Days later

The old tower squatted on a bald hill deep in the countryside, surrounded by miles of trackless snow. There were no villages for it to watch over, no earl or baron to pay for its upkeep, no knight to garrison it. Even the ghosts hadn't bothered with the crumbling thing, so old and devoid of consequence was it.

Delphine didn't know if it had fallen in war or just been abandoned. The historian in her wanted to know, wanted to cross-reference the spot with maps and trace the patterns of time to learn just who'd lived here, what kind of life they'd enjoyed, why someone built it in the first place.

But she'd chosen the spot for its isolation, its anonymity, and contented herself with that.

She ascended the hill, pausing only briefly when a gust of freezing wind howled over its face and tugged at her cloak. She used her own body to cover the bundle in her arms, turning her face away and letting the thin barrier of her scarf block the worst of it. This was a bitter winter, and even though spring should have been just weeks away, the cold seemed to dig its claws in rather than loosen them in anticipation of warmer months. Even under many layers, she shivered against that gust.

There will be another storm tonight, she thought. I'll need to get more firewood. There were some scant copses in the fields, but Delphine wasn't much of a woodsman. She'd found a rusty old hatchet in a shed not long after leaving Tol, and stolen it. She'd never stolen anything in her life, but the nights were bitter and she wanted fire.

The tower remained deathly silent as the wind abated and Delphine drew closer to its entrance. Here she paused. There'd been a door once, but time and weather had rotted it away to leave an empty portal. It was oppressively dark inside despite it being midday. Even the gaps in the walls and ceiling of the ruin didn't seem to chase away the shadows, just made them cling more stubbornly.

Had it felt that dark when they'd first arrived? Did it feel this heavy then? Delphine felt like she stood on the precipice of deep water, and suddenly her legs wouldn't move.

Afraid. She felt afraid. A bead of sweat traced her temple despite the winter air, and she could hear her heart thumping in her ears.

It's just instinct, she reminded herself. Primal survival instinct, the animal in you reacting with raw impulse. You are not an animal. You are a rational being, a thinking being, and you are master of your mind and body. They do not master you.

The one inside created this atmosphere intentionally, used it to deter other living things. Used it protect herself. She'd gone through something truly awful for a long time, so why wouldn't she?

Ormur had abandoned her not long after arriving here. He couldn't stand her companion, and after a while he'd stopped coming back even when she left the tower. She already missed the weasel, but suspected he would be alright. He was a survivor too, and could hunt for himself.

She told herself that, but the loss hurt. She kept looking for him out of habit.

But she wasn't alone. Not anymore. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the tower. It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust, and she searched for the other occupant while she moved to an old pile of relatively flat masonry and put her burden down, taking the time to light a lantern and start getting a fire going. The one she'd made that morning had gone out, left untended by the ruin's other occupant.

"Shy?" She spoke into the darkness after lighting the campfire.

A lingering moment of silence. Then a rustle of cloth, and something moved against one wall. She was still sitting there in the same spot as when Delphine left that morning. She didn't say anything, hadn't said more than a handful of words since they'd fled from Baille Os.

Delphine tried to keep her tone light. "I've brought food. I don't know if that body needs to eat, but I expect it does. It's not much, but…"

She shrugged without knowing whether the demon was looking at her or not. "Well, it's not much, but we have to keep up our strength. I went to the village again. Most of this is fresh."

She started unpacking the feast she'd prepared — she called it a feast, but really it was mostly forage. She'd also gone to a village a couple miles from the tower and played the part of a mendicant, pleading charity from the villagers. The nun's habit she wore and her training made it easy.

"Come on," she urged as she unpacked the meal. "Come eat."

She sat down and started in herself. A kindly old widow had packed pastries in the bundle.

Another rustle. The demon had curled back up against the wall. She wore a cloak large enough to hide her wings, at least when they were folded, another item of loot the doctor had procured in recent days. The heavy hood was pulled up, shadowing the face within. She'd hidden in it, made a nest of silence.

Delphine sighed. She'd expected something like this might happen, but hoped time would make it better. Twelve years. Twelve years in Hell. What horrors had she experienced? Had it felt longer on the other side, or shorter? Some scholars theorized that time didn't move the same in the Realms Immortal, that there were pockets, weather patterns and other strange phenomena that could stretch a day into a century, or collapse a century into a moment.

How long?

Delphine was a polymath; an astrologer, an alchemist, a trained cleric, and a physician all at once. She could heal the body and the spirit, know what ailed both, even make semi-accurate predictions to a chosen course of action by reading stars, but she didn't know how to heal this. The damage went deep, down into the other's core. No amount of suture could stitch that back up, no poultice could salve it.

She felt helpless.

"Please," Delphine whispered. She'd given her space, but this silence was stifling. "Just say something. Let me know you're still…"

You? The traitorous thought came before she could crush it.

"I just want to know if you're alright," she finished lamely.

The other shifted again, and finally spoke. A faint whisper emerged from within the woolen cover.

"He was there. I saw him."

Delphine shivered as that voice seemed to fill her, like all this time she'd been an empty cup and now cold water poured in. It was addicting, that voice, and unconsciously she leaned toward it and longed to hear more. She knew that was part of the demon's nature. She fretted over that sometimes, knew deep down that she'd been made a succubus's thrall. She convinced herself that it was fine, just part of the other's nature and not done maliciously.

"He was," she said cautiously, not liking this line of questioning. She couldn't keep herself from adding, "He meant you harm. He murdered your shadow right in front of me."

"Did it hurt him? I sent it to hurt him."

Delphine wasn't sure how to answer. The question didn't even seem directed at her. The demon had been doing that at times, having conversations with herself. It was worrying.

Shy didn't speak for a minute. After the pause she seemed to focus and asked, "How long?"

This question was meant to be answered. Delphine still hesitated.

"Tell me."

And she did. "Twelve years, as of two months ago. It's almost spring of the twelfth year since Seydis burned, which began the same day you…"

She cut herself off and changed the subject. "A lot has happened since. The realms have changed. There's an emperor now, he rules from Reynwell in the north. A member of the Forger clan."

She began to speak, telling her companion about the civil war, the formation of the Accorded Realms, the lifting of the trade ban with the continent, and all the things that'd happened in the last decade and some.

Had it really been so long? It didn't feel like it, yet somehow it also felt like a lifetime.

So much. There was so much to tell. Delphine knew the demon listened intently, despite not moving or interrupting with questions. She listened, and absorbed the new information.

"Tell me about him."

Delphine paused at the sudden question. "I… I'm not sure I—"

"Please, Eliza."

Delphine shivered at the sound of her true name, her birth name. She'd abandoned it years before, replaced it with Sister Vera and then with Delphine Roch, and no one of consequence remembered who she'd been born as. Why would they? She'd been born a bastard to parents who were all too happy to sell her off to the Cenocastia. The name meant little to her.

Only… She'd told Shy back then, revealed it in her dreams. The knowledge that she remembered after all this time and all she must have gone through filled Delphine with joy. It almost drowned out the jealousy that tightened inside her chest.

"They call him the Headsman of Seydis now. He's an executioner. He's earned other names, few of them pleasant. I understand his knighthood was stripped for some time, but some events in the northern capital caused him to earn it back. He's not well loved, though if you sift through hearsay then it's obvious he's saved the Accord from more than a few disasters."

She shrugged. The demon's hooded visage tilted towards her.

"You hate him."

Delphine's lips tightened. "He hurt you." He killed you.

"But you stopped me."

She had. Delphine wasn't sure why, only…

She felt guilty for betraying him. Why? He'd been nothing but scornful and callous since they'd met, though she admitted to being surprised by him at times. There was something underneath all that grimness. Pain. Regret. It seemed to reflect her own. She probably wouldn't feel any guilt at all if not for their conversation after she'd cut that parasite out of him. Why had she bothered doing that?

Because I'm a sentimental fool, and because I wanted to convince him that he'd been wrong.

It didn't matter anymore. She hadn't decided until the final moment to go through with this, and even if she had planned it more thoroughly he wouldn't have agreed. He'd have never given her the chance.

Delphine changed the subject. "We need to decide what to do next. You're not safe. The Credo is wounded, but they're not gone, and your… brethren may be looking for you as well."

She hesitated, feeling that fear again, but pushed it back and knelt right in front of the cloaked figure. Delphine found her hands through the material and clasped them. They were cold, even through the layer of warm wool.

"They wanted me to free you, Shy, and I'm afraid that—"

"I know what he wants." The demon's voice sounded firmer. She seemed more focused in that moment, perhaps emerging from the fugue she'd remained in since they found the tower.

The fear. Delphine always felt it, tried to control it, but it took her then. "You betrayed him. What if he wants to punish you? What if that's why they brought you back?"

The demon fell into silence again. Delphine sighed. She just needs time. She's been through something terrible.

She stood and walked to the meal and the scant supplies, beginning to take stock of what belongings she'd kept with a renewed sense of purpose. "Where should we go?" She repeated her earlier question, though it was mostly directed to herself. She turned to face the figure sitting by the wall. "Perhaps west, to Edaea? The world is much bigger than these kingdoms. We could go anywhere."

The silence felt heavier then, and Delphine suspected she knew the response hidden beneath that fabric. He isn't in the west.

"If you want revenge…" Delphine's mouth formed a firm line, and she made an effort to sound determined. "Do you want revenge?"

More silence. Delphine didn't want to go down that road. She'd tried already and botched it terribly, had been more scared than angry at the time. She just wanted to be done with this horrible land and all its monsters. There were monsters in the west too, but at least no one would know them. Anywhere else sounded better.

But if dealing with Alken Hewer once and for all gave her closure, then…

Before Shy could respond, another voice spoke. "Yes, a good question. I would also like to know."

The voice came from directly behind her. The fact it revealed itself should have given her time to react. She had powders mixed to blind and to burn, poisons, a blade at her belt. She wasn't defenseless.

But Delphine wasn't a demon. She wasn't a vampire, an elf, or a dyghoul, nothing supernatural. Just human, with human speed and human reflexes, and she was taken completely off guard.

She turned just as the blade punched into her sternum. She let out a gasp as she felt the impact, the sensation of iron sliding in. The hand that held the sword emerged from a gilded vambrace, and sported the curled claws of a beast.

She tried to speak, but the blood that began to bubble up her throat and pour out of her lips made it difficult. She mumbled, not sure herself what she meant to say. She was lifted off the ground. The sword was huge, a rusted thing with a broad blade almost long as she was.

The visage of a lion stared down at her. A lion wearing regal armor and a red cape threaded with gold, a lion with small, lopsided eyes set too far apart. A nightmare. A demon.

The pain came fast. Delphine felt tears form in her eyes. Her vision hazed, and her heart beat fast in growing panic.

The lion swept the sword to one side and threw her to the ground. She crumpled in a limp heap. Her limbs wouldn't obey her, and very soon she lay in a pool of her own spreading blood.

Dead dead I'm dead oh God please I don't want to—

"Eliza?" Shy's voice sounded almost confused.

Someone else entered the room. Delphine didn't see them enter, but felt them, like all the winter outside had suddenly collapsed into the doorway. A coldness walked there.

Scared. I'm scared. She tried to say so, to ask for help, but there was too much blood in her mouth. She tried to spit some out, to make one last attempt to speak. She reached out for her. Shy was only a few feet away, and Delphine couldn't see her face with the heavy hood over it, with the ruins so poorly lit. She wanted to see her face.

She stretched and murmured an incoherent plea. A tear escaped her left eye, and then Delphine Roch went.

"A shame," the one who'd entered the tower after Ager Roth said dispassionately. "Truly a waste, but needs must when devils drive."

The new voice was cultured and light, like a well-spoken courtier addressing a group of nobles after he'd arrived late to a function. The smaller demon in the room ignored it, pulling herself away from the wall to kneel by the doctor's body. She was already gone, the blood loss too massive. It'd been quick.

The lion stepped aside to let the newcomer walk forward. He was a man of average height, slender, wearing a heavy brown cloak against the cold and looking for all the world like an ordinary traveler. Nothing of his face could be seen under the hood. The scant light in the ruined tower seemed to scorn him.

"Why?" Shyora asked aloud. Her eyes remained fixed on Delphine's terrified, bloodless face.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Mortals who know the infernal script are rare," the wizard said. "Can't have them running about unchecked, and this one served its purpose. Besides, I owed her for her mischief in Seydis."

For trying to free her. This was revenge for breaking his bindings.

He stepped forward, then froze. His voice came out stiff with anger. "Where is it?"

She didn't reply, and he spoke in a colder tone. "I command thee, abgrüdai. Answer me."

The bonds he'd placed on her before her banishment were subtle and powerful. Even twelve years in the hands of the Zosite hadn't allowed them to unravel all of it. She resisted for a moment, but only a moment.

"Gone. Returned to the source." She let some satisfaction creep into her tone. "She anticipated you."

Delphine had done it back in the crypt, added the necessary code to make the volumen dissipate and rejoin with its origin. She might have used it for leverage, for power, but she'd known it would only make her a target. She'd known she couldn't match wizards and demigods in this game, so she'd used the only power she had and denied it to them.

That the wizard believed she kept it only served to show his own mind. He would have kept it.

"You test me at your peril," her master said in a low, dangerously calm voice. "I have not forgotten your treachery. Do you think me weak because you almost broke free of me then?"

"I think you are old and tired," she said without raising her voice. "I think you are a small, silly thing, and in your heart you haven't forgotten what it feels like to wear motley."

The coldness around the wizard grew more intense. The demoness could feel his rage. She breathed it in and enjoyed the taste.

"She could be lying," Ager Roth said lightly. "You told me the priestess broke your hold over her voice."

Reynard knelt, ignoring the doctor's corpse, and grabbed the succubus by her chin, forcing her face up to look at him. When she saw his eyes beneath his cloak, her own widened.

He let her go after a minute and stood. "She's telling the truth. It is no matter. It would have been useful, but it has already accomplished what I needed."

He looked down at the kneeling demon. "You should have a message for me."

Her tone remained soft and devoid of emotion. "Is that a question?"

"Do not make me invoke your name, you winged strumpet. Do you have a message from Orkael? Speak."

She flinched, then lowered her head in a stiff nod.

"Good. We will discuss it at my sanctum. After that I will have more work for you, Pernicious Shyora. I've had need of a proper succubus for a while. Liieshi tried to replace you, but she lacks your touch. Yith and Raath are both gone now, killed by that paramour of yours. He's been an annoyance. I have a solution to him, and that will involve you as well."

Ager Roth's sonorous voice took on a warning edge. "She has marked him. By our ways, it is her—"

"Ways? What ways?" The wizard scoffed. "The Abyss has no laws. Those are for the Zosite and every other tyrant. You may dress like a king, my friend, but don't make the mistake of thinking you rule them. Demonkind isn't a kindred, it's not a race or a nation, it's a collection of appetites. Isn't that right, my dear?"

Shyora realized she was staring intently at the body. She shook herself and glanced at the lion. "This is a sad day, to see the mighty laid so low. I did not think you would stoop to playing the thug for the likes of this aged fool, Ager. Were you even in these lands a day before he bound you?"

Ager Roth stared at her without reaction. She could see the amusement in his eyes, but also something beneath it. He wasn't so calm as he looked. He never had been.

How did the old wretch do it? Reynard was a fox, not a lion, and the Gatebreaker was no ordinary demon. If he had a true name to compel him, then it could only be found in Heaven.

Was there some other leverage? If so, then…

"See her plot!" Ager Roth bared his yellow fangs in a grin. "She has not changed at all."

Reynard shook his head. "Don't tell me you aren't eager to get your revenge? That paladin is the one who sent you to Hell, after all."

Shyora's gaze fell from the magi and went back to Delphine. She brushed the woman's hair away from her face.

"Oh, stop that." The wizard tutted. "That shell was only ever a meal to you, and I have no patience for sulking. We both know you have no heart to break for this meat."

Shyora pulled the dead woman's head up onto her lap and curled her wings in protectively around them both. "What do you need of me, wizard?" She asked tiredly. "You got what you wanted. The Alder Table is gone, the old faerie dead, and this land's only leaders are petty mortals who will fade and be forgotten."

What Eliza told her had painted a poor picture of current times. "What more do you want?"

"We are only getting started, my dear. You've missed much." He noticed she was still distracted by the corpse and his voice became more light. "Excellent work on that one, by the way."

Shyora paused, sensing something fey in the wizard's voice. Those moods were his most dangerous. "What?"

"She might have been one of the bright stars of this era, but you turned her into a needful grub longing for your touch. I had my eye on Vera of the Cenocastia, you know. I suspected she would replace her abbess in time. She had the potential for greatness. I've read her writings. If the Priory hadn't suppressed them, she might have started a revolution in the scholarly world. She could have become Magi, if she wanted."

He took a step towards her and leaned down. "Instead, she dedicated almost half her life to you. She became an iconoclaste, a heretic, a pariah, and a betrayer many times over. What happened in Seydis haunted her, and I don't just mean its destruction. You dug a hole into this woman, Shyora, and I imagine she's felt it every waking and dreaming moment since. Not to mention the irony that she's now consigned herself to the ungentle reprimands of the Zosite in order to free you of them."

When the succubus just stared blankly, a smile quirked Reynard's shadowed chin. "Don't you see? She signed a Volumen of Zos to free you. Her soul will go to Hell. Ironic, isn't it?"

He lifted his hands and gave her applause. "Well. Done. That is exactly why I wanted you back. You are my scalpel, Tormentsister, and there is delicate work that needs doing."

He turned his back on her. Only Ager Roth saw the expression on the succubus's face. He chuckled quietly and said nothing.

When the wizard left, Shyora returned her attention to the body and leaned down to breathe in its scent.

"You should act quickly," Ager Roth told her. "Before she is all gone."

"Is that sympathy, Ager?" She ran her hand over Delphine's cheek.

"Necessity. If you do not taste it, it will become obsession. You need focus, and you have not fed since your return. I can sense it."

"Still acting like our angel. You know most of us don't have the capacity to be grateful for it, don't you?"

He didn't answer, and she knew he was right. There were still dregs left in the woman's shell. They might form into a ghost, but it wouldn't be her. No soul remained intact in death. Collecting and preserving them was a delicate task that few demons mastered. Most were content to maul and feast on the remains. Others wore them like trophies, or let them loose in the dark and toyed with them.

They all had this hunger, but it rarely took a singular form or fulfilled the same need.

This one was lost to her. The fool had been right. Hell had a claim on the soul, and she wasn't there anymore to dispute. All that remained were the shreds from a violent death, the echo of the woman's pain and terror.

I could bind those back together and keep that much. I'll need more shadows.

No. The pretty sinner had freed her, been loyal to her. So she lowered herself to press her lips to the corpse's mouth and inhaled what remained of Delphine Roch's soul. Shyora shivered with pleasure, and hated herself.

Tol

Cyril walked through the wreckage of his city, holding the letter in his hand that informed him of his uncle's death.

It'd arrived hours before. They were still clearing rubble from the cathedral in Baille Os, but damage to the structure had been severe. Few seemed to understand what exactly happened at the Basilica of the Blessed Saints, and every day new rumors emerged.

Soldiers moved through the town, helping clear destroyed buildings. The grunts and bellows of chimera fashioned for heavy labor echoed across the streets. Though Tol had been secured, the woed and raiders driven deep into the countryside, Cyril didn't have any illusions that the violence was over. War had broken out, and already word of fighting poured in from other territories.

Once again, my country gets battered to shield the others. Cyril tried to suppress his resentment without success. Osheim had been hard struck by the last war, and in many conflicts of the past. Its location at the very heart of Urn, the fact it was the gateway both to the eastern valleys and to the southern kingdoms made it so.

"You should return to the capital," Ser Brandon said. Cyril's castellan was covered in soot, his right arm hung in a sling. He'd been helping with the aftermath despite wounds taken during the battle, and refused more than the most necessary attentions by the clerics. A stubborn man, the classical Osheimer. Faithful and stalwart. He'd wept when the news about the king came in.

"There's too much work to do here," Cyril muttered as they walked. A group of conscripts passed by. They were country folk with mismatched gear forged by their village smith, simple helms and homemade spears. Each wore the symbol of the Faith. Aureates. They saw his distinctive armor of bright white steel, his fluttering cape of silk sewn with stork feathers, and stopped to salute him. He nodded to them.

"You are your uncle's heir of choice," Brandon reminded him. "The crown…"

"Will go to my cousin." Cyril stopped and turned to the older man, his mentor and friend. "You know our custom. The preosts will elect the next leader of the Os, and they will choose Samuel. He wants the crown, and he'll do the job well. I am content with focusing on the war."

"But…" the castellan was taken aback. "My lord, the king would have wanted—"

"What's best for the realm, I'm sure. If the College calls me to Baille Os, then I will go. Until then, my duty is here."

"You will likely be called back for the funeral," Brandon reminded him gently.

"…Yes." They hadn't recovered his uncle's body. They would give up the search before long and hold a service.

What happened at that city? Half the basilica had suddenly collapsed in on itself. There was a call to evacuate, reports of fighting breaking out in the halls. The king had been in the undercroft with the dead saint and members of the Priory, conducting a sacred rite to earn favor from both the Onsolain and the Underworld before the formal declaration of war.

Then everything seemed to go wrong.

There were rumors that he'd been there too, none of them confirmed. The Headsman. Cyril suspected it was true.

He hadn't harkened to the stories that the last active Alder Knight in the land was actually some kind of unholy monster loosed on the nobles to enact vengeance for their failures. His uncle and mother, both of whom had fought the Recusants when the civil war burned through Osheim, had spoken of Alken Hewer's valor. Cyril knew that even the darker stories served a purpose. The heretics needed something to fear.

Then he'd met the man, and found him… so jaded. Faded, even. He'd been unmoved by Cyril's words, seemed to scorn his homages to faith. He'd fought well, but Cyril had watched the holy power granted to the Table's champions fail him. Then, after, he'd fled from the demon lord on dark wings, and Cyril started to think the worst rumors about the fallen paladin might be true.

It was a sign. The old heroes couldn't be relied on. The priests said that God waited in Heaven, waging war against evil to reclaim that fallen seat. When the time came, the Heir would open the gates, empty Draubard, bring them all home.

But what if they weren't supposed to be waiting on Her? What if She waited on them, for proof they were worth saving? He couldn't stop thinking about it. He sought confession every night, poured through holy texts, consulted with his clericons on all matters. Their land was infested with evil, the garden their Immortal Queen fought so hard to claim for them sick and rotting, and everyone seemed to believe they still deserved salvation.

He was convinced of the correct course. Urn needed to be purged of heresy, of demons and doubt, of rot. It was why he'd allowed the Priory to conduct its work below his streets, given them funding and free rein in recruitment. They understood. The Inquisition did holy work, even if many found it distasteful. Most of those who'd become Knights Penitent had come from Tol's dungeons.

He had faith that lesser evil would serve a higher purpose, but that belief had yet to be truly tested.

Cyril suspected it would be soon.

"My lord?" His castellan asked. He'd drifted off in thought.

"I'm fine, Bran. Why don't you take the latest reports back to the castle, rest that arm and leg of yours? I need you fresh next time we ride out."

Brandon shuffled in embarrassment. "I'm not an invalid, my lord."

"You will be if you don't rest. Go. That's an order."

The man smiled, saluted, then started limping back towards the castle on the hill. Cyril's eyes roamed.

He stood in the square, he realized, where the angel and the demon had fought. He'd watched that fight, never before seen anything so terrible or wonderful. He'd grieved when the angel lost and the monster dragged its body off, even as other seraphim dove down from the sky and joined the fight. Some were already calling this new conflict the War of Falling Feathers, for many had rained down over Tol that night.

Signs. Portents of darkness and light, salvation and calamity. They were all around him, and yet everyone acted like this was just another war, another chance for glory. It wasn't about glory.

Perhaps the corruption took subtler forms. The people of Urn were prideful, but in Osheim they hadn't forgotten that faith was their first calling. He hadn't forgotten.

Cyril wandered through the blasted square. Cobblestones were broken and scattered, buildings collapsed, and he could still see the stains where the Storm Ogres had died and melted back into miasma and vapor. He walked until he came to the bottom of the cathedral steps, and looked up. The doors had been broken down when the demon hurled his opponent through them.

Saint Lyda's Cathedral had been shut since well before even his grandfather's time. Another reminder that evil could take root even so close, in what should have been a holy place. Even after more than a century, the sick and debased still tried to infiltrate Tol and seek this place. Cyril's ancestors had often persecuted them, killed them, but he'd been content during his time as commander of Tol's garrison to simply turn them away.

Best to leave the dead to rest, he thought, and most of them weren't actually heretics. Just desperate people seeking legends.

His was a god of blessings, of healing. He hadn't forgotten that, either. The sick didn't deserve to be scorned those same blessings. He recalled how his father had died of plague when he'd still been a child. The clericons hadn't been able to do anything for him, for all their Art, and he would have been king of Osheim without doubt.

Would you have done something for him? Cyril asked the dead church. They say you granted blessings to the sick, but then you became sick and then a monster. Would you have just made him a monster?

Guarding the place where Lyda's Plague had begun was a sacred duty to House Stour, one he took very seriously. The fallen saint's tale, and his father's fate, were lessons. Even that which is strong can be withered away, that which is holy can be corrupted, and even immortals may die.

He studied the weathered statues of angels to either side of the doors. As a child they frightened him. They looked melted, diseased. Lately, all they did was make him feel sad. He never could understand why. The Fallen had caused so much death and misery in her time. Shouldn't he feel disgusted?

Why did we let this place stand? He wondered to himself. Better to collapse it and build something new. Clean.

He began to turn away when something made him stop. A sound. A ringing? Like a high pitched tone in his ears, just at the edge of hearing.

Without understanding why, he turned to stare at the cathedral again. The broken doors yawned wide, and darkness lay within.

Without making a conscious decision to do so, without understanding why his legs carried him, Cyril began to ascend the steps. He paused at the threshold and stared at the unlit space within. The melted angels seemed to watch him.

"Is someone there?"

His voice echoed too loud in the hall past those doors. He winced.

"This place is anathema," he said in a firmer voice. "I must ask you to—"

The way that yawning space within seemed to swallow his words was an indictment. He felt foolish and shut his mouth, suddenly nervous, as though he'd made a loud noise inside a library. Or a hospital.

He realized that he could see the altar. The stained glass windows were caked in dust and cobwebs, so no daylight came in, but the altar's candles were all lit.

Who…

Cyril stepped into the nave before he could stop himself. He told himself that he should call his guard. If someone was in there who shouldn't be — and no one should be — and he came upon them alone…

But he saw no one, and that strange tugging sensation kept pulling him forward. He felt like a man dreaming, no longer in control of his body. His heart began to beat faster, and sweat beaded under his fine white armor.

What am I doing? This feels wrong, this—

But it didn't feel wrong. He wanted to move forward, had to.

The sound from before became more distinct. It grew louder as he neared the altar and the stone basin set before it. It gave off a sickly-sweet smell, and a cloud of tiny black insects swarmed around it.

Flies. Some drifted towards him as he approached, the buzzing things landing on his armor. He started to brush them away, but something made him stop. They didn't feel malicious.

"Is someone here?" He asked quietly.

The only answer lay in the buzzing of flies. He stepped through the cloud of insects and peeked over the lip of the stone bowl.

It was empty. Some filth clung to the sides, what might have been pulsing scraps of meat. There were stains like those he might see around an uncleaned sickbed.

Empty. And unclean. In a flash Cyril felt he understood what was being said to him. This was a message, a revelation.

It's empty. Empty and unclean.

It felt correct. It matched what he'd been feeling for so long now. What was sacred had become sullied, what had been true made into lies. Their heroes were all tarnished, their angels overcome by devils, their future uncertain. There was truth in that despair, and perhaps hope.

Someone coughed. This time he knew it wasn't in his imagination. He turned just as a figure stepped out of the darkness. They wore battered armor crawling with holy text and motifs, prayers etched into blackened steel. It would have been beautiful if not for the bloodstains seeping out and staining the metal, if not for the places where he could tell the armor had been nailed to the body inside. It was an iron maiden, a torture device.

"You're a Penitent." Cyril wondered why he didn't go for his sword. These faux-knights were supposed to be dangerous without a handler, mindless berserkers. They also weren't meant to last very long before expiring from their injuries. Where had this one come from? They held no weapons and seemed passive.

It held something. He could make out a veil of… hair?

A head. The Knight Penitent held a head. Cyril studied the thing in the Penitent's hands, and realized he recognized the face. It was one of the angel's three faces, the one the demon had torn off with its teeth.

"He was your patron," Cyril said aloud as he looked at the head. It was the female one of the Saint of Blood's three faces, with long hair the color of silk. She looked serene in death, and somehow sad.

The Penitent said nothing, and Cyril continued almost without pause, the words entering him seemingly from outside himself. "The Saint took your pain away, isn't that right?" He knew a bit about how they worked, been briefed by the inquisitors. "But now the angel is gone, and you…"

"He gave us pain. Gave us blood. That was his gift. The strength to endure."

The Penitent's voice was a terrible thing. Inhuman, barely a whisper from behind the iron grill of their helmet. Cyril nodded in understanding. The Saint of Blood was said to have caught the God-Queen's pain in his chalice, thus he'd earned his name.

"We were made for a purpose. To hunt. But our armor wracks us, takes our focus. We require a guardian angel."

Cyril shook his head. "I can't bring him back. I don't have that power."

He knew what the clerics called him. True Knight. But he couldn't heal, not like the paladins of Seydis could, and he knew he couldn't heal this.

The Penitent seemed unwilling, or unable, to say more. Even just those few words had left it — them — breathing heavily. They thrust the head toward Cyril. Without thinking he took it, and wondered why he felt no horror.

He turned to the basin, and felt he could almost hear a voice inside the buzzing insects. It whispered to him, and offered to take away his doubt. His pain.

But it needed to speak with more than the wingbeats of flies.

Was this why his family had been tasked to guard this place? For this very moment?

Everything was unraveling. He'd allowed horrors to happen beneath the city he'd sworn to protect, and failed to guard it against the incursions of demons and madmen. The elves were all turning to darkness, the heroes of the past were aging and growing weak, and where was God? He'd seen Her angels, and he'd met their champion, and found both wanting.

But once, they'd all feared what lived inside this shrine.

True Knight. The Stork of Osheim. Lord-Commander of Tol. Pretty names, but what good did they do? His land lay sick and dying, riddled with cancer. It had attacked them even at their heart and taken his kinsman and king. He felt helpless.

"I just want to protect them." The words were pulled from his throat as though by a hook. "Can I? Against this?"

Not without suffering, the voice in the stagnant air seemed to say.

He'd made others suffer. Once again he looked at the Penitents.

You are right. Right about all of it. She isn't coming back.

They have lied to you.

Cyril felt tears well up in his eyes. "What do I do?"

He knew that if this presence could speak, it would tell him. He just wanted someone to tell him how to fix all of this. He looked at the Penitent, and suddenly felt he understood what needed to be done. He'd asked them to suffer, to pay for their sins, but he hadn't paid for his.

He looked at the clean white steel of his gauntlet, and suddenly it disgusted him.

Give us voice, the flies said.

Cyril nodded, took the angel's head to the basin, and placed it inside.

End of Arc 7

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