“I’ve been walking around this cell for five years. I can probably manage a hallway.” She turns to survey the corridor, the staircase, the darkness beyond. “The monastery—is it falling?”
“Soon. We’re burning it tonight.”
“Good.” Something fierce kindles in her eyes. “Make sure you save the records first. I assume you found them? The documents in the Abbot’s hidden chamber?”
“You knew about those?”
“I knew about everything, child. The Abbot liked to talk during his visits. Enjoyed having an audience that could appreciate the scope of his operations.” Marceline’s lips curve in something too sharp to be called a smile. “The things he documented—his patrons, his supporters, the nobles who paid for initiates they could train privately. This cult didn’t exist in isolation. The Abbot had protection at the highest levels. Destroying the monastery is only the beginning.”
“We know.” I exchange a look with Zrynok. “We found the names.”
“Then you understand what comes next.” Marceline begins climbing the staircase without waiting for assistance. “Those records are worth more than this entire monastery. More than the survivors we’ve freed. More than our lives, if it comes to that.”
“Our lives aren’t negotiable.”
“Everything is negotiable, Arwen. That’s the first lesson of diplomacy.” She pauses at the first landing. “But I appreciate the sentiment. Now—shall we see what’s left of my prison?”
We emerge into chaos.
The sanctum’s door hangs open. Smoke drifts through the tower’s windows—not from our work, but from somewhere else in the monastery. Something is burning that we didn’t set alight.
Shouting echoes from below. The clash of metal. Screaming that I recognize from too many years of exposure.
Zrynok draws his sword. I reach for a weapon—any weapon. My fingers close on a ritual blade from the Abbot’s collection, sharp enough to cut through bone.
“I’ll manage.” Marceline’s voice is dry before either of us can say anything else. “What’s happening down there?”
Cael’s voice answers from the staircase below: “Maret. She’s alive. She rallied the last of the loyalists—they’ve taken theChapel. Then she split off. She’s somewhere in the tower, hunting for you.”
He appears on the landing, his partially transformed features twisted with urgency. Blood streaks his bark-like skin. His luminous eyes are wild.
“The survivors are trapped. Maret drove them toward the east courtyard, then set fire to the buildings behind them. They can’t go back, and the Chapel blocks the way forward.”
“How many loyalists?”
“A dozen. Maybe more.” Cael grips the doorframe for support. He’s wounded, I realize—deep cuts along his arms where someone’s blade found gaps in his transformed defenses. “She’s been planning this. Hiding survivors from the purges, waiting for the right moment.”
“We should have checked the bodies.” Zrynok’s voice carries the cold fury of a mistake that will cost lives. “After the Chapel fell?—”
“We were tired. We thought we’d won.” I start toward the stairs. “It doesn’t matter now. We need to get to those survivors before?—”
“Before what?” The voice comes from below. Gentle. Patient. The voice of someone who has all the time in the world because she knows exactly how this ends.
Maret climbs into view.
She’s wounded—one arm hangs useless at her side, blood soaking the white robes she still wears—but she moves with purpose. Behind her, two Keepers in similar condition flank the staircase.
“Hello, Arwen.” Maret’s smile is warm. Genuine. The expression of a friend who has missed me deeply. “I was hoping you’d come back to the sanctum. There are so many things we never got to discuss.”
“Maret.” I raise my stolen blade. “You should have run.”
“Run where? The monastery is my home. The Bloom is my family. You took everything that mattered to me when you killed the Abbot.” Her uninjured hand reaches for something at her belt—a small vial filled with crimson liquid. “Now I’m going to take something from you.”
Zrynok moves before she can throw it.
His sword takes the first Keeper in the throat. The second dies with a blade through the chest before the first body hits the floor. But Maret is already moving—already lunging past the falling Keepers, already raising the vial toward my face.
I don’t think. Just react. The ritual blade in my hand swings upward, catching Maret’s wrist before the vial can complete its arc. The impact jars through my arm. The vial flies from her grip, spinning into the darkness of the staircase below.
