Episode 1 - Chapter 2

He broke into a sprint.

The tent was grey with pre-dawn light. Breath steamed faintly above his lips, fading under the breeze that crept over his collarbones like the nun’s fingers in his dream. He lay there, rigid, as if still pinned by the hag’s weight. Slowly, the sound of birds filtered in. Just birds, just wind, just the forest being awakened.

He let out another breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and flexed his neck, his wrists, his ankles until the stiffness passed. It was just a dream, just a memory the cold had dug out from his skin. It was a decade ago. The nun had gone to meet Sol, as had the old templar who pledged to take both him and Mirari under his wing. They had three good years, perhaps better than he deserved. Benardt was a rare Sacrosanct who didn’t touch Mirari and taught Ianc how to survive in the woods.

Sitting up slowly, his body groaned with the dull aches of old bruises and strained muscles. He reached for his belt and cinched it tight, threading on his knife, hatchet, and waterskin with precise motions. The old boots squelched under his weight as he stood up and slung the composite bow over his shoulder. It had cost him a whole stag last winter but already gave back twice its worth. A good deal. With the taste of honey and herbs in his mouth, he stepped out into the world with a glint of desperate hope.

The sky was still a shroud of dark navy, though clouds smeared on the horizon like bloodstains on an execution scaffold. He crouched next to the coal of his campfire, nursing what little warmth lingered there while scanning the area. Something was wrong. The air had gone deadly silent. He heard only the thrum of his own pulse and the hush of an uninvited breeze. He knew this kind of quiet, a hunter’s-prayer quiet. Only this time, the roles were reversed.

Another apex predator was lurking nearby, and it might have already fixed its eyes on him, but what kind of animal would tread at this hour. A tiger would have already found a secluded spot to rest after a night hunt, unless it shared fate with him in failure. He inched backward toward his tent, planning to use the heavy canvas as a snare.

Leaves trembled twenty yards away, and a stag emerged from the shadows of the bushes. Its antlers stabbed to sight first, a crown of curved bone catching the faint red sky. But it moved with a sickening hitch, a hind leg dragging uselessly through the dirt. Its head lolled as if the neck had already been snapped.

He nocked an arrow regardless.

There you are, he thought, dowry for Mirari. He tensed up, his movement was so slow as if time had ceased to exist, leaving the world only to his concentration for the shot.

The stag twitched with a wet growl. It leaped, twisting mid-air to avoid an invisible strike. It landed in a tangle of limbs; its hind legs had failed. A shadow erupted from the brush in a streak of orange-black fur aiming for the stag’s throat. The forest filled with the thud of colliding muscle. Birds fled in a frantic beat of wings.

A tiger as he had suspected, a small one, smaller than the stag. The strain bit into his arm as he realized he had drawn the arrow for too long. He released it.

The whipping sound was short, but sharp. He drew another, then emptying his quiver as the two beasts wrestled. He didn’t care which beast they would hit, nor how many arrows would be broken. He needed them wounded to the point where he could finish them in melee.

They finally collapsed, tiger on top of stag. Several arrows pinned to their body. He sprang closer, still keeping a safe distance. Hatchet in one hand, the other hand was close to his knife, preparing in case the tiger spent its last strength at him. His breath hitched when he saw the antler had broken inside the tiger’s underside. Blood was still spurting out with each of the beast’s last breaths.

He crawled closer and stopped just a few feet away and scanned the area one last time. A mother tiger might stay with the cub for its first hunt.

The sweet-sour stench of putrescence hit him first, then the stag heaved. With a dry crack of bone, it tossed the tiger aside. It didn’t pant. It didn’t bleed. It simply rose and fixed him with opaque eyes. Deep, bloodless gashes wriggled with maggots. The air tasted of wet muck and copper as he breathed through his mouth, stirring up a retching sensation in his near empty belly. The creature didn’t seem to notice him and went back to the forest, slow and clumsy, and with several arrows still clinging to its body.

The thrill of the hunt ebbed away, leaving him a statue. He tried to make sense of what he had just witnessed. That creature had to be dead with such wounds, but how was it still alive? A cold, dreadful idea emerged in his mind. He shook his head. Impossible. The Sear holds. He made himself believe it and steered his attention towards the prize. The tiger, no matter how small, would give him a unique pelt for winter.

He retrieved his arrows and skinned the tiger. The sight of the stag still wandered in his mind so he recited a prayer, hoping it would keep the beast far from here.

“Inside the Sear, I pray. 
Shroud me with health, fill me with strength, banish illness that may enter my body. May the light guide my path, reveal the dangers, and lead me home. 
Blessed art thou, I bathe in your golden glow. 
Inside the Sear, I pray to thee.”

The psalm carried his legs back home, where the heat greeted him accusatory. The dirt path below curved like a dried vein, splitting across stone rises and gullies of dust before finally spilling into the folds of Camelford. The town was a crescent pressed against the riverbend. Its outer rims lined with huts where a dozen Suledin families lived. Goats and cattle swayed lazily through the paddocks, watched over by stick-thin children who learned early which beasts could be trusted. Wildlife intrusion was common, like foxes in the chicken coops or wolves in the barley fields. But the real threat, he knew, always came wearing robes, polished armor plate, and an insignia that made them righteous.

His boots knew the turns without thinking, each rut and bend had worn itself into his bones over the years. This view brought his thumb to the scar on his thigh; he pressed until it hurt again. The scar he earned from resolved, now just a scar, reminded him of how he had betrayed it. A concubine’s robe was better than a Suledin’s rag, much better than a servant in the Quaeso chapel. He had struck a good bargain for Mirari’s fate. He had to believe so.

The village bell rang twice, a deep clang that echoed down the gorge and back into memory. Somewhere down the slope, a shepherd whistled. And in the fields beyond, the Suledin people were already on their knees. A few hundred strong, with heads bowed in prayer between the grain rows, like stalks bowing to an unseen wind. Their bodies formed spirals around the several hooded figures, the rhys of the Hallow Church, whose Sol emblem and golden threading were glinting under sunlight. Their hands held the Ishchoir stones high, absorbing prayer’s energy as tax levy. Four times a day, everyday, that was the mandatory routine of people like him.

At the village’s heart, the stone compound emerged with the templar aspirants, those who had completed the pilgrimage to Lys Royeaux. That was the glory they all whispered about. All started with being a disciple to their only patron god, Sol.

Families of those new aspirant templars had already renovated their homes with angular rooftops, tiled and waxed with the Church’s blessing. Their sun-marked lintels like branded flesh twisted the knot of guilt in his chest. He’d secured a place at that table with Mirari’s future. A terrible price just to stand up beneath the feet of the Lord of Light. He let the silence inside him linger before the road swallowed him again.

He found a watcher just outside the low palisade, slouching against the post like an afterthought. With a crossbow across his lap and one boot resting on the gate latch, the man looked like sleep pretending to be alert.

“Late for lunch,” the watcher called. “Or early for levy.”

“Or both.” Ianc offered a half-smile.

The watcher rose, pushing up from the stool with a grunt and brushing hay from his jerkin. He had a slight limp—from falling down a tree, if Ianc remembered it right—and his eyes permanently squinted from the sun-strain. “A tiger pelt, good catch.”

Ianc threw a fang at the watcher. “For you.”

“Well, thank you so much,” the watcher said. “At this rate, I could make a necklace from your trophy.” He put the fang into his pouch.

Ianc shrugged. “Any news?”

“Wolves circling again,” the watcher said. “Seen prints out by the goat breeder.” He pointed his crossbow at the imagined target, even swiping it around as if he was following their movement.

“Strange, winter should have driven them off.”

The watcher shook his head. “That, and something worse. Got another hunter back from the north hill. Came back dragging three boars and grinning like he’d found gold. Next day, ginger quarter’s all coughing and leaking from both ends. Half his neighbors are dead already.”

“That fast?” Ianc furrowed his brows.

“They tried curing them with ginger and dried marrow. The rhys spent their healing light. Didn’t work. Perhaps more are dying as we speak.” The watcher exhaled through his nose, scanning the wind. “If it spreads, the whole rim’s fucked.”

“Keep your people from the stream. And the bread. And the meat, if you can help it.” Ianc narrowed his eyes. “I have some stack left. Can share a day’s worth for an Ishchoir.”

“You think the boar’s meat is tainted?”

“Three pigs. One trip. Either he’s the luckiest hunter alive, or something’s wrong with the woods.”

The watcher scratched his neck. “You think the rhys will figure it out? They always figure it out, don’t they?”

“They’ll pray and they’ll burn what doesn’t answer,” Ianc said. “And the seneschals will praise the Lord of Light after a nun sings the same old psalm.”

“Tsk, that manner will get you in trouble one day.” The watcher shook his head and snorted. They stood there a moment longer, letting the silence digest the information. Finally, the watcher held out a hand. “Sol’s blessing to you.”

“May Sol’s light guide you.” Ianc returned the parting. And then he moved on, his boots soft on the packed earth, his thoughts heavier than the pack on his shoulder. The path from the watchpost veered east, winding down into gravel slopes and blistered grass. Camelford shrank behind him as the rooflines turned to outlines and the bell tower disappeared beneath a jagged shadow of the ridge.

He picked up his pace then stopped mid-stride. The Undead. If they’d breached the Sear, Darren wouldn’t have time to chase them. When the world was falling, who would care about two refugees. He would travel light, sell everything else for two horses. Then he would take her with him.

He broke into a sprint.

The sulfurous stench of the onion field reached him first, curling into his nostrils like a warning. Normally, he’d curse it and hold his breath. Today, he barely noticed. His strides grew longer, faster. His hands curled tighter at his sides. Then came the tomato plots, bright green and red bursting in the pale soil. His hut sat just beyond, flanked by two dead fig trees and a stacked pile of kindling she had kept forgetting to burn. The shutters were shut but not locked. The door hung half-open. That was the first wrong thing.

The second was the silence. Not peaceful. Not still. This silence swallowed the sound whole. He stepped inside.

The moment the latch clicked behind him, he dropped his bow. “I’m—” The word caught halfway in his throat. The house looked like it had been gutted by a storm. Furniture had been dragged across the floor. A shattered plate lay near the hearth. A streak of dark crossed the wooden beam.

He moved before the dread could fully reach him, pushing through the curtain into Mirari’s room. It stank of copper. Blood bloomed across the straw mattress in smeared, blackened arcs. One of the scissors from her sewing tin lay on the floor—its blade rusted red, its grip bent. But she wasn’t here.

“Mirari!” he barked. The walls swallowed the word. He then saw the brooch lying near the bed’s front leg. Someone tore it from her veil. The clang of plate armor shattered the silence. Sol templars. Shadows passed between his window slits. One. Three. Five. No birds chirped. No dogs barked. Just people hurrying into position.

“Ianc Pyllis Myr.” The voice was iron cold. “Come out.”

Ianc backed to the doorframe, his hand reaching instinctively for the knife strapped inside his boot. “What is going on?” he shouted.

“The Magister’s son is dead.” The voice was iron. “And your sister’s hands are red.”

“What?” Ianc’s heart became a war drum. “What in Sol’s name are you talking about? She’s a half-wit, she wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“Yet Oscar Bravoda is found dead in your house,” another voice snapped. This one was a gruffer soldier. “Your sister’s silence could not hide the blood on her palms.”

Ianc’s throat worked without a sound. His heart had become a war drum, loud enough to drive all thoughts from his head. They were lying. They had to be. Mirari couldn’t have done it. Not unless someone forced her. Not unless she was defending herself. Not unless—

“She’s signed a confession,” said the first voice. “You can join her. Speak with her before we burn you both. Or I can just burn you in this… hut. Listen, we only speak to you now out of respect for what Benardt did for the Templar Order.”

Another step crunched outside. “Last warning. Don’t make us count.”

Ianc’s hand hovered over his blade again, not quite touching it. The brooch cracked under his grip.

He pictured Mirari kneeling in the dirt, arms bound, staring at a wall of faceless judges without even knowing what she had done or what law she’d broken. The same wall that had been built around them their entire lives, higher and higher with every taxed prayer and every shadow hidden behind righteous flames.

“One.”

He’d built them a path. Sold their freedom for a gilded cage. And the lock had snapped shut. Inside him, something twisted. Burning the house was no idle threat. He took one slow breath. Then another.

“Two.”

The air in the room felt tight, brittle, as if even the walls were holding their breath. He stepped toward the door, not yet decided whether submission or fury would guide him. But his next word was a whisper, aimed at no one.

“Hold on, Mirari. I’m coming.”

Next Previous

Start here Index