**Chapter 20: The Prognosis of Gods
The war council had dispersed, each lord carrying a fragment of the terrifying, grand strategy back to their domains. The room felt colder in their absence, the fire struggling against a chill that had nothing to do with the hearth.
Lysander stood motionless before the great map, his gaze fixed on the northern desolation. The weight of the revelation was a physical thing, bowing his shoulders. He was no longer just a Duke fighting a curse; he was a man who had just been told the tumor he carried was a piece of a god.
"A shard of a Stillborn Star," he said, the words a hollow echo in the silent room. He finally turned to me, and the look in his storm-grey eyes was one of profound, weary understanding. "It makes a terrible sense. The Blackwood strength was always… excessive. A power that could shatter mountains and freeze rivers in midsummer. It was never a gift. It was a weapon. And the backlash of containing it is the rot."
He walked to the chest where the Uruk glaive lay, its hooked blade seeming to drink the light. He did not touch it.
"Varian of the White Hand," he murmured, the name tasting of ancient dust and betrayal. "The histories speak of him. The greatest mind of his age, who sought the perfect, immutable form. He vanished seeking it." A bitter smile touched his lips. "He found it in the embrace of absolute nothingness."
I moved to stand beside him, not touching him, but sharing the space before the artifact of our enemy. "He's not just a fanatic. He's a scientist. A clinician. We are his experiment. The North is his petri dish."
"And I am the primary subject," Lysander concluded, his voice flat. "The host with the unique reaction." He looked at his bandaged arm, then at me. "You stopped the necrosis. Your… fire-berry distillate. It was more effective than it should have been."
A memory surfaced, sharp and clear. The kitchen. Hilda. "The cook said it only grew in one place. A geothermal vent on the southern slope of the Frostfang Mountains. Where the fire of the earth pushes back the ice."
Our eyes met. A simultaneous diagnosis.
"An antithesis," we said in unison.
The strategy refined itself in that moment, evolving from a military campaign into a precise, medical intervention.
"The Forge of Echoes will be a place of profound metaphysical cold," I said, my mind racing. "Your curse will be agitated, a live wire. We cannot remove the shard of the Star within you—not yet. But we can insulate you. We can build a defense."
"With fire," Lysander said, understanding immediately. "Not the fire of destruction. The fire of life. Of entropy resisted."
"We need to synthesize a prophylactic," I said, the clinical terms a comfort. "A potion, a salve—something derived from that geothermal source. Something that will fortify your spirit against the influence of the Stillborn Star long enough for you to reach Varian."
"And then?" Lysander asked, the General needing the objective.
"And then we perform the surgery," I said, my voice hardening. "We separate the artificer from his source. We cut his supply line. We don't need to slay a god today. We just need to unplug the life support of the man who thinks he can control it."
A new, grim energy filled the room. The problem was no longer insurmountable. It was complex, yes. Terrifying, certainly. But it was a condition with symptoms, vectors, and a potential treatment plan.
Lysander's hand, cold and sure, found mine. He didn't lace our fingers. He simply held it, palm to palm, a grounding connection. "You see the battlefield no one else can," he said, his voice low with an awe that had nothing to do with my beauty and everything to do with my mind. "You give form to the formless enemy."
"You are the weapon," I replied, turning my hand to grip his. "I am merely the hand that aims you. And I will not let you break in the aiming."
The romantic tension was no longer a subplot. It was the central pillar of the strategy. His strength was the only thing that could physically confront the enemy. My perspective was the only thing that could guide that strength without it being consumed. We were two halves of a single instrument of salvation.
He raised our joined hands, his stormy gaze locked on mine. "Then we go to the Frostfangs. We harvest your antithesis. We prepare for the surgery." He brought my knuckles to his lips. The kiss was not one of passion, but of sealing a pact. It was cold, firm, and carried the weight of a vow. "Together."
The word hung in the air, a promise and a prophecy.
The epic, Homeric scale of the conflict—man against the primordial void—was now inextricably linked to the intimate, medical precision of our partnership. The fate of the North would not be decided by the clash of vast armies alone, but by the success of a desperate, calculated procedure performed by a Duke and his Duchess on the very heart of the infection.
We were no longer just fighting for survival. We were fighting for a future. And our first step was not toward the enemy, but toward the one thing in this frozen world that could remind a sliver of a dead star what it felt like to be warm.