I followed the Baron, accompanied by his green cloaked servant, deeper into Castle Cael once the council had dissolved. The rest went their separate ways, vanishing into the labyrinth of the keep. Catrin had thrown me an apologetic look before slipping out, as though to say sorry, hope you don't die!

A strange woman. Who exactly was she? Who was this Keeper? Lillian had called her the Backroad wench. What exactly was the Backroad?

I had more pressing questions just then. I followed in the wake of the lord's regal white gown, his shrouded servant taking up position behind me. A not so subtle threat. Braziers clutched in iron hands along the walls burst alive as the lord passed them, the castle responding to his presence.

Not a bad trick. His own sorcery? Some device? Or did this ancient house simply respond to him, like an eager hound raising its head for its master?

Some places are like that. A good commoner family might be blessed by a fey sprite in their hearth, who will light and warm the place of its own volition. Villages might be protected from threats such as savage beasts or disease by similar powers.

The great castles of Urn often enjoy even more dramatic blessings. Long generations of pride, war, loyalty, and secret rites bind the nobility to the land itself, much of that power sewn up in the bones of their great manors and fortress palaces. The very stone soaks up the aura of the inhabitants, drinking in the will of rulers and those who love or hate them alike through long centuries.

In the end, the legends we tell about the land's greatest names can become real as spring rain. I had never heard of House Falconer, but I sensed this place was very old, and storied.

Which would make its lord mighty within its walls. I suspected him to be an adept, and possibly more.

Orson brought me to a small, comfortably furnished room with the air of a study. The door shut behind us, the hooded servant took up position in the corner. The castle lord turned to face me.

"You upstaged me," he said. The words held no heat, no petulance. The lord seemed, if anything, curious.

I turned my head to one side. "When I interrupted your speech to talk about the troll, you mean."

The Baron shrugged. "That, and your entrance. I dare say you were the focal point of that entire discussion. I do not criticize you…"

He trailed off and pursed his lips. "Are you a knight? Shall I call you Ser Alken?"

I hesitated, then shook my head. "No, lord. Just Alken will do."

The Baron's expression hardened. "You will tell me why you are here, and whether it is on another's behalf. You will speak truth."

Not a magical command. Just the certain authority bred into all members of the peerage. For all he seemed the aging scholar, this man was the son of warlords. He held the proper mien.

The fingers of my right hand flexed. The motion was hidden by my cloak, and I clenched that hand into a fist before I gave away my tension. He had not demanded I surrender my axe, which I still rested like a walking stick on the floor.

Perhaps he just didn't fear it, or me. Did he know how weak I was just then? Or was Orson Falconer a very dangerous man in his own right?

I swallowed through my dry throat, wishing I'd taken some of the drink on offer in the dining hall.

The Baron wasn't aware that outright lies weren't something I could easily conjure, not without cost. It wasn't like I could tell him that, however, so I had to try and convince him. I took a moment to gather my thoughts before speaking.

"I spent much of my life fighting for the realms of Urn," I said. "For lords, for the priests. I was loyal." I tightened one fist, as though it could quell my steadily rising heartbeat. It galled me to deceive him with scraps of my truth.

"I fought and fought, and it didn't earn me gratitude, or peace." The bitterness in my voice wasn't entirely feigned. "I risked my life countless times, until one day I was called to account for my failings, as they were."

I showed the lord my teeth. It wasn't a smile. "Eventually, I decided that if I couldn't live without sin, couldn't make the world better without it, why bother avoiding it? The realms wanted me to be a fighter. A killer. Let them reap what they've sown."

"Revenge, is it?" The Baron nodded, taking this in stride. "Yes, I can understand that. I can ally myself with that. You do understand, should you decide to join this affair, it will be under my leadership? I have enough conflicting motives out there."

He waved in the direction of the dinner hall. "If you are truly independent, truly in this for your own ends, I will have your agreement to obey me. I don't expect loyalty — that, I know, I must earn. But I will have obedience so long as you are a guest in my hall."

I inclined my head. "So long as I am a guest in your hall."

Inwardly, I felt amazed at how easily he'd accepted my shallow justifications for rebellion. Were all Recusants so vapid in their motives, in their petty vengeances? I'd thought my improvised speech flimsy at best, had expected him to challenge it.

Perhaps he sympathizes with it, I considered.

"This gathering is a delicate affair," the Baron said, smoothly moving on from the topic of my own motives. He paced to the far side of the room to stand in front of the hearth, which had also lit of its own volition upon our entry. My back tingled thanks to the presence of the servant. She remained by the door. Silent. Watchful.

"Not much of an army," I said. "I admit, I expected more when I heard of this gathering."

The Baron let out a snort. "Some war council of Recusants, you mean, like back during the Fall? No. Those armies are scattered, their captains dead, gone into hiding, or made little better than brigands. This is something more…"

He paused, thinking, then waved a hand. Green Hood glided forward to place a wine cup in it. He nodded his thanks to her. I noted a ring set on the thumb of his right hand. A signet, stamped with the image of a diving falcon. The servant offered me wine. I refused, and was offered water instead. That I took. If he wanted me dead, I imagined poison wouldn't be his method with all the deaths available to him in this place.

He didn't finish his thought. He sipped from the goblet, thought a moment longer, and then turned to me.

"I have no allusions that I may sweep aside the Accord and the Church in some glorious crusade. No. I am the backwater ruler of a small fiefdom."

His eyes narrowed with some subtle emotion. Again, I noticed their violet color. Many Houseborn have vibrant eye and hair colors, the product of old alchemy in their blood. The nearly red shade of the Baron's eyes stood out from his darker skin.

"I am ill prepared for open war," he said. "And it is hardly something I want in any case. I am rebelling against them, not my fellow man. Though, I will fight him too if necessary."

He waved a hand vaguely skyward and eastward and sipped wine before continuing. "I am connected. With elements of the highborn, yes, but also with factions within the occult world. I believe, with enough time and coordination, a sort of… resistance, I suppose you could call it, can be formed."

"A resistance against the gods?" I asked, not bothering to hide my skepticism.

Stolen story; please report.

Again, the Baron scoffed. "The Onsolain are not gods. Demigods, perhaps. They are powerful and ageless, yes, but not immortal. Not truly. That was proven during the Fall."

I hid my clenched fist under my cloak. What he said was blasphemous, heretical…

And true.

The Baron continued in a musing tone, unaware of my inner turmoil. "Even the Church only acknowledges one true God, and where is She? More than half a millennium gone, with no telling when or if She might return."

"It's prophesied that the Heir of Heaven will return," I said, trying to make my voice bland and not argumentative, as though I were just speaking from rote. "When She has reclaimed Her true kingdom."

A pale smile traced Orson's lips before he returned his focus to me. "I will make my plans without the assumption that God will appear in the flesh to cast me down. If that happens, then I suppose we were always fated to lose."

He pondered that for a moment, then shrugged. "But I digress. The Onsolain are the true threat, and while I question their inherent divinity, I do not doubt their power. Still, they tend to act through proxies and intermediaries, rarely displaying their power in truth. I imagine it will take much to draw them out as happened during the last war. I intend something more…"

He held up the fingers of his left hand and pinched them together. "Subtle. A network of allies, working in tandem to discredit the Church, diminish the magics and pacts with which the gods…" He let irony slip into that last word. "Have riddled the land. Believe me, this is just a seed from which something much larger might sprout."

I nodded slowly, while inside I roiled with indignation, and let him do all the talking. May as well get it all out before we got to the point. It just made my next decision easier.

"I intended to explain all of this to the rest of my guests," the Baron said. "I will, in time. They will have concerns. Questions. Demands." He chuckled darkly. "I'm not so deluded as to think they're doing this for the same reasons as I, or want what I want."

"What do you want?" I asked.

The Baron glanced at me, and then toward the fire. I almost didn't hear his reply, so quiet was it.

"A choice."

I didn't understand. In truth, I wasn't sure I wanted to. Orson Falconer was, in every way I could think of, the kind of madman my position had been created for. He consorted with fiends and Recusants. He allowed his allies to butcher and desecrate, and planned far worse. I suspected him to be responsible for the untimely death of Caelfall's former preoster, Olliard's departed friend and Edgar's mentor. He had openly admitted to planning rebellion against the divinity and all their works, a crusade which would likely drag our already wounded land back into war.

I wasn't there to understand him. Just to kill him. I could do it right there in that room. He was unarmed and alone, beside's the cloaked servant. It might be the best chance I got.

I would die. Already near my last legs, it took all my focus just to not show how fatigued and short on reserves I was. After I cut him down, I doubted I would escape the castle and all its horrors.

Even still… this was my duty.

I exhaled, long and slow, easing tension from my limbs. In my thoughts I concentrated on the words of an Oath, and felt the first thrum of power course through me. Orson, who'd been lingering by the room's window, shifted as though he'd been disturbed by something.

I would have to move quick. Quicker than whatever hid under that green shroud lurking by the door.

I almost did it. I almost lifted my axe and had this entire farce done right there. Even if I did survive, it would hurt me to do it, perhaps permanently — false pretenses or no, I was a guest in the lord's house, protected by the rights attached to that status and bound by his authority as the master of that hall. My powers had deep ties to those same rites.

If I killed him this way, it would be murder.

I had been given great power by the Alder Table. It came with costs and restrictions. Among those were this — the ancient laws that tied the powers of the land together, its traditions not least among them, were bound into my bones and blood.

Shirking those laws came with great risk. Even with the bishop in Vinhithe, I had approached him openly and declared his doom. I had done it in a temple. It had been as official as I could make it.

And it had gone to shit. I could have killed the old man in his sleep, and been miles from the city with no one the wiser until dawn.

My role was to protect the sanctity of the land and its peoples, not my own. I wasn't convinced what was left of mine was even worth protecting.

In the moment before I convinced myself to go through with it, as my senses sharpened in anticipation of battle, I heard something which gave me pause. The sound of many tiny, scuttling insects in the deeper shadows along the room's edges.

I wasn't alone with just the Baron and his retainer. That thing from the dinner hall was there with us. Watching. Ready.

I knew what it was. I knew by the way my magic warned me, and even more so by the burning scars over my left eye. Hate and fear more intense than anything I could possibly feel toward Orson Falconer shot through me.

No wonder he'd let me keep my weapon and only brought one retainer. Orson had no fear of me. With that thing in the room, he may as well be at the top of a curtain wall.

Orson saw none of all that agonizing I went through in those moments. He finished his quiet contemplation by the window and turned, forcing me to refocus on him. The moment had passed.

"You have proved yourself wise in the ways of the Sidhe," the Baron said. The lord paced as he talked, violet eyes unfocused. "Further, you have shown restraint. With Karog, and in your council regarding the troll. I need that kind of thought in all of this. I already have muscle. The Mistwalkers are capable in the ways of violence, and that war ogre…"

He shook his head. "Well, suffice to say I have all the potential for bloodshed I need, at least on the scale I'm currently operating."

He whirled on me. "Are you a ranger?"

I was taken aback a moment. "I've learned from them, but no."

The Baron nodded. "That explains some of your knowledge, and the fae magic Karog sensed on you. I won't pry into your personal affairs, Alken, but I won't deny that I'm suspicious of you. You arrived out of nowhere, without announcing yourself, and have skills and motives that are of great value to me."

His lips curled up at the corners. "But I am not in much of a position to look a gift chimera in the mouth."

Realization struck me. "You don't trust the others." Of course he doesn't. None of them trust one another. Why would they?

The Baron's smile became more genuine and he inclined his head in a brief nod. "They are either working toward their own ends or representing other factions with goals only tangentially aligned with my own. Many of them see me as a safe bet. A petty mortal lord with some knowledge of the occult, who can act as a neutral intermediary. They have nothing to lose by indulging me, and much to gain by using me. My connections among the Houses are of special interest to many of them. My family is very old, very tied to the land."

"So where does that place me?" I asked. Idly, I observed that Orson had barely for a moment stopped pacing, while I'd remained planted and still throughout this interview.

"You have not proclaimed yourself representative of any other interest," the Baron said. "You claim to seek retribution against the Faith. And the powers behind it?"

I didn't reply. The Baron seemed to take that for confirmation and smiled. "That is what is arrayed against us, Alken. This is not just a petty rebellion against a mortal theocracy. The clericons and preosters of the Church are but one arm of the denizens of Heavensreach. They are deeply embedded into this land. The elder folk, the elves and all their cousin kindreds, are their vassals and students. They have blessed knights, rangers, armies of the zealous, and have wrapped this land so deep in enchantment it can be hard to tell dream from reality in some places."

He sounded so bitter, as though it were all some sort of hell. Our land had been beautiful before Recusants like him had set fire to it.

The Baron's smile fled, and his nearly red gaze becoming intent. "So I must ask — are you and I kindred spirits?"

A coldness crept into me. Don't deny it, I thought. This is what you need.

I wanted to deny it. Very badly. To growl that he was nothing like me.

"I'd like to call you mad," I said. I very much wanted to. "But I don't imagine I'd have taken an interest in anything less. You have my attention, lord baron."

Orson Falconer looked pleased. "The first step is securing my own land from Eld influence, be it Onsolain or the Sidhe. I've committed to this, now that the Mistwalkers have forced it."

He sighed and rubbed at his temple. "I intended something slower, more subtle, but I have waited long enough. You want to strike against our mutual enemy? I intend to send you at them, and sooner rather than later."

I schooled my features, not wanting to let him or his servant see the frustration I felt then. I wasn't there to fight against the Baron's enemies. The further I was from him, the fewer chances I would gain to complete my true objective.

On the other hand, gaining his trust could get me more information, more opportunity. This was bigger than just one traitor hiding in a back country. Powerful forces, possibly greater than Orson Falconer himself, gathered in Caelfall.

Politics. I suppressed the scowl the thought nearly brought to my lips. I'd believed I was done with all of that. Even still, if the seeds of a new war were being planted here…

Stopping that was also my duty. Wasn't it?

I felt the sharp barbs of the axe's branch against my skin, almost like an admonishment. I ignored it. I could bide my time in this improvised cover, potentially do more damage to this league of traitors. Besides, I needed time to recover and complete my real mission.

Aloud I said, "What would you have of me, lord?"

The Baron studied me a moment, thinking. "I will consider. For now, however, I believe you've had a long journey and could use rest. Priska will see you to a room where you will be able to refresh yourself."

He didn't quite wrinkle his nose, but I got the message. I inclined my head. "I wouldn't mind a bath," I said. I also had the mysterious servant's name now.

"A bath, fresh clothes, and a clean bed." Orson Falconer quirked a smile. "The hospitality of my house is not what it once was, but I will not be called a poor host. You are my guest. You will be taken care of."

I tried not to read too deeply into that statement as I was led from the study.

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