A week and a half passed before Minerva emerged from her convalescence. Not a mark remained on her skin. No burn, no blemish, no sign that she had ever been forced into the belly of a bronze bull. The vitalist had done his work well. Her face was as lovely as before, untouched by the torment she had endured.
But her eyes betrayed the truth.
There was something hollow in them now, something cracked beneath the surface. She smiled when spoken to, laughed even, but late at night, the tower would sometimes echo with her screams. She'd awaken howling, clawing at the air as if she were still inside the crucible.
Time would heal that too, or at least bury it.
In the meantime, Brother Lome, ever the spiritual caretaker, had recommended something lighter to help mend her spirit: an excursion into the city to experience the Festival of Lanterns. He tasked his apprentice, Darien, with escorting them.
And so they rode—Minerva, Yvain, Celeste, and Darien—down from the sea cliffs toward the city center, cloaks billowing in the wind like dark banners.
Darien was young, perhaps nineteen, with a tousled mane of gold hair and an eagerness that bordered on overeager. He hadn't yet undergone his own rite of passage, and from the way he hovered around Minerva, her ordeal had either frightened him deeply… or enamored him.
Most likely both.
He hardly left her side, fussing over her like a nursemaid. "Are you all right?" he would whisper every few minutes. "You're walking too fast. Should you rest? Do you need water?"
Minerva bore it with a strained patience, replying gently, though Yvain noted the occasional twitch at the corner of her mouth. She was still recovering, inside and out.
The sun was low on the horizon, not that the distinction mattered much in Malkuth anymore. The light of the sun, once golden and warm, was now a dull, wan thing, like the last ember of a dying hearth. The world was dim, and getting dimmer.
Even so, the city center was ablaze with color and sound. Paper lanterns bobbed in the air, glowing softly with captured Breath. Performers danced with flame or summoned phantasms in the street, their illusions twisting above delighted crowds. Aromas of roasting meat, honeyed confections, and the sharp tang of incense mingled in the air. Merchants shouted above the din, hawking wares from silver charms to false relics.
And among it all, the Knights Chevalier patrolled like ghosts in polished armor, faces hidden beneath helms, long capes rippling in the wind. There were whispers in the crowd, rumors of a beast haunting the city outskirts, and of something darker, a demonic presence stalking its alleys under moonlight.
Yvain, despite the festivities, wore a frown.
Celeste noticed. "What are you brooding over now?" she asked, sidling up beside him, her voice light.
He didn't answer immediately. His eyes scanned the crowd, always watching. Then he said, "Vaelha. She should be looking for us by now."
Celeste arched a brow. "You think she'd come herself?"
"No," he said. "She wouldn't risk it. She's too busy trying to court the old lineages, playing her little games."
Celeste nodded in agreement. "Still trying to convince the old houses to rise against the Magisterium? They hate her nearly as much as they hate the Council."
"Not all of them," Yvain muttered. "Some would burn the world just to rebuild their own petty dynasties. The thought of a regulated magical order is heresy to them."
"As it should be," Celeste replied. "You think she'll send someone?"
"She'll send Sorel," Yvain said grimly. "Or Khaalzan. She trusts them more than anyone."
Sorel was an automaton knight. Mute, relentless, and built of hammered bronze and burnished copper. A relic from a forgotten age, he had been forged by Jantra the Nine-Handed, the Copper Maker of Pem, who created the first clockwork soldiers. Jantra had perished long ago, either slain by his own constructs or devoured by the entropy he dared to defy, but Sorel had endured. His runes were still bright. His blade still sang.
Khaalzan was… worse. The less said about him, the better. A man of blood and needles, who had once served as the master of interrogators in the dungeons beneath the Tower of Veins. Now, he roamed free. Some said he had offered his soul to an archdemon. Others whispered that he had no soul left to offer.
Both had escaped the fall of Babel with the Grandmistress. That they had survived the sacking was testament enough to their cruelty and power.
Celeste grinned at the mention of them. "Should be fun."
Yvain gave her a side glance. "We need to leave the city. We've lingered here too long."
Celeste rolled her eyes. "And go where, exactly?"
He looked out toward the horizon, where the city lights bled into the growing dark. "The Necropolis. Or maybe the Hundred Towers."
That was when Minerva, riding slightly ahead, turned her head and cut into the conversation, her voice sharp with warning. "That's foolish. The roads aren't safe. My caravan was attacked on the way to the city. We barely made it."
Darien, riding beside her, looked genuinely alarmed. "Attacked by what? Highwaymen?"
Minerva shook her head slowly. "No. The dead. The crawling dead."
Darien's face blanched. "You've actually seen them?"
She turned in her saddle, studying him. "You haven't?"
"I've heard the stories," he admitted.
Yvain spoke then, his voice low. "We all have."
That didn't stop Darien. "One of the Black Emperors of Old," he said. "Indra Dehmohseni. In the last days of the Fourth Age, he and his heretic court tried to do the impossible, kill death itself. They thought to master mortality, to bend it to their will and live forever."
He let the silence stretch, heavy as iron.
"But instead," he continued, "they broke it. Shattered something sacred. Now the veil between life and death is threadbare. The world leaks. And not all dying things stay dead."
Minerva shivered and looked away. Darien swallowed hard, the flush gone from his cheeks.
"My master says the world fares better without them," Minerva added, her voice carrying a note of conviction.
Celeste's eyes gleamed beneath her dark lashes. "As long as the snake lives, there'll always be those who fear its bite," she murmured.
Yvain gave a dry laugh and waved a hand, as if brushing cobwebs from the air. "Let's not waste the evening brooding over dead kings and shattered ages. The night is for lanterns and laughter, not lament."
"Well said," Darien agreed quickly, seizing the opportunity to redirect the mood. He pointed down a crowded street where light and music danced together in golden waves. "There's a play being performed just ahead, one of the traveling troupes from the Hinterlands."
Minerva perked up at that, eager for the distraction. Celeste offered a sly grin and fell into step behind the others.
With a silent understanding, they left their horses in the care of a stableboy and waded into the tide of festival-goers. Lanterns bobbed like stars above the streets, casting the cobblestones in shades of amber and rose. Paper dragons coiled through the air on invisible strings, their glowing eyes blinking slowly. Perfume mingled with the scent of fire-roasted fruit, spices, and fresh bread.
Soon, they found themselves before the impromptu stage, a raised wooden platform framed with crimson drapes.
The play had already begun. A masked actor stood in the center, clad in gold and black, his voice rippling through the crowd like a breeze through leaves.
It was a tale of betrayal and transformation. A duke who had sought to hold the moon in his hand, only to find it burned away all he loved. Illusions painted scenes behind the actors in living motion, castles crumbling, lovers turning to shadows, oceans boiling under an angry sky. The crowd was spellbound.
The play drew to a close in a crescendo of spell-lit spectacle and haunting music. The lead actor stood alone at center stage, arms outstretched, basking in the audience's thunderous applause. Cheers echoed through the festival square, mingled with laughter and shouts of delight. Bouquets of flowers sailed through the air, along with ribbons, coins, and sweets offered by eager hands.
The actor bowed low, his golden mask catching the glow of the lanterns, and held the pose for a breath too long. Then another. A ripple of murmuring spread through the crowd as the man's body seemed to… twitch. It was small at first, barely noticeable, like a shiver from the chill.
Celeste's smile faded. Yvain's eyes narrowed.
The twitching grew worse.
The man jerked upright suddenly, his spine snapping straight with a sickening crack. A hush fell over the square as the audience hesitated, unsure if this too was part of the performance. Children clung to their parents. A few of the other actors exchanged glances, stepping back from the stage's center.
Then the shuddering began, violent and unnatural, as though invisible wires were pulling the actor's limbs in opposing directions. His golden mask fell away, clattering to the floor, revealing eyes that no longer blinked and a mouth frozen in a rictus grin.
A horrible sound tore through the silence, a wet, tearing rasp as his skin split along the seams, peeling back like parchment soaked in flame.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The thing that emerged from the ruined shell of flesh was no man.
Its form was vaguely humanoid, but stretched wrong, too tall, too thin, slick with ichor and wrapped in writhing cords of shadow. Its eyes, if they were eyes, were voids that sucked in the lantern light around it. Smoke-like tendrils curled off its shoulders, and where it stepped, the wooden stage blackened and cracked beneath its feet.
People screamed.
The other actors fled in all directions. Children were yanked up into arms. Flowers were trampled as the crowd dissolved into chaos.