Allow me to correct a notion some of you are developing: You are entering the practice of war. You are becoming soldiers and warriors, and even if not, you are Pathbearers. Your business, your discipline, is steel and a spell. It is the act of killing. Perhaps some of you will move on and focus on preserving life rather than taking it. Perhaps others will become engineers or architects. But still, a Pathbearer you remain, and that business above all other businesses—that paramount, essential burden you bear—is the act of taking. Taking another's life, in defense of your home, in defense of yourself, but still... taking.

  But you will not be the only ones who take. Your enemies will also take from you. They will. This is an inevitability. Perhaps it will be your life that is taken. Perhaps it will be your companion, your lover, your parents, your children. It will be inevitable. Accept this, even if it hurts. There is no war in which one side enters cleanly, destroys its adversary without ever taking a single loss, and leaves. These are not wars; these are cullings performed by higher powers, crushing and butchering those who have no hope against them. A war is a struggle between two sides, and even if they are slightly weaker than you, the world demands a toll of blood and resources for every inch of ground you gain.

  Pretending these losses will never happen is a delusion. You will suffer. You will suffer more than you can think. Grief is an insidious foe—tragedy has undone many a warrior. And so, you must prepare for a siege of your heart, mind, and spirit as much as a siege of actual cities. You must face the fact of death and mortality—not only for you but for those around you. And the hardest, bleakest thing is that you must accept. You must accept the fact that there will be loss. Nothing is granted. Everything is seized. Everything is earned. And sometimes, the price is higher than you wish to pay. But how you face it, how you move on in life even after experiencing the woes of death, will make you a proper blade. It will make you a true warrior.

  But there is an art to facing grief. There is a way to swallow the bitter medicine of devastation. I will tell you right now, students, that you should cultivate purpose not only for yourselves but with each other. And if one of you falls—no. When one of you falls, you should hold on to that purpose. You should feel the echo of what you all once shared, and you should make meaning from the loss. Some might say it is all meaningless. That it is all pointless in the end. I say it is art. Remembrance and honoring the fallen is art.

  You are the legacy of your brothers, sisters, and comrades, and they are yours. When one falls, those who survive carry their echo. Those who survive become their eternity.

  You’re gonna carry that weight. Can’t avoid it. So carry it well. Don’t let it crush you.

  -Captain Harry Irons, TacStrat 101, Phoenix Academy

  282 (I)

  Grieve

  Shiv didn't know how long he sat beside the corpse that used to be Georges. He held the body's hand. It was the first time he had ever done it. It felt strange, right, and all too late.

  With all the evolutions he had been through, and with how diminished the Head Chef was by the sickness, his body thin, frail, and shrunken from its prime, his own hand dwarfed Georges. It was like holding on to a cold stick—it was the coldness that bothered Shiv the most. A body had warmth; a body had life. This was empty, devoid of all.

  There were other bodies in the room, and more bodies beyond this room. In the guts of the castle, he could see only a faint few flickers of dimming vitality. One among them was Adam's fiancée, Young Lady Isabella of House Stormholt. Somehow, she had held on and endured. But she was still trapped in the throes of sickness, clawed in the grip of Sullain’s magical plague.

  With every moment that had passed since Shiv had last spoken to Georges, more people were taken by the unnatural disease. Now, Shiv heard orcs stomping about, Biomancers invited in, laughing and prodding at bodies, making jokes about the miserable states they found people in. But despite their naked cruelty and their innate desire to harm, the Culturist had come with them, and he enforced some measure of discipline. He made them heal; he made them treat. And Helix, above all other orcs, was driven by an insatiable urge to discover how Sullain had created such a sickness. From all the cursing and complaining Shiv heard the Heroic-Tier orc Biomancer make, he suspected that the Vicar was proving Helix's superior, at least for now.

  But Shiv didn't care about any of that. He didn't have enough energy to care. The anger he tried to fan inside himself left him burned and worn. The sadness left him sapped and drained. And that was the worst thing of all. Grief was an insidious foe. It was like wasting away from the inside, like being severed from your animation, where there once was a will to do things, to react, to keep pushing and driving.

  Shiv felt a listlessness come over him. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Even on the streets, during his most miserable days, he wanted to live. He needed to fight. He needed to thrive in whatever way he could, if only to spite the other people in Blackedge. But right now, he didn't feel like he wanted to do anything. He didn't really even exist inside himself. He was just tired of so many things.

  And so he held on to a man he had wanted more than anything to save—a man that he considered, if only subconsciously, his father, and who he didn't think nearly enough of during his time as a Pathbearer, adventuring, fighting, and struggling to get stronger. All that power, achieving Legendary-Tier in so short a time. For what? Georges was still dead. So much of Blackedge was still dead. The Swan-Eating Toad was still destroyed.

  So, what was it all for?

  After spending some time comforting him, Adam left, deciding that he needed to check in on Isabella and the other survivors. The latter was his duty, and he stepped forward into the role of Young Lord once more, trying to care for what remained of his people, preparing them for their inevitable return to Gate Piety. When they finally arrived, there would be an immense amount of work to do in resettling the survivors of Blackedge and also handling the influx of orcs and other outside influences that wanted to stake a claim in the developing gate.

  There were countless other matters as well. The Fae-Knight needed to be returned to the Fairwoods. Enchanter Merrielmel had a brother that needed saving back in the Outside. Shiv needed to write a sync-letter to Veronica, informing her what happened, keeping her informed about Udraal's actions and the coming war. Then there was Roland, the Culturist, Valor returned. So much. So much.

  Previously, Shiv would have relished the challenge, would have thrown himself forward into the fray, trying to resolve one issue after another. Right now, he simply wanted to lean against the wall and become part of the stone. Become as unfeeling as it. He didn't like the coldness. He envied the coldness. He envied the emptiness, for anything was better than that inner pain.

  Uva, utterly exhausted from her long struggle, had fallen asleep again and was shivering. He'd placed her in one of the few empty beds after stripping the sheets and replacing them with a clean set he found in a nearby cabinet. He also swept the bed using his mana hydra, peeling away all biological contaminants. Weak Biomancy spells had been cast over the doorways, serving as protective wards against hostile sicknesses and unknown viruses. But even so, Shiv could still feel a tingle in the air, a tickling sensation of something trying to push through his Magical Resistance, something that inflamed his Plaguefueled Skill.

  And so he wrapped Uva in a ball of mana hydra heads, keeping her protected from threats unseen and subtle.

  A bitter thought descended upon Shiv. Vicar Sullain hadn't managed to destroy Blackedge the same way his own city was put to the flame by Roland. But he had delivered a deathblow to the town in another way. So, so many of its people were dead. Less than ten percent of the fifty thousand people who'd lived here before the siege remained. Of the town itself, only the Perch had survived, with the rest sinking forever into the depths of the Stranger’s jungle. And even the Perch was badly wounded, with entire sections of its walls gouged open, with its spire battered and bent, its structural supports groaning under a series of constant collapses and escalating instability.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Back when he worked at the Swan-Eating Toad, Shiv had heard veterans and current soldiers serving at the town garrison griping about how war was unclean and messy. How things were never over. How what followed the war was usually as miserable as the fighting itself.

  "There's attrition beyond attrition," one old drunkard had declared, slumped over a table. "There's the lack. The lives lost. The graves that need to be dug. The houses that need replacing. The minds that go missing. The people who fled and will never return. And then there's the sickness, the plagues. The shadow of a war far outlasts the actual battles. And the shadow is no less vicious for the survivors."

  While more footsteps echoed outside, in the castle's makeshift infirmary—expanded now into a field hospital—Valor stayed inside the room with Shiv. The ancient Pathbearer remained silent. His expression was placid, and his gaze was lowered. Something told Shiv that he was used to this. Used to the bodies, used to people mourning, used to war.

  Above all, he was used to the silence, and he knew that there was no point in talking. Words wouldn't make anything better; action had already failed. Speech meant nothing anymore. This was the defeat. This was a defeat. Blackedge lived, but only in the technical sense. Some people had been saved. The Starhawk’s will remained preserved, which might save countless more lives in the future. But the price they paid for this victory was brutal.

  And it was just like Georges had said: not even the sweetest topping could hide the fact that a cake was made out of shit rather than chocolate.

  Even the highest pleasures one could feel were easily dulled by the inclusion of overwhelming sadness.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Shiv. I know I said a few things to you. I know I was cruel. But you need to get back up now. We've spent long enough here. He's gone; we have to face that. We have to accept that. We need to continue on. Adam is going to need us. There are other things we have to overcome soon. We can't just waste our lives here. We can't just spend all our time down here. There's nothing left.

  Gardener of Doubt: And it is not over. We still have more to discover about our own resurrective capabilities. Maybe in the future we can find a way. Perhaps. Perhaps.

  But even then, Shiv’s body trembled with doubt. He didn't believe it. He didn't know how. Rose was a fluke, a freak accident. When he sank his Vitae into Georges, all he left were holes. More wounds on a body, nothing more than that. He had looked at the corpse again, but it was a feat of mental strength. He didn't want to remember Goerges this way. He didn't want to see him as an object, a thing empty of life. He didn't. But there he was. Dead. No different than any stone. No different than any other body. No different. Gone.

  Even so, the faintest embers of hope burned inside Shiv. He wondered if the Gardener of Doubt was right, if he could eventually find a way to bring Georges back. But that wasn't possible right now. With this came another problem. Shiv had promised the return of Jessica's daughter and her husband. If Shiv couldn't even bring Georges back, what was he supposed to do for her? The foundations of their uneasy alliance were going to crumble. More problems, always more problems. No clean victories.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: And why would they be? Why are you owed any clean victories? Why do you get any easy gifts? You seem to have forgotten more than you've learned. Before you became a Pathbearer, on the streets, things were taken from you. Life was hard. No one cared. Georges cared. Now he's gone, and that's why it hurts so much. It's not just his death. Meeting him was the very inception of you as an individual instead of some kind of feral animal. Watching him lie there makes you feel all so pointless. Your life was saved, and… we couldn't do the same for him. Maybe we should apologize. Maybe we should beg for his forgiveness?

  The Deathless drew in a long and sharp breath as he forced himself to stay calm. He wanted to break something. He was mad at his own skill, absurd as that sounded.

  And what would that do? You said it. He's gone. He's dead. The dead don't hear us. The dead don't do anything. He's gone.

  But it might not just be for him, Sage of the Enkindled Heart said. It's for you as well. It would be good for you to believe this. It's not full relief, but it is honesty. And we... we are not cowards. We can't turn away. There is no possible route out of this pain. I think we need to go deeper into this shit, into the misery. We gotta remember who we were before happiness was even a notion. We did things on the street just to survive, not because it gave us any pleasure. This is going to be a thing that has no pleasure at all, just pain. We have to survive it. We have to.

  But that realization just amplified Shiv's existential weariness. "I don't even know if I want to anymore," he whispered to himself.

  Valor heard the hushed words and turned a soft gaze upon his student. "When my adopted family was butchered and our farm was burned to the ground, I spent a few days hiding in the ruins. I was not a person, barely an animal. Divorced from my senses. A portion of me died that day along with that farm. Along with the people I loved, and who loved me. Menha. Petair. Numei. Genso. Auntie Hurrie. Old Sad Eye. My dogs. The old, ugly cow that just never died. I still remember them. Even after all these years, if the fire did one thing good, if my mother's murders gave me a single gift, it was memory. I will never forget the people who took me in as a babe. Who granted my childhood years bliss and peace. Few though they were, I still remember them. Even now."

  Shiv tried to grunt, but it was only a half-hearted thing. If he made too much noise, he was afraid that the fragile dam he built inside of his chest would break, and he would find himself sobbing again, clutching at his face, hiding his tears in pain from the others, desperate not to feel so weak, yet unable to stem the flow of pain.

  "Everyone suffers differently. Everyone breaks differently," Valor said softly. "I, when I finally returned to myself, when my mind was my own again, dug up the bodies from the rubble. Little more than charred bones remained, but I tried putting them back together. As a child of the Necrotech Legions, I was raised on stories of heroes, wise Necromancers, great Pathbearers who could defy death. Who could bring echoes of the living back from beyond that unknowable veil. I tried then. I tried so hard to do what you did, to return those I lost to life, to pull their spirits away from the void and place them back within their bones. I tried. And like you, I failed."

  Shiv turned away from Valor and clenched his teeth. I failed. I failed. The words struck his psyche like a whip.

  "They didn't come back," Valor whispered. "They never did. Everything I did, it didn't mean anything. At least, that was how I felt at the time. I wept, I begged. I called out to gods I knew, and all the gods I didn't. I tried making bargains. I invoked the System itself. I even offered a trade: my life for theirs, or a thousand lives for theirs, or a million lives for theirs, to anyone who would listen. But no one cared. No god answered. Neither did the System. We were just a small farm, a few people, barely proper Pathbearers. Our lives didn't matter to the greatness of the Abyss, and we weren't even known to the rest of the world, not to mention the infinite vastness of Integration. What was the ruin of my world, in the grand scheme of things? My personal apocalypse was less than news for someone just a few kilometers away. And that made it hurt even more."

  Valor paused, looking at the stone floor. "Eventually, I slept with the bones for a few days. I pretended they were alive. I did my routine and chores as much as I could, especially the chores I hated doing. In my young mind, I thought if I was just a good boy, if I was a noble sort, the Great One or System would reward me, I would be pardoned, and I could buy back what I had lost. All with genuine virtue and demonstrations of piety. But I learned. And it hurt me all over again."

  "But it wasn't your fault," Shiv croaked through his hoarse throat. "It wasn't your fault at all."

  "And you think this is yours?" Valor’s soft gaze turned to a glare. It was one of judgment and disappointment. "No. I am your master. To the Blackedge, I am your master, and I will not see you making such childish mistakes. Own it. Do not fall to folly. Do not. You are not a child. You are not stupid. It is not your fault. You need to play at control to give yourself an illusion. Because the comfort of failure is an easier concoction to swallow against the cold realization of the world's apathetic cruelty."

  "I could have gotten here faster," Shiv shot back, feeling defiance bubble up inside him.

  "You could have," Valor agreed, nodding. "But not fast enough to make a difference. He was sick. He was dying. He was already on the verge when you last spoke with him. He passed not long after that. This wasn't a recent thing. He perished before you ever got close. It didn't matter how fast you were going unless you could have broken through the threshold between Integration and the Outside with your very hands. Such a feat is beyond me at the height of my power under most conventional circumstances. It remains beyond most Dimensionalists and even Planeswalkers.”

  "I must have been able to do something. I must have!" Shiv snarled. He hated how much he sounded like a child, but he was desperate.

  "Like what?" Valor asked him. His voice was gentle again, but his eyes remained intense. "Like what? Tell me. Say it!"

  "I don't know!" Shiv admitted with a shout, and the words left him like a chain of jagged glass getting ripped out of his throat. He choked. "I don't know. I don't know at all."

  It took all of Shiv's self-control to stymie the whimper that threatened to escape from him, to stop himself from breaking down anew.

  "I don't know either," the ancient Pathbearer finally replied. "And that, perhaps, is the worst admission we can make to ourselves. That even if everything goes right, even if we make no mistakes, we can still lose. Because that is the shape of life. That is the System's way."

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