Aram positioned his fingers near the tip of the playing dart he held in his right hand, focusing on it instead of the unpleasant letter tucked into his belt. His fellow guard, Jamel, leaned on the wall of the small room they relaxed in, acting like he didn’t care about the throw, but Aram knew better: they had a steel coin riding on the game, and Jamel was always tight with his money whether it was a good year or bad, and this one was certainly bad.

“They talked about war today,” Jamel announced, seeming to speak absently, though the lanky man could have brought the topic up at any point in the last hour.

“They always talk about war,” Aram replied as he carefully aligned his elbow, followed by the dart, to point toward the round, multi-colored target that hung on the brick wall exactly seven feet away. Council meetings among the heads of houses rarely did little else these days, what with the Caasan forces crouched along the border like a loose garrote waiting to be pulled tight.

“Today was different,” Jamel said.

Aram didn’t bother responding. His attention was on hitting the blue wedge of the target that Jamel had claimed at the start of the game. Aram had already done so twice, and if he did once more, this round of killer--and the coin--would be his. The crackling torches were the only sound in the windowless room as Aram cocked his forearm back and then whipped it forward, careful to keep the bottom part of his arm level to the floor as he did.

“Lord Silver was there.”

The sudden words sent Aram’s throw wide, and even though Aram wasn’t using the full strength of his right arm, the metal dart embedded into the brick up to the fletching. The hit was so strong, in fact, it sent a few cracks running through the rectangular block that had been struck. Aram grunted in annoyance. Henrietta, the keeper of the palace, would find out about the damage as soon as the maids cleaned the room--which they did every day--know it was Aram, and give him no peace until he had mended it personally.

If it’s not one thing...

Aram turned to glare at Jamel, and the man at least had the decency to cover his self-satisfied look with the pewter goblet he was drinking wine from.

Worry about Henrietta and annoyance at Jamel only overshadowed Aram’s curiosity for a few moments though. He had been a guard in Silver’s palace for over a decade and a half and could count the number of times he’d encountered his liege on one hand. Jamel saying he had seen Lord Silver, and in a council meeting no less, was akin to proclaiming that the Caasan forces had up and left, returning their home in the west, or that old Henrietta had found a bonny lad among the help to court and marry.

“Well?” Aram said as he walked to the wall to retrieve his three darts. “What happened? You can’t say something like that and then go quiet as a masked Thryn.”

Jamel lowered his mug, clearly eager to talk now that Aram’s anger--or more likely the danger of losing--was past. “He yelled at the nobles who were there, which was most of them. Told them they were worth less than the silver stitched into their clothes and that they were going to be the downfall of the nation.”

Aram whistled, pulling his first two throws out of the blue section of the dartboard. “You lucky git. I would have paid a stack of steel to see a show like that.”

“It was glorious,” Jamel agreed. “Some of the greater houses started to argue, but Lord Silver put a stop to that. No sooner was the word ‘quiet’ out of his mouth then every other voice in the room dried up. I tell you, I felt my own throat shrink when he said it, even though my lips were already pressed together tight as a virgin’s legs!”

Aram nodded, knowing it was no exaggeration. It had been years since he’d been in the presence of Lord Silver and longer still since the god vessel had issued a command that included him. It was an unpleasant sensation to say the least, to have your body move without you wanting it to. Aram gave himself a shake just from the memory of it.

“Then he up and vanished.” Jamel said, snapping his fingers. “Poof, just like that. You know how he does.”

Aram did know, everyone did. It was why Aram and the rest of the palace inhabitants so rarely saw the man--Silver only showed himself when, and to whom, he wished.

Mulling the news over, Aram used the soul enhanced strength of his right hand to rip the embedded dart from the wall. The hole it revealed was as big around as his thumb and trailed bits of brick onto the floor

Lovely, Aram thought, brushing the brownish-red dust from the metal dart.

“And you should have seen the Steel Guard,” Jamel continued with a laugh. “Running every which way out of the hall, trying to figure out where Silver had gone.”

“Poor lads,” Aram murmured. He didn’t envy the men the task of guarding someone like Lord Silver or what they had to go through to gain the position.

He could do no more to change their fate though than he could to alter the contents of the letter, so he pushed such thoughts aside, marking the slate scoreboard hanging beside the target with his two hits using a stubby piece of chalk that sat on the wooden lip of the board. Replacing the white nub when he finished, he walked the three darts over to Jamel.

“But why’d Silver do it?” Aram couldn’t imagine that the god vessel would avoid such meetings for years and then appear simply to give out a few sharp words. He must have had a reason.

“Search me,” Jamel said with a shrug. The lanky man accepted the darts and stepped over to the throwing line marked on the ground by a thick indent in the rock that was so perfectly formed it had to have been made by someone able to speak to the earth. Jamel placed the outside edge of his booted right foot up to the line, getting as close as he could.

Aram didn’t take his eyes off of the spot. Jamel carried the soul of a jaguar in the stone wedded to the bottom of his right foot, and could use it to move that limb incredibly quickly. With as close as Aram was to winning, he wasn’t about to lose the chance because Jamel snuck a few inches nearer the target.

Jamel threw and, while he hit the multi-colored circle, he struck green when he needed blue to reverse the points Aram’s throws had taken from him.

“Het,” Jamel said.

“Shouldn’t be cursing like that,” Aram said. “Not with House Kale hosting one of them now.”

Jamel eyed Aram, and Aram returned the look with a grin he didn’t feel.

How do you like it now that the glove is on the other hand?

“They’re worse than fools,” Jamel finally said, looking back to the target. “If anyone tried to switch me to House Kale, I’d tell them to cut off my foot before I’d serve there.”

Aram couldn’t say he disagreed, but he’d never go that far to avoid a post, and he doubted Jamel would either, no matter what the man said. He almost pointed out that Jamel wouldn’t have a choice if Silver issued the order, but Aram wasn’t in the mood to trade barbs. “No use worrying about it until it happens,” he said instead. “Decisions like that are for vessels with more gates than us.”

“And thank Silver it’s so,” a third voice said.

Aram and Jamel turned to see Kep enter the small room, which was truly cramped now with three people in it, especially when one of them was as thick--not fat, but thick--as Kep was.

“Alright,” the man said, as he plopped his wide frame onto the one chair in the room, directly next to the table with the wine and spare goblets. “Who’s taking over for me?”

“Loser of this game,” Aram said. That had been part of his and Jamel’s wager along with the coin.

Kep eyed the chalk scoreboard. “You a killer and him two down. He should just concede.”

“Hardly,” Jamel said, snapping his second dart toward the target before Aram’s eyes were back on the lanky man’s feet. The dart hit a tiny gray circle in the very center of the target called the moon, which automatically turned Jamel into a killer, meaning he could now hunt Aram’s color.

Aram was annoyed but not too worried. It would take four hits on his orange section to kill him and Jamel only had one dart left. Of course, as soon as Aram thought that Jamel’s third dart thunked into place directly beside the second. When a killer hit the moon it let them kill any other player they wanted.

The game was over.

Aram flicked his eyes down and thought he saw a blur of movement from Jamel’s right leg but not enough to be sure. He looked up to Kep for support, but the stocky man lifted his hands defensively.

“I was pouring my wine,” he said.

With a sigh, Aram turned to face Jamel--who was grinning like a cat--which only soured Aram’s already frayed mood. Throwing for the moon was a risky move for even a skilled player. To have hit it twice in a row like that? Jamel didn’t have it in him.

“You cheated,” Aram said.

Jamel’s wide smile didn’t waver in the slightest. “A cheat is only a cheat if they are caught. If you saw something out of place, you already would have said. My coin, please.”

Aram considered giving the man a different type of steel--Aram certainly had plenty of choices with the half dozen blades he had strapped up and down the inside of his two forearms, not to mention the ones in his belt and boots--but, despite how small the folded paper at his waist was, it felt heavier than all his weapons.

It will be good to be alone for a bit, he decided. Better than staying here. Perhaps walking through the empty palace would relax him as it sometimes did.

Aram flipped a steel coin to Jamel, who caught it so fast you would have thought his arm was soul enhanced like his leg.

Aram turned to leave, but Kep stopped him on the way out.

“Feliss is on the prowl for you,” the thick man said, red wine already dotting his beard.

Aram grimaced. The mistress of linens was the last person he wanted to talk to tonight, and yet...she was tied to the letter, the cause of it just as much as he, so it was almost appropriate that she’d choose now to ask after him. It was a conversation he’d been avoiding but there was no reason to any longer.

And maybe she knows something about Silver’s visit.

He nodded in thanks to Kep and opened the door, saying, “Save me some wine.” He’d certainly need it before this night was through.

***

Grand hallways that normally bustled with activity during the day were quiet as Aram walked along them, only an occasional late night maid or torch keeper crossing his path, each nodding deferentially to him when they did. After fifteen years serving in the Vessel of Silver’s palace nearly everyone knew who he was, and those who didn’t could easily mark the meaning of the red and black outfit he wore. Aram turned down a smaller hallway, though no less well lit than the last due to the recent passage of the keeper, and stopped next to one of the torches, pulling the letter from behind his belt. He had done the same at least a dozen times since receiving the note earlier in the day, but even so he couldn’t stop himself from unfolding the paper and looking at the words again:

Raff will have his rebirth in Resben.

That was all. No greeting, no closing signature, though the writing was clearly his wife’s hand. Raff--his boy and oldest at seventeen summers this year--was supposed to have his ceremony here in the capital where Aram could see it happen, as a father should. And yet now his wife was telling him less than a week before it was scheduled to happen that they wouldn’t be coming. Aram resisted the urge to crumple the letter, the same as when he had first read it. Just like all the other times though, the spark of anger drained out of Aram quickly. She had cause.

He carefully folded the note, tucking it back into his belt, and restarted his rounds. A hallway later, Aram realized that his feet were taking him toward the palace stables, not to the Companion’s wing where he should be headed next.

“Het,” he cursed, and though he spoke the word quietly, it seemed to echo down the hall--it was a servant passage and so had none of thick rugs or wall hangings to muffle the sound.

Aram stood there for a moment and then turned in the direction of the nearby wing with a sigh. Daina, his wife, had surely sent the letter now because she thought that the short notice would stop him from coming, but that wasn’t why he couldn’t leave. If he did, he’d have to explain why he was going to his supervising officer, who kept the secrets of those above him well enough but treated any from those below like they were morsels to be traded or given freely on a whim. When it got out--and it would--the way people viewed Aram, acted around him, spoke about him, would all...change. Much easier to wait for the rebirth to happen and when Raff didn’t show, claim a last minute complication.

You’re just a coward, he thought to himself as he walked through one of the palace's many art halls. Aram didn’t like the sting of those words though, so, as he often did, he flipped his thinking around. It’s not like da was at my rebirth. And I turned out fine.

Of course, his father had been fighting and dying in the Traitor’s War at the time, not idly guarding a palace only a few day’s ride from home….

Aram made a fist in frustration, at himself and the situation, and felt the fingers of his right hand press against the soulstone wedded to his palm. The bone was smooth after so many years of being touched and was worth more than all the portraits and sculptures in any hall. Aram looked down and opened his hand, seeing how the aged bone sat flush to the black and white mottled skin of his hand, like it was fused to the flesh. He had been wedded to the stone longer than he had been married to Diana and could hardly remember a time when the gate in his palm had been empty.

“We’ll always have each other, eh?” The soul of the bear couldn’t hear him, of course, it resided in his hand, not in his throat to summon or mind to speak to. Sometimes though, Aram thought he could sense the bear, especially when Aram tapped into the power of its soul to strengthen his arm. He almost did it now even though there was no cause, just so he could feel connected to something.

“Aram,” a light voice said.

He gave a start and turned to see a woman a few years his junior standing only a handful of paces away. She was dressed in palace grays from her neck down to her slippered feet, and wore a gray cap that her hair was tucked up into. The outfit didn’t hide the beautiful pattern of her skin though, the black mottling whorling around her eyes and cheeks, highlighting them.

“Feliss, “ he said, standing straighter. Aram had come here thinking that she might be waiting--it was, after all, the spot where their evening rounds had first intersected. Seeing her though, he realized he wasn’t ready to discuss what he had planned, so he asked the other question that was on his mind. “Do you know why Lord Silver showed himself to the Council today?”

“I...do not,” she said, and he could see her mentally checking who had been working that day and deciding how she would reprimand them for missing such an important piece of news. The maids in her charge were her eyes and ears in the palace as much as they were cleaners and helpers.

Her answer was disappointing, but in some ways Aram was glad to get to their personal issues more quickly. The sooner started, the sooner done, he thought, as his own father used to often say to him.

Before he had a chance to begin though, she took a noticeable step forward. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said.

Aram held his ground against her advance. “You know where to find me.”

“I thought I would give you some time,” she said, tapping her mouth with a finger, and despite himself, Aram remembered what those lips felt like to touch with his own. “But it doesn’t seem to have worked.”

Aram pointedly returned his gaze to her eyes. “Why do you say that?”

She took another step closer. “Because every night since I sleep alone.”

Aram glanced side-to-side. No one else knew about the affair, except Jamel, Kep, and his wife--who he had foolishly confessed to in a lengthy letter after a night of too much wine and guilt--and he wanted to keep it that way.

“Feliss,” he said, steeling himself for what he had to say. “My wi--”

The woman abruptly turned her head to the side. “Did you hear that?” she said.

Aram frowned. He didn’t think she would resort to childish tricks to avoid his words, but he also hadn’t expected her to be so bold about their relations in a public hall.

“Feliss--,” he started again, but she raised her hand and took a step toward the northern hall which led to the Companion’s wing.

“You don’t hear that?” Feliss said, looking back at him quizzically.

Aram closed his mouth, listening. He did hear something. What, he wasn’t sure, but it was definitely there. A...scratching? No, that wasn’t right, but it sounded like it was just a few doors down.

“Get behind me,” he said, moving in front of her.

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “I hardly think I need a soul-wedded guard to deal with what is likely just a late night rendezvous.”

Like us? he almost said, but instead he answered with, “You’re so sure?”

“What?” she said. “You think we’re being invaded?”

“Of course not,” he said. “If the Caasan’s had crossed the Nedenan border, news would have traveled to the capital long before any had set foot in the surrounding towns, much less the inner halls of Silver’s palace.”

“Then I’ll take care of it,” she said, heading in the direction of the sound. “I’ve told my maids to leave this area alone, but if someone else should happen by right now, I know you don’t want to be seen together.”

“Absolutely not,” Aram said, pushing past her. If she wanted to trail after she could, but this was his job and he suddenly felt the need to do it and do it well.

His legs weren’t soul enhanced but they were longer than hers and she thankfully didn’t break into a run to catch him, so he managed to stay a bit ahead of her. After passing by two doors though he slowed, and so did she.

As near as he could tell, the sound--Licking? Sucking, maybe? Perhaps Feliss was right--was coming from the Companion’s office. Aram knew the man sometimes stayed up signing bills and laws and crafting new ones, but never this late. So thinking, Aram went to gently push the door open. It moved slightly, but then caught with a hitch, clearly locked. At the same time, the noise on the other side immediately stopped.

Aram didn’t waste any time, not wanting to give whoever he had alerted a chance to escape out a side door or the window. Drawing on the soul in his right hand, Aram felt strength suffuse his arm up to his shoulder. It was a tingling sensation that buzzed through his limb faster and faster until Aram halted the pull--he didn’t want to break the hinges off the Companion’s door if it was just some late night foolery. Aram shoved on the left side of the portal, feeling brief resistance and then there was a crack as the metal locking bolts that were hammered into the mortar pulled free and the door swung inward.

What Aram saw in the room beyond froze him in place, one step past the threshold.

The Companion, Lord Silver’s closest friend and advisor, lay sprawled on top of his wide oak desk, body limp and eyes glazed in death. Squatting over him, feet on the desk, was a small man with a hodgepodge mix of skin colors like nothing Aram had ever seen before. Blood was on the mixed man’s face and lips, and he held one of the Companion’s hands up to his mouth, which, from the tattered flesh and exposed bone, it was obvious the small man had been gnawing on.

Aram felt the contents of his dinner rise up, and Feliss screamed beside him, but just as quickly the sound from her cut off.

He spun around to see a woman standing behind Feliss. She was older than them both, perhaps in her mid fifties, wearing a gray dress like the palace help.

Where did she come from? Aram thought, and then he realized that one of the older woman’s hands was lodged in Feliss’s throat.

“Feliss,” he whispered in horror, but the older woman shoved the Mistress of Linen’s body into him, which sent Aram stumbling back into the room.

The killer stepped inside, closing the door, while Aram quickly struggled to right himself, feeling aghast as he pushed the dead weight of Feliss off of him.

Forgive me, forgive me, he repeated frantically in his mind.

“I am certain that we discussed you eating more quietly,” the older woman said to the mixed man after closing the door, as if Aram wasn’t a threat at all.

The small man shrugged. “The marrow is important.” He glanced at Aram--one of his eyes was pigmentless, but the other was purple like the Gadel. “Do you want help with him?”

The woman took in Aram’s clothes, followed by his right hand, which Aram closed, covering his soulstone, though he was sure she already saw it.

“No,” she said, her calm eyes glancing back to the mixed man. “Keep eating.”

Aram wasn’t about to give the murderous woman time to formulate a plan against him, so, fast as he could, he ripped a throwing knife from the sheath on his left forearm and hurtled it forward with his right. His soul enhanced strength made the weapon fly through the intervening space faster than the woman could blink and it slammed into her chest. The force of the hit was so strong it knocked her off of her feet and onto the ground, just shy of hitting one of the room's many bookshelves.

Aram already had a second knife ready to throw at the mixed man, who had shifted into a defensive crouch atop the table, but the sound of movement froze Aram’s arm and turned his head to the side.

The middle-aged woman was rising, shaking her head as she did

“You have the gift of a soul enhanced arm,” she said, “and use it to throw cutlery?” With a wet sound, she pulled the blade from her body, which had been buried a good finger length in, and dropped it to the rug covered floor where it landed softly.

There was no blood, either on the weapon or seeping from her chest.

“An elementalist,” Aram hissed, it had to be. Those who had a soul of water in their core gate could control the flow of liquid in her body and never bleed out, which meant killing her quickly would be a challenge. He glanced at the door to the room. He was closer to it, but he’d have to leap Feliss’s body and open the portal, both of which would slow him and leave him exposed.

Before he could make a decision, the older woman said, “I apologize that my associate drew you into this. Despite his faults, I assure you that no one else could fill the role that he will.”

Aram hesitated, arm raised to throw another blade. “You...apologize? You killed Feliss and the Companion!”

“I did,” she said, surprising Aram with how easily she admitted murdering one of the most powerful people in the nation. “It may help you to know that neither experienced any pain in their final moments.” Her voice dropped to a quieter register. “And neither will you.”

Aram felt a chill run down his spine. There wasn’t anything outwardly intimidating about the woman, quite the opposite in fact. But the way she spoke of his death so matter-of-factly...

He hesitated no longer, whipping a second knife at her. It flew with the same blinding speed as the last but this time her hand intercepted it. She didn’t catch the blade so much as cup it, guiding its flight in a circular motion that diffused its momentum until her hand was rightside up, the dagger resting neatly atop her palm.

Aram’s fear threatened to become a blinding panic. Dodging such a fast moving projectile would have been impressive enough. What she had just done was inhuman.

She noticed the surprised look he was giving her and returned it with one of her own. “You expected the same attack to work twice?” The woman dropped the knife onto the carpet, much as she had the first, and walked toward him.

Aram didn’t notice the low reading chair behind him until the back of his left leg hit it, sending him toppling onto the ground. Aram fell one end over the other, but despite his rising dread, he rolled with it until he could get his right hand between himself and the floor. He pulled hard at the soul in his palm, his whole arm suffused in a sudden prickling of power, and then he pushed. The strength of the bear launched his entire body off the ground, nearly as high as a short man was tall. Briefly airborne, Aram twisted, managing to get his feet underneath himself and land solidly on the floor.

He heard a wheezing laugh from the side and turned to see it was the creature crouched on the desk. “I’ve seen better from Keldii performers,” the mixed man said.

“Less talking, more eating,” the woman said as she advanced on Aram, for once sounding a touch annoyed.

This is my chance, Aram thought. She was distracted, and if he could get past her and out into the hall, he thought he could outrun both of the intruders, water soulstone or no. It was a thin hope, but the only one he had to hold onto.

With a snarl, Aram lunged forward, swinging his right fist at the woman, the stone and the skin around it starting to burn from how much strength he pulled from the soul of the bear.

For Feliss!

Instead of catching the woman off-guard with a sudden close-range attack as he had hoped, she caught his wrist mid-strike and turned, using his momentum much like she had that of the dagger to flip him onto the ground. He hit the floor with a grunt and then a gasp as she twisted his arm up, nearly out of its socket. Aram’s hand opened reflexively, and he felt her fingernails pinch down around the soulstone. He tried to close his fist over hers, but she yanked with strength he didn’t expect and the stone ripped free from his flesh.

Aram screamed, partly from the pain and partly because a jolt ran though his entire body, from the palm of his hand down to the toes in both feet. The sensation was followed by a rolling wave of nausea and water filled his eyes. With an effort, he twisted his neck, looking up to find the woman staring at the lump of bloody bone in her hand with a look of sadness.

“I’m sorry for having kept you waiting,” she said to the soulstone, and then, impossibly, she crushed it.

Aram cried out, expecting to hear a parting roar from the bear, but suddenly the woman was crouched down beside him, her hand pressing over his mouth and cutting off his yell. Without meaning to, Arma’s tongue touched the hard grit of the bone still on her palm, and he nearly gagged.

“Do you have children?” she said, as her other hand slipped around the back of his head.

It took a moment for Aram to realize what the woman had asked him, and even once he had, she didn’t relax the pressure over his mouth, so all he could do was nod.

Her face seemed to soften as he did, and a small part of him dared to hope that the exchange might somehow spare him.

“Then know that what you lose tonight will help free those who come after you,” she said, unblinking eyes staring directly into his. “I will give you a few seconds to make peace with what you had. Time that I wasn’t able to give your friend.”

Aram desperately grabbed at her hands. Even injured and without a soulstone he easily outweighed her, but he couldn’t get her hold to shift in the slightest, especially not with his right hand, the blood oozing from the hole in his palm making everything slick.

How is she so strong? he thought frantically, while at the same time: Make peace? She’s going to kill me. Jamel, Kep, hurry!

Aram felt her hands move and his neck turn. But I’m not--

***

Valera slowly lowered the body of the Neden man the rest of the way to the ground. Reyes would be able to eat him, to help maintain his new form longer, but the man’s belongings and the Neden woman would need to be discarded.

Valera tsked. Killing was bad enough but even worse when it had no use.

She used part of the guard’s black and red tunic to clean the blood he had smeared on her arms. As she did, she noticed a letter tucked into his belt. Valera moved closer to retrieve it and heard Reyes crunch down on a section of bone. Opening the paper and reading the contents, she felt true shock--much more than two people happening by the Companion’s room at the wrong time.

The name in the note was one of her next targets.

“Is this the child you meant?” she asked the man's corpse.

If so, they would both be making a sacrifice. Valera preferred to spread out such things when she could, but unfortunately, it seemed unavoidable in this case. She stared at the note a moment longer and then replaced it.

She still had much to do, and yet when Valera stood, her hand trailed to her chest--not to the wound the guard had inflicted on her, that was long healed--but to a necklace she wore underneath the dress. Absently, she caressed it through the cloth, feeling the twin lumps it housed--something she rarely let herself do, not wanting to disturb the inhabitants.

Was meeting this boy’s father simply coincidence or was fate showing her that she had finally chosen correctly?

She hoped it was the latter. For all the world she hoped it.