An icy chill tiptoed up his spine —as if fingers walked up his back to wrap their cold grip around his throat. His chest ached with each violent pulse of his rapidly beating heart, and his breath caught in his throat. Ben felt as if the world had slowed. The echo of each step reverberated in his ears, and his exhausted body screamed at the rush of adrenaline. He slowly approached the door to the medbay in the temple of Illephrre and was greeted by his mentor’s back, her arms folded as she tilted her head to meet his gaze.

“Come on, then,” she said to him, tone devoid of the warmth and wit he’d come to associate with the old Berserker. “Remember what I taught you. You control it. It doesn’t control you.” Ainsle gestured with a flick of her chin to the center of the room.

Ben paused to exhale before entering the chamber. Kieran stood holding an incandescent orb in his only hand, colors shifting within its depths, with an outstretched arm; his brows were contorted into a frown, his lips drawn into a thin line. Locks of pure white hair, whipping with the sudden turning of a head, drew the young man’s attention to June, whose eyes darted between himself and Kieran. Her hunched shoulders and tucked chin spoke of uncertainty; her keen, grey-red eyes were alert nonetheless.

His eyes scanned the room, and he saw his Keeper, her new white traveling robes made violet by the light through the stained-glass window, lying on the cot where he had left her. He gazed over the area once more before tracing Ainsle and Kieran’s eyes to the form of a tall, slender woman in black leathers crouching atop the sturdy table in the center of the sickbay. He felt an intangible pressure on his mind when he tried to scrutinize the woman as if she was… slippery to his sight —his eyes almost instinctually tried to avert themselves from the figure.

After two heartbeats of considerable effort, he forced himself to lock onto the woman. She flinched at the attention as if his gaze caused her physical harm. Slowly, she came into focus, and Ben saw short raven hair in a bob that framed a fair, beautiful, lightly freckled face. Piercing green eyes met his, and his vision flashed red for a fraction of a heartbeat.

Pain. His veins seared with the rage of his Avatar as emotions he’d stifled for far too long erupted from somewhere deep within his being. Ben stumbled to a knee. He was tapped; he knew it. Yet, through pure hatred, he forced himself forward. The air cut at his face as his body defied the limits of what the human form was capable of. In what felt like an eternity —yet was less than a second— he found himself pinning Jor Vasylius against the stone wall on the opposite side of the room. Bruised fingers wrapped around her neck.

The clatter of his halberd on the floor behind him preceded the chaos that followed. Wooden splinters of the table and chairs peppered his back and head as debris swirled and rained down around him, pulled, swirling, in the wake of the projectile that was his body. His shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths as he stared into her quivering eyes. He tried to speak, yet his jaw was clenched so tightly that he could only manage a hiss through gritted teeth. He tightened his grip and reached for the dagger on his hip.

“Wait!” Kieran cried out; panic and desperation colored his tone. “I need answers. Ben, please,”

The young man ignored the plea of his companion and unsheathed his dagger. A gauntleted hand on his shoulder and a pulse of a heavy, familiar aura made him pause.

“I get it. I won’t stand in your way,” Ainsle said, her voice a low whisper. “Vengeance has gotta get its due. But I’m asking you to let the boy try and save the old bugger first. After that… do what you have to do.”

Ben’s hand around Jor’s throat began to tremor violently, causing the woman’s black hair to shake visibly; her lips had gone blue. The hand holding the dagger shook with even more intensity as his logical mind warred against his primal need to inflict agony upon the Archer —an internal battle he swiftly lost as he plunged the blade deep into her abdomen, twisting the hilt as her green eyes rolled back into her head for a blissful moment.

He felt the hand on his shoulder dig into his flesh before he was pulled from Jor with impossible strength and launched backward. His head slammed onto the stone floor as his body slid through the debris to the center of the room. Ben scrambled to his feet, his vision swimming from the impact of his skull against stone, to see the old Berserker grapple the raven-haired woman on the floor. Ainsle lay on her back behind Jor, with an arm wrapped around her neck in a choke-hold —the old woman’s legs were snaked around her torso, boots locked in a tight grip.

“She’s slippery, the little shit,” Ainsle huffed between breaths before shooting a glance at the Apprentice Necromancer. “Don’t just stand there, tie the bitch up.”

Kieran sprang into motion, his black robes billowing behind him as he crouched beside the pair on the floor. Jor gasped for air as she tried to pry the iron grip of the veteran Berserker to no avail. The bronze-skinned man raised his wrist to his mouth and bit a chunk of flesh from his arm. Blood from himself and the Archer began to pool on the stone beneath them as he began to trace something on the floor.

The fatigue from their battle at the pavilion and the reckless use of his Avatar’s power slammed into the young man. He felt his arms grow leaden, and his shoulders slumped involuntarily. The dagger he still held clattered to the floor as strength flowed out of his body —like the last dregs of an empty wineskin— the terrible power refused to find purchase on his battered form. He ambled closer. His fury hadn’t abated, even though his body screamed at him to stop. To rest.

Ben drew near enough to Kieran to make out the shapes of headache-inducing runes, forming a perfect circle around Ainsle and Jor. The symbols, traced in blood, crept up the wall from the floor and began to pulse with a deep red light. He watched as the Apprentice Necromancer worked eerily silently; his once pitch-black eyes were blood-red, emitting a nearly imperceptible crimson glow. Kieran stopped abruptly, and Ben felt a pulse of pressure against his ears as if a large volume of air was displaced before him.

“It’s done,” the bronze-skinned man said in an exhausted exhale. The runes encircled an area of roughly five paces in diameter and pulsed in a rhythm he thought to resemble a heartbeat. “Aunt, you can let go of her now. I’m afraid you’ll be confined within the circle with her for the time being.”

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The scarred woman grunted and released her choke-hold on Jor, who gasped for air, letting out a painful wince as she clutched at her bloodied stomach. With frantic kicks, she tried to scramble away from Ainsle, yet screamed as her back made contact with the intangible boundary of the rune circle. Ben heard a hiss and saw subtle wisps of smoke saunter into the air. Ainsle sniffed and calmly sat cross-legged on the stone floor before the bleeding woman.

“Well, shit,” the old Berserker said in a casual drawl. “Looks like we gonna keep each other company for a spell.” She wiggled her brow at Jor.

The pun did not seem to have the intended effect as the raven-haired woman bared her teeth and winced with slanted brows. She glanced at Ben, who half-collapsed to sit outside the circle, before averting her gaze. He stared at her and realized that the woman had remained silent."How did you find us?" He hissed the question.

Jor whimpered and the sounds of giggling mocked and teased from the edge of his hearing."I... I never left."

Ben frowned and Kieran stepped forward.

“My Master is on death’s door as we speak. I need the antidote to whatever poison you used,” Kieran said tersely. The Apprentice Necromancer’s self-inflicted wound had closed, and he was no longer bleeding.

Jor’s eyes widened. “I… how did you-”

“Irrelevant,” Kieran interrupted. “Accept that I know what you did. I’m indifferent regarding your motives, whether you were under duress or not-” he paused as he nodded to Ben before continuing. “-it seems your life is forfeit, either way.”

“Tell him, girl. No need to make this shittier than it has to be.” Ainsle interjected, her voice seemingly disinterested, yet Ben saw the hints of conflicted emotions in her steel blue eye.

Jor’s breaths had grown shallow, and her face had gone pale. The pool of blood beneath her had been slowly expanding with brownish liquid leaking from her wound to swirl in the crimson. “I…” she began, her voice soft and weak from what Ben assumed to be severe blood loss. “I’m not sure. Eric… gave me the vial… forced me,” she slumped to an elbow. “The Priestess. She. She said…” The raven-haired woman collapsed.

“Fuck,” grunted Ainsle as she shuffled over to the dying Archer. She turned to Kieran. “You gonna let her bleed out? The gut wound-” She glanced at Ben with a frown. “-is pretty deep. That shit leaking out usually isn’t a good sign.”

Kieran knelt and began to fumble in the pouch Ben had given him as a gift, seemingly growing frustrated as he emptied burnt scrolls and various vials onto the floor.

Ben closed his eyes and fought to calm his raging emotions. Kieran needed to know how to cure Archmage Durrene; besides, this death was so… unsatisfying. He turned weary eyes to his Keeper, who was being tended to by a wide-eyed June, and he sent concern through their bond toward her. Immediately, the blonde woman jolted upright to sit on the cot, her head swaying as she swept her gaze across the destruction in the room. She stiffened as she saw Ben half sprawled, half sitting on the floor, before rushing over to his side.

“My heart, what happened? Are you hurt? Who did this?” she asked frantically, brows raised.

Ben couldn’t muster the strength to speak and opted to loll his head toward the arcane circle that held Ainsle and the dying Jor. Ann pursed her lips and squinted at the old Berserker before her shoulders raised, and she inhaled sharply.

Her posture relaxed, and she tucked an errant lock of blonde hair behind her ear. She fixed the prone form of the Archer with cold blue eyes. “You.”

“Heal her,” Ben forced out in a whisper. “She’s not getting off that easy.”

Ann snapped her attention to the young man with questioning brows, mouth slightly agape. After a beat, she dipped her head. “As you wish,” she said before briefly inspecting him for injuries.

“Oi, get me out of here,” said Ainsle to Kieran, who had given up searching through his pouch.

“Aunt, if I break it, I can’t recast that binding circle. At least for some time… It’s Mother’s magic, you know how-”

The old Berserker clicked her tongue. “Fine. Guess I’ll get settled in then.”

“Sorry…” Kieran dipped his head, to which Ainsle waved a dismissive hand.

Ben felt the powerful regenerative Aura as it began to waft off his Keeper. Its power didn’t affect him, yet he felt the radiance nonetheless. He watched as the Archer’s weak breathing stabilized, and the pool of blood and bile ceased its expansion. A shuffling of feet drew his attention to the albino Caster, who slumped beside him among the debris.they sat in silence for roughly a half hour as the Keeper worked.

“So, this is the one that poisoned Archmage Durrene?” she asked, her head resting against knees drawn to her chest. He nodded, and the woman mirrored the gesture. “Got it. So…” she began as she adjusted her head on her knees to meet his gaze. “We rest up and storm the sanctum?”

Ben frowned,his strength slowly returning,and considered the unconscious woman in the binding circle. “Ann,” he said, to which the Keeper responded with a hum while maintaining concentration on her Aura. “Will she be out of it for a while?”

“I believe so, my darling. This… woman has lost a lot of blood.”

“I see. Thanks,” he said before addressing June. “Yeah, maybe just scout the way after a short rest if Ainsle is going to be locked in there with her. We’ve both got a few things to say to the Matron of Speakers, so we’ll go together.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m just about topped up myself. There’s something in that bread that —I don’t know— reenergizes you…” the albino woman began before swiveling her head to peer around the room. “By the way… where’s that old hag?”

Ben opened his mouth to speak as he heard the sounds of a cleared throat from behind him.

“Eat. It should restore some of your stamina.” Ethel stood in the doorway, her robes immaculately clean and her white hair neatly braided in twin buns, identical to the style her domain manifestation had worn.

“Where did you go?” Ben asked.

“I went in between. But that’s of little importance,” she croaked while bending down to retrieve the remnants of bread amongst the wreckage. “Come with me. You can eat as we walk.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, brows tilted skeptically, unconvinced of the miraculous, stamina-restoring bread.

“I’m going with you,” said the albino Caster.

“The Matron of the Hand won’t be restrained much longer. It seems your presence here has stirred the agents of the pretenders.” Ethel held out a dusty loaf of plain bread.

Ben stood, accepted the crushed bread, and bit into the hard, flaky crust. The image of the barred nave flashed in his mind as he swallowed. “Is she behind that door that’s chained and barred shut?”

The gnarled old woman nodded. “She’s no longer human. Not quite monster, either.” She gestured that they follow as she turned on her heel and headed toward the room's exit.

“My heart,” Ann said. “Please be careful. If you have need of me, please call me, and I will come.”

“Thanks, Annie. I’ll just go have a look around, but I'll call you if anything comes up. Be right back.” Ben forced a wink.

He paused mid-stride as he felt the effects of the ‘stamina’ bread. It was nothing like a proper rest, yet he felt… less exhausted than earlier.

The pair followed the silent old woman down the long corridor to the large entrance chamber. Ethel walked over to the giant lever and began winding the contraption. The massive doors shuddered and began to open.

“Wait,” June said. “Did she say where we were going?”

Ben beheld the old Priestess with a frown. “Ethel. What are you doing? Those creatures are still out there. I can’t-” he paused as he recalled their conversation in his domain.

“The Matron of the Hand has a legion of Assassins at her beck and call,” the old woman rasped as she wound the lever. “It’s fitting that you procure an army of your own.”