The Imperial System: Architect of an Empire

Theron Vance had been dead for less than five minutes when the western ridge split open behind them.

The sound did not resemble thunder. Thunder rolled through the sky and faded. This came through the ground first, a deep grinding vibration that climbed through Kael’s boots, traveled into his knees, and settled somewhere behind his ribs before the noise itself reached him. He turned despite everything he had told himself about not looking back and watched a jagged red line open across the lower face of the Obsidian Caldera. For several breaths the fissure remained narrow, almost insignificant against the enormous black mountain. Then part of the slope above it dropped inward, and a column of ash punched into the afternoon sky.

Captain Rolan shouted for the column to move faster.

Kael did not need the order repeated. The two guards carrying Theron’s litter adjusted their grips, Rask stayed beside the dead man’s covered body, and the small group hurried east toward the wagons already disappearing around the next bend. Darius had finally been put inside one of those wagons after enough blood loss, broken bones, and direct threats from a healer had accomplished what an Ash-King and Theron Vance had failed to do. Kael could no longer feel Unbroken Battlefield around him. The absence was strange after spending so much of the last hour inside the edge of Darius’s new Aura, but it was also reassuring. If Darius had kept the Awakening active another minute simply to prove he could, Kael might have personally helped the healer knock him unconscious.

Ash began to fall.

At first it came lightly, individual gray flakes drifting down onto the road and dissolving against damp patches left by the earlier frost. Then more followed, carried eastward by the wind. Kael pulled the edge of his torn collar over his mouth. His lungs already felt scraped raw from the Caldera, and he had no interest in discovering how much more ash they could tolerate before becoming another problem for the healers.

Galahad appeared from around the bend ahead, moving against the direction of the evacuation with the stubbornness of a man who believed being Guild Leader meant he was personally responsible for every pair of boots on the road. His temple bandage had turned dark at one edge, and his left arm remained close to his body, but his eyes were clear.

”The lead wagons reached the old logging turn,” he said as soon as he came within speaking distance. ”Iris says the east road is open for now. Mara found a second way around the low cut if the main route goes.”

”For now,” Kael repeated.

Galahad gave him a tired look. ”I have learned to appreciate those two words.”

The ground shook again.

Everyone stopped automatically.

Not from indecision. Training.

The guards lowered Theron’s litter enough that a sudden shift would not throw the body. Rask braced one hand against the road embankment. Kael widened his stance and regretted it immediately when pain pulled through his burned calf. Galahad looked toward the trees rather than the mountain, watching branches move and trying to judge whether the slope beneath them had begun sliding.

The tremor passed.

Then a hot wind came from behind.

Galahad’s expression changed.

”Move.”

They moved.

The old logging turn lay a quarter mile ahead, where the road widened around a broad shelf overlooking the lower forest. Captain Rolan had stopped three wagons there only long enough to transfer the least stable wounded into positions that would survive faster travel. The rest of the column continued east, one wagon every few dozen yards rather than packed wheel to wheel. Kael could see the intelligence in it immediately. If the road failed beneath one wagon, it would not drag three more after it.

Mara stood in the middle of the turn yelling at two guards who had tried to load an abandoned equipment chest onto the last wagon.

”Leave it!”

One of them looked toward the chest. ”There are tools inside.”

”Are there people inside?”

”No.”

”Then the tools can enjoy the mountain.”

The guard abandoned it.

Mara saw Kael and pointed toward Theron’s litter. ”That goes in the rear wagon.”

Rask stopped.

”No.”

Mara blinked. ”No?”

”I stay with him.”

”I did not say you could not.”

”The wagon is full.”

”Then you sit on the floor.”

Rask looked inside.

Two wounded Vanguard members already occupied one side. One of the lower-gallery survivors lay opposite them with his injured leg elevated on folded blankets. There was barely enough room for another litter.

Rask frowned.

Mara folded both arms.

”You have fifteen seconds to discover flexibility.”

Kael looked at Rask.

Rask looked at Theron.

Then he nodded.

The guards lifted the body into the wagon.

Rask climbed after it.

One of the wounded Vanguard men stared at the covered face for several seconds before asking the question nobody else had yet.

”Is that him?”

Rask sat beside the litter.

”Yes.”

The man swallowed.

”How?”

Rask rested his forearms on his knees and looked down.

”The core.”

Nothing more.

The wounded man understood enough.

He looked away.

Kael was about to step back when something beneath Theron’s covering glowed.

Not brightly.

A dull red pulse through the cloth over his chest.

Kael froze.

Rask saw it too.

The second pulse came three heartbeats later.

The System opened.

[High-Grade Draconic Core activity increasing.]

[Host deceased.]

[Residual biological integration degrading.]

[Core containment stability declining.]

[Thermal output increasing.]

Kael swore.

Rask heard.

”What?”

”The core.”

Rask looked down.

The glow pulsed again.

This time the cloth warmed enough that a faint thread of steam rose from moisture in the fabric.

Galahad leaned into the wagon.

”Bad?”

Kael nodded.

”Potentially.”

”How potentially?”

”I do not know.”

Mara looked toward the mountain, then the road, then Theron’s body.

”I am beginning to hate that answer.”

Kael agreed.

The System gave him no clean extraction procedure. It knew where the mana concentration sat. It could identify changing heat and stability. It could not turn Kael into a surgeon.

The nearest healer came over after Mara called her. She had already treated Darius, Milo, burns, fractured limbs, ash inhalation, and more injuries than any sane person should see during one assignment. Her sleeves were stained from elbow to cuff.

Kael pointed toward Theron’s chest.

”The core is still active.”

”I assumed so.”

”It is getting hotter.”

That changed her expression.

She climbed into the wagon and touched the cloth near Theron’s sternum without pressing.

Pulled her hand away.

”Too hot already.”

Rask’s jaw tightened.

”What does that mean?”

”It means I do not want him lying beside three injured people if something inside his chest decides to become hotter.”

The wounded Vanguard fighter nearest the wall looked offended.

”I support that.”

Rask stared at Theron.

The core pulsed again.

Kael looked toward the mountain.

Ash had thickened.

They did not have time for a careful procedure here.

”Can we move him another half mile?”

The healer hesitated.

”Maybe.”

Rask looked toward Kael.

”Maybe?”

Kael hated hearing his own earlier language thrown back at him.

The System changed.

[Core thermal rise accelerating.]

No.

”Not half a mile.”

Galahad understood before anyone asked.

”How long?”

”I do not know.”

Mara made a sound that was almost a laugh and almost violence.

Kael looked around the logging turn.

Tools.

They had abandoned the equipment chest.

”Open that.”

The same guard who had just been told to leave it looked between Kael and Mara.

Mara pointed sharply.

”Apparently the tools have been granted temporary citizenship. Open it.”

The chest contained wedges, rope, an old hammer, two pry bars, repair nails, a saw, spare wheel fittings, and a small iron box used for keeping oil-soaked cloth away from wagon cargo.

Kael took the iron box.

Not ideal.

Something.

The healer looked at it, then at him.

”You want the core in that?”

”Unless you have something better.”

”I have bandages.”

”Then no.”

Rask climbed out of the wagon.

”What are we doing?”

Kael met his eyes.

”Removing it.”

Rask’s face closed.

”You said not on the road.”

”I said we had enough time to carry him.”

Kael pointed toward the glowing cloth.

”That changed.”

For several seconds Rask said nothing.

The mountain shook again.

A distant section of slope collapsed with enough force that birds exploded from the forest below.

Rask looked toward Theron.

Then toward the wounded sharing the wagon.

”Do it.”

The healer ordered the other patients transferred into the next wagon. Nobody argued. Two guards brought a blanket and spread it across the road shelf, then moved Theron’s body onto it with more care than the situation seemed to permit.

Rask knelt beside his head.

Kael remained near the chest.

The healer cut open Theron’s ruined clothing.

The sight beneath was worse than Kael expected.

Dark veins radiated outward from the sternum in branching patterns that had stopped looking human several inches from the center. The skin over the breastbone had hardened in places into thin charcoal-colored patches. Between them, red light pulsed from deeper within.

The healer stared.

”I have never seen anything like this.”

”Neither have I.”

”That was not comforting.”

Kael opened the System.

The core sat behind the sternum, slightly left of center, embedded where biological tissue had grown around its draconic mana channels during forced integration.

Not grown.

Changed.

Kael felt sick.

”He fused it into himself.”

The healer looked at him.

”How deep?”

Kael showed the position with his hand.

”Behind the breastbone.”

She swore under her breath.

Rask closed his eyes.

The healer looked toward him.

”He is gone.”

”I know.”

”I may have to damage the body.”

Rask’s hand tightened around Theron’s shoulder.

”I know.”

She waited.

Rask opened his eyes.

”Do it.”

The procedure was not clean.

Kael did not pretend otherwise.

A pry bar was used where no proper surgeon would have wanted one. The healer cut only what she needed and stopped twice because the core’s heat climbed enough to burn through cloth wrapped around her hand. Kael used the System to warn her when she approached the dense mana structure and when pressure against one edge made the internal pulse spike.

Nobody spoke except when necessary.

Rask stayed.

He did not look away.

Theron had told him not to rebuild anything in his image.

Rask seemed to have decided that part of that meant witnessing exactly what Theron’s choice had done to him.

When the healer finally exposed the core, the road around them went quiet.

It was smaller than Kael remembered.

Not physically.

The first time he had seen it in Theron’s hand, the black-red crystal had seemed enormous because of what everyone had just survived to reach it. Now, surrounded by torn tissue and the ruin of Theron’s body, it looked like what it had always been.

An object.

Fist-sized.

Dark crystalline shell.

Ember light deep within.

Power.

Nothing more.

The healer wrapped thick cloth around it and pulled.

It did not move.

Kael’s stomach tightened.

”Wait.”

The System showed thin mana-reactive filaments extending from the core into surrounding tissue.

Integration.

Even after death.

The core had not simply been swallowed.

It had rooted.

The healer looked toward him.

”What?”

”It is attached.”

”How?”

”Mana channels.”

She gave him a look.

”I cannot cut mana.”

Kael stared.

Neither could he.

Not precisely.

Ice?

No mana.

Blood?

The host was dead.

No reason to preserve circulation.

But the channels were not veins.

Kael looked toward the iron pry bar.

Physical.

Simple.

Sometimes the answer was ugly.

”Rotate it.”

The healer frowned.

”Why?”

”The attachments are uneven.”

Confidence low.

He hated that.

But he could see the pattern.

The filaments clustered more heavily along one side.

”If we turn instead of pulling straight, we may break fewer at once.”

”May.”

”Yes.”

Mara, standing ten yards away watching the mountain, called back, ”I am going to ban that word when we get home.”

The healer rotated the core.

Theron’s body jerked.

Everyone froze.

Rask nearly drew a weapon he no longer had.

The System reacted.

[Residual neuromuscular discharge.]

Not life.

Not revival.

Just the core sending one final impulse through dead tissue.

Rask understood from Kael’s face.

He looked down at Theron.

”You always did hate leaving quietly.”

The healer turned the core farther.

One filament snapped.

Then another.

Heat burst outward.

Kael recoiled.

The cloth around the healer’s hand smoked.

She nearly dropped it.

The System flashed.

[Core separation progressing.]

[Residual Dominion signature destabilizing.]

A roar came from the northern forest.

Everyone looked up.

Another answered.

Farther west.

Kael’s blood went cold.

”Finish.”

The healer did not need encouragement.

She pulled.

The final attachments tore free.

The core came out.

Heat struck Kael’s face.

For half a second the red-black crystal brightened enough that every fracture within it became visible.

Then it dimmed.

The System updated.

[High-Grade Draconic Core recovered.]

[Residual signature: Draconic / Heat / Dominance.]

[Stability: moderate and improving after host separation.]

[Biological integration risk: extreme.]

No surprise there.

The healer dropped it into the iron box.

Kael wrapped the core in dry cloth first so it would not strike bare metal directly, then closed the lid.

The box vibrated once.

Stopped.

Rask stared at it.

Kael looked toward him.

”Rask.”

”Keep it away from me.”

Kael nodded.

He understood.

They closed Theron’s clothing as best they could.

The damage could not be hidden.

Rask covered him again.

Then the world behind them turned red.

Not the sky.

The mountain.

A long fissure opened across the western slope, and this time molten rock pushed through it.

Not a river yet.

Several glowing breaks spilling downward through old channels.

Galahad looked once.

”Everyone moves.”

No one argued.

The iron box went into Kael’s hands because there was nobody else he trusted to carry it without questions.

It was heavy.

Warmer than it should have been.

Theron returned to the litter.

The wounded returned to the wagon.

Rask climbed in.

The column moved.

Fast.

The road beyond the logging turn descended sharply into forest.

Iris waited at the next bend.

Her face was worse than Kael wanted.

”The main road is gone.”

Galahad stopped.

”How gone?”

She pointed downslope.

Kael reached the turn and saw.

The lower road had collapsed into the ravine.

Thirty yards of packed earth, retaining wall, and old stone drainage had simply disappeared. One wagon track ended in open air.

Captain Rolan’s lead wagons were already halted on the near side.

Mara arrived seconds later.

She looked once.

”Second route.”

Iris nodded.

”Old timber spur.”

”Width?”

”Wagon width if nobody enjoys breathing.”

”Grade?”

”Bad.”

”Bridge?”

Iris hesitated.

Mara stared.

”There is a bridge.”

”Yes.”

”What condition?”

Iris looked toward her.

”Probably.”

Mara closed her eyes.

Kael almost laughed despite everything.

”Go.”

The timber spur had not carried wagons regularly in years.

Trees crowded the sides. Roots had pushed through the roadbed. One section forced the guards to cut low branches so wagon roofs could pass. The first wagon scraped both wheels against old drainage stones, but it passed.

The second followed.

Then the third.

The ground behind them shook.

Ash fell harder.

A dark cloud had begun spreading across the western sky.

Galahad walked backward for several yards, watching it.

Kael saw his expression.

”What?”

”Wind changed.”

Kael looked.

The ash cloud had been drifting southeast.

Now the upper layer pushed east.

Toward them.

Not a full volcanic blast.

Enough ash to make the road worse.

”Can we outrun it?”

Galahad gave him a tired look.

”We are traveling with wagons.”

Fair.

The timber bridge appeared through the trees.

Iris had been generous.

It was still technically a bridge.

Two heavy timber beams crossed a narrow gorge with old planking between them. One side rail had collapsed. Moss covered half the deck. Several boards near the center had rotted through, exposing the creek twenty feet below.

Mara stopped dead.

”No.”

Captain Rolan looked toward her.

”No as in impossible?”

”No as in whoever built this should be brought back from the dead and fined.”

”That sounds less impossible.”

Mara glared.

Rolan accepted the victory.

They inspected quickly.

The main beams were old but not broken.

The planking was the problem.

Wagons could cross if weight stayed centered and if the wheels did not strike the weakest boards.

Mara marked the safe lines with charcoal and strips of cloth.

Iris crossed first.

Lightly.

Wind reducing her weight over the worst section.

She reached the far side and checked the anchor points.

The first wagon moved.

Slow.

The bridge creaked.

Nobody breathed.

The left rear wheel touched one marked weak board.

Mara shouted.

”Right! Half a hand!”

The driver adjusted.

The wheel moved.

The wagon crossed.

One.

Second wagon.

Milo’s.

Kael recognized Sera walking beside it.

Milo sat upright inside now.

He looked terrible.

Still awake.

Sera looked worse.

Still walking.

The bridge groaned beneath the front axle.

Milo leaned toward the side.

”What is that sound?”

Sera did not look at him.

”The bridge respecting you.”

”That seems unlikely.”

The front wheels passed.

Rear axle reached the center.

A board snapped.

The right wheel dropped.

The wagon tilted.

Sera moved.

Iris moved from the far side.

Milo raised one hand.

Kael’s stomach dropped.

”No.”

Milo heard him.

Too far for the word to matter.

A tiny distortion appeared beneath the wheel.

Not a full Force Plane.

Barely one.

The wheel stopped dropping.

For one heartbeat.

Milo’s face went white.

Sera shoved a broken plank beneath the rim.

Iris pulled the horse forward.

The wheel climbed.

The wagon crossed.

Milo collapsed backward against the interior wall.

Sera climbed onto the rear step and grabbed his coat.

”You said you were done.”

Milo’s eyes remained closed.

”I lied.”

”You are an idiot.”

”Consistent.”

She looked like she wanted to hit him.

Instead she checked his breathing.

The next wagons crossed.

Theron’s wagon came near the end.

Rask sat beside the covered litter.

Kael walked next to the iron core box.

The bridge shook under them.

Rask looked down through the missing planks.

”If this breaks, throw the box first.”

Kael looked toward him.

”Not yourself?”

”No.”

Fair.

Halfway across, the mountain roared.

Not behind.

Everywhere.

The vibration reached the bridge.

Wood groaned.

Mara screamed from the far side.

”KEEP MOVING!”

The driver whipped the reins.

The horses surged.

The rear wagon wheel struck the edge of a broken board.

The bridge dropped.

Not entirely.

One main beam shifted inside its stone seat.

The wagon leaned.

Rask grabbed Theron’s litter.

Kael threw himself against the wagon side.

Useless compared with the weight.

Two guards joined.

The wheel slid another inch.

Iris appeared on the far side.

”Forward!”

The horses pulled.

The wheel climbed.

The beam shifted again.

Kael felt the bridge giving.

He shoved harder.

The wagon moved.

One foot.

Two.

Rear wheel reached intact planking.

The wagon crossed.

Kael jumped after it.

The moment his boots hit solid ground, the bridge failed.

One main beam tore free.

Half the deck dropped into the gorge.

The remaining rear guards jumped.

One made it.

One did not.

His foot slipped from the collapsing edge.

He fell.

Iris’s rope moved before Kael understood.

The loop snapped around the man’s arm.

He hit the gorge wall.

Iris dropped to one knee.

Kael grabbed the rope.

Galahad grabbed behind him.

Mara joined.

The guard swung twenty feet above the creek.

”CLIMB!”

He did.

No heroics.

Hands.

Boots.

Pain.

The rope cut against the broken edge.

Iris shifted the angle.

Wind lightened her stance so she could lean farther without being dragged over.

The guard reached the lip.

Kael caught his wrist.

Together they pulled him up.

The bridge collapsed completely behind them.

The road back to the Caldera disappeared.

Everyone stared for perhaps two seconds.

Then Mara pointed east.

”Good. We were not going back.”

They moved.

That sentence stayed with Kael.

Not because the unresolved things below did not matter.

Rellan’s body mattered.

Joren mattered.

Veyra’s teacher mattered.

The marked dead mattered.

But the road back physically no longer existed.

That changed the nature of the promise.

Not forgotten.

Not abandoned.

Impossible from this approach.

For now.

Veyra walked beside one of the wagons.

She had been quiet since the bridge.

Kael moved near her.

She knew why.

”My teacher is still down there.”

Kael did not lie.

”Yes.”

Her jaw tightened.

”I know.”

The mountain behind them shook again.

She looked toward the trees, where the ridge could no longer be seen.

”If there is another route later—”

”We look.”

Veyra turned toward him.

Not hopeful.

Assessing.

”You mean that?”

”Yes.”

”Even after this?”

Kael looked at the ash falling through the canopy.

”Not tomorrow.”

A weak laugh escaped her.

”Good.”

Kael continued. ”But unresolved is not the same as forgotten.”

Veyra nodded.

That was enough.

The timber spur finally rejoined the main eastern road nearly a mile later.

Captain Rolan halted the column only after Iris confirmed the ground ahead was stable and the slope behind was no longer actively breaking.

The ash cloud remained visible through the trees.

Farther away now.

Still enormous.

Galahad counted everyone.

Not approximately.

Everyone.

The guards.

The rescued survivors.

Vanguard wounded.

Mara.

Davin.

Eron.

Veyra.

Sera.

Milo.

Rask.

Darius.

Kael.

Theron’s body.

Nobody lost on the final surface escape.

Galahad counted again.

Then looked toward Kael.

”All here.”

Kael breathed.

One task finished.

Another.

Captain Rolan ordered the wagons east toward the road station without further delay, but the pace could finally drop from desperate to merely urgent.

Kael walked beside Darius’s wagon for several minutes before the rear flap opened.

Darius looked out.

Pale.

Bandaged.

Awake.

He saw the iron box in Kael’s hands.

His expression changed.

”You removed it.”

”Yes.”

”Stable?”

”More than before.”

Darius looked toward Theron’s wagon.

Then back to Kael.

”Rask?”

”With him.”

Darius nodded.

Kael waited.

Darius knew what he was actually waiting for.

The Commander looked toward the road ahead.

Not the right time.

But Kael would not let it vanish.

”You said my mother had one.”

Darius closed his eyes.

”I know what I said.”

”And that I should not.”

”Yes.”

Kael waited.

Darius opened his eyes again.

”Not here.”

Kael felt irritation rise.

Darius saw it.

”Kael.”

The use of his name stopped him.

Darius rarely used it like that.

Not Prince.

Not Your Highness.

Kael.

”I am not avoiding the question.”

”Then answer it.”

”I will.”

Darius looked toward the iron box.

Then toward Theron’s wagon.

”After we are out of ash, after a healer confirms you did not crack your skull open, and after I can remain conscious long enough to explain without missing half of what matters.”

Kael stared.

Reasonable.

Annoying.

”Fine.”

Darius’s mouth almost moved.

”Good.”

The wagon flap started closing.

Kael caught it.

”One question.”

Darius sighed.

”What?”

”Was that her?”

Darius went still.

Kael knew immediately that the answer was not simple.

”I do not know.”

The flap closed.

Kael stood beside the road with the core box in his hands and watched the wagon move.

Good.

That was better than a false answer.

The road station appeared before dusk.

Captain Rolan’s earlier preparations had turned it into an improvised field camp. Water barrels stood beneath canvas. Healers had cleared every table and bench. Extra horses waited in the yard. Fires had been started away from the ash. Guards watched the western road.

When the first wagon entered, people moved.

The survivors were unloaded.

Again.

Not because the first extraction had not counted.

Because survival happened in stages.

Milo was carried inside despite insisting he could walk.

Sera walked beside him.

Darius was put on an actual bed and threatened with restraints if he got up.

Galahad finally allowed someone to treat his shoulder.

Mara sat on an overturned bucket and stared at nothing for almost a minute before remembering she was allowed to do that.

Davin and Eron found water.

Veyra helped the healers until one of them ordered her to sit.

Rask stayed with Theron.

Kael placed the iron box alone on a stone table in a locked side room.

The System identified the core again.

[High-Grade Draconic Core.]

[State: recovered.]

[Residual host integration: separated.]

[Draconic signature: stable.]

[Dominance aspect: dormant.]

[Heat aspect: active, low.]

[Further appraisal recommended under controlled conditions.]

Kael stared at it.

Theron had died for that.

The Ash-King had ruled a Caldera with it.

Drakes had knelt because of it.

And now it sat inside an ordinary iron box on an ordinary stone table.

Power always looked smaller after the bodies were counted.

Kael closed the System.

Outside, the western sky darkened with ash.

The expedition had gone into the Caldera looking for missing people.

They had found experiments.

An Ash-King.

The Iron Vanguard.

A man willing to eat the heart of a monster rather than accept that someone else might decide his future.

They had brought people back.

Not everyone.

Never everyone.

But the living they found had reached shelter.

The Ash-King was dead.

Theron Vance was dead.

The core had been recovered.

The surviving drakes had been driven away from the evacuation route.

The Caldera’s active roads were collapsing behind them.

For the first time since the Guild mission began, Kael could look at the immediate objective and say something he had not allowed himself to say earlier.

Finished.

Not every mystery.

Not every debt.

Not every body.

But this mission’s living rescue and immediate threat were finished.

Kael left the side room and closed the door behind him.

Rask waited in the corridor.

His face looked older.

”Theron is inside the back room.”

Kael nodded.

Rask looked toward the locked core room.

”You have it?”

”Yes.”

”Good.”

That surprised Kael.

Rask saw.

”I do not want it.”

”I know.”

”I do not want the Vanguard to have it.”

Kael studied him.

Rask continued. ”Whatever happens to us after this, that thing does not become his legacy.”

Kael understood.

”What do you want his legacy to be?”

Rask looked toward the room holding Theron’s body.

For a long time, he did not answer.

Then he did.

”The people he gave somewhere to stand.”

Kael nodded.

That sounded fair.

Outside, Galahad called for another count.

Mara yelled that if he counted her a third time, she was going to become missing on purpose.

Somebody laughed.

Then another.

Small.

Exhausted.

Alive.

Kael looked toward the western window.

Ash moved across the horizon.

The Obsidian Caldera was still there.

Damaged.

Unstable.

Full of unresolved things.

But the people Kael had promised to bring out were behind walls now, drinking water, receiving treatment, arguing with healers, grieving their dead, and beginning the difficult work of deciding what came after survival.

Kael had spent too much of his life thinking accomplishment would feel like triumph.

This did not.

It felt like exhaustion.

Like counting people twice.

Like carrying a dead enemy because leaving him beneath ash would have been easier.

Like an iron box no one wanted to open.

Like a woman made of frost appearing between one heartbeat and the next, then disappearing before Kael could ask her name.

Like Darius saying his mother had one.

But he should not.

Kael rubbed one hand over his face.

One finished problem had apparently brought several new ones home with him.

For tonight, he would accept the trade.