"You can stay here for now," Oraeka told me as I stepped into the cave. It wasn't a large space, but there was head room. The far wall went about ten yards into the hill, so I could walk about and stretch my legs if I wanted.

It'd obviously been inhabited before. The remnants of a campfire sat in a slight depression in the middle of the cave, and there were racks where I could hang clothing to dry, even a log brought in for a seat and some other comforts. I noted a humble cot and some fur blankets.

"This is yours, isn't it?" I turned to the elf. "Don't you sleep here?"

Oraeka shrugged and studied her spear idly. "On occasion. I use it to tend to my gear, mostly, and I rest out in the woods as often as not. My kind don't need to sleep as often as yours, and for us it's… an indulgence? We dream because we wish to, not because we must."

"I see. Then thanks."

"Don't thank me. You won't be here long."

She turned to head back out into the Fane. I sighed as I stared at my temporary lodgings of rough, cold rock. I'd decided not to sleep on the floor in Maxim's hut as I'd done in the past. Oraeka and I both agreed that the shadow everyone sensed clinging to me might disturb the knight's already troubled rest, so this was safer.

Oraeka paused by the cave's entrance, one hand resting on the rock. She was tall enough to need to stoop through the opening. She spoke in a quiet voice without turning around. "Ser Maxim tried to finish that cabin you and he started for the little hawk, but he became too ill to complete it just before winter."

I felt something in my chest tighten. "I see."

Emma, my squire, had become a new fixture in the Fane for but part of an autumn and a winter. In that time she'd endeared herself to the other residents in the sanctuary. Oraeka and Maxim helped me train her in combat and woodcraft.

It helped the old man, gave him something to focus on and a sense of purpose. He'd started building a second shelter to provide the girl with her own space. Now she'd affixed herself to the court in Garihelm alongside me, and we'd left him alone out here, the only human amidst faeries and ghosts.

And I'd be leaving again soon. Heading back out into a land that grew more dangerous every day, so I could look for the missing Grim Reaper.

I'd hoped to use the Fane to rest and reinforce myself, then go north and report to the Ardent Round about what'd occurred in Osheim. Now…

"Fuck."

I gathered fresh logs and got the fire burning hot to chase the cold out of the cave, inviting Morgause in after. She seemed to like the cave, but shunned the fire and moved to the coldest, darkest corner she could. She'd always seemed to prefer the cold, even when camping out in the wilds.

I relieved the faux-horse of her saddle and bags, then took the time to get my traveling gear off. First came my red cloak, which I carefully folded and set down on my packs. Next came my overcoat, which I'd acquired on the road and worn in place of my armor. I got my boots off, then stripped out of my shirt. I'd pilfered a bucket from Maxim's cabin, and started melting snow to clean myself with.

Though it was still freezing cold, the Alder's fire burned within me and I barely felt it even mostly nude. I moved without much hurry, thinking over everything that'd happened that day.

Not just that day. I'd had a lot of time to think, lately.

My gaze went to my armor. I hadn't been wearing it when I arrived at the Fane. It consisted of a coat of black iron rings dark as oil, which I wore under a full set of steel plate commissioned before I'd departed Garihelm some months back. The ensemble was badly damaged. There was a hole in the breastplate, which matched a new scar on my chest, and one of the gauntlets had been ruined by demon blood, which apparently didn't wash off and acted like acid.

The set included a full helmet, a barbute style greathelm with a faceplate. It'd been half melted by hellfire, so I couldn't wear it anymore. I wasn't sure why I kept it. Next to the armor sat two bags, one of which held the broken shards of Faen Orgis and the other the sword I'd used in Baille Os, also shattered.

Broken armor and broken weapons. In the firelight, my scars stood out starkly. I let out a weary sigh.

The largest of the packs I'd taken off Morgause shifted on its own. I turned my head to stare at it. It was a thick blanket, more or less, folded and secured by strong rope.

It didn't move again. I glared at it for several minutes, waiting, but it remained still.

"I'm going out for a bit," I told Morgause, who lay against one wall of the cave. Her tufted ears twitched in my direction as I laced my shirt back on. I pointed at the larger bundle where it lay by the fire with the rest of my belongings.

"Watch that."

Morgause chuffed and lay her head back down, shutting her ruby eyes. I grabbed my cloak and the bags with my ruined gear, and turned my back on the bundle as I walked to the entrance of the cave. There was no time for feeling sorry for myself. I had work to do.

And I couldn't do it with broken weapons.

The dwarf propped his burly arms on his knees, let out a weary sigh, and hunched his shoulders in thought. The pose hardly made his thirty feet of height any less impressive. The cavern, fifty times larger than the shelter Oraeka lent me, was sweltering hot from the smith's forge.

"It's no good," Caim grumbled. "You've ruined it."

I tried to keep my voice level, though impatience and the fact I'd begun to sweat despite my recent bath made it difficult. "You're a master smith, Caim, and I have every shard of the thing. Isn't there anything you can do?"

The broken pieces of my axe lay on a stone bench beneath the dwarf giant's stooping head. He had a relatively small head for his hillock form, only twice as big as a human's and not proportioned for the rest of him. His features were long and weathered, with a beard the color of furnace ash.

"You cannot have collected every piece." Caim spoke in a morose voice, his gravelly inflections tinged with resentment. "It has been shattered. There would have been dust, residue too small for mortal eyes to see. It cannot be made whole."

I felt my own shoulders dip a fraction. That news struck me hard, and the smith's melancholy proved infectious. "Then… Damn it. What about the sword?"

Caim turned to the broken pieces of the executioner's sword, also laid out in front of him. He rubbed at his beard with soot-blackened fingers. As those digits passed over his hair, cinders lit in it. His eyes burned with that same inner fire as he considered.

"No." He sighed again and leaned back, folding his arms. "Also too broken, and it is mortal work besides. I need more Hithlenic Bronze, which I do not have, nor do I have the means to create it."

I had to walk away and take a minute to get my temper under control. Rubbing at the bridge of my nose I said, "I can't go into battle empty handed. I don't need perfection, Caim, just metal in my fist."

I heard the enormous forgemaster shift behind me. "To ask me to give less than perfection… do you understand the insult, mortal? I am my work. I have shaped my very being around it."

I winced. With the Sidhe, there were rarely any half measures. They could be fickle, or fey, or whatever word one might want to use, but they were also passion incarnate. Depression could cause them to fade, and for an artist like Caim that passion bent around his craft.

"I'm sorry. But I need a weapon. Is there anything you can do?"

"Hm…" The dwarf giant grumbled something, which sounded like something in a language I didn't recognize. "Leave both weapons with me for now. I shall… try."

He said the word try like it was profanity. I watched him start to grab tools, his long arms stretching across the enormous cavern with ease "Return tomorrow."

I didn't have time to wait, but I bit back my frustration and nodded. "Thanks."

He didn't answer, already lost in his muttering calculations. I left the sweltering forge and went back out into the wintery woods. The air outside felt less cold, I thought. Winter was nearly over.

Good. Traveling would be easier when the snows melted.

Whispering from the trees drew my attention as I made my way back to Oraeka's cave. I glanced to my left and saw shadowy shapes scuttling through the leafless branches. The Cant Spiders were horrible… and beautiful. They had perfectly round abdomens in a wash of bright colors, with eyes that shone like cut jewels. Their sizes varied somewhat, but most were big as dogs. Their webs were woven around the Fane, taut lines of silver cord stiff as lute strings.

The comparison was apt, since they could pluck those webs like lutes and make music. I heard it in the distance, a complex arrangement the Cant Spiders used to communicate with one another, and weave their magic.

They were watching me. Probably talking about me, too, judging by the whispering.

I'd been through a lot lately. A man I considered something of a mentor lay dying up on the hill, I didn't know if several people I cared about were alive or dead, the world had gone to shit, and I was stuck here in a place that'd been like a home for a number of years, feeling like an intruder.

My patience snapped.

"What?" I spoke loudly, letting my voice carry through the woods. "What is it you have to say?"

The whispering spiders went silent. So did the music. The spindly creatures watched me, seemingly dozens of them.

I glared back. "Have I done something to offend you?"

Have I not given enough? I added silently. Bled enough?

This was childish, I knew. Yet… I couldn't keep hold of the simmering pressure that'd been building in my chest.

"They are scared of you."

I started and turned. Urawn Aarlu stood in the shadow of a nearby tree. It was a large specimen, an ancient oak towering over the sanctuary, with roots large enough that the drow could lean against one.

He seemed tired. And old. I didn't normally think of elves as looking old. Even Tuvon, who'd been half a god, wore a youthful appearance. The Doombearer of Draubard looked like a washed out painting, the original subject obscured by time and faded almost past the point of recognition.

"I don't mean them any harm," I said, feeling chagrined for my outburst.

"Yet you might cause it. You reek of blood and your shadow stretches like a giant's. You did a dark thing to attain the power to fight the servants of Orkael."

"Am I to be judged for that, too?" I asked.

Urawn pushed off the root and moved to stand closer to me, leaning on his crook. "Nay, Alken Hewer. That was Tuvon's gift to grant to whomever he chose. He was king to us and peer to the Onsolain, a full member of the Choir. It is not for me to gainsay him."

Yet, I knew there would be immortals who weren't happy about it. Urddha had told me as much.

"You were in the Underworld recently," Urawn said.

I glared at the elf. "Is every step I take watched by you people?"

In answer, he tapped the side of his bovid snout. "I can smell it."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

No point denying it. "For some days, yes. Just on the uppermost layer, I think, though we might have strayed deeper. Got lost a bit… If not for a wight in our company, I think we wouldn't have found the way out."

"The Underworld grows more dangerous by the day, just as the surface realms do. The dead are restless." Urawn sighed. "You are fortunate. Draubard does not let go of what skirts its depths easily."

I flexed the fingers of my left hand. "We were attacked many times. Ghouls, cesswraiths, even a chthonian troll. It was like the darkness had teeth, only… I've made myself into something that bites back. The dead stopped trying us after the first week."

I'd reveled in it. I wanted the fight. I borrowed a weapon from Casimir. We forged deep into the darkness, into a place that'd never known light, never felt warmth, me and the mercenaries from the Backroad Inn. That darkness felt my presence, and resented the fire I brought. The Underworld tried to snuff me out.

It hadn't succeeded.

"Perhaps we must become monsters to punish worse ones," Urawn mused. "Yet, it remains our responsibility to see that we do not replace them."

I folded my arms. "I don't need mentoring, Urawn. I've placed plenty of checks on myself for that very reason."

"You surprised me," Urawn admitted. "I expected to find an arrogant mortal. Knowing the details of your deeds does not make me intimate with their nuances, it is true. I had believed — as many of my kinsfolk believe — that you did many of the things I spoke of earlier for power. For influence. Attaching yourself to the Emperor, taking matters into your own hands, fighting your own battles as well as the ones the Choir demanded."

"…I knew it might all look like that, on the outside." I sighed heavily. "But I did what I thought was right. Mostly."

"I have seen you, Headsman." The bestial faerie stepped into my sightline, forcing me to meet his gaze. "But it does not change the facts. If both elf and seraph demand it, then I will be their judgement."

"Then I'll give them reason to keep me around." I tried to inject confidence I didn't really feel into my words. "What can you tell me about Rysanthe? When did she go missing? Where? Are there any leads I can follow?"

Urawn considered the question. "It was at the onset of winter, I believe, when Lady Miresgal was dispatched from the Underworld on a task for the Silver Council."

"Do you know the details of that task?"

"She was asked to kill the Briar King."

I turned fully to face him. "What?"

The elf's demeanor was serious. "The Lord of Briarland. You are familiar?"

"Of course I am!" Next to Reynard and the Gorelion, he was widely considered the worst villain still at large in the subcontinent, though that honor most often went to his mistress.

The King of Briarland, sometimes also known as the Lord of the Roses and the Thorned Knight, was an old nightmare. High Captain of the Brothers of the Briar, enemy to the Knights of the Alder Table, and an infamous traitor who'd taken the Briar Angel, a fallen onsolain, as his dark patron. For centuries he'd worked to raise Thorned Nath as a new God-Queen, a dark lady to reign over all the realms of Urn.

"But… Nath made amends with the Choir and rejoined them. Why would Draubard want her vassal dead?"

"Nath does not have as much control over that creature as you might think," Urawn told me. He'd walked a few paces forward, his gaze fixed on some faraway place. "The Briarfae, and their playthings, the Briar Knights, were by all accounts displeased with Nath's decision to reconcile with her siblings. They have made trouble."

Trouble. Such a vague word, and with so many connotations, especially for a society as wicked as the Briar. When Urawn didn't continue to explain, I realized he might be waiting for me to connect dots on my own. Was he testing me?

"…This was a test," I said aloud. "For Nath. Now that she's under the purview of the Choir again, her subjects are as well. The Briar King has done a lot of evil, broken more of the God-Queen's laws than a hundred Hasur Vykes. This was meant to find out if she would intervene in his punishment."

Urawn cast me an approving look. "And now the agent tasked with delivering that doom has gone missing. My predecessor may have simply been overcome by the Briar. And yet…"

"And yet," I finished for him, "it's possible Nath is protecting her champion. Or, even if she isn't, it will look that way."

A simple case of a missing reaper had just become far more complicated. A political mess, friction amongst the Sidhe and the Onsolain, possible interference for the sake of escalating that friction to all out division…

It stank of sabotage. I could think of only a few culprits who might want such a thing, or even be capable of it. The problem being that a few was more than one, and I had to know for sure.

"Who was the last one with any contact with Rysanthe?" I asked. "You said at the onset of winter, but who? What do they know?" I walked forward to stand at the old drow's side.

"She held court with the Seydii," Urawn told me. "Guested with Princess Maerlys. We know this from her last communion."

I frowned. "And the Princess doesn't know anything?"

"In truth, I attempted to visit her before coming here. Her court is constantly on the move, shifting in and out of the mortal coil. I will continue seeking that audience, but she has thus far avoided it. Of course, that is not an admission of guilt. The Princess has a valid quarrel with me."

I raised an eyebrow. The drow caught my look and shrugged. "I delivered a sentence to her mother. It is a sad tale, and not one I wish to linger in. Suffice to say that she has never forgiven me."

"…I see. So Rysanthe went missing just after entering the Seydii leader's court as a guest."

Which made the Daughter of Tuvon a suspect. Damn.

"A place to start," Urawn said as he began to walk deeper into the woods. "Perhaps you will have more luck than I. Try to find Lady Miresgal's path, if you can."

"And what will you be doing?" I asked him. He was heading away from the inner sanctuary, so I did not follow him.

"I will travel to Heavensreach. The Silver Council desires its will spoken there. Likely both your fate and that of the magi, Lias Hexer, will enter these discussions. I would suggest you not tarry, Headsman! This task is important, but your own situation is not forestalled by it. As I said before, the Choir does not sing with one voice these days."

The hunched form of the Doombearer receded into the woods. After a gust of wind and blown snow, it vanished.

"Thanks," I muttered dryly. "I'll do my best."

Only the wind and creaking trees answered me.

With Caim working on repairing my gear, I could do little but wait.

Urawn Aarlu departed the Fane, en route to the celestial mountain where the Choir held court. There was disunity there, and amongst the Sidhe, a brewing crisis between the elves of Draubard, Seydis, and Briarland.

Four nations of immortals at odds, while mortal cities were attacked by monsters and a greater evil stalked the realms. I'd traveled to Oria's Fane to rest a brief time and receive advice. Instead, I felt like an ocean was crashing down on me.

I walked back into Oraeka's cave. Morgause lifted her head just long enough to bare her sharp teeth at me before laying her head down.

"You annoyed with me, too?" I asked the scadumare. "Get in line."

I set my cloak down and knelt by the campfire. It'd burned down in the mere two hours I'd been away. I set some fresh logs down and started poking at it. I could have just used my magic, and the fire I carried in me kept me warm enough, but I preferred ordinary flame. It was comforting. Quieter.

And the Alder didn't keep me as warm as it used to. The shadows inside the cave seemed to crawl as though with many insects, and that cold pressure pressed in. Some of it I'd brought out of Draubard, and the rest I'd empowered before Baille Os.

It was hungry. I hadn't fed it in many days.

It could go hungry a while longer. I shut the dark whispers out and focused on the campfire, allowing my mind to go quiet.

That peace only lasted minutes. The bundle, the blanket I'd tied with rope and sat with the saddlebags, twitched.

I almost ignored it, continuing to poke at the fire idly for a minute and pretending like I hadn't seen. Then the blanket jumped again, more insistently this time. I pulled my stick back and glared at the inconspicuous bundle of rope and hemp.

Silence. Morgause stared at me sidelong.

Cursing, I unsheathed my knife and cut the rope, then threw the top layer of the blanket back. Beneath that covering lay black fur.

More precisely, the bundle had hidden a fur pelt. It was a ghastly thing, soot colored, folded up to be compact enough to hide beneath the blankets. The skin had once belonged to an enormous black wolf, something evident by the head still resting atop its layers, which sagged nearly flat thanks to the lack of a skull. I could make out its shape by the long, wrinkled snout and tufted ears, all of it scarred and singed.

It seemed like what it was, at first. Dead, empty, just rough hide and fur like any hunter's trophy. However, even as I stood and stepped back, the pelt shivered and the ears twitched. The empty holes that once framed eye sockets flickered with a dull inner flame.

I pointed at the pelt with my knife. "I told you to keep silent."

A deep, guttural voice with just the hint of a continental accent emerged from the mound of fur. "And I have. Yet we are in a private place, and you kept me trapped inside that filthy cover. Do you think it comfortable?"

"It isn't supposed to be comfortable." I moved around the fire to crouch on the opposite side, putting my back to the entrance of the cave. "Do you have any idea what will happen if the faeries in this sanctuary detect you? Hezrebog almost did."

"Trouble, I imagine." The lupine face contracted into something like a grin. "For you as much as for me."

I grunted and started rifling through my packs, eventually pulling out some string. I started replacing the worn laces on my boots, just one of a number of small tasks I'd need to tend to before leaving on another journey.

Vicar watched me quietly for a minute or two before speaking again. "So, you have been given another task."

So much for quiet. "You heard?"

"Of course. The Underworld's favorite murderer missing, possibly slain, and the Headsman censured by his own. They are so quick to demand that you solve their problems, even as they throw you under the wheel…"

I spoke without looking up from my work. "Rysanthe has helped me in the past. I don't mind returning the favor."

"She was the one who made your dream-trap ring, was she not? Even my kind know some envy for the nuances of drow craftsmanship."

I paused with a length of cord stretched in my hand. "What ever happened to my ring? You and Oraise took it from me at Rose Malin."

"I kept your amulet," the devil admitted. "At least, until I detected the taint in it. But the rest of your belongings vanished after that demon attacked our safehouse. I noticed your cloak, axe, and armor were returned to you. The ring did not?"

Lisette had retrieved my axe, and the Briar cloak and elven chainmail came back to me by some kind of sympathetic magic. Or Qoth did it. I still wasn't entirely sure.

Vicar must have noted the suspicion in my face. "I do not know what became of your ring, Hewer. Believe me or don't, it will not bring the bauble back either way."

I decided to let it go. "So what do you think?"

"About?"

"Don't play dumb. About Rysanthe."

"I have never met the infamous Lady Miresgal in person, so what I think about her is hardly relevant."

I propped an arm on one knee and jabbed a finger at the animated pelt. "Drop that malicious compliance crap, right now. I didn't indenture you against your will, crowfriar. You asked me to strip your mangy hide off your bones. This…" I gestured at the sunken mass of fur and leathery hide that was all that remained of the once dangerous Renuart Kross, Vicar of the Credo Ferrum. "This was apparently better than whatever the Tribunal had in store for you. Now, you can either help me, or I can dig a deep hole out in the frozen dirt and bury you in it, where you can't cause me any more trouble."

Vicar glared at me. He didn't have eyes anymore, just those empty holes, but the cinderous lights in them flared. The mass of fur moved very little when he spoke — it didn't seem to breathe, which made sense since he didn't have lungs or an esophagus anymore. The voice simply emanated through his bared fangs, the only iron left in him since I'd freed him of his skeleton.

"I think that you are probably going to die, and badly."

"Probably," I agreed.

"But…" The hellhound's glowing eyelights shifted to the side. "It is curious. For many centuries the Briar's inner circle has remained unmolested. With Thorned Nath protecting them, the Choir did not dare a direct assault, not even with their most capable champions. To choose now of all times to dispatch an assassin is suspect."

"Maybe they just didn't want loose ends?" I suggested, snipping some of the string in my hands and beginning to lace it through the holes in one boot. "With everything else going on, it could be disastrous if the Briar King decided to make a move."

"True. And I believe your assertion that it was intended as a test for Nath has merit. It stinks of the First Sword."

My working hands went still for a moment. The First Sword of the Choir meant Umareon, Saint of Crusades, their greatest warrior and closest thing the Onsolain had to a leader with the God-Queen absent. He'd been the one to personally order me to kill the Grand Prior of the Arda.

"I thought the Onsolain and the Sidhe had separate leadership. You think he dispatched Rysanthe, even though she serves the Silver Council?"

"What do you know of the Silver Council?" Vicar asked me.

I thought about it a while. Draubard wasn't my area of expertise. The Land of the Dead wasn't often discussed in polite conversation, for understandable reasons. "It's the ruling body of the Underworld. Drow elves, I always assumed."

"The elves of Draubard serve the Silver Council," Vicar said. "But the rulers of that realm are Onsolain. Seraphim, and some dead mortals granted Sainthood, who were tasked by the God-Queen to govern the draus and keep watch over the souls of Her subjects. The Heir would not permit the faeries of the Underworld to control your dead, Headsman. They were soul thieves before She tamed them, as were the Seydii. Just as the Briar and many wyldefae still are."

I frowned. "You make them sound like demons."

"The distinction between Fey and Fel is thinner than you might imagine. The Abgrüdai do not inhabit every pit in Hell. Trust me, I'd know."

That was a disturbing notion. "Urawn Aarlu and Oraeka seem to insist that the Choir aren't their masters."

"That is conceit. The Onsolain conquered this land, Hewer. They came with their armies of seraphs and devas and mortal dupes, and they cowed the elves after three centuries of near incessant war. Why do you think the wild irks hate you so? Where do you think the stories of stolen infants originate from, the twisted hordes of changelings, the curses that infest this world like a plague of bad memories?"

The pelt's eyelights fixed on me. "The Sidhe have long memories. I assure you, they have not forgotten their resentments."

"But, the Archon was a member of the Choir. Tuvon—"

"Is dead," Vicar stated flatly. "True, the Onsolain accepted the High King of Seydis as a peer, but now he is gone. With him goes much of their influence. Their autonomy."

I rubbed at the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache starting. "So, the Choir demands that Rysanthe, an elf, travel into the most dangerous dominion this side of the world to kill its monarch, a long-established leader of elvendom, to get rid of a potential problem and test Nath on how genuine her repentance is. She leaves the Underworld, visits the leader of the Seydii elves, and from there vanishes into thin air."

I lowered my hand, thinking about my conversation with the two elves earlier. "What if this wasn't just a test for Nath, but for the Sidhe? They seem insistent that they're allies and peers to the Choir, not vassals to it."

"It sounds like any king taking stock of his domain, doesn't it?" The infernal pelt's boneless visage stretched into an evil grin. "Testing loyalties, cleaning the castle of rats."

"The Choir has a monarch, and She isn't around. But… Yes, it seems like maybe the Onsolain are trying to circle their wagons. I wonder if this has anything to do with that attack earlier in the winter. The timing seems odd."

Before my trip south, I'd been informed of some kind of violence in Heavensreach, the sanctuary of the Choir. That news ended up kicking off a great amount of trouble, and I still didn't know what actually happened there.

There were a lot of loose ends. Which brought me to my conclusion. "I need to talk to Maerlys."

"Dangerous," Vicar warned.

"Very. But she was the last one to see Rysanthe, and that's my best lead. The trouble is finding her."

Before either of us could say more, I caught sight of Morgause's ears pricking up. Vicar went perfectly still, the lights that passed for his eyes flickering out so he once again appeared as little more than a dead pelt. A moment later, I heard snow crunching outside.

I stood and turned just as Oraeka peeked into the cave. She spoke without preamble.

"Maxim is awake. He wants to speak with you."

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