Arc 4: Chapter 27: Dawn and Doom

Arc 4: Chapter 27: Dawn and Doom

When the sun rose to burn away the fog, it arrived with every bell in the city tolling.

The bells of Garihelm did not ring to welcome the dawn. They were a dirge.

Rose Malin burned. The city became awash with fear and confusion. Some cried that the Priory and the Houses had finally gone to war. There was violence. Homes were broken into. The guard filled the streets, bringing order with a swift steel fist.

There were deaths. The capital had been on the brink of this for most of a year. I didn't let that knowledge convince me I shared no blame.

I saw much of it while drifting through the waking streets, still covered in Priory blood. Few truly saw me, wrapped in glamour and the dregs of night and fog as I was. Lisette went with me, struggling to keep up, asking me where I intended to go, what I intended to do. She begged me to let her tend to my injuries.

When I wouldn’t answer, she eventually fell quiet and followed in worried silence. I suspected she did not know where else to go. Her cover with the Priory had been undone when she’d saved me, or perhaps earlier when Oraise had revealed he knew her true allegiance.

Just another reminder that my actions had consequences, and it wasn’t always me who paid them.

I eventually stopped at the edge of a deep canal near the bay. I smelled the sea, and let a sudden gust of air cool the sweat on my skin, the scalding pain in my left arm, and the pieces of my flesh that’d been scorched by hellfire.

Nearby, a piece of shadow disentangled itself from an alley. Lisette started and began to weave her threads of aura, but I put up a hand to stop her.

“You went and did it again,” Emma said, ignoring the cleric. “Left me behind.”

I had to force myself to speak. The shock of everything that’d just happened still hadn’t quite left. “I told you. This part of my life... it’s not for you.”

I expected anger. My squire only followed my gaze to the fortress looming over the lagoon, her thoughts hidden. I suspected she hadn't slept, by the shadows under her eyes. Lisette shifted, audible by her long priorguard robes, but kept her silence. Her face, stained with soot and weariness, looked ghostly in the poor light.

“I think...” Emma sighed and adjusted a lock of dark hair. “I think I should be the one to decide that. Our fates are tied together, you and I. We both made the choice that day, remember?”

I remembered cold seas and cold gods, a burnt man bound to a tree. I lifted my axe, feeling the unshaved wood of the branch it had been made from.

“Everything changes today,” I croaked. “It was easy, before.”

Emma lifted an eyebrow. “Easy?”

I nodded. “Easy. No one watched us. No one expected anything of us. I worked for years to keep my name and the people I love out of this, but I can’t anymore. I can’t live two lives.”

“Alken...” a worried note crept into the girl’s voice.

No, I corrected myself. She was a woman grown now.

“What are you planning?” She asked. “Are we leaving the city now? With Yith and the council still at large?”

That should be where this ends, I thought. That’s what I would have done, before. Cut my losses, keep to my work, wait for the next chance to do it better.

“No. I’m not leaving.” I turned to face Emma, looking down to meet her eyes. She met mine evenly, squinting a bit at the light. She, too, had been touched by much darkness. It had left a mark on her, perhaps forever, and the power in me recognized it.

I was beginning to think that whoever had woven my magic had been a bit of a bastard.

“I’m not leaving,” I repeated. “But you should.”

Her face turned angry. “How many times—”

She quieted as I put a hand covered in half dried blood on her shoulder.

I saw the prince and princess of Talsyn and their delegation. The princess Hyperia watched me with pursed lips, looking bemused. Her brother Calerus, gaunt and fell eyed, stared at me like a hunting hawk.

Atop the many-tiered dais of the High Seat, I saw more familiar faces. The Emperor, clad in darkened steel and filigreed gold, glared down at me like the most dour of judges. Behind him, the shadowed face of his First Sword stood beside the Royal Steward, who stroked his many chins as he watched me with narrow, thoughtful eyes.

I forced myself to look at Rosanna. Beautiful as she’d ever been, clad in silver and black, her black hair cascading around her shoulders in gem-woven braids. I saw the pain in her eyes, the confusion. My concealing garments didn't fool her.

She didn’t understand, but she knew me, and she was very afraid. She hid it well. I doubt anyone else saw it. I could almost hear the shout she held back between tightly pressed, painted lips.

What are you doing!?

Her children were there too. A cruel coincidence, that. They shadowed the imperial thrones, standing between their parents. Kaia Gorr towered over them, arrayed in her pale green cloak, her spiraling seashell armor. Her expression was stone, unreadable.

Laessa Greengood was there, standing near the Dances, surrounded by her relatives. There were white and gold robed priests, too, representing different branches of the Faith.

I saw Oraise, his arm in a sling, still wearing a dust-stained uniform. I recognized other Priory clericons as well, their red garments marked by soot and sweat, all arrayed around him. No doubt they’d been giving a report to explain the chaos in the Bell Ward. Prior Diana, most her face wrapped in bloody bandages, glared at me with cold hatred in her eyes.

All actors were present. Now, to roll my dice and wait for judgement.

No more hiding.

Did you anticipate this, Umareon? Will you smite me here for my insolence, or disavow me?

I did not pray. I did not expect salvation, or interdiction.

I stopped halfway down the court chamber. The stunned onlookers waited with bated breath. I threw my cloak and cowl back, revealing the axe in my left hand. But that wasn’t what all those eyes went to.

I held up the head of Horace Laudner, so they all could see it, then threw it down before the throne. It rolled many times before stopping, almost seeming to move with some impossible momentum which carried it to the lowest step of the dais. I’d left the circlet of clerical office on the old man’s brow, and it came off during the roll.

So like that scene with Bishop Emery, when I’d resigned myself to isolation and blood.

My voice, crackling with aura — I’d held onto just enough for this — filled the chamber.

“I am the Headsman of Seydis. Doomsman of the Choir of Onsolem.”

I waited until the last echo of that pronouncement had faded before pointing my bloodstained finger at the dead priest’s head.

“Horace Laudner, Grand Prior of the Arda, has been judged by the lords of Heavensreach and given this doom. For conspiring with the denizens of Orkael, the Iron Hell. For commanding the murder of his rivals in the Church and the Houses. For the torment and unfair sentences given to the Hidden Folk, to common peoples across all the land, and to many others, he has been punished.”

From the gathered nobles, Laessa watched me. I did not look at her, did not see the expression on her face, but I felt her eyes as sharply as I felt my queen’s.

I held up Faen Orgis, the Doomsman’s Arm, to rest it on my palms. I lifted it in offering and bowed my head to the Emperor. The dregs of my power were fast fading, so my last words lacked any supernatural weight.

A great weariness settled on me. I felt every injury, every day of missed sleep, every betrayal and wound. How I remained standing, I cannot say.

I was so tired. But this had to be done.

I spoke to Markham Forger. “I await your judgement, my lord.”