Shira shivered when we stepped out into the supernatural chill, pulling her gambeson’s collar up to better guard her throat. The training sword still sat in her sheath as a plausible threat, something to draw attention away from her. Few walked down the Street of Broken Sky without obvious weapons and those who did were perhaps the most dangerous…and drew the most attention.

As we walked, people subtly changed their courses around me like minnows sensing a shark and flowing respectfully far from its teeth. It was still day, if barely: the dying ember of a sun so weak it could barely pierce the clouds was slipping behind the horizon even as it clutched for its last hour of life. I wore no steel armor, only a thick gambeson and my sword ever in its faithful place at my side. Layers of quilted wool and silk could turn many a cut and I knew the streets of Sanctum better than most.

We were close to the Alabaster Spire, a great floating tower of shattered ivory glass anchored to the east and west by two mammoth bridges guarded by heavy fortifications. Beneath it was the shattered obsidian remnants of the molten stone crater formed by the King in Black’s ascension, a break in the earth that was more than six hundred feet deep at its center. I turned my eyes towards it for a moment as we walked, a painful longing striking me like a subtle knife sliding slowly between my ribs.

I looked at that tower and thought of the man I had loved so fiercely, even knowing it was a feeling that could never be returned.

Shira tugged at my sleeve to draw my attention. How is it floating? It is huge! Her fingers flicked swiftly, cold forgotten for a moment.

Her curiosity and awe at such a sight was rather charming. It forced me to look again at the tower, not as the seat of the King in Black, but as a marvel of magic and architecture. “It has been that way since the Apotheosis. When the old god of magic, Arvuin, was murdered, some of his power exploded outwards and shattered the tower. Surely a priestess knows that story.”

She frowned at me. Much of that lore is lost to the lands beyond the Eternal Kingdom. Besides, stories are nothing compared to the truth.

I raised an eyebrow. “And you expect the truth, do you?”

You were there.

“Many who were present yet live as undead in the city. Ask them.” I picked up speed as I walked, heading down Coldheart Promenade towards Luka’s estate. The grand promenade was lined by twisted, black trees reaching claw-like branches towards the sky, coated in rime with hanging icicles. This was a large, public thoroughfare patrolled by the Eibonguard. No one was going to assault us here in the open.

Shira had to hurry after me, one hand on her sword to keep the training blade in its sheath. It was just a little loose, not the same dimensions as the real thing, but it was convincing enough for our purposes. Unfortunately, she still had the wide-eyed look of a foreigner and flinched away from undead passing on the street.

Before she could tug on my sleeve to draw me back into conversation, I caught her wrist in an iron grip and pulled her past cluttered street stalls hawking reagents and talismans. Luka made his home near the intersection of the Dark Mothers’ Path and Coldheart Promenade, which meant the endless stream of acolytes and worshipers were perpetually in my way. My distaste for religious folk did not end with the followers of Light.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that Shira picked up on my contempt immediately. We stopped under crowded eaves to let a procession pass, made up of masked figures representing the different aspects of the goddesses.

You don’t like them, Shira signed with furrowed brows. Surely you honor them, if you serve the King in Black.

How little she knew of them. “The Dark Mothers were content to sit back and let their own followers be burned at the stake for thousands of years. They enjoy their prominence by the King in Black’s grace and tender their respect accordingly.” A priest glanced our way, saw me, and immediately fixed his attention back on the procession. “When they forget their place in the natural order, I remind them. They would have nothing without His Majesty.”

But they are the gods of death.

My smile was thin and sharp enough to cut like a razor. “They are carrion feasting off a corpse slain for them.”

Shira shuddered. Are you always so grim, Lady Frostborn?

“I find it discourages them from wasting my time.” I turned to face her completely, arching an eyebrow. “It is rather unfortunate that a vow of silence is not part of their initiations. It would make mediation so much more pleasant.”

They can still make rude gestures.

The comment, just a flash of flicking fingers, almost made me laugh. Her timing was perfect, but I knew better than to let someone through my walls so easily. I had done it before and it had brought me no end of pain. “And what does a chaste, virtuous priestess know of rude gestures?”

Shira didn’t take the bait in the way I expected. My brother was a soldier. The tension between us that had eased for a split second at her joke was suddenly thick enough to cut with a knife again.

“At Stonepoint.” My memory carried me instantly back to that moment in the solar with Melody, when Shira had snapped. What had she signed? That I had no right to take the lives of poor conscripts away from them, of course. It wasn’t their fault that their commander had chosen their deaths instead of surrendering his fortress. “He died there, didn’t he?”

Shira nodded, the bitterness of an old pain resurfacing. Not like you think, she added in sign. You were the opportunity.

I pondered those words carefully. “Elaborate.”

Why? Her motions were sharp and angry, fingers like daggers slicing the air. For your amusement?

“I do not find death amusing.” I crossed my arms, meeting her glare head on. “Satisfying at times, but we all have people we would rather see in the ground. What happened? Clearly you wish to speak of it, if you brought it up.”

Stolen story; please report.

Someone had to be to blame. Shira’s eyes welled with tears, bright even in their hurt. Lord Gwydion told everyone that the reason you had captured so many was that someone stabbed them in the back from within. He weeded out his least favorite captains, charged them with conspiracy, and had them drawn and quartered.

“Your brother was one of those captains.” When she nodded, I felt the roiling cauldron of anger I called a heart near a boil. “How unfortunate I did not extend to Lord Gwydion the same when he knelt in my tent. Perhaps a simple beheading was too swift for him.”

Shira looked down at the ground, fingers still slowly shaping words. Emrys was a good man. He wouldn’t have wanted revenge.

I let one hand rest on Woe’s hilt. “And what about you?”

I was in the cloister. It was months before I knew. They brought nothing to me, and he was all I had.

Part of me wanted to reach out and at least put a hand on her, anything to offer comfort. I knew what it was like to lose people dear to me, in a variety of ways. All the same I kept my distance. “I am sorry.”

She looked up at that, clearly suspicious of my intentions. The hostility in her posture faded after a moment. My sincerity was not hard to read. I do not understand you, Lady Frostborn. How can the butcher of countless thousands feel anything at all?

I thought back to the last chosen one I had killed, half-trained and carrying the hopes of a world on his shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said softly. “When you think of the enormity of it, it is nothing. When you feel the blood coursing down your hands or deal with those left behind…then it is intensely personal.”

Shira nodded slowly, though the furrow in her brow remained. I miss him, she signed with movements so subtle I almost missed them.

Grief was something I knew well. “We should attend to Luka. If what Varys said is even half true, he is in danger and in pain. Haven should know more about the nature of the poison and Anstydir will be searching for clues.”

She took the out I had provided with a faint nod of gratitude. Haven knows much of medicine. His healing is most impressive.

“As one would imagine, there are no laws in the Eternal Kingdom about dissection of corpses. That has taught him a great deal about anatomy and the nature of death. Not to mention how many wounds and diseases he has treated over the course of a very long time.” I picked up the pace towards Luka’s estate.

Thick thorn hedgerows surrounded the estate like a wall, tall and infested with dark magic that made them a true danger to anyone trying to climb them. Shira and I passed under a wrought iron arch bearing the head of a wolf with jaws spread wide open. The manor house itself was old and in disrepair, though everything structural was tended to. Gardens ran wild across the grounds with nettles and sharp, twisted pieces of stone. There were no trees, leaving a broad and open space people would have to cross once they made it through the gate or over the hedgerows. I knew that several very good archers in Luka’s employ kept watch for the uninvited.

How had someone gotten so close? Even the most dedicated of assassins usually succumbed to a poisoned arrow through the heart.

For a lord, he does not tend his house, Shira observed, pausing to look around.

“He’s more beast than man most of the time. Besides, this suits his purposes well.” I caught a hint of movement in the manor’s tower and held up my left hand so they could see the gleam of the ring. No arrow flew as we approached the door. I slammed my fist into the hard wood in a powerful knock.

It was a few moments, but then Anstydir opened the door. Shira shrank back at the mere sight of my favorite investigator. I couldn’t really blame her.

Anstydir looked clearly wyrm-blooded: a tall and imposing man with dull patches of black scale breaking out across his umber skin. He reached out a hand with clawed fingers to clasp mine in greeting, engulfing my hand in his huge one. With a height that meant he ducked through doorframes, Anstydir was a danger even without taking his magic into account. He was very much unlike most of his brethren in his taste in spells. He preferred subtlety and utility. More than that, my friend had mastered the art of arcane recalling. It was a rare discipline that allowed one to reveal the secrets of an item with touch alone, giving hints of the ones who had used and made it.

“Have you learned anything?” I asked as we stepped inside, dragging Shira along with me by the wrist.

The wyrm-blooded stepped back to allow us entry, hungry yellow eyes with slitted pupils giving Shira a once-over before returning to me. “There were two. One who poisoned Luka’s wine, one who distracted him.”

“Varys made it sound like an assault.” I looked around as I spoke. The stone walls were covered in a slight slime, oozing dark down the stacked granite stones. Plenty of tracks disturbed the dust on the floor, some bestial and others clearly humanoid. The house was always busy, day and night, particularly up in the rookery. After all, Luka had to keep his fingers eternally on the pulse of all things, internal and external. He was the best informed creature in the city, even when one included the King in Black.

Anstydir shrugged. “Considering Lord Varys could not be bothered to investigate himself, my lady, I think one should take his interpretation with a grain of salt.”

I smiled faintly. “The master of understatement still, I see.”

He gave me a slight bow, his grin showing draconic fangs. “I know it pleases you, my lady.”

Together, we made our way up creaking stairs towards Luka’s bedroom. “Has Haven said what the poison was?”

My investigator nodded dutifully. “A rare concoction typically used in Suzail to remove particularly sturdy rivals. Wolfsbane, hemlock, and a pinch of vaendal.”

“Here I thought the petals of a vaendal flower could slay a dragon,” I murmured. “Yet Luka lives.”

Anstydir shrugged. “He is tougher than most, particularly in beast form. Though that said, it is not certain he will last the night.”

I pushed open the door to Luka’s room. Heavy, labored breathing filled the air with growling as the sides of the dire wolf Luka had shaped into heaved. Haven stood beside the bed, healing instruments and medicines spread on every flat surface out of reach of the spymaster. “Haven, how does he fare?” Losing Luka would mean not only losing a powerful ally, but damaging the security of the Eternal Kingdom. What would we do without his many eyes, many hands?

The assassins had chosen the right target.

“Poorly, my lady.” Haven was perfectly calm, but jagged claw marks were visible through rips in his shirt. He noticed my focus on his injuries and shrugged slightly. “The purgative did not agree with him.”

“It looks more like he didn’t agree with it.” I strode forward to the edge of the bed, looking down at the wolf’s glazed, hooded eyes. “Will he live?”

Haven bowed slightly in greeting to myself and Shira before looking back at his patient. “I have done what I could. The hemlock and wolfsbane I can handle, but the vaendal is a slow and dreaming death to everyone I have ever heard of who has consumed it. He is in delirium now. That is not a good sign.”

“Luka,” I snapped.

The wolf shifted slightly on the bed. “I see her.” The words came as a breath, a sigh, as he changed his physiology to allow speech. “Covered in blood, in ash, with smoke all around…”

I frowned. “Who do you see?”

The glazed eyes rolled towards me. “The one who will destroy us all.”