Duskbound

He'd had to promise a few favors he'd rather not have, but Pevril was on the mend. It wasn't the kind of care he could have afforded six years ago before that monster had taken over his life, wasting his funds on its horrendous agenda of rotting the guild from the inside out, but it would get him his legs back. That was a good start.

Fixing the disaster that had become the Monster Hunters Guild wasn't going to be quite so easy. Even he wasn't sure exactly how many hunters had been infected, though he was confident that he'd named every last member of the administration to be taken. Considering that he himself had personally presided over or ordered the installing of new agents of corruption in those people, there was no one better to expose the depths of the infestation.

No, not me. I didn't do that. It was that thing living inside me.

He knew that, in his head, but that didn't stop the nightmares. He'd been a passenger in his own body, watching himself say and do things that he never would have on his own, and despite logically knowing he hadn't been given a choice, he still felt like he was responsible for those actions. The hunters sent to their deaths because he'd ordered the details of job requests to be falsified were the smallest of his misdeeds.

Years of systematically assimilating the instructor core to the side of the agent had allowed him to weaken the guild immeasurably. Many good hunters had been driven away when it would have been inconvenient to kill them. Contracts that weren't lucrative were lost or destroyed, resulting in tens of thousands of people dying to monsters when nobody came to save them. The guild's legal team had all been taken by agents, every last one of them, and had worked tirelessly to shield the organization from any sort of repercussions that might have arisen from the sabotage carried out on his orders.

Undoing that damage was… impossible, really. So much of it couldn't be taken back, and once word got out about what had happened, the guild's reputation would be in tatters. Of all the organizations to succumb to a parasitic monster infestation, the Monster Hunters Guild should have been the last one on the list.

As much as it hurt to even consider the possibility, there was a chance the guild would dissolve. Even if it didn't bleed out members over the next few months, they operated under the good graces of the kingdom. If Ghestal revoked that permission, the guild would lose its legal standing and couldn't continue operations, no matter how many members they had left.

Pevril didn't think it would come to that, not as long as this disaster was contained to the Cravel branch. Unfortunately, he had no way to know for sure how widespread the infestation was. They were going to have to drag that druid girl who could sense monsters with that weird skill of hers all over the country to vet everyone.

This small core of golds was a good start for turning things around, fortunately. Having Bertrim Nelspir here gave the group legitimacy if it came to an open conflict, which it would. Pevril might not have been in control of himself, but he'd seen enough of the agent's actions to get a good understanding of how it operated. Someone was going to realize they'd been exposed, and when that happened, they'd do their best to cause damage before finding new hosts and killing the old ones.

The resistance group hadn't paused their activities at all, and in the three days they'd been operating since Pevril had been rescued, their numbers had doubled. Now there were a bunch of silvers and half the admin staff on board, though most of them were still reporting to the guild hall and trying to pretend like nothing was wrong. It couldn't last. Probably, it had already failed, and the agents just hadn't tipped their hands yet.

He sat at a desk, having been helped there by one of the admin staff who'd been too frightened by the experience to leave the manor house they were staying at, and tried to organize a plan of action, which he could admit with some bitterness that he was failing miserably at. There were too many variables and unknowns to predict, and in the end, it was going to come down to action and reaction out on the streets once conflict finally erupted.

Then the door opened, and that arrogant young gold strode through like he owned the place. There, at least, Pevril expected good news. Delivering a letter wasn't difficult, and Milly would be safest here with him. The gold no doubt wanted that little scrap of information he thought was so important, completely unaware that Pevril had given it to the golds who'd actually do something with it days ago. He trusted them not to make matters worse.

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"Welcome back," Pevril said dryly. "Do come in. Make yourself comfortable."

Velik had apparently literally raised himself in the wilderness, which might explain his complete and utter lack of manners, but it didn't excuse them. He'd come in from the woods half a year ago. That was plenty of time to learn how to properly behave, not that the boy had made more than a token effort to even try. He couldn't be trusted to handle anything even remotely delicate without causing problems, but a simple letter delivery and escort back should have been within Velik's capabilities.

So why isn't Milly walking in right behind him?

He raised an eyebrow at Velik, who tried—and failed—to hide a grimace. "She wouldn't come back," he said.

"I gave her explicit instructions to return," Pevril said.

"If you say so. She read the letter. I watched her do it. Then she told me she had a job to do, and she wasn't leaving until it was done."

He wanted to be mad at Velik, but he honestly wasn't that surprised. Milly was capable, but she was stubborn. It was fantastic that she didn't quit the first time she met resistance, but it also made her inflexible. He hadn't expected it in this case, had in fact thought that his word carried enough weight with his daughter to bring her home at his order, but if he'd been thinking, he would have realized this was a possible outcome.

On the bright side, it was the perfect excuse to withhold the promised information from Velik. That way, he couldn't ruin the plans of people stronger, smarter, and more experienced than him. "The agreement was that you'd escort her back to Cravel," Pevril told him.

"What did you want me to do, knock her out, throw her in a wagon, and haul her back here tied up the whole way?"

"Knowing you, I doubt you made the slightest effort to convince her. I wouldn't be surprised if you said or did something to make the situation even worse."

Pevril didn't miss the quick flash of guilt on Velik's face. That had been a wild shot in the dark, but he'd unexpectedly landed a blow. He couldn't even blame Velik for that. The agent had inflamed Milly's own irrational prejudices against Velik. Pevril knew he was a poor choice for a messenger, but there were no other options at the time.

"I figured," he said. "It was my mistake to trust you to do this. You're dismissed. I'll find someone capable of fetching my daughter."

"I need a name, first," Velik said.

"And I need Milly somewhere safe, where I could keep an eye on her. Seems like neither of us is getting what we need today."

"I don't think so," Velik said, his voice low, dangerous.

Pevril was suddenly reminded of the agent's fight against Velik. He hadn't been in control, but he'd witnessed the whole thing. Velik was incredibly fast and precise, savage in his intensity, and terrifying to behold. Even with both legs and the agent of corruption's wanton disregard for all the damage he'd done throwing hellfire around, Pevril had lost that fight.

Whatever Velik had going for him, it was stronger than the strength Pevril drew from 45 levels of [Hellfire Ambassador]. If it came to a fight now, Pevril didn't stand a chance. Normally, he wouldn't be worried. Most hunters would behave themselves, especially here. This wasn't technically the guild hall, but it was functioning in the same way. There were a dozen other people within a few hundred feet of this location.

That should have been enough to guarantee any hunter's good behavior. But not him. Because of course he wouldn't. He doesn't do manners. He doesn't care what people think of him. He's a barbarian. A savage. Half monster himself. He does what he wants, takes what he wants, and doesn't care who he hurts in the process. I was a fool to think I could work with him.

"You don't need to concern yourself with destroying the source of the corruption. A team of golds has already been dispatched to take care of it," Pevril tried.

"I don't see how that's relevant to the deal we made," Velik said.

No choice then. Hopefully they're far enough ahead that it's over before this kid gets there and makes things worse. "Fine. Have it your way. There's a mining town southeast of here, in the mountains that make up the border between Ghestal and Slokara. It's called Granite Peak. An old silver mine a few miles away ran dry a few decades back. No one goes there anymore. It hasn't been maintained, and it's dangerous to go inside. That's where you'll find the corruption growing. It's a true dungeon, though, not like that thing you were in up on the northern frontier."

"The people in the town," Velik said. "They're still human."

"As far as I know."

"Anything else I should know?"

"Just that you'd be a fool to go there. It's already being handled, and there's nothing you can do except complicate matters."

Velik swept out of the room without a word, that feathery cloak of his swishing silently behind him as he spun in place. Pevril watched the empty doorway for a second, slightly annoyed that it was beyond his power to close it. His leg stumps itched, but he reminded himself that he'd gotten lucky securing the treatment he was undergoing, that he'd expected to spend years rebuilding his fortune to pay for it.

Gods save this guild from reckless idiots, he thought. Whatever Velik did now, it was out of Pevril's hands. With one last, lingering glance into the hall, he turned his attention back to his plans and schemes.