Elanah didn’t say much else after our last talk.

I suppose she’d already done what she needed to do. She’d told me about the family, and she managed to figure out just how little we got along. Now, after that, it was all business for the next week. Work. She didn’t bother trying to talk to me about anything else.

I was fine with that.

The development process was long and dangerous. Once Elanah and I went past theorycrafting, more practical experimentation took up the bulk of our work. Quicksilver was a powerful metal—liquid, yet still dense. It absorbed magic rapidly because of its state. Made activation processes and magical effects much quicker, and far more efficient compared to solid materials.

Finding the right alloy combination for a counteragent was difficult. The blight only corrupted things in a superficial level, so destroying it would be easy so long as Elanah’s poison could spread. The problem was immunity. The Crimson Tide was adaptive, so Elanah and I needed something that could counter that.

We needed a mutative poison. A highly unstable one, designed to target only the Crimson Tide.

After all, the blight was a living thing. It had its organs, deep beneath the earth. Spreading corruption and death. And like all living things, it had a specific mana signature that we could imprint into our weapon.

And once we created something that could infect it and mutate beyond the crimson’s ability to control, it would be over.

That was what we did. Over our second week of work, Elanah took the lead. Biological weaponry was her specialty. She spearheaded development from then on, and the tension of working with such dangerous poisons forced us into single-minded focus. There was no time for talk or chatter. Only soundless work, with me acting as a shadow, helping Elanah as an assistant. I knew her habits. I knew her methods. The moment she needed something, I had it. While she worked on the first step of an experiment, I was off to the side, assembling what we needed for step two.

We didn’t waste any time. And thanks to that, our effort crystallized into results by the end of the second week.

I stood in front of a glass cage, watching a blighted eagle stand inside. Its wings were no longer feathers, but bony and webbed, held together by twisting tendrils of flesh. Its beak hung open. Human teeth lined the inside of its mouth.

“Test twenty,” Elanah said, pen against her clipboard. She stood behind me as I held the lever to release. “Silvers, release.”

The lever went down, and the chamber attaching the cage to our poison capsule opened.

A small mass of silver slime flowed into the chamber.

It crawled forward, extending small tendrils to feel at the ground. They were like little fingers, tapping and rubbing at the ground before pushing itself on. The blighted eagle stared at the hand-sized mass of activated metal. Watching. In front of it, the silver slime rose up, extending its feelers. It felt along the glass cage, expanding, crawling forward—

Until the eagle’s mouth stretched open and took a massive, horse’s bite out of our poison. The motion was a blur. One moment, the slime was whole, and in the next it was inside a mouth.

The blighted creature chewed, staring at us.

And then its eyes exploded.

I took an involuntary step back, watching gore spray across the glass. Through the blood, I saw silver slime flow out of the creature’s skull. It covered its face and ate. Our bioweapon started disintegrating flesh, integrating it into its mass. The monster in front of us suffered a thousand deaths. Poisons ravaged it, constantly changing, mutating. Black flesh crawled down its chest. Then its feathers fell out. Then the same blackened flesh bloated up into a massive blister, only to explode and spray slime, gore, and pus across the glass again. But it was far from done. The scattered slime shot back into the writhing eagle and continued its assault.

I watched the blight die.

The process lasted no more than sixteen seconds. In that amount of time, the monster had suffered every pain imaginable. Now I watched, staring as a far larger mass of silver swept across the glass, scrubbing it clean of blood and rot.

When it was done, the slime simply stopped and settled down. It pooled at the bottom and filled half of the cage. Unmoving, as if it were just liquid metal and not the most potent bioweapon in the Nine Realms. I stared at it in horror, imagining what it would do to me if I had been the one in the cage. This was the stuff Elanah made most often. Weapons of mass death.

The woman of my childhood had been strict, but I never saw her as someone who could make something like this. The alchemy I knew was a thing of convenience. A healing art.

This was made to kill.

“Test twenty, success. Eradication in sixteen-point-three seconds,” Elanah said, her voice steady. Clinical. “Average kill-time, two-point-one seconds per kilogram of blight. Success rate, ninety percent.”

Her pen tapped against the clipboard as she ended the record. She closed her eyes, and a faint sigh of relief left through her nose.

“We’ve done it,” she said, opening her eyes. They moved across the ruined lab, full of melted equipment, blast-marked walls, and blackened spots. The result of two weeks of study and experimentation. Two weeks of near-death experiences.

It was almost hard to believe that we survived. I stared at the glass cage.

“After the blight's dealt with, where is this poison’s formula going to go?” I asked, frowning at the terrible weapon we’d created.

Elanah set her clipboard down, “The Summersky House’s military. This was their request.”

“Strike my name out of the contributors. I want nothing to do with this.”

She frowned, “You deserve credit for this, Ashran.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Why?”

I glared at the cage, “Because I can guess what this is going to be used for after the Crimson Tide is out of Caereith.”

War. More deaths. Painful deaths, brought about by vicious, mutating toxins.

Music was my passion, but alchemy was my strongest skill. I was a master. And I was proud of it. Proud of my ability to make medicine and delicious food—of making things with alchemy that made lives easier to live. And yet, with just two weeks of effort, I’d created something that would kill more people than I would ever help.

It was needed, true. It would save lives now and I understood that. But after?

I shook my head and turned towards the door. The blow against my conscience for what would come after this was bad enough. I didn’t need Ashran to take the damn credit, too.

That wasn’t the kind of identity I wanted for this weave. Not for the weave that made the Shissavi laugh and sing every night.

“I did my part,” I said, stepping outside the lab. “You can go and do the rest.”

“Stop, Ashran.”

Elanah’s voice called out after me and I stopped, frowning. I turned to face her. The old woman watched me, her lips pursed, her hands hidden inside her coat’s pockets. But all it took to give her away was the set of her jaw, same as ever.

She was tense. Elanah turned her gaze towards the glass cage.

“I still need your help for the post-testing process.”

“We both know you don’t.”

“The mana cauldrons—they require two sets of hands. And the papers—”

“You have assistants for that. There are plenty outside.”

“…Ashran.”

She said a Name. My weave’s Name, because she no longer knew the one that belonged to me. The voice that came out of her was almost a plea, asking for me to stay. But I was tired.

I was done seeing her face.

All I wanted to do now was go home, and so I turned away, “I’m leaving, Elanah. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. For father’s sake.”

The lab’s door closed behind me, and then Elanah was alone.

That was nothing new to her.

Hours after I left the lab, I stood in front of an airship. It was a small vessel—made for quick ferry trips, only meant to hold no more than twenty passengers. It stood at the edge of the camp’s barrier, where wind and rain battered the forcewalls without end. I stared at the ships unfurled sails. They snapped against the winds, releasing the sound of sharp, canvas slaps with every tug of the storm. The sailwings on the side of the ship shuddered despite being tucked in.

“You’ll be taken straight to the Summersky keep’s private dock as soon as you enter Felzan,” Halcyn said, and I turned my eyes to him. He stood with Freyarch on his shoulder and the cat watched me, smiling its knowing smile. “Is there anything you want to take with you? There’s plenty of spare equipment in the labs.”

I shook my head, “No, I’m alright. I’ve had enough alchemy this week to last me the next few months. How long will it take for the ship to reach Felzan?”

“The storms make it hard to say, but no more than a week.”

“And what about my other request? About finding my companions.”

Freyarch smirked and licked his paw, “Worry not, summer tree. Your companions weren’t hard to find. After all, they were the ones who found us.”

I raised an eyebrow his way, but Halcyn was the one to answer.

“They’ve become acquainted with one of my siblings,” he said, sighing. The saer unfastened a token from his shirt and handed it to me. “This will give you my authority once you arrive. Seek out my younger sister, Amerys. She’ll tell you where they are.”

I accepted the token with a nod of thanks. And behind Halcyn, walking away from a group of the saer’s escorts, was Aami and the small, amarid chef.

Priscia.

She shot the prince a worried look, “Is it really okay for me to join them on the return trip, saer Halcyn? Master assigned me here to make sure your meals were worthy of your station.”

The prince shook his head. “I’m a general, here. Not a prince. You’ve spoiled us with your meals, Priscia, but you’ve done enough. This camp has rations that have remained unused since you arrived, and it’s time that it’s put to use. I have no problems eating the same food as my men.”

She bowed her head, and beside her, Aami grinned. The shoggoth slung an arm over her shoulder. She leaned forward and whispered, “I asked beardy if I could bring you with me.”

“That was you!? But I—”

“You’ll be fine. I want to meet your master! You said he cooked great food, so…”

The two walked away, Aami practically dragging her friend onto the ship. She turned a little as they got on and flashed me a grin. Cheeky girl. Smiling wryly, I turned to Halcyn again. I offered the saer my hand.

“Will you accept another trade?” I asked, and he raised an eyebrow.

“If it’s a simple favor, then I could simply grant it to you.”

I shook my head. “No, if you’re willing, I would prefer a guarantee,” I said, frowning towards the camp. The lab I worked in was quiet. “I helped make you a weapon, saer Halcyn. I did it to help the people here. Could you promise me that you won’t use it on anything other than the blight?”

He furrowed his brows, conflicted. “That’s a big price to pay. The other Houses have weapons that are just as deadly—we’d be losing a lot to limit this to the blight alone.”

I nodded, “That’s why I asked for a trade. I know preserving my conscience has a price.”

“And what are you offering to trade for it?”

“A guarantee,” I said, smiling wryly as I retrieved a piece of paper from my pocket. It was a formula—the exact process involved in creating the bioweapon. “Keep that thing away from other people, and I promise I won’t sell the recipe to the same Houses you plan to use it on. It won’t be fun if everyone has the same toys, right?”

Halcyn and Freyarch stared at the paper in my hand, then up at me.

They broke out into laughter.

The prince’s stern face changed into an amused grin. He reached out and shook my hand, squeezing firmly. “I hope you understand your weapon does little to change the state of things. Once the blight is driven out, the war between Houses will continue. Stronger weapons will still replace the one you take away today.”

“I know. I just don’t want anything to do with it.”

Freyarch looked bemused, “For someone who spoke so nobly a while ago, that’s quite the selfish reason.”

I shrugged, “I can’t change things. I’m just doing what I can to not make them worse.”

“And so you can sleep at peace, no?”

“Of course.”

“Selfish! As all immortals should be.” Smiling, the orange tabby jumped off Halcyn’s shoulder and began to walk off, “You’ll make a fine legend in the future, Rowan Kindlebright. One all of our kind should have.”

I watched the cat stride away, tail swishing in amusement. And after a few more words, Halcyn left as well, leaving me alone as the airship crew dragged supplies into the hull. I looked up at the ship and released a sigh.

Soon, this journey would be over, and then I would be in Felzan.

My new home. Where father is.

My shadow stood up.

“Finally headed home eh, chief?” Traveler said, resting an arm on my shoulder. His touch felt like a cold breeze. “What’s the plan after you see your old man?”

“I don’t know. But I already wasted twenty-one years. Now I have to make up for lost time.”

“Doing what?”

I stepped up the airship, “What else?” I asked, placing a hand against my bansuri. “Making music, meeting friends, and taking care of family. I have a brother now, and I’ll damn the Ancestors if he’s not taking care of father while Elanah is away.”

“And if he’s just like your mother?”

“Well, my troll side covered my knuckles in stone for a reason.”