Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

The Tale of the Isari

There has always been a reason why most crimson creatures walk the world alone. At first, I thought it was only the burden of power, the inability to strike without risking harm to one's own allies. But the truth is simpler, crueler. Trust is a luxury no crimson can afford. Not because they are incapable of trust, but because the world ensures it always turns to poison.

That was why I watched Rogara's fall with silence, not surprise.

And yet… the Frostkin stood apart.

Born not of blood but of will, they never learned suspicion, never defaulted to guile. When one turns to strike, it is only an enemy. When one stands at their side, it is only a brother. I never taught them that. They simply became it—my cold mirror's refusal of the law.

Now, through veils of silvered mist, I observed battles flaring along the boundaries of the mist. Spears clashed and across every front my Frostkin fought shoulder to shoulder. None glanced backward. None questioned the warrior beside them.

They were a bastion—of clarity, of unity. A thread of lost humanity stitched into frost. Perhaps even the piece of myself I no longer carried.

But Rogara was not Frostkin.

If she was to reach crimson, she would have to do so as all others had: through loss. Through guile. Through the crumbling of things she once believed would last.

I watched her kneel now, in the cavern that had become her crucible. The white flames still danced faintly around her, soft as candles after the storm. Ash drifted. Blood pooled. Her enemies were dead. Her comrades were dead. Her kin were dead.

She was not.

Her body bore no major wounds now, only the deep fatigue and strain left by forcing too much mana through mortal flesh. The rest the fire had already mended, but she clutched her arms as if something still bled beneath the skin. I could feel her breath hitch. Her thoughts spiraled. The ache in her chest was not physical, yet more real than any blade could deliver.

Ciren and Miran stood beside me. Silent, unmoving. I imagined they would approve of what I was about to say. Perhaps they might even welcome her presence someday. Perhaps it would keep them from killing each other. I snorted faintly, frost curling from my breath. The truth was they might argue endlessly, but I doubted a Frostkin would ever truly raise a hand against another.

"Rogara, my dear warlock." My voice carried along the bond, soft and unshaken. "You now understand an important piece of the world. Mourn today, but tomorrow, come to the Deep Abyss. You are finally ready."

That caught her.

Her head rose slowly, and her eyes, rimmed red and still glistening, searched through her sorrow toward the sound. Confusion blinked into the corners. "Bu… but what about Vadis? Shouldn't I return and report this? The only group allowed to venture into the Deep Abyss is Utra's group. Besides, I haven't filled this month's quota..."

There it was. Clinging to the known, to the patterned, to duty. A final tether to the ordinary world.

"In Greshkhor Vadis," I told her, "there is much. But not all. You may go back—if you wish. Or not. That choice is yours."

She stared into nothing. Eyes unfocused, locked somewhere between the dying embers and the cold gray stone. "You mean… never returning?"

"You may return, if you choose. But you may also not return." My tone did not rise or falter. "You can join me in the Deep Abyss, if that's your wish. The time for you to become a Baruk draws near."

Her expression tightened. Not in fear, but in wonder. "Join, master… in the Abyss?" she echoed, half-whisper, half-thought.

What pleased me most was not her surprise at the invitation—nor her uncertainty. It was that she did not flinch when I said she would soon become Baruk.

She knew. Because in killing those who betrayed her, she had killed something gentler in herself as well. With that death came strength and with guile came understanding.

At last she answered, voice hoarse but steady. "I will go. But how will I find you?"

"Simply reach the Deep Abyss," I replied. "Someone will meet you and guide you the rest of the way."

"Someone?" She frowned. "Another Ultharis, perhaps?" The thought of new comrades, so soon after cutting down the old, carried a damp weight of dread along the bond.

"Not exactly," I told her. "They aren't like you, yet they follow me all the same. You'll see when the moment comes."

With that the dialogue ended; her presence receded to a quiet ember in the distance, and I let my gaze settle once more on the half-finished Frostkin carcass squatting before us. Fault lines spidered through its torso, hips torqued out of true; even a novice sculptor could tell it would crumble the first time power flooded its channels. "Ruined," I said. "We start again."

Both sculptors inclined their heads in immediate assent, shards of light rippling across faceted cheek-plates. Yet Ciren lingered, claws rasping together in that nervous habit of his.

"Hm." The sound resonated through his frozen vessel, with no lip moving and no jaw. I waited. "Speak," I encouraged.

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He tilted forward. "Master… will you send one of the Isari to greet her?"

For a heartbeat even I felt puzzled by the hesitation. At the depth Rogara must traverse, she would be far beyond the mist's blanket; the Isari were built for such terrain. "Yes," I answered, expecting a nod and saw Ciren's shoulders tighten instead.

A dry crackle issued from Miran, the Frostkin version of a laugh. "She'll die of fright before the Abyss can kill her. I almost hope I can watch."

Ciren gave his brother a brittle glare. "It is not funny!" Turning to me again, he tried to be calm. "Master, she has just lost everything familiar. If her first sight of us is… that… she may run away."

I found the simplicity almost endearing. Two eight-meter titans—one fretting over first impressions, one cackling at the prospect of terror. Their worry, in its way, reminded me how human their souls still were. Not broken by the rules of the world.

Miran's amusement deepened, voice curling with mock delight. "Imagine it—little onyx orc, half-limping through the dark, breath fogging, nerves frayed… then she catches a flicker in the mist. No sound, no step. Just something wrong at the edge of her sight." He swept a claw through the air, carving a jagged silhouette that flickered like broken light. "She turns, and there it is—one of them, still as stone, like the mist itself grew a face and decided to watch. She won't know whether to scream or kneel. Either way, I can't wait to see it."

"Quit it, Miran," Ciren muttered, shoulders hunched as though shrinking from a nonexistent wind. "She deserves a gentler welcome."

I allowed myself a thin smile. "Gentle is not the Isari's nature. Nor is the Deep Abyss gentle. She must meet both on their own terms." Frost mist curled from the words and drifted around them both. "Besides, they are specialists beyond the mist."

Neither Frostkin contradicted that fact; even Miran's laughter ebbed into thoughtful silence. The Isari's very name made battle-forged giants uneasy—a testament to the creatures still nesting inside my domain.

"Tell me, you two, have you ever heard how the Isari came to be?" I asked.

Both heads pivoted toward me at once. Ciren's curiosity was expected; Miran's sharpened silence was not. Seeing even him lean in, I let the question hang a heartbeat longer, until the frost in the air stilled.

"In the earliest years of the mist, the days of Haldrin, our domain stretched only a few kilometers," I began, voice low enough that the words seemed to rise with the curling vapors themselves. "Your brothers were newborn things then, inexperienced in the ways of the Deep Abyss. Death lay everywhere, common as stone dust, even for the mightiest Frostkin."

They knew that part of the tale, yet the reminder made translucent images shimmer around us: knee-high figurines of ice reenacting half-remembered skirmishes. Titans fell, cores shattered; the mist recoiled and grew again. Both sculptors watched, claws stilled.

"My senses within the mist are vast, almost limitless," I continued, "but that very breadth also blinds me to the world beyond. As our borders crept outward, breaches could flare on any side while help was far away. Frostkin fell not from weakness, but from ignorance. We lacked organization, precision, foresight."

The miniature battlefield shifted: trails of frost traced spirals to mark the expanding frontier, while tiny beasts—faceless, jagged—punched through from every angle. The delay before relief arrived was drawn as long, thin cracks. Ciren's claws twitched; Miran's shoulders tensed.

"Then came the Isari."

An ice-silhouette detached from the swirling fog: long-limbed, digitigrade, nothing like the broad-chested warriors my sculptors knew. Its feet touched nothing solid yet glided with animal certainty.

"With legs bent and muscled like stag or wolf, they covered shattered ground for leagues without pause. Their foot-pads dissipated pressure so thoroughly that stone never savored the weight of their passing." The illusion darted through the frozen tableau, leaving no imprint where it skimmed.

"I clothed them in semi-reflective frost plates, fractals patterned after the mist itself. Still as statues, they vanished. In motion, they shimmered—half dream, half afterimage." Here I let the construct stop mid-stride. Light bent around its armor; edges bled into haze until the figure seemed cut from empty air. Ciren leaned closer, then flinched as though the thing breathed in a rhythm he could not match. Even Miran's laughter failed him.

"Look upon them too long and the mind rebels," I murmured, "for their outline pulses out of sync with the world. Brothers who fought beside them spoke of nausea, of vertigo, of doubting their own sight."

Ciren's quivered, as if remembering sensations he had never felt.

"Along shoulder and spine, frost-filament antennae sprout, so fine they catch shifts in mana and sound the way reeds taste a breeze. Nothing in the Abyss can stalk them unawares."

The illusion's back erupted in branching threads that trembled at imagined currents. Both sculptors studied the design, one seeking harmony, the other angles of attack.

"Yet for all their stealth, they carry arms." I conjured twin short swords—short by Frostkin measure, each near a human's full height and magnet-snapped to grooves at the hips. "Lightweight, perfectly balanced. Tools for precision, not for siege."

I let that sink in before continuing. "They avoid battle where they can, because their true mission is knowledge. They live outside the mist, alone or in pairs, shadowing the horrors that roam the Deep Abyss. Long before a creature tests our borders, the Isari have measured its stride, mapped its hide, found the flaw in its heartstone."

Ciren's dim aura flickered with quiet reverence; Miran's with grudging respect.

"When the breach finally comes," I said, "our legion is ready. We know where to strike, what caste to send, what weakness to exploit, all thanks to scouts the enemy never sees."

Around us the ice-figures replayed a different outcome: Frostkin converging at once, coordinated, unstoppable. What had been chaotic fractures now knitted into deliberate lines. The sculptors watched as the tiny invaders were met and shattered in synchronized rhythm.

"The Deep Abyss took note," I said, letting the last of the illusions fade. "Legends spread among crimson beasts—stories of silent watchers, of death that learns your name before it knocks."

"Because of killing?" Miran ventured.

I shook my head. "No. Because the Isari are a promise. Where they pass, the Frostkin soon follow. Every beast understands that pattern, even if it has no tongue to share it."

A pause, then the questions began. Ciren asked about compartment seals, thermal stability, the ratio of limb length to stride efficiency. Miran interrupted with demands on blade alloy, torso torsion, how thin armor could remain before shattering. I answered each in turn, describing runic pressure locks that kept supplies unharmed, the way semi-reflective plates were interlaced to flex without creaking, a thousand details of form and function.

"They combine the gifts of tracker and runner," I concluded, gesturing to an invisible horizon, "yet cast both shadows longer than fear itself."

The sculptors fell silent, thoughts clearly reeling with blueprints only half dreamed. I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction—of memory settling into them like frost settling on quiet stone.

"They were, after all, the evolution of both the design of the tracker and runner in one, single creature."