The world returned as a smear of gray ash and the cloying smell of cooked meat. Bastet's first breath was a gasp of air so heavy with smoke it felt solid in his throat. He was lying in cold, churned mud, his cheek pressed against something hard and unyielding. It was the buckled chest plate of the dead Wesian soldier they had begun to loot. The roar of the battle was gone. In its place was the darkness of a moonless night. He pushed himself up, every muscle burning.
The battle was over. The birch forest was a graveyard of scorched, splintered trunks, and the ground was stained with a greasy soot. Bodies lay where they had fallen, humans tangled among horned and scaled soldiers as the persistent drizzle washed blood into the earth.
And then the crunch of armored boots on gravel cut through the silence. The swinging light of a hooded lantern moved through the bodies with brutal efficiency.
"Got one more over here!" one of the soldiers shouted, his voice devoid of emotion.
The patrol's sergeant approached, nudging Bastet with his steel-toed boot. "Still in one piece?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Commander wants everyone accounted for."
Another soldier hauled Bastet to his feet. "This one's from the cells. The big one Gremory brought in."
"Doesn't matter where he's from," the sergeant grunted. "They can sort out the salvage from the scrap."
Helpless, Bastet was dragged away from the carnage, the mud sucking at his boots. He looked back at the field of bodies. He had been given a second chance at life on this field, and now it was being taken from him again.
He wanted to resist. Every part of him screamed to tear himself free and run. But his body did nothing. Whether it was exhaustion or Ariadne holding him still, Bastet could no longer tell. The lanterns blurred as they dragged him deeper into Stormbridge. After that, he remembered very little.
***
Long shadows danced with the quivering of a dim flame. Bastet's mind was hazy but this sight, or lack thereof, was familiar. He recognized the distant screams and the stench of decay that assaulted his nose. He tried moving, but his limbs were pinned with chains. A quiet laugh escaped his mouth. He was back in his cell. Or rather, did he ever really leave this place? It would not have been the first time his vivid dreams took it upon themselves to break him free. He felt an unstoppable urge to move, to immediately get out. Something raw surged through him, and his muscles refused to keep still. He had walked under the open sky, felt the rain, held a sword, fought, and survived. For one brief day, he had been a man again, moving through the world on his own two feet. And it had amounted to exactly nothing. His body, having tasted that fleeting freedom, now rebelled with a fresh agony against the familiar constraints. His face flushed as he groaned, pulling against the iron. As he strained, he felt a sharp, grinding protest from deep within his ribs. It made him question his own senses as he yanked again with all of his strength. But the iron did not budge.
The distant shrieks echoing down the cellblock seemed to blur, turning the rotting air into a fever dream. A crushing exhaustion settled over him, pressing him down into the dark. He closed his eyes, ready to let the blackness take him completely.
"Are you awake?"
Startled by the tired voice, Bastet quickly lifted his gaze. His lips curled into a smile, and an unexpected sense of relief washed over him when he recognized the man chained to the other wall. He was not alone. "What happened, Kreil?"
Kreil let out a short, bitter laugh that was devoid of all humor. He rattled his chains, the sound dead in the small room. "What happened? We survived. And this is our reward." His gaze was fixed on the familiar grime of the cell wall. "The wheel turns, farmer. And we're right back under it."
"The patrol…" Bastet's memory was a blur of mud and corpses. "I saw them take me. How long have I been out for?"
"It's hard to tell," Kreil muttered under his breath. "I've been awake only for a few hours. And I overheard that they dragged us back here yesterday."
"There's no way they took us back to the torturer." Bastet reassured himself despite the shrieks he could hear in the distance. "That lunatic wouldn't have been so hospitable to leave nothing impaling us. This must be something else!"
"Maybe he's busy. The screaming has only gotten louder since I've been awake." Kreil let out a breath.
"That's lasted for hours?" Bastet's eyes widened. "They've emptied the cells before the battle, and many must have fallen. So how is this place more crowded than it was?"
Before Kreil could answer, the screech of a nearby iron door being dragged open echoed down the hall, followed by a man's sharp, muffled cry. A low, authoritative voice barked the question, "How much do you think you'll be able to endure before you beg us to let you swear the oath?" Then, there was a heavy thud, and silence.
Bastet and Kreil exchanged a look. "Swear the oath?" Bastet whispered. "Why would they…?"
"A dead enemy is a corpse," Kreil muttered, his eyes fixed on their cell door. "An enemy who breaks and swears the oath is a new soldier for the front line. Wesia doesn't just conquer armies, farmer. It consumes them."
Bastet fell silent, the chilling logic of it settling in his stomach like a stone. Another door groaned open, closer this time. More questions, another pained grunt. The sounds were systematic, moving down the cellblock, one by one. They were coming. A heavy silence fell between them, broken only by the sound of heavy footsteps stopping directly outside their cell. A key scraped in the lock. The iron door screeched, revealing the stubby man whose bemused grin inverted once he saw them. "They're skin and bones, Gerald! There's no way they're Argents, they look fresh outta the cells!"
"No cutting corners, Reed. Finding out who took down the wall is just as important." The short, delicate-looking man with blood red eyes entered their view. Bastet immediately recognized him as Gerald, the interrogator who had assessed him before the battle. "I should still take a look at them. How many are left, anyway?"
"About two hundred," Reed spat on the stone. "Captured the lot of 'em. They pulled the army from the western front to defend this shithole."
"Watch your words. The duke knows better. Illias will be worth it." Gerald approached Bastet with light, soundless steps. "I know this one. He's a big lad, I hope the chains hold him in place." Leaning over, he grabbed a fistful of Bastet's matted hair and yanked his head up, forcing his gaze forward. Bastet's neck muscles screamed in protest. "Don't be afraid," Gerald whispered, his breath a cool puff against Bastet's cheek. "I'll only take a peek."
The man produced a small, gray crystal and crushed it between his thumb and forefinger into a shimmering powder. He rubbed the dust onto his eyelids, where it clung like crushed amethysts. A wet, rotting smell filled the air. When Gerald opened his eyes again, they had become twin pools of ominous, pulsing violet light.
Bastet shut his own eyes tight, a futile gesture. He knew what was coming. They'd done it many times. He felt the man's gaze on him as a physical weight, a lance of absolute cold that drove through his skull and into the soft tissue of his mind. A choked gasp escaped his lips, his body straining against the chains.
He felt a foreign presence, a scalpel of thought slicing through the protective layers of his consciousness as his memories were seized and dissected. A familiar scene would unfurl, a field of wheat under the summer sun, only to be tainted. The scent of the warm earth was suddenly undercut by that damp rotting smell. He felt his father's hand on his shoulder, a memory of pride and warmth, but the image flickered, and for a sickening instant, his father's eyes were replaced by Gerald's cold, violet stare.
The scalpel dug deeper, hunting. Bastet felt his own emotions being triggered and discarded like spoiled meat. He was back under the walls, forced to relive the searing pain of the falling stone, and the desperate fear he felt as the walls crumbled. "Fear, yes. But no prayer to a hidden patron." The bald Wesian who had dragged them from the rubble flashed through his mind next. And finally, the probe reached the tavern, where they lay hidden as the Wesian battled the satyr. Gerald lingered there. Bastet saw the soldier's skull break again. Once. Twice. Three times. The memory lurched forward to Bastet's own desperate fight with the wounded satyr, the wet crunch of steel against bone, the nausea that followed.
"Revulsion… but no ecstatic communion. The psyche looks clean."
He thought it would soon be over. But he then felt the scalpel of thought shift, pulling forth the memory of the ruined house. He saw himself speaking with the scholar, and heard his cynical words about ownership and lies. Gerald did not flash through it this time, but lingered over the exchange. Only when he finished had the presence retracted, not gently, but torn free, leaving a gaping, psychic wound. Bastet's body was racked with violent shivers, and he was drenched in sweat. He could hear his own loud gasping, and the sound of voices mixing as if through water. A coppery taste filled his mouth where he had bitten his tongue.
"He's a resilient one," he heard Gerald say, the voice sounding distant. "He doesn't know who the intruder was either," Bastet blinked, trying to focus, and the room swam back into view. Gerald stood over him, his eyes back to their normal color, a satisfied expression on his face.
The satisfaction disappeared. Without warning, he struck Bastet across the face. The slap shocked Bastet back to clarity. "However," Gerald's voice was now cold as winter stone, "this is an order. Your cowardice allowed a hardened soldier to die. Do not ever let a superior fall while you stand idle again. He was worth a hundred of you." He turned to his colleague and frowned. "They were even trying to loot his corpse."
Anger eclipsed Bastet's fear. Cowardice? They hadn't run. They had waited, just as Kreil had said. They had fought. But under Gerald's certainty, the anger gave way to despair. The truth did not matter here. They had already decided what the story was.
Reed chuckled to himself. "Lord Valac is personally coming to read the code of conduct. It's not like they'll be able to misbehave again."
"I can't help it," Gerald frowned, his attention shifting. "It's because of cowards like them that the code is as strict as it is." He moved toward Kreil, as a knot of dread tightened in Bastet's gut. Bastet saw the tremor in his hands, the subtle clenching of his jaw. He knew with a fresh certainty the violation that was about to occur. Gerald grabbed Kreil's forehead with his small hand and his body went rigid, a low, strangled sound escaping his lips. Bastet squeezed his own eyes shut, the phantom feeling of the cold probe echoing in his own skull. He could almost feel the scalpel of thought tearing through another man's mind, and a wave of nausea washed over him again.
Before long, Gerald stepped away with a serious expression on his face and shook his head.
"His memories are still a wreck. There are gaps, but they are… clean. Almost surgical. As if a hand went in and only took certain pieces. The torture broke him, yes, but something else has been here too. He doesn't know about the intruder though." Gerald spoke, his eyes on Bastet instead of Reed. He tapped his chin, facing Kreil again. "But the underlying structure of his mind is that of a scholar. He's from the Silverwood region."
"An Argent scholar?" Reed mused, running a thumb over the handles of his pliers. "This should be interesting."
"I said 'was'. He already took the oath." Gerald emphasized. "His daughter was caught and recruited into our ranks not long ago. She's here in Stormbridge." Reed raised his eyebrows in surprise. "He deserted the Covenant to be together with her. He believes that he can somehow convince the commander that she's special, and that there is a better use for her than letting her end up in one of the farms." Gerald looked down on him in pity. "You poor fool. At least you'll have a future together when the Emperor ascends."
"She is special! She—" Kreil protested with desperation on his face, but Reed ordered him to stay quiet.
"What should we do with them, Gerald? I want to get back to recruiting."
"Let them out," Gerald said with a wave of his hand. "They are sufficiently hardened, and the leaks are steady. At this stage, further treatment risks a total fracture. We've got a lot more to go through. They should still be celebrating outside, so if we hurry, we might even make it in time for the feast."
Gerald's footsteps faded down the hall, leaving a ringing silence in their wake. When the guards finally stepped in to unfasten the chains, Bastet slumped forward, his legs buckling. Every blink brought back the phantom pressure behind his eyes. His memories felt bruised, as if greasy fingerprints had been left all over his childhood, tainting the scent of Briskwood with amethysts and rot.
The guards hauled him up by the armpits, dragging him through the labyrinth of the dungeon. His feet scraped along the floor, his mind struggling to separate what was happening now from the echoes of what had just been ripped from his head. When they finally pushed through the heavy wooden doors and out into the fortress courtyard, he could barely see. It was too bright. Soldiers were walking by in small groups, passing a wine skin, their laughter carrying on the crisp autumn air. Carts were being unloaded. Stormbridge prepared for a feast.
***
As per Kreil's request, they reached the river that ran through the center of the town. Bastet remarked that he didn't know how a river so wide could be flowing down a mountain, but Kreil explained that it was probably the work of the purple sun. He peeled off the layers of damp, blood-stained shirts the guards had given him. The cold air raised goosebumps on his skin, but it was the sight of his own torso that made him wince. A hideous bruise in the shape of a thundercloud spread across his chest, and his hip was a mess of deep purple. The wall had done more damage than he first realized. The healing liquid had sealed his skin, leaving behind thin, silvery scars, but the damage to the muscle beneath felt profound. He was a patched-together thing, a tool broken and crudely repaired, now expected to work as new. He looked at the hole in one of the shirts, right over the heart. Had its previous owner been patched together, too, before he finally broke for good? Had he been wearing a shirt that someone died in? The thought made his skin crawl. He knelt at the riverbank and plunged the shirt into the freezing water. His bruised ribs screamed in protest as he bent forward, but he ignored the pain, scrubbing the coarse fabric together with numbing hands. The water turned a murky brown as it carried the dried blood downstream. He wrung the shirt out, his knuckles white, and inspected it. The dark stain around the hole remained, stubborn and rusted into the threads. He plunged it in again, scrubbing harder, the icy current biting into his flesh until he could barely feel his own fingers.
A few yards away, Kreil was doing the same, working in a heavy, unbroken silence. The river burbled softly, a peaceful sound that felt entirely wrong against the violence they were trying to wash away. Bastet lifted the shirt a third time. The water ran clear, but the stain was still there.
"You're trying to scrub a hole out of it," Kreil said.
Bastet held it up. The tear over the heart had grown wider. He clutched it with his numb fingers, as if trying to weld it shut. Death, there was so much death around them. The Church of Ascendance in Briskwood preached that each man was irreplaceable. Once someone was gone, there would be a permanent hole in the world. As such, death was a tragedy, something to be mourned. But what was a satyr, deep down in its core? Was it a someone, or a something? Bastet shivered. It would be so convenient if he could just call it a monster, a chaos-beast. But each time he convinced himself that was the case, his mind would circle back and ask the question anew.
Bastet rested his head on the grass, lying in the shade of a large birch tree. He could still feel that phantom itch behind his eyes, the feeling of the mental touch. His memories had been picked through and examined like a butcher inspecting a carcass. But what he worried about was the order that he was given: he must not let a higher ranked Wesian die while staying idle. If he had jumped out earlier during the fight, he might have given the Wesian an advantage, but he would have certainly lost his life in doing so. Unlike the order to act in the best interest of Wesia, this one left almost nothing to interpretation. As long as he understood that a superior was in danger, he would have to help. And Reed said that soon he would learn the code of conduct, which would bind his will even further. If this involved more orders that were as clear as the last one, then he would have no choice but to always obey.
Bastet deeply sighed. As things were going, he would have to give his life up the next time Wesia demanded it. Did he endure all of this torture and humiliation just for that? To die without being able to change anything? His hand found the wooden fox in his pocket. Without even knowing what happened to Maria? No. He had a duty to be worth more. He could not remain a sacrificial pawn, not while she might still be out there. If this code of conduct would rope him into absolute obedience, he had to avoid it. He had to escape from here before these new orders were given, or he would forever remain under threat of being sacrificed for the most trivial of causes.
But the thought brought no relief. It just sat there, a destination with no bridge to reach it. He slumped back onto the grass and closed his eyes. In the distance, carried on the wind, he could hear the faint, raucous cheers from the gathering feast. Men were celebrating their survival, drinking to the Empire that owned them.
He lay there for a long time, letting the cold seep deep into his bones. He glanced at Kreil, who was sunk in the river up to his nose. The interrogator's story about him didn't seem to add up. Gerald claimed him a fool who deserted the Argent Covenant after his daughter was captured, all for a chance to convince the commander that she wasn't expendable. He'd endured months of torture, just for that? It really didn't fit the man who had warned him about the blood oath with such cynical wisdom. Kreil was no fool. He had to know that once he swore the oath, there would be very little he could do for her. There had to be more to this. The interrogator mentioned his missing memory, but Kreil was far too lucid to be of a fragmented mind. Perhaps the pieces that were missing were the key to this mystery. And the interrogators had to know this. So why did they let Kreil go? He turned the question over in his mind, but no answer made sense. He was only left with another question, the one he had touched on yesterday. Why did they place him together with Kreil? What did they hope to achieve?
He did not know. But perhaps this expectation could be used against them. An idea, dangerous and terrifying, began to form. While they were waiting for their result, he would find a way to regain his freedom. He would escape this cursed place, and look for Maria. The thought settled into him with surprising weight. For the first time since Briskwood, there was something ahead of him that was not simply another pain to endure or another order to obey. Somewhere beyond Stormbridge were roads he could choose for himself, and somewhere beyond those roads, Maria would be waiting. He did not know where she was, or how he would find her, but those were problems that belonged to a free man.
But he was not a free man, nor could he ever fully be one. He was bound by the oath, and could only act in the best interest of Wesia, so would the oath even allow him to try to escape this place? He could not swim, but he decided to get in the water to clear his head. He was not the kind of man to bathe very often; he believed getting wet would cause him to get sick. Smelling the nicest was not his top priority when he spent his life working with cow excrement. The river was cold, and sharp stones cut into his soles.
Yes, he could only act in the best interest of Wesia. But what was their best interest? Right now, that was a scale waiting to be balanced. If he managed to escape, would it not prove he was worth more than a sacrificial pawn? So, wouldn't it be in the best interest of Wesia that he doesn't get used as one? A man capable of breaking free from their grip was surely capable of being useful in ways they had not accounted for. If he could escape, then Wesia would be better for him having done it.
It was just an if. But it was enough. The merit of his escape could be properly assessed only in light of the success of his attempt to do so. And since the best interest of Wesia was still undecidable, there would be nothing for Ariadne's oath to compel him toward. A sharp, cold pang shot through his wrists, exactly where the chains had been. At least it shouldn't interfere with the attempt, he hoped. No one had ordered them to stay in the city, but if he approached the heavily guarded gates he would probably be told to stay away.
He was still turning the problem over in his mind when he realized how cold he had become. He looked down at his hands. The tips of his fingers were shriveled up. He had been standing in the river for a long time. He waded back to the riverbank, the brief pain in his wrists still a fresh memory.
Once on the grass, he tried to re-wrap the crude bandage on his arm, but his numb fingers fumbled, dropping the cloth in the dirt. Before he could retrieve it, Kreil was there, kneeling. Wordlessly, Kreil took a cleaner piece of linen from his own pocket and began to wrap the wound himself, his movements practiced and efficient.
"When the wall came down," Kreil said, his voice low as he tied the knot, not looking up. "You saved me."
Bastet watched him. "And you put a rock into that satyr's skull before he could split mine. We're even, I suppose."
Kreil finished his work and sat back on his heels, finally meeting Bastet's gaze. A humorless smile touched his lips. "Even? There's no such thing in here. Only debts." He gestured at the fortress around them. "But it's the debts to ourselves that are the toughest to forgive. Just look at us. A farmer and a scholar hiding behind rubble, fighting wars. Killing. We survived, yes, but not as the men we were."
"It's hard to stay what you are after what they've done to us," Bastet responded.
Kreil reached towards the riverbank and pulled out a small, thin stone, smooth and dark, but with a single, sharp fracture splitting its surface. He held it out on his palm, and then snapped it into two halves. "Like this," he said, his eyes now fixed on Bastet with a strange intensity. "Worn smooth for a thousand years, then broken in an instant. Tell me, farmer. Is it ruined now?"
Bastet took the piece of stone. "You ask the most bizarre of questions sometimes. Is that what it means to be a scholar?" It was cold in his hand. He turned it over, his thumb tracing the smooth, ancient curve and then the sharp, new edge of the break. "It's not ruined," he said. He tested the new edge against his thumb. "It's a knife now."
Kreil's eyes widened slightly. He let out a short, dry laugh. "Isn't it strange, farmer?" he ran his finger over the exposed inside of his half of the stone. "The break just proves what it was all the way through. And yet, that is when it becomes something else entirely." He took the second piece of stone and put them back together. "Perhaps it was never a stone at all. Just an unbroken knife, waiting for a strike to reveal it."
Bastet looked from the stone to the silvery scars on his wrists where the chains had been, the connection clicking into place. "Then they've already found their strike."
Kreil looked at him, his expression hardening into something unreadable. "They found the strike," he confirmed. "And now they want to see if the shape is useful." He stood abruptly, brushing the dirt from his knees and tossing the stone into the river. It sank without a sound.
"Come," he said, his voice devoid of any of its previous warmth. "Let's not miss the feast."