The tall buildings of Whitegate loomed up around Vero and kept her in shadow, despite the fact that it was just after mid-day. She looked around, waiting until the meeting she knew would occur, finally came.

  “Hello, are you looking for someone?”

  The woman was beautiful. She had long dark hair, as well as an olive complexion, and a very shapely figure amply displayed by her revealing green dress. She was short, and soft, and kind.

  Vero reminded herself not to gawk, and smiled in as friendly a manner as she could. “I am. Do you live here?”

  The woman smiled back. “I do, my name is Theodora. Who are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps it’s you.” Dora looked confused, so Vero elaborated. “I’ve just arrived in the city and I haven’t much money. I was told I could find a cheap room in this district.”

  “Oh, where do you come from, friend?”

  Vero took Dora into her arms, but the girl did not appear to notice. “I’m Velian, from the barony of Loix, just north of the Whitewood. My name is Veronique.”

  “How long will you stay here?”

  “I’m not certain. Long enough to earn some money, at least.” Vero kissed her neck, but Dora still appeared not to notice.

  “I have a room. I live there alone, but you could stay there with me, if you like.”

  “I don’t have much to pay at the moment, but when I’ve found employment-”

  “Ah! My mother has taken care of everything for me, I don’t need any money. I can take you there now, if you like.”

  “Gods bless you, Theodora.”

  Dora started to walk forwards and led her by the hand. “Call me Dora.”

  “I will if you promise to call me Vero.”

  Pentarch released her from the infirmary in the evening. Conner was still recovering from several fractures and needed more time to mend. Vero promised to come back and visit him the next day.

  They went through the chapel on their way back to her room, and Vero asked for time to say her vesper prayers. Pentarch agreed to wait for her in the gatehouse.

  Vero recited her rote prayers at Luna’s shrine, then went to meditate.

  She quieted the noise in her mind and tried to find some order in recent events. Mama always told her that every problem holds a solution. She only needed to find it.

  A third of the fortress wished her dead. Another third wished her alive, and the final third wished to be left alone. Of the three groups, Vero felt she understood the motivations of only the last.

  She had an interest in keeping herself alive, of course. However, that was for reasons of self-preservation. What motivated the others to try and protect her?

  What about that strange mad priest? He must have some power which they did not understand, or how else could he have come there? Unless he was merely an agent of another, hidden, force. If that was the case, was Father Alexius aware of his shadowy patron, or not?

  And how was the sorceress involved in everything? Vero had a hard time imagining that a member of the most notorious conspiracy of wizards on the continent just happened to be present at the precise moment in time everything else was occurring.

  Yet, random chance did take a hand in events from time to time. The tighter the plots around her were, the more she would need to rely on random chance to provide her that crucial window to escape through. She might need to ignore her paranoia to take advantage of that chance when it came.

  She also might blunder blindly into a trap.

  Vero returned to the madman, for a moment. Father Alexius claimed to be a White Priest. She adjusted her position to face the shrine of the Veiled One in the extra dimensional space. It was directly opposite the shrine of Helios, and the white marble statue stood out in the dark there, shining like a lighthouse.

  She felt tension tighten her stomach. She turned her head to find Luna’s light as necessary to calm her mind, but pressed on towards the Lady of Bones once more as soon as she could.

  It doesn’t do to consider the Death Goddess too carefully. So many shades follow you already.

  Vero did not believe that Father Alexius had lied to them.

  As a rule, she did not believe that the gods took a direct hand in the world of mortals. At least not since the age of the scriptures. She had seen too much suffering to believe otherwise.

  If the divines were willing to take action in the material world, why did they not simply attend ecumenical councils and resolve disputes before they could become inquisitions, pogroms, or crusades? Why did the gods not simply explain what they wished from men?

  What was that priest? Who was controlling him?

  Or was he only an abnormality? A freakish occurrence of chance with no bearing on any of the plots around her?

  The oscillation of lines and curves began to speed their rhythm.

  If he was a wild factor, how could she use him to cause cracks in the conspiracy? The dark spaces beyond the walls beckoned to her, and offered their secrets. Without moving her body, Vero seemed to project her mind forward into that twisting black fog, towards that marble pillar.

  He would be there at a key moment.

  It occurred to her that the spellcraft in the chapel warped not only spatial dimensions, but temporal ones. She could see the momentous event ahead of them through the currents of backflowing time. Father Alexius would share that moment with her.

  Vero could make out no detail of the event. She did not perceive it as physical space. Rather it was a blossoming, in which many possible paths and choices connected into a single point, before then dividing back into ten thousand shifting strands once more.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She looked at so many strands and felt a terrible chill in them. She realized that she no longer lived within them. She searched for those in which she still felt the pulse of her own life force, but as she drew nearer them, she found only fear, misery, and revulsion held within.

  It was so frustrating to see only in time, with no sense of place. She continued to search – strand by strand, in growing mania – to know that there was some outcome where she was not dead or in horror.

  No matter how she tried, each future only offered her abject suffering, or the empty certainty of death.

  The future looked so horrible that without consciously willing it, Vero found herself projecting away, towards the safe comforts of the past.

  The sweet release in a lovers’ arms. Veils were parting.

  Mama…?

  Fool girl!

  Vero had a momentary sensation of falling, before jerking herself upright.

  She must have dozed off while meditating. Vero yawned, then went to leave and hoped she had not kept Pentarch waiting too long.

  He made no comment when she reached the gate house, and they went out onto the wall together. Pentarch unlocked the door and opened it. Vero waited for him to go inside first, then followed.

  The hearth-fire had gone out, and the room was cold. Nothing appeared out of place. Someone even took the time to fix up the sheets and blankets on the bed; Vero never bothered.

  Everything looked to be put in its place. Except for a bit of soot on the floor around the fireplace.

  Pentarch held out a keyring. There were eight identical iron keys on it.

  “I’ve confiscated every key to this room.” He took one key off the ring and put in in a pouch on his belt, then handed the rest to her.

  “Iosephus is certain the room is safe?” she asked.

  “He spent the whole day in here going over every inch in detail. He assures me that you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take you at your word.”

  “I wouldn’t respect you if you did.”

  Vero lit the fire with her tinderbox. “I suppose I shall be hauling my own firewood in here from now on. If we don’t want the domestic staff coming and going.”

  “I’ll order them to leave it for you in the guardhouse. You will need to bring it in here yourself, however, yes. I’ll have one of the men, or perhaps Diana, meet you here every morning. You’ll be escorted back here in the evening as well.”

  “You could have put those measures into effect the moment I arrived.”

  “I presumed you would have chafed at the matter of a chaperone.”

  “I’m chafing at it now.”

  “So, I was right. I did send the boy Conner to watch you. Not that he needed much encouragement in that regard.”

  “He’s very sweet. And also, still just a child. I don’t think much of the way you put him into danger.”

  “I hoped that the presence of any witness meant that there would be no danger. To date, I confess, I had not expected such blatant viciousness. Typically, our enemies use subtler – though no less deadly – means. I'm still not certain what this change in tactic portends. If Conner does become one of us though, then he’ll be no stranger to danger. He'd best get used to it now.”

  “And how long do we go on like this? I warn you that I must be gone by the end of spring at the latest. There’s a woman waiting for me.”

  “You’re speaking about the one you introduced as your wife when you were still pretending to be Virgil, I presume.”

  “I introduced her as such, and so she is. She cooks my food, cleans my clothes, and we lay down together at night. What would you call that?”

  “As you wish. I’m doing my utmost to ensure that you return to her as soon as possible. I’ve been asked to see the Curia myself tomorrow. Perhaps we shall see some movement towards securing your freedom. The true details of these attacks have had time to circulate, and the mood of the men is not with the Curia’s dithering. They can’t ignore that for long, so they’ll need to do something.” The fire had finally flared up enough to start emitting some heat. “You should get some rest. You’re back to physical training again tomorrow morning.”

  Vero nodded.

  Pentarch went to the door. “Pleasant dreams.”

  And he left.

  Vero listened to the ambient silence of the room for a moment. Nothing seemed out of place.

  She went back outside to relieve herself while she waited for the fire to grow. She was only gone for a few minutes, but she still made sure to keep the door locked while she was gone.

  Once she was back inside, she locked the door again. Then she took off her boots, gloves, and cloak. She sat down by the fire and tried to stoke it up as quickly as possible.

  Nothing seemed out of place.

  For no other reason except to keep warm, Vero moved around the room and examined the walls and floor for traces of spellwork. There were minor charms to keep out the cold, but Vero noticed nothing suspicious in them. No matter how thoroughly she examined them.

  There was nothing under the bear skin rug, nor behind any of the furnishings. The furniture itself was clean, even in the clever spots hidden between and under the drawers where cunning sorcerers liked hide spells.

  The fire had really come to life by the time Vero started moving the bed, and she even began sweating from the exertion. There was nothing on, in, or under the bed either. Vero even felt a little guilt for how thoroughly she had upset the well-ordered bed clothes left for her.

  She shoved the bed back roughly where it had begun. Then threw the sheets, pillows, and blankets back on it, before collapsing on top of them.

  The room was now nicely warm. Vero eventually got up again to undress. Once she was out of her day clothes and into her sleeping shift, she flopped back onto the bed. At last, she was content that perhaps there really was nothing amiss.

  She yawned and stretched with languid movements.

  The change in her weekly infusions was making her libido even more overactive than usual. She was also brimming with confidence and enjoying it.

  Let all those bastards come at her, she knew how to deal with their lot. She already killed one and blinded another. See what happened to the next whoreson that tried something.

  Vero closed her eyes and saw the naked form of Phillip take shape before her mind’s eye. His proportions mostly came from her imagination, so they might have been exaggerated. Vero did not care. His face was handsome, his body was well-muscled, and he was ready for her service.

  ‘Dame Veronique!’ he tsked.

  Even when she killed in self-defense, the faces of the dead often troubled her in her dreams. This time she felt nothing.

  The law of nature was to kill or be killed. If it was they who chose to abandon the ethos of civilization, they could not then claim immunity from the consequences.

  Phillip dissolved and Diana took his place, with her heavy breasts and strong arms. No imagination was required. Vero already saw every inch of her, and committed each of them to memory.

  ‘How shameless. How wanton. Trying to steal my man.’

  The fantasy of Diana’s arms wrapped themselves around her.

  I wish that I could make it up to you. I could be so sweet to you, if only you would let me.

  ‘You’ll be my little sweetheart? My woman?’

  Oh, yes! Anything for you, my love.

  The judder of the penetration went all through her, when her blade cracked into his skull. Vero intended to kill all her enemies eventually, but she would wait for the right opportunity.

  She did not enjoy thinking that way about something human, but it was they who had declared war. And it was they who had sunk at once to war’s lowest degradations of character. Death was no less than they deserved.

  The figure of Diana faded. She was replaced by Pentarch.

  He was younger, the lines in his face were softer. His hair was no longer grey, but red. He reminded her of her father.

  She was safe there in his embrace. She wanted to just sink into his arms forever, and…

  Nothing seemed out of place.

  Except for the soot!

  The maid had even made the bed, but the stove was covered in soot.

  Vero jumped out of bed and put out the fire.

  She looked up the chimney. The way was not straight, so she could not see the outside. The way became narrow just beyond the mantle of the fireplace, but there was a lip on the interior side.

  The spell work was very thin, but she eventually found the signs.

  She could not be certain what it was intended to do. She saw scrying magic in it, but there was much unfamiliar about its workings. If there was a curse in it, she had no notion what it was.

  Silently, and without any wasted movement, Vero went to her pack and brought her tool kit back to the fireplace. She carefully circled the spell with her own wards to mute it.

  It took a couple of hours of careful labor, sitting painfully on her knees, but at last it was done. She climbed out of the fireplace with stiff limbs. The room was agonizingly cold and she lit up the stove at once to warm it again.

  Pentarch asked Iosephus to search every inch of this room for spells or curses. Was he negligent?

  The soot suggested that whoever hid the spell came in after the domestics set the room right. Iosephus and Pentarch would have supervised the cleaning after their search.

  Which one of them set it? Or did Iosephus set it under Pentarch’s orders?

  Someone had set it.

  Vero went back to bed, and went to sleep with her dagger under her pillow.

  If you're in a position to support my work financially, I have a , where uncut versions of all publicly released chapters are available at the free membership tier four days early. The paid reward tier list is hidden in spoiler text, with up to 30 chapters and exclusive short stories:

  $3 - 5 early chapters, this tier is available as a one week free trial

  $5 - 10 early chapters

  $7 - 15 early chapters

  $10 - 20 early chapters

  $15 - 30 early chapters + the exclusive short story Apostate

  If you've enjoyed this book you can also leave a rating, review, follow, and/or favorite. Even without an account, you can still support my work just by sharing and recommending this story to anyone else you think might also enjoy it.

  Thank you for reading!