We climbed the narrow stone stairs slowly.
I carried Seraphina against my good shoulder. Isolde held my belt with one hand and felt for each step with the other. The smell from the main hall followed us - blood, wet iron, and something sharper that had not been there before.
Halfway up, Isolde stopped.
"What is that?" she asked. Her voice was tight. "The air tastes wrong."
I looked back down the stairwell.
In the gray light coming through the broken front doors, the pools of blood on the floor looked darker than they should.
A thin purple haze was rising from the corpses of the templars and the Marcher mercenaries.
It clung low to the stone, moving slowly like heavy smoke.
"The purple liquid," I said. "From the vial Silas dropped when I shattered it. Some of it mixed with the blood."
Seraphina’s head rested against my shoulder. Her voice came quiet.
"Veil-Breaker residue. It does not create life. It corrupts what is already dead. The air will turn foul. Stay out of it."
I did not need to be told twice. We kept climbing.
The second floor was in better shape than the ground level.
A long corridor ran past several doors.
Most rooms were empty or full of rotting furniture, but one chamber near the end still had a solid door and a working latch.
The window was barred but intact.
I set Seraphina down against the wall, guided Isolde to a corner, and barred the door from the inside.
For a while we just breathed.
The toxic haze stayed below.
It did not climb the stairs.
The air up here was only damp and cold.
I checked the cut on my shoulder.
It had stopped bleeding, but the skin around it was dark and angry.
The Iron Body kept it from going deeper.
Isolde sat with her back to the wall, knees drawn up. She had not let go of the tension in her shoulders since the mercenaries died.
"Morvan will not stop at three men," she said.
"I know."
"Neither will the Cardinal."
"I know that too."
Seraphina watched me from the floor. The wool cloak was still wrapped around her. Her golden eyes looked tired, but the calculation in them had not faded.
"You are collecting enemies faster than most men collect gold," she said.
"They were already enemies. I just stopped pretending otherwise."
She did not answer. The rain outside had almost stopped. Thin gray light came through the barred window and painted a long stripe across the dusty floor.
I sat down near the door where I could hear the stairs. My body felt heavy. The fights from the last day and night sat in my muscles like lead. I closed my eyes for a few breaths, listening.
No new footsteps. No voices. Only the slow drip of water somewhere in the walls.
Isolde spoke again, quieter.
"When you shattered the vial... you did not even hesitate."
"There was nothing to think about."
"Most men would have taken the offer. Even for a day. Even to buy time."
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She could not see me, but she turned her face toward my voice.
"I already know how that story ends," I said. "The original Cassian took the deal. He poisoned you. He sold both of you piece by piece. Then the Cardinal killed him when he stopped being useful. I am not walking that road."
Isolde was silent for a long time. When she spoke again her voice was lower.
"You talk like you already watched it happen."
I did not answer that.
Time passed. The light outside shifted from gray to a slightly brighter gray. My stomach reminded me we had almost nothing left to eat. The last stamina ration was gone. Water was limited to what I had carried up in the tin cup.
Seraphina’s breathing stayed even. She had not asked for anything. Isolde had not complained. Both of them were still measuring me, waiting for the moment I would turn into the man the stories said I was.
Then a new sound reached the second floor.
Boots. Not many. Careful. Moving through the main hall below, then stopping. Someone was examining the bodies.
I stood and put my hand on the dagger.
A single pair of footsteps started up the stairs. Steady. Controlled. Not the heavy tramp of more mercenaries.
I moved between the door and the two women.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and stopped in the corridor outside our room.
A man’s voice, calm and cold, spoke through the wood.
"I can smell the blood from here. Open the door, Voss. Or I will open it myself."
I did not move.
The voice came again, closer to the door.
"I tracked the transports from the capital. I know the princess is with you. Put her down and step away from her. Now."
Seraphina’s eyes widened. She knew that voice.
I kept the dagger low and my body between the door and the two women.
Whoever was on the other side had not come with a group. One man. Confident enough to walk alone into a keep full of corpses.
The latch rattled once as he tested it.
"Last chance," the voice said. "Open the door, or I cut it down and take her head off your shoulders."
I looked at Seraphina. Her golden eyes were fixed on the door. For the first time since the courtyard, something other than hate and calculation showed in them - recognition, and a thin edge of something that might have been hope or dread.
I did not open the door yet.
Outside, the man waited in silence.