The door of the Council chambers thudded closed, the heavy iron-bound oak resounding like the voice of judgement. The Trade Advisor was gone; only he and the Chatelaine remained. What had felt oppressive now became unbearable as the memories of all the dead sat at his back, praying in mute supplication for Justice to be done, Justice enough to ease them all. The hell of it was that he could not offer those shades enough to put them all to rest. Not enough blood, not enough flesh, not enough pain or penance or purgatory to soothe their souls.

Still a novice at reading the tics and twitches that was the text of the corporeal book, Shade could tell even so that Rayne’s patience was wearing thin. Her worry over her brother, and no doubt for him when she could spare it, was taking a toll on her that near-equaled the weight of his own guilt. He did not indulge in idle wishing; he could not keep any longer the pain he would have to reveal to her.

“Forgive me, Chatelaine—Rayne,” he began. “It is beyond your experience, but their losses can be laid directly at my feet. Theirs, and more.” He took a deep breath, sighing it out like a swooning young lover. “The tale will take some time. Are you required elsewhere today?”

"--if we won, then why is it being treated like an inquis--"
"Shh! They're coming!"

---

General Iathad stood from the opposite side of the table and bowed stiffly before turning to leave. At the door, he hesitated, glanced over his shoulder at the two women comprising the High Council of Kenyon -- and then changed his mind. Whatever he had to say, he would keep it behind his teeth.

It was just as well. Rayne wasn't positive that it would have been something about her brother, but if it had been... She couldn't afford to lose her focus now, whether to rage or to grief. These days, those two emotions seemed to be her only range. There was nothing in between, and nothing before or after. Practice and necessity kept her calm veneer firmly intact, but the strain of waiting for the return of the Contingent, compounded by the apparent loss of the Commander (how cold to think of him like that: the Commander) was wearing her down more quickly than she could calculate. When the door shut behind the General, Rayne took a second to glance at Loria - then looked again at the door. It would open soon enough.

General Iathad had been detailed. He described the week-long siege on the city-state of Ahlyss, the Contingent's break into the city itself - and at last, the final battle at the castle tower. The details from there had been sketchy; the General and his men had not entered, on Graelin's orders. But what she did know from Iathad's explanation was that there was a violent burst of light - not unlike the one in Kenyon's great hall, yet on a far larger scale - that preceded the collapse of the tower. The members of the Azure Staff made short work of the excavation, but found nothing save stone and ash. The search was thorough, but it was assumed the magic immolated all traces of the Alyssian soldiers - and the Kenyonites who battled them.

( The advent of Knight Shade Everdark destroyed that assumption. )

"No one mentioned the Commander," Rayne said, turning her face slightly toward the human standing at her side. What seemed like the whole population of the capitol city spread out in the courtyard and, past it, into the streets outside the keep itself - lined for miles, they were, or so she'd been told. But here on the balcony that overlooked the keep's main courtyard, she and her Trade Advisor - the only two High Council members now in the city - were relatively isolated. Only their four guards stood behind them, and they at a respectable distance. 'The Commander', she'd called him, because at that very moment, she couldn't quite speak of him by his family relationship and keep her voice as detached as it had been. As detached as it needed to be.

Word had come back two nights ago - victory - but the message was rendered quickly with very little embellishment. They knew now only that the kingdom of Ahlyss was razed, thoroughly destroyed, and no one survived save the civilians who fled. It was everything that the Chatelaine had ordered, everything that the Chatelaine required from the force that defended their homeland, but the woman behind the leader craved more. The woman behind the Chatelaine's cold visage craved a message, even a single word, about her brother. Typically, it was Graelin who sent those messages. The message this time had come from neither the Commander nor his Knight, the one who had been appointed as her own bodyguard when he was in attendance. She knew the face in the message - General Iathad of the Emerald Shield - but it was not he she wanted to see.

Her hand rested lightly on the stone rail overlooking the festivities below. Minstrels passed through the courtyard and down the streets, performing the same song in time with each other. It seemed miraculous that they, though separate, kept the same time and melody as the others. In the late summer breeze, Kenyon's green and red pendants fluttered on bars of wood that marched slowly or wavered in place depending on the carrier under them. The enthusiasm, the celebration, the joy was high and wild; the city pulsed with it. But to Rayne, to the woman and not the leader, it all felt false - minor notes trying to strike in revelry.

There were always casualties. Always injuries. But her people would see that soon enough. First, she wanted to see the victory, which is why scores of mages were sent, laden with the wares of their craft as well as fresh uniforms, to meet the Contingent before they entered the city. The party had left Kenyon's city walls one night past. The Contingent would be coming any moment now. But who would be leading them? Would she see her brother at the head, stubbornly covered in the dried blood and gore of Kenyon's enemies? Or would she see someone else?

Loria was not the type of friend to sweeten the truth. Rayne finally looked directly at the Trade Advisor. She hadn't need to tell Loria that there'd been no mention of Graelin; Loria had heard the last message as well. They both could guess what it meant that the General of the Emerald Shield had sent the message. Either both the Commander and Knight Everdark had been killed or they had been wounded so severely that they had been incapable of sending the message themselves. Perhaps a combination of the two. But either way, none of it boded well. Rayne lifted her chin, then, and squeezed the stone railing under her hands.

She was looking for strength to be the leader she needed to be. Grief could not appear in any of its forms. Nor could worry. Her people were celebrating the return of their Contingent - and the destruction of their enemies. To meet such a thing with sadness would be to dishonor the ones for whom she would weep and to shame the ones who survived. Rayne knew it well enough. But tonight, she feared, she would be heavily tasked to be the Chatelaine. She wanted only to be the sister. She wanted only to saddle her horse and charge out to meet the Contingent, to search for Graelin among their ranks.

And then, below them, a great roar rose from the farthest reaches of the city -- rose, rose, grew, and rose yet more. The Contingent had entered the gates.

Under the half-moon that marked a month's time since the murders in the Great Hall, vivid white silk shone with fervor. Embroidered red silk thread mitigated its brilliance across the Chatelaine's shoulders and down the long length of her back. The embroidery swirled twice at her hem and ended its delicate touch as gracefully as it had begun. That grace seemed to transpose itself on the leader of Kenyon as she walked down the cobbled pathway to her soldiers' marker. From the direction where the widows had gathered, muted sounds of grief cracked in broken bits through the still night.

It was tradition, but not ceremony, that brought Rayne Kenyon to the Bleeding Garden just outside Amasa's temple, tradition that called her to shed blood in tribute to the blood her people had freely given. Every month, the day of their deaths would be remembered in just this way. The silver-gilded dirk in her hand, unsheathed and gleaming, cut its way through a paler surface and drew a thin stream of red in its wake. The Chatelaine tilted her wrist over the youngest rose bush and painted the flowers a shade darker in dots and splatters. The petals themselves seemed to absorb her blood, as if it were a nutrient. One of the mysteries of this garden. She imagined that, with enough time and study, she could discover just what Saedus had done to produce such an effect -- but scholastic pursuit had never been the intent of his creation. And to treat it so cavalierly would be to dishonor his work and to dishonor her dead.

A sliver of torch-green light shot across Rayne's peripheral vision. Although she would not break the solemn mood in the garden tonight by being so careless as to turn her head away from the resting place of her soldiers, she watched from the corner of her eye, nonetheless.

It was Loria. She recognized, not the face or the shape, but the bearing. Prideful. Determined. Unquestioning in her purpose. And, by the way she hung back in the temple's light, also uncomfortable by the thing that Rayne was doing. Blood always made her Trade Adviser turn her head. Although she'd never quite crossed the line of disgust, it was no secret that the way of vampires was troubling to Loria. And it was also no secret that her very presence in the Temple of Amasa was a true and startling sign that something was urgent.

Rayne finished the rite with words of gratitude, words of peace. Her voice was a spell she wove for the ones who remained behind, and as the sounds of loss subsided gently behind her, she dipped low to the ground in a fluid, humble curtsy. When she rose again, the temple guards at the gates of the garden opened to the widows and the family of her soldiers. As for Rayne, she quietly - but as quickly as decorum allowed - slipped up the path to where Loria stood.

The doors to the temple closed behind them, and the two friends faced each other - Rayne with a question, and Loria with the answer.

"What brings you?"

"Don't look back."

The voice still retained its iron and its coldness, regardless of the years through which it traveled. She'd been a girl, then -- human, fragile, and too full of emotion to manage logic. When her father finally pushed her away from her mum's skirts, when her great warrior of a father thrust her toward what seemed to be a yawning maw of stone - the entrance to what would become her home for the next two hundred years - there was only one thing he said to her. Not 'Goodbye.' Not 'I'll see you soon.' Not the three words expressing the sentiment that every child should know and also crave. None of that. Simply, 'Don't look back.'

( And she obeyed. )

If there was anything that kept Loria from worrying about whether supplies would run out it was actually keeping a running tab on what they had, what they were using, and what they would need in the coming week from their supplies. It was an easy and accurate way of keeping track of things. She was the only person who did it, although she sometimes asked for a few men to help her with heavier things that she couldn't count alone, or things on high shelves. Sometimes she had maids count things, twice, and recorded them after the second count.

( There was one thing she dreaded counting. )

There were no pews in the temple. They were seats of subservience, meant to make a man feel less than he was, and in the presence of the gods one should never feel thus. You could not forget their power to create or destroy. Yet you also could not forget that they would not have anyone to worship them if mankind were gone. A symbiotic relationship, one might say. One. He would never address such thoughts to the worshipful masses but they were in his mind at all times. The pews were gone. Instead hanging lamps that seemed connected to nothing designated the place where a man should arrange himself. Or a woman. That amendment to his thoughts was late but important given the fact that he was in the employ of not one but two females. They were iron, black as night, untouched by chain or cable, suspended. Arranged in perfect rows as pews once had been. Upon each iron lamp there were six candles, and each candle burned brightly tonight. No other light in the temple save the stained glass. In the sloping cathedral roof stained glass formed the ceiling, so far as the eye could tell, and above that stone and shingle. There were two towers and a long administrative wing attached to the temple but here - here was the work of art. Behind each pain of stained glass there were torches, hanging there as well, suspended.

( They made the stained glass glow. )

Although the torches burned against the wall - throwing off their odd green-tinged light - the high council room was cold. Even colder were its occupants. There were no smiles to be shared or jokes to pass between them; only a collective silence greeted her when Loria finally made it to the room. Loria was glad for that. She'd been summoned from her chamber minutes before entering the room. Dealing with merchants, wives of contingent members, and numbers that could drive a normal man insane was something Loria normally found thrill in. Today she did not. Shade was resting now. That was the only good that any of them would likely see today. He was alive, and he was resting. Loria wanted to speak with Rayne in private because of it, but instead she was here.

In the past weeks, she'd had too much to deal with to see her friend. There were merchants who wanted to argue about the price of spices and their goods. Loria did her best not to lose her temper around them, but with what felt like war brimming over the horizon, how could she focus on such a meager debate? When war came, if it did, there was too much to think about. The supplies an entire country needed that they could be denied once war was set on their borders… They already had thieves to deal with, let alone convoys of men who sought to suffocate the very people who lived and breathed in a country. It was a lot to think about, and squabbling over coins was not something Loria had the patience for these days. She knew too much. She knew how many lives were lost - twenty and counting, fifteen wounded, and some missing entirely. The price of pepper and salt would stay as it had no matter how much the merchants argued over it. Loria's prices were set in stone. If they wanted the goods - and the ability to sell them to those poor wives who could lose the men who made them their money - then they'd have to stop arguing with her.

( Now their eyes were on her. )

The news had come in the form of one of the only Knights of the Contingent - a vampire so ancient and, until Kenyon, so very wild that he himself had forgotten his old name. Here, he went by the somewhat over-dramatic moniker of Lord Apocalyptic -- or, at least, it seemed over-dramatic until one was face to face with him. The creature - for it was difficult to call him 'man' - approached seven feet, was possessed of violently tempestuous green eyes, and had a mane of golden hair that ran in wild waves down to the center of his back. More often than not, pieces of un-worked leather tied the mane back against the nape of his neck, but tonight it was down, untamed. Soot or ash covered the black uniform he wore, which was unusual. Despite his barbaric appearance, Apocalyptic typically showed a great respect for the uniform of the military that had once saved his life. Together, now, and with speed that no human could have followed with their eyes, he and the Chatelaine navigated the latticework of tunnels deep under the temple.

Best that Lord Apocalyptic had come alone; they'd argued, and passionately, about her leaving the safety of the chambers where she had been waiting. In the end, they'd had to bend to each other in stalemate; as Chatelaine, she had no power over a Knight. As a Knight, he had no power to order the Chatelaine. The checks and balances of the military and ruling forces that her mother and father set in place were well and truly stable; but that did not mitigate the frustration both vampires felt - and showed - each other. Both felt their place was at the Commander's side, however, and that is where they went. Later, Rayne would regret the harsh words she'd given her Knight; for now, her mind had focused on her brother, ( and her brother alone. )

Once Shade passed through the door of her antechamber, Rayne closed the door gently. Her fingers sketched a familiar path against the wood of that door, then circled the shape with delicate, precise movements. Though her body shielded the workings of that rune-encrusted glyph from the visitor behind her, there was a high-pitched hum that she didn't bother to mask. Let him ask if he wished it. But in this moment, as the glyph drew its power from the ambient life within the castle, her concern was for privacy and not for reassuring explanation. The silencing ward up, she turned around and leveled her eyes at Saedus.

It was difficult to read his face. Now he wore a smile, and if she had not seen him murder and if she had not seen him break the laws of time, she would have called it an innocent thing. Very little struck Rayne as innocent about Saedus, which was the exact reason why she didn't trust that smile on his face. Her lips thinned briefly before she crossed to the desk at the far side of the room. Seating herself there, she drew out a parchment sheet and an inkwell. A quick inspection of the closest quill showed it was sharpened well enough for the type of writing she set herself on doing. Her hand went down on the paper, scratching long and gentle lines in dignified brown script.

"What," she said as she wrote, "Am I to think of you, Saedus Allasan?" Now in the privacy of her own rooms, she could be frank with him. Now, without her dear friend and honorable Knight beside her, she could say what was truly on her mind. And knowing what she knew of Saedus, she doubted that the full expression of her concern would come as any surprise to him. Knowing what she knew of him, she doubted the full expression of her thoughts would change anything in his mind.

"You have been gone for 16 years. You left the kingdom you vowed you wished to see raised up again, left before we'd found this land, and stayed silent long after The Breaking." The words were accusatory, even if there was nothing in her voice but fact. The quill paused, lifted, dipped, and continued on the parchment. "And now you return to strike down a murderer with intent against me, but you have not yet explained why he was looking for my death or why you now wish to travel with Shade to meet this unknown envoy."

Gently pushing aside her missive to that very envoy, she turned in her chair and looked at him. There was nothing in her face, but her heart was filled with conflict. She trusted this man, once upon a time. Although she'd never discussed it, she feared he'd perished with half the world during The Breaking. Although she'd never shown it, she'd mourned for him. Seeing him in that chair across the room was both relieving and unnerving - a ghost, risen from the dead.

"You were being kind when you asked permission to go with Shade. You and I both know you can go wherever you choose. You and I both know that you would only be under Shade's supervision if you wished it. And you and I both know that there are few powers in this world that could stop you, were your intentions to turn against the wellfare of Kenyon. You've never been my subject, and I've no right to order you. I have no power to stop you, either. What, Saedus Allasan, am I to think of you?"

Strictly speaking, she could conjure up any number of spells to bind him in place, to hold him steady, to freeze his blood... But she didn't wish to slay Saedus, and even if she did, she didn't trust that he wouldn't have already predicted that desire, that he wouldn't already have taken steps to protect himself. It was a curious and unsettling thing, to feel as if you were staring at Fate itself.

If it surprised her servants that she'd directed them to place Saedus in the set of rooms neighboring her own, they had done well not to show it. Those rooms had been empty since the building of the castle, and although no one - save the Chatelaine - knew what purpose they wound serve, there were many rumors. Some said that they belonged to the original Lord and Lady - Methos and Sirenna Kenyon. Some said they were reserved for the future Lord of Kenyon. Some said they were for human children who may one day grow up to be embraced and called the heirs of Kenyon itself. Some said those rooms were meant for the great protector of Kenyon, as Methos had first been. But Kenyon's Chatelaine had given no hint until tonight as to why she had them set aside. Even now, with that terrifyingly-cloaked stranger assigned to them, there was no certainty.

Not even for Rayne herself.

Having returned from the temple well-fed and much improved from the hour earlier, she waited at the bottom of the winding staircase. One hand rested on the balustrade beside her; the other stayed in an elegant line at her side. She had sent the summons from the temple, both to give herself and them the time to answer it. Time. The thought made her smile, if only faintly. What sort of creature could give that one time? It seemed to Rayne that he took whatever time he wanted, and the rest moved in accordance with Amasa's wishes. She was sure the thought was sacrilegious in some way. She didn't bother thinking about the how of the slight.

When the doors to the castle opened from the outside, she turned her attention toward it. The night air was warm and slightly humid when it hit her, but she yet remained motionless until, from that darkness past the reinforced wood planks, came the distinct blue light she had been expecting. There was the one, then. But the other? She resisted a speculative look over her shoudler to the corridor upstairs. She had left the door open, though a guard was posted with instructions... She wanted to believe that Saedus Allasan was still an ally to Kenyon. And it seemed to her that if he waited for them now, it was more likely that he was still loyal to the word he once gave her.

But if he made her wait past the appointed time - which was now - then that said something, too. She had been negotiating for far too long to miss the subtleties of action - or inaction - and the games of superiority. Saedus could play them, those games, for the power she'd seen him display made him superior to more than his fair share. But would he play them with her?

Time would tell. Time, always time. The swirl of air from the castle door closing caught the hem of her green silk and sent it ghosting around her ankles. Shade's boots sounded clean and uncompromising on the stone floor spanning between them. But she met him before he could bow and set her hand on his arm instead. They had been through too much together for her to bear him humbling himself before her.

And that was why she had sent for him. Of all the Contingent - only her brother, the Commander, excluded - Shade Everdark, Knight of the Eclipse Guard, was the one she most trusted. And she wanted him with her when she finally did sit down to speak with Saedus. It helped that Saedus already knew Shade as well. Helped.... But she was certain Saedus would still understand the reason for Shade's presence with them.

"Shall we go up?" she asked him quietly. And this time, she did look up those stairs to the corridor that led to her antechamber.

When knives would not do it, the lash again. This one was different from before. There was a sharp heaviness to the blows - a smooth dragging - and heated fire trailed in its wake. Shards of metal, perhaps, or glass -- both were sufficiently sharp enough to slice as cleanly as she felt them. Rather than focus on the gravely voice demanding through the snapping of the whip behind her, she pushed her mind into focusing on the exact timing of the blows. She could almost see the long stretch of the one behind her as he pulled his arm back. There was the faint creaking of leather, the rustling of coarse fabric, and then fire again, and no breathing through that for fear of an unguarded scream.

Hands bound with powerful magic in front of her, high over her head, Rayne turned her face slightly from the rough wooden post when the force of the lash pushed her forward. It was the third night of this, and the voice behind her was the same as before. Sometimes demanding, sometimes cajoling, sometimes flat and monotone, but always with the same promises: You can end this. Just tell us what we need to hear. She almost had the exact shape and size of the man behind the lash. When she did...

She knew they were being careful, knew that a minimum amount of her blood had been spilled in this dank stone vault, but as careful as they may have been Rayne still felt the collapsing of her veins, the tooth-filled sharpness running through her. Hunger was competing with the lash for dominance over her senses. Desperation tasted ashy in the back of her throat. She estimated the angle at which she would need to kick backward, she estimated the amount of strength she'd need to use to pull herself up, she estimated just how far away the second man - the gravely voice - was, and when the next lash came, she marked the time, readied herself.

( The next strike never came. )