“I was too scared to follow, too terrified to even stand up, and I did not dare approach the house. As time passed, others arrived, and together we found the courage to enter. We found the younger swordsman—your father’s apprentice—dead in the upper bedroom, surrounded by several bodies of seret. In the bed was a woman stabbed to death, her newborn child murdered in her arms. I never saw or heard anything of your father again.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“It explains a lot I never understood about my father,” Hadrian finally said. “He must have wandered to Hintindar after that and changed his name. Dan—bury. Even his name was a riddle. So the line of Novron is dead?”

The old priest said nothing at first. He sat perfectly still except for his lips, which began to tremble. “It’s all my fault. The seed of Maribor is gone. The tree, so carefully watered for centuries, has withered and died. It was all my fault. If only I had found a better safe house, or if I had kept a better watch.” He looked up. The light from the lantern glistened off tears.

“The next day, more seret came and burned the boarding-house to the ground. I petitioned for this church to be built. The bishops never realized I was doing it as a testament—a monument to their memory. They thought I was honoring the fallen seret. So here I remained, upon their graves, guarding still. Yet now I protect not hope but a memory, a dream that, because of me, will never be.”

At noon, the ringing of the town bell summoned the citizens to Central Square. On their way back from the church, Arista, Hadrian, and Royce entered the square, barely able to see due to the gathered crowd. There they found twelve people locked in stocks. They all stood bent over with head and wrists locked, their feet and lower legs sunk deep in mud. Above each hung a hastily scrawled sign with the word Conspirator written on it.

The young, red-haired Emery was not in a stock, but instead hung by his wrists from a pole. Naked to the waist, his body was covered in numerous dark bruises and abrasions. His left eye was puffed and sealed behind a purple bruise, and his lower lip was split and stained dark with dried blood.