They buried Jeffrey at dusk, beneath a sky bleeding crimson into the dark. The small burial grounds outside Vesper seemed to hold its breath. Shadows pooled at the feet of the small gathering of mourners. A cool breeze whispered through the skeletal branches overhead, still yet to reclaim their foliage, rattling them eerily, while the scent of damp earth and decay hung heavy in the air.
The grave, hastily dug, was a shallow wound in the frozen ground. The thaw of early spring had begun, but the earth remained stubbornly unyielding, forcing the groundskeeper to settle for a half-finished job.
Hayden's eyes drifted to the very edge of their gathering, where the burial ground's keeper stood beneath a tree, leaning on his shovel. Emmerson was never a man for hard work, preferring to spend his days with a flask in his hand. It was beyond Hayden why anyone would believe the ground keeper's claims of overhearing a Harbinger singing for the dead girls.
Harbingers; the Singers of the Dead. Hayden had been no more than a child in swaddling clothes when the Ascended and his Risen God waged their war on the Sanctuaries and drove out those who still followed the old gods.
Yet whispers lingered, stories traded in half-murmurs of Harbingers—those who had once stood as shepherds to the departed. Their voices, it was said, carried the weight of sorrow and solace alike, a bridge between the living and the beyond, and guided the souls of the departed to the Gates of Judgement.
To those who followed the Risen God, this was heresy. The new faith promised resurrection—an end to death itself. In the eyes of the Azure Tower, the Harbingers were relics of a blasphemous past, extinguished for the good of the living.
Near the start of spring, just after the first thaw, Emmerson claimed he had fallen asleep under a tree in the burial grounds, exhausted from digging shallow graves for the girls. Hayden had his doubts—Emmond's breath always carried the sour tang of ale, and his hands trembled far too steadily for a sober man. But his story was unwavering: he had awakened in the dead of night to a voice he had not heard in some time. And it sang a mournful song that seemed to rise from the very earth. He swore it was a Harbinger, singing for the souls of the dead girls.
"Mad old fool," Hayden muttered beneath his breath.
Just then, Deiter, the Seneschal of Vesper, began the ceremonies. The Seneschal was a relatively young man with dark eyes, pock-marked skin, and thinning hair. He had only recently arrived from the Azure Tower to take over the position when the former Seneschal passed away in his sleep the previous year. His normally pristine robes hung heavy and sodden while a layer of mud clung to the hem as he stood at the head of the grave. His hands remained tucked inside his flowing sleeves against the cold.
Hayden stood among the mourners, his cloak pulled tightly around him against the chill. It wasn't just the cold of the season that gnawed at him, though; it was something deeper, a creeping dread that had settled into his bones. His gaze flicked to the grave, then to the dark wall of the forest beyond. The Vale of Shadows loomed darkly, its dense foliage a foreboding reminder of where the killer still lurked.
He tore his focus back to the scene before him as Deiter raised a hand. His voice was smooth but heavy with practiced gravitas. "In this evening light, we lay Jeffrey to rest, trusting in the Risen God's mercy. Blessed are those who rise on the morrow."
"Blessed are those who rise with the dawn," the mourners murmured in unison, though their voices wavered. The words were more an invocation of hope than a statement of faith.
Hayden joined in, his voice hollow, his mind already drifting once more. The last few nights had been sleepless, haunted by the knowledge that Jeffrey's fate was tied to his own. They had all played the game that summer—Hayden, Jeffrey, and the others. Now they were all dead but him. The beast—or man—had seen to that. And if the pattern held, he knew his turn was coming.
Across the grave, Lady Facilious's muffled sobs pierced the stillness. Draped in a fur-lined cloak, her commanding presence had crumbled under the weight of grief. Normally the she-bear was as fierce as her husband, harsh and guarded as those in the northern part of the Vale of Shadows often were. But not this evening.
Standing over her only son, she clung to her daughter Lydia whose jaw was set, her eyes red-rimmed but determined. The loss of her brother had etched lines of pain into her youthful face, but she stood straight, a silent shield for her mother.
Lord Facilious, in contrast, was a tempest barely contained. Flanked by his two sons from his first marriage, the Bear of the Northern Vale stood like a mountain at the edge of the gathering, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. His tunic bore the snarling bear emblem of his house, its teeth bared in perpetual defiance. His ruddy complexion had deepened to a dangerous shade of crimson, and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides, the veins on his forearms bulging like cords. Fury radiated off him in waves, a palpable force that seemed to charge the air.
Hayden's gaze lingered on the lord, a bitter thought curling in his mind: If it were me in that grave, my father wouldn't waste his breath, let alone his fury. No, his father was too preoccupied chasing Relics of Old—beasts and Harbingers whispered about by drunken peasants. But Lord Facilious? He was a man who would not rest until vengeance was exacted.
The ceremony continued, the Seneschal's voice carrying through the still air. The words droned into oblivion as Hayden only half listened. Eventually, Deiter bent to scatter the first handful of soil onto Jeffrey's shrouded form, the soft patter of dirt against cloth ringing louder than any bell.
Hayden's stomach turned at the sound. Earlier, during the viewing, it was evident the Seneschal had worked hard to mask the truth of Jeffrey's death. The wounds had been hidden beneath ceremonial robes, and his bloodied face had been wiped clean, his lifeless features arranged into a mockery of peace. But Hayden couldn't forget the sight of his friend's butchered body, the torn flesh and frozen horror in his lifeless eyes. Those memories clung to him, sharp and unrelenting.
The crowd was smaller this time, a fraction of the numbers that had turned out to mourn the peasant girls, whose bodies had been discovered in the spring thaw.
Hayden had thought them clever in their hiding place, but the scavenging animals had better ideas. Had it not been for those damned beasts, he was certain those hunters would never have found the missing girls bodies.
As his eyes scanned the crowd, anger flared in his chest. Even in death, Jeffrey seemed to garner less sympathy than the commoner victims of the Vale. Was this the worth of a nobleman's life compared to theirs?
The gathered peasants who were in attendance had no doubt been made to do so. They were mostly the Facilious' household staff, stood at the periphery, their expressions a mix of awe and fear. Superstition clung to them like smoke; they believed the Vale's beast had claimed Jeffrey, just as it had the peasant girls before him. Hayden caught fragments of their whispers, their voices trembling with tales of dark creatures roaming the woods and curses. Let them have their myths, Hayden thought darkly. He knew better. The killer wasn't some spectral beast or god-sent omen. It was a man—one with a mind for vengeance and a taste for cruelty.
The ceremony drew to a close, but Hayden's mind was already racing. If the killer's pattern held true, he wouldn't have long. Every fiber of his being urged him to act—to turn Lord Facilious's rage into purpose, to channel it into the justice Jeffrey deserved. Hayden glanced at the towering lord once more. The Bear's fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
Hayden tightened his grip on his cloak as a shiver raced through him. The night was falling fast, and with it came the weight of inevitability. Hayden clenched his jaw, his resolve hardening. He wouldn't be the next body laid in the shallow grave.
I must act, Hayden thought. This ends now.