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The Reaping at the Proving Grounds

Marco rubbed his hands together and blew into his cupped palms. Even after the hand wraps he had been given, his fingers were still covered in little nicks and pricks where the tough hemp leaves had stuck him as he worked. The cold blushed his fingers into a rosy color that made each of the tiny wounds obvious as he worked. When the Festival of Reaping passed by his little hut in the Well District, he thought it would be a good opportunity to at least get away from the city for a while, and maybe make some use of himself, or have an opportunity for new experiences. It had been quite a while now since he’d done anything but beg at the refectorium or hope for work. Humiliating. Maybe some honest, hard work would snap him out of this. Maybe something exciting would happen.

Still, as he tried to bring some warmth back to his fingertips, he was having trouble remembering why he left Hestralia to come out here. His more famous and more handsome older brother, Frazio, had come here too, but he hadn’t come home. Marco still hoped to find him, though with each month he got a little more worried. As he scanned around the big crowd one more time, reflexively looking for his brother’s confident smile, he saw that that monk had come back to hand out some warm cider again. That was a blessing, if nothing else. God but the north gets cold. As he took the cup, muttering his gratitude, Marco silently wished he could remember the monk’s name. He had said it once, at the start, but Marco had forgotten immediately, not actually interested. Now that he kept showing up with kindnesses, Marco wished he remembered, but was too embarrassed to ask.

He took a moment to look over the good work being done while he sipped the hot drink. His group here was bailing up another set of hemp, while another was set up weaving it into canvas. Down the way another team almost as large was getting the next row ready to pull, and way in the distance down the forested hill, he could just see Caelistadt village doing their own Reaping Festival, gathering out in the field, though to be sure they’d gathered in large numbers now. That was a new sight. So was the smoke.

Squinting his eyes, Marco hopped up on a prominent rock, and quickly realizing it wasn’t enough, began to quickly climb a large sentinel tree near their work site. This kind of work he remembered, his hands effortlessly moving, stark contrast to the unskilled gardening. As a topman on The Colozio, he had been one of the fastest climbers aboard, and could loose or trim the shrouds faster than anyone else. It felt good to remember what kind of life he would be going back to after he found Frazio, and mentally decided then that he’d need to get back to a sailing ship sooner rather than later; maybe whatever was leaving from Portofino next. Frazio had moved on, obviously, finding Stragosa just as dismal as Marco had. As Marco mounted the top of the tree he put one hand over his brow to block the sun, and scanned the distance. What he saw confirmed his fears. He gave a midshipman’s whistle, loud as he could to get the attention of those below. Something was very wrong.

As the workers below began to rally up to heed his call, Marco watched as the great crowd down at Caelistadt began to churn. Now that he had a view, he could see that there was panic in the crowd – they scattered in all directions, but some lay still. Something was killing them. Slowly the situation took shape – armed and armored men were cutting them down, and now flames began to leap from roof to roof. “Hey, hey, something’s the matter!” Marco shouted down below, and as he continued to scan, he saw flames elsewhere too. All across the Proving Grounds there were fires, and groups of figures setting them. The village was ablaze now, and the flames could be seen in the boughs of the forests all around.. the logging camps, alight..the hemp fields, where he worked even now…The sounds of screaming began below him.

“FEAR NOT,” a voice from below boomed out, strangely loud and unusually metallic. Marco squeezed the trunk with his thighs as he came about to look below, where he saw a huge, plate-covered warrior, a rusted sollerette pressed into the back of the monk. The monk lay still below it, blood spattering the rock. A huge beast, some kind of monstrous white lion, prowled behind him, snarling at the others who had been bailing hemp. Huge, armored shadows began to step out from the trees in every direction. “THIS PUNISHMENT IS NOT FOR YOU.”

A fresh round of screams carried on the wind with the now thickening columns of smoke all throughout the province, and Marco could see the baggage train, loaded with military supply, come under attack now. Hundreds of figures were running at it from the woods on all fours, tearing the rigging from the carts.

“FEAR NOT,” the warrior repeated, a shaggy brown pelt of a bear or some other great beast slumped across its heavy pauldrons. “FOR I AM TOLOS, THE WANDERER, AND I COME IN THE NAME OF THE RED GOD.” Its voice echoed from deep within its greathelm, and it opened its arms wide as if beginning convocation.

Marco held fast to the upper branches of his tree, and scanned around again to see if there was some kind of relief on its way from the city. He had seen some rough looking marines camped with the Scordato banner near the road, looking exhausted and bedraggled on his way to the farm. He craned around looking for them, but they weren’t anywhere to be seen. Were they already dead? Fled? Surely they wouldn’t just let this happen.

“HEAR MY MIGHTY WORDS, YOU BROKEN AND WEAK. I COME NOT FOR YOU,” and with this, a single almighty CRACK issued forth from the tree, and Marco felt it begin to tip. His guts lurched as he became weightless and his face was assaulted by sticks and branches, unable to spare more than one hand to protect it without careening from the tree entirely. With a hard thud he landed, the wind knocked from his lungs. As he finally unsqueezed his eyes, gasping, he found he was face to face with the kind monk, glassy-eyed, but somehow serene. ‘God,’ he thought stupidly, ‘what was his name?’

“NOT FOR YOU…BUT FOR THEY.” The metallic voice rang out from just above him; he looked up to see the huge ironclad mit pointing its axe at the monk. With its other hand, it pointed toward the supply train. The warrior looked down then at Marco, as if waiting for him to give some reply. Dumbfounded, and still gasping, his mind just went blank. He stammered out nonsense, then simply cried “Please! Don’t!”

The greathelm shook from side to side. “TRULY…PATHETIC.” The huge beast roared from somewhere above him, and Marco felt the jaws close on his spine like an iron gate.

* * *

Miles away, in Stragosa, iron bells began to ring out on the watchtowers as smoke filled the Southwestern sky. It seemed that the time of reaping was just beginning.

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To Consume the Heart

~His heart I would eat first.

I flex my hand.

Fire and brittle ice collide in my bones, shattering up their lengths and jumping joints, from the tips of my fingers all the way to my shoulder. I gasp at the pain, but pull in no air. My lungs are a sucking void, screaming silent in the dark.

Then my eyes open. Staring into the sky, all glimmering with stars, and I’m trying to breathe but there is no breath.

It hurts.

Sitting up, I lift my hands. Stare at them, slicked in black blood. I look down to the earth beside me, at the grass growing there in nighttime shadow. Everything in gray. I touch the grass, but I cannot feel it. All I feel is jagged, brittle pain like saw teeth.

Bending my head back, I stare into the stars. I stare long, letting ice-water memories trickle down my spine. The gnawing teeth. The slashing hands.

Balthazar vanishing before my eyes while I was eaten alive.

The ice and the howling and madness.

With the feeling of bursting blisters, my lips peel back from my teeth and I scream at the sky. He made me promises. I made him promises in turn. I am dead, and Balthazar too will die.

***

My feet shamble weak beneath my legs. My body is taken by tremors, as though the disparate parts of it are trying to shake themselves free of one another. I fix my eyes on the lights of the tavern, then the two figures standing outside. Watching me.

“BALTHAZAR!” The sound spills out of me like a waterfall, rising from my bowels to my throat and tumbling out. “WHERE IS BALTHAZAR?”

“Who is asking for him?”

“I am Freydis the Undead.” I feel my voice reverberating through my body more than I hear it with my ears. The senses are nothing to me now, except for the pain. “And I want Balthazar.”

There are whispers in the air—some giggle sharp like glass and joyful like children playing in spring. I hear it and I shudder. My body wants to pull itself to pieces.

More voices. My head snaps to the side, the bones of my neck clicking and grinding against each other. A tremor runs through my body as I watch people pour out of the tavern. Not one of them adorned in feathers, not one of them a bird. I open my mouth, teeth bared, and snarl at them.

“What do you want with Balthazar?”

Whipping around to this voice, I set my eyes on him. Some features begin to take form in the gray. The voice is familiar. Long robes, deliberate steps. Ansel. “Priest,” I snarl.

“Yes,” he says, “you know me, Freydis.”

A laugh rumbles in my chest. My hand pulses like a heart around my dagger. “Your god is not real,” I growl at him. I feel flashes of Sveas, cruel and horrible, tearing through me a tremor takes me almost tumble to my knees. “I have died. I have looked on the face of god and it was not your god I saw.”

“But we’re still friends,” he says, extending a hand to me.

I watch the hand—out, then in, like a beckon. I briefly recall him putting himself between me and a Malefic just the night before.

I remember Sveas’s hand outstretched, the push like howling wind at my core and the pull from behind. Being torn apart.

“She doesn’t want me,” I croak out, my eyes on fire in their sockets. “I looked on her horrible and beautiful—and she still doesn’t want me. Because of this!” I hold out my arms, force him—force all of them—to look on the horror that I am. “Because he did this to me!” I turn on the gathering crowd and watch them flinch back. “WHERE IS BALTHAZAR?”

“What do you want with him?” Ansel calls to me.

My head snaps around, and I lurch forward and scream. My feet drag through the grass, toward the priest who circles out of my reach but holds out a hand to signal all the gathering southerners to stand down.

“We’re still friends,” Ansel says, gesturing to the space between us as though there were a bridge there.

“Friends!” I throw my head back and laugh. “Friends.” I grip my knife. “I have no friends.” I run toward him, slicing the air and as he dodges back, turning on another who is close at hand to slice at them. If they cannot give me Balthazar, perhaps I should take them all instead.

“What do you want with Balthazar?” Ansel is asking, shouting at me as people lunge out of my way, panic-stricken and drawing their swords. He tries to wave them down. “What do you want with him?”

“I made him a promise!” I scream back.

“And what was this promise?” Ansel asks.

“I would be honored for you to eat my corpse.”

“I promised I would devour him,” I growl, my legs lurching me towards the priest, “and I am so hungry.”

I swipe with my blade. It glances off shields and scrapes through fabric, but fails to find flesh and I scream. Someone grabs me but I dodge and I parry, I slip and slide away until suddenly there are hands on me, holding me on my knees in the gray light of the tavern.

Their hands are a thousand shards of electric ice and glass—and my stomach is tearing itself apart. I bend under their grasp, my back arching with brittle snaps and pops, my skin pulling at the seams, and I scream. Their swords strike me in a dozen brilliant bursts of flame, but they cannot kill me.

***

There was a place I remember him going, where he took Sir Connor and I. Where I watched him cast his circle and weave his magic. It was horrible, and beautiful—as horrible things so often tend to be.

This is where I am, where my memories have drawn me. I stand here in the dark, listening to the whispers in the wind. Despair whispers, laughing wickedly as the door creaks. I see shadow pass through, and I tip my head. I listen. I hear. His voice.

Balthazar.

I rush the door, slamming it with my hands, with the whole of my body as I scream to him. “BALTHAZAR!” I am so hungry. “BALTHAZAR! COME OUT YOU COWARD!” I beat the door with fists and forearms but he does not come. I hear the voices within and grind my fingertips against the door. “LET ME IN.” Slamming and pulling and gripping and…

Finding the doorknob.

The door wails as it swings slowly open. There is someone blocking the way, and Ansel is here, and—

He is a bright splash of color against the unrelenting gray. Red feathers in a flaming burst. Blue tundra eyes. I break in half.

“Balthazar…” He doesn’t look, keeps his head bowed, his brow furrowed, he closes his eyes. “Balthazar?” My throat creaks weakness. When was I rendered so weak? “Why won’t you come to me, Balthazar?”

“Freydis,” he murmurs, and lifts his eyes. There is such darkness hanging over him. The whispers swirling within them palpable.

I step up, reach my hand over the shoulder of the woman in the doorway—and he takes it. Warm—warm in the bitter, aching cold. This hand that had caressed my cheek, this hand that had beckoned me to dance in the clouds.

Never again will I be beckoned to dance in the clouds.

“You left me.” I hear my voice come out, low and breaking. I feel fire streak my cheeks. I clutch at his hand and I sob. “Why did you leave me? Balthazar, it hurt—it hurt so bad—”

“I didn’t,” he says, “I didn’t Freydis—I came back for you.” He’s gripping my hand now, and the pressure of his fingers is a sweet release from the cascading pain rolling through my brittle skin. “I love you—”

“You never loved me.” The words spill out of me as I remember him dropping me from the sky for being too coy. “No one ever loved me.” I remember my mother’s fists raining down on me in the snow.

“Freydis—” There’s a frantic panic in his eyes now, and he pushes toward me, looks to Ansel and the woman standing between us while the darkness looming behind him giggles sweetly. “Let me go to her!”

I don’t hear what Ansel or the woman says, I only hear his voice. Only see the bright color of him—the cream of his flesh, the brown of the stubble on his jaw. I grip his hand and pull, as though I can pull him through his woman, this—

A scream splits me in half as I yank at him, then slam into the woman, bringing the knife I’d forgotten I had to her throat. Her body goes rigid and she bends back as I pull her with the blade, pull her to force her to look up into the face of Freydis the Undead. I stare down at her—stare into one white, dead eye. I recognize her as a Njord—then, through the furs and the armor—recognize the sigil of Benalus on her breast. Traitor. My whole body quivers as I press the blade to her throat—I see her lips moving but all I hear is white-noise screaming. I could end her now, she who turned her back on us, I could end her and have Balthazar—

His grip is loosening on my hand. I feel myself slipping away. No, no—he’s all I want, he’s all I’m here for—

I lose my grip on him. My veins are submerged in ice as I tear away, pain flooding me. I turn on the first person I see, wanting nothing more than blood to pay for this pain. I fall on the stranger, all open mouth and screaming teeth and hungry tongue, and I am swinging, catching shields and arms and scraping flesh and drawing blood and—

I am struck. And again. And again. I am descending into the darkness and in the darkness there are whispers and icy laughter. The Miracle, I tell the whispers, and I don’t know how I know, but they’ll tell him to come.

I will have Balthazar’s heart tonight.

***

~Should he die, I would lay his body out and peel his skin back from the muscle beneath.

Somehow, from somewhere, I hear them come in. He is not alone, but that does not matter. I open my eyes. In the darkness of the church, all I see is the rich color of his being.

~I would make gentle work of it, and savor the last remnant of his scent off the nape of his neck.

When he sees me, already walking toward him with feet I’m barely aware of, he stretches his hand out to me. Gratefully, I take it. The heat of his skin pushes back the pain. I sigh.

~I would do it while the blood was still hot in his veins so that it would slip warm over my fingers.

“Freydis,” he says softly, “I’m here.” I kick aside the chairs that stand between us, so I can be closer to him. Stepping into the aura of his color and his heat, the pain begins to dull. “I’m here,” he says. “I love you.”

~And I would take the flesh from his bones with care—but not before I reached into the hollow of his chest and wrested free his heart.

I kiss him. Ice melts away. Fires are doused.

I slit his throat.

His eyes widening as a stiff shudder of shock rushes through his body—it is exquisite. I cannot recall having ever seen anything so beautiful in all my life—save for, perhaps, the sprawling snowy tundra of my homelands. Balthazar DiCarvagio—tumbling to the ground, his life spilling bright and red from his body, as beautiful as the tundras of Njordr.

I fall on him. His blood on my hands makes me feel alive again. I can remember what it feels like to live. Thank you, I think, frantically breaking him open. Thank you thank you thank you. The pain subsides though my stomach is broken glass grinding from within.

~His heart I would eat first.

Descending, I sink my teeth into his open chest cavity. He is so warm. His heart still fighting to live, up to the very moment my teeth break into it, and its bursts, bloody and hot in my mouth. I cannot stop—cannot stop the chewing, the gulping, the ravenous swallowing, cannot stop….

Until, suddenly, I can. Stomach no longer wailing, pain no longer bristling the length of my skin. I sit back, looking down on him, on the fading glint of light in his bright blue blue eyes.

All else falls away. Soft. Quiet.

I smile at him as the light dims, and the darkness descends.

What is this strange peace?

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Sinning in Stragosa

Exterior Monologue from Adeodatus. Feel free to have overheard if you go to churches in the city.

—

God, my weakness has led me to sin again. Anything that wants in my head gets in. A man of sorts walked into the tavern and commanded me to attack someone. The nearest soul was a Shara gentleman – a very forgiving gentleman. To say I had zero control would be to place the blame elsewhere. I am to blame for never learning how to defend myself from such an attack on my mind.

And this is not the first time that it has happened. Many years ago, that ghost got into my mind and cause me to maim myself. And a malefic called ‘The Butcher’ tried to get me to eat myself the other night. Is it just a fact of life that there are monsters out there that can just force you to do things against your will? What options of improvement can we do to protect against such problematic sources?

I want to do my job and lead these people in these trying times. My atonement for wrath is to learn to read. The goal is that I can learn from books what is needed to ward my mind from such influence. I have been stubborn about learning to read my whole life. It was a joke to me, especially once I became a Bishop. It was something to hide behind.

I have never been ready to lead men. I have never felt my promotions were warranted. It was always a momentary need or nepotism from a noble to garner favor. Most recently as you are aware, it was because no one wanted to do the job, so I begrudgingly stepped forward. I clung to illiteracy as a bastion of where I came from; a farmstead. Not even all the priests knew how to read there. I clung to that past in hopes of being able to go back to those simpler times.

But here in Stragosa, that is not possible. Nor is it possible for mankind to get closer to you if we remain stagnant. I accept this atonement, and I will meat the challenge. Thank you for providing me with a path, and I acknowledge it is up to me to walk it.

Amen.

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Arriving at Costa Nera

William blocked the sun from his eyes, looking toward shore. He would’ve smiled under different circumstances. Glancing over his shoulder, he shrugged to his friend. “There it is Leo.” He shook his head. “Costa Nera.”
“Dreary place isn’t it.”
William nodded in agreement.
A voice rang over to them. “William! On the lines!”
William glanced to the speaker. “Aye Capitano! Moving to Port!” He laughed and shrugged to Leo again. “Duty calls.”
Leandro smiled. “Get going then. We’ll talk when we dock.”
Moving to the portside beam, William called his readiness and, as they pulled alongside the dock, he leapt across the gap with the line and tied it off. “Lines Secure!” he called when the others were done as well.
“Full stop! Hale up the brails!”
A chorus of “Aye Capitano”s rang out as the crew moved to store the mizzen sail.
William looked over to one of the crewmen on the dock. “Trice that line,” he called to the man, who coiled the spare line.
William waited while the gangplank got moved into place and the crew began to disembark to their various chores. For his part, William pushed his way to the Capitano. “Julio. I’m going to miss you.”
The man laughed and wrapped him up in a hug. “With your luck William, you’ll be back aboard the Sea Beggar in no time. Just take care to save some of that coin, don’t gamble it all away. You can’t win anything with nothing.”
William looked at the purse that held the last of his inheritance. It was all his mother had left him. “Don’t worry. I’ll buy back the Sea Beggar if it kills me.” He smiled. “I can’t let my mamma’s company just disappear.”
Leandro laid a hand on his shoulder. “You ready to go?”
He nodded to his friend and hugged the capitano one more time. “I’ll see you soon Julio. I’ll write you when I can.”
The capitano smiled. “Take care of yourself, piccino.”
William and Leandro headed down the gangplank together.
“Thank you for coming with me Leo. You didn’t have to.”
Leandro laughed again. “You think I was going to let you leave Le Sorelle without me?”
William smiled. “No I suppose not.”
The two headed toward the town.

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On The Importance of Self-Forgiveness

The sounds of shouting were far behind them now, and the only thing left was for them to make it to the woods and disappear. Declan and Liam had already made it past the tree line with Orla and Brody not far behind them. Niall was lagging behind carrying the bundle of supplies they had lifted from the caravan and Conner behind him to watch his back. “Oi lad we’re home free I can’t believe we pulled this off.” The young Dunn grinned brightly at his best friend as the sounds of his heart pumping in his chest started to drown out everything around them.

There was a brief moment before his reply that Niall thought to himself that it was too easy–a split second where the colors of the world seemed more vibrant, and then almost thunderously the silence was shattered with a grunt of pain. The look of wide eyed shock on Conner’s face as he fell forward burned itself permanently into Niall’s brain. The bright red fletching of the arrow sticking out of his back a stark contrast to his yellow tunic. Niall froze in place watching his best friend crawl up to his knees, his muscles tensed as he prepared to move towards his friend.

Before he took a step Conner’s voice boomed out across the field, “Niall MacCraig don’t you dare stop running!” The archer that had shot him from the watchtower was lining up another shot if he acted quickly he could get them both out of there. “Get home Niall. Don’t let them get the both of us mate.”

He wanted to argue, he wanted to rush forward and shield his friend from further harm, he wanted to make sure he would have to tell Conner’s parents that their son wasn’t coming home. His body had other ideas however and his legs were pumping carrying him towards the forest as if commanded by Conner’s order. He couldn’t even bring himself to look back as his friend’s final pitiful cry echoed in the empty field.
—
Niall woke up with a start clutching his chest. He’d had this dream every night since the events of Night Lord’s Feast. Watching his best friend die every night was starting to wear on his state of wellbeing. The sun was starting to raise over the horizon and rather than attempting to go back to sleep Niall carefully crawled out of bed as to not wake up Fiona. Moving around the house quietly as he could Niall got dressed and left for the necropolis. He found himself there more and more lately; well there or the nearest tavern drinking more ale than he probably should.

He found himself on standing amongst the very familiar gravestones in the cemetery and headed to his favorite spot among them. It was nestled in a rarely traversed part of the cemetery and had a small circle of trees nearby to sit under and get lost in his thoughts before the tavern opened so he could start drinking.

Setting up under his favorite tree Niall gave a deep sigh watching his breath frost in the cold winter air, “Gods I’m fucking pathetic…” he muttered to himself for what felt like the six hundredth time this week. He couldn’t help but think of what Conner could would say if he saw him now wallowing in depression. He could almost hear the sarcastic voice of his fallen friend.

“I didn’t die so you could sit around feeling sorry for yourself MacCraig. Now get yourself together and go be the man I know you can be. The hero I know you can be.”

A small smile broke onto Niall’s face, even if it was in his own head hearing Conner’s voice was a small comfort to him. He wanted to make his friend proud—to keep his death from being in vain. Clutching the Lionem that Conner had forged for him for his birthday many years ago Niall made a promise to himself. He would claw out of this hole he was in and forge a legend for himself that would be spoken of for years, and he’d be sure to tell the tale of the man that sacrificed himself so that Niall could become a man worthy of the title hero.

He wasn’t ready to forgive himself just yet, and the Malefic that cornered him had been right he would never outrun his guilt. But if he kept doing well, if he kept using his strength to save people and protect his friends maybe that would start to outweighing the heaviness in his soul. This was something that he was going to be living with for a long time to come, but like Father Heinrich had told him he had done a lot of good since the follies of his youth.

“One day I’m going to show the world what you saw in me Conner.” Niall muttered closing his eyes and picturing his friend in his minds eyes, “I just need to see it in myself first.”

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Last Night in Stromburg, A Prologue

“So, Stragosa is it, Professor?”

Narcisse raised his eyes to look across the table at Brandon, egg tumbling off his fork as he stopped it halfway to his mouth. Brandon had always been among his better students back when he still taught at the Parliamentary University of Port Melandir, always had a way of deducing the truth from but a whiff of evidence. He should have known the boy-, no he was a man now, would catch on eventually.

He gave one of his sheepish half-smiles.

“How did you guess?”

The rotund black haired man chortled with a self satisfied look, stirring his own breakfast like a witches cauldron.

“Nobody ‘winters in Stromburg’ for a month before packing their bags, especially with the snows coming in the next few days. We’re well north of Rogalia, so you had to have a reason to come here. But it’s just as much a crossroads as it is a destination, so you could well be on your way just about anywhere on the northwestern coast of Gotha. But what’s been the heart of the world’s curiosity for near half a decade and stands just over the mountains?”

“Stragosa,” he admitted, shaking his head with a wide smile and spearing his eggs again.

“And you’ve always been sentimental,” said Brandon, popping a grape into his mouth. “Thus inviting me to brunch with you.”

“I confess, I confess!” Narcisse laughed, holding up his hands. “I’m leaving for the miraculous frontier.”

“When?”

“My ship arrives tomorrow morning and departs at midday.”

“Bah!” spat Brandon. “You never give me time to do anything.”

“Excusez-moi?” he asked, eyebrow raised as he brushed egg from his beard.

“Isn’t it obvious?” the student replied, as if it was. “We’re going to need to throw you a going-away party. I’m a wealthy man now, your tutelage saw to that. Run the books for nearly all Stromburg’s fabric exports to the northern Rogalian counts. Let me repay the favor, Professor; it won’t be any trouble.”

“I don’t know, I can’t miss the-”

“Put it out of your mind,” Brandon said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll take care of everything. It will be just like old times when you visited us in the dormitories after final examinations! You’ve a lot of friends up here who would be heartbroken if they learned they didn’t see you while you were here.”

Narcisse smiled slowly, folding his napkin and brushing crumbs from his coat as he rose to his feet. He’d left the University in a hurry, and had missed many of the relationships he’d built there in the cold winter months since. It would do him well to see some old faces, blow off a little steam and enjoy one last night in a beautiful city he’d hardly had time to properly adore.

“Well…” he sighed “I certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint them, eh?”

—

“It’s of a merchant’s daughter brought up in Vigevano~!”

The faces of friends and strangers around the table upon which he stood grinned up at him, steins in their hands as his heel stomped out the beat. Whether he’d met them years ago, just tonight, or never before made no difference; they all knew the song’s reply.

“Hurrah~! Hestrali girls~! Doodle let me go~!”

His own stein sloshed beer onto the table as he raised it high, boots splashing the bitter puddle onto those closest in the press of bodies. He wondered idly why he’d had it filled just before leaping onto the table before deciding it hardly mattered and the remedy was as simple as drinking it.

“She brought me in the parlor and said ‘won’t you be me beau’~?”

“Hurrah~! Hestrali girls~! Doodle let me go~!”

He brought the glass to his lips and started chugging, hopping and jigging along the tabletop causing mugs and plates to scatter in his wake. All the while he drank, and all the while the crowd sang out the chorus.

“Doodle let me go, me girl~! Doodle let me go~! Hurrah~! Hestrali girls~! Doodle let me go~!”

His head swam with the warm buzz of the alcohol as he danced and sang. Verse after verse thundered by in a blur, and he tried his best not to tumble off into his audience.

Halfway through he lost his barrette and his jacket unbuttoned to the waist. As the final chorus rang out and the audience clapped and cheered, Narcisse slung the stein with all his might over their joyous heads. It shattered into a thousand sparkling crystals, and they cheered all the more.

—

“So you’re the Professor everyone’s talking about, hm?”

Narcisse pulled the wine glass from his lips and shook his head.

“Please, you were never one of my students. You have no need to call me that. Narcisse is fine.”

“But you are him, aren’t you?” The blonde had hope in her eyes and a smile tickling the corner of her mouth. He couldn’t help but smile back, he always was weak for the kindnesses of women.

“Oui, I am. Professor Narcisse, Master of the Seven Liberal Arts, poet, playwrite, and partisan,” he said with a sloppy, heavily intoxicated bow. “Though not necessarily in that order.”

“But you’re so…young! I always thought academic were stodgy old coots up in high towers.”

Narcisse chuckled, running a hand through his hair. He wondered for a moment where his hat made off to before promptly forgetting he ever had one.

“I, eh, had a very educational upbringing one might say? I did not have long to go when I made it to the University; it was more a matter of proving my knowledge and filling in the gaps than anything.”

“Well you certainly know how to throw a party,” she grinned, gesturing to the merrymaking all around them. His own grin widened too. Flattery would get her anywhere.

“My specialty is people. People in groups even more so. It only makes sense I would know how to put a smile on their face. With suchshortcuts as alcohol and song, it’s truly not so hard!”

“Well…” her eyelids fluttered. “Do you know what would put a smile on my face?”

—

“Tu n’es qu’un poulet mouillée!”

He wasn’t certain precisely when he’d reverted back to his mother tongue, but by now the toxins coursing through his veins burned enough that he hardly cared. Who knew if they understood him? They certainly weren’t making any effort to speak Cappacian.

He swung a right hook which Randel neatly dodged, smacking him upside the back of the head and knocking him off balance. He would have fallen flat on his face if he hadn’t instead collided with the wall of bodies that framed their makeshift boxing ring.

“Celui-ci était gratuit, mais vous n’en obtiendrez pas d’autre!”

“You’re in the Throne! Speak Gothic ya fucking frog!”

Rage boiled up in him the way it only ever did when he drank. No one insulted his country and lived to tell of it! He’d kill Randel right here in front if all these people, and he hardly even cared if they saw. He’d do it, and nobody could stop him.

He spun and lunged, arms outstretched as he roared his fury. Randel, the greasy haired man who he’d only met tonight, one of Brandon’s friends in the cotton trade, looked taken aback for but an instant.

As the fist connected with Narcisse’s jaw he remembered why he took up the pen instead of the sword.

—

Sunlight shone down on the poor poet, whose eyes pierced into him like shards of glass as the blinding Ray’s tore through the shades. A smokey haze filled the room, and groaning revelers made their way around piles of snoring drunks as they made their way about their business.

Hissing and holding his throbbing head, Narcisse crawled to one of the nearby tables that hadn’t toppled over, using the chair to climb to his feet. His shirt was gone, as was his hat and jacket. He had one boot on and had no idea where the other might be, but something told him he wouldn’t have time to find any if his belongings. Even his coin purse was missing, and it hardly helped that his head was ringing like a bell.

“Excusez-moi monsieur,” he begged, wincing at the sound on his own voice as he reached out and tugged on the cuff of a passing party goer.

“What is the hour, do you know perchance?”

“Eh, nearly noon I’d say. Sun is nearly at its peak.”

“Merci beaucoup, monsieur, truly,” he nodded, his head dropping into his hands. At least the whole day wouldn’t be wasted, and all told he still might have enough time to find the other boot before-

The boat.

“Merde.”

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The Curtain Drops

The Black Pistol Inn, Maestro’s Quarters, Midnight.

Maestro Bastione sits at an elaborately carved roll top desk. He drops his quill into the near empty ink well and peers over the gold and black ink of the handwritten song before him.

With tired arms he reaches for his best guitar and sets it gingerly in his lap. He tunes the instrument to perfection and strums a chord that rings throughout the room, beautiful and clear. He repeats it again, sips a dark drink and ponders his creation.

His thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Comme dans.”

A shabbily dressed Capacionne man enters the room holding a book and quill.

“Are you ready to make your decision, Maestro?”

“I am, Theodore. My thanks for making the trip so late.”

“It’s unusual, but your affairs sounded important.”

“They are indeed. Are you ready to begin?”

“At your word, Monsieur.”

“I would like you to write up the papers for my new Taverness, Daciana. I have discussed a hiring bonus for her which will be included with your fees. She is to be given full control of the day to day of the Black Pistol Inn. I shall remain it’s owner, but in all other ways I want her wishes made writ.”

“Very good, monsieur.”

“I want you to arrange travel for me for the dates in this letter.”

Bastione hands the man an itinerary.

“I will go by my own horse but will need lodging at those stops.”

Theodore looks over the dates and times. “Good, several months to sort your affairs in Stragosa. Will you be scheduling a return before leaving?”

“I will. My affairs have been in limbo long enough and I must set a few wrongs right. Then I can return, and things can return to normal.”

“My word it will be done as you say.”

“In case anything should happen to me on the road, I want you to arrange for my small fortunes to be paid upon my death, but I worry very little.”

“Better safe than sorry, I always say.”

“Truer words. I have written my will and testament here. I charge you to keep it in good safety.” Lastly, you must send word to my wife that she may not find me in Stragosa should she come. I will send word on my return that things are safe here.”

“Tis a personal concern but you two are separated. Why should she come?”

“Just take my orders, monsieur. I will attend the next forum unless something comes up but I ask you let my friends know I will return in a handful of forums.”

“Very good. And your apprentice?”

“Lev is to remain here and train, both he and Daciana are given free room and board. That completes my wishes as of now.”

Theodore makes a quick set of notes before collecting the various papers.

“I’ve a room setup ready for your, Theodore. No need to ride out tonight.”

“My thanks. The air as a shrill chill that cuts to my old bones.”

“The next forum shall be worse I have no doubt.”

“Likely. Good night, Maestro Bastione.”

“Good night.”

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Harvests

“Lift up your hearts Benalus’ friends…”

Alonzo is humming. Putting on clothes he thinks would be good for gathering in food. He’s seen it done, he supposes. He is pulling on a muslin shirt.

“Sarah, where is my hat?” he shouts in Hestron. “Which one?” she yells back in Shariq’a. “The one that looks like a farmer hat.”

Baruk laughs at his desk while Mel and Jin practice a song in the kitchen. “…to taste the joy, the joy the White Lion sends…”

“Father,” remarks Baruk, still snickering. “You look so dashing. What if there’s not enough dirt to go around?”

“Well, boy, I’ll just have to go harvest some songs, I suppose. Are you coming with me? Might do you some good to get your hands in the ground.”

“Wait? Really?” Baruk raises his hands covered in ink splotches. “Instead of… sums? I’ll get my cloak!”

And so they go, laughing into the morning. A moment of light in a world so often dark.

Sarah gathers Mel and Jin and locks the residence behind her, making sure that everything is in order before boarding the carriage to the fields of Stragosa.

“…when I was a little girl, I asked my mother what will I be…”

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From the Bowels of Ghouls

Darkness has swallowed me whole, encompassing me like a tight and narrow throat pulling me ever down. I don’t know how long I am consumed by this darkness before it begins to splinter—first in bright, crackling streaks like lighting across the sky, only they are the warm color of fire. Despite all that initial warmth, behind it there howls an ice far colder than any storm of Njordr.

I peel open my eyes against the cold. They feel frozen shut, my eyelashes clumped with ice. I blink against the hard brightness of sunlight on snow—though there is no sun here.

Something doesn’t feel right. I crane my neck to look down at myself—hearing my bones crackle and feeling the muscle stiff like jerky straining with the movement. I recoil, by there’s only so much one can recoil from themselves.

There is something writhing under my torn shirt. It finds its way to the blood-soaked tear and slips out. Fingers. A hand. An arm.

“Djävlar—“ I try to pull away from my own body, pull out of my own skin. I cannot.

Then I notice…a mutilated, twisted leg protruding from the side of my knee. More body parts, grotesque and blended into mine. I touch my face and to my horror, I feel teeth. Teeth breaking through my skin from the inside out—and moving. Just the faintest pulse, as though they’re chewing the air.

Bile stings the back of my throat and tears burn at my eyes. I’m about to go to my knees, wondering if this is some nightmare, wondering when I’ll wake.

Then I see her.

She stands before me in the howling snow and wind, her hair whipped up into icicles like broken and deformed antlers, her eyes two gaping black maws, her skin thin blue ice clinging to sharp, crystalline bone. She looks like a statue carved from the frozen wastes, tall and horrible, her ribcage wide and her waste sucked in to a narrow core around her spine, her hips jutting like ax blades. Her mouth a row of jagged, long teeth like needles pulled into a horrifying grin.

Then, all at once, she’s nothing at all—a flickering gray shadow sinking into horrible black then blasting my eyes with sharp, piercing white, her form changing in flickering flashes. At one moment an emaciated wolf, at another a bear with a hide torn by decay, at another a woman with her breasts out and frozen and cracking like ice, and in between a sucking void my eyes can’t bare to pin down.

She is horrific.

She is beautiful.

Sveas.

A chill runs through me as I realize then—I’m dead. I can’t be seeing her, not really, not if I’m alive.

I did it.

I finally died.

My heart sinks. I had meant to dance in the clouds, with Balthazar. He’d asked me to dance and I’d been coy and mocking. He’d bested me in battle, and he’d given me a bracelet, and he’d kissed me and held my hand and—

He’d been my friend. He’d told me he loved me, and I’d choked on the word because…well…what did it mean?

If I’m dead I don’t get to know.

I close my eyes and shake my head. Oh well. I was never meant for a life like that anyway. I was meant for Sveas. I was always meant only for Sveas.

My eyes search to pin her down. I reach to pull my mace from my belt and ready my shield, doing my best to ignore the writhing of the arm against my stomach, the aimless chewing of the teeth on my face. My body crackles like ice as I bend to brace myself for battle.

This was always where my life was leading. This was always where I was meant to be. I tell myself that it was the only place I had ever wanted to be, and I make myself believe it.

“Disgusting filth,” a hissing voice comes to me on the wind, coming from no particular point but beating at me from every angle. “Abomination. You do not belong here.”

My stomach clenches. “Yes I do,” I grit out. “I am Freydis the Undying, Daughter of Njordr and daughter of the Thrymfrost. I am the daughter of Nidhoggsdotter and the spirit of the Wolf, and I come at long last to defeat you, Sveas!”

Her laughter is glaciers breaking and avalanches burying cities.

“You are nothing. You are un-whole, bits and pieces of peasants left behind and forgotten. You are a cast out little whelp that should have been left to freeze in the snow upon birth. You are shit in the bowels of ghouls and I recognize you not as a daughter of Njordr but as just another southern mongrel.”

Her words are a thousand blades lodging in my chest. I gasp as though I’ve been struck, and the air in my throat freezes.

All I can see is her outstretched hand, her fingers long like twisted branches.

“No,” I say through ice and gasping. “No! I was branded in the Rimelands! I grew up in snow and ice, I came of age in blood—”

“You dirty the door of my hall.”

“No, no! Fight me Sveas!” The screams come again, and tears freeze on my cheeks. “I am meant to fight you! It’s all I’ve ever been meant for!” Ice clogs my throat, my voice straining against the sobs that swell, burning and cold in my chest.

“You were never worthy of the last rites.”

“Sveas! You can’t—”

“Be gone from my sight, you wretched dog.”

“NO!”

The blackness bites down on me, closing everything else out. The last thing I hear is my own pitiful screaming.

How? How can she still not want me?

The void that swallows me also swallows my screams, sucks the breath from my lungs until I feel my body collapsing in on itself. The tearing in my heart drowns the horrible burning in my flesh. I don’t care for the splintering agony in my bones, for my soul is being torn asunder.

How can she not want me?

The arm that writhes against my skin, the teeth that pulse on my face, the leg that dangles at my knee…

What have I become? In the bowels of ghouls, rendered shit.

Where he left me.

He who claimed to love me.

Whatever that may mean.

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Death of the Undying

The air stinks of rotting flesh. The back of my throat tastes like bile. I cover my nose and my mouth as I move down the passageway, past the first ghoul that crawled out from a crevasse in the wall and attacked. The presence of ghouls explains the foul stench, at least. With the odor so powerful, there were surely more to come.

Balthazar and Sir Connor follow close on my heels. They mutter between themselves about what they see. Balthazar quickly searches the body of the ghoul but finds nothing, and Sir Connor notes that, so far, there doesn’t appear to be much of anything in the ruin. It’s just a stinking, winding cavern leading ever deeper into the dark.

As I round the corner, I hear the sounds of teeth gnawing flesh and bone. I know those sounds. They echo in my ears, a memory.

In the dim cavern that opens up before me, I see a ghoul crouched over an old body. Breaking bones with its broken teeth. Sucking at the marrow. Rending the flesh.

“More,” I say to Balthazar and Sir Connor, and beat my shield to draw the thing’s attention.

Its eyes reflect the dim light as it lifts its twitching head and sets its sight on me. It drops the limb it had been holding, stumbling to its feet and coming at me, giving wet hisses and snarls. It’s easy enough to drop—as is the one that lunges at me from behind, its gnashing teeth clipping uncomfortably close to my arm before I’m able to beat it down.

When I turn, I see something else crawling out of the dark. Something monstrous but skeletal, and bearing a weapon. “Fuck,” I mutter, keeping my eyes on the monster as it stalks toward me. I hear Balthazar shout as more ghouls come up behind him and Sir Connor. The sounds of fighting erupt behind me as I brace myself to fight the thing ahead of me.

The weapon it carries is long and heavy—a thick, curving metal spike on a pole that it thrusts at me. I stumble backward as I manage to block the first blow with my shield, but the second blow comes before I’ve recovered my footing and my shield is held just a bit too high.

The spike slams into my stomach. I feel it punch through my furs and leathers into the skin underneath. My body doubles over the weapon as sharp white pain splinters through my abdomen. My guts are forced to make room for cold metal.

But I’ve known worse pains before. I’ve been stabbed deeper, and with colder blades.

Shaking off the pain as the monster wrenches the weapon back, I pull my shield tight against myself and plant my feet, looking up at the monster. It’s about to strike again, as more ghouls flood out of the darkness beyond, then—

“Freydis!” Balthazar shouts behind me, and I hear ghouls dropping. The monster turns its attention toward Balthazar. Finally, his inordinate loudness is useful.

I’m able to fight back two more ghouls, killing them with relative ease, and when I turn toward Balthazar and Sir Connor, I find only the monster. Blocking the entry. Turning toward me.

Bracing myself, I crouch behind my shield. I deflect the first hit as the monster comes toward me, then it aims lower and splits open my shin, splintering the bone. For a moment I’m down on my knee, blocking a blow aimed for my skull, then—as I am dragging myself back up, trying to angle myself toward the entry and away from the monster, another blow catches me on the shoulder.

Pain rains through me from every angle, and I can feel the heat of my blood pouring from my stomach, soaking my pants. The cloth of my shirt clings to me, sticky with blood, and now my pantleg does the same, plastered against my skin around open flesh and bone. Blood is now running in open rivers down my back and front from the fresh wound opened on my shoulder.

Parrying another blow, I make another effort to rise. If I can only manage to get to my godsdamned feet—the monster has moved away from the entry. I might be able to drag myself out of here and back into the light of day.

The weapon, slicked now with my blood, gleams in the dim cavern as it swings toward me once more. Fuck.

With my shoulder in ruins, I struggle to lift the shield. I manage to get it partway up, but too late. The hook catches me in my back and I am dragged to the floor.

As I am slammed into the cold earth, I hear Balthazar’s voice again, and Sir Connor close behind him. Their shouts echo through the cavern, a great and horrible commotion, and the monster looks to them again. It wrenches its hook free of me and goes to them.

If only I could just…get to my hands and knees, it wouldn’t be so difficult to drag myself out of here—

Pain, a searing flash through my calf, ignites within me. I hate to hear the sound of my screams, almost as much as I hate knowing without looking that a ghoul has set on me, and is tearing the living flesh from my bones.

Reaching for my mace—when did I drop it?—I feel another ghoul fall onto me. It seizes my arm and wrenches it back, just about tears it from my body, and it bites into me. I close my eyes against the pain, try to grit my teeth and swallow the screams, but they come boiling madly out.

Somewhere in the distance, through all my screaming and the gurgling snarls of ghouls, I hear Balthazar. “Freydis! No!” I manage to wrench my head up, to see him coming toward me, his mad blue eyes wild with fear and dismay. And there is Sir Connor behind him, spotting the monster looming toward them and vanishing right there into the dark.

That spell of Balthazar’s, his hiding spell—the one he’d put on Sir Connor before we came here. The one I’d sneered at. “A child hiding under a blanket,” I’d said when first he’d showed it to me and, sulking, he’d returned to visibility.

“Balthazar!” I shout, stretching out my other arm, reaching for him with a hand weighted down by a shield and near useless from the ruin of my shoulder. I imagine he’ll grab me, yank me carelessly from the mouths of the ghouls and fly us out of here.

I remember being thrown into the sky—one of his madman’s spells. Next time, I’ll go willingly to dance with him in the clouds.

He’s reaching for me, the jewels on his fingers glittering in the dark. I can almost touch him.

Then he remembers the monster, looks up at it as it moves towards him, and as he lurches back from me and vanishes.

“Tell me,” I once said, sneering, “are you a weak man, Balthazar?”

Some uncertainty wells up inside of me as I am left alone to the devouring mouths. The pain rushes through me renewed, and I am screaming again. I hate these screams—I would give myself up to these tearing mouths and wait it out. They cannot kill me. But these fucking screams…

Blackness eats away at the edges of my vision, and I grow dizzy. My consciousness is fading—it’s okay, I’ve been unconscious before, alone in the forest, in a snow drift, at the bottom of a glacial canyon—when I hear a crash. The ghouls wrench free of me and scatter. They run after whatever sound that was, from wherever it had come, and for a moment leave me in blessed fucking peace.

Slowly, the feeling of the cold earth beneath me comes back. I grit my teeth, blink my eyes to clear my vision, and begin pushing myself to my feet again. I stumble up, pain rocketing up my leg, and I growl low in my throat as I lift my shield and my mace and—

How is the monster back? The cursed skeleton storming toward me and lifting its weapon and—

Back to the earth I crumble, and am barely able to make out the monster aiming its finger at me. The ghouls come in seconds, and I close my eyes and give myself up to the pain.

There is more screaming than just mine. There is a crash of stones, a collapse, and some part of me wonders if the whole cavern is coming down around us, but the ghouls don’t stop eating. Balthazar’s voice returns like thunder through the cavern, chanting some ancient language that I don’t understand, but no spell seems to come.

The ghouls keep eating.

Somewhere in the distance Sir Connor’s voice reaches me: “We have to go, Balthazar! She is dead! This is her arm! She’s dead, we have to leave!” And as I scream, I laugh. I cannot die. I am the Undying.

The ghouls keep eating.

More shouting, more fighting, the sounds of bodies being thrown to the floor and the eruption of magic down the halls. A riot of violence and booming voices intermingled with eerie silences…

…and the ghouls just keep eating, leaving less and less of me to drag out of here, and the less there is of me, the further into the darkness I seem to go.

It’s okay though.

I’ve been in the darkness before.

I’ll be okay.

I always am.