Gray noon leaned over the bones like a tired god. The Dark Castle breathed its cold breath, exhaling through arrow slots, inhaling through pits and wire. Banners in the Red Gallery did not stir; they listened.
At the Blood Gate, a column approached without banners and without formation. No iron fangs. No hard knot of cavalry. Just people.
Villagers.
A dozen carts, each pulled by something too thin to be work—donkeys with hips like knuckles, men in rope harnesses. Women in layered rags. Children made of eyes and elbows. A priest wearing a black coat that had surrendered its black to ash. Here and there, old militia armbands turned inside out, a superstition that had learned grammar too late. They came with palms raised, throats bared, the universal language of after.
Selena stood on the rampart beside Lucas, toes bare against stone that remembered the heat from yesterday's pitch. Her gaze moved over the column with a patient cruelty, as if evaluating raw materials for a piece she had not decided to name yet.
"The innocent," she said, as one might remark on weather. "What a devout category."
Lucas did not answer. He watched the line's lead man—gray hair, shoulders still square despite the weight of rope—step into the outer rim of Dread of the Threshing Gate. His knees shivered, but he kept walking, pulling a cart that held three sacks and one old woman who had turned into breath and bones.
At the gate, two Darkblood Sentinels stepped forward and became a wall. The villagers stopped with the halting of a herd that would prefer not to be so accurate.
The priest lifted a hand, palm open, then lowered it before daring a sign. His voice wobbled, then found itself. "Lord of the Night Crypt," he called, trying not to let the title scrape his tongue, "we come to surrender. We offer labor. Food. Names. We seek terms." His eyes flicked up the wall. "And mercy."
A very long silence practiced itself.
Lucas put his hands on the parapet. Stone cooled his palms with a familiarity that had started to resemble affection. He let Crypt Sense read the column: heat signatures tight as fists, heartbeats labored by fear and hauling, the little electricity of panic crawling under skin. He spoke without raising his voice. It carried anyway.
"There are no terms," he said. "There are rates."
The priest blinked. The line rippled. Adults pulled children closer as if proximity could teach bones a better arithmetic.
Selena's mouth crooked. "A tithe," she murmured. "How pious."
Lucas lifted a hand. Ghouls rose from galleries with the ugly reverence of men-at-arms. Mirk and Var led, ropes ready. Bone Dogs paced to the flanks like punctuation prepared to correct syntax. The Sentinels didn't move; their presence was movement enough.
"Cart contents," Lucas said.
The villagers complied with the speed of those who have rehearsed abjection. Sacks opened—grain with stones in it, poor discretion. Tools. Loaves that had learned the taste of dust. A small crate of herbs that meant medicine in a language that could not buy anything from wind.
[Ding!]
[Tribute assessed.]
[Projected intake: Bone Dust +70 (via Slave Grave), Vile Spark minimal, Carrion Tithe insufficient.]
[Optimization Suggestion: Fear Engine application will increase Vile Spark yield ×3.]
Selena laughed softly. "You hear your castle? It asks for music."
The priest drew breath. "Please," he said, and the word exhaled something brittle. "We were told to flee. To kneel. Some of us chose to live."
"Some," Lucas repeated.
He pointed. Not randomly. A line of ten adults—two men with rope-burn hands, a woman with shoulders like a plow, a girl just old enough to carry a child but not yet allowed to carry a choice. Mirk understood before the gesture finished; he and Var moved, ropes humming, separating the chosen into a small pen of air the crowd could see.
"Ten," Lucas said. "For example."
"No." The word snapped, small and brave, from the rope-burn man. He took a step with the idiotic nobility that keeps history fed. "Take me. Not—"
Mirk's elbow found his diaphragm; his breath lost its way. Var tightened the rope.
Selena leaned on the merlon, chin in palm, watching like a bored god at a shrine. "You are generous, Lucas. Ten is a lesson you can still count."
"Ten," Lucas repeated, voice flat. "For now." He turned his head slightly. "Selena."
Her smile became ceremony. She lifted a hand. Ghouls herded the ten into the mouth of the Torture Altar.
The Fear Engine woke as if pleased to see guests. Hooks slid free of stone with lover's accuracy. Chains whispered. The altar pulsed its slow crimson pulse.
The crowd's noise rose, then hit the aura and sagged. They wanted to run. They didn't. The domain held their knees with a polite hand.
The priest's voice frayed. "Please," he tried again, as if repetition were a ritual that had ever saved anyone. "We surrender. There must be—"
Lucas glanced down at him, expression that taught rock how to be expression. "Mercy is wasted on those who haven't learned cost." His eyes slid to the children, then back to the priest. "They will be quick. If the crowd is quiet."
Selena's eyes found his. She laughed with her mouth closed.
The first hook bit soft flesh. The second found a clavicle. One of the women refused to scream, so the hook taught her how to do arithmetic in a new base. A girl tried prayer; the chain mistook it for a song and answered on beat. Blood learned gravity again.
Noise rose, a ragged sheet at first, then a chord as the altar tuned it. The Fear Engine did not like hysteria; it wanted clarity. Selena walked among the ten, placing fingers, correcting posture, adjusting pitch. She whispered into the rope-burn man's ear, and his next sound was the right note. She smiled, satisfied, and kissed his temple—an artist patting a canvas that had finally remembered what color was for.
[Ding!]
[Fear Engine active.]
[Vile Spark yield: +300% (crowd witness).]
[Domain Aura ripple: Hesitation seeded in adjacent settlements (minor).]
The children watched. Some did not understand. Some did, and would remember the math as long as breath remained inside them. The priest shook as if every small bone in his body had decided to rattle separately.
"Stop," he said hoarsely. "Please. We will—"
"You will what?" Selena asked sweetly without looking at him. "Not be? Don't be dull."
She lifted her hand. The Altar obeyed. Hooks tightened. A man's scream pitched up and broke like a thin blade. The crowd went quiet in a way that made the castle inhale with appreciation.
Lucas raised his palm. The Altar softened. He had no interest in breaking the instrument.
"Listen," he said to the villagers. "You will continue breathing. You will work. Some of you will feed the Grave. Some will tend the kennels. Those with steady fingers will climb the spires and learn to aim. Those with weak nerves will carry pitch. Children will carry water and learn names. You came to surrender. I accept." He gestured to the ten. "Payment for the hour."
The priest's eyes were not tears; they were water trying to explain itself. "There are children," he rasped.
"Yes," Lucas said. "Good. They will learn faster."
Selena's laughter was soft enough to be mistaken for mercy.
"Terms," Lucas continued, ignoring the word's superstition. "One in twenty, daily, for the altar. Carrion tithe, as the crypt requires. Work rosters are posted at dawn and dusk; disobedience goes to the Fear Engine first, the Slave Grave second. Food is earned. Names are surrendered at the barracks and replaced with numbers until I am pleased. Priests will catalog property and souls. Lying is waste. Waste is punished."
He looked down the line until his gaze found a sallow boy with intelligent fingers. "You. Bowyer's hands. You will string Bone Bows. You—" he pointed to a woman with scars on both palms, "—you have delivered children. You will learn to deliver arrows. You—" an old man with eyes that measured, "—you will count. Loudly."
"Loudly?" the old man croaked, baffled despite everything.
"So I hear if you lie," Lucas said.
[Ding!]
[Territory Integration — Civilian pool added.]
[Slots: Grave Labor, Forge Auxiliaries, Kennel Hands, Spires Cadets.]
[Morale Baseline: fearful (stable). Efficiency modified by Dread Aura.]
The ten on the altar swung, then stilled. Selena signaled the release with a small nod, and the hooks gave back their lessons. Bodies were carried to the Grave under ghoulish tenderness—careful not to spill what could still be used.
Mirk led a group of villagers toward the kennels, ropes now reigns, his harsh mouth attempting something like a smile. It made him uglier. Var lugged a crate to the Forge, then an old woman, then a crate again, like the order amused him.
The priest swayed, emptied. When he raised his head, his voice had become something else—a simple instrument, unable to hold notes. "We will work," he said. "We will earn… living."
"You will earn uses," Lucas corrected.
Selena drifted along the parapet, then down the stairs with a stroll that defied the math of gravity. She stopped in front of the priest. Up close, her beauty was intimate and terrible, like a knife you had loved and lost and remembered too late.
"Stand up straight," she told him. "If you're going to teach children how to kneel, do it without shaking."
He straightened by reflex. She smiled. "Better."
Her gaze moved to the children clustered around the cart with the old woman. One child met her eyes and did not look away. A girl, maybe eight, with a face that would grow into a weapon if allowed. Selena crouched, dress pooling like ink, and considered her.
"What is your name?" she asked.
The girl pressed her lips into a blade and said nothing.
Selena's eyes warmed—dangerously. "Keep it, then. Hide it. Names are teeth. Use yours later."
She rose, turned, and called up to Lucas without looking. "Shall I brand them? It saves time when names slip."
"Brand the wrists," Lucas said. "Left for labor, right for cadets. Throat for liars. When in doubt, ask the altar."
He swept his gaze over the column, then into the distance, where the ridge held still like a held breath that had not decided whether to be voice or weather. He could feel watchers. Not soldiers—people, the soft relay that carries a rumor faster than banners.
Good.
Selena clapped twice, a sound too polite for the courtyard. Ghouls moved village-ward, ropes converting into lines, lines into files. Bone Dogs paced between, not snapping—just existing where fear needed punctuation. The Sentinels returned to stillness with a jointed sigh the air mistook for wind.
"Take them in," Lucas said. "Make them useful."
The procession started forward—the innocent, recategorized. The priest moved with them, face blanked to a page that would be written on in a hand not his. The girl looked back once, up at Selena, then at Lucas, then forward again. She did not trip.
Selena returned to the rampart. "You are efficient," she said. "It offends clergy. I approve."
"Efficiency is mercy," Lucas said, and did not explain the joke.
They stood in a silence that had to be carved rather than fallen into. Far beyond the gate, the ridge sighed. A horn lifted and put itself down. Watchers dispersed in two kinds of hurry.
The system wrote in the corner of Lucas's sight, without theatrics:
[Ding!]
[Fear Propagation — adjacent hamlets: compliance +, flight +.]
[Vile Spark harvested: +210.]
[Bone Dust forecast: +240 over 24h.]
[Event Flag: Civilian Integration — unlocks Blood Moon Cadet (Training).]
Selena's smile sharpened. "Cadets. Children with bows."
"Children grow," Lucas said. "Faster under gravity."
She laughed. It was not unkind. It was not anything a priest could use.
For a while they watched the innocents disappear into the castle's stomach. Chains found rhythm. Orders found owners. The altar cooled.
Then the ridge coughed up a rider—alone, cloak tucked, posture set to obedience. A white cloth fluttered from his lance like a lie that hoped to be forgiven. He stopped just outside the pits, looked down at a jaw disguised as soil, and saluted the ground.
"Envoy," Selena guessed, amused. "Another parchment with very serious handwriting."
Lucas let his hand leave the parapet. "Bring him forward," he said, and the Sentinels moved like a door learning how to open.
The rider swallowed. His horse shied at a bell and remembered heaven. He pushed it on. When he lifted his head to call, his voice carried the thin courage of a messenger who thinks martyrdom is a brand you get to choose.
"Terms!" he shouted. "Lord Ramius sends—"
Selena's laughter slid across the courtyard and made him blink. Lucas raised a hand.
"Save his breath," he said. "I may need it."
He glanced down into the yard where the ten had been. The stone had drunk what it wanted. The air still held a shape where screams had been, like a negative left too long in light.
"Begin branding," he added, almost absentmindedly, as if remembering a shopping list. His voice dropped a fraction, an iron that cooled slower. "And raise the spire slots. I want the children to learn faster than the rumor runs."
Selena's crimson eyes gleamed. "Of course, my King."