A broad staircase, capable of accommodating many males shoulder to shoulder, presented itself, and that was when he smelled something that made him pick up his pace rather than worry about remaining undetected.

His cousin! She was near!

Upon the head of the steps, the great hall unfurled—and he gasped. “Rahvyn!”

Rushing forth, he crossed the stone flooring unto the hearth where the female had been chained to steel loops mounted in the thick, mortared wall, her head hanging loose, her robing marked with dirt and blood, more blood matting her dark hair.

“Rahvyn, dearest Virgin Scribe, Rahvyn . . .” He was gentle with his trembling hands as he brushed her locks back. “Look at me—”

As she lifted her face, he felt a rage that went to his bones.

Both of her eyes had been blackened, her lip was split, and there was a bruise around her neck.

Her stare, however, glittered with a power he could not immediately comprehend.

“Rahvyn, I shall get you free—” Heedlessly dropping the torch, he went for the pinnings struck into the wall. “I shall—”

“No,” she hissed. “They cannae hurt me—”

Sahvage froze. Then redoubled his efforts.

“Whate’er you say?” He yanked at the steel chains and formulated a way to carry her out. “Just a moment—”

“I am back now. They cannae hurt me.”

Sahvage frowned. Something in her tone of voice, her words . . . “What?”

“I was gone, but I have returned. And I shall not be hurt again.”

“How did they hurt you,” he said baldly.

“You are likewise released. You are free the now. Go forth and worry not for me—”

“What do you mean, I am free?”

“I have freed you, and now you may go—”

“I shall not leave you—”

In a voice that warped with an authority he did not understand, Rahvyn pronounced, “I shall take care of myself. And you shall leave, for the only power any shall e’er have over either of us is me.”

He shook his head. “What say you.”

“We shall be separate from now on.”

Sahvage resumed his yanking. “No more of this talk. I shall remove you away from here and take well care of you—”

Heavy, pounding footfalls the now. Many of them, some number of males of great weight and armament coming forth from elsewhere within the castle.

Sahvage pulled so hard against the steel chains, he felt a pop in his shoulder joint, but the ring came out, the chains rattling. He went to the other side.

“Stop,” Rahvyn ordered. “Unhand the chains. I am unafraid.”

“After what they did to you—”

“I have been unlocked through Zyxsis’s violence. I have no regrets—”

The second pinning came loose, and then he tried to scoop her up in his arms.

His beloved cousin shoved him back. “No! I am not going with you—”

“Are you mad?”

“If you do not separate us, I shall, Sahvage. We must needs be apart, and you are free now—”

And that was when a stand of guards came unto the archway. They were a full flank’s worth, uniformed in the ribbon colors of Zxysis’s bloodline, armed with weapons of sword and gun.

As Sahvage placed his body between his charge and his now-sworn enemy, he took up the torch once more as the only defense he had outside of his physical form. Bracing himself, he orientated his position unto the exits, which were the stairs he had come up and the—

The guards stayed where they were, weapons poised, bodies prepared for attack, yet the violence remaining on the brink rather than called unto realization.

Fear marked their eyes.

As none moved, a strange sense of foreboding had Sahvage looking back at his cousin. She was staring at the guards with a concentration that seemed like something he could reach out and feel, like a rope or a set of chains such as those that fell from her wrists.

“I told your lord to leave me,” she said unto the males. “And he did not listen. I shall not give you such a choice of retreat.”

All at once, the scabbards and flint rifles lowered and then dropped unto the stone with a clattering. And then came the trembling. Those male bodies, so stout and strong in their protective leathers, began to shake. Every one of them. And then hands reached for throats, reached for temples, reached for chests. Panic flared eyes even wider—

Moans echoed about the great hall as mouths stretched to grab at air, and cheeks became florid from straining, and sweat coursed down faces and dripped upon chest coverings—

The head of the guard on the farthest right exploded first, a pumpkin kicked, fragments of skull and fluffy white pieces of brain flying off in a spray of bright red blood.

As the headless body flopped to the floor, landing upon the weapons once held by vital, fighting hands, the others screamed and flailed, but they were trees a-rooted, going nowhere. One by one, they followed the fate of the first, the bloody chaos overwhelming and inexplicable, for there were no hands upon them, no bludgeoning tools o’er their shoulders or afore their faces, no contact brought to bear upon them.

And yet it was real, for their airborne blood speckled Sahvage’s black robing, and the scent of their raw, meaty flesh was within his nose.

Turning around to Rahvyn, he took a step back from the female he’d thought he knew as he knew his own reflection.

“Who art thou,” he said roughly.

• • •

With a jerk, Sahvage came back to the present—and discovered that he had walked up close to the couch and was staring at the burst of blood and brains on the wall behind where Dave was sprawled in his perma-repose. Even now, even after all these years, and all the person-to-person fighting Sahvage had done . . . he had never gotten over what he had seen that night when Rahvyn had come ’round from a stupor and literally blown the heads off a stand of guards.

“Sleep well, asshole,” Sahvage muttered as he hitched the duffle bag full of guns up on his shoulder and hit the exit.

Out by the remaining truck, he was tempted to take it as well, but not for long. He’d never needed a car, and like he could fence the damn thing without someone tracking him back to this now-murder scene? Whatever. Best to keep things clean, even though he wasn’t going to be in Caldwell for much longer.

Although now? Given his persistent premonition of dying, he had a feeling he was leaving feetfirst. Death was going to be a relief, and if he could steer Mae away from making a mistake with that old female’s inevitable fate? Well, then he’d have done one thing right in this world.

Just before he dematerialized back to the cottage, he looked to the sky and thought of Rahvyn. It had been a while since he’d done that. A couple of decades.

And he felt no better now than he had before. She was his ultimate failure.

Shaking his head, he ghosted out. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to think of her ever again soon. He’d be in that black void that came after your last heartbeat, no more worries, no more cares, no more anything.

Although he had learned the hard way that magic existed in the world, he no longer believed in the Fade. Death was a full stop.

Nothing but lights-out.

Thank fuck.