"You want me to join a cult?" Woodborn asked. It was an accusation.
"Call it a coalition," I corrected, carefully. I'd rather have it be an obscure religion than a full-blown cult. "Call it a method. Call it whatever; it doesn't matter. But yes, priests would call it blasphemy. I call it truth. There will be a prophet to oppose me. They will be loud, beloved, and convincing. That's inevitable. He'll gather children, miracles, and little armies of light. He'll be the saint who keeps the old faith tidy and people obedient. But I'm not scared. I have faith."
Woodborn's lips twitched.
"And you expect me to… what? Bow down?"
There was a certain comedy in his voice. It was part apprehension, some fear, and another part that almost believed in what I was saying.
"No." I leaned forward so the hearth painted my shadow long. "Only if you believe. Let us be there when people are pushed and fall from the grace of the light. We will give people a choice: keep what you have and watch it rot, or let the old order crumble so something new - something you - can rise from the ashes. We will not be gods. We will be managers of consequence."
He listened like a man hearing an argument for a tax reform: interested, skeptical, and already counting benefits. "And this prophet opposing you?" he sneered. "What about him?"
Damn, man, I don't know. I'm making this up on the spot.
"A prophet will come," I said simply. "Whether discovered by me or by the world first, I don't yet know. We will plant both sides elegantly."
He chuckled. "That sounds like a good story."
I laughed too, but not for long. I watched Woodborn's face in that moment and afterward.
I wondered what kind of man he really was. Was he really just so power hungry and wanted the throne so badly he would assassinate his cousin?
I mean, it really is a tempting thing if you're a somewhat corrupt noble. He was only one person away from controlling an entire kingdom - maybe he'd also kill any heirs.
Such were the dealings of the highborn. I wondered too if these two assassination attempts were the only ones that Deimos Amoon had to endure.
In my old world, people sometimes tried hundreds of times to assassinate someone, unsuccessfully, I might add.
Woodborn seemed mostly calm and collected. Just a few flinches here and there. His mask was almost only confidence; it only slipped a few times when the situation demanded more emotion.
Oh well. I'll find out later. Onto other things.
"The sheen. The assassins' cloaks. Where did you get that?" I said, seriously.
Woodborn's face changed when I asked. The smile left room for greed and a little pride.
"That," he said, "is mine. I didn't buy it. It was delivered. A trunk - heavy, the heaviest thing I have ever seen, sealed in a way I've never seen. When the men opened it, they nearly tossed it back at me, but I am not a man who throws away mystery." He folded his hands, eyes bright. "There was this… substance. Like oil at dawn. Like spilled beetle juice, it didn't wet the cloth. It didn't burn or freeze. I had a dozen apprentices study it. We learned to coax it - form it in sheets, lay it, and it held."
My interest tightened into hunger. "You made their suits from it?"
"Thin skins," he said. "Sheets that wrapped. They gave concealment, but more than that - a kind of resilience. It melds, somehow, to a body. If the wearer dies, the material collapses, like it was bonded to the living. We've experimented with thickness. Plates are possible, in theory, though the material is far too heavy to wear. The easiest thing was a membrane, something light enough to cloak a man." He shifted, suddenly wary. "There were other… things in the trunk."
"A trunk," I breathed. "You still have it?"
He nodded slowly. "In the vault."
I could feel the ideas move through me like heat. But I had to focus on the things at hand.
"Show me," I said.
He arched a brow. "Now?"
"I want to see it. Close. I want to understand its temperament." I kept my tone casual, like a man asking to see a curious animal. "If this substance can be manipulated, if it can be controlled - then we gain something more valuable than ledgers and loyalty."
Woodborn watched me for a second as if rereading the man in front of him. Then he smiled that small, dangerous smile that belonged to men who kept others' secrets under lock and lash. "You're reckless," he said. "But determined. I like that in an ally."
"You will see it," he decided. "But understand - it is not a toy. It is my property. You handle it like a guest in my house handles a blade."
"And if I break it?" I asked, already imagining tests.
"You don't," he said flatly. "And if you try, you will learn the cost of fooling a Woodborn."
Gullyman's shoulders twitched; his presence was a reminder I'd staged this scene to seem controlled. He did not speak. He didn't need to. He looked like a man who had already surrendered to the situation he was forced into. It was such a depressing look.
Sorry.
The vault was below stairs, deeper than the servants' rooms - built into stone that smelled of old earth and old promises. No servant was woken to open it.
The stairs were too shallow for my feet, so I moved slowly. It might have seemed that I moved at a very deliberate pace instead of trying not to stumble and fall down.
A single torch held by Woodborn was our only source of light.
Behind a locked door - a vault - nestled in a corner, lay the thing, the same trunk I had seen twice before.
It wasn't stored here; it was exiled. Hidden from prying eyes. Even those permitted - likely only Woodborn and a few people he trusted - didn't want to look often.
I had many questions, first and foremost being, "Where did these things come from anyway?"
Another thing I thought, which wasn't really a question, was that I had a lot of work ahead of me.
"How did you get it?" I asked.
"My men just found it outside the manor one day. There is nothing else to the story. There was no sign of anyone who delivered it, nor a card saying who the sender was, nor the purpose of it. That was a few months ago."
"Open it," I said.
Woodborn hesitated. Just a breath. Just long enough to see a flicker through his eyes. Then he unlatched the heavy seals.
He could open it with ease.
I wonder - did I destroy part of the lock on the first trunk with my lightning spell? It took me a real while to open it, and he just had to unlatch it.
The lid peeled back like a coffin waking.
The goo lay there - dark, iridescent. I dipped a hand in. No resistance. No cold. No wet.
I was searching for something, and then I felt it: shapes.
Soft small pieces. And then another and another. Body parts, small, I guessed. Still children?
I felt teeth and tongue. A rib.
Too many pieces. More than in the first trunk. And in the first one were two entire people.
Were there three or more here? Maybe it was someone older, so there were more pieces to pull apart?
Still…
"These were people," I murmured. "Why keep the parts?"
Woodborn shrugged. A craftsman explaining why he saved scraps of wood: because someday they might be useful.
"I didn't know what they were," he said. "They were in with the substance. I thought if we removed a piece, the goo would lose its… vitality. So I didn't bother with them."
"You never questioned it?"
"I question everything. But I profit first." He folded his arms. "Disposing of the bodies seemed like risking the material. And clearly the material is the valuable component."
Really? Body pieces in weird goo, and thinks only the goo is the valuable part? Maybe Woodborn wasn't as smart as I gave him credit for.
Gullyman shifted as I raised pieces out - disgust, fear, something else. Hard to tell.
Which was odd. He was the assassin. In my current role, I wasn't supposed to react either. But if I were a normal person and the one who's supposed to be disturbed here, shouldn't he be offering me a handkerchief and a comforting "Don't look directly at it"?
He looked like someone who had expected his entire career to involve quick stabs and dramatic exits through windows - not sorting corpse confetti. Honestly, it was disappointing. You hire a killer; you hope for a certain level of professional enthusiasm.
But I guess nowhere in his resume is it printed that he had to like the post-stabbing part.
"I need to take this," I said.
Woodborn bristle d. "Absolutely not."
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."