The Silent King’s head tilted. The Brethren stirred, hungry and impatient. It was about to order a search—room by room, soul by soul. It would find the relic eventually. And it would find Kaelen’s comrades, hidden in the crypts, their bright armor glowing like beacons in the dark.
Kaelen watched from the shadow of the broken portcullis. His misarmor made no sound. No polished pauldrons to click. No cloak to rustle. He was a gray ghost in a carnival of death. misarmor
The Silent King convulsed, made a sound like a cracked bell, and collapsed. The Brethren froze. Without their leader’s will, they were just rags and bone. The Archivist blinked at Kaelen, then at his plain gray armor, then back at his face. The Silent King’s head tilted
The Archivist was cornered against the altar of records, a slender woman with ink-stained fingers and a broken lectern as her only shield. The Silent King raised a hand—not to strike, but to demand . “The Lament Configuration,” it whispered, its voice like dry leaves skittering on stone. “Give it to me, and I will let you die quickly.” It would find the relic eventually
He nodded toward the courtyard, where the bright, beautiful knights lay still beneath the mist. The Archivist looked away. And Kaelen walked back into the rain, gray steel blending into the gray dawn, already forgotten by everyone who had seen him.
“You,” she whispered. “The one they call Misarmor.”
The Silent King turned. Its mask was smooth, white porcelain, save for two black pits for eyes. It scanned the courtyard, dismissing the fallen, the fleeing, the flailing. And then it saw Kaelen.