(Warning: The following contains scenes of the results of torture and the mutilation of people. It also contains an extended discussion with a very damaged person who has been abused in the worst possible ways which has broken them to an extent that is extreme. If you are concerned that this might be upsetting then stop reading after the conversation with Ariadne is concluded)

-

Kerrass and I spent a bit of time talking about what we were going to do next. I hadn't asked him about his religion, his Goddess or any of the new revelations about his mental health. I didn't want to push things on that regard. He had told me that he would talk to me about those things in his own time.

We knew that Rickard was no longer confident in his ability to keep me safe and as such he was intending to turn southwards. Kerrass was arguing that the threat that we were afraid of had been neutralised and so we could continue our journeys.

He had some ideas as to who to talk to about any kind of “old” or “alien” magic starting with the druids of Skellige so we briefly sketched out a plan to head southwards with Sir Rickard and what remained of the bastards. As far as we knew, the greater share of the Elves were going to come with us. Many of them seemed to be intending to take Emma up on her offer of work. I did ask them as to why they no longer felt the need to stay in the area and none of them seemed to have an answer that satisfied, them or me.

Chireadean did suggest that the Elves were disillusioned. That they had believed that they were following the ancient orders of an equally ancient Elven King. The fact that they were provably not, was disappointing to them and so, they no longer felt the need to pursue it. The other option was something that they found quite scary. They were worried that the reason that they had felt so compelled to stay in the area was due to the will of some kind of supernatural entity. The one that we were referring to as Crom Cruarch. They didn't like it. Not at all and as such they were turning their backs on the area.

I had decided not to comment. My only addition was to ask them to delay their departure, as there was still something that I needed them to do.

Ariadne started to show up towards the end of my convalescence.

I was getting to the stage where....How can I put this. I was getting to the stage where I was still sleeping far more than I would normally be entirely comfortable with as I would generally prefer to be up and doing stuff, but otherwise I felt fine. But the Priestess who was still in charge of my care (she hadn't gone to the front with the army, she was still doing various things, including looking after me, and she would be taken up there should her skills be needed. S

he declared regularly and often that “there are plenty of perfectly skilled and talented medics up with the army and one more old woman isn't going to make that much of a difference”. (It bears mentioning that, to my mind, she's somewhere in the region of forty five but I suppose the claim of advanced age is one of those things that can help prevent people from taking advantage of you.) She would regularly declare that I was still not ready to return to a fully active life and would regularly threaten to sit on me or have me tied up if it would prevent me from leaving before she decided that I was entirely ready.

She told me that this was the dangerous part and that my immunity to other illnesses was still dangerously low and that, even though the initial illness had worn off, there were still lingering signs of exhaustion which left me vulnerable. It reminded me of the story that one of the bastards had told me about when you want to run away from the site of a crime that you have committed, the biggest mistake that you can make is to assume that everything is ok and that you have nothing to worry about. That is when you need to be at your most careful.

Not that I had any choice in the matter, Kerrass and Chireadean both conspired with her to ensure that I didn't go anywhere so I had to resign myself to staying still and being ill for a while. Oddly restful but at the same time, since the declaration that we might find what we wanted in Skellige, I wanted to be on my way.

The deadline of my marriage was beginning to loom on my horizon and it was weighing on me that, although it was well over a year away before I would need to come off the road, that didn't include winter where the weather and the snow and ice would prevent serious travel. There was also the problem of travelling time between objectives and I was getting worried that although my wedding seemed a long way away, it would creep up on me when I wasn't watching and then it would be there, in front of me and I would be done for.

I would wake up, eat the breakfast that was put in front of me, lots of meat and bread it seemed to me before working on my writing for a while. Then I would get up and go for a walk, or sit and watch Kerrass train which he was doing obsessively, trying to recapture an elusive “edge” that he felt as though he had lost since having his arms repaired. Something about the enforced idleness of healing as well as the shifting of muscles.

I didn't understand and to be truthful, I didn't even really try to understand. All I knew was that he didn't want me to be training with him, declaring that I still needed to build up my strength before I could start on that kind of thing. I did wonder as to how I was going to set about building up my strength if no-one ever let me do anything but that wasn't a question that he seemed willing to answer.

But as I say, Ariadne started to show up for random visits. She would arrive in camp, still being discreet enough to teleport in some distance away before walking in. She would find me, ask me how I was doing before walking up to the castle and reporting to the garrison what was going on at the front before she would come back to camp. I saw her talking to Chireadean a lot who seemed to be rather intimidated by her. I asked him why once and he told me that he had been aware of talking to a friendly vampire on an intellectual level but when actually confronted with her, his mind was at war with his instincts. He found her polite and charming if a little distant but also felt that his entire body wanted to flee from her while waving his arms in the air and screaming like a banshee.

Then she spent a bit of time talking to the Priestess about my progress before talking to Kerrass and then finally coming back to talk to me which is how I learned about everything that was going on regarding the military actions against the cult. We chatted about various things, including my current family politics which she found utterly stupid and ludicrous. Not without reason I should say. But then she would stare at me for a long time before declaring that it was time for her to go.

I was left with the distinct impression that I had done something to upset her or otherwise annoy her, devoting a not small amount of brain power to trying to think about what it was that I had done. You know, beyond the whole, getting myself captured and making myself sick and things.

I remember that it was dark, night had fallen and I was trying to get my thoughts down onto a piece of paper before turning in for the night. One of the few occasions when I had managed to get some room from the various nannies that were set up around me. I was trying to think about how to talk about what had happened in Cavill's cave complex I think, trying to structure it and figure out what I was trying to say.

Sometimes, the cold recitation of facts is not enough to entice me to write, I am not a remote witness and I certainly wasn't a remote witness at the time. I was emotional, frightened, angry and unresponsive. I was desperately afraid of what was happening and deflecting that fear with humour but I had to get past that and talk about what happened.

I was sat in my shirtsleeves and trousers having taken my boots and socks off. Someone had put a sheepskin rug down on the floor and I enjoyed the decadent feeling of cool air over my toes and the soft, warm fuzziness underneath. I was writing by the light of an oil-lamp. Very probably the same oil lamp that Kerrass had brought into the tent when the two of us had been talking. The one that had sent strange shadows dancing around the interior of the tent.

“I have been thinking,” she said, stepping out of those self-same shadows off to one side of the pavilion.

“Holy Saints.” I swore standing up with a jerk knocking over the stool that I was sat on and sending the oil lamp flying. There was a moment there when I was in real danger but Ariadne sighed and waved her fingers and the flames went out, plunging us into utter darkness.

“Saint Lebioda's testicles.” I said continuing to swear. “The prophets giant hairy ball-sack, what in the name of all that was and is holy did you do that for? Fucking hell.”

Anger, sometimes it is harmful and oppressive but other times it can be a good way of beating back the fear.

Ariadne said something else and a ball of light floated from her hands and up to the top of the pavillion. I found the light oddly cold.

“That was blasphemy wasn't it?” She asked. “I check because I'm not entirely certain as to the difference between a prayer said in fear and anger as opposed to the genuine desire to swear. If it was blasphemy then I suppose that I should chastise you for the blasphemy.”

I was just staring at her. I have learned considerably more about her moods and her ways of thinking since we first met. She looked thoughtful and I had the impression that she was just letting her mouth speak while also thinking around the solution of a problem.

“Chastise me?” I demanded, still feeling the effects of the fear rushing through me. “Chastise me? You were the one that jumped out of the shadows in order to terrify me.” The humour of the moment was starting to catch up with me now. “I should be the one chastising you.”

“Still, I don't think it's entirely appropriate for you to be using that kind of language,” she scolded. “I am newly baptised into the religion of the Eternal Flame and although there are many parts of the scripture that I have problems with, notably the fact that the very belief in the Eternal Flame would cause me to cease to exist, I do not think I should allow you to say such things in my presence.” I saw the first hints of a smile around the corner of her mouth. “I am, after all, an innocent, unmarried woman and I cannot allow this kind of behaviour to be carried out in my presence.”

“Innocent?” I demanded. “Innocent?”

“Leave it Freddie,” she held up a finger in warning.

“Alright,” I said with a smile. “It is good to see you, but could you not sneak up on me like that, please? You scared the crap out of me.”

“I will take the request under advisement.” She declared. “I understand that it is characteristic for men to start to dictate how their wives conduct themselves and I can't say that I am open to such ideas. I think it's important for me to put you in your place and establish the way things will work in our married life as soon as possible.”

“You take all the fun out of things.” I told her.

“Oh, I don't know.” Her smile was broadening now and I began to see the first signs of mischief poking through.

I grinned at her. I had missed her after all.

“So what were you thinking about?” I asked her now that the rush of emotion had flushed it's way out of my system.

She went serious almost instantly.

“Yes,” she said, suddenly frowning in thought. “Well.” Then she nodded as though a decision had finally been made, as though something unpleasant needed to be done and it was best to get the unpleasantness out of the way as soon as possible. “I have come to a decision. It has been made perfectly clear that any medallion or any other kind of charm that I might give you can be broken or taken from you. Odd that it honestly didn't occur to me that someone would do such a thing, but now I think it's vital that certain steps should be taken to prevent this occurrence from ever happening again.”

“Right?”

“Take all your clothes off.”

“What?”

She had already set her staff aside, sat on one of the stools and was pulling her boots off. “Take all your clothes of. Now please, we don't have a great deal of time. I need to be back north before morning.”

“Ariadne, what the fuck?”

“Precisely my point. Take your clothes off please and let's get on with this.”

She started pulling her robes off and stood before me completely naked. Entire parts of my brain stopped working.

No, I'm not going to describe what she looks like other than to say that she took my breath away.

“Ariadne, wait, what are you doing?””

“You're still wearing clothes Freddie, we need you to be naked to get this done.” It was the matter of factness about the way she said this that broke my heart. Not that I was particularly in a mental place to be taking carnal actions but those words just seemed to pour cold water all over whatever there was.

“To....To get...w..w.w....what done?”

“I will not lose you again.” The words were said with a force. It wasn't loud, she didn't yell or shout (Yes, they are two separate things) but at the same time it was as though I had been hit in the face by a gust of wind. The raw emotion made it more forceful.

Looking back it is easy to see that I am not the only person that responds to heights of fear with anger.

“I won't do it Freddie, I won't. They were this close, this close,” she brought her finger and thumb together so that they were barely touching and held it up for my inspection. “to taking you from me. So close that I wake up dreaming about it.” The way she said it made it sound as though she was giving me the punchline to a joke.

She suddenly seemed to be clothed again, wrapped in darkness that was certainly not made out of any kind of cloth. I knew she was still not wearing any clothes as her robe, boots and staff were carefully piled nearby.

“I still can't believe it,” she went on, pacing back and forward, her voice high with amazement, the same tone of voice that I would use to tell an amazing but funny story in the pub. “First that they would try and take you from me but then that you have come back. My reaction to the entire situation is really quite interesting.

“My heart surged when I saw you and it was all I could do not to just teleport us both away with the thought that you would never forgive me if I did that.... That's why I keep coming back to the castle, they don't need reports as to what is going on. Command is in the field and if I have anything to say to them or if they need anything then I would go to where they are. But I can't help it. I need to know where you are and I need to know that you're not in any danger. My reaction is absolutely fascinating.”

She stopped and spun to face me. All the way through that speech she had spoken in the form of a scientist examining different theories about what to do or different things to try. She seemed amazed both at the temerity of the people that had taken the medallion away from me and at her own emotional state.

“Since you reappeared, I've been racking my brains to think of a way that I can keep you safe so that this kind of thing never happens again. Obviously a medallion is useless as, just like the first one, it could easily be taken from you. Maleficent advised me to take you and lock you in a box so that I could take you out when I wanted you.”

I paled a little at the thought. Especially as I still didn't know whether or not she had seriously considered this option.

“In the end though, I thought that that would be needlessly cruel. But I would be lying if I told you that I did not consider it.....I can't lose you again Freddie, I just can't do it. Please don't ask me....” She said it in the same way that you or I would talk about cleaning out our horse's stable. She suddenly reminded me of a much younger Emma, complaining about having to get dressed up to go to the ball that our Father had organised in an effort to attract suitors for her.

I stood up and went to her. Something that I probably should have done some minutes ago.

“It's ok Ariadne, I love you too.”

She looked at me. Her face hadn't changed throughout her little speech, the kind of confused, quizzical expression but now it finally changed. At first she was delighted at my declaration of love, her eyes shone and her lips parted in amazement and happiness, then the fear clouded her eyes again for a dark moment followed by a realisation that I could not identify.

Then she hugged me and pulled me close. Even if I wanted to I don't think there was anything I could have done to stop it. I stood there for a while realising, not for the first time, that Ariadne wasn't actually that tall. It was just her attitude and behaviour that gave the impression that she was much taller than she actually was.

I just held onto her and stroked her hair which felt thick and smooth.

Slowly though, the feel of cloth underneath my other hand began to fade to be replaced by the feeling of smooth skin. I felt my breath shudder in my throat.

“Ariadne?” I said quietly.

“What is it?”

“You're naked.”

“Yes I know. Although there are ways of doing this while being fully clothed, from everything that I have read as well as the experiments that I have performed, it is much easier to have sex with someone when all participants are naked.”

I felt myself begin to grin as well as certain parts of anatomy beginning to react. “Experiments?” I wondered.

“Naturally. It would be the height of stupidity to act on something when you care about the results without first trying things out first. You need to know how everything works after all.”

“Do they?” I cursed my curiosity under my breath.

“As I told you the day when you....” she cleared her throat, “when you proposed. I have already ascertained that vampiric sexual organs, erogenous zones and pleasure centres are tolerably close enough to human equivalents for us to give each other carnal pleasure should we so desire.”

“I do, very much so.” I said after swallowing a few times.

“I had hoped that that would be the case.”

“Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“There was a while there where you looked as though you were clothed again.”

“Really?”

“Felt like it too.”

“Fascinating. It must be some kind of emotional, involuntary response. I really must look into that when I have time.”

“But now you're....” I had to swallow. “very.....naked again.”

“Yes, well, as I say, it's hard to have sex with someone if they're fully clothed. I suppose that I could hitch some skirts up though but you, at least, will need to diverge yourself of your trews.”

“Ariadne... I thought you wanted to wait until...”

“Yes I did. But I am not going to leave you to your own devices anymore. It's not that I don't trust you, or Kerrass but the fact remains that there are people out there that may seek to do you some harm and I cannot, I will not, allow that to happen. I remember from your account that you were told that if you and I had had sexual intercourse then I would have been able to find you no matter what kind of magical defences had been erected. I have investigated the matter and this is correct. Therefore, in order to keep you safe it is absolutely vital that you and I have sex immediately.”

I regularly get letters. Still, even now, after all this time and all the explanations about why I have and why I continue to find her so frightening. I get letters from men, and women to be fair, as to why I don't just have sex with Ariadne and have done with it. I'm not going to go over it again as it's a waste of my time and yours.

In this case though, there was something else going on here that just didn't feel right. I had longed for this woman as I tramped through the countryside, lost, starving and more terrified than I cared to admit. But now that she was standing in front of me, naked and without modesty, there was something about her matter of fact delivery of the declaration that turned me off. She seemed remote then, far away almost and although she was amazingly beautiful. I found that I didn't want to do this.

“But what about....” I faltered. There was still a naked woman in front of me after all. “But what about the need for legitimacy?”

“This is more important than that.”

“What about your new religion?”

“This is more important than that too.”

“But.....” I turned away. The sight of her was doing nothing for my concentration and getting my words in the right order. I took a deep breath. This may have been a mistake as the smell of her nearly overwhelmed me. She smelled of soap, lavender and wonderfully damp spring mornings.

“Honestly Freddie, I would have thought you'd...”

“Please stop talking.” I told her. There must have been some kind of strangled note to my words as she did as I asked.

I sat in silence for a moment, trying to think of what to say. Trying to think of what I was trying to say or what was driving my reluctance. I think that I might have been just as surprised as she was at my own reticence. I had dreamt of the moment that I would stand before a naked Ariadne and that she would invite me to take her into my arms. I had used it as an image to keep myself moving forward when all other enticements had stopped working.

“I remember you telling me about the thing with the erogenous zones.” I said after a while. “I remember wondering what it meant. I was in a fairly heightened emotional state at the time and I remember wondering if that had meant that I was making myself confused and getting things wrong. Entirely possible I suppose but that wasn't the entire thing.

“I remember you telling me that you wanted to wait for our wedding night. I remember you saying that you wanted to wait for that and as such, I kind of locked off that part of me if you know what I mean.”

“I do not. I hope that's ok.” She had sat down, still naked and seemingly able to ignore the cold.

“It's ok. I imagine that there will be many of these conflicts of communication by the time we're done. It means that I have put any kind of sexual desire, for you or for anyone for that matter, to the back of my mind. I haven't done it consciously and I haven't done it deliberately. You told me you wanted to wait and I would do anything to make you happy....”

“But I've changed my mind.”

“Have you?” I asked her. “Have you really?

I risked a look at her. I still found her overwhelming when it was just the two of us. She was sat on the stool, seemingly relaxed, legs crossed, looking prim and proper. But she had her hands clasped together in a pose of what I took for nervousness. Her face seemed calm and collected but I had learned through past and bitter experience that this did not necessarily mean much. She could be calm, or she could be disguising her emotions.

“Here's the thing.” I told her. “I have dreamed about....” I smiled. “exploring your erogenous zones and seeing just what kind of noises you make when I stroke the back of your neck and the small of your back.”

I was rewarded by a smile.

“As well as some of the other sensitive places that might be located around your person. That's one of the things that I enjoy most about the entire process of loving a person physically. The exploration of each others bodies. The fumbling around in the dark and the giggling. I look forward to it and I'm honestly surprised by my reaction here.”

I took care to stare her straight in the eye. Like everyone, I have heard just as much about the ability of an elder vampire to hypnotise and otherwise influence a person by staring at them as anyone else. But trust starts somewhere and I had decided, a while ago actually, that one of the first fears that I needed to get over was the fear of looking the woman that I love, in the eye.

“If you tell me, that you honestly want to go over to that bed and for the two of us to do our damnedest to make sure that other person experiences as much pleasure as they possibly can, then I am up for it. I really am. If you want to see just how much I love you then I am game for it. But if you secretly want to wait, if you would rather wait for a time when we can do this in a proper bed rather than on the floor or on a camping cot.

“When we are properly married and I have bathed recently. When I, for one I'm not sure whether or not Vampires can be anything other than in perfect health, am feeling a bit better and a bit stronger. If you would rather wait for our wedding night when we can take our time. When we can explore each other with care, kindness and attention to detail. Where we don't have to rush. Where we don't have to...be careful that we don't embarrass others or make others be uncomfortable....”

I was running out of words again. Something about the steady way that she has of looking at me, as though she is staring through my eyes rather than into them. As though she goes through my eyes, past my brain and into my soul.

“We can explore more exciting things later.” I told her. We can make love to each other out of doors, in fields, forests and on river-banks. I'm not sure if it's for me but if you want to explore any kind of exhibitionism, if you want to....” I swallowed again. “Try things with restraints and the giving and receiving of control. I'm not sure I'm interested in any kind of “pain” play but....But for our first time. I want it to be special. I want it to be because we both want to do so, not because we feel as though we have to in order to make one or other of us feel that bit safer. I want us to want it. Whether it's on our wedding night, here in my tent or halfway up a mountain in a cave. I want to be wanted.”

I leant forward and knelt before her. “So, Ariadne....what do you want to do?”

She stared at me for a time. I won't lie and pretend that it wasn't a little frustrating to kneel there and wait for a decision but I remembered that she liked to think these things through.

“I.... I don't want to lose you.” She said.

“I know.”

“I don't want to spend all of my time worrying.”

“I know that too. But, and I say this like I'm some kind of old veteran of love despite only really loving you and maybe one other person really. That's what love is. I worry about you every day. I worry that you will grow bored of me, that I will disappoint you and that you will leave me where you found me, or worse. I worry that I've hurt you, not without grounds given what happened in Toussaint. I worry that I might upset you or make you angry at me. I worry that something might take you away from me. Something that I was not prepared for or could not take into account. That you and Maleficent could get into a quarrel and that she decides to incinerate you.”

“I would survive that.”

“I know, but it would take you years to recover and what would I be then?”

She sighed. It seemed like a long drawn out thing that she had been holding in for a long time. “You are correct of course.” She said after a while. “It seems that all I spend my time doing is thinking about you, wondering what you're doing or where you are. And that was before you were captured. You are right, that I want our....first time to be special, leaving aside the societal pressure of things. I want to do this right. But it's the only way that I can think of to guarantee that I can always find you.”

“A medallion won't work?”

“Such things can be countered.”

“Then build a better medallion.” I told her. “Or something similar, a ring or....I don't know....something else and this time I won't talk about it in my journals so that people can prepare for it.”

She smiled then. “I will make you another medallion as well though. I find that I like the idea of you wearing something that I made for you, something that means something to you more than just the fact that I gave it to you. I will think about the other problem.”

I nodded.

“But in the mean time,” she said. “Would you have any objection to holding me close for a while? I'm told that it's one of those things that couples do a lot when they are upset and I want to see if it works.”

“I would not.” I told her. “But would you at least do me one favour.”

“Of course.”

“Please put your clothes back on.”

“Is my nakedness distracting?”

“More than a little.”

“Excellent.”

“Ariadne,” I warned.

“I shall put some clothes on directly.”

She dressed, far too slowly for my liking as I was still struggling to think and accidentally seeing her naked thigh was a little distracting, forcing me to studiously look elsewhere.

We arranged my sheepskin rug on the floor up against a chest that contained some of the supplies for the camp and wrapped ourselves up in a blanket. She did suggest that we do this on the bed but I rather thought that thoughts would lead, inexorably, in one direction and one direction only. I may say that it took us a little time to get the entire process right and to both of our satisfaction.

We started off sitting next to each other but this felt incredibly awkward. Then she rested her head on my shoulder as we talked a bit more which lead, as these things do, to my putting my arm round her shoulder and pulling her closer in. She shifted a bit and wrapped both of her arms round my torso and placed her head against my chest.

“Well?” She asked after a while.

“Well what?”

“Do I....Oh what is the word....snuggle well?”

I laughed.

“I sense that I am being mocked.” She scolded.

“A little.” I admitted. “Are you comfortable?”

“Mostly. I'm not sure that I could keep this position up for long as I'm rather concerned that parts of me would begin to lose their proper circulation. However, it is not unpleasant.”

There was a pause as she seemed to consider this. “I can hear your heartbeat.” She told me.

“That is not the most reassuring thing that you could say in this circumstance.”

“When are you ever going to get over the vampire thing?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes please.”

“I hope to never get over it. It's what makes you special.”

She pulled back and stared at me sceptically.

“Was that what some humans call....a line?”

“Maybe. Was it a good one?”

She harrumphed for an answer and snuggled back down.

“I take it from your response that it was indeed a “good line”.”

She said nothing to this.

“Yes,” she decided after a while. “I could get used to this.”

“Well, in a little over a year, you can do this whenever you like.”

“After we are married you mean?”

“Yes.”

“After we are married.” She told me. “I think we will have far more interesting things to do than to merely snuggle.”

“What do you mean?”

Have you ever heard a vampire laughing suggestively?

I have. It's terrifying.

And arousing. I didn't tell her this at the time but if she had sat up and kissed me then, I'm not sure I would have had the strength of will to resist her. Fortunately for both of us, she changed the subject after that.

“I spoke to Kerrass.” She said.”

“Oh yes.”

“He told me for your plans for the immediate future. Off to Skellige while stopping to see if he can talk to one or two of his other contacts on the subject of this “old and alien” magic that you have been pushed in the direction of. Then he wants to bring you South to visit the battlefield of Brenna.”

“Did he say why?”

“He did not. I thought he would have told you.”

“He has not. Something to look forward to I suppose. Kerrass' mysteries are always good.”

She considered this for a long while before shaking her head. “But anyway. Have you made any plans for the winter yet.”

“No, No I don't think so.”

“I would like you to come and winter with me in Angral. If you don't want to stay under my roof then the Duke and Duchess, or King and Queen if you prefer...”

“Have they not sorted that out yet?”

“No. I rather think that he enjoys not being called King as often any more now that we have more of a presence on the world stage thanks to your works. But his wife rather enjoys being called Queen. She's a nice lady though and she has been a good friend to me. But that's beside the point. If you don't want to stay with me out at the estate in Angral, then I shall speak to the....I suppose that they will be the King and Queen given that they will be in residence at the time, and I will get them to have you as a guest. They will be delighted.”

“Why?”

“Well, you were instrumental in saving them and their....”

“No, I mean....why?”

“Is it too much to suppose that I want to see you?”

“Ariadne, I love you. But you're a Sorceress. You can teleport to wherever I am, whenever you want to see me.”

“True...” She seemed to brighten. “Yes, I can can't I. But that's not it. I want you to see what kind of a life that you will have when you come to live in Angral. Your brother will have Kalayn lands as well as Coulthard lands and I want you to feel as though you're coming home when you come to live with me.”

“Wherever you are, that is my home.”

She pulled back and looked at me again, her eyes searching my face. “Now that was a good line,” she decided after settling back down.

“I meant it.” I told her. I did too.

“Regardless. I want you to meet the house, spend some time there and have the opportunity to spread your legs a bit. The other reason is that it occurs to me that the former Lord Angral was involved in some rather sinister dealings during his efforts to enslave me. It is entirely possible that he might know something, or there might be clues in the area as to this “old and alien” magic that you are looking for. Certainly the magic that he was trying to harness in order to enslave me would fit that description.

“I also want to talk to someone else on the subject and to see if they would be willing to talk to you. It is far from certain so don't get your hopes up. But the individual in question is capricious and so, if they agree to see you, then I would need you to be close by in case they change their mind suddenly.”

I thought about the matter.

“Talk to Emma though would you?” I told her. “This is likely to be Mark's last Yule before he starts properly losing his mind and I don't want to miss that.”

“This is the kind of thing that teleport gates were invented for. But I will discuss and organise the matter with Emma and Laurelen, do not worry on that account.”

I didn't really know how to feel about that, truth to tell I still don't. Even in those years when I had not been living at home I had still been within half a days ride or so. It didn't feel so different to be drinking myself into insensibility in Oxenfurt as opposed to in Castle Coulthard.

It was the feeling of another Era ending I suppose and I wasn't sure I liked it. All of Ariadne's points were valid though. And it would be good to see her and spend some more time with her when things weren't as emotionally tense.

We spent a lot of time talking then. Long into the night. I might have dozed at various points as there were long periods where neither of us said anything. I do know that she left in the early hours when the sky over the Eastern mountains was just beginning to turn a lighter shade of blue. I got to stroke her cheek as she left. Her skin was cool and smooth. I may have imagined things but I thought that my fingertips tingled afterwards.

In the morning I got a thorough scolding from the priestess of Melitele for staying up late when I was supposed to be resting. I argued that I had been resting and spending time with loved ones. She countered with a good old fashioned “is that what they're calling it these days” and made me swallow a mouthful of medicine that tasted like ass.

We were another two days in that place but I was getting anxious for the road by now. I felt as though we had a road forward and I was eager to be on it. This was beautiful countryside but I now found that I hated every peak, tree and rock. I had learned to dread the quiet morning mists and the peaceful sounds of birds in the trees. I found that I reached for a scarf to pull over my face and missed the smells of Kerrass' potion, sharp and acrid though they were.

It was time to leave.

On the second day, I did a small amount of training with Kerrass. We were both rusty and neither of us were satisfied with our performances and we agreed that we would leave on the morning whether the Priestess agreed with me or not.

Fortunately she agreed. More out of a desire to get on with things than anything else. I went up to the castle for the last time as I had no intention of coming back here any time soon. I wanted to see if I could get hold of Sam but I was told by his aides that he was not in residence and it was more than likely that he wouldn't be in residence for some time. I wrote him a quick note to say farewell. I told him that I loved him and that I missed him. That I was grateful for the help that he had given over the last little while but that I couldn't help but be disappointed regarding his actions about the Elves. I hoped that I would see him soon though and that we would have a chance to talk about things. I told him that I would hope to see him around Yule.

I have still not received a reply. Even though it's entirely possible that he hasn't received the letter yet on the grounds that, at the time of writing, the armed forces are still in the field hunting down the last remnants of the cult. But it prays on my mind. I am afraid that I have irreparably damaged my relationship with my brother but try as I might, I can't think of a way that I could have done anything else differently.

Rickard was not needed for the things that I had left to do in this area of the world and we arranged a rendezvous on the road south. Our intention was to travel south together but to split our directions a few days north of Novigrad. He would continue, with as many Elves as wanted to go with him, onto Coulthard lands where he intends to make his intentions known to Shani regarding his future and to take up Emma's offer regarding the future captain of her guard.

Notice I said her guard. Not our guard. He was very careful when he was specifying that.

Kerrass and I took a different path though. Taking those Elves that were still around that hadn't vanished off into the bushes while waiting for my health to recover from whatever it was doing we led our horses through the trees. I had two things left to do. An errand and a conversation.

First I stopped at the old chapel that was Father Gardan's last resting place.

It was guarded now. There were some novices roving over the place, repairing and cleaning it up. Cleaning up the stonework and clearing the ground which led me to wonder what they were going to do with it. As far as I could see the novices were for the Church of the Eternal Flame as well as for the Church of Kreve. They were no more than children and it gladdened my heart a little bit to see them working together side by side. Laughing and joking as they worked. The place deserved a little sunshine.

Father Gardan's grave was guarded. Four knights of the churches. Two of Kreve and Two of the Flame standing at the cardinal compass points. Fully armoured, anonymous in their great helms with their shields on their backs while resting on their sword pommels. They could easily be mistaken for statues except that their robes and vestements were blowing in the wind. I took Gardan's axe from my saddle and walked forwards. Taking as firm a stance as I could I pulled the axe round and brought it whistling down until it bit deep into the earth. He was buried deeper but I thought that he would want to feel it as I brought it home. I walked to one of the knights of Kreve.

“I will be back for the axe.” I told him. “Such a weapon should be used for the betterment of the world, not left to rust here.”

The knight did not move.

“But I wanted them to be reunited, even for a short while before I return for it. They deserve that much.”

This time, the knight nodded. But nothing was said.

We parted ways with the Elves then as they had their own paths to follow. Kerrass and I mounted up and I went off to see my Aunt and the woman who cared for her.

There is something different about a house that contains the dead. A house where something horrible has happened. I couldn't tell you what it is that is different, something about the smell maybe but regardless you can tell when you are approaching a place where something is wrong. Call it instinct born out of experience, call it hypersensitivity or maybe even the fact that the land and the....well....the aura of the palace seems to be scarred in some way. It's the same kind of thing that lends a certain miasma to sick rooms.

I don't know what it was that triggered the instinct in Kerrass and I as we approached the dower house. It was as though the place had lost some of the colour about it in some way. As though the greens of the leaves in the bushes, the colour of the stone and the blue of the sky had just been reduced a little. Turned down like a minstrel who has been told to play quietly so as not to disturb the people eating. We exchanged glances and dismounted.

I felt...disappointed. I was done with the strangeness now. I wanted to go home. Where I was thinking of “home”, I couldn't tell you. I have previously thought of home as being Coulthard castle, my lodgings in Oxenfurt and the open road with a camp fire and the beckoning warmth of a bedroll. All I knew was that I wanted to be gone from this place. Gone from this land altogether.

But it seemed that we were not quite done with horror.

Kerrass clutched his medallion for a moment while I tied the two horses to a tree and drew his steel sword. He grimaced as he drew and rolled his shoulders as he did so. I was just as dismayed as I took my spear from my saddle and twisted the two halves together. I was ready to move again but just the act of drawing my spear and getting ready to use it was enough to make me weary all over again.

I had been so done with horror.

Kerrass led me into the stables first, sniffing the air as he went. He went cautiously and carefully, too used to being ambushed I suppose. More than a little bit tired himself. We ran, quickly across the courtyard to the stables, pushing open the doors gently.

The stench was appalling but oddly bearable. It was that that sickened me. I had become inured to it now. Inured to the sights, sounds and smells of people that have died horribly. There were flies there as well, the horses long gone.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Is that the groom?” I asked. I had not met the man although I knew Kerrass had from the last time that we came here.

“Yes.”

The man had been nailed to the ground, literally nailed to the ground with iron spikes driven through his wrists. That alone must have been agony but I noticed that it had been done in such a way to avoid the major arteries. There was little to no blood underneath those injuries. Nor was there any blood underneath the nails that had been driven through the ankle bones.

No blood in those places but there was plenty of blood elsewhere. He had been tortured to death. First he had been skinned, carefully before having his eyes, teeth, tongue, nails, genitals, nose and ears removed. Then the torturer had gone to work, carefully peeling away the man's flesh. I say carefully because the torturer had managed to avoid any of the serious blood vessels and arteries. You could see his internal organ laying open for us to see. Some of them had been pulled out and piled next to him. Specifically the digestive tract.

I stopped looking then. There were signs of blood bubbles around his mouth and nasal passages so I suspect that his lungs had been punctured as well and that it had been this that had eventually killed him.

Skilled isn't the word for it. This was not a torture designed to gain information. This was a torture of hate. This was a torture of someone who wanted their subject to suffer, and suffer he had. It was impossible to tell how long it had taken him to die.

“The cult?” I asked Kerrass, finding that I wanted it to be the cult. I wanted it to be a known evil, something that we had fought before. Something that we knew how to kill. A few stragglers that had managed to escape the rounding up and the slaughter that was happening in the north even now. It wasn't the cult, the cult take more... I don't know what the word is. The cult take more pleasure in their torture. There is less focus and although the cult knew how to torture someone. They do it with the objective of their own pleasure in mind. This was done to make the subject suffer. I knew all of this, I could see all of this in what had happened here and what had been done to this man. But something in me made me want confirmation from Kerrass.

He shook his head.

“Fuck,” I said sadly.

We scouted the outside of the house to no avail before we carefully pushed inside. We found the cook in a similar state in the pantry. Kerrass sniffed the air, waved to catch my attention and then gestured at the ceiling.

He had heard something upstairs.

We pulled back and he led the way carefully up the stairs. The first room was empty. As was the second.

“You can come in. I am alone and unarmed.” It was a woman's voice, easily recognisable as Ella's voice. She sounded calm and collected. Kerrass ignored her and calmly continued to check the rest of the floor. He left me next to the master bedroom while he searched. We still had seen no sign of Aunt Kalayn but I was no longer hopeful as to her survival. True, there was no longer any sign of the stench that had greeted us when we entered the stables. But I was not hopeful. I edged the door of the room open and I could see the thin form of Ella sat with her back to the door. I looked from left to right but it was hard to see anything else. I waited there until Kerrass gave me a nod before I slowly pushed the door open.

It looked like a sick room, in that it was set up exactly like that. There was the bed in the middle of it with a table nearby along with the numerous bottles and potions that would normally be required for such things. There was even the stereotypical, grieving friend or family member that was sat in a nearby chair next to the sick person, leaning forwards with their hands clasped together while they waited for the person to die.

But that was the end of the similarities. There was none of the smell that I still dream about from my time with my Father while he was dying. There was none of the feel, or the oppressive, close, stuffy nature of that time and place.

Apart from anything else, the windows were open with a flow of fresh air coming through the room, the smells of the distant trees and the various herbs in the air, only the slightest smell of the dead and tortured from the stable and the kitchens. The curtains were pulled back and the room was clean and clear. Bright even.

It was Ella that sat next to the bed, staring at the dead form of Aunt Kalayn that lay there in the room. She was lying back, utterly still with her hands resting across her stomach in that way that makes people look so contented. I noticed that her cane was propped next to the bed and that my aunt was dressed in a fairly standard night robes as though she had just climbed into bed and not woken up.

Kerrass looked around the room carefully, moving past me while I waited just inside the entrance. He checked out the windows and opened the wardrobe before examining the walls and the floor. When he was satisfied he came back, looked to see that I still had my dagger in my belt before nodding.

“Do what you have to.” He told me. “I will wait outside for you.”

I nodded and he left, sheathing his sword as he went.

All the way through this, Ella hadn't moved. Just staring at the dead face of the woman that she had served. She still didn't move as I walked past her and pulled up a chair so that I sat on the other side of the bed opposite her.

We sat in silence for a long time and it was Ella that eventually broke the silence.

“Have you come here to kill me?” She asked quietly.

“I don't know.” I answered. “I didn't come here intending to do so but then again, that was before I found what you had left in the stables and the pantry.”

She didn't say nothing.

“What I want to do,” I told her when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything, “is to ask you “why?” before delivering you for some kind of justice.”

Still no response.

“Having said that,” I went on, “I should tell you that I am physically weakened so if you come after me then there is a good chance that I would not be able to keep from killing you in self defence.”

I waited for what seemed like a long time. There was the scent of pollen on the wind, some flowers turning into their budding season and beginning to be a source of reproduction to each other. A bird started singing and I listened to it wondering, not for the first time, what a little bird might have to sing about.

“Justice,” Ella snarled the word after a while. “What justice is there for someone like me?”

I looked up. I was still very tired and I realised with a little bit of a shock that I had been about to nod off. I considered her question.

“I don't know.” I answered honestly. “Justice is a funny beast. I would like to say that I've been thinking about it a lot, but I really haven't. But I know that it starts with a conversation. It starts when people start telling each other why. Why did they do such things, why did they say such things and why did they behave in those ways.”

She said nothing, still staring at the face of Aunt Kalayn.

“I have been waiting for you.” She said after a long while. “I've been waiting for you since I heard that you killed that snake Cavill..... No that's not entirely true, I think.... I think I've been waiting for you for a lot longer than that. Much longer. Maybe even my entire life.”

She sighed and she finally let her face sink forwards until she was looking at the floor. A sob emerged from her. It was a loud, harsh and racking sound. The kind of sound where you can imagine that it hurts the throat of the person that makes it.

I waited as patiently as I could manage for her to finish. It took a long time.

“Holy fire Ella but what did they do to you?”

She laughed bitterly. “Do you know, from anyone else, that question might drive me into a rage. What did they do to me? They did everything to me. Everything. There is not a single thing that I haven't been forced to endure, not a single part of me that is clean and unsoiled. Not a single part of me....what did they do to me?”

She laughed again and it was, despite the sight of what I had seen in the stables and found in the pantry, it was the first time that it crossed my mind that this woman might have lost her mind.

“They broke me.” She told me after the fit of laughter had passed. “They broke me so utterly and completely that there is simply no opportunity to put me back together again. I was so utterly shattered that I might as well be dust. Just dust, blowing in the winds of change, hatred and lust.”

I considered my next question carefully. She had lifted her eyes again so that she was looking at the still, grey face of Aunt Kalayn. Her eyes were red but I could see no wetness there.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why can I get away with asking these questions?”

“I read your book.” She told me. “You told me last time you were here that you had been tortured. I have been told that kind of bullshit before and so I wanted to know if you actually know what you're talking about or whether it was just the normal kind of one-downmanship that people like to play.”

“One-downmanship?”

“That thing. “I had it hard because my mother never loved me.” “Well at least your father never beat you,” “Did your father use a whip to beat you though,” “I never had a father, I was given to a relative. He beat me.” A constant race to the bottom where everyone complains and competes over who had the shittiest life.

They are all shit. Everyone has a shitty life and everyone is damaged by it. Everyone. Including me.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“But I read your book. You really have been tortured haven't you.”

“Yes.”

“And scarred.”

“Physically and mentally.”

She nodded and sat, staring into the face of Aunt Kalayn for a long time. “I held on for as long as I could after they took me. For as long as I could. I have no way of proving that but I held out for as long as I could. I can't even tell you how long it was that I held out. I would like to think it was years before they,” she swallowed, “before they finally broke me. I would like to think it was a long time. I want to believe that I staved things off for that long. But I was underground and there was no possible way that I could tell what happened or how long it took.”

I said nothing. Not for the first time I was being exposed to the truth that sooner or later, people want to tell you their story and that if you leave them alone for long enough, they will tell it. Indeed, sometimes, the difficulty comes from getting them to stop telling you it.

“But in the end I broke.”

“Everyone breaks.” I told her. “It's just a matter of time. I can say that, not just from my own perspective but also from having spoken to a professional torturer and interrogator.”

“But I didn't just break. I shattered.”

There was another long period of silence after that.

“Do you know what it was that broke me?” She asked after a little while. “I had been in those caves that I suppose you must have been kept in for some time if Cavill got his claws into you. I had been tied to a rack and tortured, raped and the rest of it. There was not a single bone in my body that hadn't been broken or an inch of my skin that they had left alone. I won't make any stupid claims, I had tried ending my own life but they were well aware of the risks of that kind of thing and easily prevented me from doing so.”

She was rambling but I just let her speak.

“The thing that broke me. The thing that unmade me and finally broke me down was a small cup of clean water.”

She shook her head and I wondered if I imagined seeing the first tears fall.

“Words cannot describe what it tasted like after all of the awful things that they had given me. After the blood and the urine and the human milk and the....other fluids. Just a clean cup of water and a smile. I have no idea what made the man do that.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“I have no idea. It wasn't Cavill, your uncle or anyone you will have ever meet. This happened, I would guess, long before you were even an itch in your Father's britches. Just some random cultist I suppose. I don't remember seeing his face before or after that. They wore hoods you see, the torturers and the rapists. All I can say is that my body was aching, my skin was on fire and I would have given anything to be allowed to just die. But then he came round the.... the apparatus that I was tied to. Just the relief of not having something done to me was...overwhelming. I heard a liquid being poured into a cup. Then he gently tipped my head so that I could drink and smiled at me gently. “Here,” he said, “you look as though you could do with some water.” He gave me the drink and nectar from the Gods would not have tasted so good.

“Suddenly I was weeping. I must have wept before in the pain or the humiliation, but this was something else. He unshackled my arms and took me in his arms and I wept for a long time. When I finally stopped he pulled away, “ready to get back to it?” He asked me and suddenly I was begging him. Something had shifted in me and I couldn't take it any more. I just couldn't and I begged until I was hoarse. He just looked at me. I remembered that...He just stood there and looked down at me for the longest time. His eyes looked kind.

It's the bizarrest thing, the very strangest thing to fall in love with the man that is torturing you.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Yes. Many many times. I recognised his voiceHe became my sole torturer but the way he did it seemed to shift. It was no longer about my pain any more. It was a different kind of torture. He started to overwhelm me. It was....The closest thing that I can think of to describing it would be that it was like that we loved each other. It makes me sick to think of it and I know, up here,” she gestured at her head, “that he was still torturing me and manipulating me, but suddenly all I wanted to do was to please him. All I wanted to do. Because when I turned him down, or when I tried to resist in any way, then the pain came back and I just couldn't take it any more. I just couldn't....stand it. Pain that I had previously been able to stand was suddenly overwhelming and I just couldn't stand it.

“And it all started with that small cup of water.

“He was my torturer for years and I became his slave in all things. I loved him you see.”

She looked up at me and this time I knew that I could see tears in her eyes.

“Come to that, I love him still and I hate myself for it.”

“Why not hate him instead?”

“Because I can't. I've tried. I've really tried. He must be long dead by now. If not by your hands then by the hands of age as this all happened years ago. But I still love him and I would do anything at all for him. I hate the rest of them with every fibre of my being. I would, and have, tortured them all to death until what's left of them goes screaming into whatever hell awaits them, but I still love him and I can't stop. Even now. All for the price of a cup of water.”

This time the tears really did start to fall.

“After everything they did to me, after everything he did to me, I still love him. It's like a sickness, a disease that infests me from the inside out. Something inside me just snapped when he gave me that cup of water and showed me just a hint of kindness, no matter how feigned it might be.”

She bared her teeth in a snarl and started to get angry. “Now matter how feigned it probably was. No matter how much he must have laughed to his superiors and how much he must have told the story to his mates about the fact that all he had to do to keep this Elven slut happy was to give her some water and then she would let him do all of these....things to her.

“Because then the torture shifted to the inflicting of pleasure.”

They give you lessons, when you're learning how to transcribe things. When you're trying to note down all kinds of horrific details. They teach you how to keep yourself distant from the “subject”. They actually teach you to refer to the person that you're interviewing as “subject” for a start. I've listened to people who have described the horrible things that were done to them by monsters, horrible things that were done to them by people and children crying about the giant creature that came down from the sky and killed their favourite pet sheep. I've been able to maintain that distance and note down the things that they have said for academic purposes as well as for these stories.

Sometimes it's been difficult. Not gonna lie, maintaining my distance when talking to the Princess Dorn when she woke up is a big example. Nor will I lie and try to claim that I've always been successful when my family has been concerned. But when sat, listening to someone describe the things that they have been through, my success rate is pretty high.

It was shaken when she said that. That torture could shift from the inflicting of pain to the inflicting of pleasure. It had never occurred to me that that could even be done. But of course it can. As Ella went on to tell.

“Flames embrace.” I breathed. I don't know whether I was praying or swearing. Possibly some kind of mixture of the two I suppose.

“Almost literally,” she told me. “I'm a herbalist and a healer. So I know the truth of what I've just said. Without taking a person's psychology into account as to how much a person might enjoy pain, they are the same nerves that carry the pain signals to the brain as are the ones that carry the pleasure impulses. The very literal truth of “Pain is so close to pleasure,” because it really is the case. So that's what they did to me.”

She winced before gritting her teeth.

“That's what he did to me. You seem like a good man and from reading your book, you are a charmingly normal person sexually speaking with just a small harmless amount of kink in your sexual make-up. You enjoy giving pleasure for the pleasure's sake. But what they did to me was.... degrading in the extreme and I would be lying if I claimed that I didn't enjoy a bit of it. The body can be fooled you see and if you fool the body into that kind of thing then it can be implicit in the fooling of the brain.

“All the way through, what was actually happening was that I was being trained. My entire body, my entire being was being trained towards the service of the men that were doing those....things to me. I had been raped many times since I had been captured. So many times that they seemed to blur together. But that had been something that they did to my body. Now they were raping my mind.”

She shuddered at the thought of it and her eyes seemed to become a little glazed and she started breathing heavily.

“But here was the distinction. The lack of pain was a reward for no longer resisting their influence, for not disobeying. I became so well trained at that that even the thought of disobeying their orders now causes me intense physical pain.”

She gritted her teeth and whimpered as she said that, her skin went pale and sweat started to stand out on her forehead. Again, there was another effort for her to pull herself back under control.

“But there was another response that they were training into me. For taking some initiative, for doing things off my own thought that I believed that they might want me to do. That was rewarded with pleasure. There was still pain there but I had been trained to enjoy it and I did. And I loved them for it.

“Even while I also hated them for that same thing.”

She took a moment to calm herself. I don't know what she had been feeling during that time but it looked to have been intense, whatever it was.

“So that became my being. It got to the point where I, now, no longer feel pain except when I'm either actively disobeying orders of the cult, or pleasure when I'm coming up with new ways to make their lives better. My skin actively feels as though it's on fire just sitting here talking to you. But they also tied the one to the other so that it became clear that in my head, not offering to come up with things to help them was disobeying.” She hung her head for a long while as she wept.

I wanted to do something. That kind of mute, admittedly male, reaction that sometimes comes over people that have been brought up according to some of the knightly virtues. I wanted to comfort the woman. I instinctively knew that trying to embrace her or to put a comforting hand on her shoulders or similar would, obviously, be intrusive and unwelcome. But then I realised that I was considering offering her something to drink.

Maybe a cup of water.

I wanted to vomit.

“Tell me about how it worked,” I said after letting her purge her emotions for a while. “I know that you were the one that provided them with their poisons that they used to keep the populace cowed and our soldiers easy to influence. I also think that it was you that kept the cult informed as to new people that came here. The travelling merchants and the new settlers that weren't following the rules.”

“Why do you want to know?” she hissed, the hate returning to her voice. “Is it because I've possibly triggered a trace of sympathy somewhere in your soul and now you want to return to hating me?”

It was not an invalid question. No matter how much she tried to hurt me with it and I took a bit of time to consider.

“No,” I said eventually, “No I don't think so.”

She looked sceptical, as well she might. “You are an intelligent and educated woman.” I continued, “you would have to be in order to do the things that you do but also in order to keep your....actions...”

“Call it how it is,” she hissed through a shudder and gritted teeth. “My betrayal of the local people.”

“Very well. In order to keep your betrayal of the local people secret. So I knew that there had to be a reason that you have done all the things that you have done. I will admit that I barely understand the reason and that it is more horrible than anything that I could have imagined.”

She stopped shuddering and nodded, hanging her head.

“But this is part of an action to tear out the cult by the roots.” I went on. “I'm not putting you on trial here. I just want to know. It's a scholars lot to try and see everything from every perspective in order to find the truth.”

She looked up at me sharply.

“No,” I said. “I'm not going to discuss the nature of truth, objective, subjective or otherwise. I always hated philosophy lectures for that reason.”

She actually laughed. A short bark of laughter that seemed harsh and unpleasant. As though it was something that hadn't been done for a long time. Which I suppose it hadn't. She certainly seemed to be surprised by it.

“There's actually not all that much to it.” She said after a while. “They wanted something to inspire fear which is a basic instinctual response. It's about triggering the right chemicals in the brain so doing that is easy. They wanted it to be air-borne and they wanted it to be done in a way that their own people could also be immune to it. All of that is relatively elementary.

“Then I added something to alter people's perceptions so that rather than it just being an instinctual fear response which would result in a fight or flight mechanic, I also wanted the....” she sighed and some of the....stubbornness left her, as though she slumped a little. “I suppose I should say that my victims would see what they were most afraid of when they looked at the cultists coming to get them. All of that is relatively easy. After that, it was simply a case of making it stronger, more condensed and easy to deliver.”

She laughed again, much more bitterly than before.

“I was absurdly pleased with myself that I managed to get that done.” She shivered. “I was always the private plaything of whichever bastard was in charge of the cult after I had been “properly conditioned” and had “proven my usefullness”. Before Cavill it was your uncle, the prime bastard Kalayn himself. Before that it was Old Lord Sutch-cliffe and before that it was Lord Cavill again, the current....sorry, the most recent Lord Cavill's Great Grandfather I think. I was like their personal chemist. Inventing new and interesting ways to make it so that the body could take more, more pain, more pleasure, so that the cultists could have their own feelings of pleasure and power heightened. So that they could feel their,” her mouth twisted. “So they could feel the presence of their God that much easier.”

She shuddered again. In the same way that some people have many different smiles that convey a vast array of emotions, Kerrass being a good example of this and from everything I've read Queen Calanthe of Cintra was another, Ella had a vast array of shudders. Some spoke of horrible memories, some spoke of remembered pain but still others were less identifiable. Some looked as though she was currently in pain and still more suggested that she was....well....not. I didn't ask though. It felt even more intrusive.

“But I'm a herbalist. One of those things that people do when they're herbalists is that they heal people. They look after people. So I did so.

“I did so and then I kept doing so and for the first time, in what felt like forever I started to feel good about myself.”

She had gone back to staring at Aunt Kalayn's face again, elbows resting on her knees and hands clasped in front of her mouth.

“You'll forgive me,” I began, “if it seems as though you didn't enjoy that.”

“No, I didn't.” She admitted. “It made me literally sick to my stomach. The first time that a woman thanked me for healing their children I got dizzy and sick. I just made it outside of their room before I vomited violently into the nearest bushes. I vomited so hard that I passed out and the villagers assumed that I carried some kind of disease. It did not go well.

“I tried again and again. But it wasn't working. The cult was giving me autonomy but I was so....conditioned that I always, always went crawling back to them. On my hands and knees. I couldn't control it. I just couldn't.”

She took a moment to calm her voice. “I honestly don't remember the first time that I betrayed the villagers. I almost wish that I did. So that I could, I don't know, atone is the wrong word because how could I possibly atone for what I've done. But I suppose that part of it would be to actually feel the guilt over that first time. I would also like to know what it was that tipped me over that edge.”

“Why?”

“It feels as though it's significant. All I had done up to that point was to corrupt myself, to shift my own feelings and my own behaviours more towards the deviant side of things. I had only corrupted and hurt myself.”

“You gave them the narcotics to heighten their... I'm gonna say “desires”,”

“Yes, but they didn't have to take them, or use them to inflict pain on others.”

“You also gave them the gasses that were used to torment the villagers and the farmers.”

“Yes. Again, yes I did. But again, they didn't have to use them. I was just practising my craft. Poison making is integral to the Alchemist's craft. You would be surprised how many poisons are actually beneficial in certain quantites and how many medicines can be used to kill someone. Do other craftsmen feel guilty about the things they make if they are carried by soldiers who march to war?”

I took a long time to think about my response. “In my experience, it depends on the craftsman.”

She grimaced at that. “You know, my urge is to tell you that you can't possibly know what it was like, you can't possibly know how it is to be broken on the wheel of torture, of the physical and mental torment that you can be put through in order to corrupt yourself. But you do, don't you.”

“Yes I do. But the situation here is different. I can at least admit that. I was tortured to, and beyond, my breaking point by a creature. I understand that calling it a demon is technically incorrect, but a creature of untold power. I also know that the things that it did to me and the things that it made me see, and do, happened in a different perception of the world. In a different place, created by it. This was done to you by people.” I shook my head. “I have no idea what you went through Ella. No idea. I am also well aware that suicide...”

“I was kept from it. I was prevented from doing that. There were many times that I just wanted to die. I tried hurling myself onto the implements in order to kill myself. I tried to make them hate me in order to be too rough and kill me the quicker. I tried all of those things, but they were too good at what they did and I was never successful. They had other healers and herbalists. They had mages and Sorcerers to prevent their chosen subjects from dying.”

I let that hang in the air for a moment before responding.

“I was going to say that I was well aware that suicide is often impossible to victims of torture, especially at the hands of a skilled torturer who is not up against any kind of time limit. Who can take his time with the way they do things. I'm saying “he” but I am just as aware that a torturer can be female.”

“And Elven.” She said. “A torturer can be Elven.”

I felt a chill go down my spine. “I take it you are talking from personal experience there?”

“Yes. I know you found the gardener in the stables and the cook.”

She shivered again in a way that made me uncomfortable.

“Did you hate them so very much?” I asked.

“In more ways than it's easy to say.”

I nodded and filed that piece of information away. “But we are getting ahead of ourselves.” I told her. “And I have another question. Did it ever occur to you that the cult lied to you? I am well aware that the mind hides things from ourselves when it wants to. That it will forget traumatic memories but is it not also a possibility that you simply didn't betray those villagers that first time and the cult told you that you did in an effort to get you to take the next step. That you had already betrayed the people once so you might as well do it again in return for the offered reward.”

“You forget that I actually got, and still get, physical pleasure from the thought of helping the cult out of my own initiative.” She told me with another shiver. “But yes, the thought has occurred to me. On more than one occasion.”

“And?”

“And, I already know that the cult is evil. In as much as anyone can be evil. They are corrupt and corrupting and.... I remember you quoting someone at some point when you said that the most evil act that can be performed is forcing another to perform an evil act.”

“Yes.”

“Then this cult is evil and I am living proof of that. Even if they did con me, even if those actions were coerced, I still performed the later atrocities off my own initiative,” She said the word as though it was some kind of poison. Her lips twisting in distaste as she spoke.

I nodded. She seemed rather set on self-loathing and might react violently if I pushed her on the fault of the cult rather than her own fault.

“Then, another question. Why haven't you taken.... steps to end your own life since you gained your own autonomy?”

“Are you saying I should have?” She reacted oddly, somewhere between anger, hurt and something else that I couldn't identify.

“No,” I answered truthfully. “If you've read my work then you will also know that part of the point of being a historian is to be objective and to not let my own personal feelings get in the way of such thoughts. I won't lie, sometimes it has been difficult and when all this is over I might find that I hate you, rage at you or even feel pity. But for right now?” I left that last unfinished.

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. “When is it most difficult?”

“To remain objective?”

She nodded.

“When it deals with my own family or loved ones. Then I tend to get emotional.”

She nodded again. “Just don't pity me, I don't deserve it.”

“My pity is my own to bestow where I wish and is not yours to command.” I chided her, with as little emotional inflection to my voice as I could manage. “Look, you might not know this but I've been ill and I'm still really tired. If I go and get some water will you still be here when I get back?”

She nodded.

“And if I bring a cup for you, would you take it as my being taught to offer other people in the room refreshment whenever I go and get some for myself. This rather than any kind of effort to manipulate you?”

“I will try,” she seemed to appreciate the humour of my statement while also letting some tears fall.

As I went and found water and some small wine to purify it, I took my time as I marvelled at the maze that she had to walk. Warring with her own body and brain. I also took the time to remind myself at all the horror that she had been part of.

When I returned to the room, I could tell she had been crying and I left the cup on the table next to her elbow rather than trying to give it to her directly. I felt as though I was handling a delicate glass sculpture and that if I mishandled it then it would fall and shatter into a thousand pieces.

“So let's talk about some specifics?” I began.

“If you like?”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“I was based to the North before Kalayn became the head of the cult which is when I was moved here and started setting myself up.”

“When did that happen?”

“Maybe forty years ago. I remember your mother and all of the horrible things that they did to her. I invented the drugs that they used to keep her docile. I was there when your Uncle was inducted into the cult and I was there when he was made into the high priest after his father. I was there.....through everything.”

“Did they....Did they make you watch?”

“All the time. Your Grandfather was an old man, even when he was a young one. He.... How should I put this. I don't think he was particularly cruel. He just did things because that was the way they had always been done. He was the one who took hold of things and started to use my drugs to properly subdue their victims. It had been used in the past for people like me and for the children of the houses who needed to be inducted into the cult. But in general it was very rarely used. He was aware that the world was growing up I think, growing up and growing smaller and that sooner or later someone would remember that his corner of the world was remote and easily convertible to the....he called them “new-fangled and trendy religions”.”

I nodded, that was in line with what Mother had said about him.

“Your uncle was the same. He enjoyed the rites and enjoyed the power that it gave him. He....got off on it more than his father did. But he had a notable lack of ambition for the cult. You can see that after a while if you work amongst them. When the grotesque becomes normal you see the degrees in the level of monsterdom.”

I remembered having a similar sentiment, not all that long ago.

“I don't think your uncle would have bothered really if he hadn't been high priest. I think he would have quite enjoyed raping his sister, his wife and any other people that came near him that he had power over while being off his face on whatever chemicals I could invent.

“Your cousin though? That man was a monster.”

“Who was my aunt, before she came here I mean?”

“I don't know, she never really talked to me back then. She came to the then Lord Kalayn from his contacts, probably in return for the money and for proven fertility. The problem was that she was provably good at giving birth to daughters. So when she finally managed to give her husband a son, he almost went berserk with paternal pride. Lavishing everything on his son that he could want, training a true son of the cult in the process.”

“What happened there?”

“I think....I think someone got into your cousins ear. I don't know who it was although I always that it was your brother. But he started wanting more. He was no longer satisfied with the little things, the small orgasms. He didn't understand that one of the things that heightens pleasure as well as pain, is the anticipation of the act. He just didn't get that and started to become all about the climax.”

She smirked. “Typical man.”

I laughed, I couldn't help it.

“He had a colossal fight with his father and Lord Cavill.”

“Cavill was involved?”

“Yes. He was starting to become big in the cult towards the north. A true believer and, given that Kalayn didn't have any first-born sons and Cavill, at the time, did. It was thought by many, including me, that Cavill was inching towards being in charge of the cult.”

“You were correct as it turns out.”

“Yes. I wonder if it was Cavill that finally had your Uncle killed.”

“Cavill? We were told that Uncle Kalayn went mad with grief and anger and jumped onto the pyre that was burning his son.”

She snorted. “Would never have happened. Your uncle was far too self-absorbed to do that kind of thing.”

I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am that you are sat here opposite me. Although, I should say that I have taken a lot of hallucinogenics in my time and as a result I'm not entirely certain that the sky is up and that I am not a giant Lobster monster.”

“Oh Good.”

“Lord Kalayn, your uncle, was a self-absorbed madman who liked to look into mirrors when he raped his victims. That includes me. He liked us to look up at him and tell him how beautiful he was. How clever and wonderful and marvellous. To him, he was the most important person in the universe. Far more important than his son, his wife, his sister and anyone around him. As far as he was concerned, he should have been the God-King Emperor of all of existence and was actually quite angry at the rest of the world that he wasn't.

“There is no way he would have thrown himself onto his son's pyre. No way at all. He would have fought in order to save his son's life but after the son was dead, he would have shrugged, serviced another woman and produced another heir. He would have been able to do so as well. He was not young but with enough chemical help from people like me, he would have been able to get someone pregnant.”

“Not his wife.”

“Goddess no. Her reproductive organs, same as mine, are so utterly destroyed by the many and varied torments that they have been put through that getting pregnant is all but impossible. And the chances of giving birth would be even less likely let alone giving birth to a fully healthy and.... able child. His wife would have “died” and then she would have been replaced by whichever of his various lovers, by which I mean victims, managed to give birth first. This would probably happen fairly quickly all things considered and she may even be rewarded with a quick death if the child would be male.”

“Flame.”

“Not quite what I was going to say.”

“But everything we were told about what happened back there was that he killed himself. In despair.”

“Never happened. I wasn't there. But it never happened.”

I got up. Not out of any kind of anger or disdain but more as a kind of physical reaction. “Well this is a whole new thing now.” I walked over to the window. I could see rain clouds over the mountains and I found that I almost wanted to feel the rain on my face.

I walked back to my chair.

“You look shocked.” She told me, looking as amused as I had ever seen her.

“Do you know who might have done it?”

“You're asking me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you are the only person that might have something to say on the matter. You are also the only member of the cult who I can trust to tell me the truth.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.

She seemed to think of that a little while. “Really.”

I let her mull that around for a while. “So what do you think happened?”

“I....um....I.” She swallowed and took a drink from the cup that I had left out for her. It was not lost on me that she took a sniff, then dipped her finger in it and examined the liquid on the end of her finger before taking a sip and breathing the air through the liquid before spitting into a plant pot. But then she took a sip. “I suppose... I think he was killed. If I had to choose someone, I would have thought that it might be another member of the cult. Someone who wanted to curry favour with Lord Cavill by removing a competitor.”

She was watching me though, carefully.

“Do you know who it was?” I asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “No.”

“Ok then.” I wanted to believe her. “So Uncle Kalayn was Lord Cavill's predecessor to the High-Priesthood?”

“Yes,” She instantly seemed more comfortable.

“That means that he was only the High Priest for a little while. I had the impression that he had been the High Priest for years.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“Do you know, I can't remember.”

“He would have. It might even be true for all I know by that point. Lord Kalayn was a useless High Priest, speaking as someone who hates all of them put together. Objectively, Lord Cavill was a better High Priest and yes, he was High Priest in all but name long before Lord Kalayn died. It wouldn't surprise me if Cavill was wearing the ceremonial head dress long before Kalayn was killed. He was certainly giving me orders and not taking no for an answer. He had taken over “handling” me.”

“By that you mean....”

“Everything that you can imagine. I was working for him. Giving him the chemicals and passing on the information on to him that I discovered.”

“Why didn't you go with him to where he lived?”

“I don't know. Part of it was that they were concerned that Cavill's son would kill me during one of his rampages. He didn't like the prospect that someone might have been more important to “the cause” than he was, especially a woman. But also, I hated him and Cavill was that bit more paranoid. Also, all my stuff was here, we knew that your brother was going to arrive and take over the Lordship of Kalayn and as such it was deemed prudent that the best agent to the cult would stay here, regardless of whatever else was going on.”

“So you stayed here?”

“Yes.”

“I forgot to ask. Why did my Cousin leave?”

“He was bored. He wanted the orgasm without doing the work. He enjoyed the torture without understanding that it was the lead up to things that made that work. He was joined by a lot of the younger sons. Truth be told, I think you can analyse it and say that your Cousin is more responsible for the destruction of the cult than you are. Without his leaving, your other brother would have been less likely to be corrupted. Without you finding him, then he would have continued in place until he was eventually caught and killed. Without his death, your uncle would have continued, your brother would not have inherited and no-one would have known that the cult was even here. It would have continued to exist in this small out of the way place for years to come.”

I thought about this. “It tracks.”

“It does. He left to form his own cult in his own image. And it destroyed everything.”

I nodded and drank my water for a while.

“So you were the cult's agent in this area?”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “Did you tell the cult that we were here?” I didn't look at her.

“I did. But I didn't have to. They already knew.”

“How did they know?”

“I have no idea.”

I nodded to that.

“Did you tell them our plans?”

“No. I wouldn't have known. To save you some time. I told them about when I was expecting visitors and who I was expecting.”

“That was why they knew to attack the churchmen and kill Inquisitor Hacha.”

“Yes. Although it wasn't targeted at him. They wanted to hurt you in order to hurt you and to see how you would react when they punched you in the face. They honestly thought they had you on the back foot there and had you beaten.”

I looked back up at her. She was looking at Aunt Kalayn's face again.

“They almost did.” I told her. “Kerrass was the one that figured it out.”

“Yes, I'm pleased that he did. He was the first person ever that figured it out, the way round the poison.”

“It wasn't much of an alternative.”

“But even so. I worked hard on that poison in order to make it as powerful and potent and useful as the cult wanted but the more powerful you make a poison, the more likely it is to degrade or have a really simple sidestep or antidote. Which is why the race in Poison making is towards making it as deadly as possible so that it kills as quickly as possible before someone can counter it. Most commonly by diluting it.”

“Did you get in trouble when they realised that we had countered it?”

“No, they didn't have time.” Her smile turned feral. “I had warned them about the danger of someone figuring out a way to work round it many times. I even told them how it would be done. It requires someone to sit down and actually think rather than reacting to what was happening to them because of the poison.”

“And Kerrass did.”

“Yes he did and I was so pleased. Pleased enough that I spent the day that I heard about it puking my guts up through the giggles.”

“As I recall, we got you to come down and help people.”

“You did. And you also may recall that I came in my own time in order to not be puking my guts up as I came.”

“We had captives.”

“Yes you did.”

“They died.”

“Yes they did.”

“Did you help them on their way?”

“Yes I did.”

“Why?”

She shifted her eyes towards me. For the first time I saw through her eyes and saw the broken....thing underneath. The thing beneath the knowledge that what had happened was wrong. The thing that lived beneath the knowledge that she was a woman. I saw the thing that the cult had created, the broken, damaged....monster.

I wondered if I should kill her.

“Because I did.” She told me. “Because the cult wanted me to. Because it helped them, because it protected me as they might be able to tell you who I was and how important I was. Because I saw myself in them and if our positions were reversed I would have begged for whatever painless herbs that I could be given. But most of all, I did it because I did it and I couldn't have done other than what I did.”

“You knew who I was?”

“Yes.”

“We were the good guys.”

“Were you?”

I was horrified. “We were not members of the cult.”

“And how was I to know that.”

“So why didn't you help us. We could have stopped all of this, we could have saved so many people.”

“Maybe.”

“Fucking hell Ella, we could have saved you.”

“No,” She said, “No you couldn't.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“Did you tell Cavill that we were coming?”

“No. He knew you were coming anyway.”

“How?”

“I don't know that either. Funnily enough, Cavill doesn't really include me in his thinking. I didn't give you away. I don't know everything that I have done for the cult. I don't, and the reason for that is because they broke me so completely that I don't recognise myself when I look in a reflective surface. But the reason that I know I didn't give you away is because, like Cavill, you didn't include me in your thinking.”

She was breathing heavily and was plainly furious but I couldn't help it. “How do I know that?”

“I'm a traitor.” She said. “I am a sickening thing that I wouldn't spit on if I found myself lying by the road on fire. But I didn't betray you. I didn't have to. From everything I've heard, you did well enough on that by yourself. Marching up to people you've never met before and announcing your name and what you were doing. Even when you were being covert you are the brother of the man that has just taken over Kalayn castle. You didn't hide that. You didn't come in disguise. You announced yourself and they had plenty of time to research you, to look you up and find out what you were doing and what you were like and how you would behave in any given situation.

“I've read your book, I know exactly how to break you if I was to torture you. Exactly how to do it and you announce it for everyone to see and hear. Of course they knew you were coming. It's written in every line that you have ever written, in everything that you have ever said. You would not let this lie. It is the thing that you should be proud of most and the thing that you should protect yourself from, as it will, it will get you killed. It is not a monster that will kill you. It is not some wild thing in the dark or some, unimagined enemy. The thing that will kill you will be the person closest to you and that will happen because you do not see it coming.”

I breathed in and out for a moment as I realised that I had gotten angry as well.

“So we won.” I told her.

“Yes you did. And after puking my guts up until I literally bled at the same time as screaming in pain and pleasure at the same time, I began to get used to the idea.”

“I have to know something.”

“Ok?”

“Did you prevent us from being found?”

“No. I was ordered to let people know if you were sighted but other than that it was felt that I would better serve by ingratiating myself with all the newcomers to the area and see if there was anyone worth...converting.”

I leant forward. “Was there?”

She looked me dead in the eyes. “Many, many people.”

“I see.”

“I even reported some of their names but shortly after I did so, you killed Lord Cavill.”

“As a matter of fact I didn't but that's beside the point. Who did you report?”

She gritted her teeth and started breathing heavily. “I....I can't....”

She literally almost screamed.

“Alright that's enough.”

She stopped gasping for air and started sucking down great gulps of the stuff.

“Just for the record, and I don't like the fact that I can say this kind of thing, but you know that the churches have people who could make you talk.”

“Yes they do, but you're assuming that I wouldn't enjoy all the stuff that they would do to me.” She hissed it. I guessed that she was saying it to try and hurt me. But I had a different weapon.

“Is that a literal thing or are you just saying that?” I asked her.

“Disobedience causes me pain. Denying knowledge to your churches would be something that would benefit the cult. That would give me pleasure, circumventing the physical pain that they would inflict.... Also, is there anything that they could do to me that hasn't already been done to me? Also, how do you know that the people that I would be talking to are above the feelings of being corrupted by what they're doing?”

“I wouldn't. Indeed it has been said many times that some of those people do it because they enjoy it a little too much. But, I'm told by the very best person I know at asking questions, that they only need a knife and.... a cup of water.”

“They are possibly correct in that.”

“So who did you tell.”

“The Gardner.”

“The one that's currently nailed to the floor in the stables.”

“The very one.”

“Is that why he's nailed to the floor in the stables?”

“One of the many......many reasons why he's nailed to the floor in the stables.”

“What are the others?”

She stared into the distance for a while.

“Everything I said last time you were here is true. Everything. I was in the castle when we learned that Lord Kalayn had died. We knew that your brother was coming and we knew what we were supposed to do. Most of the servants fled. I can't blame them for that, if I could have done so I would have to. I tried, twice. Once I made it as far as the stables before being overcome with nausea and cramps. Odd that I could leave the castle for the purpose of healing someone in the next village over but leaving for my own purposes?”

She shook her head.

“But I was so broken that I couldn't leave. So the Countess Kalayn, myself and the two remaining true believers decamped to the Dower house.”

She leant back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Tell me what you think happened. A woman, older than her years and losing her mind due to the truly ridiculous amount of narcotics that she has been given over the many years that she has been a victim of her husband and, through him, the cult. And me, the young looking and pliable elven woman. Locked in a prison of duty and damage with two true believing cultists.”

I shuddered. “I can't imagine that it would have been pretty.”

“It was not. Fortunately for everyone, including me, they were chosen, primarily for their utter lack of ambition and intelligence. Which meant, in turn, that they had an utter lack of imagination. As abuses go, I've had considerably worse. And then you turned up.”

She made it sound like she was discussing dinner.

“So we stayed here. Doing our bit and just waiting for things to go by.”

“And then we won,”

“And then you won.”

“Did you know about the Elves in the woods?”

She shuddered. “Yes.”

“Did it influence you in any way?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What could I do? By the dint of extraordinary effort I managed to keep myself confined to only reporting on the groups whereabouts when I knew where they were. I could have, for instance, told the cult about the Elven resistance to pain and their ability to bend in areas and in directions that humans are unable to. If they knew that those talents were not confined to just me, they might have taken steps. It took everything I had. Everything. I. Had. To keep from giving them that information.”

I said nothing. I was trying to get my head round what she just told me. Trying to imagine a world where it would take me a lot more effort to merely not pass information on.

“So what happened?”

“You won. The others didn't know what to do. But I knew exactly what to do and it was everything that I could have dreamed. I could stop them from talking and take my revenge on those two men. I could take my vengeance out on the cult that did this to me.”

“Did you enjoy it?” I tried to say it with as little emotion as possible. I saw a tear roll down her cheek. “Yes. Yes I did. Goddess help me but I did.”

“So what happens now?”

“Tell me about Aunt Kalayn. Was she part of the cult?”

“As part of the cult as anyone could be and still be a woman.”

I nodded. “So what does that mean?”

“It means that I hate her too.”

“But you told me that you loved her.”

“That too.”

“That she kept you safe?”

“She did.”

“But you hate her?”

“Remember the cup of water? An act of kindness is what broke me. How to put this... I was once tied to a table, being raped with the pommel of a dagger and another man was choking me out because he was getting off on it. Your aunt was on the next table, drugged out of her mind so that she could feel no pain. She was in a privileged position which meant that they weren't allowed to go too far with her. She looked over and in her utterly dead voice, she told them that I was important too. Not that she was successful, but she did draw the attention of those that could give orders and prevent me from being strangled. In doing so... she saved my life that day, and the same way in many other days. Not just because I kept her in narcotics. I could have died that day and how many people would still be alive today if I had died.”

“There's no way to know that. They have, or had I'm unsure on the details, a powerful mage.”

Notably she shuddered at that. “Yes they do. That man needs to die.” She gagged at the thought. “But I still hate this woman.”

“And yet you poisoned her to death when you saw us riding up instead of taking your time to torture her.”

“Yes I did.”

“Why?”

“Because she is old and damaged and as much of a victim as I am. She is responsible for so much horror but is she guilty?”

She shook her head. “I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that this is something that was done to her and as a result she shouldn't have to be tied to a different torture table why you and people that you admire try and get everything out of her that they can.”

“The cult is dead.”

“Is it? You didn't get the mage did you.”

“No,” I admitted. “No we did not.”

“I thought not. You didn't use a past tense when you talked about him. So while someone lives, or escapes, the cult will continue. Especially the mage.”

“So why poison? Why not torture her to death like you did the others?”

“Because she saved my life.”

“But that's why you hate her.”

“Welcome to what it's like living in my head.”

We sat in silence for a long time. I sat and stared at the floor for a long time.

“Is there.... Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Many things.”

“Are you going to tell me any of them?”

“I don't think I can.”

I nodded and went back to staring at the floor.

“I have to ask this as well. Did you ever try to kill yourself?”

“I tried. Once I even managed to consume the poison, but the nausea that it caused added to the pain that I was already feeling for the disobedience made me vomit it straight back up. My throat bled for a week.”

I nodded again. This time I found something out of the window to draw my gaze.

“So there's nothing else that you want to ask me?” She asked after a long while.

“I suspect that there are many things that I should be asking you, but for the life of me I can't think of any of them.”

“So,” she stood up and her movement drew my eye. She was still looking down at the body of her former mistress. “Is this where you condemn me and take me off to be tried and hanged?”

I considered. “No,” I told her. “No I don't think so.”

“Oh,” she sat down heavily and seemed to crumple in on herself. “I rather thought that I was a condemned woman.”

“I don't think it's my place to do that.” I continued. “I don't think.... I don't.....”

I tried to get my words into the right order. “I don't think I can condemn you.” I told her. “I really can't.”

She sat heavily and was weeping.

“Ella look at me.”

She looked up.

“You did what you had to do to survive. And I find I can't condemn you for that, no matter how awful those things were and how many lives have been lost because you....because they warped you so badly. I look at you and I find that I think of you in the same way that I think of some kind of engine of war. You are like a sword that someone has forged for their own purposes. Could you have done other than you did?”

She was openly weeping now. “I don't know,” she wailed through the tears and the anger and the hate. “I should have. I should have told you everything when you arrived. I should have saved those people and I should have kept those two things out there alive for someone to question. But I couldn't. It would hurt the cult and I couldn't let that happen. I hate myself every day because of that.”

“Did you try though?”

“I don't know that either. I think so.”

“Then there is that at least.” I sighed. “So I am not inclined to condemn you. But the things that you have done were fucking awful and I can't let you go.”

She nodded and her head sank back down.

“Come on.” I told her.

“Can you give me a minute to say good bye?”

“Are you going to end your life?”

“No, You might have destroyed the cult as I know it. But my death would still harm them if they do come back for me, they would still need me. You may trust that their orders that I should resist my own death will hold for some time at least.”

I nodded.

“Then I shall wait outside the door for you.”

She was about ten minutes before she came out and we walked down the stairs.

“I do have another question though.” I told her. “Why didn't you go to your people. You knew that they were around, couldn't they have helped you?”

“Have you heard nothing that I've just said?”

“You misunderstand.” I told her. “You're an intelligent woman, Elves get sick, could you not have gone to them and told them what was going on and ask them to help. Even if they had to hit you over the head to get you away.”

“I just couldn't.” She said. “If I left, the first place that the cult would go to look for me would be in amongst the Elven refugees. After everything I'd done, they would condemn me more assuredly than the villagers would?”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I am not so certain.” I told her. “But what do you want?”

“Honestly? I was expecting to be judged today. I was expecting to leave here in chains to be judged.”

“And maybe you should, but as I say, I don't feel as though I can do that.”

We left the house, she was looking around the building, pain written over her face.

“I just want this to be over,” She said after a long while as we walked out of the door into the house.

“I'm not going to kill you.” I told her.

“I'm a monster though. Maybe your Witcher friend?”

“He would....I'm unsure on what his response would be. He knows what I intend to do though.”

“And what do you intend?”

“I think you've had enough of human society for a while. I think you should be with your people.”

I gestured.

Chireadean and the dozen or so remaining Elves were waiting at the treeline. As I had asked them to be. They looked over at the pair of us and watched us steadily.

“They will reject me. I betrayed them too.”

“Maybe. Maybe they will be able to condemn you in the way that you want to be condemned, in which case they have promised me that you will be killed quickly, if that's what they decide to do after hearing your story. I just know that I can't do it. But I know that you should talk to them and maybe they can help you. Either way.” I shrugged.

“I can't....”

“Ask yourself this. Wouldn't it piss the cult off if you went off with your people. I don't know but I understand that most of those Elves intend to leave this place and go far away.”

“It would.”

“Then don't you want to do that?”

She surprised me by vomiting over in one of the plant pots. “I really do.” She said as she fought down the shuddering that seemed to consume her body.

“Then they are just over there.” I told her. “But I can't make you walk over to them.”

She nodded, trembling.

I watched her as she struggled with her own body before realising that I wasn't helping. I turned and looked at the rain clouds. It was definitely going to rain, a proper rain fall like the night under the boulder where I had my revelations.

I heard a step behind me, it was a gentle foot fall but it was followed by another one followed by the sound of some more retching.

But then, crucially, there was another step.

“Lord Frederick?”

I turned and she was looking at me. Vomit stained dress and all.

“Thank you Lord Frederick.”

“You're welcome.”

“But I meant what I said. You're greatest weakness is the people beside you. They are the treats that you need to be careful about and it will be someone you never considered that kills you. Please be careful.”

“I will.”

“She tried to warn you you know.”

“Who did?”

“Your Aunt. She tried to tell you....” A spasm of pain crossed her face. “I can't....I just.....I'm still in their grip.”

“It's ok. I'll figure it out.”

“You won't though. That's the point.”

Then she fled. Away from me and in the direction of the Elves.

I stayed where I was. I didn't watch what happened when she got to the Elves. I didn't want to see that. I didn't want to know what happened. I desperately wanted to believe that she could be saved. I desperately wanted to believe that she could climb out of the hole that she had been thrown into. I wanted it so desperately.

What I didn't know was whether or not she deserved it.

So yes, I passed it off into the hands of another. Some might call that cowardly and maybe it is.

Chireadean and his fellows rejoined Kerrass, Rickard and myself on the march South. We had pitched a camp just outside of Kalayn lands where we fished and hunted for our food and waited a couple of days with them. Chireadean didn't tell me what had happened with Ella and I didn't ask. A few of the other Elves had also gone their own way so we were left with Chireadean and another nine or so Elves. Including Carys, the angry Elven woman, which stunned me rigid.

I would like to think that Ella went with those remaining Elves. I would like to think that she made it out of North Eastern Redania and found a place to settle down and practice her craft or find another one. I would like to think that she will find some measure of peace there. Or, if she is dead and her spirit has left it's former shell. Then I hope that she finds some peace there too.

But I cannot condemn her. I don't feel that I have the right to.

(A/N: That's it. That's the end of this story arc. By far the longest that I've written for this story. Thanks for sticking with it and I hope that you will enjoy the future adventures. I get to go back to writing now so I'm afraid there will be a short wait before the next chapter. How short? *shrug*)