> My dearest little Teetee,

>

> It has been a privilege to see you grow from a little babe into a bright young woman, a ray of sunshine in my otherwise mundane life. Just a few days ago however, I received the sort of news that I have always feared, but had prayed would never come. At least there is one small glimmer of hope for me left. If this letter finds you, then it means you at least are well.

>

> Assuming such is the case, then do this favorite uncle of yours one last kindness. For once, this winter, do not do anything rash. Stay safe. Do not cause trouble. And above all, know that I will always carry you in my heart.

>

> Yours,

> Uncle Haddy

It was unbelievable. Incomprehensible. I kept staring at the note in my hand, but even with sheer force of will I could not get it to make sense. This was wrong. This had to be a lie. A forgery. Worse still, the letter was a whole lot of nothing. An infuriating string of banalities and non-statements. Angry, I flipped the thing over. Uncle Hadrian always loved his post-scripts. There had to be something more there.

> TT dear,

>

> I know you are staring at this other side in frustration right now. After all, while I know you will deny it, it is so very like you to worry about those dear to you before all else.

>

> Know that I did not share my own troubles because you can not help with them. I will be well. Please look after yourself first. Do not make me worry about you after I have gone to such great lengths to ascertain your safety.

More empty words, and all I could do was stare at the paper. I stared and stared, wondering what it meant. Uncle Hadrian was as much part of my family as Dad. Despite his job as a small-time merchant keeping him busy, he still made room in his schedule each year to come visit me. Even though Dad and I moved to some new middle-of-nowhere place every couple of years, even though Uncle Hadrian had to come all the way from his hometown near the capital, he always visited. For at least a week.

He gave me hugs and called me his little Teetee. He’d carried me piggyback through field and forest. He’d taught me whittling, calligraphy, and a million different ways to braid hair. That last he must have taught himself first, specifically so that he could teach me afterward. He was never more satisfied than when he finally got me to smile, a true unbothered smile uncaring of fangs that had to be kept hidden.

Perhaps he meant even more to me than Dad. Uncle Hadrian was… mine, as much as Aunt Reya. That same inhuman feeling of affection and kinship.

And now… this letter. How dear he was to me only made it all the harder.

Every conclusion and question I drew from the words seemed even more absurd. Had he learned about my capture? How even? Did this mean he was Irina’s employer? How did he even get the money, or the influence to do something like this? Where did he acquire the kinds of connections that allowed for it?

Uncle Hadrian being capable of orchestrating my escape would mean that every time I had argued about this with my dad, that he may have been right. And even that realization only registered vaguely, because the whole letter read like something permanent, a final goodbye.

Uncle Hadrian was in trouble.

“Well, that’s certainly a lot of words to say we’re all screwed ten ways to Sunday.” Aunt Reya’s voice cut through my confusion. One hand of hers brushed the top of my head for a second. Then she pulled back as if shocked by her display of affection. She snatched the note from my hands and held it up. She twirled and danced with it, straining to get the writing angled towards the scant light in a way that allowed her to read it. “Sarding hell, I clearly never fully appreciated how well you can see in the dark.”

“Give me that.” Dad stole the note from Aunt Reya, only for it to slide out from between his stiff fingers and flutter to the ground immediately after. He didn’t even reach for it as it fell, and didn't try to hide his clumsiness. He just watched it drop into the dirt and then glared at me. “Looks like your precious uncle Hadrian is finally showing his true colors. I’ve always known that man is bad news.”

“Sarding hell, Dad!” I hissed as I crouched to pick up the mud-stained paper that was the only memento I had left of my Uncle. “He’s never done anything wrong. He’s always looked after us. He’s even saved us now!” I glared up at him when I stood up again. But you just always have to gloat, don’t you? He’s my friend, and he saved me, and I don’t care how suspicious this note is, or how you’re right about him and I’m wrong and I’m not human and can’t judge people properly because I look at them weird.

“Alright. That’s enough.” Aunt Reya stepped between us. She grabbed Dad’s arm and pulled him along, towards her horse. The beautiful, bracken-scented courser that was my old horse. Fern. “This is wasting time,” Aunt Reya scolded my dad, “and you’re going to freeze to death at this rate.”

It was only when Aunt Reya spoke those words that it registered that, even without her cloak, she was bundled up in warm winter clothes, fur-lined boots, and fingerless gloves. The Inquisitors that had traveled with us as well wore thick padded armor that protected from cold as well as weapons. Somewhere along the way they had donned caps and hats and gloves, or maybe they had worn them all along.

Meanwhile, Dad wore nothing but rags and the winter cloak Aunt Reya had lent him. The entire trip from the fort to here, he’d only had his prison slacks. He had been out here in the winter cold, shivering, freezing, never even complaining. He must have been so, so cold. He could die in this frigid winter air. And I had been so self-obsessed, so unaware of the temperature that never truly bothered me anyway, that I hadn’t even noticed the effect the weather had on him.

“He’s never had a proper reason to care, Tina,” Dad said as he allowed Aunt Reya to wrap him in blankets.

“He’s human, Dad.” I spat out, a snarl accentuating my every word. Clearly, even freezing to death, Dad couldn’t admit that he might be wrong. “Unlike me, he doesn’t need a reason to care. He just does.”

“He’s the one who smuggled us into the country, Tina. He’s dangerous, and the only reason he cares is because he has some kind of agenda.”

“He what?” I gasped. Paper crumpled in my clenched fist and I quickly unclenched it again. Smoothing out the note as best as I could, I looked from him to the letter, and back to him. “You never told me that,” I stammered. “He smuggled us? Why did you never tell me he smuggled us?”

“Right. Enough. Both of you.” Aunt Reya directed some more angry words at my dad. He argued back. Briefly. It wasn’t much of a fight. Aunt Reya wins her arguments. She always does.

As soon as she was done berating my dad she strode over to me and hissed into my ear. “I honestly don’t care about your little familial spat, Girl. But next time you get a super secret note from a mysterious entity, don’t start arguing about it where they can hear you.” She directed my gaze toward the Inquisitors who were fully saddled up now and ready to leave.

They had said they were ready to leave ages ago, when they’d handed me the letter. Yet they were still here, dawdling, for reasons that were stupidly obvious now that Aunt Reya had pointed them out. At least they were done listening in now. Suddenly they were lining up in a single file, horses steered away from the clearing and spurred on.

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“Anything you still want to ask these assholes before they disappear into the night?” Aunt Reya asked.

I breathed out a shaky negative. There was so much I wanted to hear them out on, but with my Uncle’s letter in hand, none of it seemed important enough. I still needed to kill them even, but even that felt like little more than an afterthought. They were only Inquisitors. But this note in my hand; he had been family, and he had hidden so much from me.

Reya shrugged. “Not the time eh. ‘s alright, I already questioned them for you.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Kind of think we’re losing the war though. That’s um… a thing.”

“We’re what?” my father bristled, having followed Aunt Reya to listen in. His loudness stood in stark contrast to Aunt Reya’s hushed tones.

“You send a bunch of orphans out to run a street. The stupid buggers come back battered, bruised, and empty-handed. You think you’re hot shit, ignore their whining, kick their asses, and send them back. What do you think happens when you do that a couple of times too often? You lose the entire block, that’s what happens. Those Inquisitors didn’t explicitly say anything to that extent, but with the Grand-Inquisitor coming here for a chat, I can’t help but see the parallels. But hey, what do I know, I’m certain a bunch of street kids is nothing like an army.”

I found myself nodding along to Aunt Reya’s explanation before I realized the absurdity of it. Of course street urchins were nothing like an army. This comparison made no sense. The Inquisition was the elite protection against all inhuman threats. They were unbeatable. They didn’t just… this. Whatever this was.

I glanced up at Dad for support. He’d been an Inquisitor. He’d fought in Ostea. Surely he’d be able to voice the proper, well-reasoned objections to Reya’s arguments I didn’t seem to be able to come up with right now. We wielded the combined might and innovation of all civilized nations. We could never be defeated by a bunch of savage vampires. We didn’t lose. That simply wasn’t possible.

Dad’s shoulder slumped, and he shook his head.

“Dad?” I begged.

No. No no no. No. This was too much. Simply too much. Far too much at once. My rescue, a Grand Inquisitor, getting my dad out, the war, rival factions, finding Aunt Reya, my Uncle. We were just weary, and tired, and beat, and no longer thinking straight. Right. That was it. I needed… needed a moment, that was all.

With heavy arms, I brought the note up again, intent on going over it once more. Then I thought better of it. I trudged over to the horse Dad had abandoned, and led it towards Fern. My old horse was skittish, first darting away from my outstretched hand, then carefully sniffing it. As soon as Fern allowed it, I gave her all the scritches.

Fern snorted indignantly in response. Her silly bean owner had abandoned her, yes she had. That wasn’t nice of the silly bean two-legs. It would take a lot more than mere affectionate scritches to make up for that kind of undignified abandonment. Fern shook her head up and down to accentuate her point. We had an agreement you wouldn’t run off, you silly bean. Fern stomped the ground. And the person the silly bean had left her with had even neglected time at the hoof smith. It would take so much longer to fix those up now. Didn’t the silly bean owner know how important, how validating good hoof-care was.

I rested my head on Fern’s neck, sighed in contentment, and pulled my fingers through her mane. Maybe the silly bean vampire humanized her horse’s reactions a little too much, but the silly bean wouldn’t have it any other way. “I can’t believe you brought her,” I told Aunt Reya. “I thought I’d lost her forever.”

With the Inquisitors gone, and their runelight with it, Aunt Reya only managed to stare in the general direction of my voice. “They left her, as repayment. Burned everything else you owned. Slaughtered my pig, even.”

I checked under Fern’s saddle. I dug through bags that clearly weren’t the ones I had owned. She was right. They had taken everything. No more rune-carved sword. Crossbow gone. None of the little trinkets I had owned were left. Even the old and worn saddle blanket that Uncle Hadrian had gifted me wasn’t there anymore. That last one hurt the most, just like Fern it couldn’t be replaced.

“Repayment?” I asked, to get my mind off the loss. Obviously, the Inquisitors that had captured me had also slaughtered Aunt Reya’s pig. I had fed from it, doomed it. They couldn’t let a thrall live, not even a simple pig. Perhaps that they slaughtered it had been a mercy for the animal. But that didn’t explain how Fern served as repayment.

I rifled through the packs on both horses once more. There were no torches or anything in the bags on Fern’s back. Luckily the other horse had been an Inquisition mount. In one compartment I found a purpose-built chisel and some nice smooth stones, an emergency stash of blank runestones, ready for carving.

“You should get cleaned up first,” Aunt Reya answered after far too long a pause. “There’s a spare shirt that should be sort of your size in one of the bags even.”

That was a deflection, and an awkward one at that. It was unusual. Aunt Reya did not do deflections. Or awkwardness. “Repayment, Aunt Reya? Repayment for what?”

The scrape of chisel on runestone accentuated my words. If this night remained as clouded and dark as it was right now, then we needed some kind of light source so that Dad and Aunt Reya would be able to see. Any runelight enchantment I carved here and now, in what little time I had, would be crude. Barely any light. Wouldn’t hold an Atlus charge for long. I might not even remember all of the runes that made up the enchantment, as it was one I personally had no use for. Carving was still better than thinking about why Aunt Reya was deflecting.

Please, please, no. Not that.

Please don’t be the reason why you’re here instead of there.

“That’s not important right now. We’d best get as far away from here as we can before the sun rises and they start hunting us.”

“Aunt Reya,” I stated miserably, fearing her avoidance for real now. “How’s… how’s everyone in Birnstead?”

Aunt Reya pursed her lips, opened her mouth, closed it again. She shook her head. “I… I asked around, but I’m sorry, Vale. If someone ratted you out to the Inquisition, it wasn’t one of us.”

“That’s not what I asked. Is everyone alright?” Any other time I might be intrigued at how people always thought in terms of vengeance and retribution. Now it just frustrated me. Aunt Reya knew I didn’t care about that. I tilted my head, taking the time to catalog the scents coursing through her veins. Fear. Despair. Hopelessness. It wasn’t a very Reya scent at all.

Aunt Reya sighed. “No, they’re not. They will be, but…” She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with the heel of a hand. “They came for you out of nowhere and of course everyone in town showed up for the commotion. I tried to get people not to watch, to leave, but just getting that across was impossible. Everyone so loves to watch a disaster.” Her whole body shuddered in deep discomfort. “They tossed you out of that bunkhouse limb by sarding limb, Vale. Your half-melted torso, head still attached, last. Hardly anything recognizable left, and that was… that probably made it easier. Look. Do we need to do this now?”

“How did you even find me?” This was upsetting her, so I changed my line of questioning.

It had upset my dad as well. He’d simply stormed off in the middle of Reya’s explanation, heedless of the dark.

It upset me too. I remembered my eyes boiling out of my head under the onslaught of Tonaltus. And people witnessed that. Shae and Nebby. Meg and Gery. Eryn and Rafe. They all watched as Tonaltus-seared, carved-up pieces of me were tossed out of the bunkhouse. It was the middle of the day. Every chunk of me tossed out into the open must have melted away under the sunlight.

“Wasn’t hard to find you,” Aunt Reya said. “Simply followed their trail.”

“Followed… their trail? Since when can you follow a wilderness trail?”

“It wasn’t that hard, Vale. They stuck to the roads, and Inquisitors on a road are kind of notable. Simply had to ask around. Once I figured out that their main concern was delivering your dismembered, barely alive body as quickly as they could, all I needed was their general heading and a map of Inquisition strongholds. Found the right fort on my third try.”

I carefully tied her answer back to my initial question. “You just followed after them? Why? What about your wife? Granny Madge?”

What happened in Birnstead that made you abandon everyone there and come after me?

Is everyone sarding alright!

I wanted to scream my questions, hurl them at Aunt Reya’s face. I couldn’t. I knew her too well. Despite all the righteous fury she always directed at others for withholding, deceiving, and manipulating, she was the same. If it hurt too much to talk about, she would cage the truth inside. Only a careful, measured approach would get her to share.

“They were six, two teams of three. As soon as they were done with you, one team departed with what little was left of you. The other team locked everyone in town in a barn. Something about finding thralls. It was four days before they let us out of there. We could only watch through gaps in the walls as they torched everything you’d owned or touched. Even torched the gods damned bunkhouse since you’d lived in it. Eryn handled it badly. She handled it… she…”

Aunt Reya choked on her words, tears of anguish streaking down her cheeks. She balled her fists and knuckled them off of her face, only for fresh tears to stream out right after. Frustrated, she turned away from me, swaying on unsteady legs.

“They left us your horse. ‘Safe and unenthralled’, they said. Handed Rafe a pouch of coins as ‘dispensation for the bereavement’. The sarding limp-gashing shits!” Aunt Reya screamed into the night. She spewed swears and curses drenched in misery and anger at the sky.

“I—”

“Sarding shut up, Vale. I already punched one of those assholes and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop at that next time so shut up already. Granny Mags is dead. Eryn’s dead, Vale. Eryn. Is. Dead!”