Shadowfall

22

Tylar sipped the draft of bloodvine, bitter but sweetened with honey. It was his third dousing. He held the mug with two hands, needing both. A shiver from his bones threatened to shake his frame, but he contained it.

Kathryn sat on the neighboring bed. He felt her eyes on him, a steady watch, as if expecting him to swoon at any moment. Upon his waking, she had tried to comfort him with her soothing hands and whispered words, but it grew too difficult for them both. Such intimacy was still beyond them, confused by old familiarity and new awkwardness.

And for the moment, more important matters had to be settled.

It was nigh on midday and a plan had yet to be worked that held any chance of victory. They had debated and strategized. How did one reach Lord Chrism with untold legions of ilk-beasts guarding his grounds and an entire castillion garrison roused to alert? And once cornered, how did one slay a god corrupted by Dark Grace and wielding untold power?

Tylar studied the room over his mug. They were too few: a thief, a warrior woman, a wise man in bronze, two Shadowknights… and two frightened girls.

Gerrod knelt with Dart. He peered into her eyes with a dark lens. Earlier he had pricked her finger and dabbed her blood upon a crystal wafer. He, with the assistance of the healer, had tested the girl as bell after bell chimed the passing morning.

He lowered his scope. “Thank you, Dart. That’ll be all.”

She nodded and scooted to the other end of the bed. Her friend sat down next to her. They leaned close to each other, like two frightened rabbits, eyes fixed and glassy. Tylar could only imagine such terror. His upbringing among the orphanages of Akkabak Harbor had not been easy, but it was nothing compared to the experiences of the two girls here.

Gerrod stepped over to Tylar. Kathryn sat straighter on the next cot.

The master shook his head. “Most strange. I can detect Grace in her blood, faint yet certainly present. But it is oddly and persistently inert. No alchemies can stir it or react to it. I’ve searched for any trace of quickening in her body, some faint glow at the back of the eyes, any sign that Grace manifests in the girl. But I’ve discovered nothing. It’s as if she has no ability to bless or utilize her Grace, not within herself and certainly not without.”

“So is she a god or not?” Kathryn asked.

“Not as we know a god to be. It is said that the gods, before the great Sundering of their own kingdom, bore no special Grace. That only after their naethryn and aethryn aspects were stripped from them did the remaining flesh quicken with humoral Graces. Masters have debated the reason for this over the many centuries. It is supposed that a god’s Grace manifests from some ethereal connection that persists between the gods of Myrillia and their torn counterparts, a bleeding of power that still flows through all three.”

“And the girl?” Rogger asked, joining them. He settled next to Kathryn on the cot.

“She is unsundered,” Gerrod said. “Whole. I think that is why she does not manifest with any significant Grace. But I would know more about this creature that accompanies her.”

“Pupp,” the girl, Dart, said from the neighboring bed. Despite her frightened countenance, she had been listening intently. “His name is Pupp.”

Gerrod shifted. “What can you tell me about him?” Tylar noted his calm demeanor and lack of condescension when dealing with the girl.

She licked her lips. “He’s always been with me.” She glanced over to Yaellin. He guarded the door, periodically checking the hallway, while Eylan kept a watchful eye on the healer. “Even as a babe, he was with me.”

Yaellin nodded. “I saw him in her dreams. Ugly fellow. Fiery eyes. All molten and barely formed.”

Dart’s eyes hardened.

“He’s not ugly,” the second girl declared, coming to her friend’s defense. “He’s… he’s… fearsome.”

“I thought no one could see this creature?” Kathryn said.

Dart glanced to Kathryn. The girl’s gaze was steady. There was certainly a well of strength in her small frame. “Only I can see him at most times. And even I can’t touch him then. Only stone seems to block him.”

“And he’s trapped in the Eldergarden?”Tylar asked, having heard their story.

The girl nodded with a pained look of worry.

“And when was the first time, this creature… this Pupp… revealed himself to other than yourself?” Gerrod asked.

The girl’s steadiness faltered. Her eyes sank to the floor. She seemed to collapse into herself.

Gerrod continued with reassuring tones. “You’re among friends, Dart. We wouldn’t ask this of you unless it was important.”

She kept her eyes down. Her voice was a whisper. “It was with Master Willet… up… up in the rookery.”

Dart swallowed. She let go her last secret reluctantly. Fury had given her strength before to accuse Paltry, to tell what had happened to her, but now she must reveal the end. “Master Willet…”

She spotted Healer Paltry leaning forward. His eyes were sharp, his lips thin. How long must he have wondered what had become of his cohort? His face shone with oil. How had she ever considered him handsome?

She turned away and took a deeper breath. “Pupp attacked him, protecting me.”

“I thought-”

She cut off Master Gerrod. If she stopped her words now, she might never finish them. “It was my blood… my virginal blood.” She choked on this last. So much had been stolen from her, more than she could measure. Would the pain ever end? “Pupp bathed himself in it. I think he knew the touch of my blood gave substance to his form. He blazed with fire and tore into Willet.”

Dart was drawn back to the rookery, to the blood, to the break of bone, to the sear of flesh, to the boil of blood… “All was consumed,” she said. “Gone. Not even blood stained the planks.”

No one spoke.

The silence drew Dart back to the room. She saw the look of horror on Paltry’s face. She found no satisfaction in it.

“And Pupp?” Gerrod asked.

Dart shook her head. “Once the blood dried from him, he became a ghost again.”

Yaellin spoke from the door. “My father, Ser Henri, knew of Pupp. Dart used to speak of her ghostly pet, before others ridiculed and chided her into silence and secrets. My father believed her companion might be some amalgam of Dart’s naethryn and aethryn selves. Born whole, Dart was not stripped of these parts. Yet they remain not fully of this world either. They cling to her.”

Dart listened, balanced between horror and understanding. She and Pupp had always been one, but she never suspected how much of a one they were. If the others were right, Pupp was as much a part of her as her leg or arm.

Gerrod nodded. “And her blood has the Grace to pull this part of her fully into our world.”

“Not just her blood,” Yaellin countered. Dart had already told him about the drop of Chrism’s blood striking Pupp, and the blood roots down in the subterranean passage. “ Any blood rich enough with Grace. Pupp just needs fuel to cross the barrier into substance.”

“Such strangeness abounds,” Gerrod concluded.

The castellan rose from the cot. “Which does not settle the matter of Chrism and what we might do about this Cabal. We cannot hide forever in this cell.”

Dart listened with half an ear as more discussions and plans were weighed, balanced, and discarded. She found tears coming again to her eyes. She could not say why. They rose from the hollowness inside her. She did not fully know who she was any more: girl, god, or monster.

She stared at her hands, blurred by her tears. They seemed a stranger’s now.

A second pair of hands covered hers, grasping. She lifted her gaze to find Laurelle close to her, staring back at her. “It doesn’t matter,” her friend said. There was no horror in her eyes. “None of this matters. I know you.” She squeezed her fingers. “This is the Dart I know. You’ve shown your heart in the past and now. The rest is just shadow and light.”

Dart sniffed and took Laurelle’s hand in her own. She so wanted it to be true. But she had only to hear the others discuss slaying a god to know that there were matters greater than flesh… even her own. And she had a role to play. Dart had no say in her birth, even her years in the Conclave were ordered and orchestrated by others. But no longer. From here, she would have to forge her own path. It was for her to decide.

Girl, god, or monster.

Kathryn shook her head. “This is madness. We must wait on others. Bring full forces to bear. We can’t lay siege on the castillion with just the handful here.”

Tylar stood. Kathryn noted the wobble in his knees, though Tylar tried to hide it with a wave of his arm.

“Chrism will not wait,” he argued. “He knows he’s been exposed. If he has not found us by sunset, there is no accounting of what he might do. He could unleash all manner of horror in the city. Or he could merely escape with his Cabal, hiding away, disappearing with the Godsword. He’d be a thousandfold more difficult to root out.”

“You propose going in on our own?” she said. “With no knowledge of what may lay in wait?”

“If we could only find the Godsword…” Tylar grumbled.

Yaellin spoke from the doorway. “I’ve searched everywhere for the weapon. It’s nowhere to be-”

Distant shouts silenced the man. All eyes turned to the door.

Yaellin swung to the spy hole. “It’s coming from down the stairs. I’ll check.” He lifted the bar and pulled the latch. He vanished in a whirl of cloak and shadow.

With the door cracked, the heavy tread of boots on stone echoed up from below. Surely it was the castillion guard. Orders were shouted to search every floor. This was no random search.

“We’ve been found,” Tylar said.

Kathryn slid free her sword. Others did the same. There was no escape up the tower. They’d have to fight their way to the streets.

Kathryn called up the power in her cloak, billowing darkness around her form. They had to get Tylar safely away… and the girl. The child could not be captured, returned to Chrism’s reach. With such a source of blood, the Godsword would be Chrism’s to wield. That must not happen.

Glancing over a shoulder, Kathryn spotted the girl crouched with her friend. She had a dagger in hand and a fierce set to her eyes.

Shadows suddenly shifted behind the girl’s shoulders.

Oh no…

Darkness fell across Dart, drawing her eye to the sunlit window nearby. She had left the window open after watching the flippercraft crash earlier. A naked shape crept over the sill, claws digging into stone, eyes glowing with grace. Smoke steamed its form.

An ilk-beast.

The creature leaped into the room-toward Laurelle, the closest to the window.

Dart screamed as the creature struck her friend, knocking her to the bed. Another pair of creatures filled the window, crawling in from either side, misshapen horrors. At the same time, windows shattered around the room. More ilk-beasts boiled in from all sides.

Dart lunged toward the nearest, the one tangled with Laurelle. Her friend kicked and bit, turning as feral as the creature that attacked her. But a swipe of claws ripped her robe and drew bloody furrows across her chest. Laurelle cried out.

Dart already had her cursed dagger in hand. She plunged it to the hilt in the monster’s back. It reared up, tearing the blade from Dart’s grasp. The beast struggled for the impaled dagger, writhing to reach it. It screamed, but all that came out was fire. Its body stiffened with pain, a statue of agony.

Laurelle kicked out at it from the bed. Her heel struck its form and it shattered to ash, blowing outward. A reek of charred flesh whelmed over them.

Dart joined Laurelle, dropping behind the edge of the bed, ducking almost under it.

Around the room, a dance of blades held the ilk-beasts in check. The castellan swirled in and out of shadow, dealing death with swift skill. The tall Wyr-mistress had a sword in each fist, lunging and stabbing in all directions, seeming to have eyes in the back of her head. Even the godslayer wielded a blade in one hand and a dagger in the other, his back to the bearded man who fought with a broken chair leg, sharp as a spear.

But more and more beasts crawled and scrambled into the chamber.

Dart blindly searched the hot ash pile for her dagger. Despite her terror, she dug with care. It would not do to prick her finger on its black tip.

“Make for the door!” Master Gerrod called to them. His bronze form had sprouted sharp blades at elbows and knees. He held the legion at bay from Dart’s corner.

Laurelle grabbed Dart’s arm. She pointed under the bed.

Dart abandoned her search and belly-crawled with Laurelle beneath the bed to its other side. They waited for a clear moment, then shoved across the open space to the next cot, diving beneath it and crawling toward the far door. They waited until the fighting ebbed away from the entry.

“Now,” Dart urged.

The two girls rolled out and to their feet. Hand in hand, they raced for the door and through it. The hallway echoed with the fighting, but it was thankfully empty. They fled down its length, realizing that the clash of swords grew louder again only as they neared the stairwell.

Their feet slowed.

More fighting ahead. Yaellin must be holding the stairs. The scrape of claw on stone drew their attention behind them. Laurelle let out a small whimper.

Climbing down the corridor, a lone ilk-beast had followed them into the hallway, a cat chasing two fleeing mice. On all fours, it was massively muscled, naked of all clothing. Its skin ran with black mottles. Its muzzled face held a fixed snarl, revealing daggered fangs. Fiery eyes stared at them.

Trapped between the two battles-stair and chamber-there was nowhere to run. Dart pawed her belted sheath. They had no weapons.

The beast let out a growl and stalked toward them.

Tylar stabbed a beast through the eye. From the bared breasts, it was once a woman. But her skin had hardened to scale, her fingers to bony claws. Oil cast the nails in a poisonous sheen. But the worst was her face: slitted eyes aglow with a yellowish flame, nostrils flared for scenting, jaws shaped like an adder, full of fangs.

With a grunt, Tylar yanked his blade free. The beast fell, convulsing on the stone floor. A hissing wail flowed forth. Even in death, the creature remained a monster, its human self burned away forever by corrupted Grace.

Tylar felt a mix of sorrow and fury. What could drive someone to yield all of themselves to such a defilement? He remembered Darjon’s shout. Myrillia will be free! He stepped over the dead body. She was certainly free now.

The battle raged. The air reeked of burst bowels and blood. The room echoed with wails and shrieks of the raving.

But Tylar dared not call forth his daemon. With fighting in such close quarters, friend as well as foe could find themselves brushed with the deadly touch of the naethryn. So he fought, Rogger on one side, Kathryn on the other. Gerrod and Eylan were another island of resistance across the room.

“Make for the door!” he yelled. “We’ll hold them off better in the hall!”

But his order was understood by the ilk-beasts, too. Though the men and woman had forsaken themselves to this fate, some semblance of human cognition remained. The pack of beasts surged toward the door, cutting off their retreat. The way was slammed shut.

More beasts clawed and crawled through the windows. Was there no end to Chrism’s slavering army? How many had given themselves to this false god?

With a grunt, Rogger went down on one knee, his shoulder ripped to shreds by a lash of claw, his stave knocked from his fingers.

Tylar used a backhanded blow with the hilt of his sword to crack the ilk-beast in the face. It fell back.

Rogger gained his feet. Kathryn passed him a dagger.

“We can’t hold them,” she said. “We’re being swamped.”

With each death, the floor grew slicker with blood, each step more treacherous. And it was not only the beasts’ blood that stained it. They all bore cuts and scrapes.

Tylar found his vision narrowing. Fear and fury had helped fuel his fight, but there were limits. He had lost too much blood earlier, had had too little time to recover. His heel slipped in a pool of blood. He fell into the arms of one of the beasts, a squat toadish man with bony spines growing from his skin. Tylar felt himself speared across arms and chest.

As he struggled to free himself, the creature suddenly jerked, spasmed, and released Tylar. He fell to Tylar’s toes, a dagger hilt protruding from the back of his neck, impaled to the brain.

Tylar matched gazes with Eylan. Even while fighting her own host of monsters, she had thrown the dagger with unerring accuracy, protecting her charge, doing her duty.

He nodded his thanks and raised his blade as another beast lunged for his throat. He struck out with his elbow, catching the creature across the nose. Then stabbed upward with his other hand, fingers wrapped around his dagger. He shoved the blade under the beast’s rib cage, driving through to the heart. It gasped and choked. He kneed the beast away from him.

Enough.

“To the walls!” he called out. “Backs to the walls!”

The beasts could not block such a general order.

Tylar and the others cut a swath, retreating to the stone walls. Tylar, Rogger, and Kathryn found spots on one side of the room, Eylan and Gerrod on the other.

“I must loose the beast,” Tylar said to Kathryn and Rogger. “Stay as low as possible.”

“ ’Bout time,” Rogger grumbled.

Kathryn cast out shadows to shield them.

Working quickly, Tylar sheathed his dagger, grabbed his smallest finger with his other hand, braced himself, then snapped the digit clean backward. Agony flamed his hand like a hammer strike.

Nothing else happened.

Rogger looked on. “Only popped it out of place. Let me help.”

Tylar glanced up in time to see the hilt of Rogger’s dagger aiming for his face. He could’ve ducked, but didn’t. The iron hilt struck him square in the nose. He heard the crush of bone at the back of his skull.

It echoed outward, rattling through his body.

Though he was prepared, the agony was no less than before. Each break was fresh, each snap ripped flesh. He fell to his knees, which broke before even striking stone.

“Get clear!” he screamed as he felt the buildup behind his rib cage. Then those bones broke, too.

The daemon sailed forth, through the same hole it had burned in his clothes earlier. With its escape, bones reset and healed, callused and misaligned.

Tylar’s vision opened enough to see Kathryn and Rogger falling to the walls on either side. The naethryn smoked from his body, spreading wings and stretching its neck.

Ilk-beasts still had enough humanity in them to know terror. The creatures fled from the daemon’s path as it settled to the stone floor on smoky claws and legs. Fiery eyes scanned the room.

Across the way, even those beasts that had been attacking Eylan and Gerrod gave pause, backing in panic from the dark newcomer. Several fled back out the window.

Tylar straightened, sensing a change in the tide of battle. “Make for the door,” he urged.

They all began sliding along the walls.

Not all the ilk-beasts were cowed by the naether-spawn’s appearance. Several leaped with piercing shrieks. Tylar smiled grimly. Their deaths would not be pleasant.

But the beasts crashed through the naethryn as if the daemon were ordinary woodsmoke. They came out the far side, unharmed. The yellowish fire in their eyes remained just as fierce.

Gerrod called from across the way as the two parties converged on the door. “Their corrupted Grace shields them! The naethryn’s Grace is a match to their own. It cannot harm them!”

“Now he tells us,” Rogger griped.

All around the room, the pack of ilk-beasts took heart from their braver few. They rushed at the party pinned to the walls, with little maneuverability.

Tylar tried to raise his sword, but his misshapen curl of fingers could not grip it. The sword fell and clanged against the stone floor. He couldn’t defend himself.

Beasts closed upon them, swamping them.

Dart shoved Laurelle behind her as the ilk-beast stalked down the hall. “Get to the stairs!”

“But-”

“Get Yaellin!” she yelled.

Dart knew they couldn’t both flee. The beast would be upon them before they could reach the stair. Someone had to hold it off.

Laurelle must’ve understood this, too. She didn’t argue further and ran down the hall.

The mottle-skinned beast twitched, watching Laurelle flee. But it did not pursue. There was easier prey. It lowered its head, snarling, revealing a maw of sharp fangs. A slight black pall steamed from its pores, along with the scent of burning blood. Black Grace burned through its flesh.

Dart sought any weapon, any means to escape. The only objects in the halls were a row of chairs along either wall. Dart had sat in those same chairs as she waited for her purity to be tested. Then, too, she had been terrified.

Creeping backward, Dart kicked and shoved the chairs into the hallway. But the monster simply bulled through them.

Distantly, she heard Laurelle’s cry for help. Aid would never reach Dart in time.

The monster knew this, too-and leaped.

It flew headlong through the air.

With no retreat, Dart dove forward.

Under the beast. Under one of the scattered chairs.

The beast, ill prepared for such an unexpected move, twisted in midair. Its hindquarters smashed atop the chair. Dart scrambled free as the wooden legs snapped like saplings. She rolled past the creature’s rear.

The beast thrashed around, kicking and slashing at the tangle of chairs.

Dart glanced back to the healing chamber. Its door had been slammed closed moments ago. And even if it had not, there was no sanctuary to be found in that room. She heard the shrieks and wails from inside.

The ilk-beast regained its footing.

It slunk toward her again, shoving through the chairs. It would not make the same mistake twice. Despite its ravening appearance, its eyes glowed with keen intelligence. Somewhere inside its twisted form was the man who had consumed Chrism’s blood. Both beast and man burned with fury.

A howling wail escaped its throat.

Dart felt her knees weaken. She trembled from crown to heel.

With one last growl, it ran at her, low this time, but bulked at the shoulder. Claws scraped stone.

Dart stumbled backward, tripped on a broken chair, and fell hard to her backside.

The beast lunged up, claws raised, fangs bared. It crashed down upon its cowering prey.

Dart dropped to her back. Her fingers scrabbled for any weapon. Her palm found a shattered chair leg and raised it, braced with both arms now.

The beast landed on her, impaling itself on her sharpened stave of wood. Through the throat. Blood splashed over Dart. It burned like acid, blinded her eyes.

But the beast was far from dead. The mortal wound would take time to kill, and the beast intended to take Dart with it.

It shoved up enough to bring a claw to Dart’s shoulder. Skin tore, muscle, down to bone, pinning her. Dart screamed. Her mouth filled with the blood. She spat and choked, fearing to consume it, fearing she’d become what attacked her.

Panic fired her arms. The weight, the blood, the hot breath… all brought back a deeper terror. She struggled against the violation.

No!

The scream ripped up through her, yelled against all that tormented her, past and present. She shoved her stave deeper. The beast wailed and bucked backward. Its claws tore from her shoulder and she lost her stave.

The beast snarled and fell upon her again. It raised its muzzle to rip into Dart’s throat.

Then its left eye exploded with blood and gore.

The point of an arrow protruded out of the socket.

Shot from behind.

The body crashed atop Dart, knocking the last of the wind from her. She kicked and clawed her way from under it, gaining her freedom.

With her left shoulder on fire, Dart shoved to her feet. Down the hall, she spotted a whirl of shadow turning away.

With crossbow in hand, Yaellin returned to his defense of the stairs, vanishing down a few steps.

Laurelle appeared out of the cloak of his shadows. “Hurry, Dart!”

Dart stumbled past the ilk-beast, then gained her footing. She fled the length of the hall and reached Laurelle.

“Up!” Yaellin yelled from down a bend in the spiral stairs. Bodies draped the closest steps. “Get to hiding!”

Laurelle grabbed Dart’s uninjured arm and urged her upward.

They fled together. Each step jarred Dart’s clawed shoulder and drew hot tears.

They ran with no plan but to escape, to put as much distance as possible between them and the horrors below.

A door appeared, blocking the way.

It wasn’t until then that Dart realized where they had reached.

The top of the tower.

The rookery.

Her feet slowed. Her head shook. “No…”

“We must hide,” Laurelle said. She grabbed the handle and yanked the door open.

A flutter of wings sounded inside the dark chamber. The air stung of guano. A few beams of light illuminated the dusty space, but succeeded only in highlighting the darker shadows.

“Come. We can hide here.”

Laurelle drew Dart inside. She closed the door behind them.

Dart could not breathe as they stumbled deeper into the rookery. Eyes shone down from above. Dart searched the floor for blood. She knew the spot. By the back window, on the floor… bare planks, speckled with droppings. How could such horror leave no lasting mark?

“We’ll be safe here.”

Dart slowly shook her head. There was no safety to be found here.

The snick of a thrown latch sounded behind them.

Dart didn’t need to turn. It was happening all over again. “So we come full circle,” the voice said at the door.

Laurelle stiffened. “Healer Paltry…”

Dart slowly turned. The man stalked from the shadows. He bore a long sword in one hand. He carried it deftly. He must have escaped when the fighting first occurred, sneaking out the door and slipping past Yaellin as he defended the stairs, choosing the same place to hide.

Paltry came forward, fully into the light.

“Now to put an end to the abomination.”

Kathryn defended Tylar. She kept her eyes from his broken form. She could not balance the knight from a moment ago with the crippled wreck at her feet. Her heart ached, as if she’d lost Tylar all over again.

In fury, she stabbed and hacked to keep him safe. The naether daemon had no effect on the ilk-beasts. If anything, it made the fighting more difficult. Their party had to be careful of its shadowy form. While its touch might not harm the corrupted creatures, they had no such protection.

A slip of her cloak had accidentally brushed through the smoky umbilicus that connected Tylar to his leashed beast. The brief contact sucked all Grace from her, dropping shadows and cloak to her shoulders. All the speed borne of Grace died. It would take time to draw shadows back into her cloak. In the meantime, she felt as if she were fighting in mud.

Tylar understood the danger. He bloodied his palms and readied to call back the beast. “To the door,” he urged.

If nothing else, at least the appearance of the daemon had cleared the beasts blocking the room’s only exit. Gerrod and the Wyr-mistress had already reached the door and held it for them.

Kathryn hacked the last few steps to join them.

Gerrod manned the door, his armor stained from head to toe with blood and gore. “Rein in your daemon,” he called to Tylar.

With a nod, Tylar brought his bloody palms to the black umbilicus. His touch ignited a burst of fire. It raced out from him, consuming the naethryn before it. Wings burned away. Details blurred to smoke. The flash of fire startled the ilk-beasts, buying them all time to slip from the room.

Tylar waved them through as the fires reached the tip of his daemon’s nose and whipped back again. “Stand clear!”

The flames raged back toward Tylar.

He was the last, standing in the doorway. When the fiery wave struck him, he was knocked backward through the door. Eylan caught him and kept him from falling. Gerrod slammed the door.

Ilk-beasts struck and dug at the planking.

Gerrod shouldered the door, but the fight rattled the frame.

Tylar returned. Hale again. He wiped his sweated brow, then jabbed a fingertip on his dagger. “Back,” he warned Gerrod.

Tylar reached a bloody finger to one of the door’s hinges. A crackle of frost snapped from his touch. The iron took on a bluish cast. He did the same to the other two hinges.

“Frozen,” Tylar said. He stepped back and waved Gerrod off.

The ilk-beasts still fought the door, but the hinges refused to bend.

“I don’t know how long it will hold, but we’d best not wait and see.”

Tylar led the way down the hall. Kathryn noted the snowy pallor to his features. Though healed again, he was far from hale. A body, even one blessed by a god, had limits that would break it. And Tylar was nearing his end.

They reached the stairway. Yaellin awaited them. He stood with his back to the curve of the stairs. Two bodies were sprawled on the nearest steps, and a pile blocked the way down.

“Keep clear,” he warned.

A crossbow bolt sparked off the stones and ricocheted up the stairwell from below.

“None dare come closer on foot,” Yaellin said. “But they won’t let us down either.”

Gerrod stared around the space. “Where are the girls?”

Dart held her place in the rookery. She watched Paltry stride across the planks. She felt the oddest sense of finality in this moment. As if she were meant to be here. A calmness settled into her, filling corners that had recently been empty.

The same could not be said for Laurelle. “You… you’d best stay back,” she warned. She clearly wanted to retreat farther into the rookery, but the space was open. No place to hide. The only true escape from here was to plunge through one of the chamber’s many windows.

Paltry smiled. “The monsters below will either kill your defenders or chase them off. Either way, none will question your guilt… or my killing of you both.”

Laurelle fell back toward one of the walls. Dart followed, but only three steps.

Paltry continued. “And once slain, I will lay your bodies at Chrism’s feet. What does it matter if one’s god is corrupted or righteous? In the end, it matters only if one has pleased him or not. From such pleasure, riches will flow.”

A splatter of guano struck Paltry’s cheek. He flinched, clearly edgy despite his easy words. Still, his sword did not falter. Dart stopped and held her place. She knew where she stood. On these planks, all was ripped from her: her innocence, her safety, her sense of self. Above, the dark rafters glowed with the hundred eyes of the ravens, silent spectators then and now.

Paltry approached, sword pointed. “Which to kill first? Will it be worse for you, Dart, to see your friend die before you?”

Dart merely stared. In the silence, she felt a string, previously taut, relaxing inside her. A sense of security braced her.

She glanced to the planks. She had left here hollow, left a part of herself behind, but now she could reclaim it… with a little help.

She glanced up to Paltry. He sensed the diamond in her gaze, cold and hard. His footsteps faltered.

Dart waited for the tightness inside her to fully loosen, then spoke three words. “To me, Pupp.”

He came through the door, passing like a ghost. He must have finally found a break in the stones, or a place to climb, or a gate. Perhaps he had even backtracked the long path back to the High Wing, then down again… returning to the only home both had known. But ultimately she knew what drew him.

She reached to her lacerated shoulder. She wet her fingers.

Blood.

Pupp raced to her, a shining coal in the darkness. They were one and the same. Blood for blood.

Paltry stopped his approach, plainly confused by her words, disturbed by her countenance.

Dart bent to one knee. She had once pondered what she was: girl, god, or monster. For the moment, she made her choice.

Monster.

Her bloody fingers touched Pupp. She felt the heat of his flesh. His form grew brighter. She smeared him with her blood and lifted her eyes to Paltry.

He stared in horror at the figure of flaming bronze, spiked and razor edged. Flames glowed in Pupp’s eyes and lapped from his muzzle.

Paltry stumbled away.

Dart waited.

Finally, Paltry met her gaze.

Dart did not smile. She said one last word. “Fetch.”

Tylar heard the scream from a full two flights away. He rushed up the last of the steps, followed by Eylan and Kathryn. Rogger, Gerrod, and Yaellin remained below, plotting some strategy to escape, pinned as they were between ilk-beasts and castillion guards.

Above, the scream changed pitch into a wail of horror and pain. It was not a child’s scream. It ripped from the throat of a man.

Ahead a door appeared.

Tylar rushed to it.

“Careful,” Kathryn warned. “It could be more ilk-beasts.”

Tylar’s fingers fought the latch, but it was secured from inside. “Dart! Laurelle!” he called out as the wail died to a moan.

There was only one last place the girls could be hiding.

Behind this door.

Tylar pounded on it.

A small cry answered, full of horror, but plainly a girl’s voice this time. “We… we’re here.”

A flutter of footsteps sounded. The latch inside was thrown back. Before Tylar could even touch the door, it was flung wide and the black-haired girl flew out. She collapsed into Tylar’s arms, hugging him tight, clinging, sobbing.

Inside the dark chamber, plainly a rookery from the smell, a pool of light lit the center. It illuminated the wreck of a body on the floor, torn limb from limb. Blood reflected the light, spreading into a wide lake.

The source of the illumination climbed from the wreckage of the body. It glowed with a fierce light, standing shorter than a man’s knee. It was bulked and spiked, muzzled and flamed, covered in gore. It seemed to meet Tylar’s gaze. An intelligence shone there, a match to what he saw in the flaming gaze of the naethryn inside him.

“Pupp…” he said, naming the beast and knowing it to be true.

It shook its spiky mane, flared brighter for a breath, then vanished away, taking its glow with it. Darkness closed over the center of the room. A hundred ravens suddenly took wing, screaming and flying for all the open windows, leaving shadow behind.

A second figure stepped out of the deeper gloom. It was the other girl.

“Dart,” Tylar mumbled.

She trembled, plainly unable to move farther.

Tylar passed Laurelle to Kathryn. “Watch her.”

Unburdened, Tylar hurried into the room. Dart didn’t seem to see him. Her eyes were glazed. Bending down, he took her into his arms and pulled her to his chest. “You’re safe,” he said.

Something like a laugh escaped the child. It was a sound too old for one so young, full of mirthless disbelief. And she was right. They were far from safe.

Still, she burrowed into him. He felt the tears through his thin shirt. He let her cry, rocking her slightly. He could guess what had happened here. He had noted the shirt on the macerated body. Soaked in blood, the hatching of oak leaf and acorn was still evident in silver thread.

The healer must have trapped the girls here, threatened them. Dart had defended herself with the only weapon at hand.

“I… I… killed him.”

“Hush,” he whispered. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

She glanced up from his chest. Her eyes reminded Tylar of the gaze of Wyr-lord Bennifren, a babe with ancient eyes. But this was no Grace of longevity. It was simply the gaze of a girl who had seen too much.

She shook her head. “I wanted him dead. I… I sent Pupp.”

Tylar remembered her story. Before, Pupp had killed in her defense, coming to her aid unbidden. But this time, Dart must have been more directly involved. Now she was waking to the horror of such a committed act.

Still, she kept her feet. Her sobbing slowly settled to intermittent quakes. Tylar knew the brutality perpetrated upon her. She might be a godling, but the flesh and heart was that of a young girl. Though she was stricken by the bloodshed, he suspected it also helped return a part of what was stolen from her. Blood for blood.

“Come,” he said softly. “We must clear from here.”

She nodded. She kept one hand in his. But her eyes were on his chest. She pointed to the black print there.

“You also carry something with you,” she said. “I can see it stir.”

Tylar stared down at the mark. It seemed no more than tattooed flesh. Plainly her eyes saw more than his did. As she could see Pupp, her sight must also allow her to peer more deeply into him. Uncomfortable with that, he shifted his shirt to cover his mark.

She glanced to his eyes. “Does it make you any less a man?”

Tylar met her gaze, knowing she wondered the same of herself. He again saw the age behind those young eyes. He knew they deserved an honest answer, rather than one that falsely comforted.

“I don’t know.”

Dart kept behind the others on the stair. The occasional crossbow bolt struck the stones and rattled at them.

“It’s not much of a plan,” Tylar said.

“And we’re not much of an army,” the bearded man answered.

Tylar sighed. Dart watched him, sensing an odd connection to him. She remembered his arms around her, his sweat. She had feared the godslayer when she had first heard about the murder in the Summering Isles. Now she wanted him close. Even Pupp sniffed at his heels, hovering around him.

Dart sat on a step, arms tight around her knees. The terror of the rookery had ebbed with each step down from above. She knew the slaughter was justified, but she had yet to balance the horror of the act with the gut-level satisfaction she also felt.

Laurelle also remained quiet, staring without a blink. She kept to Dart’s side, but she did not offer her hand as before.

Dart knew her friend was still seeing Paltry torn asunder by the fiery Pupp. Though the act saved them both, the blood was hard to clear from one’s eyes.

“We must open the stairs,” Rogger repeated. “It’s the only way.”

“Fine. Let’s try it. But it still seems too simple to work.”

“The more complicated a plan, the more likely it will fail,” Master Gerrod countered.

With no other argument, the group retreated up the stairs, winding around a bend and out of direct sight from the lower landing. Only Rogger remained below.

The bearded man cupped his mouth and shouted. “Dark knight,” he called. Dart was startled by the bass tenor bursting forth from his thin frame. “Retreat to the healer’s cell! We’ll hole up there until nightfall!”

With those words and much clatter of boots, Rogger ran several steps down the hallway in the direction of Paltry’s room, then kicked his boots into his hands and ran barefooted back to the landing and up to them.

Tylar simply shook his head at the simple diversion.

Rogger kept a watch at the bend in the stairs.

A few more crossbow bolts cracked up to them.

Rogger ducked back around. “Here they come,” he mouthed.

Whispers and the tread of boots sounded.

“Door’s shut at the other end,” one of the guards called from the landing.

“Get those axes up here,” another answered. “Now’s our chance to flush the bastards.”

More commotion and the trot of boots followed. Guards raced from the landing and down the hallway. Upon reaching the far door, one of the men shouted back, “I can hear them inside!”

A final rush of guards pounded past the landing below. After a moment of silence, Rogger and Tylar both peeked around the bend.

“Way’s clear,” Tylar said, sounding vaguely bothered that the plan had succeeded. “There’s sure to be a few strays on the stairs, but nothing we shouldn’t be able to handle. We push all the way to the streets and away.”

They fled silently. The two knights, Yaellin and Kathryn, led the way, utilizing the shadows. With the guards focused on the healer’s door, their party slipped past the landing without being spotted. As they descended, the crash of an ax into wood echoed behind them.

They did not have much time until their ruse was discovered.

They raced downward.

As Tylar had guessed, a few guards still manned the stairs, but Yaellin and the castellan swept down upon them, shrouded in shadows. The guards were swiftly dispatched and left sprawled on the stairs.

They had no time to mourn their acts. There was no telling the innocent from the guilty. But all of Myrillia was at stake.

Cringing at each death, Dart fled with the others, Laurelle at her side.

Rogger dropped back to Dart and held something in his hand. “You left this behind.”

Dart stared at the black blade. It was the cursed dagger Yaellin had given her. She had thought it lost forever. If she’d had it earlier… with Paltry…

Rogger winked at her. “As a thief, I know better than to leave a weapon behind.”

Dart took the blade with a nod of thanks and returned it to her sheath.

They descended floor after floor.

A shout erupted as they crossed one floor’s landing. Dart turned to see a tall man in the neighboring hall. He was dressed in the gold and crimson of the castillion guard, but from the finery of his dress, he was clearly the captain of this guard.

Before the captain could shout a second time, Rogger threw a dagger. It struck the man in the throat and tossed him back, gurgling. His fall revealed a girl behind him.

Dart and Laurelle met her gaze. The girl’s guilt was plain.

Here was the one who had alerted the guards, who had betrayed them.

Margarite.

Before a word could be spoken, Master Gerrod hurried Dart and Laurelle down the final two flights. They broke into the open courtyard. A handful of guards were posted here, but they were too few to block their escape through the back gate and out to the alleys beyond.

Shouts followed, but they quickly faded away among the maze of alleyways and side streets.

Laurelle glanced to Dart. The pain of Margarite’s betrayal still shone brightly in Laurelle’s eyes.

Friends had become enemies. Whom could they trust?

At last Laurelle reached for Dart again.

Dart took her hand, gladly, gratefully.

It would have to be enough.