wonder rot has crept into the rest of the landscape? Ill creatures grow in number. The hinterlands grow wilder and bolder with each passing year. And a daemonic godslayer has risen from our ranks, one of our own fallen. Can one ignore the finger pointed at our very heart? Pointed at Tashijan. We’ve stagnated under the rules and rites of tradition for far too long, grown fatted and lazy. If we are to face the growing dark tide, then we must start here first. The best must lead us. Those who have been tested under fire, whose loyalty and fealty to Tashijan has been forged and honed to a keen edge.”
Argent took a deep breath. “We two-you and I-condemned Tylar. We proved our strength of purpose and focus. He should have been killed. But Ser Henri’s soft intervention and petitions won him a reprieve, allowed him to live. And see what such weakness has sown. A godslayer who threatens all.”
Kathryn found her head spinning from his words.
“I chose you, Kathryn ser Vail, because once again it is up to us to steel our hearts and make the tough choices, to harden Tashijan in a new flame, to face what must be faced without flinching or soft hearts. You have done this in the past. I ask you to take my side and do it again-for all of Myrillia. Can you do this?”
Without willing it, her head nodded. A dark time was indeed upon them. Despite her suspicions, she could not deny Argent’s words. A renewed strength, purpose, and focus were needed to stand against the tide.
“Very good. I knew I chose well. Now we must prepare ourselves for what’s to come. Time closes like a noose.”
Kathryn raised her eyes, confusion plain to read.
“The godslayer must be stopped.”
She found her voice. “How…? I thought he escaped into the Deep.”
Argent nodded. “But we know where he’s heading.”
Kathryn frowned.
“The godslayer is coming here… to Tashijan.”
Kathryn paced before the balcony window. Sunlight streamed down upon her. She felt none of its warmth.
“Impossible!” Perryl declared as he stood by the hearth.
“Why would Tylar be coming here?” Gerrod echoed. He sat in a chair by the window, his bronze armor achingly bright in the light. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. Though his face was hidden, his posture spoke his intense cogitation. “There is no benefit in returning to Tashijan.”
“He’s coming for me,” Kathryn said, biting at the words as they came, repeating what Argent had spoken just two rings of the bells ago. “One of the sailors aboard a ship upon which Tylar had booked passage, a galleon with ties to the Black Flaggers, had spied upon their cabin. He heard their group speak of Tashijan.”
“And you?” Gerrod asked.
Kathryn shook her head. She stopped her pacing and stared out at the bower of wyrmwood beyond her window. The light glowed green through the foliage, a cheery day, one ill suited for the black mood in her heart. “Warden Fields supposes Tylar is returning to Tashijan because of me. To risk such a dangerous course, a strong desire must be driving him.”
“Desire for what?” Gerrod asked. “To win you back?”
Kathryn turned to the others. “Or for revenge. If anyone hurt him the deepest, it wasn’t the faceless Citadel that sent him into slavery.” Fingers clenched at her side-not in anger, but to hold back the tears that threatened.
Gerrod seemed to sense her distress and straightened in his seat with a whir of his mekanicals. He turned to Perryl. “You met Tylar. Spoke to him. What can you say of his posture concerning Kathryn?”
Perryl looked lost with all that had been spoken here, his amber eyes too young, his beard too thin. He wiped a hand through his blond hair, his gaze sinking to the rugs. “He… he wouldn’t let me speak her name.”
“And when he told you this,” Gerrod continued, “was it spoken with sadness or anger?”
Perryl shook his head ever so slightly. “The streets were dark.”
“The manner of a man’s speech does not require lamplight to discern,” Gerrod pressed.
Kathryn knew the young knight’s reticence lay in an attempt to spare her. “Speak plainly, Perryl. It’s important.”
His eyes flicked up to her, then back to the floor. “He was angry. His words laced with fury. He would hear nothing about you.” Perryl glanced fully up at her. Pain and shame mixed in his eyes.
Kathryn took a deep breath. It hurt to hear, but the truth often did.
“So how do we play this?” Gerrod asked. “Do we believe the new warden’s explanations-about his lack of complicity in Ser Henri’s demise and the rather convenient disappearance of your predecessor, Castellan Mirra? Do we cooperate?”
Kathryn moved into the room, stepping out of the sunlight and into shadow. She still wore her shadowcloak, loose over her shoulder, and felt the tickle of its Grace respond to the darkness. “I have no choice. I swore oaths. And until true evidence of Argent’s duplicity reveals itself, I must act accordingly.”
“Ah…” Gerrod stood and joined Kathryn as she poured a glass of water from a waiting stand. The armored master touched a point on his breastplate and a small pocket opened. He removed a blackened fold of ermine fur. “Castellan Mirra’s cloak. I’ve tested it with various alchemies. It seems the little maid Penni spoke the truth earlier. It is not any Dark Grace that burned the cloak’s edge, only ordinary fire, most likely from lying too near the hearth.”
Kathryn sipped. “So again, no evidence of misdeed. Nothing to connect to Warden Fields.”
“Perhaps,” Gerrod answered. “But I did discover a trace of blood amid the fur. Too minuscule to see without an alchemist’s lamp.”
“But that could be easily explained away,” Perryl countered, still looking morose from earlier. “It could have come from any scratch or cut.”
“Ah, yes, Ser Corriscan, that might be true if it were human blood.”
Perryl’s brow knit a neat crease. “Are you saying it came from a beast?”
Gerrod shook his head.
Kathryn stepped closer and retrieved the burned bit of fur. The remainder of the ermine garment still hung in her wardrobe on the chance Mirra would return. “If not man or animal, that leaves only..?”
Gerrod nodded. “Blood of a god. The signature of Grace, while faint, was unmistakable.”
Perryl stepped closer. “Which of the gods?”
“Now therein lies the conundrum. Like all alchemists, I have a repostilum, a storehouse of preserved drops of humour from all of the Hundred gods.”
Kathryn nodded. She had been in Gerrod’s study, seen his repostilum, the eight hundred tiny crystal cubes, each no wider than a thumbnail, resting in a special shelving system on the wall. Each crystal die held a droplet of precious humour.
“I tested the signature upon the cloak and found no match among the Hundred.”
Perryl frowned. “Surely a mistake. If the blood didn’t come from the Hundred…” His face suddenly paled as understanding dawned.
Kathryn finished his statement. “Then it must’ve come from one of the hinterland rogues.”
Gerrod nodded.
She had to resist flinging the bit of fur from her fingers. Rogue gods were wild creatures of madness and strife. Unsettled to any realm, their humours defied the four defining aspects of fire, water, air, and loam. A mere touch could rave a man’s mind. To traffic in such humours was the blackest of all Graces.
Gerrod took back the scrap of fouled cloak. “There is no danger. The potency of the Grace is long gone, only the signature is left.”
“But what about before?” Kathryn asked. “Argent mentioned Castellan Mirra was showing some evidence of addlement. Supposedly Ser Henri and Ser Fields had even discussed it. Could she have been handling such humours?”
The armored master offered a more dire possibility. “Or the blood could’ve been exposed to her in secret, to weaken the sharpness of her mind.”
“Poisoned by Grace,” Perryl said with a shudder.
Kathryn had trouble fathoming such a horror.
Gerrod held up a hand. “But in truth, I cannot say how the Grace presented itself here. Whether by Castellan
