Shards of the Eight

by iridium248

Five hundred years ago, the Eight Greed Kings walked the New World. Through their strength of arms and magics, they sought to bend all to their will - But, in their avarice, fell to strife and slaughter. The end for one world is the beginning for the next: This time, as a new wave of Players descends upon the land, can anyone survive? Will anything?

46. Chapter 36 - Thy Hollow Cell

Oh, that the slave had forty thousand lives! One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.

Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago: All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.

Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!

Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne

To tyrannous hate!

― Othello, Act III Scene III

Thy Hollow Cell

After the Dragon

In the distance, the crackle and roar of flames. The sky, full of smoke and settling dust and low dark clouds.

And dragons.

Even from here, I could see the columns of flame rising from the jumping shadows of the ruined streets below. As a flash of ochre light ran through the clouds, I saw tattered wings beating through the rising winds, vast dark shapes cutting through the filthy air.

Two of them. Two.

Clouds churned in the wake of their passage, the downdraught of their wingbeats kicking up great vortices of seething dust as they rode the storm. To look at the dragons was to become aware of the impossibility of their existence, the way they mocked gravity with every moment.

The nauseating scale of them made my senses reel.

It's not possible, something whispered, deep within me - And yet the dragons flew anyway, ghostly blue fire roaring from their open maws. Where they struck, great churning geysers of arctic ice erupted from broken masonry and tumbling stone, debris raining down like falling hail.

It was the most awful thing I'd ever seen. Not at a remove, through a screen or some grainy live feed: But here, now, close enough to feel the heat radiating through the earth.

To hear the white noise of distant, anguished screams, the terrible, mindless din of a city eating itself.

To feel the rumble and thump of collapsing buildings pulse in my bones.

At my side, I heard Hilma moan in terror, her breath hissing through her fingers, clamped over her mouth like hooks. She was trembling, buffeted by the freezing gusts that howled through the black and turgid night, eyes watering from the powerful chemical stink of the burning, the charred and the transmuted. Her tears tracked through the paints and powders of her makeup, undoing their exquisite alchemy.

In the devouring light, she looked fragile. Insubstantial, a pale ghost in wisps of silk. As if the devil wind would sweep her away, into dark skies the color of the blackest wrongs.

For the darkness had a shape. Had a form. It undulated, billowing and boiling - The deep sounds of an unseen universe rolling out from the twilight gulfs, hiss-whispering just on the edge of perception.

To look at it, into the unfurling apocalypse engulfing Re-Estize, was to be transfixed. Mesmerized by the sweep of the flames, the spreading wave of ruin.

I didn't look. I didn't trust myself to look.

Instead, my gaze drifted down, to the manor's shattered walls. To the heaps of rubble, and the broken bodies strewn across the grounds like fallen leaves.

For it was one thing, of course, to gaze up into the churning skies, at the fires that raged across the capital. At this distance, they seemed ethereal, hallucinatory, too distant to be real.

But the slowly-cooling corpses I'd left in my wake, steam still rising from the awful, gouging wounds I'd hacked in the very meat of them-

That was as real as it got.

---

Ghosts in the smoke. Shadows in the dust.

Beneath the burning sky, the dead were everywhere.

Something had drawn them together, brought them together in small clusters. Limbs curled and twisted like some intricate mosaic, like the elaborate knotwork of the brooch Hilma still wore.

Try as I might, I couldn't understand how that had happened. The running battle had raged all the way from the gates to the glittering facade of the villa itself - Dimly, I remembered cutting them down in ones or twos as they blundered from the fog, hacking with the Interfector, bringing Forge-breaker around in great, pulverizing swings…

Perhaps each had crawled towards the others, choking and sputtering on their last breaths.

Perhaps even the dead loved company.

The thought made bile sting the back of my throat, made acid roil in my gut. I could feel the beginnings of a realization, a revelation, rising towards the light with slow, ponderous unstoppability-

But I forced it down. Clung to the cold, bitter fury that had carried me this far - The icy, brittle focus that was almost, but not quite, calm.

Later, I told myself, tasting the faint, sickening tang of death as I drew a slow, steeling breath.

Later for that.

Behind me, I heard Hilma's breath catch. She'd been silent, determinedly so, as we made our way across the courtyard, over splintered flagstones and scarred earth. Tottering on her stiletto heels, her white dress stained with cooked gore and greasy smears of ash.

Over broken weapons, broken armor, broken bodies.

Over the tattered corpses of the Death-Spreading Brigade, so ruined and mutilated they barely resembled the men they'd once been.

I turned to look.

She'd come to a stop, her gaze fixed on Brain Unglaus' half-collapsed form. Eyes locked, with a kind of horrid fascination, on the great, cleaving wound that had ended his life. Bone showed beneath the charred flesh, like an anatomical cross-section: Even in death, his hand was fused to Orochi's hilt, forever locked in a rigid three-finger grip.

"Unglaus-"

A single word, so soft I had to strain to hear. Some unknowable emotion skittered across Hilma's marble features, her bare shoulders trembling as color drained from her face.

There was a story there, I could tell. Some bond, tenuous as it may have been.

Was she mourning his death? Had she been hoping that he'd have found some way to save her, against all odds?

He died because of you, I almost said. They all did.

Almost - But even then, it seemed pointlessly cruel. And, in truth…

-I wasn't sure if she would care.

---

"What will happen to me?"

Hilma's voice was low, just above a whisper. There was a drawn, harrowed look to her face, a redness to her eyes - A study of exhaustion and dread. I could hear the slight hitch to her breath, see how she'd gone pale with worry, but I could sense the gears turning in her head, already looking for a way out.

Nothing good, I thought.

Aloud, I said: "-I haven't decided. Not yet."

You may think, at this point, that her survival was assured. That - with what she knew - Hilma was a treasure trove of information about the Nine Fingers, too valuable to be damaged.

That it was entirely out of my hands.

The truth was, she wasn't needed. Not really.

As long as Hilma was in the hands of the Crown, the Nine Fingers were collared. Like a sword of Damocles, she could forever be held over both their heads and the heads of the nobles that sided with them, ensuring their compliance.

But as a living, breathing woman, there was always the chance that - someday - she might escape, or be turned loose, or secure her freedom. If she vanished, if she was made to disappear, they would never know if she was still out there.

Out there, with a mind stuffed full of their darkest secrets, every one of which could lead to disgrace and ruin. Ready to offer them up as necessary, to save her own skin.

I could already see the cold calculus of that decision, the train of thought leading to a single, inevitable conclusion:

Sometimes, dead is better.

And if I knew that, she knew it too.

I felt Hilma's eyes dart to the Interfector, then to me. Wondering, perhaps, what hurt worse - The blade or the flame. Trying to think of some way out, to bribe or charm or seduce me.

Except that the time for that was long past. If that had been her move, she should've made it days ago, before all this.

Still, she had to try.

Her voice dropped, becoming a soft, urgent murmur.

"I wanted to warn you," she said. "I knew it was a mistake, knew it was wrong, but the Vanisher…"

She caught herself, as if - even now - she feared what it meant to finish that sentence.

"I was trying to help. I meant you no real harm, you know I never did-"

"Don't," I said, very gently.

I've never enjoyed anyone's desperation, and Hilma's made me feel nauseous. Not at her, but at myself: For all that I had done, all I had been made to do, and all that was yet to come. She'd tried to kill me, and - in return - I had destroyed her.

But, here and now, that victory brought me no real comfort.

Her eyes fixed on me, in mute appeal. Waiting for the rest of it, perhaps, or at least a reason.

I wanted to tell her: I know you're afraid, but it doesn't change a thing.

It's done. Over with - But this doesn't have to end in humiliation.

Instead, I said:

"-Don't insult me."

Hilma inhaled sharply, as if slapped. Her mouth worked, and she spat - actually spat - at my feet.

"Gods rot you, Sir Samuel," she said, her fists clenched so hard they shook. "One day - One day - you'll lose everything, too. Everything."

She glared up at me, pale blonde hair in disarray. The scales and fangs of her serpent tattoo flashed in the eerie light, the whole of it seeming to writhe, to squirm, where it wound around her arm.

"When that time comes…I hope your judge is every bit the self-righteous bastard you are."

I could have struck her, then. But - on some level - I think she wanted me to. She was beaten, and with no venom left to sting, could only bite.

Instead, I merely nodded. Not in acceptance, but in simple acknowledgement.

"Come on," I said. "Not much further now."

The fury seemed to drain out of her, then. Hilma swallowed, her chest heaving - A spasm of horror, then a kind of numb dread, passing across her face. A hand came up, wiping at her eyes, trembling minutely as it fell limp to her side.

When I trudged away, Hilma followed, as I knew she would.

There was, after all, nowhere else for her to go.

---

The column of infantry arrived at a double-time march, a surge of rushed motion. They came under their standard, fluttering bravely overhead - Spear points bobbing above a double line of dully-gleaming helmets, as soldiers jogged two abreast into the shelter of the drystone walls.

So many faces. Young and old, scared and somber, clenched teeth and ash-streaked faces.

They'd been lucky: Held in reserve, they'd missed the worst of the fighting. But the things they'd seen, on the way over - the things they'd had to do…

In their place, I'd have been terrified, too.

When they saw what lay within the walls, the already-ragged column became more tattered still. Men exclaimed, out loud, in surprise or in alarm, at the sight of the carnage I'd wreaked - Dismayed by the devastation around them, they drew up short, as if realizing that the seeming solidity of the villa's walls offered no sanctuary at all.

Not that it ever had.

I don't think any force in Re-Estize could have kept the dragons out.

I could feel the crawling sensation of their eyes on me, even as officers barked orders to their men, setting them about their tasks. Wondering, more than a little afraid, giving us a wide berth as they hurried past.

As I looked on, a half-company of cavalry came up behind the infantry, trotting along the road that led to the villa. Close to fifty men in gleaming half-plate, light lances standing vertical: The dragons had made them close and quicken their pace, black or gray horses snorting nervously in the weird, twitching illumination.

The stench of death disturbed them, set their eyes rolling with fear, but their riders had their steeds well in hand: A horn blew, and there was a general jingle of harness and clopping of hooves as they came to a stop. With a clatter of armor, the troop dismounted, horses milling as they were led aside - All of a sudden, the square seemed far too small a place to hold so many.

"Grandmaster!"

I looked up. Sir Gustav sat tall in the saddle of his chestnut bay - His dented shield riding high on one arm, as he reined his skittish-looking horse in. His face was smeared with soot and sweat, but he was beaming from ear-to-ear, despite the familiar crease of worry between his brows.

"You're alive!" he said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Thank the Four! When we got your message - Well, I…I didn't know what to think."

He nudged his steed in a little circle, hooves scraping the ground.

"Look at all this! Look at you! You did well, Sir Samuel. Marvelously!"

It's good to see you, too, I wanted to say. But I couldn't find the words, somehow, as Gustav took in the ruin around him with every sign of approval.

Like one professional contemplating another's good work.

I tried-

The paladin squinted into the distance, his gaze lighting on one particular fallen form.

His eyes widened. There was a sharp, sudden hiss of recognition.

"By the Gods," Gustav muttered, suddenly somber. "Is that Brain Unglaus?"

He glanced at me - swift, almost wary - and something in my expression must've registered. Gustav's face clouded over, a melange of emotions chasing themselves across his face as he faltered.

"I - I didn't mean any disrespect, Grandmaster," he said, lowering his voice. "It's just…I never imagined you could…"

He paused, his eyes darting about as if seeking distraction, before lighting on Hilma. His eyebrows rose, sharply, recognition flaring:

"And you must be-"

At my side, Hilma drew an unsteady breath, as if to speak-

"Madame Hilma Cygnaeus," I said, curt. She looked at me, her delicate features as carefully serene as a mask, but it was impossible not to see the wintry hatred in her eyes.

The hatred, and the fear.

"K - Lady Custodio will want to see her," I said, even as I felt her gaze burning into my skin. "As soon as possible. Is she here?"

That was better. Now, I could feel the first pulse of that renewed urgency - the cold, dreadful realization, like a block of ice in the pit of my stomach - coursing through me once again.

Like a wind, dragging me to face the rising tide.

Gustav looked between us, from Hilma to me, then back again. He'd always been more perceptive than he actually let on: Something faintly knowing flickered in his eyes, as he gave the slight shake of his head.

"Ah," he said. "-Ah."

With a gentle tug on the reins, he turned his steed's head towards the shattered gates.

"This way, then," the paladin said. "Follow me."

---

In the shadow of the half-collapsed walls, Kelart was in the midst of talking to Captain Coesil. Dictating orders, more like - As I'd noticed, she had a knack for taking charge of whatever situation she found herself in.

Fair-haired and grey-eyed, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw, the Captain had the alert mien I'd come to associate with Marquis Raeven's handpicked men. He stooped respectfully to attend to her, plumed helmet tucked under one arm, the other never straying far from his saber.

I couldn't help but note the dents in his breastplate, the faint splotches of gore that clung to the quillons and gilded scabbard of his sword. He'd been using it a fair bit, from the look of things, and the faint scars running down one cheek - Still fresh, but already fading - told of an up close and personal encounter.

Coesil's officers gathered around them, leaning in to hear: They had the taut, wary look of men who'd recently seen action, and had no idea when the fighting would resume.

A snatch of conversation, half-heard: "...is of the utmost importance. Prince Zanac is still gathering his troops - Until this is over, no further support can be expected. The manor must be made secure: In the absence of reinforcement, we must look to ourselves for-"

Strange in the flickering light of raised lanterns and light-orbs, Franzén and the rest of his team stood guard. In contrast to his earlier stillness, Lundqvist was pacing back and forth, his heavy cloak flapping around him like a tarp. His nervous energy reminded me of some wind-up mechanism - As if he couldn't stop, now he'd been set in motion.

Boris Axelson had seated himself on a table-sized chunk of fallen masonry, sword on his lap, working a whetstone against the blade with a patient scrape-scrape that told of long practice. He glanced up as we approached: His gaze met mine, and he grunted once, nodded, then turned his attention back to his sword.

Kelart's white mare, held by a dour-looking Göran, nickered a greeting to Gustav's horse as the paladin dismounted. Stiff-legged from the saddle, he handed the reins over to a waiting page, limping slightly as he rubbed at his hip.

"High Priestess!" he said, his voice pitched to carry. A glance back, over his shoulder - "-They're here."

She looked up.

It felt like it'd been years since I'd last seen her. Longer, I think: The past few hours had been a blur of violence beyond belief, matched only by the gatehouse in Loyts. They'd left their mark on her too, I could see - There was a subtly weary cast to Kelart's features, an exhaustion held down by sheer force of will. Her white-and-blue robe was gray with dust, chainmail gleaming faintly beneath one tattered sleeve, where something had clawed at her.

For one unguarded moment, I saw a melange of emotions cascade across her face. Relief, surprise, worry-

Fleetingly, I wondered how the hell I looked.

But then her eyes went to Hilma, and - for an instant - ice met flint. The thread of some silent communication passed between them: Hilma's lips pressing together in a thin line, a vein pulsing in her temple as - slowly, very slowly - Kelart smiled.

The faintest curl of her lips, remote and without humor. But triumphant, all the same.

A space opened up, men shuffling aside to allow us passage. They were all watching, their heads turning to regard me - Eyes wide, their hands half-ready like actors waiting for a cue.

Ready for what, I couldn't say.

It was the Captain who broke the silence, held fast by rigid etiquette.

"My Lady," he said, formally, carefully. As if the capital wasn't burning down around us, at this very moment. "While I wish it were otherwise, you may consider yourself in our custod-"

"It's Hilma." There was a brittle dignity to Hilma's voice as she spoke past him, her wavy tresses framing marble-white features. "-Just Hilma."

Her eyes never left Kelart's, her hand clenching so tight I could see the tendons beneath her skin. The venom in Hilma's gaze could have struck a man dead: For a second, it felt like the winding snake on her arm would rear up to bite.

Coesil inclined his head, a brief nod. "Just so," he allowed, and stepped back.

Franzén had been standing to the side, arms folded across his chest as he took it all in. At that silent signal, he came forward - Hilma didn't resist, made no sound, as he took hold of her elbow in a firm but deceptively gentle grip.

She knew, after all, that the game was already over.

As he drew near, the adventurer paused.

One word: "Lockmeier?"

I shook my head.

His posture didn't change. No spasm of grief, no folding or collapse. But Franzén's already-drawn features darkened, as - slowly - he nodded to himself.

"-I see," he said, and Hilma flinched. She looked back at me, somehow imploring: Almost, I thought she was about to say something, but some instinct - pride, perhaps - kept her silent.

Her eyes never left my face, as he led her impassively away. Like faithful shadows, Boris and Lundqvist trailed after, the caster's staff tapping the flagstones with each step.

"So it goes," Gustav murmured. His hand settled on my shoulder, silently comforting.

"So it goes," I echoed. Trying to make myself mean it.

I told myself that I'd won, that the vise that clenched around my heart was bleak self-satisfaction.

All it felt, though, was bitter.

---

"-I need your help."

I didn't raise my voice. I don't think I could have: My throat felt like it'd been scraped raw, the taste of quinine and wormwood in my mouth.

She heard me, all the same.

"Captain," Kelart said, not turning her eyes to the others. "A moment, if you please."

Coesil saluted. Smartly, despite the exhaustion that pinched the lines of his face. He nodded to his officers, standing in a loose knot around the two of them, and - like a flock of startled birds - they set about their tasks, hurrying to their waiting horses or stepping smartly towards the great, sprawling expanse of the villa that loomed behind us.

That left Gustav and Göran, the former troubled, the latter dour.

"Let them talk," Gustav said to the adventurer. He flashed me a worried look as he passed, like he'd sensed the tension - coiled tight - within me. To my surprise, Göran clapped me on the shoulder as he passed, Kelart's white mare trotting demurely at his heels.

As their footfalls retreated, we stood there a long while, neither of us moving, as alone as it was possible to get. Even from here, I heard the sound of splintering wood, of scraping metal, of shattering glass: the soldiers entering the villa of the Nine Fingers, boots crunching over the intricate tiles and mosaics, smashing through the great arched windows in their rush to get in.

Good, I thought. Good.

If it were up to me, the entire place would have been put to the torch.

I wondered what they'd find, when they entered the room where Apollyon stood vigil. A sea of corpses, awash with blood? Cringing nobles and magnates, cowering amid their petty retinues?

How would they explain their mutilated hands?

I tried to muster the cold contempt I'd felt, back then. The bleak surety when I'd passed judgment upon them. It had been so easy - I had felt so certain, so right.

But now, as the stink of death filled the air, the doubts were creeping back in.

---

Don't get me wrong. I'd seen death before, plenty of it: In the world I'd known, it was never far away.

For long, terrible months - Before the cost had been too high, before I could no longer afford it - I'd stood vigil in a succession of public wards. Heard the failing, faltering breaths of patients, the white noise of the machines that kept them alive, even as they died inches at a time.

After a while, the sterile sight of ceilings of acoustic tile and recessed fluorescent tubing became familiar to me. The colorless eyes and blue antimicrobial cap-and-gowns of an endless succession of Admedistration MDs blurred them into anonymity: More than once, I'd started awake to the echoes of crash-carts thundering down anonymous corridors, wondering - With a kind of sick panic - if I'd missed it, if my brother had died while I'd slept.

And always, never far away, was the worst thought of all:

That it was over.

That, at long last, I was finally - finally - free.

For as long as it lasted, the thought would fill me with a sick relief. After, the shame would come - Shame, and a kind of disbelief that I could ever think that way.

But death, especially a swift and quiet one, had ever created a prejudice in favor of the deceased. It's easier to eulogize a memory, than to deal with those who linger on for months, years, decades, to the frustration of those around them.

The dead have always been so much more agreeable than the unfortunate reality of the living.

---

That was how I met her.

Even then, three years later, the patient tapping of her walking cane continued to haunt my dreams.

But that's a story for another time.

---

In the face of all that was happening, a moment of privacy felt like an impossible luxury. Yet, Kelart had arranged for one, all the same. Even as the wounded limped - or were carried - into the questionable safety of the manor's antechambers, we found ourselves somehow set apart from the controlled chaos on all sides.

As if her order alone had created an impassable barrier than none dared breach.

"-What happened?"

She said it quietly, without judgment. Just careful, measured curiosity - Only needing to know.

I couldn't answer, not at first. I found my gaze lingering on the strangest things:

Silver-edged ivy, winding around the wrought-iron railings of a raised trellis. The black, choking smog of the burning city, rising like incense from a thousand pyres.

The dark, clotted stains of frozen gore that clung to my armor, marring the gleaming finish.

"I…"

I wanted to tell her. Truly, I did.

"I killed-"

But all my words were broken, and I couldn't find any that worked.

I'd killed before, in fury and in cold blood alike. I knew - even then - that I would have to kill again. After Loyts, I'd done my best to accept that, to make what peace I could with the idea: For the world I'd known was long gone, and this one demanded nothing less.

Yet, there was something wretched about having to kill people. To see red blood instead of black, to have the Interfector carve human flesh rather than the hideous, distorted forms of the beastmen.

And those were merely the ones who had been actively trying to kill me. When I thought about the broken corpses I'd left behind in the brothel of the Nine Fingers - burned, blasted, splintered limbs crushed beneath tonnes of rubble - the slow-burning rage that twisted in my guts turned cold and slimy.

I could feel the quiet pressure of Kelart's gaze - Weighing, taking my measure - as she stood there. Looking me over for wounds, maybe, until her gaze met mine. Seeing the flare of guilt that scrawled itself across my face.

There was something in her eyes, in the set of her features, that I didn't like. Regret, perhaps, or pity. Something that made the words catch in my throat: For a precious instant, the cold worm of clarity that twisted in my guts was stilled, and all I felt was-

Weary.

I took a long, ragged breath. All at once, it felt like the full horror of the burning night had caught up with me at last: the world blurring at the edges, a momentary dizziness shooting black flecks through my vision.

It felt like I stood on the edge of a great and yawning chasm, on the verge of freefall. All of a sudden, everything seemed impossibly distant, as if a lightless dark had risen up like a shroud.

Seeing me as I was, Kelart's gaze softened. I heard the whisper of her robes, the faint chime of her holy symbol as she drew close.

"-It's all right," she said, her sharp voice gone soft, as concerned as I'd ever heard it. Brown eyes searched mine, as she took my hand in both of hers. Her ring gleamed faintly in the flamelight, a wan glint of gold.

"It's all right, Samuel."

Her fingers tightened, as if willing it to be true.

No, I thought. It isn't.

Not yet.

---

There was so much I wanted to say to Kelart. So much I wanted to tell her.

The immense relief of knowing she was alive, that she'd survived the chaos outside.

How just seeing her, here, lifted an invisible weight from my shoulders, a weight that I hadn't even known existed.

How hearing her measured, familiar voice again - after the blood-soaked madness of the night - felt like a benediction.

But instead, all that came out was:

"-I know how to end this."

I felt Kelart stiffen, her shoulders drawing up and together. There was an infinitesimal shift in her expression as she let go of my hand, focus sharpening once more in her eyes. She took a step back, the brief moment of unguarded concern passing as quickly as it'd come, that keen gaze searching for something in my face.

What that something was, and if she found it there, I don't know.

"The dragons…" Kelart said, low. In the firelight, her elegant features seemed almost fey in their intensity.

"They're a distraction," I said, even as I realized - with a lurch - she was considering how to fight them. The very idea seemed ludicrous: Just looking at those hideous serpentine shapes, their shadows blotting out the very sky, tattered wings cutting the gloaming air, slashing the clouds to shreds, was a shattering experience.

And yet-

Somehow, I knew I could do it.

Anything the Vanisher could create, I could destroy.

It was something I would only grasp later, but - even then - I was already beginning to, dimly, intuit the shape of an emerging truth: That the greatest threat to any one of us was each other.

Except for him, of course. Even amongst us, he stood alone.

But that would come later. Later, when it was far too late to stop him.

"A distraction?" A sharp intake of breath, almost a hiss. "For who? From what?"

"The short version, or the long one?"

Her gaze never wavered.

"-The one where I understand what you mean."

Thunder rumbled, but there were no flashes of light in the burning sky. For a moment, just a moment, the vastness of what I had to tell her - the sheer scale of complex manipulation - felt like a tightening garotte, locking the words in my throat.

Because I wasn't sure. Not really.

I'd grasped the edges of the Vanisher's plan. Sensed the shape of it, as the pieces had come together in my mind. But now, trying to decide where to begin, all I felt was a sudden, gnawing dread.

If I was wrong, the consequences would be…

-Absolute.

"From Prince Barbro," I said. Carefully, calmly, fighting to keep the throttling doubt from my voice. When the first, fresh spark of emotion flared in Kelart's eyes, I felt my spine stiffen, felt my heart pound against the cage of my ribs.

For I was committed, now.

The only way out was through.

Kelart's slim fingers rose, clasping the holy symbol she wore. Her lips moved - Strange, soft words, commanding and imploring at once - and there was a sound like the chiming of bells, right on the edge of perception.

As the air drew close, as our surroundings seemed to blur into a soft-focus haze, I recognized the invocation. The same one Lakyus had used: A ward against watchers.

"Tell me," she said, without preamble.

And so I did.

---

In the end, I started at the beginning.

It was the only way I knew how to tell it - A confession, of sorts. To get it all out in a way I hadn't been able to, not until now.

I spoke it all: Meeting Lockmeier, who wasn't Lockmeier. The incursion. Being discovered. The swift brutality of the running fight, up the spiraling stairs.

Kicking the doors in. The two men, who had never been men.

The jaws of the trap, snapping shut.

"The Vanisher was waiting for us," I said. "He'd known all along. He had all the time he needed to be ready - All the time in the world."

Even now, the thought made acid churn in my stomach.

"Hilma, she-" I felt a sharp pang of humiliation, and forced myself to forge ahead. "She's one of them. She's always been one of them. Right from the start, she must have…"

I stopped. I had been watching Kelart, watching each subtle shift in her bearing - Her slight, thoughtful nod of encouragement, the way her fingers laced together as the tale unfurled itself. Her frown of taut concentration, as she turned each new piece of information over in her mind.

But no surprise. Not even the slightest flicker of it.

"You knew," I said. Slowly, not wanting to believe it. "You knew it was a trap."

Her answer was calmly precise, clipped.

"-I suspected."

The small spark of anger in my chest, the one I'd thought buried, flared with sudden heat.

"I-" I felt my fingers twitch, aching to curl into a fist. Phantom pain pulsed through my skull, a migraine heat. And just like that, the words I'd forgotten were surging up from within, like a burning in my throat, about to spill forth in a snarl:

Do you know what he did to us?

Succulent cut Climb's throat right in front of me-

There was more to it than that, of course.

Fire and fear, flooding my senses-

The pitiless slash-stab of flaying blades-

Searing white agony, flooding my being-

But I couldn't tell her that, not yet. Or the other thing, the thing that loomed like a thunderhead above all the rest.

The Vanisher had made me a murderer.

That was the one thing I couldn't forgive.

Kelart didn't back off. Not a step. There was a lot of Remedios in the steady set to her face, the same tranquil implacability her sister would've shown facing down an all-out assault by beastmen. She merely waited, as I bit down - hard - on my temper, until I felt like I could speak again.

"If Climb had died," I said, keeping my voice carefully level. "If I hadn't brought him back-"

Her eyes widened, just a hair, but I kept going, grinding the words out through clenched teeth.

"...What would I have told the Princess?"

Without Climb, Princess Renner would have been utterly, completely alone. Alone and friendless, a pawn in the palace's endless intrigues.

Who would protect her, then?

Who could she even turn to?

The strangest expression passed across Kelart's features. Something I couldn't place, something that defied all understanding. For a heartbeat, she looked almost pained - Like I'd overlooked something obvious, something fundamental, and she was revising her estimate of me based on that.

Instead, she said: "That, too, was accounted for. If it came to that, there were…contingencies…in place. Measures that could be taken, in extremity."

Kelart looked me right in the eye.

"-You're not the only one who can raise the dead, Sir Samuel."

I won't lie. To hear it like that, so casually…It jolted me, rocked me back on my heels. But not as much as what she said next:

"Besides, the failure is yours, as much as any other. You volunteered to go with him - Talked him into it, even. Thanks to you, the risks were deemed…acceptable."

The Second Prince's decision, I knew. But Kelart had a hand in this, too.

I had no doubt, none at all, that she'd weighed the possibilities, considered the eventualities that could result…And she'd given the plan her blessing, all the same.

I laughed. A short, sharp bark of joyless laughter, one that made Kelart's brows draw together.

"It's funny," I said, before I caught myself. "I…"

"-Go on."

I shook my head, slowly. "It's just…It's something the Vanisher would've said. He thought the same way, too: Greater concerns first. Expediency, above all."

From the way Kelart's face darkened, she didn't see the humor in it - But it was better than the alternative.

For what I'd wanted to say was:

Lady Custodio, you're probably the most remarkable person I've ever met.

Your wit, your spirit, your drive…It's hard not to admire you for that.

But sometimes-

Sometimes, I don't like you very much.

Aloud, I said - "He's been planning this right from the very beginning. Seizing control of the Nine Fingers was just the first step: The Dust trade was a distraction, to keep the money flowing, to make them think he was…"

Human, I didn't say.

"-Just another opportunist. Driven by greed, like all the rest. He played them for fools, letting them think that he could buy the Nobility Faction. Use their influence to make the Prince their puppet."

Her eyes fixed on some internal calculation, Kelart nodded, grimly. "It could be done," she said, hushed. "It would take years, but it could be done. In some ways-"

She bit her lip, her voice low.

"...In some ways, Re-Estize is halfway there."

"Years - But Re-Estize doesn't have years," I said. Felt the truth of it, leading me on. "The Annual Wars, King Ramposa's imminent death…It's now or never. There's too much that can't be controlled: The Second Prince and the Golden Princess, the Royalty faction, the Warrior-Captain…They'd never fall in line. Ever. It would mean-"

"Civil war," Kelart finished, softly. Her brown eyes glimmered, as she spoke. "And the Empire would sweep in and pick up the pieces."

"There's more. The riots, the undead…They're his pawns, all of them. This-"

I would have pointed to the conflagration raging across the city, but something about that - the very idea of using the burning city as a prop - made something sick twist behind my heart.

"...This was meant to make the Crown Prince a hero. That's what the Ninth Finger told the others - An act of terror so large, so awful, the very idea that it might be fabricated or false seems inconceivable."

It would work, I knew. It had worked: And that thought brought the taste of bile to the back of my throat.

For he'd brought that with him, all the way from our world.

A world where horror justified any act, no matter how drastic in its totality, simply to stop the next blow from landing.

Just to stop it from happening again.

Kelart frowned. "-But Prince Barbro can't be trusted. He's not reliable, not even as a figurehead. His vanity wouldn't allow it: If he knew - If he even suspected - that this was for his benefit, it all falls apart. And if he doesn't, the risk of failure is too great. An errant spear, the wrong choice at the right moment…Only a fool would chance those odds."

A glance over her shoulder, at the volcanic columns of smoke and ash that boiled upward towards the churning black storm-clouds above. Lit from beneath by the welling orange light cast by the flames of burning buildings, I had to agree.

How could anyone hope to control that?

But the Vanisher had found a way.

"That's why," I said, so soft Kelart had to lean forward to hear. Beneath that keen, incisive gaze, I felt the cold slivers of doubt work deeper.

If I was wrong-

"-That's why he needs Prince Barbro. He's going after the Crown Prince."

There. I'd said it.

There was no going back.

---

I'd expected her to say:

What?

The Crown Prince? That's insanity.

Instead, she said:

"-What did he say to you?"

I had been wondering when we'd come to that.

"That he wanted to make things right," I said, softly. "To put power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. That Re-Estize needed a just ruler, one the nobles would obey, until they became obsolete. A King who could be trusted to do the right thing-"

I glimpsed the puzzled look in her eyes, and fought down the urge to sigh.

"Yes. But why you?"

"Because-"

Because we were from Earth. Because we both knew where that path would lead.

"...Because - He thinks we're the same," I ground out, like I was chewing gravel. "He thinks he's saving the Kingdom. From the Empire. From the nobles. From itself-"

But Kelart was no longer listening. The shadows were black in the lines of her face, throwing it into sharper relief. Brief surprise flickered across her features, then confusion, then something that might have been horror…

But only for an instant. Something else bloomed behind her eyes, that taut, measuring look I'd seen before.

I could almost see the pieces falling in place, the connections being formed. Faster than I ever could have managed, even with the lightning flash of an epiphany.

King Ramposa is a dying flame, on the verge of being extinguished.

The Golden Princess is a non-factor, a bauble to be ignored or to be married off for later advantage.

The Warrior-Captain serves the station, not the man.

Which leaves-

"Zanac," she said, and the word seemed to echo, to reverberate, even through the curtain of silence that enclosed us.

"If Prince Zanac dies, then-"

She'd reached the same conclusions I had.

Kill the Second Prince, and the rest was simple: The Nobility Faction, corralled by the influence of the Nine Fingers. The Royalty Faction, reluctantly - For want of any other options - falling in line behind the ascendant Crown Prince.

A Crown Prince completely and utterly under his thumb.

I expected Kelart to turn, to call for her steed, to shout for the others. Instead-

"How?"

Her gaze bored into mine.

"How is he doing this?"

And I said-

"I don't know."

Wrong-footed, she blinked. Like she'd expected me to put it all together, perhaps, and was surprised - almost disappointed - that I'd left out the last, crucial piece. Kelart drew breath to speak, and into that momentary pause I said-

"-But you might."

---

Samuel would have known, of course. Of that, I was absolutely certain.

Not just the nature of the plot, but the mechanics of it - How such a thing could have been accomplished - for he knew YGGDRASIL better than he knew his failing body and fraying mind.

Long before he'd made the last ascent through the nightmare halls of the Platinum Spire, my brother had already made the game his life.

A stabbing bitterness churned in my stomach, at the thought.

Stupid, stupid-

If only he'd told me.

If only I'd seen the signs. If only I'd cared more.

If only I'd been better-

But Kelart was waiting, and I pushed the whispers out of the light and back into the fog.

"Could he be ensorcelled? Charmed, or compelled, or…"

"No." Swift, dismissive. "Every ruler is on guard for such things. Not just wards: There are protocols, watchers, in case just such a thing is successful."

Quietly, almost to herself: "-It could be done, but a spell like that…It's not subtle. It doesn't last. Never as long as it should. The mind - Eventually, it rebels against what it knows to be false."

She spread her hand, fingers splayed like talons.

"And - If it couldn't - it would react. Find a way to hurt itself, or others. A spell powerful enough to suppress even that urge…It would be like a signal fire on a dark night. Any caster, any priest would sense something was wrong."

I recognized the voice of experience, but said nothing.

"Could he be replaced?"

A fractional hesitation.

"It's…"

She was thinking, I knew, of what I'd told her - Of the undead horrors, wearing stolen faces, that had abandoned the shapes of men as soon as they could.

"-Not impossible," Kelart said, at last. "There are…creatures that can do such things. Doppelgangers. Certain kinds of undead. But there are tells, too - Ways they might be identified. Gaps in their memory, unnatural appetites, the right divinations…Someone who knew him would recognize the lapses."

"How well does anyone know the Crown Prince? Really?"

Her head came up. Kelart opened her mouth…

Shut it, with a soft click.

Then-

"You're serious," she said, quietly. Her breath caught in her throat, mind already racing ahead. "...And you think I can tell if he's - What? An imposter? A puppet?" Disbelief shaded her words, and Kelart stared at me as if she'd never seen me before.

I kept forgetting how much smarter she was than me.

"There's no-one else," I said, carefully. It was all I could afford, now. "I've met him once-"

Just long enough to form a lasting dislike of the Crown Prince, but I had a feeling that wasn't uncommon.

"Anyone - anyone - who knows him might be compromised. That leaves…"

The corners of her mouth turned upward, a smile that showed teeth.

"-Me?" Bleak humor edged Kelart's words, now. "I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. Tolerating the royal person was challenging enough, believe me. I didn't have time for a study of hi-"

"I know you better than that," I cut in. "There's always something. Something an imposter couldn't know-"

Consternation flickered across Kelart's face. She bit her lip, brow furrowing in silent contemplation - Gaze turning inward, fixed on something only she could see.

Come on, I thought. Come on, come on-

At last, she let out a long, slow breath - Almost a sigh - and said:

"There may be."

Her words hung dark in the air, heavy with import. I felt the weight of them, catastrophic futures just waiting to be unfurled.

Then, as if reluctant to entertain the possibility-

"If you're right…If it's true - What will you do, Sir Samuel?"

And I said:

"Find him first. Then we'll see."

---

I was asking a lot. I was asking more than a lot.

With the city in flames, with time slipping away, every moment was more precious than ever. The future was being shaped, struck out hot and hard at such a rate that it could be witnessed. Decisions had to be made, and soon, that would determine Re-Estize's fate.

And with it, the fate of the Holy Kingdom.

I'd earned trust, for what I'd done in Loyts and in the camps. Enough for Kelart to hear me out, to consider the weight of my words.

Her inquisitive nature played a role in it, of course. The obvious explanation, that some wretched remnant of the necromantic cult Wolfgunblood had bested in E-Rantel was now threatening the capital, was too simple. Too convenient, even - On some level, a part of Kelart could not, would not believe that this was simply a mere act of transcendent spite.

All I'd done was to give voice, give shape, to her half-formed suspicions.

I found myself in one of the manor's front parlors, miraculously untouched by all that had transpired. It was quiet and dim inside, the hearth cold and dark, though a firelight glow throbbed through the stained-glass windows.

Here, the guests of the Nine Fingers had sipped fine wine, diced or played cards, while contemplating the Dust trade or various amusements. The smell of wine, of spiced smoke, still hung in the air like the ghosts of revelries past, the wooden finish of the furniture gleaming as if freshly polished.

Outside, troops marched past, their boots crunching on the wet stone. Every now and then, the beams shook from distant crashes. At one point, from somewhere above, there'd been a series of shouts…Right before an antique cabinet had tumbled down onto the cobbles, scattering splinters of wood and broken glass.

But it was all distant, dull. Like a faded echo, or something that had happened a long, long time ago. I felt detached, remote, uncoupled from the present and everything that mattered.

The servants had long since fled, but their charges - Silver buffet trays and the raised domes of chafing dishes, arrayed in a neat row along the far wall - remained. I stepped over scattered cutlery, brushed aside a fallen gentleman's traveling case with the toe of my boot, and lifted the gleaming lid of the nearest tureen.

Deviled eggs. Medallions of honeyed ham. Savory shellfish in garlic butter, pink outside and white within. Venison dumplings and wedges of soft cheese - A feast worthy of Ro-Lente, forgotten in the tumult that had descended.

It was something I'd noticed, almost in spite of myself. The thieves, smugglers, assassins and poisoners of the Nine Fingers couldn't help but imitate the nobility, like children aping adults. To match them in their extravagance.

I suppose it was instinct, as much as anything else. Everyone needed someone to aspire towards, to envy. Without something to measure themselves against, what were they, really?

No wonder the Vanisher had turned them to his side so easily. In a way, he'd simply offered them what they'd always wanted.

My gauntlets folded back from my hands, retracting into my vambraces with a series of metallic clicks. Another minor miracle, one I was too exhausted to question.

Filling a loaf of hollowed-out bread from the buffet, I sank down into a low-backed chair, and tore into it with my teeth. The food had gone stale, glistening in pools of grease, but I didn't care, barely bothering to chew, swallowing great chunks with each bite.

An abrupt hunger had come over me, and the familiar motions of eating, though the food sat like a lead weight in my stomach, helped clear my head.

There was a clayware jug of water, and I drained that too, ignoring the side-table of spirits. Until that moment, I hadn't realized how desperately thirsty I was, how badly I needed to wash the dust and ash of the day from my mouth. There was something honest, something true, about that - A simple animal need for sustenance eclipsing all else.

Like Hekkeran, I suppose. Not knowing when I would next get the chance.

I wondered if he was still alive. If any of Foresight was still alive, somewhere in that conflagration…Or if I'd sent them, sent Climb, to their deaths.

I was no mastermind, no strategist. All I could do was what I hoped was right.

And with each passing moment, what that may have been became less and less certain. It was like being a losing player, scrambling blindly for the pieces, for control as much of the board as I could manage.

Now what? I thought, staring into the gloom. My eyes wandered the room, going to the flame-lit shadows twitching across the paneled ceiling.

A reminder, I suppose, that time was slipping away.

I had the beginnings of a plan, tenuous and fragile. It was still taking form, one fragment at a time. To give voice to it, now - to speak it aloud - would be to have it fall apart.

And yet, waiting here, doing nothing…

It was a strange kind of paralysis. Part of me wanted nothing more than to call for Apollyon, to ride out into the burning night. But Hekkeran's words had set their hooks in me, and I could see the wisdom in them.

With a scrape of metal-on-metal, I drew Gnosis. Where the Interfector would have shed an azure glow in the darkness, Samuel's sword was as black as jet, giving nothing back. Only the silver query at the base of the blade caught the light, seeming to move and twist as the weight turned my wrist.

Divine-class, Wolfgunblood had called it. Only my cuirass could boast the same, and it was part of the armor I wore, not the thing entire.

Gold-bordered windows unfurled in my field of vision, stark in their flat black nullity as they hovered before me. Carefully, I slid my fingers through the ghostly display, fixing my gaze on the lines of curving script etching themselves into existence.

Hunting for anything I'd missed - For the hour was late, and I had to do this right, or not at all.

As Gazef had said: If you were going to break the rules, you had to understand them first.

---

In truth, the nature of our powers has always troubled me.

On some level, I had come to reconcile the world I had known with the one in which I now existed. But what I thought I could do and knew I could do were two very different things entirely, for the swords-and-sorcery dream of YGGDRASIL had been superimposed upon a new canvas, and echoes of it dogged my every step.

There was something deeply unnatural about that - about us - and it had never sat quite right with me.

For Wolfgood, it was easy. I think he saw it as another game, a natural extension of the vast, fantastic virtual world he'd left behind. Another adventure in a long series of them, not to be questioned, but experienced.

Fire and steel, but also high-octane excitement.

Evil to be slain. Damsels to be rescued. Rewards to be earned, weighed, and discarded.

I envied him for that. He was young and invulnerable and he knew - With absolute certainty - that he was going to live forever.

For the Vanisher, the question was entirely beside the point. What mattered was that they existed, and with them, he now had the tools he needed to bring about his long-awaited change.

Practicality, above all.

And as for me-

"Vorpal," I said, and Gnosis stirred in my grasp. I felt the beginnings of a familiar surge inside my right arm - Something that pulsed up my spine, sizzled through my nerves, all the way to my fingertips.

Into the blade.

"-Aphelion."

A fitful glow illuminated the chamber, casting hard, attenuated shadows. Eerie un-light, like the radiance from a dark star, licked across the Gnosis' edge in writhing wisps of soundless lightning.

For one heart-thumping moment, I could hear a fierce, high-pitched hum at the very edge of perception. The hilt grew hot in my hand, my skin prickling with a rawness that felt like the beginnings of sunburn-

The light winked out, as abruptly as it'd come. But even as I blinked away the black dots that lingered, I could feel it in the ache of my teeth, the foul copper taste in my mouth.

I could have used the Interfector for this, and part of me was tempted to. But without Gnosis' proficiency mods, I was left fumbling in the dark - groping, blind, for the conjunction of thought-command and will that brought each skill into existence.

In his long, winding journey across YGGDRASIL, Samuel had seen and done much: He'd traveled to the ends of the Nine Worlds, searching, questing, learning. He'd made it his life, over countless hours spent in the cold embrace of the Megacon, head cradled by the faceless cage of his induction helmet.

I like to think I never begrudged him that. Everyone needed an escape: Some found it in drugs or alcohol or hope for a better tomorrow. Compared to that, DMMO addiction seemed almost innocent.

In truth, I knew better. As long as he was under, the fits, the rages, the crippling lassitude and the black moods were no longer my problem. For Samuel dreaming was simply easier to deal with than Samuel awake - I merely had to listen for the quiet chime of the monitors declaring his slow and steady heartbeat, watch the faint rise and fall of his chest to reassure myself he was still breathing.

The waste elimination hoses and the fluid drips, the sickly chemical smell of his liquid diet and the catheters…During his lucid period, the humiliation was unspeakable. But when he was quiescent, I could tell myself it was like changing a machine's filters, no different from making sure Samuel swallowed his pills on time, ensuring that our shared room was clear of vermin that would have gone for the soft tissues of fingers and eyes while he slumbered.

Sometimes, I wonder if I - with my pretensions of a promotion, of a higher ration scale - was the one fooling myself.

You just had to look around the rotting pit of our hab, the prefab corridors haunted by echoes of the dust-storms that swept through the arcology, to see the truth:

That this was the way the world was, and it would never change.

Who would want to return to that? The desolation of the real, while the mechanisms of your body withered and died, around you?

Just the thought of it made an empty, burning ache spread through my chest. I forced it down, along with all the rest: My lips moving, murmuring the words of each skill over and over again, committing them to memory.

Like an incantation, perhaps.

Or a prayer.

---

When it came to YGGDRASIL's endgame, to the ever-escalating raids that defined new content - Each one more elaborate, more grotesquely over-the-top than the last - the six-man party was the baseline against which all else was measured.

One tank.

Two attackers.

One healer.

One specialist.

A wildcard, to fill in as needed or to adapt to the shifting winds of fortune.

In theory, every dungeon could (eventually) be beaten by a single party, albeit at astronomical cost in time and resources. Sheer, bloody-minded attrition could, theoretically, accomplish what was meant for the weight of numbers - And therein lay the trap.

For while a good or even decent party could meet one facet of any challenge, true success needed five. Operating apart but in concert, with the rigid precision of a timepiece's gears or the bloodless efficiency of a Social Police raid.

You couldn't do it with people you'd just met, for it wasn't just about a team's composition, but also its coordination. As a Dwarf Monk, I'd sprinted into every fight with the blithe unconcern of the true amateur - While Samuel dealt out death with bright, clean sweeps of his sword, fending blows with his shield, I piled in with fists swinging, with no goal other than to land as many hits as possible before I went down.

It must have been endlessly exasperating, but he'd never complained. Even then, I suppose, he'd known that - for me - it wasn't serious. Just a momentary amusement, a distraction, nothing more.

But Samuel had been serious. He'd approached the game with the same careful, level-headed concern he'd turned to all things. Even at his lowest, even at the very end of it all, he must have spent weeks - months - planning for the Platinum Spire.

To remind himself, perhaps, of how he'd used to be.

Just so he knew he still could.

---

Near the end, YGGDRASIL's updates had grown increasingly shambolic and ill-advised, slapped together first with growing panic, and later with a kind of grudging resentment. Once it had become clear that there was no arresting the death spiral, the peculiar recklessness of resignation had set in: For if the end was inevitable, why not do what you really, truly wanted to do?

During the last, frenzied period between confirmation of server shutdown and close of service, a flood of content had been spewed forth. Balance was no longer a concern - Like some final, maniac burst of strength before extinction, things once thought impossible were no longer so.

And at last, Samuel had found his moment.

---

A warrior's skills weren't that different from a caster's spells.

Not the ones that came with the condition of a Paladin - the divine grace, the auras of defiance and retribution, the tripartite steed and the light that scoured away all that was unclean - but stranger ones, the ones he'd wandered the furthest and most crumbling depths of YGGDRASIL to find.

Like the greatest magics, they had to be hunted down, tracked through the few sparse clues within rumor and disinformation, locked away behind torturous quest-chains or guarded by deadly foes.

In the fullness of time, their secrets had been made known to him.

In defeating the twin colossi of the Dioscuri, he'd united both the bleak, blinding anti-light of the Aphelion and the coruscating flames of the Fangs of Sól beneath the fall of his blade. Just like the ever-burning hell of Múspellsheim, where the annihilating radiance of the False Sun had been prised from the charred hands of Surtr the Black himself.

By the time he'd reforged the Armor of the Twice-Martyred, for whom grief was power, the endless slaughter of the bright fields of Asgard had worked its alchemy, refining the scything blades of Calamity into Manifold Assault, the legion-killer.

The frozen depths of Niflheim held the icy waters of Élivágar, where time itself ran slow. A fragment of that eternal ice had stayed with him, in that last, lonely trek across the endless plains of primordial darkness and cold.

Across the storm-swept plains of Helheim, forever wracked by the great maelstroms that scoured the quick and the dead alike.

All the way to the gates of the Platinum Spire, and the end of everything.

As for Sevenfold-

---

Don't get me wrong.

I know - have always known - YGGDRASIL was just a game, but so is life. And how we play has something to do with how we live our life.

After all, Samuel had saved mine.

---

Just learning a skill wasn't enough. There was an intricate metagame built around a complex web of skill nodes and modifiers, bewildering in its sheer scope and scale. You could lose days mapping them all, trying to discover the glorious precincts of optimum efficiency, fighting to steer clear of certain branches, certain forks, that led to dead ends.

It always came down to a choice: Speed, efficiency or power, amid a myriad host of other considerations.

Any individual technique could be used often, or cheaply, or for maximum effect - With a little effort and careful thought, you could have any two of the trifecta. Three meant stretching already-scarce resources too thin.

My brother had chosen power, every time.

It'd come at a cost. Unlike a caster's spells, a warrior couldn't just cut loose with the fullest extent of his skills. Momentum had to be accumulated: Blood had to be shed, first. Impacts given, impacts received, building the rotation that threatened the tornado.

I couldn't fight the way I always had, all instinct and windmilling blades. It would take a cold, calculating precision, an awareness that ran beyond the now.

Each blow a step, and each step a blow. Carving the path to victory, one cut at a ti-

Footsteps, in the corridor outside. The urgent murmur of voices: Gustav, low and wary. Kelart, the brittle edge of command in each word.

The door opened, without preamble. For a moment, I glimpsed Gustav's worried face peering in - But then Kelart was in the room, and she shut it behind her with a firm hand. She took in my appearance, the sword on my lap, without comment: In three smooth strides, Kelart crossed the parlor to the opposite seat, easing herself into the richly-upholstered chair.

"-Is there wine?"

Silently, I poured. The faint smell of apricots filled the air, golden-amber spirit sloshing faintly in the glass. Kelart sipped, wincing at the burn: Cradling the glass against her chest, she glanced over at me, dark rings of fatigue showing beneath her brown eyes.

"The Crown Prince is in the capital," she said, simply. Absently, she brushed her hair back over one slim shoulder, taking a deep breath. "He took nearly a thousand cavalry through Victor's Gate. 'To crush the rebels', I believe."

A slow, disbelieving shake of her head.

"...They were ambushed. One of the dragons, it…I suppose you can imagine. Undead, too, lying in wait. Half his force gone, in one fell swoop - Barons Cheneko and Suric are missing, presumed dead, along with others of the Nobility faction."

"Then-"

"Oh, he's alive. They say the Crown Prince personally repelled the assault. 'Fought heroically', according to reliable witnesses: As I understand it, he wounded the dragon's rider with a spear, and gave cause for it to withdraw."

Kelart canted her head to the side, regarding me thoughtfully. Waiting.

"'Heroic'," I said, slowly, "-Is not a term I would associate with Prince Barbro."

She smiled, tightly. Just for a moment, but a smile all the same.

"You're becoming quite the cynic, Sir Samuel. The fault of evil counselors, I don't doubt."

I could only grunt at that, and gestured for her to continue.

"The Prince's detachment has regrouped at Wheat Row," Kelart said. She paused, noting my incomprehension, and went on: "The city's granaries, I mean. Merchants' stocks, not the Crown's. There was some confusion - they were under siege, apparently - but the citizens let him in, once the undead were repelled. Again, Prince Barbro rather distinguished himself in the fighting…I believe he opened the silos, made them freely available to the populace."

There it was again.

"Generous of him," I murmured, almost to myself. "And the Second Prince?"

"He's gathering his forces. The King's Guard, the Warrior Troop…There's word of - atrocities - in the Square of Scales. Sacrifices. A great mass for the dead-"

Her eyes met mine, a silent question in her gaze.

"...They say that the undead are building a pillar of skulls."

I felt my gorge rise.

"Jesus," I said, and Kelart blinked. "I mean-" I raised the jug to take another swig, realized it was empty. "...You think that's the battle we're meant to be fighting. That I should be fighting."

It would be the easy thing to do. The right thing, even. I could feel the cold realization knot in my chest, and with it the pull, willing me to action. To do something.

For what was waiting there would have shamed the devil.

She didn't answer. Not right away.

"It would be the…expected thing, yes," Kelart said. Her slim fingers cupped her pointed chin, her voice troubled. "The certain thing. Given the nature of the foe, our intervention could very well decide the fate of the capital. The kingdom, even. Sir Gustav, as you might expect, favors this course of action."

"You don't agree."

"There's…a convenience to this. A timeliness-" Her words trailed off, as she saw my expression. "What is it?"

"What if-" I felt my throat clench. "...What if it's already happened? If the Crown Prince's already been replaced?"

Her eyes narrowed. I could see she'd been thinking along those lines, already.

I realized, then, that she was wavering: Kelart had always seemed so assured, so certain, I'd never thought she had room for doubt.

Because of me.

"If you're wrong-" she began, but I didn't let her finish.

"That's why I need you," I said, with every ounce of level, direct sincerity I could muster. "You're the only one I can trust, Kelart. The only one."

An inexplicable flush crept up Kelart's neck. She looked away, a strange expression on her face - Lips raised and pressed together, as if bemused and troubled all at once. Like she'd been expecting lies, only to receive the truth instead.

Or the other way round, perhaps.

"Yes, well…" A pause, casting around for the words. "If the Crown Prince is…what you think he is…What will you do?"

I could only shrug.

"Show them the truth."

"Oh? You're going to denounce the Prince, then? In front of all of his men? I doubt you'll get the chance. Unless-"

Struck by a sudden thought, Kelart caught herself, slim eyebrows rising in abrupt realization.

"...Were you expecting me to volunteer?"

There was a wry note to her voice, as she glanced at me, sidelong.

I knew what she meant. The appearance of legitimacy was a power in itself: I would never convince Prince Barbro's men through words alone. There would be no time for accusations, no time for debate - The moment he saw me, the game would be up. I'd have seconds to act, at best.

Fortunately, I'd been counting on that.

I met her skeptical gaze. Held it, for a moment.

And I said:

"-I have a plan."

---

"Are you…sure you wish to do this, Lady Custodio?"

Beneath a veneer of professional courtesy, there was a distinct unease to Captain Coesil's voice. As we crossed the yard, he took one stride to every two of Kelart's, spurs clicking against the broken paving below.

When I'd destroyed the gates, a great quantity of rubble had been scattered across the shattered square, some of it in chunks as big as a man. A pile of stacked debris, raised like a makeshift cairn, cast a long and hungry shadow across the bodies of the Death-Spreading Brigade, laid out in a straggling row.

I did my best to avoid looking at them, though I knew the sentiment was absurd.

For it was one thing to take lives, in the heat of the moment. It was quite another to see one's handiwork, the mutilated bodies with their eyes forever empty, forever open.

Forever watching.

There's a reason why we close the eyes of the dead.

"Quite certain, Captain." Now that our course was set, Kelart was all calm confidence, positively radiating serenity. Like everything was going exactly according to plan, like she'd never had a doubt in her life.

Only her hands - Carefully folded before her - betrayed anything resembling unease, her knuckles gone white with the effort of not clenching.

"Prince Zanac requires our support. I must speak with his royal highness, before the assault begins. This position, and the prisoners, must be held until relief arrives."

I'd seen some of those prisoners, all with bound and bandaged hands, being jostled down the steps. Most flinched or went pale at the sight of me - Some were openly weeping, the last tatters of their dignity long since cast aside. Others simply stared, with the cornered look of an animal at bay.

It would be the gallows for most of them, I supposed. Treason was, after all, a high crime.

But only if they made it through the night.

As if to punctuate Kelart's words, thunder rumbled: In the span of the past hour or so, the weather had got demonstrably worse. Weird electrical effects underlit the low, sinister winter sky, dry lightning tearing at the city's towers in jagged bolts.

Something was deeply wrong. I could feel the malaise of it, humming through the air like a plague or a spreading sickness. At some point, the smoke wafting in had grown thicker, draping across the horizon in a thick miasmic fog.

The lines of care etched into the Captain's face grew deeper. For a moment, I thought he would protest: He kept glancing at me, as if hoping I'd chime in, but I kept my face carefully impassive.

I knew enough not to contradict Kelart in front of him. Here, more than ever, we needed to show a united front.

"As you say," he said, reluctantly. To his credit, Coesil tried again: "Will you…not be requiring an escort, High Priestess? A half-dozen lancers could-"

"A gallant offer, but unnecessary. In the event of an attack, you'll need every man." A tight smile. "The Grandmaster will ensure my safety."

Coesil looked unhappy, but saluted to show he'd understood. When he turned, his cloak fluttered like a lonely wing as he gestured to a nearby ensign.

"Have Lady Custodio's steed brought to-" he began, only for her to shake her head.

"Sir Samuel?" Kelart said. Casually, like it meant nothing at all - But beneath her serene facade, I could sense the mingled anticipation and trepidation that coiled through her.

"Step back," I said, and drew Gnosis. Coesil's eyes widened, in spite of himself, at the sight of that darkly-gleaming blade: When it swept down, it left a coldly-glowing trail in its wake, a burning line that seemed to twist and crawl and shimmer…

"[Apollyon]-!"

A thunderclap of sound. The ringing peal of it split the air, made the ground heave and tremble. A sudden gust slammed out around us in an abrupt pop of overpressure, frost crackling like splintering bones.

Men gasped and gaped. Horses milled and kicked, their eyes rolling with fear. There were shouts of alarm, of dismay.

The captain was a brave man. He stumbled, off-balance, but his hand on his saber as he found his footing.

"By the Four," he breathed, as he saw what the blast had unveiled. "That's-"

Kelart had to shield her face, her priestly robes flapping in the sudden flurry of airborne snow - But she'd some idea what to expect, bracing herself just before the concussion carved a shallow crater in the ground.

Her eyes widened, all the same.

Gleaming as if fresh from the forge, Apollyon rose to its fullest height. Vapor vented in curls of white smoke from the machine-destrier's flanks, the cold flames of its eyes burning through the momentary fog. Corposant played across steel-shod hooves, snow flashing to steam around where they made contact: It may have been winter, but here and here alone, an unseasonable warmth lingered, an echo of the fires to come.

I swung myself up and into the saddle, just like I'd done before. As I mounted, motes of silver flared in my vision, gathering, coalescing - the shards of my helm folding themselves into place, linking together into a single coherent whole.

With a hiss, the gorget seal engaged. For a moment, I was left in all-enclosing darkness, my breath echoing hollowly in my ears. But then, twin cones of light flared to life, the world outside projected directly onto my eyes. My view through the visor cleared, and it was as if I wore no helmet at all, though I could no longer feel the wind on my face.

I looked around. No rousing cheers, this time: Just pale faces, staring back at me. Not all the soldiers had seen what Apollyon could do, but they must've seen its handiwork, heard the stories babbled at them by terrified prisoners. Even at rest, the sheer intensity of the destrier's presence - the sense of restrained force, bound within - was unsettling, extraordinary.

Like an unexploded shell, maybe. Or a bomb, waiting to be detonated.

I leaned down, offering a hand. Kelart clasped it, and pulled herself up and onto the high-cantled saddle, settling behind me on the rest. The folds of her cassock draped across Apollyon's flanks with the faintest scrape of leggings, her slender arms circling my waist as she leaned into me, just enough to keep herself perfectly balanced.

Her hands were shaking.

"When…" Kelart began, her voice gone thin and hoarse and faintly shell-shocked. "Since when could you do this?"

Since always, I thought. I just hadn't known I could.

"Hold on," I warned. I couldn't feel her touch, but I caught a faint whiff of her clean scent as Kelart hugged me tighter, as if trying to put a dent in my armor. Beneath us, there was a low, actinic hum, like an engine throbbing to life, patient tics of lightning licking across Apollyon's brass plating.

"Clear the way!" One of the armsman waved his arms, warning his fellows back. "Clear the way!"

As the cry went up, soldiers hurried aside with remarkable alacrity. In no time at all, there was nothing between us and the charred ruin of the gates, the window moaning as it whistled through the hollow arch.

"Ready, Lady Kelart?" I asked.

"When you are," she said, her voice taut, cheek pressed to my cuirass.

Apollyon began to pull forward. First at a walk, armor articulating without a sound: A brass-and-steel beast, coiling for the leap forward.

Now at a trot, the road outside growing clearer through the miasmic fog. Faintly, dimly, I heard something that could have been laughter.

Something that might have been screams.

A canter, hooves striking sparks from the flagstones. I heard Kelart stifle a gasp, gritting her teeth as we began to increase speed - My breath echoing behind my visor, as my hands tightened on the reins…

-Now.

In that very instant, Apollyon surged forward. The world blurred, as all restraint was shed: A sense of terrible acceleration, of power - built to a fever-pitch - being unleashed at last. We plunged through a frozen park, the brittle skeletons of winter trees flashing past, moving so fast now that the slipstream tore at us with angry hands.

Past the great mansions and summer palaces of the old nobility and the newly-rich, gates barred and windows shuttered, figures milling at the walls. Wondering, no doubt, what was racing past. What fresh disaster it portented, at a time like this.

Down avenues hung with banners, jumping and flapping in the wind. We were riding out of the district, now. Speeding towards the uproar and the smoke, and the chaos ahead.

"Can't breathe-"

The pitiless drumming of Apollyon's hooves slowed, as the destrier came to a juddering halt. Just before the crest of a hill, the speeding ground resolved into visibility: We stopped amid a copse of olive trees, their branches swaying as if confused by the tumult below.

Her dark hair wind-blown, Kelart drew a shuddering breath, her eyes teared-up from the furious velocity. The sheer speed must have jolted her bones, rattled her teeth in her skull: In all the flying earth and billowing smoke, it was a miracle she'd managed to speak, let alone be heard.

But she'd planned for this. We'd planned for this.

At first, I'd wanted to take to the skies, to set Apollyon hovering through the fog and the filthy air. The dragons, however, made that impossible - They circled the city like vultures, spearing down into the firestorms to sow terror and confusion. The distance was simply too great: Anything that remained airborne for too long may as well have sent up a signal flare.

Our best chance of avoiding discovery was to steer clear of confrontation. I didn't like it, but the reasoning was sound - I didn't know if the Vanisher was somehow watching through them, the way he'd done in the brothel, but it was a risk I couldn't afford to take.

It was one thing to make that resolution, however, and another to live it. Overhead, beneath the tempest-tossed clouds, the sky was red with the light of the fires ahead. The wide streets that led further into the city were choked with oily, billowing smoke, hacked with black wounds.

People scurried between buildings, desperate for escape or at least shelter, bodies - crumpled and boneless - sprawled on the pavement, or slumped over the makeshift barricades that had come up. There was something pitiful about the sight of them, mostly heaped-up furniture and rubble, thrown together like the very last hope of salvation.

But there would be no sanctuary. Not for the teeming masses on the streets, not for the figures hunched in the shadows of doorways or huddling in narrow alleys.

Not in this apocalypse.

"Look," Kelart whispered, hushed. "-Look."

I stared down into the confusion below. For a moment, it looked like the river running through Re-Estize had burst its banks, filling the street with black, freezing waters - But the bridge was frozen solid, jagged spikes of ice gleaming like diamonds from the heatless flames of dragon-breath.

My perspective flipped, and something clicked into place. Not water, but bodies.

What I'd mistaken for a flood was in fact bobbing heads and limbs, a tide of undead flesh wending its way through the capital, towards the main thoroughfare. Like something dark and fluid, like oil, dripping and running and pouring, finding the quickest route by which to reach their destination.

I could never have imagined the Re-Estize was home to this many. There were dozens, hundreds of them - Spewing out of the ground, stalking from the mist, hideously emanciated things. Gaunt and grey, many came crawling and stalking, lurching towards some unknowable destination.

"Where are they going?" I began, my voice issuing hard and metallic from my helmet's grille. It was like watching a line of ants, fresh from a carcass, marching single-mindedly back to their nest.

If I stared too long, I could almost make out what they bore with them. Individual shapes, glimpses of greasy, vivid color-

A momentary nausea churned in my gut, and I had to look away. I had a feeling, though, I'd see them again in my dreams.

"The Square of Scales," Kelart said, her eyes hooded. She pointed, towards the white edifice of Ro Lente. Flame-light flashed, reflecting off half-glimpsed armor and the tips of spears - Banners fluttering bravely overhead, the abstract symbols of the Crown gleaming stark silver against a black background. If I focused, I could see…

"That's the Second Prince's flag," I said. "Then, he must be-"

Moving to engage. Mounting an attack. I didn't know the words, and - in truth - they didn't matter: It was enough to know that the two forces were converging, and when they met, the inevitable would happen.

I tried to see if Gazef was with them. The spreading smoke, the sickly miasma that smelled like burning human hair or plague, made it impossible to tell.

And I thought-

Kelart's hand settled on my arm, and I half-turned. Her face was very close, now.

"Have you changed your mind, Sir Samuel?" she asked, very soft.

I could still reach them, if I tried. I could join the assault, either with the royal army or on my own. Hewing down the undead, singularly or in their dozens, alongside the Warrior-Captain and perhaps even Climb, if he'd somehow survived all this. Feeling the fierce certainty I'd only known once before, the Interfector burning blue in my fists as I scythed through the beastmen horde-

I shut my eyes, just for a moment. Breathed in the acrid air, felt the bitter bite of it scraping my throat.

"I don't know," I said. "That's the choice, isn't it? To do the thing that matters, or the thing that counts."

Assuming I wasn't wrong.

Assuming any of it was true.

I considered her, carefully, as I sat astride Apollyon. Kelart's reflection swam in my mirror-bright helm, subtly distorted, limned by the orange glow of flame.

"Tell me, Lady Kelart: What do the scriptures say? What's the right thing to do?"

Kelart shrugged. "'Judge a man by the fruit of his works, for the Gods smile upon results," she said.

I had the feeling she'd memorized the passage by heart.

Then, softly-

"I suppose it comes down to what you care about most."

"And that is?"

"Winning the battle, or winning the war." A small spark flared in her eyes, the corners of her mouth turning upward in a tired smile. "If it helps, I know which one my honored sister would choose."

So did I.

"Good enough," I said, and tightened my grip on the reins. "Brace yourself - It's going to get bad."

---

It did. How quickly and how bad, though, caught me entirely by surprise.

Snorting blue fire, Apollyon plunged through the scarred streets, great hooves ripping cobbles free. The destrier's milling legs kicked up a spray of pulverized stone, churning with remorseless machine strength. We drove through the wreckage of a fence, past toppled and burned-out buildings, plaster facings cracked and blown from the heat.

Driving headlong into the heart of the madness that had engulfed the city.

The streets of the rich quarter had been almost vacant, each villa fortified with household guards and private armies. Here, the roads were filled with people - Shouting, jostling, fleeing in every direction at once. They gawped at the sight of us, at the gleaming apparition bearing down on them. So many faces, glazed with shock and streaked with ash…

"[Fear]-!"

Kelart's shout was almost lost in the thundering echoes, but I felt it all the same. A momentary chill stiffened my limbs, like a fragment of some half-remembered nightmare: Those ahead of us were struck by the full force of it, seized by a wave of sudden animal terror. They hurled themselves aside, diving down side-alleys or scurrying between the buildings, forced out of the way so Apollyon could hurtle past.

Further from the river, the flames were reaching higher now, the smoke spreading in thick, choking curtains, filling up the low rooms of countless cramped dwellings with smog. For those trapped or cowering in their houses, it was a choice between suffocation or burning, unless they dared the streets.

Except for the city guard, desperately outnumbered and scattered across the city, no aid was coming. Not with the coming slaughter at the Square of Scales, drawing the Crown's forces as inexorably as moths to flame. The only thing left to do was run, or to wait and pray that all this death would not take them too.

In the latter, at least, they would be disappointed.

Up ahead, the way narrowed between two sagging buildings. I glimpsed an upturned cart, the horses dead in their traces. About a dozen looters clustered around it, like ants swarming over a carcass. In the light of their bobbing torches, I saw stained loaves of hard brown bread being snatched up, shoveled into burlap sacks or passed from hand to grimy hand.

Wild-eyed faces turned to face the oncoming thunder-

I hunched down low, picked my spot, and dug my spurs into Apollyon's sides. Without breaking stride, the destrier leapt - Hooves flashing, flinging itself into the air in a single bounding surge - that terrible speed communicating itself into a sudden burst of acceleration that nearly hurled me from the saddle.

A startled cry wrenched from Kelart's throat as we left the ground. For one perfect, unfurling moment, everything was pure rushing motion. The world lost all sound, except for the rushing roar of the wind, the crackle of flame.

We crashed down on the other side, slewing around the corner in a wake of orange sparks. The shriek of steel-on-stone made my jaw lock, my teeth clench: The metronome of Apollyon's tireless pace resumed, faster than before, the wreckage left far behind in an eyeblink.

"How much further?" I shouted over my shoulder.

"-Almost there! To the right, and-"

A wave of screams drowned her out. The avenue up ahead was one of cafes and taverns - In better times, a mere day ago, there was room enough for hundreds. Now, it was choked with people, the panicked chorus of their cries giving way to formless screaming.

Desperate running figures, tripping over smoldering rubble and stumbling over their shoes.

Ducking behind tables and chairs, covering their heads, screaming for mercy or help-

Because not all the undead had joined the winding column.

A haze of miasma hung thickly at the end of the street, a poisoned fog spreading clutching tendrils of mist. Dark shapes spilled out - Loping, low to the ground, bounding like wolves. My skin crawled at the sight of those pale, sparsely-fleshed forms, ribs protruding like starvation victims, the knobs of vertebrae showing through pallid grey skin.

Ghouls.

Where they'd come from, I couldn't imagine. It was as if the miasma had parted to allow them passage, disgorging them in their ever-hungering packs. When they seized their prey, men and women crumpled, unable even to scream: Paralyzed, they couldn't even writhe as filthy fangs tore into their flesh, talons gouging and tearing for the sweetmeats of organs and eyes-

I did not think. I did not feel conflicted.

Apollyon burst into the street, all four hooves leaving skidding trails against the stone. Both hands on the reins, I didn't draw Gnosis - Instead, the words came to me, boiling out from within.

I could feel the charge building within me, like a surge of tempestuous light. A bleak, fitful illumination swelled around us: Without looking, I knew that the sword-and-sunburst on my cuirass was glowing white-hot, like forged iron that could not be denied.

"Back!" I bellowed, as the heat grew, as arcs of colorless lightning crackled across my gauntlets, jumping from knuckle to knuckle.

"Back into the darkness, away from the sight of the Pure!"

Jozan's words, not mine. But the force behind them was the same.

There was a brilliant flash. So bright it shamed the sun, so bright it bleached all color from the world. It tore the air like ghostly lightning, a silent blast of ethereal radiance that made the shadows writhe and dance, as if in torment.

It struck the undead head-on, and blasted their flesh and bone apart like ash in a gale.

The closest ones disintegrated - Flesh slewing away like wax beneath a blowtorch, charred to black cinders by the killing light. They didn't even have time to scream, their forms shivering away to nothing. Only a vile, inhuman powder was left, a choking black grit that rose in a swirling haze before breaking apart, as if some part of them still sought to cling fast, to survive.

The ghouls on the periphery caught fire, uttering their ragged, unearthly screams. The hideous keening anguish in their bubbling cries rose like a hellish choir: Lit from within by white flames that never went out, the carrion-eaters ignited those around them in their thrashing despair, writhing in the embrace of scourging flame.

There was a horror to it, to see them riling like worms, beating at the killing fires with taloned hands. Their own claws tore great, bloodless gashes in their skin, tongues of flame licking out from the wounds - Bones glowing hot through their flesh, as if the very marrow had turned to molten lead.

The hideous stench was abruptly and immediately overpowering. Brittle pops and cracks echoed as the ghouls roasted, the indescribable reek of crisping skin, of cooking flesh, rising in a wave of greasy steam.

It took moments.

It took an eternity.

As the last of the ghouls sank down in foetal curls - Shrinking, losing all shape, like dead leaves devoured in a blast furnace - the killing light stuttered out.

I felt my breath catch in my throat, my lungs laboring for air. A sudden wave of weakness swept over me, and I sagged in the saddle, the bitter taste of quinine in my mouth.

The stillness that followed was eerie in its totality. No-one had stopped to witness what I'd done - Fear, real and conjured, had them in an unbreakable grip, and it impelled them to flee.

Only the sightless eyes of the half-devoured looked on. But the great chunks of flesh torn from throats and limbs, the organ-meats wrenched from their paralyzed forms, had already sealed their lips forever.

I'd done everything except save them, I realized, and that thought brought me no peace.

"How, in the name of all the Gods…" Kelart began, her hushed voice somewhere between slow-blossoming surprise and utter disbelief. There was an incredulity to her words, and beneath it, something colder, more questioning, as her hand gripped my arm.

"Samuel-"

"I'm fine," I said, shortly. The momentary dizziness was passing, even as I labored to fill my lungs with air. My head pounded, a cold, clawing fatigue dragging my limbs down - I fought its grip, willing it to recede. "I - I just need a mo…"

"Off the street! Now!"

I spurred Apollyon into the nearest alley, beneath leaning rooftops. Only a thin slice of sky was visible, the nearest windows ten meters up and wired shut. The urgency in Kelart's words had impelled me into action: I almost asked why, but she was already chanting, already murmuring the words of another prayer.

"-strike the light from searching eyes, blind those who would pierce the veil-"

The spell of non-detection felt as cold and light as snowflakes as it wrapped itself around us. Light bent, twisting away to avoid us - Fluid darkness rippling at the corners of my vision, stealing depth and color from the world.

And then a great, winged shadow swept over us.

---

As the rush of wind battered the air, I looked up. My heart hammered in my chest, as the undead dragon's guttural, metallic roar sundered the silence, my ears ringing from the wall of sound.

This close, the flying terror seemed impossibly vast, too large to be born aloft on its tattered, membranous wings. All bone and talon, it was a hideous, rotting thing - I could see withered organs through the gaping wounds in its gut, age-withered flesh hanging slack on its emaciated frame.

There was a sound like hail, scattering across the roofs, glittering like a rain of diamonds where it struck the street.

Scales, falling from the dragon's unholy form, in a sharp-edged rain.

It was searching for something - That great, horned head swinging back and forth, eyes glowing like dying coals. It made one pass, then another, monstrous wings beating: Blue fire dribbled from its jaws, spined tail lashing in its wake like an impossible serpent.

With a bellow, the Frost Dragon swept its talons through the roof of the nearest building. Walls tore free, ripped away in a single motion of unbelievable strength - Like a meteor, a huge chunk of masonry came crashing down, landing with a force that shook the earth.

Kelart raised her arms to shield her face as splinters fell around us, rattling against my armor. I could see the pale, stricken look on her face, her lips pressed together in a thin line against the terror the thing radiated. It made you feel small, embryonic, like you ought to hurl yourself to the ground and pray that it passed you by: Anything else seemed hopeless, as futile as hurling stones into a whirlwind.

A moment passed, then another. I heard a wild howl, a shriek that might have been frustration…And then the beat of monstrous wings was receding into the distance, a distant roll of thunder heralding the thing's departure. For an instant, I caught a glimpse of the hideous creature's rider - Lit by a pulse of lightning, it was a grinning, rotted visage, decaying teeth set in a barely-fleshed skull.

A Lich. I knew, then, that it must have sensed the blast I'd unleashed. It'd been searching for the source of the hateful light, hunting for it…Until some greater imperative had driven it on, the iron hand of a force that brooked no delay.

"Where's it go-" I began, before I caught myself.

I knew where it was going. Where they were both going.

After all, there was only one place they could go.

Doubt is an awful thing. Even when you think you've mastered it, even when you think you're sure - It can come rushing back, at the worst of the times. Make you second-guess yourself, as the eternal question lingers in the recesses of your mind:

What if-?

"We should hurry," Kelart said. Carefully neutral, her head tilted back, her eyes scanning the sky. "...Little time remains."

"Yeah," I said. "-Yeah."

But deep in my bones, I knew she was wrong.

For Prince Zanac's army, perhaps for Re-Estize, there was no time left.

None at all.

---

The bell tower was a relic of an older time. For almost two centuries, it stood over the capital, faithfully ringing out the morning, noon and evening prayers, calling the faithful to worship.

Somehow, it'd survived the apocalypse that had ascended. Amid the smoldering shapes of burnt-out buildings on either side - mostly wooden dwellings that had sprung up in its shadow - it still stood tall and true. Flames had blackened the walls, but magic had been worked into its raising, and they'd been proof against the worst of the tumult.

Part of that reason, I suppose, was that the tower had been mostly-vacant for almost a hundred years. At the time of its inception, a cadre of bell wardens had sounded out the hours, here and at the other towers across the capital: Forever deafened by their toil, their vital role in the life of the city invested them with extraordinary authority.

A monthly bell tax levied on every landlord and homeowner in the city brought in enormous wealth - More than enough to support a warden's entire staff, and leave a fortune to spare. In the waning years of his regime, King Ramposa I, the Pious, had considered the expenses involved…And asked the temples to step in.

Working as one, the priests had found a solution. The bells had been enchanted, to ring at the appropriate times - Control of the towers had passed to the temples, and the wardens had been made extinct, their wealth re-appropriated by the kingdom. Without a need for human hands to sound the hours, access had been restricted to the clergy: The towers had been sealed-up, guarded by great stone doors and potent wards.

Wards that only the highest potentates of the Four Gods knew the secrets of.

---

Shielded by the centuries-old walls, the cloister was a drum of stone, just beneath the tower's summit. The bells hung overhead, massive bronze monstrosities half again the height of a man.

There was something inexplicably oppressive about their unmoving forms, their enforced stillness. It felt like they were brooding in the unnatural light, waiting for their moment to peal out the end of all things.

No wonder no-one had come this way in years.

Until us, of course.

An altar had been raised in the shadow of the bells, surrounded by graven depictions of the Four Gods. I'd expected it to be choked with dust, to be streaked with guano, but magic had kept it pristine. Even now, it was a stunning work of art: A single block of gleaming black stone, inscribed with an intricate filigree of flowing patterns and glyphs.

The fragile scent of incense lingered in the belfry, with a quiet tenacity that defied the whipping winds. For what seemed like an interminable span, Kelart had been kneeling before the altar, her quiet prayers at the very edge of audibility.

This wasn't just worship. The bell tower's shrine, consecrated to the god of wind, was a font of devotion. Devotion that could be drawn upon, could be tapped, could be bent to a caster's will - Assuming that the caster was potent enough.

As the Holy Kingdom's high priestess, it was widely known that Kelart Custodio was the nation's most powerful priest…But the true extent of her gifts had been concealed even from the clergy.

With her command of fourth-tier magic, Holy Queen Bessarez was - had been - acclaimed as a prodigy, marked by the gods for greatness from the tender age of fifteen. It was, I had been informed, one of the deciding factors in her ascent to the throne. While the nobility, as a rule, generally lacked the pious and god-fearing nature the Holy Kingdom upheld as a virtue, there was no arguing with power.

Except Kelart had eclipsed her, ascending to the heights of the fifth tier. Merely knowing this was, of course, a national secret. Men had died to conceal the secret, and would kill to uncover it.

If the beastmen had known what she could do, they would have slit her throat, and burned her corpse on a pyre. Not for sacrifice, but for fear of what she might do.

She'd confided this to me, with dark-eyed, unblinking seriousness. There'd been a note of hesitation to her voice, as if she'd been wondering how it would change things. How I saw her, even.

I had nodded, without a word. Not questioning, just accepting.

Kelart had eyed me for a long moment, as if gauging my trustworthiness, before she'd begun her devotions, apparently satisfied.

I could sense the weight of the confidence she'd settled on my shoulders, enough to be quietly moved by it. But not enough to quiet the little voice in the back of my mind, the one that said-

But I thought magic had ten tiers.

---

In that, however, I was wrong.

But the revelation, when it came, would bring me no joy.

---

"-It's done."

I turned, shaken from my reverie.

"Really?" I asked, before I could stop myself. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Kelart agreed. She rose, perhaps faster than she'd meant to: A wince crossed her face, but she held up a warding hand as I took an instinctive step forward. I could see the effort it'd cost her, the stiffness to her motions…

But at some point, the graven glyphs of the altar had begun to glow, filling the cloister with a warm amber light.

"If you're sure-"

"You're not my nursemaid, Samuel," Kelart said, sharply. It took her a moment, all the same, leaning against the altar for support as she found her footing. Then, softer: "I'm well aware of my limits, believe me. It has - It's just been a while, that's all."

She tottered to the waiting steps, her hand resting against the curving wall. I followed, moving with care - Each footfall heavy, where hers were light. My boots scraped on the stone, always a step behind.

Just in case.

Out from the staircase. Onto the roof.

My breath caught, as I realized how far up we were - It felt like I could see all the way to the ends of the earth, the city spread out beneath us, hazy through the slow-falling specks of snow.

At the stone embrasure, I took in the view: The tangle of white roofs, rising in irregular jags across the span of the city, all the way to the river. The orange-banded columns of choking smoke, spiraling up from the black streets, joining the grumbling storm-clouds above.

Ro Lente castle, in the distance, thrust upwards from the clutter of buildings, ivory spires untouched by the swirling flames that ravaged the capital.

Beyond the city's walls, the campfires of the kingdom's army, lighting the plain like stars on a clear night. So tantalizingly close, yet so far away: Utterly powerless to intervene, shut out by the frozen tangle of the gates, the winding column of desperate humanity fleeing Re-Estize by the few remaining exits.

The grimy tenements nestled between the manufactories, the slums and the warrens…They were burning freely, now. Between the riots, the looting, the fear of overthrow giving way to the more immediate terror of the undead, I doubted anyone remained to fight the flames.

It was every man for himself, now, and devils take the hindmost.

I looked past the thick, smothering coils of black smoke, across the river. Even from here, I could glimpse the malevolence gathering over the distant Square of Scales - the sickly yellow light radiating through the sky, from a point dead overhead.

Like cracks, like flaws, spiderwebbing from a wound in reality.

At their point of origin, a vortex was gathering. Dipping down, like the descending maw of some titanic, primordial devourer - A tornado's funnel, drawn inexorably towards the earth.

The wind had grown hot, caressing the dead and the ruin. It smelled like death, like sulfur, carrying with it the endless moan of dust singing against the great enviro-shields that kept the eternal storms at bay…

The corporations had always claimed that the shields were safe, that prolonged exposure was harmless. But sickness had spread, all the same - People had looked fine, and then they would grand mal themselves to death. Something about the barriers disrupted brain chemistry: It made you nauseous, made your gums bleed, wounds festering instead of healing.

Had the Vanisher seen that, too? Had he looked up at the dust-choked sky, and wondered where it had all gone wrong?

And if he had, what kind of man would want to bring it all here?

---

Breathing hard from the climb, Kelart clung to the carved balustrade. For a moment, her legs looked on the verge of buckling: I was sure she'd stumble, but she levered herself forward anyway, not looking back.

That, I could understand. She wanted the final steps to be her own.

"They used to throw criminals from here, you know," Kelart said, apropos of nothing. Her dark hair was whipped and slashed by the wind as she stood, silhouetted against the flickering flames. Her expression was distant, lost in concentration.

"-What?"

"The stairs…The climb was penance. To give a criminal time to reflect on what he'd done, you see. To contemplate eternity."

Everything smelled of burning, so strong it was hard to breathe.

"And the drop, I suppose," I said, staring over the side.

It was, as I'd expected, a long way down.

"And the drop," Kelart agreed. "-I believe Ramposa II abolished the practice. The last execution was almost seventy years ago…"

"But not the suicides."

"No." A half-smile. "Not the suicides."

A deep breath. "I suppose high places breed a kind of derangement. The 'Wind God's Allure', the sages call it. "Too many priests decided to take…A leap of faith."

I thought about Samuel, about the last, ultimate effort he'd made. The vast emptiness beneath the stack howling up at him, exerting its unstoppable attraction.

What had he felt, when he'd stared into the scouring wind?

Fear? Sorrow, at what he was leaving behind?

Relief, that it was almost over?

Had he felt free?

A ghost murmur, an echo from long ago:

"There may have been some pain, at the end."

Carefully, Kelart stepped up to the platform, the last long stretch before the drop. Her robes fluttered around her, like streamers or a dancer's silks. A little less certain, a little more wary, I drew myself up - I'd expected the stones to be slick, but my feet found a sure purchase on the frost-kissed surface.

I made sure not to look down, all the same.

"-I'm glad it was with you." She must have sensed my expression, even through my all-concealing helmet, for she laughed. A low, sweet laugh, almost husky: Quite unlike anything I'd ever expected from Kelart Custodio.

"The view, I mean. It's astonishing. I'm glad you're up here with me - Circumstances aside, of course."

Of course.

I shook my head, disbelieving. "It's funny," I began. Her raised brow, the slight cant of her head, urged me to go on. "I suppose…I'm glad I'm with you, too."

"All things considered," I added, but I said the last part soft.

Despite the cold, despite everything, I felt a kernel of warmth, kindled just above my heart.

Was that color in her cheeks, or just the light from the flames? Kelart glanced away, so quickly I must have imagined it. Facing towards the city, as a breeze swept a wave of smog towards the harbor, out and over the sea.

One last look, over her shoulder.

"I wanted to say it now, just in case…Well, you know."

I did.

I cleared my throat, finding the words.

"When it's time - as soon as you're sure…"

"I will," Kelart said. She pressed a hand to her chest, as if cradling something precious.

"Good luck, Samuel," she said, and stepped over the parapet, into the empty space beyond.

---

It happened so fast.

For one, heart-stopping moment, I saw her fall. I felt my muscles clench, felt a shout boiling in my throat. Instinct drove me forward, two swift steps with one hand outstretched, as my blood turned to ice-water in my veins-

But then there was a rushing sound, a half-glimpsed blur, and the wind buffeted me so hard I almost fell to my knees. I beheld a great distortion in the air, something that may have been the beat of mighty wings…

I had the lingering impression of something silver, something veiled, moving impossibly fast as it left the tower behind. Vapor trailed in its wake, as it cut a path through the falling snow - Slicing through the smoke, skimming low over the rooftops, just beyond the reach of the flames.

My open hand was shaking, my breath rasping in my helmet. I turned it over, my fingers curling to make a fist.

It took me a moment to compose myself, to reach into my pouch to retrieve what lay within. The small statuette rested in my palm, as innocuous as a child's toy: Carved from some unknown stone, it caught the light in strange ways, a pop-eyed idol with a wide, foolish grin.

I traced a finger over the discolored stone, where it'd snapped cleanly in half. For a moment, I remembered Pavel - His killer's eyes softening, when he'd lifted that strange, ugly little doll to his lips, in the moments before the flames had swept in to consume everything.

He'd been thinking of his daughter, then. His wife, though he never knew her fate.

When my time came, whose face would come to my mind?

The unfamiliar name came to me then, as it had before.

Exchange Puppet.

Half of it was here, now. Kelart held the other.

I looked down into the puppet's eyes, noted the neon glow that glimmered within them. A good sign: We were within range. The plan, tenuous as it was, fell apart without that simple, essential link.

I nodded, and walked back to the belfry.

Now came the wait.

---

I spent the first hour (or what felt like it) pacing back and forth, filled with a restless, nervous energy. When the novelty wore off, I slumped down onto the chamber's solitary bench, leaning Forge-breaker against the stone. Unlike Gnosis, the weapon had no sheath - I needed it close at hand, within reach of a desperate grab, when the moment came.

Except it hadn't.

I wasn't sure it even would.

Occasionally, the faint echoes of some distant commotion came to me. I glanced up at every sound, resisting the urge to rock back and forth, though I knew what it meant.

Somewhere, there was fighting. Somewhere, people were bleeding, dying.

And I was still waiting, useless in my stone cage.

Shadows danced on the walls, flowing and shifting like water. More than once, I contemplated making my way down the stairs, calling for Apollyon - For anything, anything at all, would be better than this interminable waiting.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, I weighed the Exchange Puppet in my hand, wondering if something, somewhere, had gone wrong.

If I was wrong.

Thinking about it, I couldn't quite imagine how I'd convinced Kelart. In the cold clarity of enforced solitude, my conclusions felt flimsy, absurd: Honestly, I wasn't sure how I'd convinced myself.

No. I remembered the look in the Vanisher's eyes, the cold conviction in his words. He hadn't been lying, not about that.

Hate reveals who we really are.

I folded my hands together around the statuette, staring at the altar. Tried to compose myself, to clear my head. It didn't work - My thoughts were racing, chasing themselves in circles, in search of something, anything to latch on to.

I didn't dare to rest. Not that I could have, even if I wanted to: I was too wired, too tense, each moment crawling by with glacial slowness.

How much longer?

Soon, I told myself. Soon.

But soon was not now.

I'd doffed my helmet. It sat next to me, falcon-winged ornaments swept back from the crest. My fingers drummed lightly on the surface, until I made myself stop - The sound was setting my nerves on edge.

I wondered how Climb was doing. If he was alive, no force on earth would stop him from returning to the Princess's side. He'd failed once, and I knew it was gnawing at him, driving him on until he'd made amends.

My thoughts turned to Succulent, of all things. Unaccountably, I felt a pang of sympathy for the man: I hoped that the potion had done its work, that he was out for good. It was better than the alternative, of lying helpless on cold stone, waiting for help that might never arrive-

I'd made a promise there, too. I intended to keep it, one way or another.

Gazef. What would the Warrior-Captain think? I'd tried - failed - to comport myself in the way he'd have wanted. I'd fallen short, but the night (so terribly long) was not over yet.

He was at the King's side, most likely. The last line of defense, if all else failed.

No. That wasn't like him. He'd be down there, right in the teeth of things, alongside the Warrior Troop. Prince Zanac couldn't ask for a better protector.

I thought of Wolfgunblood, and felt a sharp, sudden stab of irritation. If he was here, if he hadn't decided to act on his own whims, maybe we could have…

The Exchange Puppet squirmed, in my grasp. It writhed, stubby limbs flailing, eyes flashing as it champed carved fangs. I nearly dropped the hideous thing, a heartbeat before I realized-

Now.

Now.

This was it. This was the moment.

A number winked to life in a corner of my vision, as red as death. Counting down from five.

I wasn't ready. But I had to be ready. I had to-

I lurched to my feet, snatching up Forge-breaker. Fumbled my helmet in place, felt it clamp on. Drew Gnosis, working my hand around the grip, drawing a deep breath as I set my feet.

I'd forgotten something. I'd…

"Auspex!" I shouted. My field of view blurred, new lens locking in place over my helmet's eyeslits-

A crack, like the sky splitting. Nausea twisted through me, sharp and sudden, a headache rippling out to encase my skull.

A deep, sonorous sound. Reverberating through me, like a behemoth's rumbling laughter-

Green light flooded everything.

I-

---

-staggered, bracing for a pain that didn't come.

It was all gone. The nausea, the suffocating pressure, the blurring of my vision. I was just standing, bewildered by the abrupt absence of my own suffering, trying to figure out what just happened-

The echoes of a savage bang of displaced air rippled around me, smoke swirling in a thick, sulfurous cloud. Men in elaborate uniforms and rich wargear were everywhere: Coughing, choking, their eyes streaming as they stumbled away, tripping over ornate chairs and each other, grabbing at weapons and clutching at their throats.

I could see them, through the fog. Clear as day, like they were lit from within.

"We're under attack!" someone screamed, and things began to happen very, very fast.

Crashing wood. Clanging metal. The walls of the room rang with noise, several dozen men roaring at the top of their voices. Shouting orders, demands, or just screaming - Howls of astonished horror swelling as one, as confusion became blind, spreading panic.

Someone hurled a chair, and I swatted it aside with Forge-breaker. It detonated with the force of a small bomb, splinters hurtling in every direction, to a chorus of yelps and hoarse cries. An unfortunate lieutenant tripped over an end-table and dragged it down with him, a great sheaf of papers scattering into the air to the accompaniment of smashing glass.

"Get the windows open!" a voice wailed, and I heard the shutters banging, bludgeoned open as I tried to make sense of the madness.

A plump officer blundered into me, hands clawing, and I shouldered him aside - He tottered sideways, rebounded off the wall, and went skidding into a pair of cowering servers. All three went down in a hopeless tangle of limbs, as I kicked a table out of the way: Completely by accident, it flattened a fleeing captain, his breath whooshing from his lungs in a great rush as his legs went out from under him.

It was all frantic, flailing chaos. Everyone was looking for the intruder, a safe place to hide or a way out. The trouble was, none of them could agree on where - or what - that was.

The Prince. Where was the Prince?

A bespectacled nobleman in multicolored hose lunged at me, sabre in hand. He was shouting wordlessly, slicing down with his sword. It glowed with lightning as it cut, fluid and fast: I wrenched Gnosis in the way, and metal clanged where our blades met. It was a distraction - A dagger flashed, glancing off my armor without finding purchase, and I dropped him with a head-butt over the cross of blades.

His glasses shattered from the impact, glass spraying. He went down, clutching his broken nose, sword tumbling from his slack hand like a spinner in a child's game. I felt the absurd urge to apologize, but I was already past him, stepping over his half-dazed form - A hand snagged my boot, but I kicked back and pulled free.

"Open, in the name of the King!"

Guards hammered on the other side of the door behind me, their shouts coming thinly through. I barged forward, dodging around the men on the floor, overrunning the ones in my way. There was a spreading wake of shouts and confusion, but I had outrun the noise of my own passing.

For now.

Occluded by the whirling smoke, I reached the brass rail around the main gallery, and vaulted it in one bound. Shoving a stumbling aide aside, I heard the whistle of steel as a battle-axe came hurtling at me-

I ducked, the great crescent edge whistling overhead, and drove my shoulder into the grizzled sergeant who'd tried to decapitate me. His feet left the ground, as if he'd been snatched back by a rope, limbs thrashing as he came down on the command table. It went down in splinters, beneath his armored bulk, the men on the other side scattering as they shouted in incoherent surprise.

Where's the Prince?

An older man in a colonel's uniform was being dragged back by his bodyguards, bundled like a package as they surrounded him with warding swords. His soiled ermine cape had snagged on something, and it nearly throttled him before it tore free.

Where's…?

And then I saw him. The Crown Prince, golden epaulets flashing. His crimson sash was a slash of bright color against his chest, medals gleaming against his exquisitely-tailored black uniform. Amid his command staff, he was the only man who didn't look surprised.

But he was facing the wrong way.

I came at him in a dead sprint, my feet pounding the ground. I could hear someone shouting, over and over again, for us all to desist. To my right, there was a crash of splintering wood, as the royal knights burst in: More by the moment, spilling into the hall, jostling towards their liege.

"To arms!" someone was roaring, quicker on the uptake than the rest. "Protect his Highness! Protect the-"

I was out of time.

One of the knights came at me with a mace, swinging the maul two-handed with a plosive whoof of displaced air. I smashed him aside - heard his armored bulk slam into the far wall, hard enough to dent it - felt a crossbow bolt, fired blind, ricochet from my pauldron with a screech of metal…

A ferocious battle-cry split the air. Snorting like a bull, his mustache bristling, a grizzled knight in gilded plate hurled himself at me. His enchanted sword glowed like steel white-hot from the forge, shedding searing sparks as it carved down in a blinding arc.

He looked like a tough old bastard, but I was faster. I stamped a kick into his breastplate, hard: My pulse hammered in my ears, as I heard the shriek of metal folding upon itself, caving in - He was hurled back, great helmet askew, still vainly trying for a wild slash with his burning blade as he went over.

But I was past him, now. Closing fast.

"The Crown Prince! He's going for the Cr-"

A weak-chinned youth, mouth framed by a day-old growth of beard, lurched out of my way. His over-decorated sword rattled as he tried, vainly, to pull it from its scabbard…But he'd never make it in time.

He didn't matter. Only the Prince did.

"Get him out of-"

Barbro was turning, jostled by his bodyguard cadre. A life-ward had him by the arm, looking in every direction but the right one as he desperately tried to pull the Prince away.

"Your Majesty, you must…!"

He saw me. Some sixth sense snapped the Crown Prince's head in my direction, as I came out of the smoke.

A flash of recognition-

Prince Barbro's eyes widened: He backhanded the man across the face, hard, ripping his arm free of his grip. His rings drew blood, but the extraordinary force in the blow hurled the man over the rail, as if he'd been fired from a cannon.

In the last moment, the Crown Prince clawed for something on his belt-

Too late.

Gnosis swept down. The black blade chopped into him between neck and collarbone, even as his breath whooshed in to speak or scream or shout. It carved a great ragged wound through him, shearing through the gold braid on the front of his uniform, medals tumbling away with the golden clatter of falling coins.

And I cut him in two.

---

Blood sprayed. The Prince's head, right arm and half his torso slid off the other half, as blood sprayed. Barbro's legs were already buckling, thumping down with a leaden sound as I finished my stroke.

I'd expected to hear the grate of adamantite on bone, for the unspeakable stench of spilling innards to fill the room. Instead, Gnosis merely completed its arc: My weight carried the sword all the way down, cleaving through a corner of the great table. It gouged a deep furrow in the tiles underfoot as I staggered back, momentarily overbalanced, bringing the sword up to guard-

Everything stopped. All the scattered officers, the nobles, the command staff, stood in utter shock, gaping at Prince Barbro's bisected corpse.

And the man who had killed him.

"What…" the ermine-caped Count stammered, frozen fast. "-What have you done?"

The pimply baron's mouth was open, but only popping sounds came out. He'd drawn his sword, but it hung in his hand like he couldn't remember what to do with it.

But it was the grey-haired knight - Clutching his cracked breastplate, sucking in a wheezing breath - who gave voice to what they were all thinking.

"He's killed the Pr-"

"LOOK-!" the shout tore out of me, as loud as I could make it. "-Look."

From the high-side view, I could see into Barbro's bisected corpse. But where there should have been quivering organs and bowels and clots of heaving flesh-

There was just a black, semi-liquid mass. Faintly translucent, it spilled out of him, like fluid from some ruptured container. It seemed to shudder, to tremble, thick viscous strands of glistening slime linking his severed halves. Worse of all, it was never still - I glimpsed a roiling profusion of mouths, eyes and pseudopodia, like fine cilia, squirming in constant flux.

The sound it made chilled the blood.

Horridly, the Crown Prince's limbs still moved. The fingers of his right hand flexed, crablike, as if seeking something to cling to. All animation had fled his face, but the lips still moved, as if seized by palsy.

And I thought: What the fuck?

I had been expecting - I didn't know. Something like the creatures that had worn the faces of Coco Doll and Viscount Fondoll, perhaps. But they had merely taken on the shape of the men they'd replaced, through some cunning deception. This was something else.

As if the man himself had been hollowed-out. Reduced to some hideous facsimile, worn like a mask.

Or a face, I realized, with a lurch. A second face, over his own.

"W-what…" the Baron's mouth hung open, his face gone pale. His throat worked, as he looked on with revolted fascination, like he couldn't decide whether to scream or throw up. "C-Count Polderman…!"

"I see it," the Count murmured, his eyes very wide.

Behind and below me, men cursed in low voices as they picked themselves up, gingerly exploring the extent of their wounds. The whole thing had unfurled in moments: The sheer shock of the attack had yet to fade, but there was already a gaggle of knights and aides and command staff, staring whey-faced at the hideous tableau.

A babble of voices:

"By the Gods-"

"...Inside the Prince…"

"Couldn't imagine-"

"Stand down," A man in a general's regalia was saying, like a judge calling for order. "Stand down! Stand down, all of you! Do not move." A quick glance, to the side. "You too, Baron Ludovic!"

The boy looked down at his sword as if he'd never seen it before, and let it slip from his nerveless hand. The blade clattered down to the floor, loud enough to make him start. Already, the room was filled with guards - Spears and swords half-lowered, wavering, uncertain who to point them at.

The General waved them back. His gaze fixed on me.

"Explain this," he said, with a curt gesture. His expression had twisted in a half-frozen grimace, equal parts disbelief and slow-burning realization.

I made to say-

There was something in his eyes. A reflected glow, a spark-

"[Twin Maximize Magic-]"

The burbling, clotted voice issued from behind me. Thick, viscous - Wheezing out words that were entirely out of synch with Prince Barbro's twitching lips.

My blood ran cold.

Not an undead, it's-

The Count was closest. I crossed the room in a bounding leap, right past his astonished bodyguards, barging him to the ground. I heard ribs snap, heard his yelp of pain as he tried to pull free from my grip-

"[Chain Dragon Lightning]."

And the world exploded, in a dizzying blast of blue light and electric fury.

---

The monumental blast flung me through the air.

Whirling debris slammed into me, battering me with fist-sized chunks of wood and brick and steel. The detonation caught me from behind, a wall of blank sound in my ears. Carried by the ferocious shock pressure, I slammed into something, through something-

And for one moment I was flying. Heaven and earth whirled around me, as I tumbled: The ground reared up to smack me in the face, my white armor shrieking as it left deep furrows in the unyielding surface.

I landed on my back, gasping. Overhead, the storm-streaked sky spun.

More explosions around me. Like land mines or grenades going off, making the world ring with the cacophony of violence.

I tried to get up, half-realizing that I had been blown clean out of the hall, through the walls, and into the concourse beyond. Dazed as I was, there was surprisingly little pain - Just a prevailing sense of shock, complete and total, my ears ringing in the aftermath of the cacophony.

How am I still alive?

And - He's still…

I'd thought that exposing the Prince as an imposter would have been the end of it. That striking him down, revealing the description, was enough. After all, the hideous undead things the Vanisher had summoned, the ones that had carved themselves into the shape of men, were unmistakeable in their true form.

Gnosis had ended their unholy existence. I'd expected it to do the same here, too.

But this was something different. Something worse.

I'd miscalculated. Badly.

All those thoughts flashed through my mind, in a white blaze of adrenaline. I didn't even feel the pain, my teeth clenched so hard it felt like they would crack.

Get up, get up, get up-

I picked myself up on one elbow. Raised myself, dimly aware that Gnosis and Forge-breaker were still in my hands. Not out of conscious thought: My gauntlets had viced down around the weapons, locking them in place, and it was a miracle that I hadn't somehow brained myself in my plummet.

I wasn't alone.

A ragged crowd of people - filthy, hungry, dispossessed - had gathered in the granary office's shadow, faces crunched with disbelief. They stood in little knots, part of a shuffling queue that wound towards the makeshift kitchen that had been set up in the center of the close.

I saw the big fire, the dented cauldron that bubbled on it. Folk clutching their bowls, waiting for hot stew or hard bread. They must've seen me coming at the last moment. A dull shape rocketing towards them, in the sudden glare of lightning.

I smelled ozone, old rot and new burning, as I staggered to my feet. I raised my arm-

Someone shrieked. I realized, belatedly, that I was covered with cooked gore. People backed away, survival instinct warring with the paralysis of terror.

The front of the granary was pure devastation, all shattered brick and splintered rafters. Smoke rose from the blackened windows, drifts of ash swirling from the gutted building, a cloud of dust vomiting from the gaping hole in the wall.

"Get back," I managed, my voice rasping, hoarse. "Get away…!"

A bugle blew, somewhere close. A dark-uniformed rider, more of the Crown Prince's cavalry, was pulling himself onto his steed. There were about a dozen dismounted lancers standing guard, steel flashing in the flat light as they raised their sabers. They looked bewildered, half-stunned by the blast, desperately confused by my sudden appearance-

And then Prince Barbro strode through the smoke and into the light, out through the hole he'd blasted in the side of the building. His fur-trimmed pelisse was draped oddly over his form, hiding the harm I'd done to him - He gestured with his left arm, leveling a finger directly at me.

"Seize him!"

The Crown Prince's voice. Not the burbling, inhuman one I'd heard.

And I thought - What?

Sheer ingrained obedience drove the soldiers forward. A few cautious faltering steps, at least. I could see the terror in their eyes, the hesitation in their blades. Trying to muster up the courage for a rush, I think, despite their utter bewilderment at what was unfolding.

The bugle blew again, sounding a frantic call to arms. Further down the street, I heard shouts, heard drumming hooves.

"Wait!" I shouted, as blood cracked and flaked from my armor. "That's not the Prince-"

But I was a step behind him, still confined by the parameters of a world I thought I understood.

"[Mass Greater Magic Weapon!]" Barbro bellowed, in a voice like thunder. "[Mass Berserk!]"

Red light gathered at his hands, at his hands. It seared outward in a blood-red haze, sweeping over the crowd.

There was a smell to it, like burnt leaves on an autumn wind. A sound, almost. Like some hellish choir, like the wailing of the damned, stoking blank, mindless hate to life.

It swept over me without stopping, as I flung an arm up in desperate defense. Weird jags of crimson electricity leapt and crackled across my armor, as if trying to find a way in - But I felt nothing, just a crawling, swarming sensation, like bad food poisoning or the beginnings of a fever.

Something you felt deep down inside of you, something you knew was seriously wrong, yet had barely even begun. It passed, in a rush of sickly heat, and I had a moment to feel a brief, bone-deep pang of overwhelming relief…

Except I wasn't the intended target.

The crowd was no longer a crowd, no longer a mass of desperate survivors seeking shelter, seeking aid. Their faces twisted in anger, wiped clean of all thought, as swords, spears, tools and stones - Whatever implements they held - ignited with cold, awful radiance.

Then the first howls split the air, a roar of incarnate fury, dozens of voices raised as one in savage unreasoning rage.

No,I had time to think. No, you bastard-

I raised Gnosis, leveled it squarely at him.

"-Sinistral!"

The noise was like a thunderclap, as a shockwave of invisible power split the air. I actually saw the rippling wake it left, as it blurred across the narrow distance, too fast to be fully defined. With a sound like the howl of the fastest wind, it cleaved across the intervening space without slowing, contrails of stone shards swept up by the sheer fury that had been unleashed.

The mutilating force hit Barbro - who was not Barbro - and ripped his false flesh away.

He could have evaded it, I think, if he'd been willing to shed the tatters of his disguise. But he was limited by the mask he'd donned, one he was reluctant to relinquish, even in extremis. Already half-ruined by the great wound I'd hacked into him, it simply could not withstand another impact, especially not one of this magnitude.

The Crown Prince's face tore away, like a rag in a gale. It split like the skin of a rotten fruit, tarry black pus welling from the seams of the fibrous, squirming flesh. For a single, solitary instinct, I glimpsed the visage below-

The half-shaped, subtly malformed features of the Ninth Finger.

The icy blue eyes of the Vanisher.

A blank flash of recognition, of realization, jolted through me - Yet somehow, I already knew.

I'd always known.

The blast hurled him from his feet, and into the ruins of the building. I heard walls shattering as the Vanisher crashed through them, demolishing everything in his way. With a terrible, juddering groan, the upper floor caved in, tumbling down in a great avalanche of wooden beams and brickwork.

But the berserk mob didn't slow. Not even slightly.

---

They came at me from all sides - Feral, insane, a human wave of charging madmen. Unstoppable, unrestrained in their single-minded goal, trampling each other underfoot just to get at me.

Stopping them meant killing them, and I couldn't-

The horde fell on me, clawing and grappling, and I went down under the weight of them. Drowning in a clutching, stomping sea of hands and boots and furious faces. They shouted, whooped, animal noises that hardly sounded like words-

Except animals don't have weapons.

An iron bar smashed into my shoulder, swung with frothing force. Something smashed my helmet, hard enough to make my ears ring. Clubs, clenched in dirty fists, came raining down, each impact reverberating through my form.

A woman shrieked her hatred into my face, stabbing with frantic strength at my visor with a kitchen knife that glowed with coruscating light, trying to find a way in-

Everything became a blur of raining fists and screaming faces-

I was screaming too, I think, as they tore at me. I smashed a man in the face with an elbow, lashed out with a kick that flung a girl away. Forge-breaker's haft caught the tines of a pitchfork, the glowing points scraping against my armor before I snapped the weapon - and my attacker's arm - with a brutal wrench.

Fuck-

But there were too many of them, and the sheer, squalling mass - the wretched stink of them - was a weapon of its own. I drove a fist into the closest chest, heard the snap of a collarbone breaking, yelling hoarsely as the tidal push came on.

I thrashed, lashing out with desperate strength, but there was no room to break free, no room to swing Gnosis without mowing through dozens-

A big man, a burly worker, had found an ice-axe from somewhere. He slammed it down on me over and over again, snarling and spitting each time he hauled his weapon back. Sparks flew as he hacked away, backswings gouging red wounds in the people that fought to hold me down, throwing blow after unrelenting blow against my breastplate.

I tried to raise Gnosis to parry, but there were too many hands latched onto my weapons, trying to wrench them free. Dents began to appear, as the gleaming mithril discolored and chipped, his axe leaving glowing contrails of light each time he struck-

Something found a seam of weakness in my armor, and punched into the meat of my arm. It drew blood, the cold fire of it searing through me. I couldn't even see the attacker - In the press, it was all grabbing, clawing hands and snarling bodies. The blade gouged deeper with each moment, red pain shooting through my mind…

No choice. There was no choice at all.

Calamity-

It was that or die, mobbed to death by the mad crowd.

To let the Vanisher win.

"Cala-"

A sudden, desperate idea flickered through my mind. I drew a gasping breath, ignoring the stabbing pain, and shouted-

"[-Defiance]!"

Power rippled. It burned hot beneath my skin, a flare of ghostly radiance. It rose up, writhing and searing around me, a nimbus of steely light that limned me in white neon.

In that very instant, the madness was struck down, made untrue. I actually felt the weight of the press diminish: No longer a single many-headed, multi-limbed creature bent on my destruction, but dozens of individuals once more, confused and blinking in the cold light of clarity.

Like awakening from a bad dream, a dream that had carried them inexorably forward without volition. Their wills were, once again, solely and entirely their own-

For however long that lasted.

"Run," I rasped out. Louder - "Run, damn you! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

I staggered to my feet, shoving my way out of the slush of bodies, trickles of blood running over my armor. My head was spinning far too hard for conscious thought - All I wanted to do was to lie down, close my eyes, and wait for the order of things to make sense once more.

But I kept moving, all the same.

At some point, I had bitten my tongue. It felt like blood was filling my mouth, though the sharp, stabbing pain was gradually receding. Ripples of pearlescent light played around me, like I was my own torch: It buoyed me up, made me drag myself upright, as I felt a slow, spreading resolve like the surge of a second wind.

Someone was yelling, deep baritone bellows of pain or fear - The universal language of anguish. The view through my helmet's visor was smeared with blood and grime, and I had to let go of Forge-breaker to paw at it until it cleared.

I glimpsed milling feet, heard the frantic footfalls of a great, running crowd. People were fleeing in every direction at once, and all I could think was:

Where's-

The ground rocked beneath me, and I lurched a step back. The rubble shifted, like some deep tectonic movement…

"[Balmung]!"

Somewhere, in the back of my mind-

Balmung.

Dragon-slayer.

A great, dark shape pulled itself from the ruin, sloughing off broken timbers, broken slate in a waterfall of tumbling debris. Stone crunched beneath its weight, sending up clouds of dust as it reared up, looming over me.

A huge iron hand wrapped fingers around a collapsed wall, talons gouging handholds. Hurled it aside with a tremendous crash of falling masonry.

Two massive blue eyes flared to life. Each was fully as wide as my torso, burning with cold, actinic flame.

People scattered like a shoal of fish, squealing in terror. Fleeing, desperate to be anywhere but here, facing the giant that was still - Like some grotesque trick - hauling itself from the wreckage.

Dimly, as the earth shook, I wondered why I wasn't running, too.

It was massive, hulking. Vaguely - But only vaguely - humanoid, hewn in shades of steel and bronze. Vast, curving sheets of metal defined its hunched shoulders, its barrel-thick arms.

All four of them.

I could hear weapon-pods cycling, within that huge and heavy shape. If the low-slung, angular form was raised to full extension, its head would have been less than a foot shy of the windows on the second story of the building it'd burst from.

As thickly-armored as it was, as massive as it was, some of the original shape had been retained-

And I thought:

It's a dragon.

I could see the inspiration for it in the beaked, wedge-shaped skull set between its shoulders, crowned with black-flared horns. In the scales that lined its carapace, like mail: Not the scratched diamond of the Frost Dragon revenants, but a deep and opalescent black, like rippling mirrors lit red by the still-burning fires that raged across Re-Estize.

But then I saw the strange, raised shapes in the metal, in the geometric patterns that badged its form. The odd, almost organic curves of the armor, less defensive-minded and more like an enclosing husk. Machinery was visible through the gaps where the plates parted and overlapped - Machinery, and something else.

Galvanized bone.

This wasn't some mere mechanical construct, some mimicry: It had been real, been whole, a great winged beast that had once been alive.

Somehow, the cold practicality of that defilement chilled me.

There was a stink like chlorine and cordite, like burning iron. The clatter and hiss of gear-driven steps, the groan of servoes. Its limbs were metal, its muscles pistons - Fibre cables bunching, flexing in its arms, joints crackling with released static electricity.

It should have been slow, lumbering. Like heavy machinery or a walking tank, made ponderous by its own weight.

Instead, Balmung moved with a fluid, serpentine grace, the armored plates that layered its frame articulating and sliding with the hiss of oiled metal. Three splayed toes gripped the uneven floor with hisses of pneumatic pressure, talons flickering with webs of charge.

There was a crackle. A fizzle. Balmung's mere presence burned hot, like a lethal radiation leak. Its silhouette seemed to waver, blurred at the edges, by the sheer intensity of the pent-up force within it. Light, hard blue light, glowed within the cage of its ribs - So bright it seemed to hold a second sun, one on the verge of bursting free, jagging forth in softly glowing lines across its surface, like the seams of a puzzle-box.

This was what the Vanisher had been building, all this time.

An ultimate weapon, to be wielded in extremis.

It was a Powered Suit. A Reinforced Armor, scaled up to grotesque size, tailored to his own exacting specifications.

Except-

Except there was no cockpit, no space to fit a human being in the twitching, chattering mechanisms of its form. That distended profile, four arms pulling it across the rubble, had only the vaguest analogue to humanity.

"I saved this for Wolfgunblood,"boomed a voice, crackling over the great exo-armor's speakers. Cold and liquid and somehow glutinous, like an approximation of human speech. I felt every hair stand on end, at the utter inhumanity of that voice.

For it was not the voice of Prince Barbro, or even the blue-eyed man in the brothel.

It was the voice of the oily black thing I'd seen, a monstrous chimera of ever-flowing flesh.

It was the voice, the true voice, of the Vanisher.

I had been wrong. Utterly wrong.

The Ninth Finger was not any kind of man at all.

"-But you'll do."

There was a low throbbing hum, like hidden generators surging to life.

A spiral of smoke and dust unfolded from the air behind Balmung. Great spars of gleaming bones fanned out, like skeletal fingers spreading. For an instant, they glowed from within, as if building charge-

And then arcs of gauss lightning crackled between them, pulling across in great sails of coherent energy. They unfurled, beating as living things, void-dark and rippling, shot through with fractal red patterns, like capillaries.

Wings.

I'd expected the fear to rule me, to set me on the verge of flight. Heart pounding in my chest, loud and wild in barely-caged panic, the sheer dread of this thing - this mechanical demon, this titan from hell - blotting out all thought.

But all I felt was a glass-cold clarity. Calm, though pandemonium churned all around us. It was like all capacity for terror had been burned out of me, perhaps, for that single solitary instant.

Or perhaps it was the white light coruscating around me, fanned from a flicker to a blaze, like a beacon of starlight.

I knew, then, that this moment had been long in coming. That this was the place where things would end.

For one of us was about to die.

Here. Now.

I raised my brother's sword. Felt my lips peel back from my teeth, in a mirthless smile.

With the roar of a murdered dragon, in a thunder roll of iron and steel, it came for me.

Next: Player versus Player