Once Rogier went his own way, Hestia was left alone… or rather, in the company of that strange fellow named Gostoc. Could she trust him? Absolutely not. He kept glancing around, clearly waiting for the right moment to slip away. That much was obvious.
Hestia, however, no longer cared. With or without his guidance, she would have to carve her own path through the castle, and she was not yet willing to rely so heavily on others. With that thought —whether it would be her advantage or her doom— she stopped, watching Gostoc walk ahead, supposedly leading the way.
She then summoned a series of small floating swords: glintblades, poised to strike the commoner.
"I don't trust you, and you know it," she said in a grave tone. "I've got ten glintblades floating by my side, and at the slightest wrong move, they'll all fall upon you. Each one will drive itself into your decrepit body, causing pain beyond description, but not killing you right away. That will only happen when they shatter with a small burst of glintstone, rupturing your arteries bit by bit… at my command."
Hestia paused as she noticed Gostoc glancing back. They had reached another open area of the castle: a passage running alongside one of the main walls. On the other side, a lower wall dropped to the central courtyard, four or five meters down.
"Understood, my lady…" Gostoc replied, having been fully aware of his predicament for some time.
He didn't need to look toward the corner up ahead to know soldiers awaited there: exiled men with crossbows, swords and shields, and taller ones wielding great axes. Most of all, he knew the banished knights —the strongest in the castle— would be among them. And indeed, they emerged from that very corner.
In that instant, Hestia realized killing Gostoc would be pointless; her glintblades would be far better spent buried in other bodies.
"Go to hell, you pitiful old man," she spat.
In a heartbeat, she prepared to fight. Gostoc darted behind barrels and crates, while the soldiers advanced at a brisk pace. A crossbow bolt shot toward her, but her shield turned it aside. At once she sent her glintblades toward the crossbowman, killing him instantly.
The rest remained, and facing them all in melee was out of the question. It was time for the staff. Hestia cast a wave of glintstone —less lethal than the resplendent bolts, but able to strike several foes at once. Those without shields took the full brunt of the spell. Even so, she couldn't pour all her energy into it, nor waste time drinking from a flask of cerulean tears. The banished knight was closing in, shield and heavy armor ready to shrug off the attack.
She shifted tactics. It was time for a skirmish. She drew her Carian sword, infused it with glintstone, and lunged at a soldier with a greataxe, just as Bernahl had taught her. The blow pierced the epigastric region, where the portal vein and artery meet —a swift, inescapable death.
As the soldier fell, the Tarnished conjured glintblades at a speed that caught the others off guard, each blade striking a different head. Only the banished knight remained, his presence more menacing than all the others combined.
He blocked the glintblades with his greatshield. Hestia prepared for the inevitable duel, once more imbuing her sword with Carian magic, striking and being repelled in turn. It took only a few exchanges for her to realize he would not fall easily; a single, powerful magical thrust was her only chance.
She aimed for the same vital spot as before… but the knight's thick armor and solid build held firm. At once, a brutal shield bash sent her flying. Instinctively, she leapt back —a move she'd seen Mitranis use— and it might have saved her life. She found herself backed against the lower wall to the courtyard. There was nothing for it but to jump.
Hestia landed in a roll to soften the fall. It spared her the knight's wrath… but not from the twenty-plus exiled soldiers awaiting her below.
She conjured glintblades and waves of glintstone once more, but there were too many. Beyond the crowd, she spotted a door leading deeper into the castle. Whatever lay beyond, it was better than this.
She dashed across the yard, casting shards of glintstone in chaotic bursts —some hitting, others merely distracting— until she reached the entrance. Inside was a large storeroom. With precious seconds to spare, she prepared a magic bow spell. It was slow to cast, but perfect for enemies entering one at a time. The arrow struck the lintel, bringing the wall down to block the doorway.
She pressed on: up stairways, through swordfights with exiled soldiers, past more lowborns like Gostoc. She crossed the kitchen and emerged into a dim hall, where a wide wall bore the imposing portrait of Godfrey, the first Elden Lord, with Serosh, the Beast Regent, upon his shoulder.
Turning, she froze in horror. From the rafters hung human limbs: arms, legs, torsos. Burlap sacks bulged with severed heads. The floor was littered with bodies shrouded in coarse cloth, like so much produce. The urge to vomit hit hard, her whole body heaving… but there was no time.
A massive figure appeared before her: an ominous grafted creature, body immense, wielding a golden-hilted sword and a great golden shield. It had many arms and legs in mismatched tones, yet bore the face of a beautiful pale child —a contrast all the more disturbing.
It lunged. Despite its bulk, its movements were unnervingly agile, almost deranged. Dodging was the only way to avoid dismemberment. Each block jarred her bones. She tried circling, reading its leaps and acrobatics, until a vicious shield blow hurled her into a long table. She bounced, smashed a chair, and collapsed to the ground, coughing blood.
Her eyes stayed wide, fixed, as if to take one last sight before death. She drank crimson tears in haste while the grafted approached with the slow, murderous calm of a predator that knows its prey has no hope.
Hestia was reckless, stubborn —and that stubbornness saved her. Wiping blood from her mouth with her forearm, she laughed, a ragged mix of sarcasm and desperation, refusing to end it here.
Then, without warning, a scarlet arc split the air. The grafted couldn't react: its sword hit the ground, half its arm gone.
"Damn it!" Hestia snarled. "I swore I'd never use this murderers' and madmen's magic!"
It was the style of Eochaid's warriors: fearsome, unyielding, striking even after apparent death. Their most dreaded technique was to imbue a sword with crimson magic and control it at will. But that power had a price: black, thorned vines coiled around Hestia's forearms, biting into her flesh. Pain was the fuel of that spell.
The sword floated back to her. Without touching it, she spun it on its axis, always aimed at the grafted. The rotation quickened, the scarlet glow deepening. The creature charged —too late. The impact was like a battering ram: the golden shield splintered, and the arm behind it was torn away, hanging by pallid scraps of flesh.
Hestia swung again, this time in a transversal arc toward its neck. The head fell, and the body collapsed in spasms, muscles twitching without command.
The fight was over… and so was her strength. The thorns had climbed her legs and begun to creep up her neck.
"Ah!" she cried, yielding to the agony. "Felt like this damn thing was going to kill me!"
She slumped against a wall, clawing the thorns from her neck as they tore her skin. She drank her last crimson tears, searching for a grace that could dull both the pain and the self-loathing seeping into her.
Loyalty to Carian magic was her pride, her passion —but also her necessity. She had been chosen as the Tarnished of her Eochaid lineage after a bloody championship. That overwhelming, detestable strength defined her. Being called "Elemer's daughter" —after that homicidal exile— was the worst insult her people could give. And now, with that cursed magic still burning in her veins, she bitterly understood the reasons behind the name.