The room was still dark when Aurie opened her eyes. At first, she was overtaken with confusion at her surroundings. She wasn’t lying in her bed. The glow of the waning hearth was barely visible around the table and chairs on the far end, beyond a ladder that rose over her head to the loft. The kitchen window was open a crack at the bottom, letting just enough air to shuffle the curtains over the jars of seasons.

  She blinked sleep from her eyes and sat up. She was holding Alden’s bear. For a moment, in the dark that was lit only by that dim glow, she ran her fingers over the terrible stitching of her twenties and the many times she had to patch it up over the years. Then she smelled it with clenched eyes. It was full of Maud, but there was enough Alden on it to warm her heart with that, too. She set it on the pillow and put her feet on the cold floor.

  The bedroom door was open. She carefully made her way across the house to it and peeked in to find Maud sleeping soundly on her side. Her eyes moved back to the bed that had once been her youngest’s, then to the bed that apparently just became her daughter’s and sighed.

  Perhaps this is how it is meant to be.

  She shook that out of her head.

  That was her bed and tonight, she’s sleeping in it. Maud can sleep wherever she likes—in this house, under her roof, by her rule, as her daughter, until she’s married off or whatever she’s bound for with all that Draka has made her capable of. Or, unleashed from her, more like. But that bed did seem fitting, regardless, and Aurie couldn’t shake that away.

  After grabbing herself a dress and stockings, careful not to make a sound and wake Maud, she slowly closed the bedroom door. Her mind was going in circles. The Holy Spirit, that voice within her, had said his child’s name was, ‘Hans.’ But Draka said that his son’s name was Lasse. She began to change out of her chemise and into the dress.

  Draka was mistaken. Neither of them would lie about that, she knew she could assume as much without a second thought. Draka had no reason to and who in their right mind would call the Almighty a liar? That meant the child wasn’t his that she had—Aurie stopped herself from following that thought through. She shuddered at what she was trying to tuck away into the back of her head. Then, there was more. More questions. More answers that made more questions. She slipped on her stockings.

  In that hut, it was Lilith. Aurie will never forget that creature’s face. Nothing could make her forget it. Unimaginable beauty and unfathomable evil, altogether in perfect horrific harmony from head to toe. She remembered. She let herself remember as she slipped on her shoes and eased herself toward the door.

  When the sunlight shone through the shadows of the trees over Lilith when she attacked her at the river, when she bound Aurie to the tree and cut her throat—among other things—her body changed. Dark to light. A feathery winged, horned demoness with owl legs, into a woman that would have been able to make Balor mad with lust in a single glance. Any man would find themselves shaken by that beauty. Any woman, too. She was—again, Aurie shuddered to think about it—perfect.

  She slowly started to open the door when she felt a weight pushing at her through it. A peek through the crack and she found her guard leaning his back against it, snoring.

  Great choice, Draka. Bra-vo, buddy. She let the door fly open just enough for Karl to land on his back with a thump of his head.

  “Stay here,” Aurie said as she stepped over him, “Help Maud with her chores. Make yourself useful.”

  Draka was holding Lilith in his arms. Lilith in the hut. She fought Lilith in the hut. Lilith, in Draka’s nightmare, in Draka’s memory, surprised when the Holy Spirit brought her there without him.

  Aurie quickened her steps. Her first idea had been to go to Gerard, but once she had gone a bit toward the ferry, there was a pull in another direction.

  The hairs on the back of her neck rose as she turned. The forest across the field, across the road, on the side that Balor and Alden were butchered, on the side of the ruined Abbey. Her breathing suddenly became shallow and dense. Lilith is there, still. Draka missed her when he rescued Aurie at the river and Aurie wasn’t fast enough to smite the bitch in the hut. And the memory was only a memory. Aurie shook her head. I don’t want to.

  ‘Father Hagen.’

  Aurie forced a deep breath. She stepped off of the road and crossed through the wheat field.

  Draka said that his wife was in the hut, that he killed his wife. Because she killed his son, Hans—not Hans, Lasse. That was important for her to know. Something that she wondered if Draka was aware that the baby wasn’t named Lasse. Or if he knew that the woman in his arms wasn’t his wife. That made her brows furrow nearly as much as the sight of the path leading into the dark of the forest at the edge of the wheat field.

  That was Lilith in his arms. Bloodied, murdered only seconds before she got in there. That face, that face with those eyes, those features. Those features that Maud shared striking resemblance to. Not to the point of being twins, but enough that if dark hair, green eyes, and long legs were Draka’s preference, then Maud would be his choice of the Kingdom. But Lilith had other…assets that Maud never developed to that extent…so, maybe not. But then, the way that he sees Maud as if she were his blood, his actual daughter instead of the daughter of his widowed neighbor he swore to protect…Aurie sat down on a log along the path with a huff.

  There’s too much to go through. She tried to get it back in order. Begin with the hut, she told herself. Inside the hut has always been Draka’s Wife and their newborn child. When she has gone in, the hut was the hut, but the woman inside was Lilith, always with a baby. But the baby, the first time she did this, was Alden as an infant. Aurie clenched her jaw at that. That was one of many things she was going to make that monster pay for when she gets the opportunity.

  She took a deep breath. The second time, when the Holy Spirit wanted her to smite the bitch, it was Hans in her arms. The Holy Spirit told her his name, which means, without a doubt, that the baby she had in her arms, all those years ago, in that hut, that died, that Draka discovered, was named Hans.

  She began down the path again. Hans was not what Draka had named his son. It was Lasse. Did his wife change the child’s name? Maybe, but that didn’t feel right either. So, when Draka went in, when she followed, it was Draka’s memory she was seeing, not a nightmare like what she experienced. Memory. Memory of Lilith.

  She froze in her steps. Her mouth gaped, her eyes dizzily looking about her.

  Lilith was Draka’s wife! Lilith, in the hut, all this time. What did Maud say she said? What was it…something like… ‘Will he save you or them?’ Then, when she had Aurie bound, ‘I was mistaken.’

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  Aurie blinked through her memories, everything she could think of that had to do with Lilith. Everything she knew. Lilith went for Maud first. Maud was the first one she sought after.

  Aurie’s heart skipped. She sprinted.

  Because Maud looks like her. But then, why Balor and Alden?

  Okay, not going to sprint. How can Maud run like that? Aurie leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

  Lilith is Draka’s wife, Draka was her husband at Alden’s age—fourteen, fifteen. Sixteen at the most, by the look of him then. She didn’t look older than that, either, when she was laying across his arms with his knife between her breasts. He stabbed her straight through the heart when he saw that she had murdered their baby.

  It wasn’t their baby, it was someone else’s. Aurie wanted to cry at the thought. Draka doesn’t know that his child wasn’t the one she killed. Or at least wasn’t the one he found her…eating. Nor does he know that she wasn’t possessed by demons. She was the demon. But then, that doesn’t make sense either.

  Either way, her last words were that she loves him and she targeted my daughter because Maud looks a lot like her and Draka does love her, deep as any father would. Deep enough that Balor knew it. Oh, Balor, you weren’t just a casualty, you were bait.

  Aurie was back on the move. The ruins of the abbey were just ahead, through a patch of wildflowers and shallow ditch. She traversed slowly.

  Draka ends up a Paladin, gets sent here as our new Prince. Balor, Alden, me…or Maud. Balor, Alden, me…or Maud. ‘You…or them.’ Over and over, she thought about it. What was the purpose of that? What was it that Lilith was trying to do? Why cut her throat? Attack her the way she did? What was she mistaken about?

  The ruins of the Abbey seemed to leap out at her from the forest. High brick walls overgrown with bare vines and the remains of rotted moss. There were a few ditches built along the walls, probably for drainage at one time, but now were just mud sprouting tall weeds and random bushes. She followed it around to the front gate, where a single tent stood, with two pitched canopies to cover a desk and chair under one and a shelf of books and stacked scrolls under another. A stone circle surrounded a small campfire with an iron grate holding a kettle already steaming through the hole in the spout, but not yet whistling.

  Out of the tent came a man who must have been twice her age in a black robe over leatherwork and hide trousers. He had a knife in his belt and a rosary hanging from between his fingers. His wrinkled face was clean shaven and his hair, though longer than he probably preferred, was still combed back and proper. He had a cup in his hand when he emerged.

  “Good morning,” Aurie smiled as welcomingly as she could.

  The man stared at her with a half cocked grin for a moment, then went back in his tent without saying a word.

  Aurie’s smile faded. She wanted to shout how rude that was. Instead, she heard the rustle of tins and packs.

  She crept a little closer, “I’m looking for Father Hagen. Do you know where I might find him?”

  He emerged again with two cups this time and handed one to her with a winking smile.

  “Welcome,” he reached back into the tent and revealed a stool that he unfolded behind her. A motion with his hand and she sat. “Haven’t heard this tongue in ages. You must be from the Pomeranias, Szczecin, perhaps?”

  “Where?” She blinked at him. “No, I’m from Alcer. My husband is—was Balor Clevlan.”

  The kettle whistled, but the man set his cup to the side and leaned on his knee to look her over curiously, “Really?” Then, in a rattle, he said, “Did you spend much time traveling?”

  “No,” Aurie leaned back from him. “Just here and Alcer. About Father Hagen? Do you know where I can find him?”

  “You found him. What is your name?”

  The kettle’s whistle changed pitch.

  “Aurelie Clevlan. Aurie, for short.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Aurie swallowed that down. She grinned and nodded distantly. “Thank you.”

  “Interesting,” he looked at her like a man studying a new tool. Then, he brightened, leaning back from her, “Coffee?”

  Aurie nodded, “Yes, please.”

  As he poured into her cup, “Where did you learn how to speak other languages? Not very diverse in Alcer. I would know,” he handed the cup to her, “I’m the Prior of the monastery there. And I don’t know you. Not even in your youth.”

  “Other languages?” Aurie laughed. “No, I only speak French. Just like everyone else here.” She took a sip. The bitterness made her cough a little. Going to set that over there…

  “We are speaking Eastern Slavic, old Russian, right now. Specifically, the Uralic dialect, very rare to find outside of their region. A moment ago, when I asked you your name, I asked in Latin. Before that, when I asked if you traveled much, because you answered that you weren’t from Szczecin, which is where the dialect of tribal German of the Prince's people, who migrate into the region seasonally, you were speaking to me with when you arrived originates from, I switched to Greek to see if you understood. We have yet to speak the language of this region.”

  Aurie’s mouth gaped.

  “Would you like some sugar and cream for your coffee?” Father Hagen tilted his head to see where she put the cup.

  “Yes, please.”

  “By the way,” he said as he stepped around her to get the cup and bring it back to his stool. He opened a container and began spooning heaps into the coffee. “We’re speaking Aramaic right now, which is a dead language.” He poured some white liquid from a horn, stirred, and handed it to her. “What do you think of your coffee now?”

  She took a sip. “It’s delicious.”

  He smiled with a wink. “Perfect Ethiopian. How long have you had the Gift of Tongues? Or, better yet, how long have you been a Paladin, Madame Clevlan?”

  “How could you tell? Is it that easy?” She took her second sip. She couldn’t bring the cup further than the edge of her lower lip. It was too good to let the taste wash from her mouth.

  Father Hagen regarded her for a moment. “Normally, no. But you have the Gift of Tongues. I’ve only met one other Paladin, ages ago, who had that particular gift. It’s rare. And valuable. But also the easiest to spot. The moment your ears hear the words of a language, your next words will match it. Until you harness it, learn to control and decipher between what you hear and what the Holy Spirit tells you, it will make you change the language you’re speaking without you even realizing it. This includes words that are commonplace in one language, but originated in another.”

  “Huh.” Sip. “That is really,” sip, “interesting that you know that.” Sip. “The Holy Spirit told me to find you. Maybe this is why.”

  “Perhaps,” Father Hagen nodded and took a long drink of his own cup, crossing an ankle over his knee. “But I know there’s more.”

  Aurie finally let the cup down and rested her arms on her lap. She nodded. “There is. But let’s start with what you think is the reason I’m here.” She lifted the cup. Just one gulp left.

  Father Hagen looked down at the fire for a moment. “Lilith.”

  Aurie spat that last gulp into the fire.