The Trade

"All oaths are brittle. They are bonds of honor made in times of peace. In the face of annihilation, they are the first things to break." —Meditations on the Fall of Ora

The Trade

Trio- The Road to Seda

The world compressed to the ten feet of mud-caked road separating the four of them. The roar of the distant, burning city and the rising panic of the refugee tide became a dull, meaningless sound, a backdrop to the single, sharp point of Gaidan’s sword at Aga’s throat.

The steel was cold. Aga did not flinch. He did not break eye contact with Faren.

"He's lying, Faren!" Gaidan’s voice was a low, commanding snarl. "He’ll be gone the second those cuffs are off. He’s a wild thing. You know what he is."

Faren’s gaze was a frantic, oscillating pendulum, swinging from Gaidan’s rigid, furious face to the pillar of smoke that represented his family, and back to Aga’s unnervingly calm stare. He was hyperventilating, his breaths coming in short, choked sobs.

"My family..." he whispered again, the words dissolving into a plea.

"Your family is dead if you abandon your post." Gaidan repeated, jabbing his sword a fraction closer to Aga's skin. "Your duty is to me. To the Institute. Step back. That is an order."

"He's right, Faren," Elara said, her voice sharp and brittle.

Gaidan glanced at her, a flicker of approval in his eyes.

"Gaidan's assessment is flawed," she continued, her voice gaining a cold, analytical speed. "His 'order' is strategically inept. 'Falling back' leaves us exposed on an open road with a tide of panicked, uncontrolled civilians. It's a bottleneck. The city, while chaotic, provides defensible structures. Regrouping at the Institute ought to be our primary, defensible objective."

Gaidan stared at her, dumbfounded. "Elara… my objective is to secure the asset."

"The asset is irrelevant if we are overrun, Sergeant!" she snapped. "Look at him!" She pointed not at Aga, but at Faren. "He's useless. He's compromised. He'll be a liability. No offense."

Aga’s eyes narrowed. He saw the opening.

"He wants to find his family, Elara," Aga said, his voice a low, reasonable rumble, as if Gaidan wasn't even there. "I want to find the man who did this - and that man, who caused all this destruction... is still within your city walls. You want to get to your Institute. We all want the same thing. The only person trying to stop us is the man with the sword."

"He's manipulating you!" Gaidan roared.

"Is he?" Elara shot back. She looked at Aga, her eyes stripped of her curiosity, now replaced by a cold, pragmatic calculus. "Can you get us through that?" She pointed to the oncoming river of refugees.

"I can," Aga said. "I can sense the threats. I can see the paths you won't. But not like this." He held up his bound wrists.

The trade was no longer just for Faren. It was for Elara.

"Faren," Elara said, her voice now the command. "Make the choice."

"No!" Gaidan took a step, leveling his sword. "Faren, I will stop you. Do not test me."

Faren looked at the sword. He looked at the smoke. He looked at Aga’s steady, waiting eyes. His sobbing stopped. A strange, terrifying clarity seemed to settle over him. He had no good choices. He had only one.

"I'm sorry, Sergeant," Faren whispered. His hand shot into his pocket, fumbling with the key.

"Faren, no!"

Gaidan lunged, not at Faren, but at Aga, his intent clear: kill the prisoner before he could be freed.

Elara was faster. She didn't fire a speck of Ether. She simply raised her Etheric cannon and slammed the heavy, metal-and-crystal butt of the weapon into Gaidan's sword wrist.The sound was a sickening, wet crack.

Gaidan bellowed in pain, his sword spinning from numb fingers, clattering onto the road. He staggered back, clutching his shattered wrist, his face a mask of white-hot agony and disbelief.

"You..." he spat at her, his voice choked. "You... traitor..."

"I'm a pragmatist," Elara said, her voice trembling but cold. Her weapon was now aimed squarely at Gaidan's chest. "And you were impeding the mission. Faren. Now."

Faren didn't hesitate. He jammed the key into the silver lock on Aga's right wrist.

The click of the mechanism was the loudest sound in the world.

And to Aga, the world exploded.

As the silver dampener fell away, and the thrumming, vibrant, chaotic symphony of the world, a sound Aga hadn't even realized he'd lost, rushed back into him with the force of a tidal wave. He felt the panic of the crowd as a physical, vibrating heat. He felt the thrum of the burning city, a deep, agonizing wound in the earth. He felt the cold, hard ambition of Elara, the shivering, guilty terror of Faren, and the white-hot spike of Gaidan's pain.

And he felt it.

That same elusive scent - the very Wards of his mother had used to keep him skulking about the Maw for days. It was no longer a faint thread. It was a beacon, a pulsating, cold, and hungry darkness somewhere in the heart of the smoke.

He tore the second restraint from his other wrist, the silver metal now feeling painfully cold, a dead thing. He rolled his shoulders, feeling his own power, the connection to the Maw, thrumming angrily beneath his skin. He was whole again.

"You're... you're free," Faren stammered, taking a step back.

Aga looked at him, his eyes now alive with light. Then he looked at Elara, who still had her weapon trained on Gaidan.

"The trade is made," Aga said. He bent and scooped up Gaidan's fallen longsword, testing its weight. It was a good, solid piece of steel. "He's a soldier," he grunted, nodding at Gaidan, who was now cradling his broken limb. "A slight liability. He'll slow us down."

"We are not killing him," Faren shrieked.

"No," Elara said, her eyes on Aga. " And we're not leaving him to be trampled! He's your problem now, specimen! You're the guide."

Aga held her gaze, a silent, brutal negotiation passing between them. He was not her "specimen" anymore. And they both knew it.

"Fine," Aga said. He ripped a strip of cloth from Faren's pack and tossed it to Gaidan. "Bind your arm. Try not to slow me down."

He turned from them and faced the oncoming tide of refugees. He could smell the path through them, a way against the current.

"This way," Aga snarled, not looking back. "Stay close. And do not get in my way.

He plunged into the panicked crowd, a hunter moving against the stampede, the longsword a dark promise to never be bound in a irons again, held tight in his hand. After a beat of shocked silence, Faren and Elara, guiding the stunned and wounded Gaidan between them, followed Aga into the city – in pursuit of the quarry.