“So, what now?”

The question was posed by Raesh as we sat around the small, chipped wooden table in the middle of the mostly empty house. Hector and Sryes– Jesne– hadn’t slept long, and Jesne specifically still looked rather exhausted; Hector was probably more used to the trying hours.

While Jesne was still wearing her Crusader-marked lava armor, it was shrouded, wrapped about with a large brown cloak almost like a blanket, to conceal it and make it less noticeable– though, of course, the bulk looked unnatural on her frame. Her hair was pinned up but no longer neat, giving her a somewhat frazzled appearance. She also seemed lost, and I had to struggle not to feel bad for her, so much so that I lost outright.

I knew how hard it was to see the evil in something that had helped you, given you a foundation to stand on and principles to follow. She looked like her entire world had recently been flipped outside down, and I knew that feeling too.

We all continued sitting in silence for a long moment, the question hanging in the air.

“Not to put you on the spot, Jesne,” I said with a sigh, “but you are the only one with internal knowledge of the Church. Why is Dahl here?”

She took a slightly shaky breath, eyes fixed on the floor. “I was told that Dahl was here to promote Bishop Friel for his outreach work in the slums. I wasn’t allowed into any of their meetings, but I didn’t question it too hard. I didn’t really want to be invited. After Kazere…. After you… told me about what you suspected, about the evidence you’d collected, I went poking around. I didn’t find any bodies or victims or any kind of hidden things like that, but I found Keric Thurien’s office.”

“Who is that?” Raesh said, sounding annoyed.

“Thurien was a… consultant hired by Dahl in Isaria. I don’t know where he came from or why; I wasn’t supposed to ask, and I wasn’t told. He’s not a believer, and he’s very… strange.”

“I met him once,” I said, agreeing. “Very strange.”

“I didn’t know why he was hired, nor did I know why he was with us, but once we got here he basically vanished. I stopped thinking about him. Part of me hoped he had left, or been fired or… something.

“But while I was rooting around, looking for some kind of hidden passage, hidden room where people could be held, I found his office, or study, in the old abandoned dungeons under the Cathedral. They were completely empty, except for him. He had set up an office in one of the dusty old cells.

“He asked me why I was down there. I dodged for a little while, but– I’ve only spoken to him a couple of times but he has this uncanny knack for spotting lies, so eventually I told him I was investigating your claims.”

Jesne stopped, seeming like the following part was hard for her to swallow.

“He looked right at me and said, ‘of course we’re the ones kidnapping them’. And then he walked over and pulled a bottle from under the cell bunk and said, ‘here are my souveniers’. It was full of blood, eyeballs, and fingernails.”

Hector grimaced, clearly having already heard the story. Raesh seemed surprisingly nonplussed, but I could see disgust in her eyes. I accepted it without reaction.

“I asked him where they were keeping the victims,” Jesne continued, “but he laughed and told me to ask my boss, unless Dahl killed me first. I… left. I found Hector. I want to help you stop this,” she finally looked me in the eyes as she finished her story, and I realized she was trying to convince me after my hostile reaction to her presence at the prisons.

“I believe you,” I said quietly. “None of this tells me where my people are though.” I looked at Hector.

“They were arrested on Rufais’ orders by the general peacekeepers.” Hector paused. “Ialdi would know; they had to have been logged in under her jurisdiction to begin with, even if Dahl moved them later.”

“Then let’s pay a visit to Ialdi,” I said immediately, standing.

“You can’t go,” Hector said instantly.

I had known, really, that he was going to say that, but it still rankled. “I am not just going to sit here twiddling my thumbs while my team is potentially being tortured–”

“You going out there is just going to get you arrested again, and you will be in the same position you were three days ago,” Hector spoke over me. “And then we will have to break you out again.”

I resisted the urge to point out how we had already been mostly out when they had arrived; I had been fortunate to so far manage to avoid that conversation entirely.

“I will talk to Ialdi,” Hector said.

“I’ll go back to the Cathedral,” Jesne seconded, still looking at the floor but with a deeply determined expression now on her face.

“You could get killed doing that,” I pointed out somewhat mildly, not really dissuading, but needing the disclaimer to be there.

“I’ll avoid Dahl. No one else should suspect anything.”

“I’m not going to tell you to stay, if that’s what you’re looking for,” I said bluntly. “But I do thank you.”

Jesne smiled at me– just faintly, but it was there.

“Well, I’m not sitting here,” Raesh said plainly.

“You have the same problem as–” Hector began.

“No, I don’t, cause I’m not your soldier pal, and I’m not your subordinate, Sir Wolfe,” the derision of his station dripped from every syllable as Raesh spoke. “If they try and arrest me again, I’ll show them what a true Surgebinder of Kalze can do.”

“I can’t just let you kill innocent soldiers trying to do their jobs,” Hector snapped back, hackles raising.

“Enough,” I snapped. “If you’re so worried about each other not doing a good job, why don’t you go together? Hector takes the lead, and Raesh stays in the shadows and provides backup, as well as maybe some extra necessary persuasion if Ialdi isn’t feeling cooperative.”

“She’s our friend, Leon,” Hector said, turning to me.

“Then she should have been our friend,” I rebounded. “My teams’ lives are on the line.” I looked back at Raesh. “If she needs extra persuading.”

Raesh nodded and shrugged. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

It was a solid plan, a good idea, a smart thing for me to have suggested and for them to carry out, as I knew they would. I trusted them to do well, to execute things flawlessly.

Except then there I was, an hour later, pacing the tiny home out of boredom and anxiety with absolutely nothing to do. I’d even gone over to see if the kitchen was functional, if there was anything I could cook– an old hobby I had picked up some time ago and rarely used– but there weren’t any ingredients.

Hey, Teris.

You only talk to me out of bored desperation, I see.

Not only. I paused and tried to think of a recent exception. I also give you orders.

Teris scoffed. I don’t have any more stories for you, if that’s what you want. Besides, you’re about to have company anyway.

I stood up a little straighter, reaching for swords that hadn’t yet been returned to me. What? What do you mean I’m about to–

The door swung open, and I spun around, ready to fight.

It was Ennis, carefully slipping inside and locking the door behind him with an old iron key. He was carrying my weapons and coat.

“Leon. It’s good to see you.”

“Ennis,” I greeted, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Good to see you as well. Thank you for the house; I understand it’s yours.”

Ennis nodded. “Indeed. I have a few. Just in case.” He shrugged, almost sheepish as he put my things down on the table in the middle of the room. “Hector had brought these to me a few days ago, said that you seemed to consider me a friend. I was glad to hear it, glad to offer my help. I thought you might want them back now, though.”

“Thank you,” I repeated and immediately began pulling them on, the weight of them settling into my bones and making me feel like a person again.

Ennis shifted in place slightly, looking nervous.

“What else brings you here?” I asked him, a more comfortable note in my voice. The world could be falling apart around me, but so long as I had my coat and swords, everything would be fine.

He sighed heavily and leaned back against the table, half sitting on it. “We received a letter.”

“Who is “we” and what was the letter?”

“We, meaning the City, the Guilds,… the Highlord. And it was from Aeron. Highlord Killough is accusing Ildanach of breaking all kinds of Chantry Edicts and of you, specifically, using some kind of demonic sorceries. He also says you killed his daughter.”

“He sent his daughter to fight on a battlefield; what did he think was going to happen?”

Ennis grimaced. “The point is, Ildanach’s position has not improved in any reasonable fashion. Killough is demanding penance and your head, specifically, on a platter.”

“Did Rufais send back something about a child for a child seeming fair? because if not, I’d be happy to write it in his name. I may hate the man, but Callian was my friend.”

Ennis nodded. “I understand.”

“Why are you actually here, Ennis?”

“I understand that you are presently embroiled in some matters of other importance of which neither you nor Sir Wolfe have seen fit to inform me, and that’s fine. However, when it’s over, I think I may have the solution he requested as to how to–”

“You’re talking like a politician, Ennis; I’m not a big fan,” I cut him off, trying to keep the bite out of my tone to moderate success. “You can just say it. You think if I save this city yet again, maybe the Highlord can be forced to stop trying to ruin my life. You can imagine how I’m not particularly keen on the idea.”

“We will force him to sign a charter,” Ennis said. “Furthermore, with his recent behavior, I think I can also make him submit to Guild Council approval of further acts such as the one that brought all this down upon us. You wouldn’t just be saving us from an army. You’d also be saving us from his tyranny. Putting an end to all of this madness. Particularly after his recent actions, the Guilds are ready to make their move. They cannot do so while an army threatens, however. Rufais’ insanity out of grief is our only defense against the Chantry’s potential accusations.”

“The High Inquisitor is still camped out in the Cathedral next to the Highlord with apparently no problems with any of this,” I pointed out. “Maybe we should be a little less afraid of the wrath of the Church.”

“It’s not his domain, and you know this.” Ennis sighed heavily, running his hand through his hair. “I know we have no right whatsoever to ask anything more of you, but I also know that you’re a good man, Elyon. A good man, who has friends in this city. Who doesn’t want to watch it burn.”

“I’m getting tired of this city taking and taking without doing me any favors whatsoever,” I snapped.

“As you have every right to be! But it doesn’t change that the army is coming, and we need your help.”

“How many more troops could Aeron have? I slaughtered a good six hundred of them.”

Ennis suddenly grew pale; apparently he hadn’t heard the actual amount. “I– that’s….” He took a breath, cleared his throat. “It’s difficult to say, considering their pacifism over the last several decades. However, it likely will be less than the last force. They will have Tirnaog support, although I’ve heard that a couple of the Generals are refusing to fight before you’ve been handed over to them. I suppose they must be a superstitious bunch.”

I breathed a laugh. “Or they watched me kill hundreds of troops on my own, twice,” I pointed out, perhaps a bit coldly.

Ennis swallowed hard. “Or that,” he agreed, quiet. “Six hundred?”

“Approximately. I didn’t stand around and count the corpses.”

Ennis hummed softly, clearly slightly unnerved by the idea. “There are a few other rumors floating around about you, as a result of things like that.”

“Oh?”

“A few people are mentioning how you arrived just a few months after the Blood Knight of Akuma vanished from the West, drawing some correlations between the levels of destruction seen in both cases. The fact that both were Turyn.”

I snorted. “Yeah, Dahl was peddling that one when he first got here.” I met Ennis’ gaze evenly. “Do you believe them?”

He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. I didn’t pay that much attention to the Akuma-Nyorai War. I know it was impactful, but things on the other side of the Shattered Mountains just never seemed quite as important, quite as pertinent. I was busy with my guild, with my house. I just know he killed a lot of people for Akuma.”

“Akuma killed a lot of people,” I noted with a bit of dryness. “The Blood Knight was notorious for another reason. Sure, he was feared on the battlefield, but a few heroes, experts at death, rose out of that war. It was the biggest conflict seen in the West in decades, after all. The Blood Knight was different. His reputation didn’t just come from killing soldiers. He was a tool of fear used by Akuma to force Nyorai into surrendering, to handicap their ability to recruit troops. See, when a town was emptied of men of the fighting age from Nyorai’s drafts, the Blood Knight would show up. No fanfare, no warning, no emblem or retinue. Just him. And he would kill everyone in the town and burn it to the ground.”

Ennis swallowed, clearly disturbed by the idea.

“So, yes, he would be on the battlefield, and he would kill dozens and hundreds, I’m sure. But if that were all he had done, we would know his name. If he weren’t a war criminal who could be executed on sight by the Chantry, everyone would know who he was.”

“I thought he did have a name. Ka– something?”

“Kallish. It was never confirmed, but based on the timeline and the promotion of a certain infantry captain named Kallish Oryang, many hypothesized that he was the Blood Knight, yes. Furthermore, he was also killed around the same time that the Blood Knight disappeared, so it seemed to add up. But no one would be claiming that I was him if it were for sure.”

“I don’t believe you could possibly have done that,” Ennis said firmly. “Killing women and children…. I hope it was this Kallish fellow, and he’s been enduring his punishment in Khane’s Void for years now.”

“You and many others, Lord Ennis.”

Ennis frowned at me. “Since when do you call me lord?”

I shrugged. “Guess it slipped out. You’ve been very formal for this conversation.”

Ennis scratched the back of his neck a bit self-consciously. “I suppose I have been. All this mess does tend to put a man on edge.”

“It’s not going to be fixed so long as Rufais is in power,” I told him, tone casual despite the conversation topic. “I don’t even know if you’re going to be able to get him to hold to any kind of charter.”

“He does seem to be leveling out at least somewhat. Lord Dornin–” I scowled at the name of the head of the Logging Guild who had almost certainly sold out the location of the Turyn Temple to Rufais, “--even managed to get him to agree to find a new wife considering the loss of the only heir. It’s only for political reasons, but he found a woman surprisingly quickly.”

I blinked. “Really? I pity the poor girl.”

“She didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea. I’m sure it wasn’t what she had had in mind when she reached the city, but she’s poor and of no renown despite having very courtly mannerisms. She feels like she was born to live in the castle and has already settled in quite nicely.”

Something started prickling at the back of my neck, a feeling like I was being watched or missing something important. I looked around briefly and then ignored it. “She’s already been moved in?”

“They’re planning the wedding for quite soon, and Rufais said he wanted to get her accustomed to the court. She’s in the guest wing, been given authority, money, the kind of position she’d have once the marriage was finalized. She’s taken to it quite well and, despite the rush of the situation, seems to have a reasonably calming effect on the Highlord.”

I felt it again, that irritating tickle, and rolled my shoulders as though I could dismiss it that way. “She sounds like quite the blessing to the nation, then. You really think that just finding some young pretty thing will be enough of a calming factor to get him to sign away some of his autonomous authority?”

“The girl has all but promised it. It was actually her idea; we had invited her to a couple of the Guild meetings in the hopes that she could maybe shed some light on the Highlord’s behavior and the things he said in the privacy of his home. When we started discussing ways to fully strip him of title and power, she suggested this far more reasonable compromise. She’s very politically minded.”

“Clever,” I noted with a bit of respect. “Already protecting her own influence, I see. After all, if he’s stripped of power, then she’d just be married to a crazy old man.”

“Indeed. I don’t think it was fully self-serving, however. She does truly seem to have the interests of the city at heart. The marriage is clearly bothering her a bit, but she wants to do what’s best for Ildanach.”

“Well, she sounds just wonderful. I can’t wait for her to poison the Highlord in a year or two and take over the city,” I said wryly.

“Quite frankly, Leon, that would be an improvement, and we both know it. I would take any level of conniving over insane.”

“That’s all good and fine, and, honestly, I’d be willing to kill him at this point,” Ennis gave me a look that I ignored, “but it should be you.”

He blinked, clearly taken off guard. “What?”

“If anyone is going to take over this city and rule after Rufais’ demise, natural causes or no, it should be you. You’ve been leading this city. You’re the only one with a pulse on how the actual people feel. You’d be a wonderful Highlord.”

Ennis looked at me for a moment and then inclined his head slightly. “Thank you. It will never happen, though. Not without bloodshed that I don’t want to see.”

“That’s not necessarily true. You could be voted in by the Guilds.”

“No other leader of a major Guild would vote for another major Guild Leader to take over the House Name.”

“They have to if a vote is called. No one is allowed to vote for themselves,” I pointed out.

“A vote will never be called. The only thing lords hate more than sharing power is giving it up, and the only thing they hate more than losing power is losing it to someone they consider a rival. It will never happen.”

“Never say never,” I told him and then held up a hand to forestall his continued protests. “I do grant you that it’s a longshot, however, made even longer by this marriage.”

We stood in silence for a moment longer.

“Leon,” Ennis started, voice soft. “I do need some kind of answer. I cannot go before the Guilds and bring to them the idea of handicapping the Highlord as well as setting you free of all charges and obligations if I cannot also promise them that they and this city will survive long enough for it to matter.”

“I thought the idea had already been submitted,” I pointed out caustically.

“It’s been suggested. You know as well as I how these things work, Leon–”

“How would I? I’m just a Captain.”

“You have never pled ignorance on a subject before; it doesn’t suit you,” Ennis snapped back at me.

 We were silent again.

Ennis took a deep breath. “You have every right to hate us all and want to leave the city to burn. I’m sure many lesser men would. But I don’t think you do want the city to burn. And I don’t think you’re afraid of failing, or you wouldn’t have walked out of this city with a smile on your face to confront an army alone. You just hate Rufais. You hate what he’s done, to you, to your people. And I understand that too, but will you make Ildanach suffer for the folly of its ruler out of spite? For vengeance? Is that the decision you will make?”

I walked away from Ennis, paced the small kitchen, and eventually sat on the counter, looking at the floor. “How long was Priest’s body hanging above the city wall?”

Ennis frowned. “Who…?”

“The Turyn Priest of Ildanach,” I snapped. “An old man. Tell me, has Rufais made a habit of hanging elderly citizens on crosses over the walls of his city for the crows? How long was he there?”

Ennis swallowed, leaning away from me slightly. “He was hung the dawn that you arrived on the Aldras battlefield. He was strung up shortly after.”

“After he was first dragged through the gates by cruel men and degraded as they pulled him through the streets, I’m sure. Did they take his mask before or after he was dead?”

“I didn’t watch.”

I finally looked up at Ennis. “No, you wouldn’t have, would you?”

I watched the way that Ennis swallowed somewhat nervously, the way he shuffled just the slightest bit towards the door, how his hand twitched just the smallest amount towards what I was sure was a concealed laser pistol under his coat. I was scaring him. I wondered if he’d changed his mind about believing whether or not I could be the Bloody Knight.

I dropped my gaze back to the floor. “When I returned, I told the guards to take him down, and it appears I scared them enough for them to comply. I want to know where they buried him, and then I want him dug up and moved outside the walls to where the temple is, to be reburied. I want to know where his mask is, and I want it buried with him. I want it in writing that no one touches or disturbs the temple or Priest’s grave, ever. It’s going to be a Turyn landmark on Ildanach Houslends, and they are all going to deal with that. 

“I want pardons for my team, no conditions and no requirements, for everything they have ever done before and during this whole disaster. And I want a memorial. To the Turyn who saved the city– not me, the caravan. Because if you think I would have stayed for even a second if not for their safety, back when my team was free to run, then you’re mad. I don’t love this city. I loved the people in it, and those are dwindling by the second. You understand?”

Ennis nodded slowly. “I will take your terms to the Guild Council.”

“They’re not terms. They’re demands. Either they are met, or the city will burn. I’m done with this place, Ennis. I’m done with backstabbing politicians and conniving religious fools. I’m done.” I took a very deep breath. “However, if they give me what I want, I will save it again anyway, and maybe they can even have a little bit of time to make it all up to me before I leave.”

I watched the relief on Ennis’ face as he exhaled heavily, looking like I had just taken the weight of the sky off of his shoulders. “Thank you. I will see to it that your conditions are met. Thank you.” He moved to the door.

“Ennis?”

He stopped and turned back, arching an eyebrow at me.

“He had to have been wearing his mask when he died,” I said softly. “Do you know how I know?” I waited just a second for him to shake his head. “Because if he weren’t, people would have noticed the execution of a kind, eighty-year old man. But they didn’t see that. They only saw the mask. That’s all anyone ever sees.”

Ennis didn’t say anything. He just stood there for a moment longer and then left in the silence.

I bowed my head, my eyes drifting shut.

Everyone only ever saw the mask.