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Chapter 4 - 4. Echoes

Milton de Peyrac-Peyran

1253

Caed Dhu, Angren

Louis was dead.I knew that. I saw it happen. The thing tore into him like a man tearing bread. There was no mistaking it. No one survives that.

But then it spoke with his voice. It shouldn't have been possible. The sound of it hit me harder than the sight of the blood. I knew that voice. I'd heard it a hundred times in the yard, calling for me to raise my guard, laughing when I slipped in the mud. I'd heard it at the fire, quiet and tired, when he talked about home.

And now it came from that thing.

If I hadn't been so terrified, I might have been struck by how it looked. Its skin caught the sunlight like glass, scattering it in pale sparks. It wasn't natural—too smooth, too bright. The light didn't fall on it; it clung to it, like the creature was made of something harder than flesh. If fear hadn't held me, I might have been mesmerized.

My mouth went dry. I couldn't breathe correctly. Ramon cursed at it me, called it a devil, but his voice shook. Vladimir was praying, though I could tell he'd forgotten half the words.

Steady, Milton, I told myself. You are a knight of Toussaint. You've faced drowners, bandits, men worse than beasts. You do not falter now

The thing said it was sorry. Said it hadn't meant it. Said it wished we'd never seen it.

If I hadn't watched Louis die, I might have felt something other than fear and hate for it. But I had. I'd watched him thrash and choke while that thing drank him empty.

I thought of my wife Angelique, of our son Joffery. Of how I'd told her I'd be home before the harvest. What would they do if I didn't come back? Who would tell them what really happened? That a monster had eaten of my soul?

Forgive me, my love, I thought. Forgive me if I cannot come home.

My good hand was shaking. I tried to steady it on the rondel dagger at my waist. The steel felt cold even through the glove. I wanted to pray, but the words wouldn't come.

I wasn't a knight at this moment, just a man who knew he was about to die.

I'd seen how it moved—too fast to follow, too strong to harm. Steel wouldn't cut it. No man could. But I would not lie down and wait for death. If this was to be the end, I'd face it standing.

It turned to Du Lac. He swung his fists at it and shouted his oaths, but the thing kept walking toward him. The strikes hit without effect. It caught his wrist, pushed him down, and broke his neck with one motion. It set him aside like he was nothing. Its face looked calm. Almost mournful.

Was it regret? Could it really feel emotions? Was it killing us only because it feared what we might do if it let us live?

It moved to Vladimir next. He dropped his sword. "Wait," he said. "We won't tell anyone about you. We'll say we fell astray a band of bandits or a nest of nekkers. I swear on my honor as a knight, we'll keep your secret."

It looked at him. "You said it yourself, Vladimir. Your vows aren't meant for things like me." It took his throat in its hand and crushed it. He fell without a sound.

Then it looked at me

Matthias Harlow

Despite the show I was putting on, and the quick work I made of them, I did not enjoy it. Even with my hands on their throats I was second guessing myself. Could I let them go? Could I trust a promise given by desperate men in the face of certain death? Louis' memories answered for me. Any vow Ramon or Vladimir or even Milton gave would vanish as soon as they left these trees. The Syanna's condition was proof enough of how noble they truly were when no one watched. Their oaths would be whispers on the wind. They had to die.

I walked to the last man standing. Milton held a dagger in his off hand. His gaze stayed steady, but the set of his jaw told me he was holding up a front. I felt a pang then, sharp and sudden. Louis' grief threaded through my head, raw and small. The emotion made something in me holler with guilt. For an instant I hesitated.

Milton moved on that split second and lunged. He aimed for my eye, smart, even as terrified as he is he probes for my weaknesses. His blade was a thin, desperate thing. I grabbed the dagger by the blade. My fingers closed so tight the steel screamed. The metal bent and folded under pressure and then it broke with a clean, snapping sound. The tip tore free and clattered to the ground.

The break stopped him. He stumbled back, breath rattling. I could see the panic under his training. He swung again, harder this time, hacks meant to cut through resolve as much as flesh. I did not dodge them. I smacked his blows aside with the flat of my hand, one, two, three times. Each strike sent him off balance. He tried to land full weight on a cut. I slapped it away. He lunged with his shoulder. Leverage where strength has failed, innovative, but naive. I shoved him and he went down, hitting earth as if the world had pushed him.

He scrambled up, breath ragged, sword wild. I let him come. He hacked and cursed and tried to find some angle that would count for something. I answered by taking his rhythm apart, by turning his strength into forward motion and then stopping it. I slapped at the blade until the dagger clattered from his grip. He reached for it but the broken hilt lay useless at his feet.

Then I stopped. I looked down at him on his knee and I felt Louis's echo tighten in my chest again. It hurt. It made me pull in a way that surprised me.

I looked down at him, at how pathetic he looked, kneeling, panting in utter exhaustion and dread, and again I felt an echo of grief that compounded onto the guilt I felt.

Fuck thats gonna be irritating, how long is he gonna rattle in there?

Twilight vampires didn't work like conventional ones or even the kind found here. The body changed completely. Skin turned to stone, smooth and cold, catching the light like glass. There was no blood, no breath, no pulse. The venom in their bite could turn a person if it didn't kill them first. They weren't a species it worked more like a transmittable curse. The venom spread slowly, and excruciatingly so , burning away what was human until only the body remained.

Sometimes, traces of who they were before stayed behind. Those traces could become something else a "gift." A hunter might gain speed or precision. A manipulator might gain control over minds. Each ability reflected what they had been in life, twisted into something unnatural.

I wasn't an idiot, I could put two and two together, that was what I had, my gift. When I killed, I took more than a life. I took what they'd seen, what they'd felt. Their instincts, memories, knowledge and thoughts. It was worse with people. When it was an animal, it faded quick. When it was a person, it stayed longer. It talked back. I could feel their fear, their guilt, their regrets bleeding into my own thoughts.

Louis's echo was loud. It wouldn't shut up. It felt too close, too human. And it made this harder than it should have been.

Blocking that is not easy. It sticks. It echoes. It claws at the edges of me begging me to do something to silence it. Killing Milton would only feed the echo. Keeping him alive might quiet it.

I did not like how much that thought mattered.

Whilst Milton was catching his breath I broke the silence that had formed in the lull of battle "You think you're noble," I said. "You think your vows mean anything when you look away." My voice had a theater to it now, slow and sharp.

I nudged my head to the still tied up girl resignedly watching this whole spectacle unfold "But I'll give you some credit, when your companions did what they did to her, you hesitated. But that's all you did... you looked the other way and told yourself that was enough. You called it justice. You called it honor. That was all you did. You did not speak. You did not stop them."

Milton's lips moved. He tried to answer. He could not.

"You style yourself a knight," I went on. "You wear that name and think it shields you of your sins. It does not." The fight had drained out of him. His gasps for air had become angry little wheezes. He tried to gather himself but I pushed him again, and he fell back hard.

Before he could rise I leaned over him. I lowered my voice so only he could hear. The words hit him like cold water.

"But I am willing to make you a deal, Milton." He flinched at me calling his name, I continued on in the lull that had formed.

"I don't make deals with devils, my soul will lie with Lebioda" he said, wheezing.

"I'm not asking for your soul, de Peyrac-Peyran. Only a favour." My voice was flat. "I'll let you get on your horse and ride back to Toussaint. Do what Vladimir suggested. Spin them a tale of a nekker lair or bandits. I don't care which as long as no one comes looking."

I knew how it sounded. All this talk of deals and favours was just me looking for a reason to justify sparing him. Louis's echo in my head was not like the bear's. A man's life, his memories, were not simple things to dismiss. I needed to quiet that grief at the back of my mind, and killing this man would do the opposite.

"All you'd need to do is swear." I said. He panted, staring at me in disbelief. "Why me and not them? Why would you accept my vow and not theirs?"

"Because you can promise something they cannot." I kept my voice steady. "I have business in Toussaint. I could use a Baron's favour. A Count would be better but—" I glanced at de la Croix's pale face. "Like I said. It was an accident. I am not asking you to swear on your vows. We both know how little you value those when it comes down to it."

"What then? Swear on my life? My soul?" He spat the words. "I'd rather you finish me than betray my country, beast."

"What is your obsession with souls?" I said. "No. I'm asking you to swear on something you actually value." The echo of Louis's voice threaded through me. Forgive me, old friend. I pushed it down. "Swear on Angélique. Swear on little Joffery. Swear that no word of what happened here leaves your mouth."

At the mention of his wife and child something in him broke. He charged like a man possessed. He moved faster than I expected, all desperation and blind fear. He lashed out with his shattered dagger, wild and ugly, aiming low, then high, trying to find an angle to end me. He missed my head by a handspan. He jabbed at my ribs. He tried to get under my guard and ram his shoulder into me. He clawed, he cursed, he spat. His attacks were frantic, every strike born of panic.

I kicked him in the chest. He flew back, landing hard by the campfire where they had feasted. The heat cracked the air around him. He rolled once, scrambled up, eyes mad. He grabbed a silver goblet from the ground and hurled it at me with everything he had left.

By instinct I caught it. It hit my palm and rested there. For a long second I stood very still. The metal trembled against my skin. Nothing happened. No searing pain no sizzling skin. The world kept turning. The pause stretched out, loud as thunder. At the loss of this last final hope, he fell to his knees and sobbed.

Sylvia Anna Henrietta

I had not moved. I sat where they'd tied me, back against a stump, face to the fire, iron shackles weighing down on my wrists. The fight had ended, though the sight and sound of it still rang in my head—of teeth sinking into flesh, the crack of steel, the grunts of impact, the dull thud of bodies hitting earth. The quiet after felt wrong, too wide, too deep.

I tried to count breaths, to make sense of what I'd seen. It hadn't been a man that fought them. Men bled. Men strained and tired. That thing hadn't. It moved like it was toying with them, like every swing was an answer to a question long ago asked.

The thing glittered unlike any precious jewel she could name. Its skin wasn't like a man's. It caught the light and threw it back, pale and hard, smooth like polished stone. It looked mesmerizing, it looked wrong.

It was naked. I hadn't noticed it before. There had been too much noise, too much blood, too much movement. But now, with the fight done, it was impossible not to miss. Its body was lean, every line too sharp, too precise. It didn't move like something cold or ashamed. It didn't seem to notice at all. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. My body wouldn't listen. Fear kept my eyes open. My hands were shaking where the chains met my wrists. I told myself to close them, to stop watching, but I didn't.

Now it stood over the last of them—Milton de Peyrac-Peyran—on his knees, broken and sobbing.

It hadn't killed him like the others. It had toyed with him—beat him down with fists, with words, with truths it should not have known. I watched, frozen, as it stood over him, the silver goblet glinting impossibly in its hand. Milton sobbed, broken and furious, his face twisted in disbelief.

"I'm willing to overlook that," it said at last, voice calm. "Emotions running high and all that. But I'm still waiting for your answer."

Milton swallowed, shaking. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

"I swear it. No one will know what truly happened here. "The thing studied him for what felt like an eternity, searching his face for something. Whatever it found made it smile—a small, quiet thing that made my stomach turn. "Good. Very good," it said. "Gather yourself, your horse, and your purse, and leave."

Milton looked at me then, for the first time since it had appeared. His eyes were uncertain. He opened his mouth—maybe to plead for me, maybe to beg for my life—but the monster cut him off without looking his way. "Yourself, your horse, and your purse, Milton. Nothing else."

It's going to kill me. The thought struck like ice in my chest. If he left me here, that thing would eat me—or snap my neck or worse.

I wanted to call out, to beg him to speak for me, to do something. But I knew Milton de Peyrac-Peyran. Beneath the armor and the titles, beneath all that pomp and pageantry was a coward.

He would not help me.

The thing stood still, watching as Milton staggered to his feet. He moved like a man half-dead—fumbling for his saddlebag, clutching at whatever trinkets he could manage with a trembling hand. When he finally mounted his horse, he hesitated.

His eyes found mine across the clearing "Forgive me," he whispered.

Then he turned and rode off into the forest, hooves fading into the trees until there was nothing but the crackle of the dying fire.

The monster watched him go, head tilted slightly, expression unreadable. It didn't move until the sound of hooves faded into the forest's hush.

Then, slowly, it turned toward me.

My breath caught. Each step it took sounded like a death knell—measured, deliberate, final. Panic clawed its way up my throat. I pulled against the chains, wrists burning, metal biting into raw skin. I twisted, kicked, dragged myself half upright, every muscle screaming. I didn't care. I had to move. I had to do something.

But it didn't come for me.

It passed by without a glance, the firelight gleaming off that pale, unnatural skin. I froze, trembling, as it brushed close enough for me to hear the faint shift of air around its body. Then it crouched and slipped into one of the dead knights' tents—Louis de La Croix's , I thought dimly, though I wasn't sure anymore.

The flap closed behind it, and the camp fell quiet again. The only sounds were the crackle of the dying fire and my own ragged breathing.

 

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