Gareth knelt beside Yuni’s bed, gently cleaning her forehead with a cloth.

  “Just hang in there, Beans,” he told her, curling a bit of wet hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear. “You’re strong enough to kick this, I know it.”

  He set the cloth down in the bucket beside him. Yuni’s room had been a small servants’ quarters inside Astarda’s keep, cleared out so she might rest and recover. Except she didn’t seem to be recovering.

  “Your foster parents are waiting for you, you know,” he said, resting his arms on the bed and leaning back on his haunches. “I haven’t told them the blight is gone. I want you to be the one to tell them.” He flashed a false grin no one could see. “So stop worrying them over nothing, Beans. Wake up so we can go visit them together, all right?”

  She stirred, but only briefly. He’d seen it plenty before, a tilt of her head and a soft moan of pain. Every time, his hopes soared, just to be subsequently dashed. Her eyes never opened. Whatever dream imprisoned her, it remained locked tight.

  We don’t know the full nature of the blight, Gareth told himself as he stood. Nor the damage that will remain upon its cure. Hold faith, Gareth. The girl will recover.

  Gareth dared not ponder what it would mean, to her, to his own faith, if she did not.

  He exited the room, hesitated at the door, and then sighed. An unwelcome desire squirmed in his belly, and despite his best efforts, he could not dismiss it. He set his jaw. No putting this off. No remaining a coward. Gareth would accept Lord Frey’s methods with his eyes open and his conscience clear.

  Halfway down the steps to the secret room, Gareth was surprised to find Lady Jeanne climbing up toward him, her son cradled against her chest. He tipped his head and shifted so she might pass on the cramped steps, but instead she kept in his way. Her pale fingers tightened their grip on the blanket that swaddled baby Gestolf.

  “Sir Gareth,” she said. “It is…good to see you, actually. Might I ask you a question?”

  His chest constricted.

  “Of course you may,” he said. “Though oaths and vows may keep me from answering as you desire.”

  Her yellow eyes stared into his with surprising fierceness.

  “Yes, I suppose that should be expected,” she said. “But I will ask, nonetheless. My husband…there is a room, in the depths of the castle at the end of these stairs, that he visits near daily now. Despite all my attempts, he refuses to explain where it leads, nor does he allow me entry.”

  This was exactly what Gareth feared her question would be about, and he fought to keep his face perfectly passive. The expression of a proper, orderly knight.

  “I have tried to afford my lord his privacy,” she continued, starting to gently rock Gestolf in her arms. “But that has not halted my curiosity. I have descended those steps as far as the soldiers guarding the entrance will allow, and from within I hear…screaming.” Her face paled, her expression hardening. “So much screaming.”

  Gareth straightened, hating how easily the words came to him. It was not his place to reveal what Lord Frey deemed should be hidden, even from his own wife.

  “Your husband’s secrets are his own,” he said. “But I assure you, all that he does, he does because he believes it best serves Vestor.”

  Jeanne shook her head. “I am not oblivious to the grim tasks expected of a ruler. I just wish he would trust me with the burden.”

  Gareth risked putting a hand on her shoulder. His careful, neutral expression slipped into a practiced smile.

  “It is because he loves you that he seeks to lessen your burdens and bear them on his shoulders. He is a strong man, and capable. Accept that act of love.”

  “Love,” she said, and the word sounded bitter on her tongue. “You hold a strange definition of ‘love,’ Gareth.” She dipped her head in return. “Pleasant nights to you, good sir.”

  When Gareth arrived at the pit of the castle keep, he did not hear screaming through the door. Not because there was no screaming, only that it was too weak and pathetic.

  “Have you come to join me, Gareth?” Lord Frey asked, not turning around. He stood before the imprisoned demon, who hung from the stone wall from four short chains. He was naked from the waist up, his shirt and leather armor in a pile in the corner. Numerous wounds bled from cuts all across his chest, neck, and abdomen. Gareth shivered at the sight.

  He’s so young, he thought as Nick’s head gently lolled from side to side. And he looks so weak. Where is the strength that let him challenge me?

  The stolen reflection, Lucien, waited patiently beside the wood table, his arms crossed behind his back. The Sinifel artifacts had been pushed aside, making room for a selection of cruelly twisted and hooked knives with which Lord Frey did his work.

  “This demon has proven a crafty one,” Gareth said, realizing he had not answered his lord’s question when Frey glanced back with a cautious expression. “I wished only to check on you, and ensure there is no chance for the monster to escape.”

  Nick’s laughter interrupted the both of them.

  “Monster?” he said, lifting his head. Blood dripped down his face from cuts expertly laced into his forehead just underneath his hairline. “Right. I’m the monster.” He grinned, revealing teeth stained with drying blood. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Lord Frey backhanded Nick across the mouth.

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  “I pause your purification for only a moment, and already your tongue drips acid. I fear there is no finding the good in you, demon, no matter how deeply I cut.”

  Nick spat blood but said nothing as he hung from the chains. Frey seemed almost disappointed. He offered his current dagger to Lucien, then wiped his hands with a cloth he kept in his trouser pocket. Once clean, he approached the wood table and grabbed Nick’s discarded weapon. The obsidian blade seemed to shimmer a black darker than the shadowed corners of the room, while the writing on its blade glowed a frightful crimson.

  “Pain may provide no cleansing of the sins within you, but you may at least prove useful.” Frey held the sword’s edge against Nick’s rib cage. “I ask again, demon, what is the secret to awakening the blade? I know this weapon. It is one of the judgment blades, weapons wielded by the Sinifel Empire’s most faithful and worthy, and yet it will not grant me its power.”

  “Then you must not be worthy,” Nick said. “Don’t blame me. Ask Sorrow. Maybe he thinks your knife work is too crude. All these shallow cuts in straight lines? So boring. Maybe draw a picture instead? If you’re going to leave me scarred, you could at least cut me a bird, a pretty flower, maybe a teardrop right under my—”

  The lord silenced him with a punch to the stomach, robbing him of air.

  “I am tired of your japes,” Frey snarled. “‘Ask Sorrow,’ you say, as if a blade could answer. I will not be denied my rightful weapon. I am heir of the ideals and memory of the Sinifel. That sword you stole is mine, demon. I do not care how long it takes, or how stubborn your refusal. Whatever prayer, spell, or ritual is required, you will tell me the secret to unleashing the weapon’s power.”

  To Gareth’s surprise, Nick laughed, the sound ragged and uneven as he fought for each breath.

  “You stupid, stupid man,” he said. “You think I’m stubborn? Have a chat with Sorrow. Oh wait, you can’t, because for reasons beyond me, I think he hates you.” Nick’s eyes shone with a feverish light. “You’re not the heir to the Sinifel. You’re just a petty lord playing pretend.”

  Frey pressed the blade harder until blood dripped down Nick’s ribs. The demon grimaced but showed no reaction beyond that. Frustrated, Frey pulled the weapon away and slammed it back down on the wood bench. He remained before it, his head bowed and his hands trembling. It was not until his composure had returned that he turned away and addressed Gareth as if he were perfectly unbothered.

  “My work here is taxing,” he said, shaking his head. “And the hope within it dwindling. I need a drink. Would you come with me, Sir Gareth?”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but I had hoped to have words with the demon. We have…business between us.”

  Lord Frey grinned at him.

  “After Meadowtint and the Hulh estate, I suspect you do.” He gestured at the table. “My knives are yours to use as you see fit. Just do not kill him. I will not let the fiend use death as an escape from the needed pain.”

  Sir Gareth said nothing, only crossed his arms and nodded. Once Frey was gone, he turned his attention to Lucien.

  “Will you not escort him?” he asked.

  “I am to keep watch over my troublesome son, to ensure he does not escape,” Lucien said. “Do not worry. It is a burden, yes, but it is my burden.”

  This was decidedly unwelcome. Gareth sought privacy with Nick, and he felt certain whatever he said and did in front of Lucien would make its way to Frey.

  “I said leave,” Gareth insisted. “I will not have my privacy invaded.”

  “Do you not trust me, Gareth?”

  At least here, he could be honest. He grinned wide at the vile reflection.

  “No,” he said. “And I wish Frey did not, either. But while I am here in Castle Astarda, I am assuming command of Lord Frey’s safety, as well as the safety of that which is most important to him. Consider your station here permanently dismissed. I’ll have a guard replace you. A human guard.”

  Lucien shrugged. “So be it. It is your head if you do something foolish or anger our lord.”

  The reflection opened the door, then paused.

  “And do not worry if the demon somehow escapes,” he said over his shoulder. “I would merely find him again. We are forever linked, my son and I.”

  The door closed. Within the dim room, lit only by the torches on either side of the statue, the demon laughed.

  “Have you come to fulfill your promise?” he asked. “Is my true death here at last?”

  “I will not be baited,” Gareth said. “Death will not claim you. Imprisonment while alive is the safest method to deal with your cursed kind.”

  “And Frey’s torture? What is that? Just a fun game to help pass the time?”

  Gareth grabbed Nick by the throat and shoved him against the stone. His neck felt so thin between his fingers. One squeeze, and he could snap bone. A large part of him wished to do so, if only to watch the life leave the demon’s eyes one last time.

  “He seeks to find goodness within you,” he said. “A goodness as likely to exist as a snowflake beneath the summer sun.”

  “Goodness? Like when I let you live?” Nick fought back against Gareth’s grip to bring his grinning face closer. “But I guess that wasn’t goodness, was it? Just me being a fool. It’s the one thing I’ve gotten quite good at here in Yensere.”

  “Do you think that one moment of mercy makes up for what you’ve done?”

  The grin faltered. “No, but I made that clear already, didn’t I?”

  Gareth released him, and he rubbed his hand against his side as if it were stained. All the while, Nick eyed him carefully.

  “Why are you here, Gareth?” he asked.

  “As I said, I wanted to—”

  “No,” Nick interrupted. “Don’t lie to me like you did to your lord. Aren’t we friends? I deserve the truth from you. Why did you come down here? What did you expect to find, if not me chained and suffering?”

  For reasons that baffled Gareth, he found himself wanting to be truthful to the imprisoned lad. As hard as he tried to cling to his hate, it felt like gripping a squirming fish. Nick looked weathered, his eyes bloodshot, his ribs exposed, and his shoulders sagged to the extent his chains allowed. If he was a demon, then demons were a pathetic lot once broken and bleeding.

  Remember Meadowtint, he told himself. Do not let your eyes be deceived.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I have forsaken the god-king and turned my heart away from the Alder. Yet my faith in Eiman is infantile, and my feet unsteady beneath me on this new road I walk. There is much I do not know, much that Frey does. And so I came to see. To learn. To understand.”

  Nick did not mock. He did not insult. No, he did the one thing that shocked Gareth by how badly it affected him: He acted disappointed.

  “Your lord finds pleasure in torturing those he has imprisoned,” Nick said. “What more do you need to learn than that?”

  “It is because you are a demon,” Gareth argued.

  “Right,” Nick said. “And I’m sure all those knives over there, those tools and these chains that bind me, have never been used before. I’m the first, and the last.” He leaned his head back against the stone and sighed. “If you believe that, Gareth, then you’re an even bigger fool than Frey.”

  Gareth clenched his fists. He wanted to scream, but what was there to say? All arguments turned to ash in his mind. His heart yearned to pray to Vaan, to beg for guidance, but he stood beneath the sightless gaze of Eiman. To even think those words made his blood chill and his skin crawl. His impotence turned to rage, and he struck Nick across the face. He’d hoped the blow would earn him a curse, a glare, anything, but Nick endured it in silence, his eyes closed.

  “Never have I hated a day more than I hate the one on which you set foot in Yensere, and into my life,” Gareth said as blood trickled down Nick’s split lip.

  “And I miss when I thought none of this was real,” Nick said, his head tilted back to the stone. “Because then I wouldn’t pity you like I do now.”

  Fury overcame Gareth anew. He grabbed the two torches burning above the statue of Eiman, ripping the sconces out of the stones as if the nails meant nothing to his strength. He snuffed them out with his gloves, not caring for the heat.

  “Suffer in darkness, demon,” he said, dropping both torches to the cold stone floor. “And think on what little your pity has given you.”

  When he slammed the door shut, there was no screaming, no protesting.

  Just bitter, broken laughter.