the red tower had fallen. the magisters had been rooted from their place of power, and dozens upon dozens of them had fallen to the undead horde.

    tyron strode through the corridors, his eyes hard and heart afire. for so long, he had imagined this moment, hoped for it, envisioned it, burned for it. to see it manifest before his eyes was satisfying beyond words. he had brought some small measure of justice to the killers of magnin and beory. it was but a tiny fraction; the work was not nearly done. the noble houses still stood, the duke behind them, and the empire as a whole behind him. above it all, the five divines, false gods sitting in their own plane over this one, the chief architects of his family’s downfall.

    no, he wouldn’t be done until all of them had paid the ultimate price, but for so long, he had feared he would fail without achieving anything.

    “i have to give you credit,” filetta said when she found him on the staircase. “i didn’t think you’d manage this.”

    “so you’ve said.”

    “no, i mean it. you’ve done something no one thought was possible. at this rate, you might actually succeed in bringing down the entire province! do you understand how insane that is?”

    “this is only the beginning,” he promised her. “after this, i’ll bring down the other provinces, one by one, and then the empire as a whole will crumble.”

    then the gods themselves.

    filetta hesitated.

    “but what about the people?” she asked him. “there are millions and millions of people living in the empire. what will happen to them?”

    “that’s up to them,” tyron said, gaze hard. “for now, we need to focus on finishing the work. there’s still one part of the tower we haven’t cleaned out.”

    his wight nodded reluctantly before falling in alongside him.

    “the place where they manage the gold rank curses, right? how does that even work? i thought the curse was just... branded onto people and then did its thing. what do they need to do here?”

    tyron explained as he walked. his left hand still flexed regularly, the threads of magick keeping his heart pumping, his right hand gripping the staff his mother gave him.

    “for bronze and silver slayers, they don’t have to do anything. the brand is burned into the flesh, but the curse itself takes root on the soul. it draws energy from the person it''s attached to in order to fuel itself, but for golds, that isn’t enough. the brand and its curse aren’t enough to supply... sufficient pain. for anyone who reaches gold, their brand is upgraded, but also an accompanying talisman is made which acts as a conduit.

    “the magisters can use them to trigger the brand, and also pump additional magick through them in order to amplify the pain the curse can inflict. without this additional feature, it wouldn’t be enough to keep such powerful people in line.”

    “that sounds... unpleasant,” filetta stated.

    “my parents were higher than gold rank, but even they weren’t immune to the brand. i can only imagine how badly their souls were twisted to accommodate the curse, and just how much power the magisters spent trying to force them to kill me.”

    the necromancer’s face and manner had become increasingly grim as he explained the grisly process. to have such a thing done to his family members must have been beyond horrifying. not for the first time, filetta was confronted with the dreadful reality faced by so many in the empire.

    “you know, when i was a thief growing up by the docks, slayers seemed like a mythical existence to me. so powerful and free, fighting to keep us all safe. they were distant and far away, except for the golds, but we would never go near them. they were heroes, each as powerful as a god. i’m starting to realise they weren’t any more free than i was.”

    her attention turned elsewhere, turning her head to stare beyond the wall to her right as she listened to something beyond human senses.

    “there’s someone outside trying to sneak in,” she told him. “some of the scouts spotted them in the shadows.”

    “it’s about time people started to filter back to the tower,” tyron grunted. “bring everyone inside and barricade the entrance. we have to hold until i’m able to break the gold curses.”

    “you don’t seem as confident,” filetta said to him, noticing the grim cast to the necromancer’s features. “is there a problem?”

    he scowled at her, irritated that someone would doubt his abilities.

    “i’ve never been to this section of the tower,” he told her. “it’s a place they wouldn’t let any outsider touch, no matter their level of skill. which means i’ll have to break the no doubt rigorous defences one by one. i can do it, but it’s going to take time. only when that process is complete can i actually enter the vault where they’re stored and try to figure out the best way to destroy them.”

    feolin shook her head and sighed.

    “i create magickal fire. when the magick goes away, so does the fire i made. if the heat creates any other fires, then those are outside of my control. i can’t just...” she waved a hand, “vanish flames.”

    “did you kill them all?” a voice called from behind them. from well behind them.

    macrielly raised a brow and feolin rolled her eyes before she called back to berod.

    “we haven’t checked inside the crematorium, but there don’t seem to be any left in the streets.”

    “someone else can worry about that. get back here now,” the magister demanded.

    the two slayers looked at each other before they walked back to their ‘handler,’ a profound look of disgust washing over macrielly’s features.

    “we’ve done what we were asked to do,” he said flatly. “emergency dealt with. ghosts and zombies dead. we’re going back to the gold district.”

    “no,” berod said, “you aren’t. the emergency is far from over. we will head to the red tower immediately to deal with a threat to public safety.”

    there was something off about the red-robed mage. he looked even more nervous than before, visibly sweating and frequently glancing back to the tower. after a moment, he realised that neither of the two slayers had moved and glared at them.

    “what are you waiting for? move!” he shouted.

    feolin held up a hand in a calming gesture.

    “wait a moment... i’m not sure we want to go to the to–”

    she hadn’t even finished speaking before the pain struck. it was worse than anything she had ever experienced, anything she had ever imagined. her entire body was in agony, as if she were on fire from the inside. feolin collapsed to the ground almost instantly, her skull cracking off the cobbled road. she couldn’t feel it, the pain of the curse was all-consuming. there was a yell, and a moment later macrielly fell down beside her, writhing and contorting just as she was, yet she was no more than dimly aware of it.

    her soul was crying out in pain.

    when it was over, the pain was gone in a blink, bringing the sweetest relief imaginable. feolin gasped and collapsed shivering in a ball, tears in her eyes, her hands trembling.

    “fuck... me,” macrielly groaned. “i... fee... are you alright?”

    “i-i’m fine,” she said, feeling anything but.

    “if you are quite finished, get up and get moving,” berod snapped. “further insubordinate behavior will be seen as rebellion.”

    feolin could see in macrielly’s face that he fully intended to kill berod, and she knew she couldn’t talk him out of it, not anymore. the northman had always followed through on what he really wanted to do, since the day she and brose had first seen him dragging a vorpcat back to the keep on his back, covered in wounds with a broad grin on his face.

    she stood quickly and pretended to stumble, falling into macrielly who reached for her in concern.

    “not now,” she mumbled. “you’ll die. you have to wait.”

    there was no point telling him no, so she didn’t. macrielly slowly nodded as he ‘helped’ her stand up.

    “alright then, berod,” the red-moustached man growled. “lead the way and we’ll follow.”

    “you’re in front,” the magister snapped, anxiously staring toward the tower. “hurry up.”