Getting to Breachpoint took the better part of the day, with the carts slowing them down. The news that they were coming had travelled much faster. The good people of Breachpoint were lining the streets, throwing flowers onto the closed wagons with the soldiers’ bodies and eggs and rotten fruits at the open cart where d’Evier had been propped up against a pole.

The music corps of Breachpoint garrison was playing on the stairs to the large plaza where the truss stopped. On one side of the wide open yard, those wide stairs led up to the town hall of Breachpoint and the cathedral, on the other side, only a low wall rimmed a steep drop right into the ocean. More than two-hundred funeral pyres had been set up on the flat ground in between, and the curious onlookers lined the remaining two sides.

David followed George Louis and a handful of other nobles up the steps to where two large basins had been filled with coals to illuminate the stage in between. He tried his best not to show how bored he was by the duke’s speech, and then Picot’s speech, and then a third speech by the mayor of Breachpoint. He supposed the soldiers needed the time to unload all the dead and place them onto the prepared pyres. Between each speech, the music corps played, and then –

David had a hard time not to let his jaw drop when a flame-forsaken Bishop of Mithras stepped out of the Cathedral, followed by a small entourage: Bishop Larsson, with hair so pale it had hardly changed colour with age, once known the Silver Blade of Mithras, when he had fought to proselytize the tribes of the northern mainland.

It had never fit him, David thought.

Or rather, by the time he had first met Bishop Larsson, the priest had been mellowed with age: A man who had forsaken sword and magic to further the glory of Mithras with soup and kindness instead, as head of the Salvation Effort.

If it had to be a priest who gave the fallen soldiers the last sacraments, Larsson was probably the right one.

It still surprised David that the Bishop had agreed to this, given what was about to happen to the mortal remains of the High Inquisitor.

Clearly, David wasn’t the only one who thought so. There was an unhappy whisper all around.

Larsson raised his empty hands. David twitched. D’Evier had done almost the same gesture before throwing fire at him.

But Larsson just waited. “Peace, friends,” he called after a moment. “Peace. Yes, I am a Bishop of Mithras. I walked through the Four Trials. I read the Book of Mithras. My master is He, not the Roi Solei. My faith is in His word, not the laws the Archbishop of Rambouillet puts down.

Mithras says ‘go forth, and conquer darkness wherever you shall find it,’ and I believe that darkness has taken hold at the heart of the Church. And that darkness is called the Inquisition.”

A deep quiet fell across the plaza.

“Mithras says ‘let all who love the light come to me as my children. Let them worship the light as they see fit.’

Oh, I know what the Archbishop of Rambouillet will say: He will say that sheep need guidance. But I see no sheep here! He will say that I am old, and senile, and that I have lost sight of the path of truth. And to all those who feel that way, I only say: Watch!”

The old man walked over to one of the large basins that lit the stage. He grabbed the metal rim with both hands despite how hot it had to be and pushed until it toppled over. The coals crashed onto the stairs, flowing down the steps almost like water. Larsson walked over to the other basin and pushed that over, too, at an angle so that the coals mixed with the others. Flames flared up and the stairs burned almost hip-high.

Before anyone could stop him, Larsson walked right into the flames. People screamed but the old man just raised his hands again.

“Fear not,” he called and paused, with sparks flying around his fingers. “This is what the fourth trial looks like. I walked through fire before to prove my faith. But few priests do, nowadays. Far too few. Because the Church has lost the way! Oh, they will call me mad. They will say I’m a heretic! So come, all you Inquisitors! If you want to prove me a heretic, meet me at the Trial of Flames, and we will see whose faith will hold stronger!”

David watched in shock and a little awe as Larsson slowly walked down the stairs, barefooted, through the burning coals. At least one of the soldiers lining the steps held out a hand, to check if the fire truly burned as hot as it looked or if this was just some trick. He pulled it back quickly.

Larsson bent down at the base of the steps and picked up one of the coals. He held it high over his head, so that everyone could see the glow, before placing it at the first of the pyres on which the defenders of Oldstone Castle had been laid out.

“May your soul raise up to Mithras,” he said when the prepared wood caught.

The people watched in silence while the old man walked back and forth between the pyres and the burning stairs, repeating the same words over and over. David watched, too, shocked and impressed. He hadn’t understood why Lane was still observing certain fast days, or why she was still unwilling to try men’s clothes, despite the advantages they had. But now that he had seen a man walk through fire, he understood the allure of the faith a little better.

He glanced over to her. Her gaze was fixed on the old bishop.

“Any man who wilfully raises the Rot cannot be a man of Mithras, for Mithras hates the corrupted residues of human magic,” Larsson yelled. “Any man who stands against the Rot has taken the first step towards salvation. These brave warriors gave their lives to fight the foul sickness. May they forever dine in heaven!”

The people watched mostly in silence how the pyres burned. Some were singing funeral hymns, and the relatives gathered around the bodies of their loved ones.

“That was far more impressive than I dared to hope,” George Louis muttered, once the flames had burned down from blazing to a steady flicker.

David glanced over to him, then back towards the bishop who was talking to some of the bereaved. To the sides of the plaza, where most of the crowd was gathered, people were growing restless. David could hear at least one voice that was trying to sell food. Some of the people mourning for their relatives glared in the same direction.

They were losing the moment.

George Louis didn’t seem concerned. He looked over his shoulder and waved. A moment later, someone pressed through the group of nobles surrounding the duke. A child.

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Prince George stepped up onto the stage, nervously looking to his father, who nodded, and clapped his hands. “If you know the words, please, join in,” he called to the crowd.

And then the boy began to sing, his father’s hand on his shoulder, in that bell-like voice only children possessed. “Flowers of Loegrion,” David recognized.

And people did join in. It was a song well-chosen, not a funeral song, not a religious hymn, rather a love song to the country. It was often played at country fairs and many people in the crowd knew the words, Valoisians and Loegrians alike. It did have the right kind of slow, solemn melody, too.

George Louis let the silence ring for a few seconds after the last note had died away, before calling out to the people again.

“Now that we have paid our respect to the fallen,” the duke said, “and have reminded ourselves what they fought for, it is time to show all the enemies of Loegrion what we think of them. Let this be a warning to all those who would turn the Rot against us! Bring forward High Inquisitor d’Evier!”

“Feed his bones to the fish!” the soldiers who had come with them from Oldstone Castle yelled back. David wondered if the men had been prompted to do so. The cart with the body rolled slowly into view.

George Louis grinned grimly. “That is precisely my intention,” he declared. “But since I don’t want to fight the bastard twice, let’s have him dismembered first.”

David had a hard time hiding the shudder when the executioner of Breachpoint stepped forward with his large axe. He had seen more than enough blood for one day. The soldiers cheered, though, while the executioner took the body apart at every joint. David thought the rest of the onlookers seemed less certain about the messy spectacle. Picot, standing next to David, looked grey in the face, even in the golden light of the setting sun.

“This is far more drastic than I expected,” Lord Clermont muttered behind David.

“He would have handed all of us to his monsters,” George Louis replied calmly.

“True,” Clermont agreed. “I just didn’t expect you to retaliate like this.”

When the soldiers started to toss the first pieces of the body into the ocean, the crowd finally began to applaud as well. Head and torso went over the banister last.

“Now that this business is concluded,” George Louis called, “it is time to celebrate the living. Any man or woman drinking in this city tonight shall do so on my expense, and all I ask in return is that the first toast be to the heroes of Oldstone Castle!”

The soldiers must have misunderstood, because they echoed: “The Hero of Oldstone Castle! Lord David Feleke!”

Whatever George Louis said in reply was drowned out by the howling of several werewolves and the crowd celebrating the prospect of free beer.

Lane didn’t move as all around her people raced to flood the pubs and bars. The lords up on the stage with the duke and his son turned towards the town hall, where no doubt a reception had been prepared. Lane could have joined them, but her eyes were fixed on the pyres. She still couldn’t quite believe that George Louis had really done this. The Archbishop of Rambouillet and the Roi Solei would have to react to this. Any spy caught in Valoir – anyone caught so much as expressing sympathy to the rebellion – would face a slow and painful death, no doubt.

Someone else was standing between the smouldering flames. Lane’s feet moved forward on their own. Before she got there, however, another man and a woman had approached Bishop Larsson. Lane paused when she heard him gently console them. She dithered around for a minute or two, but she wasn’t even sure what she was going to say to him, anyway. So instead, she walked over to the low wall securing the steep cliff.

There was nothing to see down there, only the white cresting of the waves that crashed against the rock Breachpoint was built upon. Of course, there was nothing to see. D’Evier’s remains must have long been carried out to sea in the riptide.

“Not a true man of Mithras,” Lane tried to calm her racing heart, but it didn’t work.

D’Evier had still been a priest. A holy man. Someone Lane had been brought up to revere. If Mithras hadn’t condemned them yet for all eternity, He was sure to do so now.

“There was never any salvation for you, anyway,” Lane muttered.

“Are you referring to the High Inquisitor, or yourself?”

Lane jumped. She had been so deep in thought that she had never heard the Bishop approach.

“If you meant the Inquisitor, I quite agree,” Larsson went on. “But if you were referring to yourself then I’d like to ask what makes you think so.”

“He was a priest,” Lane said. “We killed him. Mutilated his body and tossed it into the sea so his soul will never rejoin Mithras.”

“Never is a long time,” Larsson said. “This ocean will one day fall dry, just as this land will no doubt fall under the sea one day. And I would argue that he wasn’t a true priest, either.”

Lane stared at the old man.

“A true priest would forsake all worldly power,” Larsson continued. “They would use magic only to ward off evil or death. They would never, ever raise the Rot. D’Evier failed on all three accounts.”

“But he went through the trials,” Lane couldn’t help but argue. “Just like you.”

“No, he didn’t,” Larsson shrugged. “He went through the first two, and they are trials of body and mind. He never went through the Trial of Soul or the Trial of Faith. In the old days, before the Church married herself to the Empire, all four were required of anyone who wanted to call himself a priest of Mithras. Today, all the Church asks for is the Trial of Body, and only fools like myself even strive to walk through fire. And that should tell you all you need to know about the state the Church of Fire is in. Even the Archbishop of Rambouillet is nothing more than an acolyte, and I reckon your chances of walking through fires unharmed are better than his.”

“I doubt that,” Lane muttered.

“Why? Because you’re a woman?” Larsson shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. Have you committed murder? Performed any harmful magic?”

“Does killing werewolves count?”

Larsson smiled. “I thought I should have recognized you. And that’s a tricky question, milady. The Book of Mithras doesn’t mention werewolves. It does mention curses, and it demands that we do everything to lift a curse before we condemn the victim. Unless the curse was brought about by Mithras himself, in which case there is no point in trying to lift it. But no creature cursed by Mithras has ever been known to bear children.”

He shrugged. “So I do not know if it is murder. But in the absence of certainty, I would advise against it, unless there is very good reason.”

Lane nodded mutely and stared down at the dark waves beneath them. How strange to hear a Bishop of Mithras say those words.

After a long moment of silence, the bishop straightened up. “Oh my,” he said, and pointed over the waters. “Look.”

For a long moment, Lane saw nothing out there but the nearly black ocean. But there was something lighter moving between the hills and valleys of the waves, something large – a faintly glowing body, diving and rising. Lane stared as hard as she could. It vanished underneath the surface and didn’t reappear so long that she almost thought it was gone. When it broke through the waves again, it was so close that she could see clearly, but what it was, she still couldn’t tell: It looked like an otter. Not like the small, river-dwelling animals that sometimes lived in Loegrion’s cleanest rivers, but a huge creature like a whale, and glowing like the stars.

Lane stared in wonder at the marvellous beast. Larsson next to her was leaning forwards so much she worried he’d fall in.

“What is that?” Lane asked.

“A water-spirit,” Larsson said. “A good omen, sailors say.”

The otter spirit had turned onto its back, paddling with its tail like only otters could. It had caught a large, silvery fish, and seemed to enjoy its meal.

“I have only ever seen them much, much further to the North,” Larsson continued. “They’re sacred to the free tribes between the Empire and Fylke. I heard they’re drawn to natural sources of magic, but avoid human magic and the Rot. I never thought I’d see one so close to Loegrion.”

In the distance a werewolf howled again. The otter-spirit raised one front paw, as if to wave.

A moment later it was gone.

“Ah...” Larsson muttered, smiling. “Do you believe in omens?”

“It’s a sin to strive to know the future,” Lane softly quoted her father. It didn’t surprise her anymore when Larsson laughed.

“The Book of Mithras does say so,” he said. “Yet it also says that the truth is written in all of His works, and that we should strive to see it there.”

He grew more serious. “Perhaps not an omen,” he added. “But surely a sign that Mithras hasn’t abandoned this country.”

He looked at Lane from the side. “You said that there never was any salvation for you,” he went on after a moment. “So I take it you were struggling with your faith even before the Lackland Rebellion. If you ever want to talk about it – I’ll likely be in Deva for the foreseeable future.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Lane looked after him for a second but then stared out across the ocean again. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get another glimpse of the otter-spirit. It had slipped away as quickly as it had appeared.