“Honestly, I was taken aback too. For something so… unremarkable-looking.” Noticing Yvette’s curiosity, Oleander produced the artifact.

  By all appearances, it was just an aged dagger—weathered, rusted, yet undeniably crafted for battle, its blade channelled with blood grooves and honed to a lethal curve.

  “This killed dragons or demons? Seems unlikely. Legends usually favor swords or lances. A dagger feels almost… heretical.”

  Oleander chuckled. “True enough. Like shoving witchcraft into a detective novel—makes the tale twist oddly.” He nodded conspiratorially. “But legends claim it was wielded by some faceless hero, not a proper knight.”

  “That would make the story ancient, then?”

  “Older than the festival itself. Every child here grows up on tales of that warrior. Today’s ceremony honors him.”

  Centuries old… Could these bloodstain visions stem from something that ancient? Yvette hesitated to label the stains as cursed. If the legends held truth, the dagger might’ve sealed away creatures like the Kin, their lingering spite requiring occasional rituals. Perhaps the Bradt family’s mine disrupted old wards, triggering the five deaths. The dagger’s blood-soaked aura and today’s rites could be key. With Marcuse’s reply still pending, observation was wise.

  Their carriage halted before a stone church—quintessential Albion countryside: tranquil, weathered, yet dignified. Even in ruins, Yvette suspected the woodland chapel would’ve dwarfed it.

  Villagers queued at the main entrance while Oleander’s coachman stopped at a smaller, ornate side door. A servant unlocked it, revealing a lintel carved with a raven, bull, whale, and other beasts beside five family initials.

  “This church was built by five landed families,” the servant boasted. “Their kin needn’t jostle with tenants.”

  Albion’s class divides, ever-present. Ignoring the villagers’ awed stares, Yvette followed Oleander inside.

  Soon, the other gentry arrived, including Mr. Baines, the ex-lawyer, who greeted her warmly.

  “Delighted to see you. I explored your woodland recently—with the gamekeeper’s blessing.”

  “Ah, he’s fiercely loyal. My uncle detested poachers. Hope he wasn’t difficult.”

  “Not at all. Have you walked those woods? They’re… remarkable.”

  “Never ventured far. Not much for hunting, though perhaps Mr. Fisher might teach me.”

  Another heir clueless about his inheritance, Yvette mused.

  Clergymen emerged, drawing gasps. Junior priests wore senior vestments and donkey ears, while an elderly bishop shuffled aside holding a candlestick.

  “Isn’t that Bishop Connoton?” Oleander whispered.

  “Feast of Fools tradition,” the Bradt patriarch explained. “Today, the lowly command their betters. Wait for the best part.”

  The impostor priests began mass, then—to roaring laughter—rolled dice atop the altar during consecration.

  Post-mass, revelry consumed the square. The gentry hosted games, free ale, and roasted meats—far grander than any tenant’s meager feast.

  After tea, the squires gathered by the stage. Oleander ascended, drawing the dagger, and approached a grotesque wicker effigy resembling neither demon nor dragon. Each man carved a section, tossing it into flaming braziers.

  Yvette flinched. As the blade struck, blood geysered from the effigy, painting Oleander’s grin with gore. The crowd howled, cheering as dismembered chunks burned.

  Yet the nightmare dissolved mid-fire, leaving only paper ashes.

  “Done. Simpler than expected.” Oleander rejoined her, frowning at her guarded expression.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “…That sword-swallower unsettles me.” She gestured to the circus act now onstage.

  “The blade retracts.” He shrugged. “Saw it up close.”

  She feigned relief, recalling the cryptic words at Hamlin Estate:

  [Do not trust! Lies!]

  Oleander—lying? Normally unthinkable, but the ritual’s brutality sowed doubt. In her mind’s eye, his doublet dripped blood—an unspoken indictment.

  Villagers scrambled for cooled “monster ashes” from the braziers.

  “For plentiful crops,” Baines explained, his kindly face grotesque behind crimson-stained teeth.

  Her hands trembled.

  “Yves?” Oleander pressed. “You’re pale.”

  “Just a headache.”

  “Rest at my home, then.” He waved over a servant. “I’ve obligations—dining with some wretch crowned ‘King for a Day.’ Mock royalty for this mock holiday. Stay or leave as you please.”

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  After he left, Yvette steadied herself.

  Why suspect Oleander? Was his fortune truly blood money?

  Or was she spiraling into madness?

  The Society’s texts described cursed artifacts—like the Tyrant’s Sword, which first empowered, then paranoided its wielder into slaughtering allies over imagined slights.

  She needed space.

  Shaking her head, she spied a familiar drunk behind the stage—the very man dragged from the tavern by his wife—now covertly trading coins for a poached grouse.

  The farmer finished counting the coins, slipped them into his pocket, and nearly jumped when he noticed the stranger beside him.

  “M-mercy, sir! I—I needed the money, I swear—” His hands wrung nervously, his face a picture of guilt.

  Albion’s laws favored the gentry. Poach a hare? Prison. Tenant farmers couldn’t even clear rabbit holes gnawing their crops—the land was leased, the game the lord’s. Many, bitter as winter roots, bought poached meat just to spite the system. A petty rebellion.

  “Relax. I won’t turn you in.” Yvette smiled. “I’ve seen your wife’s temper. Best earn that boy’s school fees before spring.”

  “Bless you, sir!” The farmer nearly kissed her boots. A gentleman’s word was gold—why lie to a nobody like him?

  “But tell me—why poach when your wife suggested digging wild roses? Less risk, no?”

  “Wasn’t always like this,” he muttered. “Roses fetch good coin now, so every fool’s hacking at them. Only place left’s Banes’ Wood—that cursed plot with the old graveyard. But I ain’t stepping foot there again.”

  “The cemetery?”

  “Aye. Roses grow thick as thieves ‘round those stones. Dug some last year, split the profit with my mate, but the keeper laid traps—”

  “Too scared of the gamekeeper?” she pressed. Eyes sharpening, she added, “Truth now. Digging plants is a slap on the wrist. Poaching? They’ll hang you.”

  He blanched. “N-no, sir! It’s… something unholy.” Leaning in, he hissed, “Last month, my mate—soldier, sharp as a fox—changed. One minute guardin’ my back, the next… grinning like a vicar, sweet-talking me. Then he near walked into a snare he’d spotted earlier! That weren’t him. Something wore his skin.”

  A tremor ran through him.

  “I told no one. But today… they made him ‘King for a Day.’ He’s dining at the manor now.”

  King for a Day. Oleander’s words returned:

  Just some poor wretch playing monarch. We toast him, then forget him.

  Blood. The rusted dagger. The stains on Oleander’s floor.

  “Damn it.”

  She bolted for the manor.

  ——

  “His Majesty approaches!” A silk-clad steward bowed, nose wrinkling at the scarred “king” shuffling in, paper crown askew.

  Disgusting. A charity spectacle.

  The old soldier marveled at gilded carvings. “Exquisite! Like Moorish ivory meets Grecian—”

  Putting on airs, this sewer rat.

  The steward scoffed, mistaking his fervor for peasant awe.

  He missed the glint in those milky eyes—the ghost lurking beneath, tallying centuries of vengeance.

  Every soul here would burn.

  Bishop Verdi Lorenzo had waited too long.

  Blood spilled from Lorenzo's shattered heart as he felt himself slipping free from his mortal shell. Before death fully claimed his discarded flesh, a dark weightlessness took hold.

  Crossing the threshold of consciousness was like tumbling into an endless void - his very essence collapsing inward upon itself.

  The falling sensation created illusions of descending through layered realities, touching infinite possibilities unknown to living minds.

  In life, a man could control his thoughts. But death's liberation from flesh left reason drowned beneath tides of unfettered madness. His spirit scattered like wild horses, unbound by any reins.

  Perhaps this resembled drunken delirium - unfamiliar territory for the disciplined man he'd been. Had these death-dreams possessed living form, they might have birthed a madness beyond any lunatic's.

  Time meant nothing here. His thoughts raced while reality stood still. At first, numbness reigned - no light nor dark, heat nor pain. Yet like phantom limbs, sensations occasionally fired through non-existent nerves with terrifying clarity.

  He felt his corpse bloat. Flies swarmed every moist orifice - eye sockets, nostrils, gaping mouth, and their beloved tunnel through his heart. Eggs hatched into writhing maggots feasting upon bubbling rot, growing fat on his decay.

  Though his brain dissolved into gray sludge, awareness persisted. Freed from mortal constraints, he perceived everything - even the quiver of dissolving muscles as translucent grubs gorged within.

  Pain came in ceaseless waves - burning, itching, aching torment no living soul could fathom. Time brought no relief, only worsening agony as hyper-sensitive perception amplified every second's suffering beyond the last.

  Humans faint or dissociate from pain. He had no escape. One glimpse of this suffering while alive would have deterred him forever.

  For solace, he clung to visions of paradise from old books - dreams of trading sorrow's rags for immortal joy. These fragile hopes alone preserved his unraveling sanity.

  Then came the shock of splitting flesh - neat incisions parting his half-rotted corpse before flames consumed every fragment. Excruciating burns overrode the maddening itch, bringing strange euphoria amidst the pain.

  Terror followed.

  His remains burned - scattering his incompletely freed soul. Invisible shackles then trapped his fractured consciousness, sealing him within the ashes of his former self.

  Denied true death, his transformed spirit endured in broken fragments. Memories of life withered beneath endless torment. Even now, possessing some vagrant's flesh, his mind shielded him from the worst horrors.

  But one thought remained: vengeance - against the architects of his centuries-long suffering.

  Currently, "Mr. Seaford" hosted dinner - Lorenzo's illusion deceiving all but the real man bound nearby, gagged and weeping.

  Seaford's shattered gaze fixed upon the table's centerpiece - where his four-year-old daughter lay limbless in her sundress, blue eyes replaced by black fruit, an apple stuffed in her mouth like a roast pig.

  Earlier torture cycles proved the artillery officer's resilience - attacking with anything at hand even near death. But this, breaking his child before him, finally destroyed the man's spirit, reducing him to helpless sobs.

  Perhaps next round, the children could serve as dart targets?

  Lorenzo mused.

  This nightmare wasn't real yet - merely a rehearsal. Once perfected, he'd make it reality across five Yorkshire estates.

  Centuries of agony demanded more than single vengeance. They must die endlessly until he chose the most exquisite suffering.

  Snapping fingers reset the scene - Seaford restored, awaiting fresh horrors.

  ......

  "Master entertains guests. No admittance," the servant declared.

  "I'm Mr. Hamlin's guest - delayed but expected." Yvette's polite smile masked rising suspicion when denied entry despite her noble bearing.

  Something was wrong.

  Finding an ivy-clad wall, she scaled to an attic window.

  Entering brought disorientation - that same shift from entering cursed Denise's nightmare years prior.

  Worse was the floor - solid oak to the eye, but yielding like putrid flesh underfoot. Her shoes lifted sticky with grave wax, the disturbed spot now revealing festering corruption beneath the illusion.

  Adipocere - corpse-fat turned soapy by decay. But buildings don't rot thus. This house was tainted, its dreamlike reflection warped by some malign will.

  Definitely supernatural.

  Below, Lorenzo paused mid-torture.

  An intruder - lucid within his dream?

  An Albion inquisitor, no doubt.

  He smiled cruelly.

  Vengeance needed inquisitor blood - the missing spice to sweeten suffering's feast.