always a twisted thing. After he’d let Cavus walk, Belrich said his boy would be raised in Elyngrove, trained at the Nest, and given the very best Rheynia had to offer. All to make the “much-needed changes Rheynia needed to thrive until Neutreen’s return.” Neutreen was never coming back. No changes would be made. But to the masses, Cavus was set free. Dracus escorted Canton to Bheric’s Hollow to meet King Bohen in honor of his courage. No one knew that Nerus was sent to follow Cavus home and burn the entire village of Salingard to make it look like a ritual of the Tellers.

His head hung heavy, weighed down by the burden of unspoken words. “Remember the day Salingard burned?”

Canton paled. Scratching his neck, he backed away. “We don’t talk about that.”

Years gone. Nightmares plagued him ever since that day. But Dracus had been content to let him believe it was because his home and everyone he’d ever known had burned in the Tellers’ purifying fires. That was only part of it.

Dracus inhaled through his teeth, cursing to himself. “I know, kid. But ya asked, ‘Why you?’ Truth is, Tellers ain’t the ones who burned Salingard.”

Canton blinked. “What do you mean?”

Dracus didn’t set the village to the torch, but he might as well have. After all, it was he who warned Belrich about the Artificers’ Revival. He who feared making Cavus Kruso into a martyr. He who suggested a different end to the thief’s life. Dracus thought it would be cleaner, but nothing ever was.

“It was my fault, all right?” Dracus said. “Blood and bone. I told Belrich to spare your father to prevent incitin’ a riot. No way he was gonna let him walk away, though. So while I brought ya to Bheric’s Hollow, Nerus burned Salingard. Not the Tellers.”

Silence tore between them like the Disasters that formed the Gullies.

“You knew that was going to happen?” The words came forth expressionless. Not angry. Not even hurt. Just duteous. Data gathering.

“Nah. Not for certain. Figured it.” Shame constricted across his chest like a belt. Guilt stooped his shoulders.

Canton thumbed his nose, stoic as the statues of Neutreen. “And me?”

“Thought I’d take ya to the king, then drop ya off at the Nest. Never see you again.”

Canton advanced, his brown eyes black in Fort Cybel’s gloom. “But then Bheric’s Hollow…” His lip twitched.

Dracus knew he wanted to ask but wasn’t sure if he actually wanted the truth. Ghosts knew Dracus didn’t want to tell it, but if he was going to make Canton see—if he was going to convince Canton to abandon Fawkes, Threyna, Laela, and the Underground—he needed to tell the whole truth.

“What happened in Bheric’s Hollow?” Canton asked, the rain obscuring whether or not tears were welling in his eyes. “All these years. The nightmares. You said you’d be honest.”

Dracus hadn’t said anything of the sort. Just that he hadn’t been honest. But he’d run out of time and room to run. “I brought ya to the Bheric’s Hollow. To meet King Bohen. But what was left of the King of Rheynia was gone. Only thing left was his rotting flesh and his pursuit of power.”

When he closed his eyes, he could remember the stench of the atrium. The slickness along the floor. The darkness of the hall. The pile of desiccated bodies beside the hunched form of King Bohen, the Skeleton King.

“Bring me the boy,” Bohen had said.

Dracus only stared at the remains—withered flesh atop a puddle of blood. Canton clung to Dracus’s leg, petrified. He was just a boy; Dracus was a survivor of the Disasters, the top of his class at the Nest, the Second Premius behind only Decimus. He couldn’t be scared stiff; he was the hero of the Artificers’ War. But he was terrified.

“Premius. Bring me the boy.” Bohen’s skeletal hand extended from the arm of his throne.

He’d relived this moment a hundred times before. A thousand. He’d thought about what he could have done instead. He should have drawn his sword and stabbed Bohen until he’d run out of souls to consume. He should have ended the monster’s reign and damned the consequences. But he didn’t. He only looked down at the very boy standing before him now.

Dracus had taken his life away from him. He’d taken his father who was only guilty of wanting to stop this monster from ruling and condemned him to a fate worse than death. He’d hoped the kid would get a new start at the Nest, just as he had—an opportunity to make something of the pain he’d endured. But that future wasn’t an option. He was a sacrifice.

In the presence of the desiccated corpses beside the Skeleton King, all of Dracus’s achievements burned to ashes. This is where all those boys ended up. This is what the Order has become.

Honor, duty, pride, peace—everything he’d fought and risked his life for was a lie. He wasn’t a soldier in the Order of Neutreen’s Holy Dominion. He was a hellhound on the leash of a bloodsucking tyrant. With his future flashing before his eyes, he considered the two paths. Both felt like death.

“Premius!” Bohen stood from his chair on shaking legs.

Dracus covered Canton’s eyes, lifted him from his feet and cradled him in his arms. He ran as fast as he could, ignoring Bohen’s shouts and praying he was too weak to conjure bloody daggers to shred his back. Pushing past the confused guards, Dracus descended the stairs of Bheric’s Keep and fled into the Hollow. The next day, they’d stolen a horse. Two days later, they were in Arenius’s tablinum in the hovel below Octarius. Seven years later, Arenius was dead—burned alive by his daughter, Arilette.

Now, standing before Canton, after Dracus had recounted the memories that the boy’s mind had done its very best to try and forget, Dracus felt only shame.

“That’s why,” Dracus said. “That’s why I put you on a pedestal. That’s why you gotta get outta here, ‘fore it’s too late. Because I messed up. Ghosts know, I messed up good. But I’ve made it this long ‘cause I wanted to give you a new life, a better one. So let me, kid. Let me get ya beyond this curse.” He eyed Canton, pleadingly. “You get out and it’ll all have been worth it.”

Canton’s lip curled back before he pursed them again, averting his gaze to the mud and blood puddled on the ground between them. “This new life…” His voice was barely a whisper. “You’ll come with me?” He inclined his eyes to meet Dracus’s.

Dracus met the boy’s glossy stare. The hollowed seemed to still for a moment allowing only the falling rain to disturb the silence. He knew what he was asking of Canton: to walk away from Fawkes—a second father to him. It would be a loss they’d both have to grieve. Albeit Canton would have to shoulder the burden for a few ages longer than Dracus would, but that didn’t matter. This time, Dracus was sure even Fawkes would have agreed with not telling Canton the truth.

“Yeah,” Dracus said. “You and me. Sansia and the rest of the wide world. Just not here.” He forced a smile, but Canton didn’t share in it.

He sniffed, staring into the abyss of the surrounding remains of a battlefield. He said something under his breath that Dracus couldn’t catch.

“What’s that, now?”

Canton snapped his attention back to Dracus, the sheen of water on his eyes gone. Replaced by a dark determination. “You might be content to trade your guilt for Fawkes’s life. But I am not.” He marched past Dracus.

Dracus grabbed his wrist, stopping his westbound movement. “Canton, ya can’t mean to—”

Canton shook free of Dracus’s grasp. “You go to Sansia. Go on. Run away from your guilt, but I’m going to the Cut.” He held up a finger before Dracus could interject. “And ghost dammit, if you ever actually cared about me—about either of us—you’ll come with me.”

Canton stormed off, making his way across the dead and undying courtyard of the fallen fort. Dracus put his hands on his hips and shifted his weight. His foot throbbed. His head ached. His back whined. He looked to the rainclouds sailing overhead on the gentle breeze. Every once in a while, a glimmer of sunlight managed to poke through the shroud, a glimmer of hope in a dark world.

“Let go, my love,” Dracus whispered to the star, repeating the chorus to the rhyme. “Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.” He hung his head.

So close… Thought I had ‘em. But he’d never had anything. Only delusions. And one by one, they had all fallen. Only one path left to take.

He took a deep inhale, hardly believing it had come to this. “Cant?”

“Are you coming or not?” Canton asked from the other side of the courtyard.

Dracus turned to face him. “I’m goin’, but I need ya to do somethin’ for me.”

Canton narrowed his gaze, the distrust visible despite the low light.

“Ya remember the way to Octarius?” Dracus asked.

Canton stalked closer as if not believing his ears.

“If we’re doin’ this,” Dracus said, “we’re gonna need help.”

Chapter 46: Two Paths

Laela XVIII

In a perfect world, Laela and the surviving Wraith could have rested in Fort Cybel. Even a few hours to patch wounds and mourn those who’d suffered in the liberation of those held captive would have been enough. Yet this was far from a perfect world.

A handful of legionaries ran in defeat, but their escape meant the Wraith would not be safe. There was no telling how soon they could arrive with reinforcements or in what numbers. Fort Cybel wasn’t worth holding; by Laela’s estimation, it was barely worth taking. They’d lost a handful less than they’d freed, but despite the transactional vantage point, morale was high on their trek south. If only Laela shared in the sentiment.

Though the slash across her back was but a flesh wound, the stab she’d taken from Calyx’s blade bit deep, and his headbutt made everything from her nose to her teeth hurt. Each step and every breath was agony. After stripping her armor and letting the rain wash away most of the mud, she’d been bandaged up enough to stop the bleeding. But all she wanted was sleep. Sleep, however, would not deliver them to Sansia, and, if Neutreen had any sway on this cursed island, Rosler and Taggart would be waiting for them at Talon’s Grip. There was no telling how long they’d wait. If they’d even made it there at all.

“Don’t look good,” Tarus said, having snuck up beside her.

Laela groaned. “Must you keep doing that?”

“Pointin’ out the obvious?”

“Showing up.” Laela’s terseness wasn’t personal, but Tarus wasn’t exactly the bearer of bright news, and she didn’t trust that the next words out of his mouth wouldn’t take things from bad to worse. “What?”

“Blood and bone,” Tarus said. “Go hollow out, then. I was just checkin’ on you.”

Laela winced, grabbing her bandaged ribs. They were Aylenia’s bandages. Aylenia’s antiseptic. Aylenia had even been the one to apply them and Laela wasn’t sure how she felt about it. It wasn’t the first time Aylenia had cared for her. It was Aylenia who sat with her after her father had beaten her. It was Aylenia who gave her a lap to cry on when she felt like she’d never be enough. It made her feel like she was a kid again. A sad, scared, helpless kid forever doomed to live in her father’s shadow in Octarius’s depths. Part of her wanted to thank her for taking care of her. The other part wanted to throttle her for making her feel like she needed to be taken care of.

“Apologies, Tarus. You’re not exactly known for presenting people with Neutreen’s wings. Please, tell me you have good news.”

Tarus shrugged. “Your Undergrounder tells me you won’t make it to the Grip, let alone Sansia.”

Laela exhaled through her teeth.

“Spare me the, ‘What’s she know?’ bit, eh? She dressed your wounds.”

“What’s she know?” Laela said darkly, tasting bile in the back of her throat. “Let me guess. She’s suggesting we head east? Walk straight into Arilette’s outstretched arms—something like that?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Tarus said.

“We’re not stepping foot past the Tears. We haven’t come this far only to become kindling for her pyres.”

Tarus shrugged. “They got warps. Wouldn’t mind a little attention myself” He examined a gash along his forearm.

Like he needs healing arcanatek for that. Laela shook her head, but regretted the movement as vertigo distorted her vision. Tarus stabilized her, taking her by the arm with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not going to Octarius,” Laela said. “And neither are you. I’ll gladly trade a warp and an eternity beneath the Order’s rule for some sore ribs and the promise of freedom. I’m fine, Tarus.”

Tarus snorted. “Said the hollowed to the hellhound. I’ll be up ahead if ya need. Gotta make sure this craven doesn’t lead us to our doom.”

As Tarus stalked off, Laela couldn’t help but notice that ever since Fort Cybel, he hadn’t referred to Redge by name, electing instead to call him the Palogian or craven. After their spirited victory over the Order, many who had taken heed of Redge’s leadership seemed to shy away, choosing instead to follow more closely to Bhen, Asla, and—to Laela’s growing concern—Aylenia.

Staring at the back of Aylenia’s head as she strode a few people ahead of her, Laela clutched her ribs and hurried to catch up with the woman. Each step sent a sharp stab along her spine, and each deep breath felt like Calyx was standing over her all over again, but she persevered as she always had.

Be strong. Be courageous.

Rance and her mother had sacrificed too much for her to fail in achieving their dream of delivering the Wraith beyond the curse, and she wasn’t about to let Aylenia threaten that.

As she attempted to walk past Aylenia, she said, “A word?” Though she tried to quicken her stride to force Aylenia to follow to keep up, she barely kept pace ahead of her. Reluctantly, she settled back, falling into step with the girl from her childhood.

“How’re you feeling?” Aylenia asked, nodding at Laela’s dressings.

With light rain falling, it was difficult to tell if it was rain or a cold sweat clinging to her brow. One foot in front of the other. Show no weakness. “Never better. Why’d I hear tell that you’re suggesting we make for Octarius?”

Aylenia cocked a thick black brow that seemed to connect to the corner of her lip. “Where’d you hear that? I didn’t say anything of the sort.”

“You implied, then,” Laela said. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not—we’re not—going to Octarius. You helped at Fort Cybel, and for that, I’m grateful. But you are my prisoner. Not the other way around.”

The words sounded weaker than they felt coming out of her mouth, but anticipating anger, she was surprised to find Aylenia’s smile spreading.

“What?” Laela asked, like she’d been made the brunt of a joke she didn’t understand.

Aylenia snorted. “Two things: one, if I was your prisoner, how long do you think you could actually keep me here against my will? And two, if you are my prisoner, why am I back here with you and not leading from the front?” She glanced at the mountains. “We’re south of Octarius by now. We’re not far from the Grip. Did you ever think that maybe… just maybe… I might actually want to be here with you?”

Laela stammered. While attempting to clear her throat, the pressure of the action throttled her ribs, resulting in a groan she couldn’t contain. Aylenia extended her arm to help, but Laela waved her away. “I don’t understand you. What do you want?”

Aylenia took a deep breath, examining the horizon where the clouds met the land ahead. “Do you remember—back before the Wraith even existed—the Resilience?”

Smoke filled her nostrils and watered her eyes, but it was all in her mind. Laela remembered Resilience. All too well. The ship was built in the aftermath of her father’s last act of defiance. He had set Curse Breaker aflame, burning the Wraith’s hope of escape. “What of it?”

Aylenia’s smile turned solemn. “I thought it was named just for me. Most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My grandfather came here on a ship from Palogia before the Disasters. Never thought I’d see one myself, you know?” She snorted, shaking her head and tossing her curly hair. “He hollowed in the War of the Seers. My father and brothers suffered in the Artificers’ War. If not for my mother, taking me and leaving when we did, I might have too. Took a few years, but then we found the Underground. We found hope.”

She remembered. Her stomach had fluttered the first time she’d laid eyes on Aylenia. While Resilience might have been the most beautiful thing Aylenia had ever beheld, for Laela, after growing up in a tunnel of dirt and dust, fighting for her father’s love, Aylenia was the most beautiful thing she’d seen. Laela swallowed uncomfortably.

“I remember begging my mûnta to take me with her when she first went to Sansia,” Aylenia said, lost in a painful past. “Sansia sounded like such a beautiful place, cloudless days under a blue sky and bright sun, just like her mother had described in the Palogian Isles. Nightly rainstorms with light that streaked across the sky. And after the storms passed, the stars would shine down from the Exalted Halls and the Corners would come together to reveal their majesty.”

Laela hummed. She didn’t know much about the Palogian Gods, the Corners of Kataan. She’d heard of them in passing, but if they existed, they were much further away than Neutreen. It was interesting to consider the world beyond Rheynia—Palogia to the east, Sansia to the south, and wherever Damascus Drake and Harrow Helixus led the rest of the abdicators.

Listening to the wonder in Aylenia’s voice, Laela imagined such sights. A blue sky. A starry night. It seemed so close, but so far away. “It does sound beautiful.” But Laela knew how Aylenia’s story ended; her mother never came back from Sansia. No one who’d settled over the course of the dozens of excursions Arenius had organized was there when Resilience returned. There was no sign of them, as if they’d never even stepped foot upon the sandy shores.

“I wonder where I would be now,” Aylenia said, staring at the cloudy sky. “If I had gone with her, I wonder who I’d be…” She turned to Laela. “I know you don’t trust me, the Legatus, the Underground—but trust this. Whatever happened to my mûnta, to Sansia—one day, I will go, and I will either find her or discover what happened to her.” She shrugged. “This isn’t how I thought I’d go to Sansia, but… I can either fight to avenge my father and brothers here, or I can see if perhaps my mother’s still out there, still alive somehow.”

For a moment, Laela forgot the pain in her ribs, feeling instead Aylenia’s heartbreak. By Neutreen’s wings, she’s telling the truth. She swallowed a gulp of guilt for misjudging Aylenia, but the guilt was quickly overcome by a new sensation. Absent the enemy’s veil, she felt like she was seeing Aylenia for the first time. Laela had been so focused on fleeing Rheynia, she’d never considered—outside of surviving Sansia and setting up a new home—the possibility of a future.

“That sounds like quite the adventure,” Laela said, her lips spreading in an unfamiliar smile that reminded her of the cut across her cheek. “Searching for your mûnta.” The Palogian word felt strange on her tongue, and didn’t come out quite right, but it drew a smile from Aylenia that returned heat to Laela’s cheeks.

Momentarily embarrassed, Laela averted her gaze, but that left her dizzy. Holding her head in her hollowed-bitten hand, she steadied herself. “Did you ever tell Threyna about this?” She didn’t intend for her half-sister’s name to leave her lips with such distaste, but it did, and Aylenia’s grin flattened.

Aylenia stared at her feet as her long legs took shorter strides to match Laela’s slowed gait. “Of course. There’s little we don’t know about each other.”

Laela had to consciously will herself to relax the tension held between her teeth.

“We shared a bunk for the past…” Aylenia tossed her head back and forth as if considering the arithmetic. “Ten years?” She hmphed. “I remember the day the Legatus told me to take her under my wing. She was just a kid after all. She was a mess after you and your mother left. Fawkes and Canton were gone, and her father… well, I suppose you know what became of him.” Aylenia took a deep breath. “I know you hate to hear it, but she became the spitting image of Arilette—the good and the bad. It wasn’t long before I was under her wing. Ripping Corners, we all were.”

Laela's emotions conflicted. She couldn’t help but take Aylenia’s words with a degree of indictment, that she was somehow to blame for Threyna’s predicament in the Underground. But at the same time, she pitied the little girl Threyna had been—alone, scared, angry.

“Makes sense,” Aylenia said. “Bherus Fayte’s ghosting daughter and all.” She shrugged. “But yeah, we talked about Sansia. About me wanting to find my mûnta.”

That still hadn’t quite settled in. Theodyn wasn’t Theodyn. The man who’d been a better parent to her than her own father was the son of the Skeleton King. And his blood ran through Threyna’s veins. As well as the curse.

“And what did she have to say about that?” Laela asked. “An Undergrounder leaving for Sansia? Sounds like a deserter.”

Aylenia allowed herself to grin again. “Another truth you won’t like to hear, but you two are a lot more alike than you’re different.”

Aylenia was correct. Laela did not like to hear that. “What makes you say that?”

“Gory ghosting dammit,” Aylenia teased. “It’s not a bad thing. Don’t forget. There’s no one I trust or care for more in this world. But tell me this—if you’d been left behind instead of Threyna, or you were raised in the Underground while she was with the Wraith, would you still be at odds with one another?”

Laela chose to ignore the phrase concerning Threyna having been left behind, and opted instead to consider the question.

“You’re as good a fighter as any I’ve ever seen,” Aylenia said. “And Threy, you put something in her head, and she won’t stop until she’s the best at it. All I’m saying is if you two swapped places, you’d probably be a Premius in the Underground’s legions, and she’d be First Sword of the Wraith. And if either of you would let your guard down for a warp and let someone else in, you might see that vulnerability doesn’t mean weakness.”

Though the words rang familiar to something her mother had said within Avengard, the word weakness made the scar across Laela’s chest tingle. “There is strength in knowing when to drop your guard and courage in actually doing so.”

Laela didn’t know how to respond. Feeling her father’s presence on the edge of her Center of Silence, her reflexive reaction was to deny—to cite how every time she had been vulnerable, it resulted in dire consequences. Yet with each passing moment, she struggled to remember ever allowing herself to be vulnerable since childhood.

Is Aylenia right? Her entire life, she’d been jealous of Threyna—the love she received from her father, the attention she received from their mother, the way people seemed to notice her while Laela faded into the background. She thought they were just different, each taking more from their fathers than the mother they shared. And although there was truth in that, were they all that different? She knew she put walls up, but they were to defend herself. But maybe Threyna only saw that as a means of blocking her out.

“Must you always be so—”

Laela wondered what her mother would have said if she had allowed her to finish. She imagined it was probably something similar to what Aylenia was saying now. Vulnerability didn’t necessarily mean weakness, as much as her father beat the contrary into her.

The storm clouds disappeared beyond the Spine, leaving the river valley cloaked in Rheynia’s typical gray shroud. Yet in certain patches where the clouds were thinnest, the sun’s light illuminated the sky just enough to make Laela believe hope still existed beyond the curse.

Aylenia chuckled, following Laela’s gaze as she admired the sky. “Threyna would do the same—silent contemplation as a response. Like I said, more alike than different. Aside from maybe one or two things.”

Laela, still digesting Aylenia’s last words, paused before responding. “Yeah, what’s that?”

Aylenia cast Laela a darkling’s grin and brushed the back of her hand along that of Laela’s. “I’m just saying, if you and I shared a bunk…”

Laela’s mouth went dry. Her stomach flipped, and it had nothing to do with the abrupt halt their procession came to.

“What’s going on?” Aylenia asked. The softness in her cheek from a moment ago instantly fell as she reached for the blade at her hip.

The stalled crowd parted as Redge pushed his way through. He spotted Laela with wide eyes, but they narrowed as they flicked to Aylenia. He advanced, continuing to shove his way through the crowd until he was toe to toe with Laela.

“Underground up ahead,” he whispered so only she could hear, glaring at Aylenia beside her.

Bile returned to Laela’s throat. We’re so close… She set her jaw, but it sent blinding pain up to her temples. “How many?”

Redge shook his head. “Only have eyes on a few, but there’s no telling with the Underground. Could be a patrol. Could be a trap meant to look like a patrol. I don’t know where their tunnels are. Do you?”

Laela turned to Aylenia, feeling more dizzy by the moment. “She does.”

Redge backed away as Laela leaned closer to Aylenia. All around them, hushed murmurs began to rise until Redge, Tarus, Bhen, and other leaders settled them.

“Does the Underground know where we are?” Laela asked, practically leaning on Aylenia.

Aylenia examined Laela, but steadied her. “I’m not sure. I’ve been out of contact since you took my interlayer back at Aranoc.”

Laela winced as the pain in her ribs began to demand more of her attention. Her heart hammered louder in her chest, but she ignored it, attempting to focus. “Who would be out here? Why would they be out here?”

Again, Aylenia turned her palms skyward. “I don’t know. Could be scouts. Could be a strike team returning from the east and wanting to bypass the Cut.”

Vision swimming, Laela peered into Aylenia’s eyes, longing to know if she was being honest. Was any of this true? Was Aylenia trying to distract me so I wouldn’t notice the Underground’s ambush?

She rubbed the back of her hand where Aylenia had brushed her. The electricity coursing through it nullified as she curled her fingers into a fist. She didn’t know what to believe.
Not for the first time, she wished Rance was here. She wished her mother was. They always seemed to know what to do. Laela was a soldier. A bodyguard. Not a leader. She was meant to follow orders, not give them. Yet here they were, so close to Talon’s Grip and the possibility of rescue, but with the Underground between them and salvation, they might as well have been back in Avengard. Only now, Laela could feel her body fading, her mind losing focus with each passing moment.

She examined Aylenia. She wanted to trust her, to believe that she’d been earnest. About everything. But fear clawed at her ankles and crawled up her legs. Am I willing to bet the fate of the Wraith on it? On her? She steadied her breathing, slowed her heartbeat, and attempted to search Aylenia’s soul as a darkling would.

Be strong. Be courageous.

She chose to trust Aylenia. “Which do you believe it to be?”

Before Aylenia could answer, Tarus and Redge approached with Bhen and Asla in their wake. They distanced themselves from the rest of the crowd for more privacy.

Once away from the others, Asla spoke first. “We just took down Fort Cybel. We’re so close to the Grip. If it’s just a few Undergrounders, what are we even considering?”

“We had more numbers and the element of surprise,” Redge said. “And it might not be just a few Undergrounders. For all we know, an entire legion could be waiting for us around the bend. And don’t think I haven’t noticed, but this is the second time you’ve seemed eager for a fight.”

“And this is the second time you’ve wanted to delay us leavin’ this Neutreen-forsaken place,” Tarus hissed in Asla’s defense.

Laela held her hand up, but the action of summoning silence made her ribs flare with pain. Sucking air between her teeth, she grimaced at the pain in her nose and jaw. “Let’s ask someone who might know whether it’s just a few Undergrounders or an ambush.”

Aylenia stared back at her, undoubtedly taking note of all her physical tells that she was struggling. “It could be an ambush—there are enough crags and tunnel exits along the Spine to hide half a legion—but I don’t know.”

“Like we can trust her,” Redge said, not even bothering to address Aylenia.

Tarus glared at Redge. “Like we can trust you.” He scoffed then spoke more to himself. “Wantin’ to turn back…”

Asla held pinched fingers before Laela. “We’re this close. If not forwards, where are we supposed to go? The boats are that way!” She pointed south and east toward the sea.

Bhen only crossed his arms, declaring his stance of not taking a stance.

Laela wanted someone else to take the lead. Her mind felt like it was slowly sinking into the Grotto as pain overcame logic. She imagined another fight and didn’t believe she could make it. Conversely, what were their alternatives?

“There is a lowland gap in the Cut,” Aylenia said. “We’d have to backtrack, but they wouldn’t block both sides of the Spine. They’d expect you to follow the Tears, and they’d wait at the bend, not further south.”

Tarus rolled his eyes and tossed his hands in the air. “Ya can’t be serious.”

“We could follow the west side of the Spine like we’re heading toward Aeritan Bay,” Aylenia said, ignoring Tarus. “Then cut back just south of the Grip. They’d never expect us to come from the south.”

Laela’s ribs screamed. She wanted so desperately for this to be the end of their journey. She was hungry and exhausted, but if Aylenia was right—if she was telling the truth as Laela believed she was—then the path forward, the easy path, was reckless.

She looked over her shoulder, back the way they had come. There was a chance the Order would come south. They could be trapped between the Order and the Underground with nowhere to run and no place to hide. Both paths presented risk.

Tarus crossed his arms, facing south. Redge tapped his foot, ready to trek back the way they had come. Asla turned her feet parallel with the Tears until she was facing the Grip to further indicate her thoughts. Meanwhile, Bhen remained silently noncommittal.

Aylenia held Laela’s gaze. She suggested going back. Laela didn’t want to. She wanted to rest, but rest was for the corpses. Ignoring the pain and protest in her wounds, she turned to face north. I can do this. I can survive. Just breathe. Steadying her swimming vision, she took a deep breath. “We can’t afford to be reckless just because we’re close. We go back.”

Chapter 47: Until the Cut

Dracus XIII, Laela XIX, Threyna XVIII

Dracus

Dread accompanied each of Dracus’s agonizing steps. Worse than the pain in his withering flesh and bones, worse than the anguish of letting Canton return to Octarius—the knot in his throat at the prospect of what he might find threatened to hollow him here and now.

The Order camped in the middle of the Cut. The legionaries’ hoots and howls echoing off the high walls of the canyon rattled through his head like darklings in a soul jar. They were exactly where Canton said they would be with enough numbers to ensure victory against whoever their noise attracted. The fact that they were making a concerted effort to let every hollowed and hellhound from Bheric’s Hollow to the Roost know their whereabouts confirmed his suspicions too; this was unequivocally a trap.

Could be Threyna, a ploy to lure out Arilette. Ghosts, could be Laela. If Belrich found out her father was Aarkos Velar, he’d throw a festival to rival Cybel’s Eve.

Another gale of laughter rose from the fire at the center of their camp, but Dracus couldn’t see what instigated it. Walking along the southern rim of the valley, both buying time for Canton to reach Octarius and for him to formulate a plan that didn’t involve approaching Belrich head-on, Dracus attempted to count their numbers. Though it was difficult to discern shadows from legionaries in Order blacks, the banners waving in the gentle breeze rippled taut enough to see clearly.

If Belrich was with them earlier, he wasn’t any longer. Though the black dove flew on the green flag—the Order’s standard—the green dove atop a black backdrop was missing.

A spark of hope ignited in his chest. They might not have anyone. Just an empty trap!

Beside the black dove was the headless horse of Jagras’s Fourth Legion and the slain chimera of Artanius’s Ninth. Neither were at their full strength, which prompted Dracus to wonder if the remainder had accompanied Belrich back to Saltspire along with the First. To do so either meant he had the Blessing he’d long coveted, or he was afraid enough of the one who did that he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

The encampment was two rings of tents in concentric circles around each of the Premiuses’ pavilions. Unable to count the men, Dracus settled for counting the tents, just high enough for a single legionary to crawl into. Counting twice, he tallied 108 tents. While not a full regiment of either legion, they had enough men to fend off any who took their bait. Whatever their goal, they were committed to it, but the more Dracus observed, the less confident he felt that they actually had a prisoner. If they had someone, they’d be torturing them. And torture was never silent.

With half a mind of turning back to chase Canton down before he could ask Arilette and the Underground for aid, Dracus stopped his westbound trek atop the Cut’s rim. Dropping to his belly, he crept closer to the edge. Crippled hollowed groaned on the outskirts of the camp, which only made his reconnaissance more difficult.

Just as he was about to turn back, cheers resounded, echoing off the wet walls of the Cut. The spark of hope he dared to dream of died as nothing in Rheynia did.

Out from the pavilion marked with the slain chimera, a figure with a shroud over their head was escorted in manacles toward the eastern end of their encampment. Dracus scuttled along the southern ledge, attempting to see who they held captive, who they were jeering at.

There was only one man Dracus knew who, even staring down the wrong end of an irradiator’s sight, could strike such an imposing figure. His throat constricted. His lip curled, making the bristles of his mustache tickle his nose.

No. Not my Fawkes. Don’t touch him, you bastards…

“Daggers out, boys!” Artanius cried, punching a green-pauldroned arm to the sky.

The shout sent a wave of exuberance through the black-clad legions and made Dracus’s still heart consider beating again. His mind raced as it became clear that Fawkes wouldn’t have enough time for him to do as he and Canton had discussed. By the time he stalked to the western entrance of the Cut to draw the Order’s attention with the hopes that the Underground would come to his aid and attack from behind, Fawkes would be a goner. But to engage them now, Dracus would only ensure that they had two to torture instead of one.

Wishing he had a soul jar, a Dawnshard, or anything else that could create a distraction, Dracus stood to his feet. As legionaries led Fawkes to the edge of their encampment, another pair began shoveling a hole with spades. Bringing up the rear, another pair of legionaries carried the pavilion pole that Fawkes would be bound to.

Not happenin’, Old Boy.

Dracus had already failed. Canton wasn’t leaving; he’d all but ensured that by sending him to Octarius. If not for that boy, he would have hollowed a long time ago. Now, he had nothing but Fawkes. If the legionaries believed the lies that he’d been overtaken by Victarius Kaine’s darkling, then he’d show them the darker truth.

We’ll take down half this camp. Then when Canton and the Underground come and finish ‘em off, they’ll write songs about us, Old Boy. You and me. ‘The Love That Conquered The Cut.’ Wouldn’t that be somethin’? And maybe our song can torture some other poor bastard who can’t remember the words.

As for him, he was done trying to remember. Let go. That was the theme of his aunt’s rhyme. Let go of your hopes, your dreams, anything and everything you’ve ever loved because you’ll lose it anyway. Let go and persevere; learn to live without. Learn to survive. If that’s all life was supposed to be, Dracus was done with it, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The legionaries hoisted the pavilion pole upright and positioned it in the hole they’d dug in the soft silt of the Cut. A handful of others restrained Fawkes, as if he needed restraining. He stood stock-still, quiet as a lamb and just as docile as he awaited his fate.

He probably thought they were long gone. That’s what they’d always discussed. “Whatever happens, get Canton off the island.” That’s how it should have gone. But Canton had other plans, and now, so did Dracus.

While they cut Fawkes’s clothes from his body and undid his manacles, the rest of the legionaries prepared for the ritual. Regardless of cohort, the legionaries arranged in a single file line by rank. One by one, the Premiuses, Tribuni, and high-ranking Centuriots dug the edge of their Vendetta daggers into the pole and left it there until the column was lined, from head to heel, with the Order’s vindictive fury. All the while, the lower-ranking men drew their own blades, preparing to take their pound of flesh from the body that had dishonored their oaths. Only Fawkes was never a soldier of the Order—Dracus was. His was a punishment Dracus would have gladly let any other man take in his place, but not Fawkes. Never Fawkes.

Threyna

The rush of wind and the thud of blood pumping in her ears drowned out the wailing of the souls she’d taken into her Inner Throne but had yet to consume. On her journey south over the Rheynian countryside in search of the Wraith, all she found was the Order. Pockets of them were scattered about the Spine in groups anywhere from a dozen to a score. Each might have rounded up a handful of Wraith refugees in their flight from Aranoc, but none had Laela. None had Aylenia. And none had the numbers that would make any difference, but as she continued, she began to wonder if she even needed them at all.

She’d encountered three groups thus far and didn’t hesitate to make use of her rage and newfound powers. Thrice now she had exterminated the legionaries like the vermin they were. She didn’t need a blade to make them suffer or an arcanatek to vortex the hollowed or irradiate the darklings. She, by herself, was the perfect weapon, and she would continue to sharpen her edge on the whetstone of the Order’s division until she defeated all of them.

Divided, ruin will reign. They had separated their forces to cover more ground, capture more Wraith, but that was their mistake. If she had to face a full legion, she could be overwhelmed, become overtaken by her rot, and not have the time to consume. Divided, however, they were her prey. And she was becoming a better hunter after each engagement. Consuming souls became easier, more natural, and took less expenditure to achieve. The result—a surplus of souls that she could consume as she needed. The only problem was that she had to listen to them.

Her conjured wings flapped against the dying rains as the winds carried the storm west. The rhythmic flap added another percussive distraction to the voices and the growing rot that stretched up and down her left arm. She didn’t need to consume yet, but she knew who she would select when the time came.

Devult. A legionary in the Order’s Eighth, Devult had been the first to turn and run after their camp was assailed, by the Wraith of all people. Threyna had sifted through his memories and searched his thoughts for any sign of why the Wraith actually fought. She didn’t think them capable. She dared to hope that perhaps Laela had started to see the light that there was no escape. Or maybe Aylenia had convinced her that they could actually win this if they joined together. She sought any memories of Aylenia or Laela in Devult’s soul, but all she found was absolute devotion to his One True God.

However, as she flew in search of the Wraith, she felt the presence of the swirling black storm of red lightning drawing nearer to her Inner Throne. Looming large and foreboding, it brought credence to Devult’s faith. Even with the power she possessed, she couldn’t lose sight of what she needed. She couldn’t do this alone. She might not have needed Fawkes, Canton, and Dracus, but she did need Laela and the rest of the Wraith if they were going to succeed in beating back the dark.

She hoped Devult’s memories of the Wraith storming Fort Cybel were the signs of change. It was possible. Perhaps after losing Rance and their mother, Laela finally snapped. Perhaps there were others in the Wraith who’d grown tired of running, tired of failing. Laela was one of—if not—the best fighter she’d crossed blades with. If she did wish to fight, she would be a force to be reckoned with.

“You’re sisters,” her mother had said. “Divided, ruin will reign, but united…”

To have her on their side, to have the Wraith in addition to Threyna’s blood magic… victory was possible. But how many times had she hoped for the best and ended up in the stocks?

The memory of her brief reunion with what remained of her father flashed in her mind. His noseless, tongueless, milky-eyed face. The way he looked from her to Dracus. The way Belrich stood over him and stabbed down.

Pain. Frustration. Grief.

The souls in her Inner Throne began to clamor around her as if sensing her weakness. She could feel them attempting to gain access to the thoughts that brought them up in the first place. She tried fending them off, but like hollowed tearing the viscera from a fresh kill, they began strewing her memories all over.

Rivich’s pleading eyes, begging her to abandon the mission. Daeton’s ravaged form after her decision got him hollowed. The anger of Yevon’s darkling. The pain on the face of Ebrus’s shade as if he recognized her from beyond his flesh.

Too much pain. Too much loss.

“You’re alone,” Devult said. “Let go. Join the One True God in eternal undeath.”

Outside her Inner Throne, Threyna’s conjured wings began to falter. Within her seat of power, the dozen or so remaining souls encircled her.

As her wings began to dissolve to ash, Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne. This was her seat of power. Hers. She rebuffed them, shutting down her emotions and holding her thoughts captive. Walled off from their encroachment, she needed more space. She wanted to eject them, but, at the same time, she needed them, or at least eventually, she would. But they couldn’t stay in her Inner Throne any longer.

The walls of her Inner Throne began to blur as the entire room began to change. A door led out of the throne room down a dark, narrow corridor, away from her seat of power. A spiral staircase descended into an abyss that wound down and down into a damp, hopeless, cold.

“Here!” Threyna commanded. She forced the souls inside, but seized hold of Devult. “Not you.” She forged a stone wall across the cellar at the bottom of the spiral staircase, sealing the crying souls inside. But down here, she wouldn’t be able to hear their screams. The silence brought peace to her soul, but the fear emanating from Devult gave her pleasure.

She drew in breath within her Inner Throne until there was nothing left of Devult. No vile retorts. No entitled bravado. No profession of faith in the One True God’s salvation. Only silence.

Returning to her seat of power, she reconjured the feathers of her deteriorating wings. With her focus returned to the physical world around her, the scent of smoke stained the wind. Ahead, tendrils of a campfire rose from the Cut. Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne, attuning to heartbeats. There were a lot of them. Even more approached from the east. Order, Wraith, or both—she couldn’t tell, but either way, the Battle of the Cut was about to have a second coming. She would redeem all that had been lost.

Dracus

There were some perks to being on the edge of becoming hollowed. For one, Dracus didn’t feel the effects that came with fear. Though he was terrified of what he was about to suggest, his heart remained still, his fingers stayed relaxed. The living could become enslaved by their emotions, but to Dracus they were only the shadows of something he once remembered feeling.

He slid down the lip of the Cut’s wall and advanced past the crippled hollowed on the outskirts of the Order’s camp. At his approach, the slack-jawed legionaries standing watch balked.

Dracus stopped before them, and realizing they weren’t about to introduce him, he announced himself. “Jagras, Artanius? Quota’s due.”

The legionaries forgot about Fawkes as all eyes in the encampment turned towards Dracus. The men parted as both Jagras and Artanius approached. Dracus didn’t wait for them to come to him. Striding between the parted legionaries, Dracus closed the distance between him and Fawkes. Hang in there, Old Boy.

Dracus pasted on his fakest smile. “Ah, Jags, Arty, I’d say it’s a pleasure, but…” He shrugged, continuing to saunter forward through the legionaries. “Never was, was it?”

Jagras, the longtime Premius of the Fourth, had more gray in his beard than brown, and more wrinkles framing his eyes than Dracus had souls in his old soul jars. Stern and stoic as ever, the near-perfect protégé of Lord Premius Decimus lowered his brow.

“Dracus Alius.” Jagras pursed his lips.

Fawkes jostled beneath the shroud over his head.

I’m here, Old Boy.

“My, my,” Jagras said. “I must be slipping. I never thought you would be foolish enough to show yourself. Let alone so… brazenly.”

His eyes flicked in a near-imperceptible motion. Dracus could practically taste the perspiration bubbling on the bridge of Jagras’s nose. After all, Dracus had made a name for himself over his storied career of tactical warfare. Surely he wouldn’t be so foolish as to walk into an obvious trap. But he had, and he needed them to believe that too.

Dracus scoffed. “Ya throw a party for me, yet yer surprised when I show up? Come on, Jags. I see y’all got yer daggers out.”

He drew his own. Fang. A simple name for a simple blade. Unlike many of the legionaries’ Vendetta daggers, his lacked the ornate designs, intricate carvings, or embedded seals. Just cold steel. Simple. Straight. Sharp.

“They’re for me, eh?” Dracus prodded, coming to a stop ten paces from Jagras and Artanius, and another twenty or so from where Fawkes was being held. “So what’dya say ya let him go, and we do this the right way. And shut yer mouth, Arty. Ya look like a hollowed, gaping like that. Blood and bone, Belrich must be slipping if he made you a Premius.”

Younger, prouder, and packed full with all the ego Decimus had beaten out of Dracus, Artanius bristled, ready to defend his honor before his men. Jagras cast a fixing glare, preventing him from acting rashly.

“You will address Prince Belrich as his station demands,” Jagras said. “Though you have lost your right to call him Legatus.”

Dracus hmphed. “My right?” He shook his head, tossing Fang between his hands, feigning a clumsiness that didn’t exist in his youth while attempting to stall without making it obvious. “Where there is order there is justice, eh? But I’m glad ya brought up rights, ‘cause that’s exactly what I wanna talk to ya about, Jags.”

“You have no rights,” Artanius snapped. “You’re a disgrace to the Dove and all who ever wore the black.”

Dracus tilted his head and cocked a brow as if scolding a petulant child. “Adults are talkin’, Arty. Thought I told ya once already to keep your gab shut?” Not giving Artanius time to retort, Dracus nodded at Jagras. “I’m accused of turnin’ traitor. Punishment for any legionary is the Final Demise. As Second Premius, I ain’t exempt. But like any legionary, I can invoke the right of the Blood Trials.”

“Dracus, no!” Fawkes’s words were barely muffled by the sack over his head. He wasn’t the only one; men of the Fourth and Ninth, supposedly well-disciplined men, broke out in gasps or murmurs.

Dracus knew he had them. The Blood Trials had never been invoked, and for good reason; no one elected to fight to first blood blindfolded against the Legatus’s Champion. The Final Demise at least guaranteed an end. Hollowed, shade, or darkling—whatever fate, they would all be irradiated. But to lose in the Blood Trials, one would suffer the Final Demise without its absolution. Flayed, imprisoned, left in the dark to heal, only to be flayed again. And again. And again. Then, once they eventually succumbed to their end, they would not receive the arcanatek’s release.

Artanius gawked, his jaw unhinging at the prospect of a Blood Trial. Even Jagras raised his brows before flicking his eyes to the southern lip of the Cut as if expecting to see an army.

Dracus chuckled. “I see my reputation precedes me. What else they sayin’ about good, old Darkling Dray? Don’t tell me you believe the whole Victarius thing too? Ya think I conjure blood magic, command the hollowed? Betcha think I can fly too. Blood and bone, I expected it of Nerus, but not of you, Jags. Oh, speakin’ of which, I hear there’s an openin’ to be Second Premius. Actually… quite a few openin’s in the Second.”

More muttering. Though Dracus couldn’t feel the fear eating at him, he could sense it on the others as his legend grew and his mystery deepened. The word How? formed on the lips of dozens before him. Fawkes continued to protest, but Dracus only focused on the Premiuses.

Jagras’s scowl deepened. Artanius’s surprise turned predatory, and Dracus knew he had him, but there was one more thing he needed to ensure.

“One other thing.” Dracus gestured to Fawkes. “I invoke a second Blood Trial for him. I’ll serve as Champion for both.”

Artanius opened his mouth to speak, but Dracus cut him short.

“Before you say anythin’ stupid, me versus your two Champions. Same time.” As Dracus expected, Artanius didn’t bother to find his tongue—his query answered. “If I win, exonerated by Neutreen’s judgement, we both go free.”

More shock. More mutterings, louder this time.

“Dracus!” Fawkes shouted, but no one was listening.

While Artanius was ready to draw his Vendetta dagger, Jagras fixed Dracus with a darkling’s glare. “You are requesting to fight two Champions, simultaneously, while blindfolded.”

Dracus nodded. “I win, we walk, and you don’t come after us. Ever.”

“And when you lose,” Artanius said, “we will skin you. Both of you. Then, just before you fade, you’ll sit in the tombs of Saltspire and wait for us to do it again.”

“Where there is order, there is justice,” Dracus said.

“Dracus…” Fawkes was practically pleading. “What are you doin’?”

He didn’t like gambling with Fawkes’s fate. If he let them go through with the Final Demise, Fawkes would at least be irradiated. But if he lost, Fawkes would be condemned to a life of suffering followed by an eternity of more. Good thing I don’t plan on losin’…

As the legionaries grew giddy, Jagras presented Dracus with a blindfold. Sparing one last glance at Fawkes and the eastern mouth of the Cut, Dracus tied the fabric tightly over his eyes, hoping the dark abyss wouldn’t be the last thing he’d see. With Fang in hand and his and Fawkes’s fates resting on the blade’s edge, he refused to lose. Not to an upright Dreadroot like Artanius or a dull glowstone like Jagras.

Just draw first blood on each of ‘em. We’ll get outta here, Old Boy.

“Neutreen is watching,” Jagras said.

The legionaries cheered. Fawkes pleaded to end this madness. Dracus blocked it all out, focusing only on the sound of Jagras’s and Artanius’s boots squelching through the muddy, clay-like floor of the Cut. Artanius charged at his right, coming in faster than Jagras and on an angle as if to take him from the side. Overeager, as upstart Order boys tended to be, Artanius reared back and slashed, evident by the disturbance on the wind. Dracus lurched to his left, spinning out of the way. He knew he’d be in the path of Jagras’s slower, more direct approach, but he needed to bait the attack.

He won’t slash. He’ll thrust.

Dracus didn’t attempt to stop his leftward momentum, allowing his spin away from Artanius and the slick ground to carry him past Jagras’s thrust. He wheeled around, attempting to reorient himself. Artanius’s overzealous swings came with a grunt born from low in his throat. Dracus evaded a savage slash that attempted to part his head from his shoulders, then dodged a thrust where his midsection had been a moment ago. Having evaded the joust, Dracus grabbed for Artanius’s wrist, but found his forearm, just past the bracer, with his free hand. He drove Fang up and through.

Steel met flesh and tore loose a scream. Despite his focus, the wave of gasps and the silence that followed disturbed the din of the legionaries Dracus had drowned out. Unable to hear the squish of boots or the stroke of a sword, he wheeled. Steering Artanius’s body around like an unruly horse with Fang serving as the reins, Dracus felt his blade slide along Artanius’s bone. Artanius released his short sword, screaming.

“One down,” Dracus said, tuning his ears for any sign of Jagras. “Let Fawkes go.”

Jagras wasn’t foolish enough to answer. Though Dracus managed to filter out the other legionaries again, Artanius’s cries did more than enough to conceal Jagras’s sneaking.

“Let him go!” Dracus shouted.

“Dracus!”

At Fawkes’s shout, Dracus crumpled to the ground, kicking out Artanius’s feet. On the ground, in the muck and entwined with Artanius, he released Fang. With both hands free, he grappled the young Premius and rolled. Relying on landmarks, Dracus slid his hands up Artanius’s arm, over his shoulder, and around his neck. Artanius squirmed, but Dracus didn’t need to see to fight this type of battle.

He could feel Jagras was close and searching for a clean attack. Dracus wouldn’t give him one. With one arm around his neck and the other hand pressing the back of Artanius’s head forward, Dracus secured the chokehold. Artanius’s wounded limb flailed helplessly, attempting to break his bind.

“Let him go, Jagras.” Dracus grabbed his own upper arm and squeezed, increasing the pressure on Artanius’s windpipe. “Or he’ll suffer, here and now.”

Boots slid to his right, attempting not to make a sound. Dracus wrenched Artanius, positioning the Premius between him and Jagras. Steel punched through leather and met flesh. Artanius groaned, unable to breathe in Dracus’s grasp. There was no way of telling if Jagras’s strike was a killing blow, but if Artanius hollowed, Dracus didn’t want to wait to find out. He shoved Artanius away and kicked at where he expected Jagras to be. His shin connected with something. Pain spread like fissures through his lower leg. Jagras attempted to reposition, but his foot slipped, and he fell to the ground beside Dracus and Artanius.

Unarmed, but desperate to draw first blood, Dracus rolled, climbing over Artanius to locate Jagras. With his shin screaming, he crawled atop the Fourth Premius, searching for landmarks. Dracus found Jagras’s right wrist and pinned it. Jagras was face-down. Planting his knee in the Premius’s spine, Dracus reared and slammed his fist into the back of Jagras’s head.

Blind and covered in mud, unable to tell if he’d drawn blood, Dracus wailed on Jagras to ensure it. “Let!” Crunch. “Us!” Crunch. “Go!” He punched, sometimes connecting, and other times only half-hitting his target. Each missed punch hurt worse than the ones that landed. Still, he didn’t stop until his knuckles felt like they’d shattered. Then he drove his forearm into the back of Jagras’s skull, crushing the man into the mud that had already claimed so many lives. Finally, confident that he’d drawn enough blood to sate the trials’ completion, he tore the blindfold off.

Heaving for breath, he stared down at the mess of the back of Jagras’s skull. A ruin of mud and blood, the Premius twitched. If he was alive, he wasn’t long for this world. Dracus spun, searching for Artanius.

Clutching his gut with his skewered right arm, Artanius gained his feet. His face was pale, but his eyes were black as the rot that turned Bohen into the Skeleton King.

“Let us go,” Dracus said, his voice breathy. “Neutreen has made her judgement.”

Jagras’s shade rose from his body, passing through Dracus like a cold wind.

Artanius’s gaze followed the shade. He nodded to a Tribunus, who flipped the switch on his arcanatek to irradiate. While the Tribunus prepared to end Jagras’s existence, Artanius turned his attention to Dracus, breathing heavily.

“Neutreen may have found you innocent,” Artanius said, clutching his arm. “But you fail to realize, Dracus—here, the One has final authority.” He shook his head, grinning all the while. “You aren’t going anywhere. Neither of you! Ready the Final Demise!”

Dracus’s jaw unhinged. He’d done it. He’d survived the Blood Trials against not just one, but two men. There was no order. There was no justice. Only the promise of pain.

Dracus lurched to his feet, but before he could ready a defense, the legionaries swarmed him. Men grabbed him by the arms, dragging him away from Jagras’s fallen form and towards the tent post lined with Vendetta daggers.

Fawkes resisted the men working against him, but there were too many. Dracus couldn’t squirm away. His ankle felt numb from below where he’d kicked out Jagras’s feet. His fingers couldn’t even curl into a fist to strike or break free from their grasp as they dragged him closer to the dagger-lined post and the ensuing torment.

Though Fawkes had been closer to the Vendetta-daggered post, he had fought to get away from it, while Dracus could barely slow the men dragging him. His feet slid in the silt, providing no friction for his feeble resistance. He glanced over his shoulder to see how much room he had to mount an escape, but too late.

The legionaries threw him into the post. His upper back crashed into the daggers. Razors slashed sharper than any hellhound’s teeth and with more malice than any hollowed’s rotten fingernails. Fire lanced through him as he slid off the blades and fell sidelong to the ground. His consciousness waned. The call within, the desire to let go and hollow, rang like a bell on Bheric’s Day.

“No!” Fawkes shouted. “Dracus!” He headbutted one legionary, elbowed another, then grabbed a third and hurled him over his shoulder, slamming him into the ground. Bruised eyes wild, beard a tangle, the scars across his bare chest stretched and contracted with each pump of his arms as he fought his way toward Dracus.

Don’t. Let. Go.

Eyes on Fawkes, Dracus resisted the urge to succumb. Not yet. Not while they have him. This time, when the legionaries hoisted him up, readying to secure him to the daggered pole, Dracus channeled his pain into rage. Blocking out the bumps, bruises, and lacerations that coursed like an electric current, Dracus used the legionaries’ support to stomp down on one’s instep. Wrenching his arm from the legionary’s grasp, Dracus shoved him, face first, into the pole of the Final Demise.

The legionary fell, screaming, his hands clutching his shredded face. As another went to replace him in securing Dracus’s arm, the legionary on his opposite arm crumbled beneath the blow of a double-fisted overhead strike. Hand free, Dracus struck with the heel of his hand into the nose of the legionary on his left. Dracus’s wounded fingers unsheathed the legionary’s blade and resheathed it in his gut.

Fawkes secured the short sword of the legionary he’d struck and pushed his back against Dracus’s. The contact drew attention to the injured tissues that would never heal, but simultaneously, the rise and fall of Fawkes’s breath brought him peace.

“Never shoulda come ‘ere,” Fawkes said.

Dracus snorted, eyeing the surrounding legionaries too scared to make a move. “Cant’s idea. I woulda left ya. Wonder where he got that ghostin’ hero complex from.”

Fawkes scoffed. “Not us, eh?”

“You never give up, do you?” Artanius shouted.

Dracus ignored him and the rest of the Order. There seemed to be screams all around them, chaos swirling within the Order’s ranks. But he blocked it all out. It might as well have just been him and Fawkes from Elyngrove to Octaven. “Think we gone done run outta luck, Old Boy. Don’t see us makin’ it outta this mess.”

Fawkes took a deep breath as if savoring every moment of it. “Whatever happens. This isn’t the end, Dray. Hollowed, shade, darkling—don’t matter; I’ll find you. We’ll find a way.”

Dracus felt the darkness calling to him. He could just let go, and this suffering would be over. There was no telling what the next stage would bring, but at least this part would be at its end. Yet Fawkes’s words granted a glimmer of hope. Since he’d hollowed, he’d never allowed himself to really think about what would happen next; it hadn’t mattered. So concerned with getting Canton beyond the curse, he’d denied the possibilities. Could Fawkes and I find each other, even on the other side of suffering? It was a long shot. An implausibility. But a possibility. Like a lone glowstone in the depths of the Gullies, there was light left, even in this fallen world.

He would not let go. Not while there was still light to be had.

A shadow passed overhead, and all eyes drifted skyward.

Then Neutreen descended with the wrath reserved for the unjust.

Threyna

The Order formed a circle around two heartbeats at its center, but the spectacle distracted all from the approaching horde. Running as they were, the Wraith might have appeared as hollowed, but the blood pumping through their veins was unmistakable. On the opposite side of Cybel’s Tears, the Underground marched, bathed in the glow of arcanatek illuminators.

It felt like the making of a song. An epic poem that would live on long after the Order was defeated, the curse was lifted, and Threyna and everyone else could die true deaths. She was back in the Cut, where her story truly began. Though the Wraith were not entering to fight the Order—but rather spurred by their fear of returning to Octarius—they were still here.

The Order can bleed. They’ll all see that together, we can win!

Threyna dove on the outskirts of the circle of gathered legionaries. Barely hovering above the ground, she conjured a hooked blade and slashed at the lower legs of the clamoring men. Before the falling legionaries or their neighbors could locate what had attacked them, Threyna charged past. Her blade ripped through muscle and tendon like an irradiator through a darkling.

Their cries mixed with the shouts of their brothers-in-arms as the Wraith came into view in greater numbers and with more speed than even Threyna had given them credit for. But the legionaries’ divided attention afforded her another pass. Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne and ignoring the black veins stretching from her bangle, Threyna drew upon the blood of the fallen and gave it shape. It congealed into several pikes. All at once, they shot up from the puddles of blood, skewering the legionaries attempting and failing to help their fellows up.

More screams echoed through the Cut. Some of the men hollowed. Other souls fled their pierced flesh in the form of shades. A few became darklings ready for her consumption. Kicking off the ground with a flap of her wings, Threyna took flight, this time drawing gasps and pointing fingers. Adding to her curved blade, the conjuration morphed into a scythe. With the Wraith approaching, it was time to showcase her abilities for all to see.

She drew in breath, taking the souls in with ease. Barely needing to focus on the task, she ushered them into her Inner Throne and assuaged the rot in her veins or escorted them to her Inner Dungeon for later consumption. As all eyes rose to find her flying atop them on blood-conjured wings, Threyna focused on those who didn’t look up.

Dracus and Fawkes pressed their backs together at the center of the bloody circle, bodies in Order blacks around them. They hadn’t noticed her. Neither had the men immediately before them. Threyna would show them the error of their ways.

She dove, rearing her scythe for another strike. Spreading her wings to control her descent, she slashed in a wide arc. Just as eyes widened and lower jaws unhinged, the curved edge of her bloody weapon cleaved through heads and necks alike.

She landed to the ground before Dracus, allowing her conjured wings to fall to ash. Glancing over her shoulder to Fawkes, she said, “Fight. Win.”

With no time to address their shock or awe, she drew in breath, taking new souls into her Inner Throne. From her seat of power, she formed the blood at her feet into a wall of pikes. The newly forged weapons burst upward, impaling those nearest. More souls launched into the air as darklings, or seeped from their failing flesh as shades. Those condemned to their mortal form lost all sense of humanity and attacked whatever was closest—in this case, their Order brethren.

She allowed her conjured pikes to crumble to ashes, dropping the bodies of the departed to the ground and releasing the hollowed from their bindings. Darklings dove into other legionaries, beginning the contest of wills. Conjuring a double-bladed glaive, Threyna made quick work of their distractions.

Hack, slash, thrust. She skewered a legionary too stubborn to run. Retracting her glaive, she spun it over her head to chop horizontally across his face. Power surged. The blood all around called to her. Feeling invincible, Threyna leapt into the air, conjuring new wings. An angel of death, she wanted to be seen—by the Order, the Wraith, and the Underground reinforcements approaching from the east.

Divided, ruin will reign. I will unite.

She sank into her Inner Throne, deeper than she’d ever dared go before.

Dracus

The veil between life and death decayed—thin and fragile. Under the curse of Rheynia, it became difficult to discern the difference between the two. The long faces of the newly deceased held the expressions of their last moments, but those among the living were of equal torment.

Fear. Pain. Loss.

Dracus would not fall victim. Not here. Not now.

Grateful that Threyna had chosen this moment to return, Dracus had no qualms with cutting their reunion short. He searched for an escape between the ranks of the distracted legionaries. There wasn’t a path, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t carve one.

“With me!” Dracus called to Fawkes.

Heading westward, he took advantage of the space created by Threyna’s double-bladed glaive. Charging forward with Fawkes at his heels, he shoved a hollowed into a legionary, then hacked down on the pauldron of a legionary taking aim at Threyna with his vortex.

Dracus’s wounds screamed from where the razor edges of the Vendetta daggers carved across his back. His shin felt like it wouldn’t support another step. His knuckles could barely bend, swollen and numb. He could feel himself slipping into the night of death. But he knew the comfort it offered was a lie. He’d go mad, slaughtering everything in his path out of jealousy of the living—unable to tell friend from foe, Fawkes from a hellhound, or Canton from Belrich.

“Let go, my love. Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.”

He wasn’t ready to sing. He refused to. Guided by his blade, he hacked, stabbed, and slashed his way, attempting to carve a path through the Order.

“Dray!” Fawkes’s voice seemed so far away, though he could feel his hand on his back.

Focus. Follow the blade. Just you and the blade, kid.

Fire coursed across his ribs. Roared along the back of his head. Scorched a hole through his shin. His body was failing; he could feel it with each stroke of his sword. It seemed as if between his mind and his body, he could only keep one working properly.

He deflected a thrust aimed for his midsection, blocked a second aimed at his shoulder, and countered with a jab of his half-closed fist. As the legionary stumbled back, Dracus slashed from neck to navel. His Order blacks split, divided by a bloody gash. He stumbled and fell. Behind the legionary, the walls of the Cut and the blackness beyond called to him. They could survive. They could escape. And once Fawkes was safe, then he would let go.

“Dray!”

Almost there, Old Boy. Just a little farther.

“Dracus!”

Fawkes’s voice seemed even further away now. But his hand was no longer on his back. Dracus spun to find Fawkes engaged with two legionaries while fending off a hollowed.

Desperation gripped him like Dreadroot. Vision narrowing until only Fawkes was in view, Dracus abandoned the possibility of escape. There was no future. No hope of giving Canton the life he’d never had or the peace he’d only dreamed of. There was nothing. Thoughts vanished. Pain ceased to exist. Only Fawkes.

The distance that separated him from Fawkes and his assailants faded in a blink. With a lunging jump, he stabbed his short sword straight through the back of a rearing legionary. The hollowed was on Fawkes, barely held at bay with his free hand while he jostled with the other legionary.

Something burst from the ground beside Dracus, evoking a scream from another legionary. It barely registered. A single groan in a horde of hollowed, a pebble of Viridite amongst all the light of the Gullies’ glowstones. Ignoring the distractions, he sliced through the lower leg of the legionary across from Fawkes. Fawkes shoved the hollowed away and buried his acquired sword through the legionary’s open mouth.

“C’mon, we gotta go!” Dracus spun back to the path he’d carved for them, but it was closing. Not just by legionaries, but crimson walls that sprouted out of the ground behind them. As dark and deep as the blood coating his sword, a gory curtain closed in like the jaws of a giant beast.

“No…” Even if they made it past the last of the legionaries, they’d be trapped.

“Watch out!”

Something crashed into Dracus from behind. Wind rushed past his ear as his momentum carried him forward, and he fell to the bloodstained clay of the Cut’s floor. The sound of colliding swords rang in his ears. Warbles of half-charged irradiators exploded all around him. The wall of blood closed, sealing him and Fawkes inside with the Order. He glanced to the sky above the encroaching blood wall, waiting for the Skeleton King to rise on draconic wings.

Before anything could come over the wall, it faltered, never reaching its full height, and crumbling to ashes. Dracus didn’t understand what he was seeing, yet somehow, amidst the chaos of the fight, the soft squelch of steel sliding through flesh overcame all other sounds. Dracus looked over his shoulder.

Fawkes blinked. His face paled. Blood dribbled from the corner of his lip.

A sword point protruded through his stomach and out his back. Fawkes gripped the arm of the legionary who held the blade, staring at it as if unable to make sense of how it had gotten there.

Dracus opened his mouth to scream but found he had no voice. Ashes swept through the Cut. Unable to tell if they were real or if he’d been transported back to the pyre that burned Arenius’s fleet, Dracus fought for lucidity. He tried to pry himself from the ground, to hurl himself at Fawkes’s attacker, but he couldn’t move. Pain worse than anything he’d ever experienced gouged through his stomach and erupted out his back as if he’d taken the blade to the gut himself. He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breathe. He felt his lips move, mouthing Fawkes’s name, but still, no sound came forth.

Fawkes roared. He reared back his head and brought the crown down on the legionary’s brittle face. The first headbutt broke the legionary’s nose. The second, his orbital bone. The third didn’t connect because the legionary had already lost his grip on his sword and collapsed to the ground, seizing. Fawkes fell atop him, sword still embedded in his gut. He drove his own sword through the legionary’s twitching chest.

His soul made no effort to stay; his shade slipped from his flesh as easily as Fawkes’s blade slid from his belly. Then Fawkes staggered, falling to all fours. Inclining his head, he searched for Dracus.

Dracus’s vision tunneled tighter than the entrances to Aranoc. The world might as well have been burning around them. Legionaries were screaming, backing away, even running past Dracus and Fawkes, but Dracus didn’t care to know why. Both on their hands and knees, they crawled toward one another until Fawkes collapsed an arm’s reach from Dracus.

Denial robbed Dracus of sense. He saw the angle of the thrust, knew the damage such a blow would do. As much blood drained from Fawkes’s body to litter the ground around them, more was pooling within, leaking from his eviscerated intestines and his punctured lung. Yet he crawled the remaining distance to Fawkes as if he were slipping into their bed after a long, painful day.

He’ll get up. He’s gotta get up.

No fear. No sadness, disappointment, or regret. Those were for the dead. Fawkes would live. Dracus would hollow, but Fawkes would live. He fell prone beside Fawkes so they were facing one another. 

Blood poured from a gash in his hairline and leaked from his too-red lips. “The boy…” Fawkes’s voice came forced, weak. “Alive?”

Dracus nodded, grounding the side of his face into the mud, his throat too tight to speak.

Fawkes reached his hand for Dracus’s face. The gentleness of his touch was ruined by the tremble in his hand as he attempted to caress Dracus’s cheek. “Not here. True death. Out there. Together.”

Dracus wanted to let go. He and Fawkes could hollow together. Maybe, just maybe, they could hold onto the piece of themselves that loved each other. Maybe they could hold onto that as they withered away, waiting for a Justicus to vortex and irradiate them, or a Teller to burn their bodies until their souls were released to Neutreen.

Delusion.

“Forever and ever it is we who survive.”

The lullaby haunted him, taunting him for ever wanting more than just to endure this fate. But he was a survivor. Stubborn or stupid, he even believed he could do what Fawkes was asking of him. It didn’t change his desire to let go, accept the pain, succumb to the hollowing. Yet how could he ignore Fawkes’s last request?

The arcanatek on his belt weighed heavily on his right hip, as did the absence of his soul jar, but he knew what he needed to do. He placed his hand atop Fawkes’s on his cheek. “I’ve gotcha, Old Boy. Beyond the curse, eh? We go together, right?”

Fawkes nodded, but his eyelids were drooping. Dracus flipped the switch on his blaster, setting it to vortex and allowing it to begin its warbling charge. Needing a new soul jar, he rolled onto his back in search of a fallen legionary. Wincing through the effort of moving, he dragged himself towards the nearest body as battle waged all around him. Screams filled the air. Shuffling feet stumbled over one another as bodies collided—hollowed and living warred while a goddess of death reigned overhead.

He rolled a legionary onto his side, searching for the soul jar at his belt. His hand, stained with Fawkes’s blood, closed around the orb. Taking it from the legionary’s possession, he opened it, releasing whatever foul souls it carried. Not caring who they sought to overtake, Dracus crawled back towards Fawkes, empty soul jar in hand.

Fawkes was fading fast. His eyes, so vibrant in life, were a dull, wandering gray as they searched for him. He reached for the fatekeeper at his chest. Too weak to pull it from his neck, Dracus took it himself, plucking the arcanatek from its leather strap.

“I… love… you,” Fawkes said.

“This ain’t the end.” Dracus pocketed Fawkes’s fatekeeper. “I’ll see you again, Old Boy.” The arcanatek hummed on his hip. He screwed the soul jar onto the back of the vortex despite the tremble of his hands. He aimed unsteadily at the man he loved.

“I love you, too, Fawkes.”

No tears fell. Not because emotion wasn’t welling up inside him, but because such gifts were reserved for the living. Fawkes wouldn’t receive the proper send-off. There wasn’t a proper send-off to give. He was supposed to live. Canton was supposed to flee. And Dracus was supposed to have died during the Disasters when the building collapsed on his mother. He never should have escaped Bheric’s Hollow with Canton. He never should have survived the Battle of the Cut or been able to endure after Arilette poisoned him. But here he was, and everything was wrong.

His teeth clenched. His vision narrowed tighter until Fawkes was the only thing he could see. Smoke stained the air, ashes dried out his mouth, but they were just memories from back when he had dreams. Now he watched the life flee from his last dream yet to hope for. 

Fawkes forced a smile, but his teeth were stained with blood. His eyes, barely open at this point, searched sadly as if to see where they had gone wrong. Nearly fifteen years ago, after arriving in Octarius and joining the Underground, Fawkes was the only one who welcomed him. Fawkes was the only one who treated him as a man and not a darkling warlord. They had dreamed of leaving together aboard Arenius’s fleet and starting a new life together in Sansia, but that future was burned to ash when Arilette set Resilience aflame.

“Not the end,” Fawkes said. “Just a new beginning. Beyond the curse.”

“A new beginning… I won’t fail you.” Dracus closed his eyes, daring to believe it possible. He pulled the trigger. The vortex spun, drawing Fawkes’s soul from his body and funneling his essence into the soul jar.

Dracus fell to the ground and rolled to his back. The pain persisted as if he’d just been thrown against the Vendetta daggers, but it paled in comparison to the loss he couldn’t feel. He only felt cold, empty, alone.

Threyna

Spears rose from the ground, born of the blood of the fallen. Conjured arrows rained down, pelting legionaries as they tried to take aim at her. Flying upon blood-spawned wings with a double-bladed glaive in her hands, she swept over the distracted legions. They were no match for her. Like sheep to slaughter or crops before a scythe, they came and fell all while the running Wraith approached.

She could sense their terror in the beating of their hearts. They were afraid of the Underground, but their fear was misplaced. It was the Order they ran from and the failed Dominion they claimed to uphold. Their dream of a life beyond the curse could begin anew, here in Rheynia. The Order was the blight upon the land, and finally, the Wraith would see and they would not fear.

An irradiator fired. Radiant light flashed in her peripheral vision. Threyna opened her wings, slowing her momentum and swerving out of the way of the blast. She raked her glaive atop the shoulders of her enemies, sending more men in black uniforms to the ground and more shouts to the clouds overhead.

Another irradiator fired, forcing her to roll to the side. The bolt of energy sizzled past, but Threyna chased it, climbing higher into the sky and preparing to swoop down again. She drew in breath, calling upon the freshly departed souls, but another irradiator charge screamed past. Barely dodging out of the way, she lost control of the shades she’d called upon. Unable to abate the growing rot, she consumed a pair of souls from the dungeons beneath her Inner Throne.

Only half of the Order’s number remained. With the Wraith nearing and her rot receding, Threyna prepared a statement she would make certain no one forgot. A flood of blood was available to her, asking—no, begging—to be used for her purposes. Threyna raised her arm, and with it, a circular wall, lined with pikes directed at the center, rose from the ground to encompass the legionaries.

“Bring me Belrich,” Threyna shouted as her wall enclosed and began to constrict. “And I will bring you dea—”

A vortex’s charge distorted the air around her. She inhaled, but reacted too late. Pressure pulled upon her. The walls of her Inner Throne quaked with a force that threatened to rip her from her seat of power altogether. The door of her subterranean dungeon shattered, allowing her kept souls to escape. Unable to restrain them amidst her own unsteadiness, she couldn’t stop them from bursting free from her throne room and soaring into the night air.

Threyna’s grip on her Inner Throne faltered. Her wings burned to ash. Though she wasn’t as high as when she’d flown over the clouds above the Gullies, gravity opened its fragile arms to her again.

Panic seized her stomach, and her blood glaive disintegrated within her hands. Flailing, she crashed onto the legionaries. They broke her fall, but entangled in a mess of limbs, blades, and arcanatek amidst a tempest of shades and darklings, it took everything she had to emerge unscathed. She stomped on a fallen legionary, wrestled a short sword away from another, and stabbed a third through the shoulder.

Desperately, she tried to reclaim her Inner Throne. She could see her high-backed chair, the red cushion on the ivory stone, but it might as well have been across the sea. She charged for it, but outside the palace of her mind, the battle still raged. Absent her blood magic, she ripped her sword free to attack the man she’d taken it from.

Before she could finish her cut, something whined through the light armor of her fatigues. She sensed blood, but not its power, its warning.

Pain sparked up her spine and wrapped around her ribs. She spun to defend herself, but another blade punched her through the shoulder. Fire radiated along her collarbone and into her sternum. Smoke climbed through her neck and choked the breath from her lungs. Reeling, she swung at her attacker, but her edge merely slapped at the legionary’s armor.

“Kill her!”

She shoved away from a counterattack, but she lost her footing in the fray of legionaries. Ash swept from her crumbling blood wall. Again, she reached for her Inner Throne. She was almost there.

Before she could gain access to her blood magic, rough hands yanked her braid from behind, jarring her head back.

“Die!”

Cold ripped across her throat. Blood sprayed before her eyes. She gasped for breath, but none came. Warmth flooded down her neck until she was drowning in it. Again she tried to breathe, but again she was denied.

She didn’t know when she’d dropped her sword, but she must have, because both hands were wrapped around her throat, begging her blood to stay within the thin walls of flesh that kept her alive.

She fell before the seat of her Inner Throne. Crawling up the dais with her hand outstretched, reaching for the arm of the chair, she fell short, collapsing a handspan from her seat of power.

No. No. No! The bangle’s panic melded with her own.

She willed her body, her mind—whatever kept her conscious—to work. Bloody hands grasped the arm of the chair, but it seemed closer somehow, as if the throne had leaned down to lift her up.

She hauled herself into her Inner Throne and pressed her back into the chair. Blood stained her ivory palace, but power and potential returned to her like a Legatus standing before their armed and ready legions. Instead of soldiers, she had bodies, blood, souls.

Bow. Bow to me.

Bodies of the deceased contorted. Shades and darklings alike stopped what they were doing to surge towards her.

Lying on her back on the floor of the Cut, bleeding out, she gripped her throat and stared at the sky. Red. Not gray. Red. Not clouds. Mist.

Instinctually, she drew in breath. Not through her nose and mouth, but directly into her Inner Throne. Blood, bone, and soul obliged, and she devoured them. Power unlike any she’d felt before pumped through her.

As a resounding click came from the bangle, blood reversed its flow, seeping back into her. Flesh restitched. Breath found its way back to her lungs, and rot retreated like darkness from the light. The legionaries that had stabbed her backed away, their mouths wide, eyes blinking.

She felt their fear—heard their short, rapid breaths, the immediacy of their racing hearts. From within her Inner Throne, she could identify each and every unique pattern of their individual pulses. And they were hers.

Rising to her feet as they continued to back away from her, she seized their frightened hearts and squeezed. Pressure throbbed, making the walls of her Inner Throne seem to pulsate. The tempo increased, the intensity grew. Their eyes bulged as veins dilated in their necks and along their foreheads. Blood began to drip from their noses first. Then their eyes and ears.

She squeezed harder until, all at once, the pressure burst. The nearest surrounding legionaries collapsed to the ground, their hearts nothing more than the remains of muscle that had torn itself asunder.

The legionaries surrounding them lost containment of their constitution. Backing away as five shades and one darkling rose from the deceased, some turned to run, but no one was going to get away.

Threyna drew in breath, consuming the souls and spiriting them to her Inner Dungeon while advancing on the retreating legionaries.

She felt her lips split in a grin. Hardly believing she had escaped death, feeling invincible, she rose into the air on a pillar of conjured blood. The Wraith stood, dumbstruck, the Underground at their backs, watching and waiting.

This is it. This is how we unite.

Only a few dozen legionaries remained. Even outnumbered and ill-equipped, the Wraith could have finished them off. The Underground could have taken the whole of the hundred or so men who had been here prior to her arrival. But this wasn’t their fight. This was hers.

Raising her arms, Threyna conjured a wall of blood from the north wall of the Cut to the south, blocking off the legionaries’ westbound retreat. Some attempted to hack a hole through her blood wall. Others attempted to climb out of the Cut, but the walls were too slippery and too steep for any to have a chance. Those toward the back of their number knew the truth.

They were all going to die.

Threyna conjured a second wall, trapping the last of the Fourth and Ninth legions between them. Pressing her hands together, one black with rot, the other stained with her own blood, she drew the walls in towards one another. Panicked voices rose from between the walls. They grew louder, more desperate, but in the end, all were silent.

Threyna allowed her bloody walls to fall to ash around the remaining shades and darklings. If any were hollowed, there would be nothing left of them to worry about. Staring out over the length of the Cut, she didn’t spot Dracus or Fawkes amongst the sea of bodies in Order blacks. She’d lost sight of them once the fighting had begun. She supposed they’d run away—climbed out of the Cut at one of the shallower areas. But she didn’t need them. All she needed were those gathered behind her.

Still elevated on her bloodborne pedestal, she turned to face the gathered Wraith and the legions of the Underground. Swallowing, the effort of passing her saliva agitated the scar at her throat. She placed her fingers to where the legionary’s blade had slit, wondering if she’d even be able to speak.

Unable to let the moment pass absent words, she lifted her black-veined fist to the sky and tried. “The Order’s reign is at an end.” Her voice came out hoarse, but it echoed off the Cut’s walls either way. “As is our division. United, we will reclaim Rheynia. We will restore our home.”

Laela

A cacophony of light and sound assaulted her senses; Her vision—a blur of spots and streaks. Her hearing—a flood of high-pitched and distorted voices. Lying flat on her back and staring at the sky, she tried to move but found herself restrained. The clouds overhead, typically stagnant, seemed to move in a chaotic rhythm.

The last thing Laela remembered, they were heading south along the Tears towards the Grip, where Rosler and Taggart would be waiting. She didn’t know how she ended up here. She didn’t know where here was. She recalled pain. Aylenia’s hands stained with blood.

My blood.

They’d turned around, unable to continue fleeing south. She’d collapsed. And now…

Glimpses of faces flashed within her field of view, but it happened too fast to identify them. Voices spoke, but the distortion made them sound more like steel on a whetstone.

“Look what ya’ve gone and done now,” her father chided. “After all that runnin’, you’re right back where you started.”

Though she could understand her father, she didn’t comprehend what he was saying.

One of the blurs of faces drew near and remained long enough to solidify. Aylenia loomed over her, examining her. Her head jerked and her mouth moved as if she were speaking to someone else, but it was so fast that it was incomprehensible.
Aylenia reached over her, and suddenly, as if time were slowing down, her movements and voice approached something close to understandable.

“Return her too fast and she could hollow,” a voice said so quickly Laela could barely grasp. “Make her heart explode or her lungs collapse.” The voice slowed as it continued speaking.

Laela attempted to turn toward the sound and found she was able. Carried in a stretcher with Aylenia and another figure walking beside her, Laela examined the silhouette of a man, backlit by a bright white light. Her eyes adjusted, taking in the gray-clad man.

An Undergrounder.

“See what I mean?” her father said. “We shoulda just stayed at the Roost. All this runnin’... for nothing.”

“She’s conscious,” Aylenia said. “She needs to know, then we can slow her back down.”

“Make it quick or she won’t make it to the medicus. She needs the warps. The bad one. She’s likely suffered a brain contusion, she’s got a hollowed bite that could give her dewskull, and if that stab wound doesn’t kill her the blood loss will.”

Laela felt pressure from within her chest and a sudden rush of blood that nearly made her pass out. Pain twisted through her back and along her side. Blinking through it, she swallowed, but her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth. Her eyes tracked lazily between the two before settling on Aylenia.

Aylenia touched Laela’s cheek, her hand warm and wet. “You need to stay calm. Do you hear me? Calm. I need you to trust me, prime?”

Laela tried to speak, but her eyelids were drawing closed.

“We have to get you to Octarius. You’ll hollow if—” Screams echoed in the distance, drawing Aylenia’s attention.

Laela tried to make sense of Aylenia’s words. Octarius? No. We’re going to Sansia. She said she wanted to find her mûnta. Her heartbeat became shallow and rapid at the realization of Aylenia’s betrayal and the meaning behind her father’s jibes. “You…”

“I need to put you back under or—” Their caravan stopped short, cutting Aylenia off. She directed her attention to the horizon. “Corners… Neutreen… Is that… Threyna?”

The sound of her sister’s name sent a pang of conflicted emotions through her. A concoction of anger, guilt, and loss overwhelmed her, but Aylenia’s words entwined with her mother’s sentiment to counsel vulnerability. Yet now, in the Underground’s possession and with the Grip so close, she couldn’t sit by and do nothing.

Riding the emotional spike of energy, she forced herself to sit up in her stretcher. At the foot of it, an unfamiliar arcanatek glowed green within its black casing.

The medicus held out an arm to block her. “Stay still or you’ll—”  

Laela waved the medicus out of her way, ignoring the pain and effort of sitting up. Her father had warnings of his own, but she was tired of listening to him. She walled him off and retreated to her Center of Silence as she followed Aylenia’s gaze.

Standing atop a red pillar, covered in blood with black veins snaking up and down her arm, Threyna held up her fist. “The Order’s reign is at an end. As is our division. United, we will reclaim Rheynia. We will restore our home.”

Laela blinked, not believing her eyes or ears. Threyna was a horror. As grotesque as the creature that crawled out of Avengard’s oubliette wearing Theodyn’s skin was, Threyna was worse. And she was attempting to unite the Wraith and the Underground together, in the wrong mission. I will not go back. I need to stop her. Clutching her ribs, she swung her leg over the side of the stretcher.

“What in gory ghosting tarnation are you doing?” scolded one of the porters carrying her stretcher as her weight shift sent it off-balance.

Laela crashed to the ground, catching herself on a knee.

“Laela, no.” Aylenia came around the other side of the stretcher to help her up, but Laela was already pushing herself to her feet.

Wincing and holding her ribs, she couldn’t avert her gaze from Threyna. She shoved past Aylenia and limped her way through the gathered crowd. Undergrounders in gray, Wraith in mismatched travel garb—all so transfixed on Threyna they barely noticed Laela.

Aylenia called after her, following her, begging for her to return to the arcanatek that was keeping her alive, but Laela had no ear for it.

“The time is now,” Threyna said, her voice echoing through the Cut. “Belrich ran, tail between his legs. The Order is weak, and they know it. Even if the Skeleton King lives, he hides—too old, too weak, to show himself. Now I wield the same magic that decimated the Seers and defeated the Artificers. No longer must we tunnel underground, surviving on scraps left after their collectors have taken their quotas. No longer will we let them take our boys and train them to fight against us.”

She’s going to send us to our deaths.

“Laela, please,” Aylenia said, grasping for her.

Laela swatted her away, forging ahead. There were more Wraith than Undergrounders as she neared the front. Some turned to look at her as she shoved her way forward. She pointedly ignored Redge’s sharp glare, Asla’s slack-jawed expression, and the crushing realization that the Wraith would never escape painted across Bhen’s faraway gaze.

They were doomed. They couldn’t run. Couldn’t fight. She searched her addled mind, looking for the words that might allow the Wraith to walk free. They’d come so far, tried so hard. She couldn’t let it end like this. She couldn’t return to Octarius. Smoke stung her eyes, and fire licked at her hope, but she couldn’t let everything they’d worked toward for the last decade fall to ashes.

For Rance. For Mother.

“A new age is dawning in Rheynia,” Threyna said. “And finally, we are in control. I know you don’t want to fight, but there are other ways to serve. This war is not hopeless. We can win, but we must work together. We are here, not as your enemies, but as allies requesting your aid.”

Laela didn’t know how many of her people would believe Threyna’s lies or how many would submit to the Underground out of fear of reprisal. But if she said nothing—if she did nothing—Rance’s dream was dead. They’d never leave Rheynia, never see Sansia, and even if  they did defeat the Order—regardless of how many lives it cost—they’d still be under the rule of a tyrant.

The Underground would become our new overlords. We’d still be living under a curse.

She’d watched Arenius burn. Then while she and the others ran north, Arilette led the Underground to the Cut and into ten years of torment. Laela couldn’t do anything then, but if she did nothing now and allowed Threyna to follow in Arilette’s footsteps, Neutreen would never grant her a single feather.

She pushed her way to the front, Aylenia trailing behind her. At the head of the gathered group, Canton, red-faced and panting, stared up at Threyna. Beside him, Arilette watched with a grin as sharp as the knife she’d stab into the back of anyone who dared cross her.

“Divided, ruin will reign,” Threyna said. “But join us. Together, we will take back Rheynia!”

Laela wouldn’t stand for it. This was not how it was supposed to be. Her father’s taunts fought to enter her Center of Silence, but she kept her walls up.

“Fight for more. Dream for more,” her mother had said.

Everything Aylenia had said about Laela and Threyna being more alike than dissimilar was a lie. Staring up at Threyna, she had nothing in common with her. Nothing but a mother. But their mother was gone, stabbed in the heart by Belrich.

“There is strength in knowing when to drop your guard and courage in actually doing so,” her mother had said. Now was not the time. Vulnerability would not make her dreams of Sansia come true, regardless what Aylenia wanted her to believe.

If they were going to make it out of this, she needed to make her stand now. She couldn’t let the Wraith return with the Undergrounders, because once they set foot inside Octarius’s ruins, they were done for. As good as dead and gone.

Laela planted her unsteady feet and pointed at Threyna. “You!” All attention turned towards her. “You speak of division, but you are the divider. You speak of ruin, but you are the Disasters! Look at you… look at what you’ve done.”

A graveyard of still and desiccated corpses surrounded Threyna. The mass of legionaries who tried to escape were a heap of twitching limbs in a pond of viscera. As horrific as the scene before her was, the sight of her sister was the worst of all; not even the mess of blood and gore covering her could hide the black veins slithering up her cheek.

“Look at what you’ve become,” Laela spat, attempting to ignore her swimming vision and wobbly knees. “You’ve sold your soul to the One, and for what? Your father possessed blood magic; what good did it do him?”

Threyna’s pedestal melted, lowering her to the floor of the Cut. She stalked towards Laela with a predatory angle to her eyes. “My father suffered. For ten years. Ten years of the Order’s torture. ‘What good did it do him?’ If we had joined together and fought ten years ago, it could have made all the difference.”

Laela didn’t back down. Hobbled as she was, she advanced on Threyna, clutching her ribs. Each step a labor. “If we had fled to Sansia—together—it could have made all the difference. You want to fight, but you don’t care about the bodies you leave in your wake.”

Only a few paces away now, Laela nodded over Threyna’s shoulder to the massacre behind her. Something stirred—someone. Shoulders heavy, knees knocked, and gaze downcast, the figure hoisted a fallen form from the ground.

Dracus…

With Canton standing in the Underground’s ranks behind her, there could only be one other person who Dracus would bother to treat with such reverence. Fawkes, still and bloody, weighed Dracus down—in body and in spirit—yet he trudged forward, towards them.

“Dracus!” Canton cried, breaking rank to charge towards Dracus and Fawkes.

Threyna’s gaze followed Canton. Dracus collapsed to his knees before Canton, holding Fawkes in his arms.

Canton knelt before Dracus and Fawkes’s body. “Fawkes… no. Blood and bone, no!”

Laela’s heart broke for them, but not just for them—for everyone whose life was better because Fawkes was in it. He who had been there for her after her father died, he who had supported her mother after Threyna had run off.

For a long moment, Threyna stared at the two men crying over their loss. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came forth.

A sad smile tugged at Laela’s lips. “Do you even care who suffers for your victory?”

Threyna’s brow hardened; her mouth formed a tight line. Laela could practically hear Threyna’s teeth grinding behind her grim expression.

Laela shook her head at her sister, but with her vision waning and adrenaline fading, the movement made her stagger. Aylenia came up beside her, preventing her from falling over.

Threyna glanced between the two of them, bewilderment painted atop the gore and rot marring her face. She snorted, but still was unable to form words.

“You need to go back to the warp,” Aylenia said. “You’re going to bleed out.”

Laela ignored Aylenia. She needed to prove to the Wraith that they couldn’t return to Octarius. Leveling her index finger at Threyna, Laela stabbed the sword of truth into her sister’s web of lies. “You act like you’re our answer, the Savior come again.” She wagged her finger instead of shaking her head, but even still, she was seeing double. Be strong. Be courageous. Make them see, or we’re all doomed. “You’re not the Savior. You claim you come to us as allies seeking aid, but only after you sabotaged our escape and forced us down this path. This is not unity. We are not allies. Even in victory, you’re just another tyrant: a Skeleton Queen instead of a Skeleton King.”

Her shouting left her exhausted. Her eyelids drooped. Her knees threatened to cave.

Threyna snarled, stalking close enough for the black veins in her eyes to become visible in Laela’s swirling vision.

Despite her efforts to stand proud, Laela could barely remain upright even with Aylenia’s aid. Yet she hadn’t convinced anyone of anything yet.

“Shoulda stayed down,” her father said. “But you never learn, do ya?”

Threyna stopped before Laela and leaned close so that only she could hear. “Make me the monster if you must, but the way I see it, you’ve run out of options. You’re going back to Octarius. Rest, heal, and maybe you’ll finally see reason.”

Laela inhaled sharply to protest, but her knees gave out. Even in Aylenia’s grasp, she nearly crumpled to the ground.

“Laela,” Aylenia urged, though her voice felt faraway. “The warp.”

Laela’s eyelids drooped.

Threyna backed away, lifting her voice so all could hear. “Legions, escort the Wraith to the safety of Octarius. The Order will come, and battle will soon be upon us. We must prepare.”

Smoke blinded her. Heat licked at her insides. Ashes rained down upon her.

“Weak,” her father said. “Just like your mother.”

No longer able to stand, not even Aylenia could prevent Laela from falling. Darkness devoured her, pain consumed her, and failure lulled her to unconsciousness.

Part III

Chapter 48: Dreadroot’s Caress

Threyna XIX

“The world is cold and dark. Your father and I have seen and survived our fair share of it. Yet you, child, you are proof that beauty can still exist in such a fallen world…”

—an excerpt from a fatekeeper

Threyna crossed her arms over her chest, cupping the bangle protectively in her right hand. Only one prong remained, but the way Arilette and Lorath’s eyes trained on it made her gut twist. Though back at Octarius, secreted deep within the bowels of the Underground’s fortress in Arilette’s tablinum—a place where Threyna once took comfort—she felt only disquiet.

Neither Arilette or Lorath had batted an eye when she’d told them about what had become of her father or what happened to Ebrus and Yevon. All they cared about was what they’d witnessed at the Cut. Arilette’s pacing around the candlelit room only aggravated Threyna’s unease.

“It is fortunate we intercepted the Wraith when we did,” Arilette said. “Scouts reported a pair of ships—quite impressive ones actually—lurking off the coast south of the Grip. Had we not received word and arrived when we did, they could have been halfway to Sansia by now. You did well to lead them south.”

Threyna bowed her head. Canton had been the one to find and direct the Underground to the Cut. She didn’t have to imagine how desperate Dracus must have been to send Canton anywhere near Octarius, but he had.

“Centuriot Aylenia deserves the credit, Legatus. She remained with them after I got separated at Aranoc.”

Arilette smirked. “A Centuriot’s achievements rest with the Premius that gave the order. But now we have more pressing matters to discuss.” She strode closer, her eyes on Threyna’s bangle glowing with the candles scattered about the tablinum. “We have to find a way of leveraging this gift you’ve received. The Skeleton King didn’t know what he had… or maybe he did, and didn’t want the competition.”

Lorath, the ever-grim Arch Premius of the Underground, stared down his crooked nose at Threyna from where he leaned against the back wall. “If the Skeleton King and Theodyn have set any precedent, then one doesn’t need the Blessing to wield the blood magic. If we could pass it to another, we could build an army of blood mages.”

The thought brought Laela’s incriminating accusations to the forefront of her mind. An army of blood mages… She couldn’t imagine. Yes, with such a force they would certainly defeat the Order, but at what cost? She wouldn’t become the Skeleton King—at least that’s not what she wanted to become, despite what Laela thought of her—but that didn’t mean others wouldn’t want to wield the same authority he did. The way Lorath fixated on the bangle, she didn’t have to wonder what he would do with such abilities.

“Is that possible?” Arilette asked, drawing close. She moved Threyna’s hand out of the way to inspect the blood artifact for herself.

Threyna acquiesced, but the essence of the Blessing seemed to clench like a fist at her touch. All she could think about was Belrich’s Inquisitor trying to strip the bangle from her arm. She closed her eyes and swallowed the fear that crawled up her throat at the memory.

It’s okay… we’re safe here. She wasn’t sure if she was saying it to herself, or the Blessing. In either case, even that felt like a lie. If Fawkes told it true, Arilette hollowed Dracus. If Laela had been honest, Arilette had hid their mother’s letters from her for years, letting her believe she was unwanted.

The seeds of doubt sprouted within, coiling around her like Dreadroot and strangling her. She’d worked so hard to return to Octarius, but now that she was here, nothing felt right.

“Maybe,” Threyna said, fighting to stay present, “but is that what we want—an army of blood mages?”

“We will use every weapon in our arsenal,” Arilette said. “Whatever it takes to win.”

“This isn’t just a weapon.” Threyna turned her shoulder to hide the bangle from Arilette’s inspection. “It’s a curse.” She pointed to the black veins stretching from the bangle. She’d consumed everything she could from the Cut, but after the darklings and shades wandered off, she only had the hollowed to draw upon. It abated the rot, but not completely. And she had no souls left in her Inner Dungeon to call upon. The more she used her blood magic, it seemed like the more souls she needed to consume just to return to her baseline.

Threyna hung her head. “I don’t know what will happen to me. But the more I channel the blood magic, the more…”

“The more what?” Arilette asked, absent a mother’s tenderness.

“I don’t know,” Threyna said. “The better I get, the more it wants. It takes more souls to recover. And besides, it’s not just about winning the war, right? What would happen afterwards? We’d defeat the Order but what then? An army of blood mages could unleash a war worse than that of the Seers or the Artificers combined.” She gripped the bangle.

“Those are problems for another day,” Lorath said. “First, we must defeat the Order.”

“Lorath is right,” Arilette said. “Concern for the future is a luxury we can’t afford. Rivich has reported that the Order’s legions are returning to Elyngrove from all over Rheynia. Once they mobilize, they could be here within a day’s march.”

Threyna snapped her head up. Rivich? She had been wondering why he hadn’t marched with the rest of the Underground and where he had been. He wasn’t present to greet them upon their return. Part of her longed to see him. After Ebrus became a shade and Yevon hollowed, and considering Aylenia’s disconcerting desire to remain at Laela’s side in the medicus’s chambers, a familiar face would have been most welcome. But even as she wished he were here and not out on a dangerous scouting mission, part of her feared their reunion.

He’ll blame me for Ebrus and Yevon, same as Daeton.

Her shame and guilt disintegrated to ash like a conjuration she could no longer wield once Arilette continued.

“They’ve allowed us to be a thorn in their side. We make for an easy Dawnshard to take the blame. If they march with those kinds of numbers, they’re coming not to put us in our place, but to grind us beneath their heels. Your success in leading the Wraith here will be important, but they won’t be enough to put the darklings back in the soul jar. The Order is scared of you, Threyna. So when they come, we must be ready to fight, to win—regardless of the cost.”

“The Blessing is the key,” Lorath said, uncrossing his arms and abandoning the wall he was leaning against. “It’s time you shared it. Let another stand beside you in wielding its power.”

As he approached, Threyna had to resist the urge to tap into her Inner Throne. She took a stilling breath as the Blessing’s essence recoiled defensively. It’s not a threat. Not yet, anyway. Standing straighter, she glanced between Arilette and Lorath. “I can’t just take it off and give it to someone else.”

“Have you tried?” Lorath extended his hand as he neared.

Threyna sank into her Inner Throne and conjured a dagger before Lorath’s throat, stopping him in his tracks. Rage pumping in his temples, his lips twitched with words yet to take shape. He glanced from her to the blade.

“Incredible,” Arilette breathed.

“Belrich’s Inquisitor tried,” Threyna said, letting her blood-spawned dagger dissipate to ash. “It made blood erupt from his eye sockets. That’s how I got out. That and…”

The thought of Fawkes’s fallen form knotted her throat. If not for him coming back for her, even with the blood artifact’s protection, there was no way she would have made it to the Cut, let alone back to Octarius.

“How?” Arilette asked. “How does it work?”

Threyna explained what she could—everything from the prongs and her Inner Throne to her abilities and what it took to sustain them. Recounting everything from the past few days made her realize all that had happened. She’d lost her father, her mother, and her closest friends. She’d narrowly escaped death in its many different forms on more occasions than she wanted to count, but they needed to know everything.

“So what must be done to make the last prong release?” Lorath asked, leaning too close for comfort.

Threyna shrugged. “I don’t know. The first was conjuring. The second was consuming. The third was…” She touched the scar at her throat that should have killed her. She swallowed the tension in her neck, unwilling to display any vulnerability before Arilette. “Healing myself, when the legionaries tried to kill me.” She shook her head. “There’s no telling what will release the last prong.”

“When it does release,” Arilette began, “we give it to Laela.”

Threyna and Lorath both balked.

“Her!” Lorath’s crooked nose scrunched. “We can’t trust her with such power.”

Arilette placed her hand on Lorath’s arm. “That is exactly why we must give it to her. It will force her to fight. She’ll have to stay.”

Threyna didn’t understand. Her stomach twisted like a Dreadroot’s vines, and for a moment, she thought she was going to be sick.

“With such power at their disposal, would the Wraith want to leave?” Arilette asked with a darkling’s glimmer in her eyes. “The Wraith wish to leave because they have no control—too weak to stand up to the Order, too cowardly to carve a life for themselves here, they only want to run. But give them a taste of power, of control…” She made a fist. “They won’t run. We give her the Blessing and she’ll want to fight.”

Threyna wanted Laela to stay and fight, despite the hatred her sister had for her, but she didn’t believe Arilette was right about Laela. Laela had power and control. No part of her was weak. She had single-handedly bested Threyna and Aylenia together and defeated the Eighth legion at Fort Cybel with a ragged group of poorly trained and ill-equipped plebeians; cowardly was not a word she would use to describe Laela or the Wraith, and yet they still wished to flee. And though her mother had planted the idea in her mind that together—united—they could do anything, this felt wrong.

“Forced unity will only build a fractured army,” Fawkes had said.

The Underground sabotaged the Wraith’s escape, led them to Octaven, and literally escorted them back to Octarius against their will, but this wasn’t just manipulating a situation. This was forcing a curse on someone who wouldn’t want it.

The horrified look in her father’s remaining eye when he saw the fatekeeper about Threyna’s neck returned to her. He never wanted her to have it. He had asked Dracus to take it and bear its burden, not her.

He knew what it was: not just a weapon, but a curse.

“That is risky, Legatus,” Lorath said. “That power should go to someone we trust. If we have another capable of wielding the blood magic, the Wraith are useless. If what Threyna says is true, we’d be better off using them—taking their souls, storing them in this Inner Dungeon so we can give ourselves every opportunity to defeat the Order.”

Threyna scoffed, glancing between Lorath and Arilette. “You can’t be serious. It’s one thing to consume souls of the fallen, but these are still people. They’re not our enemies.”

“But they’re not our allies.” Lorath’s voice came slow and stern.

Arilette framed her chin with her thumb and forefinger, tapping the side of her cheek in thought.

She’s seriously considering this. Dracus’s warnings, Fawkes’s last words to her, everything her mother and Laela said about Arilette’s recklessness—they all wormed inside Threyna like a darkling prying through her thoughts and memories.

“Manipulating the Wraith against fleeing,” Threyna said, hoping Arilette would listen, “that’s one thing. I understand not wanting them to run when we need all who are willing to stand against the Order’s Dominion to stay and fight. But forcing a curse on someone, making them fight—that’s not unity. And consuming their souls… that’s worse!”

Lorath snarled like a hellhound. Arilette cocked her brow.

“What do you suggest then, Premius?” she asked Threyna. “The Order is coming. For all we know, the Skeleton King is leading them. If we fail, we lose, so now is not the time for you to develop a conscience. We must unite. Divided, ruin will reign, and everything we have worked for will burn.”

Threyna chewed the inside of her cheek, fearing Arilette’s capabilities. “I understand.”

Lorath tapped his foot. “Then what do you suggest? Time is wasting.”

Threyna had thought about this for the entirety of their journey from the Cut to Octarius. Walking alongside Aylenia as they stood over the stretcher carrying Laela, she realized what she needed to do. She’d taken offense at every turn, only escalating the tension between them. Aylenia had fought for common ground, earning perhaps the closest thing to Laela’s trust as anyone was capable of receiving.

It had worked. Laela and the rest of the Wraith were here. Now, Threyna needed to do the same—swallow her pride, put on a brave face, and act the part of the apologetic sister and grieving daughter. Laela would be able to connect to that. Then and only then could they join together, stand united, and do what no other army had been able to do since the Disasters.

“There is no telling what will release the prong,” Threyna said. “And even then, if it is anything like how it attached onto me, I won’t be able to choose who receives the blood artifact next. But what we can do is convince the Wraith—not force them, but convince them—to stay and fight with us. They’re worth more to us alive than as souls to spend.”

Lorath threw his hands up to the stone ceiling. “They’re only worth more alive if they fight. A decade’s worth of talks have failed. What makes you think, now at this final hour, you’ll be able to convince them?”

“I will speak to Laela,” Threyna said, forcing calm into her tone. “The Wraith will listen to her. If I convince her, the rest will follow.”

Arilette nodded slowly. She strode over to the wooden desk in the center of her tablinum and grabbed a time-turner and flipped it over. The sand began to run from the top of the glass to the bottom. Without a word, Arilette approached the door that once belonged to House Desius and swung it open. “You have until the last grain of sand. Understand that her choice will impact everyone in the Wraith. She will stay and fight and convince her people to do the same, or they will all be removed from the warps. We can’t waste the power coils on those who won’t join us.”

Threyna nearly choked. “But she’ll die.”

“Precisely.” Arilette didn’t blink. Her face remained expressionless. “She’ll die. You’ll consume her. Either way, she will aid our war against the Order. And like I said, how she chooses to serve the Underground will determine the fate of the rest of the Wraith. As soldiers or as fuel—the choice is hers. Divided, ruin will reign.”

“Divided, ruin will reign,” Lorath echoed.

Threyna struggled to find her tongue. Under Lorath and Arilette’s harsh glares, Threyna repeated the words.

Arilette’s gaze flicked to the sand sliding from one glass to the other. “Time is of the essence, Premius. Do your duty.”

Dreadroot caressed the scar on her throat, threatening to choke the life from her. Short of breath, stomach in knots, Threyna exited Arilette’s tablinum with haste. Please, Laela. Please see reason. For all our sakes.

Chapter 49: No Choice

Threyna XX

The medicus’s chambers were crowded. Warps hummed, speeding up the recovery times on the injured Wraith who managed to make it to Octarius. Though there were significantly fewer than those who were gathered beneath Aranoc, there were enough to pack Octarius wall to wall. It didn’t help matters that for every Wraith jammed into the medicus’s wing, there were two armed Centuriots to make sure nothing got out of hand.

After pulling back each curtain and investigating every pod, Threyna still could not find Laela. To her surprise, however, she did find Marius, the quartermaster.

A wide, toothy grin split across his wrinkled face as she approached. “Ah look who it is, Lady Darklin’ herself!” He opened his arms to her, and she accepted his embrace. After a moment, Threyna released the old quartermaster. He looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Ebrus? Yevon?”

Threyna blinked. The knowing expression on the face of Ebrus’s shade stared into her soul. The haunting memory of Yevon attempting to tear through her mind as a darkling returned with a wave of emotion. She took a short, sharp breath, pushing past the pain. “Marius, what are you doing down here? Who’s manning the armory?”

Marius grunted, wise enough to accept her omission as answer enough. He took a deep breath before moving on. “Arch Premius ‘requisitioned’ control of the armory. Somethin’ 'bout ‘urgent and imperative’ business or some such.” He rolled his eyes. “Ya know how he is. Sent me down ‘ere to keep an extra eye on all the shades you dragged in. I don’t ask questions.”

He scanned the medicus’s chambers. His smile from before melted into a frown. “Seems you lot been makin’ some noise, eh? Word is every legion and all the boys at the Nest are flyin’ ‘ere.” His eyes drifted to her bangle. “Suppose that’s got somethin’ to do with it.”

Threyna scratched the back of her head. “Yeah. A bit.” With no time for small talk, she changed the subject. “Have you seen Laela—half-sister, looks like my mother if she’d been raised on a diet of swords and shields?”

“Aye, never time for Valefyre and stories, eh?” Marius pointed toward a metal door at the back of the medicus’s wing where a group of Wraith were trying to get past two armed Centuriots. “Hooked up to the bad one. Wasn’t lookin’ too good comin’ down.”

“Gratitude,” Threyna said, hoping she wasn’t too late. She patted his shoulder before making her way to the metal door.

“We deserve to know if she’s going to make it,” said a woman with claw marks across her cheek to a grim-faced veteran. “You can’t keep us out.”

“We have orders,” the Centuriot said, not even looking at her. “One at a time, and one of yours is already back there. Wait your turn.”

“Bring him out, then,” said a broad-shouldered Palogian man attempting to hide his foreigner’s features. “I trust him as much as I trust you.”

That drew the Centuriots’ attention. “Step back or—”

“Stand down, Centuriot,” Threyna said. “I have business with the leader of the Wraith.”

The Centuriots saluted. “Prime.”

As they turned to open the door, Threyna addressed the Wraith. “I’ll send out Laela’s other visitor so each of you can have a turn.” She forced a smile, fearing what each of them might think of her. There was no telling what Laela had filled their ears with.

The Palogian man grumbled. The woman with the scarred cheek turned to her stern-faced shadow. Though she looked as if she were about to claw Threyna’s eyes out, the man holding her back nodded.

Threyna returned the gesture and strode past the Centuriots and through the opened door. The door closed behind her, muffling the clamor of Centuriots and injured Wraith beyond. Illuminators dimly lit the walkway between four rooms dedicated to patients in need of intensive care. While the warps in the main chamber of the medicus’s wing had the ability to slow time down, allowing for medical attention to be administered, or speed time up to promote healing and recovery, the bad one, as it was called, referred to the high-powered warps with the ability to augment time locally.

After the Savior had gifted Rheynia with the abilities of arcanatek, too many lives were lost due to mundane starvation or dehydration, hooked into the warps for too long. For nonlethal injuries, a wound that might have taken a few days to heal could be mended within the hour. A patient might spend the rest of the day in their bunk eating and drinking anything they could get their hands on, but aside from feeling fatigued, they’d be fine. For more extreme injuries like broken bones or severe blood loss, one might have to spend multiple bouts in the warps with time in between to recover from them. But for those that had life-threatening injuries, too much time in a warp was a death sentence. The highly specific bad ones could localize the passage of time for individual tissues, allowing muscles and bones to heal while the body’s other organ processes continued at a normal rate. The amount of power coils it took to run a bad one for a day was equivalent to powering every illuminator in Octarius for a moon’s turn.

Threyna gulped. Arilette was content to let Laela suffer and watch as the Wraith’s hope died with her.

“You’re sisters,” her mother had said. “Divided, ruin will reign, but united…”

She must join me. She has to. I will make her see.

The last door on her left was ajar. Beyond the din generated by the warp, the sound of voices and the illuminator’s glow spilled out of the room and into the corridor.

“Perhaps we’re where we belong,” said Canton’s familiar voice. “We’ve been running from it for so long, but maybe it’s time.”

“I don’t see what choice we got,” another man’s voice said. “Regardless what ya want.”

Threyna crossed her arms over her chest and shouldered through the half-opened door.

Aylenia stood from Laela’s side. “Threy… ghosts, where have you been?”

“Speaking with our Legatus and Arch Premius.” She never met Aylenia’s eyes, looking instead at Laela. Tubes connected Laela’s midsection to the black-cased arcanatek beside her. The soft green glow of the Viridite power coils snuck out from between the cracks in the arcanatek’s shell, painting Laela in a ghoulish light.

Her chest rose and fell in the gentle tides of breath. Her eyes wandered left and right beneath her closed lids. She was alive, but her skin was still sallow and covered in a sheen of sweat.

“How is she?” Threyna asked, ignoring Canton’s awestruck stare.

“Halfway down the Grotto on Cybel’s Eve,” the man said, his dark-featured face narrow and grim. He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks.

“And you are?” Threyna asked, recognizing him from her childhood but not able to place him.

“Tarus.”

Tarus didn’t care to elaborate further and didn’t bother to ask who Threyna was, which told her everything she needed to know about how he felt about her.

She cleared her throat. “I need to speak with Laela. Alone.”

Aylenia’s lip contorted. “You can’t mean to wake her? The medicus just finished stitching her up.”

Tarus guffawed. “If ya think I’m leavin’ the First Sword alone with you, ya might wanna get checked for dewskull. Ain’t happening.”

Threyna rounded on Tarus. “You are here at the mercy of Legatus Arilette Desius. You follow orders. You don’t give them.”

That broke Canton’s gushing gaze. Seeming to remember where he was, he carefully inspected the floor between his feet.

Laela stirred. Her eyes crept open, though they lacked any sense of lucidity.

“Ripping Corners.” Aylenia glared at Threyna.

“This can’t wait,” Threyna said. “It’s a matter of life and death. And not just for Laela. I must speak to my sister, alone.”

“No,” Laela croaked. Despite barely skirting death, her defiant stare remained more intact than ever. “Out with it.”

Threyna pursed her lips, looking between Tarus and Aylenia. The sand through Arilette’s time-turner slipped faster and faster, mocking her—threatening her. She took a deep breath. “Laela, I owe you… a hundred different apologies. But there isn’t much time, so I’ll stick to the biggest ones. You’re right. I made my choice. I chose my father. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. This isn’t how I expected things to turn out, but I suppose neither did you. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve blamed you and other people for them. I know that now. And… I’m sorry. Truly.”

Laela only blinked her heavily lidded eyes, seemingly disinterested, as if she could barely stay awake. When she didn’t offer any form of communication, verbal or otherwise, Threyna drew closer, kneeling by Laela’s side before continuing.

“I’m sorry you’re here. I know it’s not where you wanted to be.” Threyna examined the bangle on her arm. “Not where I wanted to be either, for what it’s worth. We’ve lost too much. I lost my father. You lost Rance. We both lost our mother.”

A knot formed in her throat that she hadn’t expected to feel. Planning on feigning emotion for the sake of connecting to Laela, she found she didn’t have to.

“We lost two of our friends,” Threyna said, glancing at Aylenia. “Maybe three. Even then, I know that’s a lot less than your losses.” She nodded at Canton. “Fawkes… he saved me. I was reckless. Got caught. If not for Fawkes, Belrich would have stripped this from my arm and done ghosts only know what.”

The memory of the Inquisitor’s eyes exploding from behind his mask tightened the scar across her throat and made the bangle itself seem to cling desperately to her arm.

“My point is,” Threyna continued, “Mother, Fawkes—ghosts, even Arilette—everyone talks of unity, but no one is willing to sacrifice anything to make it happen. The Order is coming, and we need your help. I know what I’m asking of you, but if we don’t make sacrifices now, no one wins. No one escapes. But if we band together—”

Laela snorted. “You ask for sacrifices but make none in return.”

Now was Threyna’s turn to blink.

“You want us to fight for you,” Laela said, snarling as if she wasn’t halfway to hollowing. “And then what?”

“Then, once we’ve won, I’ll petition Arilette to let you go.”

Laela’s anger turned to laughter. Two gales in, the wounds in her midsection morphed her humor back to rage. Cheeks reddening, she bared her teeth. “So we fight for you. And in return, once we’ve won, you’ll petition your Legatus to see if she’ll let us go where we want?” She shook her head. “Seems like we’re making all the sacrifices for your precious unity. What are you giving up?”

Threyna’s ears flushed warm. She glanced at the rotting veins that marred her arm. She touched the scar at her throat. “What am I giving up?”

Threyna stood to her feet. She wanted to say that Arilette would let her die. That either way, regardless of what Laela said, Arilette would make sure the Wraith served in the battle to come—either as spears in the field or souls for her conjuring. She didn’t realize that Threyna was trying to protect her. But if she told Laela the truth, it would only justify her rationale for not trusting Arilette or the Underground.

“I’m apologizing on my knees,” Threyna said. “I’m asking you for help. Does that count for anything?”

“No.”

Laela’s answer, short and sharp enough to punch a hole through plate mail, suspended in the air between them. Threyna clenched her fists, attempting to hold back her rising anger. She needed Ebrus’s way with words, her father’s courage, and Fawkes’s wisdom. But all she felt was a child’s fear, a child’s wrath.

“Laela,” Canton said, “this isn’t like the other times. This could be different.”

“It won’t be.”

Tarus crossed his arms over his chest. “Might be worth hearin’ her out. We don’t even know if we got ships left to leave on.” Laela cast Tarus a dark glare. “What? Don’t act like she don’t already know.”

Laela’s nostrils flared. “I have no ear for talk of a war I don’t believe in.”

As tension grew in her jaw, Threyna searched for the words to bend Laela away from the unnecessary demise she would surely suffer if she remained on this path. She understood Laela not wanting to listen to her or Canton, but she was surprised Tarus—seemingly one of her closest confidants—held no sway. More surprisingly, Aylenia said nothing.

Canton scratched the back of his neck. “I understand that—”

“You understand nothing,” Laela snapped. “You look at her and see a hero, an answer to your prayers. She’s not. You might think her abilities will be enough to defeat the Order. They won’t be. What you don’t understand, Cant, is that she doesn’t understand.” She pointed at Threyna. “She is the reason Rance is dead. The reason my mother is gone. By every feather of Neutreen’s wings, how many names do you want to hear? Erynia, Olerus, Gatius, Verinius… Fawkes.”

Canton hung his head, staring at the opposite corner of the room where the wall met the floor.

Laela returned her gaze to Threyna. “It’s not your fault, Canton. It’s hers. And she will never understand that.”

The tension in Threyna’s jaw exploded like the lid on a soul jar filled to the brim. “I understand that your people are hooked up to our warps.” She jabbed her index finger at Laela so suddenly that Aylenia grabbed her by her fatigues to pull her back. “Your people will die without our help.”

Laela surged with newfound energy, slapping Threyna’s finger away from her. “We’re only here because you sabotaged our escape.”

“Stop this,” Canton said, but no one was listening.

Tarus came to Laela’s other side, opposite Threyna.

“We’re here because you want us here,” Laela spat. “That’s not unity. That’s not sacrifice. That’s tyranny, and I would rather hollow than serve you—Skeleton Queen.”

Threyna tore free of Aylenia’s grasp and loomed over Laela. Glaring at her sister, her voice came out a whisper. “You might think me some kind of monster, but I’m trying to protect you. You will die if you don’t listen to me.”

The room fell silent.

Canton stammered. Aylenia gasped. Tarus widened his stance as if preparing for a fight.

Laela narrowed her brow. “What does that mean?”

Threyna exhaled, reluctant to let the breath go. “She’ll remove you from the medicus’s wing. You’ll die without the warp.”

Laela scoffed. “So be it. I’d rather die than—”

Threyna shook her head. “Not just you. All of the Wraith. She wants you to declare to fight so that everyone follows. Otherwise, she’ll hollow all of your people—everyone from Aranoc and Avengard.”

Aylenia’s jaw dropped. “No… she wouldn’t.”

“She would,” Threyna said. “The sand is slipping, Laela. I’m asking you—please, for your own good—join us.”

Laela shook her head, settling back into her cot. The warp seemed to hum with an ominous rhythm that resembled the sound of marching soldiers. “There’s never really a choice, is there?” Lying in the cot, she stared at the tubes connecting her body to the arcanatek that assured her survival.

Threyna found herself wondering the same. Ever since she’d run from Laela ten years ago during the Battle of the Cut, she’d never really had a choice in what to do next. Live, fight, survive, repeat. No options. No choices.

Laela glanced from Threyna to Aylenia and back, her brow softening, forehead wrinkling. “If our roles had been reversed—if I had been raised in the Underground and you’d gone with Mother… would I be asking the same of you as you now ask of me?”

Threyna inhaled sharply before letting her exhale seep out. “If I was with the Wraith and you were an Undergrounder? Blood and bone, Laela… I hope you would do the same.” Part of her didn’t believe Laela would. If their roles were reversed, Laela would probably consume Threyna and use her as fuel for her conjurations. But Threyna couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

Laela nodded, her faraway gaze staring into the abyss for a few long moments. When she spoke, her voice came weak and breathy. “Tell Legatus Desius I will report for duty as soon as the medicus gives me leave.” She sank into the cot as if the effort of speaking spent whatever energy she had left.

Threyna took a deep breath. Canton did his best to hold back a relieved smile. Tarus folded his arms over his chest. Aylenia gave no reaction, but Threyna knew that when she turned to leave, Aylenia wouldn’t follow.

Was she actually leading them here? Or was she trying to escape? Aylenia had talked of finding her mother one day, leaving Rheynia and searching Sansia. She’d never believed it, but now she did, and even though it wasn’t fair to blame her, it still felt like a betrayal.

Threyna spun on her heel and made for the door. Halfway out, she stopped. “You have some friends out there wanting to check in on you. I’ll make sure they are allowed in.”

Laela grunted. Realizing that was the only response she was likely to receive, Threyna drummed her fingers on the door frame and let herself out.

Chapter 50: Stories and Valefyre

Dracus XIV

“Let go, my love. Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.”

Dracus stared at the glass in his hands. He swirled the Valefyre within, wishing he could let go, wishing he could sing. But there were no melodies left in the world without Fawkes in it. The soul jar on his hip weighed heavily, but not quite as much as the fatekeeper in his pocket. He hadn’t found the courage to open it or the desire to read its contents. It felt like once he did, it would be real; Fawkes would be dead, his soul crammed into a jar.

Dracus leaned back in Arilette’s chair, attempting to ignore the injured flesh from the Vendetta daggers’ fury. He sank into the pain. Became one with it. That was the only way to stay present. The call of hollowing felt so close, so welcoming, but he couldn’t accept it. Not until he and Fawkes were united, beyond the curse.

Groaning, he put his feet up on Arilette’s wooden desk as she eyed him with venomous disdain. He crossed his feet and lifted the Valefyre to his lips.

Arilette cocked her brow, but then smiled, taking a seat across from him on the opposite side of her desk. “Thought you were joking when you asked for a drink.”

Dracus drank, focusing on the burn as it trickled down his throat. “Oh no. I was serious. Dead serious.”

Arilette laughed. “Dark humor.”

“Dark days,” Dracus said, taking another drink.

“But a light is rising on the horizon,” Arilette said, raising her glass to her lips. Settling in, she crossed her foot over her knee and slung her arm over the back of the chair. “It’s almost as if we’re right back where we were. Ten years. Blood and bone, so much has changed, but in many ways, it’s like…” She shrugged. “Nothing’s changed at all. Tell me, was it worth it—this past decade, running around, trying and failing to escape?”

Dracus grunted. “Canton got to grow up as a survivor instead of a child soldier. I’d say that’s worth something.”

“Yet he was the one who came to me,” Arilette said, a darkling’s grin painted across her face. “If not for him, we might not have found you in time.”

Dracus drank again. “Ya weren’t in time. You were late.”

“Oh, poor Dracus.” Arilette pouted her lips in mockery. “It’s a shame what happened to… what’s his name—Finks, Ficks?”

Dracus downed the rest of the Valefyre, letting the pain of the swill overshadow the ails of his failing body and the woes of his broken heart. “It’s good ya don’t remember his name. Means we weren’t around long enough. But I guarantee yer father wouldn’ta forgot. Arenius wouldn’ta let us become divided in the first place. But you, you were the wedge of division. What’s that say about you and yer funny little mantra?”

Arilette’s grin never faded. She stood, grabbed the bottle of Valefyre and refilled Dracus’s empty cup before sitting back down. “My father would have led us to our doom. Sansia—that desert wasteland—is not our home. Rheynia is. My father got discouraged by loss and dreamed of a life where victory wasn’t required, because he lost sight of the war we needed to win. As a Premius of the Second, you can’t tell me you knew every legionary’s name. You couldn’t. Because you knew that if you were going to stop Victarius, squash the Artificers, and unify Rheynia under the Order’s Holy Dominion, they would have to suffer—to hollow, become shades, or live on as darklings. Names of legionaries, Centuriots, even Tribunii—they are distractions. Distractions that made my father weak and would have led others to weakness. A good leader can’t lose focus on the big picture; sacrifice is necessary to succeed.”

“And that’s you?” Dracus asked, drinking again to forget his other pains. “A good leader?”

“When we win—”

Dracus interrupted her with a laugh. “Win? Ten years and you still haven’t learned, eh?” He shook his head, lifting his glass to empty its contents. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he placed his feet on the floor and leaned forward to rest his forearm on the desk. “You’re crazy, Arilette, if ya think you’re gonna win this.”

Arilette’s smile never faltered. “But that’s what it takes, darling Dray. Only an equal to Belrich can hope to defeat him. Aarkos, for all his many fine attributes, was not enough. My father—the tragic hero you make him out to be—was not enough. Neither was Bherus. Neither are you. But Threyna…” Arilette lifted her glass. “Threyna is everything and more. Because that is what I raised her to be.”

“That poor girl.” Dracus closed his eyes. “Never shoulda brought her back here. Never shoulda let you sink yer claws into her. You poisoned her worse than ya did me, and that’s sayin’ something.”

Now was Arilette’s turn to put her feet up on the desk. “Dracus, Dracus, Dracus… do you really believe us to be so different? You and I, we’re the same—at least we used to be. Did you not do the same to Canton as I did to Threyna?”

“You hid Viesa’s letters,” Dracus snarled. “Ya let her grow up thinkin’ her own mother didn’t even care.”

“And you hid the truth of Canton’s parents from him,” Arilette said, cocking her brow as if to say “See, I told you so.” Her grin widened. “And you still lie to him. He doesn’t know the truth of your… condition.”

Dracus bit his lip. The truth in her words stung worse than the Valefyre. He snatched the bottle and poured himself another drink, wishing it would go to his head and numb the guilt.

“See?” Arilette taunted. “Not so different. Except I’m at least honest with myself. Yes, I burned the letters. Yes, I cultivated Threyna’s disdain for her mother and Aarkos’s daughter, but look at her now. I sharpened her edge to be a weapon capable of defeating the Order. And now, with the abilities of the Skeleton King, new reaping arcanatek, and the Wraith’s numbers on our side, we will liberate Rheynia and reshape our home.”

She tilted her cup back before slamming it down on the table and waiting for Dracus to top her off. Dracus only stared.

Arilette’s grin grew gruesome, her eyes cold and calculating. “What of your pet? What good have you done for Canton? Oh, right. He wishes to fight… for me.” Her smile spread again. “Make no mistake, Dracus. We will win.”

She snatched the bottle from Dracus and refilled her glass. “Question is, where will you be when we do so? Will you right the wrongs of your cowardice? Will you do as Theodyn asked of you all those years ago? Or will you remain the craven?”

Dracus lowered his gaze to the soul jar at his hip. With a sigh, he slid his empty glass across the table to clink against the near-empty bottle of Valefyre. He wanted nothing more than to get Canton and go to the Grip. To see if Laela’s plan could actually work, and together, they could set sail for Sansia and whatever the future held. Canton could go on to live a full life and die a true death. Dracus could release Fawkes from the soul jar just as he crossed the barrier of the curse, and together, they could venture forth into whatever the afterlife held beyond this eternal hellscape. But he knew he couldn’t do that to Canton. Not anymore. In that regard, Arilette was right. He had dug his claws into the boy he’d intended to save; he’d ignored Fawkes’s begging to let the boy decide for himself what he wanted to do. But no more.

Looks like it’ll just be me and you, Old Boy.

Dracus met Arilette’s eyes. “Call me craven, but I’m done. You think you got it won. But you don’t. You think you can use Threyna, make her into the monster Bohen became, but you’re wrong. She’s conflicted, yeah, ya made sure of that, but she’s more than just a weapon. Belrich ain’t. Bohen had the magic, but Belrich’s the real monster. And when shades turn to darklings, he’ll have the upper hand. If ya think you got him dead to rights, he’s got two more tricks up his sleeve. If ya cut his sleeves, he’s got another stashed in his boot. And even if ya can see his bare soles, you better believe there’s somethin’ hidin’ under his silver tongue.”

Arilette stared at Dracus for a long moment. “All that worrying…” She shook her head. “It’s enough to make a man crazy. Crazy enough to hollow out.”

A bustle outside the door to Arilette’s tablinum drew his attention. Muffled at first, the cries became clearer the nearer they got.

“Help! Dracus, help!”

Dracus bolted to his feet just as the wooden door burst open.

A frantic Canton, his narrow face long and pale, stood in the doorway. “The medicus’s wing. We need your help!”

Chapter 51: The Bad One

Laela XX

Laela’s jaw clenched as Threyna paused in the doorframe. For the briefest of moments, Laela hoped Threyna was going to turn back and say something that would change things—that she would speak to Arilette, that she would give Laela time to decide—something, anything. But such hope was wasted on the Undergrounders, perhaps Threyna most of all.

“You have some friends out there wanting to check in on you,” Threyna said. “I’ll make sure they are allowed in.”

Laela grunted. Aylenia had said they were alike, but she was wrong. She had said vulnerability wasn’t a weakness, but she was wrong, at least in regards to Threyna. If she gave ground, Threyna would take it. If she lowered her guard, Threyna would punish her for it. The only thing Aylenia was right about was that Threyna had become everything Arilette was, and Laela had nothing left to say to her.

As if Threyna realized the same, she drummed her fingers on the doorframe before slipping out and closing the door behind her.

Laela took ten slow deep breaths, considering her options and plotting her next move. She glanced from the warp humming beside her to Canton chewing his tongue in the corner, then to Tarus as he returned to his pacing. She was too weak to fight, and hesitant if she could trust even the people in this room. It was Canton after all who summoned the Undergrounders to the Cut. Whether he believed he was doing so to save Fawkes or not, he still made a choice, and he chose Arilette, the Underground, and fighting in this losing war. She couldn’t be sure where exactly he placed his loyalties.

Even Aylenia, for all her talk of going to Sansia, was now back in Octarius, surrounded by the people she’d grown with and fought beside. Such bonds were not easily broken. It was one thing to talk of escape while traversing the Rheynian countryside, surrounded by others wanting to do the same. What if she changed her mind? What if she never truly wanted to escape and this was all a ploy to gain my trust? She couldn’t tell, and she didn’t know how to tell.

Tarus was the only one she could trust. His wanting to stay was born of pragmatism, not true want. If she had a moment alone with him, she’d convince him of finding a way to escape Octarius and lead their people to the Grip. But first, she needed to make sure she healed from her injuries before Arilette had second thoughts of letting her live at all.

“Aylenia, is there a way of speeding up the warp?” Laela finally asked.

Aylenia, previously lost in thought, returned to the cramped corner of the private room within the medicus’s wing. “Yes, I’ll summon the medicus.”

“No,” Laela said, sharper than she intended. “No… if you wouldn’t mind, just speed me up a little bit.”

Aylenia nodded. Leaving the comfort of her corner, she approached the arcanatek and turned a knob on the back of it. The green hue illuminating the cracks in the black shell glowed brighter, but aside from a tickle where the tubes met her flesh, Laela didn’t feel much different.

“More,” Laela said. “It’s fine. I can handle it.”

“That’s not how this works.” Aylenia pursed her lips. “You suffered a lot of blood loss.” She pointed to the tubes in her stomach. “This one is healing the injured tissues. This one is going to your liver. And the one in your leg is telling your body to replenish what makes your blood work in the first place. If we speed it up too fast, your blood will thicken; your heart could stop. You could clot.” She shook her head. “No one is kicking you out of the medicus’s wing. I promise.”

Laela didn’t understand this arcanatek. She didn’t understand the body, how it worked, why it worked or what would make it fail, but she hated being reliant on Arilette’s goodwill. “Fine.” She took a deep breath. “Would you and Canton mind giving Tarus and I a moment to speak before the others come in?”

Aylenia nodded. “I’ll get the others and be right back.” She strode towards the door, and Canton absentmindedly followed. Tarus, however, stilled at the mention of his name. No longer pacing, he became as motionless as a charcoal drawing.

The door closed behind Canton.

“Want me to turn it up more?” Tarus asked.

“Neutreen’s wings, yes. I want out of this place as fast as possible.”

Tarus did as commanded, but glanced up from the arcanatek to examine her. “What you mean, ‘this place?’ Ya mean the medicus or—”

“Octarius,” Laela finished, her voice but a whisper. “Rheynia. We can’t stay here, Tarus.”

Tarus hmphed. He turned the dial on the back of the arcanatek. The tickle that resulted from Aylenia’s adjustment was more of a gut punch at Tarus’s administration. It knocked the air from her lungs and sent her sputtering into a weak cough.

“Perhaps Aylenia was right,” Laela said with a wince.

Tarus shrugged. “Like ya said. You can handle it.” He grinned at her, and though Laela did her best to return the sentiment, something felt wrong, and not just with the warp.

“You don’t think we should stay here, do you?” Laela asked. “Stay and fight? Arilette and Lorath were bad enough, but now with Threyna and what she’s becom—” Tarus turned the knob on the warp further, making her body practically seize.

She felt like a warp was placed on her heart; each beat became a slow, thunderous clap that rattled her ribs. Pain spasmed across her back, arching it until she was driving the back of her head into the pillow of her cot. Writhing, powerless, she tried to hold up a hand to tell Tarus to lower it, but she couldn’t even do that much.

Even if she could, she didn’t need to. Tarus knew what she wanted, but he didn’t turn the knob down, nor did he show any interest in doing so. Sweat beaded on her brow; her muscles clenched from her toes to the base of her neck. Her body did its best to acclimate, but between her heavy breathing and tunneling vision, it took all of her might to hold Tarus’s gaze.

“What are you doing?” Her voice barely carried the short distance between them.

“You’re relentless, aren’t ya?” Tarus scoffed. “Ya know how long it took me to gain Rance’s trust, Verinius’s?” He rolled his eyes. “This coulda been so much easier if I’d been the First Sword, ya know that right?”

Laela blinked. Beads of sweat became rivulets down her forehead.

She recalled Dracus’s reaction after they had arrived to find Aranoc in disarray. “Someone, in this room, someone among us did this.” She tried to make sense of it, but her tunneling vision was narrower than it had been when she was suffering in the Cut. Her addled mind struggled to fight for consciousness, let alone clairvoyance.

“You…”

“I’d have suffered Rance in his sleep,” Tarus said, dusting his hands off as he stalked over to the door and slid the bar across it to ensure no one entered. “Woulda been easy. Never woulda had to build the tunnels west through Northvale, never woulda had to try farmin’ along the Sisters, or slaved away strugglin’ to fulfill the Order’s quotas. Blood and bone, the number of nights wasted walkin’ the tunnels back and forth between Aranoc and Octarius—you wouldn’t believe. A decade dealin’ with greedy governors and dewskulled aediles, and now—finally—you’re here, the whole lot of you.” Tarus shook his head. “Yet you can’t give it up, can ya?”

Laela couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A hundred different instances flooded her mind. Times in which Tarus’s lingering stare remained on Rance during a meeting with Verinius. Every hushed word and stolen glance constructed a case in her head, but still, she couldn’t understand.

“Traitor. Why?”

Tarus stalked over to her with a predatory hunger in his eyes. His narrow face shadowed by the black stubble on his cheeks made him look like a darkling given shape.

“I ain’t the traitor.” He pulled the pillow out from under her head, and she was powerless to stop him.

The door jostled. Someone tried to open it, but the bar held. “Hey. Open up.”

Redge.

“Tarus? Laela? Laela!” Aylenia shouted, pounding her fist on the door.

Tarus ignored the door and the people behind it. “Traitor? I been loyal. True—always true. Arilette sent me with you and all the real traitors ten years ago when ya left right before the Battle of the Cut. ‘Make sure they don’t leave,’ she told me. ‘Make sure they never leave.’ And you…” He strangled the corners of the pillow in his white-knuckled grip.

Her vision waned. The room spun. Her muscles spasmed. Bodies flew into the door, trying to break it down, only adding to the cacophony. But Tarus barely seemed to notice.

“Ten ghostin’ years, I finally got ya here, and you want to leave—just like that?” He snapped his fingers before choking the pillow once again. “I thought—between me, Canton, the Palogian girl that’s got ya twisted up like a Dreadroot—I thought maybe you’d listen to sense. Then ya pretend to listen to her.” He nodded at the door. “And for a warp, I thought, ‘There it is. Unity. Victory. An end to the Order’s reign.’ And the moment she turns her back, you… would ruin… everythin’.”

The door rattled. Hinges creaked, but the bar held and Laela remained trapped in the room with the darkling she’d trusted most. Her heart thundered in her chest, echoed in her ears.

Not like this. I can’t hollow like this.

Tarus glowered down at her. “You will serve the Underground—if not in life, then in death. You and everyone you thought you’d save.” He pressed the pillow over her face.

She tried to fight, but her body was failing from the inside out. The warp meant to save her life would kill her if Tarus didn’t, but he throttled her, wanting the kill for himself.

She slapped at his hands, fought to pry the pillow free from her face, but blind, weak, and fading fast, she knew this was the end.

Chapter 52: Compress. Release.

Threyna XX

“Love can still warm the cold and triumph over the dark even if all seems lost. And you, our little dove, you are loved. Loved by your mother, your father, and your sister, and nothing can take that away from you...”

—an excerpt from a fatekeeper

Threyna’s shoulders hung heavy the moment she was beyond the door to the medicus’s wing and back in the corridor. The brave face she put on for the Wraith and Underground alike softened once she was on her own. Weighed down by guilt, loss, and the fear that Laela was right, Threyna barely had it in her to put one foot in front of the other.

She needed to tell Arilette that Laela and the Wraith were with them, but all she wanted was her dark bunk in the quiet barracks. Aylenia wouldn’t be there; she was with Laela. Ebrus and Yevon wouldn’t be there either. Threyna didn’t know what happened to the souls she’d consumed after she’d utilized them for her blood magic. Whether they disappeared as if they never existed at all, or they somehow made it to Neutreen, the One, or whatever other deity was too sadistic to show themselves to the mortals, Threyna couldn’t be sure.

The only thing she could be sure of was that this didn’t feel right.

Unable or unwilling to walk any further, she sank to the floor, sliding down the wall between illuminators. Knees bent, she hugged them to her chest, resting her cheek against her thigh. She felt alone, scared, and even though she was back in Octarius, she’d never felt so out of place.

This is my home. This is where I belong. I am a Premius of the Underground. If not here, where else?

To make matters worse, she didn’t even believe her efforts accomplished anything. The Wraith and Underground were no more united than they had been before this all started. The Wraith who’d made it to Octarius, those lucky enough to survive the Order and the hollowed, were just that—lucky. They weren’t fighters. And sure, there would be roles in which they could serve in the coming battle without fighting, but it was clear that they didn’t want to be here.

“Forced unity will only build a fractured army,” Fawkes had said.

Threyna closed her eyes, sinking into her own embrace as she clutched her knees. Fractured unity is still division. Ruin will reign.

“I would rather hollow than serve you—Skeleton Queen.” Laela’s words felt like a knife to her neck. She touched the scar at her throat. She never should have survived that, but she had. And then she’d slaughtered the rest of the Order as they retreated without even needing to engage with them.

Maybe I am ruin. Maybe this is what I am—the Skeleton Queen. There’s only one place I can truly belong.

She retreated to her Inner Throne, seeking the comfort of its power in place of the support or approval she needed. Arilette hadn’t said a single word about the loss of her father. Hadn’t mentioned her mother. It was clear that she wasn’t going to either.

“She poisoned him,” Fawkes had said.

She hadn’t believed it at the time, but upon returning with the power of the Skeleton King, Arilette looked at her differently—no longer a person or even a soldier, but a weapon. She’d suggested forcing the cursed blood artifact onto Laela as a way of making her comply. Then when Threyna had said such a thing was impossible, she wanted her to consume the Wraith to source her blood magic.

“She’ll die,” Arilette had said if Laela refused her. “You’ll consume her. Either way, she will aid our war against the Order.”

A thousand thoughts tore through her mind like a tempest of darklings. She sank deeper into her Inner Throne, trying to block them out, but they still found their way in.

“That woman wrote letters every. Single. Week.” Laela wasn’t the only one to have said so. Dracus and Fawkes had too.

Threyna approached the entrance within her seat of power and sealed the double doors shut. Breathing deeply, she held the doors closed, willing her mind to quiet. Once she protected herself from her dark thoughts, she turned her back on the door and sank into the same position she was in within the halls of Octarius. Hugging her knees, she stared out the stained-glass windows of her throne room, but even here, there was no comfort.

The dark cloud she’d felt encroaching on her Inner Throne along the Spine drew closer. A black mass with forking red lightning crept nearer and nearer with a hunger that could rival all the hellhounds in Rheynia. It could only mean one thing.

The Skeleton King is coming.

A door burst open—not within her Inner Throne, but in the physical realm—wrenching Threyna back to the present.

“Threyna! Help!”

Aylenia scanned the halls frantically, her knees bent, hips coiled as if ready to run. She was only about twenty paces away, but Threyna could feel Aylenia’s heart hammering in her chest.

“I’m here,” Threyna said, springing to her feet.

“Ripping Corners. It’s Tarus. Come on!” Aylenia darted back into the medicus’s wing.

Not understanding, Threyna charged after her, mind racing as fast as her feet. Skidding to a halt before changing directions, she follow Aylenia into the medicus’s wing.

“Tarus locked Laela inside!” Aylenia shoved a Centuriot out of the way, shouting for others to clear aside. The Centuriots barring the way to the intensive recovery warps upon her first entrance weren’t without, but within, trying to knock down the door to Laela’s room.

Threyna didn’t understand. He’s one of hers. Why would he—

“Move!” Aylenia cried. “Clear the door.”

The Centuriots and a broad-shouldered Palogian man stood aside. The door was dented, but unmoved. Threyna came to a stop before the door, her mind racing.

“He’s going to kill her!” the Palogian man shouted. “Do something!”

Threyna attuned to the two heartbeats inside. One pounded, deep and punishing, the blood hot with wrath. The other barely beat at all. She could sense Laela’s blood, but it was wrong. Thick and congealing faster by the moment, it was barely moving within her veins.

“He sped up the warp,” Threyna said.

“She’s going to hollow!” Aylenia cried. “Open it!”

There’s no time to open it. She tried to reach for Laela’s heart, the same way she had with the legionaries surrounding her in the Cut. She willed the blood to thin, for her heart to beat, but it wasn’t working. She knew it was there, but as if she were searching for something under her bunk without the ability to see it, she was only feeling around.

I’ve never conjured absent sight.

Aylenia was yelling; the Palogian man shook her by the shoulders, screaming in her face. But they were just distractions. She sank deeper into her Inner Throne, blocking out the long faces of the Centuriots, the frightened gasps from the warps beyond, and the screaming all around her.

She was back in Avengard, watching from a distance as Belrich and his Inquisitors surrounded her father. She saw her mother’s back as she ran deeper into Caius’s Bog. She stood face to face with Ebrus’s shade, felt the torment of Yevon’s soul. I will not lose Laela too. Not like this.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Taking her place upon the seat of her Inner Throne, Threyna gripped the arms of the chair. She envisioned the room beyond the door blocking her path. The cot. The warp. The green hue of the Viridite. The gleam of the illuminators in the corners. She envisioned Laela in the cot. Tarus standing over her.

Laela’s heart was no longer beating.

Threyna reached and found Tarus’s thundering heart. She envisioned blood seeping from his eyes and ears, dribbling out of his nose and mouth and down his chin. She seized his heart, willing to make her vision a reality. She squeezed.

A thud beyond the door signaled Tarus’s collapse to the floor. She hoped he’d become a shade, but Threyna couldn’t worry about that yet. Even if Tarus was no longer a threat, the warp would hollow her if Threyna couldn’t turn it off quickly. Simultaneously willing Laela’s heart to beat while envisioning where the tubes would be connecting her to the warp, Threyna felt the rot slithering through her own veins.

Focus, ghost dammit.

She tried to conjure a dagger to sever the tubes to the warp, but absent sight, it fell to ashes before it could gain its edge. After a second failed attempt, she sought Tarus’s blood. Sensing it as it spread along the floor, she tried to give it shape, but it was happening too slowly.

Though she was forcing the chambers of Laela’s heart to pump, her blood was so thick that Threyna worried the pressure would do more harm than good. Abandoning Laela’s heart, she focused solely on the dagger. She pictured the dagger her father had given her, kept safe in her lockbox. A simple blade, straight and narrow with a short crossguard, the word Pure embossed into the hilt.

It formed, and far away, something clicked. And though she felt clumsy wielding it, absent sight, she did her best to envision where Laela and the warp were, and where the tubes connecting them might be. Running out of time, she slashed with the dagger.

Laela’s blood hadn’t thinned, but the warp, which was actively thickening her blood, stopped. She felt her own blood thickening as the rot encroached on her heart. Ignoring it and trusting that she’d survive it as she had the last time, she sank even deeper into her Inner Throne, knowing that if she failed, Laela would hollow.

She could sense the viscosity of Laela’s blood, but from this deep in her Inner Throne, blood, bone, and soul were hers to command. She dispelled that which thickened Laela’s blood, but still, her heart did not pump.

Come on, Laela.

Trying again, Threyna squeezed Laela’s heart, willing it to beat. In a rhythmic fashion, she compressed and released. Compressed. Released. Compressed. Released.

Within her Inner Throne, the black rot flooded the floors and climbed her chair. The dark tendrils wrapped around her legs like corrupted vines. They dragged her down, attempting to pull her beneath the acrid liquid. Threyna closed her eyes to it.

Just a little longer. Don’t give up.

She didn’t know if she was talking to herself or Laela, but she couldn’t allow it to end like this.

Compress. Release.

Compress. Release.

Laela’s heart thrummed to life with a beat of its own. The first few came slow, weak. But the subsequent pumps grew stronger, each echoing throughout Threyna’s Inner Throne.

Gasping, she released her Inner Throne. Just as she returned to the present, the Palogian man charged through the door, snapping the bar that held it in place. He spilled into the room, tripping over Tarus’s downed form on his way to Laela. Blood covered the floor around Tarus’s fallen form. Despite the grisly scene before her, Threyna couldn’t look away. Something was wrong. Tarus’s wasn’t moving. She saw no shade.

“Where is his darkli—” Before Threyna could finish, Tarus’s darkling tore free of Laela’s chest and dove straight for her. She fell back. Not into the wall of the corridor within the medicus’s wing, but over the back of her chair and into the rising black ichor in her Inner Throne.

She fell beneath the surface of the corrupted liquid, wrestling with Tarus’s soul. He shoved her down, preventing her from gaining her feet and holding her beneath the surface. Slick and putrid, the rot invaded her nose and mouth. She fought for leverage, but found none on the slippery tile floor.

The spectral wisp of Tarus wrenched her out of the rot. She drew in breath, attempting to regain her composure. She could feel him worming through her thoughts and memories, sifting through her emotions like old papers. She tried to rebuff him, but couldn’t. His anger threatened to drown her more quickly than the ichor filling her throne room.

“She was going to betray us!” The darkling of what was once Tarus screamed in her face. His shadowy visage glared down at her with smoldering eyes. “Blood and bone, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

She managed to take a short breath before he shoved her back beneath the surface. His shouts became muffled, but his thoughts bled into her mind.

Ten years I served from afar while you ate out of her hand. You ruined it. You ruined everything!

Threyna thrashed, trying to free herself from his grasp. She couldn’t break his grip. Her lungs burned as he held her under. Her mouth opened, and a silent scream erupted from her, but the rot flooded in. Unable to push him off or disengage, she grabbed Tarus by the collar of his tunic and wrenched. Torquing her body, she dragged Tarus beneath the surface with a splash. Taking advantage of his momentary disorientation, Threyna broke free of his grasp and resurfaced.

She coughed, hacking out the rot that invaded her lungs as she stumbled away from him. The rot was rising. Tendrils of it snaked up the columns lining her throne room. The once-pristine walls of her Inner Throne were now a haunting even hollowed would run from.

Scrambling away from him, wading waist deep through the flood, she trudged to her seat of power.

“You think you saved her,” Tarus shouted, emerging from the thick, black liquid. He appeared more like walking sludge than a shade or darkling. “You’ve doomed us all.”

As their thoughts meshed, and with Threyna no longer fighting for air, she denied Tarus’s access to her mind. Completing the reversal, she tore through his.

“When they abandon us, as I know they will,” a young Arilette said, “go with them. Make sure they never leave.”

“But we’ll be apart,” Tarus exclaimed. “I should be with you for the battle. The Cut is dangerous—”

Arilette put a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell me of the dangers. Tell me what we’ll be when we defeat the Order and rule Rheynia ourselves.”

The happiest memory of Tarus’s life became his curse. And now, seemingly so close to fulfilling that dream, Threyna had robbed him of it.

You were the mole within the Wraith. The one who sabotaged the tunnels to the ships.

Tarus put his spectral hands to his head. “Get out!”

Threyna’s resolve grew. Her anger boiled over. Tarus was proof of the lengths Arilette was willing to go, the evidence of just how devious her mind was. My mother did send me letters. How many? How many did Arilette keep from me over the years? How many times had I asked? She lied to my face. She let me believe I was abandoned, unwanted, rejected…

Tarus marched towards her, slowed down by the rising rot. “Laela will ruin us. All of us. Consume her—consume all of them!”

He believed, even now, even in death, that Arilette would save him. She’d find him a host body she found pleasing and vortex whatever soul inhabited it. That he would live and Laela would die, and Arilette would love him for it. He thought himself her equal, but he was her puppet. She wouldn’t care when he disappeared from existence. She wouldn’t mention him at all, as she hadn’t for the past decade. He was just her tool, her means to make sure that if Threyna failed, Laela wouldn’t attempt to lead others in escape.

Threyna glared at him. Laela would have hollowed in the warp, and if anyone spoke out against it, how long before a Centuriot’s blade was through their gut? Her fury mounted, but it paled in comparison to her resolve.

She grabbed the arm of her throne, pulling herself up to stand upon her seat of power and stare down at him as the rot climbed to his chest.

“Divided, ruin will reign,” Tarus said, his voice quavering.

His confidence in his future waned. Fear wormed through his spectral body and infected his thoughts, but he could hide none of them from Threyna.

“Right you are,” Threyna said. Ignoring the rot and fueled by all the lies that led to this moment, Threyna drew in breath.

Tarus screamed, attempting to resist her.

Slowly, his spectral body began to stretch towards her. She drew upon his soul, consuming him, until no trace of him remained.

Threyna released her grip on her Inner Throne and returned to the medicus’s wing in Octarius. She could feel the rot constricting her heart retreat slightly at Tarus’s consumption, but she felt exhausted. It took all of her effort to incline her head.

Two Centuriots craned over her, aiming a vortex and irradiator at her, unsure of who had won the contest of wills for control over her body. Behind them and the busted door, the Palogian man stood beside Aylenia as she held Laela’s face in her hands. All eyes were upon her, including Laela’s, though they were barely open. Her head sagged, unable to support its weight on her own absent Aylenia’s aid, but she was alive.

Threyna wished she could have her mind enmeshed with Laela’s so she could gain access to what she was feeling. Does she know? Will she believe me if I tell her?

Not wanting the Centuriots to get too excited with their fingers on the trigger, she raised a weak, black-veined hand. “It’s me. He’s gone.” But just as she raised her arm, she realized the bangle was dematerializing. With the final prong released, it returned to its original state, a red-and-black sentient liquid of malice.

The Centuriots backed away, lowering their arcanateks, unsure what they were witnessing. The Centuriots and injured Wraith from the atrium of the medicus’s wing filled the open doorway, their faces long and mouths agape.

Still in a heap on the floor, too tired to move, Threyna could only watch in horror as the blood artifact slithered down her arm before coiling on the ground like a serpent ready to strike.

“Move, move!” Canton pushed his way through the onlooking crowd and into the private quarters of the medicus’s wing. Dracus and Arilette followed at his heels, all three of them panting. Canton halted, the blood artifact’s crimson reflected in his dark eyes.

Dracus pulled him behind him. “Everyone back!” Reaching into his pocket, he lunged for the red-and-black liquid at the same time it launched itself toward Canton. Ripping his hand from his pocket, something within blurred, causing a distorted rippling effect that seemed to suck the snakelike curse into it. As it disappeared into the distortion, Dracus snapped the fatekeeper shut. Staring at the fatekeeper in his clenched palm, a wave of emotions warred along the lines of Dracus’s face.

“Gory ghosts,” Arilette said. “Was that—”

“No.” The finality in Dracus’s tone allowed no one to speak, and for a long moment, no one did. As if seeing the full scene for the first time now, eyes drifted from Threyna on the floor to the busted door, then inside to where Tarus’s body lay in a pool of blood before Laela’s cot.

“What happened here?” Arilette asked, her tone husky.

Threyna lay against the wall of the corridor, glowering at the woman who she’d often considered to be her true mother. She swallowed the bile in her throat, wishing she could spit it at her. “I need a soul jar, Legatus. Laela needs a new warp. Then we have a lot to discuss.”

Chapter 53: A Darkling’s Deal

Threyna XXI

“If you are reading this, the One has tried to take that love away. Whether I have hollowed, become a shade or a darkling, that doesn’t change that you are still loved…”

—an excerpt from a fatekeeper

Arilette’s tablinum once felt like the safest place in all of Rheynia. How wrong she had been. Blind, naive, and utterly foolish, she had hinged on Arilette’s every word, working tirelessly for her approval. All for nothing. All for lies. Even now, backed into a corner, Arilette refused to tell the truth that Threyna now knew to be fact.

“And who told you that?” Arilette snapped, both hands placed atop her wooden desk as she leaned over it. “Seems to me that her most trusted adviser lost faith in her, didn’t want to leave the safety of our walls, and attempted to ensure that—even if she wanted to leave—the rest of the Wraith wouldn’t be forced to.”

Lorath nodded behind her. Canton huddled in the corner, unable to meet her eyes, but Dracus glared daggers at her. Aylenia hugged herself, clearly conflicted. But only Threyna knew the truth. Dracus might have suspected it, but he didn’t have access to Tarus’s mind as she had.

With her rot abated after consuming the darklings of a soul jar, Threyna was replenished, but still, she tired of playing games. She knocked a chair out of the way and placed her knuckles on Arilette’s desk opposite her. “No one told me. No one needed to. I had Tarus’s darkling in my head. I saw his every memory, felt each of his emotions—I know exactly what he was doing, why, and who told him to do it.”

To Arilette’s credit, she didn’t react. Her grim composure showed no sign of guilt, no glimpse of remorse.

Threyna’s knuckles pressed into the tabletop. She will never admit it. Disappointment grew like the aura of glowstones soaking up sunlight. Every foothold she’d established, all the high ground she thought she’d secured—they were all built on lies. Laela’s every feeling toward the Underground and Arilette would be vindicated with what she was about to say. And though she still felt Laela was wrong about the war, Threyna couldn’t keep her or the Wraith here against their will. Not without hating herself. Her proposal would set the Wraith free and potentially doom the Underground, but the alternative—unity without choice—was still a pact doomed to hollow.

“We’re focusing on the wrong things right now,” Lorath said. “The Order is coming. Even the Skeleton King could be marching with them. We must—”

“The Skeleton King is coming,” Threyna snapped. “Not could be. Is! He’s coming, which makes this the best time to focus on the truth.” Returning her snarl to Arilette, she pressed. “You ordered Tarus to go with the Wraith ten years ago. You sent him to ensure that they would never leave. You wanted him to be the First Sword, assassinate Rance and anyone else who showed the competency capable of delivering people beyond the curse. He sabotaged the escape from Aranoc. He ensured the Wraith made it to Octarius. And I can prove it.”

Threyna opened her fist to hold up a small, flat, black disk on the tip of her index finger. “You gave him an interlayer. A new one, even smaller than the ones the strike teams use. I wouldn’t have known to look if I hadn’t gained access to his memories. I wouldn’t have found it embedded in his hairline behind his ear if I didn’t know exactly where to look for it. You gave it to him on the walk back from the Cut. You told him—even before bothering to speak to me—‘If she speaks of escape, hollow her. Make it look natural.’ Do you deny it?”

Aylenia fidgeted behind her. Despite how uncomfortable it made her feel, she needed to hear the truth.

Arilette fixed Threyna with a disappointed stare. With the barest shake of her head, she said, “I did what I had to. To bring us here, make us strong, give us a fighting chance!”

Threyna hung her head. “Say it.” She didn’t raise her voice as Arilette had; she didn’t need to. Inclining her gaze to meet Arilette’s eyes, she watched her childhood hero become a darkling.

Exasperated, Arilette tossed her hands and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Premius. Yes, I ordered him to ensure our unity.”

Dracus scoffed. Aylenia’s held breath released. Canton didn’t make a sound.

“Divided, ruin will reign.” Arilette emphasized each word as if none of them had ever heard them strung together before.

“And forced unity will only create a fractured army,” Threyna quoted Fawkes’s closing remarks to her along the Spine. “This is not the way to victory over the Skeleton King.”

“What is it then, eh?” Lorath snapped. “Since you know everything now.”

“Me.” There was no pride or bravado in her tone. If anything, the word came out soft, weighed down with guilt and regret impressing upon her heart. It was a burden of responsibility she didn’t wish to bear alone. But it was a curse she would take upon herself if it meant others didn’t have to live beneath a tyrant’s manipulations—Belrich’s or Arilette’s.

Arilette stalked around the table, coming nose to nose with Threyna. “You can do this, but not alone.”

Her motherly tone that once made her feel loved only grated on her now. It wasn’t love—never was. It was a depravity, a perversion of the notion of love for the means of control.

“There is one key to victory—” Arilette pointed at Dracus. “—and it’s in that fatekeeper.”

Dracus tensed, turning sideways as if to put his body between her and the fatekeeper in his pocket.

“Give it to me,” Arilette said, extending her palm toward Dracus. “Let us wield it, defeat the Skeleton King, the Order, and anyone else who would stand in the way of peace.”

Threyna lowered Arilette’s outstretched arm. She stared into Arilette’s eyes—a woman who murdered her own father. A woman she no longer trusted. But she was right; if even one other person possessed the blood magic and Threyna taught them the basics of what she had learned, they stood a much greater chance of winning. Yet she knew the taint the Blessing imposed on a soul. She wouldn’t let Arilette force it upon anyone, absent choice, but neither could she let such a destructive power fall into the hands of someone who coveted power for the sake of it. We’d only replace the Skeleton King’s rule with a new tyrant.

A knot formed behind the scar across her throat as she considered a way of determining if even a shred of humanity still lived within Arilette. Last chance. “Did my mother send me letters?”

The words barely carried the distance between them, yet despite how softly they were spoken, they hung in the air as thick as the clouds over Rheynia.

Arilette searched her. Her brow hardened, lips tightened. “No.”

“A little dove stamped in wax,” Threyna said softly. “Surely, you’d remember. There must have been…” She shrugged, turning to Dracus. “One, two, every few weeks?”

Dracus raised his index finger, indicating a higher sum. “More than that.”

“More than that,” Threyna said, tears welling in her eyes. Tears of wasted resentment on her mother, now lost to her. Tears of betrayal from Arilette’s manipulations. She blinked them away. “I’ll ask you again. Were there letters?”

Arilette grit her teeth, shaking her head. “You listen to him?” She cast Dracus a darkling’s glare. “She left you. I raised you. I looked out for you.”

“Ghost dammit, were there letters?” Threyna’s back knotted. The tension in her body slackened. So badly did she wish Arilette would just admit it. To, for once, be honest with her.

Arilette seethed, her nostrils flaring. She took a composing breath before tilting her head to the side. “No.”

Threyna swallowed the knot in her throat, her fists clenching as tension returned to her muscles. “No, then.”

“No?” Lorath asked.

“You asked for the blood artifact,” Threyna said, matter of factly. “I said, ‘No.’ Seems simple enough, Arch Premius.”

Lorath’s cheeks reddened. “What do you mean no?”

“I wasn’t asking for it,” Arilette sneered. “We must ensure—”

“We must ensure that when we win, another tyrant doesn’t take the throne,” Threyna finished, glaring at Arilette. “Here is what’s going to happen.” She glanced at Aylenia, resolving herself. It was the right thing to do, but she knew what it would cost. She’d be alone. She’d likely die alone. Perhaps that’s what I deserve…

“Aylenia, should she accept, will lead the Wraith and anyone else who wants to flee to the ships waiting at the Grip. Anyone.”

Aylenia’s mouth hung open and Arilette began to object, but Threyna cut them both off.

“Dracus will keep the blood artifact in the safety of his fatekeeper and make certain that it never afflicts anyone again.”

Lorath raised his voice. “We can’t afford to—”

“We can and we will,” Threyna snapped. “Because if you don’t let them leave, I leave. I’m the best chance we have at winning this. So if I leave, how many do you think will remain in Octarius?”

“You’d doom us all,” Arilette said.

Threyna met Arilette’s cold stare. “Everyone should have a choice.” She couldn’t back down. “Laela wants to leave. Her people want to leave. You’ve tried to take their choices away, but now I’m giving you one: let them go and I’ll stay and fight. Or force them to stay, and see what happens if you try to stop me from leaving.”

“Threyna…” Canton emerged from the corner of the tablinum, his narrow face long. “You can’t do this. We’re so close. We might actually be able to do this, but only if we stay together.”

Threyna scoffed. “We might be here together, reunited, but we have never been more divided.” She returned her attention to Arilette and Lorath. “I will fight. I will try to defeat the Skeleton King and the Order, but only if you let them go.”

Arilette hung her head. Lorath practically chewed through his teeth based on the sound of grinding coming from his direction.

On the opposite side of the tablinum, Dracus grinned. And though Aylenia remained at a loss for words, her posture had straightened, and a glimmer of hope flickered in her dark green eyes.

Threyna addressed the whole room. “So what will it be? Do we have a deal?”

Chapter 54: Choice and Consequence

Dracus XV

Once upon a time, before the Disasters, it was said that the sun would rise in the east. An orange mote of fire that illuminated the sky and bathed the shoreline in glittering gold. As it climbed higher to fly over Rheynia, it grew brighter than any illuminator. But the brighter it became, so too did it become smaller, as if it were sailing away like the Drakes and Helixuses on their western voyage. Nearing its zenith, clouds would roll in, blotting out the sun’s light. But the rain and storms would always pass. And just as each day began, each day would end, only instead of the eastern shore basking in the sun’s fiery glow, the west would receive its due. On and on it went, a daily miracle.

“A dawn for every day.”

Dracus remembered those songs. People who lived in such times would sing them to children—joyous tunes with uplifting melodies. He imagined once that such songs, such words offered hope.

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s a new day.”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

It made Dracus sick as a child. All his years, he’d never truly seen the sun. It hid beyond a gray veil holding back its warmth. The rains came each day, but that beautiful golden orb never rose or set on him. Not truly.

As he sat in the mess hall, ignoring the din of those likely eating their last meals, he couldn’t help but wonder if such beauty existed beyond the curse. That’s what they said—those who went to Sansia. Blue skies, purer than the sapphires mined along the Wing. Stars would come out at night, scattered across an endless black sea in the sky. And the sun’s sister, the moon, would change its shape, waxing and waning from a sickle’s curve to a buckler’s round.

He patted the soul jar holding Fawkes’s shade. We’ll see it together, Old Boy.

Dracus hung his head, taking Fawkes’s fatekeeper from his pocket. Its contents, the message Fawkes had written for him, were locked within. Trapped with the Blessing. He wished he’d opened it sooner, but he’d been afraid to; it would have made it real. The truth that Fawkes was nothing more than a silent, pale spectral visage of everything he’d been in life, sitting in a jar on his hip, was enough to make him want to hollow. But Fawkes was still gone. And now his last words were trapped in the same vessel as a near-sentient curse.

The blood artifact could never fall into another’s hands. If Arilette or Lorath had gotten their wish, there was no telling what kind of hellscape Rheynia would have become. Threyna had prevented that ill fate.

Of all the people Dracus would have expected to be the voice of reason, Threyna was the last on his list, but because of her, he was taking Fawkes beyond the curse. The daughter of Bherus Fayte and Viesa Huron. A child of a prince and a rebel, a product of war in a world hellbent on devouring itself.

“It was Fawkes,” Threyna had said after Dracus had asked what made her change her mind. “Fawkes and… Tarus’s darkling, Arilette’s lies, the way Lorath coveted the Blessing. But it began with Fawkes.” That was something he could relate to. Now there was only one last thing to do before he left this place for good.

Seeing that Canton had finished his meal across the mess hall, Dracus pocketed the fatekeeper and rose to his feet. The bandaged wounds across his back screamed. The weakness in his ankle, the aching in his chin, the scrapes along his arms, and the swollen feeling of his knuckles had become his existence. The pain was the only thing that kept him present, kept him from hollowing.

Won’t have to make it much longer. We march soon. Just keep it together.

Putting one foot in front of the other, he made his way to where Canton sat. Canton’s back was to him; Marius the quartermaster and another Centuriot sat opposite. The Centuriot, a few years older than Canton, bore into Dracus at his approach. Dark eyes burned like coals beneath his coiffure of blond hair. A scar stretched diagonally along the side of his neck. His shoulders seemed to broaden as he stood, drawing Marius and Canton’s attention.

“What do you want?” the Centuriot asked, an obvious grudge inflecting his every word.

Dracus didn’t acknowledge him with a response. He nodded at Marius who returned the greeting. “Cant, ya mind a word before… before we get ready.”

Canton bit his lower lip, swinging his leg over the bench. “Yeah.”

“I asked you a question,” the Centuriot said.

Marius held his arm out. “Easy, Rivich, he’s—”

“I know who he is.”

Dracus sank deeper into his bodily pains like armor, not allowing this new aggravation to penetrate. Rivich was a full head taller than he, as broad as Fawkes, and likely half his age. Clearly, he wanted trouble, but Dracus couldn’t step in the Dreadroot’s snare. Not here, Old Boy. Out there. Together. He pointedly ignored Rivich.

As Canton stood, Rivich strode around the table, inserting himself between him and Dracus. Inclining his gaze, Dracus met the Centuriot’s glare.

“Maybe you forgot what it’s like in here,” Rivich said, “but here, when a commanding officer speaks to you, you—”

“I answered you, Centuriot.” Dracus felt the call of the dying, willing him to hollow out here and now. He focused on the pains, reliving each and every one of them again in a fight to retain his humanity. He took a deep breath. “You asked what I wanted. I said I wanted a word. Canton?”

Canton placed a hand on Rivich’s shoulder as if telling his hellhound to stand down. “It’s fine. Won’t be long.”

With one last parting glare, Dracus led Canton away from Rivich’s shadow and out of the mess hall. Every other step sent a new, compounding flash of pain into his shin from where he’d kicked Jagras’s feet out from under him. Each stride told the bone to crack just a little bit more. Knowing his steps were numbered, hoping he wouldn’t have to take them alone, he stopped in the quiet hall to speak with Canton.

He placed a hand on each of Canton’s shoulders, looking him in the eye. He’d grown into the spitting image of his father, and try as Dracus might to knock the rebellious martyrdom out of him, nature defeated nurture. Despite his failure, Dracus found himself grinning. “Here we are. Not exactly how we wanted it, eh? But nevertheless…”

Canton nodded, but Dracus’s grin never found its way to his lips. “I know what you want. I know what you’re going to ask of me—”

Dracus shook his head and gave Canton’s shoulders a squeeze. “Nah, kid. No ya don’t. Cause I know what you want. For a long time, I thought, I dunno… I thought, if I did this one thing right, maybe I’d redeem myself. Give ya the life I’d never had. But that ain’t it. Fawkes tried to get me to see, but you know me, kid—ain’t exactly dewskulled, but not the brightest either.” He took a deep breath. “I thought I needed to get you off this rock to redeem myself. Realize now, givin’ you a choice is ‘bout as good as I can do. Now, you got that; you got a choice.”

“Dracus—”

“Lemme finish.” He closed his eyes before glancing down at the soul jar on his hip. Gently, he touched it, wishing he could reach through the arcanatek’s shell and feel Fawkes. “I gotta get Fawkes beyond the curse. True death and all.”

Canton took a trembling breath. “The world is darker without him.”

“Aye.”

“Sansia?” Canton asked.

Dracus nodded. “At first.”

It would be his last lie, his last stretch of the truth. Though that’s where the boat would go, Dracus would never make it to land. If tales were true, the moment they were beyond the curse, he’d die a true death; his soul would leave his body and depart to whatever awaited him in the afterlife. Whether Neutreen would grant him wings to ascend to the heavens, or he’d just cease to exist as if he’d been irradiated, he didn’t know. But it would be the end of this stretch of existence. If there was a new beginning, he and Fawkes would make the journey to whatever was next. Together.

Canton sniffed, thumbing his nose. “I know you want me to come with you, but I can’t. Not yet. I must see this through.”

It hurt Dracus, but he understood it. Worse, he accepted it. Perhaps it was the futility of trying to bend someone else’s will to his own. Perhaps he’d finally learned to let go of things he couldn’t change, but regardless of what happened next, he would have to make peace with it.

“That’s yer choice, kid. I mean it.”

“I’ll come find you,” Canton said. “Afterwards. After we win.”

Dracus swallowed. I hope not, kid. Not where I’m goin’. Not for a long while yet.

“I’ll help you protect that.” He pointed at Fawkes’s fatekeeper around his neck containing the Skeleton King’s Blessing.

“Nah, Cant. This is it. I need to disappear. This—” He touched the fatekeeper around his neck. “—needs to disappear.”

Canton narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t protect this. No one can. Whether you defeat the Skeleton King or not, someone will come lookin’ for it. So I can’t tell ya where I’m goin’. No one can know. All it’d take is one darkling to get into yer mind, and there’s no tellin’ how many people would know the truth. They’d come searching for me. For it.” He shook his head. “Ghosts, even in Sansia, someone’ll talk. Word’ll get out somehow, rumors will spread, and someone wantin’ power will come lookin’.”

Canton blinked. “So what does this mean?”

“This is goodbye, Cant.” Dracus shrugged, hating that this was how it would end, but knowing there was no better option. In some ways, it was almost easier this way. If Canton came with him, believing they were going to spend the rest of their days protecting the Blessing from the Skeleton King and anyone else seeking its power, he’d be grievously disappointed. The moment they were far enough out at sea, Dracus was going to drop the fatekeeper into the abyss, pray it would never be found, and die a true death with Fawkes once they passed the edge of the curse.

Canton hung his head. “Always thought we’d have more time—you, me… Fawkes.” His shoulders slumped at Fawkes’s name. His feet shuffled. “Dracus, I… I’ve said some things—”

Dracus held up his hand. “Me too, kid. Ya don’t gotta explain nothin’. I deserved it. Ya got courage. Shoulda known better than to get in the way of that.”

Canton inclined his head. “I don’t feel brave. I’m terrified.”

Dracus didn’t need to focus on the pain to stay present. He saw the boy in front of him, no longer a boy, but a man. No longer filled with the disillusionment of glory and battle, he was seeing war for what it really was: an ugly truth in this cursed land with its neglectful Gods. But Dracus understood his desire to fight. Like the rot in Threyna’s veins, war was a corruption, ruining all it touched, but with it, it offered the opportunity to change everything. It offered hope for a new beginning. Canton still had hope, despite how long ago Dracus’s was snuffed out.

How many times have I sought to extinguish Canton’s flame? He pursed his lips. Not this time. “Let it in,” he whispered. “That fear—that weakness in your knees, the moisture on your palms, the tension in the back of your throat… ya might think it’s a bad thing. It ain’t. Means ya got somethin’ worth fightin’ for. Somethin’ worth losin’. Means you’re alive.” He gave Canton a squeeze and inhaled with the pain as Canton hugged him back.

“You go out there, you use that fear. That’s what it means to be strong. Can’t be brave if you’re afraid of nothin’; it’s when you stare it in the face and tell it go to the Gullies that you can be brave. So what’s that thing Viesa always used to say to ya when you were a kid nippin’ at Laela’s heels?”

Canton snorted. “Be strong. Be courageous.”

Dracus gestured with his hand. “See what I mean, kid? Woman was afraid of everything. Don’t mean she wasn’t brave. If anything, might make her the bravest of us all.”

Canton’s lip curved upwards in the barest hint of a smile, though it never reached his eyes. “She would’ve told me to go with you. Fawkes would have too.”

Dracus nodded. “Yeah. Probably right. But at some point, ya gotta make yer own choices. Yer own mistakes. Ya learn to live with them. But if ya never get to make them for yerself… is yer life even yers?”

“Suppose not.” Canton took a deep breath. “Gratitude, Dracus. For everything.”

Dracus pulled Canton in close, embracing him in another hug. Holding him, he wanted to believe that Fawkes would’ve been proud of him, that all of this had a meaning and a purpose. That there was something greater at work than them just being the sorry sods that outlived their goddess to decay in a haunted land. He didn’t know, but that’s the difference between believing and knowing—he didn’t need all the answers.

“You’re gonna do what I couldn’t, kid,” Dracus said, separating himself from Canton to hold his gaze. “You and Threyna. I believe that. The Order, Belrich, the Skeleton King—they’re gonna hit ya with all they got. But yer not alone. Ya ain’t helpless. Arilette’s gotta plan, Threyna’s got the power, and you…” He shook his head and smiled earnestly. “You’re too damn stubborn to fail.”

He patted Canton’s shoulder. “To full life… and a true death. Give my regards to Belrich.”

Canton chuckled, though he lacked the conviction he typically displayed. “And mine to Fawkes.”

Dracus released Canton’s shoulder and nodded. Not knowing what else to say but not wanting this to be the end, he opened his mouth to speak, hoping the words would come. None did. Not the love of a father to his son. No words of encouragement to strengthen Canton’s resolve. It felt wrong. It all felt wrong. Before doubt and hopelessness could drown him, he sank back into the pains of his failing body, spun on his heel, and stalked away.

Chapter 55: Separate Paths

Laela XXI & Threyna XXII

“May Neutreen give you the strength to win your battles, and the courage to choose which must be fought.”

—an excerpt from a fatekeeper

Laela ignored her father’s nagging and her own lethargy as she helped a young girl load up a pack that her brother wouldn’t be able to carry after being taken off the warps too soon. “There you go.” She forced a smile at the girl’s brother. “Now you stay close to her; she’ll protect you.”

He returned her grin, beleaguered as it was. “Gratitude.” He placed his hand on his sister’s back, and together they strode out of the armory between where Redge and Bhen were standing guard.

“Next,” Marius the quartermaster called from behind the counter, summoning another to step forward.

“Blood and bone,” a burly Undergrounder said, folding his arms across his chest and not bothering to keep his voice low. “These Wraith rats are gonna clean us out.”

Heat rose to Laela’s cheeks, but Marius spoke first. “Easy, Rivich. They’re not takin’ anything we can’t afford to give.”

Rivich scoffed, continuing to speak under his breath as a woman approached the quartermaster’s counter.

Marius slid a pack across the table. “Couple days’ rations. A bent blaster, still got some charges, though. And, lucky you, the last Dawnshard.”

The woman took the pack and slung it over her shoulder without a word, glaring at Laela as she passed.

Another of Tarus’s followers.

Aylenia had been the one to tell her what had actually happened. How Threyna had fought with Tarus’s darkling and gained access to the truth; all these years he’d been loyal to the Underground, to Arilette and her mad war against the Order. Laela had trusted him, and she’d been a fool. No one would have listened to Laela had she tried to explain what Tarus had tried to do. Ghosts, Laela didn’t think for a warped moment that Threyna would bother listening, let alone that she’d make a deal with Arilette to set the Wraith free. But that’s what happened.

“We’re going to the Grip,” Aylenia had said after Laela had woken from her recovery in the medicus’s wing. “Scouts saw ships along the coast. You, me—everyone who wants to leave this cursed place. It’s actually happening.”

Laela had believed it a dream, but here they were, preparing to leave and never come back. That was the deal. There would be no return voyage to shepherd more people from Rheynia to Sansia. This would be the lone trip of Rance’s fleet, but Rosler and Taggart had defied all odds and made it to the Grip. And with Threyna and Aylenia’s help, the Wraith would be leaving Octarius never to return.

But that didn’t mean everyone was happy about it.

“Get outta here,” Rivich snapped as Asla approached the armory for a second time.

“You gave me a broken blaster.” Asla flipped the switch to vortex and waved it in front of her. The arcanatek’s warble whined into motion before sputtering to a hissing stop. “What good is having a full cartridge of charges if I can’t use them?”

Rivich slammed his palm down on the table. “What good are people who run when they can fight?”

The warmth in Laela’s cheeks became fire in her throat as a great and terrible guilt burned her from within at Rivich’s words. 

Threyna had fought for her. She could have let Tarus hollow her. She didn’t. Despite how Laela had treated her, neglected her, then even most recently admonished her and called her a monster, Threyna had not only saved her from Tarus, but also stood up to Arilette. All so Laela could leave her once again.

Divided, ruin will reign. What would happen if we stood together?

On the precipice of delivering her people beyond the curse, she felt she owed it to Threyna to stay and find out. But her mother had sacrificed herself so that they could escape. These past ten years, everything they’d been through, it was all for this. She couldn’t give up on it now out of some sense of obligation.

Her father impressed upon the walls of her Center of Silence, but she kept him out.

Marius extended an arm to stay Rivich’s wrath. Asla didn’t back down, but Laela came up beside her and took the blaster. She’d seldom held such arcanatek before, but she knew how they operated. She pulled the pin, removing the power coils that charged the weapon, and slid the broken arcanatek across the countertop toward Rivich.

“You’re right. You need it more than we do.” Laela patted Asla on the shoulder. “Take the charges to someone with a working blaster.” Asla began to protest, but Laela gestured with her head toward the door. Asla grunted, but did as directed.

Rivich snatched the blaster from the countertop and muttered under his breath as he disappeared into the armory’s shelves. Marius grumbled before summoning the next of the Wraith in line to receive the rations Aylenia had secured for them.

Eyes tired, heart heavy, Laela turned from the quartermaster and made for the exit.

“Where are you going?” Redge asked. He hadn’t let her out of his sight since Tarus’s betrayal, fearing that another attempt would be made on her life.

She needed to speak with Threyna. They had yet to break words despite the passage of time. Whether that was happenstance due to the Underground’s preparations for the upcoming battle and the Wraith’s arrangements to leave or her sister was intentionally avoiding her, Laela couldn’t be sure. Though Aylenia had served as a messenger between them, Laela couldn’t leave without speaking to Threyna.

“To find Threyna,” Laela said, her tone of voice ladened by more fatigue than she’d realized.

“I’ll come with you,” Redge said, nodding towards Bhen.

“It’s fine.” Laela didn’t need an escort. As far as she understood it, Threyna was more a threat to Arilette’s plans of coerced unity than Laela was. “Once provisions are obtained, get everyone topside. We can’t afford to be here when the Order arrives.”

Redge and Bhen nodded, allowing her to pass, but then Redge grabbed her arm and lowered his head to speak softly so that only she could hear. “Gratitude. We’d never have made it this far without you.” He gave her arm a squeeze.

Lips pursed, she bobbed her head, unsure if she deserved such praise. “By Neutreen’s wings, we might yet reach safety.” Staring at the floor, she strode between the two men and exited the armory.

The long corridor leading to the stairwell was busy. All of Octarius was. With no time to be wasted, Wraith and Undergrounder alike saw to their preparations wherever they could. Despite the dull hum of the illuminators and the light they cast, all Laela heard was the crackling of fire. All she saw was billowing smoke. All she tasted was ash.

She was glad she was not a Seer like Cybel—such premonitions would not bode well for either of their futures. But the Seers were wiped out. As were the Artificers. She told herself Threyna and the Underground would not suffer the same fate beneath the Skeleton King’s magic and the Order’s legions, but the fires of her past consumed her hopes for the future.

Attempting to suppress her dark thoughts as she searched Octarius’s halls for her sister, she focused on what lay ahead: a sky beyond the clouds. Matches to burn to once again make communion with Neutreen beyond the One’s curse. A life not ravaged by war, a life without Order collectors, hordes of hollowed, wandering shades, or the fear of darklings. A future. She imagined building a new home in Sansia, traveling with Aylenia in search of her mûnta, and using her hands for something other than wielding a sword. It sounded too good to be true. And with each step she took in search of her sister, she felt less and less deserving of it.

Threyna wasn’t in the barracks, the mess hall, or Arilette’s chambers, though she didn’t dare to knock and find out. She’d found Canton, wearing the pale garb of the Underground’s infantry as he was receiving instructions prior to the impending battle. He met her eyes for a brief moment as he listened to the Centuriot who would be commanding him in the coming hours. For so many years, he’d pined after her like a lovesick puppy. She’d never fancied his attention, but now, she wished he’d follow her this one last time. As they shoved a glowing white arcanatek-like spear into his hands, she knew that wouldn’t come to pass.

She bumped into Dracus as he returned from the medicus’s wing. His shoulders were more stooped than hers.

“Have you seen Threyna?” Laela asked.

“Nah.” Dracus scratched the back of his neck.

She frowned, not knowing where else to look. She looked over his shoulder to the medicus’s chambers. “All patched up?” Dracus looked like a hellhound ensnared in Dreadroot that had lost the will to live. Pale, with dark saddlebags under his eyes, he didn’t bother to hide it either.

“Not quite.” He’d been different since returning from the Cut. Maybe it was Fawkes’s shade trapped within the soul jar on his hip, perhaps it was the blood artifact housed within the fatekeeper around his neck, or possibly it was just the burdens of the journey to make it to this point, but he wasn’t the same man she’d known these past fifteen years. Gone was his assured swagger and bitter pugnacity, replaced instead by a sullen resolve. An accepted defeat.

Laela took a deep breath. “We’ll all feel better once we reach Sansia.”

Dracus snorted at that. “Yeah, 'bout that…” He glanced about conspiratorially to make certain no one was within earshot. “Once we leave, get beyond the curse, that’s the end of the road for me.”

Laela narrowed her eyes, not understanding.

He caressed the soul jar on his hip. “Need ya to know in case I screw it up. Not exactly sure how it’ll happen, ya know?” He took a deep breath. “I been dead. Long time now. Ten years.”

Laela’s jaw unhinged. She stammered, unable to form words.

“Yeah, I dunno either. But I’ve held out this long.” He sighed, stroking his mustache. “Just wanted to get Canton out, ya know? But here we are. Gotta let him make his own choices, I suppose.”

“Dracus, I—”

He waved his hand dismissively. “I just need ya to know—I ain’t makin’ it to Sansia. Plan is to set Fawkes free beyond the curse. Dunno what Neutreen would want from me, but hopefully, she takes us both. But if I… ya know… before I let Fawkes out. Do me the honors, eh? Send us together.”

Laela shuffled her feet, flabbergasted.

“Yes?” Dracus asked.

Laela nodded, barely able to process. “Dracus…”

“Keep it between us.” He strode past her before calling over his shoulder, “I’d check the Artificers’ workshop. They’re up to something. I’d bet the last darkling in the soul jar she’s in there with ‘em.”

Laela bit her lip, considering what Marius had said to Rivich earlier. “They’re not takin’ anything we can’t afford to give.” She thought he was saying it because of the meager supplies they were parting with, not because they were “…up to something.”

Dracus’s footsteps retreated, leaving her with the harrowing truth of his painful existence and the frightful prospect of whatever awaited her in the Artificers’ workshop. Despite not having been in Octarius for ten years, she’d spent too much time in this hovel to ever forget her way around.

Returning to the stairwell to ascend another level, she wondered what the Underground had in store. The glowing white spears being distributed by Centuriots were one thing; she could only imagine what fresh horror they could cause. But what hid behind closed doors, that was something else entirely.

As she climbed the stairs, another pair of hurried footsteps descended.

“You should be at the armory.” Aylenia’s face was long, her voice breathy. She paused a few steps above where Laela stood.

Something was wrong. Laela paused, waiting for Aylenia to explain herself, but whatever plagued her, she gave it no voice. “I must speak with Threyna,” Laela said, continuing her march up the stairs.

Aylenia gripped Laela’s arm. “Make it quick. We need to leave now. We have less time than anticipated.”

“Is she in there? The workshop?”

Aylenia swallowed, a visible knot tangled in her throat. “Yes. But so are Arilette and Lorath. They’re not going to let her out of their sight.”

Laela grit her teeth. “Then they’ll hear what I have to say too.” Aylenia opened her mouth to protest, but Laela cut her off. “I must speak with her.”

Aylenia’s lips contorted, but she nodded despite her obvious disagreement. “Make it quick. Prime? I’m going to summon everyone from the armory  If you’re not at top level in—”

“I’ll be there,” Laela said, giving Aylenia’s arm a squeeze. She climbed the stairs two at a time.

Speaking to Threyna was never the easiest thing for her, and she wasn’t keen on the idea of having to talk with Arilette and Lorath present, but if she didn’t now, she’d never have another opportunity.

“Some things are better left unsaid,” her father said, managing to disturb her within her Center of Silence.

“Yeah,” Laela said. “But not this.”

Sealing her father out, she approached the arcanatek-forged door of the Artificers’ workshop. A smooth, inky-black surface sealed the way, conjured from the same shadows of a Nightfall mine. Muffled voices spoke harshly from within.

“If you’re wrong, we could vortex and irradiate our own Centuriots,” Threyna said. “Blood and bone, you could hit me.”

Arilette’s response was too quiet to hear. Laela crept closer to the door, searching the long hall to double-check that no passersby would catch her snooping. Laela put her ear to the shadows. Lorath was speaking.

“—defeats the Skeleton King, our Centuriots will gladly lay down body and soul to see it done. If you wanted to spare the lives of our Centuriots, you should have thought twice before sending off the Wraith.”

Threyna scoffed. “You’d have sent them to their end.”

“No,” Arilette said, “we’d have sent them to their duty. The future of Rheynia will be bought in blood, bone, and soul. You, of all people, should understand that.”

A pregnant pause on the other side of the shadowy door emphasized the volume of Laela’s heavy breathing.

“Divided, ruin will reign,” Arilette finally continued. “You’ve made it through the Cut. You’ve made your choice. Now own the consequences.”

Another pause.

“I can’t hear you, Premius.” The bite in Lorath’s tone chewed through the arcanatek door.

“Prime, Legatus.”

At movement from within, Laela staggered back. Not wanting it to seem like she was eavesdropping, she pounded her fist on the smooth black doorframe. “Threyna? Are you in there?”

Silence.

“It’s me. Laela.”

“Leave, girl,” Arilette said. “While I still allow it.”

Laela’s nostrils flared. “I’m not leaving until I speak with my sister. Threyna, please.”

The moments stretched on. Too long, too sullen. Rejection’s despair coiled around her heart like a Dreadroot’s vines. Ten years of guilt compounded with the time spent before the Battle of the Cut. Every time she’d shunned Threyna’s sisterly advances, each occurrence in which she’d dismissed Theodyn’s fatherly love—they’d led to this. They’d taught Threyna this. All these years, she’d blamed Threyna for being difficult, or Arilette for manipulating her.

Would any of this have happened if I had just loved her?

Laela closed her eyes. She recalled the letter her mother had written her in her fatekeeper. Overwhelmed by grief, she wished she’d read it again. She wished she’d understood its meaning before they parted at Aranoc.

“Never let anyone keep you hurting,” her mother had written, “not because it is bad to be hurt, but because there is nothing that can’t be healed.” All she’d focused on was being strong, being courageous, not letting anyone hurt her like her father had. But in doing so, she’d put up walls and become more attached to her duty than the people she was doing it for. She’d kept hurting, and hurt others in the process—none more so than Threyna.

“You two are a lot more alike than you’re different,” Aylenia had said, walking along the Tears. Considering that, Laela tried to piece together the words she would have wanted to hear from her father. She dropped to a knee and pulled True from her boot, the dagger Theodyn had given her. She examined the finely forged dagger, and fresh tears fell to the floor. Now, more than ever, she needed to be true, to herself and to her sister.

Vulnerability is not a weakness. Strength is knowing when to drop your guard. Courage is actually doing so.

Laela cleared her throat, hoping she could speak truth into the wounds she’d inadvertently caused. “I should have been there for you, Threyna. I was so wrapped up in myself, my anger, my hatred for my father that I was never a sister to you. I chose my jealousy of you for your father over our friendship. Maybe… maybe if I hadn’t been so selfish, I would have realized, could have seen you—truly seen you.” She rested her head against the shadows that separated them as the regrets piled between them mounted higher.

Tears dampened the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed the knot in her throat. She opened them, allowing the tears to trickle. No longer would she close her eyes to the truth her mother had wanted her to see all these years. She thought Threyna was the monster, but Laela was. She could point the finger, blame her father for abusing her for his own shortcomings, blame her mother for allowing him to do so, but at the end of the Cut, the only one she could blame was herself for perpetuating that trauma onto her sister.

“Apologies, Threyna. Gratitude, for saving me, for saving the Wraith. Neutreen knows I don’t deserve it. Moderation, Modesty, Measure, Merit—I failed in the Tenets, but I will not leave without telling you that I know I failed. I failed you. I should have loved you, and I didn’t. That’s my fault, and I know that now it’s too little, too late, but I do love you, Threyna.”

She took a deep breath, hoping against hope that Threyna might respond, walk through the shadowy door and embrace her. But again, heartbeats passed in silence. Part of her wanted to believe that, if she stayed and the Wraith fought, they could actually win and defeat the Skeleton King and his Order legions. But she didn’t believe. And with the truth that Arilette would have sent them to die as a distraction for the future of Rheynia, she couldn’t throw her life away or let any of the Wraith do so.

“Fight for more,” her mother had written in her prayers for her. “Dream for more.” She needed to leave, and Threyna needed to stay. She’d said her piece, she’d lowered her guard, and though she felt like that was all she could do, she still felt like leaving was a betrayal to her sister.

When it was clear that Threyna wasn’t going to break the silence, Laela continued. “I like to think, in another life, at a different time, we truly could have been sisters, you and I. Though it seems, not in this one. Not now, not after all we’ve been through. I blame myself for that. But, Threyna, I pray that one day we can make it so.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Fight. Win. May we find each other again. May we earn another chance to be the sisters our mother wished us to be.”

Another silence.

“She ain’t gonna talk to you,” her father said. “Same way you don’t talk to me.”

He was right. Laela ignored him. The silence stretched. The failure mounted.

Laela took a deep breath, resheathing True in her boot. She pressed herself to her feet despite the difficulty of standing under the weight of her emotions. “Goodbye, Threyna. Good fortune in the battle to come.” She pried herself away from the Artificers’ door and began the long, slow retreat down the hall.

Threyna

Sitting before a bench in the Artificers'’ workshop, Threyna avoided the heavy gazes of Arilette and Lorath. She held the dagger her father had given her beneath the table, rolling its embossed hilt in her hand. Pure, it read. But she didn’t feel pure. Not after retrieving her mother’s fatekeeper from the footlocker in her bunk and reading its contents. Not after hearing of Arilette’s plans to sacrifice Centuriots in a gambit to kill the Skeleton King. And certainly not after leaving Laela’s heartfelt words unanswered.

When she was born, her father had given Laela a similar dagger. Hers said True. Laela had been just that. True to herself, true to her heart. There were a great many things Threyna would never understand about Laela, but she understood this, which only made Threyna feel worse leaving such words unanswered.

She hung her head, not wanting Arilette or Lorath to see the tears welling in her eyes or the blush of weakness upon her cheeks. Her emotions warred within her, a tempest of a child’s painful past and a soldier’s callused stoicism. Overwhelmed, frantic, out of control but determined to be the hero this war needed, she felt disconnected from herself, and further yet from her sister.

She turned from the Legatus and Arch Premius towards the door that separated her from Laela. Worse than when Arilette had flipped the time-turner, time spilled, slipping away from her. With each passing moment, her opportunity—her final chance—to make things right between her and Laela began to fade. From her seat upon her Inner Throne, Threyna felt Laela walking away like a shade wandering into the distance.

“You’re sisters…”

Threyna had dealt with enough blood to know that being family didn’t mean much. Blood was water and iron—important to sustaining life, but not so important as to bind people together. Love did that. So often she’d confused love with companionship out of her fear of being alone. She’d confused Arilette’s mentorship with love when really it was manipulation. Conversely, she’d viewed her mother’s apparent rejection as neglect, when all this time she’d never stopped loving her. She didn’t know if she’d ever truly gain the grasp of what love was, what it felt like, or how to tell its validity from its shadow, but in this case, she knew.

The prayers written in her mother’s fatekeeper returned to her. “May Neutreen give you the strength to win your battles, and the courage to choose which must be fought.” This was one fight that needed to be finished.

Threyna stood to her feet, sheathing Pure in her belt. Not for the blood she shared with Laela, but for the love with which she spoke. She strode around the workbench, shoved her way between Arilette and Lorath, and slammed the heel of her hand into the button that created the shadowy door.

Halfway down the corridor, Laela turned back to look at her.

Allowing her soldier’s stoicism to depart, Threyna let the child’s tears flow freely. Her first few steps toward her sister came slow, hesitant. But with each stride, she picked up speed. Now, Laela was moving towards her as well. The distance between them, the leagues, the years, the arguments and fights—all of it receded until they both stopped just beyond an arm’s distance away.

Laela’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes wet, and lower lip quivering.

Threyna’s vision blurred with tears, but never before had she seen Laela so clearly. Forever at odds, she found herself not wanting Laela to leave, but knowing she couldn’t stay. She searched for the words left unresolved between them, hoping to find something that could make up for the years lost. She shook her head, finding none that would suffice.

Gasping, she stepped forward, and Laela did the same, closing the remaining distance between them. Threyna wrapped her arms around Laela’s neck and shoulders as Laela’s encircled her waist. She sank into her sister’s embrace, realizing after all this time, that was all she had ever wanted.

She held Laela, squeezing tightly, and where words failed, teary touch served.

“You fight,” Laela sniffled into Threyna’s shoulder. “You win.”

“You go. Lead, live, and don’t ever look back,” Threyna said, not wanting to let go, but knowing the time had come. Their grip on each other slackened before the two separated and it was time for them to follow their divergent paths.

Chapter 56: Always Another Fight

Threyna XXIII

The reaping spear pulsed with power in her hand. Its radiant tip made the rest of the surrounding hall gloomy by comparison, but despite the power flowing through the Underground’s newest arcanatek, Threyna had never felt more frail. Watching the Wraith leave made her feel like she was still just a girl on the eve of the Battle of the Cut. She hoped, however, she and Laela had done enough to ensure a different outcome.

Though they were parting on different terms than they had a decade ago, it took all of Threyna’s focus not to feel abandoned again. Loneliness clawed at her like a ravenous hellhound. Dreadroot curled around her limbs, fixing her in place. And the fear of failure flashed in her mind between every blink of her eyes. Her father’s scars, what Belrich’s Inquisitors did to him, what they’d do to her if they lost…

“I guess this is it then,” Aylenia said, watching the last of the Wraith ascend the stairs out of Octarius. A short distance away, Canton and Dracus exchanged another round of farewells. She gave Threyna a sad smile. Threyna couldn’t return it.

Laela had been the first to lead the charge to the Grip. The rest of the Wraith followed in her wake, Canton being the only of their number electing to remain, while Aylenia was the only Undergrounder choosing to leave. 

Threyna gripped the haft of the spear and chewed her tongue to still her trembling fingers and quivering lip. The arcanatek had the ability to irradiate a soul still within its body. A bane to the living and hollowed alike, the reaping spear would kill the Order’s legionaries and leave nothing for the Skeleton King to consume. But nothing for her to consume either. Despite its power, Threyna felt weak before her friend.

“No. This isn’t it—not the end, anyway.” Threyna forced her lips to curl even though the effort formed a new knot in her throat. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not being abandoned. I chose this. We chose this. She swallowed the wave of emotions. “Just a new beginning.”

Aylenia’s sad smile broke, leaving a genuine one in its place. Taking care to avoid the spear, she wrapped her arms around Threyna and held her close. “I wouldn’t have survived this place without you. You know that, right?”

Threyna pressed the side of her head into Aylenia’s like she had the night she realized her father was never coming back. Aylenia had been her strength then. Just as Threyna had been hers when her mother disappeared along with the Sansian settlement. “We survived here together. But you’ll live out there. With Laela. With your mûnta.”

Aylenia pulled away. She glanced over Threyna’s shoulder to where Rivich and a handful of new Centuriots stood with arms crossed as if they needed to make sure the Wraith would be leaving. “Come with us,” Aylenia whispered. “Leave with us. Think of the trouble the three of us could get up to.”

Threyna allowed herself a chortle, but her eyes fell to the floor between them. They both knew she couldn’t, not because anyone would be able to stop her, but because if she left, she was abandoning all of Rheynia. She was their one chance as her father was before her, as Dracus chose not to be. This fate was not meant for her, but its yoke fell upon her either way. This was her burden to bear, her enemy to defeat, and her country to save. It wasn’t fair, but Threyna had given up on Neutreen’s justice long ago.

“What will you do?” Aylenia asked. “When you win?”

Threyna grinned. She hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t dared to imagine.

“Queen Threyna?” Aylenia teased. “Has a nice ring to it.”

Threyna scoffed. She wasn’t meant to rule. She didn’t want to be queen. More than anything, she just wanted to see the sun rise and fall. She didn’t know if Rheynia’s curse would end with the Skeleton King’s defeat, if it would live on because the same rot coursed through her veins, or if it would follow her wherever she went, but she knew rule wasn’t something she cared for. She’d seen what it had done to her grandfather, Bohen. She knew firsthand how terrible Belrich was. Whether that corruption was borne from his position of power or if he was always such a darkling, there was no way of knowing. But Arilette was no better example despite the years Threyna had spent idolizing her. Threyna had enough power at her disposal; the last thing she needed was a crown.

“One day,” Threyna said, “maybe when all this is over, I’ll come find you in Sansia.” She hoped it was true. That would mean that Laela and Aylenia had escaped the curse and established a new home, and that she’d managed to defeat the Skeleton King and his Order.

Aylenia took Threyna’s free hand in her own. “Laela has already mentioned searching for a cure.” She glanced down at the scars left behind by the bangle. Black veins snaked up and down from where the blood artifact’s prongs bit into her flesh.

Threyna shook her head. “Find your mûnta. Make a home for yourselves. Don’t worry about me.”

“Better chance finding gold in the Gullies and Viridite in the Wing.” Aylenia gave her hand a squeeze. “Oh, before I forget.” She released Threyna’s hand and untied a pouch from her belt. She extended the pouch to Threyna. “They’re glowstones.”

Threyna cocked her brow, not knowing what to say. Though they were valuable in their raw form for charging power coils that fueled arcanatek, the mined stones themselves were barely worth their weight. “Gratitude…”

Aylenia shrugged. “My mûnta said there was nothing like Viridite in Palogia, and Sansia was more sand than stone. Might not be worth much here, but stones that can absorb light in a world with a blue sky and a bright sun… might be worth hanging onto if you decide to come join us. You never know when you’ll need a bit of light.” She patted a similar pouch on her other hip. “I’m bringing some of my own.”

Threyna smiled. “Thank you, Aylenia.” Clutching the pouch in her fist, she gave her friend another one-armed hug, squeezing as tightly as she could. “Be safe out there.”

“Always another fight,” Aylenia said.

Threyna closed her eyes and forced a smile. Always another victory… It was on the tip of her tongue, but still, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “Not for you. Not anymore.”

Aylenia gave her a sad smile. “I suppose not.”

“Enough already!” Rivich said. “Get out. We have a war to fight.”

Aylenia scowled at Rivich before taking Threyna’s hand in her own and giving her one last squeeze. “Be safe. Win. I know you can.”

Hating Rivich for depriving her of one more moment with Aylenia, Threyna let her go. “You be safe.”

Aylenia turned away, strode up the stairs, and just like that, another friend was gone from her life. First her family, then Daeton. She lost Rivich that day too even though he was still warbling at her hip. Then Ebrus, Yevon—now Aylenia too.

Beside her, Dracus and Canton exchanged one more hug, a final pat on the shoulder, and the ultimate goodbye. Dracus nodded to her, patting the fatekeeper about his neck as he strode away. The hollowed man, Dracus Alius—Order legend, Underground rebel, and Wraith runner—walked past with the fate of the world around his neck.

No words needed to be said on the subject. He knew better than anyone, and she knew that he didn’t need to hear it. As Dracus walked away, she wondered if Canton knew that this would be the last time he would ever see his protector. That soon after their ship left Rheynia’s shores, his soul would leave his failing body, and the man who’d saved him and raised him as his own would cease to exist.

Whether Canton realized or not, his tears fell in Dracus’s wake.

Threyna went to his side. “You prime?”

Canton nodded before meeting her gaze. “No. Not really.”

Threyna inhaled sharply. “Yeah, me neither.”

“You did a good thing, letting them go. I just hope it was the right thing.”

She knew Canton’s stance on the matter. He believed Arilette’s mantra as she once had: that they needed everyone. Divided, ruin would reign, but Canton didn’t see that keeping them here, trapping them… that wasn’t unity. They would have been sent out on the front lines to serve as a distraction, a sacrifice.

Arilette and Lorath had filled her in. They’d tunneled underneath the grounds outside of Octarius’s ruins where an approaching army would inevitably attack from. All the power coils the strike teams had stolen from Order supply depots around the Dominion these past years were constructed by the Artificers to forge one massive arcanatek. A landmine. One large enough to vortex a legion in one heartbeat and irradiate all the souls in the next. If the Wraith had stayed, they would have been bait to lure the Skeleton King into the blast radius.

Threyna closed her eyes and choked her reaping spear. “There are no good things, Cant. There are no right things either. Maybe out there, but not here. Just blood, bone, and eternal undeath.”

She glanced at Rivich and his underlings watching them from a dozen paces away. He gripped his reaping spear like it was her neck and she’d just told him Daeton’s death didn’t matter to her. The newly graduated cadets, fresh out of Arilette and Lorath’s brainwashing academy, stood sentry, arms crossed, glares stern. It was hard enough getting Canton to understand. It would be impossible to make them see reason. After all, no one had been more stubborn, more adamant than she had been.

She grabbed Canton by the sleeve of his tunic and pulled him close. “I need you to stay close to me once the battle begins.”

Canton cocked his brow. “Legatus told me—”

“I don’t care what she told you. Once the battle starts, you don’t leave my side unless I tell you otherwise. Prime?”

Before Canton could answer, Rivich’s footsteps came to a stop behind her. With one hand on his reaping spear and the other on his hip, he glowered, his lips a hard and unyielding line. “Enough of this. We’ve wasted enough time on deserters and traitors.”

Threyna eyed him. They were never quite friends, but they’d fallen a long way to the hatred she felt from him now. “Leave us,” she said to the Centuriots and nodded at Canton.

The Centuriots glanced at Rivich.

“Fall to command,” Rivich said. “The Premius has spoken. Return to the war room, Legatus Arilette and Arch Premius Lorath will be addressing us shortly.”

The Centuriots did as instructed. Canton hesitantly strode away, but he too left, falling in line with the rest of them. Once it was just the two of them, Rivich’s propriety faded to reveal his true feelings. His tight lips curled back in a scowl. His brow hardened, wrinkling his nose.

“Hate me if you must,” Threyna said. “But hate me for the right reas—”

“I don’t hate you. I should hate you, because you’ve ruined us,” Rivich snarled. “I should hate you for Daeton. I should hate you for Ebrus and Yevon. But I just don’t understand you. You’re cold. Selfish. With some distorted sort of honor code that will see us all hollowed.”

Threyna felt Rivich’s heartbeat from within her Inner Throne. Wrath rained down the stained-glass windows of her throne room in the form of black blood. She wanted to rage. To tell him he was wrong, that he didn’t know anything about her, but what good would it do? It’s not true. He’s wrong about me. She let go of her desire to be seen, to be understood. She was alone. Even if she emerged from the impending battle victorious, she’d likely always be alone.

Threyna took a deep breath. “I won’t ask you to try and understand. All I ask is that you fight with me. Help me win this, not just for us, but for all of Rheynia. For Daeton, Ebrus, Yevon—everyone we’ve lost. Please, just fight with me.”

The lines in Rivich’s face softened as he averted his gaze. “What choice do I have?” His voice came out breathy, tone riddled with pessimism.

Threyna grabbed Rivich’s arm. “Rivich, we can do this. I can do this. Just promise me, once the battle starts, promise me you won’t leave my side.”

His defiance returned. “I’ll follow my orders.” He tried to pull away from her, but Threyna held fast.

“Do you know about the landmine?”

Rivich searched her. If he was looking for any deception, he wouldn’t find it. Clearly, despite his apparent promotion to Tribunus, he had not been partial to Arilette and Lorath’s plans.

She stepped in closer to whisper, despite the fact that they were alone. “The Artificers have developed a new arcanatek.” She nodded at the reaping spears in their hands. “Like these, but a landmine fueled by all the power coils we’ve stolen. They’re going to detonate it just beyond the fallen arches of Octarius’s front entrance, where the battle will likely be thickest.”

Rivich squinted, trying to reason it out. “But our own legions will be engaged.” 

Threyna nodded. “Please. I know you think I don’t care, but I’m begging you; even if you’re ordered to be there, don’t be.”

He blinked, worked his mouth in the shape of words, but none came forth.

A shrill whine echoed through the interlayers located on every floor of Octarius before Arilette’s voice resounded off the stone walls. “Report to the war room. Our time is upon us.”

Part IV

Chapter 57: Bait

Threyna XXIV

Octarius was not the best place to stage a defense. Perhaps in the times before the Artificers’ War tore it down, before the War of the Seers ravaged its walls, or the Disasters sent fissures through its foundations. But now it was just dilapidated walls and crumbling towers. It offered no defense, and though Arilette claimed this was a fight they were ready for, Threyna had lost faith in the Underground’s Legatus. Arcanatek spears and the Reaper’s Landmine aside, their numbers were not enough for the Order’s legions, and as long as the Skeleton King continued to exist, the Underground was at the disadvantage.

Lorath’s voice boomed throughout the ruins as he reiterated Arilette’s war room speech, but standing at the front of the Underground’s formation, staring out into the distance as the legions emerged from the tree line along Cybel’s Tears, Threyna knew it would all come down to her. Soon, the full fury of the Order’s might would be upon them. She could practically see Belrich’s twisted grin, hear his haunting laugh as he stabbed his sword through her father’s flesh. He would have done the same to her if not for his lust for the blood artifact, but now Dracus was well on his way with it in his possession. If she failed, the only thing that would stop Belrich from torturing her would be if the Skeleton King beat him to it.

Lorath continued to cry out with his motivational speech on the history that would be made this day, the valor that would be earned and remembered throughout all time, but he didn’t sense the Skeleton King the way she could. Even now, even at this distance, she could feel his ever-looming presence within her Inner Throne. Black as the rot in her veins, corrupt as the taint on her soul, he was coming. Unlike the echo of a heartbeat or the sense of a hollowed being close by, his presence was that of a gathering storm.

Threyna took a deep breath as more and more men in black uniforms stalked from the trees, spreading out like a plague and promising just as much pain. The plan was simple, but that didn’t mean she liked it. The Reaper’s Landmine was meant for the Skeleton King. Arilette had said that every battle he’d been a part of, he’d always led at the front. The expectation was that Belrich would want frontline glory for himself as well, and so the Underground’s vanguard would meet them in the open field atop the tunnels where the reaping mines were planted. The Artificers’ calculations as to the radius of the blast, however, were estimations. A guessing game with the lives of their own people on the line. And all the while, Threyna would have to watch and wait for the blasts to go off. Then and only then could she enter the fight and finish off what the Reaper’s Landmine left behind. If all went as planned, the Skeleton King, Belrich, and the Inquisitors would all be dead and gone. But so too would a portion of the people standing at her back.

“Are we clear as to our purpose?” Lorath cried.

“Prime!” shouted the men and women of the Underground’s legions.

Threyna did not raise her voice. Did not punch her fist to the fading rain clouds overhead or shout in defiance at the encroaching horde. They were screaming into the void. Hollowed blindly following a shade into the Gullies. It would be one thing to fight and die, to suffer in pursuit of victory. But it was another thing entirely to be sent for slaughter as a diversion, as bait.

It wasn’t personal with Arilette; it was tactics. But that was the problem; it was never personal. How many would have volunteered to lure the Skeleton King into the Reaper’s Landmine if it meant defeating the Order once and for all? Once upon a time, Threyna would have without a second guess. For the future of Rheynia and justice for its people, Threyna would have gladly hollowed, wandered as a shade, or been irradiated as a darkling. To avenge her parents, to serve the Underground’s cause, and gain Arilette’s approval, she would have triggered the detonator herself if it meant the Order’s end. But Arilette wasn’t asking. She wasn’t telling these brave fools what was coming. Whether because she didn’t trust that they would do their duty or she didn’t care that they didn’t know what they were walking into, it made Threyna sick. Yet from cadet to Centuriot and Tribunus to Premius, all cheered at Lorath’s call despite the fact that he held the detonator that would see their lives forfeit.

As the midday rains traveled from east to west, the Order advanced like a black cloud in the opposite direction, promising more than just rain. Every time she thought their force had fully crossed the Tears, new ranks formed. At the front, a long thin row of skirmishers led the march, spanning three times the width of the Cut. Behind them, the fresher cohorts were organized in columns with uniform gaps between them. Behind them and offset between the gaps of the leading formations, more columns took position, with more at their backs, and so on, and so on. Thousands of men to their hundreds.

The Undergrounders’ cheering fell silent on the precipice of battle and the sheer numbers that stood against them. The Order’s ranks formed a wedge intent on spearing their defense through the heart. Before them, the ruins of Octarius seemed a relic of ages past, proof of battles lost. But as the wedge encroached, neither the Skeleton King nor Belrich were visible at the front.

Arilette approached Threyna, her brow sharp, lips drawn. Pulling Threyna out of formation and ahead of the rest of the soldiers, she spoke quietly despite the iron in her tone. “Where is he? Can you sense him? They’re nearing the dead zone, but we only have one shot at this. We can’t waste it on their infantry.”

Threyna blinked, examining the army in black before them. They’re supposed to be at the front. Where are they if not the front?

“Premius!” Arilette snapped.

Threyna sank into her Inner Throne, searching for the Skeleton King’s dark presence, but he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. She couldn’t tell where within the formation he was, just that he was nearby. Trying to locate Belrich, she couldn’t find the rhythm of his heartbeat amongst the legions.

“I don’t know,” Threyna said, attempting to keep the panic from her voice. “The Skeleton King is close… but that’s all I can tell.” Knowing that wouldn’t be enough for Arilette, she tried again, sinking deeper into her seat of power. But nothing. She met Arilette’s stern gaze, attempting to conceal the fear and doubts swirling in her mind. “I can’t locate him.”

“What about Belrich?” Arilette snapped.

It was like he wasn’t even there. “I can’t find him at all. Is there a new arcanatek? Something that could cloak him?”

Arilette growled. “With Decimus there’s no telling what advancements they have.” She swallowed. “Change of plans. You will accompany the vanguard’s charge. You need to draw him out. Once you do, retreat, and we’ll reap the bastard.”

Threyna bit her lip. She was joining the bait with the rest of the vanguard. Unlike them however, she could sprout wings and at least attempt to escape the blast radius. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t see any other options at this point. “Prime, Legatus.”

“Don’t push too far into their lines,” Arilette said. “We need to draw them into the dead zone. If you push beyond it, you’re on your own.”

Threyna nodded, but found herself shaking. Daeton’s hollowed form reached for her. Ebrus’s shade stared through her. Yevon’s darkling blamed her for everything. Her father was gone because of her failure. Her mother, gone because of her hesitation. Everyone near her suffered. And now, once again, everyone was depending on her.

“Prime?” Arilette asked.

“Yes, Legatus.” Threyna saluted, lifting her fist to her chin.

Arilette returned the salute before traversing the ranks to inform Lorath of the change in plans. Watching her go, tension coursed through Threyna’s muscles. She returned to her position where both Canton and Rivich were waiting for her. As she neared, Canton’s narrow cheeks became more drawn, and Rivich’s stern brow creased deeper wrinkles in his forehead.

“Change of plan,” Threyna said, attempting to keep the quiver from her voice. “I need to lure the Skeleton King into the dead zone. If Belrich is in the back of the formation, I need you to flank their wedge.” And I need you two as far away from me as possible. Or you’ll end up hollowed too. “It will give you the berth to avoid the blast radius, and if you can catch Belrich off guard, we may still take this day.”

Rivich saluted, but Canton hesitated.

“Where is the dead zone?” Canton asked, conspiratorially.

“The front,” Threyna said. “Where the vanguards will meet.”

Canton shook his head. “Dracus always said the Skeleton King would come in at the end, clean up the mess after he and Decimus did the dirty work. Why would they plant the landmine at the front of the formation?”

Threyna leaned in. “What are you saying?”

Canton contorted his lip, glancing down the line at Arilette. “I don’t know. Something feels… wrong.”

The Order drew nearer, entering into stun-range for an irradiator. On cue, Lorath raised his arm.

“Vanguard, charge!”

Threyna was out of time. Thoughts swirling, trust teetering, she left Canton and Rivich to forge forward with the vanguard. War cries resounded from the men and women about to die as they charged with reaping spears at the ready. Threyna sank into her Inner Throne, conjuring bloodborne wings as she ran.

With a few mighty flaps of her wings, wind billowed beneath her, and she took flight. Reaping spears glowed white beneath her feet. Blasters warbled within the black-clad mass approaching from the west. Short swords screeched out of scabbards, battle screams ripped across the landscape, and in the space between the two charging armies, a sleeping giant of arcane technology waited to tear their souls from their bodies and scorch them to nothingness.

Ignoring the destruction lying in wait under the surface and the spread of rot in her veins, Threyna lost herself in the rush of wind and the light fall of rain. Reaping spear in one hand, she conjured a curved scimitar in the other. Flying faster than the Underground vanguard could run, she felt the Order’s blasters train on her.

No longer responsible for leading others, fear melted away. She welcomed the Order’s attention. Power pulsed in her veins and thundered from her Inner Throne to the tips of her fingers. She wanted them to try to defeat her as they had along the Spine and within the Cut. She would ravage the Skeleton King’s legions until he had no choice but to show himself.

I will finish it, Father. I will finish him.

The arcanatek’s warbles reached a crescendo, and short-range vortexes fired while longer-ranged irradiators attempted to stun her. Threyna conjured a floating kite shield before her that spanned from her ankles to her neckline. Radiant bolts fizzled into her bloodborne shield. Vortexers attempting to draw on her soul met resistance and lacked the strength to reach past the shield. Three flaps away. Two. One. Threyna swooped low, her shield burning to ash as she descended. She slashed with her scimitar at an upheld vortexer.

The scimitar cleaved through flesh and bone. The hand and blaster flew through the air. Threyna plunged her reaping spear into the chest of the neighbor to the handless legionary. Her flight’s momentum carried her forward and drove the impaled legionary back.

Regaining altitude with another flap of her wings, her reaping spear dislodged from the leather armor. The legionary spilled to the ground between his brothers-in-arms, but he did not stir as a hollowed. No soul rose from his flesh as a shade or darkling. He simply was no more. Dead. Gone.

Rising into the sky above the Order, she summoned a storm of spears above their heads and let them fall with the rain. Spears fell, impaling the legionaries who stopped their charge to focus on her. Absent the momentum their formation required to be effective, the Order was defenseless against the Underground’s charge.

Reaping spears plunged into flesh. Blood stained the air. Enough screams filled the river valley to make Cybel weep again. Steel and arcanatek chewed through the impaled vanguard of the Order, her Centuriots finishing what she started in heartbeats. But Threyna couldn’t forge forward. She needed to draw the Skeleton King here. She couldn’t locate him in her Inner Throne, everywhere and nowhere all at once, but the only way to summon him was through the blood of his men.

Threyna flapped her wings, building up speed, as she crossed the second line of the Order’s wedge formation. Slashing her scimitar, stabbing with her reaping spear, she alternated between conjuring shields to defend herself and summoning projectiles to decimate the Order’s lines.

Already, the Order’s training adapted. The back lines of their wedge formation fanned out creating an umbrella to encompass the battlefield. In moments they’d have the Underground’s vanguard trapped in a pincer formation. The Underground’s seconds were already charging forward to support the vanguard and prevent the pincer, but there were too few, and they’d be too late. She needed to cleave at least one side of the Order’s flank to give the vanguard a fighting chance. The Order’s northern arm was closing in faster than its southern counterpart. She needed to prevent the vanguard’s slaughter, but if she wanted to forge a path for Canton and Rivich to start a flank of their own, she’d need to make it to the southern flank as well.

Threyna dove for the legionaries spreading out to the north, hoping she’d have the time to do both. Three cohorts, 300 men, gathered along the expanse. She wouldn’t be able to take down all of them, but she could delay them and even the odds for the Underground’s lesser numbers.

Spear, sword, and conjurations at her disposal, Threyna called upon the spilled blood of the vanguards and coagulated it together. Like a bloody serpent coming to life, she stretched it along the northern arm of the Order’s advance. Thinning as she flew, the blood-conjured serpent became a barely visible trip wire, hovering just above the ground before the Order’s charging flankers. Just before they could close in and surround the northern aspect of the Underground’s vanguard, the first line of legionaries tripped. A wave of black rolled as the Order’s charge disintegrated into a maelstrom of sword and limb. While the legionaries fell over one another, the Underground’s reinforcements swept over them like harbingers of death.

Stabbed by reaping spears, the Order’s legions gave no deposit of souls for her to consume. Only the Underground’s fallen, few as they were to this point, offered sustenance for Threyna’s efforts. Doubling back to the dead zone, Threyna drew in breath, ushering the departed shades and darklings into her Inner Throne, consuming them as she went. The black rot ebbed and flowed, but the battle raged on, and still, no sign of the Skeleton King.

He’s depleting me, waiting for me to tire. Coward.

She didn’t need to be at full strength. She didn’t need to fight him. She just needed to lure him to the dead zone and get out before Lorath detonated the Reaper’s Landmine.

With black veins slithering up her shoulder and down past her elbow, she prepared another sweep across the Order’s wedge. Despite their initial losses, the Order did not break rank and devolve into chaos. With their form and file retained, their superior numbers began to push back. Along the southern flank, they’d begun to enclose on the vanguard’s side before the Underground’s reinforcements could come to their aid.

Threyna swooped low again, slashing and stabbing with her spear as she tore through the wedge. The fallen blood at their feet, the bodies on the ground, they called to her, begging to be used in her fury. Threyna obeyed. Forming the spilled blood into a row of angled pikes, she impaled the Order’s second wave, driving them backwards. But the moment she created the space, the Underground charged forward, filling the void.

Remembering Arilette’s warning, Threyna cursed herself. I can’t push too far forward. The Underground’s vanguard didn’t know of their inevitable sacrifice. Only she did. But we’re winning. We can do this. I can do this.

Warring with herself as to whether or not to follow Arilette and Lorath’s plans, the soldier within her won out. The Skeleton King would eventually show himself. She needed the Reaper’s Landmine to ensure victory. If she pushed too far ahead, yes, she might be able to spare Underground lives, but if the Skeleton King wasn’t vanquished, if she fought and lost, they’d suffer a fate worse than obliteration.

She sailed across the formation to aid the southern flank and carve a path for Rivich and Canton to reach the Order’s backline. An arcanatek’s warble distorted the air beneath her. Too late in sensing it, she rolled. The blaster fired. The irradiator’s radiant bolt singed through the air, too close for her to conjure and moving too fast for her to dodge. It blew a hole in her blood-spawned wing. Threyna lost altitude. Buffeted by wind resistance and throttled by the inconsistency of flight granted by her wounded wing, she floundered just above the legionaries’ heads. She attempted to conjure to fill in the hole in her wounded wing, but she was trailing ash faster than she was replacing it.

Something slashed at her as momentum carried her through the air. Fire sliced across her back and nicked the back of her elbow, sending tingling pain all the way down to the fingers of her right hand. Her conjured scimitar suddenly felt heavy within her grip. Pushing past the pain, she tried to flap her wings, but the effort only sent her spiraling. She lost altitude and crashed into the Order’s line.

She slammed into a legionary’s shoulder, spilling him, her, and everyone in her path to the ground. Her inertia carried her in a torrent of limb and steel. Even after she skidded to a stop, her vision swam. The ground around her tossed and turned like waves that crashed along the eastern shores. She tasted blood and ash. The scent of death overwhelmed her. Screams echoed all around, disorienting her.

She attempted to gain her feet, but she fell back to the sodden earth, her head throbbing, right arm tingling. A sharp pain ate at her back where a legionary’s sword had raked across her shoulder blade. Her conjurations had dissipated, wings and scimitar alike. Somewhere in her crash, she’d lost her reaping spear.

She planted her left hand on the wet ground to steady herself, but an explosion of agony surged through her wrist and up her forearm.

I must heal.

Sinking into her Inner Throne, she called upon the blood and bone around her. She drew upon the fallen, Order and Undergrounder alike. She couldn’t sense the difference. As legionaries gained their feet, she had no time to waste in discernment. Bodies desiccated, exposed blood crept towards her, and a rush of souls spirited her way, but too slowly.

A legionary staggered to his feet, using his short sword as a crutch. He stumbled the short distance towards her. Gripping his sword with bloodlust in his wide eyes, he reared, preparing to stab her through the chest.

Threyna rolled at the last second, barely dodging the off-balance thrust. The slash across her back screamed as it made contact with the ground. Vertigo attacked her, but though she didn’t know which way was up, she drew in breath. A bloody mist flowed through her body and into her Inner Throne. Flesh restitched; balance returned. The tingling down her right arm faded into nothingness, and the displaced bones in her left hand realigned. The vitality of the living around her and shades, unbridled by attachment, flowed into her, abating the rot in her veins.

The legionary stood over her, preparing to thrust down. No longer disoriented, Threyna conjured a short sickle in one hand and slashed across his shin. In the other, a long, thin rapier thrust forth from her outstretched arm. The legionary buckled at her sickle’s slice, his head keeling forward and straight into the path of her extended rapier. The narrow blade pierced his cheek and sank deep, through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. He crumbled atop her as a darkling rose from his failing body.

Threyna kicked him off of her and drew in breath, but the darkling did not obey her call. Suspended in the air above her, it seemed caught between two tides. Threyna sank deeper into her Inner Throne. The rot had spread more than it had receded in the efforts of healing herself. She needed that soul.

Come on, you stubborn bastard.

The more she sank into her Inner Throne, however, the more aware she became of the other draw upon the soul before her. Deep and dark yet practically emanating power, the Skeleton King’s pull ripped the darkling away from her.

Growling, Threyna pushed herself upright. The soggy ground, slippery beneath her feet, wanted none of the falling rain or the wash of blood, but it would have its fill and more before the day was out. All around her, the Underground and the Order clashed.

An engagement away, Rivich rammed his reaping spear into the belly of a legionary. He ripped the glowing spearhead free and slammed the butt of the spear across the dead man’s face, spilling him to the ground, a soulless body.

Beside him, Canton hurled his reaping spear into the leg of another legionary. It wasn’t a killing blow, but the man staggered to the ground, his soul irradiated within his injured body. Another came for him, the pauldrons of a Tribunus on his shoulders. Canton ducked under a slash, drew his short sword, and exchanged a quick combination of thrusts and swipes.

Threyna moved like a darkling through the battlefield. Slashing with her conjured sickle and stabbing with her rapier, she slipped between displaced legionaries, knocked out of position by her fall. Bodies fell to her conjured weapons. Shades seeped out, darklings tore free, and hollowed continued to claw at her, but none heeded the call of her drawn breath. One by one, all souls, regardless of their proximity to her, abandoned her for the Skeleton King. Yet still, there was no sign of him.

Canton deflected the Tribunus’s thrust, but a kick to the chest sent his feet sliding out from under him. Canton fell backward. Before the Tribunus could follow up, Rivich swept his leg out from under him and jammed his spear through the leather armor and into the legionary’s chest.

The Underground surged forward, reinforced by another garrison of Lorath’s troops, allowing Threyna a moment’s respite. Heaving deep breaths, Rivich nodded to her as he helped Canton up from the ground.

“I’ll forge you a path,” Threyna said. “Find Belrich.”

“Where is the Skeleton King?” Canton asked, reclaiming his thrown reaping spear.

Threyna didn’t answer. “I’m not sure” wouldn’t suffice. She conjured new wings—smaller, less powerful, but also harder targets for errant irradiator blasts. Despite the simpler conjuration, the rot spreading down her forearm to her wrist and up her shoulder to twist around her collarbone was already entering dangerous territory. She needed to consume, but the Skeleton King was disallowing her.

I must draw him to the dead zone before it’s too late.

The clang of steel rattled to the chorus of rolling thunder and the gentle patter of rain. Occasional bolts of lightning divided the sky in the distance as the storm traversed the countryside, but though the storm was passing, Threyna couldn’t help but feel like the true tempest was about to begin.

Threyna took flight, her smaller wings flapping faster than her beating heart. She zipped over the advancing Underground, combining her sickle and rapier into a double-sided glaive. Staying low, flying fast, she sliced her glaive in a figure-eight-like pattern, shearing a line through the Order’s southern flank. She hoped it would be enough to both keep Canton and Rivich out of the blast of the Reaper’s Landmine and give them the opportunity to find where Belrich was hiding. Decimus, the First Premius of the Order was also nowhere to be found, which only made Threyna feel like tactically they were missing something.

Circling back toward the dead zone, a gap formed at the center of the Order’s wedge formation. Threyna’s heart raced, but her breath caught. A man a head and a half taller than the nearest legionary held his arms out to either side, but he wasn’t facing the Underground’s front. He faced her.

Clad in a black cloak with an obsidian crown atop his head, the Skeleton King eyed her. His silver-blond hair was so thin it might as well have not even been there. Sharp blue eyes stood stark against his sallow flesh. Dark veins stretched from his sunken eyes and down his gaunt cheeks—the stain of his prolonged use of blood magic.

Though the fight raged on along the frontlines across the river valley, all else seemed to stop as the Skeleton King made his presence known. The midday rains trickled to a stop, passing over the Tears and retreating westward beyond the Spine. Threyna paused in her flight, hovering before the Skeleton King on her conjured wings. The Order legionaries not engaged with the Underground only watched, no longer seeing her as a threat but an object of interest. Never had they borne witness to a battle of blood mages.

Threyna swallowed the fear at the prospect of giving them the show they desired. If his control over the darklings was any indicator as to how much more powerful than her he was, she didn’t want to find out what else he was capable of.

He was too far from the dead zone, and standing between her and it besides. I have to get past him. Draw him in.

“We finally meet, in the flesh.” The Skeleton King didn’t open his mouth to speak, his voice echoed throughout her Inner Throne. He grinned, a haunting and horrific twist of his thin lips that made him appear more feral than regal. Yet even as she gazed upon him, she saw her father’s visage in the shape of his jaw and the point of his nose… before Belrich had chopped it off. He was her grandfather. And he’d come to consume her.

“You say I have taken everything from you…” His voice was but a whisper, yet it thundered within her Inner Throne, louder and more sinister with each passing word. “Tell me, Granddaughter, do you recognize this woman?”

Threyna hadn’t even noticed the woman huddled on the ground at his feet. Caked in mud, disheveled and unkempt, the woman did not move, but she spoke in a rhythmic iteration, her voice growing louder with each pass.

“Please, no. Please, no. Please, please, Neutreen, no. No. No!”

The woman didn’t move, but spindles of blood congealed around her, wrapping around her wrists and ankles and raising her from the ground and splaying her to face Threyna in bloodborne stocks.

“You know her, Granddaughter,” the Skeleton King said within her mind.

Threyna couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She lowered to the ground in the clearing made by the Order’s formation around the Skeleton King. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, her throat tight.

Mother…

“I have taken nothing from you,” the Skeleton King said softly, almost kindly. “Not your father…” A darkling slipped free from the Skeleton King’s chest and flowed into her mother. Suspended in the bloodborne stocks, her body rippled as another soul joined hers. “Not your friends, Ebrus or Yevon…” Two more souls—one darkling, one shade—left the Skeleton King and flowed against their will into her mother.

Threyna trembled, paralyzed. Horrified. Impossible. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to stop it, but she didn’t know how.

“If anything, Granddaughter…” The Skeleton King’s tone turned bitter and belligerent. “You were the one who robbed my men of their purpose when you collapsed the tunnels of Aranoc.” Dozens of shades and darklings swirled together, leaving him and flowing into her mother, who was now convulsing within her bindings. “You were the one who attacked the Cut, leaving the souls of my followers ravaged.”

Even more souls flowed into her mother. Too many to count. Too many to conceive of. Outside the stained-glass windows of her Inner Throne, a black tower of tyranny rose to the clouds. Seemingly infinite souls swirled around its top. As many souls as he’d poured into her mother, robbing any chance of her being able to control her own body, he still possessed a well of power beyond anything she’d ever come close to touching.

“You say you want nothing but my demise.” His piercing blue eyes examined her, taking in the rot in her veins and the emptiness of her Inner Dungeons. “Prove it. Kill her. Consume their souls and let us make this a fair contest.”

Threyna’s heart thudded in her chest. Her breath trembled through her lips. Fear knotted in her stomach and twisted until her entire body felt like it was crumbling in on itself.

The stocks holding her mother lowered to the ground and released her. The bindings themselves morphed, dividing and changing shape into two short swords that formed in her hands.

“Choose, Granddaughter. Or suffer where you stand.”

Without warning, Threyna’s mother screamed, charging at her with conjured swords held high. Threyna stumbled back, raising her double-bladed glaive just in time to block a heavy, overhead attack.

“Mother!” Threyna shouted. “Fight it! Take back control!”

Her mother’s body, controlled by another, reared to strike again and again. Threyna defended, retreating in the muddy, dead grass.

“Please, stop!”

She didn’t. If her mother was still in there, she was lost. And whoever had taken control wanted her dead.

Chapter 58: The Dauntless

Laela XXII

With each step closer to the Grip, Laela’s fatigue began to wane. The stranglehold Octarius had on her lessened as the ruins faded into the distance; soon it would be nothing but a memory, as dark and twisted as it might be. The scent of smoke, the taste of ashes, the sound of screams—they would all fade with time. The years she’d lived in that underground hovel, the time she’d lost trying to rebuild what was taken from them at its depths, they would all mean something once she saw Rosler and Taggart and the ship that would spirit them into the future.

Leading the procession south, she raised her hand to the scar on her chest from where her father had slashed her. In recent days, she’d gained a web of new scars to accompany her first. They would come with her. She could leave the land and the people that inflicted them behind, but she would never be rid of her scars. No amount of time on the warp would see them healed, not truly. The unseen scars on her soul cut deeper than flesh, and they would remain no matter how far past the curse she traveled.

Badges of merit. Signs of strength and courage. That’s what they are. That’s what they must be.

Yet heavier than the scars she bore was the guilt of what she left behind. Despite all that Laela had done these past years in preparing the Wraith for their departure, all that she’d fought for these past days to bring them to this point, Threyna had done more. By defying Arilette, she’d all but secured the future for Laela and her people. But at what cost?

As they traveled south towards freedom, the Order marched east towards conquest. In that one act, whether Threyna believed it or not, she had likely earned enough feathers to fly up to Valencia and meet Neutreen herself.

A hand slipped into Laela’s and squeezed. Aylenia gave her a timid smile as if she too were feeling the weight of what was left behind. “The skies are clearing. Should be smooth sailing all the way to Sansia.”

Laela rubbed her thumb over Aylenia’s, their fingers entwined. It was strange to share such intimacy. It felt like a luxury she’d never allowed herself. Though unfamiliar, it brought warmth to her cheeks and hope to her heart. Yet she couldn’t help but think about Threyna and the encroaching Order legions.

“Can they do it?” Laela swallowed, but the knot forming in her throat remained trapped. “Can they survive?”

“Maybe they would have if you didn’t run,” her father said. “Divided, ruin will—”

Laela didn’t care to hear her father’s take on the matter. She walled him off before he could finish the mantra.

Aylenia’s grin flattened into a firm line. She licked her lip thoughtfully, but instead wrapped her other hand around Laela’s forearm, pulling her closer.

Seeing it for what it was—a consolation of comfort for what words could not offer—Laela sank into the embrace. “We’ll have to live for them in that case…”

Aylenia nodded. “Remember the past. Live in the present. Dream for the future.”

Laela swallowed the hard lump sitting at the top of her sternum and allowed herself a smile. “May we make the most of it.”

“Look!” Asla, striding behind them, pointed to the horizon.

Following her outstretched finger past the decrepit tree line along the eastern shore of the Tears, a mast rose in the distance to the south.

“Gory ghosts,” Bhen exclaimed. “We did it.”

Cheers went up throughout their ranks as people quickened their pace to reach the ship first. After shouts of praise to Neutreen, tears of joy, and grateful embraces, people began to rush past Laela and Aylenia.

Redge clapped Laela on the opposite shoulder of Aylenia, grinning ear to ear. Laela had never seen Redge’s face parted in such a way. It suited him better than his grim stringency. “You did this.” Tears welled at the corners of his eyes. “You.” He shook her, his smile spreading even wider to envelope his entire face. He slid behind her to sling his arm over Aylenia’s shoulder. Despite his contempt for her throughout their journey, whatever disdain he’d held for her seemed to blow away in the sea breeze. “Ripping Corners, we did it, eh?”

Aylenia guffawed at the Palogian expression and returned his contagious smile.

With a squeeze of both of their shoulders, Redge ran ahead with the others.

At seeing them all so happy, Laela choked up. “You did this,” Redge had said. But it wasn’t just me. Aylenia gave her a knowing nod, as if she were thinking the same thing. Gratitude, Threyna. Mother. Rance. Everyone who gave us this hope, this dream for the future.

All that was left was to descend the beach, climb aboard, and set sail.

Dracus came up alongside Laela.

“We did it,” Laela said, barely believing it.

Dracus’s face, contorted in a web of wrinkles undoubtedly from the pain of his condition, began to soften. He took a deep breath as if preparing to say something, but his gray eyes flicked to the tree line to the west.

Laela followed his gaze. She couldn’t see anything through the foggy gloom that settled between the twisted trunks, but something seemed to move. A soft glow traversed the tree line. 

“Shade,” Dracus said, his voice but a whisper. “Just a shade…”

Before Laela could let out a sigh of relief, a scream tore through the air, coming from the Wraith ahead of them. They’d stopped at the precipice of the steppe before descending to the beach.

The scent of smoke filled Laela’s nostrils, though no tendrils rose.

The scar across her chest burned with an intensity worse than when she’d initially received it. The knot she thought she’d swallowed sank like a stone into the pit of her stomach. Aylenia’s hand fell from her grasp. Running now with Aylenia and Dracus falling in behind her, she drew her sword, determined to overcome whatever final obstacle stood between her and their freedom. Between her and the dream of their future.

Laela shoved her way through the Wraith to see what turned their tears of joy into cries of despair. Finally at the front, she saw what robbed her people of hope, and she too felt hers burn.

Decimus, the Lord Premius of the Order, stood before the First Legion, their backs to the watching Wraith. Ahead of them, six spears rose from the sands. On some of the spears, bodies writhed, their arms flailing, mouths gagged. The bodies on the other spears lay still, motionless, their souls already departed.

Laela’s sword fell limp in her hand. Her jaw unhinged.

Taggart, the admiral of the fleet Rance had built, squirmed. Hollowed. Beside him, Rosler, the shipbuilder who had slaved for ten years to rebuild the Wraith’s hope, hung limp. Dead and gone.

Aside from the gentle lap of the waves and the whistle of the sea breeze, the beach remained silent as the Wraith’s hopes died.

A slow clap broke the quiet contemplation of their doom. Coming from behind them, Prince Belrich emerged from the treeline, applauding in mock ovation. Filing out of the woods, more legionaries took position behind him, walling off any chance at their retreat.

“Well done! Bravo!” Belrich cried over his own clapping. “You’re just in time to see the finale to our grand spectacle.”

An explosion detonated on the beach. Laela ducked, reflexively covering her head along with the rest of the Wraith. Turning, her worst fears came true again before her eyes. Rance’s last ship, The Dauntless, Rosler and Taggart’s daring mission through the Gullies to deliver it to the Grip in the hopes of still finding a way to escape the curse—it all went up in smoke. The explosion blew the hull to pieces that rained down on the beach. The mast cracked at its base, the sails already consumed by flames. Fire licked hungrily, devouring the deck.

Cries went up along the Wraith’s line as they took in the devastation.

So close… We were so close. It took all Laela’s strength to prevent her knees from buckling beneath the burden of despair, but she needed to use her sword as a crutch to keep herself upright.

Redge sank to his knees, the elation emanating from him moments ago all but evaporated. Bhen stared out to sea, as if imagining he were someplace else. Anywhere else. Asla shook her head, muttering to herself as tears streamed down her scarred cheeks.

The First Legion. Belrich and his Inquisitors. Surrounded. No way out. No hope of victory.

“No…” Aylenia whispered from beside her.

Dracus coddled the soul jar at his hip, Fawkes’s soul trapped within.

Failure wormed up Laela’s legs like Dreadroot, threatening to drag her underground, strangle the hope she’d dared to cling to. She felt the fight leaving her, the strength fleeing her body like shadows from a Dawnshard. So close, yet so far away.

She turned away from The Dauntless and collapsed to her hands and knees.

“Divided, ruin will reign,” her father said, and for perhaps the first time, it sounded like he took no joy in her defeat. Yet the haunting words that had plagued her most of her life rang true.

I’m sorry, Threyna. I’m so sorry.

“Seize them,” Belrich shouted. “Impale each and every one of them.”

Chapter 59: Oblivion

Threyna XXV

It took all of Threyna’s physical might to meet the strength and speed of her mother’s attacks. Despite the frailty of her body, empowered by the innumerable souls within, she hacked and slashed at Threyna with reckless abandon.

Threyna blocked with one side of her glaive, then flipped the other side around to steer another slice away. With a kick, she shoved her mother away, allowing for a moment’s respite.

“Mother, please!” Threyna’s words had no effect. Worse yet, a bloody circle formed around her like the gladiatorial arenas of old. She couldn’t see the Skeleton King. As her mother prepared another savage swing of her dual swords, Threyna leapt into the air, attempting to leave the arena the Skeleton King intended for her. But just as she left the ground, the ring began to enclose in a dome. Before she could escape, the bloody barrier sealed shut, enclosing her inside.

“Fight!” her mother screamed in a voice not her own. “Win! Consume! Or die and join the One True God.”

Hatred, purpose, and pain hid behind her eyes. A concoction of the Skeleton King’s making. An oblivion that no soul could climb out of.

Wings useless, Threyna let them meld onto her shoulders, turning into pauldrons. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to defeat this, but every moment she was in here, the Skeleton King was out there, devastating the Underground.

Her mother stabbed, slashed, parried and thrust again. Threyna turned the first three strikes away, but the fourth sliced across her side. Pain raced across the top of her hip, but Threyna grit through it. With her mother overextended, Threyna pinched her mother’s wrist between her underarm and her ribs. She let her glaive dissipate to ash just in time to catch her mother’s follow-up chop at the hilt.

Threyna reared her head back and brought her crown down on her mother’s nose. Bone crunched, cartilage caved, and her mother staggered within her grasp. Pain fissured outward from the impact site on her forehead, warm blood draining down her face. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she kicked the inside of her mother’s knee and wrestled her to the ground. Her mother struggled, blood spilling from her busted nose to flow around her mouth like a scarlet beard.

The darklings within fought with fury, but Threyna was still stronger. She twisted her mother’s wrist, not enough to break it, but enough to disarm her of one of the Skeleton King’s bloodborne swords. The moment it fell from her grasp, it dissipated to ashes. Her mother refused to let go of the other sword. With it wedged between Threyna’s arm and ribs, and no longer fearing the threat of the other hand, Threyna rolled. The sword point stuck into the ground, and Threyna’s momentum levered the hilt from her mother’s hand. She continued to roll until she was on top of her mother once again.

Pinning her mother’s thin wrist to the ground with one hand, pivoting her lower body to kneel across her other arm, she punched with her free hand. Her knuckles connected with her darkling-controlled-mother’s forehead. The impact rattled up Threyna’s forearm and sent tingling through her fingertips, but it had the desired effect. With her mother stunned but not gravely injured, Threyna attempted to siphon the souls out of her.  As she drew in breath, however, the souls remained tethered to her mother’s body.

Black veins slithered up Threyna’s neck and down her left hand with the effort.

Her mother only laughed, her teeth awash with blood. “You must kill her!” a man’s voice said from her mother’s mouth, different from the previous speaker. “You can’t have us if you won’t kill her.”

Threyna grunted. She was running out of time. Screams rang beyond the bloody dome the Skeleton King had trapped her in. She feared what carnage awaited on the other side, but she couldn’t remain here.

She flipped her mother over, pinning her arms behind her back. She conjured bloody bindings around her wrists, then her ankles. Before the man’s voice could speak with her mother’s tongue again, Threyna conjured a gag as well.

The Reaper’s Landmine hasn’t gone off yet. There’s still a chance.

Sinking deeper into her Inner Throne, Threyna called upon the exposed blood within the dome. The dome itself refused her summons, but between her and her mother, there was enough to forge a battering ram.

“I’ll come back for you,” Threyna said, hoping she wasn’t lying. She left her bound mother writhing face-down on the ground and sent the battering ram through the walls meant to confine her. Her conjuration crashed through the arena’s wall, and she followed behind it.

The ram and her pauldrons melted together, reforming her double-sided glaive. Gripping it in a blackened fist, she scoured the battlefield. But it was no longer a war zone. It was a massacre.

Bloody spires twisted into the sky, their limbs spearing Underground Centuriots through the chest. Discarded reaping spears littered the ground. A chorus of screams filled the air as a black cloud swept overhead.

Flying on draconic wings thrice as wide as he was tall, the Skeleton King conjured another distorted spire. Erupting from the center of the Underground’s last line of defense, the spire’s limbs exploded outwards, coiling around Arilette and Lorath.

Threyna’s heart pounded in her chest. Her Inner Throne quaked with each explosive contraction. The dead zone. The Skeleton King was too high in the air. I need to get him on the ground. Now!

Out of time, rot encroaching on her heart, Threyna conjured wings and took flight. With each flap of her wings, she felt the corruption seeping deeper, but if she didn’t stop him now, all was lost. Rising higher into the sky, she ascended past the Skeleton King as he circled before Octarius’s ruins. More spires erupted from the ground, dividing the Underground’s forces and disrupting their positional advantage. The Order’s superior numbers closed in.

Everyone will suffer if I fail.

She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t. Praying Lorath still had the sense to detonate the Reaping Landmine, Threyna dove. Rot coursing through her veins, blood rushing to her head, she prepared herself, knowing that there would be no returning from this gambit. The Underground could not win without her, but if she took the Skeleton King down with her, Rheynia could rise together—truly together—and take down the Order. Maybe not now. Maybe not in a year, or even ten. But without the Skeleton King, Rheynia could be free once again.

Committed, tears streaming from her eyes, Threyna closed in on the Skeleton King’s back. Floating in lazy circles above the dead zone, he gave no sign of sensing her. She reared her glaive, preparing to thrust it through his back and drive him into the Reaper’s Landmine.

We’ll go down together, you ghosting bastard.

She was right on top of him. Three heartbeats until impact, two, one.

He spun at the last moment, deflecting Threyna’s thrust with the blade of his scythe. She countered as they toppled towards the ground. The combination of his twist and her momentum nearly sent her sailing past him. She let her glaive disintegrate, using her hands instead to grapple with the haft of his scythe as they both wrenched and turned, entwined as they plummeted. He let his own scythe crumble to ashes, attempting to disengage with her, but she grabbed a fistful of his billowing cloak and seized Pure from her belt. He tried to shove her away, but Threyna slashed him across the cheek. Dark blood sprayed across his pale flesh. She reared to strike again, but the ground was fast approaching.

“Blow it!” Threyna screamed. “Blow it!”

Sound ceased. A blinding white explosion overtook her peripheral vision, but she kept her focus fixed on the Skeleton King. His blue eyes stretched wide, pupils shrinking in the erupting glow of radiant energy. Black veins bled out of the irises, corrupting the whites as the blood from his cheek left a trail in their wake.

She’d made him bleed. Now she’d end him. Even if it was the last thing she’d do.

The soundless white light swallowed them both.

Chapter 60: All That Is Good

Laela XXIII

Inquisitors advanced, arcanatek whirring, swords at the ready. They marched to her doom. The end of the Wraith. The end of hope itself.

Tears stung her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, and fell to the sodden ground. Everything was for nothing. Neutreen had abandoned her, forsaken her, and left her to hollow on this beach. To forever stare out at the open expanse of the ocean beyond and never know the freedom it offered. It was a cruel torment, one that would last for eternity if she hollowed. One that would be abundantly brief if she became a shade or darkling.

Still on all fours, sword hilt beneath her palm, she looked out over the First Legion on the shoreline, the impaled Wraith writhing on spears, and The Dauntless burning. But beyond the smoke and flames, just past the breakers in the distance, the clouds that enshrouded Rheynia burned away. The sky was a lighter gray, almost a pale blue.

“No running anymore,” her father said. “Ya can’t win… but you still gotta sword.”

He was right. She averted her gaze from the future she’d nearly had and gripped the hilt of her sword to take hold of the only justice she could claim for herself. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Yet she’d spent years before Neutreen’s shrine, kneeling in modesty, living in moderation, earning her merit. She knew where she measured up in society. She was a sword—a weapon forged to break the throne of tyranny. And not just any sword, but the First Sword of the Wraith.

I will not lie down for them. If they want me, if they want us, they will have to take us. I will be strong. I will be courageous. We will fight to flee.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Her tears burned away as rage warmed her cheeks. The Inquisitors’ footfalls drew nearer, their arcanateks warbling louder. All around her, she felt the contagion of fear infecting her people. It clung to her as well, but she would not give it a foothold. She would not let it in. Not while she had a sword in her hand and fire in her heart.

The scent of smoke on the wind returned her father’s screams to her ears. The ire of his voice, his condemnation had tempered her into hardened steel. Steel that would make the Order bleed before she met her end. She sank into her Center of Silence, allowing all else to fade away.

She glared up at the approaching Inquisitors in their skeletal masks. Only a few paces away, with more legionaries at their backs, they would be Laela’s final offering to Neutreen. She launched forward with a bloodlusting cry.

The unsuspecting Inquisitors turned towards her, but too late. She slapped one blaster aside, deflected a sword thrust, and countered with a hack that cleaved into an Inquisitor’s pauldron. The screech of metal on metal was the first in a chorus of clangs. Aylenia was beside her, skewering an Inquisitor through his plate mail. Dracus, adjacent to her, hacked and slashed as if he wasn’t already hollowed.

Vortexers fired, dragging shades from their targets, but the Wraith’s numbers overwhelmed the Inquisitors. Laela led the charge, pushing them back and carving her way into the legion’s formation.

She slashed at the weak joints in the Inquisitors’ armor—the backs of knees, the folds at the elbow. Legionaries closed in around her. She blocked a thrust, kicked another away, caught a chop at the hilt, and stabbed a legionary through the chest. Without wasting a moment to see if his soul would depart or he would hollow, she found her next target. First with a punch of her free hand, then with an up-cleaving swipe.

His head rocked back, and blood burst like a fountain from his mouth. Laela slashed horizontally across his chest, more to clear him out of the way of her warpath than to finish him. As he fell, three more filled his place, but they were no match for her.

In the years since the fall of Victarius Kaine, the Order had grown soft. Weak in their sense of security, brittle in their belief that no one would challenge them. Gone were the days of soldiers like Dracus Alius. These men were chaff, Dreadroots to her Pythwoods, kindling to her fire.

Laela carved across another legionary’s throat, cutting him to the bone. Sensing someone behind her, she threw her elbow into where his nose ought to be. Though it connected, the contact was more jarring to her than she’d anticipated. Deflecting a weak chop with poor edge alignment, she parried with a thrust to the legionary’s gut, sending him stumbling into his brothers. But the assailant behind her struck again.

She turned and stabbed, burying her blade between the segmented plates of his armor and deep into his belly. He seemed barely to have noticed. With her blade hilt-deep in his organs, he did not recoil. Did not pause in shock. Hollowed beyond any sense of humanity, the fallen Inquisitor reached for her face. A gauntleted hand clawed at her, attempting to tear her flesh from the bone. Laela took a step back to regain leverage, but another hollowed seized her ankle.

An arcanatek’s warble resounded. The hollowed Inquisitor dropped as a shade tore free from his armor. Aylenia shoved him aside, stabbing her short sword past Laela into the legionary at her back. Bhen kneed a legionary in the groin, then pounded his pommel into the back of his head. Dracus swept in beside him, quicker than a hellhound and twice as fierce. Blaster in one hand, short sword in the other, he wove between legionaries. Stab, fire. Slash, charge. Thrust, fire. Slice, recharge. Not waiting for the vortex to fully prepare its charge, he didn’t rip souls free from their bodies, but he spent the Undergrounders’ power coils at will, doing just enough to stun his next target.

Vigor restored by the Wraith’s surge, Laela stomped on the hollowed grasping at her ankle. Kicking it away, she wrenched her sword free from the Inquisitor Aylenia had vortexed to return to the fray. She drew True in her free hand. Thrusting, slashing, and stabbing her way forward, Laela carved a path through the Order’s legion, searching for Belrich and vengeance. But there were too many.

No matter how many legionaries fell, more Wraith littered the ground. If it hadn’t happened already, it wouldn’t be long before Decimus’s First Legion ascended the steppe and finished them off, but if that was to be their fate, they would suffer having exhausted all their hope.

Spattered in the blood of others, surrounded by the souls of the departed, Laela would fight until her last living breath. She backhanded one legionary across the side of his head, tearing his green-plumed helm from his head. She stabbed past the disoriented legionary, piercing his brethren between the nose guard and the faceplate, then jabbed True into the neck of her first target.

Blood spurted down her fingers and along True’s hilt, but its blade was not buried in a man of the Order. Not a true soldier in the Holy Dominion’s Legions. He was but a boy. A boy without even a wisp of hair on his chin. Greener than the Fayte banner, as young as the Wraith itself, he stared back at her, wide-eyed and terrified.

Laela hesitated. Boys. Not soft, arrogant men. Boys. She pulled True free, but the blood on her blades felt heavier. The white-and-gray tunic and britches she’d left Octarius in were stained a gory red and brown. The darklings overhead and the shades passing through the battlefield watched in judgement.

“Laela!” Aylenia shoved into her, knocking her aside. She chopped downward, cleaving a gash across the boy’s face from his brow to his opposite lip. He twisted and fell, releasing his sword as he died. But not before he thrust his blade forward.

Aimed for Laela, but pushed aside by Aylenia, the legionary boy’s steel took Aylenia in the gut.

Laela screamed within her Center of Silence until it shattered. Blood thundered behind her eyes until all she saw was red. Anger consumed morality. Hatred devoured humanity. The brutal beauty of battle bled out, and from the hollowing body of hope, a thrashing whirlwind of steel and fury emerged—a darkling dead set on destruction.

Screams cried from beyond the red veil. Voices called for Neutreen. Laela even thought she heard her own name. Steel licked at her skin, grazed on her flesh, but she ignored them. They were just distractions that sought to sever her from her vengeance.

Ships burned. Wraith trapped. Aylenia dying.

She would not be denied. But her sword swung wildly, True’s thrusts came slowly, her feet staggered lazily, and eventually, the combination of the cuts she’d sustained and the exhaustion of her battle-born fury sank her to her knees.

Her vision returned as her rage faltered. There was a sword through her belly. She didn’t remember it happening. Even now, staring at it, she barely felt it.

Legionaries stood over her, around her, yet they gave her a wide enough berth to see all that she had wrought. Dozens littered the ground. But not enough. Never enough.

“Laela!” Aylenia called. “Please!”

She was still alive, kneeling just a few paces away. A pair of legionaries grabbed her under each of her arms and hoisted her to her feet. Behind her, Lord Premius Decimus raised a spear.

Laela’s jaw unhinged. Blood spilled out. No. No.

Decimus brought the spear down. Through the top of Aylenia’s shoulder, down the length of her spine, and out through the front of her hip.

Aylenia's face contorted. Her body writhed, and though her mouth opened, no scream came forth.

Decimus drove the spear deeper until its tip pierced the wet ground. The legionaries hoisting Aylenia up released her. But there she stayed, fixed to the spear. Dying. Suffering.

Laela couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She stared past Aylenia to the crashing waves beyond. Unable to watch Aylenia’s torment, awaiting her own, she lowered her eyes. She clenched True in her fists, but nothing good was true in this world. Only pain. Only suffering. Only failure.

Chapter 61: The Fall

Threyna XXVI

Crimson became her entire existence. Her whole world was awash with blood. Red clouds marred the sky. Red bodies littered the ground around her. Red spires held writhing red figures in its twisted limbs. Red. Red. Red.

Did I hollow? Am I a shade? A darkling?

Lying on her back, Threyna patted her torso. I still have my body. She attempted to roll to the side, but she felt like her soul would slip free of its mortal shell if she dared. Despite the risk, she forced herself up from her back to support herself with her hands. Pure rested in a pool of blood beside her.

Not knowing how she survived, she seized Pure and scoured the battlefield. Still corpses surrounded her—their souls vortexed and irradiated by the blast of the Reaper’s Landmine. It was a mass grave rivaling the Tellers’ burnt bodies throughout the Scorch Lands, but it wasn’t spread throughout the countryside; it was all here, confined to one small plot of dead land. Order legionaries and Underground Centuriots alike were strewn about. Those who fell before the detonation left bloody puddles beneath them, but those who fell victim to the reaping bomb’s explosion were bloodless, soulless—dead and gone.

The battle beyond the blast seemed to stop as all beheld the devastation.

Threyna shouldn’t have been here. The fact that she was only made her gut twist in knots. If I survived…

The Skeleton King rose to his feet as the wall of blood he’d conjured around them dissipated to ashes.

He blocked the reaping bomb…

He saved her. She wished he hadn’t. She wished they were splayed on the ground as soulless and empty as those around them, because then at least her life and death could have meant something. They could have ended the Skeleton King’s tyranny. But no. She was alive. And so was he.

Towering above her, he glared—not in anger, not with malice, but with the condescension of a god unable to believe that a mere mortal would bother with such paltry attempts on his life. Black veins slithered up his neck, but slowly, they were receding. He had more souls in his Inner Dungeon than she’d ever consumed.

Laela was right. There’s no beating him.

He held out his empty hand, his scythe reforming. “You are weak. Selfish.” He stared out into the distance, not even deigning to look at her. “I gave you scores of souls. Power to try and defeat me. But you lack the spine to do that which must be done, as all others have before you.” He shook his head, the rot in his veins retreating to nothingness, leaving only a black stain behind. “Divided, ruin will reign. You have spoken those words, believed in them, trusted in them—yet you, like everyone else, have failed to honor them.”

Threyna didn’t understand. She scuttled backwards in an attempt to put distance between her and him, but he advanced, negating her progress.

“I gave the Seers that credo,” the Skeleton King said. “I gave the Artificers the same. It fell to you—the Underground—and again you have proven that axiom impossible to achieve.” He loomed over her, clutching his bloodborne scythe in bony fingers. He drew in a short sharp breath, desiccating the bodies around them. The wound on his cheek from where she’d slashed him sealed shut until only a scar remained.

“I prayed the One True God could be proven wrong. That I could be defeated. That the whole world could live in peace and harmony absent this, this…” He inspected the sallow flesh of his free hand before curling it into a fist. He released a slow, defeated sigh, before refocusing his haunting gaze upon her. “This curse is the answer. The only answer. We will never unite. We will always be divided. Peace cannot reign without the One True God’s unity.”

Threyna trembled, unable to form words. He wanted to be defeated. He wanted us to unite against him. And yet… still we failed. She glanced around, looking for someone—anyone else. Arilette and Lorath were ensnared in a spire’s grasp. Canton and Rivich were nowhere to be seen. We are divided. I am alone.

“And now, Granddaughter…” The Skeleton King took another step forward. “You must join the One True God.” He lifted his scythe high overhead.

Arilette screamed in the distance, but even suspended in the spire’s tendrils, she threw something.

The scythe came down, intending to cleave her in two. Sinking into her Inner Throne and grasping at the pools of blood nearest her, she raised a half-formed trident. She caught the scythe’s shaft between her prongs, the tip of its blade stopping a hair’s breadth from the top of her head.

Inexplicably, her trident began dematerializing. The ashes fell from the prongs first, then the length of her shaft.

“Blood and bone bow to me,” the Skeleton King said, fighting against her last resistance.

Then something hit the ground and sank in. A Dawnshard. An arm’s length away, it beeped rapidly, signaling it was about to blow. Threyna inhaled sharply and rolled away from it. Her conjuration failed. The scythe hit the ground where she had been a moment ago. Threyna closed her eyes as radiant light exploded at her back.

The Skeleton King wailed. Threyna took the opportunity. She crawled away from him, stumbling over fallen legionaries and Undergrounders in an attempt to reach safety. But there was no safety. Her spotted vision struggled to focus despite having had her eyes closed and her back to the Dawnshard’s brilliance.

The Skeleton King’s wail became a roar. The wind whisked above her as he swung his scythe in a wide arc. He’s blinded. Go. Run. He wouldn’t need his sight to kill her, and now that he was done toying with her, she wouldn’t even be able to conjure a means of defending herself if he could disintegrate her blood spawns.

Something grabbed her by the arm, hauling her away.

“I’ve got you.” Canton slung his arm under hers, leading her away from the Skeleton King. “We need to get out of here. To the Tears.”

Black rot pumping in her veins, spots blinking across her vision, she skipped between bodies and leapt alongside Canton, attempting to keep pace.

The Skeleton King’s laugh rattled the ruins behind her. “Run, Granddaughter! There is nowhere I won’t find you. There is no succor. All will bow to the One True God!”

The spires that had risen into the sky erupted ever higher, carrying with them scores of Undergrounders. Then, all at once, they dissolved into ash, the empty air opening its arms to them. As high as Octarius’s tallest towers at the peak of the Kaines’ might, they fell. Arilette, Lorath, so many others. Their screams rose as their bodies plummeted.

Canton didn’t give Threyna the chance to look. He dragged her away, carrying her over the bodies littering the ground. “This way!” As flanking legionaries charged in towards Octarius’s remains and the last of the Underground’s forces, Canton led her in the opposite direction.

Somehow, the main column of the Order’s wedge formation was decimated. The Underground had taken down more of the Order than Threyna had realized. She didn’t understand how, but as they trampled over the fallen, she noticed that the bodies beneath her feet all wore Order blacks.

“Into the river,” Canton said as they neared the Tears. “It can carry us to the Grip. Maybe they haven’t left yet. Maybe we can…”

Threyna wasn’t listening. The Skeleton King’s presence within her Inner Throne called to her, taunting her. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye, Granddaughter.”

Threyna stopped before the Tears, her own sobs sending streaks down her cheeks as she turned to face the Skeleton King. Hovering high on draconic wings, he held someone by the throat.

Mother…

She struggled, attempting to free herself from the Skeleton King’s chokehold.

Threyna felt as if she were being strangled. Failure denied the breath from her lungs. Loss flushed her cheeks. Rot thickened in her veins as it encroached on her heart and built pressure behind her eyes.

She retreated into her Inner Throne, but the Skeleton King’s tower outside the windows of her throne room seemed to have grown—wider, taller, closer. It pulsed with power, making the walls of her mind palace tremble. A great wind shattered the stained glass, tearing the shingles from the roof of her seat of power and threatening to cave in the pillars that supported it. Threyna resisted the draw, but outside her Inner Throne, trapped in the Skeleton King’s grasp, her mother could not. Shades and darklings left her mother’s body, rushing back towards the Skeleton King as he drew in breath. Dozens, scores, until not one remained.

She no longer struggled against his grip. She dangled—thin, frail, limp.

He let her go.

Unceremoniously, she fell. Far off, silently, she hit the ground. Dead. Gone.

“Fly, Little Dove,” the Skeleton King said within her Inner Throne. “When I finish here, I’ll find you. The One True God will have his wish. Peace will reign.”

A tug pulled at Threyna’s hand, attempting to drag her away. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to run, to prolong the agony. She wanted it to end.

The tug became a yank, and before she could catch herself, she was falling. Falling like Arilette. Like her mother. Cold washed over her. Darkness enveloped her.

Chapter 62: The Spirit of Resilience

Threyna XXVII, Dracus XVI, Laela XXIV

Threyna

The river’s chill sapped Threyna of whatever hope remained. It had washed them south to the bend before slowing to a trickle, forcing them to climb out and make the rest of the journey on foot. Not that it mattered. Everything was lost.

“There were two landmines,” Canton had explained when Threyna asked about Rivich. “The one we knew of, and… another at the back of their formation. Rivich was only a few paces ahead of me. If I—”

“Did it get Belrich?” she’d asked despite already knowing the answer.

He wasn’t there. Neither was Decimus. Yet Threyna had sent Canton and Rivich after them, hoping it would keep them clear of the Reaper’s Landmine. I sent him away to protect him, and yet I sent him to his end anyway. Just like Daeton. Just like Yevon and Ebrus. Again, she’d made a call, and it got someone killed.

“I don’t think Arilette intended for you to survive,” Canton had said. “She sent you in to lure him out. If you hadn’t changed course to defend our flank, she may have tried to catch you both in the landmine.”

Threyna hadn’t wanted to hear it. She didn’t care about Canton’s analysis. But trudging along the Tears and heading towards the Grip, Threyna couldn’t help but see the validity of his argument. Arilette wouldn’t have wanted a Skeleton Queen to deal with after they’d won. Whether it was her idea or Lorath’s, it didn’t matter. The results were the same, and this new betrayal didn’t make her feel anything. She was already cold, empty, and defeated.

They walked in silence for a time, but Threyna’s mind remained busy, trying and failing to conceive what she should have done differently, what could have tipped the scales in their favor. Nothing. Their defeat was inevitable.

All will join the One True God.

“Maybe they’re still there,” Canton said of the Wraith, ever the optimist.

They weren’t. At least she hoped they wouldn’t be. Even though it meant her demise, Threyna hoped he was wrong and they were long gone. Because if they were still there, that meant something went wrong. And that something had Belrich’s cruel touch all over it. She didn’t give such thoughts voice. If there was any justice in the world, they would arrive to find a beach of legionaries staring out at the departed ship bound for Sansia. Then at least the Skeleton King’s cursed blood artifact would disappear, Dracus and Fawkes would receive what small measure of peace came with a true death, and Threyna could bow to the One True God knowing that Laela and Aylenia had at least made it out.

Please, just let me have that.

Perhaps she should have been angry with Laela. If they had fought together, perhaps they could have defeated the Skeleton King, as he had always wanted. She’d always thought it was Belrich who allowed the Underground to live on, a convenient sufferer in the stocks to blame for all that was wrong with the Order’s Holy Dominion. But it was King Bohen. If he wanted to stamp them out, he could have at any point in time; he gave them opportunities to band together and try to stop him. But even if the Seers, Artificers, Tellers, Undergrounders, and Wraith had all rallied together, would it have made a difference?

“We were never going to be able to win this,” Threyna said. “Laela and Dracus were right. We never should have stayed, Cant.”

Canton didn’t respond. He soldiered on in silence, trekking ahead at a grueling pace believing they could still catch up to the Wraith. Over time, however, his pace slowed, his head hung, and in their silence he too reasoned out what Threyna had already accepted; it was hopeless.

“We were so close,” Canton finally said.

Threyna scoffed. No we weren’t. Despite how many marched on Octarius, that wasn’t even the entirety of the Skeleton King’s force. Belrich, Decimus, the Inquisitors, the Doves who comprised his spy network, the boys who hadn’t graduated the Nest yet—they weren’t at Octarius. Which only begged the question of where they were.

Anywhere but the Grip. Please, just let Laela escape. Laela, Aylenia, Dracus, please…

“We were, Threyna,” Canton said. “We had the technology. If we’d stayed together, if we’d recruited more to our cause, we would have had the numbers. And you…” He grinned.

His expression wasn’t befitting of the dreary riverbed they walked, the decisive defeat they’d suffered, or the inevitable end they neared, yet it remained. Painted to his face, a mockery of all they’d lost, his smile only stretched longer.

“You were incredible,” Canton said, gushing. “I know we didn’t win, and this is likely the end for us. But you made him bleed, Threyna. That must count for something.”

It didn’t count to Threyna. Close didn’t matter. They either won or lost, and they had lost. She snorted. “A feather short of Neutreen’s wings—isn’t that what the Elysians say? Might as well have spared the matches. We’re not making it to Valencia either way.”

“Not all losses are in vain. The same way not all victories get songs. The Skeleton King had to hide away for a decade, collecting souls and gathering his strength, and he still barely survived. There is hope for the future of Rheynia… if not for us. People will rise again, join together, and one day defeat him and his One True God… maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day. I believe that, Threyna. Even now.”

Threyna wished she shared in his belief. But she didn’t. Canton had probably convinced himself that Dracus would be proud of him for fighting the good fight. He probably believed her father would be proud of her too. A valiant effort. It was all a gory ghosting lie. There was no such thing as a moral victory.

As if the wind agreed with her sentiment, a gust carried not the scent of the salt sea, but the taint of defeat. Smoke. Threyna inclined her gaze to the horizon. Black tendrils climbed to the clouds that shrouded Rheynia in darkness.

Canton followed her gaze. “The ship…” He sank to his knees, finally coming to terms with what Threyna had already feared. They had reached the end of their journey. Ruin would continue its mighty reign.

But a silhouette stood before the windswept smoke—tall, thin… motionless. Before Threyna knew it, she was running. Heart heavy as it thudded in her chest to the rhythm of her footfalls, she feared what she would find on the beach. The smell of smoke grew stronger. The sound of screams rose above the crashing waves. The spilled blood called to her upon her Inner Throne.

Bodies of both legionaries and Wraith littered the way. Bounding over them as she had in her flight from Octarius, Threyna scanned their faces.

Please, no. Not Laela. Not Aylenia. Blood and bone, please.

Threyna didn’t spot their faces as she leapt between the fallen, but she found a dagger plunged into the earth at the center of a group of corpses. True was engraved in the hilt.

No…

Threyna knelt down to pick it up, the twin to her dagger, Pure. The gift her father had given to Laela. Clutching it, she inclined her gaze to the figure overlooking the sea.

Pierced from neck to navel, a woman looked out to the smoky sky, impaled on a spear. Threyna attempted to speak, but the knot in her throat forbade it. The scent of death would have been strong enough to make her gag if she could manage to breathe. But she couldn’t.

Aylenia turned her head at her approach, blood dribbling from her lips, eyes drooping in the fading moments of consciousness. “Threy…” she wheezed.

Threyna whimpered, falling to her knees behind the spear that impaled Aylenia. Beyond her, dozens of spears lined the shore, each erecting familiar faces. Some squirmed as they suffered. Others writhed, already hollowed. Others yet remained stock-still, their souls departed. But the army in black dominated the sands. There were still two for every Wraith left standing as they waited their turn to receive a spear of their own.

She searched for Laela among them, but found Dracus first, kneeling before Belrich and Decimus. A short distance from him, a woman sat in a puddle of blood with her back towards her. Her shoulders sagged. Her ribs rattled with silent sobs as new tears streamed down her face at the horror of it all.

Laela… they’re making her watch.

It was horrible. Worse than the Battle of the Cut. More vile than the ruins of Octarius. More destructive than all of the Disasters combined. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Paralyzed by failure, overrun by loss, she wished she were standing on a Reaper’s Landmine with the detonator in hand.

“Threy…” Aylenia groaned again. She extended a bloody, trembling hand. “Did you… do it?”

Threyna took her hand, wishing she could offer Aylenia the comfort of a lie to ease her passing. But she couldn’t. The twitch in her clammy fingers, once so dexterous, made her want to vomit. The stickiness of the blood dripping down her arm made her want to scream. “We lost, Aylenia… it’s over.”

“No.” Aylenia’s quivering fingers found the strength to squeeze Threyna’s hand. “Always another fight.”

Threyna had no fight left in her. The rot in her veins sought to strangle the last of her humanity and leave her for the Skeleton King.

“Consume me…” Aylenia said. “Fight.”

Dracus

“Look at what we have here,” Belrich said as he sauntered over. His attention was divided between where Dracus was being held at sword point by two Inquisitors and a smidge of dirt beneath his fingernail. Flicking the refuse away, he regarded Dracus much the same.

Dracus struggled within the Inquisitor’s grasp, but he’d sustained three fresh cuts in the battle, each luring him closer to the abyss of hollowing. A thrust that clipped the meat between his neck and shoulder, a diagonal slice across his bicep, and a stab wound to his thigh. Each should have been enough to hollow him in their own right, but with Fawkes’s soul in a jar on Decimus’s hip, he could not let go. Not when they were so close.

The Inquisitors shoved Dracus to his knees. The wet sand forgave his intrusion, squishing to accommodate his new posture before Belrich. Despite his predicament, his was a kindness compared to those erected on spears along the beach. Joining Rosler and Taggart, Redge, Bhen, and Asla were positioned before the burning ship, watching as their last hopes went up in smoke. All while Laela was forced to witness.

Bhen hollowed, limbs still grasping for any that came near. Redge struggled for a while, but eventually, his darkling tore free. Dracus wasn’t sure if he was irradiated or trapped in a soul jar, but what did it matter? Asla, for all the fight she possessed in life, left the pain of her body as a shade, attempting to wander away. She didn’t make it very far. Vortexed into a soul jar, she would soon be consumed. Even if Threyna managed to defeat the Skeleton King, someone on this beach would take the fatekeeper from around Dracus’s neck, find the Blessing, and use it for the purposes of the One True God.

Dracus glanced from Belrich to Decimus, wondering whose hands it would be more dangerous in. Either way, the world was all blood and bone.

“Did you ever imagine the day, Decimus,” Belrich began, “Dracus Alius—lounging on a beach?” His chuckle entwined with the screams—those of the dying, the hollowed, or the poor souls watching and waiting for their turn to do the same.

“No, Legatus,” Decimus said, ever the paragon of duty. He failed to meet Dracus’s eyes, but then again, Dracus could barely look upon him either.

It was difficult to reconcile how the man that had taught him everything could knowingly serve such a monster and call it honor, righteousness, fealty. Yet he imagined it was no easy draft of Valefyre for Decimus to swallow either for his esteemed protégé to fail in his duty and rebel against the very power that lifted him from the rubble in the wake of the War of the Seers.

Belrich smirked. “Dear, old Decimus, don’t look so grim. You had to have known that Darkling Dray’s days were numbered.” Belrich leaned down, looming over him how a parent might an infant. “Ever since poor, poor Dracus ran from Bheric’s Hollow.”

Dracus spat a glob of bloody phlegm on Belrich’s boot. To his chagrin, Belrich didn’t even appear dismayed, his infuriating grin still plastered upon his face.

“Tell me, Dracus,” Belrich said, softly, almost tenderly. “Why did you run? A storied career—every accolade as a Justicus, every victory as a Premius—why did you throw it all away?” He shook his head as if perplexed by the enigma that Dracus didn’t want to sacrifice children to preserve the life of a tyrant king.

“Was it the child?” Belrich asked. “The boy you ran off with? If you wanted boys to spear, we could have given you boys.”

Dracus snarled. “You’re a gory ghostin’ darkling.”

Belrich raised his hands in mock surrender, erecting from his leaned posture. “Not that then. Apologies. Blood and bone, so easily offended. Forgive me. But… why?” He gestured his hands to the row of impaled Wraith, growing longer down the coast with each passing moment. “Is he here—your boy?”

Dracus glared. The bristles of his mustache impressed upon his curled back upper lip. He wanted to hollow, throw caution to the wind, and maul Belrich. He imagined ripping free of the Inquisitors, pouncing on Belrich, and sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of his neck. But then Fawkes would suffer in Decimus’s hands.

“No,” Dracus said. “He ain’t here. Hollowed got ’em.”

Belrich pressed his lower lip forward, pouting at Dracus before turning to Decimus. “All these years—hiding with Tellers, sleeping in the Underground’s hovel, dreaming of a daring escape with the Wraith… all for a boy. Was it worth it?”

Dracus snorted, recalling the endless questions the boy would ask. How quick he was to pick up a sword. How brave he’d been in the face of hollowed. In the beginning he’d found it tiresome, burdensome. Even after he’d grown to care for the boy, he only saw Canton’s courage as a danger he and Fawkes had to overcome to keep him safe. Looking back at the last seventeen years—between surviving with the Tellers, fighting alongside the Undergrounders, and preparing with the Wraith—he couldn’t help but smile. Was it worth it? He grinned at Belrich. “I’d trade a hundred lifetimes in the Order to do it all again.”

Striking like a viper, Belrich grabbed Dracus by the collar of his tunic and twisted. His mocking tone became one of wrath and malice. “Why!”

Belrich’s heated breaths filled Dracus’s nostrils. His mercurial rage told of the frustration that this question had caused over the course of years.

Dracus continued to grin. He closed his eyes, sinking into his pain and taking joy in Belrich’s, despite how he tried to hide it.

He met Belrich’s harsh gaze. “Because I believed in the lie of the Order. Not the ghostin’ propaganda of Neutreen, not the Purge. ‘Where there’s order, there’s justice.’ Order after the Disasters ripped us apart. Order after wars devastated anything else left standin’. Order. Safety. Peace for the livin’, in a world of the dead. Ya name me traitor. Ya call me the darkling, but I’m the only one who stayed true. So why, you ask? Because I fight for the livin’. And that boy, he lived! Not as long as he shoulda, not as well as he deserved, but I gave that boy a chance.”

And a choice…

Whether due to his words, his thoughts, or the way Belrich twisted his collar, Dracus became keenly aware of the fatekeeper on his neck. The fatekeeper… the Blessing.

Before Threyna had given him charge of it, he had given it to her. It was never meant for her. Bherus had handed it to him ten years ago, before the Battle of the Cut. He wanted Dracus to finish his objective, should he fail. But Dracus made a choice. He declined Bherus’s last request. Yet now he was presented with the same opportunity, the same mission.

“If I fail,” Bherus had said, “should I suffer and the Skeleton King live—if the Order is still in power, you must open this. You must do what I could not. Finish this.”

Dracus closed his eyes. What d’ya say, Old Boy? Think I got one last trick up my sleeve? One more shot at this?

Fawkes couldn’t respond, but Dracus knew his answer. He shook his head, staring past Belrich to the sky beyond, preparing for how he was going to break free of Belrich and the Inquisitors to open the fatekeeper. But figures upon the steppe made him balk. Beside where Aylenia was impaled, Threyna and Canton came into view.

A wave of conflicting emotions and dark thoughts crashed into him. It took every fiber of his being not to react at the risk of drawing Belrich’s attention. He didn’t know what happened at Octarius. He didn’t know if Threyna would be able to do anything that could put the darklings back in the soul jar, but if he took the curse upon himself—together, they might just be able to finish this.

A resolve returned to him. Not the desire to hollow and destroy, but hope. Hope that this wasn’t the end. That everything that had led them to this point wasn’t all in vain.

“Find a way,” Bherus had said. “Keep playing.”

This story wouldn’t have any heroes, but it would have survivors.

He stared Belrich dead in the eye. “I gave that boy a chance and a choice,” Dracus said again. “That’s all any of us really deserve.”

Before Belrich could respond, Dracus threw himself onto his back, staggering the Inquisitors and dragging Belrich atop him. The wounds from the Vendetta daggers screamed as he rolled, but he kicked Belrich over his shoulders and freed himself from the hands that bound him. Decimus drew his sword and advanced, but Dracus seized Fawkes’s fatekeeper and squeezed the octagonal arcanatek’s sides.

The Blessing tore free. Red, black, and slithering—the blood artifact wrapped around Dracus’s wrist and slithered up his arm, searching for a place to bite. All eyes were on him, everything else on the beach forgotten.

“The Blessing!” Belrich shouted.

Laela

The stab wound in her gut throbbed as new screams joined the haunting choir. All she could do was watch as the legionaries went down the line, impaling her friends, her followers, and anyone brave enough to defy the Order. She wished she’d die faster. Hollow out. Become a darkling and haunt Belrich. Become a shade and be irradiated. Even if she was trapped in a soul jar, she wouldn’t have to witness the suffering of everyone she’d failed.

She should have hollowed days ago on the Spine. Her life should have ended with Tarus’s treachery. And now, bleeding from a dozen different wounds with a gaping hole in her gut, still she remained. But that seemed to be her fate; she wouldn’t die until everything she’d cared for was ruined.

She wondered if Threyna, Canton, and the Undergrounders fared any better. After all, the Order too had divided its force to stop them from leaving. Maybe Threyna defeated the Skeleton King as she claimed she would. Maybe she was the fool to believe that he couldn’t be defeated.

If we had stayed and fought together, would we have won? Would we have survived?

If they’d won, that didn’t mean that they’d have had to stay forever. They could have built a new ship and left for Sansia. If they’d stayed and fought, Arilette might have allowed them to return as they pleased, ferrying all who desired to new lands. But they hadn’t stayed. They hadn’t fought. And now, Laela would never know.

Another spear. Another scream. Another life ruined by the Order’s form of justice.

Her vision darkened at the corners as death’s familiar approach closed in around her. The pain in her stomach rivaled that of her broken heart. She knew Aylenia was staring down at her, suffering and dying upon the steppe—if she hadn’t already hollowed. 

She should have stayed. She could have lived.

“Years,” her father said. “I been tellin’ ya this for years. Now you’ll die on your knees.”

She anchored herself in her Center of Silence to block him out, but the scar across her chest burned worse than the gash in her stomach. The guilt chewed a hole through her, body and soul. She looked at the smoke climbing into the sky. The ship’s wood wasn’t anointed with the proper prayers to carry its smoke to Neutreen’s ears, but the Goddess of Justice likely wouldn’t hear it in either case. Despite the futility and the hopelessness in her heart, she held the stocks and prayed.

“See me,” Laela whispered to the rising smoke. “I have served at your altars on bended knee, stocks raised. I have given the shirt off my back despite winter’s chill, offered food from my plate even as my stomach growled for more. I submitted when needed and rose when called upon everywhere you’ve seen fit to position me. Never did my supplications end without blessing your name. Not once have I questioned you. I have abided by the Four. Now see me for what I’ve become.”

More screams rose as the fires consuming the ship roared, billowing more smoke to Valencia. Laela wanted to sink into the sand, bury herself and wait for the tides to roll in. What good has any of it done? She closed her eyes.

“I chased after you my entire life. Do you see what I have done? I forsook a sister in need chasing after you. I blamed a mother for her suffering because her pain wouldn’t bring us closer to you. Tell me, what was it for?”

The question broke every principle of the Tenets. Modesty be damned, Moderation denied—Laela tired of measuring her life by the merits she’d earned for a faith that had failed her.

“I don’t want my wings,” Laela said, the realization welling new tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to live for a life beyond this one if I must abandon everyone in it. But if you can hear me, if you still have power, if there is any point in any of this at all—please, Neutreen, see Threyna. Let her fight where I have run. Let her win where I have failed.”

“Why!” Belrich snapped, breaking Laela from her prayers.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she opened her eyes. Belrich loomed over Dracus. Held in place by two Inquisitors, hollowed and in pain that Laela couldn’t begin to comprehend, a fire gleamed in Dracus’s eyes brighter than that of the conflagration consuming their ship. He said something in response to Belrich’s shout, but Laela couldn’t hear it.

With a sudden jolt, Dracus threw himself backwards, toppling the Inquisitors and hurling Belrich to the sands over his shoulder. Dracus was up on his feet in the blink of an eye, Fawkes’s fatekeeper held between his thumb and forefinger. The legionaries along the entire beach seemed to react at once as shouts resonated down the shore.

The two Inquisitors watching over Laela moved towards Dracus, as did Decimus and other nearby legionaries, but they all paused as a crimson creature blossomed forth from the fatekeeper. Red light flickered across Dracus’s face and cast shadows behind the surrounding soldiers. The blood artifact elongated, circling his arm as it ascended his shoulder.

“The Blessing!” Belrich shouted. “Get him!”

Pain forgotten, fatigue thrown in the fire, Laela was on her feet before she could think about all the reasons why it wouldn’t matter. Hobbled as she was, she didn’t need an invitation to see what Dracus was trying to do.

If he becomes a blood mage, he can stop this. He can give us another chance.

Vision tunneled, heartbeat rapid and shallow, Laela lunged for one of the Inquisitors who’d abandoned her to advance on Dracus. His sword was drawn, but, more concerned with Dracus than her, he wasn’t ready when she seized the hilt of his dagger in her left hand and shoved him forward with the right. As his neighbor wheeled on her, she jabbed with her reverse-grip and drove the dagger into the ear-hole of his helm. His shade left his body before his corpse hit the ground.

The sudden movement made her gut twist and her head spin, but she would not die on her knees. The Inquisitor she’d disarmed spun on her, short sword raised.

“The Blessing is mine!” Belrich charged at Dracus as the blood artifact continued to slither around him, searching for a place to attach.

The Inquisitor thrust. Laela barely managed to avoid his stab. Off-balance, she stumbled in the sands, tripping over the other downed Inquisitor. Her combatant swiped at her, but Laela grabbed his downed compatriot, bringing his armor between his blade and her flesh. The sword clanged off the skeletal mask of the helm. Reorienting herself, Laela took the discarded short sword from the dead Inquisitor and gained her feet.

Dagger in one hand, short sword in the other, Laela deflected a thrust, blocked a hack, and countered with her dagger. Splitting the segments of his cuirass, her blade found the flesh beneath. Ignoring the protest of her stomach, she twisted the blade. The Inquisitor fell back, holding his gut. Using the separation, Laela left him, closing the distance between her and Dracus as he backed away from Belrich, Decimus, and a combination of Inquisitors and legionaries. The blood artifact still circled his body, but had yet to attach.

What is taking so long?

“Don’t let him take it!” Belrich launched himself at Dracus, slashing with his own sword. Rushed and clumsy, the strike went wide, and Dracus easily avoided it, but he was running out of room to evade.

Clutching her stomach with her forearm, bloody dagger still held in a reverse-grip, Laela staggered towards them. Decimus swung his short sword at Dracus. Dracus barely avoided the blow, reeling backwards, away from her.

The blood artifact snaked up to Dracus’s neck, still unable to find purchase. It coiled, not in preparation to latch on, but to launch off and seek a new host.

It needs a host. Dracus is hollowed. It won’t attach.

“You can do this, Laela,” her father said. “No more walls. No more half measures.”

Laela couldn’t recall a time her father called her by name. But he was right; she couldn’t let Belrich possess the Blessing. But more than that, she saw it for what it was—for what it could be. The blood artifact was the wings she’d always prayed for, a means to make the difference. A curse for her, but a path to freedom for everyone else. It was her means of fighting to flee, the Dawnshards her mother had charged into Caius’s Bog with, her last chance to right the wrongs that would keep her and her people suffering in Rheynia for eternity. No longer walling herself off from her pain, she welcomed it, deriving from it the strength and courage to overcome.

Laela charged—not for Dracus, but the path between him and Belrich.

The red-and-black snakelike entity sprung from Dracus. Dracus shouted, reaching for it. Belrich and Decimus lurched towards it. But Laela wouldn’t be denied. Finally understanding Threyna’s sacrifice, she leapt to insert herself between Belrich and the blood artifact. She flew through the air, extending her sword arm as far forward as she could stretch. The Blessing continued to extend, uncoiling like a serpent, but too far out in front of her.

I’m not going to make it.

The blood artifact flew past. Close enough to feel its energy, to see the black lightning forking through its liquid body, but still too far. Her momentum died as gravity returned her to the sand. All she could do was watch as the red darkling collided with Belrich and began to wrap around him, searching for a place to attach to its new host.

Belrich’s grin stretched from ear to ear as his eyes attempted to track the Blessing slithering up, down, and around him. 

No.

It wasn’t over. She wouldn’t let it be over. Not once a glimmer of hope had returned. She wouldn’t let its fickle spark fade. She pressed herself off of the sandy beach and threw herself at Belrich, forsaking her blades. Too entranced by the blood artifact, he never saw her coming. With one hand, she seized his wrist, controlling his sword arm. With the other, she attempted to grab the red serpent as it wrapped around his neck like a haunted pendant. Like trying to grasp the wind, it slipped through her fingers, around her wrist, and back around Belrich’s neck.

As legionaries closed in on them, Laela wrestled him to the ground. Afraid of stabbing their Legatus, they hesitated to strike at her. She hooked her left leg around his and used her right leg to propel off the ground. Man, woman, and blood artifact rolled.

“Kill her!” Belrich shouted.

The Blessing ensnared both of them, never staying in one place too long. Belrich’s forehead. Laela’s neck. Belrich’s shoulder. Laela’s arm. Belrich’s torso. Laela’s hips. Entwined as they were, Laela couldn’t determine if the blood artifact could tell them apart.

“It’s mine!” Belrich screamed in her face.

She switched her legs and rolled back the opposite way, making sure she never left her back exposed to the legionaries’ blades. Each movement lanced a spike of pain across her midsection, but she could not give up.

Please, choose me. Please.

The blood artifact wrapped around Belrich’s throat again, as if it had searched all and finally made its decision.

No. No. Not him!

She pinned Belrich on his back and gripped his throat again as if attempting to choke the red liquid into choosing her instead. She knew she was exposed to the legionaries, but if the Blessing chose Belrich, all was lost. It coiled around Belrich’s neck again, wrapping Laela’s wrist in its bindings.

Please, choose me!

Wind rushed past her ear. The sound of a blade. The sound of death. She knew she was dead before she felt the pain. But still she didn’t let go because the Blessing—this curse—was her only chance.

Threyna

“Always another fight,” Aylenia said again. “Consume me. Fight.”

Threyna cupped Aylenia’s cheek in her hand. Aylenia didn’t know what she was asking. She could consume her and put her out of her misery, but she couldn’t use her soul. She wouldn’t trade her for a few more moments with less rot in her veins. One soul wasn’t enough to fight the legions, let alone to defeat the Skeleton King.

“I can’t, Aylenia,” Threyna said, sniffling. “But I won’t let you suffer any longer.”

“You can,” Aylenia said, life fleeing from her eyes. “If anyone can change the tides, it’s you.” She closed her eyes. “Say it. Please. Always another fight.”

She’d been unable to say it since Daeton’s death. While there was always another fight, Threyna had lost the belief that she’d be able to win. Always another victory. They were just words, but she hadn’t believed in them, not even enough to utter them. With all her losses piled before her, she didn’t believe victory was possible. Yet Aylenia still squeezed her hand, still held out hope.

Is that all it takes? For so long now, she’d fought scared, so afraid of losing, that she’d given up trying to win. She’d taken a risk and lost Daeton, but it was the right decision gone wrong. Ever since, she’d been too hesitant to make the hard call. If she had stood up to Arilette, maybe she could have gotten Ebrus the help he needed, and he never would have been with her at Avengard. If she’d been more decisive in the bog, maybe she could have prevented her mother from taking charge and falling into the Skeleton King’s hands. And if she’d fought the darklings controlling her mother outside Octarius, maybe she could have defeated the Skeleton King.

She was tired of ifs and maybes.

Father is gone. Mother is gone. Laela is gone. Ebrus, Yevon, Aylenia—all gone. She had nothing left to lose. In the wake of the realization, absolutism took root. Not like the dying roots of trees that twisted in Rheynia’s mud, but like the towering Pythwoods that grew in Drakhardt before Damascus Drake chopped them down to build his fleet. Before the Disasters, before the Tellers burned them all down, they reigned on high and burrowed roots down deep—unyielding, unshakable.

She touched Pure’s hilt at her belt, True still in hand. The two were finally reunited. Pure of thought. True in purpose. Threyna was done fighting scared. She would fight with all she had and snatch victory from the skeletal grip of defeat. She would hope.

Threyna squeezed Aylenia’s hand. “Always another victory.”

Aylenia smiled. “Finish this. Prime?”

“Yes,” Threyna said. But Aylenia’s face contorted in pain.

Threyna couldn’t let her suffer any longer. She drew in breath. Aylenia’s soul came easily, leaving her body and entering her Inner Throne. Black vines slithered along the white marble, climbing the columns and snaking up the walls between the broken windows that were once so glorious. By comparison, Aylenia’s spectral body wisped through the throne room like white smoke given shape. Compared to the darkness in and around her mind palace, Aylenia’s light was practically blinding, a Dawnshard against the night.

Aylenia glanced at the door that led to Threyna’s Inner Dungeon.

“No,” Threyna said, feeling Aylenia’s thoughts mesh with her own. “You stay with me.”

Aylenia shook her head. “You must fight, Threyna. Use me. Let me help.”

Threyna looked beyond her Inner Throne and out to the beach below. She knew how many legionaries lined the beach based on their heartbeats. She could sense the concentration of souls trapped within the soul jars on their hips. There were plenty of souls to fuel her conjurations, but not Aylenia.

She returned her attention back to the bloody tower just beyond the broken windows of her throne room. “I won’t use you, but you can still help me. Let me know if that tower gets closer.”

Aylenia followed her gaze. “What is—”

“The Skeleton King’s coming.” Threyna tallied how many souls were on the beach. “I might not be able to defeat the Skeleton King, but I can fight these legionaries. I can consume enough of them to forge a bloodborne boat and carry the survivors to Sansia myself… I don’t need to fight him.” She placed her hand on the shoulder of Aylenia’s wispy form. “Let me know when he draws near. I don’t plan on being here when he does.”

She returned to the outside world. Canton watched in horror as Belrich stood over Dracus and Laela knelt before the line of skewered Wraith. Before the burning ship and down the coastline to the east, legionaries stood in pairs, holding the Wraith as they waited to be impaled. One by one. A long line of legionaries stood sentry, facing the grim scene, their backs toward her. There were enough legionaries and plenty of spears to end the Wraith’s suffering quickly, but they wanted to draw out the dread. They wanted the anticipation of suffering to hollow them before their spears did. That cruel torture would be their undoing.

Threyna held Pure in one hand, True in the other. She nodded at Canton. “Steel yourself; we’re not done here.”

She didn’t give Canton a moment to object. She slid down the dunes and onto the beach. The legionaries, too preoccupied with their victims, and the Wraith, too terrified of their immediate circumstances, didn’t notice her. Neither did the sentries with their backs toward her. With her approach muffled by the lapping waves, the whip of the sea breeze, and the lash of the undying’s screams, she neared the back of the closest legionary. The black rot pumping through her veins begged to be quenched, and she would provide it a feast.

She slashed at the exposed skin beneath the belted skirt of the nearest legionary, cleaving across the back of one knee, then sliced across the other before following up with a stab to his neck. Her blade tore through flesh. The neighboring legionaries reacted, but Canton took one unaware, jabbing his sword into his ribs and dropping him to the sands.

As the two bodies lost their hold on their souls, Threyna drew in breath, calling upon them. Both came willingly. She quickly spirited the shade and darkling into her Inner Throne, consuming them. The black vines snaking up the walls of her throne room began to erode.

Threyna parried a panicked thrust and spun to close the distance. Inside the legionary’s reach, she slashed her twin daggers across his neck. His hand reached for his throat, but blood gushed between his fingers. Lurching out of the way of a stabbing spear, Threyna formed the fallen legionaries’ blood into a web. Her conjured web ensnared the spear. With an opening to overcome his advantage of reach, Threyna planted True in the space between the spearman’s plumed helm and green-trimmed pauldron. She drew in breath, calling upon two more souls.

The rot retreated as she feasted upon their vitality, allowing her the ability to conjure even more. Calling upon the exposed blood from the felled legionaries, she raised a series of spears from the sands, each stabbing up and out in a defensive perimeter. Her conjurations pierced through a handful of advancing legionaries’ bellies, including one who was engaged with Canton. Canton took advantage, swiping across the impaled legionary’s raised arm and stabbing him in the gap between his nose guard and face plate.

More souls. More power.

The rot ebbed away, allowing Threyna more conjurations. Daggers still in hand, she diverted a stab aside, and conjured a short spear before her. Following the spear like an army behind a battering ram, the bloodborne spear took a legionary through his leather cuirass, breaking ribs and puncturing his lung. Charging through him, she sliced and cleaved her daggers through the legionaries at his back. With quick thrusts and forceful punches, her steel found every gap in their armor. And every time she ripped Pure and True free, she called upon the exposed blood that sprayed forth and shaped it into a scythe. In a wide swinging arc, her conjured scythe obeyed her commands and slashed across three more legionaries’ knees as they attempted to surround her.

Drawing in more souls and consuming them immediately, she forced them to bow to her will. They tried and failed to resist, each soul serving to strengthen her cause. But the legionaries holding the Wraith in preparation to impale them began to attack their captives, butchering them.

“The tower is drawing nearer!” Aylenia said from within Threyna’s Inner Throne.

She needed to hurry if she was going to get people out of here.

Threyna conjured wings and called upon the spilled blood to form a layer of protective armor around Canton as he continued to fight. “Open their soul jars!” Threyna propelled into the air with a jump and a flap of her wings. Arcanatek whirred into motion, but she jettisoned away as they fired. Speeding towards the unarmed Wraith, Threyna sheathed her daggers. She conjured a scythe with greater reach to swipe at the Wraith’s attackers. She couldn’t save all of them, but she could help. Cleaving through legionaries as she passed, she drew upon the shades, darklings, and hollowed. Souls flowed into her, from the Order and Wraith alike.

“Aylenia, keep the Wraith in the throne room. Drive the legionaries into the dungeon!”

A score of souls filled her Inner Throne in moments, but with Aylenia’s aid, the souls of the Wraith fell to command and those of the legionaries were forced through the door to her dungeons.

Threyna circled back towards Canton. Some of the Wraith had freed themselves and picked up the fallen legionaries’ weapons to join the fight. A small group rushed to Canton’s aid as he unleashed a soul jar.

An explosion of darklings and shades rose into the air. Threyna rushed in, drawing in breath. Power—greater than she’d ever experienced before—radiated within her. Empowered by the collaborative efforts of Aylenia and the Wraith working within her throne room, Threyna quickly ushered the darklings from the outside world into her Inner Dungeon. She was forced to consume some to continue her conjuring, but for every one she feasted upon, she sent three more into her dungeons for later use.

Canton, clad in the blood-forged armor, fought like a man possessed. It took a great deal of focus to maintain the conjuration, but it kept Canton alive. A spear thrust slid off his scarlet pauldron. A sword clanged off his bracer. He drove his short sword through the belly of another legionary as the Wraith charged up the beach to come to his aid.

Canton released another soul jar, directing the freed Wraith to do the same. While some darklings surged into nearby legionaries or Wraith, most swirled into the sky like rising smoke. Threyna drew in breath, consuming more and more until her dungeons were filled wall to wall with souls.

They wouldn’t be enough to fight the Skeleton King, but they would be enough to help her conjure a ship that could carry the remaining Wraith beyond the island. The battle was quickly shifting as the Wraith took up arms against the legionaries, but something exploded to life within her Inner Throne. A dark cloud bursting with red lightning.

“Aylenia, what was that?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me!”

Even though she saw it inside her Inner Throne, she felt it on the opposite side of the beach by Laela and Dracus. “Canton, when you can, lead the Wraith upshore.”

Canton hacked at a nearby legionary. “Where are you going?”

She didn’t have time to explain. She dodged an irradiator’s blast and swooped around the burning ship to take cover from other shots. Soaring upon a gust of wind, she banked a turn with speed, charging toward the explosion she’d sensed. As she neared, she saw its source.

On the beach, Dracus retreated from Inquisitors, Decimus, and Belrich. The red glowing blood artifact circled around him, searching for a place to inject its prongs.

Dracus opened it.

Pushing past the poetry of him taking on the mission her father had bestowed on him years ago, the possibility of victory blossomed within her. But just behind Dracus, Laela, bleeding from a dozen different wounds, stabbed a legionary in the ear and took up his sword. More were coming after her.

“Laela!” Aylenia cried within Threyna’s Inner Throne. Her voice would never reach Laela’s ears, but with their thoughts and emotions entwined in her mind palace, she felt the sentiment that accompanied her shout.  

Determined, Threyna bent her scythe into a bow and drew back on the string. An arrow formed along the nock as she took aim and released. Attuned to the heartbeats of Laela’s attackers, Threyna divided her single shaft into four needle-thin projectiles and guided them towards their own targets. Four legionaries fell behind Laela as she charged towards Dracus and Belrich.

Threyna drew again and released. Her arrows split and pierced the hearts of Inquisitors rushing to aid in Dracus’s demise. But the blood artifact still hadn’t attached to Dracus.

It won’t. It wants a viable host. He’s hollowed.

Suddenly, she understood why Laela was rushing toward him; she’d realized the same thing. She’s trying to become the next host.

“Don’t let him take it!” Belrich shouted.

The blood artifact coiled, preparing to forsake Dracus and find a new target. Belrich was closest. It couldn’t be him. She flew in, firing more arrows as she neared, but despite her guidance, her arrows lodged into the backs of the Inquisitors following on Belrich’s heels.

Cursing herself, Threyna swept in, but too late. The slithering red liquid abandoned Dracus and launched itself at Belrich. Laela dove, attempting to intercept it, but she fell just short.

The blood artifact wrapped around Belrich.

No! Threyna charged forward, flapping her conjured wings as hard as she could for Belrich. Before she could get there, Laela tackled him. She’d abandoned her sword and dagger, grappling Belrich and wrestling him to the ground. They entwined, and the blood artifact encircled both of them.

“The tower!” Aylenia shouted within Threyna’s Inner Throne. “It’s coming closer. Quickly!”

Threyna grit her teeth. She was running out of time if they were going to escape this beach. But if she let Belrich take the blood artifact, all would be lost.

“Kill her!” Belrich cried.

But his men were distracted. Decimus and a handful of other legionaries charged at Dracus as he picked up Laela’s discarded weapons to defend himself. Others positioned themselves around Laela, but for the same reason Threyna couldn’t afford to attack Belrich without the risk of hitting Laela, neither could the Inquisitors and legionaries attack Laela.

It will choose her. It has to.

Abandoning her attack on Belrich, trusting that the blood artifact would choose Laela, Threyna focused on the surrounding legionaries. Straightening her bow into her double-sided glaive, Threyna slashed and stabbed, cutting down every Inquisitor searching for an opportunity to stab at Laela. The blood artifact circled around Belrich’s neck, but Laela seized him by the throat. The two continued to roll until Laela was on top, exposed. A pair of legionaries stepped in to stab her in the back.

Threyna landed on the sands behind them and slashed with one side of her glaive to part one’s head from his shoulders. She pivoted and brought the other side of the glaive in an arcing uppercut that severed the arm holding the sword about to stab Laela.

The blood artifact’s prongs bit deeply. A scream pierced the gloom, louder than all the others: Laela’s. A red-and-black bracelet encircled her wrist. It chose her.

Dracus

Decimus slashed at Dracus’s midsection as he advanced with three others. Dracus barely dodged out of the way. He deflected a legionary’s thrust and backpedaled away from a second. Death rotted his flesh, and pain assumed dominion over his entire being, but sword in hand, surrounded by foes, Dracus felt alive.

He parried an overzealous lunge and countered with a disarming strike that crunched fingers between steel and hilt. The legionary cried out, dropping his sword to the sands. Dracus shoved past him, weaving between two other legionaries to keep Decimus at a distance. He sidestepped a vertical slash, ducked a horizontal chop, and stabbed a well-placed thrust into one of the legionary’s shoulders. Taking what he could, Dracus withdrew, scampering away as his assailants reformed.

Threyna and Canton had come to their aid. The entire beach was in chaos. He didn’t understand why the Blessing had rejected him. If he had known there was a chance of that, he never would have opened it. Hoping he didn’t just make another Skeleton King by handing the blood artifact to Belrich, Dracus had more pressing concerns.

He ducked a swipe, high-stepped over a strike that intended to separate him from his foot, and parried Decimus’s thrust. Dracus slashed across the nearest legionary’s cuirass. His blade didn’t find purchase through the armor, but it gave him the necessary space to step forward. The legionary with the wounded grip clutched his sword in his opposite hand. His attack, clumsy with poor edge alignment, slapped at him rather than cut. Dracus easily caught the sword on his own blade and drove Laela’s discarded dagger into his neck.

The legionary with the weakened shoulder attempted to come to his aid, but Dracus met his steel. Overcoming his own pain as he’d grown accustomed to, he overpowered the legionary, using the leverage of his blade to slide down and thrust past his nose guard. Another fell. Another died.

Two remaining.

Decimus lurched forward, stabbing with his short sword as Dracus wrenched his blade free from the falling legionary’s skull. He deflected just in time, but was poorly positioned to defend against the other legionary. Late in lowering his guard, the legionary’s steel raked across Dracus’s thigh.

The new cut’s scream joined the horrid choir of his other injuries as the hollowing abyss called ever louder. But he would not hollow. Not with Fawkes’s soul jar on Decimus’s hip, Canton fighting for his life on the opposite end of the beach, and the barrier beyond the curse right before him.

Dracus dropped to a knee but raised his sword to catch a downward chop. He punched, dagger in hand, into the inside of the legionary’s thigh, felling him like a Pythwood strangled by Dreadroot. As he fell, Dracus pushed off the sand to stab down, but his newly slashed thigh failed to obey. His attack missed, and new fire sliced across his back. Twisting away from Decimus’s blade, Dracus fell to the ground, losing his grip on the dagger embedded in the legionary’s thigh. Sand invaded his open wounds, only adding to the pain.

He could feel himself slipping away. Into the void. The chorus of agonizing injuries beckoned him to accept the darkness, to stop fighting the inevitable.

Focus on the pain. Stay. Fight.

Dracus refused to be dragged away from his pain. Not until it was his time, and now was certainly not.

He rolled towards the downed legionary, driving his forearm atop the flat of the blade to keep him from lifting it. With his free hand, he seized the legionary by his pauldron and reversed his momentum, dragging him atop him just as Decimus stabbed downward. The legionary gasped as Decimus’s thrust took him in the back.

Not waiting to see what form the legionary’s afterlife would take, Dracus shoved him off, taking his short sword. Decimus chopped down at him, but Dracus caught his strike between his blade and the legionary’s discarded one.

“All these years,” Decimus said, his eyes dark slits of disappointment. “All these years, this chaos, and still you fight.”

Dracus slapped his sword aside and shoved himself to his feet, staggering away from Decimus. His back cried louder than the slash in his thigh. Decimus’s slice had reopened the dressings that covered his injuries from the Vendetta daggers. Every movement offered a new wave of pain that made Dracus’s vision tunnel until only he and Decimus remained on the beach.

He scoffed at his old mentor as the two circled one another. “I fight because of all these years. I’ll make it mean something. All this suffering. All the ghost damned propaganda.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I know what I’m fightin’ for. What ’bout you, Dec?”

Decimus bristled. “My allegiances have not changed with the wind as yours have.”

“Storms always seem ta be blowin’ east to west. I just stopped lyin’ to myself about which way was which.”

The hollowed legionary that had been stabbed through the back gained his feet and staggered towards Decimus, limping heavily with his injured knee. Decimus swept the legionary’s lead leg out from under him. As he fell prone, Decimus maimed him—stabbing him through the shoulders and hips and slicing across the back of his knees and ankles, ensuring that he would never rise again. Decimus barely averted his gaze from Dracus’s through his grisly work.

“We could have talked about it,” Decimus said, disgust plain upon his twisted face. “I could have explained where King Bohen and Prince Belrich could not. You didn’t need to betray us. You didn’t need to run, to fight against us!”

Dracus turned his tunneled vision to where Laela sat atop Belrich, both of them glowing in the Blessing’s red aura. Behind them, Threyna flew on conjured wings, slashing at legionaries and consuming the souls of fallen Inquisitors.

A runner. A fighter. In the end, we all gotta face our pains. Dracus was tired of ignoring his. The pain of guilt at what happened to Canton’s family. The weight of regret that he hadn’t been able to change things. The stain of failure to provide for a boy in this cursed world. If he’d confronted himself sooner, dealt with his issues, he could have actually listened to Canton.

How different could things have been?

There was no time to wonder. There was only Decimus and the soul jar on his hip.

“What could I have done?” Dracus asked. “I saw what Lacius saw before he deserted.”

Decimus snarled. “You could have learned from his mistake. Where there is order, there is justice! Bohen is order. The Dominion is order. Yet look at what you have sown. And in the name of what? For what purpose?”

Choice. Dracus kept coming back to it, because that’s all that mattered in a world without any. That simple, basic right in a Gods-forsaken world..

“We fight,” Dracus said. “We run. Because if we don’t, we do nothing. We endure only to serve. We bow only to scrape. We suffer only so that one tyrant can keep wearin’ his gory ghostin’ crown and call it peace.” Dracus shook his head. “Nah, Decimus. I made my choice—now you gotta. Fight me or run. Do nothin’ and I promise ya, I’ll end you like I did Nerus, Jagras, and Artanius.”

Decimus roared. He charged and Dracus met his ire. Their steels clashed, sending vibrations through Dracus’s fist. They exchanged a flurry of blows; each clang rang like a bell tolling for justice. His dagger, Fang, the soul jar holding Fawkes’s soul, and the blaster he’d carried all these years were belted at Decimus’s hip. Dracus would reclaim them before this was over.

He feinted left, attacked right, and parried Decimus’s counterblow. Stepping backward to invite Decimus’s advance, Dracus pivoted, taking an off-angle to expose Decimus’s backside. Decimus swiveled, repositioning himself, but something distracted him. His eyes flicked in the direction of the burning ship, just for a moment, but it was enough.

Dracus’s tunnel vision didn’t allow him to lose focus. He didn’t hesitate, lashing out to seize advantage of Decimus’s distraction. His blade caught his mentor’s pauldron. Decimus staggered backwards, but then Dracus saw what had captured his focus in the first place. Clad in red armor, a figure led the charge of freed Wraith in their direction. Bodies in Order blacks littered the beach in their wake.

Decimus hmphed, lowering his guard as the shouting Wraith bore down on him. “This changes nothing. You may have won this battle, Dracus—” He pointed his sword at the burning ship. “—but King Bohen will not be denied. Order will reign.” He dropped his sword to the sand, accepting his fate.

The Wraith, armed with the discarded weapons of Decimus’s First Legion, drew nearer, their cries of vengeance growing louder with each footfall. The warrior leading the charge, clad in blood-forged red armor, held a bloody sword before him.

Canton.

Dracus had never seen a more glorious sight.

“Aye,” Dracus said, grinning as he advanced on Decimus. He dropped his own sword, taking Fawkes’s soul jar, Fang, and his blaster from Decimus’s hip.

“What are you doing?”

Dracus stepped backwards. “Where there’s order, there’s justice. Yer life ain’t mine to take.”

Decimus’s jaw hung open as the tide of Wraith washed over him.

Laela

Pain struck like a fork of lightning as the blood artifact sank its prongs into her wrist. Traveling up her arm like a rolling wave of fire, it surged through her. She became pain itself as it enveloped her in its all-consuming wrath. The curse filtered through her veins, stretching up her arm, past her elbow, and beyond. It throbbed with a pulse of life all its own, but it entwined its essence with hers, wanting her—needing her. Its desperation mixed with her own; its fear became hers and hers its.

A blur of visions rushed through her mind’s eye accompanied by a gale of emotions not her own. A sealed door separated her from someone she loved, someone in pain. She wanted to help but couldn’t.

Laela recognized the medicus’s wing in Octarius. These are Threyna’s memories. That’s me beyond the door. She felt Threyna’s pain in the blood artifact’s embrace. Her fears of being alone, failing those she cared about, being rejected. In a moment, Theodyn’s memories flooded in. His fear of being hunted by his brother and father, that it was his duty to fulfill the Purge. His love for her mother. His pain at Arenius’s death. His regret as a black wave of death barreled through the Cut to the sound of war drums.

Then the Skeleton King’s presence overshadowed all else. The weight of responsibility unwanted. Doubt as hollowed were pinned to trees and burned to crisps. Pressure as a parliament divided. Fatigue after every war was followed by a new one.

He’s close. So close.

Blind and deaf to everything else, Laela fell from her perch atop Belrich, wishing she’d just hollowed. She crawled over fallen, soulless bodies in her attempts to get away from the memories flooding her, but more importantly, she needed to escape Belrich. He was still armed, and she wasn’t.

Yet she couldn’t feel the wound in her stomach. She had retreated somewhere, similar to the way she’d go to her Center of Silence when she fought. All other pains were forgotten in the wake of the blood artifact’s bite, but somehow, the red-and-black bracelet clamped onto her wrist knew her injuries needed to be dealt with. The bodies around her seemed to call to her—no, not to her, but it. She took deep gasping breaths, unsure why.

Her ears rang, distorting the cacophony of sounds on the beach. Her vision, spotty and narrow, began to return. Belrich screamed. Steel clashed. A stampede of heartbeats echoed behind her. But the bodies littered around her began to shrink. A cloud of blood hung like a dense fog, ignorant of the swirling sea breeze.

The cloud grew—darker and denser with each rasping breath she took. It moved toward her and the hungry blood artifact, begging for her to do… something.

She drew in a deep breath as she’d seen Threyna do. Flesh and bone obeyed. The shrinking bodies littering the beach desiccated, and the ensuing blood cloud flowed into her. Her flesh stitched back together faster than when she was on the warp in the medicus’s quarters. Energy surged back into her; all fatigue melted away as she inhaled the bloody cloud.

Her bracelet clicked.

Power surged within her, emanating from her Center of Silence. She sensed a sea of blood begging to be shaped, panicked heartbeats running away, and desperate ones approaching. As intoxicated as she felt with the abilities at her disposal, she felt dwarfed by two greater presences. Within her Center of Silence, she couldn’t see them, but she could feel them. Two separate vibrations resonated at different amplitudes and frequencies; one was close, its reverberation like a bowstring after loosing an arrow. The other, however, was a deep, quaking throb that threatened to shake the foundation of the world. And it was coming closer.

“Laela!” Threyna called to her.

Laela took in her surroundings. Expecting to find Belrich bearing down on her, she had to search to locate him. Halfway up the dunes, he and a handful of surviving legionaries were running away. Behind her, Canton and the remaining Wraith crashed down on Decimus as Dracus watched the tide roll in. Spinning, she found Threyna standing before the surf, her arms raised as she conjured something vast and bloody in the water.

“Help!” Threyna said over her shoulder. “We’re running out of time!”

“What are you doing?” Laela asked, feeling at where the wound in her stomach should have been. Her fingers brushed atop raised flesh—bloody, but intact. She glanced at the blood artifact on her wrist and then over her shoulder to where Aylenia was impaled upon the steppe.

“Laela, I need your help,” Threyna said, sparing her a glimpse. Rot spread up and down her arm as she continued to shape something in the water. “The Skeleton King is coming. We need to build a boat. Large enough to take everyone we can and sail away. We don’t have much time.”

Laela stared at the spear atop the dunes. Aylenia didn’t move. She was dead and gone. Anger coursed through her. Loss for a woman she barely knew. The future she’d never even had the chance to long for burned to ash. She didn’t want to leave. Belrich was getting away. The Skeleton King was coming. The powerful corruption flowing through her veins didn’t want to run. It wanted to fight, to control, to consume. 

“Laela, I need you to tap into your Inner Throne. You must focus. Take advantage of spilt blood, conjure your own—picture it in your mind and it will obey your commands.” The bloody mass in the water started to take the shape of a ship’s hull.

Laela’s mind remained rigid, focused on a singular object of desire. Vengeance. Retribution. She wanted to chase Belrich down and impale him. She wanted to face the Skeleton King and destroy him as he had destroyed her home.

Threyna cupped Laela behind the neck, pulling her towards her until their foreheads were practically together. “I’m so sorry. I should have been here. I never should have tried. We never stood a chance…”

Laela pulled away, blinking, not understanding. When she examined Threyna, no longer did she see an insolent, selfish girl hellbent on getting her way. She saw the pain in her eyes, felt the fiery rage that had driven her all these years consume itself until only the sparking embers remained. Within her haunted gaze, Laela saw herself.

Overcoming her anger, releasing her desire to avenge all that was taken from her, she took Threyna’s face in her hands. “I’m sorry, too. But we’re here now. Together.”

“Then help me and let’s get out of here.”

Sinking into her Center of Silence, she attempted to follow Threyna’s instructions. Sensing the blood staining the sand, she called it towards her, beckoning it to congeal and added it toward Threyna’s growing blood raft. She felt inefficient and clumsy by comparison to Threyna, and though she was unable to shape it herself, Threyna seemed able to multitask, forming her own conjurations and shaping Laela’s contributions.

The blood boat continued to grow and find its form. Laela glanced at the remaining Wraith. There were less than a few dozen of them left, but the survivors had overtaken the legionaries and were finishing off those who had not fled with Belrich. Some wandered over to where she and Threyna formed their vessel of escape, their heartbeats echoing throughout her Center of Silence, singing a song of survival. A rhythm of resilience. They believed. They had faith. But the deep, quaking vibration that threatened to shatter the sanctity of her Center of Silence drew closer.

Rot continued to spread up Threyna’s cheek and down towards her fingertips. Dark veins slithered out from the bracelet about Laela’s wrist, snaking down the back of her hand, but the boat was not yet large enough for everyone.

Threyna formed a series of ladders along the ship’s hull. “Everyone on,” she said, voice straining. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

Laela didn’t need to be told of the urgency of their circumstance. The nearer the quake came, the more she was certain that if it came to a fight, they wouldn’t win. Threyna’s rhythm emanated so much more power than her own, yet even she was but a drop compared to the approaching downpour.

“Climb in!” Laela ordered. “We’re getting out of here, but we need to hurry.”

The Wraith trudged through the shallows and crowded around the ladders. Threyna's rot had stopped spreading, despite her continued conjuring. Laela didn’t understand how she was doing that, but the boat continued to stretch.

Canton and Dracus were the last to descend the beach and enter the surf. Canton practically had to carry Dracus. He had told her that he was hollowed, but sensing the lack of a heartbeat in his chest stilled her own.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dracus said, limping into the shallows. “I’m prime.” He grinned at Canton still covered in the blood of the slain. “We’re gettin’ outta here.”

Canton returned Dracus’s sentiment as the two made their way toward the ship.

With the ship fully formed and everyone aboard, Laela grabbed a rung and hoisted herself out of the water. She planted her foot and began to climb, but her foot slipped out from underneath her. The excited tenor of the ship’s occupants also changed as the waves seemed to sink beneath them.

“No,” Threyna said. “No. No. Gory ghosting dammit. No!”

Laela gripped the rung of the ladder tighter and attempted to pull herself up, but she fell, splashing back into the water. Not knowing what had happened, she opened her hand to find it filled with ashes.

The Wraith screamed as the entire boat began to melt into the sea, spilling them into the breaking waves. Again, the hope was swept out from under them. Laela felt her own heart sink into the sea as, on the horizon of the steppe, flying on draconic wings, the quaking presence that disturbed her Center of Silence arrived.

The Skeleton King, haunting even at this distance, pointed at them. “All will bow to the One True God.”

Threyna

Despite all the souls ready and waiting to be consumed in her dungeon and all of the Wraith who had aided her efforts thus far, Threyna knew this would be the end. He could disintegrate her conjurations, prevent her from consuming new souls, and worst of all—anything she could do, he could do better.

Consuming souls within her Inner Dungeons to abate the rot in her veins, she glanced at Laela. “Reform the boat… take as many as you can. I’ll distract him. Don’t wait for me.”

Laela protested, but Threyna conjured wings of her own. She chased the crashing waves to the sandy shore and propelled herself into the air. Flapping her wings, she caught a current and sailed low across the beach to meet the Skeleton King for what would be the final time. He descended the dunes, his wings disintegrating and reforming into a long, curved scythe as his feet touched the ground.

“Ripping Corners,” Aylenia whispered within Threyna’s Inner Throne. “He’s horrible.”

His dark tower blocked out the light filtering through the broken windows of her Inner Throne, its presence a looming nightmare for the Wraith in her throne room. They began to murmur, but Threyna settled them as her own feet touched the sands opposite the Skeleton King.

She allowed her own wings to molt and reform into her double-sided glaive. She’d had every intention of leaving with Laela and the others. But if she couldn’t defeat the Skeleton King, there was no way he would let them leave. For them to leave, I must stay. I must keep his attention on me. She didn’t know if she had enough souls to defend her conjurations from his influence, but if she managed to distract him long enough for Laela to form a ship large enough to carry the rest of the Wraith away, she could hollow knowing she’d done all she could.

The Skeleton King cast her in his ghastly gaze. Lines framed his gaunt features, but they lacked the animosity she felt towards him. The hint of a grin contorted his thin lips; an air of levity adorned his casual stride as he stalked towards her.

“What a cleverly wasteful use of the One True God’s gifts,” he said, eyeing Laela’s attempts to reform the boat Threyna had crafted.

Threyna sneered, approaching cautiously, an idea taking shape in her mind. “You speak of waste.” Holding her blood glaive in her left hand, she leveled her right index finger at the Skeleton King as they began to circle one another. “Yet you fight wars you haven’t believed in for half a century. How many hollowed? How many shades and darklings have suffered? All because you wanted to prove the One True God wrong, right?”

The Skeleton King’s sunken eyes narrowed to slits. “Aye, I held out hope. For Rheynia, for humanity—Bheric’s bane, for my people. My sons. Me.” His skeletal fingers drummed around the shaft of his scythe. “I suppose I too wasted one of the One True God’s most precious gifts: time.”

Taking advantage of the conversation to stall for time, Threyna forced a laugh. “Time? That’s rich coming from a man with nearly a hundred years to his name. How many souls paid for you to continue your horrific existence?”

“Many. And few.”

The darklings encircling the Skeleton King’s tower screamed with each revolution, their cries bleeding into her Inner Throne. A song of torment. An existence of hopelessness. Its dread seeped into the essence of the Wraith watching fearfully from within her mind palace.

“Many souls have I taken,” the Skeleton King continued. “A small portion of which have I consumed, a practice I sense you have come to learn yourself.”

Threyna detached herself of fear, knowing that if she allowed herself to sense it, everyone in her Inner Throne would too. Resigning herself to stoic determination, she inclined her head to look down her nose at her grandfather. “Another waste, in that case.”

“It is the only way. To gather the souls of this world will take time, patience. Aid. I would like to end this habit of wastefulness.” His scythe dematerialized, raining ashes that were swiftly picked up by the wind to scatter to nothingness. He held out his hand. “I will ask you to join me but once, Granddaughter.”

Threyna guffawed, holding fast to her glaive. “Join you?”

“Yes. Join me.” The Skeleton King stopped circling her, forcing her to do the same. “The One has shown me; there is a vast world beyond Rheynia. Lands of sand, of ice, expanses of mountains and river valleys, jungles and great geysers. People—innumerable and tortured in the failings of the Creator’s so-called Gods. Wars span decades, dividing countries and rending communities. Despite common cause or belief, every faction fractures for some reason or another.” He shook his head as if what he’d come to realize after years of rejection was all so clear.

He stalked closer, hand still outstretched. “You seek to end the pain and suffering of Rheynia’s people. I know it. I can feel it in you. You blame me because of the half-measures I have taken out of my own fear and rejection of the calling placed on my life. But no longer. There is only one unity, one peace, Granddaughter—the peace under the One True God. Help me unite the world, and together—you, me, your sister—we will end its suffering.”

His outstretched hand remained between them. Laela’s blood boat was large enough for people to climb aboard, but there wasn’t enough room for everyone. In their desperation to escape, the Wraith began pushing and shoving in the surf in an attempt to claim a space for themselves, proving the Skeleton King’s point. Even amongst like-minded people, there would always be the haves and have-nots. There would always be division, war, pain, and the heartache left in its wake.

“They will kill each other,” the Skeleton King said, pointing toward them. “If not here, out there beyond the veil. They will die true deaths. That is the ultimate waste. But we can stop them from killing each other. We can unite them, give them peace.”

But not freedom. Not choice.

Divided, ruin will reign. For so long Threyna thought that meant if they didn’t join together and fight, they would lose. But fight or flee, it didn’t matter—they were on the same side against the Order’s tyranny. They had made that choice. Different in how they approached it, yes, but united in the importance of it. That division was not what would allow ruin to reign. Passivity, giving up on choice to believe the lie that any unity at any cost was a worthy pursuit.  She would rather die. Rather suffer knowing she’d tried to resist what she knew was wrong than become part of the problem for the sake of unity. For a liar’s version of peace.

“Will you join me, Granddaughter?” her grandfather asked, only an arm’s length away.

Threyna met his eyes. She saw her father in them. Even parts of herself. But whatever blood they shared, whatever ties of family, culture, faith, or ideology that could have united them was broken by his willingness to bow to the One True God. She knew what would come next, after she rejected him. He wouldn’t waste her; he wouldn’t even attempt to kill her. If he wanted to, he could have. He wanted to own her, control her, wield her like a weapon to wage war against humanity for the One True God’s version of peace.

“When I deny him, he’s going to send darklings into me,” Threyna said, addressing the Wraith in her Inner Throne. “They will invade these walls, but they will not be mine. They will not easily be spirited to the dungeons below. They will fight and stop at nothing to strip me from this throne, take my body, my abilities, and wield them for the Skeleton King and his One True God.”

Many trembled at her words. Most of them were not soldiers of the Underground like her and Aylenia. But what they lacked in a soldier’s training, they more than made up for with the spirit of resilience. They had fought together to survive, leaned on one another to keep the hope of escaping alive. She just needed to convince them to hold onto that dream. They needed to believe that together, they could resist.

“I don’t know how many he will send,” Threyna continued. “But when they come, I will need your help. I need you to stand with me, fight with me, and know that no matter what happens, keep faith that we will sail from these shores. Will you join me?”

Aylenia’s lone voice assented. “Yes!” The wispy form her soul had taken within her Inner Throne glanced around as if wondering why she was the only one raising her voice. But Threyna understood why.

“I know you do not trust me. An Undergrounder. A saboteur. Many of you likely blame me for why you haven’t yet escaped these shores in the first place. And you are right. So I’ll ask again—not for you to join me—but for you to stay together, to fight for each other in resisting them. Will you fight for each other? Will you stand together?”

The Wraith nodded, beginning to rally to her words, but Threyna was out of time. The Skeleton King’s outstretched hand awaited an answer. She met the man who had single-handedly ruined three generations of Rheynia.

“No, I won’t join you. I’d rather hollow in the Gullies, burn in the Scorch Lands, or drown in the Grotto. I’d rather live and fight, try and fail, die and suffer than submit to your idea of peace.”

The Skeleton King’s hand fell to his side. His twisted grin flattened to a hard line. “You will serve.”

Darklings poured from his chest and swarmed around her. Scores, hundreds, too many to count or even comprehend. The Skeleton King reforged his wings and scythe and took flight as the world beyond her eyes began to fade away in lieu of the chaos devastating her Inner Throne.

He’s going after Laela and the rest of the Wraith.

But there was nothing she could do to help them. Black souls, as dark and twisted as a Dreadroot’s vines, zipped around her Inner Throne. The gathered Wraith formed a circle around her throne to defend her from the incoming attack, and though they didn’t break, there were too many darklings to stop them all.

A calamity of emotions flooded her Inner Throne as the souls attempted to rip her off her seat of power and seize it for themselves. Threyna sank deeper, inviting their attack. She felt their assault on her emotions, their invasion of her thoughts and memories, but she held up her walls.

Resisting their grasp, she glimpsed their own thoughts, emotions, and memories as they tried and failed to take control of her mind palace. Legionaries who died in service, Justicus who fell to hollowed, hollowed who’d been burned out by Tellers, citizens who’d died of dewskull, starvation, or disease under the Dominion’s protection—all presented the same fear, the same desperation to be valued.

“If I deliver her to the Skeleton King, he’ll reward me,” a former legionary thought.

“Take her. The One True God will spare me. I just have to take her,” another believed.

Every soul vying for her body wanted her for the same reasons, not because they wanted to, but because they feared what would happen if they failed. Their fear was brittle in the face of her resolve. Strengthened by the Wraith supporting her, Threyna rebuffed their attempts at control.

“You can’t win,” Threyna shouted, her words echoing off the walls of her throne room. The swirling souls clawing their way toward her slowed. “You won’t. But let me ask you this… do you even want to?”

“You will serve!” a Justicus shouted. “All must serve.”

“That’s what the Skeleton King wants,” Threyna said. “That’s what his One True God wants. What do you want?”

Threyna drew the Justicus in closer, connecting herself to his painful past. His family suffered when he was a boy. His parents hollowed. His brother and sister died of dewskull. His uncle trained him to be chosen by the Order so that he could serve and defend the people from the darklings and hollowed that suffered his family. But after he’d perished in his service, he’d been vortexed from his hollowed form and kept in a soul jar. Then he’d been consumed and stored by the Skeleton King and finally learned the truth; he’d never truly served a cause that the Skeleton King couldn’t solve himself. His parents hollowed, his siblings died of an ailment that had an easy cure, and he died risking his life to cull the hollowed. A job the Skeleton King could have done across the whole country before the midday rains.

Threyna felt his wants bubble to the surface of his essence. “You want to see your family again. You want to believe there is an afterlife beyond the curse.”

His soul stilled. His fight left him.

“Instead of fighting me,” Threyna continued, “instead of trying to take control of me for him, join us. Help us leave this place. I don’t know what awaits in the afterlife. I don’t know if the Savior will bring you to Neutreen, if Neutreen will grant you wings to ascend to Valencia, or if your suffering just ends, but I won’t hold you to source my power.”

Even the most aggressive souls vying for control over her Inner Throne slackened at that. As they acquiesced, the black vines wrapping around the columns or climbing the walls of her throne room began to recede. Those who weren’t fully convinced could be held in check by Aylenia and the other Wraith.

With her Inner Throne stable, and hundreds more on her side, she sank deeper into her Inner Throne than she ever had before. Power filled her. Flooded her. She opened her eyes to the beach before her. The Skeleton King had once again decimated the blood raft. Belrich and other Order reinforcements were returning to the beach, closing in on the Wraith, but even more were encroaching from Octarius. Bloody spires rose from the surf, ensnaring the rest of the Wraith and dangling them helplessly above the crashing waves. The Skeleton King held his hand out to Laela in much the same way he had to her moments ago.

She won’t join him. No one will.

“Aylenia,” Threyna said within her Inner Throne, “empty the dungeons.”

“What? Don’t you need them?”

“I do… but I won’t use them. Free them.”

Aylenia’s essence thrummed, pulsing with invigoration. “Always another fight, eh?”

With nothing left to lose, the words came easily. “Always another victory.”

Threyna reconjured her wings and flew towards the Skeleton King, dead set on his demise.

Laela

Laela’s conjured escape vessel crumbled to ash only to be tossed by the rolling waves. The Wraith fell into the breakers yet again. Even though they resurfaced, their hopes did not. Further up the beach, the Skeleton King flew towards them on bloodborne wings, leaving Threyna standing motionless in his wake.

The Skeleton King had unleashed an army of darklings on Threyna. Who could hope to stand against such odds? Despite all their efforts, their resilience, they had fallen short again.

A tide of black uniforms surged down the steppe and onto the beach as if their defeat wasn’t apparent enough. Belrich led at the front of the reinforcements, his presence a harbinger of her doom, and an insult to the injury of her failings.

“Seize hold of yourselves,” Laela shouted to the Wraith. Despite the futility of their predicament, they listened, coming close to crowd around her. “This may be our end, but Neutreen is watching. She sees. She knows.” Laela wasn’t even certain she believed it. But in spite of her doubt, she wanted to believe it more than ever. “Do not forsake her. Do not forsake each other. We will stand. We will fight until the last.” She forged a bloody sword to take up arms against the encroaching Skeleton King. “Because if we do not even try, then we have already lost.”

She turned to face the Skeleton King, Canton and Dracus coming alongside her. The Skeleton King was close enough that she could see the blue of his deep-set eyes.

“I love you, kid,” Dracus said to Canton. “Had a good run, eh?”

“One for the songs,” Canton agreed. “Too bad no one will be left to sing it.”

“Then we sing it with our dying breath,” Laela said. Her throat constricted as the scent of ashes filled her nostrils. The scar across her chest burned with the inevitability of what was about to happen. She gripped her blood-forged sword and leveled it at the approaching Skeleton King. But her sword point blew away in the wind. Down the bevel of the blade, the length of the sword dematerialized until her fingers curled around empty air.

Tall spires rose around her like twisting trees, seizing Canton, Dracus and the others and thrusting them into the air. Everyone but her hung suspended, screaming. Water dripped from their wet clothes to rain down upon her.

Her breath caught as the Skeleton King drew close. His quaking presence thundered throughout her Center of Silence, shattering any semblance of tranquility. Threyna was right; they never stood a chance. He was absolute in his power, indomitable in his might. She would have been in awe if not for the fear that rattled through her empty fingers.

“Laela Velar…” The Skeleton King’s thin lips never moved, but his voice echoed throughout her Center of Silence. “You and I, we want the same thi—”

“Do not even try,” Laela snapped despite her fear. Be strong. Be courageous. She recalled her mother seizing the Dawnshards from Threyna before running toward the Order’s Justicus in the bog. “I will not—we will not join you willingly.” Resolve anchored her tone with each passing word. She would not fall victim to this monster. “So do what you came here to do. But know this—someone, someday, will stop you. Neutreen take you and your One True God!”

The Skeleton King treated her with a smile that perhaps once might have been handsome, but his sallow complexion, drawn features, and the skin sloughing off his cheek made his genial expression grotesque. He fixed her with his cruel stare, as if waiting for her to continue, but when she said nothing else, he stalked closer.

“Neutreen is dead.”

The quaking reverberations exerted pressure onto her Center of Silence until visions or memories not her own flooded her mind’s eye. A blindfolded woman sat before a slightly unbalanced scale with a feather on one side and a cerulean and viridian liquid on the other.

Ghosts… it’s Neutreen.

In all of her majesty, the Goddess of Justice prepared to judge an incomplete soul. Neutreen, however, gently pressed her finger down on the feather’s side of the scale, balancing the soul’s weight versus the feather’s.

The tranquility of the moment fractured as the vision rippled. Neutreen had fallen to the floor. Her blindfold had been removed. She stared blankly upwards, eyes wide, mouth agape. The hilt of a red dagger, coursing with forking black lightning similar to the bracelet around Laela’s wrist, stuck out of Neutreen’s chest.

“No…”

“Yes.” The Skeleton King’s voice echoed through her Center of Silence. “Neutreen is dead. Killed in Valencia by the One True God. You may flee this land, and you can search far and wide, but nowhere will she greet you. Nowhere will she bestow you wings to ascend to Valencia. I am your hope for salvation. I am your path to the peace of Valencia.” The Skeleton King spoke softly with a tenderness reserved for a mother to her child.

“You have served Neutreen all your life to help others earn their wings. I am not asking you to do something you do not want. As I said, Laela, we want the same thing—to lead people to peace.” There was a pleading earnestness in his tone. He believed what he was saying. But Laela didn’t. She refused to accept it. “Join me. Aid me in delivering others to that peac—”

A bloody spear erupted through Skeleton King’s chest, and he roared in pain. Behind him, Threyna screamed, ripping her glaive free to stab again. The Skeleton King spun, a sickle forming in his hand as he slashed at Threyna. Her glaive fell to ashes, but so too did the Skeleton King’s spires constricting the rest of the Wraith, lowering them to the shallow breakers.

“Impossible!” the Skeleton King screamed.

Laela didn’t know how, but Threyna had overcome the darklings the Skeleton King had sent into her. Despite being stabbed through the back and out the front of his chest, the Skeleton King’s wounds were already restitching themselves. He turned on Threyna, and the two began a dance of ever-conjuring and failing bloodspawns.

Hope restored but with Belrich and Order legionaries storming towards them, Laela was faced with a choice: fight or flee? Many and more legionaries would be sweeping down the steppe and onto the beach, and with Threyna preoccupying the Skeleton King, they might just be able to escape. But if she did, she was forsaking Threyna. Again.

Laela blocked out the battling blood mages, the charging legionaries, and the terrified Wraith to focus deep within her Center of Silence. Rage rumbled with the rhythm of her own heartbeat—a steady, building throb like a war drum’s bellow. She sank deeper into that pulse, adding it to the timid heartbeats of the Wraith behind her. Join me. Fight with me. Fight with her. We fight together. We leave together. Be strong. Be courageous. She turned to face the Wraith trembling and wet. But from her Center of Silence, she forged blood-spawned blades into each of their hands.

“We fight!” Laela shouted. Canton took up the call, and soon others did too.

Fear remained, but the desire to live and the dream of freedom overcame their fear. It took the same effort of forging a boat large enough to carry them away, but with everyone armed, Laela forged a two-handed great sword of her own.

The Order neared with Belrich leading the charge, hellbent on delivering death. Whether or not the Skeleton King’s vision was true, whether Neutreen was still out there or truly gone, Laela took solace in the virtues she’d learned from Neutreen. She would fight for justice. She would die for it.

The war drum of her heartbeat reverberated from her Inner Throne to the people behind her. Laela raised her sword to the gray skies over Rheynia. “For Neutreen!” She charged at Belrich.

Dracus

The salt water invading his open wounds called him to the hollow abyss. If not for Canton’s support, the lapping waves and undercurrent would have dragged him to a watery grave, yet here he stood. On the shores of a cursed island with a blood-forged sword in hand, arm in arm with the boy he’d have done anything to save, he stared out to the breakers beyond.

Not yet.

Laela and the others charged ahead to meet Belrich and the Order’s reinforcements. Threyna waged war with the Skeleton King a short distance away. Canton cupped his free hand behind Dracus’s neck. He was speaking to Dracus. His lips moved with urgency. His eyes darted between Dracus and the battle blossoming around them.

Dracus felt the pain slipping away. The empty numbness held him in its tender grip. The world went dark. He wasn’t sure if he’d sunk to the ocean’s depths or simply just closed his eyes too long. He should have felt the cold water lapping at his legs, the stinging of steel’s kiss, the burning of salt in his cuts.

Nothing.

He should have heard Canton’s voice, the clashing steel, the crashing waves.

Nothing.

Apologies, Old Boy. So close.

“Dracus!” Canton’s voice felt far away, as if he’d stored a shout in a fatekeeper and it had decayed over time. His shoulders shook. He opened his eyes to find Canton jostling him. Before he knew it, he was being dragged through the water. A blink later and he was on his back, staring at the sky. He didn’t even feel the pain left behind by the Vendetta daggers. He was fading. Hollowing.

Let go, my love. Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.

“Dracus, hold on!” Canton shouted. “Do not let go. Do not!” Tears streaked down the boy’s face. He glanced up from Dracus to the battle raging nearby. “Don’t give up. There’s still hope.” He forced something into Dracus’s hand and disappeared.

The world went black. Another blink. He wanted to move, wanted to fight, but more than anything, he just wanted to feel. Empty, numb, lost—had he ever felt whole? Had he ever allowed himself to feel anything but guilt and shame?

Canton is fightin’ right now. Laela and Threyna, too. Yer jus’ lyin’ here. The thought should have evoked guilt and shame, but he felt insulated from it, protected by the heavy, paralyzing blanket of hopelessness.

Get up, ya mean bastard.

Lacius took his punishment. Arenius screamed as he burned in Arilette’s fires. Rance told them to leave him behind in the tunnels outside of Avengard. Fawkes attempted to caress Dracus’s cheek.

“Not here,” Fawkes had said in his last moments. “True death. Out there. Together.”

Pain washed over him. The shame of trying so hard only to fall just short. The guilt of keeping Fawkes trapped inside a soul jar just out of reach of the curse’s barrier.

Dracus glanced down at what Canton had shoved into his hands. Fang. The simple unadorned dagger that had followed him across Rheynia felt right in his grip. It was meant for traitors.

Belrich. Bohen.

Dracus rolled onto his side and sank into the pain that accompanied the movement. It grounded him in reality, anchoring his soul to his body and purpose to his action. He staggered to his feet, squishing in the wet sand. Laela fought Belrich and a half dozen other legionaries, bodies littering the ground around her. Threyna continued to go toe to toe with the Skeleton King in a storm of blood-conjured weapons. Canton slipped between two legionaries, slashing with a blood-conjured sword in one hand and an Order short sword in the other.

Dracus squeezed Fang’s hilt, ready to give its blade one last taste of blood. Not yet, Old Boy. Not yet. He charged into the fray.

Laela

Blood—sweet, sticky, powerful blood dripped down her fingers after she buried her conjured blade through a legionary’s chest. She ripped it free and kicked the failing body away, just in time to deflect Belrich’s next thrust.

The shade slipped free of its former shell, but Laela had no time to consider how Threyna went about consuming it to abate the rot. Already, black veins were streaking up her arm to her elbow, but the blood artifact gave no indication of helping her as it had when it healed her wounds after latching on.

She turned aside a stabbing short sword and barely dodged out of the way of a glowing white spear tip. One of the Underground’s reaping spears. Intent on keeping her soul whole and within her body, she positioned herself to put as many people as possible between her and the spearman. Seeing easier targets, he plunged his spear into the back of the nearest Wraith.

The woman didn’t clutch her chest where the spear protruded through; she just fell to the sand—lifeless. Soulless. Fury boiled within Laela. Such technology could have completed the Purge, could have eradicated the hollowed, but instead it was turned on the living—first by the Underground, now by the Order.

Laela seized control of the woman’s fallen blood-conjured sword and shaped the scarlet that drenched her light gray tunic. Shaping it into a spear, Laela directed it at the spearman’s chest. He ducked. Wrong move. The spear lanced through his face, taking him off his feet.

She spun, sweeping her blood-forged blade in a giant arc to keep the Order’s superior numbers at bay. It was difficult to keep her balance on the wet sand as the tides rolled in. The cold seeped into her toes as each wave ripped back out to sea, carrying the sand beneath her feet with it.

Belrich countered at the same time as another legionary struck. Not having time to block both, Laela sank deeper into her Center of Silence and brought up her arm to block. A bloody carapace sprouted along her forearm like an Inquisitor’s heavy bracer. Belrich’s steel careened off her conjured armor, giving Laela the opportunity to press the legionary. She sliced at the flesh below his armored skirt and above his knee.

With the two-handed sword unwieldy in her one hand, she commanded it to shrink to a short sword. Rearing, she thrust it into the legionary’s gut. She drove him back, turning with him to use his body as a dying shield. Belrich chopped down at them both, uncaring who fell in his path.

He just wants the blood artifact.

She shoved the legionary into Belrich and slashed at another, felling him with two short swipes. He dropped with a splash, disappearing into the shallows, but for every one that fell, two more came. And beyond the steppe, more were marching on the beach. As it was, bodies already littered the shoreline as the tide crept in to drag them out to sea. Though many wore Order blacks, too many were her own people. But if they didn’t fight, didn’t die in battle, they would be impaled in their surrender. Laela ignored the screams of the dying, pushed past the war waging between Threyna and the Skeleton King, and charged between three legionaries surrounding Canton.

She skewered one through the back of the knee, then ripped another down to the ground by the back of his cuirass. Canton stabbed down at the second man, allowing Laela to finish her fallen foe. The third set in on Canton. He twisted to block the first strike, lurched out of the way of the second, but he was in no position to block the third.

Laela jumped forward, closing the distance and slashing upward to catch the legionary’s strike before it found Canton. She blocked. Canton repositioned and thrust his blade through the legionary’s throat.

Before she could turn, a sinister rhythm within her Center of Silence blared. She ducked. A whoosh slashed just over her head and past her ear. She spun and thrust. But too late.

Belrich’s backhanded chop took her in the forearm.

Laela blinked. Crimson, streaked black, filled her vision. Two white bones protruded from her forearm where her hand should have been. It, and the bracelet that had chosen her, fell to the rising tides. Her held sword dissolved to ash as her bloody hand floated in the rolling surf.

Panicked, Laela reached for her disembodied hand, but it was as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. The severed limb and the blood artifact attached to it toppled away and tumbled from sight in a wash of the bloody tide.

Dracus

Dracus drove Fang into the neck of a legionary with a reaping spear. With his free hand, he wrestled the spear away and flung it into the chest of another legionary. A scream he never wanted to hear cut through the noise of the battle.

“No!” Canton stabbed at Belrich, but Belrich was faster.

Belrich leaned away and riposted. His thrust took Canton through the chest. But as if something was more important, Belrich abandoned his sword, dropping to his knees to fumble in the bloody tide. Canton stumbled back, clutching the wound in his chest.

Dracus’s world fractured around him into a thousand broken dreams.

To dream is to die.

Reaching Sansia, growing old, dying a true death—every hope he’d had for the boy, every future he’d envisioned, they all fell to ashes.

To hope is to lie.

Dracus had lost Canton’s hope a decade ago. When Arenius burned in Arilette’s fires. When Theodyn declared himself Bherus Fayte and lost. When he’d brought that scared young girl back to Octarius for safety, only to deliver her into the hands of a monster as vicious and manipulative as the Skeleton King. When he’d swallowed that monster’s poison…

But despite Dracus’s numbed grief, Canton still believed, always daring to dream and fighting for hope. It was never Dracus’s hope. He’d never believed Canton’s dream was possible. An end to the Order. The defeat of the Skeleton King. But Threyna was standing toe to toe with the undying tyrant. Doomed as they were, outnumbered and overmatched by the Order, if Belrich and the Skeleton King fell, there would still be hope for the future. Perhaps not theirs, but that was Dracus’s dream, not Canton’s. And Canton’s dream was still possible.

Dracus charged at Belrich. Bowling over legionaries, ignoring their swords, and only stopping to deflect reaping spears from his path, Dracus fought through the fray. Belrich disappeared in the rushing tide and mess of legs as he crawled through the surf. Only the Blessing would make him behave in such a way, but Dracus wouldn’t let him have it.

Spotting Belrich slapping at the waves in an attempt to locate the blood artifact, Dracus shoved a legionary out of the way and slashed at Belrich’s back. Steel cleaved through leather armor, drawing a red comet across his back. Belrich roared, but before he could get up, Dracus thrust his blade through Belrich’s spine and deep into the sand, pinning him prone.

Belrich screamed, but the tide rolled in, drowning his cries for help. Dracus plunged Fang into his ribs again and again. One for Lacius who’d suffered for standing against tyranny. One for Decimus who had fallen victim to its propaganda. One for the young man Dracus had once been. Again and again, Dracus stabbed until he’d secured a thrust for Arenius, Bherus, Rance, and Canton.

But once he was done, the blood artifact was nowhere to be seen. Dracus cursed himself for letting it get away, but it was too late. If there’s any justice in this world, it will wash out to sea, sink to the abyss, and drown in the deep.

He abandoned Belrich and the cursed artifact he sought to pick up a fallen blade. Darklings and shades swirled all around, but through bodies and spirits, Dracus found Canton a short distance away. Few Wraith were left standing, but somehow, little remained of the first garrison of the Order’s reinforcements. But for as many that had fallen, more were coming.

He staggered through the mess of bodies and the rising tide towards Canton. The surf tossed his weakened body with each wave, but he was still alive, holding his chest. Laela fought with a blood-conjured hand to keep the remaining legionaries at bay.

A wave rolled over Canton, dropping him beneath the surface. Nearing, Dracus dropped to his knees at Canton’s side, scooping him out of the wake.

“Hang on, kid.” He flipped the switch on his vortex and reached for the soul jar containing Fawkes. “Just hang on.”

Laela fought with bloodborne swords, even after losing her hand and the blood artifact. Threyna and the Skeleton King both pulsed with power as they fought with blood-forged weapons. The cries of charging legionaries drew nearer, louder, but the blood leaking from Canton’s chest was the most immediate threat.

Canton placed his hand on Dracus’s, stopping him halfway through attaching the soul jar to the vortex. “No. Help them.”

Dracus didn’t believe his ears. He removed Canton’s hand from his own, but Canton recovered quickly despite the faraway gaze in his eyes.

Canton shook his head, his face pale, pupils dilated. “Fight. Win. We leave together.”

“Cant, we gotta—”

“I won’t hollow either,” Canton said. “We’ll go together. We’ll still be together. You, me, Fawkes…”

Dracus blinked, his breath caught. He chewed his mustache, tasting the blood and saltwater, but his mind struggled to process what Canton had said.

“I won’t hollow… either.”

How did he know? How long has he known?

The thoughts raced through his addled mind, but he couldn’t make sense of them.

“We leave together.” Canton’s weak hands shoved Dracus’s vortex away. He pointed toward Threyna and the Skeleton King. “Help her….”

Threyna

Threyna conjured a net and hurled it at the Skeleton King. He caught it in his scythe, but before he could dissolve it to ash, Threyna formed a bloody trident and flung it at him. The trident skewered his stomach, but fell to ashes almost immediately.

Threyna could taste his blood on the air—soiled, rotten, corrupted as it was, it was his, and she had drawn it. While he spent his souls licking his wounds, Threyna called upon the allies of her Inner Throne and the liberated former darklings of her Inner Dungeons. The tower of his seat of power was so close that she could almost reach out and touch it. Atop the tower guarded by circling darklings, a window blinked with the faint glow of radiant light.              

His Inner Dungeon—a tower cell under lock and key.

There was only one way to defeat the Skeleton King. She couldn’t supplant him from his Inner Throne, but she could liberate his tower prisoners. And if she did, who would source his power?

Within her Inner Throne, Threyna pointed to the Skeleton King’s tower. “Do you wish to escape this cursed land? That there is our weapon. Your people, your countrymen, your families, and friends. They are held prisoner within his tower. I would have them free. Will you join me?”

Her throne room echoed with the chants of believers as her heart thrummed with the faith of her followers. Through the fractured glass of her stained windows, Threyna led the charge with Aylenia following close behind. The Skeleton King stood before an altar at the base of the tower, but defying all laws of the material world, Threyna flew through the air, over and past him. Absent her bloodborne wings and with hundreds of screaming souls behind her, she ascended the sky, ignoring the Skeleton King and pursuing the souls trapped within his haunting tower.

“Get them!” the Skeleton King roared.

The darklings swarmed, forming a defensive perimeter around the window, but Threyna did not slow, did not bow, and would not break. She bowled through the darklings. They clung to her, attempting to impede her progress, but she cast them off. The candle cares not for the moth, and neither did she for their undying loyalty to the Skeleton King. They were not the ones she sought to save.

Her charging force stampeded over the darklings, and Threyna dove through the tower’s open window. While the rest of her souls contended with the Skeleton King’s darklings, Threyna and Aylenia prepared for a fight within the tower, but no one waited for them in the circular room. No one, but several wooden shelves. Threyna had never seen so much unrotted wood before, and there were rows of them—each stacked with glass soul jars bathing her in different shades of light. More lined the walls, climbing to the canopied ceiling. Thousands of souls. Each emitted a different hue of light. Some soul jars emitted a radiant white, others a dull gray hum. Some were filled with swirling black darklings begging to get out.

Glass… the first canister before soul jars. How long have these souls been trapped?

“Stop her!” the Skeleton King shouted, his voice rising above the battling souls outside.

He would come for her, so she needed to act quickly. Taking measure of the number of souls in need of freeing, Threyna charged past the shelves erected in the middle of the room, beckoning Aylenia to follow. “Help me free them.”

Together, she and the wisp of Aylenia shoved against the last row of shelves housing the glass soul jars. The wooden shelf groaned as it tilted. Glass soul jars rolled from their place on the shelf to crash to the ground, spraying glass across the floor and releasing shades and darklings into the air.

“Push!” Threyna shouted. The shelf fell to lean against the adjacent shelf. Another groan, another shattering of glass. One by one, the shelves fell into one another, releasing hundreds of souls into the tower. There was still another row of shelves, not to mention the ones lining the cylindrical walls, but darklings dove for her.

Their fear overwhelmed her. So long had they been trapped dating back as far as the War of the Seers half a century ago.

“I’m freeing you,” she said as they swarmed her. “So together, we can end him.”

Threyna let down her walls, allowing them access to her thoughts, emotions, and memories, letting them see and know for certain her intentions. It was dangerous, letting them in; at any point, they could turn on her and fight for the Skeleton King, but whether it was her willingness to be vulnerable or their hatred for the Skeleton King, their fears were quelled.

“It’s working!” Aylenia said.

The souls slipped away from her, unsure what to do if not intent on violence. Threyna had a job for them. “Open every soul jar. Let everyone out!”

She returned to the beach, standing before the Skeleton King. Despite being healed and whole, he screamed as souls erupted out of him. They didn’t dive into her as if under his control; they escaped into the air, free at last from their captivity.

The Skeleton King screamed aloud. He set his ghoulish gaze on her. “You meddle for the last time.”

He drew in breath to regather the souls she’d freed, but Threyna countered his current. With more souls fueling her power, her draw overcame the Skeleton King’s. The freed shades and darklings flowed towards her, practically willingly.

He still had his darklings to fuel him, but she could feel her abilities growing with each and every soul that poured into her. Flashes of their lives and deaths played before her mind’s eye. Pain and sorrow inflicted by or because of the Skeleton King’s reign made it easy for them to choose which side they were on. They were hers. They were united.

She felt two souls entwine within her Inner Throne.

“You can do this, Little Dove,” her father said.

“We can do this!” her mother corrected.

A cathartic flood washed over her, through her. Everything that had been robbed of her ten years ago at the Battle of the Cut, she would have back. She would take back.

We can do this.

Threyna attuned to the racing hearts of the bloodlusting legionaries, separating them from the remaining Wraith. She returned to her Inner Throne and sank into her seat of power. With a squeeze of her fist, dozens of hearts exploded, and the men they beat for fell to the sands.

The Skeleton King’s scythe returned. Blood-spawned daggers formed around her and dove like a swarm of birds pecking at the last seeds of grain. Threyna seized hold of some conjurations, dissipating them to ash while she conjured a curved shield to defend her other side. The daggers thudded into her shield. She brought it back around just in time to catch the Skeleton King’s swinging scythe. A spear rose from the ground to skewer her, but she lurched out of the way.

The Skeleton King continued his reckless advance, but black veins were streaking up from his neck to envelop his ghoulish face in dark rot. Threyna wouldn’t allow him to put her on the defensive. She charged in and thrust her glaive at him. He deflected it aside and ripped his scythe towards her. She ducked beneath it, reshaping her glaive and shield into a pair of short swords. Splashing through the bloody water, she stabbed at him. He attempted to make her conjurations fall to ash, but she resisted.

Deflecting the scythe’s blade and then a strike with the butt of the shaft, she twisted inside his defenses and stabbed. Her short sword took him through the gut. Not giving him time to counter, she thrust her second blade into his ribs.

He screamed, but as she retracted her first blade to strike again, something in the lapping waves seized her by the ankle. She staggered, but then it wrapped around her knee and twisted. She attempted to free herself, but he conjured grasping tentacles from the bloody water.

Attempting to seize control and make them disintegrate, Threyna met resistance. He’s using everything he has left to stop me. Threyna reared back to thrust with her short sword, but another tentacle seized her wrist. Then another grabbed her other arm.

The Skeleton King reared back his scythe, his features practically swallowed by the web of black veins. Threyna conjured a floating shield to intercept his strike, but something else made contact with it first.

Laela advanced, charging through the water with a sword raised in a bloody fist. Whatever she’d conjured to snare around the Skeleton King’s scythe rained to ashes, but before he could bring it around to strike again, Threyna freed herself from the tentacles and stepped inside the reach of the scythe. With one hand, she beat back the shaft, opening his guard. With the other, she stabbed him a third time, her bloodborne blade piercing his chest.

The Skeleton King staggered back, but Laela was on him. She swiped low at the back of his knees, dropping him to the rising tide. Threyna jabbed her other short sword into his chest, while Laela brought her blade around again to slash down on the space between the Skeleton King’s shoulder and neck.

His crown fell from his head, splashing into the sea. He swayed in the tides as his undying body, absent the souls to sustain itself any longer, clung to the last glimpses of life.

“Kill him,” Threyna’s father said from within her Inner Throne.

“End this,” their mother said.

Threyna let her conjured short swords fall to ash and unsheathed Pure and True. She tossed True to Laela. Catching it in her blood-conjured hand, Laela leveled it against the Skeleton King’s collarbone. “Divided, ruin will reign.”

Threyna placed Pure opposite Laela’s on the Skeleton King’s other shoulder. “Together, tyranny falls.”

“This does not end with me,” the Skeleton King said through weak, labored breaths. “The One True God does not give up so easily. All will bend. All will bow.”

An arcanatek whirred to motion as Dracus limped closer, leveling an irradiator at the Skeleton King. “Not today, darkling. Do it.”

Threyna and Laela plunged their daggers down and into the Skeleton King’s collarbones. Black blood dripped from torn sinew. His head toppled forwards, dragging his corpse into the tides.

As his darkling rose from his body, Dracus took aim. “Been savin’ these charges a long time.” The irradiator whined to a crescendo, and Dracus pulled the trigger. White light split the sky and burned a hole through the Skeleton King’s darkling, melting it into nothingness.

Cheers erupted within Threyna’s Inner Throne. She couldn’t believe it herself, but there was no time to process.

“We gotta get Canton beyond the curse,” Dracus said, barely able to stand himself.

Threyna never imagined herself leaving Rheynia; she wasn’t even sure that she wanted to. But she’d made a promise to the souls that helped her defeat the Skeleton King. That was the only peace they would receive. She owed them that.

“Get Canton,” Threyna said to Dracus, looking to the slowly approaching reserves from the battle of Octarius. She nodded at Laela. “Gather whoever is left of the Wraith, anyone still clinging to life. We can at least grant them a true death.”

Chapter 63: The Ones Who Matter

Dracus XVII

Threyna’s bloodborne longboat cut through the water, rising and falling with each wave. Every rhythmic swell beneath them beat like the heart that didn’t thud in his chest, but they all served as a sign of the cursed island fading into the distance and the curse’s barrier drawing closer.

Watching the Grip disappear into the night, Dracus held Canton to his chest—cold, barely breathing. Jus’ hold on, kid. Little longer. He wanted to let go too, but not yet. The wounds he’d accumulated over the past ten years were nothing compared to the ones he’d suffered in the past few days. The pain was his constant companion, his stabilizing reminder, but the abyss was as close to him as the churning waters beneath their blood boat.

He closed his eyes, hoping that those churning waters had swallowed the Blessing and buried it at the bottom of the sea. But that was out of his hands. Everything was. He’d done his part—succeeded in some efforts, failed in most. Yet as the end was drawing near, he found himself content, at peace with the notion that he, Fawkes, and Canton would all be together, with whatever awaited them.

He held Canton tighter. Just a little longer.

It wasn’t hard to block out the boat’s other passengers. There were few enough of them as it was. Most were consumed by Threyna, waiting to be released beyond the curse just as he was. Laela had offered to take him, but Dracus refused. He wanted Canton to die a true death, and he didn’t want the boy to face it alone.

A wave jarred the boat, and Canton stirred.

“It’s alright, kid.”

Canton grunted, his eyes barely open. “We did it?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. “Yeah, Cant. We got ‘em. Dead and gone. Both of ‘em.” At least he hoped so. Though the Skeleton King was gone for sure, he wasn’t certain what fate befell Belrich. He could have hollowed with Dracus’s sword through his back and Fang in his ribs as the tides rolled in. His shade could have slipped free to wander Rheynia. Or his darkling could have endured. Dracus didn’t want to think about it, and he certainly didn’t want to burden Canton’s conscience with it.

“We did it,” Canton said. “You, me, Fawkes… we’re leaving. Like you always wanted.”

Dracus forced a grin through his pain. It wasn’t what he’d always wanted, at least not how he’d pictured it. But those expectations had to die, and out here was as good a time as any to let them. Same as the questions he still had. Like how and when did Canton discover Dracus's condition? Was that why he didn’t want to leave—so they could be together? Did he wish to survive in Rheynia with Dracus rather than go to Sansia without him? But just like he had to hold his expectations up to the irradiator, he had to do the same with his soul jar filled with questions.

“Yeah, kid.” He patted the soul jar holding Fawkes. “Just like we planned, eh?”

“Not quite.” Canton grinned before he sputtered, blood dribbling from his lips. After he wheezed back to the closest thing the dying could have approaching comfort, he sank into Dracus’s embrace. “What’d Fawkes leave for you… in his fatekeeper?”

Dracus hmphed. Whatever secret wisdom Fawkes had bestowed in his fatekeeper, Dracus had lost when he opened it to unleash the Blessing. “Dunno. Old Boy can tell us himself on the other side.” He chuckled, despite the rattling pain it sent through his ribs.

He gazed at Laela clutching her bloody stump where her hand should have been. It wasn’t meant for her. Same way it wasn’t meant for Threyna. Now they would both have to bear the curse he’d unleashed on them. There was no telling what it would look like, living with such a condition beyond Rheynia, but he hoped that they would figure it out. Better yet if they could do it together.

“You never wrote me one,” Canton said.

Dracus chewed his mustache. “Wrote ya what—fatekeeper?”

“Yeah.”

Dracus shrugged, looking to the thinning clouds and the starry sky beyond. “Never wrote one for Fawkes either.”

“Why?”

Dracus snorted. In truth, he never knew what to say. “I love you.” “I’m proud.” “Why didn’tcha just listen to me, ghost damn ya!” He shrugged, glad he didn’t attempt to, because everything failed to articulate what he wanted to say. “Never had one from my folks. I dunno. Some things words fail to say. Sometimes they say too much and not enough at the same time.”

Canton stared at the sky, the stars reflecting in his bleary gaze. “Can you try?” His voice was so weak.

Dracus felt him slipping away. But just ahead, the sky was completely clear. Not a cloud marred the perfect horizon. It’s time. He repositioned Canton within his grasp and took hold of the soul jar that held Fawkes. He squeezed the switch, unlocking the soul jar. Fawkes’s shade slipped free, glowing like the luminescent starlight. The visage of the man he loved in life took shape before him. He stared back at Dracus, a hint of recognition flickering across his eyes.

Hoping Fawkes could hear, Dracus sang to them both. “To dream is to die. To hope is to lie. To live is to lose all we’ve come by. The lucky, we fall. And the misfortuned, we cry, but forever and ever it is we who survive. Let go, my love. Let go and see. Let go the woes and sing high for me.”

When he finished, both Fawkes and Canton stared back at him.

“What’s it mean?” Canton asked.

Dracus snorted. “See, pretty words ain’t all they’re made out to be.”

“What’s it mean?” Canton asked again, weaker this time.

Dracus took a deep breath, glancing over the bow of the ship at the clear sky ahead. “Means ya can’t control much of anythin’. It ain’t gonna be pretty. Nothin’s gonna go how ya planned. But wherever ya end up, it’ll have been worth it if you’re with the ones who matter.” He returned his gaze to Fawkes’s shade and gave Canton a squeeze. Then, all at once, all the pain was gone.

Chapter 64: Golden

Threyna XXVIII

The long boat split the seas, carrying the few that remained from Rheynia’s shores. Of their dozen occupants, half wouldn’t survive the trip. Dracus would never make it beyond the curse. She could feel the life fleeing from Canton with each passing beat of his heart. Others would have been better off if she had just taken their souls to ferry them from Rheynia and release them once past the barrier.

“I want to see the sky,” one woman said.

“Lemme die true,” another begged, dying on the sands. “Never truly got to live.”

Threyna understood. As badly as she felt for them, they were the lucky ones. As Rheynia faded into the distance, she didn’t look back. She couldn’t. Because far fewer were on the boat than on the Grip’s beaches or along the Tears’ currents. How many more were left along the Spine, fell outside of Aranoc, or never even made it out of Avengard? Too many corpses lay in their wake. And though the souls she’d consumed on the beach and taken from the Skeleton King’s possession were celebrating in her Inner Throne, there were many who didn’t make it.

Ebrus and Yevon. Rivich and Marius. Even Arilette and Lorath.

There would be no last words. No apologies to ease her conscience. No explanations to be shared to satiate theirs. She would be left with the mysteries that their souls took with them wherever they went after flesh had failed and spirit was spent. Threyna didn’t even know if they went anywhere after they were consumed.

Was there an afterlife? A peace past this mortal plane of existence, or a desolation beyond the reach of pain’s grasp. What future awaited Aylenia, her mother and father, or any of the other souls she carried? She kept those thoughts locked away from the souls of her Inner Throne. They didn’t need her doubt prior to their final voyage. Instead, she clung to the hope that reverberated through the walls of her Inner Throne.

The black rot that had spiraled around the columns in her throne room like corrupted vines had all but burned away in the wash of glowing souls. Their excitement grew the further from Rheynia they sailed. Long-lost souls reconnected, families thought lost reacquainted, and lovers mourned became enraptured in tender embraces once again.

It warmed Threyna’s heart to see. But too little. Too late.

She couldn’t decide which was a more painful place to be: present in her raucous Inner Throne that would soon be quiet and empty, or upon the sea where Dracus and Canton shared their last words before death took them both. Laela seemed absent, twisting True’s hilt within her palm as she stared at the stump where her hand should have been. Perhaps she too retreated into her pontifications to prevent herself from slipping into despondency. Or maybe she was already there.

Goodbyes were coming, something she’d never much enjoyed. But this approaching loneliness was not abandonment. Though it felt the same and brought on the same fears, she knew it was not the case. Not all goodbyes were abandonment. And not all separations were final. She chose to believe that one day she would greet them again in whatever came next. It wouldn’t be easy, but it allowed her to believe beyond her doubt—through her skepticism—that there was more to this life than pain and suffering and something more afterwards than the silence of death.

Aylenia approached her within her Inner Throne. “You did it.”

Threyna stood and hugged her. The embrace felt real, warm—as it had when they were bunkmates in Octarius’s barracks. She sank into her friend’s arms, wondering if anyone would quite accept her as she was the way Aylenia had.

“We did it,” Threyna said. “Couldn’t have done it without you. Without everyone.”

Aylenia grinned, shoving Threyna’s shoulder. “Don’t think I’d let you get away with taking all the credit.”

A sad smile parted her lips because this would be the last time she got to share one with Aylenia. She swallowed the knot stuck at the scar on her throat. “Are you scared?”

Aylenia pursed her lips before shaking her head. “No. Not really. Maybe I should be more so.” She shrugged. “But you should not fear for me.”

Threyna hung her head, unable to meet Aylenia’s eyes. What if I fear for myself? She kept her thoughts sealed, locked away from Aylenia and the others. She felt selfish for even thinking them as they were about to embark on the voyage of whatever came after, but she couldn’t help how she felt.

She didn’t know what to say next. She didn’t have Ebrus’s poetry or Yevon’s levity. Nor had she mastered Arilette’s matter-of-fact delivery of difficult news. In her pause, Aylenia spoke.

“You’ve been like a sister to me… And I mean that in a good way. Not in the way you’ve likely thought about it all these years.”

Threyna didn’t need an explanation. Despite their differences, Laela had been there when Threyna needed her most, and Threyna had done the same for her. They weren’t friends; perhaps they’d never be after all they’d been through. But they were sisters. They had a bond, and maybe that was all they needed. But Aylenia had been the sister she had chosen all these years.

“I never would have survived Octarius without you,” Threyna said. “I never would have survived the Grip without you…” She struggled not to choke on her words. How am I going to survive whatever comes next without you? She couldn’t bring herself to say that part.

“You would have found a way,” Aylenia said. “You always do.”

Part of her wanted to ask Aylenia to stay with her, to remain in her Inner Throne so they could face whatever came next together, but she couldn’t say that either. Would that she could keep everyone she hadn’t had enough time with; it just wasn’t how it was supposed to be. To keep them would be to bind them, deprive them of their journey for the sake of comforting herself. Still, she could not stave off the thought of the loneliness that would follow.

Surrounded by hundreds of souls, all she felt was the impending hollow reckoning that would come once they reached the edge of the curse.

Threyna sniffed. “If you find Eb, Yevon, Daeton, or Rivich out there…”

Aylenia placed her hand on Threyna’s shoulder. “I’ll tell Ebrus you always liked his poems—even the sappy ones. I’ll tell Yevon you appreciated his jokes even when you didn’t laugh. I’ll apologize to Daeton for you, but I already know he’s forgiven you. And Rivich… well, there’s not much pleasing Rivich, but I know he’ll be proud of what we did today.”

Threyna’s sad smile returned. “Ghosts… I miss them all. But I’ll miss you most.” She shook her head. “Is it crazy that I’m jealous of you?”

“Of course not,” Aylenia said, primping her wisps of curly hair. “There’s a lot to be jealous of.” She fixed Threyna with a serious expression, seizing her by both shoulders. “There’s more to life than the past. Whatever Gods I meet—Neutreen, the Corners… ghosts, even the ripping One—I’ll pray that they let you live for more than what is behind you. Because there is so much ahead.”

She looked to the starry sky ahead of their blood boat. “You know, beyond the curse, my mûnta said that the sun rises every day. Like a miracle born on the horizon, it paints everything black in glittering gold.” She stroked the scars along Threyna’s arm where the blood artifact had sunk its prongs into her and infected her with the black rot that marred her veins and darkened her soul. “You’re golden, Threyna. You haven’t felt the sun yet, but you will. And every day, it will give you something new to live for.”

Tears welled in Threyna’s eyes, and she sank back into Aylenia’s embrace.

“Looks like I learned something from Ebrus.” Aylenia laughed. Even Threyna allowed herself a soft chuckle.

Outside of her Inner Throne, the barrier drew nearer. She was running out of time. Laela stared out at the expanse ahead, a somberness wrinkling her green eyes. “I think Laela would want to see you… before you go.”

Aylenia gave Threyna one last squeeze before backing away. She nodded in the direction of Threyna’s parents as they approached, arm in arm. “I think you have more goodbyes to make in any case. One day, we’ll meet again. Under happier circumstances. But not for a long time yet. There’s always another fight ahead.”

“And many more victories.” She returned Aylenia’s smile, sad that she would have to win them on her own from now on. At her command, Aylenia faded from the marble throne room and passed the short distance across the blood boat from Threyna to Laela. Laela’s sullen cheeks suddenly rounded into the fullness of a smile. The sight brought a sorrowful grin to Threyna’s lips. She felt the weight of the pouch of Viridite glowstones Aylenia had given her.

“You never know when you’ll need a bit of light,” Aylenia had said.

Threyna was glad she had them now.

Back within her Inner Throne, her parents approached her.

“Little Dove,” her father said, his face whole again, as she remembered him before the Battle of the Cut. He wrapped her in an embrace, the kind she’d longed for since Arilette first told her that he was still alive.

She clung to him as she’d done before the Battle of the Cut ten years ago. Then, she’d thought he’d be coming back. This time, she knew he wouldn’t be.

“Father, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.”

“I know,” he said, not letting her go and squeezing tighter. “I know. None of this went as it should have. Best-laid plans. Ashes.” He stroked her arm where the prongs had bitten into her. “I never wanted this for you. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but there is peace to be found in this world.” He released her to wrap his arm around her mother. “Peace, love, hope, purpose. You will find them all.”

The fast-approaching emptiness hollowed out her insides. There was a lifetime of parental wisdom she wanted—needed—for her lonely journey ahead. There were so many questions to ask and not enough time.“What if I can’t find them? Any of them?”

“You will. But once you do, you can’t be afraid to fight for them.”

Threyna wrapped her arms around both of them. Soft sobs rattled her ribs. She wasn’t ready to let go of them. This was all she had wanted as a girl, for them to be together, and now they were finally united only to be ripped apart again.

Her mother shushed her soothingly. “You will, Threyna. But it’s out there…” She pointed to the world beyond the stained-glass windows of her throne room. “In here…” She placed her hand over Threyna’s heart, then shook her head. “But it’s not back where you’ve been. It’s not us. We’re sorry you didn’t have the childhood you should have. We can’t make up for that. But I promise you, Threyna, you will know peace. And in it, I hope you can forgive us our failings.”

Threyna wanted to be angry with Arilette for turning her against her mother, but the spike of rage subsided in the arms of her parents. She imagined what life could have been like if things had been different. If they had sailed on Arenius’s ships, if they had made it to Sansia as a family. But wishes and wants wouldn’t turn back time, and what-ifs were reserved for those trapped in the past.

“I will,” Threyna said. She didn’t know how or when she’d find this peace her father spoke of. But she wouldn’t give up on seeking it. She’d fight for it. She’d run towards it.

The clouds over Rheynia’s waters thinned, and just ahead, only clear skies remained.

It’s almost time.

Dracus, Canton, and Fawkes’s shade nestled together in their final goodbyes. Laela and Aylenia made peace with their truncated future, tears falling from Laela’s full cheeks. The others aboard the boat either comforted their loved ones or stared eagerly ahead to the starry sky on the horizon.

“Go forth,” her father said. “Wherever we go, you will be with us, and we will be with you.”

Chapter 65: Live

Laela XXV

Silence permeated both in and outside her seat of power. She felt the sea sloshing beneath Threyna’s conjured boat, the breeze whipping her loose braid, and the throb of phantom pain where her severed hand should have been, but everything else seemed at rest. Not a peaceful, slumbering rest, but a dark disquiet.

Part of her wished the old stories of the carnivorous, shelled Aeritan beasts would hold some truth as they set out from the Grip. Well past Aeritan Bay, no sea monsters had disturbed their passage. Like so many lies she’d been led to believe, it seemed these too held no weight.

Even her father was silent. He had been since the bracelet formed around her wrist. She’d let down her walls. She’d accepted the Blessing. She’d fought. But now the blood artifact was gone. So was her father. And left in their wake, the eerie silence clung to her as tightly as her wet and bloodstained tunic, and as heavily as her broken heart weighed down their supposed victory.

This wasn’t the dream she’d pictured when Rance spoke of freedom beyond the curse. This wasn’t the celebratory flight from Rheynia’s shores her mother had promised. It wasn’t anything like the stories where the heroes triumphed over the villains and all lived happily ever after. This was the cost of victory, the price for life in a dark and harrowing world.

Laela alternated between hanging her head and staring into the waiting abyss. She didn’t look back, though. Dracus had said the sea swallowed the Blessing along with Belrich’s blood and the Skeleton King’s corpse. The Order would be no more. The people would be free to make their choices on whether they stayed and rebuilt or sought to leave.

Once, Laela thought it her purpose to bring people beyond Rheynia’s shores, to usher them to safety under Neutreen’s wings. She didn’t know if what the Skeleton King had shown her was true—that Neutreen was killed at the hands of the One True God. Wherever they were going, Sansia or beyond, there would be no shrines to Neutreen, and she wasn’t sure that there should be. There were too few of them to build a new bastion of hope, and even if there were more of them, Laela would still have to be the leader of Neutreen’s revival movement.

I lack the faith.

In a more recent dream of the future, she’d imagined her and Aylenia traveling the lands in search of her mûnta. Perhaps it was foolish to even think of. They barely knew each other, yet the prospect of adventuring, seeing the world, being responsible for no one but herself—it was too enticing to deny. To do so with a woman she felt an undeniable connection with, that made it all the more attractive. But that future was gone now too.

Absent the hope of faith, the love of friends and family, what was there to build a life upon? Strength and courage could only get her so far absent hope and love.

She stared at her severed wrist and the black veins snaking up her forearm. She conjured a bloody hand, just to feel whole, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Neither did True. The dagger Theodyn had given her had seen too many lies to stand for anything solid. They were leaving the curse, doing everything she’d dreamed of. But Redge, Bhen, and Asla were still on the Grip’s beaches. Rosler and Taggart were left impaled on pikes. And Aylenia…

She’d failed Rance, lost her mother, betrayed her sister, been betrayed by Tarus, but it was Aylenia’s loss she felt most keenly of all. Impaled on the steppe—so far from Sansia, her mûnta, or the dreams she had.

Laela didn’t know what became of the souls they’d inhaled. Their curse was a mystery to her. It had served its purpose—she, Threyna, and a clutch of others would arrive on the beaches of Sansia; Dracus, Canton, Fawkes and those bound for the afterlife would receive true deaths beyond the curse. She told herself it was worth it, but despite holding True in her remaining hand, she wasn’t certain she was being honest with herself.

The waves tossed beneath her, creating more space between her and Rheynia’s dread, but the curse would come with her. This painful ordeal, this horrific past would cling to her and flow through her. The bloodborne hand on her severed wrist was proof of that.

She glanced at Threyna, her eyes glazed over, preoccupied with her own inward thoughts. Maybe we’ll find a cure… She considered that future. The prospect of traveling with Threyna, even after this newfound understanding of each other, wasn’t exactly enticing. She never planned on leaving Rheynia. She never dreamed of rebuilding. All she has known is war, fighting. Would she care about a cure? Would she even want to travel with me?

They shared blood and trauma, but was that a reason to stay together? Would that bond only serve to grate the wounds between them? Laela didn’t know, but the future would soon be upon them.

As the clouds over Rheynia thinned and the starry sky beyond began to abound, a silvery wisp slipped free of Threyna and swirled with the winds toward Laela. A momentary fear startled her, but as the soul slipped into Laela’s Center of Silence, the fear became an exposed timidity, then genuine happiness.

A vibrant resonance hummed a sweet song of strength and beauty in the darkness of her Center of Silence, a combination she recognized immediately though she’d never truly known.

“Usually, I offer a girl some Valefyre first…” Aylenia said, her rhythm pleasantly disturbing the quiet through the darkness.

“Aylenia…” The resonance her name made within her Center of Silence was more beautiful than the starry skies beyond the clouds. Their thoughts, emotions, and memories came together but didn’t touch, as if there were an invisible boundary between them. For years, she’d kept her father at a distance, but now, with Aylenia so close, her mother’s words returned to her.

“There is strength in knowing when to drop your guard and courage in actually doing so.”

A momentary panic filled her at the prospect of such vulnerability, but Laela refused to let anyone keep her hurting. With strength and courage, she allowed herself to submit, releasing hold of the apprehensive walls that she’d put up to protect herself.

No longer separated, their souls entwined. A deep knowing connected them in a way Laela had never experienced before—a level of intimacy she never thought possible. The same wondrous dreams that Laela felt silly for considering flowed through Aylenia’s spirit as well.

“I would have enjoyed that future,” Aylenia said softly, seeing her dreams of Sansia.

“Can we not still?” Laela asked, not too proud of how desperate she sounded. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to wander Sansia and the world beyond alone.

Aylenia’s essence caressed her own with tender affection. “Can you think of a greater torture—to be together, but never truly together?”

She found herself thinking of Aylenia being impaled by the spear atop the steppe.

“Don’t think about that,” Aylenia said.

Her thoughts turned to what would happen to Aylenia once they crossed the barrier and she released her from the safety of her Center of Silence. Will she ascend to Valencia? Will she simply cease to be as if she never existed at all?

“Don’t think about that either,” Aylenia said, drawing like a salve on her poisonous thoughts. “Be with me here, now.”

Laela tried to focus, but the moment was too painful. Her mind wandered; her emotions warred, tossing and turning like the breakers along the shore. “What am I supposed to do, Aylenia?” She didn’t feel strong or courageous. Since departing Rheynia, no swell of pride or sense of accomplishment quelled the rising tides of failure and loss growing within her. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Aylenia’s rhythm changed until her vibrations opposed Laela’s, canceling them out and returning silence to their shared space. A calmness washed over her, a peace she’d seldom felt even at the foot of Neutreen’s altar.

“You live,” Aylenia said with the assurance of someone who held all the answers. “You live for those of us who can’t.”

“How can you be so calm? What about you?”

Aylenia’s thoughts drifted, revealing to Laela stories her mûnta had shared with her about the isles of Palogia. The crystal-clear waters surrounding Kataan’s four main islands, the trials held to beseech the Corners’s blessings, the Lanaen pirates they all feared—it was so vivid in Aylenia’s mind that it became real in Laela’s.

“There will always be something to fear, Laela. I’ve seen enough Gods and learned enough religions to trust that there must be something more. Whatever it is, soon I will meet it. But fearing it won’t change it. It’d only change me for the worse. So do not fear what happens next, because I would hate for you to change.” Aylenia’s rhythm encompassed Laela’s to create a harmonious syncopation that steadied her soul.

Outside of her Center of Silence, the clouds had faded in favor of the starry sky. It was time. Dracus’s and Canton’s souls slipped from their failing bodies. Entwining with Fawkes’s shade, the three became orbs of light of different hues. Laela couldn’t discern which was which, but they ascended into the sky together, leaving a trail of braided light in their wake.

“See,” Aylenia said. “Don’t they look like they have a place to go?”

The others loaded onto the boat to die beyond the curse fled their flesh to ascend in light to the world beyond the stars.

A tear came to Laela’s eyes. We never needed to earn our wings. Suddenly, the Four Tenets of Elysianism felt flimsy. Merit, Modesty, Measure, and Moderation—four means to ensure obedience, resource management, dynastic stability, elitism amongst the Dominion, and repression for all that sought to rise above their station. As more souls took to the skies, questions abounded: Was it always so? Did the Order manipulate the Tenets? Did Neutreen ever grant people their wings?

As her foundation fractured, so too did her fears. Perhaps Neutreen was gone. Perhaps the One did in fact murder her. But there was still someone, something, watching over all.

Hundreds upon hundreds of souls streamed from Threyna’s chest and rose to the stars like the tendrils of smoke Laela once relied on to carry her prayers to Neutreen.

“I hope it’s beautiful,” Laela said, gazing at the rising lights and the starry sky they ascended to.

“It must be,” Aylenia said. “If it’s this stunning from here, how much more so must it be up close?”

Souls continued to spill from Threyna, some of which began to swirl around Laela before taking their voyage to Valencia. Up close, she saw through their light to the faces they wore in life. Bhen and Asla danced around her prior to taking flight. Redge lingered, swirling atop her shoulders before joining them on the trip to the stars. Lastly, two more souls encircled her. Theodyn, the man who’d loved her as a daughter more than her own father ever could. And her mother. Her light shone so brightly. No longer timid or frail as Laela had seen her in life, she was the epitome of strength and courage. She defied the night, bathing the entire boat in her aura.

Her mother’s light came close. “I love you, Laela.”

She could have sworn she felt a kiss on her cheek. Real or imagined, she knew what she heard, knew how it made her feel. Watching her mother and Theodyn entwine as they sailed through the sky, Laela began to believe that somehow, some way, eventually, everything would all be fine.

“One day, I’ll join you,” Laela said to Aylenia.

“Not for a long time yet, I hope.” Aylenia slipped free of Laela’s Center of Silence, her orb of light shining before her. Tender pressure caressed her cheek. Then, with more force, but no less tender, soft lips pressed against her own. “Farewell, Laela.”

And just like that, she too joined the rising lights.

Together, Laela and Threyna stood in awe. As like so many times in their lives before, they watched a thousand embers climb into the sky. But on this occasion, no ashes rained down. No smoke soiled the air as it rose. Only light. And across the horizon, bathed in the glow of the ascending souls, the first glimpse of land jutted out from the sea. A new life. A new home. Hope.

Epilogue

Cold rips through me. Soft, supple, beautiful numbness lingers just beyond my grasp, leaving me in lonesome agony. If I could just reach out, if I could but move, all of life’s riches would be at my fingertips. But alas, I am left empty-handed in this cold, dark, cruel world.

Wind washes over me, racking me with a chill that starts at the top of my skull and slithers down my spine to follow my ribs’ contour. I cough violently, but new pain throttles my existence. I eject whatever foul brine and blood found its way inside my lungs, but it’s thrown back in my face by a powerful rush.

I turn from the sound, but too late, and I can’t move far enough. Salt burns my eyes and stings my soul as the ocean’s wrath lashes out against me only to retreat, carrying with it a distant memory of power’s origin. The Blessing and the bloody hand it clung to fell to the surf. It tossed and turned in the waves, suspended between time and space, between destiny and doom. In my mind’s eye, I reach for it again, only to be struck in the back. I feel the blade spear me through and through. Before I can lament the irony of falling to the demise of my preferred form of sentencing, I’m met with an onslaught of dagger’s kisses. Pecking at me like crows to a corpse, they ensure I will not rise.

I remember watching the tide draw the blood from my body, pulling the very life from me in slow recurring torment. I remember the cries of my men. The screams of my father. I recall losing myself in the abyss as the world went black.

So why am I still here?

I push myself up by pressing my hands into the wet sand of the vicious sea, but I’m impaled anew. Out of the corner of my eye, the hilt protrudes from the center of my back. I curse the world for birthing me to a hollowed mother. I swear by the One that no gift he could bestow would be worth the demands he’d made of me and my family.

I prop myself up to sit on my knees, unsure if I’m alive or hollowed. Staring at the sword point erupting through my stomach, I try to seize the flat of the blade and press it out my back. My trembling fingers are incapable of the task. I try to reach for the hilt by wrenching my arm behind my back, and though I can touch it, I don’t have the strength or the angle to pry it free.

I breathe as deeply as my torn flesh will allow, preparing to do what must be done if I am going to survive this newest calamity. I use the tips of my fingers to press the blade’s tip back through my torso. My fingers, soft and pruned by the sea, bleed as if I haven’t sacrificed enough. I try to clench my chattering teeth through the pain, but my jaw refuses to obey me. Powerless, I persevere. I continue to press into the blade despite the gash along my fingers and the agony of feeling the blade slide out my back.

Yet I have to press deeper. My shaking, bloody fingers slip through the leather of my armor, between the folds of the open wound in my abdomen, and into the warm sinew in an attempt to force the blade free. The touch of my own fingers inside my guts is enough to die for. If that isn’t bad enough, the warmth of my blood burns my freezing hands, but I continue. I push. I scream. I endure what my mother must have in bringing me into this world, but once the blade slips free and falls to my heels, I am done.

I fall to my back and stare at the clouds overhead. My body feels afire now like the embers of the Wraith’s ship, which only makes me grateful for the cooling tides that climb the sands up to my hips.

I have never been one to count the time, to track the days and weeks, moons and years—it always seemed a fruitless endeavor because Father cared not for time. I believed his immortality would one day become my own, and I too would live and reign forever in service to the One True God. Yet now I stare at the sky and count each moment a blessing.

As I draw in breath, the air fogs before me, but with each labored inhale and every passing wave, I feel the pain lessen. Strength returns. Half-expecting a rageful hunger to consume me as I hollow, or my soul to slip free of this cage of a body, I remain intact. Whole if not for a headache that encircles my scalp. All things considered, I can manage a headache.

As feeling returns to my fingers, I place them to my stomach. They come away bloody, but there is no pain. I poke and prod, knowing now that I must be hollowed, yet I feel only a scar where the blade once was.

My One True God, you have spared me!

I drink in the air, filling my lungs to capacity, simply because I can. To have defied death, to have survived, I am elated. However, it is as ephemeral as mortality. The shoreline is littered with the bodies of my Inquisitors, my legionaries, and, worst of all, my father. I crawl to his side in the light of the smoldering ruin of the ship.

A million times I had pictured this: the Skeleton King dead at my hands. His power becoming mine. His mission, my own. Yet it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not to Bherus’s hellhound daughter. Not to a spawn of the Velar brood. And certainly not to Dracus ghosting Alius.

I sink to the sands as I wallow in my miserable failings. There is no telling what will come next in the wake of his death. The stories of the anarchy that ravaged Rheynia following the Disasters ruin my revival from the dead. I am not so young that I do not recall the War of the Seers, yet not so old as to have only watched the Artificers fall. A new war will come, yet for the first time in the better part of a century, there is no blood mage to determine its outcome.

I roll away from my father’s corpse, cursing him for letting Bherus make off with what should have been my birthright. Pressing myself to all fours as the tide rolls out beneath me, I feel something flop against my boot.

The ocean ebbs away, leaving a pool in its wake. As the water in the pool stills, I see something I thought lost to me. A pale hand. Five fingers, half closed like a claw. Laughter escapes me as I pluck it from its watery grave. Not because it is still the object of my desire, but because it isn’t. The Blessing is missing from its wrist. It is just a hand. And I am just a man holding it, wishing for more.

The tide rolls in again, and as it retreats, I cast the severed hand out with it. Yet as the water not swallowed by the sea begins to settle, I see my reflection.

Dark veins stretch down my forehead like black lightning. I blink, leaning closer to the pool. I don’t believe my eyes, but there it sits. Atop my head rests a red-and-black circlet.

The Blessing… the One True God provides.

My laughter roars to rival rolling thunder. My glee writhes within me like tongues of fire. Purpose blossoms, plans form, and I laugh knowing I will be better than my father ever was, than my brother ever could have been.

“I will unite the world for you. I will be your Champion!”

To be continued in:

A VENGEFUL REALM

Read the completed trilogy now!

www.timfacciola.com

Acknowledgement

Despite the release date, this was the second story I wrote. I had just finished cutting The Scales of Balance from its first draft length of 278,000 words to a much more manageable 125,000. Once that was sent off to my editor, Chersti Nieveen at Writertherapy.com, I, the eager upstart that I am, asked her what I could do in the meantime. I wanted to work on book two in the A Vengeful Realm trilogy as I prepared to query book one to agents. She told me I couldn’t sell book two if I hadn’t sold the first book yet, and to instead work on something new. Something unrelated. A new book one. With that, I decided I was going to start small. A single point-of-view novella—a far cry from the 10+ points of view in the original drafts of The Scales of Balance. Threyna, one of the main point-of-view characters cut from that draft, became the main protagonist of that new project. Yet as this new “totally different” and “wholly separate” single point-of-view novella unfolded, I realized two things about myself. One: I am incapable of keeping it short. Two: I won’t do anything simple.

Long story short, the novella became something approaching the story you just read. Nowhere close to small, not remotely simple, and certainly not wholly separated from book one. In fact, it not only changed what I wanted to do in book one of AVR, but it altered the trajectory of the trilogy. For that, I could not be more grateful, because it made A Vengeful Realm what it is today, but it also made Ghosts of Rheynia very difficult to write. Wanting it to serve as a standalone for those who hadn’t read AVR and a prequel for those who had, while simultaneously allowing readers to read in either order without significant spoilers, this story needed tremendous amounts of help. Again, I turned to Chersti and her team. I would particularly like to thank Tanner Perkes and Andraea Jones for helping me to wrangle this story into something readable. Your patience, support, and expertise brought this story of undeath to life. I would also like to thank Brian Dooley at Paper Raven Books. While I was working through a bout of depression, worried that this story was too dark to publish, you reminded me that the characters, despite their circumstances, always remained oriented towards hope. Thank you for helping me to see the light through the darkness.

Special shoutouts: Freya from Lunaris Falcon Studio, thank you for another beautiful cover! You are the best at what you do and it is an absolute joy to work with you. Landon Soelberg, the narrator of all of my books thus far, thank you for your creativity and passion. The performances you give are second to none! Mariya Kapitsa, the illustrator for the map of Rheynia, thank you for the heart and soul you put into every detail. You set the tone for the story before page one.  

Lastly, I would like to thank the author community for being one of the most uplifting and supportive collectives I’ve had the pleasure to be part of. Thank you to Nathan Makaryk, Sebastien De Castell, Z.S. Diamanti, John Wells III, SG Blaise, Andy Peloquin, JDL Rosell, Brady Hunsaker, and E.A. Winters.

Listen to Dracus’s Lullaby now.

About The Author

Tim Facciola

Tim Facciola is the multi-award-winning author of the A Vengeful Realm trilogy. With blue ribbons for the Ozma Award for Fantasy Fiction and the Chanticleer International Best Book of 2023, he continues to write hopeful epic fantasy stories.

When Tim isn’t writing, he can often be found in his garage-gym or in the mountains of Arizona where he lives with his wife, Colleen. A virtual fitness professional by trade, he integrates his creative passions into movement, training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords to unlock his inner legionary. To inquire about Gladiator Training, reach out to him at TimFacciolaFit@gmail.com.

More than writing, reading, gaming, playing music, hiking, and paddleboarding, Tim loves story. If he’s not working on his own story, he’s helping others develop theirs as an author coach. To inquire about Author Coaching services, email Firsttorchbooks@gmail.com.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

A Word From The Author

Foreword

Prologue

PART I

Chapter 1: Until the Cut

Chapter 2: Test of Loyalty

Chapter 3: The Sun’s Warmth

Chapter 4: For All the Darklings

Chapter 5: The Unwelcome Poet

Chapter 6: A Ghost from the Past

Chapter 7: Desire for Death

Chapter 8: Traitors

Chapter 9: Choose Your Battles

Chapter 10: Penance

Chapter 11: Disloyalty or Incompetence

Chapter 12: Villains and Monsters

Chapter 13: A Feast for Hellhounds

Chapter 14: Heart of Stone

Chapter 15: True Scars

Chapter 16: Bloody Grudges

Chapter 17: A Darkling’s Hatred

PART II

Chapter 18: A Hollow Embrace

Chapter 19: Two Kinds of Liars

Chapter 20: Follow the Leader

Chapter 21: Dark Dawn

Chapter 22: A Soldier, A Dreamer

Chapter 23: It Will Only Hurt A Bit

Chapter 24: The Inner Throne

Chapter 25: Living and Surviving

Chapter 26: A Wolf in Wool

Chapter 27: To Live Is To Lose

Chapter 28: Incoming Darklings

Chapter 29: Strength, Courage, and Lies

Chapter 30: Dewskulled

Chapter 31: The Stone Golem

Chapter 32: A Deal With Darklings

Chapter 33: Hollowed Out

Chapter 34: Prisoner of Promise

Chapter 35: A Hill to Hollow On

Chapter 36: Rest Is For Corpses

Chapter 37: Out of the Soul Jar

Chapter 38: The Blessing’s Ire

Chapter 39: Lucky

Chapter 40: How It Ends

Chapter 41: Rot and Ruin

Chapter 42: One Option

Chapter 43: Shadows of Understanding

Chapter 44: True Justice

Chapter 45: Let Go, My Love

Chapter 46: Two Paths

Chapter 47: Until the Cut

Part III

Chapter 48: Dreadroot’s Caress

Chapter 49: No Choice

Chapter 50: Stories and Valefyre

Chapter 51: The Bad One

Chapter 52: Compress. Release.

Chapter 53: A Darkling’s Deal

Chapter 54: Choice and Consequence

Chapter 55: Separate Paths

Chapter 56: Always Another Fight

Part IV

Chapter 57: Bait

Chapter 58: The Dauntless

Chapter 59: Oblivion

Chapter 60: All That Is Good

Chapter 61: The Fall

Chapter 62: The Spirit of Resilience

Chapter 63: The Ones Who Matter

Chapter 64: Golden

Chapter 65: Live

Epilogue

Acknowledgement

About The Author