When Silver Burned: Chapter 13-17 (Patreon)

13 - The Boy who Learned (INTERLUDE)

The stray cat pawed at the wheel of the propped up cart, seeing something only a stray cat could see. Kalsin couldn't make out much from where he was sitting, through the window glass smeared by spots of dried rain, but still he stretched his neck to see the fluffy tail sway back and forth in excitement. It paused, stood still for a breath, then lurched together with the rest of the cat's body in an almost surge-like snap.

"Your corner posts are crooked," said Nyugat.

Kalsin glanced down at his drawing. He shifted the paper so Nyugat, still gawking over his shoulder, would have to circle around the desk to keep it in his sight. "They're not."

"But they are."

"Not from where I'm sitting."

There was silence from Nyugat—knowing him, he made sure if the professor had still not entered the classroom—then a scrape of wood signaled a chair being dragged over. Kalsin reluctantly shifted his legs as the older boy crowded in next to him, planted his elbows on the narrow table, making it slant slightly under the weight.

A stick of coal started rolling toward the edge. Kalsin grabbed it before it could fall. He scowled down at his dirty hand, wanting to reprimand Nyugat and tell him to stuff it, but without the confidence to turn daydream into reality, the words never made it past his tongue.

"Look. See the railings, how it keeps at the horizon from both sides?" Nyugat said, looking out the window toward the fence Kalsin had captured. He held his pen at arm's length, one eye closed to gauge distance, moving his thumb up and down until he caught the correct proportions. "Uhum. Just as I thought. Watch the part where the corner post blocks out the fence, right at the bend. The one with the chipped tip. It's angled way too steeply."

Kalsin looked. He frowned yet again. He held out his arm, using the same technique they've all been taught, his bare coal painting his thumb even more black. Nyugat was right, the angles were skewed just a touch. Enough to be noticed if the professor checked.

Even as Kalsin murmured his thanks, he noticed a commotion had driven the cat from the cart as he nimbly scurried up the length of the fence and fled, clawing and jumping down along the road. Did he catch his prey? For all Kalsin knew, his retreating tail was a declaration of victory, a proud flag whipped by the wind this way and that. Kalsin’s hand twitched with the sudden impulse to immortalize the fluffy creature within his drawing, and he scowled deeper when he remembered he was supposed to draw things stationary, not those in motion.

"You're welcome," Nyugat said.

Kalsin flinched, having forgotten the boy next to him, now wearing a hostile expression with his nose in the air. 

"I said thank you!" Kalsin said, defensive. "And I had it right for the most part, anyway. It's good enough."

"Ha! I want to hear you say that to Professor Stalble. And he will say the same thing I do, which is, good enough is not accurate enough."

A hundred different responses flitted through Kalsin's head. You're right and I'm sorry. Shut up you idiot. I don't care because my drawing is prettier than yours. Can we be friends? You want accurate, I'll give you an accurate close-up of my fists. 

Kalsin didn't know which one to say, if any. So he said nothing. Nyugat dragged his chair back to his table with a louder scrape than before, though it could've been just his imagination. The ever-present background hum of a class without supervision continued. Kalsin breathed a sigh of relief. He wiped his hand in his trousers and found them slick with sweat.

The door to the classroom burst open and bounced off the wall with a twin of deafening cracks. A woman Kalsin could only describe as maniacal, half marched, half stumbled inside, her once powdered eyes desperately searching as runny smears glistened along the wrinkles of her face. The frills of her dress were brown and dirty, as if she'd trampled them in the mud.

"Reni!" the woman wheezed, clutching at the arm of a girl who was staring with wide eyes and cheeks red with embarrassment. "Reni, we have to go! Quick, please, listen to me, come."

"Mom? Wha—"

"I'll explain later, but you have to come now. Okay? Now!" She tugged harder on her daughter’s arm, nearly wrenching her from her seat. Her mother's desperation must've been contagious as Reni seemed to likewise forget about the spectacle they were causing. She still resisted being pulled from her seat, but real fear discolored her voice as she stuttered to ask what had happened.

"That is enough, Mrs. Vezry!"

The booming command came from Professor Dusking, the head of the school in the position of Tanár, and a man Kalsin had seen smiling more often than not. He wasn't smiling now. Three adults crowded in the classroom behind him, all employees at the school, and all having the same disheveled look of people who'd just sprinted across the entire length of a city.

"I have a right to see my daughter, just as surely as I have the right to take her home whenever I wish."

"You can refer to all your rights when you calm yourself. In the office. We can look at paperwork. We can sort this out. If you will."

Professor Dusking's tone was measured, reasonable, but Kalsin saw past his words and found a man tired and distraught, a man who had already arrived at a conclusion and was preparing for the backlash. He slowly stepped toward Mrs. Vezry, who still held a white knuckled grip on Reni's arm. "You're hurting her," he said softly.

Mrs. Vezry let go of her daughter. She gasped at the sight of the red lines she'd left on her skin, and fell to her knees, cupping her daughter’s face, sorries and intimate endearments pouring out of her that should never be witnessed by an audience. Children in the classroom averted their eyes, shifted, uncomfortable. Kalsin did not turn away. He watched, his attention a string in resonance, beyond curious.

The mother's apologies had a sour quality to them. Airy and spacious, and not weighed down by guilt one bit. Like she was trying to soothe a wrong that was not her doing, something she was not responsible for, but the source stemmed from her own person anyway. Words stumbled, broke halfway out and collided with fresh strings in a hopeless rush of someone trying to cram everything inside a bag before it had to be tied, sealed, shipped. ‘One more thing before I forget, and this, this is important as well, and here, one last thing just in case.’ 

The daughter received it with confused tears and a head shaking in denial. Eyes that rolled for a way out from a dream more than they pierced toward the truth to understand. ‘Everything was well a moment ago. How do I go back? Please, just let me go back.’

Behind them, the professors and staff talked in hushed voices, peering at the distraught pair from time to time, but not making a move otherwise. They didn't seem happy, and Kalsin didn't think they would be after what happened. They were waiting for something. A question whispered, an answer muttered from the corner of a mouth, an eye glancing to the entrance, then to the mother, and then back to their colleagues.

It wasn't long until Kalsin's suspicion proved right. He noticed a new figure standing outside the room, barely on the edge of his vision. He stretched his neck and caught a flash of a translucent white robe and a large expanse of bare skin underneath, before Professor Dusking stepped into the doorway and blocked his line of sight. "There's children inside, for the sake of the Gods!" they heard him snap. A voice answered. The professor said, "Do it outside the premises, then. I won't have a Fény in front of my students."

Kalsin listened with his head toward the window to hide his burning cheeks. He'd never seen a Fény before, and now he understood why adults always herded children away whenever their services had to be called. 

He remembered Cinder telling him all about the Fény; a handful of devout men and women, picked from among the priests of Tűzmother, who filled a vital role in the Republic. Whenever an argument arose whether a person was Clenn or Scarrd, they called a Fény to perform a private inspection and verify the claims. They wore nothing but a see-through dress so the truthfulness about their own body could not be drawn into question. Though here in Araz, where a public display of scars was the law, they were rarely seen.

Mrs. Vezry let out a shriek when a pair of freshly arrived city guards restrained her. By now, everyone understood the procedure—the students, the staff, the few onlookers who had gathered outside. The mother did as well. Surely she knew better than anyone, because she begged, spat, clawed at them throughout every inch they pulled her from her daughter. A chair fell over when she broke free for a moment, a desk toppled with an explosion of dust when a guard tackled her into it. She did not let up for a second, but they dragged her outside just the same.

<><><>

That day, a husband drowned in a fracture. A wife broke with grief and turned Scarrd. A daughter became an orphan, losing one parent to death and the other to the cruel realities of human nature.

And a boy with odd, silver eyes—he learned.

14 - Shadowfight

Grey blood squirted as the quarrel skewered the old man, exiting through his eye socket and splattering his kids in a lavish amount of spent anatomy. People screamed. The girl's knees buckled as the lifeless body pulled her under while the boy stood frozen next to her, mouth open, uncomprehending. 

Kalsin grabbed for the azTéls to drag them away in the opposite direction, but Áron jerked from his grasp, making them stumble. Kalsin cursed when his knee hit the ground painfully, and frantically ran his fingers over his side to make sure his lantern was still in one piece. If they survived the next hours, he was going to have a serious talk with the man's grandeur of useless heroics. The old man was dead, the hell was he running there to help for?

In a few short but crucial seconds Kalsin was back on his feet, but the scene before him had turned into a luminant nightmare. Figures slipped in and out of his pocket of vision, running and disappearing into the white. Gray shadows wrestled further out, hard to make out in the hazy lantern-shaded distance. The clatter of steel on steel rang in the biting air, screams and death gurgles, crowned by the occasional whizz and thud of crossbow bolts.

There's only one word that describes what happens when you put together a random assortment of strangers, pull them nice and snug together, then butcher one in a gory display; chaos. If there's no established order to control human instincts, panic takes root.

Treyant's now-familiar abyssal power slammed into Kalsin's mind, and suddenly it felt like a mountain's weight had been taken off his shoulders, his fears and doubts replaced by hope and stubborn defiance. He would not die today. The tremble of his body retreated. He took a deep breath before adjusting his scabbard to his side, pulled his sword with full composure, and started walking.

A Clenn man Kalsin didn't recognize was moaning on all-fours, impaled to the ground by a sword above his ankle, eyes unseeing and delirious from being left unprotected from Blindlight's glare. Kalsin plunged his sword through his back and into his heart, barely slowing. It was mercy killing. A justified act. At least that's what he told himself.

Kalsin jerked around when a figure rushed into his lantern's radius, then disappeared back into the white just as quickly. Not the people he was looking for. Hesitating only for a moment, he turned away and continued ahead, his bahten close behind. His eyes watered as he stared forward unblinking, trying to make out barely distinguishable silhouettes not even ten feet away.

Kalsin ran the remaining distance just in time to see one of the cowled priests wrestling with a woman, while a man circled their struggling forms, trying to find an angle to skewer the priest at spearpoint, the éj-lantern on his belt swaying as he moved. The other priest was lying face-down on the ground with a bolt in their back. How the hell was that possible, an unseen crossbowman firing and finding targets at range during Blindlight?

The remaining priest screamed, voice wild and high, and lashed out with a claw-like weapon attached to the knuckles. The woman reared back for a second, then surged, tackling the priest in a blur. But Kalsin lost sight of their fight, having other priorities.

He had snuck up on the circling man undetected. As he brought down his sword, blade barely an inch away from the sweaty neck, the man became aware of his presence. Perhaps a sound gave him away, or it was the tickle of moving air. The man surged with quickness Kalsin did not think possible, turning and deflecting his strike with the haft of his spear. He then staggered, the backlash from overstraining his surge hitting him. 

Kalsin cursed silently, swatting aside a weak jab and pushing his advantage as he kept cutting at his opponent's defenses. Kalsin avoided fighting humans as much as he could. Without a surge of his own, he was always at a severe disadvantage, even against those with weaker physical powers. People above nails and dirts could still access surges below their rank, but without constant use, it atrophied like a weakened muscle.

The man facing Kalsin must've had incredible skill with physical surge in the past. His technique was sublime. But his endurance had been exhausted in that single shot of a life-saving move, and his surge needed long minutes to recover.

Kalsin slashed high overhead. As the man raised his weapon to block, Kalsin grabbed the spear shaft for purchase, and kicked the man hard in the stomach. With a savage downward wrench, Kalsin brought both the spear and the man holding it to the ground. His next slash found its way deep in the side of his neck, nearly decapitating him on the spot.

Kalsin looked up and saw the priest finish gutting the woman with that strange weapon. It looked like brawlers' brass knuckles, loops hooked snug onto the wearer's fingers, but with steel claws instead of blunt knots. A short, curved blade extended from the thumb, making the weapon look like a crude knife with a partial glove attached.

The hostile woman's lifeless body hit the ground, and Kalsin's eyes met the priest's. Her cowl had fallen back during the fight to reveal the face of a girl with skin bleached to an ashen shade under Blindlight. Her lower face still had the cloth wrapped around it tightly, but there was nothing to conceal the space above—Giving Kalsin a sight that was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Intricate patterns decorated every inch of her skin. Rivers of ink were drawn on her forehead, around her dark eyelashes, across her bald head like an ancient script of a foreign language. 

Though her expression was hard to make out under the scrawlings, she looked panicked to a point where her feverish breaths fluttered her face mask. Her wide and colorless eyes were skewering Kalsin with their baffled intensity, and with her claws still brandished toward him, it looked as if she would attack at any moment.

Kalsin pulled himself from his perpetual state of shock. They needed to focus.

He flashed her what he hoped would be a reassuring smile, then promptly ignored her and went to inspect the unmoving priest. The quarrel was embedded deep through the ribs, having shattered a handful of bones from the looks of it. The grass beneath and around was soaked in red. Dead, no two ways about it. 

"I hope you’re not religious, because there’s no time for a burial ceremony," Kalsin said. 

The girl-priest stared at him with eyes unable to settle between wide and narrow, surprised or suspicious, though it was hard to make out under her inked and half-covered features. For some reason, she'd expected Kalsin—someone she had traveled alongside—to be suddenly hostile. 

Curiosity tugged at Kalsin to see if the dead priest was painted in a similar manner, but he stood instead. "Alright then, but only a short prayer, and I suggest you do it quickly and devoutly. There is violence to do and all that."

He stepped away to let her deal with her dead companion, instead going over the belongings of their attackers. He grimaced when seeing the man's éj-lantern had broken to little pieces during his fall, but pocketed a satisfactory amount of silver from the both of them. Remallon-pressed coinage. They were dressed similarly to the collector's men in the workshop, lawmen trying and failing to pass as civilians. And like the stranger he'd finished off a minute ago, both of them were Clenn.

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He swallowed bile threatening to rise. Shut it out. There'll be time to lament later.

The priest had redonned her cowl and was kneeling at the deceased body with her head bowed, though she'd positioned herself to keep Kalsin in her peripheral vision. She looked the same as before, except for the flecks of washed out blood staining the sleeve of her robes. She stood as Kalsin finished his corpse-robbing activities in good old hunters' fashion, and fell in line several feet behind him. Kalsin didn't expect her to do anything differently. He had no illusions that she suddenly trusted him, but he knew their current situation was not unlike a parasitic relationship between flea and dog. Leaving the safety of a lantern would've been suicide. 

Several things were off about her, and he couldn't put a finger on all of them. He'd never heard about priests of Vadász—or anyone in the Republic for that matter—using their own skin as canvas. 

Just the idea was absurd. Being Scarrd was enough of a burden already, so why would someone go ahead and craft similarly dark lines upon themselves? It was wrong. He didn't know how to feel about it. What implications it carried. 

Another wave of hive-surge brushed Kalsin’s consciousness, coming from somewhere beyond the white curtain, and he shook himself. Focus.

Kalsin resumed his approach, expecting to see the worst with each step he took. Shadows danced around him in tempo with his lantern's rattle, unveiling their path bit by bloody bit. A trail of grayed syrup congregated with another in a river of blood sneaking around tiny pebbles, arriving at a maimed horse carcass. One of the warrior women was sprawled atop her mount with a fist-sized hole in her chest, glassy eyes staring skyward. 

"Death by mace," Kalsin muttered, shuddering. In his line of profession, he'd seen his fair share of injuries that blunt force was able to cause. They weren't pretty. Especially not if you got your own armor dented and caked right past your innards.

A loud clang of steel, then a thrum of vibration rose from nearby. Kalsin picked up his pace, pulling Sap and the priest into a run. She moved surprisingly nimble in her layered robes. 

They broke into a glade covered by a copse of thin trees and more dead bodies than all the others he'd seen combined. Áron fought beside Erazza as a trio of men pressured them with flashing clubs, making the pair lose ground by the second. Jack was positioned between the skirmishers and the unseen shooter, a quarrel sticking out her shield and several more having bounced off, now laying broken at her feet. She pulsed with frustrated tension from being pinned down and unable to put her sword to use. Hollow stood at the clearing's edge, nostrils flaring in agitation.

Kalsin went for the man closest to him; two long steps, a thrust between the ribs, and the Clenn collapsed with a grunt. But when Kalsin tried drawing back his sword, it stuck fast with the dead weight keeping it pinned at a downward angle. His eyes met that of his next opponent not three feet away. He pulled harder. The man charged Kalsin with a triumphant thirst etched on his face.

Only to be swept away by the barreling mass of a fifteen-thousand pound warlander bahten, shattering every bone in his body on contact as Hollow crushed, then brought under and trampled the unprepared fighter into the ground. Bloody gouges decorated the spent flesh like boot prints in soggy mud. 

The last man turned to flee—gods only knew where, without a lantern—but Erazza quickly finished him off with a well-aimed hatchet in the neck.

Another bolt whistled through the air and Jack hissed as the projectile barely squeezed past her shield and scraped along the meat of her shoulder. With one free hand, she tore out a piece of fabric from her shirt and held it to the wound, then caught Kalsin's eyes and jerked her head in a direction. Towards the trees.

Kalsin called out to the others to get in cover, already running. Valuing their own hides as they should, nobody objected to making a quick retreat. 

In seconds they were loping through the miniature excuse of a forest as dried sticks crunched underfoot. Jack came last, covering Hollow's backside with her shield until the foliage became adequate enough to hide them. They ran deeper into the theater of ghastly trees.

"Pathfinder Treyant?" Kalsin asked several minutes later, once they'd slowed from a desperate sprint to an uneasy jog. The trees had fallen off behind them and rocky slopes took their place. The azTéls must've known where they were going, because they quickly found a narrow stone path weaving between the mounds. 

"Don't know. We haven't seen her since the fight broke out," Áron said. 

"She can take care of herself," Erazza said without pulling her eyes off their path. She cut through a dense bush with her hatchet and hurriedly stepped on the trail behind it. "Used to serve in the military. Officer in the Old. And I've no reason to doubt her word."

Kalsin grunted, focusing on walking. The Old was short for the outer line of defense. Trenches and blockades stretching for hundreds of miles across the Eastern Expanse. Basically wormfood for the Veiled invaders. It took hard men and women to survive there. Allegedly.

Áron drew back to quickly walk next to Kalsin. "Got any idea how they were shooting us, and more importantly, hitting us in the current conditions?" he asked with clear meaning at their white surroundings. 

Kalsin watched the pattern of blood on the priest's flowing robe, thinking. The answer came to him in the image of a curtly written collector's note. "Optics advised," he muttered out loud, glancing back.

Jack, her shield now slung on her back as she covered the end of the line, gave a reluctant nod. The makeshift bandage she'd tied on her shoulder had soaked through a little, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. An inch lower and she could've lost an arm, two inches to the side and her neck would've been gone. She'd gotten lucky. 

"I warned you two. We expected the collector to make a move sooner or later," Kalsin said. "Unfortunately for us, it happened sooner."

"But Blindlight should equalize the field for us all. Éj-lanterns are one thing, but they're worthless if you're outside its radius, looking in from afar."

Kalsin nodded, glad for the common sense the man was showing. Most people didn't get so far when having to rely on their own observations under duress. "The letter we've found mentioned something called 'optics'. Now, I don't have a cocking clue what it could be, exactly, but the result speaks for itself. A means for long-distance view during Blindlight."

The words sounded ridiculous, but nobody spoke on the contrary. There was no denying what they'd just experienced.

"Shit," Áron declared, wise beyond his station.

"The good news is, this piece of equipment seems like a product of the elite, a fancy new invention only the rich can afford. Exorbitant enough that it's reserved for the use of a single man."

"Twenty seconds between shots, give or take," Erezza said with a nod. She had a keen presence of mind if she really did count the seconds and wasn't just bullshitting them. Kalsin thought she might be bullshitting them. "Crank mechanism, and a powerful one at that."

She descended a step as the path led them across a shallow gully, stepping with the purpose of someone with a familiar destination in mind. When Kalsin asked, Áron was the one who spoke. "How do you think we came to Remallon in the first place?" And that was all he said.

Fifteen minutes of heavy marching followed as they tried to widen the distance between them and the lawmen. The ground slowly evened out until they were walking on mirror-smooth soil dusted by dirt, the smooth powder wafting under their heels. Both bahten gave anticipatory neighs and loped ahead, just barely keeping within the lantern's vision, only to jump back as they kicked up dust in excited circles.

The fracture came in sight abruptly from the white glare. As if a giant had sliced a razor-sharp sickle through the earth, the land was split by a narrow river, the water-level completely even with the ground. Despite the stream being only five feet wide, however, one would never stop sinking if they couldn’t swim; fractures were deep. Infinitely deep. They did not have a bottom, continuing endlessly into the earth. While the surface was relatively safe to travel, the depths were inhabited by creatures, as well as rare minerals. The lower the depth, the larger both the monstrosities and the value that divers could hope to find.

Sap jumped headfirst into the fracture with a loud splash, thankfully far enough to keep from soaking them, while Hollow slipped under the waters with his dignity intact. They submerged and spurted in satisfaction upon breaking the surface. Their water-proof saddles on their backs gleamed invitingly.

Kalsin had been busy watching the playful animals, and he turned to notice the azTéls dragging a dirty, but sturdy looking boat towards the fracture. They must've hid it somewhere nearby, because the spear-shaped boat was covered in dry leaves and bits of tangled moss. The design was standard for fracture traveling; sleek enough to traverse narrower passages, and long enough to carry half a dozen people if they squeezed together enough.

Jack stopped beside Kalsin and they watched the elegantly curving river as it disappeared outside their lantern's shade. She slid a hand into his and squeezed, looking at him with a soft smile. One that he returned. 

The collector would not catch them today.

15 - A Friend in Need is a Friend Who Wants to Suck Your…

Kalsin woke to water gently lapping against his thighs. He had to blink for the world to come into focus, once again filled with color as the land stretched around him for miles. The endless field of grass was split up by the fracture weaving and sneaking ahead all the way to the horizon. He welcomed the lush greens below, the azure blues above, having missed the vast world around him. His sweat-drenched coat stuck to him like a second skin under the warming rays of Warmlight. 

Summer's first Blindlight had come and gone.

He'd fallen asleep in Sap's saddle as he had done many times in the past, enough so that he trusted his companion to keep him from falling. The water was lukewarm around his submerged feet, feeling the steady movement of scales over his mount's shifting muscles. Hollow swam just ahead with a slumped Jack on his back, his finned tail flicking up and splashing water from time to time. The others were in the boat with Áron at the back as he steered the land-paddles, occasionally propping them against the rocky shore to gain purchase, then push. 

Kalsin nudged Sap, steering him to swim beside Hollow. Jack had been dozing off, but straightened when she must've felt the waves stirred by Sap's movements in the narrow river. The bandage on her shoulder had come loose.

"Let me take a look at that," Kalsin said, Sap pulling close enough their feet were practically mushed together. Kalsin ignored his slight nausea from the physical contact, focusing instead on Jack who wore the slightly annoyed look of someone not wanting to be fussed over. Their bahten, as if having a sixth sense for their riders' needs, slowed and steadied underneath them in such a way a regular horse could never imitate. They could've been on land, sitting on a slab of rock and not know the difference.

With quick and efficient motions, Kalsin fully untied the improvised bandage, and let out a relieved breath. The bolt had left a furrow half a finger's width in the side of her shoulder, the powerful shot having only grazed her. It wasn't pretty, but it was significantly better than the alternatives he'd feared. 

Jack remained still as Kalsin worked, cleaning the wound and wrapping it anew in a fresh dressing. It was an awkward cast, looping under her arm at an angle that was prone to slipping, so he took his time, wrapping it from different directions and doubling the knots. 

Jack kept her cheek turned away, keeping her scar as far away from him as possible. For his sake, Kalsin knew. The restless way her body shifted, from her stolen glances, he could tell she wanted to look at him.

An old memory surfaced, one with his bodyguard looking down at him, pinning him to the ground and gazing at him with fondness that he didn’t deserve. As if his silver eyes were the most beautiful gems she’d ever seen, leaning closer, her lips brushing against his…

"Thank you, old friend," Kalsin said, shaking off the memory.

Jack almost turned back to him, but stiffened when Kalsin pulled hard on the cast. Satisfied it would hold, Kalsin pulled back and instead reached down to give Hollow a pat on the neck. "I was talking to Hollow. Not sure if you noticed, but he saved my ass back there. You've got competition."

Jack only shrugged. Kalsin understood it as 'yeah, well, it's not like that never happened before'.

She looked at him sideways, then gestured with her chin toward his arm.

“Barely feel it now.”

She raised a wry eyebrow.

“No, I’m serious. I’ve had cat scratches more deep than these ones.” He moved to bump his shoulder against hers. He bounced off her tall frame and had to steady himself in the saddle. “When we were kids, Cinder had this theory that if you had a strong physical surge and you wished hard enough, you could spawn a healing manifestation of your own.”

Jack snorted. She then made spooky gestures with her fingers as if casting a spell, then tossed a kiss toward his arm with a big ‘mwah’.

Kalsin clutched his arm to his chest with wide eyes. “Oi, careful, Jack. Keep blowing kisses like that and I’ll need healing somewhere else.”

Her shoulders shook as Jack threw her head back, laughing hard enough to stir waves around them. Hollow endured his rider’s mirth with quiet dignity and a splash of his tail. She tried to signal three times something, only to break down, then eventually give up and settle with a thumbs up and a lecherous grin toward Kalsin.

“Down, girl.” Kalsin muttered, already regretting the joke. Though not without a smile of his own.

Jack was probably the best, most spectacular damn woman he has met his entire life, on all metrics. Now, if only his stupid body also agreed with him, then they’d be having an entirely different, uh… conversation.

His face was probably betraying his thoughts, because he looked over to Jack prodding the inside of her mouth with her tongue, making her cheeks bulge in and out and in and out and watching him with hooded eyes.

Kalsin quickly looked back ahead. Oh gods, oh gods and all the holy entities in the sky.

They let their mounts carry them along the river, enjoying the sun and each other’s presence for long minutes. Kalsin then took a glance back at the boat gliding behind them. He noticed someone was missing. "When did the priest leave?"

Jack thought for a moment with a serene smile still lingering on her face. She pointed toward Kalsin, put her hands together imitating a pillow as if sleeping, and shrugged. Almost as an afterthought, she gestured up at the sun. 

The priest had left while Kalsin was sleeping, right after Blindlight ended and Warmlight rose back onto the sky. 

While Jack clearly wasn't overly concerned about it, Kalsin found himself disappointed by the news. There was a shroud of mystery around the silent, script-covered girl who might or might not have been a priest in truth. The revelation under that hood had been unsettling, if not shocking, but in a puzzle-to-be-solved kind of way instead of casting a sense of danger. 

And if there was one thing Kalsin liked to think himself good at, it was solving puzzles. Having one slip through his fingers felt wrong, like a botched opportunity to peek through a window toward something big. Toward something important he was missing.

"Kalsin." Áron had come to his boat’s front, letting the current do the job for the moment. Erazza sat with her back to them, though Kalsin had no doubts she was listening. "Two more hours and we'll reach a split in the fracture, then a smaller one right after that. Assuming we're followed—which I have no reason to think otherwise—we'll have to change course soon."

"How familiar are you with the surrounding lands?"

"Not very."

"You came this way to Remallon, yeah?"

Áron shifted with the slight rocking of the boat. "Sure. But we weren't exactly going sightseeing."

Kalsin wanted to interrogate them further, but held his questions for now. The collector wouldn't give up so easily, and though they had evaded the ambush during Blindlight, they weren't out of his claws just yet. The good news was that during the good ol’ regular Warmlight, those optics of his would be useless; the playing field had been equalized.

"We'll keep with this fracture until it branches into a particular forest-island. That small fracture you mentioned? I think that's the one. I have someone waiting for me there." He didn't mention specifics. If he wanted the azTéls’ cooperation, Kalsin would have to make sure Cinder remained unseen. Being Clenn and all. "Jack's going to loop back around and scout for our pursuers, keep a lookout. You two join her, and then we’ll meet up in the forest afterwards."

Jack shot a speculative glance at Kalsin, but didn't protest. Áron was about to, but Kalsin cut him off in advance. "Blindlight is over, but we're still blind as to what's happening. And I don't like being one step behind. We don't know how many men the collector has, or how far behind they are. One day? One hour? For all we know, they could be just behind that rise," he waved toward a hill on their left. "Three sets of eyes see more than one."

"You want to fight them?" Erazza spoke up finally, though still didn't turn.

"No.” Kalsin paused, thinking. He then reluctantly said, “No. But at this point, I think we'll have to. We have already killed enough of them to launch a public manhunt after us."

"True enough," she said, looking up at Áron with unspoken words passing between them. Áron nodded shortly after and faced Kalsin again. "Fine. Spot, count and scurry with murderous Clenn on our tails. Then what?"

"Then you lead them into the forest, right until you reach the waterfall. It's easy enough to find from what I've been told—you'll hear the rumble from a mile away. I'll be waiting there."

"I hope to all spectral hells that you know what you're doing."

Kalsin smiled. "That's the thing about plans getting fucked. You knock one up, and it takes just about nine minutes till a new one is born."

16 - A One-Handed Guide on Killing Mythos

Forests are like people; they all differ from each other, but stay within the boundaries of their established, rigid system. Just like you'd be hard-pressed to find men born without four limbs and a head and a torso, trees have a tendency to have a certain shape. Aside from that, though, no feature is quite alike. Pole straight or bent, lush or ghastly, crowded or sparse, forests are a unique bunch.

The one stretching before Kalsin was on the thicker side, with knee-high undergrowth covering the ground like a blanket. Ash woodlands, if he had to guess, but he wasn't an expert on the topic. He was, however, sure he was at the right place judging from the faint roar of rushing water reaching his ears.

"You've gotten lucky," Cinder said, one leg bouncing to an unheard rhythm.

Kalsin, who'd just finished telling his sister about the ambush, ignored the remark. "Short story short, we managed to flee united with our heretic friends and followed the fracture. Figured we could use a watch party, so we split up." He glanced back toward the empty boat dragged to the shore of the river, then back at Cinder. He drew up a brow. "But you probably know that part, considering you appeared not a minute after they left. How long have you been sulking here decorating the flowerbed, your Clennliness?"

Cinder muttered something too low for Kalsin to hear. Sap, drying off in the sun nearby, flattened his ears in response. A trustworthy signal that Cinder wasn't quite singing his praises. 

Out loud, she said, "Threatening to murder the people we mean to ask about the cure, walking into an ambush during Blindlight, and to top it all off, that being an ambush you could've prevented by letting Jack kill the collector in the first place? That's an avalanche of disasters, Kalsin. Even for you."

Kalsin stood, stretching. He clicked his tongue for Sap to follow and started walking toward the tall mass of trees. "Yes to the first two. The last one, nope."

"Do elaborate," Cinder quipped in a sarcastic tone as she matched pace with Kalsin. "Because from here, it looks like a dead collector is a collector unable to pepper your pretty backside with arrows."

"Right now, they have nothing on us." Kalsin explained. "In the eyes of public law, we have done nothing wrong, or at least nothing the law wants to draw attention to. So long as our only crime is heresy, they'll keep things wrapped nice and tight with the least amount of people involved possible. We're but a handful of ideologues, a tiny fire they aim to keep under control without bringing about an audience. Lest those susceptible to rebellious ideas catch flame."

Kalsin took Cinder's silence as understanding, though still not appeased. "Now, if we killed the collector right in the middle of the region's capital, during celebration time?" He posed the question. "Then you're looking at a group of murderers with the blood of a high-standing overworlder on their hands. Identifiers of our scars would decorate every single notice board across Grenstel, if not the entire Republic."

"We're already past murder," Cinder said. "From what you've told me, several of the collector’s men died during the second ambush."

"Men with no names, no titles and no importance," Kalsin said with a nasty taste in his mouth. All this was speculation, of course. And killing Clenn never came easy to him. "Pawns they can afford to lose. I saw none use manifestation—all underworld hirelings, I'd bet. Nails. The lowest of the Clenn. They would gladly throw more our way until we're either dead or captured."

"How much longer can we weather the tide before we break?" Cinder asked quietly. "Another ambush? A dozen? They know about us, Kalsin, and like you said, the collector won't stop until he wins. I only see one solution for that. A permanent one."

Kalsin wanted to deny it, but he knew his sister was right. This was not a problem that would go away just by ignoring it. He remembered Quin, the torture, the casual manner in which he talked about dissecting them and the way he justified his actions. Which brought Kalsin to the pinnacle of his worries; did he want to deal with a fanatic reaching from under the shady side of the law, or face trial by daylight's justice? Evade Quin for as long as he could, or get him off the board and let the Civil House come after them in full force? Two bad options. And not making a decision would be a decision in itself.

Hence, his plan to get the killing done, and damn the consequences.

Leaves shushed, gently brushing their feet with sunlight streaming through the treetops high above as they delved through the forest. It wasn't long until the sound of rushing water overtook any and all attempts of birdsong, with moisture steadily gathering in the air, carrying a fresh and earthy scent. 

"Did you bring it?" Kalsin asked, stepping over a thick knot of roots.

Cinder raised a sack seemingly out of nowhere with her one good hand, dangling it under Kalsin's nose. "A little decomposed, but eh, who cares. It's a sacrificial goat head, for gods’ sake."

Kalsin swatted it away, deciding he was better off without asking questions.

Soon they reached a river, too wide and not-at-all depthless to be mistaken for a fracture, then followed it until the forest opened up into a wide glade. The river disappeared at the edge of a twenty feet drop, where it formed a small lake below with a flat slab perched right in the center like a miniature island. Bathed in spraying water and sunlight, the rock gleamed wet, almost unnaturally bright. 

"Well, that's an obvious spot if I've ever seen one," Cinder said.

Getting down proved to be fairly easy as the ground wasn't too steep around the waterfall, with vines to hold onto as they slid down. They didn't worry about Sap having to find his own way, and thankfully he trotted off to take a wide circle around instead of diving off the edge in water-loving bahten fashion. 

"So what now?" Kalsin asked, standing at the lakeside as the misty water seeped through his clothes. Though the rumble wasn't deafening, they still had to raise their voices to hear one another.

"Now we see if we can squeeze some actual, old fashioned monster-hunting between all the excitement you've managed to stir up," Cinder said. She leaned against a tree, folding her arms in a way that hid her stump. "Today's special menu is a fossegrim. Shall I give you the rundown?"

Kalsin nodded. This part of their hunting routine was always the same. Cinder, being the knowledgeable one who spent all her waking hours studying the mythos, would give an outline of the dangers ahead. But even on rare occasions when Kalsin knew everything about the mythos they were about to face, he always made a point to stop and listen to his sister's report. Though Cinder didn't show it, Kalsin knew how much she loathed having to stay on the sidelines. She couldn't fight, and so she was determined to be useful in other ways. It was the most a one-armed person could do, and Kalsin would never take that away from her. 

"Remember that pale womanoid creature we encountered at the borders of Araz two years back?" Cinder asked. "Idyllic little river? A copse of purple trees we lit on fire?"

"Hard to forget," Kalsin said, ignoring Cinder's flippant way of saying female mythos. "The diwata, I believe you called it." He could still hear the terrible screams as she burned alive.

"We're looking at a similar case. A seemingly friendly bugger who's, oddly enough, obsessed with music. Sources say he's a master of singing and instruments that vary between retellings. Lutes, bells, harps, flutes, and the likes. Some even say he holds the power of storytelling, able to paint such a vivid picture the images materialize in your mind as if you're in the midst of tales and legends."

"I'm guessing you reckon it's mostly bullshit."

Cinder half smirked. "When is it not? Anyway. The one constant is his behavior; he always tries to teach the human he encounters. Believe it or not, it's actually a running joke among jealous bards, claiming the skill of their rivals come from some supernatural blessing of a fossegrim instead of hard earned work. Truly fascinating shit."

"So where does that put me?" Kalsin asked, adjusting his sword sling.

"I'm afraid you'll have to forgo weapons." Cinder said, stepping behind him, her fingers running across him as she fiddled with the buckle. Kalsin allowed being disarmed without complaint. 

If Cinder said he couldn't bring a sword, then he couldn't bring a sword. Simple as that.

Cinder explained further as she confiscated the knife in his boot as well. "He won't answer the summons feeling threatened, and if he can somehow sense dead goats being sacrificed from afar, I doubt sharp steel on your person is going to pass by his attention." She leaned close, her breath warm on his ears, hands making a tour one last time to make sure he was disarmed.

Stripped of his blades, Cinder gave his shoulder a playful shove. "There's a good lad. So, what are you planning in that dense head of yours?"

Leaving his weapons behind wasn't a hard decision for Kalsin to make, considering he hadn't been planning to outright fight the mythos. He was in a rather refreshing situation where, for a change, other people could do that job for him. 

"I've got an enemy at my back and an enemy at my front. The former is unaware of my newly formed friendships, and the latter should assume I'm a friend. If an enemy of mine is also the enemy of my friends, and vice versa, then my currently known enemy and the friend who's really an enemy should assume they're enemies themselves."

"Okay, so in that equation, who is exactly what and who the what the fuck are you talking about?"

Kalsin patted Cinder back in return. "My line of thinking exactly." 

"No need to be patronizing, you know," Cinder muttered. "I'm taking first dibs on his victims' riches, if there's any." She tossed the goat-head sack to Kalsin, who caught it against his chest. "Now, be a dear and swim onto that rock so you can begin."

Following his sister's instructions, Kalsin was soon standing on the wet slab in the middle of the lake, soaked from head to toe as he untied the mouth of the sack. He stole one last glance at Cinder's back disappearing in the forest. Carefully, ignoring the decaying stench, he gripped the goat's horn and turned it facing northward, holding it out over the roiling waters. For a moment, he doubted if anything would happen, but he then shook off the uncertainty and let go. The goat head plunged, disappearing under the waves. 

Not a second after, a tall shadow fell on him.

He wasn't alone on the rock anymore.

17 - Music is a Bloody Business

The fossegrim didn't look like a mythical being out of a legendary tome of otherworldly monstrosities. His face was that of an elderly man with long, gray hair and knotted beard, but from the chest down he was sporting a body that was tall and wired with muscles, resulting in an odd, unsettling appearance. His white shirt was crisp clean, and with matching trousers he might've been called fashionable in many cities of the Republic. He was holding a harp in the crook of his arm, the wooden instrument large enough to reach below his knee.

Like assessing a new toy, the fossegrim stared at Kalsin for an eternal second, then the wrinkles around his eyes stretched as he revealed a row of perfect teeth. "You don't know primball 'bout music, do you?"

The stories were greatly exaggerated, because his voice was rough and scratchy from disuse. Kalsin didn't think long about the answer, seeing no reason to lie. "Nah. I'm more of a pen-and-paper sort of fella myself."

"That so," the fossegrim said, sitting down with his legs crossed. He gestured for Kalsin to follow suit. "We'll remedy that in just a spell. That's the reason the sons of mankind call upon my services, neh? For talent to kindle talent."

Kalsin mirrored his position. He'd found it's often easier to seem agreeable to people if he copied their body language, acting in a similar way. Though he wasn't facing a human this time around, he figured it couldn't hurt. He opened his mouth to make conversation, but the forming words died upon seeing the instrument, which was now sitting in the fossegrim's lap.

Finely crafted, rich golden wood framed and held dozens of strings stretching from top to bottom at a slight angle, the elegant lines almost mercurial as the sun illuminated their surface, sparkling. The fossegrim brushed a finger along the harp’s curved, wave-shaped neck. "What, you never seen one of these before," he said, a statement instead of a question.

Kalsin had met a handful of bards during his travels, some with harps, but he'd always paid more attention to the person than the instrument. Needless to mention, he wasn't particularly fond of those experiences. Musicians tended to be an idealistic bunch, a pinch too grandiose, a touch too eloquent for his tastes. The type of people who, if given the choice, would save a thousand strangers instead of a single friend. Or so they liked to make others think they would. 

After all, idealism is nothing more than loyalty to a cause rather than loyalty to the individuals in one's life. A twisted kind of mind-cockery, that.

Kalsin said, "Seen harps, yes. Held? Don't rightly remember. Played, not damn likely."

If the fossegrim found his attitude problematic, he didn't show it. He strung a chord, eliciting a pure sound way louder than it had any right to be. For that matter, Kalsin realized his voice was somehow staying above the waterfall's rumble without any effort. "Only those willing to learn can do so," the fossegrim said, whispering. He then snorted, looking up at Kalsin. "What a load of cowpiss. I'll have your fingers dancin' the time of their lives before the sun falls below the canopy." He extended the harp in his direction, inviting.

Kalsin, his cynical thoughts giving him pause, hesitated for a moment before reaching out and taking the harp in his hands. He pushed down the unbidden memory of Cinder's hand falling off like a discarded appendage when trying to strike a deal with a mythos. 

No. This was a different time, a different mythos, a different situation. If he wanted to get out of this alive, he needed to follow his instincts. And his instincts were telling him to play along. Bide his time. Stall, stall until events fall in place and opportunity presents itself.

"Where do I start?" Kalsin asked, looking at the instrument like a snake about to bite him.

The monster wearing the old man's skin spoke with a surprisingly gentle tone then. "You don't. It started millennia ago, and it will continue until we're dust."

But Kalsin wasn't paying attention to the fossegrim anymore, because his fingers started gliding along the strings on their own. At first, they plucked at a string tentatively, almost fearfully, before moving on to another with a grain more confidence than before. With each passing minute, his awkward gestures smoothed out and became a steady, though still unskilled motions. And through it all, the harp remained completely silent, as if the instrument was full of noble dignity, waiting for hands competent enough to wield it.

The fossegrim nodded along to the unheard music, head lolling forward and back in a trance. Had Kalsin not been so baffled by his own body, he would've clocked the creepy fucker right then and there.

Minutes stretched into an hour, then another. Kalsin's fingers were sore from the constant playing that had quickened considerably by then, moving between strings with great agility. The spray of water had soaked his back entirely, and sweat was attempting the same around his neck. He tried to speak, only to realize he couldn't. Instead of words, the piercing chime of the harp came out of his mouth.

To say the next minutes were spent in a panicked struggle would've been true and false at the same time. Inside, Kalsin was screaming and thrashing as if his future depended on it, but to the outside observer he was singing an angelic cadence without words. There was no conscious thought to the performance, as if his body decided to travel abroad and absorb years of study in a renowned academy without bringing his mind along for the trip. The fossegrim squinted an eye open, and Kalsin swore he saw the tip of his tongue sneak about in preparation for a filling dinner.

Two things happened then. Kalsin’s fingers started bleeding, dripping down his skin and coating the strings in red as he played. He tried throwing the harp, arms extended as far away from him as possible, but his hands remained gripping the wooden frame and strumming the strings, dancing along without missing a beat. He felt no pain, as if the bleeding digits had different lives of their own.

And at the same time, Jack came rushing into the glade in the corner of his eyes, stopping at the lake’s shore with the azTéls a step behind. Kalsin turned toward her and shook his head, conveying all the confidence he didn't quite feel. But she had a message of her own as she glanced behind her with a grim expression, gripping the hilt of her sword. 

Kalsin smiled, and apparently that was enough for Jack to let the next stage commence. She slowly retraced her steps into the forest, finding a place to hide nearby with the others.

Now, Kalsin just had to hope the fossegrim hated untimely interruptions. Preferably before his fingers became minced meat.

He didn't have to wait long until there was another sound different from the harp's symphony, which, interestingly enough, had been hushing the crash of the waterfall entirely. Leaves rattled, branches crunching under several pairs of feet, drawing closer and closer. A heavyset man stepped out from the forest, and judging from the mace in his hand, he didn't come to appreciate the birth of a magical bard. And he didn't come alone. Three men, an all too familiar straight-backed and slender woman, and finally Collector Quin arrived at the lakeside. Similarly to when Jack had appeared, the fossegrim didn't as much as glance at the intruders, still staring at Kalsin.

Not until Quin, without wasting time to utter a greeting, raised his crossbow and launched a bolt in their direction.

The fossegrim spoke a word, almost like singing a note, and the bolt tumbled to the side to disappear in the roiling waters. Staying seated, he set his eyes on the collector—and in that moment Kalsin finally got the first glance at the monster hiding under the skin of the old man. There was no humanity there. No rage or hatred promising retribution, no fear for his life; there was no emotion at all. But there was a great deal of finality. It wasn't a question for whom.

One does not become a collector without a great deal of perception. Realizing who was the more dangerous of the two figures sitting on the small slab-island, Quin tossed the empty crossbow at the ground and aimed a new one taken from one of his men directly at the fossegrim. But before he pulled the trigger, he laid his suddenly brown-flecked hand on the bolt. 

Even from a good fifty feet away, Kalsin could see the bolt harden, swirling earth gathering, then rotating around it as if drawn by a powerful magnet. It was his power as a spark, a physical manifestation of the surge attuned to each person that only an overworlder could use.

The fossegrim wasn't idle in the meantime. Another word left his mouth, this one sharp as a knife. There was no fanfare, no projectile. A red, vertical slice appeared across the collector's chest. But not before Quin managed to launch his enhanced bolt over the lake. The quarrel sailed through the air, leaving a brown trail in its wake and when the mythos tried to deflect it, only pebbles scattered to the side. The bolt hit the fossegrim square in the shin. The earth around the bolt latched onto the flesh it touched, creeping over the fossegrim's lower body and fusing his crossed legs together like a living statue. 

Taking that as their cue, Jack, Erazza and Áron fell upon the disoriented hunting party, their cries drawn out by Kalsin's still ongoing song. He'd only now noticed his playing had become faster and faster, the music taking on a frantic speed with no regard to his body's ability to handle it. Dozens of paper cuts littered his fingers, spraying specks of red upon the rock surface as strings bit into his skin, catching on his flesh, straining and releasing pent up tension. 

He focused all his willpower to make his fingers stop, but like begging the clouds to bring a downpour, it accomplished nothing. His legs were numb from sitting in place for so long. He could only turn his head and watch as Jack fought against two men at once, deflecting blows and delivering strikes simultaneously. Áron was pushing the swordswoman, Xil, back toward the forest while Erazza was locked into a melee of her own.

The only positive note was Quin, who had gone down looking like shredded bacon as he choked on his own blood, coloring the shore red around him. 

Unfortunately, still sitting next to Kalsin with an impassive face, the fossegrim took that as an opportunity to look for his next target. Who happened to be the one closest to them, fighting ankle-deep in the lake. Erazza.

Kalsin redoubled his efforts to wrench back control over his body from the inanimate damn instrument. But nothing answered his call. Like with the surge all those years ago, he could do nothing but strain with useless effort while the people who depended on him suffered for his own failings. Only his arms moved, legs numb and fingers playing. He was useless, again. Defective, again. 

Kalsin raised his arms, the harp with it, and decided he might as well continue the tradition of ruining everything he touched.

Crunch!

He brought down the harp on the fossegrim's head, the wood colliding hard with his skull. Kalsin gave him no opportunity to regain his senses as he connected another hit, this one glancing down his forehead and bashing into his nose with a sick snap. Each connecting hit was loud and clear, because Kalsin had stopped playing the moment he stunned the fossegrim. 

His fingers weren't yet back at their full capacity, but he didn't need them as he clobbered a supernatural musician into a bloody paste of torn meat and brainmatter with his own magical harp. The wooden instrument couldn't withstand the rough treatment for long, splintering, breaking in two as the strings went slack, some tearing with a series of off-tune pangs. Strands of white hair stuck to Kalsin’s arms. Still he kept at it, taking out all his bitterness on the fossegrim’s no-longer so ominous carcass. 

Destroying the harp and killing the mythos, both acts were just about equally satisfying.

He tossed away the ruined pieces of wood with disgust and took one hasty look through the fossegrim’s pockets. A successful, though messy job, all things considered. He couldn't see the deep-pearl ring anywhere that Cinder had mentioned a few days ago, but being alive was enough of a reward for him. Two breaths and a slimy brow wipe later, Kalsin deemed himself in good enough condition to brave the swim back to the shore, cleaning off the filth in the process.

Things had died down on the lakeside by the time Kalsin reached it. Unmoving bodies were sprawled across the glade, rivulets converging and coloring the waters a rustic red. Jack sat on a trunk, catching her breath as she gazed toward the sky with her eyes closed, sword and shield discarded as if she had lost the strength to hold them for a second longer. Instead of bugging her, Kalsin approached Áron who had Erazza tending to a nasty gash on his cheek.

"You missed one," Kalsin said.

Áron replied with something that sounded an awful like a hissed curse, scoring a discontent look from Erazza and a sharper pull of the sewing than necessary. "Your skill at music is nearly as good as your ability to state the obvious," she said without looking up from her work.

"Clenn swordslady got lucky," Áron said. "I had her, then she shoves her boot in my face like some gods-forsaken combat ballerina. The coward. She fled before I could regain my wits about me."

It was Kalsin's time to curse. If someone reported back directly to the Civil House, that would greatly accelerate the timeline of their wanted posters going public.

 He was pacing back toward the lake when a chortling laugh interrupted him, coming from none other than the collector just a couple of feet to the side. Kalsin whirled around, but shouldn't have bothered; Quin was lying flat on the shore, his own fluids leaking from the countless slashes all over his body and caking him in the mud. He tried propping himself up, but all he managed was the feeble flailing of a grounded fish. 

Kalsin knelt at his side, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. He didn't do it to grant some show of respect for a dying man, but in hopes of finding reassurance, for his own peace of mind. Quin might've been a proper bastard, but Kalsin had never intended for things to come this far. "Easy. Easy now, friend. You can rest. It's over."

"Oh no," Quin said with the intake of a wheezing breath. "Far from it… friend. There'll be no place to grant you refuge. No gloves will soften the blows the Republic is going to rain down on you and those you love. Not even the last crumbs of justice will stay reserved for your kind." His smile was adorned by blood seeping through the cracks of his teeth. "Long before this is over, you will have embraced misery."

Kalsin stared down at him. "You're probably right. You were before, you know. When you told me about the Republic tearing itself apart if a cure was discovered. If people caught word, if they discovered some power with the ability to cleanse the Scarrd, it would start a war so large and so monstrous in its destruction, the heavens themselves would weep for the next thousand years to come." 

Kalsin leaned closer to the collector, whispering. "Only... I find myself out of fucks to give. I'll find a cure for myself so I can be finally reunited with my sister. I'll find the cure for Jack, because she damn well deserves it more than any dirt I've ever met in my life. And to do it, I'll trudge through waist-deep paste of the collective rotting corpses of both the guilty and the innocent."

The collector was still enough to make Kalsin think he was gone already, but he roused one last time. "Forward my greetings to the lead torturer of the Civil Hhh.." 

He choked on the last syllable.

Kalsin watched as life departed from a man who, for however little time, hunted him based on nothing but principles created by his own circumstances. Kalsin understood him. He even sympathized with him, to a small extent. But his melancholy was short lived, because he knew Quin was just another piece out of the long line of obstacles standing between him and his goal.

Speaking of his goal. He had a pair of heretics to finally give some much needed answers.