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Catrin led me deeper into the city, away from the high towers of the Forger castle and the festive streets. She led me deeper, into the lower streets where the delineation between home and infrastructure became less defined, where tenements and businesses were dug into the very foundations of the cosmopolitan lagoon.

These areas were no less populated. Through the thickening mist which clung to everything like a thin film, I could make out groups of people in a variety of garb moving here and there, or moving in and out of doorways cut into the city’s stonework, no doubt hiding taverns and brothels. As we descended, “streets” became little more than lips between canal wall and the waters below barely wide enough for three or four people to walk shoulder to shoulder.

Catrin stopped leading me quite so aggressively after a time. She let go of my arm, but walked close enough as to occasionally brush against me, her long skirt of white cloth mingling with the tail of my Reynish coat.

“So why are you here?” I asked her, mostly to break the silence and my growing unease at where we might be heading. “Garihelm’s a dangerous place for a changeling to walk about these days.”

“Everywhere’s a dangerous place for a pretty girl to walk about,” Catrin jested, nudging my arm with an elbow. “Good thing I’m not a pretty girl, eh?”

I glanced at her peasant’s features and sighed. I wouldn’t let her dodge the question, but I knew cajoling wouldn’t work. So I thought about it instead, and came to my own answer. “The Keeper. He has you in the city collecting secrets for him, doesn’t he? Because of the summit. There’s a lot of important people about.”

Catrin glanced at me, pouting. “No man with as much muscle as you’ve got should have brains, too. It’s just unfair.”

I snorted. “If I had any brains, my life would look a lot different.”

“Hey hey, none of that. Come on. We’re close.”

We descended a steep flight of stairs cut into the side of a deep canal, connecting two different levels of the city with a sharp turn halfway down following the corner of a high supporting wall. Garihelm was mostly stone built atop more than a hundred small islands, foundations and bulwarks laid atop one another over centuries, all of it feeding the near constant rainfall down into the bay. Manmade waterfalls gushed from storm drains fashioned into gaping mouths or tilted bowls held by angels here and there, adding to the fog spilling up from below.

There was a good reason the Accord’s capital was sometimes called the Floating City.

Catrin found a tunnel, another storm drain, and led me down its outer lip. Eventually we came to a set of iron bars. She kicked at them, rattling the metal, and a surly looking figure in a rain coat and scarf similar to my own sidled out of the shadows. He glared at me with bright, pale eyes, and I knew immediately he wasn’t all human.

The changeling stared at me a while. His eyes reminded me of some fish evolved in a sunless cave, like fleshy orbs of half-solid milk. They flicked to Catrin after a moment.

“Who’s this?” His voice scratched at the walls like rusted nails.

“Friend,” Catrin shot back, propping a fist on her hip. “Open up, Artur, that’s a good lad.”

“He smells like an elf,” Artur growled. “I don’t like him.”

Catrin rolled her eyes, stepped to one wall, and sunk into a patch of shadow there. She reemerged on the other side of the bars, folded her arms, and started tapping the toe of one boot.

Artur cast a sour glare at her, then opened the gate. I stepped inside, bemused, and rejoined my companion. I heard the gate slam closed behind us, teeth-clenching loud in the confines of the tunnel.

“This is a changeling refuge?” I asked.

Catrin snuck an arm through the crook of my elbow, so her layered sleeves were crushed beneath my arm and side. “More like the sort of place we go to let off some steam. You’ll see.”

That hardly filled me with confidence. As we moved forward, I began to hear odd noises — distant cries and shouts, metallic shrieks, shouts of anger and triumph.

Combat sounds. I began to suspect I knew exactly where we were.

“Cat,” I said quietly as the distant noises grew nearer. “I’ve had a stomach full of violence recently. I’m not sure an underground fighting ring is going to make me feel better.”

I felt her eyes drift to me, saw her wince. “Ah. I didn’t think about that… Damn. Sorry, really. But that’s not why I’m bringing you, not exactly.”

I kept hold of my patience. Admittedly, I was curious now. That curiosity warred with my apprehension. Judging by the sentry’s reaction, I suspected I wouldn’t be too welcome here.

And I wasn’t surprised Catrin hadn’t thought about how I might react to rough sport. Though she had her “girl-next-door” looks and a penchant for altruism, her vampiric nature inured her to violence. I suspected it even excited her, in a dark way I wasn’t wholly comfortable with.

You even indulge in a vulgar courtship with a mongrel whose hungers remind you of that creature’s own.

Was it true? Had I been seeing Fidei — not as I’d believed her to be, the wise and empathetic confessor, but as she’d been at the end — in Cat? Had it tugged at something ugly in me, this want to know what might have been?

Catrin wasn’t a demon. I felt certain of that. Yet, there was something distinctly demonic in her. Her hunger for blood, her lust, the allure she felt toward pain and death.

Was I really so shallow? So base?

Had that judging angel been right about me?

I’m drunk, I thought. And I shouldn’t be here. I should be back at the palace, figuring out what my next step is.

“We’re here,” Catrin said, ripping me from my thoughts.

We’d stepped into a large chamber, likely some vault for the city’s sewer’s system that had fallen out of use. Three layers of stone walkways encircled a central pit, and they were filled with scores of figures, most of them in poor or even ragged garb. There was very little light, as most here wouldn’t need it. The aura in my eyes allowed me to see, but I suspected a normal human would be half blind, seeing only a gathering of shadowed. monstrous shapes.

They were all changelings. I’d never seen so many in one place. They resembled all manner of creatures, from cervids to hounds to insects to fish, all with some variation of humanity evident in their features. None wore glamour to hide their true nature, making them seem a congregation of demons.

I pushed that comparison out of my head. These weren’t fiends, just the misbegotten children of elves and humans, their fae natures turned against them. Even still, I felt a trickle of revulsion at the sight, even a bit of fear.

You’re not the holy knight anymore, I told myself sternly. Keep your self righteous judgement to yourself, Al. This isn’t the place for it.

My eyes were drawn to the pit. Water had collected in it from drains in the high ceiling, leaving a pool no more than ankle deep. In that water, five figures faced off with one another — four on one, I realized.

The one, I recognized. Standing over eight feet tall and forged from hundreds of pounds of anger and muscle hiding a sharp mind, the war ogre bared wolf’s fangs framed by prominent tusks at his opponents. His eyes, yellow rimmed with red, shone bright in the sparse light of the vault. He wore little except for ragged trousers hugging the enormous muscles of his thighs, secured by a series of leather straps over his chest and shoulders. He had a huge cleaver in one hand, big enough to be a sword for a man but little more than a dagger for him.

“Karog,” I said aloud, surprised.

Catrin nodded. “He’s been down in the slums. Mostly doing this, lately.”

The four changelings circled the ogre. One looked like a huge toad, while the other three might have been brothers — all mostly human, save for their back-bent legs, too-long arms, and too-pale complexions. They looked more like Sidhe than most in the chamber, and moved as elegantly as any I’d seen. They wielded long staves, though the toad seemed to be unarmed.

The toad’s neck bulged, which acted as some sort of signal. Two of the triplets went in low and fast from the sides, while the third raised his staff as though to hurl it like a javelin. Karog’s fangs bared in a silent snarl. He waited until the last possible instant, then spun into a 360 degree spiral, swiping out with his cleaver.

One of the staves split in two — that brother had overcommitted. The other leapt back, avoiding the whistling blade. The third threw their weapon. Karog ducked and swung upward in the same motion, knocking it out of the air.

The toad croaked, then spat something foul much as Yith had done during my fight with him. No way it — he? she? — could fail to hit a target that big, I thought.

Karog’s red-rimmed eyes flickered toward the toad. In a flash, he drew the second cleaver from his belt and brought both blades together, forming a shield with their combined mass. The spit struck it. I suspected acid or poison of some kind.

I was wrong. Karog tried to separate his blades, but found them stuck fast together by the pale green substance. His dextrous response had been a mistake, a clever trap set by the toad.

The three brothers closed in again, two now disarmed of their staves but not of their sharp claws and fangs. They bared serrated teeth, snarling, all elfin grace vanishing in that moment of triumph.

Karog didn’t so much as widen his eyes. He dropped his useless weapons into the water wish a splash, flung both arms out, and caught two of the changeling triplets. He slammed one against the third, knocking them both into the water, then hurled his remaining captive at the toad.

The warted creature’s huge eyes popped wide in shock. He hopped, bounding out of the water with a great splash to dodge the living missile.

Karog, having anticipated this reaction, had aimed over the toad’s head. The bulky half-breed collided with its more gangly comrade midair, and they both went crashing down after colliding with an impact that made my jaw clench in sympathy. There would be broken bones from that.

The crowd roared, and the sound set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. They let out inhuman cries of excitement, the sound of it feral, terrifying in a primal way.

Catrin watched with rapt attention. Though she didn’t join the cheering, I saw eddies of red curl into the soft brown of her eyes.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” I asked her.

“Part of it,” Catrin replied. “Lucky things didn’t come to a fight back then when we caught him on the road, eh?”

I couldn’t help but agree. Karog fought with brutal efficiency. Despite his impressive size, he was incredibly fast. In the way his eyes took in everything, in their eerie calm, I suspected he didn’t just fight with sheer strength and instinct, though he had those in spades. He fought tactically, making assessments amid the blur of violence, acting on immediate decisions with the speed of reflex.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He fought like I did. Seeing him in action, I suspected he fought better.

The chimera’s eyes swept the crowd, a grim satisfaction evident in them. His gaze found mine. He paused, then dipped his head in a slight acknowledgement. I returned it.

Catrin tugged at my elbow. “Come on.”

She led me around the middle ring of the improvised arena. I caught more than a few odd looks from the changelings, but when they saw the dhampir they got out of our way. Even still, I couldn’t help but keep my hand close to the axe hidden under my coat.

We turned into a side passage. The noise of the arena faded behind us, though not entirely. The make of the tunnels changed, and I began to suspect the slum dwellers had dug some of these out themselves, burrowing into the city’s foundations to make more room for themselves.

“You’re surprised to see so many of them,” Catrin said.

“I am,” I admitted.

She glanced back at me, her expression unusually serious. “Much as humans think of us as the monsters in the woods, it’s hard for us to live outside of big towns or cities. The elves…” She shrugged. “I guess we disgust them? It’s less that they find us ugly — plenty of faeries take forms humans would find ghastly — but the changelings have never gotten on with their elven parents any better than their mortal ones.”

I frowned. “You talk about them like you’re not counting yourself.”

She was quiet a while as we walked. Then, sighing she said, “You know I’m not really a changeling, right? Not like they are.”

I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t know.”

“In here,” she said as we came to an opening in the wall. I say opening because it could hardly be called a door — I could make out where stone had been pulled away from the tunnel, forming a ragged gap. On the other side, dug into natural rock as much as the bones of the city, was a room.

We stepped inside. The room was better lit than the adjacent passage, cast into odd colors by alchemical lanterns I suspected had been pilfered from the streets above. Three changelings sat in a loose circle in the room’s center, hunched over a battered old table. They seemed to be in mid conversation, but paused as we entered.

One of them was Parn. Though no longer clad in the filthy smock of an Inquisition prisoner, I recognized his too-large head, wispy white hair, and huge, vaguely reptilian eyes. Little more than five feet tall, he looked shrunken in on himself with age and wear.

He blinked first at Cat, then at me. His wide mouth split into a nearly toothless grin. “Ah! Alken.”

He scurried off his seat and shuffled to me. He dressed in a worn brown robe and apron, like a doctor or perfumer, and walked with the aid of a gnarled cane.

I dipped my head. This man was an elder in the slums, the closest thing they had to a leader so far as I knew, and I treated him with the same respect I would to a minor lord. “Parn. It’s good to see you well.”

“And I have you to thank for that!” He exclaimed brightly. He seemed far less furtive than the last time I’d seen him, though it didn’t surprise me given the circumstances. “And is that little Cat? You look dazzling, dear.”

To my surprise, the dhampir blushed.

“But what is the occasion?” Parn asked, blinking his huge green eyes. “Ah, forgive me, there’s time for that after introductions.” He gestured to the other two changelings seated at the table. “Ollietta, Fen, this is the man I told you about.”

Two… I hesitate to use the word creature, as it felt uncouth in these circumstances, but I turned my attention to the other two half-fae in the room. One was as enormous as Parn was small, a hunched form buried in a copious amount of brown cloth like some caricature of a monk. I couldn’t make out much of the features beneath the heavy cowl, but could make out something like a long muzzle or snout.

The second, I recognized. She was striking in an alien sort of way. She looked like a beautiful young woman with gray-blue hair, dusky skin, and a sharp protrusion like a falcon’s beak where her nose should be, almost meeting a smaller one curving up from her chin, her full human lips nearly hidden between them.

I could still make out the faint line on her beak where I’d struck her with the back end of Faen Orgis.

“We’ve met,” Ollietta, the harpy, murmured in a soft, musical voice.

Parn glanced at her and winced. Catrin cast a look between us, confused.

I took a breath, stepped forward, and bowed my head deeply. “I apologize for when we last met, My Lady. For striking you.”

She regarded me with narrow eyes. Very dark eyes, with even the sclera tinted near black. She said nothing for a drawn out moment. Then, with a heavy sigh, she gave me a nervous smile.

“I’m no Lady. My friends and I did attempt to kill you. Fair is fair. I hold no grudge.”

I rose, relieved. I hadn’t realized just how much the image of the harpy woman lying on the floor of that tunnel, sobbing and holding her shattered beak, had bothered me these past weeks.

Parn sighed in relief. “Yes, that unpleasantness is well behind us. But what do we owe the honor, Master Alken?”

“I dragged him along,” Catrin piped in. “Thought he should get a chance to see you. You mentioned that you wanted to thank him in person, Parn.”

I blinked, tossing a glance at Catrin. She noticed it and gave me an encouraging smile.

Parn blinked his green eyes. “Indeed.” He dipped into a surprisingly proper bow then, balancing on his cane like a courtier. “For saving me from torment and death, you have my eternal gratitude, Ser Knight.”

I shook my head. “I’m not a—”

“You are,” Catrin said, interrupting me. “No one down here gives a troll’s ass wart what the nobles or priests think.”

I folded my arms, feeling suddenly uncomfortably warm. Coughing I said, “I’m glad I got you out. That was a real mess. Only regret it took so long, and that I stumbled on you half by accident.”

Parn shrugged. “What does it matter it to me? I live because of you.”

Desperate to change the subject, I tilted my head in the direction of the arena. “What’s the deal out there? Karog do something to piss you all off?”

Ollietta let out a tittering laugh, hiding her hooked beak and feminine lips behind an upraised hand, which I noted trailed bright feathers from the wrist. “No,” she said. “Quite the opposite, actually. He’s preparing himself.”

I tilted my head again, this time in question. “Preparing for what?”

“The tournament of course!” She said brightly, her apprehension seemingly forgotten. “Karog is going to be participating.”

I blinked. Catrin took a moment to enjoy my confusion, then explained.

“It’s not just lordlings and glorysworn participating in Markham Forger’s big to do,” she said. “This is the biggest gathering of the Accorded Realms since the war. The powers-that-be want to test the mettle of the new generation. With no wars going on, this is the Emperor’s chance to see how the current stock holds up, from graybeards to chicks. There are preliminary matches happening all over the city, most of them private events. Anyone can participate in those, from farm boys still stinking of hay to mercenaries. The ones who catch a wealthy patron’s eye might get a chance to swing iron in the real thing.”

I knew some of this already, though I’d paid little attention to the tournament. “What does any of that have to do with Karog?” I asked.

Catrin leaned closer. “Those who make a good show of themselves in Forger’s tournament have a chance of winning knighthoods.”

“Why does Karog want a knighthood?” I asked slowly, feeling witless.

“For us,” Ollietta said quietly.

I looked at the feathered changeling, taking that in. The mood in the room altered distinctly. Fen, looming over the table, had been very quiet through the conversation.

“We are unwanted by our Sidhe parents,” Parn said quietly. “Pushed out of the wilds, we have little choice but to make do on scraps, scraping out a life in the shadow of human cities.”

“You get that this is a sewer, right big man?” Catrin asked quietly. “Things are like this across the land, for Parn and the Hidden Folk.”

“Many who won’t settle for this life turn to banditry,” the old changeling agreed.

“Or worse,” Ollietta added.

During the war, the Recusants had fielded packs of the misbegotten denizens of Urn. During my travels after the war, I’d faced similar groups roaming the backroads of various kingdoms. They’d seemed feral, full of rage and bloodlust. I felt like I understood some of their desperation now.

“Karog is a stranger in a strange land,” Parn continued. “He’s lost everything, even been estranged from the benefactors who brought him here. He has found a new purpose with us.”

“As it’s been,” Ollietta said, “there’s nothing stopping groups like the priorguard from swarming down here whenever they want. If we fight back, the city guard takes the Inquisition’s side and pushes us deeper under the streets. And, the deeper we go…” Her face lost some of its vibrant color. “There are things in the depths beneath this city. Old things, hungry and terrible.”

“More so lately,” Parn agreed.

I thought of Yith, and his Woed. “So, if Karog becomes a Knight of the Accord…”

Catrin picked up the thread. “The Priory, or anyone like them, won’t be so quick to stomp down on changeling necks if there’s a big lug like Karog down here, with a fancy mark pinned to his shoulder.” She tapped one of her bare shoulders with a thumb. “Someone powerful in the upper city will take issue. Even better, he can sit in on councils, give these people a voice.”

I folded my arms, took in all of this, and felt…

Impressed. Even awed. I’d never even considered something like this could be possible. Suddenly, my own commitment to helping the slum dwellers felt hollow and half-baked, even condescending.

“He’d need to make a very impressive showing of himself,” I said. “He’s strong, but there will be champions from across Urn at these struggles, possibly even from beyond our shores. Many of them will wield Art. He’s going to need to play nice with any patron who takes an interest in him, too.”

“It will be difficult,” Parn agreed. “But he is committed. He has thrown everything into preparing for this burden.”

I met Catrin’s eye. She gave me a brief smile and spoke in a quieter voice. “We did good, bringing him here. Not that I think we deserve the credit, but…”

I shook my head. “I understand you. And I agree.”

I said my goodbyes to the changelings, once again noting the hooded one’s silence. Something felt off about him — he hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I’d stepped into the room, and I felt a subtle impression from him. Of what, I couldn’t say.

Just before I left, I heard him murmur something I only barely caught.

“Go with grace, Ser Knight.”

He had a very soft voice, cultured, nearly musical as Ollietta’s. It belied his brutish appearance. I barely had time to acknowledge that before Catrin bustled me out of the room.

“So?” She asked, once we were in the hall.

“So,” I answered noncommittally.

We stopped halfway down the tunnel. Catrin turned to face me and folded her arms under her breasts, brushing some strands of brown hair out of her eyes.

“It’s good, right?” She asked uncertainly. “You made a difference. You did right by these people — saving Parn, bringing Karog here.”

I nodded slowly. Had that been the only reason she’d brought me down here? I appreciated it, I did, but I felt like there was more.

“We made some difference,” I agreed. I just wasn’t sure it would offset all my mistakes. It wouldn’t change what I had to do.

Catrin let out an exasperated huff. “There it is again!” She jabbed a finger into my sternum. “You’re wandering off into yourself. Just take the win!”

I felt a tightness rise up in my chest, starting where she’d poked me and finding its way up to my throat. “Cat, I…”

Her eyes softened with concern. “I can tell there’s something wrong, Al. Back in that place I found you earlier, you…” She shifted on one foot, licking her lips. “You didn’t look well. You still don’t. Talk to me?”

Not a demand. An invitation. An offer. I inhaled through my nose.

“Are you my friend, Cat?” I asked her.

She frowned, tilting her head to one side. “Where’s this going, big man?”

“I just…” I sighed. “Please. These conversations, the times we’re… Together like this. Is it because of the Council? Because we still have this mission, a use to one another? Or…”

The corner of her lip curled into a knowing smile, tinted by the worry in her eyes, the confused furrow of her brow. “Yeah, big man, we’re friends.”

“Why?” I asked. I’d asked before, but things had changed. “These people…” I waved a hand toward the room we’d just left. “Men like me have been hunting them for centuries, pressing them down, neglecting them. Treating your folk like monsters.”

“I told you,” she said, holding out a stalling hand. “They’re not really my folk, unless you want to say I adopted them. Or they adopted me? If you want the truth, Al…”

She stepped to my side and leaned her back against the wall, lifting one boot to prop it against the stone. “Most of them don’t like or trust me anymore than they would you.”

I frowned. “Why? Because of the Keeper?”

She shrugged. “In part. Part of it’s the same sort of stigma anyone has, toward someone who… Does what I do.”

I stared at her. She saw the dourness in my face and flashed a crooked grin. “You know,” she said in a lighter tone. “Fucking people for money.”

When I didn’t rise to her bait, she turned serious again. “But mostly, it’s because of what I am. I told you before, Alken, I’m not Sidhe like they are. I’ve got no benevolent bridge troll or faerie knight in my blood, no sad tale of star crossed lovers, no union of mortal and immortal. There’s a pretty story behind all of them.”

She waved a hand back toward the arena. Her next words took on an edge of bitterness. “Not me.”

I’d rarely seen this sort of mood fall on the dhampir. I studied her a moment, then stepped into the center of the tunnel and looked down on her. She was taller than average for a woman, but I’m taller than average for everyone. She didn’t meet my eye.

“I’m willing to hear it,” I told her. “If you want to talk.”

She smiled again, though it looked more forced than usual. “Reversing things on me? That’s cruel. I was trying to get through your walls.”

I nodded, but kept my demeanor serious. I felt like this was important. “Even still,” I said. “If you want to talk…”

Catrin blew a lock of hair out of her face, only for it to fall right back where it had been. I suppressed a sudden urge to reach out and tuck it behind her ear.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she blurted, folding her arms and cocking her body in a challenging twist that brought her face and one shoulder closer to me. “I give you my tragic backstory, and you tell me what’s got you trying to drink yourself unconscious in Garihelm’s back streets. Deal?”

I tilted my chin up, looking at her down my nose. She kept her eyes on my chin — looking directly into the aura in my own was painful for her. Not as bad as sunlight, but she’d once told me it felt similar.

“Very well,” I said. “But you won’t like what you hear.”

A sad light entered Catrins ruddy brown eyes. “Yeah, well… Mine’s no picnic either.” She sighed. “Fine. But not here. I’d rather talk about this with some moonlight on my face.”

I stepped back, bowed, and offered my arm like a proper gentleman. She giggled, forced herself to look serious, then shrugged and looped her arm through mine. I felt her sharp nails slide across the crook of my left elbow, where her claws and fangs had both drawn my blood on two separate occasions.

We went together, though I didn’t miss the stiffness which had overwhelmed Cat’s usual ease, or how she walked slower than she normally did. Whatever she had to tell me, she was afraid of it.

image [https://i.imgur.com/IY3fv7W.jpeg]