The heavy oak doors of Aethelgard Castle trapped the silence inside the room. High Pope Vane paced the stone floor, the sharp clack of his leather boots making King Aldous flinch with every step. There was no warmth in Vane's pristine white robes, only a cold, calculating edge to his jaw.

  King Aldous sat opposite him, his knuckles white as he clutched a goblet of red wine. The liquid rippled constantly, betraying the tremble in his hands. He looked less like a ruler and more like a man waiting for the executioner's axe.

  "The kid is a story that won't finish, Aldous," Vane said, his voice a jagged rasp. "The peasants in the lower areas aren't praying to the Church anymore. They are carving his face onto stones and their doors."

  "He's the only thing keeping the Demonic Rampages from our front doors," Aldous muttered, raising the goblet. His teeth clinked hard against the gold rim

  "We need a dog on a leash, not a god in the making." Vane stopped right in front of the King, looming. "He's fifteen right now. What happens in five years when he realizes he doesn't need a king? The people don't consider you the authority anymore. If he told them to burn the castle, they will be looking for torches."

  Aldous felt the old, familiar knot of panic tighten in his chest. Vane knew exactly where to twist the knife. "We can't execute him. The public and peasants would riot before the axe even falls. Besides... I don't think steel even works on him anymore. He's too dense."

  Vane's lips pulled back into a thin, ugly line. "You don't break a blade by hitting the edge. You break the hand that's holding it."

  The Pope reached onto his desk, sliding a piece of crumpled parchment toward the King. "Emilia. His sister."

  Aldous stared at the name. It looked harmless on the page. "What about her?"

  "My men found her, in the slums...handing out bread like a little saint. Charity, she called it, I call it Contributing to the Demons, building a Cult"

  The King's face went the color of ash. "Vane, she's a child. She hasn't done anything."

  "She's a handle," Vane corrected. "We break that handle, and the boy breaks. By the time he returns, people will have realised who owns their souls in Aethelgard. That "Hero" will be a broken mess, groveling for mercy I'll never give him."

  Aldous watched a log in the fire snap and shower sparks. He didn't argue, he couldn't. He just closed his eyes and let the silence count as a 'yes.'

  ______________

  The rain that night fell like freezing needles.

  Emilia was deep in sleep when her world shattered. Her bedroom door was blown off its hinges in a blast of splintered wood and arcane heat.

  Half a dozen Inquisitors poured into the tiny room. Their heavy armor was slick with rain and reeked of wet iron. In their hands, holy brands hissed, casting a sickly yellow light across the walls.

  Terrified, Emilia lunged for the dagger Eila had hidden under her pillow. She didn't make it. A metallic fist caught her cheek, sending her spinning to the floor. Warm blood immediately pooled against the cold wood.

  "By the Pope's word," the tallest Inquisitor growled. He yanked her arms back, cinching a length of rough, enchanted rope around her wrists. The magic infused in the fibers flared to life, burning her skin like a thousand hot needles. "You are being arrested for treason against humanity and the crown."

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  Emilia didn't waste her breath begging. She saw the neighbors' doors remain shut, felt the eyes watching through the cracks, paralyzed by fear. As they threw her into the mud and the freezing dark of the street, she only had one thought left.

  Eila... please, Eila.

  But Eila was three hundred miles away, drowning in the blood of the Demonic Army, and the sky stayed black.

  ______________

  The day they brought her out was too bright. The sun was hot and heavy, making the air in the plaza thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and anticipation.

  Tens of thousands of them. The people Eila had bled to protect. The people Emilia had shared her own meager meals with. They were a single, growling animal now. The Church had spent three days whispering in their ears, and the "Hero's Sister" had become a monster in their eyes.

  The site was a raised white platform in the middle of the plaza. The executioner stood there, a massive, silent shape in a black iron hood. His hands were wrapped tight around the handle of a great axe that looked far too sharp.

  The dungeon doors screeched.

  Emilia stumbled out. She looked like something the tide had washed up. Her neat dark-brown hair was a matted, sticky mess, and she was barefoot, her toes raw from the walk. Rocks and half-rotten fruit began to fly, hitting her with wet, sickening thuds.

  She saw a man she knew near the front, Old Will. She'd given him bread since the last month.

  "Will... its wrong...they're accusi-" her voice was a thin, hollow line.

  Will didn't even look at her. He just spat and threw a jagged stone. It clipped her forehead, and suddenly she was seeing the world through a veil of warm, salty red.

  She climbed the stairs. One heavy step at a time. At the top, Vane was at a podium draped in gold. He looked down at the crowd like a god, his hands raised to catch the noise.

  At the top of the stairs, Vane stood at a podium draped in gold. He looked down at the sprawling crowd, raising his hands to absorb the noise.

  "Brothers and Sisters!" his voice boomed, magically amplified until it rattled the teeth of everyone in the square. "We have lived in the shadow of a false idol for too long! "

  The crowd quieted, hanging on his every word.

  "We have starved. We have bled. And we let a boy's brute strength make us forget the laws of the Heavens! " Vane thrust a bony finger toward the bleeding girl on the block. "This girl trafficked with the very demons that slaughter our men, all while you went hungry! We will not be slaves to a false Hero! Today, we take back our Kingdom!"

  The crowd erupted, stomping their feet in a deafening, sickening rhythm. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  "STAARRRTTT!" Vane howled.

  The executioner stepped up. Raising the axe.

  Emilia closed her eyes, praying. "Eila...Please...SAVE ME!"

  There was a heavy, wet clunk.

  Emilia's head rolled, leaving a bright, steaming trail on the wood. It came to a stop right against Vane's boots.

  She was Dead.

  For a second, the whole city seemed to go silent. Then the plaza exploded. People were screaming with a joy that sounded like madness. They were celebrating a murder and calling it justice.

  None of them noticed the carriage until it was too late.

  It came tearing through the southern gate, the horses frothing at the bit. It didn't slow down for the crowd. It plowed through the barricades, the heavy iron wheels crushing anything in their path, and slammed into the base of the scaffold with a sound like a ship breaking apart.

  The Minister of the Kingdom tumbled out of the wreck. His expensive robes were torn to shreds, his face a mask of sweating, twitching terror. He didn't look at the guards. He scrambled up the broken stairs on his hands and knees.

  "STOP!" he shrieked, his voice breaking into a ragged sob.

  He reached the top and saw the blood. Saw the girl.

  "Gods," the Minister whispered, his legs giving out. "I'm too late...."

  He whipped around to face Vane, his eyes wide and wild. "YOU FOOL! YOU ARROGANT FOOL, WHAT HAVE YOU D-"

  The air in the plaza died.

  It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure. A crushing, physical weight that slammed everyone to the ground. Horses collapsed. Men clutched their chests, their lungs refusing to take in the air that had suddenly turned to lead. Reality itself seemed to buckle, space warping like heat over a road.

  Then came a sound like wet silk tearing.

  The Minister's head just...lolled downwards, as if a weight had crushed and deleted his neck. His body slumped over, his blood pouring out to mix with the girl's.

  The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was a void.

  A young man stood where the Minister had been.

  He hadn't walked up. He hadn't fallen. It was as if the world had simply folded over on itself to place him there. His presence was so dense the light seemed to bend around him, casting long, wrong shadows. The whites of his eyes were gone, swallowed by an absolute, flickering blackness.

  Eila had arrived.