Chapter 99

Vel and Thae went to bed soon after dawn. They’d stayed up all night watching the Bloodchild and were exhausted.

I checked in with Ashlara to see how the night had gone.

“The boy?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Hunted. Slept under a rock outcropping. Didn’t cause trouble.”

That was something. “Vel watching him probably helped,” I said.

Ashlara nodded once. “But we saw another,” she added.

That made me pause. “Another Bloodchild?”

She nodded again. “Boy. In the woods. Moving toward the keep. We stayed back. Don’t think he saw us.”

I leaned against the wall and thought about that.

One Bloodchild wandering onto the keep’s doorstep might be coincidence. Two in two days wasn’t.

After breakfast I gathered up what jerky we had left and wrapped it into several small bundles. Then I headed out into the forest.

Within a mile of the keep I stopped in a few different spots and sang up some rough shelters from the stone beneath the soil. They weren’t much - three walls and a low roof. Artificial caves, really. Just enough sp ace for two or three people if they didn’t mind being close.

Inside each one I placed a packet of jerky on a small stone shelf - easy to see, but kept off the ground. Food and shelter.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

While I was making my rounds, I stumbled across one of them.

A Bloodchild boy.

He might have been the one Vel and Ashlara saw during the night, but he wasn’t the one I’d met yesterday.

The moment he spotted me, he charged. He came at me with a growl, claws slashing wildly.

A bolt of black lightning cracked through the air, accompanied by the shrill sound of violins, as Adhaneth snapped into my hand. I knocked him aside with the staff and stepped back.

He was big. Nearly Nim’s height, broad through the shoulders. Filthy, wild-eyed, hair hanging in tangled mats.

He came at me again. Fast - but all instinct. No form. No skill. No concept of defense. He just threw himself forward with everything he had.

I sidestepped, spun, and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard.

Adhaneth slammed down across his chest, pinning him.

He thrashed and snarled, trying to buck the staff off, but it held him fast.

I wasn’t about to bite his throat the way Vel had done yesterday. But dominance worked in more than one language.

I straddled his chest, grabbed his wrists, and **** them against the ground. He outweighed me, but with Adhaneth anchoring him, that advantage disappeared. And strong as he was, I was stronger.

He struggled. Growled. Tried to tear free.

I held him there and met his gaze.

Minutes passed. Eventually the fight drained out of him.

His thrashing slowed… then stopped.

Still, I didn’t move.

We stared at each other until, finally, his eyes slid away.

Only then did I stand. I released his wrists and called Adhaneth back into my hand.

He rolled away immediately and sprang into a crouch, muscles tight and ready.

We watched each other. Neither of us moved.

After a moment, he looked away again.

“Good,” I said.

Then I stepped home.

* * *

Between classes, Torvek and I pulled the meat from the brine barrels. We rinsed the salt and spices from the cuts, then carried them into the smokehouse and started a low fire to begin the curing process. The place quickly filled with the familiar scent of wood smoke and raw meat.

Once that was underway, I headed over to my new workshop.

The scrap metal with the heating enchantment sat exactly where I’d left it. I examined the runes and the mana lattice threaded through them. The construct still felt delicate—like a spiderweb under tension - but it was holding.

That alone felt like a victory.

Encouraged, I moved on to the next project. Water.

A simple enchanted stone that could conjure a steady stream. Nothing dramatic - maybe a gallon a minute. Enough to keep the bath filled without hauling endless buckets from the well.

I wandered the grounds around the keep until I found a suitable stone, then used a bit of magic to smooth and shape it into something workable.

After carving the runes, I began assembling the mana circuits.

The first attempt collapsed halfway through the pattern, the construct unraveling before it could stabilize. I tossed the ruined stone aside and went looking for another.

The second attempt held. The mana lattice settled into place and stabilized, stronger this time. I’d reinforced the circuits with additional mana, which seemed to make a difference.

Encouraged, I found another stone and tried again - this time adding a secondary enchantment that would draw mana directly from the surrounding environment.

The advantage was obvious - the stone wouldn’t need someone feeding it power. The downside was just as obvious - you couldn’t turn it off.

It took three more tries before I managed to get both enchantments to hold.

When it finally worked, I had a stone that continuously leaked a thin stream of water.

By then it was nearly dinner time, but I didn’t want to leave the thing sitting in the workshop and risk flooding the place. So I carried it over to the bathhouse and secured it just inside the tub.

At the current rate it would probably take a day or more to fill the whole basin - but once it was full, we’d have a steady supply of fresh water.

To keep things from overflowing, I carved a drainage channel through the stone foundation that exited along the cliff face behind the keep. That way the bathhouse wouldn’t become an indoor lake.

Satisfied, I washed up and joined the others for dinner.

Afterward it was time to head to Twinfurrow.

This time I would bring Nim. It would do him good to get out of the house - and it was probably time the goblins met him.

* * *

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Nyssira murmured as she circled Drazhkul, the god of conquest.

He knelt before her, bound in chains and collar forged by Kareth, the Patient Hand. Even shackled, he radiated strength - broad-shouldered, iron-eyed, his presence pressing against the room like a marching army held just out of sight.

Until recently, those same chains had held Letheris, the god of oblivion.

Letheris had been imprisoned for millennia - since before the High Witan and God-Kings carved their empires across the world. His aspect was too dangerous. Not merely destructive, but erasing. Gods and mortals alike had agreed that such a power could never be allowed to roam free.

Now that power lived within Nyssira.

She could feel it moving through her like a cold current beneath the skin of her thoughts. Unlike the other Faith she had taken - those of Elyndra, Lunythera, Vaelis, and Athryx - it did not blend with her own. It remained separate. Alien. A silent abyss coiled somewhere deep in her mind.

Part of her - the ambitious, relentless part that had driven her to this point - thrilled at it. Another part recoiled.

The power was immense. Terrifying. And it was hers.

Finding Letheris had been simple. She had been present when the gods first locked him away. While the others had hidden the prison behind layers of secrecy, secrecy was a fragile shield against a goddess like her.

Once she reached him, the rest had been almost disappointing. Shackled as he was, stripped of motion and allies, overpowering his Will had been trivial. Almost too easy.

Drazhkul had been another matter entirely.

The god of conquest could not be confronted directly. To meet him blade-to-blade was suicide. His aspect bent armies and victories around him like gravity.

So Nyssira had done what she did best. She lied. She whispered. She planted the right secrets in the right ears until Drazhkul walked exactly where she wanted him.

Luring him here had been easy enough. He was an arrogant prick - an iron tyrant convinced of his own invulnerability.

But convincing him to willingly place the chains upon himself? That had been a masterpiece. A cathedral of deception. She would savor that memory forever.

Drazhkul lifted his head and glared at her, fury burning in his eyes. “You’ve had your fun, witch,” he growled. “Release me. Now.”

Nyssira giggled softly. “Patience, overlord,” she said, circling him once more. “You will find release in due time.” She stopped in front of him and tilted her head, studying his expression. “But before that,” she continued lightly, “I want to know what the God-Kings are doing about Seth…”

* * *

I stepped to Twinfurrow with Nim and we made our way to the matron’s house.

Brakkaali was in her early fifties and still in excellent shape - maturely attractive in the way only goblin matrons seemed to manage. Her nearly comically large breasts hung freely, her narrow waist widening into hips that bordered on obscene. All of it was packed into a frame barely four feet two inches tall, which only made the proportions more dramatic.

Her hair was chestnut brown streaked with threads of gray, her eyes a striking aquamarine. She carried herself with a quiet confidence earned through decades of leadership. She smiled easily, but when anger took her it was said even the warriors stepped carefully.

She was also the only matron who had voted against Mirri’s exile.

Of all the matrons, she and I got along the best. She had propositioned me more than once, though I had always declined politely. At one point she’d even tried negotiating with Mirri - offering one of her finest warriors for a night in exchange for a night with me.

Mirri had grinned and declined just as politely.

When I introduced Nim, Brakkaali nearly swooned. A man his size would have been prized breeding stock twenty years ago. These days the interest in her eyes had less to do with children and more to do with the possibilities of the present.

I did my best to steer the conversation away from her growing fascination.

“A few Bloodchildren have been spotted near the keep,” I told her. “They could be dangerous. Nim and I will patrol tonight and make sure the village stays safe. Tomorrow we’ll move on to Pinefall.”

“And leave us undefended,” she said gravely.

“We don’t even know if they’re a real threat,” I replied. “Or if they’ll come this way at all. This is just a precaution. Keep everyone indoors at night. If you hear anything, send word and we’ll come running.”

She nodded, clearly unhappy with the arrangement but understanding the logic behind it.

Nim and I excused ourselves and began walking the village.

The cold from last night’s storm still lingered. Fog had rolled down from the mountains, blanketing the streets and fields in thick gray mist. Both of us wore cloaks, though neither of us actually needed them. The cold barely touched us.

Near the edge of the village we found another Bloodchild. A boy I didn’t recognize. He lurked near a chicken coop, watching the birds with hungry eyes.

Rather than confront him directly, Nim and I began drawing him away. We took turns appearing and disappearing between buildings and trees, playing a slow game of hide-and-seek that kept his attention moving back and forth between us.

He followed. Curious. Hungry. Suspicious.

We never fought him, never challenged him. We just led him away from the village and into the woods. About an hour and a half out, we slipped quietly off into the fog and let him continue on alone - hopefully toward the keep and the others.

Later we found another. This time it was a girl.

Like the rest she was filthy, her hair a tangled mess of dark brown, her red eyes bright as fresh strawberries. She crouched in the brush gnawing on a rabbit, blood smeared across her mouth and chin.

Nim and I watched from a distance while she finished eating.

Then we repeated the same trick - drawing her away from the village and slowly guiding her toward the forest near the keep.

By now that made four - maybe five - Bloodchildren roaming the woods around the keep.

And I didn’t like where this was heading.

Even with just this many, the wildlife in the area wouldn’t last long. The ferals could hunt, but they didn’t understand restraint. The deer, rabbits, and birds would vanish quickly.

When that happened the Bloodchildren would start to starve. And starving predators don’t stay in the forest. They start looking elsewhere.

Which meant the goblins. And I had no idea how many more Bloodchildren might still be wandering toward us.