When the sun rose to burn away the fog, it arrived with every bell in the city tolling.

The bells of Garihelm did not ring to welcome the dawn. They were a dirge.

Rose Malin burned. The city became awash with fear and confusion. Some cried that the Priory and the Houses had finally gone to war. There was violence. Homes were broken into. The guard filled the streets, bringing order with a swift steel fist.

There were deaths. The capital had been on the brink of this for most of a year. I didn't let that knowledge convince me I shared no blame.

I saw much of it while drifting through the waking streets, still covered in Priory blood. Few truly saw me, wrapped in glamour and the dregs of night and fog as I was. Lisette went with me, struggling to keep up, asking me where I intended to go, what I intended to do. She begged me to let her tend to my injuries.

When I wouldn’t answer, she eventually fell quiet and followed in worried silence. I suspected she did not know where else to go. Her cover with the Priory had been undone when she’d saved me, or perhaps earlier when Oraise had revealed he knew her true allegiance.

Just another reminder that my actions had consequences, and it wasn’t always me who paid them.

I eventually stopped at the edge of a deep canal near the bay. I smelled the sea, and let a sudden gust of air cool the sweat on my skin, the scalding pain in my left arm, and the pieces of my flesh that’d been scorched by hellfire.

Nearby, a piece of shadow disentangled itself from an alley. Lisette started and began to weave her threads of aura, but I put up a hand to stop her.

“You went and did it again,” Emma said, ignoring the cleric. “Left me behind.”

I had to force myself to speak. The shock of everything that’d just happened still hadn’t quite left. “I told you. This part of my life… it’s not for you.”

I expected anger. My squire only followed my gaze to the fortress looming over the lagoon, her thoughts hidden. I suspected she hadn't slept, by the shadows under her eyes. Lisette shifted, audible by her long priorguard robes, but kept her silence. Her face, stained with soot and weariness, looked ghostly in the poor light.

“I think…” Emma sighed and adjusted a lock of dark hair. “I think I should be the one to decide that. Our fates are tied together, you and I. We both made the choice that day, remember?”

I remembered cold seas and cold gods, a burnt man bound to a tree. I lifted my axe, feeling the unshaved wood of the branch it had been made from.

“Everything changes today,” I croaked. “It was easy, before.”

Emma lifted an eyebrow. “Easy?”

I nodded. “Easy. No one watched us. No one expected anything of us. I worked for years to keep my name and the people I love out of this, but I can’t anymore. I can’t live two lives.”

“Alken…” a worried note crept into the girl’s voice.

No, I corrected myself. She was a woman grown now.

“What are you planning?” She asked. “Are we leaving the city now? With Yith and the council still at large?”

That should be where this ends, I thought. That’s what I would have done, before. Cut my losses, keep to my work, wait for the next chance to do it better.

“No. I’m not leaving.” I turned to face Emma, looking down to meet her eyes. She met mine evenly, squinting a bit at the light. She, too, had been touched by much darkness. It had left a mark on her, perhaps forever, and the power in me recognized it.

I was beginning to think that whoever had woven my magic had been a bit of a bastard.

“I’m not leaving,” I repeated. “But you should.”

Her face turned angry. “How many times—”

She quieted as I put a hand covered in half dried blood on her shoulder.

“You should,” I said. “But I won’t make you. You’re right. We’re bound together, you and I. We can’t escape our names, no matter how much we might want to.”

“You’re scaring me,” Emma said, her voice calm, her amber eyes steady. She hid her fear, more for my sake I think than her own. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”

She put her hand over mine, heedless of the blood on it. More bells tolled. The sky slowly brightened as the sun made its ascent over the mountains far to the east, over the burnt lands.

I told them what I intended to do.

Lisette wept, and they both agreed to help me.

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

The gathered lords of the Ardent Round, the governing body of the Accorded Realms of Urn, met in the court of Markham Forger. Gray clouds crawled over the Reynish coastland that day, eclipsing the sun. Not long after true day settled over the capital, a very light rain began to fall.

Rose Malin burned to its foundations, I later heard, but the conflagration didn’t end there. Though it didn’t spread from the church, angry preosts and other Priory sympathizers retaliated against what they perceived to be an attack by the Houses, whipping the masses into a fervor. It was a violent day.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But that came later. In the early morning, the lords met.

Emma and her Briar Elf familiar, Qoth, helped me enter the palace. Lisette did too. It wasn’t easy, but I will speak little of it, for it holds little bearing on what came next. With magic learned from her godmother, Emma helped me become one with the shadows. Qoth misdirected the attentions of sentries.

Lisette did what she could for my injuries, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for her to tend to them properly. She did just enough to keep me on my feet. Then I had her leave — she couldn’t play a part in what came next. Though reluctant, she agreed.

The gargoyles were more of a problem. There is a reason the impetuous predators are tolerated across the land, and it is for this — they sniff out spirits and other hostile creatures, and hunt them. And those who dwelt on the ancient bastion walls of the Fulgurkeep are no lesser stone beasts, but inhuman knights loyal to House Forger.

But my own sacred aura confused them, and we were not repelled.

There were guards outside the throne room doors, which had been closed while court was in session. The sentries were Storm Knights of House Forger, resplendent in brass-hued steel and gray-blue capes. One of them turned out to be Hendry Hunting. Chance, or some divine intervention?

Who could say. When he saw me and Emma, he convinced the other guard to help him open the doors. Perhaps they both recognized me from the Empress’s keep, and thought I brought news. My bloodied appearance aided that assumption.

I left Emma in the hall with Hendry, knowing I needed to stand alone for this. I still wore my black chainmail, my faerie cloak wrapped around my neck, the pointed cowl raised to obscure my features. The shadows of Briar magic still clung to me, along with the scent of blood.

The theater of it was important. I would need it.

In the Emperor’s court, lords and priests and kings had gathered. They were deep in discussion, but I did not take the time to listen. Perhaps they spoke of the attack on Rose Malin, the violent atmosphere building in the streets, or of the accusations against Laessa Greengood the past evening and how they might be connected.

All voices stopped when the doors of the throne room were thrown wide, and I strode through.

Silence, and the fixed attentions of many hundred eyes, closed in on me as I moved to stand before the high thrones, broken only by the soft rattle of my armor, the click of my boots. My eyes roamed the gathered court.

There were many great names here. There, I saw Faisa Dance standing next to her nephew, the lord Natan Dance, tall and handsome, the leader of their clan. There, I saw Roland Marcher, King of Venturmoor, and across from him the crown prince of Lindenroad, who would be king soon with his father’s ill health.

Snoë Farram stood with her aged advisor and the delegation from Graill, clad in her wolpertinger pelt and silvered armor, her blue eyes piercing as she watched me.

There were many others. I saw the Duke of Idhir, earls of the Gylden and the Bairn Cities. Westvaler counts and lords of other faraway places. I saw Dale kings, and proud warlords of Cymrinor and the isles beyond. I saw the two contesting rulers of the Bannerlands, the Lord Brightling and the Lady Ark, who had put aside their rivalry to attend the Emperor’s summit.

And many others still, all blood of the Houses, High and Low. I saw Tarners, and Mabsworn, Broods and Raviners, Bellcasts and Scales. There, the beautiful quartet of Sable sisters arrayed themselves by their allies, the bookish Mornes. I saw men of House Braeve, Maxim’s kin, and the black-garbed Lord Judge of High House Pardoner, who may as well be king of the Bairns.

I saw Oradyn Fen Harus, still clad in the robes of a monk, standing unseen amid the crowd. I doubted many eyes besides mine noticed him through his glamour. He watched me as intently as the rest. Not far, Siriks Sontae and Jocelyn of Ekarleon also stood in attendance, no doubt to speak on behalf of the girl who’d been accused of witchcraft.

I saw the prince and princess of Talsyn and their delegation. The princess Hyperia watched me with pursed lips, looking bemused. Her brother Calerus, gaunt and fell eyed, stared at me like a hunting hawk.

Atop the many-tiered dais of the High Seat, I saw more familiar faces. The Emperor, clad in darkened steel and filigreed gold, glared down at me like the most dour of judges. Behind him, the shadowed face of his First Sword stood beside the Royal Steward, who stroked his many chins as he watched me with narrow, thoughtful eyes.

I forced myself to look at Rosanna. Beautiful as she’d ever been, clad in silver and black, her black hair cascading around her shoulders in gem-woven braids. I saw the pain in her eyes, the confusion. My concealing garments didn't fool her.

She didn’t understand, but she knew me, and she was very afraid. She hid it well. I doubt anyone else saw it. I could almost hear the shout she held back between tightly pressed, painted lips.

What are you doing!?

Her children were there too. A cruel coincidence, that. They shadowed the imperial thrones, standing between their parents. Kaia Gorr towered over them, arrayed in her pale green cloak, her spiraling seashell armor. Her expression was stone, unreadable.

Laessa Greengood was there, standing near the Dances, surrounded by her relatives. There were white and gold robed priests, too, representing different branches of the Faith.

I saw Oraise, his arm in a sling, still wearing a dust-stained uniform. I recognized other Priory clericons as well, their red garments marked by soot and sweat, all arrayed around him. No doubt they’d been giving a report to explain the chaos in the Bell Ward. Prior Diana, most her face wrapped in bloody bandages, glared at me with cold hatred in her eyes.

All actors were present. Now, to roll my dice and wait for judgement.

No more hiding.

Did you anticipate this, Umareon? Will you smite me here for my insolence, or disavow me?

I did not pray. I did not expect salvation, or interdiction.

I stopped halfway down the court chamber. The stunned onlookers waited with bated breath. I threw my cloak and cowl back, revealing the axe in my left hand. But that wasn’t what all those eyes went to.

I held up the head of Horace Laudner, so they all could see it, then threw it down before the throne. It rolled many times before stopping, almost seeming to move with some impossible momentum which carried it to the lowest step of the dais. I’d left the circlet of clerical office on the old man’s brow, and it came off during the roll.

So like that scene with Bishop Emery, when I’d resigned myself to isolation and blood.

My voice, crackling with aura — I’d held onto just enough for this — filled the chamber.

“I am the Headsman of Seydis. Doomsman of the Choir of Onsolem.”

I waited until the last echo of that pronouncement had faded before pointing my bloodstained finger at the dead priest’s head.

“Horace Laudner, Grand Prior of the Arda, has been judged by the lords of Heavensreach and given this doom. For conspiring with the denizens of Orkael, the Iron Hell. For commanding the murder of his rivals in the Church and the Houses. For the torment and unfair sentences given to the Hidden Folk, to common peoples across all the land, and to many others, he has been punished.”

From the gathered nobles, Laessa watched me. I did not look at her, did not see the expression on her face, but I felt her eyes as sharply as I felt my queen’s.

I held up Faen Orgis, the Doomsman’s Arm, to rest it on my palms. I lifted it in offering and bowed my head to the Emperor. The dregs of my power were fast fading, so my last words lacked any supernatural weight.

A great weariness settled on me. I felt every injury, every day of missed sleep, every betrayal and wound. How I remained standing, I cannot say.

I was so tired. But this had to be done.

I spoke to Markham Forger. “I await your judgement, my lord.”

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