Martha Bell breathed in the fog seeping through the shutters of the house, an old place by the Knuckle Alley that hadn’t seen much use for the last few years. She breathed in the fog, then turned and smiled widely across the living room.

Red eyes gleamed in the dark as the Hemlings faced her.

“This is a celebration,” Martha said, gently opening the shutters of the room and revealing the blood moon hanging clear over the sky. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other women preparing the needles.

There were nine of them.

All mothers of the Hemlings.

“The Crimson Matron heard our pleas.” Martha swept her gaze across the room and saw in the eyes of her companions the unmistakable glint of worship. “Gave us the children we never had, granted life from our withered and sinful souls. And now, a price must be paid to the Reverend Mother of Venerable Fates.”

The women crackled with laughter as they inched toward the nine Hemlings that stood in the middle of the living room, bound by chains and hissing through jagged teeth. Rot and pus dripped down from their skin.

Martha looked at her own son, the copper needle clasped tight in her hand. She was blessed to feel the sacred reaches of motherhood thanks to the Veiled Mother. She was lucky to cherish this feeling before death claimed her, and even now, as she was about to sacrifice her child for the purpose, she felt no regrets.

Leaning down, she caressed the disheveled hair of her child. Telly looked like a five-year-old now. Hemlings grew faster than normal children. He liked to eat dirt and munch on bones, and play with the other Hemlings when he wasn’t hugging the skirt of his mother as she put him gently to sleep.

“You must die, my Telly,” Martha said, raising the needle clasped in her palm. Telly’s crimson eyes blinked at her. “You must die, but you mustn’t worry, for when the Veiled Mother descends upon our sinful lands, she will take us all to her endless bosom. Die now, Telly. Sleep.”

She caught Telly’s hair with her free hand, heard him hiss in protest. Foolish child. Ignorant as to what this truly represented. The others were the same. Martha saw her companions struggle against their children, but once they sucked deep breaths from the fog seeping through the shutters, they handled the Hemlings with ease.

Needles stabbed at their throats, spattering dark, murky blood across the old tiles of the house. Choked screams and faint wheezing of the children resounded between the walls as Martha pulled herself, smiling, back to the windows.

“A needle to pierce, not mend,” Martha said, bloody fingers stinging dully. “Drawing blood from the children’s throats for all the labor the Mother has gone through raising them. A price has been paid, but this doesn’t end with us.”

Martha took in the expectant faces of her companions.

“No, this is just the beginning,” she said, looking out toward the blood moon.

……

Harlow poured himself, wincing, over the couch, rubbing at the bloody hangers of his that stung and ached like bastards. He’d been working them overtime, he knew, but then, the number of Miners had been dwindling after that sickness killed a number o’ them, and that greedy bastard of a company agent refused to ease down the quota of manastones.

Somebody had to work, then, and Harlow happened to be one sorry fool who couldn’t get away from this shit-hole town of Brackley. He had no family about him. No friends to be about, either. No nothing but this business he’d spent his life working on.

Too late to change that, he reckoned. Too late to do a damn about it.

At least the simplicity of the work returned after that group o’ Templars handled the thing inside the mountain. Them, and that Healer who breathed life into these hangers of Harlow. Bless him, and bless him with light, alright. He might’ve even considered leaving his pipe for a few days just to get him here and do another session on these legs.

Harlow sighed and lay his head on the couch. Sleep was the last thing he had. Sleep would help him deal with a number o’ things.

Then the bloody mountain rocked him to the core. A tremor ran through the wooden tiles of the hut, rattling the cage of his chest, sending him crashing down to the floor. He gave an ‘Ah’ as he floundered to his feet, reached for the crutches, and pulled himself out of the house, frowning out into the mountain.

The tip of the damn thing was burning, the peak busy with churning clouds. The upper half of the mountain seemed like it’d been cut short, Blessed Father knew how long ago, and now there was a fire burning there. When he squinted, the whole mine looked almost like a candle stub meant to illuminate this part of the world.

“What’s that little light good for, eh?” he lamented. “You’re one small candle if you want to lighten up the whole Haven’s Reach.”

He shook his head. The mountain had a nasty side, he knew, so best to leave it alone. Leave it alone and go back to sleep.

Yes, let the sleep work some things for him.

He had not much else to go about here.

……

Marcus stuffed his shirts into the bag. He took the old watch of his father and wrapped the chains around his hand, stepped aside, and peered at the window. Clad in all black this evening, as Lightmaster ordered. They were to take only essentials with them for this occasion.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The whole mansion was alive as the Duality Guild’s men prepared for the journey. There was something exciting about the notion of facing your First Trial. Crossing it would mark one as a Proven. No more the abandoned Warrior he would be. No, he would become a man of his own, a true Wing of the Order of Zodros.

He pulled his sword from the side, strapped it to the belt and underneath his coat. Weather was always cold in the Broken Lands. Cold and filled with the murmurs of the Tainted Father, he was told.

“We need to move,” came Sarek’s voice from the hallway. “The Gate is about to be opened.”

Marcus frowned when he heard the man. Something was wrong about him today. After word came from the Lightmaster, the lawyer had changed—and changed for the worse, Marcus feared.

Still, he took the bag with one hand, giving himself another look at the mirror. A weak man’s face peered back from inside of it. A coward’s face, one that had been failed back in his youth.

That was about to change.

Marcus walked out into the hall.

“Why?” Celme was asking a few paces ahead, head jutting out of the room and scowling at the lawyer’s face. “I thought we were meant to go there tomorrow. Why the sudden rush? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

“Lightmaster gave his orders,” Sarek said, blinking round at the woman’s face before wiping his forehead. Sweat. Why would he sweat? “We have to move. He’s waiting.”

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Celme said. Hot-headed as ever, being the Berserker she was. She would hear the reason of it even if it meant going against Lightmaster’s orders. “Tell me, or I will make sure the men stay here before—”

“She’s coming,” Sarek said, rubbing his hands. “We don’t have much time.”

“Who is coming?” Celme demanded.

“The Mother who missed her children!” came a sudden voice that stilled the movement around the hallway. Mr. Gray appeared at the end of the hallway, a beaming smile wide on his lips. When all the heads turned to him, he raised a finger to his lips and gestured at them to stay silent. “She doesn’t know yet. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Marcus paused when he saw the red threads wrapped around Mr. Gray’s hand, and his frown deepened as he squinted up toward the hall. Everywhere around the walls were those red threads.

They were staying here for the night since they would be using Mr. Gray’s Gate tomorrow, but Marcus didn’t remember seeing them before. Was the hallway always this colorful?

“Somebody had to do it,” Mr. Gray said, smiling at them as he showed them the red threads. “Always good to take part in a momentous effort, don’t you think?”

“What is the meaning of this?” Celme questioned.

“Go,” Mr. Gray said, and threw the red threads in the air like a little child. “Go before it’s too late. Belgrave is about to witness history!”

……

First, he felt the poke of the needles across his back. Then came a sudden burn in the stomach, as though wax dripping down his skin. Followed by the tightness round his neck. Down near the left wrist, he felt the silken touch of linen, slick with blood. When he opened his eyes, he saw the water pooled over the ground of the cell, reflecting the ceiling but not him.

The mirror lay inverted.

Jack blinked.

Down through his throat, he tasted the stench of milk gone sour. It trickled a painful way toward his belly and burned him from within. He tugged at the chains binding him to the back wall as the sensation sent a searing pain up his head. They didn’t budge. Here underneath the Golden Cathedral, the Templars took good care of him.

It wouldn’t be enough.

He reached with his mind to feel it.

It started with the first stone coin placed in the Necromancer’s Rift by that Undead, followed by the Weeping Horror’s Rift, and continued on until there were seven of them. Seven different voices, pulling at his heart.

From the darkness of the cell came the picturesque echo of a sound. In his mind’s eye, Jack saw the painting of a young man, cursed with eternal youth. The eighth voice was here, which left only one missing.

His skin prickled with excitement. He remembered nothing, but the skin never lied. He was right.

This was happening.

Mist began seeping through the bars of the ceiling. Heavy mist, strangling the breaths out of his chest, chilling him to the bone, coiling round the chains and eating into them. One by one, the metal rings broke, and Jack fell from where he was hanged down to the pool of water.

Everywhere around him were voices.

‘Mistress!’

‘Cruel Mistress!’

‘Save us…’

‘Mother!’

Jack prostrated himself over the ground, forehead banging hard to the cold stone. Warm blood trickled from the nape of his neck, stinging dully in the back of his mind, but he stayed silent.

She was here.

The cruel mistress.

“It’s morning. The time has come. The fog has seeped already deep enough,” the ethereal voice said—the same one who entrusted that book to him. “The ritual has been prepared, and it misses only the last part. Ashes belonging to the Ancients, or something they owned before.”

Two thuds sounded. Jack caught, out of the corner of his eye, the two books thrown before him.

Veil and Resonance.

It was when the mist began receding that something in his mind revolted. Jack clenched his teeth together and pulled his head up as he peered across the mist. There in the thick shroud was a woman’s figure, painfully slim, looking heavenly merciful. She had no face, but she needed none, for the fog was her and she was its Mistress.

“Promise!” Jack growled as a painful memory stabbed at his brain. This face didn’t belong to him. It was given by the woman. His name… He didn’t remember, but it wasn’t Jack, he was sure of it. “My sister. I will make right what is wrong. I promised!”

The mere act of speaking under her presence was haunting, but he rose against her and raised one of his fingers. His nails had grown. The Templars didn’t feel a need to cut them. He was caught and nailed to the stone—a simple killer who had his memories missing.

But that wasn’t true, was it? Jack felt a little sting as the point of his finger drilled into his chest. Slowly, he lowered it as he carved his chest wide open. Blood poured down from the wound, spattering through his legs.

It wasn’t his blood.

It didn’t hurt shedding another man’s skin.

“She’s here, in Belgrave,” the woman said, her figure blurry in the midst. “Staying with someone who shouldn’t have existed. Such is Fate, I suppose. Such is the price of playing this dangerous game. Do what you were told if you want her to live. Complete the ritual, lest you lose her to the hands of that Ancient being.”

He nodded as the woman vanished through the fog. He wiped the blood over his wound and revealed new skin. Taking himself out from this false body took him precious time, but when he did it, the old memories rushed to him.

Selin, he remembered, carrying the curse of the Fate. He lost her when they took her away. Lost himself after she was gone and became the pawn of the Endless Mist.

No more, he reminded himself. After this ritual was done, he would take her to the Land of the Fated. There, they would live under the eternal grace of the Crimson Matron. There, he hoped, they would be safe forever.

He leaned down and placed the books by the pool of water. It was stained red now, but it didn’t matter. He scraped the nails of his fingers across their surfaces, and sparks came alive with the effort. They spattered over the books in a small fire. Burnt them to ashes.

There was one thing left to call the Mother.

He dipped his hands into Jack’s blood. There was enough of it pooled underneath the shredded skin. He began drawing on the ground of the Golden Cathedral—the center point of the ritual, the place where everything aligned into a perfect whole.

He began drawing on the ground, and slowly the Eye of the Mother of Venerable Fates took form in an honest man’s blood.

....