[First Era – Year 5 of the Divinity War; Quelth, south of Okorn]

  Moraithe stepped nearer to the blinding entanglement. From the planet nearest the First Star, its brilliant light came pouring through, searing his skin, his senses overwhelmed by its intensity. His eyes watered, squinting against the blaze that seemed to exist outside time and space. His body burned, every inch of him tingling with a heat that pierced his skin.

  Behind him, the camp was alive with soldiers preparing for the upcoming battle. The clatter of armor and the tense hum of whispered conversations hung in the air. The men were anxious, as they should be.

  With a steady breath, he held his focus. His sword rose, fluidly slicing through the air, crashing with thunderous force into the boulder before him. The strike sent shards of stone flying, but his movements were deliberate, controlled.

  No entanglements. He wasn’t training his strength, rather the speed of each cut, the precision of his movements—bouncing the broken shards between strikes as many times as he could, like a child’s game. Each slash, each parry, fell into place like a perfect piece of a puzzle, the light of the First Star amplifying his growth tenfold. His body moved like liquid, flowing from one action to the next, barely feeling the weariness that should have accompanied such intensity.

  But his training was not only of the body.

  Moraithe’s focus narrowed inward. The heat of the First Star burned through him, but he didn’t shy away from it. Instead, he embraced it. He let it sear through his flesh, into the depths of his soul. With every wave of scorching light, he found himself peeling away layers—layers of doubt, of false beliefs, of the lies he’d held deep inside. Each a stubborn ember, smoldering within him.

  He traced them, one by one, each foolish word or deed to a lie, each lie to the root misbelief, every false belief laid bare in that pure light. He didn’t fight the judgment of the light. Instead, he surrendered, letting the light burn the lies away until only truth remained. Examining himself to the core, he wrenched out every falsehood, holding it up to the light to burn away. The light licked at the edges of his soul, cleansing him, purging the rot from the inside out.

  Each moment felt eternal, but the pain was a means to an end. A necessary process. And through the light, through the heat, Moraithe was forged—body and soul.

  “Moraithe!”

  The shout came from behind him, and he didn't need to turn to know who it was. The familiar, booming voice of Rurn, his friend and comrade. Moraithe could already hear the distinctive cheer in his tone, even before the man reached him.

  Rurn appeared at his side, a mountain of a man with a thick, magnificent mustache sculpted into the shapes of two wild clottermounts running opposite directions, and a beard that curled into the form of a burning land. His armor was polished, and the large grin on his face was unmistakable, even in the dimming light.

  Rurn clapped him on the back. “You will get enough practice tonight. Why train before the battle? Better to reserve your energy.”

  “I’m not strong enough. We’re not strong enough. Did you see what we’re facing? Three generals, and a lord. And we’ve got … what? Five knights and a general?” Moraithe clenched his sword. “I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not enough.”

  “You’re right. It’s definitely not enough!” Rurn’s voice carried, loud and clear, despite the twilight hour. “But we are the best outfitted army in the whole blasted universe, aren’t we? All thanks to you.”

  Moraithe didn’t reply at first, his gaze still locked on the horizon, his expression tight. It wasn’t that Rurn’s words didn’t carry weight; it was just that, for all their fine armor, all their expensive weapons, it felt like it wasn’t enough to face what lay ahead.

  Rurn, seeing his silence, clapped him on the back hard enough to shake him out of his thoughts.

  “Come on! Don’t start that again,” Rurn continued, his voice growing louder, even more enthusiastic. “Yeah, yeah, you crashed the economy at first by handing out gratitude like drink at a feast. Sure, maybe you nearly burned the whole market to the ground, but look at us now! We’ve got the armor, we’ve got the weapons—we’re vested out!”

  Moraithe finally turned to look at him and his magnificent mustache, forcing a smile but feeling the weight of Rurn’s words pressing on him. His fingers tightened around his arms. The cold breeze, which should have felt refreshing, only seemed to make his skin feel more brittle.

  “If 'vested out' means 'on the verge of a war economy collapse,' then sure,” Moraithe muttered. “Let’s call it that.” He paused, looking down at his boots for a moment before lifting his gaze to meet Rurn’s magnificent mustache. “But I gave them gratitude directly. Handed it out, no strings attached. I thought it would be enough. I thought it was the right thing to do. But it just—it backfired.”

  Rurn’s grin faltered slightly, but his voice remained boisterous. “People will find ways to play the system. They always do.” He shrugged, his tone softer now, at least softer than his constant shout, but still carrying that heavy optimism. “You didn’t know that. But now? Now we’re covered, we’re ready. And that matters more than the economy, or all those grifters out there.”

  Moraithe’s eyes dropped to the ground, the weight of what had happened still gnawing at him. “I thought soldiers stood for something. I expected heroes, not liars. I thought I could help them. I thought they’d be grateful, they’d want to be better. But greed … greed was still there, even among the ones who were supposed to be honest. Do you know how many people took credit, claiming they were the ones to supply the army? All for a trickle of gratitude in their souls.”

  Rurn didn’t speak for a moment. Instead, he leaned against the nearest tent pole, watching Moraithe, letting the silence stretch between them. The flickering of the campfires made both of the figures of his mustache seem like they were galloping in the twilight.

  “Do you know how many people claimed they didn’t get my gifts? I’ve learned to keep better records now. Every transaction, every gift, every deed … documented. It’s the only way I can keep track of the ones who are truly deserving. Even then … I still find myself second-guessing. Some of the ones I thought were true-hearted are just as greedy as the Severed. I swear they’re fighting with us only because they haven’t figured out how to join the Severed yet.”

  “You’re not the only one who thought it’d be different,” Rurn finally said. “You can’t change the way the world works overnight, especially not that way. Some of the men, they’re not as noble as they seem, but others? They’re good. They’re good men, Moraithe. And they’re with us. That matters. More than anything. And we can’t fight this battle with trust in just the few men who are clean and true. We’re all putting our lives on the line here. You can trust that.”

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  Moraithe nodded, though the weight of his doubts hadn’t lifted. “We don’t know what holds their hearts. But they’ll fight for what they can get, for the promise of gratitude. And I want …” His jaw clenched, his eyes hardening. “I want to help. No one should have to stand alone against the Severed. They’re powerful, ruthless, cunning. And we? We’re … what? We're playing at being an army. With some shiny swords and armor. But we don’t have the power.”

  Rurn scoffed, a deep, booming laugh that seemed to shake the very air around them. “You think that is all it takes to win? Power? The Severed have their generals and lords, sure. But they’ve also got pride. And pride doesn’t win battles, Moraithe. Pride makes you foolhardy. They’ll be overconfident, overextended. And us? We’ll fight smart, united.”

  Moraithe finally turned, fully facing Rurn now. He could see the fierce confidence in Rurn’s eyes, that unshakable belief in their comrades. It wasn’t the same kind of blind certainty Moraithe had once held—this was something born of experience.

  “You make it sound so easy,” Moraithe muttered, but his voice softened as he found a flicker of hope.

  “It’s not easy,” Rurn said, his voice lowering, more earnest now. “But you’ve taught us, every one of us, that there are people worth fighting for. And that’s more than gratitude, my friend. That’s more than any armor, any sword. That’s the heart of a true soldier.”

  Moraithe’s eyes flickered with something akin to resolve, and he took a deep breath. The weight of the coming battle still pressed down on him, but for the first time since he’d arrived in this camp, he could feel the faintest thread of possibility unraveling before him. He wasn’t alone. He never had been.

  “Alright,” he said quietly, the corners of his mouth lifting. “We are brothers. We fight for each other.”

  Rurn threw an arm around his shoulder, laughing again, loud and reckless. “That’s the spirit! Now get some rest, you’re gonna need it. We’ve got a battle to win.”

  The light from the campfires flickered in the distance as twilight deepened, a soft orange hue spilling across the valley as the distant mountain ridges turned purple in the fading light. The air was thick with the scent of iron, sweat, and the crackling of a hundred campfires.

  The army moved in preparation, the rustling of armor and weapons the only sound that filled the space around them. Moraithe stood for a moment longer, his thoughts a swirl of uncertainties and determination, before he turned and followed Rurn toward the heart of the camp, where the men gathered in quiet anticipation of the coming clash.

  He stood at the edge of the encampment, staring into the distance, his arms folded tight across his chest. His eyes were fixed on the line of dark trees that bordered the battlefield. Beyond them, he knew, the Severed were gathering.

  Three generals and a lord. It felt like an insurmountable force—one that could swallow them whole before the first arrow was even fired. His comrades were strong, but not strong enough. Not by far. And he was tired. Tired of trying to fight his own doubts.

  As the Severed army emerged from the woods surrounding the dark figure of the Severed Lord, he knew they could not win against such a foe. They had only one chance, Moraithe decided. “I’m going to take him.”

  “What?” Rurn asked, readying his weapon.

  Moraithe’s eyes burned with determination. “The Severed Lord.”

  “Are you crazy? He’s three ranks above you. That’s suicide.”

  But Moraithe ignored the words, fixing his eyes—beyond the ranks that separated them—on his target.

  With a great roar, the Severed charged.

  The air hummed with the sound of battle—steel clashing, fire crackling, and the scream of distant warriors. Moraithe’s heart beat steadily, every pulse echoing the chaos around him. He had trained for this, prepared for the chaos of war, but now it was his turn to test everything.

  Elithir had sent him here, not to lead, not to command, but to learn what true battle was like. To move, to act, and to adapt.

  Ahead of him, the Severed commander stood tall and imposing—an amalgamation of the dead, an ever-shifting form that pulsed with dark power. Moraithe’s goal was simple—reach the Severed Lord. But between him and the enemy commander lay a whole battlefield—an obstacle course of weapons and entanglements, each one forged with a soul's essence bound to the objects or elements around them.

  Moraithe narrowed his focus. He wasn’t afraid of the tumult around him. He would weave through it just like the mithsyrium had taught him. He had trained for this, to navigate through chaos.

  A burst of flame erupted from his right, a fiery projectile hurled by one of the Severed’s traitors. The fireball surged through the air, trailing embers in its wake, heading straight for his chest. This wasn’t a bolt of anger, this was actual fire—an entanglement bound to some infinite well of flames. The fire surged forth, fast and ferocious, streaking across the battlefield straight at Moraithe.

  Moraithe didn’t flinch. Instead, he reached for a runic key he’d placed upon a frozen mountain he had once climbed. The connection was effortless, natural. His breath entangled with the cold of the stone he had once felt beneath his fingers. As the fire neared, Moraithe exhaled sharply, directing the coldness of the mountain into the path of the flame.

  The fire faltered as it collided with the bone-chilling air and hardened to stone. In an instant, the flame froze mid-air, turning into a harmless shard of ice that dropped to the ground with a soft crack.

  Every entanglement had a source. To counter entanglements took more than mere instinct; it required mastery over his soul.

  The battle raged all around Moraithe, a cacophony of fire, bolts of anger, waves of fear, and the clash of steel. Chaos was a familiar companion to him, he had been trained within its very domain. But this wasn’t mere chaos. This was battle—real and unforgiving—not of unthinking forces, but of those who sought his death.

  He continued weaving toward the Severed commander.

  Ahead, he saw a line of Severed, some drinking vials, their bodies swelling and undulating with strange new powers. Others were hurling vials into the air—each vial leaving behind a swirl of glittering mist that filled the air like a thick fog. These were the soul venoms he’d been warned about. It was the very reason the Severed consumed objects of historical value. Somehow they took the essence of that history, distilling it into raw power, strange power.

  A vial smashed at his feet, waking the memory of a long-dead soldier of tremendous power. The mist wasn’t just smoke; it carried the emotions, the memories, and the rage of some long-forgotten battle.

  The spectral figure of a baron appeared from the mist, its form flickering in the haze, sword raised and ready to strike. The baron’s sword struck him with a blast like an earthquake as Moraithe raised his gratitude to block it. Though the sound of the clash blasted across the battlefield, his gratitude held strong.

  Thankfully, he had been the one to take that blow, he doubted many of his comrades would have been left standing or in one piece after such a strike.

  Moraithe raised his arm to the mist entangling his own emotions into it, the bond he shared with his comrades in this battle, a spirit of mutual trust. The ethereal form of the baron flickered, confused by the disruption. It faltered for just a moment, as its memories were shifted by the foreign bond, rendering it momentarily harmless.

  The phantom faded, dissolving into the mist, its purpose undone.

  Moraithe kept moving, weaving between the clashing forces, arrows and bolts of anger pinging off of his gratitude. Suddenly, a heaviness permeated the air.

  Several traitors who had allied with the Severed were preparing a massive entanglement to draw upon the unused anger of all the nearby soldiers. Their hands raised to the sky, weaving invisible strings between their souls and the collective anger of the battlefield. It was designed to siphon anger from the soldiers around them, turning it into an unstoppable attack.

  Moraithe could feel it already—the drain of his anger, his motivation, the weak force of apathy beginning to tug at his soul. The battlefield’s rage was feeding the entanglement, and soon it would overwhelm them all.

  But Moraithe was no stranger to this kind of dark energy.

  With a single step forward, he raised both hands. Reaching out with a tendril of his gratitude, he plugged the siphon. As the traitors struggled to pull at the anger that was now out of reach, blocked by his gratitude, they became frantic, entropy spilling over the containment of their minds. They fell frothing to the earth, one spontaneously burst into flames from the chaos sickness.

  The entanglement faltered, its anger siphon sputtering and exploding with the force of all the stolen anger, like a storm unleashed among the Severed, striking them down.