Chapter LXIII
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"Move! Move!" Someone screamed it over the noise as the crowd slammed against the closed castle gates.
Hundreds pressed forward in a single mass, the front line crushed against iron and stone by the weight of everyone behind them.
"Open it!"
"Help us!" A child's wail cut through the shouting, lost almost instantly in more of the same.
The knights on the wall above watched, retreating step by step from the parapet edge.
"We can't just leave them," one of the younger knights said.
"It's not our call to make—"
"Their kids. Their mothers. Their fathers." His voice cracked. "Our people."
Something in that landed. The knights running toward the inner gate slowed. Stopped. Fists clenched at their sides.
"We are Blackwater Cove knights." The young one's voice carried now, steady despite everything. "We protect the king and the people. We don't leave anyone behind."
A roar went up in answer.
"Open the gates!" Someone hauled the bar free and the gates swung wide. The crowd surged through, bodies falling and scrambling back up in the press.
Somewhere in the middle of that chaos, a hooded man slipped through with the crowd, face hidden, smirking.
"How reassuring," he murmured, walking in like he belonged there. "Didn't think it'd be this easy."
Deep in the Capital
Lucien and Rowan ran — stumbling, falling, catching themselves, running again through streets that no longer had any rules.
"Wait—" A Golden Cloak's voice, then the hum of his weapon firing.
Lucien dragged Rowan sideways into a corner an instant before the beam tore through where they'd been.
"They went through here," the Cloak said.
"Didn't see anything," the one beside him answered.
"Now!" Lucien hissed from the shadows, and Rowan threw a punch that caught the nearest Cloak square in the jaw. The man staggered, finger jerking on the trigger as he fell — the beam grazed Lucien's shoulder on its way past, searing through fabric and skin in one clean line.
"Lucien!" Rowan turned as the second Cloak raised his weapon.
"Got you."
The weapon discharged in his hand instead — heat flaring back through the barrel until it dropped, glowing, useless. Lucien had fired the one Rowan had knocked loose moments earlier.
"Nice punch," Lucien said, turning to his brother.
"Hand still hurts." Rowan flexed his fingers, wincing.
"Don't—" Lucien moved fast, weapon already aimed at the Cloak reaching for his fallen rod.
"What do you people want?" Rowan stared at the scene, still struggling to process all of it.
"To kill you freaks," the Cloak said, grinning right up until Lucien clubbed him unconscious with the butt of the weapon.
"We have to get home," Lucien said, already pulling Rowan along.
The White Room — House of Ouroboros
A chamber with no doors. No way in or out except by being brought there directly.
"I just got word." One of the Faceless rose from his seat. "They've opened the gates."
The whispering across the room died instantly.
"What—"
"Where is Grigon the Thirteenth?" someone demanded, and the question splintered into a dozen overlapping arguments at once.
"I sent for him." A woman stood. "He'll be here soon. We need to stay calm."
"How can we stay calm?" The goat-horned Faceless rose, voice shaking. "We sent him out there."
"They can't get in here. Even the strongest mage can't breach this room. We're safe."
"For how long?"
"We should abandon this place. Run while we still can," one voice cut through.
"Coward." The chant started low and built fast. "Coward. Coward."
"It's time for rebirth," the woman said, raising her voice over them. "We need Grigon the Thirteenth."
The old man at the center sat in silence through all of it — until his eyes opened, suddenly aware of something none of the rest of them could feel yet.
"They're here," he said.
"What—" The woman turned toward him.
A small crack split open along one wall.
It widened. Stone gave way.
A hooded man stepped through, dusting sand and rubble from his shoulders. "You're all really good at this — what's the word — hiding."
"Who are you?"
"Ah. Sorry." He pulled back his hood. "I'm Elite Knight Ozym. Try to remember that. It'll be the last thing you do."
Two Faceless guards erupted up from the floor, hands already reshaped into edges of sharp steel. One lunged mid-air, weapon aimed at his throat.
Ozym dodged with no real effort and brought his palm forward — a thin, web-like pattern crawling visibly across his skin. He touched the guard once.
The guard fell. Pale. Drained of everything that had made him a person a second earlier.
Silence. Even the ones who'd just watched it happen seemed unable to process it.
"What are you?" the second guard demanded, still rushing forward.
Ozym smirked.
The guard's weapon connected with something — Ozym's arm, blocking — and was simply thrown back by the force of it, feet scraping a long groove into the floor as he came to a stop.
"Rrrgh—" He came again, steel close to Ozym's face.
"Enough." A single word, and he dropped — drained, lifeless, before the blade even arrived.
"What ARE you?!" the woman screamed.
"Mortal." Ozym answered like it was obvious, then sat down on the white floor with a yawn. "I'm exhausted."
Two more Faceless rushed him and fell before they were within arm's reach.
"He's draining their life force from a distance," the woman whispered.
"Yes," Ozym agreed pleasantly. "And your kind is tasty."
He stood again, brushing the dust from his coat. "I came here for a deal."
"What deal," the old man said, finally speaking.
"As it stands, you've already lost. Your people are dying in the streets above us. There's nowhere left for you to run or hide."
"So you'd rather commit genocide on the innocent," the old man said.
"You call it genocide because you're living through it." Ozym's voice stayed light, almost bored. "History will call it evolution."
"Kill him," the woman beside the old man shouted — but the remaining Faceless hesitated, hands shaking, none of them moving.
"My deal is a quick death," Ozym said, smirking.
"Get him!" The room broke at once, every Faceless shifting form mid-leap, lunging from every angle.
Meanwhile at Rowan's House
Lucien spotted it first — the house in the distance, both of them sprinting toward it now.
It looked ordinary. Untouched. Lucien knelt at the path, finding fresh carriage tracks in the dirt.
They must have gone with the carriage I sent.
Rowan reached the door first and threw it open, already shouting his wife's name. His daughter's name.
"Brother, your voice carries too loud — I think they're already gone—" Lucien followed him in.
The words died in his throat.
Rowan was on his knees.
His wife lay before him. Motionless. Her chest had been torn open, flesh blackened and charred at the edges, the air thick with the smell of burnt meat and something underneath it that the mind refused to name.
Beside her, Gali.
Or what was left of her. She still held her mother's hand, fingers locked around it like she hadn't let go even at the end — but her body ended at the waist in scorched ruin.
For a moment Lucien couldn't breathe.
"Rowan—"
His brother's shoulders shook.
"No." A whisper. Then louder. "No, no, no, no—"
He gathered his wife into his arms, careful in a way that no longer mattered, as if gentleness now could undo any of it.
"We promised we'd watch her grow up." One shaking hand against her face, the other resting on her swollen stomach. "We promised."
A sound came out of him that wasn't quite a sob and wasn't quite a scream.
Lucien stood frozen, his mind refusing what his eyes were telling him.
This isn't real.
Rowan was the steady one. The unshakable one. Seeing him break like this felt like watching something physically impossible happen.
Lucien's fists curled at his sides.
"Who did this," he whispered. It barely sounded human leaving him.
"WAAAHHH—" Rowan's voice tore through the house.
"Brother—" Lucien tried to dial it down, tried to reach for him, but his hands wouldn't move the way he wanted them to.
"What made that noise?" Two Golden Cloaks appeared in the doorway, weapons raised, checking the source of the sound.
Rage took Lucien before thought could. He shifted — gargoyle, full and sudden, maw and teeth tearing through the first Cloak's throat before the man even registered the change.
The second tried to bring his weapon up; a young Faceless woman dropped behind him and snapped his neck in one motion before he could fire.
"Grigon the Thirteenth. You need to come with me. Now."
Lucien was still tearing into the body, lost somewhere past words.
Rowan turned to look at his brother.
"What are you," he whispered.
Lucien turned — tears already falling from wide, inhuman eyes — and shifted back, slow, fingers reforming into something human again.
"Lucien — what are you?"
Rowan grabbed one of the fallen Cloak's rods.
"Brother, you'll hurt yourself—" Lucien reached for him.
"Don't call me that." Tears streaked down Rowan's face. "Demon."
"Demon—" The word landed in Lucien like a blow.
He looked down at his own hand — still half-formed — and forced the fingers back to normal.
"It's me, Lucien. Your brother."
"Don't." Rowan turned the weapon toward him. "I have no brother. Leave. Or I'll kill you."
"Bro—"
"Don't call me that, freak!"
"Grigon, we have to leave now." The woman's voice was urgent behind him. "The mages are destroying everything in sight. The Cloaks are on the ground. Grigon—"
"You heard her," Rowan said, voice breaking apart even as he held the weapon steady. "Leave. Now."
"Rowan—"
"It's time, Grigon," the woman called.
"Shut up," Lucien snapped at her, eyes burning with something that wasn't anger.
"I'll open fire if you don't leave," Rowan said.
"Brother, don't—"
Rowan fired once.
The blast caught Lucien's ear, blood spraying, the force of it throwing him backward across the room.
"Go," Rowan said.
The woman shifted into a deer and scooped Lucien onto her back, already running for the door.
Lucien's voice carried out into the distance, fading with every stride she took.
Rowan gathered his wife and the remains of his daughter into his arms one final time.
A familiar memory surfaced, gentle and warm and entirely separate from everything around him now.
"Dad," Gali called out.
"You're drinking again. Mom will kill you."
"Your mother's too hard on me. Don't tell her. Promise?"
"Promise," she said, winking.
"Who taught you that?" Rowan asked, turning to Lucien — laughing, both of them, in a kitchen that no longer existed anywhere except in this memory.
"Brother. Forgive me," Rowan murmured.
The memory faded.
He fired once. On himself.
The sound carried for a long way across the burning city.
The deer ran hard, mages behind her flinging beams of light that scorched the earth on either side of her path. She dodged each one, weaving, never breaking stride.
"Take me back," Lucien said, half-conscious against her side.
"I can't."
"Hold on," she said, and her eyes lit gold as a portal tore open ahead of them. They crossed through it just as a beam closed the distance to where they'd been standing.
The White Room
The portal opened there. She shifted back to human form, both of them collapsing onto the white floor.
"Huh—" She pushed herself up and found the rest of the Faceless lying around the room, drained, lifeless. Ozym stood over the old man, one hand around his throat.
"Leave him!" She shifted her hands into crab-like claws and lunged.
"Run," the old man managed.
She froze halfway.
"Grigon," the old man called, and Lucien finally lifted his head.
"I leave it to you now," he said.
Ozym reached down and plucked the old man's eye from its socket, draining what was left of him in the same motion. The body dropped.
"No—" The woman rushed forward.
She was drained before she reached him.
Ozym pressed the stolen eye into his own empty socket.
"Ahh. Finally." He blinked, adjusting. "Who are you?" he asked, looking at Lucien properly for the first time.
"You're the one who did this." Lucien stood, swaying.
"What of it. Scram — I don't feel like killing you right now. I'm exhausted." Ozym waved a hand dismissively.
Lucien charged anyway.
His life force didn't drain. Not instantly. Not the way the others had.
Ozym straightened, genuinely caught off guard.
"Hmm. Not hungry, I guess." He flicked his fingers. The air cracked, and Lucien was hurled backward through the white room's wall, the spell fracturing where he passed through it.
He fell from a great height and landed somewhere in the ruined capital below.
"I was bleeding to death," Ser Rick said, the memory finally dissolving as he looked at Dot across the study. "I'd accepted it. I thought I'd get to see my brother once more, at least." He paused. "Then she found me. Martha."
"She turned me into a cat. Funny, but it saved my life." He looked toward the window, somewhere past it. "The mages and the Golden Cloaks destroyed Blackwater Cove. Left nothing standing."
Tears slid down Dot's face. He couldn't hold them back, not after hearing all of it.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save Liora, Dot," Ser Rick said quietly.
"When Martha died, the form broke. I remembered everything." He turned fully toward Dot. "My goal since then has been simple. Kill the one responsible for taking everyone I cared about."
His composure cracked, just slightly. Tears at the corner of his eyes despite himself.
"Help me, Dot." A pause. "Help me get my revenge."
Dot stood without hesitating.
"Of course I will." He wiped his face. "You're my friend. And I think Liora would want this too."
"Thank you, Dot," Rick said, turning away.
The only way to kill an immortal demon is to set an immortal one against him, he thought, watching Dot's reflection in the window glass.
Sorry, Dot. But I'm going to need to borrow your strength.
✦
— To Be Continued —