It is held that souls are greater than man, for obvious reasons. Their power is beyond that of a man, and the wisdom gained from them is more than a lifetime of study could hope to achieve. There is disagreement on this point, however, as others say that the man is the greater part of their joining. No soul ever acts upon the world unaided; they cannot be said to exceed man any more than a sword or plough.

This argument contains the seed of truth, albeit evoked for the wrong reasons. A man, with nothing more than his flesh and bone, may carve the mark of himself upon the world. He may be a holy man, a man of purpose, and give rise to a bountiful family with their own joys and burdens. Yet that same man, possessed of a soul, might forsake all that to accomplish incredible feats. He may vanquish armies, fill granaries or sway the hearts of a nation.

There is little stopping this man from living the life he might otherwise have led. He could have his humility and his family despite his soul. Yet that soul lights a new path ahead, one that stretches far beyond the mundane. Men cannot help but hear the call of its wild distance.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687

As promised, the train arrived in Imes well before sunset. The afternoon light was golden with the promise of red, which struck Michael as appropriate for the circumstance. The outskirts of Imes were sprawling, industrial, and for all that the War had visited here it had not made its mark on the western reaches of the city; the fighting had confined itself mostly to the east, ending in their battle near the city center.

The western parts of the city were therefore the first to resume business as usual, and they had done so on the backs of hundreds of refugees eager for the presumed safety of the capital, or for the promise of wages earned less perilously than the War had offered. Either way, Imes was overflowing with loosely-situated bodies under a pall of chimney smoke.

It reminded Michael of Calmharbor. He sighed and leaned back in his seat as the train lurched its way towards the terminus. “They don’t waste time,” he muttered. “We’ve barely been gone at all, and I could swear this is a different city than the one we left.”

Sobriquet waved her hand dismissively. “This part has barely changed. They were back in business as soon as Emil auctioned off what the Safid abandoned, usually to their old employees. Some of them stayed under Safid owners, actually, but those are the ones who chose their money over living in Saf - people we can negotiate reasonable compromises with, in short.” She kept her face towards the city, her eyes tracing past soot-smudged windows and tenements with laundry flapping listlessly from their windows. “People are proud of what they’ve built.”

Michael heard the bitter note still lurking in her voice; he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Imes is a long way from the western border,” he said. “Even Rouns won’t be under threat for some time. We’re a far way from hopeless.”

She found a smile for that, leaning in close before a light knock sounded on the door; it slid open to reveal Vernon. Sobriquet turned to him with mock affront. “You didn’t even wait. We could be indecent in here.”

Vernon tapped his ear. “I usually don’t walk into anything by accident,” he chuckled. “You’d have been interrupted in short order regardless; we’re nearly at the station.”

“Where are we going from there?” Michael asked. “Lekubarri said that they’ve been monitoring Sofia as best as they could; is there a zuzendaritza contact we’re meeting?”

Vernon shook his head. “Nothing so formal. Lekubarri’s men think she’s here for a very specific purpose; Vera Reuss still keeps a flat near the port district. We’ve had eyes on her for a while, but nothing too intrusive. She’s the only contact Sibyl has left.”

“They don’t get along as well these days,” Michael sighed. “But yes, it makes sense to check there. Even if we don’t find Sofia, I owe Vera a visit. For - a few reasons.” He flexed his hand, letting a sliver of blade dance between his fingers. “She knows Sofia better than anyone.”

Vernon nodded, patting Michael on the shoulder. “I wired ahead to Emil, so he’ll be on standby if we need anything - or, rather, whichever poor functionary he’s tapped to liaise with us will be available.” He grinned. “Power’s gone to his head.”

“Doesn’t really seem that different from his usual manner,” Michael grunted. He stood from his bench as the train’s brakes engaged, a low shudder gripping the carriage as its momentum slowed. “We should be ready to go. Are the others ready?”

“Already waiting,” Sobriquet said absently; her eyes were glassy, elsewhere. “But there’s no rush. Sibyl isn’t at Vera’s flat. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s not in Imes at all.” She turned to look at Michael. “And neither is Vera.”

Vera’s flat was midway between the train station and the port, a fairly ideal circumstance; Michael wasn’t surprised that Vera had selected it with some consideration for eventual property value. The neighborhood was pleasant and clean, with plenty of large trees - likely a wonderful sight in summer, but right now the twilight canopy of grasping and bare twigs gave the street an ominous look.

More ominous still were the darkened windows and drawn curtains of the flat; Michael sliced cleanly through the door’s bolt and walked inside. It was a mess, with drawers and cabinets ajar, their contents strewn across the floor. They picked their way into the foyer, pausing at a large table that occupied one end of the room. There was an envelope there with Michael’s name inked in precise handwriting upon the exterior.

Michael picked it up and withdrew the single piece of paper inside, unfolding it to reveal more of Vera’s handwriting.

Michael, it read.

Unimportance is a difficult pursuit. I had resolved to seek it here, and would do so gladly if not for an opportunity that my conscience cannot permit me to let pass.

There may be a path forward for my dearest friend.

I shall endeavor, therefore, to save her life as she once saved mine. She has not borne the burden of my absence well, nor the presence of her bereaved cousin. Her burdensome soul torments her with visions of what she has inflicted, and with the consequences of her spite; her sight and mind are so degraded by this torture that I have little fear of her reading this letter.

There is only one place where she might begin to heal. Please consider this your second invitation to dinner.

Forever in your debt,

Vera Reuss

P.S. - Please apologise to Lars on my behalf for the theft of his vessel; I shall make it up to him with interest at a later date.

Michael read through the letter once, then again, his heart clenching at the postscript. Finally, he handed the paper to Sobriquet. Her brows drew together as she read it. “Vague,” she said.

“Specific enough; she’s told us where they’re going.” Michael tapped his finger against the paper. “Raven House, in Calmharbor. It’s her refuge, where she retreated from the world - and where she served me dinner once, hence the reference.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “You think Vera can steer Sibyl there?”

“She is a Shine,” Michael said. “Although I very much doubt she’d use her soul on Sofia. It’s a logical first place to look for her.”

Sobriquet made a face. “In Ardalt. Michael, that’s going to take days, not to mention the return trip - and that’s at a minimum, to say nothing of any delays in locating her once we’re there.”

“We knew it was a possibility from the start.” He glanced through the letter once more, his eyes lingering on the line that was set apart from the others. There may be a path forward for my dearest friend. He thought back on his last conversations with Vera, and his frown deepened. “If I didn’t know she was a Shine, I’d suspect her of being an auspex,” he muttered.

“Problem?” Sobriquet asked.

Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so, but - we should move. The harbor isn’t far, we’ve got our supplies with us. Vernon, we need to be on a ship out of here as soon as possible. Do you have enough pull to make that happen?”

“Probably not,” the auditor admitted. “It’ll be difficult at this hour. But if you can bear to wait a short time at the port, I can probably find someone who does.”

Michael stepped aside to draw back one of the curtains, peering up at the stars beginning to emerge against the purpling sky. “We’re going to be on a ship out of here by midnight,” he warned. “One way or the other. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for niceties.”

Vernon gave a droll chuckle. “Noted. I’ll see what I can do.”

They managed to avoid stealing a ship. Few captains were available, and fewer still willing to sail to Ardalt, but one man with an antiquated trawler was seeking someone to buy his ship outright; after some negotiations that made particularly unkind use of Lekubarri’s letter of credit they were left in possession of the boat.

It was nothing remarkable, but it was seaworthy. A short while later it was fueled and headed out of the harbor. Zabala took first shift at the helm while the others slept, which left Michael with nothing much to do but wander to the fore deck and lean out over the railing.

It was inky black and chill, with an unusual calm gripping the winter sea. It would have been welcome, most nights, but now Michael merely felt as though the ocean was holding its breath - waiting, terrified, for the storm they all knew was coming.

The deck creaked at the tread of Vernon’s feet walking up behind him; the other man winced at the noise. “This boat is horrid,” he muttered. “The engine sounds like two men fighting over a bag of spoons.”

“Bizarrely specific,” Michael noted, cracking a smile in Vernon’s direction. “Makes me think the comparison wasn’t by accident.”

“Oh, it happened. Great-aunt of mine collected them, her sons fought over the silver after she passed-” Vernon shook his head. “I didn’t even have my soul at the time, yet I still remember the noise. I always hated - sharp noises. Lips smacking, things scraping together.”

Michael got partway through raising an eyebrow before remembering that he had left his back in Ghar. He laughed and gave Vernon a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “And you got an auditor soul,” he said. “Irony at its height.”

“The thought occurred to me at the time, yes,” Vernon chuckled. “Truthfully, I never got over it. I simply bore it, because I knew it was inescapable.” He turned to look out at the midnight sea. “But then I lost my mundane hearing, on our trip north. It doesn’t - you’ve probably figured out most of this already, I’d wager. How things are different without changing?”

“Believe it or not, I’ve had little interest in introducing further confusion into my week,” Michael said. “But yes, I’ve noticed some strangeness. My sense of scale slipping away.”

Vernon gave him a sly little smile. “In your studies, did your tutors ever explain the nature of sound?”

“Not as such,” Michael frowned. “I understand that it’s a vibration in a medium, like air or water, and that it has limited speed - the phenomenon that sets the thunder back a few moments from the lightning, that sort of thing.”

“All accurate,” Vernon agreed. “But there is another aspect to sound. The vibrations we classify under that name would be there regardless, the same in every desolate stretch of ocean or lifeless desert. But where there is a mind to hear them-” Vernon tapped the side of his head. “Sound. Not vibration, but something else entirely. A mind translating those ripples into a language it understands, through a cascade of biological processes that science has yet to fully document.”

He turned from the water to look at Michael fully. “Yet my ears are broken. All I have is my soul, which learned what hearing should be from my poor ears. It knows what to do, but its point of reference has been - ripped away, stolen from it. The apprentice smith laboring under his master until the old man kicked the bucket.” Vernon laughed at his own joke, drumming his fingers lightly on the railing in a complex, regular rhythm.

Michael nodded slowly. “That makes a certain degree of sense,” he said. “So without the body to remind the soul of how it should function, things drift somewhat.”

“They drift, but they also expand.” Vernon’s eyes glittered in the dark. “I encourage you not to restore your eyes, Michael. Let your soul find its own sight. The world sings to me in a thousand voices that most people could never notice. High, faint sounds, or soft and low. The deep music of the rock and water. The play of sun and wind in the air.”

“It sounds overwhelming,” Michael muttered. “I’ve seen - more. I’ve seen a glimpse of what I’d be signing up for with Sofia’s soul, and I doubt that was even close to what she experiences. It’s debilitating.”

Vernon chuckled again. “I had a rough month or two. Was a bit loopy, you remember. What snapped me out of it was being back in Imes, hearing music again. The - intentionality of it. People eliciting a pure, clear tone from strings and wood, or from air and metal. To our ears, it’s another sound - to the soul, the intent behind it separates it from the rest, highlights it in a sea of discordant noise. Once I realized that, it was easy to focus only on the important bits.”

A few responses fluttered half-made in Michael’s head, so he sat on them and waited for a moment. After a time, he frowned. “There’s what the world knows,” he muttered. “And what you know.”

“You do understand,” Vernon said happily. “Good. I’m always fumbling to explain this sort of thing. I don’t think we’ve made the proper words for it.”

Michael managed a short, sharp laugh. “I really don’t. I’m just repeating something I heard once, that I apparently didn’t understand then either. I had thought that I did, at least a little, but my understanding is clearly a poor fit for the reality of things.”

Vernon nodded cheerfully. “I think that’s inescapable,” he agreed. “But we can improve every day. Let me ask you something different: do you think auditor souls are for hearing?”

“Obviously,” Michael said. “Except I have the feeling you’re about to say otherwise.”

“Hearing is something we do,” Vernon said. “Sight is something we do. Souls - don’t know about either. When we get an auditor soul, or a spector, we use hearing and sight to understand what they show us. But a soul has no ears, nor eyes; it makes no sense that they should be bound by their limitations.”

Michael looked out across the dark water. It was truly dark, and though he could see passably well by the wan starlight, the details of the sea were mostly lost in a shifting blur of shadow. He focused, shifting his sight up.

He saw yet more darkness. His disappointment must have showed on his face, because Vernon began to laugh once more. “Such an optimist still,” he said. “You actually expected to have some sort of profound revelation there, didn’t you? On a random boat at night, because of something I said?” He smirked. “I’m actually kind of flattered.”

Michael straightened up as well, feeling somewhat foolish. “Stranger things have happened,” he muttered. “Many of them at sea.”

“Fair enough.” Vernon sighed and looked back out over the water. “Epiphany can’t be summoned at will, and never halfheartedly.”

“I gave it an honest try,” Michael muttered.

Vernon let his head drop, smiling once more. “But you don’t really want to see past human limits right now,” he said. “Not while you can still choose otherwise.”

Michael gave him an irritable look, then leaned on the railing beside him. For a time, there was only the distant clatter of the engine, the rushing of the waves - and perhaps more, but Vernon did not share what else there was to hear.

“I really don’t want her soul,” Michael said. “Not merely because of what I have to do to get it. Everyone always tells me that I don’t have to worry about losing my humanity, but I’m not sure what will be left of it after this.”

“Yet you’re still going to do it,” Vernon noted.

Michael nodded slowly. “Have to.”

“You really don’t, you know. There’s nothing that says you can’t take your souls and go find some pleasant island. Something far away from the storm and anyone who wants to bother you.” Vernon tapped the railing lightly, finding another rhythm against the metal. “But you won’t do that, because humanity isn’t about how you see or hear, or if you’re able to get a full night’s sleep. You will be fine, Michael. You may not be the same, but you’ll be fine.”

“Your confidence is inspiring.” Michael let the silence drag out; Vernon gave his shoulder a squeeze before turning and padding back across the deck towards the cabin.

Their transit of the Cauldron Sea was quick and uneventful, bringing them within sight of the Ardan coast before the end of their second day, leaving them to spend a tense night navigating around the coast. They stayed far from the shore for fear of rocks and patrols, though they saw neither. In fact, the interior was dark as they passed, devoid of light and motion even where Michael thought there must be a city or port. Every so often he thought he saw the flickering light of fires or lamps, but the faint blazes were gone before he could truly train his sight on them.

By the time the sea brightened from the inky black of night, they were at the mouth of the Iron Bay. This was where Michael had been sure that they would be stopped and challenged by Ardan patrols, but he could not see any other traffic underway at this hour. A low winter mist cloaked the land from view, rendering its contour in a faint gradient that peeked through the grey.

There was a persistent smell of smoke on the harbor, stronger than the usual miasma from the factories; instead of the tarry industrial scent that he was accustomed to, Michael smelled the rich scent of woodsmoke mixed with something sweeter that he couldn’t place.

The bay remained quiet as their boat slid towards Calmharbor’s docks, the city earning its name in the glassy morning stillness of the water. A light broke the mist as they drew closer, tainting it with a flickering orange hue. It proved to be the burnt hulk of a ship smoldering at one of the piers, submerged to the deck with blackened scraps still dancing with tongues of flame where they protruded above the water.

“Something’s not right,” Michael murmured. “Sera.”

Her apparition blurred into being beside him. “What?” she mumbled, the bleariness of her voice clear even in its distorted tones. “Why’s the - oh.” It straightened up, popping up from the floor to hover stock-still to Michael’s right. “Damn. This is going to complicate things.” It turned its featureless head to Michael. “There’s been some sort of riot. Bodies in the street, burnt buildings - not many people out. Don’t see any military presence, so that’s a positive.” She frowned. “Nor police. I was worried about running into both, and now I’m more worried at seeing neither.”

Michael’s vision stretched out, racing through the fog to find the familiar brick and cobble of his hometown. Shattered glass glinted on the street, or sat with quiet malice in empty windows while the fog danced blithely across the shards. Several of the facades were blackened or collapsed from fire - indeed, there were a few bright spots amid the murk where buildings were burning merrily away. Yet there was no rush of firemen to the scene, nor constables.

What people he saw were lurking in alleys or huddled around fireplaces inside. A few gangs of men roamed the street, carrying bulging sacks and armed with crude weapons - clubs, shovels, here and there a battered rifle.

The living, though, were not in the majority. Bodies sprawled across the frozen streets, ice glittering on waxy corpse-skin and flashing bright from staring eyes. They lay slumped against walls or fallen in the street. There were pools of dark blood beneath some of them, but most lay peacefully in their repose.

His sight raced on, down blocks that lay farther distant from the port. Here, entire blocks had burnt to blackened timbers and cracked bricks. The ones that had been spared the fire had been ransacked. A plaza that Michael remembered faintly from his youth was crowded with neatly-arrayed bodies - then haphazard piles beyond those.

Hundreds, thousands of dead. Michael peered close at the bodies and saw crusts of blood around their mouths and noses, sores upon their faces. Some bore bandages, in the earlier piles. “Some sort of sickness,” Michael said quietly. “But not one they could stop. They-” He paused, his mind shaking itself free of its shock enough to tie some facts together. “Luc. This was Luc.”

“Stellar’s light?” Sobriquet asked. “He killed the whole town?”

“No, not even most of them,” Michael said. “But enough. Think about who would have gone close to him. People at the Assembly, people close to the military. Government, police, ensouled - the powerful, the important. Everything else he just left to - fall apart.”

“And they burned their own town to the ground the second nobody was looking?” Sobriquet retorted incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I doubt that was intentional.” Michael pressed his lips together, still surveying the ranks of the dead. “All of the most important men in the city dead, and nobody to keep order. All the wealth of Ardalt sitting in empty homes. All the businesses shipping food and goods into the capital left leaderless.” He pulled his sight back to the ship, still floating at a cautious distance from the docks. “And when they couldn’t buy food at the market anymore, the people probably started taking it from wherever they could. Empty houses first, and then-”

He gestured to the city grimly. “And then we’re here.”

“It’s like Gharon all over again,” Sobriquet muttered, her head tilting to the side. “I’m not sure that Sibyl is here, Michael. Nobody would flee here for safety.”

“She doesn’t have anywhere else,” Michael said. “Check for me. It’s-” He frowned, gaining his bearings, then pointed. “Farther out from the city, between those low hills. There should be a single house surrounded by a large wooded area-”

“Found it.” Sobriquet frowned. “Hard to see much detail. Hold on.” Her apparition vanished, then reappeared just as quickly. “She’s there. I don’t think she saw me checking. Vera is there. Several dead bodies, not sure who.”

Michael nodded sharply, then opened the throttle enough to send the boat inching forward. “Gather the others, then. We’re going ashore.”

They left Amira to watch the ship, and a very nervous Richter to watch Amira. Michael didn’t consider the sullen woman an enemy, but neither did he have much confidence in her equilibrium at the moment. Protecting their avenue of escape was perfectly suited to her talents, however, and she took the assignment without complaint - or much reaction at all, which left a constant nagging worry at the back of Michael’s mind as they left.

“Richter will be fine,” Sobriquet said. “He knows better than to shoot her. Knowing him, he’s already cooking her some soup in the galley, and that’s more likely to calm her down than anything you or I would say.”

“I’m not too worried about Amira,” Michael said. It wasn’t that far from the truth, at least. “I just didn’t want her by Sofia - especially not by Isolde. Can’t guarantee they won’t insult her or try to spur a reaction.”

She gave him a flat look. “What’s she going to do, kill them? That wouldn’t be so inconvenient.”

“It’s my task,” Michael said. “Only mine. I’m not going to look aside. If Sofia is going to die, I can at least do her the courtesy of killing her honestly.”

Sobriquet snorted out a laugh, though Michael knew she felt anything but merry at the moment. “I bet that will be a comfort. Not sure how much credit it will get you with Vera and Isolde.”

“I don’t think I’m mending fences with Isolde anytime soon,” Michael said. “Vera…” He paused. “I don’t think any of this is going to surprise Vera. You remember what she said, in her letter. ‘A path forward’ - but the last time she said that, she wasn’t talking about survival.”

Sobriquet said nothing in response, trudging silently along beside Michael.

They were nearing the end of the dockyard; he swung their course towards the hilly district where Raven House sat. Nobody troubled them on the road, though a few figures lurked in shadow and fog.

Michael pointedly looked at each of them, holding his gaze until he felt a small thrill of recognition from each watcher.

Nobody troubled them on the road, and what figures had been lurking soon found better places to be.