The journey through the blighted forest was a journey through a dead lung. For two days, they had moved through a world bled of all color, guided by the low, discordant hum of the Orphic Compass in Sineus’s saddlebag. The trees were grey and brittle, their branches like the bones of starved animals. They snapped with no wind. The ground was a fine, pale dust that looked like ash but felt cold as grave dirt, muffling their footsteps in an unnatural quiet. No birds sang. No insects droned. There was only the crunch of their boots and the thrum of the black sphere, a vibration that promised they were getting closer to the void.
Alessandro moved with a hunter’s economy, his eyes constantly scanning the skeletal woods. The sharp, chemical smell of ozone clung to his leather apron, a strange and alien scent in this dead place. He paused, holding up a hand. Sineus stopped beside him, his own hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The silence pressed in, a tangible weight. It was not an absence of sound, but the presence of a profound and hungry quiet.
— We’re being watched, — Alessandro whispered, his Italian accent turning the words to sharp-edged stones.
Sineus did not need his companion’s warning. He could feel it. A shift in the script of the world. A new set of threads, pulled taut. He scanned the ridge to their left. Nothing but grey trunks and pale dust. But the feeling was undeniable. A predator’s focus. He had felt it a hundred times in the ballrooms of the Winter Palace, the silent regard of a rival or a spy. This was different. This was not the gaze of an intriguer. It was the gaze of a wolf.
Then he saw them. Five shapes, detaching themselves from the grey landscape. They wore the dark green greatcoats of the Lodge’s enforcers, their movements a fluid, disciplined dance of encirclement. They were not rushing. They were simply closing a net. At their head was a tall man with a jagged scar that ran from his left temple to his jaw. Even at a hundred meters, Sineus recognized the cold, relentless purpose in his posture.
— Kurov, — Sineus said, the name a block of ice in his throat.
— A friend of yours? — Alessandro asked, his hand moving to the strange, brass-fitted pistol at his belt.
— The Lodge’s hound, — Sineus answered. — Their best hunter. He was sent to bring me back. Or to put me down.
Janusz Kurov raised a hand, and his men froze, rifles held at a low ready. He was giving them a chance to surrender. It was the only courtesy he would offer. The air grew thick with unspoken threat. A single, severed thread of a spider’s web, torn from its anchor, drifted between two dead branches, a fragile, useless thing.
— I don’t like our chances, — Alessandro muttered, his eyes darting from Kurov’s men to the dense woods behind them. — Five of them. Two of us.
— The odds are not in our favor, — Sineus agreed, his mind racing. Kurov would not be reasoned with. He was an instrument of the Duma’s will, as single-minded as a headsman’s axe. To fight was suicide. To surrender was to end his mission. That left only one option.
— Run, — Sineus said.
They broke from the path, plunging into the thickest part of the skeletal forest. A sharp crack echoed behind them. Not a rifle shot. A signal. The hunt had begun. They ran, the cold dust kicking up around their boots. Branches, brittle as old bone, clawed at their coats. Alessandro cursed in a low, steady stream, his breath pluming in the cold air. They vaulted a petrified log, its bark peeling away in grey sheets. The sounds of pursuit were faint but steady. Kurov’s men were not sprinters; they were trackers, relentless and patient. They would wear them down.
They ran for what felt like an hour, their lungs burning with the cold, dead air. The forest thinned, opening onto a narrow track that cut through the blighted landscape. A road. A chance for speed. They stumbled onto it, gasping for breath.
And froze.
Ahead of them, not two hundred meters down the track, was another patrol. Ten men. Their uniforms were the dull, familiar blue of the French army. They marched in a tight formation, bayonets fixed, their faces grim and hard. They had not seen them yet.
Sineus felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. Kurov was behind them. The French were in front of them. They were caught between the two closing jaws of a vise. The grey, overcast sky seemed to press down, the lid on a box with no escape.
— Out of the fire, — Alessandro breathed, his voice tight with disbelief. He drew his pistol, the metallic click loud in the silence. — And into the forge. Which one, aristocrat?
It was not a choice. It was a triage. They could not fight both. They could not outrun both. Sineus looked at the French patrol, then back in the direction of Kurov’s unseen hunters. The Lodge would not be fooled. Kurov would not be stopped by a trick. But the French… they were soldiers, operating on orders and training. Their reality was simpler. More fragile.
— The French, — Sineus said, his voice low and urgent. The price of his choice was a terrible risk: he had to trust this cynical Italian to protect him while he was defenseless. — I can stop them. Buy me a moment. Cover our retreat.
Alessandro stared at him, his dark eyes wide with a mix of alarm and morbid curiosity. — Stop them? How?
— Just be ready to run, — Sineus said. He did not wait for an answer. He closed his eyes.
The world of grey dust and blue uniforms vanished. The sound of Alessandro’s ragged breathing faded. Sineus let it all go, sinking into the current of the world’s true script. He reached out with his mind, his senses expanding beyond his body. He saw the luminous threads of memory that made up the forest, the road, the men. He ignored the dark green threads of Kurov’s approaching squad. He focused on the knot of blue up ahead.
He found the patrol leader, a sergeant with a thick mustache and a memory-script bright with the simple duties of his day. Sineus ignored the man’s history, his name, his family. He searched for the most recent, most fragile thread: the memory of the path they were walking. It was a thin, shimmering line of light, barely five minutes old, detailing the turns and contours of the track they had just followed.
It was a simple, functional memory. Easy to isolate. Easy to cut.
Sineus focused his will into a single point of cold, sharp intent. He grasped the shimmering thread. For a fraction of a second, he felt the sergeant’s simple confidence, the certainty of his direction. Then, with a thought, he severed it.
The thread snapped.
It was an invisible act, silent and clean. But to Sineus, it felt like a physical blow. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and a sharp pain lanced behind his eyes. He stumbled, his eyes flying open. The grey world rushed back in, stark and cold.
Alessandro grabbed his arm, steadying him. — What did you do?
Sineus looked down the track. The French sergeant had stopped dead. He was looking around, his face a mask of sudden, profound confusion. He looked at the road behind him, then at the road ahead, as if he had just been dropped there from the sky. He turned to his men, his mouth opening and closing. The patrol faltered, their disciplined line breaking as they looked to their leader for an order that would not come. Their command integrity had shattered.
— Now, — Sineus gasped, the world still swimming at the edges of his vision.
They didn't need another word. They plunged back into the forest, leaving the confused French patrol behind them on the road. From the woods behind them, a sharp whistle cut through the air—Kurov, realizing his prey had changed direction. But it was too late. The moment of confusion Sineus had bought was all they needed. They ran, their feet finding purchase on the dead earth, the shouts of two different languages fading behind them.
They ran until the shouts were gone, until the only sound was the rasp of their own breathing and the pounding of their own hearts. They finally collapsed in a deep thicket of grey, thorned bushes, hidden from view. Sineus leaned against the trunk of a dead tree, his head spinning. The pain behind his eyes was a dull, steady throb.
He had done it. He had used his ability not as a tool of sterile excision in a quiet palace, but as a weapon in a desperate scramble for survival. He had severed a man’s memory of his own path, turning his mind into a cage. The act felt dirtier. More real.
Alessandro slumped down beside him, his pistol still in his hand. He looked at Sineus, his chest heaving. The anger was gone from his eyes. The suspicion was gone. In its place was a look of profound, unnerving awe.
— You cut him, — Alessandro said, his voice a hoarse whisper. — From two hundred meters away. You just… reached into his head and cut him.
Sineus said nothing. He closed his eyes, the image of the snapping memory-thread burning in his mind. He was a rogue agent. A traitor. Hunted by his own kind and by the enemies of his empire. He had no allies, no resources, no sanctuary. There was only this man beside him, a man who hated everything he had once stood for. There was only the cold, heavy weight of the Orphic Compass and the knowledge that he was fighting a war against the unmaking of the world.
This was his new life. There was no Lodge to report to. There was no mentor to guide him. There was no honor, only survival. The sense of security he had lived with his entire life was gone, another severed thread cast into the void.
The grey light filtered down through the dead branches. A single drop of cold rain traced a path down a pale, smooth stone.
Their path led to the camps of the forgotten.
