The summons was not a request; it was a chain. It was forged in the Lord Regent's authority and sealed with his silver signet, and it bound Cædmon as surely as any iron shackle. He walked toward the High District of Dunholm as a condemned man walks to the gallows, with a grim and measured tread. Every step took him further from the shadows where he hunted and closer to the gilded cage where the true monsters dwelled.
The Morgenstern estate was not merely a house; it was a declaration. It stood apart from the other noble manors on the city's highest hill, a fortress of pale, white stone surrounded by a high wall topped with sharpened iron spikes. It did not look like a home. It looked like a vault, built to keep the world out and its secrets in. The sigil of the house, a six-pointed star wrought in silver, was emblazoned on the massive oaken gates, gleaming with a cold, distant light in the morning sun.
Two guards, clad in immaculate black livery with the silver star stitched on their chests, stood sentinel. They were not the common stock of the Stǣl-witan. These were household men, their faces hard and disciplined, their eyes missing nothing. They watched Cædmon approach, their hands resting on the pommels of their longswords.
"I am Cædmon, the Echo-Walker," he announced, his voice steady despite the frantic beating of his own heart. "I come at the command of the Lord Regent." He presented the scroll with its unbroken seal.
One of the guards examined it with a critical eye, then nodded curtly to his companion. The great gates swung inward with a silent, well-oiled precision, revealing a courtyard of pristine white gravel and unnaturally manicured gardens. The air inside the walls felt different—still, quiet, and heavy with the weight of old money and older secrets.
He was not met by a servant. A man stood waiting for him on the grand stone steps that led to the manor's entrance. It was Master Aldred.
He was dressed in the simple but exquisitely tailored robes of a scholar, his hands clasped before him. His face was a mask of serene, scholarly concern. He looked every bit the part of the respectable family tutor, grieving for a fallen guest. But when his eyes met Cædmon's, the mask was, for a fraction of a second, transparent. Cædmon saw the cold, reptilian intelligence behind the facade, the flicker of triumphant amusement. He saw the wolf greeting the lamb at the door to the slaughterhouse.
"Master Cædmon," Aldred said, his voice a smooth, cultured balm that did nothing to soothe the screaming of Cædmon's nerves. "We are most grateful for your swift arrival in this dark hour. I am Aldred, tutor to the daughters of the house. Lord Morgenstern is indisposed with grief, but he has tasked me with assisting you in any way I can."
The lie was so perfect, so effortless, that it was a work of art. Aldred was not assisting; he was managing. He was the zookeeper, and Cædmon was the new beast being introduced to the enclosure.
"The Lord Regent's command was clear," Cædmon replied, his own voice a carefully constructed wall of professional detachment. "I am to ascertain the truth of Sir Dagobert's demise."
"Of course, of course," Aldred purred. "A terrible business. Sir Dagobert was a cherished friend of the family. To be struck down within these very walls… it is unthinkable." He gestured toward the open doors of the manor. "If you would, the family is gathered in the solar. They wish to speak with you before you begin your… work."
Every instinct in Cædmon's body screamed at him to refuse, to demand to see the body first, to control the investigation. But he knew he could not. He was the outsider here, the tool being brought in. To show defiance now would be to show his hand. He had to play the part.
"As you wish," he said.
He followed Aldred into the manor. The interior was as cold and imposing as the exterior. The floors were polished black marble that reflected their figures like a dark, still lake. The walls were hung with ancient tapestries depicting grim, mythological scenes—great hunts, forgotten battles, the fall of ancient kings. The air was still and smelled of beeswax and old stone. It was less a home than a museum to its own history.
Aldred led him to a large, sun-filled room—the solar—where tall, arched windows looked out onto the pristine, lifeless gardens. Three women stood waiting, their forms silhouetted against the bright light. As they turned to face him, Cædmon felt as though he were facing three different aspects of the same ancient, unknowable entity.
The eldest, whom Aldred introduced as the Lady Godgifu, was tall and severe, dressed in dark, modest robes. Her face was pale and ascetic, her eyes holding the far-off, fervent gleam of the deeply pious. She looked at Cædmon as if he were a necessary sin, a dark ritual that must be performed for the sake of order.
The middle sister, Lady Aethelflaed, was her opposite. Her gown was rich, her posture exuded a sharp, worldly confidence. Her eyes were intelligent, assessing, and cold. She was the pragmatist, the manager of the family's vast wealth. She looked at Cædmon not as a mystic, but as a functionary, a specialist brought in to solve a logistical problem.
And then there was the youngest. Seraphine.
She stood slightly behind her sisters, as if seeking their shadow. She was perhaps nineteen, her form slender and willowy. Her hair was a cascade of pure, silver-blonde, so pale it seemed to drink the light. Her face was a perfect, heartbreaking oval, her features so fine and delicate they seemed sculpted from porcelain. But it was not her beauty that struck Cædmon like a physical blow. It was the feeling. The moment his eyes met hers, the moment he stepped fully into her presence, the storm in his mind ceased to exist.
It was nothing like the gentle, calming peace he felt with Leofwynn. That was a sanctuary, a quiet garden. This was a void. An absolute, deafening, total silence. The phantom pains, the whispering echoes, the soul-stains from a hundred deaths—they were not quieted or ordered. They were annihilated. Erased. He felt their frantic, terrified recoil as they were snuffed out by the sheer, overwhelming purity of her presence. The sudden, total emptiness in his own mind was a shock, a form of sensory deprivation so profound it made him physically stumble. His knees buckled, and he put a hand out to the wall to steady himself, a gasp of air catching in his throat.
He looked up and saw Aldred watching him. The tutor's face was still a mask of polite concern, but his eyes… his eyes were alight with a cold, triumphant, scientific curiosity. He had seen it. He had seen Cædmon's reaction. He had confirmed what he had likely long suspected: that the Echo-Walker was sensitive enough to recognize the nature of the Pure Vessel.
In that single, silent moment, the game was laid bare between them. I know what she is, Cædmon's reeling mind screamed. And Aldred's cold, smiling eyes replied, Yes. And now I know that you know.
"Forgive me," Cædmon managed to say, straightening up, forcing his body to obey him. "A momentary… dizziness. The air in the house is quite close."
"Of course," Aldred said smoothly, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "The grief is a palpable thing."
Lady Aethelflaed stepped forward, her gaze sharp and impatient. "Master Walker, we are told you can speak with the spirit of the departed. We require answers. Sir Dagobert was murdered in the west wing gallery. We wish for you to perform your art at once and tell us who brought this violence into our home."
The demand was exactly what he had expected, and exactly what he feared. He could not. Not here. Not with Aldred watching, his mind a predatory spider waiting for Cædmon to open the door to his own soul. To walk an echo now would be to invite a psychic violation from which he might never recover. He needed an excuse. A plausible, professional reason to delay.
"My lady," he began, his voice a carefully constructed instrument of calm authority. "My art is not so simple as a parlor trick. The gemynd is a fragile and chaotic thing, especially after a violent death. The psychic residue, the very echo of the event, is still… turbulent. To enter it now would be like trying to read a scroll in the heart of a hurricane. The truth would be shredded, lost in the storm of the soul's final agony."
He looked around the room, at the priceless artifacts, the ancient tapestries. "Before I can interpret the spiritual evidence, I must first understand the physical. I must examine the scene of the crime meticulously. I must map the mundane events. Only then can I provide the proper context for the echo, and ensure that the truth I retrieve is whole and untainted."
It was a masterful lie, woven from the threads of his own professional mystique. He was using their ignorance of his craft against them.
Aethelflaed looked displeased by the delay, but his reasoning seemed sound to her pragmatic mind. "Very well, Walker. But we expect results. This stain upon our house must be cleansed."
"The head of our household guard, Wulfgar, will show you to the gallery," Aldred said, gesturing to a tall, grim-faced man in the Morgenstern livery who had been standing silently by the door. "He was the first to find the body. He will answer any of your… mundane… questions."
The emphasis on the word 'mundane' was a subtle, chilling message from Aldred to Cædmon. Play your little game, Walker. I will wait.
"I will begin at once," Cædmon said with a curt nod.
He turned and followed the guard captain, Wulfgar, from the room, feeling the weight of four pairs of eyes on his back. But it was the silent, unnerving pressure of Aldred's gaze, and the memory of the absolute, terrifying void of Seraphine's presence, that followed him down the long, cold marble corridor.
The west wing gallery was a place of cold, ancestral pride. The walls were lined with portraits of Morgenstern ancestors, their painted eyes seeming to follow him with silent, aristocratic disdain. The air was still and smelled of oil paint and dust. In the center of the long room, a dark stain marred the intricate pattern of the expensive, southern-woven carpet. A single overturned chair lay beside it. This was where Sir Dagobert had met his end.
Wulfgar, the guard captain, stood by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, his face a mask of stoic professionalism. He was a veteran, his presence solid and reassuringly simple after the complex psychological warfare of the solar.
"He was found here, at the dawn watch," Wulfgar said, his voice a low, disciplined rumble. "I found him myself. He was… as you see. A single dagger wound to the heart. Clean. Professional. The weapon was gone."
"Who was Sir Dagobert?" Cædmon asked, beginning his physical examination of the scene, his mind racing to find purchase in the solid world of facts.
"A knight of the Regent's own guard," Wulfgar explained. "He was a friend of the family, a frequent guest. He was here last night for a private game of chess with Lord Alaric."
"And Lord Alaric?"
"He retired to his chambers before midnight, leaving Sir Dagobert to enjoy a final glass of wine alone. Or so we thought."
Cædmon knelt by the dark stain on the carpet. He ran his gloved fingers over the fibers. He examined the overturned chair, the position of the body as Wulfgar described it. He was playing for time, building his case for delaying the echo. But he was also searching, desperately, for a real clue, a physical truth that the Serpent Circle might have missed.
He spent over an hour in the room, his examination slow and painstaking. He found nothing. No stray threads, no dropped buttons, no scuff marks indicating a struggle. The scene was clean. Too clean. It was a stage, perfectly set for the play they expected him to perform.
His time was running out. He knew Aldred and the sisters would be growing impatient. He had to create a reason to leave, to find a secure place where he could perform the Walk away from prying psychic eyes.
An idea began to form, a risky but plausible gambit. He stood up and turned to Wulfgar.
"The body of Sir Dagobert," he said. "Where is it now?"
"In the House's cold chamber, on the lower level," the captain replied. "Prepared for your… examination."
"I must see it," Cædmon said. "But I will not perform the Walk here. Not yet."
"And why not?" Wulfgar asked, his brow furrowing.
"The echo is tied not just to the place of death, but to the vessel of the soul—the body itself," Cædmon explained, weaving a new layer into his lie. "To ensure the purest reading, I must be in proximity to both. However, this room is… psychically contaminated." He gestured to the rows of ancestral portraits. "The residual energy of generations of your house, the weight of their own histories, it creates an interference, a psychic noise that could corrupt the gemynd of Sir Dagobert. It would be like trying to hear a whisper in a crowded hall."
He looked Wulfgar directly in the eye. "I must have the body moved. Not outside the estate, but to a neutral, clean location within its walls. A place with no history. A storage room, an empty guest chamber, a place of plain stone and wood. Only there can I guarantee a true and unadulterated reading for the Lord Regent."
Wulfgar considered this. It sounded like arcane nonsense, but it was delivered with the unshakeable authority of an expert. The Walker's art was a mystery, and who was he to question its strange requirements? To deny the request would be to risk being blamed for a failed reading, and Wulfgar had served the House of Morgenstern long enough to know that failure was not a concept they tolerated.
"There is an old, unused buttery on the ground floor," he said finally. "Stone walls, slate floor. It has not been used in a generation. Would that suffice?"
"It would be perfect," Cædmon said, a wave of relief washing over him. He had his excuse. He had his secure location.
"I will have two of my men move the body at once," Wulfgar said. "But Master Aldred will want to be informed."
"Of course," Cædmon replied, his face a mask of calm professionalism. "Inform him that the integrity of the echo is paramount. I am sure a man of his learning will understand."
As Wulfgar left to carry out the orders, Cædmon stood alone in the gallery, surrounded by the dead eyes of the Morgenstern ancestors. He had won the first skirmish. He had bought himself time and a safe place to work. But he knew this was only the beginning. He was deep inside the serpent's den, and the true test—the forged echo of the dead knight—was still waiting for him. And he would have to walk it alone.
An Excerpt from the Morgenstern Household Charter, "On the Conduct of Guards and Servants"
(This document, updated by each successive lord, outlines the strict rules of the estate. This passage is from the section on security.)
Let it be known that the sanctity and privacy of the House of Morgenstern are absolute. The walls that surround this demesne are not merely for the deterrence of common thieves, but for the preservation of our seclusion. The Captain of the Household Guard is charged with ensuring this principle is maintained without fail.
All visitors, regardless of rank or station, shall be announced at the gate and escorted at all times while within the estate's walls. No visitor is to be left unattended. No visitor is to stray from the direct path to their destination. The business of the House is its own, and the eyes of outsiders are not welcome in its private chambers.
The Household Guard shall be vigilant against not only threats from without, but also threats from within. Any servant or guard found speaking of the family's private affairs in the city will be dismissed without wages and turned over to the Stǣl-witan for breach of contract. Any hint of unsanctioned magic, philosophical heresy, or allegiance to any power other than the Lord of this House shall be met with the severest consequences.
This is a house of order. Its silence is its shield. Its secrets are its strength. Uphold them, or be unmade by them.