“Melanie Kur, formerly Priestess Kur of Aunt Seeress, you are hereby charged with nineteen counts of unwarranted memory tampering, seven counts of neurotic infliction, eleven counts of nonconsensual memory insertion, and two counts of total ego-death. As your former temple has waived the right to your defense and prosecution, this matter is to be handled in a court of mortal law. Considering the severity of these crimes, the dangers posed by the accused seer training, and the preponderance of evidence provided, the accused will remain in Temple custody to ensure justice and security for all involved. Now, Mrs. Kur, before this court and all who witness it, how do you plead?” - transcript excerpt from the ‘unholy obsession’ trial that rocked the north Zentish city of Alsterbel in 1436

  Head still ringing, Cole stared into the pure red eyes of the vampire before him. Tongue heavy in his mouth, words hard to grab, the Paladin asked. “Na-Natalie? Wh-what did you do?”

  Reaching out, the vampire tapped him on the nose, smile widening as she did. “I rescued you, silly.”

  Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, trying to center himself, Cole specified. “How?”

  Gesturing with one hand at the surrounding ghouls, Natalie explained. “Your hunch was right! Binding a bunch of shamblers to my will is child’s play compared to fighting the Reaper. It just took a little soul-searching, and I learned a few new tricks. I still can’t control the whole swarm, but pausing or prodding some of them isn’t hard. Hey, actually let me show you something fun!”

  Only then did Cole notice Natalie was utterly covered in fetid gore, her face the only part not hidden under filth. Before he could ask what sort of danger she’d been in, Natalie snapped her fingers, catching the attention of two nearby ghouls. Both were badly decayed, with patches of yellowing bone visible where their cracked leather skin had split. For a moment, shriveled unblinking eyes stared at Natalie, and then with shocking aggression, the ghouls turned upon each other, sinking chipped teeth into dead flesh. Tumbling to the ground, the corpses tore each other apart.

  Clapping her hands together, sending droplets of clotted brown spraying, Natalie proclaimed. “Ta-da!”

  Cole could only stare at the twitching lumps of rended tissue, a dull sense of foreboding filling his foggy mind. Swallowing down a dry lump, he looked back at Natalie, finding her expression somehow more disquieting than the act of mutual cannibalism he’d just witnessed. Preening arrogance mixed with cruel indifference filled Natalie’s smile, it was the expression of a satisfied predator, not a person.

  Making sure Requiem was still gripped tight, Cole asked. “You… you’ve accessed more of the curse's power?”

  Smirking, Natalie prowled forward, straddling Cole’s prone form in what might have been an appealing way if it weren’t for the deluge of disturbing circumstances. “I have! It was messy, and I nearly went into torpor, but I can’t argue with the end results!”

  Staring into those pure crimson eyes, Cole’s muscles tensed. This wasn’t normal, Natalie was clearly influenced by the curse, yet not in any way he’d witnessed before. Previously, when hunger or emotional pain let the curse run rampant, Natalie acted like a ravening beast, and when she’d committed her own acts of cannibalism, a manic excitement overtook her, but this… this was something else. As his worries grew, Cole’s rattled mind finally grasped the vampire’s words, and a new shock of worry filled him. How had she avoided torpor? Did… did she eat someone? Was that the cause of this?

  Considering his options, Cole slowly asked. “Natalie, what did you do?”

  Head cocked to the side like a curious feline, the vampire frowned, confusion turning into sudden anger as she understood Cole’s concerns. Fangs bared, the vampire scoffed. “Something ugly to survive when you ran off without me, but not what you’re fearing.”

  Natalie jabbed a finger at a nearby ghoul making the Aether Cole’s blood twitch. A wet pop escaped the relatively fresh corpse, and to the Paladin’s utter shock, a stream of clotted blood burst free from the ghoul and slithered along the ground, up Natalie’s body, and into her mouth. Drinking down some of the corrupted ichor with a shudder, the vampire let out a disgusted hiss and wiped the dregs from her mouth. “I figured out how to do that, but it tastes awful.”

  Eyes narrowing, looming over Cole, Natalie snarled. “First you leave me on the wall without a backward glance, then you nearly get yourself killed by these rotters, and now after I’ve rescued you, you’re thinking the worst of me! Unbelievable, Cole, after all I’ve done, everything we’ve been through together, you don’t have a scrap of faith in me?”

  Wincing, Cole looked away from the irate vampire, guilt welling up within him. It was true, he’d literally leapt into this fight without considering Natalie. His assumption that she’d stay on the walls, was, in retrospect, foolish and, judging by what was happening now, costly. She’d joined the battle, and without him to support her, ended up in dire straights, only surviving thanks to the dark power within her, power he’d promised to help keep in check.

  Cole let out an exhausted breath. “I’m sorry, I should have thought this through. Both of us suffered because of my brashness.”

  Leaning down, expression intense, Natalie said. “You shouldn’t have left me, we need each other, I need you, you’re mine and I can’t have you abandoning me like that!”

  A deep feeling of disquiet ran up Cole’s spine, this wasn’t right. Fangs visible, staring at him with unblinking focus, Natalie continued. “Drinking all that ghoul blood was horrible, I need something to wash away the taste. I also can’t lose you like that again.”

  Smiling then, the expression bizarrely coquettish, Natalie spoke, voice husky. “I know a way to solve both those problems with a single bite.”

  Taking a deep breath, Cole let go of Requiem and pulled at his collar, exposing scarred skin to the hungry vampire. A soft sigh escaped the Alukah as she lowered herself towards Cole’s neck, a whisper escaping pale lips. “Thank you for understanding, I’ll be gentle; mending the bridge I broke won’t be hard.”

  Heart hammering in his chest, lead in his gut, Cole offered silent prayers to the Pantheon as he reached up towards the vampire, knowing he’d have one chance to pull this off. So entranced with her desires, the Alukah hadn’t noticed the slight-of-hand Cole performed when exposing his neck. Eyes fixed on the offered veins and what lay within them, the Vampire never considered scars weren’t the only thing that wrapped around Cole’s throat. Amulet in hand, Cole made as if to cup the Vampire’s face, turning the well-used intimacy into a cover for his attack.

  Just as cold lips traced along the Paladin’s jugular, he struck, jamming his medallion into the Vampire’s neck. Roaring with the effort, Cole gripped the Alukah tight and pushed with every drop of his cursed strength, flipping them to pin the spasming monster. Silver light blazed from the metal hourglass and found a kindred brilliance beneath the vampires’ collar, the stigma placed there reacting to Cole’s magic. A high horrible shriek escaped the Vampire’s mouth, breaking Cole’s heart. Whispering apologies over and over, he grappled the Alukah, keeping his grip tight.

  Talons licked out, tearing red gouges along Cole’s flank, but he ignored the pain, it was nothing compared to how his mind felt. He’d promised to protect Natalie from her curse, a task he was failing. Whatever sinister notions slept within the Alukah’s blood, were now awake and twisting Natalie into a predatory parody of herself. Poisoned by the curse, this Vampire was Natalie with a greater appetite for cruelty; willing to use all her gifts to their ugliest extent. Stopping something like this from happening was Cole’s duty, an oath sworn both to God and beloved, an oath he’d failed to uphold due to sheer weakness.

  While the Vampire’s earlier words were an effort to guilt and manipulate, some truth lay within. Leaving Natalie on the walls like that had been foolish, trying to stem an entire corpse-tide by himself even more so. New applications of old powers sealed the broken gates, but it hadn’t been enough to gain victory. If Cole was going to protect everyone, he needed to be stronger, smarter. Too much fell on his shoulders, too much for a petty rest-bringer or mortal man; he needed to grow, to become something capable of bearing that weight. But before Cole could strive to prevent future sorrows, he needed to end this current one.

  Fingers clamped around the spasming Vampire’s throat with enough force to strangle a living person, Cole dredged up more of his magic, forcing it into the stigma. Icy power flowed from the Maze of Moments and through the Vampire’s flesh, tendrils of cold wrapping about straining muscles like cryonic chains, sapping strength and binding movement. Cole could physically feel parts of the Alukah freeze beneath him, tissue hardening, as the black blood within turned to icy obsidian. Yet even as her body creaked and groaned, the Vampire didn’t stop fighting, strength born of stolen blood warring against that born of stolen souls.

  The slow but constant pace of the stigma worried Cole. When it had been previously triggered, the spell manifested as an explosion of cold, freezing Natalie and her environs solid. Mina’s efforts might have patched Master Time’s boon back together, but it was considerably weaker, even when aided by a Paladin’s magic. Also, that the stigma hadn’t responded to whatever the curse was doing to Natalie, told an even more worrying tale than its impotence. Natalie couldn’t rely on the Tenth God’s personal protection anymore, just that of his servants, fallible as they were.

  As the ice crept its way deeper into the Vampire’s flesh, it let out a rattling croak, the closest to a scream manageable with Cole’s crushing grip on its windpipe. The sound was like a knife running along raw nerves for the Paladin. To hear someone he loved make such a sound because of him, tore at the very pillars of his being. Cole was meant to protect, to be an immortal guardian of those around him, and even if he rationally understood why he was hurting Natalie like this, it didn’t change who he was and what he felt.

  Slowly the Alukah stopped fighting, its movements becoming slower and slower, the wretched noises it made trailing off. Cole felt sick to his stomach, he’d just, in essence, strangled his lover to death. Shuddering slightly, as shame, guilt, and disgust vied for dominance, Cole gently slackened his grip. Clutching the limp form of Natalie to him, breathing like he’d just run twenty kilometers, the Paladin looked about, seeing the cordon of corpses surrounding them, all silently staring in judgement. Finding Requiem in the muddy dirt, Cole let out a muted sob, he didn’t know how long the ghouls would stay docile; there would be time for pain later, he still had a duty to perform.

  “C-C-Cole?”

  The Paladin froze as muffled words rasped free from the body in his arms. Neck popping like breaking ice, Natalie looked up at him, or at least tried to, her eyes were sealed shut. Hoarfrost-caked lashes fluttered like moth wings as the bound vampire stirred. White lips opening with a pained gasp, Natalie asked. “Cole is-is that y-you?”

  Voice turned brittle by the cold, Natalie sounded lost, like she was waking from a nightmare only to find reality wasn’t much better. Stroking her dark locks, Cole fought down the lump in his throat. “It’s me, I’m here.”

  A pained whimper escaped Natalie and she whispered. “Don’t leave me, please.”

  Hugging her close, grapple forgotten, Cole rasped. “I won’t leave you, I’ll never leave you.”

  Shakey fingers, hardened by the cold, found the Paladin’s hand, and Natalie started to open her eyes. As ice dust fell away like frozen tears, she muttered “Promise?”

  Pure red eyes met Cole’s own and his heart fell into his boots as vertigo washed over him. An indescribable force pulled on the Paladin’s mind, yanking him forward and down into the vampire’s eyes, plummeting into the black pupils like they were bottomless wells. Panic filling him, Cole tried to fight the psychic gravity to no avail. Faced with his lover’s pain, the Paladin had let down his guard both physically and mentally, giving the Alukah just the opening it needed to pull on the strings binding them together.

  Terrible memories flashed behind Cole’s eyes as he sank into darkness, memories of the larder and the hungry monsters who’d sought his ruin. Struggling against the shadows enveloping his mind, Cole felt his psyche crack like an egg, fissures spreading across selfhood as traumas young and old squeezed him tight. For a few seconds, Cole was horribly aware of what was happening, feeling himself come apart slowly at first, then all at once. As Cole shattered under the psychic assault, the Homunculus started to scream.

  The Seventh Alukah sat in the center of her snowy mindscape, perched atop an alabaster throne grown out of her yew tree, a length of chain wrapped around one hand. Leaning back on the bone-pale seat, ignoring the muted sobs of Baron Sicar, who’s wood-flesh had been contorted into one of the armrests, the Alukah slowly pulled on the chain, wrapping more and more of it around her wrist, trying to reel what was attached to the other end to the base of her throne.

  Three meters away from where the Seventh waited lay a half-frozen stream of blood, and into its depths the chain sank, its links creaking as they were pulled taut. At this sight, a tiny smile managed to dance across the Alukah’s face as certain parallels came to mind. Master Time appeared to her as an angler; how fitting it was for her to take on a similar aspect as she achieved these new heights… and properly claimed what belonged to her.

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  Memories of recent events wiped away the smile as quickly as it had come, a scowl of deep anger taking its place. She’d been just about to achieve total victory, turning a calamity into a spectacular opportunity by tapping into her birthright, when everything fell apart. Filled to the brim with power and the confidence that came with it, she’d rushed to her Knight’s defense, rescuing him from another grisly end he’d earned through carelessness. But upon seeing her, and all she could do, Cole reacted with fear and suspicion, assuming the worst of her when she’d in fact suffered greatly to protect the desperate rabble of Azyge.

  Still, even after Cole’s tantamount accusation of murder, and his earlier abandonment, the Alukah was willing to forgive, only seeking what he’d already offered as recompense. How many times had she drunk from Cole? A hundred times at least, but now when she just wanted to wipe away ghoul filth, replacing it with the taste of her lover, but he’d rejected her. More than that, he’d attacked her in a fit of paranoia and triggered the failing stigma; his fears driving him to extremes instead of admitting the obvious necessity of forming a true psychic bond. Earlier, she’d acquiesced to his squeamishness regarding a link, but as far as Natalie was concerned, he’d waived any right to such apprehensions after running off and nearly dying like a fool.

  The thought of Cole being torn apart by so much rotten meat sent a flare of possessive anger through the Alukah. Tightening her grip on the chain, she put more effort into pulling on it, eager to end this farce and claim her lover properly. Cole was hers, she would not see him suffer pointlessly for another’s sake. Once he’d been reeled into her mindscape, the Alukah intended to make sure Cole understood that fact perfectly. Here, where psyches met, Cole wouldn’t be able to misunderstand her, he’d feel the entirety of her love, of how much she needed him, and it would drown out all the pain and sorrow of the past week.

  As the Alukah thought about this, her anger dimmed. Poor Cole had suffered so much, his over-reaction with the stigma was clearly a sign of the cracks in him, cracks he deserved to have sealed shut. Natalie could do this for him, she needed to, he needed her to; empowered as she was, healing Cole and washing away his wounds would be a simple task. More than that, by binding his mind to hers, gaining access to his every thought, she could dull the bad ones and fill him with the simple truth of her love and control. Yes, the more Natalie thought about it, the more it appealed to her; Cole needed her and she needed him, this was perfect.

  Putting both hands on the chain, eagerness filling her body, the Alukah pulled harder, foregoing any attempt at subtlety. Sure, Cole wouldn’t like being yanked into the mindscape like this, but once he was here, he’d forgive Natalie, she’d make sure of that. The surface of the red stream started to seethe and boil, the chain vibrating with the force being put upon it. A low growl started to form in the Alukah’s throat as she called upon more strength, Cole wasn’t making this easy, if the components for their psychic link weren’t so sturdy he’d probably have broken free. Thankfully, a split-second of eye-contact was enough for the Alukah to take all the disparate strands born of a loving life together and forge a nigh-unbreakable chain. Once Cole was safely inside her mindscape, this chain would be the cornerstone of the new bridge between them, a true linking of souls, not this unsubtle psychic summons she’d crafted.

  Behind the Alukah, the yew tree groaned as she pulled on the chain, slowly but steadily hauling her Knight out of the blood river. As sheets of crimson fell away from the twitching bulk emerging, Natalie’s eyes widened in horror. Instead of Cole, stalwart, kind, wonderful Cole; she’d summoned a broken chimera of torn flesh, shifting limbs and unfathomable pain. Cole wore the same misshapen form he had when first entering her mindscape, his overtaxed mind drowning in old terrors once again. This wouldn’t do, this wouldn’t do at all, she needed to fix him; a feat done once before, but now it might be done better.

  Continuing to haul the Cole-creature free of the river, bringing its stumbling, wailing bulk to the foot of her throne, the Alukah reached down, finding the flayed face of the man she loved. Making shushing noises, she stroked the few visible patches of intact skin and the collar of obsidian wrapping his throat. “I’m here now, and I’m never leaving you.”

  As the Alukah touched the Homunculus’s flesh, memories poured into her, horrid, horrid memories of tortures beyond description. Reaching into the ragged clumps of trauma that boiled off Cole, Natalie gently pulled one of the more intact pieces to the forefront, examining it with an artisan’s eye.

  * Chained upside-down, dangling over a coterie of laughing monsters, who filled goblets with the drippings from a dozen wounds covering Cole.*

  * Light-headed and giddy, he thanked each and every leech for feeding upon him, a compulsion making his mouth form degrading words until he started to believe them *

  * A few seconds of memory as his severed head was rolled along the ground by two bored vampires, his dangling corpse visible overhead, the last of its blood being emptied into a casque *

  Sucking in a shuddering breath, Natalie gripped onto this horror inflicted upon one of hers; sinking metaphysical talons into the meat of Cole’s mind, she uprooted the memory and pulled it into her mindscape where it manifested as a grotesque little statue of a headless hanged man. Staring at the wooden figurine, the Alukah considered crushing it, erasing the memory from existence; but a better idea struck her.

  Tapping her wrist on the Sicar-armwrest, she said. “If I could stun you with just the memories of Isabelle blowing off my hands, I wonder what would have happened if you experienced this instead?”

  With a flick of her fingers, the Seventh Alukah slightly rearranged her mindscape, calling a large wooden cabinet into being. A dozen drawers lined the container's lower half while its upper held two glass-paned doors hiding a number of long shelves. Opening the cabinet and looking upon one of the shelves, Natalie noted the smoke-stained model of a mangled hand and then set the new statue next to it. Running fingers along the smooth grain of the wood, the Alukah opened a drawer and found a sculpture of a rat with a broken neck. Touching the morbid carving, Natalie felt the formula for Isabelle’s cure flick through her brain with perfect clarity. Content to see her mind palace was working well, the Alukah returned her focus to the broken Homunculus.

  One by one, she carved away nightmare after nightmare, taking them from her love and placing them into the memory construct, where they could be stored for a better use than tormenting Cole. Yet even when twelve painful deaths sat upon the shelf in a neat row, the Homunculus showed no signs of recovery, staying in his mutilated form despite the Alukah’s efforts. Frustration started to simmer inside, the Seventh, touching each of those memories hadn’t been pleasant, even insulated as she was; bits of them still stained her mind, leaving echoes of the bindings and breakings both physical and mental Cole experienced.

  Deciding a more surgical approach was needed, the Alukah slipped her influence deeper into the Homunculus, answering its pained whimpers with soothing hushes. Sifting through the scraps of trauma that bubbled off Cole’s broken mind, the Seventh sought whatever had his mind in such a roiling state. Pushing through the discomfort of touching such a wounded mind, ignoring the phantom pains brought on by such immersion, the Alukah found the source, a white-hot nugget of anguish, freshly formed at the core of Cole like a oyster’s pearl.

  Plucking the trauma free, the Alukah frowned as new flashes of memory filled her, these ones surreal and dream-like.

  * Being crushed by fathomless darkness, then drowning in a metal-tasting ocean before a noose pulled him up from the depths. *

  * Lidless eyes shimmering with tears and blood, catching sight of a cursed tree near the shore, sitting among cracked and broken fields. *

  * A monster lounging upon a throne of warped ivory, its white skin shot through with veins of black, a slaver’s chain in clawed hands. *

  Natalie’s frown deepened as she examined this burgeoning memory, it didn’t match anything Cole had ever shared with her. Was he keeping even more secrets from her? That would not be tolerated, she needed to understand what these memories were, where they came from.

  * The creature on the throne stared out with pure red eyes, its inhuman beauty rendered rotten by rage; the rage of a tyrant denied, the look of someone used to holding the lash or the leash and now facing incomprehensible defiance. *

  Shuddering, the Alukah remembered how the false-Rabisu looked, its onyx veins and artistic grotesqueness. Whatever haunted Cole’s mind was a near match for that illusion, and that brought forth a chilling notion. Natalie knew she wasn’t the only one of her kind walking the world, somewhere out there, Lilu the Second persisted. Had Cole somehow encountered this other ur-vampire in his travels? This made little sense, but Natalie couldn’t imagine any other way he’d have memories of this monster. Diving back into the vision, the Alukah searched for clues about Lilu.

  * Terror ruled his mind, terror of being bound and broken yet again but this time by someone he loved. A collar of frozen blood choked him, pulling at open wounds and forcing him ever closer to the thing that would destroy him. *

  Love? Was this Isabelle, that made even less sense. For all her flaws, and foibles, the Countess was far from the ugly thing perched atop a whimpering throne. Frustrated, Natalie tightened her grip on the link between them, unconsciously pulling the Homunculus closer.

  * Stumbling with the weight of a tyrant’s will, coming before an exalted predator, looking into its face and seeing nothing of who those features belonged to. The choking collar joining the flesh-hooks of trauma, pulling him apart, like one condemned to be drawn and quartered.*

  Staring into the monster’s face through Cole’s perception, something akin to vertigo filled Natalie. It was a discordant dysphoric feeling brought upon by features she knew well but didn’t recognize. Long black hair with a slight curl to it, a heart-shaped face with full lips, red eyes accented by long lashes, and a delicate neck marked with a cracked lattice-like maze over top a slight scar. Lips parting in dawning horror, Natalie watched as the monster’s eyes widened in shared comprehension. Looking away from the memory of the present, she stared at the chain in her hand, how its ugly length stretched to Cole, and something within her broke.

  “NO!” The high ugly shriek escaped Natalie as she clawed at her face, trying to dig out the dark veins flowing through her. Ignoring the pain of taloned fingers, she cut at herself in an act of literal and metaphorical self-mutilation. Peering through Cole, she could only watch as the monster tore at its features as well, both sides of the mirror trying desperately to prove they were separate and failing utterly. This wasn’t… she wasn’t… no… no, Natalie loved Cole, she didn’t want to hurt him, only to… to help him, why, why did…did.

  The chain wrapped around Natalie’s hand caught her attention then, and she finally noticed its origin. A long slit in her wrist bled the first link of the chain, the black metal was her blood, her power, congealed into an instrument of binding. Disgust filled her and she closed twitchy fingers around the onyx links and started to pull. Behind her the yew tree groaned and Natalie realized the chain was only the start of what had been done to her. Roots of ebony snaked up through the bleached throne and pierced her flesh, feeding darkness into dead veins like some fell transfusion.

  Straining against the black tendrils, feeling how they fought to stay inside her, Natalie screamed, a note of pain turning into anger. This was her mind, her power; she would not be enslaved by this jagging curse. Pushing herself up from the throne through an effort of will, Natalie felt the roots snap one by one, tearing free but not before leaving deep gouges in her flesh. With each broken connection, a tide of emotions started to build within her, a rising sense of horror and shame as everything she’d done took on new context. The power she’d claimed from the curse, the power that flowed up from below, into the tree and then into her; had been poisonous, just as the yew berry metaphor suggested, but not in the way she’d expected.

  Drunk on a dark inheritance, filled with the heady taste of the Alukah’s power, Natalie lost both inhibitions and empathy. She’d let the dark whispers and predatory notions spawned by the curse take control, acting on the parts of herself normally kept so tightly locked away. In those few minutes of awesome might, Natalie Striga became what she most feared, and committed sins that now weighed on her soul. Free from the yew tree’s grasping roots, she was herself again, and the mounting pain that involved made her want to sit back down, to let the curse numb away her torment with the bloody joy of a proud monster.

  Half-standing before the throne, clutching at her wrist and the chain leading from it, Natalie spasmed, her mind convulsing with what she’d done. Tears like black tar flowed down her face as she followed the chain. The Homunculus was on its knees, all four of them, staring up at her with rich blue eyes that held so much pain, the pain of violation, of betrayal, of what she’d done. The tree creaked, its roots reaching up to her, an unspoken offer by the darkness dwelling within; let it back in and she’d feel good again. Memories of the sharp-edged pleasure and potency that came with the yew berries, sloshed around inside Natalie’s mind, a temptation she didn’t want to resist.

  Gazing upon the Homunculus, Natalie knew he’d never forgive her; once freed, the love they shared would be gone, replaced by a hate she deserved. The tips of dark roots touched at open wounds, and an idea came to the broken woman: a way to save her bond with Cole. However, it would require another betrayal, one her soft human heart wouldn’t allow. If she could remove the memories of Cole’s deaths, then tearing away her crime and everything connected to it would be easy. She could make him think he’d just been knocked out by the explosion, only now awakening to her rescue.

  The curse pushed her into hurting Cole, so it was fitting she used what it offered to make things right. All she had to do was sit upon her throne and let the black bliss of the curse guide her. Once the act was done, she’d break this chain between them, and it would be like nothing ever happened.

  For several long seconds, Natalie stood there, balancing on a knife-edge, knowing whatever choice she made would echo down the rest of her unnatural existence. But in the end, the choice was no choice at all. A snort of hysterical laughter escaped Natalie and she stepped away from the thirsting throne. Fatalistic exhaustion settled on her shoulders, and Natalie sagged, knowing what came next. She’d committed a great sin in violating Cole’s mind, but that act would be a pale shade compared to what her darkest parts plotted. It was one thing to hurt someone you love, it was another to double-down on the crime. Besides, with how Cole’s brain repaired even the worst trauma, she had no guarantee stolen memories wouldn’t regenerate. There was no way to escape what was coming, she just needed to face it, and she would, as a person, not a monster.

  Holding up one hand, she sought a memory, of a tool to truly free both Cole and herself from this mistake. An axe slowly settled into existence, Natalie taking a moment to recognize the strange dimensions of it. Something between a laugh and a sob escaped her as she recognized Requiem, or at least a psychic facsimile of it. “How jagging fitting.”

  With a scream of rage both aimed outward and inward, Natalie tore into the throne, hacking away at the questing roots and warped wood, ignoring the pained moans of Baron Sicar as the axe bit into his melded flesh. When all that remained was stained kindling, Natalie let out a shuddering breath that turned into an exhausted sigh as the fragments sank into the yew tree, rejoining its ever swelling trunk. For a moment Natalie considered chopping the poisonous thing down, but the potential consequences of that stayed her hand. For better or worse, this construct channeled the curse, better for it to fester than let Annoch’s darkness flow free.

  Turning from the yew, Natalie forced herself to look into the pain-dulled eyes of the Homunculus. Voice hitching, she said. “I-I am so sorry. Please, forgive me.”

  Then she swung Requiem, splintering the chain she’d forged out of obsession. As the links clattered to the cracked ground, melting into black droplets, Natalie watched the collar around the Homunculus crumble away. Gentle as she could, Natalie pushed the broken mind from her internal world, before preparing to surface as well. She didn’t know what awaited her back in reality, what condition Cole would be in, if any of her control over the ghouls remained, or how the defense of Azyge went. But, the time for hesitation was past, she needed to commit to her actions and pay the consequences.

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