I waited until the doctor, the girl, and the priest were all abed. Then, in the deep hours of night when silence clung to the halls of Caelfall's lonely church, I entered the chapel.

The room held a very different aspect in the deep of night. The weather over the marshlands had remained clear, allowing bright moonlight to beam through the window above the altar. It formed a silver island within the chapel's darkness, illuminating the stone basin like some beckoning grail. Tiny motes of almost shining dust hovered around it, so much like faint stars around a cold moon.

I also doubted the picturesque night to be coincidence. I glared at the bowl as I circled it, the whisper of my worn cloak and the click of my boots overloud in the quiet.

Scenes of war, of the death and birth of kingdoms, surrounded me, all worked into quiet stone. I could almost hear them, echoing through the ages. The clash of metal, the music of Art, the weaving of ancient vows.

The prayers of those who'd lifted this temple, and who'd prayed within it over the centuries, had melted into the stone. Its history hummed through my aura.

I'd brought a ewer of water with me. I poured its contents into the bowl. It didn't come near to filling it, but I did not need to. The thin trickle of water reflected the moonlight, giving it an almost surreal quality.

Placing the ewer down, I drew my dagger, cut my palm, and squeezed my blood into the basin. Once that spreading shadow had curled its way through the water, I stepped back, took my axe in hand, and knelt. Propping the head of the weapon against the floor, I bowed my head.

One last step. I hesitated here, toying with the ring on my right hand. Then, steeling myself, I removed it.

"You brought me here," I muttered into the moonlit air. "Now tell me what I'm supposed to do."

I closed my eyes, and allowed my weariness — always present, always beckoning me — to have its due. Though I'd let my body rest some thanks to Olliard's cart, I had not dreamed in many months. It had taken its toll.

I slept. And I dreamt.

But I did not sink into my own dream.

I first became aware of the scent of flowers tickling my nose and birdsong fluttering into my ears. I no longer knelt on hard stone, but lay on my back in a bed of soft grass.

It did not put me at ease. I stiffened, rolled, and was on my feet in three beats of my heart. I stood in a forest glade. Soft ground carpeted in blue grass and vibrant white flowers lay beneath me, and the air held a pleasant coolness.

I could hear water flowing over rock, and a woman's voice humming a quiet tune I felt certain I'd never heard before. Yet, it hit me with a sharp pang of nostalgia.

Seeing that place, feeling it, I had a terribly strong urge to lie back down and take my ease. For that reason more than any other, I hardened myself to the quietude and kept upright. I did not trust anything that wanted me to be at peace.

My eyes roamed the glade. It seemed a scene out of an ancient dream. Which, I suppose, it was. Shades of emerald, blue, and silver tinted everything. By the shape of the sky and the high cliffs at my back, I knew I stood on the side of a mountain. The Living Moon, waning and crowned in stars and shining dust, dominated the heavens.

I walked forward, my worn boots drifting with near silence through the blue and white carpet. The sound of water came from a low fall I suspected fed from some cavern in those cliffs, which went into a gleaming silver stream. Grass and moss covered nearly every surface, including the trunks of the ancient trees and the smooth, almost metallic stones stacked around the waterfall.

All shone vibrant, abundant with growth, and untouched by rot. Put simply, a scene beautiful enough to make an artist weep and a poet's tongue to fail him.

I closed my eyes and took shallow breaths, trying not to take in the heady scent of the flowers blooming across the grass. My body and mind were telling me I was safe, that this was a clean place, a refuge.

I could not trust myself to know those things.

Instead of drinking in the fey-lit grove, I turned my eyes to the figure kneeling by the stream. She was as beautiful as the setting within which she had enthroned herself. In a way, it was her throne. She had not spoken as I'd stumbled to my feet, and I had time to take in details as I cautiously approached her.

She wore a gown fashioned in shades of forest green and moonsilver. Flowers were woven into her midnight black hair, and her skin held a pale shade nothing in the natural world could replicate.

Even kneeling, she was tall. Taller than me. Taller than any human. She possessed an athletic build, though slender, her round shoulders displayed by the sleeveless cut of her dress, her long neck dappled with spray from the waterfall, the dew glinting like beads of crystal on her skin.

She exuded a very faint light.

She was the source of the grove's light, brighter even than that titan moon.

As I reached the edge of the stream, I realized the the shining woman bowed her head over the form of a slumbering creature. It looked like a war chimera, though I knew that no mortal alchemist had crafted this beast. It had a wolf's body, all course gray fur and lean, muscular limbs, and its head had a distinctly canine aspect as well.

The gleaming antlers growing from its head gave its true nature away, and its back legs ended in cloven hooves. Its tail was long and bushy, like a fox. Its chest rose and fell in long, deliberate breaths, and its jaws hung slightly open to reveal long teeth sharp as any blade.

I approached to stand near the beautiful woman and the creature which was, in its own way, also striking. I studied it for a while longer before I spoke.

"It's dying."

The woman's eyes were closed. One of her hands rested on the creature's chest, the other on its neck. Her head drooped slightly, and I thought I noted a shade of weariness in the movement.

"She is." Her voice was a breathy murmur, so low I shouldn't have been able to hear it, yet every leaf and tree in the grove quivered with the words.

"How long?" I asked.

"She was injured in the year the Gilded Haven fell," the shining woman said. "Most of ten years ago. Not long, I think."

Something wrenched in my chest. This creature then, like me, was a veteran of that war. A kindred spirit.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked.

A smile touched the edges of the woman's roseberry lips. "No, Alken Hewer, but it does you credit to offer."

A shudder went through me at the sound of my own name. There was power in that utterance, of a kind that made my whole essence respond like a plucked chord on a lute. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling, but it made my guard go up again.

I didn't much care for anything that made me react in a way I didn't want to.

When I spoke again, I did my best to keep anything like anger or disrespect from my tone. "If you and your brethren wanted to speak to me, you could have sent Donnelly, rather than tampering with that poor preacher's dreams. Or mine."

The woman stood, and my initial impression of her height was, if anything, conservative. She stood more than eight feet tall. Her hair hung in a black curtain nearly down to her bare feet, giving it the aspect of a shadowy cloak.

Indeed, it rippled like liquid shadow, as though caught in some unseen current. She turned to me, and her eyes cracked open to reveal a clean, pale light. I was careful not to look directly into them.

The onsolain regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. "Of course. You would resent having your dreams intruded upon, given your past…"

She bowed her head, the gesture conveying apology. "Forgive me. If it puts you at ease, know that this is not your dream, but mine. I have invited you in as a guest, and I assure you this place holds no danger for you, Ser Alken."

I turned my eyes from her, staring instead down into the clean water of the stream. "I am no ser, Lady Eanor. Not for a long time."

"…Of course."

The gentle sympathy in her musical voice only made me feel worse. I changed the subject. "I saw your sister recently,"

Surprise flickered across Eanor's face, which I caught in the water's reflection. "And you still live?"

I shrugged with one shoulder. "It's not the first time she's tried to poach me, since I started on this path. She gave me the old we're not so different, join the forces of darkness speech."

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Eanor half turned from me, looking troubled. "Yes, I can imagine." She turned to face me again and spoke more firmly. "Do not heed Nath's words. She dreams of a world baptized in red seas." The immortal closed her burning silver eyes and drew in a long breath, her shoulders drooping a finger's width. "I regret that she has gone so far astray."

They looked so much alike, Eanor and Nath. They were twins. Only the eyes were different, and their manners. Nath could give a devil nightmares, and Eanor seemed like some princess's kindly fairy godmother.

They were both equally dangerous.

"Why am I here, Lady?" I asked. "Usually Donnelly passes along word for the Choir."

I hadn't seen the spirit in many weeks, not since he'd passed along the orders to execute Leonis Chancer.

"The Herald is engaged in other duties," Eanor said. "And the old forest you passed through is within my own domain. It was once a meeting place for lovers, blessed with mirth and fertility. The children born from those meetings often had such joyous lives."

The Saint of Love smiled, the expression full of regret. Then, turning to me, she spread her hands out so the strips of transparent cloth woven about her arms rippled like outstretched wings.

"You guard your dreams well, and I would have contacted you another way, but I had need to speak with you in haste, Headsman."

The onsolain's use of my epithet made me draw in a sharp breath. "Ah. So I'm here for work."

Eanor nodded, her fair face a somber mask. "I am afraid so."

Anger, my old and ill-trusted friend, boiled up. I took a moment to get a grip on my emotions before speaking. "It's been less than a week since I killed that bishop for you and your brethren. You couldn't have given me time to recover from my injuries, at least?"

Eanor laced her fingers together, letting the wings of shimmering cloth form a helix, and bowed her head. This time, it was not a gesture of apology. Her lambent eyes slitted, and her voice once again became that nearly inaudible murmur.

"Time," she said bitterly. "Time is an illusion as delicate as any elven glamour, Alken Hewer, and it is fast slipping from our grasp."

I folded my own arms. "Right. So, who do you want me to kill this time? A warlock? Rogue warlord? Maybe another preost?"

I knew who she wanted me to kill, or strongly suspected. Even so, my bitterness pushed me to play this game.

I snapped my fingers and spoke in a brighter voice. "I know! How about a king this time. I think there are still a few realms I'm not wanted in, may as well get those bounty hunters spread a bit more evenly, don't you think?"

Eanor tilted her head to one side, her shadowy hair shifting like the deep currents of a lightless sea with the motion. "We never claimed this role would be an easy one."

I clenched my jaw. "Why did you need me to kill a high clericon? He was a servant of your church."

Not a mote of anger registered on the onsolain's statue perfect face. "The Church of Urn is not our instrument, Alken Hewer. It belongs to your people. It is a channel, an institution of learning and wisdom, a bridge between faith and knowledge. It was fashioned by your people, and is thus fallible and prone to corruption."

"So are angels," I said in a voice tight with frustration. "Your own sister fell. She joined the Briar. She is a force of corruption."

Eanor fell silent a long while. Once I'd spat the poison, I felt its acid taste on my tongue.

She hadn't deserved that. I am certain she held her own pain. Who was I, a mortal man not yet halfway through his life, to know hers?

"Even so," Eanor said at last, her voice still calm. She unlaced her fingers in my direction, as though releasing cupped water. "In any case, we do not rule the Church, Alken. It is not a court of judgment through which we may extend a punishing fist."

"Then what do you call me, if not a punishing fist?"

I pressed a scarred hand to my chest, feeling the frustration I'd been holding inside for long years surging up and out. "I've been killing men and monsters across Urn for more than five years now at the Choir's will. Most of them I understood the need for it well enough."

I began to pace, caught by a nervous energy. I knew I wasn't truly in that glade, that I still knelt in sleep in the chapel, but the timeless grove felt real enough.

"I get that Leonis Chancer was a bastard, but why did you," I pointed a finger at the inhumanly tall figure, "and the rest of the Choir need the Headsman of Seydis to send him off? I deserve to know."

"Do you?" Eanor asked, her voice very calm.

I realized then that the birds were no longer singing, and the stream no longer cheerily flowing. The water's song had become a muted, cautious tune.

I suppressed a shudder of fear and folded my arms again. "Maybe not," I admitted. "But I've been misled by those I thought infallible before. I don't care that some might call you and yours gods or angels, lady saint. I want to know the score."

Eanor remained quiet a long while, her impossibly beautiful face set with marble calm. Or maybe not. I couldn't ever really tell with her kind. Too often it seemed like every display of emotion, every gesture, every word was composed like actions on a stage. Rehearsed, so mere mortals could comprehend them.

Some called them lesser gods, some called them angels, others the First Children — there were many names and many aspects to the Onsolain, kinsfolk of the Heir of Heaven and prime spirits of the Choir of Onsolem.

It all meant the same thing. The being in front of me was more ancient than the world, and powerful enough to unmake me with a word. Sheer idiocy of me to try to bully her into answers. But…

Damn it, I was so tired of being in the dark. I'd played the role of good little soldier before, and I'd watched a civilization burn. Never again. If I was going to fight, to spill blood, then I would know why.

I am the Headsman of Seydis. Before that, I was a knight. I had fought wars and watched a realm I had sworn to protect burn. I'd been the good, dutiful soldier once. The stakes were higher now.

"Thirty one," I said in a near whisper, glaring into Eanor's dimly glowing eyes. I didn't care just then that it could harm me to meet her gaze directly. "Thirty one heads I've claimed in the last five years. Where does it end? I thought the point of this was to kill the bastards who caused the war so they couldn't start a new one. Killing warlocks and leftover Recusants is one thing, but this was a High Clericon, a leader in the Faith. Didn't you think I had enough stacked against me without making an enemy of the goring Church?"

"The bishop used the conflict to usurp power in the Church," Eanor said, her serene countenance a stark contrast to my bitterness. "Hundreds died at his command, when he began the witch hunt in Idhir. Hundreds more died at the hands of those who followed his example. Do you think that ended with the Llynspring Inquisitions?"

She regarded me somberly. "His influence would have continued to grow, poisoning the faithful until the memory of this last war washed away in the blood of religious revolution."

The onsolain inclined her head, looking into my eyes as though compelling me to understand. "In his death you have forestalled such a calamity. It was necessary. It was just."

Just. The word rung a discordant note in my thoughts. Despite that, I did consider her words and their ramifications.

They were unpleasant, to put it mildly. Still, having a priest murdered to quell wider change in the realms… It seemed so political, for the gods to become involved in. I'd thought they had a different objective in mind for me. Something more… not noble, but at least something that felt less unclean.

When has death ever been clean? I mocked myself.

"I didn't think I'd be one of the most wanted men in the land," I said, more sour than defiant. "I've heard the stories they weave about me in inns and taverns. The commonfolk call me a devil."

"You are a devil, in some ways."

When I started, Eanor's faint smile returned. "You are our devil. Yours is a Penance of Blood. You are the Headsman of Seydis, our chosen executioner, the one who delivers the dooms we weave."

The angel's voice hardened. "You accepted this path. Now you must walk to its end. You know the alternative."

I did, but I resented her for reminding me as though I'd forgotten. My head, or I guess my spirit, had begun to throb from looking into Eanor's eyes for too long. I turned away and walked toward the stream, staring into its clear waters. Precious gems glittered at the bottom rather than stones.

Nearby, the dying guardian beast labored to breathe.

After a minute, I sensed the goddess's presence over my shoulder. Light fingers touched my shoulder, making me shiver involuntarily. The strength to break apart mountains lay in those hands.

"You have been deeply wounded by war and betrayal." Eanor's words rang with empathy. "Had it been my choice, I would not have bestowed such a fell office upon an oathsworn member of the Alder Table."

I took a deep, calming breath. "But you're just one voice in the Choir, right? I get it."

I took a deep breath, stepped back, and knelt. I hadn't been holding it before, but in that moment — the moment I decided to accept my role — the axe was in my hand. My fingers tightened around its gnarled grip as I took a knee. Propping the axe against the bank of the stream, I let my head dip so my unkempt hair fell down around my face to hide the bitterness I knew colored it.

"Who is my next target?" I asked, forcing calm into my voice.

"Orson Falconer," Eanor said the name I had known she would, and the grove whispered it along with her. "The Baron of Caelfall."

"His doom?" I asked.

"Death."

A hint of anger crept into the immortal's soothing voice, the first display of it since the audience had begun. "His minions slew the sentinel."

"The troll," I muttered, realizing. "One of yours?"

Eanor nodded. "An old friend and a valiant guardian. My own sworn vassal. A knight, after a fashion. But his death is not why we give you this name, Alken Hewer."

I noted the use of we. I felt a twinge of disappointment at that. Part of me had hoped this was a case of personal vengeance on behalf of the being I spoke to. I could understand that. It even held a ring of chivalry.

But no. This was another edict for the Headsman, direct from the Choir itself.

"The baron has consorted with the Adversary," Eanor said, drawing my attention back to her. "He was once a just ruler, and a scholar of much wisdom, but that was many years ago. His dissolution began even before the burning of Elfhome, and he has grown ever bolder in his heresies of late."

I heard grass and flowers rustled around the onsolain's white dress as she began to pace around me. I continued to kneel. In this, the ceremony of the thing mattered.

"He gathers forces to him, and may threaten the peace of the Accorded Reams. Already a tenuous thing. He must be stopped before he strengthens his ties to other Recusants and threatens war."

There were many powers in the land who refused to respect the authority of the Accord, the alliance of nations and powerful factions formed to maintain order in a land broken by the Fall. Mostly they were warlords consigned to isolated demesnes where the Accord's influence couldn't easily reach, ruling small domains as they pleased and raiding the larger, battle weary realms.

But not all were merely petty warlords. Some were powerful warlocks, or militant groups posing as mercenary companies and bandit gangs. Some were wizards.

Some were kings.

In common parlance, these dissidents and warmongers were called Recusants. They were not a united force, but if they ever found common ground it could easily lead to another Fall. They had almost won the war, when they'd all hewn together. Some, myself among them, believed that only disparate goals and ancient rivalries eroding their unity had stopped them from winning, and creating a very different order from what ruled Urn in the present.

Part of my job was to prevent just that outcome. Even if many of the lords of the Accord basically thought of me as one of those Recusants.

If Orson Falconer gathered forces to him here, practically in the heartlands of the Accorded Realms, and made nice with other rebel factions…

Things could get bad.

"You called him a heretic," I said. "He's a diabolist? A warlock?"

"Yes," Eanor confirmed. "I have felt his darkness pressing on the edges of my own domain, especially here in this forest. I have urged my brethren to act before."

"I'll do what I can," I said. "I'm kind of a mess right now."

Eanor only smiled softly. My eyes felt heavy, and I knew the end of this strange audience approached. My drooping head felt made of iron, weighty enough I couldn't lift it.

"Do not forget," the onsolain said from directly above me. "You are still of the Alder Table, Ser Knight, bound to that office. It is a calling greater than your penance as our instrument of doom."

"The Table is broken," I mumbled, my eyelids drooping. "And the Church stripped me of my titles when they excommunicated me. I am no knight."

"Mortal nations may not recognize you as such. But your vows are forever binding. Do not forsake them, Alken Hewer, for they have not forsaken you."

Darkness took me.

Damn immortals. They always end up having the last word.

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