The royal archive smelled of dust and centuries. Kars moved through narrow aisles between towering shelves, his fingers trailing across leather spines embossed with gold. Moonlight filtered through high windows, painting everything in silver and shadow.
He'd been here three nights running. The King had granted access—desperate gratitude for agreeing to "protect" against Julius's faction. The old man didn't realize Kars cared nothing for courtly intrigue. These texts held something far more valuable.
Information about the God Hand.
His perfect memory catalogued everything. Medical treatises describing "possessions" that were actually Apostle transformations. Historical accounts of battles where "demons descended" during moments of supreme despair. Religious texts warning of five angels who answered prayers with damnation.
But tonight, he'd found something different.
The book was bound in something that wasn't quite leather—too smooth, too cold. No title marked its spine. Kars pulled it free, noting how the surrounding volumes seemed to lean away from the empty space.
He opened it to a random page. The script was archaic, barely recognizable as an ancestor to modern Midlandian. But his brain adapted instantly, decoding meanings, cross-referencing linguistic patterns.
"...and in the time when hope dies and hearts break, the Hand reaches down. Five fingers of fate, each bearing a mark of transcendence. They who sacrifice all shall gain all. They who offer the thing most precious shall become precious themselves..."
Kars turned pages, his expression unchanging even as implications crystallized.
"The ceremony requires blood of the branded. Those marked by destiny must gather in a place where dimensions thin. The sacrifice must be willing—not in acceptance, but in the act itself. The one who calls must hold the Crimson Behelit when all seems lost..."
He paused. The Crimson Behelit. Griffith's egg-shaped artifact.
"...the sacrifice cannot be strangers. It must be those who comprise the summoner's reason for existence. The foundation of their dream. Only by offering the very thing that made them human can they transcend humanity itself..."
Kars closed the book slowly.
So that was the mechanism. The God Hand didn't simply grant power—they required a specific ritual. A psychological crucible that transformed human ambition into something else entirely. The sacrifice had to be meaningful. Had to hurt.
Griffith would have to sacrifice the Band of the Hawk.
"Fascinating," Kars murmured to the empty archive. "They've built divinity on the foundation of betrayal."
He returned to his reading, absorbing everything. The Eclipse occurred during a solar eclipse—hence the name. The ceremony created a pocket dimension, separating the participants from normal reality. Time flowed differently inside. The boundaries between physical and metaphysical grew thin.
That last part made him pause.
Thin boundaries meant vulnerability. His physical dominance meant nothing against conceptual attacks, but if reality itself became malleable during the Eclipse...
He'd need to understand the exact mechanism. How the God Hand manipulated causality. Where their power came from. What sustained it.
Another text provided part of the answer—a half-burned manuscript recovered from a destroyed monastery. The scholar who'd salvaged it had added notes in shaking handwriting: "I should not have read this. I should not have translated this. God forgive me, I understand now why ignorance is mercy."
Kars read what had broken the scholar's mind.
"Below the five fingers lies the palm. Below the palm lies the wrist. Below the wrist lies the heart of all causality. That which shapes human consciousness shapes human fate. The Idea gestates in collective despair, fed by every cruelty, every tragedy, every moment when the world reveals its true face. The God Hand are not masters but servants. They do not control fate—they enact it..."
The text devolved into mad scribbling after that. But Kars had learned enough.
The God Hand served something larger. Some conceptual entity that existed beyond physical form, beyond individual will. They were executors of a predetermined plan written into the fabric of human existence itself.
Which meant they were limited. Bound by rules. The Eclipse had specific requirements, specific timing, specific conditions that had to be met.
Rules could be exploited.
"You're here late."
Kars didn't turn. He'd heard Griffith ascending the archive stairs ten minutes ago. Had tracked his approach through subtle shifts in air pressure, the whisper of boots on stone.
"I find history illuminating," Kars said, returning the bound volume to its shelf. "Your kingdom has collected quite a repository."
"Most of it is worthless." Griffith emerged from the shadows between shelves, his white tabard ghostly in moonlight. "Superstition dressed as scholarship. Frightened monks recording fever dreams as fact."
"Some fever dreams contain truth." Kars pulled another book at random, not looking at Griffith. "Tell me—do you believe in destiny?"
"I believe in will." Griffith's voice was certain, the way only young men certain of their purpose could sound. "Destiny is what weak people call their surrender to circumstance."
"An interesting philosophy." Kars replaced the book, finally turning to face him. "And yet you carry that stone. The one with the face."
Griffith's hand moved unconsciously to the Behelit at his neck. "A lucky charm. Nothing more."
"Of course." Kars smiled—not warmly, but with genuine amusement. "Just as I am nothing more than a useful mercenary. Just as the Band is nothing more than soldiers following orders. We are all exactly what we appear to be."
"Are we not?"
"You tell me." Kars moved past him, heading for the stairs. "You're the one who came to find me at midnight. Surely not to discuss philosophy."
Griffith fell into step beside him. "The King wants to legitimize our position. He's offering a marriage."
"To you?"
"To the Band. One of his cousins—a minor noble with enough rank to matter but not enough to cause succession issues." Griffith's tone was perfectly neutral. "It would cement our place at court. Make us indispensable."
They descended the spiral stairs, their footsteps echoing.
"But you're not interested," Kars observed.
"I'm interested in everything that serves my dream."
"Which is?"
Griffith stopped at the base of the stairs. Outside, Windham slept beneath winter stars. The white hawk on his tabard seemed to shimmer as he turned.
"My own kingdom," Griffith said simply. "Not serving one. Possessing one. I will stand at the pinnacle of the world, and everything I sacrificed to reach there will have meaning because I'm standing there."
"And if the cost is too high?"
"There is no cost too high for a dream." Griffith's blue eyes reflected starlight. "You understand that. You sacrificed your entire species to achieve perfection."
Kars felt something cold settle in his chest—not fear, but recognition.
"I see," he said quietly. "You do know what I am."
"I've known since Doldrey." Griffith smiled—not his courtly smile, but something sharper. "You're not human. Perhaps you once were, but that bridge burned long ago. You gave up your humanity for power, just as I will give up whatever necessary for my dream."
"And you don't fear me?"
"I fear irrelevance more than death." Griffith started walking again, heading toward the castle's private chambers. "You're testing this world's supernatural hierarchy. The God Hand, the Apostles, whatever other forces exist beyond normal perception. You want to know if you can exceed them."
"Perceptive."
"And I want to know if human will can transcend human limitation." Griffith glanced back. "We're not so different. The method varies, but the question is the same—can we become more than what fate intended?"
Kars followed, intrigued despite himself.
They emerged onto a balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. Below, night guards patrolled in pairs, their torches making pools of light in the darkness.
"The marriage," Griffith continued. "I'm accepting it. Not for myself—I'll assign it to Casca."
"She won't agree."
"She will if I order it." Griffith leaned against the stone railing. "It's strategically sound. Legitimizes her position, creates political ties, gives the Band permanent standing at court."
"And removes a complication from your inner circle," Kars added. "She loves you. That creates... expectations. Obligations. A political marriage solves that problem."
Griffith's silence was answer enough.
"You're already planning the sacrifice," Kars said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do." Kars moved to the railing, looking down at the courtyard. "You've held that stone since before we met. You've sensed its significance even if you don't understand the mechanism. Some part of you knows what it represents."
"And what's that?"
"A gateway. A transformation. A moment when you'll have to choose between your humanity and your dream." Kars turned to face him directly. "When that moment comes, you'll choose the dream. You've already decided."
Griffith met his gaze without flinching.
"If such a moment comes," he said carefully, "then yes. I would choose my dream. But I don't believe in supernatural bargains or demonic pacts. I believe in strategy, opportunity, and will."
"Belief is irrelevant. The mechanism exists whether you accept it or not." Kars gestured to the sleeping city. "This world has rules that transcend human understanding. Beings that manipulate causality itself. You're already caught in their design—the Behelit marks you as a chosen sacrifice."
"Chosen by whom?"
"By the current of fate itself. By the collective despair of humanity made manifest. By forces that existed before your kingdom and will exist long after." Kars's voice was clinical, analytical. "The God Hand are servants of something larger. They don't create destiny—they enact it. And you are part of their script."
Griffith was quiet for a long moment.
"If what you're saying is true," he finally said, "then what are you? Another player in their script? Or something that breaks the pattern?"
"That," Kars admitted, "is what I'm here to discover."
Below them, a guard coughed. Changed positions. Resumed his patrol.
"I won't let fate control me," Griffith said quietly. "If supernatural forces exist, they're simply another form of power to understand and leverage. If this Behelit is a tool, I'll use it when the moment serves my purpose—not when some predetermined script demands."
"You assume you'll have a choice."
"I always have a choice." Griffith's certainty was absolute. "That's what separates the exceptional from the ordinary. The ordinary surrender to circumstance. The exceptional reshape circumstance to their will."
Kars studied him—this human with inhuman ambition, this young man who'd already decided what he'd sacrifice before knowing what the altar looked like.
"You remind me of myself," Kars said. "Before I achieved perfection. When I was still climbing, still hungry, still certain that any price was worth paying."
"Any regrets?"
"None." The lie came easily. "Perfection erases doubt."
But even as he said it, Kars remembered the look in Rickert's eyes. The boy's simple determination to be useful, to matter, to contribute something real despite being outmatched by forces beyond his comprehension.
"I can't ever be like you... But maybe I can figure out what someone like me can do in a world that has someone like you in it."
Griffith pushed away from the railing. "The marriage announcement will happen in three days. I need you visible, present, demonstrating the Band's power. Julius's faction is planning something—I'm certain of it. Your presence will make them hesitate."
"Will it?"
"It should. If they're rational." Griffith headed for the door. "But desperate people rarely are. Stay alert."
He left without waiting for a response.
Kars remained on the balcony, alone with the winter stars and his thoughts.
The pieces were falling into place. The Eclipse mechanism, the God Hand's limitations, Griffith's inevitable choice. The trap was elegant in its simplicity—use Griffith's ambition to bait the ceremony, use the ceremony to separate Kars from normal reality, then attack through conceptual rather than physical means.
They assumed he'd fight to stop Griffith's transformation. Assumed he'd try to prevent the sacrifice. Assumed his goal was preserving the Band.
Let them assume.
He would attend the Eclipse. Would observe the ceremony. Would learn how the God Hand manipulated metaphysical law.
And then he would teach them that perfection adapted faster than fate could plan.
The next morning brought snow.
Kars stood in the training yard, watching fresh white powder accumulate on frozen ground. The Band was scattered—some sleeping off the previous night's drinking, others attending to equipment, a few maintaining the political appearances Griffith orchestrated.
Guts was here, though. Always here. The man treated training like other people treated breathing—a basic requirement for survival.
He was working through sword forms, his massive blade tracing arcs through falling snow. Each movement was precise despite the weapon's absurd size. His breath fogged in cold air, but he showed no sign of stopping.
Kars had been watching for thirty minutes. Guts knew he was there—had probably known since Kars arrived—but neither acknowledged the other. Some communication required no words.
Finally, Guts stopped. Planted his sword in snow-covered earth. Turned.
"You're going to leave us," he said.
Not a question. An observation.
Kars tilted his head slightly. "What makes you say that?"
"Because you look at us like we're already dead." Guts pulled his sword free, snow melting where blade met ground. "Like you're memorizing something before it disappears."
Perceptive. More so than Griffith, in some ways. Guts understood people through combat, through survival, through the instinct that separated living warriors from dead ones.
"Not immediately," Kars said. "But eventually, yes. This arrangement has an expiration date."
"How long?"
"Months. Perhaps less." Kars moved closer, his feet leaving no tracks in the snow. "When Griffith makes his choice, the Band will fracture. You'll have to decide which side of that fracture you stand on."
Guts frowned. "Choice about what?"
"His dream versus your lives. When he has to pick one or the other." Kars stopped a few paces away. "He'll choose the dream. He's already decided."
"You don't know that."
"I know ambition. I know obsession. I know what people look like when they've already made sacrifices in their mind before the altar appears." Kars's voice was matter-of-fact. "Griffith will betray everyone when the moment comes. The only question is whether you'll see it coming in time to survive."
Guts's hand tightened on his sword. "If you think that, why stay? Why help us win at Doldrey? Why train Rickert or spare Zodd or any of it?"
"Curiosity." Kars met his gaze. "I want to understand what drives humans to die for dreams they didn't choose. What makes soldiers follow leaders who view them as currency. What creates the bond you call camaraderie despite knowing—somewhere deep—that you're expendable."
"We're not expendable to each other."
"No. But you are to Griffith." Kars gestured to the castle. "He's up there right now, arranging a political marriage for Casca. Not because it benefits her, but because it solves a problem for him. She loves him. That creates obligation. So he'll marry her off to remove the complication."
Guts's expression went flat. "He wouldn't."
"He already has. The announcement comes in three days." Kars watched comprehension dawn. "This is who you've pledged yourself to. A man who views love as a tactical problem to solve."
For a moment, Guts just stood there, snow accumulating on his shoulders.
Then he drove his sword into the ground so hard it sank half a foot, turned, and walked away without a word.
Kars watched him go. Felt something that might have been regret, might have been satisfaction. Hard to tell anymore. Emotions were data now—useful for manipulation, meaningless as experience.
"That was cruel."
Casca emerged from the armory entrance, her expression caught between anger and something harder to define.
"That was truth," Kars corrected. "Whether he accepts it or weaponizes it against me later is his choice."
"Griffith wouldn't—" She stopped. The denial died in her throat because some part of her already knew.
"He already has," Kars said gently. "You'll be informed officially in three days. A marriage to a minor noble—enough rank to legitimize, not enough to complicate succession. Politically brilliant. Personally devastating."
Casca's hand went to her sword. "You're lying."
"Test it yourself. Ask Griffith directly. Watch how he justifies it as strategic necessity while pretending he's doing you a favor." Kars turned to leave. "I'll be interested to see how you reconcile loving someone with understanding what they actually are."
He walked away, leaving her standing in falling snow.
It was cruel. He knew that. Understood the emotional damage he was inflicting.
But the Eclipse was coming. The God Hand's trap was set. Griffith's choice was made.
If they survived what was coming, they'd need to see clearly. No delusions, no comforting lies, no faith in leaders who viewed them as sacrifice-fodder.
Truth was the only weapon he could give them that might actually help.
Even if they hated him for it.
That evening, the summons came.
A royal messenger, nervous and formal, requesting Kars's presence in the King's study. Not the throne room—the study. Private, unofficial, urgent.
Kars found the old man pacing, his court robes disheveled, his composure fractured.
"They tried to poison me," the King said without preamble. "Last night. In my wine. The cupbearer is dead—he drank first to prove it was safe, and he's dead."
Kars closed the study door. "Julius?"
"Who else?" The King's hands shook. "He grows desperate. My legitimization of the Band undermines his faction. Your presence makes military action impossible. So he resorts to assassination."
"And you want me to..."
"Kill him." The words came out flat, exhausted. "Before he kills me. Before this kingdom tears itself apart in succession wars." The King slumped into his chair. "I'm asking you to commit murder for political convenience. I'm aware of the irony—a king asking a monster to solve human problems."
Kars considered. Julius was irrelevant to him personally. But his death would destabilize the court, create chaos, potentially accelerate events toward the Eclipse.
"No," he said.
The King blinked. "What?"
"I won't kill Julius. Not because I have moral objections—I don't. But because his death right now serves no purpose." Kars moved to the window. "You want stability? You want your kingdom secure? Then you need to understand that Julius isn't your real problem."
"He just tried to poison me!"
"And failed. Will fail again. He's desperate and sloppy—dangerous to cupbearers, not to you." Kars turned back. "Your real problem is that your kingdom is built on sand. No clear succession, no unified power base, no answer to the question of what happens when you die. Julius is a symptom. You need to cure the disease."
The King was quiet for a long moment.
"You're refusing," he finally said.
"I'm telling you that my strength can't solve your weakness. You need political solutions, not physical ones." Kars headed for the door. "But I will offer this—Julius will try again. When he does, I'll ensure it fails. That should buy you time to actually fix your kingdom instead of just surviving it."
He left the King sitting there, looking old and tired and very human.
Three days later, the announcement came.
Griffith made it at court, with the full Band present. A marriage between Casca and Lord Aeldric—a minor noble with court connections and military land holdings. Strategically sound. Politically advantageous. Mutually beneficial.
Casca stood rigid throughout the announcement, her expression carved from ice.
Guts was absent. He'd left the capital that morning, telling no one where he was going.
The Band reacted with confusion, forced congratulations, uncertain smiles. This was an honor, wasn't it? Legitimacy? Casca was being elevated, recognized, made noble herself.
But watching her face, Kars knew she understood.
She was being removed. Neutralized. Transformed from devoted second-in-command into political asset. Her love for Griffith had become inconvenient, so it was being surgically excised through marriage vows to a stranger.
After the ceremony, she found Kars in the castle gardens.
"You knew," she said. Not an accusation. Just fact.
"Yes."
"Did you tell Guts?"
"Yes."
She nodded slowly. "That's why he left."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he finally understood what I've been trying to teach him—that Griffith's dream requires fuel, and everyone around him is combustible."
Casca looked at him with something between hatred and desperate hope. "Is there anything good about you? Anything that isn't calculated and cold and measured for advantage?"
Kars considered the question seriously.
"I don't know anymore," he admitted. "I achieved perfection by sacrificing everything that made me anything other than perfect. If there's goodness left, it's vestigial. An evolutionary remnant with no survival purpose."
"Then why warn us? Why train Rickert? Why any of it if you don't care?"
"Because," Kars said slowly, "I'm curious if the things I discarded were actually unnecessary. If perhaps there's strength in human weakness that perfection can't replicate."
Casca turned away. "I don't want your philosophy. I want to know if Griffith would really sacrifice us."
"Yes."
"You're certain?"
"Completely." Kars moved beside her, both of them looking at frozen fountain statues. "When the moment comes—when he has to choose between his dream and your lives—he'll choose the dream without hesitation. And he'll justify it as the only rational choice. As what you would have wanted. As necessary sacrifice for a greater purpose."
"How do you know?"
"Because I made the same choice once." Kars's voice was quiet. "I sacrificed my entire species to achieve what I wanted. Told myself it was necessary. That they would have understood. That perfection justified any cost."
"Do you regret it?"
He was silent for a long time.
"I don't know," he finally said. "Perfection erases doubt. But it doesn't erase memory. And some memories feel like wounds that never quite heal."
Casca wiped her eyes quickly, angrily. "I have to marry him. Lord Aeldric. In two months."
"You don't have to do anything. You could leave. Disappear. Take some of the Band and start over somewhere Griffith's ambition doesn't reach."
"And abandon everyone else? Let them burn so I can be safe?"
"Now you understand Griffith's dilemma. Except he chooses to burn you, and you're choosing to burn with them." Kars started walking back toward the castle. "The difference is, your choice comes from love. His comes from ambition. Whether that makes your sacrifice more noble or his more rational is a question I can't answer."
He left her there, alone in the garden with winter and choice.
That night, Kars returned to the archives.
He'd learned what he needed about the Eclipse mechanism, about the God Hand's limitations, about the ritual requirements. But one question remained.
Why him? Why had his arrival interested them? Why was the God Hand observing him specifically?
The answer came in a text he'd previously dismissed—a theological treatise on causality and destiny. He'd thought it useless philosophy. But reading it now, with everything else he'd learned...
"...fate is a river, and all things flow within its current. To resist is to drown. But what of that which falls from beyond the river? That which exists outside the flow entirely? Such anomalies are impossible by definition, yet should one occur, it presents a question to causality itself—can destiny accommodate the truly random? Or must it destroy what it cannot incorporate?"
Kars closed the book slowly.
He was the anomaly. The thing that fell from outside their system. Kars from a different world, a different set of natural laws, a different narrative entirely.
The God Hand couldn't predict him because he wasn't part of their causality. He was random chance in a universe that had eliminated randomness.
And they had to destroy him. Not out of malice, but out of necessity. His very existence asked a question their entire cosmic order couldn't answer.
So the Eclipse wasn't just about Griffith's ascension. It was about removing Kars from the equation. Proving that even perfection from outside the system couldn't disrupt predetermined fate.
"Fascinating," Kars murmured to the empty archive. "They're not just defending their plan. They're defending the concept of planning itself."
He understood now. Understood why they watched him, why they let him kill Apostles, why they allowed him to disrupt events. They were measuring him. Learning his limits. Preparing counters.
The Eclipse would be their test. Physical invincibility versus metaphysical certainty. Perfection versus predestination.
And if they succeeded—if they proved causality exceeded even him—then the question he represented would be answered. The anomaly would be incorporated. The random chance would be revealed as planned all along.
But if he succeeded...
If he disrupted the Eclipse, saved the Band, prevented Griffith's transformation...
Then causality itself would fracture. The God Hand's entire purpose would be called into question. The Idea of Evil—the cosmic entity they served—would face genuine uncertainty for the first time.
"So that's the real game," Kars said to the darkness. "Not whether I'm stronger. Whether I'm possible."
He smiled—genuinely this time, with anticipation rather than cold analysis.
The God Hand thought they understood him. Thought they'd measured his capabilities, predicted his responses, prepared appropriate counters.
But perfection's true advantage wasn't power. It was adaptation.
And he'd been learning their system far more thoroughly than they'd been learning his.
The Eclipse was coming. Griffith would make his choice. The God Hand would spring their trap.
And Kars would show them what it meant to be truly unpredictable.