BEOR WAS DEAD. Those words echoed in my skull like grim thunder. What could that mean? Beor, the father of the gods, who forged time itself into an arrow that shot through the stars. Beor, strong enough to lift the world. Beor, blinded by his own vengeful brother. Dead.

“Who are you?”

The question cut through the shock like a dull knife. My mind was left in tatters, uneven and ugly. The loss of those beautiful stars was less a tragedy to me than the boy’s dark portent.

Dead.

“Who are you?”

This time, I turned, and found the Velkyrim kneeling behind me. Tracks of radiance trailed down her shoulders, and her smock was stained with faintly glowing blood. She looked young, like a girl, not yet possessing the beauty and grace I had seen in Zeniel, but promising even greater glories. Her red hair was braided back like a crown around her head, which seemed to suit her slender, girlish face.

“I am a Cinderborn,” I said to her. The greatsword was heavy in my hand. A dead weight of no comfort. “I do not have a name.”

“Whom do you serve?” she asked, standing slowly. She was tall, but without the wings, she seemed incomplete.

I shook my head. “No one.”

“You do not serve Romulor?”

“No.” I was finding it difficult to speak. But I had to. I had to clear my head, had to move. My legs yearned to run. Bloodfang came loping back into the chamber, though I could see little more of him than his two red eyes.

She gasped at the sight. “Why do you walk with this feanden?” Bloodfang lowered its head and snarled at the word.

“A what?”

The angel looked to me, but only for a moment. “A feanden. A demon, a lesser-god. What is your name, creature?” she demanded.

I have many names, the wolf said. I recited them, or a few: “It calls itself Bloodfang now, but it has been called Night Runner, Dark Brother, and Moon-Eater.” I paused at the last one, as if listening for the echo of a memory. But nothing came.

The Velkyrim threw up her hands and made what could only be a warding gesture. In turn, the wolf shied back, growling. “You walk with this beast?”

“It won’t attack you,” I said, trying to calm her down. It is bound to my sword.”

This news received a skeptical glare from the angel. “You bear an ur-iron blade?”

“So I’ve been told. And the wolf comes when I call.” I sensed the wolf’s unhappiness, but it was true enough.

She raised a hand to my face, squinting as if in recognition. “Who was your master, in the war for the Tree?”

“I…” something tugged at my memory. “I don’t remember,” I admitted. There was nothing there, nothing tangible. Perhaps threads lying in the dark, but I could only barely sense them. Whatever I was, whoever I was, those memories had been stolen. “I remember my death. And what was taken from me.”

The Velkyrim’s graceful face fell with grief. “I am Anaeel,” she said sadly. “And I would very much like to leave this place.”

That much I understood. But I had questions yet–and then there was the whole reason I’d come here in the first place. “How did they capture you?”

“I do not know,” she said. “But I awoke here, to their predations. Many times. They shed blood to undo the curse that renders me and my sisters into stone.” She shuddered, catching her breath. “And use my blood for their blasphemy. The Velkyrim have the power to ride between the worlds.”

“Why were they taking children? From the other side?”

The Velkyrim shook her head. She wiped away a tear. “He feeds on fear. They feed on blood. Leeches, but of a different sort. The young ones are sacrificed, passed through the veil of life and death. Romulor eats their dreams, and his cultists live by their blood. I could not stop them… they offered only enough blood to halt the curse. And they took pieces of me, slowly, to increase their mastery of me.” She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her chest.

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I was stricken speechless with horror. But I had to gird myself with understanding. With knowledge. Revolting as it was, I pressed a question: “What do the others get? Those on the other side?”

“The Ghoul-King’s blessing. Black magic. Power.” Her eyes found my own, and they were like the abyss I had glimpsed, deep and black, and despairing. “When they’re done with the captives, they release them into the forest, bled and lost. Each one wandering in its terror, a starveling soul, another fragment to this shattered nightmare.”

The chamber was silent. I thought of the children I’d rescued. How many of them had suffered just that?

“I met another Velkyrim,” I said. “Zeniel. Far away.” And it felt like long ago, though I knew not how much time had truly elapsed. As Father Iainov had said, time was difficult in Hell. After death, the moments seemed to wax and wane as fickle as a spring rainstorm.

“High Grace Zeniel was the Third of my order. The First and Second descended, but they did not go alone. Twelve of us in all there were, for each of the Three had their own three attendants. Thus did we deliver the word of the gods to the Old Devil.” The words seemed to come from far away, from across a dark sea of bad memories. “That was long ago. Where is Zeniel?”

“Not here,” I said, thinking of the church where I’d left her. At this Anaeel lowered her eyes. Zeniel could have come with me, but she had chosen to keep her vigil at the chapel on the other side of the river of sin. Waiting for more like me to awaken and find their way out of the pit. That was her sacrifice.

“Then I will not leave her behind,” Anaeel said, her voice growing stronger with every word. “I will remain. I will hold the vigil. If the Cinderborn still fight, then the cause is not lost.”

I helped her to her feet. “I came for Romulor,” I said. “I was told he had an artifact… something dangerous.”

“They worship him,” the angel said, leaning on me. She was gaunt, starved. “He lies dreaming beyond this chamber, in the deepest shadow.” I followed her gaze to the other end of the chamber. There lay a large stone door, and on its face was a king of ghouls. His arms were crossed over his chest. In one hand he held a sickle, and in the other a sword.

I helped her off the platform and onto the wall. Bloodfang shied back from the angel, but she paid the creature no mind.

“Will you be alright here?” I asked, drawing back.

“I may have reverted. The curse,” she said. “Gods above, how I miss the stars.”

I felt that in my gut, but there was nothing I could do. “I won’t leave you here,” I said. She nodded and despite the fear in her eyes, despite the stumps of her ruined wings and the bloodstained shift, I could see the courage. I handed her the golden knife I’d used to free the boy. She gripped it like a woman who knew her business. She was a messenger of the gods, a carrier of souls. Whatever else Anaeel had lost, she would not let them steal away her dignity.

I turned my attention to the graven door. Bloodfang leaped across the channel to pad along beside me.

She knows much, it sent to me. More than she told you.

“She recognized me,” I said, feeling my way through the words. “But I don’t remember.”

Hell is a dark place. Much is hidden in these rotting chambers. You must discover the truth of yourself, if you are to claim the power that was given to you.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I don’t care right now.” My mind was working at the ropes several strides ahead: returning to the children. Returning to Father Iainov. Rescuing Param.

And on Beor the Blind, the god whose courage had fired my own heart in life. Whose name had blessed my marriage, and seen my children safely into the world. Dead. Dead as I was. Even the gods must die, someone had said. Had Beor fallen to the roots of the Great Tree, too?

I put that thought from my mind. There was a more tangible problem to solve: slaying the cinderborn beast known as Harald the Wolf.

It will not be easy. That discomfited me; how much of my mind did the wolf sense? Whatever the answer, it kept its peace.

I set my shoulders to the great graven door and heaved. They groaned, rumbling slowly inward, grating on protesting hinges that had nearly forgotten their purpose. The carven face of the Ghoul-King Romulor broke in two, dividing down the middle. Under his scowling visage I squeezed, and lit quickly down the shallow steps that filtered to the very bowel of the tomb.

The tomb itself was octagonal, and nearly bare of decoration. Swords hung on one wall, and sickles on the other. Beyond that, it might have been any empty stone cellar. Not the tomb of a so-called King.

And there he sat in the center of it, propped on a throne that befit his size. The King of Ghouls, Romulor, stood at least eight feet tall. Sitting down he was nearly as tall as I was myself. His limbs were long, and thin, and his huge head looked much like a skull, the skin papery and wilted around the broad curving walls and pulling back from the sharp cheekbones. But around the eyes, the skin sagged deep. He held a small chest on his lap, curled protectively in his long, thin fingers.

Romulor dreams, Bloodfang said, of Hells deeper than this. He laughs at them, and the sound is like a river of blood.

“I do, Wolf,” said a dry and awful voice. “Do you remember those rivers?”