It is unfashionable to discuss the metaphysical implications of ensoulment. We have Saf to thank for that; nothing sours a concept quite so efficiently as a poor execution. The fault does not rest with them alone, however - rationalism has largely prevailed in the post-Gharic continent as a matter of practicality and, dare I say, some imitation of our Mendiko example to fill the void left by Ghar’s demise.

Yet for all that we avoid such discourse, it is difficult to deny that there is an element of the mystical in each soul. The soul often presents as a second chance, a personal balm for one of life’s many wounds. Here is a person who wishes to their utmost that the world might be different in a particular way - and, now, here is a person with the capacity to realize that change.

I do not advocate for worship - what Saf has done is to couch social control in the language of spirituality to equal detriment. However, I do believe that each ensouled might benefit from sitting quietly and contemplating the direction in which the arc of their life has bent. A soul may be used as a tool, but it is not a spade or a hatchet. It is, in every case, a granted wish - and wishes ever lurk in the shadows where the cold light of reason cannot shine.

- Leire Gabarain, Annals of the Sixteenth Star, 675.

Michael froze in place as the door swung wide, revealing Friedrich’s massive, gore-stained form. Watching the man through his spector’s sight had not properly conveyed the sheer impact lent by Sever’s soul. It was not his father’s cloud of ethereal edges, nor the wispy blades manifested by the Swordsmen.

Friedrich was quiet. His soul hung about him in a gentle cloud of annihilation, scraping inexorably away at his surroundings. It was tight, controlled, and absolute. Michael felt sweat bead on his skin as Friedrich walked into the center of the shed and turned to look at the man who followed him.

Where Sever brimmed with destructive force, the post’s commander stood as an island of solidity. Every line of Galen’s uniform seemed somehow more real and exact than the crates and stacked lumber cluttering their surroundings. The two souls stood opposed as their bearers’ eyes met.

“As I recall,” Friedrich said, “you had just finished accusing me of being uncivil.”

“What else would you have me call it?” Galen raised an eyebrow. “My men and I are dedicated, I daresay more so than you. I will not permit anyone to threaten them, no matter their soul or station.”

Friedrich smiled. “It was not a threat,” he said. “Only a fact. You do them no favors with your coddling, Galen. It would be unrealistic to expect everyone to match my strength - just as it is for you to pretend they can reach beyond their limits.”

Galen tilted his head. “Strength is not a monolith,” he said. “You could defeat any man here, yes - including me. But all of them, together? A bullet would find you, or a particularly ironic blade. Even if you did defeat them all, you would still lose - with no more food, wine or women I imagine you’d take leave of your faculties within days.”

“Please,” Friedrich snorted, scratching at the drying blood on his arm. He took a few idle steps around the shed; Michael saw the others shrink back in alarm - save for Gerard, who stood glaring with barely-restrained anger. Clair laid a hand on his arm, her eyes never leaving Friedrich. Gerard gave no sign that he felt her touch.

“You do have limits, or you’d have walked straight to Khem by now,” Galen pressed. “It is no failing to have comrades.”

“It is if those so-called comrades ask me to live a pale and muted version of my life,” Friedrich replied. “You must feel it too. Galen, be honest with yourself - the war men like you and I fight is not the same as theirs. We are luminous, exceptional even among souls. I know you saw the river, as I did. Look me in the eye and tell me your soul was not a star among candles when you first saw it.”

Galen gave him a long-suffering look. “And so?” he asked. “We need all of them. The bright, the dim, the lightless. We enrich them, and they us - so that we may all stand against the true monsters of this world without fear.”

“Fear is an excuse,” Friedrich said. “Self-limiting delusion. Even alone, we’re better than that.”

“Are we?” Galen asked. “Then why are we here, and not in Leik? You look me in the eye, old friend, and tell me your decision to strike out west had nothing to do with that woman.”

Sever gave no external reaction, but Michael saw a quick shiver of his soul. To his right, sawdust flaked away from a stack of green wood and settled down to the ground. “If anything of Mendian drives my actions, it is only that they struck a blow against the Safid. They are reeling and disorganized - ripe for a strike.”

“A feeling I imagine you learned well, the last time you met her,” Galen said, drawing a glower from Friedrich. “And I would hardly call the Safid retreat disorganized. If it were, you would not have resorted to running prisoners and cripples out in front of the charge. It’s hard for me to see this shining light you speak of when it hides behind such tactics.”

Friedrich shrugged with studied nonchalance, although his soul continued to roil in tight waves against his skin. A small pile of dust had begun to accumulate beneath the stacked lumber, the wood groaning worryingly as his soul continued his quiet abrasion.

“What else would you have me do with them?” he asked. “Killing them outright is a waste. The Safid and deserters are going to die anyway, they may as well do it usefully.”

“There are Daressans among your prisoners as well,” Galen noted. “What did they do to merit such a use?”

“What did they do to merit anything better?” Friedrich asked.

Gerard took a half-step forward, clenching his fists, and Clair’s hand tightened on his arm. Michael found his eyes drawn away from the conversation to the artifex’s face. Gerard had gone white with rage, teeth bared and eyes locked onto Sever. Clair began to whisper urgently in his ear, pulling him away from the two men.

“It damages our cause when you treat them poorly,” Galen said. “And I don’t just speak of your prisoners. The Swordsmen follow your example in disrespecting the Daressans, and they show it with unprovoked violence and rapine.”

“I’m not unsympathetic to their plight, however I may seem,” Friedrich said. “Every man is unsouled until they are tested. I remember how it felt - the hopelessness, the despair of loss that pushed me to my utmost.” He took a step closer to Galen, looking down as the other man stared implacably back.

“It is in the testing that we rise beyond our base beginnings and realize our potential,” he said. “It is a crucible that finds the purity within us and brings it forth. Some men don’t have it, and you can see the realization in their eyes just before the life fades - that all they could do in life was die.”

“You often give them few options,” Galen said grimly.

“They never had an option other than death. The rest is delusion. If I walk into a man’s house and leave with his coin, his food, his wife and daughters - if I do this and he can’t stop me, what is he? He was never alive to begin with. Just a corpse that dreamt otherwise. Such men are better off dead.”

Gerard made a low noise, a wordless groan that prickled gooseflesh on the nape of Michael’s neck. He took one step toward Sever before Clair swept his feet from under him with a frantic thrust of her leg. The two tumbled to the dirt floor together in a small plume of dust.

For a moment there was silence. Friedrich’s eyes looked bemusedly at the dust cloud, and Galen turned to follow his gaze - then sprang towards the door to the house so quickly that to Michael’s eyes he seemed to vanish. “Fades outside!” he shouted. “Get the powder bags-”

He broke off as spikes of rough stone began to burst upward from the ground. Michael spun to see Gerard twisting in Clair’s grip, his fingers digging into the dirt with feral strength. The spikes converged on Friedrich, who made no move to dodge.

They slammed into him from four angles, and Friedrich was momentarily obscured by a burst of sand. When it fell to the ground, he still had not moved. His hand swiped lazily at one of the spikes, which disintegrated into yet more sand and fell to the dirt.

“This is what I’m talking about, Galen,” he said. To Michael’s horror, he saw that Friedrich’s eyes had settled squarely on Gerard and Clair; the attack had strained Sobriquet’s veil past the breaking point. “Men who forget that they were never alive in the first place. They twist and struggle, but in the end they-”

He broke off as two more stone spikes thrust toward his chest, followed by the quick report of a pistol. Gerard rose to his feet, gun in hand, and fired twice more. Puffs of lead dust blossomed against Friedrich’s chest, and he frowned.

The slightest of shifts rippled through the shed, an ache beginning to manifest beneath Michael’s ribs. Gerard blinked and looked down at the stump of his arm. Blood pulsed across the dirt in rapid beats, each seeming to take an age to fall.

Michael saw only pieces of the scene around him. Gerard’s uncomprehending face, Clair scrambling away from Friedrich. Vernon and Luc crouched in the corner, pale and wide-eyed. Blood spattering crimson from Gerard’s arm.

His sight fixated on the image of Gerard’s bloody fingers, and for a moment Michael saw a blur of images superimposed - blood dripping down from a woman’s hand, pooling under the outstretched arm of an old man, spattered on a young man’s manacled wrists. Behind them all, the hungry void waited to claim its due.

The ache pounded away within Michael’s chest, and he understood Friedrich’s words: here was something wrong, something unthinkable, and in the face of that horror Michael stood paralyzed. A non-entity, still invisible under Sobriquet’s veiling power and watching silently as the gears of the world turned in front of him.

Was he alive, then, or one of Friedrich’s dreaming corpses? If he stood here and watched Gerard die like all of the others, let others beat the world into their desired shape-

It all needs to mean something, or what’s the point?

His own words echoed back through his head, and he reached for Stanza’s soul - but found just the tree, standing resolute as only Stanza’s power could make it. He stood at its base, looking at the gnarled wood and forcing his mind not to flinch from the sight of it.

“It’s working better than you expected,” Jeorg said, his hand resting on the trunk. “You could keep it here for as long as you wanted. What’s inside would never trouble you.”

Michael pressed his lips together. “You told me once that whatever I chose, some paths would close to me. I didn’t understand what you said, not really. I kept thinking about it in terms of major decisions - exploring my soul, leaving the garden, traveling to Mendian.” He paused, then exhaled. “But it isn’t that. It happens moment-to-moment. I put up barriers for myself, constrain the path ahead. Like Spark, only I can’t blame him for this.”

“Paths come in all sizes,” Jeorg said. “Great and small. There are always choices not made, boundaries that we walk within. Only so far you can walk, if you want to stay under this tree.”

The twisted branches sighed in the wind, and Michael looked up. “That’s just death,” he said. “Just waiting for the void to come back around. I can’t - watch this anymore. I can’t just stand by and allow the world to happen around me.” Michael looked back down to Jeorg. “Not when I can do more.”

Jeorg gave Michael a sad smile. “It’s a hard path,” he said. “Those decisions have a weight. There comes a point where it’s more than you can carry.”

“Probably,” Michael said. He extended his hand toward Jeorg, looking the old man in his eyes. “I imagine I’ll fail. I just - I need to try, once. To live.”

Slowly, Jeorg withdrew his hand from the tree and turned to face Michael. “I’m not him,” Jeorg said. “But I know - you know that he’d be proud of you. For not hiding. For doing what he couldn’t.” His weathered fingers met Michael’s, and they clasped hands. “Try to remember that.”

Michael squeezed the old man’s hand once - and then there was only Michael.

Sight returned, limned in vibrant mirror-light. Michael breathed in and let his vision stretch out to the shed, marking the twisting permutations that spiraled outward - from Friedrich and Gerard, from Clair, from the crates and lumber and bloodied dirt. One jumped forward into his mind, and he followed it down the twisting lanes of possibility.

“Strike a blow,” he said. The words shivered out over the quiet interior space, and he felt Sobriquet’s illusory veil fracture around him. Friedrich paused, his eyes turning toward the sudden change - but Michael already had the path in his mind, blazing bright. He met Friedrich’s eyes and clasped his fist.

“Surge,” he rasped. “Grow.”

The stack of green lumber burst sideways in a riot of growth that took Friedrich off his feet. His surprise was only momentary; the branches came apart into splinters around him. Friedrich jumped back to his feet-

A gunshot rang out, then another. Clair’s bullets disintegrated into powder as Gerard’s had, but this time the hot lead dust splashed over Friedrich’s eyes. Cursing, he stumbled backward. Invisible lines of force lashed out from him, scoring the wood and forcing Clair to dive for cover; Michael jumped at Gerard and tackled him to the ground before he could be further wounded.

Michael came up in a crouch; the guiding touch of Stanza’s soul made it effortless to keep his feet. The burst of growth from the green lumber had stopped, the cut logs withering and cracking after the unnatural effort. The door to the house slammed open to reveal Galen with soldiers at his back, holding a small bag in one hand.

He reached into it and threw a fine powder into the air. It spread through the air in billows as Friedrich swiped angrily at his eyes, settling in a thin coat on every surface - both visible and invisible. Michael dragged Gerard back towards the door as fast as he was able, but the soldiers’ guns were drawing level and Friedrich’s eyes were open.

A blur of motion shimmered in the air as Sobriquet grabbed Friedrich’s face with one hand. He screamed once; a concussion of disruptive force rippled outward as his soul convulsed violently. It chewed into the wood of the shed, shredded crates and tossed their contents outward with stunning force. Michael ducked down and felt the blast ripple across his back like raking claws.

As it passed he sprang upward once more and dragged Gerard forward. The shed groaned around him, the weakened wood snapping as it buckled down. There was screaming, yells of pain and alarm from all sides. Stones fell from the side of the house until the space behind him was only chaos, noise and dust.

Michael did not think long about where he was running, he only pulled outward and away as fast as he could drag Gerard’s limp form. It was only when a shimmer drew his attention that he stopped and looked up at Sobriquet hovering in the air beside his path.

“You’re hidden again,” it said, quiet and strained. “Hold here. I’m guiding Vernon and Luc to you.”

“Charles?” Michael rasped, coughing. “Clair?”

Sobriquet’s form shifted agitatedly. “Charles slipped out the front during the fight,” it said. “I can’t - I don’t see Clair.”

Vernon and Luc arrived at an exhausted run moments later. Michael turned and found Vernon staring at him oddly, his eyes drifting down - to Gerard. The artifex was pale, and the bleeding from his arm had slowed to a dribble. Hurriedly, Michael laid him down on the ground.

Luc knelt beside Gerard, drawing off one glove to feel for a pulse. There was a phantom pain in Michael’s chest, an odd resonance of the ache from before - then Luc withdrew his fingers and shook his head.

Michael stared at Gerard’s body. He hadn’t felt the man die, blinded by panic or the frenzied flight. The resolve he had felt before crumbled, collapsing into a dense ball of agony that boiled in his gut; what had it amounted to? Gerard was still dead.

Crunching dirt heralded Charles’s arrival. He slowed as he looked down at Gerard, motionless, pausing only for a moment before shaking his head and looking back at Sobriquet. “I have the papers,” he said. “They’re mustering Swordsmen from the main hall. We need to-”

“I see Clair,” Sobriquet interrupted. “She’s unconscious, part of the wall fell on her - she’s pinned under stone, I can’t see if she’s injured.”

Charles shook his head. “We need to leave now or we’re not leaving,” he said. “We only have moments before they lock down the gates.”

The shimmering blur contracted, rippled, shifted to float a handspan in front of Charles. “She’s right there,” it hissed. “Just-”

“No,” Charles retorted. “There is no ‘just’ here. We can’t do it. The house is swarming with Ardans, and we need to go now.”

Sobriquet spun to face Michael. “Can you do it?” it asked. “Forget our game of secrets. Name your price and I’ll pay it.”

Michael looked once again at Gerard’s lifeless body. “I couldn’t even save him,” he said. “Maybe if we had some sort of plan, but just running in like this - Charles is right. We have to leave, regroup.”

The edges of the illusion fuzzed, gaining a crackling, thunderous aspect. “You are withholding your secrets from me still,” Sobriquet said. “Don’t forget who I am. If you lie to me now, and Clair dies-”

“Yes,” Michael spat. “Yes, I might be able to save her.” He took a step forward, glaring at Sobriquet, and saw the bright mirror-light around him flex and shimmer. “But she would be in more danger from me than from the Ardans. You all would. Tell me if I’m lying.”

The apparition went perfectly still. “You’re not. But-”

“But now it’s time to go to the gate,” Charles growled. “If you want to keep insinuating terrifying things, you can continue outside.” He began to walk off, and all but Vernon hurried to follow. The auditor paused by Gerard’s body.

“We’re leaving him?” Vernon asked.

Charles turned to give Vernon an acid look. “I told him the night we came here that he had to pick a family to stay with, and leave the other behind.” The artifex looked down at Gerard, then turned away. “He’s with the ones he chose.”

“Unbelievable,” Emil muttered, looking nervously out the rear of his cart. “What did you do? They’re saying that someone destroyed Oberst Wahl’s command post and challenged Sever to single combat. This was supposed to be a covert mission.”

“It was,” Charles said. “We just had a rough extraction.”

“Rough? Rough?” Emil’s eyes bulged. “Clair coordinates operations across all of the Ardan lines. If they bring in the right interrogator-”

“They won’t have her that long,” Sobriquet said grimly, fixing Michael with a look. “You wanted a plan, now is when we make it. We need to find a way to get Clair out of there as quickly as possible. Emil isn’t wrong about the potential consequences.”

“What about the consequences of staying?” Vernon asked. “You said the Ardans were narrowing down your location; I think after what just happened they have a pretty good idea of where you are. What happens to the resistance if we lose you?”

Sobriquet hummed. “There is a risk,” it admitted. “But even now, it will take them time to focus their search productively. The documents will stay here, as will our new friend.” It pivoted to look at Emil. “If we should fail, escape with Luc and get the papers to Mendian. The resistance will not be the Ardans’ priority once their crimes have been exposed and the Star comes calling for their blood.”

“Wonderful,” Emil muttered. “I relish the opportunity to be so very important.”

“And you, Michael Baumgart,” Sobriquet said, floating to look at him. “If we are to plan for her rescue, we need to know in full what you are capable of.”

Michael looked up at the apparition. “A secret for a secret,” he said. “I’m willing to help you save Clair, but I’m not going to do it blindly, not after what happened with Gerard. If you want to know what I can do, I need to know why it’s so important to you that we rescue Clair.”

Sobriquet regarded him quietly for a moment. “She is my sister,” it said. “And the only one of my family left alive. Is that adequate enough for you to participate, or would you like more?”

Of the people in the room, Charles and Luc did not seem surprised; Michael supposed that Charles either already knew or didn’t care, and Luc seemed too bewildered to process any of it. He took a breath and pondered his words carefully.

“Some of this may be strange,” he began, “but Sobriquet will be able to hear it as truth. I am a spector, and I am also a durens.”

“Truth,” Sobriquet said, not sounding overly surprised. “And what more? You’re at least an augmens, besides.”

Michael sighed. “Stanza.”

There was a pause. “The hell you say,” Charles spat.

“It’s true,” Sobriquet said. “Or he’s threading a very fine needle of self-deception. It lines up with what I had pieced together already, though. Is there more?”

Michael gave a tight nod. “Yes, but nothing we can safely use.”

“Truth,” Sobriquet said. “Or it is in his opinion, anyway.”

“Trust me on this, please,” Michael said. “Death is not the worst consequence that could result.”

“Is that supposed to scare us?” Charles sneered. “Anyone who lives under Ardan rule knows there are things worse than death that can happen in their clutches. Ask us why we’re worried for Clair - it’s not because we think they’ll kill her. It’s because we know they won’t. If you have something that can save her from that-”

Luc stood up from his crouch, looking at Michael with hesitant realization. “You’re talking about Claude,” he said. “That was you.”

Ice slithered down Michael’s spine as he met Luc’s eyes. “It was,” he said. “You found him?”

“I did,” Luc said. Michael saw words pass unsaid behind his lips for several long moments, his eyes tightening at the corners. “Then you have the - the other soul?”

Michael nodded. He did not trust himself to speak, not when he was talking with Luc about the deaths of those two men. It was one thing to know that Michael had precipitated the loss of all Luc had held dear, another entirely to hear him admit to killing Spark and maiming Claude personally. For all that they had lied to Luc, they had been his family.

Luc’s eyes glinted with moisture - then he shook his head and shifted his gaze to Sobriquet. “He is right not to use that soul. If I had known he held it I would have chosen to stay and die in the camp rather than travel with you.”

The words carried a surprising sting when Michael heard them. It must have shown in his face, for Luc’s lips twisted into a quiet, sad smile. “I only trusted one person to use it well, and I was wrong,” he said. “But I’ll trust you not to, since it seems you’re not as much of an idiot as I thought.” He extended his hand.

Michael shook it. “Thank you,” he managed. “And - for what it’s worth-”

“Don’t,” Luc said, releasing Michael’s hand. “I don’t need to hear it.”

Luc inclined his head, then turned and sat in the corner of the cart once more. Charles stared after him, then at Michael. “Well, all right,” he said. “You win, I’m becoming concerned about these things you can’t do.” A thin strip of metal swirled around one of his fingers in a complex pattern. He fidgeted with it, looking at Michael with an inscrutable expression. “So let’s talk about the things you can.”