The inn-keeper stood from his chair as Dario entered through the front door. “Oh, you're back, sir.”

Some are fortunate enough to choose their last words, make them something meaningful. Some speak to family members in their last moments, say “I love you.” Others speak to their children in their last moments and say, “I've got gold buried under the house. Take it.” Some even say, on their way to the gallows, “Everything I did I have done for the people!”

The inn-keeper was not so blessed. In an instant Dario had drawn his sword and the blade had passed through the inn-keeper's neck. The inn-keeper's head hit the ground, and, shortly thereafter, so did his lifeless body. The last words he'd ever speak were the words, “Oh, you're back, sir.”

Another man in the inn drew two daggers and lunged at Dario. Dario drove his blade through his assailant's chest, splitting his sternum.

It had been so obvious the whole time. Dario cursed himself for not seeing this sooner. Out of the corner of his eye he'd seen coins slipped to the hall attendants rather than to the harlots themselves. For a brief moment, before he copulated with the harlot he'd brought into his bed, he'd seen a look of hesitation in her eyes. A sadness. How had he not realized then what was going on? He was in a city that he knew was the center of the slave trade, what had made him so blind to the obvious?

At the end of the hall, Dario saw another of the inn's patrons, or perhaps employees, winding his crossbow for a shot. Dario dashed down the hall at the crossbowman. One bolt fired. One bolt lodged in Dario's chest-plate, but the tip did not even touch his flesh. The thug had been foolish not to aim for Dario's head. Dario certainly aimed for his. Another of the Vice Queen's thugs now lay dead on the inn's floor.

More men, some barely holding up their trousers, emerged from rooms all over the inn. As they all drew their weapons; knives, clubs, short swords, and flails; Dario realized what he always knew. At least half the men in this den of wickedness were involved in the slave trade. Scum, all of them! And he almost unwittingly became one of them. He took advantage of one of the slave girls there. Were all of the girls here slaves? The only way he could purge himself of his sins was to purge this inn of its sinners.

They charged, hoping that their numbers would overwhelm him. After all, he was just one man and they were many. How could he survive such an assault? Only as he cut the first two down did they realize that the narrow hallway robbed them of their advantage.

In such a narrow space he could fight them one or two at a time. He slipped his blade between the ribs of the first man in his way, then shoved his body back into the others. The slaver thugs fell over each other. While they struggled on the ground Dario walked on them and pushed his sword down through their bodies.

“Punishment for your sins!” Dario shouted, frothing at the mouth. “Punishment! Justice! All of you deserve to die for what you've done!”

Snap! And a crossbow bolt lodged pierced his armor to lodge itself in his left shoulder. Dario cried out and turned to the one who fired the bolt. He was already fixing another bolt to his crossbow and turning the crank. Between the crossbowman was the pile of bodies, both alive and dead, on the floor and one slaver with a long-sword in hand. Dario would never close that distance before the crossbowman fired another shot. Time to change tactics.

Dario threw his weight into the nearest door. The door broke open, and he stumbled into the room. Good. Here he could make them come to him.

“Dario, what are you doing?” came a familiar voice from behind him.

“Evalina?” Dario said as he rounded to see Evalina standing in the room. “Don't worry, I know the truth about this place. You'll not be a slave much longer.” Dario turned his attention back to the door and anticipated the enemy's approach.

“You won't survive this, Dario!” Evalina said. “Please, Dario, flee! Run far away from here!”

“I won't!” Dario yelled. “These bastards took my sister! They took countless innocent people! They even took you! I will not allow this to continue any more! You will all be free this day!”

“They'll kill you!” Evalina said. “There are hundreds of slavers in this inn!”

“At least I can strike a serious blow against them before I die.”

No sooner than the words had left his lips then one of the thugs, long-sword in hand, rounded the corner and attacked him. As the flats of their blades clashed and smacked together, the crossbowman rounded the corner as well and took a shot.

The bolt hit Dario square in the chest. He could feel the tip pierce his skin, but stop when it hit his sternum. For a moment Dario was thrilled that he survived, until the next time he swung his sword and felt the bolt gouging his skin whenever he moved.

He roared as he threw his sword through the gut of the enemy before him.

“Dario!” Evalina shouted again. “Stop! They will kill you!”

“Stay behind me!” Dario yelled back. “None of them have any real skill. I can do this!”

“No. You can't,” said Evalina, her voice becoming more and more desperate.

Just as Dario was ready to leap upon the crossbowman, he heard glass shatter near his feet. The bowman across the hall raised a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. A dark gray mist rose up from the ground and surrounded Dario. Instantly the world around him began to blur. He turned to Evalina, who was holding a cloth over her mouth and nose as well. Dario's head was spinning. Had she thrown the vial? Everything in the world seemed wrong. It felt as if some force was reaching up to Dario's head and pulling him towards the ground. Everything went black and silent all around him.

The voice pierced the silence. The same voice that had been speaking to Dario for days now. That deep voice that shot through his very heart. “Is it the Father's will that all those involved in the slave trade must die?”

“Yes,” Dario said.

“Then what is your punishment? You were involved in the slave trade too.”

“I was not!”

“You were. You paid for slaves in that inn to join you in your bed. You partook of their sin for your own pleasure.”

“I didn't know! I didn't know they were slaves!”

“You did know. You cannot lie to me. You did know, you just tried to deny it. Ignore it. The very thing you'd been looking for for so long was right in front of you and you refused to see it. Do you realize why yet?”

“I had no idea they were slavers!”

“Do you yet realize why you told yourself that? We lie to ourselves in broad daylight, but darkness always brings truth with it. The Father wishes to judge all slavers, and his judgment will be harsher on his justicars. Justice. Everyone who's been wronged calls for it, but those who have done harm, whether intentional or not, realize how cruel it really is. Seek me out. I offer you pardon and salvation.”

The darkness around Dario crept away. He found himself in a room lit by candles. Shadows danced over the walls. His own, and that of one other person in the room. On his wrists he felt tight leather straps. The same on his ankles. Under his body was something cold and hard. The hard surface stuck to the sweat on his back. He was strapped to a chair.

“I did try to get you to stop.”

“Evalina?” Dario craned his head. Evalina's shadow was, apparently, the other one in the room. “What happened?”

“I saved your life. The only way I knew how. They would have killed you. You would have taken many of them with you, but in the end they would have killed you.” Evalina reached out and gave his cheek a gentle caress. “I couldn't bear the thought.”

“So you poisoned me and tied me to a chair? They'll kill me for sure now!”

“They won't.”

“So, it's to be torture? You should have let them just kill me!”

Evalina shook her head. “They won't torture you either. No one will harm you, I guarantee it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You already know the answer to that, Dario.” Evalina leaned over to look him in the eye. Her face was so close to his that Dario could feel her breath on his lips. “You've known all along. Who am I?”

Dario sighed and hung his head. “The Vice Queen,” His heart sunk as the words left his lips. As he said it he realized that he'd always known. The inn-keeper took orders from her. Was there any clearer sign that she was the one in charge here? This was the mistress of the slave trade, right here, in front of his very eyes. It was the Vice Queen that he'd been obsessing over all along. “Was everything...from the moment I stepped foot in the inn...was it all a deception?”

“Not everything,” Evalina said, before giving his lips a brief, though tender, kiss.

“But...you really are the ruler of the slave trade?”

Evalina sighed and shook her head. “Often in our desire to do good we end up becoming the thing we hate most.”

“How is joining up with the slavers an attempt to do good? How does that make any damn sense?”

“Ten years ago I was a slave myself,” said Evalina. “I was a girl when they took me. They taught me the trade, and, under the threat of death, I plied it well.”

“The trade?”

“Do I need to say it out loud, Dario?” Evalina raised an eyebrow. “Truly? I was forced into harlotry. But I was good at it. It wasn't long before my master could charge his clients twice as much for a night with me. Then three times. Finally, I got smart, and found that some patrons would put their money in my own hand in exchange for...unique services.”

“Unique services?”

“A plethora of different fascinations. For example...” Evalina leaned in close to his face again. The smell of her intoxicating perfume filled his nostrils. The warmth of her breath tickled his lower lip, and he could almost feel her lips against his as she said, “Teasing,” and pulled away. Dario shivered. “So I started building my own fortune in secret. I found so many ways to hide the money; behind tapestries, in birds' nests on the windowsill, inside down pillows. Whatever I could get my hands on. For over a year my master had no idea, but I knew that sooner or later he would find out, so I needed a way out.”

Evalina played with Dario's curls, twirling them around her fingers. “One of my patrons had told me that he loved me. I told him that I didn't want to be a slave anymore, so he murdered my master. We took my master's gold, the gold he'd gained by selling my body. It was mine by right!”

“You had a chance to run away with a fortune and a man who loved you?” asked Dario. “Why didn't you?”

“I didn't run away with him because I didn't love him back,” said Evalina.

“Did he know that before he spilled blood for you?”

“Yes,” said Evalina, nodding three times. “I'm not a monster. I tease, but I know when to let people know the truth.”

“Not a monster? You're the head of the slave trade!”

“That's true.” Evalina ran a hand over her slender neck. “I used the money I took from my former master to rise up among the slavers. I started a brothel of my own and charged patrons a king's ransom for a night with me. It wasn't long before most of the slavers in the West were in my pocket. Do you know why I did it?”

“Profit, I would imagine.”

“Do you truly think so little of me?” Evalina's face looked so hurt by his comment, and he couldn't help but feel guilty. “No. I took over the slave trade so that I could find a way to destroy it! Almost every slaver lord the Arxian soldiers have caught in the past few years has been because of a tip I gave them. Every ship bringing slaves from Shadia, Sabura, or the islands that the Arxian navy caught? That was my doing. Though, what happened on the ships taught me a valuable lesson, one that has prevented me from completely destroying the slave trade all at once.”

“Really?” said Dario, with a raised eyebrow.

“Spare me your feigned skepticism. When the Arxians caught a slaver ship they would often find the ship empty, save for unused shackles in the lower decks. Not a single slave was on board. I'm sure you can guess why.”

“I can't,” said Dario. “Enlighten me.”

“The slavers knew they were about to be caught, so they killed all of the slaves and threw their bodies overboard.” Evalina's voice wavered as she recounted the atrocities. “Then, when the Arxians arrived there was no evidence of their wrong-doing. The Arxians only figured it out when they found the body of a nearly-dead slave floating in the water. That's when I realized that I needed to be careful about how I destroyed the slave trade. If I told the Arxian soldiers that this city was a major slave marketplace? Oh, Arxian soldiers would arrive by the thousands, and surely, they'd take the city. But by the time they broke through every slave in Nox would be dead.

“That's why I am the Vice Queen, Dario. In my attempt to destroy the thing I hated most in all the world I found myself becoming my own worst enemy.” Evalina sat on Dario's lap, her thighs straddling his. She ran her fingers along his bare chest. Her eyes, as they gazed into his, were full of tears that she was just barely holding back. “I'm as much a slave as those in my brothel, for the moment I try to speak up for them the slavers will see it as a moment of weakness and kill me. My work will be undone, and the slave trade will go on far stronger than before. Do you know what it's like to see yourself become the enemy of everything you once believed in?” Her voice was shaky, cracking.

“I...I'm sorry, Evalina...”

Evalina wiped her eyes. “You know what's the worst part? I've had to put down slave rebellions! Oh, I'd love nothing more than to see the slaves rise up and claim their freedom, but every slave rebellion is rife with problems. First, each time slaves have risen up to fight they've killed innocent people, or at least taken them hostage.” Evalina wiped another tear as it ran down her cheek. “Second, each slave rebellion makes slavers nervous, and some slavers kill hundreds of their strongest slaves in fear of future uprisings. The only way I could see to scare the slaves enough to stop these uprisings was to...” Evalina paused and took a deep breath, “...To subject them to horrible executions. So horrible... The sorts of deaths other slaves would see and hear stories about, and it would make them think twice before starting an uprising. It's awful! To have to burn one man alive so that hundreds may live...but I have no choice!”

Evalina broke down and sobbed. She buried her face in Dario's bare chest. Her hot breath and cold tears tickled his skin. Her sobbing broke his heart, and he tried to wrap his arms around her, only to be reminded that his wrists were strapped to the chair.

“I'm so sorry,” he said, kissing her soft hair. “I had no idea...”

Evalina looked up at him, her eyes still glossy from her tears. “You came here with every hope of doing what I've been trying to do for years. Your desire to help was so innocent, so simple. You believed the easy truth; that slavers needed to be killed, that was all there was to it. I wished so badly that I could still believe that, and sometimes, as I watched you investigate this city, I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was hope.” Evalina planted gentle kisses along his neck. Each one sent a tingling sensation rippling through his body. “That's why I couldn't let them kill you.” Her kisses trailed up his neck and she bit his ear-lobe, arousing a moan from his lips. She whispered in his ear. “That's why I love you.”

“Love me?” Dario repeated.

Evalina said nothing, but Dario could hear her breath in his ear. Her breathing was uneasy, nervous.

Dario felt that he'd been so foolish, feeling betrayed when he found himself in that room with her. Was he really so naive as to think that all the world was black and white, that people were either good or evil? No, even the Acolytes of the Father had taught him long ago that all people had both good and evil in them, and sometimes you needed to do some evil to achieve a much greater good. This was the problem Evalina had been struggling with for years. Her heart was beautiful, broken as it was. He was sure of it. Such strength and courage she must have had. Fighting the slave trade from within all those years? Knowing that at any moment she could be discovered? He couldn't imagine how hard that must have been.

Her fingers tickled the nape of his neck, just under his black curls. Her breath warmed his ear.

“I love you too,” said Dario, just before he turned his head and caught her lips with his.

Evalina raked her fingernails down his chest as the two of them shared a passionate kiss. Dario's back arched and his hips bucked upward to meet Evalina's. Evalina gasped and tickled Dario's tongue with her own. Dario pulled against the restraints, wanting so badly to reach out and take her, but the straps were far too tight. Evalina started to untie the laces of his trousers, her fingers fumbling with the knots. She bit his lower lip and pulled, eliciting more moans of pleasure from him.

With Dario's trousers unlaced, Evalina turned her back to him, bringing the laces on the back of her dress up to his mouth. “Untie me?” she asked.

Dario took the laces in his teeth and pulled. The dress loosened up around Evalina's figure and exposed the bare skin of her back. Evalina coiled her hips in his lap as she took the shoulders of her dress and slowly lowered them down over her shoulders. More and more of her soft skin was exposed to Dario's eyes, and he could barely contain himself. He thought he would tear the chair he was strapped to in pieces just trying to get to her.

Evalina stood for only a moment, allowing her dress to fall around her ankles. Dario took in the sight of her naked curves. The way the small of her back curved in just above her shapely bottom. Evalina turned around, allowing Dario to drink in every detail of her body before she straddled him again.

She leaned her fact in close to his ear and whispered, “If I untie you, do you promise to be gentle?”

“I promise!” Dario said. At that moment he would have promised her just about anything.

Evalina giggled as she pressed her torso up against his and reached behind him to untie the straps. Her skin was like velvet against his, her body so warm. It felt like he'd had to wait for an eternity for this moment, and it was finally here.

But he heard clamoring outside of the room. “Oh no...” More sounds of struggle. A fight. Screams. And all of the noise was getting closer.

“What's wrong?” Evalina asked.

“You don't hear that?”

Evalina sat back. “Hear what? Oh...schyte!” She leaped off of his lap and scrambled to find her dress.

“Wait, untie me first!” Dario protested.

Before she could re-dress herself, however, there was a loud bang at the door. “Open this damn door! We know you're in there!” They banged hard against it again. Evalina fumbled to get her dress back on, but was having trouble finding the right opening.

“Evalina, untie me!” Dario shouted. “I can protect you! Untie-”

Those on the other side of the door kicked it open and rushed in with weapons and torches in hand. At their lead was a muscular young man with long, wavy blonde hair with a curved sword in each hand. Behind all of them stood an angel, its crystal body gleaming in the candlelight.

The blonde man pointed his blades at Dario's throat. “Looks like your fascination with being dominated is going to cost you.”

“What are you talking about?” Dario asked.

“Did the irony excite you? The fact that she's the one who's a slave while you are the patron?” asked the blonde man. “Well, no more! The slaves rule Nox now!

“He's not a patron!” said Evalina.

“He's not?” the blonde man said, looking over his shoulder at her.

“No. He's my lover!” said Evalina. “It's true, I am a slave in the service of the Vice Queen, but this man did not pay to bed me. He's the man I love. That's why we had to meet in this room in the basement, to keep it a secret.”

Dario had to marvel at Evalina's quick thinking. “It's true,” he said. “I let her tie me up so that she could feel like the one with freedom and power for once. She's a slave. She needs control once in a while!”

The blonde man nodded his head. “Makes sense, I suppose...but the Grand Inquisitor will still be the one to decide your fate.”

“Who?” Dario asked.

Two of the assailants with the blonde man cut the bonds holding Dario to the chair and yanked him to his feet, blades pointed at his chest. His unlaced trousers started to fall, but, thankfully, stopped at his hips.

“If you try to struggle or escape we will assume you really are one of the Vice Queen's thugs and end you,” said the blonde man. Two other men grabbed Evalina by her arms and yanked her to her feet. “Bring them up to see Yashen.”

“Aye, Kezib,” said one of the men.

. . .

Dario and Evalina were both dragged through the blood-soaked halls of the inn. They could still hear fighting and screaming on other floors.

“What happened?” Dario asked.

“I'm not sure...” said Evalina. “It looks like...the gladiators rose up and took the city! But...how...they were more well-guarded than any of the other slaves...”

She got her answer when the two of them were dragged outside. All around they could see bodies lying dead in the streets and sobbing men and women in shackles. Warriors in blood-red cassocks severed the limbs of their enemies. Men in gladiator armor raised their arms to reveal strange markings tattooed on their forearms. The tattoos glowed, and more angels with crystal bodies appeared to join the fray.

Dario and Evalina stumbled along, barely keeping up with their captors, as they were dragged up to a woman clad in a black cassock with gray embroidery. “Grand Inquisitor! We brought you these two for questioning.”

Yashen looked both of them over. Her eyes caught Dario's face. “Do I know you?” she asked.

In an instant Dario recognized her. The murderer he'd chased into the woods, the one who sent four angels after him. If she recognized him he would be dead for sure. “I don't know...are you from Uvino?” he asked.

Yashen shook her head. “No, but I'm certain I've seen you before.” She stared at him for a few moments, trying to recall where she'd seen his face before. Dario's heart raced. But he was relieved when she turned to the witch-hunters closest to her and said. “Lock them both up. We'll find out who they are later. For now we focus on gaining total control of this city. Not a single slaver is to escape, and everyone not a known slave is a suspect.”

“Aye, Grand Inquisitor!”

Dario watched as the witch-hunters dragged Evalina away from him. They dragged her off to be locked in some cell or clapped in irons. He wanted to do something, but he was unarmed, overpowered, and mostly naked. Any move he made against the rebel slaves would just get him killed.

“Lock him in the stocks!” said one of the witch-hunters.

“Aye! The stocks!”

The two men forced Dario's hands and head into the stocks and locked it tight over him. Dario struggled, but couldn't fit his hands through those tiny holes. As he crouched there, his neck locked between two pieces of wood, he watched the rest of the siege unfold. An army of slaves, gladiators, and inquisitors took the city of Nox one street at a time. Smoke rose up into the air. Ashes fell from the skies, and the gutters ran red.