Bastet followed Kreil away from the river, the damp chill of his washed clothes clinging to his skin. In the distance, a low, rhythmic roar punctuated by shouts of laughter rose and fell on the wind. The feast had begun. Between here and there lay the skeletal remains of Stormbridge. They walked in silence at first, their boots crunching on rubble-strewn cobblestones.
Bastet's thoughts drifted to the food. He had only been fed catfish until now, so he expected that the feast would offer nothing else, just more of the same in greater quantity. He understood the limited menu, storming the river with lightning and scooping up what floated to the surface took little effort. But without spices, the muddy taste was never masked. He thought back on the battle, and how easily the city wall had snapped in half. It clearly wasn't built to withstand such attacks. This abandoned city was a relic from a time when men needed ladders to scale walls, and from when such walls provided relative safety within them. If Wesians had been using the resources that were left behind in this town, it would be a surprise if they still hadn't run out of their spice reserves, he thought.
He said as much to Kreil, who gave a humorless chuckle, his eyes scanning the collapsed roofs around them. "Wesia pours everything it has into its armies. After all that happened, this is what victory tastes like in our age."
"It doesn't taste like victory at all," they passed a toppled statue of some forgotten lord, its marble face half-buried in weeds. "The Magistrate in Briskwood," Bastet continued in a low voice, "he always said the things that came through the purple sun were just mindless beasts. And that Wesia was the last frontier of humanity against chaos. Yet yesterday we fought men bearing the banners of a silver tree." He shook his head, the words tasting sour. "He lied."
"Of course he lied," Kreil said, pulling Bastet into the shadow of a ruined archway as he scanned the empty street ahead. "It's his job. They don't have enough of Ariadne's blood to bind every peasant to their will with the oath. The rest are bound by lies. Entire civilizations have crossed over."
The scale of it was hard to grasp. "But… civilizations? How could Aetrea even fit them? The Magistrate taught that the world was being eaten by blight."
"He wasn't wrong about that part," Kreil said, his pace quickening. "The purple sun is merciless. Hell, I've seen a valley invert into a mountain range," Kreil bit into his jaw as they turned down a narrower street, the former home of families. A child's leather ball, cracked and gray with age, lay half-submerged in a puddle of muddy rainwater. "Old maps are useless now. What little habitable land is left, we all fight over. Wesia's grand lie isn't that the world is shrinking. It's that they have the right to choose who deserves to survive it."
Bastet fell silent. He thought of his village, of the Wesian soldiers marching through the fields, of the grim sentence passed onto his family. He had to hear the truth from someone who wasn't a part of the Wesian machine. "Yesterday," Bastet began, his voice low and tight, "we fought an army. Men with banners and armor. That was a battle." He leaned forward, his eyes searching Kreil's for an answer. "But what they did to my home… that was different. They called it… Cleansing. Why?" It was not a complete question, but he could not bring himself to ask one.
Kreil's face went blank. He looked away, down the empty street. "Sometimes, it's better not to know."
"I can't," Bastet insisted, his voice a low growl. "They burned my home. They destroyed my family. I have a right to know why."
Kreil finally turned back to him, and his blue eyes were filled with a terrible pity. He let out a long, slow breath. "It's not a cleansing," he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, as if the ghosts in the ruined houses were listening. "It's an amputation. Wesia declares a settlement beyond saving when the whispers from the woods take root in the minds of the villagers. When paranoia turns to worship and they suspect people have started making pacts with things that are trying to cross over." He saw the pure, uncomprehending horror in Bastet's eyes. "When that happens, they don't send soldiers to save them. They send them to erase a mistake. They burn everything… and everyone. It is the only way to be sure the corruption doesn't spread."
"That's… not true," Bastet said, his voice barely a whisper, trembling with a desperate need to be right. "They don't kill everyone… I…."
"I know." Kreil's voice was low and precise. "You should be dead. And it's even more worrying that you're not. How long did they torture you for?"
"Two months." Bastet words tasted like stone as he gave a response. The roar of the feast was louder now, just a few streets away.
"Two months?" Kreil exclaimed. "You're lucky your mind still forms words. But it is to be expected. They take you apart and remake you, again and again. They watch you break. And if you can endure it, it is because you had no choice but to endure it. A cultist would have begged his patron for power to escape. They do it to everyone that they recruit. They call it the trial of hardening."
"Everyone?" Bastet swallowed hard. "Just to weed out the cultists?"
"Not just for that," Kreil's gaze darkened, and he abruptly grabbed Bastet's arm, pulling him forward. They rounded the final corner, and the scene exploded into view. Hundreds of soldiers were packed into the wide plaza, their faces illuminated by the manic, flickering light of a massive bonfire. Laughter and clinking cups filled the air with the smell of roasted fish and spilled wine. Kreil stopped at the edge of the light. "The oath binds your will against making such pacts. But an oath is a chain, not a shield. It can't protect you from the whispers of chaos. And if the mind shatters… What good are orders to a man who can't comprehend them?" He finally turned his gaze from the feast to meet Bastet's. "That's why they break us all. To harden what's left… and to make sure we aren't quite put back together properly. So that our life force would leak. You'll see why soon enough."
The words clung to Bastet like smoke. He looked over the soldiers around the fire. He had expected Kreil's words to make them look different somehow. Broken. Hollow. But they did not. They laughed, argued over food, slapped one another on the shoulders, cursed, drank, sang. Some bore scars. Some looked barely older than boys. Nothing about them announced what had been done to them. A deep instinctual revulsion made him take a step back. It frightened him that he could become like them precisely because they were not hollow. His knuckles went white. Maybe this was survivable. And maybe that was the trap.
Kreil's grip on his arm tightened, pulling him forward. "Let's go."
Many rows of long birch tables were placed concentrically around the massive bonfire. The hubbub was overwhelming. Kreil immediately pushed his way toward the food and shoveled it onto a wooden plate. There were at least a dozen times more people here than there were for the battle. These had to be the reinforcements. Bastet found a space on the rough-hewn bench beside Kreil, but he made no move toward the food. His stomach was a tight, cold knot. He sat stiffly, his gaze sweeping over the feast.
"Eat up," Kreil pushed a piece of fish toward him.
"Not hungry."
"Your stomach is lying to you," Kreil shrugged.
He couldn't eat. He felt nausea wash over him as his thoughts lingered on the Cleansing. An amputation. The word was so clinical, so sterile for an act of such butchery. Wesia had judged Briskwood to be diseased, which meant… someone there had made a pact. The thought was a venomous seed planting itself in his mind. Who? Old Man Albert, with his strange mutterings? The trapper's son who spent too much time in the woods? Someone he had known his whole life, someone he had shared bread with, had signed his entire village's death warrant.
But the idea felt thin and unreal. Like it was just a story told by men in armor to justify a massacre. In Briskwood, chaos wasn't some grand, cosmic force. It was a patch of sour soil in the north field that you burned and salted. It was a calf born with two heads, a sad mistake of nature that you dealt with quickly and quietly behind the barn. It was a manageable sickness, a rot you cut out with a sharp knife and a steady hand. You did not burn down the entire orchard because of one blighted tree. The thought that their private, local madness could have warranted such an absolute and annihilating cure was a logic he could not grasp. It was a cure far more monstrous than any disease he had ever known.
And him? For months, in the dark of the cell, he had tormented himself with the question: why me? Was he being punished for some unknown sin? Was there some grand, terrible purpose to his survival? Now he knew the truth, and it was almost a relief. His torture wasn't a punishment. And so, he wasn't guilty of anything. The grim logic of it was a release. But it wasn't the full truth. He remembered what Sylvona, the female interrogator, cryptically said. He was to remain in the cell. He wasn't meant to just be repurposed like the rest.
A sudden, raucous cheer from a nearby table shattered his concentration. A soldier had won some drunken bet, and his companions were slamming their fists on the wood. The noise dragged Bastet back to the present, his ears ringing. As the shouting died down to a low grumble, another voice, closer and sharper, cut through the murmur.
Bastet perked up his ears and overheard a conversation. "Her ass is way too fat, Nick. If I slapped it, I could sail on the wave."
"That only makes it better!" Nick shook his head with a serious expression. "One of these days, Riley, you'll have your balls poked out by a stray bone!"
Bastet glanced in their direction and immediately recognized one of the men. The bald man with the thick eyebrows was the one who saved Kreil and him during the battle. When Gerald searched through his memory, Bastet got a chance to get a better look at the man's face, so he was certain. He nudged Kreil to get his attention and addressed the two men. "You really helped us out there! We'd be dead meat if it weren't for you!"
Nick gave out a hearty laugh. "You two are newcomers? Gotta get that hair under control," he turned around and yelled without waiting for Bastet's response "Riley! Need help with hair!"
"N-No need," Bastet said quickly, as his eyes settled on the smooth dome of Nick's head.
Nick followed his gaze upward as best he could, then frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"You looked."
"I didn't say anything."
Nick frowned as Riley came rom behind, rubbing his palm on the bald head. "Don't you worry, this one's a natural."
Nick slapped his hand away. "I had hair once."
"So you claim."
Riley turned his attention to Bastet. He was a narrow-faced man with a crooked nose and enough hair of his own to make Nick's protests seem less convincing. "Let me see."
Bastet leaned away when Riley reached for him. "See what?"
"The damage."
"There's no damage."
Riley caught a tangled strand between two fingers and held it up. "This has become rope. And it ain't just sweat and blood caked in there."
Kreil glanced over from his plate. "He worked on a farm."
"That better not be cow shit," Riley wiped his hand.
"Maybe that's why he wants to keep the hair? Smells of home!" Nick burst into laughter as Bastet was beginning to regret thanking either of them.
Riley raised one hand. A small tongue of flame appeared over his fingertips. "Gotten used to doing this. Ain't got no scissors, and it's better than doing it with a sword."
Bastet stared at the flame. "Does it hurt?"
Nick leaned closer. "Relax. He's good at this."
"That didn't answer the question."
But Riley had already pinched the end of his beard between two fingers. The flame passed over it with a soft hiss, quickly spreading along the ends of his hair. It was over in an instant.
"Much better now ain't it? You look ten years younger!" Riley admired his work, and with a mouth full of food Kreil asked if he could get a haircut too, though he wanted to keep the beard.
Nick leaned his elbows against the table. "So where'd they drag you two in from?"
"It's not a good story," Kreil's face contorted.
"Shit, it never is. At least you two didn't volunteer." Nick elbowed Riley with a wry smile.
"They promised wages, food, bit of land if I lasted long enough." Riley rubbed a thumb along the rim of his cup. "Sure as hell didn't mention the hardening."
Nick laughed without much humor. "They never do."
"You didn't know?" Bastet asked.
"Not until they already had the oath in me," Riley shrugged. "Then you're ordered not to say a word. Would make recruitment harder."
"Not like they send us home often anyway. Got a kid and a wife back in Leslo." Riley smiled faintly. "Boy hardly knew me. Took him half the evening to stop hiding behind his mother."
"They grow fast when you ain't looking." Nick clanked his cup against Riley's.
Bastet looked at Riley differently. Somewhere beyond Stormbridge, there was a boy who still knew him as his father, even if it took half an evening to remember how. Riley had not been emptied by what Wesia did to him. He had simply learned how much of a life could still be lived inside the boundaries they left him. His fingers closed around the fox in his pocket. He could not accept those boundaries. Briskwood was gone, but Maria was not something that had happened to him. She was still ahead.
Bastet let go of the fox. "Quite a feast they've prepared here."
"Feast?" Riley creased his brow and looked towards the bonfire. "But the feast still hasn't started yet?"
"I suppose they'll find out soon enough?" Nick scratched the back of his head as he turned to Bastet. "But yes, the food is excellent. We prepared our best. Even Lord Valac is coming tomorrow."
"It's a long way from Arcadia to here." Kreil mumbled between mouthfuls. "Why is Valac coming?"
"You two are quite lucky." Riley twisted his lips, "Usually you'd have to march to Arcadia, but it seems that Lord Valac won't risk moving Illias now that she's finally safe. He's personally coming to order the code of conduct."
"Who is Illias?" Kreil tilted his head.
"Hell if I know!" Riley laughed, "Should be the girl that the Argents were after. But you shouldn't get used to asking questions, coz you won't be getting many answers. Only rumors."
"They don't tell us jack because we have to obey them all the same," Nick sighed. "I've been fighting for three bloody years, and I still don't know nothin' 'bout that war!"
"Ain't it weird that we're fighting at a time we should all be trying to rhyme some poems?" Riley leaned forward, "I understand the other two fronts. It's keeping the worst of the monsters off our lands. But the Argent war? It's like they're distracting us. Can't make any art when we're at each other's throats, so we won't get a chance at becoming gods. May the best artist win!" he said mockingly, spitting on the ground.
"There's a funny theory on that," Kreil filled his cup with more wine as he addressed Riley, "The greatest artist will indeed win, but with the Maker gone, there are no minds left to judge greatness, except for our own. And if there's no beauty outside the eye of a beholder, what else must you do to monopolize it, other than blind the eyes that see it elsewhere? Suddenly a war makes a bit more sense!"
"Ooh, I like that!" Nick wagged his index finger, "Has a nice ring to it!"
"Well…" it seemed that Riley was about to protest, but all of a sudden, the hubbub lulled into a dead silence.
"Did Valac arrive?" Bastet asked, to which Riley scoffed, "No. But looks like the feast is starting."
Gerald's small frame soon appeared in front of the bonfire "Apologies for the wait. We decided to add a stubborn soldier or two as dessert!"
"Gerald, you fucker, you delayed it so you wouldn't miss it!" A shout resounded from somewhere in the crowd, which made Reed, who stood behind Gerald, muffle a laugh with a hand over his mouth.
The bonfire suddenly blazed up as the wood crackled much louder than before. Bastet's skin was dyed red as the flame became grander and grander. The heat pinched his cheeks as a few soldiers tossed some bodies into the fire. "Burning the dead?"
"No," Nick pinched his nose, "Alive. Just beaten unconscious, to make it easier." A moment ago Riley had been speaking about his son. Now he leaned toward the fire as though nothing had changed.
Before Bastet could even articulate his disgust, Nick continued. "The fire… it lets 'em go. All that's left inside 'em. And we breathe it in." He pressed a finger hard against Bastet's chest. "And your life force's leaking. That's what the Hardening leaves you with, they make sure to hurt you till it does. I've heard it explained before, how did it go again, Riley?"
"The door leading outside and the door leading inside is the very same door." Riley recalled. "You leak life force, but you can feed on it."
"Yeah, that!" Nick nodded. "So sit close to the fire, and breathe deep. Or your own life may fade within months."
It wasn't the scent of woodsmoke. It was heavy and greasy. Bastet had grown up on a farm, so he knew the smell of butchered meat. But this was not that. This was a thick, cloying sweetness, a sickening odor of fat, burnt hair and something else that clung to the back of his throat. It was a smell that felt profoundly wrong. He looked at the other soldiers. Some stared into their cups, their faces pale and grim. Others ate on, completely unmoved, their faces illuminated by the ghastly orange light of the pyre.
Once the last body was thrown into the flame, there was a sickening hiss as it was consumed. Kreil stood and left the table without a word. The action cut through the chaotic haze of the feast. Bastet's mind, which had been reeling from the smoke suddenly became sharp and clear.
Where was he going? Bastet pressed his hand flat on the table and pushed himself up. Was Kreil finally going to try and convince the commander to spare his daughter? It was a thought that led in a dangerous direction. If he couldn't convince him, then what? If Kreil was willing to endure torture and sacrifice his freedom just for a sliver of hope, how much more would he be willing to sacrifice if that hope was extinguished? If such an opportunity were to arise, Bastet thought, he would be willing to do anything.
Bastet understood in that instant: if an opportunity to act arose, it would have to be tonight. Soon, the code of conduct would cement the rules, leaving no room for loose interpretations. With quiet, deliberate steps, he followed after Kreil.