Warm light tickled the horizon as Hessar stumbled back down the alley that would lead to his Master’s lair, staring at his pale hands. He opened the sewer grate with the command word to unlock the warding, but paused to look east before climbing down.
Unlike every other dawn for nearly a century, the light did not hurt his eyes—rather, he longed to see the sun rise, as though it would comfort him the way the darkness once had.
What was wrong with him?
So distracted was he that he forgot, at the bottom of the sewer shaft, to speak the command word that would still the temple’s defenses. A set of rusty swords rose from the murk of the sewer and scythed for his face, but he threw up an arcane shield to ward them off until he could speak the passphrase: “Praise to the Reaver, who bathes in the blood of his enemies and sleeps to the lamentations of their lovers.”
The enchanted swords fell instantly, their magic suppressed for the nonce.
He’d chosen well, Kirenkirsalai, in the ancient House of Steel. The temple to Garagos the Reaver hadn’t seen frequent use in more than a century, but its defenses held strong and as far as Hessar knew, no enterprising treasure seeker had discovered it. Or perhaps Kirenkirsalai had slain all such intruders. Also, its location was significant, as it lay almost exactly beneath Darkdance Manor, the residence of Kirenkirsalai’s obsession.
What the vampire sought in Maerlyn Darkdance, Hessar had never understood—until that night. He was amazed by his hands, which showed no sign of freezing darkness. What had she done to him? Had she taken all his shadow?
He strode through the sewers and passed through the secret entrance into the worship hall of Kirenkirsalai’s lair, where he immediately stopped. The sharp scent of blood assailed his nostrils. Had the master fed just recently? He was ever such a messy eater.
Then he heard the labored panting and saw Vaelis—the Master’s personal Shadowbane—propped up against the altar to the Reaver. His blood-filled eyes glared out at the monk as he panted and shivered. The boy looked awful—pale as a corpse, having lost so much blood through his severed arm that he should be dead now. Vaelis appeared to have cauterized the wound with his black flames, or perhaps it was sheer hatred that kept his heart pumping. For the life of him, Hessar could not say why the boy yet lived.
The life of him …
That was how Hessar felt: infused with life, rather than shadow. Myrin Darkdance may have been his enemy, but she had done him a great service in stripping the shadow from his soul.
He was free, with nothing but potential before him.
Was this how the Shadowfox felt? To think herself free? He’d misjudged her, perhaps.
Vaelis gagged, drawing Hessar’s attention, and the monk sighed. “No master to heal you, my lovely boy? Now that the sun is rising, I fear he’ll be gone until nightfall as well. Pity. Such a waste of so perfect a body.” He kneeled and kissed Vaelis lightly. “You taste of fear and death.”
Vaelis glared at him, unable to speak.
“What terrible misfortune befalls you.” Hessar straightened up. “But alas, I’ve no healing to offer—not now that I am a creature of the light. I am quit of you both.”
He turned to go, then hesitated. Something pulled him back. He felt, in the pit of his stomach, a swell of compassion for Vaelis that had nothing to do with desire. He marveled at his pale hands once more. What had that woman done?
Ultimately, though, even cleansed of his inner darkness, Hessar was the man he had always been: selfish and without pity. He bowed to Vaelis one last time. “Farewell, and may your next life treat you bet—”
He never finished the word, for at that moment a pair of dark-skinned hands closed around his neck and cracked it in a particular way. Hessar knew that particular move—had done it on more than one victim. He fell immediately, his entire body paralyzed.
“I wish I could claim to be surprised you turned on me, once-shade,” Kirenkirsalai said. “But your people were never reliably loyal to anything but their own interests. Much like mine.”
Hessar tried to protest, but his voice would not work. He could only gag.
“You have betrayed me three times,” Kirenkirsalai said. “One, in your stupidity, you told Levia Shadewalker of us. You thought to lord yourself over her, and in so doing sacrificed the only value you had—your secrecy.”
Hessar wheezed. Perhaps given time, he could recover, but he had to survive that long.
“Two, you coerced Ilira into your bed.” Kirenkirsalai looked disgusted. “I may be a monster, but I will not tolerate such a travesty.”
He tried desperately to speak—to defend himself—but all he could manage was drool.
“Three.” Kirenkirsalai seized Hessar’s head. “You attacked my child. Mine.”
Fear gripped Hessar. In all his time in service to Shar, he had never seen such rage or hatred as filled the vampire’s eyes. He knew then that he was done.
Kirenkirsalai dropped him to lie paralyzed on the bloody floor. He could dimly see around him several other shadowy figures—tall, pale creatures that must once have drawn breath. They regarded him with all the passion a broken earthworm might elicit. Kirenkirsalai had not been idle, it seemed, and he had plenty of other loyal servants to do his bidding.
The vampire stepped past and bent over the trembling Vaelis.
“Such weak flesh, but such powerful spirit.” He ran one talon down Vaelis’s cheek. “Your use has not run out, my child. If I preserve you, will you slay Kalen Dren for me?”
Vaelis’s lips shook, and blood flew from his mouth as he tried to breathe. “Y-yes,” he managed. “Yes—”
“The time has come, then, to complete your gift. This is a blessing.”
Kire bit savagely into Vaelis’s throat. The boy gasped, his whole body went taut, then he collapsed. Flesh tore, and the boy’s head lolled.
Face coated with lifeblood, Kire turned back to Hessar. “I suppose you’re wondering why I did not kill you.”
Hessar trembled but could not move. His hands twitched with life of their own.
“When he wakes”—Kire smiled through the gore—“my new son will need a meal.”
Ensconced in his office in the Eye of Justice—the office he was borrowing from Uthias Darkwell—Lilten drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk and stared at the coroniir board laid out before him. Several of the pieces were destroyed, while others lay entwined. Entirely too many obsidian figurines stood on the board: the black lord knight, particularly, and of course the black king. It seemed the vampire had the same plan he had conceived long ago: to create a new Shadowbane to wield Vindicator.
“You always have feared that sword, old friend,” Lilten said. “It will prove your undoing one of these centuries—the sword or your cowardice.”
He reached across and removed the black sorcerer, marking Hessar’s disappearance from the game. Myrin had done quite well with that one. But there were still many pieces waiting, most of them black. Had he let Ilira distract his attention such that his foes had closed in around him? In his eternal arrogance, Lilten was certain this could not have gone so badly … unless some of his pieces did not truly belong to him.
He sensed the arrival of his daughter before he could see her. The child had always been clumsy with the Art, even if she believed otherwise. It was not entirely a surprise that she was here—she would be more surprised to see him—but rather something of a disappointment.
He wove a counterspell. “So your erstwhile mother’s vengeance waits for another night.”
Fayne shimmered into being in the middle of the room, stunned. Her shocked expression told him what had happened. Cloaked in illusion magic, she’d ventured up to Lord Darkwell’s chambers to steal something (and he had a good idea what). She’d expected to go undetected by the dozing lord in the chair, and she certainly had not expected him to dispel her invisibility. She wore a disguise, of course, although exactly which face she’d chosen took him somewhat by surprise: Levia Shadewalker.
She stood up straight in a passable imitation of the repressed priestess. Truly, Lilten would have been impressed by her pluck had he not been in such a foul mood. “Lord Darkwell,” she said. “I was worried. You had not—”
Lilten had a theory, and he tested it. He assumed a predatory expression. “Hail, servant mine,” he said, in a pitch-perfect imitation of Kirenkirsalai, his old friend and enemy. “Come to take what I already possess, is it?”
Fayne visibly calmed. “Master,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. How did you penetrate the Eye of Justice? Don’t they have wards against—?” Then her eyes widened. “Gods. Father?”
“I am disappointed, child.” Lilten sighed. “You’ve as much as told me you were working for my adversary, and I hardly had to deceive you. Very disappointed.”
He rose from his seat and casually threw the desk aside with a flick of his left arm.
Startled, Fayne raised her sword by instinct to ward him off, but Lilten called upon the curse of Beshaba and in response Fayne slashed open her own throat with the blade. She fell to her knees, her hands pressed over the spurting wound.
“My, what terrible luck.” Lilten strolled toward her, his momentary anger vanished. “Swords are such dreadfully dangerous things. So sharp.”
He ran one finger through the air right by her cheek, and his invisible claw split her skin open, leaving a trail of blood. She was not the only one who concealed a dark heritage.
“Father …” Fayne took one hand away from her throat to paw at him. “Please …”
Lilten brushed off her pawing hand and she sank into a spreading pool of blood.
He let her choke a few breaths, then sighed. “At least take off that awful face when you speak to me,” he said. “Levia Shadewalker is so ugly, even for a half-elf.”
“But—” Fayne said.
“I would do it quickly, ’ere you run out of blood and breath.”
With whatever will she could muster, Fayne dispelled her disguise. She became herself, although it did nothing to fix the gaping wound in her throat. “Heal … me …”
“I hesitate to do so, child,” Lilten said. “After all, you’ve betrayed me.”
“No choice,” she managed. “Threatened me … Vampire—”
“Oh, no—you misunderstand.” Lilten kneeled down, putting his face in hers. “I understand entirely why you would work for Kirenkirsalai. Indeed, why do you think I brought you to Westgate? I knew he would seek to turn you or manipulate you, and so he has done. You are my cat’s paw in his ranks—my own little spy. No, that isn’t why I’m angry.”
He grasped her wrist, and it was clear his superior strength could wrench her hand in a heartbeat and she would die on his floor. Her terrified eyes shot to his.
“Did I not forbid you to attack Ilira Nathalan?” Lilten said. “Did I not?”
“But—” Fayne’s words broke. “I don’t … What is she to you?”
“Far more than your mother, that is for certain.”
The veins standing out in her forehead, her eyes stormy, Fayne looked so upset that she almost pulled her hand away and died just for spite. Lilten held her hand in place, however—he wasn’t finished with her.
“What now?” Fayne had grown pale. She gasped and choked on her words. Blood leaked from her mouth. “You’ll kill me … because I betrayed you? Father?”
At length, Lilten shook his head. “Such punishments are the mark of a small mind.”
He spoke a melodious phrase in ancient Elvish, and the wound in her throat closed. Fayne coughed and gagged on the floor, but at least she would not die.
“Always remember, you are my daughter, and I love you.” He ran his hand over her red-pink hair. “But do that again, and I will not save you from yourself. Understood?”
She nodded weakly. “Thank—thank you.”
He smiled. “I didn’t revive you out of pity,” he said, “but because I need you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “For—for what?”
“To do what I always do when I’m losing the game,” Lilten said. “Change the rules.”
Eyes puffy with tears and hair plastered slick to her head with rain, Myrin had been searching for Ilira for hours. Her flight spell had expired around midnight, and she’d contented herself wandering the streets. She couldn’t go back to the Blue Banner—not with the Eye of Justice soldiers searching it—and she had tried the Purple Lady Festhall, Silks at Dawn, and even Aurora’s Emporium, all to no avail.
No one accosted her during her search. No one dared cross the wild-eyed, blue-haired wizard woman glowing with runes.
Surely Ilira would find her later, but Myrin had to search, if only so she didn’t have to think about what happened on that rooftop. What Kalen and Rhett had said … She shivered.
The rain ended shortly before dawn, and Myrin finally returned to Darkdance Manor, sure that Ilira would not have gone back there but unable to give up. She hadn’t yet had a chance to repair the wards on the gates, so they were still open. Just inside she noticed drops of bright blood on the stones in the courtyard garden.
With her heart beating in her throat, Myrin hurried inside only to find a gore-smeared Ilira meditating in the garden in the center of the chamber. The magic of the place kept the rain from falling through the open ceiling, but Ilira’s hair and clothes were plastered to her wiry body with sticky blood. The elf sat with her legs crossed on the marble platform, and in her lap was Brace’s torn and crumpled corpse.
“Thank you, Elevar,” she said as she accepted a crystal goblet of wine.
Myrin hadn’t even noticed her dwarf seneschal, next to the spectacle of Ilira. Ever dutiful, the blind mute bowed to Ilira, then to the newly arrived Myrin, then went on his way.
“What—?” Myrin asked. “What are you doing?”
Ilira traced her bare hand down Brace’s cheek—there was no burning, of course, as he was very dead. “I knew him only a little, but he was kind to me,” she said, “Many men are, of course, although when they find out what I am, their kindness inevitably wavers. Not him. If anything, learning of my curse only increased his affection. He should not be forgotten.”
She brushed at the tears on Brace’s cheeks—her own tears, Myrin realized. Then she closed her eyes, leaned down, and embraced the gnome tightly.
Ilira sang dark words in her beautiful elf voice—the closing refrains of a ritual Myrin was only seeing at the very end. As she watched, Brace’s body blurred and grew indistinct. He turned to what looked like black liquid and ran down through her embrace until he pooled on the marble beneath her. He became a shadow cast by the moon. Ilira’s shadow.
Myrin saw Brace’s name appear down Ilira’s left arm. This time, the tattoo took the form of flowing Espruar letters, the Elvish script, rather than the rougher syllables of Dwarvish Dethek she had worn on her breastbone. Even in death, the gnome clung to her joyfully.
“There,” Ilira said, eyes still shut. “I feel much better. Almost ready, in fact.”
“Ready for what?” Myrin asked, trembling.
Ilira’s eyes opened wide and black. “To kill Kalen Dren.”
The rain lessened and finally stopped just before dawn. Sunlight burned the distant horizon, chasing the clouds away.
It was then that Levia finally found Kalen on the rooftop where he had fallen. He lay partially submerged in muddy rainwater, the vicious black axe discarded a few paces away. His right hand reached toward the edge of the roof, the fingers curling helplessly into the air. His eyes stared blankly up at the lightening sky.
Levia had seen many corpses in her day, but none struck her as this did. The world slowed, and she could feel every beat of her heart like a hammer’s blow upon her chest. Something inside her was breaking, and she fell to her knees over Kalen.
She pounded on his chest although he did not flinch, cried his name although he showed no sign of having heard. She could not tell if he was dead, or locked so deep in his spellscar that he could see and hear but not respond. And she was not sure which would be worse.
She prayed to Torm—to the Threefold God—to any god who would give her the power to heal him, and poured her magic into his limp body. Over and over again she cast healing spells, begging him to wake, then begging without words. She kissed him over and over. She slapped him across the face. She screamed her outrage to the heavens.
Finally, she collapsed onto him, covered her face, and wept.
She could not say how long she stayed with him, crying as she had not let herself cry in the three years since their parting. She wept until there were no tears left, then wept anew.
The sun was rising. Westgate was waking.
Levia felt broken, leather wrapped fingers on her cheek. She sniffed.
“I was wrong,” Kalen said. “I have always been wrong.”
Then tears welled in his eyes, and Levia cradled his head against her breast as he wept.