Everyone in the village was kneeling.
The living.
And the dead.
Three hundred people bowed their heads along both sides of the snow-covered road.
The knees of the dead would not bend. Their shinbones had been broken to set them at the same height as the living.
White cloths had been stuffed into their mouths.
The same words were written on every one.
`We surrender.`
Adel tried to pull the cloth from the first person's mouth.
Hassan caught her wrist.
"Do not read it."
"It is gagging her."
"That is not a gag. It is a signature."
Adel stopped.
The end of the cloth was stitched to the woman's tongue.
The thread was placed so cutting it would split the tongue as well.
"Did you consent to this?"
Adel asked the woman.
The woman shook her head with her eyes alone.
At that moment, the village bell rang.
It had no clapper.
Seven human mouths hung inside it.
One by one, they spoke the same words.
"We surrender to the commander who came to save us."
Cassian stopped at the village boundary.
The moment the toe of his boot crossed it, white letters beneath the snow came alive.
Thousands of lines crawled toward his boots.
Marchesa drew her sword.
"Do not enter."
"An order?"
"A warning."
"Then you're too late."
One word clung to the sole of Cassian's boot.
`Commander.`
Hassan knelt and dug through the snow.
An old metal plate lay beneath the frozen earth.
Words in the old Crusade tongue were carved around it in a circle.
He traced them with one finger.
"This village has not surrendered."
Ria asked,
"Everyone here is marked as surrendering."
"That is why it is a trap."
Hassan pointed to an empty groove in the center of the plate.
It was shaped like a human heart.
"The moment the commander who came to save them accepts their surrender, every war this village has lost enters that person's heart."
"And if no one accepts?"
"They remain on their knees until they die."
Adel checked the second woman's pulse.
At the question in Adel's eyes, the woman closed hers once.
Consent.
"They will not survive the cold tonight."
"How many?" Cassian asked.
"Two hundred sixteen alive," Ria answered.
"Eighty-four dead."
"Cheap for the price of one commander."
Marchesa's sword touched Cassian's throat.
"Say that again."
"You heard me."
"The moment you receive them, a nail enters your heart."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"You already have one in yours."
Cassian looked at her chest.
The white nail beat beneath the broken scales of her armor.
"Put in another."
Marchesa's sword pressed into his flesh.
A line of blood ran from the black alignment seam.
"You intend to use me as a vessel?"
"A cracked vessel makes it easy to see where the next crack will run."
"And if two nails tear my heart apart?"
"I'll cut one out before you die."
"Is that what you did for Aaron?"
Cassian did not answer.
Marchesa lowered her sword.
It was not refusal.
She was choosing where she would take the wound.
She opened the chest of her armor.
The flesh around the white nail had already hardened like stone.
Adel approached.
"May I touch you?"
"Diagnosis only."
"I am not qualified to treat you."
"I know."
The dead saint's fingers pressed over Marchesa's heart.
The two women did not like each other.
One had starved a city to honor surrender terms.
The other refused treatment to honor a patient's consent.
Even so, hand and heart met with perfect precision.
"If the second nail enters, your heart can beat three times," Adel said.
"On the fourth, it splits in half."
"Three is enough," Cassian said.
Marchesa looked at him.
"My heart, yet you decide how many beats I get."
"Die if you don't like it."
"That would be the outcome you prefer."
She closed her armor.
The plan was simple.
Marchesa would accept the village's surrender.
A second nail would enter her heart.
Before its third beat, Cassian would cut between the two contracts.
If he succeeded, the village would be released and one nail would break.
If he failed, Marchesa's heart would split.
Cassian would lose the northern supply line.
Marchesa would lose her life.
Neither price could be passed to someone else.
So both accepted it.
"I will be the witness," Simon said.
Cassian shook his head.
"You stay outside."
"You said a contract follows the witnesses' meaning."
"That is why I am excluding you."
"I know the language of this land."
"Your blood will disturb the contract."
Simon's eyes narrowed.
Cassian already knew.
The village's stone walls bore the old mark of the Bell royal house.
The winter crown used before the Empire seized the north.
If Simon stood as witness, a third right would arise between the surrendering people and the commander accepting them.
The contract would become complicated.
Complicated contracts killed people no one expected.
"Stay behind me," Cassian said.
Simon did not answer.
Marchesa crossed the boundary.
White sentences beneath the snow wound around her ankles.
Hundreds of armor scales rose at once.
The cloths in the villagers' mouths pulled taut.
Blood ran from their tongues.
The mouths inside the bell cried out.
"Accept our surrender."
Marchesa planted her sword in the snow.
She showed both empty hands.
"Marchesa Bell, commander-in-chief of Morheim, accepts your surrender."
The ground split.
A white nail rose from it.
It flew toward Marchesa's chest.
Cassian held his sword in his left hand.
He was ready to sever the throat of the contract the moment the nail pierced her armor.
Then Simon crossed the boundary.
"I am Simon Arken Bell."
Marchesa turned.
It was not a name she had never heard.
It was a name she had never wanted to hear.
Simon removed the half-chain from his wrist and laid it on the snow.
"The last male heir of the winter crown, and the former owner of this land."
There were no soldiers watching.
No officers to raise a beacon.
But the land heard him.
The crown marks on the stone walls shook off their snow.
The kneeling villagers turned toward Simon.
Even the dead scraped their broken legs across the ground to face him.
The flying white nail stopped.
It turned from Marchesa toward Simon.
"Get out!"
For the first time, her voice was a scream rather than an order.
Simon did not move.
"The people of my land cannot surrender to a foreign commander."
The white nail touched his chest.
Cassian swung his sword.
One finger on his aged left hand broke.
The blade missed the nail.
Had he kept the powder cart, he could have blown apart the metal plate with the ground around it.
Cassian had traded that cart for grain.
His strike came one beat too late.
The nail entered Simon's chest.
The first heartbeat.
The white cloths came free from the villagers' mouths.
Threads stitched through tongues tore flesh.
Two hundred sixteen screams erupted at once.
The second heartbeat.
Eighty-four dead rose.
They walked toward Simon on broken shins.
Their surrender had ended, but their defeat demanded a new owner.
Cassian kicked the first corpse under the jaw.
Its neck snapped backward.
He drove his sword through the second corpse's mouth and down into its spine.
He could not pull it free with his left hand alone.
Marchesa gripped the hilt with him.
Their hands overlapped.
She pulled while Cassian twisted.
The blade came free, breaking ribs sideways.
Before the third heartbeat, Cassian put his hand into Simon's chest.
He did not tear the skin.
He opened the sinmark.
Inside were the white nail and hundreds of surrender sentences.
`We surrender to a foreign commander.`
The subject of the sentence was disappearing.
The instant Simon became owner of the land, the villagers ceased to be foreigners.
Surrender became return.
The defeat still needed an owner.
Cassian did not pull out the nail.
If he did, it would return to the village.
Instead, he turned it inside Simon's chest.
Its point faced down instead of toward the heart.
It pierced a rib from within.
Blood poured from Simon's mouth.
His heart beat a third time.
It did not split.
Every white letter in the village went dark.
The dead collapsed.
The living wept, unable to straighten their knees.
Cassian pulled his hand from Simon's chest.
"You ruined my plan."
Simon showed bloodied teeth.
"The village lives."
"And you became a king."
"I never wanted that."
"Kings usually say so."
Marchesa slapped her nephew.
Hard enough to leave sound, not injury.
Then she did not embrace him.
She loosened a strap from her armor and bound Simon's chest.
Adel asked,
"May I treat you?"
Simon nodded.
Adel mended only the rib.
She did not touch the white nail.
That night, the villagers stood for the first time.
In exchange, twelve northern beacons turned white.
Simon Arken Bell lives.
The winter crown returns.
Independence from the Empire.
The price of saving one village was giving the war a king.
Cassian sent Simon to Marchesa's cavalry.
This time, he did not cross a bridge.
The cavalry came south to receive them both.
Simon mounted under his own power.
He wore no chains.
His sword had been returned.
Cassian said,
"I sent him back alive."
Marchesa looked at the nail in her nephew's heart.
"Returning only the body is your specialty."
"I included a crown."
"You did not put it there."
"I am the one who didn't remove it."
Marchesa's hand went to her sword.
Cassian raised his left hand.
Neither drew.
Simon turned his horse between them.
"My heart is mine to use."
He rode to Marchesa's army.
The soldiers opened a path.
It was wider than the one they had opened for Marchesa.
At that moment, heat flared in Cassian's chest.
A black scale rose beneath his skin.
A white sentence formed upon it.
`The surrendered man was returned alive.`
Marchesa's armor began to protect Cassian.
At the same time, he heard her heartbeat from inside the scale.
One white nail.
And a second nail beating in time with it.
The residue inside Simon connected the armor of both of them.