Chapter 4

A long, quiet moment passed between Pyre and the strange swordsman, one in which every nerve of Pyre’s body fired as he remained focused on the stranger, ready to engage with a broken sword and what little stamina he had left.

Thin mist drifted around the man, curling at his ankles in slow coils that never quite seemed to touch him. The swordsman’s expression finally shifted, not in shock, but in mild surprise, faint curiosity, as if Pyre were a detail he hadn’t expected but did not find particularly troubling.

“Well,” he said at last. “That’s unexpected.”

Pyre tightened his grip on the broken blade. He didn’t know whether to run or speak. Who is he? Pyre thought. Is he from another colony? How did he survive?

“What are you doing here?” the swordsman asked softly, studying Pyre like a puzzle he hadn’t decided whether to solve or discard.

Pyre flinched. “I’m… I’m just, I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s—”

The swordsman lifted a hand. He approached cautiously and circled Pyre once, slow and unhurried, his barefoot steps silent on the shifting stone as the mist continued to pool around his legs.

“What happened to everyone? Who—”

“Quiet,” the swordsman told him. “I’m thinking.”

Pyre felt something cold brush the inside of his chest. Not wind nor touch, a chill that stirred beneath his ribs, like invisible hands pressing against his very soul. Pyre’s stomach dropped; a fluttering unease twisted through him until it finally ceased.

The man’s gaze dropped to the fractured blade in Pyre’s hand, which Pyre kept firm despite the tremor running through his arm.

“You’re holding a dead angel’s Sigil,” he finally said. “Or what’s left of it.”

He glanced down at the weapon and shook his head, the words meaning nothing to him. “I just picked it up, I swear. The angel had it. Daedalus—that was his name. He killed himself with it.”

“And you just picked it up after, huh? You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” the swordsman said after a long pause, No judgment, just fact. “Not with a soul like yours.”

Pyre tried again. “You never told me what happened to my world? To everyone? Where are they?”

A faint, humorless smile touched the swordsman’s lips. “Your realm is no more, nor are they. Your angel broke, and as they always do, you were abandoned. What piece of that confuses you?”

Pyre’s voice cracked. “Karastella was supposed to help us.”

The stranger snorted softly. “Karastella has always been a bitch.”

Pyre recoiled as if struck.

He had grown up praying to the goddess, whispering her name at the cathedral steps, hearing mothers speak it over their children as protection, fighting in the forests beyond for her honor. It had been the name that had saved him numerous times over the course of his life, or so he thought.

Anger flared in Pyre’s chest, sharp and disorienting, not aimed at the stranger, but at Karastella, who had watched the people of Farreach die and then turned her spite on Daedalus for trying to save them.

“If you expected mercy from her,” the swordsman said, “you didn’t know Karastella at all.”

“Who are you?” Pyre asked when no other question could form.

“Who am I?” the swordsman mused. After a moment, he shrugged. “Any name I might have once had is all but forgotten by now, and if I did remember it, it wouldn’t be important. And names don’t matter here. Tell me—are you happy with the life you were given?”

“Happy?” Pyre asked, offended at the mere mention of satisfaction after what he had just been through, what he had witnessed. “How could I be? All my life I have fought, run, and battled these creatures. And now… the Heavenly Host abandoned my people. Karastella left us to die.”

“And what now? You expect revenge?”

Pyre’s fist tightened around the grip of his weapon. “Yes. That would be a good start.”

The swordsman returned his attention to the suspended crystal above the seal. It hung like a faded shard of starlight, three feet long, its glow dimming in slow pulses, the light thinning like a starving heartbeat. Veins of gold flickered weakly within it, failing to trace their full paths. “An interesting theory,” he finally said.

Pyre stared at the crystal. “What is that?”

“It was your world,” the stranger said, turning away, steel shifting softly as the many blades sheathed at his side and back moved with him. “Or what remains of it. The heart of your realm.”

He reached toward the crystal, and the seal beneath him cracked. Lines of light flashed along its surface, gutters of dying magic struggling to hold.

Pyre stepped forward instinctively. “What are you doing? Hey—”

“Collecting it before the factions do,” the swordsman said. “Karastella had every chance and she failed. Best I be the one to take it now.”

The swordsman’s fingers closed around the crystal, and a heavy pulse of ancient magic shuddered through the floor. With a wrenching snap, the Heart tore free. He tucked the crystal away into the folds of his tattered cloak as casually as a man pocketing a coin.

Pyre’s sense of right and wrong finally cut through the shock. “What are you going to do with that?”

“It belonged to your realm, and your realm is now gone, devoured by the Hunger. What part of that do you fail to understand? Everything of yours is gone.” He gestured at the broken blade in Pyre’s hand. “Except that Sigil, and it’s not even yours.”

Pyre glanced down at the fragment blade.

He didn’t understand why it hadn’t burned him alive, yet the weight in his hand no longer felt foreign. The grip settled into his palm, as though it had always known him, Pyre once again hearing faint whispers at the back of his head.

The swordsman watched him for a moment longer. Something shifted behind his eyes—not pity, not concern, but the weight of a decision settling. “You’re a survivor; I’ve seen that before.” He gave the smallest shrug. “But I can’t save you. Only you can save yourself. If you want to be saved at all.”

Pyre hunched forward, prepared to charge the stranger.

“Is that a yes? Do you want to be saved at all?”

“I do.”

The swordsman’s gaze sharpened on Pyre. “In that case, you’ve made my choice simple. If you somehow survive Shriving, find the Shepherd,” the stranger said. “He owes me a favor.”

The swordsman shifted, and something icy burst through Pyre’s chest.

He stared down in horror to find one of man’s blades already buried deep in his chest. There had been no draw, no arc, no warning. One moment, empty air; the next, steel through flesh.

Pyre’s voice escaped as a broken whisper. “Why?”

The swordsman met his eyes. “So you keep going,” he said at last. “Find the Shepherd.”

He pulled the blade free, and Pyre collapsed.

The world dissolved as he hit the ground, white light, black void, the sensation of falling without falling. Pyre’s last thought was not a word, but a certainty; I’m not finished yet.

Then everything went dark.