40

The Coastal Road, somewhere between Kirlan and Triah

IT WAS A CLOUDY, foggy morning, especially for a late summer day, and Cinzia did not see the Black Matron’s caravan until they almost stumbled upon its rearguard on the road. They had been riding hard, hoping to catch their quarry before they arrived at Triah, but now they caught a warning glimpse of the white-and-red tabards of the Sons ahead and reined in their horses as one. If she narrowed her eyes, Cinzia thought she could just about see a Cantic banner flapping in the distance, but it could be an illusion of the fog.

“Did they see us?” she asked no one in particular. The Sons ahead had already been swallowed up by the fog ahead of her.

“Can’t be sure one way or another,” Astrid said quietly. She looked up. “You can thank your goddess for these clouds and fog. Not as good as a night sky, but at least I won’t have to worry about the sun.”

“How should we proceed?” Eward asked. “I counted three Sons, and those were just outriders.”

“You’ve seen me handle worse,” Astrid said. “The question is whether they have any nightsbane.”

“Astrid, make your approach,” Cinzia said. “Take out as many of them as you can while you have surprise on your side. Once they realize it’s you, they’ll bring out the nightsbane, if they have it, at which point Eward and I will attack. I’m sorry, but it’s the only chance we have.”

“Better I lead anyway. I want first crack at the bitch.”

Before Astrid rode away, Cinzia leaned over and grabbed the girl’s arm. “Be careful,” she said.

Astrid held Cinzia’s gaze for a moment, then nodded. She slipped off her horse and rushed off into the fog to flank the Cantic caravan.

* * *

Astrid sprinted through the fog, rushing out into a field on the western side of the road, and then angling back towards where she hoped the caravan was. Soon, she saw the rearguard again. It was a shame she did not have her claws. She unsheathed the short sword and dagger she carried at her waist.

As Astrid approached the Sons, one of the horses spooked, bucking and throwing its rider onto the dirt road. Astrid leapt up onto one of the other horses, jamming her dagger into the Son’s neck. The man’s life leaked out of him in a sigh, and Astrid threw herself onto the other horse, wrapping her arms around the Son’s neck and pulling him to the ground in a crash of armor. She stabbed both her dagger and sword down into the man’s chest, and that was that. The fog was so thick she could barely see a few rods ahead of her.

Then, a great looming shape. The carriage. And on top of it stood Knot.

“Hello, Astrid,” he said. But his voice was different. This wasn’t Knot. And yet… as he spoke, Astrid knew it wasn’t Lathe, either. She had met Lathe, briefly, when Knot had one of his episodes at Harmoth, and this was not him. Not entirely.

Astrid was about to ask which Daemon she was speaking with when Knot, or Lathe, or whoever it was leapt down from the carriage, and Astrid froze.

In his hand was a bunch of nightsbane.

Pain blossomed within her as he moved closer.

“I did not expect to see you so soon,” the man said. “But this will do.” He looked over his shoulder. “Come get her.”

Emerging from the fog as she descended the carriage, the Black Matron walked towards her.

“Hello, dear,” she said with a smile. “I was so hoping I would see you again.”

Astrid fell to her knees.

The Void

In the Void, Knot drifted.

He drifted, but not aimlessly. Something drew him towards it, slowly at first. He picked up speed so gradually that he was flying along before he realized it. Soon, in the distance, Knot saw what he figured must be the source of the draw. It seemed to be a star, but unlike any of the other star-lights he’d seen in the Void. This one was black, somehow, despite emitting a glow like all of the other star-lights. And this one had an aura of some kind as well—not like his own sift, which was a star-light around which orbited nine other tiny star-lights, but an aura of greater magnitude, and greater power.

He was being drawn to the strange dark star with such force that he could not stop himself, and suddenly he slipped into the star, and through it.

And then, for a brief moment that also seemed to last an eternity, he was no longer in the Void, but in the Sfaera. He was still his incorporeal self, but the Sfaera was as clear around him as he had ever seen it. Knot looked around at the people fighting, the cavalry clashing, the people dying, and realized he was in a battle.

Or, rather, above a battle. Knot levitated a few rods above the earth, looking down at the people fighting below.

A large, cubical rihnemin roughly the size of a small home protruded from the base of a shallow valley where the two armies clashed. The tide of the battle was clearly swinging toward the combined Khalic-Cantic force; they had broken through their opposition’s front line, outflanked their enemy on both sides, and outnumbered them almost two to one.

The other side of the battle, Knot realized, consisted entirely of tiellans. Many wore helms, but he saw the pointed ears on those who didn’t, and their stature, the way they moved, the way they fought, was more familiar to Knot than he could have imagined.

And there, in the middle of the tiellan force, Winter fought fiercely, covered in sweat and mud and blood, sword in hand, hair streaked across her face.

She looked so different from the Winter he remembered in Pranna—in traditional tiellan clothing, a loose dress and siara wrapped around her neck, taciturn but with an inner fire that drew him to her—and far more similar to the woman he had known after Navone and in their brief journey into Roden, wearing tight leather clothing and sporting a chip on her shoulder that had nearly torn them apart.

And yet she was different still, as he watched her. She fought with confidence and skill, despite her soldiers losing ground around her. She was wounded, Knot could tell—she favored her right shoulder—but fought on with grace and skill. And she was leading them, that much was clear. Standard-bearers obeyed her beck and call.

What in Oblivion was he seeing?

Winter was dead, and yet here she was. It was certainly her: her black eyes, raven-dark hair, high cheekbones and pointed nose; her compact, now tightly-muscled frame. She was different, but the same. This was the woman who had married him.

Just like that, Knot snapped back into the Void, in darkness, with the star-lights around him. And there, most prominent of all, the dark star. Knot stared at the strange image, his mind racing.

“That is her, if you’re wondering.”

Knot whirled to see a woman standing behind him. Knot blinked. One moment she was blonde, the next brunette. One moment tall, the next short. Her visage shifted constantly, never quite settling on a face or body, though it seemed to cycle through the same four or five appearances.

Two of which Knot recognized. One was tall, with short brown hair and sky-blue eyes. The other shorter, younger, and blonde.

As strange as it was to see this woman, Knot had just experienced something stranger. He looked back at the dark star. “That,” he said, his eyes almost unable to focus on the shifting phenomenon, “is Winter?”

“It is her sift, more accurately,” Kali said.

“If that’s her sift, then…”

“Then what you just saw was real. Yes, Knot. Winter is alive.”

Winter was alive.

And, Knot realized, so was this woman.

“Kali,” Knot said. “Didn’t I kill you?”

“You tried,” she said, “but it didn’t quite stick.”

Knot’s gaze drew back to the dark star. Seems to be a trend.

Goddess, could it be true? Winter was alive.

“How long have you known?” Knot turned back to Kali.

“I’ve known she was alive for months, now. You, for slightly less time. That was more of a happy accident.”

“Why wouldn’t I be alive?”

“Winter thinks you are dead, too. The feeling was mutual, you could say, until now.”

With a growl, Knot launched himself at Kali. He quickly realized the futility of the attack when his ethereal form passed straight through Kali’s image.

Kali clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Can’t say I didn’t expect that kind of response, but it’s still disappointingly pathetic. I can’t believe you actually killed me.”

“Thought you said it didn’t stick.”

“Well, it did and it didn’t. Why don’t we settle on that.”

Realization dawned on Knot. “You’re the shadow I’ve been seein’ around.”

“Guilty,” Kali said. “I admit I’ve been monitoring you. I’m trapped here, you see, and I’ve been looking for a way out. I think you might be my ticket.”

Knot had so many questions. How was Winter alive? How had this woman monitored him in Astrid’s voidstone? How was any of this possible?

But questions would only take time. He had very little of that.

Knot hesitated. What difference did it make if Winter was alive? His body was still not his own to reclaim. As much as it was his, it belonged to Lathe first.

Knot could choose to stay for Winter, but somehow that seemed just as much a mistake. Then, he remembered something from one of Astrid’s memories. Her father, just before she had killed him, had looked at Astrid calmly.

It doesn’t matter what you are, he had said, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been. All that matters is what you do.

All that matters is what you do.

Lathe was an assassin, a killer. Lathe was willing to unleash a Daemon on the Sfaera.

Knot had his flaws, his own inner daemons. But at least he wasn’t interested in contributing to the end of the Sfaera.

All that matters is what you do.

“I need to get back,” Knot said calmly. “Not just for Winter, but for me, and for the Sfaera.” He would take his body back, somehow. And he would make sure he did something that mattered with it.

Kali smiled, the expression remaining while the faces that held it shifted and changed.

“And for me, incidentally,” Kali said. “I’ll help you reclaim your body, but I’ll need something from you in return…”

The Coastal Road, somewhere between Kirlan and Triah

“They have nightsbane,” Cinzia said quietly to Eward and the other Prelates.

They had slowly edged forward until they could make out the three Sons in the rear of the formation, and then witnessed Astrid take each one of them out.

And then, just as she did, Knot had leapt from the carriage, nightsbane in hand.

“Go around,” Cinzia said. “Flank them. I will approach them head-on, and hopefully distract them long enough for you to rush in. The priority should be getting the nightsbane away from Astrid.”

Eward hesitated. “I do not want to leave you alone.”

Cinzia nudged her horse closer and gave him a hug. “I will be fine. Do as I say.”

Eward signaled to the Prelates. Half of them curved off to the west, the other half went with Eward to the east.

Then Cinzia dismounted, and slowly led her horse forward.

Astrid’s prone form, and Knot’s, standing tall, became more clear through the fog as she approached. She noticed a third figure, in matron’s robes, emerge through the fog, and then more Sons and Goddessguards began to appear.

“And who might this be?” Knot asked as Cinzia walked forward.

“Knot?” Cinzia asked. “Are you all right?”

Knot laughed. “Knot is gone,” he said. “I am something completely different, now.”

Cinzia had suspected as much when she had seen Knot leap from the carriage, seemingly free, with nightsbane in hand. He would never do such a thing to Astrid.

The man narrowed his eyes. “You are Luceraf’s plaything,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Cinzia frowned. “What do you know of Luceraf?” she asked.

“She is a… colleague of my master,” the man said. “And…” the man stopped, squinting. “And I know you from somewhere else, too. That fever dream of that country manor. You were there. With the vampire.”

“Lathe,” Cinzia breathed.

“One and the same,” the man said, with a bow. “Although… not exactly the same. I am different, now. As you soon will be. Very soon, in fact. Luceraf comes to claim her bounty.”

“You are Cinzia,” the Black Matron said. “The former priestess.”

Cinzia raised an eyebrow. “You have heard of me?” Hopefully, she could buy enough time for Eward and his Prelates to attack.

“Of course I have,” she said. “Everyone in the Denomination knows of Cinzia the Heretic.”

“Somehow I cannot help but wonder why heresy means anything to you,” Cinzia said, meeting the woman’s eyes. “Given your line of work.”

Then, out of the fog, Eward attacked. Cinzia heard the shouts, heard the screams, the clanging of metal.

And then, suddenly, she heard nothing. All sound deflated around her, and her vision expanded. When it contracted, she found herself once again in the ethereal, wispy place of blue light.

“Goddess,” Cinzia pleaded, “not now.”

“Hello, daughter.”

“Luceraf,” Cinzia said, “I cannot speak now. You must take me back.”

Luceraf’s laughter filled the space around them, echoing between the blue-gray trees.

“We will go back soon enough,” the Daemon said with a smile. “But first, you must give me what you promised.”