Cheverny Castle was the child of Laurent I’s mind. His mother had concentrated on defending the city at large, and put very little effort into upgrading the wooden hall on King’s Island from whence her father had ruled the Narvonni. Laurent, one he was king in his own right, demanded a castle impressive enough for an Etalan Emperor, built from stone.

* François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne

☀

15th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

Still blind.

Acrasia’s words echoed in Trist’s head, until he could focus on nothing else. The truth of it was the death of everything he’d ever been and ever wanted to be. How could a blind knight fight? What good did it do him to be the best with a blade in hand, when a half-trained farmer with a spear would be able to kill him as easily as an unarmed child?

“Trist,” Margaret hissed again. They’d all been trying to get his attention, but the voices of the other Exarchs, even of Acrasia, were as meaningless as the buzzing of a fly. Something hit his cage; it shook, then began to swing wildly. He banged into the bars, and recoiled in pain when the iron burned the skin of his arm.

“What?” Trist finally demanded.

“If you are going to use that Boon,” Acrasia’s pained voice came from somewhere outside of the swinging cage, “Do it now. Before a guard hears us.”

“How can I use it if I cannot see?” Trist complained in despair.

“You mortals, obsessing over a single sense,” the faerie chided him. “You don’t need to see to use a Boon. Focus on the threads in your core, and move them.”

Trist wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball, shut them all out and wait for Avitus to return and execute him. It would be easier, and it would put an end to the pain. What was left for him? He’d worked his entire life to be a knight, to serve his liege and his kingdom, and to protect his family. He couldn’t protect anything now: he would be nothing but a useless cripple for the rest of his life, relying on other men to do his fighting for him. What possible use was there for him?

Acrasia would be better off without him: at least then she would be free, like she wanted, instead of chained to him and miserable. His father and his brother were both dead, and the village they’d all sworn to protect was burned. The same dark thoughts that had come to him beneath the mountain, two hundred stone steps down into the earth, after Adrammelech had nearly killed him, dragged him under now. He felt like he was drowning, deep beneath the surface of the ocean, and he didn’t even know which way to swim to get to the light.

There was only one thing to hold onto: he still had a wife and a child. Under the mountain, he hadn’t even known how Clarisant felt about him, but now she’d told him that she loved him, that he made her feel safe, and he’d promised to protect her. Not only her, but he needed to protect their unborn child. A child whose face he might never see.

“Very well,” Trist said, and reached a hand out in front of him. If he hadn’t been blind, he might have closed his eyes to focus better, and the thought brought a grim smile to his lips. He reached down into his core for the weakest of the threads that was wrapped there, the red Boon stolen from the Serpent of Gates, and teased it out. He had not the slightest idea what he was doing, and Acrasia couldn’t help. But he had, at the least, seen Bethin use this power before, and he visualized his red thread unraveling into dozens of strands, stretching out into a circle beneath him. Again, the image of Claire’s sewing needle came to his mind, and with some part of himself he could not explain, he punched the needle through the world and out the other side.

With a cry, Trist fell through the portal and out the bottom of his cage, where he hit the stone floor of the great hall, hard.

“You did it!” Margaret cried, from somewhere above him and over his shoulder. “He did it!” she hissed to the other Exarchs.

“Quiet!” Enid hushed them all.

“Get the spikes out, Trist,” Acrasia begged, from somewhere in front of him, but Trist grappled his way along the floor. He pulled his red thread back, and let the circle he’d torn in the world collapse, but he wasn’t finished yet. Instead, he teased out an orange thread, holding two strands out of his core at the same time.

“Margaret,” he muttered. “Exarch of Rahab.” The orange whip of the Hunter’s Boon latched on to her, off to his right and above, swinging in her cage of iron. Once he had her location, Trist slipped the needle of the red thread back into the world, and out the other side, and was rewarded with a startled cry and the thump of a body hitting the floor next to him.

“Thank you,” Margaret said, catching him up in her thin arms. “Can you get the rest of them?”

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“Aye,” Trist said, already casting about with the Hunter’s Boon for Sir Lorengel. “You and Enid need to free Acrasia, and the Angelus,” he insisted, and Margaret released him.

“We will,” she promised, and Trist crawled across the great hall to the next cage. It was exhausting, terrifying work, for all that Trist’s part of it was done first. With Cern’s Boon to guide him, he was able to navigate from one person to another, though he scraped his shoulder against the throne on his way past. Using the two Boons in succession, it was only a matter of repeating the same steps to free all three Exarchs, though the effort left him gasping for breath, curled up on the granite stones of the floor.

“Rest now,” Enid told him, her cool hand on his shoulder. She helped him up to a sitting position. “I can’t do much to free the Angelus,” the woman he might once have married admitted. “I’ll let the Exarchs do that.”

In the end, Margaret and the others tore strips from the rags they wore and used that to wrap the iron spikes, and to scrub at the binding circles of blood. It only took one break in the circle to disrupt them, but pulling the spikes out was more difficult, and the job ended up falling to Lorengel, as the physically strongest among them. Trist couldn’t be certain whether the Exarch of Veischax would outmuscle him in a contest, but then again, Lorengel had the use of his eyes, so Trist left him to it.

About halfway through the process, the group heard two guards coming on patrol. Trist wrapped Enid and himself in shadows, while Margaret and Cynric, the final Exarch, took up positions to either side of the door to the great hall. From the startled grunts and sounds of choking, Trist was able to picture what happened to the guards pretty clearly.

“Take their weapons,” he suggested, once it was done.

“I’m already doing it,” Margaret assured him. “Help me drag the bodies under the table here, Cynric,” she said, and there was a scrape of steel rings against stone.

Finally, no more than half a bell from when Trist had first fallen out of his cage, he heard Acrasia’s cry of relief, and then the faerie tumbled into his arms, her corporeal form trembling in his grasp, as if she could hardly hold it together.

“You will recover,” Trist reminded her, awkwardly. “This body is not you, remember?”

“It still hurts,” Acrasia complained.

“Can you feel where the sword is?” Trist said, with a sigh, trying to keep her focused.

“Aye,” the faerie assured him. “It’s as much a part of me as my throne under the hill.”

“Lead us there,” Trist said. He fought the urge to try to look for the other Exarchs, and instead just trusted they would be close enough to hear him clearly. “If we have any luck at all, your weapons and armor will be stored in the same place.”

“And once we arm up, we fight our way out of here,” Margaret said, her thinking clearly aligned with his.

“That bastard killed my uncle,” Lorengel objected. “He has tortured us for weeks. We can’t run now.”

“It’s the very reason we have to escape,” Trist insisted. “None of us are at full strength. We need to rejoin King Lionel, rest and recover. And then we come and deal with Avitus, all together. Anything less is just asking to be defeated again.”

“Agreed,” Dame Margaret said. “We get our things, and then - Trist, can you portal us out of here?”

“I do not know,” he admitted. “I can try.”

“Best not count on it, then,” Cynric said. “Lady Acrasia, if you would lead the way?”

“I need to go now,” Enid said. “Before he finds me missing.”

“You should come with us,” Trist countered. “You said yourself he would do horrible things to you, Enid. You will be safer with us.”

“I’m no fighter,” the young woman protested.

“Come with us,” Trist said, feeling somewhat guilty about using this against her, “and you will speak to your father again.”

“My father is dead.”

“Trist, we don’t have time for this,” Margaret urged.

“I said what I said,” Trist told Enid. “Come with us, or hide. Your choice. Acrasia, to the sword.” Cynric slipped his shoulder under Trist’s arm, and the other Exarch helped him up to his feet.

“My thanks,” Trist said, and they were off through the cool evening halls of the castle Cheverny. The three Exarchs of the Angelus had the advantage of knowing the building, having served there for years, and with Cynric helping Trist they were able to move quickly.

“We’re headed for the armory,” Lorengel said, after only a few moments. Trist was focused on drawing shadows about them all, to conceal their movements, and after that realization they picked up the pace.

“Who goes there!” a guard’s voice called from somewhere ahead, and then the clash of steel.

“Wait here,” Cynric grunted, putting Trist down against a wall, and then moving off. Trist gritted his teeth. He was helpless, and there was a fight happening only steps away. He hated it, detested putting his life in someone else’s hands, not even being able to watch what was happening. If the exarchs lost, the guards would only have to walk over and capture him again, and all of this would be for nothing.

“I’m here with you,” Enid murmured to him, putting her hand back on his shoulder. Trist was ashamed how much he panicked without human contact. Without a touch, he had no idea where anyone was.

The exarchs did not lose.

“Well,” Margaret said. “There’s that. Trist, we’re going to get you over to the door now; it’s locked, and none of us have our keys. You need to make us a door through it.”

“Put my hand up to the wood,” Trist asked her, and once he felt the polished grains against his palm, he pulled up that newest red thread again. It was harder, to hold the gate open, than it had been to just let someone fall through and release. It was like carrying a bucket of water across the courtyard, instead of simply lifting it and putting the bucket back down. It was a new muscle that Trist had never used before, and he grew tired quickly. When everyone else was through, Enid pulled him after, and he allowed the gate to close, finally.

“I cannot do that often,” Trist admitted, slumping down to the floor of the armory. “I hope you can open this door from the inside.”

“We will deal with that in a moment,” Margaret said. “Everyone get your things. If you can’t find your armor, do the best you can.”

“Trist,” Acrasia said. “Here it is. I have your sword.”

He reached his hand out blindly toward her voice. The faerie took Trist’s hand in her own, and guided him to the hilt of his longsword. Trist’s fingers curled around the leather-wrapped grip, and he exhaled in relief. Having the sword in his grasp felt like coming home. It was a step forward, at least. Beneath the metal, he could feel the intertwined threads of the Boons that empowered the blade, and connected both he and Acrasia.

Trist might be blind, but at least he had his sword in hand again.

To his right, the door to the armory shuddered with a violent impact.

“You in there!” a man’s voice called from out in the hall. “Open up and surrender, if you want to live!”