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Chapter Text

“Raqim?”

It almost hurt the way these northerners pronounced his name, with a sharp “k” like the blade of a knife, chopping it in half.

Like his life.

The last thing he recalled he was dying in the desert outside Botosani with his comrades of the Pure Legion, after a sweep of the ruins a couple of leagues southwest of the city startled an enclave of Sarenrites, which would explain why he was wearing his desert gear, but not the lack of blood.

And then there were nightmares, but these slipped through the fingers of his mind like sand. Meaningless jumbled images. Molten, screaming souls. Stitching hands. Alchemy and sulphur.

And then—cold. Colder than a tomb, the air here. His head as if clamped in a stone vice, suddenly released. An angel? Confused, incomprehensible voices ringing in his ears. Pain like someone was trying to pry out his sternum with a white-hot crowbar.

Nothing made sense.

Since that awakening the ensuing madness gave no reprieve from the nightmares: inquisitors, demons, earthquakes, a bad fall, fighting for his life through a maze full of monsters and demonic cultists. People telling him the year was 4715. Seventy-seven years was not something one simply lost.

“Raqim Ag Adar,” he said again. The Queen’s scribe stared at him, a drop of ink beading at the end of her plume.

He spelled it for her in Taldane and she still got it wrong, writing his family name as one word: Agadar.

There was a boy once who held his father’s hand while his father patiently spelled out their names for a clerk at a refugee camp, a Sarenrite symbol clasped tightly between their palms out of sight of the Rahadoumi. The Rahadoumi found it anyway and took it away. That boy was already a limb hacked from a tree. Lost.

Now like a branch hacked from that limb, there remained only this man.

Raqim Agadar. Knight-Commander of the Mendevian Fifth Crusade.

Chapter Text

Hey, stay with me.

You’re gonna be all right.

What was it with angels coming down from the Heavens to his rescue? He didn’t ask for it, he didn’t want it, and yet this was at least the second in a week.

Maybe it was the pain clouding his vision, but her kind, brown face seemed bathed in an otherworldly halo.

So tempting to succumb to the light.

Fiercely the words fought their way out: “No... divine... healing.”

Seelah pulled her hands back and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. A stubborn ass, but a badly wounded stubborn ass. “What about draconic healing? Acceptable? Yes? Just nod your head.”

He nodded his head.

“Terendelev! Has anyone seen Terendelev?”

He already died once. The pain was not just the sting of the blade slicing into his gut but a blinding agony that obliterated all rational thought. This was a thousandfold worse because he had to endure it conscious. Soul-deep, rending him in half, without even the mercy to shut off his mind.

Which swam with unanswered questions. By all logic his soul should be blissfully asleep in the Boneyard, gradually turning to dust under the eroding beams of Groetus’ moon.

Yet the moonlight that washed over him was not the life-stealing gray of entropy, but lively and silvery, cooling and soothing, pouring into the crevice in his chest and gently mending flesh and bone, if not whatever else was broken inside him.

From all around amidst the light, a deep, beautiful, feminine voice resonated in powerful cadence, every word banishing more of the pain: “Cast off the veil of suffering flesh. Let light and life go forth in triumph to repel the skulking shade of death.”

Not a divine prayer. Acceptable.

He might weep with gratitude. Breathing again, trembling with relief, he raised himself on an elbow. In his mind a child’s voice begged: Raqim! Let me see the dragon!

But as his vision sharpened, he found that the source of the silvery light shining down on him was no dragon, but a snow-haired northern woman in luminous armor, her skin ice-pale and her eyes ancient and sorrowful as glaciers.

Oh.

Somehow, he knew. And the language she had spoken—somehow, he knew that too.

“You’re the dragon,” he said.

“Yes. I am Terendelev, guardian of this city.”

The child’s voice within went quiet with awe. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied cordially, stooping to help him sit up. “But my work is not yet done. Your wound is no ordinary injury.”

He rubbed his chest. Intact, though a profound chafing sensation persisted. This mysterious pain had dogged him since he awoke from death: not the mortal scimitar wound to the gut that was the last thing he recalled, but a bone-deep schism as if his chest would split apart. He tried to piece it all together—his death, his awakening, his escape into some nightmare landscape full of vicious plants and malformed beasts, and now this—and was helpless to make sense of any of it.

He raised his eyes to the dragon and opened his mouth, but was given no time to question her. The clanking of armor announced another northerner, this one with a greying moustache and furiously bristling brows. “Who are you?” he demanded, narrowed eyes glaring daggers. “I would know if I’d seen you around before.”

“Prelate, I beg you.” The dragon turned to him. “This man is gravely wounded.”

Realizing that if he was going to be interrogated he had precious few answers to offer, Raqim pressed his thumb to his forehead. “Forgive me, I must be disoriented. Where am I?”

“You are in Kenabres, Mendev, among the faithful of Iomedae.”

Mendev. The Crusades.

The demons, the angels, the dragon, all these pale northern faces hovering over him. Madness and chaos. “That would explain a few things,” he muttered. “But not all of them.”

Seelah spied a twinkle of dark amusement in the Rahadoumi’s eye as their arms locked and she hauled him to his feet. He clung to her a moment to steady himself, but the Prelate wasted no time. The instant the man was up he barked, “Come with me.”

“Hey, go easy on him,” she protested. “I don’t sense anything off.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, young paladin,” snapped the Prelate, seizing the dazed man by the elbow and marching him off to the temple.

Watching them go, Seelah sighed. There wasn’t a lot she could do. So far the Crusades just weren’t turning out how she expected. Still, even if you had to walk on eggshells around the Prelate there was a lot of good that could be done.

And there were friends.

Mugs raised at the beer garden across the square, Jannah, Elan and Curl hailed her. She grinned. Today was City Day, and she was just getting started.

But before she headed over to join them, something compelled her to glance back, and by chance the wounded man also turned to look over his shoulder, and their gaze met for an instant. The only way she could think to describe his expression was lost.

“I will remind you that the word ‘crusade’ derives from the word for faith. In my view, atheists are a meager step up from demon-worshippers, Raqim Ag Adar of Azir. You walk safely in this city by the grace of Our Lady the Inheritor, and I’d advise you to show her due gratitude.”

He wished the Prelate would get up and pace while he lectured him, instead of sitting rigidly across the desk, staring him down. As an agent of the Pure Legion, Raqim expected a certain deference from those he brought in for questioning, and was willing to extend the same courtesy to Prelate Hulrun Shappok while a guest in his city, but sitting still for a sermon from an old zealot made his teeth hurt. In his lap, his fists tightened on the enchanted fabric of his white-and-gold overcoat. It was filthy from the trek through what he supposed must have been the Worldwound, and hardly upheld the dignity he wished to project.

“I have a sense for these things, and your claim that you’re here as a crusader I find more than suspect.”

For his part, Raqim began to more than suspect the man was mad.

Upon arrival in his office the Prelate made plain his ignorance by digging through his files until he found one under “R” marked “Rahadoum,” and proceeded to quiz Raqim on the most banal of facts about his homeland, apparently in order to discern whether he was a demonic cultist in disguise. National bird. Capital city. Motto.

The way he huffed and showed the whites of his eyes at Raqim’s recitation of Onaku’s First Law, “Let no man be beholden to a god,” Raqim almost let a twinkle of amusement betray him.

The Prelate carried on scowling. Or perhaps that was just his resting face. “What is the true reason for your presence here?”

Knowing it was unlikely he would find a sympathetic ear for his real predicament, Raqim felt it wise to double down on the convenient lie that he was a crusader: “I hoped to make my mark putting mortal ingenuity to work against the Abyss.”

“Well,” said the Prelate gleefully, “look how far your mortal ingenuity has gotten you.”

Raqim’s jet eyes began to smolder. A whiff of smoke like a snuffed candle went unnoticed by the Prelate as he scanned his notes, plume in hand.

“Date of arrival in Mendev?”

“I’m... not sure,” said Raqim truthfully. “I left Azir in Abadius.”

“It is Abadius. What, did you teleport?”

He missed the sarcasm. In a modern city like Azir, teleportation was not so unusual. “No, I came by ship across the sea and up the Sellen. I left in Abadius 4648.”

The Prelate’s eyes narrowed. He began to count on his fingers. “You’re telling me it took you… seventy-seven years to arrive in Mendev.”

Raqim was speechless. Was this a ruse?

Or, between the moment of his apparent death in the desert outside Botosani and this awakening, could seventy-seven years have passed?

He drew a hand over his eyes.

All the blood had fled his brain. The Prelate’s voice sounded far away.

Somehow, blessedly, his mind could still do the math. “I mean 4714. I... beg your pardon, Prelate. I am still unwell from my wound.”

The old crusader leaned back in his creaking chair. “I am not satisfied with any of the answers you’ve given me today. And even if you aren’t a cultist, your atheist claptrap is hardly welcome here among the Inheritor’s faithful.”

Too stunned to offer any resistance, Raqim only nodded. How the tables had turned.

Finally the Prelate did get up and pace. He went and stood at the window, muttering into his moustache before turning back to Raqim. “Still, Terendelev has asked that I set you free, and I will defer to her wisdom.”

A dragon’s mercy. Raqim let out a pent-up breath.

“Know that we’re keeping a sharp eye on you. The first sign of spreading your godlessness and you’ll be cooling your heels in the Inquisition prison.”

Ungently ushered back out into the riotous city he stood a moment on the temple threshold. The irrational smell of incense still clung to his clothes. He was a man who doubted everything but his own eyes, yet now even those seemed to betray him: inexplicably spread out before him was a stinking, archaic Avistani settlement of wood, stone and mud, hopelessly distant in space and time from the shining towers of Azir. Worse, either the crusaders had all gone mad from their proximity to the Worldwound, or there was a celebration going on in the square. Whatever the case, perhaps he could find the dragon Terendelev and beg for her wise counsel.

Raqim steadied himself. Like once long ago, a stranger in a foreign land.

In his mind a small hand slipped into his, seeking reassurance.

Not realizing he echoed his Aba: Don’t fret, Amir. We’ll find our way.

Chapter Text

She blinked the grit from her eyes and staggered to her feet. Nasty fall, but still in one piece far as she could tell, thank the Inheritor. Her boot slipped on a loose stone, this close to bringing her down on her sore knee again.

Watch where you put your feet, blockhead.

Steadying herself on what remained of the maypole, splintered wood and shredded garlands wedged among jumbled slabs of brick, she paused to take stock of her predicament. Dust drizzled like fine rain. Something crashed in the distance, wood and stone reshaping itself from festivity to destruction.

A yelp of pain rang out.

Now she was moving. No time to watch where she put her feet. In the dark she stumbled over the wreckage toward the source of the voice. “Hang on!”

A jut of broken wood snagged her gambeson and she had to stop and fight with it.

“I’m hangin’,” called the voice. A voice Seelah knew from somewhere, though she couldn’t quite place it.

She jumped down from a pile of shattered cobblestones and her knee twinged like a son of a bitch but that wasn’t important right now.

“Keep talking,” she shouted. “And don’t move.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere. In fact, that’s kinda the problem.”

Rough work, navigating the wreckage amidst feeble, dusty streams of light falling from the crevice overhead. She barked her shin on a beam and both she, and the voice, simultaneously cursed.

“I was just prayin’ to Desna for a friendly paladin to trip over me.” Irabeth Tirabade’s wife, gray with dust from head to toe, lay wedged under the heavy beams of what Seelah thought might once have been the bandstand.

“Happy to help,” she said wryly, rubbing her shin. “I guess that leg’s stuck. How’s it feeling?

“It’s not. Except when you kick it.”

“Well. Small blessings. Let’s get you out of there.”

What felt like hours later, Seelah finally took a breather and plopped down on the ground next to her. Every time she tried to lift the beam that was pinning the beam that was pinning her leg, other debris shifted and just made it worse. She rubbed her raw palms on her knees and sighed.

“You should have asked Desna for a smarter paladin. At least I’m good company.”

“I’ll give you that. Thanks for helpin’ out. I’m Anevia Tirabade, by the way.”

“Seelah. Nice to be stuck down here in this black hole with you.”

Whatever Anevia was about to reply, she stopped suddenly and glanced sharply down the tunnel.

From out of the darkness, a figure rose like the answer to their prayers, clad in luminous white and gold, and bearing a brightly flaming torch. A gift from the heavens.

“Hey, friend!” Seelah jumped to her feet and instantly regretted it. “Ow ow ow. We could really use a hand here.”

With only a nod as greeting, he strode up and wedged his torch into the debris so he could assess the situation.

She recognized him: the wounded stubborn-ass Rahadoumi from the city square. Must have escaped the Prelate somehow. The fabric at his chest was stiff with dried blood but he seemed very much alive, well, and not in prison, which Seelah was glad to see. He must be having an even worse day than she was.

When he finished his inspection he looked her up and down. “Are you injured?”

“No, I’m Seelah. Nice to meet you.“

“Drag that rock over and wedge it under the beam, right there.”

Before she could give him the look, he was already turned away and picking through the debris, searching for something. Seelah exchanged a glance with Anevia and shrugged. At least somebody seemed to know what to do.

So she set to work, and presently she had the rock where he wanted it, and he had a pole braced against a boulder as a fulcrum, and everyone was all set. He counted down: “Three, two, one.”

As the lever lifted the top beam, Seelah felt the weight ease up enough to heft the bottom one. “Hurry,” she grunted, but Anevia groaned, struggling to extract her leg without twisting it any more than it already was.

Seelah echoed her groan. Pain lanced through her knee but by all the good gods and a couple of the questionable ones she was not going to drop this thing and crush Anevia Tirabade’s leg.

An ominous crack sent a bolt of fear through her limbs.

The Rahadoumi shouted, “Hold on!”

And for one brief, heroic moment, Seelah stood holding up the whole thing—both of the huge hardwood beams and everything atop them, all at once. The lever had snapped and Anevia was still crawling over the debris and Seelah’s knee felt like it was going to burst into flames, not to mention the searing burn in every fiber of trembling muscle in her body. Something had to give.

It gave.

Seelah felt her fingers slip.

With a grunt of pain Anevia heaved her body over the jumbled wreckage like a desperate inchworm.

The beam collapsed along with the other beam atop it, and the whole thing came crashing down around them. All she could do was jump clear.

Dread in her heart, Seelah waved away the rising cloud of dust. “Everybody all right?”

The Rahadoumi was fine. Staring wide-eyed at her, his olive-brown skin gone slightly gray with shock, he picked himself up and brushed off the seat of his pants with as much dignity as he could muster.

“Ankle’s broke,” said Anevia from where she sprawled among the rubble. Also fine, thank the Inheritor. “But um. Coulda been worse.”

Together Seelah and the Rahadoumi knelt on either side of her, frowning at her swollen ankle. It was definitely broken and in no shape to support her weight, which it very much needed to do if they were going to get to the surface any time soon.

Only one solution. Seelah had been a paladin for a few years now, but she could never quite shake feeling like a pest when she tugged on the Inheritor’s cape to ask for something. Right now she didn’t see many other options. Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and concentrated with all her might, until thankfully she felt that familiar, friendly touch on the shoulder that meant Iomedae was at her side. Warm energy tingled in her hands. She reached out for Anevia’s ankle—

“Tsk.” The Rahadoumi actually clucked his tongue at her.

Her eyes snapped open. The man was frowning, one eyebrow raised.

In the face of this affront she felt her divine magic fizzle out. “What is your p—“

“Hold still,” he instructed Anevia, and a few moments later came back with three sturdy sticks, which he arranged carefully alongside her leg.

As Seelah watched, fuming silently but bracing the sticks as he instructed, he then unwound the tagelmust from his head and used it to wrap the splint firmly in place; and as he did, a thick, long mass of black hair spilled out down his shoulders. Against her will, Seelah found herself admiring the picture.

His hands moved with confidence, knotting and tucking the remaining fabric. When he finished he looked up at Seelah with a curious expression. “I believe you can support her weight,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll scout the passage ahead.” He rose and recovered his torch while she helped Anevia to her feet.

“Let’s start over. I’m Seelah, paladin by the grace of Iomedae. And you are?”

“Raqim Ag Adar of Azir.”

Anevia draped an arm over her shoulder. She didn’t weigh much. Seelah gave him a cheerful smile. “I guessed you were Rahadoumi, but if you don’t mind my saying, you look Qadiran.”

The glance he turned on her was sharp, and his response more vehement than strictly necessary, she thought. “My family originated in Qadira, but I am from Rahadoum. I am Rahadoumi.”

“Gotcha. My story’s not so different. My family were from Geb but I mostly grew up in Solku, so I guess I’m Katapeshi now. Came to Mendev to lend a hand with the Crusades. And yourself? Crusader?”

His answer was a non-committal grunt that could have meant anything from “of course” to “how dare you suggest such a thing.” No way to tell.

“Can we exchange life stories over a beer when we’re back up on the surface?” Anevia begged.

“Yeah, sorry. Let’s go.” Carefully, Seelah shouldered her weight, and confident they would soon see the open sky once again, set out limping bravely forth.

While he picked his way along the littered cavern floor, Raqim pieced together what he could from the paladin and the city guard’s hushed voices behind him: the unexpected failure of something called “Wardstones” to protect the city from a demon attack, probably as a result of sabotage. Interestingly, Anevia seemed to take the failure personally.

When they stopped to rest he questioned them further, only to discover to his horror that these Wardstones they spoke of were divine artifacts.

These people had put all their stock in gods to protect them.

No more engineering than standard fortress defenses, and no arcane technology he could discern. They simply prayed, and they hoped.

And of course, they were failed.

He pressed his thumb to his forehead. “Madness,” he murmured.

The paladin misunderstood what he meant. “I don’t even want to think about what might be happening up there in the city,” she said. “Even Terendelev’s gone.”

Raqim squeezed his eyes shut. It broke his heart. Why would an ancient, noble dragon sacrifice herself to protect this city from its own foolishness?

The paladin, Seelah, went on, “Inheritor, look out for folks up there.” Suddenly something occurred to her and she reached out to squeeze the guard around the shoulders. “Hey—I’m sure Irabeth’s all right.”

“You bet she is.” The guard gave a wan smirk. “Things are lookin’ grim, but Kenabres will never give in. Simple as.”

One thing was clear: the dragon loved this city, and so did these people. Deluded, perhaps, but brave. Raqim took a long breath. Nothing made any sense except this. “Let’s get to the surface and see what we can do to help.”

The paladin flashed him a grin as she helped the Anevia up again. “Right on. You’re my kinda crazy, Raqim. Just get me to the surface and point me at some demons.”

I am not your kind of crazy, he thought, but silently held up his torch and led the way.

Chapter Text

“The youth of your tribe ran off into a dangerous maze, and instead of rallying your folk and going after them, you came here, to this dusty museum, to look for an angelic sword.” Raqim did feel a certain sympathy for the poor malformed man but this was too much. “Why do you need it to lead your people? If the time truly is right for them to go to the surface and fight, your rhetoric should suffice.”

“I’ve tried reasoning with Sull. Pulling a magic sword out of a rock is easier.”

Doubtless. Raqim’s eyes twinkled. He was beginning to suspect that reasoning with anyone in Mendev was a losing battle. “And if we help you, you’ll use the sword to save your tribe, lead us to the surface and fight the demons by our side.”

“And redeem our people in the eyes of all and live happily ever after, yeah, right.”

Despite the level-headed dark humor, this Lann was as mad as everyone else around here. At least his concern for his tribe seemed genuine enough.

Raqim closed his eyes.

When I open them, let me be in Azir.

No luck. Torchlight cast flickering shadows across the mosaic of Lann’s face, staring back at him with one human and one lizard eye.

This cannot be my life now.

There was nothing else for it but to soldier on. “Very well, Lann. Let’s split up and search.”

This part of the cavern was drier than the tunnels they’d come up from and blessedly free of giant centipedes. Glancing up through the gloom at the bizarre, lean shadows cast by Wenduag and Lann, Raqim thought he could guess why.

(It was an unkind thought and he knew it. How the Rahadoumi children had plagued him when they learned that Qadirans ate roasted locusts. He had to pretend to be as disgusted as they were, and now, many years later, he truly was. Except when he was starving in the Worldwound, and then it turned out the locusts really were disgusting.)

Not that giant centipedes were a real threat. He knew how to wrangle them by jamming a boot behind the last segment of the head carapace, paralyzing them until the half-elf with the rapier or the paladin could skewer the things.

The paladin, Seelah: rushing headlong into a fight thinking her goddess would save her. He told her to stand aside and she said “No, you stand aside,” and because she was good with a blade and he was good at incapacitating crawly things they were at a stalemate.

As he rummaged through a pile of stones against the back wall, a tiny chip of gold caught his eye; and soon he cleared a space around an ornate golden sword sticking straight up out of the stone, shining like a fresh morning even after a hundred years down here.

“Lann!” he called, reaching for the hilt.

And Raqim the unbeliever suddenly found himself in the body of an angel.

A body not of flesh and bone but sunlight made solid. Impossibly pure and weightless. The fierce flame in his breast flared into blinding, holy fire. Through these eyes, Golarion appeared dark and ugly. It was all wrong.

Raqim tried to call for help but the angel’s body did not respond. It was occupied with something else, and his rising panic dissipated as he realized this must be a dream. Some story was unfolding and he was only along for the ride. Soon he would awaken.

He has been betrayed. At his feet one loyal mortal lies bleeding out, urging him to save himself. He should rain fury on the traitors, but it is more important to help this woman, and accomplish the greater mission before him. A huge demonic locust like the one he remembers from Kenabres lashes out from the darkness and seizes him by the throat. Its voice is the rasping of a million wings. “Where is your goddess, angel?” Raqim wants to laugh wildly in its mandibled face: “I serve no goddess,” but no words form in this dream. Righteous anger shapes itself into a blade of searing light in his hand. Though dying, he strikes at the demon. Its shrieks echo through the caverns as it flees. Tossed against the rocks, he lies bleeding pure energy into the foul air. The angel promises: “One day, someone will come here and raise up my sword.”

The Light of Heaven.

Raqim awoke on his feet, almost relieved to find himself again in the gloom of the caverns somewhere under Mendev.

But the dream had not fully left him. He still felt the sword, a phantom weight in his arm, tugging in a numinous wind as if it would deploy like a sail. Everyone had gathered and was watching him.

He thrust his hand out. It sprang from his arm as if from its sheath, golden and shining.

The ghost of a long-dead child clung to his mind: Make a light, Raqim. I’m scared.

Don’t be frightened, Amir.

Wenduag whispered, “Is that what the sun looks like?”

Seelah dropped to one knee. “That is just… wow! That’s amazing. Heaven truly has blessed you, friend.”

“No it hasn’t,” he snapped. In a panic he held it out to Lann. “Take it.”

“I—me? I don’t think I can, but I’ll try.” His hand passed right through the ghostly hilt. “I guess it likes you better.”

“Give it to me,” snarled Wenduag, suddenly much more interested in this fool’s errand than earlier; but her clawed fingers passed through it as well.

“You take it.” Raqim almost threw it at the paladin Seelah, who made a move to catch it, but the sword remained firmly in his palm and wouldn’t come off. He stood there for a moment trying in vain to shake it loose.

Awestruck, Seelah poked a finger right through the golden light of the blade. “Can’t touch it. Looks like you’re stuck with Heaven’s blessing, Raqim.”

“I don’t want it!”

At that Wenduag turned her head and spat. “You. Thousands of gongs and you walk in here, some ordinary creature like the rest of us, and just take the sword. And now you say you don’t even want it?”

“Now Wendu, don’t be a sore loser,” Lann joked, but his expression was deadly serious. “Listen, Raqim, you don’t think I could borrow you for a bit? Just hold you up and show you to Chief Sull so we can go save our people? You uplanders care about your kids, right? Help us save ours.”

Our kids, Raqim thought, watching in consternation as the blade gradually dimmed and shrank back into his palm, where he could feel it sizzling under his skin. But he was thinking of another sort of kid, little bleating goat kids leaping from rock to rock while he and Amir chased them and gathered them and kept them safe. Someone had to.

He took a long breath and nodded. “All right, Lann. If I can help you, I will.”

With Lann and Wenduag to lead them, they clambered over the remains of ancient landslides and into the deeper tunnels, which were lit softly by a million veins of phosphorescent fungus threading across every stone surface.

Presently a muffled snorting pierced through his ruminations, and he turned to lift an eyebrow at this Seelah.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed. “We’re in a serious situation, but some Pure Legion guy trying to shake a holy sword off his hand like a booger is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

Anevia bit her lip and lowered her face.

Raqim couldn’t help it. Her laugh was infectious. He may have let a twinkle slip past him before he cleared his throat and turned back to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, hoping to find his way to the end of this nightmare.

Chapter Text

A wince betrayed her. Seelah’s knee was giving her more and more grief, twinging as she picked her way down yet another rocky incline. She decided she would call on the Inheritor for a little help as soon as they reached somewhere safe.

Raqim reached out to lend a supporting hand. “You should put a bladder of cold water on that.”

“Are you seriously saying I’m better off freezing it than laying on hands?”

“I’m saying you should learn not to rely on divine healing. When the goddess’ power is taken away, what will you do then?”

“Fix my heart or die.”

In the torchlight their gazes locked.

He was the first to look away. She removed her hand from his. They continued in silence. Wenduag looked like she would kill them if they kept talking anyway.

The path wound steeply down to an underground river, blackness mirroring blackness, in the midst of which squatted a mean-looking settlement of skin huts. Strange figures warmed their misshapen bones around fires built of the scrap that had rained from Kenabres. They squatted together mending fishing nets, fletching arrows with fins instead of feathers, macerating meal of mushrooms and moss. An alien constellation of human and inhuman eyes turned on Raqim as he passed.

Torn between Heaven’s futility and the slow corruption of the Abyss, Neathers had survived exile to the bowels of Mendev by banding together. Lann and Wenduag had different visions of what that entailed, but they were both equally bound by that loyalty. Raqim had rarely seen a starker illustration of the plight of mortality.

Reflecting on it kept his mind off his own plight, at least for a moment.

He knew he wasn’t thinking sensibly. He kept starting to puzzle over the events that had led him here, realizing with precipitous dread just how lost and alone he was, and leaping straight to the impossible hope of some miraculous awakening back home in Azir surrounded by friends. Some of whom he had watched die. His mind must be clouded by all this angelic nonsense.

Because practically speaking, even if he did make it back home to Azir they had no reason to believe his story. No one knew him anymore. They would think him some mad Sarenrite, and he would have to prove himself to them all over again. Work twice as hard as anyone else and still get passed up for promotions and laughed off as if the gift of his heart were a joke. Maryam. What a fool he’d been.

Though the worst horror hovered at the edge of his mind. He refused to let it in, but it persisted. Urgently whispering.

Everyone he’d ever known was dead.

He was the most orphaned mortal ever to walk Golarion. The elves had a word for it: the Forlorn.

His friends, his comrades. Witty Sami, gentle Bardia, temperamental Arsha. Even the gap-toothed boy in the slums next door to his Aba had grown up, grown old and died. Maryam too.

His Aba.

And his last words to him were—

If he thought about it his heart might shatter.

But Lann was leading them up the main path to the chieftain’s hut and more immediate concerns relieved him of those thoughts for now.

The Neather chieftain was a startling fellow: bloated, rat-toothed, noseless, with one milk-white eye and sparse, wiry gray hair like the branches of a spindly tree. Labored breath whistling, he ambled out to greet them.

Raqim gave him a deep bow.

Clearly this venerable Neather had survived countless gongs in these hostile caverns and earned the respect of his kinsmen, and besides, in Raqim’s experience physical beauty was no guarantee of a pure heart, nor was ugliness a gauge of sin. Raqim felt very inclined to trust in his wisdom no matter that both Lann and Wenduag sought to manipulate him to their own purposes.

“You have my thanks for your hospitality, Chief Sull.” He felt Lann’s and Wenduag’s eyes in silent battle, exerting opposite forces of gravity.

To Raqim, Wenduag’s plan seemed more sensible, but the way she’d been ready to sacrifice “a few stupid kids,” as she put it, gave him a chill. Nor could he countenance using an angelic sword to lead these people to their death. He would place his trust in the chieftain alone. He held out his hand and the glowing blade blazed to life. “In your caverns, an angelic sword seems to have attached itself to me. Perhaps you know how to remove it?”

Lann sighed. Wenduag hissed. Seelah muffled a laugh.

Always prepared to salvage what could be salvaged, Lann lunged forward. “Chief, it’s the Light of Heaven! Gather the tribe. There might still be time to save the young ones.”

A cloudy tear wound its way down the creases of Chief Sull’s face. He wiped it away with a paw-like hand. “Sho it’sh true. The angel came back for ush. For our children.”

“No—I mean yes, he did, but that’s not important,” Raqim protested, holding the sword out like a smelly rag. Neathers gathered out of the darkness to marvel at the prismatic light of the blade dangling from his hand. “This is yours. Please, take it. I promised Lann to help you find your children but this sword is for you to carry.”

The chief’s hand opened, closed, and disappeared back within his sleeve. He shook his massive head. “Not for me, no. I will shummon the tribesh. In the meantime you are welcome here, uplandersh.” With that he shuffled off to instruct his messengers.

Waving off heated words from Wenduag, Lann gave Raqim a nod. “Listen, I don’t believe in magical swords any more than you do, but Sull and the rest of the mongrels do, and so do the monsters in the maze, and all that matters is that we get those kids out of there in one piece. So I’m not sure whether I really should say this, but thank you.”

“You see these people? Their blood will be on your hands.” Wenduag spat as she shouldered her bow and stalked off into the darkness.

Seelah shrugged. “At least you’re honest.”

They were provided with a domed hut of femurs and lizardskin, and a supper of fish and moss pottage. Neather children hung about staring. Raqim ate more than was decent. The last time he’d eaten anything substantial was seventy-seven years ago.

Camellia curled her lip and picked at the bones with her knife. “At least someone can stomach this slop.”

“You’re not gonna eat that?” Seelah eyed her bowl.

The aristocrat slid her bowl her way and got up, pointedly brushing off her lace-cuffed riding coat.

Inside the hut, Anevia was already asleep. The bladder of ice-cold river water Raqim had prepared for her lay unused. She’d opted for Camellia’s spirits instead. Lann and Wenduag had gone off to their own habitations, so it was just Raqim and Seelah, cross-legged with their bowls around a meager fire.

“Put into port in Manaket once,” she said, pausing to remove a fishbone from her teeth. “They wouldn’t let us disembark. Quarantined like we had the plague, with your Pure Legion guys marching up and down the quay to make sure we didn’t sneak into the city and infect anybody with our nutty ideas. I was hanging over the gunwale just trying to catch a glimpse of the city when one of your guards came over and offered to get us food. Those spicy, flaky pastries.”

“Oh. Pastilla. What I wouldn’t give.” He closed his eyes.

 “Yeah, me too.” Her eyes went unfocused. For a moment they were joined in longing.

Deftly he peeled back the skin on another eyeless fish. “I lived in Manaket when I was young. My father wanted me to go to the Occularium.”

“Not your calling?”

He nodded. To tell her he passed the entrance exam would sound like boasting. To tell her the real reason he chose the Pure Legion would open the door to those dark thoughts. Because I always did what my Aba asked of me. But not anymore. “Instead I joined the Legion and moved to Azir.”

“So what brought you to Mendev? The Crusades?”

He would not lie to her like he had to the Prelate, but he didn’t even know enough of the true story to tell it. “I… I’m not sure. I didn’t mean to end up here. It’s a long story. Tell me yours.”

“No, you’re not getting away with that. How can you not be sure how you got here?”

He tried to concentrate on his moss pottage, but she seemed to content to wait him out.

“All right,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you this much. I don’t remember traveling here.” He looked up to gauge her reaction, desperate to hide how desperate he felt. “Whatever gave me that wound must have played tricks on my memory. I didn’t even know what year it was when I awoke in the city square.”

“What year did you think it was?”

“4648.”

“Yeah, it’s not. It’s 4715.” By her expression, she seemed to be taking him seriously at least. “Demon shenanigans, maybe.”

“The last thing I remember I was embroiled with some Sarenrites. To your knowledge, could it be some kind of divine magic?”

She finished off Camellia’s fish and licked her fingers. “Not that I know of. Gods don’t usually toss mortals around like toys.”

“Don’t they?”

“You want my expertise or not?”

He sighed.

“Gods play a long game. They nudge the pieces but they don’t usually just pick one up and throw it clear across the board. Besides, you’d have to be awful full of yourself to think Sarenrae’d pay you that much attention.”

“I am not full of myself. I’m just trying to understand—” But she was holding back another laugh. “Fine. I find I must cede to your expertise in the unknowable.”

This time she did laugh, but it gave way to a sympathetic look. “I wish I could help you figure it out. You must be really off your footing.”

His hand still tingled. Third angelic intervention in a row. No—the second was just Seelah, he realized now. The first was when he awoke from death and long nightmares in some strange alchemist’s lab, exhorted by an angel to save himself. Targona, the demons called her as they fled from her holy light.

Though there was no hope of making logical sense of anything when angels and demons were involved, he tried to recount the facts to the paladin. He had little to lose.

In 4648, he died. There was a neatly stitched scar on his abdomen to prove it. He was resuscitated in an alchemist’s lab. An angel awakened him, urging him out into the Worldwound, and that was the last he saw of her, although someone had left his gear and a bundle of food for him in the hollow of a blasted-out tree trunk. His chest hurt. It still chafed now. A new wound, one he did not recall receiving.

After six nights in the Worldwound the chest wound was so bad he could hardly crawl. The next thing he knew he was awakening in Kenabres. Then Terendelev, the Prelate, the festival, the demon attack. And the fall—he remembered the cobbles bucking and sliding out from under his feet—but now he could find no evidence of it. Not even a bruise. Just waking up in the caves.

Seelah gave a low whistle. “That’s something. And now the angelic sword.”

He gave a wan smile. “I am off my footing, as you say.”

“All right. Maybe I’ll cut you some slack about that, but I do think it’s a gift not to pass up. You could really use it to help these people.”

“Seelah. I am an agent of the Pure Legion. I refuse to let them believe Heaven has come to their aid.”

“Even after Heaven literally came to your aid.”

He set his bowl aside and pressed a thumb to his forehead. How many times had he said—pleaded, implored—the same words: “I didn’t ask for this.”

There. Right as rain.

In her mind’s eye it was Acemi at her side, giving her knee a friendly pat. She knew what Iomedae looked like in the statues and stained-glass windows, but sometimes the two got mixed up in her head.

She flexed her leg. No pain. Just the muscle fatigue that only a good rest could heal.

As she lay down on her pallet and wriggled her shoulders to settle in, her thoughts turned to her friends aboveground. Inheritor, look out for them. And everybody.

Elan could handle himself. Curl could stay out of trouble. Jannah, she worried about a little more: she was a damn good swordswoman, but it was painfully obvious she’d never been in a real fight.

Hang on up there. The reunion we are gonna have...

Now all she had to do was get that stick-in-the-mud Rahadoumi to wave the Light of Heaven, fight her way through a dangerous maze, save some mongrel kids on the way, and then she’d be there if they needed her.

If Deskari hadn’t devastated the city already. Seelah knew what crops looked like after a swarm of locusts moved through, and that was a scary thought. But even then, there would be survivors to look out for and good-hearted people to rally. And not-so-good-hearted people to rally too, if she could.

Nearby she heard Raqim adjusting his pallet and settling in.

Without opening her eyes, she said, “Look at the bright side. You know what I’m thankful for? Literally stumbling over good people where I least expected them.”

“You have mortals to thank for that, not gods.”

“Pff. You really are a number.”

* * *

He crawled out of the tent after sundown. Ama was sleeping. A cold, dry wind swept dust over his bare feet. Soft singing drew him into the stark desert night. In a pool of light Aba knelt on the ground, rocking a goat kid in his arms, gently stroking its neck. Singing to it.

Aba NO—

He awoke kicking. Thrashed upright. Clutched his racing heart. Had he screamed aloud?

The same nightmare.

Proof at least that he was still himself.

Cold sweat growing rapidly colder on his arms, he hugged his elbows. This darkness smelled strange, sounded strange. Somewhere some poor Neather coughed wetly. Voices, growls, shouts. A gong rang out and echoed through the tunnels. No way to know how long he’d slept, except by Seelah’s soft snoring—not long enough.

Amir’s voice in his mind. I want to go home.

Chapter Text

Chelaxian devil-worshippers always struck him as degrees of magnitude stupider than god-worshippers, but devils were at least predictable in their way. You got what you signed up for, small print and all.

But demon-worshippers were new to Raqim.

Standing before the crude horned symbol smeared on the wall of the maze, Seelah wrinkled her nose and wiped her fingers on her breeches. “Baphomet. It’s fresh, too.”

Everyone looked at Lann.

“Don’t look at me. I’ve never been in here.”

“Wenduag said she’s been,” said Raqim. “She never mentioned cultists?”

“No.” Lann frowned deeply. “Funny, that.”

It looked unfortunately like the bow Raqim bartered for from Dyra might see some use against more than just monsters. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. How many levels of stupid did it take to incur a death sentence? Was he the one to deliver it? There were uncomfortable memories he did not wish to revisit.

“The Light of Heaven should dissuade them,” Seelah said, almost as if reading his mind. “If you can swallow your pride for two minutes.”

Lann gave him a wan smirk. “Just don’t try to foist it off on the cultists, huh?”

“I will promise nothing.”

It took Lann a heartbeat to realize Raqim was kidding.

His first demonic cultist was just as surprised by them as they were by him. The blood-painted, leather-clad man was probably supposed to be on guard duty but had dozed off on a comfortable slab of rubble, and as Seelah nearly tripped over him, he scrambled to his feet and pulled down the visor on his bone mask. “Crusaders!” An exclamation of surprise became a shout of alarm. “Crusaders!”

In a crouch he backed away waving his daggers, obviously about to make a break for it and warn his comrades.

Two bows came up. Two arrows were loosed.

The cultist dropped to the floor, one arrow between the ribs and other through the leg.

Side by side, bowstrings quivering in unison, Raqim and Lann looked at each other. Raqim frowned. “That was aimed to kill.”

“Yeah,” Lann replied grimly. “You put the kids of my tribe in danger, don’t expect due process.”

Camellia stepped over to inspect the body. “Without healing, an arrow to the thigh is just as deadly,” she remarked. “It’s just longer and more agonizing.”

Eyes anywhere but on the dead man, Raqim didn’t notice the curious look from Seelah. She came back to stand by him. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve been there. I hate that it’s sometimes us or them, but we’re backed into a corner right now. I can sense evil, and this guy was just dripping with it. If we gave him a chance, it would be us smeared on the wall.”

The wages of sin. Us or them. Precisely why wise Onaku had banned religion in his homeland. When mortals should be concentrated on our own common struggle, we let ourselves become rabid dogs on supernatural leashes. He realized perhaps he should not have confided in her. There was something reassuring about the paladin, like they might have been friends and comrades-in-arms in another life, but he chastised himself now for forgetting she was a dangerous zealot.

Which became evident once again when they came across a stash of relics stolen from a Kenabres museum.

The sword didn’t look like much, its blade chipped and tarnished, and the gold and silver inlay on the wings of its battered hilt edged with rust. Stains of some dark mildew spread across the steel.

Seelah’s eyes went wide with wonder.

“I know this sword.” She said it with such certainty. “Radiance. The sword of the great crusader paladin Yaniel.”

“Well of course.” Camellia rolled her eyes.  “This rusted old piece of metal must be just the legendary sword you were wishing for.”

The sarcasm had no apparent effect on the paladin. “You don’t get it. I’ve seen this sword a hundred times. It was in the Estrod museum. Look at you, poor baby.” Reverently she picked it up, laying the stained blade across her palm. “I don’t know what evil they did with you, but we’ll put the shine back on you, I promise. Just like back in the day, when Yaniel led the charge, and your light lent the crusaders the courage to keep fighting.”

“Poor baby?” Camellia’s lip curled.

Raqim said nothing, though he was reminded of Bardia’s oud that he named Habiba and talked to like a lover. It would be endearing, if not for the superstition.

Seelah sheathed the old sword at her hip and kept her own drawn. “Yaniel was famous for giving her commanders headaches. Doing things her own way. I always felt a certain affinity for her.” She chuckled but then grew serious. “She died defending Drezen. I mean, I hope she died. Wait, that sounds bad. I mean I hope she died quickly, because I don’t like to think about the alternative.”

The alternative? Raqim wondered. He didn’t want to ask.

Unfortunately, he soon got a firsthand look at what demons were capable of. In a circular atrium at the end of the maze, a leering creature had gathered the young, lost Neathers and had hold of one by the scruff of the neck, forcing her face into the meaty slash wounds on the chest of a recently killed aasimar woman.

The young Neather flailed, her hoofed left arm beating against the demon’s elbow to no avail.

“Feed,” the demon commanded. “Feed and become stronger. Become worthy to serve me, pathetic starveling.” With that, it slammed the Neather girl’s head into the corpse and she came up gagging, face a mask of terror and blood. And as Raqim and the others watched paralyzed, her tongue absently dabbed at the blood at the corner of her mouth, and suddenly some terrible pain seemed to seize her from within, and the struggle to free herself became a struggle to gorge herself on the flesh of the dead.

Raqim clapped a hand over his mouth. He had never witnessed anything so vile. A horror beyond imagining.

Seelah pushed past him. Her eyes were wide with terror, but she somehow willed herself to raise her sword and shield.

And so Raqim raised his bow, too.

As he did, an anger ignited in his chest. An anger as hot and mindless as that he had felt watching his comrades fall to the Sarenrites in the desert, ripping through him like wildfire and exploding from his lungs. He vomited a gout of dark red flame, that rolled out and singed the wings on the monster.

Which whipped about and turned a blood-red eye on him.

For a moment there was only the two of them. Matched in rage. In the instinct to rend and kill and burn.

Then Seelah sidestepped, swiping with her shield to protect Raqim, and that shook him from his daze.

The fire in his chest gave way to searing pain, and then—nothing. Light. A soaring sense of freedom. The angelic sword, the Light of Heaven, seemed to absorb into him and permeate his whole body, arcing out in pure white, scintillating rays.

Blinded, screeching, the demon threw a wing over its head and backed behind its minions. “What are you? Kill it, kill it!”

The demon succeeded in escaping. A dark flaming gash in the air of Golarion swallowed its form, and only its loyal cultists remained to fight, among them—Raqim realized sadly, but without much surprise—Wenduag.

When it was over and Lann came back, having pursued her until he lost her in the maze, they rested in the stairwell leading to the surface to wait for the Neather tribes to catch up.

Lann was so angry he couldn’t stop pacing. Camellia seemed lost in thought, or in silent conversation with her spirits. Seelah tried to keep her mind off the horrors by polishing Radiance.

Raqim sat curled in on himself, heart still pounding. He could not think. His chest hurt. His hand sizzled where the Light of Heaven had sprung forth.

If it hadn’t been for that light...

* * *

On the surface at last, they fought their way out of the Gray Garrison and regrouped at a tavern that had become the last bastion against the roving hoards of demons besieging the streets of Kenabres.

Raqim went out into the yard and washed up in a bucket of ice-crusted water. Though the chill made his bones ache, it felt deeply cleansing. Gemyl Hawkes gave him a tunic, trousers and a blanket for a cloak while he waited for a chance to wash his gear. The clothes were scratchy and ill-fitting, but clean and dry.

He headed back across the tavern yard. Around him, swarms of people helped build reinforcements, fill sacks with dirt, dig latrines, look after the wounded. A dwarf had set up a crude forge and was hard at work. An alchemist had cordoned off a fume zone where she prepared bombs in empty bottles.

Wearily, he entered the inn and stood taking in the scene. People were packed into the common room. A healer made bandages. A crusader comforted another. An old woman told stories to the children. The barkeep hauled sacks of grain into the kitchen.

Everyone seemed to be pitching in, united by the calamity. There was a camaraderie he felt apart from, a foreigner with no ties here. And who honestly hated this place—and yet. He stood by, silent and ignored, feeling the kind of loneliness he thought he’d left behind him as a child.

Suddenly a warm hand clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. We didn’t save that beer cart for nothing. Come on.”

Chapter Text

“This, my friends, is Pure Legion Scout Raqim Ag Adar of Azir, reluctant bearer of the Light of Heaven.”

“Just Raqim,” he said sheepishly. At least she pronounced it right.

“And apparently he breathes fire?” Seelah laughed as she passed the mugs around.

“I’ve seen sorcerers do that at the fair,” said Curl. “Are you a sorcerer?”

“Not much of one if I am,” said Raqim. He turned his palm up, rubbed his fingers together, and like a lamp wick his fingers lit with flickers of pale flame. The “gift” of a dragon to an infant, that had plagued him ever since. “I only breathe fire when I’m angry.”

“I guess I won’t pick your pocket after all,” Curl muttered.

Elan of the Houndhearts wiped foam from his stubbled, suntanned chin. “Azir. That’s Rahadoum, isn’t it? Long way from home.”

“Indeed,” said Raqim. “Feeling very much out of my element here.”

Seelah gave a reassuring smile. “You’re not that out of place. Crusaders come from all over Golarion. That oread scholar, Indarah? She’s from Kelesh. And look, see those Vudran pilgrims? And Nenio—I’m guessing Tian Xia, but when I asked she said it was irrelevant. Anyway, you get my point.”

Raqim looked where she gestured around the tavern and had to admit she was right, and especially now that he had a cheerful mug of beer in hand, found it heartening to see mortality united against the incursion of the Abyss. “And you, Elan? Andoran?”

“The accent give me away?”

Raqim was familiar with it. In his experience Andorens tended to be loudmouths, but Elan wasn’t so bad. In fact all of Seelah’s friends gathered around the table made for pleasant company. He found himself feeling a tiny bit less lost.

“We met on the riverboat on the way up the Sellen,” Seelah explained. “I stuck around with the Houndhearts on a job in Ustalav for a while, but it went sour.”

“Yeah, if the Ustalavic nobility tries to hire you for something, do some snooping first,” Elan advised. “A couple of the Houndhearts stayed on but the rest of us broke the contract and headed for the Crusades. Money’s not as good, but at least it’s honest work.”

By Seelah’s tight-lipped expression and the way Elan glanced her way, Raqim guessed there was some story behind that, but Elan went on, perhaps to change the subject. “It’ll take a little longer to save up for that ring, but I’ll get there.”

“That’s right. If I know Kiana, she’ll have no truck with ill-gotten gains.” Seelah took a long drink. There was something she wasn’t eager to revisit, Raqim guessed, because after that she went back to the introductions. “And Jannah here’s from the River Kingdoms,” she said. “We met on the road to Star Keep.”

“I came with my cousin, who’s also a paladin of Iomedae. She’s posted in Star Keep, and I—” Jannah flashed an admiring smile at Seelah “—well, I’m ready for some adventure, so I stuck with this bunch of drunken rowdies and ended up in the middle of a demon attack.”

Though they laughed, the halfling Curl just bit his lip, picking at splinters of wood on the table. At last he seemed to make up his mind about something and pushed his chair back.

“Seelah?” The halfling jerked his head toward the door. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Raqim watched them go. He was beginning to see how people gravitated around the paladin. She exuded a welcome warmth and cheer in the midst of calamity. A shame that she let religious nonsense cloud what otherwise looked like good sense. And, it had to be admitted, good looks. Looks good enough he feared he’d been brusque with her when they first met in the caverns. After the fiasco with Maryam he supposed he was still off his footing, as Seelah put it, with beautiful women.

Curl found a spot between two storage sheds, far from the ringing of Joran’s hammer and the bustle of barricade construction, and stood turning his hat in his hands and staring up at Seelah with red-rimmed, haunted eyes.

“What’s eating you?” she asked, half-sitting on a barrel so she was closer to his eye-level.

“So?” He hugged his hat to his chest.

“So?” She cocked her head.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing what? I’m confused. What’s this about?”

Though they were alone, he lowered his voice. “You paladins can sense things. You know—” He glanced around before he whispered the word. “Evil.”

“Curl, are you seriously asking me if you’re evil?”

His lips had gone pale. He fidgeted with his hat for a moment before replying. “Well, I—I’m not in the Condemned for nothing. And I’ve been thinking a lot, since this attack. If I get killed, I don’t want my soul going somewhere... nasty.”

“First of all, buddy, you’re not evil. A couple bad decisions don’t define your whole soul. Second of all, you’re not gonna die. Just stick with us and we’ll look out for each other.”

“Sticking with you is definitely going to get me killed,” he moaned. “I’m not cut out for this, Seelah. Crusading and all that. I didn’t care having to scrub the latrines but if they’re sending us out to the front lines because of the attack, I don’t think I can do it. I’m no Staunton Vhane.”

She sympathized. Not everyone was forged from the same steel, and just as well. She might have travelled a thousand miles to join in the fight but he was being thrust into it against his will. The poor guy looked terrified, like he hadn’t slept in a week.

She gripped his shoulder comfortingly. “Listen, I hear you. It’s scary. But the alternative—letting the demons run amok in the city—is even scarier. We all have to do our part, but maybe your part is something other than fighting. Have you talked to your commander?”

At that his pleading expression glazed over. He looked away. “No use. That’s not how it works in the Condemned.”

Somehow she’d lost him and she knew it, but she didn’t know what else to say. When Seelah made up her mind to dedicate her life to helping people, she thought it would be more straightforward than this. “I’ll put in a word if you think it’d help.”

But he was already heading back to the tavern. “Thanks anyway, Seelah. It was good to get this off my chest.” The words fell like lead in his wake.

Back inside, Curl slipped away, but maybe there was someone she could still help cheer up, and cheering other people up was what cheered her up, and the Inheritor knew she needed it.

“Hey Staunton. Join us?”

The haggard dwarf, alone in a corner, looked up dully from his half-finished mug but didn’t answer.

“I’m buying the next round,” she offered. Never mind that she was already in the red with Gemyl Hawkes. A problem for another day.

Staunton shrugged, polished off what was left in his mug, and handed it to her. “Fine.”

“Come on, Staunton. You’ve had seventy miserable years. What, are you planning seventy more? Help us save Kenabres. A bright future awaits.” Seelah knocked her mug against his and froth splashed. “Bottoms up.”

“Shows how green you are, the lot of you.” There was no light in the dwarf’s eyes, but he did drink, long and hard. He didn’t bother wiping his beard. “You’ll see. When you’ve been crusading long enough, nothing gets through anymore. Pain and blood. You think you’ve seen it all. You’re tough as fucking stone. But you know what? It’s the sweetness that gets you. One taste. You think it’s your choice but it’s them pulling the strings. And you go down thanking them for it.”

Seelah sighed. “Quit picking the scab, it’ll only make it worse. Trust me, I know what it’s like to mess up.”

Staunton’s eyebrows shot up. “To mess up? Is that what you call it, lass?”

As he raised his voice she backed down.  “I’m just saying, you have to try not to wallow in it.”

“I’ve got no choice. Look around you—they want me to wallow in it. They hate me. They need to see me suffer. Even Torag’s turned his back.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Raqim interjected, which earned him a knife-sharp glance from Seelah.

“That’s got everything to do with it.” Staunton went back to staring bleakly into his tankard. “I’ve prayed for forgiveness, I’ve pleaded and promised. Nothing.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Seelah said gently. “Gods don’t just come out of the sky to give you a chin up when you’re down. It’s in here.” She patted her heart.

Quizzically Raqim’s eyes went to her chest to inquire on the obvious absence of Iomedae, until he realized what it looked like and snapped them back to his mug.

But not even her cheer could get through to the dwarf. “I’ve got nothing against you, lass, but you’re wasting your breath,” Staunton sighed, taking his leave from the table, and taking his refilled tankard with him.

As soon as he was gone, she turned an accusing eye on Raqim. “What was that? You just can’t help it, can you?”

He froze, unsure whether she meant the glance at her chest or his comment about Torag. Heat flooded his face. Best to assume it was Torag. “He’s depressed enough without expecting a sign from his god,” he shot back. “He would do better to forget Torag and work on accepting an offer of friendship.”

She took a drink. Maybe to buy some time, he thought complacently, because his argument was so undeniably sound.

“You don’t get it,” she said finally. “The god is the community. Dwarves, honor, friends, family. If he felt like Torag was smiling on him, all those other things would start looking up. And if all those other things started looking up, he’d feel like Torag was smiling on him. It all goes together. I’m bad at explaining.”

He didn’t want to agree, but it did seem to him that the god was an extraneous and unnecessary element, and he started to open his mouth to say so, but thought better of it. You just can’t help it, can you? still rang in his ears and he wanted to prove her wrong. He could help it, when he wanted to. He changed the subject. “So what happened to Vhane?”

Seelah told the whole sad story while Raqim watched the dwarf nurse his mug alone in the corner. He was reminded of the poor mongrel girl forced to taste aasimar flesh. It’s the sweetness that gets you. Love to a lonely dwarf. A taste of meat to a starving Neather. He began to feel queasy.

“I should turn in,” he said.

“Yeah, so should I. City patrol tomorrow. Hey, what do you say we team up again?”

It was hard to admit to himself, but having a paladin on hand against the horrors of the Abyss would be tactically shrewd. That was the only reason he agreed so readily.

Seelah spread her bedroll in a relatively quiet niche at the top of the stairs, lay down and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. She was worried about Curl, and Staunton was as lost a cause as ever, and even with a cartload of beer she feared she hadn’t been very inspiring. Useless. You should shut up and let your sword do the talking.

At least she was holding up against Raqim’s constant barrage of atheism. That was one battle she knew she could win. A shame he let being a stubborn ass cloud what otherwise looked like a good heart. And, it had to be admitted, good looks.

Chapter Text

With his greying hair and the constipated way he held himself, the Prelate was immediately recognizable, even from the back. Crimson cloak swept aside, one hand on his knee and the other on the hilt of his sword, he bent at the edge of a crevice, peering intently into its depths.

Raqim went up to stand beside him. His scout’s eye could see nothing moving in the crevice. “What are we looking for?” he asked.

The Prelate whirled on him, eyes wild with surprise and suspicion. “You! What are you doing here?”

“Helping defend the city,” said Raqim, gesturing to his companions and realizing a heartbeat too late that every one of them looked extremely suspicious except for Seelah. He quickly changed the subject. “What’s in the hole?”

“Could be anything,” said the Prelate.

“Could it be nothing?”

“I am not known as the sort who risks complacency, young man.”

Now that he knew that Prelate Shappok would rather burn a child at the stake than risk complacency, those words sounded sinister.

Back at the Defender’s Heart, the horribly scarred Elven child they had rescued explained with heartbreaking detachment how she and her father were condemned to the pyre, and how the Prelate was a good man who was just being silly, and Raqim could not stop staring at her disfigured face as she spoke, recalling the screams of the burning Sarenrites in that last battle before he was somehow transported here.

He didn’t deserve forgiveness either.

The Prelate was eyeing him. “You’re not trying to lure me away from here, are you? It’s a short drop from atheist to cultist, is it not?” His knuckles went white on his sword hilt.

“Psst.”

Raqim tried to ignore the tiefling.

“Psst. Hey, chief.”

Woljif tugged on his cloak and continued stage whispering even though Hulrun could surely hear every word. “There’s this saying in Kenabres. Don’t argue with the Prelate. Ahem.” He went on in a louder voice, “This hole looks real suspicious to me. Just the kinda place I would hide out if I were a cultist. Which I’m not, haha. Us righteous citizens are real grateful you’re here to keep watch on it for us, Mister Prelate.”

Raqim raised an eyebrow. Not only dangerous but incompetent. The sabotage of the Wardstones and subsequent demon attack were Shappok’s personal failure, and Woljif was right—the best thing he could possibly be doing right now was standing guard over an empty hole.

“Well, we’ll carry on then,” he said, giving a half-hearted salute.

“Carry on what, I wonder?” Now the Prelate noticed Raqim’s companions and was staring at Lann with open horror. The whites of his eyes and the first inch of his blade showed. “I’ll have you strung up by your ankles, all of you. Answer!” The Prelate’s men drew their weapons.

Heart dropping into his boots, Raqim raised both hands in a placating gesture. Have I come all this way to be cut down by zealots once again? Is this some sort of divine punishment?

“Just show it to him,” urged Lann. “The Light of Heaven.”

Tense but unwavering, Seelah’s hand went to the hilt of her sword. “Do not be a stubborn ass right now,” she said to Raqim.

“Chief, I’m too young to die.” Woljif crouched like a hare about to bolt.

At least the scientist and the elf girl seemed to have wandered off, hopefully to safety.

“We are not your enemy,” said Raqim. “Please see reason. Put down your weapons.”

“Show him the sword!” Seelah growled.

“Prelate—”

Prelate Shappok’s blade came free of its scabbard.

“Damn you, just do it!” she shouted.

He did it. He would tell himself later that it sprang out of his hand of its own accord like with the demon Savamelekh, but he knew better. Just this once, to prevent a wasteful and tragic bloodbath.

The golden light stopped the Prelate in his tracks. His hand faltered. His sword clattered to the cobbles.

“I bear the gift of an angel,” Raqim said, every word bitter on his tongue. “I—I don’t know why. But please take it as proof that we are not the enemy.”

“I see. You’re telling the truth. How strange.” Though the Prelate signalled his men to stand down, he continued to glare daggers at them. “When circumstances are less fractious I have quite a few questions to put to you. For now, if you want to prove yourself, bring me the head of that traitorous, curls-for-brains, blasphemous Desnan, will you?”

“He means Ramien, the Desnan prior,” Woljif said helpfully.

Stooping to collect and sheathe his blade, the Prelate went on. “He and his lunatics claimed they had a dream the Wardstone was corrupted, and next thing I knew we caught them holding hands and singing to it or some such nonsense, and lo and behold—demons in the heart of the city. I should have interrogated them to within an inch of their lives. Must be going soft. And now that traitor is hiding them from me....”

They left the Prelate muttering into his moustache.

Raqim tried to remember what he knew of Desna, a goddess popular among the weak-minded. Of course, Iomedae’s fanatics weren’t making much of an impression either. These people and their Wardstones and goddesses, fighting amongst themselves, sapping each other’s energy, creating distrust where there should be common interest. It was a wonder they’d held out against the Worldwound for as long as they had.

Meanwhile, Woljif chattered away. “Yeah, Ramien’s a little kooky but he’s a nice enough guy. You can always go to the Temple a’ Desna for the little afflictions, if you see what I mean, without gettin’ a lecture. I doubt he broke the Wardstone. On purpose, anyway.”

“I did not,” came a disembodied voice from the bushes.

The Prior of the Temple of Desna, slightly dishevelled and shockingly beautiful, materialized before them, brushing his night-blue sleeves as if ridding himself of the invisibility spell like dust. The butterfly pendant at his throat instantly put Raqim on edge.

“Hello, Woljif.”

“Heya, Prior. Meet my new friends. Wait, you remember my name?”

“Symptoms all cleared up?”

“Yeah—yeah, no trouble. I uh—so, me and my pals here, we’re defendin’ the city.”

“I’m very glad to hear it, because the Prelate is not doing his duty, and it looks like it’s up to us now. I admire his zeal, but alas, repeated demon incursions seem to have addled his mind. He has long since forgotten how to tell friend from foe. My adepts made a genuine attempt to save the city and were thwarted, and now he holds vigil over an empty hole rather than help rescue the people trapped under the rubble.”

Raqim didn’t expect a Desnan to be the one to talk sense, but there it was. “Indeed. I must unfortunately warn you that he asked for your head.”

“Which is unworthy of a servant of Iomedae,” Seelah added with a frown. “I’d advise you to keep laying low.”

“I thank you. I shall, once I have gathered my lost acolytes.”

“We’ll keep an eye out for them while we secure the market square,” Raqim offered. More lost kids. There was nothing funny about the situation but the Pure Legion had an expression about herding Desnans that felt rather apt, and that may have brought a twinkle to his eye.

And so by sundown, they returned to the Defender’s Heart shepherding a troop of lost lambs among which a fabulously jaded Mendevian Count, Raqim’s head swimming with extraplanar visions.

In soul-deep exhaustion he dropped like a sack onto his straw mattress along the common room wall. When he squeezed his eyes shut, a pair of piercing, starry eyes stared back at him. Strange creatures danced among wild trees in honeyed moonlight. Demons ran crazed through a mansion, shattering statues and tearing paintings to shreds while oblivious partygoers danced.

But the last thing he saw before he drifted into blessedly dreamless slumber was the Light of Heaven, borne high in his own hand, and flocks of lost, desperate mortals gathering around it.

Chapter Text

Through a haze of smoke and ash, the jagged-toothed shadow of the tavern’s defenses loomed at last. Seelah gave the guards a wave. On her arm, the blind old elf perked up his head.

“We’re there,” she told him. “Just watch your step on the—uh, I mean take it slow.” Inheritor’s sake. How many times can I stick my foot in my mouth before I choke?

Another day of good deeds. Well, mostly good. She supposed helping that tiefling—thief—Thiefling, sheesh—out of hot water with his gang looked like a good deed if you squinted.

And another day of surprises. At the Tower of Estrod, visions of angels stepped right out of the paintings and spoke to Raqim and he stood there staring around wide-eyed like a cornered antelope, and it would be funny except for the feeling that she was witnessing a miracle.

“That’s the one,” he told her afterwards, pointing at a painting of an angel with billowing silver hair. “Targona. She’s the one who freed me. And apparently this is her brother’s sword that’s attached itself to me?” But the angelic vision declined to reappear with an answer, and Seelah could do nothing but shake her head in confusion. She personally knew a dozen paladins who deserved to have an angelic sword stuck to their hands a hundred times more than this guy.

“Who says Iomedae doesn’t have a sense of humor?” she’d shrugged, and the stupid Count raised his finger.

Anyway—it was one thing after another with this Raqim. Still, he was brave. He went out of his way to help, and stopped cultists from burning down the Blackwing library, and, well...

That morning when they met up for patrol duty he’d freshened up. Trimmed his beard, wrapped his hair, dressed in his clean Pure Legion uniform. And you had to admit.

She liked the alertness of his dark eyes. The way they smiled even when his lips didn’t. She liked the practiced grace of his shoulders when he drew his bow, his purposeful stride, the way he pressed a thumb to his brow in thought (a gesture which, had he seen it for himself, he would have recognized as belonging to his Aba).

Biscuit. That’s what Kyra would have called him.

Get yourself together, girl. You and your sweet tooth. You got a whole heap of demon invasion on your plate and there is no room for dessert.

The problem was that once she let herself think it she couldn’t unthink it.

His profile as he scanned the horizon. The slightly beaked nose, the thick-lashed eyes, the deft brown hands. Biscuit.

A few paces ahead of her, he stopped at the threshold of the inn and kicked clots of mud off his boots. She watched, preparing her line despite herself.

Hey Raqim, let’s you and me get a drink, just the two of us. Seelah had never been a shy woman. Why did it sound stupid in her head all of a sudden?

Because what would a Pure Legion atheist want with an Iomedean paladin? He’s obviously not interested, blockhead. And we’ve got a demon invasion on our hands. What, did you forget?

But none of those were good reasons. It wasn’t like she planned to ask his hand in marriage. Just flirt, for crying out loud. What’s wrong with you?

Once the old elf—ancient elf, she corrected in her head, because he looked old enough to have seen Earthfall—was seated in the kitchen with a bowl of soup, she hung up her cloak, kicked off her boots, and looked around for Raqim.

He was at the bar alone with a mug of tea, staring into the distance. 

The Defender’s Heart was overcrowded. Practically tropical. Air heavy with sweat, woodsmoke and beer. Refugees huddled on almost every square inch of floor. Concentrated mortal misery.

The hopeful camaraderie of the first day had given way to whispers and fear. Rumors of an impending demonic siege on the tavern seemed to have paralyzed the survivors. The priest of some archaic stag-god huddled by the door muttering incantations over and over as if it would keep the demons at bay. Raqim wasn’t used to people brazenly wearing their faith like a badge of honor.

Stop praying to your gods, he wanted to yell. Get up and fight back.

Though the fighting was wearing him down as well. At the Tower of Estrod they faced more cultists, these ones made bold by their success. They howled as they charged, as if savagely attacking a handful of crusaders was just the diversion they’d been waiting for. Shocking, having to put down fellow mortals like rabid dogs.

At least he was satisfied with his idea of pushing the toppled column into them. He feared he may have blushed when he asked Seelah to do the heavy lifting, but he was fairly sure she hadn’t noticed.

Still, he hoped never to become accustomed to killing people. The matter-of-fact way his comrades went about it turned his stomach. This place drove people to lunacy.

Crusaders on the verge of sacrificing a child. The Prelate holding vigil over a hole in the ground. Nobles half out of their minds drinking and dancing like it was Earthfall. Necromancers and demon-worshippers running amok. Visions of angels, aeons and azatas.

The small voice in his head that was all that was left of Amir sobbed that he wanted to go home.

He looked forlorn.

Stupid. Stupid and selfish. Caught up in herself she’d forgotten all about his troubles. Suddenly all the nervous energy drained out of Seelah’s stocking feet. After her failure with Curl and Staunton she didn’t trust herself to handle this, but he’d confided in her in Neathholm and she was the only one who knew his story. With a deep breath, she headed for the bar.

“Heya,” she said softly, leaning on her elbows next to him. “You know, I’ve been thinking about you.”

He looked surprised. Maybe a little alarmed.

“I don’t like to poke my nose in where it isn’t wanted, but I was thinking you must be even more off your footing after today. If you feel like talking about it, I’m here.”

He started to sip his tea, decided it was too hot, and set it back down. “Thank you.”

She waited. He didn’t say anything else. Gemyl brought her a beer without having to order.

Finally he snapped out of it. “Did you talk to Joran?”

“Yeah. He can’t stoke up a fire hot enough to reforge her completely, but he can give the blade an edge again at least. Now I just need to find somebody worthy of wielding her.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“And who wants a holy relic,” she chuckled.

“You don’t think you’re worthy?”

“Of Radiance? I hope so, someday.”

Raqim seemed puzzled. “You said it belonged to a controversial paladin. Does it have to wait for someone perfect? You rescued it. It obviously means something to you. You should keep it.”

She thought about it for a long moment. “You know, I think one way to learn the weight of my sword might be to wield a sword with weight. Maybe I will keep her.”

“The weight of your sword?”

“Part of my paladin’s oath.” She recited it to him: “I will learn the weight of my sword. Without my heart to guide it, it is worthless—my strength is not in my sword, but in my heart. If I lose my sword, I have lost a tool. If I betray my heart, I have died.”

He blew on his tea, brow furrowed. “It’s a good oath. But it seems to me there’s a curious and commendable absence of Iomedae.”

“Oh, there’s more, but that’s the important part. And it is about Iomedae, if you pay attention.”

There it was—just like the glazed look that came over Curl when she messed up with him. Raqim glanced at the door as if looking for an escape route. She wanted to tell him: my vow is my heart, and my heart is Iomedae—everything She is and stands for. But she knew she couldn’t possibly explain it.

The hand that reached out to her and dragged her back from the fire: that hand was Sevelan’s, but it was also Iomedae’s. It was the Inheritor’s forgiveness and compassion. Without Iomedae’s grace shining through the prisms of Her paladins’ hearts, Seelah wouldn’t be here to shine some of that light herself.

Well, she definitely wasn’t telling him that tale. He already thought she was crazy.

But he just sat silently watching the steam rise from his mug. Something was eating him. At last he glanced up with those big, brown worried eyes, like the look he gave the vision of Targona. “How do you reconcile killing all these people? Is that not what you mean by the weight of your sword?”

“That is what I mean, and believe me, I’m not happy about it. Sometimes you have to step up and do what needs to be done in the moment, and that’s an act I’ll have to reckon for, because personally I don’t think anybody’s beyond redemption.” She took a drink. “Let me tell you a story.”

This was one tale she was willing to tell. “I was in Qadira with a friend—Kyra, a priestess of Sarenrae.

“One day, this ratfolk fellow runs up and begs for our help. His village has a vampire problem. Now, I’m no Jatembe but I reckon it’s risky just the three of us going after vampires, and nobody’s exactly volunteering. So I head for the town prison. Two murderers all set to hang the next morning, gallows built and ropes ready. And I make them a deal: their freedom for a little help. A vampire hunt’s better than hanging, right?

“Well, they thought so too. So Kyra, the ratfolk fellow, the cutthroats and I get to the ratfolk settlement, and half the village is already drained dry. Course, we think we’ve got until sundown before the next attack.

“Nope. Next thing we know, we’re surrounded by black shadows, quick as the wind. It’s not vampires. It’s chupacabras!”

She was pleased to see he wasn’t glancing toward the door anymore. Raqim claimed he wasn’t Qadiran, but he knew what chupacabras were, all right.

“One of the lads we rescued from prison is killed before we know it, and the other one takes one look and runs for his life.

“What a fight. And just when we think it’s all over—the ratfolk fellow down, Kyra with a chupacabra clamped on her shoulder, me surrounded by a pack of ‘em like dogs around a bear, suddenly the other lad reappears and just cuts down the chupacabra on Kyra, and that’s the turning point. We’ve got it under control again.

“Pretty soon the ground is littered with dead chupacabras, the ratfolk fellow is reunited with his family, Kyra’s all patched up, and well, we have to close the eyes of Milos, the lad who came back and saved us all, may the gods keep his soul. I like to think that act bought him a little reprieve in Pharasma’s court.

“Were it not for a little mercy, that lad would have hanged, and all those ratfolk would be dead, and point is, a good deed never fails to repay.” And that’s Iomedae, she added silently. As Her paladin she would be the hand that pulled others from the pyre. If only more of them would take it.

“So what about those cultists, then?” Raqim still looked worried. Seelah suspected he wasn’t so much interrogating her as himself.

“When in doubt, I may force my enemies to surrender, but I am responsible for their lives,” she quoted. “I use my sword for defense. Sometimes that goes wrong for the person on the pointy end of it, but I do my best. You know, I have to say I admire your dedication. Stuck your hand halfway down that cultist’s throat to save him from choking on his master’s notes. What I don’t get is why you care so much if you don’t believe in anything.”

“I believe in mortality. We have to look out for each other.” He said it fiercely, but then glanced dejectedly around the tavern. “I just wish mortality believed in itself.”

She didn’t have an answer. Seelah knew in her heart there was something he was missing, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She was saved when a sudden unholy racket of pots and pans startled them off their barstools. Outside, frantic crusaders yelled for help, and within the tavern, the sea of mortals parted: the valorous crowding the doorway, and the meek retreating.

“We’re under attack!”

“Man the battlements!”

Seelah’s eyes locked with those of the tiefling, Woljif, as he slunk out the kitchen to see what the ruckus was about. She gave him her sternest look and pointed at the door.

“Yes, mom,” he said sullenly, but he did actually draw his daggers and head outside. A bit of a weasel, but she would feel bad if he got himself killed like Milos. As she leapt into action she decided to keep an eye on him.

Luckily she was still equipped. All she had to do was stick her feet back in her boots and pull the shin straps tight, but as she reached around for the buckles on her breastplate, Raqim was already fastening one. She gave him a nod of thanks.

“Be careful,” he said.

Despite everything Seelah’s face brightened. “You too.”

They gave the demons and their cultists no quarter.

From his post on the scaffolding Raqim watched them come: the arsonists, each with an oily, smoking torch and a bag full of bombs. Mortals poisoned by sweetness. There was no choice. To let even one of them into the tavern’s perimeter was a death sentence for too many people. Just like at the Sarenrite enclave when—I was the arsonist. And so he pronounced their death sentence, one after another, with swift arrows.

Through his eyes, something observed. Not angels, aeons or azata—something ancient and alien and yet familiar as his own hands—weighing his sword, measuring his mercy, preparing to devour his soul should it tip the balance.

Chapter Text

“Oh no.” Seelah stepped over the shattered door and stopped dead in her tracks. “No, no, no.”

Behind her, still catching his breath, Raqim peered worriedly over her pauldron.

“Don’t tell me it’s a bunch a’ them boss demons, ‘cause fights a’ that nature ain’t stipulated in my contract, chief. I’m gonna just—” In mid-slink Woljif found himself seized by the jacket and dragged back.

“Not demons,” Raqim said.

“The Wardstone.” Seelah led the way into the half-collapsed room at the top of the Gray Garrison. They clambered over the rubble into a hall sliced through by a massive obelisk that had pierced the roof and lay leaking from jagged crimson veins as if bleeding. “This is bad. It’s been corrupted.”

She’d said the same of the sword, Radiance. But how do you know that, Raqim wanted to demand. What, is red light somehow evil?

But there was no denying he felt it too. As if in agony, the Wardstone emitted a shrill, bone-deep vibration, and the heavenly golden light of the runes carved into its surface dimmed wherever the red veins touched. Curious, he took another step closer—

—and felt the solid ground of Golarion slip out from under his mental feet.

Another vision. He tried to fight it but once caught in the current he knew by now that he would have to ride it out until it tumbled him back onto the shore of lucidity.

The Wardstone was full of angels.

Well, his dreaming mind somehow knew they were angels, but they just looked like twining whirlwinds of light, thrashing against other whirlwinds of angry darkness. His mind also somehow knew their story: how they were locked within this artifact to protect mortals at the edge of the Worldwound, and how the pain of demonic corruption had exhausted their comrades and turned them to rage, a rage that would infect the other Wardstones and cause them to explode, and take a large chunk of Mendev with them.

The whole thing exasperated him beyond belief. The Wardstones had put everyone in peril. If Iomedae really had mortals’ best interests at heart, why would she not teach us to defend ourselves rather than make us dependent on her angels, who are evidently not up to the task? This is wrong.

And on the heels of that thought, a presence of pure and perfect crystal blinked awake in his mind. He instantly recognized those cold pinpricks of light behind his eyes: the aeon. As it awoke, his vision shifted, and what stood out now was wrongness. Every mote of dust out of place prickled like ice. No longer a struggle of good and evil, but—a mess.

Clamping onto his mind, the aeon forced his thoughts into alignment. This is wrong. It must be set right. The Wardstone must be destroyed and the angels sent where they belong. Use the chisel.

His hand moved toward his belt. Over the aeon’s deafening command he struggled to hear Amir’s little voice: Raqim, it’s cold. I don’t like it. Make it go away.

Enraged, Raqim wrenched himself free and turned to face the aeon within. Had the thing been inhabiting him like a parasite ever since that day in the Market Square?

His mental voice went out like a roar: My mind is my territory. You are the one who is out of place. Get out.

The aeon seemed thrown off balance. Whatever foothold it had found in his soul, it suddenly lost. As if flailing, the cold starlight spluttered, and at last blinked out once and for all.

But now, alone before a cosmic struggle, he had to make a decision. And as angry as the aeon had made him, its advice seemed sound. Destroy the Wardstone, stop the corruption and banish the angels. He had no interest in intervening in their squabbles. The aeon was right. Neither the Abyss nor Heaven had their place here. Get out.

It was because she was on edge, expecting ‘boss demons’ at any moment, that the sharp sound of Raqim’s bow hitting the tiles scared the crap out of her. Seelah whirled around.

He was standing before the Wardstone, eyes wide, hands splayed, a strange sort of purply-golden glow steaming from his skin. A blot of deep red spread rapidly across the front of his uniform.

“Another vision?” said Lann, staring at Raqim in awe.

“Uh—you ok there?” She wasn’t sure what you were supposed to do. She knew that with brain-fever you just cushioned their head until it passed, so she reached for his shoulder to steady him.

But suddenly Raqim stepped clear, swiftly drawing from his belt the purple shard he had collected in the Market Square, and aiming it at the bleeding crack in the Wardstone. Before she could stop him he brought it down in a precise blow that sundered the crack and shattered both the knife and the Wardstone with a tremendous, staggering thunderclap.

Dragging him clear of the storm of debris Seelah heard herself shouting “What in the Nine Hells are you doing?” as they all shrank into the shelter of an alcove, and Raqim squirmed wildly out of her grasp among the hail of dust and stone. She feared he’d gone mad.

Seelah reached for him but he scrambled back and tripped over the rolling chunks of Wardstone and kept crawling, one hand grasping his bloody chest. Now the purple light was no longer steaming but cascading out of him, obliterating his crumpled form as it suddenly erupted in a blinding flash. The wave hit her mid-stride and knocked her back hard into the wall. Overhead the roof of the Gray Garrison was blown clear off. The sudden release of pressure popped their ears, but that was the least of their worries.

Seelah had never felt anything like it.

Kind of like being drunk. Losing your inhibitions but not your clarity or coordination. Like you could sing and actually carry a tune. Pick up the whole Wardstone and balance it on one shoulder. Buoyant purple energy shot through her limbs. A laugh boisterous enough to scare off a demon lord rose out of her gut, but in the back of her mind she wasn’t sure this was funny. The Inheritor’s grace? Adrenaline? Had poor Raqim just exploded into bits like the Wardstone?

No, thank the Inheritor—she saw him stagger to his feet, but he still just looked like a ball of sparkly purple light.

Lann’s mouth hung open in wonder. Woljif whooped. Nenio trembled with excitement as she groped for her notebook. Count Arendae was making some very indecent noises.

As the light began to fade—but not the seething energy inside her—Seelah reached out a hand to Raqim. He looked as stunned as any of them, limping back into the alcove still sparkling, staring at his own violently trembling hands.

“You’re bleeding,” she said. “And there’s no Terendelev this time, so you’re just going to have to suck it up and accept some divine healing.”

“I’m fine,” he protested.

“Don’t give me that.”

“No—I’m really fine.” To prove it he slapped a hand to his chest and pulled aside the bloody fabric to poke and probe his own flesh. “I—It healed itself?”

“What was that anyway?” Lann gaped.

But before they had a chance to wonder, they found themselves suddenly surrounded by a whole pack of boss demons, looking every bit as surprised as they were.

And at their head, the infamous lilitu, Minagho.

* * *

As the parade of city defenders, as triumphant as it was bloody and exhausted, arrived at the gates of the Defender’s Heart, jubilant crowds poured out of the tavern to meet them. Joyful voices rose over the smoke and ruin of Kenabres, while in terror and shame, demons fled back to their dark corners. Raqim found himself buffeted about in the press of people: hand shaken, back patted, even smooched on the cheek once or twice, and although he was the bloodiest and most exhausted of all, he began to find the enthusiasm contagious.

Although he did not belong among them, gradually the warm sensation that he did succeed in doing his part to help these people overtook his reticence. He looked around for a full tankard and a familiar, cheerful face to share it with.

But Seelah stood apart, looking past the crowd toward Joran’s forge with an unusually grim set to her mouth. He watched her bow her head, take a deep breath, and stride across the yard. Her conversation with Joran was brief and sober. The dwarf offered her a handshake, stood a moment in silence, and then began closing up shop.

As she made her way back Raqim witnessed a curious transformation. Eyes on her own boots, fists clenched, lips pressed together like she was holding back tears, halfway there she blinked hard, looked at the sky, and her expression cleared as she rejoined the festivities. “Nobody better be standing between me and the bar,” she announced loudly. “Coming through!” Laughing and cheering, the crowd parted.

Somehow, Irabeth Tirabade let herself be talked into permitting the festivities to carry on into the evening, so under her stern and watchful gaze—and Anevia’s amused one—they very much did. The tavern seemed fit to burst. Raqim was glad to find a chance to talk to Seelah at their own corner of a table, because he couldn’t get her emotional struggle over Staunton’s defection out of his mind. He saw a free spot next to her and dove for it.

They toasted their victory.

He nodded to indicate Irabeth. “You’re the only paladin here who’s really enjoying the celebration.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled. She had cute dimples. “We take a vow of temperance. I’m... working on it.”

“Don’t work too hard.” But his expression sobered. “Listen, don’t blame yourself about Staunton. You tried, and that’s more than most. The others say you’re the only paladin who was willing to raise a tankard with the Condemned. That’s to your credit.”

She frowned. “Lot of good it did him.” But after a long drink that same determinedly cheerful look returned. “I won’t let it get me down. Grief is a weapon they’ll use against you, you know. It can undermine a warrior’s spirit. I’m holding off on grief until we’ve driven out every last demon.”

He thought about grief, the Neathers’ hunger and the dwarf’s loneliness—the cracks that let the demons get their claws in.

Her cheerfulness is her shield.

And what was his? He had a bad feeling that the breadth of the chasm could not be bridged with beer and friendly chats. And certainly not with faith in some self-proclaimed god.

“Easier said than done,” he murmured.

“But I’m glad I caught up with you, because you’re gonna have to walk me through why you thought shattering the Wardstone was the right call.”

“I suppose you didn’t see them. The angels.”

“Another vision, huh? If I say I’ll take it on faith, are you going to make some cutting remark?”

“Not this time.” His eyes twinkled over the lip of his tankard, which he set down as he looked at her more seriously. “Seelah, the Wardstone was a prison, full of trapped angels.”

“Well that’s—” She paused a moment while it sank in. “For a hundred years?”

He explained, leaving out nothing—not even the aeon, because she was the only one he’d told his whole story to, and it was comforting to have someone he could confide in who wouldn’t laugh it off.

She burst into gales of laughter. “No, it’s too much—I mean, I believe you, don’t get me wrong. But Raqim you are some kind of lodestone for crazy.”

He gazed morosely into his mug.

“I’m sorry,” she chided, nudging his shoulder with hers. “I mean that in a good way. So then what was that explosion? When you blew the roof off the Gray Garrison?”

He wished sometimes she was quieter, because now a few ears around them perked up. People had been talking about him all day, staring at him awestruck, asking him questions but not listening to the answers, even begging for his blessing. A small company of crusaders got down on one knee before him. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “I’ve been trying to recall the details. I don’t believe it was arcane.”

“You’re not going to like this,” said Seelah, “but it felt divine to me.”

Two seats down, Anevia Tirabade reached over and passed him a little chunk of the Gray Garrison. “Rumors are going around you’ve been blessed by Iomedae herself, Raqim. Breathe on this for luck, will you?”

“Don’t be absurd.” He was in too good a mood to be truly annoyed. He aimed as if to toss the rock into her tankard.

She laughed, but her eyes narrowed. “You’re saying you’re just some guy with an angelic sword who can blow through packs of demons and blast whole stories off buildings? Yeah, pull the other one.”

“Nevi!” Irabeth accepted the rock back and plopped it into Anevia’s tankard herself. “We shouldn’t be encouraging superstition.”

“He also breathes fire when he’s mad, so I’d watch it if I were you,” said Seelah.

“Does he now? Another surprise.” A woman’s laugh issued from the hood of a crusader who’d been listening in. “I must learn more about this hero who’s the talk of all Mendev.” As the woman drew back her hood, Irabeth looked at her and then looked again. And sprang to her feet, nearly knocking the whole bench over.

“Your Majesty!”

Chapter Text

He lies flat on the dune for the third night in a row.

Their silhouettes pass back and forth against the indigo backdrop of the horizon. He’s given them nicknames so he can remember: Sleepless, Ponytail, Father Hen, Mop, Tall Halfling, Short Halfling, Walking Stick. There are twenty-four of them in six mud-and-grass huts. For three days he has watched them come and go, tending their garden and their camels and praying to the sun through their blindfolds.

He was sent to scout because word reached Azir that some of the local villagers began coming to them for healing, and some have even joined them. Their numbers are growing. Their divisive foolishness spreads like a plague. They have no right to be here.

On his elbows he slips down the dune and then runs low and silent back to report to the Captain. “They’re all there.”

“Good. Go with Bardia and Sami. Cover the west path.”

Arsha waits until the Captain is out of earshot to say, “Shouldn’t we wait, sir? What if they’re armed?” His question is answered only with uneasy looks from his comrades.

The Pure Legion squad, fifteen in all, split up and move like wraiths into position. They’re outnumbered, but their objective is to hem in the Sarenrites and take them into custody, and they are not expecting much resistance. The Captain has decided not to wait for the squad of reinforcements on the way from Botosani. All twenty-four of the Sarenrites are in their compound tonight, an opportunity not to be missed.

Raqim crouches with his bow amidst fragrant juniper. In the moonlight across the path Bardia’s head blends in with the low wall, a rock like any other. Sami has made himself invisible.

At the signal, he and Bardia come out of hiding. As his bow is raised, fire streams from his hand along the nocked arrow, illuminating him and Bardia in the hope that this will dissuade the Sarenrites from fleeing in their direction.

No luck. The Dawnflower’s faithful were prepared for this. They too have archers. And paladins with flaming scimitars, sprinting right toward Raqim and Bardia, clearing a path for their fellows to escape.

In the distance the Captain shouts orders but in the panic he can’t make out the words. He looses a warning arrow. Bardia whistles and waves as if summoning reinforcements, hoping to spook them. It doesn’t even slow the Sarenrites down.

And now the rest of their Pure Legion comrades are closing in at a dead run. They won’t make it in time. Sami flies out of hiding to tackle the first paladin but Raqim watches in horror as his head is thrown over sideways with a gash chopped into his neck like a sapling.

The next arrow, Raqim aims true. It glances off the golden ankh on a Sarenrite shield. Backpedalling, Bardia frantically shouts a spell, and is silenced mid-syllable by a flaming scimitar. His body folds to the ground.

In horror Raqim realizes he understands the Sarenrites’ Kelish—yelling to get the children out, to run this way through the gap they’ve cut in the Pure Legion’s forces.

The gap left by the dead bodies of his childhood friends.

He drops his bow and draws his scimitar and knife. The flame needs no coaxing: he feels it seethe from the base of his skull down the nerves of his arms and into his weapons, blazing against the night, illuminating Bardia’s crumpled corpse. Two Sarenrites close on him.

From out of the darkness an arrow strikes and staggers one of them. The other swings. Raqim ducks back, heels slipping on the sand, overcoat snagging on the juniper, grief and rage filling his lungs.

His comrades arrive and overcome the paladins and push back against the rest of the Sarenrites, who turn and flee for the safety of their compound.

The Captain has him by the scruff, yanking him out of the bushes. He needs no urging. He’s close on the Sarenrites’ heels and in moments they are penned.

The last Sarenrite warrior makes a stand. A roared prayer to the Dawnflower is offered to the night sky: For the Sun and the Fury!

“Burn them!” the Captain is yelling. “Agadar, you Qadiran dog. Are you one of them? Burn them! Stop them before—”

The rage leaps from his lungs like a wild creature off its tether. Dark red flame erupts from him and engulfs the Sarenrites. The smoke is blinding. They are screaming. Raqim can’t stop. Grief and horror pour out of his throat as fire.

What puts an end to it is the Sarenrite warrior. Grief and horror of her own twist her features, as her scimitar sweeps aside the flame like a curtain and slices into his gut.

* * *

He felt the ground drop out from under his feet. “I have no faith in your gods, no titles or honors, no experience…” His voice trailed off.

“What you do have is more important than any of those things. Even without faith, you have earned the Inheritor’s favor. You are blessed with a sword that belonged to the angel Lariel—my friend, by whose side I fought long ago. The people of Kenabres praise your bravery and leadership. And of course, let us not forget your extraordinary…”

He wasn’t even listening to her anymore. His mind dwelt in the pain and destructive power in his chest. The fire and the Light of Heaven. If there were any justice he would be burnt to ash. Not this.

She had asked her guards to clear an area where they could speak privately, which turned out to be the tavern stables. A rustic reception room for the Queen of Mendev, but it was calming to have a horse’s neck under his hand while they spoke.

“Tell me about yourself, Mister Agadar. Some say you are Qadiran, others that you are Rahadoumi.”

“My family originated in Qadira but I was raised in Rahadoum. I am Rahadoumi.” The horse nibbled his sleeve as he stroked the curve of its neck.

“What do you make of these angelic powers you seem to be invested with, I wonder?”

“I am more at a loss than anyone. One thing I can say is that I make less of them than everyone else around here.”

“We do make much of them, and for good reason. You must understand that without the Inheritor’s aid we cannot hope to push back the forces of the Abyss. In Mendev we do not have the luxury of atheism. I admit I find it curious that my goddess chose you to carry her flame.”

Raqim turned his eyes from the horse to the Queen. “Very curious, particularly because I was not consulted.” He hoped he didn’t sound rude, but she had insisted on the informality of the interview, and he wondered if perhaps she would be willing to intervene with her goddess on his behalf. Tell her to leave me alone, he wanted to plead.

But she smiled. “Well, I am consulting you at any rate. I hope you will accept.”

“You worried she’s gonna smite him or somethin’?”

Seelah rolled her eyes at the tiefling but in truth he’d caught her red-handed. She was watching the door, waiting for Raqim and the Queen of Mendev to come back into the tavern so everyone could stop holding their breath and get on with the party. “Well, I haven’t yet, so he’s probably safe. For now.”

“That mean I’m safe too?”

“As long as you pay me back, yeah.”

His perfectly innocent grin dropped as he nodded toward the door. “I dunno,” he said. “Got the look of a man who’s been smote if you ask me.”

Raqim burst in and headed straight for the stairs, looking like he was going to be sick. And then the Queen came back in, all smiles and gracious waves, and the party got started again in earnest. Seelah tossed back what was left of her ale and pushed her mug at Hawkes for a refill. Raqim probably didn’t want some paladin running after him anyway.

Especially some paladin who never seemed to have the right words when people needed them.

* * *

Because of his chest wound, he’d been given one of the cots in an upstairs room. His hands trembled with fatigue as he unwound his tagelmust and folded it neatly, for some reason reminded of his own child’s hands packing his few belongings before dawn the fateful day they set out into the desert. As he turned to hang up his overcoat he started.

The elf girl spooked him. She sat cross-legged on the floor, as if even a cot was too much luxury for the likes of her. “Are you going to sleep?” she asked.

“Not likely.”

“Then we can keep each other company! Soot and I don’t like noisy parties either.”

Much as he found her company disturbing, he didn’t have the heart to send her away. He dropped onto his cot and pressed a thumb to his brow without another word.

She scooted closer on the floor. “Is something making you sad?”

Her burns frightened him to look at, as if she were sent like a Fury by Sarenrae to plague him. But he knew better. You’d have to be pretty full of yourself to think Sarenrae’d pay you that much attention. Ember didn’t believe in the gods either. Maybe she wasn’t so mad after all. Or they both were. Was there any harm in voicing his thoughts aloud? “I didn’t ask for this.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But maybe I deserve it.”

“Nobody deserves to be sad, but everybody is.”

Her nonsense was actually kind of soothing. He went on, “In my life I have always resented being special. Chosen. Different.” The infant marked by the dragon. The favored son. The locust-eating Qadiran boy. The fire-breather. His mind was drawing dangerously close to something. Subconsciously the animal part of him tiptoed around it like the den of a sleeping predator and turned his thoughts back to his immediate concerns.

The Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade?

“I’m not special, so I don’t know how that feels,” she mused, “but you have special magic that makes people feel safe. I think it would be nice to have that.”

The joyful sounds of the party downstairs filled the silence between them. Crusaders were singing. Seelah’s loud laugh rang out. Raqim gave a small, wistful smile. It was not a burden he asked for, but he had to admit: “I suppose in a way it is nice.”

Perhaps this was a chance for atonement. Not for Sarenrae’s sake, but for his own soul’s. To put the fire and the Light of Heaven to work against the Abyss, to protect mortals—all of them, regardless of their delusions. To make up for the death he’d caused by giving a little life and happiness.

And maybe he could guide a few of them away from their delusions in the process.

But doubts also assailed him. If he turned his mind inward, the memory of screams drowned out the sounds of merrymaking until he could hear nothing else. Can I be trusted with this power? Can I learn the weight of my sword?

The wound in his chest had closed, but the ache still ran deep. He pressed his hand to it. Inside was a faultline. When it broke open, what would pour out? Healing light, or fire? How could he be sure? What must he do to cleanse himself of the rage?

Ember played with her crow, tossing seeds with her disfigured hand for it to catch in its beak.

A wild, inexplicable urge came over him to go down on his knees in front of this girl and confess. Tell her that he burned innocent people, just like her and her father, and let her judge him and send his soul to Hell if that was where it belonged.

He stopped himself just in time. A very strange and irrational impulse.

Her crow’s shiny black eye met his gaze with a most uncanny look.

No. He would not throw himself on the pyre of Hellfire. But he could throw himself at the Abyss.

Chapter Text

The atheist Rahadoumi Knight-Commander never came to visit the chapel tent, and it was just as well. Sosiel was absurdly proud of his latest oeuvre, so proud that it would mortify him should the Knight-Commander witness what he had unknowingly inspired.

It was embarrassingly beautiful. Flushed, Sosiel turned the canvas backward to hide it just in case, but not without one last pleased glance at the way the gold of his robe lit up as if aflame, and the way the bright streaks of the Commander’s fiery tagelmust cut through the ash-gray sky. And those jet eyes, black and inscrutable but lit from within.

He threw his cloak about his shoulders and determinedly headed for the command tent. He had a request to put to the Knight-Commander, no matter how intimidating the man seemed. There was no more putting it off. He clasped his hands nervously within the sleeves of his robe as he walked through the muddy assembly yard.

His timing was poor.

The Knight-Commander was on his way out of his tent, head down, walking fast and speaking rapidly to Irabeth in an accent that was clipped and throaty, but also somehow warm and colorful. Sosiel’s imagination went to buzzards circling in a painted desert sky and smiled at his own reaction. You could romanticize a doorknob, Sose, Trever used to say.

And suddenly they were face to face.

The Knight-Commander had stopped in front of him expectantly, tugging down his tagelmust to reveal a bemused look on his bronze, bearded face. “Yes?”

“Sosiel Vaenic of Carpenden,” Sosiel reminded him. “Andoran,” he added. He left out the part about being a priest of Shelyn because the man’s eyes flicked to the rainbow-hued peacock on his breast.

“I remember your name. Walk with me.” The Knight-Commander struck out into the camp, beckoning Sosiel to follow.

“I—I know you’re very busy, but I hoped to ask you a favor.” Sosiel took long strides to keep up. He had planned what came next, but now that he had the Knight-Commander’s ear he struggled to recall the precise words. “I also think—I mean I know—you have no interest in religion. And that’s fine. I’m fine with that.”

There was a pause. “You find me relieved.”

Sosiel blinked, unsure whether he was supposed to laugh. “I mean I’m embarrassed to ask this of you but I feel I must. You may know that my brethren in faith at the Temple of Shelyn died in the attack on Kenabres. As the only survivor I will be holding a funeral with their friends and family tomorrow at Martyr Zacharius’ cemetery. I hoped as Knight-Commander you would be willing to pay your respects. It would bring them—us—comfort.”

That stopped Raqim in his tracks. This fresh-faced young priest was going to offer words of succor and wisdom in the midst of a war? Inspired by some frivolous goddess? He opened his mouth to refuse, but what changed his mind was the priest’s naively hopeful expression, not unlike Amir’s. He was like a giant version of Amir, suddenly grown up and half a head taller than his older brother.

“I don’t have much time. But… you say you lost your brethren?”

“All of them,” said Sosiel Vaenic. “I was sent to get help, and…”

“Why are you here? You look like a painter, not a warrior.”

The priest looked at his own hands, surprised the Knight-Commander noticed the paint stains. “A priest of the goddess of beauty might not seem useful in a war, but the Crusade is different. Demons are the very embodiment of everything evil and ugly in the world. Perhaps a disciple of kindness and beauty can help hold back the tide in his small way.” He sighed in sudden embarrassment. “You must think me quaint.”

“I admit I see no need for a goddess. Kindness and beauty speak for themselves. But you have not answered my question: why have you come here?”

“If you mean why I’m not back in sunny Carpenden painting landscapes, it’s because my goddess has—I have no tolerance for false piety. I’m here to save lives.” Sosiel became painfully aware of the dark eyes on him. “And now you must truly think me quaint.”

“Quite the contrary,” said the Knight-Commander. That shift from the goddess’ will to his own motivation spoke well of him. But Raqim was thinking that Sosiel was on the way to a funeral for all the disciples of kindness and beauty in Kenabres except one, and those lives had not been saved, and he was likely in for a good deal more grief than he expected.

Aren’t we all.

“A funeral to mark the passage of mortal lives,” he mused. Something more dignified than leaving burial to the shifting sands. Raqim found to his surprise he wanted to hear this priest’s words, even if they were spoken for others. “I will go. We’ll go together.”

The priest beamed. “Thank you, Knight-Commander!”

* * *

When he said they would go together, what the Knight-Commander appeared to have meant was also his inner circle, the band of “specialists” he had gathered in Kenabres to infiltrate the Gray Garrison. Sosiel found himself riding for the cemetery amidst this odd collection, which included the Queen’s cousin, Count Arendae: an aasimar of such absurd beauty Sosiel felt blinded—at least until he opened his mouth.

“Am I to understand that among my duties as Advisor Plenipotentiary et cetera et cetera I am required to attend mind-bludgeoningly boring ceremonies? Nothing is more ghastly than a funeral,” he complained. “Well, fortunately no one said anything about staying awake for it.”

“Trick is to find somethin’ to do with your hands,” grinned the street tiefling riding at his side. “Funerals is good pickin’s, ‘cept when you stick your hand in and get a wet hanky.”

The Count gave an amused snort. “I can think of something more exciting than larceny I could do with my hands. Stick them in and get a wet hanky, as you say.”

The tiefling wasn’t sure whether to laugh or gag. “Tryina put me offa pickin’ your pocket eh?”

The Count gave him a shameless once over and opened his mouth but the paladin cut him off. “I swear to the Inheritor if you say another word I’m gonna push you off your horse right into that mud puddle.”

They weren’t what Sosiel expected in the Knight-Commander’s entourage. Much more… colorful.

* * *

At the ceremony the young priest struggled. It was painful to watch. He threw a handful of soil into each of the graves, fighting back tears as he said their names, one by one. In the long silence that followed, twice he opened his mouth to begin, and failed.

When at last he found his voice, there was pain in its softness, but also comfort. “I wish you a warm welcome in Shelyn’s realm,” he said. “We will banish this ugliness and evil, make the world richer and let peace blossom in it. We’ll make sure nothing like this… this…”

But Raqim was far away. Head bowed, his thoughts flew across impossible time and distance. I wish your souls peaceful slumber. Your lives burned brightly, too short, too fragile. I am glad to have laughed with you.

Bardia. Sami. Arsha. Amir—no. He couldn’t hold them all in his mind at once, nor could he let them all go. His eyes began to swim. He steeled himself. They would think it odd if the Knight-Commander shed tears for people he didn’t even know. The more he tried to hold it back, the more it threatened to overwhelm him. This was a bad idea. Hadn’t Seelah said that to open the door to grief was an invitation to demons?

And so mentally he threw on the mantle of Knight-Commander and came to the priest’s rescue. “We’ll make sure nothing like this happens again. We mortals have the strength in us to push back the Abyss, when we are united in common cause. And now we should hold off on grief until that is accomplished.”

The priest gave him a grateful look. Seelah nodded solemnly. The Count yawned.

But as the crowd of mourners began to disperse and gravediggers arrived with their shovels, one last girl who had been gripping her bouquet tightly in both fists finally found the courage to toss it into a grave, and as she did, suddenly recoiled with a horrible scream.

* * *

In the last seventy years, the road joining Kenabres to Drezen had fallen into disrepair. Pocked with potholes, littered with debris, whole sections washed out. Another urgent matter to attend to. As the Crusade pushed north they would need these roads for supply lines. Raqim added that to his ever-growing mental to-do list.

And that kept his mind off what else had washed away in that time. The funeral hadn’t helped after all. It only gouged out a deeper pit in his stomach.

The party was forced to take a deer path around a large portion of the road that had collapsed, the soil underneath it now slow-flowing silt in the Sellen.

In the wood the touch of the Abyss made itself apparent. Trees bled foul, caustic sap. Evil-smelling blooms hung from clinging branches. Roots twisted and writhed, reaching for their horses’ hooves. Raqim was reminded of the days he spent half-delirious escaping the alchemist’s lab. He remembered how the mud itself seemed to come alive, congealing into bubbles that became venomous toads, and he kept a watchful eye on the path ahead.

As soon as they left the trees behind and rejoined the road, Seelah rode up alongside him.

In dress uniform for the funeral, shining in her fine new Crusade armor—only slightly soiled by the scuffle with the undead at the cemetery—she cut an admirable figure. Secured across her shoulders with a bronze chain was a white cape trimmed in red silk, Iomedae’s sword embroidered down the back in gold thread. Her braids were pulled back with a white ribbon and her helmet and gauntlets were off, secured behind her. To Raqim she appeared an experienced rider, comfortable in the saddle, straight-backed but relaxed.

Her white and gold mirrored his own. If only her version did not signify the weakness of mind of religious faith, he thought. Though at the cemetery, having witnessed her draw her hands together and emit a pulse of holy light that seared through the undead and turned them to ash, it could not be denied the power of the goddess had come in handy in a pinch.

He turned to greet her. She beat him to it. “Knight-Commander.”

The formality surprised him. He opened his mouth to correct her but she went on, “Permission to split up and rejoin you at camp in a couple hours?”

“Why? It’s better to stick together.”

“I’m not going alone. I’m meeting up with the gang. Elan, Jannah and Curl. We’ll be back at camp before sundown. If it’s all right with you, sir.”

Why did that sting? “Seelah, what is this about?”

“It’s really not worth your time, sir. We’re just swinging by the abandoned Houndhearts camp to grab something for Elan.”

“We’ll come with you.”

“No—no, really. It’s not worth bothering the Knight-Commander about.”

He looked away, trying to swallow this strange lump in his throat. He’d almost told the priest he was too busy for the funeral, but now a few hours’ detour with the League of the Inspiring Cart made him want to drop everything and come along. It wasn’t rational, and yet he couldn’t help himself. “What happened to friends helping each other out? Even for small things?”

“Well I—” For a moment she looked embarrassed, but then she brightened. “All right then! Thanks. Sir.”

* * *

Elan and Jannah met them at the head of the trail. Jannah wore a tailored duelling doublet and high boots, ready for adventure. Elan, in mail under his worn blue Houndhearts tabard, stood with his feet apart and his hands locked behind his back, frowning as they approached. He took the bridle as Seelah dismounted. “You brought the whole Crusade.”

“The more the merrier, right?” she laughed, searching his face uneasily.

Elan gave Raqim no more than a stiff salute and turned on his heel to lead them up the path.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” Jannah said, falling in step as they led their horses through the narrow gap in the brush. “He’s just starstruck by the big heroes coming to his rescue.”

“Come on, it’s just me,” said Seelah. “The old League of the Inspiring Cart ring a bell? Speaking of, where’s Curl?”

“He said he wasn’t feeling well.” Glancing back, Elan gave Jannah a sour look.

“Tummy troubles,” added Jannah with a laugh.

“Elan, what’s eating you, anyway? Tummy troubles of your own? You eat something sour?” Seelah jogged to catch up to him and he finally stopped and turned around.

“Look, I don’t need the whole damn Crusade just to dig through a pile of junk.”

Seelah’s face fell.

“Wait, we’re diggin’ through an abandoned mercenary camp? Well, I don’t mind helpin’,” Woljif volunteered.

Raqim stood apart with his horse. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you, Elan. I just wanted to lend a hand. There could still be demons around the camp.”

“Well, Jannah’s right. You are overwhelming. A lot has changed since we met in Kenabres, not all of it good. Sir.”

Not a fortnight ago they were laughing over beers at the Defender’s Heart, and now Raqim was Knight-Commander and everyone was awkward. He had that same sinking feeling in his stomach as when he was the Qadiran kid with fire powers. He felt foolish for thinking he was part of the League of the Inspiring Cart in the first place. All his real friends were gone. His voice came out subdued. “What are we looking for?”

Elan had already turned his back and started up the path again.

“His engagement ring,” said Seelah.

“The one he was saving up for?” He remembered Elan talking about it, and thinking at the time that it was an admirable romantic gesture.

“Yeah, with the bonus after we saved Kenabres he managed to finally buy it, and then when demons ambushed the camp, in the rush he had to leave it behind. I just hope it’s still there.”

“I hope so too. What does it look like?”

“Fine silver with a sea-blue gem. You should see it. It’s not just jewelry—it’s a work of art. A genuine Darek Sunhammer!”

Chapter Text

There they were at last: Elan first, then Jannah and Seelah, coming out of the woods at the top of the path.

Oh no.

There was Raqim—the Knight-Commander, Curl corrected himself—and a bunch of his friends from Kenabres, too. Hard to believe a guy you were shooting the shit with over a beer a couple weeks ago was leading a Crusade now.

The halfling lowered himself back into his hollow in the brush and squeezed his eyes shut.

Maybe it was better for everyone if they caught him and cut him down where he stood. Numbly he clutched at his chest as if the blade were driving home. He deserved it, too.

What I’ve done—what I’m planning to do…

How could Seelah have missed the black mark on his soul? His face twisted into the grimace of a silent sob, head thrown back against a tree trunk and fists balled in his lap.

Cayden, if I die today, raise one for me. ‘Cause where I’m going, I don’t think they have nice, cold beer.

But it wasn’t over yet. Maybe luck would smile on him after all. Raqim and his lot could easily take care of the brimoraks for him, and then Curl could sit tight and wait them out. Either they would find the ring and he could spirit it away from Elan later, or they wouldn’t and he would have his own chance to scour the demon-free camp as he’d originally planned, at least until the brimoraks showed up.

He peered out from bushes. Elan looked upset even from here, but Curl told himself the young mercenary would be all right. It’s not like Kiana would refuse to marry him without some stupidly expensive ring. They’d get married anyway and Curl would pay them back somehow. There were ways to send money even from Katapesh. Or whatever very distant land he ended up in, trying to wash his soul clean before it was too late.

And besides, how upset Elan would be was nothing next to what Curl was up against. Elan complained sometimes that mercenary work was hard, but he had no idea what it was like in the Condemned. Every now and then Curl would try to speak up, but nobody really listened.

Nice as she was, Seelah didn’t get it either. It scared him to think how close he’d come to telling her the whole terrible story with the cultists, because she was a paladin and she obviously would have taken it to their superiors, and then… and then…

He’d been warned what would happen if he told anyone.

Been given a taste of it, even.

Sweat broke out on his brow even though it was cold crouching here in the bushes. Discipline in the Condemned was a joke next to the things the cultists had done to him, in ways no one could see. At the mere passing thought his pulse raced and his hands went clammy. His vision narrowed. Suddenly Curl couldn’t breathe.

No no no—

Not again, not now, not that. He mustn’t think about it. Blackfingers take them, he wouldn’t let them dig their nasty, rusty tools into his mind any further than they already had. This was his one chance to escape and he couldn’t afford to freeze up now.

Frantically Curl fumbled for his dagger and did what he had to do until the explosion of pain blasted away all his other anxieties. Soon he could breathe again. Shakily he used his teeth and his free hand to staunch the blood and wrap his arm. His heart slowed. He could do this.

“My footlocker’s up there.” Elan pointed to a circle of tents pitched on a rise at the northwest corner of the camp.

“We should scout first before we all head up there in the open,” said Raqim.

“Agreed.” Along with Jannah, Elan skirted the east side of the camp, shaking his head angrily as he stepped over the ransacked tents of his comrades. Lighter of foot, Jannah followed, poking at a fallen Houndhearts banner with the tip of her blade, while Raqim and the others split up and combed the lower campsite.

Curl knew one when he saw one.

Casually, the tiefling distanced himself from the rest of the group and took every chance he got to poke into every promising nook and cranny, pack and coffer.

It would have been funny if Curl were in any mood for it. He watched as the tiefling approached one particular tent and loitered about until his comrades turned their backs, and quickly ducked his head under the tent flap.

And took off running.

“Chief! Chieeeeeeeef!”

The guy was fast, Curl had to give him that.

On the tiefling’s heels the two brimoraks came screeching out of the tent, fire streaking from their hooves, in literal hot pursuit.

And now Raqim and the others closed in. Suddenly backpedaling, together the brimoraks molded spheres of whirling flame, which they hurled at the Crusaders before turning to flee.

Two fireballs detonated, one right after the other. Both Raqim and the aasimar stood unflinching, throwing out defensive spells that spared their team the brunt of it, though the heat was spectacular. Curl felt it blow past even in his hiding place.

The tiefling, wits collected, was now sneaking around to catch the brimoraks unawares. Two arrows whizzed past and the demons began to falter.

Meanwhile, Curl watched as poor Jannah Aldori snapped. Boy, could he relate. As the smoke and flames cleared around her, there she was bent double with her hands over her head, screaming for help, and a moment later she was flying blindly for the path to the road—sword, pride and friends abandoned.

“Jannah! Jannah, wait!” There was no time to go after her. Seelah let out a sigh and turned her sights back on the demons. Cornered by the tents, they turned with wolfish grins and blazing eyes to face the Crusaders.

Although her helmet and gauntlets were still tied to her saddle—something she was definitely going to kick herself over later—Seelah uttered a prayer to the Inheritor, raised her shield, lifted Radiance to shoulder-height, and charged.

Just as three babaus sprang out of nowhere.

She was running full speed into a trap.

“Seelah!” She wasn’t sure if it was Elan or Raqim or both, but it was too late to stop her momentum.

Multiple enemies—low stance and wide sweeps to keep them at bay—but the babaus had spears and the brimoraks were breathing fire and it was no use. Instead she launched herself at one of the brimoraks and slammed the other aside with her shield as she brought Radiance down: a diagonal cut that came back around in a low sweep and sliced one of the demons practically in half.

A babau jabbed her open flank, right between the buckles of her breastplate. Pain flashed white-hot in her vision. She couldn’t breathe.

And then some holy power—not unlike that explosion at the Gray Garrison—refilled her lungs as Raqim plunged into the fray at her side, his flaming scimitar driving a babau to its knees. The other brimorak dropped dead at her feet, Woljif crouching behind it with both daggers dripping black demon blood, and soon the battle was won.

Panting, she lowered her blade and gave Woljif a nod of thanks. Sosiel came to inspect the wound in her side. Probably broke a rib, she thought sourly. No laughing for a while. And then Raqim—whoops, the Knight-Commander, she reminded herself for the hundredth time—strode up looking furious.

“Seelah, watch out! Are you mad?” He paused, shaking his head. “Forget it. Stupid question. Your goddess won’t save you. Sosiel’s goddess didn’t stop demons from cutting down every last priest in her temple either.”

At their shocked expressions he turned away. “Be more careful.”

She stared after him. If he wasn’t Knight-Commander, she’d give him a serious piece of her mind. Not long ago, she and Elan would have shared a look behind his back at the very least, but Elan didn’t even spare her a glance.

At her side, Sosiel just bowed his head and murmured a prayer to Shelyn, and some of her pain abated. But not all.

Elan was anxious for this to be over. He couldn’t help hoping the ring would still be there by the Inheritor’s grace, and then he could go report back to his captain and regain some semblance of order and sanity. He was in such a hurry he didn’t take much precaution throwing open his footlocker, so the surprise was doubly unpleasant. He jerked back and fell on his ass.

A tiny, hideous little face leered up at him. “Mine! Haha, mine!”

Cackling, the quasit led them on a merry chase, almost as if it enjoyed baiting a band of armed and dangerous Crusaders. Until it happened to fly close to the underbrush at the edge of camp.

Out of nowhere, Raqim watched as a redheaded halfling shot out of the bushes and tackled the quasit. The thing’s wings beat the ground, raising a small storm of dust, until as he and the others ran up, the struggle suddenly ceased and the halfling emerged triumphant, holding a delicate silver ring between his bloodstained fingers.

“Curl? I thought you said you had tummy tr—” Seelah began, but stopped as Curl and Elan, unsmiling, locked eyes.

There was silence.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Elan.

Curl closed his fist around the ring and stuffed it in his pocket. “I’m sorry.”

“This whole set-up—it was you all along! I never should have trusted you.” Elan gripped his sword white-knuckled. “I guess once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel.”

Curl shook his head sadly, unfurling a scroll. “I didn’t want… but maybe you’re right.”

“Don’t you dare!” Elan launched himself at the halfling. His blade flashed out—and was swept aside as Seelah shouldered him hard, toppling him to the ground.

With snarl he twisted and made a grab at Curl, but his fingers passed through thin air as the halfling stepped through a portal, and was gone.

“Damn it!” Elan balled his fists and pounded the dirt. “A year’s salary—and a thief on the loose, thanks to you, Seelah!”

She reached to help him up but he batted her hand away.

“Elan, I wasn’t going to let you just cut Curl down. He’s a good lad. I’m sure there’s some explanation.”

“The explanation is that he’s a thief or a cultist or probably both. And now we’ll never know.” Tiredly, Elan got to his feet. “Well. Thanks, Commander.”

Raqim really couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic. “I’m sorry, Elan.”

“Yeah. So am I.”

“Better to let a thief escape than kill an innocent,” said Seelah.

“Yeah, yeah, save it. You two think you know better than the rest of us. How’s the weather up there on that pedestal?”

“I’m sorry?”

For a moment Elan stared at her, lips in a tight line, but then he decided to let it all out then and there. “There’s a reason knightly orders have a hierarchy. It takes training, experience and hardship to earn rank. But not for you. One day to the next you’re flinging around powers even the most seasoned paladins only dream of. And you, Raqim, nobody to Knight-Commander in less than a fortnight. You weren’t even an officer in the Pure Legion.

“And all right, you did save some lives with that power, but now everybody’s off their heads, even the Queen. It scares me.”

Released, his anger seemed to deflate. “Seelah, Raqim’s more right than he knows. You need to think before you charge in. And before you let somebody get away who’s going to stab you in the back someday. You people have no idea what responsibility you carry.”

Seelah wiped her brow on the back of her arm and breathed a long sigh. “Not beating the stupid allegations today, I guess.”

In his gentle, comforting tone Sosiel tried to fill the tense silence. “We shouldn’t fear the new and unknown. We just need to accept our responsibility and use these powers for good.”

“You’re not wrong, Elan.” Raqim looked away wearily. Responsibility. Inescapable, all his life. Amir’s voice said: You’ll take care of me Raqim, won’t you? You have the dragon fire. You’re the eldest. “I didn’t ask for this,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why the duty falls to me, but since it does, I vow to do my best.”

“I apologize.” The young mercenary sheathed his sword and ran a hand through his cropped hair. “I’m not angry with you. I’m just worried. And not just for you—for the whole Crusade.”

There was another uncomfortable silence, that not even Sosiel knew how to fill.

“It’s been a rough day for everybody,” said Seelah at last.

And the three of them turned away from one another without another word.

Chapter Text

Head bowed, exhausted as her horse, the lone rider turned her back on the reproachful eye of the Worldwound sunset and pressed on into dusk, traveling hard. What chafed even redder than the saddle-sores was the time to think.

The scene kept replaying in her mind: that tiefling sprinting out of the tent like a bolt, two demons on his heels and a third sneaking up the incline.

Even he—even the tiefling—drew his daggers and doubled back to face the foe.

Not to mention Seelah. Glorious in her shining armor, the paladin dropped into battle stance and stepped boldly between the demons and her friends… while Jannah was already looking around for an escape route. Fight or flight—her body chose her poison before she even had a say in it, nerves screaming with abject, animal fear.

All that training, all that bravado with the paladins on the road to Star Keep, all her dreams of heroic battles against the forces of the Abyss, gone up in the smoke of one fireball. The aasimar’s protective spell had saved her, but it didn’t feel like it.

Deserter.

The word rang in her ears. Like a good part of her hair, her honor was singed to the roots. She couldn’t ever look them in the eyes again—didn’t deserve to. Even as a trained swordlord she’d been foolish to think she could measure up to Seelah in the first place. The paladin made it look so easy, and now it was just starting to sink in what an extraordinary person Seelah was—and Janna wasn’t.

On the other hand, Elan and Curl worked hard, and it showed. That gave her a smidgen of hope. She could head home and start over. Train harder. Start smaller, maybe with a Brevan mercenary company, and eventually work her way up to the Crusades if she could ever harden herself enough to be trusted.

Until then, many years from now, it was better for everyone if she just disappeared.

She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes, hating herself even more for her self-pity.

They probably wouldn’t even miss her, but Jannah was going to miss them. Even Raqim, who was new to the group but seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Jannah thought she’d caught a hint of a spark between him and Seelah—just a glance that lingered once or twice—and how wonderful it would be to watch blossom between them, just as it had between Elan and Kiana. And now she was going to miss their wedding.

If she were wise and less inclined to punish herself, she would have taken the long way home. The roads in southwest Mendev close to the Numerian border, and far too close to the Worldwound, were not safe. Even the road through Numeria back home to Brevoy was likely to be rough, as there was precious little trade across those barren lands and their scattered tribes. The more hardship the better, she thought bitterly.

Through eyes blurred with tears she didn’t notice that what passed across the pale sun was not a cloud but something darker, circling on infested wings and watching with the malevolent eye of a vulture, a hunter on the trail of her despair.

* * *

He spent the day babysitting the rookies. Put ‘em through the ringer, too. Made them take the tent down and pitch it again until they could do it in under five minutes. Unpack and repack their kits. Sharpen and oil their blades. Mend their chainshirts, wash their gambesons, polish their boots, tend the horses. Twice. And then hit the training yard. If they didn’t hate his guts by the end of the day he was being too soft.

Elan was going to make fighters out of them. Leaders. Real leaders.

But now it was time to face what was for him the hardest part of the day. In dread he lay back on his cot, took a deep breath, and began again to try to compose a letter to Kiana.

I wasn’t really going to hurt him, he told her. I was just trying to scare him. Teach him a lesson.

Better to give her his version before she got Seelah’s. The trouble was, his own version wasn’t exactly crystal clear.

Curl was a cultist. He’d obviously arranged the ambush ahead of time so he could steal the ring off Elan’s dead body. That’s why Elan was so damn angry: mortally betrayed by a man he called a friend. Worse than stabbed in the back. Curl didn’t even do him the kindness of wielding the blade himself.

All right, it didn’t quite add up—why not just search the footlockers before Elan arrived?—but he was sure there was a plan of some kind, and an honest, down-to-earth fighter like himself could hardly be expected to twist his mind through a Baphomet-ian labyrinth in the attempt to figure it all out.

It hurt to think about. All that money he’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much to set aside. The way Kiana’s eyes were going to light up when she saw the ring. The wedding among their closest friends, Curl and Jannah included. All gone.

Damn his soul to the Abyss.

That was unkind. Curl was superstitious about his soul. But damn him anyway.

And if Curl had hoodwinked him—where did that leave the whole Fifth Crusade, run by a handful of rookies, against the likes of the Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth?

Featherless, they’d say in Andoran. They were in for one hell of a wake-up call.

All Elan could do was look after his own and hope. He just wished “his own” still included those he thought were his friends.

* * *

He couldn’t even look at the cursed thing, let alone wear it. The sooner it was fenced and gone the better.

Every now and then Curl would trace its outline through the fabric of his pocket, just to be sure it was still there. His ticket out of town.

His soul’s ticket out of the Abyss.

Down at the docks no one knew him, but he kept his red locks wrapped up in a scarf under his hat just in case. Tomorrow morning he would meet with Ellik first thing, and then there was a riverboat due to set sail, and it was goodbye Mendev. Goodbye Condemned, goodbye cultists… goodbye friends.

Curl blew his nose noisily enough to startle a gull.

He wished… but it was too late for regret.

In the other pocket he carried a full flask, just to get him through this last night. Stealthily he’d climbed up into the attic of the flophouse and made himself a cozy spot with the spare bedding where he could be alone. Alone—just as he deserved.

Curl uncorked the flask and drank, long and deep. It burned like the lava rivers of the Abyss but soon he was too numb to care.

That was why he had no memory of how he got here.

If “here” was a place.

Cayden help me.

He had died and gone somewhere nasty after all—that was all he knew. And oh Cayden, it was nastier than he’d ever expected. Instead of leering demons and rivers of offal there was… nothing. Just a dim, aquamarine glow. A suffocating, airless silence that his disembodied soul floated in, alone. Alone forever.

* * *

Heya. It’s me.

I hate to bug you with my personal problems but I don’t have anybody else to talk at. In fact, that’s exactly the trouble. You’re the only one left, so get ready to get your ear chewed off.

Today down at the training yard Elan wouldn’t even look at me. I think I know what’s going on. Man’s got high expectations. He goes hard on everybody, most of all himself. I think he’s furious with Curl but even more furious with himself for losing his cool, and he probably thinks I’m still mad about it too.

But dammit, he oughtta know I’m not one to hold a grudge. If there’s anybody who knows what it’s like to make a mistake, it’s me.

Then again, that’s why he’s mad. Me and my block of wood. Still blaming me for jumping in with both feet and letting Curl get away. Acting all special with a holy sword and powers I don’t deserve, rubbing elbows with the Knight-Commander.

A servant of yours should gain their powers by dedicated personal effort. Elan’s right. I need to be three times harder on myself.

The way I see it, we both messed up. I wish we could just talk it out. I hate to lose a friend.

Jannah, for that matter. I’m as much to blame as she is. I know I wound her up. She just seemed so happy to be one of the troops, and I knew she was fragile but I thought if I encouraged her enough she’d be ready to take on the crusades. Guess my paladin aura just wasn’t up to the task.

Look after her, wherever she is. Shame can drive you to desperate acts. I know.

Most of all Curl. Inheritor, I swear I saw the shame in his eyes. I still think there was something he was trying to tell me back in Kenabres but I fumbled it, and now he’s gone and done something irrevocable, and he’s going to have to face the music for it. I wish I could just grab him by the scruff and drag him back and make him give the damn ring back to Elan and apologize, and then we could all just go have a beer and laugh it off.

Inheritor… I’m glad you’re there, because I’m not tough enough to do this alone. I need my friends. I mean, what am I doing this for if not for them? If not for everybody to just forgive and get along and be happy?

Seelah rubbed her eyes wearily. Her knees popped as she rose from the altar mat. In the chapel tent before the statue of Iomedae, three candles burned: one for Elan, one for Jannah, one for Curl. She turned to go and suddenly changed her mind.

Plopping another coin into the box she took one more candle, lit it and placed it before the image of the goddess. Take that, you stubborn ass. I’m gonna pray for you too and you can’t stop me.

Gods, the state he was in after that bender with Ulbrig. Luckily she was a pro with hangovers. He probably wouldn’t even remember that it was she who tucked him into his cot and left him with a tall mug of water mixed with willowbark powder.

He looked like he’d been crying his eyes out. She just wished… but it wasn’t appropriate. He was the Knight-Commander now and she owed him some respect.

Look after him too, will you? Don’t put too much on him. There’s only so much us mortals can shoulder.

But I’m guessing you know that. On her way out of the chapel tent she gave the statue a sad, lopsided smile. Thanks for listening. I feel less lonely already.

* * *

They drank to the memory of the fallen. Big mistake.

He sat down with the Sarkorian chieftain because no one else would. Ulbrig’s rambling, drunken singing had cleared out a whole quadrant of the camp, including the mosquitoes. Maybe if he raised a mug with him, it would accelerate the inevitable and allow the Fifth Crusade to sleep in peace. Only too late did Raqim realize what Ulbrig was lamenting.

The end. No kin, no clan, no land.

You’re not alone, Raqim tried to tell him, but instead of cheering Ulbrig up it only dragged Raqim down into the mud of mourning.

“But that’s what it feels like,” Ulbrig had moaned. “Like I’m all alone.”

Raqim could relate. They sat side by side but each alone, Ulbrig grieving his mystic world of gods, spirits and oglins, and Raqim his logical world of arcana, philosophy and civility. The only thing they had in common was loss.

A knife of light sliced through a gap in the tent flap and straight into his brain. It was late.

He tried to lift his head. Once in Manaket he had witnessed the construction of a sand golem by a professor of the Occularium, and after pouring a ton and a half of sand into a bronze mold the professor set about hammering the bronze, with every ringing blow sending seismic ripples through the sand until the creature came to life with a tremendous groan.

Pretty much how he felt this morning. He’d never been closer to asking for divine healing. Cautiously he rolled on his side. Some kind soul appeared to have left him a mug of water.

This he drank down, and then he sat rubbing his burning eyes and nursing his regret.

Getting drunk with Ulbrig had been a mistake. Ulbrig was caught up in his own troubles; he could hardly be expected to cheer anyone else up.

There was only one person he’d met here who not only promised cheer and comfort, but who cared enough to offer a sympathetic ear, and she’d grown very stiff with him since the Queen appointed him. Now she called him “sir” and “Knight-Commander” and didn’t even want him coming along on a mission to help out a friend.

His own fault for being a stubborn ass he supposed, gazing miserably into the empty mug as a bronze hammer relentlessly pounded his brain to dust.

He just wished… but it wasn’t appropriate. He was the Knight-Commander now and it was his duty to shoulder the burden. Alone.

Chapter Text

“Raqim, come.”

He leaves off drawing dragons in the sand and follows his Aba over the rise. Dry acacia spines prick his feet. Curled skeletons of barbeya leaves scatter in the hot wind.

The goats are lying in what little shade is cast by a dying bushwillow. Their breath is shallow in the heat and the jerking of their stark ribs stirs up clouds of flies.

“There’s not enough left for all of them,” says Aba, although they both know it already.

“The Dawnflower will send rain,” Raqim tells him, although neither of them believes it.

“Lead the yearlings to me one by one.” Aba’s eyes are sad as he turns and leaves Raqim alone with the goats, his child’s heart filling with dread, as well as the one thing stronger than that dread: his sense of duty. He drops his stick and goes to gather the first of the yearlings, a spotted female that Amir named Raindrop. Her back legs rise but the front will not follow, so he has to carry her, draped around his shoulders, to where Aba waits kneeling in the sand with his knife.

* * *

A tremendous crack echoed across the cliffs. Bow taut, Raqim whipped about and watched Seelah plant her back foot but still slide under the force of the blow. The creature rammed its horns into her shield again and kept pushing, claws ripping through the gravel, attempting to topple her. Its flank was exposed. Could an arrow even penetrate living stone?

The bowstring sang in his ear. Stricken, the creature stumbled. Recovering with a low, powerful sweep, Seelah sliced the stone legs out from under it. The creature flapped and thrashed on the frozen ground, letting out unholy shrieks, until she silenced them with a final thrust.

“Last one?” she shouted, poised for the next, scanning the path and the sky.

There was silence but for the Crusaders’ ragged breathing.

“Clear,” reported Yaker. He removed a folded cloth from his beltpouch and began carefully cleaning his blade. “We rest under that overhang.”

Seelah frowned. She’d made up her mind to come to the Hellknights’ rescue, but drew the line at taking orders from them.

“That’s sensible.” Raqim blew out the flame on his newly nocked arrow. “We have less than three hours of daylight. Ten minutes’ breather and then we move.”

Yaker gave him a stiff nod. Probably the closest thing to enthusiastic approval he was capable of.

Together with the others, Raqim squatted under the overhang, drank from his canteen and checked his bowstring. “Where are the creatures taking those they abduct?”

In his borrowed armor Yaker could be mistaken for an average soldier at first glance, but the way he snapped to attention spoke of Hell’s whip. “Not far considering the weight they’re carrying, sir. Our Paralictor surmised to some demon-controlled Iomedean ruins six leagues north-northeast. Lost Chapel.”

The weight they’re carrying, Raqim thought: fully armored Hellknights and Sarenrite paladins, according to the young armiger’s report when he arrived desperate and bedraggled in the Crusade camp. Irrationally, Raqim’s mind kept painting the Sarenrites with the same faces as those in the desert outside Botosani: Sleepless, Ponytail, Father Hen…

If he wasn’t vigilant, it was easy to fall prey to the superstition that if he rescued the Sunrise Swords, he would suddenly awaken in Azir surrounded by friends, all this no more than a sick test concocted by meddling gods.

Here in the Worldwound the vapors of the Abyss rose from the poisoned soil and clouded the mind. He found it exasperating that only Sosiel’s divine rituals protected them from its physical and mental effects—sleeplessness, nightmares, fever, pox, irrational thinking. Impossible to sort out what was the chaotic influence of the Abyss, what was religious delusion, and what was real and true.

Out here he needed to be three times harder on himself.

At that thought he glanced at Seelah. She too seemed to be going hard on herself. How often he wanted to place a hand on her shoulder and ask her how she was managing. Tell her to raise her shield again, lest the demons get their claws in. Because these days he thought she looked unusually grim. Along with her friends, the easy laughter seemed to have abandoned her.

She’d stopped trading stories around the campfire. She slept little and prayed much. The two times he gave into his growing desperation to talk to someone, he found her in the chapel tent on her knees, which sent him away frustrated in more ways than one.

He wished they could restore the easy companionship of the early days in Kenabres—but she continued to insist on formality. Every “Knight-Commander,” every “sir,” felt like another stone in a wall between them.

Yaker got to his feet, not without a hitch in his injured leg. “The bivouac is at the base of that cliff. Shall I scout ahead, sir?”

Raqim gave him a nod.

“Yeah, you go right ahead,” muttered Woljif as he wiped gravel off the seat of his pants and peeked out apprehensively at the sky. “Give ‘em a nice, crunchy Hellknight snack to tide ‘em over before the rest of us show up.”

Seelah side-eyed him. “You know what? I think you’re scared of those things.”

“You know what? I think you’re daft if you ain’t.”

“Good to know you don’t mind sending your companions to their death if it’ll save your own skin,” said Lann. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Raqim looked shocked. “My friends. You would never toss each other to the demons.”

“If it was him or me—” Woljif began.

“He’s the last one I’d—" Lann began at the same time.

They stopped and looked at each other.

“Chief, you ain’t baitin’ us, are you?” Woljif narrowed his eyes.

Seelah bit her lip.

Almost got a smile out of her. As he rose Raqim caught Yaker’s questioning glance. “Behold,” he shrugged, “the Fifth Crusade’s elite fighting machine.”

High over the valley, winged demons circled like vultures.

“There they are,” said Yaker. “Looks like my unit’s still standing.”

Some distance below the ridge, the Hellknight camp lay tidy but sparse under the whirling shadows of the demons. On makeshift cots—some just a cape spread on the ground—lay many wounded soldiers, Hellknights and Sunrise Swords alike. Paladins moved among them, obviously unable to help any more than they already had; but the black-armored ranks of Hellknights stood impassive.

As Raqim watched, the Sarenrite leader, a white-haired man with the angelic sunburst blazing on his tabard, was accosted by what appeared to be a smallfolk Hellknight. The discussion quickly escalated to a vehemently gesticulating row, at least on the part of the paladin. At last the small Hellknight gestured sharply and two comrades seized the paladin and held him while others of their ranks sprang into action. Drawing hunting knives, they swiftly moved from wounded solider to wounded soldier.

The Sarenrite leader screamed.

“What the hell?” Seelah’s stomach dropped. “Are they—?"

“Stop!” Raqim suddenly yelled, loud enough it echoed down the cliffside. All the blood had drained from his face.

“No. They can’t be.” Before she could process what horror was unfolding in the camp below, she saw Raqim take off at a dead sprint down the ridge.

“Ra—Commander! Wait!” There was no way she could catch up. He was nimble as a goat racing down the rocks, yelling at them over and over to stop. Cursing her clanking armor, Seelah ran after him.

It was too late. As they watched helplessly, the Hellknights completed their grim task, just as the winged demons began to swoop in.

By the time Seelah reached the valley floor, her lungs aflame, the remaining Hellknights and Sarenrite paladins had retreated and left the demons to the Crusaders.

Raqim stood before the corpses with his back turned to her. The tension across his shoulders was like a bowstring.

Lann came up to stand next to her.

“Hellknights,” she spat. “Bloody butchers.”

Grimly Lann shook his head. “The wounded would have been carried off by the demons. Better this way.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, but Seelah knew in her gut it was wrong. It was wrong that it came to this in the first place and it was wrong what the Hellknights did about it. You have to stand up and fight, even when it looks hopeless. You can’t just give up and cut your losses like that. You can’t kill your own friends and comrades just because it makes sense. She didn’t know how to get that through the skulls of these people.

She stole another glance at Raqim’s back, relieved he’d tried to stop them. He could be infuriatingly logical sometimes, like the time he attacked a friendly trio of camping Crusaders just because something smelled off in their tea. Turned out he was right, but good people could have been hurt. She was glad he wasn’t congratulating the Hellknights on their shrewd tactics.

“Please,” came a feeble voice from among the bodies of the Sunrise Swords.

With Raqim, Seelah hurried to kneel at the dying priestess’ side.

“Hang on, sister.” Seelah tried to push aside the woman’s blood-soaked robes but they clung in a matted mass and it was impossible to ascertain the nature of her wounds.

“Just water, if you have any to spare,” she whispered.

“No no, don’t you give up.” Placing her hands on her torso, Seelah squeezed her eyes shut and desperately sought to tap into the goddess’ power. Thankfully Raqim made no remark as golden light streamed through the gaps in her gauntlets.

“Thank you.” With a sip of water from his offered canteen, the priestess seemed to regain enough strength to speak. “But save your healing. I’m finished fighting. The sun will not rise on this cursed land.”

“Mendevian faithful break too easily,” observed Yaker from where he stooped over a fallen comrade, preparing to repurpose their armor.

Over her shoulder, Seelah flashed him a glare. “You wanna try me?”

“This was not all in vain,” Raqim told the priestess. Seelah was surprised how gentle his voice sounded; the woman’s crisis of faith must leave him indifferent, but maybe it was her despair that touched his heart. “The Crusade is here. Tell us what happened.”

With her last breaths, the Sarenrite priestess explained how gargoyles destroyed her company’s provisions, and how, weak from hunger, they came across Hellknights and begged for their help—and received little more than crumbs. “May the darkness take this world and its cruel law. Dawnflower forgive me.”

Raqim closed the priestess’ eyes.

“Damn them. Might as well ask for help from a flesh-eating, poisonous wyvern,” muttered Seelah.

“A leader has to take care of their own tribe first,” countered Lann.

At that, Raqim raised his eyes and gave him a long, probing look. “They killed their own wounded. I suppose in the caverns you had to do the same?”

“Sadly, we did.” Lann’s lips set in a grimace. “I once watched a mother have to—”

“Enough.” Abruptly Raqim rose and stalked off among the dead, stepping between the bloodstains pooling from their slit throats.

Seelah looked after him, watching his hands ball into fists.

The surviving Hellknights and Sunrise Swords had taken refuge in a cave.

“That’s your Paralictor?” Raqim’s jaw was tight. Though there were no torches or campfire, there came a whiff of smoke in the air as they crossed into the gloom.

“Yes, sir.” Yaker hardly had time to answer before Raqim went striding up to the gnome, who stepped up sharply to meet him.

“Knight-Commander Raqim Ag Adar of the Fifth Crusade.”

“Regill Derenge, Paralictor of the Order of the Godclaw.”

“Care to explain yourself?” Low with fury, Raqim’s voice resonated in the cavern.

“If I must, though my actions speak rather plainly.”

“Indeed. If I’d been in that camp I would have killed you.”

For a moment there was no sound but the trickle of water in the cave. Seelah’s mouth hung open. Lann slowly raised his bow. Woljif let out a low whistle.

The pale gnome appeared unconcerned. “Prepare your people. We have five or six minutes before the gargoyles regroup and attack.”

At least the cave the Paralictor had retreated to was a defensible position. Along with Yaker in his dead comrade’s gear, the armored Hellknights and paladins formed a phalanx across the cave entrance. Beyond them Nenio and the archers perched against the walls at a good angle to cover them, while the healers stood shielded in the back. They were as ready as they could be.

But the gargoyles too were ready. While their own first wave charged in and skirmished with the Crusaders’ front line, others used the gap to take wing and wreak havoc amongst the back lines, breaking the priests’ spells and chanting out their own profane, soul-sapping magic.

Sosiel had to resort to brute force, skewering a demon through the gut with his spear, which unfortunately only seemed to anger it. Spitting and howling it threw itself at him, the spear jutting from between its wings, and he scrambled back with nothing but a thin shell of divine magic to deflect its swiping claws, until suddenly it stopped and sagged, collapsing around the spear in its gut. A sparking dagger hissed, jammed to the hilt into its neck. Woljif looked as surprised as Sosiel did.

Sosiel didn’t ask why he was hiding in the back of the cavern.

On the front line, Seelah’s shield was taking a battering but she held fast, Radiance singing with righteous fury. Paces away, despite his size, the Paralictor charged into the fray whirling a deadly hooked hammer. Lann’s and Raqim’s arrows tore through the demons’ fragile wings and hobbled them as they tried to drag their prey out of the cave and into the air.

The more their efforts were frustrated, the more frenzied the demons became, and the more mistakes they made—which the Hellknights took full and deadly advantage of. None too soon, the last of the gargoyles let out its death-shriek, and all went still.

When the battle was over, Raqim inducted the remaining Sunrise Swords into the Fifth Crusade.

As for the Hellknights—fortunately for them, his fury had been spent on the demons. He felt something cold wrap around his heart as he watched the pale gnome assess the damage and issue orders. “We put the march on Drezen on hold to come to your aid. I see now you would not have done the same for us.”

“Nor should you have,” replied the Paralictor. “And the armiger who left his post to beg for your help will be appropriately disciplined, rest assured.”

Yaker gave a nod of assent. Behind the black helmet his face was hidden, but it surely bore a stoic expression.

Madness.

Raqim clenched his fists. The sharp scent of smoke returned. “When I was a boy in Qadira, I was a goatherd.”

The gnome left off his inspection to turn wan, yellow eyes on him.

“Some evil brought drought and famine on our land. We had to cull the herd.” He knew he should stop talking. He heard the fragility in his own voice. Felt the fire leaking through the cracks.

“I helped my father kill the yearlings. Each one of them, he took in his arms. He sang to them. He wept. Did you?” Raqim’s eyes burned. His throat tightened painfully. He couldn’t stop himself. Aba. Forgive me. “I know you have to make hard choices sometimes. But not without love.”

The Hellknight Paralictor simply fixed him with a calculating stare. “Such sentimentality will cost you this war,” he said, and turned back to his duties.

If he’d been able to say another word, Raqim would have banished the Hellknights from the Worldwound on pain of death. Instead, he dropped his bow and strode out of the cave.

In the awkward silence that followed, Woljif whispered loudly, “Um… why’s the chief so upset about goats?”

Seelah wasn’t sure either, but something had touched a nerve. She also wasn’t sure why she felt like crying too.

“I’ll go,” Sosiel volunteered.

“No, you tend to the wounded,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

She gave him a few minutes to get it out of his system before she came over.

The jumbled gargoyle bodies made the cave entrance look like the ruins of some old temple. She had to step carefully. He stiffened when he heard her boots on the gravel, but relaxed again at the sound of her voice.

“Hey.” Seelah lowered herself to sit beside him on the uneven rocks. “I forgot to ask Daeran for a hanky, but you can use my cape.”

“Isn’t that sacrilege?”

“Enjoy.”

He opted to dry his face on his own sleeve. It was filthy anyway. “I apologize for that outburst. I...”

“Something got your goat?”

He covered his eyes with his hand. “Seelah.”

“Sorry. Made you smile, though.” She bounced her shoulder off his. “You said exactly what I couldn’t figure out how to say earlier. I can’t believe it ever comes down to sacrificing people, but even if it did... you can’t do it like they did.”

He nodded. By his shaky breathing she was afraid she’d touched that nerve again. Maybe better to change the subject. “You know, if you wanna let those Hellknights have it, I’m with you.”

“Sands take them,” he sighed. “But I’m afraid the Crusade could use their help.”

“With allies like them, who needs enemies? They’ll abandon us to the demons without a second thought.”

“They would if the math said it would somehow win the war. What they need to understand is that we’re not going to win this without having each other’s backs. Without taking risks. Without sacrifice—which we can only ask of ourselves, not other people.”

Emotion began rising in his voice again. Seelah saw his hand clench the fabric of his overcoat and wanted to say something that would give it the strength to relax again. “They have their code of honor, but there’s something essential missing from it. A heart.” She tilted her head to smile at him. “I’m so glad we agree on that, at least. You know, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you have a paladin code of your own.”

He shot her a wan look. “My only code is the Laws of Mortality, and they are not like a paladin’s oath. I am beholden to no greater power.”

There you go, saying the wrong thing again. At least he looked more annoyed than sad now, so she plunged ahead. “That’s not how I see it. I’m not beholden to Iomedae. I don’t owe her. We’re just... in alignment. We get along, we help each other. It’s like she’s my friend.”

“A friend who’s vastly more powerful than you? Who can give or take away your abilities on a whim?”

“Not on a whim. And she won’t take my abilities away because her heart and my heart are the same. All I’m trying to tell you is, I think you have that heart too.” She was becoming more emotional about it than she expected. “That’s a compliment.”

He sighed in surrender. “Thank you, Seelah.”

Suddenly she was overcome with an impulse to hug him around the shoulders or pat him on the knee. Her hand stirred but she stopped it just in time. “Happy to help. Sir.”

“There you go again.”

“There I go again what?”

“Sir. Knight-Commander.” He glanced away as if embarrassed.

Then it hit her. Elan refused to talk to her as long as she was up on an undeserved pedestal. Maybe Raqim felt lonely up there too. She’d been stupid.

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. In the last couple weeks I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Elan’s right, I have to be a better paladin. And part of that is being respectful. I mean, now that you’re Knight-Commander I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to act. A friend who’s vastly more powerful than I am?”

“I would like it if we could just keep being regular friends,” he said quickly. “Please, just call me Raqim.”

“All right. I will. In private, at least.”

“No, all the time. You’re the only one who pronounces it right. Maybe they’ll catch on.”

Seelah let out a laugh. “You cheered up now? Ready to give those Hellknights a spanking?”

“Don’t they do that to themselves?” He rose and offered her a hand up, bracing himself on the rocks so she could pull her whole armored weight up.

Maybe sometime she’d try to drag it out of him, whatever touched him off. For now it was good to see his spirits up. Her own felt more buoyant too, as if a burden had been lifted she didn’t even realize she’d been carrying.

Their hands were still clasped. He seemed to be searching for something in her expression.

“All that armor’s heavy, isn’t it?”

She thought she caught his meaning. “The only other option’s to try to stay one step ahead, and I’m not that fast.”

On the trek back under a steely, sunless Worldwound sky, Raqim distanced himself both from the Sarenrites and the Hellknights.

After their rescue, the Sarenrites were filled with febrile hope, trembling with fatigue but smiling through cracked lips. “Dare we hope a brother in faith now leads the Crusade?”

He had to explain again. He was no longer Qadiran. He had repudiated their goddess. To them it was infinitely worse than if he’d been born Rahadoumi. They sank back into grim silence, dragging their limbs alongside the smartly marching Hellknights.

The Paralictor watched with barely disguised contempt as Raqim forewent his own supper to feed the paladins.

Silently, he returned the gnome’s gaze.

I can’t send them away, Amir.

Better to keep them close. Besides, if they’re so concerned with the sacrifice it takes to win this war, let them sacrifice.

He pressed a thumb to his forehead. Please, stop crying.

I can’t fix it, but I can try to make it worth it.

Chapter Text

“I don’t even know what you’re supposed to wear to a Mendevian nobleman’s birthday party, but this is what I’ve got, so this is what you get.”

By the look on Camellia’s face, it wasn’t what you were supposed to wear. “You mean you only have one casual outfit?”

“Two. This is the nice one.”

Frowning, Camellia plucked at Seelah’s blouse, adjusting it lower. “You should show off your strong shoulders. And your bust.”

Seelah watched Camellia’s eyes roam her cleavage in a way that wasn’t entirely indifferent. “You’re not wearing something low-cut,” she observed.

Camellia’s gaze cooled as she lifted her eyes. “If you’re going peasant, you might as well take advantage.”

Wow. Nice. Seelah found herself missing Jannah more than ever.

“Hm. The buttercup color does highlight your skin, but you need an accent. Do you have a necklace?”

“Well, I have a shielding amulet—”

The half-elf tsked and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Well, I suppose a paladin isn’t likely to steal a necklace if I lend you one. Just don’t get drunk and careless and let someone else steal it.”

Seelah stood trying to figure out how to politely decline in case it turned out to be some snake-skull thing, but Camellia returned with a lovely, single teardrop pearl pendant on a fine, gold chain. In the mirror, Seelah bowed her head and watched Camellia’s fingers ghost over the pulse in her neck as she fastened the catch.

It did look nice. She smiled. “Well, thank you. I promise I’ll take good care of it.”

“You’d better,” said Camellia. “It’s a Darek Sunhammer. It’s worth more money than you’ll probably ever own.”

That name again—the same jeweller who made Elan’s ring. Popular fellow.

“You’re a good pal, Camellia.” Maybe if she said it enough it would come true someday.

And now—time to party.

From the main hall, Daeran’s loud laughter carried over the music and murmur of conversation. To her ears it sounded forced, but she supposed everybody had their own way of kindling the bonfire. She stopped in front of the full-length mirror and shimmied her blouse back up an inch. No sense starting a riot, she grinned to her reflection.

Half the Carpenden bubbly Daeran poured ended up splashing on the mossy flagons of the disused terrace. Seelah made a game of catching as much as she could with her glass, her arm in tandem with his sweeping gestures.

“You think you can keep up with me?” the Count mocked.

“I’m way ahead of you, Count.”

“Wait, how is that possible? How many bottles?”

“Just one, but I’m still having fun, while you look like you’re halfway under the table.”

He tried to top her up and missed. “Well then, you’d better get crawling. You’re the only paladin I invited, you know, and I am counting on you to uphold my tarnished reputation by being conspicuously fun.”

“Fun only makes a good shield when used sparingly,” she murmured, watching Daeran stumble as he reached for the next bottle. “You’re on your arse and half your guests haven’t even arrived. Uh, speaking of, the Knight-Commander’s around here somewhere, isn’t he?”

“Honestly I’m surprised he accepted my invitation. Dour fellow. Suspiciously paladinesque for an atheist. I mean, what is the point of shedding one’s dependence on the gods but still abiding by some tedious code? Ah, speak of the devil.”

She glanced over, her friendly wave aborted as the Knight-Commander strolled up the stairs and paused to greet a handful of fawning nobles. Her breath grew warm in her chest. He had exchanged his Pure Legion gear for formalwear in Mendevian style, still of the same white-and-gold with a wide red sash at his waist, but today without a head covering. His jet hair was loose and hung about his shoulders in thick waves. In the late afternoon sun streaming through the overgrown trees he looked... golden. And was he smiling?

“I will be temperate in my actions and moderate in my behavior. I will strive to emulate Iomedae’s perfection,” Seelah murmured, knocking back a gulp of bubbly.

He nodded to the nobleman but he wasn’t listening, concentrating instead on keeping his eyes from drifting back to her. She looked small out of her armor, but she filled the space around her with warm light and laughter. Her rich dark skin, saffron blouse, earth-brown riding trousers that were fitted to her advantage; the way she moved, grounded and comfortable; the bright smile. Like a sunflower.

“I can’t possibly—” –pay court to a paladin. What was he even thinking? “I can’t possibly... uh, accept such an offer except on behalf of the Crusade.” He forced his attention back to the nobleman at hand. “But you have my thanks, my lord. Now if you’ll please excuse me.”

She was with Daeran. He must pay his respects to the host, mustn’t he?

“Happy birthday, Count.” Raqim raised his glass, the first of the afternoon, and after the snooping with Inquisitor Hawkblade, much-needed. “My apologies for the late arrival. I was... occupied.”

“Oh, we’re only just getting started. Never fear, you haven’t missed much. Look around, everyone’s still clothed!”

Unfortunately, the Count’s outrageous behavior was starting to make sense. In this very house a decade ago, the teenaged Daeran was made to watch helplessly as his mentor and mother sacrificed themselves for Mendev. Everyone he’d ever cared for, dropping like the browned petals of the roses gone to seed all about the mansion.

It made him almost sick to watch the Count throw himself in the opposite direction of his sorrows with such reckless abandon. Still he clinked glasses with him, and with Seelah, meeting her bright eyes as he did and forgetting about Daeran as heat rushed up his neck.

“So, you’re some kinda constable, eh chief?”

Woljif was definitely going somewhere with this and Raqim wasn’t sure he ought to play along, but the bubbly was making him rash. “The Pure Legion upholds the Laws of Mortality, which forbid the practice of religion within our borders. So yes, in a sense.”

“Meanin’ you’re the guy who claps irons on the inquisitors and paladins, eh?” Gleefully the tiefling rubbed his hands together.

“I wish he would,” moaned Daeran.

“Don’t give him ideas. He’s bad enough already.” Seelah was only half kidding. She didn’t mind at all that he’d ordered the paladins to mess among the common soldiers, but his creation of the atheist Godless company was causing more than a little friction in the Crusade.

“I think you should round them all up,” Daeran slurred.

Raqim raised an eyebrow. “And then who would be left in my inner circle? You and Ember.”

“Yeah. The reasonable people.” Seelah rolled her eyes.

“I can be quite reasonable!” cried Daeran. “In fact, I’m reasonably drunk at the moment, but that can be remedied. More bubbly!”

Raqim exchanged a dubious glance with Seelah as Daeran lifted his glass and lost his balance, staggering backward. Instead of helping, Woljif just stepped deftly out of his way, but Raqim shot out a steadying hand. Inquisitor Hawkblade had asked him to distract the Count, but at this rate it hardly seemed necessary.

Except...

The musicians had struck up a livelier tempo and a lightness had begun to overtake his limbs. With a twinkle in his eye he stole another glance at Seelah, and then at the Count.

Pulling Daeran aside he waited until he focused and nodded toward the band. “I don’t suppose they know anything more colorful. Something to remind one of warm firelit nights south of the Inner Sea. Something that could get even a paladin to dance.”

“If they don’t I shall command them to strip naked!” The Count required no more suggestion than that. Off he went, and a moment later, to the joyful beat of a Katapeshi dance he was bowing recklessly before Seelah and inviting her to join him in kicking aside the cups and plates on one of the long tables.

“You are so on.” She climbed up, pushing the flower arrangement into Sosiel’s waiting arms.

“No paladin is any match for me,” the Count declared. Dramatically he raised his hands, clapped along with the first two bars, spun around once, and lurched into a surprisingly graceful if wild one-man tango, tossing smoldering looks over his shoulder as he whirled.

And Seelah, warming up by bouncing on the balls of her feet, waited for her cue.

Inquisitor Hawkblade tugged on Raqim’s sleeve. “Knight-Commander.”

“Later.”

“While the Count is occupied—”

At the drop of the beat Seelah grabbed the air with one hand, then the other, and with braids flying, matched Daeran step for step. Radiant in yellow she danced like a candleflame: light, fluid and joyful. Raqim began to clap along, and soon the whole hall joined in, whooping encouragement.

“Knight-Commander.”

“Later!”

The music, the bubbly, the laughter. A warmth kindled in his breast like he hadn’t felt since Azir. His friends used to ply him with drink. It became a game among them—get Raqim going. The music made his feet itch.

But no, he told himself. Not here. He was someone else in Mendev: revered Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade, the constable of constables. He had responsibilities. A stern and serious reputation to uphold.

Sands. It was already too late to stop it. He could feel it tugging at his limbs—all the vitality and joy he kept guarded in his heart had escaped.

As the song ended to hoots and applause Seelah bent double laughing and gasping for breath. Someone passed her a glass of bubbly. She knocked it back and threw it over her shoulder. “Round two, Count?”

But opposite her was no longer the drunk and disheveled Daeran Arendae.

Daeran had no idea who slipped a chair under his precariously tumbling backside. Panting for breath he clawed open his shirt and fanned himself. Fortunate that he was practiced at the art of channeling restorative magic in this condition. One slurred incantation and he was sober enough to get down to the business of really drinking.

But the musicians weren’t done with the dance numbers. Was he to be summoned to a rematch and once again humiliated by a paladin of Iomedae, of all the unspeakable fates?

But no. His jaw dropped.

The dour Knight-Commander had sprung to his rescue, and a spectacular rescue it was.

Raqim whipped off his frock coat and danced on the table with one hand in the air and the other on his hip. The footwork. The rhythm. The energy. The sudden dip into a one-legged squat, effortlessly springing back up. The way the whole end of the table jumped when he struck with the heel of his boot.

Daeran would have hired him just for that. Even if it weren’t the delightful spectacle of the Knight-Commander of the Crusade cutting up the dance floor—table—with such unseemly abandon. If only his cousin were here to witness this. Would it bring a blush even to her marble cheeks?

Daeran jumped up and cheered him on.

“Woohoo chief!” Woljif might have clapped except that he was holding the Knight-Commander’s frock coat for him and one hand had found its way into a pocket.

Seelah was flushed with trying to keep up. At one point she just stopped and watched, clapping along breathlessly.

Somewhere behind Raqim, he was dimly aware of Daeran calling for more music, while from the doorway opposite, Inquisitor Hawkblade waved in vain to get his attention. Nothing mattered but the heat in his chest.

The thought that he was going to regret this in the morning came and went. Seelah’s laughter filled his entire world.

He offered her a hand as the next song began, drum and tambourine taking command of his feet again. Seelah followed his lead as they bowed and spun and their heels struck precariously close to the edge of the table.

Soon half the guests and Daeran himself were throwing plates and clambering drunkenly onto the tables to join in.

But as the song came to an end and he found himself eye-to-eye with Seelah, their smiling faces flushed and hands clasped in the air, he faltered. He’d gone too far.

“Thank you for the dance. I... have to go.” Seelah blinked as he suddenly released her hand and jumped down from the table, weaving away through the crowd to the side-door where Hawkblade impatiently awaited.

The inquisitor pulled him into the disused corridor. “Knight-Commander, this is a serious investigation. Are you drunk?”

“What?” Raqim shrugged. “He’s distracted, isn’t he?”

Hawkblade gave him a narrow-eyed once over. “Follow me.”

And so the celebration ended on a note of past calamity and present peril. The visions the inquisitor summoned were sobering. When Raqim at last returned to the main hall, chaos had overcome the festivities. People weren’t fully dressed anymore. Shattered plates and discarded clothing littered the floor. Daeran was calling for stronger drink. And Seelah was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Shrieks and hollow laughter followed him up the stairs. Despite—or maybe because of—the sounds of devolving revelry echoing through the mansion, he couldn’t shake the horrifying visions of its past. He shut the door and leaned his shoulder against it as if something were pursuing him.

Heaven’s Edge was a haunted place.

Amir’s voice sobbed in his head: Make a light, Raqim, I’m scared.

A Draconic word ignited the lamps and chased the shadows to the corners of the sparsely furnished guest room. Half the furniture was stacked and draped with sheets, but the bed Daeran’s servants had hastily prepared looked decent. Too bad he wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and undid his boot buckles. His feet still buzzed from the dancing. Now he regretted more than ever quitting the dance to help Hawkblade with his investigation.

This whole adventure in Mendev was like being caught in the Eye of Abendego: a vast spiral of incomprehensible horrors buffeting him every direction. Alone, bewildered, shipwrecked.

The only things he could cling to were the few precious threads of real connection, the rare rays of sun through the stormclouds, and Raqim realized with a strange mix of warmth and sadness that all of them were Seelah.

He slumped with his elbows on his knees and stared at the polished hardwood between his boots. An impossible situation.

On the one hand he knew he wouldn’t find the strength to carry on without her shoulder to lean on. Without her smile, her jokes, even her snoring in the next tent.

On the other, he didn’t know what to do with these feelings. He could not possibly court a paladin. It went against everything he stood for. It would almost amount to an admission of defeat. If she would even have him.

Maintaining a professional distance didn’t work. He feared keeping it friendly wouldn’t either. She was too beautiful, and he knew himself. His heart was like dry kindling. One spark and it would go up in a blaze.

Best to stay away. But sands, what he wouldn’t give for a glimpse of her smile right now. Just one and maybe he could sleep.

Because tonight the tension was more than he could subdue alone. This mansion, this room... the imagined sting of a razor across his throat.

Shadows shifted on the draped furniture. Startled he leapt up, recovered from a stumble realizing too late his boots were undone, and threw back the sheets just to be sure. Nothing but stacked chairs, a writing desk and a coat-stand. Inwardly he laughed at his own pounding heart.

No severed heads.

Stop jumping at shadows, Amir. See? It’s nothing. Go to sleep. I’ll look out for you.

How hollow those words sounded now, much as he’d meant them at the time.

A shiver ran down his spine. He needed to get away from the ghosts—Heaven’s Edge’s, and his own. Raqim rushed to the balcony doors and out into the night air.

Whoa, ok.

Either the ceiling was spinning or she was.

Guess I overdid it.

Camellia wasn’t back yet. From the sounds downstairs in the main hall, the afterparty was going strong.

Seelah swung her legs out of bed and went to get herself a cup of water. She had no desire to continue with the festivities. After Raqim ran off, the dancing turned from joyful to frantic. People trying too hard.

There was a line she walked between her vow of temperance and the need to keep that precious spark of joy alive in her heart. The right dose of sweetness, lest one be tempted by the demonic kind.

She caught herself smiling. Turned out Raqim had a bit of a spark of his own. It was good to see him getting more comfortable. Letting his hair down.

Haha, good one.

Because most of the time he went around with that worried look like “What next?” and it was cute but he must really be going through it. But Lady of Valor, could he dance.

Taking her cup with her, she slipped her feet into her boots and went out to the balcony for some fresh air, just to sober up a little before trying to sleep.

Some gray fantom flickered at the edge of his vision. He turned with a gasp—but it wasn’t a ghost. The opposite of a ghost. Someone very much alive.

“Heya,” she said.

“Hello.” His wish had come true.

Seelah looked silly in a knee-length night tunic and boots but he’d never seen such a welcome sight. Part of him wanted to bolt back indoors but most of him was too glad for the company. She moved to the closest edge of her balcony and leaned on the marble railing. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You?” The surprise was instant. “No. Not at all. Just worried I let myself get carried away.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Maybe,” he mused. “It can be.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it was awful fun to watch you get carried away.”

He was glad it was too dark to see the color rise in his cheeks. “I could say the same.”

She chuckled and took a sip of water. “Thanks. Regretting it now.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Damn bed won’t stop spinning. You?”

Scared of ghosts. He didn’t want to lie, so he just shrugged.

But she was peering curiously at him. Not taking a shrug for an answer. “Here, hold this.”

He reached across the gap between their balconies and accepted her cup, not understanding why until she hiked up her tunic and climbed onto the balustrade.

“Seelah!” Dropping the cup, Raqim flew to the railing and held out both hands. “Be careful!”

The gap was less than a yard. She stepped over it as gracefully as a gazelle, accepting a hand down and pointing out, “You broke Daeran’s china.”

Shards of porcelain littered the balcony. Now that they were standing together, it was more than the moment of panic that had his heart racing. “You could have broken much worse!”

“Don’t worry about me,” she laughed. “Now. Let’s go in where it’s warmer, and you can spill whatever’s eating you. Since neither of us can sleep.”

Ironic that the problem that was eating him at the moment was the thought of being alone in his room with Seelah. He tucked his hands in his sleeves. “What makes you think something’s bothering me?”

“Raqim.”

“What?”

“You seriously want me to believe you’re fine.”

“All right,” he muttered sheepishly. “Come in. There are chairs under the—“

But she’d already plopped on the edge of the bed and pulled the top blanket around her shoulders, and once he finished getting out a chair and pouring her a fresh cup of water, she passed him another blanket. He kicked off his boots and bundled up on the chair facing her.

 “This isn’t an interrogation.” She laughed softly and patted the bed next to her. “At ease, soldier.”

Obediently he took his blanket and climbed onto the foot of the bed and sat with his back against the wall. Finally comfortable enough to make it through the night. Except for his heart pounding with something other than fear.

The lamplight gave her skin a pleasant bronze sheen. Her braids were loose and thrown over one shoulder. She didn’t look drunk at all, despite what she said about the bed spinning. Raqim fidgeted with the blanket edge, at once nervous and deeply grateful she was here.

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about your goats?” she prompted, surely recalling the incident at Reliable Redoubt. “Your dad made you help when he culled the herd?”

“He didn’t make me. It was my duty. I needed to learn.”

“How old were you?”

He leaned his head back against the wall. “Six or seven.”

“That’s pretty small for a duty like that. What upset you so much about what the Hellknights did?”

Raqim wasn’t ready for that story. He never would be. Even tiptoeing around it made him dizzy. “Sacrifice,” he said vaguely, which gave him an idea of another story he could tell to get himself off the hook. “I was sacrificed as an infant.”

“Wait, I thought you said you were raised Sarenrite.”

“I was. But in that region of the mountains we had a dragon protector, and in the decades before my birth it had begun asking for more than goats. Some of the infants were returned, some with strange scars. Most were never seen again. But I was returned bearing the dragon’s gift: the power of fire.

“Everyone thought it was a sign of prosperity, but it was the opposite. The dragon went silent. Disappeared. Drought and famine crept in.”

“I hope people didn’t blame you for it.”

“No. On the contrary, I was their symbol of hope. Dragon-blessed. Favored son.”

“Everybody counting on you.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “Wow. And now you’re here, leading a crusade.”

He rubbed his face. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I get you. I like that people feel like they can count on me, but yeah. It’s a lot sometimes.”

“I’ve noticed. You’re there for everybody, Seelah, but who’s there for you?”

She shifted uncomfortably, looking away toward the balcony doors. “Not many people these days.”

“And still you manage to keep smiling.”

She offered him one of those smiles. “Not fond of the alternative.”

Always turned toward the light. Sunflower. He cleared his throat and took a sip of water.

“So how’d you end up in Rahadoum?”

He hadn’t talked about this almost ever, even to his friends back home. Somehow it felt like there was less to lose now, like it was less shameful if people here in Mendev knew. “Eventually we had to leave. It was a cruel voyage through the mountains and across the desert with drought and famine on our heels. At first we rode, and then we walked, and by the time we reached Katheer we were crawling. My brother Amir died in the desert. In Katheer my mother caught fever and died too. It was almost as if she’d only hung on long enough to see me and my father to safety.

“Someone in Katheer must have told my father about the Occularium, because that was when he decided to send me there. He thought I was clever.” His eyes twinkled, but there was sadness behind them. “And that somehow the gift of the dragon would be put to good use there. So he worked on a ship in exchange for passage to Manaket.

“Of course, we had to renounce Sarenrae and learn Taldane when we arrived in Rahadoum, which I found much easier than my father did. Even with all his wisdom with the sky and the earth, the animals and plants, he was useless in the city. I had to help him with everything. He took a job shoveling sand.

“And I studied for the Occularium, but by the time I was old enough to apply I had my own ideas. With two of my childhood friends, I joined the Pure Legion and transferred to Azir. My father followed. Took a job in the tanneries.” Raqim lowered his eyes as if this were somehow embarrassing. “I became a scout but I was determined to move up the ranks. Never had time. I never even visited Shepherd’s Rock. Suddenly I found myself here.

“And you know the rest.” How he’d been killed by Sarenrites but had awoken in a strange alchemist’s lab, and was released into the Worldwound by the angel Targona. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn? Nothing’s eating me!”

“Seelah.”

“All right, fine.”

Chapter Text

He accepted a sip of water from the china cup and passed it back to her. “You said once you were a refugee too.”

She seemed surprised he remembered. That was all the way back in the caverns under Kenabres what felt like years ago. “Yeah. I grew up in Geb. How much do you know about Geb?”

“It doesn’t sound like an easy place to grow up.” He wanted to be diplomatic but he couldn’t think of much that was positive about a necromantic wasteland ruled by a war-obsessed ghost and a corrupted goddess turned lich.

“Rough for a little kid,” she chuckled. “I went around in a constant state of terror. My parents taught me to be polite with the Dead, and some of them were nice enough people, but even the sweet little old ghoul next door who gave me coins for wildflowers scared the living crap out of me.

“Maybe that’s what gave me my strong stomach. You never get used to living alongside the undead, but you do learn not to throw up.”

Raqim’s eyes twinkled.

“We lived in Mercy, in the north. My parents were traders. Had a lot of connections with Mwangi caravans. That made it easy to disappear when my parents finally decided to make a run for it. We had a long trek of our own, but with the caravan it was all a big party to me—camel rides, sing-alongs, picnics. Traveled through Alkenstar, crossed Nex on the edge of the Mana Wastes, followed the river into Katapesh and finally settled in Solku. Good spot for traders.

“We set up on the outskirts until we could put down roots in the city, but it turns out that wasn’t safe.”

She took a breath before going on. “Bad timing. That’s when the gnolls started raiding. All I remember of that night is my mom telling me to run for the city gates, saying they’d be right behind me.

“The next morning when I went back... Everything was burned to the ground. Nothing left. And by that time, all the caravaners I knew were long gone. Young teen alone in a strange city, begging, sleeping in the streets, no more than skin and bones. Dazed. Felt like being one of the thralls of Geb. Until some other street kids took me in and showed me how to pick pockets—and worse.

“I was a quick learner. Thought I was smart. Big mistake.”

He frowned. It wasn’t the first time she downplayed her own intelligence, and yet from the very start of this whole misadventure her words of wisdom were the ones he’d taken most to heart. Perhaps that underestimation was the root of her over-reliance on Iomedae.

She went on, “Got by like that for a couple years. And then one day, a company of shiny Iomedean paladins marched into town to help defend Solku against the gnolls.

“I was cynical. Everybody singing their praises, how they were putting their lives on the line for us expecting nothing in return, and I mean to my eyes they were obviously rich and definitely expecting ‘donations’ to the church so they could afford all that dawnsilver armor they were strutting around in. But I guess I was glad somebody was finally doing something about the gnolls. By that time I was by far not the only orphan on the streets of Solku. A bunch of us ragged little creatures hanging around the temple just to gawk at them.”

Raqim remembered the Pure Legion parades from when he was a boy in Manaket. Their stern, watchful faces. Mortality’s champions—Rahadoum’s champions. Clear-eyed and defiant. That was who he resolved to be. And maybe then, they would all know he wasn’t some locust-eating Qadiran Sarenrite fanatic but one of them. “And that’s when you decided you wanted to be a paladin yourself?”

“I wish it were that simple.” She looked wistful. “I wasn’t religious. My family were secret Arodenites. I think it was my great-grandmother who met some paladins from Lastwall when they came to liberate Geb—and failed spectacularly. And then when I heard Aroden died, and what happened to Arazni, and I saw how my parents went through the motions for Urgathoa, it just put me off the whole thing. Seemed like the gods were no better than anybody else.”

“To your credit,” he said, but she rolled her eyes.

“Sure, in Solku you could go to the temple of Iomedae for a meal when you were hard up, but I thought of them as preachy fools. Didn’t know what life was like on the streets. And those paladins weren’t any better.

“So when opportunity presented itself, I tucked one of their shiny helmets under my rags and ran off, thinking I was clever.”

From the way she lowered her eyes, he sensed he should feel grateful she chose to share this story with him. He asked softly, “Did they catch you?”

“Only found out later that paladin, Acemi, let me get away with it. I think that was the worst part.”

As she collected her breath he waited silently, holding his own.

“Because the next day, she went into battle without her helmet, thinking it would put food in some poor orphan’s belly. Who didn’t even deserve...” She squeezed her eyes shut. “And in that battle, Acemi died of a head wound.”

It was long ago and Seelah was no street orphan anymore, but the pain in her voice sounded as raw as if it were yesterday.

“And I realized that was my fault. A stupid, selfish mistake. Those paladins did save Solku. If only they’d been there when my parents were killed, my whole life would have been different. And by depriving the world of one valorous soul I’d stolen a lot more than a helmet. How many kids would Acemi have saved from becoming orphans like me? It can’t be measured. All I can do is try my very best, every day, to make the difference she would have made.”

In the long silence that followed, Raqim tried to pretend it was sleep he was rubbing out of his eyes. A valorous soul. A courageous heart. And she could dance. There was only one thing that bothered him, so much he finally had to blurt it out. “Why did that have to involve Iomedae?”

Her lips tightened. “That’s not a story I’m ready to tell. Especially not until I think there’s a chance you’ll get it.”

“Fair enough. I admit, I fail to understand.”

“Why do you have to act so superior about it? As if when you quit Sarenrae, it was some big revelation that the rest of us are too dumb to have? When really, you were just mad she didn’t come to your rescue in the desert.”

“That’s not why!”

“Isn’t it? Raqim, you have my sympathy. I know what it’s like to lose people, and I’m sorry you went through that, but it’s just not Sarenrae’s fault.”

“I know that.” The truth was he had blamed the goddess, but not since he was a child. “Fine, I admit I do resent that the gods are thanked when things go well but never blamed when they don’t. And that they ask so much of mortals and give so little in return.”

“It’s not a transaction! It’s not about what they can do for us, it’s about—”

“It’s about what we can do for them,” he said bitterly. “And yes, in a way I do feel I’ve had a revelation that others are too stubborn to have.”

They glared at each other.

But the sudden awareness of being wrapped in blankets drinking water at a cozy little slumber party while Daeran and his guests were downstairs having an orgy defused the tension. Seelah started to laugh. “Who’s stubborn?”

His eyes twinkled, but an ache had lodged itself in his chest and he was afraid now—not of ghosts, but for his heart. It had been broken before. “I suppose we should both try to sleep.”

Seelah tilted her head as if that surprised her, but maybe not in a bad way. “You’re right.” She got up and stretched and headed for the balcony doors. By now the first pale hint of dawn hung on the horizon.

“Take the door this time,” he advised.

“And risk getting caught in the Knight-Commander’s room?”

That got an actual laugh out of him. “Fine.” He followed her out and waited to make sure she made it safely to her own balcony. It took him a moment to find the courage, but just as she was about to disappear through the doors he managed a quiet but heartfelt, “Thank you, Seelah.”

“G’night.”

She almost jumped out of her boots.

Wraith-like, standing silently in the dark with glittering eyes and hands clasped behind her back, was Camellia.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Seelah said hastily.

Camellia smirked. “Have no fear, my friend. My lips are sealed.”

Chapter Text

Braced against the freezing wind Anevia Tirabade looked literally sick with worry: livid except for unhealthy spots of red in her cheeks and a burning, intense gaze she turned on Raqim when he arrived at the base camp and dumped his pack in the snow.

“Scouts have confirmed,” she said, the hairline cracks in her voice coming unglued. “They’re turning the captured crusaders into ghouls.”

Raqim gave a nod. “We have to move fast, then. My team will spearhead.” He turned to the elf general at her side. “Grinning Wolf, we need archers on our heels. Stay clear of the ghouls and watch the sky.”

Anevia hadn’t blinked once. She kept fiddling with the pendant at her throat. The damned useless butterfly. She needed something to do.

“Secure the perimeter of the base camp and make sure the healers set up a field hospital. Tell Wilcer we need potions.”

Off she sprinted, calling for her scouts.

He paused a moment and looked up through the blinding snow, but only a ghost of the mountain flank stood out against the night. Hard to judge the distance to the Lost Chapel from here, especially with switchbacks. Could be a long night ahead.

His heart hurt for Anevia. It hurt for everyone who lost people in the gargoyle attack, but there was no use for regret. This was war. After the victories at Kenabres and Leper’s Smile he knew there would be setbacks, and besides, it wasn’t too late to turn this situation around. He could feel the fire boiling in the pit of his stomach. That demon, Nulkineth, would regret crossing him. As would the traitor when he found her.

With what was left of his team, Seelah reported in looking grim under her snow-dusted hood. “Sosiel, Daeran, Ember and the Paralictor missing in action. Woljif—just plain missing,” she sighed.

“What? Are you sure he wasn’t captured?” Raqim was so confident he’d won the tiefling over. Taken him under his wing and nurtured his better nature. If nothing else he’d even heard him enumerating the financial advantages of sticking with the crusade.

“I know, who would have thought?” Lann spread his hands.

No time to dwell on it now. “Ten minutes to kit up,” Raqim said. “We have a long hike, and it’s not just gargoyles. Be ready for undead.”

They all moved off except Seelah. She hung about, kicking at the snow. “Ghouls?”

“Yes.” Resolutely he met her gaze. “The faster we move, the more we can save.”

He saw her hands clench as he dipped to reach for his pack, and suddenly she had him by the overcoat, pulling him up with both fists. Not roughly, just fervently.

She looked right into his eyes. Even sleepless and anxious the curve of her cheek glowed in the torchlight. Her expression was stern but her lips looked soft.

His heart stopped. What was she—?

“Get this off.”

“Wh...?”

“I’m not going up against ghouls with you unless you get this off and put on some real godsdamned armor that’s not enchanted against divine magic. Ghoul fever is no joke.”

His mind had shut down completely. And then the wheels kicked into motion again.

She was right, but now that she’d made a point of it, there was no way to back down. Deliberately removing his Pure Legion gear to allow divine healing would make him beholden to a god, and that was against the First Law, and this may be Mendev but he didn’t fight so hard to become Rahadoumi just to betray Onaku at the first sign of danger.

“Do not fight me, I swear to Iomedae.”

“No.”

“Raqim, I’ll kill you myself.”

“No.” He took her wrists and coaxed her into releasing him. “You do this your way, I’ll do it mine.”

“Damn you. Then I’m not budging. I’m not marching up there to watch you throw yourself away out of sheer thick-skulled stupidity.”

“Irabeth’s up there,” he reminded her. “And a lot of other people who need your help. You’re budging.”

At that she turned sharply, waving him off as she stomped away through the snow.

His heart was still pounding as he squatted to start organizing his pack. Maybe an extra potion or two wouldn’t hurt.

Lucky there was no time to ruminate on the way up the mountain path in heavy snow with packs of ghouls snapping gore-smeared jaws at them around every turn, and gray-winged gargoyles dropping from a blind, howling night sky.

In her hand Radiance thrummed. It wasn’t her imagination. With every slain ghoul the blade seemed to come alive a little more, to weigh lighter on her arm, as if it were becoming an extension of her. She’d often felt a pang of guilt for keeping Yaniel’s sword, but at least it was seeing action, and it seemed as eager as she was to fight through to the chapel before it was too late. Thank the Inheritor they’d recovered Ember, Daeran and Sosiel intact. No sign of Irabeth yet.

She stooped to rub a fistful of snow over the sizzling blade. “Sorry about the ghoul guts, but I guess that’s what you’re made for, isn’t it?” Radiance seemed to flash a gleam at her.

Setting out through the snow again she felt hope blazing in her heart. “Hang in there,” she told the people up at the Chapel, unaware of the grotesque prophecy of her words.

She and Radiance weren’t the only ones determined to save everyone they could. It seemed to her Raqim’s fire had grown hotter. Finishing off a gargoyle, she’d felt the heat from an angrily flaming arrow buried in its stony hide, where it had melted into the flesh like lava.

At least the damn fool was in the back rank with Lann and Sosiel, mostly out of harm’s way. By the time they cleared the Chapel proper, the closest thing he got to ghoul fever was emptying his stomach upon witnessing the charnel house the demons had made of the Inheritor’s consecrated ground.

The smell really was something. Seelah only felt a tiny bit sorry for him, doubled over heaving up the remnants of supper while the Queen and the Hellknight paralictor looked patiently on.

Even she had more experience with demons and undead than he did, but to them scenes like this—people hanging from meathooks, chained to butchers’ tables, flayed, tortured, eaten alive—all in a day’s work, she supposed. For the Knight-Commander, not so much.

“Is he going to be all right?” Irabeth, gray as a ghost and still bleeding from the hook wound in her neck, hadn’t lost her sense of irony.

Seelah gave a dark chuckle.

He cleaned his face and beard with snow and came back looking gray-complexioned and furious.

Maybe it’s that dragon’s blessing, she wondered. He looks ready to spit fire. She guessed his Pure Legion gear wasn’t made for this kind of cold, but somehow the snow seemed to melt the instant it touched the fabric.

“Stay with the Queen’s people,” he instructed Irabeth. “That demon’s out there in the churchyard—”

“Turning crusaders into ghouls. And the ghouls are trying to convince the other crusaders to renounce Iomedae,” Seelah said pointedly. “Because Her power protects them. You saw it.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Seelah? Just say it.”

“I’m saying we are not winning this fight without Her. She can protect you too. Just—damn it, if that nabasu gets its claws on you, there’s not much anybody can do.” Here in this desecrated chapel in front of everyone was not the time or place to make a more personal appeal. But that nabasu made it clear it had a personal grudge, and he was walking right into its trap, and she wanted to rip the Pure Legion robes off him and not in a nice way.

His eyes hardened, dark and full of fire, like coal. “It’s a shame you don’t trust yourself.”

That hurt. Seelah watched him shoulder his bow and turn away, leading the way out into the churchyard, probably to meet his doom, and it was his own damn fault and she wanted to scream.

Sometimes in those drifting moments just before sleep, when he closed his eyes his vision would fill with scaly coils hypnotically braiding themselves into knots like the esoteric weavings of the Vahird of the Eternal Oasis. It seemed more real than a dream. He could hear the soft hiss and click as reptilian spirals slid past one another. He could feel the portent of the ancient and alien sigils they formed. Sometimes through the tangle a fiery, amber eye blinked. Watching him from the inside—curious, judging.

The strange presence would lull him to sleep. He somehow knew it was a mirror-phantasm: his own mind’s eye looking back at him, at once some unknowable creature and also himself. He’d had the visions since childhood but they’d been growing more frequent since he arrived in Mendev.

But right this instant, with Nulkineth’s life-stealing claws tightening around his throat, the visions returned stronger than ever.

On his knees with the demon bearing down on him he felt life and consciousness leaching rapidly away. The visions were only a hallucination of a brain desperate for oxygen.

Except that they kept growing stronger, unfolding before his mind’s eye and pushing snake-like coils through his limbs, fighting the necrosing touch of the demon with fierce vitality.

As if from far away, another pulse of divine light flashed weakly against the darkness and flickered out. One of his companions trying to rescue him, perhaps. How useless their gods were. What little strength they lent him was just enough to awaken the pain again.

Nulkineth’s cold, meaty breath washed over his face.

“They said you were my equal, but you shudder and squirm like food.” The demon inspected him at close quarters while it squeezed the breath out of him.

“I was chosen. You were an accident.” It seemed to be trying to convince itself of something.

Raqim’s mind went black at the edges, the tunnel of lucidity rapidly narrowing and the coiling visions fading, leaving only pain, nausea, and numbing cold.

“If I crack open your bones and slurp out the power like marrow, will it become mine?” Nulkineth’s long black tongue snaked out hungrily. “I shall soon taste and see.”

The claws squeezed harder. A blast of paralyzing pain shot down his spine. He thought he could hear his own vertebrae crunching, his windpipe crumpling. Behind his eyelids, sparks obliterated that comforting hypnotic vision.

It was over.

But as Raqim was dying, the writhing thing inside him came alive. It did not accept defeat. People were counting on him. There was more to be done.

In a sudden burst of golden light and raw strength it surged through him and hurled the demon back like a ragdoll. Air rushed into his lungs and rushed out again in an inhuman roar.

By all rights he shouldn’t even be standing right now, but he felt a hundred feet tall. Light like pure golden flame burst out of him and withered the remaining ghouls to skeletons and ash.

He heard them—Seelah, Sosiel, even Daeran’s shouts of triumph drowning out Minagho’s screams as she fled.

The old chapel at the summit of the ridge lit up like a beacon, and he was its flame.

Miles away the crusaders saw it. Anevia ran out into the snow and let out a whoop. In the chapel courtyard amongst her soldiers, the surprised figure of the Queen was suddenly illuminated. A few beats later, a crack of thunder like the roar of a dragon hit them.

At Lost Chapel the air felt electrically charged. Bright motes fell out of the sky like ash.

“It’s happening again,” groaned Lann as he got to his feet and brushed snow and gravel off his breeches. “Give me a warning next time, will you?”

“Hooray!” cried Ember, clapping her mangled hands while Soot perched nearby, quite still, staring straight at Raqim.

Ulbrig was laughing like a drunkard. Daeran was flushed and smirking. Even Camellia wore a glittering smile.

Seelah stared at him awestruck. “That power again. That’s... not Iomedae,” she declared.

In the middle of it all, Raqim stood dazed, somehow still alive, steam rising from his shoulders into the freezing night air. “I certainly hope not.”

But whatever it was frightened him. Thankfully the seething reptilian coils that had saved him retreated, but they left something behind that he felt incubating under his sternum.

The sensation of fierce, inhuman strength also lingered in his muscles. Even though he’d always known this thing was himself, he was afraid of giving in to it, knowing it could overpower him. It was the part of him that was righteous, uncompromising, responsible. Who was absolutely free but also absolutely resolved to carry an impossible burden.

“I’ll be damned.” Seelah approached, reaching out as if to poke him and see if he was still real.

Echoing up the mountainside came the cheers of crusaders.

He squeezed his eyes shut. I didn’t ask for this.