Norvin understood that specific terror—the fear of dying in chains. His heart felt heavy. This entity had helped him repeatedly, even when it cost her a chance at freedom.
"It's alright," Norvin said, his voice softer*. "You won't die in chains."*
"Don't think about me," the Ghost said, drifting back. "You need to escape first. That man, Gareth, could return at any moment."
Norvin frowned, touching his swelling jaw. "He... he looked familiar. Gareth. Why do I feel like I know him?"
"Memory is a funny thing," the Ghost mused*. "But we have more pressing concerns."*
The crushing weight of Cahir Merlin's arm tightened around Norvin's throat, choking the life out of him. Black spots danced in his vision, but beneath the suffocation, a far greater agony began to bloom.
He had given himself up.
Surrendering to the Red Ghost felt less like a partnership and more like an execution. A cold, oily sensation flooded his veins, as if the freezing abyss itself was eating his consciousness alive, devouring his mind one memory at a time. Norvin's spirit shrieked in silence, and then—darkness. He fainted into the void.
But the body did not fall.
Suddenly, a surge of power, ancient and terrifying, flooded the boy's limbs. A strength far beyond anything a child could produce clamped down on Cahir's arm. The man's eyes widened in shock as the small hands pried his forearm away with the grinding force.
Cahir stumbled back, unable to comprehend the shift. He had been certain—careful to ensure—that the boy had no Numen. Yet now, the air hummed with a dense, heavy pressure. He could sense Numen flooding the boy's muscles, and beneath it, the volatile spark of Awen building in his core.
With a motion too fast for a human eye to track, the entity inside Norvin threw the enemy. Cahir flew backward, crashing into the stone floor before skidding to a halt twenty feet away.
Cahir stood slowly, dusting off his robes, his gaze locked on the small, trembling figure. "Your eyes..." Cahir whispered, noting the hollow, abyssal stare that had replaced the boy's fear. "They no longer seem alive. Have you finally snapped, kid?"
Norvin's mouth opened, but the voice that emerged was layered, distorting the air like heat over pavement. "You should be more concerned with how long you will remain among the living."
The Red Ghost did not wait. It launched Norvin's body forward like a fired cannonball, the stone beneath his feet cracking from the force.
Cahir's expression hardened. He slammed his palms together, weaving a spell of brutal efficiency*. "Iarann Huitzli!"*
The air above them shimmered and hardened. Dozens of jagged, iron spears materialized, raining down like a metallic storm. But the entity moving Norvin's body did not stop. It moved with fluid, unnatural grace.
The Ghost leaped, finding purchase on the falling spears themselves, using the deadly projectiles as if they were simple stairs. It was a display of acrobatics that defied physics.
"Impossible", Cahir thought, his mind racing. "This level of perception... this is a Master-level technique. Men train for decades to accomplish the feats this child is treating as child's play."
He was pulled from his thoughts by the flash of steel. The boy was already upon him, a knife traversing the air toward his jugular.
Purely out of instinct, Cahir raised his sword. Clang! Sparks showered around them as the small knife collided with the heavy blade. A flurry of strikes followed—fast, precise, and lethal. Cahir found himself on the defensive, unable to land a single hit on the small, weaving target.
"Who is your master, boy?" Cahir grunted, parrying a blow that nearly took his ear off.
The Red Ghost did not answer. It simply pressed the attack, a whirlwind of killing intent.
Cahir gritted his teeth and channelled his energy into the earth.
"Iarann Macasamhail!"
The ground groaned and split open. Shapes began to rise from the mud and stone, looking like the dead crawling out of hell. But these were not corpses. They were statues of solid iron, molten and gleaming. As they cooled, they took the shape of Cahir himself.
Sixteen perfect iron clones stood ready, their metal heavy and imposing. The enemy had turned the tables.
Yet, the kid showed no fear. He skidded back, his eyes flashing with a crimson light. The Ghost raised a hand, channelling the Awen he sensed in the boy's blood.
"Fola Espectro!"
Cahir braced himself, expecting a wave of dark magic. He waited to see what horror would emerge... but the air remained still. Nothing happened.
Inside the shared mind, the Red Ghost cursed. 'Why are my wraiths not manifesting? Damn it! He has created an army of iron clones; I needed to even the odds. But it seems Norvin's body is too weak to channel high-level Awen.'
The realization was bitter. The boy's body could handle the physical enhancement of Numen, but the magical strain of Awen was too much for his undeveloped circuits.
Seeing the iron clones rushing forward, their heavy footsteps shaking the floor, the Ghost made a tactical decision. He dashed toward the exit, his speed blurring him into a streak of shadow.
As he ran, the Ghost analyzed the vessel he was inhabiting. 'Even though I can force Numen through his muscles, the fit feels... wrong. I have never possessed a child before. Forcing this much power through such small limbs is exhausting me.'
He glanced down at Norvin's hands as he vaulted over a crumbling wall.
'However...' the Ghost thought with a begrudging respect. 'The pressure in his veins is immense, yet his muscles are not tearing. His bones are not breaking. Despite the strain, this kid's body is holding. He is stronger than he looks.'
The corridors of the Obsidian Tower blurred into streaks of grey and black as the Red Ghost forced Norvin's body to move. The boy's lungs were burning, his muscles screaming under the unnatural load of Numen coursing through them, but the Ghost did not relent.
The Ghost vaulted over a pile of rubble, Norvin's small feet skidding on the damp stone. He turned a sharp corner, seeking the ventilation shafts he had heard whispering in the walls earlier, but instead, he ran straight into a wall of steel.
It wasn't a wall. It was a line of men.
Nine of them stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the wide corridor. They wore armour of burnished bronze and steel, their capes embroidered with the sigil of a curved sword—the Bronze Falchion.
The Ghost skid to a halt, cursing internally. 'Great! Out of the frying pan and into the fire.'
"Hold," a voice boomed.
At the center of the formation stood a man who radiated a different kind of pressure than the others. He was tall, his face scarred and weather-beaten, with eyes that looked like they had seen too many battlefields and too little mercy. This was Gareth, Lieutenant of the Dragon's Guard Division.
Before the Ghost could calculate a route past them, the heavy thudding behind him grew louder. The Iron Clones rounded the corner, their faceless metal heads locking onto Norvin.
"Hostiles!" one of the knights shouted, raising a shield.
"Defensive formation!" Gareth commanded, his voice cutting through the damp air.
But he didn't move to intercept the clones. Instead, with a speed that surprised even the Ghost, Gareth lunged forward. His gauntleted hand clamped onto Norvin's shoulder like a vice. The Ghost tried to twist away, using the slippery, enhanced agility of the Numen, but Gareth knew how to handle slippery things. He wrenched Norvin's arm behind his back, slamming the boy's chest against his own armoured breastplate.
"Got you, little rat," Gareth growled, his grip unyielding. He didn't seem to care that he was crushing a child's shoulder; to him, a prisoner was a prisoner.
"Let go!" the Ghost hissed, Norvin's voice sounding distorted.
"Quiet," Gareth ordered, not even looking down. His eyes were fixed on the hallway.
The Iron Clones charged. The knights of the Bronze Falchion met them with a clash of steel that rang through the dungeon like a bell. Sparks flew as iron met bronze. The clones were strong, fuelled by Cahir's awen, but the knights were disciplined. They worked in pairs, dismantling the constructs with practiced efficiency.
Then, the air temperature dropped.
Cahir Merlin stepped around the corner. He didn't run; he walked with the leisurely pace of a man strolling through a garden. He stepped over the scrap metal of a destroyed clone, his robes billowing slightly in the draft.
"Impressive," Cahir said, his voice smooth and carrying easily over the sounds of battle. "I expected the dungeon guards to be incompetent, but to run into the Knights of the Bronze Falchion? Fate is truly testing my devotion today."
Gareth tightened his grip on Norvin, using the boy as a human shield without a second thought. "Cahir Merlin," Gareth said, his tone flat, recognizing the face from the wanted posters that decorated half the continent. "I didn't think you'd be foolish enough to step foot in a Kvothe stronghold."
Cahir smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Foolishness is a matter of perspective, Lieutenant. I am here on a pilgrimage of sorts. Cleansing." His eyes drifted to Norvin, who was squirming in Gareth's grip. "And that boy... he is carrying something that does not belong in this world. Hand him over, and I might leave some of you alive."
"You are in no position to demand anything," Gareth spat. "The people of your tribe—the Wanderers—are nothing but hypocrites. You preach the principles of the Goddess of the Night Sky, yet aren't you the biggest sinners of all?"
He slid his sword from its sheath. The blade hummed, glowing with a faint, heat-hazed orange light. "You and your entire clan are enemies of the Kvothe Kingdom. Enemies of every Kingdom. You are a terrorist, Merlin."
"Terrorist?" Cahir chuckled, shaking his head as if disappointed by a student's wrong answer. "We prefer the term 'purists.' But history is written by the victors, isn't it?"
"You are just as delusional as the rest of them," Gareth replied, raising his burning blade. "Defining your sins as the will of God... but unfortunately for you, none of us are religious."
Gareth didn't waste time on philosophy. He thrust his sword point-down into the stone floor. "Fuego Colun!"
The Awen in the surroundings screamed. A massive, roaring pillar of fire erupted from the floor directly beneath Cahir. The sound was deafening—a thunderous BOOM that shook the dust from the obsidian tower behind them. The heat was so intense that the nearest Iron Clones glowed cherry-red before melting into slag.
The Ghost, trapped in Gareth's grip, winced against the heat. 'That level of Awen... that's a high-tier Evocation spell. He didn't care if the blast radius hit me.'