The carved wooden talisman on the thick dark wood door glowed with a frantic, pulsing red light. The ward was screaming its silent warning directly into my mind. Hostile mana had breached the fifty-foot perimeter.
I did not wake the women. I stepped silently across the dusty floorboards, shortsword in my right hand. I pressed my back against the cold stone wall beside the door frame and slowed my breathing.
Outside, the heavy metallic crunch of armored boots came up the stone steps. It was not the erratic sound of beasts. It was the deliberate tread of a single Vanguard knight.
A steel gauntlet grasped the iron door handle and rattled it hard. The locking bar held.
"Locked," a muffled voice muttered. "Bring the breaching axe up here. I found a structure."
He was a scout. Separated from the main group in the dark. If he called the rest of his detachment up this cliff, the watchtower would become a tomb.
I reached out with my scarred left hand and silently lifted the iron locking bar.
The moment it cleared the latch, I yanked the door inward.
The knight, still leaning his weight against the handle, stumbled forward into the dark room. Before he could cry out I grabbed the front of his breastplate, hauled him fully inside, and kicked the door shut behind him.
I drove my right knee up into his chest.
Iron Body transferred the force straight through the armor.
The air left his lungs in a sharp hiss.
As he buckled, I brought the shortsword up and drove it cleanly through the unarmored gap beneath his chin, straight into the brain.
He convulsed once. His elbows slammed against the floorboards. Then he went limp.
I dragged the body away from the door, replaced the iron bar, and pressed my hand to the wooden talisman. The red glow faded back to dull blue. He had been alone.
"Cassian?"
Seraphina’s voice came from the cot, tight with panic. The crash of the armored body had woken both of them.
Isolde sat up, knees pulled to her chest. "Who is there? Did the ward break?"
"The ward held," I said. I wiped the blade on the dead knight’s surcoat. "A Vanguard scout found the steps. I pulled him inside and finished it before he could signal anyone."
I stepped back toward the heat stones. My muscles ached. The fractured rib throbbed. Fresh blood that was not mine was on my hands and coat.
For a long moment no one spoke. Rain still hit the roof. The only other sound was the soft crackle of the heat stones.
I cleaned my hands as best I could with the last of the purified water, then checked the door and the ward one more time. Only after that did I turn fully back to them.
Isolde’s face was pale. Seraphina’s golden eyes were fixed on the body, then on me.
"You’re still bleeding," Isolde said quietly. She meant the scent of blood in the air.
"Most of it is his," I answered. "Sit. Both of you. We’re not moving yet."
I gave them a few minutes. Enough time for the shock of the sudden violence to settle. Enough time for Isolde’s breathing to even out and for Seraphina’s shoulders to drop a fraction. The quiet after a kill always felt longer than it was.
When the room felt steady again, I walked over to the cot and set the leather-bound ledger from the floorboards between them.
"What is that?" Seraphina asked.
"Part of the truth," I said. I sat down on the wooden chair near the hearth. The wood creaked under my weight. "You both need to understand why the hunting is this aggressive, and why your own people abandoned you so easily."
I looked at Seraphina first.
"Prince Alaric never intended to save Aldemoor.
You already know that much.
What you don’t know is the full plan.
In the path that was written for you, he planned to ’rescue’ you from me, heal your paralysis just enough to make you presentable, and take you as a grateful concubine.
He would use your restored name to absorb your kingdom without a full war."
Seraphina’s jaw tightened. Her eyes burned, but she stayed silent.
"I broke that path," I continued.
"I killed his commander on the stairs instead of handing you over.
Because of that, he can no longer play the savior.
A living, defiant princess is harder to control than a dead martyr.
So he has shifted.
He wants you dead now.
Your body as a banner.
Your death as the excuse to crush the rest of Aldemoor’s loyalists by force."
Seraphina let out a short, bitter breath. "A dead martyr is easier. That is exactly the kind of cowardice he has always preferred."
I turned to Isolde.
She had gone very still. Her hands were locked on the edge of the cot.
"Your blinding was not a hunting accident," I said. "Cardinal Malchior Vane arranged it. He used your father’s rivals among the Marcher lords to isolate you."
Isolde’s voice was barely above a whisper. "Why? I was only a Duke’s daughter."
"Because Vane is not only playing kingdom politics.
He is working with demonic power.
That ledger shows his men located an Abyssal Seal under the old monastery three miles east of the Voss estate.
To break the seal and take what is inside, he needs a specific kind of host.
Someone isolated.
Someone already broken by pain.
Someone with a rare and volatile shadow affinity."
Isolde’s breath caught. Her sightless eyes were wide.
"He blinded you to break your mind and cut you off from protection," I said. "He sent Silas with the purple elixir to finish the job on your nerves. Your exile was never just punishment. It was preparation for a ritual."
Isolde pressed both hands over her mouth. Her shoulders shook once, hard. She did not sob out loud, but the sound that escaped was raw.
Seraphina looked from Isolde to the dead knight on the floor, then to me.
"We are liabilities to the Crown, sacrifices for the Church, and trash to our own blood," she said. Her voice was low and steady. "The continent wants us gone. How do you plan to keep us alive, Cassian?"
"By killing anyone who comes through that door," I answered. "They expect us to die quietly. We will not."
A quiet System window flickered at the edge of my vision, then faded. I did not open it. The points could wait.
I gave them another stretch of silence. Isolde’s breathing slowly evened out again. Seraphina’s hand found Isolde’s wrist and stayed there. Neither of them spoke for a while. The truth needed room to sit.
Before I could decide whether to check the System Store for better supplies, the wooden talisman on the door flared again.
This time the light was weak and blue, not the frantic red of an enemy. The ward recognized the mana as non-hostile, but badly unstable.
A wet, heavy impact struck the outside of the door. Something dragged against the wood.
I stood at once, shortsword in hand, and moved to the entrance.
"Voss..." a weak, blood-choked voice came through the oak.
Seraphina’s eyes went wide. "Kaelen!"
I pulled the iron bar free and opened the door.
Commander Kaelen collapsed inward, face-first onto the floorboards. Half of his leather armor was melted away by acid. His left arm hung useless. A broken crossbow bolt was buried deep in his right shoulder. Black veins climbed the side of his neck.
"Kaelen!" Seraphina tried to sit up and failed. "Cassian - "
I grabbed him by the collar of what remained of his armor and dragged him fully inside. I kicked the door shut and dropped the bar back into place.
I rolled him onto his back. His face was gray. He coughed hard and sprayed dark blood across the floor.
"I lost the hounds," Kaelen gasped. His hand locked on the front of my coat. "I drew the Vanguard east into the ravines... but Silas..."
"Breathe," I said. I pulled a roll of clotting bandages from my coat. "What did Silas do?"
"He broke a Church taboo," Kaelen forced out. "He unleashed a Blood-Starved Herald in the woods."
My blood went cold. A Herald was not a normal beast. It was a sanctioned Church executioner, heavily mutated by the same demonic alchemy Vane was trying to unlock.
"It tore through my wind aura like paper," Kaelen whispered. His eyes were already starting to roll. "I barely got away... but it tasted my blood. It knows my scent. It’s following the trail straight to this door."
Outside, deep in the trees, a massive bone-rattling roar rolled up the cliff and shook the slate roof above us.
Kaelen had bought them time once.
Now he had brought the next executioner to their door.