The Wrong Kind of Immortality

Orestis was in the second-floor corridor, explaining to an analyst named Viren why his proposed modification to the eastern relay would create more problems than it solved, when the atmosphere in the hallway shifted.

Viren straightened mid-sentence. His gaze moved past Orestis’s shoulder, and something in his posture changed—the subtle recalibration of someone who had just noticed a person of significance.

Orestis turned.

Eirene was walking toward them. Her pace was unhurried, her expression neutral, but the corridor responded to her presence the way corridors in institutions always responded to reputation: people noticed. A clerk stepped aside without being asked. Two analysts near the junction paused their conversation to watch her pass.

The battle prodigy effect is still spreading, it seems.

He found it mildly amusing. Eirene, to her credit, showed no sign of noticing any of it. Or rather, he knew she noticed—she just refused to show any signs of acknowledging it.

She reached them and offered a polite greeting to Viren, who managed a stiff greeting in return. Then she turned to Orestis.

“She just told me,” Eirene said. “It’s about to happen.”

The words were casual enough that no one listening would read anything into them. Orestis understood immediately.

“Viren, we’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “Something’s come up.”

The analyst nodded, still slightly distracted by Eirene’s proximity. As Orestis and Eirene walked away, he heard a barely suppressed sound from behind them—something between a gasp and a squeal—followed by the words, said to no one in particular: “She spoke to me.”

Orestis glanced at Eirene. “You have an admirer.”

“I have several, apparently. It’s inconvenient.”

“That’s what happens when you demolish a training simulation on your first attempt. People remember.”

Eirene smiled wryly. “That’s institutions for you. They never forget competence; they just file it for later use.”

An unfortunate fact, Orestis agreed internally.

They exited the building, moving past the wards that prevented people from randomly opening gates—standard Consortium protocol.

Eirene glanced sideways at him. “So. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere quiet,” he said. “Not the inn. The risk is small, but not negligible. Opening a gate to an active warzone inside a commercial establishment could lead to… complications.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“I try to be considerate. Helena’s pastry offerings are worth preserving.”

Eirene huffed a quiet laugh. Then said, “Eleuthera says we can watch from the meadow.”

Of course she did. And no doubt she’ll just happen to already be there when we arrive. Pure coincidence, I’m sure.

Technically, she wouldn’t be coming to him if they go to her. Perfectly compliant. Entirely within her self-imposed rules. The same loophole she used at the ball. A lawyer’s instinct for technicalities, applied with the subtlety of a siege engine.

He found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he didn’t really mind it this time. She had been kind enough to let them know about this, after all.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

Eirene relayed through the link. “She says we have a while yet. They’re still getting into position.”

“Good. Hold off on the gate for a bit.” He walked toward the market.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To buy snacks,” he said over his shoulder. “For everyone.”

She didn’t ask what he meant by everyone. She also understood the goddess well enough by now.

***

The meadow was warm, bright, and entirely too peaceful for what they were about to watch.

Eleuthera—to no one’s surprise—had prepared. A blanket was spread on the grass near the ridge where the view opened to the south. Cushions. A pot of tea, already poured into three cups.

She was sitting cross-legged on the blanket when they stepped through the gate, barefoot as always, watching them arrive with the satisfaction of a host whose guests were fashionably punctual.

“You brought food,” the goddess said, eyeing the paper-wrapped parcels in Orestis’s hands.

“Roasted nuts, spiced flatbread, and something the vendor called ‘honeyed crunch’ that I cannot identify but smelled acceptable.” He set them on the blanket. “You’re welcome.”

He would have gotten the popcorns with salted caramel that she had a preference for, but that would have been too on the nose. This was close enough.

“I am delighted.” She reached for the honeyed crunch immediately.

Eirene sat down and accepted a cup of tea. Orestis remained standing for a moment, looking at the mountains visible in the distance—blue-grey, the peaks still capped with late-season snow. Less jagged than the peaks around Logrion.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Eleuthera waved a hand. The air in front of them folded—not a gate, but something else. A crease in reality, seamless and transparent, opening onto a view of the valley as if they were hovering directly above it. The image was crisp, detailed, and utterly undetectable from the other side.

The advantages of being a goddess. Far better than anything I could manage with a gate. No spatial signature, no energy bleed, and no anti-detection wards required.

He sat down.

The state of the Kallistrate base was no different than usual. Supply wagons moved between the gate and the storage area in their usual rhythm. Patrol routes unchanged. Sentries at their posts. They didn’t know what was coming.

On the far side of the ridge, invisible from the base, Logrion’s strike force waited.

“There,” Eirene said quietly, pointing.

Movement on the ridge. A single figure was running towards the edge, separating from the rest. Right before reaching the edge, he leaped into the air in one explosive motion, rising high above the valley. The height was impossible for anyone but a peak aura user.

An Exemplar, most likely. Logrion isn’t taking chances.

That man’s next actions proved it. At the apex of the jump, he drew his blade, reinforcing it with so much aura that the blade shone like a beacon. It immediately drew the attention of the base.

Alarms went up. But it was far too late. He had already achieved his goal by leaping to that height—which was to get a clear line of sight to his target. Then he swung his sword.

The aura arc was almost blinding. A crescent of concentrated force erupted from the swing—raw aura compressed into a cutting wave that screamed across the valley towards the resonance scramblers around the gateway.

The Exemplar swung again before he began to descend. A second arc, a third, then a fourth—each one aimed at a different anchor point. He continued his assault without a break even as he fell.

Kallistrate’s mages moved quickly, stacking shields on top of each other. It was the right instinct. It just wasn’t enough. Aura at that level was not something their barriers could withstand—even with archmages reinforcing the structure. Not when it had to take multiple blows in such close succession.

The shields held for the first arc. Cracked on the second. And broke on the third.

Some mages were quick enough to deploy another shield over the anchor points, but they weren’t as strong as the previously layered construct. The following arcs punched through them and hit their targets. The anchor points detonated. Stone fractured.

Without its counterparts to complete the three-dimensional space, the resonance field covering the gate flickered, then collapsed.

And that’s why redundancy exists, Orestis thought.

The Exemplar had managed to destroy only two of the scramblers with this barrage. If there had been six, they would still have had the minimum four required to maintain it.

Not that I should complain. Their decision just cost them the base.

The Exemplar finally reached the ground, landing in the valley, the impact carving a crater and throwing up dust and snow.

Almost at the same time, Logrion forces surged over the ridge in a coordinated wave. Aura-enhanced soldiers, mountain scouts, mage support units—they poured into the valley from three directions.

At the head of one group was a man wielding two axes, both bright with aura. And based on the intensity, he was also an Exemplar.

They sent two for this one battle. Definitely not taking any chances.

Seconds later, a deep resonance pulsed through the valley—felt more than heard, even through Eleuthera’s viewing fold.

Orestis immediately guessed what it was; he’d read about it some months earlier in the archives. Logrion’s pylon network had several functions typically kept dormant due to their power demands. One of them was the anti-gate function—a deliberate wartime measure.

Now that it was active, the Kallistrate gate—the one supplying the base—flickered, shrank, and then collapsed. Kallistrate’s supply line was cut—their army was sealed inside.

Right before both sides met in melee, some of Logrion’s soldiers pressed their palms against their vambraces—or rather, the palm-sized artefacts installed on them. Aura surged. The artefacts activated.

The effect was invisible but immediate.

Across the valley, more than half of Kallistrate’s soldiers simultaneously lost their coordination. Some dropped to their knees. Others stumbled into each other.

Orestis watched a contingent of war priests rush toward the collapsed soldiers, hands glowing with divine power. They cast their healing spells over the fallen. Some bruises on their bodies faded, but nothing else changed; the soldiers continued to thrash, their limbs failing to obey them.

The artefacts are performing… better than predicted.

He had expected degradation—impaired coordination, reduced response time. Not complete loss of motor control.

Some war priests tried casting different spells, attempting to fix the problem. Others abandoned healing entirely and joined the fighting—channelling divine power into offensive spells.

It was clear that the priests had undergone some training—but it was also very clearly limited: rigid, structured, but built on doctrine rather than adaptation.

It was effective, but predictable. Logrion’s mages adapted quickly.

The veterans—Kallistrate soldiers whose aura had been activated through natural training before the Temple programme—were still fighting.

Although, the artefacts seem to be affecting them as well, even if mildly.

Understandable—their foundations would be stable. But their aura channels that haven’t adapted over the past year or so must be under heavy strain.

They would feel discomfort rather than debilitation. Headaches. Perhaps mild nausea. Nothing that would stop a hardened soldier from swinging a sword.

Those veterans formed the core of Kallistrate’s remaining resistance, along with the mages and war priests. But they were outnumbered. Half their army was unable to stand. No reinforcements could be expected. Morale was low.

The outcome was inevitable.

Logrion pressed the advantage. The second Exemplar engaged Kallistrate’s senior mages directly. The valley filled with the sounds of spellwork and steel—detonations of mana, the crack of aura-enhanced strikes, the deep thrum of ward barriers being tested and broken.

The base was burning. Supply wagons overturned. Fortifications crumbling under sustained assault. Kallistrate’s army was fighting a retreat with nowhere to retreat to.

Well, the outcome is more or less decided.

Orestis turned to look at his companions. Eleuthera was eating the honeyed crunch, piece by piece, while sipping on her tea. She didn’t seem too invested—which was to be expected.

Eirene, on the other hand, was paying attention. Properly. She was quiet, a slight frown on her face as she watched everything—not the spectacle, but the details.

He could tell that she wasn’t watching the battle—she was watching the people. Like the war priest who kept trying to heal soldiers who couldn’t be healed. Or the veteran who dragged a bleeding comrade behind a barricade. Or the moment a Kallistrate mage’s shield shattered and he raised his hands in surrender, only to be cut down.

Eirene was far too invested.

She will learn. Eventually.

Then something changed.

A gate opened high in the sky. Well above the valley—above the reach of the anti-gate ward field. The spatial distortion was visible to him only because Eleuthera’s viewing fold covered such a vast area.

None of the people below noticed the aperture that unfolded, nor the man that stepped through. He did not fall. He stood on air as though the concept of gravity applied only to other people.

He surveyed the battlefield with a quick glance before flying down at speed. At the same time, he raised a hand. Power gathered—dense, layered, almost suffocating in its scale. He cast a single spell downward, targeting the two Exemplars.

A single spell, that split itself into two halfway on its trajectory.

The sheer power contained within them was such that the entire battlefield went still.

Not gradually—all at once. Logrion soldiers looked up. Kallistrate soldiers looked up. The fighting didn’t taper off; it simply stopped.

The Exemplars reacted with speed befitting their status, each turning and swinging their weapons in the same motion; each releasing an arc of aura at the spell targeting them.

Spells and aura arcs met in the sky. The detonations shook the valley.

Both Exemplars threw up defences—aura barriers reinforced with everything they had. The impact drove them backward, carving furrows in the ground. But they held. The barriers cracked but did not break.

The mage flew through the conflagration in the sky—his shield protecting him from harm—then slowed to a stop a few metres in the air.

There was a pause as the entire battlefield held its breath. Even the Exemplars maintained their stance without moving.

Because everyone understood who—and what—this mage was.

A Sovereign.

The man was tall, distinguished, wearing robes that managed to look both military and scholarly. His hair was oiled and slicked back without a strand out of place. Clean-shaven, save for a carefully maintained handlebar moustache that curled just enough to look deliberate.

He surveyed the valley below him with the unhurried attention of someone evaluating a chess board.

Then, slowly, he reached up and twirled the moustache. Stylishly.

“Ah!” Eleuthera immediately sat up, pointing a finger. “That’s a villain! Definitely! We don’t even need any more context.”

Orestis did not respond to the joke. Because this was a development so far outside his assumptions that it failed to be funny in any way.

“A Sovereign,” he said quietly.

When did Kallistrate have a Sovereign? They didn’t have one in the original timeline.

If they did, they would have definitely sent him against me when I burned down the Temple and destroyed half the palace.

Which meant this was something new.

Could Kallistrate have hired one? That raised a different question—where from? No country would loan out a Sovereign lightly. Not without something substantial in return. What could Kallistrate have offered?

Do I have to worry about a third factor intervening?

While his thoughts ran, the Sovereign surveyed the base—the ruined fortifications, the shattered scramblers, the soldiers staggering from the artefacts.

His gaze landed on the Exemplars.

“This base is lost,” the Sovereign said. His voice—infused with mana—carried throughout the battlefield. “We will retreat. For now.”

The Exemplars flicked a glance at each other, then agreed.

One raised his hand into the air and shot out a thin beam of aura—a signal. Logrion’s forces disengaged. The artefacts were deactivated, and the ward pylons released the anti-gate field.

Kallistrate’s withdrawal was immediate, but disciplined. Veterans covered the retreat. Mages maintained shields. War priests fell back in formation while assisting those that needed it. The Sovereign remained in the air above them, a silent guarantee that pursuit would be costly.

The Sovereign was the last to leave. He looked around once more—at the burning base, at the Logrion Exemplars. Then he opened a gate besides him in the air, and stepped through.

***

The viewing fold closed.

“There were some interesting moments,” Eleuthera said, like she’d just watched a play.

“Why didn’t they press the advantage?” Eirene asked. “Kallistrate was broken. Half their soldiers couldn’t stand.”

“Because of that Sovereign,” Orestis said. “Those two Exemplars were lower-tier—strong, but roughly Archmage-equivalent. The best they could manage would be a draw. And the collateral damage from a fight between an Exemplar and a Sovereign would kill everyone nearby.”

“They could have called for reinforcements immediately via call-nodes,” Eirene pointed out. “Logrion should have stronger Exemplars.”

“They do. Most are elsewhere—protecting passes, holding strategic positions,” Eleuthera explained helpfully. “But for a campaign such as this, there would always be reinforcements that could be gated in at any time. The Sovereign knew that, which is why he chose to withdraw rather than escalate.”

Orestis added, “Both sides made the same calculation at the same moment: the cost of continuing exceeded the value of what remained. There was nothing left to fight over.”

“He’s also new—recently ascended,” Eleuthera said. “He would easily be at a disadvantage if more Exemplars joined in.”

Newly ascended.

“Then he was from Kallistrate?” Orestis asked.

“Yes,” the goddess replied, tossing another honeyed crunch into her mouth.

Meaning someone who, in the original timeline, never quite crossed the threshold. The changed circumstances—the war going differently, the pressure I created—pushed him past it.

Better than another country intervening in the war, at least.

He sat with that for a moment. The Sovereign was a problem, but a manageable one—new to the Sixth Circle, inexperienced at that level, and apparently rational enough to retreat from a lost position rather than fight for pride.

But it highlighted a different problem: events were no longer aligning with his memory.

And the further I push events from the original path, the more variables will appear that I cannot predict.

Not that I remember events of this time too clearly. But what else has changed that I haven’t noticed yet?

“Orestis?” Eirene was watching him. “You’re thinking very loudly again.”

Case in point.

Eirene was also one such variable. Eleuthera had not chosen her before his regression.

“I’m thinking about how the Sovereign’s presence might change things.” He reached for his tea, found it cold, and drank it anyway. “The base is destroyed. The gate is closed. Logrion’s mission succeeded. That’s what matters today.”

“But?”

He looked at the mountains. Somewhere beyond them, a man with a handlebar moustache was calculating his next move.

“But tomorrow’s equation just got considerably more complicated.”