Chapter 5 - Severance

  Minutes passed, though time held no measure in that place. Eventually, with something like the crack of breaking bones in his voice, Reygel managed sound. "And Sinsgridt? What happened to her?"

  Kershn's head inclined faintly. "For the death of a Formwright, blame falls on the hand that swayed it. Sinsgridt was exiled. Distance is her sentence. This city will no longer suffer her presence. There are now only ten Formwrights among us, and for years yet, we will remain diminished."

  Reygel stared at the three of them, his body heavy, his thoughts bruising into themselves like storm clouds colliding. Grelchn dead. Sinsgridt cast beyond the walls. And him—a fool in the middle, wielding jokes like weapons too dull to cut. His chest carried a weight more savage than the blade that had ended him. He'd only known them for one day. How could he feel this much? It was irrational. Absurd.

  And now the Council wanted to shape him into something deadlier than death itself. He almost laughed, but no sound came. Only the emptiness, echoing louder than anything.

  A spark of defiance flickered to life inside him. He met their eyes, his voice steady despite everything. "I want to know which direction Sinsgridt went."

  The Council members exchanged glances, their expressions unreadable. Kershn finally spoke, her tone flat as hammered steel. "That information is not yours to have, Deathless."

  "It's not a request," Reygel countered, his gaze unwavering. "I need to find her. I need to understand why all of this—" He gestured vaguely, encompassing the empty seats, the absence of Grelchn, the weight of the bridge's destruction. "—was worth it. To her. To you."

  Rukrind leaned forward, her voice a low rumble. "The exile's path is not for you to follow, Reygel Sireg. Your place is here, among us. Among the Laderos."

  "My place," Reygel echoed, the words bitter on his tongue. "My place is where I decide it is. And I've decided to find Sinsgridt. With or without your blessing."

  He watched them, waiting for anger, for threats, for the chains he knew they could bring to bear. But instead, he saw only weariness, a flicker of regret in Laksd's eyes. They were not, he realized, the villains he'd half-painted them as. They were leaders faced with impossible choices, bound by rules he could not yet comprehend.

  "You will not be restrained," Laksd said softly. "We are not... we are not in the habit of imprisoning those who have done no wrong."

  Reygel felt a grim smile tug at his lips. "Then I suppose I'll be taking my leave."

  As he turned to go, Kershn's voice stopped him. "South."

  He paused, looking back over his shoulder. "What?"

  "Sinsgridt went south," Kershn repeated, her expression unreadable. "But know this, Deathless. She will not be allowed back within our walls. Not after... not after what has transpired."

  Reygel nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the concession they had made. "And the Altar? Will it remain... safe?" He hated the hesitation in his voice, the vulnerability it betrayed.

  "It will be guarded," Rukrind said firmly. "Should you fall, it will be here. Waiting for your return."

  "One condition, Deathless," Kershn interjected, her eyes sharp on his face. "You will not go alone."

  Reygel nodded slowly. "Someone to teach me how to actually use this thing." He hefted his spear, the blade catching the light.

  "Krewgt," Laksd confirmed, ignoring his sarcasm entirely. "She is well-versed in many forms of combat and knows how to wield multiple weapons. She can teach you to harness the elements, to fight with more than just... brute force and accidental manifestations."

  Reygel frowned, genuinely surprised his guess had been this close. He considered the implications. "Why would a Laderos learn to fight with weapons you don't even use? Unless..." His eyes widened. "You were preparing. For an Arbiter."

  Kershn inclined her head in silent confirmation. "It would have been foolish not to. But we gained more than we expected—we gained a Deathless, something we never thought possible. We don't make a habit of destroying our greatest assets, Reygel Sireg. Still, Krewgt's experience remains useful. You are Deathless, and in time, you could be... more."

  More. The word hung in the air between them, a promise and a threat wrapped together. Reygel shoved it aside, focusing on the immediate present. "Alright. Deal."

  Rukrind spoke in a steady voice, addressing the Laderos who had brought Reygel to the council. "Jirtkin, leave us and tell Krewgt she will finally put her skills to use. Inform her of what transpired here and have her meet Reygel immediately at the south gate."

  Jirtkin inclined her head in silent affirmation and slipped from the room, her movements economical and precise. Watching her go, Reygel felt a strange pang of unease—he had never even thought to ask her name. None of what was happening was her fault.

  Laksd rose from her seat, her posture stiff but not hostile. "I will accompany you, Reygel. To ensure a smooth departure."

  "Shall we, Deathless?" Laksd asked, her voice betraying the slightest hesitation—the first crack in her formal veneer.

  Reygel nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He followed her from the room, his footsteps echoing in the vast chamber. The door closed behind them with a resounding thud, a punctuation mark on this chapter of his brief life among the Laderos.

  The sun hung lower as they made their way through the town, its red light glinting off reconstructed buildings that gleamed like fresh scars. The air carried the sharp tang of heated metal and something acrid—melted stone, perhaps, or the residue of plasma fire. Heat pressed against Reygel's face in waves, radiating from the lava channels that cut through the streets like glowing veins. Even this far from the main flow, he could feel it pulsing beneath the metal walkways, a constant reminder of the molten rivers that sustained this place.

  They moved slowly—Laksd seemed in no hurry, and Reygel found he appreciated the delay. Aids passed them in small groups, their movements purposeful and synchronized as they carried materials toward damaged structures. The orange glow from the transparent tubes overhead cast shifting shadows across the gray metal, creating an almost hypnotic pattern of light and dark.

  The bridge was still gone, that wound still raw and untouched. He couldn't tear his eyes away from it this time. Where it had stood, there was only absence—a gap that felt wrong, like a missing tooth. The lava river flowed beneath, its surface roiling and bright, indifferent to what had been lost.

  "You keep looking at it," Laksd observed, her voice quiet.

  Reygel nodded. "I defended Sinsgridt's choice. Told Grelchn that lives mattered more than structures. But..." He trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the absent span. "You're not rebuilding it. Everyone's repairing everything else, but not the bridge. Why?"

  Laksd was silent for several paces, and when she spoke, her voice carried a weight that made Reygel look at her properly for the first time since leaving the Council chamber. "The bridge was constructed from voidsteel."

  "Voidsteel?"

  "A metal we mine deep beneath this Riftshore, in veins that run close to the void itself—where reality thins and the darkness presses close." She gestured toward the canyon walls. "It forms only in those places, under extreme conditions we don't fully understand. And it grows slowly. Incredibly slowly."

  Reygel felt his stomach sink. "How slowly?"

  "We've been mining it since we first settled here, generations ago. Small quantities, carefully extracted." Laksd's gaze fixed on the absent bridge. "That bridge represented decades of accumulated voidsteel. We'd been saving it, stockpiling every fragment we could extract. When we finally had enough, we built the bridge—our greatest defensive asset." She paused, and her voice grew quieter. "Now we must start over. If we divert all our mining efforts solely to voidsteel extraction, abandoning other crucial materials, we might—might—accumulate enough for a new bridge within a decade. More likely two."

  "A decade," Reygel repeated, the word hollow in his mouth. The weight of what Sinsgridt had destroyed suddenly felt far more tangible.

  "And that's only if we survive long enough to accumulate it." Laksd's voice grew harder. "The bridge wasn't just infrastructure, Reygel. It was strategic necessity. Voidsteel resists magic—not perfectly, but significantly. Decay Clouds, curse-fire, corrupting mists—they pass over voidsteel and dissipate. It's one of the few materials in existence that can withstand Animist powers without degrading."

  The implications crashed over Reygel like a wave. He remembered the Decay Clouds during the battle, how they'd dissolved everything they touched. How the Laderos had carefully avoided firing through them, knowing their weapons would be unmade. But a bridge of voidsteel...

  "The Minmors couldn't have used Decay Clouds to cut off access," he said slowly. "If they wanted to divide your forces, to separate the two sides of town, their Animists would have been useless against that bridge."

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  "Exactly." The single word carried the weight of a thousand accusatory voices. "Our town is split by the lava river. Two bridges connected us—this one and the smaller span to the west. Both were voidsteel, precisely so the Animists couldn't isolate our forces with strategically placed Decay Clouds. Now we have only one. If the Minmors destroy or capture the western bridge, half our town becomes cut off. Not unreachable—we can wade through the lava river if we must—but the river runs more than ten feet deep. Moving through it is slow, exhausting. Try coordinating a defense or mounting a counterattack when your reinforcements are struggling through molten rock." She paused. "The Animists know this. They'll position their Decay Clouds over both banks, and we'll have no choice but to wade through lava under constant assault, unable to respond quickly to threats on either side."

  Reygel nodded slowly, understanding crystallizing. He'd watched the battle unfold—seen how the Minmors breached from below, forcing everyone to reposition to the immediate threat. The bridge had been their fallback position, not their front line. Sinsgridt saw an opportunity to destroy the enemy and took it, without considering what she was sacrificing. She saw tactics. Grelchn saw strategy.

  The silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable.

  "And now you have neither the bridge nor Grelchn," Reygel said quietly.

  "No," Laksd agreed. "Now we have neither."

  They resumed walking, but the weight of the conversation pressed down on Reygel with every step. A decade to rebuild. A defensive position that couldn't be magically destroyed, turned to rubble in seconds. And Grelchn had died trying to prevent Sinsgridt from causing even more destruction.

  Suddenly Sinsgridt's exile made a different kind of sense. It wasn't just about Grelchn's death—it was about the loss of something irreplaceable, something that might cost the Laderos their survival.

  Laksd's presence beside him felt less like surveillance now and more like... what? Companionship? A shared burden? He glanced at her and saw the same weariness he felt reflected in her posture.

  "I still think she made a choice in the moment," Reygel said finally. "A bad one, maybe. But she was trying to save your people."

  "I know," Laksd replied, and there was no anger in her voice. Only exhaustion. "That is why we told you where she went. And why you are not the only one who wishes things had ended differently."

  They walked in silence for several more minutes, passing Aids who worked with quiet efficiency to restore what had been broken. Finally, Laksd spoke again, her tone careful. "The other Deathless. The one who carried the Red Cardinal before you. How did she die?"

  Reygel blinked at the sudden shift in topic. "The Minmors killed her. One of them, specifically—the same one that killed me. Twice." He paused, the memory sharp. "It moved fast, used wind to get through her flames."

  "And the Red Cardinal?" Laksd's voice remained neutral, but something in her posture had changed. A subtle tension. "Did it drop to the floor after her death, or did it disappear?"

  "It didn't disappear," Reygel said, thinking back. "It stayed on the ground. I touched it and..." He paused, remembering the surge of energy, the scarlet bubble. "I didn't understand what was happening at the time. I barely knew what I was." He looked at Laksd. "But with what I know now, I assumed the Minmors had destroyed their Altar so they could steal the Arbiter. That she wouldn't resurrect, and they could claim it for themselves." A bitter smile crossed his face. "Petty chance that I stumbled along and ruined their plan."

  He looked at Laksd and saw it immediately—the careful blankness of her expression, the way she held herself just a fraction too still. She was hiding something.

  "That's not what happened, is it?" Reygel said quietly.

  Laksd was silent for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of confession. "The Altar does not need to be destroyed for a Deathless to lose their connection to it. The people who take responsibility to become caretakers of the Altars—they can sever the connection if ordered to do so."

  The words settled over Reygel like a shroud. His mind raced through the implications, each one more unsettling than the last. They could dispose of him. Easily. No need for destruction or violence—just a simple severing, and he would die permanently the next time he fell. The power they held over him was absolute.

  But then another thought surfaced, pushing through the fear. The Minmor that had killed him—both times—had said something. Words that had seemed like empty threats at the time, but now...

  "The Minmor told me I'd end up at their Altar," Reygel said slowly. "When it killed me the first time, it said I belonged there. I thought... I thought I resurrected with you because your Altar was the only one standing. Because theirs had been destroyed in some earlier battle. But that's not it, is it? I aligned with your beliefs somehow, even though I don't remember making that choice."

  Laksd nodded. "The Altars recognize something in a Deathless's soul. Their values, their nature, their... essence, perhaps. It's not a conscious choice. It simply is."

  Reygel felt something cold settle in his chest. "If the Minmors had destroyed their Altar, and I aligned more with their beliefs than yours—what would have happened to me?"

  Laksd's expression grew sadder, more distant. "Altar Energy never fades, even when destroyed. The connection remains, waiting. If you aligned more with the Minmors, and their Altar was not standing by the time of your resurrection—usually at the exact same time the next day after your death—you would perish permanently." She paused. "And if you possessed an Arbiter, it would appear at the exact location of your death."

  The pieces fell into place with horrifying clarity. Reygel stopped walking, turning to face Laksd fully. "That's why you asked if the Red Cardinal dropped right away. They didn't destroy the Altar. They severed her connection to it."

  "Yes."

  "Who was she?"

  Laksd looked away, her gaze drifting toward the distant mountains. "A warrior named Cleo. She killed hundreds of Laderos over the course of four great battles. In the first two, she didn't possess the Red Cardinal—no one knows where she acquired it. But she was strong even without it. A powerful lightning user. Just having that element in her arsenal was enough to cause tremendous destruction."

  She paused, her voice growing quieter. "On the last two fights, she wreaked havoc with the Red Cardinal. She'd inserted a flame rune, adding fire to her lightning. It made her almost impossible to fight with metallic weapons. Our retracting metal shields were useless against her—the Red Cardinal's default ability, with her as the owner, caused electricity to jolt on contact with ferromagnetic objects." A bitter smile crossed her face. "We're fortunate as a race that we mostly fight from range. Our snipers brought her down on all four occasions. She was... very reckless."

  "So she was strong but not smart," Reygel said. "In a way."

  "No." Laksd's correction was gentle but firm. "I believe Cleo might have aligned with the Minmors when she died for the first time. Woke at their Altar, fought for their cause. But things probably changed." She turned back to Reygel. "She almost always looked like she was throwing herself against us just to die. Like she wanted to fall in battle."

  Reygel absorbed that in silence. A warrior caught between two worlds, belonging to neither. Dying again and again, perhaps hoping each time would be the last. He understood that kind of desperation—the desire for an ending, any ending, when trapped in an impossible situation.

  "Do you have a theory why?" he asked quietly.

  "It could be many things," Laksd said quietly. "The Minmors have a history of killing their Deathless after they acquire an Arbiter, believing that their own people—not outsiders—have the right to defend their own. Maybe she learned about that. Maybe she realized what they would do to her once she became too powerful, too independent." She paused. "Or maybe she saw us on the other side. Just defending ourselves. Minding our own business. And she couldn't find a good reason to keep butchering us."

  The words hung in the air between them. Reygel thought about Cleo—a warrior caught between two worlds, aligned with one but fighting for neither. Throwing herself into battle again and again, hoping each time would be the last. Until finally the Minmors had severed her connection, and she'd died permanently without ever finding peace.

  "I'm lucky I ended up with you," Reygel said, but even as he spoke the words, another thought crystallized. He was the first Deathless the Laderos had ever bound. The first to align with their Altar. And now he understood the true weight of that position—not just valuable, but vulnerable. Disposable, if he stopped being useful. If he became a threat instead of an asset.

  Laksd seemed to read something in his expression. "We are not the Minmors, Reygel. We do not dispose of our allies so easily."

  "But you could," Reygel said quietly. "If you needed to."

  "Yes," Laksd admitted. "We could."

  The honesty was almost worse than a lie would have been. Reygel looked away, processing the weight of what he'd learned. After a moment, he resumed walking, and Laksd fell into step beside him.

  They continued in silence toward the south gate, where Krewgt would be waiting. The path descended gradually, winding between clusters of buildings that grew sparser as they approached the settlement's edge. The sounds of reconstruction faded behind them, replaced by the ever-present hiss of lava and the occasional crack of cooling metal.

  As they neared the south gate, Reygel spotted a figure in the open space beyond the last buildings. Her skin was a deep, weathered brown touched with streaks of yellow that caught the light like old brass. She moved through a series of forms—fluid, precise movements that spoke of decades of practice. A spear traced arcs through the air, held with the kind of casual mastery that made the weapon look weightless. After completing a complex spinning strike, she drove the butt of the spear into the ground and transitioned seamlessly to unarmed combat, her body shifting through stances with economical grace.

  She completed her form and turned toward them, her breathing steady despite the exertion. On the ground near her lay two weapons: a long sword in a worn scabbard and another spear, both positioned within easy reach. A pack rested beside them, already prepared. Her eyes settled on Reygel with an appraising look—not hostile, but measuring. Taking inventory.

  "Krewgt," Laksd said, inclining her head in greeting. "This is Reygel Sireg. The Deathless."

  Krewgt walked toward them, picking up a cloth from atop her pack and wiping her hands with deliberate care. She studied Reygel for a long moment, her gaze traveling from his awkward grip on the Arbiter to his posture to the way he held himself. Finally, she grunted. "Formwrights said you lack basic training. They weren't exaggerating." She tucked the cloth into her belt. "How many times have you died?"

  "Twice," Reygel said.

  "And your kills?"

  Reygel hesitated, counting back through the chaos of the bridge battle. "Twenty? Maybe more. It's hard to remember clearly."

  Krewgt's expression didn't change, but something in her stance shifted—a subtle straightening, as if she'd just recalculated something. She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his. "You have instinct, then. Raw and untrained, but present. That's more than I expected." She bent down and shouldered her pack, then collected her weapons with practiced efficiency. "We'll see if it's enough."

  He turned to Laksd. "Thank you. For the honesty."

  She nodded, her expression unchanging but her voice softer than before. "May your journey be enlightening, Deathless."

  He inclined his head, a silent acknowledgment of the words she hadn't spoken—the warnings, the hopes, the fears she couldn't voice in front of the other Councilors. He suspected Laksd had volunteered to escort him precisely to create this moment, to explain what the others wouldn't. She was warmer in spirit than Rukrind and Kershn, both of whom seemed carved from the same unyielding stone. In a way, he felt almost fortunate the council meeting had fallen the day after a battle; otherwise, he would have faced all eleven members instead of just three, as the rest were occupied with reconstruction efforts throughout the town.

  Yet in hindsight, had the battle never taken place, Grelchn would still be alive. And the bridge would still stand.

  He pushed the thought aside and turned, falling into step beside Krewgt as they made their way out of the town. The warrior moved with a ground-eating stride that wasn't hurried but covered distance efficiently. Reygel had to work to keep pace.

  "You'll need to move faster than that if we encounter Minmors," Krewgt said without looking back. "They don't wait for stragglers to catch their breath."

  Reygel adjusted his pace, his legs already protesting. Toward Sinsgridt. Toward answers. Toward a future he could not yet see—but one he now knew balanced on a knife's edge sharper than any blade.

  The weight of that knowledge settled into his bones as the settlement fell away behind them, swallowed by the strange landscape of this floating world.