The rented prefab was like a shrine to faux-elegance, with walls sheathed in mahogany laminate and cushioned furniture sitting under recessed lumen-strips.

  Simo was face-down on a couch, his snores ragged as torn cloth.

  Angar had prowled the chamber, stashing the libations out of sight.

  The vendor had agreed to a refund for unused drink, but only a miserly fraction of the outlay.

  Better some than none, though.

  The hatch cycled, admitting Garioch alone, his face still stitched and scabbed, with no Salvador at his flank.

  Angar exhaled in quiet relief. After updating the Seraph, he’d been worried he’d show.

  This was for Simo’s true friends, and Sal regarded the veteran as little more than a tool, so hadn’t been invited.

  Garioch crossed the threshold in his new, bulky heavy armor, with helm in hand, axe locked across his back, forcing him to duck through the doorframe, the prefab's confines shrinking around his armored bulk.

  His eyes scanned the chamber, spotting Simo sprawled on the couch. He’d already been informed of the veteran’s state.

  He set his helm on a side table beside a cluster of small crystal sculptures. "Where’re the dancers, brother?" he rasped out loudly.

  Angar had mulled the phrasing of his answer on the march over, with no outright lie, but no betrayal of the veteran's near-infidelity either.

  But the Church's stricture branded half-truths meant to muddle or hide core truths as full lies, so still a sin.

  He handed over his own credits, knowing he’d have to confess these deceits. “Sorry, but they’re not coming. Here’s your half of their cost returned.”

  Garioch's brows creased, puzzlement shadowing his gaze, but he accepted the credits with a nod, tucking them into a belt pouch. “And the libations?”

  "Hidden," Angar replied, "against temptation. What do you want? I’ll get it for you.”

  “Brandy," Garioch stated. “Not much of a celebration without the girls, is it now? So, Simo’s drowned the day in cups? Three sheets to the wind?”

  Grunting, Angar said, “And out like a lamp. Shall I rouse him?”

  Garioch nodded. “Certainly. It’s no celebration at all if our ascendant sleeps through it.”

  Unearthing and decanting the brandy with careful precision, Angar pooled the liquor deep in a cup.

  He handed the tumbler and bottle to Garioch and turned to the couch's sagging occupant.

  “Simo," Angar mumbled, his gauntleted hand descending to the man's shoulder, shaking with insistence.

  Nothing. He redoubled, the couch creaking like old hinges, the shake ratcheting, producing a grunt but no awakening.

  "Simo!" he nearly yelled through his wired jaw, but the snores ground on, defiant as a jammed round.

  Shaking his head, he delved inward, bending reality to his will.

  A current arced through his gauntlet to kiss Simo's body with a crackle.

  The jolt was measured, no more than a goad to rouse the stubborn, enough to twitch nerves and spike synapses, not sear.

  Simo erupted upright in a tangle of limbs, the couch shrieking protest as his spine bent like a drawn bow.

  “Holy Theosis!” he spewed, the words slurring through inebriation’s fog, spittle flecking his beard like a spray of cinders. His bloodshot eyes bulged wide, one hand scrabbling instinctively at his ribs as if to pat out the spark. "By the blessed Mother, what the Hell was that? Did you shock me on purpose?”

  "Yes," Angar answered. "You slumbered like a corpse. We'd not see you miss your own celebration, Paragon.”

  Simo blinked, the confusion etching furrows deep as plow-lines across his brow, his gaze drifting around the room. “Celebration?” he asked, the word almost incomprehensibly slurred. “What in the Three's name are you on about?”

  “The second Realm’s due, Paragon," Garioch supplied from his seat. “We've schemed this since you ascended. Dancers were rented, but that fell through. A shame, that. The merchant said all three were real beauties and they’d hardly wear a thing.”

  Angar added, “I believe you've drowned in enough drink today, so I pray you join me in abstinence for the remainder.”

  Simo's hands rose then, fingers splaying over his face. A tremor took him, shoulders hunching inward like a man folding against a gale, and the sobs broke free with heaves wrenching the air.

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  Tears spilled down his face into his beard, dripping to speckle his lap.

  Angar traded a glance with Garioch across the chamber's span.

  "What’s going on with you, Simo?" he asked, worry and guilt filling his chest.

  The veteran dragged a sleeve across his eyes and barked out a broken laugh that held no mirth.

  "I’m a Heretic, is what," he slurred out. “When you hauled me from the grave's maw, something unholy hitched a ride back. The world's gone fake. Nothing’s real no more. I’ve got one foot in the Underworld already, or half my soul. And Hell won’t let me die. Some fell power keeps healing me. It’s waiting until I fully damn myself, ain't it? That's the Lord’s truth.”

  The two Knights shared another glance, with Angar's heart hammering against his ribs.

  "That’s just a drunken delusion," the Saint rumbled, rising to lay a gauntlet on Simo's knee. "You're no Heretic.”

  “Delusion?" Simo echoed, a hysterical edge fraying the slur, his eyes wild with the terror. He thrust his right arm forward, and it unraveled, cloth and flesh dissolved in shadow, the limb fraying to tendrils of black smoke curling lazily through the air.

  The fingers were last to dissolve into vapor, then it all snapped back, reknitting to whole once more, unmarred but for the Heresy that lingered in its wake.

  Angar's heart kicked like a turret, sending blood roaring in his ears as guilt's jaws clamped tighter around his intestines.

  This was his doing, the tainted serum's curse. He’d failed to extract all the rot. But a Paragon had powerful Endurance, and the veteran's own should've been high enough to buck any lingering undeath.

  Simo extended the left arm next, cybernetic metal of his hand catching the light. “I can do this one too. All it takes is a thought. Watch."

  Garioch's hand shot out, clamping the wrist, forcing it down. "No! If all it takes is a thought, stop thinking! Don't court such darkness, worsening the situation. We need to have you exorcised immediately.”

  Simo laughed hysterically, teetering on madness' brink. "I tried that already. Spent a fortune on a respected Hierarch. Did nothing. He said I was fully clean, free of any kind of dark taint. But I’m transforming into some sort of unholy smoke-monster, my soul damned to Hell for all eternity. I know it. I can feel it. I can’t even die to stop it from progressing.”

  Angar's gauntlet found his friend's shoulder, bracing firm but not unkind. “You’re a Paragon now, and this dread is unbecoming. Calm yourself. Sit here as I run a few thoughts past Saint Garioch, but know you're no Heretic.”

  In the kitchen, Garioch leaned against the counter, and Angar forced speech through his jaw, each syllable muffled. “There’s more to this,” he said. “When I drew the Swarm’s corruption from Simo, some overwhelming compulsion had me infuse an item with his ‘death.’ Can this even be mended, or have I damned him eternally to Hell? I made him a Heretic, didn’t I?”

  He braced for condemnations hurled hot as plasma, unforgiving words he more than deserved.

  And rage for disregarding Garioch's counsel, for not destroying the Puteus Vitae, for choosing the profane over piety.

  A harsh reminder that trucking with the unholy always ended thus, with such ruin.

  But instead, the Saint mulled over what he’d been told in silence.

  A minute later, his eyes widened, then narrowed in sudden understanding, and he let out a relieved laugh, breaking the silence and fraying the tension.

  His gauntlet clapped Angar's pauldron as his face contorted into a grin, eyes alight with the certainty of revelation. "The Three's mercy, brother. Where lies the infused relic now?”

  “Upon my person," Angar replied.

  “Good. Speak its form to no ear, neither mine nor his,” ordered Garioch. “He's no Heretic, truly. You know who leads the United Front?”

  “Of course,” Angar answered. “Koshchei.”

  "And his epithet?" the Saint pressed, a glint in his eye.

  “The Deathless,” Angar said. Then the pieces slotted together, clicking in his skull. "You reckon Simo’s the same?”

  “Certain as scripture," Garioch affirmed with a solemn nod. "I have no doubt. None at all. The tale fits like a glove tailored for a specific hand, save that Koshchei controls the elements, and it seems Simo controls smoke.”

  Though known as another name at the time, legend had it Koshchei, a powerful Heretic and master of fell sorcery, had forged malefica pacta with Eurynomos, Lord of the Dead.

  Offering black vows on bended knee, he had begged true immortality as a boon, eternal dominion in this realm, unbowed by blaster or blight.

  Eurynomos had leered assent, but treachery writhed in the rite's heart.

  Koshchei was not for life's endless flame. He'd be gifted undeath's gray pall instead, a lich's hollow crown to drag the fool's soul squirming into the infernal abyss.

  As the ritual climbed toward its unholy climax, Koshchei had scented the snare, somehow breaking free of it along with his pact, sparing himself that cursed fate.

  But part of it clung like a dark hook buried deep, forcing him to surrender his ‘death’ into an object, its destruction the sole means by which he could ever be slain.

  He hid that object in a humble egg.

  That egg nested in a fowl's warm clutch, the fowl in an alligator's gullet, the alligator in a whale's vast belly, the whale in turn sank to an undiscovered lake's murk, on a nameless shore of virgin earth, in a cloaked continent's fold, upon a world uncharted, orbiting a star the maps forgot.

  Layers upon layers, a riddle drowned in obscurity, where no hand might unearth it, no spell divine its hiding.

  Koshchei had gained his immortality, and more besides, such as mastery over nature's elements.

  Angar had scorned the tale as a grand lie. Every Heretic was destined for Hell. Why would one balk at undeath's chill embrace? They’d probably see such as a blessing.

  Koshchei was a Heretic in that he didn't embrace the Three or the Empire of the Holy Trinity, but he wasn’t allied with Hell. The United Front, like the Old Guard, were secular rationalists.

  He had supposedly gone from having a pact with a Demon Lord to leading the Terran faction of atheists?

  Of the whole insane story, that part was the hardest to believe.

  But now it unfurled like God’s own mercy, and he clung to it like a drowning man to driftwood.

  He hadn’t damned his friend’s soul.

  Please, let it be true, he thought as his ribs unclenched, the guilt relenting. For the moment, at least.

  "Let me bear the tale to him," Garioch rasped out excitedly in his strange accent, his tumbler set aside with a clink, his eyes drifting to Simo. “I’ll speak no word of the infused item. I’ll frame it as both he and Koshchei have the gift of greater regeneration. Difficult to kill, yes, but no immortality or damnation unless earned the old-fashioned way. When duty allows, hide that relic somewhere no one will ever find it, then forget where you put it.”

  Angar nodded with resolve, plotting the fate of the chapter token as Garioch went to Simo.

  In the end, his prior scheme endured, which allowed him to kill two birds with one stone now, both its hiding and making good on the penance he'd vowed after Presbyter Clement's lax absolution.

  Beyond the prefab's seals, Fort Acre's revelry droned on with cheer and hymns to the new year.

  And now, here, salvation's embers kindled to life, and Simo’s celebration began in earnest, despite the lack of dancers to ogle.