The sensation of locking oneself inside a vault without a clear path to exit should have been more unsettling to Risens than his present discomfort. He expected there to be some mechanism hidden within the chamber that would have allowed escape if the door were to close unexpectedly. He doubted the vault would have been so readily used were there to be a chance that it could become a tomb.

  For him, it mattered not. The wavering black face of the portal to the Barren would remain open until he chose to close the rift that supplied access to his isolated island floating in the void.

  Alone in the Gilded Cage, Risens spent little time sifting through paperwork. The timeless expanse of his newfound home in the Barren would be a more apt fit for the considerable effort required to dig through the volumes of documents, files, and ledgers. What other untold secrets were hidden among the carefully organized pages were yet to come to light.

  It took only a cursory investigation to find wealth beyond his imagining. Piled casually in a large, sturdy chest beneath one of the desks, he encountered a supply of gold bars that would have made even the King raise a brow. Risens was no petty thief. He’d never robbed for the sake of greed or necessity. In his station, personal finances were of no concern as the endless coffers of the Kingdom of Halthome covered every need.

  With his fall from grace expected, though not yet confirmed, he now counted the finances secreted before him to be his. There was no longer an expectation that he would receive the unwavering support of the castle. The waxy seal that embellished a note he’d found on the assassin Korpis’s body was as unmistakable as it was unforgeable.

  It was the King himself who had given the orders to kill the Rightmaker.

  Had he given it to the assassins in person or had he tasked Fendri with the duty? What reward did they seek to reap from his demise?

  Questions he knew would be answered soon, likely at the tip of a blade.

  Risens found little of interest in the initial scanning of the documents. Judging by the titles that denoted every section, his gaze ran quickly over the trove of deeds, day-to-day finances, general administration, and running of the estate and lands that the Lady had commanded. All locations that now belonged to the King, at least in word.

  There was no way for Lathrenon to police or even monitor all of the Lady Myrenas’s holdings. The King’s army was vast, yet he would not risk spreading them thin by maintaining dozens, if not hundreds, of Dreamcatcher locations throughout Halthome. He doubted that the crown, with all of its wealth and spies, even knew of all the sites. Their information, or more aptly, lack thereof, regarding the clandestine group highlighted the glaring cracks in the overarching facade of omniscience that the castle maintained. Risens collected one of the rolled documents, carefully unfurling the yellowing parchment.

  Monte Garo was scrolled in an elaborate and careful script across the top of the page. He knew the modest, unassuming estate tucked neatly within the Center Ward well. It was only a few blocks from the late Duke Karieas’s complex. Confirmed by the official, certified seal of the crown on the paperwork, this structure, along with all others, was now his possession.

  The yellowing scroll signified one thing: Power.

  Risens removed one of the drawers from the cabinet. They began what he expected to be an arduous process of moving the volumes of information from the Gilded Cage to the solitude of his discrete home. With the heavy drawer in hand, his thoughts traveled to where, among the haggard structure, he would store the wealth of paperwork, finding nowhere beside the corner of the room that would suffice at the moment.

  The interior had once again changed since his original visit, when nothing but a broken-down pallet, a long, cold hearth, and doorways graced the space. After his first return from the Under, the pedestal that now contained the tears of the Under had grown in the center of the chamber. The bed and chest had materialized after his second visit. Now, the side of the bed was lined with large bookshelves, perched atop cabinets built into the far wall, a simple desk wedged between them.

  He grinned. Risens needed storage for the records, and the Barren had provided.

  He chose not to waste any effort filing the information in the cabinets, content to merely deposit the heavy drawer on the floor. There would be time to sort them later. The spark of curiosity propelled him back through the portal. In a blink, he found himself back where he expected, inside the Gilded Cage, and the reality of the daunting task ahead dawned on him.

  Risens had no way of knowing what he would discover. Whether the secrets scratched on each page were of value or merely recordings of daily activities and trivial tasks would be something he would determine later. He worked to remain diligent as he carted the information through the doorway to the Barren. The stacks and piles on the floor grew steadily,and he tried to maintain some semblance of the filing system that had been implemented in the Cage. The late Lady Myrenas was no fool, and her decisions had likely been made with purpose.

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  After a dozen trips, burdened with heavy loads of paperwork, a light sheen of sweat had formed across his brow. Only the cabinet where he’d found the tome of the Dreamcatchers remained. It was the wall above the final cabinet that now commanded his attention.

  Thus far, he’d only given the map, set in a large wooden frame, a cursory inspection. Risens now scanned the features, recognizing the kingdom of Halthome with ease. Pins of different colors were spread across the kingdom, tacked into the map with purpose. The threads of connection quickly pulled taut in his mind. These were likely markings used to identify Lady Myrenas’s considerable holdings. His focus hardened as he followed the coastline to the south.

  Near the King’s fortress at Pearlview, a small, red pin stuck out just to the north of the guarded estate. A name was missing from the page. One that he’d only just recently seen crossed out of the official record.

  Hazelglen.

  It was the village mentioned in the pages he’d stolen from the tome of the Dreamcatchers, and connected to the Rightmaker—to him—in ways he had yet to understand. Perhaps concealed amongst the Lady’s holdings, he could find the information he desired. Would the truth of his origin be hidden within the pages? He doubted so, yet the whisper of curiosity remained.

  The map was the last of the items he pulled from the Gilded Cage. Crossing back into the silence of the Barren, he leaned it against the wall overlooking the piles of paperwork that spread out like parchment mountain ranges across the floor.

  Returning to the vault for a final time, he made one last thorough check of the cabinets and desks. They were all empty save for the dust accumulated throughout the years. He’d scoured them for hidden compartments, unsurprisingly finding none. Behind the nearly impenetrable security of the sealed vault, further hiding spaces seemed like a redundant security measure. Satisfied that he’d left no stone unturned, he knew that only one last task remained incomplete.

  He returned to the Barren, gathered a bundle of vials from the chest at the foot of his bed, and returned to the Cage.

  It turned out the lingering sense of worry that had weighed on him as he locked himself in the Gilded Cage was unfounded. A discrete plate, built into the stone wall, housed a lever. With a gentle pull, the giant metal door slid silently into the wall. Unsurprisingly, no sounds of alarm issued from within the entranceway to Lady Myrenas’s vault.

  Bodies lay motionless where Risens had sealed their fates. They had paid the price for their sins. Only the muted patter of dripping blood interrupted the quiet of the chamber.

  Risens felt the tingle of the lingering magic as he crossed through the invisible barrier of the silencing ward into the unaltered space of the estate beyond.

  It was clear that no patrols had continued their circuit of the grounds, nor had any ventured indoors to relieve their companions laboring inside. Pandemonium would have sounded. With only the hushed whisper of the wind pulling through the halls, Risens ascended the spiral staircase, exiting on the first floor, where he had first met Aleth, where he had discovered the makeshift tomb of the servants.

  Society would grant them no parades of death. None of the vibrant colors would dance through the streets in celebrations of lives lost. It was up to him to do the deed. The avenues of Windwake would remain unknowing, though he would make sure the pyre would burn bright enough, large enough for all to witness.

  Steeling himself against the foul odor that permeated through the poor seal of the chamber door, Risens pushed his way into the impromptu crypt. He stopped a pace inside, the glow of moonlight through the meager window at the top of the far wall illuminating glimpses of the grizzly scene before him. Heat rushed to his face as anger swelled through his veins.

  With a groan, he heaved the vial he’d collected into the room as hard as his muscles would allow. The solid glass enclosure holding the magical essence shattered as it struck the rear wall. Free from the glass constraining its power, alchemical fire flared with a blinding orange light as it sprayed across the walls and corpses that littered the floor like water.

  Hastening from the incineration, he rushed through the hall and ascended the stairs at a cautious sprint until he reached the upper floor. He ducked into the council chamber that had held the secret meeting during the evening festivities to find that the opulent grace and character of the vaulted room had been reduced to piles of timber, stone, and rubble. The elaborate tapestries had been ripped to tatters, books and their shelves, broken flotsam. Study furniture that had weathered the ages was now naught but kindling. The shattering of glass preceded the flare of light and the splashing of fire.

  Alchemical essence, freed from the vial that housed it, was notoriously hungry and difficult to contain once it spread. A magus alone was the appropriate means to mitigate the greedy flames. He doubted that there would be a second standing idly by or that one of the haute magicians would have lowered themselves to patrolling the grounds. The nearest to respond would likely still be tucked comfortably away in the castle. There would be no saving the estate by the time they could respond.

  Lengthening his strides, Risens rushed down the spiral staircase, entering the silence outside the Gilded Cage for what he knew would be the last time. Slipping back into the vault, he turned his head, calling out the words in the cadence and tone of Lady Myrenas.

  “To dreams go the raven.”

  The impenetrable door responded with a quiet groan before sliding shut behind him.

  Inside the Barren, he knew that time would pause the crackling flames eating away at Lady Myrenas’s estate. His return would harken the destruction that would consume the place in its entirety. Good riddance.

  For a moment, he wondered what would become of the Gilded Cage. When the rest of the structure was reduced to ash and rubble, he expected it would remain buried under the wreckage, oblivious to the mayhem that surrounded it.

  “Let the King labor to excavate its secrets.”