"During my travels through the mountains of Rhuz, I once found myself participating in a martial competition in Yet-daka against Master Daso Augosa vah Yraka, who — in the typical disparaging thaumaturge fashion against weapon wielders — bet that I could not best his skill in Giant Quelling Fist style with my impregnable Soul Fortress Shield. The referee called a tie after five bouts to stop us from killing each other, and we were both bedridden for several days afterward in recovery. Not even half a year later I married the enormous oaf, so I must reluctantly admit that losing the wager came with a silver lining."

-Millicent Ingram, Wandering Champion of the Order of Nova

The cold stone floor of the Adjudication Chamber numbed Sai-em’s legs as he knelt before the dias. A guard stood on either side of him, wrenching his arms up and twisting them just shy of painfully. The message was clear, but unnecessary. Grief had him in a chokehold so strong he could barely think of anything at all, much less resist. His raw and pulsing chest wound dripped ichor below him. Not even the otherwise sympathetic prison healers had wanted to touch it.

“Was it not enough for you to vandalize the adamant upon your brow with your cowardice?”

Sai-em said nothing. His hair fell over his face like a black veil, obscuring those who sat upon the dias. He had once called them family and fellow clansmen. Never again.

“Your will is weak,” said the judge, his voice cutting in its disgust. “And your lust for power a grave danger to Yet-daka. You should have chosen the noble death of the unborn thaumaturge when the opportunity had presented itself to you. IWA weeps to see you shame your people this way.”

Sai-em stirred at this, a barely-there spark of defiance flickering to life within him. “Let Them weep, then.”

One of the guards gave his arm a cruel tug. Sai-em winced, but refused to give any of them the satisfaction of voicing his pain out loud.

“I ask again, one last time,” said the judge. “Does the criminal who chose the way of the behemoth have anything to say for himself in his defense?”

Sai-em let his silence speak for him. 

“Very well. With the approval of the Adjudicator’s Committee and by the grace of wise Shotu, punisher of lawbreakers, I hereby strip you of your family and clan forevermore. The mountains now deny you. Your broken adamant shall mark you until the end of your days, and no Rhuzian will ever again offer you succor or friendship. May that cursed sword be your only companion for the rest of your life.”

---

“Sai-em!”

Sai-em, sitting cross-legged on the thin floor mat of his bedding, did not look up at the sudden voice echoing down the hall of prison cells. “You risk a lot coming to see me, Kitaagi.”

“I don’t care,” Kitaagi shot back. “Sai-em…why? Why did you take that damn sword out of the vault? How could you ever believe that was a good idea?”

His head snapped up. His half-brother stood just before the bars of his stone-walled enclosure. Properly tall like a real full-blooded nephilim and well-built through diligent training, curved horns decorated with gold bangles as befitting his rank among thaumaturges, and the crystalline adamant in the center of his chest glowing faintly with the light of his godfire. A summation of all the important things Sai-em could never become.

Sai-em’s stomach churned sick with rage and the tasteless gruel he had been served for dinner. “You of all people would never understand.”

“IWA blessed you with a miracle when you survived your baptism, Sai-em, and you wasted it on that awful blade,” said Kitaagi, undeterred. He gripped one of the bars and gave it a hard shake, a poor substitute for Sai-em's shoulder. “You could have sought protection under the Sahas! Now, even the Kha-hesh cannot intervene in your banishment.”

The idea of spending endless days under the pitying gazes of the Temple of Our Kin inhabitants disgusted him. He let his head fall back down. “What’s done is done. How is Mother?”

“Take a guess,” Kitaagi snapped. “When she is not pleading your case to the Committee and the chief she is praying. She does not eat unless I beg her and I don’t think she’s slept more than a couple of hours a night this week. Your reckless foolishness has utterly ruined her.”

For the first time since he had grasped the hilt of the Behemoth Calling Sword and angled it at his own chest, white-hot pain lanced through him. He bit his lip until he tasted his own ichor, then said, quietly, “And there would have been little difference had I died in my baptism.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Kitaagi’s voice cracked through the air like a whip. Sai-em kept his eyes to the floor, suddenly very tired of everything. 

“Why are you here?” he asked, unable to hide the sullenness of his words. “If it’s for something other than gawking at me, then spit it out and leave before the warden takes you away.”

“I’m here because I have an idea.”

His voice had lowered considerably. Sai-em glanced back up at him through the long curtain of his hair. 

Kitaagi put his face closer to the bars, his dark eyes gleaming with a conspiratory edge. “Don’t just live like a beast in the forests outside of Rhuz for the rest of your life. Go beyond us. Find your grandmother. If you are set on shaming yourself further by using that sword, then have her train you and give you shelter.”

Sai-em clicked his tongue, unimpressed. He hadn’t bothered to think about how to live during his banishment. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t be a life at all. “And what would be the point of that?”

“So you can one day find Anima Rex and fix all this!”

That made Sai-em freeze. Kitaagi seemed to sense his hesitation and pressed on, his words tripping over themselves in his haste.

“Your venerable grandmother’s birthplace lies close to the ruined empire of those human tyrants to the north. If IWA’s most precious creation truly sleeps somewhere within it, then become strong enough to find it! What else on this plane of reality is powerful enough to allow you to undo your past mistakes?”

Sai-em’s mind whirled with the possibilities. In the eyes of the law he no longer had any clan or family anymore. In the kindly eyes of IWA, there would never be harsh judgment. What more did he have to lose? 

The Behemoth Calling Sword hummed sweetly in his ear. It was nowhere near him, but it sang to him with the volume of a war horn blast. He knew he'd be able to find it blindfolded, that it'd haunt his dreams until it reunited with him. It had drunk his ichor, and granted him sole stewardship over it in return.

Sai-em closed his eyes, lost in the song of the sword. He was deathly afraid of the thing, of the power that crackled within it, far more afraid than he had anticipated when he had first snuck into the Sinner’s Vault guarded so carefully by his clan, still roiling too violently with the pain of failure to consider anything else. Could Anima Rex truly erase what he had done? Could it give him back his family?

"Sai-em?" He heard Kitaagi's voice from very far away, urgent in its impatience. "Are you listening to me, Sai-em? Sai-em!"

"Sai-em?"

He opened his eyes. Nemira blinked at him from the opposite side of the carriage seat.

"The watchman said we're close to the shop," she told him, her voice hoarse. "I'll probably need help getting upstairs."

Sai-em sat up straight, mentally chiding himself for his lapse in focus. "Of course, Kha-hesh. Are you hurt?"

"I've certainly been worse," said Nemira. The air hung between them rather heavily before she added, a little abashed. "I have also been better, I can't deny that."

Injured, but not enough for a hospital visit, he translated in his mind. "You needn't worry, I'll take care of you."

It had been the wrong thing to say. Even in the gloom he could see his master's face twist in disapproval. "I didn't agree to you being my nursemaid."

Sai-em simply raised his eyebrows. "If I were as hurt and weary as you are now, would you not tend to me until I recovered?"

The weighty silence returned. Eventually, Nemira turned away and stared out the cab window. "You've been besting me too many times in conversation tonight, sir knight."

Sai-em sighed. "I gave you the Oath of the Dayam and you accepted it, however reluctantly. As unworthy as I am, let me honor at least some of the tasks expected of me."

"Alright, alright, I understand," Nemira said to the window. The familiar tart prickliness was creeping back into her voice. "And you are not unworthy, Sai-em. Don't talk like that."

How could he not? But he did not argue the point. Riling her up again with another argument would do neither of them any good.

The Sleipner-drawn cab pulled up to the front doors of Books on 8th a few minutes later. He stepped out onto the rain-slicked pavement first, checking up and down the streets for any sign of danger and detecting nothing. The emptiness made the normally energetic street gloomy in its stillness, even with the streetlamps illuminating the area.

He waited patiently for Nemira to slide out of the cab, taking her divine torch to give her an easier time. A cloud of exhaustion clung to her like a second skin, more obvious in the gentle orange light, and she swayed when she stood up like a drunkard back from hopping between one too many bars.

At the front of the cab, the Sleipner pawed at the street with a heavy metal hoof and snorted loudly. The driver sitting on the bench above it turned around and gave them a thumbs up. North Gate Watchmen were technically part of the Supernatural Public Guard, but they were the best of the best in arcane arts and aberrant combat, and wore cuirasses over their gray jumpsuits. Sai-em found them infinitely more tolerable than the ones at the station on Twin Justice Street.

"Thanks for baggin' our guy for us," said the watchman, a woman with a cheerful face and deep brown skin. "Pains me to admit it, but apparently Mister Black knew one of my coworkers enough to bribe him into letting him pass the Gate on the night of the murder. I heard our chief was considering letting the Vale take care of the perp before you Council folks got involved."

Sai-em closed the cab door as Nemira gave the watchman a noncommittal wave of her hand. "It is what I'm here for. We appreciate the ride, officer."

"No problem! You two rest easy now."

The watchman waved her stylus in an easy circle. The Sleipner's ruby red eyes lit up, and off the cab galloped down the street.

Nemira waited until it turned the corner before heaving a long, weary sigh. “What a day…”

She opened the small bag at her waist and rooted around in it. Sai-em watched with private amusement as she stuck her arm in well past the elbow before finally pulling out her ring of keys.

“Here,” said Sai-em, giving her back her torch. He turned and crouched before her, offering his back. “Forgive me for this arrogance, but if you can bear the discomfort of my godfire against you, please get on.”

“Really now?” There was something in her tone that might have been close to laughter rather than protest, a sure sign that she was well and truly out of fight. She leaned on his spine without any hesitation. He stifled a smile and hoisted her up, his arms wrapped around the backs of her knees. Suddenly, 8th Street was no longer empty. Lights in every color imaginable twinkled to life along its length like strange constellations brought down to earth. Many of the ones closer to them formed wispy, strangely shaped creatures both almost-familiar and utterly alien. Dozens of atherians,  revealed to him plainly thanks to the contact he now shared with the sacred body of the Kha-hesh.

Nemira gripped his shoulder with one hand and did her best to hold her torch out of his way with the other, shaking him out of his awed observation. “I’m not too heavy, am I?”

He didn’t know how to say that the warmth and weight of her resting against him was an incredible honor and more than he ever dared to hope for from her, Kha-hesh or not. Instead, he simply murmured, “Of course not,” and carried her back to her shop.