“So, you were the first Chauzec not to be made Fated?” Elyse said, her bowl untouched.
“Exactly. I couldn’t believe my ears. Then, Elandriel told me to get out and quit wasting his time. Since I was a boy, I’d practiced the arts of knightly combat every day, rain, snow, or sun. Everything I’d done up to that point had been about becoming a Consecrated Knight. Everything. And in two minutes, my entire future was ripped away from me, like a rug tugged from under my feet. And for a few minutes, I actually believed that asshole. I actually believed that I was destined to eke out a living on the streets as a filthy beggar. But then, I realized that he—they—had been lying.”
“The Lord of Light doesn’t lie,” Elyse said, but she lacked conviction in her tone. “Nor does Elandriel the Seraphim. It’s not possible. It would be against their nature.”
“You obviously do not know them, cleric,” Isu countered. Her mouth was covered in the juices from the stew, and she flicked out a tongue to collect them.
“They were lying, all right,” I said. “When I left the Great Cathedral, I noticed Consecrated Knights tailing me. It didn’t take me long to realize they wanted me dead. I managed to shake them by escaping over some rooftops and hiding out for a while, but they found me again the next day, before I was able to leave Luminescent Spires.”
“Did you kill them?” Rami asked nonchalantly.
“Before I became a necromancer, I never killed a Fated. They were too damn strong. But I managed to escape their grasp. Only because they wanted to capture me instead of simply killing me.”
“Why capture you?” Elyse asked, obviously convinced now that my story was at least half-true.
I shrugged. “I figured maybe I was important. Maybe Elandriel and the Lord of Light saw something in the Auras. Now I know what they saw.”
Elyse’s face had turned white. “Vance Chauzec, God of Death,” she whispered.
“Exactly. The Lord of Light had seen that I had been destined for something. Something big. Big enough that he refused to make me Fated and tried to make me think that I was destined for nothing.”
“But why capture you and not kill you?” Rami asked.
“I don’t know,” I said as I wolfed down another spoonful of strew.
“That was years before you became an assassin,” Elyse said. “I’ve heard the stories of the Soultaker. It’s why I first came to you.”
“There’s a whole lot that happened between my meeting with that Seraphim fucker and when I first met you,” I said with a nod. “I figured that my life would be in danger any time I was anywhere near Luminescent Spires, so I made the long journey back to Brakith. If I couldn’t be a Consecrated Knight—not that I wanted anything to do with the Church of Light after meeting Elandriel—then I could at least claim my birthright as Lord of Brakith.”
“You didn’t, though,” Elyse said. “Your uncle took it from you.”
I nodded. “He started his scheming the instant I left for Luminescent Spires. Without me around, it was simple enough for Uncle Rodrick to get rid of my father. My father was a great man, a good and just man. But he had one serious weakness: drink. As far as I understand, Rodrick got my father drunk, asked him to take a walk along the battlements, with plenty of witnesses around on an especially windy night. Some said it was an unnaturally windy night, in fact. Knowing what I know about the artifacts my uncle possesses, I’m sure that the powerful gust of wind that pushed my drunk father over the edge of the battlements and made him fall to his death was no accident.”
Rami gasped. “You think Rodrick used an item of Xayon’s?”
“I’m pretty damn sure of it now that I know he has all of them.”
“He sounds like a truly evil man,” she murmured, frowning and shaking her head.
“He’s beyond evil,” I said. “With my father out of the way, only one person stood between Rodrick and the lordship of Brakith: me. He knew that victory would be easy enough. If I became a Consecrated Knight, I would have to give up all of my claims to lands and titles. I suspect, though, that he had spies in Luminescent Spires who were keeping an eye on me. A simple letter via carrier pigeon would have informed Rodrick that I’d been rejected by Elandriel. By the time I returned to Brakith, my uncle had spread enough rumors to make me a pariah in my own home.”
Elyse slowly started to spoon mouthfuls of the stew. “What rumors could make your own people despise you?”
“Disappearing peasant girls, who were later found dead and drained of their blood. My uncle claimed that a vampire had taken residence in an abandoned castle in the nearby mountains. He said that I had been providing him with victims in exchange for promises of power.”
“But why would any of your people believe such a thing?” Elyse asked. “You were devoted to the Lord of Light.”
“Humans are fickle creatures,” Isu said.
“If my uncle is anything,” I said, “he’s thorough. Rodrick invented another tale, one where I’d been bitten by a vampire shortly after I left for my pilgrimage. This, apparently, was the reason why I’d been rejected by Elandriel and the Lord of Light. It also explained what had happened to the peasant girls.”
“But how could the townsfolk fall for this tale?” Rami asked. “Surely, they knew you.”
“Did you not hear me?” Isu countered. “Humans will believe anything they are fed by their overlords.”
“Rodrick had an answer for every question,” I said. “Trustworthy witnesses said they saw me abducting girls in the dead of night. Other witnesses saw me
