The Wrong Kind of Immortality

Author note

This is technically a side chapter, and would normally be filed as such. But too much happens in it for me to justify doing that: it introduces three new characters, advances the war arc, and creates dramatic irony that enhances every future Orestis chapter. Readers who skip it will miss context.

So, enjoy :)

Maps of the southern border lay pinned beneath stone markers—grey for fortified passes, black for supply depots, iron for known Kallistrate staging positions. A cluster of red pins marked the contested mining valleys along the western approach. Someone had drawn supply lines in charcoal, adjusted them, and drawn them again. The table told the story of a war that had been planned for, argued over, and replanned every day for the past several months.

Three people occupied the room.

Hakon Skornevald, King of Logrion, stood at the head of the table with his hands braced against the edge, studying the western approach. He was not a large man by the standards of his own court, but he carried himself with the particular stillness of someone who had nothing left to prove. He was an Exemplar, and had been for longer than most of his advisors had been in service. The power was invisible until he chose otherwise. He rarely chose otherwise.

To his right, seated, was his elder sister Yrsa Kaldvyr. She had not inherited the throne—Logrion’s succession followed capability, not birth order—but she had inherited something arguably more useful: a mind that processed information the way a mill processed grain, steadily and without waste. Her hair was iron-grey, braided tight. She ran the Crown’s intelligence network with the same quiet efficiency her son brought to trade negotiations—or perhaps it was the other way around.

Across from her stood Jorund Thalgrim, the Crown’s war advisor. Broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and possessed of a voice that could carry across a valley without rising above conversational volume. He had planned the defence of three passes, supervised the fortification of six more, and had not smiled since the date of his appointment—which, by most accounts, had been thirty-one years ago.

Toren entered through the side passage. The gate that had brought him from Orthessa had deposited him in the courtyard ten minutes ago; the dust of a bridge east of Orthessa still clung to his coat.

He set the schematics on the table without preamble. “Communication device. No practical range limit. The Consortium developed it. They plan to commercialise within five to six months.”

Jorund’s hand stopped mid-reach for a supply marker. He looked at Toren, then at the documents.

“Show me,” Hakon said.

Toren laid the schematics open. The first page showed the overall architecture—paired casings, concentration formation, miniaturised gateway, resonance link. The second detailed the gateway formation. The third, the mana gathering system.

Jorund pulled the documents toward him before anyone else could speak. His eyes moved quickly—not reading for theory, but for application.

“Call duration?” he asked.

“Eight minutes per charge. Two-hour recharge cycle.”

“Paired nodes—one to one?”

“Yes. Each device communicates only with its matched partner.”

Jorund was already thinking past the specifications. Toren could see it—the strategist’s gaze had unfocused in the way it did when he was building structures in his head.

“One to one is a constraint,” Jorund said. “But a manageable one. A command centre with multiple paired nodes—each linked to a different field position—gives us a coordination hub. One operator per node. Messages relayed through a central point.” He traced a line across the map with his finger, connecting the western passes. “If I place a node at each pass command post, and matching nodes in a single room here in the Keep, I have real-time communication with every front.”

“A signal room,” Hakon said.

“A war room that listens,” Jorund corrected. “Every pass, every supply depot, every forward position—reporting in real time. Kallistrate has nothing comparable. Their couriers take days. Ours would take seconds.”

He looked up from the schematics. “Can we build these?”

“We already possess the required raw materials—yes,” Toren said. “The schematics are complete. Manufacturing can begin immediately.”

“How many do we need?” Hakon asked.

Jorund was already counting. “Minimum: one pair per pass command, one pair per major supply depot, two pairs for scout relay teams, one pair for the Crown’s direct line to field command. That is fourteen pairs for baseline coverage.” He paused. “Thirty pairs gives us redundancy and mobile deployment. Fifty gives us a communications network that Kallistrate cannot match or intercept.”

“Then we build fifty,” Hakon said. “Prioritise the pass commands. Jorund, I want the runesmiths reviewing these by morning.”

“They will be.”

The king turned to Toren. “Our source provided these?”

“Directly. At the bridge, this afternoon.”

Hakon studied the schematics for a moment longer. Then he straightened and looked at his sister. “Which brings us to the question we have been postponing.”

Yrsa had been quiet through the operational discussion—her domain was not battlefield logistics. But at her brother’s words, she set aside the technical documents she had been examining and folded her hands.

“The source,” she said. Not a question.

“In a single meeting, our source provided advance warning, classified doctrine, and a weapon that should not exist,” Hakon said. “Now, months later, he arranges a second meeting to deliver schematics for a device the Consortium has not released. The pattern is escalation, not repetition.” He paused. “At what point do we stop accepting gifts and start understanding who is giving them?”

“We have been looking into it,” Yrsa said. “The difficulty is that the source has been meticulous about separating his operation from anything traceable. The intelligence channel and the trade channel appear entirely unconnected—different people, different contexts, different methods.”

“And yet there are connections,” Jorund said. It was not a question.

“There are patterns.” Yrsa glanced at Toren. “Tell them what you observed. Not the intelligence—your impression of the man.”

Toren considered his words. “He speaks with precision. Not rehearsed—natural. His understanding of institutional behaviour is unusually specific. Not academic. The way someone speaks when they have watched systems fail from the inside.” He paused. “He is not a soldier, or a spy—he does not think like one. He thinks like an engineer—but one who designs at a scale most engineers never consider.”

“An analyst,” Jorund said.

“More than that. An analyst studies systems. This man takes them apart and rebuilds them to do something they were never designed for.”

Yrsa nodded. “That matches what our people in Orthessa have gathered. The common thread across everything the source has provided is the Consortium. Access to infrastructure projects. Access to research development. Knowledge of Temple operations detailed enough to reproduce classified training methodology.”

“You believe the source is inside the Consortium,” Hakon said.

“Someone within it, or very close to it. But there is a second thread.” Yrsa’s tone shifted—less reporting, more constructing. “Consider the trade deal. On its surface, a merchant house—Stathis, based in Theramon, in collaboration with Aretaios—proposing a northern expansion. Commercially sound. Unremarkable.”

“But?” Jorund prompted.

“What if the deal was never about trade? What if its sole purpose was to create a legitimate channel for delivering the resin we need for the artefacts?”

The room was quiet for a moment.

“The resin was embedded in the contract at the source’s suggestion,” Toren confirmed. “Presented as though we were extracting a concession.”

“Which means the trade relationship and the intelligence operation are not separate,” Yrsa said. “They are two faces of the same structure.”

Jorund leaned forward. “Then we are not looking for someone inside the Consortium. We are looking for someone who operates inside the Consortium and through a merchant network simultaneously.”

“Yes.” Yrsa opened a thin folder that had been sitting beneath her documents—prepared, Toren noted, before the meeting began. “Our people looked at every Consortium-affiliated individual with connections to northern trade. The list is short. One name appears repeatedly.”

She laid a single sheet on the table.

“Orestis Stathis. Son of Petros Stathis—the merchant behind the trade deal. He works in the Consortium’s Systems Continuity department. His name appears in infrastructure review documents for the Orthessa-Logrion trade corridor. Repeatedly.”

Jorund studied the sheet. “A merchant’s son working for the Consortium. That is not unusual.”

“No. What is unusual is the gap between his classification and his influence. The Consortium’s own records show him as mana-crippled—unable to advance past the First Circle threshold. His official role is analytical. But his practical influence exceeds his position considerably. Senior mages consult him. His analysis circulates at levels well above his rank. Decisions align with his recommendations with a frequency that suggests either remarkable coincidence or quiet institutional dependence.”

“Or both,” Hakon said.

“Or both.” Yrsa paused. “There is also the matter of his background.”

“What about it?” Jorund asked.

“There is none.”

The room stilled.

“Our contacts in Kallistrate found nothing beyond village records,” Yrsa continued. “No temple registry. No guild apprenticeship. No employment history. The parents exist—merchants in Theramon, modest, stable. Their son has no institutional footprint whatsoever prior to arriving in Orthessa.”

“That is not possible,” Jorund said flatly. “Everyone leaves traces. Apprenticeships alone would—”

“Would exist, yes. They do not.”

Hakon’s expression had not changed, but his attention had sharpened. “Deliberate removal.”

“That is the most likely explanation,” Yrsa said. “The question is by whom.”

Jorund spoke first. “The Temple. If they recruited him for one of their programmes—not the aura initiative, something else, something related to mana—and he was damaged in the process, they would have reason to erase the record.”

“A young man crippled by the Temple,” Yrsa said, following the thread. “Who compensated through theoretical brilliance. Who positioned himself inside the institution best equipped to wage a quiet campaign against the people who ruined him. Who built trade relationships that doubled as supply channels. Who provided military intelligence and revolutionary technology to the nation his former country intended to invade.”

She let it settle. “It is a clean narrative.”

“Perhaps too clean,” Hakon said.

“Perhaps. But it accounts for every piece of evidence we have. The Consortium access. The theoretical capability. The infrastructure involvement. The trade connections. The grudge.” She closed the folder. “He is the most plausible candidate we can identify.”

Silence held for several seconds.

Jorund broke it. “Or he is simply a brilliant analyst who happens to appear in the same places. Proximity is not proof.”

“No,” Yrsa agreed. “It is not. Which is precisely the problem. Everything we have is circumstantial. Suggestive, consistent, and entirely unprovable.”

Hakon looked at each of them in turn. “Recommendations.”

Jorund spoke first—his domain now, operational policy. “We do not investigate. If he is the source, investigating him risks exposing the operation. If he is not, investigating him risks alienating a trade partner and alarming whoever the source actually is. We treat the source as the source. We treat Stathis as a merchant. And we ask no questions that might make either disappear.”

“Agreed,” Yrsa said. “The separation he has constructed serves both parties. We should not be the ones to dismantle it.”

Hakon considered this. Then nodded—once, decisive. “The source remains anonymous. The trade relationship continues. The schematics go to our runesmiths tonight.” He paused. “Yrsa—keep the file.”

“The file has existed since the trade deal was proposed,” she said. “I am thorough.”

The faintest suggestion of a smile crossed the king’s face. “I never doubted it.”

Jorund was already gathering the schematics. “I want a signal room designed within the week. If these devices work as described, I want field-ready units before Kallistrate reaches the first pass.”

Toren stood. The meeting was over—or rather, the part that required his presence. Jorund and the king would continue into the night, translating schematics into deployment timelines. They always did.

As he reached the door, his mother’s voice stopped him.

“Toren.”

He turned.

“The boy—Stathis. If he is what we think he is.” Yrsa’s expression was unreadable. “He has been carrying this alone for a very long time. Remember that, when you next stand on that bridge.”

Toren inclined his head. “I will.”

He left. The mountain closed around him, and the war continued.