I surged forward, pushing my body and the Footfield in a way I had never dared before. The ground beneath me churned, my feet chewing the dirt. I focused on the Field and became a tunnel of reality-distorting energy.

An observer would have seen what looked like a crashing meteor gouging the earth in a path too rapid and violent to be believed.

My eyes were darting. The distance was too far. I did everything I could to crush the space between me and the castle. What could have happened? My mind conjured entropy storms, raiders, fiends. I could have been there. I should have been there. But I had spent my time in a dingy room in a battered tavern, making love with a woman I was forbidden to be with.

I saw something ahead. I snapped the Field off and dug my heels into the ground. Earth erupted, transforming into a fine spray as I skidded to a halt. A dead horse lay ahead, mostly torn in half. Twenty yards beyond it, a man sprawled in the dirt. A glowing power sword flickered near his feet. His armor marked him as a knight of House Oakcrest. The man writhed, clutching his side.

I rushed to him, kneeling, my eyes glancing toward the castle. I couldn't waste time, but he might know something, anything, that could help.

The man was dying. Blood coated his mouth in a wide stain. More ran from his nose, mixing with snot and tears. The sloughing remnants of vomit clung to his cheek. Once, such a sight would have traumatized me. But I had been to the Falling. I had done this to men by the score. I was beyond traumatized. Or… did that mean I was fully traumatized?

I wasted no time. I grasped the man's face, turning it toward me. His eyes were darting, wild. He knew he was fading. I needed to know what had happened.

His eyes focused, if only briefly. There was recognition, the pupils narrowing.

"Bloo… blood butcher?"

I said, "What happened, man?"

He sobbed, blood frothing from his mouth. "I'm slain, my lord…"

I said, "What happened? What happened at the castle?"

He whispered, "Tell Jenny I love her…"

I didn't give a damn for the man or his Jenny. I'd have time later to be ashamed. Right now, urgency drove me. I slapped him. Harder than I meant to. Even through the pain of death, the shock brought him around.

He looked at me, shaking his head like a sleeper roused from a dream.

I said, "What happened?"

He said, "The bastard came, all of a sudden. We thought it was you. We weren't ready…"

I said, "Who?"

He coughed more blood. He was deathly pale.

He said, "The rogue…"

I pressed, "The rogue? Who was it, man!? What happened?"

He coughed again. "I tried… we nearly caught him… he was slower than he should have been… I did catch him, I s'pose…"

He looked down at his battered armor and lifted his hand from his side. When his hand moved, the blood poured from his armor like an opened wine bottle. He froze, staring at the blood in disbelief. Then his face crumpled. He looked back at me, eyes streaming tears, teeth bared in a grimace. I couldn't take my eyes off the deep, black-red between his teeth where the blood had pooled.

"I'm slain…" he sputtered, blood spraying from his mouth.

I said, "What happened?"

"Tell Jenny—" he coughed again and began to spasm.

I could have waited with him, given him company for those last seconds. But I dreaded what those seconds might cost my friends at the castle. I bounded to my feet and sped on, grasping the Footfield again.

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The horsemen around the castle reacted to my approach with alarm. They charged toward the distortion of my Field. They couldn't have hoped to catch me or keep up, but they converged toward the gates, trying to cut me off.

When I was far too close, I dropped the Field and kept sprinting. The sight of my Boston colors calmed the soldiers, and they turned their galloping steeds away from me.

I ran through the gates without slowing.

Everything was chaos. Smoke billowed from fire in the courtyard. Bales of straw and hay were burning, flames soaring skyward, hungry sparks dancing away. Servants dashed with pails of water. I saw the main doors of the keep shattered beyond. Dead and dying men were everywhere. Their wounds were horrific. Men-at-arms and knights alike lay scattered like discarded trash. Some bled on the ground, crying for help. Others lay still, in two pieces, three, more.

In the centre of the courtyard, Cornelius was mounting a horse, a half dozen knights already mounted and waiting. The portly little man looked almost ridiculous as he took to the saddle, but his face was grim, determined.

He saw me and bellowed louder than I thought he was capable of. "Tiberius! Lord Bloodsword! A heartening sight! Ride with us! Quick now! We might catch him yet!"

I had to shout above the screams of the dying, the roar of flames, the shouts of the servants. "Where are Lauren and Katya?"

His eyes darted to the keep, then back to me. "I… I don't know, my boy… They're… We need to ride—he's not gone but a moment! We can catch him yet!"

I felt the urge to ask: who? where? Instead, I turned and moved to the broken doors of the keep.

Cornelius called after me, "We need you! You must ride with us! We can catch him yet!"

But I didn't have time to listen. A dreadful panic rose inside me, like an urge to vomit, but it was emotion and fear that surged up instead of bile.

The interior was deathly still by comparison. There were dead men here too, and nearly dead men—clutching wounds, groaning. But aside from the blood, the scattered furniture, and the smoke drifting in from outside, the castle looked as I remembered it.

I tore through the foyer and into the main hall.

I don't know what drew my eyes, but I looked up. Perhaps I had known it would be gone. Perhaps I had been thinking of it. What could have provoked such an attack? Castle Oakcrest was well-defended, a terrible target for a raid. But it held a prize…

The Penaculum was gone.

I had known it would be. I stopped, staring up at the vacant spot.

Someone had come for the relic. A relic capable of emitting its own limited Order Field. A relic that allowed high-order tech and ancient devices to function even amidst the entropy that surrounded us. It was a terrible loss for House Oakcrest. Not just for Oakcrest, but for the city. Balthazar had coveted such relics to strengthen the city's might. None had the power to shift the course of battle like the Penaculum.

I stood frozen for a long moment. My chest heaved from the exertion of my run, from the welling panic and surging emotion. Who had come for the Penaculum? Who could possibly have overcome the forces that guarded the keep?

The knight had said they thought it was me. That could only mean a Griidlord. Someone racing beneath the Footfield, indistinguishable without the powers of SIGHT.

Then I heard a whimper from the far end of the hall.

The sound made no sense. It was a voice I knew, but not a sound I had ever imagined that voice making.

I turned.

Across the vast floor of the great hall, the furniture lay strewn from the chaos. The great oaken table was overturned, hiding the far corner—the great table where I had feasted, where we had laughed together.

A mewling sob carried across the room.

I knew the voice. But the wielder of that voice could never have made such a pitiful sound.

"Katya?" My voice rang too loud in the terrible silence pressing down on the hall.

Only sniffling answered me. More sobbing. Pitiful sounds. It couldn't be Katya. Katya didn't cry like that.

I moved forward, the suit lending me swiftness. My knees trembled, my legs shaking with a fear I couldn't name. I vaulted the table, more awkwardly than I should have.

Beyond me, Katya knelt.

Beneath her, a bloodied pile of rags.

I stepped closer. Again, more softly, more fearful of the reality that awaited me. "Katya?"

Katya's form was frozen, bowed, shuddering, over the shape beneath her. As I neared, I saw the rags were a dress. A blue dress. A victory dress. There was flesh there too, of course. And long strands of golden hair.

There was no motion from the still form. Only blood and broken promises.

On shaking feet, I came to stand above them both.

Katya seemed to sense me. She turned to look up, and as she did, Lauren's ghostly face revealed itself.

I didn't need to check if she was breathing. I could see the wounds. I could see the pallor.

Katya's eyes stared up at me, barely recognizing who I was. Hers was the visage of an animal. Human intelligence had fled, retreated from the horror of her new reality. It was meant to have been a party, a celebration. Instead, it was a moment in her life, in our lives, that would forever divide time into before and after.

Katya focused on me, seeing me just for a moment. And in that moment, she uttered the words I would hear for the rest of my life. In bed, an arm draped across Racquel's sleeping form, they would come to me. Alone, in the silence of a dewy morning. In the thick of battle, with men screaming and dying beneath my sword.

Those words would haunt the rest of my days.

Through a face drenched in tears, a face I would never have dreamed capable of such vulnerability, Katya spluttered the words:

"Where were you?"

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