The Last Heretic

PROLOGUE

His boisterous laughter echoed among the ceiling of the massive dining room. A laughter she hadn't heard in ages. A laughter she hadn't missed. She glanced up at the cavernous dark corners of the vaulted ceiling. Her father's taste in chandeliers was extravagant. Despite the candlelit crystal ornament lighting the marble pillars around them with the light of dozens of burning wicks, she couldn't see the ceiling. The blanket of darkness draped the dining room, arching high above into a foreboding abyss - a sharp contrast from the spotless, white silk tablecloth covering the needlessly long mahogany table.

"He always did have the smartest wit. Quick mind, that one!" the man said.

His two other guests laughed along with him, joining in the enthusiasm. She didn't smile at all. She hated being there with every vein of her body.

"Only as quick as his taste in women!" Marcus joined in.

The room erupted with even more laughter. Her silent gaze never left the untouched plate. Her father's smiling face loosened slightly as he wiped a tear.

He glanced at her repugnant expression, smiling warmly, "Jillian, dear. Does something trouble you? Is your protégé faring nicely?"

Her younger brother down the table, Augustine, chuckled and stroked his thin mustache, "A protégé? Who the hell married you?"

She slammed her fist on the table, cracking the wood, "Enough!"

"Oh, look out. You pissed her off." Marcus mocked, rolling his eyes.

"A member of our family was murdered!" She yelled, "And nothing has been done."

Her father took a sip of wine, "The whole district was investigated and they say it was a Solladin. They don't know anything else. Why don't you have some wi-"

"So, some scaly kills my brother. No team, no bounty? Nothing?"

Augustine nodded, "We miss him too, Jill. But we can't do anything without a lead. You want us to track every Solladin with his description? It's St. Bastion! There's easily thousands of lizards there!"

The woman sat back down, "Mother would've had him hanging from his entrails by now."

Michael chuckled, "Oh, she certainly would've." He continued, "Look. I know you two were close. You were twins. I didn't mean to insult your memory of him."

She glared at her father. Marcus looked around like he heard something. One of the flames on the chandelier fluttered.

Her father ignored it, "This was supposed to be a dinner where we could remember his life with fondness and appreciate the memories we have. Why don't you investigate it yourself? You'll be in St. Bastion, anyways."

She scoffed and flipped her plate onto the table tarnishing the silk with meat and vegetables. Marcus jumped out of his seat, but his father motioned for him to stay. Her brother sank back into his chair.

"As much as I loved Hunter, we all know he was different." He turned to the massive wooden doors behind him, "Kristauf!"

A butler older than time itself opened the sturdy, twelve-foot doors and walked into the dining room with a calm and gentle gait. The man's white beard accented an otherwise hairless head resting atop a thin and withered frame adorned in a spotless shirt and vest. He produced an envelope from his vest pocket, handing it to her father, "Milord."

"Thank you, Kristauf." He muttered as he tossed the envelope to Jillian, who snatched it out of the air.

"You obviously don't want to be here with us. Inside this envelope is an address and a rather large amount of money. My buyer will meet you at night for the trade. I need it delivered to me - in one piece - for my collection."

The butler stepped out of the room, silently closing the doors behind him. She opened the envelope and skimmed the note with a sigh, "What's the haul? Another artifact?"

"Only the most prodigious artifact of them all." he smiled warmly, "It should delight you to see it for yourself. I'll spare no further details, lest the surprise is lost."

"Nerd." Augustine muttered with a smirk in her direction.

"Quit teasing your sister." Her father scolded, "Besides, I'm the one deserving of that moniker. It's my artifact isn't it?"

She put the envelope in the purse hanging off her chair.

He continued, "The meeting will take place a few days from now. Stay as long as you need in St. Bastion to find information on your brother's killer, if you wish. But I'm telling you - there's nothing to find."

"And what was his description?" She asked.

Her father scratched his chin and glanced up into the abyss, his eyes resting on a particular spot in the darkness of the ceiling as he recalled what he had heard only a couple days ago, "Dark, black scales. A Svedinir, given the lack of horns. Tall and built, with one witness giving an estimate of eight feet in height..." he sighed, "...and more than three hundred pounds of muscle. Scar on the face, his left."

"That hardly narrows it down." she grumbled.

"Like I said, Jill, a needle in a haystack." Augustine muttered, "He probably left the city moments after the whole thing happened."

Her father added, "Our best witness, an old woman in a nearby apartment, saw the whole thing from her window. Hunter and the lizard fought briefly before the beast drew a gun on him at point-blank. Took a hole out of his chest."

"Right in the heart." Marcus mumbled.

She slowly shook her head. Her father sipped his drink and continued, "There are no leads in St. Bastion. If there were, we would have already found them. It's the capital! We practically own half of it."

"The Kalsons?" She asked.

"They wouldn't dare touch our kin." Her father's voice lowered to a growl.

Michael was right. The Kalson Kinship was a contesting family that ran all of Lundul and parts of Muilur - and while they were always thirsty for more power, they would never poke the lion. Her father told her stories as a child of the other families that used to dominate Eulan. There were eight of them. He and her mother saw them burned to the ground, one by one, until just the Kalsons and them, the Caines, remained. They had fought before, but her mother was determined to see peace. Jillian was too young to remember the treaty, but it was thorough. Land, estate, and business was divided up over the course of weeks until both families were satisfied.

She stood up, grabbing her purse and motioning with her fingers over her shoulder. A young girl fell from the shadows of the vaulted ceiling and skimmed the chandelier on her way down. The ornament trembled from the breeze. She slammed onto the table only a yard in front of Jillian's father, knocking the two brothers' glasses to the floor with a crash. The two of them bolted out of their chairs. Augustine had a dagger in hand. Marcus had a revolver trained on the girl's head.

Michael's laughter roared through the mansion. He nearly spilled his wine, "Aren't you delightful! I was waiting to meet you all night, my dear." The men turned to their father, confused. Marcus' pistol didn't budge.

The girl smiled innocently at the old man, hopping to the floor and quietly walking around his chair to the massive wooden doors. She held them open for her mentor as Jillian walked past her father without a word.

Marcus de-cocked the hammer on his revolver and dropped it back into the holster on his hip, "How the hell didn't we hear her?" Augustine shrugged and sheathed his knife in his coat, sitting back down.

Their father put down his glass. The doors closed behind him as his daughter and her protégé left.