The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

At the border near the City of Light, the fortress had only just recovered its disciplined rhythm.

The clang of hammers against damaged fortifications, the shouts accompanying training drills in the courtyard, the smell of tar and iron... The fortress’s wounds were being stitched closed, and new names were being carved into the monument to the dead, stone dust still clinging to the fresh engravings.

From a distance, it looked like any other morning.

Another wave of beasts had struck them four days earlier—strange and sudden. Stranger still, their spies had reported that the command had descended from somewhere higher in the beasts’ hierarchy without warning, and the lower ranks had carried it out without hesitation.

’Why now? Why so suddenly?’ The question continued circling through Karius’s mind.

Then, as though in answer...

The dispatch arrived.

”Black-priority dispatch from the capital, sir!”

A young aide burst into the map room, panting as he held up a sealed metal cylinder.

Thorvin Valhalla had been leaning over the fortress’s defense schematics. He snatched the cylinder in a single motion, broke its seal, and unrolled the page within.

Then he read.

And Karius Dmitri—standing across the table from him—saw something he had never witnessed before.

The hand of the commander of the Tenth Battalion, Thorvin Valhalla, the Butcher of the Battlefield...

Was trembling.

”Thorvin?” Karius said, his eyes widening.

Thorvin did not answer. He simply held out the page.

Karius took it without hesitation after seeing the expression on his face.

He read it once. Then a second time, because his mind rejected what it had understood the first.

{An immense presence connected to the Taboo of Truth has manifested inside the capital.}

{A confirmed Descent.}

{The Taboo of Truth is considered a principal party in the catastrophe. Its manifestation within the material world has been confirmed—the first confirmed Descent in centuries.}

{Supplementary report:}

{An unprecedented soul detonation followed or accompanied the Descent. An entire district has been erased from existence. The dead and missing number in the thousands. Investigations are ongoing into a possible connection between the Descent and an unknown individual believed to have been near the center of the event.}

The silence inside the room gained weight.

Beyond the window, the fortress continued its daily clamor, oblivious to the fact that the world it guarded had changed shape several days earlier.

Thorvin walked toward the window, turning his back to Karius.

”The capital,” he said, like a man tasting something bitter upon his tongue. Then he gave a short laugh devoid of any joy.

”We were dying out here to guard the wall... and the arrow came from behind our backs, Karius.” Thorvin’s expression shifted repeatedly between shock and grave, controlled grief.

Karius did not respond. His gaze remained fixed on a single line.

An unknown individual believed to have been near the center of the event.

An unknown individual...

An unknown individual...

Thorvin spun around abruptly, his eyes stricken. He crossed the distance to the table in two long strides and tapped the report with his finger.

”An unknown individual. Karius... the infiltrator,” Thorvin said in open disbelief.

”...I know,” Karius replied, the same disbelief visible on his face.

Even as he said it, his mind continued rejecting the possibility.

”The infiltrator who slipped out of this fortress through my own waterway, behind our backs and right beneath our noses. The infiltrator we sent your daughter’s team to track...”

Thorvin took another step closer, his voice dropping to the level that came just before a storm.

”And the trail was heading inland... TOWARD THE CAPITAL.” His voice cracked a little more with every word.

Karius nodded slowly, his mind stacking the pieces one atop another.

”A bearer of a Relic connected to the Taboos... appears in a city where a Taboo manifests,” Karius said.

”That is no coincidence,” Thorvin declared like a death sentence. ”Taboos do not descend for no reason, Karius. Something summoned it, tempted it, or...”

He searched for the word, his jaw tightening.

”Provoked it. The Relic reached the capital... and Truth descended after it.”

The conclusion was reasonable. It was all but certain.

Every piece the two men possessed fell into place with unsettling ease.

But one piece was still missing...

And neither man knew enough to recognize its absence.

Thorvin rubbed his forehead harshly and began pacing around the room.

”The fugitive from the waterway, the gate, the disappearances in the forest, and that soldier under your tutelage who—”

”Ravian is a separate matter,” Karius interrupted.

Faster than he should have. Sharper than he should have.

Thorvin raised an eyebrow...Then let it pass.

At a time like this, every man had a right to frayed nerves. And he did not notice the shadow that crossed Karius’s eyes.

”Do you realize what this means for us?” Thorvin continued, returning to the window. ”A walking catastrophe slipped through our fingers. Through my fortress. If the capital’s investigators prove that the spark came from here—and that all we did was send five soldiers after it...”

He did not finish. He did not need to. Courts-martial did not require complete sentences.

”Which is why we will reach them before they reach us,” Karius said quietly.

”Hm?” Thorvin turned toward him with a frown.

”We submit a complete report written by our own hands and bearing our own signatures before anyone demands one from us. Everything we possess concerning the escape through the waterway, the ’unconfirmed’ Relic theory, and the team’s route. Whoever presents the truth first...”

Karius paused for a fraction of a second at his choice of that particular word.

”...chooses how it is told.” Then he finished.

Thorvin stared at him for a long moment before nodding—hesitantly at first, then decisively, like a man who had finally found solid ground amid a flood.

”Write it. Tonight.” Thorvin said.

And only then—

”Isabelle.” Karius finally spoke the name he had been avoiding since reading the first line of the dispatch. It came out weaker than he had intended.

Thorvin stopped pacing.

For the first time since he had broken the seal, his face was no longer that of a battalion commander.

”The team was following the trail toward the capital,” he said with deliberate care. ”Which means they were...”

”Close,” Karius finished for him, because leaving the sentence hanging was worse.

A minute later, Karius stood inside the signal room, dictating a priority inquiry regarding the tracking team to the officer on duty. His voice remained perfectly level...

But his eyes were anything but.

Throughout the hours that followed and well into the next day, Karius Dmitri worked with a doubled, almost frightening efficiency. He reviewed the supply reports, dictated the capital statement’s first draft, and inspected the towers.

The men who had served under his command long enough knew this pattern well...

It was the most dangerous form of his worry.

At dusk the following day, the fortress tower flashed with the reply:

{Tracking Team—Dmitri:

Alive. All members accounted for. Currently participating in relief efforts along the western bank. Its commander has delivered a preliminary statement to the capital’s command.}

Karius closed his eyes for two full seconds.

When he opened them, the company commander had returned to his place...

Except that his hand remained upon the page a little longer than necessary.

...

That night, Karius stood alone atop the eastern wall.

The fortress stood firm beneath him, while the distant forest stretched across the horizon as a silent mass of darkness.

Against his will, his mind opened the drawer he had grown accustomed to keeping carefully locked.

Ravian.

The soldier the forest had swallowed.

The file Karius had rewritten with his own hand before sending it up the chain of command.

The questions he had buried between the lines...

And the reports he had arranged in an order no one but him would ever understand.

’There is no connection,’ he told himself. ’The forest lies in one direction... and the capital in another. And the boy cannot possibly be...’

He did not complete the thought.

After all, an unfinished thought could not be held against a man.

Yet a small, cold splinter remained lodged beneath the skin of his certainty, refusing to be pulled free.

’Ravian... where did you go, my boy?’

Karius did not want to believe that he had lost him.

He had already lost his son, Ariel, once before... And now, did the world intend to take this boy from him as well?

’That WILL NOT happen.’