Total Word Count: 28,199

The Robiary door closed behind her with a dull thud of wood on stone, entombing her in sudden silence.

Rhoa paused for a split-second, getting her bearings.

The Keepers' suits hung on their forms, the dark, oiled leather gleaming in the light of the overcast morning. With the First Keeper's helmet perched on the knob atop the form, her father's suit looked like an empty human being standing at the head of an army, the Apprentice suits arranged in drooping ranks behind it.

A shiver crept down Rhoa's spine, settling in a frozen lump in her stomach. Then she began stripping down to her underclothes.

The suit could withstand the power of the monster.

She could only hope like mad it would also be able to withstand the Rot.

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The stone stairway that led down into the Alchemy Storeroom was ancient, the middle of each tread worn by countless footsteps. Rhoa knew them like the back of her hand. There was an oil sconce on the wall in the storeroom. It would take about four seconds to get to the bottom of the stairs at a run, and another two to reach the sconce with her lantern candle. The only drawback: to get the candle down the steps without blowing it out, she would have to shutter it. There would be no way to really see what waited for her in the storeroom until she lit that sconce.

She was a Strongcastle.

Strongcastles faced their fear.

Beads of sweat were rolling down her back, trickling beneath the layer of heavy waxed canvas that made up the underrobe of the suit, but she was still cold. It was hard to breathe, and not just because of the fine silk and felted wool sieves over the vents in the face-guard.

Rhoa bent and put her hands on her knees, glaring at the rectangle of storeroom floor she could see through the smoked glass in the helmet eyeholes.

The paving stones looked normal enough.

It was time.

Three. She dragged in a deep breath.

Two. She straightened. Bounced lightly on the balls of her metal-clad feet.

One.

She darted forward, leaving the safety of the well-lit Alechemy Room floor behind. Her iron-studded soles struck the stone steps, but inside the helmet the only sound was the thunder of her own heartbeat as she hurtled downward, counting up, now.

Two. Three. Four.

She landed on her left foot and launched herself to the right, nearly careening into the wall before she skidded to a halt in front of the sconce. Five. Her lantern cast wild shadows as she lifted it, yanked open the small shuttered door and pulled the candle out of its cup, fingers clumsy in the leather gauntlets as she brought the flame up to the sponge wick sticking out of the sconce.

Six. Seven. Eight. It was taking too long, and she started swearing under her breath.

Nine. Fire bloomed on the wick.

Rhoa whirled to face the storeroom, her back against the wall, her heart pounding.

It was everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling like rotting velvet drapes, strung from the walls in stretchy ropes, growing from the floor like a wooly carpet of inky-black mold. It writhed, shrinking and cringing away from the fire, seething and gathering in the dark recesses of the storeroom – but not in a way that could be seen, exactly. It was only an impression, a smudge of a billion tiny insects swarming at the edges of her vision. When she looked directly at it, it went still. Dead still. Like a predator spotted by its prey.

This was what had infected the Rotmen, in its rawest, purest form, and it was watching her. She could feel it, a weird, nameless presence beckoning to her. They would do well together. She was warm. It wanted to be warm. It could make her strong if she would make it warm. Strong enough that she wouldn't need anyone else. Strong enough to face the monster, strong enough that no one would ever be able to stop her or hurt her ever again —

I have seen what's left of a human after the Rot has taken over.

The memory of the Vanguard's low, smooth, human voice slashed across her mind, severing that awful darkness.

Her mouth was bone dry. She licked her lips.

Move. She needed to move. Now.

The sprakhide chest that held the Keeper's Poison sat on a counter at the far end of the room. She could see it there, gleaming a pale, pearlescent white, remarkably untouched. Rhoa opened the shutters on the lantern, took a deep breath, and began walking, slowly at first, then faster as the Rot opened up a pathway before her.

Rhoa lifted the chest off the counter, trying not to flinch when coiling, inky tendrils reached after it, narrowly missing her gloves. Shivering, she wheeled around and retraced her steps, the chest under one arm, lantern still held high. At the sconce, she turned quick to the right, rounded the corner, went up the stairs, and shut the Alchemy Room door behind her.

Only then did she breathe, her lungs screaming for air, her knees weak, her head spinning. She didn't collapse. Her limbs were shaking, but it was only spent nerves, not a fever spasm. The suit was working so far.

She coughed out a broken, hollow laugh. Then she pushed herself up straight and made her weary feet carry her across the Alchemy Room to the entrance to the Cutting Room, then up the stairs to the Lye Room. She had less than an hour before the Warmoon broke the horizon.

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It was snowing. Fat, feathery white flakes drifted slow and lazy through the air like goose down.

Rhoa caught one on her palm. It turned into a grey smear on her glove.

Not snow. Ashes.

She brought her head up.

The smoke from the village rose pale and thin, now, barely visible against the grey of the clouds. The fires had gone out.

The Rot was overtaking everything, outside and in. It swarmed up the fortress walls, stretched across the cobblestone of the bailey, spreading like a million-pointed star from the spot where Rokstag had disappeared. Dark, glossy tendrils had nearly consumed the Great Hall and the stables, and were now creeping toward the tower. It was moving slowly, almost furtively, but it was moving. She didn't have long before it caught up with her.

Meanwhile, the Warmoon had cleared the horizon, massive and beginning to emit a fierce, blood-orange light. In less than an hour it would be directly overhead, shining brighter than the sun. The sky was already beginning to darken around it. 

Rhoa ground her teeth. With a shove, she slammed the brake lever out of the gears that controlled the drawbridge, and the massive pulley and counterweight system began moving, the chains running upward in their casement.

Bending, she hefted the iron-bound sprakhide chest off the floor. Her left arm made a weary protest, and she settled the weight of the chest on her hip as she waited for the drawbridge to span the distance between the Keep and the entryway of the tower.

Her thoughts spun through her head.

What was she doing? She was only an Apprentice. This was her Trial year. She should be taking the test and swearing the oaths with Phane, Kennon, Lathen and Radier. They should have been standing right where she was, ready to follow her mother and father to the tower to face the monster for the first time. Instead, she was the only human being standing between that thing and anyone who had managed to escape the Rot.

The monster would be strong enough to break free when the Warmoon reached its peak, and there would be no containing it if that happened. She could feel the draw of the Warmoon on that awful, throbbing energy in the ground. It was rising fast, boiling around the tower, nearly to the top of the scaffold. What would happen if it found a crack in the salt clay while she was up there? What would happen if she didn't deliver the poison in time, and the monster had already gained enough power to withstand it?

She glanced down and to the right, her eyes finding the unearthly glow of the Vanguard's ward inside the windows across the bailey. From her vantage point on the Keep's third-floor balcony, she could make out movement in the sickroom: the Vanguard giving Gran a drink, Sarrie dancing about with a ribbon in front of Phane, who was sitting up in bed.

They were alive.

That was all that mattered.

Shaking her head, she tried to focus again. Do the next first thing. She could hear her father's deep voice saying those words, as he often had when long days of hard work lay ahead.

In that moment, her first thing was to weaken the monster so the Warmoon wouldn't awaken it. Then she could find a way to get everyone out of the Keep and south, away from the Rot.

Inside the silence of the Keeper's helmet, she felt more than heard the thud of the drawbridge striking the mooring buttress on the tower.

She took a breath and let it out as a short, silent whistle. Then she stepped onto the length of metal grating in front of her.

This was the next first thing.

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