The first day of winter had arrived in Pharelle with all the subtlety of a landlord demanding rent. The de Vaillants, having spent the night underground, had missed the occasion entirely. Frostember had begun without them.
They had stepped back through the portal in the small hours, filthy and tight-lipped and carrying something wrapped in velvet that nobody would explain. The journey back to the surface had been uneventful. Whether that was because they held Caliburn or because they had already defeated all of the Dungeon’s challenges remained unclear, and nobody had been inclined to question it.
A welcome mat had been placed on the library side of the threshold, which Laila surmised was an attempt at humour by Maximilian. She wiped her boots on it without a word, too tired for whatever conversation that gesture was trying to start.
Now, in the parlour, Laila watched the family settle around the mahogany table and took its temperature out of habit. The room itself had been doing its best to appear neutral, though the fire in the hearth was working too hard and the curtains had been drawn shut against witnesses.
Maximilian at the head, tense and unhappy about it. Mirembe beside him, composed but watchful. Elariana by the door, positioned where she could cover both entrances. Divina draped across the settee. Cedric at the periphery, professionally invisible.
A large velvet-covered object rested on the centre of the table, doing its best to obscure what was clearly a sword, pretending it was unworthy of attention. For all that, Maximilian’s attention was drawn to it, and there was an intensity in his gaze that belied mere curiosity.
Maximilian looked at it, then at his siblings. “So,” he said. “Who’s going to tell me what that is?”
Wylan leaned forward and pulled the cloth back. The blade was shorter than Laila had expected, leaf-shaped and bronze, more ancient than elegant. It caught the lamplight and held it.
Then she watched Maximilian’s hand drift towards the sword, clearly unbidden by any conscious thought on his part. Mirembe’s fingers closed gently but firmly around his wrist.
Isabella covered it. One brisk motion, cloth over blade, lamplight gone. “Nobody touches it.”
“Your Grace de Vaillant,” Lambert said, adopting the tone he reserved for formal ecclesiastical proceedings and moments he intended to enjoy, “you are looking at none other than the legendary sword Caliburn.”
“Lambert, darling,” Divina said. “You’re finally taking after Laila with the theatrics.”
“Caliburn?” Maximilian cut Divina off. “You’re serious?”
“I can feel the touch of Invictus upon this sword in a way I have not felt in almost any other object.”
Elariana frowned. “A bronze short sword. Can’t be much use in a fight.”
“Most of us assumed Caliburn was allegorical,” Maximilian said. “Where did you find it?”
“In the de Vaillant Dungeon.”
Mirembe’s voice went cold. “What dungeon? There are none on this estate. Only Alexisoix’s attempt at a boudoir.”
“Dungeon,” Laila said. “With a capital D.”
Mirembe’s hand flew to her throat.
This is going to get worse. Laila looked at Mirembe and felt the weight of what was still to come.
“Mirembe, Maximilian already knows this as of yesterday, but I insisted that you be brought into this room, along with the other close members of the household and inner staff. All of you have proven your loyalty to House de Vaillant, and it’s time you understand what that loyalty entails.” She glanced at Lambert. “Lambert, if you would allow me.”
Lambert gave a gracious gesture, ceding the floor.
“Five days ago, on the anniversary of Alexisoix’s death, we became aware that hostile forces were interested in us and this household. Nothing new for the de Vaillants, but this time we became aware of a secret hidden even from us. There is a Dungeon portal in a secret chamber behind Alexios’s private library, and from what we can tell it’s been a de Vaillant secret for generations.”
Mirembe rose from her seat. She did not sit back down. Instead she moved behind Maximilian’s chair, both hands on the back of it, placing something solid between herself and the room. Laila didn’t think she was aware she’d done it.
“Two days ago, both the d’Amboise estate and ours were subject to a coordinated attack. We managed to survive both an attempted demolition and an attempted kidnapping of Aurora. The d’Amboise estate is, of course, ruined.”
Laila had checked on Madame d’Amboise before coming downstairs. She was still in the guest room on the east wing, sleeping fitfully. The burns were healing, but slowly.
She turned to Cedric. “Did you know about this?”
Cedric hesitated, which in a butler of his calibre was practically a signed confession. “I have served this household for a very long time, madame. I have... observed things. De Vaillants going into the library and not returning for hours. Sometimes days. I did not know what was down there. It was not my place to ask.”
“Which de Vaillants?” Laila said.
“Master Alexios, certainly. And before him, Master Artan.” Cedric’s gaze drifted, the way it did when he was reconciling old memories with new information. “And Master Nikolaos.”
The name landed in silence.
“Who,” Maximilian said, “is Nikolaos?”
“I thought Saffron was Father’s only sibling,” Lambert said.
Cedric’s composure reassembled itself, though imperfectly. “Master Nikolaos was Artan’s youngest son. Long before you, Laila, or indeed Seraphina, there was a... a deep disagreement between Nikolaos and Artan.” He paused to polish his glasses, and also, Laila could see, to compose himself before battle. “I have never mentioned him before because he left the household, or was asked to leave, and the matter was never properly explained to me. I was the only member of staff at the time who is still with this household, and I suppose keeping de Vaillant secrets has become a professional standard of mine.”
He paused again. “Still, last I heard he had gone to sea. Married, eventually. A pirate queen or some nonsense. Sounds like a life of adventure found him anyway.”
Wylan couldn’t contain the laugh that broke the tension. “And what manner of Hero was our long-lost uncle? Father was a Paladin, Aunt Saffron seems to be a Wizard or something, though I’ve never been entirely clear on that. And Nikolaos, maybe some kind of Rogue, or maybe he was a luminary like me but with more traditional parents?”
“Master Nikolaos was none of those things,” Cedric said. “He was not a Hero.”
The room filled in the silence.
Laila watched Cedric’s face and saw it: the protective care with which he placed those words. Not ashamed of Nikolaos. Ashamed of the family that couldn’t make room for him. An ordinary man in an extraordinary house, and the house had chosen the extraordinary every time.
Another secret, another erasure. Laila looked at the velvet-covered sword, at the family arranged around it, and thought: How many more?
Lambert cleared his throat. Laila knew that sound. It was the one he used before saying something that would make everyone’s life considerably harder.
“There’s something else,” he said. “And you need to hear it. Caliburn wasn’t the only thing we found in the Dungeon.”
The room’s attention shifted to Lambert with the slow inevitability of a weather front.
“It seems that Alexios used the Dungeon for more than just a trial and made it a vault for his darkest secrets. In that Dungeon, alongside Caliburn, was a blood chalice of silver which I suspect to be the equally legendary Sang-greal.”
“And where is that now?” Maximilian said. “And which one is the weapon against Aeloria?”
“Which brings us to another matter.” Lambert paused with the careful timing of a man about to ruin everyone’s evening. “It appears that our grandmother, Seraphina, is not in fact the late Seraphina, but still among us. Contemporaneous, even.”
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“What nonsense are you talking about?” Maximilian said.
“I apologise. I had hoped to be delicate, but I’ll speak plainly instead. The late Seraphina is undead. A vampire. We found her entombed in the Dungeon’s heart.”
Mirembe’s grip tightened on the chair. “And what, you slayed her? The monster she is?”
“No. She is to be an ally of ours in our fight against Aeloria.” Lambert’s voice hardened. “Let me remind you, Mirembe, it was the dragon cultists who attacked our house, Aeloria who cursed your daughter, and her loyalists who tried to kidnap her.”
“Family!” Mirembe’s voice cracked. “This is a nightmare. How long has she been undead? What does that mean for her children? What does that make Alexios, or you, Maximilian, or Aurora for that matter?”
“I don’t know what it means, Mirembe,” Laila said. “But we are in this together. We have dealt with intruders and hostiles, and we find ourselves in the middle of a conspiracy that threatens the Church itself.”
“What do you mean?” Mirembe said.
“In the Dungeon,” Lambert said, “we found evidence that Alexios held faith with Death.”
Maximilian stood. “Father was not a heretic. He was the Golden Lion of Pharelle. A bastion of the Church of Invictus.”
“Honestly, Max,” Lambert said. “After all these other secrets, that’s the one you can’t accept?”
“You do realise,” Mirembe said, “that you are asking me to accept that this is a family riddled with secrets and dangers, both mortal and immortal, and that its most famous member might have been the son of a vampire and a heretic?”
“Mirembe, please,” Laila said. “This is a trying time for us all.”
Divina looked between them with the expression of someone mentally filing the evening under ‘future leverage’. “Sounds like a family reunion to me, darling.”
“I will admit,” Lambert said, lowering his voice, “as an Inquisitor of the Church, I do not think we can discuss this too openly. We already have secret enemies at our throats.”
“We are telling all of you,” Laila said, “because you are family, and we trust you.”
“However,” Lambert continued, “our alliance with Seraphina, uneasy as it may be, gave us insight and a possible hope of how to destroy Aeloria. For good.”
Wylan swore under his breath.
“Stop stalling,” Mirembe said. “Speak plainly.”
Lambert’s eyes brightened. “Seraphina told us of a use for the Sang-greal, and of a powerful ally who could stand against Aeloria. She knows where R?zvan lies and has the means to bring him back. He would be a formidable ally against the Sun Queen.”
Mirembe’s composure, already fracturing, broke entirely. “You have gone down into the darkness, and you have come back with dreadful tidings. Faith with Death, vampirism, and now the ghost of R?zvan. These are terrifying things to contend with.”
“Look,” Isabella said, “we don’t know what to make of this relationship. But right now, she’s not an enemy, and that’s more than I can say for other visitors of late.”
“I still don’t buy it,” Wylan said. “I have to think Father put her down there for a reason.”
“We need to focus on what we do with this information,” Laila said. “How we move forward. As a family.”
Isabella gave her a look. “You’ve changed, you know. A few weeks ago you were falling apart over all of this.”
“The Dungeon helped me reconcile some things,” Laila said.
? Seeking truth in a Dungeon is not unlike seeking it in wine. It’s only when you’re staring at the bottom that the hardest revelations hit.
Lambert’s tone shifted, more composed now. “Our immediate course of action might not be clear, but I’d suggest further research into the Dungeon and exploring other options for using the Umbra against Aeloria.”
Wylan nodded slowly. “I can get behind that. I’m still not comfortable with Seraphina, but I understand the reasoning. We need control measures in place.” He gestured at the velvet shape. “Which brings me to Caliburn. If it’s what Lambert says it is, we might be able to use it as a weapon.”
He paused. “But before anyone gets ideas, that sword is implicitly connected to the faith of the Church, and I have to assume Father had it bound in Umbral ichor, trapped in the Dungeon’s heart, for a reason. We need to understand what we’re dealing with before anyone tries to wield it.”
Lambert cleared his throat. “I need to make something very clear.” The words came with the momentum of something held back too long. “I have not been entirely honest about my intentions. But now that I see where everything stands, I see no reason to continue hiding.”
He paused, casting a glance around the room. “Context first: Valère was Aeloria’s dragonborn. The Church? Her design. Everything we’ve been taught is built on dragon bones.”
“That’s absurd,” Maximilian said flatly.
“Is it?” Lambert said. Cedric, standing quietly to the side, had gone pale, his usual composure cracked. Mirembe’s lips pressed into a thin line.
Laila’s enchanter senses prickled. Family tension, imminent violence, religious crisis. The room had taken a detour through all three. She retrieved her compact mirror under the pretence of adjusting her hair, tilting it just enough to catch Cedric’s reflection. He wasn’t watching Lambert. His gaze had fixed on the portrait of Seraphina above the mantelpiece, and whatever professional mask remained had slipped into something older and more private. He knew her. He actually knew her.
Mirembe’s lips were moving silently. Her piety was rooted deep in her southern upbringing, woven into who she was. It was part of what had endeared her to the family: a steady presence in turbulent times. And Lambert is tearing it out by the roots. Perhaps she was praying. Perhaps she was pleading for him to stop.
“Trust me,” he said, his voice rising, “as someone who has been on the inside, who has witnessed the inner machinations of the Church, who knows the people who run it, those who see the faithful as pawns. It is utterly broken.” He drew a breath. “No. Calling it broken is wrong. It is functioning precisely as it was designed: to consolidate power, to serve Aeloria.”
“The Church of Invictus is a corruption,” Lambert said. “It must be destroyed.”
Wylan had gone very still at the edge of the room, jaw working. Laila could read the calculation on his face: Lambert wasn’t wrong, exactly. But the timing was catastrophic, and Wylan was deciding whether intervention would help or simply paint him with the same heretical brush.
The room bristled. Maximilian conjured flame between his fingers, a nervous habit he’d never quite outgrown. Mirembe reached for his shoulder from behind the chair; he shrugged her off without looking. Elariana’s hand found her sword hilt. Even Cedric had shifted his weight towards his concealed dagger.
“Lambert,” Laila said. “Stop.”
He didn’t stop. If anything, the warning fuelled him.
“For some time now, I have wanted to bring the true worshippers of Invictus away from the Church. To cause a schism.”
“A coup,” Isabella said. “You’re talking about a coup against the Church.”
“A schism,” Mirembe said quietly. The correction landed with the weight of someone who understood the theological distinction and wished she didn’t.
“Certainly,” Lambert said. “There are still many good people who worship Invictus. The Church itself is beyond saving. I seek to bring those faithful into a new fold, something that truly honours Invictus.” He paused. “And I should be honest about one more thing. In the Dungeon, I found more than relics. I found a truth I wasn’t expecting. Death is not the enemy the Church has made it. It is necessary. Inevitable. Part of the order Invictus himself upholds.” His voice carried the quiet certainty of genuine conviction. “I share a devotion to Death. Not as Alexios did, out of reluctance or compromise, but because I have seen it for what it truly is.”
“If you condemn me for that,” Lambert said, “then you must also condemn our father.”
Maximilian let the ball of flame in his palm grow brighter.
Lambert’s miracle hit the room like a benediction delivered at sword point.
? Divine intervention: the cosmic equivalent of ‘don’t make me come over there.’ Theologians debate whether this counts as Free Will, but most agree it’s at least Free Will with Strong Suggestions.
The anger remained, but muffled: everyone still wanted to fight; they just couldn’t quite remember how to start.
Elariana drew her sword anyway, retreated to the far wall, and stood there looking furious about feeling calm. Maximilian’s flame dimmed to a flicker between his fingers, more nervous tic than threat.
“Come now,” Lambert said, his tone gently chiding. “If I were a heretic, defying the will of Invictus, why would he continue to gift me with power? Why would he continue to favour me as he does?”
“Sit down,” Laila said. “Both of you.”
Maximilian hesitated. The last of the flame in his palm guttered and died. He hated this. Hated that his brother could be right and heretical at the same time. He sank into a chair with the air of someone forced into a truce.
Elariana sheathed her sword and perched on the arm of a chair, every line of her suggesting she could be across the room in a heartbeat.
Lambert lowered his voice. “I will fight none of you. You are acting on what you’ve been taught your whole lives, and I understand that this is realm-shattering. But I ask you to listen. To truly listen.”
“You’re not proposing reform, Lambert. You’re proposing revolution. With what army? What plan? Or are you simply lighting a match and hoping the ashes arrange themselves? Because that’s what this sounds like: upheaval of the political order in the most grotesque way imaginable. If you’re proposing revolution, you need answers. What are you actually intending to do? How are you planning to prevent disaster?”
“You’re no longer my brother in this,” Maximilian said. “You speak of destroying Father’s legacy while claiming to honour him. I’m the one protecting what he built.”
Mirembe moved to stand in front of Lambert. Her voice trembled at the edges but held firm, like a hymn sung through gritted teeth.
“The moment this gets out, you’ll be branded a heretic. The Church will not hesitate to come for you, and us. They’ll strip us of our titles, our lands. They may not burn you alive, but they’ll find something equally creative. Do you truly think you’re ready for the fight you’re starting?”
“I am an Inquisitor, Mirembe. I know precisely what happens to heretics. I’ve dealt with them on a daily basis. Believe me, I’m aware.”
Mirembe said nothing. She stood rigid, holding herself together by force of will alone.
Laila raised a hand. “This stays within this room. No blood oaths required, but I trust you all understand the stakes.”
The room emptied in silence. Elariana left first, her hand still on her hilt. Maximilian followed without a word. Cedric followed with the careful pace of a man carrying more than he intended to show. Divina paused at the door, her gaze lingering on Lambert with something that might have been pity or appraisal, before slipping out. Mirembe was last. She did not look at Lambert as she left.
Lambert watched them go. “Every great prophet is misunderstood,” he declared with sacrilegious fervour.
That left the four of them. The ones who knew.
“Every visionary also knows what they’re walking into,” Wylan shot back. “What did you expect, Lambert? A standing ovation? Faith isn’t a rational construct. It’s built on contradictions and fear.”
“Exactly,” Laila said, her tone sharper now. “You of all people should know what indoctrination looks like. These are deeply held beliefs. They’re not going to unravel overnight because you’ve had an epiphany.”
Isabella stood. Her chair scraped against the floor with a finality that made everyone pause. “Right. I’ve watched my family tear itself apart over gods and dragons. I’m done for the night.”
She left before anyone could respond. The door slammed behind her.
“Maximilian is wrong about one thing,” Laila said quietly. “You do belong in this family. You are exactly the shadow of your father.”
? There were compliments, backhanded compliments, and whatever Laila had just delivered, which had circumnavigated the evening to stab from behind.