The sound of Wesian patrols shouting in the distance grew louder. "No time," Miara said, her voice urgent. She closed the distance between them and placed a hand firmly on Bastet's shoulder. He felt something foreign pour into him, like a shard of ice being driven into his soul. His own consciousness was shoved aside, cornered and screaming in the back of his skull. It was a familiar, oppressive numbness, but it felt far more powerful and ancient. Was it Ariadne's oath? But why?
His hand moved on its own and his coarse fingers coiled around the sword that hung from his waist. The motion of drawing the blade was unnaturally smooth, fluid in a way his farmer's muscles had never known. He watched, a horrified passenger, as his arm plunged the sword into Miara's chest. He felt the sickening jolt as the blade struck bone, and the body crumpled against him with a final, empty sigh. He brushed the bloodied blade against her clothes, and then a cold, analytical thought that was not his own bled through his mind: The previous host was still aware. Much like you are now. A complication we cannot afford.
The numbness felt like the oath, but it wasn't a mere chain on his will; it was an utter replacement of it. He was a prisoner in his own skin, a spectator. And in that chilling moment of helplessness, everything clicked into place. He finally understood how the intruder had infiltrated the walls with such ease. She could have just walked in. And he understood how a lone woman could move through a locked-down fortress, evading every patrol. On the outside, she was one of them. And when Kreil deserted the Covenant to save his daughter… was he the one she had infiltrated through? It was not a plan of madness, but terrifying audacity. And the ghost who was now wearing his flesh was not bound by his oath. She could walk them right out of the city.
His legs moved him towards the collapsed Lilian. Her body looked small and frail, her arms like twigs from months of starvation and torture. Her pale skin was a roadmap of faint, silvery scars and the yellow-green ghosts of old bruises. He saw the raw, chafed skin around her wrists and ankles, a mirror of the marks his own chains had left. Her wild crimson hair, matted and overgrown, fell across her face, swirling down to her nose. But as Miara lifted her, the curtain of red hair shifted for a moment, and Bastet saw what it had been hiding: a series of faint, white lines scored across her throat, like the strings of a silent instrument.
Take her back to the Academy of Grand Arts. If you stay close to her, you won't have to worry about dying. The thought was conveyed wordlessly, but it carried the raw emotion of regret with it that he could feel as if it were his own. It would be wise to honor your word and take care of her.
Bastet had no intentions of going back on his word. Sure, it would be easier to move around if he abandoned the girl, but whoever it was that emerged victorious from such a vicious act would no longer be him. Wesians already had his will; he would not lose his soul.
They went on ahead and soon reached as far as the cobblestone pavement stretched. Up ahead was just wet gravel, and traces of poorly made houses that did not endure the tooth of time. It could be the slums, or it could be that the town had still been expanding before its original residents left, leaving this part unfinished. On his left, he saw a birch tree with a rather massive trunk that was peeking through the collapsed roof of a house. This city must have been barren for many decades, he thought. Pervading everything was a nauseating fishy odor. Bastet could only guess where the smell was coming from, but Miara did not wish to risk moving too close to any food reserves and turned the other direction.
Their sneaking was interrupted by a deafening blast from the sky. Bastet was startled, but Miara calmly turned his body around to take a look. A few moments later, another blast was fired and the ground beneath them shivered from the force, filling the air with dust. The steeple of the old church that arrogantly rose above the city's skyline could no longer be seen. "Looks like the historian succeeded." and with those words Miara secured Lilian on Bastet's back and broke into a sprint. One dark alley after the next they ran, the sound of a monstrous, inhuman roar echoing from the east, followed by the crackle of spells.
It seemed like the wall was still guarded, but with far fewer troops than before. Since they could hear blasts coming from the center of the city, the soldiers must have judged it appropriate to send reinforcements. Miara gathered her resolve and approached the gate.
"You there! Stop!" A hoarse voice resounded from the wall. "Where'd ya think ya goin'?!"
A confident voice escaped Bastet's mouth. "Let us through! I am carrying out Lord Nillen's orders!"
"What orders?" seeing that Ariadne's oath did not stop Bastet in his tracks the old captain scoffed, and more Wesian guards soon flocked towards them.
"Lord Nillen ordered me to take this child to Lesdren." Bastet's body turned and showed the girl he was carrying.
"Who is she?" The old guard asked. "And where's the letter with the warden's seal?"
"No time for a formal seal, we're being attacked!" Miara yelled and pointed towards the smoke rising from the center of the town. "You all better hurry back and help with the fight!"
"Stop! Do not approach further! I have orders from Aris not to let anyone through." The old Wesian drew his sword, and the six guards surrounding him followed his lead. "Yer skin and bones! If it's so important, why'd Nillen order a new recruit to do it?"
Another distant explosion shook the ground, as a grim reminder of the chaos Kreil was unleashing on the other side of the city. They could not afford to fail. But the captain's suspicion was a wall of granite. Through the link between them, Bastet felt a jolt of cold fury that was not his own. It was Miara's frustration. She needed to touch him to transfer into his body, but could not close the distance. It was followed by a chaotic barrage of images and calculations: the angle of a spell, the trajectory of a guard's spear, the impossible geometry of protecting Lilian while fighting all of them at once. Her plan had failed, and her mind was racing for a violent solution.
He couldn't fight the presence in his mind, but he could speak to it. He focused not on resistance, but on a single, coherent thought, a story built from their own ruthless logic, and offered it into the storm. He felt the cold presence pause, consider, and then seize upon the new logic with sharp recognition. "Because the mission requires us to be disposable, Captain," the voice said, now laced with a weary resignation that was purely Bastet's. "We are to act as bait."
The captain froze, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. "Bait for what?"
"The Argents have attacked, and they're looking for Illias. We are to make them believe this is her, and be their target. I am to walk her out of this gate and lead their hunters as far away as I can." The voice stopped, and Bastet's gaze fell. "And when they have us surrounded, I am to drink Camael's Tears and offer my life to the Emperor."
The captain's eyes narrowed. "A suicide mission."
Bastet's hand grabbed the improvised satchel of shirts. Inside was nothing but greasy fish and a piece of flint. He offered it to the captain, his expression a mask of grim duty he did not feel. "You may inspect it, but please hurry. The oath would not allow us to waste time."
It was the final, desperate piece of the lie. A bag of worthless supplies, presented as the key to the mission.
The old captain hesitated, then took a step forward and reached for the satchel. Once Bastet was close enough to smell the old man's breath, his hand settled on the guard's shoulder. His eyes closed and he deeply exhaled. As the air left his lungs, he felt the cold presence retreat from his mind, leaving an echoing emptiness behind.
He stumbled back, free but disoriented, and watched as the captain's body went rigid. The old man's eyes rolled back in his head, and a low, strangled sound escaped his lips before he stiffened, his expression going placid and empty. He opened the satchel in a way that nobody else would be able to see it and hurriedly ordered "Carry on!"
"Argos?" someone asked but the old captain ignored him and dragged Bastet along. Miara was in control now. She dragged Bastet outside before yelling "Go, quickly! We will take care of things here!"
Bastet nodded and thanked her. He understood that Miara had to stay behind. The old man was probably ordered to guard the walls. If he suddenly went outside, it would raise suspicion. And if Miara tried to go back into Bastet's body, the old captain would be freed, and he would probably try to kill them. They had to leave her behind. With Lilian on his back, Bastet ran down the mountain. The sounds of the distant battle finally began to fade.
***
Before long, Bastet realized that he had made a terrible mistake. He took some meat with him, but he hadn't taken enough water. The saggy half-filled waterskin that he hid in his shirt was all he had. He thought he could refill it if he just followed the river, but wouldn't that guarantee that he'd run into more Wesian patrols and settlements? If they asked him what he was doing there, he would have to admit he escaped. Following the river would be too dangerous. Once the road curved around the mountain to the point that he could no longer see the watchtowers, he strayed into the woods. He knew it was not a smart move. The woods around Briskwood screamed every night. He was bound to run into blight. But there was no other choice.
The adrenaline from the fight, the terror of their escape, and the raw grief for the man who had just sacrificed himself all burned together, fueling his flight long after his muscles should have given out. He moved for a long time, until the charcoal scars of the battle faded behind him. He welcomed the sight of dense trees which saved him from the cold nightly wind. But the thick branches shut out the moonlight, so the forest was becoming loathsomely dark. The normal sounds of the forest could not be heard, and the trees seemed strangely uniform in height and width. The smell of damp leaves assaulted him more the deeper he went in. His footsteps were leaving deep marks in the wet soil.
For hours, he pushed onward, driven by the frantic energy. Lilian was a dead weight on his back, and his own muscles screamed in protest, but he couldn't stop. Every snap of a twig behind him sounded like an armored footstep. Every gust of wind sounded like a patrol's whistle. Would they be followed? At best, they would have one night's head start. It wasn't enough. He had to keep moving. The air was so moist that he found himself short of breath. The fish he was carrying would surely go bad soon.
The forest grew thick and dark around him. He didn't know when he stopped running and started stumbling. The trees became a green and black blur. Lilian was a leaden weight, and his own legs felt like stone. He found a place where the roots of an ancient oak had been ripped from the earth, leaving a hollow shielded from the wind and rain. He slid Lilian gently from his back, arranging her as comfortably as he could in the driest part of the hollow. And then, his body's debt came due.
Sleep took him not as a comfort, but as an enemy, dragging him into a black, dreamless abyss. He was only dimly aware of time passing. The sun must have risen and set again, its light a faint, unseen glow beyond the tangled roots of his shelter. He woke once, shivering, to pull his spare shirt over Lilian for warmth, her breathing shallow. He stopped himself from drinking the last of his water, and moistened her lips instead before succumbing once more to the crushing weight of exhaustion.
It was the morning of the second day since the escape when he finally woke for good. Every muscle was a knot of stiff pain, but the frantic edge of exhaustion was gone, replaced by a deep, weary ache. He checked on Lilian first. Her breathing was even and steady, but she was completely unresponsive, lost in a slumber that seemed too deep to be natural. It had to be Miara's doing, he realized. A spell to keep her quiet and safe until they were clear of danger.
He sat in the quiet of the hollow. Kreil was gone. His mind had been too panicked to fully accept it until now. But in the silence, the grief finally came. The cynical scholar, the desperate father, the man who had saved his life. He was dead. And dead because of him. The barrel, the lie, the blaring alarms… his plan had been a death sentence. And Kreil stepped forth and took on the weight of that sentence all by himself. All so that they could escape. He did not understand everything Kreil said. The things about lines and rhymes. But he looked over at the sleeping girl, her face pale in the dim light. He understood how much his daughter meant to him. And now she was his sole responsibility. He had Kreil's promise to honor and Maria to find, two lost girls pulling him toward different roads. He would see Lilian safely to the Academy. But Maria could not simply become something he searched for afterward, not when every hour might matter. Until he found her, Lilian would have to come with him.
He knew they couldn't stay here. He carefully lifted the girl onto his back and began to walk. For hours, he pushed onward. But slowly, the nature of the forest began to change. The trees grew stranger, their bark a sickly gray. He noticed stumps of dead trees scattered about, but there were no fallen trunks or branches beside them. Where had they gone? For a moment, it seemed as if the wind carried a whisper that answered his question. But it was not a word he could discern.
An obscure sense of wrongness shrouded this part of the forest. He couldn't put his finger on it, but everything felt… off. The bark of the trees seemed to crawl with patterns that vanished when he looked at them directly. He saw the shadow of a branch stretch and twist, only to snap back into place when a cloud passed. It was as if light itself bounced the wrong way.
And it suddenly struck him as very natural that no one would ever willingly step foot here. There was something deeply incomprehensible about this place. A wave of nausea washed over him, and a profound weakness, entirely different from exertion, settled in his legs. Out of the corner of his eye, a shadow detached itself from a tree and slithered into another. He spun around, finding nothing. He tried to assure himself that the evil impression he was getting could not possibly be real, but he couldn't shake off the oppressive feeling of being watched. The leaves were staring at him. The darkness was drawing closer.
He had to get away from here. Before the glimpses of monstrous figures took shape. He broke into a sprint, the air catching in his throat.
He did not run long before the trees cleared, revealing a lonesome barn… As he approached, he saw a sign on which was carved:
Let chaos rage when a puzzle's involved,
Come end of age, and the question's resolved.
Bastet swallowed hard but paid the warning no heed. He had to escape the trees. But as soon as he stepped forward, he could feel something sharp dig into his shoulders, and a warm breath brushed the side of his neck. His blood curdled when the quiet voice whispered "Don't go inside."