Page 421 of Of Empires and Dust

And then Gildrick died.Kallinvar didn’t say the words out loud. He did not want Poldor to bear the weight of them. The man was well intentioned.

“Please,” Poldor said, gesturing for Ruon and Kallinvar to follow him. “While the others attended the vigil, I took the liberty of searching every room.”

“You did what? Poldor, that is beyond your decision to make.”

“And the weight you bear is beyond that any man should hold, Grandmaster. And yet, you do. Sometimes we must go beyond when times are dire.”

Poldor led them through the various corridors of the Watcher’s chambers, stopping outside an open door.

“Watcher Tallia’s room,” Poldor said, pushing open the door.

The room looked little different to any others, if a little scattered and in need of a clean. Though Kallinvar wouldn’t fault Tallia for that in a time like this.

“I’m failing to see the need for your urgency, Poldor.”

The man nodded. “I thought the same, at first. But when I made to leave. I kicked the bedpost, clumsy as I am… It’s hollow.”

Poldor knelt and tapped on the right leg at the foot of Tallia’s bed. At first the man’s knuckle produced a hardthunk, but as he moved down, a muffled echo sounded within.

“You claim her a traitor for having a hollow bed post?”

“No, I claim her a traitor for having these.” Poldor manoeuvred the wooden panel at the inside of the bedpost until a segment slipped away with a click. When the man stood, Kallinvar’s eyes widened.

Poldor held out tens of torn pages, all wrapped together with string. But the pages were nothing, not compared to the dull gemstone in his other hand.

Kallinvar couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He could, but he didn’t want to. To consider the possibility that Tallia was a traitor and to know her as one were two different things, something Kallinvar had not realised until that moment.

Efialtír truly had found a way inside Achyron’s temple. Kallinvar reached out and took the gemstone into his hand. It was empty. No red light glowed from its core, and he couldn’t feel the Taint radiating from within. Perhaps it had never been used. But how had it found its way into Watcher Tallia’s hands? How had it found its way to Ardholm at all?

Kallinvar turned and stormed from the room, holding the gemstone firmly in his hands. Ruon and Ildris sprinted after him, Poldor with them, and in that moment, Achyron awakened in his mind once more.

“This must end now, my child. Efialtír cannot set root in my sanctuary.”

“Where is she?” Kallinvar demanded as he pushed through the doors from the Watcher’s antechamber into the hall.

“She’s in the village,” Poldor answered, breathing heavy. “At the vigil.”

“Where?”

“In the square before The Salted Sparrow.”

Kallinvar pushed through the wicket gate set into the great temple doors and descended the stairs with a fury. The rain was cold against Kallinvar’s skin, but the rage that pulsed within him cared little for it, part Achyron’s, part his own. The people he had spent the last seven hundred years protecting had betrayed him, had killed one of the few people he had called ‘friend’.

Lanterns blazed all about the city, the light of the Blood Moon drifting languidly over the rooftops. Villagers raised their fists to their foreheads as Kallinvar and the others passed, but Kallinvar didn’t stop.

Hundreds were gathered at the square in front of The Salted Sparrow, candles lit all about them. They stood as a Watcher recounted a story, the words of which Kallinvar did not hear amid the pounding of his own heart.

“Watcher Tallia!” he roared, his Sentinel armour flowing from the Sigil in his chest.

Heads snapped around at the sound of Kallinvar’s rage-filled shout. The crowd parted, leaving Tallia standing alone with a candle in her hands and a look of pure terror on her face. The young woman’s hood was drawn, the rain splattering against it.

“What is this?” Kallinvar tossed the gemstone so it skittered across the ground and came to a stop at Tallia’s feet.

This woman had betrayed them. She had betrayed Achyron, betrayed her people, but most of all she had betrayed Gildrick.

“I’ve never seen that before. I don’t…. I don’t…” She staggered backwards as Kallinvar approached, dropping her candle onto the stone, the wax splattering, the flame living on.

“Donotlie to me!” Kallinvar grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air, his Sentinel armour making it seem as though he were lifting a feather.

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