Six enemies. Only six, and none of them were using oaths.

Seriously, who did the Church think I was? Against the seemingly unstoppable combination of a bunch of their strongest oathholders, I was pretty sure I didn’t stand a chance. And now they were throwing that away just to send a message? I’d faced six oathholders before, each and every one of them stronger than me. With the help of alignment, I’d demolished them without a hitch. This? This was laughably easier.

It almost made me think that there was a deeper purpose to this. Some way that let me win this battle while losing the war.

But that was something to worry about for after I got out of this alive.

Behind me, Kyle was still doing something with his card. I only got a glimpse of him, but he looked as focused as I’d ever seen him. Time to be a protection detail, I guess.

My new enemies were organized, but they were mundanes. They could’ve been Crown foot soldiers, except of course they weren’t because the Crown’s military relied primarily on oathholders. A household guard, maybe.

They charged in three packs of two, aiming to cut me off from all sides, divert my attention so that I wouldn’t be able to handle all of them at once.

And that’s where you’re wrong, you fuckers. I charged back, sprinting towards the pair that wanted to take me on head-to-head.

Given their setup, it would take the ones on the side a few moments to readjust and hit me. Either that or they would keep going and attack Kyle, which I hoped wouldn’t happen. If it did, I would readjust, but it would be much easier if they held back some on that front.

I wreathed my hands in unstructured magic, not even bothering to form a spell.

The first step of any fight was to gather information on the enemy. Most of the time, this could be achieved by getting into a quick scuffle with them and examining their offenses and defenses.

Well, that was the first step of any battle. As a Byron, I’d learned battlefield theory, but I’d also learned the reality of what a fight that involved an oathholder was like.

I dove forwards, rolling under the overhead strike of one of the soldiers, and then I got to my feet and punched them through their gut.

They weren’t experienced enough, I noted idly, the part of me that was supposed to be emotional faded into the background. The second soldier hadn’t capitalized on the opening that their partner had made, hadn’t struck me while I was dodging. I had had another layer of planning to ensure that wouldn’t have killed me, but I hadn’t had to maneuver any further.

And now my arm had gone straight through this soldier’s body, cleaving through armor like it was hot butter.

The armor hadn’t been totally useless. There’d been some level of resistance as I punched in, more than there would’ve been from simple metal, and runes had flared bright white across the chestplate.

Not that it mattered. Magic had faced magic, and the one with a pissed-off oathholder behind it had won.

I withdrew my arm. The soldier wasn’t dead yet, not quite, but he would be soon. My magic had made contact with their insides, burning away blood and guts where their body dared touch mine, and I knew from experience that they had maybe half a minute left before they were ruined from the inside out.

I spared them the trouble, standing to my full height and slashing my hand across their throat. They didn’t even try to block, too stunned by the hit to react, and their emptying helmet fell to the floor a moment later.

“Fucking heretic bitch!” the other soldier—a boy, I distantly realized, probably no older than I was—screamed, a shrill edge in his voice. “You’ll pay for that!”

“Back off,” I found myself saying. “It’s not worth it.”

Where had that come from? I hadn’t used to be the person who would get sentimental over shit like this and advise my enemies to run away. Now, though…

I couldn’t tell if I liked this version of myself better or not.

The boy swung his sword, and I met it with my hand. Black magic met mundane metal and won easily, the blade disintegrating on my arm.

He stumbled, having expected some amount of resistance but facing none as his weapon turned into nothing but a handle and a short stub of iron.

As he did, I caught him in the chest with my other hand.

“Sorry, kid,” I muttered. I’d caught a case of empathy recently, but it wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to defend myself from harm.

My opponent died in moments, my oath annihilating his heart and everything around it.

I didn’t get a moment’s reprieve before the next pair attacked, once again with swords.

Sloppy. They hadn’t coordinated with the other surviving pair to hit me at the same time. Not that it would have mattered, but it would’ve meant they had more of a chance to at least do some damage before going down.

As it was, they didn’t even represent a ghost of a threat. I’d acknowledged them as potential threats earlier, but now that I was actually fighting them I could see that that might have been a bit of an overestimate. I ducked under one swing and ignored the stab, the thrust of the blade completely off the mark.

In retaliation, I cast a proper spell—a magic missile, complete with an actually decent frame—and obliterated the helmet of the one who’d missed. It took their head with it too, leaving behind a suit of armor and a fountain of blood.

I made a face, rolling back to keep too much of it from getting on me. Squeamishness wasn’t an issue, but getting my hands bloody and slippery and then messing up a knife throw because of it would be. Not to mention that it’d be embarrassing as fuck.

“It’s not worth it,” I repeated myself. The words were pointless, and I knew they were deeply unlikely to effectively convince my enemies of anything, but there was still a suspiciously Jasmine-like voice in the back of my head telling me it was worth a shot.

To my surprise, the other soldier backed off, dropping their sword and running away.

They didn’t make it far. Before they had even returned to the ranks of the Church oathholders, the old man who I’d been cautious of ealrier threw out another distorted blast and the soldier warped, as if the suit of armor was just a drawing and the artist had crumpled the paper. Blood started oozing out of the slits in the armor a moment later, and then the perverse artwork fell over with a resounding crash.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. That had been a House Byron move if I’d ever seen one. It was growing increasingly difficult to not view the Church and the nobles as two sides of the same coin.

I actually felt kind of bad. They’d tossed greenhorns at me. I didn’t know why they thought it would work, but they’d just thrown people with so much potential to live and grow at an oathholder that they knew for a fact was dangerous.

“Sorry about this,” I said, turning to face the last two.

They seemed almost resigned to their fate. Not as angry as the second guy I’d killed was and not as prone to running as the guy that had been killed by their own oathholders.

Such a fucking waste. I made it as quick as I could, using much more unstructured magic than necessary. They never stood a chance, but at least they didn’t suffer too much. I hoped.

And then that was all six of them dead, five of them by my hand. I knew that I should be feeling bad about their deaths, but even though I recognized it was a tragedy, a waste of human life and potential, the part of me that should’ve been feeling emotion for those people who had had families and feelings just wasn’t in reach. On some level, I could tell that the feelings were there somewhere, but they weren’t anywhere near the forefront of my thoughts.

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My mind was tied too deeply into my oath, I was pretty sure. I’d recognized a long time ago that my oath responded positively to killing, and it did the same now. Even though the people I’d just killed were a far cry from competent enemies, my oath was practically humming with approval and growling for more.

I felt good, and I felt bad about that. How fucked up was it that I could muster up more emotion for the fact that I had kind of enjoyed the process of killing five probably-coerced teenagers than for the killing itself?

I wanted to blame my upbringing, but at this point I couldn’t tell if the distinction between who my father had made me to be and who I had become even existed anymore.

“Impressive,” one of the Church’s oathholders said. Not the one who’d yelled at me earlier. “Worthy of a Chosen.”

Wait, was she talking about me? Hadn’t they just called me a heretic?

“You talking to me?” I asked. They weren’t attacking, which was good. I would take any opportunity to stall for time that I could get. I didn’t bother glancing backwards, not wanting to draw attention, but I was pretty sure the jester was still at work breaking down the barrier.

“Yes,” she said. I focused my attention towards the source of a voice. From the sounds of it, she was woman in her thirties or forties, but she didn’t look a day over twenty-five. A Nacea oath’s modification. “Lily Syashan.”

“That’s me,” I nodded, unsure what else to say.

“Once of House Byron, if the rumors are to be believed.”

I cocked my head, not letting the surprise show on my face. I shouldn’t have been surprised. That [QUERY] I’d sent out hadn’t exactly been subtle. Still, it was a touch odd to see the Church of all organizations put it together first. If the nobles that had lived through the era of House Byron hadn’t managed to come to a consensus on it, why the Church?

“Interesting rumors,” I said, not missing a beat. “Would be nice if they were true. I could do with a bit more spare cash.”

The woman laughed humorlessly. Her voice and her body really didn’t fit together, I was growing to notice. Would it have been too much to ask to keep her vocal chords as young as her body?

“We shall see to the veracity of them soon,” she said, standing up. “But that is not why you were called here.”

“I was called? That’s news to me.” I started building magic in the space just behind the small of my back where none of them could see. We weren’t fighting right now and Kyle was going uninterrupted, which was the absolute best case scenario, but it wouldn’t hurt to be ready if they started slinging spells again.

“Of course you were,” the woman said. “The Church has its eyes.”

“The Church watches,” the crowd of oathholders replied in unison. Creepy.

“You are one of the very few oathholders in this city that may lay claim to being Chosen whilst not being part of us.”

“She’s not Chosen,” a man called out. “Her oath is a bastard one, caught halfway between the heresy of the nobility and the purity of the Chosen.”

“She’s Chosen enough,” the woman replied. “You will be quiet, James.”

“What’s with the whole calling me a heretic thing, then?” I asked, looking for any excuse to keep the conversation going. To his credit, Kyle was still going even though he had to know that at least a few people had noticed him now.

“Chosen you may be,” the woman said, turning to glance at the man who’d spoken out of turn as if to preempt his words and silence him, “But a heretic nonetheless. Your god is a forbidden one.”

“Nobody told me anything about that,” I lied. “I just got the oath, y’know?”

Her point about me technically being Chosen was a little weird. I’d learned enough to know that the Chosen were those who were naturally selected by their gods, but I definitely hadn’t been. Hell, I’d found a book on heretical oaths in order to establish mine.

But apparently, my oath looked like a Chosen’s? Well, my god was a pretty broken and forgotten one, so maybe it had been the unique circumstances of who I was sworn to that made my oath look different to them.

“It is a forgiveable heresy,” the woman said. “Under some interpretations of the faiths, it is even arguably a bold gesture of solidarity.”

“As opposed to unforgiveable heresy,” I deadpanned. “What would that look like?”

“You need to look no further than the city around you,” she replied. “Look to the greed and the pettiness and the killing of the Tayan mobility.”

I’ve heard this one before. The worst part was, they were pretty right. I’d gone through hell and back over the last couple of days, and until now basically all of it had been because of fucking nobles. Sure, I’d learned that there were a few who weren’t utter shit—Alex, the Rayes patriarch and matriarch, and the girl I’d accidentally fallen in love with—but it wasn’t like the nobility was mostly made of people like them. They were little more than a minority in a society that still disgusted me.

“True enough,” I said. “What about it?”

“You’ve proven that you can fight alongside us,” she said. “You passed the test. James’ play of sending the mundanes over failed in spectacular fashion, and then there was nobody left who disagreed. We are asking you to join us.”

Huh. I hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“To tear down the heresy that holds this kingdom up and replace it with the gods-given truth.”

I gave it a thought. Sure, I hated the nobles. Given that the Church knew on some level that I’d been a Byron at one point, they had to know that too. If they’d been watching over the events of the last while, then they would’ve seen me fighting against the Alzaqs, which would’ve helped prove that thought.

But was the Church much better? When I’d been young, I’d learned to hate the nobles because of Lord Byron, who’d used mental compulsions to control me, lied and murdered his way to the top by taking advantage of a complicated situation, and looked down on those around him. Now, a Church official was trying to get me to join them after the Church had used mental compulsions on their own people, taken advantage of a messy situation to lie and kill, and they looked down on everyone who wasn’t one of their precious Chosen.

“Two sides of the same coin,” I whispered, quiet enough that even I couldn’t hear myself.

Louder, I said. “And if I say no?”

At once, a bevy of colors lit the room as two dozen oathholders drew on their oaths at the same time.

“It is,” the woman said, her body glowing bright red, “Not exactly what one might call a choice.”

“Go ahead,” I shrugged, looking for any way to divert the conversation. Behind me, I could hear Kyle making progress. I just needed to get us a little more time…

“You can kill a potential asset, see how that goes for you,” I said. Neglecting the fact that the value you would see out of that potential is just about zero.

“We do not need to kill you,” the woman who’d apparently made herself the official liasion between me and the Church said.

I raised an eyebrow, an uncomfortably familiar sourness rising in my gut again. “Is that so?”

Please don’t tell me—

“Jasmine of House Rayes,” she said, and my heart dropped. “Alex of House Varga. Lukas of the same. Orchid of House Alzaq. Heretics of the faiths, all of them, and nobles as well. Their lives depend on your cooperation.”

My blood ran cold, my old friend hatred settling in like a cool blanket on a warm night. With it, it somehow became easier to think, easier to cast. Alignment once again, but too late.

Think, Lily. This isn’t your first time seeing something like this.

Two years before the fall of House Byron. Lord Byron had executed a tactic like this and educated me on it afterwards. The situation wasn’t exactly the same, but the principle applied.

The main question was this: why were they still alive? The answer was pretty obvious—Jasmine needed to be alive to be threatened so that I would fall in line.

But that wasn’t the extent of it. If I cooperated now, they wouldn’t be free. The same sword would be hanging over my—over their necks. If I bent now, I would bend always.

Beyond that, there was the possibility that they were needed for something else. It was a tenuous one, and not one that I wanted to rely on, but there was a chance that the Church was making an empty threat.

Finally, the Church could be lying. I didn’t want to rely on that one at all, but there was always a chance. Until I saw them, I wouldn’t be to confirm that.

“Where are they?” I asked neutrally. “I was with them just now. You think I’ll just take you at your word?”

“When you made your presence so very well known in here,” the woman said, victory written clear all over her face, “Our associates were delivering them from this very Church to the site of our final victory.”

Final victory? Were they going full coup on this? I wouldn’t have been surprised.

If they actually had my friends, I was going to have to find them. I was going to have to kill my way through the Church to get them, but that was okay. It might’ve been the wrong thing to do—I was sure that if our positions were reversed, Jasmine would have something better to say—but it was all I had left.

Cold hatred settled into a cold heart, and my magic roared in response.

“Subdue her!” the woman shouted. “She has value yet!”

I didn’t bother attacking. Didn’t bother trying. The distortion-creating old man was still alive and active, and I did not want to waste anything on him.

Instead, a moment after the woman gave her order, I turned around. A Prismatic Shield popped into existence between me and the Church forces arrayed against us, blocking the first array of spells.

“I’m out of shields,” Kyle huffed. “And the wall isn’t giving.”

There was still a floor-to-ceiling barrier blocking our way out, and though Kyle had made a dent, it hadn’t been enough.

I walked through the barrier.

“What the fuck?” the jester said, staring at the person-shaped hole I’d made.

My ruin dripped off me like it was oil to my water, fragments of the shield disappearing into the air even as I moved.

“Let’s get moving,” I said. “We have information now.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Kyle said, sprinting through the same hole. “Let’s go.”

We made it two steps outside before things got worse.

A woman was waiting just beyond the door of the Church, maybe ten meters beyond the exit. Not a guard, which I’d been prepared for. Just a woman in a white dress, one who looked all too familiar. I wasn’t quite sure what I recognized her from, but it felt like I had seen her too many times before. The beast of hatred stirred as I watched her approach us.

“Lily?” Kyle asked. “Is this lady a problem?”

“Worry not,” she replied, turning her head to face us, and then it fell into place.

Her height, her posture, the timbre of her voice, that fucking veil.

“Fall,” she ordered, and we did.