The evening bells sounded while First Measure Academy attendants scrubbed the last blood from the medical corridor. The tile behind the dead man from House Talvern remained cracked.
They washed the benches, carried the broken collar frame into a locked evidence room beside the infirmary, and separated its brass rod from the black cords after one twitched in an attendant's hand.
Fresh wrapping covered Vhar's wrists, and bitter paste darkened the bruises along his ribs. His shoulder still ached when he raised his arm.
The paired execution blades rested bare on the table beside the bed. Their oilcloth sleeves and maintenance straps lay beside the collar frame's loose fittings. The steel was ordinary and badly kept, with rusted guards and one loose strip of black leather.
Bread, water, treatment, and two quiet hours had restored part of the energy spent in the corridor. The cuts still bled through fresh cloth, although his circulation no longer dragged at the bottom of an exhausted reserve.
Dema stood near the door with a ledger against her chest. An older man with white at his temples turned the brass rod over in a gloved hand, looking more like a workshop reader than an academy elder.
"Master Ilven," Dema said. "This is Vhar Blackvein."
The man glanced at the wall scar beyond the open door. "I read the papers, though the collar frame left me with one question. What happened when its cords entered the benches?"
"The man from House Talvern ordered the frame to pull me through the people sitting there. The cords tightened around their bodies before they reached mine."
Ilven set the brass rod down and studied the wrapped wounds on Vhar's hands. "That matches what the witnesses told us. The frame and the dead man stay here until House Talvern sends someone willing to stand in the same room with both."
Dema opened the ledger. "The public rooms have one bed, the kitchen can add another bowl, and the reader yard has space in the morning group."
Ilven looked at Vhar. "You do not get a student sash tonight, but you do get a bed and a bowl, so come to the reader yard at dawn. There is work there, and I would rather see what you do in daylight than judge you only by a dead man in my corridor."
Vhar considered the offer.
"I'll be in the yard at dawn," he said. "Where do my papers and blades stay tonight?"
"The papers stay in the evidence room tonight," Dema said. "You will see the copies in the morning, while the blades stay on this table until we finish with the collar frame."
Vhar looked at the open steel.
The moment his gaze settled on the paired blades, a hard pull tightened low in his chest, the same pull that had started when his hand first touched the covered steel in the service lane. This time it ran into both hands.
Vhar reached for the execution steel.
"Wait," Dema said.
He stopped with his fingers above the handles.
Vhar watched the cord twitch in its tray. The collar had been built to command bodies through brass and cord, while the execution steel had opened an unfinished Forge record at the service door. He did not know what body or weapon the Forge would make from both materials, although both were touching him now.
He placed both palms on the paired execution blades. The old steel was cold. He drew the brass rod closer with one finger, then laid it between the blades. The collar frame shivered on the evidence table.
A catch inside the collar frame released.
CLICK!
One black cord lifted from its tray.
Dema stepped back. "Vhar."
The cord crossed the space in a straight line and wrapped around his right wrist.
It tightened.
Pain bit into his right wrist, but the cord could not drag his arm from the bed. The paired steel had been meant to cut him open, and the broken collar frame still carried the brass that had tried to force his body down.
Vhar willed the SSS Primeval Bloodforge to forge the completed configuration into him.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Forge Record]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ VALID INPUTS: Paired Execution Steel / Death Of The Last Order Codice / Broken Collar Frame And Brass Rod ]
[ PHYSIQUES: Unclaimed Warbody / Level I ]
[ CATEGORY: Forbidden Physique ]
[ CAPABILITY EXPRESSION GRADE: Primeval ]
[ CORE ARCHITECTURE: Self-Wrought Motion ]
[ PHYSIQUE EFFECT: Your Body Moves Through An Attached Restraint Or Entering Bodily Command And Breaks The Implement, Holding Limb, Anchor, Or Attached Controller You Physically Reach ]
[ PHYSIQUE BOUNDARY: The Restraint, Command Implement, Or Holding Limb Must Physically Touch Your Body ]
[ ARMAMENTS: Radrazh:: First Ruin; Ulqor:: Last Hunger ]
[ ARMAMENT FUNCTIONS: Radrazh Cuts And Blasts Apart A Reached Weapon, Shield, Armor Plate, Bone, Wall, Gate, Or Support; Ulqor Slices One Reached Tendon, Artery, Nerve Trunk, Joint Binding, Organ Seam, Cable, Or Command Wire While Preserving Unselected Matter ]
[ UVAR USE: 2 Recoverable For Physique Installation / 3 Recoverable For Paired Armament Forging ]
[ UVAR RESERVE AFTER COMPLETION: 13 / 42 ]
[ INSTALLATION: Initiated ]
[End Forge Record]
Vhar closed his left hand beneath the cord's tightening bite and uttered with quiet finality.
| UNCLAIMED WARBODY |
The black cord bit harder.
CRACK!
Vhar planted both feet, set his shoulder, and pulled against the cord.
The cord dragged at his wrist, but it could not turn his arm alone.
The cord snapped back toward the collar frame.
CLANG!
The brass hinges folded inward. The frame crushed itself flat against the evidence table, splitting the wood beneath it. Black residue spilled from the seams and evaporated into the lamplight.
The bruises along his ribs still hurt, and the cuts in his palms still bled through fresh cloth, but his right wrist had not bent. The collar had caught one wrist; his planted feet and locked shoulder had torn it apart.
Red heat spread from the brass rod into the steel. Rust darkened, then peeled away in flakes. The loose leather on one handle curled into ash. The two blades drew closer across the table without Vhar moving them.
HISS!
The execution steel softened along its edges, bent inward, and drank the broken brass into its length.
When the heat faded, two matched dark-red katanas lay beneath Vhar's palms. Dema's ledger had lowered to her side, and Ilven had moved around the table for a clear view without stepping between Vhar and either grip.
Two plain black scabbards rested beside them, joined by a black shoulder harness. Their mouths carried the same dark red as the steel. A narrow metal throat locked each blade in place, while the back of each scabbard opened below it.
The blades matched in length, curvature, spine, guard, grip, and balance. Neither carried a House seal or ninth branch mark.
Vhar lifted Radrazh in his right hand first.
The name entered his awareness with the certainty of a hand closing around a grip.
Radrazh:: First Ruin.
He set its edge against the collapsed collar frame. He did not swing. He only pressed down.
CRACK!
The brass split from hinge to hinge. The table beneath it broke along the same line.
The break followed exactly where he had pressed and stopped there. The rest of the evidence table remained upright, and the lamp beside it did not shake.
Vhar lifted Ulqor in his left hand.
Ulqor:: Last Hunger.
The cord passed through three brass eyes along the crushed frame. Vhar touched Ulqor's edge to one exposed strand.
SLICE!
Every connected loop parted at once. Thin dead threads curled from all three brass eyes, although Ulqor had touched only one strand and left each brass rim unmarked. Its steel and balance matched Radrazh, but Ulqor had cut only the selected cord.
Ilven had risen from his chair, while Dema remained beside the door.
"Those were execution blades," she said.
"House Talvern brought them to the altar to make sure I could not survive the rite," Vhar replied.
He set both weapons down with their handles toward him. The red heat beneath his skin faded without leaving a mark, but his feet planted harder under him and both grips settled cleanly in his palms. The split brass beside each blade showed what the Forge had made.
Ilven exhaled slowly. "The trial begins at first bell. Do not bring those blades into the dining hall."
Vhar looked at the split collar frame, then at Radrazh and Ulqor resting on the broken evidence table.
"Where do I keep them?"
"With you," Ilven said. "I have seen enough people try to separate you from things they do not understand."
Dema closed her ledger. "I will take you to the public rooms. The bed is small, but the door locks from the inside."
Vhar crossed the scabbards high on the harness rather than hanging them at his hips, where their length would strike his legs and crowd anyone walking beside him. Radrazh's grip rested over his left shoulder for his right hand, while Ulqor's rested over his right for his left.
Reaching over each shoulder in turn, he cleared a hilt a handspan through its locking throat, rolled the blade out through the open rear channel, and returned it. Either weapon could leave without traveling its full length above him, though he kept both sheathed in the occupied corridor; the carry left his hands free and gave nearby patients no exposed edge to avoid.
Outside the treatment room, the First Measure Academy carried on with its evening bells, freight calls, and people returning to rooms that had nothing to do with House Talvern.
Vhar walked toward the public quarter with two blades House Talvern had never imagined him carrying, a body that no foreign control could close around, and an academy trial waiting at dawn.