Aog killed their breakfast faster than Seph could blink.

He'd asked them if they were hungry after waking, hefting his woodcutting axe as he did. Seph had said yes, though he didn't know what Aog would prepare.

Aog launched the axe into the canopy faster than he could blink, and a few moments later Seph heard the sound of a body impacting the forest floor.

He had to suppress a shudder.

"I'm afraid I can't leave the village, but if you could bring the beast over I'm happy to cook," Aog said with a smile. "I'm quite a hand in the kitchen."

Nax started moving before he was done speaking, the hunger in his gaze clear. Seph and Lume followed him.

"Fortress," Nax swore when they came to the carcass. "Didn't know they made birds that big."

Seph had to agree. It resembled a chicken, though this looked like the primordial ancestor of the bird. The beast was twice Nax's height, covered in brilliant plumage, and its serrated beak was open in a silent screech. He could see powerful muscle underneath the feathers, but all of that had meant nothing to Aog's axe. The tool had split the bird's skull in two, embedding itself in the creature's spine.

Nax tried to remove the axe, muscles bulging with the strain, and failed spectacularly. They got to work dragging the beast back to the village, though Nax and Lume shouldered the worst of it. Aog was waiting for them at the edge of the grass, and when they'd pulled the bird close enough he hefted it over one shoulder.

The beast was a vulcanite, that was clear. Not even its wings had broken in the fall, despite the height. It must have weighed almost as much as a giganti, and Aog hoisted it like a bushel of cane.

He set to work carving the bird with a collection of knives retrieved from a nearby home, and before long he had it cooking over a fire.

Despite the brutality of the kill, the smell was intoxicating.

"So," Aog finally said, sitting and turning a great haunch of meat. "Shipwrecked, you said? Where had you intended to sail?"

"Poltare," Seph sighed. "We were headed to Poltare. Hoping to buy my friend here's ignition," he said, gesturing to Nax. The boy nodded.

"Ah!" Aog exclaimed, pointing a finger at Nax. "And to think, I'd taken you for a vulcanite! Tell me, boy, who trained you?"

"Farris of Tuwallo," Nax said, face straight. Seph had to suppress a smile.

"Farris of Tuwallo," Aog repeated, mulling over the words like a sommelier might a fine wine. "He must be powerful indeed to hide himself from me. I should like to meet him someday."

"Don't think he has the time," Nax said.

"Ah, of course! He must have many students. One should never abandon a pupil." At that, Aog's face darkened. "And the pupil, never the master." His visage began to grow stormier by the second.

Seph interrupted before he could fall into one of his moods. "You used to be a teacher?"

Aog's brightened at that, though he snorted with derision. "Calling me a teacher is like saying the Thale is a pond! The most respected teacher in Asin! Until Tun Tun and Boy Winter threw me on this island to rot."

This time he seemed to master himself before his mood began to fall. "But, that was all long ago. And they couldn't have what I know reaching the people, of course."

The prospect of hidden knowledge was enough to bring Seph from polite to intrigued. "What you know? What exactly is that?"

Aog smiled. "Alas," he said, "I am bound to tell not a soul." He gestured to the chain at his ankle. "Just as I cannot harm a reasoning being. Though I do try, on occasion. My apologies for that, my young friend. You know how it is, boundaries must be tested."

Nax gave him a nod, though it was stiff.

"But ignition!" Aog exclaimed. "Why, that is something wonderful! Truly, boy, you wish to be a vulcanite?" He asked, gesturing to Nax.

"Is the Thale salty?" Nax replied.

Aog chuckled at that before turning to Lume and Seph. "And you two? Why not strive for ignition yourselves?

Lume spoke for the both of them. "That's the plan, eventually. But we only had the chips for one, and Nax is the strongest. Besides, he'll return the favor."

Aog cocked an eyebrow. "Had?" He asked.

"Lost it when the ship went down. My fault," Nax said.

Seph stopped himself from disagreeing, though it was difficult. The chips were on Nax's belt when the ship had gone to splinters, and somewhere in the chaos, the bag had ripped free.

"You have no kin that might ignite you?" Aog asked. "I cannot imagine the world has fallen so far that folk have stooped to accepting chips for ignition."

Seph scoffed. "Do we look like nobles? There are a thousand Hollows for every vulcanite in Tuwallo. Are you some sort of king, that everyone around you is a vulcanite?"

Aog looked like Seph had poleaxed him. "A thousand Hollows? Surely you exaggerate. When I retreated from the world, Hollows made up barely a tenth of the Carcerum." He looked around the circle to each of them, searching for something in their gazes, before his face fell. "In all my lifetimes, I would never have thought we'd fall so far. Generations of hoarding the secrets to ascension. What a waste."

Seph's mind was whirling. A time when vulcanites had outnumbered Hollows ten to one? He'd never even seen a speck of it in his research. There were folk tales, of course, just like people talked about how Harren Lailatt was secretly a man in a giganti suit, but no one believed them.

The Carcerum, he'd heard of. The Maudred Carcerum was an ancient nation, one that had been annihilated millennia before. When Tunari Salihf - Poltare's Lutetium - had risen to power, she'd crushed them like insects. The specifics weren't available to a poor Hollow in a public repository, but Salihf had wanted the Carcerum's crimes documented. It had been a slave state, built on the back of crimes to sentience too innumerable to record. If Aog had lived during the Carcerum, that made him thousands of cycles old. Which meant he was an incredibly powerful vulcanite.

"If not money, then what?" Seph asked. That was the question that arose most urgently. "How did so many Hollows reach ignition?"

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Aog steepled his fingers. "Why, their family ignited them of course. Hollows were usually orphans or malcontents. Or slaves, of course. Though a Hollow slave was all but useless unless they were a warmer."

Seph didn't think it would be wise to ask what a warmer was. "The world is the same now. We just have far fewer vulcanites in general. Their family lines are smaller, and it takes so much power that some only ignite their firstborn."

Aog stared at him for much longer than was polite before speaking. "Always, we fall further," he sighed. "Forgive me. I did not know the state of the outside. To imagine what we've lost..." He trailed off.

"Telling me you can get ignition without losing power?" Nax asked.

Aog opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. Murder rose in his eyes, his face red and sweating, and Seph felt his fury like a physical weight. "I cannot say," Aog ground out, teeth clenched. "My chains forbid it."

"Which means it's possible," Seph said excitedly.

This changed everything; if vulcanites rising from nothing weren't just fishwives' tales, then Seph could make sure to distribute the method throughout Asin. Vulcanites stomping on Hollows like they were insects would be a thing of the past.

Aog's strain had passed, though the anger was yet to fade. "I cannot say," he repeated. "But as for ignition by another vulcanite, it seems the art has been lost. If I could access my crucible, I'd be able to ignite all three of you without losing a drop of animus."

Seph crushed the hope that rose with those words mercilessly. "But you can't," he sighed.

"I cannot. My crucible is chained just as tightly as I am. Not that I would ignite you all were I capable. Igniting lessers is how the Carcerum fell." The words were harsh, but the emotion behind them was absent. It was like Aog was talking about the weather.

"Lessers?" Lume asked, indignant. She'd had more than her share of comments in Tuwallo concerning her heritage, being from the tribes, and Seph knew that spot was still raw.

Aog waved his hand dismissively. "Yes. Lessers, the slave peoples, the underclasses. I can smell it on you, your lack of pedigree. Nothing that you can help, mind you, but the stain of it is nonetheless undiminished."

Lume's face grew stormier, but before she could speak Nax broke in. "Not in chains though, are we?"

Aog paused.

"True enough!" He exclaimed, breaking into laughter. "I suppose I am the lesser in this instance! A new perspective for me, I must say!" He continued to chuckle. "Lesser indeed, ha ha!"

"Aog," Seph broke in. "How, exactly, would we get to Poltare from here? How does this... Tun Tun visit you?"

"Why, she rifts here of course," the man replied, chuckles fading away. "I'm given to understand that you can't find this island by conventional means, though I know not how Boy Winter accomplished it. My strengths never lay with artificing. We considered it a pursuit for those without the stomach for martial excellence."

Seph's heart fell at that. Rifting was something only incredibly high-level vulcanites were capable of. They bent reality to their will, tearing a hole from where they were to where they wished to be. Seph had never heard of anyone below Dysprosium performing the feat, and they were only a rung below Lutetiums. The upper portions of the vulcanite ladder were so foreign to lower vulcanites as to be almost incomprehensible. Catching the eye of a higher vulcanite was like signing your own death warrant. That method of escape was out.

"Aog," Seph said. "If you were unchained, how would you leave? What would you do to exit the island?"

Aog laughed at that. "I would rift, of course. Do I look like a scaleblessed, that I would swim through the seas to my home?"

Seph paused. "Aog, how strong are you? Before you were chained, where did you stand?"

Aog smiled. "Lutetium, of course. What had you expected?"

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Seph, Nax, and Lume talked about it that night, once they'd exited the village again.

"This is a resource we might never have again," Seph argued. "A Lutetium, one with his power restricted but his knowledge intact? Imagine what we could learn!"

Nax shook his head. "Can't trust him. Thinks we're lesser, doesn't he? Would rather drink salt than teach us."

"Yes," Lume sighed. "I see the theory, Seph, but I think we're chasing whisperclaws. Aog is a curiosity, nothing else. We don't know if he's said a true word the whole time we've been here."

Seph groaned in frustration. "I know! But think about what he has in his head. The knowledge he possesses..." He trailed off, toppling, his back hitting the dirt. "I have a library a hundred paces away that has everything I've been searching for. And I can't read the damn language."

Nax put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Same as before, true? Never knew in the first place. What's changed?"

"It never felt like it was within reach before now," Seph sighed. "But I hear you. I think-"

He was interrupted by a rush of icy wind from the center of the village, and all three turned to look at the glow near the monolith.

In front of the great stone was a tear in space, one that looked out on a frozen plain. As they watched, an armored figure stepped through from the other side. They were tall, almost at a height with Nax, and the armor was a masterwork.

Tiny, articulated plates made up the joints, interspersed between large expanses of metal that encased the body where mobility wasn't a concern. The helmet was a perfect dome of icy blue, the back of the head made up of jagged spires in the same color as the rest of the armor. The whole suit seemed to be made of the same metal as Aog's chain, except for the helmet. Seph had no idea how whoever wore the armor could see out of the damn thing.

As soon as the figure crossed the threshold of the rift, their head snapped toward the three of them. They gestured, a hand making a grasping motion, and Seph felt his limbs immobilized with a bone-deep chill. He slowly floated over to the figure, mind whirling, and watched as Nax and Lume did the same.

The armored figure examined them for a moment. "I see Aog has made some friends," they buzzed, the helmet distorting their speech to make them sound like a talking sword. "Tell me, are you here to free the Devourer?"

Seph felt the invisible bonds around his mouth loosen. "No, honored vulcanite. We stumbled on this village by chance. We had no intention of freeing Aog, nor could we if we tried."

The figure stared at him for a moment. "We'll see," they said.

Seph felt something pierce his mind like an icepick, a sharp knife of winter punching into his thoughts and opening his memories to whoever this was. He felt them rooting around in his brain, experiencing his memories in a fraction of the time it took Seph to live them, peeling apart his thoughts and feelings at the deepest level. Finally, the intrusion abated.

"We are not all the same," the figure said, releasing his hold on all three of them. Seph heard Lume and Nax collapse to the ground beside him, looking as though they, too, had experienced their minds being parsed like a repository. "The orb," the figure said, reaching out with a hand upturned.

Seph hesitated, though Nax did not. He pulled the orb from Seph's grasp, pressing it into the armored hand.

Seph cried out as the figure crushed the orb, the anima swirling in a visible spiral above the outstretched palm. They stepped forward gracefully, not with speed but with a sense of finality, and pressed their palm to Nax's chest.

His heart glowed like a beacon, and he dropped like he'd been struck by lightning.

"Nax!" Lume screamed, lunging toward him before being arrested in midair by invisible irons. The armored head turned, the spiral of animus over their palm still present if diminished. They pressed a hand against Lume's heart, animus flooding her body.

Seph did not scream. He did not scream because he knew what this was. His mind was roiling, and his emotions were doing the same, but through it all something was crystal clear. He turned to the armored figure, once again taking in the incredible detail of the armor. "Thank you," he said, bowing deeply to the figure. He performed the Tuwallin salute of respect as fervently as he had ever done so.

The figure returned the salute one-handed, though they did not bow. "We are not all the same," they repeated.

Seph closed his eyes as the hand reached for his chest, and he felt the fires of ignition lighting his crucible.

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Aog stepped out from behind the monolith after the boy collapsed.

"Keep your teeth together, Devourer. I've heard enough from you to last ten lifetimes."

Aog chuckled. "Still such an angry boy, even after all these years. Have you not done enough?" He asked, lifting his shackled ankle. He turned to the children with a sigh. "If you ignite the lessers, you will find yourself in chains. Just as I did."

"You're in chains because you're a monster," buzzed the armored man. "When I find a way to be rid of you, your imprisonment will end."

Aog laughed at that. "I cannot die, boy. It is my curse, as surely as it is yours to live forever in a world that mocks your soft heart."

"Everything can die," the armored man said, the finality in those words sobering even Aog for a moment. He lifted the children on bands of animus, drifting toward a new rift he'd torn while he was igniting them.

"They'll be dead within the cycle," Aog called behind him. "Asin is too harsh for the likes of them. And they don't have their father to protect them, do they?"

He didn't turn. "Ten thousand years you've had eyes, and still you can't see. I'll bring them back when they've reached the peak. We'll find a way to end you together."

Aog's response was lost to the sound of icy wind.