Peculiar Soul - Chapter 70: What They Offer

Chapter 70: What They Offer

One summer day, the tortoise came upon a village of men. He saw that they had cleared away the sweet brush of the forest and laid fences around their lands, that none might walk on the crops they jealously guarded. He saw that they took animals from the forest and ate them, and chopped down the mightiest trees.

The black hound saw the tortoise watching and came up to greet it, but was surprised to find the tortoise full of ire against the men and their village.

The tortoise asked with anger why the men despoiled the forest, which was older than they and should remain unchanged by their hands.

To the surprise of the tortoise, the hound smiled. He said that there is balance in all things. The boar uproots the forest even as the tortoise packs it down in its passing. The white wolf harries the flocks, and the black hound protects them. The raven brings light where the mockingbird hides shadows. All was balanced – save for man.

The tortoise agreed, his anger rising. Man had no notion of order, and therefore no place in the world.

The hound gave a sly smile and said he had a riddle for the tortoise, and stated it thus: what opposes order?

– Pre-Gharic Ardan manuscript, vellum, c. 500 PE

The morning came cold, with the promise of frost well before the month that bore its name. Michael rose early to trudge by the makeshift mess the Mendiko had erected just back from the front lines. It was little more than a pair of soldiers parceling out field rations over a scrounged table, though they had likewise found a tablecloth and an ornate, chipped place setting; the whimsy brought a smile to Michael’s face as he received the drab-wrapped ration.

It did little to improve the taste. He grimaced through his breakfast and chased it with tepid water of no clear provenance before making his way to Antolin’s command tent, where there was at least a tea service. He accepted a cup gratefully before joining the senior staff around the map table.

There was a bit more Mendiko gold on the map than there had been the prior night, though Safid blue predominated. Particular emphasis was given to a bulbous holdout in the northern districts of the city, situated directly atop the intersection of the city’s outer ring road and the road branching off to parts north.

“Out of the question,” one of the officers said. “They can reinforce from the north as long as it’s there, no matter if we take the city center. They know it, too.” He tapped the holdout impatiently. “It has to come down, or we risk any forward elements that push west of it.”

“I’m not disagreeing,” a second said. “But I’m wondering how you suggest we address a holdout that made pintxos of the Third Armored. We can’t bring overwhelming force down those streets, there are too many chokepoints.”

“Then we find overwhelming force that fits.” Michael found a disconcerting number of eyes sliding his direction. “Good morning, jauna.”

“Please, it’s Michael,” he said, taking a position by the table. “And if you’re looking for a man to lead an assault on a fortified position, you probably want anyone but me.” He gave the assembled officers a sheepish smile. “I’m not what you would call an expert.”

One of Antolin’s staff snorted, scratching at his scarred chin. “Lowest casualty rate of the expeditionary groups yesterday, though,” he pointed out.

“I daresay that was a fluke,” Michael replied. “I pulled them forward from their lines with a bit of trickery, but I’m unsure if I can duplicate that – or how well it would work against a larger, more disciplined group.”

The officers shifted to permit Antolin entry to their conference; the grand marshal looked as though he might have contemplated sleep at some time during the night, though Michael doubted he had done more than that. “I doubt the same trick will be effective twice,” Antolin sighed. “To be clear, I’d still like to try it.”

Michael frowned. “I’m happy to shout my name at them all day, but then what?”

Antolin tapped his finger on the table in a slow, steady rhythm. “If it draws some of them forward, so much the better; at a minimum I’m hoping it places them in some measure of disarray. After that we’ll send the First and Ninth Armored groups to take the northern highway. That will rob them of an avenue for reinforcement, and allow us to place more guns on target.” He shrugged. “Then we shoot them for a while, and see how that goes.”

“The grandmaster delivers another stratagem,” an officer muttered, to general amusement.

Antolin joined in the laughter, running a hand through his iron-grey hair. “I don’t pretend to any sophistication,” he admitted. “This is a hardened position, we learned that much yesterday. I propose to see just how hard.”

“And if tanks prove ineffective?” one of the staff asked. “All indications are that the Safid have ensouled to spare, certainly enough to keep us from seeing our targets. The entire plaza is obfuscated out to the Rue Darressain.”

“Then we revise our plans,” Antolin said, looking back to the east, where the low bulk of the airship reflected morning sunlight across the haze. “This is a city, gentlemen, and not a fortress. I will not authorize an escalation in force before we’ve exhausted less-destructive options.”

The grand marshal met Michael’s eyes. “But if the Safid force me to repave that plaza with ash and glass, I have the means to do so. It’s undesirable for a variety of reasons, but if it proves necessary then that will be our resort. We will take this city.” He looked around the table at his officers. “Momentum is our ally and it must remain so. Taskin would like nothing more than to harry us with narrow streets and the spectre of civilian casualties until our morale is broken, to drive us out and crow from the rooftops that he has been tested by mighty Mendian and emerged victorious.”

Michael nodded along with the rest, though there was a sour taste in his mouth. Antolin noticed; he favored Michael with a look. “You have misgivings?” he asked.

“Always,” he said, trying for a wry note; he was not sure he had succeeded. Michael looked around at the gathered staff, taking a moment to try and pin his nebulous worries into words. After a moment, he sighed and shook his head. “It’s a losing proposition for the Safid.”

The officer with the scarred chin raised an eyebrow. “I should certainly hope so,” he said.

Antolin waved down the scattered chuckles that followed, his eyes staying on Michael. “Settle,” he admonished them, then lowered his hand. “Explain your thought.”

Michael frowned. “Saleh wants a crowning victory,” he said. “A decisive battle, his strength against ours. So far he’s retreated, harassed our advance with expendable troops, done everything in his power to arrange the eventual confrontation so that it will come at a moment and place of his choosing.” He leaned forward and tapped his finger on the blue expanse of the plaza. “So either he’s chosen this place, or this isn’t the fight you think it is.”

There was quiet around the table as Antolin nodded, his eyes drifting down to the plaza. “A fair comment,” he acknowledged. “But those are far from the only explanations. Taskin’s absence from this fight has been notable; I find it increasingly unlikely that he’s in direct command. But if this is his doing, and the holdout is more than what it appears – then he already has us. We have no path forward that does not involve clearing this northern access to the city, save for withdrawing back to Leik.”

The grand marshal shrugged, his face contorting into a rare smile. “I have no doubt that Taskin has unpleasantness in store for us. But – men like him relish playing the puppetmaster, pulling a string and watching the world dance along. He crafts this legend of himself because it is a weapon. There is a fine line between guarding against his tricks and perpetuating them.”

“So we attack?” Michael asked. “Though it may be a trap?”

“Though it may be,” Antolin sighed. “At the end of the day all men live in the same world. We have the advantage here. Cleverness will allow the Safid to delay, to inflict pain, to make this span of days indelible in our memory as among the worst we’ve lived – but the days will pass, and their loss will arrive all the same.”

Michael held Antolin’s gaze for a quiet moment, then nodded. “I suppose I should prepare to leave,” he said. “We’re going now?”

“Unless you have other pressing business,” Antolin said dryly.

“Nothing comes to mind.” Michael pressed his lips together, looking out the flap of the tent; it drifted in the chill breeze, letting in scraps of the dawn. “To the north, then.”

The road to the plaza was choked with Mendiko armor, their guns trained westward toward the offending plaza. They stopped well short of it; a few burning hulks still blocked the road where the prior advance had failed, the street beyond them strewn with rubble and hastily-erected barricades.

Even from this distance Michael could see the massive gouges in the wrecked tanks’ armor. Scorchmarks marred their exterior, and patches of black and silver showed where the metal had melted to drip down onto the street, forming fresh shining cobbles atop the road surface.

“Scalptors, calorigens,” Michael muttered. “Lucigens?”

“A few.” Antolin grimaced, gesturing to charred lines etched into nearby building facades. “Perhaps only one that can address armor, from their sparing use. Three or four scalptors of comparable power; those were the bulk of our casualties on the first attempt.” He gestured to the open space beyond the tanks, a seemingly-empty plaza that seemed to slide away from Michael’s vision when he focused on it. “They have a fairly comprehensive obfuscation of the plaza as a first layer of defense. I would expect mundane fortifications reinforced by a cadre of fortimentes comparable in skill to the others. If we could see them to concentrate fire, that might be surmountable with tanks alone. As it stands – we may need Leire to break this position.”

Michael’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I thought you were reluctant to use her in the city,” he said. “That you doubted her restraint.”

“I am,” Antolin sighed. “And I do. But this morning’s foray is all the delay I am willing to tolerate. We will pay in Mendiko lives for the chance at sparing this city her destruction; we will lose far more if our advance is stalled against Safid positions.” He met Michael’s eyes. “I hope you find a more palatable solution today. If not, however – she has always been our final option.”

A quiet, sick feeling took hold in Michael’s stomach; he nodded. “All right,” he said, turning towards the front. “Anything else I should know, before I stir them up?”

Antolin shook his head; he said nothing more. Michael inclined his head and turned to walk towards the front. Soldiers huddled behind tanks, watching him pass. Their muffled trepidation and awe made an uncomfortable backdrop as he walked down the clear center of the road. Before long he was past the forward element, standing among the smoldering wreckage of the last assault. The smell of burnt oil and fuel choked the air, the faintest undercurrent of charred meat churning his gut.

He pushed it aside and stood before the plaza. Now that he was standing close he could make out the edges of the obscured area more clearly. To his eyes it appeared normal, if preternaturally still. In Stanza’s mirror-light, however, it was a silent void amid the lambent curves of the city outside.

Michael raised his head. His thoughts were unsettled, churning at the destruction – at the prospect of more, should Leire intervene. He imagined the plaza as a burning pit, the buildings around it reduced to slag. “Sera,” he murmured. “Are you with me?”

“Always.” Her voice came in a quiet buzz by his ear. “If I see an opening, I’ll wreak what havoc I can. Be careful.”

He almost laughed. “I don’t think that’s the plan,” he said, spreading his arms and taking a step forward. Michael focused on the unfortunate passage from Saleh’s book, warning of a calamity that would undo the world. The words resonated within him in the quiet tones of his own speech – and then something more as he found the voice of the man the Safid feared within him.

“I am Michael Baumgart,” he said, quiet and deafening. “Come forward and be tested.”

His heart beat out a steady count; no movement came from the deadened air of the plaza.

“Come forward,” he said again, taking another step. The cloaked area filled his vision, making his head swim. It was comparable to staring directly at Sobriquet’s avatar; a dull ache had taken root behind his eyes. “Be tested against the Heart-”

There was only the barest whisper of air before a blade lashed out to take him across the stomach. He felt the sting of it, his arm coming up instinctively to cover his gut. Before he had completed the motion another blade came, and another. There was real power behind the attacks; despite his potens soul, Michael saw his skin redden where he was struck. A thin line of blood welled up on his exposed flesh.

Michael spat a quiet imprecation and stepped backwards, shielding his eyes. The attacks continued unabated. Shreds of his uniform dropped to the ground, the toe of his boot skittering away across the road. There was a lurch in the skein of mirror-light, a sudden blast of chill air before a lance of burning white shot forth from the plaza to impact his chest; Michael grunted and staggered back. It hurt, the light searing his skin, setting the rags of his shirt alight. He choked on air that reeked of smoke and burnt hair, his focus fled against the sudden burst of pain, a noise he couldn’t quite hear echoing in his ears-

The light slid into deep jeweled tones before the world around him dimmed. The blistering pain of the attack faded, replaced by an all-encompassing heat. Michael felt it flowing into him, overflowing, the forge-bright glare of it all he could see. He tasted blood and hot metal. Almost by reflex he pushed back against the torrent of light pouring forth from the plaza; the heat followed his will easily. Cobbles cracked and chipped, the thin traces of dirt between them belching steam.

Still the light continued; still the heat replied. Michael’s mind drew clear of the panicked reflex that had grasped him – now he wielded Vincent’s soul with deliberation, narrowing the outpouring of heat, focusing it.

The light cut off, though the airy blades of the scalptors continued to harass him; Michael swept the dwindling blast of heat left towards where he thought they might be. The forge dimmed. He settled Vincent’s soul back into quiescence and took a step back, then another. The blades pelted him like a hailstorm, drawing welts and small bloody creases across his chest. One laid into his cheek, another across the hand shielding his eyes.

Abruptly, the assault ceased; Michael watched as the blades careened past him to impact one of the smoldering tanks, rending another gash in the ruined armor. He hastily stepped backwards, his breath coming fast; the Safid attack burst forth for a few more moments before faltering, a few confused-feeling slashes sweeping down the avenue before it ceased entirely.”

“You idiot,” Sobriquet murmured in his ear. “I tried to mask you but it doesn’t help much if you don’t move afterwards. Didn’t you hear me?”

Michael shook his head, panting. “Sorry,” he gasped. “Got distracted.”

She snorted. “You look like you’ve been whipped,” she said.

“It’s a nasty habit of mine,” Michael replied, straightening up to look at the plaza; it had returned to its eerie stillness. “That didn’t work nearly as well as I had hoped.”

Sobriquet’s avatar formed beside him, looking out at the plaza. “It was worth a try,” she said. “It would have been better to cut the Safid out from the city.” She looked towards the east.

Michael followed her gaze. They could not see the airship’s silver bulk, but he knew that he would soon enough. “Now we’ll have to burn them out,” he murmured. “Are you okay with this? If we follow Antolin’s plan I don’t know how far the devastation will spread.”

“The buildings around the plaza are deserted,” Sobriquet said, sounding weary – defeated. “I looked. The fighting has been intense here, nobody in their right mind would stay. I helped a few holdouts on their way, they had nightmares of dying in the crossfire all last night.”

“Good of you,” Michael grunted, straightening up. “So this is happening, then.”

“I’ll take Daressan ashes over a Safid city,” Sobriquet said grimly. “We can rebuild. But first – we have to win.”

Michael kept his sight trained on the rooftops, watching until the silver curve of the airship poked over the battered stonework. It rose slowly, quietly, with none of the fanfare that had accompanied the attack on Leik. The halfhearted attempt at shelling the Safid had stalled quickly; the ease with which the Safid had repulsed Michael’s attack had convinced Antolin that mere guns were no solution.

He paced into the middle of the street, resisting the urge to scratch at his wounded chest; he had addressed the bleeding, but there were still tight, itchy welts crossing his skin. He would need to see Luc – except that Luc was gone now. Michael paused, frowning, then shook his head and looked back up at the airship.

It approached, an ominous thunderhead in the clear sky. He strained his sight and saw Leire walk out to her platform below the ship. There was no preamble, no speech about mercy or rationale.

She lifted her arm, and the world turned white.

Michael cursed and turned away, even his spector sight rebelling against the overwhelming radiance that crashed down upon the plaza. The beam of light became diffuse where it hit the Safid perimeter, the image of the empty plaza wavering – but remaining improbably intact.

Snowflakes swirled in the hot wind that coursed down the street, hissing where they struck the cobbles closest to the stubborn, peaceful illusion. There was a low thrum, a vibration in the air as if a giant hand had plucked a string; the radiance intensified.

Still the illusion persisted, the plaza showing peaceful and empty to Michael’s eyes even as plumes of steam and smoke glittered in the air above Leire’s shining attack. Sharp cracks sounded from nearby buildings as window glass shattered, smoke curling up from doors and trim. The light of the sun poured into Imes, an incandescent cascade that roared its fury in the twisting of tortured air.

But something more came from the plaza, something light and melodic; Michael frowned and turned towards the sound, straining his ears even as he began to feel a pain beneath his ribs. The image of the plaza dissolved before his eyes, sunny idyll transforming into a blasted expanse of soot and ash. Leire stopped her attack as it fell, and Michael saw the destruction she had wrought.

The plaza had been utterly annihilated, blackened where it did not glow a dull and shimmering red. The remnants of something metal had flowed into a smooth heap, and a hundred fires guttered from unidentifiable remnants.

And in the center of it all, surrounded by sickly-sweet ash and charred bone, Amira stood laughing at the sky.

Michael’s heart pounded against the ache in his chest as he saw her, fear nibbling at the edges of his awareness. It was not her face that he recognized, nor her form. Both were blackened and seeping fluid, crimson dribbling down between charred scales of flesh. Her hair and clothing had been scorched away, the last remnants of them sloughing off as she spread her arms wide.

Her stance, though. Her solidity. Michael felt that in that instant the trappings of humanity had been burned away from an already-inhuman creature, leaving only the adamant soul to stand, exultant.

“I am tested by the light!” she shrieked, her voice a rasping horror, gibbering merrily forth amid peals of laughter. “I am tested, and I stand!” She threw her head back and screamed incoherent joy at the sky.

Then she turned, body quivering with manic release; her eyes found Michael. He met her gaze. For a moment neither moved. A spasm pulled at her face; the remnants of Amira’s lips peeled back. White, even teeth stood out in a rictus grin against the bloodied charcoal of her visage.

She said nothing.

Michael stood transfixed as she turned and sprinted to the west, her feet hissing against the glassy remnants of the plaza and drawing bloody footprints in the thin coat of frost that had formed in the streets outside. She ran, quiet and fluid as ever – and then she was gone.

The remainder of the Safid force lay smoldering before him. Michael took a few steps forward, feeling dazed; he felt the heat of the stone through his boots, the tumultuous air pelting him with snow and hot melted spray; a wind had grown up around them. A wall of clouds loomed above the buildings, circling the airship.

The storm twisted and grew, but Michael did not have eyes for it. At least a hundred Safid lay in contorted poses before him, their bones pulled into painful rigor by the heat of the fire or shattered into fragments. The echoes of their death still resonated painfully in his chest, seeming to swell as he stepped closer.

Amira had held here with them, protected them from Leire until she herself was half-dead – then they had died, and she had fled laughing. His mind could not make sense of it, swirling along with the tempest. The pain beneath his ribs spiked; Michael grimaced. He tore his eyes from the bodies and looked back up to the storm, watching it swirl closer to the outlying edge of the city. It was angry, grey and dark at its heights with a billowing pale fog chasing the lower edge, bleeding closer to the city with each passing moment.

Michael turned to walk back towards the Mendiko and stumbled as the pain in his chest swelled further still.

“Michael!” Sobriquet called out, hovering close, her spectral form bent over his.

“Something’s wrong,” he gasped, straining to walk back to the Mendiko lines. “There’s – death. It’s too much, I-”

His vision swam. All he could see was the encroaching storm wall, the pale haze at its base sweeping into the city on the wind. A faint acrid scent touched his nose, worming its way through the smoke and char.

Sobriquet’s avatar froze. “No,” she rasped in horrified realization. “The lunatics, Ghar’s fucking bones, the Safid – They’re gassing the city. Michael, you have to get up. Get back to the Mendiko. You don’t have a mask, the wind is drawing the gas inward-”

Michael struggled forward, the pain driving spikes through him with each step. He barely heard Sobriquet as she shouted – then she was gone, flitting away towards the Mendiko lines.

The snow fell. Michael fell with it. He felt the warmth of the cobbles beneath one cheek and the cool brush of winter on the other. His right hand clutched spasmodically, the left numb and burning at once. The pain had transcended itself, vibrating through his bones and singing its truth into his mind. He could not think; he could not move.

He could only close his eyes, and let it take him away.

Michael could not enjoy the gentle breeze that blew through the garden, ruffling the leaves of the orchard and setting the grass alight with hypnotic waves. He could not relish the smell of flowers, nor find peace in the deep, earthy scent of the forest. The blue sky was lost to him, the swelling fruit no more than meaningless color.

He sat surrounded by beauty and shivered. Quiet footsteps drew up behind him. A shaky smile pulled at his lips, jitters of nervous energy infecting his breath.

“I can’t do it,” he murmured. “You’re here to tell me that I have to accept this, that I’m more than I believe myself to be.” He turned to look at the quiet old man standing behind him.

Jeorg smiled. “No,” he said. “You know that already.” There was a quiet grunt of effort as the old man lowered himself to the grass beside Michael. “Just here to say that you’re being rude.”

Michael couldn’t help but laugh, a sickly thing that skittered across the fields like a tide of spiders; the trees jumped in a sudden breeze, the grassy waves dissolving into windblown chaos. “Rude,” he said. “Rude. Of course not. Wouldn’t want to be impolite. Wouldn’t want to mar all of this death and destruction with incivility, that wouldn’t be – wouldn’t be proper, now would it?”

“Days like today need that consideration more than most,” Jeorg said. “Acknowledgement. Recognition of the human.” He turned his head to look behind them. “You’re frightened. It’s reasonable. But – so are they.”

A shiver crept up Michael’s spine; he was suddenly very aware of the space behind him, a patch of grass he had steadfastly kept from his sight. It pulled at him, numb and blank – but not empty. Slowly, he turned around.

Nine small flames burned on the grass.

Some were steady, others flickered fitfully in an imagined breeze. Each was subtly distinct from the rest, variant in color and shape. Michael watched them dance on the grass for a long moment, and wondered who they had been before they died.

There was a blurring of the grass; Michael found that he was closer to the flames than before. He reached out towards the nearest – and paused. Now that it was outstretched, he saw that his left hand was a tapestry of bruises, blood caked under his fingernails and glistening still-wet across his skin. He withdrew it, wondering, but the fire flared and keened upon the grass. Now that he was closer, there was a palpable distress in its movements, lingering on the air with unpleasant and oily persistence.

He reached out with his right hand, his fingers trembling as they passed through the ghostly pale tongues of fire. Flashes of memory passed through him: a childhood in a small Daressan farmhouse, replaced shortly thereafter by ash and blood wearing Safid uniforms. Death crowding in around him until only grim violence was left, a hardened existence that grew in the space between patrols and encampments.

And there was a softening, a remembrance. Revenge was tempered with the recognition that what he had known in his childhood was better – the love, the peace. He wanted it again, wanted to reach back for those shattered fragments of Daressa-that-was. Many of his companions scoffed at it, but he tried to believe that he fought for more than spite.

That quiet hope blossomed into an inferno when Mendiko steel rolled across the border, Safid and Ardan alike fleeing before the implacable tide. The Mockingbird rode at their head, emerging from the shadows where she had always watched in silent guardianship over true Daressan patriots. Many took her emergence as a sign, redoubling their calls for blood – but not him. He had rested overlong in the forge of revolution, grown brittle among the coals. That dream from childhood found another figure standing by the Mockingbird’s side, a man who fought with gentled hammerblows and usurped enemy legends in service of his own. A savior-killer, wielding the souls of those who held freedom dear.

The paradoxical image burned bright in his mind, persisting even as the air turned pungent and sharp, setting his lungs afire; choking, dying, one last velvet thought crept forward.

He hoped that the legends were true.

Michael stiffened, feeling the flame seep into him, spreading with uncomprehending joy until it nestled next to Clair and Vincent in his chest. There was a lingering pain, though, a discomfort Michael could not dispel – that swelled slightly with every heartbeat. He rubbed his breastbone lightly, frowning, then turned to Jeorg.

“But I didn’t know him,” he whispered. “And he didn’t know me, not really. We’d never met, and probably never would. There’s no – there’s no reason for it.” He looked towards where the flame had been, feeling the pain intensify within him. “That man he saw wasn’t me.”

“Even the man you see isn’t you,” Jeorg chuckled. “He saw clearly enough. Held you in his thoughts. Affinity isn’t knowledge, or familiarity. It’s using another life as a support for your own. Leaning on them, trusting in the bedrock of who they are. Roots tangled together.” He nodded towards the remaining flames. “And then becoming one, when all but the bond is lost.”

Michael frowned. “They’re shaping themselves against a fiction,” he said. “A legend.”

“Real enough,” Jeorg grunted. He walked over to stand beside a low and guttering flame that danced across the top of the grass in time with the wind. “This one.”

“What’s different about it?” Michael asked. When Jeorg did not reply, he tentatively reached his hand out, feeling the cool brush of the fire over his fingertips-

Another sleepy Daressan childhood flashed before his eyes, another dissatisfied young man growing up under an oppressive boot – Ardan, this time, rather than Safid. His life was not so horrible as to drive him into the arms of the resistance, however – his village displayed its quiet signs of disobedience, but never enough to bring consequences down upon them.

One day, however, the Ardan forces convulsed in disarray. The town found itself menaced by a battalion of troops gone mad, obruor-touched. He was in the midst of working up his courage to join the defenders when the news came from outside of town – the afflicted Ardans had been quieted by one man with a strange soul. It inflamed his curiosity, and so he went to the tavern when he heard the man had arrived there-

“Wait,” Michael breathed, his exhalation rich with the flame as it settled into him. “I remember this. I know him. He spoke to me in the tavern that day – Marc.” He watched the tongues of fire sink beneath his skin, flexing his fingers. “His name was Marc. But that was far east of here.”

“Meeting you changed his life,” Jeorg said. “Gave him the fire he had been missing. He saw a poster, traveled to Leik – then to Imes. Running messages, helping with evacuations. He saved lives.”

“And lost his own.” Michael frowned, slouching forward. “Jeorg, I basically killed this man. He would be alive and well if he had never met me.”

Jeorg snorted. “The Safid bear no blame, then?” he asked. “Or the young man himself? He traveled to a war zone. Men die in such places.” He crouched down beside Michael, carrying the subtle fragrance of pipe smoke with him. “Weren’t you the one who determined that it was better to die as you should be rather than live an aimless half-life until the void claimed you?”

“That’s – not even remotely the same thing,” Michael retorted, mopping a thin sheen of sweat from his brow. “He changed his life after he met me, and as a result he died.”

“Yes – he changed his life,” Jeorg said. “He changed. Not you. There was no Spark. It was his decision alone.” The old man settled down onto a nearby rock. “You know he doesn’t regret it. It’s all there, in you. They all are.”

Michael’s breath hissed out of him in a rush as jumbled memories surged past his vision; the flames that had been on the grass surged within him. Mendiko soldiers, Daressan resistance – there were no faces in the torrent of impressions that buffeted his mind’s eye. He writhed on the grass, his back arching with each draught of embers in his chest. It pulsed within him – warm, alien, beyond anything Clair and Vincent’s flames had inflicted upon him.

“What-” he gasped, his speech mangled by a raw throat. “I can’t – Jeorg, please.” He sank to the grass, feeling weak, ravaged. “It burns.”

“Why?” Jeorg asked, sitting nonchalantly on the grass beside him. “These souls aren’t like Galen’s. No malice. No hatred.” He took a slow puff on his pipe. “But you won’t let them in, not truly.”

Michael grit his teeth, looking at Jeorg through the haze of smoke wafting up from his body. “Doesn’t – make sense,” he rasped.

Jeorg shrugged. “Doesn’t make sense to you,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to. These people were drawn to you, Michael.” He tapped his pipe empty, then stowed it into his jacket. Slowly, he leaned forward to look Michael in the eye. “They died for you. You respected Galen’s hate enough to destroy him. You could accept hate. But this?”

“W-why-” Michael could utter no more than the one halting word before the pain grew too great, his body seizing in the grasp of it. He was dimly aware of Jeorg kneeling beside him, of a weathered hand sliding under his back.

Jeorg raised him upright until his face was level with Michael’s own; his windburnt lips bore a sad smile. “My dear boy,” he murmured. “I wish I truly were Jeorg. You might have listened to him more readily.”

Michael lay in his arms, shivering uncontrollably, his mind afire with conflict, grasping at an understanding that slipped further away with every attempt. He didn’t-

“-understand, I know,” Jeorg said. “You hid that part of yourself away first, long before the others. The lesson you learned from your father. Ricard couldn’t undo it. Nor Sera, as much as you deluded yourself. You still couldn’t understand.”

He pulled Michael into a hug, his arms as strong and unyielding as oak. His voice murmured into Michael’s ears, a voice that sounded like paths and branches, mirrors and starlight.

“Because you think them wrong to love you so.

Because you cannot see beyond your fear

The last to see the truth that others know

Hidden from you though it flowers near:

What they offer, you have earned.”

Michael choked, surging with the fire; he saw the incandescent glory of it surging through every fiber of him. They had been human. Perhaps they still were, in the ways that mattered.

He let himself listen to them.

Michael’s lips were dry and chapped, a stinging tickle lingering in the recesses of his throat; his cheeks, by contrast, were wet – though he could not recall crying. Fragments of memory floated within him, half-seen. “Unlearn lessons wrongly learned-” he murmured, his voice a dreamy singsong.

Sobriquet was beside him in an instant, kneeling down. “Michael?” she asked, gripping his shoulder. Her voice was oddly muffled. “Can you hear me?”

He nodded, feeling a strange weight on his head. His hand came up to probe at it and found cloth and metal where his face should be; Sera gripped his hand to pull it away.

“You’re wearing a mask,” she said, pointing to her own. “Don’t meddle with it, there’s still pockets of gas that haven’t cleared away.”

Those words dragged him unpleasantly into alertness. “Gas,” he rasped. “How bad?”

“We don’t know the full extent of it yet,” Sobriquet said grimly. “Not as bad as it could have been, but bad. They waited for Leire to come forward, then used the storm that followed to draw the gas into the city. Most of it dispersed just as quickly, but-” She shook her head, and Michael felt raw, abyssal sorrow echoing with the motion. “Bad.”

“Saleh,” Michael muttered. “But why? This was his city. There were still Safid here.”

“To hurt us. To show that he could,” Antolin said, twisting in his chair; Michael had not noticed him, for the grand marshal had been corpse-still in his seat, poring over a hastily-scribbled report. Even now he looked hunched, drawn beneath the lenses of his mask.

“Gas is banned by force of the Code of Goitxea,” he said. “We enforce that, just as we enforce its other provisions. He’s trying to show us we have no power over him. Telling us he’s not bound by our rules.” His eyes narrowed through the lenses of his mask. “And so, from today, this is a war beyond those rules. As he desires.”

Michael felt the weary anger radiating from Antolin, a low fire that smoldered with pain and loathing. It was too much; he turned away from the commander and leaned back against a tent pole. Sobriquet leaned forward.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “We couldn’t wake you. There were a few times-”

“I love you,” Michael said.

She blinked, surprised; Michael saw the corners of her eyes crinkle in an exasperated smile. “Yes, I love you too,” she said.

Michael smiled. “I believe you,” he murmured.

Sobriquet tilted her head. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “The anatomentes are – all very busy, but I can find someone.”

“I’m fine,” Michael said, gingerly rising to his feet; he grasped the tent pole until a sudden wave of dizziness passed. He felt electric, infused with light. Each beat of his heart sent radiant heat coursing outward.

He looked out over the disarray of Antolin’s tent, feeling the grim determination from the Mendiko scattered about, the anguish pouring in from beyond. He straightened up, taking in a long, slow breath.

Michael walked to stand beside Antolin; the grand marshal looked up as he approached, still suffused with well-banked rage. “Michael,” he said.

“Antolin,” Michael replied. “Where do you need me?”

For a moment the two men looked at each other. Michael had no notion of what Antolin saw in his eyes, but the lines of the older man’s face softened.

“Sit,” Antolin said. “I’ll show you.”