Arrival in Deornet Valley, Queendom of Gealas.

“I never expected the southern valleys to be so dried up,” Silas yawned as he peered out of the carriage. “I thought they were flood meadows.”

His other guildmates said much the same. The only thing they could see for miles was dried up weeds. They all sensed death before they saw it, and death was something of which Silas was well-versed. He had been a sin-eater for many years, a fringe class of priest in the Order of Clockmakers.

And in this land, respecting the cycle was the only thing anyone could agree on. They had already been warned about the civil unrest and untamed wilderness. Now it was starting to sink in.

The weather was rather temperate, and as they neared the village core the plants seemed greener and the river cleaner. Silas felt a bit humid and exhaled. One of the other men whispered in his ear and they chuckled about how stifling the weather was here. Silas was from up north, even further north than his current home of Beltane. He thought about how different it had been in Northern Sinderfall.

They were welcomed by Arnulf Kingfinch, a tall sturdy man with an an easygoing smile. He caught Silas’ eye immediately because unlike most Belfolk men, his hair was cut short. The Belfolk were notorious for seeing their hair length as a source of pride. 

“It would be my honor to introduce you to my mother, the Earlen. But please rest before supper, or get familiar with the people of Holjowl Village. We’re devout people here, regardless of creed. There are many who are grieving and could use your services.”

That was right. That was why they’d come, Silas was reminded. Because of the blight. The Clockmakers who looked over this valley were overrun with bodies and last requests. And they had no sin-eater to absolve the untimely deaths.

Death was a daily, common occurrence for Silas to be around, but he did not have a lot of plague relief experience.

His compatriots in Beltane’s 811 Plague Relief Unit soon reported they found whole families rotting in their houses. Some they said, had run into the sea or the forest half-mad. As the small group of foreign Clockmakers wandered around they began to feel the very air infesting their clothes and skin like a spiritual parasite. It was as if the dead were different here.

“I can’t take any more of this,” Brother Hywel said.

“Don’t let it win,” said Sister Thomasin.

“It’s not that. It’s the air. I’ve never been,” the young acolyte gave a heavy breath, “this close to the forest.”

Silas glanced up at the mountains, covered in trees. The North had cleared a lot of the highlands for this very reason - forests had too many things to hide.

“I have the perfect job for you then,” their leader, a fire-haired woman named Babette flicked her hand toward Hywel and Silas, who was standing beside her. “Go take a survey of the shoreline up to the dunes, because I don’t think it’s considered in the village limits. There might be lodgers there.”

Silas was fine with that. The Clockmaker headquarters in Holjowl doubled as their prison, and the Earlen ’s son-in-law was apparently in charge. It’s the same Belfolk nepotism in a new Queendom, the same as it is in Beltane. He was glad to be sent off foraging with the other two acolytes.

As Silas walked to the shore, he passed by the ruins of a village and then by some dunes of hard sand and heath, reminding him of the moors they’d traveled through to get here. He could smell the shoreline was close, and as he climbed, he felt the wet air of the nearby ocean and began a jog to get there faster.

Soon he was met with a view of the ocean, to which he was relieved but for the presence of two people. Silas immediately froze at their tall, dark shadows on the early evening sand.

Silas’s eyes set on what looked like a dark-haired man dressed with hunting gear and a woman wearing a long dark blue cloak. She also had wavy, long dark hair but instead of being tied back it like his, was wild around her. They were arguing, loudly, but Silas couldn’t understand their native accents from this far away. Nevertheless, his eyes widened with interest.

However suddenly, the woman looked up, and he saw most of her skin was heavily bandaged. Her piercing, faceless eyes stared straight at him. Silas stumbled back at the sudden attention, but righted himself before he fell down the hill. His leather shoes sunk into the looser sand.

“Ah, shit,” Silas muttered, but the man had already begun approaching him. He was a well-built man, but not from the Belfolk. He was from one of the unincorporated tribes of the Attercops people around here. Silas recognised his features and way of dressing his clothes immediately, because he was an Attercop too.

It wasn’t this man who scared him most though, it was the woman, still staring at him, her gait odd and staggered as she began to walk away. There were hills for her to disappear behind, dunes of sand tangled with bushes. Silas thought she would have ran, but instead she sort of stumbled around while never taking her eyes off him. Before the man could get to him though, Silas picked himself off and ran. Ran away from the call of the sea and back toward the dying village. He prayed to all of them. Saint Sheena, Saint Mehr, Allmighty Bel… Why did you bring me here now, when things were finally settling down for me?

Silas skittered back in time for their welcome feast at the grand hall, where he met Harlow Kingfinch, who was Earlen of the Deornet Province and lived on cultivated land further up the mountain known as Sunhaven. She was dressed not quite as elaborately as many Belfolknbles in the north, but her pale blue cloak was a type of dye which Silas knew was very expensive and rare. Like most of the Belfolk he met she had warm, ruddy tan skin and eyes, but instead of the usual black hair which accompanied their features, her dull grey hair was braided back and fell around her upper shoulders. At the dining hall when she sat at the head table, Silas stiffened at the sight of the man and woman from the beach. The woman was dressed much the same as before, but the man had on a guild uniform. The button-down, dull, monochrome vestments of the Clockmakers, along with the a circlet that signified an upper level position. Silas tried to avoid looking at the head table.

“We have honorable guests from our northern neighbours in Beltane joining us,” Harlow was saying, “whch comes in the form of a plague relief unit. I can assure you we will offer all resources at our dispoal in exchange for the numbers you bring. If you are in need of anything, my daughter Sigrid and her husband Oswald will also assuredly tend to your needs.”

Silas glanced back and forth between the faces at the head table. Harlow’s husband was nowhere to be seen, but he presumed Sigrid was the woman in blue and Oswald was unfortunately, her husband, and also part of their guild.

Harlow leaned forward and prompted their group to introduce themselves. “Why don’t you stand up so we can learn your names and faces?”

Sigrid had barely moved, but on request from Oswald, she looked up, her face in shadows. Everyone began introducing themselves with vigor and Silas could barely move, thinking of whether his stature or voice would be recognized- until a flick of the hand from Sigrid pointed him out in the crowd and he caught her severe gaze again immediately.

“My name is Silas Nemoralis,” he said, cautiously. “I’m a Lycosidi from Beltane.”

“Lycosidi? Isn’t that your sister tribe, Oswald?” She turned to Oswald briefly, who looked irritated and didn’t answer.

“Well, at any case, another Kubeleya to keep Oswald company, how splendid. Be welcome, Nemoralis!” Harlow said and one of Silas’s peers clapped him on the back reassuringly. Silas sighed and thought that would be the last of it. He could feel the stares of Oswald, Sigrid, and Harlow now, and although it would be impolite of them to do so, he couldn’t rule out one of them being loud enough to try.

“You’re the sin-eater, right?” Arnulf, who was seated beside Oswald’s left side exclaimed, and Silas couldn’t do much else but nod.

“Yeah, the sin-eater. I thought so. I looked him up,” he said it to Oswald, but Silas could read Arnulf’s simpler language through his lips. “You’re going to have fun with him.”

The interest of everyone was focused on Silas in that moment, and Silas felt for the first time in a long time, as if he were a wasp tugging on the strings of a spiderweb.

Silas goes back to the shore.

Silas made the mistake of going back to the shore line, because even though he told Babette he hadn’t found anything of interest, he had forgotten there was a completely unmissable abandoned town on the way to the beach. Thomasin and Hywel had found several bodies and unaccounted encampments. So Silas was sent back out to do a better job, which was fine. Half of the population didn’t even believe in sin-eating rituals. That was an old Kubeleya tradition, that it seemed the Belfolk had adopted from them and made into a whole ritual like they had up in Beltane. Which made it more notable that Oswald was in charge of the Clockmaker headquarters here. Harlow had been correct about their tribes being distantly related- the Dolomedes of the South and the Lycosidi of the North. It was a shame the first one he’d met seemed pretty unpleasant.

He reached the top of the pack of dunes quicker than expected and slid down toward what he expected to be an empty beach. Some men in Clockmaker uniforms were performing a burial. Burials were almost never performed early in the morning like this. Silas smelled fire, and sour metal. He didn’t make himself quiet, simply because he didn’t think he was walking into anything particularly secretive. In fact, he was confused as to why this boggy shoreline seemed to be so popular.

“Hey,” one of the native Clockmakers turned toward Silas’ presence revealing itself. “Hey, get out of here. This is a private burial.”

“Oh?” Silas craned his neck, noticing that a bunch of them further away were huddled around and expanse of branches and grass. There were Clockmakers bringing branches and twigs back from the more swamplike conditions further down the shoreline. One of them had a shovel, another had a giant bucket of water prepared. They were burying something. “At least introduce me to the sin-eater. We just arrived…”

The collection of priests, dressed head to toe in official vestments, stared at Silas like he was a feral rat. He watched them recoil. “Sin eater? We don’t need it. We didn’t ask for one either, by the way.”

“Just let me deal with him,” someone called from further away, but Silas had no intention of running off, because Babette would throttle him from coming back with no information, and also, he was very petty. A man marched forward, out of the humid mist and ocean spray, and Silas’ eyes set on their leader. In the twilight morning Oswald reminded Silas more of an executioner than a priest.

“Sin eater,” Oswald said. “You must have missed when I told your plague relief unit to not leave the village limits. Twice.”

Silas hesitated. Something was clearly off, and he found that he immediately disliked being told what to do by this man. That could become a problem.

“…No,” he tested the word on his tongue while keeping his eyes locked on the Oswald’s perturbed expression. He was shorter, smaller than Oswald considerably. But that shouldn’t matter. “I don’t think I’m missing anything.”

“Silas Nemoralis, was it? Don’t think I won’t remember someone like you.”

“Take it easy, big man,” Silas laughed. “I was asked to look for survivors out here.”

Oswald conversely seemed to really hate that Silas spoke to him in such an unpretentious manner. “We can take care of ourselves. Get out of here.”

Silas glanced around as Oswald postulated. His eyes were strained and his nose overwhelmed by the smell. Blood and mold, willow leaves and algae where the swamp began, dirty water, dead fish, metal and rust. It was actually not a very nice place, when he took it in. “I think it should be a sin to bury someone in a shithole like this. You’re not doing anything untoward with that body now, are you?”

He had half meant it as a joke, but Oswald was not joking when he snapped his fingers. The quartz granules in the run-off from the dunes and sediment along the shoreline began to vibrate and hum. Silas immediately tensed. Oswald and his party had warded the place and taken control of all the lithic current in the small area. Silas went for his ritual knife but Oswald was faster and lunged at Silas, using the buoyancy of the vibrations to propel him forward. He made a slashing strike meant to cause Silas to do either of two things - fall back, or face a body wound. Silas managed, however to get his knife up in time and successfully parry it. There was a shrill clang as the shorter man only just managed to keep his balance and not get hit, but it was enough luck to completely throw Oswald off.

His face as he surveyed Silas’ defensive position with the ritual knife said more than any words could. He seemed to take something unspoken into consideration, that ended with him sheathing his weapon. The ground stopped vibrating. Silas tried to catch his breath. He had been lucky to parry that, extremely lucky - there was no question in Silas’ mind that Oswald was stronger than him.

“Where did you learn to handle a knife like that?” Oswald exclaimed under his breath, a bewildered but knowing utterance.

“Your mother,” Silas uttered back, with little pleasure, because this guy had been ready to cut him in half.

The two stared at each other and a mutual hatred lit almost instantly. Two Kubeleya men from sister tribes separated by the centuries. Oswald was everything Silas was not- tall, graceful, long-haired; a warrior, soldier, and priest all in one. Silas stood a head shorter, with a face that betrayed his age and curly hair which framed his face in shaggy layers. The only thing they shared in common was having black hair, as unlike Oswald’s grey eyes, Silas had eyes which were unsettlingly blue.

A few of the other Clockmakers chuckled nervously and that broke Silas and Oswald out of their face off. Oswald waved away the tension in the atmosphere with obvious fatigue. Silas glanced around, and although there were only five or six of them, it felt deafening. His breaths became heavier as he tried to stay calm. He couldn’t take on five of them on his own.

“Alright, enough of this,” Oswald broke the silence, waving away the atmosphere that had settled between them and distracting Silas from the mysteries. “I got a bit carried away. I just wanted you to understand, Brother Silas, that we have local law here. This burial is part of that local law. So you should not be here.”

“Yeah, understood,” Silas muttered, giving Oswald a very judgmental look.

“As it should be. I must be heading back for morning prayer myself, so I’ll accompany you.”

“I know my way back.”

Oswald placed a hand on Silas’ shoulder, in a way that would normally be comforting, if not for the open hostility this man had shown him. “I insist.”

Leaving the dunes for the town again was yet another unwelcome sight. To the South and West were mountains, to the East lay Deornet Valley, where villages such as Holjowl and Sunset lurked. One such town that had not survived the plague, was that abandoned village ruin, which Oswald claimed was called “Glasjowl Village”. Silas could not help but wonder about the empty carts and discarded clothes and items that lay on that uneven road as it stretched toward the forest. Silas had strode quickly past the crossroads, but Oswald stopped and seemed to be looking for something. All Silas could see was what looked like a massive burial pit and a boarded-up Clockmaker temple. The buildings had not been maintained for at least two seasons.

“Glasjowl Village, huh?” Silas prompted Oswald to explain.

“What’s left of it,” Oswald said. “Used to be a nice fishing village, before the evils of this world took it last winter.”

“It borders on the forest,” Silas said after a few minutes of silence. Indeed, much of the mountains and upland of the valley was covered in trees.

“We call it the Naefergrene, but yes, it did.”

“What do you do with the bodies that end up in the forest?”

“They’re not ours once they cross the forest line. The forests here are like another world, you know,” Oswald sounded for the first time, sincere.

“The forests are dangerous where I’m from too,” Silas replied without thinking. He was busy glancing back, to see if he could see the shoreline anymore, but he couldn’t. The horizon ended at the large dune he’d had to step over to get there.

“I thought Algara was a coastal area.”

Silas narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think I'm from Algara?”

“You’re a Lycosidi, and the Lycosidi are normally up in Northern Sinderfall. I just guessed,” Oswald shrugged. “But also, that ring of yours. That is a stone from the Algara mines, isn’t it? The same blue as your eyes.”

Silas wrinkled his nose in distaste as Oswald reached over and plucked Silas’ hand up, admiring his clan ring again. It was silver with a large turquoise stone. “This is quite the expensive ring for a sin eater, I have to say.”

“It’s a wedding ring.”

“You have a wife?” Oswald expressed disbelief.

Silas’ eyes were emotionless as he caught Oswald’s carefree gaze. “I had a wife.”

Oswald hid the contempt from his voice less convincingly. “Well forgive my rudeness then. I didn’t know.”

They had been briefly spared the pungent smell of destruction between towns, but as Holjowl came upon them, it was the sound that got to Silas first. It didn’t sound like a town. It too quiet for a sunny summer morning. More and more houses they passed Silas realised, were empty and looted. Carts of dead bodies piled up outside the main part of the town, as if to send the world a warning. Taking one last look toward the shore, Silas felt again an overwhelming sense of dread.

Interlude : Asche examines the bodies.

Asche Ghostcrane, close friend of Oswald, and an adept magician in their own right, had held off on cremating some of the bodies. They busied themselves in the mortuary basement, tuning out the clamour and noise of upstairs. Bushy black hair that was greying at the ends followed them in loose, long waves as they dragged the body into the circle they had drawn in chalk. They had on a loose white tunic, the sleeve on their left arm shifted slightly and revealed a crude, ruddy tattoo of the chemical symbol for sulfur, surrounded by ashen, freckled skin.

In the evocation triangle to the east of the circle, they placed a bunch of the most colourful flower they could find without venturing into the forest and sprinkled sulfur powder in a circle around the three bodies which lay side by side. Their thin lips quirked up as they heard the door to the cellar creak open. Familiar footsteps followed by a lighter, unfamiliar set.

“Asche?” Oswald called, and Asche relaxed at the familiar voice. The man behind him was slightly out-of-breath and muttered something in a northern accent about it being dark, dank, or dirty.

“Brother,” they said in a gravely voice. “You’ve brought a guest here?”

The man who stepped out from behind Oswald looked younger than them. He was prettier than Asche too, not necessarily better looking, just features which were too open and innocent for the robes he wore. They huffed a disapproving breath. “You’re the sin-eater.” Their eyes flashed back up to Oswald. “Why?”

“I’ve been showing him around the village so he knows where not to go on his own.”

“Who is this?” the sin eater asked, indicating Asche. Asche already didn’t like his attitude.

“This is my sibb, Asche,” Oswald said. “A level three Gladia who cares for our bodies.”

“Equita Asche Ghostcrane,” Asche said, adding to Oswald’s introduction. “I was trained by the Order of Brimstone here in Gealas.”

“We had a lithomancer like you in the Beltane,” the sin-eater continued, his bright blue eyes watching Asche as they marked the corpse’s pulse lines with a foul-smelling yellow powder and stood up. “Do you… do this for every body before you burn it? Because… man, we certainly can’t.”

Dim light bounced off Asche’s pensive face and made their unimpressed expression as they turned seem venomous.

“Brother Silas, for Bel’s sake,” Oswald muttered as Asche continued to stare at the interloper gravely.

“No, I don’t,” Asche said, “but I thought I’d have a free, uninterrupted morning to investigate the strangeness of this blight.”

“Does my presence pain you so much, Equita? I’m only here to help, just ask Brother Oswald. What is so strange about it, exactly?”

Asche was clearly very wary of Silas’ presence, but Oswald’s silent approval seemed to be enough to settle their fight instinct. “ It doesn’t seem to spread by miasma like most illnesses.”

“So… it’s a mystery blight then?” Silas’ voice seemed to waver at that. Sin-eaters’ lives revolved around the cause of death, it was essential to their work. They did not like uncertainty. Disease was uncertain.

“Disease is uncertain,” it was as if Asche read his mind, though granted, it was a predictable thought. They stood and prepared their ceremonial pole-axe, a brilliant glass-blown staff which seemed to turn molten and bright wherevever their fingers touched. Silas watched with bated breath - Brimstone magicians were known for their fluid, transforming weaponry that looked like glass but cut like a diamond.

Asche entered the circle and began to chant, in a meditative, trancelike voice. The body did not stir. The flowers stayed still. Asche paused, as if confirming this, before the air grew denser. Suddenly, every scar, every place they had ever bled or bruised began to sear with hot, burning pain, and their legs shook slightly.

“Don’t strain yourself!” Oswald called out, concerned, but Asche was too enthralled in their spell.

The moment Asche swung their pole-axe forward toward the bunch of flowers, the dense air seemed to lift like a pocket of air had burst and the pigment of the plant completely drained. The yarrow wilted, now white as ash. Simultaneously, the bodies flinched and the sounds of pained, agonal breathing filled the room as it heaved mindlessly and the skin thinned and bloomed a purple-red around their corpse-pale necks. One last screaming breath and blood coursed through the tiny pores, the skin burst, and veins and bronchial tubes snapped and spurted out, spraying Asche’s tunic with old, dark blood.

The cracking of ribs as they shred through the skin as the heart liquified and pooled around the corpse’s rotted lungs must have startled the sin-eater, because even through the noises they heard him gasp. Asche found that amusing, and they couldn’t help but smile to themselves. Asche heaved out a sigh of their own as the pain subsided and they raised the poleaxe, gripping it and melding it into a glass broom with stiff but hair-thin bristles. they turned and began sweeping a path out of the circle and as they did the energy that coursed and pulsed through the room seemed to return to something easier and normal.

“Suppose we’re grinding up some lung meat tonight then,” Asche said. “How about that, sin eater?”

Silas’ mouth quirked into an uneasy smile. “I’ve tasted worse.”

Asche didn’t waste any time or decorum in helping Silas. They tossed the lung and clinging tissue into a metal bucket and offered it to Silas. “Take this to the kitchen for tonight. They’ll bake it into some funeral cakes for you.”

“Are these the only bodies-”

“This blight is indiscriminate. It starves, it bloats, it bleeds dry and fills with pus. It takes all humours and spares none. For some you might as well be suckling on their bones, there’s such little left,” Asche’s face became downcast at the thought.

“I’m here to help, you know, despite what Oswald might tell you,” Silas said, in a voice that rendered Asche disarmed. Instead of the arrogant haughtiness of before, his features were softer and more humble.

Asche paused. “Earlen Harlow asked that the bodies all be burnt right away. To prevent the disease from spreading. But now you’re here, so I have some grace to investigate how they died, and why.”

“Right, because I need to be able to eat their fleshly pursuits,” Silas reasoned.

“Though Earlen Harlow still decides which persons get a proper burial and which don’t,” Asche said.

“Is that so?” Silas raised an eyebrow, noticing that Asche’s face tightened when they spoke about Harlow. Asche was clearly a Dolomedes like Oswald, probably from the same clan. He knew there were tensions between them and the Belfolk, but he didn’t know how far deep it went. Oswald seemed to tolerate it, but Asche’s demeanor told a different story.

Silas returns for the body.

“Asche,” Oswald said softly, as if to temper his sibling. “I told you not to worry about the Earlen.”

Asche turned to Silas, their expression seemed devoid of interest in shutting up for Oswald’s sake. “I wouldn’t question her choices, Brother Silas. Just a fair warning. She killed her own cousin.”

“That sounds just like the politics I’m used to in Beltane, to be fair,” Silas grasped the bucket. “But I do wonder something.”

“What’s that?” Asche asked, but Oswald seemed unhappy the conversation was continuing.

“Why are you checking their cause of death and not the Hooded Mothers? Isn’t this their job?”

Oswald and Asche looked at each other, and they seemed to disagree on how to answer that. However, Asche in a fit of rebellion, gave Silas a curt smile. “Because the Hooded Mothers are all dead. And Sigrid, well, no one’s seen her since your welcome dinner.”

“Don’t worry about Sigrid,” Oswald said. “She wanders off all the time.”

Asche’s eyes widened in surprise but it was a look from Oswald that seemed to quell it. Silas could tell by the way Oswald was slightly invading his personal space that he was making sure Silas was within stopping reach.

Silas couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t expected Oswald to reveal something so personal. And after the mysterious burial on the beach and Oswald’s insistence that nothing was going on, he thought he’d have a little fun with him. “Does she always wander off after an argument with you?”

“That is none of your business,” Oswald snapped, a low voice. In that moment it seemed to smell of blood and filth, cut-open meat, within the clay basement. It chilled his feet through his shoes.

Asche raised their eyebrow, unconvinced. “Are you two fighting again?”

“No Asche, we’re not fighting again,” Oswald leaned down just a little, but just enough to stifle Silas’ personal space once more. “Brother Silas. None of your business.”

“Then stop being so shady in broad daylight!” Silas didn’t bother reading the room. Oswald just seemed like the type of guy who lied by obfuscation. Silas hated dealing with men like that, and he felt more inclined to watch Oswald squirm.

Asche had been quiet in between pauses in their conversation but out of nowhere they suddenly interrupted him strongly. “Shady? Am I missing something?”

“Do you normally hold burials on the shoreline, away from prying eyes?” Silas turned to ask Asche, but Oswald replied for them.

“Enough,” Oswald insisted. “You’ve lingered around here enough, asking stupid questions.”

Silas tried to catch Asche's eyes for solidarity, but it was difficult because they were looking at Oswald, their expression shifting just slightly every few seconds as if they were communicating silently.

“What the Clockmakers do with burials is none of my business,” Asche finally said, walking away to start cleaning the cellar. “This is between the two of you.”

Silas turned to Oswald in disbelief. “So answer me then, if you’re not hiding anything- who exactly did you bury?”

“You’ve only been here a few nights,” Oswald said with an edge to his tone, “and you’ve done nothing but overstay your welcome. Back to the outpost where you belong, and where you will stay until we’re in need of you. Got it?”

“I answer to Sister Babette. You being the Earlen’s son-in-law means nothing to me. Got it?”

Oswald rolled his eyes and turned to walk upstairs. Silas followed him angrily, feet hitting the wooden steps with force.

“Just what exactly is your problem?” Silas ried to project his voice over the hum of the cremation machine as they reached the front of the modest building. It stood outside of the town, a bit closer to Glasjowl but in a field rather close to the dense woodland Silas had seen on the horizon. It was the closest he’d come to the forest so far.

“Outpost. Come on,” Oswald snapped. “Unless you want to find your way back on your own this time.”

Something about that made Silas suddenly feel very alone, and his thoughts grew dark. He reached out without thinking of the consequences and grabbed Oswald by the wrist in a surprising show of strength that caught Oswald off guard.

“You did something to her,” he said without thinking. It wasn’t that he had enough evidence to make that conclusion. It was just the way Oswald was acting. He knew.

Up close he could see Oswald’s dark brown eyes had flecks of even darker green, as the taller man ‘s eyes widened as if he’d been cornered. He then just looked angry. “How dare you.”

“What is up with the body on the shoreline then? Why were you burning it?”

“I wasn’t burning anything.”

“You were. You were conducting a funeral.”

Oswald canted his head to the side and stared at Silas closely, with a severity that sent a shiver down his spine. “I’ve been helping Asche with their duties all morning. I haven’t gone near the shore.”

“No you haven’t? You were burning a body-”

“What body?”

Silas took a moment to catch on before his lips parted in realisation. Oswald’s jaw clenched and he made a move to grab Silas’ arm, but Silas was quicker. He bolted away from the crematorium, running as fast as his legs could carry over the field and up the dunes down to the beach. He heard Oswald shout after him briefly but didn’t feel a chase, didn’t feel anyone behind him- or so he hoped. As his energy sharply drained when he got past Glasjowl’s ominous entrance, he gasped loudly as smoke rose in the early distance.

His breaths were tight and desperate, chest aching and calves cramped from the sheer speed at which he’d stumbled over the soft ground and dunes to get there, to make sure no one had gotten rid of the corpse. Silas rarely met people that bad at concealing their secrets. Oswald trying to cover something up.

As Silas finally reached the edge of the shoreline, he went momentarily still as he stared through the smoke at what had been a body on a makeshift funeral pyre on the sand. What did shock him was the molten metal, dripping and burning colours he had never seen before. The molten, white-pink flames which seemed to fuse with the sun, its crown of thorns still shining above him.

This was not how people burned. This was not how people were made, not ordinary folks, not… This was -

Silas gasped as he was suddenly tugged away roughly and the pressure, temperature, moisture of the air simply seemed to change again. “You’ll burn your flesh off, you fool!”

He glanced up at the face which stared back, head tilted back and eyes wide. It was Asche. They were panting and their dull cheeks were flushed from exertion. When Silas tried to push them away, they brought their staff across his windpipe and held him hostage from behind in place.

“Get off of me!” He yelled.

"I’m sorry," Asche growled through gritted teeth as they dragged him back and Ashur coughed out smoke and struggled. "But if you cross Oswald’s orders, I’ll have to intervene.”

And Silas knew that someone like Asche would intervene in any way it demanded. It was obvious that Asche despite their temperament, held some sort of intimate reverence for Oswald.

"He’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” he muttered and Asche chuckled lightly at that, like a dull ring of bells.

“Neither are you.”

Silas is tasked with aiding the Earlen Harlow.

It was well after the nightly prayers, the first sleep had not rested Ashur near enough and he had been pulled from sleeping again by a servant of the Earlen. She had been present at the eating. Present, but silent, but he had felt her eyes on him as he performed the ritual.

He glanced up at the position of the moon and saw it was closer to sunrise than sunset. His chest was tight as he was led through the grounds of Sunhaven Manor, the Earlen’s personal manor where her family lived. But they were not heading to the manor proper, nor the extensive rock gardens that were built for the Kingfinch family. They were going further into the wilderness, to the graves and the urnfields where he was told few Clockmakers came. The field opened up as he walked through a path of tall goldenrod, the yellow flowers shuffling against each other in the light breeze.

Deornet Valley’s towns were sparsely populated, with the largest at the head of the valley being Holjowl and the Sunhaven estate of the Kingfinches. But with the dense, eerie calm of the urnfields, came the realization something was very wrong in the valley. Anyone who could hear the song of stones knew that immediately.

Two armed guards lingered behind Earlen Harlow Kingfinch, her voluminous grey hair braided adorned with a circlet. Her clothing was made of emboridered silk and hidden by the expensive pale blue cloak.

“What was your name again?” She asked.

“Silas Nemoralis, my Lady.” He gave an deep but awkward nod of the head, his longer bangs beginning to obscure his face.

The Earlen gave him a perplexed glance that felt all the more intimiating. She was at least a head taller than him and without a doubt stronger and more physically capable. She was also wearing accessories that only came with a higher rank in Noble Professions, indicating she had either scholarly or combat experience. Even if she hadn’t won her title by conquest, she probably could have. Uncrossing her arms, she approached Silas and roughly tipped his chin up so she could look into his eyes.

“Look at me properly when you introduce yourself, ” She said, as Silas choked back a yelp of surprise at her forcefulness.

“Silas Nemoralis. Gladia… Equita Silas.” It was the second lowest rank, lower than Asche’s, and Harlow looked appropriately unimpressed.

“So you’re another pawn, like Asche.” She let her face relax into a wry smile. “Come with me - guards, you may leave us.” The Earlen took Silas’ arm and led him further into the meadows beyond the compound, until the tower was lost in the darkness behind them.

“No need for honorifics. You can call me Harlow,” she finally said as the wind began to pick up the surrounding grasses. Her heavy cloak swished back and forth, and Silas caught the glint of gold embroidery in the moonlight. Ashur knew little about her ancestry other than that the Kingfinch clan ruled Gealas, and were part of the greater population of Belfolk, who seemed to carry themselves with a supernatural aura. They were united in their worship of a lightning deity known as Bel. However, pretty much everyone worshipped Bel, and so did the guild Silas worked for. Electricity seemed to draw people together like a lodestone.

“Then you can call me whatever you like, Earlen Harlow.”

She gave the same curt smile. “How are you adjusting to our valley?”

“Aside from the allergies?” He asked.

“Ah, does the pollen bother you?”

“Only a little,” Silas grimaced as a wave of fragrance brought by the breeze caused his face to tingle painfully.

“You know, some believe the more pollen attracted to you, the more fertile you are,” she said. Her eyes were a clear, golden amber that seemed to burn into him when she stared at him too long.

“Well, I’ve always shot blanks myself, Earlen,” he said it rather plainly, but it seemed like Harlow liked the informal manners, or it at least amused her.

“Really? What a shame… Truly a shame you can’t pass on those eyes,” she said, distantly, as if she knew the gravity of his infecundity. He was aware, having grown up alongside the Belfolk, that they shared very little in common - except for the extensive and rigid fertility cults. It was the only reason the Kubeleya and Belfolk could sometimes not kill each other and simply blend peacefully.

“You’ve rarely felt the kiss of pollen in that concrete hell,” Harlow changed the subject to Beltane, the most industrialized region of the North, and spoke of it with disdain. “I heard you don’t have a single garden or meadow within one hundred leagues of your headquarters.”

“We’ve had issues with the forest developing a mind of its own.”

“And you’re from that sister tribe of Oswald’s, aren’t you?” Harlow asked sharply, catching Ashur off-guard. “What was it?”

“Lycosidi,” Silas thought his looks and accent made him a dead giveaway, but it turned out they had seen very few Lycosids this far South. The Kubeleya here took their doctrine from completely different spirits. “But I doubt we share much in common other than Kelekeras, if you know of her.”

“Kelekeras, yes, such an interesting goddess,” Harlow breathed into the night, her attachment to Silas tightening. “But I wouldn’t say that,” she paused as she seemed to search her mind for any relevant information. “Your lot are ambush hunters too?”

“Mostly,” Silas said uneasily.

“Do they still practice decimation?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s very quaint,” she said thoughtfully, not losing her air of amusement. “They don’t do that here.”

Silas was quiet as they trudged through the field of greyish plants as the goldenrod faded in the distance, its odd scent and tiny purple flowers causing him to be a bit overwhelmed. Harlow gave Silas a crooked smile and pulled out a letter, and a crude-looking portable electric light.

“I didn’t ask for a sin eater,” she said, her white teeth gleaming in the light as she spoke. “I’m not very superstitious. But I received this letter - from Saint Mehr, His Holiness. He insisted that you would be of use to us.”

Silas raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I was assigned, and here I am.”

Harlow raised her eyebrows quickly and then returning to the paper at hand. “He writes…Brother Silas Nemoralis is more style than substance, be assured of your base senses. But he is willing to do things that others will not do. He may prove useful to your immediate family, should you make friendship with him.”

Silas blinked and frowned in bewilderment. “I don’t know what he could possibly mean by that.”

“Well, I have a few ideas. Take a look around us, Brother Silas. This is grey-meadow,” Harlow said, “I believe you call it thyme. It helps with the smell.”

Silas had stepped back to adjust his posture when he heard the tell-tale crunch and clink of metal under his foot. He frowned when the air became denser and he felt the tell tale electrical charge singe his temples. The Hexen folk.

"I may not be superstitious, but my family is,” Harlow said, gazing up at the mountains, upon which the Capital of Gealas sat with its extensive citadel. “And I’ve been hearing noises at night. Signs they are not truly dead.”

Silas craned his neck at the body they had wrapped in a cheap, oil-soaked shroud. He could only tell it was oil because of the way it seemed to gleam an array of odd colours in the beam of imitation light.

"This is my cousin, Somer. She passed from the blight recently. But she’s had work, metal work — it would cause the cremation kiln to explode. So I don’t know what to do.”

Her cousin? Silas remembered Asche’s words. She killed her own cousin.

“H-how fared her family?” Silas asked before immediately regretting it, Harlow flashed an intruded glare at him.

“I’m family,” Harlow said, “and I’m not faring well with leaving her like this. I need you to brick her for me. Please.”

Silas stared down at the body grimly, and then back up at Harlow. “Have you got some liquor on you? Because this is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth.”

Harlow nodded and tugged out a flask of liquor from her waist-pouch, shaking it lightly to ensure there was some left.

Silas knelt and examined the body with the electric light. She had definitely had work done - a lot of work. Her metal nose was screwed on, leaving infected bursts of skin. An artificial nose was nothing to worry about compared to other appendages, though. This one also had work done on her body, and he would need to find it.

His eyes shifted downward, hands tracing his neck and finding the skin cold and dry. Silas tugged out his pocket watch, held to time by a single shard of clear quartz. It swung over the naked chest of the corpse as boots shifted around him in the blades of grass and thyme.

“Hovera dovera dock
the mouse ran up the clock,
the clock struck yan,
down the mouse ran,
hovera dovera dock...”

Harlow gave a high pitched, nervous giggle, at the silly incantation. Silas could not do anything about the caprices of Hexen folk. They loved weird rhymes, and this was the only quartz spell that could synch a mechanical heartbeat.

His fingertips burned and he felt her chest lift with a heavy breath. His eyes fluttered closed and he thought he heard a single tick resound through the rustle of herbs around him.

Tock.
Tick.
Tock.

“Hovera dovera dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck tan,
Down the mouse ran,
Hovera dovera dock...”

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Somer’s heart began to beat and tick, slowly.

“Hovera dovera dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck tethera,
Down the mouse ran,
Hovera dovera dock...”

tick-tock-tick-tock

With a breathy exhale, Silas gasped for air to quell the tightness in his chest before continuing, one final time. The corpse’s fingers twitched and the sound of scraping metal from inside his body made Silas cringe a bit, grinding his side teeth painfully.

“Tinker tailor,
Soldier, sailor,
Rich man, poor man,
Beggar man, thief:
Which husband will I see?”

Silas pulled out his ceremonial dagger, sheathed at his thigh, and drove it straight into the woman’s chest.

“Saint Sheena, Lady of the Prisons, make me a bride-to-be!”

A shockwave erupted through him, burning him from the inside. His fingertips felt like they were about to fall off and disintegrate. The electric light clattered to the floor and he hung his head, hair damp and pressed against his forehead and cheeks. Harlow hummed a sign of disappointment as he climbed off the body and crawled over a few paces to throw up. He heaved and coughed as bile and spit came out, desperate to keep down the what he’d eaten before, given it had been a death cake. One hand grasped at his stomach as he shuddered.

“Here,” Harlow was the first to break the silence as she tossed him the flask and in a delayed reaction, Silas let it hit him right in the head. He twitched once and then grabbed it, taking a swig. His cheeks hollowed at the sudden sweetness of anise and fennel, but it warmed his raw throat and instilled him with a sense of complacency. One last exhale before he got up.

The electric light zapped and flickered at Harlow’s feet, illuminating her in a sten and fervent glow.