Cyrus and Vara strolled hand in hand along the darkening streets of Reikonos, Cyrus trying to take in every line, every trace of the city for fear he would not see it again soon, if ever. Even the stink of so many people and their waste in this close proximity seemed less foul, now that he feared his days of being able to visit freely were drawing to a close.

"This whole sequence of events and what is to come," Vara said, musing quietly, "brings to mind what happened four years ago, when Goliath blamed us for the goblin attacks on the plains convoys and got us barred by all the major powers."

"Except we have no one to blame this time but ourselves," Cyrus said. "Or at least myself."

"I don't think anyone can blame you for something done in such extremes," she said, her boots finding the soft, dust-covered streets of this part of town. They had strolled toward the remnants of Cyrus's old house and talked the whole way-of the battle near Amti and its consequences, and all that had come after, though in hushed tones, for fear of being overheard.

"When things get bad," Cyrus said, feeling a little like a man with his head on the block, axe poised above it ready to fall, "they'll find a way to blame me."

"You are still the Guildmaster," she said, stopping him. They stood in the street, and she raised his hands in hers to clutch them against her breastplate. "You are still the foremost warrior in Arkaria." She smiled faintly. "And you will be my husband, do not forget."

"We should set a date," Cyrus said with a faint smile of his own. "Before we get all caught up in what's coming."

"Yes, a couple months will do it, I should say," she agreed, going back to strolling along with him, her hand in his. "We'll need to do it on the Sanctuary grounds, of course, by then-"

"Do you think everyone already knows?" Cyrus asked, looking around in the deepening evening, the buildings on either side of them looking shadowy, as though they could hide any number of a.s.sailants in their windows and alleys.

"I think the governments know and the G.o.ds know," Vara said. "But as for what follows that-the people ... no, I don't think so. Not yet. The rumors have yet to spread."

"But when they do," Cyrus said, "they're going to be wildfire."

They slowed as they came up to the empty lot, Vara following Cyrus's lead as he halted outside the remains of the stone fence separating the disused lot from the street.

"Was this it?" Vara asked, looking at it curiously.

"Apparently so," Cyrus said, letting out a sigh. The foundation still stood just as he'd last seen it, stones buried in the dirt and covered over by the dust of the city and the wind, weeds threading through the cracks.

"Why is it still empty?" Vara asked, nose wrinkling as though she smelled something unpleasant.

"Maybe I own it now," Cyrus mused, then hastily added, "though I won't be going to the Citadel to try and claim it anytime soon, I suppose."

"Oh, it's you again," came a voice from the next house over, and Cyrus turned his gaze to find the older woman he'd spoken with last time, her pipe glowing in hand in the early evening light. She turned to a woman standing next to her, one he could not quite see in the shadow, and pointed at him with the stem. "That's him, Joenne-you remember? I told you about him."

Cyrus let go of Vara's hand and paced along the edge of the stone fence, gauntleted fingers dragging along the half-dismantled wall as he peered into the shadows created by the overhang at the woman's house. "My name is-"

"G.o.ds, you look like him," Joenne said with a gasp, stepping out of the shadows to reveal a look of disgust on her aged face. "Just like Rusyl, with that armor. Knew it was you when I heard tell of Cyrus Davidon the d.a.m.ned mighty." She spat at his feet as he approached, her spittle missing him as she circled to keep the distance between them. "Heretic," she hissed in a voice that sounded like a snake in the Reikonos eve.

"You were saying about wildfire?" Vara eased up next to him.

"Spreads fast, doesn't it?" Cyrus asked, shaking his head. He looked at Joenne's companion, the woman he'd spoken to when last he'd been here. "I guess we're not welcome here."

Joenne spoke loudly, again. "And why would you be, child of the heretic?"

Cyrus blinked as though he'd been slapped but kept his mouth shut until he'd processed what she said. "'Child of the heretic'? You're talking about my father? He was a d.a.m.ned hero-"

"I'm not talking about your b.l.o.o.d.y father," Joenne said, spitting at him once again. She pointed at the house. "Your father died a hero, yeah, we all know that." She took a breath of pure anger, hot as the ash flaking out of her companion's pipe "I'm talking about the woman that raised you, the one that used to live there," she pointed at the empty lot, the shattered foundations, as Cyrus felt just about as broken as the remainder of the house, leveled to the ground, "I'm talking about the b.l.o.o.d.y Sorceress Quinneria, I am.

"Your mother."

Alaric

The G.o.d of War burst into the room in the midst of a torture session so brutal that Alaric Garaunt had nearly lost his voice from screaming. But Alaric was not too far gone to realize that the sound of the door slamming so hard was a clue as to how this conversation would unfold. The torturer-a singularly humorless fellow named Boreagann-straightened at the sound as the footsteps came racing over to him, fury clapping against the floor with each booted step. Alaric steeled himself for what was surely about to follow.

"h.e.l.lo, Mathurin," Alaric said, fighting to put on a smile, his voice so strained and hoa.r.s.e that it came out lower than a whisper. He watched the name sail home like a lance straight to the heart, though, the G.o.d of War's eyes burning brighter scarlet as it hit. He hated being called Mathurin, after all, preferring Bellarum.

Mathurin did not slow as he approached, throwing a punch that slammed into Alaric's jaw, crushing the back of his skull into the hard steel table that he was pinned against. The flash of light was as sudden as if someone had cast a spell in his eyes, but Alaric blinked them away after only a minute, as the G.o.d of War cast a healing spell upon him that st.i.tched up all the wounds that had been inflicted on him.

Alaric took a short look at Mathurin's face, planning to get another stab in before the G.o.d of War spoke. "I heard you had a bit of a rough time in the jungle recently," Alaric said, taking a soothing breath as Mathurin's face tightened even further; it seemed possible the man's cheeks might just explode in his helm. "Perhaps you should avoid travel for a while."

"You heard?" Mathurin asked, clearly trying to restrain his rage and losing.

"You are hardly my only visitor," Alaric said with a satisfied smile.

Mathurin stared at him tightly for a moment. "Right you are, Alaric. Right you are." He nodded, and began to pace. "So you heard about my setback?"

"I heard you lost our little wager," Alaric said, and the G.o.d of War stopped pacing. "I a.s.sume you'd thought I'd forgotten our conversation about how you would win the soul of Cyrus Davidon? I haven't. Torture does terrible things to the mind, it's true, but it hasn't allowed me to forget how wrong I told you that you'd be."

Mathurin looked up, coldly at first, and then a malicious grin spread across his face. "You've been here for years now, Alaric, for years, and-even with this, every day-you're still defiant." He eased over to Alaric and placed a cold, gauntlet-encased hand on the old knight's shoulder. "My friend, you are truly a wonder, in every way. But on this-this business of Cyrus Davidon ..." Mathurin put on a face of absolute false sympathy, "... you realize he's as good as dead now, don't you?"

"I realize that he's slapped your hand b.l.o.o.d.y," Alaric said without feeling. "That he's made you look the a.s.s, getting caught moving on the southern lands so openly. Why, you even admitted in plain hearing of countless people that you were the one who orchestrated the deaths of Mortus and Yartraak."

"That was always bound to come out," Mathurin said, shaking a hand as if it were nothing. "I mean, I invited Mortus to my realm and started a quarrel with him once I knew you and your guild were safely ensconced in the Realm of Death. As for Yartraak ..." Here he showed rampant glee of the sort that made Alaric's stomach twist. "Well, I must confess, here, where you no one but you can hear me ... I was the one who told the G.o.d of Darkness he should kidnap Vidara to solve his problems of supply for his army."

"I just warned you I have other visitors," Alaric said stiffly, "and you tell me this anyway. Because-"

"Because it doesn't matter what you say," Mathurin said good naturedly. "You could tell them I'm planning to kill them all-which I am, by the way, all who will not serve will die-and it doesn't matter." He threw up his hands. "I have planned this for longer than anyone imagines. There are no defenses against the h.e.l.ls I have unleashed on my brethren, and they have no choice but to listen to me at this point. What are they going to do, after all? Band together against me?" He made a quivering motion, his face torn with false fear, then broke into a smile. "They tried that once, and look how it turned out for them." He leaned in close to Alaric's ear, as though he did not wish to be heard by anyone else. "They're afraid. That's the problem with being prey, with being weak, with having to cl.u.s.ter around-none of them have stood on their own in forever." He pulled back, a glint in his eye. "But I have. And I've learned to adapt. To move in the shadows, to manipulate, to do whatever I have to do to win wars.

"And I am about to win this war, Alaric," Mathurin said with eyes aglow, "though now I'll be doing it without your faithful dog Cyrus as my servant."

"You may find yourself somewhat surprised if you continue to underestimate Cyrus and Sanctuary," Alaric said.

"He killed an avatar, Alaric," Mathurin said with another wave of his hand. "Anyone can kill an avatar, even mine, apparently. It'll take more than the sword of our old friend the Drettanden for a mere human to bring me low."

"You know he's not a 'mere' anything," Alaric said quietly, cursing himself for allowing the slip, for drawing the attention to it.

Mathurin-no, he wasn't that anymore, not really, now he truly was Bellarum, the G.o.d of War-he smiled. "It's been so amusing to watch these-these little people," he gestured vaguely into the ether, "doing their little frightened runs, spinning in circles while the two of us turned them about." He broke into a wider grin. "They made their move, you and I made ours-independently, but toward the same end. Saving Cyrus Davidon.

"Of course the real treat for me now," Bellarum said with a hearty sniff of the air, "is to watch Cyrus himself, because while we all-all of us-manipulated him, he stumbled blindly in the dark, always thinking he was following in the footsteps of his father. But he never once realized that all their desperate action was just an attempt to keep him from following in the footsteps of his mother." Bellarum leaned in again. "They're all going to come after him now. There will be no mercy, not from any of them."

"And if he defeats them all?" Alaric asked, his voice rasping from the torture.

"Then he'll be doing me the grandest of favors," Bellarum said, as he started to walk out. Boreagann stepped up and grabbed one of the countless sharp implements on the tray, as though he'd been waiting for this very moment. "It's not every day you find a way to pit all of your enemies against each other, after all," Bellarum said, pausing at the door. "And no matter what ... when he's done with them, or they're done with him ... all that's left will be simply mopped up by me." He brushed his hands together, the metal squealing as he rubbed them against one another. "War will always win, Alaric ... I will always win. You ought to know that by now."

The cutting began once again in earnest, but this time it seemed to hurt all the more, for the truth that Bellarum had spoken carried its own sort of pain ... and it was a kind that was far, far worse than any blade.

NOW.

Epilogue.

"I'm starting to worry about you," Vaste said, almost to the foyer doors. "I'd say you're not really acting like yourself, but the truth is ..." His voice trailed off as Cyrus lost focus on what the troll was saying.

Cyrus looked up at the grand structure of Sanctuary, so much the worse for the wear now. He paused as he followed Vaste back toward the keep, his eyes stumbling over every line of the exterior, the damage from the last fight as obvious to him on the lines of the old structure as a blemish would have been on- Her.

"You're not death," Vaste said, jarring Cyrus as he realized suddenly that the troll was now standing just behind him. "I met that fellow, remember? You lack the teeth to be him. Also, a few limbs."

"It's a metaphor," Cyrus said quietly.

"Come on," Vaste said, motioning him forward. "Come upstairs, read some more of her diary. It'll make you feel better."

"I don't want to," Cyrus said with a shrug, letting his hands fall to his belt and resting them there. "I don't care to read any more."

"Because your aging eyes are tired?"

"Because there was a lot hidden from me over the years," Cyrus said, feeling the resentment bubble up.

"Alaric had a tendency to do that, yes," Vaste said, his enormous boots squeaking as he walked on the damp ground, bare of any gra.s.s.

"I meant Vara," Cyrus snapped. After a pause, he said, "Though obviously not only her."

"She loved you," Vaste said.

"Yes," Cyrus said sharply, "apparently longer than I thought she did." He bowed his head. "She didn't tell me how she felt before, when we could have had even more time-"

Vaste brought his hands up and slapped his own cheeks, forcing his mouth open in feigned shock. "No! No, impossible! This must be the first time a woman has ever hidden her feelings from her lover!"

"Don't be a d.i.c.k," Cyrus said, turning away from him and freezing as his gaze fell upon something unexpected on the dead ground.

"What?" Vaste eased up behind him. "What is it? Not like you to bow out in the middle of a good fight." He peered over Cyrus's shoulder. "I don't see-oh. Well. That's ... rather pedestrian, actually."

Cyrus felt a sharp sense of dark amus.e.m.e.nt at the sight, however. On the barren ground stood a lone patch of weeds springing from the dark earth, the first hint of life returning to this dead place.

"Propitious, though, I suppose," Vaste went on. "Symbolism and all that."

Cyrus turned his head to look at the troll, whose jutting lower lip gave his normally placid expression a look of concentration. "What?"

"You know," Vaste said, nudging him gently, the troll's robe against Cyrus's pauldron. "What with you returning here as new life is springing up." The healer arched his eyebrows. "Though I will say, it seems strange that you came back to live here in these grand and empty halls-"

Cyrus broke into a laugh out of pure morbidity, drawing a sharp look from Vaste.

He doesn't know.

I haven't told him.

Cyrus felt the short, sharp laughter subside, and glanced at the small weed, stretching out of the dead earth, eyes caressing its blades of green. "I didn't come back here to live, Vaste."

"You didn't?" The troll's voice was earnest, curious, and there was a hint of the dread in there that told Cyrus everything about what Vaste suspected about his own intentions.

No point in hiding it anymore, Cyrus thought, and he suddenly felt warm under the sense of coldness that had permeated his world of late, that had settled over him like the least comfortable blanket he could imagine. "No," he said, and there was relief in admitting the truth at last, like that old ragged blanket could finally be flung off-and its weight was significant, for both of them. "I didn't come back to live here, not at all.

"I came back here to die."

Cyrus Davidon will return in.

HERETIC.

The Sanctuary Series, Volume Seven.

Coming March 17, 2016!.

AND.

The Sanctuary Series Will Conclude in LEGEND.

The Sanctuary Series, Volume Eight.

Coming June 16, 2016!

Author's Note.