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Keeping my dagger in hand, I left the hidden fountain behind and all but sprinted back toward the groves.

Emma caught me just out of the maze. She held a large pack over one shoulder, and her forehead beaded with sweat. She’d been looking for me. I caught a flash of something feline with sharp claws and cheshire teeth in the branches of a nearby tree — Qoth.

“What’s going on?” I asked, still speed-walking back to the distant event.

“It’s the Inquisition,” she said. That was enough. I quickened my pace, eyes fixed forward.

“An attack?” I asked.

“There was a scuffle at the gate,” Emma said, breathing hard as she quickened her pace to keep up, almost running. “I think some of the younger nobles took issue with the veils barging in. They brought one of those war carriages, and there are a lot of them. Faisa Dance managed to get things calmed down, but…”

Rosanna had warned me the Priory had been too quiet after the night of the storm. I’d known they were operating with crowfriar support — I should have suspected something like this the instant I recognized Myrddin for what he was.

I’d let him lead me on, put more noise into my already busy mind. Damn it.

We navigated through the groves, which had become eerily empty. I moved around to the front of the estate, and there found near two hundred people gathered before the front steps of the Dance mansion like a well-dressed army. They all stared at the wide street beyond the hedge rows.

And there, claiming a central spot, rose a priorguard armored carriage. Fashioned of dark oak and black iron, decorated with barbed and sacred filigree, it rose like a mobile castle above the vehicles which had brought most of the party’s guests. Above the black carriage, a shimmering copper phantasm rose into the night air, shaped into the barbed trident of Inquisition.

Veiled and robed priorguard arrayed around the carriage, more than thirty of them. They all held iron-shod staves, man-catchers, and steel hooks attached to long chains. They stood still, a congregation of shadows with red tridents for faces, eerie in their quietude.

The exception was Presider Oraise. I saw him at their forefront, clad in his shroud-like cloak and side-buttoned coat, his bowl-cut brown hair immaculate, his dead blue eyes scanning the crowd.

I settled into a shadowed spot near the edge of the yard away from the throng and watched. Emma sunk into cover nearby, following my lead. I felt her tension through my aura.

“Be calm,” I said. “They have adepts. They’ll sense you.”

Emma took a deep breath, and the sense of boiling energy exuding from her lessened.

The crowd parted, nobles and others guests spreading as a proud old woman with a straight back and lifted chin strode out to stand without apparent fear before the ranks of the priorguard. Lady Faisa Dance fixed her gaze on the Presider.

“Oraise.” Her voice seemed calm, but had a steely edge. “What is the meaning of this?”

The inquisitor’s ice-chip eyes rolled to the noblewoman. “Lady Faisa.” He dipped into a proper bow, low and stiffly correct. His shroud cape spilled around him like folded black wings. “I apologize for this unpleasantness. Cooperate, and there will be no further trouble.”

I noticed several limp forms on the grass near the gate. Priorguard stood around them, brutal instruments held ready. Some were Dance guardsmen, while others were gala attendees in fine dress. They all had their hands behind their backs, with something very like copper wire biting into their flesh to hold them. By the faint shimmer around that material, I knew it to be the phantasm of some binding Art.

“Explain yourself,” Lady Faisa snapped, her voice cracking off the manor rows. “This estate is my House’s embassy, held by us with the Emperor’s lenience. You have no authority here.”

Oraise’s dry voice held none of the noble’s anger. He spoke with calm, professional courtesy. “I am afraid you are incorrect. I have here a writ signed by a majority of the College. My priorguard has emergency powers to deal with the crisis in this city.”

“You speak of the murders?” Faisa asked.

Oraise nodded. “We are here to apprehend one who is held in suspicion for these crimes. We would have already, had our lawful actions not been interrupted.”

“Lawful!?” One of the older nobles, the man who’d been testing the breathing device earlier, called out in a voice quivering with anger. “Your priorguard are brutes. Kidnappers!”

There were murmurs of agreement among the crowd. Less than I would have imagined. Some faces looked more doubtful.

One of the veiled figures whispered into the Presider’s ear. He nodded, then motioned with a gloved hand. Another opened the side door of the carriage.

“The Priory of the Arda is the voice of the Aureate Faith,” Oraise said, his voice catching every ear. “We are Her instrument, Her scepter, Her fist.” He held up a closed hand, his eyes hardening with the first emotion I’d seen in him.

I searched the ranks of veiled figures for any sign of Renuart Kross. After my run in with Brother Myrddin, I suspected he had to be here.

I didn’t see him.

Someone stepped out of the carriage, placing a cautious slipper on the step before one of the priorguard helped him onto the street. He was very old, very thin, and walked only with the help of an ordinary cane. Though he wore the red robes of a Priory clericon, they seemed more drab than others I’d seen, faded and as close to brown as crimson.

He wore a red circlet on his brow, and an ornate auremark dangled from his neck by a rope. It seemed to weigh him down. He trembled as he walked through the ranks of black-clad men and women, each step a labor even with his cane.

He lifted his eyes to the crowd. They were soft blue, and full of a weary resignation. When he spoke, his voice trembled with age. He sounded like a tired grandfather, rather than a villain who courted Hell.

“I, by my authority as Grand Prior of the Arda and High Chastiser of the Aureate Church, levy the right of accusation against Laessa Greengood.”

He pointed a shaking, arthritic finger into the throng. My eyes, and every other pair, tracked it to the young woman who stood with her noble peers. Laessa’s face went tight with horror as the words registered on her.

Faisa stared at the old man blankly, for a moment taken off guard. “What is this madness?” She asked.

The Grand Prior let out a tired sigh and rested on his cane. “Every victim of the Carmine Killer over the last year has had some contact with the Lady Laessa. Our investigations have made us very certain of this..”

“That means nothing!” One of the other nobles called out. “House Greengood has many connections, they’re one of the realm’s prime families! Why is this accusation not being made to the lady’s lord-father?”

“I assure you,” Horace Laudner said calmly, “our investigation is being conducted against the House as a whole. However, many witnesses have placed the young lady as a personal confidant to many of the victims. She attended events with Yselda of Mirrebel, and had uncouth relations with an apprentice, the last victim of these brutal crimes.”

“This is not evidence!” Esmerelda Grimheart snapped, holding her friend’s arm. I noticed Siriks Sontae standing near them, his arms folded and his eyes narrowed.

“When the priorguard attempted to question her at her estate,” the old priest continued smoothly, “with permission from her lord father, she fled. Not only that, but she was reported by many witnesses to have done so with the animate cadaver of her former lover, raised by foul necromancy. She and two other conspirators murdered many of my Presider’s subordinates in their attempt to stop her from causing more harm.”

“Burning Wheels,” Emma muttered next to me, sounding almost impressed. “That’s got to be the most twisted version of an event I’ve ever heard.”

“They’re good at that,” I said darkly. “And there are no witnesses to gainsay them besides Laessa and us, and anyone who might have seen the chase from their windows. Remember that the Priory is popular with the common folk.”

“Fools,” Emma growled.

I wasn’t sure I agreed. The land had been torn apart by House war and wizard plots for years. The commoners were rightfully scared, and the Priory gave them a sense of voice, of power. The Inquisition played at being on the side of the common man, rooting out warlocks and demoniacs amongst the aristocracy.

I remembered Irene, and Emery. They weren’t the only mad highborn in the land who had ruled through fear. And not all of those had the excuse of being Recusant.

“I accuse Laessa Greengood of witchcraft and murder,” Horace Laudner said, his haggard voice strengthening. “I accuse her of heresy, of occultism, and of resisting lawful arrest by soldiers of our faith.”

Faisa Dance spoke calmly, all anger and shock retreated behind an authoritative mask. “This is beyond the pale, Horace.”

“You will address the Grand Prior as Your Holiness, My Lady.” Oraise’s tone remained respectful despite the words. “Understand, standing against us in this makes you complicit in the lady Laessa’s crimes, and places doubt on your character.”

Faisa Dance went very pale, and hesitated. I don’t think she’d ever been accused of heresy in her life, even through implication.

“There will be a trial,” Prior Horace said, looking tired of the ordeal. “She will have the opportunity to defend herself.”

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“After you torture whatever confessions of guilt you want from her!” Another lord shouted. I watched Laessa, who’d said nothing so far. Her face had turned ashen. Behind her, Siriks’s fist clenched.

“We should do something,” Emma said to me.

“Wait,” I replied. “Watch.” Besides, I wasn’t about to leap out and cut off the old man’s head in front of half the city’s elite.

Then, the anger building in the brash, arrogant young man behind Laessa finally broke its dam. Siriks Sontae stepped forward, standing before that host of lords, ladies, inventors, artists, and holy men.

“I have not known the Lady Laessa long,” Siriks said, his voice calm and cold, his boyish features strained with anger. “But she is no witch. It is unworthy for any man to accuse a woman in grief of murder and heresy. Have you no honor, Your Holiness?”

The Grand Prior sighed, looking exasperated. “Son, I know things are different in the peninsula, but this isn’t a matter of honor.”

“Everything is a matter of honor,” Siriks growled. “It is all that matters.”

He took another step out, so he stood almost between the gathered party guests and the Inquisition. “I demand trial by combat. I will be the lady’s champion, and prove her innocence on the body of any man you send.”

I grimaced, muttering a quiet curse. Emma noticed my look and lifted an eyebrow in question.

“It doesn’t work like that with the Church,” I muttered. “This isn’t some rival lord accusing her of adultery. He’s just going to make things more complicated.”

It had precedent. Even still…

Oraise studied the young warrior, his lip curling with disdain. Horace Laudner, however, cast a more appraising eye on the Cymrinorean. I saw no dullness in the old man’s eyes. He might look like harmless, small and frost-haired as was, but I saw a shrewd light in the Grand Prior’s eyes. It made me uneasy.

After a long, heavy pause, another figure stepped forward. Though none wore armor, Urnic nobility had always been martial. There were other knights in the crowd. One walked to stand next to Siriks. He was a lean, blond-haired man in his early thirties, his beard neatly trimmed.

“I will also defend the lady,” he said. “I am Tegan of House Barker. You’ve overstepped yourself, Lord Prior.”

More stepped forward, all knights, to stand between the priorguard and Laessa. With each new face, her brittle stolidity cracked. I saw her eyes well.

When Ser Jocelyn, resplendent in a green coat and amber sash, stepped up to stand by his fellow knights, she began to quietly weep.

“Do you understand what you’re doing, young man?” The clericon asked, when no more volunteers came. All in all, thirteen had chosen to defend the girl.

Siriks nodded, his expression set.

“He doesn’t get it,” I said. Emma glanced at me, worried and confused.

“Very well.” The Grand Prior cast his faded eyes over the crowd. “Lord Siriks of House Sontae has challenged the Priory in our accusation against the lady Laessa Greengood. He would, in the tradition of our realms, prove her innocence through a feat of arms.”

He lifted a withered hand and spoke in a tremulous voice. “Will any stand for the Faith in this matter?”

Clever bastard. He made himself look like the voice of the Church, rather than just one of its factions.

And it worked. We’d just fought a war against heretics and monsters. Urnic knights are a faithful lot, especially in dark times.

This had never been about Laessa.

More than twice as many nobles than had moved to stand by the accused woman walked across the green and turned, standing like autumn colored wings beside the red robed priest, forming a loose wall in front of the priorguard. Siriks’s eyes widened in confusion. Faisa Dance, who’d seen the trap as well as I had, closed her eyes.

“I lost a brother to the Carmine Killer,” one of the knights who’d moved to stand with the priorguard said. “The Inquisition is working to protect us. If they believe the lady is involved, then we should let them ask their questions.”

“They’ll brutalize her!” Siriks’s voice came near to a roar, his eyes wide with fury.

A tall, ash-haired young man with dusky skin and gray eyes spoke then. I realized I recognized him — the archer who’d fought with Siriks and Jocelyn against the storm ogre. I’d never gotten his name.

“We defend the people from swords,” he said. “The Church defends them from wickedness. I was there that night, Siriks. You saw all those bodies. They weren’t all killed by the monster, and it’s suspicious it attacked when it did. Have you considered she summoned it?”

Siriks bared his teeth like an angry wolf. Or a lion. “You’re a bastard, Irving.”

Irving glanced at the old prior. “The realms and the clergy need to be united. If we protect heretics in our ranks, then what does that tell the people? I am no Recusant.”

Emma shifted closer to me. “Do you have a plan?”

“I’m in the process of making one,” I replied.

I watched every face I could, trying to decide what to do. No point in stepping out and making more of a scene. Letting the Priory know one of their escaped captives also protected Laessa wouldn’t help her case. Oraise would recognize me.

The Grand Prior had played this trick well as any stage magician. He’d lost face with the city with the fiasco the night they’d tried to take Laessa into custody. By twisting those events against her, making his faction look like protectors battling a wicked witch, and by baiting dissent in this public venue, he’d tied Faisa Dance’s hands. And, by extension, he’d tied Rosanna’s hands.

He’d made this about the nobility against the Church.

I caught sight of a shadowy shape in the distant trees opposite the yard. Gray teeth flashed below hot-coal eyes. The devil watched me, gleeful, as though to say didn’t I tell you so?

Bastard. He’d distracted me so I couldn’t sneak Laessa out of here before this all went down. I saw his lips move as he muttered something. I could imagine what he said.

What will you do now?

“I need my axe,” I said.

Emma glanced at me. “Are you going to do something very reckless?”

I nodded. Emma shrugged out of the pack and handed it over.

“What shall I do?” She asked.

“Stay near Laessa,” I said. “Make sure she gets back to the palace. The Priory won’t take her tonight, not after this. She’ll be under house arrest until they work out the details of this trial.”

It would be during the tournament. The Grand Prior would want to redirect attention from the Emperor’s show of realm camaraderie to this mess, to prove a point.

If I had my way, the old snake wouldn’t be there to see the results of his work. I didn’t believe I could do anything about the trial — Siriks and Jocelyn would have to prove their worth there.

Umareon had said other champions were being prepared. I wasn’t one. I had my own role to play. When done…

I’m so sorry, Rose.

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Some time later, beneath the light of the waning Corpse Moon, I stood on a rooftop overlooking the edge of the Fountain Ward. The great cathedral spires and bell towers of the Bell Ward rose before me.

Down on the street, the Grand Prior’s armored carriage rolled across a bridge, heading for sanctuary.

I unstrung the pack Emma had carried for me, letting the cover fall away. I held Faen Orgis in my hand, its alloy of faerie bronze and mortal steel bright beneath the moon. The golden inlays were oddly dim, as though all the blood they’d drunk had tarnished their light.

Horace Laudner is a wicked man, I told myself. He would condemn an innocent girl to torment and shame in order to rise in power. All of the misery I saw in those dungeons was his doing, ultimately, along with the persecution of the changelings.

And yet…

If I killed him now, would Laessa be blamed?

Very likely. Perhaps I was a monster for being willing to accept that. Perhaps I was no true knight after all. I tightened my grip on the gnarled oak of the Headsman’s Axe, feeling its small burs bite into my calloused palms.

“Do you know the history of that weapon?” A dry, inhuman voice asked.

I glanced to a shadowed alcove built into the rooftop, where a gargoyle might rest during the day. Slit-pupiled eyes, yellow-green as the moon above, stared at me from the darkness.

“Qoth.” I studied the elf a moment. “Shouldn’t you be guarding your mistress?”

“Emma is quite capable,” Qoth said. “Besides, she ordered me to keep my eyes on you.”

The briarfae had taken a feline form, bigger than most children and emaciated, with patchy gray fur and a wide mouth full of sharp teeth.

I turned my eyes back to Rose Malin. The priorguard escort had reached the old church, and were unloading their charge. Laessa would be heading back to the palace, with Emma watching her back.

“It is human to have doubt,” Qoth said philosophically. “Only, I think you would suffer much less if you were less human.”

I snorted. “Is that why Nath is so interested in claiming me? Mercy?”

Qoth shook his head, a very human gesture for the form he took. “She is Onsolain. She is rejoining her brethren so that she may have a voice in their choir. You are her headsman too, Alken Hewer.”

I stared at the church, on the cusp of decision.

No, I’d already decided. I’d known what I would do as I lay there in the inn room with Catrin’s fingers in my hair, her comforting voice in my ears, her tears on my brow.

Cat… did you betray me? Was it all like that devil monk said?

My eyes went to the Fulgurkeep, to the Empress’s bastion. In the far distance of the sea, lightning flickered in black clouds.

I’d been chasing this dream too long. I’d hated being a knight. And I’d loved it. I lifted the axe, catching my own golden eyed reflection in its mirror-bright metal.

I’d been born with brown eyes.

“Knighthood does not require honor or justice,” The wicked elf crooned at me from the shadows. “That is just what men tell themselves so they can look in the mirror. They all take what they will by the sword. You think that pup who challenged the old priest is what you should be? What does killing some fool in a ring prove about truth?”

I turned my eyes to Qoth. With Myrddin, and many like him, I’d scorned such words. Yet, I felt there was truth in what the creature said. I didn’t sense a malign intent. Just a dark, thorned soul who saw something I struggled to.

Qoth met my eyes evenly. “You know we keep the Brothers of the Briar in dreams? Terrible and beautiful dreams. We wrap them in lies, and they are true monsters.”

I nodded slowly. I thought I understood.

“You suffer because you see truth, and wish for pretty dreams instead. Time to make a choice, Ser Headsman.”

Ser Headsman. For so long, that had seemed like mockery to me. Irony.

Perhaps there could be something true in it.

I had feared and avoided the judgement of men for so long, even though my role was to bring doom to the worst of them. I had been wracked with guilt, because I believed myself as bad as any of them.

I’d killed, true. I had been weak. Perhaps I didn’t deserve salvation.

Perhaps I didn’t want it.

Qoth shifted, drawing my attention back to him. He padded out of the shadows, dragging something with his teeth. It twitched and writhed weakly, like a dying animal. I made out fabric dark as spilled wine.

My cloak. The one Nath had given me as a reward for saving her godchild.

“The priorguard attempted to burn it,” Qoth said. “But this is my people’s work. The Briar does not loosen its hold easily.”

I knelt, touching the garment. It had life in it, and it had been made for me. It curled around my hand, weak and wounded from Kross’s blade, but intact.

I caught sight of something else, almost melded with the shadows. Rings of black iron.

“How—” I started to ask.

Qoth answered my question before I spoke it. “Your accoutrements are part of your power, Headsman. This is all Sidhe magic. It bleeds through worlds, just as elves do.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “And you didn’t help nature along?”

Qoth let out a hacking laugh. I’d wondered at how quickly the Briar Elf had answered Emma’s summons.

I bunched the red material in my hand.

“If I do this,” I said, “Rosanna will never trust me again. She’ll understand what I am, how dangerous it is.”

She’d seemed so alone to me in that tower above the bay. Separated from her distant homeland, her eldest child, her husband. I’d only ever seen her and Markham together at court.

She’d trusted me, despite all the years between us. If I killed the Grand Prior and made a martyr of him, turning suspicion against Laessa, heightened the already straining tension in the city…

She wouldn’t trust me after that. It would break something I’d only just started to repair.

“You are no Briar Brother,” Qoth said, inspecting his claws. “A slave has not been made of you, Alken Hewer. You must decide what you will sacrifice for your duty.”

I remembered the dead-eyed, scarred face in Umareon’s mirror. The Headsman, shorn of all doubt. Pure, implacable, and terrible.

I would not let myself become that. Yet, this half thing?

“What will you do?” Qoth asked, his tone more curious than prodding.

I considered as I held the tired Briar cloak. I spoke after a minute’s thought. “You know Rysanthe, the Doomsman of Draubard? She is called Death. Yet, in her homeland, she is honored and loved. She takes no pleasure in her work, but she is at peace with it.”

“I do not think you will find love in this role,” Qoth noted after a moment’s thought. "Or peace."

“No,” I agreed. Then my eyes lifted to the church. “But maybe I can shed some light on it.”

Part of me had known I would end up here the day I’d executed Rhan Harrower, and become known to the lords as more than a dark rumor. Maybe I could never again be what I’d been. But my past had been shrouded in complications and half truths as well.

I would do the gods’ will. And, after…

There would be consequences.

I donned my armor.

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

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