“I don’t know how he did that. Why would I?”
“You’ve been here a century, Scythe. He didn’t mention any tricks to you?”
“No, we never chatted about ripping holes into the earth leading down here. Pitch might have known something,” she said.
Any reply he had died in his throat at the mention of Pitch.
Scythe must have seen his reaction change, because she instantly softened. “Dagger, I—”
“It’s alright.” He waved those thoughts away. Grieving could wait. “We must have some way to summon them.”
Scythe sighed and glanced away, thinking.
Dagger thought about the summons he’d received. The ground in the city had opened right at their feet, but the one at their estate had been waiting for them. Whatever it was that Maniodes could do, there was a limit to it. The second time, he hadn’t been able to pinpoint them directly.
“What if it’s stronger in the cities?” Dagger speculated.
“But he opened one right outside our house,” Scythe countered. “One estate on a mountain is hardly a city.”
“But he knew we’d find it.”
“Do you think he can sense places better than people?” she asked.
“Maybe, what do you mean by ‘sense’?” he asked.
“There was a time I was with him, and he summoned two others for a big job. It was Maime and Hammer, actually. He knew which city they were in. They had some hideout in one of the northern cities. It was like he just thought of them, and in a few minutes they were in his office.”
“That’s not much of a lead,” Dagger said, sighing.
He glanced over to Axe, Maime, and Hatchet. They were waiting awkwardly, occasionally talking. Maime leaned against one of the pillars, staring at the floor.
Something new happened. Nothing physically changed but while thinking of them, Dagger felt the castle they stood in now. It wasn’t as if the image of the castle appeared, just the general knowledge of it.
Dagger was about to brush the odd sensation off. It was natural to think of the place they all stood now, but the thought hadn’t been his.
“Scythe,” he said catching her attention. “Think of Lace.”
She blinked, confused, but didn’t reply. She glanced away for a moment, then the confusion melted.
“What happened?” he asked eagerly.
“I just thought of the city Potamis after thinking of her. I have no idea why. I haven’t been there in years,” Scythe shrugged. “It’s like I can see her, though.”
Scythe’s eyes widened more, and she jumped suddenly.
“What?” Dagger asked. “What happened?”
Scythe blinked again and focused on Dagger. “I thought of the ground opening, and it did right in front of her. I saw it! Think of one of the others, like Flail. You’ll know what I mean.”
“Alright,” he said, taking a breath.
He brought up Flail in his mind’s eye. She was a woman with bronzed skin and brown hair streaked with orange. A flail was always attached to her belt. As he did, the image of Stymphalia appeared. It was so detailed that Dagger was able to pinpoint which crypt Flail was currently sleeping in. He could practically see the woman lounging on top of a coffin. The crypt was small, but Dagger focused on a section of the floor. He envisioned a stairway opening and watched, astonished, as Flail jerked awake at the noise and saw the hole beside her. Dread and fear filled her eyes but she started down the stairs.
Dagger focused on Scythe then. “It worked. All we have to do is think, and they’ll come. This is amazing,” he said taking the moment to relish in the new power. “Go talk to the others. I’ll summon the rest of them.”
Scythe paused and glanced to the others. “Can’t you go talk to them? You’re better at diplomacy than I am.”
“You’ll do fine. You kept Nyx waiting until Maniodes showed up. Besides, I’d like to play with this weird, new summoning power.”
“I’d like to experiment too, though,” Scythe argued.
“All you have to do is keep them company. It might get chaotic in Ichorisis if we’re both opening random holes by people,” Dagger said.
“Okay, fine.” She threw up her hands in defeat. “I’m their queen now anyway. I have to get used to that.”
“I wouldn’t use the queen word just yet. They might not appreciate that idea. Besides, you were fine around everyone at the ball. What’s changed?” he asked, concerned.
“It’s different now,” Scythe said. “There was no agenda other than becoming allies with Nyx. Now they’re going to demand things of us.”
“You had to see that coming.”
“I did. I just…part of me never really thought this would happen. When you were looking for Leda and Maniodes came, I thought we were dead. It’s been a long night; I think I’m just tired.”
She did look haggard. Dagger was sure he looked the same. He was exhausted, too. He touched her shoulder, then pulled her close. She sighed into his chest and wrapped her arms around him. He took a moment, breathing in the scent of her hair. They both needed rest.
“We won, Scythe,” he said gently, not quite believing the words. “We just need to take care of a few things first, and then we can relax. Maybe we can even try out our new bed up in the tower. It’s not Maniodes’s anymore.”
Scythe gave a small chuckle into his chest. She lifted her head and stood on her toes bringing her lips closer to his.
“We’ll see where tonight leads,” she whispered before kissing him.
The moment ended too quickly when she pulled away. She seemed happier, content at least. He squeezed her hand before she went to talk to the others.
Dagger forced his mind to focus on the summoning trick. Footsteps distracted him for a moment, and Lace and Flail entered the throne room. They approached Scythe and the others, confused. Dagger kept to the side, letting Scythe receive them.
The Incruentus Ferrum order wasn’t a large one, and he knew everyone’s face, at least. He focused on each one and, in time, their locations were revealed to him. Some of them didn’t appear though. He thought of Cross, but he saw only blackness in his mind’s eye. Several of them were grouped together discussing previous events, so Dagger was able to summon them all on one go.
There were a couple of times, with Cutlass and Pike, where he couldn’t pinpoint a specific city or village. He could feel which direction they were in, but nothing as detailed as before. Pike was on the northern coast heading east, and Cutlass was somewhere in the thick Katesar woods.
This was probably why Maniodes had only opened the ground at their estate after they hunted down Leda. This summoning power had its limits when it came to the wilderness between the city-states. He opened several holes in the direction each Ferrum was heading and could only hope they would find them.
More footsteps and voices filled the room now. Dagger stayed where he was for one more moment.
He thought of Pitch. The image was detailed and strong. It was as if the twelve-year-old boy stood alive in front of him. But he didn’t. No location appeared in his thoughts. Pitch was gone.
He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. There would be time later to mourn.
He turned toward the others and joined Scythe.
Lace stood by Maime with a hand on his wrist. He still looked furious, but she appeared to be holding him back. Dagger wondered if there was something going on between those two.
The other Ferrum parted to clear a path for him. He felt their confused eyes demanding answers.
Dagger climbed the dais, and Scythe quickly joined him. Dagger stood in front of the black throne beside Scythe. All of the Incruentus Ferrum watched them expectedly, eyes darting from one to the other.
He looked to Scythe for a moment, not sure what to say to them. He was growing more nervous by the second. She seemed at a loss too, but more composed than before.
“What happened?” Flail asked. “Where is Maniodes?”
“He’s gone,” Scy
the replied. “Nyx took his essence and gave it to us.”
A murmur ran through them as more questions arose. Dagger saw no point in keeping them in the dark now.
“Scythe and I worked to depose him with Nyx’s help,” Dagger added. “We uncovered his betrayal to the goddess as well.”
“Why, though?” Flail demanded. “That chaos earlier was rather sudden. And you two started it after Pitch died. What does Nyx have to do with this?”
“Maniodes wanted to dispose of us—all of us,” Dagger emphasized. Twisting the truth a bit simplified things and kept Nyx in a good light. It came rather easy to him as well. “We were only tools to him: weapons. He thought he was losing control. You heard him during the mutiny, saying dogs would have been easier. And we weren’t the only ones in the fight.”
“My brother died because of that fight!” Maime shouted.
“Exactly,” Scythe said. “Dagger and I attacked first, yes, but he didn’t hesitate in slaughtering others. Cross was caught in that, and the sentries.”
“And Lance, Star, and Blade,” another called out. It was a short, dark-skinned man with a longbow on his back.
Dagger hadn’t seen their deaths in the confusion but remembered the throwing stars being imbedded into Maniodes’s shoulder.
“They are why we took action,” Dagger said. “Maniodes never valued us.”
The Incruentus Ferrum fell silent. They looked uncomfortable, even a bit scared, as they thought about it. He couldn’t blame them for arguing; a lot had happened in one night.
Dagger looked over to Maime, who stood motionless by Lace, and caught his eye.
“So you’re in charge now?” Maime asked, clearly not happy.
“Wait, you said Nyx gave you Maniodes’s essence? What does that even mean?” Lace asked.
“They’re the gods now,” Maime accused.
“It does,” Scythe said, keeping her composure and balance. Dagger was glad she did; he wasn’t used to a crowd like this.
More questions rose from the Ferrum in a wave. Dagger was able to catch the words, “that’s impossible,” but it was Maime who answered.
“It’s true,” he called. “I hit Dagger, and he didn’t even flinch. Just like Maniodes during the mutiny.”
“Why did you hit him?” Lace asked, surprised.
“He tied me and Hatchet up in their cellar!” Maime defended.
“I did do that,” Dagger admitted, refusing to feel guilty. “We needed our home to be empty for meeting Nyx and Maniodes, and you weren’t exactly willing to leave.”
“The point is,” Scythe rested a hand against Dagger’s arm. “Things can be different now.”
“Different how?” Flail demanded. “Things were fine before.”
“Were they?” Scythe threw back. “Were we ever able to have a civil conversation like this with him before? You saw what he did to Pitch for dropping a damn box.”
“And how many of you still have living family you’d like to see again? Maybe not interact with, but watch over even from a distance? Like Axe here. He has a small daughter and Maniodes forbade him from seeing her. Or with Cross; she wanted to go grey to be with her son, but he refused her request,” Dagger said.
“And there’s something else he did to us. You all remember your past lives, right? I do. I remember my sister, I remember the day my father was killed by thieves, and I remember my mother. She wasn’t a sane woman, but that wasn’t her fault; it was something in her brain. My point being, I wasn’t murderous or bloodthirsty back then. I was a normal person, going about his history studies and learning the family trade. And Scythe here, she fought through a hard life, but she worked through it. When a very hard situation occurred, she wasn’t violent. That violence came after death.”
He met Scythe’s gaze then. Her mouth was pinched, and her eyes were hard.
“I won’t go into details,” he added. “What I’m trying to say is that when Maniodes picked us to be Incruentus Ferrum he didn’t care about our pasts. He gave us a bloodlust that made doing his bidding easier.”
“How do we know you’re not making this shit up?” Maime accused.
“Ask Axe,” Scythe said, gesturing to him.
“Why me?” Axe asked, astonished, still on the dais.
“You told me about your daughter in the library when we met,” Scythe said. “Then about the job Maniodes sent you on to kill a little girl. You said you felt different afterward, that you didn’t have the taste for murder anymore.”
The others were watching Axe intently now. Most of them looked confused, as if they couldn’t comprehend another Ferrum not wanting to kill. Dagger felt for the man, making him the center of the attention so unexpectedly, but Scythe made a good point.
Axe exchanged a glance with Dagger. He was still hunched over his wounds, bleeding from all of them. Dagger nodded to him, hoping Axe would speak for them.
“It’s true,” Axe said after a moment. “After I killed that child, something inside me broke. I don’t mean literally. I didn’t feel anything change, but I changed. If they want to call it bloodlust, then so be it. I do believe Maniodes did something to us. I was just a tutor for hire who had to teach himself to read first. I had never taken a life, nor had I wanted to before becoming this. I’m actually glad that lust is gone.”
“But why?” the archer asked. “Why manipulate us like that?”
“Because we were just tools,” Dagger emphasized. “Cross was a valuable weapon because of her skill, which he didn’t want to lose. She hadn’t broken through her bloodlust yet, and he knew that somehow. He knew she would still do his bidding, just as we all did because we liked it. The sentries were the same to him. They couldn’t even have their own voices. I think they were taken back by their own leader.”
“Maniodes wasn’t their leader?” Lace asked.
“He was, but there was another system in place for them. I don’t know what, but one of them told me of the original skeleton created by Maniodes, and how that one connects to them all. I don’t know where that one is, but I’d suspect the others are with him. Scythe and I will find them either way, and things will basically go back to normal.”
They fell silent then; most of them wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“You don’t need to fear us the way we did him,” Dagger said, stepping down from the dais to join them. Scythe quickly followed.
They all stood in an awkward silence, unsure how to continue. Dagger thought of how Maniodes would just dismiss them, but he didn’t want to do that.
“I think we should part ways here,” he suggested. “It’s been a long night for all of us, and day broke a while ago.”
“Yes,” Scythe agreed beside him. “We can meet again tomorrow night to really discuss everything.”
The Ferrum seemed to agree. Most nodded, though some didn’t react. Maime just grunted. They left the throne room quietly. The archer even tried to bow, looking uncomfortable, but Dagger reassured him it wasn’t needed.
Flail helped Axe stand, and they were the last to leave Dagger and Scythe alone.
Dagger turned toward Scythe and sighed. “That went well, I think.”
Scythe gave a slow nod. She looked up to the throne and asked, “What do we do with that?”
He ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the finer details. “Get rid of it, I suppose. It’s too big for us. Maybe have two new ones built?”
“Go sit.” She pushed his arm a bit.
“Why?”
“Just go.” Her grin became more suggestive.
He paused, watching her, and the smile grew. He stepped up to the throne again, watching her from the corner of his eye. He climbed onto the throne and before he could consider how ridiculous he looked with his feet not touching the floor, Scythe was on top of him.
She situated herself on his lap, legs draped over one arm of the throne. Her grin stayed wicked as she played with his collar.
He kissed her eagerly. One hand of his was wr
apped around her back, holding her in place. The other caressed her thigh.
Scythe’s hand buried itself in his hair, locking him in place. Her lips played along his perfectly.
He reluctantly came to his senses as they broke apart. Scythe kept her forehead on his, regaining her breath.
“Scythe,” Dagger said once his voice was steady. “I almost admitted something to you back home.”
“I know,” she said. “And you don’t have to worry about the answer.”
If his dead heart could beat it would have stopped again.
He kissed her, taking his time.
“Did you want to head back home?” her voice was husky, as he trialed his lips down her neck.
“You know I do,” he said.
Her hand slid down his stomach to his trousers.
“But there’s one more thing first,” he forced himself to say regretfully while squeezing her thigh.
“What?” she asked, taken out of the moment.
Epilogue
The moon had only just started to grow soft at the edge, losing its fullness. It peeked low through the branches of the clearing.
Dagger let go of the man’s arm, and Scythe let the woman go. The couple instantly went to each other and embraced. Both were covered in clean bandages, and most of their wounds had healed somewhat.
The woman shook as she buried her head into her husband’s shoulder. He held her tightly, staring wide-eyed at Dagger and Scythe.
“I know you’re terrified,” Dagger said to them. “There’s nothing we can say to make this better, nothing we could give as compensation.”
“Where are we?” the woman asked, shifting to look at them. Her one remaining arm wrapped around the man’s waist.
“You’re home,” Scythe said. “The cottage is just behind you. Bandits had moved in when it was empty, but we took care of them. There’s also a bag of gold from them on the table.”
The woman looked back to the house. She looked dazed, probably thinking it was some kind of hallucination.
“This a trick?” the man demanded.
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