The air in the Castle of Aethelgard was dense. High Pope Vane, who had come to visit the King, didn't look like a Holy Man, he was a sharp man with naught but cleverness on his face, his boots making a sound that made King Aldous flinch.
King Aldous sat across him, looking uncomfortable. He was holding a goblet filled with red wine, his hands were shaking just enough to make the liquid ripple, looking less like a Ruler and more like a man waiting for a death sentence.
"The kid is a story that won't finish, Aldous," Vane said. His voice was a jagged rasp. "The peasants in the lower areas, they aren't praying to the Church anymore. The are carving his face on stones and their doors. The Hero. Our savior."
"He's the only thing keeping the Demonic Rampages and Abyssal Abominations from our front doors" Aldous muttered. He tried to take a sip of wine, but his teeth clinked against the rim. "He killed three generals last month. One kid. We need that kind of muscle."
"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, grovelling 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 felt like needles.
Emilia was in a deep sleep when the world came apart. Her bedroom door didn't just open, it was blasted off by the Mages of The Church. Half a dozen Inquisitors, their armor slick with rain and smelling of wet iron, poured into the small space. Their holy brands hissed, promising a painful end.
Emilia, terrified, ran and pushed to reach the dagger Eila had tucked under her pillow, though she never reached it, halfway a metallic fist caught her cheek and sent her spiraling down, blood pooling on the floor.
"By the Pope's word," the tallest of them growled, his voice muffled. He cinched a length of rough, enchanted rope around her wrists. The magic infused into it burned her wrists like a thousand hot needles. "You're under arrest for treason."
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 Abyssal front, 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 greataxe 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.
"Today, we rid ourselves of this FILTH!" his voice boomed, magically amplified until it vibrated in the teeth of everyone in the square. "We've lived in the shadow of a false savior for too long! We've let a boy's strength make us forget the laws of the Heavens! WE WILL NOT BE SLAVES TO A HERO!"
The crowd started to stomp in eagerness, a sickening sound of Thump. Thump. Thump.
Vane pointed a long, bony finger at the girl on the block. "This girl trafficked with demons while you went hungry! Today, we end it!"
The knights shoved her down. The wood of the chopping block was cold against her neck, smelling of old sap and the iron tang of blood that hadn't been washed away. Emilia squeezed her eyes shut. She looked through the gaps in the floorboards, out toward the city gates.
He isn't coming, she thought. The realization was a weight heavier than the axe. He was going to come back to a house that smelled like dust. He was going to find her gone and he wouldn't even know why. Oh, Eila... I'm so sorry.
"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.