Long after the last echoes of that day's guests faded into silence, High Priest Samuel slumped into the chair in his study. His eyes roamed the shelves of musty books left untouched for years, and his hand ran over the ancient desk where manuscripts lay piled high. He inhaled, breathing in the dusty aroma of decades-old wood and parchment. The smell was comforting and familiar, and he felt the tension from his shoulders begin to ease away.

The main fireplace and most torches and candles had been extinguished long ago, but the smell of smoke also remained in the air. He barely noticed it. The warnings of a possible fire on this hot night were repeated to him several times while planning Catherine's "initiation", but they were warnings that had been repeated for every event in the summer, and were far from his mind at the moment.

He sighed heavily and frowned, brow furrowing as he looked over the documents strewn across the desk. They contained details about the profits over the last few months, the financial figures showing a sharp decline. More and more often, he was forced to use temple silver to erase the mistakes of his colleagues. Across the range, the priesthood of Rea held the image of being virtuous and benevolent, and upholding that image was what kept their religion the most popular belief system of the Forsaken Mountains. His people relied on the temple's knights, both for protection against the dangers of the myst and to uphold order among the citizens. And those knights relied on him to keep the people believing in the purity and moral strength of the temple.

The clean and quiet method of paying off witnesses to the priesthood's indiscretions wasn't going to be as viable in the near future. A number of those followers would have to be discredited and arrested for heresy soon.

He put a hand to his chest, feeling a heartbeat that had yet to calm. At least the abomination was finally gone. A weight of several years had been lifted from his shoulders. He had kept his end of the bargain, and his people had kept their lives. Much time had passed without a sign of the horror that supposedly gave it life. He could only hope that by now it had forgotten about the child he kept alive and placated into adulthood, so that he could forget about it as well.

His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps pounding toward his door. He looked up as a priestess ran inside, still wearing the heavy ceremonial makeup from the day's festivities.

He knew immediately that something was wrong by the way the priestess struggled to catch her breath. "What is the matter?" he asked.

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In deeply accented Dragōnish, she cried, "We must get out, sir! The temple's been set fire! And Katherine! Katherine is gone!"

"Catherine? Don't worry about her. I cast that disgrace out earlier, did you not hear?" he said.

The priestess shook her head. "No, not the girl, sir. The sword! The odachi has been stolen! Rea help us! What if it was her? The state she's in? Someone'll be killed!"

A chill gripped him. "Impossible!" he shouted as he pushed the priestess out of his way. "Where were the guards? Were they asleep?"

She had no time to answer as he had already begun to sprint down the empty corridor. It wasn't far to the wing of the temple that contained the storage chamber. Though he saw no flames, the thickening smoke stung his eyes as he flew past two doors, coming to a stop before the third. As he nearly jumped inside, he was met with an overwhelming foreboding. Across from him loomed an enormous steel door, sealed shut to protect the artifacts within—both sacred and profane.

Strangely, the two guards still stood at the chamber's entrance. They were new, only just recruited and given this job as a punishment. The fact that they were just standing there—guarding a room full of baubles instead of tracking down the thief who stole the single most important item—brought his anger to a rapid boil.

He strode up to them and snapped out, "Where is she?"

The two men shrank back at his tone, giving each other a confused look.

His eyes narrowed. "Idiots," he muttered, then shouted, "Fine, we'll worry about the mongrel that took it later! Fill some buckets and evacuate those in danger!"

The taller of the two guards opened his mouth to speak but shut it again, his eyes avoiding Samuel's gaze. After all, questioning orders was what landed them on guard duty in the first place. They quickly scurried away.

With the room now empty, the high priest looked down, regretting his outburst. He lifted his hands in front of his eyes. Was it anger, or fear that caused them to shake so? In his mind he remembered a monstrous shape, holding a child in its massive arms. The child was so perfect in its deception, so human in its appearance and behavior that it was easy to ignore the evil that it truly was. The fear of the monster that held it never left him, but he had grown too comfortable and confident in his power over the child. He could not kill it, nor let it die. So he cast it away as soon as he could justify a reason. The hulking monster had been gone so long, he was able to convince himself it would not return.

But in his eagerness to be rid of the child, he had forgotten that it, too, was a monster.

He failed to notice as the priestess that warned him of the theft crept up behind him. A sudden stabbing pain to the back of his neck caused him to flail erratically, but all movement ceased as soon as his stiffened form completed its fall to the hard floor.