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We left the drains and the slums behind, returning to the higher sections of the city. It had gotten very late, near midnight, and the crowds had grown sparser without vanishing altogether.

“Anywhere in mind?” I asked Catrin as we ascended to a market square. A troubadour band were playing for the remnants of a tired crowd, but they’d gotten too drunk and too finger sore to make much of a show. Luckily, their listeners seemed too drunk to mind.

“Hm…” She seemed suddenly uncertain, glancing about as though searching for something she’d lost. “Well, I…”

I’d rarely seen her so nervous. Whatever she had to tell me, she wanted to stall as long as she could.

“Follow me,” I said, having a sudden idea.

She looked at me, surprised, and nodded. I led her from the square into a winding series of overlapping streets, mostly narrow lips hugging the canals with bridges crossing overhead in a complex sprawl the builders had managed to make look artful.

Garihelm was a beautiful city. I struggled to see it sometimes, but I think that was less the city’s fault and more mine.

We found a stair leading down to the edge of the water. I helped Catrin down, letting her hand rest lightly on my own. She shuffled at my side when we reached the bottom of the stair, which was little more than a stone platform set in the water.

I waited about ten minutes, unsure if I’d see any this late. It did appear, just when I thought I might have to look elsewhere. A gondola, elegant and sleek, made to ply the narrow waters of Garihelm’s canals. A man with a long oar stood at its stern.

The ferry stopped when I signaled him, and we had a brief conversation. He was tired and ready to turn in for the night, but after some talk he ended up taking some coin and handing me the oar, telling me to have it back by morning. I thanked him, and he gave Catrin a gentlemanly bow, even taking her hand to kiss. She seemed unusually furtive, murmuring her thanks and avoiding eye contact with the boatman.

I helped her onto the gondola and took the oar, pushing us out into the black water. For a time I rowed in silence, listening to the quiet ambience of the dying festival around us, the occasional ghost of music, the drunken laughter, friendly guards wishing people good night.

We weren’t the only ones on the water, though we had privacy enough.

“You remembered,” Catrin said after a while. She reclined on the prow of the boat, keeping a distance between us, her legs crossed over the length of white cloth she wore around her waist.

I nodded, and pushed us out of the narrow canal and into a wider stretch of water between several of the city’s islands. It was something like a lake encircled by docks and bridges and lamplit neighborhoods rather than a proper shoreline. The sky remained clear above us, showing a tapestry of stars and faraway moons untethered to our shores. A faint mist clung low to the water.

Catrin saw the same thing I did, and laughed. “It’s like that first night, the one we met. You remember?”

“I do,” I said quietly. “I… Wasn’t kind to you.”

Catrin lifted one pale shoulder in a shrug. “Eh.”

“It was you, you know.” I glanced at her as I pushed us out into the lagoon.

“Oh?” She asked, cocking her head to one side.

“You helped me remember what I’d been,” I said. “You helped me remember honor.”

I could tell I’d surprised her. She blinked at me, taken aback. “I’m not sure I get it.”

“I’d stopped caring about much,” I tried to explain. “I did what I was ordered, and I lost sight of myself… I was suspicious of everything, struggling to believe in anything. I treated you unjustly. When I realized, it helped me.” I shrugged. “If that makes any sense.”

The water moved beneath us, making the boat creak gently.

“I see,” Catrin said, her expression turning thoughtful. “I’m still not sure I understand, but… I’m glad. That I was able to help, I mean.”

“You did.”

“I’ll admit,” she said, “it does still feel strange, being close to, well…” She waved a hand at me. “A lord, and a paladin too. Never thought something like that might happen for me.”

“Why?” I asked quietly, rowing us further on. We were nearly at the dead center of the lagoon now, the city rising around us. The lesser moon rose high above, cold and distant.

She drummed her fingers against the side of the boat. Her other hand scraped at the wood, sharp nails — almost like small claws — digging grooves into it. She wouldn’t look at me.

“Because I’m a damned thing,” she said. “Born in the mud.” She leaned her head back against the boat’s curved prow and let out a dry laugh. “Lowest of the low.”

I didn’t much like this mood in the normally chipper dhampir. “Cat…” I began.

She held up a pale hand, stalling me. “Let me finish,” she said, peering at me without meeting my eye. “I promised I’d tell you. Where I came from, who I am… What I am. You don’t like secrets, yeah? Masks?”

She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Well, guess I’ll remove mine.”

----------------------------------------

“They call me Catrin of Ergoth. Do you know why?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I know it’s a place. An old kingdom? Did you live there?”

Catrin snorted. “I’m not that old. You want to make me cry?”

I frowned, shaking my head. “Of course not.”

She grinned, letting me know she was teasing. “No offense taken. But, no. I’ve never been to Ergoth. You’re right, it was a kingdom, and it’s gone now.”

She blew out a breath that misted in the air. The temperature had dropped, and a chill hung over the water. Or, did she produce the chill from herself? “I was born in the marchlands, on the coasts of the Oroion Sea.”

I nodded. I’d known she hadn’t been born outside the subcontinent from previous conversations.

“I grew up with the haunted waters of the Oroion on one side and the Fences on the other,” Catrin continued, closing her eyes as she remembered those faraway places. “I remember being able to see the mountains from anywhere, stretching up high into the sky. The marches of Urn are a gray land, war-torn, old, tired. But those peaks…”

She leaned her head back as a dreamy smile crossed her lips. “There was always a light shining through them from the other side. As a girl, I thought Heaven lay past those mountains. I’d stare at them for hours and dream about it.”

Her eyes opened, the smile fading as her expression took on a distance. “Not my homeland, though. It’s not a gentle country. You won’t find any golden forests full of elves there, no silver fields that drink in the moon’s fire, no noble families blessed by a divine queen. There’ve been so many wars there. The Ruin. The exodus that brought all your folk here. The Aureate Crusades.”

She shrugged. “You know. The bad old days.”

I ran the oar through the water, quiet as I listened. To me, I’d lived through “the bad days.” Yet, I’d dreamed of it, those ancient wars. There were memories of knights past in me, imprinted into my magic. Some of them had lived in those eras.

Catrin slipped a hand into the foggy water as the boat made its meandering way over the lagoon. “It’s a cold place,” she continued. “Gray and barren. The forests have shadows that go so deep they sometimes don’t fade, even in day. Hungry things rule them. Wolfweres. Woed. Vampires.”

“Still,” she said suddenly, spreading her hands out, “folk live there. Live pretty normal lives, all told. There are cities, and roads, and farms… People don’t live idyllic lives most times, but they live. The counts squabble, bloody each other’s noses, tax the peasants. Not too different from here if you don’t bother paying attention to aesthetics.”

I threw her a chagrined look. “You make us sound like barbarians.”

Catrin shrugged. “You practice feudalism. Looks the same most places, even if you folks here in the subcontinent tend to look like something out of a storybook more often than not.”

I had nothing to say to that. I hadn’t known another way, and I loved my homeland, for all its faults. It bothered me to hear Catrin compare it so blithely to sick lands far in the forsaken west. Even still, I hadn’t seen enough of the world to dispute it.

“But I’m getting off topic,” Catrin said, gesturing with one hand as though aiming at some point on a map. “I’ve set the stage, yeah? My parents were simple folk. Good folk, so far as I can tell. Both normal. Both human.”

She caught my surprised look. Her smirk had little humor in it. “That’s right. Little Cat was born in a nice homestead on the coastlands to loving parents who had no clue what they were bringing into the world. They didn’t cheat on each other with some horny elf. They didn’t make some dark pact with a crowfriar or piss off a magus. They just… got unlucky.”

I listened as I rowed, taking us nowhere in particular and in no hurry. The water gurgled gently beneath us with each stroke of the oar.

“There was a plague in the land at the time. No one knew then what started it. A foul wind out of Antriss, sent by Old Wicked himself? Some wizard’s spell gone wrong? The light of a bad moon? Something cooked up by the alchemists gone out of control?” Catrin shrugged her bare shoulders. “We don’t have Draubard in the continent. There’s no subterranean realm specially made to house the dead. Ghosts wander freely, predator and prey. Most believe, however, that it was the curse of Ergoth. A kingdom destroyed long ago, lingering in the land like a sickness. An undead realm.”

I shivered. The air felt colder all the sudden. The sacred fire in me stirred, some old, evil memory from before my time drawing its attention as the dhampir spoke.

“For an entire season, children were born wrong.” Catrin’s brown eyes fell to the water, staring at her own faint reflection in the moonlight. “Mutated. Hungry. Premature. Fused together. There was no rhyme or reason to it, but for that time it was like no life could happen, not how it was supposed to. It happened to animals and people.”

She tilted her eyes up to my face, still not fully meeting my gaze. “It happened to me. I was stillborn. My parents buried me in a little grave. They mourned me.”

She shifted, pulling her legs up and sitting more properly on the bench. She lifted one knee and wrapped an arm around that leg. I pushed our boat on with an idle swing of the oar, though I’d mostly let us drift.

“I don’t fault them for it,” Catrin said quietly, staring past me. “They didn’t know. Honestly, they made the right choice. Only, I wasn’t properly dead. Just… Drifting back and forth, I guess. I dug my way out of my own grave.”

I exhaled. “God in Heaven, Cat. You remember this? Even as a newborn?”

She nodded. “Bits and pieces. I was like an animal for many years. I wandered the wilderness, haunted villages. I fed on cattle, pets, small children…”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She glanced at me, checking my reaction. I kept my face carefully neutral.

I’ve been a monster, Alken. A real one.

She continued. “They called people like me — if you want to call us people — the Children of Ergoth. That’s where the epithet comes from. It’s followed me across countries, seas, lives.”

I took a few minutes to absorb all that. For a time we only listened to the water.

“I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I?” Catrin rolled her neck loosely to one side, letting her hair fall over one eye. “Disgusted you.”

I shook my head. “You were a child. You didn’t know any better.”

“I wasn’t a child for long,” she said, sighing. “I just told you I used to eat kids, Al. You can really let that go?”

I remembered the young page in Karles. His blood on my sword, his confused eyes.

“I’ve done things too,” I said quietly. “You aren’t the same person you were then.”

“Some ways I am,” she disagreed. “I still feel the same hungers.”

“So you crossed the mountains?” I asked, returning to the story.

She shook her head, causing her mane to dance back and forth only to settle in an entirely different configuration. “Nah. I couldn’t get close to those shining mountains, not with all the holy spirits guarding them. I stowed away on a ship, ended up near Mirrebel. After that I wandered. Got into trouble, learned things, figured myself out.”

“And this work you do nowadays,” I asked, feeling awkward. Only, I’d always been curious. “This, uh…”

“You can say it,” Catrin said with a raised eyebrow, some of her usual fire returning. “Go on.”

I grimaced and turned my head away, as though to check something in the water.

“Come on,” Catrin sang, teasing.

“I’m not going to call you that,” I growled, annoyed.

“Whore,” Catrin said. “Prostitute. Strumpet. Harlot. Trull. Streetwalker. Wench.” She counted the words off on her fingers, looking bored. “I’ve always been partial to Lady of the Night, myself. Not that I’m any proper lady.”

“You don’t have to look at yourself that way,” I told her. “You’re… More than that, Cat.”

Catrin shrugged. “I know what I am. And to answer your question, it’s not something I ever really decided? I just realized over time that there was a way to get what I need, in a way that’s enjoyable for me and my prey. Ugly word, prey, but there it is. It was survival at first. This farm boy caught me hiding in his family’s stable. I was of age, and the way he looked at me…”

A sad, wistful smile crossed her lips. “Well. That was my first time. He let me take from him. I came back the next night, and the next… I got to know him. He just did me in the hay at first, but after a while he started talking to me. Told me about his dreams, how he wanted to get work on a ship, see the world. He would bring me flowers.”

The smile faded. “I killed him. He got sick, and he wouldn’t wake up again. Anemia, I think it’s called. When they found the bite marks on him, the whole village grabbed iron and went on the hunt. I fled.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes refocusing on the present. “I learned two things then.” She held up two long fingers. “One, there’s a way to get what I need without taking it by force. And two, I can’t ever be with anyone long term, not if I don’t want to be the monster for real.”

I let the oar rest in the water. It was a while longer before Catrin spoke.

“I matured,” she said. “I figured out smarter ways to survive. It wasn’t always easy, and I had to be careful. Was a long time before I found any place like the Backroad.”

She spoke lightly, and looked relaxed, but I couldn’t help but feel very sorry for her in that moment. Perhaps it was just the moonlight and the foggy water, but she seemed sad then, and cold.

Catrin spread her arms out. “And that’s me. It’s not all of it, and I left out a lot of the uglier bits, but now you know where I came from. Behold, the accursed creature of the night! Muahaha.”

She made the wicked laugh dryly, without inflection, then blew out a breath as though relieved to get it all out. “Have I disappointed you?”

“Disappointed me?” I asked, confused.

“I guess, maybe…” She sighed. “I spent a lot of time coming up with stories to tell you about myself. That I’m some cursed princess far from home, or that my da’ was some vampire king, or something pretty and tragic like that. But I’m just some peasant girl who died in her mother’s womb and came back wrong. And you, well… You’re this lordly warrior of a famous order, with the weight of realms on your shoulders.”

She curled against the prow of the boat, hugging her legs to her chest.

I shrugged. “I wasn’t born a noble. I told you that back in Caelfall, remember?”

She studied me a moment. “I guess you did. I never really believed it.”

“It’s true,” I said. “I just got swept up in all of this.”

More silence. I broke it first. “I made you a promise. That I’d tell you why I was in that inn.”

Catrin leaned forward, attentive.

I thought about it a moment. Was I making the same mistake? Putting my trust where I shouldn’t?

Catrin wasn’t wearing a mask. I could see the hint of red in her eyes, her too-pale skin, the way she seemed to become sharper under the dead moon, both more real and less. She’d told me her dark origin, being nothing but honest with me.

I needed to trust someone. I needed to lean on someone. Rosanna had her own weight, Lias had his secrets, and Emma was supposed to be my ward, someone who could lean on me.

Catrin was just who she was. Someone I could talk to. Yet, even still, I couldn’t bring myself to trust her fully.

Because of Fidei? Because of me? Was I broken, unable to trust anyone?

Catrin still fell under the shadow of the Keeper of the Backroad, and I didn’t understand the full breadth of that relationship. I couldn’t help but think of Joy’s spiteful words, about Cat being the Keeper’s favorite. If I gave her my secrets, would she give them to the old spider? Would she have to, if he demanded it?

I didn’t want to ask her and ruin what trust we had.

But there were things I could tell her. Haltingly, quietly, I told her about events since I’d come to the city. I told her about my capture by the Inquisition, because I suspected she knew that already from Parn. I told her about after, how I’d reunited with Rosanna and joined forces with her, the weeks of investigation and frustration, about my confrontation with Yith, about Laessa and Kieran.

Throughout my telling, Catrin’s face softened. When I’d finished, leaving out only the orders Umareon had passed to me, she stood and stepped forward lightly across the boat. She took my right hand off the oar, clasping it in her own cold grip. Her long, strong fingers, smooth save for the hard tips of her nails, rubbed at my calloused mitten.

“That’s not all of it, is it?” She asked.

I hesitated, then nodded. “No.”

She nodded, her eyes downcast. “And none of that’s what’s really bothering you.”

“…No. It’s not. I got new orders.”

Her eyes narrowed. “From them?”

At my nod, she stepped closer. No invitation in it, no attempt to seduce. Just being there for me, being near. I’d rarely met anyone with so much empathy as Cat.

And the Church called her evil. The Onsolain had barred her from this land.

She used to kill people. To eat them.

Used to. I couldn’t see a monster in front of me, no matter how hard I looked with my golden eyes.

“You asked me when I last slept earlier,” I blurted, my voice rough. Just thinking about it made me feel heavy. “It’s been eight days.”

Catrin’s eyes widened. “How?”

“Same reason I heal fast,” I answered. “Same reason I age slow. You know I’m nearly forty?”

Where had that come from? I’m drunk.

Catrin shook her head. “You don’t look it.”

“Be that way for decades,” I confirmed. “Lasting youth, blessings of the Sidhe and all that. Makes it so I don’t have to sleep or eat as often as most men. Still, it’s been… Hard.”

She was so close. She smelled like wood smoke and some kind of medicinal herb. I remembered the tea she drank sometimes. I’d never asked her about that. I’d never really asked her about herself before tonight. I’d been too caught up in myself.

She ran her thumb over the pale patch of skin on my right forefinger. “Your ring is gone. I remember you telling me it eats bad dreams. That was true, wasn’t it?”

I dipped my head. “Inquisitors took it.”

That dip of my head brought me closer to her. She looked up and caught my eye, then quickly looked back down. Beneath us, the boat floated over the misty water.

I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I have a task. Best to have it done.

I would be slaying no fallen priests tonight. I needed time to think.

My job wasn’t to think. What was I doing?

“I’ll help you,” she said. “Keeper’s orders be damned. He’s just my boss.”

“His orders?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I can collect his secrets and still help you. I want to help you.”

“You don’t want to get wrapped up in these things, Cat. I’ve got myself involved with the Accord as well as the Church and the gods. If I mess up, the consequences will be dire. I don’t want to drag you into that.”

“I’m a big girl,” she told me, a hint of anger flashing in her eyes. “I’ll do as I please.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s a bad idea.”

She shrugged one pale shoulder. “I’m full of those, practically bursting with them. Hard to keep it all in sometimes. Hard to resist the impulses.”

Her eyes moved up, lingering on my neck. Her expression took on a dreamy quality, her brown eyes going out of focus.

Pull away, I warned myself. There’s no room for it in your life. Push her away. Keep your distance. It’s dangerous.

I’m not who Umareon thinks I am.

I pulled away. “It’s getting late,” I muttered. “Are you staying anywhere? I can take you back.”

She watched me a moment, then nodded. “Fine.”

She sounded distant now. I regretted that, but I knew I’d made the right choice.

I rowed us back to the dock, tied the boat for the ferryman to find in the morning, and let Catrin lead me through the city. The streets had become empty save for the occasional guard on patrol, lantern in one hand and poleaxe in the other. There were a few stragglers, and perhaps some thieves, but no one bothered us.

We came to an inn. Not among the best, but certainly better than the Dagger and The Dame. We lingered at the door. Catrin adjusted her hair, blowing out a frosting breath.

I was on the verge of bidding her good night when she blurted, “Why don’t you come inside? I have something for you.”

Confused and curious, I followed her in. We were greeted by a small, owlish man in his fifties, clad in a night gown, who knew Catrin and gave her a stuttered greeting, casting nervous glances my way all the while. After wishing the innkeeper good night, she led me to a room on the second level. The place was quiet and clean.

The room was more of the same. Simple, well furnished with a moderately sized bed and a small vanity, with a trunk for belongings. The kind of place a merchant might stay while in town. Catrin spent a few moments finding a lantern and igniting it. She hung it by the bed, giving us some light. Neither of us really needed it, but I understood the habit. It was a human gesture, and those are important.

“Temporary,” Catrin said with a shrug as she waved at the room. “While I’m in town.”

She pulled out a small trunk from beneath the bed, unlocked it, and produced a folded bundle. She approached me with a distant look and held it out.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Something you might need more than me,” she told me.

I took it, and upon unwrapping the cloth found a beautifully crafted dagger with an elegant curve to its shadowy dark metal and a woven pattern about the grip. I knew the metal wasn’t steel or iron, but something more abstract. Banesilver.

“This is the blade Irn Bale gave you,” I said, frowning. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“It makes me itch just looking at it,” she admitted sheepishly. “And I think you might need it more, especially since you lost your armor.” Then smirking she added, “You remember what I called it?”

I couldn’t help but quirk a small smile too. “Shivers. Because it makes the dead shiver.”

“Take it,” she insisted, pushing it into my chest.

I nodded slowly and accepted the blade. “Alright.”

I thought that was it, but Catrin stopped me as I was turning. “Alken…” She sighed. “Are you going back to the palace? Or that other inn? I can get the keep here to loan you a room. It’s safe, and he won’t talk.”

A reasonable offer, one I knew I should take. I nodded.

She started to move to the door. I felt awkward and boorish.

Catrin probably hadn’t had much romance in her life. For her, sex was transactional, almost a necessity to get the blood she needed to keep a semblance of life. She’d probably been with countless men, and I doubted many of them had taken her on a gondola ride under the moon in Urn’s largest city. Or even bothered to remember her name.

I’d messed this up badly. I sighed and reached out, touching her shoulder. “Cat.”

She turned, glaring at me. “What now? It’s getting late.” Her eyes had lost much of their warm color, turning pale and eerie in the dim light. They went red when she was hungry or aroused — did they lose color with anger?

I stared at her helplessly, feeling like a fool. “I’m sorry,” I said in a rough voice. “It’s difficult to explain.”

Everyone I’ve known my whole life has seen me as a disposable tool, starting with my own father when I was eight. The gods want me to kill a high priest, I think my best friends might be tyrants, and a girl I’m responsible for is two steps from becoming a genocidal champion of darkness. The woman I loved turned out to be a soul eating monster involved in a plot to burn Urn to the ground. She’s reaching out from Hell to punish me in my dreams for running a sword through her heart. Despite that, I might still be in love with her.

How did I unpack all of that?

Catrin just sighed, looking near tired as I felt.

You’re still keeping things from her, I thought.

This isn’t vulgar. This doesn’t have to be wrong.

Umareon is wrong about me. She’s nothing like Fidei. It’s been over ten years. I can move on. I can be happy, can’t I? When I have the time?

I didn’t deserve to be happy. Not after what I’d done. Not with what I still had to do. I had responsibilities, and they were worlds more important than my personal wants.

Keep your oaths then, the demon snarled in my memory, and see if they warm you.

I don’t know what Catrin saw in my face, but hers softened, some of the cool distance melting. She stepped close again and took my hands in her own, lifting the sheathed dagger between us.

I stared at her, trying to find words. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew she could entrance me with eye contact, as she had that first night. She wasn’t doing it now. This was all her and me, no magic or predation in it. She wanted me to know that.

“Let me help you,” Catrin said softly. “Please, Alken.” She placed a hand to my chest, pressing it into the folds of my shirt. “You’re hurting.”

I could feel my heartbeat beneath her cold hand. She lifted my right hand, her thumb running along the contours of my first finger. She pressed her lips to my knuckles, speaking very softly.

“Let me eat your bad dreams tonight.”

Umareon’s pitiless judgement boomed through my thoughts. You wonder what might have been had you heeded its lies. You are a lonely, wanting thing. You simply wish to be warm.

Perhaps.

I’d spent my whole life wondering about might-have-beens. Perhaps part of me still mourned Dei, even piteously loved her despite knowing I’d been nothing but a tool, but that had been a long time ago.

Just once… Just once, I decided to do what I wanted to.

I took Cat’s chin in my fingers and tilted it up, so she had to meet my eyes. Her pupils expanded as they reflected the golden light in my gaze. Her eyelids went wide in surprise, her lips parting.

I looked into her, but I couldn’t see a monster. I saw hunger, both human and vampiric, but also kindness, empathy, a spirit of tough sinew, passion, and deep loyalty. Not to a nation, or a god or ideal, but to those she chose to stick by, and to her own principles.

She had honor, Catrin of Ergoth. A kind I’d never known before, but strong as any paladin’s oath.

Did I love her? Not as I’d loved Fidei, certainly. Not as I loved Rosanna and Lias. And yet…

I’m tired.

I pushed it all away, my doubts, my self-loathing, and leaned down to press my mouth to hers.

I was tired of feeling cold.

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