Morning did not arrive in Broomshaven gently.
When Vastarael pushed open the door of the inn and stepped outside with Asenane at his side and the girls trailing behind them, the town greeted them with a silence so dense it felt fake.
The main road leading toward the town entrance once swept spotless by cheerful brooms was filled with bodies. Men, women, the elderly, teenagers and even children were kneeling in two opposite straight lines.
Every single one of them arranged in a posture of devotion. Their knees were pressed to the stone. Their hands were clasped together in prayer. Their heads bowed down at each other. Their throats had been slit cleanly. Their wrists were cut as well. Blood fell beneath them in dark, sticky sheets that flooded the grooves between the cobblestones and turned the street into a shallow river of iron-scented red. The smell hit them a second later.
Runner gagged.
She staggered to the side of a nearby house, barely making it before she retched violently as her body rebelled against the sight and the smell. Shimmer stood frozen. Her hands trembled.
"They were celebrating. Last night they were laughing. They were dancing. They were alive."
Asenane couldn't speak. Her mouth opened, then closed again. Her hand went to her chest with her fingers curling into fabric as if she needed to physically anchor herself to remain standing. Vastarael walked forward slowly as his boots splashed softly through blood.
He saw the children. Small bodies knelt exactly like the adults with their throats cut with the same reverent care. Their blood kept soaking into clothes that still bore the stains of last night's festivities.
The babies were worse. They had been placed carefully in front of their mothers, laid out like offerings.
Each tiny skull had been stabbed straight through the crown with blood pooling beneath their heads. The women who held them had arranged themselves deliberately, as though they were presenting their children forward.
Asenane made a broken sound in her throat.
"How... how did we not hear any of this?"
Vastarael answered without turning around.
"The inn. It's soundproof."
They looked at him.
"And the food. We were probably drugged and put into a deep, unnatural sleep. I thought it was strange that they didn't turn into brooms at dawn, even after recognizing who I was. I'm surprised I got drugged so easily."
He exhaled through his nose.
"Now I know why."
Runner wiped her mouth with shaking hands. "How is this even possible? They're immortal. You said they revive at nightfall."
Vastarael's gaze lifted slowly, scanning the kneeling dead.
"This was not murder. It was sacrifice."
Shimmer swallowed hard. "Because of us?"
"Because of me."
Before anyone could say anything else, a soft clang echoed through the fog. They turned. The fog at the far end of the street parted just enough for a single figure to emerge, illuminated by the weak, flickering glow of a lantern.
The old man was alive.
The chief of Broomshaven, Brumwald Bexlesworth, stood upright. His lantern was held calmly in one hand. His face was unmistakably serene. Not a drop of blood stained him. Not a wrinkle of grief touched his expression. It was as if this were exactly how the morning was meant to look.
"The path is ready. Your portal awaits."
The lantern's light glinted off the blood-soaked street, casting long, distorted shadows of kneeling corpses that seemed to bow even deeper as the flame swayed. Vastarael stared at him.
"You did this."
The old man inclined his head slightly.
"They did it willingly and joyfully."
Asenane felt her stomach drop.
"The Hidden Citadel is a place that demands devotion. It is a place that opens only when faith is proven beyond doubt. They gave everything so that you may pass."
Runner moved before anyone could stop her. There was a violent displacement of air that split the fog as she vanished from where she stood and reappeared inside Brumwald Bexlesworth's space. Her fist slammed into his chest. The old man's body was hurled backward, smashing through the front of a crooked building as he was embedded into the wall. The lantern flew from his hand, skidding across the blood-slick street.
Runner had him by the collar before the dust even settled. She lifted him effortlessly with one hand clenched in his robes.
"WHY DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?"
She slammed him again into the ruined wall.
"Was this your faith? Your fanaticism? Is this what you do every time a Divine being comes here? You butcher children? You carve babies open and call it devotion?!"
Blood ran down the street behind her, glistening faintly as fog curled low around kneeling corpses that still looked like they were praying.
Brumwald laughed.
He laughed even as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, even as Runner's grip threatened to pulp his ribs.
"Oh. So you're the sensitive one."
He looked past her and toward the others.
"Why is it always the youngest? The rest of you stand there in shock but she feels it. She understands that something has been taken."
Shimmer stepped forward. She was trying so hard not to kill him.
"There are children. Babies even. You're telling us they chose this? That they wanted to die like that?"
Brumwald's smile did not falter.
"Yes. They cannot revive. That is why it matters."
Asenane felt her knees weaken.
"What… do you mean?"
Brumwald's eyes glittered.
"Why do you think Broomshaven exists at all? The Broom God gave us two blessings and two curses."
He lifted one bloodied finger.
"The blessings are that we never age. And, every one of us is born at Divine Rank."
Runner's grip tightened.
"And the curses?"
"The first you know. By day, we are brooms. By night, we are people. Sometimes we turn to monsters but we can't for as brooms. The second curse is more… elaborate. We are not a town. We are a mechanism. In short, we are the gateway to the Hidden Citadel."
Something cold settled in Vastarael's chest.
"The Mage Nexus and the Blade Nexus entered the Hidden Citadel through Broomshaven. They did not go through this."
Brumwald's eyes lit up with recognition.
"Oh, I remember them. A romantic pair. So earnest and powerful too. There are two ways to open the path. One, kill the Golden Deer, after drinking the wine and the ashes of the Broom God. That is what they chose."
Shimmer's eyes snapped to the fawn, trembling beneath the protective lotus.
"Or, everyone in Broomshaven dies."
Runner felt something break inside her. She shook him violently.
"So you chose this? You slaughtered yourselves?!"
Brumwald laughed again, delighted by her own rage.
"When the Golden Fawn revealed Monarch Vastarael's presence, we knew it was time. It was pure, unquestionable glory."
Runner's hand trembled.
"You're saying... this is my fault?"
Brumwald nodded gently.
"Or," he added, eyes flicking to Vastarael, "a lesson your father wished to teach you."
Every eye turned. Vastarael closed his eyes and sighed.
"You're smart."
"I know. That is why I will be your guide. Not the Golden Fawn."
Runner's heart dropped.
"There is one thing left. The blood of the Golden Fawn is a catalyst to open the portal."
Runner punched him hard. His head snapped to the side with a sickening crack.
"You said there were two ways. Why does she still have to die?!"
Brumwald turned back to her slowly.
"Because the other path is not meant for you. The Mage and Blade Nexuses were Nexuses. They could survive the dangerous route. You are Divines. You would die in seconds. So kill the Golden Fawn. Oh, and whoever caught it has to kill it. I suppose that's you, Miss Runner?"