The chains were a cold, hard fact. They ran from the cuffs on his wrists to a heavy belt locked around his waist, keeping his hands tethered. Every step through the damp mist of the Verdant Maze was a chafing reminder of his new reality. He was a tool, a living compass for the Regalis patrol, and they had no intention of letting him forget it. The air was thick with the smell of wet moss and decay, a familiar scent that now felt alien, stripped of the sweet, numbing haze of nectar.
His job was to guide them east, back along the path of the blight. Anastasya Orlova, the Regalis officer in command, walked just behind him and to his left, her Crystalline Myxoid Armor pulsing with a sterile blue light that seemed to push the natural greens of the forest away. Her second, Dmitri Volkov, took up the rear, his steps as measured and pragmatic as the man himself. They moved in a tight, triangular formation, a rigid piece of geometry imposed on a world that had no straight lines.
Lauri stopped. He held up a chained hand, the motion stiff. The patrol halted instantly, their discipline absolute.
— Problem, Silvanus? — Anastasya’s voice was flat, devoid of curiosity.
Ahead, the ground looked no different from the rest of the forest floor, a carpet of damp, brown leaves and dark soil. But to Lauri’s recovering senses, it was a void. The low, constant hum of life, the song of roots and mycelial networks that was the forest’s true voice, went silent in that patch. It was a wound in the world.
— The ground is dead there. It will not hold your weight, — Lauri said, his own voice raspy from disuse.
— My maps show this area is stable, — Anastasya said, her expression a mask of skepticism. Her own senses, and the simple sensors in her armor, told her nothing. It was just ground.
Lauri almost laughed. He felt the hollow weight of the empty Nectar Flask at his belt, a constant, dull ache. — Your maps are dead paper. The forest changes.
Dmitri Volkov stepped forward. Without a word to his commander, he picked up a stone the size of his fist and tossed it underhand. It landed on the patch of leaves with a soft thud and then simply vanished, swallowed by the ground without a ripple or splash. A pocket of utter silence followed. Dmitri looked at Anastasya and gave a single, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
The officer’s jaw tightened. She had been forced to trust the word of a degenerate over the data of the Chancellery of Forms, and the degenerate had been right. The price was a sliver of her certainty, and it was a cost she clearly hated to pay.
— Find a way around, — she ordered, her voice clipped.
As they began to move again, skirting the edge of the dead ground, Lauri couldn’t resist. — Your straight lines can’t contain a living world, Officer. It has curves. It has appetites. You try to cage it, and it will just swallow your cage.
He expected a sharp rebuke, a threat. Instead, her reply was as cold and polished as her armor. — Your freedom is just a prettier name for decay. You dance with chaos and call it harmony. Look at yourself. You are the perfect product of your philosophy: broken, shaking, and reeking of rot.
The words hit like stones, sharp and heavy with truth. He had no defense against them. He felt the tremor in his hands, the low-grade vibration of a body screaming for a poison it had mistaken for food. He was broken. But he was also the only reason they were still alive. It was a bitter, ugly paradox. He glanced back. Dmitri was making a notation on a small Data-Slate, his stylus moving with swift efficiency. He wasn’t recording the argument. He was logging the avoided hazard. The pragmatist.
The forest grew denser. The mist thickened, clinging to their armor and fur, muffling sound. The navigation difficulty was high here, an eight out of ten by the old warden standards. Paths braided and unbraided, and ancient trees formed walls that would take a cartographer a lifetime to map.
— We should disperse. A tighter group is a louder one. We move quieter, faster, if we spread into a loose weave, — Lauri suggested, his voice low.
— Negative. We maintain formation. It provides a 360-degree field of fire and optimal defensive integrity. That is not negotiable, — was Anastasya’s immediate reply.
She was taking back control, reasserting the doctrine he had just proven flawed. He was the guide, but she was the commander. It was a grudging, functional dynamic, a machine being steered by a ghost. He fell silent, accepting the compromise. He would choose the path, but she would choose how they walked it.
An hour later, the mist coalesced into a true fog bank. Visibility dropped to less than two meters. The world became a wall of swirling grey. The blue light of their armor reflected back at them, creating a disorienting halo that made things worse. The Regalis were blind. Their technology, their maps, their rigid formations—all of it was useless.
— We are blind, Officer, — Dmitri stated, his voice tight with concern.
— Hold position, — Anastasya commanded, her own voice betraying a sliver of uncertainty for the first time.
Lauri closed his eyes. The visual noise was a distraction. He let his other senses expand into the grey. He focused on the sound of water dripping from the high branches, listening to the subtle acoustic differences as the drops hit specific types of leaves—the broad, soft patter on a sun-leaf, the sharper tick against the waxy surface of an ironwood. He felt the subtle shifts in air pressure as the fog moved between the massive trunks of the ancient trees. The forest was still singing, but now he was listening to its breath, not its voice.
— This way. Follow the sound of my chains, — he said, turning slightly to the left.
He began to walk, a slow, deliberate pace. He was no longer just a guide; he was their eyes. He led them through the suffocating whiteness, a chained Silvanus leading three armored soldiers who had to place their absolute trust in the senses of a man they despised. He could feel Anastasya’s presence behind him, her tension a palpable thing in the damp air. She was following. She was trusting him. The thought brought him no triumph, only a grim, weary satisfaction.
For what felt like an eternity, there was only the grey, the drip of water, and the soft clink of his chains. Then, as abruptly as they had entered it, they walked out of the fog.
They stood on a ridge overlooking a shallow valley. The fog lay behind them like a solid wall of cotton. The path ahead was clear. Dmitri immediately consulted his slate, his brow furrowed in concentration.
— Officer, — he said, his voice holding a note of disbelief. — We are three klicks ahead of schedule. Our progress is 15% ahead of the most optimistic projection.
Anastasya said nothing. She looked at the valley, then back at the fog bank, then at Lauri. He was leaning against a tree, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The concentration had cost him, draining what little energy he had. His hands were shaking again, the tremor more pronounced. He met her gaze, his own eyes clear and defiant.
She gave a single, sharp nod. It was not praise. It was not thanks. It was an acknowledgment. A concession. A microscopic shift in the balance of their world. He was no longer just an asset. He was a necessity.
The air in the valley was cleaner, the scent of pine sharp and fresh. The ground was soft with fallen needles.
