Rules For The Bled

Yvain's mind raced. There had to be an angle, there always was. But each option he reached for collapsed under its own weight.

He could try to get close and decay her armor, rot it down to slag… or worse, strike at her animating soul, but getting close to a knight, let alone Sorel, was suicide. Every magus trained in Malkuth knew one lesson above all, never close the distance with a knight. Their entire purpose was to break you before you ever spoke a spell.

Augury? No, too slow. He needed minutes, maybe hours. Sorel would give him seconds.

Conjuration? He could open a gate to the void, summon something with claws vast enough to match her blade… but anything strong enough to face her wouldn't come cheaply. No creature of the void offered strength without price, and he already owed too much.

As he hesitated, Sorel moved.

She was done with the charade. With mechanical precision, she swung her blade in a single, deliberate arc. The kind of swing taught in holy orders and forbidden martial schools alike. One cut.

Just one.

And the entire revenant horde, dozens of rotting dead, raised and compelled, fell as though scythed by the hand of a god. They didn't drop one after the other; they collapsed together, as if the universe had decided in that moment to stop pretending necromancy mattered.

Across the square, Mars struggled to his feet, his coat ripped, his sword chipped. He looked dazed but not broken.

"Get behind me!" Yvain barked.

The bard did not argue.

Yvain planted his feet. One hand reached toward the heavens. The other toward the cursed earth.

In his right hand bloomed starfire—white-gold, radiant, pure. Flame as sung about in hymns and hidden in ancient celestial rites. It hissed and shimmered, the air itself resisting its brilliance. In his left hand flared hellfire—deep crimson, pulsing like a wound. It burned with screams no one could hear, soaked in the agony of chained gods and fallen angels.

Both forces fought as soon as they met.

The flames roared, writhing in his grasp, two elemental purities rejecting each other. Starfire tried to consume hellfire, to redeem it. Hellfire bit back, refusing salvation.

Yvain's body shook as he forced them together. Heat blistered his skin, his teeth clenched, his bones hummed with raw, unbearable tension. He compressed the twin fires into one trembling point of fury.

A single spear. Burning both holy and profane.

Sorel watched in silence, her sword lowered in anticipation. He could see it in her stance, she was pleased. The challenge had escalated and she welcomed it.

With a roar, Yvain hurled the spear like a javelin of judgment, aimed directly at the automaton's heart.

The impact was apocalyptic. Light and heat exploded in a sphere that shook the town square. Buildings cracked. Windows shattered. The stone beneath Sorel's feet split like eggshell.

A pillar of smoke and flame rose into the dim sky, black and gold and crimson, a mushroom cloud that painted the heavens.

For a moment, there was nothing but the roar, and the silence that followed it.

But even before the smoke cleared, he knew.

She was still standing.

Through the scorched veil of smoke, Sorel remained unmoved. She hadn't flinched. Hadn't faltered.

Yvain's heart sank.

From the way the smoke hissed against her extended blade, he knew, she had cut the flames apart. Starfire and hellfire alike, cleaved with surgical ease.

"This ends now," she declared, and began her advance.

But she had barely taken a step before the air around her warped.

The world shimmered. Space buckled. Shapes bent in impossible ways. Colors bled into sounds. Her form distorted and doubled, and her footing faltered.

An illusion.

Celeste's voice rang out like a thunderclap as she and Adeline dashed into the chaos. "Run! That won't hold her for long!"

They didn't wait to see if the illusion held.

The four of them sprinted into the stampede of terrified townsfolk.

It was worse than fighting. Bodies crashed against them like waves. Screams tangled with the clamor of footsteps. Yvain was shoved sideways, nearly trampled as a mother dragged her coughing child past him. He could no longer see Celeste, only Mars's cloak for a moment before it too vanished in the sea of panic.

"Keep going!" he shouted toward the last glimpse of his cousin as the crowd swept her away. "Don't stop for me!"

They were torn apart.

He fought through the crush of bodies, elbowing his way to the town's edge. And when the press finally broke, he stumbled free into the open air. Trees lined the southern horizon, and the smell of sickness gave way to pine and earth. He bent over, hands on his knees, breath ragged.

Behind him, footsteps approached.

He spun, already conjuring, but relaxed when he saw her.

Adeline. Sweat streaked her brow, her breathing labored, but she was whole.

"Where are the others?" she panted, scanning the treeline behind him. Her eyes were wide, half-wild.

Yvain shook his head. "Lost in the crowd. Mars was behind me… Celeste got pulled west with the current. I couldn't reach her."

Adeline swore softly under her breath, her dark eyes flicking toward the town now distant behind them. The smoke still curled like dying serpents in the sky, and the last echoes of chaos, screams, splintering wood, galloping hooves, hung faintly in the air like the aftertaste of blood.

"What now?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Yvain didn't answer at once. Instead, he shut his eyes and let his breath slow. He whispered the words of a deeper current, summoning the Eyes of the Weirding Way. In his mind, the veil lifted, his awareness jumped skyward, slipping into the sight of the ravens wheeling above Gliese.

They circled in slow, erratic loops, gliding over broken rooftops and splintered wagons. He looked through them all and saw the aftermath, the trail of bodies carved by their battle, the panicked dispersal of guards and townsfolk alike.

But no Celeste.

Yvain gritted his teeth. She had to have hidden herself, obscured her presence to avoid being tracked. It was the only explanation. She's too clever to die like this, he told himself, though doubt curled in his stomach like a bitter worm.

He opened his eyes. The strange double-vision vanished, and the world settled again into its solid form. "We keep going," he said, standing to his full height. "She knows where I'm headed."

Adeline nodded. "Lead the way."

And together, they turned from the smoking ruin behind them and entered the dense, brooding woods.