When I returned to the Council’s stronghold, I was met by the dead.

Bloodied, broken corpses posed in macabre artistry. Twisted limbs, contorted faces, and caved-in rib cages. Meat and sinew and marrow splintered and scattered with gruesome playfulness. On the far wall, she had used someone’s blood to draw a smile.

Amid flayed skin and scarred bone, I saw faces that had once known names. Erin. Alex. Jamie. Broken like a child’s toys and left mangled as some sickening territory marker.

Gwyn.

Bile rose in my throat and I couldn’t stop it from dribbling out. I retched, and another stain marred the stronghold halls. I held one hand against the nearest wall for support.

Have to keep going. Have to end this.

I kept going. I wanted to run, to sprint past the carnage and close my eyes to it, but I was still too weak and weary. I walked and stumbled my way up through the stronghold, towards the Council. A body here, a ruin there. Death. It was so much more vivid when I knew the name of each corpse.

I slid the lantern shard into my pocket as I moved, wanting to keep it hidden from view. Gwyn couldn’t know I had it until I buried it in her throat.

I turned another corner, only a few more hallways to the Council, and I saw Morgan.

He was dead, but he didn’t look like the others. No skin was flayed, no bones were twisted, no flesh was toyed with. He just lay there with glassy eyes and a slit throat. On the ground next to him were two vials of Well water, both stoppered and full.

I stared at them, trying to make sense of the scene. Had Morgan kept a secret stash all this time? Or had Gwyn brought those vials with her and abandoned them? Did she give Morgan an easy death out of pity, or debt, or disdain?

I closed my eyes and breathed out. It didn’t matter.

I crushed the vials beneath my boot and let the waters of prophecy soak into the wooden floor. No more fate.

The stronghold was cold, and bleak, and in the distance I heard screams. Fainter, louder, shrieking. Suffering. Etched into every stone, seared into my memory.

There: the Council. The doors to their chamber were blown open, their thrones were cracked, and the three Council members cowered in terror beneath the wrath of the Betrayer.

Their masks were discarded, and for the first time I saw their faces. They were much more mundane than I expected. They looked just like people. Normal, vulnerable, terrified. They were bleeding and bruised.

Gwyn laughed coldly and waved her hand, sending a shockwave that threw all three to one side. I heard the cracking of bone and more screams, and I watched helplessly, paralyzed.

“You are pathetic. You are worthless. You are unfit to rule, and I should have done this a long time ago.” Malice dripped from her every word. “You can’t even fight back. You’re like mice, and I’m a hurricane.”

Capra’s voice was desperate and broken. “Please! Please, Gwyn, have mercy. You don’t have to do this.”

The Betrayer cocked her head. “But, I want to. I want to make you hurt. It’s a little something called revenge.”

Lupa croaked, “I took no action against you, I stood by you when you sought-”

Gwyn clenched her fist and Lupa started choking. “You took an opportunity, and then another, and then another. You’re a worm. A carrion bird. Don’t pretend you were ever on my side.”

She looked away from Lupa and curled her fingers at Ibis. Inky tendrils lashed out at the third Councilor and dragged her to Gwyn’s feet, where she lay and glared.

“And you, Ibis? You fought me at every turn. I’m eager to hear you beg. If it’s entertaining enough, I might let you live as my jester.”

Ibis spat, “Fuck you.”

Gwyn laughed, and her laughter rose higher and higher and more manic, and then she reached out and snapped Ibis’s neck. “Good answer.”

“Ibis!” The cry slipped from my lips before I could stop it, and I panicked. I threw myself behind the wreck of the chamber doors and hoped to escape Gwyn’s notice.

My hope was vain. “Was that a pretty little bird I heard, I heard? My, you’re quite the consistent creature, aren’t you?” Her voice, slithering and melodious, scraped against my skin.

I heard two more snaps, and the thuds of bodies hitting stone. I closed my eyes and choked back tears. Dead. Dead. Everyone’s dead.

“Come out, fair pet. I insist.”

Power in her voice, magic I could feel, so subtle but there, very much there. I lurched out from behind cover and stumbled into the Council chamber. I was breathing too fast and my pulse was too quick and my eyes were wide like coins.

Gwyn smiled at me, and touched my cheek, and her fingers were so wonderfully cold. Numbness spreading through me from the point of contact, relaxing me, stilling me. Her magic wrapping around me and sealing me in.

She kept smiling, and there was desire in her eyes. “Well now. Such courage to venture here alone and unarmed. You have a spine, precious. Perhaps I was too… dismissive. You might just make a lovely handmaiden, don’t you think? My herald, my champion, my breath of life.”

I couldn’t move, I could barely think. She was just there, and that eclipsed everything. She kept touching my face, and my hands, and every touch scattered my thoughts before they could form to fight off her infection.

“I’m going to kill everything, you see, and I might become very lonely. Nobody to worship me. Nobody to admire me as I burn worlds and devour the dead. I’m a social creature, and desperately vain. I need someone to keep me sane after I’ve scoured the cosmos of life. Can you do that? Can you entertain me?”

Her will, invading me. Her mind, trying to consume mine, trying to bend me to her wants. A command, insistent, pervading: say yes say yes say yes say yes.

I could see the dream she was crafting, the vision she wanted me to believe in. I could see a path to walk, an easy road. I would do everything she told me, and tell her how amazing she was, and she would let me live while she butchered everyone else. I would be happy, and numb, and alive.

In that moment, my hatred for Gwyneth doubled.

“Go fuck yourself, you arrogant bastard.”

I went to reach for the shard, but the moment I started talking she shoved me backwards and a wave of force sent me slamming into the nearest wall. I gasped and slumped against it, my whole body aching and the wind knocked out of me.

Gwyn started stalking towards me, her face contorted into an ugly, spiteful scowl. “I give you every chance, and this is how you repay me? This is how you treat me? You worthless, pitiful, disgusting wretch!”

She clenched her fists and seethed, but then she breathed out and smiled tightly.

“Enough posturing. I’ll figure out what to do with you after I become a god, okay? Okay, great.”

The Betrayer turned away from me, looked up at the Ossuary, and reached for it.

The Ossuary glowed brighter and faint tendrils of sparkling energy began to drift towards Gwyn’s outstretched hand. Greed, lust, and hatred flashed across her face, her eyes gleaming with spite and hunger in equal measure.

That’s when Vesta showed her face. The ancestor spirit materialized beneath the Ossuary in a flash of light. She crossed her arms and shook her head. “I suppose this was inevitable from the moment you walked into this chamber hungry for authority. Should I have given it to you, Gwyneth? Would the title of Chosen have sated your desires?”

Gwyn laughed, and her focus shifted. The flow of magic from the Ossuary slowed. “Of course not. You were right about me. I would have turned the Chantry into an army and destroyed this island from the inside. It’s in my nature. But exiling me? That was your truest mistake. Now, I’ll just destroy it from the outside, and everyone will die just the same.”

Vesta nodded. “We should have executed you. My resolve was weak, softened by age. I will not make that mistake again.” She pointed at Gwyn and from the Ossuary sprang a half dozen ghostly warriors. “Kill her.”

Gwyn grinned with manic glee and cackled as the ancestor guardians advanced on her.

They moved as a unit, shields raised and weapons ready, but at the last second Gwen vanished into a cloud of black mist and reappeared behind them. She shoved her hand into the back of one warrior and ripped out his heart in a single motion. She took a bite out of the glowing heart, tossed aside the remains, and licked her lips as she kicked the warrior’s disintegrating body out of her way.

The ghosts tried to get back in formation but Gwyn clenched a fist and dark tendrils flew out to strangulate three of them, lifting them into the air, constricting them, and then throwing them away. The other two charged and she glided around their attacks, giggling and making unnecessary flourishes. There was a moment where they were separate from each other and she leapt into action. She lunged for the nearest warrior and bit down on his neck, sinking in her teeth before tossing her head back and ripping out a chunk of spectral flesh.

She slurped down her stolen magic and breathed in the last of that warrior’s power, then shunted it outward at his partner in a bolt of darkness that tore through the other ghost’s form and tore it to shreds. There wasn’t a scratch on her, and she looked exhilarated by combat.

More ghostly warriors emerged from the Ossuary and engaged her, but I could see already that it was futile. They would slow her down, but they would break long before they could wear her down. She was engorged with magic and knew dark spells that Vesta had never heard of.

They would fall, and she would claim her prize, and Gwyneth would devour everything. I had to act. One chance. The fate of the universe decided on a coin flip. It was crazy enough I almost laughed.

I stumbled to my feet, gripped the lantern shard tightly, and sprinted at Gwyn. She was too distracted killing ghosts to see me coming until I was right in front of her. She frowned, her eyes flitted to my clenched hand, and then I plunged the shard into her throat.

Gwyn’s eyes went wide and she clawed at her neck frantically. All traces of the cold, brutal overlord were gone, replaced by a little girl scared to die. I pulled the makeshift knife out and stabbed her again, and again, and again again again again-

A hand on my throat, tightening. Her eyes, burning red. Her throat, bloody and mangled. She moved her lips and only strained sounds emerged. My vision was going blurry. The shard wasn’t in my hand anymore. I was dying.

Blue light surged and wrapped around us. A thousand grasping hands pulled Gwyn away from me and I fell to the ground with a meaty thump. I think something cracked.

Vesta, looking down at me, crouching to look me in the eyes. “Caligula and Nero: are they dead?”

Weakly, I nodded.

She smiled, and it wasn’t sad. “Then this is goodbye. Take care of them, will you? They should not have to carry the sins of the past.”

Vesta walked towards Gwyn. The vampire was bleeding black mist into the air, dark tendrils lashing out to strike at the ghosts swirling around her. Her neck was still a gaping gash, but her expression was one of determination, and fury.

Vesta bowed her head, and she faded away until only a single point of light remained. All the other ghosts did the same, and then more points of light emerged from the Ossuary, pouring out of it by the hundreds. Gwyn threw off her restraints and backed away, clawed hands raised defensively.

The points of light flew towards her. She blasted a few, threw others aside, but they kept coming. The first few reached her and poured into her neck wound. Realization hit her, and she turned to run but now they were all on her, thousands of ghosts flowing into the entry point I had created.

Blue light pulsed beneath her pale skin and spread to her fingertips. Her skin cracked, and fractured, and the light was white-hot. There was a blinding flash, a single desolate scream, and then the room was dark, the Ossuary was dark, and Gwyneth was gone.

I laughed, and cried, and the world fell away from me.