QUARTZ 9.14: NECESSITIES

“I am the marsh that stretches beyond the horizon. I am the gluttony that can never be satiated. I am the void that grows between words and minds. I am Lady Emptiness.”

– from the Utenyan Creed

It was almost worse, to have lived through it. To have survived. To know that all the excuses made for actions taken in the thick of the night would disintegrate in the harsh light of day. I didn’t want that exposure. I didn’t want what came next. For every grain of courage in me there was a dollop of cowardice. Now that the Incursion was done, I wanted it back. I wanted the false night to go on forever. To fight, and die, and be done.

Yet I was granted a reprieve. The Mourning Bells fell silent; the clamour of the skies finally abated. Lightning stuttered and stopped. Screaming winds softened to moans, then gasps, dying whispers. And the darkness peeled back to reveal a pink sunset on the horizon.

It wasn’t day that greeted me with its lancing, penetrating gaze. Evening had already fallen. Twilight chased the skyline and the stars were racing out, burning fiercely in their proper places once again. The airs upon which they floated were no longer black; instead the constellations twinkled like surf, diamonds rocking atop a deep sea’s dark-blue waves.

Not today. Tonight is mine.

I followed the line of the Greywater, looking back at the city’s white walls.

Tomorrow’s when it’ll all happen.

“I wonder what it’ll be like,” I said, hardly even realising the words were coming out of my mouth. Sometimes, in spite of everything, I missed Zel.

“What do you mean?” Tanra’s voice.

Orstrum… I’m going to miss you.

Emrelet. What is it, to be here, to be this, without you?

“Kas – the crown’s done something to you. Where did you put it?”

I came back to myself, focussed my attention on the agitated seeress floating before me.

“What do you mean, where did I put it? I threw it! It’s lost!”

Netherhame nodded, lips pressed firmly together.

“Why?” I went on. “What’s it done?”

Nightfell was shaking her head. “There’s a… a Shadow on you still. Something I can’t – can’t see through. Kas!” There was lunacy, dangerous desperation in her voice. “Kas, she’s marked you! This didn’t happen when you took it off before. I can’t –”

She reached out, grabbing at my hand as if by pure reflex.

I only felt amused. Smiling, I made the hand a bit more substantial, so she could grip it.

“It’s okay!” I tried to sound as reassuring as I could while she passed her free hand over my head, as if to check the crown was really gone. “I feel… free. Hopefully it’ll just… fade.”

Or hopefully not…

“I still can’t link you, either,” Spirit huffed. He had his own worried, critical look on his face while he stared at me.

To be fair, being excluded from telepathic links was a significant hindrance. Perhaps there really was something to their concern.

“If anything, we should send more imps in to search for it. Not for me,” I immediately followed up, Nightfell slashing at me with her lunatic gaze. “To make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“Let’s leave that for others to accomplish, then, why don’t we,” she said.

“Like who? Valorin? Some magister with their grubby –“

“I know the location,” Ly said. “Me and Min’ll do it.”

Shallowlie nodded eagerly, though I got the impression her enthusiasm had more to do with stopping the argument than any actual desire to participate in the recovery effort.

“Fine. Good by me. Great.” I sighed. “So, we’re going back to the city?”

Affirmations rippled out from all but one.

I glanced over at the impassive Ironvine. “Nothing to say? You just killed some seriously high-ranked fiends today.”

The wizard shrugged, not even glancing in my direction. She was staring off at the ocean.

“They got in my way,” she said. It sounded like she was sneering.

I cast about at the others – no one seemed to want to comment.

“I like the attitude,” I said at last. “Congratulations, anyway. You’re the latest Saviour of Mund.”

“I don’t need riches,” she replied in the same voice, still not looking at any of the rest of us. It couldn’t have been plainer she was already wealthy; she didn’t need to say that. “I don’t need thanks. However… I’ll be here. When you need me.”

With that the enigmatic wizard suddenly dropped away, her floating rock plummeting at a steadily-increasing pace that didn’t abate as the earth loomed beneath her; she sank straight into it, swallowed up by the grass with barely a sound to mark her passage into the ground. She might as well have been a nethernal creature.

“Droppin’ highborn,” Spirit said.

I chuckled dryly.

“Come on,” Nightfell said. “Let’s go home. The spells she put on us won’t last forever, and I’d rather not run.”

“Bit tired?” I enquired as we started soaring westwards.

“Bit,” she replied.

“Need someone to carry you?”

I grinned, then, when she glanced at me, I pointed to Bor.

“He looks strong.”

“Yeah, thanks,” the enchanter commented.

“There really wasn’t ever anything going on between us, you know,” I said to him. “You – and Tanra – you really worked together. I’m sorry, about how everything happened. We –“ I glanced at Nightfell “– I never wanted any of this.”

“None of us did.”

There was such deep sorrow in his voice, going far beyond anything pertaining to our shared history, that I didn’t know how to reply. We’d all lost people, and he knew he wasn’t alone in grieving. My siblings were still alive, however. The exact nature of his pain – the severity of it – I could only imagine. Yet the silence that settled over us was comfortable. He didn’t speak again until we parted ways – none of us did, that I could hear. Whether he was communicating silently with someone, I had no idea. I suspected not.

It felt okay.

Maybe they’d have my back, if things with the Magisterium went sour quickly.

Maybe.

* * *

Out of the lot of us, only two of us were heading the direction of Sticktown. I found myself once again flying at her side. My dearest friend was back. Earlier, she’d felt more like a stranger than ever before but now? Now everything was normal again.

As normal as Killstop got, anyway.

“I knew you’d take it off, you know.”

“I thought you couldn’t know something like that…”

She was shaking her head at my side. “Not with my head. But my heart? I knew, all along. You couldn’t be hers. Not my Feychilde.”

“Yours? And after what I was saying to Bor…”

The white streaks in her hair suited her. I couldn’t deny that I found her attractive. Whether I was just being stupid, drawn in by her vulnerability… whether I’d simply forgotten what it was like to be around her…

I wouldn’t be drawn in. She was still a kid, still insolent and annoying for all the gravity she could invoke with her solemn pronouncements.

“The darkness – it wants us to walk alone.”

She spoke – she pronounced – and I shivered.

“It had plans for us,” she went on, “and we broke them. You walk with me. We pierce the future together. It is the Way of Light.”

I looked at her for a long time, soaring beside her.

“So, there’s one person in Mund who still thinks I’m trustworthy. Thanks, Tanra.”

I really hoped it was really her.

Nightfell laughed. “Not just one person. I think you’d be surprised. You… you grew up too fast, Kas. As soon as your parents died, you strapped their shoes on your feet and carried on with business. It was a lot to take on, even before the whole champion ordeal.”

“That’s how you think of it now?” I cast her another sidelong glance as we slipped through the night sky. “Being a champion was an ordeal?”

“That’s how anyone without a skewed world-view should look at it. We’re dropping insane, Kas, by any ordinary standards. You’ve always seemed a bit different. You’ve got that – that level of maturity few can approach. That’s what lets you laugh at yourself. That’s what lets arch-diviners trust you with power. That’s what let you take off the crown, in the end.”

“Maturity,” I said heavily. “I don’t think I’d call it that.”

She smiled. “It’s real maturity. The kind you have to learn, the hard way. You can’t just… age into it. Believe me. There are those who drink milk their whole lives.” She waved at the mutilated city tossing and turning beneath us as we soared. “Where will you go now?”

I blinked. “Well, I really need to find my brother and sister,” I said, “then go see Xan before I drop of exhaustion.”

“Matur-ity,” she sang mockingly.

I grimaced. “I need to talk to her about – what happened. Mud Lane’s gone and she… I left her here, you know?”

Nightfell patted my arm, her palm sinking into my bicep like it was a made of mud.

“She’s done fine. She’s been helping Garet, you know. And he’s been helping her. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the two of them will…”

“What? Take over the crime-world of Sticktown?”

“Take it from Ana? Oh, no. It’s more personal than that.”

“They’ll… become lovers?”

“Oh, I think they’re past that stage. Yes, definitely. I think I sense a proposal on the horizon.”

“A… marriage proposal?”

“Well, yeah!”

“From Garet?”

She sighed at me. “Do you think everyone’s some simple creature? Nothing below the surface at all?”

“Well – the simple ones, sure.”

“There aren’t any simple ones. Not like that. It’s stubbornness, that’s all. That’s what you’re mistaking for soullessness.”

“Hey, I didn’t say he was soulless, okay? I was just surprised he’s going to… you know!”

“You think just because you’ve got some shadow of Mother-Chaos hanging over you, I don’t know what you’re like.”

“You’re so not used to this, are you? You think you can just, like, pronounce things, and have them be right, just by dint of your track record. Well not with me, sister.”

She laughed. “Not yet, maybe. I wonder how long the… shadow thing… is going to last.”

Then, just as I replied, she said it along with me:

“Not long enough.“

We both chuckled.

“The shadow’s already fading, then?” I asked. “I mean –“

She tossed her head, giving me an arch look. “Not one bit. I told you. I just know you.”

“So… it really is you?”

Tanra nodded.

“Where’s your other half, then?”

“She’s visiting Mum.”

I saw the briefest flash of consternation cross her brow before she managed to reel in her reactions, forehead smoothing again almost instantly.

“You trust her to do that?”

“She’s… she needs it, Kas. The normalcy. She needs to be me, at least a while longer. I don’t think you see just how good this is for us. For the city – the Realm! To have her on our side…”

“What’s it like?”

She stiffened. “You mean…” She looked away.

“Being… Everseer.” I grimaced. “Yeah. That.”

“What she did to me… it taught me a lot about myself. I know it’s in me now. The same killer that’s in her. You. Everyone.”

She fell silent. I caught her glancing over the streets below, many of them crowded with those searching for loved ones, making futile rescue-efforts in piles of rubble.

I could sense the corpses.

I returned my focus to her face as we continued flying on our way. “The same killer,” I said, “but you didn’t let it win. You didn’t die.”

She shook her head. “Killstop lives on.” The old resolute smile came to her lips. “It’ll take more than weeks of torture and a complete psychic restructuring to do away with that one.”

“She’s a tough bit o’ crust.”

She laughed again. “It’s good to have you back, Kas. Really.”

“It’s good to be back. Or, at least, it feels that way, right now.”

“You do realise you’re like, the only person in the world who could arrive in Mund mid-Incursion and still think that, right?”

“May-beeee. I’m pretty sure if it’d been you exiled, you’d have been glad to get back when I did. It was a hell of a welcome-home party.”

We flew in silence for half a minute, and I found myself just enjoying this comfortable quiet. If this was Vardae, it no longer mattered. You couldn’t tell from the outside.

Two Tanras… Of all the people to double…

“You see their faces?” she asked suddenly, sullenly.

I halted, looked fully upon her.

Deep inside, the eyes that were Wellsprings of incalculable power were haunted. Harrowed beyond my ability to comprehend.

The breath caught in my throat, regarding her in such distress, knowing just how hard she must’ve been fighting to keep her true feelings submerged.

My voice cracked on the reply. “I don’t know if I ever won’t.”

“Neither do I.”

She was too scared to even try to see.

Tanra thrust herself into me and I hurriedly fixed my state, bringing her into my broken embrace while she sobbed into my chest.

“It’s alright,” I said, trying to comfort her as she’d once comforted me. “It’ll be alright now. We’ll fix everything, remember?”

I looked out at the city. The ruined pockets were more widespread than ever before. Maybe a fifth of the city had been levelled. Maybe less, maybe more – but whatever numbers they came up with, it looked bad.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Maybe we’ll just… start tomorrow, eh?”

She laughed into my chest, clinging to me, and I knew she would be alright again.

* * *

“This is one damn-nice set up you got here,” I said from behind the door.

Garet nodded to me slowly, the concern in his dull eyes sharpening as I spoke the words. He stood at the side of the doorway, leaning against the frame. The big lump had his top off, exposing the ridiculously-huge arms and shoulders; a double-wrapping of bandage covered his chest, where some scorching spell had seared away his flesh. Not that something like that would be much of a problem to someone with his resources. Lean on an inkatra-user, get an infusion of druid-healing from somewhere… However bad the injury was beneath the bandage, he didn’t look that worse for wear.

I put my lips close to the pine door again.

“C’mon, Xan. It’s me. No illusions.”

“Kassy?” I heard a voice from inside, but it wasn’t Xan.

“Xassy?”

“Mum! Mummy, Kassy here! Mummy. Open the door!”

“Stop it! Shut up! Shut up…”

“Illodin’s tears! I’m coming in.”

Garet recoiled immediately, stepping aside from the doorway with such alacrity it was clear he thought I was going to rip the door off, or blow it up or something. The hallway was so narrow he ended up jostling the other big guy serving as his guard.

Their eyes widened and they each took a more-measured step backwards as the purple tint fell across my flesh and clothing, nethernal energy rippling over me.

“It’ll be alright,” I said to Garet, before crossing straight through the door.

The interior was almost pitch-black. A single candle stood on a desk on the near-side of the room, barely illuminating her in her chair at the back wall. A second desk was between us.

As I entered I saw Xas spot me, and his excitement became mingled with trepidation. The little lad’s eyes were the brightest things in the shadows.

“It’s alright,” I repeated, moving fully-in and letting myself go solid once more. “It’s okay. It’s really me. See?”

“But y-your… His arm, Mummy! Lookee! He’s hiding it!”

Xan opened her eyes, focussed on me despite the fact she clearly didn’t want to.

“The demons,” she hissed.

“I’m no demon.” I gave up the posturing, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. If she wanted to see my face while we chatted, she’d have to lean forwards. “It’s just me. What in Celestium happened to Mud Lane, then? I’ve only got bits and pieces of the story.”

There was silence, and then only the young boy’s plaintive question:

“Kassy?”

He wasn’t asking me. He was asking permission, from her.

A shattered whisper responded, so quiet I could barely pick it out.

“It’s okay. Go to him.”

She couldn’t see me at this angle but I smiled all the same. For all that she was still in shock, she hadn’t completely lost it. She knew it was me, and she knew from the quiet in the air outside that the Incursion really was over.

It was just a matter of bringing back that normalcy Tanra had mentioned. Slowly, slowly, bit by bit…

Xas didn’t have the same reservations. Now he’d been given permission he barrelled around the desk at me, hurled himself into my embrace.

“Hells, you’re getting big, boy!”

“Where is it, Kassy?” he chirped with a big grin, wrestling me. He patted my stump roughly, as if trying to find a hidden limb beneath the tattered folds of my sleeve.

There was no pain – Greenheart’s healing-spells had sealed the flesh like I’d been born this way. But it was an uncanny feeling. I had the strangest sensation that I had hidden the arm – that at any moment it might pop up out of a demi-plane, surprise both of us equally with its sudden reappearance.

It was awkward, even talking to him, never mind his mother. He’d grown so much, and not just physically. I found myself realising he was a completely different person now.

“What – what’s been going on, Xassy? You looked after your mum, eh?”

“Where is it?”

He was appearing more excited, wriggling more forcefully with every passing moment – then I watched as cold sanity washed over him.

“Where…?” he murmured, then fell silent, suddenly thrusting himself away from me.

“Xassy! Look, it’s no big deal. I lost it. Traded it, for a crown.”

He looked at the top of my head and burst into tears.

“I lost that too! I… traded it…”

For the city. For that last drop of cold sanity.

Xantaire stood, crossing to her son without her eyes glancing in my direction. She bent and put her arms around him from behind, trying to turn him – but he had no problem staring at me.

“Go!” he shrieked, real anger in his voice. “Gowwy way! Come back with both! Both arms! Both! I wan’ Kas! Kas!”

Bewildered, feeling withered to the very core of my being at this outburst despite its absurdity – I looked from him to Xan and back again.

“I am Kas,” I mumbled.

She whispered to him; she spoke his name in a level voice, even trying ‘Xastur Tarent’ in a serious tone; she attempted to calm him.

For all of ten seconds.

Then her chin tilted, as if to allow her eyes to meet mine – yet they only found the floor between us.

“It’s been a difficult time for all of us,” she said. “You’d better go, Kas.”

He turned to hug her at last, and she straightened, lifting him, holding his face buried in her shoulder. That finally worked to quieten him, and he clung to her like his life depended on it, wringing at her clothes.

“But… Xan…”

She turned, finding an angle where I could see neither of their faces.

“Just go.”

“Not –” I clenched and unclenched my fist, then pushed myself back to my feet with difficulty. She almost looked, when I stumbled.

“Not until you unlock the door. You have to let Garet in, Xan.”

“You don’t come in here making demands,” she said softly, still refusing to face me. “You leave. Now. Like before.”

“Like… is that how you think it went down? I just ‘left’ and –”

“And Grandpa died,” she murmured, “and we lost everything, and I don’t want… I can’t rely on you again, Kas. I can’t have you back in my life. I have to…” She drew a deep breath, released it, “do my own thing. We have to go our own way.”

Her eyes met mine, and the fire in them scorched me.

I couldn’t take it. I looked away.

“I’ll let Garet in. You’re right. You’re always right. But it’s goodbye, Kas. At least for now. We’ll see you around, you know?”

“Garrrrry,” Xas moaned in contentment.

I nodded, staring at the floor, and I started to lift my hand to the bar across the door-frame, to unlock it.

Then I lowered the arm again.

“In your own time,” I said.

I infused my broken body with the powerful soul stolen from an even more-broken body, and moved through the wood instead, dragging the useless left foot along through the air.

Garet was still out in the corridor, and he was eyeing me with open suspicion as I emerged near him.

“You heard?”

“I heard the boy.” His face darkened. “He okay? What did you do?”

I shuddered.

“Nothing… everything.” I closed my eyes and pushed down all my bitterness as best I could. “She’ll… she’s coming out. Take care of her. The boy – he wants you. Not me. And she needs you.”

I opened my eyes again. Garet was nodding.

“And what about you, Feychilde? You look like a katra-‘ead after an all-nighter. You need a bed? We can mebbe grab –”

“Maybe.” I cut him off. “Thanks, and, yeah. Maybe later. Once Xan’s down for the night. I don’t want to be in her face, not right now, you know? Plus I…” I struggled to recall my itinerary. “I’ve got to go to the graveyard… see my folks… and there’s… one more thing to do…”

“Wha’s tha’?” asked his equally-big companion, a trace of wonder in his voice.

“I wish I could remember.” I grinned at them then, hearing sounds from inside the room, nodded. “Later.”

Garet nodded back. “Later.”

I used the wall at the end of the little hallway to exit the building – if I went up or down there was a good chance I’d startle someone.

I floated there for a good thirty seconds, just trying to get my thoughts in order.

Then I felt the chill down my spine as I realised.

Ah yes.

Do I have to?

I have to.

* * *

Looking out on the city, I didn’t care what anyone said, soothsayers and priests and demons. Crowns. This victory – it was Yune’s, and Yune’s alone. I might’ve helped – we all might’ve helped – but it would’ve been meaningless without hope.

I swung the void-arm – but it was Yune who’d supplied the fingers.

“Thanks,” I said, then, realising how stupid the word sounded on its own like that, I tried again:

“Thank you, Lady Yune.”

There was no immediate answer – no voice on the breeze, no whisper in my ear – and yet just a few seconds later, evening warbles lifted from the throats of songbirds. They were hard to pick out, over the cries of the dying, the shrill moans of the needy – but they were there.

I flew for a few moments, just listening.

“A pretty picture indeed,” my companion said, “but it’s surely you they should all be thanking. Gods and men.”

“Don’t be a baby. Super intelligent, but zero common sense.” I sighed, turning to face her. “If I send you home, how likely you get killed?”

“It doesn’t quite work that way,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Mund is a plethora of locations, where I come from. But one corner of what Mother called the Labyrinth, which is itself, from what I’m told, but one corner of Hubbub.”

“You… never left this Labyrinth? How old are you?”

“Approximately six hundred years ago, as you would reckon it, I came into my name. No… no, I never left.”

I almost revoked her invisibility, just to take a look at the expression on her face.

“Do not mistake me, Master,” she went on. “Transit to Infernum is a means of escape from your plane. One cannot just be found. One must be petitioned… summoned. A creature might enter the hells to become lost; never to be found. And even were I to be discovered by your enemies – I would not suffer their continued existence.”

“What will you do over there?”

“Create anew my court. Rebuild my power. I have hosts to set at your command, if you would inspect your new armies?”

I hadn’t even been thinking about her troops. “Not right now.”

“It’s your intention to go on alone, Master?”

I nodded.

“Then I will await your call. Farewell, for now.”

Feeling grateful for her understanding, I dismissed her and reduced my speed a little.

I had one place left to go. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there… what I was going to say… even how I’d arrange my face. Guilt? Pity? Or just let the nervousness take hold, warp my features into a quivering mess? I knew only that to not go… that would be worse. Infinitely, indescribably worse. For all the encounters into which I’d flung myself today, this was the one that worried me most.

While I flew south-west, I went over all the various approaches in my mind. How many times would I knock before someone answered? Would they even answer the door at all if they knew it was me outside? I tried imagining the different expressions they would wear. Linn’s quiet rage, the impassive, stern shell quickly breaking to pieces, revealing the animal caged within. Atar’s despair, sorrow and accusation mingled in her once-tender gaze… What sweet melancholia there must’ve been in her music these days – what dark figures might Linn have been carving in the sun-room…

If they even played, even carved, anymore…

“Feychilde!” someone below cried. “Hail! Hail Feychilde!”

I glanced down at the broken Oldtown streets but I couldn’t even identify whereabouts my fans were – the place was teeming with crowds of the newly-homeless. Soon dozens, maybe even hundreds of people were calling my name. I gave my arm the correct instruction but, of course, dumb distracted instinct directed the command to the wrong limb. My glowing fingers went swishing, and I was probably out of their line of sight by the time I managed an actual visible wave.

I added a little more elevation, and a little more ascended ancient. I couldn’t listen to accolades or requests for help. Not right now. Not when I had this in front of me.

As to what I could bring myself to say when I arrived: I at least had to apologise. That much was obvious. It wasn’t like I actually felt responsible for her death; that burden had landed squarely on the Magisterium’s shoulders, and I felt confident I’d be confronting one of their officials soon-enough. They’d lied to her and bought her loyalty, sending her away to die on distant sands – fulfilling every one of my darkest suspicions about their recklessness, their endemic lack of honour when it came to how they treated those in their employ.

No, it was beyond my power to apologise for her death. But the terrible way I’d treated them when everything came to a head, that awful night… I still remembered the blow I struck the older man, when all he was doing was reacting to a heretic who made his beloved daughter cry. For all the death I’d caused, it was probably the most evil act I’d ever committed. I had leveraged my inherent advantages, punching him with augmented muscles, and it always felt like I’d used a weapon to wound an unarmed man – something I’d never stooped to, even in my illicit past. Like hitting a child. I had little doubt that in a fair fight the gruff Linn would’ve given me a sound thrashing, and it embarrassed me to think that I’d used my magic to take out my frustrations on a confused, emotional father. Especially given that he was thinking I’d somehow injured his treasured Emrelet.

The drink. The vampire. The stress. The battle-conditioning. I had a whole bunch of excuses. And not one of them excused me.

If they wanted to blame me for her death as well… if they saw some way for the fault to be mine, some link between our failed relationship and her choice to go abroad with work… fine. I’d take it, if they’d give it to me. Better the burden on me than them.

I’d barely known her, after all.

I passed over the river. I could see to my left that the Greybridge had been torn completely loose by the demons, in what had to be the first time in living memory. The two ends still clung to either riverbank, ripped-apart planks protruding a few yards at most over the surface of the water. Yet for all the scenes of mayhem and carnage, there were signs of continuation. The inevitable rebuilding. Recovery, sponsored by our magic-wielding overlords. Even now I could pick out the Greybridge itself in the distance, a section of the long span drawn up onto a shingle by water-wizards; a platoon of magisters were already taking it apart, presumably preparing the materials for transport and reconstruction. And the town-criers would lather them in commendations, the people singing their praises for thinking of Rivertown, making the repair of this vital link a priority, even on the heels of the Bells.

Profit – the swift resumption of Hightown trade – the lining of the lords’ pockets… the extent to which these factors influenced the decision to repair the bridge would be forgotten. Not that the people were stupid. They knew. But they would forget all the same. It was easier to live in the world, that way. Easier to see good than evil. Easier to sit there complacently as the rulers of the Realm of Mund went on about their malevolent business-interests, indifferent to the woes of mortal-kind. The trials and tribulations of those whose very homes had been destroyed. Those who would have nothing for weeks or months while the Magisterium machine went on whirring, fixing breakfast for the rich and the powerful.

It had been easier, before Telior. Before leaving. Now, I hadn’t just witnessed evil. I’d seen it from the inside. I’d been a lord, of sorts. I’d worn the crown that made me the mightiest creature in existence. And the marks of those changes were not easily scrubbed clean. I found my complacency lacking. It was with some difficulty that I resettled my thoughts. There was a significant part of me that was glad, satisfied that Tanra took her knives to the Arrealbord. Their numbers would be restocked within days, of course – the gods alone could imagine how many potential heirs were about to start squabbling over the thrones of the Lords and Ladies of the Realm. It meant little that they’d all been executed without trial or mercy – but that little was something. If it made the new First Lady or Lord a bit nervous when they claimed their lofty seat – all the better.

Nervousness. It was something I understood well.

I spotted the house. I’d seen it from the air so many times, I couldn’t unrecognise it. Couldn’t shirk my responsibility that way.

I floated there, staring down at it. The street had hardly changed, and was one of the lucky ones to emerge unscathed from the Incursion. The four thin trees lining the narrow roadway had blossomed, looking far fuller than I’d seen them before. The one right opposite Emrelet’s house had burst forth into gorgeous soft pinks that seemed to have drank in the last rays of the sunset. I never even knew it was capable of such a glorious bloom.

Didn’t know her long enough. Didn’t know her at all.

A million memories accosted me, and, after a few seconds enduring throes of emotion I’d kept covered up, hidden inside myself for so long – I couldn’t help but shut them away again, push them back down and laugh.

At myself. At this world. At the dragon who thought she’d gotten away with it all.

“Oh, Tyr Kayn,” I said softly into the early-night breeze. “So many of us have bones to pick with you. So many will turn up to slaughter you, we’ll have to form a queue. But we won’t. We’ll pile on you, a carving knife in every fist.

“Are you listening?”

I spent another minute or two up there, ostensibly keeping my ears open for a hiss, a reply seething along with the wind.

Steeling myself. Breathing deeply.

The dragon’s response was unforthcoming, as I knew it would be.

Enough wasting time. Go. Go now.

Compelling myself, I sank down towards the street, the houses gradually looming larger and larger beneath my feet.

I looked for lights in the windows. There were none.

Half the city’s too afraid to light lights, still. No one wants to draw half the demonic stragglers in their areas right up to their front doors, do they?

Linn and Atar will be hiding – in the pantry, probably. Yes. I’ll check there first, if they won’t answer.

Or maybe they’re used to all this by now. Maybe they’re in bed.

The idea that they were dead barely cast a shadow over my mind. The gods couldn’t allow that. Could they?

I landed just outside the door, and made myself corporeal. If he wanted to take a free hit, or several, he could take his best shots. I could always find healing. It wasn’t like he’d be able to do more harm than the other things I’d been attacked by. And if he did – if he used a weapon, or got a lucky shot that knocked me out clean… well, we’d deal with that when it came to it.

I felt more confident now. I knocked, hard and loud.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reyd,” I called.

It was hardly silent. The wind whistled across the rooftops, and, in the distance, there was the pervasive sound of bedlam: pitiful weeping, grief-filled yells, the clatter of wood and rumble of bricks… But this neighbourhood and the streets surrounding it had been spared. Here, at least, there was what passed for silence.

No answer.

I knocked again. I no longer had satyr-strength (or my right arm) so I was limited in terms of just how hard and loud I could knock. I settled for adding gremlin-booms with each rap of my knuckles.

Probably a better idea anyway. Purely cosmetic this way. It wouldn’t damage the door.

“Mr. Reyd. Mrs. Reyd. It’s… it’s Kas. Feychilde.”

I knocked one more time, then leaned against the door.

“I’ve returned. I… I’ve come to a… apologise.”

I thought I’d just saunter inside if they didn’t answer, use the ancients’ powers to slide through their walls and floors, find them and reassure them it wasn’t a demon come calling. Just me. But now that the moment was here, I found myself lacking. What if, to them, my reappearance was worse than that of a demon? How could I intrude on their privacy, especially after everything that’d happened tonight?

It was hardly something I could justify. There was no peril, no imminent loss of life. Barging in for no reason, I would be committing a crime, wouldn’t I?

Of course I would. Of course…

Suddenly I had the sensation I was being watched. There was no eldritch trigger, no special capabilities at work. Nothing more than good old human intuition.

Yet I felt it, keenly, and sheer instinct forced a shield to extrude from my palm, slowly enveloping me.

My eyes searched the shadows, up and down the street.

There was a shadow within the shadow, there, by the pink-blossomed tree –

“Feychilde?”

The yell almost shook me out of my skin.

Not from behind me – not Atar or Linn. No – it was their neighbour.

A man in his forties or fifties, his curly head of hair hanging out of an upstairs window, the shutter-latch in his hand.

“Yeah, it’s me.” I did my best to smile up at him. I suddenly felt naked without my mask – would my pained eyes give the lie to my lips? “I was, erm –”

“You’ve come back! The – the Incursion! Did you…? Did…?”

He left the question hanging, if he really had one hiding there at all.

“It’s over,” I said, aiming at what I suspected to be his chief concern. “Probably less demons in the city right now than any given day. Definitely safe to relax. Sleep. You can… erm… Anything else you need to do, I’d leave till morning. It’s chaos out there.”

Anyone you need to check is still living and breathing…

Who was I kidding? For many, sleep would be impossible tonight. For many nights to come.

“But they said – I mean, that v-v-voice. And th-the criers… You were gone!”

“Not anymore. I guess…” Suddenly my smile felt real. “I guess they were wrong.”

I saw his face contort as he was trying to absorb what he was hearing, then he just started bawling.

“Th-thank you! Oh, thank you! Th… Liberator! Liberator! You’re back! You came to save us! Yune be praised!”

I nodded. “Definitely Yune’s work. She helped me, more than once. But I’m not gonna take credit for Ironvine’s kills. It’s her that finished them. The big baddies.”

“Ironvine… Oh yes, oh yes, the wizard! She’s – but, ‘corse, you won’t know her, will you? She’s good, is she?”

“Great. Almost as good as…”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it – I thought about saying Shadowcloud instead, but I didn’t get the chance.

“Stormsword!” the man cried, as though I needed help remembering the name. “Yeah, the criers didn’t know about it but we heard, we heard just before that Incursion when you… when we went. You, and Stormsword! You killed that thing together, in Hightown! Did she… Was she sent away with you?”

I spent a few moments doing my best to think of nothing in particular, staring at the corner of the neighbour’s roof, blurring the stars beyond…

Why, Em? Why did you die?

The man seemed to realise why I’d failed to finish my sentence earlier, because when he spoke again it was in tones of hushed reverence:

“Oh, oh Feychilde – I’m sorry. The m-magister, who lived here…” His glance fell on the Reyds’ house before me. “So she really was Stormsword…”

I gave a dry chuckle, tears in my eyes once more. “You all knew, eh?”

“Well… there were always whispers. So… That’s why you’re here? To…”

His voice fell away.

“Express my condolences? Yeah, I guess. That… that kind of thing. Do you know – are the Reyds not about? Or…?”

“Oh, they’ve gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah, ‘tween one night and the next. Gotta be, ooh, over a month at least now since. Once word got to ’em, I imagine.”

I clenched my fist.

“And do you know where they went?” His blank expression answered the question and I quickly pressed another: “No one else lives here now?”

He shook his head. “Figured at first they was on holiday, and paid up their rent good to keep it vacant. But then I found out about their daughter… I dunno, Feychilde. Maybe the owners just can’t find the right renters. Lotta scum about. This street’s always been nice. They always kept it nice, you know what I mean?”

I shrugged, nodding, not really listening.

Gone.

“Where will you go now? Hey – d’ya want me to keep an ear open? I can ask about, like. If you –”

“Nah.” I struggled to return my focus to the neighbour’s face. “No, thank you, I mean. It’s fine. I – I have people I can ask.”

“Oh. Oh. Of course you do. Here, listen to me, offerin’ to find out things for a champion. Ah-ha! Wyrda’s tongue!”

I couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran through me. I’d only slept a couple of times since I left the people of Telior consigned to the ocean’s salt-thirst mercies, and the worst of those nightmares, I suspected, were still ahead of me.

“Thanks, again.” I turned away, taking a couple of mundane steps out into the street, and heard the neighbour calling out excitedly to someone in the room with him.

The shutter clattered closed. I was alone again.

Or not. I still felt eyes on me; I still had the circle-shield formed, clinging to my fist.

My gaze scoured the shadows once more and, with ever-increasing certainty, I stepped towards the pink-covered tree, intent on peering around the trunk. I summoned Blofm and joined with her, producing a momentary flash of green light under the eaves.

My shield reacted to nothing. On the other side of the tree there were just shadows, stretching and shrinking over the cobbles as the wind gently bent the branches.

I raised my eyes, taking in the other houses up and down the street. At least three or four shutters twitched.

I guess I had an audience.

Zel would’ve counted them all up for me, eye by eye, ear by ear.

“Scouting for spies?” Blofm enquired. “And who’s Zel?”

Sleep, Blofm. Master’s busy.

Dismissing my paranoia along with my goblin interlocutor, I tapped the elf-ghosts, rising up into the air.

I guess that’s it, then.

Why did it feel like I’d lost something more? Like there was one more thing on my list to do?

Her parents. Like my own.

Gone.

Just… gone.