The forest was a blur of shadows and slapping branches. Bastet dragged Lilian behind him, her weak grip a testament to her exhaustion. His own shoulders were slouched, the adrenaline that had fueled their escape now burning off to leave a deep, bone-weary ache. Only when the suffocating pressure of the Baron's gaze finally faded did he dare to stop, leaning against a gnarled tree as he gulped in the damp air.
With the Baron's influence gone and no sign of the priest's children behind them, it seemed that the forest would finally allow them some rest. Scouring the sodden woods, Bastet finally found a shred of dry birch bark tucked under an overhang of stone. He struck his flint against the spine of his old sword, coaxing a tiny, defiant flame to life from a nest of curls he shaved from the bark. Lilian, shivering, huddled close to the flames, clutching the strange, heavy tome the Baron had given her as if it were a shield.
Bastet sat opposite her, the unsettling weight of Folly's Edge across his knees. His mind kept returning to the vision, trying to decipher it. If Maria's appearance was the clue, and she looked unharmed, could that mean that she still lived? He looked down and bit his lip. There were a thousand interpretations, all equally likely from that clue. The Baron must have enjoyed messing with him. For a long time, the only sound was the quiet crackle of the fire.
"Where… are we?" Lilian asked finally, her voice small. The question wasn't accusatory, but exhausted. "The cell door… I heard it unlock. That's the last thing I remember before waking up… here."
Bastet's heart was heavy. He had promised he would keep what happened a secret from her, and he owed it to Kreil to honor that promise. Besides, he didn't know if Kreil truly lost his life or not. So, what could he even tell her? That her brave father came to her rescue, and that he stayed behind to fight off the pursuers? Just how cruel would that be, when they couldn't return to Stormbridge to confirm his fate? His mind flashed back to what the interrogators had once said. The leak of life force was only as steady as one's will to go on. He didn't know if she was also leaking life force, but he couldn't risk it. After a deep sigh, he picked his words carefully. "There was a battle in Stormbridge. The Argents attacked, but Stormbridge didn't have enough men to hold them off. They ended up drafting everyone who could hold a sword and was rational enough to understand orders. We were to turn into monsters to hold the enemy back. But I got lucky, and escaped."
"But that was in the morning! The cell door unlocked in the evening! And how did you even find me?"
"I had help. Your father arranged it. His plan saved me as much as it saved you."
"You said you were his friend. How did you know him? Did he send you for me?"
"We met… under difficult circumstances, I can't say more," Bastet evaded, the half-truth tasting like ash. "He knew you'd been taken, and his only concern was your safety. He made me promise that if I had the chance, I would get you to the Academy of Grand Arts."
She fell silent, lost in thought. Bastet stared across the small fire toward the forest. "What do we do?" he asked. "It seems like no matter what, insanity wins in the end."
"Are you bound by Ariadne's oath?" Lilian asked, and Bastet gave a small nod. She looked down at her hands, a flicker of anger in her eyes. "Those bastards," she mumbled. "I never swore it."
Bastet froze, a branch halfway to the fire. Free. She was free of the invisible chains that had dictated his every move since the Cleansing. She could lie. She could disobey. She could… "How?" he finally managed, his voice a hoarse whisper. "They bind everyone they salvage. It's the first thing they do."
Lilian shook her head, a shadow passing over her face. "Not in my case. They don't always start with the chain." Her voice was a low, hard whisper. "Sometimes, they offer it as a mercy. They break you, day after day, and they promise they'll stop if you take the oath. But I knew it was a lie. The trial requires the pain. So, I never gave in."
Bastet looked from the girl to the dark forest where the priest's temple lay. "The priest," he said, the words now holding a new weight. "He is too useful to Wesia. My oath won't allow me to kill him. His temple draws in chaos and contains it, like blood in a bruise, he said. And he supplies Wesia with the products of that insanity." Bastet snapped another branch and threw it into the fire.
"But what if the Baron is right," Lilian asked, looking into the darkness of the forest. "If something like this managed to cross over, the hole it tore as it did so must be large enough that it's just a matter of time until it happens again. And the priest already can't control one Baron. His hubris could invite such disaster that it outweighs his benefit." Lilian's gaze lowered to her hands. "Besides, he tried to kill us. And you've seen the centipede. Those were children's hands. Unforgivable."
Bastet's gaze flickered to the fire, but he saw only the image of a small silver ring on a grasping hand. He forced the memory down, locking it away. Now was not the time for that particular brand of madness. His thoughts returned to the priest's trap. And then a strange thought formed in his mind. "But… did he try to kill us, really?" Bastet whispered, his voice a low rumble. "Think about it. He sent us to the Baron." He paused, the contradiction clicking into place. "But the Baron claims he devours corruption. We aren't corrupted. We were never a meal. So, what was the point? If the Priest wanted us dead… Why send us on an errand to a being that would have no reason to harm us?"
"You… are right." Lilian's voice was barely a whisper. She looked from the fire to the dark woods, as if seeing the entire nightmare in a new, more puzzling light. "Either the priest's motive doesn't make any sense… or the Baron lied."
"What even… was that thing?" Bastet finally whispered, the question he'd been holding back.
Lilian didn't look up from the flames. "A figment too grand to stay unreal." Her voice was flat, drained. "The Chronicles of Merax speak of beings who should have existed only in imagination. They are a… concept. Transgression, regret, madness… But how could power of such scale not be capable of forcing itself into existence?" Lilian carefully repeated the words she read. "Though technically, a Chaos Baron is just a fragment of it. I guess the books failed to mention how it really feels in its presence. Poetic freedom, I suppose. Can't have the heroes browning their pants."
"Chronicles of Merax?" Bastet asked, extending his hands towards the fragile heat.
"A story from the Academy," she said, a ghost of passion briefly animating her features. "She and her companions… no, it's better not to spoil it. You should read it yourself one day." The offer hung in the air, a tiny, fragile promise of a future that felt impossibly distant.
"Can they be trusted?" Bastet asked. "Any of them?"
"The priests of the old faith would say they are pure evil," she said. "But the cosmologists… they weren't so sure. Is the blight a malevolent force, or just… a force?"
"Does that… matter?"
"It does. The former frames them as a cause, with an active and malicious will against humanity. The latter sees them as an inevitable consequence of blight. As my father said, a storm doesn't hate the house it tears apart."
"But that thing wasn't a storm," Bastet closed his eyes, his voice a rasping whisper. "It's hard to explain but… Its words… made too much sense for a being born of madness." Bastet gazed at his reflection in the dark blade on his lap. "It… reasoned with us, and was convincing…" He paused, his gaze intense. "But there was one part of its story that truly didn't make any sense. A part that really was insane. And it's the only part I'm sure was real." He met her eyes. "Why does a being that powerful need two broken prisoners to kill a crippled old man in a barn? What could we possibly do, that it cannot? What kind of a story is that?"
"A story…" Lilian whispered. Her eyes sharpened as her gaze flickered from the unsettling blade of Folly's Edge resting on Bastet's knees to the heavy, silent tome in her own lap. "The priest," she said, her voice barely audible. "He didn't call himself a chaos beast-tamer, or a jailer. He called himself an artist." She looked up at Bastet, a dawning understanding in her eyes. "He couldn't restrain a being so powerful, no. That would be impossible… He's… writing it."
Bastet squinted, trying to follow her thoughts. "What are you saying?"
"What if this isn't a prison?" she pressed on, her voice gaining in certainty. "What if his forest isn't a cage, but the only place where reality is thin enough that the Baron can manifest… The priest is… rearranging the letters. To make art. He is the author, and the Baron his piece. And it can't act against its own creator any more than a sword can leap from the canvas to stab the one who paints it. It needs us."
Bastet frowned, shaking his head slowly. "If the priest is the author, why would his creation want him dead? A story ends when the writer does."
"It needs him, yes…" Lilian said, her hand going to the grimoire in her lap. Her thumb stroked the edge of the final, unread page. "…but only until the story is finished. It wants an ending. It needs someone to intervene, to finish it, so that it could exist on its own."
"An ending," he repeated, the word tasting foreign. "He's writing a story… and we're to be the final act?"
"It's the only thing that makes sense," Lilian said, her voice gaining a scholar's certainty now that she had a theory to cling to. "The unfinished story can't kill its own author without unraveling. And that's why it needs us."
"Maybe. But reality is often not as poetic." Bastet's hand instinctively went to the hilt of Folly's Edge. The dark metal seemed to drink the firelight. The grim reality of their situation closed in. A mad artist who sculpted with flesh and nightmare, and his creation, a lying, sentient concept of madness that wanted to be real. He wanted to run away and take their chances with the woods. But the very thought of it made his legs numb up. Ariadne's oath would not let him walk from an event that could devastate Wesia. They had to decide between them. He exhaled, the words tasting like defeat. "And so, we must play our part."
"No. We write the ending," she corrected.
Bastet looked at the small, shivering girl, at the grim resolve on her face, and felt a strange surge of courage. He picked up Folly's Edge, its weight no longer just alien. It was an impossible choice. But there was a question he had to ask the priest. A piece of the puzzle yet to be revealed, the final piece that would dictate their role in the ending. He stood up, his expression hardening. "Let's go," he said, kicking dirt over the fire.