Chapter 179

Julric was terrified. Justifiably so.

He’d just watched the ferals tear through his comrades like a pack of starving wolves, and whatever loyalty the Covenant had managed to build inside him was currently losing a very one-sided fight against self-preservation.

So he answered questions willingly. No threats necessary.

Turns out he mostly handled odd jobs for the Covenant - moving supplies, guarding the tunnels, keeping lanterns lit, and escorting wagons between checkpoints. Nothing glamorous.

But that also meant he’d spent a lot of time around these tunnels. Enough to notice things.

“The tunnels go down pretty deep,” he said shakily. “Dunno how far, but deep.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t go down there. Nobody wants to.”

His face paled slightly just talking about it. “Place gives me the creeps. There’s whisperin’ sometimes. Weird breathin’ sounds. Cryin’ too.” He shook his head quickly. “Ain’t natural.”

He’d also overheard mention of someone called ‘The Shepherd’. He didn’t know much. Only that people feared them. A lot. And whoever they were, they seemed to be in charge.

The more useful information came next.

Apparently the Covenant had been moving people. Large numbers of them.

Men. Women. Children. Some willing. Others… less so. Julric had spent time escorting wagons from one waystation to another. I pulled out maps and had him show me the routes he remembered. Some matched the locations Amberleigh had already uncovered. Others were entirely new.

Julric didn’t know where the people ultimately ended up. He just knew the Covenant constantly talked about the gods destroying the world and how they intended to stop it.

“How?” I asked.

He shook his head helplessly. “Don’t know. Heard folks talkin’ about somethin’ called the Mercy Engine though.” He hesitated. “Said it was almost ready.”

That was a hell of a lot more than we’d had - potentially the biggest breakthrough since the pyramid. Not enough to understand the Covenant entirely - not even close. But it was something.

I leaned back slightly and studied the terrified boy for a moment. “So,” I said eventually, “what exactly are we going to do with you, Julric?”

“Please don’t kill me,” he blurted immediately.

I blinked at him. “Why would I kill you?” I asked. “You’ve been cooperative.”

He stared at me uncertainly.

“You know,” I continued, “contrary to what the Covenant tells people, I’m actually not in the habit of murdering random people.” I gestured vaguely around the tunnel. “Honestly, my kids aren’t either.”

That was… maybe a slight exaggeration depending on circumstances.

Nim and Moss had already wandered back outside with Thae to keep watch over the entrance. Vel stood nearby wearing a sweet, reassuring smile. Clo clacked her teeth together experimentally like she was deciding whether people counted as snacks. Tansy continued glaring at Julric with undisguised disappointment that he was still alive.

I rolled my eyes. “Sorry,” I sighed. “Most of them are just having fun trying to scare you.”

“They’re actually very nice girls once you get to know them.” I paused. “Mostly.”

Julric did not appear convinced.

“Anyway,” I continued, “killing you was never the plan unless you did something incredibly stupid. Like trying to blow us up.” I pointed vaguely toward the remains of his friend. “Which, to be fair, did just happen.”

Julric nodded rapidly.

“So here’s what I’m willing to do,” I said. “I can drop you off in Crownreach, Spellmarch, or Highcoin. Fresh start. No Covenant. No tunnels full of nightmare fuel.”

His expression shifted cautiously toward hope.

“But,” I added, “you need to stay out of trouble. And stay away from the Covenant.”

He nodded so hard I thought his neck might snap. His eyes were still wide with terror.

I folded my arms. “So,” I asked, “where do you want to go?”

* * *

I dropped Julric off in Highcoin, just like he’d asked.

He was from Caldris and barely knew anything about the wider world. Highcoin at least gave him a chance to disappear into a large city and start over somewhere the Covenant would have a harder time finding him.

Like I had with Vin, I gave him a few gold to help him get back on his feet before leaving him near the gates.

Then I stepped back.

Vel, Clo, Tansy, and I returned to the tunnels and pushed deeper underground.

The mine twisted for nearly a thousand feet through the earth, following what had probably once been ore veins. Eventually the old natural stone gave way to something newer. Cleaner.

Excavation marks. Reinforcement beams. Rooms carved deliberately into the rock and packed earth. And unlike the upper levels, these hadn’t been fully emptied yet.

Some chambers appeared to be storage rooms. Mining tools lined the walls alongside timber, nails, rope, and other supplies needed to hollow out tunnels safely. There were also crates filled with things intended for large groups of people - things like cooking utensils, rough blankets, sewing kits, crude bandages, and healing herbs.

Not military supplies. Settlement supplies.

Another room contained stacks of personal belongings - shoes, clothes, toys, and jewelry. Pieces of ordinary lives piled together carelessly in crates.

It looked less like storage and more like someone attempting to reconstruct the life of a refugee. Or what was left when one was stripped away.

Further in, we found what looked like a preparation room for Weeping Gallows saplings.

A dozen wedges of infected wood rested across tables and shelves, each sprouting a single branch lined with sparse leaves. Half had already been packed carefully into bags of dark, damp soil. The others simply sat exposed beneath lantern light.

The resemblance to what we’d found at the previous waystation was impossible to ignore.

Nearby sat jars of red sap, sacks of soil, containers of coarse white powder, and a sealed barrel leaking a smell so horrific I immediately regretted opening it.

The stench hit like a physical blow. At least some of the contents had once been flesh. Ground into slurry so thoroughly even vultures probably would’ve refused it.

I gagged violently, slammed the lid shut, and stumbled back into the tunnel for fresh air.

Deeper still, we found more evidence of experimentation.

Shackles bolted into stone walls. Old bloodstains. Surgical tools laid out neatly on rusted trays. And two more people transformed into dark bark and wood, their bodies sprouting multiple thin branches from twisted torsos.

I didn’t linger.

My dragon fire engulfed them both alongside the prepared saplings. The silver flames reduced everything to ash in seconds.

There were records too.

Ledgers written in codes I couldn’t decipher. Maps of northern Caldris and southern Arvellia with certain villages marked carefully in ink. Calendars filled with symbols and notes that meant nothing to me.

And scattered throughout all of it were repeated references to ‘The Shepherd’, ‘The Orchard’, ‘Blackroot’, ‘The Mercy Engine’, and most worrying - ‘Phase Three Settlement Expansion’.

Unfortunately, the notes explained almost nothing.

Whoever wrote them already knew what those things were. There was no need to clarify for themselves. Which meant every scrap of information felt maddeningly incomplete - as though I’d arrived halfway through a conversation everyone else already understood.

Still, it was more than we’d had before. Potentially a lot more.

We gathered everything useful, stripped the tunnels of anything dangerous we could carry, and finally stepped home.

* * *

We didn’t make it home until almost dawn.

The ferals drifted off afterward, disappearing to wherever it was they went when we weren’t hunting the Covenant together.

I busied myself with the supplies we’d recovered from the waystation. Everything had to be checked for poison, spoilage, contamination, and traps.

Once I was satisfied the food was safe, I moved it into the proper storerooms and took inventory. The storm had devastated several villages’ supplies. This would help keep people fed through the coming weeks.

After breakfast, I sat down with my women and went over everything we’d discovered.

The reactions were mixed. On one hand, we finally had leads again after weeks of frustration and dead ends. On the other hand, every answer seemed to reveal three new problems. The Covenant was larger than we’d realized. Better organized. Better funded. More patient. More dangerous.

And I still had absolutely no idea how they intended to destroy the gods.

That was the part that bothered me most.

I had a hard time believing the Covenant had gotten this far without understanding how the world actually worked. If gods died, their Faith didn’t simply vanish - it erupted back into the world uncontrolled. Annwn had already suffered through the consequences of uncontrolled Faith twice in the last few years alone. Entire regions had been scarred by it. People had died. Monsters had been born. Reality itself had warped.

The Covenant seemed fanatical - not nihilistic.

And even if they somehow managed to kill the gods, that still wouldn’t solve the problem they claimed to hate. Faith eventually reformed. New gods would emerge. Maybe in a year. Maybe in a century. But it would happen. That wasn’t theory. It was established fact. Anyone who’d spent even a little time seriously studying divinity knew that as surely as they knew fire burned and gravity pulled downward.

We knew The Shepherd existed. Maybe not the true architect behind everything, but clearly someone important. Someone feared.

The Orchard almost certainly had something to do with the Weeping Gallows. Maybe a place where they were feeding people to the Gallows. Or worse - a place where they were transforming large numbers of people into those bark-covered nurseries. Enough to spread the Gallows to entire towns or cities.

And The Mercy Engine? I didn’t even know where to begin with that one. Was it tied to the Gallows somehow? Was it a weapon? A ritual? Some device meant to kill gods? Or all three at once?

Then there was the phrase Phase Three Settlement Expansion. That meant there had already been a phase one and two.

The Covenant had been planning this for a long time. Long enough to build infrastructure. Long enough to create systems. Long enough to achieve measurable success without anyone realizing how extensive they’d become.

And we still didn’t know how many members they had, how many settlements existed, how many people supported them willingly, how far along their plans truly were, or what came next.

That was the worst part - not knowing how close we already were to disaster.

I eventually sent Amberleigh a message asking for “gardening advice” whenever he had time. Hopefully subtle enough that anyone intercepting it wouldn’t understand, but obvious enough he’d know exactly what I wanted to discuss.

A good portion of the day disappeared while I poured over the ledgers and notes we’d recovered, trying desperately to force meaning out of them.

Thae eventually joined me, which was helpful, because she was dramatically better at this sort of thing than I was.

Yes, my mind had changed since arriving in Annwn. My memory was nearly photographic now. My senses sharper. My thoughts clearer and faster than any human’s had a right to be.

But Thae? Her mind had been built for this. She was analytical in a way I could never truly replicate. Methodical. Logical. Brilliant to a degree that honestly made me feel like a drooling idiot by comparison.

The thought made me smile.

“You’re distracted,” she observed without looking up from the ledger spread across the table before her.

“Yep,” I admitted.

“Focus.”

“Sorry.” I leaned back slightly in my chair. “I was admiring you.”

That finally got her attention. She looked up at me, confusion plain on her face. “Why?”

My smile widened slightly. “The goal of every parent - or at least every good parent - is that their children end up better than they were.” I pulled another ledger toward me. “More capable. Better cared for. More successful. Able to accomplish more than we ever could.”

I flipped through several pages, scanning symbols and figures as I spoke. “I was congratulating myself on a job well done,” I said dryly. “You’re better than me in almost every way imaginable.”

I finally glanced up at her. “And that makes me proud.”

She stared at me silently.

I could practically feel her thinking.

Half my mind continued working through ledgers and coded marks automatically while the other half focused entirely on her expression - or rather, her attempt to understand mine.

Thae understood necessity. She understood efficiency, discipline, precision, accomplishment.

But emotions? Human emotions especially? Those were still difficult for her.

She understood why biological creatures reproduced. She understood the practical function of children. But she’d never seemed to possess any personal desire for them herself. Birthdays confused her because she saw little reason to celebrate merely surviving another year. Accomplishments made sense to her. Milestones. Achievements. Those deserved recognition. Existing did not.

And pride? Pride was even stranger to her.

She understood taking satisfaction in a task completed correctly. But that was simply meeting expectations. It wasn’t extraordinary. It didn’t warrant praise.

More importantly, she didn’t fully understand being proud for someone else.

The fact that her accomplishments could bring me joy remained deeply confusing to her. In her mind, the success belonged entirely to her. It wasn’t mine to claim.

I’d tried explaining before that pride, in this case, wasn’t something I was taking from her. It was something I was giving. And somehow that distinction remained one of the hardest things for her to truly grasp.