When I woke, I wasn’t feeling any pain. That was my first clue that something was off.

The scent of flowers drew me from a dream whose details scattered to dust even as I was pulled from it. I heard birdsong, the flow of water over rock, and a woman’s voice humming a quiet, nostalgic tune I was certain I’d never heard before.

I opened my eyes and found myself in a forest glade. The ground beneath me was soft, and the air was pleasantly cool. I didn’t want to stand. I felt too good. For that reason more than any other I forced myself to get up and inspect my surroundings in more detail. I didn’t trust anything that wanted me to be at peace.

My eyes were met by a scene out of an ancient dream. Which, I suppose, it was. Everything in the grove was tinted in shades of emerald and sun-dappled gold, though the sky — where I could see it through the dome of a thick canopy — was utterly black and starless, the light within the grove seeming to have no discernible source. The sound of water came from a low waterfall which fed into a gleaming silver stream. Grass and moss covered nearly every surface, including the trunks of the ancient trees. All shone vibrant, abundant with growth, and untouched by rot.

Put simply, it was a scene beautiful enough to make an artist weep and a poet grow tongue-tied. I closed my eyes and took shallow breaths, trying not to take in the heady scent of the flowers blooming across the grass. My body and mind were telling me I was safe, that this was a clean place, a refuge.

I knew in my gut that it was dangerous.

Instead of drinking in the fey-lit grove, I turned my eyes to the figure kneeling by the stream. She was as beautiful as the setting within which she was enthroned. In a way, it was her throne. She hadn’t spoken as I’d woken and stumbled to my feet, and I had time to take in details as I cautiously approached.

She was dressed in a gown fashioned in shades of forest green and moon-silver. Flowers were woven into her midnight black hair, and her skin a shade of pale nothing in the natural world could replicate. Even kneeling, she was tall. Taller than me. Taller than any human. She was athletically built, her round shoulders displayed by the sleeveless cut of her dress, her long neck dappled with spray from the waterfall which glinted like beads of crystal. She exuded a very faint light.

She was the source of the grove’s light.

The woman bowed her head over the form of a slumbering creature. It looked like a war chimera, though I knew that no mortal alchemist had crafted this beast. Its body was that of a wolf, all course gray fur and lean, muscular limbs, and its head had a distinctly canine aspect as well. Shining antlers grew from its head, and its back legs ended in cloven hooves. Its tail was long and bushy, like a fox. Its chest rose and fell in long, deliberate breaths, and its jaws hung slightly open to reveal long teeth sharp as any blade. It was larger than most bears.

I approached to stand near the beautiful woman and the creature which was, in its own way, also striking. I studied it for a while longer and then said, “it’s dying.”

The woman’s eyes were closed. One of her thin-fingered hands rested on the creature’s chest, the other on its neck. Her head bowed slightly, and I thought I noted a shade of weariness in the movement. “She is.” Her voice was a breathy murmur, so low I shouldn’t have been able to hear it, yet every leaf and tree in the grove quivered with the words.

“How long?” I asked.

“She was injured in the year the Gilded City fell,” the shining woman said. “Most of ten years ago. Not long, I think.”

Something wrenched in my chest. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

A smile touched the edges of the shining woman’s roseberry lips. “No, Alken Hewer, but it does you credit to offer.”

A shudder went through me at the sound of my own name. There was power in that utterance, of a kind that made my whole essence respond like a plucked cord on a lute. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling, but it made my guard go up again. I didn’t much care for anything that made me react in a way I didn’t want to.

When I spoke again, I did my best to keep anything like anger or disrespect from my tone. “If you and your brethren wanted to speak to me, you could have sent Donnelly. I’m not fond of having my dreams tampered with.”

The woman stood, and my initial of impression of her height was, if anything, conservative. She was more than seven and a half feet tall, probably most of a foot taller than me. Her hair hung in a black curtain nearly down to her bare feet, giving it the aspect of a shadowy cloak. She turned to me, and her eyes cracked open to reveal a clean silver light. I was careful not to look directly into them.

She regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, and then nodded. “Of course. You would resent having your dreams intruded upon, given your past…” she bowed her head, the gesture conveying apology. “Forgive me. If it puts you at ease, this is not your dream but mine. I have invited you in as a guest, and I assure you that this place holds no danger for you, Knight of the Alder Table.”

It didn’t really put me at ease at all, but the apology was so formal and genuine that it made me feel guilty for saying anything. I scratched at the back of my neck and shuffled, then bowed my own head respectfully. “Thank you, Lady Eanor.” I surprised myself by meaning it.

My host placed delicate fingertips over her lips, hiding a wider smile. “You know me?”

I nodded. “The grove and the chimera kind of gave it away. I’ve been in more than a few churches.” I paused, then decided why not? I had been a knight, once, and flattering women was sort of a religion for the profession. “The carvings don’t do you justice.”

“You are most gallant,” Lady Eanor said with a light giggle that seemed to make the whole forest shudder in mirth. Even the trickling stream altered its music to match the sound. “But Valharre is not a chimera, Sir Knight. She is much older than any of the mutants your kind has bred and spread across this sphere.”

Valharre. Bleeding Gates, but that was a name I knew. I was standing in the presence of a legend.

And she was dying. Right there, only a few feet away from me. Wary as I was, a tendril of sadness wove its way through my armor.

Lady Eanor’s eyes remained on the dying creature for a while. I waited patiently, feeling a strange lack of urgency. That, I was sure, had to do with the nature of the sanctuary my consciousness had been drawn into. I didn’t believe I was truly there, at least not physically. No doubt my body was back in Olliard’s cart, deep in sleep.

“By the way,” I said, wanting to change the subject from the dying demigod, “I saw your sister recently.”

Surprise flickered across Eanor’s face as she returned her attention to me. “Ah. And you still live?”

“Heh.” I shrugged with one shoulder. “She tried to give me the old we’re not so different, join the Forces of Darkness speech.”

Eanor half turned from me, looking troubled. “Yes, I can imagine.” She turned to face me again and spoke more firmly. “Do not heed Nath’s words. She dreams of a world baptized in red seas.” She closed her burning silver eyes and drew in a long breath, her shoulders drooping a finger’s width. “I cannot blame her. She was made to be a warrior, but… I regret that she has gone so far astray.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not too interested in becoming one of her freak shows. Just seemed like I should mention it, her being your twin and all.”

It was uncanny, how alike the two of them looked. The shadowy mane of black hair, the pearl-hued skin, their height and voices. But, where Nath seemed like some avatar of death out of a devil’s nightmare, Eanor was more like the fairy godmother a young princess might like to meet.

They were both equally dangerous.

“Why am I here, Lady?” I asked. “Usually Donnelly passes along word for the Choir.” I hadn’t seen the spirit in many weeks, not since he’d passed along the orders to execute Leonis Chancer.

“The courier you named is engaged in other duties,” Eanor said. “And the forest you travel through is within my own domain.” She spread her hands out, and detached sleeves woven about her arms rippled like outstretched wings. “You guard your dreams well, and I would have contacted you another way, but I had need to speak with you in haste, Headsman.”

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The onsolain’s use of my epithet made me draw in a sharp breath. “Ah. So I’m here for work.”

Eanor nodded, her girlish mirth fading as a more somber, far more ancient mask took its place. “I am afraid so.”

Anger, my old and ill-trusted friend, bubbled up in me. I took a moment to get a grip on my emotions before speaking. “It’s been less than a week since I killed Leonis Chancer for you and your brethren. You couldn’t have given me time to recover from my injuries, at least?”

Eanor folded her arms and their wings of shimmering cloth, clasped her hands together, and bowed her head. This time, it wasn’t a gesture of apology. Her lambent eyes slitted, and her voice once again became that nearly sub-audible murmur. “Time. Time is an illusion as delicate as any elven glamour, Alken Hewer, and it is fast slipping from our grasp.”

I folded my own arms. “Right. So, who do you want me to kill this time? A warlock? Rogue warlord? Maybe another bishop?” I snapped my fingers and spoke in a brighter voice. “I know! How about a king this time. I think there are still a few realms I’m not wanted in, may as well get those bounty hunters spread a bit more evenly, don’t you think?”

Eanor cocked her head to one side. Her shadowy hair seemed to shift like the deep currents of a lightless sea with the motion. The effect was disorienting. “We never claimed this role would be an easy one.”

I clenched my jaw and said, “why did you need me to kill a bishop? Why did you need me to do it in one of your own cathedrals? He was a servant of your church.”

Not a mote of anger registered on the onsolain’s statue-perfect face. “The Church of Urn is not our instrument, Alken Hewer. It belongs, in all its myriad divisions, to your peoples.” She unlaced her fingers in my direction, as though releasing cupped water. “They are channels through which you may commune with us, bridges of thought and faith. They are not courts of judgment through which we may extend a punishing fist.”

“Then what do you call me, if not a punishing fist?” I pressed a scarred hand to my chest, feeling the frustration I’d been holding inside for long months surging up and out. “I’ve been killing men and monsters across Urn for nearly five years now at your word, or at least at the word of the High Choir. Most of them I understood the need for it well enough. I get that Leonis Chancer was a bastard, but why did you,” I pointed a finger at the inhumanly tall figure, “and the rest of the Choir need the Headsman to send him off to Draubard? I deserve to know.”

It was a while before Eanor replied. When she did, her voice was very calm, very quiet. “Do you?”

I realized then that the birds were no longer singing, and the stream was no longer cheerily flowing, its song becoming a muted, cautious tune. I suppressed a shudder of fear and folded my arms again. “Maybe not,” I admitted. “But I’ve been misled by those I thought infallible before. I don’t care that some might call you and yours gods, My Lady. I want to know the score.”

Eanor was quiet a long while, her impossibly beautiful face set with marble calm. Or maybe not. I couldn’t ever really tell with her kind. Too often it seemed like every display of emotion, every gesture, every word was composed like the actions on a stage. Rehearsed, so mere mortals could comprehend them. Some called them lesser gods, some called them angels, others the First Children — there were many names and many aspects to the Onsolain, kinsfolk of the Heir of Heaven and creations of the Old Divine.

It all meant the same thing. The being in front of me was more ancient than the world, and powerful enough to unmake me with a word. It was sheer idiocy of me to try to bully her into answers. But, damn it, I was so tired of being in the dark. I’d played the role of good little soldier before, and I’d watched a civilization burn.

Never again. If I was going to fight, to spill blood, then I’d know why. I was the Headsman of Seydis, one of the last members of the Knights of the Alder Table. I had fought wars and watched a realm I was sworn to protect burn. I was the chosen mortal killer of the gods of Urn. It wasn’t a role I was proud of, but I’d be damned — more than I was already — if I fought blind. I’d done that once. I’d been an unquestioning soldier, happy enough so long as those I believed wiser knew what to do.

I knew better now.

“Thirty one,” I said in a near whisper, glaring into Eanor’s dimly glowing eyes. I didn’t care just then that it could harm me to meet her gaze directly. “Thirty one heads I’ve claimed in the last five years. Where does it end? I thought the point of this was to kill the bastards who caused the war so they couldn’t start a new one. Killing warlocks and leftover demons we didn’t hunt down during the Fall was one thing, but this was a High Preost. Didn’t you think I had enough stacked against me without making an enemy of the Church?”

“Leonis Chancer used the conflict to usurp power in the Church,” Eanor said, her serene countenance a stark contrast to my frustration. “Hundreds died at his command. Thousands more died at the hands of those who followed his example. Do you think that ended with the Llynspring Inquisitions?” She regarded me somberly. “His influence would have continued to grow, poisoning the faithful until the memory of this last war was washed away in the blood of religious revolution.”

The onsolemite inclined her head, looking into my eyes as though compelling me to understand. “In his death you have forestalled such a calamity. It was necessary. It was just.”

Just. The word rung a discordant note in my thoughts. Despite that, I did consider her words and their ramifications. They were unpleasant, to put it mildly. Still, having a priest murdered to influence events… It seemed so political, for the gods to become involved in. I’d thought they had a different objective in mind for me. Something more — not noble, but at least something that felt less unclean.

I’d thought I’d be walking the shadows, fighting against shadows. Instead, I felt more like an assassin. A tool.

Nothing ever changed.

“I didn’t think I’d be one of the most wanted men in the land,” I said, more sour than defiant. “People have started to hate me nearly as much as the Briar.”

“Yours is a Penance of Blood,” Eanor said. “You are the Headsman of Seydis. You accepted this path. Now you must walk to its end. You know the alternative.”

I did, but I resented her for reminding me as though I’d forgotten. My head was beginning to throb from looking into Eanor’s eyes for too long. I turned away and walked toward the stream, staring into its clear waters. Precious gems glittered at the bottom rather than stones. After a minute, I sensed the goddess’s presence over my shoulder. There had been no whisper of feet across grass, no rustle of fabric. She was just suddenly there, at my side. Light fingers touched my shoulder, and I shivered. There was the strength to break apart mountains in those hands, and even if the touch was meant to comfort I couldn’t help but feel discomforted.

“You have been deeply wounded by war and betrayal.” Eanor’s words rang with empathy. “Had it been my choice, I would not have bestowed such a fell office upon an oathsworn member of the Alder Table.”

I took a deep breath, calming myself. “But you’re just one voice in the Choir, right? I get it.” I turned and met her eyes. I had to look up to do it, and the onsolain met my gaze with eyes narrowed to near slits so I could barely see the light in them, her expression troubled.

“Who’s my next target?” I asked.

“Orson Falconer,” Eanor said, the grove whispering the name along with her. “The Baron of Caelfall.” She took her hand off my shoulder and clasped it with the other, the gesture almost one of prayer.

I blinked in surprise, and she nodded. “He rules the land you are traveling into even now.” A hint of anger crept into her soothing voice, the first display of it since the audience had begun. “His men slew the sentinel.”

“The troll,” I muttered, realizing. “One of yours?”

Eanor nodded. “He was an old friend and a valiant guardian. My own vassal. But his death is not why we give you this name, Alken Hewer.”

I noted the use of we. I felt a twinge of disappointment at that. Part of me had hoped this was a case of personal vengeance on behalf of the being I spoke to. I could understand that. There was even a ring of chivalry to it.

But no. This was another edict for the Headsman, direct from the Divine Choir itself.

“The baron has consorted with the Adversary,” Eanor said, drawing my attention back to her. “He was once a just ruler, a valiant warrior, but that was many years ago. His dissolution began even before the burning of Elfhome, and he has grown ever bolder in his heresies of late. He gathers forces to him, and may threaten the peace of the Accorded Reams, already a tenuous thing.” Her expression grew distant, as though she were listening to some faraway voice. “He must be stopped before he strengthens his ties to other Recusants and threatens war.”

I pondered that for a time. There were many powers in the land who refused to respect the authority of the Accord, the alliance of nations and powerful factions formed to maintain order in a land broken by the Fall. Mostly they were warlords consigned to isolated demesnes where the Accord’s influence couldn’t easily reach, ruling small domains as they pleased and raiding the larger, battle-weary realms. But not all were merely petty warlords. Some were powerful warlocks, or militant groups posing as mercenary companies and bandit gangs. Some were wizards.

Some were kings.

In common parlance, these dissidents and warmongers were called Recusants. They were not a united force, but if they ever found common ground it could easily lead to another Fall.

Part of my job was to prevent just that outcome. Even if many of the lords of the Accord basically thought of me as one of those Recusants.

If Orson Falconer gathered forces to him here, practically in the heartlands of the Accorded Realms, and made nice with other rebel factions… things could get bad.

“You called him a heretic,” I said. “He’s a diabolist? A warlock?”

“Yes,” Eanor confirmed. “I have felt his darkness pressing on the edges of my own domain, especially here in this forest. I have urged my brethren to act before. It was fortunate that you were passing through when you did, and had just completed another task.”

Yeah, I thought bitterly, real fortunate. Aloud I said, “I’ll do what I can. I’m kind of a wreck right now.”

Eanor only smiled softly. My eyes felt heavy, and I knew the end of this strange audience was approaching. I turned and began to move back toward the edge of the grove. I wasn’t certain it would end the audience any faster, but I didn’t really feel too at peace just then, and didn’t want the enchanted grove taking my frustration away. It wasn’t like I was proud of my bitter feelings, but they were mine.

“Do not forget,” the onsolain said at my back. “You are still of the Alder Table, Sir Knight, bound to that office, and it is a calling greater than your penance as the Headsman.”

I tried not to snort. “The Table’s broken,” I said. “And my knighthood was stripped when I was excommunicated, so I’m not sure you’re supposed to be calling me sir anymore.”

“Mortal nations may not recognize you as such,” Eanor murmured, the words seeming to drift through my thoughts. “But your vows are forever binding. Do not forsake them, Alken Hewer, for they have not forsaken you.”

Damn immortals always end up having the last word.