The Homunculus Knight

"I can assure your highness that his unalienable rights will not be infringed upon by this transition. In fact, I can promise that he will receive the respect and authority denied to him by the petty princes of the usurper confederation. We of the Red Empire recognize that it is the duty and privilege of superior beings such as his highness to rule over common mortals. By gracing this proposed act of union with his consent, he would be not just solidifying his house's position in the reborn imperial hierarchy but sparing his people the unjust war burden placed upon them by the confederation. A noble act that proves he is a true member of the peerage, no matter that the origin of his power differs from my liege's own." - Letter penned by Henri Lepho, (acting) ambassador to the court of Prince Jan Janic.

Being a vampire made necromancy much easier for many reasons, but one that few outside the nobility considered was how convenient it made graverobbing. No common disease or rot-born blight could harm a vampire; they were free to desecrate even the most fetid burial in search of proper materials. But useful as reanimated corpses were, the cannier among the black blooded knew a more potent tool awaited in the very contamination they so easily ignored. For afterall, what army, what monster could ever hope to match the sheer carnage a contagion could unleash?

Digging up the phage dead and respurposing their slumbering killer was a long tradition for vampire kind. In fact, if what Wolfgang had read was true, his distant kin among the ancient Strix were the inventors of arcane pestilences, as they were among the few who could wield such a double-edged weapon without worry of cutting themselves. Over millennia of experimentation, a legion of cold hands had steadily built a monument to the power of pestilence, and now, Wolfgang was poised to put the capstone in place.

In his hand, he held a glass tube filled with a murky brown sludge, a rich substrate on which his newest creation eagerly fed. After being harvested from a child's corpse, the pathogen had been steadily coaxed into a new evolution by Wolfgang's magic, creating something far more subtle but no less infectious than its mother disease.

Lips parting, Wolfgang tasted the many names of that original contagion. "The babe blister, rubeola rex, the chieftain's battering ram, measles."

Like so many diseases, it was a simple, plebian little thing, normally only creating a few weeks of childhood misery, except in those conceringly common times when it got to show its true prowess. Measles didn't just cover a child's body in a festering rash; it smashed open their body's defenses, leaving them open to entire armies of barbarian pathogens who'd ravage the youth's flesh, crippling or killing them. More interesting still, one in a town's worth of children would survive this onslaught at first, seemingly beating back the invasion, unaware they'd only delayed the inevitable by a handful of years. For measles could be more than a blister and a battering ram, it could also be a mind eater, steadily gobbling down a child's brain, forcing them to write and spasm as they suffered through senility, before at last, their very heart and lungs fell still.

Wolfgang found it utterly exquisite.

But as impressive as all those interlocking layers of evolutionary adaptation were, they couldn't compare to an actual craftsman's handiwork. Wolfgang had teased apart the disease's behavior and symptoms, using magic to resculpt them into more subtle but effective shapes. This new phage wouldn't wage a highly visible war for its victim's skin, and instead stay snug within the lungs and bloodstream. There it would nest, pretending to be a mild cold, spreading wide and far via every cough and sneeze. This was where measles shone: being staggeringly infectious, nine-tenths of an exposed population would come down with the disease. Wolfgang could already imagine the chaos such blistering spread would cause; entire cities would descend into paranoia and anarchy, unable to trust the powers they once held faith in. Where it had taken an entire team of masters to orchestrate Harmas's fall, Wolfgang would soon be able to replicate that feat with a single pathogen.

Of course, more work needed to be done; the childhood nature of measles was proving difficult, as the majority of the population had some measure of immunity thanks to adolescent exposure. But Wolfgang was clever, and every problem could become an opportunity with the right amount of effort. While the flesh remembered its previous battles, memory was an ever-fickle thing, and it wouldn't take much to trick a body into accepting an old enemy as an old friend. Such a breakthrough was close at hand, and Wolfgang thought within a week he'd have a working prototype. Then, once that was done, he could experiment with other less key but still useful prospects, like aiming measles's neurodegenerative properties at the frontal cortex to make those infected more impulsive, or perhaps lessening the disease's obscene fever, to let it slip through populations more subtly. So much was so close at hand, just a little more and Wolfgang might reach several staggering breakthroughs.

Yet, as pleasing as success was, the sheer speed of Wolfgang's growing mastery left a sour taste in his mouth. It had taken years of research and experimentation to develop his earlier plague, so much effort, scrabbling for resources and opportunities amidst the Voivode's deadly court. His desperation to emerge victorious over Gens Silva's inscrutable work had pushed him so far to make deals with dark powers and fae parasites. So how was it, he could now hold this burgeoning pathogen in his hands after only a few nights of work? Even accounting for how success built upon success, Wolfgang wasn't arrogant enough to think his staggering progress solely reflected his own merits.

Setting the sample down, the Black Fly reached under his clothes to the scar carved onto his chest. Instead of the voivode's mark he'd almost gotten used to carrying, a wicked scythe awaited his fingers. He bore the Reaper's stigma, a collar inscribed into his flesh and soul. Such brands were more than symbols of ownership; they conferred blessings, and Wolfgang had an idea of what boon his scar held. In times of doubt and crisis, his leash had been pulled violently, guiding him in the Reaper's favored direction; so naturally, it could offer more gentle nudges to aid in more complex goals. He'd been lightly steered down a course of maximum effectiveness, a fell god's influence shaving months off his project without him even consciously noticing.

Bitter as this truth was, Wolfgang found a silver lining in it. From all he'd seen and inferred, the Reaper of Sorrows must be spending an inordinate amount of power; her debt to the Gates Beyond must be staggering. She must be leveraged to the point where every expenditure cost exponentially more than the last. This presented an opportunity, one Wolfgang just might be able to exploit. Yes, he just might be able to squeeze every drop of value from his current patron before-

A series of wood-shaking knocks interrupted the Black Fly's thoughts, and he turned to his laboratory's entrance just in time for what should have been a locked and warded door to fly open. Scapino stormed into the chamber, and he wasn't smiling.

"We need to talk."

Wolfgang's still blood turned to ice, and he wondered if the leash about his neck extended to his very thoughts. But before he could even begin to fear whatever reprisals Scapino might deliver on the Reaper's behalf, the ashborn offered a separate but far more personal terror.

"The Paladin and Alukah might be in the city."

"What!" hissed Wolfgang, theoretical dread turning into very practical terror.

Pacing back and forth, ignoring the temple refectory turned laboratory around them, Scapino said. "Something attacked Yefim's bats. Actually, let me rephrase that, something annihilated his swarm and left Feodosiya nearly catatonic for several hours in the process."

Yefim the Ear was a goblin Strigoi known for his skill at propagating and manipulating carrion bats. It had been he who shut down Harma's skies, preventing winged messengers from fleeing during the worst days of the city's fall. When working in concert with his wife, the Moroi, Feodosiya, the couple was capable of intercepting or otherwise mangling most forms of communication, be it physical or psychic. They had been the most obvious enforcer of the city's quarantine outside the mad spirits. Them being attacked was a clear sign someone or something was trying to enter Harmas.

"Where did this happen? What can they tell us? When did they-"

Scapino cut off Wolfgang's panicked questions. "Oh, it gets worse. According to Yefim, a bat the size of a horse carrying an armored man flew up from where his swarm was slain on the river's far shore, and probably landed somewhere in the city."

"We must find them! They can't have gone far!" hissed Wolfgang.

The ashborn slumped into a chair, showing no sign of his usual joviality. "All of that happened shortly before last night's end. There was no time to scout before dawn.

Wolfgang went deadly still. If the Homunculus Knight and the Alukah reborn were really in the city, then they'd have had an entire day unobstructed. Who knew what they might have done in that time? Frankly, the fact that he and the rest of the city's vampires even woke up this dusk was a small blessing. Harmas wasn't the Duchies; there wasn't a host of thralls, daymen, and undead servants to keep the nobility safe while they slept. Suddenly, the dead city had gone from a treasure vault and laboratory to a large pen, one Wolfgang now shared with two hungry predators seeking his soul.

"Then we need to leave! Use your spatial magic, get us out of here!"

"Not until we have something to settle our debts with! Be it Gens Silva's secrets, your pestilence, or our pursuers as prisoners!" spat Scapino.

For a time, the refectory was silent except for the tiny whimpers coming from the teenage boy tied to the far wall. Covered in red blemishes and a coat of cooling sweat, the feverish youth cried softly as his flesh incubated the next measles variant. Bitterly, Wolfgang realized his own situation wasn't too different from this latest test subject; both of them were trapped in another's scheme, playing distinctly disposable roles.

Sourly, Wolfgang broke the silence and tallied up his results. "My project is nearing completion, the physical infection is almost ready, and I've assembled many of the summoning rites components."

A little of Scapino's usual mirth returned upon hearing this. "Oh, you've been a busy little fly, haven't you? Good, very good." Smile turning brittle, he added. "Speaking of, I think I know a way to shield you from Gens Silva's defenses. Hopefully in a night's time you can get back ot work shaking secrets out of her cracked skull."

The Black Fly genuinely didn't know how to feel about this potential development. His mind still shied away from the pain his last sojourn into Gens Silva's memories had inflicted, but the temptation of finally supping that arrogant failure's memories was great. Perhaps the Reaper's boon might help him find the right secrets buried within their prisoner just in time to turn them on her creation and apprentice? Loath as he was to admit it, now more than ever, he needed coincidence to settle in his favor.

"I…. will ready myself for the next plunge."

Silence came in many flavors, but unlike most things, the absence of sound did not benefit from its varieties' mixing. By itself, a tense silence was already stressful; as within its depths lay so many potential futures, its participants couldn't help but worry about which one might come to pass. But when combined with an awkward silence and its burden of painful pasts, a distinctly nasty flavor was born, one that now infested a certain warehouse in the dead city of Harmas.

Chief among this silence's participants was Natalie, who sat with arms and legs crossed, a barely restrained glare directed at the broken man opposite her. At times, Paladin Mak Murtery would answer her glare, but his eyes never stayed on one target for long; they shifted between the different people within his lair constantly.

Yara hovered a little behind Natalie's chair with a nervous focus common among frightened animals. Kit sat nearby, faced away from the rest of them, his energies utterly on the new project before him. While on the ground, between Natalie and Mak lay the reason the silence hadn't yet erupted into violence: Cole's corpse. It had been an hour since the confrontation in the alley, and no sign of the Homunculus's latest death remained on his body. His resurrection was close at hand, and with it would come a proper conclusion, be it through words or blades.

At this point, Natalie felt concerningly ambivalent about which direction matters went. Even glutted as she was on Cole's blood, the pain and terror suffered at Mak Murtery's hands made suppressing her instincts difficult. But out of respect for her paladin, she'd try to maintain this uneasy truce with his erstwhile colleague. Thankfully, her patience was rewarded when a desperate gasp split the silence.

The Homunculus Knight lived.

Sitting up with a clatter and grunt, Cole reached out for Natalie, pulling her out of her chair and into his arms with shocking strength. Wrapped in an armored hug, Natalie stared into her lover's face, finding an expression of utter relief on his scarred features. Voice hoarse from resurrection, he rasped. "I cannot say how glad I am that's over."

Natalie's brow furrowed in confusion. She'd expected him to reanimate panicked and fearful, his last memories of telling her to run. Instead, he almost sounded like he'd woken up from a nightmare. But before she could respond to Cole, he turned from her and said something that added even fuel to her bewilderment. "Mak. It seems we have a lot to discuss."

He wasn't surprised by the other paladin's presence. How? He couldn't have known about him being in the city, right? He'd have told her! Apparently similar thoughts had crossed Murtery's mind, and he snarled. "You knew I was here?"

After untangling himself from her, Cole slowly got to his feet. "Not until you ambushed us. I was dead and helpless but not unaware of my surroundings."

Looking Natalie's way, he added. "A gift from Lyander, I think."

She nodded slowly in understanding; of course, his soul hadn't come away from that incident unmutated. Unfortunately, this bit of subtle communication did not go unnoticed, and Mak became even more agitated, his eyes bouncing between Homunculus and Vampire like a child's ball.

Eventually, Murtery managed to hiss. "Yes, we do have things to talk about," he then jabbed a finger at Natalie. "Starting with this."

It took a lot of effort for her not to roll her eyes or let her razor tongue play. She'd tried to fill the earliest parts of the previous silence by explaining how she and Cole ended up in this situation, but Murtery had refused to listen to a vampire.

Voice uncharacteristically cool, the Homunculus answered. "Natalie is my partner and my charge. She is the new host of the seventh Alukah's power and bearer of one of Master Time's stigma."

The silence threatened to return, as Murtery stared up into Cole's face, clearly looking for any sign of subterfuge or subversion. Mentally, Natalie made a note not to bring up the geas Mina had suffered from around this paranoiac until things were more settled. Seemingly deciding Cole wasn't under her thrall, Murtery nodded and said. "You'd best start at the beginning then."

Vampire and Homunculus exchanged brief looks; this was becoming an old routine by now. Turning away from the Murtery, Cole called out. "Kit, you might as well come join us."

Tools clattered nearby. "Oh! You're alive again! How good!"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After bustling over, lantern in hand, the magi started circling around Cole, examining him like some elaborate puzzle, which Natalie guessed might very well be exactly how Kit viewed her partner now. Reaching out, Cole gently stopped Kit's investigation before asking. "Your master, does he know what I am?"

"Probably," he answered with a shrug. "I mean, what doesn't the First Preceptor know? But more specifically, he didn't tell anything more than that he's interested in you."

Letting out a sigh, Cole muttered. "Of course."

The tiniest flicker of fear passed across his features; it was so small Natalie doubted anyone else but Isabelle would have noticed it. Attracting the Lych of Vindabon's attention was something he'd repeatedly tried and failed to avoid. There would be consequences to this, Natalie could feel that in her bones. Still, despite his worries about Kit's master, Cole told his and Natalie's story. Explaining nearly everything from the darkness beneath Glockmire, to Isabelle's cure and subsequent kidnapping. Mak listened silently the entire time, his expression stony and unreadable.

When Cole finished his tale, the other paladin spat an acrid gob into a nearby bucket and shook his head. "It should have been you."

"What?"

Exploding to his feet, Mak grabbed onto Cole, dragging him down to face level. Strangely, the much larger man didn't resist. "You should have been here! These lands are your responsibility! You should have been here! NOT! ME!"

Mak shoved Cole backwards, making the resurrected paladin stumble. " I know my duties; how to fight my enemies and how to help my people. This jagged city is not my range, my hunting grounds. I wasn't prepared for this place."

Cole tried to say something, but his colleague didn't let him. "From the day I arrived, I've wondered what Master Time was thinking, why he called me here! Now I fucking know! He needed someone to pick up your slack! To do your job while you were off playing in Vindabon! How many months were you there? How many days did you wake up in a warm feather bed with a full belly while Harmas rotted alive?"

Natalie stepped forward, wanting to defend her lover, but he gestured for her to stay back, a motion that didn't go unnoticed. Murtery sneered and shook his head. "Look at you. Back when we traveled together, when I was teaching you how to be more than a wretch with an axe, I thought you were a good man. Broken, aye, but still good under all those scars. Now, I know you're not even a man! You're a monster pretending to be a failure of a paladin!"

Then, to salt the wounds his words opened, Mak spat in Cole's face. Silently, the Homunculus reached up and whipped away the mucus, his expression one Natalie had never seen on him before. He was ashamed, no, more than that, he looked like a child who'd been hit by a previously loving parent. So stunning and complete was this repudiation that he wasn't even angry; in fact, he seemed ready to accept Mak's words as truth. The liquor-soaked hermit's insults had struck chords within Cole that Natalie had long tried to help him silence. Her partner was hearing his own worst thoughts from the lips of someone he considered a mentor, a friend.

She would not let this stand.

Lips peeling back in rage, Natalie unsheathed her cruelest weapon. "I thought I left dealing with bastards like you behind me."

Murtery head snapped around, his glare now fixed on her, but she wasn't dissuaded. "I grew up in a tavern, I've known all the different flavors of drunkard, and your kind always disgusted me the most. You failed, and now you wallow in that failure like a pig in shit. Worse than that, when someone tries to help, your first fucking instinct is to try and pull them right down into filth with you."

Cole tried to say something, probably hoping to de-escalate things, but Natalie was having none of it. "Master Time gave Cole a task: to stop the Alukah curse from drowning this continent in blood, and he's succeeded incredibly. Thanks to him, I've been able to stay a person, more than that, I've used this power to do some good! Then, even while keeping the nation-eating darkness inside of me in check, he's managed to save Vindabon twice over, and that's not even counting his help with the plague cure! Cole might not be a typical human, but he's a great paladin, and a better person, accolades you traded for a bottle and a pig sty, that is, if you ever had them to begin with."

Natalie's words had put forth a new type of silence, the stunned kind. But she wasn't done yet; no one got to hurt someone she loved and come away unscathed by her words or blades. "Also, since we're discussing the Tenth God, I think I can guess what he was thinking in sending you here, Sir Murtery." It took a lot of venom to turn someone's name into an insult, but right now, Natalie could put an adder to shame.

"He thought you were capable, that you could do your duty and that his faith in you would be rewarded." She gestured to the dead city around them. "Looks like even a god can be disappointed."

An animalistic snarl ripped free from Mak Murtery, and he leapt for her, blade in hand. Without hesitation, Natalie met his charge, ready to get payback for her near-death and subsequent beating. But before more blood could be spilt, Cole stepped between them, grabbing both by the collars and separating the would-be combatants like snarling alley cats. "Enough!"

Natalie complied, holding up her hands and making it clear she was done now that her point was made. Murtery, on the other hand, spat a stream of curses so vile that Kit actually made a warding gesture in the mad paladin's direction. As the insults started to mix multiple dialects and become more specifically unflattering to Natalie, Cole shook his former mentor. "I said enough!"

Spittle clinging to his beard, eyes wild as a rabid animal's, Mak rasped. "You weren't here, you don't know what it was like. So don't you jagging dare judge me!"

"Then tell us what it was like," replied Cole, his voice firm but gentle. "Tell us what happened to Harmas."

The two paladins met each other's eyes, and something in Mak seemed to snap. "You're iron's gone cold and dull since we last met. I guess that's to be expected after quenching yourself in that vampire whore's cu-"

Cole punched him. Not hard, considering Murtery's head was still attached, but enough to split his lip and let red droplet spill into his beard. Dazed from the blow, Mak stumbled backwards and fell on his ass. Both paladins stared at Cole's stained knuckles for a moment before the homunculus said. "That was out of line."

A creaking cackle rolled past Mak's bloody teeth, and he fell onto his side laughing hysterically. Somehow, the sound was more unsettling than any ghoul's groan. As the madman's barrel chest shook, his chortles changed into a ragged cry before settling into racking sobs.

Natalie looked to Cole, her bewilderment matched in his expression. But before either of them could decide what to do, Mak sat up. He wiped tears, blood, and snot from his face before nodding. "Fine, you want to hear what happened to Harmas. I'll tell you."

Getting up, he shuffled over to a nearby table. Tentatively, Cole started to say. "Mak, I'm-"

"Spare your breath. That needed to happen." He then picked up a flask whose contents smelled vaguely like wood varnish and took a swig. After setting down his drink, Paladin Mak Murtery asked. "Any of you ever had shingles?"

"What?" replied Cole and Natalie in unison

In answer to their confusion, Murtery gestured vaguely. "It's a strange bastard of a disease. See, chicken pox has a nasty way of getting lodged in a welp's flesh even long after they've fought the worst of it off. The pox sits inside of them, just waiting for its cousins to come calling, and when they do, it wakes up, causing shingles."

Tenetively, Kit asked. "I thought the pestilence was bubonic in origin."

"It is, and it's also not what I'm talking about, so shut up and let me continue," snapped Mak. "The plague started everything, and the leeches helped make it worse, but what killed Harmas was its rulers and their madness."

"The quarantine?" asked Cole.

"Oh, that's just part of the problem," Mak replied. "The elector prince and his court all come from the same stock. They trace their lineage back to King Almural, Harmas's founder. The stories say he was a mighty shaman with jotunn blood, and that's where the local nobility gets their knack with spirits from. A pretty standard tale for these lands, except I think some of the details are bullshit."

Gesturing at Kit, he asked. "The spirit, Oaken-Brother-Of-Kings, hauled your scrawny ass to the Almgrove, right? What was that place like?"

"In a word? Sick. The oaks weren't budding, and the local Aether seemed disturbed. I'm assuming whatever has corrupted the spirit has affected the grove."

"It's probably worse than that. I've not been able to get a good enough look at it to be certain, but I think the faerie parasite behind the plague is nesting there."

Kit went rigid. "We were right there! We could have-"

Mak cut him off. "That you and the thrall even walked out of there alive is damn near miraculous. Or maybe not, depending on how on target my theory is."

By now, Natalie was getting tired of their unpleasant host's bouncing between topics. "And that theory is?"

The mad paladin stared at her for a few seconds before deciding to answer. "Shingles, faerie fucking shingles. By infecting the Almgrove with a fae, I think the leeches woke up an older blight, one sleeping in the upper nobility's blood for millennia. I think the royal house and all its vassals have been lying there fat-arses off for a very long time. That legendary ancestor of theirs, I think he wasn't jotunnblood, I think Almural was a changeling, a high sidhe byblow."

Kit dropped his violin bow and stared at Mak with pure shock, who answered his expression with a bitter smirk. "You figuring it out, faeblood?"

All eyes turned to the magi as he slowly stooped down to pick up his bow. Staring at his atypical wand, Kit half-whispered. "What happened with the spirit, it wasn't my fault?"

"I wouldn't go that far, Oaken Brother reacted to your taint afterall."

That got a wince from Kit, and Natalie's hands tightened into fists. She truly loathed how this drunkard spoke to people, even people she'd been planning to throttle. But, the more she listened to this discussion, the more she was thankfully she hadn't gone through with that plan upon seeing Kit again. As it seemed he wasn't truly responsible for getting himself and Yara dragged into Harmas.

Recovering himself slightly, the magi started to lay out what Mak was implying. "The royal clan of Harmas, they've been burying their rulers in the Almgrove forever, feeding the spirit, pantheon only knows how much changeling blood."

"Not just blood. They'd bury their kings without freeing their souls before such pagan practices were outlawed under the Old Empire. But whose's to say they truly gave that rite up, traditions die harder than a lych." added Mak.

Kit started to pace back and forth, his eyes growing wider with every step. "Oaken Brother is a spirit grown from, and bound to, changlings. That's why it responded so strongly when I touched it. The spirit's looking for its shaman, but instead it got me."

He paused and then half-shouted. "Oh gods! That's how it transported us! It has access to a parallel spatial construct. It's not a true spirit anymore; the jagged thing is closer to a faerie domain!"

Natalie was starting to get lost, and judging by how worried Kit looked, now was not the time to be confused. "How does this connect back to the quarantine and the city's rulers?"

Surprisingly, Mak answered her. "When the plague got its claws into the elector prince and his court, it didn't turn them into screaming cannibals; instead, it woke up the faerie taint in their blood. The lucky ones only lost their minds, but most of them are mutated in both body and soul. Gaining access to faerie magic and abilities without a jagging clue how to use them."

"Wait, how is that possible?" said Cole. "There should hardly be a trace of sidhe in them by now; it's been so many generations."

In response, Mak pointed at Kit. "That's what I didn't understand until your changeling showed up. If Oaken Brother is tainted enough to be twisting reality like the fae, then every prince who has been bound to it has been getting some of that poison poured right into their soul. Then, add in the fact that members of the court are sworn to loyalty within the Almgrove, and I think the map is nearly unrolled. Everyone close to the elector-prince and his family has been receiving a faerie's boon. A boon that turned into a blight when the leeches unleashed their eldritch plague. So like I said, shingles."

The morose trapmaker paused to take another swig from his flask before staring sourly at the dented metal of the container. "I arrived here a few days after the plague started, about a week before the quarantine was declared. Thousands were already sick, and no one knew how the pestilence worked. Everything was on the edge, even before the elector-prince sealed off the city. The temples tried to help, but many of the experienced priests were down south at the front, and that bastard vampire with a bow had murdered multiple hierophants. So holding the line fell to the city's great and good."

Pure venom dripped from his last words, and in his eyes Natalie could see a hundred lost battles. "They ordered every soldier, every man-at-arms, to fall back to the central island to help defend it. At first, I thought they were just craven, preferring to fortify their properties into a safe area for the uninfected. Then they began ransacking granaries, storehouses, and any other place with supplies. By the time people realized the barricades on the bridge weren't just to keep the screamers out, it was too late. The court had gone into isolation, but not before stealing everything they could."

As the full weight of what Mak described settled onto the group, the mad paladin added almost causally. "Once word got out, the rioting started, and everything fell apart. Whatever the court hadn't grabbed, everyone else tried to take. I honestly don't know what killed more in those weeks, the plague or other people. At the height of the carnage, you sometimes couldn't tell the infected from the uninfected."

Mak gestured around him then. "Some places kept sane, enclaves like this. I tried to help them where possible, designing defenses, teaching basic field craft, that sort of thing. It seemed the right thing to do between failed attempts at killing the elector-prince."

"You were trying to break the quarantine?" asked Cole.

"Putting a bolt through his head seemed the best place to start, but once I got a better idea of the fae corruption and what the vampires were up to with the ghouls, I changed tactics."

Kit made a noise of understanding. "The ice bridge the river fleet mentioned."

The mad paladin flinched. "I needed a way to get people out of the city, a way that wouldn't let the corpse-tide escape with them."

"So what went wrong?" asked Natalie.

This time, Mak didn't even glare at her; he was too lost in fell memories. "The idea was to blow up the western gate fort and harness the explosion's thermal imbalance to freeze a chunk of the river, a chunk we could bless so only the living could cross it. But I didn't plan it alone; there was a group of us, some surviving magi, alchemists, and priests. Three of them betrayed us and twisted the ritual, creating a jagging main road for the corpse-tide and… and…"

Suddenly, he stood up and tossed his flask across the warehouse, letting it smash against the far wall with a crack. "Enough of this namby-pamby bullshit."

He turned to Cole, a fresh glower replacing his earlier maudlin. "You should have been here months ago; you owe this city a debt. One that'll only be paid when the prince, his court, and those leeches are sent to a proper hell."

Looking away from his former mentor's rage, the Homunculus Knight muttered. "I… don't disagree."

"Good, at dawn, we put the first of them to the flame," replied Mak Murtery before stalking off into the warehouse's depths.

In the broken hunter's absence, silence once again reigned until Kit said, "Well, he's a distinctly unpleasant person."

Cole let out a long, weary breath and put a hand to his forehead. "He wasn't when I knew him."

Natalie's mind drifted to the rows of grave markers outside this abandoned sanctuary. There was more to Mak Murtery's story, a part that explained how someone her partner so respected became the man she'd torn into. Grabbing Cole's free hand, she said. "I know I shouldn't have said such scathing things to him, but neither should he have tried to force the blame onto you."

Cole offered a gentle squeeze. "He doesn't need to force-"

Natalie pulled herself close to him, making sure their eyes met. "I've bitten you enough for one night, but finish that thought, and I'll prick you again. All of this is not your fault; it's no one's but the bastards we're going to kill while rescuing Isabelle."

He nodded uncertainly. "I just wonder what I could have done."

Getting onto her toes, she kissed him, making sure to catch his lower lip with her fangs, not enough to hurt, but to remind him of their presence. "Coulds, woulds, shoulds, what goatshit! I know what you have done. You saved me, Vindabon, and the entire jagging continent multiple times over."

Cole melted into her arms. "Thank you."

Doing her best to hug him through his heavy armor, she replied. "You'll do the same for me once I've had time to properly panic about nearly dying and going feral."

He hesitated for a moment before saying. "Yes, we'll need to talk about some of what happened around my death."

Ah, there was something else he wanted to discuss privately, something related to his newest mutation. Letting go of Cole, Natalie winced internally as her bare skin parted from cold steel. Glancing herself over, she found scores of holes and tears in her clothing. Hopefully, she could find something in the warehouse to patch the most egregious damage. Or bearing that, she knew someone who was an expert scavenger.

"Hey, Yara, have you seen a needle and-" Natalie trailed off as she found her thrall staring elsewhere with the strangest look on her face. "Yara?"

The redhead jumped slightly and then whirled to face Natalie. "Yes, mistress?"

There was an odd pinkish hue to her skin, and she was fidgeting more than normal. Had she already gone into sting withdrawal? Approaching her thrall, the vampire asked. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing! Just a lot has happened. What do you need of me?"

"A needle and thread, if you have it," muttered Natalie as she mentally traced where Yara had been staring earlier. The nearby corner where Kit sat, having returned to his arcane work. Upon noticing where Natalie's eyes had settled, Yara's flush only worsened. Eyebrows arching at this reaction, the former barmaid turned vampire queen got the strangest hunch. "Huh."