Unfortunately, Damon’s plans primarily hinged upon another’s work and not his own. Whether or not they could be accelerated depended on the mage preparing the ritual.

Thus, carrying his growing concern over the Keresi situation, he wound through the Wardens' vault to the room where the Titled ritualist was bringing his most recent, and likely greatest ever, arcane working to life.

Damon’s eyes passed across the dense magical runes encircling the huge room. Laid in the center of the designs were piles and piles of gear, materials, and items of all variety. Enough to form a small hill. The vast majority of the Wardens’ wealth, pilfered from its members and soon to be put to use as sacrificial catalysts.

The Fell Apostate was not laying down further spellwork. In fact, the intricate designs seemed complete to Damon’s half-trained eye. He knew the broadest, most basic fundamentals of most magical disciplines, as any adventurer, guildmaster, or high noble should, but this was a ritual crafted by one of the foremost experts in the world, so he wouldn’t make even the most tentative claims with authority. Perhaps the ritual was near completion. Perhaps the Apostate had days of work left.

Damon had only interacted with this man thrice, so his strange appearance still unnerved him. The blindfolded mage wearing gray robes stood taller than even he. Unlike Damon, though, the Apostate had no muscle to balance his tall frame: he was stick-thin, like a man unnaturally stretched out. Wicked antlers capped the beastkin’s skull and made him seem even more towering—almost monstrous.

The man’s sightless gaze turned to him the moment he walked in. Damon had to fight a chill going down his spine. The sharply angled antlers, the long black hair dropping to his ankles, the white blindfold covering his eyes—and most of all, the knowledge that this man was at a very minimum an equal to the strongest of the Institute’s archmages, fifteen hundred if not higher, and a professional of the most esoteric and profane magics in existence. A founding member of Morningstar, and of such considerable power that he held few peers across the entire world. Yet so few knew he existed, even by Title.

“Damon Caldimore,” the Fell Apostate rasped in acknowledgment. The man never spoke in a higher volume than a whisper. Damon wasn’t sure he could. “Good. I had a matter to discuss with you.”

‘Damon Caldimore.’ Not Duke or Lord. The Apostate never used honorifics for either ally or foe. Their Title if they had one—and in which case, only their Title—or their name.

He tried not to let the lack of respect agitate him. At least the ritualist was consistent with the omission; it wasn’t disrespect shown specifically to him.

“And I as well,” Damon replied. “You seem to have made good progress. More than expected?” He gestured at the complex circle drawn in red and black something encompassing the room. “Are you nearly finished?”

“Yes,” the Apostate rasped. “I have hastened my efforts. I seek to complete our contract this night, rather than the morrow.”

Despite that being exactly what he’d come to ask for, Damon paused, then frowned. “Why?”

“I am called to the north. Events of great importance have transpired. Events that draw my eye.”

To the north?

“Where? For what?” Anything that caught the Fell Apostate’s attention had to be borderline cataclysmic. Nᴇw novel chapters are publɪshed on novᴇlfire.net

“That is not for you to know, Damon Caldimore.”

He frowned, but he could hardly insist. He racked his brain for any recent major events in the north, but besides the Convoy—and Nysari Keresi’s involvement in it—he came up with nothing. Could they be related somehow? He doubted that. Not everything was intertwined.

“The work will not suffer?” Damon asked.

“The Contract is sacred. I will never threaten a Work.” His head tilted, and an icy finger tickled down Damon’s spine. There was something deeply unnerving about that blindfolded gaze. “If anywhere, failure will come from you, Damon Caldimore. Have you reconsidered the extent of your sacrifice, as I have advised?”

A cold anger settled into Damon. His jaw clenched, and a second passed as he pushed away his first vitriolic response. He knew he was working with monsters, but the constant reminder agitated him.

“I am not a madman,” he said curtly, “to spend the lives of my subordinates in such a bloody and indiscriminate manner. The name of the Wardens, and the wealth within, will suffice. You assured me of this.”

“Yes. But half measures speak poorly of a man,” the Apostate whispered. “It is an interesting Work you have provided. The Work is all that matters. Only men of unyielding vision will bend the world to their whims, Damon Caldimore.” A weak, one-shoulder shrug, and the Apostate turned away. “But if you have so decided, it shall be. I will push past the deficit. The theory is sound. The sacrifices heavy, if lesser than you could provide. I merely distaste the…” He was silent for several seconds. “Lack of resolve.” There was total condemnation in the phrase.

Damon fumed silently, holding his tongue lest he rage at the man. He had no intentions of testing the Apostate’s seeming unflappability.

Eventually, the Apostate rasped, “You had a matter to discuss as well?”

“No,” Damon said tersely. “No longer.”

“I see.” The Apostate turned away, uncaring of what had changed. “Make the necessary arrangements, Damon Caldimore. Send away the excellent kindling littering your halls; empty the building. I shall conjure a great pyre nevertheless. Tonight.” His voice took on a curious tone. “I admit I await with great fascination how this Work will manifest.”

Damon nodded toward the man, then stiffly walked out.

To his immense displeasure, outside the door, leaning against a wall, and likely having listened in on the entire discussion, stood the Red Tithe. Or Tobin, as was the innocuous—almost offensively so—name the man was currently using for this assignment.

“With a look like that, you’ll make me think you missed me,” the man said, smirking in that nasty way of his. “And no, I wasn’t eavesdropping. That implies I heard something I shouldn’t have. I’m merely keeping myself in the loop, like any good helper bee. You ought to thank me.”

Damon barely kept the disdain off his face. He settled for addressing the man in a way he knew would irritate him. “Tithe. Good. I needed to speak with you as well.”

“Red Tithe,” the assassin snapped, amusement vanishing. “Antlers there might not care, but he doesn’t care for much of anything besides splitting open souls and other flavorful profanities.” The obnoxious smirk returned. “Good taste, that, I do admit.”

“Red Tithe, then,” Damon returned smoothly. “My apologies.”

The assassin stared at him, then snorted. “Yeah. Sure. You know, sometimes you get under my skin, Caldimore, but then you go and do something like that”—he thumbed at the doorway leading into the ritual room—“and I remember why we’re such good friends. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for hypocrites.”

Damon’s eyes narrowed at the man, despite his efforts to remain aloof. The needling was hardly new. He despised the Red Tithe, even if he could acknowledge the man’s efficacy. The title of ‘Morningstar’s personal killer’ wasn’t an easy one to claim. Though not as dangerous as the Apostate, he was still an upper-Titled, and perhaps more immediately dangerous, if just thanks to his apparent instability.

“Hypocrite?” Damon asked frostily. “I’m not sure what you mean, Tithe.”

Irritation flickered across the assassin’s face at the repeated shortening of his Title, and his hand drifted to his sheath. Damon stiffened slightly, unable to help himself, and the Red Tithe glanced at his hand, then at Damon, and laughed. He patted Damon on the shoulder.

“Relax! No killing clients. Not until the Contract is over. Even I wouldn’t break a Contract.”

Damon couldn’t tell whether that had been a threat, a possibility worthy of great consternation. Even if his plans succeeded, this was one of the men he would still need to fear. He met the Red Tithe’s gaze evenly, though, not showing his unease.

“But yes, hypocrite. That moral outrage!” The man took on a dramatized, childish tone, and began gesticulating and flailing his body like an especially bad theater actor. “No, I won’t sacrifice the lives of my subordinates. I refuse. It’s wrong! I am a man of stern moral fiber; I do what I must for a great purpose. I am nothing like you monsters!”

Damon didn’t rise to the bait. His contempt for the man did, however, grow, which he hadn’t known was possible. And he knew he’d lost control of his expression. He was certainly looking at the man like excrement found on his boot.

The man dropped the act. “But maybe you even believe it. Wouldn’t be a first. Still. You won’t sacrifice your minions, but your daughter is fair game?” He belly-laughed, clearly finding genuine glee in the concept. “Good gods, man. Even I hold some things sacred. I’d never stick a dagger in family.” He paused, then shrugged. “Well, I probably wouldn’t.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand what you imply,” Damon said between gritted teeth. “My daughter is not, in any conceivable manner, a sacrifice.”

The Red Tithe paused. “Did I…miss something? Plans haven’t changed, have they?”

“She will be a main proponent of the ritual, and there are associated risks with that, but that is her duty as a Caldimore. She is expected to contribute to her House’s success. As I did, as all her forebears have. She is no more a sacrifice than my father was when he led the 27th detachment into the Ashen Hierophant’s domain.”

The Red Tithe stared at him. His mouth opened, then closed.

He burst out laughing.

Damon only barely refrained from pulling out his sword—half thanks to how he knew he would die a thousand times over and never so much as scratch this bloodstained creature.

“Right! Of course!” the man gasped, slapping his forehead. “Using some thirteen-year-old girl as a breaching missile into a dimensional boundary. She’ll totally come out fine. Are you an idiot?”

“Hold your tongue, you rat,” Damon finally snapped.

A dagger appeared in front of his eyeball before he could so much as register movement.

“Ah, ah,” the Red Tithe warned, waggling the blade a fingernail’s width away. “Let’s not be uncivil. That’s no way to speak to a working associate, is it?” He slowly pulled the weapon down, dragging the tip across Damon’s nose, before he sheathed the weapon fluidly. “I hardly said anything to warrant such rudeness.”

Despite the rage boiling under his skin, Damon reined himself in. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. “The Keresi woman.” His words were cold as ice, but at least controlled. “You reacted to her strangely. Why?”

As always, the Red Tithe was easy to distract. Damon never should have entertained his goading in the first place; the previous interaction had been his own fault, truthfully. Though this assassin could cut his way through even most high-Titled, he was not a particularly intelligent man. It felt like no one Damon worked with was.

“The Keresi? Ah, yes.” His eyes narrowed. “Fascinating woman. I think she noticed something about that dagger of yours.”

“Impossible.”

The Red Tithe reached into his other sheath and withdrew a blade of dark violet, slightly transparent material. He held it up and turned it side to side, briefly losing himself in his captivation with the object.

The weapon was far, far more dangerous than the Red Tithe’s personal blade. It had, at one point, belonged to Damon himself. It was his family’s legacy; a project of many decades. Forged from a material taken from the Shattered Oracle’s own workshop…and now a payment to Morningstar. The only item of such immense value he had actually drawn the organization’s attention.

His ultimate goal was, of course, to gather more of the otherworldly substance. That was what all of this was for—what all of his work these past many decades was for. A weapon to stand on equal footing with the worst terrors of the world, despite his damnably low level.

A way to end an Eighth Cataclysm, whenever it surely arrived.

“Impossible,” the Red Tithe murmured, tilting the dagger to point it at Damon. “Only fools use that word, I’ve found.”

“Spare me the platitude,” Damon sneered. “She couldn’t have identified it. Or interacted with it in any way, skill or spell or artifact or anything else.”

“No,” the Red Tithe agreed. “Even Antlers couldn’t make heads or tails of this…this Voidglass of yours.” He sheathed the dagger. “And I’ll take a gander and say there’s about no one in the world as capable in the esoteric and otherworldly as that old monster. So yes. She couldn’t have.”

“Then what was that reaction? We both saw it.”

The assassin shrugged. “Maybe she was admiring a different weapon of mine,” he leered, grabbing his crotch.

Somehow, this man continued setting new lows. Damon didn’t hide the disgust on his face. The foul man laughed.

“Should I question her?” the Red Tithe asked more seriously.

Damon considered the offer. “She is level twelve hundred or higher.”

“Kill her, then?” the man retorted, a smile twisting his lips. He even leaned forward, hoping Damon would give the command.

Damon considered that too. A thrill went through him, knowing he could order the death of a Titled, simple as that. Eventually, he shook his head.

“There is no reason to involve her further. Whoever she may be.” Nysari Keresi was the reason he had wanted to accelerate his plans in the first place. The Primus’s reaction still bothered him; he couldn’t put the pieces together. Unless a revelation hit him—and that seemed unfortunately unlikely—he would avoid that woman until the ritual had succeeded.

He turned and began walking away. “Go and fetch my daughter.” He enjoyed delivering the petty command. The task was far beneath someone of the Red Tithe’s importance. But for all his insolence, the assassin was under contract, and, in that regard, he always acted the professional. He would obey.

“Yes, Duke Caldimore,” the Tithe said, tone dripping sarcasm. He flourished a bow. “One ritualistic sacrifice, to be delivered.”

Damon spun to rage at the man, despite his wisdom urging him not to…but he was gone. The hall was empty.

He took a breath, then released it.

Necessary, he reminded himself. This is all necessary.

In pursuing an end to an inevitable Eighth Cataclysm, all actions were just.