He gestured and the girl was brought forward. Previously, he had carefully ripped their throats out which is, as deaths go, relatively painless if you can use a sharp knife and have the correct technique. This time he just plunged the dagger into her guts with such force that he nearly lifted her off her feet. All of the air exploded out of her mouth and she groaned with it. He pulled the dagger out and her guts came with them, she looked down at the horror that he had made of her midsection and tried to draw her breath to scream.

Then the pain hit her and all she could do was whimper.

“Oh be quiet,” Sam said and stamped on her neck.

This time he didn’t say her name and as such, I have no idea who she was.

Sam looked disappointed in something.

“Another,” he called and another man was pushed forwards. I think he was a guard but Sam killed him with just as little ceremony and his frown deepened.

“No,” he said. “Something is wrong. There is power coming from these deaths but it is not enough.” He started pacing as he considered. The next victim was weeping with terror.

Trystan was watching this with a certain amount of concern. As we watched my brother pace.

We waited, watching as Sam tapped the bloody dagger at his lips. At some point, he realised that this meant that he was smearing black blood onto his face and instead tucked his hands behind his back.

Trystan is worried about something. He has just exchanged looks with the guards that were holding the next prisoner.

“Lord Samuel,” Trsystan prompted, quietly at first but when it was clear that Sam didn’t notice or wasn’t listening, he raised his voice a little.

“Lord Samuel, time is rather of the essence.”

“Be silent,” Sam told him.

“It looked as though Sam had forced the words down Trystan’s throat. He looked surprised. Astonished even. As though he had swallowed something unpleasant.

Sam looked equally as surprised and his face softened.

“I am well aware of the dangers that are coming upon us and the scarcity of time,” Sam told the other man. “That is precisely the problem that I am trying to deal with.

He looked at the next victim. I know his face but not his name. I have the impression that I have not known him for long. He has long, clever-looking fingers and his limbs are equally as long. One of his legs has been broken but I can well imagine…

He was an acrobat being paid to perform at my wedding reception.

Sam killed him quickly and tossed him aside.

“Yes.” He said. “There is power there but not as much. Useful, but we need more power more quickly to be sure of the matter. Let’s see….”

He made another pantomime of having to consider things.

“Let’s see,” he muttered again, the odd harmonics and echoes returning to his voice. “The receipt of power was at its greatest after mother died.”

“After you killed her,” I told him. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“After you murdered her,” I added.

Nothing happened. Trystan was hopping from foot to foot. A messenger came in and passed another piece of paper to Trystan.

“Lord Kalayn,” He tried again.

It was like that was the little thing that they needed to do to get Sam’s mind working again. He looked up, waving Trystan to silence and spoke to the guards that were waiting for his instructions.

“Bring me, Mark,” he said.

I felt as though the air had been punched out of my gut.

“No,” I moaned. “No, Sam. You can’t do this. Sam, you can’t.”

“He’s dying anyway,” Sam said. “It might even be argued that it will be a mercy.”

“Sam, stop this.” I pleaded. I begged. “Kill me instead. Please, don’t do this. Don’t take any more of the people that…”

“Mark earns just as much of the blame as Mother,” Sam said. I could hear the echo more now. “The reason that there was more power was that my victim was important to me. Mother was important to me. Therefore, if I sacrifice those that hold some kind of sentimental value to me then… then the power will be increased.”

He nodded as though he was convincing himself that this was going to work.

“That’s it. I have the answer.”

“Please Sam,” I whimpered. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t go this far, it’s not worth it, whatever else is happening, it’s not worth the cost. Don’t do this.”

“It really is simple math Freddie,” he told me cheerily, either oblivious to the pain on my face or he just didn’t care. “I received more power from The God when I killed someone that I actually cared about than I did when I killed someone that I couldn’t care less about.”

He smiled.

“So the faster I get this done, the fewer people will have to die. The more the better and then… Ah, here we are.”

“Don’t do this Sam,”

Fuck.

.

Mark too. Mark is gone. My big brother. My first confessor my…

Flame burn me.

Mark is gone. Sam is cackling while wiping the blood from the dagger onto the cloth of Mark’s Cassock.

Mark is gone. I thought that I would be ready for that one. I thought that I was prepared for Mark to die. I knew it was coming, but not like this. Not like this.

He looked… He looked frail. My once massive brother. Tall, broad-shouldered and powerful. Hugely strong. Born at the wrong time. He should have been born when the priesthood was carving the light out of the darkness in the local area.

But when he came into that blood-soaked room he looked like an old man.

He once made a joke with me when Francesca was born. I was upset that I was no longer the youngest child and I was jealous. One of those childish things…

Oh, Mark.

I’m so sorry.

It… One of those childish things where you know that you are being unreasonable but you can’t quite talk it out, or think it out properly.

He made me laugh. He pointed out that babies all look like old men. It took me a moment and then I saw it and I remember laughing to Mark’s proud delight. Then later, he leant closer and pointed out that the other thing that happen is that when a person, more often a man, gets older, then they start to look like a baby again.

That’s what Mark looked like. He looked like a baby.

Flame but what they must have been doing to him deep in the… wherever the fuck they were keeping the prisoners.

He was thin, pale, even gaunt, but there was still that huge frame that Kerrass had once called a “warrior’s frame.” His hair was long and greasy and he looked about him with this look of utter confusion.

My brother wasn’t inside his own head.

He looked like a baby, his face puffy and flushed, his lower lip trembling. He tottered forwards and I screamed at the guards as they giggled.

Trystan turned away.

But the guards got Mark into the circle. He slipped on something, probably some blood although I can’t be sure. He looked at the bodies and the tangle of limbs as though he didn’t recognise what was happening.

Sam was at his side.

“This is my brother,” he seemed to address the room. “And although my brother Freddie is dear to my heart, it should not lessen the efforts of this brother. I love him a great deal and I am proud to have had him as a brother. I will miss him.”

Mark just stared at him, eyes wide body trembling.

“Kneel brother,” He whispered in Mark’s ear. “Kneel, it is time to pray.

I was screaming at them. Trying to get Mark’s attention, trying to distract Sam. Anything.

Mark looked at Sam in gratitude and knelt before putting his hands together.

Then he looked confused again before he looked up at Sam with blank, innocent eyes.

The eyes of a child.

“What should I pray for?” He wondered.

And Sam slit his throat.

I fought the chair and the ropes so hard that I finally got some movement out of them and the chair tipped over. But in landing, I crashed down on one of my smashed feet. The agony was instant and white hot and I passed out.

Another thing to hate me for. I was not there for my brother when he needed me. The least I could have done was be there for him as he died.

At some point, my chair was righted, my bonds were retired and another bucket of water was thrown in my face.

Sam was frowning.

“You have a duty to perform Freddie.” He told me. “A God-given duty and I expect you to perform it.”

“Fuck you,” I told him.

Sam ignored it. I barely spoke anyhow.

From some distance, I was wondering how much more I could take. But Sam was right, I did have a duty. Not to him though, but to his victims.

That next victim has arrived. She is a bit older than Sam and I have no idea who she was. She looks as though she is a local villager. She has long dark hair that hangs straight down her back. She is four or five years older than me and because of the nature of what I can only assume was her life, she has aged a little harder than she possibly should.

She is a big woman in every sense of the word. Kerrass might once have described her as buxom. She does not have any of the privations that the other prisoners have and I wonder if she is a recent addition.

Rather than the other prisoners though, she has a sense of bewilderment about her as though she has no idea of what was coming or what she was going to be up against.

She soon realised when she came through the door. I think she smelt the blood and the other bodily fluids first as her head whipped around as she searched around the room for the awful smell.

I called to her to tell her that it was going to be alright but she seemed to panic anyway.

I hadn’t noticed the smell because it had snuck up on me gradually and I am far from fragrant myself. But the dead bodies are starting to release the inner fluids. Not just the blood.

Sam is trying to beckon this woman over. But now she has seen the bodies. She is turning and tries to get out of the door to go back to wherever she was coming from but one of the guards has stopped this by standing in front of the door.

“Bring her to me.” Sam orders and that same guard grabs her by the neck and forces her into the circle. She screams and struggles all the way. She is not fat, just pronounced and now that I can see, it is clear that a lot of that is muscle.

The guard is struggling.

Sam gestures and a critic goes over to help and between the two of them, they wrestle her into the ring where Sam is there to catch her.

Sam is changing. Where it took two large, strong… even augmented men to get this woman into the ring, Sam holds her without apparent effort.

She is fighting him, clawing at him, trying to scratch his eyes out. She is obviously terrified, as would anyone be, but she is determined at that.

I find that I like her.

Sam tried to ignore her as he pulls her over towards the edge of the circle where I am watching but I can see him getting frustrated.

He jerks her off balance for a moment and cuffs her around the head, dazing her. I can see that her eyes keep trying to roll back into her head.

It doesn’t take much of a blow to the head to seriously injure someone or even kill someone, or so my old professor would say.

Sam continues to drag her over to me and she keeps stumbling, now whimpering, more than shouting and screaming in fear.

“You have no idea who this is do you, Freddie?” Sam asks me.

“No,” I admit. I am trying to think of a way to free this woman and find a way to turn all of this to our advantage.

“Not to blame you. She left the castle after I went to war, you were a bit younger then and she has changed a great deal. Still, a couple of pregnancies will do that to you won’t they?”

He demanded that of the still dazed-looking woman.

“When I knew her she was much thinner around the waist and her hair was shorter. She was still strong then and the cook had her helping with the heavier duties in the kitchen.”

Sam laughs at a memory. The woman is still trying to stay awake. I want to tell her not to bother and to just sleep but those words die in my throat.

“Calling us friends is a bit much. But she was my first woman. Edmund was my first lover and there were other women that I was forced to assault as part of the cult. But Lily here was the first time that a woman chose me and I chose her back.”

I swear that he is smiling down at her fondly.

“Oh come on,” I shout as I watch him stroke a lock of her hair out of her face.

“She was very kind to me,” Sam went on, still speaking in the kind of sad, reminiscing voice that you use when you are talking about old lovers. “We had known of each other for a while but nothing came of it. Then a day came when I was so tired of everything that Edmund was doing and all of the negligence of our family and tutors would get too much. I would retreat to a hiding space. I was good at it too, remember how much better I was at hide and seek when we were younger?”

He waited a moment before looking at me sharply. “Answer me, Freddie.”

“I remember,” I tell him.

“Well, Lily here found me. She took me to her cubby hole and we talked about a lot of things. She kissed me and I suppose nature took over. She was very pleased that I knew what I was doing. About the physical stuff, I mean. Apparently, it’s not as easy as just knowing which bit goes where but how to move around a person’s body. It was a new experience, doing that deed for comfort and pleasure rather than for pain and the exertion of power. It was quite pleasant.”

He smiles down at her again.

“We loved each other on and off when either of us had a need and then I went to war. She married one of the huntsmen and was long gone by the time I came back. I always thought of her fondly and with a happy memory. I brought her here to reward her for her kindness.”

He is sighing and stroking her face again. I feel sick.

“Such a pity,” Sam says to me. “She is still beautiful to me. Ah well.”

Then he killed her. The blow to her head might even be a mercy as I’m not sure she knew that she was dying before she died.

“I keep telling you, Freddie,” Sam said. “There is no blood that I will not spill, no coin that I will not spend and no life that I will not sacrifice to free Redania from the tyrant.”

“And I keep telling you,” I reply automatically, “that you are the only tyrant here. Didn’t you once tell me that you lost your real virginity to a nurse on campaign?”

“No,” Sam frowns in confusion. “Why would I say that?”

There is not enough strength in my voice for a proper rebuttal and Sam is already ignoring me.

He is looking at his hands and frowning.

“Strange,” he says, “I thought I would get more power for that.”

Sir Trystan speaks up. I get the feeling that he has had to swallow a few times before he tries to speak. The first time I saw Trystan he was a handsome, good-looking man. The kind of man that you would want to introduce to your sister. Now he looks as though he wants to run and run far away. He has the look of a man who is trying to decide on ways to kill himself.

“My Lord,” he is saying. “Perhaps that might be enough to deal with the…”

“No,” Sam snaps. And he really fucking snapped. He practically hissed like a cat as he span on Trystan with a snarl on his face. Sam has always been a handsome man but he looked ugly at that moment.

“No,” he says again. “This moment will never come again and I must be strong enough to take on all comers. We must be sure.” He turned to the guard. “Bring me, Bronwyn.”

The guard left and during the pause, Sam did some work on his knife. It was all but caked in gore now and one of the critics fetched a clean cloth and a fresh whetstone that was tossed into the ring. Sam sat on one of the bodies… I think it was one of the soldiers and started to work, cleaning the blade before carefully sharpening it.

He is doing it properly too. That’s a thing that is never done when you see these kinds of things in stage plays and read about them in books. You never see or hear about the cultists taking proper care to maintain their weapons or their sinister accoutrements.

I want to ask Sam about Bronwyn, who she is and why she is important. But I’m not going to, apart from anything else, I am not convinced that I want to know the answer.

The other reason is that I think that Sam will tell me.

It is occurring to me, as we all sit here and wait for the next piece of horror to arrive, that what I need to do is play for time. I have no idea why I think this, but I am beginning to suspect that something is coming. It is small things. Why is the ritual happening now? Why not tomorrow or the day after? If the longer it’s left, then the more power is absorbed then why not leave it longer? Sam did provide a potential answer which is that the longer he leaves it, the more dangerous it becomes.

It is already pretty fucking dangerous though.

That and the fact that the guards were running around earlier. The speed with which the messengers are running in and out, delivering the messages before running off. And what Trystan just said.

Yes, I need to play for time. As much time as possible.

Easier said than done though.

And when all I can do is fucking sit here and watch, what can I do? I can shout, scream and talk. I can write, but Sam isn’t exactly reading what I say. Hurling my writing and papers and pen on the floor is not going to get the…

A guard has just brought Bronwyn into the room.

Another woman that I don’t know. But I have seen her. I imagine that everyone in Oxenfurt knows of Bronwyn. Except in Oxenfurt, she is called Ruby.

She has walked in, she is wearing a better quality dress than the one that she works the streets of Oxenfurt in. She is dressed like the highest lady of the court and even more than that, she knows how to wear it too. She has that indefinable trait which people miss, which I call ‘class’. I have seen it in the lowliest villager and I have missed it in the highest, richest courts in the land. You can have class and lose it later in life. Or you can not have any class and gain it. It is a measure of a person’s character and when they have class, you can see it in their demeanour and attitude.

Bronwyn has class.

She is one of, if not the, highest Courtesan in Oxenfurt.

She is talking to one of the guards.

There was a rumour in Oxenfurt, that the Passiflora in Novigrad had tried to bring her to their gates but she turned it down. She told them that there, she would be a flower in a bunch of roses. But in Oxenfurt, she was a jewel in the mound of sand.

A bit harsh on the other working women of Oxenfurt, but to be fair, I have no idea if it was true.

I know of people that made themselves destitute for a night with her.

She has walked in. She paled at the smell and the sight of the bodies. I think I recognise the dress as something that Laurelen used to wear occasionally. It is a deep green to compliment Bronwyn’s reddish, auburn hair. She has chosen limited jewellery and she looked radiant as she walked in.

She is wary, but puts a smile on to greet Sir Trystan. I watch her eyes flash around the room, noticing who is there and where the exits are. This woman is not a trained soldier but she is a warrior on a different field of battle than mine.

She is beautiful as only a courtesan could be beautiful.

I would tell her to flee, but I can see that she already knows that she is going to die in this room. Her eyes are narrow now and she is plotting some vengeance.

I catch her eyes and for a moment, I see pity in her blue eyes but then she dismisses me. I don’t blame her.

I hope she succeeds.

“You know Bronwyn don’t you Freddie.” Sam walks over to her and extends his hand in the same way that a gentleman might ask a lady to dance. She considers refusing. I see it happen, she considers refusing but then she hardens and smiles her best, most professional smile at Sam before taking his hand and letting him help her over the pile of metal and one or two dead bodies.

“Of course, you know Bronwyn,” Sam says, leading her over to me. “Everyone in Oxenfurt knows Bronwyn, except you possibly know her by her professional name.”

The injury and inference strike home in Bronwyn, Sam’s eyes are looking away so he misses the hate in her expression. For a moment, the fear that he might have seen her hits her and she checks, but Sam is looking at me.

“I never had the pleasure,” I say to Sam. “The Lady Bronwyn moved in different circles than I did.”

“You never had the money you mean.” Sam teases. “And she is far from a lady.”

The flash of hate is back in Bronwyn’s eyes.

“A lady is a lady until she proves otherwise,” I tell him. “And promiscuity is not a measure. Nor is using the skills and attributes that…”

“Yes yes.” Sam waved me off. “Your love of the oldest profession is well known and I do not doubt that they find it charming. I would disagree and tend to side with Father, that such things are a sign of weakness. I would say that but for Bronwyn. When I came back from war, I remember we were all angry and bitter at the betrayal. I had plenty of money and saw her passing. And I thought, why not?

“Like Lily, she was very kind and gentle with me. An outlet for my physical needs. She was very gracious and over time, when I had some spare money from the cult, I would visit her again.”

She nodded to him.

“And it was always a pleasure.” She said.

She has hidden a weapon in her right sleeve. She is working it into her hand.

“Really,” I say, trying to draw Sam’s eye. “I doubt that.”

“Why Freddie.” Sam laughed. “Making jokes about my prowess in bed? How… base of you.”

“I’ve hung around with Skelligan sailors and common soldiers Sam, you have no idea how base I can go.”

Bronwyn has caught my gambit. It’s a blade that she has, now hidden in her skirts.

“Anyway,” Sam is still speaking. “I wanted to bring her here to thank her after attaining my power but it would seem that…”

“Wait,” Bronwyn says stepping towards me and tilting her body slightly so that she can grip the blade better out of sight of Sam and the critics. “Are you Frederick Coulthard?”

“I am,” I reply.

“I’m a huge fan.” She tells me before turning and plunging the dagger into Sam’s chest. She knew what she was doing too… plunging it through the guts and tilting up to get the lungs and the heart.

Oh, the cruelty of hope.

.

Bronwyn is dead now, and there is now definitive proof that the ritual is working, even while Sam complains about the lack of effectiveness.

As I write these words to bear witness to the final moments of Bronwyn’s death, Sam is raging about the lack of success and the lack of new power that should be coursing through his veins.

Bronwyn was a brave woman, the bravest. I have been around many brave women and she is one of those. Not to lessen the efforts of the others, but Bronwyn knew she was going to die when she plunged that blade into Sam’s chest. There was no way that she was going to make it out of the room alive and she knew it too. No way at all that that was going to work.

The blade itself was a small, slim blade that she hid in her sleeve. It is an old trick that I have known about for some years. The hidden blade is tied inside the dress. I have been shown the blade and the trick that they use to tie it in. There are some small variations to the effort but the principle is the same.

I think I first saw it back in the Southern city where I recovered after the Beast of Amber’s crossing. They told me that it is the mark of some trust for a Courtesan to be with you completely naked. This is because it means that she can’t hide the blade anywhere. That’s not to say that the blade isn’t there, behind the headboard or underneath the bedside table or something.

So Bronwyn turned, stabbed, and twisted. She did try to pull the knife out but it was stuck fast and I think she lacked the leverage. After the blade went in she stood back to admire her handiwork, ignoring the black blood that was running down her hands and onto the floor. She didn’t make a sound, just grinned horribly.

It was almost… not quite, but almost a Witcher’s smile.

But Sam wasn’t falling, instead, he was the one smiling in triumph.

“You see Trystan.” He said, turning to the Knight. “We have our proof that the ritual is working.”

He turned back to me and gestured at the place where the dagger jutted out of his belly. Then it was as though he suddenly just… remembered Bronwyn and turned back to her and grabbed her by the hair.

“Good effort,” he told her before he drew his own blade across her throat. Then he let go.

Her hands, automatically went to her throat, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood. We always do that, desperately fighting for life, even when we know that it’s hopeless.

There is no such thing as a good death. But she tried, at least she tried. It was more than I did.

Sam is angry now, the realisation that someone had allowed Bronwyn into his presence with a weapon has hit him and now he is looking for someone to blame. His anger is not inconsiderable but it seems that the guards that brought her here have taken the lesser part of valour and have fled. I do not blame them.

Sam is still seething though.

He keeps looking down at his right hand. He will pass the blade backwards and forwards between his two hands and clench his fists before examining his hands in quite minute detail. I have no idea what he’s looking for or what he can feel when he does that. But he is looking for something and he is becoming frustrated that he is not getting it.

“Something is missing.” He keeps muttering. “Something is missing.”

“Lord Samuel.” Trystan tried again. “Given the obvious power that has been given to you already, perhaps now might be the time to…”

“No,” Sam snaps back. “I need more. I need everything I can get. I am powerful now but I need more. We must be sure that we can overwhelm them. Take them utterly by surprise.”

He is pacing around the circle as he speaks.

“Bring me another prisoner.” He says. “Any one will do.”

A guard, one of the few remaining, leaves but comes back in straight away.

I can see my mother from where I am. I look for Mark but I cannot see him, obscured by the other bodies. I think that might be his knee that is sticking out from behind Lilly’s body. But I can see my Mother. Why she fell by herself I do not know. Something about the way she knelt I suppose. But I can see her. The dress that she’s wearing stained crimson with her blood although it is beginning to lose the bright red colour and turn to the darker, crimson bruise of old dried blood.

She is staring into space with a slight smile on her face. She looks peaceful. I would not be peaceful. I would be filled with fear and anger in the face of…

I will never be able to forgive her… I mean, I will but… She will never know that I forgive her. In the face of everything that has happened, her crime seems small to me in this time and this place. I will never be able to look her in the face and explain that I understand why she did the things that she did. I will not be able to…

I don’t…

The prisoner has been brought. I wonder at the guards bringing this particular prisoner. She’s a good-looking woman, beautiful even. She is known to me as the daughter of one of Mother’s friends. At one point, there had been some hope that she would find a husband in one of Mother’s sons but she had been too young for Edmund and had shown no interest in either Sam or myself. Something to do with status and requiring a bit more than was offered.

I never found out who was the instigator for that little disappointment in Mother’s life although I suspect that it was her Father filling her head with nonsense. When our status started to rise after Father’s death, Emma once told me that there was some regret there but she had already married a Knight and the two had been happily married since.

She is brought into the room and the circle.

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

Her name is Esmerelda although I know that she hates that name, for pretty much the same reason that I don’t like being called Freddie.

She is trying hard to be brave but she doesn’t have the… I don’t know… The training maybe, to deal with that fear. She is trembling as I look at her.

When I saw her at the Equinox, she wished me a good fortune with the coming nuptials and there seemed to be an element of sadness about her. We had never been close but time and distance seemed to mean that we had more in common with each other and I had promised myself that I would try and find an excuse to introduce her to Ariadne. I have no idea who her husband is other than that she is married.

With the poise and grace of a lady, she refuses to be forced into the ring although the guards have learnt from their past mistakes and they are not untying her bonds.

She dies with a kind of sad resentment on her face.

I wonder why the guards chose her as Sam’s next victim.

Sam is even less pleased, again, examining his hands.

“No,” he said. “No, something is wrong. The most powerful surges in power came when I killed Mother and Mark. But the deaths of Lily and Bronwyn did not…”

He moves on thinking silently. But he is not masking his emotions or his thoughts as well as he possibly should. He is thinking that Mark and Mother gave him power because they were important to him, but so were Bronwyn and Lilly so why did they not have the same…

He is looking at me. His face is brightening. He is full-on smiling now.

“Bring me the priest.” He orders a guard. “Whatever the fuck his name was, the old torturer that was going to perform the ceremony. Whatsisname?”

“Father Jerome,” Trystan tells him.

“That’s the fucker, bearded chap.”

The guards are leaving.

“Do you know what the pattern is Freddie?” he asks me.

“No,” I lied.

“I thought you were always supposed to be the smart one, Freddie.” Sam cackles. “I am getting the most power from those people whose deaths will cause you the most pain.”

“Is that right?” I fight to keep myself calm.

I can feel myself thinking of all the names of those people that are possibly being held as prisoners in the castle. People that I might love and care about that Sam can use.

“Luckily.” Sam is saying, “there are plenty of candidates to choose from.”

Father Jerome enters like a conquering hero. He has fought a bit because there is blood on his face and blood running down his chin. His voice is a new whistling sound that I can only assume comes from having some missing teeth.

‘What’s all this shit then Freddie?” he asks as he comes in and laughs at the people around him.

Flame but I love this man and Sam knows it. I try to keep my voice level but it’s all but impossible.

Jerome looks around at the dead bodies and the dripping blade that is in Sam’s hands and he laughs.

“You’re going to sacrifice me then are you?” He demands, shrugging off the hands of those guards that are trying to hold him. “My soul will do you no good boy, it belongs to the eternal Flame and there’s nothing that you can do to change it.”

Another guard and a critic get to Jerome and start to try and restrain him as he starts to fight them. They punch him in the head and the chest, but he just laughs at them.

This is taking a long time and pride is surging in my chest. Jerome is fighting them. He was always a big man, a former soldier and a warrior of the flame. He bites, he claws, he kicks and drives his head into people’s faces. A couple of the other critics are joining in now. One of the guards emerges from the scuffle with a broken nose, chased by Jerome’s laughter, before snarling and rejoining the fight.

“Do not kill him,” Sam warns. “Do not kill him or you will be the next sacrifice.”

There is a snapping sound, a horrible wet snapping sound followed by a huge bellow from Jerome. Finally, he is brought out, dragged out, over the wall of metal and all but thrown into the circle. For a moment, I hope that the scuffing of everything had damaged the ritual circle and that this will, in turn, damage the ritual but no such luck, the pain seems well settled.

Jerome’s leg is broken, It is bent at almost right angles. I can see blood and bone glinting through the blood.

He sees me and I can see the most dreaded of things in his gaze.

I see pity

“This is not your fault.” He says to me, “Not your fault Freddie, stay strong and…”

And Sam hit him. Jerome laughs again, he is paler now from the blood loss. Sam will need to kill him quickly to beat the blood loss.

“I will pray for you, fool,” Jerome tells him before turning back to me.

“Not your fau…” He tried again before Sam drove his blade into Jerome’s throat, cutting off his words with the bubbling blood.

In an effort of will that would almost be considered superhuman. Jerome pushes himself to his knees, an action that must have been agony. He meets my gaze, winks and then gifts his gaze to the heavens in an attitude of prayer, thus opening his throat wound further.

My chest almost bursts with pride. That was a staggering act of bravery.

“Well, Freddie?” Sam asks. “What do you think?”

I shake my head,

“That was a great man,” I tell him. “You cheapen the world by killing him and the Eternal Fire burns that bit brighter for his presence.”

Sam cackles, mistaking my tears of pride for tears of pain and fear before turning away.

“Fetch the scribe,” Sam tells one of the guards.

I look over at Trystan who looks appalled. I had managed to steal a glance at him during the death of Jerome. He had started to look horrified when Sam threatened their men with death. The thoughtless threat that villains make in stories and Sam gave that speech to someone.

“He’s killing priests now Trystan,” I call to him. “Priests of the Eternal Flame.”

“For Redania.” Sam growls.

Trystan looks at me, looks at Sam again and stiffens to an even firmer form of attention.

I think I have just seen part of a man’s soul die.

I have a new duty now. I must bear witness to the deaths of these good men and women, but I must also remain strong for them. I might be the last friendly face that they see and I need them to look and see that they have a friend, even at this last moment.

They bring Johann out. My poor clerk. I met him when he was just joining the university at the age of sixteen. I found him when…

Poor Johann. He looks half-dead as it is.

At some point, Johann’s mind has just snapped and he wanders into the room, pushed by two of the guards. They barely need to steer him as he moves in the same kind of bewildered daze that Mark was moving in. He blinks at the sight around him, not comprehending or taking it in.

He looks sick, his skin is pale with a green tinge to it and even though it is warm in here, he is sweating profusely. Every so often, as he moves deeper into the room, his legs give way and one of the guards has to catch him. My heart aches as I look at him and I feel…

I feel appalled.

If I had just left him in the gutter where I had found him, then maybe he would have survived this. The Eternal Flame only knows where he would be now, hopefully, he would have been married to some beautiful woman who would appreciate him for his mind rather than the amount of wealth that he didn’t have.

But instead, he is going to die in one of the cellars of Coulthard castle.

I would weep but I don’t have anything left to weep.

The guard passes Johann over the lines of metal and paint to Sam who brings him around to face me.

Johann behaves like some kind of dog following his master. I am getting the feeling that Sam wants to cause him some pain to torment me that little bit more, my torment providing him with some more power for his sick and twisted…

But every time Sam tries to cause him pain to get Johann to do something, Johann just meekly does what he is told.

Sam is trying to speak to me. Trying to tell me that this is all my fault. Trying to tell me that I did all of this. It is a small measure of vengeance to ignore him now and I don’t care if he reads this and becomes enraged.

Fuck you, Sam.

Johann looks immeasurably tired, wide eyes blinking in the torchlight. His hair has thinned since his captivity. There are vomit, blood and sweat stains on the shirt that they gave him when it was first decided that he and I needed looking after. There are other stains as well but I don’t want to think about what they are.

Sam realises that there is nothing that he can do to make this worse for either him or me.

“Do you have any last words for your young protege?” He asks me. The mocking overtones in his voice are gone. I look up at him for a moment. Sam seems calm, his eyes and hands seem steady.

I look back down at Johann and I can see nothing of the boy I knew and the man that he was becoming in the figure before me.

“I am proud,” I told him. “And I am sorry.”

Johann didn’t take it in.

Sam slit his throat quickly. I think that even he is realising that there is little point in prolonging this. That Johann is just a shell of a person now.

For a while, my clerk’s eyes widen in fear and shock at the sudden pain but there is so little holding him to life now that he soon collapses forwards. I put everything I have into holding his gaze for as long as I can. He must take that with him. He must know that there was someone here for him at the end of things. Eventually, I see that light of life leave Johann’s eyes and I finally allow my eyes to look away.

“Children,” I said. “You are killing children for this.”

I heard, rather than saw, Trystan’s weight shifting and Sam’s eyes briefly flickered towards the knight.

“For Redania,” Sam says again.

“If Redania needs this to survive,” I tell him. “Then it doesn’t deserve to continue as a nation.”

Sam ignores that. He was already turning away from me as I finished speaking.

I met Johann in the street, that first winter back from the path with Kerrass. I had parted ways with Kerrass on the docks from Novigrad and taken a barge up the river to get to Oxenfurt. I had been about a week back into the city when I was wandering the streets of Oxenfurt, trying to regain the old feeling I had of the place. I felt lost and out of touch with it all. Looking back it is easy to admit that I was trying to recapture what I had had when I was younger but I had had some of my naivete burnt off me when I was on the path.

Still recovering from the incident at Amber’s crossing, I was still estranged from my family and as such, going to talk it all out with Emma was not possible. So instead, I got back, and secured myself some off-campus lodgings and all but got to work with doing everything that I could. It soon became clear that I was not going to make it as there was simply not enough time for me to get it all done. Not just the leftover chapters of the journal that was growing in popularity at the time, but also the academic texts and essays that my professors wanted to have done.

I remember that I was feeling as though I was drowning under the expectations of everything that was going on and had decided that sitting in my rooms, straining at the paper in front of me was not going to get the work done. So I went for a walk. I intended to get something to eat and something to drink and if I was feeling particularly adventurous, to see if any women might be willing to help me with my frustrations.

Instead, I found a broken-hearted Johann, weeping into the gutter and getting dangerously close to freezing to death.

I exaggerate of course.

We spoke and it was clear that he was suffering from some kind of catastrophe of the romantic variety and didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember feeling very smug and superior as I gave him some advice and gently mocked him for his actions. The root of the problem was that he didn’t have enough money to keep the girl in the manner to which she expected despite Johann’s brilliant mind. And so he had found her in the arms of another man.

I told him I could relate which is possibly the worst thing that I could have said. But in turn, he needed money and it occurred to me, in one of those moments of vodka fuelled insight, that I needed a scribe. I could work much faster if I used shorthand and then he could have a pile of things that he could work on while I headed off back on the path.

He did quite well out of me. He was doing quite well with me and intended to emulate me a bit. He was intending to do for mages what I had done for Witchers in that he was writing to some of them in an attempt to write what mages get up to so that the world could lose some of their fear of that profession.

It was a good idea and I had offered to make some introductions but Johann wanted to do this himself on his own merits.

That and I think he rather found some of the Sorceresses I know to be rather intimidating.

Now he is dead. Fevered, terrified, sick and injured. And at the last, his throat was slit by the man that used to be my brother.

Flame, what a life we lead.

Sam is frowning while he waits for whichever death is going to torment me next. He keeps looking at his hands and flexing them. I think he is pleased by whatever it is that he is seeing.

Periodically, there are still people rushing in to tell Trystan this or that. He has given up trying to get Sam to interact with whatever it is that is going on in the castle itself and is instead, just watching with hollowed eyes. I strain to hear what is being said. Maybe there is some hope there. Maybe there is something else going on.

Maybe.

But in the meantime, nothing is happening and the world becomes that much sadder and bleaker as time goes on.

I feel wretched.

The next victim appears to be…

Well, there it is.

Sir Robart is brought into the hall. I barely recognised him.

I have no idea how long it has been since I last saw him, whimpering on the floor of the room where Sam had brought him to me so that I could slit his throat or otherwise torture him to death. It could be days or it could be months, most likely is the probability that it is weeks. Long enough that I could be infected by the injuries that I incurred that day but also long enough that Laurelen could visit me often enough to keep the infection at bay.

Flame but looks dreadful.

Physically he is still the same except now I can see some of the vanities that he used to take on have fallen away. It is now perfectly clear that he was going bald and that creative comb work had been used to cover it up. His moustache, lacking in wax, hangs limply and pathetically off his face.

It is not funny. I don’t feel any kind of triumph or amusement at this state of affairs.

There is some pity there I suppose. Some pity, a certain amount of remorse.

And disgust. I am disgusted by this display.

Does Sam think that I will be tormented by this death? I might be. It is certainly possible that I might be. But the torment will come from the cruelty in Sam’s actions. Not in the man himself.

Just as Johann was broken and he wasn’t really at home inside his head, something similar has happened to Robart.

I know for a fact that Robart is a trained warrior. I know that Rickard and Kerrass both declared that he was a good duellist and both declared, much to my astonishment, that I would be able to fight him. But I know that he is a trained swordsman. I can say that at least.

But he is not acting like it. He is acting like a frightened animal. Or a frightened child.

He is struggling, thrashing about, flailing around like a crazed beast. Pulling at the implacable arms that hold him and straining against the grips that contain him.

He is weeping, sobbing openly and loudly. My sister would once have described what he was doing as ‘ugly crying’. I don’t feel any kind of victory at this. I feel pity for him and disgust for those people that are putting him through this.

This is awful.

He could do so much more. His feet are unbound so he could kick out at the knees of his guards to get them to buckle. His hands are unbound so he could twist his hands. He might not completely get rid of the grip but he could weaken it to get something else done. His head is still free. He could use that as a battering ram.

But he is not. He is insensible in fear.

There are words in his sobbing. I can hear them now. I had mistaken them for the wails of a broken man but that is not…

“This can’t be happening.” He keeps telling himself.

Again, there is no prolonging this death. The guards pass Robart over the lines and again, I get to see Sam’s burgeoning strength. Despite Robart’s straining and pulling, Sam is barely noticing the effort that is being extended. He just holds Robart easily. His hands and arm are barely moving. The only adjustment that he makes is to twist Robart’s arm behind his back. Not out of necessity, but more out of a generalised need to make life easier for himself.

Using the twisted arm, Sam manoeuvres Robart until he is standing in front of me.

“This killing could have been yours, Freddie,” Sam tells me.

If he thinks that this is a torment, he is sorely mistaken.

I try and catch Robart’s eyes but he is panicking, his eyes everywhere.

This time Sam doesn’t cut his throat. Instead, he stabs Robart somewhere in the back. Wherever he stabbed him, it did not lead to a quick death or a painless one.

Robart continued to stand out of reflex, his hands trying to reach behind him to locate the injury. Then the horror of realisation happened. The moment where the shock kind of seems to wear off and the agony hits you like a wave.

He screamed. Then he drew in another breath and screamed again and again.

But he couldn’t draw breath for another scream.

At first, he staggered, then he fell, trying to move as though he could escape the agony that he was in. As if the agony was an object that he could flee rather than something that was happening directly to him.

This death is lasting ages. I have no idea where it was that Sam stabbed him, but it is awful.

Robart is lying on his side now, his legs kicking so that he keeps moving in a circle.

“Oh end it for him, Sam,” I yell. “For pity’s sake, put him out of his misery.”

Sam is surprised but leans over, grabbing Robart by the hair.

“That was for trying to kill my brother you piece of filth,” he hisses into Robart’s face. “And as you die and move into the next world, remember that it was only by his mercy that you die now. I would have watched you die for hours.”

Then Sam cut Robart’s throat.

And an enemy dies, gasping for breath, still disbelieving what is happening to him.

Sam stands over the body for a handful of moments before bending and wiping his dagger clean on some of Robart’s clothing.

“It could have been you that did that Freddie,” he told me. “You could have been the one that killed your enemy, our enemy even. You could have been the one to destroy Robart de Radford.”

“Some,” I begin thickly before clearing my throat, “would suggest that I already did.”

Sam grunts before looking down. “There are always going to be people like him,” he says. “Men, and women too, who think that they deserve what they have in life. They think that they deserve their power and their status. But when people like you and I work so hard to get to where we are now, they look down on us. That was among the root fears of the cult of the First-Born. They feared those of us that came second, we were against their idea that the firstborn sons were the best so they fear and hate us.”

“Careful Sam,” I tell him. “Careful that you don’t turn into what you hate.”

He looks at me with genuine curiosity so I answer his unspoken question.

“We, you and I, were given most of the things that we have. Wealth, status, power, and rank. All of that was given on the back of Father’s, and Grandfather’s efforts. If we had been born common, would you have been able to join the army at the rank that you had? Would I have been able to have the time to be educated and travel after a Witcher, making friends and falling in love? Just like they did, we stand on the shoulders of our Fathers. And you already feel as though you are entitled to more over those others who feel the same as us. You tell them that they haven’t worked as hard as we have. But what have we honestly worked for? We got to do the things that we do because of our wealth and family. Just as they get to do the things that they do because of their wealth and family.

“You are right, there will always be people like them. But we need to guard ourselves to make sure that we do not become them.”

Sam nodded as he considered my words.

“It is a good argument,” he decides after a while. “And you are not wrong. But should we not enjoy the fruits of Father’s labours?”

“Should they not enjoy the fruits of their ancestor’s labours?” I counter.

“So how do we…?”

“Lord Samuel,” Sir Trystan speaks up. “Although I am also interested in this debate and where it is going, perhaps it would be better served if it took place after the ritual is complete?”

Sam laughs and gestures to Trystan.

“He is afraid,” he tells me.

“He is not the only one.” I reply.

Sam smirks at that before turning to the guards.

“Tell Kristoff that it is time for his vengeance,” he orders.

I see movement out of the corner of my eyes and I can visibly see Trystan beginning to panic. He clears his throat.

“My Lord,” he stops and starts again. “My lord Samuel, Sir Kristoff is currently preparing for the coming attack, surely he would be better off being kept in that…”

As he is speaking, Sam gestures at Trystan with a look of fury on his face. Ariadne appears in front of him and backhands the Knight across the face.

I don’t think she does it particularly hard given that Trystan’s head stays on his shoulders. Nor does he fall down or lose consciousness. Instead, he winces backwards. Three lines appear on his face, black lines that are starting to leak blood.

“I am well aware of the situation.” Sam’s voice is icy cold. “Just as I know that the true battle is in here, not out there. And it was you that suggested minimising…”

He stops and clamps his jaws shut over whatever he was going to say next.

“If you feel the need to go above ground to take Kristoff’s place then you are more than welcome to. I made a promise to Kristoff and that promise will be fulfilled. Just as my promise to every other man under my command.”

Trystan nodded. I longed for him to rebel. I almost thirsted for him to do it. Instead, he lifted his hand to the wounds on his face and examined the blood on his hands. Then he took a cloth from a pouch and dabbed at the wound.

I want to curse him and I want to cheer for him at the same time. I want him to rebel so that we can get out of here but also, I was doing well in keeping Sam talking before Trystan interrupted. And it seems even more likely that what I need to do at the moment is play for time.

Coming attack. Sam is content to wait behind walls which mean that the coming attack is large. Yes, there is the ritual to take into account which means that Sam has to protect his home base. But at the same time, military sense would say to meet on a field of your choice in case of defeat so that you have somewhere that you can retreat to. With a siege, if you lose you lose big.

Father always boasted that Coulthard castle could withstand a siege of immense numerical disparity. He had spent a fortune in turning the once dilapidated castle into a vision of modern siege engineering. I have seen experienced ]military commanders blanche and turn white when they saw it. Father used to enjoy that game and would regularly invite his social enemies to come and witness his siege crews train.

Wait… Something is happening…

Oh no.

.

.

And…

And another friend died.

The cruellest of all things is hope. If my torment is the thing that is powering Sam’s rituals now then I just gave him a lot of power.

The news that there is an attack coming. For the first time since the night that I sat down to dinner with my friends and family on the night of the Autumnal Equinox, the news that there was some kind of attack coming gave me the hope that this might all be over. There might be someone coming, to rescue, relief or whatever.

But it is not coming. Hope is the deadliest thing. It is the hope that will get you killed.

Sam is literally swelling before my eyes now. His eyes glow with a pale blue light. It’s as though there is a light shining behind them so that the blue irises radiate that pale blue.

He used to have nice brown eyes.

His muscles swell and he has grown by a foot. He is powerful in his gestures and he cannot stop laughing. He is giggling as he examines his hands and his arms.

But I can barely think of any of that because of the broken corpse that lies at his feet.

My friend, Rickard Greencloak. Knight and … comrade.

Kristoff had to come through a different door. Sam is now Seven feet tall if he’s an inch but Kristoff is a grotesque shape. He is more of a living suit of armour now although I could see the same pale blue light shining from behind the visor. His voice was metallic and grating and even despite the weight of his armour which must weigh…

I could see from his shoulder pieces that the metal is inches thick and he is wearing chain mail underneath that. He has a sword on his waist that would be a great sword in anyone else’s hands and his dagger is a long sword.

He came in dragging Rickard behind him.

Rickard was laughing.

My friend was in a state. Like Johann, he was obviously injured and sick. He was sweating with a fever, his skull was stark in his face and his muscles were wasting away. How he had the strength that he did, I will never know.

He was missing an arm outright.

Archer and runner. He would never do either again.

And yet, despite all of that, he was laughing as Kristoff dragged him in. He was a feral beast of a man. Almost the opposite end from what Robart had managed to do. Despite his injuries. Rickard was trying to fight, with words and with his feet. I saw him try and get his feet under him to kick Kristoff in the back of the knee twice but the first time, he was pulled off balance by a determined and frustrated tug from Kristoff, and the second time, he might as well have been trying to kick some kind of metal post.

Kristoff towered over everyone in the room and ignored Rickard’s insults.

“So let me get this straight.” Rickard was saying. “You have to maim me, make me sick, feed me swill and you still need to get yourself magically augmented before you will fight me?”

He laughed and I have never been more proud of a man than at that moment.

“Well, what’s this then?” He demanded as he was pulled into the room and looked around himself. “Is this where you fucks all manically suck each other’s cocks, is it. Hello Freddie. You look worse than I do.”

“Rickard,” I said, not trusting my voice to steady.

“Not to worry Freddie.” He tried to kick out at Kristoff again who just ignored him this time. “You introduced me to Shani and for that, I will always be grateful. Tell her I…”

Kristoff cuffed him and he fell, spilling blood and teeth from his face.

“Careful Kristoff.” Sam said. “We don’t want to hurt him too much.”

“Yeah,” Rickard said, coming up from the floor laughing maniacally. “Careful Kristoff. Don’t hurt me too much. And don’t damage my mouth too much either. I would imagine it will be really hard for me to suck your dicks if you break my jaw.”

He spat blood and splintered teeth onto Kristoff’s armour.

“Tell her I love her Freddie.” He told me and then he screamed in agony as Kristoff wrapped his gauntleted hands around Rickard’s neck and lifted him to eye level.

I remember that sensation. I remember when the Elder did this to me. I remember straining and tearing my hands to try and lessen the grip and for a moment, I am back in that cavern and clawing at the impossible grip.

Rickard is doing the same as he dangles from Kristoff’s gauntleted hand.

“I am going to enjoy watching you die. I will enjoy knowing that your filthy, treacherous soul will fuel our assent. I will enjoy knowing that you die in torment.” Kristoff’s voice is like metal grating across stone, but I can still recognise the man beneath the hate.

Kristoff tosses Rickard into the circle at Sam’s feet. Rickard hit one of the bodies that were already there which softened the landing a bit and rolled onto his back.

He heaved himself up, gasping for breath.

“Although,” he gasped. “You should all know, that I always had an interesting reaction to gagging,” he tells the room. “I tend to bite hard down and lock my jaw. One of the gang leaders on the streets of Vizima found that out. Sammy the Eunuch we called him after that.”

Sam reached over and lifted Rickard up by the hair.

“Oh, hello Sammy.” Rickard said before spitting more blood. “Didn’t see you there.”

Sam reflexively let go and Rickard howled with laughter as he fell back. He looked up and saw Trystan. “Hello to you too Trystan,” he said jovially. “I always thought better of you than this.”

Trystan turned away and lifted his hand to his eyes. I wondered how they knew each other.

Sam reached forward and grabbed Rickard by the hair, pulling Rickard to his feet before tilting Rickard’s face to meet his own.

“Give us a kiss will ya?” Rickard’s accent deepened a little at the last.

“No,” Sam said, “I’m going to kill you.”

Rickard shook his head and grimaced.

“I never liked you.” Rickard said.

“That’s a shame.” Sam replied. “You were amongst the finest soldiers I ever saw. I always hoped that we could be friends.”

Then he plunged his dagger into Rickard’s belly before ripping it up and letting go.

The awful smell of torn innards was instant and all-consuming. Rickard fell and looked at the pile of innards that fell out of his belly.

“They always say that it looks like sausages,” he whimpered. “But I disagree, it looks like torn offal.”

He laughed at his own joke before the pain struck him and he groaned.

“Freddie?” He called.

“I’m here Rickard.”

“I loved you like a brother Freddie.” His voice was getting shrill as he fell and curled around his wound.

“I loved you too Rickard.” My voice is not as strong as I wanted it to be.

“Tell Shani I love her and that my last thoughts were of her.”

“I will.”

“And tell her that I died quick, that there was nothing that even she could have done to save me if she had been here.”

“She will know that I am lying.” I try and tell him, trying for a joke.

He laughed through the pain.

“She will, but tell her anyway. And don’t stop loving your Spider-woman.” He screeched. “She’s done her best and we all… Oh, Kreve it hurts.”

“I know Rickard and it won’t…”

But he was dead.

Sam was watching me. I could see it in his face. He wanted rage. He wanted outrage and screaming and dramatic demonstrations of my pain.

I did none of those things. Instead, I spat at his feet and turned my head as far away as I could. But I could not stop the tears from falling.

My tears are still falling at the sound of Sam’s laughter.

Kristoff peers closely at the body of his now-dead enemy before his huge head nods. I have no idea what he is thinking or what is going on inside that head of his but I rather fancy that he enjoyed that.

He turns to leave.

“Well Sam,” I wonder. “Is that enough do you think? Is that enough to slake the thirst of your stupid God?”

“It’s never enough Freddie.” Sam tells me. “You know that. It will never be enough until he escapes his prison. But I have to be sure.”

“How many more people are you going to kill?” I ask. “How many more… There are not that many more that you can kill that will torment me to your satisfaction. Even now they are beginning to blur together.”

“Just any death will do.” Sam tells me. “Even if I just kill random servants that will do. You are soft-hearted brother. You must learn to harden your heart against the pull of compassion. It is not good for you. You need to be strong in the face of it, otherwise, you will always be weeping. Everywhere you look there will be injustice and hatred. You cannot avoid it. Therefore, you must harden your heart or you will always be weeping.”

“I would rather be always weeping.” I told him. “And being without compassion does not make you strong. Compassion can fuel you, it can drive you to far greater lengths than Hatred can. Do you know why?”

“I feel sure that you are going to tell me.” Sam replied with a smirk.

“Because compassion is selfless while hatred is selfish.” I told him.

“Ah but Freddie, I hate the Nilfgaardians and those that took our victory from us. But I do not do what I am doing out of selfishness, I do it out of love for Redania and its people.”

“Do you?” I wondered. “Or do you do it so that you can get the credit for something? Do you do it because you are tired of living in the shadows? Are you tired of having people supersede you? Well, you have the credit now. You are going to have the credit of being the blackest heretic that the North has ever seen. Whichever side wins, you have done that. By the time they are done, the church will have made a saint of Mother and Mark where your name is going to be stripped from the history books.”

“No,” he told me. “It won’t because you are going to write that history book.” I had struck a nerve.

“With what, Sam? I am dying. I can feel it, the infection is going to spread. You have already told me that you are going to heal me. You told me that… You told me that you were going to make everything right but you’ve killed so many people that I love. What could I possibly…?”

I had to take a moment to breathe and recover some equilibrium.

“What could you possibly do, what could you possibly give me to not describe you as the horrific murderer that you are? What could possibly be the alternative?”

“I am going to heal you Freddie.” he told me, “but first I need more power.”

He gestured and a pair of the guards left and I bent over to write about the last moments of Rickard’s life and the small argument that I had with Sam afterwards. The argument that I lost.

I want this all to be over now. But I have no power here. All I can do is watch and note down the things that I see and the things that I can watch Sam doing. I hate it.

I do not have the leverage to get the quill of the pen into anything vital of my own so I can’t even remove myself from the situation.

As Sam ordered, a serving girl is brought in. I say girl but she is older than me. Her name is Sevra and I think she works with linen. She is a big woman and I believe that she was married to one of the guards. She has smile lines in the corner of her eyes.

She tries so very hard to be brave but Sam holds her so that I can see her face before he cuts her throat.

The next man is a trading factor of Emma’s he will have been present at the feast on the night of the Equinox. He is a thin man that I didn’t know before that night and it’s doubtful that I would have remembered his name otherwise. He also tries to be brave but he begs Sam to kill him quickly.

His name was Derrick.

A third girl is brought. This one is another kitchen assistant…

Something is happening.

The guards brought the girl in and passed her to Sam over the circles of Metal and paint. Sam took her, holding her by the hair, placing his boot in the back of their knee so that she fell to her knees with a yelp of pain. But something is different.

Another guard came in and there is something different about him. He seems calmer somehow and he walks into the room with a more assured gaze. I notice him first as he reaches Trystan and passes over a piece of paper.

The movement that I noticed was that he saluted before passing the message over. Something that no other messenger has done before.

Trystan acknowledged the salute before carefully opening the paper and reading it.

The guard stepped backwards. Nearby, but out of sight. Like all good guards and servants do. But there is something about it.

Sam looks over at Trystan, the blade poised ready to kill the weeping girl.

Trystan is still reading.

It would seem that the message is much larger than the others.

“What is it?” Sam asks.

Trystan looks at me significantly before returning his gaze to Sam.

“Oh hang it all,” Sam swears and cuts the girl's throat. He has been in a habit of telling me who his victims are so that the torment can be that much more exquisite, but this time he did so without telling me her name.

She falls, bleeding onto the stone floor, her dead eyes looking at me accusingly.

They are all doing that, those that I can see anyway. Even those that are beginning to film over.

“Don’t mind him.” Sam gestures at me with the dagger. “What does the message say?”

Trystan looks back down at the paper.

“Sir Kristoff begs to report,” he clears his throat and starts again. “Sir Kristoff begs to report that the army of the enemy has arrived at our gate.”

Sam shrugs and turns to gesture to the guards for another victim.

“What we didn’t know was how many of them?” Trystan says.

Sam stops and turns back to Trystan.

“There is a full Nilfgaardian army that has invested us,” Trystan says. “We are surrounded.”

For a moment, Sam looks worried but then the mask settles back over him while Trystan continues to speak.

“Kristoff has seen the banners of the Queen of Skellige, The Empress of Nilfgaard, the Queen Regent of Redania and the Queen of Temeria. There are also banners of the Eternal Flame, Kreve and…”

Sam nodded before tugging at his lip in thought before sniggering.

“Interesting order that he listed those in.” He said before shrugging. “It will take them some time to properly invest and prepare a siege. We have time to further empower the ritual. Tell Kristoff to play for time.”

“According to this, he is.” Trystan waves the paper at his master. He is frightened. “The heralds of the enemy are already riding towards us. Kristoff thinks that the enemy army was hidden by some magic.”

Sam sighs, becoming frustrated.

“Of course, that was going to be the case. The Lodge of Sorceresses and the Council of mages would want to ingratiate themselves with their Empress. This is nothing to worry about. I have already erected a shield of The God, our troops are already worth any ten of theirs on the field let alone behind our walls. We can hold off until we are ready. We have time to further empower…”

“My Lord…” Trystan argues. “The men need to see their commander. We need to start this off with a victory. Our men are new to all of this and their fear of magic is making us shaky, very shaky.”

“Do you doubt my power?” Sam thunders.

I have regularly stated that cliches exist for a reason and Sam has just given in to another one.

“No,” Trystan carefully sets the paper aside. “No, I don’t. But I’ve already seen you withstand a dagger blow that would have killed me. You are stronger and more powerful and I do not doubt your power. But the men under our command do and…”

“Bring me the man that doubts.” Sam’s rage is suddenly huge.

“You and I both know that soldiers are superstitious.” Trystan tries. “And even augmented, they know of the power of the Lodge of Sorceresses. They saw them in battle during the wars just as they saw the power of the South in the wars. But they do not know your power. Show them.”

Sam nods in thought and I wonder if this might be it. I cannot help but admit that my heart surged at the idea that there might be an attack soon. Even though I am well aware of how long a siege can take and I know that Father always took pride in…

Emma also kept up that tradition and we were already well provisioned and…

The guard is moving.

Why is he moving? He should be standing next to Trystan waiting for further orders. Slow movements, steady. He is…

He’s moving around the circle. Where is he moving to?

And why do I feel as though I recognise him?

I must stay calm, I must stay calm. What’s the guard doing? He is at the furthest point away from me that the room allows.

Sam and Trystan are still arguing. Trystan wants Sam to leave the circle and show the troops.

The guard moves. Flame he’s fast.

Steel flashes.

Sam looks down at his side as the leather bag tears apart. Bones clatter onto the floor.

Ariadne screams. It’s horrible. Rage, horror and pain so soul deep that I cannot fathom it.

The guard spins and the blade flashes again as it…

It lands in the chair at my wrists and glory of glory, I feel the ropes loosen. Not much but some is more than none.

The guard spins and gestures. Sparks shoot from his hand scorching the painted circle and the guard rolls away.

He is coming to his feet, still inside the circle of steel.

He is taking his helm off and letting it fall at his side. The uniform he wears is likewise quickly discarded and I see his face for the first time.

But that… can’t be right. I am seeing things. The atmosphere is getting to me. Finally, finally, I am slipping into madness. Finally, I can take refuge in…

The guard, no… the Witcher, laughs as he picks up his own sword of steel and twirls it around the air, making the blade sing.

It’s not possible. I saw him die.

Kerrass?