Arc 4: Chapter 27: Dawn and Doom
When the sun rose to burn away the fog, it arrived with every bell in the city tolling.
The bells of Garihelm did not ring to welcome the dawn. They were a dirge.
Rose Malin burned. The city became awash with fear and confusion. Some cried that the Priory and the Houses had finally gone to war. There was violence. Homes were broken into. The guard filled the streets, bringing order with a swift steel fist.
There were deaths. The capital had been on the brink of this for most of a year. I didn't let that knowledge convince me I shared no blame.
I saw much of it while drifting through the waking streets, still covered in Priory blood. Few truly saw me, wrapped in glamour and the dregs of night and fog as I was. Lisette went with me, struggling to keep up, asking me where I intended to go, what I intended to do. She begged me to let her tend to my injuries.
When I wouldn’t answer, she eventually fell quiet and followed in worried silence. I suspected she did not know where else to go. Her cover with the Priory had been undone when she’d saved me, or perhaps earlier when Oraise had revealed he knew her true allegiance.
Just another reminder that my actions had consequences, and it wasn’t always me who paid them.
I eventually stopped at the edge of a deep canal near the bay. I smelled the sea, and let a sudden gust of air cool the sweat on my skin, the scalding pain in my left arm, and the pieces of my flesh that’d been scorched by hellfire.
Nearby, a piece of shadow disentangled itself from an alley. Lisette started and began to weave her threads of aura, but I put up a hand to stop her.
“You went and did it again,” Emma said, ignoring the cleric. “Left me behind.”
I had to force myself to speak. The shock of everything that’d just happened still hadn’t quite left. “I told you. This part of my life… it’s not for you.”