'This seems a small price to pay for what you have done for me, Vyde.' Lothway’s gait was slow but purposeful, for it gave us ample time to converse while wandering around his gardens. 'Surely a man of your occupation wants for tools to make employment such as this easier; A steadfast mount, a sharper blade, hardier mail?'

I was grateful for the gentle pace. I was still recovering three days after my return to Langteglos. After chasing away the Effigy I had finished the procedure on Elinora’s mark and carried her back through The Bowels, beleaguered as I was. I knew just how important it had been to commit the route Kastyn and I had taken to memory as it if were etched into my grey matter. More than once that place tried to confuse my mind, as was it’s nature, but eventually we emerged onto the surface. I remember finding the rainfall that met us to be a welcome. The horses I thought were absent, until I spotted Relampago grazing just outside the Pitswood. I took heart that she had waited for me.

'I already have both, My Lord,' I said, grating my teeth silently. 'I meant what I said: my rate of Zatas and a walk through your gardens will be a fine payment indeed.'

He chuckled. 'Quite frankly I was about ready to go into mourning, considering how long you were away. How did you survive for three nights in those depths?'

'Time spins differently in The Bowels, and it seems to work counter to the purpose of whomever should enter. We needed more time, and so it was eaten away.' I fiddled with the petal of a beautiful purple crocus, vibrant and delicate. 'A mourning should still be observed. Though Kastyn’s body is lost, he still requires passage to the Vestige.'

Lothway’s expression darkened, his mouth turning downward with remorse. 'Perhaps he was not ready. I thought it may be better for Elinora to travel with someone familiar. I am to blame for his death.'

I commented no further, and I found myself fingering the journal tucked in the outer pocket of my longcoat.

'How much longer until she wakes up?' Lothway asked. 'I’m worried she’ll waste away, she’s looking ever so thin.'

'It was a taxing endeavour, but she will awaken very soon.' I looked at him expectantly when he didn’t reply. 'I would imagine you’re keen to get things back on track.'

He looked confused. 'What do you mean?'

'Kastyn mentioned that your daughter was betrothed. I would assume her Touching was a rather large obstacle to such a thing. Now, it seems, a joining of houses may commence.'

'Ah, yes.' Lothway’s tone was clipped and quick. I had heard and learned the significance of that tone in my travels; it was that of a liar. 'I will be sending a messenger to Ebravale post-haste.' He glanced towards the small gate to the cemetery at the back of the gardens. 'You must know that you have use of my lodgings for as long as you need, but I must ask when do you plan to depart Langteglos?'

He stopped as I did, and I gauged his distance to some blood flecked ivy that was placed between the more exotic flora and fauna. 'I’ll take my leave anon. There is but one thing left to do.'

The incantation I had started to set moments earlier drew forth pointed barbs of ivy marked with my blood. I guided them to wrap around Lothway’s limbs, puncturing his feet and palms for good measure. It was no less than he deserved.

He wailed and struggled against his impossibly strong bonds, bolstered by my magicks. 'My hands! My- argh! What is this? You…' Realisation dawned. Rage followed. 'You wretch, Embris! You’ll hang for this, or worse if I’ve any say in the matter.' He directed a shout towards the manor. 'We have been betrayed! Slay the Touched and secure my daughter!'

'You’ll find no aid from your household, Lothway. What’s a man to do when his lord spends his stipend on false promises and blind faith?' I drew the notebook from my pocket and waved it in front of him. 'And when the true loyalists to the Lothway name heard what Kastyn had to say? Well… most made the choice to distance themselves from this house. The few foolish that remained steadfast to your name have been dealt with.'

I saw it in his face, the pieces slotting together like a puzzle made of prophecy. The brusque manners and barely contained sneers of his staff and personal guard, the departure of yet more without a single word, for he didn’t deserve one. 'You turned my house against me,' he growled, the full picture made clear. 'What lies did you feed these good people? For what purpose did you infiltrate my household?'

I flicked open the notebook. 'To answer for crimes unpunished.' I began to read what Kastyn had set out in his account which began shortly after the arrival of Lothway’s niece Halynn, from which the bones of Elinora’s supposed salvation came. Kastyn noted how Lothway doted on her, was keen to oversee her and Elinora’s studies, and seemed reluctant to have her go into town alone despite her being a few months his daughter’s senior.

There was a change in Halynn as summer turned to autumn. She was late to lectures and slept more even though she looked more ragged by the day. Kastyn described it as if ‘her soul was weary’, so heavy was her exhaustion. She waved off concerns from the household and Elinora herself when she began vomiting into her chamber pot most mornings. Kastyn was an observant and reasonable man and postulated that Haylnn was pregnant, and that her tiredness stemmed from rendezvous with a local outside the manor, to both satisfy her urges and find relief in a place away from her cushioned prison.

'Kastyn would find himself correct,' I said, 'But not in the way he imagined, I would wager.'

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'Lies. Baseless lies!' Lothway hissed, his handsome features distorted by anger. 'He would seek to besmirch our name, knowing that he could never have Elinora. She entertained his affection for far too long and this is the price we pay. Shame! Can’t you see that? Kastyn was a knight, but he held a dark cunning that was unbecoming of his station.'

'Where you see a dark cunning, I see an acute intuition regarding your kind,' I retorted, snapping at his interruption. 'For it seemed Halynn couldn’t handle this markedly unplanned blessing alone, and turned to the man who had planted it inside her.'

'This is ludicrous!'

'He witnessed the two of you conversing in your study on a humid night in late spring. Once he discovered the nature of the discussion at hand, he opted not to interrupt.'

Lothway struggled against the vines and howled in a sour mix of pain and frustration. 'False, all false—'

'She entreated you for help. Driven by fear or a twisted love she sought out the father of her unborn child for support. Her own uncle.' The lord stopped struggling and his head drooped, utterly defeated. 'Instead of aid you delivered ire, warning that if any were to learn the truth both her and her child would find themselves in the Dreadhallows.' I snapped the journal closed. 'It seems fate stepped in and did your dirty work for you, when both mother and child died during childbirth. I suppose you made a convincing guise of mourning, no?'

Lothway was unnaturally still, as if he were a man consigning himself to the waves of a brutal tide, but nothing would rinse him of the filth inside. Men that come to this realisation often find themselves in a kind of peace and acceptance of their true selves that most will never experience. After a long pause he raised his head, looking at me with puffy eyes and a flat expression.

'It was she who initiated our rendezvous, and she was a beautiful woman after all. The male urges are potent when exposed to such delights, Vyde. This I’m sure you know.'

'If you had any honour you would’ve known better.' My stomach roiled, but I maintained my composure. 'I’m sure you believe the same of Elinora then, hm? Why else would you break an engagement that would only seek to enrich you?'

His face garnered a darkly wistful air. 'She looks... so much like her mother.'

I’m sure at this juncture, dear reader, you would wish that I should dispense justice upon this disgusting and abhorrent creature in lord’s clothing and be done with it. But I had need of him further. A selfish need.

'This crime, Lord Lothway, though vile and wicked… is not the one I seek retribution for.'

His head tilted. 'Then what, Embris?'

'Cast your mind to eighteen years ago, around the time Elinora was born, to a raid administered on the city of Lazarne.'

His gaze hardened. 'I know not of any raid. It was cleansed, bathed in holy fire as the Numen saw fit.'

I heard that tone of a liar once more, and this time it came with a price. I drew my sword and swung it through his right wrist, sending his still twitching hand into the mud. Through his fresh pain and wailing I stated firmly, 'Know that for each lie I receive I will take more and more from you. Speak true and your end might be swift.'

'You’re a madman!' he spat, spittle suspended between his teeth. 'A heretic!'

I placed my sword under his chin with the point resting against the apple of his throat. 'Patience I have for insults, My Lord, but it is not an infinite thing.'

He shoved his bleeding stump into the ground in between his legs, sobbing all the while. 'Yes, yes… I was… I was there.'

'State your part in the Night of Iron Rain,' I demanded, wiping the blood from my blade with my shawl.

'I was not the one— the one who let loose the volleys, I swear it! I was young, my first campaign! I entered after the city had fallen.'

'Fallen?' I scoffed. 'You mean following arrow after arrow that fell upon the innocents of my home? Following the violation of her women and the butchering of her men? Following the burning and ransacking of hovel to temple? Following the murder of her liege lord? That’s not what you call fallen. Lazarne was razed.'

Lothway shook his head. 'I had no part in any of that! I was part of the contingent to bring stability to the chaos. We were to occupy the city, never to...' His eyes lost themselves in the memory of it, his lip quivering. 'The fire burned for days. Even a downpour did not stop it. It was a cleansing willed by the Numen.'

I had no doubt he was downplaying his part in the tragedy as men tend to do when faced with certain death. There’s always that little hope the nests in the back of one’s mind, one that tricks him into believing that there is a morsel of information, or a lie carefully crafted that might allow him to live. I demanded the names of the lords involved but Lothway was a minor player, and the Night of Iron Rain was such a heinous act that I had surmised it was designed with utmost secrecy in mind. There had been no identifiers on the soldiers that came into the keep and tried to kill me, and they all wore masks and didn’t speak.

Lothway had all but exhausted his usefulness and my tolerance when I asked. 'It was not just men present at Lazarne. Who were the Enlightened daemons that assisted in this crime? And why would they bend to the will of the architect of such slaughter?'

'Please…' Lothway begged, eyes streaming and mouth drooling. 'I don’t know anything, I don’t—'

A sharp scream from the manor cut him off, two toned and unholy in pitch. Bright blue lights flashed and filtered through a window in the southwestern corner and a degree of sharpness returned to Lothway when he caught sight of it.

'Elinora,' he stammered, 'What's happening to her? What is happening to my daughter?'

I affixed him with a sharp eye. 'The procedure was unsuccessful, my lord. We found an altar in The Bowels but a daemon made off with the blessing required to cure the affliction. Still…' I brought my face close to his, 'Better a Touched than a daughter of this house.'

Rage flared in him once again. 'You bastard, Embris! You’ll be hunted for this, the Touched who assaulted a lord and made sure his daughter was turned. That drove good people from their homes!' His eyes narrowed and I could see when that little hope died, for he finally started speaking unbound of its whisperings of survival. 'I would expect no less of someone from Lazarne with its profane knights and its wicked Lord Shavis. I go to the Vestige knowing that you’ll writhe in the Dreadhallows when your end is met to join those heretical curs—'

A cold fury descended that I simply had to indulge in; Lothway had to suffer penance for all his lies spouted against my people. I had heard them before from others that were lain in the path of my vengeance. An old and hardened doubt lingered like a stone in the shoe, wondering if Lord Shavis and Sir Wymond were truly the monsters my victims had claimed they were. However, my mind didn’t provide consent for such scrutiny to penetrate my frenzied animosity toward those who destroyed my home, for turning me into the sullied soul I considered myself to be.

'You’ll be going to the Vestige, Lothway.' I sheathed my sword and withdrew a knife sharpened to a keen edge. Lothway shuddered. 'But I’ll ensure it’s a long journey to her door.'

Despite my want for an accurate account, dear reader, I think you would forgive me in sparing you the details