The storm brought flooding in the lands below. Thankfully, the beginning of the map’s plotted route brought them to the tip of the Chasm of Death, shielded from the cloud’s tears by a small gathering of tall cherry blossom oaks.

  Beion formed a small camp of tents at a nearby pond, sharing shelter with the frogs and ducks. He lit a fire with a magical spell, licking his finger and holding it to the wind. He moved the wagon to protect the fire from the gusts and then secured the carriage with a large white sheet, hammering each corner into the mud with nails longer than his arms.

  He brought the horses into the shelter of a small stable already built, only big enough to fit horses and nothing more.

  “You three just gonna sit and watch me do all the work,” Beion joked. “I know I said leave it to me… but I didn’t mean it entirely.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Vera teased. “I did all the hard work while we were in Hell… you can do a little, let a girl relax.”

  Death carried the giant log of a toppled, stripped tree on his shoulder. Snow was shocked, marvelling at Death’s strength as he effortlessly placed it and rolled it towards the fire. He placed a cloth on the mud and used it as a wall to put his back against.

  “The trees here are too thick to sit on. It’d be uncomfortable,” he said. “Fox, get the whelp from the wagon. Get an iron rod, I know we have some. We’ll put the carcass on a spit, Beion will fetch the sticks.”

  “Will Beion be giving you little princesses a foot massage with your meal too?” the demon jested. “Beion this. Beion that. You should be-on the lookout for any humans wishing to slaughter me.”

  Snow and Vera giggled at either side of Death.

  “Why is it so warm even if it’s storming?” Snow asked. “Feels like I’m on fire. I’ll get the meat.”

  The hound sizzled over the fire to a golden brown. Death carved the succulent meat from the bone and divided a loaf of thick bread into four, filling each quarter with meat, butter, carrot, and cabbage.

  “Mmmm, we should hunt hell-things more often,” Vera moaned. “Tastes better than boar.”

  Beion sat by Vera and took small bites of his sandwich. “You’ll find it bland the more you eat it. I find hound to be tasteless… a boar to me sounds heavenly.”

  “Shut up and eat,” Death grunted. “We won’t be staying here for too long. If Vunadeira’s map is true, then over that pile of rocks is the Dragon Chasm. I’d prefer it if we don’t get attacked by one of those fire-lizards before we’ve started moving.”

  Snow finished her meal first and crouched by the pond. She took off her winter clothing, covering her nipples and breasts with one hand as she dipped her coat into the water.

  “What are you doing?” Death asked. “You can’t wear that now that you’ve drenched it in water. You’ll freeze during our journey.”

  “It’s too warm up here. This coat stinks of lots of things, I’ll wash it and travel shirtless until it dries.”

  “We’re in a storm,” Death scoffed. “It’s not going to dry.”

  “Then you’ll have to see me shirtless for a long while. I don’t know what you’re complaining about… I remember you enjoyed seeing them and holding them when we first met.”

  Beion respectfully lowered his eyes.

  “I can’t have you freezing to death.” Death stood and searched the wagon, struggling to get inside due to the sheet covering it. He came out with two linen shirts, one red and one black. “You need to have something on.”

  Vera removed her shirt too, teasing Beion with a giggle as she raised a hand for Death to toss her one of the shirts. “I want the red one!” she yelled.

  He tossed her the black one. “You’re red enough as it is, fox. Put that on and hide your chest.”

  Snow removed her hand that covered her breast and winked. “Are you sure you want me to put that on?” she asked. “It’s not cold. I can stay like this for you as long as you want.”

  Death’s attention was on a blossom tree in the distance. He gave it to Snow silently. She let her chest lacing hang loos for Death to admired as they travelled. Vera pulled hers tight, although there wasn’t anything to see regardless.

  “Keep your shirt on,” Death ordered. “This is not a time to joke and tease.”

  “Aww, why?” Snow pouted. “I like being naked for you.”

  Death pulled his sword and aimed it high. “We have a visitor skulking about at the top of a tree who thinks I can’t look upward.”

  Clanking metal caught their attention as a man in armour fell from a tree and landed in the mud below.

  “Knight hiding in the trees!” Vera yelled. “Rapist Knight! Quick Snow, take off your shirt again and dance as a distraction while the rest of us escape!”

  “What?! Why me? You do it!”

  Death and Beion took the front and kept the others behind them.

  “My friends, I am peaceful!” the stranger claimed. “I did not mean to stalk or scare; I didn’t know how to make myself known! I was already in the tree, resting, when you came through your Hell portal!”

  “Rapist Knight!” Vera repeated. “Spying on naked girls at the top of the Chasm of Death! You’re fuckin’ weird!”

  “Please do not call me Rapist Knight, I am begging you. That is not a name I want to be remember by.”

  “Silence, Rapist Knight!” Snow added, summoning Firedick. “I don’t like that you saw my chest! How dare you!”

  The stranger held up a finger, begging for one second of patience before their conversation. He fell into the mud several times, trying to remove the belts at the back of his frog-head helm that held three pink feather plumes atop the back. His helmet caught on his pointed pauldrons, making him struggle further.

  When he finally ended his embarrassment, he shown he was a young, brown-haired man, pretty like a maiden. His armour was a simple steel plating, chainmail at the joints, with pink underneath. His cape was made of pink feathers, although the mud had made it green and brown. Beneath his armour, a black gambeson tunic.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I swear to you, I wasn’t staring at any of you,” he promised. “I have a wife of my own, bearing my second child as we speak. I would never disrespect the ring beneath my gauntlets.”

  “Rapist Knight, tell us your name!” Vera ordered.

  He shown his hands, then took out his sword, lowering it to the ground. “My name is Ser Shimmer Barstan of Dastane, a Knight of Roses. I serve the Council of Fate.”

  Fate? I hate that word, Death thought. Nothing good follows the mention of it, ever.

  “Bunch of horseshit!” Snow accused. “Those pink feathers let you blend in pretty well with the trees!”

  “And the borders are strict!” Vera added. “You’d have no way to get through the Vaelirian Bloods! I hear the walls are thick and riddled with guards on our side of the Dastane border!”

  “I didn’t go through the walls,” Ser Shimmer claimed. “I have been travelling for months through the mountains… the owls, the Voiceless One, they brought me here. I think it has something to do with this.” He pulled a letter protected inside his breastplate. “The owls never lie. This letter must be for you.”

  “It could also be laced with poison,” Beion said. “One that goes in the skin when you touch it.”

  Ser Shimmer removed one gauntlet, showing them his wedding ring, then put the letter in his bare hand. “I don’t deceive, my friends, I follow the will of the Voiceless One.”

  “Are you an enemy?” Vera asked.

  “I come as a humble visitor. The only enemies I have are the ones that I choose, and I choose to have none.” He tried to change the conversation to something nearby, wishing to build trust. “Have you had a peek into the Dragon Chasm? Tumulus is beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “She sends dragons to attack towns,” Vera snarled.

  “That doesn’t make her any less beautiful. All living things are made to be beautiful… even if their purpose is only to slaughter.”

  Snow lowered her weapon. “Were you not cold travelling up the mountain in nothing but armour?”

  “I have a coat on my horse. I wish it was thicker, I regret not bringing one for a storm like this.”

  “Ah, I wondered why there was another horse in that stable,” said Beion. “Makes sense now.”

  “There was another horse and you didn’t tell us?” Death asked the demon. “Do you not think it would’ve been wise to tell me?”

  “Yes. I regret that I didn’t.”

  “Eh, we all have our regrets,” Vera snickered. “I killed both my parents. That’s a real regret.”

  “I admit you have me trumped, bravo,” Ser shimmer said. “The thickness of a fibre compared to a regretful murder. Close battle, I almost had you.”

  “I like this guy,” said Vera. “I suppose he’s not here to rape us.”

  The young knight shook the letter still in his hand. “You must take this and read.” He pointed at a calm owl. “The Voiceless One shows approval. You must be the ones I am meant to meet.”

  He said he was travelling for a while, Death remembered. I’ve only been unsealed for a short time. I hate fate.

  Death calmly took the letter, ordering his companions not to approach Ser Shimmer.

  “I intercepted this long ago. It was a dove, flying over southern Dastane, chased by owls.”

  The contents of the letter gave me questions than answers. It was a letter to the Kans, written in a way that suggested a heavy hand held the quill. Misspellings, grammar mistakes, wobbly lines on each sentence, but the intention was clear—an invitation to war at the northern border, a claim that Runaya Rall, Prince Stroke’s lover, had been kidnapped by Kan Lumi. The timing of the letter didn’t make sense.

  Whoever wrote this letter had knowledge that the girl from the ritual was going to be kidnapped…

  “The writing is Prince Harren’s,” Ser Shimmer explained. “I was given a vision by the Voiceless One of it entering the hand of Killian Entrail.”

  “You saw him give it to the brute?” Death asked. “The man has one arm. Any could write a wobbly letter and claim it as his.”

  “Well… no. The vision only shown Killian—”

  “It is either the prince, or someone pretending to be him.”

  Snow snatched the letter, showing Beion and Vera. “Why would someone impersonate the prince?” Snow asked. “Runaya is a pretty name. I feel sorry for her. Her death was painful.”

  “Princess Runaya is dead?” Ser Shimmer said sadly. “Oh… this day brings sadness. I met her once at the coast of Dastane. Stroke had brought her to a beach in secret. She was a rare kindness. I’d go as far as to say that small moment would earn me the title of friend in her eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Snow squeaked.

  “None the matter.” Ser Shimmer hid a stray tear. “The owls have brought me here for a purpose. I believe that purpose is fulfilled. I shall depart once the owls give me a direction.” He looked up to the owl, who gave a hoot and nothing more. “Or perhaps for now, this place is my purpose.”

  “Do you have gifts?” Death asked.

  “No. My gift is my life, my ability to breathe, my ability to hold a sword in my hand. I was gifted the chance to win; I was gifted the chance to lose. I am lucky. Living is the best gift of all.”

  “Are you a knight?” Vera asked stupidly.

  Snow elbowed her playfully in her rib. “Of course he’s a knight. His name is Ser Shimwim.”

  “Ser Shimmer,” he corrected. “But yes. I am a knight.”

  “A hopeful not,” Beion added. “Not like the rest.”

  “Ah, you too see the degeneracy? It is strange. Many souls of the lands have minds brimming with sin. Not me, my dear friends, I am different.”

  “Can you knight us?” Snow asked gleefully.

  “You’ve done nothing worthy to be a knight,” Beion said. “You have to be—”

  “Of course I will knight you,” Ser shimmer exclaimed. “I follow the ideals of the late Lorik Dastane, the one he set before the Battle of Human Hell. Life is to be experienced the way you wish it! All those that deserve to be knighted, deserve knighthood.”

  Snow rushed to her knees in front of Ser Shimmer, resting her infernal blade in the mud.

  “Be careful,” Death warned, still holding his sword up. “You’ve only just met the man.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Snow said. “He follows the Voiceless One!”

  “How do you feel about cambions and hybrids?” Beion asked Shimmer.

  “My nation once fought at their side. I condemn their treatment. As for hybrids, of course I hold no hatred for their adorableness. I will happily knight both you and the hybrid.”

  Vera knelt too. Beion, feeling isolated, knelt into the mud too.

  “C’mon Death, you’ve gotta be a knight too!” Vera yelled. “Get on your knees and come be a knight!”

  “I would rather die,” Death scoffed.

  Ser Shimmer asked their names. They answered at the same time, but he caught all of them.

  “Vera. Beion. Snow. Do you swear that under the eyes of the gods you shall live by your code of honour?”

  “I do,” they said.

  “Do you swear that your judgement is just and fair, that you’ll fight for what you think is right?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you swear to live your life as you will it? Do you swear to fight the battles you choose, love who you love?”

  “I do.”

  He tapped each of their shoulders with his sword. “You fell to the mud as servants to your nation. Now, rise, as knights of your own destiny. Ser Beion. Ser Vera. Ser Snow. Stand proud.”

  “Haha, bastards!” Vera yelled. “You’ve gotta call me Ser Vera for the rest of my life! I want my feet massaged after every walk!”

  “We’re knights too!” Snow yelled. “We don’t have to give you a thing! Beion can do it!”

  “I am not doing a thing,” Beion laughed. “I hate feet.”

  “Death ain’t a knight, he can rub our feet!” Vera said

  “I will not,” Death scoffed. “Nor will I call any of you ‘ser’ in our travels. We have some meat left if you want a meal, Shimmer of Dastane, then you will be on your way.”