The tower rises from the mud. Stone and silence.

  I climb.

  My hand finds a ledge. The stone bites, cold and sharp. My fingers dig in, nails scraping for purchase. I drag my frame upward. The good leg burns with the strain. The wooden one scrapes uselessly against the slick stone. I find another hold. And another.

  The wind hits my face. A cold slap. It forces the tears from my eyes, and they freeze on my cheeks.

  My boot slips. A spray of gravel vanishes into the canopy of black trees below. A stone clatters against a distant, unseen branch. My heart seizes.

  The upward motion is a war. Every inch is paid for in sweat and burning muscle. This body wants to go down, not up. I deny it.

  My hand finds the platform's edge. I heave my body over the lip of stone. I land on my hands and knees, head hanging, dragging air into my burning lungs.

  I look up at the bell's dark mouth. I breathe in the cold, iron-tinged air, preparing myself for the scent of life. My muscles brace for the sight of it. For the small, defenceless bodies. For the mother's terrified eye. For the choice that will brand me a monster in my own son's eyes.

  But the bell is empty.

  I blink, forcing my eyes to see again. To see correctly.

  The iron is bare, untouched. No twigs. No feathers. No memory of a life ever having been there. The wind moves through it, carrying nothing.

  James's heart, my heart, gives a stuttering kick. Then it floods my chest with a clean, hot wash of relief. He is a father. Not a butcher. His hands are clean.

  The relief is his, not mine. My body is just the Vessel for his joy. Beneath it, a cold space opens in my gut.

  I came here to find out what I am. Good. Evil. Either would have been a name.

  Instead, I am left nameless. My hand, which had been a fist, uncurls. The fingers are strangers to me now. Just five pieces of meat with no purpose.

  The rope hangs in the empty space. A dead serpent.

  My eyes lift to the rope. To the bell that will call him here. To this place. A few hours from the village. From Evangeline. From Pip.

  I try to lift my hands. They are stone. They hang at my sides, locked in place.

  The mission is a cold current in my blood. It seizes the muscles in my arm, yanking it upward. My fingers lock around the rope's rough, splintered fibres.

  I pull.

  The tower shudders, and the stone under my feet comes alive. A vibration climbs my arms, into my jaw, setting my teeth on edge. From the dark seams above, a dry mist of decay rains down, coating my tongue. Rust. Grime. The taste of something that has been sleeping a long time.

  Birds tear themselves from the canopy below. Their beaks are open. No sound comes out.

  I stand. I wait.

  The drone of the insects slams back into the void.

  A rustle of reeds. My hand finds my carving knife, and a lot of good that will do.

  The wet slap of something in the water.

  A bird cries out from the grey sky. For a heartbeat, it is Pip's laugh, and my gut twists.

  The grey light bleeds from the sky, leaving a bruised purple that deepens to black. The cold, once a slap, is now a deep ache in my bones. My good leg begins to tremble, an uncontrollable shudder from the strain of standing. The sounds of the swamp, once sharp and distinct threats, blur into a meaningless drone. My hand falls from my knife. My mind goes blank. There is only the tower, the dark, and the waiting.

  Then, the sounds stop. All of them. At once.

  A shape in the fog hardens. Not a tree. A man.

  Maximus.

  He stands at the base of the tower, a block of solid shadow.

  A hot, white rage boils up from my gut. My hand convulses on the small, wooden handle of my carving knife. The one I use to make toys for my son.

  I hurl it.

  The knife cuts a thin line through the heavy, wet air. It tumbles, a glint of steel in the failing light.

  His hand lifts, palm open. He allows the knife to arrive. The soft thud of the handle meeting his palm is a dead sound that goes nowhere.

  He brings the knife closer. He turns it over. His thumb traces the nicked steel, the grain of the wood.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He opens his fingers.

  The knife falls. It makes no sound as the black mud of the swamp swallows it whole.

  A cold prickling crawls up my neck. That throw. That useless, childish throw.

  Then, a sigh from below.

  A boot scrapes stone. One step. Then another, higher up. He is coming.

  My legs turn to water. I stumble back against the bell, the cold iron a shock against my spine. There is no escape.

  Each footstep is a slow, casual scrape on the stone. That is the sound of a man who knows his son is not going anywhere.

  He hauls himself onto the platform, and the stone shudders under his bulk. He brushes a speck of dirt from his cloak, his mouth a thin, hard line of irritation.

  "Really?" His eyes drift down to the knife, a piece of scrap metal in the mud, then return to me.

  "My mother raised a boy who carves birds," he says. "A gentle man. And this is what he becomes. A clumsy little father killer with a splinter in his hand."

  He steps closer. His breath is a cold, dead thing on my cheek. "She must be so proud. Shall we go and tell her together?"

  A laugh breaks from me. A dry, broken sound.

  "She's dead."

  A muscle in his jaw jumps, a violent, involuntary spasm. A hit. A clean hit.

  "She's dead," I repeat, taking a step forward.

  "Dead?" He spits the word. "Don't be an idiot. I saw her at the feast." His head gives a short, angry shake. "She was on the ground, having some kind of fit."

  "Your Collectors killed her." My words are hard. Final. "She bled out in a shack. She found your cure."

  His eyes go still. The focus in them sharpens to a fine, hard point.

  "She gave me everything." I plant my wooden leg, the thud of it a solid, anchoring sound on the stone. "The research. The maps."

  I take a step forward, feeling a clean, hot fire spread in my chest. "I'm going to finish her work. I'm going to Larkvale. To find the Sunfire Rose. I will undo everything you've done. And you can't stop me."

  He listens. His face is a slab of scarred, patient stone.

  "Are you finished?" The question is quiet. Almost gentle. My gut clenches.

  I can only nod, my throat a knot of dry muscle.

  He sighs, a small, weary sound of a man bored with a game he has already won.

  "There is no cure. No Sunfire Rose. The research your grandmother found? I wrote it. The maps? I drew them."

  The stone under my foot fractures. The wood of my other leg groans. The world gives way.

  "That hope?" His scarred finger presses against my chest, right over my heart. "I created it. To catch rats like you."

  The truth detonates. A clean, silent blast that vaporises everything. Hope. Purpose. Me.

  Something heavy settles on my chest. I can't breathe. I can't think. There is only the ringing in my ears.

  "So," he says. "No cure."

  He takes a step. "No quest."

  Another. "No hero."

  He stops, his bulk blotting out the sky.

  "What's the plan now, James?"

  The question is a fist. It hits the void where my purpose used to be. My mind scrambles for an answer and finds only her face.

  Her name on a stone.

  Evangeline.

  I break.

  I hit the cold, damp floor.

  I crawl. My wooden leg scrapes the stone. My hands find the hem of his cloak. The skin is cold. Waxy. My fingers recoil, but they grasp it.

  "Gwendolyn," I sob. The words are a wet, muffled ruin against the dead faces. "She fixed the selection. It's just my wife's name in the bag."

  I press my forehead to the stone at his feet. "You're the only one who can stop it. Please... save my wife."

  He looks down at me. A piece of meat at his feet.

  "Yes."

  The word is a clean, sharp shock. Hope restarts my heart, a painful, stuttering kick against my ribs.

  He lets the silence after the word expand, a bubble of clean, breathable air. He lets me take one full breath of it.

  Then he pops it. "For a price."

  He turns and walks to the edge of the platform, looking out at the distant lights of the village.

  My village. Her village.

  "One life is not enough," he says. "Bring me ten."

  Ten.

  An absurdity. A joke.

  "No." The word is a dry rasp. I scramble to my feet, the wet stone cold under my palms. "You can't."

  The words leave my mouth and die. They have no force. No impact.

  "That's monstrous."

  He turns back to me, and the corner of his mouth lifts. "Is it? I thought that was the point."

  He closes the distance between us, his bulk a suffocating presence. "You came here to be a monster. A father killer. I am simply giving you a more productive outlet for your ambition."

  I see their faces. Rory. Ward. The Millers. My neighbours. My friends.

  "No."

  He leans in, his face so close I can see the stark, clean line where the living skin of his cheek meets the dead, waxy scar tissue. "Then the price is not ten neighbours. The price is one wife."

  The scar tissue around his mouth pulls tight, stretching the living skin into a grotesque, joyless grin. "She has a pretty mouth. It will be a shame when it can no longer form your name. Or scream it."

  "Take me instead." The words cost me the last of my air, leaving me gasping. "Let the change be mine. Let her keep her face."

  A muscle under the scar tissue on his cheek spasms. A brief, ugly twitch. "You? You are broken. Why would I want you?"

  The words hit. I am already on the floor, but somehow, I fall further. The last of the strength goes out of my arms. My chest hits the stone. The air leaves my lungs in a single, gut-deep grunt. My forehead rests in the filth. I do not have the will to lift it.

  He stands over me. The hem of his cloak of faces hangs down, a silent, watching crowd just inches from my own face. He waits until my head has bowed, until the last of my fight has bled out onto the stone. Only then does he speak.

  "Now," he says, his voice a quiet, final command. "You will stand on that platform. You will look your neighbours in the eye. You will choose ten. And you will tell them why their lives are worth less than hers."

  "They won't let me." The words are a shred of sound. "Gwendolyn holds the bag."

  "She won't be a problem."

  He reaches down to the hem of his cloak. A soft, wet tearing sound. He rips a single, small face free. He holds it out to me.

  "Show this to her," he says. "Tell her there is room for one more."

  My hand trembles. My body revolts. A dry, retching heave that brings tears to my eyes. But I take it. The skin is cold. Stiff. Impossibly light. There's nothing to it.

  He gestures vaguely towards the distant lights of Greyhollow. "My Collectors are scheduled to collect the payment tomorrow. Have your ten replacements ready for them when they arrive. Don't make their trip a waste."

  I struggle to my feet. I do not move. I wait. For the next order. For anything. He says nothing. He just watches me. I take a hesitant step toward the edge of the platform.

  "Wait."

  The word is small. The iron is gone from his voice. I freeze, facing away from him.

  "My mother..." His voice falters, a stone catching in his throat.

  The silence that follows is filled only by the soft hiss of the wind through the reeds.

  "...did she say anything?"

  I turn. My face is a mess of tear tracks. "That cure... it was everything to her," I rasp. "Did you think it was for them?"

  I take a staggering step forward. "It was for you."

  I put my back to him and begin the climb down. For one stupid second, I think I've won.

  He lets me get three rungs down. Three rungs of silence.

  Then, a sound from above.

  It hits my shoulder. A sudden, wet impact.

  I look down. The dead face is clinging to my tunic, its empty eyes staring at my gut.

  Then his voice, a flat and final thing, drifts down from above.

  "You forgot this."

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