As the chest took form, Victor looked around at the men and women who’d just joined his cause. “Perry, can you take some soldiers and secure the gate?”

“Aye, right away, Lord.” Perry called out several names and led a small group toward the courtyard. Victor nodded, looking around the crowd.

“Agnes, will you put together a list of troops for me? Everyone’s names, their level, and their particular talents? It’ll help me get your people placed with the proper units when the army arrives. Oh, and go ahead and pick out an assistant or two—we’ll need to catalog all the weapons and other loot you found on the dead wampyrs.”

“I can do that.”

Victor noticed her eyes linger on the chest by his feet, and he shook his head. “This one’s for me. I went through quite a bloodbath to earn this chest.” He spoke loudly, looking around the crowd, meeting the eyes of any who would dare. He wasn’t ashamed of claiming this prize, and if anyone objected, he’d love to hear their arguments. None did, however. In fact, most of the one-time thralls nodded enthusiastically to his declaration.

“Lord Victor?” Agnes spoke up, interrupting his perusal of the room and the expressions on the soldiers’ faces.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have an extra bit of paper and a writing utensil?” She looked almost embarrassed, and Victor felt stupid. These people had been little more than slaves before Dunstan had died, and then he’d come along and demanded they give up all the loot they’d scavenged.

He produced a notebook and an enchanted pen from one of his storage rings and handed it over. “Of course.” He almost asked her if she knew how to read and write, trying to imagine the kind of village she’d come from, a place where normal humans were allowed to live and have families but were treated as livestock to the wampyrs. He caught himself, though, deciding to trust that she’d say so if she couldn’t. Even so, he couldn’t help asking a tangential question, “You all had access to Energy, to cultivation and whatnot back on Dark Ember, right? I mean, back in your villages before Dunstan took you.”

“We did, to a degree, though Dunstan’s sheriffs saw to it that none of us grew powerful enough to pose a threat.”

“Well, that’s over now. At least for you all.”

“It is, but the thirst for vengeance burns in my throat. I hope you won’t send us far from the front, into some training camp or on garrison duty.” Victor could hear the ferocity in her words, saw the spark in her eyes, and knew she spoke the truth. It resonated in his chest, echoed the fury he’d once felt when he’d wanted to rip the arms off every baton-wielding mine employee.

“Don’t worry about that. If I have my way, you’ll be joining up with the Glorious Ninth—my army’s best cohort, and you’ll see plenty of action with them.”

Agnes nodded and smashed a fist to her chest before turning and calling out the names of her chosen helpers, striding out of the hall. Many of the others had already left, returning to the courtyard, perhaps to go up on the walls and witness the withdrawal of the sickly fog. The ones who’d remained were likely hoping to see something of the treasure he would pull from the chest, and Victor, too, was interested to see what he’d earned. He’d briefly considered setting aside whatever he got for the “campaign store,” but he’d decided he’d been selfless enough; it was time to take his due. He’d claim what he wanted and give the rest to the quartermaster for the store.

He bent to lift the hinged lid of the dark, metallic chest, watching as more sparkling, purple smoke escaped from the interior. It was odorless, that smoke, and when Victor waved it away, not a hint of it remained. It had simply dispersed into nothingness, much like the smoke left behind by his spirit fire did when it consumed the sacrifices he made to his ancestors. Peering into the open container, Victor saw only four items. An ornately carved silver spyglass sat beside a shimmering opalescent potion bottle, and next to that were two gold-foil-wrapped, apple-shaped objects.

“Hmm,” Victor said, reaching into the chest to retrieve the spyglass. It was small in his hand, only six inches long, but every square millimeter was delicately carved in whorls and tiny images, from flowers to stars to weird angular runes that, despite his System Language Integration skill, meant nothing to Victor. It was heavy for its size, and even from a distance, Victor could see the weird flickers of Energy and color within the lens.

He held the small end to his eye and pointed it at one of the former thralls at the other end of the great hall. The blurry image clarified almost instantly as the magical lens focused, and then the close-up view of the soldier changed slightly as a pale green halo took shape around her head. “Huh.” Victor pulled the spyglass away from his eye and then chose a new target, aiming his view at a burly man near the exit. Just as before, the glass focused quickly, and a soft, pale green halo appeared around his head. Victor pocketed the little scope, intent on experimenting with it further, then turned back to the chest.

He picked up the opalescent potion and, to his relief, found a handwritten label stuck to the bottom of the little bottle. “Vanderstahl’s Regenerative Tonic,” he softly read, raising an eyebrow. He’d, of course, learned about potions that could regenerate lost limbs and worse while he’d been in Coloss, and he wondered if this was just such an item. He nodded, pleased to have something like that to fall back on, and tucked it away in a storage ring. Next, he reached down and plucked up one of the foil-covered fruits.

The feel and heft served to confirm his theory; it felt just like an apple. He needn’t have wondered, however. Just as with the potion, he found a label affixed to the gold foil on the bottom of the fruit, reading, “Apple of Evolution.” The fruit had no odor, and he couldn’t sense any Energy within it, though he reasoned that could be because of the foil—it might be magical, designed to keep the fruit’s potency intact. He tucked them both into his ring, already making plans for what he’d do with them; he might have decided this chest’s rewards were his to claim, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t share.

While he’d been studying the final contents, he’d expected the chest to disappear, but it was still there when he glanced down. Wondering what he’d missed, he peered back inside to see the lining at the bottom hadn’t been just part of the container—it was another banner. When he lifted it out, the chest broke apart into purple, shimmering smoke and was gone. Victor hung the banner, exactly like the one he’d gotten at Old Keep, over his shoulder and walked outside. It wasn’t lost on him that he had an entourage of a dozen or so soldiers who seemed intent on following him around.

In the courtyard, he found Agnes and three others sitting around the pile of weapons and other loot, sorting them by type and apparent quality. Looking up on the ramparts, he saw Perry and a dozen or more other soldiers walking about, keeping watch. The skies were cloudy, though brighter, the unnatural fog having fled the keep's environs. Victor took a good, long, deep breath and nodded. He held out the banner in one big fist and said, “Someone take this and put it over the outer gates so my allies don’t mistakenly attack us.”

“Aye, Lord!” one of his hangers-on said, stepping forward to grab the big, silky cloth. Victor watched him hurry out of the courtyard, running through the baily toward the curtain wall, and then he let his gaze drift up to the big tower. “All right, let’s go see what this key will reveal.” He was talking to himself, mostly, or maybe Lifedrinker, but he realized the soldiers following him around thought he was speaking to them—several muttered their agreement, and they turned to the keep, hurrying to open the door for him.

Victor paused to look over the group of men and women. There were nine of them gathered near the door, watching, waiting for him to move or say something. He wasn’t sure how he felt about having an entourage escorting him around the new keep, but he didn’t know if he should even make a big deal about it. Maybe they were just bored. There wasn’t a lot going on while they waited for word from, well, anyone.

He’d hoped to find Kethelket outside when he emerged, but he hadn’t been surprised not to. He must have taken his people to rejoin the rest of their forces. Still, he’d hoped for some sign or signal from him, Valla, or even Rellia and Borrius. “Should have kept one of the command books for myself.” He looked up, noting the puzzled looks on those nearby, and asked, “How many days ago did I kill Dunstan?”

“Five days, Lord.”

“Five, sir!”

“Five days and nights have passed . . .” the third to answer trailed off as they all hurried to be the one to give him the news. Five days was a lot more than he’d thought, but he wasn’t too surprised. How many times had he passed out, had visions, and lost days or even weeks as his mind and body processed whatever weird thing he’d done to it? The news made Kethelket’s absence even more understandable.

“Right. I’ll be surprised if my people aren’t nearby, perhaps already watching the keep. Hopefully, we’ll get word when they see my banner on display. For now, I need you folks to help keep watch for them. Be sure to explain that I’m in the keep and that I’ll come to speak to them if any appear. Be aware that some can fly and may approach from the air. Don’t respond with violence! Spread the word.” Several of the group nodded and hurried off, but Victor wasn’t satisfied. “I only need one of you to stay with me. Someone who knows the way to the tower so I’m not wandering around this keep.”

“I will!” a young woman announced, glaring at the others until they nodded and began to shuffle off, a few with unhappy grumbles. Victor chuckled and examined his guide. She was an interesting-looking character. The sides of her head were shorn down to a black stubble, and the top hung in braids woven through with carved, wooden, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, bone loops. Her pale face was marked by dozens of deep, raised, red scars, and the hollows of her dark eyes were shaded by black paint. She looked fierce and sturdy, tall and broad-shouldered.

“What’s your name?”

“Nia, Lord.”

“All right, Nia. Lead me to the tower, please.” At his words, she turned and began to hurry through the keep. She led him up two flights of stairs, down several long corridors, and then through a heavy, polished door into another steep, winding stairway. Victor could tell they were in the tower by the nature of the curved walls and by peering through the occasional window. “Did Dunstan have this glass installed, or was it here?”

“I believe it was here, Lord.”

“You don’t have to say ‘lord’ whenever you speak to me. I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Very well.” She climbed steadily without tiring, and as they passed the first door on a short landing, she pointed to it. “Nothing much in there. Some old scraps of furniture.”

“Okay. You know the keep well?”

“Aye, from our time here as thralls and from the last few days scrounging for food and valuables.”

“Food . . . did you have to eat when you were thralls?”

“Lord, please forgive me, but I’d rather not dwell on my time under the curse. It’s a nightmare I’d soon put behind me, but to answer your question, we ate but sparingly; our bodies were changing, and we hungered for only one thing—the blood Dunstan’s wampyrs doled out to us.”

“Yeah, that’s shitty. We’ll get your bellies full of warm, good food soon.” He followed her up several more levels and then asked, “Do you have any idea what’s behind the door?”

“Likely something unholy. Dunstan kept it well guarded, and it resisted all our attempts to break it open. The door’s metal is magically warded and infused; we pounded and pried at it, but it mended itself faster than we could damage it. Some of the lads were thinking of chipping away the stone walls to get inside, but our explorations through the keep and catacombs kept us distracted.” She looked over her shoulder, her dark, shadowed eyes briefly locking with his. “Then you came along.”

“Do you resent me?”

“Resent? The one who freed us? The one who saved our very souls? Not in a million lifetimes, Lord.”

“What level are you, Nia? Forgive my bluntness.”

“I’m level twenty-four. I have the damned blood affinity of my former master, but I’ll be using it for healing. I swear on the graves of my mother and my baby sister, taken by the fiend that was my father.”

“Your father . . .”

“Aye. He was taken by Dunstan when I was a girl of twelve. He came back to visit us in Brook Hollow, the village where we lived when I was fifteen, and on that visit, he flew into a rage . . .” her voice grew quiet, her words trailing off.

“Forget it. I’m sorry I asked; I didn’t mean to open up old wounds.”

“Thank you, Lor . . . thank you.”

Victor let his mind wander down dark roads, imagining the lives of the people, the ordinary humans on Dark Ember, and their horrific existence. Despite his efforts to avoid it, despite consciously trying to keep the thought from forming, he found a part of himself beginning to wonder if he’d be satisfied with simply killing Prince Hector and driving the invaders out of Fanwath. He scowled, shaking his head. Hadn’t Victoria told him that Hector was a minor lord in the grand scheme of Dark Ember? Hadn’t she said the old ones, the truly powerful undying masters of that world, had been in power for hundreds of years, that they’d been ancient even before fleeing Earth? “Talk about biting off more than I can chew . . .”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing, Nia. Well, not nothing, but nothing I can really contemplate right now.” As he spoke, they rounded the final curve of the stairs, and there, before him, was an ornate, rune-inscribed, silver door with a big, four-pronged keyhole at its center. “Well, well. What’s hiding behind such a fancy door, I wonder.”

Nia moved to the side, taking up a position against the stone wall to the left of the door. Victor produced the heavy silver key and stepped forward to insert it into the weird slot. I sank home with a satisfyingly smooth series of clicks, almost like a magnet pulled it in. He slowly rotated the key, each quarter-turn eliciting a resounding click in the silver door. When he’d spun it through a full rotation, the door pulled away from the frame with a hiss of moist, warm air. “Woah, airtight.” Victor held an arm over his nose, troubled by the strange, musty, ripe air. It didn’t quite smell like decay or death, but it didn’t smell fresh.

Before he opened the door further, he listened, waiting to see what might reveal itself. The only sound to come to his ears was a faint ticking as the door’s metal began to contract, perhaps adjusting to the much cooler ambient temperature outside the interior room. Victor put a hand on Lifedrinker’s haft and pulled the door open with the other. When the steam wafted out of his eyes, and he focused on the weird, red-lit interior, he almost ripped her free from her harness and cast Iron Berserk.

The room was oval in shape and completely lined with the same rune-inscribed silver as the door he’d just opened. It was like a vault, almost, making Victor realize the former thralls never would have been able to break into it by chipping away the stone walls outside. A globe of red-veined crystal hung from the center of the domed ceiling, pulsing with crimson light, and beneath it was a silver chair. What had startled Victor and almost sent him into a violent rage was the naked, shriveled body of a man on the metal chair. He wore nothing save the same black stone crown that Victor had seen on the horrible wampyr, Dunstan.

Victor might have thought the wampyr had cheated death somehow, reconstituted himself in this chamber, if not for the gaping hole in the body’s chest where a heart should have been. Had Victor stopped the creature from resurrecting itself by eating its heart? If not the consumption of the flesh, had his destruction of part of its spirit disrupted the weird magic? Victor turned to Nia. “You know anything about this?” He moved to the side, making room for her so she could gaze within, and watched as her eyes widened in horror and a hand flew to her mouth. Her surprise seemed genuine.

“There were rumors, whispers that Dunstan was immortal, more than . . . usual for his kind. It’s certainly true that he was very old, though not as ancient as the great masters of Dark Ember.”

Victor jerked his chin at the metal door and the room beyond. “Was this silver chamber here when you all arrived?”

“I don’t think so, Lord. I was a lowly thrall, however—I know not what Dunstan brought from Dark Ember. I was set to watch the battlements almost from the moment we arrived. I do recall seeing the windows of this tower being filled in with stone, though.”

“Okay. Do me a favor and go to the stairs. Holler if you hear anyone coming.” Victor gestured around the curve of the tower to where the landing was. Nia hurried to fulfill his request, and he turned back to the door. He’d had a strange wave of paranoia when he thought about investigating the chamber, a spine-tingling wave of claustrophobia at the idea that someone might swing that silver door shut on him. With that in mind, he moved around to the front of the door and tried to remove the key, but it wouldn’t slide free in the open position.

Growling, Victor summoned his great bear totem with inspiration-attuned Energy. The monstrous creature stepped out of a cloud of shimmering, white-gold mist, a deep rumble of greeting in his throat. A yelp from the other side of him, near the stairs, told Victor that Nia had noticed his massive companion, so he called out, “Don’t worry; he’s here to watch my back, too.”

“As you say, Lord,” Nia’s voice came to him from beyond the bulk of his friend.

“Okay, hermano, you sit in front of that door and don’t let anyone close it on me, comprende?”

The bear huffed, pressing his enormous forehead down and into Victor’s shoulder, then he stepped back and ponderously laid down before the door. There was no way anyone was going to swing that thing shut without making a hell of a scene trying to move his companion. Nodding, Victor steeled himself and stepped into the weird, round chamber, ready to try to figure out the mystery of the humanoid corpse wearing Dunstan’s crown.