Sevha erged from the attic, a handaxe of black steel in his grip.
An empty house. Dusk.
The setting sun poured through a window, staining the vacant second-floor hallway a deep red.
“Isn’t it too quiet?” one of Tito’s knights comnted.
“Maybe the dickheads killed them mid-fuck.”
“Or maybe they’re so bad they can’t even make a woman cry.”
Hearing the lewd jokes from the first floor, Sevha descended the stairs.
He made no sound. Only the blood dripping from his handaxe, darkening the sunset-washed steps.
When he reached the first floor, as empty as the second, he paused and listened.
The laughter of Tito’s n spilled from a nearby room.
He stopped before the door and knocked.
Thump, thump, thump.
“Finally done!”
The door was flung open.
“Are the won—!”
Thwok!
The mont the door opened, Sevha’s handaxe ca down on the man’s face. He crumpled, blood spraying from the gash.
Beyond the falling body, two other n drinking on a crate looked up. They saw only Sevha, his face spattered with blood, just as he threw the handaxe.
“You son of a—!”
The axe buried itself in the man’s face before he could finish his curse.
As his companion fell backward in a spray of blood, the last man scrambled for his dagger.
“Son of a mangy bitch! Do you have any idea who we are?”
Sevha advanced, ignoring the threat.
“Stay—stay back! I said stay back!”
The man scread as he charged, dagger first.
Sevha dodged the wild thrust, seized the man’s arm, and twisted.
Crack!
A harrowing scream tore from the man’s throat as his arm popped from its socket.
Sevha gripped the limp, rope-like arm and forced its own dagger into the man’s face.
The man also went limp.
Sevha tossed the body aside. He pulled the dagger from the man’s face, then retrieved his handaxe from the second corpse.
With his weapons collected, he gave the three bodies a cursory glance, then ambled back to the attic as if he had just been out for a stroll.
***
“Aah!”
When Sevha returned to the attic, more blood-soaked than before, Mary finally scread.
Teresse, however, sighed like a mother seeing her muddy child. She wiped Sevha’s face with her sleeve.
“The n?” she asked.
“All dead. What now?”
Teresse approached Mary. “Like I said, if we just leave, their friends will hunt this girl down. We have to create a situation where they can’t touch her.”
Teresse crouched in front of Mary, smiling warmly.
“Mary, Mary,” she crooned.
“Yes?”
“May I… hit you a little?”
Mary stared, bewildered.
Teresse’s voice beca wheedling. “I’ll let you hit back. All right? It’ll be fine.”
***
Dusk’s last light fell on the main square of Rasseu, capital of the Blanc Territory.
It was crowded with townspeople hurrying ho before night made the city lawless.
Worn down by their harsh lives, they paid no mind to anyone they passed. It seed nothing could halt their steps.
But then their steps did halt.
At a sudden scream.
“Aah! Murder!”
Every person in the square froze. Two won—Teresse and Mary—stumbled toward them, clothes torn, faces bruised.
Just as they reached the center of the square and collapsed, sothing fell from a nearby rooftop.
The sickening wet sounds of flesh slapping cobblestone filled the air.
The townspeople looked up and saw the corpses. Horribly mutilated, they were enough to turn stomachs, even in an age all too familiar with death.
“M-Murder!”
“Call the guards!”
As people scread and began to flee, Teresse shrieked, “Be careful! The murderer might still be here!”
Her warning froze the crowd. They stopped, scanning their surroundings with wide, tense eyes.
The square was utterly still for a few monts.
Eventually, Tito and his n shoved their way through the motionless crowd.
“What’s all this commotio—” Tito’s breath hitched at the sight of his n’s bodies.
He drew his sword. “Sons of bitches! Who did this? Who the hell did this?!”
There was no answer. But the mont Tito saw Teresse, he knew.
“It was that friend of yours, wasn’t it?” he snarled. “I’ll kill you… and then I’ll kill that little shit too!”
Fuming, Tito strode toward her.
Teresse didn’t run. She only wept.
“I-It was so frightening.”
She wept so sorrowfully, so perfectly, that even Tito, who knew her for an accomplice, hesitated.
Teresse seized on his hesitation, recounting her story through shuddering sobs.
“Those n… they dragged and this child from the tavern. Then… a man appeared from nowhere! He killed them in an instant!”
“Shut your trap!”
“It’s true! He killed them with ease!”
Tito figured she was just trying to win the crowd’s sympathy to save her own skin. He moved to cut her down before she could blather on.
“Afterward, the man who killed them spoke! He told to deliver this ssage to all the people of Blanc!”
“I told you to shut—!”
The mont Tito raised his sword, Teresse’s sobs stopped cold.
In a clear, ringing voice, she shouted, “I don’t understand why these Blanc folk fear such pampered dogs!”
Tito froze. His n, confused, looked around and then understood.
“C-Captain… Th-Those people…”
The townspeople were staring right at Tito and his n. Their faces no longer held weariness or fear. Only seething hatred.
A cold dread washed over Tito. He had the sudden, sickening feeling he was about to be beaten to death by the mob.
Teresse began to sob again, clutching his leg.
“M- and this girl had nothing to do with the murderer! Please, forgive us!”
She lowered her head, then glanced up at Tito. Only he could see her expression.
The tears were gone, replaced with pure mockery.
She studied his complexion, now ashen where it had been pale, and whispered, “Hmm? You’ll forgive us, won’t you?”
Tito ground his teeth, his eyes wide with fury.
“You’re not thinking of killing us, are you?” Teresse continued her taunts. “If you kill us, now or later, the people won’t stand for it.”
She hadn’t been buying sympathy. She had been selling the people an ember.
“There will be a riot.”
She had been lighting a fire.
“The people hate you. But their fear is greater than their hatred, so they endure,” she whispered sweetly, lifting her head higher.
“But those corpses just showed them sothing. That you… are nothing but dogs they could chop up and boil if they just put their minds to it.”
Her analysis was correct. Fear was the only thing that kept the townspeople in line.
Now that fear was cracking. If Tito killed the two won now, in front of this crowd, the crack would shatter and the mob would tear him apart.
“Oh, you little dog. A wise king beheads a traitor in the square… but a revolutionary is executed in a dungeon.”
His voice was almost a sigh as he quietly spat, “I will kill you…” Once I’ve taught these sheep to fear again.
He swallowed the rest of his threat, shook Teresse off, and stepped back.
“My n acted on their own… I will not hold you responsible.”
As Tito wisely retreated, Teresse began to sob and thank him again.
Just as he was thinking what a damned cunning bitch she was, heavy footsteps sounded.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
The sound ca from armored n ard with steel.
Tito’s face twisted in annoyance. “Blanc Knights…”
The man at their head was in his early thirties. Handso, but the skin under his eyes was raw and chapped.
“Tito,” the man called out.
“Ahh, Commander Eshu. Wish you could at least… keep the ‘sir’ on my na.”
“What is happening here?” Eshu ignored the jab.
Tito bared his teeth. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Your n’s corpses are strewn across the square.”
“I ant it’s nothing for you gentlen. Maintaining order in Rasseu is the duty of my knights, not the Blanc Knights.”
Eshu bared his own teeth in frustration.
Tito snickered at the sight, then turned his back.
“In any case, my knights will handle the murder investigation. Clean this up, you bastards!” he shouted at his n, then stalked away.
Eshu squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing a wave of emotion. He opened them and approached Teresse and Mary.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“We’re…”
Before Teresse could answer, Mary shouted, “Why don’t the Blanc Knights do anything?!”
At her cry, the townspeople turned on the knights, their eyes full of hatred.
The knights tensed, their hands going to their swords, but Eshu stopped them.
“I am truly… truly sorry,” he said. “If only there were a proper heir…”
Eshu bit his lip, realizing he had said too much.
He helped Mary to her feet, then turned away. “Let’s go.”
Teresse watched the knights leave, then broke into a grin.
Just then, Sevha appeared at her side.
“Crying one mont, smiling the next. You’re either a busy woman or a mad one,” he remarked.
“I can’t help but smile. I have a rough grasp of the situation here now.”
Teresse went to Mary’s side, feigning concern.
“Mary,” she asked quietly, “does the Blanc Territory have no heir?”
“That’s right. The Marquis had a daughter and a son, but the daughter died in the County of Anse, and the son died trying to rescue survivors after the Great Underground Road collapsed.”
So they didn’t know about the undead. Teresse filed that away; it wasn’t important right now.
She moved on. “I heard the Marquis of Blanc is ill. Is it true?”
“I’ve only heard the rumors.”
“Good. Then who is acting as regent?”
“Count Bernard, one of the Marquis’s vassals.”
Just then, the innkeeper, Mary’s father, burst from the crowd.
“Mary!” he cried.
“Father!”
Sevha watched their embrace impassively until Teresse yanked him aside.
“I know what we have to do here,” Teresse declared.
“I’m listening.”
She smiled brightly.
Her next words made Sevha regret having ears.
“We’re going to arrange a succession.”
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