When I stepped back into Caim's forge, the dwarf was seated on the other side of the anvil set at the center of the cave. He had one tree-trunk sized arm propped on his knee, his other hand lying limp and lightly gripping a hammer.

Something lay on the anvil, but it was high enough I couldn't quite see it. The smith's head was bowed, his unkempt hair and beard forming a veil over his face.

"It is done," he rumbled.

I paused near the entrance. "That soon?"

It was the morning after my encounter with Maxim. It'd been half a day and a night since I'd last visited the dwarven forgemaster.

"I knew urgency was required." Caim lifted his head so I could make out the glint of one eye through his hair. "Come. See."

He seemed exhausted. I'd never seen the dwarf giant look so weary, never seen him not working. I'd been told once that he could spend centuries working almost without rest.

I approached the anvil cautiously. It was taller than me, so I couldn't get a good look at what waited on it even as I drew close. I felt strangely trepidatious, like what lay there projected an aura of danger. Caim said nothing.

There was a low stone table set next to the anvil, usually covered in tools but now clear. I jumped up onto it, and finally saw what the smith had prepared.

I stared at it for a whole minute in silence, studying its shape, taking in the hard reality of it. Caim spoke after I'd stared a while, his voice subdued and much quieter than I'd ever heard it.

"I have made many weapons in my time, mortal. I have forged darts that tasted the blood of angels and fashioned swords that murdered kingdoms. I prefer making things of beauty, things of stone and starlight meant only be to admired… Yet my talent, much to my shame, lies in the forgery of death."

Caim pointed at the thing on his anvil. "This is death."

I beheld my axe. Faen Orgis, the Doombearer's Arm, which some called the Axe of Hithlen. It was reforged, but not as it had been. The previous blade had been elegantly curved, with subtle contours and artistic flourishes, the alloy of bronze, iron, and gold — Hithlenic Bronze, some called it — forming a gray-black metal crawling with golden designs reminiscent of ivy. The blade had been grafted to the uncarved branch of living oak that made the axe's handle, the two joined in a subtly natural way.

That wasn't what lay in front of me. This blade didn't have elegant curves, but brutal ones, each section bending into the next like lines in a fragment of violently broken glass. The blade wasn't quite as long, but it looked heavier, thicker, retaining the "bearded" shape but looking more like a crude cleaver than a deadly crescent moon. A section of sharp metal protruded from the back of the blade to form a piercing point.

The black metal had no golden motifs this time. That same brutalist design extended to the way it attached to the branch. The handle remained uncarved oak, dark and twisted like a cluster of vines, but instead of melding with the head it grew over it, roots branching out and wrapping over the blade to hold it tight. Like a small tree had grown over the axe-head, grafting the two together.

"I fed it with my own blood," Caim muttered. "The metal and the branch both. It is restless now."

I hesitantly reached out, and realized I felt afraid of this thing. Spiritual pressure bled off it like heat off stone on a hot summer day. I flexed my fingers, bared my teeth, and forced myself to grab it.

I grunted with the effort of lifting it. "It's heavy."

"It will need to attune to you. Feed it your blood as often as you dare." Caim crossed his legs and leaned forward, looming over me even where I stood atop the work table. "I mixed fragments of the original axe and that sword you left. It was finer quality than I assumed. Turn it over."

I did. Against the dark alloy, I could make out words engraved on the axe's face in Oroion script. Through this, grant them peace. The same inscription that'd been on the executioner's sword Urddha gave me before my battle with the Credo Ferrum.

"That wasn't my design," Caim explained. "The words appeared after the mixture cooled. An angry spirit clung to that sword."

A union of the two instruments meant for me, when I became Headsman. The executioner's sword was the original pick, designed similarly to the weapon I'd used as First Sword of Karles, but the Choir decided to give me the axe instead.

Now I had both. I could feel both in my hand, an echo of those broken weapons now conjoined into this deadly tool. It was as much phantasm as wood and metal, empowered by its memory of all the things I'd killed.

I inhaled through my nostrils, then let out the breath slowly. "It will serve. Thank you, forgemaster."

"I do not wish to be thanked for this. It is a terrible thing." Caim braced his hands on his knees and turned his head away. "I will not be so trite as to call it my best work, but it is as pure a distillation of its purpose as I am capable of. Ugly, yes, but it will not break as easily as the previous one."

as I accustomed to the weight, I felt something else. Its balance felt better than the old version, less like it pulled against my hand like an overeager hound might. The balance felt right. Was that also the echo of the sword?

"I repaired your chainmail as well," Caim said. "I could do nothing for the rest of your armor, though, not without more time."

"I don't have that. I'll travel light this go around. The hauberk and anything still functional from the rest of the set will do."

I rested my reforged axe on one shoulder and glanced to the cave's exit.

"You are leaving, then?" Caim asked.

I thought of Maxim. You're not welcome here anymore, he'd told me.

"Yes. I have work to do."

I didn't get what I came here for, but I did gain what I needed. A task. A purpose. The means to move forward.

Time to go.

When I rode out of Oria's Fane, I was arrayed not dissimilarly to how I'd been last time I'd departed it. Gone was the full-plated rider who'd departed the Emperor's city earlier that winter. Then, I could have stood with pride amongst the lords of the Accorded Realms, a black knight fit for either war or tourney.

I still wore the ancient coat of iron chainmail I'd obtained in Caelfall, its rings refitted, and I'd retained some of the rest of my armor. Over my shoulders were studded pauldrons, three layers each of solid if scarred steel, matching the metal I wore around my waist and legs. I'd retained the greaves and sabatons, though my gauntlets had been ruined by demon blood so I settled for simpler vambraces. A heavy belt wrapped my waist, the buckle in the center showing the executioner's tree that was my personal mark. Over my hauberk went a harness of straps to help secure my shoulder armor and some other accessories, including extra knives and pouches. Over the armor also went an undecorated black surcoat, another accessory I'd kept since the past year.

My reforged axe went into the pocket dimension where I'd taken to keeping it, and my rondel dagger went at my waist. More the look of a mercenary than a lord, but it felt comfortable. Familiar. Over the rest went my red Briar cloak. A gift from Nath. Where did that wicked seraph fit into all of this?

I'd stuffed Vicar into a pack, where the undead creature seethed in silence. But I had to carry him somehow, and he was very compact in his current form.

But he wasn't bound up inside layers of saddle-blankets anymore, so I could hear him whisper behind me as Morgause cantered down the forest road. "So, have you decided on a destination?"

I thought about ignoring him, but decided it would just be petty. Vicar and I hated each other, there was no getting around that after our long rivalry, but he wasn't any happier about his situation than I was. Bullying him was satisfying, but it wasn't why I'd made a pact with him.

"To Darrohal."

A moment of silence from the pack. "That is an old ruin on the Crownway."

"An old fortress, yes. It's under repair, a joint effort by the Accord to create a neutral trade town."

"I see… And we are going there because?"

"Because Darrohal is on the road between Garihelm and Karles."

I breathed in the cool air as the sun crawled over the wilderness. It tasted of Spring.

South of Darrohal

794 A.C.

Early Spring

The Empress of the Accorded Realms passed through the gates of the fort ten days after the first day of Spring, in an armored carriage guarded by three hundred Karlesian men-at-arms. The fort commander welcomed the southern monarch as an honored guest, dined with her, and gave her a tour of the growing settlement.

She departed, by all accounts, in good cheer after thanking the man for his gracious hospitality and efforts on behalf of the realms. The Empress's train then continued south along the Crownway, en route to Osheim and from there to the Karledale, her homeland.

That was a dangerous road. An ancient highway constructed under orders from Urn's very first emperor, it rose above the wilderness and sliced through the hills like a gently winding blade, elevated above the tumults of a living, breathing land that didn't always admire the trod of human feet. Fashioned to ferry troops easily, it fell into disuse when that first empire died, the fractious lords of the subcontinent deciding they didn't much like a single monarch with so much power over them. That role, it was decided, went to the Heir of Onsolem alone.

Now the new emperor, who was lord of House Forger and from a clan of great masons, tried to restore it. It passed through many independent lesser domains, all pressed into the corridor between the mountains of Talsyn and the Bannerlands. While Talsyn's king was vassal to the Accord and had made no overtures of aggression since the summer, that remained a haunted land full of danger, and the hills grew teeth.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Yet just as many wary eyes in the convoy strayed west, toward the Banners. Reports of strife and conflict came in every day, with riders rushing in and out of the Empress's camps wherever they were pitched. Every camp became like a new-minted fortress, a militant complex of tents and wooden palisades and sharp-eyes sentries.

So it was that an exhausted Rosanna Silvering retired to her private tents on the sixteenth day of her long journey south. The camp had been set up at an old crossroads two hours before, in the shadow of the great highway and a crumbling watchtower. She'd been in council with her advisors, and the news from all corners seemed grim.

She dismissed her guards and handmaidens. Once they were gone, she began undoing the elaborate mesh of precious metals and jewels that bound up her black hair. The tent was a palatial thing, large enough to comfortably seat a dozen knights for impromptu meetings and dinners, with fine carpets over the floor and a high ceiling. It was well lit by alchemical lamps, their lights gentle and subtly unreal.

A small form stirred in a crib at the royal tent's corner, a tiny voice fussing. Rosanna smiled and paused doffing her jewels, gliding over to the crib in a flurry of green-and-black skirts to place a hand on the bed's edge. She muttered something under her breath and reached inside, pulling a baby less than a year old from his blankets. The little prince squirmed, then settled as his mother hummed to him.

"It's not all bad," she told the baby. "Once we're back home in Karles, I'll show you the Pinnacle's gardens. They're always lovely in spring, and quiet."

I smiled in memory at that. I remembered the court losing its collective hair trying to find her when she vanished into that maze more than once. Even Lias struggled to navigate it, because the spirits inside served the Silverings alone.

For some reason, they'd let me find her.

I must have made the most minute of sounds, because Rosanna went stiff suddenly. She turned her head to one side and spoke into the otherwise empty space. "Whoever you are, you should know that this tent is surrounded by two score of my guard. All I must do is scream, and you will not leave this place alive."

I waited a beat, then said, "It's good to see you too, Rose."

Rosanna's breath caught, then she spun to face me. I stepped out of the shadows and watched my queen's face shift between fear, anger, and relief.

She settled on annoyance. "What are you thinking? What if I'd just screamed?"

"Then that would have been very embarrassing for both of us. Why didn't you? I might have been an assassin."

"I'm not defenseless." She sighed and gave me a reproachful look, though I sensed a leashed emotion behind it. I'd scared her. I hadn't meant to, but ghosting through her camp and stalking into her private tent for this conversation was bound to be awkward.

"You look like you just saw a ghost," I commented, hoping to take the tension out of the air.

"People in Garihelm believe you died in the south." Rosanna took a deep breath and forced calm over herself. "We heard about the attack on Tol and on Baille Os. There were rumors you were in both towns."

"You believed I was dead?" I asked.

"…No," Rosanna admitted. "But what actually happened there is a matter of debate. We keep hearing conflicting reports from the Os, and there's even indication that King Kale might be missing, or dead. My advisors want me to avoid the region entirely."

She turned her gaze back down to her son's sleeping face, and I watched some of the tension in her own features ease away. Odd, how natural that looked on her, being a mother. I wouldn't have thought it once.

"Sorry," I told her.

Rosanna sighed in exasperation. "You haven't changed at all since you were a boy, Alken. You pretend to be stoic, but you like being melodramatic. My husband knighted you, and most of the men and women in this camp know your face. Why sneak in?"

"I don't know if I'll stay long, and the fewer people who know I'm here the better." I'd left my chimera and my devil out in the forest, ghosting into the camp under cover of glamour and my crimson cloak. I'd become better at stealth since my time in the Underworld. The vampires taught me some things, and my new powers were versatile.

I moved to a stool, easing myself into it. Rosanna remained standing, pacing and bouncing the baby in her arms gently to keep him asleep. Her eyes, emerald green and bright as jewels, narrowed.

"Leaving again?" She asked me. "What happened, Alken? Where have you been? You said nothing to me when you left Garihelm, didn't even—"

"Ask your leave?" I said.

"No. You didn't." She glared at me, and I knew she'd been angry all these weeks, holding that frustration in until this moment. "I know you have other loyalties, but I thought…"

"What's done is done." I sighed and brushed my hair back. It was getting long again, left uncut in recent days. I hadn't tended to my beard either, so I must have looked unkempt.

"I just wish you'd have told me you were leaving," Rosanna said. "Where you were going. I could have offered you help."

"I was given a mission by the Choir," I said as I stared at the tent's ceiling.

The Empress winced. "Ah. I suspected as much, but still…"

"You were worried about me." I knew there were political reasons for her frustration as well, that I'd cause inconvenience, but that was an easier truth for us to agree on.

"I did tell you not to talk to me about that business." Rosanna sighed. "I can be a fool."

"You made the wise choice. But that was before the Vyke plot, and things are different now."

She'd asked me to be her son's godfather, for one thing, and I'd accepted. I recalled Urawn's warning, and brushed it from my thoughts like a buzzing fly. He'd been right about some things, but I couldn't bring myself to abandon my loyalty to this woman. It was like something core in me. But I did need to set boundaries.

"I can't be your First Sword anymore, Rose. I have too many leads tugging at me now. I'm going to be… absent, sometimes. In and out of your life. Sometimes I might vanish without any warning."

Her brow furrowed. "I know that."

But you don't like it, and part of you still feels a sense of ownership over me. That too hadn't changed since we'd been young.

Rosanna took a deep breath and brushed at her son's hair. Black hair, like hers. "So why are you here now?"

I laced my fingers together. "To report back. I don't have time to go to Garihelm, and I knew I might be able to catch you on the road. I was in Osheim. I saw what happened there."

Rosanna moved to another seat and settled into it, facing me. "Very well. Then speak, Ser Hewer."

I told her about my trip south, starting about when I departed the Emperor's city. I didn't give her every intimate detail. I didn't speak about Delphine, or Vicar, and I was vague about my dealings with the Backroad Inn.

But I gave a thorough report on most of the important details, ending with, "Kale Stour is dead. I saw his body reanimated by the Gorelion. I don't know if the demon was in him before that, or if it just took his corpse right there, but…"

Rosanna's face was pale. "But if he was already possessed, then that puts much in suspect. He was meant to be Lord Commander of the war to retake Seydis."

"Yes, I suspected as much. And I'm guessing part of your trip back home is to rally the southern realms to that cause?"

"I am going back home because the south has been in disorder since even before the war, and I cannot afford to be away and still be High Queen." Rosanna tilted her head to one side wearily. "But yes, that too. Promising Princess Maerlys we would fight to reclaim Elfhome was the only way we got her to sign onto the Accord. Only, now that demon lord has started the war early in Osheim, there's a civil war brewing in the Bairns, and very likely a new Recusant in the Bannerlands."

Evangeline. "It can't all be coincidence. This all kicked off right after the matter with the Vykes last summer. It stinks of conspiracy. More than that, one of the Council of Cael was at Tol."

Rosanna's lips pursed. She knew what that must mean just as much as I. "Apparently, the demon you saw in the Os is a great tactician. In scripture, the Gatebreaker outsmarted all the guardians of Heaven itself… Or so the Emperor tells me. Markham has been studying old lore in a fever for years. He believes we can't find the means to defeat this enemy with mere soldiers and strategies."

"I was hoping this ended with the Vykes," I said bitterly. "I thought Hasur and his children were the masterminds. Now it seems more likely it was that creature all along, and we've just been chasing shadows."

A clan of mad nobles was one thing. The fallen angel who'd fought for demonkind at the Sack of Heaven was so much worse.

"Even then, I don't know if Ager Roth is actually our greatest enemy." I recalled Yith implying that Reynard might still be alive. The bloated fly might have just been toying with me, but if…

Who else would want to bring Pernicious Shyora back from Hell? After all, even the fabled Gatebreaker hadn't been the mastermind behind the ancient war against the Onsolain. He'd only been an ally to the Cambion, who was said to still lurk somewhere far in the west; old, wounded, and eternally hating.

Who do I have to kill to stop all of this? I wondered. Is it even possible?

Rosanna sighed and pressed her forehead against her son's. "It's too much, Alken. All this myth. I'm drowning in it."

"…Me too, trust me. I guess in my case, I've gotten used to it? It can still be surreal."

The thought came to me then that perhaps Markham brought me into his confidence for this reason — even if I represented a threat to his reign, an asset he couldn't control, my connection to the Choir had to have been enticing to a man so obsessed with the divine.

It didn't come as a shock. I'd already known his apparent trust in me was calculated, not genuine. He'd basically told me so himself.

"So what now?" Rosanna asked.

I braced my hands on my knees and leaned forward. "I need my lance. Do you know where they are?"

Rosanna blinked. "I summoned them to this convoy. I expect them to arrive any day, unless they were delayed."

I frowned. "You summoned them? Why?"

Rosanna's expression became arch. "Because I was going south, where I believed you to be, and there's a goring war starting. I expected I might find you along the way, and that you would need your people."

"…I see." I felt taken aback, and flattered at her foresight. "And their mission in Mirrebel?"

"Went well, by all accounts. A rogue vampire was the murderer, according to my last missive from House Dance. Several vampires. Your lance hunted each of them down and slew them. Faisa believes, and I agree, that they are Evangeline's castoffs. I expect your group will confirm that when they make an appearance."

I felt a weight fall off my shoulders, one I hadn't even noticed being there until that moment. I'd been worried about them. Emma, Lisette, Hendry, and Penric. I should have had more faith.

"Then… I have things to do, but first I have an elf to track down. Can I stick with your caravan until my lance shows up?"

"Of course," Rosanna agreed easily. The baby in her arms started to fuss then, and she shifted and stood. "I'll fetch one of my maids and get you a meal and a bath. Could you hold Josric?"

I stiffened and tried to hide the reaction as she approached, but when I stood and held up a hand Rosanna paused. Her mouth turned down into a frown. I knew she'd meant it as a gift — a great honor, truthfully, and a reminder of our conversation the day Josric was born.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But that's not a good idea. It's not… safe."

She studied me a moment, and perhaps she saw how deep the shadows were at my back, or felt the cold around me. She took a step back and held the infant prince closer to her chest. The sudden wariness on her face hurt, though I'd expected it.

"I see." She paced closer to the tent's entrance, which might have been unintentional. "Is this something I need to be concerned about?"

"I have it under control." Even still, I didn't trust myself to hold that child. Babies were fragile, and if the darkness latched to me stole the boy's breath or stopped his heart, I would never forgive myself.

"Where's my godson?" I asked to change the subject.

"With Ser Kaia. It's hard for him to be around people."

I nodded slowly, thinking. While I was around, I could at least do this one thing, perform this one obligation. I wanted to talk to young Darsus, let him know me, try to help him.

How old was the boy now? Six? Damn young for such heavy burdens.

I started to speak, but before any words came I felt something. A shiver in the air, or a stillness? The wind outside had stopped, and I only noticed it then.

The shadows are deeper. I'd noticed it before, but now I made myself pay attention I could hear whispering in them. It sounded urgent. Warning.

"Alken?" Rosanna asked. "What's wro—"

"The camp's under attack." I was already reaching back into the darkness at the tent's corner. The patch shivered with ghosts. I met Rosanna's widening eyes. "Whoever they are, they're not human."

I drew my axe out of the darkness. Black miasma clung to it, tumbling off the weapon like steam from a geyser. Outside, people were starting to shout. A sentry horn blew, three short calls in quick succession. The alarm.

Too late. They were already in the camp.

Not just in the camp. Here.

I moved without thought. Four steps and a leap, and my axe lashed out. The arrow that ripped through the tent's entry flap broke, glittering fragments tumbling through the air.

The shards were glowing. Gritting my teeth, I turned my back on them and used my own body as a shield when they exploded. Rosanna flinched and hunched against the flash of light. The detonations were small but intense, and there were many all at once. I grunted as they struck against my armor, some flecks of burning shrapnel stinging my neck.

When the noise and light stopped, I looked directly into Rosanna's face from an arm's length. My queen clutched her child close to her chest, but it wasn't fear that crystallized in her green eyes. For a moment, time reversed by almost twenty years, and I saw her again.

The Bloody Rose of Karles.

Her words were cold as mountain ice. "Find my son. Protect him. Whoever this is, end them."

The people outside were screaming now. There were swords being used. I turned towards the tent's entrance and started walking out into whatever madness waited out there. That same cold in the Empress's eyes seemed to be washing through my veins. I felt clear. Sharp.

My boots crunched on the crystal fragments of the broken arrowhead, which were already dissipating. A phantasm.

"Consider it done."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.