A month passed, and not much changed. The show must go on, they said, but it was really and truly as if nothing had happened. A great many people had been made nervous by the Baccian occupation of their city, but those Baccian's had left shortly after the funeral and not much else was said, nor done.

Quite simply, they'd left, nobody had occupied Amistad and the relief of such a thing was palpable. All problems eliminated in a single fortnight, no more Tyr, no more Baccia – or so they thought.

Everything just went back to normal, and it felt like a load off the backs of everyone informed that a treaty for peace was coming soon and there'd be no more violence. Tyr had become their martyr, but nobody revered him for it, it was a 'good riddance' sort of moment for them. Because in their ignorance and weakness they'd believe every word from a man holding a sword to their throats, and none from the people actively trying to save them.

Alex was surprised to hear that Jartor had stopped all news of his son's death at the border, and though it was known all across the empire, he refuted it. Publicly and adamantly proclaiming that Tyr was not dead, and thus so did Octavian of Varia parrot these words. A rare moment where these two god-kings addressed their people in person, drawing great crowds for an unknown purpose. Alexandros of Lyra, and Ragnar of Oresund did the same. There were no mourning marches or proper rites, no remembrance day for them.

This, more than anything, made Alexis sick to her stomach.

That was, most likely, part of 'the way' Tyr had occasionally mentioned. The code of a primus, only known by the primus', one of his great many secrets that he often refused to elaborate on. Tyr knew much about what he was, but refused to indicate as such.

People knew of Cortus' supposed demise but they'd never mourned for it, now he was practically forgotten only two decades after the fact. Just another footnote in a history that would be wiped clean in the turning of the next era. Gone to most, but to her, not so much.

She saw him everywhere she went, flashes of his face in the crowd, deep blue eyes watching her from a shadowed alley, always to be gone when she followed. On rooftops and in windows, she saw him, with a feeling that she was either going insane or he'd returned to haunt the city with a dozen specters. Bound here for all eternity to stare, point, and accuse, like in the old tales. But his body had been burnt in the sacred flame, making such a thing impossible, that was why they burned bodies in the north.

Undead did not come of blessed burnings, and the undead were among the most reviled enemies of northern cultures. Not so commonly found in the warmer south.

Farron was her motivation of a sort, to keep steady. He'd always spoken rudely to Tyr, but his 'father's' death had been a shock. The boy had lost so much, his entire family, and Tyr had come to lift him out of a fel fate for a boy so young, quite literally saving his life and earning at least a shred of compassion from the now young man. He still enjoyed all of the benefits and luxuries of being a member of the royal family even by adoption, the council had not been reinstated nor had the monarchy been thrown out, not yet. They were in a transitional period, but it was inevitable if only the archmages could come to referendum during their active flight from the city state.

Farron barely ate. Refused to bathe, and based on the bags under his eyes he hadn't been sleeping much either. Through his door she could hear him weeping angrily into a pillow or pacing around his room. Alex wasn't ready to be a mother, nor sure how to be, but she could be the big sister she'd always been, force feeding him when necessary. He was getting better, and so was she, they were both toughened by the experiences of life and Tyr wasn't exactly a present figure in their lives even when he'd been in the city. Always off doing something by himself, or solitary in behavior even when he wasn't.

Okami had gone off somewhere and hadn't returned. All the better, back to the wilds where he belonged rather than cooped up in a yard sleeping and growing fat like a porch hound. Wolves were made for more than just lazing, and she hoped he was able to find some mischief out there under the bright sky that called to him.

Life moved on, the wheels kept turning, and all things would return to a semblance of normality. The longer time stretched the less they mourned, growing dead to it, accepting the fact and moving forward with their own plans for the future. Sigi at the forge and workshop, Astrid doing... Whatever she did, and the others about the same business. With the exception of Kael, that is. Wilhelm had barely survived the skirmish, but given his last minute consideration of circumstances, he'd been forgiven by a very merciful triumvirate of queens.

The others were not, and Hastur had turned on them like the dog he was and thrown most of his conspirators to the wolves. The few others that had been caught were either killed or jailed, depending on their complicity, self stylized freedom fighters or not... They were still traitors.

Kael Emberwind wasn't killed though, that would have been to great a mercy for one such as him.

Sigi had marched off to try, claiming the rite of vengeance and receiving acceptance from the new and interim governing council of Amistad headed by Lernin. Only to withdraw her challenge after seeing what had become of the man. A limbless leper locked in the deepest part of the dungeon, something done to him that nobody could explain, not a common punishment by any means. Incredibly cruel, skinned and tortured to the point of madness by a pair of knives – no witnesses to who or what had done such a thing. No complaints either, there was no compassion left for the once great adventurer.

Urden had run, a criminal like the rest but her only sentence was 'community service' should she ever return. They needed to be punished, and they would be, but Alex had been very insistent considering that Leda was part of the movement. She wouldn't do that to her friend, not ever. Most of them had been duped, in any case, the few that had been executed only met such a fate because the archmages vying for council seats wished to eliminate competition. On the surface, it was death to the traitor, but reality was often disappointing.

The ringleader of the betrayal, however, had been unmade as a man in all ways one might imagine. That was not metaphor, someone had dipped his 'member' in molten orichalcum and left him a eunuch. Men had a way about their cruelty that boggled the mind, but Alex felt no pity for him. He was a betrayer and had gotten his just desserts, a tongueless mouth mewling his 'apologies' up at her as she glared through the bars at him, wishing she had the backbone by which to bury her ranseur in his skull.

Kael and Tyr had been friendly, spending much time together – she'd never seen this coming from him. A challenge from the front, surely, but never a knife in the back to the country he claimed to love. Regicide notwithstanding.

He'd been so handsome once, now he was just a creature being kept artificially alive to suffer in ignominy for his treason. Alex had changed so much after all she'd seen. Believing the world a bright a just place and finding it the opposite. Next time... Next time, she would be ready. Had to be, she'd grown complacent and forgotten the path she'd decided to walk – but no longer. Her eyes were open to all that that was.

“Are you coming?” Brenn asked. He had been there, and though he may not share their grief so intimately he knew that it was a foul thing. Tyr was still his friend, and he'd done everything he could to lessen the burden on the women. And Micah, who could barely speak without his voice cracking, for he was an emotional and sensitive one even at the best of times. “We are expected at the deposition in less than an hour.”

“Then let us be off.” Alex said. A deposition held to 'properly' charge Tyr for his crimes, even post-mordem and post trial that had already occurred. Amistad wanted a piece of that too, now, to demonize him for all time, serving as a monolith to Amistad's freedom from authoritarian rule.

His crimes. If not for the circumstances it would've been amusing to imagine the look on Jartor's face, when he was made to stare at the request for reparation, laid at his table by the reinstated council of Amistad. Lernin had made clear that he was not responsible for this as the interim first seat, but it'd been an order, not a request. Not a thing that could be refused in context, Amistad wasn't free before, and it certainly wasn't now. Insisted upon by the Baccian led coalition, backed by the Inquisition itself. They'd either have their due or Vanator's faithful would come.

'Trust us, we won't attack you as long as you officially insult the primus.'

What a joke. Alex would stay, and she'd fight – but she didn't much care what happened to these people anymore. Bitter, and though she hated that, it seemed to have become her defining trait these days.

They went, waved through the gates to the palace by two lazy eyed guards who clearly had no interest in checking their identifications. All of them returned to their apathy, the threat was passed in their minds and now was the time to relax and take idle. Leaning on their polearms and half asleep. The courtyard was quiet, quite odd considering the early hour – the forum should be a hive of activity at this time of day. There was no herald, no guards in the interior, and by all observation the place was deserted. Only the sound of their boots ringing against the stone giving any indication that there was any life present in this place.

Eerie silence... That was until they heard a blood curdling scream cut short deeper in the deeper chambers.

Low and behold, Alex snorted. They were under attack.

“Baccians!” Sigi growled, joined by Astrid, Brenn, Tythas, Micah, and Magnus in drawing their respective weapons. Sprinting through the building toward the noise, it was only a matter of time – they'd all been waiting for it.

–

Spellbreaker... Tyr frowned, the locks were incredibly difficult and he'd spent hours trying to undo the magic binding them – failing every time despite supposedly being a born vault robber. His father's vault was certainly nothing to scoff at. Not like those within the banking institutions, which would've been much easier. At least he thought so, his trips to the bank were few and far between.

He was deep in the palace and shrouded in a black cloak. Nearly slapping himself as he realized that the wards would've let him walk through regardless. He'd spent all that time trying to unlock the door only to punch it in frustration, and... It simply opened. Like one of the fools who'd visit the Assyrian diner he frequented, pulling on the door rather than pushing it open.

Even if he hadn't known he was permitted to be here, what was the worst that could happen in any case? It'd burn him alive? The mana within the arrays powering all of this would fail long before his perpetually regenerating body did. Granted, they might last a few years...

He was invincible, and he walked straight through the gates, all of the floors unbarred and unguarded, as if they'd been awaiting his arrival. Silent golems his only witnesses, flickering into life to scan him briefly before deactivating again. He was deep, about three hundred meters beneath the street level of the city, far below the mountain the imperial palace was built into.

Not as deep as he'd expect one of the greatest repositories of wealth on the planet to be, but the defenses present were impressive nonetheless. Thankfully, he'd gotten lucky.

Like the lair of a dragon left unobserved, few would be so dull in the head as to expect the riches within to be so easily taken, lack of depth or not. He had always been told never to come here under any circumstances, under threat – wondering both when and why his father had ever granted him access. Maybe it had always been open to him, maybe Jartor could see the future and had known Tyr would come here to raid this place. Maybe it was a trap. The mind of his father was a labyrinth, a monolithic genius was in that primus, something that made Tyr's own mind feel like an ant in comparison.

Strength in all things.

Scores of gates. Vast chambers where the treasury was located, spartan and sterile.

Red carpets and the personal standards of every previous ruling primus framing a vaulted hall. Even the various rulers before Haran had been a proper empire, back before the twin empires were ruled by the primus'. Their alliances, houses who had given them sons, and more that Tyr did not recognize. A mausoleum and monolith to the long history of their nation, yet no life to be found in this place nor eyes to celebrate it. Over three hundred golems of unknown capability, four thousand offensive arrays and a spatial bridge that he was sure brought him even deeper that he'd though he was. There was no measuring space in the place so literally, he could be at the center of the earth and the interference would never allow him to know for sure. But he suspected this was still was far closer to the surface than it should be, in any case.

Perhaps there was a reason for it. The deep dark held many horrors, the remnants of things that hadn't existed for some time. Only as fossils, kin to the great prison within the vault where unknown beasts were kept in stasis. Things that could not be killed, the terrors of the night, the primus' who'd ensured they were contained.

And just like that and nothing to stop him, Tyr entered the place.

The place, Jartor's innermost sanctum and heart of the empire. He wasn't sure what he'd imagined, a mountain of gold or something similar to a proper bank vault. A monumental collection of mountain shattering weapons and divine artifacts. Magic that shouldn't exist, a literal dragon guarding over it. Something wild and fantastic, surely.

But it wasn't any of that.

The roof was as high as a cathedral, the chamber vast, excessive of two hundred meters squared, but that was where the meeting of his expectations ended. It wasn't a mountain of treasure in the traditional sense, but a many storied library. One of the largest libraries to ever exist by his reckoning, far more within than the academy itself. Like staring at the inside of a hollow tower with walls made of books. Millions of tomes and scrolls, alcoves of lexicanums and dais for meditation or simple reading. There was treasure, to be sure, besides the knowledge within, all held within dimensional safes. Everything inside was fairly ordinary though, enough arms and armor to outfit countless legions. Food to feed a million people for millennia. Where it all went. The 'waste' of that system of control, all stored here to ensure the gold kept flowing, the terminal point of taxation. But no gold, the treasury existed and remained empty, that was an illusion.

The global economy was fake, and Tyr had known this, not borne of need but rather endless consumerism. Greed was a goal like any other, a thread humans were free to grab hold of to keep them in line. Tyr wouldn't have been shocked if there were only as many sovereigns as Jartor wanted in the world at any given time, that he knew the total offhand and not a pence beyond that.

There was little love lost between the two of them, but Tyr had known all along that his father was possessive of a greatness surpassing common convention. Thankful that him himself had not become emperor, he'd never be capable of something like this. Managing the collective knowledge of thousands of years of culture, safeguarding the world from threats both corporeal and not, and developing an economy so perfect that even the greatest minds thought it was real and yet it wasn't. The great project and shepherding of mankind was beyond Tyr and always would be. He might be a primus, but he lacked that spark, something beyond education and mere grooming.

More powerful artifacts lay within, things of a less easily understood nature. Kraken hearts, petrified wyrm eggs, the remains of liches and what must've been another prison of some, set off from the main vault structure. The place was well lit and the magical amenities phenomenal, listing everything by category from weapons both cursed and blessed, artifacts of more uncertain nature, and mundane things like veritable mountains of metal ingots and twenty million metric tons of crude oil.

What would he need oil for?

Twenty million! So much of it that it appeared to all lay in its own stable astral space rather than a dimensional artifact... Gemstones both magical and not, lumber, a veritable treasure trove of rolled linens. Eighty million metric tons of linens... The number of commodities and finished goods present in the palace was likely far beyond the gross annual amount of trade in the entire world.

Tyr was no longer that fool of the past, he knew and would oft repeat it in a bid to understand. Economic control, faux industry in a world that was so plentiful nobody needed to keep working like that. But again, it all had to flow. And he understood why, magic would give people too much free time, to put it crudely. And with it, they'd find ways to fill it, bad ways. Without all the contrivances of society both high and low, that proverb of Varinn's would cease to be relevant.

Evil comes first from idleness.

There could be no evil men, Varinn always said, but evil was subjective. Minds and society would change under the freedom to spend time doing the less mundane things.

At the center of it all was a serene garden under a levitating sphere giving off ultraviolet light, all contained in a membrane of mana that ensured the plants within were perfectly maintained. The leafless tree again, white this time instead of black, but equally carved in runes. The most dense source of spira Tyr had ever felt. This was part of what he'd been looking for, not to take but just to look upon. The rumored heart and a source of great inspiration.

Something wild and amazing hidden behind that forest of bookshelves four times his height. Men might look towards the wealth, or the knowledge, but this was it – this thing at the beating heart of an empire. The White Tree of Haran.

Spira far exceeding that of a primus, even Jartor himself, and it felt very much sentient as far as trees went. A nature spirit, the core of everything that protected the capital city. Tyr rested his hand against the surface of this sacred guardian and felt it welcome his touch, warming gently under the pressure like an old friend. He'd needed an answer, a real one, and he received it – slumping forward to lay forehead against bark in exhausted relief.

Jartor was his father, he'd never stopped wondering whether that were true or not, no matter what anyone said.

Never had he been more certain of his primacy than at that moment, feeling the soul of the thing accepting him like all the others of his line. Before he might've been more certain he was an amalgamation of stolen or unearned powers, but now he knew it was all part of who he was. A little cluttered, his attics and crannies all full of worthless things, but he was a true primus. If he wasn't, the tree would have killed him where he stood, and he'd known it.

Jartor had feared he'd try, and die in the process – but now it would seem that Tyr was finally slipped free of parental bondage and allowed the accept the trial for himself. As all his forefathers had. It felt good to know that he wasn't a monster or half-god aberration, better than he'd thought it would. Validation beyond validation, something that could never speak on anything but the absolute truth confirming that he was...

Real...? That he meant something, that he was great and mighty? On the more complex side of things, Tyr had no idea what he was truly looking for. Regardless, and as mentioned, he did find it. Weeping beneath the tree with great emotion, feeling his knots coming undone one after the other.

But that wasn't why he came here, not truly. Not for the tree and not for these books. They were but a pit stop on the road towards the end.

He'd come here for the weapon that these halls had held since time immemorial, not drawn since the time of his great, great grandfather. Over a thousand years ago, perhaps. The weapon of the ruling primus. The 'blade of Haran', that which he'd foolishly thought he'd wielded once upon a time – never actually knowing what the weapon even was. All he'd have needed to do was ask to know that neither Jartor nor his father before him had ever laid hands on such a thing.

He'd expected a sword in all honesty, but the greatest weapon amidst this vast armory was an axe. Not a magnificently runed, enchanted, and inlaid axe either. If someone had sank this thing into a stump and left it to rest in any old village, nobody would've thought to steal it. It was humble, no different than the axe of a woodcutter but for the grip. Its haft seemed to be crafted of gnarled roots rather than planed wood, rough and veiny, and the wood it was composed of was still alive. Of the same tree that stood sentinel over it.

Humble, unassuming, but incredibly powerful. Within that unremarkable frame was power enough to kill a primus without much difficulty.

Silver headed with a haft of a wood he'd never find anywhere else in the world. No decoration to it, not even a single embellishment or signature of whoever crafted it. It was older than this world was, must've been, something that had been cast before this sphere of mud and dirt had ever been formed. A god lay inside this weapon, but not the same spirit within the tree.

He'd come to take it, this was his purpose here. To find a weapon like none other.

But...

Tyr didn't want to touch it, not because he felt any kind of revilement, not because it was a god, but because it judged him and he could feel it. It stared at his deepest parts and said nothing, but it didn't need to. This was not a weapon in the strictest sense, it was a celestial soul made manifest into a tool, and he did not feel worthy to place his flesh against it. Primal, yet again, but not of the dao – this was a sentient tool cast by the old gods. A weapon of the Aesir, an arcanum that belonged to nothing and nobody but itself. One of their children, by any other explanation.

That sword in the stone he'd been expecting, except this one was a sentient tool capable of taking any form it wanted. Waiting for a hand to grasp it, and it would judge and decide whether to accept such an arrangement. Fail... And die. Succeed, and rise further than any had – with one 'wish' of sorts allowed in the completion of an objective.

But this weapon was not for Hastur, a quick death was too simple a thing for Tyr's nemesis. This was for something else entirely.

“Daunting, isn't it?” Tyr didn't need to turn to recognize the voice of his father. Deep, gravely, and altogether irritating. Even in his adulthood, Tyr couldn't let go of his petty childish grievances against the man. Just a man, they were equals now, or they would be very soon. He could feel it coming, that breaking point that made them the monsters they were, he'd resisted the call many times either actively or passively – but it would come.

First, he'd rushed towards it hoping it would, and now he was doing everything in his power to stop it. Allegory to the child that wished to become a man only to realize how gray a pall adulthood could settle over them.

Awakening would give him the power to smite Hastur, but he'd lose too much in the process. Himself.

It would happen, but he wanted to be there when he finished his labors. This was his vanity, and neither he nor the tree above minded that whatsoever.

This was the next best option, and Tyr knew inherently that if he plucked up this axe, was accepted by it, and swung it at Jartor – he would win. Perhaps he should, smite the king and take the throne he'd been born to inherit. With Haran at his back, Hastur would be such a small thing, after all. “To look at the judge of your whole character and know that putting a hand to it will be the truest measure of your inner self. Something you cannot change no matter how hard you try, a true test of who you are within.”

“I expected a sword. You told me it was a sword.” Tyr replied dispassionately, still staring at the axe with great trepidation. His father was right, this thing was judgment incarnate, an embodiment of a blade's law. The gavel in another form of one who lorded over the ultimate decision. The axe that served as judge, jury, and executioner. Both to the user and the one it was used against, and there was no coming back from that existential dread made manifest.

“It's auronite like your own blade, the blood of our brothers.” Jartor said simply. Tyr turned his head, spotting a tiny figure huddled at his father's leg out of the corner of his eye. Curly black hair, looking more like Charlotte than his father. Tyr's younger and only true brother, a very appropriate thing. The blood of kin hung heavy in the room at that very moment, and Tyr winked at the shy boy staring in wonder at his sibling for the first time. Mystified at the white haired giant he'd heard so much about, Charlotte spinning stories of his heroic big brother who saved nations and rescued princesses.

Tyr had known, un-known, been told so many things – a bevy of claims. There'd always been doubt in him that he wasn't of Faeron blood, an inkling that he might've been Cortus' son instead, it would've been appropriately dramatic. I am your father, and all of that. Or of another primus, perhaps a dead one, simply taken as ward by Jartor. Or, if not that, perhaps Jartor was his grandfather, the chronology would more than support it, as would the notion that primus' were always erased from history after dead.

Looks aside, they weren't everything, primus' did not have biological children in the realest sense – they were made sterile to the insemination of a son, specifically, by necessity. There was no sperm to fertilize the egg of a woman, the relationship was etheric in nature, though Tyr wasn't sure if a test would reveal them genetically related or not.

All doubt washed from him the refusal to do something so simple as to take a test. Faeron blood was in his veins, he could see it in the little one's eyes, they were family and Tyr had a right to lay claim to it that no title could deny. Not even Jartor could, questions answered and his heart calming.

Never in all his life had he been so sure of what he was doing, that all of this was right, even if it damned him. He would be their demon, and they would hate him for it, but in that ascension all that he loved would be saved. To fall for such a great boon was nothing to fear.

“Can I lift it?” Tyr asked. The weight of the world was present in that ancient tool but it went beyond a simple measurement of mass. It was a weight of will and spirit, a primal storm lay within and it would tear him apart if he lacked the conviction necessary to handle it. But this was okay, he was built for eternity and this thing was his equal, not above him. It was not him that should fear this weapon, but the opposite. And yet he still felt that fear. Not because it might kill him. It couldn't. But because it would know him, show him who he really was through the link. It would reveal to him his heritage, perhaps even show him his true purpose. Stripped of all human vice, laying bare the machine beneath.

And the act of it allowing him to pluck it free of its position before the white tree might be the most damning evidence that he was everything he'd come to fear.

“That is up to you. I have never tried, nor did my father, nor grandfather in all truth. Only one primus of our direct line has ever done so as far as I am aware. It is not a weapon to be borne at the waist, but one to be used in a dark hour and returned to rest once you are done with it. Power like this obeys nobody, but I will not stop you from taking hold of it and testing yourself, you've a right to and you always have. It's name is Tyrfing.”

“Tyrfing...?” Tyr snorted. 'Finger of Tyr', how alliterative that was. Simply 'Law' by another name, retribution of all things it judged wrong.

“Appropriate, isn't it? Destiny is often amusing, I find.”

“You seem oddly unconcerned that your eldest son might be killed by this thing. My fragile heart withers away beneath the gaze of my ever uncaring father.”

“You are a man now, Tyr. A man with a choice. I will no longer impede your path.”

Tyr nodded calmly, his trepidation melting away. It did not matter who he was, or what it was, only that he had need of it. Tyr would always be who he wanted to be, this thing could never change that, neither would anything or anyone else.

He took hold of it, allowing the consciousness of the spirit within to override his mind at first touch and send him spiraling into a trial of will against the pain. A trial he would win, because pain was nothing to him. Eons could pass and always his only concern would ever be for those pillars that lifted him up, the wings at his back. He had felt so much of the discomforts that mortals feared and a little more couldn't possibly freeze the newly reignited passion at his core. The one and only conviction that he had ever found in this life of his. Not to kill Hastur, nor seek revenge, but to simply be whoever he wanted to be.

Standing on a million lives, he stood dauntless. An upward facing arrow burnt into his mind, ever forward, there was no going back now.

Hands around the flickering candle, ensuring no wind would snuff the wick.

Law. An apt identifier, but not quite. This weapon was judgment, it was the embodiment of conquest over impurity. Not a holy thing, that would be too simple for this kind of force. It obeyed no prerogative in alignment. Or perhaps it was, in the sense of holiness in cosmic nature. Holy in the sense that lightning exists to burn away the forest to make way for new growth. Before man it had existed, and it fit his hand like a glove. A tool of wrath and destruction, of a refusal of common logic, right and wrong made black and white with no face to any gray between the two.

Righteousness, that's what it felt like, but the urges it enforced in him were immaterial. Tyr was here to do what he wanted to do and that was all, one last promise fulfilled and he would be gone, he no longer cared for the alternatives. Never once had he truly doubted his path, and now was no different. This was a conviction of itself. To live and breathe and run in the wind, to taste and feel and shout.

He was his own god and none other would ever claim him.

Eat. Shit. Fuck. Sleep. Be. Rip. Tear. Kill. Burn. End.

“I'm proud of you, my son.” Tyr's brother was gone, sent elsewhere by the father, here only for the briefest glimpse of the only true brother he'd ever have after much asking on Baldur's part.

Leaving only Jartor standing opposite him. His hard face softened ever so slightly, staring in true pride at his offspring who had so effortlessly lifted the arcanum of the eldest gods. Something many had failed in doing, and thus he himself had never tried. It went beyond strength of body, this was a tool of salvation and last resort, and its blade could cut anything – complete and utter annihilation lay at the fingertips of the user. Its lifting confirmed the necessity of the action he'd been taking.

The whole world could be ending and it was no guarantee the primus' of Haran could lift this weapon. A strength of will and conviction was more that that, something beyond, and Tyr possessed it against all odds to see that blade to hand and walk forward with no effort. Barely a trial or question of his worthiness to wield the living gavel of those who stood highest among their kind when they'd been as gods.

If he wished to, he could kill Jartor, and the latter would not have made moves to stop him. This, too, was 'the way'.

Tyrfing. And how appropriate the name truly was. Law, War Breaker, Silver Fang. Its many names as infinite as the worlds it had fallen on and the things it had brought to final end.

“It's a bit too late for that, father of mine.” Tyr whispered softly. No complex welling of emotions, nothing at all from those words he'd wanted to hear his entire life. Honest praise, finally. But somehow, some way, he felt love all the same – just not the energetic warmth of a boy. He was a man now, and he had no compulsion to want for the succor of a positive bond with the man who'd sired him. “Witness me.”

“You are witnessed, Tyr Faeron.” Jartor lay a hand on his shoulder, their eyes level, man to man for the first, and very likely – last time. “Son of the Lion, the White Wolf.”