the merciless and mesmerizing - Chapter 19 - lahyene (2024)

Chapter Text

Arx, 1242

The problem was that bad things always happened on a good day.

There was a swing in his step that belied his lack of sleep. The sun was out, the air had something crisp to it already, announcing the beginning of winter. The trial had worked. Only a few more calculations and adjustments, the finishing touches on his thesis, and finding a way to blackmail the council into another f*cking research grant–

For the first time in a long time, there was no feeling of dread when Francis turned his key in the lock, and climbed the stairs to the little apartment they shared.

The kitchen was a peaceful place.

It always had been, to him – the curtains weren’t drawn, the dust whirled up in the midday sun. He watched the street outside as he waited for the kettle to boil. He watered the neglected bush of thyme on the window sill. He’d had a good day. For the first time in a long time, he had hope.

"Where were you?"

The bedroom door creaked. It wasn’t a question. Not really.

"Hey.I missed you."

Eshe was leaned against the doorframe, half-bathed in shadow. His face fell, no matter how much he willed it into a smile. What came out of it was a twisted mix of both. Did you eat?He tried to ask. At the same time Eshe said: "I asked you something."

"Working. Eshe, it’s almost done–"

He had been. Working. Not at the academy, sneaking through hidden camps and laboratories, and finally unearthing the secret – the long-lost formula, revived and twisted by the Black Ring, then untwisting it bit by bit, number by number.

"You said you’d be back tomorrow. You were gone for a week!"

The more he worked, the less he thought. About the pain on her face. The grief, and the defeat. Francis reached for her hands. "It’s almost done. I just need to hand in my thesis, get a grant from the academy, and I can–"

Everything happened so fast. It always did, these days. One wrong step, and it escalated. Maybe it was the disease, the stress, or something else.They never used to be like this. And would never be again who they once were.

"You’re a gutless f*cking liar, Francis! You can’t stand the sight of me, you can’t stand even being in the same room with me –" There was a desperation in her anger he knew all too well. Francis pressed his lips together, turned his head. Towards the window, where the pendulum clock was ticking away. He could do this. He knew how to do this. She wasn’t angry at him. Not really.

"–stop looking at the f*cking clock!"

He did.

Francis faced her, took it all, the sunken eyes, the hollowed cheeks, the stubble she’d tried to get rid of and abandoned the mission halfway through when her hands started shaking too badly, the grief, the bitter anger in her face and Francis was alone, he missed her while they stood an inch apart. And he loved her. He loved her, so much that it hurt, and all of it got tangled up inside and came out as something twisted, and it took everything he had to keep it in, until–

"I wish I never f*cking met you!" Yelled Eshe, jabbed her index finger in his direction, "You ruined my life, you piece of sh*t, and now–"

"I’m trying to save your life!"

"I never asked you to!"

The silence that followed was deafening.

Because she’d meant it. All of it, ringing in his ears and piercing the air with the power of a truth so long unspoken. For a moment, they just stared at each other, the words caught in his throat and he loved her like the kettle boiling over in the back.

"I never asked you to," said Eshe, and it was worse when she was quiet, but he turned away to take the kettle off the stove, before Eshe caught his arm and pulled until he looked at her, and there were tears in her eyes as her hand met his chest. "I never asked you to do this, I keep begging you not to, and you never listen! You don’t give a sh*t what I want!"

"I’d do anything for you!"

"You do itfor yourself! You think you’re this selfless fallen angel, but you’re doing all of this because youwant it! I’ve made my peace, motherf*cker, it’s you who can’t handle the thought of losing me! And if you truly loved me, you’d respect–"

He’d heard her talk like this before. Francis reached for her hand, clasped it like a lifeline and she let it happen, and without thinking, the words burst out of him. "Tell me," he begged, "Tell me what to do. I’m listening, I promise, just–" The wrong answer, and Francis knew the second that it left his lips. Eshe buried her face in one hand.

"Then get out."

The water hissed, evaporated on the stove, until it extinguished the flame completely.

"Get the f*ck out."

It hurt to look at her. It hurt not to look at her. It hurt to be here, and it hurt to be gone, Francis loved her too much, andthere was always, always, too little time. Silence. Only the clock, still ticking away, like sand through his fingers. And Francis had promised.

"I love you," he said.

By the time he’d managed to say it, he had his hand on the doorknob. His steps too loud in the deafening silence. Enough to wake a giant, as he stepped into the hallway.

"Francis. Wait."

There it was, his treacherous heart, jumping at the sound of absolution, and without question, without thinking, he turned back. "I’m sorry." Her hand slipped from the doorframe. "You listened." Too exhausted to keep standing, Eshe let herself slide to the floor. "Please, come back."

He could do this.

He knew how to do this.

Francis sat down next to her, cradled her in his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder. She was shaking, and it wouldn’t stop, and Francis ran his fingers through her tangled hair, smoothing it out, holding her close to tether her to earth. "I love you," he whispered. Softly, with everything he had to give, again, and again.

"I’m sorry."

"I know. It’s okay."

"You’re so good to me, and I just –"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Francis smiled, and pulled her closer. "You’re not getting rid of me that easy." When she laughed, he kissed her forehead. "You’re it for me. Until the end."

Eshe sniffed – then looked at him, open and teary-eyed, and didn’t need to say a thing. He knew. She kissed him instead, softly, longingly, sighing into his mouth until there was no air.

"You don’t need to do anything," she whispered, stroking his cheek with so much gentleness it almost burned, and he forgot to breathe. "I just want you here, with me. For however long I have."

She was getting worse.

He couldn’t bear it, the softness of her touch, and the defeat in her words. Francis needed money. Soon. A lot of money, very soon. He kissed her again, and she hugged him back, arms around his shoulders, and he didn’t dare to move, so she wouldn’t let go. He wished that it would never end.

And for a moment, his prayer was heard.

"Francis?" Eshe kissed his cheek. "Will you dance with me?"

He pulled her up. They danced the way they always had. So close, so intimate. Francis’ hands around her, carrying more of her weight with every passing month. No music, except their own, in the stage light of the window. In the kitchen. Where they were the only people in the world.

"It’s not far now, lad."

Beast’s voice reached him from somewhere. They were passing the Brass Bridge, the statues looking down from it, stern and unmoving. He skimmed the alleys, the rooftops outlined by menacing storm clouds. No one was in sight.

"Hang in there."

The attack had let up for a bit – then, it was back with a vengeance. Francis barely managed to grab onto Beast’s shoulder in time, building up the inner shield to protect himself from it. The magic tore at him. The red light of the lanterns came into vision. Beast, with a surprising strength in such a short body, had to carry him the last few steps while the attacker tried to stop his heart again.

In a shocking turn of events – Francis had flown too close to the sun.

Voices, around him. Someone put him up with his back against the bar downstairs, and the Candlemaker, red silk billowing around her, swooped down the stairs. He closed his eyes again.

"What happened?"

"I dunno," said Beast. "Just keeled over. Said to bring him here–"

"Blood magic," Francis got out.

"Were you followed?" The lizard kneeled down beside him and observed, the source cracks glowing under his skin, the blood-shot eyes, and pushed up her spectacles. She drew a knife – a small one, inlaid with pearl, and cut the inside of her arm, where the scales were soft.

Beast scratched his neck. "I don’t think –"

"I wasn’t talking to you." The Candlemaker reached out, drawing a rune on Francis’ forehead. Another, on his cheek, then loosened his robe to draw the next between his collarbones. Francis shook his head. The answer didn’t seem to satisfy. She shot him a burning glare.

"There is only one – Francis. Tell me you didn’t make a deal with her."

He opened his eyes with effort. The pressure on his heart let up, before suddenly – Francis yelped. Blood welled up on the side of his neck, like he’d been cut with a knife, the Candlemaker cursed, and hastily drew a second rune on his other cheek, muttered an incantation, closed the wound.

"Speak,you idiot!" She snapped. "Did you, or did you not, make a deal with her?"

Francis gasped for air, and pulled himself up.

"She’s not supposed to have my blood!"

I’ll make it.

Yet another thread unraveled. In all fairness, this time it was less of a lie, and more of a mistake – the way wasn’t long, Ifan was chock-full of the most reliable sedative money could buy, and he’d gone further after having worse. In a shocking turn of events, he’d thought too highly of himself.

When the adrenaline faded, he moved on to spite. Bracing himself with one hand on Afrit’s back and one along the walls. He almost fell once, after a misstep, and Afrit caught him instinctually – turning his head with an accusatory whine.

"I know. Don’t look at me like that."

It took effort. To carefully move and unclench every muscle around the metal. To keep breathing. To keep moving, keep his eyes open. A year ago, Ifan would’ve walked it off.

The comparision was almost funny. A year ago, the pain would’ve been different – would’ve made him sharper, faster,deadlier. It would’ve felt like rebellion, against the path that he was destined for – a pointless one, but the only one at his disposal. I’ll live. I always do. He’d said it a thousand times, and each time a little more joylessly, the truth unspoken just below the surface.

I’ll live. No matter how hard I try to die.

If destiny damned him to remain on this earth, it’d have to work for it. Something had changed. More than just by lack of any god. Just think. We could go anywhere. He remembered Sebille’s toothy grin in the green glimmer of the Hall of Echoes, terror, excitement and hope. Every small cruelty is now a choice. So is every stupidity, and every act of kindness.

His leg gave out. The fall moved the hook, and Ifan hit the dust with a feral cry of anger, at himself, at the world, at everything. Afrit yowled, nudged his face. He couldn’t move. He was a f*cking idiot.

He should’ve asked Sebille for help. It wasn’t rebellion anymore, just plain stupidity, to treat himself the same amount of mercy he spared his enemies. None. An endless cycle of guilt and apathy, spite and surrender. To waste the chance he had been given, because he still refused to learn.

A real chance.

It had struck him for the first time, when – he’d been watching Francis, while they played chess on a porch in the Arxes. Lazy banter, easy laughs on a summer afternoon, no aim, no urgency, and Ifan had thought to himself: This is what I want. This is who I want to be.

f*ck Francis. That wasn’t the point. The point was that he could think it, even if he croaked by the side of the road with rusty metal in his flesh and hating the man’s guts. It was the fact that Ifan dared to dream at all. And it had nothing to do with him.

He breathed through it. Slowly. Fell into another state of being, and pushed himself up on one arm. f*ck him, thought Ifan, then: I miss him. Dragged one knee up underneath his chest, clenched his fingers in Afrit’s fur, and got up, somehow. It wasn’t far now.

Just one more step. One more. One more.

He fell heavily against the doorframe of the forge. Afrit’s yellow eyes were glittering, and his companion tilted his head in a question. "Good boy." Ifan patted his head. "Go, find the others."

Leading a storied existence among multiple different groups of people meant coming away with a long list of nicknames and attributes. Malignant, maladjusted, mad, militant, macabre and manipulative only made up a small part of the category m. But the one thing Maestro Lowbridge wouldn’t stand for, under any circ*mstances, was being called misinformed.

Don’t get him wrong. The list of his stupidities was long and equally storied. But he could confidently say that where he could help it, stupidities included, Francis did his homework.

And this one was pretty far up the list.

It began, fairly standard, with hopping a fence and picking a lock. Like many buildings throughout Arx, this one didn’t look like the institution it was – an unassuming townhouse in the Cathedral District, with a small surrounding yard. No guards in sight. Not that they were needed.

Francis ducked into a corner, and waited.

Going from Lowbridge to the Academy all those years ago had been, mildly said, a culture shock. But he’d always been quick with a new language. Deciphering the Celestial vernacular didn’t take him as much time as it should have.

It’d taken nine years, however, until he’d learned the term Tell’s Money.

He’d been paired with a dwarven Master’s student in the labs, just before his graduation deadline. He liked the guy – Nikosson, the affluent but talented offspring of Sintan industrialists who specialized in source-binding alchemy. A skill harder and harder to come by under Bishop Alexander.

Because it affected his own research, Nikosson was sympathetic enough to Francis’ struggle against the new regulations banning concrete experimentation on source. So they wrote theoretical formulas, and schemed together on how to get research grants. And that was when he’d heard it.

What about Magistrate Suzana?

I wouldn’t waste my time on her, Nikosson had said with a light gesture, she seems like she could throw out grants left and right, but it’s all, you know. Tell’s Money.

It had haunted him. As it turned out, some of the vernacular was unknown to him because it simply wasn’t used around him. And Francis asked around, until he managed to put the pieces together.

As it turned out – Arx’s rich and holy were notoriously bad at their job.

Not that he hadn’t known. But apparently, even with all the reserves and relations in the world at their disposal, some of them f*cked up so badly and with such regularity that lest they ended up having to sell their estates, to save face, they turned to someone by the name of Lady Tell.

From embarrassed nobles to small town warlords in desperate need of weaponry, everyone had dealings with her. As it turned out, Francis’ blood-based security deposit was nothing he’d invented at the card tables. He’d assumed Lady Tell mostly kept her business to the rich because she was sure to get the money back. But when he’d examined her customer base more closely, he found the real reason. Her profits didn’t come from interest rates. They came from favors.

Lady Tell was sure to lend you a substantial amount of capital if you had influence. Any kind of influence that could be sold to the next-highest bidder. And all under the threat of–

Francis watched and learned. There was a window in the back, and after a rather inelegant climb, he had full view of where Tell conducted her affairs.

She was a white-haired, grandmotherly woman dressed as if heading to a service in the grand Cathedral. Which was funny, when you knew one other thing about her – Lady Tell wasn’t what she seemed to be. He knew it in the runic protections warding the walls. And he knew it from asking around the Red Lantern Guild. Lady Tell was, in all regards, a demonic entity.

The process was the same each time. Someone would come in, there’d be an hour or half of polite conversation and tense negotiation, and by the end of it, contracts were signed, coffee was served, and for dessert, a servant brought out a little glass container and a pinprick needle.

The bottle was sealed, and the guest left a drop of blood lighter and much heavier in coin. And after he was confident he’d seen enough, Francis decided to make his own case.

He made an orderly appointment, calling card and all. He offered her influence in scientific circles, which she didn’t seem all that interested in, and that in the Red Lantern, which she was far too interested in. And when he’d finished his coffee, and the needle was brought out, he thanked her with a smile. Source inversion was a useful little thing. He left the table with more money than he’d ever hoped for, and with a whisk of his finger, turned his own blood in the bottle to rot.

All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Until came home.

To an empty apartment, and a letter on the table.

Tarquin had come to expect the unexpected.

When the door opened, he turned – just in time for a loud crash to ring through the forge, as the new arrival stumbled forward with a grunt and fell straight into the table, tools flying everywhere, vials of very expensive compounds used for magical smithery shattering against the floor, then the whole piece of furniture creaked and broke in half under him.Way to make an entrance.

Tarquin had to give him that.

"Pleasant afternoon. What the f*ck happened to you?"

Ifan ben-Mezd, the picture of social grace stuck face-down between two halves of a perfectly good table, pressed his hand over his side, then, very slowly, raised his head to glare at Tarquin. "Stabbed," he eloquently got out, before the legs of the table surrendered to his weight completely, and he crashed into the floor.

"And there goes my deposit." Tarquin removed his metal gloves and sighed. "Third time’s the charm, I suppose. You know – a little gratitude can go a long way."

"f*ck off."

"Would it kill you to be more appreciative?" The necromancer crouched down beside him, grabbed his shoulder and shoved Ifan on his back, none too gently. He went with a suppressed cry of pain – Tarquin let out a whistle. His face was covered in dried blood, his nose cut and swollen, and a rusted metal hook stuck out of his side just above his hip bone. Ifan hissed through his teeth.

"Son of a dog–"

"You know – I haven’t sworn any medicinal oath. It’s well within my power to just leave you here."

The threat didn’t seem to impress. Ifan was pale as a sheet, his breathing sharp and labored. And the madman was smiling. Eyes clenched shut, and a glint of teeth in the light of the forge fire. Like attracted like, he supposed. His friend had a pattern. Ifan, as smug and theatric as was he was dangerously beautiful – was also completely off his nut.

And Cisc wouldn’t let him live it down.

"Oh, fine." Tarquin reached for a pair of precision scissors that had clattered off the table, and began to cut Ifan’s shirt down the middle. "My mistake. I realize that exceeds your capabilities. How about we make a deal?"

Ifan hissed some elven curse under his breath, when the shirt fell to one side before Tarquin could cut around the hook – an absolutely scathing one, no doubt – and flinched upwards in reflex. The necromancer caught him by the shoulder, and firmly eased him back down.

"I make yet another thankless effort at saving your life at my own expense, and you grant me a minute of blessed silence. Don’t speak, don’t growl, don’t call down another generational blood-curse of the woods upon me. It’s distracting, and frankly, not very result-oriented."

Ifan’s eyes flicked to the side. Analyzinghim. And whatever he found seemed to satisfy immensely. How disconcerting.

"Ready, mate. You’ll owe me for this."

That smile. All teeth. Like he’d discovered a lethal weakness in an enemy’s defense. Before Ifan could think todiscover anything else, Tarquin wrapped his hand around the hook, held the skin around it in place with the other – and Ifan just grinned wider. A delirious giggle escaped him, interrupted by a flinch when it moved his abdomen. Tarquin raised both eyebrows.

"You’re in high spirits, for someone that should be unconscious."

"No spirits," rasped Ifan, "Just high. Don’t–" Eyes falling shut, he purposefully breathed in through his nose, and unclenched his fists at his side. "–give me narcotics."

Tarquin blinked.

"Well, good.I wasn’t gonna."

Francis’ time record was measured in two eras.

The one before the letter, and the one after the explosion. Between the letter and the explosion, the years just blurred into nothing, the few things worth remembering into booze and blind, desperate hedonism, and Francis had decided that they didn’t really count.

Nothing good to be found there, and no use in digging.

He’d tried to find a way to resurrect her. Of course he had, but ultimately, the years of struggle had caught up with him. He’d given up. And he never would've been able to admit it back then, but deep down, he knew it wasn't what she would've wanted. It wasn’t far-fetched to say that the few things he could reliably recall felt like they’d happened to somebody else. Because he had been someone else, a beast of his own making, with only one goal in the whole wide world. To hide. To forget. To run.

Until one fateful day, when Francis ran so far he circled back to the very beginning.

It was a Tuesday. He remembered it with perfect clarity. Due to multiple factors. First, he’d been stunningly, frighteningly sober, second, he’d been shirtless in the deep of winter and somehow hadn’t frozen to death, and third, he’d been woken up by a shout and a bottle to his face.

To be fair. A perfectly understandable reaction to finding a half-naked stranger curled up in your hallway. The belief in threshhold demons was getting rarer, but still very much alive and well.

Demon. Hellspawn. Devil. Witch.

The nicknames had a theme, and Francis, long ago, had accepted the kernel of truth to them. Honestly – he’d woken up in stranger places; the one thing separating him from being a full-time alcoholic were the meticulous alchemic calculations of body mass and substance containment he followed compulsively and to the letter, in order to get drunk as often as possible without becoming physically dependent on it (which was to say, he absolutely was a full-time alcoholic).

In linear succession, the following had happened:

Francis had gotten blackout drunk on the anniversary of Eshe’s death, f*cked a random sailor at the freight docks, acquired a dubiously crab-shaped infection risk covering the black circle on his back as a token of gratitude, taken his shirt off to protect his skin and lost it somewhere in the process of getting even drunker – and instead of going home, he’d ended up breaking into and passing out in the taproom of the Bridgepost Inn.

In the moment, it happened in seconds.

A shout. A bottle grabbed from the counter, flung in his direction, shattering against his face like so many before it, and Francis snarled like a wild animal, shot up from the floor, wide awake, bursting with adrenaline and complete confusion regarding his whereabouts, and the first thing he saw were the eyes that looked like his – all in all, it was an easy calculation.

His only means of self-defense.

No time to think. A heartbeat sounding through his ears as if it were his own. The blood pulsing through another body at the mercy of his hands, and the eerie, violet glow of source. And his father hanging like a rag doll off the back of the wall behind the counter, unable to move, unable to comprehend the way the world had just turned upside down, and filled with complete terror.

In the first moment, Francis panicked.

In the second, every cell in his body screamed at him to apologize. Not out of remorse. Because he’d learned to sayI’m sorry before any other sentence, because it didn’t matter if he knew what he’d done wrong or actually regretted any of it, even if he’d spent years trying to forget the very words to it, so he could relearn them in a way that mattered. A reflex he just managed to supress.

In the third moment, Francis felt better than he had in his entire f*cking life. The devil’s laughter that broke out of him gave mastery to each of his acquired nicknames, his hand twitching, his magic unyielding as he dangled the man in the air. He had nothing left to lose. He had nothing left to give, and nothing left to fear. He was a demon finding powerat rock bottom, and he loved it.

He was rotten to his core.

He was free.

A wide grin, and the horror there in his father’s eyes as he tried to form the words he wanted to, and Francis could hear them all too vividly, a twitch of his index finger, and the man closed his mouth. Francis was immortal. He grinned wider, and said: That’s no way to greet family.

Something in him itched to snap his father’s neck. To tear him limb from limb. He could’ve. And whatever stopped him had little to do with being a good man. Firstly, nostalgia, love’s bitter older sibling. Secondly, recognition, of the fear that looked like his. Thirdly – sheer, dumb luck.

There was a mirror in the back of the bar.

A small, dusty copper frame that he’d never recognized as such, covered by the ever-present black soot of the fireplace through generations. But someone had found it, cleaned it, and made sure that Francis had to catch his own reflection. Purple bags under his eyes. Hunched shoulders, weighed down by life itself.

Those angry, reddened, deep green eyes.

There were steps in the hallway upstairs. Silent, timid, barely there. He lowered his hand, blood rushing in his ears. His father crumpled against the bar as he fell. Francis knew every noise and creak of the old tavern, and their meaning, like he knew the name he had to carry. The steps over the rug upstairs came closer. And his father hesitated, silently pleaded with him, before calling:

Helena – it’s fine! Go back to bed !

A pivotal moment, that could have gone any other way. Francis grinned, a threat rather than a display of any real joy, as he picked one of the circulating jackets people kept drunkenly leaving behind on the coat hangers, turned, and left for good.

Dawn broke as he stepped onto the porch.

The sky was clear and winter-bleached, his soles creaking on the frozen planks. The patchwork rooftops glittering with frost. Dogs howling along with the Cathedral’s call to prayer. The hangover had given way to the shock of waking up to glass splinters sticking to the side of his face. The grief, momentarily, to a faint memory of power. Francis was starting to wake up. And in the end, that was the morning he remembered – or rather, cared to remember – to hand in his doctorate thesis.

He’d written it anyway.

Crumpled in their room, on his desk he never used, and he wouldn’t be this. The curse. The mirror. He’d dig his way out of an early grave among his forbearers, of grief and hopelessness and hatred and bottle after bottle, or he would die trying.

It might’ve been to late for Eshe.

He could still help someone else.

Francis whistled a tune, hands in the pockets of another man’s jacket with nothing underneath, and walked up the stairs to the Brass. The few other pedestrians drew a wide circle around him. There was a shard sticking out of his cheek, and another from his eyelid, and Francis felt it all, he was sober and terrified and bleeding all over the side of his face, and he was grinning like a maniac.

It was a Tuesday, and Francis was alive.

A divine stroke of fate.

The perfect time, and the perfect place, for catastrophe.

"Is he sick?"

A voice cut through the ringing in his ears. A voice he knew. A language he knew, made to be spoken with gravel in your mouth and pride in your back, and it didn’t sound right, with all that hesitation in it. Even by a seven-year-old girl, who probably felt even smaller than she already was.

"Yeah," lied Francis, at the same time the Candlemaker said: "Your brother walks the fine line between complete stupidity and being too smart for his own good."

The gentle pattering of rain. When he opened his eyes, the room laid in darkness, and the flicker of a few candles. A circle of warding runes surrounded Francis, who was still leaned with his back against the bar. The Candlemaker sat on her heels. Lavish helped with the ritual. She was one of the vipers, the guild-trained blood mages – protector, spy, and occasionally, assassin.

His sight was blurry. Still drunk. By the time the circle was complete, most of the Starling’s residents assembled around him, and the look on their faces was more frightening than the dull, cold sting of magic trying to worm its way through the warding. Concern. More than that. Pity.

"Come." The lizard woman waved Maja forward. "Learn something."

He saw Maja’s eyes, wide and dark brown, flit over the blood runes smearing his face and chest. Francis tried to smile, and by the mercy of some unknown force, it worked. A small reassurance.

"The gift we share can be used for terrible things," the Candlemaker explained factually. "Something tells me you’ve learned that already. Your brother tried to outsmart a demon. Who has his blood. And a powerful one can –"

"Leave her out of this."

Francis glared at her. The Candlemaker regarded him with a sharp look of disapproval in return. The other Starlings sensibly got out of the way of the tension between them, Lavish taking Maja’s hand and pulling her along.

Until they were alone.

The Candlemaker sighed, and gently wiped her hands over her silks to clean off dust and dirt that wasn’t really there, a habit they both shared, and probably for the same reasons.

"I shouldn’t be doing this."

"Yeah?" rasped Francis, "Then why are you?"

"What was it that I told you when you asked me about Lady Tell, all those years ago?" She hissed, and continued before he had the chance to answer. "Do you remember? You can take on every little tyrant in Arx for all I care. Anyone but her. They all come and go like the tide, but she is older than the Order, older than the age of mortals, older than the city itself. And not only do you throw my warning to the wind, and make a deal with her – you thought you could swindle her?"

"It would’ve worked," he muttered defiantly. "She must’ve gotten my blood from the Barracks, or–"

"Quiet." She glared at him intently. "What was the first thing I taught you?"

Francis rolled his eyes.

"To know your limitations," she answered the question for him. "And you haven’t learned a thing. I turned a blind eye to your dalliances with the Black Ring, to your recklessness, to your arrogance, all because I know what it’s like to love and to lose. And I hoped, but when – not if, when she comes after you, knowing that we broke her contract and protected you–"

"Then stop protecting me!"

It was almost a shout. Francis was angry. He didn’t know why. The Candlemaker quieted herself, only her amber eyes drilling into his soul, while he felt the ghost of a knife carved through the warding, as if scraping glass instead of skin. Francis flinched, then put the pride into his back and the gravel in his mouth, raised his head and stubbornly looked back at her.

"You were right," he hissed. "Is that what you wanna hear?"

She didn’t answer. Her expression was impossible to read. Francis took a deep breath, and began getting to his feet, hoping he could get out, go somewhere else, the feeling crawling up inside him like a boiling kettle as he pulled himself up with one hand on the bar. "I shouldn’t have come here."

"Sit down."

"You said it yourself. I’m putting all of you in danger."

"Gods! Would you rather die than listen to me?"

"I have it coming," Francis mindlessly snapped back, turning on his heel. But before he could cross the warding circle, a red hand emerged from the bucket of goat’s blood next to him, grabbed his ankle and pulled him back down. Francis yelped, instinctively raised his hands to protect himself, but the Candlemaker dissolved the spell as quickly as she’d summoned it. All she did was look at him, really look at him, and that, frankly, was worse. Her voice was quiet, carefully controlled.

"Is that what you believe?"

Francis silently stared back at her. Until that same old feeling started crawling up inside him, impossible to hold back, and he lowered his head with a click of his tongue.

"Answer me, Francis. Do you believe that you deserve to die?"

"No," he hissed, "But–"

"But nothing.I’m furious with you. And you will not walk straight to your demise before I’m done."

"I already told you you were right!"

"I don’t want to be right! I’m just as angry at myself! I never should’ve taught you, you don’t have any limits, I should’ve known better, but in the end – you are one of us. We will always, always have to fight harder for love than anyone else. How can I blame you for doing just that?"

Francis looked at his feet, like they were the most interesting thing in the world. He’d been ready for her anger. He could handle anger, but this–

"I’ve watched you fight," she continued softly, "to love someone who, like so many of us, had been convinced she was unlovable. And I would’ve given anything to see you win where I failed."

He couldn’t help it. Francis laughed, sharp and abrupt, and threw his hands up.

"Yeah, well – I f*cking failed."

He leaned back, rubbing his hands over his face. It might’ve been the alcohol, but the only thing more unbearable than saying it out loud was silence. The words rushed out like a waterfall, and it felt like shrugging off a burden he’d always carried, that ached more after the weight was first lifted.

"I tried everything," he snapped, "Medicine. Necromancy. Gods and demons. I gave up everything, the things I loved, the things I stood for, became everything I never wanted to be –" Francis stopped, laughed again. "And after all of that, I still f*cking failed."

Silence, once again. He felt her shoulder brush his. The Candlemaker sat down next to him.

"I even got a second chance." His next laugh was nearly a sob. "And I f*cked that up as well."

Francis’ treacherous heart tried to escape him. And what was the harm, really. If it would all go to sh*t anyway – Francis breathed. He let it go. He breathed, and gave himself permission.

To admit defeat.

And while he couldn’t help but try, and try again, deep down, he’d always known. That all of it had been for nothing. There had been nothing noble in his martyrdom, it had changed nothing at all. None of it had mattered. And in his rush to sacrifice himself, he’d lost the only thing that did.

The Candlemaker hesitated, then put her arm around his shoulders. He didn’t know how long they stayed like this. Side by side, with all the grief they had in common.

"She hated me towards the end," Francis whispered after a while. His admission sat heavy in the loaded quiet. "I think I finally see why."

"She never hated you."

Francis wiped his sleeve over his face, and didn’t argue, even though he wanted to. Even though he knew she’d hated him at least a little, and he’d returned the sentiment some days, but–

"She was angry with you," said the Candlemaker. "Because she loved you. As you were. For who you were, not what you did for her, and you just wouldn’t let her."

And – yeah. That was it. Roll the curtains, thought Francis, his original sin out in broad daylight, and the kettle boiled over for good. The tears welled up, and the rain kept falling like it always had.

"We couldn’t have won. We were fighting the wrong enemy."

Everything exploded in him. He had nothing to hold on to. No way out but through. He felt everything, Eshe’s eyes on him, her rage, her tenderness, her arms around him while they danced, his arms around her on the bridge, talking her down from the ledge. The love that had turned bitter as it fought for release, because they’d both been too afraid. To bare all of themselves, screaming – here I am, with all my light and darkness. This is who I am. Take it or leave it.

And that, really, was the worst of all.

Five years after her death, and Francis knew for the first time that she wouldn’t have left.

Because she’d loved him. She’d loved him. She’d loved him. Francis, the man with the crooked face and the ill-fitting robes and something rotten in him, with skin that felt too small and a heart that felt too big, who found beauty in an ugly world and loved a mystery way more than its solution.

The same man Ifan loved.

"sh*t. Why does it always have to be so hard?"

Love, was what he meant. He’d wanted to say something else, but nothing else needed to be said. The Candlemaker took a while to reply – and when he turned, for the first time, he saw her smile.

"That’s the wrong question," she said. "The question is – do you regret it?"

Francis didn’t miss a beat.

"Never."

The answer fell straight from his heart. Neither reason nor resentment nor years gone by could hold it back, a brutal, universal truth at the core of his being. "Not for a f*cking second."

The Candlemaker squeezed his shoulder.

Like she knew – like she understood. Of course she did. It was a special and familiar pain they shared, with everyone else this shabby theater felt like home to instead of an escape.

"You still made a mistake."

"Oh, big time."

Francis laughed. He meant more than the deal. But it all came back to the same thing.

"A terrible mistake," she insisted firmly. "Are you going do something about it?"

"Yup," said Francis. "I’m gonna go rob a demon."

The Candlemaker stared at him over the edge of her glasses. That clearly hadn’t been the right answer. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her this afraid. But fundamentally – she was afraid, in the way everyone that understood the nature of power was afraid, everybody who had stared into its depths and seen the lengths to which it would go, if truly challenged.

It was wise, to pick your battles in this town. But that wasn’t a common description of him as a person either way.

"That’s not – you don’t stand a chance! Francis, who the hell do you think you are?"

Who indeed.

A gambler, most of all. Francis had tricked gods. Francis had tricked death and destiny and nature. Only one thing remained. It was fickle, all-encompassing, and older than each of the gods, stolen at birth and hoarded in a few cruel, frightened, ever-changing hands, since the very dawn of time.

Power itself.

"I’m going to rob a demon," he repeated slowly, "I’m gonna tear down every stake that holds this f*cking city in its place. And then, I’m gonna find the man I love, and make up for what I’ve done. Or I’ll try, at least. And you’re going to help me."

"You’re insane. What on earth makes you think that I’ll–"

"You see," Francis smiled, "I have a plan."

The rain prattled lightly on the flat roof of the forge.

A calming background noise to the matter at hand. This would’ve been so much easier if the man would just pass out already. But Ifan seemed intent on doing just the opposite – once Tarquin had unlodged the hook, fixed up the wound, and the vivid curses had subsided, Ifan looked at him.

Really looked at him. His eyes, shining and narrow with pain, seemed able to pierce the veil of death itself. Tarquin suppressed the urge to squirm under that glance, and closed the last of his punctured skin, smoothing it over.

"We’re done," he informed Ifan. "You can stop glaring at me now."

A hand crushed his forearm. With terrifying speed and strength, Ifan pulled him down, and hitched his sleeve up, Tarquin yelped in protest – and Ifan stopped short. At the sight of Dallis’ memorabilia on his arm, oversown with scars and wrinkled, purpling skin.

"Looked your fill, mate?" He tried snapping at him. Too uncertain. "You think I wear long sleeves because I like how it feels in this weather–" Ifan yanked his sleeve up further. And there it was, right above the crook of his elbow. Tarquin struggled against the grip, while Ifan’s eyes were latched onto the black ring tattooed on his skin, the grasp of his fingers unyielding, all lithe, concentrated strength. And that smile–

"I f*cking knew it."

Tarquin was going to die. Some animalistic urge reared up inside him, looked for a way out, made him reach and jabhis thumb into the freshly healed wound. Ifan cried out, but didn’t let go – then threw his head back with a sharpcackle, and faster than he could react, Tarquin’s legs were pulled out from under him, his back hit the floor, his arms pinned by his side under two heavy knees, and Ifan loomed above him with a bare-toothed grin, the tip of the precision scissors pressed into the soft skin underneath his jaw.

"I knew there was something off about you." His voice was strained, but calm. Dangerously so. "Did you and Kemm have a nice chat after the meeting? Time to talk. Whose side are you on?"

Tarquin barked a panicked laugh.

"You still believe in sides? How rustic. Get the f*ck off–" The scissors broke skin. Tarquin stilled, staring into his eyes while a single drop of blood welled up and streamed down his neck.

"I suggest you start believing in them," said Ifan with disturbing ease. "That tattoo is old. You joined around Damian’s time. When they still burned villages and tortured Elves for kicks."

"Oh, that’s how you wanna play it?" He hissed. "My side wasn’t the Order of religious lunatics that rounded upsourcerers and turned them into soulless puppets! And persecuted anyone who dared question what the great Lucian had in stall for us, and if you’re so concerned for the Elves – my side wasn’t the one that choked them all in deathfog-"

Ifan froze.

Tarquin bit his lip. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this particular jab had gone too deep, right for the jugular, and that he’d pay for it. Neither of them moved. But to his surprise, the scissors on his neck eased up. Tarquin managed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

"Thousands joining the Black Ring, and you never thought that maybe, they might’ve had a point?"

Ifan’s eyes were slightly narrowed, but he didn’t interrupt, like he was actually – listening to him. Alright then. He could talk. He knew how to talk.

"Do you not see that all things of worth in this world are the work of mortals?" Tarquin continued frantically. "We’re just as capable of the act of creation, mate. You let f*cking plants grow with a snap of your fingers. Of course that’s what they’re trying to suppress. The gods fed on our achievements like carrion birds. All they ever had is this promise of a so-called afterlife. You free yourself from death – the sky’s the limit."

Silence. Ifan looked sceptical, his mouth drawn into a one-sided frown – but he hadn’t killed him. Yet. Tarquin thought it over. Then he shrugged.

"That was the official line, anyway. Look. The point is – we’re not so different. We were just pawns. Both of us, to lying megalomaniacs who promised us paradise on earth, only to turn around and destroy everything we thought they stood for. The sides aren’t real. In the end, there’s only power."

Ifan had listened to him.

He knew it from the way he sighed, deep and weary, like Tarquin’s words had struck something in him. An old regret. A shared mistake they’d both payed dearly for. And in the way Ifan let him up, twirling the scissors between his fingers, back and forth, back and forth, before he spoke.

"Did you sell us out to Kemm?"

"Why the hell would I?" Tarquin shook his head, lip scrunched up. "Let me make it as simple as possible for you. I’m sworn to the Black Ring because I wanted to be free of divine tyranny. Now guess what I got for my troubles. That’s right. Divine tyranny. All I want to do is live, mate, and loathe as I am to admit it – I think you freaks are my best bet."

Ifan stilled, clasped the scissors in his fist.

Then, unbelievably – a quiet chuckle.

"You know how they say," he hummed. "Every dog has its day."

"How poetic." Tarquin slowly sat up, and resting his arm on his knee, reached up to stop the bleeding with his sleeve. "Here’s hoping I didn’t put my money on the wrong one."

The nod Ifan gave him was a little smug, and almost contained something like respect. Tarquin got to his feet, and walked over to the forge, picking up his mortal contribution to the act of creation. The sword hummed faintly in his grasp. Whispering.

Tarquin made his living off of secrets.

He knew the value of holding back the right information, and even more, the value of revealing it at the right time. He’d planned this moment carefully. How to share what Francis and his fellow godwoken needed to know, and how to protect his own skin in the process. But he also knew – right here, right now – that they were running out of time.

"You know," he began, "that fellow Dallis walks around with is not what he seems."

Ifan curiously tilted his head.

"That hooded advisor. Vredeman. You’ve been acquainted." He gave a dismissive wave. "He’s Braccus Rex, the source king, in disguise."

"And you know this, how?"

If the sudden reveal shocked him at all, it didn’t show. Ifan crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow.

"Hard to believe as it is, that hag didn’t keep me around for my charms." Tarquin gave a bitter laugh. "I was the one who resurrected him. I was in no position to refuse, and still–" He intently traced the sharp edges, the otherworldly design of the sword in his hand. "Funny, isn’t it? Of all the wrongs we’ve done – the things that we regret the most are the ones we didn’t even have a say in."

Ifan took a while to reply, leaning against the doorframe.

"We do now," he said.

"I suppose." Tarquin shrugged. "Anyway. That’s why I’ve sought the pieces of Anathema. It’s the only thing that can slay him. But more than wanting to make up for what I failed to stop, I want–" He trailed off, caught off guard by the sudden burst of sincerity.

"Revenge," said Ifan.

Tarquin didn’t look at his face, but his tone was different now, devoid of his usual sarcasm. Solemn and sincere. Understanding, almost. The necromancer nodded.

"In that, we’re quite alike. Besides – feels good, doesn’t it? To use your skill against them? Taking matters in your own hand again, even if it won’t change what’s already happened?"

"It’s a first step. A good one, at that."

"Aren’t you supposed to tell me something else, oh righteous crusader?" Tarquin smirked. "Revenge won’t solve anything? An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind? "

Ifan laughed. Deep and rich, and with an edge of sharpness to it.

"Once, I would have. But that’s back when I still had both my eyes." He hesitated for a moment, scuffing his boot against the floor. "Actions have consequences. We’ve learned that the hard way. And if you ask me, it’s high time theylearned it, too."

Tarquin walked over to him. Ifan scratched his neck, curiously glanced up when he extended his hand and offered him the sword – then, he took it. Held it lightly, practised, and without any grand reverence, the most powerful known weapon on the continent. Like he’d been born to wield it.

"Don’t f*ck it up," said Tarquin.

"No promises." Ifan hooked the weapon through his shoulder belt and turned to leave. "But I’ll do my best." He hesitated for a moment, his hand already on the door handle, then turned again.

"You never did tell me how you and Francis met," he said, trying for casual. "Why did he join?"

Tarquin shrugged.

"Who knows why Francis Lowbridge does what Francis Lowbridge does. He’s been a member of so many groups andfactions over the years that I’ve lost count. The only common denominator I can seem to find is…"

He stopped himself. Self-interest , he’d been about to say. And that wasn’t wrong, not technically, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either. Tarquin turned it over, scowled when he realized that there was no other way to describe it. Sighed, and decided to admit it anyway.

"…Love."

A thesis defense was a far less dramatic affair than Francis had assumed.

Before his Master’s, at least. He’d expected hours of vigorous scientific debate, his findings being attacked from every possible angle, and had prepared accordingly – had almost been disappointed when the whole thing was over in less than twenty minutes.

Professor Imani, the head of mathematical studies, even congratulated him on his graduation, and invited him out for a drink. He politely declined. It was a nice gesture, but it ultimately came from pity, of knowing no one else would be there to celebrate it with him.

But this time, Francis didn’t take any chances.

The amount of dramatics, or lack thereof, very much depended on who exactly sat on the council, and he’d made his share of enemies during the last few years. The price of urgency, tenacity, his chosen last name, and of the fact that he’d always have to prove himself.

So Francis had done his homework.

It was a snow day. And in Arx, that meant an unpleasant, wet chill to the air and mostly frozen sludge soaking through your clothes. The floor was covered in it when he entered. Still, the lecture hall was full to the brim. More than he’d ever seen it during classes. Not only were the professors and lecturers of almost every study department present on the council – even rhetorics, for some reason – but he had an audience. Hundreds of students, some sitting, some standing to watch the spectacle on the upper ranks. A murmur went to the crowd when he swung the door open.

Francis had counted on it.

He didn’t spare them a backward glance. He just smiled, walked down the stairs like he had all the time in the world to waste, and took his place on the bench. He’d come prepared. He was mostly sober. He wore his old pair of glasses, and a simple white shirt, an inkpen sticking from his breast pocket – purposefully and carefully dressed like a harmless lab assistant that had only just changed out of his coat.

Francis scanned the crowd from the corner of his eye.

Some attended out of interest for the subject matter, sure – source inversion, the lost knowledge, one of the formerly untouchable, unreplicable laws of magic – but if he was being real, at least half of them were here to witness Francis Lowbridge’s inevitable downfall. No matter. He’d dealt with bigger fish. Most of them where either terrified of him,owed him a favor, or had friends that did.

On the gallery, though – Francis squinted.

Those people weren’t students. Expensively, but modestly dressed, in muted red and bright white. Resentful, pinched expressions resembling a donkey’s asshole. Ah, he thought. The clergy.

One seat on the panel was empty. The murmurs that filled the room quieted, as the council brought their documents in order, signaling that the procedure was about to begin, and from where the white magisters sat, someone hurried down to take his seat.

Professor Idnik.

Francis clenched his jaw. Technically, any department was allowed a seat at the defense, no matter if it was at all connected to their field of study – but it was more than unusual for the lecturers to actually waste their time on something like this. He almost would’ve been flattered.

Idnik was an old man with a meticulously trimmed white beard and an old-fashioned scholar’s cap. He looked exactly like you’d expect a professor to look, and had a calm, moderate speaking voice that exuded pure intellectual authority. And lucky for him, because if it hadn’t been for his presence and demeanor, the man wouldn’t have had a bloody leg to stand on.

Idnik, Professor Ethicist, spent most his time on earth with one index finger in the air. He seemed to see his purpose in attacking any advancement of the natural sciences regarding their values and morality, and had, more than once, convinced the council to deny Francis’ grant applications.

More than that. He’d spent the entire post-war era lobbying every possible donor in Arx to reconsider even listing the Alchimia in their funding targets, lest they’d be struck down by the wrath of the gods. And for his efforts, he’d been handsomely rewarded by the Order.

Francis f*cking hated him.

"Francisco Lowbridge, Master Alchemist, Doctorate aspiring," announced Professor Jarre without any grand ceremony, another box ticked off, "The council is in session."

The first twenty minutes went just fine. The natural science professors asked questions about his process, and Francis laid out and explained his calculations in complete transparency. Idnik was curiously silent. He simply smiled to himself, and that was more unsettling than anything else.

"One more time, for comprehension," said Drahmin, the historian, "You’re claiming here that everything that exists is ultimately made of source?"

The whole thing was almost entirely outside his field of study, but Drahmin seemed to attend out of genuine interest instead of trying to kick at his intellectual kneecaps. He could respect that much.

"Not made of," Francis corrected politely, "Made up from. The eternals believed, citing Barat’s Explorations, that source was no form of transformative magic at all. They regarded it as the very language of creation. That’s why channeling it requires no incantations or spell components. Source is able to shape and reshape all matter and material, not just move or control it."

"All matter and material?"

"More than that. Energy, as well."

"That would mean that every sourcerer –"

"– is ultimately able to shape everything in existence, yes," Francis hurried him along. "But like with any language, it all depends on the known vocabulary. A sourcerer naturally gifted with, say, geomancy, might intimately know the name of wood, or the name of stone, but not necessarily the name of water. And because of the limited capacity of the mortal mind and body, they might never know it, no matter how many years they dedicate to its study."

Francis looked around the council. The sheer mention of sourcerers and their power seemed to make some of them uncomfortable, and he decided to lighten the subject a little.

"But source isn’t only a thing to be channeled. Source is ever-moving, by its very nature, and extremely volatile when exposed to any sort of matter. It has – in layman’s terms – a will of its own. It wants to create. To study it in a complete vacuum would be impossible, but when you calculate its properties in response to different materials, there is always the same underlying pattern – that which I chose to call source instability."

"What a remarkable thing." Professor Genere, the medical instructor, pushed up his glasses. "And even more remarkable – with a finding of this magnitude, you intended it for medical purposes?"

Francis nodded.

"The natural state of source is movement," he elaborated. "Which means that for someone born with a source core, the natural state is to channel it. The body must make an incredible effort to keep from doing so. If source is denied its movement, it reshapes itself and its immediate surroundings. To extreme cellular detriment. We’re seeing the rise of this mysterious disease across human realms. An inverted source core proceeds to destroy the nervous system, and–"

A murmur went through the room. Professor Idnik opened his mouth. A risky thing to say, Francis knew that, and he hurried to continue:

"– as detailed in the second part of the thesis, the inversion principle could be turned around to prevent that from happening. The same way an antidote requires its poison. It wouldn’t even necessarily require the use of source, it could be induced alchemically, if the core is exposed to the right combination of matter. My equation lays the basis for finding that combination."

Professor Genere nodded.

"No further questions. Professor Mathematician?"

"That would be all," said Imani. She’d gotten her drills in at the very beginning, and seemed satisfied with his answers, but Francis could swear she was close to rolling her eyes when she handed the ceremony off to the last seat on the panel. "Professor Ethicist?"

Idnik leaned forward in his chair with a condescending little smile. Francis shot him one right back. The room quieted, everyone who’d witnessed the two snapping at each other constantly over the last couple of years, just as far as the code of conduct allowed it, gearing up for the show.

"Do you not think, Maestro Lowbridge," the professor drew out, like the title itself was the joke of the century – which to him, it certainly was – "That you might be encouraging the wrong kind of research with this?"

He already wanted to punch him in the face.

"Perhaps that question is better suited to your department," Francis returned, just as subtle, just as snide, "Defining vague and subjective moral categories isn’t my area of expertise, and I usually steer clear of speaking on subjects outside my field." Unlike some people.

A whisper went through the room. Francis turned slightly, addressing the rest of the panel.

"It is necessary research," he concluded, then for the sake of peace: "Much better conducted under Academy guidelines than in a rune circle in the catacombs somewhere."

"Is that where you’ve gotten it from?"

"Of course not. Apologies. It slipped my mind that humor, too, is quite subjective."

A few singular laughs in the audience – and oh, it felt good, being back here, back in his element. Francis barely managed to suppress a grin. "Though I bet Professor Jarre wishes I had. I might’ve borrowed out the entire Alchimia’sarchive at one point."

The Professor Alchemist shot him a wry look – one he interpreted as that was funny, but I don’t appreciate being dragged into this – so Francis left off, took his pen out and tapped it on the desk. "If you have any further questions about my line of evidence, I’d be happy to answer them all."

Idnik was on the back foot. His lips drawn into a thin line, when he replied:

"Oh, I don’t doubt your evidence," you ratfish bastard, said the disdainful pinch of his mouth, "Only your intentions. I’m certain you have it all lined up perfectly. Though I must wonder how your theorized equation first came into being. The codex forbids concrete experimentation on source. For good reason. And as I’m sure you’re well aware, there are certain rumors–"

Francis couldn’t help it.

"Do you know what theorized means?"

He bit his tongue. Too loud. Too heated. A murmur went through the audience. Idnik regarded him with a self-satisfied smile, and Francis wanted to kill him more with every passing second.

"There’s no need to get upset," said Idnik. "We’re only following procedure. I’m aware that people are known to be quite – passionate, where you’re from. But you’re not in Lowbridge. You’re at the highest academic council. I do hope a modicum of patience and decorum isn’t too much to ask."

Patience and decorum. Patience and decorum. A little less of both, and Eshe would still be alive. "Precisely." His reply came clipped, and cold as ice, his fists clenched underneath the desk. "As for the procedure, a rumor’s worth nothing until extensively proven. Is there anything else, Professor?"

The air was thick enough to cut through. The shift of a dozen spectators leaning forward in their seats. Years of this. Years and years of biting his tongue, of smiling through the bullsh*t, proving himself and his integrity when he could’ve used all that time to do actual f*cking work. Procedure, patience, decorum. All for f*cking nothing.

Francis should’ve joined the Black Ring from the start.

"How very true." Idnik ran a hand over his beard. "A thoughtless step forward is a hundred steps back."

The Theorem of Folly. It didn’t deserve the name, that outdated, pretentious, moralistic – Francis almost laughed out loud. Up on the gallery, the white magisters nodded in Idnik’s direction.

"I move we suspend publication, and conduct a thorough investigation of his method. You’ll forgive me, Professor Jarre, but I can hardly believe Maestro Lowbridge came up with this all on his own. There are external motivations present, at best. At worst, the entire thesis is unfounded."

There was an anger inside him that couldn’t be trusted. Francis had gotten so very good at keeping it under control. In the time before the letter, this would’ve been a devastating blow – but now, he had time. Francis breathed, slowly, to calm the storm. His method was solid. And he had time.

"You’ll forgive me, Professor Idnik." Drahmin argued from the other end of the panel. "The base assumption is everything but unfounded. The eternal texts are clear on the matter, long before–"

"We’ll be encouraging the use of sourcery," Idnik snapped back. "As an institution. Have all of you forgotten what’s at stake here? The fact that this thesis was admitted at all is outrageous."

The noise of the audience swelled. The situation spiralled out of control. Francis heard his own heartbeat kick up, ringing through his head. Everyone turned to face their seat neighbors, loudly debating it, the clergy glared down at him, the Professors all turned against each other–

Francis shot up from the bench.

"I’m not encouraging the use of source!" He called over the mess. It was a lie. He couldn’t give less of a sh*t if he was. "I’m trying to stop people from dying by not using it!"

The panel turned. He regretted the words immediately. Too loud, too heart-felt, too argumentative, and his voice stood out in the middle of a hundred other people doing the same thing. Francis knew better than that. Urgency and affectation, the ultimate crime.

The best way to get what you want in this place, Sandor had once told him, is to show everybody how much you don’t need it.

"Sourcery is cause for quarantine," he said, "not for a death sentence."

It was the worst line of argument he could’ve chosen.

It wasn’t a radical thing to say. It was, in fact, very far removed from his actual views on the matter, which probably would’ve blown Idnik’s head clean off if spoken aloud. But however watered down, he was still arguing out of care. A cold, insufficient, clinical care – but care nonetheless, and the look on the panel’s faces, not just Professor Idnik’s, told him everything he needed to know.

The world had changed.

They were indifferent to it. What had once been self-evident was no longer true. He’d stood still for too long, drowning in grief and letting it all rush by, and the world had moved on without him.

Francis had seen evil. He’d stalked through its hidden laboratories, he’d seen his district burned to the ground time and time again, he’d seen it in the eyes of the man that had raised him and in the hands of the man that he’d killed long ago, he’d gone and made a deal with an actual demon.

He’d never seen evil like this.

In all its cold, careless banality. Procedure, patience and decorum in the face of all that suffering. A panel of the realm’s most renowned scholars before him, and the very idea of compassion was ridiculous to them. He could try and try again. He could become the best scientist they’d ever seen. He could be pliant and cordial and perfectly charming. He could follow all the rules to the letter. He could present the most indestructible line of evidence in the world, and it wouldn’t change a thing.

All of them would get away with it.

Idnik looked at him with unconcealed disdain. Jarre looked at him like he knew something Francis didn’t. Imani looked at him with pity. And all of them, all of them, looked down on him. There was an anger in him, boiling just below the surface, that he’d beaten back for years. Because it was dangerous. Because it didn’t get him anywhere. Because it was ancient, rotten, unpredictable.

And it was right.

"Let me spare you all the trouble."

f*ck all of this. Francis thought of Eshe just then. Her smile, her rage, her grief, her beauty. Her place in the world, and his place by extension. He had nothing to prove. His voice was light, almost playful, when he caught Idnik in his glare and raised his hands.

"How about a demonstration?"

When Francis didn't want to think, he worked. He needed something to do with his hands, was what he always said - the truth was just below the surface.

How fortunate that he’d gotten all the right materials. Even if they had been meant for someone else.Francis worked. The air felt sticky with humidity. A feverish chill, cold sweat clinging to his neck, as he laid his tools in order. Unwrapped the little nugget of Falician Clay that he’d bought, unraveled the spool of alchemic iron.

Lady Tell had no business in the Barracks. He was certain of it. The one who did was Kemm – and if he’d given her his blood, it meant that somewhere in Lady Tell’s unassuming townhouse was a vial of Lord Linder’s. Weapons, logistics, bribes – a coup was a rather expensive affair, even to someone who’d spent a lifetime squeezing the docks for every penny.

You don’t stand a chance, the Candlemaker had repeated. You’ll never defeat her.

Francis had just grinned.

No. But Kemm and his army might.

And wouldn’t it be funny. Almost to the point of poetry. Francis hammered out the pierce of clay, adjusted his magnifying glass, and scribbled his runic sequence on a piece of paper as he did.

Intent, not instruction.

A risky thing, to realize something he’d only just thought of, on the only piece of protection he had. Then again, if it didn’t turn out to be the most powerful amulet he’d ever made, he’d die either way. Francis pricked a needle into his index finger, and let a drop of blood fall onto the clay. He started from the end goal, the intent, and worked his way down to the details.

Catch. All the damage for him. Bind. A piece to the whole. Channel. All attacks onto it. He wrote. Scratched it. Wrote it again. Tell’s magic scraped at the warding, an unpleasant, dull sting at the edge of his bodily awareness, but he hardly noticed it as he sunk into his work.And suddenly, something occurred to him.

Release. Invert, he wrote at the beginning of the sequence. Catch. Bind. Channel. Two opposing commands. He’d have to make it clear when to activate which. A condition.

"That’s pretty. What is it?"

He hadn’t even heard her coming. Francis startled, but then looked up and smiled at Maja, who’d planted herself next to him in a cross-legged position, and reached out to poke at the clay.

"Ah, don’t touch–" He hurried to say. "that. Oh well."

Too late. He’d scrape a piece off the front, make sure none of her skin had gotten caught in the binding. Maja left off immediately, with a startled expression, looking up at him while her hand froze mid-air.

"I’m sorry."

"It’s alright."

She didn’t seem convinced. Francis shot her a reassuring grin.

"Don’t worry. You can’t break anything. Just making sure you don’t get attacked by a demon." Maja’s eyebrows shot up, and he quickly unsheathed the scalpel, cut a thin slice off of the clay, and laid it into her hand.

"It’s Falician Clay," he answered her question. "It comes from a small town in Aleroth. There was a war there, hundreds of years ago. So much blood was spilled on the fields of Falicia that it was compressed under the earth. You know, like you press flowers in a book to keep them longer."

She turned it in her fingers.

"Usually, blood would decay and oxida – I mean, turn brown," he explained, "No one knows how it didn’t. Maybe it froze during a really long winter. Some say there’s magic in the earth there. There’s more blood in this thing than I’ve got in my whole body. It’s quite powerful. And really expensive."

Maja pondered it for a bit, eyes glittering with fascination, and looked over his tools.

"Is this – witchcraft?"

Francis laughed.

"Depends on who you ask. It’s mostly alchemy. Physics and an old language. And a bit of source. I’m making an amulet that protects me from blood magic. Wanna hand me that wire?"

Release if inverted. Invert if caught. He knew the formula by heart. Catch. Channel. Bind.

Francis unwrapped the spool further, and cut a long piece of it off, encasing the bloodied piece of clay in it. He kept working in silence for a while. Maja’s eyes intently followed each of his steps.

"So, uh," Francis said eventually, for lack of better conversation, "Did you kill the lamb yet?"

Maja scrunched her lip.

"What? No." A pause. "She’s called Meggie."

"My bad." Francis wrote the first rune into clay. "You’re better than me. I've killed my Meggie on day two. Not that I wanted to, it just happened. Wrong move. Got distracted."

The look on Maja’s face was unbearably smug.

"I know. Wouldn’t happen to me."

"Little smartass," said Francis with a smile, and bent the wire into shape around the frame. "Just, if it ever does – mistakes are normal. They’re not always a bad thing, either."

"Yes they are," Maja argued.

"Nope," Francis said decisively. "You’re gonna make them anyway. Everyone makes mistakes."

Maja was silent for a bit.

"I don’t wanna kill Meggie."

"Yeah," sighed Francis, "Don’t kill Meggie. Just – I want you to know that you’re gonna try things, and sometimes you’re gonna fail. If you do make a mistake, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid. Alright?"

Maja just nodded, like it was unimportant.

It didn’t seem to resonate. Francis thanked every force on earth for that mercy, and some outside of it – that maybe, she hadn’t grown up thinking there was something wrong with her, something evil in her.

"You really tried to trick a demon?" She grinned at him instead. "That’s dumb."

"Extremely," Francis agreed.

"You can’t trick a demon. Everybody knows." Maja scratched her chin. "Why’d you do it?"

Francis sighed, and etched the last rune into the clay, smoothing it over carefully. No matter how morbid the matter of debate, if Maja was anything like him, she picked a subject and stuck with it, and apparently, what old ruins and eternals had been to him were all things demonic to her. Which meant – Francis had absolutely no chance of evading the topic until her curiosity was stilled.

"I was in love," he decided. "And I’m really dumb."

Maja giggled.

"I thought you were a doctor or something."

"Those two things aren’t connected," Francis admitted thoughtfully. "Like, at all."

He paused, and smiled at her.

"Hey, Maja. Do you wanna help me with something? I need a blood mage. A powerful one, and I can’t leave this warding circle."

Two siblings, making magic. The Candlemaker watched them from a difference, and caught herself smiling at it. That Francis, one of hers, had begun to reunite the many contradicting parts of him he’d sacrificed to stay alive, and find his way.

A scholar. A witch. A Starling. A Lowbridge man.

All wrapped up into one.

Something warm rose in her chest, seeing him like this. When he showed Maja how to channel her source into the amulet, letting her try, letting her fail, encouraging her to learn, to laugh, to play.

He’d changed, the Candlemaker thought. Francis had always been kind. No matter the life he’d led, even back with Eshe. He’d showered her with all the care and adoration that he had to give. But there had been something dogged to his kindness. A bitter, sharpened edge. Something to prove, to himself more than anyone else.

Francis seemed – gentler, now.

More patient, more playful, more… peaceful. She was sure his Ifan had something to do with it. For someone with such a bloody reputation, the mercenary’s presence had immediately put her at ease. Not an uncommon experience. Someone so used to violence could appreciate calm and gentleness in a different way. A virtue born of strive, and of conviction. A gentleness despite it all.

Francis also seemed deeply, deeply sad.

The wind tore at the blinds, and whistled through the ridges in the walls, made the candles flicker in a frantic dance before it calmed again. Another storm was brewing. She clicked the prayer beads hanging from her wrist, back and forth, back and forth, and turned around. At the bar, Beast and Lavish were drawing up a battle plan, for an utter suicide mission.

She left them to it.

Until they seemed to be done, and Beast sat down next to her at the table. Fidgety. Looking at the doors, the windows, the Starling Inn’s inhabitants, tapping his foot under the table.

"You look like you’d rather be anywhere else," she said. "Are we making you uncomfortable?"

Beast blushed a little.

"Gods, no, it’s not that. I’ve just got – somewhere to be, is all. There’s a funeral going on right now." He looked down at his hands. "We lost. Ye knew. Don’t say it."

"I wouldn’t."

The Candlemaker crossed over to the other side of the bar, and poured him a beer. Then another, for herself, setting both down on the table.

"Something to toast your dead. That’s your custom, is it?"

Beast nodded. A grateful, if sad little smile met her in turn. They clicked their mugs together, and when he drank, his eyes fell on the prayer beads wrapped around her arm.

"Ye’re a religious woman, then?"

"Yes." She smiled. "Does that surprise you?"

"A wee bit. I won’t lie." The dwarf shrugged, and took another sip of beer. "Then again. I’ve got bigger mysteries to solve."

"Mh. Don’t we all."

They were silent for a while. Marcus Miles, the Beast, was a relatively knew head to the Seafarer’s Guild. And while she’d gathered all the intel, factually knew most things there were to know about him, she’d never met him in person. He had a kind, battle-worn face, and a friendly, if somewhat clumsy disposition. All things considered, at first sight – not an unpleasant man.

"I can’t help but think," said Beast after a while, "That we wouldn’t have lost, with yer help. Not like there's a lack of knowledge of what’s been going on. It’s that yer guild chooses to stay out of it."

"It’s not that easy."

She kept her voice firm when she said it. Beast warily looked up.

"It’s not a secret, is it?" He addressed her. "The Red Lantern. A force to behold. Ye’ve the power to turn the tide for all of us, and yet ye kick yer feet while we die on the barricade. It is, in fact, that easy."

"We run a greater risk than your people ever will."

Her tone booked no argument. Beast narrowed his eyes in return. Somehow, this had turned into a negotiation. Old habits died hard, she supposed, for both of them.

"Don’t play weak with me," grumbled Beast. "Especially ‘cause the truth couldn’t be further away. More than one of mine is dead by yer hand, in the last year alone."

The Candlemaker rose from her seat, and threateningly leaned over the table.

"Then ask yourself why."

Her head ticked to the side, eyes narrowed.

"Why would we take all the risk of an assassination just to kill a common dockworker? Who has nearly as little power as we do? Think about it, brother. Really think about it."

Beast – to his credit – truly did so, for a moment. Looked at his feet when he found the rather obvious answer. The Candlemaker softened her expression, only slightly, and continued:

"We may have found a way to turn our weakness into strength. That does not stop us from being weak, Master Miles. We are vulnerable. We are disposable. Misery will always produce more of us after one’s discarded. We have no machines to stop, no ships to sink, no supply chain to disrupt. All we have are secrets, and the labor of our hands – and they could go without it, if they needed."

She folded her hands on the table, looking at him intently.

"I want you to understand the scale of what you’re asking us to do. Moderation is a luxury that’s not afforded to us. There are no concessions. No compromise, no common interest. No one will negotiate with us. It’s all or nothing.When we decide to fight – we either kill first, or we die."

Beast nodded contemplatively.

Then, he shrugged.

"I’ve fought along all kinds of folk," he began, "Seafarers. Farmers. Alchemists. Priests, funnily enough. And I’ll tell ye the same thing I’ve told them. If ye decide to fight with us, we’ll have yer back. Hand in hand, and all the way. Like we would protect our own. Ye’ve my word."

A beat of silence. That wasn’t blackmail, or a business deal, she thought. Those were the words of an idealist – and there were many things she’d expected the leader of the Seafarer’s Union to be. Except this. She hid her surprise – an idealist could rarely handle strategy, much less its execution.

But this one had survived longer than most.

"Your word?" The Candlemaker chuckled. "If that were enough, there’d be no need for this guild to exist. Many offer us protection for our services, then end up being what we need protection from. This – if you truly mean it – must be a bargain of equals. A word’s no good without a guarantee."

Beast ran a hand through his beard.

"I suppose that’s true. Aye. Hand me that knife of ye’s."

The Candlemaker blinked in surprise – caught off guard – but then fixed her expression, pulled the knife from her breast pocket, and handed it to him. Beast looked at it, emptied his drink with a long swig, and carefully pressed the tip into the flesh of his thumb, until a few red drops fell into the cup.

"There," he said, "Now both of us are weak."

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

Beast smiled and pushed the cup across the table. It was a rakish, easy smile that inspired trust, she curiously thought – the way his eyes glittered along with it told her that it was sincere.

"Ye’ve no choice but to rely on us to have yer back – and I’ve none but to trust that ye won’t boil me from the inside. We’re even." He winked. "And we’re equals."

There was a Divine to kill.

Everything else could wait until after. So Ifan made his way to find his band of former godwoken, and tried to make himself listen to reason.

All his life, he’d fought to understand. And it didn’t come easy. Ifan’s hands were blind. To him, it was hellathen, a virtue born of struggle – achieved by any means, by baring all of himself, and no matter how naïve it might’ve been – hoping that the favor would freely be returned. He was smarter than that these days. But some things were bound to stick, with an old dog, and a new trick.

There was nothing he could do.

It almost scared him, that the more he learned, the more he understood – the parts of Francis that infuriated him to no end, that struck him as strange, as foreign or erratic.

The man was a walking contradiction. The confidence in his own skill, coupled with his allergic reaction to compliments. His passion, care, and thoughtfulness, and the biting cynicism that went along with them. His quiet, overwhelming kindness, and the utter disbelief when he received even a fraction of it in return. And how, when Ifan’s hand was on the lever, he’d abandoned every thought of trust and principle for pure survival. All of it made sense.

He tried to be angry. He really did.

The hood was pulled deep into his face. The dark streets hauntingly still under the storm clouds, the wind that pulled at the lanterns and let their mismatched spots of light flit across each surface. The dark was watchful. It inspired the kind of primal awe that a deep forest did.

The trees are old and seeing, stated the law of the hunter. Keep to the path. Do not mistake a gift for something owed. You may tread this path, but do not linger. Be graceful in your passage.

Ifan remembered little of his arrival in the forest.

He’d been too young. But he remembered fear, of the endless, deep unknown. And how gradually, the darkness had become familiar, turned from enemy to friend. How the shadows of the canopy had embraced him like a cloak. How his steps grew light with practised caution. How he’d begun to truly listen, how he’d become part of it, how the darkness had protected him and warned him miles away from the Black Ring raiding parties that tried, hopelessly, to cut through it with torch and axe.

The forest was unyielding.

Much like this place.

No matter their numbers, plate and steel – the guards were uneasy. Before the riot, Ifan hadn’t seen a single one of them posted near the docks. When they came, they came prepared – they only ever stood in groups of four. Back to back. Like they expected to be picked off like rabbits in an open field, once they looked away.

Ifan crossed the main road. The buildings were wooden, makeshift, impermanent. The foundations they stood on were not – the ground was paved with sandstone, and like the shadows, it was ancient. Old and seeing. If the guard tried to beat back the darkness, they’d be swallowed by the very ground they stood on, because they lacked the cautious grace provided by reverence.

Light flickered near the docks.

An intrusion. An eerie, deep orange glow cast off the walls, and a familiar stench, the smell of burning hair – thick,black smoke rose up into the sky, melted in with towering storm clouds over the stretch of the bay. The kind that’s only caused by a pyre.

"Here for the funeral?"

So. That’s what it was. Two guards blocked his path when Ifan walked in their direction. He stopped, relaxed, tried to look mildly inconvenienced at best.

"Yes," said Ifan.

"Carry anything sharp?"

He willed down his incredulously raised eyebrow. There was a sword on his back, unlike any first forged on this plane. The guard only shrugged apologetically.

"You know the drill. No weapons at the funeral."

They didn’t even seem to see it. Ifan followed their eyes on him, then nodded – and handed them the knife from his sleeve. The guard waved him through. Curiously unwilling to bother him further, relieved that he’d cooperated.

When Ifan rounded the corner, the smell became unbearable. He breathed through it. Pulled up his cloak, covering his mouth and nose – and pushed through the assembled crowd, around the flames roaring upwards into the night, fanned by the wind from the bay, just before a storm.

He was enveloped by an eerie quiet.

All of Lowbridge had assembled at the docks, and no one said a word – their faces lit up in the glow of the flames.Kemm’s army stood careful guard around the pyre. Faces bared and bloody on the ground, the corpses were laid out. And Ifan understood. Another piece fell into place. Who was born in Lowbridge died in Lowbridge, and who died in Lowbridge wasn’t buried.

They burned.

The Cathedral Bells struck in the distance. The guards were uneasy. Like the smallest thread could snap, and turn the tide against them, and it wasn’t far from the truth. Really, he knew why they burned – in a city of thousands, who’d waste space on a graveyard? So many bodies. Many more, he suspected, than during other summers.

One by one, the dead of this year’s uprising were surrounded by friends and family and neighbors, who held each other by the hands, and said their last goodbyes. Who shed the tears that they could spare, before they stood back – silent, faces set in stone in the glimmer of the flames – and the guards carried the body to the pyre. Each funeral lasting for no longer than a minute.

A demonstration of power.

Everybody knew the right time to move on. It was as routine as the riot itself. It was a time-honored tradition, acompromise between the mourning and the murderers, and it ended, every time, before the grief had time to turn to rage. It was brilliant. It was thought-out, practised, and utterly cruel.

There is a reason we’ve settled here, and not inside the city walls.

When Kerith had alluded to it, Ifan had assumed another reason. Mistrust. Between a multitude of strangers in the South, who often found each other foreign, each other’s customs near barbaric.

Humans wrote, distracted from each other’s grief, and visited the stone-marked houses of the dead like silent but beloved neighbors. Dwarves, in death, were picked apart by birds, their bodies just a shell of what they’d stood for. They were remembered through celebration, where loved ones did what would’ve pleased them in their stead.

And Elves…

Ifan understood. Suddenly, and with a vengeance, his shoulders set straight as a ramrod, and an old feeling rearingup in him that he recognized too well, cold and festering and always just below the surface, for as long as he had walked this earth, as he watched another corpse catch flame.

The Elves of Pier Thirteen were not afraid to die.

They were afraid to burn. Unhonored, and forgotten. Death without rebirth, without rememberance, the worst of fates to wish upon a being that lived centuries, handed out with cold indifference. They were afraid to burn. Had the seafarers agreed to this, he wondered, not knowing what it meant?

One by one, he watched them all catch fire. The families hold hands, and then step back. The next in line, and then the next. Until only two were left, and one of them laid all alone.

No one stepped forward. No one knew him. Perhaps a stranger, a wanderer, just caught between the crossfire. Tall. Long hair. And skin like bark.

Someone say something for him. The whisper reached him through the crowd. Any fool could see the wiser course of action. But suddenly, he couldn’t take it. He made the decision before he even got a chance to recognize the face. Ifan was a scion. He had to remember. He had to.

Two or three dockworkers went with him, to give the stranger his last rites. Every faith and culture on the continent had this one in common. No one was born alone, and none should ever die alone. Dull, grey eyes stared up at him, still and cold as steel. No one had closed them.

You will bring death to all you love.

It would’ve been easy to think, in this moment. No room for it this time. Lysanthir had died the way he was always going to die, with or without him, fighting a hopeless battle against an enemy so powerful most would simply get out of the way. Not him. Never him. No matter the detriment, because under all that cynicism, there was an unbreakable, unyielding force.

And in no more than a minute’s time, all of it would turn to ash.

No one would remember him. His stupid bravery, the crooked, conceited smirk, the unbearable loudmouth, and a heart so full of love it had to harden, because it couldn’t help but care about the small and most significant, by any means.

Someone say something. One of the dockworkers reached for his hand. He noted it distantly – there wasn’t much time, and he needed to, someone needed to do something, say something. The wind whipped the waves from the bay into the river, shelling against the poles of the quay. Ifan dropped to one knee next to Lysanthir’s body. The flames flickered higher, flashing in plate armor as the guards stepped forward, for the fire to claim him.

He could’ve honored him here. With a slash of the knife he’d surrendered, and a signal-flare of his forbidden magic. Keep your head down, begged his sense of survival, pick your battles. His heart tried to escape the confines of his chest, hammering against his ribcage, to do something, do anything. And the roots were whispering to him, a single-minded chorus he hadn’t even called for–

Ifan reached out.

One arm under Lysanthir’s legs, one under his shoulders, and lifted him up. The body was heavy. He heard the roar of the pyre, the clink-clink of moving steel. Ifan did what everyone was thinking. He knew it in the flicker of resentment in their faces, every time a corpse caught flame, even if it happened every other year, even if they felt it for a wildly different reason. Metal boots against the ancient sandstone, and a dozen contradicting orders.

"Drop the body!"

"Don’t move!"

"Stand back!"

They weren’t words. They weren’t talking. Like a pack of barking dogs, as the soldiers surrounded him, drawing steel, and the dockers fell back into the safety of the crowd. Ifan raised his head. They were afraid of him. A dozen blades pointed towards him, and no weapon in his hand.

"You will not burn him."

He was surprised by the sound of his own voice. Calm, but there was grit behind it, a wildfire burning inside him as he spoke. "I’m gonna take him to his people. And we’ll honor him. Properly."

"Drop it!"

"Stand back!"

Ifan wasn’t gonna win this. He would’ve liked to say he wasn’t afraid. He was terrified. Unarmed, outnumbered, unable to move his hands, and it was the only path at his disposal. The guards surged forward. He braced against the blow he knew would come. And then, the clang of steel.

Velec. Velec held a fencepost in both hands, the blade that had been meant for Ifan lodged into the wood mid-air, her shoulders strained, she pushed them back, and the guards around the square dropped vizors in unison, closing in–

"Perhaps you didn’t hear the man."

Marie DeSelby, at the front of the crowd. Ifan couldn’t see her, just heard her voice, sharp as a knife. There was a beat of silence. Hesitation. As everybody, guards and dockers, knew what happened if the smallest thread should snap. And gradually, he heard a dozen feet step forward.

Don’t. Don’t follow me. A weary, and reflexive prayer. Don’t die for me.

Stones picked from the pavement. Fenceposts unearthed. Marie’s freightloaders were first, formed a protective wall around him. Then, the sailors. The dwarven woman, who’d pointed her spear at him. The blacksmith. They were unarmed. They were full of grief, and utterly determined. They were afraid, scared for their life, and stared straight into the sun. Hand in hand, to cover him. The guards got into formation, and nobody backed down, because they’d passed the point of no return.

A tale as old as time, that always ended the same way.

Everything exploded. The whisper of a thousand voices filled his mind. Everything fell silent as the guards charged and the freightloaders linked arms, the clang of metal, the roaring of the flames, the screams of fear and boundless rage. They weren’t gonna win this. Every second stretched into eternity. In the eye of the storm, the whispers turned into an ancient, blood-boiling polyphony. And when he gave permission, for his heart to take over his hands, Scion Ifan was but one of them.

take power.

make them burn.