The winter arrived early and lingered too long. It came down from the heights, and swept up from the cold seas in the south, blanketing all the land in bitter white. It choked passes, buried cities, and brought hungry things out of the deep woods.

Oria’s Fane did not escape the snow. Ice froze over the sacred pools, silenced the trickling streams, and fused the webs of the Cant Spiders to the trees so they seemed a crystalline hive encircling the sanctuary. It ate the sound of blades crossing, giving the scene in front of me a muted quality. Despite the chill, my apprentice — disciple? squire? — sweated from exertion, her hawkish features tense with concentration.

“Footwork,” Ser Maxim growled from where he sat on the steps leading up to the main shrine. Clad in a heavy fur cloak, he looked a grizzled mountaineer with his untrimmed beard and mass of gray hair. Despite that, the gold in his eyes shone bright in the overcast morning.

Emma heard the old knight’s surly criticism and hesitated a moment, a fatal mistake. Oraeka swept in with a savage downward swing of her broad-headed spear. More than a head taller than her opponent and built like an ogre, the she-elf’s swing had enough power to cleave marble, and rend the air with an audible whistle.

Emma misjudged the timing — not to mention the position of her feet — and nearly lost an ear to the elf’s blade. Yelping, she stumbled back and slipped on a patch of ice only thinly buried by snow, collapsing into one of the frozen pools. She barely kept a grip on her ornate sword.

Once she’d found her feet again, Emma stood there a moment to catch her breath. Wheeling on the old knight she snapped, “you can’t just say vague things like footwork and expect that to be of any use.”

“You cahnt expect anyone to give you detailed instructions during a battle,” Maxim shot back, mocking her aristocratic inflections. They came out stronger when she was irritated. Returning to his normal gruff drawl he added, “you weren’t paying attention to the ground again. You’re not always going to be fencing on a dueling ground, milady. Your old trainer might have given you some fancy swordplay, but we’re teaching you real combat. It isn’t clean.”

Face red with effort and embarrassment, Emma turned to me for help. I leaned against one of the marble statues at the edge of the Fane’s central circle, wrapped in the warmth of my cloak. My apprentice, on the other hand, only wore light sparring clothes in the winter air, warming herself with exercise instead.

Instead of giving her any support, I nodded to the side. Emma glanced in that direction, then let out a surprised hiss as Oraeka made a jab at her.

“Pay attention,” Maxim mumbled in a bored voice, distracted a moment as he lit his pipe. “Match isn’t over.”

“You are…” Emma paused to parry a wasp-quick jab. “A sadistic… curmudgeonly… wicked old… geezer!”

With a shout, she ducked under a swing and came back up in a complex movement. I followed each individual motion of both fighters as they twisted around one another in a bizarre dance. Oraeka had height and power, and inhuman speed to boot, but Emma had the reflexes and speed of a darting bird, and a wicked sense of finesse. When done, my squire had the long steel blade of her masterwork sword aimed over one shoulder, its tip hovering a hair’s width from Oraeka’s jugular. She breathed heavily, each exhale sending out a plume of frost into the winter air.

The elf, who looked barely winded, gave an impressed lift of her eyebrows. “Very good, little hawk.”

“Damn right,” Emma breathed, then stepped back from their lock.

“Damn me,” Maxim muttered a while later when I’d moved over to stand nearer, “but I’ve never seen a blade so keen at her age. Not a bad find, Hewer.”

I grunted noncommittally, keeping my thoughts to myself. In truth, I’d been impressed with Emma’s sword-skill practically the same day I’d met her. It wasn’t her bladework that needed focus, but things less easy to drill or hone through repetition. Having a disciple wasn’t something I had any real experience in.

I felt grateful for Ser Maxim. The old knight had taken to training the young noble — former noble, I reminded myself — with a will. I think it helped him, gave him something to focus on and a sense of purpose he’d been sorely lacking during the years he’d spent lingering like a ghost in the Fane. His nightmares had become less frequent, as had his bouts of self-deprivation, since I’d brought my charge back with me from Venturmoor several months back.

As for Emma herself… well, it was a work in progress. It’s difficult, becoming untethered from everyone you ever knew and everything you ever were. I understood some of what she must have been feeling.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Maxim said, so only he and I could hear through the sound of clashing weapons.

I grunted a half-coherent reply. Idly, I fidgeted with the ring on my right forefinger.

The old knight sighed. “Alken… I know this might not be easy to take well, coming from me, but you can’t take care of anyone else if you can’t take care of you.” He nodded to Emma. “You’ve got a charge now, a responsibility. That child is looking to you for guidance, and if you’re walking about in a daze half the time, well…” he shrugged.

Part of me, the reasonable part, knew Maxim was right. That voice got drowned out by the rush of irritation I felt out of nowhere, like a sudden gust of burning summer wind. “That’s rich, coming from a man who can barely sleep without borrowing a magic ring.”

I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth. Maxim’s wizened face darkened, though he kept hold of his own temper. He pressed his lips into a thin line, probably biting back a caustic reply.

I didn’t want to have that conversation just then. Stepping out of the shadows, I called out to my apprentice. “Emma.”

She paused mid cut, leaned back in a dodge as Oraeka took advantage of her distraction with a backswing, then held up a hand for a pause. The Sidhe warrior acquiesced, stepping back and planting the butt of her spear in the snow with a flourish.

I jerked my head, and Emma jogged over, red-faced and looking pleased with herself. Once she’d gotten the rhythm, she’d managed to score twice on the Fane’s sentinel. “It’s still early,” she said in a breathless voice. “I can keep going.”

“We’ll have time for sparring another day,” I said. “For now, we’ve got work.”

Her amber eyes widened. “From them?”

It had been many weeks since I’d last heard from the immortal beings who gave me my orders, the collective of angelic spirits and demigods known as the Choir Concilium. They’d had me act as the axeman during the execution of a captive Recusant leader, a holdover from the last great war. I’d been picked by personal request of the Princess of the Seydii, the de facto leader of all elvendom in Urn and an honorary member of the Choir herself. It had been a public affair, as far as my work tended to go, with many lords and dignitaries of the Accord in witness.

Other than that, the winter had been strangely quiet. Not that I minded being allowed to shelter in the Fane during the cold months, but the silence made me uneasy. I knew there couldn’t be a lack of bloody work in the land, no matter how much I might like to think otherwise.

“No,” I said. “Just a local problem. Rysanthe wanted me to look into something.”

Emma’s eyes sparkled with interest. “And when am I going to get to meet this mysterious second Doomsman?”

I snorted. “Don’t be eager to meet Death, squire. We’re around it plenty enough already. Let’s go.”

I felt Ser Maxim’s eyes on me as we left the courtyard. I ignored him.

***

We went south. Nestled in the wooded hills of Urn’s deep heartlands, Oria’s Fane is isolated from civilization at large. However, there are villages, even some small towns, in its vicinity. Most don’t go near the haunted forests around the sanctuary, but we have to get food and other supplies from somewhere.

That means keeping a good relationship with the locals, which includes everyone from the feudal lords who govern nearby domains to village councils to wyldefae. Not that I think anyone knows the inhabitants of the Fane are professional executioners, tasked by the Powers with bringing grim fates to the guilty. Living in a haunted forest tends to create its own host of rumors, and potential trouble besides.

I hadn’t seen Rysanthe, the only other operating Doomsman besides myself, since before the Winter had set in. However, the drow elf had sent me a message in the form of a whispering ghost some nights back, asking me to look into a small matter while she remained indisposed by another task from her subterranean masters. I’d have gone earlier, but the last storm had cleared only the past night.

I’d started to go stir crazy in the Fane, so I didn’t mind having something to do. Besides, I liked and respected Rysanthe, so I felt no qualms giving her a hand when able.

“So,” Emma said as we trudged through woodland roads, her step quick to keep up with my longer strides. Snow crunched beneath our boots, and wind set the frozen boughs above to creaking. My apprentice had dressed in cleaner, warmer clothes before we’d left, an ensemble consisting of a drab brown hunter’s coat and yellow scarf. The colors clashed terribly, which seemed to amuse her.

Despite the bitter cut to the air, she seemed perfectly at ease beneath her light gear and heavy packs. Then again, she’d been born in the mountainous Westvales. She’d put on muscle over weeks of training and travel, and grown a bit too, possibly her last sprout.

When she trailed off, I grunted. “What?”

“What’s this mysterious errand from Lady Rysanthe, hm?” Emma quickened her step, suddenly upbeat. “Are we exorcising some dark spirit? Slaying a dread beast escaped from the roots of a mountain?”

I bit off a laugh. “Take a breath, Baralinbor.” I rolled my left shoulder, wincing at the spike of pain from an as-yet unhealed wound. I adjusted the weight of my hauberk, then resettled my wrapped axe in its usual position propped there. “We’re not undertaking a grand quest, just an errand.”

Emma’s narrow features twisted into a scowl. “Baralinbor? Isn’t that the one who got eaten by a dragon?”

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“Hey, he cut his way back out of the dragon.” Beowyn Baralinbor had been one of my favorite heroes as a lad, from my mother’s stories.

“And probably got himself absolutely full to bursting with the Blight,” my squire said with a scoff. “Besides,” she added primly, “I’m much more of an Eudora.”

I frowned at that. “The Silversteel Valkyrie? That’s a bloody name.”

“A bloody legend, you mean. No warrior in all Edaea had quite her body count, except maybe Old Wicked himself.”

“I’m not sure a propensity for mass slaughter is what you should be modeling yourself after,” I noted, letting my tone turn more serious. “I thought you wanted to get away from all that?”

“There’s a difference between killing to maintain power and fighting for the sake of a just cause.” Emma’s voice had become lecturing, which seemed somewhat ironic to me. “Ser Eudora fought to defend her prince from a horde of enemies, all of whom would gladly murder an innocent child to claim a throne. She made her name on the battlefield, in glory.”

She paused then, and in a quieter voice said, “my family just killed to keep people afraid. It is not the same.”

I let the matter drop, sensing something uncharacteristically vulnerable in the young woman’s voice. Even months gone, her decision to cut ties with the noble houses and her own bloodstained lineage remained a raw wound for Emma Orley, formerly Emma Carreon. She would come to terms with her choice, and herself, one day.

I only had to hope I could help her find that equilibrium, and not inadvertently lead her back down a darker path. I couldn’t know what strange luck placed me, a fallen paladin and disgraced knight, into the position of being mentor to a neophyte warlock and scion to a clan of draconian tyrants, but there I stood.

She wanted to be a knight. I might not be that anymore, but maybe I could help pass along the parts I hadn’t fucked up too badly.

“What was that between you and Ser Maxim earlier?” Emma said, taking me off guard. “You looked like you were arguing.”

My step faltered a beat, then I collected myself. “It was nothing. Just the old man poking where he doesn’t need to.”

“Hm.”

Damn shrike. She saw too much, and had a nasty habit of letting nothing go.

“It’s none of your business.” I spoke more harshly than I’d meant. “Leave it alone.”

Emma glowered at me a moment. Then, in a very youthful gesture, she scoffed and rolled her eyes, adopting a bored expression. I could tell I’d stung her, though.

Well, better stung than burned. Neither she nor Maxim needed to worry about my concerns, or my dreams.

***

We had a journey of some days ahead of us, and made camp that night in the woods, using the shelter of a rocky overhang to build our fire. Wil-O’ Wisps from the Fane, drawn by our warmth and eager for heat in the cold months, played in the flickering flames. Emma had watched them until she’d drifted to sleep. She had her sheathed heirloom sword in her lap, the only thing she’d kept from her old life. She held it tightly, even in sleep.

I stayed awake, leaning against a rock with my packs and cloak for cushioning. I had my axe, its blade wrapped in layers of cloth, propped at my side, my legs stretched out and crossed. I ran a thumb along the contours of my ring, staring into the flames. Forest ghosts murmured in the distance, jealous of our fire but not daring to draw too close. The night’s wind was bitter, but an aura-infused campfire and the knee-length coat I wore over my hauberk, added to my usual red cloak, kept me comfortable enough.

I couldn’t sleep. No, I didn’t want to sleep. Brooding thoughts swam about like predatory eels in the murk of my skull.

Why had I snapped at Maxim earlier? I didn’t pride myself on a slow temper or anything, but the old man hadn’t deserved that. Neither had Emma for that matter, when I’d gotten prickly over the same subject.

My eyes drifted down to the ivory band on my index finger. The black stone set on the ring swirled with eddies of red, like blood caught in amber. No, I knew the answer. Maxim had seen it, and so did the others. I hadn’t been sleeping well, not for many weeks. Not since Venturmoor, really.

I could blame my last job. The execution had been a sad affair, like putting down a tired old chimera with too many tumors. The Recusant, the king they’d had me chop had once been a great man, enemy though he might have been also. I’d once dreamed of clashing blades with him on the field. Half the young fools in Urn had the same ambition.

Nothing about that war ended up being honorable.

It wasn’t just Rhan Harrower’s withered face haunting my thoughts, however. I couldn’t get the image out of my head — of burnt, blistered flesh darkened like overcooked meat, clinging tight to a slender skull, set with two false eyes which seemed somehow still terribly aware. I kept trying to see Princess Maerlys the way she’d been in my memory, as the golden elf-maid who’d advised the Alder Table with tender wisdom, but her ruined visage in the present kept reasserting itself.

The image, and her words. I have thought of a thousand ways to punish you for failing to protect my father and my city, Alken Hewer. Yet, I think there is no worse hell I can give you than the one in which you presently wander.

I’d felt the touch of aura in her words, knew she meant to put that seed in my thoughts and poison me. Even knowing though, and guarding myself against the compulsion, the words lingered. After all, I had failed her. I’d failed them all.

The Princess had known exactly what would happen, demanding my presence at the execution. Now the grimalkin was out of the bag. The Accord would talk about the Headsman as a proven fact, not just a rumor. More trouble, more problems. But not for tonight, not for a while. I could spend the winter training Emma, teaching her swords, sorcery, and a bit about knighting.

Then, in the Spring… well, I’d figure things out then.

I could blame that last job for my foul mood, my bad sleep. But I knew that wasn’t all of it, not even close. Reaching beneath my collar, I pulled it out. My medallion. My knight’s mark.

The medallion bore the image of a golden tree ringed in a silver sun — the symbol of the storied order I’d sworn to, bound within the emblem of House Silvering, who had made me a knight in the first place. The mark had been badly damaged. Burned and warped, a black stain ate across the branches of the tree, so they looked twisted from poisonous fumes, the silver sun turned jagged and broken.

I’d thought I had lost it eleven years ago, when Seydis had burned. Now it had been returned to me by the hand of a Devil of Orkael, the Iron Hell.

He hadn’t told me how he’d gotten it, not exactly, but he’d implied well enough for me to guess. Even still, I knew the Zosite, the dark angels who ruled over the Infernal Realms, were treacherous. Their servants, the Crowfriars, were treacherous too. I couldn’t trust anything they told me, or gave me.

Even still, I knew the thing I held had once belonged to me. I knew it in my bones, knew the feel of it, the smell of it. It even still had that nostalgic scent. Many Urnic knights seal herbs or flower petals in their medallions to give them a reminder of whatever homeland they hale from, preserved with a bit of elfcant. Mine smelled of the baernroses that bloomed in the hills west of the Herdhold, where I’d been born.

It also smelled of blood, and fire.

“Probably just scavenged it out of the ruins,” I muttered. “Damn devils and their tricks.” I folded my arms back into my cloak, still clutching the medallion, and half closed my eyes. I’d asked the wisps to keep the fire warm and watch for danger, so I could get some sleep. I needed sleep.

You know that isn’t how he found it.

My eyes shot open, searching the surrounding darkness. My gaze went to the campfire last, and I knew the voice I heard all the sudden came from within the flames. I couldn’t see the wisps anymore, and the woods had gone deathly dark, all else fading except for that concentration of heat.

Admit it.

You know where this went…

…Who gave it to him.

I was dreaming. I’d slipped into sleep while watching the fire.

That does not mean I am not real.

The fire murmured with a sibilant voice, dreamy and full of malice. I knew the voice, though I had not heard it in more than ten years, had hoped never to hear it again.

You still lie to yourself most ably.

I sat up straighter against the rock, on the verge of standing. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, my heart raced, and cold sweat beaded across my face. “You’re not here,” I hissed at the fire. “You can’t be. I sent you back to Hell.”

The fire laughed.

You know better than anyone that dead does not mean gone.

Did you think that the end of me?

Of us?

“There is no us,” I told the flames, or the dark presence hiding in them.

The flame roiled, rising up to fill the pit, lashing at the night. The sheltered nook’s heat rose, yet seemed to become even darker, so the fire became a wound in a world of utter black. I felt a rush of wind against my face, of flesh-cracking heat, and threw a shielding hand up. Embers darted through the air, wood split, and a line of fire began to crawl from the flame toward me, scarring the ground.

Is that what you think?

…What you want?

Several flying embers touched the scars over my left eye. They erupted into red hot agony.

“I want to be rid of you,” I breathed, squeezing my eye shut and clamping a hand over it. “I want my dreams back.”

I could hear voices raised in horror and pain all around me. Towers crashing, flames roaring across gilded avenues, discordant bells tolling, swords ringing under a bloody sky. Cruel things laughing in the chaos, enjoying the carnage.

I’m not there, I told myself. I’m not there anymore. It happened, I survived it, I need to put it behind me.

Survived it!?

You taint your dreams more with every head you take for them…

…I would have freed you of this.

“You would have made me a monster.”

And what are you now?

The words, like any well aimed arrow, found their mark.

In the darkness, I heard the sound of leathery wings unfolding. I could hear membrane stretching, ill-formed muscles crackling. The darkness suddenly seemed made all of sharp edges, like a phalanx of claws spreading to take me. The scar of flame crawled over the snow, nearly touching my feet now. I could barely think through the burning torment cutting into the scars on my face.

I wallow in darkness now…

in iron…

…in f-fire.

But not forever, Alder Knight, nothing is forever.

I have dreamed of the day we will meet again.

…And that day will not be so long now.

The seals are broken, the walls crumble…

…I will soon have you in my arms again.

With a roar, with eyes wide with fear, I grabbed my axe — all it took was an exertion of will and the cloth wrappings came loose of their own accord, revealing the blade alloyed of bronze and mortal steel, its golden inlays blazing with aura. I slammed it down into the snow, right at the end of the creeping tendril of flame.

Uselessly. The fire crawled up the blade and writhed down the oaken haft, then around my hand, hungry as centipedes. My skin began to blister, then bleed, then boil.

And all the while, that dreaded voice crooned.

Soon. So soon…

They gave Yith flesh with maggots and meat…

I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain of the burns, and against the onrush of images in my mind. I remembered the chapel in Caelfall, the villagers piled high and butchered around the sacred basin, their corpses wriggling with insects. Something had crawled out of that charnel. Something foul.

I knew its name, now.

What would you like to see me dressed in, my knight?

Shall they stitch me new flesh with blood?

With flame?

Helpless, I watched the hungry flames climb my arm, reaching for me.

Soon.

***

Emma woke me in the middle of the night, her face pale with concern. I had my axe in my hand, still wrapped. There was no living fire, no sharp thing in the dark. Only a quiet, clean winter night. The fire had burned down to embers, and the cold cut deep. The scars over my left eye ached dully.

“You were mumbling in your sleep,” Emma said. She had a hand on my shoulder, probably to shake me awake. By her expression, I gathered it had been more dramatic than mere mumbling. “I’ve been trying to wake you for a while,” she added.

I took a moment to catch my breath. The night air had started to freeze the sweat to my skin. “Get the fire going again,” I said after a time. “Before I catch a chill.”

Emma nodded. Lips pressed tight, she rushed to the fire and began to throw fresh wood onto the pile, stirring them. She whispered into the flames, using one of the Sidhecants I’d taught her to get the wisps to help. They’d hidden themselves in the ashes, either afraid of my sleep-talk or playing some trick. Faeries can be fickle companions.

While her work distracted her, I collected myself. Just a dream, I told myself. Just another damn nightmare.

I shifted, started to stand, then froze. I glanced down at my right hand.

I still wore my ring.