So Casso sits at the mouth of the cavern, framed by a ring of dripping limestone and a backdrop of swaying grass, and tells them how it's going to be. And he does this, somehow, without telling them anything at all.

  He, Tiger, and Panther are arranged in a loose trigon around a low-burning fire—the smell of which is almost enough to blot out the odor of distant Naok Manor. Even several hours removed, still that particular blaze remains faintly visible as an infernal glow amidst the highest treetops above—a striking, startling epitaph for the dead dream of Kainoan independence. War with Shalashar looms heavy on the horizon, after all. There is to be no disorder in the house of Taro Zhon. The fate of Governor Naok will serve as a warning to every one of Vokia's eleven provinces, as well as a ruthless declaration of the new Emperor's authority.

  Nevertheless; Tiger and Panther and Casso, having fled the doomed city just before the Sathai could institute total lockdown, rest together now at the edge of a roadside cave upon a trio of rotting logs. Tiger and Panther sit on one side, shoulder to shoulder, with Casso alone on the other; between, flames lick greedily at a loose assemblage of blackened tinder. Everyone is sitting on their respective coats and cloaks and gnawing hungrily at charred bits of dead animal (courtesy of Panther, a natural-born hunter if ever there was one) and everyone is trying, rather pointedly, to ignore all the shifting shapes and leering eyes of the umbral treeline just beyond.

  The three of them had hardly spoken a word to one another for the entirety of their flight from Kaino, and now here—at the twilight of two very disparate worlds—does it all come pouring out. That is to say a great many questions from Tiger, and scant few answers from Casso in return.

  "Okay..." says Tiger, slowly, once the old man is finished talking. "And what is this payment that we're supposed to be getting for you, exactly?"

  To which Casso just tilts his head back, takes a long swig of his flask, gasps, sighs, sets it aside, wipes his mouth, and then finally replies: "Look, kid. I'll tell you right now not to bother asking. You won't be getting an answer."

  "Why not?"

  "Cuz it's private, that's why."

  And that is the final straw. "Then how—" demands Tiger, storming to his feet, "—in the living fuck are we meant to get it for you?!"

  Casso shrugs his shoulders, in the face of Tiger's sudden choler, and then audibly farts. To which the prince's eyes go even wider with rage, if such a thing were even possible. "Just shut your mouth and do what I tell ya to do," Casso replies, tacking on a final bit of insult. "This is simple stuff."

  "This is mad," Tiger declares, galled beyond belief, now pacing furiously back and forth like a madman in the throes of revelation. A friend of a friend. I am here to fulfill a role. Just stick to the plan. All these words and thoughts bubble like frothy soup in the caldera of the seventh prince's skull. Now he whirls on Casso, and snaps out: "You tried to murder Panther—how are we possibly supposed to take you at your word?"

  "Already told you," Casso grumbles back. "I was testing her."

  "And if I had failed?" Panther cuts in, icily, speaking up for the first time since they arrived. Her words are tinged with obvious resentment; even now Tiger can see several fresh cuts on her face that most certainly did not come from Daiga.

  Casso's eyes flick momentarily to hers. "You'd be dead," he tells her, with not a shred of remorse.

  Panther folds her arms. "That is stupid and arbitrary."

  "That is insane," Tiger chimes in.

  "I'm entitled to stupid and arbitrary," Casso shrugs, for the second time. "That's part of the deal."

  "You're drunk," Tiger scowls, disgusted.

  "Also part of the deal. I don't ever fight sober."

  "Well you aren't fighting now, are you?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "For fuck's sake," Tiger hisses, putting hands over face and turning sharply away. Only to then turn back, with equal vehemence, and snarl: "Stars damn it all, is Ibis even really dead?"

  All oxygen is abruptly stolen away. Panther freezes at those words; not the freeze of the coiled rattlesnake, no, but rather like cervidae ready to bolt. Casso himself just blinks for a moment, in mild surprise, and then spits back: "The fuck are you on about now?"

  "Is Ibis. Even. Dead?" Tiger repeats, with rising venom in each and every word. With days of unspoken, unacknowledged connections and suspicions all building up to this: this thought he did not dare voice aloud. "Certainly it seems that she planned for her own death, or at least knew about it in advance, and then I suppose just forgot to bring either one of us into the loop. Whoops! So, c'mon, Casso—did she really die? Or did she just fake her own death and leave us poor, dumb bastards behind to grieve for her? Is the joke on us, Casso? Huh? C'mon, answer me! Is the joke on us?"

  Panther is a statue: unspeaking, unmoving. Casso is a hunched figure, one painted in flickering strobes of orange and yellow, his eyes hooded beneath the shadow of his own brow. Rough hands with fingers interlaced, idly, around that scuffed-up old flask. He meets no eye. "Our mutual friend is dead," he answers, eventually. "That's a fact."

  Tiger's heart pounds like a drum. "Yeah? How do you know that?"

  "Because Taro Zhon did it. And then he told me about it."

  Silence to follow. The crackling of flame, the not-so-distant rustling of underbrush. The chittering of insects and other, more dangerous, more rancorous things. For a moment, all Tiger can do is give the old man a look—one of exhaustion, of desperation, one totally bereft and bereaved. It is the look of a man marooned. And to that, Casso just stares down at the ground. And then he takes another drink.

  That does it. Tiger has to move. Tiger has to move or he will be forever rooted to this spot. So he turns abruptly away, turns his back on the dead woman's plot and on the old man carrying it with him. Takes two steps—and then he stops at Panther's shoulder and asks, sotto voice, "Can we talk?"

  It is a question for Panther and Casso both. "Go ahead," the latter grunts, whilst Panther just looks up at Tiger—with sudden, startling vulnerability in those slate-grey eyes—and nods her head. And so she stands, subfusc grey cloak falling like evening around her, and so the two of them venture deeper into the throat of the cave. And deeper. Until the firelight is naught but a faintly oscillating glow from around the corner, and all is otherwise is cast in thick and weighted darkness. Until they can barely even see one another.

  Here it is cold, and hollow, and every breath echoes in thousandfold emanations around them. Whisper, and the cavern whispers back. And Tiger whispers, then: "She lied to us."

  And with those words, already is his choler rising once more. His outrage, his sorrow. The strangled and stilted anger that comes in the deepest throes of one's grief. But now Tiger is mourning more than just Ibis; Tiger is mourning for the people he has murdered today, for the Sathai he had split apart with crackling lance. For Toscht, for that strange last look in the sellsword's eyes. And for himself, for his own life stolen away at birth and used, traded, spent oh-so-freely by a father who was not a father and, now, by a woman whom he had tried so desperately not to love.

  "She lied to us," he repeats, in rising voice. The words choked thick with too many emotions to name but rage, yes, rage chief among them. Rage against the storm, the tide, the inevitable. Rage against the marring of his own reality. "She could have warned us. She could have warned you. But she didn't. She wanted us to grieve. She wanted all our sorrow and all our misery as a leash so that she could chain us to this—this plan, this revenge, this conspiracy! Whatever the fuck this even is! I mean—she's already lost, right? She's dead. Casso said so himself. So why throw us headlong into this danger—why risk our lives against the same forces that murdered her? Why would she spend us so callously!?"

  The shadowed figure called Panther does not move, nor does it reply.

  "There's only one logical conclusion to draw," Tiger goes on, his voice sliding precipitously from anger to choking despair, to the unique sort of hopelessness carried by a man whose life has never once existed within the realm of his own control. "Ibis never cared about us. Not you, not me. Nothing and nobody. All she ever cared about was winning. And, in the end, she was such a sore loser that she—" And then abruptly, his voice cuts short, and Tiger finds that he simply has nothing further to say. The echoing whispers continue for a few seconds longer and then they, too, fall to nothingness.

  For a moment, the Panther-shape remains still. And then it shifts; and then a hand emerges from beneath that cloak, and a gray-gloved fist uncurls to reveal a crumpled little scrap of parchment within. "Casso gave me this," she says, in low voice, and she offers it to Tiger with not another word.

  Printed upon that parchment, in neat and tiny and utterly unmistakable script, are the following words:

  PANTHER. YOU ARE STILL

  MY SECRET WEAPON.

  And then Tiger looks up and sees clearly, for the first time, the expression on her face. Sees the tears in her eyes. And realizes, in that moment, that these are tears not of sorrow—but of joy. Of relief. "No..." he whispers aloud. "Panther, you can't—"

  "You're right," she agrees, softly. "Everything you just said. You always are. But still, Tiger. This means Ibis has a plan for me. For us."

  "Panther," Tiger pleads. "Ibis doesn't have any plans at all. Ibis is dead and she is not coming back."

  "But what if she could come back?" Panther hisses, suddenly, with firelight glinting eagerly in those leaden eyes. "What if that's what this plan is for?"

  And this was said with such naked, desperate hope that Tiger could not allow it to stand for even one single second. This was cruel and this was wrong; he simply could not leave it unchallenged. "No," he replies, vehemently—practically snaps, though he is trying very hard not to. "Death is a thing that even Sorcery cannot undo. When a person dies, their Aia—that whole tapestry of choices and outcomes—it unravels."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "But—"

  "Panther, have you heard of Uskimi Hast?"

  "I—" and then she stops herself short. Slows herself down. Admits: "No. I have not."

  "Uskimi Hast is the Fourth Pillar of Shalashar," Tiger explains, very briskly. As though racing to get the words out. "The Prime Sorcerer, they call her, and for very good reason. She understands things about our world and the Other Side that our languages can't even convey. I mean—look, usually, when someone is born with a conduit as wide-open as hers, they just outright perish." Tiger snaps his fingers; with every word he is speaking faster, more urgently. "Gone. Vanished. Ceased to exist. But Uskimi didn't. Uskimi is still here because she rebuilt her own body—yes, like an Equinox Beast—piece by piece, over and over again. As a newborn infant, mind you, and purely on instinct! And she's still doing it today, constantly, even as her own conduit eats her alive. Do you understand the sheer depth of knowledge and skill that I'm talking about here?"

  "Yes," says Panther.

  "Okay," says Tiger. "Now then. My older brother once told me that Uskimi, of all people, has written a will."

  A long pause. The implication sets in. "Oh," says Panther.

  "Exactly," Tiger presses. "If even Uskimi doesn't think that resurrection is possible, then it isn't. End of story. Ibis is really gone, Panther. That is immutable fact. And for you to still be..." he trails off, gestures vaguely, grapples for the right word, "...bound to her like this, it isn't normal or healthy. Or right. Grieve her, sure, but you don't have to serve her."

  "I know," says Panther. And then again, much quieter: "I know."

  "I'm sorry," Tiger blurts at once, suddenly ashamed, his gaze snapping straight down to the ground.

  "But."

  His eyes flick back up.

  "Casso..." Panther trails off, voice as hesitant as Tiger has ever heard from her, "...says that the plan needs both of us to work."

  Tiger opens his mouth to reply.

  "And I don't. Want...to do this alone," Panther mutters, finally.

  Tiger closes his mouth.

  "I know it's selfish," she tells him.

  "You don't have to do this," he tries to tell her back. Whispers, as though it were some terrible secret between them.

  "I do," she replies. "I really do. So, just...stay with me, please. Until it's over."

  Silence like a lead weight upon them. Silence like ten thousand pounds of gravity crushing down, down. Silence like death. That is the cage, right there. The trap. The noose. That is how Ibis wins.

  That is how, once again, Tiger doesn't get to choose. Because he won't abandon her. Not like Ibis did. And that is why all he manages, at the end, is to croak out: "She never even gave us a choice."

  "That's fine," Panther replies, soberly. "I never wanted one."

  There was nothing more to be said, after that. Thus did Panther retreat even deeper into the cavern to relieve herself, whilst Tiger returned to the mouth of the tunnel and found Casso sitting there very much the same as before, still nursing that ancient old flask and still gazing right down into the depths of what were now only a scattered assortment of seething coals. The old man was scanning them so very fastidiously, as though they might possibly have something to tell him. As though some greater meaning or truth might possibly be divined from the patterns within.

  No such revelation was forthcoming.

  Tiger did not sit down, yet. Instead he loomed overtop the old man and folded his arms, and glared for just a few moments before accusing: "You know exactly what it is that you're abetting here."

  "I do," Casso agrees, without looking up.

  "If you have any semblance of a heart—"

  "I don't." Casso turns his head, then, and meets the younger man's eyes with the same dull-muted disinterest as always. A corpse, Tiger realizes, in that moment. Tiger was staring right into the eyes of a corpse.

  "That woman is grieving," Tiger hisses, with finger thrust in the direction from whence he came. "And you're taking advantage of her. Both of you."

  "I'm just doing what our mutual friend told me to do," Casso replies. Giving nothing. Granting nothing. Ibis was always a cipher, to be sure—but her chosen agent was just a void, a hollow and dried-out husk of a human being. Tiger narrows his eyes and thinks, to himself, that it is no wonder Ibis would entrust her mission to a creature such as this. To a man with no heart.

  "I hope you drown in that bottle," Tiger snarls, finally, to which Casso just raises his flask in half-hearted salute.

  "Way ahead of you, kid," the old man chuckles, as Panther comes stalking back into the firelight. "Way ahead of you." Then his eyes flick from him to her, and from her to him, and then back to her once more as Panther takes her seat. "Well?" prompts Casso, to a bitter Tiger and a stone-faced Panther. "You come to a consensus or what?"

  Panther's eyes go to Tiger. He sees the look—and sees the plea hidden within, as well.

  Alas. He won't let her down.

  So Tiger, too, returns to his seat. Spreads his coat back out over his chosen log and then sits, and scoots forward, and warms his palms upon the fire's fading emanations. And he answers, flatly: "We'll do it."

  "Well," Casso grunts, after a moment. "Guess that's the bag we're in."

  "Now can you tell us anything at all about this plan?" Tiger presses at once, still seized by vestigial instinct to attain some small measure of control over his own fate.

  "Nope," Casso replies.

  "Not even our next step?"

  "We're headed north. That's all you need to know."

  And, so. The three of them just sit there, in uneasy solidarity, each now marinating in the all the terrible and tumultuous trials of the day now past. They bask like lizards in every scrape, every bruise, every cut. Every bad memory. Tiger shivers, involuntarily. Casso takes another long drink. And Panther—Panther, in a moment of surreal self-reflection, looks back. Looks out from the mouth of that cave to that pitch-dark and starless sky above. And in that moment she cannot help but think of that ocean she had found, waiting for her—of those unending black waves, of that warm and inviting nihility.

  Of cessation.

  Of surrender.

  And so it is for that reason that she very suddenly stands, drawing the attention of all present, and blurts out: "Baras Toscht." And so it is that she unclips the canteen from her belt, and uncorks it, and holds it aloft for all to see.

  Now, Panther is no orator. Nor is she in any way accustomed to funerals. But she is a woman very much accustomed to death, and so she tries: "His name was Baras Toscht. I knew him for about a week. He wasn't half as funny as he thought he was. He swore by that twin-sword style, which I still think is shit. But it was also a pain in the ass to spar against. So." She pauses. "I don't know." She pauses again. "He was a good person, I think. I hope. He chose to die for our sakes, so..." she trails off. "I hope we were worth it. I don't think that I am. But obviously he did, so." Another pause. "I'm going to try. I guess. I don't—I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this."

  And then she trails off, lost, suddenly unmoored and untethered and very much alone, and so it is Tiger who steps in at the very last to guide her home. "May the stars shine darkly upon his final voyage; may he look up from warm sands and laugh, at the sight of all our sorry faces left behind. Ashcalah. It is ended. Maress. It is endless. Geleth. It is."

  It was a very old Shalasharn hymn for the dead—one that might have appeared a tad cynical, or even mean-spirited, on the surface, but was in fact only ever recited with great reverence and warmth. Those sacred words were older than the language in which Tiger now spoke.

  I remember, still, the dark day upon which they were first spoken.

  I remember what happened after, too.

  Thus do the old words in the young man's mouth strike true. Panther tilts her canteen; a thin trickle of water issues forth, in salute to the sellsword who had very briefly been her friend. The coals, too, hiss loudly in tribute.

  And then Casso bluntly interjects: "Who are we talking about here? Guy who went out the window?"

  Tiger looks up; Panther outright glares, with intensity sufficient to boil stone. "That's the one," she answers, that one word as pointed and poison-tipped as any of the Empty Man's daggers.

  "He was Governor Naok's bodyguard," Tiger adds softly, as he once more dons his coat and draws it tight around his shoulders. The fire has faded now to almost nonexistence. "And something like a friend to us, I suppose. Or an ally. If such a thing were ever even possible."

  "Ah," says Casso, with what almost seems to be genuine interest. And then: "Did he tell you to cut through the kitchen?"

  Panther goes still. So still she might very well have been outright dead; Tiger, having long ago learned to read her usually-glacial changes in mood, looks back with genuine alarm as the bodyguard's eyes narrow to slits. "What did you say?" she demands, very much like a threat.

  "Was Baras Toscht the one who told you to cut through the kitchen?" Casso repeats, unfazed as ever. "Because if he did, then he was one of us, and he was just following his script. His role was to send you to that kitchen. To me." He tilts his head back, takes another swig. Concludes, after a moment, "To your death."

  Panther was livid. Panther was barely keeping still, her expression locked down to the tightest possible mask of control. "You didn't know him," she says, and her voice is like iron when she does.

  "Exactly," says Casso. "None of us did."

  Silence. The anger in the air is palpable.

  "Look," Casso says, finally. Meeting nobody's eyes. Talking directly to that pile of coals. "I don't like the idea of mourning someone you didn't know. Doesn't sit right with me. So lemme be as clear as I possibly can." Now he does look up; now does he fix both of them with the laser-focused stare that each had witnessed only in the very heart of battle. For a moment, Casso Vos is—indisputably—stone-cold sober.

  "This thing is big," Casso tells them. "Bigger than you could ever imagine. Just like everyone else, I don't know any faces or names. I've only got a few pieces of the puzzle to work with. But I've also got more than most, and I think I can almost glimpse the shape of the thing. And it is...fuck me, it's everywhere. Listen to me right now, the both of you. Look at me. Listen. If you remember nothing else, remember this: so far, everything—yes, everything—has gone exactly according to plan. Both of you look me in the eye. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Do you understand the implications of what I just said?"

  "Yes," Tiger sighs.

  "Yeah," Panther growls.

  "Well then," Casso says, "there you have it. If I'd known the man, I wouldn't have trusted him, and that's why I ain't gonna mourn him either. Simple as that." And then he leans back, and takes one more swig, and says nothing more.

  Until Tiger asks, quietly, into that melancholy silence to follow: "If we don't, then who will?"

  For a moment, Casso doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't even blink. For a moment, Casso looks a thousand years old.

  And then he just concedes, "Fair 'nuff," and rises to his feet, and pours out a bit of his flask. The flames spark briefly in approval; when Tiger empties his own canteen in final salute, they hiss smoky displeasure once more.

  And so, after a long moment, do the four of them return to their seats. One by one do the four of them gather close around that fading fire in grim, weary commiseration. And thus do the four of them sit in total silence until Tiger remarks, mostly to himself, "Stars above, what a shitty day."

  And then the three of them realize.

  Three heads snap up in wild alarm; the fourth, by contrast, rises with all the slow and smooth liquidity of pyroclastic flow. Golden eyes simmer in the shadows of a wide-brimmed black hat; one long-fingered hand reaches up, and tips said hat in greeting.

  "I disagree, Tiger," says The Eye, with an ersatz smile spreading wide across his face. "I disagree."

  End Credits Theme