12

The light did not hurt. It did not scorch my shell or grind me to dust. It was like a cradle, silk-soft and warm.

I did not struggle in that embrace. The end would take me when it willed, and that was for the best. That was right.

Like a setting sun, the light began to fade, presaging the dark into which I would return. There was no fear. There was no grief. But against everything, there rose a question.

Would I forget them?

The gray deepened, flecked with black.

Did I not wish to forget them?

The last glinting vestiges died, and I was consigned to the night.

But no, this was not like the place of my birth. It was too cold, too hard, too rigidly defined. A flat plane pressed against my form—my solid form.

And I woke, splayed upon the stones of Kingdom's Edge. It was all as I had left it: the clambering foliage, the gaping crater, the whirling gray clouds.

Beside me, crumpled and still, was Dryya, bleeding from her many wounds and the wreckage of her arm. If not for the rhythm of her rising chest, she looked every bit a corpse. The longnail to which she had clung so tenaciously in our duel now lay untended.

Some paces off, I spied Ogrim, his head resting upon Seer's lap. Ogrim hadn't regained consciousness, but she whispered to him. "Would that we could have met under better circumstances… You were ever my favorite among the Five, I hope you know that. Even from afar, you looked so full of heart. Let us pray that heart is not misguided."

Though no force demanded it of me, I stood and stumbled over to them.

Seer regarded me in that placid way, even as her broken wings trembled in the wind. "Larva, it is good to see you managed the return. Traversing the dream is no easy feat. Ogrim is not yet upon the threshold, but he is close. Would you care to sit and wait with me until he wakes?"

I did not move.

"You have questions, I'd imagine," she said, her eyes now upon Ogrim's scarred carapace. "Or maybe you do not. Dryya enlightened me to your condition. Now I feel foolish for chattering away at you all that time." She toyed with her silken satchel, once again knotted shut. "You'll forgive me for that, won't you? And for what I nearly did in the dream?"

There was nothing to be said, no forgiveness to be offered.

Seer joined me in my silence as Ogrim labored through the pall of sleep.

He awoke in a fitting enough way, bolting upright with a great, shell-popping gasp. He writhed from side to side, claws high and defensive, ready for yet more battle. Only after a long moment did they lower.

"Little Knight?" he whispered. "Moth?"

Seer crossed her claws and inclined her head. "Welcome back to the waking world."

Ogrim cast a bleary look around. "What happened? Where is—" He noticed Dryya and drew back. "Is—Is she…"

"Only asleep," Seer said. "I wove her a prison in the dream, but with a will such as hers, I do not expect it to last. There is time for talk, but little of it. Once you have mustered the strength, then you'd best leave. I cannot say what Dryya will do should you be here when she stirs."

"Wait." Ogrim labored onto his claws and knees. "That brilliance. Your agreement with the Fierce Knight. Why did you renege?"

Even though it hurt her, Seer chuckled. "It seems I am not the only one seeking an answer to that. Perhaps it was my doubt of Dryya's words, perhaps my hope for the King's miracle, or just my sympathy for a lost larva. I cannot say. All and none?"

I helped Ogrim to his feet. Though he was still sluggish with exhaustion, his breathing was beginning to steady. "Good-hearted indeed," he murmured.

"Before you go," Seer said, "grant me this. Now that the larva's fate rests with you, what do you intend to do?"

Ogrim did not immediately reply, and Seer pressed on. "Will you trust in the King and return His creation? Will you trust in no one and hide it away?"

"I—"

Her head shot up, neck craning to lock eyes with him. "Because I do not know. Tell me, how can they be saved? My tribe, the larva, the Kingdom? What must be done?"

Ogrim held very still, as though a nail were trained at his throat. "I… I don't…"

There was the crackle of a damaged shell. Across the stones, Dryya's body twitched. She let out a wordless murmur as she groped unconsciously for her nail.

"Our time comes to an end." Seer whispered. "Go, Loyal Ogrim. Follow that heart of yours."

"But what of you?" he asked. "We cannot leave you behind with your wings in such a state. Allow me to carry you."

Seer shook her head. "My duty is to remain here. No matter what you decide, I have sworn to aid the King in his miracle. To that end, he requires Essence, and the Matron Hopper's passing will provide it."

"But the Fierce Knight will be furious! What if she were to strike you down? I could not endure that shame."

"That will not happen."

Despite his many wounds, Ogrim stood tall. "You cannot know that."

"In that long dream, as Dryya and I awaited your arrival, we shared much. She is not the wanton killer that I first thought. For all her brutality, Dryya is still a Knight. She will not harm me again. I am no longer an obstacle."

Dryya's limbs flexed. She snarled, beast-like even in slumber.

Ogrim shivered, just as he had in that corpse-strewn shaft. "Forgive me. I will ever and always be in your debt, moth."

"Please, call me Seer."

The Palace grounds were a tumult of silk tents and shifting bodies. Wounded warriors milled about on stretchers and shellwood crutches, awaiting the aid of the Soul healers that were so few and far between. The gates—normally sealed and sentineled—hung wide. Attendants carrying medical supplies scurried through in an unbroken current. The legions of Hallownest were arrayed upon the Palace's lone thoroughfare, their formations fragmented and sparse. Scribes drifted among them and tallied those still living upon shell tablets.

Through it all, Ogrim marched, with me at his side. He did not react to the inquiries and curious eyes, instead keeping his head low and feet in motion. It was not until the very steps of the Palace vestibule that he paused, held fast by two gentle words.

"Loyal Knight?"

Isma emerged from the arched portal before us. Her shoulders sagged, and the leaves of her garb were speckled with a myriad of different bloods. She braced her weight upon the portal's frame with an extended arm. "What brings you here so soon? Has the Vessel's trial—Oh, Ogrim, you are injured!" She stumbled closer. "Your claws! What has become of you? Is this the Vessel's doing?" Her eyes settled on me like a scourge.

"No, Isma, there was an a-accident. Wild bugs assailed us at the Kingdom's Edge. We fought valiantly and drove them off, but as you see—"

"Where is Dryya?" Isma nearly pushed us aside in her haste to peer past. "Has she suffered a similar fate?"

Ogrim coughed, rattling his loose chitin. "The Fierce Knight? Ha, hardly. She is as hale as ever and sustained no more than a few scratches. It was her want to remain behind and hunt the beasts for sport."

Isma exhaled, long and wavering. "Oh, of course, as I should rightly expect. Please pardon my worry. Since Ze'mer's loss, I—" She stopped and smoothed her skirt, wiping ineffectually at the blood. "How fared the Vessel's trial? It has not been destroyed, so I imagine well."

"Yes, the Little Knight was triumphant once again. It came to Dryya as quite a shock."

Isma noticed my severed arm. It had ceased to weep darkness, though was otherwise unchanged. "Dryya's work?" she asked coolly.

Ogrim nodded.

"She is not on to suffer defeat well," Isma said, "perhaps even worse than I. Did she at least take solace in landing that blow? I would hate to see her cross."

"That is difficult to say. She was certainly distressed by the battle's end."

Isma hummed. "Let us hope she does not grow despondent again. When the Palace has settled, I will weave her a fine bouquet. That will surely cheer her."

A cry carried from a nearby tent, claiming Ogrim's attention. Within, a bug writhed upon a stretcher, clutching at the bandaged stump of its leg. In high, keening notes the bug voiced its pain.

Ogrim averted his eyes. "The flow of wounded continues, I see," he mumbled. "No small part of me hoped it would have ended before I returned from the trial."

"The rogue Mantis were even more fearsome than Dryya warned. They slew the legions' scouts and laid the most devastating ambushes. The legions were successful in repelling them to a far fringe of the Garden, but the cost was steep." Isma's arm reached out and settled on Ogrim's shoulder. "So often, I forget how unknown the King's realm is to you. This is your first war, is it not?"

"Yes, but I am no tenderfoot," Ogrim blustered, "no stranger to a warrior's fate. I have seen my share of death and battle, but…"

"But?"

"This is different. Do all the King's wars end this way, with weeks of wailing and burials?"

"All? I would not know. But of late, yes." Isma leaned in, her voice fond and without reproach. "War does not share the elegance of a Knight's duel. It is unfair to expect that."

"I suppose."

"They may be frequent and vicious, but these wars are not frivolous. A kingdom is a precarious thing, ever on the brink of toppling. To ensure Hallownest's survival, the legions sacrifice just as we do."

Though not unkindly, Ogrim shrugged Isma's touch aside. "I must speak with the King. Is he within his quarters?"

"Somewhere about, but before you go, rest a while. I have not seen you this battered since the Champion's Call."

"I cannot, I've tarried too long already." Ogrim sidled past Isma, guiding me with enveloping arms.

"Let's have none of that stubbornness," Isma said. "Tending to the legions' wounds has drained me, but I've more than enough Soul left for you. Come." With a sudden surge of energy, she snatched Ogrim by the horn and pulled in the direction of the closest tent.

"There are others here in greater need than I!" Ogrim protested. He whipped his head from side to side but failed to loosen Isma's grip. "If you are to heal anyone, then the Little Knight is in greatest need."

Isma let out a short, sharp laugh. "I will teach you more of triage later, but know that the living always precede the unliving. Now stop struggling, you will aggravate your wounds."

Though Ogrim yelped more denials, they did him little good. I trailed behind as Isma dragged him into a tent lined with makeshift beds. They were tiny by Knightly standards, but Isma pressed three together so that Ogrim would have a place to lie down. He squirmed to the very last, but once he touched the silk, his body went slack.

"You do me a disservice, Kindly Knight," Ogrim groaned. "You've stolen my strength. How am I to stand now?"

"I have stolen it? Are you so certain? Was it not the savage beasts and the hours spent roaming inhospitable wilderness?"

"Well… perhaps…"

Isma retrieved a chair and sat beside Ogrim. For a quiet moment, she studied his wounds, running a claw over the blemished surface of his shell. "What manner of beasts did you encounter? They left quite a mark."

"Oh, just Aspids and Hoppers, the usual sort one sees at the Kingdom's Edge."

A ghostly ripple of power distorted the space around Isma. She pressed down on Ogrim's most heinous-looking injury, and the sweet taste of Soul filled the air. "Really? They caused you such trouble? I would not have expected such creatures to be a threat, especially with Dryya so near."

"Th-They struck when we were unprepared. And there were many!"

"I see." Isma shifted her claw, and the mark was gone. She repeated this process, once, twice, thrice, each time her breath growing more labored.

"…Why do you ask?" Ogrim whispered.

"Some of your wounds are… unusual. They are not the burns of Aspids or the punctures of Hoppers." She paused, seemingly intent on a difficult spot. "…They are the cuts of a longnail."

Ogrim bolted upright, the fragile beds cracking under the force. He lurched to his feet and exited the tent. "It is time I depart. Much thanks!"

"We are not finished. You are not yet healed, Loyal Knight, and I have many questions!"

Ogrim waved a claw over his shoulder. "No, no, we wouldn't wish to exhaust you. Come along, Little Knight."

I set after him at a pace just shy of a run.

There were no beds or stretchers lining the walls of the Palace vestibule, no sign at all of what lay just outside. The King's throne, that jagged fortress atop its onyx pedestal, sat unoccupied. Ogrim strode down the silk carpet, intent on a tunnel at the far side.

"Stop!"

Though the word had no power over Ogrim, it brought me to a stuttering halt. He turned back to retrieve me, but Isma was quicker to the task. Her claw clamped hard upon my remaining arm. She hovered over me, a shadow in the bloom of the vestibule's vertex.

"Please explain yourself, Ogrim," she said, low and urgent. "What took place at the Kingdom's Edge? What has become of Dryya?"

"I have already told you."

"Did you clash? Over what, this thing?" She shook me like a cheap doll. "Did you strike her down? Did it?"

"No, of course not!" Ogrim said as he reached for me. "We performed the Little Knight's trial, that is all."

Isma pulled me back. "You are a most terrible liar. Surely you hear the ache in your own voice."

"It is no lie!"

"Are we not allies? Are we not friends? I have told you of my secrets, but am I unworthy of yours?"

Ogrim fell quiet, allowing Isma to catch her breath, and for the hiss of her accusations to ebb away. "Yes, you are worthy, of more than I could ever hope to offer. But I cannot explain, not yet. First, I must have words with the King. Whatever comes of that, my path will be set, and then I will tell you all that you wish to know. Until then, please, trust me, if only for this final time. Release the Little Knight, return to those in need of your healing art."

"You are in need of my healing art, you great, silver fool!" Isma cried. "Let me aid you!"

But Ogrim only chuckled and shook his head.

The strength drained from Isma's grip. "It is a promise then? An oath?"

"It is."

Isma released me, nudging the small of my back. "At least grant me this. Does Dryya still live?"

"She does. The Fierce Knight is not so easily felled by the likes of we." Ogrim placed the flat of his claw upon me. "Let's be off, Little Knight."

I watched Isma diminish over my shoulder, her soft, green features becoming blurred with the distance. She did not turn away, even as we rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

The King's quarters were dark, more so than anywhere else in the Palace, for that strange, ubiquitous light was nowhere to be found. In its place served hanging Lumafly lanterns, though they were sparse and caked in dust. The domed walls were rough-hewn and unnaturally black, impressing the feeling of a toothy maw poised just over one's head.

It was… not unfamiliar to me. I had beheld much of it while in the King's company. He had paced these chambers in ceaseless contemplation, never stopping, never sleeping, myself as his shadow.

Had he been thinking of me? Of the things I would be made to do?

Ogrim pressed through the murk, claws forward to feel about, bumbling into metal canisters. After a collision that left him cursing, there came a faint light in the distance. It crept across surfaces like a rising sun, bathing everything it touched in clarity.

But the light began to recede as quickly as it had come. Ogrim wasted no time in pursuing it, hopping over low tables and scrap. We passed through a denticulated archway into another chamber, and Ogrim shielded his eyes against the flood of luminescence. A bug-like shape—crowned with seven horns—bled through the glare.

"You return. Felicitous."

Like a candle being hooded, the light abated, and the King's regal visage became clear. He stood before a workbench strewn with armor fragments and fine tools. Beside it was a basin, carved into a shape like the casts in The City's forges, though this shape was not of a lance or a nail, but something else.

In his claws, the King held a creature, spherical and winged. Its body was opaque and pliable, bordering on liquid. As the King looked at us, he screwed a metal plate into its flesh. The creature did not flinch.

Ogrim inhaled, but no words emerged. He cringed with every twist of the King's claw.

"Speak, Loyal Ogrim," the King said. "A message burns within you, and I shall hear it." He retrieved another armor fragment from the bench and affixed it to the creature.

"W-We return from the Kingdom's Edge, my Lord…"

"So I behold. Maimed though it is, the Vessel endures. It has surmounted a trial beyond the means of its kin. Most felicitous indeed."

"Yes, Lord. It is of that trial I wish to discuss. Dryya had reservations regarding it."

The King applied a silver-silk mesh over the creature's wings, pressing it delicately into place. "Tell me of the Fierce Knight. The winding fates implied her survival to be… remote. Events of late have grieved the Lady deeply enough, shall she be further harmed?"

Ogrim recoiled, as though he had been slammed in the chest. "What? You divined Dryya's death? Why was she sent forth?"

The King paused in his work and fixed Ogrim with a look. "I divined many things in the future's infinitude. Your demise. The Vessel's. But the Kingdom's calamity impels me to action, and I have not the time to scrutinize every divergent thread. Thus, I implore you, speak."

"She lives," Ogrim choked.

"Splendid. Destiny smirks, if fleetingly. I shall inform the Lady." The look broke, and the King occupied himself with the creature once more. "Well served, Knight. You may depart."

Though Ogrim nearly obeyed on reflex, he held his ground.

The King applied the final armor fragment to the creature and then nodded his approval. He glanced up and startled. "You remain? Have you more to report, or does curiosity still your feet?"

"Lord, I—"

"Come closer," the King said, almost warmly. "Behold." He cradled the creature so that its face was visible, white eyes burning in a pool of blackness. "I shall name it 'Wingmould', the first of its kind: immortal, indefatigable, vigilant, a superb tool for the legions. As a scout, it shall ensure they never again suffer needless deaths from lack of knowledge." The King released the Wingmould as one would a Maskfly, claws flat and extended. Falteringly, it whirred into the air and hovered, its wings a silver blur.

The King crossed his arms and leaned against the workbench, quietly observing the thing as it patrolled the workshop.

"Is it, too, forged from Void?" Ogrim asked. "Just as the Little Knight?"

The King was rigid once again. "Few living could claim to be acquainted with that word. Who amongst my court told you of Void?"

"Dryya. At the trial."

"It is unlike the Fierce Knight to partake in banter, let alone the divulgence of secrets."

"She spoke of many things, Lord. She claimed that the Little Knight was flawed—dangerous. She attempted to execute them!"

"The arrogance of eons. I have witnessed it before. Due to her years, she assumes beyond her station. There is no defect within the Vessel."

"She claimed you would say that as well."

The King shook his head, suppressing a tremble. "I have peered within the Vessel. It is sufficient in both function and prowess. This most recent trial affirms that. The Vessel shall fulfill its purpose. It shall safeguard this Kingdom."

"From the Radiance? The god you usurped?"

The King turned to his workbench and straightened the clutter, shifting the armor scraps aside and placing the instruments in parallel lines. "The events of the trial were surely dire for Dryya to speak so openly. Her carelessness has hurled you into disarray."

"Better this than ignorance! Please, Lord, if I am to serve you, then grant me the truth. What is the Little Knight? How are they meant to rescue us from the Radiance?"

His task finished, the King drifted from the workbench and over to the basin. His face was averted, and he spoke low, as if to himself. "You bore such promise when first I beheld you, such sparkling potential. You were to be the most stalwart, most unflinching of my Knights. But that future is dead now. I could not previse the path."

Ogrim drew closer. "What?"

The King straightened. "The Vessel is damaged. I shall repair it, and in doing so reveal all that you desire." He turned to me and extended a claw. "Come, child." As I stuttered forward, slow to absorb the command, he tilted his head.

"Do be gentle," Ogrim whispered. "They have suffered much."

"As was the cursed intent."

With a strength inexplicable for his frame, the King lifted a nearby decanter half-again larger than he. It was shaped like a rounded hourglass, the lower bulb composed of crystal and filled with a dark liquid, the upper bulb of ornate metal and topped with a hollow spike the length of a nail. He gripped the decanter by the center and inverted it, carefully pouring from the spike's tip into the basin. The liquid did not ripple, becoming perfectly still the moment that the pouring ceased.

"Void," the King said, letting the word soak the air, "covetous nemesis to life and mind, primordial embodiment of hunger. To the ignorant, it is a danger, but when wielded precisely, it is an unrivaled tool." He grasped the stump of my arm and guided it to the liquid's surface, holding it there for some time.

Though Ogrim fidgeted, he did not intervene. "Dryya spoke of an ancient empire brought low by this Void. Was their aim like yours?"

The King scoffed. "I consider myself neither a fool nor a zealot, so no, we bear little in common. The Empire sought a god from the Void, not an instrument. They embraced it; they did not shackle it, and for that folly, they were consumed."

"I see…"

"Retrieve a spool, Loyal Knight," the King ordered, jerking his head toward the far side of the room.

Though difficult to discern among the clutter, several tall cylinders—wound in silk—were pressed up against the wall. Ogrim huffed and grunted as he negotiated one of the spools across the room. With a final heave, it clanged to a stop beside the basin.

"My thanks," the King said.

I felt nothing from the liquid, not heat or cold, not pleasure or pain. It hearkened to my birth, to the sea of absence through which I had once floated.

Slowly, the King lifted my arm, but the liquid clung to it, having become viscous and semi-solid like a secretion of mucus. With his bare claws, the King shaped the mass as a potter would, rolling and pressing, pinching away the excess. As the liquid touched him, it sizzled and evaporated, warded off by his sheath of light.

Once the King's sculpting had begun to resemble something like a limb, he reached out to the spool and plucked a strand. To the squealing of an internal mechanism, the spool unwound. Swift and surgically, the King knitted the strand through the viscid substance affixed to my stump, creating elaborate runic shapes in a matter of moments. The strand glowed, mimicking the King's own light, and I felt pain—burning—along the surface of this foreign limb. It recoiled from the searing strand, growing solid and still within its net.

With his free claw, the King snipped the trailing end of the thread, and I was whole once again.

"Lift the arm," the King ordered, and I obeyed. It moved as a perfect extension of me. It was me.

"Miraculous," Ogrim murmured. "Is this the means by which you forged the other Vessels? Those in the pit?"

"Would that it were so easy. No, the Vessels are not forged as my other works. They are born."

"…What do you mean?"

The King took a breath. "They are my children."