When Audren awoke in the night, he blinked incessantly, unable to pinpoint where he was. He'd expected to be in his own bedroom in his castle, warm, comfortable and familiar. Instead, he found himself staring at a strange, dark ceiling, feeling weak and dirty in a room he didn't recognise. His thoughts moved at the speed of thick honey dripping off a spoon, but what had happened did come back to him: he recalled the wraiths, their fearful shrieking and gaunt faces, and the awful cold that had bitten his soul when they'd touched him.

He heard a female voice he couldn't identify.

"Hello," it said. "I don't know how aware you are of your surroundings right now, but you suffered from the Wraith's Affliction. I cured you."

Audren turned his head to his right slowly, squinting in the dark, and could make out a woman seated on a pillow by his mattress, looking down at him, smiling. He got the vague idea he recognised her, that he'd seen her before. But where, and what was her name again? Had he wanted to talk to her? Yes, he figured he'd wanted to talk to her about something. Magic, maybe, a curse...

The curse. Countess Limnaia.

"Lady Limnaia," he managed to croak, voice hoarse. "It's you. You're here. But where is... here?"

The countess's smile never faltered. "You ask as if it matters."

"Doesn't it?" Audren asked, puzzled. He remembered he hadn't come to this place, wherever it was, alone. There'd been someone else. A mage. His sister's old friend. "Where's Terry?"

"Fast asleep, I imagine." Limnaia's tone was more chipper than he found appropriate for the situation. "The mead should've taken care of that."

"Mead rendered her fast asleep?" Audren asked. "Speaking of sleep... Can I go back to sleep again? I'm still tired. I'd really like to."

The countess shook her head. "I'm afraid you cannot. You see, it's just so much more fun when they're conscious."

Now Audren was confused. He tried to sit, wanted to prop himself up on his elbows, but found rope bound his hands.

Hold on.

He looked at Countess Limnaia, fear creeping into his heart. For the first time, he saw she held an object, a tool made of metal. That realisation scared him even more.

"I'm sorry, but since when, uh... Since when are pincers required to treat the Wraith's Affliction?"

"Since never." Audren hated the shadows drifting over the countess's eerily grinning face in this dark, grim room. "A title no longer means anything in the world we live in now, Lord of the Mountains, and you serve no purpose. I no longer discriminate against my victims based on their social status. I have these pincers so I can remove your fingers with ease. Or shall I take your teeth first?"

Panic washed over Audren, speeding up his thoughts as adrenaline rushed through his veins. He clenched his mouth shut on instinct, fought in vain to free his hands, tried to use his legs to struggle, but moving proved difficult, sluggish, exhausting. Was it the disease still in his body or something the countess had given him under the guise of treatment? Either way, he couldn't fight the woman off, couldn't keep her from holding him still. The pincers, ominously crusty with dried blood, inched closer and closer to his face. Audren closed his eyes and braced for the worst.

But no pain came. Instead, he heard a cracking sound, the clang of metal clattering to the floor followed by an ungodly screech that might as well have come from one of the wraiths. He opened his eyes, saw the countess sit on her knees unmoving, trembling and face contorted in pain like the bandits in Mayor Gilvertos' home. In the doorway, he spotted Terry, who seemed positively furious. He'd never been so happy and relieved to see another person.

"You," Terry growled at the countess, "should be thrown to the wraiths."

Considering the fact that the countess had very likely been on the verge of torturing him to death, Audren, no matter how much he wanted to, couldn't condemn that idea.

"You put it in the mead, didn't you?" Terry continued. "That substance you gave Audren. I remember what it is now. My father uses it to render his patients unconscious before performing surgery."

The countess snarled, biting back a gasp of pain as Terry manipulated her blood in such a way she turned away from Audren and faced the mage. "You were supposed to drink it, mage," she groaned out. "You're as useless as the lord. If you can't break the curse, you're no different than my previous guests. Just another fool."

"I know why Credi did it," Terry snapped. "I talked to him. You were the last straw. He believed in you, in your ability to change your people's lives for the better, but you threw it away. And for what? Because you're a sadist who derives some sick pleasure from senseless torture and murder!"

"Shouldn't we all be free to pursue our deepest desires?"

"Not if it kills innocents, damn you!"

Audren's head spun. The world turned faster than his muddled brain could comprehend. "I... I think I'm... missing some information. Yes?"

Terry shot him a serious, mildly concerned look. "Your countess used to torture and kill peasants and labourers with one of her servants. Credi found out and did... what he did." She turned to glare at the countess again. "And you haven't stopped, have you? I think I understand how you're working here. Your nymph accomplice, whether aware of what you do here or not, sends your unsuspecting victims to Malodell. You step in once they've contracted the Wraith's Affliction, cure them, and by that time they're at your mercy. The only reason you prevented me from being touched by the wraiths is because you hoped I knew more about how to break the curse."

"I won't deny it. It's true.

"But what do you even care about the curse? Because it seems like you're enjoying yourself here just fine."

Countess Limnaia huffed, glaring right back at Terry. "I can't live like this forever. Already there aren't lands or people to control, and there's no joy to be found in torturing the Cursed and killing what's already dead. A life without all of those things, a life without power... How terribly boring would that be?"

The countess's hand reached for the pincers she'd dropped. Terry made the noblewoman pick up the tool and bring it to her mouth in a silent threat, much like the countess had done to Audren. The lord flinched.

"Terry, wait–"

"I'm not going to make her do it." Audren added the phrase the mage didn't say in his mind: but I could. "It's just that we can't leave her here. She's a danger to everyone around her. And if the world ending couldn't stop her from killing, nothing will. We can't let her live. The wraiths can have her, for all I care."

Audren sighed and considered this.
His thoughts felt less sluggish now and some strength had returned to his body. He finally managed to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position. Looking into Countess Limnaia's eyes, he didn't find a single trace of remorse; not for what she'd planned to do to him, not for whatever she'd done to all those who came before. He only saw rage, contempt, annoyance and even a hint of boredom.

If the countess had one regret, it was having gotten caught.

She'd been just another acquaintance of Audren's in the past, just a smiling, pretty aristocrat at banquets and balls, one he'd exchanged formalities and pleasantries with once or twice like it was nobody's business. The person he'd spoken to then had vanished, leaving a wicked woman in her place. Audren had known little about her, but the few things he thought he'd known had turned out to be a lie.

How many people in his life had never shown him their true face?

"If I understand well," he began, addressing the countess directly, "you're guilty of torturing and killing an unspecified amount of your own people, which, whether with or without your knowledge, contributed to Rosangelo Credi creating the curse plaguing us now. A curse that has taken thousands of lives, including those of my whole family save my sister. But not even that curse could keep you from committing your crimes. You've preyed on people simply trying to survive, tortured and murdered them like you've done before. You would have done the same to Terry and myself without blinking twice. Is that correct?"

The countess, already pinned and apparently tired of playing roles, grimaced. "Yes, it is."

"And you'd do it again if you had the chance, wouldn't you?"

"Would you believe me if I claimed I'd turn my life around?"

"After everything I've heard and seen? No."

"Then I swear to the gods, I'd do it again."

That was clear language. Audren considered his options. The danger Terry spoke of was present; the countess could indeed be considered too dangerous to live. He thought about the bandits in the Free City, how he'd chosen not to overstep his authority and left the decision regarding their fates to the population. But this wasn't so easy, was it? The rule of law hadn't touched Malodell in a long time; no such thing as authority still existed in the wretched little village, and leaving the countess here like the bandits, tied up and left to her own devices, would result in her certain death.

He and Terry could take her along on their way home to Anahill, where he'd have to sentence the murderess according to the law of the Mountains. Considering the gravity and multitude of her crimes, he knew she'd end up executed, given that the Cursed didn't overrun the city first.

Did it matter, then, if the execution took place here or there?

Audren mustered as much dignity as he could while sitting on a mattress with his hands tied. "Countess Limnaia, I don't take pleasure in giving up on people. In these times, I find myself wishing desperately that everything was different and I was home again without a care in the world. Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy, and I'm here, faced with deciding what your fate will be. You may find me unjust when I say I must call for your execution and you may claim it doesn't differ from murder in this place. But I'd like to ask you to think about your victims and wonder... Wouldn't it be unjust to them if I allowed you to live?"

The countess didn't reply. Audren didn't need her to. He simply looked at Terry, pleading. "I understand I may be asking too much of you, but... do you think you could make it painless?"

The look in the mage's eyes was steely, unnerving. "Very considerate of you to take all the sleep I won't lose over this into account, Lord Audren. A painless death as opposed to conventional execution methods is more merciful than she deserves."

"I hope I come back to haunt you," the countess growled at her captors. "A thousand times over."

She didn't say more, for Terry clamped her mouth shut with her uncanny blood magic. Soon, the only words resounding within the walls of the markerichter's house were those of the spell Audren had heard once before, in Denys Farano's room when it was used on the innkeeper's dog. He looked away from the execution in progress, staring at the blood on the blanket he'd been given, wondering to whom it had belonged. It was only after the deed was done and Limnaia's lifeless body had slumped to the floor that he dared to look up again.

"If you could do me yet another favour and untie my hands," he told Terry quietly, "it really would be much appreciated."

The mage approached, knelt down and started to work at loosening the surprisingly complex knot around his hands. Audren inquired about her encounter with the countess and Credi's ghosts, wishing to learn all that had happened in his absence. Terry told him the whole story in great detail, and he listened, processing the tale. Credi's notes, the words he'd said... One sentence in particular stuck with the young lord.

In what world should kindness and hospitality be punished so harshly?

By the time Terry finished filling him in, they were sitting on his mattress together, alone save for the body; Audren had draped his bloodied blanket over it respectfully. They sat there as a silence dawned, silence while Audren mulled over everything, analysing the things he'd learnt. They didn't move for a long time.

Until the idea he'd been playing with took on its final form.

"I think I know," he confessed.

Terry gave him a puzzled look. "What?"

"I think I know," Audren repeated, "how we could break the curse."