There were other Mistwalkers in the castle. None of them were as dangerous as Vaughn had been, and I slew every half-dead in my path. By the time we were in the upper sections of the castle, my bloodstained axe smoldered with molten light.

The little victories felt hollow, after what Quinn had revealed. Even still I advanced, and killed.

Catrin, for her part, didn’t slow me down so much as a beat. She was no fighter, so far as I could tell, but her sharp senses and awareness of the massive castle’s layout were indispensable. She’d warn me when danger was approaching, melt into the shadows, then reappear by the time I’d dispatched a group of guards to warn me of more threats. More than once I managed to avoid a nasty ambush that way.

It felt strange, having a comrade backing me up. I’d fought alone for so many years. It reminded me of the old days. I’d had allies back then, too. Donnelly. Lias.

Donnelly would have liked Catrin. Her skills were much like his, as was her sense of humor.

And this was no time to be thinking about a different life. I put my mind on the task at hand, as loathsome as it may have been,

“There are too few of them,” I said with a grunt, pulling my axe from the skull of a ghoul. We stood in a nexus chamber connecting several parts of the castle. Three branching hallways, all splitting from a cylindrical space guarded by time-worn statues. The stone faces watched us in sullen hostility.

Orson was watching us. Or, his haunted castle watched us. Like many old halls, the entire edifice was an extension of his will.

This is too easy, a voice in the back of my thoughts warned me.

“Yeah…” Catrin looked at the smoldering bodies of the three Mistwalkers I’d just dispatched. “It’s like there’s just a skeleton crew. There were over a hundred of the bastards here just a couple days ago.”

I considered the idea that the gluttonous commander I’d spoken to at the council, Issachar, had taken the brunt of his troops and left with the other Recusants. Where had they all gone? What did they plan with the monster the Baron had conjured for them?

That was not my task, though I desperately wanted it to be. I was here to perform an execution.

Even still, I fretted over it.

“We’re getting close,” Catrin said. Then, more dryly, “unless that bastard Quinn was lying to us. Maybe Orson’s gone, too.”

I’d also considered the possibility. Even still, I wouldn’t leave without making sure.

We approached the mouth of an ascending stairway. A body lay sprawled beneath it, limbs akimbo. Far too many limbs. I approached cautiously, taking in the strange sight.

It — she — had been some kind of changeling, like Catrin. Her skin was a dark shade of gray-blue, and she was bald. Her body was small and skinny, almost childlike, with long, jointed appendages sprouting from behind the shoulders of more human arms. Each was tipped in barbed claws, and were longer than the whole length of her body. She had too many eyes, all glassy green spheres on a face only vaguely human in shape.

I remembered how she’d seemed to glide while clad in her concealing green cloak. I could imagine those spider legs scuttling beneath, hidden from sight.

She was dead, alien eyes unblinkingly fixed on one wall. It looked like she’d fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Though, with those inhuman limbs, I somehow doubted that had been what truly killed her.

“Priska,” Catrin sighed, a touch of sadness in her voice. “I thought maybe she was like me, but I never saw her under that cloak.” She took a cautious step forward. “What do you think happened?”

I knelt by the broken corpse and found a small, neat hole punched through the dead changeling’s forehead, just above the eyebrows. Black blood oozed from the wound.

“Looks like someone beat us here,” I said, standing and fixing my attention on the stairs.

We ascended a spiraling stairway encircling the guts of a tall tower, practically a spire. Catrin tensed at my back, but she didn’t need to tell me she’d heard something this time. Noise echoed down the shaft. An angry shout, then furniture crashing.

I recognized the voice. It wasn’t the Baron’s.

We reached the top of the stairway. An open door lay at the top, and beyond it a set of chambers. Looking inside, I saw furniture scattered about, and a splatter of blood on the carpeted floors. Mahogany desks and brass candelabras were scattered across the space, many upturned. Parchment, books, and precious materials were strewn everywhere.

Across the length of a spacious room, near one unshuttered window overlooking the lake, stood two figures. One was Orson Falconer. He was still clad in his kingly robes, precious gems glinting like little stars along the shoulders. He leaned against the wall by the window, one hand pressed to one shoulder. Blood dripped through his fingers, dampening the expensive material of his overcoat.

The other was Olliard of Kell. He had his strange foreign weapon trained on the Baron, a terrible expression hardening his wizened face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but his hands were steady.

He noted my arrival and bared his teeth. “Lisette!” He barked.

Movement in the corner of my vision, and the hasty muttering of ritual words. The young cleric stood near one wall, out of sight from the door. Her fingers played with strings done Cat’s Cradle style, aura flickering like half-visible flame around them.

I was ready for the trick this time. Furrowing my brow in concentration, I made an effort of will and lifted my axe. A pale, nearly invisible sphere of pale amber light appeared around me. Lisette’s magic enwrapped the sphere and stopped inches from my actual body, an instant before they would have ensnared me. The strings, a paler gold than my own shield, strained with a sound like crackling lightning. I grit my teeth at the effort.

Damn, but the kid was strong.

“Cat.” My voice was a strained growl.

“Got it,” Catrin said. She stepped into a dark spot of a nearby wall and melted into the shadows. She appeared a moment later beside the apprentice and, shocking me as much as the girl, rabbit punched her in the back of the head. Lisette crumpled to the ground. As her concentration broke, the golden tethers flickered from existence. I lowered my axe, sighing in relief. Sweat beaded across my brow from the effort of holding the Art at bay for mere seconds.

Olliard lifted his crossbow higher, aiming at the Baron’s skull. “Don’t move!”

The Baron wheezed out a laugh. “Oh, this is a rich irony!” The doctor glared at him, not understanding.

I paused, half-amused by the situation myself. “I’m not here to stop you from killing him,” I said. I waved a hand to the lord. “By all means. Just let me ask him some questions first.”

Suspicion and confusion warred in the vampire hunter’s features. He glanced at Catrin, and a look of revulsion formed there. “You’ve been enthralled. I know what she is. Snap out of it, man, or I’ll have to kill you.”

I exchanged a glance with Catrin. She shrugged, and knelt to place her dagger to Lisette’s neck. “This is a hostage situation, right?” She didn’t quite keep the questioning note from her voice. “Listen, young lady, just don’t try that trick again.”

Lisette groaned, dazed.

“Get away from her!” Olliard snapped.

“Calm down, doctor.” I took a step further into the room, clearing the doorway. I didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind me. “I just don’t want to get snared by your apprentice’s Art again. And I need him alive to answer some questions.”

I turned my attention from the hunter and pointed at Orson Falconer with my axe. “Where did the others take that thing you summoned?”

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Orson Falconer just smiled and spread his hands out. More blood spread across his rich garments in a growing stain, but it seemed to bother him little. He looked at peace.

I bared my teeth. “You smile, after what you did?”

“And what is it you think I did?” Orson asked tiredly. He’d lost a lot of blood. I didn’t have much time.

“The villagers…” I took another step forward. “Your own people. Your duty was to protect them. You were their liege lord, and you served them up like sacrificial cattle. Do you have any idea what you brought into the world in that chapel?”

“I do,” Orson said, nodding. His expression had darkened. “Yes, I know very well what it is I’ve done.”

Olliard stared at me, then turned his attention back to the lord. “What did you do, Orson? What is he talking about?” His aged features twisted with rage. “Micah… that man practically raised you! Why did you kill him?”

“Because he was in my way,” Orson spat. “Because he served immortal tyrants who killed my homeland. Because, in our tired world, death has no meaning.” A sickly smile spread across his face. “Ask him.” He nodded to me. “He knows of what I speak.”

All eyes in the room turned to me. Even Lisette’s, who was starting to recover from Catrin’s blow, though the dagger at her throat kept her from moving.

“What is he talking about?” The doctor asked me. “Speak, man.”

I didn’t have time for this. If Orson died before I learned where his allies had gone and what they planned, this entire sad tragedy has been for nothing.

“I’m talking about God,” Orson said. His words held a poisonous sneer. “Or the one the Church claims is God. The Heir of Onsolem. The God-Queen of Urn.”

Olliard scowled. “What is this madness? You speak of theology now, after all this murder?”

“No!” Orson shook his head, violet eyes wide. “Not just theology, Doctor. You know what the priests tell us — that the Heir is departed from this land, waging war to reclaim a Heaven lost to the Adversary. The very same great enemy from whose ranks I selected the spirit now in the hands of my benefactors.” He winced and began to slide down the wall, too weak to keep his feet.

Olliard just shook his head. “You are mad.”

“I am awake,” Orson insisted. He was sitting now, his head leaning against the wall. His face had become ashen. “Awake in a land full of sleepers. We are prisoners, Olliard. Prisoners in a cage of dreams and stories. Our dead are corralled into the Underworld, which is no heaven… just desolate caves full of illusion. I have seen it. I have crossed the veil of death and found iron walls.”

Again his eyes moved to me. “That man is a paladin of the Alder. He knows. He is one of their wardens.”

This time, when Olliard followed the lord’s gaze, it lingered on me. “Explain,” he said, cold. “And tell that creature to step away from my disciple.”

“Fuck that,” Catrin shot back. “She’s a bloody sorceress.”

“Let her go,” I told Catrin, who startled. “But don’t let her weave again.”

Catrin complied reluctantly. Lisette started to rise but swayed, looking dazed.

“He’s talking about the Deliverance,” I told them. “You all know of it, I’m sure.”

Lisette rubbed at the back of her neck, wincing. “The souls of humanity lay in waiting in the Halls of the Dead, until the day the Heir claims Her rightful seat and delivers them to the true After. Until then, they rest in peaceful contemplation in the Halls of the Dead, guarded from the dark spirits which would prey on them.”

I smiled tightly. “Spoken right from scripture. Should have expected that from a lay sister.”

Lisette turned a cold glare on me.

“It’s all true,” the Baron said in a hollow voice. “They keep our dead trapped in stone and darkness, a false afterlife meant at its inception to be temporary, and all the while the Church promises our savior will return… but it has been seven centuries since the Heir departed. And that is only if you believe scripture, which I have come to doubt. These are the facts; we do not own our own souls, and the dead are beginning to outnumber us. The caverns of Draubard are overfull, and it is worse in the West. They have no subterranean sanctums there, precious few priests to give burial rites, and there are always wars… The Mistwalker Legion? Their like are epidemic in the continent.”

“The world is gone to shit,” I agreed. “That doesn’t justify all of this.”

“Of course it does!” Orson snarled. “We will all die. And we will persist. We have not been permitted true rest, even the peace of oblivion. Either we languish in this world like the elves, or we are devoured by things worse still… This was not meant to be our race’s fate. If the gods are our jailors, then I shall break their chains and topple their mountain. I have sworn it.”

His eyes alighted on me. “You should know. Your order is bound to the Alder Table. Their ghosts are in you, Paladin of Seydis, just as yours will be in your successor.”

I felt a shiver run through me and closed my eyes. Half-heard words whispered through my thoughts, my blood. Heretic, they murmured. Bring him to the light.

I shut them out. “I know the Onsolain aren’t perfect,” I said. “Believe me, I know. But the Adversary is worse. You gave an Abgrûdai flesh. There is no worse sin you can commit.”

Lisette’s already pale face turned ghost white. Catrin muttered a foul curse, and Olliard blinked at me with owlish disbelief.

Orson Falconer just bowed his head, not a hint of shame on his face.

“A Demon of the Abyss.” I almost whispered the words. “One of the same monsters who rampaged through Elfhome ten years ago.”

“One of the same who sacked Heaven nearly a thousand years ago. We must not forget that.” The Baron was almost smug.

I stepped forward and lifted my axe, letting it burn with aureflame. “Where are the others, Orson?”

“You would panic at such a thing, wouldn’t you?” The Baron laughed dryly. “You Alder were practically engineered to fight them. But you are too late this day, Headsman. Yes!” He laughed again at the surprise on my face. “My sources are quite knowledgeable. I know who you are, what your role is. You may deliver my sentence, but I am only a small part in all this.”

His smile was nearly as wide as those macabre grins of the ghouls. “I… do not know where my benefactors have gone. How they intend to use the spirit, I cannot say. I only know they will use it to burn this rotten world, and I am satisfied.”

There was a metallic pop, a thudding impact and the crack of bone. The Baron’s head jerked back, striking the wall, then he slumped limp to the ground.

Olliard lowered his crossbow and let out a weary breath. “Madness,” he was saying to himself. “Madness. All of this, for…” He shook his head, looking more tired than satisfied.

I glared at him. “His life was mine, Olliard.”

The doctor’s weary expression didn’t fade as he loaded his crossbow with methodic indifference, then lifted it to aim halfway between me and Catrin, ready to swing to bear on either of us in a moment.

“Don’t be a fool,” I snapped. “I am not your enemy.”

“Come over here, Lisette.” The doctor didn’t take his eyes off me.

Catrin threw me a questioning look. I lifted a hand, telling her to wait. Lisette shuffled over to the doctor and turned to face us. I noted that Catrin had confiscated her little finger strings, and felt a surge of gratitude for the changeling’s quick thinking.

“Who are you?” Olliard demanded. “What do you have to do with any of this?”

“That’s a long story,” I said.

Olliard’s lips tightened. “Summarize.”

“I serve the Lords of Heavensreach,” I said.

Lisette’s eyes widened. The doctor only sighed, clearly believing I was being obstinate.

“It’s true,” I said. “I’m an agent of the Choir Concilium. They sent me to serve a sentence of execution on Orson Falconer.” I pointed at the dead nobleman with my axe. “You ended up delivering that, but it was my purpose since the night after we found the dead troll.”

“You sound as mad as him,” Olliard spat. “You serve the Choir of God? They are stories. He speaks of afterlives, and you tell me you were sent by angels… this is all madness.”

Lisette glanced uncertainly at her mentor. “Master…” she began.

“Not now,” he snapped. The young cleric flinched.

“Then, that commotion in Vinhithe…” Olliard’s expression went distant with thought. “That was you, wasn’t it? He called you Headsman. I’ve heard that name.”

I wasn’t willing to give all my secrets to this man. “You came here to hunt monsters. I assure you, we’re on the same side.”

Catrin shifted at my side. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the old physik and his alchecraft crossbow, but I sensed a subtle tension from the dhampir.

“And yet you keep their company,” the doctor said, eyeing the changeling. “How do I know it has not enthralled you?”

“She was Micah’s friend, same as you.”

“Is that what it told you?” Olliard asked, amused. “You were his friend, were you? Catrin of Ergoth?”

Catrin drew in a sharp breath. I risked a glance at her. Her whole body seemed wire-taut with tension.

Ergoth… The name sounded familiar. But where had I—

I hadn’t ever heard it, I realized. Not with my own ears. The strange, ghostly nostalgia of my Alder-given magic knew the name, not I.

It had been a small kingdom, long ago. It had fallen. Not to war, but to…

The ghost-memory faded.

“He knew what I was,” Catrin said with a quiet panic in her voice. “He treated me well all the same.”

“He was addicted to you, leech.” Olliard’s expression was almost imperious with disdain. “I warned him your nature ruled you, but he always turned a blind eye. I should have killed you when you were still young and human enough for it to stick.” His eyes narrowed. “Was it you who—”

“Never!” Catrin cried, angry in her denial. “I would never have hurt him, not like that.”

“But all those years you fed on him aged him past his time,” the vampire hunter accused. “When I last saw him, he was weak. Ill. He should have been strong enough to stand up to the likes of Orson Falconer.”

His eyes went to the corpse by the window. The kindly old man I’d met beyond the woods of Caelfall was gone. I didn’t recognize this bitter, accusatory hunter for that altruistic healer.

But I did recognize him.

“I’ve heard enough,” I said, quiet. All eyes turned to me, and I waited a beat before continuing. “My work is done here. Are you going to push this, Olliard?”

The doctor glanced between me and Catrin. “She is a dangerous predator ruled by her hunger. I have seen it a thousand times. They can become true vampires, you know, these half-dead. The older she gets, the worse her hunger. If you are truly a warrior of the divine, you will heed me.”

“If you try to slay her,” I said, still surprising myself with how calm I sounded, “I will fight you. I owe her a debt, whatever she may become.”

All of us in that room were a sort of monster already. Except Lisette, perhaps.

Olliard spoke an ugly oath. “On your head be it, then.”

I nodded and glanced at Catrin, then jerked my head to the door. She looked shaken, but went ahead of me. I put my back between her and the hunters.

“Alken.”

I turned toward the doctor. The old man had lowered his alchebow, and his posture was slumped with exhaustion. Even still, there was a steely confidence in his eyes.

“Should we meet again, I will consider you an enemy. I have heard of you… The Headsman of Seydis.” He lifted his chin. “You are a murderer.”

“And you aren’t?” I asked, gesturing again to the dead lord.

“I hunt monsters,” the doctor said. “I protect innocents. You are a butcher.”

What a sad mirror we made. I wonder if he understood the irony.

I just nodded. “Until next time, then. If there is a next time.”

I turned and left.