The castle was eerily quiet, the ancient stone walls of the library echoing with the uncanny silence. Beyond the walls, the muffled sound of celebration drifted toward Fawn, mingled with the intermittent clanging of steel and the raucous cries of the crowd outside.

She wandered between the towering stacks of books, an uneasy feeling swirling in her gut. Tracing her fingers down the dusty spines, she cracked open one of the crimson and gold covers to the musty pages within.

"Verily, I say to thee, submit to thy husband as thou would submit to the Gods. For in deference, dost thou touch the face of holiness."

Saint Letrixia extolling the virtues of obedience.

Her attention strayed from the yellowed pages, her gaze drawn out the arched windows toward the Southeastern courtyards below. From here, she could see all the way down to the river's embankment, past the city walls where the thin line of the churning river snaked into the brown and marshy meadowlands beyond.

Masses of people were moving toward the Western edges of the city, the distant shapes warping and contracting through the mottled stained-glass so they appeared disfigured—some strange and many-headed beast.

"What a curious place to find a Kingslave..."

The hairs on Fawn's arms rose, the familiar inflection of Thomas' spymaster unmistakable.

"How generous of your Master to allow you such liberties..."

She snapped the book shut, turning to face Silas pointed aquiline features with a stiff curtsy.

"A treatise on the virtues of obedience," she countered. "Surely a subject befitting of my station..."

"Ah," he nodded, as if to acquiesce. "And how, I wonder, does a penniless peasant such as yourself possess the skill to read..."

Fawn swore inwardly, cursing herself for stepping so carelessly into his snare.

Be wary, a voice inside her cautioned. He is trying to entrap you.

"If you seek the The Godking, he's not here," she spoke as evenly as she could, afraid that her growing uneasiness would betray her. Already Silas was watching her too closely, eyes flickering across her face for the smallest signs of weakness.

"The Godking, here? No, of course not." He scoffed. "He's preparing for the grand culmination of the Solstice. Why, the entire city is taking part in the festivities. Surely your Master has not begrudged you your attendance?"

He tilted his head, all too aware of the dagger he was twisting. 

"No matter," he broke his gaze drawing up to the window beside her. He crossed his arms behind his back, folding one hand into the other.

"In fact, it's you that I seek, my dear."

He let the words linger, relishing in her discomfort.

"You see, I have been watching you closely for some time. With your Master, of course. But also...without."

Fawn stifled a rising panic, her heart pounding against her ribcage. She was suddenly painfully aware of her breathing—and that Silas was aware of it too.

"Such a strange little thing you are," he mused, "appearing so suddenly at the Godking's side...as if you materialized from thin air!"

His spindly fingers made an exaggerated gesture like exploding smoke.

"No name, no family, no history that I can gather. And on the same day that a most prized prisoner goes missing...

"But you see, my darling, nothing stays hidden forever..." He leaned closer, his lips a hairsbreadth from her ear. Not least of all from me..."

She shivered, the accusation snaking its way down her gut.

"They speak of her across the kingdom, you know. In the shadows they whisper her fate. They say she is the Dawnbringer. Goddess of Light reborn. They prophesize that she will be the one to assume the throne—to restore balance to the pantheon. The one to end all wars.

"Fawn Braegon." He enunciated each syllable carefully. "That's what it means. 'High noble. One who shall rule'..."

He hummed thoughtfully to himself.

"We all thought she was dead. To the bitter end her parents wouldn't speak a word of where she could be, swore she had been killed. They suffered for it, you know." He eyed her sidelong. "Suffered terribly."

Fawn's knuckles were white upon the book she clutched, her jaw clenched until she could taste the metallic sting of blood.

"You see, my dear, I was so terribly certain that you were her."

He circled her as she stared straight ahead, mouth shut, eyes soldering a hole through the glass . The silence stretched on, long and unbearable as he waited for her to break—to say something—anything at all. Fawn could feel his warm breath on her neck, his face inches from hers as she didn't even dare to blink.

Then he righted himself, his hand waving the thought away with a flourish.

"But alas, it cannot be."

He turned, eyeing a stray book on the table. He righted it with his finger so it sat straight and orderly upon its stack.

"For Fawn Braegon has been found and captured."

Fawn spun around before she could think, her heart in her throat.

"What did you say?"

He stifled a smile, his shrewd eyes surveying his handiwork before him.

"Yes, I am as surprised as you," he said offhandedly. "It's not often a Spymaster is caught off guard. Your Master kept the news quite discrete, even from me. Truly, I cannot blame him, with whispers of a traitor in our midst."

He dragged his finger over the age-wearied cover, lifting the dust to his face and rubbing it between his fingers in dissatisfaction.

"I must say, she wasn't what I expected. Quite a feisty little thing, really," he chuckled. "Hair black as a raven's beak, and a mouth to rival it. Engaged to a...John Higgeldy or something of the sort."

He waved away the ridiculous name as something far below his notice.

"She's made quite a bothersome mess, you see. This daughter of prophets. She has rallied the hopes of the common people in a way that the Order's violence alone could not."

He turned to face Fawn now, a calculated coldness in his eyes.

"Hope, you see, is a dangerous thing, Kingslave. Let it grow too large and nothing can kill it. Not even a God."

He smiled then, thin and ugly, a drawling levity returning to his voice.

"No matter. The Godking will execute her today before the entire city. With her death the Order will be castrated. The threat to his rule will be gone."

The room spun sickeningly, Fawn's vision beginning to seesaw. The book she held slipped to the ground, her fingers tingly and numb. Silas looked on aloofly, watching her in a curious, detached sort of way—the cogs of his terrible mind turning.

"Where is he. Where is the Godking," she uttered. "I must find him..."

Still he made no move to aid her, his voice terribly unbothered.

"My dear you're quite pale. Is something the matter?"

But his voice had faded into the background, a tinny echo in a room that pressed in too tightly around her. She looked about herself frantically, willing herself to think clearly. Lies, her mind screamed, you cannot trust him. And yet Thomas' voice came back to her, a grisly portent from the night before...

You must remain in the castle tomorrow, Fawn. You must not join the solstice celebrations under any circumstance. Promise me!

A deadening feeling sank through her gut, panic rising slowly into terror.

Then she ran.

***

Servant's quarters, hallway, throne room, galleries.

The rooms flew past as Fawn careened towards the hidden passageway that would deliver her outside the Godking's keep. Guards were posted at every other door—no one was to leave now that the castle had been secured.

To prevent the Order from a coordinated attack, they said. Or to stop you from getting out, she thought.

She stumbled down the dark tunnels, the air growing colder and wetter as she neared the forgotten Temple.

Phlegm coated her throat as she drew in a icy breath, labouring to calm her breathing. Her eyes darted furtively to each side as she slipped out of the Temple, then past the iron grate at the bottom of the weather-worn steps. She was in the castle gardens now, the soil frozen and barren, rows of orchards standing stark and skeletal against the bitter wind. She could hear the occasional roar of the crowd, growing louder as she headed for the Guard's encampment, hurrying past crumbling statues shrouded with mist. 

Miraculously, the grounds were empty, clearing a straight path across the bailey. Still, a warning grew in her heart.

If they weren't here, where were they?

"Oye. You there!" a rough voice called out.

Fawn froze. She turned to see a solitary King's Guard emerging from one of the tents.

"Wha' you doin' up 'ere?"

Panic swelled in her throat. She began to stammer a poor excuse, her lips barely forming the words when he cut her off.

"Solstice'll be 'at way." He jerked his head, barely sparing her another glance. "Can' miss it."

Fawn muttered a thank you as she hurried by, head down as she threw up the hood of her cloak and pulled it closer around her face.

She broke into a run as she crossed the gaping courtyard toward the sound of raucous cheers, heart hammering against her ribs. She met no other guard as she made her way out of the ward and into the upper city, her lungs burning with the cold as she ducked and weaved through the mazelike streets and squares. She would have become terribly lost had it not been for the constant booming of the crowd and the few fellow stragglers also heading toward the festivities. Breaking from them, Fawn rushed down a curving flight of stone steps cut deep into the embankment that led to the lower town. As she rounded the corner, she grinded to a halt, almost slamming directly into the edge of the crowd.

The chaos hit her instantly—hundreds of voices shouting and laughing and calling out among the masses, the crowded smell of food and filth and too many bodies. Hawkers were moving roughly among the crowd, crying out their wares of roasted nuts and ale, as children whooped and ducked their way beneath the sea of legs. Fawn pushed her way slightly forward, heart in her throat and she looked between the rough sea of strangers.

Glancing up, she noticed a crowd of rough-looking children scrambling up the steep embankment over the crowd. They were chasing one of their own, grasping at her dress and shoving her back and forth as they giggled wildly in their vicious play-fight.

"Traitor!" one of them cried out gleefully, the others joining in together in a morbid chant.

"Traitor, traitor..."

Then one of them shouted: "Execute her!"

The others face lit up, quick to join in. Fawn's throat closed like a vice. She turned back around, eyes flashing over the multitude.

"What's happening here?" she yelled out, "what's going on?"

The question fell on deaf ears, Fawn raising her voice and turning about herself as she tried to push through the crowd. The atmosphere was drunk and raucous, and no one paid her any heed.

"Is this an execution?" she choked.

"They're coming!" someone shouted, and Fawn felt her stomach fly up to her throat. She jerked toward the direction of the shout, straining desperately to see over the throng. But the wall of bodies seemed to be tightening, jostling and shoving as the excitement of the crowd rose. Jeers of "traitor!" and "witch!" rose up in the air like the dense clouds of breath in the freezing air. Unable to force her way through, Fawn scrambled back up the steps, senses assaulted by the chaos and the heat pounding in her ears.

Then her stomach dropped through her bowels.

Josie.

She was wearing only a thin woolen dress, the bottom of the grey cloth sopping wet and clinging. The fabric was torn at the hem and covered in caked mud, leather slippers threadbare as she staggered slowly over the slushed and bitter-cold cobblestones. Her arms were bound at her front, face whipped red and raw from the bitter wind. And she bore a wooden sign around her neck, the words Traitor scrawled crudely on the front.

Fawn stood still a moment, a shrill ringing in her head as the world began to careen around her. She stumbled slightly, grasping onto the stone wall as she struggled to breathe.

Execute her. They were going to execute her.

A new chorus of jeers blended into the old, Fawn's eyes swimming upward up to see a fresh clump of mud sliding down the side of one of Josie's cheeks. She had stumbled slightly from the impact or perhaps from the wet ground beneath her, and she lifted a shoulder to try to rub the filth from her face.

Fawn could feel herself screaming, but the sound was swallowed up in the chaos and the throbbing of her head. Almost beyond her will, she was at the crowd again, her small hands beating and tearing uselessly against the wall of bodies. But no matter how hard she fought she gained no purchase. Looking about herself frantically, her eyes returned to the icy slope nearby and her body began to move again, tired muscles pushing her up the stairs and then along the rocky embankment that separated the upper and lower parts of the city. As she lowered herself down from the edge, Josie lifted her head, swollen red eyes latching onto Fawn's own. A look of abject horror passed over Josie's face, her complexion going deathly white. She staggered to a stop, watching as Fawn began to slide further down the embankment.

"No!" she shouted, Fawn's head jerking back up at the sound. Josie looked desperate, a furious plea in her icy blue eyes.

"Leave me!" she screamed. "Get out of here!"

Fawn froze, balanced precariously halfway down the icy slope. The world had gone curiously still, the whistling and the jeering falling away into silence as the bitter gale began to blow more wildly around them. Their eyes locked onto one another's as time seemed to grind to a halt before them—a single second and an eternity.

Josie mouthed three words to Fawn then—a moment that would be branded forever into her memory:

"I love you."

Then she was shoved violently forward by a solider, stumbling away and around the bend.

Fawn hung to the frosted embankment, dazed as if she'd been struck. Then a fitful shriek of "kill her!" rang out against the stone walls and the raucous cruelty of the world rushed back in at her all at once. It was only then that Fawn realized Josie was gone, and the reality of it swooped down upon her with a sickening kind of violence.

Right there. She had been right there.

Seized by a terrible madness, Fawn launched herself down the sharp slope, skidding roughly on the ice and stone until her palms were bleeding. She forced her way through the wall of bodies, screaming, scratching and biting into whatever warm mass she could reach. But no matter her fury, the crowd seemed to swallow her up again, putting more and more distance between herself and her best friend.

Soon, she found herself unable to move, swept forward by the surge of bodies. A wild panic squeezed her chest as she fought hard not to stumble, not to be trampled to death. A roaring filled her ears as she was partially lifted off her feet, the force of the crowd bearing her up and forward. When the sea of bodies finally stopped moving, Fawn found herself at the furthest reaches of the walled city. She scrambled to get free of the crowd, the revellers all too happy to fill her place closer to the front. When she finally reached the edge of the city walls, her entire body was shaking.

Before her, a colossal courtyard of stone was stretched out, every inch of it crowded with eager spectators. It sloped down sharply toward the icy banks of a swift and churning river. To the right, an ancient amphitheater curved upward, giving a prized view of the courtyard below. It was filled today with Agraria's wealthiest nobles, perched aloft from the seething masses of tradesmen, merchants, and peasants below. A single stone bridge spanned the courtyard to the other side of the rushing river. There, the path narrowed and wound gradually up the side of the colossal Alderdread Mountains, switchbacks carved into the sheer rock itself.

From here, Fawn could see Josie being shoved into a wooden caravan, its sides lined with cruel bars of steel. A rider sat aloft, grasping the reigns of two horses, their feet stamping nervously as they prepared to pull their quarry. Fawn's eyes flickered across the scene before her, desperately trying to piece it together.

The caravan was rattling over the bridge now, Josie's small figure just a smudge against the worsening weather as the driver snapped the reigns and the lumbering animals began their long, slow trudge up the side of the mountain. But even this faded into the background as Fawn followed the winding path up and up with her eyes, until it reached its very peak. For here, out of the mist and the sleet, jutted a colossal promontory of rock lined with flaming torches, soaring precariously above the churning river below.

A sacrificial altar.

Even as the thought struck her, Fawn felt a great rumbling vibrating through her bones. At first she thought it was the sound of the distant waterfall, surging out the side of the Alderdread to feed the river below. But it seemed the crowd too had sensed the shift, the boisterous atmosphere of a spectacle gradually settling into a restless, uneasy murmuring. The wind was picking up now, the icy rain hardening into sharp pellets as it drove through her woolen cloak and against the side of her face. The sky seemed to be gradually darkening, the clouds churning into one solid mass of charcoal grey. Her eyes flashed back to the promontory, now partially obscured by the furious flurry of grey.

There was a great creaking sound, like the slow falling of a redwood tree felled by some terrible storm. It echoed out, amplified by the amphitheater until it seemed to be all around them. A terrified silence fell over the space, leaving only the wind to moan its mournful dirge.

Then a voice, more awful than a quake of the earth thundered out around them.

"Bring forth the prisoner."

At first, Fawn didn't recognize him, so wild was the howling weather. It was as if a part of the mountainside itself had come alive, some great, obscure mass materializing from the very depths of the Shadow Realm. Then with one thunderous sound he stepped onto the promontory, his titanic silhouette carving itself out from the storm. A cloak of darkest grey billowed about him, swelling and rising like a giant sail. And upon his head he bore a crown of iron, the frenzied writhing of the flames refracting off the band and wreathing his temples in a strange light. It was a vision too awful and sublime to behold, and Fawn stood rooted under the dreadful, crushing silence that descended.

Out of the stillness, a shrieking filled the air—a sound so shrill and desperate that Fawn felt her insides curdle. At first, she thought it was Josie, seized with the horror of her fate. But as the cry echoed off the walls of the amphitheater, she realized it was coming from the horses themselves. The animals were snorting and tossing their heads wildly, spooked by the monstrous apparition before them. Several soldiers on the promontory rushed forth, grabbing at the bridles and wrangling them in an attempt to subdue the beasts. The crowd gasped and cried out as the horses backed up in terror, the caravan teetering on the edge of the cliff. For one awful moment, Fawn thought the entire thing would topple straight over the edge, the frantic cries of its prisoner now joining the chaos. But then it crested the peak, the soldiers pulling it forward and leading it straight into the centre of the promontory.

A hush once again passed over the crowd as the Godking stepped forward. He lifted a hand, and they all fell into solemn silence. 

"There is a sickness in this land," his turned his head,  surveying the trembling masses before him, "and it has begun to fester."

His voice echoed out, magnified by the mountains and reverberating unnaturally against the curve of the amphitheater.

"You know of what I speak, for you too have felt it's stirrings. You no longer venture past the city gates. You watch the shadows that shift beyond the road. And everywhere you feel it—that nameless fear: whispers of the so-called Order."

The crowd murmured, the sound shivering through the seething multitudes.

"Agraria!" He bellowed. "What do you see before you?"

He took a step closer to the caravan, the movement rousing Josie and sending her scattering to the far edge of her prison.

"A girl?" He asked, "A prisoner? An Agrarian?"

He looked down at the caravan, lifting his foot.

"This is no Agrarian. This is a rat. A carrier. Vermin."

The great shadow of his boot fell over the caravan, sending up new wave of shrieking. This time the sound was unmistakably Josie, the girl pounding at the cold steel bars. When that did nothing, she began to scramble this way and that as she tried to avoid the crushing death that descended. The effect was nauseating, and Fawn realized she looked exactly as he described, like a rat, writhing and scurrying mindlessly against the confines of its cage. But what was more horrifying even was the way Thomas watched her, shifting his sole casually over her wherever she tried to go.

He dropped his foot back, content with the point he'd made.

"Where is the Order?" he thundered out. "They do not face us in the light, but hide in the darkness, spreading their pestilence and filth! They scavenge your food in the night, ravage your farms. They swarm your wagons and slaughter your beasts! They poison your drink and steal the food from your very mouths!

"Everywhere they are among us, this plague, this disease. Infiltrating our cities, emptying our silos, sullying the sanctity of our homes!"

Fawn looked around her as cries of outrage and revulsion rose up in the crowd. Terror swelled in her as the crowd grew more agitated, the words needling into their already-rampant fear and distrust.

"People of Agraria!" The Godking roared. "What must we do to stop this sickness from spreading? What must we do to stop this scourge?"

"Kill them!" someone shrieked, followed by the roar of the crowd a thousand-fold. "Kill the rats!"

"Where there is poison, we must draw it from the wound!" He bellowed. "Where there is rot, we must cut it from the root!"

A helplessness gripped Fawn as the Godking's words stoked the people into frenzy. The screams of the crowd grew louder, faces crazed as the mass swelled and pushed against itself. She grew frantic as the bodies closed in around her, jostling her back and forth as they threatened to surge. She turned about herself, desperate to escape the throng, until her eyes fell upon a series of scaffolds perched against the outer ramparts. They had been left there by the workers repairing the battlement, and now they lay abandoned for the festivities, tall and skeletal in the storm.

She drove sideways through the crowd, frantically shoving her way past the wall of bodies and out toward the stone walls. Behind her, the roar of the crowd was rapidly devolving into a fiendish chanting devoid of sense and meaning.

Fawn began to climb.

Her chest burned, each breath driving a million shards of ice into her lungs as her muscles screamed in protest. The wind began to rise, whipping tiny, sharp pellets of ice into her face until her eyes smarted with tears. Soon the words of the crowd were lost in the moaning of the storm, the sky growing darker by the minute. She pawed numbly at the ladder rungs, her icy fingers robbed of all feeling so that she almost slipped once, then twice, to her death.

As she finally heaved herself up onto the creaking platform, she turned to see Josie stumbling out of her prison, the guards forcing her forward closer and closer to the edge of the precipice.

Fawn began to run down the parapet, desperate to get as close to the altar as possible. She screamed out wildly, her voice swallowed by the wind as the flames of the braziers writhed madly alongside her.

"Do you know why I'm here Agraria?" The Godking thundered. "Do you know why I have come?

She could no longer recognize his voice. It was as if another spoke through him, some crazed and vengeful deity that had taken possession of his soul.

"You have strayed too far from the old paths! Forgotten the old Gods! In your newfound prosperity you have grown prideful and lax, have thrown away your worship for trinkets and gold! Drunk with greed and vanity, you have watched as the fertile grounds of this once-great Kingdom grew ripe with vice, slept as the enemy closed in around you! Now we stand on the brink of war, and I ask you: what will you do?"

The crowd cried out before him, terror and exultation sweeping through them as he towered over the city like a vision of death.

He began to recite:

"And when they should fail, then unto them shall come Saeros the vengeful. And he shall rise from the ocean upon a tide of war! And he shall punish the wicked and protect the weak!"

The guards were pushing Josie forward now, edging her toward the brink of the precipice. She fell to her knees, swaying slightly as if drugged.

"And with his left hand he shall wield the wrath of the oceans! And with his right the judgement of the sea! That they may be cleansed in the blood of repentance or else drown in the depths of their guilt!"

The words of the ancient texts bellowed out around them, carried forth by the storm so they seemed proclaimed from the skies themselves. Already some had fallen to their knees, begging for forgiveness—or was it for deliverance? 

From within his cloak The Godking produced a golden chalice, then a dark crimson liquid in a round, glass flask. He poured the wine into the goblet, tossing the receptacle behind him into the gloom.

"Fawn Braegon, you have been found guilty of treason, of inciting and plotting to incite acts of war and violence against crown and Kingdom. The choice is before you. Will you drown in the rivers of your guilt? Or repent, and be purified in the blood of Saeros?"

For a moment, nothing could be heard but the ghostlike lament of the storm. Then a faint voice travelled on the wind.

"Repent..."

"LOUDER!"

"REPENT!" she screamed "I BEG TO BE PURIFIED!"

The crowd gasped, shock and excitement sweeping through the masses of spectators. For a moment, Fawn's heart surged with hope: she would be spared. 

Then the Godking knelt down, grasping the small girl up into his hand. She didn't fight him, her body going limp in his all-consuming fist. 

"Fawn Braegon, do you denounce the crimes you have committed against the Kingdom of Agraria?"

"I do..."

"Do you denounce the Order and its violence, denounce them as traitors to the crown?"

"I do..."

"Do you submit to the rule of the Godking, Saeros incarnate? Do you avow his divine and righteous rule, from now until the end of time?"

She paused for a moment, as if terribly wearied. Then she cried out for all to hear: 

"I do!"

He stood up then to his full height, eclipsing all of them: the people, the darkness, the storm—a herald of the ancient and forgotten times, too great and terrible to behold.

"Then you shall be purified!" he thundered.

Slowly he lifted Josie over the cup, holding her over the sloshing liquid. The reality of her impending demise must have finally become clear then, for she began to scream in terror, her legs kicking and churning desperately as she begged him again and again for mercy. 

He seemed almost to hesitate, as if heeding her cries.

Then he dropped her inside.

At that moment, a horror unlike any she had ever felt overtook Fawn, so that she didn't realize that she ceased to move. Her body was paralysed, as if it were she who had been dropped into the icy cold wine of the chalice.

Down below, the crowd was in rapture, every face, every body turned upwards to him. Hands were stretched towards him or pressed flush against their chests in the sign of the Goddess. Each and every eye was fixated on his victim as she floundered in the red waters of her penance.

The Godking lifted the cup up to the skies, the clouds roiling as the sleet-hail whipped up into a furious gale of snow. The very Shadow Realm seemed to open up from the sky, a preternatural darkness descending upon them.

"KNEEL AGRARIA," he roared. "KNEEL TO YOUR GOD AND REPENT!"

It was as if the world itself bowed before him, thousands upon thousands dropping to their knees in complete and utter deference.

As they all fell prostrate, a single figure stood out among the crowd—not kneeling, but shrieking, something akin to his name. 

The Godking went deathly still as his gaze fell over Fawn, each of them frozen for a moment as the bitter gale raged around them. She gripped the wooden post with both arms as if it was the only thing holding the earth in place, every part of her body and soul begging him, pleading with him not to do it.

Then he lifted the glass, tilting his head back as he swallowed its contents whole.

Fawn turned to the side of the battlements, voiding her stomach onto the slick, wet stone. 

***

Author's Note:

I'm so sorry. Please forgive me for what I've done. 

Psst: Just one more chapter until the end of Part 3! Hang on, it's been a wild ride, and I'm afraid there's one final terrible revelation yet to come. 

In other news, I just got back from my honeymoon in the Caribbean! Lemme know if y'all want me to drop a pic in the next update :) 

xx Rory