Private Tales Sanguis Crassior

[Fallon]

The pain was immediate, searing, and absolute. Fallon’s senses ignited in revolt against her body. It wasn’t just a wound- it was an invasion. Silver had torn through flesh and bone like molten fire, and every beat of her heart pushed that fire through her veins, igniting nerves, muscles, organs, every fragile part of her that she had ever thought indestructible.

It felt as though her blood itself had turned to acid, boiling from the inside, eating along every artery and vein. Every inhalation drew pain deeper into her lungs, every exhale was a scream trapped in her throat. She arched and writhed, unable to control herself as her body shifted back violently, as if the agony had claimed her body entirely.

Her inherent Garou resilience offered her no reprieve. Steel she had faced a hundred times, blades, arrows, claws, fangs, but none had ever burned like this. Silver was alive, sentient, whispering in the language of destruction through every fiber of her being. The world fractured around her, snow turning to fire, the cold night air biting only at the edges of her awareness.

Her limbs betrayed her, legs buckling beneath her. She rolled in the snow, thrashing, leaving a trail of crimson as her teeth ground against the pain that refused to relent. Every nerve screamed, every heartbeat a hammer blow, every pulse of her poisoned blood a promise of obliteration.

She tasted her own blood, though it tasted of silver, acrid and metallic, and it burned like acid on her tongue. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think beyond the single, consuming truth. This was death, this was fire, this was agony incarnate, and it would not stop until she was nothing but ash.

Victoria. She heard her yelling. There was a flurry of motion around her but her world was spinning.

"Vi... run.." she quietly begged, wanting her wife safe when she could not be there beside her. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks as darkness dragged her under.

Caspian’s breath steamed in the cold, his broad chest heaving as he stood over Fallon. The rock he had struck her with tumbled from his hand, rolling across the snow like something shameful. Blood streaked his bronze skin and golden hair, matted against his temples, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth might break. Across his naked skin the wounds he had borne in the fight already knitted themselves shut, slashes knitting to angry red seams, punctures shrinking to nothing. Even the deep gouge on his ribs faded, muscle writhing beneath as it pulled itself back together.

“Get the wounded back to the Caern,” he barked, his voice hoarse with command. Garou obeyed without hesitation, dragging bodies, living and dead, out of the slaughter ground. Then he crouched, great hands sliding beneath Fallon’s limp, shuddering form to lift her against his chest.

But Fallon was slipping. Her body convulsed, but her mind was already being pulled away. The silver fire still burned inside her veins, but the world around her grew quiet, smothered. The forest bled of colour until it was nothing but shades of ash, the towering trees skeletal, the snow dull grey beneath her knees. The battlefield, the wolves, even Victoria, gone.

She was alone. She was in the umbra. The in between..

Her throat tore with a scream, her wife’s name hurled into the endless silence. The sound echoed back at her, hollow, breaking, until her voice failed and she collapsed forward. Hands and knees sank into the snow, sobs wracking her chest as her tears fell into the frost. She pressed her face into the snow, unable to feel its chill, her whole body bowing with grief.

A hand settled lightly on her shoulder. Cold. Ethereal. She froze, her breath catching, before she dared to lift her face.

“Fallon…”

Her voice. Not Victoria's, but another who lived in her memory.

Fallon’s body shuddered with another raw sob, her fingers clawing at the snow to hold on to something. “I’m not ready to die, Livvy,” she whispered.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Victoria had all but forgotten the battle. The garou had won... for now. The vampires that had not been subdued slunk back into the shadows, wolf teeth nipping at their heels. The broken bodies of the others would begin to stir soon, at least one seeking out its own head in the freezing winds. Though there were more than a few that remained motionless despite there being no sunlight, nor wooden stakes through their hearts, nor other interventions that could kill them. Had Victoria noticed this, she would have felt a new terror: a chilling confirmation that these garou could kill her... though she knew not how.

Alas, Victoria did not notice this. She was fully consumed by Fallon's suffering. Her own body wanted to writhe in mirror of her wife, and even her cold strength could not keep the silver wolf's form still. Fallon smelled different, her blood smelled wrong. It sounded strained moving through her veins, dragging decaying cells and micro-clots along spasming vessels. Her heartbeat was irregular. All of Victoria's unnatural senses told her what her mind could not acknowledge. Fallon was dying.

Victoria's distress was palpable. If any of the pack had remaining doubts about her capacity for emotion, they were satisfied here. The vampire's wails bordered on indecency, crying frozen tears over her love's pallid face. When Caspian reached to carry her body, Victoria reeled at him, hissing, clutching to Fallon's shoulders. For a moment her face bore nothing but the hard lines of a truly feral creature. The pack recoiled, but Caspian did not waver. Though he did not move to lift Fallon, he looked at Victoria without a trace of fear. His eyes held a coldness that was unlike that behind the vampire's eyes, a living ice, volatile. Victoria's face softened beneath it, but she didn't retreat.

"I will not leave her."

Whether it was understanding, exhaustion, or just avoiding another fight, Caspian said nothing, and allowed Victoria to lift her wife's limp body from the ground. She carried Fallon with ease, her slender frame unnaturally strong. She clung to the warmth that still radiated from Fallon, trying to ignore how quickly it seemed to be cooling. As long as she could feel Fallon's heart beating there was a chance.

"Sever one of their heads and blindfold it. Stuff the neck with fresh earth, ideally from just beneath a tree. Drag it through the first stream we come across, that will keep the body from finding it... for a time. When it wakes up, I have questions for it."

She broke into a run, surrounded on all sides by wolves, following them at fever-pace to where she hoped Fallon could be saved.

 

[Fallon]

Other fallen wolves were gathered up, limp and wounded bodies draped across broad shoulders. Caspian and Serra exchanged a look, something caught between dubiety and disgust when Victoria gave her sharp, clinical instructions on how to keep a vampire’s body from finding its head. Caspian’s lip curled faintly, but he gave a short nod to one of the younger wolves.

“Do as she says,” he ordered curtly. Then, turning to the others, he growled, “Burn the rest.”

His chest still seeped blood from where claws had raked across his chest, his arm bitten in multiple places, but even as he spoke, the flesh was knitting over again. He drew a deep breath, shifted in a smooth, liquid ripple of muscle and bone, and a moment later a great blond wolf loped alongside Victoria, leading them up the mountain.

The climb to the Caern was treacherous to those who did not know it well. Scree slid under their paws and feet, the air growing thinner, colder, the wind howling through the peaks like a mourning wraith. The wolves moved like ghosts, sure-footed and silent despite the incline, until finally the black maw of the Caern opened before them.

Inside, warmth. The cavern was lit by fire pits, the air hazy with woodsmoke and steam rising from the hot springs that pooled in the rock. It was wild and untamed and unmistakably theirs.

“Vassa!” Caspian’s voice thundered off the walls as he shifted back, grabbing a cloth to wrap around himself.

A woman came running, her red hair braided and her skin painted with white spirals that glowed faintly in the firelight, the marks of a den-mother and healer. She stopped short when her eyes fell on Victoria, a flicker of confusion and fear crossing her face. Behind her, two young women scooped up small children and pulled them away from the sight of the vampire standing in their sacred space.

“What is—” she started, but her eyes caught Fallon’s limp form, and all other thoughts fled.

“Fallon…” Vassa breathed, paling. She glanced once at Caspian, then at the vampire who carried her. “Bring her here.” She gestured urgently toward the back of the cavern where flat furs and woven mats had been laid out.
Vassa was already moving, gathering stone bowls, jars, and bundles of herbs from shelves set into the walls. She knelt beside Fallon, sniffing once, her face hardening.

“Silver,” she muttered under her breath, and began unpacking her tools.

A shallow stone bowl was filled with hot spring water, into which she crushed dried yarrow and a sharp-smelling resin, the water taking on a strange, green-gold hue. She pressed her fingers to Fallon’s throat, then her sternum, muttering under her breath. The white spirals painted on her arms flared softly in response.

“She has to bleed,” Vassa said, not to Victoria but to Caspian, “The silver must come out.”

She drew a narrow bone blade from her belt — white as ivory and carved with runes. “Hold her,” she instructed, though Fallon barely moved now except for the shallow rise and fall of her sweat-dusted chest.

Vassa sliced Fallon’s arm in a long, clean line, not deep enough to maim but enough to let the poisoned blood run. The smell was acrid, wrong, a metallic scent that burned in the nose. The blood that oozed was thick, blackened in places where the silver had seared it. Vassa caught it in the stone bowl and worked quickly, reopening other veins when the first slowed, working her way down Fallon’s arms and legs.

Between cuts she smeared thick salves onto the wounds, pungent with garlic, witch hazel, and some sharp mountain flower, forcing them to stay open and bleed faster instead of closing too soon. Her chanting grew louder, faster, until the air itself seemed to hum in answer. The firepits popped and flared as though feeding her magic.

When the worst of the black blood was gone, she mixed more herbs into the bowl and washed the wounds clean with the green-gold water, rubbing it into Fallon’s skin until the runes carved into her bone knife gleamed.

Only then did she finally press a poultice over the slices and bind them with linen, letting her touch linger on Fallon’s heart, whispering one last word that sent a ripple of power through the den.

“She is lost to the umbra, for now... But she will live,” Vassa said at last, her voice quieter, strained. “If the silver does not reach her heart again.”

Her eyes flicked to Victoria, something unreadable passing over her face, before she turned to see to the others.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Victoria felt the wolves’ judgement upon her as heavy as a jaw around her neck. She clung to Fallon’s limp body as a lifeline, cradling her head against her shoulder as they walked. Though her breaths were frighteningly shallow Victoria still felt them across her cheek. The slow, steady warmth was a constant reassurance that her Fallon was still alive.

Victoria had no illusions about her place in the cold procession. Fallon’s heartbeat was the thin thread keeping both of them tied to this mortal plane. If she slipped away, the pack would surely rip the vampire to shreds. She could picture several ways in which they would do it, making sure to leave the killing blow for last.

The night had fully arrived by the time they started to climb. The wind pushed back back her hood and set her hair whipping like flames. The cold was no obstacle, but there was no path to speak of as they made their way up and up and up. Victoria struggled to keep her decidedly bipedal body upright as her boots slid on ice and rolled off loose stones. She never fell, though, nor let Fallon’s body come anywhere near the ground. She couldn’t show the wolves any weakness, not now.

She felt the Caern’s warmth before she saw it. Damp, dank heat from fire and springs alike. She clutched Fallon tighter against her chest. This was her wife’s home, but it was not hers. Even the air blowing off the cave's mouth felt hostile, trying to pry Fallon free from her grip with gentle, airy fingers. It reeked of divine judgement, a holy place that should repel all dark creatures. Whatever substituted for a soul in Victoria's breast squirmed beneath the mountain's looming gaze.

The greatest irony of all, of course, was that the Caern did not need any of that at all. Victoria could feel exactly where the threshold was, the precise point at the maw of the cavern where she would not, could not pass. The Caern was a home, and Victoria had not been invited. Without that permission, the open cavern may as well have been barred with iron.

Twenty paces from the threshold Victoria slowed her step. She was desperately hoping one of the Garou would say something that could be interpreted as an invitation. Though, seeing as though none of them had so much as looked at her let alone spoken to her since they first set out, it seemed unlikely. Fifteen paces, and Victoria's skin gave the illusion of sweat as the warm, moist air from within condensed on her frigid skin. Ten paces out - Victoria looked to Caspian. She had kept her face stony this entire time, but her eyes were softer now, just for him. Five paces, and Victoria had slowed nearly to a stand still. She could not stand at the entrance while they took Fallon from her. She couldn't be so close but unable to be at her side. Everything in her gaze beseeched the Garou: Please.

Caspian knew what she needed. He took a second to consider, though it felt like ages. Finally he simply said "Come."

Less than a step to spare, Victoria felt the invisible barrier vanish before her and stepped into the Caern.

What followed was a blur. Fallon's peril was still, thankfully, a greater threat than the vampire who carried her. Victoria laid her down when prompted, fighting every impulse to scoop her back up and run. Those were animal impulses, a terrified creature of the night that was caught in the sunlight. Victoria the woman needed to remain in control. Victoria the wife. Victoria who would be lost without her silver light.

But oh, how those animal impulses roiled beneath her skin. Victoria's nostrils flared when Fallon's veins were opened, and she needed to visibly steady herself as the overpowering aroma flooded the cavern. She needed to drink that blood; she needed to flee from that blood; she needed to love that blood and protect it.

The salve's vapors burned her eyes, her nose, her lips. The healer's chanting rang in her ears and pounded on her skull. It was clear that whatever power was banishing the poison in Fallon's blood was trying to banish her as well. Victoria felt light-headed, but sheer pride and force of will kept her upright. If she had been standing, instead of kneeling by her wife, her knees would have surely buckled.

The words that Fallon would live melted into her heart. She didn't know what the umbra was, didn't care. She was half blind from caustic vapors, her head thrummed like a blacksmith's anvil, and though there was no sunlight in here she felt an oppressive heat from all around.

If the wolves intended to kill her, this would be a very good time.

 

[Fallon]

Fallon was alive, though the word hardly fit. Her chest rose and fell with stuttering effort, her skin clammy beneath the healer’s salves. The silver still burned in her blood, faintly, like smouldering coals hidden under ash. She clung to life with teeth and claws unseen, her body writhing faintly as though fighting some battle no one in the Caern could see.

Her battle was elsewhere.

In the Umbra, Fallon staggered through a colourless expanse of snow and shadow. The forest was familiar, yet wrong. Trees loomed like black pillars, stripped bare, their branches clawing at a sky without stars. The ground crunched beneath her bare feet, though it left no track behind her. She could taste blood and silver both, bitter and sharp, burning down her throat. The veil shimmered in the distance, thin as frost on glass. Fallon reached toward it, her hand shaking, her lips moving soundlessly as though she could call someone’s name.. Victoria. The weight of the otherworld dragged at her limbs, pulling her away, but she bared her teeth and pushed forward.

In the Caern, the wolves paced like restless shadows. Low growls rumbled in their throats, claws scraped against stone. Even in human skin, their bodies carried the edge of the wolf, hackles bristled, lips curled. The stench of vampire, of unnatural cold, clung to the cavern. Some flinched from it. Others glared openly.

“She should not be here,” one young Garou hissed, his eyes bright with fury. “The Caern will be tainted by her presence.”

“She brought them,” another snarled. “Fallon bleeds because of her.”

The murmurs grew, a wave of voices breaking against the firelit walls. The children had been hurried deeper into the cavern, though their frightened cries echoed faintly down the tunnels. Vassa tried to hush them, to return her focus to Fallon, but the unrest was building too loudly.

Caspian moved at last. The blond wolf stood tall in his human form again, scars still red and raw but already closing on his skin. He stepped into the circle of firelight, between Victoria and the wolves, and his voice cracked through the cavern like a whip.

“Enough!”

The growls faltered, though anger still burned in their eyes. Caspian’s own gaze swept across them, ice-cold, sharp as broken glass.

“You think I am unaware of the cold one in our home?” he demanded. He jabbed a bloodstained hand toward Victoria without looking at her. “Yes, she is what she is. But Fallon is still breathing because of her. Without her, Fallon would already be ash and shadow in the Umbra.”

His lip curled, and his voice dropped into a growl that made the stone walls vibrate. “So unless you are prepared to explain to Fallon why her mate was torn apart in her own Caern, you will keep your teeth and your tongues in your mouths. This is a truce. My truce.”

The silence that followed was taut, heavy as a drawn bowstring. Several wolves looked away first, ears pinned, jaws tight. One spat into the dirt and stalked toward the rear of the cavern, but he didn’t speak again.

Caspian exhaled slowly, turned his head toward Victoria at last. There was no warmth in his eyes, only flinty calculation. Still, he gave her the faintest nod, as if to say: I’ve leashed them. For now. Do not make me regret it.

By the fire, Fallon twitched, her lips parting. A faint rasp of breath escaped her throat. Her spirit still wandered the Umbra, but her body clung to the thread between worlds. She had a long night ahead...

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Victoria sat silently as scathing words were slung at her. The insults did not worry her nearly so much as the claws behind them, and those had been stayed for now. Her pride had been stripped away long before entering the cave. The wolves could say what they wanted, so long as Fallon breathed.

She met Caspian's gaze from where she knelt. His face was smudged in her vision, but she could still discern the severity of his expression. An involuntary twitch of her jaw acknowledged his gesture, but she did not offer thanks. To do so would likely insult him, for it had not been for her sake that he had forced a truce.

"I did not-" she began but stopped suddenly as Fallon stirred. For a few helpless seconds she hoped that more life would come... but fell back into miserable resignation when her wife made no more sound.

"...I did not bring them," she said quietly, so quietly that only Caspian could have heard her. "This was supposed to be peaceful." Her tone was flat, her voice thin. Simply forming the words took too much energy; she had nothing left for inflection or intent.

Furthermore, though she had spoken truthfully, she felt like she was lying. What if she had brought the vampires upon the pack, even unknowingly? Could it be coincidence, or had they been tracking her? She needed to know who these creatures were, which coven they represented, if any, and why had they attacked a full pack of garou. She knew how to get those answers, but the thought of leaving Fallon's side was unbearable.

She leaned over Fallon's sleeping figure, so that their cheeks brushed and her lips just danced against her wife's ear. "Come back," she said so, so softly. "I need you."

She let one cold tear fall to Fallon's face, watched it slide slowly over her cheekbone as Victoria tore herself away and sat up once more.

"Bring me that head." She spoke as though the very words were bitter on her tongue. The tenderness her face had held for Fallon had been summarily replaced with barely contained fury.

 

[Fallon]

‘Come back... I need you…’

The words whispered through the ether like a thread of light through fog, so faint that Fallon almost mistook them for memory. They slipped past the veil and brushed against her where she knelt in the Umbra’s wasteland, stirring something deep within her chest, a pulse, distant and fading, but hers.

She turned sharply, silver eyes sweeping across the hollow expanse. “Victoria?” she called, voice cracking, breath frosting in the frozen air. Panic clawed through her, raw and choking. If Victoria had found her way here, if her wife had somehow crossed into this world, then she was lost. This place did not suffer the living, and it devoured the dead.

But she couldn’t see her. Couldn’t feel her the way she used to, through the bond that had once been as steady as heartbeat and breath. Victoria was beyond reach, her voice an echo from another world. Fallon clutched her chest as though she could dig through flesh and bone and claw her way back to her.

“Victoria!!” she screamed, her voice scattering through the snowstorm of the spirit realm. “I’m here..I’m trying-." Her words caught in her throat, her body folding in on itself with a sob. The snow beneath her was not cold - it was dry, empty. A vast, indifferent quiet that swallowed her sobs whole. She pressed her palms into it, shaking, her tears freezing as they fell. “I’m trying. I’m trying to come back.”

In the Caern, Fallon’s body jolted. Her pulse, weak moments before, jumped beneath her skin. Her brow furrowed, a faint sound slipping past her lips, unintelligible. A tear slid from her closed eye, tracing down her temple. Then, just as suddenly, she went still again, her breathing ragged but steady.

Caspian’s gaze softened. He stood a few paces from Victoria, arms crossed over his bare chest, his words barely louder than the crackle of the fire.

“I believe you,” he said quietly, though his eyes never left Fallon. “She’s no fool. If she loves you, despite what you are, then she does so because she knows your truth. Fallon’s trust isn’t given lightly.”

He turned to face Victoria at last. “She wouldn’t have brought you here if she didn’t mean to protect you.” His voice roughened with memory. “I loved her once. I love her still. But I loved her enough to let her go.” He drew in a breath, the scent of blood and silver thick in the air. “I saw her heart break. Saw her pine for something, after she met you. I saw her spirit crack when she tried to deny that. She’s always been the strongest of us, but even she couldn’t live split in half forever.”

His gaze dropped to Fallon’s still form. “A mate is..." his head shook. "I can't say I fully understand it myself, but to take Fallon from her pack, I understand that it is an extraordinarily powerful thing indeed.."

Movement stirred at the edge of the firelight. Two younger wolves padded in, snow still clinging to their fur. One of them carried something clutched awkwardly in his jaws. The wet, unpleasant sound of it hitting the cavern floor made several wolves flinch.

A severed head rolled to a stop at Victoria’s feet, eyes open. The young wolf spat, his lip curling in disgust, and stepped back quickly.

The caern was silent again, save for the fire’s crackle and Fallon’s faint, struggling breaths. All eyes turned toward the vampire kneeling in the firelight.

 

[Victoria O'Connor]

Victoria looked at Fallon, watched in fresh panic as she had another burst of life before falling still again. It was hell to hear Fallon's heartbeat struggling and raging, to smell the poison in her blood. She wanted to reach inside and pull Fallon's mind back to the surface... but she could not.

“She’s no fool. If she loves you, despite what you are, then she does so because she knows your truth. Fallon’s trust isn’t given lightly.”

Her truth. A swell of love and pride came with its usual stab of guilt. The ever-present thought that she was somehow tricking Fallon. Did she have a hidden and loveable truth within? Or was she a monster who had lured more of her kind here.

Caspian's gentleness was a surprise. His trust was a relief, even if it was trust in Fallon rather than Victoria herself. While she felt a momentary prickle of jealousy when Caspian spoke of their past, it was soothed by his next words.

Mate. Fallon had used that word, had tried to explain to Victoria what it meant. As far as Victoria knew vampires did not "mate," but surely what she felt for Fallon must come close. It saddened her to think about how Fallon suffered without her... but it did feel nice to be thought of as her "other half."

"Taking her from her family is a wrong I had hoped to right with this journey... even if only for a short while." She gazed on Fallon's sleeping face, and marveled in its perfection even as it sweat and grimaced. "She would stay by my side wherever I go, follow to the end of the world and back... but I see how she misses this place." She stroked a cool hand over Fallon's forehead. Her skin itched at the medicinal compounds the garou was sweating out. "I have no desire to steal her family from her."

She looked up suddenly at the young wolves and their burden, and wrinkled her nose as the head rolled towards her. The macabre didn't bother her, but the hatred she felt turned her stomach.

Victoria picked up the head by the hair and turned so that her back was to Fallon, a symbolic gesture to somehow separate this darkness from her. She set it down roughly and, in two alarmingly quick movements, gouged out its eyes with sharp fingernails. Congealed black blood oozed slowly from the sockets as Victoria closed her own eyes and reached deep, deep into the darkness within. The darkness these wolves were right to hate, the darkness that Victoria shamefully shared with this mutilated creature and every other bloodsucking fiend. She clawed through the ichor, grabbed, and wrenched as hard and as painfully as she could manage.

The head sprung to life with a strangled gasp. "Gauugh... rraaAAH! What- where... my body, where is- my EYES, AH!"

The head exclaimed in pain as Victoria steadied it with one hand in its hair and hit it, hard, across the face. "Silence!" she commanded. Her voice had shifted dramatically from what it just was, even what it had been in the field. It was clear, commanding, and unmistakably cruel. She needed the voice of a queen now.

The head was silent, though more out of shock than any sort of obedience. ”Tell me who you are and who sent you.”

The head’s expression hardened. ”Hard to remember when I’ve just woken up in searing pai- OW! Victoria hit the head again, hard enough to leave purple spots on its cheek where vessels burst.

”Who you are and who commands you. Now.”

The head sniffed, looking disgusted. "A wolf, are you? This place reeks of it. How did you wake me?"

"I am asking the questions," Victoria hissed, grasping the head's hair tight enough to pull free bits of scalp. It winced, but its eyeless expression was one of deep thought.

"No... you aren't a wolf. You're one of us. You woke me up, I felt you."

"Tell me who you work for or-"

”OH!” it exclaimed suddenly. Then, it laughed. It laughed louder, and louder, until its cackle filled the cavern with hollow, dead mirth. The laughter continued until Victoria hit the head again, and again, and again.

”Augh shit alright! I won’t be much use to you with a broken jaw… Lady O’Connor.” It spat a glob of clotted blood and a few teeth onto the stony floor.

Victoria’s eyes widened and she clenched her jaw hard enough to make veins bulge from her forehead. ”How do you know that name?"

The head continued to chuckle. ”Lady, lady Victoria. You’ve made enemies. But apparently new friends as well… wolf fucker.”

Victoria didn't even feel herself move. She just felt a white-hot rage surge through her body, and before she knew it she was holding the head by its scalp over the crackling fire, listening to it shriek.

"No! No, please! It burns!" The ends of the roughly severed neck started to blacken, and the flames hissed as they greedily drank the blood that dripped from the stump.

"This is holy fire," Victoria growled, lowering the head just an inch and enjoying its squeals. "It will consume your flesh, and burn whatever you have in place of a soul to nothing. And it will hurt the whole time. If you do not tell me what I want to know, I will have no use for you."

"I'll talk! I'll talk! The fire!"

Victoria let the head suffer until the skin started to steam, threatening to ignite, before she pulled it away. "Who. Sent. You."

The head quivered, clearly in agony. It mumbled. "...berun." Victoria scraped its cheek across the stone closer to the flames, so that its nose nearly touched the outermost logs. "Baron!" It yelled. Victoria did not move the head, instead she watched the flesh begin to boil and peel away from its nose. "Baron Rogerre! BARON ROGERRE!"

Victoria pulled the head back, lifting it to her face. "Why? What does the Baron want?"

The head was panting - a purely reflexive gesture as it had no lungs attached to it. Dark magic enabling a mimicry of life, as always. It was shaken, but it had enough spite left to give a weak sneer at its next words. "You. Destroyed."

Victoria's face betrayed great confusion. This didn't make sense. None of it made sense.

"How did you find me?"

"We were told where you would be."

"How did they know? Did they follow me? From where?"

"They just told us where to go... and we went there. That's all I know, believe me."

Victoria sat back, exhaling a long, pent-up breath. "I believe you," she answered succinctly. The head looked relieved for a moment, until she tossed it into the fire. Maybe its screams would wake Fallon.

She stared into the fire after it, her mind humming, absently wiping the gore from her fingers onto her cloak. Everything was wrong. They should never have come here. They should have stayed in the Reach like Fallon had said. They could be lounging in silk sheets right now, or riding through the midnight woods. Fallon would not be fighting for her life. The Cairn would not have wounded.

"I am sorry," she bowed her head, lower than she could remember ever bowing it to anyone. "It was me they were after. It was my fault. Once Fallon has recovered, I will make this right. You needn't see me ever again."