Interlude: Prayer

Staying lucid wasn't easy for Isabelle. Without conscious effort, her mind would sink into an odd mix of dreams and memory, before finally settling into a spiritual form of catatonia. For long, bitter years, she'd fueled the struggle against this strange torpor using what little blood Cole could give her. But even with careful rationing, that petty stockpile barely let her silently observe her darling's tribulations. So much as touching his dreams, or casting the pettiest of spells, had been enough to sometimes render her insensate for weeks at a time.

This era of deprivation ended when she tasted the Alukah. As even the few meager droplets Natalie offered empowered Isabelle greatly. Strengthened by this gift, she'd been steadily clawing back control over her mind and magic. But that short period of reprieve was at an end. Trapped in enemy hands, Isabelle was back to spending her power with a miser's care. Every moment she stayed conscious cost her, so every thought, every idea, needed to be worth its weight in red gold.

Isabelle may have gotten a little extravagant while tormenting her plagiarist, but the two-way nature of psychic links underwrote the costs involved. Besides, the potential benefits from planting the right mix of paranoia and fear within Wolfgang more than made up for the expenditure. But going forward, she'd need to be more prudent, taking care that her spent energy was put to maximum use. Unfortunately, such ideas of efficiency and efficacy were currently being trampled by the internal war consuming Isabelle's mind.

Pacing back and forth atop her lake of blood, she debated with herself on whether or not to take another monumental gamble.

"What could we possibly offer him at this point?"

"Surely, our position is a unique opportunity one he'd be loath to overlook."

"Yes, but would he be willing to exploit it?"

"True, his hands are certainly full, but when has that ever stopped him before?"

"Could we even contact him?"

"We aren't encased in stargent for the moment. Now is the best chance we'll have."

"Even if this does work, what will he demand from us?"

Isabelle paused to stare up at the empty void above. "What more can he?"

It was rare for her to encounter a question she couldn't hazard an answer to, especially since it was worry, not ignorance, that kept her silent.

Turning her focus down to the reflection at her feet, Isabelle saw fragility in her own expression and was incensed. In all her centuries of existence, she'd never backed down from a challenge, and now wasn't the time to start. Clenching her hands into fists, she knelt upon the lake of blood and swallowed her pride.

From her lips flowed words, poisonous, wretched words that hurt to speak. It was an incantation, one meant to invoke a great and terrible power. Forcing herself to keep her head bowed, hands clutched before her, Isabelle spat the rite as quickly as possible. Still, even when crafted by a magi's skilled tongue, the accursed thing couldn't finish fast enough. Perhaps that was intentional? A preliminary sacrifice of a precious commodity meant to catch the entity's attention? No, she couldn't let herself be distracted; her entire mind needed to be focused on this act if it stood a chance of succeeding.

For nearly an hour or an eon, Isabelle worked the spell, sculpting it with each forced sentence. The words themselves had little value, but they pushed her mind into the mutilated state required to communicate with the entity. It was a form of hypnosis, a crude realignment of mind and soul meant to bridge the Mundane, Aether, and Beyond. Dropping deeper and deeper into this warped state, Isabelle let everything but the words fall away. Then, she felt the shift, a change to the texture of reality, or at least her mental simulacrum of it.

Slowly, she raised her head, looking up from the rapidly crystallizing blood and at the power she'd invoked. Floating before her was a gash in existence, an impossible cut that somehow radiated both pure darkness and blinding light. Staring into that absence, seeing what awaited on the other side, Isabelle let out an involuntary breath, one that billowed with ice. Now unable to look away, she watched as the gash began to congeal. Shafts of stark white folded in upon themselves, forming pale bones that were shrouded in curtains of darkness, which wove themselves into muscles.

Mouth split in a silent scream, Isabelle tried desperately to shut her eyes, to do anything but gaze upon what she knew to be coming. As she'd recognized those bones in even that fraction of a second before they became swaddled in flesh. Yet, she could not so much as blink as her mind betrayed itself, refusing to ignore the thing she'd invited. Pale light painted skin over shade-born muscles and organs, before vanishing beneath plates of hardened darkness that settled into a grim panoply. Soon, all that remained of the original rip was a corona of silver fire, and even that began to condense down into wings, five sets of great wings that emerged from the entity's new form.

Heavy boots settled onto frozen blood, and the lake's surface groaned like a giant's death rattle. Stepping towards her, the boots' owners spoke in a sweetly familiar voice that made Isabelle's insides coil in on themselves. "You may rise."

Shakily standing up and brushing the ruby-like clots of icy red from her dress, Isabelle met her "guest's" eyes. They were a brilliant sky blue, a hue she'd worked so hard to craft for no reason other than vanity. After all, shouldn't the first true immortal have a gaze more vibrant than anything nature might stumble onto?

"I don't appreciate you taking that form," she whispered, unable to stop herself even though she knew how damn foolish it was to say that.

Master Time, the Tenth God, the Last Judge, the First Cold, He-Who-Ends, raised one of Cole's eyebrows. "It is the mask most fitting for you, Isabelle Gens Silva."

After biting down on a snarl, she spat. "Perhaps, but surely this… this ostentatiousness is unnecessary."

Before, when she'd communed with the Tenth God, he'd taken Cole's unscarred face as his own, but in those encounters, he'd been clad in a dark cloak, not the ridiculous trappings of a warrior seraph.

Glancing down at his stolen form, Master Time examined the heavy plate and ten wings with an almost amused expression. "You see what he is becoming, and that scares you."

"I see what you are turning him into!"

The faint humor in Master Time's stolen face faded. "He chose a good path and has walked it righteously. Every day, I continue to be impressed by your creation. I am proud of who Cole is and what he's overcome. Do not denigrate his efforts by ascribing all that has happened to my will."

Isabelle forced herself to be calm. "Fine, that's not the reason I called upon you anyway."

"Called? You prayed to me, Isabelle."

One of her eyes twitched in barely restrained rage. When she'd spoken to the Tenth God previously, Cole's mantle and Natalie's stigma had given her more sophisticated options to catch the deity's attention. Lacking those shortcuts, she'd now needed to rely on an infinitely more denigrating practice, something Master Time just couldn't help but jagging rub in.

But insults aside, this wasn't her first time negotiating with some obtuse cosmic horror, so she kept to business. "I wish to make a deal."

Master Time didn't answer, merely looking down upon her with a mix of regal disdain and mild interest. Was he baiting her? Trying to get a reaction? Could this be a test of some kind? a measure of how humbled she'd been by her ordeals? No matter, she would lay out her proposal.

"My captors want my knowledge, and are willing to negotiate with me for it. While I don't know exactly what they seek to gain from my discoveries, I doubt it will be anything you'd approve of."

"You're hypothesis is correct," replied the deity, in a glacial tone.

She nodded slightly. "Then I am certain you will give me a better offer than theirs in exchange for supplying them with naught but poisoned half-truths."

Cole's borrowed face spasmed slightly and shifted between emotions so quickly that his features actually blurred. In that morass, Isabelle saw confusion, surprise, anger, and other more exotic facial contortions she'd never known her darling to make. Eventually, the god behind the mask regained his composure, and Cole's features settled into bewilderment.

"You wish to haggle?"

Now it was Isabelle's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I believe you set the precedent back when the Reaper's shard was tormenting Natalie. Speaking of, the piece of my soul you swindled from me during that mess would be a good place to start in our negotiations."

The god of entropy said nothing for several long moments before speaking with a different voice, his true one, or at least as close to it as a mortal mind could handle.

"Again and again, you endanger this world through avarice and ignorance!"

Isabelle's mind and soul rattled with the power behind those words. The frozen lake of blood splintered and heaved, creating crimson glaciers that screeched like banshees as they crashed against each other. Standing atop one of these bucking icebergs, Isabelle fought against a god's wrath and said: "Make. Me. An. Offer!"

The tumult ended in an instant, knocking Isabelle to one knee. Master Time loomed over her, his form edged by a halo of silver fire. Speaking again with Cole's stolen voice, a fact that made the deity's disdain actually hurt, he said. "Go and speak with your enemies, see what paltry things they'll give in exchange for secrets no one should possess. Then, when you realize the folly of this, we will talk again, and I will make you an "offer."

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Master Time turned away from her, and with a flick of his ten wings, he vanished, leaving Isabelle alone in her disturbed mindscape. All around her, the lake of blood melted, returning to its normal shape. Once again kneeling upon the red surface, Isabelle spoke softly to herself. "Well, that could have gone better."

As a boy, Elector-Prince Yoseph Franz, ruler of Vindabon, had been asked by one of his tutors to list off all the key supplies an army needed to function. Ever the dutiful student, he'd listed off rations, clean water, clothing, firewood, fodder, weapons, armor, and more. But as extensive as Yoseph's list had been, the tutor chided him for forgetting another crucial commodity, one that the instructor said would become near and dear to the future prince's heart: paper. For when a noble of his station went to war, they rarely did it with sword in hand; instead, they fought their battles with stylus and ink.

Now, a man, nearing his sixtieth year, Yoseph loathed how accurate his tutor's words were; since the vast majority of his time leading the combined Holy League host against the blood duchy of Roloyo had been spent behind a desk, trying to manage the constant streams of documents that found their way to him from all across the coalition army. Documents that had been painting an ever bleaker picture for weeks now. Every scout report told of more incursions across the River Tya; every supply request spoke of dwindling resources; and every muster review told of flagging morale.

Trapped at Fort Erdom, one of the great bastions of Alidonar, the combined host was spared the plague, but not the ugly truth of logistics. Without a constant flow of supplies, Yoseph's army was withering on the vine. In a few weeks, the current rationing would become shortages, and soon enough, starvation.

That the coalition had avoided this inevitability for so long was a miracle, one born out of military know-how and actual divine intervention. But nothing could be stretched forever. Soon, Yoseph and his fellow high lords would need to make a bitter choice. Stay here and steadily weaken until the auxiliary vampire force across the river became more than a nuisance. Or march north, and hope enough of them survived the plague to make a difference at Crowbend Castle.

Looking up from his desk, Yoseph let his eyes settle on the ten-pointed star hanging above his office's doorway. Crafted from the purest silver, the holy symbol had been recently altered, so an eleventh point stuck out from its center like a shield's boss, a sign of Misbegotten War's current importance. The Elector-Prince considered taking a break to pray, but knew procrastination, not piety, drove that urge. Besides, what else could he say to the Pantheon that wasn't being whispered every night by his army?

A knock sounded upon his door, pulling Yoseph from his near-maudlin thoughts. Few people had the privilege to seek an audience with him in such a banal way, and that any of them would come calling at this awkward hour was not a good sign. Bracing himself mentally, the Elector-Prince said. "Enter."

The door opened to reveal a barrel-chested man with a heavy mustache and a bald head. Everything from the man's clothing to his posture screamed soldier, testifying to a long career spent in service defending the Holy League. Sir Solon Duida had spent five years in Prince Yoseph's personal guard and was one of the most skilled swordsmen in Vindabon. He also seemed to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown, judging by the look in his eyes.

Before Solon could finish his perfunctory salute, Yoseph rose from his desk and asked. "What has she done now?"

As a "reward" for his decorated career, Sir Duida had been tasked with protecting the only person in the coalition army more important than Yoseph: Sera Jude the Sibylline. The soul-child of a seraph, and worker of great miracles, Jude was the single greatest piece of divine aid the Pantheon had offered the army; she was also slowly but steadily driving her bodyguard mad.

Clearing his throat, Solon said. "It's not what she's done, my prince, but what she'd said."

Every one of Yoseph's back muscles tensed at that statement. Sir Solon had been given the privilege of gaining audiences like this for two reasons. First, ensure the knight paragon had everything he needed to keep the seraphilim's erratic behavior from becoming a serious problem. Second, so Yoseph would be kept aware of any potential prophecies.

"I shall send for Hierophant Jaume then. The servants of Aunt Seeress have been helpful in deciphering her ravings before."

"I don't think that will be necessary, my prince," replied Solon.

"What?" Now, Yoseph was properly unsettled.

"Her message was clear. We should ready ourselves to march."

"WHAT?!" shouted the prince, before quickly recovering himself. "But the plague? And where to? Crowbend?"

Solon shook his head. "She said by the week's end, the plague will be dealt with, and we will be free to march for Harmas."

For several long seconds, Prince Yoseph was silent. His eyes returned to the star above the door, and he didn't know if he should thank or curse the Pantheon. Harmas, where all of this started, and where the gods intended to craft an ending.

Sitting back down at his desk, Yoseph looked over the mountain range of paper surrounding him and sighed. "Father Sky, give me strength."

"Moon's cock and Sun's tits, where the fuck did it come from!" Shouted Alia Cat-eyes as she scrambled back from the monster she'd just killed.

Running forward, leaving a trail of hoarfrost in her wake, Mina went to her partner's side and frantically looked over Alia's wounds. Several ugly gouges ran along the city warden's side, marking where kitchen-knife-sized claws had nearly ripped her open. Mina muttered a prayer and cast one of her newly learned spells. A vaporous sheet of condensed magic formed around the priestess's fingers, and she wrapped the laceration with the gauzy manifestation. Instantly, the rivers of blood running down Alia's side dried up, and she started to stand.

Mina tried to stop her girlfriend. "At least give the magic a moment to settle."

"Not until I make sure it's jagging dead," Alia replied while pulling another knife from her belt.

Realizing the truth in that statement, the priestess turned her focus to the creature that ambushed them. Sprawled out over three meters of forest floor, one of Alia's blades sticking from its left eye-socket, was a hulking werewolf. The beast was covered in pitch-black fur, and its skin bore dozens of silvery streaks marking old scars. Strangely, a heavy metal collar was wrapped around its neck. Small shiny metal spikes and a series of ugly runes decorated the object, giving it a distinctly barbarous look.

After squatting down with a wince and a trickle of blood, Alia drove her clean blade into the mercy spot where skull met spine. "That should finish the job."

Mina joined her partner next to the body, and then gently fingered the thick collar. While the body of it was dull iron, the spikes were coated in silver. Shifting aside some of the dark fur, she found the spikes went all the way through the collar and had left a pattern of burn scars upon the werewolf's throat. As for the runes, she'd seen their like in temple instruction on forbidden magic; spells of pain and binding were woven into those marks. Whoever this werewolf had been, their story clearly hadn't been a happy one.

Gently, she put her hands on the corpse's head and prepared to free its soul, but before she could, Alia grabbed her and pulled them both to their feet. In answer to Mina's look of confusion, the city warden gestured towards the nearby trees and muttered. "I hear something."

Damaged nose aside, Alia's senses were phenomenal, a fact that had proved infinitely helpful whenever they'd been out foraging, like they had before this werewolf attacked them. Conjuring a ball of silver fire in her hand, Mina readied herself for whatever came next.

A sharp whistle escaped Alia's lips, and a few seconds later, it was answered by a lupine howl. There was another werewolf. Mina tensed for the moment it took her human memory to catch up with her animal panic. Yes, there was another werewolf, but this one was friendly. Well, maybe not friendly, but definitely an ally.

Grettir of Jokulstead loped out of the budding undergrowth in his hybrid form. Slung under one of his arms was a very annoyed-looking Sera Deborah, while his other hand clutched a grisly collection of trophies. Three severed werewolf heads, each bearing the same type of collar as the one Alia killed.

Upon reaching them, the monster-hunting mercenary spoke, his voice guttural, his words halting. "We… got… problem…"

Alia grunted in agreement before gesturing at the collars. "No shit. What are these things?"

After dropping the heads next to the intact corpse, Grettir spat onto the ground, an impressive feat considering his current lupine mouth. "Leyding… locks…"

Deborah finally squirmed free of her bodyguard's grip then and landed softly, dusting herself off before giving the werewolf an annoyed look. "I don't appreciate being carried like luggage."

"Run… faster… or… grow… wings…" replied Grettir with a sardonic chuff.

Changing her focus to Mina and Alia, the living saint said. "These three attacked us at camp. Once they were dealt with, we came as quickly as we could. But it seems you acquitted yourselves well without us."

The pop and squelch of shifting bones and reknitting muscle suddenly filled the forest clearing as Grettir returned to his human shape. Gone was the great grey lycanthrope; in its place was a scuffy man clad in a ridiculously oversized hauberk. Stepping over to his dead distant kin, he started carefully removing the collars from the severed heads. To Mina's shock, the heads started to change, morphing much like Grettir had, revealing the blank-eyed faces of dead humans. All three heads had belonged to men, and they each had a deprived hollowness to their features.

After examining one of the collars with the type of disgust usually reserved for excrement, Grettir spoke again. "Leyding locks are forbidden. They trap a werebeast in a single form and make them another's slave."

Alia winced. "Could we have spared them?"

The older werewolf shook his head. "You know the stories. Staying that close to the beast for so long is bad; it erodes away the person. Honor and mercy demanded we end these four."

"So someone did this to them? Who?" asked Mina.

Setting the three removed collars in a neat stack, Grettir then drew his great axe and swung it with thunderous force. Enchanted steel split the ugly iron things in half with a loud crack.

While eyeing his handiwork, the mercenary replied, "Leeches most like. I've heard stories of them enthralling werewolves and then needing extra insurance to keep their victims controlled. I think the cockbiters even call the poor bastards 'blood hounds.' Jagging leeches, dunno why you need to stake 'em when they've got a length of hawthorne already up their arses."

Stepping over towards the fourth dead werewolf, Grettir added. "Worst still, since these collars keep them transformed even in death, this would be a good way to make varcolacs."

Having heard enough, Mina knelt beside the corpse and prepared to finish what Grettir's arrival had interrupted. "Hopefully, we can find the vampire responsible while hunting for those hippogryphs."

But before she fully conjure her magic, Grettir put a hand on her shoulder. "Not yet, theirs still a choice to be made."

To the priestess's confusion, he was looking at Alia with a concerning level of intensity. The catblood's eyebrows shot up her scarred forehead upon noticing this. "You've got to be kidding me?!"

The werewolf replied. "Not about this, never about this."

Deborah and Mina exchanged befuddled looks as Alia vigorously shook her head. "I mean, wouldn't it turn me into some kind of jagged leopard-wolf?"

"That's not how it works."

"What are you talking about?" Finally asked Mina

Neither beastblood was willing to meet her gaze, but Alia at least answered. "There are two ways a person can become a werebeast."

Now even more confused, Mina muttered. "Two?"

She knew the origins of the curse with a fell god's efforts to terrorize ancient humans, and how it was transmitted, akin to rabies, moving through saliva and blood. But she'd never heard of another method beyond the wounds inflicted by a werebeast.

"There is a rite, one our people don't like others to know about," said Alia with a nervous swallow.

Silence stretched for a few long moments before Grettir dropped the truth like a warhammer. "Those touched by the curse but not fully influenced by it can consume the heart of a true werebeast to become one."

Eyes wide as saucers, Mina looked between her girlfriend and the werewolf she'd slain as the full implications settled. Her gaze crossed with Alia's own, and for a small eternity, both priestess and city warden stared at each other. Mina could see so much in her partner's eyes, and knew this insight must be mutual. They'd been through so much, and suffered so terribly, yet they were still together. But their trials were far from over, and if they were to survive the strife they'd somehow ended up in the middle of, then strength was needed.

As this silent conversation concluded, Alia sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "Fuck it, let's see how I look in fur."

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