Beneath the blazing wicker man, the bandit camp thrummed with restless energy.

  Drums pounded in a relentless rhythm, their deep voices weaving through the air as dancers stamped and spun, their feet skittering over the packed earth like fleeing lizards. Firelight carved jagged shadows across sweat-slick faces and bodies in motion, the flickering glow turning revelry into ritual.

  Weddle stood apart—the lone crossbearer in a sea of pagan abandon. A horn of mead hung lightly in his grasp as he swayed with the night, lost somewhere between memory and moment. Nostalgia wrapped around him like an old cloak, warm yet worn, his soul at peace in one world while his heart lingered in another. A man caught between faith and freedom, yet fully belonging to neither.

  The rustle of leaves pulled him back. Soft footfalls followed—steady, deliberate.

  The black wolf had returned. Her amber eyes met his briefly before she stepped aside to reveal the cloaked figure behind her—another lost soul, delivered to his cause.

  Weddle reached out, running his fingers behind the wolf’s ears with the ease of an old companion. “How are you, old girl?” he murmured.

  The figure behind the wolf barely stirred, blending into the night’s muted hues. But Weddle saw the glint of sharp eyes beneath the hood, wary of her surroundings.

  “You summoned me?” Anneliese asked. Her voice edged with suspicion.

  Weddle’s smile lingered, faint but warm, though his eyes betrayed a weariness she recognized too well. “I did,” he said. “We are more alike than you know, you and I. The evil we fight swells beneath the surface.”

  “Rekinvale,” Anneliese said, her tone heavy with accusation. “You spoke with Lascivious.”

  Weddle chuckled, a humorless sound. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m no wizard. My father ensured that much.”

  “Is that why you turned to the cross?”

  “You’re at your best when you lead the conversation,” Weddle countered.

  “You’re a telepath, aren’t you?” she pressed. “Reading thoughts, twisting them to suit your ends?”

  Weddle didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze drifted to the towering wicker man, its flames now fading to embers. “My father saw the future as a series of patterns,” he said at last, his voice distant, as though speaking to the past. “Every deviation created ripples—new possibilities. But even he couldn’t see everything. Every pattern has a seam. Fray the edges, and the whole thing unravels.”

  “Arcadius?” Anneliese guessed.

  Weddle’s chest sank, but his smile held. His eyes gleamed—not with sorrow, but with something heavier. “No. His idiot son. The one who thought he could see through it all—through the lies, the injustices. Who believed it was better to burn it all down, blind to the lives it sheltered.”

  Anneliese froze, the truth settling like a stone in her throat. “His mistress,” she murmured. “And… your family?”

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  Weddle’s gaze darkened. “I watched him weep over my mother’s lifeless body. Felt the cold seep from her into him. His perceptions of the future become clouded in doubt, and when he turned to me, those doubts only grew louder.”

  “Your limp,” Anneliese said quietly. “He did that to you?”

  A rueful smile played at Weddle’s lips. “He would’ve finished the job if not for some brief flicker of clarity. What he saw, I’ll never know. Maybe he thought I could fix it. Maybe he just ran out of strength.”

  “And you? You think you can fix it?”

  Weddle hesitated. “I don’t see the future,” he admitted. “But I see intentions. Desires. Enough to anticipate the ending—to know when it needs correcting. And yet, every painful stride reminds me...”

  His hand found hers, his fingers tightening with the quiet ache of confession. “You know the kind of pain you can’t escape? The kind that wakes you in a cold sweat, that never truly leaves?”

  Anneliese flinched as the ghost of Lascivious flickered at the edge of the revelry, his voice drifting through her mind like smoke.

  Accept who you are.

  Weddle’s voice pulled her back. “There are many kinds of demons. Some hold us down. Others force us to grow.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

  “No,” he admitted. “But we are more alike than you think.”

  From a pouch at his side, Weddle drew a weighty sack of weathered leather. Its colorful seems distinct—different from the one Maneesh had given her in Pragian.

  Anneliese stiffened. “Coble’s sands?” Her voice wavered, the words barely escaping as a tremor ran through her. In her mind, she felt Lascivious’s hands, ghostly and insidious, coaxing her back toward the pagan ways that had already brought her so much suffering.

  Weddle studied her, reading the flicker of old wounds behind her eyes—the unspoken reckoning that came with Coble’s sands and what accepting them would signify. “Sir Bradfrey means well,” he said gently, “but he’s out of his depth. Maybe I am too. But instinct is all we have now—and mine tells me Arcadius must be stopped.”

  “But I can’t leave them.”

  The black wolf nudged her, impatient, circling her as if urging her forward.

  “They, like so many others, are trapped between monoliths,” Weddle said. “Unable to see past their immediate horizon.” He pressed the sack into her palm. “But there is another way. Follow her,” he nodded to the wolf, “to the Temple of the Last. There, we can hold the coming terror at bay.”

  Anneliese hesitated. “And you?”

  “I must mend what I’ve broken,” Weddle said simply, biding his time until the night’s true spectacle began.

  Kulum announced himself with a roar, bare-chested despite the frigid mountain air. His sweat-slicked body gleamed in the firelight as he seized two outstretched vessels of mead, downing them through his mouth, his nose, and across his chest—to the wild cheers of his brethren. Around him, the spoils of their latest plunder spilled like the threads of a torn Persian rug, glinting with gold and jewel-encrusted heirlooms.

  Weddle, however, had little interest in the revelry. His gaze drifted to the camp’s edge, where two platinum-haired figures lounged against a stolen mule. They played the part of drunken loiterers, but their sharp, darting glances told another story.

  The twins.

  He approached with an easy smile. “Spry lads like yourselves—how have we not met before?”

  “I’m Gavin,” said the taller one, his voice smooth but guarded. “This is Gaiden.”

  Weddle reached into his pouch, drawing two crude wooden crosses. “Perhaps I can interest you in some wares?”

  Gaiden sneered. “Not interested.”

  “Anything valuable?” Gavin asked, fingers twitching toward the blade hidden in his boot.

  Weddle chuckled, leaning in as his voice dropped to a velvet whisper. “Oh no, no. But tell me—what would Amos do if he knew the battle mages were coming?”

  The color drained from Gavin’s face. His hand shot toward his dagger, but Gaiden caught his wrist.

  “What’s your game?” Gaiden asked.

  “No game,” Weddle said, his tone calm, his gaze cold. “Kulum is mine. But Sir Bradfrey… Tell him the decisive battle is upon us, and he is woefully unprepared.”

  The message was clear.

  Without another word, Gavin snatched the crosses, and the twins spurred their mule into motion. Weddle watched them go, his smile unwavering—a perfect mask for the torment roiling beneath.