Chapter 75

(She pulled the dead man in the way, his flesh taking the sword blow, and ripped the corpse’s pistol free. She aimed a shot at the lictor in the doorway and - a ripple in the air , then her bones began to rattle) Angharad Tredegar killed the glimpse and let out a shuddering breath. The corner of her eyes stung, her veins felt like there were heated shards of metal shoved in them. They only hurt when she moved, but it was a reminder that there were only so many times she could pull on her contract before it killed her. Lady Petra Doukas was proving to be something of a problem. The priestess could only draw shallowly from the spirit she championed, having so far displayed two tricks. One of them had no effect on Angharad: the power that dazed and charmed had run afoul of the Fisher’s pride, as thick a wall as a woman might ask for. It was Lady Doukas’ second trick that she was finding it difficult to get around. Seven words spoken in prayer to the Odyssean and a pointed finger would lead to a ripple of power that rattled Angharad’s bones inside her body. It lasted no longer than a second and while it hurt... not insignificantly, it did not appear to do actual lasting physical damage. Which it hardly needed to, given that the pain and shakes nearly always toppled Angharad and if she fell to the ground the fight was lost. Without the cane, which she could not spare the time to head to her left to grab first, it was simply too difficult to get back up without first being shot. Lady Apollonia Floros had, seemingly, left Angharad in a room with two traitor lictors, a priestess and a pair of still-snacking devils – who did not participate, only spectating and offering the occasional comment from the sideline. Yet from the very first glimpse Angharad had discovered there was a third lictor out in the hall who would rush in should there be noise. So not three but four opponents, one of which could call on a spirit’s favor but had no true fighting skill besides. It should have been a grim minute’s work, and perhaps if her leg was hale and her dress strapped into place it would be. But while those two hindrances were in the way Angharad could not run and that kept getting her killed. The problem was simple: she could not cross the room quickly enough to close range without being noticed, and she had only one knife to throw and slay someone by surprise. This was her undoing because the lictors were skilled enough marksmen that if they were allowed to fire two shots, the second usually hit her. The obvious solution was, then to kill one of them right at the start by throwing the knife. When she had first attempted this, however, Lady Petratagged her with the bone-rattler by the time she closed range with the second lictor. Even while on her knees Angharad had managed to kill the second traitor but found herself easy prey for the third as he rushed in. Shot in the head, right between the eyes. So she changed tack and began killing Petra Doukas as her opening stroke instead. It was quite easy to do so, since the priestess kept striding back and forth while paying little attention as she ranted, but nine glimpses later Angharad found herself gritting her teeth in anger as she struggled to push down on slowly rising anxiety. The odds were six in nine that one of the lictors in the room would land a shot if she threw the knife at Doukas. Of those six shots only three had been lethal but Angharad was not so arrogant as to believe she could fight off two skilled soldiers while on her knees and bleeding from a shot in the arm or gut. The gut wounds, she suspected, were lethal ones anyhow – just too slow a death to be seen within a glimpse. As for the three where she had not been shot? It was doable to avoid both bullets, if she baited the shot of the second lictor the right way. But that took fancy footwork and thus time, long enough for the third lictor to enter. Which meant when the three lictors fell upon her she had killed no one but Doukas and she was still unarmed, allowing them to make easy work of her. Her first instinct, she then decided must have been right: the priestess must be ignored and the bone-rattler weathered long enough to kill the remaining two lictors. After two more failed glimpses, she even refined the attempt into a more specific sequence. First, kill the lictor on the left with the knife – he was a better marksman. Then, bait the shot from the surprised second lictor. Suffer through the bone-rattling, careful not to leave her tongue under her teeth where she might accidentally bite it off while in the shaking throes and die in a most embarrassing manner. Then, even though kneeling on shaky legs, she must move on the corpse while the second lictor drew his sword. The dead body would serve as a shield for the first sword blow, and she meanwhile she must draw the dead lictor’s pistol and shoot the third lictor as he opened the door to rush in. That would leave her with only Doukas and a single man to kill, which she believed doable. Only Angharad instead found she could not even get as far as shooting the third lictor. Instead of blindly using her power at first opportunity, Petra Doukas was proving clever enough to wait until Angharad was aiming the pistol to hit her with the bone-rattler. Which wasted the shot and thus left her stuck with two lictors while she collapsed to her knees. Angharad had yet to find a way to survive that, and not for lack of trying. Worse was that she was fast approaching the end of her capacity – she had four glimpses left before the bleeding started, she figured, perhaps closer to six or seven if she cut them off early. Something she would not have known helped avoid burnout had Maryam not studied her contract so thoroughly, which made it all the more unacceptable that Angharad failing to use that very knowledge to keep her benefactor alive. How long had it been since she began glimpsing? It had to be minutes at least. Ten, fifteen, twenty? How long did she have under the armed traitors under Lord Arkol made it to the private archives and killed Maryam? Fingers were snapped before her face, no less rudely than the last time. Angharad blinked, looking up at an irritated Lady Doukas standing before her. What a waste of well-fitted neckline, she thought. “Pay attention, girl,” the priestess said. “Gule said he gave you some of the Ram’s blood. What did you do with it?” Angharad had been so lost in the glimpses she had not noticed the other woman approaching for what seemed to be another attempt at interrogation. That proximity might change things, she thought. Should she try a glimpse and... ȑâNꝊBƐṨ A knock on the door had Doukas turning away, gesturing for one of the guards to open it. A lictor entered the room, but not the same fair-haired woman Angharad’s glimpses had familiarized her with. This one she did not recognize, and he entered briskly before snapping off a salute at a surprised Petra Doukas. For all her high rank in the cult, she was not used to being saluted by lictors. “Lady Doukas,” the man said. “I bring word from Lord Arkol: the barricades in the galleries have been broken through and the soldiers holding them either slain or routed.” Angharad swallowed, appalled at the death of loyal men holding their oaths but also from a more personal fear. Those barricades had been all that stood between Maryam and the guns that Phaedros Arkol had dedicated to taking her life. She’d run out of time. “Glad news,” Petra Doukas said. “With this we should hold all of-” The messenger grimaced, but he seemed afraid to interrupt. The priestess was not so inattentive as to miss it. “Speak,” Lady Doukas ordered. “What happened?” “We have yet to seize the private archives, my lady,” he said. “There was not only one blackcloak within but a small company. After running into our advance they retreated inside and locked the door. A ram is being brought to bear, but the door is thick. It may take time.” Angharad blinked. A company? Song should be down in the city at the moment, settling her accounts with the Yellow Earth. And even if Tristan had found a crack to wriggle through in order to reach Maryam, which was entirely credible, then their pair alone would not be described as a ‘company’. The word ought to mean four at least, but she struggled to think of who else might have made it into the palace. Perhaps some bodyguards from the Watch delegation, accompanying Brigadier Chilaca as an escort? No, Angharad decided after a moment. If a brigadier were in the palace then the cult’s men on the inside would have known. There would be no keeping a visitor of such high rank quiet for long. “That Tianxi who keeps killing assassins was seen among them,” the traitor said. “You know, Lady Lead.” “Song Ren,” Lady Doukas corrected, and the lictor shrugged. “As you say,” he said. “Anyhow, Lord Arkol says that means it should be the Thirteenth Brigade.” Petra Doukas cast a look Angharad’s way at that. She got a frown back. What did the priestess know? “Confused?” the lady smirked. “Don’t be. Our friend Lord Menander was all too eager to reveal what brigade you belong to, Angharad Tredegar.” The cultists then turned back to the messenger. “I take it Phaedros wants to use her as leverage to dig them out?” “Should you be finished interrogating her,” the soldier specified. Lady Doukas studied her for a moment, perhaps weighing if tacit admission the interrogation was a failure was worth the achievement of helping along in digging out the other blackcloaks, but Angharad cared not for the cult’s games of clout. She straightened in her seat, one of the lictors raising his musket in alarm at the sight until he remembered she was still visibly bound. “How many blackcloaks?” she asked. “Describe them.” Petra Doukas blinked in surprise, then looked incredulous. “You ignore me for a quarter-hour with a dull look on your face and now you want to sing?” Angharad ignored her, eyes on the messenger. The man glanced at the priestess, who snorted. “Tell her,” she said. “It might loosen her tongue, and what would she do with the knowledge anyway?” The man cleared his throat. “The hollow witch, two Izcalli, two Lierganen, some odd-eyed Malani and Lady Lead.” Angharad spared half a moment approving of the acclaim Song had rightfully earned by twice saving their host’s life – and what a snappy sobriquet! – before confusion ensued. Maryam, Song and possibly Tristan? The odd-eyed Malani must be Expendable, which implied one of the Izcalli would be Tupoc and thus the second Lierganen most likely the signifier Alejandra Torrero. Yet there seemed to be a second Izcalli along instead of Bait, who was quite noticeably of Someshwari stock. Then again the man was calling Maryam a hollow, so he was less than reliable. And Bait seemed prone to... maneuvering his way backwards, when the situation allowed, so perhaps the rebels had not had a good look at him. Which still left Angharad wondering what in damnation the Fourth Brigade was doing up in the palace, much less Song. Had she drawn Evander Palliades down to the city only to then stand him up at the brothel? That would be rude of Song, Angharad chided herself. Not at all amusing, which was why her lips were twitching at the thought of getting Tupoc Xical killed fighting cultists and not the delightfully high-handed way a woman many would call a mistress was treating the king of Asphodel. Well, Song being Song she had likely left Palliades a polite note informing him of her absence at the brothel so at least he’d not be confused where she went. “There are seven of them, Tredegar,” Petra Doukas said. “They’re corpses in the making, not something worth smirking about.” Angharad wiped the amusement off her face. She did not bother to answer her captor, to the woman’s visible frustration. “And now you go silent again,” Lady Doukas bit out. “You stubborn little...” The priestess angrily crossed her arms. “Fine, take her,” she said. “I am done beating my head against the wall.” And just like that, the last dregs of amusement were gone. They intended her a hostage, likely threatening her life in exchange for opening the door, but that was of only middling import. She set it aside. What mattered was this: in a matter of moments the lictors would come to untie her so she might be moved and when they did there would be no hiding the knife in her hands. Angharad looked at the four lictors in the room, at the priestess eyeing her with open dislike, and swallowed. She had not been able to win that fight when they were fewer, one outside the room and she had the element of surprise. Now they were all looking at her, alert and wary. Would she even be able to cut all the way through the rope without them noticing? She did not like her odds. The messenger took a single step towards her, and in that small movement Angharad saw the beginning of her loss. It was over, she had taken too long. She had... The Pereduri swallowed spit. She could see how it would go, now. Either she died here, trying to get out, or she was brought as a hostage and that was just a slower death. Whether or not the Thirteenth bargained with Phaedros Arkol, the man would kill them all. He was either the Ecclesiast or deep in the leading cultist’s confidence, and the cult was sure to take any excuse to kill them. They would not tolerate blackcloaks underhand when their spirit was crawling out of its ancient prison, and this time Apollonia Floros was not there to make them behave. “Swords out,” Lady Doukas told the advancing lictors. “Crippled or not, rumor has her a fine killer.” They were all dead, Angharad thought. Her, the Thirteenth, Uncle Osian. And, she realized in a moment that was like a shard of ice stabbing her heart, it was all because of her. Because Angharad Tredegar was the reason any of them were on this misbegotten island in the first place, wasn’t she? Her uncle had told her: the only reason the Thirteenth had been sent to Asphodel, and sent there so absurdly early in the year, was because she had killed Augusto Cerdan. That had barred them from Sacromonte, and the Riven Coast contracts as well. To spare her being assassinated, her uncle had once more put his career on the line by hurrying her to the Asphodel test – and in the process Angharad’s righteous anger on the Dominion had dragged the rest of the Thirteenth into the madness now seizing Tratheke. Song, Tristan, Maryam, Osian. Without her none of them would be here today. None of them would be in the middle of this fucking mad coup that was going to kill them all. And Osian, oh her kinsman she had killed not once but half a dozen times. First when she confessed to her treachery on Tolomontera, then again on Asphodel when she went behind the delegation’s back to find the infernal forge and again when she had him steal the forge on her behalf and again when he handed it to an agent of the Lefthand House last night so it could be smuggled to the Lordsport so she might kill him again by having him charter the merchant vessel called the Golden Tide to carry it to the nearby isle of Imbrada, where he owned a warehouse. And, Sleeping God forgive her, all this for what? She was no closer to getting her father out of Tintavel and a bleak laugh escaped from her throat as she realized all this maneuvering to get the infernal forge might well have come to nothing anyway. The Golden Tide had meant to leave with the midnight tide, so it would have been in the Lordsport when the rebel flotilla attacked. It was entirely possible that the ship and the forge with it had sunk to the bottom of the Trebian Sea, which was so fitting an end to this entire madness that she wanted to weep. If not weep, then at least scream. The Thirteenth was going to die unless she did something about it. Song, Maryam, Tristan – drowned in lead and smoke, fed to a jeering Hated One. Her fingers clenched. But what could she do? She had glimpsed the skirmish again and again only to find fresh failures. Frustration mounted. If not for her leg, for the mara’s lingering scars on her, she could have...@@@@ No, Angharad admitted to herself. Even in perfect health, this might have been too much for her. It was one thing to face down a pack of disorganized raiders on the Dominion, another entirely to face hardened soldiers like the traitor lictors who bore modern arms and armor. And they had a priestess with them, one who could draw on her patron at least one dangerous trick. She tried in her mind to win the same skirmish she had been fighting for what felt like hours, but even crossing the room taking half as long she found the odds remained slim. Little cover, muskets in the hands of men who know how to use them, that despicable bone-rattler. A blade was not enough. Angharad had lost not because she had too feeble a sword arm but because there were situations that could not be won by the sword. That was why the Lefthand House had hooks in her, why she was dragging almost every soul who had shown her kindness since she left the Dominion to their death. It was the silence that told her what was happening. Angharad looked at the lictors advancing towards her blade in hand, at the smirking Petra Doukas, but she was not facing that frozen sight. She was looking down at it. Angharad Tredegar stood on stony shores again, beholding the fate her hands had wrought: a prisoner soon to die, pulling the undeserving with her into the deeps. That was the end of the road she had chosen to walk, the culmination of all her follies. The Fisher’s line struck at the world and it rippled, the shadowy waters it was writ upon rippling as his hook sunk beneath the surface. Angharad was not besides the spirit, this time. The line was stretched above her head, and though her trembling limbs dared not turn to look behind she did not need to – not when a breath washed against her back like warm, poisonous wind. Angharad stood before and beneath the Fisher, watching a stolen moment painted on water. He said nothing. He was the most patient of monsters. “You must think me a fool,” Angharad said. “I left the Dominion strutting arrogantly, convinced I had learned my lesson. That I had found the bridge between need and honor, that I could walk the line between both.” Her shoes crinkled against the gray stones of this bleak shore. “But I had been fooled,” she said. Song had fooled her, and Ferranda as well. They had fooled her because Angharad had... made a story of her time on the Dominion, in her own mind, and their roles had not been to fool her so she never even cared to consider they might have. “And I followed this new compass into fresh follies, congratulating myself on my cleverness all the while. Dancing on a meaningless line, picking up fresh strings to be bound by as if they were ribbons for my hair.” Her fists clenched. “I told myself it was all right because I was following the rules,” Angharad whispered. “The bounds of honor. And maybe if I had gotten away with it, I might have kept believing that, but I didn’t – and now I look at what I left behind and what I see is... crooked. Unworthy.” “Your work is crooked, Angharad Tredegar, because your hand is crooked.” The Fisher’s voice was not a voice: it was the last, desperate scream of a man before they went under the tide, it was the rasp of fire against metal as the last of the lantern oil went. “I did not break my word,” she insisted. “Oaths,” the Fisher said, “are ballast. Men stack them and pray it will right the ship of their lives, keeping them from tipping into the black waters.” He laughed. “It does not,” he said. “No amount of ballast can steady a man’s nature.” Angharad breathed out. Why had she expected anything more out of the spirit? It was not a man, with a man’s thoughts and notions. The Fisher did not change or waver or doubt. He would be the Fisher so long as he was anything at all. And that... constancy, it felt like a thorn in her throat now. As much from envy as from anger, for she was no spirit – she did not get to be uncompromising, that was not the world she lived in. “Shall I throw honor to the wind, then?” she bit out angrily. “Break every oath I ever swore, cut down all who displease me and take whatever I want from whoever I want? Is that your advice, oh great Fisher?” The spirit considered her words. “You cannot,” he said. “Your hand is crooked.” “What does that even mean?” she snarled. “Crooked! What nonsense you-” The sound she heard then, there was nothing else in the world like it: the sound bones made when teeth cracked them, chewing into flesh. She could almost see it – the large hand holding up one of those wriggling... things he put on his hook, the way those great teeth would go through blood and bone as if it were barely there. The Fisher chewed and swallowed, swallowed something she did not dare consider even in the depths of her own soul, and Angharad fell to her knees on the rocks. She threw up, violently convulsing, as much from dread as disgust. He ate, he ate... Angharad’s mouth tasted like bile and fear, the gray pebbles of the beach broke her skin as she stayed on her hands and knees panting. Blood cold as seawater. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. “I want you,” she said, “to tell me of any secret way you know into Tintavel.” A wet crunch as someone’s head was caved, a musket was fired. Shouts, someone running away. “Oh, that’s an old one,” Lady Keys muttered, smacking her lips as if enjoying fine wine. “My dear, you are a classic. Your last?” Angharad leaned forward. “I want you to refrain from killing any member of the Watch for an hour,” she asked, not daring to ask for any longer. Dawn would have been traditional, but from the way Lady Keys tittered unhappily she could tell it had been the right choice. The devil had been looking forward to slaying her the moment Angharad told her where the forge was, speaking the secret bargained for to her corpse. Would they have killed the Thirteenth after freeing them from the siege? That might have gone either way, she guessed, depending on the mood of those old monsters. “You bargain well, daughter of Peredur,” Lady Keys said. “Darling, cease disciplining the children would you? You’ll miss the best part.” And finally Angharad risked a glance at the rest of the room, finding half a charnel yard. Petra Doukas’ head hung off the rest of her body like a ball at the end of a string, while one lictor’s skull was splattered on the wall and another had seemingly been struck with his own ripped arm. Only two of them remained, one raising a trembling sword while the other was being held up by the throat by Lord Locke, whose doublet was slightly scuffed at the wrists. The devil put down the fair-haired woman, dusted off her shoulder and clapped it. “And now don’t you do it again,” he lectured, wagging his finger. He then sauntered away from the trembling lictors, joining his wife as the two of them stood before her. Grinning too widely for the shells they wore. “Your terms are accepted, Angharad Tredegar,” Lord Locke said. “Your payment, now,” Lady Keys demanded. “The infernal forge is on a ship called the Golden Tide, which should be docked at the Lordsport,” she said. “Huh,” Lord Locke said frowning at her a moment before sliding a glance at his wife. “Direct statement, that, no wiggle room. There really was one.” “Life imitating art, I suppose,” Lady Keys mused. They both sounded rather pleased beneath that posturing, Angharad thought, and though she found it hard to get a read on why she could not help but feel it was not truly getting their hands on an infernal forge that stirred their anticipation. “Well, time to get moving if we do not want to break terms,” Lord Locke said. “Those rooklings won’t deliver themselves.” He paused. “You will have your secret when we have our forge,” he told her. Angharad inclined her head. A fair enough clause. “And speaking of terms,” Lady Keys said, grinning wide enough another grin could be seen inside it. “How careless of you, Lady Tredegar, not to bargain for your own release. Tut tut.” Angharad carefully mastered her reaction, which only seemed to please them further. Lord Locke gallantly offered his hellish wife his arm, which she took, and they strolled out of the room. The devils paused by the frozen lictors, also gracing them with a grin. “We’ve nothing more to do with her now,” Lady Keys said. “Do as you will.” “Try to have fun!” Lord Locke called out. And out they went through the door, not looking back. It took a few heartbeats for the lictors to gather themselves and that was long enough for Angharad to cut herself free of the rope. The fair-haired one turned to her first, and for that she died first: she threw the well-balanced knife as she had found best worked through the glimpses, grip slightly loose and wrist angled. It hit the lictor’s cheek, not a lethal wound but one that had the other woman dropping with a scream. It would have taken six strides to reach the other lictor, but there was no need for Angharad to cross the room: the man had emptied his musket at Lord Locke and not reloaded, so with his blade high he charged her. Angharad limped to the left, grabbing her cane, and sized him up. A tall and muscled sort this traitor was, in lictor’s ceremonial armor: a steel breastplate over a padded red coat, collared in silk, and both his greaves and helm bearing a heraldic owl. Unlike the usual lictor armor, there was no mail under the silk collar. Even so, she thought, he would have been a dangerous foe had the lingering fear of the devils not made him charge at her like an angry bull. Angharad waited until he was halfway through a stride, then whipped out her cane. The lictor brought up his sword but with one foot in the air he had no strength to his stance – she burst past his guard, even if it cut into the wood of her cane, and landed a full blow onto the junction between the front and side of his throat. The lictor dropped, clutching at his crushed windpipe as he began choking to death, and Angharad kept moving. The wounded lictor was back on her feet, a curtain of blood dripping down her chin, and she had her sword up. But there was fear in those eyes, the mirror-dancer saw. And fear blinded you. Angharad calmly closed the distance, then feinted bursting forward – the lictor drew backwards, sparing Angharad long enough to bend down to one of the corpses and draw his pistol. “Wait,” the lictor hastily said as Angharad brought up the gun, “I-” Angharad was no markswoman, so she shot her in the center of mass. The lictor dropped with a shout, proving impressively hardy in not dying, so the Pereduri peeled open the corpse’s fingers to take the sword in them. She rolled her wrist once, testing the weight, and found it a little light but of decent make. It was a backsword, single-edged and shorter than her saber, but the guard was similar to her preference and the point had been sharpened for killing. It would do. “No, please, I-” She pierced the traitor’s throat and ripped out the point, barely sparing her a glance. Cleaning the reddened steel on the gurgling corpse’s uniform, Angharad then limped to one of the chairs and saw to her dress. The outer layer she tied to the duelist’s strap, fastening it close, and then settled the layers below into the fitted hooks that would pull them up to the bottom of her knee. There, she was no more able to run than before but she would at least be able to use footwork more complicated than ‘moving in a direction’. Angharad rose, smoothing down her dress, and breathed out before going back for the sheath to match her blade and belting it to her side. Now she had her cane, a sword and a purpose: first she must find the Thirteenth, then together they could slay the Ecclesiast. After the dust settled, she could kill that wretched liar Imani Langa and report her full dealings to the Watch. No more hiding, no more truths so precise they might as well be a lie. Angharad walked out of the room made graveyard, hesitating at the sight of the empty corridor around her. She must not be in one of the guest wings of the palace, for there was not a decoration in sight. Had they held her in some glorified stockroom? After hesitating a moment, she took a right. The hallway stretched on for longer that way so it might lead to somewhere recognizable. A minute’s worth of limping rightward was interrupted by a simple sight: at the end of the hall, facing her, two souls turned the corner. A pair of fair-haired nobles, young and richly dressed though at their side they bore rapiers and hunting pistols. That they were twins was obvious, for they shared the same pinched faces and gray eyes despite one being a man and the other a woman. And though Angharad had never learned their names, their faces had been seared into her memory. How was she to forget the features of the same Iphine siblings who had named her a liar and a coward before half a hundred noble guests? “My, as I live and breathe,” the lordling exclaimed, offering her an empty smile. “Angharad Tredegar, is that you?” “Why, brother, I believe it is,” his sister happily replied. They eyed her with wolf’s eyes, and Angharad knew why neither felt so much as a speck of fear at the sight of her. It was not her humiliation at their hands, or the blood splattering her face and hands. It was for the same reason neither of their hands dipped towards their blades, instead landing on the ornate grips of their pistols: she was a woman using a cane to walk, halfway down a bare stone hallway without so much as speck of cover. They were too far for her to reach them before they fired and she was too far to flee back the way she’d come before they pulled the trigger. And maybe if Angharad still had glimpses left in her she could have finessed her way through it, but she had burnt that wick down to the very end. Using her contract again would kill her surely as a bullet and a great deal more painfully besides. The blonde lordling drew first, his sister following suit a heartbeat later, and there was much self-satisfied chortling. “Did fear melt your tongue, Malani?” he asked. “I can hardly blame you.” “Stop gloating,” his sister said, frowning. “We must decide who gets the kill. It’ll not be believed we both fought her.” Oh, the indignity. The shame. A bitter laugh ripped its way out of Angharad’s throat, for in the span of a minute she had gone from fancying herself as the cunning heroine in some old Pereduri tale to being... spoils of war, a boast being squabbled over by feckless liars both laying claim to the deed of her death before they could even be bothered to go through with it. And the worst part was that she could not even call them fools for it, for what could she do? She stood there, frozen, and no matter where her mind’s eye was cast she found only death. If she ran to them, from them. If she stood, if she so much as bared her sword. She was good, and fast, but no faster than a bullet. Without her contract, without the Fisher’s sagacity, she was just a woman with a sword. The old spirit did not so much as stir within her at the thought of his name. Her trial was not yet ended. It felt unfair, to be unmade not by some costly mistake or heavy oath or even wicked treachery but the simple happenstance of walking down a hall with no cover when two enemies with pistols ran into her. Nothing grand or meaningful, just... bad luck. The Marshal had been right, she thought. How often had Marshal de la Tavarin chided her with word and eye, after her party triumphed against lemures because she had glimpsed ahead? Angharad had sought perfect victories, clean-cut triumphs, and never stopped to consider what the bloody games of the Acallar were for. They were not a competition, despite the rewards, but a whetstone. They were dangers for young Skiritai to sharpen themselves against, so out there in the world they might know how to face unexpected foes. Only Angharad had instead fought them expected, and so never learned the skills the Marshal was truly teaching them. The dark-skinned noble watched the siblings down the hall, watched how they kept an eye on her and their pistols never wavered even as they squabbled over the prospect of her corpse. Would she know how to face two pistols in an empty hall, if she had fought the Acallar how it was meant to be fought? Perhaps not. Perhaps even Marshal de la Tavarin would have died here, for he too walked with a- A cane. That old man in his absurd hat, he fought leaning on his lionhead cane. And Angharad had watched him kill a towering giant with nothing but skill and a single shot. And here she was, facing a pair of sneering vultures too sloppy to pull the trigger before splitting up the spoils, and calling it the same. Oh, the indignity. The shame. For not having listened to her teacher when he told them uncertainty was surrender. That a Militant did not look for a path to victory but began with the death of their opponent and traced it back to where they stood. Her mindset, Angharad thought, was one of defeat. She shook her head. She did not like the girl she was being right now, so Angharad Tredegar killed her and became another. “What a slow learner I am,” she murmured. “My apologies, Your Grace.” “Talking to yourself, I see. Have you gone mad?” Angharad turned her stare on the girl mocking her, on the pair of them and their pistols. She looked at two corpses, fixed them in her mind’s eye, and walked all the way back to herself. Nine strides. “You have called me a coward and a liar,” she said. “I will have you answer for that.” The lordling snorted, wiggling his pistol. “Bold talk to offer a man who holds your death.” “No,” Angharad replied. “What you hold, Iphine, is one shot and the prayer it will be enough. For if it is not, you will surely die.” The fair-haired man paled, either in fear or anger. Hesitation was surrender, so Angharad took a step. “Brother-” The muzzle of the nobleman’s firearm followed her and Angharad understood it then, what the Marshal had done. A pistol was being pointed at her and all warriors were taught that meant harm, death. But did a pistol not need to be braced, to be aimed? Must the fingers not twitch, was there not a span between the trigger being pulled and the powder catching, the bullet being spat out? She had feared death not because of what her enemy could truly do but because she had embraced defeat. The Iphine lordling pulled the trigger, but he had told her he would before the thought even entered his mouth. He’d shifted his footing, braced his wrist. And when he shot, Angharad was not where he aimed. A step forward and to the left, leaning on her cane as she walked to their end of the hall. Powder billowed and wind passed by her cheek, rustling her braids. Another step forward. Angharad watched as fear seeped into the woman’s frame, how those gray eyes widened and she exhaled in disbelief. How she raised her hand hastily, how panic guided her aim when she remembered the way her brother’s shot had missed. How she pulled to the left, to catch Angharad when she stepped to the side. Click. Roaring thunder, the bullet flying through the air where Angharad was not: why should she attempt to dodge what was not aimed at her but at where she might be? The lead went wide as she took another step forward. “Fuck,” the lordling choked out. He fumbled for the powder horn, fingers panicked. Angharad eyed him with contempt as she took another step forward, drawing her blade. Song would not have waited until someone else shot to begin reloading and she would already have cleared the barrel by now. Amateur. “Iphine,” his sister shouted, drawing her rapier. “Iphine and the Horns!” She rushed forward, eyes wide, and Angharad watched as the point of that same too-thin blade was brought up – not for a simple lunge, the mirror-dancer clinically noted, but a rushing arrow. The backfoot was positioned to give the first push, but the drive would come from the front leg’s push. Betting it all on strength and speed, gathered behind a lethal point. If you let it gather, anyway. Angharad sharply twisted her wrist, seizing the opponent’s blade from below and twisting it. A backsword to match hers would have weathered it, perhaps even taken her in the riposte. But the Iphine noblewoman used a lightened rapier to avoid building up muscle, as Angharad had first observed that night at the manor. The rapier was snapped clean out of her grip, falling, and while she let out a shout of dismay Angharad finished her step forward while sweeping her arm. A smooth, firm stroke cut right through the throat and that was the end of her. Wet gurgles as she fell, clutching at the wound with disbelieving eyes. Angharad took another step forward. Two strides left out of nine. The last of the Iphine twins dropped his pistol at the sight of her reddened blade, snarling, and reached for his rapier. Angharad flicked her backsword at him, stepping forward, and he hastily drew back while the mirror-dancer smoothly transitioned into a rushing arrow. Point up, back foot pushing as the lordling brought up his blade and Angharad’s front leg stomped down to drive her forward and she cleanly drove her saber’s point through his heart in her ninth and last stride. He gasped wetly, grip loosening, and she ripped free her blade. The second of the Iphine twins dropped to the ground and she snapped her wrist to flick the blood off her steel, leaning on her cane with pressed lips – that last pushed had pulled painfully on her leg, and she could do nothing but stand there and take the pain. It passed, as did the nobleman. Sheathing her sword, Angharad Tredegar spared a glance for the two corpses it had taken her nine strides to reach. Two was not much of a graveyard, but there was yet room in her shadow. She began to limp away, leaning on the cane, but her steps stuttered as a thought occurred to her too late. “Ah,” Angharad muttered in mild embarrassment, looking back. “I left no one to ask for directions.” She had absolutely no idea where in the palace she was. Was she going to have to wander around blindly? At the pace she moved that would- A man was standing by her, looking puzzled. No, not a man. For though he had a man’s shape, messy black hair and old-fashioned armor of bronze, the truth of him peeked through the details: a crown in flowery gold and purple and eyes of impossibly burning blue. A spirit, and one whose likeness Angharad had much heard of. “Lord Oduromai,” she politely greeted, inclining her head. “You,” the spirit frowned. “What did you do, to become a greater beacon than prayer?” But before she could answer, the spirit shook his head. “No matter,” Oduromai said. “More of me came through for it. Follow, heroine. Fate beckons and time runs short.” He walked away without waiting for her answer. Angharad stared at his back moment, then sighed. Well, she had been looking for directions. Close enough. “It would not do to be late,” Angharad conceded, and began limping after the spirit.