Medorosa Canta had wedged his soul into the gap between Lucius’s body and spirit. In the moment of death, when life blood could no longer reach my pupil’s brain, there had been a fissure. Within the moment of activation, as Lucius’ stigmata looked over his tattered body and began to activate, the Giordanan rebel had first thrust forward his own ability, his own soul.

Second by second, the body of Lucius von Solhart knitted back together. Cuts closed, bruises faded, his eye scarred shut. Only his broken arm could not be put back right. Every shove of magic tore something anew, drawing away the focus of the stigmata. The blood and tissue had to come from somewhere however, not that Medorosa knew. For as much as he healed, the life came from self-cannibalism. The stigmata ate away at his body, first the fat, then the muscle. For as much as his body restored, he grew more emaciated and weak.

Medorosa exalted in his newfound life, blinding himself like he stared into the sun. And he turned that blind rage on his own sister. He grabbed Aisha by the hair, digging his fingers through it down to the roots, and hauled her to her feet. “You betraying bitch. Now look where it’s gotten you.”

“Medo?”

“If only you had sided with me, if you had kept faith in your family. What was it? What lured you away? Was it love? Was it this filthy, foreign face?” he spat at her. “It’s mine now. How does that make you feel? The Cynizia will conquer Rackvidd, will cast out the Vassish and those we capture will be slaves. You… you will be among them. Sold as the lowliest whore!”

“Unhand her!” the Vassish guard roared, for he was no stranger to Medorosa’s power. He stabbed with his spear. He caught no flesh, but forced the puppet master away.

The Canta boy laughed, feeling the exaltation of a fresh body, of health and vigor as though he had been awoken from sleep or chewed on amphos root. He was, however, unarmed. He dared not rip the saber embedded in his own body. Lucius’ blade, the infantry steel that had cut down Erdro Karakale, was his salvation. While the guard tried to pull Aisha away, he scooped it up and felt the weight of it. Cumbersome in his off-hand.

For a man who felt no pain though, scarcely a more dangerous foe could be found.

He threw himself at the guard, and they exchanged blows as Aisha fell to her hands and knees beside them. She crawled away, and for that sin of cowardice, Golden threw his ire at her. “Who are you to flee, girl? Take the responsibility into your own hand,” he ordered, and flicked a wing. With but a trifle of magic, he shot a mote of light down to the garden floor beside her.

While Medorosa and the Vassish guards embroiled each other with the dance of blades, she took up the fallen honor blade. First cut upon her brother’s chest to start the vendetta, she knew how it would have to end. She knew the slender blade well, the ceremonial thing give to her brother by their father when he first took hold of a caravan, first proved himself a man. She had it then, and she drove it into her brother’s chest.

Medorosa gasped, in his own body and in Lucius’. Blood burst from his lips on the ground as he convulsed and drowned, the fire of life quenched. Right through his stigmata.

Of course, the mark itself does not break the effect of the ability.

His possession of Lucius’ body did not shatter, and Medorosa’s hold on my pupil remained. Merely shock held him in place for a time. He had not known whether he could survive without his body. A morbid concern, a fleeting hope, all his life that it might be so great as to transcend the cycle of death and rebirth. Part of him yearned that he could be free of the fear of death, but he knew that would be anathema to the goddess Shepherd.

And he then stood beneath the gaze of her divine beast.

“Seize him! Drag away the fallen. Do not let him jump to another body. What are you doing? Circle round him. Spears!” Oscar barked out orders again and again, drilling his men back into obedience.

They had their opportunity as Medorosa faltered, and felt the pressure upon his soul like a vice between Lucius’ body and Lucius’ soul. He turned this way and that, looking for weakness, for a leaping path from body to body. The steel snake bites of spears nipped at him whenever he looked away. They gouged his legs, his arms. They hammered his back through the armor. They beat upon him and drove him down until at last he threw himself at them.

A spear gutted him, straight through abdomen and through; but, he hacked into the poor soldier’s neck. Life traded for life, but his own would not die. With the certainty of an escape route, he turned back to Oscar with renewed vigor, just as the man charged him. The Vassish sergeant understood the opportunity Medorosa had made for himself, and kept wary. They exchanged blows while he kept the utmost caution. He never overextended, never gave Medorosa an option for a shared death. What gave him strength was the false hope that the spear through his chest would slow Medorosa and break him.

The [Undying] stigmata was far stronger than that.

It was not a Vassish blade that cut Medorosa down at last, but his own. Still fresh with her brother’s blood and face wet with tears, Aisha slid behind the frantic fighter. With myriad dents and chips through the steel segments, she only needed a moment to chose a spot. Then she stabbed her brother in the back, jerked the honor blade up into Lucius’ heart and ruptured it.

The compounded shock broke Medorosa. The sword fell from his grasp and even his opponent hesitated in surprise. She slew him with as much force as it took to open a door, and in doing so shoved his soul off of Lucius’ body.

The boy slackened and fell, landing on his knees. His head went limp, drooling blood until Aisha pulled the honor blade back out. Her hands shook so violently she dropped the accursed blade and fell upon the ground. The rush of emotions ransacked her mind as she sobbed for her brother, and for herself.

“Stop him!” Lucius screamed, and the Vassish didn’t know whether to believe him. He had to jump up and pounce upon the previously slain guard just as Medorosa tried to scramble away.

His soul shoved out like chaff from a thresher, Medorosa had flung himself to the guard’s corpse. He clung to it with the tenacity of a man drowning and grasping at a rope. The flurry played out as a spectacle before Aisha. A pitiable grapple as Lucius fell upon him. Medorosa cast aside all of his dignity, grasping at any shred of hope left to him. He kicked and gnashed with his teeth, and squirmed out from beneath Lucius.

Only for Golden to fall upon him as an eagle falls upon a shrew. Talons dug into into the dirt beneath him and the divine beast thrust his beak through the corpse’s back. He ripped out lung and liver both with a bite and swallowed. He fanned his wings and cleaned his beak as the Vassish fled from him. The bird laughed as but three people remained before him: Aisha, Lucius, and their witness Oscar. “Calm yourself,” Golden said, traces of blood still dripping down his face. “You did it. All that humans hands could do, you have done it. In such a delicious way as well, by the hand of his own sister, the one who knew him best.”

Lucius collapses, falling to his knees and sinking down. “It’s over? It’s finally over?”

“Why did this have to happen?” Aisha asked.

“Do not feel bad,” Golden said as he walked over to her. “Can a ship see the trireme board? Only after it has been sunk. That is your nature. And you have played the role of pawn splendidly. It is simply not in your nature to be the player.”

“Stop! I need his head!” Lucius shouted as Golden grabbed hold of Medorosa’s body.

“Don’t worry, I won’t take it far,” Golden said with a laugh, and launched himself into the air. He carried the body away and ascended to the sky. He circled and scanned, and swooped overtop the old cathedral to the goddess of death, and dropped it atop the spire. What was meant as a lightning rod(1) he used to spit the body, to hold it in place as he tore the flesh from the bones and feasted upon the heart of the rebellion.

Thus, his due was paid.

As the hours progressed, the Giordanan armada scattered to the ends of the horizon or to the bottom of the sea where they fed the dark creatures of Saphira’s(3) domain. Lord Raymi in turn routed the mountain men, taking nearly a hundred prisoner in the end. Some would be executed, others transported to prison mines(2), and only one gave him a great deal of trouble about what to do.

Aisha Canta remained at his mercy, and though she had dealt the killing blow, she remained sister and conspirator to a very costly insurrection. She did not have the strength to fight on her own behalf, even in the realm of words. For one trained in the bardic arts, Lord Raymi found himself at a loss when she would not defend herself. While considerations to consign her to a remote temple stirred in the noble’s thoughts, I at last approached on her behalf. She had given herself up to my cause, and had proven a useful tool.

“Give her to me. Allow me to take her far away from her homeland, away from her friends and allies that might seek retribution against her. She had put herself to the cause of Vassermark, and I wish to see her thus rewarded. Young Lucius von Solhart has need of assistants, and I can think of none with a fate more firmly tied to him than her.”

This offer came after the feast celebration, after the thrill of victory I will soon touch on, for Aisha Canta was denied the joy of celebration and kept in a room by herself. Her only visitor was Sister Mori of the church. Her sad tale thus came to an end, and in time she would find her strength once more. Such a beautiful asset she became to the rise of Lucius von Solhart to the very apex of worldly power.

Some people like to think that an understanding of conductivity is in fact a recent innovation, but the practice of grounding a tower to the earth below predates humanity. The gods dictated it as a design practice without explanation, and risk-adverse architects replicated it the world over. The belief was a godly design must be proper. In this instance, they were correct. A very beautifully written essay was written on this matter by one of the inmates and deserves its own study. It regards the difference in beliefs about the definition of enslavement, and when it is justified. The contrast between Giordanan debt slavery and Vassish crime slavery was argued to be slimmer than the paper the essay was written on. As with most politically inciting works of merit, a true copy can hardly be found. Perhaps one day I will introduce it to circulation once more. Name updated from Aquaria