A Practical Guide to Evil

“A bargain,” the Warlord repeated.

“Indeed,” the green-eyed man agreeably replied.

There were no windows to the room, only a ragged tapestry of black and white hung on the wall and a faded magelight set in the wall – old enough its glow dimmed for stretches of time before burning bright again, moving shadows across the wall. Back and forth, like fingers clawing at stone. Amadeus of the Green Stretch looked calm, but then that was his legend. The story went that Istrid – not yet Knightsbane – had bit down on his wrist until her fangs tasted blood to see if he’d flinch and he’d not batted an eye. A hand for you would have been a worthwhile trade, the Carrion Lord had claimed. What was there to flinch from?

No wonder the Red Shields still loved him like a fucking lost son.

Hakram’s first instinct was to kill him, here and now. Lunge across the table and smash his soft human skull against the wall, rip out his throat and let the lifeblood spill red on that mangled weave of black and white. But that was the red in him, the part that hated feeling wary of a man in his power and wanted to destroy the source of that discomfort. The Warlord picked the sentiment apart, looked for the sliver of sense at the source of it. It was, he eventually decided, that he did not like or trust the former Black Knight.

In a distant way he recognized that the Carrion Lord was half of the pair that’d done more for his people on half a century than their predecessors in a millennium, but that was not something he could connect to the pale-skinned man in front of him. The deed was too large, too looming, to be tied to someone of flesh and blood. Instead the parts that came to the fore were the human ones, the glimpses he’d had through Catherine over the years. None of these particularly endeared Amadeus of the Green Stretch to Hakram. Yet that dislike was his own, not the Warlord’s, and so he swallowed it.

He would not close the door, listen to the fear. But neither would he pretend to be deaf.

“We have not spoken much over the years, you and I,” Hakram said.

Maybe a dozen conversations when Catherine was not there, none longer than the time to took to boil a cup of tea.

“You were the Adjutant,” the Carrion Lord simply said. “It was not my place to trespass.”

Hakram bared his teeth.

“I always did despise it the most,” he said, “the way that you always give her what she wants, but only ever in ways that benefit you.”

When she’d been a girl still, all swagger and distrust and fear, Catherine had wanted… room to grow. Support but from a distance, the kind of help that would allow her to still believe herself bound to nothing save her own ambitions. And she’d gotten it: her own legion, Masego and Indrani, opportunities to prove herself with no one standing above her. Only the legion had bound her to Praes, the children of the Calamities to their legacy and every victory had advanced the plans of the pale man seated across from him. A hook in every gift, and there had been many.

“That is who I am,” the Carrion Lord replied, neither proud nor ashamed. “I am long past the days of fighting it.”

“It would not be as obscene, if you did not genuinely love her,” Hakram said.

“I did not mean to,” Amadeus of the Green Stretch admitted. “But once I saw the anger that burned like a torch, it was water down the slope. Inexorable.”

“What you did today will rip back open the wounds you left after the Doom,” Hakram gravelled. “How many thousands did you burn today? So much for the coming of the Age of Order.”

Green eyes studied him coolly.

“Are you certain that is a conversation you wish to have, Adjutant?”

The tall orc clicked his fangs. He had not forgotten what Tariq Fleetfoot had told him as Hainaut broke around them, but what had once been a comfort was now a noose around his neck. Not that he would allow himself to be cowed by the other man’s turn of phrase.

“What must be settled between she and I will be,” Hakram said. “Do not pretend understanding of it, any more than I could claim understanding of what lay between you and Scribe. It is… personal. Your madness is not.”

The green-eyed man leaned back in his seat, looking amused. Hakram itched to take an eye for it, just so that he’d be forever half as nonchalant.

“My madness?” the pale man asked.

“You fed thousands of civilians to blood-mad critters,” the Warlord said. “You weakened armies needed against Keter and broke the capital. You sit here as if it makes you a victor, but all I see in you is a Dread Emperor as this land has known by the hundreds. Why should I bargain with the likes of you?”

“Because none of these were accidents,” the Carrion Lord calmly replied.

Hakram paused. Killed the scorn on his tongue, the easy comment that if anything that only worsened his impression of the other man. Perhaps that would still be true later, but first he would think it through. See why a largely intelligent man would think this reasonable to say here and now. That meant looking at the deeds and going back, methodically. What is there to gain by today? Hakram considered the blood, for often that was where the truth of things lay. And from a cold eye this Battle of the Spiders, not quite yet finished, had bled the High Lords and Ladies the most.

Of soldiers, yes, but not so many as that. Of the thirty thousand that had first gathered outside Ater at least twenty thousand should still remain and most the dead would be levies. The household troops had lost but not been crippled. No, the cost had been subtler. The High Seats had ruined their reputation with Ater when they sacrificed almost a quarter of the city to contain the spiders, their devils and wonders killing almost as many as the monsters come from below. If any of them tried to claim the Tower, the city would riot. That would not necessarily stop them from trying, but history taught that a tyrant without Ater’s affection rarely lasted long in the Tower.

Only Ater is half a ruin now, Hakram thought, so that doesn’t matter as much. Love could be bought with food and shelter provided to refugees and the disposed, not that it would be sustainable in the long term. Hakram had experience with matters like this, having once handled the masses of refugees in southern Callow after the Doom and Summer’s depredations. The tent-cities had eventually broken up, leaving smaller towns behind as the people moved away to – Hakram paused. Not an accident, the Carrion Lord had claimed. Not the destruction, not the deaths, not even the gargantuan spider unleashed on the Licosian Gates.

“You are destroying Ater,” the Warlord said. “Emptying it for good.”

“Are you familiar with the Haunted Scholar’s works?” the Carrion Lord asked.

Hakram was and admitted as much with a nod. The man had claimed in his treatises that the instability at the heart of Praes came from the weakness of the Tower relative to the High Seats. Three burdens in particular had been identified. The Legions of Terror, which were dependent on taxes paid by nobles for their upkeep, the asymmetric accretion of power – Dread Emperors were individuals, had to build their power as individuals from scratch when they rose, while the High Seats were dynasties with permanent seats of power – and most importantly of all the capital itself. Ater, the behemoth city that could not feed itself or pay for its own upkeep or close its gates to its enemies.

“I suppose it is a sort of madness,” the Carrion Lord conceded. “But it is a methodical one. Ater must be reduced to a sustainable size if Praes is ever to be free of constant civil strife.”

The Haunted Scholar’s thesis on display. If Ater could not be held without the support of a High Seat then civil war was inevitable because the Tower was certain to be bound in the dynastic disputes of its backer.

“You haven’t solved the other two,” the Warlord said.

“The days is young,” the pale man smiled. “Shall we discuss a bargain, then?”

Hakram wanted to deny him. The Warlord considered it. It was an intricate plan, weakening the High Seats in several ways and attending to a deeper issue with a single stroke. Not the kind that someone lost to the old ways would be capable of conceiving. And that meant, regrettably, that Amadeus of the Green Stretch was still worth hearing out.

“Speak,” the Warlord ordered.

“There are three plans afoot in the capital that are not ours,” the Carrion Lord said. “Your intentions for the Clans cannot cohabit with any of them succeeding.”

“Bold claim,” Hakram growled.

“Malicia intends to stand as Dread Empress when the ashes have cooled,” the pale man calmly said. “To do this, she has driven every High Seat to such hatred of the others that none will tolerate another to rise to claim the Tower. All the while, she sunk a great deal of her remaining resources in ensuring that Akua Sahelian would be crowned empress in her stead. She intends, I imagine, to peacefully abdicate.”

“Even if Sahelian spared her, her supporters wouldn’t tolerate the loose end,” the Warlord pointed out.

“Which doesn’t matter, because Malicia believes that Catherine will kill the Doom of Liesse the moment she dares to claim the throne,” the Carrion Lord said. “Putting the empire in an… interesting situation.”

It took a moment for Hakram to put all the pieces in place properly. Sahelian dead, the High Seats livid at the offence but too deeply feuding to be able to raise one of their own instead. It would leave only one person with enough prominence to fill the seat, wouldn’t it? Malicia herself, not an hour gone form the throne and yet somehow made into the compromise candidate. And Catherine might want to kill her, but would the High Seats stand for it? Killing one empress would have them furious enough, two would be beyond the pale. Subjugation in all but name.

It might cost her the armies she’d come here to claim, the diabolists she needed.

“It won’t work,” the Warlord said.

“No,” the Carrion Lord agreed. “It is an outstanding piece of scheming on Malicia’s part, but it falls apart because she failed to properly grasp the nature of Akua Sahelian.”

“And you have?” Hakram derided.

“No,” the man easily replied, “but I understand Catherine and that is quite enough. She would not tolerate the owner of the Folly to rule Praes, no matter the nature of the deeper game she is playing with Tasia’s daughter. Which brings us to my daughter and her own plan, beginning with the crucial moment where Akua Sahelian will refuse the throne she is offered.”

He’d never heard the man claim Catherine as his daughter so openly. It felt like nails on chalk, for all that Catherine returned the favour from her side regularly. Somehow Hakram doubted either had ever spoken the words face-to-face.

“I know what Catherine plans,” the Warlord said.

He had no need to hear out a plan he’d helped make, though he was certain changes would have been made since he’d left for the Steppes.

“Which is why you are not acting hand-in-hand with her,” the Carrion Lord calmly noted. “You already know that your leverage against the Tower depends on being someone whose support can be courted against her.”

The Warlord did not deny it. If he entered the Tower as Catherine’s ally, he lost all bargaining power. The Clans became a chip on her side of the table, not players in their own right. It lost him the great influence he would be wielding in there as the only person left in the empire with an army on the field that could give the Army of Callow pause. Beyond that, he would lose the influence he would need to bend the Grand Alliance to make the concessions he needed. Much as the pale man irked him, he was not wrong. He could not go along with Catherine tomorrow.

“And the third?” the Warlord grunted.

“The Intercessor wants Catherine dead and Praes a pit of civil war, as far as I can tell,” the other man shrugged. “Her means are still opaque to me, save that she will moving through Named and pivots. Still, I don’t believe that you could ever ally with the Wandering Bard.”

“And so that leaves you,” the Warlord said. “Or so you would like me to believe.”

“Indeed,” the Carrion Lord cheerfully replied.

“Only I could speak with Malicia instead,” the Warlord said. “Or back a High Seat against the others.”

Malicia was the best candidate, save in the sense that Catherine would set fire to the Tower rather than to allow her to rule a latrine pit, much less Praes itself. Hakram was still deciding how heavily that should weight on the scales, given that he might be in a position to strongarm the issue. He was not alone in this. High Lady Wither, his closest ally, had been clear that she would personally prefer Malicia as ruler even if she was open to other candidates. Neither of them were eager to lend a hand to the man seated across the table, even knowing he was likely the most acceptable candidate to the Grand Alliance.

Hakram was able to separate his dislike from the necessities of the situation, so his reluctance was not personal. Amadeus of the Green Stretch, while popular with the Legions and the people of some regions of Praes, would not be uncontested as ruler. He was a Duni and he’d spent most of his career as the Black Knight rabidly at odds with the same nobility whose support he would need to govern, which was far from ideal. The Carrion Lord was an able enough man that Hakram believed he would be able to make the High Seats fall into line, but he also believed that achieving this would take several years and a fairly brutal war.

A war they did not have time to wage and which would draw heavily on the resources of his supporters. Neither Hakram nor Wither were particularly eager to bleed their people for that purpose. Jaheem Niri was likely their best bet, like it or not – they could trade the territorial concessions Hakram wanted and the assurances Wither wanted for their support, which he could not claim the Tower without.

“You could,” the Carrion Lord said. “Only it won’t get you what you want for your people.”

The Warlord bared his fangs.

“And what would you know about that?”

“Enough,” the pale man said. “You were seen to use both the Red Shields and the Split Tree as lieutenants outside the city, which means you’re threading the needle between the clans that want closer ties and those that want to distance themselves. You’re after major concessions from the Tower while aiming to remain part of Praes.”

Hakram’s dead hand clenched. Only a handful of people in all of the empire could have derived the same conclusions from seeing what the man had, he reminded himself. His intentions were not obvious for everyone to see.

“You tread dangerous grounds,” the Warlord warned.

“It’s habit by now,” the Carrion Lord smiled. “My point stands, regardless. Even if you can back someone to seize the Tower and they fulfill the bargain you struck, it won’t get you what you want.”

“And why is that?” the Warlord gravelled.

“Because their successor will have no incentive to keep the bargain,” he replied.

“War against the united Clans-”

“Will be the selling point of breaking faith,” the Carrion Lord coldly cut in. “You know your histories, Warlord. How many tyrants continued the policies of the predecessor they murdered? How many of them immediately threw themselves into a war with Callow or the Free Cities or any enemy at hand because a fight against a common enemy would solidify their grip on the empire?”

It had the sting of truth, but also of the inevitable.

“That is Praes,” the Warlord said.

“That is the Dread Empire,” the Carrion Lord challenged.

Hakram almost laughed.

“What else is there?”

“A bargain to make,” Amadeus of the Green Stretch said.

The Warlord scoffed. Arrogance.

“Why would your successor be better than anyone else’s?”

“Because I do not intend to be Dread Emperor,” the pale man calmly said.

The Warlord paused. Narrowed his eyes.

“So what is it you do want?” Hakram Deadhand asked.

“Your help,” he said, “and a single favour.”

It sounded too good a bargain, the Warlord thought.

“Do not be relieved,” the Carrion Lord mildly said. “The favour, I think, will be for you the heavier of the costs to bear.”

Dead fingers made by a now dead man clenched.

“Tell me,” the Warlord ordered.

Archer feinted to the left, then hastily drew back when the blade came a hair’s breadth away from her neck – she felt the very point scrape her skin – and shifted to the side only to eat a pommel in the stomach. Even through the mail she bent, gasping in pain as the Ranger moved around her so the Silver Huntress blow would go wide.

“Indrani,” Alexis hissed, “get out of-”

She never finished the sentence, the two of them seeing the movement coming from the corner of their eye. The leapt away before the leg tore through the house whose roof they had been fighting on, Tenebrous scattering the stone walls like they were made of parchment and dripping darkness everywhere. Like pools of ink the dark tainted whatever it touched, spreading down slopes and through crevices. Twice now Indrani had seen devils fall through a large patch as if it were a hole. Cocky had said that Tenebrous was living domain, but Archer had her doubts. Althea Maronid’s research in Ashur had decisively proved that a domain must be internal if it belonged to a living creature, else it would cause uncontrolled creational cascades.

More likely Tenebrous’ domain was physically incarnated and static, somewhere far below Ater, and she was trying to bring it up here by spreading around that darkness clinging to her hide. On the bright side, that meant climbing on top of the spider wouldn’t be like stepping over one of the pools: if the domain was external it wouldn’t work on the creature herself.

Looking through the clouds of dust and raining darkness, Archer looked for the Lady’s shape. Alexis had gone the other way, but neither of them were getting – oh, shit, she’d climbed the leg. And ol’ Tenebrous wasn’t liking that at all, by the deafening sounds of her screeching. What few windows in the neighbourhoods hadn’t been broken all exploded, and a few devils actually died. Indrani fought through the pain, then blinked as a large, winged devil with purple veins landed before her in a crouch. Cocky was offering a ride, huh? No point in declining. The devil needed a knife in the side to be guided properly, but even as Light lit up the sky and flew out in an arrow – the Lady had to stop and shoot it down – Indrani flew ahead.

The Lady killed her mount with a second arrow a heartbeat later, but Alexis had bought her long enough: she leapt off the dying devil, landing on Tenebrous’ back. The monster did not like that at all, not only starting to screech and trying to shake her off but doing… something with its body. The thick darkness she’d been stepping through turned from a misty cloud to something thicker, like mud, and the hair beneath her boots hardened like iron into a forest of needles. Fuck, that wasn’t going to be fun to fight on but it wasn’t like she had a choice: in a matter of moments the Lady had finished climbing up the leg and was looking at her from her a hundred feet away.

Now Archer just needed to distract her long enough that Alexis would be able to make it up here without getting shot.

Rolling her shoulders to loosen them, Indrani took calm steps forward. The longknives the same woman she was not fighting had gifted her in hand, the scarf they had taken together in Mercantis around her neck, she began to move quicker. Indrani didn’t like thinking when the blades were out, not more than she needed to, but her mind was ajar. Asking questions like why she was doing this, what there was to win. Alexis wanted to kill the Lady, that was no mystery, and Cocky wanted to… get even somehow. But why was Indrani here, dragged into this? Cat had asked her to find out what Ranger would be up to, and she’d found out: baiting out a huge fucking spider monster near the fortified positions of the High Lady of Kahtan. Job done, not great but still done.

So why was she breaking into a run, measuring the distance between her and her teacher?

The blades sang, steel on steel. Parry, riposte, spin. The footing shifted on them, Tenebrous raging at their presence, but even as the world shifted and great towers crashed around them they kept striking. To miss a beat was to lose, perhaps even to die. Indrani found she was smiling through her scarf. So was the Lady, for a while, but it did not last. Indrani was falling behind. She kept coming in close to make her knives count, to go against the length of Ranger’s swords, but it wasn’t enough. The Lady did not fall for feints, and when Indrani ignored what she had thought to be one she nearly lost an eye. Blood began to pour down the side of her head, kept out of her eye only by her eyebrow.

“You’ve improved,” the Ranger said.

“I don’t know if you have,” Archer admitted.

It might, she thought, be why she was fighting in the first place. To see if she could reach the end of Ranger’s skill. Whether or not she beat the other woman didn’t matter that much to her. It wouldn’t really mean anything, even if it ended in death. But knowing where she stood compared to the only person she had really wanted to measure herself up against? That was worth the blood. The Ranger studied her for a beat, slapping aside a cut from the side and forcing Indrani back with the riposte, then scoffed.

“Your mindset is still lacking,” the Ranger said.

Archer grit her teeth, feinted to the side – ignored – and with the flat of her other blade tried to throw darkness in the Lady’s face. It was cut through, and only a desperate half-step kept Indrani from losing half her face. The cut went deep, from just below her right eye to her jaw. If it’d been any deeper bone would have been scraped.

“Light as a feather,” the Lady of the Lake said.

Indrani licked away the blood pooling against her upper lip and went on the attack again. Aggressive, forcing a lock of blades and when Ranger pushed her back she tried to slide under. It got her a kick on the chin for her trouble, but she’d expected that – Cat did the same, because the Carrion Lord did the same and he’d learned it from the Lady – and she caught it with crossed blades. The Lady was forced back, one leg in the air, and Indrani lunged forward with both blades. Only to take another kick on the side of the head, tumbling against the ground with a grunt of pain.

The Lady stabbed down at her shoulder, chipping the mail and finding flesh beneath before withdrawing so Indrani’s swipe would hit only air.

“Heavy as a mountain,” Ranger finished. “You must be one or the other. Anything in between is wasted time.”

“That one’s an old lesson,” Archer rasped out, rising to her feet.

“Yes,” the Lady coldly said. “You should have learned it by now. I thought going out into the world would temper you, but I seem to have been mistaken. Instead you’ve spent your time fucking Amadeus’ apprentice and playing house with Wekesa’s boy. It’s disappointing.”

Indrani held back a flinch.

“I’ve done more than that,” she bit out.

“You have done things,” the Lady dismissed, “but you have not improved. Your mindset was not refined, your experiences did not broaden your horizons. Do you even have a reason to be fighting me?”

Archer opened her mouth.

“Do not offer me empty words, Indrani,” Hye Su warned. “Those I would take an insult.”

Archer’s mouth closed. It felt childish, while facing those eyes and those blades, to speak of understanding where she stood. Of comparison between them. Like she was a child going around in adult’s clothing.

“I thought as much,” Ranger sighed. “Go on, get out of here. I will see if the others have grown and deal with you later.”

Fuck, Indrani thought. Was the Lady right? It felt like she was. What was Archer even doing here? She’d just let Alexis and Cocky talk her into this because she felt bad about how they’d been back in Refuge, gone along with this stupid idea because of guilt she should have left behind long ago. Baggage like that was best left behind, she’d known that for year. Why was she saddling herself with it now? She’d been with Masego and Catherine too long, gotten too comfortable. She was forgetting what the real world was like.

“I-”

The silver arrow of Light thrummed with power, but it was not so swift that the Lady did not bat it aside. The Silver Huntress was already putting away her bow, short spear in hand with a snarl on her face. Indrani, though, did not move. The image had been seared into her eyes. The Lady of the Lake, knee-deep in darkness and armed with nothing but steel parrying that blinding burst of Light. Casually, as if she had never even considered she wouldn’t be able to do it. No delay, no hesitation, no questioning. Indrani had forgot what it was like, seeing the Lady in her element. Seeing who she was.

Action without doubt.

Archer attacked. She could not leave, even if she struggled to articulate why. To think of it. Blood went down her face, down her neck, but her knives did not slow. It was flashes of movement, of sight. Ranger parrying a spear and blade with a hand each, spinning to carve through Alexis’ skull – hitting hair instead, cutting through, but only narrowly. Strands of red flew as steel shone in the sun, Indrani’s knife finding mail and skidding against it as an elbow snapped back her chin. She fell but Alexis struck, hammering down, and while Ranger caught the spear burning with Light she had to take a steadying step back.

Devils began to land around them, croaking dark calls.

Tenebrous tried to shake them off again, so Indrani caught a glimpse of the blade as it came down. The elf stood behind Ranger, hacking at her neck, but she went low. A jab at the Emerald Sword’s chest as the strike went wide, their silhouette shivering. The blow touched nothing but mist, but as it reformed a step back it lost an eye to a perfectly timed follow-up lunge. The elf retreated, another shimmering into view at their side to cover them, and Ranger let out a laugh.

“Where are the other rest, Noon?” she asked. “It’ll take more than you two to make this interesting.”

“Careful what you ask for.”

A vial hit the ground and there was a small tinkling sound, like a bell being rung, that shivered across the darkness. Above them, riding a scaled devil with great wings, Cocky was glaring harshly. The darkness on Tenebrous’ back began to thicken, then move. Spin and roil, like angry snakes.

“Concocter,” Ranger greeted her. “Still relying on others to do the heavy lifting, I see.”

“Freeze,” Cocky answered.

Nothing was happening, Indrani thought, but a look told her that neither the elves nor Ranger seemed to agree. They were all having to rip out their feet from the darkness, as if it’d suddenly turned solid. The Concocter grinned.

“Burn,” she hissed.

The great spiders let out a scream that sounded like a laugh, and darkness billowed up in great columns of smoke. Indrani cursed, since it might not hurt her but the dark sure as Hells broke her line of sight, and broke into a run. She found Alexis, whose Light-wreathed spear was keeping the darkness at bay and they set out in pursuit together. They found an Emerald Sword, entirely by accident: they were looking the other way swung blindly backwards at Indrani’s head when she approached. She parried the blow narrowly, gritting her teeth as she was somehow driven back one-handed from behind, but the moment Alexis stepped in the fight was over.

The elf stared at her with their too-wide eyes, wrinkling their nose in distaste, then vanished into the darkness.

“Right,” Indrani breathed out. “They say they’re Good, so they don’t fight heroes.”

“Doesn’t make them less pricks, but at least they’re fighting Ranger,” Alexis grunted. “What was she talking to you about anyway?”

Indrani hesitated.

“Nothing,” she said.

Alexis frowned, then went for her side and pressed a cloth against her hand.

“Wipe your face,” she said. “The blood’s everywhere.”

Archer’s teeth grit. She knew the gesture was not condescending, that she was not being coddled. And still she curtly threw the cloth back at the Silver Huntress.

“I can handle myself,” she bit out.

Without waiting for an answer she pressed forward. They found Ranger only when then burning darkness began to disperse, already fighting two Emerald Swords. The same, different ones? It was impossible to tell, quick as they moved. Indrani glanced at Alexis, whose face was hard-set, and without a word they attacked. Archer’s hand went for the vial Cocky had given her earlier, staying back as the Silver Huntress joined the melee. It was hard to follow the movements, but Archer steeled herself and waited. When she did strike out, it was a wild blow at Ranger’s back – who parried the blade, frowning, but only too late saw the other blow.

Smashing the vial against the Lady’s neck wouldn’t have worked, so Indrani instead crushed the glass in her hand, ensuring most of the liquid within sprayed on the back of Ranger’s neck. Almost as much soaked her hand and arm, though, and immediately she began to retreat. Already she could feel the world quickening around her, her pulse going wild.

“Cocky,” she screamed. “I need an antidote.”

She felt something burn across her belly, her chain mail giving, but it was all… distant. When she came back to herself the Concocter was feeding her something from a green vial, frowning. Indrani swallowed, throat gone dry.

“Did it work?” she asked.

“Almost,” Cocky sighed. “I took enough that Alexis almost cut off her arm at the shoulder, but then she retreated.”

Archer looked down, realized that she was still standing on Tenebrous’ back. Only it was no longer moving.

“Is it…”

“Not sure if it’s her or the Emerald Swords that killed it,” Cocky said. “Either way it’s dead. I had to lift you off with devils while it trashed, it got ugly.”

“And the Lady?” Indrani asked.

“She cut out the drug from herself,” the Concocter grimaced. “The concept of it. I had no idea she could even do that. Seems to have cost her, though, she’s been slower since.”

“Good,” Archer grunted. “I can head back into the fight, then. Is she handling the elves?”

Cocky shook her head.

“They retreated after she wounded a few,” she replied. “They’ll be back, I’m sure, but it’s supposed to take them a while to make their wounds disappear. My bet is we’ll get all ten when they reappear.”

“Lovely,” Indrani drawled. “Which way?”

“Follow me,” Cocky said. “I just held back to take care of you.”

Indrani bit down on the sharp answer at the tip of her tongue. Cocky hadn’t meant it that way. It was not a difficult trip, now that Tenebrous no longer move. The two of them were righting atop at tower against which a great leg was resting, flashed of Light searing the afternoon sky. Alexis was looking worst for wear, bleeding from her gut and a leg, but the Lady still had a grievous wound on her right arm. That had to slow her down, even if it looked like she could still use it some. Indrani went in straight while Cocky took a long war around, aiming to keep out of sight. Alexis was driven back with a cut on her face while the Ranger cast a look her way, cocking an eyebrow as Indrani arrived.

“Back, I see,” the Lady said.

“Yup,” Indrani shrugged, limbering her wrists.

“And more settled,” Ranger said, eyes narrowing.

“I guess it’s just clicking into place, now that I’ve seen you again,” Archer said.

The dark-haired woman, after a long moment, smiled.

“You have found something,” she said, sounding pleased.

“I used to think I wanted to be like you,” Indrani said. “But that’s not it, not really. I get that now.”

“So what is it you do want?” the Lady of the Lake asked.

“I want to be the Ranger,” Indrani said. “I think I’ve wanted it for a long time, actually. I just couldn’t admit it.”

“It’s not something just anyone can claim,” the Lady of the Lake calmly said.

“That’s fine,” Indrani grinned. “It just means being better than you, and that’s the point in the first place.”

“Indrani, what the Hells are you talking about?” Alexis snarled.

“It’s not wrong, how she raised us,” Archer said, to the Huntress’ visible fury. “It’s not right either, though. And I think I’d do it differently in her place, so I will.”

The Lady laughed, sounding genuinely amused.

“You’ve claimed, Indrani,” the Ranger smiled. “Now follow through.”

It was the storm, after that. They were all bleeding and tired and slowing down, but one would not have known it from the blades. Indrani had never fought more aggressively, not even against the Saint of Swords, but she could feel it. The Flow. It was in her blood, in the pounding of her feet against the tiles. And it came to her as naturally as breathing, so easily she’d not even noticed she was slipping into the aspect. Ranger struggled with that, to the extent that she focused on Alexis in an effort to take her out first. Indrani cushioned the first blow for the Huntress with her own shoulder, letting the mail eat it, but the second was at the wrong angle and… a devil took it instead.

Cocky’s eyes were wild as she stood behind Ranger, hand moving as she threw a red vial at her back, but the Lady must have heard her. The devil had tipped her off. She was swinging backwards, through the vial but Indrani’s Name pulsed. It would be more than that, the angle of it and the strength… Cocky would die. It would go through her skull. But through the kill the Lady was making a mistake – there would be no coming back in time, no last moment parry. If Indrani struck now, struck at the right place, then she could win. Not a kill, maybe, but enough that Ranger would be forced to retreat. And in the heartbeat where that all sunk in, she saw the same realization harden in Hye Su’s eyes. There Indrani saw the expectation of defeat. Would it be enough to claim the Name, to make her the Ranger?

No, she thought. But it would be the first step. The most important one.

Indrani felt like screaming. She wanted this. Wanted it badly enough to fight. So why was Cocky getting in the way? She needed to think, to weigh it up, but there was no time and her body moved on its own. The blow went for the arm, the one that would have carved through the Concocter’s face, and Indrani froze in surprise even as Ranger spun away and threw Alexis at her. They fell in a tangle of limbs, pushing each other off even as Cocky backed away from the Ranger with naked fear on her face. She’d gone pale as snow.

“Disappointing,” Ranger sighed. “All three of you. Anger but no control. Hatred but no discipline. And most disappointing of all, desire with no will behind it. None of you learned a thing.”

Indrani offered her arm, dragging Alexis up, and the two of them moved shoulder to shoulder.

“Cocky, stay behind us,” the Huntress said.

“She’s done playing around,” Archer agreed.

“I am,” the Lady of the Lake agreed. “And if all these years have not made the lessons stick, this time I will have to leave a permanent reminder.”

Well, that didn’t sound great, Indrani thought. Only before anyone began to move, the sun dimmed around them. Something enormous was looming just at the edge of their senses as Indrani heard the distant cawing of crows. Besides them, Tenebrous shivered. Still dead. No longer unmoving. All of them glanced to the side, to the rising gargantuan shape of the creature, and found a woman standing atop it. Looking down at them as she leaned on a staff of dead wood. Her cloak was one of many colours, and Catherine Foundling looked down at the Ranger with a hard smile.

“Dodge,” the Black Queen said, and the Lady’s eyes widened.

A heartbeat later half the tower was gone, Tenebrous’ leg gone straight through it, and Indrani found that she couldn’t help laughing.

This wasn’t over but, Hells, at least they’d all live to see tomorrow.

“You know,” the Intercessor said, “I always kind of liked you, Akua.”

Ah, the familiar grounds of being lied to by an eldritch abomination with sinister intentions. If there were comfortable cushions, candied dates and a dozen dead bodies it would be her eighth nameday all over again.

“You once threw sand in my eyes after calling me a self-important megalomaniac,” Akua noted.

“And both of those things were well-deserved,” the Intercessor cheerfully replied. “Isn’t that what friendship is, darling?”

“Sand in my eyes?” the dark-skinned mage drily asked.

“Shit, you actually have a sense of humour now,” the Wandering Bard said, sounding impressed. “Like a functional one, not a ‘hahaha down into the tapir pit you go’ kind. You’re mostly a person these days, it’s kind of fucked up you managed that.”

“Yes, well,” Akua smiled, “have you considered-”

She was still only a thimble of power away from collapsing, but it was all about focus. There was plenty of water in the air and it was child’s play to shape some into a nail that she threw right into the Wandering Bard’s throat. Only the pest didn’t die naturally, gone before the ice even broke skin as Akua fell down to her knees. The wave of nausea had her retching wetly as she leaned a hand against the warm bronze of the reservoir walls. A heartbeat later the Bard was there again, picking up the silver flask she’d dropped fleeing.

“Aw, you made me spill some of the mignolet,” the ageless monster whined. “Do you know how rare it is for me to get the good stuff?”

Akua forced herself back up to her feet, leaning heavily against the wall as her vision swam. Gods, she was close to falling unconscious. Worse, another spell like that and she was at genuine risk of burning out. Overdrawing on one’s magic was a particularly painful way to die even by Praesi standards.

“Yeah, I only came when you’d be in no state to stop me,” the Bard easily said.

Akua managed a glare towards the fair-haired woman. This incarnation was tanned and blue-eyed, and shapely in a lowborn way – the kind that came with the frame one had been born with, not proper meals and comfortable living. The Intercessor seemed uncomfortable with the body, though, she noted. The movements were not as smooth as they had been when the two of them last met, with none of the certainty behind the casual laziness in sight.

“Teehee,” the Intercessor deadpanned, batting her eyes. “What a coincidence.”

“It’s been some time since I’ve last wanted to kill someone this much,” Akua admitted.

“Come on now, love,” the Bard grinned. “That’s not quite true is it? You haven’t been standing on all those ledges ‘cause you like the view.”

Two words in the magetongue and a single runic line, but before the curse of silence could fly out the backlash rang up her arm. First a shiver, then a sensation like every vein was bursting as Akua swallowed a scream. She fell back down to her knees, sweating and trembling. If she’d finished the spell, she thought as her arm pulsed with pain, it would have killed her.

“So,” the Intercessor happily said, “we were talking about Cat, yeah?”

“Fuck you,” Akua hoarsely said.

Not the finest retort she’d ever managed, but her arm felt like its was bleeding acid from the pores and she once again felt like throwing up.

“My heart,” the Intercessor gently said, “if she wasn’t game to get naked, why would you think you’d meet my standards?”

Her fingers clawed at the bronze wall. There was a pause, then a fat chortle.

“That one was a little mean even for me,” the Bard admitted. “But hey, you’re still pretty terrible so I don’t actually feel bad. The important thing, though, is that you’re trying to redeem yourself! Kind of.”

It was difficult to think through the pain, to focus, but she had been trained in this. She gathered herself, got back on her feet.

“You are here because I threaten you and your designs,” Akua said. “The why or how is not particularly important, I imagine. You are trying to sway me from the path I am on, whatever that might be. You will fail in this.”

The fair-haired woman snorted.

“See, this is why I actually do like you,” the Bard said. “You’re a tragedy, Akua. But the thing is, when you watch a tragic play usually you feel kind of bad for the lead. They’re put through some pretty dark shit. But that’s the great thing here! You are – and I think I might have mentioned this before but whatever – actually pretty awful. So I can watch the tragedy and not feel bad, because you kind of have it coming. It’s the best of both worlds for everyone.”

A pause.

“Except for you,” the Bard helpfully clarified. “You definitely get the worst of both worlds. I thought that went without saying, but sometimes you’re a little slow on the uptake to I figured I’d throw it in just to be sure.”

“Considering I also have to put up with… whatever this is, my situation truly is a tragedy,” Akua mildly replied. “Of course, I-”

She lunged forward, but the Bard was already moving. Not quite quickly enough to avoid the sorceress’ hands around her throat, she thought, but then she tripped on something – the lute, the damned lute – and she was on her knees, swallowing a scream as agony shot up her arm. The Bard patted her shoulder amicably, leaning against the wall. Her lips were wet from the flask she kept pulling at, pulling into a condescending smile.

“This is actually for your own good, sort of,” the Intercessor assured her. “See, you’ve been going down this road since you got out of the cloak and it’s coming to a head. And there’s a bunch of interesting ways it could end, which aren’t unique – you’re not that special, darling – but I’ll admit that some are pretty rare. Only someone’s been paving this road for you, so you’re not actually going to the end of the road: you’re going to be yanked away just before getting there, ‘cause our Cat has a plan for you.”

“You are not nearly as interesting as you seem to believe you are,” Akua hoarsely said. “Or clever. Do you think I am unaware that she let me go? She did it because it does not matter whether I am at her side or on the other side of the Tyrian Sea. I carry my cage with me wherever I go.”

“This is the sweet spot,” the Bard enthusiastically said. “First you had to lose. Then you questioned your beliefs. Then you pretended you believed what other people do, until you’d been lying long enough you had a hard time telling if you were lying – that one’s a pattern with you, love, you should really work on that.”

“You know nothing,” Akua hissed.

“Sure, sure,” the old monster insincerely said. “Anyways, now you’ve been freed and cut loose but you’re finding you kind of still buy in those things you insist are lies. And it’s chewing you up, ‘cause you’re horrible and for the first time in your life you actually know that. But this is the fun part! Because you’re failing at dying – also a pattern in your life, have you ever considered not failing at everything of import you’ve ever tried? – so you’re not going to be able to take the easy way out. You’re actually going to have to change. Find a path forward you can live with.”

Ah, so that was her game.

“Are you to be my personal angel, Bard?” Akua mockingly smiled. “My guide to the embrace of redemption?”

“Call me Yara. And of course not,” she solemnly said, face serious as a priest. “I would never dare meddle in the story of another Named, I’m a firm believer in the integrity of…”

The Wandering Bard cracked up, laughing until her breath was choked up.

“Oh man,” the Intercessor wheezed. “Good times. Yeah, I’m here you actually end up somewhere. Anywhere, really, I’m not super picky about what happens to you on account of not really caring about you as a person. Cat’s not interested in you having ending, my sad little friend, which does pisses me off a little. Screwing around with fate like that is my shtick, you smarmy one-eyed drunk. Can’t you go original for once?”

“Your only interest is in using me to kill her,” Akua calmly said.

The Bard grinned nastily.

“Which you don’t want,” she said in sing-song voice, “cause you’re in luuuurv.”

The kissy noises that followed were not even the worst part.

“Oh, Catherine, won’t you find a stool to stand on and kiss me,” the Intercessor continued in a high-pitched voice, then lowered it to a gritty one and closed an eye. “I can’t, Akua, even though I’ve been hinting I want to for years. Staring at your tits is definitely part of a grand master plan, and not just something I enjoy doing.”

The Wandering Bard closed her mouth, then turned to meet her eyes and pointed an accusing finger.

“This is you,” she contemptuously said. “This is what you sound like.”

Akua’s jaw clenched.

“Are you quite finished?” she asked.

“Nah, I mostly did that because kicking you in the belly emotionally is kind of fun,” the Bard easily admitted. “The thing is, Akua, this superbly accurate rendition of your innermost thoughts I just treated you to is actually kind of nonsense. It’s what you like to think is happening, because it’s a comfortable idea that you’re tortured and in love and it’s all very tragic and o Heavens, what could have been if only you weren’t just, kind of appalling!”

The old monster thinly smiled, revealing crooked teeth.

“Only what’s actually happening is that she’s fucked with your head pretty thoroughly because she doesn’t believe she can kill the Dead King so she needs someone powerful to step up and contain him,” the Intercessor said. “Used to be she was going to lean on Masego to make a seal on the Hellgate that you’d be stuck maintaining forever, but she’s gotten a little more ambitious since. She figures she can destroy the undead threat with that little Arsenal project she got Hierophant to cook up and then toss Neshamah himself into the Twilight Ways where you’re going to serve as his prison warden forever.”

Akua stilled.

“Yeah,” the Bard said, smile broadening into a grin. “That’s right. She’s going to offer you Larat’s sloppy seconds of a crown and then drop you in Liesse so you can think about what a bad girl you’ve been until… well, pretty much the end of time really. She’s been priming you to accept that role for years, my heart. I’ve been following the whole thing, not because I need to but because it’s like reading a Proceran romance serial where everyone is terrible and pretentious and you don’t even get to fuck. It’s been great, so thanks for that.”

Part of Akua felt like being angry, like accusing the Intercessor lying and being indignant. But she’d spent the months since she had left the starry cave on the outskirts of Wolof running away, and now she was simply… tired. It was true, because Catherine loved the sort of cutting irony that the punishment described here would carry and because this had all been coming for a while, hadn’t it? Maybe not this specifically, but something like it. A long price for her folly. Nothing she’d done since leaving that camp had mattered, had it?

She’d killed and saved lives, she had fought and bargained and now she was finding that the Tower itself was in her grasp – but she did not want to be here. Not in Ater, not in Praes. Not anywhere, really. Akua knew that the Intercessor had not lied because here and now, on her knees with a broken city around her, going to the Twilight Ways sounded restful. It would be a relief, to leave it all and take on a duty that was grim but also for the greater good of Creation. Not something to even the balance against the evil she had done, but something she could take some satisfaction in nonetheless.

Scratching the edges of the itch, but was that not the best she could hope for?

If that offer had come tomorrow, after the Tower all but fell in her grasp and the great lords of this empire all looked up at her with hopes in their eyes like she could save them, save anything at all, then Akua Sahelian knew deep in her bones that she would have accepted it without a second thought. And this terrified her, not because of how deeply Catherine had come to know her – even now that thought was a thrilling anguish – but because the moment had already come to her. Just now. But soon it would fade. Soon the exhaustion would leave her, and with rest the last of this sudden clarity would be gone to never return.

“You didn’t come here to convince me,” Akua quietly said. “The only reason you’re here is to spoil a piece before it all comes together.”

“Got it in one,” the Wandering Bard smiled. “But since it’s the end times, my sweet, I’ll offer you one on the house. The truth is, you don’t owe shit to Catherine Foundling. What did she lose at the Doom, except for soldiers? It’s the foundation of her reign. No, that day gives her no claim on you. It’s the people you murdered that you’re indebted to, and what the fuck do any of them care about the Black Queen?”

She shrugged.

“You probably don’t have much longer left to live,” the Bard said. “Maybe none of us do, if Nessie gets his way. So for once in your life, Akua Sahelian, won’t you actually make a decision?”

The old monster met her eyes.

“Not do what your mother burned into you,” Yara said, “or Praes or Catherine. Something that you think worth doing.”

Her jaw clenched.

“I will not be your puppet,” Akua said.

“That’s the beauty of it,” the Intercessor smiled, raising her flask in a toast. “I’m the only person in this entire empire of the damned that does not need you on strings.”

She drank deep, looking unspeakably satisfied, but Akua knew the look in her eyes. She saw it, sometimes, in her own looking glass.

“How long have you been doing this, Yara?” she quietly asked.

The Intercessor studied her.

“I remember when the first boat touched the beach,” the other woman said. “The sound their boots made on the wet rocks, the way my little brother kept tugging at my tunic in excitement. It wasn’t called Ashur, would not be for many years. The men were not yet called Aenian.”

“What happened?” she whispered.

“The same thing that always happens,” Yara of Nowhere said, “when men with swords are greeted by songs and gifts.”

“You survived,” Akua said.

“Survived,” the other woman smiled. “There’s a word that means nothing. You can keep breathing and have most of you waiting in a grave, Akua. If you learn anything from me, learn that. There’s no worth in just existing. You have to make it count.”

“Don’t you?” Akua asked.

The Intercessor smiled.

“We’ll meet again,” she said, “before this is over.”

She raped a knuckle against the bronze wall, a loud ringing sound, and the moment Akua blinked she was gone. Silence lingered in her wake. Eventually, the golden-eyed noble left the reservoir. Below her vultures were waiting, circling. High Lord Jaheem was the one who handed her the letter with the Tower’s seal. They’d had one of their own as well, he told her. Summons to a formal court tomorrow. Offers to allow in household troops for security.

“It is an abdication in all but name, Lady Akua,” High Lord Jaheem said, tone tight with excitement. “Malicia only seeks to preserver her dignity by being properly defeated before the greats of Praes before she surrenders the throne.”

Akua thumb slid across the smooth writing on the parchment, the words that gave a time and a place and a knife. Malicia chose this, she thought. For herself and for me. And still, looking at the letter was the first step up the stairs of the Tower, Akua wondered. It was rope she held, she recognized.

But was it a knot or a noose?