This chapter includes material that may be triggering for some readers.
Summary of triggers: This chapter includes coercive sexual assault.
Lain dreamed of fields.
Golden ones, late summer, wheat bowing in long breaths of wind. A hill rose at the center, and a woman stood upon it with a crozier in one hand, her hair braided with ribbons and starbloom flowers. Her tail, red-gold and scaled, swayed gently, the tuft of fur on its end fire yellow. As she turned, the sun caught the glinting amber shine of her antlers, which rang gently with countless tiny bells tied to their tines.
She met Lain’s eye, and Lain knew as one knows things in dreams that this woman was Saint Fillan.
She was young, sun-kissed and mirthful, directing her ox’s plow with the crozier. She hummed an earth-song, and as she walked the wheat bent aside to let her pass, as if the field adored her.
A shadow moved along the ridge. A wolf, huge and ragged, ribs and spine showing beneath gray fur. It loped closer, hacking breath through broken teeth. Lain knew the story – every Glinnel knew it – yet none of the paintings or stained glass windows had ever shown the wolf like this: starving, cunning, eyes too clever for a beast.
It killed the ox first, blood erupting from its neck and smattering the grasses red.
Fillan brought her crozier up to strike the wolf.
It lunged for her.
Fillan did not scream. She brought a bell from her bandolier and struck it once, clear as water. Her voice rose in a song that was wild with familiarity, and coaxing with sugared sweetness.
The wolf closed its mouth before it could bite. Its snarl softened into a confused whine. It leaned forward, sniffing Fillan’s skirts as though scenting a she-wolf. The saint raised the bell again, singing the trickster’s melody, and the beast backed away, ears flattened.
Its shoulders broadened. Its spine grew straight, body reshaping into that of a man. Not fully human. Its teeth were still too sharp, hunger too bright. It had feathers for a mane, and eyes like icewater.
It was Morgan.
Barefoot in the wheat, eyes hollow, chest marked with black feathers, useless and vestigial. He gazed at Fillan with the same mixture of hunger and awe he had worn after the river.
He reached for the saint.
Fillan rested one hand on his jaw, perhaps to stop him. He bore her down. The struggle was soundless, his arm pressing her into the grass. She seemed to fight, or some part of her did, but her skirts parted for him anyway. Once he had her in place beneath him, one hand on the glow of her antler, she eased forward to meet his mouth with her own.
“You see?” said a voice behind Lain.
Lain turned.
Fillan stood beside her now, the vision doubling, a saint of memory and a saint of spirit. The one beside Lain stroked the Wolf-Morgan’s head with gentle authority, then lifted her crozier and tapped its hook against the serpent bell around Lain’s own neck.
“Young sheep,” she said warmly. “My little lamb.”
Lain flushed all over, feeling voyeuristic, knowing she had no choice but to witness the sacrifice of the saint on the earth. She looked back once more at the couple writhing in the grass, the flushed cheeks and coiling tail of the Kelthi, the helpless hunger of the Veinwright. Lain’s grief and longing was so intense she thought she might never emerge free of it.
She recognized the Kelthi was in Heat, but still she asked. “Why doesn’t she stop him?”
Fillan tilted her head, antlers catching the golden light. “Do saints not always go willingly to sacrifice?”
She could see that Lain did not understand, so Fillan continued. “Because the power of the bond flows in both directions. And because some men will kill before they give up those that will not be owned.”
She ran soft fingers through the mane of the wolf at her side, who stood with his eyes half-lidded, and chuffed once at her touch. “Bells bind. And bells free. It’s the singer who chooses the shape of the song. You are Bellborn, are you not?”
The wheat rippled. Lain reached toward Fillan.
Fillan smiled, pressing something small and heavy into Lain’s palm.
Lain woke.
The dream clung to her skin in the form of sweat. Her breath shook.
The chapel ceiling loomed above her, flickering with candlelight. Mallow slept half-upright against the wall, one hand curled near his sword hilt, chest rising and falling with slow, exhausted breaths. At some point he must have dressed; her heart ached as she thought of him letting her sleep on as he prepared himself to defend her.
There was something different. Something in the light. Was dawn coming?
No.
She pressed a hand to the pouch that lay beside her. The Starbloom. She opened it gingerly. The petals inside glowed. A thin halo of pale blue-white seeped through the top of the leather, pulsing like fireflies caught in a jar.
“Fillan,” she whispered.
She stood on shaking legs and moved toward the statue, completely naked and entirely un-selfconscious. The gold surface gleamed unevenly in the candlelight. She could see the place where they’d carved off her antlers and her ears and her tail. Not even her hooves had been left to hold her in place; instead, a metal bar was thrust between her legs, holding her to the base of the statue.
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Lain knelt.
The cracks she’d seen earlier were deeper than she realized. But something new emerged as she looked closer, glinting where the ragged hem of Fillan’s carved robe met the base. At first she mistook them for scratches, made by the same tool that had stolen the back half of her robes.
But they weren’t scratches. With Lain’s night-seeing eyes the weathered carvings resolved: a serpentine curve, a stylized bell, and between them two tiny, branching horns.
Kelthi horns.
Her throat tightened. “She was one of us.”
Mallow grunted behind her, blinking sleep from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Behind the altar, half-hidden by dust and the collapse of old votive shelves, lay a narrow recess. A priest’s hiding place, or a thief’s. A small metal door was sealed shut with wax, tiny hinges hidden behind the golden saint.
“I need your knife,” Lain said.
Mallow knelt beside her, handing her a knife without question. She worked the blade between the stone and the metal. It took effort, but the panel finally swung outward, releasing a breath of stale beeswax and ancient dust.
Inside lay a velvet-wrapped bundle and a thin leather booklet, no thicker than two fingers.
Lain lifted the velvet first, and eased it open.
It was Saint Fillan’s bell.
The bell was black-gold, shaped exactly like the one Fillan had held in the dream. Its clapper gleamed white and soft as a tooth. It warmed instantly in her hand.
Mallow reached for the booklet. “What is this?”
Lain leaned close. The pages were fragile, ink faded to rust, but still legible in places.
Kelthi script.
She couldn’t read it. Her tutors in Ivath never taught the blasphemous tongue.
“Mallow,” she whispered. “Can you read this?”
He flipped the pages carefully. His brow furrowed, then eased.
“It’s… songs,” he said slowly. “Bell-songs. Hymns for warding, summoning, distracting.” He flipped another page. “Here – this one’s marked differently.” He read aloud, voice steady.
“‘When stone is chained, unmar the chain. When light is bound, unbind the flame. Ring once for silence, twice for opening, thrice for truth revealed.’ It’s a ward song. A key. For Kelthi bells, I think.”
Her breath trembled. “For the Spire. It will undue the wards.”
He frowned, confused. In a rush she told him the dream, showed Mallow the spots on the statue where they’d carved away the Kelthi from the saint.
She lifted the bell again. The metal was black and gold, clearly ancient, rough-hewn and gorgeous. And all around it curled wyrm and sun shapes she’d long since learned to associate with the Kelthi.
She gave it a gentle ring.
It chimed softly, the beat of a single wing.
The chapel responded. Shadows stretched toward her, the air growing cold and hard. Even the statue seemed to straighten, gold catching the light until it glowed like dawn. Mallow took an instinctive step back, glancing around as if for enemies.
Saint Fillan’s words rang in her ears. Some men will kill before they give up those that will not be owned.
She gasped. “They’re going to kill the Underserpent. The Dagorlind.”
“Why would they do that?”
“The Dagorlind won’t let the wyrm fall into his hands. They’ll break their own god before they surrender it. The wards are weak from the fight, Morgan’s wyrms are everywhere. They can’t escape and they know it.”
The starbloom in her pouch seemed to pulse with agreement; the vial of starbloom potion still around her neck did the same.
Mallow shook his head. “Then we need to get Morgan. He’d sooner tear the Spire down with his bare hands –”
“No,” she said sharply. “If he goes in like this, he’ll slaughter everyone inside. He’s out of his mind with power.”
Mallow considered, then nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
She looked at the bell, at the sigils. At the woman she was named for, only now realizing she had been praying to one of her own.
Fillan’s voice echoed faintly through her memory. The power of the bond flows in both directions.
“We’re going to silence the Spire’s wards,” she said. “And we’re going to walk inside. But we must convince Rhalir to help us, or we’ll never get past the Brighthand that are inside.”
Mallow nodded. “Get dressed, Little Hooves. Let’s go free a god.”
They slipped out of the chapel’s narrow lane, the bell tucked into Lain’s bandolier. The city was louder now. The screams had mostly fallen silent, but the wyrms patrolled the alleys, their bodies scraping cobbles, their breath rolling in guttural hisses. The air stank of oil and pitch and the strange scent of wet feathers, sharp enough to sting the back of her throat.
Mallow kept tight to her side, one hand hovering near his blade. He scanned every window and shadow as if expecting teeth in all of them.
The bond twanged faintly inside her, like a plucked string far down a tunnel. Morgan was still outside, still sweeping the lower streets. Still killing those Lain or Rhalir hadn’t saved.
They hurried toward the council hall, keeping to narrow passages where burned-out scale lanterns cast nothing but long skeletal shadows. Once, a bloodwyrm slithered past at the far end of the street, its mane brushing the walls. Lain felt its hunger prickle her skin like static.
It paid them no mind.
When they reached the front of the hall, the great doors stood half-open, Ashborn guards slumped inside. Some slept from exhaustion. Others stared blankly at their boots, knuckles white around their weapons. A few had blood on their armor, but not their own.
By the toppled benches, arguing quietly with three captains, they found Rhalir. His armor was dented, his mane flattened with sweat and soot, tail lashing in sharp, frustrated arcs.
She whispered his name. His ears flicked, head snapping toward her. He dismissed the captains with a gesture that was almost a shove and strode across the hall.
“What in nine hells are you doing here?” he hissed. “You should be hidden.”
“We need your help.”
Rhalir leaned in, voice quiet and sharp. “You saw him earlier. He’s not himself. I don’t know what he is anymore.”
“That’s why we’re here,” she said.
His gaze flicked between them, taking the measure of her urgency and Mallow’s tense readiness. “For what?”
Lain took a breath. “The Dagorlind are going to kill the Underserpent.”
Rhalir froze. “They’d do that sooner than let Morgan take it? Bring the whole city down?”
“They’re Dagorlind,” Mallow said. “They’re used to making their own people into martyrs.”
Rhalir swore under his breath, stepping back to rake a hand through his hair. “If that’s true, we must tell Morgan.”
“We can’t,” Lain said. “If he gets in, he’ll kill every single person hiding there. But I have another way.” She drew Fillan’s black-gold bell from her bandolier. “There are bell-songs written for it, warding songs. I can unbind the Spire’s protections.”
He looked at her as though she’d said she could halt the dawn. “Lain… you’re talking about walking straight into the lion’s den.”
“Dragon’s den,” Mallow muttered. “Let’s be accurate.”
“We need you to get us past the Brighthand,” Lain said.
Rhalir shook his head once, sharply. “If Morgan finds out –”
“He will,” Mallow said, “after it’s done.”
Rhalir exhaled. “This is madness.”
“It’s the only way,” Lain said. “He wants to free the Underserpent, doesn’t he? We’re just… doing it for him.”
A long moment passed. Then Rhalir nodded once. “I’ll get you inside.”
Lain’s shoulders sagged with relief. Rhalir lowered his voice further. “We go out the east door. Avoid the square. And Mallow…”
Mallow raised a brow.
“If Morgan discovers what you’ve done,” Rhalir said grimly, and Lain knew he didn’t mean this current betrayal by the way his nose twitched, “he’ll tear this entire city apart looking for her. So stay close, and stay quiet.”
Mallow swallowed and nodded.
Rhalir took the least weary of his men from the floor, speaking quietly with them, then pushed open a side door, cool night air sliding in like a blade. It was the sharpest cold of the night, just before dawn, the last gasp of evening digging icy claws into the city.
“Come,” Rhalir said.
Lain clutched Fillan’s bell to her chest. They slipped into the burning city toward the tower that held a god.