A/N: So, it has recently come to my attention, thanks to some very helpful reviews from Ulquiorra9000, that the first chapter of this story was just terrible. I went back and reread some of it, and I would just like to give some extra thanks to everyone who stuck with me through it. I feel that the quality of the story has progressed since then, and hopefully so do you, but I'm glad you gave it more than one shot. Thank you.

Following this line of thought, the next thing I plan to do for this story is rewrite the first chapter. For those of you who have stuck with me, there will be no need for you to go back and read it again, as it will cover the same basic information. I do plan on throwing in some extra stuff with Isaac Morsh and his family, including an earlier introduction of Abigail, but for everyone who's up to date, it shouldn't matter.

As always, I do not own Magic: the Gathering or any of it's characters, just the plot bunnies and my OCs.

Special thanks to Ulquiorra9000.


Kaelynn sat on the floor in the kitchen of Markov Manor, the skirt of her washed white dress spread out around her to cover her legs and feet. She was staring blankly at her lap and the small rivulets of blood that were trailing down her arm from the small cut on the inside of her hand. The pain seemed distant and very far away, such a little spike of discomfort when her entire body was aching from the torture she had endured at the hands of the Inquisition. The red liquid of her life slowly crept down her arm because of the angle at which she was holding her hand, forming small streams and a single larger river as it leaked from the wound. She knew that she ought to stop the bleeding, wash and wrap the wound, but there was nothing in her that wished to move from that position.

The blood continued it's inexorable path, pulled by gravity down her arm until it began to reach and pool at the inside of her elbow, which was bent slightly. The red started to move sideways from there, wrapping along the other side of her arm and then dripping down to her lap. She watched it with an impassive expression, each drop spattering to make a design on her spotless white dress. She remembered when Kaleb had given it to her. They had had little money or resources, but when the Church had accepted her into its ranks, her brother had said that such a thing was befitting of a celebration. The dress had been his gift to her, pure white, like Avacyn's hair.

The fabric easily absorbed the crimson fluid, and her life force spread across the colorless background to make patterns like paint on a canvass. That was all in the background to Kaelynn's own eyes, however, for her gaze remained glued to the gash on her hand itself. Such a simple little wound caused by a such a small mistake, yet if she did nothing, she could very well loose enough blood to cause irreparable damage. It would be so easy to just sit here and watch; watch as her life seeped away slowly into the gown bestowed upon her by the dead.

"Kaelynn! What happened?"

It was Sorin, her captor, her savior. There were really no words for the complex well-spring of emotions that came to mind at the sound of his melodic voice. She wondered if he would save her, or simply help the loss of blood along. She had to admit, it would be easier if it went a bit faster.

He knelt next to her, and his mouth was moving, but it seemed that her ears had quiet inconveniently stopped working, as she couldn't hear a word of what he said. Her vision was too blurred, by tears or dizziness she wasn't certain, to decipher the movements of his lips as well, so she simply frowned at him, uncertain how or even if she ought to respond.

His ashen skinned hand reached for her own, the crimson a slightly duller contrast with the grayish tone than it was to her own pale skin or the white of the dress. Still, the new color added to the mix did give her brief pause, and she watched it intently as the painting took new form.

The gray hands were moving too fast for her to truly appreciate the new addition to the mural, however, as they took hold of the crimson fountain and began to bind it with strip of white, stopping the spring from gushing forth.

Kaelynn frowned even more deeply down at her bound hand. Without the fountain, the rivers and streams would stop, and then the painting would end. It would lose its beauty, its mystery. She didn't want it to end. Not yet.

The sudden realization hit her like a punch to her gut, practically knocking the wind out of her. She wasn't ready for it to end. Her eyes drifted shut against the onslaught of tears that suddenly began to come and she felt the entire world shift and sway under her.

Someone caught her as she fell, and her eyes opened in mild surprise, having forgotten already that she wasn't alone, only to find that it wasn't the semi-familiar golden portals of Sorin Markov staring down at her. No, these were eyes that she knew better than her own, that she could have drawn in her sleep. These were the bright sapphire eyes of her brother.

He was smiling down at her, his brown hair slightly damp from the rain; it had been raining when he'd died. His eyes were sparkling with mischief and joy, like the way that they always were in all of her best memories of them. His skin was far darker than hers, tanned from time in the outdoors and getting too close to the furnace in the blacksmith's shop where he had apprenticed as a teenager. He was holding her close to his muscular chest, the warmth of him surrounding her, and all that she could think was that she was home. She was home and Kaleb was here, and no one would ever hurt her again.

"Hey, ace," he said in that deep voice of his, the one she had always taken for granted. She used to tease him mercilessly about his lack of singing talent as he would often be humming one of Avacyn's Hymns randomly throughout the day. How she missed his off-tune and incorrect lyrics after he was gone!

"Kaleb?" she whispered, barely recognizing the soft, weak voice as her own. "Is it really you?"

"Of course it's me. Unless you've suddenly got yourself a boyfriend without telling me."

The soft giggle that bubbled up in her chest turned into a hiccup as it left her throat, the sound of amusement mingling with her tears of sorrow. "But you died," she whispered the truth as she let her eyes slide shut, afraid to voice it that perhaps it might not be true, afraid to look in fear that he might vanish before her eyes.

There was no answer for several long moments, but the strong arms holding her didn't change or falter.

Eventually, she peeked out from beneath her eyelids like a child might do, slowly raising her gaze to meet her deceased brother's eyes.

His eyes were closed, however, and she frowned, uncertain as to the cause until she felt something warm and sticky spreading across her stomach and breast through her dress where she was held to his chest. She looked down, a feeling of dread settling in her gut, and let loose a strangled sob at the sight of blood stemming from a sword wound through his rib cage.

Kaleb dropped her as he fell forward, landing face first on the tiled floor of the kitchen, blood seeping out from his body.

Kaelynn's breath started coming in heaving gasps, but the scream that was building never came as a familiar calloused hand clamped down on her mouth from behind.

"You killed him," Jared hissed in her ear, releasing her briefly only in order to throw her to the ground next to her brother's body as he drew a bloodied blade.

She stared at it, and him, uncomprehendingly, no words coming to her defense or his condemnation.

He advanced on her slowly, his sword dripping blood down to the white tiled floor in a steady rhythm. She lost herself in the repeated drip, drip, drip, letting her mind fade away.

Jared moved up behind her and said something, but she just continued to stare at the puddle of blood on the floor.

Something sharp pierced her back and she whimpered and sobbed as he began to whisper to her again. This time, though the voice wasn't his.

"Kaelynn, wake up!"

Kaelynn bolted upright, breathing heavily as she tried for a several seconds to pin down exactly where she was. It didn't take her too long to identify the place as her bedroom in Markov Manor. Placing aside the oddity of that thought for a moment, she looked up to find Sorin hovering over her, looking more than a bit unhappy. She glanced at her left hand, the one that had been injured in her dream, to confirm that none of it had been real only to find that it was indeed bandaged. Well, that probably explained why the Vampire Lord was pissed off then.

She winced as she shifted, her partially healed body protesting at being forced to move around and do normal things so soon after the whole ordeal. "Good morning?" she tried timidly, not really sure what she was supposed to say in this situation.

Sorin backed away slightly from her bed, which did wonders for her nerves. It was all good and fine to sleep in his mansion, but waking to find him leaning over her like that was going a bit far. "It's afternoon, actually," he corrected, his voice entirely flat and devoid of emotion, which did absolutely nothing to help her to know how to deal with this mess.

"Okay," she agreed amicably. "Good afternoon."

He stared at her blankly for a few moments before narrowing his eyes, a bit of irritation leaking through into his voice. "You want to tell me what happened this morning?"

Something about the whole situation reminded Kaelynn of a parent interrogating a child who'd broken a mirror or something, and the similarities almost had her breaking down in a severely uncalled for fit of giggles. If he didn't already think her mad, he certainly would after that, so she did her best to compose herself, uncertain if a smile broke through her mask or not. She very nearly responded with "not particularly", but she figured she probably owed him some sort of explanation for saving her life. For the third time. "I cut my hand." Not to say, of course, that she was just going to start confessing all of her darkest secrets to the man. Vampire. Whatever.

He growled, a very small hint of the real depth of his suddenly clear anger showing through, "And after cutting your hand, would you like to tell me what in the name of Avacyn possessed you to sit down on the ground and do absolutely nothing about it?"

She recoiled slightly, swallowing hard. Again, it was all and good and fine to live with Sorin, but at times like this it was a stark reminder that he was a Vampire Lord and that it really probably wasn't a good idea to make him angry with her. At all. Then again, she'd already proven numerous times that she had little to no instincts for self-preservation, so this was really just par for the course.

Kaelynn took a deep breath, her eyes dropping to the ground. "I got. . . distracted."

She could basically feel his skepticism permeating the air. "You got distracted," he repeated dully.

"Yeah."

"From the fact that you were bleeding out."

She swallowed, "Uh. . . yeah?"

He heaved a sigh in frustration, "I thought you liked that girl."

Kaelynn frowned at the sudden change in subject, and it took her a couple seconds to figure out about whom he was speaking. "Abigail? I do. She's like a sister to me."

"Well, clearly you really don't care all that much about saving her, since you were willing to just sit there on your ass and let yourself die." His voice had returned to the register that could accurately be defined as growling as he said this.

Kaelynn winced. "I. . . . I wasn't thinking," she muttered softly, knowing it was a poor excuse, but it was still the only one she had.

Sorin scoffed slightly, but he didn't press any further right that moment. "We have a plan to break into the Silbern Chapel."

She frowned, "We?"

"Yes, we. As powerful as I am, it would still be a bit of a stretch to take on the entire Inquisition base on my own." He sounded faintly bemused.

She decided to ignore that for the time being. "That was fast."

He shrugged, "Yes, well, it's not the first time I've considered launching an assault. Regardless, we should be able to implement the plan tonight, assuming the information on where the girl's being held is correct."

Kaelynn answered the unspoken question. "It's accurate. I saw her myself," she refrained from saying any more than that. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to discuss her time at the chapel.

He looked like he wanted to inquire further, but he didn't for which she was grateful. "Then there shouldn't be a problem."

She nodded slowly, "I'll get some rest then; I don't want to slow you down."

Sorin just blinked, "I don't see how it would matter; you're not coming with us."

Kaelynn sighed. This was an arguement she was prepared to have. "Yes, I am." She held up a hand briefly to forstall his inevitable dispute. "Listen, she is my friend, my sister, and I am not leaving her fate to the hands of a bunch of vampires. Period. I am coming with you."

"Or what?" He sounded more curious than challenging, but there was an edge of steel in his voice.

"Or you'll come back and I'll be dead," Kaelynn said flatly. Since by this point he obviously knew that she was more than capable of committing suicide, she figured she might as well use it. "You want me around for some reason, though I'm not entirely certain why since you've obvious deciphered the tome. If you don't take me with you to get Abigail, I will find a way to kill myself. Trust me. No matter what you do to prevent it; I can be very innovative."

Sorin held her gaze for several long moments. "It will be very dangerous and the others won't like it."

"I know, and they'll live," she responded evenly before suddenly pausing. "Or maybe they won't, since it's more than a little likely that they're already undead."

Sorin scoffed slightly, but this time the action was accompanied by a slight smile. "Very well. I'll wake you when we're ready to leave."

"You better." She paused as he turned to leave, "Oh, Sorin?"

He paused in front of the door, "Yes?"

"Do you think I could get my Blessed Blade back?" She winced as she made the request, perfectly aware of exactly what she had done to loose it in the first place.

Fortunately, he just smiled, "I think that might be possible, yes."

"Thanks." She stopped him yet again, "Sorin?"

He sighed slightly, "Yes, seri?"

Kaelynn suddenly paused, considering forgoing what she had been going to say in order to question the meaning of his name for her of unknown origins.

"Kaelynn?" he asked again when she took too long to decide.

She smiled slightly in a self-depreciating way before resolving to stick with her former reason for stopping him. "Thank you." Her smile turned sweet as she held up her bandaged hand as an explanation.

Sorin looked at her oddly, with a gaze that she couldn't quite decipher. "You're welcome."

0-0-0-0-0

Sorin was in the sitting room, examining the maps of the Silbern Chapel in preparation for the upcoming assault as well as to keep his mind off of a certain infuriating Church official. Only, if she were an Inquisitor as Abigail had said, why had the Church tortured as a demonfriend? Particularly if they were the ones who had sent her to infiltrate his manor in the first place. None of it added up, and Sorin was tired of trying to make sense of something that simply would not conform to any type of known logic. He wasn't unraveling this mystery until he could convince Kaelynn to tell him what had happened at the chapel.

Sighing in frustration, Sorin forcibly jerked his mind back to concentrating on the maps and the plan to be executed. So intently did he persuade himself to concentrate on the papers before him that he missed the tell-tale soft, padding footsteps of his human guest's pale, small bare feet on the cold stone of the mansion until he could hear her heartbeat from where she stood in the doorway to his study, shifting nervously.

Sorin looked up in surprise, not expecting to find her awake so soon after the ordeal that she had had the day previously. "The assault isn't for another few hours."

Kaelynn nodded, "I know." She paused briefly, and then gave a slight shrug, "I couldn't sleep."

Once again, Sorin's curiosity was piqued, and since it wasn't very well like she could run out on him at the moment, he decided that he was done trying to be careful with her because of her value. "Nightmares again?"

She looked mildly surprised that he was addressing the issue, but she didn't exactly dodge the question. "Yes."

"What about?" He left off even pretending interest in the charts before him and placed his full attention on her, pinning her in place with his golden gaze.

"I-" she cut off, moving one leg back as though she would run, but unable to look away from him. "Many things," she finally whispered, a hint of panic in her voice. She really did not want to address this.

Well, that was just unfortunate, because he was not going to spend another moment with this woman asking himself about her allegiances. He was going to get the truth, one way or another. "Your brother?" He decided to run with the simplest route, going from something that he knew to be troubling in order to work his way up to the questions he wanted answered.

"Yes." It was another barely audible whisper, and she inched back half a step, her eyes still locked on his own.

"How did he die?"

"A vampire attack." Tears were pooling in her eyes now, her breath coming in quickened gasps. She was so incredibly breakable and fragile at the moment, and a part of him suddenly wanted to drop the subject and let her go, but he ignored that voice in his head. He would get his answers, regardless of any misplaced affection he had towards the girl.

"Did he work for the Church?" He allowed a hint of anger to leak into his voice with the question, for he had a great deal of it pent up when it came to her. He was angry at himself for being deceived by her, furious with her for both lying to him and stabbing him in the shoulder, and even incredibly pissed off at her for apparently being willing to let herself die earlier that morning.

She flinched visibly at the question, and he was pretty sure that her reaction had little to do with his own wrath. She didn't want to think about the Church. Interesting. "Yes."

When she refused to expound on the answer, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes so as not to break the spell holding her in place. "In what capacity?"

"He was an Inquisitor."

"Did you work for the Church?" And now he was getting somewhere. If he had really, really tried, he probably could have kept the sheer fury out of his voice at the question. He didn't try.

This time, he was sure that her wince was a reaction to his tone. "Yes."

"Also as an Inquisitor?"

Suddenly confusion replaced some of the terror in her widening eyes. "What? No. I never worked for the Inquisition."

"Funny, Abigail told a different story." He tried not to inquire into when, exactly, he had started referring to the blonde food source by her given name.

Kaelynn scoffed slightly, but it was tinged with both bitterness and a hint of hysteria. "Of course she did. I lied to her." The admission had started out strong, but by the time the words left her lips her voice had returned to its soft whisper. It took Sorin a moment to realize that her issue was that she felt guilty for lying to her friend, simply because it was quite a foreign feeling for pretty much everyone. Lying was something even most humans did without remorse, but Kaelynn was quiet certainly not most humans. As if he needed another reminder of that fact.

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to shatter her faith in the Church!" Kaelynn actually shouted this, finally loosing her grip on herself. The tears were falling down her face freely now, her breath hitching every few seconds with barely suppressed sobs.

Sorin frowned. This was not what he had expected. "Explain." The demand wasn't harsh; he toned his voice to be gentle and coaxing, hoping that now that her defensive walls had been mostly broken, it would be easier to get the whole story from her without resorting to violence.

Kaelynn was completely breaking down at this point, but she managed to speak between hiccuping sobs. "The vampires attacked Kaleb and I while we were walking in the forest. They killed him, the highly trained Inquisition agent, but somehow I survived. I never should have survived! When the Church found me, they assumed that the only way I could have survived was-" she cut off here, taking several deep breaths before spitting the words out in a rush, "-was if I killed my own brother, or betrayed him to the vampires. They called me a demonfriend and they had a High Inquisitor interrogate and torture me for months. They wanted me to just admit to killing him."

Everything started falling into place, and Sorin felt all of his anger towards Kaelynn leach away like water down a drain. "But you wouldn't." It wasn't a question; it was a statement of fact. The Church that she had served had tortured her for months because they wanted someone to blame. The more supposed demonfriends they caught the more the people leaned upon the Church. The more recruits they got, the more funds they took in, and the more the people just generally flocked to the chapels and adored them. They were corrupt, the whole lot of them. They didn't deserve to bare the Archangel's name.

She shook her head, her tear-blurred eyes finally slipping down to the ground as her whole body followed suit, sliding down the door frame so that she was sitting on the ground, not unlike the way he had found her in the kitchen, just staring at her injured hand as the blood stained her dress. "No. I didn't kill him. Eventually they had to let me go. There was no reason to hold me. I told everyone that I'd been helping the Inquisition following Kaleb's death."

It all made perfect sense now. He'd been right about her to an extent; she had been broken, but never completely. She had never admitted to killing her brother. Well, almost all of it made sense. "What happened after you ran from here?"

"I went back to town." Her voice was dull, lifeless, and she was simply staring at the floor as she recounted the tale without emotion. Clearly, this was taking its toll on her. She really needed to sleep again before they went for Abigail that night. "Isaac and Marion, Abigail's parents, were in the town square, completely panicked, and the town was in a frenzy. I thought I was going to have to tell them that Abigail was dead, but when I came into town they ran to me and told me that Abigail had come home confused that night and the Church had taken her way on suspicion of being a demonfriend." She paused briefly. "I couldn't believe it. She was alive, but they were going to do to her what they'd done to me. I couldn't let them. I went to try and make a deal with one of the High Inquisitors, but I was betrayed. They tortured me for a while instead and then just threw me out for the demons."

One question left. "Why did you run here?" His voice was soft, and there wasn't a hint of demand in the query. This was just a question, one she could answer or not as she wished.

Kaelynn hesitated, and for a moment Sorin thought that she was going to take the chance to simply leave. But she didn't. "Because I had no where else to go." Kaelynn spoke quietly but firmly. Honestly. "I knew that you hadn't killed Abigail, which meant that maybe I hadn't been that wrong about you in the beginning. I couldn't lead the demons to Wollebank. I wouldn't be safe at home. I had no where else to go," she repeated simply, leaving the damning statement just hanging in the air.

Sorin suddenly realized that she had been condemned to this friendless life on the run long before she had decided to go after Abigail. No wonder she hadn't even hesitated. No wonder as well that she didn't fear death; she had nothing for which to live.

For several moments, they just remained in their respective positions in silence, Sorin having little that he could say in response to such revelations.

Eventually, Kaelynn's brow furrowed and she looked up, questions of her own written all over her face. "Alright, you got your answers. My turn. Why did you save my life the day we first met in the forest?" When Sorin didn't answer, she simply moved to the next inquiry. "Why did you wake me from my nightmare the second night in the house? Why didn't you kill Abigail? Why did you save me again when I ran to you for help after stabbing you in the shoulder? Why have you agreed to help me now?" With each question, her voice only grew stronger and she slowly pulled herself back up to her feet, gazing at him openly like all the answers could be found written somewhere on his face.

As the pile of overwhelming questions that he had been asking himself since he had met her continued to grow higher, Sorin found that he had no answers, no clever lie or misdirection to make her forget all about the whole thing. And so, frustrated with himself, feeling oddly sorry for her, and overall just fed up with lies and hypocrisy, particularly those of the Church, Sorin spoke what may have been the truest words he said in over a thousand years. "I don't know."

The profound statement wasn't shouted in defensive, it was spoken softly, almost in defeat, and now it was his eyes on the ground even while he felt her emerald gaze burning a hole in his face.

Several moments later, Kaelynn sighed. "Well, I guess that's fair."

He looked up at her in mild surprise, arching an eyebrow in curiosity, but she just smiled.

It was a dim, watery smile, hardly befitting of the highly cheerful and optimistic person he knew her to be, but it was a true, real smile nevertheless. "No, you don't get any more answers or explanations tonight." Her smile grew just a hint wider and her eyes danced slightly as he returned the friendly gesture. Then she yawned. "I'm going back to bed. Wake me?"

Sorin nodded, even though she was already departing, watching her slim figure until she was out of sight.

Sighing deeply, he closed his eyes and took several deep, cleansing breaths. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes, he still had no answers to any of Kaelynn's questions. Somehow, despite all the answers given, he felt as though nothing had been accomplished. Maybe because the real mystery wasn't actually Kaelynn after all. Perchance the real mystery was just the question of why he hadn't watched the foolish girl with no sense of self-preservation just die in the woods that day as he was passing through one of the forests of Innistrad. Maybe it always had been.