A bolt of lightning illuminated the rooftop, and in that flash I saw my mark.

The latest victim of the Carmine Killings hadn’t died well. He’d hurled himself from a balcony, broken his back, and lain there long enough for vermin to start eating him alive. He looked like a painting half-done, in that flash of lightning — one armed, chunks missing from his torso, a smudged face and strips of damp hair hanging down to one desiccated shoulder.

No telling when his heart had stopped beating, or how long it had taken him to realize he could still move. Dyghouls don’t always know they’re stuck in their own corpse right away.

Rain drummed down across the sprawl of Garihelm, intermittently lit by bolts of lightning. A wicked storm had blown in across the Riven Sea, battering against the city’s ancient sea walls without end for nearly two days. The canals churned with angry water, rumbling falls gushed down crenellated towers, and the sky growled as though a war of titan beasts took place above.

My eyes, blessed with golden aura, can see through darkness. Heavy downpour is a different story, and I squinted at the rooftop ahead from my shelter beneath a belfry overhang. My long coat had soaked through, and the broad rain hat on my head dripped.

I shut out all that noise and focused.

Another flash of lightning. The half-eaten man had dropped down onto a balcony. He’d slipped on the slick stone, and I could see he’d broken something. He stood shakily, using the railing to help him lift his own weight. Then, turning drunkenly toward the balcony door, he lurched forward, caught himself again against a column, then knocked on the glass.

I saw movement inside. A curtain shifting, a lantern flickering to life.

The storm swallowed the curse I spat. I moved, dropping down to a lower level of the belfry, then used a ladder to descend to the level of the neighborhood’s rooftops. I jumped a roof and started to duck under a gargoyle’s perch. The arch’s occupant came to life, snarling and snapping at me.

I caught the stone guardian’s eye, glowering, and he got a good look at the gleam of golden light in my gaze. He hunched like a chastised dog, and the silver glow of his own eyes faded.

Precious seconds wasted. I went under the arch, jumped another roof, and found myself right beside the building where I’d spotted the dyghoul. The balcony door had opened, and a young woman stood there. She looked distressed, but hadn’t closed the door. She and the dead man were speaking, and it looked like an argument.

I looked for a place to leap. Nowhere safe. I didn’t have time to get down to street level and ascend the normal way.

Movement below caught my attention. Shadowy figures moved through the alleys, half-hidden by the shroud of night and storm, clad all in black from head to foot like a troupe of shadows.

I glanced back to the balcony, and saw the girl retreat inside. The dead man followed her in, and the door shut.

I rolled my shoulders, then leapt.

I put a burst of auratic strength into the leap. My feet left the stone edge of the rooftop with elfin grace, and I flew several meters. I barely avoided catching my legs on the balcony’s rail and braining myself, rolled, and came up in a crouch. My heart thudded in my chest, and my muscles complained from the slap of impact against solid stone. I’d lost my hat in the jump.

I approached the balcony door cautiously. The curtains had been drawn, but in haste. I could still see through a crack in them, getting a glimpse of a lit bedroom, richly furnished and feminine.

A shadow slipped across my sight. I stepped closer and got a full look at what lay inside. Close to the glass, I could hear as well when I focused, letting the magic I’d started to burn enhance my natural senses.

The dyghoul — once a handsome boy of eighteen or so, judging by what was left of him, stood near one wall, keeping well away from the girl. She was of noble stock, pretty, with shiny black curls and skin nearly as dark as her hair. She wore a night shift and little else, and had tears on her face. I judged her a year older than the boy at most.

“What happened to you?” The girl asked, a sob in her voice. “You’re…”

“I don’t know.” The young man’s voice shouldn’t have worked, not with chunks missing from his throat and no tongue, but that’s the way with the undead. Their souls learn to speak for them, and his voice came out clear and crystalline, given an oddly symphonic quality in death.

“I fell, I think, and then…” His voice trailed off, and I suspected he got caught in a bad memory. “I think I need help, Lae.”

I took a deep breath, then freed my weapon from the folds of my long-coat. I’d shaved Faen Orgis’s grip of living oak down to make it easier to carry in the city, though the oversized blade of Hithlenic Bronze could be cumbersome regardless. The brassy metal gleamed even in the storm’s gloom, the intricate golden inlays seeming to catch a nonexistent light.

The youths hadn’t locked the door. I stepped through. The boy had taken a step toward the girl, trying to close a gap she seemed intent on widening. She’d backed behind her curtained bed, using it as a shield. She was shaking her head slowly, as though in denial, her eyes shining with tears.

Both of them stopped mid-tragedy to stare at me agape.

I didn’t blame them much. I stand a bit over two meters tall, and with my prominent scars, hackle-like fringe of red hair, and glowering gold-eyed visage, I must have been a dire sight emerging out of the storm.

The girl saw the weapon in my hand, and let out a scream. That seemed a bit unfair, since she hadn’t reacted so dramatically to a dead man in her room.

I ignored the aristo and turned to the dyghoul. He started, backing away. Closer up, it shocked me he’d reanimated — usually a body so badly ruined couldn’t hold a spirit. A ghost mist clung to the gaps of his worst injuries, and glimmered in the empty socket of one eye. He smelled terrible, like sewage and rot.

He pressed his back against the wall. “Are you here to kill me?” He asked, visibly afraid. His one good eye went to the girl, then back to me. I saw him steel himself in a very human fashion. “Please, just don’t hurt her. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

He closed his eye, baring broken teeth. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he berated himself. “Idiot.”

I agreed with him, but didn’t say as much. I narrowed my eyes, focusing my senses again. I heard many sets of light boots creaking floorboards a level below, furtive whispers muffled by thin veils, anticipatory breaths. A woman’s voice spoke, hushed. I caught two words. Third floor.

I could feel the anticipation of the men below, their certainty, their zeal, or just an eagerness for violence. Conflicting motives burning in a dozen souls.

When I focus too hard on the emanations of aura, my awareness of my immediate surroundings can become dull. I almost didn’t catch quick, bare feet on the floor, the sharp intake of breath.

I spun and caught the girl’s wrist just before she slammed a candelabra into the back of my skull. I squeezed hard and she wilted, letting out a hiss of pain. Her improvised weapon clattered to the floor noisily.

Downstairs, everyone froze. Damn.

“Don’t!” The young man cried. I turned my glare on him, daring him to try anything foolish.

“I’m not here to kill you,” I told him. You’re already dead anyway, I added silently, but didn’t have any patience for pedantry just then. “There are priorguard below us. They mean to destroy you, and they’ll probably take your lady love here in for torture and questioning, maybe even burn her as a witch. They don’t much like anyone who isn’t ordained speaking to the Dead.”

The dead boy blinked his one remaining eye at me, shocked. It had been a blue eye once, though the color had drained from it. Now it was closer to pale ice.

I glanced at the aristo. She glared back, defiant, but as my words registered her dark skin took on an ashy quality. I let her go and she stumbled back, grabbing her wrist.

“Who are you?” The dead boy asked.

I took a step toward the door, lifting my axe to rest it on my left shoulder. I narrowed my eyes, waiting, and a moment later the door jumped in its frame as someone slammed a boot into it. I heard both youths start behind me.

“Stay behind me,” I told them. “If you want to get out of this, do what I tell you and keep up.”

The door jumped again. A bit of burgundy-colored wood split. It was a good door, solid. The girl’s parents had taken her safety seriously.

“One of your maids sold you out to the Priory,” I told the young woman. Lae, the boy had called her. I knew it was short for Lady Laessa of House Greengood, just as the boy’s name was Kieran, an apprentice to one of the city dye makers.

I made myself think of their names, to see them as people. If I failed to save them, I deserved to feel the guilt.

“But why would…” Laessa trailed off, then let out a yelp as the door was struck again.

“There are Inquisition informants all over the city,” I said without looking away from the door. “They were investigating your paramour, and after his corpse got up and walked off they had their suspicions where it would go.”

Same reason I was there.

I began to reshape my aura — not just burning it like an inner furnace for enhanced abilities, but focusing on the words of an Oath. The silent invocation rearranged my soul’s shape like the shifting parts of a machine.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I am the sentry at the threshold of darkness, the manifold spear, the door and the guard.

The door was struck again. I lowered into a half crouch, tightening my grip on the axe’s gnarled handle.

Again, the door was struck. This time it broke off its frame, falling forward in a burst of dust and splinters.

I leapt, and the first priorguard in the doorway died before he could process what was in front of him. I brought the crescent-moon blade down, slicing through the man’s rectangular veil, splitting the iron circlet holding it and the red trident sewn to its face. The axe bit deep, cracking the skull and filling the interior of the man’s tightly fit hood with his own brains.

He fell. I pulled my weapon free of him, then swung it over my head in a wide circle as I cleared the doorway. I caught the iron head of a quarterstaff, ripped it to one side, then chopped the weapon at its center. The flurry of motion sent that second priorguard back, into a group of his comrades.

They were to either side of me, filling the narrow hall. Five to my left, three to my right. I’d disarmed one of the three, leaving two immediately dangerous.

“Stairs!” I roared. I could almost imagine the anonymous faces around me blinking in confusion behind their veils.

Thankfully, Laessa understood. “Left!” She cried.

My eyes, burning bright with aura, shot to the left. I took my left hand off my axe, swung it down at an angle low to the ground with my right, and crouched.

Most of the priorguard had heavy quarterstaves, good for cracking bones and subduing a victim without outright killing them. These, however, had new equipment. Two of them had long poles with broken rings, their inner edge cruelly spiked — man-catchers.

The one in the lead of the group blocking the exit held one. He stepped forward, thrusting it at my face. The two behind me advanced at the same time, attacking my exposed back. I could hear their shuffling steps over the carpeted floor.

They’d taken the bait. I hurled myself backward, catching the one with the man-catcher off guard and causing him to foul his thrust. The evil teeth of the weapon missed my neck by inches, and its wielder let out a muffled curse.

I spun, took the legs out of one of the two behind, slammed the butt of the axe up into the chin of the second, then grabbed the weapon near its head to shorten the length. I ripped hard to one side, biting into the second priorguard’s neck. She died choking on her own blood, falling to spasm on the floor and clutching at her gushing jugular.

I turned, and as the larger group of priorguard began to advance, I used my Art.

An Auratic Phantasm is like an idea, at first — when its form is imagined and shaped, it remains intangible, useless. Once born into the world, the essence of the soul bursting into corporeal reality, it will enact its intended purpose with the same cold certainty that a door will swing when a lever is pulled. The wielder can direct that power, but the time between manifestation and dissipation is usually measured in a matter of seconds.

I only needed seconds. I crouched again, and this time I didn’t bait and switch. I brought my arms up, rested Faen Orgis on one shoulder, and hunched. The priorguard with the man-catcher went high, and one of his companions with a very ordinary spear went low, intending to trap and stick me like a wild boar.

And, like a wild boar, I hurled myself at them. In a flash of light, branching antlers of solid amber glass, like the crown of an enormous stag, burst from my back and shoulders. An invisible wind propelled me forward, as though I were drawn to my target by a contracting line, or an alchemist’s magnet.

I slammed into the row of priorguard. The spear cracked, ordinary wood giving way to solid aura, reduced to splinters in a moment. The man catcher went too far up as the man balked at the sight of a small phalanx of glimmering spears hurtling toward him down the narrow hall.

I impaled two of the priorguard, and kept moving. I’d tethered my Art to the veiled thug at back of the group, and I wouldn’t stop until I struck him. The rest got caught in the middle, gored on the phantasmal antlers or slammed into the walls by the ripple of power and my own mass.

I grit my teeth through the rush — this Art always made me feel dizzy — and then swung the axe just before reaching my intended target. The hooked blade carved across his chest, meeting no resistance — the priorguard never seemed to wear armor — and then I shoulder checked him, knocking him down in a spray of blood.

Two priorguard, one dead and the other most of the way there, remained impaled on the glassy spikes of the phantasm for a moment before it dissipated. They both collapsed to the ground with heavy thuds.

I straightened, glancing back at the hallway. I’d left a trail of carnage, dead or dying priorguard scattered across the fine carpet of the floor or leaning against the white-washed walls. The skirmish had lasted less than half a minute.

“Move!” I roared.

The two youths scrambled out of the room, blinking in shock at most of a dozen men lying scattered across the hall. They navigated through the mess, catching up to me. I turned, steadied my breathing, and found the stairs.

I could hear more movement below. Not done yet.

Most priorguard weren’t much good as soldiers. The Priory took recruits off the street, or gave conditional pardons to criminals, filling their ranks with the zealous and the desperate. They’d upped recruitment in recent weeks, quickly expanding their ranks into a veritable small army.

Some of them, however, did have military experience. I started to descend the winder stairs and nearly died to a crossbow bolt. I caught sight of the man out of the corner of my eye, didn’t see the weapon but flinched on instinct. The rod of dark wood cracked into the wall inches from my face.

The archer cursed, immediately starting to load another bolt. This one didn’t wear a veil, likely to keep his vision clear. His weapon was small, compact, easy to load. I wouldn’t make it down the stairs in time before he had the chance to shoot me point blank.

I leapt over the railing instead, crossing over the stairway’s central shaft in a soaring jump to slam my boots down onto the man’s chest. He went down beneath me, and I slammed the butt of my axe’s handle down into his open mouth.

Blood had soaked into the dark oak of the weapon now, and at my silent command it woke, crackling and growing in length. The blunt end of the handle became a sharp point of iron-hard wood in a moment, passing through flesh and punching out the back of the man’s skull.

I ripped the weapon free with a grisly pop, letting the dead man’s head fall limply to the stair. I heard movement above — Laessa and Kieran were following as best they could.

I looked down into a spacious foyer. More priorguard waited there, another half dozen. They saw me, and lifted their weapons. More man-catchers, and two had compact crossbows.

“It’s the Headsman!” One of them shouted. No doubt they recognized my face from Rose Malin, even with my hair short now and my red cloak and black armor gone.

“Bleeding Gates…” Another said.

I ducked into a one-handed swing, cutting a bolt out of the air the same moment it fired. The second embedded itself in one of the rail supports next to my hand.

I let out a long breath, as though to blow on cold hands to warm them in winter, and amber fire flickered across the faerie-alloy of my axe. I shot forward, swung, took a priorguard’s head off at the neck. He fell onto the floor of the foyer with a muffled thump, his blood pumping out over the beautiful carpet.

They had named me.

I whirled through them, the aureflame blazing across my axe stitching gilt patterns in the air. Every time I swung, someone died. My powers gave me elfin grace and speed, but I am no graceful fighter. I fought with muscle and ferocious lethality, with brutal power, every strike intended to maim or kill.

Silently, I sent an apology to Rose. She’d wanted me to do this without bloodshed, but the damn Priory had moved quicker than I’d expected.

And I would not go into an Inquisition dungeon again.

I didn’t kill everyone in the foyer without injury. A man-catcher caught my leg, tearing flesh off my calf as I jerked away before it could get a proper grip. A quarterstaff slammed into my left shoulder, hard enough to break skin and leave a nasty bruise.

A priorguard with a dirk came at me from the side, trying to ram his spike of hard steel up under my ribs. A former thief, or even an assassin — he moved with quick, decisive professionalism. The blade scraped my ribs, drawing blood and slicing through my coat and shirt, but missed only because I’d leapt back to dodge another man-catcher.

A stroke of luck. I caught the short man’s wrist, squeezing hard and twisting sharply. He yelped and dropped the blade. I slammed my forehead against his, and he crumpled.

I felt the throbbing pain in my skull, my calf, and my chest distantly. The battle trance was on me now — all else had faded, going distant and dim, unimportant and far away.

I’d once lived for this thrill. The priorguard were hardly invigorating foes, but their numbers still proved a challenge. It came as a disappointment, when I realized everyone in the foyer was dead or too injured to fight.

Unblinking, my every sense stretched tight as a cord of wire, I looked back to the stairs. I caught Kieran’s gaze, and the dead boy flinched. He stood in front of Laessa protectively, and despite his desiccated appearance she clung to his back, her own face drawn with fear.

Not just of the priorguard. I took a deep breath, pushed my bloodlust down, and nodded to them. “Let’s go. There could still be more outside. Keep close.”

Laessa swallowed. “We should call for the guard, and…”

“And what?” I snapped. “You explain that you want your lover’s animated corpse to be kept nice and safe?”

She started. Kieran averted his eyes from her, ashamed.

“You’re dead,” I told him, because I wasn’t certain it had fully dawned on him. “And any right-minded person in this city will turn you over to the Church for a quick exorcism and burial, if they don’t form a mob and burn you. Trust me, kid, you don’t want to be burned alive in your state. Your ghost won’t stop burning, not for a long time.”

I didn’t think it possible for his face to get paler, but it somehow did.

“And what’s your excuse?” Laessa demanded, stepping forward. “Why aren’t you one of those right-minded people? Who are you?”

She stuck her dainty chin up, stubborn and brave even amid all those corpses. I reappraised her — tough girl.

“He’s got questions I need answered,” I said, pointing at Kieran with my axe. “And I don’t have any more time to answer yours. We need to move.”

I turned, but the young lady wasn’t done.

“No! We won’t go anywhere with you until you tell us who—”

“Lae,” Kieran cut her off with his death-touched voice. “He saved us both.”

I didn’t turn back, but I heard Laessa curse, then let out something like a sob.

Without another word, I moved out into the street and the rain. I looked around, but saw no sign of more priorguard. No normal guards, either — the Inquisition would have paid someone off, made certain there were no patrols to bother them. Certain factions in the city wouldn’t look kindly on the Red Trident storming a noble mansion and taking a young Lady of the Blood into custody.

They’d still do it, but they weren’t yet so powerful as to do it openly. I’d meant what I said about the guards not being trustworthy. While the Priory could throw its wealth around to buy some captains, just as many might lend a hand to the priorguard out of misplaced piety.

Still, I didn’t have time to wait around. The fight in the mansion had made noise.

Where was she?

“Come on,” I muttered, tapping my bloodied axe against one shoulder impatiently. The rain had let up, through it still came down in a ceaseless patter. The dark sky lit in scattered moments from lightning high in the clouds, each flash chased by a dull rumble of thunder.

I heard wheels clattering against stones, and a trilling cry. Two tall beasts emerged from the rain, chimera resembling the regal horse of eras past save for their ruby eyes, almost skeletal heads, and crowns of spiraling horn. Black as shadows, with clawed hooves and braided manes, they moved with an eerie grace even with the burden of an ornate coach pulled behind them.

Sitting on the bench of that coach was a driver clad in the androgynous uniform of a royal page, save for the hint of gleaming chainmail beneath and a bright yellow scarf. The driver pulled the scarf down as the coach slid to a stop, revealing an aristocratic face with prominent lips, a thin nose, and glaring amber eyes.

“You’re late,” I growled.

“Oh, am I?” Emma drawled, her highborn inflection spiking with her irritation. “You try getting a coach through this blasted city during a squall, and…” She blinked as she took in my appearance. “You’re covered in blood! And you lost your hat. I liked that hat.”

“We’ll grieve later,” I said, glancing back and ushering the two youths forward.

“Forsaken Throne!” Emma spat, seeing them. “You rescued the girl, too? What is this, white-knight hour? Are we taking them for a romantic ride?”

I ignored my apprentice, opening the carriage door and ordering the pair in. Once they’d climbed into the velvety interior, I slammed the door closed and moved to the bench.

“Alken,” Emma said, a warning in her tone.

I followed her gaze, and in the shadow of the storm I saw a shape approaching down the street. Approaching fast. Beneath the rumble of water and thunder, I heard iron-shod hooves and wheels on stone.

Another carriage, this one devoid of decorative, huge, and covered in plates of hard iron barreled toward us. Two bulky beasts with flat, gnashing teeth and three forward-facing horns pulled it, each a hulk of muscle and forward momentum. Veiled priorguard with man-catchers and hooked chains rode it, two on the bench and more clinging to the sides.

An Inquisition war carriage.

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZLwj1Qs.png]