Chapter 16
Deceit did not speak.
His every breath was a hiss. His every movement was tight. Tense.
“Gods, what if something happened to her?” I breathed my words with the stone path knocking beneath my feet. The god did not hold my raging thoughts but inched deeper into the dark corners.
“I can’t lose her. I can’t. Gods, Deceit, speak to me. Say anything.”
Souls crawl to the Everlaides, child, he spoke in a deadened voice. The gods receive them in mourning.
“Did you see Vera?”
I did not look at the souls. I only heard their screams.
The moon dangled above me, ruined, coating the lands in a crimson haze.
A red moon.
Blood spilled this night.
Halfway to the stables, a stone screeched at my side. I angled to the sound and stopped in my tracks. It was her. The stone woman. Her song strung towards me—the same song I had heard at Eadric’s funeral. Hazy, distant cries swayed through the still air and into my ears. Chiseled eyes uncovered me, the statue staring at me as though she knew I’d find her.
As though she was enticing me. Seeking me.
I deviated from stone to grass. The laurels’ lanterns illuminated my path, flamelight catching the moss braiding over the burial sculptures. I upset the quiet mist with each step—it wreathed around my skirt and dissolved in the distance. I crept past a tree stalk, the weeping branches snagging my hair to the sound of grinding stone. I lost sight of the statue for only a moment, but once I saw her again, her neck had twisted. To look at me.
I felt her. Felt her presence. It was not of dark magic or sour air, but like a mist twirling within, around, and surrounding me. She was concrete with rime and bore a face carved in calmness, not horror, as it had been at the funeral. With arms extended at her sides, her palms were lifted in welcome. Her sleeves draped down to the soil at her feet, where tree roots broke through the ground.
I tried to determine her age. The stone was smooth, but stone was timeless—youth or woman, I could not tell. Her hazy hum persisted. I tendered her whisper with my own.
“If you speak, I will listen.”
Though she did not. Only the cradlesong of her soul simmered this night. I knelt to a golden plate at her feet to read her name, but the surname had been scratched away.
“Amelia,” I hushed, and her soul, her song, became louder. I rose and lifted my hand to her, and winds pressed against my skin from all angles, the cries turning mangled and piercing my ears.
I touched her hand. All fell silent.
A piece of myself was bound in stillness, waiting for her lips to part—to reveal her secrets. But I seemed to chase her away.
Come, Rhoswen, the god’s whisper rasped.
I studied her a final time and left, walking to the stables.
“Hello, girl.” I held Skye’s muzzle, her wet nose flexing and sniffing.
I pressed my hand against the stable gate. It swung open with a screech—rusty iron and splintering wood. Skye kicked up her legs, her mane of leaden and ivory hairs tossing back, but each strand was dampened in the red moonlight. Fastening the saddle, I threw my legs over, situated myself, and tapped her sides.
Skye’s black hooves tore from the ground into a gallop.
Passing the isle of laurels, I looked at the estate draped in mist and shadows. The entrance door opened, and a figure charged outside. I paused for a heartbeat, pulling back on the reins. The figure called my name in question—a low, roaring voice. I ignored the Raven and fixed my eyes ahead at the laurel wood, all swallowed by night and mottled in a bloodred glow.
“Skye,” I purred, stroking her hair. I buckled my hands at the reins.
“Ride hard. Ride fast.”
Muscles tautened beneath the saddle, a neigh rumbled, and Skye peeled from a halt.
“Rhoswen, wait!”
I peered back, hairs tangling my vision. The lord of the estate chased me as I scarpered into the wood. I did not slow, and he fell beyond my sight. Swallowed by the night, swallowed by the wood, I plunged towards death. To find the blood not of my tree but was my sister, eternally. To save her from my blood, from my tree.
From the crown.
…
The wood had come alive. Alive to see me die.
Skye’s hooves knocked the ground, the wind pressed into my ears, and hoarse groans raged at my back. Everything was loud. Earsplitting. Everything, save for the god. I looked back again, seeing we’d gained no distance from the things chasing us.
Corpses.
An eerie gust drifted through my blood, Deceit breathing, Once men, lost to life and saved by death. The Shadows rose up bodies from the dark, fashioning them in sinful breath.
Leathery skin bound their bones together, sagging over lanky limbs. Their complexions had become one with the dark, any color scorched away, leaving their skin stippled in black and decay. Each of their steps seemed a battle, their joints bending wrong, corpses stumbling into each other. Skye’s speed outpaced them, but the corpses kept spilling from the wood. Chasing me.
My skin was cold, be it fear or frost. I could foresee it—falling into the gallows, taken by their bony hands, and being dragged to the sands of Oldurem.
Do not dwell on it, Rhoswen. The god swatted my mind.
More than ten corpses clawed behind. Clawed for me, for my life, for the god in my head, the magic in my blood.
The laurel roots bowed like drawbridges at the edge of the dirt path. Bodies flung out, three corpses staggering ahead of Skye. At the center of the road, they came to a halt, twisted their necks to us, and hurtled.
Skye reared, neighing manically.
Hooves halted.
“Skye, go!” I yelled, kicking her sides, but to no avail.
A corpse came for me, two for Skye. I twisted on the saddle, but my foot was caught in the stirrups. The mangled body reached out—fingers sharp, nails sharper—and latched my ankle, goring my skin.
My vision flashed red, and I cried. Searing agony tore into my leg—the corpse’s bony fingers could have been sharpened on a whetstone. I couldn’t get my damn foot out of the stirrups, and the wood only laughed in the echo of my pain, my own, distorted cries burrowing into the wood and surrounding me.
“Sands, Skye!” I lashed the reins.
The corpse clawed its way to my calf, dragging itself up and dragging me down.
Behind, the mass of corpses was nearing.
Skye heaved to her hind legs, knocking down the two corpses before her, blood spilling from her legs. When hooves struck the ground, a corpse’s skull was crushed beneath her. The skull shrieked and poured black liquid and innards.
A cry ripped up my throat, the corpse carving my leg, its fingers in my skin.
From all corners, chaos strung around me. I let the wood fade away, falling into my mind where the god lay, and thought of another.
I thought of the Bloodletters’ strength and their flexing muscles that held men by the throat. How their veins pulsed and skin stretched when lifting their weapons. With boiling skin and searing bones, I reached down to the corpse at my leg. My veiny, bulging hand was a crown upon its head.
I closed my fist, fissures etching the corpse’s skull. It gargled a broken word. Bone became shards. My fingers met my palm, and another shriek battered the night. The body collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
I let go of my bind to the Bloodletters, and my skin snapped.
The bodies—I could smell them. An odor sicker than magic, reeking like spoiled meat.
Skye rose again, front hooves in the air, blood staining her coat—her blood.
Her feet hit the ground, and I gasped for breath, my cloak’s clasp choking me and tugging me backwards. I twisted my spine to see behind, and a corpse stared at me, dead in the eyes. Its gaze was filled with white fog.
Nostril holes widened.
“I can smell you,” it said in an airy voice. Its rotting hands latched my cloak.
“You cannot hide from us.” It yanked again, and I gripped the saddle horn, stumbling for balance. A black tongue filled its gaping mouth and unrolled over decaying lips. “I can taste you.”
The god hissed.
The corpse hissed.
I held onto the saddle for dear life and kicked Skye’s sides, yelling her name. She didn’t even notice me. More were coming.
Deceit? I begged to the god—my god who did not care for mankind—that he might save his servant in ways I did not know. Please. Help me.
There was a moment of hesitation—Deceit was motionless while Andrael spun around me. He gnashed with breath flushing out his nostrils, swelling within.
The legion of corpses hissed with feet picking up pace. The corpse ahead of Skye cracked its neck, looked at me with those milky eyes, and sniffed.
It smelled the magic.
Deceit expanded within me, his hands carving beneath my skin and falling down my neck and arms. I was suddenly aware of everything—my bleeding leg, aching throat, sore muscles in the saddle, and the god’s talons carving my skin and veins.
Deceit, w-what are you doing?
Everything burned. Everything.
Deceit’s nails pierced past mine, breaking skin, the pain, a blistering sting. I bit down a scream, but it broke out. Black nails stabbed past the tips of my gloves. The god’s tail let go of my spine and was tight against the muscles at my back. My kneecaps cracked backwards. Nausea filled me. Deceit drowned my veins.
He had broken past the threshold of my mind in a violent burst.
I was suffering, near ruined. This pain was ungodly, taking me whole.
This—how Deceit housed in every piece of me—this was foreign. From bone to skin, I burned. Blood was fire in my veins, and thoughts were red coals in my mind.
I thought I might split in two, my body enduring both the god and my soul.
I blinked, and my vision distorted with colors I’d never seen before, haunting in essence. Shadows darkened, redlight illuminated. I saw breath, heard souls, tasted the curse of this night. Deceit’s weight, those godly burdens, did not drag me down. They raised me up. My god salvaged what was left of me.
I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I was a spectator.
“Focus on me, child,” the god said with my mouth.
“Do not lose yourself.”
Deceit unhanded the reins and threw me forward. He possessed my hand between Skye’s ears, and his magic spilled into her.
“Ride, Skye.”
The roots of his powers bore deep in me, twisting and cracking and suffocating.
I couldn’t breathe.
Agonizing pain scythed my mind, coursing the length of my spine and flooding my senses. Deceit groaned in the ache. The god’s jaw tightened, and my teeth fused together.
Sight fragmented. I saw Skye and the corpses and the wood, as though I was looking through a gem, attention dispersed. I… I saw through Skye’s eyes. Her muscles became my muscles, her heart was my heart, and the pain where she bled—it was now my pain.
When she stepped forward, I stepped forward. The god stepped forward.
Another corpse tore from the edge of the path, leaped, and grabbed my leg. Bony, sharp nails were daggers in my skin. Deceit yelled. My brows furrowed. I was somewhere, trapped within, feeling everything. Seeing everything.
“God”, the corpse uttered like a banshee. Particles of dark magic wafted from its lips, appearing like a blend of dark stars, holding colors I did not know that consumed the redlight.
The god’s fingers curled, and my arm flung like a whip. Deceit cut the corpse’s eyes with my hand, hissing at the creature that hissed at him.
The corpse fell to the ground, reaching out and shrieking, “God!”
Deceit grabbed the reins. Cold blood coated our hand.
The land began to spiral. My vision darkened.
“Rhoswen, stay awake.”
Winds tossed back my hair. My cloak tugged a final time at the neck. Skye was in a gallop. Her career became a lullaby that cradled me. Sensations were slipping. I was stretched too thin.
“Rhoswen!”
The bloodmoon was the last thing I saw before my mind silenced.
…
Wake up, Rhoswen! Ice waters slapped inside my skull. Wake up! Deceit snarled.
My lashes cracked beneath dried tears, and faded sunlight wilted into my eyes.
“Deceit?” My throat was dry and rough.
He gnashed in the dark. Do you remember what happened?
Sleep slipped into my closing eyes.
Rhoswen! The god’s tail was tight at my spine, waking me. Do you remember?
Remember? I—
Gods, I remembered. The corpses, the bloodmoon, my bleeding leg, and—sands. The god had stretched himself throughout me, bending my mind and extending myself to Skye.
Lifting my hand, I studied each tip. My pale fingers showed through the holes, because the god’s nails… They had replaced mine and tore through the gloves.
In my remembrance, Deceit lessened his tense bind and cozied into the ripples of my mind. His breath was slow, pouring into me and flooding out my nostrils. He relaxed.
I let the light awaken me as best it could. But when I saw the city ahead, I jerked in the saddle.
Sariem.
The somnolent sun dubbed the genesis of dawn. It barely peaked past the walls and cast a shadow, burying me in the dark at the cusp of the wood. Above Sariem, blackened smoke smothered the air beside the castle, nearing the top of the hill. But the castle was untouched by despair. Untouched by the ashes.
I sat still, near breaking. Deceit. The guild.
Deceit shriveled into a dark corner with a dull voice. There is no guild, Rhoswen. It has fallen.
I had no time to mourn, could not let the anguish fracture my heart. Not yet.
I need to find Vera.
The god did not fill the void as he often did. He was silent, still, and coiled up. I reached out to him, but he did nothing.
Deceit, I spoke softly. What is it?
For a moment, the god did not disrupt the quiet. As I looked at the ashes of the guild, he looked at the dark of his home and hushed, Your body was weak, child. It is not for mortals to be overtaken by a god. I thought you might be drawn to madness.
I wished to curl myself beside him—to find him and look him in the eyes. The eyes of my savior. Eyes I’d never seen. You were worried?
When one lives a life of madness, they become a shadow of themselves. A faint reflection. His nails drew circles along my mind. Our paths would be forever severed. Never to die the death of a martyr, you’d die a hollow rendition of yourself. He crept from the corners and into the clearing, his voice becoming clearer. As I have said, it is not time for us to unite in the Everlaides. Our labors remain unfinished.
The roots of the god were splintering deep in me, his magic testing the body of a woman. The roots were fragile, nearly destroyed. Nearly destroying me. I did not let my heart fear the thin line I’d walked between sanity and madness. I felt no fear. From my heart, I reeled out gratitude and raised it to where the god stayed.
Thank you, Deceit.
His breath was the only thing that let me know he was still there.
Rustling waters called to Skye, and she answered with panting breaths. I stepped off the saddle beside a river, strung my arm in the reins, and slowly lowered myself with trembling legs. Kneeling down, I scooped up the river and cleansed the blood from my skin. It stung, but the cool water was a relief. Skye lapped drink and nestled at the riverbank. Her breath shuddered the frosted grass, and her heavy eyes waned.
“Rest easy, girl.” I kissed her between the ears and pushed down memories of seeing through her eyes. Feeling her heart.
Climbing upon a mossy boulder, I looked out at my father’s stronghold. My torn skirt whisked in the winds like a flag of surrender—a plea for man to spare my brothers and sisters. But the blackened smoke and raining ash gave me dead hope.
Silver armors were crops in harvest, amassed at the entrance of the city walls.
I had no papers, and the city was on high alert—the guards would never let me walk through the front door. I knew another way, only… I promised myself I’d never go back.
Deceit hummed, It appears the long-dead princess is to return to the castle.
I banished a long, foggy breath into the air. It appears so.
…
Within the wood, I followed my path from beyond a decade ago, the wrinkled roots and sharp thistles all too familiar. Past a curtain of ivy, I found the terrain’s cavity. Soft in steps, I walked over serrated stones and wedged myself into the cavern where mineral pools gave a soft glow.
Beyond the cavern, arcane torches alit the surroundings, cobwebs glinting by firelight—I never understood the boundaries of magic that left the flames alive all these years. Down the passage, natural curves traded for chiseled stones fixed by mortar. Boulders became tombs, spiraling through the halls. I threaded the passageways, paying no heed to the creaking of old souls biting for my attention.
Deceit wrapped my mind like a rider upon a steed.
This was the forgotten crypts, built beneath the bowels of my father’s house.
My ancestors squirmed in their graves at the king’s deeds, I knew they did. I’d heard them wrestle and groan when I was a child wandering through the catacombs.
Beside a torch, I peered down, finding Davina’s ink-stamped fingerprint to guide me. One, then the other, twisting around bends and striding down straits.
You know the way, child, Deceit whispered, watching through my eyes.
I pressed my finger against Davina’s mark and rose. I suppose I only want to recognize her here. Not many things in the realm hold Davina Torrance’s touch.
That is what you want, is it not?
It is, but she was as much someone as I am today.
The god’s roots tightened where I’d buried her—deep, deep within.
She is still alive, my dear.
No, I said. She isn’t.
The king had no knowledge of the crypts. Many years ago, I happened upon a false stone wall in the servants’ quarters. I was not looking for anything apart from the quiet. And, when I lifted my little hand to the wall, a stone inset. A secret door opened. I found a haven built beneath my nightmare. I had never feared the dark passages, not even as my ancestors’ carcasses writhed. The dark was my protector, and I had always preferred to dwell with my noisy ancestors rather than the crowned monster upstairs.
As I crossed another passage, I saw the stone-laden culvert where the waters streamed down the corridor. The god and I were teeming with memories. Memories I left in the brambles of white roses. Many long days, I had nestled beside these waters, practicing faces, honing the god’s craft.
Walking to the stream, I peered down and looked at my reflection. I never thought I’d return here, I said. It is odd, being in a familiar place when so much time has passed. My fingers splashed in the water. Do you remember when you first came to me?
How could I forget? Deceit’s spine settled against my memories.
As a child, mourning my mother’s death, I had sat beside the water, tears being swallowed by the stream. I had thought of my mother’s warmth, like a summer sun kissing a wash of florals. Her dark hairs were waves down her back, and her affectionate smile bloomed in the darkest nights. Then, my skin burned for the first time. I could have been thrown into a masonry oven—it would have felt the same. When I looked at my reflection, my mother stared back at me. Deceit crawled out of the dark that day, startled me, and I fell into the stream.
I gave a hollow chuckle to years passed. I nearly drowned.
Deceit grinned. I remember.
And you never apologized.
Gods don’t apologize. His voice was deeper than the river. I nearly lost the final remnants of my dying grace for mankind, attempting to teach you. Children are so… insufferable.
You did not need to place yourself in a child’s mind.
I did not see a child. I saw a hateful rage thirsting for vengeance. A soul devoted to the day of reckoning.
I sighed. That hateful rage had been crafted by the king. I hadn’t spent time with him for so long, I suppose I did not feel vengeance as I once had. There was anger, yes, but hateful rage?
Picking up my feet, I followed Davina’s path.
We have come so far, I uttered to the dark.
As we stand where it all began.
The ghost of the princess led my path until I came to a wall where a line of mortar had been chiseled away. Thin light seeped through the crack. Years before, my little hand would reach out at eyelevel, but this day, I knelt low. The heel of my palm pressed against the stone, and it embedded behind the others. Gears grinded, dust sprinkled, and a row of stones resurrected from rest. A crevice formed, and the door opened.
Voices and rummaging spilled through—pots and pans and clinking and shouting. My eyes cowered in the new light. Breads and meats flicked away the smell of stale bodies.
Cautiously, I pressed against the stone door.
I hinged my hips to step over the threshold, but my joints locked up in reluctance.
Deceit cradled my fears. You are not alone, child.
My lungs swelled in a bottomless breath. I held onto it as my soles left the crypts and flattened upon the servant chambers. My throat tightened.
I was in the castle.
This place was to be my grave—the roots of my cursed beginnings where the king’s blade called for my death. The fibers of my birthname twisted beneath my feet from the stones laid by my forefathers—an eerie sense of belonging. Or, perhaps, it was merely familiarity.
I was not her. I was not Davina. The princess of Andrael had died when my bleeding hands cupped a white rose. Each thistle I plucked was a stake in my claim I denied.
I was not her, though the shadows of my former life were stirring deep within my blood.
But upon this day, I only sought the blood of the gods.
The secret door latched at my back, and I charted the path towards the kitchen.
“Get that cleaned up!” A wrinkled woman scoffed at a boy, grey hairs tousled.
I stayed on the outskirts, walking past pots, pans, boars, and harvest.
The boy leaned over fallen pastries, and the haggard woman yelled again.
“I’ll bloody well beat you myself if you keep being so careless!” She huffed and puffed and rolled dough upon the counter, wafts of flour in the air.
“A feast,” she grumbled. “One day’s notice for a royal bloody feast.”
“Aye, Gailee, don’t be so uptight,” another servant said, slapping dough down.
“The guild fell. The king ain’t taking our heads tonight. Might even see a grin.”
“If there is anything that’ll put King Paden in a good mood, it’d be death,” Gailee muttered, rolling the dough.
Servants tended to tasks, mumbling of the feast in ode to the fall. Sullen and frantic, they ran left and right, foods burning, kettles screaming, birds losing heads. My presence went unnoticed.
I stole a ruby gown and an auburn cloak from the alcove where fine attire was hung to dry. Paling my hair to yellow, I donned the skin I had come to know well—Freya Brine. Leaving my tattered clothes in a heap upon the floor, I fled to the castle halls.
Vast windows stood in assembly at the edge of the hall, overlooking the city. My father affixed burgundy all over the castle—burgundy curtains, tapestries, capes. The sight of it made me sick, but I followed the color, leading me through the castle of a thousand hallways.
Empty armors strung along the stone walls. Had the Goddess of Light been alive, these gilded armors might shine in the promise of protection, but they looked dead and grim, standing in line to a king of darkness. Gold in the carpet would radiate wealth and prosperity, and the portraits of my ancestors might not appear so dour. Tears reflected on the portraits as the gods pelted rain against the windows.
Thunder quake mortar. The Everlaides wailed in wrath.
Gods, I wanted to run. To flee this dreadful place and find Vera. I ignored the decorative armors whispering behind their visors, she’s dead, Rhoswen. You failed her. In swift steps, I kept my head held up and shoulders drawn back like a highborn. Like I should be here. Beneath the surface, Deceit had twisted his hands around my mind, my deafening thoughts, as I paced my heavy breaths.
Faces and frames blurred. I paid my ancestors no mind until I swung around the corner. From the edge of my sight, she vaulted at me, snatched my eyes, and summoned me near—
The fallen queen.
I slowly approached her.
Framed by gold, she hung with eyes drawn in strange stillness to watch those who passed. The artist had well rendered the burdens upon her shoulders, held by the thin crescent of her neck. Draping down, her hairs were like smoke—dark twists catching moonlight. Even before she’d fallen ill, my mother’s face was fair like starlight.
I used to wear similar features before Deceit ever came to me, but he had carved my face the day I fled through the rose brambles—changed me slightly so that I would not be recognized. The god had scraped a layer from the bridge of my nose and the edge of my chin. He had raised my brows and cheekbones, though I saw my mother’s eyes in mine each day with her hair cascading down my back. I had refused the god when he reached out to recast my eyes and weave new hair—these were the only keepsakes of my mother’s I was able to hold onto.
I ripped my eyes from the fallen queen and left her at my back, feeling the princess stir in these halls. By the sands, she was stirring—lingering beneath Deceit’s splintered roots, attempting to cut herself out.
Further near the outskirts of the castle—away from the guards, guests, and dining hall—was a neglected passage of faded stones bonded together by cobwebs. Windows were smeared with muck, and the smell of age was like that of the crypts. That mossy, humid smell. At the end of the passage, I fought an oak door’s locks and bars. When the iron handle twisted at my command, I was spat out into the gardens.
I wove through vines and overgrowth. All the curated florals seemed to endure the Dark Era, but the wild plants and thistles were in reign with ivy climbing the castle walls. I became willfully blind to the brambles of white roses. Climbing down the garden’s edge, slipping past the final line of castle grounds, I hightailed into the city streets.
Despair spread around me from every direction.
My gut twisted. Blood hammered into my heart.
Ash poured overhead, and screams rang. Drenched in smoke, the skies weighed heavily above, thick in my lungs. I held back tears. I would not break—not yet. Not until I found Vera. Gods, if she wasn’t in this city, I would have fled without looking back.
Guards were positioned at every street and corner, the king’s eyes manifested a hundred times over. I stayed in the alleys and kept to the dark.
Mid-run, my skin snapped, Freya, falling.
Blood stains were smeared along the stones and splattered upon shops and homes.
Any time I’d sprint through the street to another alley, I did not look down the bend, but I heard the battles waged. Steel grinded, men and women cried, and arrows whistled overhead. The air was thick in ash and iron—all I smelled and tasted was ash and iron.
Turning the corner, eyes second to body, I threw myself backwards with a yelp. A flaming ball burst against the wall beside my face, singeing my hair, bright in my eyes. Down the alley, a guard prowled towards a woman. He held a sword, wearing silver armor tarnished beneath the ash cloud. The woman was covered in blood and char. She pulled back her shoulders, opened her fists at her sides, and snarled.
The king’s man lifted arms. Flames kindled in the woman’s hands—a Feytra.
The Goddess of Fire was known this day.
My heart buckled. Thoughts of muscles began to manifest in my mind, and I took a step towards them.
Do not walk from the shadows, child! Deceit shouted. Tail coiling my spine, he pulled me back. You do not battle, do not lift arms. My child is a child of the dark. Should she come from hiding, death will come too.
The guard swung his blade at the Feytra’s waist. She pivoted back. He missed. When the blade was at her side, she lunged onto his back—flames, unbroken. The guard wrestled, ramming her into a wall, but—once her fiery hands smothered his face—he convulsed and screamed. Sounds of searing flesh fused with his cries, and the guard fell over. Another guard emerged into the alley, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her against the wall. Flames began to reignite. The guard lifted his blade.
I stepped forward again, muscles upon my mind, but the god yanked me back with his tail and captured any thoughts.
Dammit, Deceit—
Those who fight are dying, Rhoswen! I will not let you fall this day.
In a blur of silver metals and roaring flames, the Feytra spun towards the guard. He pivoted to her side with a raised blade, and the steel mapped the span of her neck. Red rivered. The flames died. She fell to her knees, then she fell into death.
He left her there, the burgundy cape whisking against her final breath.
My chest constricted, and I pivoted forward—to close her eyes and say a prayer—but immediately halted. Three guards charged in. Deceit thrashed against my mind, urging me further back.
Find another path! He yelled.
I fled. The Feytra’s red neck was my last sight of the alley.
Glancing back, I found no guards tracking me. I ran down an empty lane near Sariem’s main street. At the end, the city opened up, and—
I stopped. The sight of the city’s wreckage… It stapled my feet to the stones.
The black cloud loomed above Sariem’s heart, each curl an omen of anguish. Ash and embers rained from on high, dusting the rooftops, flooding the air, making this stone city hazy. Guards flanked the perimeter, swords in contest against magic.
Flames, steel, brawn, blood, speed.
The ash and iron in the air only became denser.
Something was behind me. Heaving grunts came with heavy feet. I began to turn, and—
I screamed. Something hard hit my ribs, my feet lifted off the ground, and I was thrown off the path. Body to cobblestone, I hit the ground, everything burning red and white behind closed eyes. Aching, blood pounding, I looked out.
A Bloodletter charged down the street. I staggered to my feet, following the path he cleared through the battle—guards were torn apart, blood like a royal aisle blanketing the stones. Through red and limbs, I ran towards the ash cloud. The air thickened.
Gaining distance to the Bloodletter, I found his eyes aglow in red. For three streets, my toes gnawed at his heels. Guards ambushed. I hid in the throat of an alley. The king’s men didn’t notice me—I was unseen behind the Bloodletter’s hot rage.
The Bloodletter flexed his muscles and snarled through gritted teeth.
Carnage was to be had.
The guards stayed in position, their swords shaking in their hands. The Bloodletter howled to the sky, not gaining distance. Something held him back. I scanned the skies and the guards, searching for an anomaly that could hold back someone blessed by instinctual rage and violence. I then followed the Bloodletter’s gaze, peering down, and I saw it.
At the Bloodletter’s feet were remnants of red eyes, his brother’s lifeforce gone. Bodies were a pile, faces indistinguishable beneath the rubble and aftermath of steel. The Bloodletter knelt and closed his brother’s eyes. Fear seemed to drag down the guards—Carnage was imminent. The Bloodletter patiently rose, showed his teeth, and snarled. He swung his hammer, thirsty for the kill.
Bulging veins, flexing muscles. This Bloodletter was a storm ready to strike.
He charged to the hem, hammer swinging. Helmets concaved, skulls broke, red splattered, men yelled. A guard sliced the Bloodletter’s tunic, so the Bloodletter tore through the guard’s metal armor like parchment, ripped out his throat, and hurled it to the ground.
Bodies lay in broken shambles. I no longer could tell who lay for the guild and who lay for the king.
Another horde of guards came, surrounding the Bloodletter as he hissed and growled. An arrow whistled past me, down the street, and struck him in the chest. This only deepened his rage. He roared and threw himself at the guards. Two others fell to his might. Another arrow darted past, the iron piercing threw his neck.
But Carnage did not willingly bow to death.
Three more guards were torn in two.
Another arrow. The third. The final. Through his temple, the arrow snaked behind his red eyes. The Bloodletter, bleeding and slowing, clenched the shoulder of the final guard. The guard cried. The Bloodletter grabbed his other shoulder, then ripped the man in two—both armor and flesh. They fell together.
The Bloodletter, to rest with his brothers.
The guard, to walk the sands of Oldurem.
I tucked behind the corner, gathering courage for the final steps. I prayed to the gods that I might find Vera. That I might live to see the morrow.
Do not pray, Rhoswen, Deceit dimly uttered. I am the only one here.
I charged down the alleyway, leaving behind the pool of massacre to haunt my nightmares. Only, I did not know what massacre meant. Not yet. I climbed over debris, chalky with ash, trying not to think about what this ash was made of. What had burned. Who had burned. Scaling the mound, I crouched near the top. At the guild’s courtyard, the statue of the Goddess of Beauty came into view. I took another step upwards, and I saw the brothel.
No, not the brothel. Neither the brothel nor the guild was before me—only the remains.
Ash rained like snow. The black cloud loomed above me.
My brothers and sisters lay below me.
Even the god fell pale.