Marron glared at the corpse at his feet.

The Iron Skin warrior had a large hole burned through where his right eye had been. The only expression on his face was surprise and none of the fear that he would have felt. If he had taken more than an instant to die anyway.

The past year had been a great ordeal. His transfer from the Watchtower to Fort Aegermonth took longer than he expected and when he managed it, Niamh took even longer to get her transfer papers done.

It had been near the end of the Season of Water by the time he managed to get to Fort Aegermonth, and by then, Knight-Commander Lucille Kinnock had already started a slaughter. The barbarians escaped further north, handily avoiding the powerful duchess. Even worse, she hadn’t managed to rescue any of the captives.

There was a Tidelands to the north. There was no other way that so many Wyldlings and Chaos Lords came out of the snow. The duchess and several cohorts from the so-called private legions of the south had stormed across Rumiga and were fighting in the frozen north. There were even several squads of Colossi, from Agminis, though they were mostly Koinos class. He saw a single Certus class though, which was about five paces tall and roughly a tenth wider than the Koinos. It was still made of lacquered wood over a metal frame but the exposed surface wasn’t covered in runescript. From what Niamh told him, Certi Colossi were dual-armoured with the delicate runescript layered in between.

By the time he arrived in Aegermonth, the battle had changed. Now, the barbarians moved to more advantageous terrain, and the Imperials were now in pursuit.

There was a reason why they haven’t made a real effort to conquer the Frozen North. There was too much wasteland, it was too rotting cold, and there was barely any supply. Logistical lines were stretched thin, and Wyldlings attacked any supply caravan they could find.

Before he knew it, the majority of the year had passed and he was no closer to finding his sister!

He’d been on hunter-killer missions for Seasons and this was marked his hundredth kill. The barbarian had nearly a dozen blood-red slashes on his chest but it wasn’t enough to protect him from Marron’s penetrative shot. Not when he devoted the majority of his Knight advancement on it. It had only taken a single attack, consisting of several combined shots, from two longstrides away. The barren tundra was an advantage for him in this sense.

The barbarian hadn’t been alone. He led a small group of youths on a hunting expedition, from the looks of their baggage. The other barbarians had fled as soon as their leader died, and of course, Marron let them go. How else would he find their camp?

Well, that was enough of a lead.

He followed the tracks they left on the snow. Unexpectedly, or perhaps he should have known better, the tracks led him to a pine forest. He spotted the attempted ambush from a longstride away, and from the manic look in their eyes, they had no intention of leaving without his blood on their hands. Well, he sniped all five of them within seconds of each other.

Then he made the rest of the trek to recover whatever gear they had. Nothing. Not a map, or food. Nothing.

He was running short, too, and it was about time to return to Aegermonth to make his report and resupply. Niamh should have a fresh batch of jade cartridges too. They were much more common on this side of the Zarek Mountains. Technically, he could recharge the empty cartridges with him, but his efficiency was abysmal. He’d spend ten lumens to recharge one. If he was lucky.

It took nearly a week of travel to get back to Aegermonth. It was already the 78th Day of Air.

“I wonder if Mum will arrive?”

She should be arriving--no wait, she should have arrived at Rumiga City by now. Maybe she was already on the Commuter Tram to Faron’s Crossing.

Ah. Only Rami was there. He wondered, too, if she knew what happened to Da and Yuriko. Two weeks every two years was a very short time to be with her children. He was lucky. By the time she had to leave for Realmheart, he had already Awakened and would have boarded at Agaza anyway. But Kato, Yuriko, and Rami suffered in her absence. And now, Mum had decided without even consulting Da or Yuri of her decision to force his sister into a path she didn’t want.

He wished he could be there to tell her off.

The panic and desperation had given way to grim acceptance. There had been no sign of Yuriko in any of the camps. High Adjudicator Sharine’s granddaughter had been located, though she hadn’t been rescued yet. They learned that the nomadic barbarians weren’t entirely nomadic after all. They had a fortress dug deep into the mountainside, nearly a hundred leagues from the border. They were sure that the captives had been brought there.

Now they only had to march that many leagues through dead lands, suffering ambush and guerilla tactics all the while. It would probably take far more manpower than expected to do it.

He was getting tired of rations. Marron munched on them dry. It was cold enough that it took considerable effort to warm up a pot of stew. Anyway, he was only a day away from Aegermonth. He was quite looking forward to seeing Niamh again. No doubt she’d have a veritable feast for him when he returned, along with an ample resupply.

For now, he was happy to rest out of the winds in the shelter of a small overhang. His forceweave cloak had a thermal runescript pattern that was almost efficient enough to run entirely on Rumiga’s ambient Chaos. No runescript pattern was that good, normally, and it would take somewhere with a denser level to make these self-sufficient. It only took a lumen every half hour, or roughly half of his reserve every day. Passive respiration covered the cost easily enough so he was never drained beyond a couple of lumens an hour.

He cleaned and serviced his Plasma Caster before bedtime. He double-checked his wardstones. They still had enough Animus charge to last the night but he’d have to refill them come morning.

As always, when the solitude of the night became too much, Marron reflected on the past year.

Aside from Yuriko, he most thought about what he experienced during his advancement. The lines of his Heritage were complete, and from now on, he would need to forge new lines. Whether it would be within the original Heritage or outside of it, was a choice he wasn’t sure how to make. No one can tell him what path he should take, and even if he followed someone else’s path, it would only make things difficult for him later on.

Da couldn’t give him his path. It would be Virgil’s and not Marron’s. He may be able to achieve Knight-Captain if he followed closely, but afterwards, it would be impossible. And even reaching that high wasn’t certain. He could find that Virgil’s path truly wasn’t suited to him and then, he would be stuck forever a Knight.

He thought often too, of the image he saw at the moment of his advance.

The Verdant Empress, he was sure of it. While the image had differences from her published appearance, the presence was much the same.

All Knights of the Empire were bound to her, one way or another. Marron was a new Knight and he couldn’t feel the leash quite yet. And even as he thought that, the idea faded away. The Empress gave them the road to power. Without her, they would be grubbing in the dirt and hiding away from the beasts and the Wyldlings.

Glory to the Empress.

Ah, the runescript lines on the Plasma Caster are good. The power tap between the cartridge and the generator chamber looked slightly worn, but nothing a quick touch up wouldn’t fix.

He sighed and leaned against the stone, letting sleep take him. He threw the cloak’s hood over his head and fed it enough Animus to last the night, then settled down. His hands never left the Plasma Caster or his side-blade.

He woke up to the wardstone blaring a proximity alarm. What? Where? Right next to him?

He flailed out of his cloak, grasping his side-blade and shot to his feet, only to be greeted by the sight of a woman seated on a rock, watching him fondly.

“It’s been two years, hasn’t it, Marron?”

“Mum?” Marron gasped. “Eh, how did you get here? Er, rather than that, how did you find me?”

“Why? Were you trying to hide?” Sadeen Mishala’s smile held an amused twist. “Bloodlines are easy to trace, especially with the Fateweaver.” She shrugged and smiled. “How is my firstborn?” Her fingers on his cheek made him flush.

Mum looked no older than in her twenties. As far as he knew, she had never looked different, and she looked almost the same as Yuriko, or rather, his sister looked nearly the same as Sadeen.

His sister!

“Mum, Yuri…she--”

Chuckling, Sadeen tapped his lips.

“My daughter is safe. She isn’t even here.”

“Huh?”

“Your aunt Kiyo didn’t tell anyone since she rushed to Realmheart, Yuri wasn’t captured by the Iron Skin tribe. She was caught in a Chaos rift.”

“What!” Marron squealed. “That’s even worse!”

Sadeen nodded. “It was, but she survived.”

“How, how do you know?”

Sadeen raised a finger and twirled it in the air. For a moment, he thought he could see immaterial strings leading from her fingertip. One of the strands led straight into his heart. In the next blink of an eye, the vision disappeared.

“The Threads of Fate,” Sadeen replied. “But the reaction fades at times. It was enough to get a general feel. She’s somewhere outside of the Empire’s territory, close to the Belrath Xylarchy.”

“Not those crazies…”

“No, of course not,.” Sadeen smiled. “The clan has set a bounty and I’m confident she will be returned to us soon.”

Marron let out a sigh of profound relief. That was one weight off his back. But…

“What about Da?”

Sadeen snorted. “Virgil’s tough, he’s fine.”

“Ah.”

“Now, come here and give your mother a hug.”

“Yes.” Marron dropped his weapons and enfolded Sadeen within his arms. He towered over her by a head and just like his sister, she was slender. “I missed you, Mum.”

“I know.”

“Ah, what about Rami and Kato! It’d take weeks to get there.”

“Oh, child. You know so little...” Sadeen smirked.

“Oh.” Marron took a deep breath, before continuing. “You…aren’t really here, are you?”

Her smile turned slightly melancholic.

“Enough for things to matter.”

_________

The planar barrier grew more translucent even as it repelled the Chaos Storm battering it. For She Who Whispers in the Light, nothing was more beautiful than what she beheld. The turbulent flows parted several paces from where she stood: a small island of pink veined marble.

The Rose’s Thorn, the Ocean Skiffer she’d lent the humans to come to the Siderious, floated just beside her. The skiffer’s animating spirit was materialized from a bracelet on her wrist.

In front and below, what looked like a swarm of flies flocking on a rotting corpse had her focus. The Chaos streams pushed against the swarm, knocking them around but ultimately doing nothing more.

“How many have died? The spirit whispered.

“Too many,” Whisperer said, “but in many ways, not enough.”

“Is it dense enough?”

“Only one way to find out,” she answered jovially, but she was pretty sure it was far short of what she needed.

With a quick thought, the island floated over to the breach, and with another, she launched herself into it. The thousands of Wyldlings that made the swarm parted from her path, and she easily entered the plane, though probably not without the colourful flare-up that a planar Veil usually made when someone of her power entered.

When she stepped out into the ice, she felt it. The essence within her Well rushed out of her pores and dissipated into the air. It was much less than the last time she entered. She formed her Protective Field, but the negative pressure still affected her enough that she knew she wouldn’t last a week in here.

It was still too light. More must die and donate their Chaos to the plane. With a rueful shake of her head, she jumped back into the swirling Chaos.

End of Book 4