Origins: Brynne Lyndell

Part I: Arrival

The Temple of the Raven Queen

The Temple of the Raven Queen stood in perpetual dusk, even at the height of noon. The black stone of its facade drank sunlight in greedily, rendering the plaza below a muted void where sound vanished and footfalls felt sacrilegious. No other building in the Capitol could compete with its gothic grandeur; no other deity demanded such theatricality of her servants. Spires clawed the sky, each crowned with wrought iron spikes, along every eave and lintel, ravens—some alive, some carved obsidian—glared with ominous ruby red eyes.

Inside the courtyard, the order of the day was at odds with the chaos of the city beyond. The sisters of the Raven Queen moved in rigid choreography, black veils and purple sashes fluttering as they bestowed blessings upon a meager line of penitents. Most who sought audience did so with heads bowed and words rehearsed: a dead child, an ailing mother, a fear and respect for the inevitability that is the end of mortal life. The air was thick with incense and grief.

Presiding over the proceedings was Head Priestess Elmiyra, whose face, even in rest, offered neither hope nor rebuke. Her eyes—lambent and colorless, as though the Blight still worked in her veins—tracked the slow movement of the line from a raised dais at the courtyard’s heart. She wore no mask, unlike her acolytes, but her expression had the fixity of one. Her hands rested gently on the haft of a ceremonial scythe; she held it not as a threat but as an appendage, an extension of her authority and, perhaps, her boredom.

At the perimeter, a voice shattered the hush.

“Monster! You’ll answer for this, you corpse-loving whore!” The man who barked it looked more animal than human: wild hair, breath already sour with the morning’s gin. He shouldered his way past the kneeling faithful, drawing gasps and a quick flurry of raven wings as the nearest birds took flight.

A junior sister intercepted him, voice quavering but firm. “You must show respect, or the Raven Queen will—”

“She already has!” the man spat. “She took my son—my only son! You and your bitch goddess—” He stopped short as Elmiyra stood, and the scythe made a dry, scraping note against the marble plinth.

“Enough.” Her voice was the sound of distant thunder, a warning of the storm rather than the storm itself. She stepped down from the dais, her footsteps silent on the flagstones. The circle of sisters parted in a motion so practiced it looked choreographed.

The man’s anger guttered, leaving only the raw stump of grief. “You preach mercy, but there’s no mercy in the grave,” he said, voice suddenly soft. “What kind of person worships a god who steals children?”

Elmiyra approached him directly, all the others forgotten. “What is your name?”

He hesitated, as if it might be used as a curse. “Otto.”

She nodded, a single sharp motion. “You are not wrong, Otto. The grave is not merciful. But sometimes mercy is separated from cruelty by only a thin line.” She stopped an arm’s length from him, her white hair luminous in the gloom. “The Raven Queen does not take—she ends suffering. That is her gift. She gave it to your son, as she gives it to all, that we may cherish the time we do have.”

Otto bared his teeth. “That’s easy to say, if you’re not the one left behind.”

“I have been left behind more times than you can imagine,” said Elmiyra. “And yet, I am still here. So are you.” Her gaze flicked to the tremor in his hands. “You have a choice. The pain can be made sacred, or it can rot you from within. That, at least, is a cruelty reserved for mortals.”

He spat again, but the fight had gone out of him. “Keep your lies,” he muttered, shuffling back toward the entrance. The sisters closed ranks behind him, whispers rippling through their number.

Elmiyra watched until the man vanished into the brightness beyond the temple grounds. When she returned to the dais, her face showed no sign of exertion, but a slight tremor in her fingers betrayed a hidden agitation.

After the day’s calling hours, she dismissed the sisters with a wordless gesture, leaving the courtyard to the ravens and the incense.

Inside the nave, she let the cool stone swallow her. The sanctuary was designed for silence; its arches soared without ornamentation, and the only light came from tall, narrow windows stained a deep, sanguine red. She walked the perimeter once, twice, her footsteps echoing the rhythm of a practiced penitent. Only when she reached the reliquary—a small, windowless chamber set behind the altar—did she allow herself the luxury of leaning against the wall.

She wondered, not for the first time, what the Raven Queen made of such displays. Did the goddess care at all for her worshippers? Did she relish the pain, or was it merely another ledger to balance in the endless mathematics of mortality? Elmiyra had served the Raven Queen for six centuries, first as a Reaper—infamous, in those days, for the efficiency with which she dispatched necromancers and the blighted dead—then as High Priestess, a figurehead meant to show the goddess’s tolerance as well as her wrath.

She had hated every moment at first. The Blight had robbed her of a childhood, of family, of any future outside this stone tomb. For a long time, she told herself that service to the Queen was an act of penance; if she made herself useful enough, perhaps she would one day be allowed to die in peace. But the years ground on, and the temple became her entire universe—a cage, certainly, but also a fortress, a place where even her nightmares feared to follow.

Some days, she felt something akin to gratitude for the goddess. On others, she wanted to shatter every window and let the daylight in, if only to see what would happen. She had never dared.

The incense had burned low, and the ravens outside had resumed their cawing, a hollow sound that echoed down the nave like distant laughter. Elmiyra closed her eyes, picturing Otto’s face—first angry, then wounded, then simply hollow. She had seen that transformation so many times it no longer moved her.

She straightened, squaring her shoulders as if preparing for an audience, and set her scythe in its place behind the altar. Tomorrow, a new line of supplicants would form. Some would come for comfort; others would come to spit on her robes and curse the Raven Queen’s name. She would receive them all with the same blank courtesy, the same measured words. She did not owe them hope, but she could give them truth.

For some, that was almost enough.

The Fall

The bells rang at the wrong hour.

Elmiyra froze in the reliquary, senses prickling with unease. The temple’s bells were not whimsical; they tolled for the dead, for new initiates, or at the setting of the sun. At midday, the ropes should have hung slack. Yet their dissonant clamor bled through the nave, jarring as a scream in an empty house.

She was out of the reliquary and into the vestibule in three silent strides. Sisters peered up from their prayers, startled from reverie. Elmiyra’s mind ticked over the possibilities. No service scheduled. No funerary procession until tomorrow. She inhaled, scenting not incense but the sharper tang of ozone—a telltale sign of either strong magic or a pending thunderstorm. The sky visible through the high windows was a scoured gray, static brewing at its edge.

A novice approached, bowing her head. “Is there trouble, Head Priestess?”

Elmiyra did not break stride. “See that the doors are barred until I return,” she said, already taking the corridor that wound behind the main sanctuary and up, up toward the bell tower. The passage was designed to discourage haste: narrow, spiral, the stone steps worn to a treacherous slope. She kept one hand trailing along the wall for balance. Instinctively, she began summoning her true weapon in the other. The sythe gleamed in the dim light of the corridor, its blade sharp and glinting with reflected light. The slender handle was wrapped in leather, worn from years of use, in stark contrast to the immaculate condition of the ceremonial version she wielded earlier. The sisters were forbidden lethal weapons within the temple proper, but tradition allowed for exceptions in the face of sacrilege.

The bells were deafening here, the vibrations running up through the soles of her boots and rattling her teeth. At the landing before the belfry, she paused. The door was slightly ajar, not locked. She felt the ancient wood, found no recent marks—no splinters, no scratches—but the scent of ozone was stronger. She nudged the door open with her scythe, body tensed for attack.

Nothing awaited her inside but emptiness and chaos. The bell chamber was a cylinder of shadow and shattered light. Dust motes swirled in the eddies, catching the blood-colored glow that spilled through a stained-glass window. The bells—three of them, cast from black iron and inlaid with runes—swung on their own, ropes slack, the entire mechanism shuddering as if possessed. She studied the room: no footprints in the grit, no signs of a corporeal intruder. The gears and pulleys thrashed as if they meant to wrench themselves free.

Magic, then. Elmiyra set the butt of her sythe to the ground and went to open the window, scarlet glass making way for bright blue sky. She squinted out the window, attempting to ascertain if the magic was limited to only the bell tower, or if its influence was wider. Something blacker than shadow hung ominously in the sky. It was not a raven; it was much too large, and its outline was indistinct, wavering. As she stared, it moved—no, it fell—tumbling past the open belfry window. It plummeted with a soundless grace, vanishing from her view in a matter of heartbeats.

Elmiyra bolted for the stairs, the bells’ clamor receding behind her as she half-ran, half-slid down the spiral. By the time she reached the vestibule again, a riot of noise awaited her: shouts, the frantic cawing of the temple’s pet ravens, the dull thud of flesh against stone. She burst out into the courtyard.

There, at the center of the space where she had conducted benedictions only minutes before, the sisters had formed a cautious ring around the fallen thing. Most kept a prudent distance, but a few braver souls (or perhaps more foolhardy) peered at it, hands raised in clumsy imitation of defensive magic. The ravens were losing their minds, circling overhead in a black cyclone.

Elmiyra pushed past the ring, her authority unquestioned even in the chaos. “Back,” she ordered, and the sisters obeyed as if yanked on invisible strings. She resummoned her scythe with a twist of her wrist, and its blade gleamed, impossibly sharp.

The thing on the stone was humanoid, curled in on itself as if protecting vital organs. She circled it, noting the unmistakable form of wings—huge, ragged, as black as the void. Feathers fluttered from the joints, some broken and leaking blood. She inhaled sharply; even at a distance, she could see the body was that of a girl, a child. The skin of her arms and legs was pocked with scars, some fresh, some so old they’d turned white.

Elmiyra leveled the scythe at the girl’s head, keeping a safe span between them. “Is she alive?” a sister asked, voice trembling.

“Quiet.” Elmiyra crouched, eyes never leaving the girl’s shivering form. The wings shuddered, then contracted, curling tight as if in a death embrace. A weak moan escaped the child’s throat.

Elmiyra straightened, lowering the scythe. “Fetch Sister Yanna,” she said, her voice flat. “Bring bandages, hot water, and whatever remains of the redroot tincture. And find a litter. We’re moving her inside.”

The sisters scattered to obey. Elmiyra waited until the courtyard was nearly empty before she knelt by the girl’s side. Up close, the wounds were even worse than she’d guessed: broken bones distorting the shape of her left arm, dried blood crusted around her temples, and an ugly, infected gash running from her clavicle to her sternum. The feathers were real, not some carnival trick; she could see the blood vessels threading through the shafts, the downy barbs stiff with cold.

She touched the girl’s cheek, careful not to startle her. The skin was hot, feverish. “Not dead yet,” Elmiyra muttered, mostly to herself. She felt a wave of something—relief, maybe, or dread—wash over her.

Within minutes, Sister Yanna arrived, trailed by two others with a makeshift litter. Elmiyra directed them with crisp, professional motions, as though the unconscious child were no more unsettling than a fallen sparrow. Together, they maneuvered her onto the litter, wings folded awkwardly beneath her. The girl barely stirred, but her breathing quickened at the movement, lips parting in silent protest.

Elmiyra signaled for the others to take her through the servants’ corridor, away from the prying eyes of the faithful. As she followed, she caught a glimpse of the courtyard from above: a faint stain where the girl had struck, feathers scattered like the remnants of a molting angel, ravens pecking at the debris.

She turned away, heart pounding with a rhythm she hadn’t felt in decades. The Raven Queen was not a god who often trafficked in omens, but Elmiyra had the sense that something irreparable had been set in motion.

She would see to the girl’s wounds, yes. And in time, she would interrogate whatever god or monster had seen fit to deliver her here.

Old Wounds

The girl weighed far less than she should have. Elmiyra suspected as much when they first lifted her, but the reality was still jarring: she felt insubstantial, hollow. As they carried her down the dim corridor, the black wings dragged behind, leaving a streak of oil-dark feathers in their wake. One of the sisters flinched as the tips brushed her cheek, as if expecting the chill of death itself.

In the infirmary, Elmiyra bent to her work without hesitation. “Clear the table. I want all knives, hooks, and scissors hidden.” She caught the questioning look from Yanna. “If she wakes and thinks herself in an abattoir, she’ll panic. We do not know what she is capable of.” The sisters obeyed, stowing their instruments in deep drawers and locking the cabinets with trembling fingers.

Elmiyra examined the girl with the grim thoroughness of a battlefield medic, pulling away the filthy rags that clothed the girl. Her body was a patchwork of misery: the left radius cracked, a greenstick fracture jutting beneath papery skin; the right leg mottled with bruises, the knee swollen to twice normal size. The gash at her chest was angry and infected, edged in a sickly yellow. Below it was a scar that looked to be between a few months old, the incision forming a large Y shape, starting at each shoulder, meeting at the sternum, and extending to the pubic bone.

Sister Yanna took a sharp breath, and Elmiyra cringed, questioning what kind of twisted individual would subject a child to the horror of vivisection.

The most critical and immediately concerning injuries were the deep cuts on the girl's inner wrists. Elmiyra frowned, contemplating the implications of wounds that were typically self-inflicted. The cuts were jagged, inflicted with a sense of desperate recklessness, but it seemed the bleeding had been brought under control. The edges of the wounds shimmered, showing traces of divine magic.

Wordlessly, she nodded to Sister Yanna, indicating they should check the girl’s back for injuries as well. The two worked together, gently flipping the girl onto her side, and then her back, careful not to cause more harm or disturb the raven-like wings.

Scars laced her calves, overlapping like a palimpsest of violence. Between and beneath the point where her wings connected, Elmiyra could see a patchwork of burns, each a cruelly perfect square contrasting with the pale skin of her back and the inky black of her feathers.

None of the injuries, however, were immediately mortal. It was the fever that threatened to consume her. “She’s burning up,” Elmiyra muttered, pressing a cold cloth to the girl’s forehead. Up close, she saw how young the child truly was: the bone structure not yet finished, teeth uneven, lips chapped but still too full and soft for adulthood.

“She needs an apothecary,” Yanna whispered.

“She needs to not die before one can arrive.” Elmiyra placed her hands on the girl’s sternum, above the worst of the wounds. She closed her eyes, found the dark shape of the Raven Queen’s magic at her core, and drew a filament of its power. Her own brand of magic was not the sterile, glowing warmth favored by clerics of Pelor, but something starker and stranger—cold, lunar, with a taste of metal at the back of the throat. She let it gather in her palms until the skin of her hands tingled, then released it as a slow, radiating pulse into the girl’s body.

The fever receded at once. Not vanished, but contained, boxed away for a few precious hours. The girl shivered, lashes fluttering, but did not wake.

“Find me a doctor,” Elmiyra said, voice flat. “And keep the sisters out. No one speaks a word of this until I say otherwise.” The child’s wounds would be bait for rumor-mongers, especially given the implications of her wings.

When Yanna hesitated, Elmiyra added: “If you must, pray. But quietly. She’ll need it more than most.”

Left alone, Elmiyra cleaned the wounds herself. The old tricks came back easily: setting the arm, splinting the leg, rinsing the burns with alcohol strong enough to strip the taste from the air. The girl did not stir, not even when Elmiyra used a curved needle to stitch the chest wound closed. Occasionally, the wings would flex, feathers rustling against the stone floor. She could not tell if this was pain or reflex.

After a few minutes, Yanna returned, out of breath and red-faced. “Sister Ilsa has gone to fetch some doctors. The others ask if you want an exorcism first.”

Elmiyra snorted. “No exorcism. If anything, she’s suffered enough divinity for one lifetime.” She wiped her hands on a cloth and, with Yanna’s help, gently lifted the girl from the examination table. “My quarters,” she said. “They’re the only place big enough to accommodate her and the doctors.”

Yanna did not question it. Together, they maneuvered the girl up the back staircase, Elmiyra supporting the head and shoulders while Yanna steadied the legs. The wings, now limp as a sodden cloak, trailed behind. By the time they reached the High Priestess’s chamber, both women were sweating.

The room itself was bare by the standards of the Capitol’s priesthood. No icons, no gold leaf, just a desk, a simple bed, and a single stained-glass window that filtered the dying daylight into a bruised purple. Elmiyra cleared the bed and arranged the girl on it, wings splaying over the black sheet like a spill of ink.

For a few seconds, the feathers quivered, arching and contracting in response to some private agony. Then, as if on a silent cue, the wings receded into the girl’s back. The flesh knit closed, leaving only two puckered scars where they’d rooted. Elmiyra blinked, then looked to Yanna. “You saw that?”

“I did.” Yanna shuddered. “What is she?”

“An orphan,” Elmiyra said, with the certainty of prophecy. “And for the moment, our responsibility.” She nodded toward the door. “Go. I’ll manage until the doctor arrives.”

When she was alone, Elmiyra sat at the edge of the bed and watched the girl breathe. The fever was contained, but her face still twitched in half-dreams. Elmiyra reached out and, on a sudden impulse, brushed a stray lock of gold from the girl’s forehead. The gesture was unpracticed—she had never been anyone’s mother, or even their favorite aunt—but it felt right.

The Raven Queen had a taste for the wounded, the broken, the creatures that survived beyond what should be possible. She also had, rarely and perversely, a habit of offering gifts. Elmiyra wondered if this was one.

She kept watch as the sun slipped behind the horizon, and the room filled with the silent hush that only a temple could know. For now, the child was alive, and the world outside had grown distant and irrelevant. Elmiyra allowed herself a moment of stillness, her own breathing synchronized to the girl’s.

She would have answers, eventually. But for tonight, she would keep a silent vigil over what the Raven Queen had brought her.

Reinforcements

The doctors arrived a few hours before dawn, as if summoned by the scent of trauma alone. They entered Elmiyra’s private chamber in a tight pack: two men, one young and full of arrogance, the other old and careful; a third, a tiefling woman with hands as steady as a jeweler’s, bringing up the rear. They barely acknowledged the High Priestess except with the requisite bows—her authority was absolute, but the prerogative of the healer always trumped that of the clergy when it came to the truly desperate.

Elmiyra stood in the corner and watched, arms crossed and face blank, as they set to work. The girl had not moved in the night, though her fever had broken and her breathing was deeper, less ragged. The wings had not reappeared; nothing marked her as anything other than a badly battered, emaciated child.

The old doctor, a dwarf with half-moon spectacles and a beard like spun steel, grunted as he took her pulse. “She’s lucky to be alive,” he said, not looking up. “By all rights, she should have bled out days ago.”

“Or not so lucky,” murmured the tiefling. “Some of these injuries are years old. See the left femur? Broken and set badly, healed at an angle. Same with three fingers on the right hand.”

The young human leaned in, gently prodding the clavicle wound. “Burn scars here, and here. At least two layers of them.” He lifted the girl’s arm, exposing the lattice of pale white lines across her ribcage. “Who would do this to a child?”

Elmiyra answered before she could stop herself. “Someone who thought she was more useful alive than dead.” The doctors exchanged glances—one did not expect such commentary from the High Priestess, not in the presence of the sick. But none contradicted her.

They spent the next hour cataloging her wounds, murmuring amongst themselves, debating the best way to treat the infection without risking more damage. Elmiyra offered no suggestions, but her presence was a weight in the room; she saw the way the doctors deferred to her with every major decision, and she hated it. In truth, she wanted to step outside, to let the experts work, but she could not bear to leave the girl alone among strangers.

At the end of the exam, the tiefling wiped her brow and set her notebook aside. “She won’t wake for days, if at all. We’ll keep her hydrated, clean the wounds, and wait. It’s up to her, now.”

The words had barely been spoken when the girl’s eyes snapped open. There was no slow ascent from sleep—just sudden, animal alertness, pupils blown wide. She bolted upright, inhaling a wheeze of shock, and for a split second the air in the room grew heavier, charged with a static that raised every hair on Elmiyra’s arms.

The child took in her surroundings: unfamiliar faces, hands gloved and stained, the reek of antiseptic and dried blood. She screamed, a sound so sharp it split the quiet like a glass dropped on stone. The doctors tried to calm her, but she only shrank from their touch, writhing away until her back was flush against the wall and she had nowhere else to go.

Elmiyra moved with measured calm. She raised one hand, palm open. “It’s all right. No one will hurt you. You’re safe.” The words felt brittle, almost obscene—what could “safe” possibly mean to a creature like this? But the girl’s gaze fixed on her, and she seemed to calm, just a fraction.

The young doctor made the mistake of reaching for her arm. “Let me check—”

She lashed out, a wild, desperate blow. It missed, but the effort sent her sprawling off the bed and onto the floor. For a second, she crouched there, bare feet bloodied, hands splayed. Her eyes flicked to Elmiyra again, then to the door. Panic made her reckless.

Before anyone could react, the girl’s entire body seized up, shuddering as if struck by lightning. A pulse of light exploded outward, knocking the doctors back several feet and sending glassware and medical tools clattering across the room. The tiefling, quickest of the three, ducked and rolled away from the blast, but the men slammed against the far wall with concussive thuds. Elmiyra felt it as a sharp slap to the sternum—a sensation both terrifying and exhilarating.

The light faded as quickly as it had come. The girl crumpled, unconscious again, her small frame twitching in the aftershock. The only sound was the drip of blood from her cracked knuckles onto the floor.

For a long moment, no one moved. Then the old dwarf doctor got to his feet, rubbing a fresh bruise on his shoulder. “Aasimar,” he said, with a note of awe. “Has to be. Never seen it before, but what else could explain—”

“Not just that,” murmured the tiefling, checking the girl’s pulse again. “Something more. You felt it, too, yes?”

Elmiyra nodded, already replaying the moment in her mind. The blast was not pure energy; it had a shape, a purpose. It was a shield, a boundary. The girl had made it clear: whatever had been done to her, no more would be tolerated.

They resettled her on the cot and, this time, bound her gently at wrists and ankles—not for restraint, but so she could not hurt herself if the seizures returned. Elmiyra stayed by her side for the rest of the day, refusing food and even prayer until she was satisfied the child would not die in her absence.

The doctors made their rounds every hour. None tried to touch the girl without Elmiyra’s presence. The tiefling brought her soup, the old dwarf a flask of sweet tea. The human doctor, stung by the morning’s events, stayed on the far side of the room and limited himself to careful observation.

In the quiet of the night, the old dwarf approached Elmiyra. He sat beside her with a grunt, careful not to wake the patient.

“I’ve seen a lot of misery in my time, Head Priestess. But nothing like this.” He shook his head, beard bristling. “My best guess—she’s twelve, maybe thirteen. Could be older, but with the malnutrition, the growth stunting, it’s hard to say.”

Elmiyra nodded. “Thank you.”

He hesitated, lowering his voice. “You’ll have to report this. To the Watch, maybe the Council. They’ll want to know how a child like this ends up on your doorstep.”

“I know.” Elmiyra watched the girl’s face, half-shadowed by the moonlight filtering through the window. “But for now, she’s mine to protect.”

The doctor smiled, just barely, and left her in peace.

As the night wore on, Elmiyra found herself tracing the girl’s features, memorizing them as if she expected them to vanish by morning. She tried to imagine what had been done, and what kind of person could have survived it. The answers were not comforting, but they were strangely familiar.

Elmiyra drifted into a light trance, sitting upright, one hand resting on the bed, ready to shield the girl from whatever nightmare might next come calling.

Brynne

Elmiyra was shaken from her trance by the sound of glass breaking. She was out of her chair before she was fully awake, scythe in hand and heart already bracing for the worst.

The scene that greeted her was equal parts absurd and tragic. The girl was perched at the edge of the bed, bare feet digging into the comforter, a scalpel clutched in her shaking right hand. The tip glinted, stained faintly pink. On the far side of the room, a junior Sister cowered behind an upended ceramic washbasin, hands over her mouth.

“Don’t touch me!” the girl shrieked, voice raw from disuse. “I won’t let you cut me— I won’t—” She took a shaky step forward, scalpel raised as if she meant to stab the first thing that moved.

The Sister whimpered, eyes darting to Elmiyra. “She—she just woke up, Head Priestess, and—”

Elmiyra held up a hand, stopping the explanation. She leveled her gaze on the girl, not unkind but impossibly steady. “No one is going to cut you,” she said, her voice low and calm. “Put the blade down.”

The girl’s eyes were wild—more animal than human, like a wolf cornered by torchlight. “That’s a lie. You always say that, but then you do it anyway.”

“I do not lie,” Elmiyra replied, tone clipped and absolute. She let her own hands hang open at her sides, scythe disappearing into mist. “The Sister was only changing your bandages. You’ve been asleep for two days. You are in the temple of the Raven Queen. You are safe.”

The words meant nothing, at first. The girl kept the scalpel between them, trembling. Elmiyra could see every scar on her forearms now—some old and silvery, some new and red, one a suspicious black from poor healing. The wounds crisscrossed each other in patterns that spoke of both neglect and a desperate will to survive.

The girl’s gaze darted from Elmiyra to the Sister, and then to the door, mind already mapping her chances of escape. She clung to the scalpel as if it were the only constant in a world full of false mercy and hidden blades. “You’re going to lock me up again. Or worse.” Her voice was a hiss, the words balled tight as a fist. “You’re just like them.”

“Like who?” Elmiyra asked, voice measured.

A long pause, as if the question itself was a poison. “The doctors. The ones who took me apart and put me back together, over and over and over again. They said it would stop hurting. They lied.”

Elmiyra stepped closer, unhurried, letting the silence fill the space between them. “I am not with the ones who have done such things. You have left that place; you are safe here.”

The girl shook her head. “They said if I ever left, if anyone else found me, they would kill me. I’m not right. There is something wrong with me; no one else would let me live.”

Elmiyra nodded, acknowledging the logic. “If I wanted you dead, you would be dead. Instead, I have let you live, fed you, and tended your wounds. If you try to cut me, you will only hurt yourself.”

For a moment, the girl seemed to weigh her options. Her grip loosened on the scalpel. She swallowed, blinking hard. “You can’t keep me here. You can’t.” Her whole body shook, but there was no more venom in her words, only exhaustion.

“I do not wish to keep you,” Elmiyra said, voice softening just a touch. “I want you to heal. No one here will harm you. You have my word.”

The Sister, emboldened by the shift, took a step forward. Elmiyra stopped her with a look. “Leave us,” she ordered. The Sister obeyed instantly, scrambling out and shutting the door behind her.

Elmiyra approached the bed, moving slowly, hands always visible. She sat at the end, keeping a respectful distance. “You may keep the scalpel if it comforts you,” she said. “But I suggest you put it down. Your hands need time to heal.”

The girl stared at her, suspicious, then at the blade, then back at Elmiyra. After a long moment, she set the scalpel on the blanket beside her, never quite letting go. “You’re not like them,” she whispered.

“No,” Elmiyra agreed. “I am not.”

They sat in silence for a time. The girl’s breathing slowed, shoulders dropping. Elmiyra studied her in profile: sharp cheekbones, a mouth too generous for her gaunt face, eyes a saturated blue that was almost alien in its clarity.

“Do you know your name?” Elmiyra asked.

A flicker of confusion, then a shy nod. “Brynne,” she said. The word came out hoarse, like something scraped from the bottom of a well.

“Brynne,” Elmiyra repeated. “That is a good name.” She hesitated, weighing the next question. “How old are you, Brynne?”

The girl frowned. “Fifteen.”

Elmiyra remembered the doctor’s estimate—twelve, thirteen, maybe he had said. She kept her face composed. “You have been through more than most your age.”

Brynne shrugged, “It doesn’t matter. It never mattered.”

“It matters to me.” Elmiyra leaned forward, just enough to show she was invested. “You are safe now. No one here will harm you. If anyone tries, I will stop them. That is my vow.”

Brynne watched her, skeptical but desperate for something—anything—to believe in. “You’ll break that vow,” she said, but her tone was uncertain.

“Perhaps,” Elmiyra allowed, “but not today. Today you are safe.”

Brynne nodded once and finally released the scalpel, letting it slip from the bed to the floor. Elmiyra waited another beat, then scooped it up and set it aside. “You need rest. The fever took a great deal out of you.”

The girl slumped back on the cot, eyes fluttering shut. “I don’t want to dream,” she said. “They’re always worse.”

Elmiyra considered this, then moved to the small altar in the corner. She lit a single candle—black, as tradition demanded—and recited a quiet benediction. “May your dreams be watched, and may the dead leave you in peace,” she intoned.

Brynne seemed to consider the words, her face relaxing as the lines of terror eased. She lay back down, cautious eyes tracking Elmiyra’s every move. Within minutes, her exhaustion retook her, and once again she was asleep. Elmiyra watched her for a long time, letting her own anger and grief simmer quietly beneath the surface. She thought of the monsters—human or otherwise—who had shaped the girl into this twitching, brittle survivor. She imagined what she would do to them, given the chance.

For the first time in years, Elmiyra felt something close to hatred, pure and undiluted. It was not a feeling she welcomed, but she clung to it anyway.

If the Raven Queen expected her to be impartial, she would be sorely disappointed.

Connection

The first days were the hardest. Brynne refused food unless Elmiyra herself brought it, and even then, she would only eat after inspecting the bowl with the scrupulous caution of a stray animal. She refused to speak to anyone else, and when the sisters came to change her dressings, she would flinch at their hands, her eyes wide and unblinking, until Elmiyra intervened.

At night, she slept fitfully, beset by terrors that left her tangled in sweat-soaked blankets, sometimes clutching her arms so hard the nail marks drew blood. Elmiyra took to sitting at the foot of the bed, ready to ward off whatever ghosts stalked Brynne’s dreams. She told herself she was simply monitoring a dangerous charge, but the lie never held for long. In truth, she felt a kinship with the girl’s anger and fear, as if they shared a language born of loss and pain.

One night, Brynne woke screaming, her voice a ragged, full-throated animal sound that rattled the stained glass in its casement and set the ravens outside to a raucous cacophony. Elmiyra was there in an instant, moving with a swiftness she had not owned since her Reaper days, and found the girl curled in the smallest possible space, knees drawn to chin, fists jammed so hard into her eyes they might have vanished into her skull.

“No,” Brynne blurted, her voice shredded, “no, no, not here—don’t let them, don’t let them—” She was shaking so hard her bones sounded like wind in dry reeds. Her wings, which had not manifested since the first day, now emerged in a spasm of black feathers and bone, fanning out to shield herself from some invisible threat.

The terror in Brynne’s voice was so abject, so total, that Elmiyra saw—impossibly, in a flash of recognition—the shape of the pit she herself had spent centuries crawling from. The child’s body convulsed, wings trembling, and she gasped for air. Elmiyra touched her shoulder, lightly, as one might touch something about to shatter.

“The shadows will come for me,” Brynne rasped, tears streaking her filth-caked cheeks. “They’ll find out I left. She’ll be so angry—”

Elmiyra’s hand tightened, just enough to remind the girl that she was real, that this was the present and not some fevered echo of the past. “Who will come? Who is ‘she’?”

But Brynne had already slipped into a fugue, her eyes unseeing, voice dislocated as if she channeled not memory but prophecy. Brynne’s words were garbled, but Elmiyra caught some of what she said in the rush of terror. “She’ll come,” the girl whimpered, rocking herself, “she’ll see that I went against Nemesis’ will, that I’m not giving her the blood I owe, and she’ll make me into something else—worse, worse, every time worse—”

Elmiyra did not know the particulars, not yet, but she knew enough. The name Nemesis was associated with a sect of the Church of Adastreia, the goddess of justice and divine retribution. They were more of a cult than a sect, with a fanatical devotion to their goddess that forbade the worship of any other gods. Their order was based in Volfast, where they had managed to overtake the city’s Lord a few centuries ago in the chaos that followed the dissolution of the Empire. They ruled the city with an iron fist, isolating it from any outside influence and barring the use of magic. She had heard terrible things about their handiwork before; of elves banded with iron to stifle their magic, of massacres of devotees to other gods, and of innocent people tortured and murdered in the name of their inquisitions.

If Brynne had been imprisoned and tortured by the Order of Nemesis, that would mean she had come from Volfast. That certainly explained Brynne’s poor condition; she would have had to fly for days straight to reach the Capitol. It made her survival all the more miraculous, clearly, there had been some intervention from the divine that guided her safely to the Temple of the Raven Queen.

The following morning, as the first watery light crept through the colored glass, Elmiyra found herself already seated at her desk, hands steepled, the taste of unrest sharp in her mouth. The implications of Brynne’s arrival ran circles in her mind. The city had existed in an uneasy equilibrium for decades, the Capitol’s bureaucrats too busy with their own corruption to meddle in the affairs of Volfast, or to care about the horrors perpetrated in its name. But this—this was not a rumor, not another anonymous missive from the Resistance. This was a living, breathing indictment, with scars that no one could ignore.

She would have to report it. That much was clear. The Council would want to see the child, or at least hear her testimony. They would also want to know how a half-dead, traumatized Aasimar had managed not only to escape the Order of Nemesis, but to crash land in the Raven Queen’s sanctum.

Elmiyra resolved, in the cold clarity of that dawn, that she would not sacrifice the girl to the machinery of politics. Let the Council gnash their teeth and send their envoys. Brynne was her ward now, her charge. If meddling administrators, with their paper shields and ceremonial swords, wished to parade the girl as evidence, as a pawn in whatever escalation of hostilities they might now contemplate with Volfast, or worse, desire to return her to her tormentors as a diplomatic gesture, a bone tossed to Nemesis’ dogs, they would have to go through her. The promise formed itself in the marrow of her bones: Brynne would not be made a spectacle, not again.

She drafted her report with the measured, impassive language that was her shield. A child, brought to the temple under circumstances suggesting flight from persecution. Possible evidence of forbidden experimentation by the Order of Nemesis. She included the facts, but not the flavor—the girl’s terror, the way she wept into her sleeves at night, how she clung to Elmiyra’s presence in her waking hours, or how she grew rigid with fear whenever the corridor outside rattled with passing feet.

She submitted the report through the proper channels, then shredded her personal copy—paranoia gnawing at her. The Order of Nemesis had an infamous intelligence branch, with elite agents known as Shades, renowned for their stealth and lethal abilities. She wondered if those were the “shadows” that Brynne so desperately feared. Regardless, it was evident that Brynne held significant power, and the Order may attempt to reclaim their asset, whether through official or clandestine means. She resolved to be ready for anything. That child would not spend another moment suffering at their hands so long as she was breathing.

Each day brought small victories. Brynne began to accept broth without protest. She let Yanna touch her arm to take a pulse. She asked, in a whisper, if her scars would ever fade. Elmiyra answered her honestly: “Some will. Some won’t. That is true for most pain.”

Soon, Brynne was strong enough to stand, then to walk. She circled the perimeter of Elmiyra’s chamber, never daring to approach the window and always keeping her back to the wall. On the fifth day, she asked to see the sky. Elmiyra took her to the uppermost gallery of the temple, where sunlight filtered through panes of clear glass. Brynne stared at it for nearly an hour, saying nothing. When she turned away, her cheeks were wet, but she wiped them dry herself.

Word of the girl spread quickly among the temple’s residents, though no one dared gossip within Elmiyra’s earshot. Brynne’s features were too unusual, her wounds too numerous, for her to blend in with the foundlings and waifs that sometimes passed through the Raven Queen’s care. The novices gave her a wide berth. The ravens, by contrast, watched her with keen interest, as if recognizing in her some kin or rival. One day, a particularly bold bird perched on her shoulder while she ate. She didn’t move, only closed her eyes and let it preen a lock of her tangled hair.

As the weeks passed, routine became medicine. Elmiyra resumed her duties as Head Priestess, trusting Yanna and the tiefling doctor with Brynne’s daily care. The child tolerated their ministrations but would only truly relax when Elmiyra visited. They fell into a rhythm: meals together in the late afternoon, short walks through the quiet wings of the temple, long silences where neither needed to fill the void.

When Brynne could finally manage stairs unaided, she asked to leave Elmiyra’s chamber. “I don’t want to take your bed anymore,” she said, as if the notion of imposing was more offensive than anything done to her body. Elmiyra found her a small room at the top of the western tower, sparsely furnished but with a narrow window that overlooked the courtyard.

It was not until the first night in her new room that the nightmares returned with full force. Elmiyra was roused by a soft, persistent knock at her door—timid, but determined. She opened it to find Brynne standing barefoot, arms wrapped around her torso, hair plastered to her forehead.

“Can I—” The girl’s voice failed her.

Elmiyra stepped aside, wordless, to let her in. She lit a single candle, its small glow enough to banish the shadows. Brynne hovered near the doorway, not quite able to cross the threshold. Elmiyra sat on the bed, patting the blanket in invitation.

After a minute, Brynne shuffled over, curling up on the far edge of the cot, knees drawn to her chest. She did not cry, but her body shook with the memory of it. Elmiyra remembered her own nights in the aftermath of the Blight, when terror made every muscle rigid and rest felt impossible. She remembered her cold, small room at the cloister in Khalona, and she remembered how alone she felt, no one caring to comfort her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Elmiyra asked.

Brynne shook her head, face buried in her arms.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

A pause, then a quick, vehement “No.”

Elmiyra lay back on the bed, arms folded behind her head. The silence stretched, comfortable for her but clearly excruciating for Brynne. After a while, the girl’s breathing slowed. She uncrossed her arms, let her hands rest on the blanket.

“It always happens the same way,” she said, voice muffled. “I’m running. There are Shadows behind me. But I know if I stop, it’ll be worse. Sometimes the ground is glass, sometimes fire. Sometimes nothing at all. But I can never wake up. Not until it’s too late.”

Elmiyra considered this, then nodded. “Dreams are the body’s way of remembering what the mind wishes to forget.” She left it at that, trusting Brynne to decide if she wanted more.

The girl was silent for a long time, then: “Did you have nightmares when you were little?”

“No.” Elmiyra said gently, “Elves do not dream, we trance, a purposeful, meditative state. But that does not mean we are not haunted by painful memories. Sometimes those can interrupt the tranquility of our rest - I suppose it is somewhat similar to the nightmares you experience.” Elmiyra smiled faintly, a memory surfacing like a bruise. “I had no one to watch over me, so I learned to fight my nightmares on my own. It was not easy, but it made me strong.”

Brynne shifted, drawing closer, the distance between them closing. “I don’t want to be strong anymore,” she admitted, voice small.

“That is allowed,” Elmiyra said, and reached out. She let her hand hover above Brynne’s shoulder, waiting for permission. The girl leaned into it, and Elmiyra stroked her hair, untangling knots with careful, practiced fingers.

Brynne fell asleep like that, pressed close, Elmiyra’s hand a shield against the darkness.

Near dawn, the nightmares returned, and Brynne thrashed in her sleep, caught in some private hell. She woke, then cried out, a wordless plea, then again: “Mom.” It was whispered, barely audible, but Elmiyra heard it with the full force of a thunderclap. She stiffened, unsure what to do. No one had ever needed her in this way.

She made a decision, then, ancient instincts reasserting themselves. She drew the girl in, wrapping both arms around her, holding her tight until the tremors subsided. She stayed that way until Brynne fell back into uneasy slumber, and even then continued ot hold her until the first light of morning bled through the window.

When Brynne finally woke, she did not mention what had happened. She stretched, eyes bright, and said, “Thank you.”

Elmiyra nodded, pretending the moment meant nothing. But for the rest of the day, she felt lighter, less haunted. She watched Brynne walk the halls, her limp less pronounced, her face less shadowed. She imagined what the girl might become, given enough time and safety.

Decisions

Spring crept into the Capitol with grudging reluctance, wet and bone-chilled. The city’s alleys festered with standing water, and the cloisters of the Raven Queen’s temple were heavy with the smell of mold and thawing refuse. Still, there was something unmistakably alive about the mornings now—ravens quarreling over scraps in the courtyard, pale light finding its way through the high windows, and the slow but certain return of color to the world.

Brynne had become a fixture of the temple. She swept the nave, carried water from the cisterns, and occasionally joined the other children of the city’s underbelly who gathered on the temple’s outer steps, too wary to venture further in. Her limp had faded to a slight hitch, and though she was never seen running, she could walk the length of the nave without stopping for breath.

The Sisters, initially suspicious, had acclimated to her presence. Some found her unsettling; the scar tissue on her arms was hard to look at, and her eyes—too blue, too clear—seemed to see straight through polite conversation. Others took her for a miracle: a child wrenched from the jaws of death, possibly even touched by the Raven Queen herself. Word traveled fast in the Capitol, and speculation about Brynne’s origins became a favorite pastime among the acolytes of the Temple District. Was she a lost princess? An angel cast from heaven? A demon spawn, biding her time until the temple let down its guard?

Elmiyra ignored the rumors. She measured Brynne’s progress by her appetite, her tolerance for small talk, and the number of days she went without waking from nightmares. By these metrics, recovery was slow but steady. The wings did not reappear, but Brynne sometimes woke with feathers clinging to her blankets, and on rare occasions, the ravens in the courtyard would follow her with an intensity that bordered on veneration.

After several months, the question of Brynne’s future became unavoidable. The city orphanages were overcrowded and, at best, indifferent; the children’s home run by the Temple of Pelor was cleaner, but notoriously strict. Some of the Sisters suggested a private placement with a local merchant family—“She’s strong, she can work, maybe even apprentice in a craft”—while others argued she’d fare better in a rural foster home, away from the cruelties of city life.

A council was convened in Elmiyra’s office, the first time since the child’s arrival that her fate was discussed openly. The room was cold, and the mood colder. Yanna argued for the children’s home: “She needs structure, routine, a real education.” The tiefling doctor maintained that Brynne was “not ready for that much freedom.” Elmiyra listened, inscrutable as ever, while the others traded possibilities back and forth, their voices rising with frustration and good intentions alike.

In the end, the burden of decision fell to her. It always did.

She found Brynne in the nave, scrubbing at a stubborn stain with vinegar and grit. The child worked in silence, sleeves rolled to the elbow, her hair tucked behind her ears.

Elmiyra knelt beside her. “You missed a spot,” she said, indicating a rusty smear at the edge of the tile.

Brynne scoured at it, then wiped her brow. “It’s never clean, no matter how hard I try.”

“Some stains never come out,” Elmiyra agreed. She sat cross-legged on the cold floor, leveling her gaze to the girl’s. “I have to ask you a difficult question.”

Brynne didn’t answer, only waited.

“There are people who want to help you,” Elmiyra said. “Some would like you to go to a home with other children, learn letters, and a trade. Others think you’d do better in the country, with space and quiet. If you have a preference, you may speak it.”

Brynne considered this, rubbing her thumb along the inside of her wrist. “What happens if I don’t choose?”

“Then I will choose for you.”

The silence stretched, punctuated by the distant clang of the temple’s bell. “Would I see you again?” Brynne asked, not looking up.

Elmiyra hesitated. She wanted to say yes, of course, but the world did not often allow such promises. “I cannot say,” she admitted. “But I would try. And you would always have a place here, if you wished to return.”

Brynne nodded, once, then surprised Elmiyra by reaching out and placing a small, callused hand over hers. “Can I stay?” she asked, so quietly that it was almost lost in the echo of the nave.

Elmiyra closed her eyes, remembering a much younger version of herself, alone and blighted, told by a succession of well-meaning adults that she would be better off elsewhere. She remembered how every new posting, every new “opportunity,” had felt like a verdict.

“You may stay,” she said, and allowed herself a rare smile. “For as long as you wish.”

Brynne’s shoulders dropped in relief, the tension dissolving all at once. “Thank you,” she said, and returned to her cleaning, but with a renewed vigor and a slight smile on her lips.

Elmiyra stood, stretching the stiffness from her legs. She watched Brynne for a moment, then went to her office and wrote a letter to the Council, informing them that the matter had been settled internally. She signed it with her full name—Elmiyra of Miriel, Reaper of the Raven Queen, Head Priestess of the Capitol’s First Cloister—and sealed it with the Queen’s black wax.

That night, when Brynne came to her room with a question about the temple’s history, and about the goddess she worshipped. Elmiyra let her sit on the bed with her, and read aloud from one of the Raven Queen’s scriptures. At the end of the lesson, Brynne hesitated in the doorway, then turned and said: “I’m glad I came here.”

“So am I,” Elmiyra replied, and meant it.

When the girl had gone to bed, Elmiyra extinguished the candles and sat a long time in the dark, listening to the wind and the distant, contented squabbling of the ravens outside. For the first time in centuries, she felt herself held by something other than obligation or tradition.

She thought, not for the first time, that perhaps the Raven Queen did not always demand death, but sometimes, in a strange and complicated way, permitted the living to choose their own family.

Part II: Shadows

Titles

In the four months since Brynne had declared her intention to stay, the temple gardens had begun to change in subtle, persistent ways. At first, the shifting was nearly imperceptible: a patch of spaded earth near the old statues, a few new rows of basil and lavender, nettle coaxed up along the base of the wall. The garden had never been a place for beauty—it was more a vestige, a holdover from a time when the Raven Queen’s cloister had kept its own herbalists, when the grounds teemed with the sick and dying in need of poultices and teas. After the Empire collapsed, the garden’s purpose atrophied with the rest of the temple’s outward influence. Most Sisters found the place somber, haunted by too many ghosts, so its care was left to the occasional conscripted novice or, in the early hours, Elmiyra herself.

Brynne, however, had taken to the garden with a strange, urgent devotion. She rose before dawn, sometimes rousing Elmiyra with the clatter of boots at the far end of the corridor, and spent the first hour of every day among the rows. Her approach was less a matter of ritual than of necessity; she weeded with the ferocity of someone rooting out past lives, and when she planted, it was always in lines as straight as grave markers. The Sisters found it disquieting, but Elmiyra approved. There was dignity in tending to the living, even if only for the brief window before the weeds returned.

On a summer morning, Elmiyra found Brynne kneeling between two rows of chervil, hands deep in the soil. She wore a long-sleeved tunic, her skin covered in spite of the heat of a summer morning, a show of her resolve to hide away her scars from the sympathetic eyes of others. Her hair—golden, newly washed—hung loose in a way that caught the light and made her look years younger. The scars on her wrists had faded to a dusky pink, and the twitch in her left hand, a relic of the old fracture, seemed less pronounced. Elmiyra paused at the garden gate, taking stock not of the plants but of the girl herself.

“Anything useful?” she asked, voice soft enough to avoid startling.

Brynne looked up, dirt smudged across her brow. “A few of the nasturtiums died, but the parsley came through. I think the marjoram will survive if I remove the dead parts.” She rose, wiping her hands on her thighs, then caught herself and dipped a quick, deferential bow. “Sorry. I meant to report to Sister Yanna.”

“You just did,” Elmiyra said, unable to suppress the ghost of a smile. “Come, walk with me.”

They moved together through the garden’s perimeter, Brynne half a step behind as decorum demanded. The chill in the air sharpened the scent of wet loam and new growth, and the distant cawing of ravens filtered through the thickening green. Elmiyra kept her gaze forward, hands clasped behind her back. In the space between sentences, she measured the rhythm of Brynne’s gait—steady now, less hesitant. It was a small, hard-won victory.

“The Synod will meet at midday,” Elmiyra said, breaking the quiet. “We will be hosting today’s gathering. All of the temple heads will be attending. You will be present, as my attendant.”

Brynne tensed, just enough for Elmiyra to notice. “Yes, Head Priestess.”

“You need not be afraid. These are formalities.”

“I’m not afraid,” Brynne lied, voice brittle. “I just don’t want to embarrass you.”

“You never have.” Elmiyra let the words stand, unadorned. She stopped near the base of an ancient willow and turned to face the girl directly. “You represent this temple with more honor than most of the full Sisters. That is why I chose you.”

Brynne’s ears flushed a deep, embarrassed red. “Thank you,” she managed. Then, with a reflexive urgency, “I’ll be ready. I promise.”

Elmiyra nodded, satisfied. She began to turn away, but Brynne’s voice caught her.

“Will you—” Brynne hesitated, searching for the right word. “Will you walk with me again after vespers? Just…around the grounds?”

Elmiyra regarded her for a moment, then acquiesced. “If duties allow, I will.”

For a few beats, they stood in the peculiar intimacy of the empty garden, neither willing to puncture the moment. Brynne, usually so alert to protocol, let her posture slip and stared at Elmiyra with open, searching eyes. Then, as if remembering herself, she straightened and dipped her head.

“Thank you, Mom,” she said.

The word hung there, raw and accidental. Brynne’s face blanched, eyes going wide in horror. “I’m sorry—I meant—” She tried again, floundering. “Head Priestess, I didn’t mean—”

Elmiyra felt the air shift, every sense focused on the single syllable that seemed to shake the ravens from the trees. For centuries, she had endured every manner of address: Reaper, Lady Death, Mother of Shadows, even Elmiyra the Blighted. Never this. For a moment, she was utterly at a loss.

Brynne’s panic compounded. “It slipped out. I’m sorry. Please don’t—”

Elmiyra raised a hand, silencing her. “Words have power, Brynne. Do not offer them if you do not mean them.”

The girl looked as if she might cry or bolt for the nearest exit. Instead, she nodded, fighting to control her breathing. “I’ll be more careful,” she said, voice barely audible.

Elmiyra watched her, mind spinning with half-remembered fragments of her own orphaned childhood. She thought of the first time a stranger had called her “daughter,” how she had recoiled from it as if it were a curse. She thought of the decades spent policing her own attachments, of burying every hint of longing beneath ritual and discipline. Was it possible that she had so quickly—so easily—become something else? The idea was absurd, but not unpleasant.

“Come,” Elmiyra said, more gently this time. “We have work to do.” She led Brynne back toward the cloister, her pace slower than before, as if matching the girl’s steps to her own.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of tasks. Brynne assisted with the preparations for the Synod, fetching wine and sealing wax, arranging the ceremonial implements on the long, black table. She moved with mechanical precision, but her eyes kept darting toward Elmiyra, checking for any sign of displeasure or reproof. Elmiyra gave her none, but once, when Brynne knelt to sweep up spilled salt, Elmiyra caught herself reaching out to steady the girl’s shoulder. The gesture was so instinctive that she quickly retracted her hand, pretending to examine a tear in her sleeve.

By midday, the rituals began. The Synod was uneventful, mostly arguments over roles for the upcoming summer holidays and plans for the funds allocated to the temples by the Council for public services. Brynne attended to Elmiyra’s needs, refilling her glass, whispering reminders when the discussion veered toward the arcane or political. In the break between sessions, Brynne lingered in the alcove outside the chamber, waiting for Elmiyra to emerge.

When she did, Brynne looked up, a question poised on her lips. “Do you need me for the next meeting?”

“Yes,” Elmiyra said, then paused. “Unless you would rather tend the garden.”

Brynne considered this, then shook her head. “I’d rather stay with you.”

The words landed softer this time, but their intent was clear. Elmiyra inclined her head, granting permission. For the rest of the day, Brynne shadowed her through every appointment, always attentive, always a half-step behind. The Sisters noticed, of course—they always did—but for once, Elmiyra did not care. Let them gossip. Let them see what loyalty looked like, when it was offered without fear.

Evening fell, and the temple filled with the hush of vespers. After the last prayers were said, Elmiyra sought out Brynne in the garden, as promised. She found her by the willow, hands stained green and brown, face streaked with the sweat and exertion of honest labor.

“Do you wish to walk?” Elmiyra asked.

Brynne nodded, wiping her brow. They set off along the garden’s perimeter, their footsteps soft on the damp earth. For a long time, neither spoke.

Finally, Brynne broke the silence. “I didn’t mean to say it out loud,” she confessed, voice trembling. “But I think about it sometimes. What it would be like, if you were my real mother.”

Elmiyra felt something shift inside her, a deep and ancient ache she had long ago given up hope of soothing. “If it comforts you, you may call me that,” she said, her own voice gone oddly rough. “But only in private. The temple would not understand.”

Brynne looked up, stunned, then managed a smile—small, but genuine. “Thank you,” she said. “Mom.”

Elmiyra placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and this time she did not draw back. They finished the circuit of the garden together, neither rushing nor lingering, and when they returned to the cloister, Brynne squeezed Elmiyra’s hand before letting go.

Later, alone in her quarters, Elmiyra lit a single candle and sat in silence, letting the events of the day settle in her bones. She thought of the promise she had made to herself, all those months ago: that she would protect Brynne, no matter what the cost. Now, she realized, the cost was not what she had feared. It was simply the risk of caring, of letting another person into the fortress she had built around her own wounded heart.

It was not a risk she regretted. Not anymore.

Warning

That night, the temple’s silence felt heavier than usual, as though the weight of every prayer and confession pressed against the ancient stones, refusing to dissipate. Elmiyra’s quarters were as sparse as ever—no keepsakes, no luxuries, only her bed, a battered desk, and a half-melted candle guttering on the sill. She sat in the center of the room, legs crossed, eyes half-lidded, fingers steepled in the complicated gesture that facilitated trance. In this state, she hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness, her thoughts uncoupling from the day’s obligations and arranging themselves into patterns old as her tenure at the temple. The emptiness was not unpleasant. It was, in fact, the closest thing to home she had ever known.

The trance was deep tonight, but it could not hold against the sound that broke it: a faint, sharp tap at the window. Elmiyra did not move at first. Ravens were common visitors—even at this hour, some of the more impertinent would beg for scraps or attempt to nest on her ledge—but this noise was more than a peck; it was urgent, almost frantic, a rapid staccato that felt as if it might crack the glass.

She opened her eyes. The chamber was awash in moonlight, making the shadows blue and deep. Outside the window, a raven perched, its feathers ruffled and wet, its eyes bright with something like panic. It battered the pane again, wings flared for balance.

Elmiyra rose, her heartbeat quickening. She unlatched the window and slid it open. The bird hopped onto the ledge, cocked its head, then let out a short, guttural croak that was unmistakably a warning. The temple’s ravens had always served as the Raven Queen’s eyes and messengers. She knew, then, that something was very wrong.

She threw on her robe and, without bothering with shoes, padded silently down the corridor. The torch sconces were unlit, by design—night was a time for quiet reflection, not activity—but her elven eyes required little light. She moved with the caution of a predator, hugging the wall, every sense tuned to the slightest anomaly.

She rounded the first bend and paused, drawing in a deep breath. The air had changed: a faint trace of oil, maybe lampblack, and beneath that, the metallic tang of exposed steel. Not a sound, though. Whoever was here was disciplined, or inhumanly quiet.

Elmiyra pressed forward, bypassing the main staircase in favor of a narrow service passage. From the floor below, she heard a door ease open, followed by the faintest footstep—a shift of weight, nothing more. There were no night watchmen at the temple, nor did the acolytes ever stir at this hour. Whoever prowled the corridors was neither pilgrim nor priest.

She eased down the stairs, one hand ready at her side. At the landing, she peered through the latticework, down into the nave. Three figures moved with unnatural fluidity between the pews, each shrouded in dark cloth, faces masked except for the eyes. They spread out, methodical, each one searching a different alcove. Elmiyra took in the details—gloves, close-fitting hoods, weapons tied down to minimize noise. Professionals.

One lingered at the door to the side chapel, listening. When the latch gave, he slipped in, noiseless. Elmiyra followed, keeping to the wall, and reached the chapel’s entry just in time to see the intruder rifling through the small chest where the Sisters kept the ceremonial objects. The thief was efficient—discarding the valuables, searching only for a specific item. His movements were so precise that Elmiyra felt a chill, an echo of a long-ago nightmare.

She retreated down the hall, back to the nave. She did not have to wait long before the intruders converged, a trio of black shapes pooling in the moonlight. She heard, with grim satisfaction, the quiet click of a signal—one tapping a gloved finger against the hilt of a blade, then two, then one again.

They headed for the garden. Elmiyra followed, bare feet silent on the cold tile, robe pulled close. As she passed the vestibule, another raven slammed into the stained-glass window, leaving a streak of feathers and blood. Elmiyra felt the message as a pulse in her head: they are coming, they are coming, they are coming.

At the garden gate, the three figures paused. One knelt, running his fingers through the earth where Brynne had worked only hours before. He stood, looked at his compatriots, and jerked his chin toward the west wing—the novice dormitories.

Elmiyra stepped into their path, letting her own shadow fall across the stones. She did not speak, merely waited.

The leader, tall and broad, advanced a pace, then stopped. His eyes narrowed above the mask. “Out of our way, witch,” he hissed.

Elmiyra smiled, a small, joyless thing. “You are trespassing on sacred ground,” she said. “I suggest you leave before the goddess collects your souls.”

One of the others—the smallest, but with a coiled, vicious energy—let out a sharp laugh. “She won’t do it. The archives say the Reaper of the Capitol has gone soft. They say she’s just a bureaucrat now.”

Elmiyra let her eyes go cold. “Try me.”

For a second, the two regarded each other, measuring and weighing. Then the tall one spoke, his voice deadly calm. “Grab her. Make her tell us where the girl is.”

Elmiyra’s blood turned to ice. She knew, now, who they were. The Order of Nemesis trained assassins in Volfast; they called them Shades, for their mastery of darkness and their willingness to do anything, anything, in the name of the goddess of retribution. The stories said they could kill a man before his scream left his throat, that their loyalty was so absolute they would take their own lives if commanded.

Elmiyra did not hesitate. She raised her right hand, summoning the Reaper’s scythe in a single, fluid motion. The weapon appeared in a flash of darkness, the blade blacker than the spaces between the stars, the haft inscribed with runes that glimmered sickly blue. The sight stopped the assassins in their tracks.

“You do not want to do this,” Elmiyra said, voice low. “I am no longer merciful.”

The small one moved first, springing forward in a blur of motion. Elmiyra pivoted, bringing the scythe up, catching the attack on the shaft and pushing back with force enough to stagger the Shade. The tall one came next, drawing twin daggers and slicing at Elmiyra’s unprotected left side. She twisted, letting the blade graze her sleeve, then lashed out with the butt of the scythe, catching him full in the chest.

The third assassin hesitated, then produced a slim crossbow from beneath his cloak. Elmiyra spotted it in time and ducked, the bolt whistling overhead and embedding in the wall with a thunk. She advanced, using the scythe’s reach to keep the assassins at bay, her movements a dance learned long before any of them had drawn breath.

A lull, and the three regrouped, circling her in the moonlit garden. Elmiyra could feel the old instincts kicking in, every nerve alive with purpose. For centuries, she had believed this part of herself dead, or at least dormant. It was not. It was never dead.

“You know why we’re here,” said the tall one, voice almost regretful. “Give us the girl, and you’ll die quick.”

Elmiyra bared her teeth. “You’ll have to earn it.”

The next attack came as a coordinated strike: the small one feinted left, the crossbowman fired, and the leader charged head-on, daggers flashing. Elmiyra parried the first, dodged the second, and met the third with a savage backswing. The scythe bit deep, and the assassin collapsed, clutching his abdomen. The other two fell back, wariness overtaking arrogance.

“Tell your master,” Elmiyra said, panting now, “that the girl is under my protection. No force in Volfast will take her.”

The small one glared, but the crossbowman hesitated, weighing the odds. Elmiyra pressed her advantage, advancing step by step, her weapon raised.

The two assassins retreated, grabbing their wounded companion. Elmiyra did not pursue—they would not dare a second attempt tonight. She watched until they vanished over the low wall, then slumped against the willow, catching her breath.

The garden was still. Somewhere in the branches above, a raven croaked, as if in approval. Elmiyra looked at the blood on her hands, the scythe’s blade glistening in the moonlight, and felt a rush of something like shame, followed by a deeper, colder satisfaction.

She let the scythe dissolve, then headed back toward the temple. She would have to check on Brynne, warn the Sisters, and barricade the doors. There would be questions in the morning, but for now, she allowed herself a single moment of solitude, breathing in the cold, living air, the taste of danger sharp on her tongue.

She had never wanted to be a mother. She certainly had never intended to kill for it. And yet, as she wiped the blood from her sleeve, she knew she would—without hesitation, without regret—if it meant protecting what was hers.

Confrontation

It was made painfully clear to her that her warning had gone unheeded when she was once again roused from her trance by the persistent clacking of a raven’s beak on glass a few days later.

The temple’s main hall was never meant for violence. Its vaulted arches and candlelit naves were designed to soothe, to hush the noise of mortal suffering into a kind of peace. But when Elmiyra entered, scythe in hand, she saw at once how quickly sanctuary could become a slaughterhouse.

The Shades were already there. Not the battered survivors from the garden, but a fresh trio—larger, better armed, and moving with a coordinated grace that bespoke years of drilling in darkness. They fanned out across the polished floor, boots leaving no trace. Their leader, a woman with ice-blonde hair shorn close to the skull and eyes like dull silver, barked a single word: “Now.”

The world contracted. One second, the room was still; the next, Elmiyra was beset on all sides. The blonde Shade hurled herself forward in a blur, blades spinning. Her compatriots—one wiry and short, one massive and masked—came from the flanks, the smaller lobbing glass globes that hissed and spat caustic fumes, the larger brandishing a spiked chain that whistled through the air like a predator’s call.

Elmiyra met the assault with every ounce of the old violence. She let the scythe’s blade widen, darkness blooming from the edge. The first globe shattered on the floor near her feet, releasing a plume of yellow-green gas. Elmiyra spun the scythe in a tight circle, creating a vacuum that sucked the smoke aside. The next moment, she ducked beneath the whistling chain, felt the wind of it graze her scalp, and parried the leading Shade’s blade with the haft of her weapon.

The impact reverberated through her bones. The woman’s strength was monstrous, outstripping Elmiyra’s elven frame. But the Reaper had centuries of muscle memory, and she let instinct guide her. With a twist of the wrists, she unbalanced the Shade and drove the butt of her scythe into the soft tissue of her abdomen. The assassin doubled over, but the short one was already there, daggers flashing. Elmiyra caught the first, but the second sliced open her sleeve, drawing a line of blood along her forearm. She grunted, kicked back, and drove her heel into the short one’s knee. There was a crunch, then a muffled shriek.

The chain snapped out again, catching Elmiyra across the left shoulder and spinning her into the front pew. She crashed into the wood, splinters stinging her cheek. The giant closed, swinging the chain in a deadly arc, but Elmiyra rolled beneath it, then leapt up behind him, using the momentum to slice the scythe across the back of his calves. The man toppled, bellowing. Elmiyra followed, planting one foot on his back and bringing the blade down toward his neck.

She did not expect the next move. The blonde Shade, recovered and feral, threw herself between Elmiyra and her downed companion, catching the scythe’s blade in her bare hands. Blood sprayed, but she held it there, grinning through gritted teeth, and used her own momentum to wrench the weapon aside. Elmiyra let go, flipping backwards to avoid a knife-thrust from the short Shade, and landed on the far side of the aisle.

For a heartbeat, the world was still. The two standing assassins regrouped, bloodied but alive. The third struggled upright, limping heavily. All three regarded Elmiyra with a mixture of hatred and awe.

“Not bad for a heretic,” the blonde hissed. She wiped her bloody palms on her cloak, then signaled the others with a gesture.

They advanced as one. Elmiyra flexed her hand, and the scythe returned, its edge now seething with a black fire. She brought it around in a wide sweep, forcing the trio to split. The short one tried to dart in, but Elmiyra anticipated the move and reversed the scythe, catching him below the ribs. He crumpled, face frozen in surprise. The giant, seeing his comrade fall, charged in a blind fury, chain whirling.

Elmiyra side-stepped the first strike, then the second, then darted in close and caught the chain with the blade of her scythe. With a jerk, she yanked the weapon from the assassin’s grip. The chain rattled across the stone, and Elmiyra followed up with a kick to the man’s knee. He buckled. The scythe swept in a tight arc, severing his throat. Blood fanned out, red on blue tile.

The blonde Shade did not retreat. She met Elmiyra in the center of the nave, the two of them circling, each waiting for the other to make a mistake.

“You’ll never keep her safe,” the assassin said, voice low and intense. “They’ll keep coming. She belongs to us.”

“She belongs to no one,” Elmiyra replied. “Least of all to you.”

The final duel was fast and silent. Elmiyra’s style was precise, utterly ruthless; the Shade’s was that of a cornered animal, every move designed to end the fight. The scythe and blade clashed, sending up sparks. The Shade got inside her guard, scored a shallow cut on Elmiyra’s hip. Elmiyra spun, using the haft of the scythe to knock the blade aside, then drove her knee into the assassin’s sternum. The Shade staggered. Elmiyra pressed her advantage, swinging the scythe in a horizontal cut.

The assassin was fast, but not fast enough. The blade caught her at the shoulder, cleaving deep. She dropped the sword and fell to one knee. Elmiyra stepped in, scythe at her throat.

“Who sent you?” Elmiyra demanded.

The Shade’s lips curled in a bloody smile. “Nemesis. The Order will not stop until the girl is returned. You think you’re protecting her? You’re just prolonging her agony.”

Elmiyra’s grip tightened on the scythe. “Why does she matter to you?”

“She is a vessel,” the Shade said, voice already failing. “The blood, the power—she was made for a purpose. You stole her from her fate.” The assassin’s hand fumbled at her belt, fingers closing around a small glass vial. Elmiyra recognized the gesture at once, but she was too late. The Shade bit down on the vial, shattering it. A blue foam spilled from her mouth, and her eyes rolled back.

Elmiyra let her fall. The woman convulsed for a moment, then went still, eyes open and staring.

The hall was quiet again, save for the drip of blood and the distant cawing of the ravens. Elmiyra staggered to the nearest bench and sat, breath ragged, wounds singing. She surveyed the carnage—two dead, one dying, the sacred ground ruined. She felt no victory, only a dull, grinding exhaustion.

The threat was not ended. The Order would come again, and next time, they would bring more than assassins. They would send monsters, or men who might as well be monsters. And when that happened, Elmiyra would be ready.

She rose, limped to the door, and called for Yanna. The Sister arrived within seconds, eyes going wide at the destruction.

“Get the Sisters together,” Elmiyra said. “Barricade the dormitories. And find Brynne. Tell her to stay in her room and wait for me.”

Yanna nodded and ran, her bare feet slapping the stone.

Elmiyra turned back to the altar. For the first time since the attack began, she allowed herself a moment to grieve—not for the dead assassins, but for the lost illusion of safety, the certainty that things could ever be simple.

The price of protecting someone was high. She had known that, but knowing did not make it easier. Still, as she stood in the ruined hall, she realized she would pay it a thousand times, if only to keep Brynne from ever knowing the same darkness that had once claimed her.

From the rafters above, a raven settled, silent, watching. Elmiyra met its gaze, and in that black, unblinking eye, she saw the same promise she had made to herself: I will not let you fall. Not while I breathe.

Not ever.

Aftermath

The moon bore witness. Its pallid glow poured into the temple, rendering every angle of violence in unsparing chiaroscuro: the cracks in the walls, the spilled blood still wet and black against the marble, the corpses of three Shades contorted in postures that, even in death, hinted at discipline and something like pride. Elmiyra stood among them, her white hair streaked with crimson, pale skin catching the blue sheen of moonlight and making her seem more apparition than flesh.

Around her, the temple’s sisters moved with the caution of battlefield scavengers, tending to what minor wounds had been inflicted on the sanctum itself. A shattered window here, a splintered rail there. They eyed the bodies with a mixture of awe and horror, unsure whether to avert their gaze from the violence or venerate it as a new form of sacrament. The youngest novices clung to each other near the doors, wide-eyed and silent, unable to look away from the tangle of limbs at the center of the room.

Elmiyra registered their presence without acknowledging it. She was elsewhere, breathing in the aftermath, calculating the odds of another attack before sunrise. Her hands worked with a practiced, mechanical rhythm—wiping down the scythe blade with a strip of black silk torn from her own sleeve, checking the haft for splinters, resetting the runes along the metal in case of magical tampering. Her face, streaked with sweat and blood, betrayed nothing. Not satisfaction, not regret. Only the unyielding neutrality of a professional finishing a job.

Once the blade was clean, she knelt beside the nearest corpse. This one—a woman, blond and corded with muscle—had succumbed almost instantly to the poison, but the rictus on her face suggested that her final moments had been filled with hatred, not fear. Elmiyra studied her for a long second, then closed the woman’s eyes with two fingers, murmuring a phrase in the tongue of the old priests. Not a benediction, precisely; the dead had no further use for the gods, and the gods even less use for them. Still, tradition mattered. Even here, especially here.

She straightened and looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for something among the rafters. Then, with a slow exhale, she reached into the deep pocket of her robe and withdrew a pair of dried black raisins. She set them on her palm, clicked her tongue twice, and waited. Within seconds, two ravens dropped from their perch on the temple roof, made their way through a broken window, and landed at her feet with the grace of birds who had long ago learned the etiquette of sacred ground.

Elmiyra regarded them with the same flat affect she had turned on the dead. She held out her hand, and the larger of the two hopped onto her wrist, talons digging into the battered flesh. “You know your business,” she said, voice barely a breath. “To the APS. Tell them: three down, more expected.” The bird cocked its head, then plucked one raisin from her palm and swallowed it whole. Elmiyra whispered something inaudible into the black ruff of feathers, a syllable that seemed to twist the air. The raven took wing, vanishing into the night with a single, hoarse caw.

The second bird, smaller but more alert, remained. Elmiyra fed it the last raisin, then wiped her hand on her robe. “You go to the Watch,” she said. “Tell them to send someone who can count.” She bent down, gripping the bird’s head between her thumb and forefinger, and whispered a different message—one meant to survive the journey through the labyrinth of the Capitol’s bureaucracy. The raven made a low, amused sound, as if mocking the foolishness of men, then flapped away in a scatter of loose feathers.

Task done, Elmiyra allowed herself to relax. The tremor in her hands grew more pronounced as the adrenaline fled. She closed her eyes and pressed her palm to the base of her skull, counting each pulse of pain as the blood returned to her limbs. She had fought hundreds of battles in her long, fractured life, but each one left her a little more diminished, a little more aware of the limits of the body she had once believed unbreakable.

Behind her, the sisters continued their slow orbit of the sanctuary, collecting bits of shattered glass and replacing scattered stones. One, braver than the rest, approached with a rag and a basin of cold water. “Head Priestess,” she said, voice trembling but resolute. “You are wounded.”

Elmiyra opened her eyes and looked at the woman—not as a superior, but as an equal, another soul burdened with more duty than she had ever asked for. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Tend to the others. Then burn what remains of the dead.” The words came out sharper than intended, and she immediately softened them. “I will handle the rites. You need only carry the bodies to the pyre.”

The Sister bowed, then retreated, relief and respect mingling on her face. Elmiyra watched her go, then forced herself to rise. Her knees ached; a bruise bloomed across her left hip where the Shade’s chain had caught her. She ignored it. There would be time for pain, later.

She surveyed the scene one last time, committing it to memory—the pattern of blood on the stones, the blackening stain beneath the lectern where the smallest assassin had finally bled out. Each detail would matter, eventually. Each detail was a clue in the slow, patient chess game that had brought Volfast’s Shades to the Capitol in the first place.

Elmiyra dismissed her scythe and turned toward the doors. The air in the hall was cool and dry, the stone corridors empty save for the faint echo of her footsteps. As she walked, she let her mind wander to the child, to Brynne, who even now was likely curled up in her cot, waiting for the footsteps that would signal either safety or disaster.

Elmiyra stopped in front of Brynne’s door, the weight of fatigue settling heavy on her shoulders. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and let herself feel it—the exhaustion, the fear, the certainty that this was only the beginning.

Then she straightened, set her hand on the latch, and prepared to tell the girl the truth.

Brynne’s room was not far from the main corridor, but in the hush of the temple’s midnight, it might as well have been another world. Elmiyra entered without knocking; the door swung inward on well-oiled hinges, letting in a wedge of cool light and the faint scent of old incense. Brynne was awake, perched atop the blanket with her knees drawn to her chest. A young sister sat beside her, hands folded in her lap, eyes darting between the girl and the shadowed corridor as if expecting an intruder at any moment.

The air in the room was charged—somewhere between sanctuary and siege. Brynne’s black wings had manifested, half-obscuring the wall behind her. In this state, she seemed larger than herself: a creature built for flight. The wings were drawn tight, feathers overlapping in a defensive wall, each tremor telegraphing the fear that Brynne would not voice aloud.

When she saw Elmiyra, Brynne’s breath caught. Her eyes, blue and unblinking, locked on the blood spattered across Elmiyra’s robe, the fresh cut along her forearm, the crust of gore near her collarbone. There was a brief, unbearable silence in which the only sound was Brynne’s rapid, uneven breathing.

Elmiyra glanced at the young sister, who was pale but determined to hold her post. Elmiyra gave her a gentle nod—an old signal meaning: stand down, this one is mine—and the sister rose, bowing her head before slipping out. As the door closed behind her, Elmiyra let her face relax, abandoning the neutrality that served so well in public.

She approached the cot slowly, every gesture measured. “You’re safe,” she said, voice pitched low and even. “It’s over for tonight.”

Brynne’s wings shuddered, then drew tighter, the tips digging into the wood of the bedframe. “What happened?” Her voice was hoarse, stripped of its usual precision.

Elmiyra knelt beside the bed, so that her eyes were level with the girl’s. “Some Shades from Volfast came for you,” she said. “They failed. They’re dead.”

The words hung in the air, simple and absolute. Brynne’s hands, which had been gripping her shins so tightly the knuckles blanched, began to tremble. For a moment, it seemed as though she might shrink away, vanish entirely into the dark envelope of her own wings. Instead, she let her knees fall apart, uncoiling herself just enough to breathe.

“Did they hurt anyone?” Brynne asked, not quite meeting Elmiyra’s eyes.

“No, they never made it past me,” Elmiyra said. “I only have some bruises, a few cuts. I will tend to them later.”

They sat in silence for a while, the kind that wasn’t empty but brimming with all the things left unspoken. Elmiyra saw the way Brynne’s gaze kept flicking to the blood on her sleeve, the way her breath quickened each time she noticed it anew. She took the hint, and with deliberate care, rolled up the stained fabric and pressed her hand over the wound, staunching the slow trickle of blood with the other sleeve.

“You can touch it, if you need,” Elmiyra said. “It isn’t as bad as it looks.”

Brynne hesitated, then extended her hand. The touch was feather-light, barely skimming the torn flesh, but the girl flinched as though she expected it to burn. “It’s real,” she said, more to herself than to Elmiyra.

“Yes,” Elmiyra said. “It’s real. But I’ll heal.”

The girl’s fingers lingered on the cut, then moved to the edge of the robe, tracing the line where the blood had soaked through to the skin beneath. “You could have died,” Brynne whispered.

“I didn’t.” Elmiyra covered Brynne’s hand with her own, stilling the tremor. “And I don’t intend to, not anytime soon.”

Brynne slid closer on the cot, the black wings folding in just enough to let Elmiyra into her orbit. She reached out, first with only her eyes, searching Elmiyra’s face for permission, then with a hesitant hand. She again touched the gash on Elmiyra’s forearm, fingertips featherlight but trembling, as if she feared what she would find inside the wound.

A silence passed between them, almost ritual in its weight. Brynne closed her eyes and, very softly, set her palm over the cut. Her lips moved in a silent plea, not a prayer in any language Elmiyra recognized—just a child’s wish for the world to be less cruel. And then, from beneath Brynne’s hand, a warmth began to grow: first a pinprick of light, then a steady golden pulse, its radiance so pure it made the room itself seem to breathe.

Elmiyra watched, transfixed, as the wound beneath Brynne’s flesh began to knit itself together. The blood vanished; the skin flushed, then cooled. In a matter of heartbeats, the wound was nothing but a faint pink line, as if the violence had never happened. Incredibly, she felt the same occur for the cut on her ribs, still hidden beneath her robes.

Neither spoke. Elmiyra could not find words for the sensation that crept through her arm—a tingling so unlike her own magic that it made her tremble. Where the Raven Queen’s power was cold, clean, and sharp as obsidian, this was the opposite: a warmth that threatened to flood the body, to overwhelm every defense. It was the sort of healing that felt both miraculous and terrifying, as if the universe itself paused to reconsider the rules.

When it was done, Brynne quickly withdrew her hand and folded her wings tightly against her back, her features drawn and terrified. She could not meet Elmiyra’s gaze.

“I know I’m not supposed to,” Brynne whispered, voice small, “but that looked like it hurt.”

Elmiyra found herself reaching for the right words and found none. At least, none that would suffice for the guilt that bled from the girl’s face. She touched Brynne’s shoulder—not as a priestess or a protector, but as someone who understood too well what it meant to survive by breaking rules you did not write.

“You did well,” Elmiyra said, keeping her tone measured, almost clinical. “There is nothing wrong with easing pain where you find it. The world would be a kinder place if more people did.” She paused, searching Brynne’s face for some flicker of understanding or relief. “Why do you say you’re not supposed to?”

Brynne blinked, her eyes gone glassy. For a moment, she looked as if she might recant, or simply shrink back into the wings and refuse further questioning. But the question itself was an anchor, and Brynne had spent too long floating in uncertainty to let it pass untethered.

“The first time I did it—really did it, I mean—I was taken from my parents that night. The Shades came before sunrise. They said I was using what belonged to the Order. That it was a crime against Nemesis. They hurt me, they hurt my parents. That was the last time I ever saw them.” She hunched her shoulders, folding her arms across her chest as if to hide the memory. “I’m scared that now that I’ve done it again, they’ll take you too.”

Elmiyra did not answer at once. The weight of Brynne’s fear was real, a force that could not be dispelled by clever words or hollow assurances. But Elmiyra had lived enough lives to know that even the bitterest truths could sometimes be molded into a kind of shield.

She drew herself upright, letting the authority of her office settle back onto her bones. “Listen to me,” she said, not unkindly, but with the calm finality of a judge rendering sentence. “The Order has no claim here. Not on you, not on me.” She took Brynne’s hand, gently but insistently, so that the girl had no choice but to look at her. “They are not gods. They cannot reach beyond their city. And if they ever try again, they will find this temple more than ready.”

Brynne’s mouth shaped a protest, but Elmiyra cut her off. “You are not a weapon. You are not an object, and you have not committed any crime. You have a gift, and you are free to use it as you wish. Do you understand?”

The question hovered, as if daring Brynne to believe in the possibility of her own agency. At last, Brynne nodded, once, the motion small but unmistakably real.

Elmiyra let go of her hand. “Good,” she said, a hint of warmth entered her voice. “Then you should try to sleep. The Sisters will take turns on watch; no one will get close unless I want them to.”

Brynne looked at her again, the terror in her eyes softened by something approaching hope. “Will you stay?” she asked, the question almost inaudible.

“I will, at least until you fall asleep,” Elmiyra said. She picked up a chair and set it beside the cot, then seated herself, hands folded in her lap, posture loose and unthreatening. Brynne watched, then, after a moment, lay down.

For the first time since entering the room, Elmiyra saw the tension in Brynne’s shoulders loosen. The wings relaxed, splaying less like armor and more like the natural extension of her body. Brynne drew in a long, shuddering breath, then let it out. “I thought I was supposed to protect you,” she said, the old guilt creeping back in.

“You did,” Elmiyra replied. “You gave me a reason.”

The words startled Brynne, as though she hadn’t considered the possibility that she was anything more than a liability. She closed her eyes, letting the truth of it sink in.

They remained that way for a while—Brynne breathing slower, Elmiyra’s hand covering hers, the silent companionship almost as potent a comfort as any prayer. At last, Brynne opened her eyes again. “Will they come back?”

“Probably,” Elmiyra said. “But next time, we’ll be ready.”

Brynne nodded, her mouth set in a line of determination far older than her years. “Thank you,” Brynne said, and meant it.

The Reaper of the Raven Queen inclined her head. “Rest. I’ll be here, if you need me.”

The Watch

A few hours later, the smaller of the two Ravens reemerged from the night. The bird alighted on her windowsill, croaked three times, and vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Elmiyra made her way down the empty corridors, blood cleaned from her face but still caked in the folds of her robe, and waited in the receiving chamber.

The Capitol Watch sergeant arrived precisely on the hour. He wore a full dress uniform—deep red surcoat over plate, a constellation of brass insignia glinting at the shoulder—and carried himself with the stiffness of a man unused to the company of clerics, or perhaps of women. His hair was black and cropped to the scalp, his skin ruddy from years spent patrolling the riverfront. He paused on the threshold, eyeing the chamber as if suspecting a trap. The room was designed for intimidation: black marble floors, obsidian pillars, and a ceiling so high it disappeared into shadow. The only light came from floating orbs suspended at regular intervals, casting a cold, artificial daylight that revealed every flaw in the sergeant’s composure.

Elmiyra sat at the head of the long table, hands folded, eyes white and unblinking. The effect was intentional; she had learned long ago that mortals preferred their clergy either harmless or terrifying, and she had never been interested in the former. The sergeant hesitated, then marched to the appointed spot, bowed stiffly, and stood at attention.

“Head Priestess,” he said, voice carrying the cadence of rote. “I am here to verify your report.”

Elmiyra inclined her head. “You may proceed. The bodies are in the courtyard.”

He blinked, caught off guard by the lack of small talk. “I—thank you. If you would accompany me?”

She rose, the simple motion somehow commanding. Together, they walked through the temple’s main corridor, their footsteps echoing against stone. Elmiyra kept her pace slow, letting the sergeant notice the details: the freshly cleaned benches, the faint trace of blood along the baseboards, the Sisters working in pairs to cover the broken windows in a thick canvas. The atmosphere was tense, but not panicked; it was the tension of people who had long ago accepted that violence was as much a part of faith as prayer.

When they reached the courtyard, the bodies were still there, neatly arranged in a row beneath the shadow of the willow. The Sisters had covered their faces with black veils, but the rest was left bare for inspection. The sergeant stopped a few paces away, then circled the corpses, taking notes on a battered notepad.

He crouched by the larger man, peeled back the veil, and studied the wound at his neck. “Clean strike,” he muttered. “He never stood a chance.”

Elmiyra said nothing. She let the sergeant draw his own conclusions, watching as he catalogued the marks of violence: the shattered knee on the short assassin, the ragged wound on the blonde’s shoulder, the old burn scars on the third. He finished his examination, stood, and faced her squarely.

“I have to be honest, Head Priestess,” he said, voice now low. “This is not good. Harboring someone wanted by the Order of Nemesis puts the entire city at risk. There will be diplomatic repercussions.”

Elmiyra regarded him with the cold, deliberate patience she reserved for funerals and interrogations. “The Raven Queen’s temple is neutral ground. We offer sanctuary to any who seek it, regardless of the politics outside these walls.”

The sergeant stiffened, fingers tightening on the notepad. “You know as well as I do that the Council will not see it that way. They’ll pressure you to hand over the girl.”

“She is under my protection,” Elmiyra replied, voice soft but utterly final. “Anyone who wishes to take her will have to go through me.”

The sergeant’s eyes flicked to the black stains on the pavers, then back to Elmiyra’s face. For a moment, his professional mask slipped, revealing something like fear. “Are you threatening a member of the Watch?”

“I am stating a fact,” Elmiyra said. She stepped closer, and the sergeant, despite himself, took half a step back. “The Order has already sent their best. I am still here.”

He swallowed, jaw working as he searched for an appropriate response. Finally, he snapped his notepad shut, bowed more deeply than before, and said, “I’ll relay your statement to the Council. But you should prepare for more trouble, Head Priestess. Volfast will not let this go.”

Elmiyra inclined her head again, less out of courtesy than out of habit. “I am always prepared.”

The sergeant lingered a second longer, as if hoping she would soften her stance or offer a compromise. When none came, he turned and walked briskly out of the courtyard, his boots leaving smudges on the newly cleaned stones.

Elmiyra watched him go, then looked down at the row of dead assassins. She considered the long, slow road ahead—the endless bureaucracy, the coming investigations, the certainty that this was only the first in a series of assaults. She wondered, not for the first time, how much longer the temple could hold against the pressures of a world that saw mercy as a weakness.

She returned to the main corridor. The air was heavy with the knowledge that violence lingered just outside the walls, waiting for its next invitation.

Elmiyra paused at the foot of the grand staircase, letting the weight of her decision settle into her bones. She thought of Brynne—so small, so fiercely alive—and of the promise she had made.

She would not break it, not for the Council, not for the Watch, not for the gods themselves.

Another Visitor

The official visit came just a few hours before dawn, hours after the Watch sergeant had retreated. This time, there was no need for a summons; the visitor announced herself with a sound like a bell struck underwater, the air bending and collapsing in on itself at the edge of the temple’s forecourt. Iliyria Sylren stood in the moonlight, boots planted square on the cobblestones, her long silver hair tied back in a haphazard knot. The loose threads caught the moonlight and made her seem momentarily crowned.

Her robe was practical, deep blue and trimmed with the APS insignia rather than the ceremonial regalia of the Capitol’s mages. She carried no weapons, but her bearing was that of someone who could conjure disaster at a moment’s notice and then dispatch it single-handedly, all before breakfast. She surveyed the temple’s facade, took in the broken window and the faintest lingering trace of ozone in the air, and let out a soft, approving whistle.

Elmiyra met her on the steps, flanked by two of her more stalwart Sisters. Iliyria dipped her head in greeting—a gesture of respect rather than subordination—then offered her hand, palm up.

“Head Priestess,” she said. “You’re a difficult woman to catch awake.”

“I sleep little,” Elmiyra replied, taking the offered hand with her own. “But you already knew that.”

Iliyria grinned, then turned her attention to the shadowed forms at the far end of the courtyard. “Three of them, yes?”

“Yes,” Elmiyra said. “Two women, one man. Trained in Volfast. The best the Order has.”

Iliyria made a low, considering sound, then walked briskly to the corpses. She crouched beside the blond Shade, prodded the wound at her shoulder, and shook her head. “You made a mess,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

Elmiyra stood beside her, arms folded. “They forced my hand.”

“They always do.” Iliyria inspected the body with the efficiency of a field surgeon, lifting the woman’s sleeve to reveal a tattoo—a simplified depiction of a downwards pointing sword, a set of scales balancing on its hilt, the mark of the Nemesis cult. “They won’t stop. You know that.”

“I do,” Elmiyra said. “But I had to make it clear that we are not helpless.”

Iliyria stood, dusted her hands on her robe, and turned to face the temple. “May we walk?”

Elmiyra nodded, dismissing the Sisters with a look. Together, they circled the perimeter of the grounds, following the narrow path that wound through the ruined garden and around the reflecting pool. The night was cold, and every sound seemed magnified by the emptiness—crickets, the distant shouts of a drunk in Riverside, the soft, relentless drip of water from a cracked spout.

“I’ve been authorized to offer a detail,” Iliyria said, her voice conversational. “APS Runners, on rotation. They’ll keep the garden under surveillance, monitor the gates, and assist with any further attacks.”

Elmiyra considered this. “I do not want the temple to become a garrison.”

“It won’t,” Iliyria said, shaking her head. “They’re good people. Discreet. Most of them have no fondness for the Order, or for Volfast in general.”

Elmiyra arched an eyebrow. “You expect me to trust your Runners to keep their discipline?”

“I expect you to trust me to handle my own.” Iliyria’s tone was direct, but not confrontational. She let the silence ride for a moment before continuing. “We’ll reinforce your magical wards, too. The Wizard’s Tower is sending a team in the morning to consult on the best structure for the perimeter. There’s a theory about layered thresholds—it’s boring, I won’t bother you—but it’ll make the temple impossible to breach without setting off alarms in half the city.”

Elmiyra gave a small, genuine smile. “I appreciate your efficiency.”

Iliyria shrugged. “It’s easier to overprepare than to explain a disaster to the Council. And I suspect Volfast isn’t done making trouble.” She stopped, looking out over the reflecting pool. “They’ve put a price on Brynne’s head.”

Elmiyra stiffened. “That will make things…difficult.”

“It already has,” Iliyria agreed. She turned, her face uncharacteristically grave. “There’s one more thing. The Council wants a statement from you, for the record. They’ll want to know you’re not sheltering a criminal, or a rogue experiment. Just a child.”

“She is a child,” Elmiyra said, her voice sharp.

“I know. But you have to convince them.”

Elmiyra looked away, her gaze following the moon’s reflection as it broke and scattered in the pool’s surface. “I can do that.”

Iliyria nodded, satisfied. “I’ll draft the document. You can edit as you see fit. I’ll come by tomorrow night, bring you the first shift of Runners. They’re handpicked; you’ll like them.” She paused, then added, “For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”

Elmiyra smiled, thin and weary. “Thank you.” She really meant it.

They finished their circuit of the temple, returning to the steps where they’d begun. Iliyria paused for a moment, clearly receiving some sort of message or sign, then grinned. “I have another engagement to get to. The city never sleeps, does it?”

“Neither do I,” Elmiyra said, echoing the earlier joke.

Iliyria saluted, a parody of military formality, then shimmered out of existence with a flash and a pop, leaving behind a faint trace of ozone and the memory of her confidence.

Elmiyra watched the spot where she’d vanished, then turned and looked up at the temple’s facade. The repairs had already begun; the Sisters worked even now, guided by ritual as much as by necessity. The wounds would heal in time. But Elmiyra knew the real work had just begun.

She climbed the steps, pausing at the threshold to look back at the moonlit garden. There were shadows everywhere, but she felt, for the first time in weeks, that she had allies in the darkness.

She closed the door behind her and prepared to keep watch until morning.

Allies and Enemies

Time in the temple reordered itself. With the arrival of the APS Runners, every hour became both safer and more fraught. For the first time in years, the temple had night guards—two posted at the main entrance, a third rotating the perimeter, a fourth stationed just outside Brynne’s door. They wore the blue livery of the Arcane Protection Service, but kept their weapons sheathed and their conversations discreet. Within days, the Sisters adjusted to their presence; within a week, they were woven into the fabric of daily ritual.

Brynne was the first to test the new order. On the morning after the Runners’ arrival, she crept to the edge of the courtyard and found one of them—an elf barely older than herself, her black hair worn up with one side of her head shaved—practicing knife throws at a set of makeshift targets. She wore a longbow strapped to her back, but there was no quiver in sight. Brynne watched for a few minutes, then mimicked the throws with bits of gravel, a shy smile curling at the edge of her mouth. The Runner noticed, offered her a spare blade, and showed her how to hold it without nicking her own skin.

Wordless lessons followed. Every day after breakfast, Brynne met the elf, Felara, in the courtyard, her wings manifesting at intervals, sometimes for balance, sometimes for speed. She learned how to throw a knife straight and true, how to roll with a fall, how to spot the difference between a shadow and a threat. The Sisters tutted at her tomboyish streak, but Elmiyra watched with something like pride. Brynne was healing, in her own way.

Inside, temple life persisted. Elmiyra resumed her schedule of services—three prayers at sunrise, two at dusk, midnight vigils for the restless or newly dead. Attendance swelled. Some came for the comfort of tradition; others came to gawk at the girl with the wings, or to satisfy their morbid curiosity about the violence that had visited the sacred ground. Elmiyra tolerated the voyeurs, so long as they kept their distance from Brynne and refrained from gossip in the nave. She paid them little mind, focusing instead on the small details that had always anchored her sanity: the alignment of the altar candles, the exactness of the ink strokes in the day’s ledgers, the crisp snap of her vestments when she donned them for high ritual.

The APS Runners made themselves useful in other ways. They patched the holes in the perimeter wall, replaced the shattered windows, and reinforced the wards with a blend of old magic and new technology—arcane runes linked to slim copper wires, which hummed just beneath the touch when you ran your fingers along the stone. One of the Runners, a human with a fondness for pastry, took to helping Sister Yanna with the morning bread deliveries. Another, half-drow and stoic, spent his breaks meditating under the willow tree, undisturbed by the memory of corpses that had lain beneath its branches.

Tension lingered in the small things. Elmiyra checked the wards herself every evening, running her palm along the boundary to feel for weaknesses. Brynne startled at loud noises, her wings snapping open in reflex even when a Sister dropped a bowl or a Runner called out in greeting. The Runners scanned the rooftops with the patience of predators, never letting their guard down, even during services.

Still, it was almost peaceful—until the night it wasn’t.

It was just past vespers when the first sign appeared: a flicker of movement on the roof, gone before the eye could pin it down. The Runner on night perimeter, the archer elf, was first to notice. She paced a slow, deliberate circuit of the temple’s outer wall, senses pricked by the sensation of being watched. On her second pass, she saw the shadow again—long, low, darting from one gable to the next. It did not move like a bird, or a cat, or anything born to ordinary life.

Felara reached for her sending stone, thumbed the emergency rune, and in that instant, all hell broke loose.

Six Shades materialized from the darkness, their cloaks drawn so tight they might as well have been carved from obsidian. They vaulted the wall with inhuman speed, three landing in the garden, three on the main path to the nave. The alarms flared—first magical, then real—as the copper wards crackled and the temple’s old bell peeled out a single, sonorous warning.

Inside, Elmiyra was leading a small group in the final prayer of the evening when the world tilted. The bell’s clang shattered the hymn, sending the Sisters to their feet in a tangle of confusion and fear. Elmiyra barked a command, her voice slicing through the chaos: “Clear the nave. Go, now.”

Elmiyra moved quickly; she summoned the scythe, felt its familiar weight in her hands, and stepped into the main corridor just as the first two Shades breached the entryway.

The Runners had already formed a defensive line: three at the door, two more at the base of the stairs, another sprinting to reinforce from the garden. The Shades were fast, but the Runners were trained for this. The first exchange was a blur of steel and shadow—blades clashed, spells detonated in flashes of blue and violet, and the air filled with the sharp tang of burning ozone.

Elmiyra waded into the fray, scythe flashing in wide arcs that left afterimages burned into the retinas of everyone watching. She was not merciful. The first Shade to approach her lost a hand; the second, a jawbone. The others adapted, keeping their distance, circling with the patience of wolves.

In the courtyard, Brynne crouched behind the willow, heart hammering so loudly she was sure it would draw attention. Felara found her, pressed a knife into her palm, and whispered, “If they come for you, run. If you can’t run, use this.”

Brynne nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Back inside, the fight was not going well. Two Runners were down, one clutching a poisoned wound, the other unconscious from a blow to the head. The Shades pressed forward, methodical and relentless, never speaking, never pausing. Elmiyra held them off as best she could, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they broke the line.

The bell tolled again, desperate and discordant.

Above, on the rooftops, three more Shades circled, waiting for their moment. They moved with preternatural grace, each step calculated to avoid the sightlines of the guards below. As the battle raged at the entrance, the rooftop Shades dropped down to the garden, landing so lightly they barely disturbed the air. One of them spotted Brynne behind the willow, signaled to the others, and began to stalk toward her.

The Runner saw them too late. She shouted a warning, but the lead Shade moved impossibly fast, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Brynne reacted without thinking—she threw the knife, missed by a hand’s breadth, then turned and ran for the chapel door. The other two Shades flanked her, one grabbing her by the hair, the other pinning her wings with a rough, practiced grip.

For a moment, it seemed they would succeed. Brynne struggled, kicked, bit, but the Shades were too strong, too prepared. They dragged her toward the outer wall, intent on escaping with their prize.

And then Elmiyra was there, scythe raised high. She brought it down on the nearest Shade, splitting the mask and the skull beneath in a spray of dark blood. The second Shade released Brynne to defend itself, but Elmiyra had already shifted her stance, sweeping the scythe in a wide arc that forced the assailant back.

The third Shade, seeing its chance lost, turned to flee. Elmiyra let it go; her focus was on Brynne, who lay sprawled in the grass, wings battered but intact.

“Can you stand?” Elmiyra asked, not unkindly.

Brynne nodded, scrambling to her feet.

“Stay behind me,” Elmiyra said. “No matter what happens.”

They advanced together, the Reaper and the girl, toward the melee at the temple entrance.

The line of defense was collapsing. The Shades pressed the advantage, forcing the Runners back step by step. Elmiyra saw the lead Shade, a giant with a mask of black lacquer, raise a sword for the killing blow on the injured Runner at his feet. She charged, scythe humming with energy, and caught the blade on her own weapon. The shock of impact numbed her hands, but she held on, twisting the haft to unbalance her opponent.

The Shades adjusted tactics, two engaging Elmiyra directly while the others circled around to the side corridors. Brynne watched, desperate, as one Shade disappeared down a hallway leading to the safe room.

She hesitated, then broke from Elmiyra’s side, sprinting after the Shade. Felara, seeing her move, followed close behind.

The hallway was long and dimly lit, lined with statues and shadowed alcoves. The Shade was fast, but Brynne was smaller and, for once, her fear made her reckless. She closed the gap just as the Shade reached the reinforced door to the sanctuary. Brynne launched herself at his back, wings flaring for momentum. The impact drove both of them to the ground.

The Shade rolled, tried to pin her, but Brynne bit down on his wrist and wrenched the arm aside. The Runner arrived seconds later, bow in hand. She drew the string back, and an arrow formed of pure light came into being. The Runner finished it with a single, clean shot, then looked at Brynne with something like awe.

“You did it,” the Runner said, breathing hard.

Brynne nodded, wiping blood from her mouth. “So did you.”

They returned to the main hall in time to see the final moments of the battle. Elmiyra, bloodied but unbowed, faced the last of the Shades. The scythe flashed, then stilled. The silence that followed was thicker than any prayer.

The temple was safe, for now. But the cost was obvious—three badly wounded, the nave and the courtyard ruined, and Brynne sitting on the stone floor, wings wrapped around herself, eyes wide and shining in the candlelight.

Elmiyra knelt beside her, set the scythe aside, and pulled the girl into her arms.

“We did it,” Brynne said, voice raw.

Elmiyra held her tight. “We did.”

Outside, the bell tolled once more, this time slow and solemn. It was the signal for the end of the danger, and for the beginning of the mourning.

They gathered in the nave, tending wounds and assessing the damage. Elmiyra stood watch at the threshold, her body aching, her mind already spinning through the next moves in the endless game. Brynne sat nearby, cleaning her knife with methodical care, her eyes fixed on the door.

They knew the Order would not stop. But for tonight, they had held the line.

Tomorrow, they would begin again.

Again

The second attack came with an elegance that bordered on artistry. This was no frenzied siege, no reckless charge by zealots. The Shades who slipped through the temple wards that night were orchestrated, their movements as synchronized as dancers.

They entered through the western wall, exploiting a weakness in the new array of runes. Three dropped into the ruined garden, using the shattered stones as cover, while another three moved across the roofs, silent as ghosts, flanking the nave. The only warning was a flicker of magic—barely perceptible, but enough to set Elmiyra’s nerves alight.

She stood in the center of the courtyard, scythe in hand. She did not shout, did not signal; her stance alone was enough to galvanize the APS Runners into action. They formed up around her, blades drawn, eyes scanning the shadowed corners.

The first Shade attacked from above, leaping from the roof with a dagger poised for the gap in Elmiyra’s collar. She sidestepped, the motion economical, and brought her scythe up in a tight arc that caught the assailant at the waist. The blade sheared through bone and cloth, splitting the woman in two before she even registered her own failure. Blood sprayed across the flagstones, dark and almost beautiful in the moonlight.

Another Shade, seeing the fate of the first, adjusted tactics. He dropped low, rolling beneath a Runner’s spear, and drove a poisoned blade into the man’s thigh. The Runner crumpled with a sharp gasp, clutching at the wound, but even as he fell he managed to sweep the Shade’s legs from beneath him. The two rolled together, a tangle of limbs and fury.

Elsewhere, Brynne hid behind the altar in the sanctuary, surrounded by a trio of Sisters and the pastry-loving Runner from the APS. They could hear the violence through the thick stone, the clash of metal and the distant, guttural sounds of dying. Brynne’s wings were half-spread, trembling with adrenaline and fear. The Runner, sensing her panic, placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Stay low,” he whispered. “We’ll hold them.”

Outside, the fight had gone feral. The Shades adapted with every passing second, probing for weakness, sacrificing their own with clinical detachment to test the temple’s defenses. Elmiyra was everywhere at once, scythe cleaving arcs through air and flesh. She moved with an efficiency that bordered on the inhuman, centuries of muscle memory reducing every block, feint, and counterstrike to the barest minimum of effort.

The air split open at the epicenter of the fight, a sharp-edged rift of blue fire that stank of ozone and molten copper. Iliyria Sylren stepped through, her boots sinking slightly into the moss as if gravity itself reconsidered her presence. Her expression was clear and cold as the night, and she surveyed the chaos before her with the impossible calm of a woman who had spent her entire life charting the lines between disaster and order. She brought with her a pressure wave that knocked the closest Shade off-balance, scattering powdered brick and bone in a six-foot radius. Her eyes gave nothing away but a cold, mathematical determination. Dressed in simple grey robes, she reached back for the hairpin that held her unkempt bun in place, the pin lengthening as she withdrew it, forming a staff that crackled with arcane power. She had come to fight, not to posture.

Three of the Shades recalibrated instantly, splitting off to encircle the newcomer. Iliyria spun, hair whipping loose from its knot, and swept the staff in a tight arc. Her right hand flicked up and to the left, a vector completing itself in a gesture that looked less like spellcasting than an insulting gesture toward the attackers. Power slammed outward, blue-white and searing, shattering the temple’s silence with the hollow pop of displaced air. The three Shades who had split off to encircle her expected something clever—shackles, perhaps, or an immobilizing net of force. Instead, they received pure, unfiltered leyline energy, the kind that did not so much electrocute as cauterize the nerves that might have once carried pain.

The nearest Shade seized, mouth locked in a rictus of surprise, then dropped to the earth, smoke coiling from the eye sockets of his mask. The second, blinded by the flash, stumbled and caught the business end of Iliyria’s staff under the chin. His head snapped back, the vertebrae in his neck parting audibly before he crumpled in a tangle of limbs. The third registered the new calculus and made a calculation, then kicked away from the scene, vanishing over the temple wall in a blur of midnight cloth.

Iliyria exhaled, rolling her neck, then locked eyes with Elmiyra across the courtyard. They exchanged the briefest of nods—mutual recognition, mutual respect—before returning to their respective violence.

The Runners and uninjured Sisters were holding their own, for now, but the Shades were relentless, their attacks meant less to overwhelm than to exhaust. They harried the defenders, feinting, retreating, and darting in wherever attention wavered. Two Runners fell in quick succession, not dead but grievously wounded, their bodies pulled to safety by the novices who’d been trained to expect this. Elmiyra caught a glimpse of one Sister, blood streaming from her temple, cradling an unconscious comrade and screaming defiantly at the enemy. The half-drow Runner was down to his last knife, blood slicking his hair to his face. He fought on, silent and grim, slashing at the wrist of a Shade who tried to throttle him from behind. The blade struck true, and the attacker recoiled, clutching a spurting artery.

Elmiyra and Sylren fought back to back, an impromptu duet scored in scythe and staves and elemental force. To an onlooker, it was both beautiful and appalling; violence made choreography. Every time a Shade breached close, Elmiyra would intercept with a block that left the enemy exposed, and Iliyria would finish the strike with pinpoint efficiency—a snap of the staff, a pulse of arcane force, a simple tripping incantation that left the enemy helpless.

In the nave, the first of the rooftop Shades crashed through the stained glass, scattering razor-edged shards across the pews.

Elmiyra, startled by the sharp crash of shattering glass, instinctively moved toward the nave. The sound was like a jagged fracture in the air, drawing her attention away from the chaos unfolding around her. She left Iliyria behind, locked in combat amidst the swirling dust and clamor of battle. Elmiyra's heart raced as she navigated through the dimly lit passage, her footsteps echoing softly across the cold stone floor, each step bringing her closer to the source of the disturbance.

Elmiyra threw her sythe at the first sign of movement, the weapon spun through the air, the runes glowing with borrowed moonlight, and impaled the Shade at the base of the neck. The body slid a few paces before collapsing, the twin blades clattering to the marble.

With swift precision, she dispatched two more adversaries, their bodies crumpling to the ground before her. Her heart pounded in her chest as she turned on her heel, the air thick with the clash of swords and the cries of combatants. The main battle raged fiercely in the courtyard, a chaotic storm of movement and sound that drew her back into the fray.

The last of the Shades regrouped in the courtyard, and two approached Elmiyra, recognizing she was the axis of the defense. They attacked together—one from the front, one from behind, their blades forming a menacing X aimed near her throat, yet intentionally missing the mark. Elmiyra dropped to one knee, puzzled by their restraint as the weapons swished harmlessly above her head. She reversed her grip on the scythe and drove it backward, catching the rear Shade off guard and impaling him through the abdomen. The force of the blow lifted him off the ground; his boots flailed helplessly as he struggled against the attack. Elmiyra twisted the blade, then wrenched it free, pivoting to meet the final Shade head-on.

He seemed to reconsider his approach as he watched her dispatch his comrade with such ease, and for the first time in the battle, Elmiyra saw genuine hesitation.

She blinked sweat from her lashes, hyperaware of the clamor behind her: Iliyria’s voice barking sharp, arcane commands; the staccato footfalls of APS Runners as they pressed their advantage; the rising and falling cries of the wounded, the dying, the desperate. But it was the silence from her adversary that chilled her. Elmiyra tried to recall the way the Shades had fought her, every feint and lunge and cut, and realized, with a sinking dread, that not once had they tried to strike a killing blow against her. Their attacks—so precise, so relentless—had been designed not to end her life, but to slow her, to restrain her, to render her helpless.

The truth of it cut deeper than the blade had: Elmiyra had been marked for capture, not execution, but why?

Elmiyra’s eyes darted to the surviving defenders. Iliyria Sylren was dueling two Shades in the western archway, her staff a blur of blue flame and raw, focused energy. The battered remnants of the APS were holding the line by the eastern wall, their numbers dwindling but their resolve pure granite. In the nave, Brynne’s pale face peered over the altar, her wings quivering with fear and fury in equal measure.

The second Shade now advanced with a measured, predatory grace. He circled her, keeping just out of reach, the blade of his sword glinting like a promise. Elmiyra rotated her scythe in a low, defensive sweep, never taking her eyes off the man’s fluid silhouette.

He was the biggest of the lot—broad-shouldered, face hidden by a black lacquer mask. He wielded a sword meant for war, not assassination. The first clash rang through the courtyard, steel meeting the ancient metal of the scythe. The Shade pressed his advantage, driving Elmiyra back step by step, each blow heavier than the last. She deflected, absorbed, and waited for the opening.

When it came, it was almost anticlimactic. The Shade overcommitted, aiming to knock her off balance with a sweeping strike, and Elmiyra slipped inside his guard, burying the scythe in his chest.

He staggered, dropped the sword, and clutched at the blade. Blood frothed from his lips.

He leaned in, close enough that Elmiyra could see the whites of his eyes through the mask. “The Doctor wants you both alive now,” he rasped. “She’s interested… in experimenting… on a blight survivor.” The last word was a hiss, filled with malice and something like envy.

Elmiyra’s face was stone. She twisted the scythe, severing the heart, and stepped away as the Shade fell.

Silence descended. The only sounds were the labored breathing of the wounded, the far-off echo of shouts as the city’s Watch finally roused to the alarm.

Elmiyra stood in the center of the carnage, scythe dripping, black eyes searching the shadows for any sign of movement. There was none.

She walked the perimeter once, checking on the fallen Runners and finishing off any Shade still twitching on the stones. She found Brynne in the sanctuary, alive and unhurt, though shaking so hard she could barely speak. The Sisters surrounded her, forming a shield of black habits and grim determination.

Elmiyra knelt in front of Brynne, set the scythe aside, and took her hands. “They’re gone,” she said. “You did well.”

Brynne nodded, tears streaming down her face. “They said they’d never stop.”

“They won’t,” Elmiyra said, her voice oddly tender. “But neither will we.”

She stood, turning to Felara, who had managed to bind her wounds and was now overseeing the triage of the others. “Report,” Elmiyra commanded.

“Two dead, two critical,” the Runner replied, voice flat. “All Shades neutralized.”

“Leave the bodies,” Elmiyra said. “Let the Watch handle them. The message will be clearer that way.”

She returned to the courtyard, where the moon had shifted lower, casting the aftermath in a silvery wash. The bodies of the attackers were already stiffening, eyes open to the indifferent sky. Elmiyra looked at them, then at the battered stones, the blood soaking into the old earth.

She felt no victory, only a grim acknowledgment that the war had escalated. “The Doctor,” she repeated, testing the title against her own memory. It rang with the chill of prophecy, a new adversary whose ambitions went beyond simple vengeance.

There was no peace, only the promise of more blood. But for Brynne—for all of them—she would endure it.

The sun rose, casting long, blood-stained shadows across the garden. Elmiyra blinked in the light, then went to see about the living.

The dead could wait.

The aftermath was a tapestry of damage: scorched stone, trampled grass, walls pocked with deep gouges where steel or magic had torn through ancient mortar. Pools of blood—human and other—blackened in the early sunlight, seeping into every low place. The dead were left where they fell, as Elmiyra had ordered, a mute testimony to what had transpired.

The living needed more immediate care. Elmiyra moved among the wounded, sleeves rolled to the elbow, her hands sticky with blood and the cloying sweetness of healing balm. She worked with mechanical precision, triaging the worst cases first—staunching arterial wounds, setting broken bones, improvising splints from pieces of pew and staff. The temple’s infirmary overflowed, the air thick with pain and the low, animal moans of the barely conscious. Brynne sat in the corridor outside, knees hugged to her chest, wings folded so tightly they threatened to crack.

A Runner was dying. The half-drow who’d fought so fiercely in the courtyard was pale now, his breath a thin whistle between blue lips. Elmiyra knelt beside him, pressed two fingers to the wound, and let the familiar current of energy flood from her core into the gash. The Runner arched, eyes rolling white, and for a moment it seemed the magic would consume him. But the bleeding stopped, and the gray pallor faded. The Runner gasped, then coughed, then opened his eyes and blinked at Elmiyra as if seeing her for the first time.

“Thank you,” he croaked.

Elmiyra nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She moved on to the next patient, and the next.

The final tally came in: two Runners dead, two more severely wounded, the rest with minor injuries. Four Sisters of the temple were wounded, but all were expected to recover. Of the attacking Shades, only corpses remained—stiffening in grotesque heaps on the steps and under the broken windows. The Watch, true to form, arrived late, took statements, and left with the bodies.

The courtyard was eerily quiet. The last of the triage finished, Elmiyra found herself at the edge of the reflecting pool, gazing at the surface. Her own face looked back—haggard, blood-smeared, hair gone from white to gray with dust and exhaustion. She barely recognized herself. She dipped her hands in the cold water, scrubbing until they were raw.

Behind her, a soft step sounded on the stone. Brynne. The girl approached slowly, each footfall hesitant, as if the ground might give way at any moment. She stopped a few paces from Elmiyra, wrapped in a blanket, wings trailing limp behind her. She looked more like a war orphan than an angel.

“Are you hurt?” Brynne asked voice a whisper.

Elmiyra shook her head. “Nothing serious.”

A silence, stretching. Brynne stared at the water, then at the blood caked beneath Elmiyra’s nails. “Some of the Runners died,” she said.

“I know.”

Brynne knelt beside the pool, hugging the blanket tighter. “I tried to help. I tried, but—” She swallowed, and for a moment the composure cracked, showing the terrified child beneath. “I thought maybe if I was good enough, brave enough, they’d leave us alone.”

Elmiyra sat beside her. She wanted to reach out, to touch Brynne’s shoulder, but she didn’t. Not yet.

“They will never leave us alone,” Elmiyra said. “But it is not your fault. This is the world we were born to.”

“But it is my fault. They wouldn’t come here if it wasn’t for me. Those people died because of me.” Brynne spoke softly, shrinking further into herself.

The sound of boots on stone broke the stillness. Iliyria Sylren came to stand beside them, her expression grim. Her hair once again pulled back in its bun, her staff resuming its unassuming guise of a simple hairpin, but the air around her crackled with suppressed energy.

Iliyria broke the silence with a certainty that brooked no argument. “You’re wrong,” she said, not unkind but final. Her eyes met Brynne’s, and the force of the stare was enough to make the girl flinch. “This is what we do. Every one of us. We stand between what’s worth saving and what wants to ruin it.” Iliyria’s mouth twisted into something close to a smile. “That includes you, Brynne.”

Brynne tried to shake her head, but Iliyria stopped her with a raised hand. “You think you’re responsible for the evil that follows you. But you’re not.” Her gaze flicked to Elmiyra. “We choose this. Every day. No one forced those Runners to stand their ground, or the Sisters to hold their line. They did it because it was right, not because you compelled them.”

Her words left no room for protest, and Brynne, who had never known such certainty from any adult, fell silent.

“Council sends their condolences,” Iliyria said, turning to address Elmiyra. “And their regrets for the... timing of the Watch.”

Elmiyra snorted, a small, bitter laugh. “The Watch is always punctual—after the danger has passed.”

Iliyria grinned, a spark of humor in the gloom. Then her face turned serious. “The Doctor. That name—our intelligence in Volfast mentioned her. The last report said she was promoted to the inner circle. Some sort of experimenter, obsessed with bloodlines and the divine. If she’s interested in you both—” She let the implication hang.

“He won’t get us,” Brynne said, voice fierce and clear. “He can’t. We’ll fight.”

Iliyria crouched, meeting Brynne at eye level. “Yes, you will. And you’ll have help.” She turned to Elmiyra. “I’m putting a full detachment here, day and night. The Watch has been… instructed to defer to APS authority for all temple matters. Supplies, reinforcements, anything you need—just say the word.”

Elmiyra felt the old, familiar resistance rise—an instinct to refuse charity, to rely only on herself. But she saw the faces of the wounded, the Sisters shoring up the cracked windows with trembling hands, the Runners who still bled for the promise of a safer world. She swallowed her pride.

“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll need every advantage we can get.”

Iliyria nodded, then straightened. “I have to go; there are Council statements, damage control, all the usual. But I’ll return tonight. Until then—” She looked at Brynne. “Keep your head up, little one. The world needs more like you.”

Brynne managed a smile. “I’ll try.”

When Iliyria was gone, Elmiyra finally reached out, draping an arm over Brynne’s shoulders. The girl leaned into her, and together they watched the Runners patrol the ruined garden, the Sisters tending to the wounded, and the slow, determined restoration of what violence had tried to erase.

Night fell, and the temple was not whole. But it endured.

Long after the last candle was snuffed, Elmiyra sat by Brynne’s cot, watching her sleep. The girl dreamed, face pinched with pain, but she did not cry out. Elmiyra stroked her hair, untangling a knot, and wondered how many more times they would have to do this—how many more nights they would spend keeping the dark at bay.

It did not matter. They would survive.

Outside, beneath the broken moon, the APS Runners kept their silent vigil, and the ravens perched above the garden, unblinking and watchful.

If this Doctor was coming, she would find the temple ready. The Raven Queen had chosen her champions well.

Part III: Healing

Reprieve

The solstice sun angled sharply across the temple courtyard, igniting the arches and porticoes in brief gold before the blue morning reclaimed them. Iliyria Sylren stood at the center of this light, hair like a new-drawn blade in the wind, the lapels of her uniform dusted with the red pollen that floated off the temple’s late-blooming lilies. She surveyed the assembled Runners—six in total, all wearing the blue and steel of the Arcane Protection Service, each one carrying the exhaustion of long vigil in the sag of their shoulders.

Elmiyra stood beside her, hands folded, eyes calm and unblinking as the transition of power was made official. The crowd was small—just a clutch of novices and a pair of stone-faced Sisters—but the significance of the ceremony resonated across every flagstone. The APS was leaving. After a year of twenty-four-hour watch, magical wards, and the regular tramping of armored boots through every hallway and cloister, the temple would return to its own rhythms. The violence had subsided. The Council had issued its findings. Volfast, for now, was content to let the matter rest.

Iliyria’s voice carried clean across the square. “You are relieved, effective at the next bell,” she said, nodding to the Runners. “If the temple requires assistance, we will return. If you hear the old code, you report. No matter what.”

She paused, eyes flicking to Elmiyra, who dipped her head in acknowledgment. It was not a bow, but the gesture resonated with the same careful gravity. Iliyria smiled, then dismissed the Runners with a crisp gesture.

They peeled away, some in pairs, some alone. The youngest, Felara, lingered a moment to touch the willow at the garden’s edge—a small, private benediction—before she, too, disappeared down the lane toward the southern gate. Their absence was immediate and total, like the release of a held breath.

Iliyria lingered. She turned to Elmiyra, expression warming just enough to soften the edges of her authority. “You’re in the clear,” she said. “Council confirmed it this morning. Even the Watch agrees—Volfast is unlikely to try anything, at least for the season.”

Elmiyra said nothing at first. Her gaze traced the fading footprints in the dust, the faint shimmer where the magical wards still hummed along the portico. Then, softly: “No one is ever truly in the clear.”

Iliyria considered this, then nodded. “If anything changes, you know how to find me.” She smiled, “We’ll be in touch.”

With that, she departed, her stride as precise in retreat as it was in command.

For a time, Elmiyra stood alone in the empty cloister, listening to the wind pick up where the Runners’ voices had left off. It was a luxury she rarely allowed herself—silence, the absence of vigilance. She waited until she was sure no one was watching, then closed her eyes and inhaled, letting the fresh air settle the static charge that still tingled across her skin.

Reflections

The temple was quieter than it had been in weeks. No shouts from the sparring circle, no half-muffled curses from Runners tripping on the uneven stone. The only sound was the coo and squabble of the ravens, who had reclaimed their perches on the buttresses and eaves, and the slow, methodical sweep of a broom somewhere in the nave.

Elmiyra drifted through the colonnade, passing shadows and memory in equal measure. She entered the western wing, where the novice dormitories were tucked behind a shield of ancient oaks, and paused at the door to Brynne’s chamber. She heard, inside, the faint shuffle of movement—a chair sliding, the snap of a buckle, the catch of breath drawn and released with purpose. Elmiyra raised her hand to knock, then decided against it, letting the moment belong to the girl.

She waited until the sound stilled, then entered without warning.

Brynne stood before the full-length mirror, tall and unshakably still, as if she were a statue carved by someone who had never met a child but understood the bones of suffering intimately. She wore a linen shirt, long-sleeved despite the heat, and dark trousers tailored to hide the heavy banding of scars that wrapped her calves and thighs. Her hair had grown out, brushing her collar now, the pale gold of it at odds with the severe set of her features.

She regarded herself in the glass, eyes moving over the ruined topography of her neck—where a thick, pale scar laced from jaw to collarbone—before pulling up the collar, buttoning it to the throat. She did not notice Elmiyra at first. Or, if she did, she chose not to show it.

Elmiyra crossed the room and set her hand gently on Brynne’s shoulder. The girl tensed, then exhaled and relaxed into the touch. For a few seconds, neither spoke.

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Elmiyra said, voice quieter than usual.

Brynne looked up. “I don’t like the dreams,” she said. “They’re worse when things are calm.”

Elmiyra understood. She squeezed the shoulder, then let her hand drop. “You don’t need to wear the long sleeves. No one here would judge you.”

“I know,” Brynne said, and though her face was neutral, there was a stubborn set to her jaw that made the point final.

Elmiyra let it pass. She studied the reflection—herself, gaunt and severe as ever, a specter in black; Brynne, thin but less fragile than when she’d first arrived. The difference was stark, but it was the sameness that drew Elmiyra’s attention. The way both carried their wounds just beneath the surface, shielded by ritual and habit and an absolute refusal to be pitied.

After a long minute, Elmiyra spoke, voice distant as if recalling a story from someone else’s life. “When I was your age, I wore a mask. Similar to the ceremonial masks the sisters wear when they are attending to their dead or any other public duties, but simpler. I hated it. But I hated the stares more.”

Brynne turned, the movement careful, as if any sudden gesture might shatter the scene. “What happened to it?”

“I was told I didn’t need it anymore. That my face was warning enough.” Elmiyra smiled, and the effect was almost gentle. “They meant it as a kindness, I think. But sometimes I wish I still had the mask. It was something to blame when people looked away.”

Brynne did not answer right away. She reached up, fingers running over the seam of the scar at her wrist, then let the sleeve fall, hiding her hands. “I want to be normal,” she said. “But I don’t know what that is.”

Elmiyra brushed a stray lock of hair from the girl’s cheek. “Normal isn’t what you think. Even the ones who look perfect are hiding something. They just do it with better clothes.”

Brynne laughed—a sharp, unexpected sound, too loud for the small room. “You’re bad at jokes.”

Elmiyra shrugged, feigning offense. “It’s not my area of expertise.”

Another silence, this one less brittle. The morning light through the window painted their shadows long across the stone floor, the angles of their bodies overlapping until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

Eventually, Elmiyra said, “You’re allowed to rest. You don’t have to be ready all the time.”

“I know,” Brynne said. She looked at the mirror, then at Elmiyra. “But if I stop, I might never start again.”

Elmiyra understood. She let the girl go, stepping back to the threshold. “Breakfast will be in the kitchen,” she said, then added: “You can come when you’re ready. No one will rush you.”

Brynne nodded, but did not move. She stood in front of the mirror, watching herself with the intensity of someone who had spent most of her life being made invisible, and was only now learning how to see.

Elmiyra closed the door softly behind her. In the corridor, the silence felt different—not empty, but expectant, as if the temple itself were waiting for what would come next. She walked the length of the hall, footsteps echoing off stone and memory alike, and thought about how the world rarely made space for healing.

But here, for the first time in either of their lives, it might just be possible.

Guidance

The Archives of Ioun rose above the square like a ship run aground in marble and glass, every inch of its facade inscribed with the sigils and lineages of knowledge’s long, unbroken chain. Elmiyra had never entered through the front doors before. On her previous visits, she had always used the side entrance reserved for the clergy and the city’s other sanctioned functionaries. The main portal was an ovoid of blue-veined stone, the arch so high it seemed designed to filter out the lesser thoughts of those passing beneath.

Inside, the air was cooler than the street and held the faint, medicinal tang of old vellum, binding glue, and incense laced with somnolence. The main hall was a tunnel of oak shelving, each unit packed so tight that the spines bulged outward, threatening to pop their bindings. Interspersed among the shelves were alcoves of pale blue magical light, set just high enough to keep the aisles in a constant dusk.

Elmiyra moved through the stacks with the certainty of someone who had mapped the place in memory long before setting foot inside. She found herself gravitating first toward the shelves labeled “family relations,” then “divine duties,” then—on a whim—“child guidance.” Each section was organized not just alphabetically but by a logic that seemed almost personal, as if the Archivists themselves had shaped the order to reflect some hidden joke. The books here were less battered than those in the legal or magical reference sections, but they wore their own marks of use: dog-eared corners, notes scrawled in the margins, the occasional pressed flower or faded lock of hair pressed between pages as a makeshift bookmark.

Elmiyra scanned the spines with increasing unease. She had expected, if not answers, then at least a roadmap—a treatise on the navigation of adolescent trauma, perhaps, or an essay on the patience required to parent a war orphan. Instead, she found only platitudes, ancient advice written by people who had clearly never known a child in their lives. “Children require gentle correction and the constancy of love,” intoned one. “To lead is to listen, to nurture is to know when to let go,” declared another. The words curdled on her tongue. She shut the books with a little more force than necessary, setting off a quiet ripple of protest from the enchanted lamps overhead.

She had not realized how long she’d been at it until the blue lamps shifted hue, announcing the approach of noon. A few other patrons drifted through the aisles—a city judge in crisp gray robes, an elderly man in a faded military coat, a trio of children tasked with transcribing old documents for the summer term—but the place was otherwise deserted.

It was in this rare quiet that a voice emerged, so gentle it seemed to bypass the air and land directly in the bones. “I haven’t seen anyone read The Pragmatics of Paladin Upbringing since I donated it. I’d wondered if it would ever find a second reader.”

Elmiyra turned, and there was Deliah Beroe, Oracle of Ioun, standing no more than two feet away. She wore an ivory robe embroidered at the cuffs with the spiral star of her order, and her hair was pulled into a loose braid that caught the shifting color of the lamps. Her eyes were keen, but not intrusive. She held a single book in her left hand, thumb marking a page, as if she’d simply appeared in the aisle by thinking about it hard enough.

Elmiyra bowed—just a small one, enough to acknowledge the Oracle’s rank but not so deep as to seem deferential. “I don’t find much in it to recommend. Its advice is long on metaphors, short on practicality.”

Deliah smiled, as if this were precisely the response she had hoped for. “That’s the curse of old texts. They’re good for the heart, less so for the nerves.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Is there something in particular you’re seeking?”

Elmiyra hesitated, searching for the right phrasing. “A guide for the care of children who have been…mended but not restored,” she said at last. “Something more nuanced than platitudes.”

“May I?” Deliah gestured to the volume in Elmiyra’s hands. Elmiyra surrendered it. Deliah weighed the book, then set it back on the shelf with a click. “I have a few that might suit. Walk with me?”

They moved together through the stacks, Deliah leading at a measured pace, pausing occasionally to retrieve a title or to let a novice carrying a teetering tower of reference volumes pass unhindered. They rounded a corner into an open reading room, where a pair of young women sat at one of the low tables, their heads bent over a codex so ancient the pages looked petrified.

Elmiyra recognized the two at once: Gilene and Isylte, daughters of the Oracle, both of them bearers of the family’s impossible intensity. Gilene was the elder, her hair pulled back so tight it gleamed in the light, every line of her posture screaming discipline. Isylte sat opposite, loose-limbed and smiling, twirling a quill between her fingers as she leaned over the page.

“You’re not copying it right,” said Gilene, voice just short of exasperated.

“I’m not copying it at all,” Isylte replied. “I’m translating it. There’s a difference.”

“There are rules for translation. If you don’t follow the codex, you’re just making things up.”

Isylte grinned, showing a predatory row of white teeth. “Rules are only invitations. The best stories are the ones that don’t know how they end.”

Deliah paused to watch them, her lips quirking with both pride and resignation. “That’s them,” she murmured to Elmiyra. “They’ve been at it all day. Ioun rewards the persistent, but she tolerates the stubborn.”

Elmiyra nodded, remembering her own youth, when the distinction between persistence and stubbornness had nearly gotten her killed more than once.

They moved on, stopping at an alcove labeled “Resilience and Recovery.” Deliah selected three slender volumes—one a treatise on the mind’s healing after magical trauma, another a collection of essays on the theology of redemption, and a third that looked like a children’s picture book but bore the sigil of the Council of Sages.

“I’ve found these useful, in their own ways,” Deliah said. “The last one is a favorite of mine, even if it’s written for mortals under seven.”

Elmiyra took the books, weighing them in her arms. “Thank you,” she said, voice quiet. “I never expected to be responsible for anyone other than myself. The temple life, the Reaper’s oath—it was always about distance, not connection.”

Deliah’s gaze softened. “And now you’re raising a daughter.”

It was the first time anyone had said it aloud, at least to her face. Elmiyra felt the words strike something deep and still inside her, a bell rung in a sealed chamber. She blinked, then nodded once.

“I am,” she said.

Deliah led her to a small table near a window. They sat, and for a while the only sound was the slow drift of turning pages and the faint ticking of a clock somewhere out of sight.

“When Gilene was born,” Deliah said, “I thought I could map her whole life just by reading enough books. By the time Isylte came along, I realized the books had been written by people who never met anyone like my daughters.” She smiled, rueful. “It helps to know you’re not alone in making it up as you go.”

Elmiyra found herself relaxing, just a little. “Brynne is not like other children,” she said. “She can’t be. What was done to her—what she survived—sometimes I think it broke something too deep to be mended.”

Deliah shook her head. “You’d be amazed what can survive, given time and the right care. But sometimes, survival is the point. Healing comes later, if at all.”

They talked for a while, exchanging fragments of their lives, letting the edges of their respective duties and traumas overlap without demanding resolution. Elmiyra found herself speaking more than she intended, telling stories of the temple, of the Sisters who had raised her, of the Reapers who trained her in the old, brutal ways. Deliah shared stories, too—of her time as an Archivist before the gift had come to her, of her struggles with the Council’s constant demands, of the loneliness that crept into even the busiest days.

At last, Elmiyra stood, gathering the borrowed books. “Thank you,” she said. “For this, and for not making me say what I was afraid of.”

Deliah rose, too, placing a gentle hand on Elmiyra’s forearm. “You’re doing well, even when you don’t think so. That’s all anyone can ask.”

Elmiyra inclined her head, then made her way back through the labyrinthine stacks, arms full of texts and mind buzzing with more questions than answers. The air outside was bright and hot; the light stung after the cool hush of the Archives.

She made her way back to the temple, her shadow trailing behind her. She felt, for the first time in weeks, that she was not entirely alone in the world.

And maybe, she thought, that was enough.

Resolve

​​The meditation garden, never meant for ceremony or display, sat behind the temple’s western wall, where the city’s perpetual hum faded to a low and distant hush. Ivy climbed the marble benches in slow conquest, and the iron wind chimes strung from the cypress branches sang a low, uneven song as the wind shifted restlessly. In the center, a slab of granite offered a cold perch to anyone seeking refuge from the endless duties of the living. Elmiyra sat there most evenings, her hands resting on her knees, eyes half-closed, listening for the silence beneath the world’s noise.

She heard Brynne approach before she saw her—the slow, deliberate steps of someone rehearsing each footfall. Elmiyra did not move. She waited until the girl came to a stop in front of her, then looked up.

Her face was a study in composure, the lines of her jaw set just so, her mouth pressed flat in careful determination. She wore her usual uniform: linen shirt, sleeves tight against her wrists, black trousers cinched tight at the ankle. Today, though, there was an extra layer to the outfit—a thick leather vest, the kind the Runners had worn when they were still posted in the temple.

Elmiyra studied her in silence.

Brynne took a breath, then another. “I want to learn to fight,” she said, her voice low but unwavering. “Not just with magic. With weapons, with my hands. I want to be able to protect myself.”

Elmiyra’s eyes widened, just a fraction. “That is not what I expected to hear.”

Brynne shrugged, the movement barely perceptible. “I’ve been thinking about it. When the Runners were here, I watched their drills. I think I can do it. I know I can.”

Elmiyra considered, weighing the request against the heavy ledger of the girl’s past. “You know that violence is not a solution,” she said. “It is a last resort. Often, it creates more problems than it solves.”

Brynne nodded, but her eyes were hard. “If I’d known how to fight, maybe I could have saved my parents. Maybe I could have escaped sooner. I don’t want to be helpless anymore.”

The words struck home. Elmiyra heard in them not bravado, but a wound that refused to close. She let the silence spool out, the chimes filling the space between their breaths.

“You are not helpless now,” Elmiyra said at last. “But I understand why you want this.”

Brynne said nothing. She just watched, the question hovering between them like a dagger waiting to be drawn.

Elmiyra sighed, rubbing her thumb along the cold edge of the granite. “If I agree, you will train under supervision. Not alone. There is a paladin of Kord who owes me a favor. She is strict but fair, and she will not coddle you.” Elmiyra’s tone grew steely. “If you abuse the privilege, it ends. Understood?”

Brynne’s relief was visible only in the slight lowering of her shoulders. “Understood.”

Elmiyra’s face softened. “Strength is nothing without wisdom,” she said. “You must learn both, or you will repeat the mistakes of those who hurt you.”

Brynne looked away, the mask slipping for just a second, and in that second Elmiyra saw the child that still haunted the edges of the young woman’s resolve.

“I won’t let you down,” Brynne said.

“You never could,” Elmiyra replied.

They sat together on the cold stone, not speaking, while the wind chimes whispered the possibility of change.

Endurance

Brynne’s training began each day before the first light touched the highest spire of the temple. The courtyard, once a place for the slow drift of prayer and idle gossip, became a proving ground—a space carved out of stone and sweat, echoing with the clatter of blades and the clipped, unyielding orders of the paladin assigned to break and remake her.

The paladin was a woman of indeterminate age, her armor battered to a dull luster, her hair chopped short in a style that brooked no nonsense. She spoke little, but when she did, her words landed like hammerstrikes. “Again,” she would say, or “You are thinking too much,” or—when Brynne hesitated—“They will not wait for your mind to catch up.”

The first week was agony. Brynne’s hands, so deft with quills and kitchen knives, could not find purchase on the hilt of a sword. Her grip slipped; her knuckles split; by the end of each session, her palms oozed a raw, angry red that stung and reminded her of the pain of her past. Her feet, unused to the demands of balance and pivot, betrayed her at every turn, sending her tumbling to the dirt so often that the Sisters began to keep a bucket of fresh linens by the door.

The paladin never laughed, never mocked. She only watched, eyes narrowed to slits, as Brynne hauled herself upright time and again.

The days blurred. The sun rose; Brynne lifted her sword. The city’s bells tolled; she parried, missed, parried again. She learned how to shift her weight, how to anticipate the moment before a strike landed, how to use the wings—when they flared in panic—to counterbalance a charge or spin away from danger.

After each session, she slumped on the bench beneath the willow, pressing ice-wrapped linen to her blistered hands and listening to the paladin’s quiet, matter-of-fact critiques.

“Your footwork is better,” the woman said on the twenty-first morning. “But you telegraph your intent. The enemy will read you like a signboard.”

Brynne nodded, too exhausted to argue.

At night, Brynne found herself reliving each failure in the darkness of her room. She ran through the forms in her mind—high guard, low sweep, the twisting counter they’d drilled a hundred times—but always, in the moment before the decisive blow, she faltered. She dreamed of combat and woke with her hands clenched, her pillow damp with sweat.

Yet, as the seasons changed and the city’s starlings returned to roost in the temple eaves, something shifted. The sword no longer felt alien; the calluses on her palms thickened, numbing the worst of the pain. She learned to breathe through the aches, to let the rhythm of movement drown out the noise in her head. Sometimes, in the heat of a long bout, the old fear would rise—a spike of panic, the certainty that she would never be fast or strong or clever enough—but she learned to push it down, to force herself to react anyway.

Her wings, once a source of shame and inconvenience, became tools. On the rare mornings when the paladin brought a staff instead of a blade, Brynne used the wings to break her falls, to launch herself off the ground and surprise her opponent with a sudden burst of speed. The first time she landed a strike, it was accidental—she’d flailed, slipped, and by luck alone caught the paladin’s wrist with the flat of her sword. For a heartbeat, she thought she’d made a terrible mistake.

Then the paladin smiled, just a little. “Not bad,” she said. “Now do it again, but on purpose.”

With each small victory, Brynne’s confidence grew. She began to anticipate the patterns of attack, to predict the shift of weight in her instructor’s stance. She learned to respect the bruises as tokens, the aching muscles as proof that she was changing.

The temple noticed. Some of the Sisters watched from the upper gallery, making small bets on whether Brynne would last another week. Acolytes whispered, wondering if the strange girl with the wings was being prepared for some secret mission. The older novices were split—some admired her persistence, others resented the attention, but all kept their distance.

Only Elmiyra seemed unimpressed by the spectacle. She watched from the shadows, never intervening, always present but never intrusive. Sometimes, after the paladin dismissed Brynne for the day, Elmiyra would walk the perimeter of the garden with her, discussing the day’s lessons not in terms of battle, but of control, of restraint.

“You’re learning to move forward,” Elmiyra said once, as they traced the gravel path between the dying autumn flowers. “But sometimes the hardest thing is knowing when to stop. Strength is not only what you use on others.”

Brynne listened, absorbing the words in the quiet way she absorbed pain: silently, without complaint.

By the end of the second year, the sword felt like an extension of her own arm. The paladin no longer needed to correct her grip. The wounds healed faster; the bruises faded sooner. The sessions grew longer, more complex—simulated ambushes, mock duels, the kind of dirty fighting that left even the instructor panting.

One morning, just as the sun tipped over the city’s eastern wall, the paladin handed Brynne a blade of her own, custom-forged to fit her hands and balance her wings.

“You’ve earned it,” the woman said, her voice gruff. “You’ll never be the strongest, but you’re already the most stubborn I’ve ever seen. And sometimes, that’s enough.”

Brynne held the sword, feeling its weight settle into her bones. She looked at her reflection in the polished metal, saw the scars on her arms, the new muscles along her shoulders, the faint gleam of hope where once there had only been dread.

She smiled, and for the first time, it felt like victory.

Oath

On her nineteenth birthday, Brynne woke before the bells and dressed in silence, fastening the new tabard over her shirt with careful, unhurried motions. She did not hurry through the darkened corridors of the temple, nor did she hesitate at the threshold of the inner chapel, where the stained glass washed the cold stone in a haze of blue and violet. She moved with the steady, deliberate grace of someone who knew she was being watched, and did not care.

The altar was empty at this hour, save for the flock of ravens perched along the beams and the faint suggestion of incense clinging to the air. Brynne knelt, wings unfurled and at rest behind her, and set the sword the paladin had given her across her knees. She bowed her head.

The words of the vow were not the ones she had learned as a child. Those had been recited by rote, an endless litany of submission and humility. This was different. She spoke the words softly, each syllable weighing more than the last:

“I am Brynne of the Raven Queen. I pledge myself to your justice, to your silence, and to the memory of those who cannot speak for themselves. My blood is yours. My vengeance is yours. Let those who would chain or consume the living find their end in me.”

The light through the window shifted, catching the edge of the blade, igniting a sliver of gold along the hilt. Brynne did not move. The words hung in the air, slow to fade.

Behind her, Elmiyra waited. She had dressed formally—robes black as the inside of a coffin, her hair woven into a tight braid that shimmered in the pre-dawn blue. She stood at the end of the nave, watching the girl as she finished the ritual. Her face was unreadable, but her hands trembled where they gripped her ceremonial sythe.

When Brynne stood, she did so in a single, fluid motion. She turned to face Elmiyra, wings spread to their fullest span. They looked, for a moment, like they might lift her clean off the ground.

“It’s done,” Brynne said.

Elmiyra nodded, then stepped forward, closing the distance between them in three soft steps. She placed one hand on Brynne’s shoulder, the gesture both motherly and ceremonial.

“You are ready,” Elmiyra said. “But not for the task you want most.”

Brynne flinched, but did not look away. “I want to go to Volfast. I want to find the ones who did this.” She touched the scar on her neck, then the sword. “I want to end it.”

Elmiyra’s voice was gentle, but firm. “You are not ready to fight that war. Not alone. Not yet.”

Brynne’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

“There are other wars, closer to home,” Elmiyra continued. “The city needs defenders. There are innocents everywhere, waiting for someone to stand between them and the dark.”

Brynne considered this, weighing her own desire against the truth in the words. “I want to join the APS,” she said at last. “Iliyria said I could. That I’d be useful, if I finished the training.”

Elmiyra smiled, the first real smile in weeks. “You will be more than useful. You will be necessary.”

They left the chapel together, walking through corridors newly alive with the noise of the waking day. The temple was bustling; today was a feast day, and every novice and Sister seemed to have found a new urgency for their chores. Brynne walked ahead, head high, sword at her hip, wings tucked close to avoid knocking over the candle stands. Elmiyra followed, her pride tempered by the dull ache of worry that never quite left her.

In the courtyard, Iliyria waited. She wore the APS uniform—dark blue and silver, the sleeves rolled to the elbow—and her hair was even less tidy than usual, a few stray wisps escaping the knot at her nape. She looked Brynne over with a slow, assessing glance, then nodded once.

“Welcome to the Runners,” she said. “We’re not much, but we’re what the city has.”

She produced a cloak from beneath her arm, dark wool lined with gray, and handed it to Brynne. The girl took it, draped it over her shoulders, and fastened the clasp with hands that no longer trembled.

Elmiyra watched from the steps, heart hammering hard enough to bruise. She saw the way Brynne stood now—taller, sure of her own shadow, ready for the world to notice her. She saw, too, the way Iliyria regarded her daughter, with the wary hope of someone who had seen too many good souls wasted on bad causes.

As the bells began to ring, the three of them stood together in the shifting light, the future a thin line of uncertainty strung between the promise of strength and the certainty of pain.

Brynne smiled, and for the first time, it did not look like a shield.