“There you are,” Gridel says. She nods at Vane in acknowledgement. “Welcome back to you too.”

Vane bows his head, before glancing around the room. “Where is Lady Penny?”

“She went to the archives,” Ren says, stepping through the door as well. “She has a few questions to ask the Captain of the Guard.”

“The Captain?”

“The guy who saved your life and brought us here. He’s waived your treatment, too.”

Vane raises a brow. “I see. He is a kind man indeed.”

The man staggers to the couch, his limbs still not as strong as he probably would like. Gridel stokes the fire blazing in the hearth, and Ren takes a seat next to Vane. They still have to wait for Penny to return before they can discuss their next plan of action.

As of now, they’ve yet to figure out what to do with Tiv yet. Bring him along for the rest of their adventure (which is a terrible idea, in Ren’s eyes)? Or let him stay in this house? But wouldn’t Minister Berg kick him out again? It doesn’t look like Hal nor his army would want to keep him either, now that he’s stood up for Beville. They, or Tiv, have three options, and none of them sound ideal.

“Shall I start preparing dinner?” Gridel asks.

“Yeah, sure. Penny can come back to some piping hot soup,” Ren says. “What are we making?”

“I think some stew would be good for this climate. I’ve purchased a slab of Qiqirn meat, with a few vegetables.” Gridel makes for the kitchen, only to be stopped by Ren’s question.

“What’s a Qiqirn?”

Gridel pauses, a hand on the doorjamb, as she considers her answer. It’s become so quiet that Ren can almost hear a pin drop.

“I don’t know,” Gridel says finally, and Ren can hear the frown in her voice. “I’m assuming that it would lend its taste to the broth just like any other meat.”

In other words, she has no idea just what it would taste like. Ren purses his lips. Better go help out, though he’s not sure he can contribute much either.

“Master Ren, please, let me—” Vane starts, but is silenced by both Ren and Gridel’s frightening glare. He sinks back into the couch, sighing deeply, arms folded. Ren leaves his seat and follows Gridel to the kitchen.

He lights the stove with a spark, the wood burning brightly with that single flame. Whilst Gridel prepares the meat, Ren handles the water. He dunks a bucket of liquid into a pot, before putting the empty bucket back on the counter. He places the pot on the counter and waits for it to boil.

This is the first time that Ren’s seen Gridel’s culinary skills up close. She slices and dices the tender meat with utmost caution, making sure that each chunk is cut to about equal size. Once she’s done, she gathers up the cubes of meat and dumps them in the pot.

It is then that the front door swings open, slamming against the wall and making the loudest sound. Ren sticks his head out of the kitchen, to find that Penny has returned, but it’s not just her. Cradled in her arms, is what looks to be a tiny human being, the child’s limbs fallen limp beside them.

Vane hops to his feet immediately, and he strides over to her. “What’s wrong, Lady Penny? Who is that?”

Penny gasps for breath, stepping into the house and shoving the door shut, pressing her back flush against it.

“Breathe, Penny. Breathe,” Ren says, placing his hands on her shoulders. Penny’s face is deathly pale, perhaps from the exertion, and her breaths are shallow and ragged. Ren glances down at the child in her arms. He doesn’t recognise that face at all—but he does remember her outfit.

“Is that…” Ren starts.

She is wearing the exact same coat that Tiv was wearing—a thick animal fur cloak draped across her body. However, her clothes are stained with red, and there appears to be a large, long gash across her middle. What in the world happened to her?

“Quick.” Penny swallows. “Get Gridel. She needs medical attention now.”

Ren hurries to the kitchen, crossing the room quickly to the stove, and he grabs Gridel’s shoulder. Gridel jolts at the touch, her scowl morphing quickly into a serene expression. “What is it, Ren?”

“Penny’s come back with a child, and she’s hurt bad,” Ren says. “You have to go help her.”

Gridel furrows her brows, as if to ask: Another one? Yet, she does not, and requests Ren to extinguish the flame. The soup can be prepared later. Gridel hurries out of the kitchen, and rushes over to where Penny is kneeling by the couch, over the unmoving body of the injured girl. The girl is hardly breathing, the rise and fall of her chest barely noticeable.

Upon seeing the wound, it’s like something clicks in Gridel’s head. She reaches for a sachet hung on her belt, and she tears it open, spreading the leaves out on the girl’s stomach. If the girl felt any pain, she gives no indication. Once Gridel is satisfied with the placement of the leaves, she proceeds to tear off a long piece of white bandage from the roll on her belt.

With Ren and Penny’s help in lifting the girl, Gridel manages to get the bandage wrapped tight around her middle. When she’s done, she ties a knot to keep the bandage in place. Once that’s completed, her shoulders sag, the tension draining from her body.

“Is she going to be all right?” Penny asks.

“It is likely,” Gridel says. “She probably just went into shock. That wound is shallower than I expected, and that amount of medicine should be able to close the gash in no time.”

Ren sinks back onto the ground, the relief washing over him like a tidal wave.

“Who is this?” Vane asks. “And where did you find her?”

“She was heading this way from the palace,” Penny says. “And, uh, I think something happened there. With the Horseman.”

Ren jabs a finger in the girl’s direction. “And her name is… Zan, right?”

Penny nods. “The very same.”

“Isn’t Zan the feisty child who stood with Hal?” Gridel asks. “Why would she be attacked? I would even think that she was his favourite.”

Ren shakes his head. “I don’t think Hal did this. Look, if he wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t have used a sword. He would have used magic.”

“Then who could’ve…” Penny trails off. She turns to Gridel. “Could it be one of the other children?”

Before Gridel can answer, a creak of wood alerts the group to the presence of yet another person. Ren looks towards the stairs, where Tiv is standing, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stares at them, intrigue clear in his gaze.

“Why are you…” Tiv tilts his head. “Why are you kneeling here?”

“Dinner’s almost ready, Tiv. Could you go set the table?” Gridel asks.

“Wait, is that—That’s Zan!” Tiv cries, dashing over to them. “Why is she here? And is she… she looks like…”

“She’ll be fine,” Gridel says. “I’ve given her the necessary medicine. All she needs is rest, which she can’t get if we keep crowding around her like this. Come on. Let’s have some dinner first.”

“O-Oh…” Tiv mumbles. He can’t seem to tear his gaze away from Zan, who no longer sports a pained expression, and instead appears peaceful. However, at Penny’s insistent tugging on his wrist, Tiv drags his feet over to the dining table.

Ren joins Gridel in the kitchen, helping to get the fire started again, and to make sure the stew’s hot enough to drink, and the meat’s boiled enough to eat. Once everything’s ready, Gridel moves to fill empty bowls with the soup, and Ren carries them outside, where the other three are waiting.

The mood is sombre, and the meal is had in silence. Not that Ren expected anything else. There is an unconscious girl lying on their couch, after all. Whatever happened to her, though, is something that they’d have to ask her when she wakes up. But for now, they can only speculate.

What happened back at the palace? Was she been attacked by a monster that roams the wintry forests? Where did Penny even find her anyway? At the edge of the town, maybe?

A sudden groan attracts their attention. Ren turns his head to the couch, where the girl seems to have propped herself up on her elbows. Gridel drops her spoon with a sharp clatter, rushing over and kneeling beside her. Tiv follows quickly behind.

“Please, lie down,” Gridel says. “If you sit, you’ll only aggravate your wound.”

Zan grasps Gridel’s arm, gasping. She trembles visibly, tears escaping the corners of her eyes and streaming down her face. “I… There’s… You have to help us… Hal… Hal’s… dead…”

It is then that the atmosphere changes, drops like a weighty stone to the ground. It’s as though time stills, to the point where it stops completely. What does she mean by that? How can Hal be dead? How can—

“Wait, what?” Tiv is the first to speak, the first to have regained his voice. He shakes his head vigorously, like he’s trying to deny whatever she’s just said. “What do you mean Hal’s dead? Hal can’t be dead. He’s too strong to die.”

“He is,” Zan says, her voice cracked. “He’s dead. The Horseman killed him.”

“But why? I thought the Horseman was supposed to protect us,” Tiv whispers. There is a burning rage simmering under that quiet voice. Roiling with both shock and denial. “That’s why we were doing all those rituals and offering people up to him…”

Zan bites back a sob. “He said that Hal couldn’t kill the Luminaries, so he… he killed Hal. The Luminaries must die, he said, and if Hal couldn’t… then the others…”

“He’s not going to kill the other children now, is he?” Gridel asks.

Zan shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. Not immediately. But he’s going to… he said that he’s going to unleash the blight on all of them, but Hal jumped in and saved us, and…”

“What about the other children?” Ren asks. “Are they still back at that palace?”

Zan nods. “He already… already infected Bas and Rae and… and… We have to kill the Luminary, but… I didn’t want to, because he killed Hal, and he attacked me and—”

Zan may have been defiant and feisty before, ordering their deaths and trying to kill them herself. However, in this moment, Ren can only see a scared child. A child afraid for her life, afraid for the lives of her comrades back in the palace.

“We should go and see how the children are doing, and destroy the Horseman’s heart while we’re at it,” Ren says. “Now that the Horseman is attacking the children, and he killed their beloved leader, I doubt that they’d want to stay by his side any longer.”

“I agree,” Vane says. “If we can settle the score with the Horseman here, the effects of the disease that plagues this land should also come to pass.”

“But what about Tiv and Zan?” Gridel asks. “Surely, they can’t come with us.”

“You’re wrong. I’m going,” Tiv says. “If the Horseman is wanting to kill my friends, I can’t just stay here and let him!”

“Neither… Neither can I,” Zan says, with a cough. “That’s my home you’re talking about, and if I…”

“You are staying here, and that’s final,” Penny says firmly, with the stern tone of a chiding parent, or a teacher. “You nearly died, Zan.”

“But—”

Gridel kneels beside her. “We’ll take care of your friends, and we’ll get rid of the Horseman. Don’t you worry.”

Zan bites her lip, before glancing away, and wiping at the wet streaks on her cheeks. “Okay.”

“I’ll stay behind,” Penny says. “Someone’s got to look after these kids, after all.”

“I’m going!” Tiv stomps the ground, the most indignant frown on his face. “I said I was going already! Didn’t you hear me?”

“I think,” Ren says slowly, “that Tiv can handle himself. Remember what happened back up on Drasil Mountain? He helped bring down that Nidhogg.”

Vane furrows his brows. “A child felled a Nidhogg?”

“Yeah. We’ll tell you about it when we get back,” Ren says, and he turns to Penny. “Can we let Vane take care of Zan?”

“What?” Vane’s eyes bulge in their sockets. “Surely, you’re not suggesting that…”

“You just recovered, and if we brought you to the source of the disease, I think you’re just going to contract it again,” Ren reasons. “We’ll be back before you know it, all right?”

Vane huffs, but he does not pursue the argument. Ren turns to Gridel and Penny, who are standing beside the door. Tiv is also already prepared, hands tight around the spear that he didn’t bother returning to the Bevillian army.

“Okay,” Penny says. “We’re going to get the Horseman’s heart, we’re destroying it, and we’re coming straight back here. Got that?”

She throws open the door of the house, and they head out, back onto the snowy streets of Beville. But this time, they have a mission, and that is to kill the Horseman, and save the children.

*

“There it is,” Gridel whispers. “The temple.”

Unlike when Ren first arrived at the palace, there are no guards anywhere. The whole place is devoid of the usual patrols—the kids must all be gathered in the palace. At the mercy of the Horseman.

“This way,” Tiv says, already ducking towards the brush.

Gridel grips his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“The secret entrance,” Tiv says. “Shouldn’t we sneak in that way?”

“That’s… well…” Ren scrunches his nose up. “I think they’re more likely to have gotten that place locked or boarded up, since the Horseman knows that we know of it now. They can easily launch a pincer attack.”

Being stuck in a cramped storage room, with kids under the Horseman’s command staring at them from on high, while the door remains impassable, is not the best situation to be in. If their enemy has pre-empted their entrance from the back exit, then they are just going to have to defy expectations and strike from the front.

Ren wonders how many children are actually… healthy enough to fight them off anyway. Yet, if too many of them band together, they can be a force to be reckoned with. In that case, it seems the best decision would be that…

“Tiv.” Ren squats such that he’s at Tiv’s eye level. “I’m going to need you to go on a mission alone. Think you can do that for me?”

“Wait, Ren? What are you saying?” Penny hisses. “Tiv is—”

“What do you need me to do?” Tiv asks. “I’m a big boy. I can do it.”

“Okay. Good.” Ren nods. “I need you to go in through the front entrance, and you’re going to make as much noise as you can. Draw the Horseman’s attention away from the back entrance. We’ll come in from there.”

Tiv nods. “Got it.”

“But what if the Horseman infects him too?” Penny says. “This is not rational—”

“The Horseman wouldn’t kill Tiv. Not until he gets what he wants out of him,” Ren says. “Which means that once Tiv gets in, we’ll have a couple of minutes to get that back door down, then we’ll get the heart, destroy it, and save Tiv.”

“I agree with… with Ren,” Gridel says. “Tiv has proven himself back on the top of Drasil Mountain. He didn’t flinch even in the face of danger, and… was one the key players in taking care of that dragon. I say we let him do it.”

Tiv beams.

“Okay, whenever you’re ready,” Ren says. “Remember to holler, yeah?”

Tiv nods. “Yeah.”

With that, Tiv emerges from the bushes, and he trudges across the snow, headed for the temple’s front. Ren turns to Gridel. “Do you remember where the back entrance was?”

“Over there,” Gridel says, stabbing a finger farther into the forest. “Come on.”

With Gridel taking the lead, the three of them scurry past the frozen leaves, almost getting pricked by the sharp thorns of the bushes. Eventually, Ren sees it. The manhole cover, lying innocuously in the snow.

The three of them squat around it, and Penny brushes the snow off the lid. This is the one, the very same one that Ren and Gridel entered from to save Penny and Vane the last time. With a heave, Gridel and Ren remove the panel from the ground, revealing the storage room, unchanged from the last time Ren saw it.

Mostly unchanged, anyway. The only difference is that now, a child in a Tiki mask is sitting in a corner of the room, his arms wrapped tightly around his spear, head ducked and dozing. Not even the splash of light from the removed ceiling could wake up the sleeping boy. They’ve got to deal with him somehow, and if they can just get in without disturbing him…

A sudden shout has Ren jumping. He shoots a gaze towards the temple, then back to the hole in the ground. Tiv has made his move. It’s time for them to make theirs as well. Gridel wastes no time in hopping through the hole, landing lightly on her feet. Penny and Ren take the ladder and descend slowly, one rung at a time.

They reach the floor without incident, their footsteps making hardly a sound against the frozen floor. Gridel tries the door, ramming her body against the hard wood, only to pull away and touch the tender spot of her shoulder blade. It’s just as Ren predicted. They locked up the storage room. Whether it was because the Horseman predicted their moves, or whether it was pure coincidence, Ren doesn’t know.

“W-What…? Wait…” a weak voice speaks from beside them. Ren glances over at the child, whom he prayed remained asleep, is awake. He hops off his chair, spear clutched tight in his shaky arms. “H-He was right! He said you’d be here!”

The ‘he’ referring to the Horseman, most likely. Gridel moves fast, tackling the child and pushing him up against the wall. She wrenches the spear from his grasp and tosses it aside. Whilst the child screams and kicks violently, Gridel is able to pin him down.

Ren turns to the door, raises Ifrit, and sets it alight. The wood crackles and burns in the heat of the flames. Penny grabs the child’s dropped spear and stabs it into the door. Some of the planks give way, but not all. Ren draws Ifrit back and swings it against the wood.

The staff smashes through the weakened door, and the wood is soon reduced to nothing more than cinders and smoking embers. Ren and Penny file out of the room, and into the sacrificial chamber. The place is thrown in utter chaos, with children screaming and yelling, and the Horseman shouting orders from his steed, standing just by the altar.

Their fiery entrance seems to have attracted much attention, less ideal than what Ren would have liked. He spots Tiv by the entrance, along with a few of the children, the latter manhandling and dragging him towards what is probably the dungeons.

“What is this? You have led the Luminaries to us!” the Horseman cries.

Tiv’s mouth moves—he is screaming something—but his voice is drowned out by the fearful and indignant shouts of the surrounding children. The Horseman turns to Ren, but by the time he does, Penny is already halfway across the room. She sprints towards the altar where his heart stands, Mira clutched tightly in her hand.

“You insolent whelps!” the Horseman bellows, and he charges at Penny, sword drawn. Ren draws up a wall of fire between him and Penny. The Horseman’s steed neighs and bucks, while the children shy away from the flaming wall.

Penny grunts, skidding to a halt just before the altar. Ren clenches his fist, keeping the fire going strong, strong enough to deter the Horseman. Penny holds Mira above her head, the dirk at the ready…

And she brings it down on the Horseman’s heart.