Hotch paced around the longhall with his hands tucked into his armpits and his back hunched.

Those obelisks are used in some filthy, corrupting ritual swaying the minds of honest folk.

He studied the longhall. The adoptees were bumbling about, minding their own business with smiles on their faces.

Wenthelen, Ysolt, Annette, Wiscard, Ilbert, and Runnulf. Most of the fourteen survivors were present.

Menghenyld had Hunig on a stool and was feeding the gurgling toddler a sweetened mush of bulrush tuber and milk. Heudebrant sat next to them covered head to toe in grey slush and making stupid faces while trying to dab swirls of clay on the face of anyone who came close enough.

Unlike them, I am enlightened.

Hotch ground his teeth as Runnulf took a pot from the oven, frowned as Wenthelen breast fed her giant infant, and snarled as Wiscard beat Ilbert at chess for the third time that week.

They have forgotten the logging camp. The vile-scarlet and vomit-yellow stones have leached their memories.

I must free them.

Hotch grabbed a sledgehammer and left, slamming the door behind him. He peered through a crack in the door. No one had looked up.

I need no further proof they are bewitched by the foulest of spells.

He prowled through the town, the fifty pound carved stone hammer head bouncing along the road as he dragged it behind him.

Hotch descended the old steps beneath the central tree, one hand tracing the wall. Light appeared ahead. He stopped.

Have I been betrayed? He hefted his hammer and crept into the cavern. Light shone from the cavern roof.

Trapped souls, lighting my path. I shall purify this fecund womb of malevolence and Elewýs will be free, free to choose me.

Hotch swung his hammer at the closest obelisk, sending red flecks flying. The hammer bounced off. He followed its momentum and spun the other way, swinging the sledgehammer back into the yellow stone.

The obelisk pealed like a church bell. Hotch staggered, the sound overwhelming his senses. He propped himself on the sledge until the dizziness passed.

Hotch touched the obelisk where he’d struck. The marks were present but his blow had chipped the surface, distorting it.

I can do this.

He struck again and again. A small crack formed, spreading out with each consecutive blow. Red, iridescent motes poured from the gap, flying upwards. The stone drained of colour as it bled.

The cavern trembled.

“What are you doing?”

Hotch turned. Fustrendel stood in the entrance, leaning on metal staff. He was pale and shaking.

“Bringing an end to this foolish farce of kinship,” said Hotch.

“You swine-rutting simpleton, you’ll kill us all!”

“You’ve trapped, cursed, and deceived us. I will destroy your ritual and we can return home,” Hotch took another swing at the obelisk.

Fustrendel staggered, “Stop it, please Hotch. I’m begging you.”

“Why? Why should I listen to you?”

“I don’t want to die Hotch, not yet. I still have my son’s wedding to see and grandchildren to care for.”

“Elewýs’s wedding, Elewýs’s children!” Hotch said. “You’ll trap them like you trapped her. I want nothing to do with you.”

“Then leave, go wherever you wish within the forest.”

“But only within the forest, where you can swindle my soul with your defiling magic.”

Fustrendel shook his head, “Without these obelisks, magic would devastate the entire area. You’d be a trembling mush of expanding flesh.”

Hotch laughed and slammed the obelisk again. The stone split with a deafening crack. Fustrendel screamed, a primal call from the depths of his chest that echoed through the chamber. “Please Hotch, you’re killing us. You’re killing me.”

“Good.”

Red light spilled from Fustrendel’s chest.

Hotch was horrified, “What is that? What have you done to yourself?”

“Please Hotch, no more.” Tears rushed down Fustrendel’s cheeks as he sobbed and choked, his breath rushed and ragged. He sank to the floor. The outline of a yellow stone glowed in Fustrendel’s chest.

Hotch growled, “You don’t even have a real heart, do you?”

“Of course I have a heart!”

“No! No more lies,” yelled Hotch. He charged Fustrendel and struck his chest with the massive hammer. Bones crumpled and blood splattered Hotch’s face.

Fustrendel hauled himself upright, his blood slicked hands sliding over his staff. The stone in his chest glowed brighter.

Hotch felt his anger dissipating, slipping into the ground beneath him.

This is how they control us. I will not submit.

He hurled himself at Fustrendel, knocking him to the ground. Hotch ripped the staff from Fustrendel’s hands and pinned the Drýmann’s arms with his knees. Hotch pulled out a knife.

Fustrendel looked him straight in the eye, “Please.”

Hotch wavered. He grit his teeth and shook his head. He plunged his knife into the base of Fustrendel’s neck and, with a savage jerk, cut downwards, exposing crumpled ribs. Fustrendel’s ribs were coloured like his skin and wrapped with writhing vines of yellow stone.

The vines constricted. With a pop, the shattered ribs realigned. Fustrendel gasped, blood bubbling in his throat. Hotch smashed his fist into Fustrendel’s chest, splintering the bones again and scattering the glowing, yellow cords. Hotch wrenched Fustrendel’s chest cavity open with both hands and thrust his hand into the exposed chest.

Grasping the stone, Hotch pulled it from its nest with a gloopy slurp; blood and iridescent flecks flew from Fustrendel’s chest.

Hotch stood and examined the beating stone. It was heart shaped with a glass-like surface. The false heart was covered in blood and mystic symbols. Yellow tendrils began to wrap around Hotch’s fingers.

He wedged the heartstone into the cracked obelisk and picked up the sledge hammer. Fustrendel twitched on the floor.

“Time to die, mind leech.”

“Don’t do it, Hotch.”

Hotch stared, aghast, as Fustrendel stood, recovered his staff and pushed his torn flesh back together. Fear scrabbled at Hotch’s neck. It grew, clawing into his consciousness, paralysing his limbs. Fustrendel’s fingers danced over his staff.

Hotch blinked. An ethereal projection of himself materialised. Black, dreadful worms, writhed within it, feasting on his essence. He shuddered as his illusory form interacted with ghosts of the Galdorcwide and the adoptees, the terrible worms growing with every exchange.

He saw Elewýs’s face twist in disgust as he reached out to her, pulling away from his touch. He witnessed the pain, horror, and revulsion etched in his father’s visage as he ran towards him, all gangly and overgrown.

“This is who you are Hotch and how others perceive you. Recognise your faults and correct them. Only you are to blame for your isolation. Only you can change who you are.”

None of these events happened like this.

Hotch floated above the forest. Great channels of power flowed through the ground, a vast network of life, straining at its leash.

“See what you almost destroyed. Your actions would have disrupted millions of lives, including those of your parents.”

Hotch was pulled along against his will, rushing through the plains towards a small village. Éaggemeare. His home. He saw his parents. Smiling. Laughing.

Lies. How could they be happy without me?

Hotch willed himself back to his own body; his limbs lurched as he regained control. Fustrendel was struggling to pull his heart-stone out of the obelisk. Hotch noticed a real heart, beating at the centre of the obelisk, weeping blood.

I’ve seen enough.

Hotch swung his sledgehammer, ploughing a gory line through Fustrendel’s body, shattering Fustrendel’s heart-stone. Fustrendel went ridgid.

Hotch stared at the upright corpse.

I’ve won.

Fustrendel’s body collapsed, shattering into a mass of tiny, yellow jewels. Each one chimed as it hit the floor. Unwanted tears welled in Hotch’s eyes as a haunting, melodic death-knell swept through the cavern.