Page 53 of Of Empires and Dust

“You don’t think the Heart is here, do you?” There was earnestness in Emalia’s voice. “Should we summon the others?”

“I don’t believe so.” Kallinvar shook his head. “But stay vigilant. Sister-Captain Arlena and The First are waiting if we need them.”

Kallinvar didn’t have the faintest idea if the Heart was there or not. Hundreds of pulses of the Taint were scattered all across the continent since the Chosen had crossed, and he didn’t even truly know what to look for. But of all the voices he’d heard calling to him, all the heartbeats, this one had felt the most dire, the most urgent. And it emanated from the same location as a deep well of the Taint. As Verathin had so often said, the situation killed two birds with one stone.

Kallinvar approached Ildris, who stood like a hound with his head tilted to the wind. The man had always been more attuned to Efialtír’s touch than others, like a sixth sense. “What do you feel?”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” Ildris answered. He gestured north. “The Taint should not be so strong out here. We are hundreds of miles from any Lorian encampments or Urak holds. We will find nothing here but death.”

Kallinvar grasped Ildris’s pauldron. “Then let’s go say hello to an old friend.”

Twigs snapped beneath Kallinvar’s weight as he and the knights pushed through the wood, half-frosted leaves crunching. Above, old branches groaned in the shrieking wind, clacking against each other. Apart from the occasional flapping wings, there was little sign of life.

With each step, the corruption of the Taint grew stronger, pulsing outward from a centre point like a rippling wave. But so too did the heartbeat in the back of Kallinvar’s mind.

There was something different about this place, something that pulled at Kallinvar, clawed at him. It was as though Efialtír’s hand scraped the ground and his breath tarnished the air. He’dfelt something similar at Ilnaen, but its presence here was unsettling.

Could the Heart truly be in this place, hundreds of miles from anywhere the scholars had considered? A place he had come with no intention of finding it, and so soon? If that were true, he was either the luckiest or most unfortunate soul in all the known world.

It mattered little. They were here now, and they would find what they would find. If the Heart resided in this place, he would summon every knight alive and they would do what they’d been saved to do. They would fight.

After a while, a lantern flickered in the distance, followed by several more, their warm light glowing through the trees.

“A fort,” Lyrin called in a hushed tone as he and Arden emerged from the shadows ahead. “Large enough for a few hundred. It bears no markings, but it’s certainly not Bloodspawn-built.”

“Lorians,” Ildris whispered, the air changing between the knights. None ever questioned killing Bloodspawn. The creatures were born of The Shadow, gifted life by Efialtír’s power. They were monsters who would destroy everything. But to kill men and women, to kill humans, was never a task any of the knights yearned for, imperial or no. But they would do their duty.

“Servants of Efialtír,” Kallinvar corrected. The knights drew closer as he spoke. He straightened, bringing his tone firm and level. “Black and white do not exist.”

“We live in a world of ever-shifting grey,” Ruon finished the words.

Kallinvar nodded, allowing his gaze to linger on her for a second longer. “There will be men and women inside that fort who do not deserve our blade. They are nothing more than spokes in a wheel. But wheels break. Spare who you can, but dowhat you must. Steel first. Soulblades for anything that touches Essence. Above all else, do not hesitate. This place reeks of the Taint.”

A chorus of ‘Grandmaster’ ringed the group.

“It reeks of something else as well.” Lyrin pinched his nostrils between a thumb and forefinger. “What in the fuck is that?”

Barely a moment after Lyrin had spoken, the same stench flowed into Kallinvar’s nostrils. He covered his nose and mouth and made to speak, but Emalia got there first.

“Burning flesh.” Sister-Captain Emalia clenched her jaws.

“What’s the plan?” Ruon asked, drawing closer. “Do we know where the Sigil Bearer is?”

Kallinvar shook his head in answer. That pulse tapped away in the periphery of his thoughts, muffled by the oily sickness of the Taint spilling from within the fort’s walls. “I need to get closer. The heartbeat is faint.”

“Through the front gate it is then,” Lyrin said with a shrug, rolling his shoulders. “It’s always courteous to knock. That’s what my mother always said.”

As the young knight spoke, a bird shrieked overhead, its dark shape visible against the moonlight as it soared over the fort.

“I’m sure your mother was a good woman, Brother Lyrin,” Kallinvar said, summoning the Rift behind him, “but I believe I may have a simpler option.”

Kallinvar’s pulsethumped slow and steady, the blood in his veins cold, the familiar blackness surrounding him. Then he was falling, the Rift washing over him. The world burst to life, warmth wrapping around his bones even in the winter cold.

Torch lights flickered below, the roars of battle rising upwards. Five heartbeats, and he collided with the ground, atremor sweeping through him, cracks spreading beneath his feet.

“Grandmaster!”

Kallinvar barely had a second to react to Arden’s call. In one motion, he pulled his sword from its scabbard, stepped back, and swung.

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