Camiel was the ideal of the Angelus. Noble, brave, self-sacrificing - most Angelus leave the actual fighting to their Exarchs, but the Saint of War never did. When I saw the Sun Eater rip his wings off, it felt like all hope had gone out of the world.

* Sir Baylin, First Exarch of Kadosh

☀

16th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

Trist rolled out from under the bed, drawing his longsword and making a horizontal cut in a single motion. It wasn’t until his swing was already in motion - aimed in the direction of the voice at the doorway - that he realized he was swinging at a knot of tangled threads. He could see the bundle of fire at the core of a daemon - or an Exarch.

With a clang, his blade was deflected by a weapon that he couldn’t see.

“Trist!” the voice exclaimed, and his brain struggled to catch up with what he was hearing. “It’s me! Margaret!”

Panting, his heart beating like the hooves of a galloping horse, Trist pulled his sword back into Ox Guard, and paused there. “Dame Margaret?” he asked. It was a woman’s voice, certainly, but he hadn’t known her for very long at all. He wished that he could see her face.

“Dame Margaret,” she repeated. “From the cages. I know you can’t see my face, Trist. You got us out. You opened those portals beneath us, and we fell out of the cages. Who else would know that?”

No one, he realized, but the four other people who had been in the great hall of Cheverny a few hours before. Trist dropped his blade, fumbled for his sheathe with his left hand, and managed to put the longsword away. He’d nearly cut one of his only allies in the city in half.

“My apologies,” Trist said. “There were guards downstairs, and they searched the room. I had to hide under the bed until they left. When I heard your voice…”

“I understand,” Margaret said. “You didn’t know who it was. But come with me, it isn’t safe for us to stay up here where there are windows.”

“Aye,” Trist said, reaching out a hand. “Could you lead the way? The innkeep was going to bring me a bath…”

“We could all use one of those,” Margaret agreed. “But safer to do it in the wine cellar. Papa will bring the tub down there.” Her hand wrapped around his, and she tugged him along out the doorway and down the hall toward the stairs.

Trist blinked. “The innkeep is your father?”

“This is where I grew up,” Margaret said. “My father fought for King Lothair in the Hauteurs Massif, when I was just a baby. He’s the one who taught me how to use a spear, and it was only later that Rahab chose me.”

The stairs creaked under their feet as they descended. “Now it makes sense why the Hunter’s Boon led me to the cellar door,” Trist said. “You came here, and your parents hid you.”

“You have the right of it,” Margaret confirmed. “Papa, all’s well,” she called out as she led Trist down off the last step. “Trist here is an Exarch, as well. We couldn’t have escaped without him.”

“Forgive me, then, Sir Trist,” Roger’s booming voice broke across the room. “If I’d known, I would have put you in the cellar. But as it was, I couldn’t risk giving me daughter away.”

“No apology needed,” Trist said, trusting Margaret to lead him across the room. “You did what you could. What would have happened if she did not vouch for me?”

“I would have fed you and asked you to move on,” Roger said. “Unless it turned out you were working for the Baron. Then we would have done for you in the bath, or while you were asleep.”

“Then I am grateful it did not come to that,” Trist said.

“Come along dear, let’s get you into the cellar,” the voice of Agnes, who he now realized must be Margaret’s mother, came from his left side. The older woman took his arm, and between the two of them he rapidly found himself steered out into the yard, then down another set of stairs into a cool, dry chamber that smelled faintly of oak wood and wine.

“Sir Trist!” The voice was Enid’s, followed by an exclamation from Sir Cynric.

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“Ha! I knew he’d make it back alive.”

“Good to see you all again,” Trist said, and then immediately felt like a fool, because he couldn’t actually see any of them at all. “Or hear you, at any rate. Lorengel is here, as well?”

“I am,” the final Exarch spoke up.

“You’ll all have to take turns with the bath,” Agnes said. “And I’m certain I don’t need to tell you knights to give the ladies their privacy.”

“I am a married man,” Trist promised the innkeeper’s wife, then tapped his forehead. “And I find myself unable to see anything, in any event.”

“Aye, it’s Cynric we have to worry about,” Margaret said, with a chuckle. “He’s always had an eye for an elegant shape.”

“My intentions have never been anything but pure,” Cynric insisted, and Trist got the impression this was an old joke between the two comrades. “But I am the Exarch of the Angelus of Love. Some things come with the job, so to speak.”

“I hate to ruin the mood,” Trist said, “but there is something you both should know. That all of you should know. During my flight through the city,” he continued, once the two women had got him settled on the cellar floor, back against a wine cask, “I got a glimpse of the Cathedral of Saint Camiel. Avitus is doing something there - or his daemons are.”

“What do you mean?” Lorengel pressed, his voice coming closer and his boots echoing off the stones underfoot.

“I saw chains,” Trist said. “Much like those that bound Adrammelech in the Hauteurs Massif. Acrasia said she thought it was a binding, and that we would find a circle of blood if we went down into the tomb. We think they’re trying to corrupt the corpse, just as Adrammelech was trying to do with Abatur.”

“Your father and I will be back with the tub, and hot water,” Agnes said, softly. “It seems you have things to discuss that are beyond me.”

“Thank you, Mama,” Margaret said, and Trist heard the creak of her armor as she settled down on the floor nearby. In fact, from the sound of it, everyone was drawing around close and settling in. A moment later, the door of the cellar shut.

“I’ll bar it again,” Cynric said, and his boots scuffed on the steps. It was only once he’d returned that the conversation continued.

“Lorengel,” Margaret began, “What do you think?”

“I need to see it,” the Exarch said, after a moment’s thought. “And I have no knowledge of what was attempted at Falais. But they had enough skill to bind our Angelus in circles, in the great hall. I think that we must assume they could do the same, under the Cathedral.”

“Whatever they are doing,” Trist insisted, “We cannot allow them to finish.”

“I’m not certain that we can stop them, Trist,” Margaret said. “We have three exhausted, starved Exarchs, and a fourth who’s been blinded. I don’t say it to be cruel, but not a single one of us is really in a fit state for a battle. And the Baron - Avitus - six of us fought him before, and lost. If we couldn’t beat him then, when we had better numbers and were all rested, we can’t beat him now.”

Trist frowned, surprised not a single voice was raised in objection. What Margaret sounded like - what they all felt like - were people who had accepted their own defeat. People who had already given up, and now were only trying to survive. “King Lionel is coming,” he said. “With three more Exarchs. That will give us seven, against Avitus, his daughter, and seven daemons. Those numbers are as close to even as we are going to get. The more bindings they break, the more daemons they raise - the more people sell themselves and become daemonic Exarchs - the worse those odds get for us. We have to do everything we can to stop them from piling on any more advantages, before the King and his army get here.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Cynric said. “But what do you want us to do, charge the cathedral? The moment we do, they’ll send everything they have after us. Even if we stop whatever they’re doing in the tomb, they’ll trap us down there and take us prisoner again.” The man’s voice broke at the thought.

“At Falais, we nearly lost,” Trist admitted. “It was desperate. But we did not stop fighting. At Rocher de la Garde, we held the city for three days against everything they threw at us. Three daemons, they had, and I was the only Exarch, but we held until the King lifted the siege, and the other Exarchs arrived. I know that it looks like we are in a hopeless situation,” he continued. “But you do not know what the King is doing. He will be on his way here, I know it, gathering every man he can across the countryside as he comes. We need to do our part, no matter how difficult it is.”

“If we could get into the Cathedral,” Lorengel said, “I could at least get a look at what they are doing. Then we would know what the stakes are, and we could make a better decision.”

“Trist,” Margaret said. “If we get you to a wall, you could gate us in through the stone, yes?”

“Aye,” he said. “And I can pull shadows around us, as well.”

“That’s the plan, then,” Margaret said. “We rest and recover here for the rest of the day. Once the bells ring for vespers, the streets will begin to clear out. That is when we move. We go through back alleys to the Cathedral, and Trist gets us inside. Once we reach the tomb, the rest of us buy time for Lorengel to figure out just what is happening down there. Lady Enid,” she continued, and Trist could actually hear her turn away from him by the way her voice changed. “I would like to send you south, if we could, to Rocher de la Garde. My father has some friends I would trust to smuggle you out of the city. You can be our messenger to King Lionel.”

“Me?” Enid squeaked. “But I’m not… I’m no knight, nor even a soldier,” she protested. “All I know how to do is grow plants in a garden.”

“You’ve been a prisoner at Cheverny for days now,” Margaret said, “And not confined to one room, as we were. I expect you will have quite a bit to tell the King, and he will protect you once you reach his army.”

“Enid,” Trist broke in. “I promised you that if you came with us, you would speak to your father again. I think you should listen to what he has to say.”

“I don’t see how that is possible,” Enid said. “My father has been dead for years, Trist. You were there.”

“Aye,” Trist said. “I was.” He drew his longsword, and placed his hands crossed over the pommel, resting the blade across his lap. “Sir Tor De Lancey,” he intoned. “I call you.”

The sensation of the temperature in the cellar dropping was familiar to Trist, but he heard gasps around him from the others. He’d seen frost crackle across stone so many times, by now, that he could picture what was happening even without the use of his eyes.

“I am here,” Tor’s voice boomed through the cellar, “Though I see no battle before me, lad.”

“I did not call you here to fight,” Trist explained. “Turn around, Tor, and speak to your daughter.”

“Enid?” the ghost’s voice broke.

“Daddy?” Enid exclaimed, and then she began to sob.