Planning The Offensive

The Queen is only just settling onto the couch around the table when Renard enters the parlour.

Renard apologises for his tardiness and explains that since it has been so long that he’s been in the castle, he became lost wandering the halls. He lumbers to the opposite couch, an ornate rosewood thing carved with beautiful spiral patterns like wind, and pillowed with plump red cushions. Leaning on its back, he squints about the room. “Where is Fidel?"

“You’re on time," the Queen notes with a raised brow, shuffling a wad of papers in her lap. Fidel is still delivering missives about the castle, and may be busy for a while, but his attendance shouldn’t be necessary for this debriefing anyway.

Rather than that… the Queen mutters as Renard plunks himself onto the couch. She looks aside to a door, linked not to the hall but to an ensuite kitchen.

In the doorway is a man, straight-backed and elegant, with an aura of militant dignity so natural it is intimidating. At his hip is a sword — and it is only upon feeling the raw condescension in his quiet, unflappable stare that Renard belatedly recognises him as Orpheus Penn.

Renard’s heart bucks into his mouth for a beat.

The Queen rubs the bridge of her nose, sighing. Orpheus has been serving in Nix for the past several years, she explains, and has distinguished himself enough to be the Queen’s general down there for the past one. He, better than anyone, knows the situation in Nix and what to expect when traversing it.

Coolly silent, Orpheus sets two glasses of wine he has prepared for himself and the Queen on the table. He quirks his brow at Renard, but like a shadow, smoothly disappears and returns with a glass and bottle for Renard to pour himself. Snorting, Renard does.

…If he did not have the necessary skills to eke a success from the venture, I would not have put you two in this room, the Queen warily explains as she smooths out a map of Nix upon the table.

“Yes, my lady, and what venture is this?" Orpheus asks, scooping up his glass between his middle and ring finger. “Could it be the gallant Lord Renard has found time to sign to the war effort? Whatever could have sparked him to this cause with such heart?" He sips his drink deeply.

“Sir Orpheus," the Queen scolds, though only as a half-hearted mumble.

“I simply observe that a man of his particular reputation would be rather the champion in a land infested with ghouls," Orpheus says primly, “how pleasured we are to have you, now, that the inundation is lighter in Nix than in Lacren."

“Have they come out?" Renard blurts through the terror racking up from his core, shaking him, flushing him red…

“No," Orpheus concedes with a strangely mild frustration, circling his finger around the rim of his glass. “I speak to mean they would not need to." He looks to the Queen questioningly.

“I’ve not heard any reports of the like," she says. “Your camp should be cleared for… some miles. Even if vacated, I wouldn’t imagine anything would breach it so quickly. Though, given time, perhaps…"

She trails off, but Renard has already stopped listening. The utter terror of being in the presence of Orpheus is a sharp as it was decades ago, his achievements and titles acquired in the meantime be damned, as the contemptuous judgements Orpheus has towards him have not dulled a whit. Panic quietly rattles him in his seat and shakes a rain of sweat from his pores, the wine glass quaking in his hand as occupies himself with a sip. The Queen and Orpheus are looking at him strangely — the Queen concernedly, Orpheus dryly, but both of them expectantly.

It takes Renard full seconds to remember that Orpheus had asked him a question.

“A-uh-a-b-ah, ah, up," he stammers pathetically, pointing up. He swallows the rock in his throat, face blazing red, quietly glad for Fidel’s absence. “I seek to mend the crack in the sky."

“A lofty aim. And how is this done?" asks Orpheus.

Renard sighs heavily. This question, at least, he was prepared for. “By correspondence with Pleione—"

The Queen lowers her gaze with strange guilt and as she murmurs under her breath, ‘Pleione’. Orpheus’ lips flatten into a stern line, as though he is holding a stone to the roof of his mouth.

“—I had learned, she thought the rifts a consequence of… a barricade in Nix, imperfectly chipped. I would cast my proven blade Kingslayer upon the barrier that the ward would be severed as has this blade severed the root of a thousand other perverse forces."

“So shattering the ward. Would this not widen the rift?" The Queen questions.

“Pleione believed it would not," Renard insists, growing agitated. Renard relays Pleione’s conception of the rifts as a static needle tugging at a shifting loom, and explains his belief that, if the loom were destroyed outright, this should also remove the imperfections upon it… though, upon hearing himself speak, he trembles with recognition of how counter-intuitive this solution sounds. If the problem is the ward is damaged, why does breaking it further help? For how weak the argument is, he finds himself with only quibbling doubts that it is correct, heart standing stable upon his absolute confidence in Pleione’s judgement.

Orpheus straightens his neck to look down upon Renard, a steely intensity in his gaze, as if he is aligning facts, evaluating… “When did Miss Gayle inform you to this?"

Renard’s guts constrict into a tight knot, dripping black sludge.

“Quite—but a week ago," he stammers.

Orpheus holds his stare for a moment, then looks away with a mocking, hateful grin. He opens his mouth to speak, when the room bucks like an untamed horse, sending books flying out of their cases and all unsecured objects tumbling off their perches like hail. Another quake, from the rift splitting through the ground elsewhere. Though Orpheus and Renard brace themselves quick enough not to be thrown, the Queen is tossed like a ragdoll to the floor — unhurt, but rattled, she gasps to hastily recollect her composure.

“Let us hurry this along," the Queen announces, sweeping her hair out of her face. Given that she has no other ideas, and given that she fundamentally also does believe in Renard, she approves of his plan. Now, usually—

A hasty series of knocks comes at the door. It is Fidel, done with his courier work and a little breathless. The Queen quickly orders him to clean up the room and wash out the used wine glasses, not in the manner of purposefully distracting him, but in the manner of simply not thinking him relevant to the plans unfolding, like any servant.

Though now preoccupied doing dishes in the kitchen, Renard spots Fidel straining to peer through the doorway and eavesdrop as the Queen continues.

—usually, there would be the concern of travel time between here and Nix, but given the nature of this calamity being a spacial rift, it is actually possible to simply walk through it, at one of the lower branches, to instantaneously arrive in Nix, and vice versa. In fact, that is how Orpheus is here. So, time is not a huge obstacle presently, and the instant they have concluded this briefing, Renard can be down there with Kingslayer. If all goes well, and if Renard’s plan works, the matter of the rift could be resolved within the hour.

So what is concerning the Queen now, instead, is what their plan should be after the rift is, ideally, closed. The instant travel between Lacren and Nix would of course be severed, then…

She glances down, takes a breath.

I have already withdrawn our army from Nix, she asserts, as the forces will be more necessary here. The aqueduct lines between Sebilles and many local counties have been damaged so badly and in so many places, that it will be vital to arrange tens of squads of water-runners to deliver water around the country. It’s not an efficient method, and invites many opportunities for disaster, but for some principalities, it may be the only way that they stay afloat. Not to mention these units’ effectiveness against ghouls, which we also will need…

Renard asks how much water Sebilles has, to be able to do this.

Sebilles has enough to hold itself for a year, the Queen answers, but it also has the money to purchase more and bide a little longer. Splitting up what is in the reserves, and distributing it to droughting counties, it should last perhaps four months. Though, depending on how well local leaders handle water shortages in their territories, the need may be alleviated somewhat. Regardless, by that time the reservoir and aqueducts should be fixed, so things should start returning to normal once the new crop of water-plants come in, which should be in eight months.

Four months is cutting it thin in terms of resupply, with another four months of interim. Renard urges the Queen to tap in to her allies in Fayette for water support.

She nods, and adds that Verdan has also pledged quite generous donations of water.

Renard’s brow scrunches. Verdanheim is a very small country. While the gesture is appreciated, do they have much to give to sustain Sebilles? Well, if it is only to tide that interim four months, perhaps they do have that in their reserves.

The Queen falls oddly quiet. Orpheus speaks up to voice that he, too, finds it strange that Verdanheim has so much water, and is unsure how Verdan even sources it.

Does he not purchase it from the Ordish? Renard notes. Orpheus’ brows raise as if he had not considered this. Although, Renard continues, I would not know what enticing thing he would sale to them in exchange, but Verdanheim’s economy is hardly a great matter…

Well, the Queen interjects, let’s not get too distracted about the water. She had only brought up this subject to explain why she had withdrawn the army. Now, Verdan’s forces will still be down there, but if you would close the rift, you would have to return overland…

She bites her thumb, glancing down at the floor.

Abrupt recognition comes to Renard of what is circling through the Queen’s chest: shame. As it bit Verdan and Renard, the Queen herself, in the course of this campaign, has also become irrevocably transfixed with Nix, perhaps to the point of obsession. Withdrawing her forces as she has is a concession of failure, and so she hesitates to voice her real wish for Renard, as it is wholly unreasonable: don’t come back too quickly. Push down there as hard as you can, to wrest a victory where my whole army couldn’t.

Because, the moment Renard emerges from Nix to Verdanheim, that marks the end of Lacren’s ambitions to ever combat Nix. For the Queen, who regards this cause as the most vitally right and important in the world, it’s a crushing thing to give up on. Renard straightens his back, piqued by this unspoken admission of weakness, and regret for that weakness.

…You may be alone down there, she finally finishes.

A plate squeaks loudly in the kitchen.

Orpheus says that no, he may not be, as Orpheus volunteers himself to oversee the closing of the rift and ensure the safe delivery of Verdan’s water. He would like to ensure, at least, that much is done properly and carries some level of account.

The Queens nods, accepting this.

Copying cue from Orpheus, Renard takes a breath to speak. “And I shall—"

Stop, the Queen interrupts. I don’t need to know what you do. I’ll know what you do by the results of it.

Pain and grief knot Renard’s throat. He blinks away the heat in his eyes, stricken by how deeply the words cut from a woman he already knows barely puts up with him, but despite reason, still does. He wipes his red face. There is very little dignity to lose in front of people who hate him, but still treat him better than he deserves.

“Adjourned," says the Queen, standing up. “Return to me, if it doesn’t work. We’ll reassess then." She pauses to massage her temple and collect up her papers, passes the map off to Orpheus.

As Renard rises and Orpheus collects the map, Fidel’s voice cuts across the room, “Your Majesty."

A fleck of irritation flashes in the Queen’s smile. “You’ve done very good work, Fidel. The porters in the receiving room will need more help. If you’d report to Master Porter—"

“No. —N-no, I," he shrinks up, aware that he just spoke over the Queen, but a vicious and determined fire then sparks, and he straightens his back, juts up his chin. “I wished to speak of… to report of Meurille, the barony just some days north of here. It is in a horrible state… many houses have crumbled, and people are tapped under rubble. The aqueducts are cut, with the people screaming, in distress…"

“These are not novel words. I have heard them over thirty times now," she sighs, “by different names; we consider them all."

“But it was horrible," Fidel insists. “They truly need help there."

The Queen’s brow knits with further irritation. Though Renard urges a warning with a mutter of, “Fidel…", no grand distraction or suitable change of topic can intercede before she continues, “Meurille is rather well off, is it not? If you have been Lord Renard’s squire, you must be familiar to the place. Other principalities nearer the centre of the rift have been levelled, others still are shattered; but there is no fork yet to menace Meurille. I do not hear that as so urgent as requiring action before even securing Sebilles."

“But then there is such greater chance Meurille could be helped; more than these other places," Fidel argues. “Do you roll a bandage on the arm of a man that is bleeding, or on the arm that is already black with gangrene? There is no sense in the second."

“You’re well-spoken. Report to Master Porter," she repeats.

“Your Grace," Renard interrupts, “I am not well-spoken, but attest I will to your insight; principalities not actively menaced shall bide the first drought by the discernment of their governors. My swiftness in coming to you has made, in Meurille, those posts arranged very hastily."

The Queen falls quiet in contemplation, when her mouth quirks sardonically. “Lady Colette didn’t stay."

Panic stabs through Renard’s gut. “Nay."

The Queen closes her eyes.

“She goes to help you from Fayette," he adds nervously.

And the frustration drains from her crunched brow and shoulders, filling instead with familiar resignation. Renard cannot help the bloom of elation in his heart at seeing it, knowing it means he has won. “All right," the Queen barely murmurs, with a very weak nod — not of agreement to immediately aid Meurille, but of acceptance to the idea that the place is facing disorganised anarchy, and will need more attention than initially thought.

Fidel’s gaze shifts between her and Renard, confused. Though he can tell Renard has done something, what that ‘thing’ is, and how it worked, perplexes him so greatly that he cannot even be happy it came to his benefit, so much as simply distracted, as if trying to scrape a strange taste from his tongue.

A low, distant rumble begins to shake the room, not violent and jagged like the previous quakes, but a deep emanating hum. Orpheus strides past Renard to exit the room, commanding him to follow with a jut of the chin.

“You’ve certainly not taught that boy principles," Orpheus whispers as smoothly as an assassin’s dagger as they pass the doorframe.

Renard’s fist shoots out faster than he sees it himself. Uncoordinated, the blow only clips the tail of Orpheus’ cloak, and though Renard then barrels into the man and pins him down underneath him, groping to take Orpheus’ throat and throttle it, pull it apart, Orpheus does not even gasp or make the slightest squeak of alarm. All that stares up at Renard is that same face of unshakable composure and righteous contempt.

It is as though, even though he is the one being brutalised, the very fact that Renard is assaulting him is a victory in itself. There is nothing — nothing — surprising to Orpheus about what Renard just did. It is a silent castigation of Renard’s character even worse than if Orpheus began shouting insults.

Stung, Renard recoils.

“What on earth—Renard!" Fidel shouts from the doorway.

As Fidel rushes over, Renard eases himself off Orpheus, who slips like swirling mist back onto his feet. ‘Ho! I tripped!’ the words flash to his mind instantly, with the grin, the pose, the joke that would dismiss this whole incident, but even greater than the shame of looking like a tempestuous brute in front of Fidel, is the shame of so brazenly lying to him, which paralyses him on the floor.

And now Orpheus will say some terrible thing to defame me in front of my squire!, Renard’s mind yowls, Why must such pathetic quibbles accost me, when I am hardly what is important! So objectionable am I that ought I be raked before we speak of the breaking sky or the war front towards which we march — for what but the lingering grudge of a petty hypocrite that basks in the shine of his armour!

“Calm, young sir. He simply tripped." Orpheus’ smile to Fidel is so effortless that it could burst a flock of doves into existence.

Fidel untenses slightly, relieved but not entirely trusting, as he touches Renard’s shoulder. The warmth and concern that transmits through that contact tugs Renard’s heart mercifully like a current guiding a school of tropical fish towards the water’s sunlit surface. Simultaneously, a cold dead pit congeals tightly somewhere far under, a dense consuming star of total hatred, looking at that smile.

‘We are enemies, deeply.’ It only now comes clear to Renard how much Orpheus was not joking.

Swallowing the strain in his throat as he rights himself, Renard allows himself mentally to roll his eyes and snort at Orpheus: I did not know you were capable of lying. As if he heard this comment, Orpheus eyes Renard mildly, but says nothing.

Indeed. Spatting with him is truly not the important thing at this moment. Renard pats Fidel’s shoulder for his own moral support as Orpheus strides down the hall, but meets resistance when he goes to follow. Fidel has frozen in place under his palm, and is peering uncomfortably down a different hall — the one that leads back to the receiving room, where the Queen ordered him to go.

Technically, no one had said that he should go with Renard, or even considered Fidel going to Nix as an option. Knowing that the Queen will only trust him to busywork as a servant’s servant, and unimpressed with how lost and uncertain Fidel looks in this moment, Renard does snort and yanks him along by the arm.

Though unbalanced at first, Fidel quickly falls into step behind them. Orpheus notices Renard’s delay in following and turns — and, now seeing Fidel trailing him, snaps with the first open irritation he has expressed today. “Lord Renard, whose son is that?"

“Ho, be now the time to speak politics?"

“Decency. Whoever has trusted you with charge of their son thought not you would kill him in Nix. ‘Kill’ cannot even encompass the fate your naivety would push that boy into, down there."

Hidden under his skin, every muscle in Renard sweats. “He is no tot in his nappies, nor page learned only in sticks. He can quite choose for himself." A horrid squeak sounds as an old, heavy table begins sliding down the hall. And it is course for any squire to see a battleground before he is sixteen. You would pilfer him of his milestones? What a poor educator you are, and how frustrated must have been your boys. The next ready arrows slide themselves into his mental bowstring.

“And I am emancipated, Sir Orpheus. More whisky than blood runs through my parents that would tie them to think about me," he says, “I simply wish to help to my best," he finishes, a little unsteadily. “So I will go," he adds.

For how supportive Fidel’s words were, Orpheus’ face only twists with deep, dreadful disgust upon hearing them — but strangely, not for Fidel. Renard stands bewildered at the aura of hatred emanating out like a blade towards him, completely unsure of its source. Orpheus then shakes his head in one sharp flick as if severing a cord.

“No," he says. “If you both will rely on my judgement in that place, then take that as my judgement. He may be a prodigy as much as are you; but virtues become crooked, and the skills that give strength become liabilit—"

Glass sings, strained, in the windows.

“—Already arguing?" The Queen’s voice cuts over Orpheus’ from the parlour doorway. She leans against the doorframe as if exhausted, but not surprised. “Please, you boys, organise yours—"

“Hardly be there for an hour," Renard grumbles under her words and the rising groan of the vibrations. Orpheus opens his mouth to voice a reprimand, when that persistent hum swells like a sudden tide into a tremor that rockets through the whole castle. Everyone in the hall is thrown to their bellies as the windows shatter, the floor buckles, and a support beam aside the parlour door crumples as easily as a wet pillar of sand. It crashes through the damaged floor and spins whirling to the level below, landing with a horrible boom that rattles the bones of everyone above so ferociously their skeletons are near catapulted out of their bodies. Equally, through the plumes of swirling dust and grit, pours a hail of stone bricks from the ceiling, which too slants, buckles, and collapses, right upon the doorway to the parlour.

Taktaktaktaktaktakcltakcltakcltak, the avalanche of stone goes as the fractured bricks bash against each other and begin to settle.

“—Your Majesty!" Renard screams, sprinting through the dust to the foot of the pile, heedless to the last debris still falling, and fortunate not to be pelted himself. Mindlessly, he rips at the shingles still solid enough to grab, as if a mound so thick and heavy could be dismantled by hand. “Your Majesty!"

So weak it could be a mirage, a groan seeps from under the pile.

Renard’s breath locks and his heart jumps a beat. She does live! Which means—brain disconnecting, Renard rips at the fallen bricks with redoubled vigour, but even though Renard is not a weak man, they are interlocked too tightly to budge — which still does not dissuade, or impact Renard’s mindless effort, at all.

“Stop." Orpheus pulls on Renard’s shoulder. “We have duties elsewhere. Someone else can attend this."

Renard reels at these words, struggling to catch up to them, not only for how counter-intuitive they are, but for how utterly rational and composed Orpheus is. Though a hint of stress pulls over his features, it feels backwards that Renard is the one shooting to the ground to help, and Orpheus is standing coolly distant, when he surely is more aligned and familiar with the Queen than Renard.

As his head still swims in confusion, he sights Fidel — who stands paralysed in shellshocked powerlessness. Regret and sorrow tremble through Renard’s chest as the intuition settles, that there is no way Fidel will be joining them in Nix, if the sight of this destruction has already broken his nerve.

Orpheus taps his thumb to his forehead, clicks his tongue in frustration, and pulls his gaze also away from Fidel with a sharp shake of the head. “Come. Hurry," he addresses Renard with a beckoning wave, then turns to stride down the hall.

With the cold factual stability of understanding and purpose veiling itself over his mind, Renard gets to his feet and swiftly follows. But for the obedience of his body, as they leave Fidel behind in that hall, his mind quietly shifts into a darker current.

It feels he has failed.

Pleione, Colette, the Queen, now Fidel — it feels there has been a fundamental mismanagement in how Renard approached everything that has resulted not only in their discomfort or misfortune, but in discomforts and misfortunes so great that all these points of positive contact in his life are becoming ones he will never see again, slipping from him, wholly by his fault.

Fidel, for all his spirit, truly is just a child. It is a horrifically selfish and pathetic thing to hinge one’s own confidence not only on the support, but on the active physical presence of a boy several decades younger than oneself, who will, in innocence and admiration, say with total truth and conviction that the most horrific things can be effortlessly conquered. Why else does it feel like Renard truly could push to the bottom of Nix if Fidel were there, but be too scared to take even a step into the untested dark without him? He cannot even feign an illusion of courage to himself. If Renard goes into Nix alone, he must die.

Taking Fidel from Ashurst was not an error, making him a squire was not an error, even moving him away from Meurille was not an error, but he should not be here.

Then there is Pleione — Pleione. Renard owes an immensity of who he is to Pleione. Had he answered to her calls of warning and distress with promises that were a little less callous, had he been straight to his word and moved just an instant quicker, then… the censoring curtain of black closes over his mind again and shutters the corollary of this thought from his consciousness, but a feeling of certainty nonetheless comes to him that, had he indeed done these things and kept true, Pleione would be healthy, well, and present now.

And Colette, his thread of life and of future. Even in these circumstances, thinking of her rises a soft smile on his face and in his heart. By all hopes, she will have escaped the country and now be safely en-route to Fayette. Their child will be born giggling and bright and though vicious is the pain at knowing he will be raised without a father, and that Colette must raise him without a husband, this pain and fury and guilt is not enough to rip him away from his course. The joy that he could have had in this family is like the joy one remembers of childhood — nostalgic, and familiar, but distant, as though looking upon the life of someone else. The ghost of that man may remain in Colette’s life, but the real Renard will not; as the real Renard was the Renard obsessed with metaphysical vengeance and murder, too hateful and livid to ever firmly tell the Queen, ‘yield’.

And she is another heart that Renard’s impuissance has failed. He did not even need to do anything so dramatic as discard Kingslayer on a cliff, nor force himself to bow to her ill-fitting perceptions, nor even just listen to her earlier, though these things all would have dismantled the dominoes that led to this moment, as Renard does not regret them and knows he did good even despite them. His error in betraying The Queen was far more fundamental and inconsequentially stupid than any of that.

At the same time, it is the sheer basic stupidity of this error that underlines why Renard, for all his life, has always been getting and doing things wrong.

The one thing he needed to do, the one tiny thing that would have saved The Queen, was to swallow his pride for even a second and just not start fighting with Orpheus.

As they scale a stairway to the upper levels, Renard glimpses up at Orpheus’ back — broad, purposeful, and ever composed.

Orpheus is a better man and Renard has always known this. When in the presence of better men, it is always the right thing to kneel and serve that their good ways be glorified, far more than it is to usurp them. In fact, for a wretch like Renard especially, it is an honour to even lick the toes of a man whose path is just, as even if Renard cannot uphold it in the end, it is a gift beyond equal that he be condescended even a hint of what attitude to copy to mirror even a fraction of a good of these men.

But it was not envy that made him snap at Orpheus. It was the knowledge that a great task had been desired of him, and the fear that, without someone there who he loved and who believed in him to turn to in moments of doubt, he would fail the important task and disappoint everyone toward whom he owed so much gratitude.

It’s weakness, in other words, but less so of ability than character. Renard clenches Kingslayer’s hilt, the dark blade humming as with laughter, as he purses his lips and stares at the floor, feet yet following Orpheus.

The wall abruptly opens up beside him, the stone bricks fallen away in one of the previous quakes. From this vantage so high up, he can see the breadth of the destruction below — which is truly incredible, as the castle has been cracked in half and that missing half has fallen away like a listed ship, opening the building’s foundations to the sky like a gutted fish, and in the open slash, exposing the whole panorama of Sebilles.

Orpheus curses under his breath and hurries on with redoubled speed. He catches a group of porters on their way down from a hall ahead of them, and orders them to attend to The Queen. As they drop their boxes and sprint off, Orpheus and Renard charge up a final, long stairway to the top of a spire.

At the top is a circular room with a circular balcony. Lining the walls are trunks and crates, which the porters have been carrying down — the ultimate source of these crates, however, is a thin weedy tendril of the umbral rift that that has pierced through the spire’s balcony, and now sits queerly in place like a parasite. A rope extends out of the rift as a consciously placed lifeline, tied to a pillar. Through the rift, as has always been the case, is the scene of the campground.

Orpheus nods for Renard to go through.

With Fidel, Colette, Pleione, and The Queen all gone as anchors, the person whose desires and expectations Renard now feels most required to meet is Orpheus. Renard has no illusions that Orpheus would desire anything more from him than to close the rift and then die — and Renard is fully willing to put himself in the circumstances that would best produce this outcome.

If he can do it quickly enough, then Renard may be able to close the rift before Orpheus can get through. Then Orpheus will be available to manage events in Sebilles, and Renard will be so isolated that he would doubtless lose any nerve to return to the surface. To even think of climbing out already feels shameful. Taking a steadying gulp, the mongoose-fast turn and strike he must perform already rehearsing itself through his mind, Renard grips Kingslayer’s scabbard tightly and steps forth.

The oily tendril shimmers, flickers, closer…

“—Hold," Renard pauses.

Orpheus’ chin tilts up, though with genuine interest rather than impatience.

“I cannot enter this."

“Whyever so?" Orpheus asks.

Renard palms his sweaty brow and steps quickly back from the fractured balcony. Memories from Ashurst strike him like lashes of a whip. Of course. Applying Kingslayer to that rift, though it was not open then, produced an extremely destructive effect that Renard may have been one or two foolish steps from replicating here, in a far more precarious environment. Though Renard wishes to destroy the ‘loom’, or spacial barrier present in Nix, these rifts are very likely also things Kingslayer will respond to in their own right if Renard attempts to pass through them.

“What blessed armaments did your men take though this portal? Any?" Renard asks as he pries off the lid of a crate. Inside is a bundle of sheets, clothes, and bedrolls.

“Ah—all we had, once we found how," replies Orpheus, hand on his hip, peering over Renard’s shoulder. Indeed, as Renard sweeps aside a cloth, beneath it is the mangled remains of a hairpin tangled in shattered strands of broken witchbane. “Many before that broke by proximity. Even twenty paces out, the rift strained them—" shuffling further through the crate, wrapped in another bundle of linens, is a ceramic plate coated in the characteristic black sheen of witchbane, this time fully and functionally enchanted, if unwieldy in form. No wonder the army has struggled so much if these knick-knacks were all they had! “—but wrapping them in cloths shielded them from this effect. It must need direct exposure."

“So simple," Renard chuckles darkly as he whips bundles of linens out of the crate and begins frantically, and thickly, wrapping them around Kingslayer’s hilt and scabbard.

Orpheus does watch this bitterly, and though he does not say it, his smile speaks for him: it already has a scabbard.

Renard forces himself to smile through his sweat as if the seventh layer of cloth he is mummifying Kingslayer in is just an anxious joke. Can never be too careful!

Orpheus dismisses the issue and idly thumbs his ring finger. Good. If Orpheus can be distracted, that increases Renard’s chances of slipping away and slamming the door on him. In fact, Renard’s gut screams at him: this is a good moment! Go for it, now!

“W-what of you, Orpheus?" Renard stammers instead, words squeezing out of his tight throat as if grinding against an iceberg. No! You idiot! You lost it! His gut screams, but he frantically assures himself otherwise. If he can get Orpheus rummaging through a crate…

Orpheus raises his brow and nods, still fiddling with his ring finger. It only now clicks for Renard that he must be wearing an enchanted ring, under his glove.

“Might I see it?"

Orpheus squints and shakes his head. “Time is thin. You’ve well enough swaddled that blade that I might rest my head upon it to sleep. Go in."

Renard releases a long, sharp breath. Turning to the rift, he hugs the bundled Kingslayer to his chest.

This is it, then. The cold iron of focus closes over his mind, cutting out even prospects of closing the rift on Orpheus, as he exits to the balcony, pace utterly even — even as a distant tremor, and the frantic peal of distant footfalls, echo up from the chambers far below.

The oily film coating the inside of the rift has the consistency of thick jello. To push his hand through takes concentrated force — but once his fingers breach the jello-layer, he waggles them about and feels no resistance. He has breached into some strange, airy liquid. Taking a last deep inhale and holding his breath, Renard plunges into the rift.