No stars in sight

by Keltoi

"There is still so much we have not yet explored." - Rewrite of Stargazer

26. friction's certainty

"friction's certainty"

His head lolled back and he looked towards the sky. Not for the first time he asked himself why. No answers were forthcoming. Only half-formed excuses, crafted in the interests of something small and irredeemable. Decency. That irksome hurdle stapled to his every fucking endeavour. After a while he closed his eyes and balled his hand into fists. He wanted... well, he wanted a lot of things. Too few of them were possible, and those that were so often worked against his best interests.

A city. An entire city. Dead. That life should've been behind him. Why did it always turn back to that? To senseless ruin, wreaked to spite him?

"Master."

Ikharos opened his eyes. "Yes?"

The crow glided down and hopped over to him. Its voice echoed through his sensorium and rebounded in his ears. "Thermal signatures approaching from five point eight kilometres north."

He glanced to the side. "From the mountains."

"Yes master. Visual readings indicate-"

"Who?"

"Specimens of unknown neohuman subtype."

"Like these?" He gestured weakly towards the bodies.

The crow did not so much as blink. It had no biological need to. "Yes."

"Armed?"

"Primitively."

"Direct heading? What's their pace?"

"Wary, master, but imprecise. They meander."

"What do you think?"

"Specimens likely intend to reconvene with deceased subjects," the crow surmised. "The current status of their cohorts is not yet known to them."

"And what do you think we should do next?"

"Master?"

Ikharos sighed. Crows were a particularly clever little invention (Uldren had outdone himself), and as AI went they were highly adaptive, though self-awareness was not one of their strengths. He'd known service frames with stronger opinions. "I'd rather avoid another confrontation. Keep tabs on them. I want a check-in every half hour. Understood?"

The crow bobbed its head. "Master."

"Off with you." He watched it flutter away, rapidly disappearing into the fading light of dusk, and knelt down beside one of the dead. Ikharos' eyes roved over the strange creature; he recalled Formora's (or was it Elisabeth's?) mentions of other neohuman races, but seeing it in the flesh was quite something else. Just like Formora they were changed - an evolution of the body, as opposed to the change in causality that affected the first Awoken populations. The biology of what lay before him was far more extreme than any other he'd seen since; where the Awoken were wrapped in Light and Dark, their own anatomical evolution came in the form of simple sensory enhancement and temporal immortality. But here, on this world, life had taken a starkly different turn.

The creatures - urgals? - were rougher than baseline humanity. Their bone structure was exaggerated, giving them thick brows and jutting cheekbones, broader bodies and thicker limbs. Their skin, their hide, was nigh-on leathery. Most eye-catching were the horns. Each body had two, curved like those of a ram, jutting from their temples. They were thick, not particularly flexible, and positioned in such a manner that it would diffuse any impact with the skull across a wider area. That, coupled with the reinforced frontal face of the cranium and bulby scarred tissue layered over it, conveniently informed him that blunt force damage to the head was a regular occurrence - one their morphology intended to counteract. Ikharos tidied those observations away into a pocket of his sensorium. His hand ached to put it to page. If he'd been in reach of his lab he would've conducted a full autopsy, but in the absence of a suitable environment or adequate tools he settled for cursory study.

Each urgal was near enough the size of man, though he privately reckoned they were closer to elven stature. It was there the similarities ended. The elven form was far from baseline yet clearly followed a similar biological outline - Formora's tendency towards magically-induced changes notwithstanding. Elves came with their own exaggerations, of course, but not so different as to be unrecognizably human-descended. The urgals were a touch farther. The aggressive nature of their anatomy genuinely bothered him. Ikharos had an amateur interest in anthropology; it had been some centuries ago, but he'd once spent the better part of three years sifting through the abandoned universities and libraries of the Bavarian Zone for relic papers on the subject. It hadn't been uncommon of him to trade spare weapon parts, salvaged Fallen Pikes or permissions for other Warlords to cross his land (either to trade with or strike at someone else) for archival access. It started as part of his quest to understand his own reason for being, until it devolved into something quite maddening. Much had been lost in the Collapse, and what remained always left him hungry for more.

But one thing it had taught him was that walking upright, the ability to sweat, thumbs to manipulate objects and the appropriate brain functions to comprehend speech had been the highlights of human evolution. Compared to the state of Kepler's elven and urgal denizens, it all seemed rather timid. Horns. Senses so sharp they could detect a raised voice miles away. Magic. Without even taking into account how long had passed since the Exodus vessel had arrived and seeded the planet with familiar life (which, from his reckoning, wasn't anywhere near enough time), none of it seemed happenstance. In the grand scheme of things humans were yet another sociable omnivorous species with complex social structures and that was the extent of it. They were small for sapients in the galactic sense, physically unremarkable and at their most dangerous when they built weapons to deprive others of life - never daring to ask if they should, only how. Paradoxically, the urgals appeared to him like a divine rectification to remedy humanity's comparative frailty. And the elves... well. Formora was the only one he'd seen alive, but she was faster and stronger than any Lightless he'd ever met. Certainly enough to slaughter two dozen mortal men without breaking a sweat.

Why? If evolution was a bumbling reaction to external stimuli - the pressure to choose which mutations improved survival rates - then what caused elves and urgals to come to pass?

The surest conclusion he arrived at was artificial genesplicing. The Golden Age had been rife with it; Ikharos had known people, usually Risen, in the early Dark Ages with serpent eyes, chimp muscles, chameleon skin patches - the holdover of reckless genetic meddling. But those were small cases, rare cases, often as personal expression or individual ambition. To create a uniform template and apply it to human groups with a high enough population that they could reproduce, could assert themselves as an independent subspecies... The resource cost alone frightened him, but not so much as the implications.

The point of why quickly changed. Why were urgals and elves needed? What drove someone to create a new human, horned and thick-boned and strong, if not to fight? What influenced a branch of humanity to embrace alien influences and hone their bodies into complex machines capable of running, fighting, tracking for days, mayhaps weeks at a time? Ikharos was under no illusions as to the limits of Formora's ability either; she could have easily outlasted and outpaced him at any point during their southward trek. The day prior, in the aftermath of Teirm's ruin, was perhaps the only time he'd known her to be well and truly tired.

The first answer that came to mind was war. It was an easy one. A simple one, self-explanatory. War was the language that linked all life, all people everywhere. It was the ultimate test of viability. The living shaped war and were shaped by it in turn. Those that could not: the dead. But it could just as easily have been something else, something more viceful - greed, desire, ambition, envy, pride. Wrath, after all, was but one sin. Its brothers and sisters were often just as eager to make themselves known.

And then there were the dragons. It could've been a sick joke. It could've been an unintentional thing, a wish gone horribly wrong - or frighteningly right. The works of the Ahamkara were apparent everywhere he turned; Formora spoke a language rife with their own power. A power for the taking, and a power he'd used, in a moment of reckless loathing, which he'd killed himself with.

(He remembered how it felt. How it drained him of his strength until his lungs stopped drawing air and his heart finally gave out. Until every electrical signal in his brain stopped sparking - and his thoughts scattered to the limbo of death.)

There was no way to truly know why. Not in the middle of nowhere, poking and prodding at the dead. Why became unknowable - a vacant space in the equation begging to be filled. Deciphering it required familiarity with the other components: the where, the when, the who. More questions, more equally dubious answers.

He hadn't the time to humour them.

Ikharos quickly stood up, swaying. There was a gulf in him. A hollow once hidden beneath the debris of personhood, reopened to a wound torn raw. Curiosity was but a fleeting salve; the cure to pain, he'd found, was time. Time enough to let the sting pass into the background, to meld with the rest of the background noise until it ceased to exist. Pain was a memento of the past - a beast of the before. He preferred to consider it as such, as something removed and hostile, rather than let it consume him. It made it all the easier to focus on the future.

He raised a hand and allowed the Void to manifest. Indigo absence struck cooling flesh, sunk its fangs deep and supped from the eradication of matter. With it, through it, Ikharos Devoured until the river banks were cleared of every carcass, every splotch of spilled blood, leaving only the earth disturbed by their removal. The air softly popped, rushing to fill in the sudden vacuums. Ikharos pulled the Void back into himself and permitted the purple essence to crawl around him. Though he was a physical thing, and thus anathema to its ceaseless appetites, it nestled purring in his flesh as any other sated animal, suffusing his muscles with ill-begotten vitality. The power tasted light on his tongue, honey-sweet, as if it hadn't come from the cadavers of slaughtered men.

It used to bother him, once. Maybe. It was difficult to remember. The sensorium could record many things, but never feeling. That was utterly ephemeral, and as such rarely lasted the passage of time unchanged. What Ikharos knew was that he used to feel otherwise in some capacity. Now? Not quite a numbness; it ranged a few inches along the other end of the spectrum. Relief. Comfort. Satisfaction. And no regret. The dead were gone; they had no use for whatever was left behind, and he refused to consider otherwise of highwaymen who thought it appropriate to jump a lone woman with blades drawn. Even if she kept suspect company.

He ran a hand down his face, pausing at the scraggly feel of his beard. A shave was in order. Maybe a haircut to go with it, though he admittedly liked it long. A hot shower in any case, with a brush to work out the offending knots. A cup of tea to settle his frayed nerves. No, a mug. Enough to properly re-acquaint himself with the ol' earl of grey. As soon as he reunited with Xiān and the Shadow Trespass, that was what he would do. An hour of luxury to tide him through.

Thus mollified, he shrugged away the lingering hunger pangs away and crossed the fjord after Formora.

---

They'd settled some distance down the road. A small fire burned from a shallow pit. Formora sat cross-legged before it and the human woman, Angela, opposite her. The cat - the werecat - was positioned to the side between them, idly licking the back of its paw. It paused upon seeing him and Ikharos watched it suspiciously. A bowl of clear reflective water had been placed before it. That was the only reason he left it be. There was an air around it - a sense of wrongness, of some veiled power close in nature to that which he had sworn to slay.

"Hey you!" Angela warmly greeted him and patted to the spot on the ground beside them. "Are you hungry?"

"I just ate," Ikharos murmured. Formora shot him one of her practised looks.

Angela shrugged, unbothered. "Suit yourself."

He sat down. The werecat's little eyes twinkled mockingly.

"So," Angela said.

"You're alone?" Ikharos inquired. Though he kept his eyes on the cat, he aimed his question the way of Angela.

She glanced at the cat. "Not quite?"

"Is there anyone else?"

"No-"

"Was there?"

Angela paused. "Teirm," she said somberly. "No. I know what you ask."

"You were alone."

"We- I had the occasional customer. I'm a herbalist, you see. I herb."

"That's..." Ikharos swallowed the correction. She flashed him an impish smile. "You're lucky to get out."

"Aren't we all?" She tilted her head. "What's your name? I've heard Laerdhón's, but not yours."

"Ikharos. Ikharos Torstil."

"Is that Ikharos Ikharos Torstil or just... Ikharos Torstil?"

"The latter." He refused to rise to the bait.

Angela nodded sagely. "Not a common name."

"I can imagine." Ikharos pulled one of his legs against his chest and propped his chin on his knee. "Did the dead give you any trouble?"

"The dead?" Angela's expression fell. "Oh... no. We escaped with our lives and our health."

And a bag of your supplies, the cat said. Ikharos shivered as its boyish voice pierced his mind. Lucky us.

"He's bitter because he hates the smell of lavender, but it sells well."

"Goodness knows why," Formora murmured. She wrinkled her nose.

Angela cackled. "You don't like it?"

"Not so overpoweringly concentrated, no."

"Shame." She took up her pack and moved it away. "You'll not appreciate my more pungent ointments then."

At least they serve a purpose, the cat grumbled.

"You're an alchemist?" Formora asked.

Angela shrugged. "That's another word for herbalist, isn't it?"

"Alchemy has many more connotations than... herbs," Ikharos said quietly.

"Alchemy involves the use of herbs."

"And plenty more besides."

She shrugged. "I prefer herbalist. The city guards seem more open to it."

"The urgals," Formora began to say. "What did they want with you?"

Angela frowned. "I'm not sure. They're usually more amenable."

"Is it common for warbands to stalk the empire's roads?"

"They've been growing bolder in recent months, though I hadn't thought they would ever come so close to Teirm. The attack..." Angela's smile fell. "I doubt they were involved, but the timing is suspect. Those... dead creatures that struck the city. I didn't recognize them. Nor did they appear to be in a mood to talk."

"They're known as the Scorn," Ikharos said softly, "and they attacked because killing is what they do. Steer clear of them in future."

"You know them?"

"Aye." Formora looked at him, then back to Angela. "We have crossed them in the past. They've terrorized the coast from Narda to Teirm."

Angela slowly nodded. "I've heard there'sd been trouble north. I thought it to be linked with the urgal raids, though if it wasn't them..."

"The urgals spoke of a shadow. The phrasing is... odd. I don't understand it."

They've found a cause, the werecat said gruffly. Ikharos winced. He couldn't block it out. Something has changed them.

"My thoughts as well," Formora replied. "They were too old to be glory seekers, too young to be searching out worthy deaths..."

Too well armed for a hunting party.

"Indeed."

Ikharos shifted forward. "Urgals commonly attack humans?"

"Oh, it's not so vindictive as that," Angela said flippantly. "They'll attack anyone really. Dwarves too, rarely elves."

"Glory is a staple of their culture," Formora stated coolly. "And thus they so often turn to violence. Attempts to pacify them have largely been ineffective."

"Not entirely true. They can be sweet when they want to be."

"I never said otherwise."

"You've known urgals?"

"Do recall that I speak their language."

Angela laughed. "Elves know every language. It doesn't prove anything."

"And you've met other elves?" Formora questioned.

"Of course! Plenty. Plenty of urgals too. And dwarves."

"You carry a hûthvír."

"If you want that story," Angela said slyly, "you'll have to butter me up first. Or maybe I'll tell you come morning. Who knows? Anyways! What brings you-"

"You're... no. You aren't a dragon," Ikharos said lowly. His brow pinched together. "Are you?"

The werecat stopped licking and looked at him. It blinked slowly. A dragon, it repeated. I should hope not.

Ikharos' puzzled look deepened. "But you're not a cat."

It briefly bared its teeth. No, human. I'm quite clearly not a mere cat.

"Ikharos," Formora whispered. She flashed him a warning look. He ignored her.

"Then what are you?"

A werecat. It turned to Formora. Is he damaged?

"Head trauma can be serious," Angela murmured. She peered at Ikharos strangely. "Did you suffer a fall?"

"Your mother," Ikharos said. "Or your father. Which was it?"

You've lost me.

"Which one? Dam or sire?"

Which what?

"Which of your parents was a dragon?"

The werecat just looked at him. Whoever told you you were funny, they were lying.

"I wasn't making a joke."

"You must be," Formora said sharply. "I fear for you if you are not. My faith in your sensibilities has already waned considerably; please do not embarrass yourself further."

The anger burned beneath his skin. Stolidly Ikharos refrained from snapping, keeping his attentions squarely ahead. "Your essence is too faint to be a true dragon," he said, "but too numinous to be anything close to mortal."

"In-ter-esting," Angela said slowly.

"Ikharos," Formora bit out. "Stop."

Too numinous, the werecat mused. A strange choice of words.

"I can feel it."

Feel what, human?

"What you are."

And what is that?

Ikharos narrowed his eyes. "You well know."

I truly don't.

"No? A half-breed changeling."

"Have you no shame?" Formora snapped.

Angela made a face. "I don't think-"

"I knew it was possible," Ikharos continued, "but unlikely. Yet here you are."

Here I am. Bewildered.

"What do you suppose you are?"

Is that not evident? Werecat. I am a werecat. Elf, your human is defective.

"He's not mine," Formora muttered darkly. She glared at him. "His thoughts are addled. I fear he may have waylaid them in the city."

He seems to be undergoing severe shock.

"What do you mean, dragon?" Angela asked quietly.

"I mean exactly that," Ikharos told her. "The shapeshifters, wish-granters-"

"Ahamkara."

He turned to her. The roguish cheer had vanished from her face and she stared at him deeply, searchingly. "Yes," Ikharos said, exasperated. "Like I said - dragon."

"Words can have many different meanings. 'Dragon' isn't any different." Angela breathed in deeply. Her hand floated towards the double-bladed sword-staff on the ground beside her. "Who are you? Truly?"

Ikharos stilled. "I've already told you."

"Have you?"

"More than I'm usually willing to share."

Angela frowned. "Torstil isn't a common name," she said again. "Where are you from?"

Ikharos briefly glanced to Formora, but she was watching him blankly. "Not here," he grated out.

"But where?"

"Far enough away that you've never heard of it."

"You don't want to tell me?"

"Not really."

Angela shrugged as if she'd been expecting him to say that. Her hand relaxed, returning to her side. "As you will."

A moment passed. A minute. The silence stretched on - until he tired of the tension and rose to his feet. Ikharos said nothing; he turned and stepped back into the darkness, leaving them behind. Only when he was certain they could no longer see him did he cease to follow the strictures of space. Blinks dragged him through the forest, back to the road. The Void settled over his skin and clothing to mask his existence from the world. Soon, when he grew sick of the feeling of wind on his cheeks and the constant smell of pine needles, Ikharos dissolved his very being into smoke. He slithered betwixt the trees, invisible and incorporeal, and manifested once more by the river bank.

The urgals - those the crow had warned about - had arrived. Their heads turned about in fruitless search of their kin. One of them was dressed in robes; Ikharos felt the soft, imprecise probes of a fledgling psychic. His nullscape hid him from their notice.

For hours he watched. Eventually they moved on, mercifully in the opposite direction of his companions. Ikharos shadowed them. Not out of malice, or hunger, or anything of the sort. He was a basking shark as of that moment, a filter feeder - he was in no need of mass to consume so he absently plucked at stray molecules in the air. All that drove him to follow was idle curiosity - the need to do something while he thought things over.

She knew. Angela. She knew about Ahamkara. There was something off about her. Nothing his Light could detect; no, she was too bland in that sense. Too normal. Normal people didn't survive the Scorn. If he'd been in his right mind he would've drawn out an explanation by force. If he'd been in his right mind there was a solid chance he would've destroyed the half-breed the moment he realised what it was. But he wasn't. His limits for bloodshed had reached critical mass. What appetite he had for savagery had been sated so thoroughly all he could feel was nausea.

"You used to have some grit," the witch, malicious, whispered into his ear.

One of the urgals called for a stop. Their speech was deep, sharp, grunting. Like Uluranth. They noisily set about pitching a camp and all the while he silently watched.

"You used to be a hunter of men," Incaru lamented. "A proof."

You're not convincing me of anything, he thought.

"You deny yourself at every turn. If I don't try, who will?"

My intervention isn't necessary. It's no full-blooded drake.

"You know this?"

Hypothesized. Compounded with compelling evidence. He paused. I felt nothing. With dragons there's always SOMETHING, but not... not this. This is lesser. Or maybe nothing at all. Somewhere in between? Paracausality gives way to fantasy, fantasy to myth. I know we weren't the first to shape the world with will alone.

"Your world. This one too." The witch scoffed. "Rivals. Competitors."

Leave me be. All I want is peace.

"Peace? No, you revel in chaos, in noise, in the storm of being. Peace is to kill, to be killed. Peace is simplicity, it is minimalism, it is evolution and slaughter and war. You are not a keeper of peace. You, pretender, coward, false king - you are a mesh of petty urges set to self-destruct. You tire of the lies, the mystery, but make no move to unravel them."

Ikharos waved her off. She wanted her pound of flesh, that was all. Same as the rest. She would need to do better to find it.

"You mourn where you should celebrate. In death we know rest. To be is to fight; not all are meant for it. Put down the sword, set aside your voice, rest a while. That is the weakling's due. A gentler fate than persistence will ever allow."

We've had this conversation a hundred times already.

"And we'll have it a thousand more, for as long as you draw breath." She sidled close - so close he could smell the death on her, the ash, the rot of a lifetime spent in savoured pain. "You pride yourself as the rock against which the Logic breaks, but the waves - which is battle, which is violence, which is the roar of clashing swords - will never end. You will break down, piece by piece, until the tide drags you out... and the Deep takes you."

He turned and looked into her shining eyes. Not yet.

Dûl Incaru smiled. It was a hideous thing. "No. Not yet. I'll savour the struggle yet."

Ikharos shifted to watch a little while longer.

---

He returned to find a broken camp. Angela was in the midst of kicking dirt over the fire, her belongings already packed away. The werecat lazed nearby and watched him approach with one half-lidded eye. Ikharos studiously ignored it.

"Look who's back!" Angela said cheerily. She turned to him with a partial smile. "I'd thought you left us behind."

"A close thing," Ikharos admitted. "We-"

"Should talk?"

"No. Well, yes, but... no."

"Mm. Conveniently vague."

"There's a pack of urgals some miles west. You'd do well to move on."

Angela's cheer died away. "You saw them?"

Ikharos wordlessly inclined his head.

"What were they like? What did you see?"

"They acted as men would."

"They are men."

"So I gather." Ikharos paused. "You're interested in them?"

Angela grunted and resumed wrestling with one of her bags, struggling to fit in a battered pan. He caught the lingering smells of food; they must have only just finished breakfast. "Bothered more like. They're usually nicer."

"Usually?"

"To me."

"You speak their language."

Angela glanced at him. "I do. And others besides."

"What did they want with you?"

"I can't be sure. I think they came to investigate Teirm. They must have been watching it." She jutted her chin past him. Ikharos didn't need to turn to know she was indicating the distant towers of smoke climbing up from the city's ruin. "For what, I can only guess at. I doubt it was me. That encounter was nothing but a spot of bad luck."

"Are you known to them?"

She shrugged. "Depends."

"On?"

"Who's asking."

"I am."

Angela flashed him a smile. "So you are. Why?"

"Curiosity." Ikharos, still studiously ignoring the werecat, sat by a rock and waited patiently. "Indulge me."

"What do I get in return?"

"My thanks."

"... I'll consider it." She returned to the task at hand. "Maybe later. If you stick around."

"I doubt it." Ikharos exhaled through his nose, smothering the annoyance before it could show. "Where's... Laerdhón? Has she-"

"Carried on alone? Not quite." Angela peered at him. "It's a rare thing, for an elf to travel in the company of a human."

"These are strange times."

"So they are." They looked at each other. Ikharos recognized that she was playing coy on purpose, to match his own reluctance. At last she broke away. "I intend to make for Leona Lake. Laerdhón has agreed to accompany us, depending on... I'm not sure, but I think she's looking for something. Will you be joining us?"

Ikharos didn't immediately reply. His eyes scanned the sky; there was little cloud cover. As conditions went it was poor. He needed something he could turn to his advantage or be forced to make the trek entirely by foot. "No. I have duties elsewhere."

A moment passed. "Who are you?" Angela asked. Her brow was deeply furrowed.

"I might be inclined to ask the same thing," Ikharos said softly. "You know the true name of dragons."

Angela laughed. "True name," she mused. "No. But I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. I'm nothing more than a herbalist, really."

"I wish I could believe that."

Angela's sobered. "Careful."

Ikharos glanced at the werecat. It blinked slowly. What?

"Odd," he said, and stood up. "So. Where is she?"

Angela scrutinised him, then gestured towards the river. "I don't think she'd care to be disturbed."

Ikharos hummed thoughtfully and walked in the indicated direction, picked through the forest until the gurgling wash of the river's current grew to a steady roar. They were a ways uphill of the ford and the mountain water thundered past in single-minded search of the sea. He stopped by the banks, and looked and listened, and only then did he catch the stray notes of... someone singing. The power in the words curdled his stomach, left him sick with memory. He knew what it was, where it stemmed from, and though his hands ached to fill with blades, with guns, with fire, he had to control himself. Ikharos followed the sweet noise along until he found her by the base of an ancient pine.

She was sitting awkwardly. Her skin was pale and drawn and slick with sweat, her eyes were clouded and hazy, and her every breath strained - lungs struggling to keep the haunting melody alive. The words, only a few of which he recognised, were strung with such incredible power, demanding something of the universe regardless of what nature intended. Her tunic was on the ground and she clutched her jacket to her chest. There was blood. Enough to concern him-

"You need not be," Formora hissed. Her lilting voice fell away, replaced with a tense rasp. She looked straight at him, trying to appear stern instead of stricken.

Ikharos stiffened and closed his mind in a shell of Void. "What's happening?" he demanded. If he wanted to worry then he damn well would.

Formora regarded him silently and shifted forward. Something- somethings rose behind her. Growths sprouting from new joints on her back, connected via strings of sinew to her shoulders and lower spine. Ikharos imagined there was new muscle there though he couldn't see beneath the coat of dark feathers, glittering like drops of black oil in the morning light. Wings. She had wings.

"I thought you were leaving."

Ikharos stirred from his shock. "I thought I was too," he admitted, still taken aback. "I will. Soon. I... did not want to leave without warning you. What is this?"

"Preparation," Formora said.

"For Agnisia?"

She stared at him.

"Do you want me to leave?" Ikharos inquired self-consciously. He had the inkling that he was intruding on something deeply private.

"Do as you will."

He let out a deep breath, as awed and terrified as when he'd watched her form gills in her neck. It unnerved him to think that the essence of the dragon could be so perfectly emulated. To change shapes was their secret power, their highest pleasure - and now that ability had found its way in the hands of mortals. Formora's song resumed. Ikharos momentarily listened to it, automatically likening it to the whispers of long-dead wyrms. Her voice was perfectly pitched, her music pleasing to the ear, but it pained him all the same, until such a time he could stomach it no longer. Ikharos clumsily retreated - for even in the knowledge that she wasn't an Ahamkara, that she was a person, a human person, he could no more stand to hear it than he could suffer a dragon to live. It wasn't a conscious choice, not really. His fascination, irreverent of self-preservation, begged him to stay, yet muscle memory and paranoia drove him away until he could hear no more.

Ikharos rushed back to camp with his hands shaking and he ignored the looks Solembum and Angela gave him, choosing to throw himself into a distracted patrol of the area, his mind awhirl with implications and possibilities. Soon Formora returned to them. She was dressed anew in green fibre and lacquered bark. New lines of tattoos (warpaint, he would've called it, but it was too fine, too delicate) linked between the dotted marks beneath her eyes and down her cheeks. Her hair, once white and red, had turned silver and been corralled into a single long braid. Many tiny Stasis crystals had been worked into it. Her wings were folded against her back, though they twitched and flexed in newborn sensation. Formora wore Vaeta openly, the sheath hanging from one hip while a quiver of arrows tufted with glistening pine quills were fixed to the other. She clasped in one hand a recurved shortbow and the other, still clad in the borrowed Osmiomancy bracer, appeared as if ready to let the Darkness fly.

Angela hardly looked at her, as if none of it was out of the ordinary.

Not for the first time Ikharos wondered after the state of the planet, that flesh-sculpting and dragon-magics could come to be so ingrained in those who lived on it. Technologically-deprived, genetically-divided, and so reliant on alien influence. It seemed a far-flung dream. A nightmare.

"Think of what you could do," the witch, eternal, whispered.

Ikharos banished her with a shrug of his shoulders. Formora approached, her expression severe, and looked at him expectantly. "You sought to warn me?"

He pursed his lips. "Walk with me," Ikharos said, throwing Angela a look, though she didn't appear to be listening. Regardless he led them far enough away that he was confident they wouldn't be overheard. "I can't convince you to turn away?"

Formora raised her chin. "No."

"This is a mistake."

"I concur."

"You won't-"

"I have to."

Ikharos tensed. "Is this really worth your life?"

Formora looked at him critically. "It's my life's purpose, and has been for half a century. I cannot abandon it now."

"No death's worth a dragon."

"Say what you mean to say."

"Agnisia will kill you."

"Is that all?"

"She'll do it slow," Ikharos continued, growing frustrated, "and she won't put you out of your mercy until she has all she wants from you. Your secrets, your magic... and your Darkness." He unstrapped Múspel's sheath and held it out. "I need it back."

Formora looked at him. For a second he feared she would refuse and all reluctant civility between them would fall away, but with a sudden jerk she unclasped the bracer and shoved it into his arms. "The blade is yours," she told him coolly. "Deny your nature all you want, this is your inheritance. You'll not throw it away."

Ikharos scowled. "I'm not-"

"So you've said." She turned away. "We're losing ground. I won't tarry a moment longer. Come or go, the choice is yours."

He looked away. They weren't out of the pass. The weather was too kind to make flight; there was little cloud cover, leaving him in full view of whatever lay above. "I'll stay," he said, "but not for long."

Formora regarded him distantly. "As you will."

---

Their going was slow. The changes Formora had undergone had left her drained, forcing a gentler pace - which appeared to suit Angela and the cat just fine. They trundled along happily as, all the while Ikharos impatiently ranged ahead to check for ambushes. They avoided the roads where the terrain allowed. That evening they hiked a little ways up towards the northern Spine. A storm had rolled in from the coast at their backs and Angela complained quite loudly about trying to sleep in the rain. Before the last of the light had passed it fell over them, soaking straight through their clothes with a bitter chill. To appease her endless grumbling Ikharos searched and searched until he found a den - part cave and part fallen log - already occupied by a groggy bear. It was a brown, a grizzly, and as soon as it caught his scent it shot to its feet and bared its teeth at him.

"My need is greater," Ikharos firmly told it. "So make room or fuck off."

The bear, predictably, was not in a charitable mood. It roared and charged - and whipped back with terror as tendrils of Void ripped from his body, lacerating the ground around him. It stopped and regarded him warily. Ikharos flared his power until it grew to dwarf the beast. The animal fled. He felt a pang of pity but didn't care enough to find something else. He looked inside, privately remarked on the cleanliness, and waited until Formora sent a psychic query to guide them over. The very moment they arrived Angela and Solembum hurried inside, the former firing off words of thanks as she passed him by. Ikharos lingered but Formora waited at the entrance.

"A bear," she murmured.

The scent. That had to be it. Otherwise he was clueless. "Evicted."

She shot him a piercing look. "Need you?"

Ikharos shrugged. "It wasn't giving me a chance. I didn't kill it."

Formora exhaled sharply. "If that is what you consider the basis of decency..."

"No, it's what I consider necessity. It's fine, it's alive. We're not arguing this."

She peered at him searchingly. "You mean to depart?"

"No," he breathed. "I just need a fucking break. Go on, join them. I know whose company you prefer."

Formora made a face yet ducked inside without another word. Before long he heard the hum of low conversation, followed by the rustle of clothing. Briefly she or Angela appeared to leave their soaked clothes near the entrance donning new garb. If they thought it odd that he stayed outside they didn't comment on it. The sun fell beyond the horizon, the storm raged overhead, and he settled against the den's entrance. He braced his knees against his chest and cushioned his head with his arms, cradling the core of his body heat. There was no danger of hypothermia; the Light eternally burned inside him, banishing the worst of the elements. Mortal frailty could only go so far.

Eventually the exhaustion caught up with him. Ikharos had to actively fight the urge to nod off, distracting himself by sharpening his knife or reflecting on all that had come to pass. He ached to have his Ghost beside him, to have her voice ringing through his head, to be amongst those he understood. Mystery was the great bait but he was never one for games. When the rains abated and the clouds gave way to false stars, Ikharos traced unfamiliar constellations. Even that soon grew monotonous. A sense of fugue fell over him. He basked in the loss of self-awareness.

It did not last.

Without so much as a glance to see if anyone was watching, Ikharos took to the air on ashen wings. He rose - up, up, to the stars, to the place where the winds chilled to the bone, and down, down, down to the planet that mocked him, the paradise that sought no less than his utter undoing.

It whittled at him. The Disciples, the dragons, the Exos and all else. A ziggurat to his bane: broken principles and hidden scar tissue. The hot sin of the world rubbed raw at his veneer of control; better to spare some that their descendants can distract him, sway him to dangerous ideas, snare him into our grasp. So clever, so dastardly, so petty and vile. Damn him. Damn them all but damn him. The mission had been so fucking simple. Kill a Scorn who doesn't feel like staying dead. Difficult but not impossible. All things had endings, it was just a matter of finding them. And he'd done it! Ikharos had done it. Killed the Locus, almost at the cost of his own immortal life. The rest? Tools for the Witness, but it had a hundred thousand more so what did they matter? Oh, plenty - because they were poised to kill those undeserving. Those he'd never known to live, those he was finding every reason to abhorr, those steeped in a darker world than even his own, but those he was still duty-bound to protect from the monsters of the deep black.

Never again, he'd said centuries ago, and of course it had happened again, but that didn't stop him from trying. Day-in, day-out. This was his purpose. This was the defining trait of his being, from his creation to his own coming end. Ikharos dove from the sky with force, allowing gravity to take him. He was far from the den, removed from his companions' peace and so free to lash out at the unfairness of it all. He hit the ground. Stone cracked, grass scorched, the air burned. Ikharos panted for breath; all he'd given up for duty and still it asked for more.

A soft flutter, barely perceptible, relayed to him that his departure hadn't gone entirely unnoticed. Ikharos allowed his wings to fade, closed his eyes and turned his face to the moon. "'M not in the mood," he groaned.

A beat passed. "I have a question," she said softly. She was close - closer than he'd thought she was. The way she could move in total silence bothered him. If not for the faintest flicker of Darkness he doubted he would ever be able to sense her approach. "Just one. I only want to understand."

"Ignorance is bliss. You'd be happier not knowing."

"No. No!" She prodded his chest with a single accusing finger. "No. I don't understand you. Something ails you. You don't eat, you hardly sleep, you stare at things that aren't there and you speak to imaginary figures when you think I cannot hear you. I can, Ikharos. Often. You say foolish things and you take to violence much, much too easily."

Ikharos tensed. "Don't," he warned. His voice was a whisper. "Don't get involved."

"I'm responsible-"

"No. I don't care that you think you have to protect me or look after me or guide me. You need to stop. I am not what you want me to be. I'll never be. I've already given myself over to one cause and I'll not do it again. I've already sacrificed too much; I can't give you what little I have left. I can't."

Formora stared. "You're afraid."

"Of?"

"Pain."

Ikharos snorted and raised his oaken hand. "Really? Because I recall you accusing me of the opposite. Never happy with me, are you?"

"I rarely am. No, not here." She tapped the place over his heart. Her hand rose to his head and a finger pressed over his temple. "Here. You fear betrayal. You fear being taken advantage of. You fear change."

"Most of humanity consider the heart to be the emotional centre," Ikharos murmured. "You don't?"

"The mind is everything," Formora replied. "All thoughts and feelings are nothing without the will and desire to parse them through.

"I'm doing you a favour," Ikharos said at last. "My world won't be kind to you."

"And mine has?" She took a deep breath. "I've seen your world - your Scorn, your Dark, your Light. It's wondrous."

"It's horrifying."

"Wonder can be terrible."

"You're looking to gain, but all you'll find is heartbreak. Trust."

She raised an eyebrow. "Trust? When you refuse to dignify me with the same?"

"You've already pushed mine to its limits. I know you don't have it in you to fix that."

Formora grimaced. "I am an outlaw," she said. "My station demands it. My experiences are riddled with it. But you aren't alone. You have fellows - your soldiers, your Cabal, but am I wrong in thinking you neither trust a single one of them?"

Ikharos' thoughts darted to Indilic. He knew all too well that affection did not equate to trust - but he took issue with it all the same. "Fuck off." He stormed to his feet. "If this is you trying to convince me to open up, give in, it's far from working."

Formora followed him up. "Why did you accuse Solembum of being a dragon?"

"I will throw you from this mountain, elf. Fuck. Off."

"You can try." Her expression dared him. Her wings flared.

Ikharos paused and the anger melted away. He laughed, bitterly, without humour or joy. "This is ridiculous. You're ridiculous, this whole planet's ridiculous."

"Ikharos-"

"You're not joking, are you? You don't even see it. Everything you do stems from them. Look at yourself!" He gestured to her. "You've modelled yourself after them and you don't even know what they're truly like."

"Like who?" Formora demanded impatiently.

"Dragons. Who else?"

"You are mad."

"I'm the only one taking any of this seriously. Ahamkara, elf. You say you know them, but it's readily apparent you don't."

"Ahamkara. Angela said that." Formora frowned.

Ikharos set his mouth in a line. "She evidently knows more than you."

"What does it mean?"

"It means dragon. It means shapeshifter and desire-eater; it means lust-wyrm and wish-maker. It means that which invokes the Anthem Anatheme to turn reality-as-is into reality-as-desired - the very source of your own magic. It means predator."

Formora eyed him distastefully. "Dragons have but one shape."

"Only as you know them, but not I. I've seen them. I've fallen victim to their ploys. I'll not do so again." Ikharos paused and looked down at himself. "When a dragon marks prey, it belongs to them. That's their one law. Sometimes they share if the whim strikes them but more often than not they'll guard their victims like any other territorial beast. This-" He allowed the Deepsight to unveil the ghostly brand on the back of his hand "-is one such mark. Yours might be dead, but I'll not deliver myself into the grasp of another."

"She was not-!" Formora cut herself off. There was a dangerous light in her eyes. "I'm not your enemy. Remember that." She turned and allowed herself to fall from the mountain and descended from view on dark, silent wings. The sudden absence plunged the cliff into tense silence.

---

He returned at the crack of dawn, haphazardly shuffling down the steep slope. Angela was tending to a pot of thin broth over a fire and perked up at the sight of him. "Torstil!" she greeted.

Ikharos grunted.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Another grunt. He hunkered down by the fire. "Took a walk," he lied. "Lost my way back."

Angela nodded. "It happens. Oh, Laerdhón left earlier to scout the roads."

"I see."

"Hungry?"

"No."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Solembum loped out of the cave and settled down next to her. His eyes lazily flicked over to Ikharos. The elf seemed offput, he said. Ikharos had to suppress a grimace against the sensation; he wasn't fond of how everything on Kepler had a firmer handle on psionics than he. Without the nullscape he would've been at their mercy.

"I'm not her handler," Ikharos said. "Whatever bothers her, that's her business."

Angela hummed. "So you two... aren't friends?"

"No."

"Mm. I'd love to hear how you two met. Not many elves around these parts, nor are there many of our folk on speaking terms with them."

"Somewhere on the road to Teirm," he said brusquely. "She wore a glamour."

"Well, she's not wearing it anymore."

"No. Her business."

"You've said." Angela leaned back and sighed. "So - the dead."

"Yes?"

"What do you know about them?"

"I know they don't stay dead unless you destroy their remains," Ikharos said. "I know they're attracted to the thoughts of living beings, and I know killing is their primary purpose."

"Where do they come from?"

"The sea."

"Why are they here?"

"To kill."

"But why here in particular?"

"To kill everyone here."

Angela sighed, still grinning. "Getting answers out of you is like pulling teeth."

"Mhm."

"You know what they are, don't you?"

"I know they have to die," Ikharos said. "Their origins don't change the fact. I also know they're moving towards large settlements - and that the Spine is probably safeguarding the rest of the empire from their raids."

"Will it last?"

"No."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because they own the skies."

Angela grimaced. "I saw. That... ship. It was larger than... well, most things I've seen."

"Most?"

"Maybe I'll tell you that story sometime."

"Speaking of which." Ikharos looked at her across the pot. "You said you were known to the urgals."

"I said it depends on who's asking."

"You also said you'd tell me later."

Angela made a funny face. "I did. Curses."

She's known to them as a mystic, Solembum said. And as a historian.

"You spoilsport."

I was there for most of it.

"You were only a cub. I doubt you remember it."

It's not interesting enough to be a story.

"Well, if I'd been allowed to tell it..."

"I've no patience for exaggerations," Ikharos cut in. "You know where the urgals reside?"

Angela frowned. "In the Spine. Why?"

"So I can request they cease aggressions against human holdings."

"That's... not possible."

"We'll see. Can you point me towards their capital?"

"The clans are divided. They don't have cities as you know them."

"In that case a layout of all their major settlements will suffice."

Angela shook her head. "No. I don't think I'll do that."

Ikharos was quiet for a time. "Suit yourself," he said at last.

An awkward silence fell over the three of them. Angela sighed loudly. "Look at us," she complained. "Sitting here and doing nothing."

"You're making breakfast," Ikharos pointed out. "I'm trying to meditate."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

"You like meditating?"

"It's peaceful."

Angela scrutinized him. "I think," she said slowly, "that might be the most boring thing I've ever heard."

"To you."

"Here." She tapped the ladle against the pot's rim and dragged one of her bags over. "How about I perform you a service in thanks for saving my life?"

"That won't be necessary."

"No no, I insist." Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "I think you'll like it." She pulled a fistful of discoloured white fragments out of the bag. Ikharos stiffened.

"Are those...?"

"Dragon bones." Angela grinned. She was teasing him. "Would you care to have your fortune told?"

"Those bones," Ikharos said coolly. A barricade of humming Void wrapped around his mind, but no whispers resounded between his waking thoughts. "Where did you get them?"

"Never you mind that. Here." She held one out. Ikharos studied it a moment before taking it. He ran his fingers over the bone's worn surface. They were thin and long, and though they appeared brittle they carried a certain springy resilience. Whatever power once filled them had long since dwindled away, leaving them as little better than talismans to hold lesser magics. Rudimentary runes had been carved into their sides, gentler than Hive script but no less esoteric. "What do you think?"

Ikharos exhaled. "They're safe."

"So? Are you interested?"

"I... don't know," he admitted. In all likelihood it was nothing short of a cheap parlour trick, but with how his luck held he wasn't so sure. Prophecy often left him wary; he'd seen enough of simulated timelines to leave a bitter taste besides. If it did work... then what? What else could it be but a reminder of battles already set in stone? Would it set him on the same path as Elisabeth - racing against fate itself to prevent a Dark future? But how would that be any different to what he was currently doing? With a deep, resigned sigh Ikharos nodded. "Why not. Do as you will."

Angela raised an eyebrow. "You're not excited?"

"Should I be?" He handed the bone back. "I know my lot in life. I don't see how you could change that."

"This isn't about changing anything, just… coming to terms with it."

"It's all the same to me. Do it."

She nodded. "Very well." Angela laid out a light brown cloth. The smile faded from her face. Ikharos felt a flicker not dissimilar to when he or Formora began casting a spell. "Manin. Wyrda. Hugin!" She cast the bones out. They fell haphazardly across the cloth, some with their runes face-up and others hidden. She blinked, her hands trembled, and she leaned forward to inspect her handiwork.

Ikharos' blood turned to ice. No parlour trick it seemed; this was true power, the same as Formora's but deeper. Stronger. A manifestation of desire-to-become. Some time passed before Angela sat back, grimacing hard. "You've not made it easy for me," she hollowly laughed. "I thought the lad had been tricky, but you... oh you..."

"What does it say?" Ikharos asked impatiently.

"Well, this," she pointed towards a rune shaped like a circle laid over a stick, "denotes a very, very long life, but this," she gestured to one in the form of a deep X, "promises... well. The opposite."

"A coming death."

"Mmmmaybe. It might not mean-"

"It's fine," Ikharos said.

She blinked with surprise. "It is?"

"I'm not afraid." He didn't boast; it was simple fact. "What else do they say?"

Angela's gaze lingered briefly. "More contradictions. There's a change in your future. I don't know what it means, but your life may take a drastic, perhaps painful turn very soon. This one-" she touched a rune like a curved fang "-warns of a struggle. It could be internal or... You're a warrior, yes?"

"By circumstance, not choice."

"Then it could refer to a battle."

"I've little doubt." Ikharos motioned to the others. "Anything else of note?"

"You don't believe me."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. You just haven't told me anything interesting yet."

Angela's brow rose high. "No? My humblest apologies."

"Witch. The bones."

"Yes yes..." She waved him off. "Here's a sailing ship crossed by a blade, flanked by arrows in flight. You'll come and go, from here and there and near and far. You'll likely never know a moment's peace. A campaign will be waged and you'll follow it to the ends of the world, fighting a war both real and hidden. And here, a lightning bolt - a precipice most high. You'll face a choice before the end: to stay or go. Either option will bring you grief, and after it's been made there will be no way to undo it. "

"Go where?"

"I don't know. The bones haven't told me." Angela shrugged. "I've never had a reading like this."

If it's for Sol, Ikharos thought, then I fail to see why I'd ever choose otherwise.

"And lastly - a blossoming flower."

Ikharos groaned. "Love?"

Angela chuckled. "Not a fan?"

"It's the same spiel from every fortune teller. You're better than that."

"I know. Eh, it's not quite love. It stands for growth. A strength that basks in the open. What that power could be, I've little idea, but it's all but set in stone."

That got him to sit up straight. Power was never unwelcome, save depending on the source. As a student of the mystic and the ontological he salivated at the promise of further understanding, driven by a hungering hope to uncover some small facet of existence that betrayed the Witness's entire cause. Something to unravel the Black Fleet at its core, if such a thing existed. If not that, then further understanding of the principles that drove them. "Fantastic."

"Is it?" Angela peered at him strangely. "It all seems a tad grim to me."

"These are grim times. Best not to dwell on it. I've been told it makes one a dour conversationalist."

"If you say so." Angela bundled the bones up and tucked them away, then returned to the stew. "Hungry?"

"No."

"Suit yourself."

A quiet fraught with tension fell over them both. It only broke when a shadow passed overhead and Formora nimbly landed nearby. Her wings were still splayed, feathers smoothed into place by the wind; while in form they brought to mind those of a raven, in function they operated more like those of an owl crossed with a seabird - serrated at the tips to dampen sound, while oiled along their length to keep them waterproof. They folded neatly against her back, still propping over her shoulders but far from obstructive.

"Refugees," she said breathlessly. Formora hardly even looked in his direction. "Soldiers among them. They wear the king's colours and fly the banner of Dras Leona."

"It wouldn't do to make a scene," Angela said pointedly.

Formora nodded. "They're situated by the river's banks. We can circle around if we keep to the shadow of the Spine."

Ikharos stood. "The sooner the better."

"Are you in a hurry to be somewhere?" Angela inquired.

"Yes." His position made clear, Ikharos waited for the others to ready themselves. Angela helped Formora to a single serving of broth, poured the remainder into a curious clay container and packed it away in her pack. They ascended along the valley's side and hiked along the base of the mountains. Towers of smoke from cooking fires rose in the distance. They left the encampment far behind though continued to steer well clear of the roads.

The country was fresh, untamed, and he found some idle satisfaction in comparing it to Earth. The lack of alien organisms lent a sense of artificialness to it all, though not so much he could begrudge it for what else it had to offer - species, he figured, of plants and animals long since rendered extinct back home. The lack of pollution from human infrastructure or the Dark's ravaging of the planet was far kinder on the environment. The air was easier to breathe - something he'd never thought to be possible. If not for the fear of being set upon by Disciples, Scorn or turncoat Exos he might've enjoyed it. Elisabeth had been right to call it a paradise. With the Dark cordoning it off from the greater universe it was all but halfway towards becoming a second Distributary.

"Hold," Formora said. She hunched, a hand falling to her sword.

Ikharos paused. "What is it?"

"There's someone ahead. Human."

"Soldiers?"

"I doubt it," Angela said. "They keep to the roads so far out. Woadark Lake saddles the border between the fiefs of Dras Leona and Teirm. Little of this place falls under their jurisdiction."

"So poachers," Ikharos said. He relaxed. "Or more refugees. They doubtless had the same idea as us."

"There's something strange in their scent," Formora elaborated, frowning.

"Mayhaps they require help," Angela mused. She looked at them with a half-smile - searching for assurance, perhaps, that they would watch over her. Ikharos inclined his head a fraction. She'd have it.

"I will be nearby," Formora said. "If needs must I will intervene, otherwise I shall remain hidden."

"Of course." Angela nudged Ikharos' elbow. Cautiously they advanced, picking through the brush until they stumbled upon a clear green clifftop overlooking the road and the lake beyond. The first thing Ikharos saw were the horses tethered to a tree, two of them. A pair of bedrolls had been laid out and a pile of kindling had been piled between them. A boy of no more than sixteen sat on one, holding still as a much older man dabbed at his bare arm with a bloodied cloth. The boy saw them first; he took in a deep breath and his uninjured arm shot somewhere behind him.

"You!" Angela stepped forth. She raised a hand in greeting. "You lived!"

The boy stood up, a Rider's sword in hand, but at the sight of her and Solembum his grip relaxed. The older man's gaze flicked suspiciously between each of them before settling on Ikharos - and the hilt of Múspel peeking over his shoulder. "You're the herbalist," he said, still staring at him. His face was weathered, his beard and hair as white as snow, but there was a cold gleam in his eyes that Ikharos didn't like. "Angela."

Angela beamed. "I am. And you're Brom."

'Brom' turned to the boy with a furious expression. "What did I tell you?"

"I... I didn't think it could hurt," the boy weakly protested. "I'm sorry."

"Bah!" Brom turned to them. "What of your companions? Who're they?"

"Solembum and Ikharos," Angela said, glancing at the both of them.

"Do you mean harm? How did you find us?"

"We-"

A shape darted overhead. One moment all was calm and the next Formora was there, her blade drawn and pressed against Brom's neck. "You!" she hissed. The Dark in her flared unseen, riding on waves of boiling fury. "You!"

The boy flinched and swung for her, but she caught his arm, twisted it until the longsword fell out of his grip. Brom froze in place; his face was pale and he stared at Formora with surprise. With fear. "You," he gasped.

"Oh," Angela said. Her smile faded. "What... oh."

"'Mora," Ikharos called out. He stepped forward and caught her shoulder. "Easy."

She shook him off. "Leave it be."

"He's unarmed."

"He is not. He's a mage."

Ikharos pursed his lips. Brom hadn't moved an inch. His gaze was still firmly locked with Formora's. "I'm sure you have a way to disarm him."

"I don't want to." The blade bit into skin - just enough to draw blood. Brom grimaced.

"You died," he said hoarsely. He seemed no more pleased to see her than she him. "You are dead."

"I live," Formora snarled. "Despite your plots, your manipulations, your attempts - I live."

Brom bared his teeth. "Do you still perform to the king's satisfaction?"

In the distance a tree snapped. Ikharos twirled around; a deep bellow reverberated from the forest. The canopy shook, flinging leaves in all directions. Something was coming. Something big. "'Mora?"

"You'll die for that," Formora whispered. "That and the thousand other wrongs you've dealt me."

"Formora!" Ikharos snapped. She turned to him, scowling, but by then the thing was upon them. It barreled out from between the trees and skidded to a stop, blue lips pulling back over ivory fangs. Sapphire scales lathered over a heavy corded body. Powerful limbs were held close to a massive torso and a range of spikes ran down its spine like fins. The eyes were forward facing, those of a natural predator. A long tail flicked behind it. Leathery wings, previously tucked against its body, extended to make itself look even larger. It opened its mouth - but where he expected fire it released only an earsplitting roar.

Formora's sword arm dipped down. She turned from Brom completely, took in the sight of the dragon, and then twisted to face Ikharos with the word "Don't" on her lips.

It was already too late.

There was no denying what it was. It was almost identical to the creature he'd seen with Agnisia through Deepsight: the dragonling. Its musculature was more pronounced, a pair of sabre teeth jutted from its upper gums, and its hide was a different hue but it was too uncannily similar to be anything else. All hopes of avoiding a second confrontation crashed and burned in an instant. Sound judgement collapsed beneath the weight of instinct, so powerful was the urge to NEUTRALIZE THE THREAT. Burn. Break. Destroy. Kill it before it can kill anyone else. That was what he became in that split-second: the face of annihilation.

He Blinked to close the distance.

The dragon closed its jaws with a snap and reared up; he could read the surprise in its beastly eyes. It hadn't expected him to move so quickly. He was already close enough to pull Múspel over his shoulder and bring it across in a wide sweep. Blue scales parted beneath scarlet hadium, ushering a bloom of boiling crimson. Droplets splattered across his hands, searing his skin; its blood was scaldingly hot. It recoiled with a shrill cry, leg hanging limp. Ikharos didn't wait for it to retaliate and darted in to finish the job, but Formora was there, she was a whirlwind of steel and desperation and she threw her entire being into keeping him away.

It was the surprise that slowed his response. Initially at her audacity; their positions on dragons had been made exceptionally clear, but it still took him off guard that she would turn against him in their favour. The anger came - and went. How could he judge her, so deeply touched and marked by their kind? But the real reason for his surprise was the ferocity with which she opposed him. Their blades met with a piercing ring again and again. He tried to kill the dragon, but Formora drew his focus away. Ikharos had little choice in the matter. For all his skill in hand-to-hand she was faster than him. She was better. He kept up as best he could but her centuries of bladecraft far outweighed his decades. A sword was a reliable tool, but he'd availed of a far wider range of weapons for most of his life. Versatility over mastery, however slight the differentiation.

Now he saw the error in it.

Ikharos, don't-

But he was more than a blade. More than the weapon in his hands. The dragon raised its wings. Ikharos forced his and Formora's blades to lock together by jamming the crossguards together. He disengaged one hand, summoning a Void Soul and sending it forth. It flew - fast, faster than the dragon, sprouting arms with stingers and hooking into the beast's every limb. The tendrils dug into flesh and pulled the squirming creature around, onto its back, pinning it down. He Blinked again, passing Formora entirely, and he raised his sword-

Darkness enveloped him. Crystal formed around him, freezing him in place. Ikharos' Light surged; the gall! The arrogance! Through the opaque surface he glimpsed movement. With a ragged shout Ikharos shattered the Stasis prison, twirled around and caught the blade of - the boy? Not Formora. A red bastard sword shoved at his own. The boy's face was stricken with pain, anger, desperation. He pulled back and swung, fast, for Ikharos' neck. There was power in it. Nowhere near enough to break Ikharos' own grip, but considerable for a mortal. Ikharos twisted Múspel with enough force to break a Knight's wrist and flung the sword out of the boy's grip. "Thrysta," he said softly. Magic slammed into the lad, flinging him across the clearing. "Slyth-"

"Maela!" Formora shouted.

Something snipped in his neck. Warm pain followed but the sound was the worst of it. She'd severed his vocal chords. Formora charged, Stasis gathering in her off-hand, and Ikharos was pulled away from the effort of healing himself to fend her off. She tried to freeze him again but he caught the umbral blast with a humming overshield. The dragon shifted; he could feel it twisting in his coils, trying to break free. Without looking he pointed with a hand and fired lightning from his fingertips. A shrill cry split the air and the beast settled back down.

IKHAROS! Formora shouted in his mind, frantic and furious. STOP!

Ikharos grimly turned his hand on her and unleashed a shockwave of energy, enough to send her sprawling. A third Blink brought him to the dragon's side. He raised Múspel up-

An arrow took him in the collar. Ikharos staggered, spotted the old man sporting a hunting blow and snarled with bloody teeth. A second missile took him in the gut. Better there than something important. The third he caught with his palm. There was no fourth. Ikharos swirled Múspel through the air, using the hadium blade as a medium through which to manipulate the Dark, and he raised a wall of Stasis to block the man's shot, leaving him and the dragon to the cliff's edge. He turned to it, planted a boot on its neck and turned it to expose its soft throat.

For all the pain you'll inflict, Ikharos whispered, confined to his own mind. All the lives you'll destroy. He took aim - and half-turned when the sound of pounding steps reached him. The boy's sword ran him through with an ugly slick sound, missing all the bone and bursting out his left side. A mortal blow, for all the good that did. Ikharos caught the boy's throat and hefted him up off his feet. Hands - one broken, the other whole - scrambled at his crushing fingers. He might've accidentally killed him then and there in a fit of rage if the dragon hadn't bucked him off and closed its craw on his leg with a gruesome snap. Ikharos bellowed. He threw the boy aside, punched the dragon once, twice, three times and finally decided to hell with this and ripped it away. He fell against its neck, gasping for air. Someone grabbed his shoulder and heaved him away.

"Ikharos!" Formora seethed. He could hardly hear her. He caught her leg and froze her solid - there. Let her have a taste. He levered himself up, snatched the dragon's horn before it could squirm away and held it still-

"Finish it," the witch purred. "Quickly!"

Ikharos...

Stopped.

His hearing cleared. The old man was shouting, Angela was shouting, even Formora seemed to be shouting beneath the veneer of Stasis, but all he cared to listen to was the dragon's laboured breaths. He could feel the struggle. His Void Soul had sapped the energy from it and his Arc had reduced its muscles to dead weight. A single glistening blue eye trained on him.

Please, it begged, blindly firing its voice into his mind.

Please? Really?

"Where was the mercy for your kin?" Dûl Incaru gushed. "Where was the mercy for the Lightless beneath your charge? Where was the mercy for Ekha and her darling girl? Where was the mercy for your Lennox?"

Please, the dragon said again.

"Do unto others as they would do to you. Is that not your guiding principle? Make it truth. Shape it." There were other voices at work. The King. The Queen. Brigands and warlords and reavers. Worms and Wyrms and worse.

Please.

Flashes of Riven's twisted visage, the madness of the Great Hunt, the monstrous predators of the Dark Age sprung to mind. Ikharos tightened his hold on Múspel and wormed it under the dragon's jaw.

PLEASE!

He paused. Even the air in his lungs refused to move.

"Kill it." Claws stroked his cheek. "Now."

Ikharos stared into its eye. He hated what he saw there. He hated the abundance of emotion. Hated that it gave him pause. He twisted Múspel, caught the barest hint of light on its shimmering length and... he glimpsed the dragon's distorted reflection. Unmoving. No different than the flesh it presented to him. A whirlwind of questions caught him, but one haunting realisation struck him. It was not the gaze of a monster that pinned him, that stopped him in his tracks, but rather that of a child.

A child.

No, he decided, fighting himself to not to kill it. No!

"No?"

He breathed in deeply. No.

"Pathetic." The claws turned sharp and opened his skin down to the bone. Ikharos turned, intending to cut the witch down there and then but it was bigger, greater than he could imagine, reforming into something else. The Subjugator caught Múspel, tore it out of his hand and snatched Ikharos up by his arm. "Cur," Rhulk snarled, swinging him over the cliff's edge. "Miscreant filth!"

"Fuck. You!" Ikharos ripped the red blade out of his waist and swung for the Nightmare's throat. Rhulk held him away, laughing.

"You could have been beautiful," he mockingly lamented, still smiling. "You could have been majestic."

An arrow burst through Rhulk's dark head and smashed through Ikharos' sternum. His wall was broken and the old man stood in the new space provided. He drew back with another arrow.

"But if you wish to be nothing, then so you shall be."

The final arrow flew. Ikharos braced for the impact but it never came. It missed - because Rhulk had dissipated. Gravity took over from there.

---

He couldn't remember landing. Couldn't remember making the bed of broken branches beneath him, but he couldn't escape the feel of them pressing into his back. His world was red and the miasma of Nightmares was only partially to blame. Pain blanketed him from head to toe. His legs were broken. One of his arms too. It was a miracle his neck had survived intact, but it still ached enough that he was convinced it was at least fractured. He was a mess.

The only thing he wished for in that moment was for Xiān to sort him out - and though he waited, the draconic jaws of dire certainty stubbornly refused to manifest. That was a first. Ikharos laughed without mirth, or tried to; all that emerged was a pitiful cough and mouthful of blood. One of his lungs was punctured, by arrow or broken rib it mattered little. It was collapsing. If left to its own devices, his body would shut down within a couple of minutes. But then, he was as much a miser with his life as he was his secrets. His fingers scored grooves in the ground beneath him. Little by little he repaired the damages inflicted - enough to stabilize him for the moment. Not enough to reduce the punishment richly deserved.

"Poetic, no?"

Ikharos shuddered. Leave me be, he begged.

The lanky alien thing huffed. "Like you did me?" Rhulk tilted his dark, tall head. Derision shone from his six pitted eyes. "The frogspawn is right. You are pathetic."

I don't follow your rules.

"Rules? I'm not talking about that. A mortal's killed you. A child by either of our standards."

I'm not dead.

"No? Every war has only one victor. It cannot be any other way. Their Logic is crude but the Hive, those poor misguided maggots, have the right of it. You lost. You're nothing more than winnings yet to be collected."

I'm. Not. Dead. Ikharos' eyes shone with violet. It went some way to clearing the crimson hues, until only the rolling blood-smoke of Nightmare remained.

"You're beaten," Rhulk sighed. He crossed his long legs and sat down beside him. "You lost. You fell."

So did you.

A chuckle escaped the Disciple's mask. "My mother. My father. The idea of dirtying their hands horrified them, but that which breaks makes us stronger. I was a good son. Proper. I showed them that."

You butchered them.

"I did what I had to. They lied. They pushed me. I fell - and that's on me. But I refused to die. I do not drown, child. I rise." He gave Ikharos a pitying look. "But not you."

Ikharos said nothing.

"I had the right of it. You bask in your pain. You like- no. No, you don't like it. But you hate the alternative. You hate to imagine you'll ever like inflicting it. So you take it into yourself."

I suffer so others don't have to.

"Oh, of course. That's what they'll say. The Lord Ikharos, the Dark Angel of the Burning Lake, is the shield in the Dark. The stopgap in Nezarec's game. And so here he lies, at the bottom of a cliff, bleeding out in protest of mortality." Rhulk scoffed. "You gave up the fight before it was over. You lost."

Ikharos' oaken hand rose to his throat, but he hesitated. Let go.

Rhulk snarled. "You can't even bring yourself to make another excuse."

I thought I was doing right.

"You were - up until the moment you second-guessed yourself." Rhulk looked away. "I fell, only to rise in vengeance. I destroyed it all - my kin, my clan, my world, until only I remained. I, last of Lubrae and its Ruin. And you - you snivelling, simpering little creature, you are all that remains of my legacy. You fell, struck down by those weaker than yourself. That city of yours will burn. It should've been you who started the flames." Ikharos levered himself onto his functioning elbow. Rhulk pressed his massive claws against Ikharos' chest. "No no no, sit back. Relax. Enjoy it while you can."

My Cabal-

"What, do they need you?" Rhulk cackled. "They'll die, child. The meagre ones always do. This universe isn't a kingdom, it isn't a race, it's nothing like that. It's a stage. We are the players. The insects you care for are nothing more than set dressing. Hollow distractions. Oh, certainly, something can be made of them but is that not true of any tool? If you truly care about them, leave them be. The Witness guides us towards a settled conclusion. Death makes equals of us all. Only then will they know an end to suffering. As will you."

It won't have them yet.

A couple of stones tumbled down the cliff face, followed by the close crack of twigs snapping underfoot.

"We'll see," Rhulk said. He winked with three eyes at once before dissipating like the morning mist. Ikharos braced against a tree and struggled to put his feet under him. He raised a hand to his neck-

"Jierda."

Incredible force smashed him against the tree, knocking the very air from his lungs. His head lolled back; through the haze of pain he glimpsed Formora, radiating with cold Darkness. Stasis crystalized along her arms.

"Brakka du aera ono taune."

His throat tightened. Ikharos clawed at it; he could scarcely draw enough breath to stay conscious.

"Ikharos," she said furiously. "Ono weohnata hórna eom edtha. Orono eka weohnata ach hvaëtsum ono weohnata néiat líki." (You will listen. Or I will do something you will not enjoy.)

The Void yawned around him. Ikharos turned to it in his desperation. His hand fell to the tree behind him and he fed richly from its living energies, using it to suffuse his blood with new strength even as the oak turned brittle with death. He struggled to his feet and turned his violet gaze towards the spells assailing him. Stasis plated the inside of his throat, lining cartilage with crystal and glass, reinforcing his windpipe until the spell's effectiveness was reduced to null. A flash of golden Solar repaired the worst of the damage, reknitting his vocal chords. "'Mora," he croaked; his voice was as rough as sandpaper. It rose with the taste of blood. "Enough."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't get to tell me that."

That was... fair. "I think," he said slowly, "there's been a miscommunication."

She raised Vaeta towards his chest, his heart. Formora smiled but it was without joy. "She warned me. Elisabeth. About you. I believed her then, but when you came to my care I allowed myself to doubt. Again and again I doubted. I should have listened."

"Elisabeth isn't always right," Ikharos retorted. "The company she keeps should inform you as much."

"But her warnings held true. Now I have to wonder if I've chosen the right monster."

"We don't have time for this."

"No." They glared at one another. "You're fortunate," she continued, her voice brusque. "For if you had killed either of them, I wouldn't be entertaining this conversation. You would be dead."

Ikharos scowled. "I never meant to harm the boy."

"No? You've left him with a concussion and a shattered wrist. You broke the dragon's wing, crippled one of her legs, almost opened her throat. These are not light wounds."

Ikharos glanced down and tapped one of the arrows still embedded in his chest. Sooner or later he was going to need to see to them. "They gave halfway as good as they got."

"You attacked them. Without rhyme or reason." Formora scoffed, though she eyed his wounds warily. "You do not have the luxury of a defence."

"A defence? That was a dragon."

"Yes! A dragon, here, free of the king's control! By luck, by miracle alone we find a second one on the cusp of reclaiming the first, and the first thing you attempt is to kill it."

"Dragons," Ikharos said slowly, enunciating each word carefully, "are unrepentant monsters."

She looked at him with such sudden sadness it made him uncomfortable. "I pity you," Formora whispered. "You, who sees solemn duty everywhere he goes. Who sacrifices everything for the present, never the future."

"I'm Risen. I wasn't put in this world to dance in a field of fucking daisies."

"Life is not its beginning. The past is a prison - one you've allowed to shackle you to a ruthless cause. Whatever prior feud lies between you and dragonkind, it is over."

"Some things," Ikharos said, "can't easily be forgotten. Nor forgiven."

"There's my guy," Lennox's Nightmare chuckled. She manifested at the edge of his vision. Formora's eyes flicked over to her.

"What is this?" she demanded. "A curse? Another power?"

"A Nightmare." Ikharos rolled his shoulders, banishing the last dregs of bodily injury with a flush of Light. "And no business of yours."

"No business!" Lennox-2 doubled over with laughter. "'No business' he says! Oh, the fucking irony, Ike!"

Formora set her jaw and gestured with Vaeta. "Who are you?"

Lennox sobered. "Little ol' me? Just the reason is all."

"The reason for what?"

"That ain't for me to say sweetheart."

Formora turned back to Ikharos but he ignored her. "I'm tired, Len," he groaned. "Don't do this to me."

"You want peace, Ike, it's back up that way." Lennox gestured up the cliff. "One little snip snip snip and you would've had its head."

"It... it was wrong."

"Sure, but that never stopped you before. It's a dragon, Ike." The Nightmare's bloody optics shone. They used to be yellow. "You know what they do. You know what they've done. Kill it."

"It's not that simple."

"No," Formora interjected. She looked ready to cut him down. "It won't be."

Lennox-2 rolled her optics. "Enough with the dramatics, honey. We get it, you're a dracophile; leave the rest of us out of it."

Formora's grip on Vaeta tightened.

"And Ike..." Lennox walked towards him until she was only a foot away. "Really? You can't even give me this?"

Ikharos regarded her solemnly. "You're not her. You won't ever be."

Lennox paused. "You're never going to get her back. Right now you have one job and that's damage control. Dragons kill. It's all they do. So stop them now or you'll lose more than you already have."

"It's a child, Len."

"When has that ever stopped you?" She tilted her plasteel skull. "You're going to die, Ike. You want this to be the last thing you do? Walk away from a fight with nothing to show for it? From a dragon you had dead to rights?"

"Fuck off."

"Ah, there he is. Nothing puts out that fire forever. Go on, get up there."

"No." Ikharos waved his hand through her. The Nightmare faded to mist, once more plunging the forest into silence.

Formora was the first to break it. "Ikharos," she said. She sounded exhausted. "What are we supposed to do now?"

He shook his head.

"You can make amends."

"Make amends? How's that going for you?"

She stiffened. "Do not be cruel. You have the capacity to be kind - kinder, even, than I. This facade of a monster ill-suits you. Discard it."

"No, 'Mora. Make amends? Sure - when the universe isn't about to implode, when the real monsters are dead, when we aren't plagued by dark forces set on turning us against each other, against ourselves. But until then all I can do is my fucking job."

"I won't let you hurt her."

"I'm not going to." He sighed. "You have your dragon, elf. Looks like it came with a Rider attached - that's what the boy is, isn't he?"

Formora's gaze darkened. "You've given up."

"Never," he snarled with sudden vehemence. How could she say that? "I'll never give up. So you take this chance, you grab your new price and you run with it. Because sooner or later I might see reason."

"See reason? I've been trying to help you from the moment we met." Her expression tightened. "Slytha."

The spell stuck his ward, so painstakingly crafted, and dissipated into nothing. "Not this time," Ikharos murmured.

Formora scowled. "So come willingly."

"You won't like that."

Her grip on Vaeta tightened. "I do not wish to come to blows," she said softly. "Not again."

"The choice is yours. Our time is through." He paused. "For what it's worth, and for all your... misguided priorities, I have grown fond of you. I'd rather you didn't force my hand."

Vaeta lowered. Formora exhaled sharply. "Fine," she said coldly. "Go, and take your hatred with you."

Ikharos stiffly inclined his head. He decided against having the last word; pettiness ill-suited him. He turned and allowed wings of golden flame to take him away. Not once did he look back.

---

The sky was bruised with angry clouds, perfect to blanket his flight. The storm had rolled in from the sea. If there was an omen there he was blind to it; all he saw was the potential to move unabated by hostile craft, surfing just beneath the raging nimbus. The southern slopes and peaks of the Spine flashed beneath him. It was solely because of the distance from the coast that he dared to turn to the Light. Even then he watched for a sign that someone, or something, had noticed, but all was mercifully clear.

He descended after two days of constant airtime, skin still tingling with static and wet with rain. His long hair was matted to his back in knots and Ikharos brushed his hand through it as he landed, touching down before a rough cliff. There was a small lake nearby. He thought he'd spotted a hamlet squirrelled away in the forest uphill, but he desired neither water to wet his throat nor human contact to engage his mind. His own company had always been enough. All he needed was shelter from the storm while he rested and waited for the Light to return to him.

Progress had been steady. He'd covered far more ground than if he'd walked, but the weather wouldn't hold. The moment the clouds scattered he would be grounded once more. To that end he searched and searched until he found a small dry cave conveniently devoid of life. He climbed inside nestled at the far end. Ikharos curled up into himself, cradling the core of his bodyheat. It wasn't so much the cold that bothered him as it was everything else - the soaked state of his clothes, the sheer exhaustion, the scarcity of power. All he needed was a little time to recover.

He stayed like that until sleep found him.

---

It was the feeling of wrongness that roused him. Ikharos sat up, instantly alert, and reached for his knife - only to reassure he was still alone. With a ragged sigh he leaned forward, closed his eyes and trembled with relief. He'd felt it coming but he'd been spared the nightmare, the illusion, the simulation. There was always next time (and by the Light he knew it would be next time), but that was weeks away. However long he could last before his body gave out and the curse caught back up.

He opened his eyes and found his hands bloody.

Ikharos dropped the knife. It gushed with red - his own, he thought firstly, but the pain never struck and there was no gash in his skin. He wiped it against his sleeves but it flowed and flowed, staining his tunic until it stuck to his skin, until he could smell nothing else, until it grew to drown-

His hands were whole. It was that realisation which banished the vision - that acknowledgement that he was changed, touched, intertwined with this new world. Where there should have been oak was flesh and blood. Ikharos' expression steadied. "This isn't real," he whispered, and looked up. A single eye stared back, pinned to a Psion's pallid face.

It wasn't one of his own. Its pupil was distorted; it had the shape of a hexagon in place of a Y. The garb it wore was no legion-stamped armour either, but a humble toga with an embroidered sash from its right shoulder to its left hip. The stranger was svelte like all its kind, but devoid of the whipcord physique Ikharos had come to expect of them. If anything, it appeared gaunt. Its skin was sunken around too-thin limbs, framing the cartilage beneath in discoloured splotches. The Psion's gills, spiracles in place where there should have been nostrils in a man, gasped wetly at the cool air. It leaned against the opposite cave wall and peered at him curiously, seemingly unarmed.

"Who are you?" Ikharos barked in Uluranth. It was as close as he could get to a universal Psion language without turning towards telepathy. To his surprise the stranger tilted their head, the corners of their mouth quirking up. A shudder ran through him; Psions did not smile. Their facial muscles were too different, the effort too painful, yet the stranger pulled black lips back over hard plated teeth in an approximation of a grin. Whispers emanated from around them - scraps of thought and dream, plucked from separate minds and left to echo in the space between them. A cacophony of voices rose to a deafening crescendo, battering against him until the words of Piirlaaks broke through and silence fell around them.

Shelbth is here.

Ikharos' eyes widened. The Psion's own danced with unreadable emotion. In it he glimpsed himself - still clinging to a tether linked to the Exodus Prime, a red flare in hand. It was the eye from the chaos that preceded the world. The very one that had cut through him, shredded his brain and almost killed him for the audacity of peering into the deep Dark.

"Shelbth," he whispered faintly.

The pupil shifted again. It was formed not from one single Y but many, linked together to create new shapes. A metaconcert of many, joined unto one. LIGHTSPAWN, it said. I SEE YOU.

Ikharos reached for his knife but it was conspicuously absent. His hands fell empty by his side. Not even the Light would spring to his fingers. "This is a dream," he mused aloud. "You've locked me in a dream."

The Psion's eye twinkled with dark humour. YOU HAVE BEEN SUMMONED.

"By whom? Xhafi?"

There was no further reply. Shelbth regarded him closely. Its form raised more questions than answers, but all the same it was telling enough.

"You're no Flayer, are you?" Ikharos tried to close his mental defences. The Psion remained. He rambled while he searched for a breach, plying the walls of his mind for a crack, a fracture in the Void coiled all around him. "I know Flayers. They're not this patient."

WILL YOU STRUGGLE?

Ikharos blinked. "You won't have me so easily. This limbo won't last-"

Shelbth's smile widened. He became aware of... something. A rising feeling of tension, coalescing all around. The air in his lungs grew crisp, dry, sharp. The rock at his back rumbled softly - as if something big, something buried was drawing breath. They were not alone - not he, not the Psion whose grip on his consciousness seemed so boundless. There was another. Watching. Xhafi, if he had to guess. The dream stank of acrid smoke, of choking ash, of coppery blood. Another sound, distant and muted, creaked through the mountain.

Ikharos, realising the scope of the trap, jerked with alarm. He lunged for Shelbth, caught them by their neck and slammed them against the cave wall with enough force to kill a mortal man - but the Psion kept smiling. SIT, it said. LAY DOWN. SET YOUR WEAPONS ASIDE.

"Let me go," he growled. "Let go!"

DEFIANCE WILL NOT SERVE YOU HERE.

He balled his hand into a fist and fired it into the Psion's chest, but its ribcage disappeared. His knuckles chipped on hard rock. The pain fired in the back of his brain, forcing a dull gasp of real, genuine air. Ikharos released the dissipating Shelbth and turned his fury upon himself. Shelbth launched at him, pale fingers tightening on his wrists, and pulled them from his own throat.

YOU ARE FLAWED. YOU ARE MINE. Shelbth's eye hovered above his own, twisting with innumerous wills combined. MINE. MINE. MINE.

"Jierda," Ikharos whispered. A crack momentarily pulled the illusion away - only for Shelbth to drag him back down. The Psion's body was diffusing into a different shape; more hands, more arms slithered from beneath its toga to take ahold of him, to pin him down. "Jierda. Jierda. Jierda."

Bones snapped. His own, far and away in realspace. Bit by bit the dream frayed at the edges, the cave and sky beyond melting into star-dappled black. He opened his mouth to finish the frantic incantation, but Shelbth reached for his face. Fingers parsed through his jaw, his skull, closed around his tongue and forced his teeth together, while others slipped up, up, up to caress his grey matter with sickening care. The spell died in his throat. The very idea of it was pinched away, flattened between Shelbth's consuming grasp.

MINE, it cooed. The eye fluttered with fingers of its own. MINE TO SHAPE. MINE TO FLAY.

"Not quite," an achingly familiar voice whispered. Red-wreathed arms curled around Ikharos's shoulders, claws turning into his flesh. "He's mine to torment. Mine and no other."

Shelbth shrieked. The sound split Ikharos apart, only for cutting pain to stitch him back together. Anchored to agony he rose, gasping, from the impromptu mindscape into realspace. The witch pulled her talons free and tugged him to his feet. Ikharos doubled over; his tunic was ruined, bloodied and torn beyond all recognition. His torso was a mess of fresh wounds; his arm and several ribs were broken as well. Crimson fingers tipped beneath his chin and forced him to look up. Dûl Incaru leered back.

"I am slain," she purred, heady with bloodlust, "and consumed. Don't you go forgetting to count your blessings."

He glared at her. "Crow," Ikharos shouted over his shoulder. A fluttering sound reached him. "Is the way clear?"

"No master!"

Ikharos turned. The crow was pinned to the cave floor by the paws of an abnormally large, long-limbed cat. Solembum. Angela sat beside them at the cave's entrance, a pair of needles and a length of yarn held slack between her hands. She stared at Dûl Incaru with open fascination.

"What are you doing here?!" Ikharos snapped.

Angela hesitantly waved. "Hi," she said. "That's... that's a red shadow."

She.. knew what a Nightmare was. A Nightmare. What- No, how had she caught up? How did she track him? What was she doing here?

"This is not a gift," Incaru continued. Her claws caught his chin and turned him towards her. Her hungry gaze bored into him. "It is a pact, formed in the Leviathan's belly, in the heart of a dead city's lost dream."

Ikharos shoved her hand away. "I'd be a fool to presume otherwise."

"You would be."

"Go fuck yourself."

Dûl Incaru laughed and kept laughing until the creaking noise overwhelmed all else.

"Oh dear," Angela muttered.

Solvent pooled, the Nightmare faded, and Zendolyn-Far burst through the witch's fading essence. Ikharos stumbled and tripped beneath the lunge, rolled aside as a bladed tail scored the ground where he'd stood, and threw himself past Angela and Solembum out onto the mountainside. He spread his burning wings but a cold, cold hand closed around his ankle and slammed him down onto the ground, dousing him in oily Dark. Ikharos, more on instinct than anything else, Blinked ahead and plummeted to the cliff-face, allowing the slope and gravity both to take him. He fell down the mountain face as fast as he could, bouncing and ricocheting off of trees, boulders, whatever wouldn't make way. Zendolyn-Far slipped after him with a furious cry, framed by the blaze of a wildfire his wings had inadvertently started.

Ikharos smashed into an old pine and managed to get both feet under him. He launched himself left and ran for north. He ran and ran until the trees gave way for wattle-and-daub huts, for the remnants of a wooden palisade, for horned men and women staring out of open doorways. A loop of Solvent rose to catch his ankle and Ikharos froze the ground solid to prevent himself from sinking into the black. His head chipped against the crystal and left his mind ringing. With a jerk he picked himself up and beheld an urgal spearwoman aiming a pike for his throat. She jabbed; he shifted, caught the weapon just beneath the steel head, and added his own strength into the thrust at the rising Zendolyn-Far behind him. It struck her open beak but her flesh turned to pitch black and it harmlessly passed through. Her claws flashed up to tug it out of his grip and toss it aside, rising to her full height.

"This is pointless," she hissed. Her armour pulled back from her head, unveiling her reptilian visage. "You play at a child's game."

He reached for his knife. On the edge of his vision Ikharos saw the gathered urgals hastily retreat - but all their faces resembled Shelbth's own, needling him with their cutting eyes. Pain blossomed at his temples; the unholiest headache hit him with jackhammer-force, driving him to his knees. He tried to raise the knife but Zendolyn batted it aside and drove her talons through his sternum, coiling around his ribs to lift him into the air. His feet dangled far above the ground.

Ikharos reached for her head and unleashed a river of flame. She released him - more out of surprise, he thought, than actual pain - and he staggered back, filling the wound in with restorative Light. Zendolyn recovered and lunged with her wrist blades engaged. He caught the first one with a knife, redirected it away from him, and stumbled away from the other. She followed him, chased down the dirt road, not giving him an inch of breathing space; Ikharos was forced to meet her every strike with growing desperation. One of the blades snuck under his guard and he was forced to grab it. The needle burst through the wood and bark of his living prosthetic and stopped millimetres from his eye. Zendolyn jerked forward; Ikharos turned it away and the needle scored a stinging cut along his skull. The wound flared with feeling of acid-burn.

"I gave you mercy," Zendolyn roared. His ears rang. "And you took my arm! My arm! No more!"

He leapt back as soon as he saw the tail swinging in. The bladed tip sang as it whipped for his neck, narrowly missing him. Ikharos tossed the knife, watched as it harmlessly passed through Zendolyn's Solvent-wreathed body, and caught it with his mind - and tugged it back as soon as the inky black melted from her. The blade plunged all the way into her back; Zendolyn jerked and fell away, sinking into the ground.

Taking the knife with her.

Ikharos rose into the air on golden wings and dragged the Darkness to him, allowing it to grow and heat up and take shape between his fingers. Twisting resonance expanded outwards, drinking in the cold and spitting it back out as steam. In mere moments the Ruin of Lubrae formed, its crescent head twinkling darkly in the morning light. Ikharos held it poised down at the ground and called to the Void. The earth yawned before him, violet digging straight to the bulb of Solvent beneath. He felt more than saw Zendolyn's surprise; she twisted to flee. Slabs of sharpened Stasis guillotined through dirt and stone to cut off all escape.

He dove.

The Solvent swallowed him whole. Ikharos shrouded himself in plates of Stasis to keep it from penetrating his flesh. He stabbed blindly into the shadow. The Ruin's heat bubbled around him but found no resistance. There were currents; he could feel something moving around him, swimming in the Solvent. Ikharos swung the glaive around him frantically in search but she was faster. A needle punctured his belly. Ikharos froze the implement solid, caught Zendolyn's wrist and heaved. With a single thunderous beat of his wings he wrestled the both of them from the ground. Zendolyn dangled, momentarily at a loss, before aiming at his head with her other blade. Ikharos caught it on the glaive's haft and locked it into place with shifting tines. She used the hold to lever herself up and close her jaws around his neck. Only the Stasis spared his throat. They fell again - this time onto a growing plane of crystal. Ikharos fired a punch against her head, her throat to little effect.

Zendolyn twisted her glaive-locked hand and the needle shattered, allowing her to grab his weapon and pin it to the ground. She rose over him, driving a knee down onto his hips and twisting it harshly. His makeshift armour was beginning to give. Ikharos had little clue whether the cracking sound was the Stasis or his bones - and he had little desire to find out. He released the Ruin and Blinked above her, catching a hold of the knife still planted beneath her shoulder, and used the sudden momentum of gravity to drive her down.

"Huildr!" Ikharos snarled. (Hold.)

Zendolyn writhed even harder. The spell struck her - and dissipated the moment it should have taken effect. Ikharos felt it. The drain, the impact, but it simply... cut off. Her tail coiled around his leg and pulled it from under him; Ikharos hit the ground on his back and frantically crawled away as Zendolyn righted herself. Her eyes bored holes in him. She burst forth, all rage and cutting edges, and he met her with a bolt of lightning. Whips of Arc lashed at her, drilled down through her flesh straight to her bones, and drove her away. Ikharos increased the voltage, the volume, funnelled his Light until he was just shy of a total Stormtrance. It wasn't enough to kill her. Certainly not with Shelbth still hanging on the edge of his vision. He needed an out - and he needed it quick. Ikharos turned his Light inwards and spread his wings-

Searing, blinding pain split him apart. Instinct told him he'd been shot. His sensorium mapped the pain and identified it as a high-calibre round. There was a hole in his chest and it was full of gushing red. One of his lungs had collapsed with it. Ikharos crashed to the ground, curled his arms over his head and kicked away. He hit a low stone wall and a series of shots followed him over it - one scoring along his back and other smashing his left shoulder to smithereens. Ikharos' vision swam. Flashes of colour spilled across his retinas: MY GIFT TO YOU. Only when the letters faded and the grimacing skull of an Exo filled his sight did he find the resolve to act. The woman tried to catch his throat but he batted the hand aside, shouldered her down and smashed his head against hers. His nose crunched, but her optics flickered out. There was another pain in his abdomen. She'd shot him on the way down. Ikharos snatched the sidearm from her twitching fingers and unsteadily rose to his feet.

A pack of Exos had pinned Zendolyn-Far to the Stasis patch. They worked at her with conventional arms and nanite bursts, shredding ground and air to keep her contained. She coated herself in Solvent but one of the Exos aimed with a modified Valkyrie and unleashed a suppressing field, stripping the black from her scales. Another pair turned in Ikharos' direction and without a moment's hesitation opened fire. The first burst drove what little breath he had left from him. The second all but tore him in two. Ikharos fired back - once, twice, and the Exos fell dead. He would have killed more but his trigger finger had grown too numb to move.

Ikharos collapsed on the Exo at his feet and hungrily plunged his hand into her, Devouring her until his organs were whole and torso was reunited with his shattered ribs. He rose again, face slick with blood and alkahest, and Blinked. Ikharos bisected one of the Valkyrie wielders from head to groin and caught its sceptre before it could fall. The others reacted quickly, as if they shared a mind, but he was faster yet. Resonance surged outwards, ripping them asunder and leaving them as little more than empty husks. Only once satisfied that those who could tear the Light from him were dead did Ikharos turn to the rest - and that became pitifully easy. Even armourless he was utterly beyond them, elevated by the Void's dark favour. Ikharos warded his flesh with the Ruin's force-shield which all but rendered him impervious to their causal means. One by one he teleported to them, hunted them down, killed and Devoured their remains to preserve what little Light he had left. Their guns resisted his attempts to turn them on their owners, instead beeping insistently the moment he took them up, but it was no loss. Raw power more than sufficed.

After that he turned to the Disciple.

Zendolyn-Far had crawled through the clouds of short-lived SIVA munitions to reach bare dirt but the suppression effect still had her in its grip. Her hide was perforated in a dozen places, bleeding an oily purple substance, and one of her Pyramid-plated gossamer wings had been torn to ribbons. Ikharos strode after her; she rolled to catch him with her talons, but bereft of her Dark she was mere mortal. Fast, yes, and strong, yet not quite as she once was. Ikharos allowed her claws to pass him by and swung the flat head of the Ruin against her leg. The bone snapped and Zendolyn collapsed in a heap. Before she could recover he kicked her over onto her side and took aim.

UNFLAYED, Shelbth whispered softly. The Psion knelt over her, keening sadly. LOST. NEVER TO BE REMEMBERED.

"Do it," Zendolyn hissed. Her voice was weak, strained.

Ikharos regarded her coldly. He wanted to. Traveler above he wanted to. It would have been just. It would have been right.

It would have been a waste.

He held down on the Valkyrie's trigger; she spasmed, mouth opening to issue a silent scream. "Slytha," Ikharos murmured. She fell still, eyes rolling back. Silence filled in the world; he looked around but the urgal denizens had fled. A couple of them laid dead, slain by Exo-fire. A blinking light caught his attention and he noticed a miniscule rocket embedded further down the dirt road, sprouting a weighted antenna. A transmat beacon. He followed the trail of smoke from atmospheric entry up to the false stars.

They were watching.

Ikharos raised his hand and gave them the one-fingered salute. The beacon flashed but before another squad could translate through he consumed it with a vortex of crushing indigo. That left him and the Disciples. Shelbth stood up, still watching him with a smile. MALICE BEGETS MALICE, it said. It extended its fingers in seeming invitation. FOR STRENGTH WORTH REMEMBERING, WE MAY FIND ACCORD. COME FREELY; BE FREE.

"Funny how that works out," Ikharos said drily. He raised his glaive. "Get out of my head and I'll consider it."

The Psion grinned. A FALSEHOOD UTTERED FROM THE LIPS OF A LIAR. ONLY IN TRUTH CAN ALL BE JOINED. THE OFFER IS RETRACTED.

"It wants to claim you," the witch's Nightmare hissed. Her chin rested on his shoulder. "It does not know you are already claimed."

Ikharos saw how Shelbth's eye flickered over to her. "It knows," he said. "It doesn't care."

Shelbth inclined its head. FLAYED, it said, and disappeared to the aether. Leaving him to his torments. With a sigh Ikharos looked down at Zendolyn. She was too large to physically carry. With that leg she wasn't going to be walking soon either. Odds were she could still swim through Solvent - but that defeated the whole purpose of depriving her of her powers. He looked around the hamlet, found a hut with some wooden walls and carved one out. It came easily. He laid the board out onto the ground, chipped some holes in one end and set about moving her onto it. After that he searched around until he found a length of chains. He sectioned off enough to loop around Zendolyn's wrists and froze each end together; the rest he attached the wooden board and hoisted over his shoulder, creating a makeshift sled. Only when he'd finished did the exhaustion hit him. His vision swam and his teeth chattered; a biting feeling spread through his abdomen. His skull still pounded to Shelbth's cruel tune.

Soon he became aware of a soft sound - footfalls, too loud to be Formora, or any other like her for that matter, but certainly no urgal. "Angela," he breathed out.

She stood off to the side, Solembum with her. The werecat had his crow's neck in its mouth. Still alive, still operational, but its eyes sparked and its limbs were frozen in place. You look surprised, human, the cat teased.

Ikharos aimed the Valkyrie. Neither of them seemed all that impressed, but it was becoming harder and harder to tell what with his fading health. He needed to eat. To Devour. To carve out a piece of the world in sacrifice for his own survival. The yearning left his hands shaking. "I was content to leave you be," he whispered faintly. "But now I need answers."

Angela glanced past him. "You're swinging the wrong way."

"What?"

"I think I know what you are."

"What would that be?"

"Risen." "

Ikharos scowled. "Why didn't you say sooner?"

"I don't like... to draw their attention."

He followed her gaze to Zendolyn. "She swung first," Ikharos said.

Angela nodded. "I believe you."

"The rest are dead."

"She's not?"

"I want answers." He pointedly motioned with the Valkyrie. "And I'll get them, one way or another."

Angela nodded again. "I'll provide what I can."

"Don't like that tone."

"I'm not as much in the know as you might be hoping."

What are you going to do with... that? Solembum inquired distastefully. Zendolyn-Far exhaled softly and the cat raised his hackles.

"I guess we'll find out," Ikharos replied.

"I'll be happy to talk," Angela said suddenly, glancing around, "but not here."

"No."

"Ikharos-"

"The past couple of weeks have been real shitty for me," Ikharos growled. "I'm not moving until I'm given assurances."

She inclined her head. "Vae hávr néiat kausta eom haina ono." (We are not here to offer harm.)

"Then why are you here?"

Angela hesitated. "We," she said, then glanced at Solembum. "I... want to... Eka want eom hórna onr sága."

He stirred, momentarily taken off guard. "You want... what's that last word?"

"Sága. Tale."

"You want... to hear my tale?" he said slowly.

Angela nodded readily. "I like to be where interesting things happen," she said, smiling hopefully. "You're interesting."

Ikharos tiredly lowered the Valkyrie. "That's it? You could have stayed with Formora for that."

"Ah, you know how it is. You've seen one dragon, you've seen them all."

"But… how are you here? I flew three days straight."

Angela waggled her fingers. "Magic."

"Seriously."

"I'm always serious."

He sighed. "Fine. Elsewhere." Ikharos cast a final look around. The hamlet was... well, he wasn't proud of it. The urgals had some rebuilding to do. He hadn't intended to draw them into it. Finally he turned back to the makeshift sled and steeled himself. Ikharos allowed the Ruin to fade but he found a strip of leather to fix the Valkyrie to his back. He needed it. If Xiān could replicate it...

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Angela asked, oddly concerned.

Ikharos scooped a handful of hard dirt and gave it to the Void. A flush of renewed vigour suffused his muscles. "I'll last," he grunted. Sparing one last suspicious look their way, he shouldered the sled's reins and they left the hamlet behind.

---

AN: Many thanks to Nomad Blue for editing (both the original version and this dramatically rewritten version)!

It wasn't the hardest chapter to get through, but I hated how rough it was at first. Still took longer than I'm happier with, but it's a chunker so I'm waving it off as not a total waste of time. Plus it finally links up with IC's main storyline, shakes some of Ike's beliefs and shares a little more on the Disciples/Exos (which should become much clearer in the next couple of chapters). Angela was surprisingly refreshing to write for.

I originally intended in the old version of this chapter, before it even reach mah editor's eyes, that Ike would mess around with magic to change his biology - because that's just the kind of thing that would fascinate an old warlock. Didn't fit the pace of things or even his current frazzled mindset though. Maybe later.