Vanya returned some time later with an aged man dressed as a monk, save for the apron and belt of tools he wore over his brown robes. I left him with Emma and Vanya in the young noble's bedroom, feeling useless and guilty.

It didn't matter at all that I'd been defending myself from Emma's magic. She was barely more than a child, and I'd let her goad me into that duel. I'd been dismissive and surly, knowing it ate at her pride.

I'd dealt with nobles before, and knew what might happen. I hadn't cared. I'd been so angry at this situation with Nath's request, upset at what had happened in the Fane with Ser Maxim, and…

And I made excuses. I'd wanted to take the girl down a peg. How very knightly of you, Hewer.

I walked outside. A light rain had begun to fall, but the grassy field where Emma and I had sparred still seemed vibrant and bright, as though caught in beams of post-storm sunlight. The grass looked sharper, almost metallic. We'd both used a lot of aura and it lingered in the world, dramatizing it. It would fade before long.

I picked up my cloak from where I'd discarded it on the grass, then found my axe. I hooked the weapon onto my belt, securing it in the iron ring there, then tossed my cloak over one shoulder without putting it on.

I sighed, collected myself, and turned back to the manor.

A figure leaned against the porch, watching me with bright green eyes from beneath the brim of a tricorn.

"Qoth." I sighed. "Going to punish me for injuring your warlock?"

Qoth's expression remained unreadable between the cloth bandanna and shady hat. I could almost imagine the catlike features beneath. Or did they look different in this form? The eyes were uncanny, but mostly human.

"No." Qoth's light, slightly muffled voice seemed oddly chipper. "Good show, though. Haven't seen her that angry in a while." His green eyes sparkled with interest, and perhaps a bit of mirth.

Discomforted, I decided to change the subject. "Why doesn't Lord Brenner have any guards here? I'm certain he could post them regardless of the lady's wishes."

Qoth shrugged. "He tried. Emma knew he was more interested in keeping eyes on her than keeping her safe. She played up the devil child angle. Soon enough none of the locals would come near this place, not even the lord's men-at-arms. He sends soldiers sometimes, has more patrols in this area, but he got the message eventually. Even that physiker Vanya brought is only here because he owes her a favor. Honestly, if not for Vanya, we'd be living a lot harder out in this back country. Woman's a lot more capable than she looks."

Remembering my brief conversation with the maidservant, I didn't doubt it. She'd seemed demure and even shy, but how much of that was a facade? She had a hidden steel.

The physik emerged a while later, looking nervous and a touch angry. "The girl will live," he told me. "But she's lost much blood. I'd keep her abed for the next week. Change her bandages regularly, and use the antiseptic I left in her room. She's resting now."

With that, the physiker departed in haste while casting wary looks back over his shoulder.

Qoth glanced at me and lifted his eyebrows as though to say see?

I narrowed my eyes at the creature. "And what about you?"

Qoth had produced an apple from his coat. He rubbed it on his sleeve, inspected it critically, then tucked it back under one arm without lowering his bandanna to take a bite. "What about me?"

"For one thing, what are you exactly?"

Qoth went still.

I maintained eye contact, more certain the longer I trained my golden eyes on the servant's own. "You're no regular faerie. I've never heard of an elf becoming a mortal practitioner's familiar."

Qoth spread his hands out wide, the black sleeves of his coat flaring out like crow wings. "Then what do you think I am, O' Knight? You already know I'm of the Briar."

And truthfully, I knew little of them at all beyond stories.

I studied the figure another long moment, trying to see through the glamour I sensed about him. "I know the Briar are elves, just like the Wyldefae and the Seydii. But you're not just an elf, are you? You're a changeling. A half breed."

Qoth studied me perhaps half a minute, saying nothing, green eyes intense. I sensed danger in that stare. Yet, I felt more sure of my guess by the moment.

"The Briar hates mortals," I said cautiously. "Why would—"

"My story is not yours any more than the girl's is," Qoth said in a very different voice than he'd been using. "Do not ask for it. And I'd be careful who you call half breed, gold eye."

I opted for wisdom and changed the subject. "Does Emma know who I am? What I am?"

Qoth shook his head. "Nath did not reveal aught of your identity to the child. Secrets of that sort have power, Ser Knight, and are not given lightly."

No doubt Nath would leverage that indulgence against me. Snorting, I turned away.

"Where are you going?" Qoth asked as I donned my cloak.

I rolled my shoulders, wincing as I pulled at the cut on my neck. It had already scabbed, and would turn into little more than scar tissue in an hour or two — I may not have been able to heal others anymore, but my own fast healing still worked well enough. "I'm not going to sit around waiting for this revenant to make its move," I said. "If its activity is concentrated in this fief, then I should be able to find signs of it."

"Will you join Lord Hunting's hunt?" Qoth giggled at his own wordplay.

I considered the idea. I didn't have any faith that a provincial lord and his entourage could track down a living curse on their own, but he'd had the knight-exorcist. Ser Kross might have a few tricks up his sleeve.

And if I left, would the Burnt Rider attack Emma while she was vulnerable?

I didn't think so. Whatever was going on here, the revenant had plenty of opportunities to kill the girl before I'd arrived. This had apparently been going on for years, maybe even decades based on what Vanya told me the previous night.

If you're wrong and you leave now…

I couldn't do anything for her here. I'd proven that already.

"Maybe," I said aloud. "But I'd like to learn what I can on my own for now."

I wish I had a priest. A proper cleric could ward the manor, keep even the most potent of spirits from intruding.

"I have a favor to ask," I told Qoth. When I explained, he laughed and agreed to help.

I walked through a graveyard. The brief rain had passed, leaving behind fresh clouds of curling mist.

Shades lurked in that mist, murmuring unintelligibly. I ignored them, scanning the rows of graves for what I sought. I strode through one of the many free-standing graveyards scattered across the countryside. This one had no church, only a small shrine. The shrine's auremark had been stolen. I almost pitied the thief who'd done that, and wondered just how desperate someone had to be to risk the wrath of the dead for some blessed gold.

Perhaps I wasn't one to talk, considering I was willing to risk their wrath for a bit of information.

I found what I sought soon enough. At the center of the graveyard there stood a single well. Mottled statuary carved into the shape of two saints beckoned me forward with ivy-wrapped fingers. My eyes were drawn to the images of winged seraphs worked into the outer walls of the well.

When had it become strange to see Onsolain rendered so small in art? I'd thought nothing of it once, but that'd been before I'd seen the real thing.

I circled the well once, reaching out with my magical senses. I felt no apparent danger or corruption. I felt very little at all, save from the rising fog where ghosts watched with half-formed faces.

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Peeking down into the well I sniffed. Dry. I'd have to hope it would suit my purpose.

I fished around at my belt and produced a single gleaming silver coin. I held it up to inspect the images engraved into the metal. One side bore a sleeping skull, the other a circle of runes around a waxing moon.

Aloud I began to murmur, my voice becoming a rhythmic, lulling monotone.

"By pacts of old I ask a boon, so hear me Ye' Dead."

"I ask that ye' return now, from the umbral lands where ye' make thy bed."

"I offer this as payment, a coin of silver from the moon."

"May it guide you through the shadows, and may the Gates reopen soon."

Not quite the sacred rite a priest might use, but it felt more true to me.

I took a deep breath, then tossed the gleaming coin of azsilver into the well. I spread my hands out, letting my cloak unfold like a pair of ruddy wings.

"I seek your council, shades of Draubard. Accept my gift and return to the lands of the living."

Silver is precious to the Dead. I didn't hear the coin strike the well's bottom. I waited a long moment, eyes half closed, then shivered as a chill wind swept through the grave rows to stir my cloak.

"I have not heard that rhyme in many years. Not since I was a girl."

Without opening my eyes I said, "My mother taught it to me when I was a boy. It's one of the few things I still remember about her."

"Then you know the pain of losing a mother."

I lifted my eyes to the figure who now stood on the other side of the well. She seemed half formed of the mist, standing out from it only by her stillness. I couldn't see much of her — she wore a funeral gown, all spider-silk white, a nearly transparent shawl hanging down over her face. In gray hands she held a farmer's scythe with a dramatically curved haft, the blade badly rusted.

"I know you," I said to the ghost. "You're the Lady of Strekke. Emery Planter's wife."

The shrouded head inclined slightly in acknowledgement.

"You returned to the Underworld?" I asked her.

"After you murdered my husband, they came to take us back down into the depths. The drow elves."

The shepherds of the dead, I thought. Rysanthe's people.

The Lady of Strekke's dry hands crackled as she tightened her grip on her macabre tool. The mist boiled around her, writhing with strange and disturbing shapes. Her voice emanated from the surrounding mist as a hollow whisper.

"You left my son without his mother. Without his father. Now my lord husband's spirit wanders adrift through the hinterlands of this world, denied the honored place in the lands below owed to him as a lord of Urn.

"Your husband was Recusant." I shifted back a step. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and the air felt very cold. "He wouldn't have had sanctuary in Draubard no matter how he died."

"But we would have had time." The ghost's voice became a teeth aching hiss, a dire wind that froze my blood. "We would have been able to prepare my child for the woes of this world, to make him strong. Now he sits alone on a cold throne, devoid of those who love him. You did this to us."

I'd made a mistake. This was no ordinary shade, no Underworld saint offering wise council in return for my offer of silver. I'd known the restless dead were drawn to me, lured by the consecrated fire I carried, but I'd hoped I could perform a simple communion rite without too much risk.

Nothing could ever be goring simple.

"You are bound by the laws of the dead." I let my voice grow cold as hers. "You've accepted my offer of silver. I have questions, which you will answer. Once we're done here, you will return to the Underworld."

A chuckle dry as desert graves escaped the dead noblewoman's lips. "You need not convince me, Headsman."

I swallowed. I knew better than to let her get to me — my fear could make her stronger. The silver I'd offered and this conversation made her dangerous enough. It was the same as inviting her past a home's threshold or letting her sit at my campfire. That invitation empowered the Dead. I'd just have to hope the rites and laws that bound her kind still held strong enough to keep me safe through a brief conversation.

That order had once been ironclad. Nowadays… I kept my guard up, just in case.

"There is a dark spirit at large in this land," I said once I'd settled my nerves. "I want to know what the dead can tell me about it."

"There are many dark spirits in this land," the Lady of Strekke intoned almost gleefully.

I let some steel creep into my voice along with a bit of magic. "You know of whom I speak. The Burnt Rider, the one who haunts the bloodline of House Carreon. What does Draubard know of him?"

The ghost flinched at the touch of aura in my voice. "You speak of the Heir of House Orley." She paused a while, growing very still. Then, whisper-quiet she said, "Yes. The Dead know of him, though we do not claim him."

I frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"You will see."

Clenching my jaw in frustration, I decided to let that comment go for the time being. The ghostly noble could keep me talking in circles without ever gaining anything of real use, and I suspected her of being fully willing to engage in malicious compliance.

Worse, I detected more movement in the surrounding mist. It'd become thicker, almost a fog, and a din of whispering voices seemed to emanate from the creeping vapor.

"Fine." Do not show fear. Fear will make her stronger too. "Tell me more about this revenant. Who is he? Who was he?"

The ghost's chortle echoed in the fog, making it seem as though a congregation of shades mocked me. "You do not even know the sins committed by the family you defend! Oh, what a rich hypocrisy. You ruin my family for our blasphemies, and defend another despite theirs. Do you not see the cracks in the foundation you seek to uphold, O' Headsman?"

I'd had enough of the ghost's poison. "Speak," I ordered.

The laughter died, and the spirit seemed to drift further away from me. She hugged her reaping scythe close, as though for comfort. "Very well. I will tell you a tale then, so you may know your folly."

And she spoke of the past.

"Once, in the Westvales, there were two great families. The mightiest, the most feared, was the High House of Carreon. They were called the Shrikes. For their penchant for impalement, you see?"

I said nothing, remembering the phantasmal spears Emma had conjured and her fell name for them. I also recalled what the revenant had called her using the girl's own voice.

Shrike. It was a House nickname. Common enough, though more macabre than most.

"The second power in the west were the lords of House Orley," the Lady of Strekke continued. "Half the lesser houses swore to Carreon, half to Orley. For many generations they were in balance… yet they warred incessant. The hatred between those families ran deep as red seas."

"A blood feud," I said. Damn. That complicated things.

"Indeed. And dark was the end of that sanguine tale. It came to pass that a proposal for peace was arranged. A bond to end the feud and bring the two powers of the Westvales together. A union of blood and dynasties."

A cold that had nothing to do with the ghostly mist began to creep through me. Trepidation. I had a feeling I wouldn't like where this tale traveled.

"A marriage," I whispered.

"So common among my kind," the Lady of Strekke said, her voice becoming pondering. "Such a simple proposal, but mutual enmity had kept either side from extending that olive branch. The Carreon lord of the time offered his eldest daughter, then a young woman, to be wed to the young heir of House Orley, an accomplished warrior despite his youth. The Orleys were House Carreon's equal in the arts of war, shrewd in diplomacy, blessed in allies. The lord's heir was well loved by the commonfolk and lesser houses sworn to his family alike."

A ghoulish smile scarred the dead face I could just barely see through the ghost's veil. "But the Orleys had one weakness the Carreons were all too happy to take advantage of. A sense of honor. Orley valued the old ways, the ancient customs of the Edaean Houses of old. Offers of marriage are sacred, and would have joined both houses as one. They had every reason to believe the offer to be genuine."

"The two families, and many of their vassal Low Houses, came together at the fortress monastery of Baille Carus for the ceremony. The marriage took place. Then, on her wedding night, the Carreon bride slit the Orley heir's throat in their marriage bed. That same night, traitors hidden among House Orley's vassals and allies made their move even as the Carreon armies mobilized."

The ghost leaned forward, her voice becoming a sinister croon. "They massacred their rival. They besieged and dismantled their castles. House Orley was destroyed down to the last babe, the last maidservant, and displayed along the roads of the Westvales on pikes."

The Lady of Strekke bowed her head, again cradling the enormous scythe. "Don't you see? That is Emma Carreon's legacy. That is the abomination you protect."

"It's a dark tale," I agreed. "But this happened a long time ago. Emma's not responsible for her ancestors' crimes."

"Wrong," the ghost hissed. "The land remembers. The Dead do not forget. The scion of House Carreon carries her families' sins in her blood even as she carries their magic. The Carreons trespassed against the sanctity of the Heir of Heaven's own laws, and all that bloodline will pay the price. He will come for her and drag her soul into the flames. Just as you too are bound for the Fire for your own blasphemy."

I squeezed my left eye shut as a flare of pain went through the four long grooves carved there from temple to cheek. I held a hand to them, gritting my teeth against the pain.

"Yes!" The Lady of Strekke seemed to grow larger within the swirl of mist, rising to seven feet, eight, stretching into something out of nightmare. "The Dead know of your sins as well Alken Hewer, Knight of the Alder Table! We know of your blasphemous lust, of the role you played in the burning of Seydis! We know of the evil you courted, the betrayal you allowed to pass!"

"I didn't know." I stumbled, still clutching at my burning eye. The lie tasted like ash on my tongue. "I didn't know."

I didn't reply to the ghost, didn't care what she thought of me. I heard the echo of Ser Maxim's own pitiful wails in my own voice, when he'd succumbed to the golden ghosts in his thoughts. The same ones who haunted me.

Images flashed through my mind, burning as sharply as my scars in that moment. My captains encircling the Archon's fallen form, their own blades in his back. Gilded towers burning, hundreds of voices screaming, cackling demons glutting themselves on death.

A woman's face — a stranger's face — caught between grief and fury.

A sword in my hand, covered in smoking blood.

I hadn't held a sword since that day.

"You cannot lie to the dead." The ghost continued to grow, her features distorting. The scythe had become a crooked guillotine in her skeletal hands. "There will be no redemption for you, oathbreaker, no peace! We will haunt you to the ends of existence! I will never forgive you for murdering my husband, for orphaning my son!"

I fought through the visions, bringing myself back to the graveyard. "You can't touch me," I told the ghost. "The Law of Draubard—"

"Does not hold me!" The Lady of Strekke cackled. She resembled nothing human anymore. "I escaped the clutches of the drow! And I did not accept your silver."

My eyes caught a gleaming shape on the withered grass. My azsilver coin.

The noblewoman's ghost rose above me, towering, wispy veil turned into a tattered crown of writhing mist about a stretched, ghoulish face. The rusted blade she held in her hand was as transparent as her, but it gleamed with od — its edge would cut true.

Lesser ghosts boiled in the mist, murmuring, pressing in on me in the dozens.

"I am Lorena Starling," the ghost boomed. "And I will have my revenge, Headsman."

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