That bald man’s blood got into my mouth, Death thought. I do not like how he tastes… salty, thick, feels like I’ve drank vinegar. A shame, I usually like the flavour of it.

  The fountain of the Leaky Knight held many sizzling corpses. Poor souls who’d dove into the waters to escape the flames of the dragons, only to meet the water scorched to a bubbling boil from the magic of the Sentinels. For a moment, Death pitied them, then went cold to their demise once more.

  He entered the Leaky Knight with the godsteel dagger in hand. The tables were upturned, the staff slaughtered, clean cuts to their throats and stomachs. Resting on the bar, Stroke’s godsteel sickle dried blood covering it. The prince sat on a stool, circling the rim of a cup of wine with his thumb. He dipped in a finger, stirring it, then poured it onto his own head, angrily throwing the cup into the corpse of a barmaid and kicking their lifeless head with frustrated kicks. He put a hand into her mouth and ripped the upper half of her skull from her jaw, stomping it flat just like Killian did Runaya. He was in pain, agony, voices tormenting his thoughts and making him scream out for help. “I’m not evil!” he yelled. “Stop saying that! Stop it!”

  Death crept closer. A squeaky floorboard betrayed him. Stroke’s head perked up but didn’t turn. “Death,” he whispered. “I know it is you. I saw you coming on the Sentinels.” He sat back in his stool, pouring himself a glass of water, still not turning. “You’ve come to kill me. I would come to kill me too. Sit, please. You can try to put that knife in me once we’ve talked.”

  “I have no desires to talk to mad royalty.”

  “Then how about a desire to talk to a friend?”

  “That path for friends has long passed.”

  Stroke faced Death, his eyes puffy and red from many tears. His forced smile shown guilt. He tapped the empty stool next to him, a silent plead with his sad gaze. “Just until Bianca comes.”

  “Let me guess, you see her coming?”

  “The city is in chaos. Dragons battle the Sentinels. Mara kills any she finds. The captains fighting Fiasco, poor Bollo, that didn’t look like something you could just sleep off… but he deserved it. He never spoke up in Runaya’s favour. None of them spoke loud enough, not even Bianca. I blame all of them. I’m waiting to see my own brother, just a glimpse, then I’ll kill him. Bianca comes for this place. I assume Godwin saw me entering, explains why my gifts don’t seem to work.”

  He needs to be unobserved for his gift to work, I was right. Each time I blink, I open myself to an attack. I will sit for now, Bianca’s eyes would make the duel easier. She seemed honourable. A further alliance with her could be my method of killing the prince.

  He took Prince Stroke’s offer and sat upon the stool, slamming the godsteel dagger into the bar’s wood after removing the chain that attached it to his belt. He kept his hand on the hilt for a while, eventually releasing it to pour himself a glass. He smashed the cabinet’s glass, pulling out a fine red, deciding to knock the cup away.”

  “You make drinking look so easy,” Stroke said. “I could never.”

  “I’m not drinking. Bianca will be joining us soon, you said. Do you plan to fight her? The wine is to ease tensions.”

  “She comes with her hammer. She’s passing hills of bodies. She won’t want peace with me.”

  Death scoffed, rolling up his sleeves. He slicked his soaking hair back with a hand, laughing as he did so. “To think I really thought we could’ve been allies. How foolish of me. I should’ve seen your madness from miles away.”

  “I’m not mad,” Stroke said calmly. “Please don’t say that.”

  Death gestured to the many corpses. “Then why all this? Did all these commonfolk have godly powers to threaten you with?”

  “They wouldn’t let me sit in peace. They wouldn’t listen to what I had to say. I had no choice.”

  “Sounds mad to me.”

  “If I’m mad, you’re mad too.” The prince slammed a hand down in anger. “You’re like me. Just like me.”

  “We’re nothing alike.”

  “No. We are. You must’ve lost someone too. No normal person would sit and listen to what I have to say unless they understood.”

  Death for another flash of the girl tormenting his memory. He remembered her smile, the feel of her hand in his. I refuse to accept that I once loved, Death denied. I am a conquer; I do not need any form of companionship. All my alliances are temporary… but then why did I willingly call the others my friends? How could I forget the name of some I loved, if that is what she is. Why did I decide to conquer everything? Was it for her? Was it for me? Death calmed his scowls into a raised brow. “What do you have to say, Stroke Valan?” he asked. “Do you think I have the cure for madness.” He tapped Stroke’s knuckle, tracing the runes of the God Arm to the top of his elbow. “Perhaps a power like this should not belong to a mind so mad. You could give it to me.”

  Stroke laughed at the suggestion. “I’m not mad. Not yet. Do you think I’m mad? How would I know if I’m mad? Is the only way to tell trusting others? Doesn’t seem right. Where are your friends?”

  “Fighting Killian Entrail.”

  “Then they are dead,” Stroke said in despair. “I was right. This madness of mine has spread to you too.”

  If Snow was killed, I’d be dead too. Their battle must be over by now, which means they must’ve won. Good job, the three of you, I’ll hope the fox and demon didn’t pay the price of victory with their lives. “You are right. All of us are mad in our own way. Speak what you wish to say before Bianca arrives.” I need to keep him calm until another set of eyes is on him, then I can kill him.

  “I never wanted to kill for her,” Stroke started. “I mean that. All of this.” He gestured to the bodies. “I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want her to die for me. I wanted to be kind, set an example, put our children on my shoulders and show them a world I wanted to live in, a world of love and joy, one where people could feel safe.” He caressed the wood of the bar, circling a finger around the fading initials of himself and Runaya carved into it. “A world where people still believed heroes were real. I spent too long lettering my brothers push me around. I thought one day they would change. I got her killed, Death. Na?ve. Childish. I tried to see goodness where there was no goodness.”

  “And that’s why I love you,” Stroke heard Runaya say. “I love you so much, my handsome boy. Kill them all.”

  “I hear her voice,” the prince continued. “In my head, sometimes not—you heard the Sentinels, you said so yourself, her soul is in mine.”

  “Or you’re being toyed with,” Death suggested. “A spirit can put on voices like mortals wear hats.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “But I feel her touch, Death. I feel fingers of ice in my palm. I hear the songs of the gods, my visions blur with each blink and clear with the next. What is happening to me?”

  Death only gave a shrug. What did the prince want him to say? In truth, there was nothing he wanted to hear. He simply wanted ears that listened, eyes that understood, a friend. He made a final plea to death for a friendship, all but begging for his companionship. Death refused, unconvinced that the young Valan could be trusted. Stroke thought longer, then tried again.

  “The nations are tainted by lustful thoughts, harlots and whores wander the streets, brothels have doubled in this century alone. They all hated that Runaya was pure, they hated that I could push down my own lust to see clear that this world is being choked by someone or something that has control over us. The only thing I’ve ever wanted is gone. Will you take this city with me, Death?”

  “You put your hands on Snow. Whether it was a mishap or not, I can not trust you not to do it again.”

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “You will all be three from the culling that is to come. Don’t you hear the Void? You and I are destined to fight by each other. Kill Godwin with me. You can have his God Arm, symmetry, please.”

  “No.”

  Stroke’s eyes slowly landed on the godsteel dagger. He sighed deeply, taking the knife, attaching it to his own belt.

  “Bianca is here,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you. You are not fast enough to kill me with that. Think on my offer, you can have the knife back when you see reason.”

  Stroke tied his godsteel sickle to his belt, standing politely, facing the door. “Don’t intervene, Death,” Stroke said. “Hold your anger a little while longer.”

  Bianca was horrified as she came into the Leaky Knight. Her face was calm, but her widened eyes spoke the truth—the prince had her scared for her own life, even with the past they shared. She thought of her own mother, remembering how she told her to be a hero when the people needed it. She wanted to be that hero.

  “I thought this was a ruse,” she whispered. “Stroke… what have you done? Death? Where are the others?”

  “Don’t speak to him,” Stroke said drily. “Speak to me.”

  She saw his sickle dripping with blood and chose to do as he said. “There is still time to undo this,” she said. “Come with me to a private place in Keep Blacksteel—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Harren’s body is in there.”

  “Harren is dead?”

  “I said so on the Sentinels, didn’t I? I can’t remember what I said on them anymore.”

  “Harren was evil. You did a good thing.”

  “Godwin is evil. Where is he, Bianca?”

  Her heart began to break from divided loyalties. She wanted to cry, to comfort the friend she loved deeply, but couldn’t see that man in Stroke like she used to be able to. With a heavy, mournful hand, she summoned Dragonhammer to her grip and held it steady, threatening the prince with the snapping maw of the living dragon.

  “You’re hurting people,” she whimpered. “I’m not going to give you Godwin. You’ll have to kill me if you want to get to him.”

  The mere suggestion made the prince’s heart ache. He took his sickle and threatened her too, a tear running down his cheek. “You defend the man who sat and watched Harren do it all. I thought you would always be there when I needed you.”

  “Kill her,” Runaya’s voice said. “Kill her now. Do it.”

  “Runaya?” Bianca said in confusion. “Is that her?”

  “You hear her too.”

  “She would never say that. Runaya was kind.”

  “A liar is better than silence. I don’t care what soul has latched to my soul. It speaks in her voice, that’s all that matters.”

  I may not even need to kill the prince myself, Death thought. This will be an interesting battle to study Stroke’s style of battle.

  “Is this it, then?” Bianca said, her voice shaky. “All the moments when we were dumb kids—climbing towers, hitting each other with sticks, catching frogs with out bare hands. Me, you, Runaya, did all of that meaning nothing to you?”

  “It meant everything to me,” he roared. “You’re the one who’s betraying me.”

  The weight of her hammer got the best of her. She lowered it, surrendering and approaching slowly. She hugged Stroke tightly, one final attempt to bring back the friend she knew. “We can do it in her memory. We used to do so much more, and I miss that. Life got in the way. I should’ve been there for you more. I shouldn’t have sacrificed what we had just to bring others into the city. I wanted more heroes, but the truest hero in all of Valan was by my side the whole time. I miss you. I miss Runaya. Let me be here for you. No more fighting, no more death, no more Vatanil—let’s leave, just like you wanted to. Let us find the quietest place, you can tell me all you wished to do with Runaya, every plan, every dream, I’ll listen.”

  More tears left Stroke’s eyes. He kissed the top of her hair, moving her face away from his chest and seeing she was crying to. She forced her lips into a smile, as did the prince, but both for a different reason—Bianca thought she’d cracked his armour, and that he’d accepted her offer. Stroke’s smile, however, was only from the memories of Bianca’s youth flooding his mind.

  The prince caressed her face, seeing the girl she used to be—curls of orange, innocence, truthful eyes that meant every word.

  The prince then suddenly turned his face away, clenching his jaw. Bianca gasped, grabbing Stroke’s wrist—he pushed the tiny blade of Godsteel deeper into his old friend’s stomach.

  “Oh, I wish it didn’t have to be you,” he whispered. “The dreams I had with Runaya are dead.”

  Stroke stabbed her a second time, this time in the heart. Her lips tried to touch, to speak a word, but death was coming quick. She fell into the prince’s arms, no longer able to stand. He took the knife out her chest, refusing to go for his intended third strike to her neck. He guided her to the floor, leaving her twitching and weakly trying to reach for her Dragonhammer which was so close yet so far.

  “I didn’t want to kill you,” Stroke whispered. “I didn’t. You know I didn’t. You didn’t want to kill me either. One of us had to do something they didn’t like. I took that burden.” Stroke stepped over her and left her to die, he ignored the Dragonhammer, standing in the doorway and looking at the Sentinels with a sigh of relief.

  “Will you come, Death?” Stroke said. “Godwin will be close. “

  Death scrambled from his chair to Bianca’s side. He put a firm hand on her chest, seeing if the wound was treatable. Her eyes grew desperate, searching for something to focus on. Death lightly gripped her chin, keeping her shaky eyes on him.

  He does this and still expects me to trust him, Death thought. The prince truly is mad.

  “Leave her,” Stroke said. “We have work to do. Let her die. She can have her final moments alone.”

  Death felt immense guilt, for some reason. Bianca was not his friend, and he barely knew her, but he felt angry. He put a hand at the back of her head, finding her hand with his other. He pushed his lips into a flat flown, brows furrowed. She pushed the blood out of her mouth with her tongue, trying so desperately to stay alive, hoping for a miracle from the gods.

  Death decided to be that miracle.

  He closed his eyes, squeezing her hand tight. The wound on her stomach healed first, sealing without scar. He healed her heart next. She inhaled sharply, sitting upright, frightened by her own death that kissed her so deeply. With sadness in her eyes, she pushed Death away and ran for her Dragonhammer. She grabbed the handle with both hands.

  Stroke turned with shock, seeing her unharmed, and raised an arm to block the blow, but Bianca used the dragon side of her weapon rather than the blunt edge. The jaws clamped down into his arm, biting down to the bone. She pushed him outside the tavern with all she could muster, flinging him and the hammer away from herself with a mighty throw. She summoned the Dragonhammer back once done, leaving Stroke where he was.

  “How are you alive?” the prince whimpered. Death took the side of Bianca. “You’re both betraying me?”

  “Give me back my friend!” Bianca yelled. “This is not you! I’ll beat that God Arm off you and kill the false soul pretending to be her. Death, leave. This is my fight, not yours.”

  “Someone has to make sure he can’t use his gifts, can’t rely on the Sentinels to cover every hidden angle,” Death smirked. “He has my dagger. Can’t let him keep it.”

  “KILL THEM!” Runaya screamed. “DO IT! KILL THEM BOTH RIGHT NOW! END THEIR MISERABLE LIVES!”

  “I will my love,” Stroke whispered. “Anything for you.”