We understand each other. More than we should, probably. Two damaged tools, pointed at a common enemy.
The chanting peaks. A single voice rises above the harmony—older, cultured, warm with false benevolence.
The Abbot.
Arwen’s whole body goes rigid. I see the reaction roll through her—the involuntary response to a voice that’s commanded her suffering for years. Her hands clench. Her jaw locks. Every muscle in her frame battles between flight and fight.
Fight wins. I watch it happen—the fear transforming into something colder, something with edges sharp enough to cut.
“That’s him.” Her voice is ice. “End him.”
I kick the doors open.
FOUR
ZRYNOK
The chapel is worse than I imagined.
Vaulted ceilings soar overhead, painted with scenes of flowering bodies ascending toward a crimson heaven. Stained glass windows filter the morning light into shades of blood and rust, casting the congregation in hellish shadow. Rows of pews stretch toward the altar, filled with white-robed figures who turn as one toward the noise of my entrance.
The altar itself is white marble veined with red, its surface carved with channels that direct liquid toward basins at its base. Torches burn in a massive frame behind it, eternal flames casting the man at the lectern in shifting light and shadow.
The Abbot. Father Verantus.
He’s beautiful. The word doesn’t fit—shouldn’t fit—but there it is. Ageless features, skin smooth as porcelain, robes flowing around him in silk shadows. His presence commands attention the way a bonfire commands a dark room, drawing focus, demanding acknowledgment.
On the altar before him: a girl. Young. Barely grown. Strapped to the stone with leather restraints, her white robe torn, her face wet with tears she’s too broken to wipe away.
Circe.
A Keeper stands beside her, ritual implements laid out on a cloth—blades and brands and things I don’t want to identify. His hands are steady. Practiced. Someone who’s done this before and feels nothing about doing it again.
I recognize those hands. I’ve had hands like that. Done work like that.
The difference is I never pretended it was holy.
“Sister Arwen has chosen to reject our love.” The Abbot’s voice carries through the chapel, warm and resonant, continuing his sermon as if I haven’t just shattered his doors. “Her departure wounds us all. But through this ceremony, we transform grief into growth. Through sacrifice, we remind ourselves that freedom is an illusion?—”
I move.
The first Keeper dies before anyone realizes what’s happening. My blade takes him through the throat—clean, efficient, the spray of blood painting the pew behind him before his body understands it’s dead. He crumples. I’m past him, tracking the next target.
The second Keeper reaches for his weapon. Too slow. My sword opens him from shoulder to hip, the executioner’s cut that severs everything vital, and he folds in on himself with a gurgling scream.
The third tries to run. Bad choice. I catch him by the collar, spin him into my blade, feel the impact shudder up my arm as steel finds resistance and pushes through.
The congregation erupts.
Screaming. Chaos. White robes scrambling over pews, trampling each other in their desperation to escape. Some rush toward the exits. Others freeze, paralyzed by shock, their conditioned obedience warring with survival instinct.
A few—the believers Arwen warned about—grab for weapons hidden in their robes. I mark them. Prioritize. Adjust my path to intercept before they can organize.
The work is familiar. Brutal. Almost comfortable. My body knows this dance—the rhythm of violence, the geometry of death. Step. Strike. Pivot. Strike again. Blood sprays across marble. Bodies fall and don’t rise.
I wade toward the altar, carving paths through anyone stupid enough to get in my way.
In my peripheral vision: Arwen. She moves around the carnage rather than through it, using the chaos as cover, slipping between panicked cultists with the practiced invisibility of someone who’s survived by not being seen. Her trajectory is clear—the altar. The girl. Rescue while I provide distraction.
