When he started to move his hands as they did, communicating, that came as a surprise. He was talking to the droghos but had no idea what he was saying. He wondered how Kebbal knew their language, then wondered if that was a sensible question. The moment his hands went still, the droghos abandoned their vigil around the encampment, streaming north.

Kebbal turned to the Tabbaqerans hurrying out into the snow. “I will require a conveyance for this body.”

The major had been about to pose a question and drew back in surprise. “Of course, Avat, but where will you be wanting to go?”

“North.” His hand gestured toward the spooky creatures moving half-hidden through the snow. “These are the soldiers of your enemy. I am going to cram them down his throat. The sorcerers have a plan, and we must do our part in it.”

“With all respect, Avat, I thought you said it was too dangerous to move through the storm?”

“Our new allies will clear the worst of it from our path. It is one of the powers he gave to them when he enslaved them, in order that they keep him fed. For this, they want revenge.”

From his comfortable repose within his own skin, Havec saw the moment when the truth registered; the major’s face went very still, and he was watching Havec the way a rabbit watched a wolf. He could see, too, when the man came to the conclusion that humoring the Archetype of War was the only safe bet; turning away with a silent bow, he began hollering commands. Kebbal moved back into camp on his heels, walking with the exaggerated caution of someone operating stilts. Every other step, he grabbed Hot Priest by the arm as if he might topple.

By the time they made it back amidst the army, the camp was already being broken down. It was happening with remarkably little confusion or noise. At the place where the north-bound road entered camp, the chaos coalesced into readiness. When someone led a horse to him, Kebbal recoiled. Havec could feel its dread.

The major was there, and Kebbal raised his voice: “I will not sit upon that thing.”

Everyone looked at him strangely.

“I am afraid,” Kebbal told them, and to Havec’s ears, his voice sounded off, curiously uninflected. “I do not want to fall.”

Major Cimmuman was losing hold of his signature certainty with every passing moment and scratched at his head. “We could hitch up one of the carts for you to ride in?”

“That would be acceptable.”

While they waited for this to happen, Kebbal gazed absently into the middle distance where the snow had ceased to fall. Farait had followed and now took a brave step closer to him. “You didn’t want him anywhere near this Lofflied character earlier. You went to drastic lengths to keep him away.”

Kebbal glanced at him. “Now, the whole of its army will be between it and him. He was right to warn it that I did not like being threatened by some puling adolescent wight.”

“Won’t this weaken you? To be physically present in the material plane…”

Havec’s head cocked, and he had no idea whom Kebbal learned the mannerism from. “I am no more or less ‘here’ than I ever am. I cannot be used up, any more than I can be killed. I do not feed upon this plane like your gods. As the wight itself told you, I am older than reality: it derives from me.”

“You seem very… unstable,” the Tabbaqeran persisted.

“I do not wish to hurt him. I have lived within human flesh long enough to learn how the body works, but I have no practice at manipulating it.” A cart trundled forward and Havec suspected everyone was waiting for him to climb up beside the driver. Kebbal, however, made for the bed, stopping at the foot of the wagon and holding his arms out to Hot Priest in a demanding manner. “Assist me.”

Farait took his arms and helped him to climb into the bed of the wagon, where bewildered soldiers, who seemed to have decided it was better not to ask, passed over armloads of blankets for him to sit upon and wrap about his shoulders. He hadn’t thought to put his coat on as he ran into the night and shivered gratefully as the wool enveloped him. From within the dizzy cloud in his own head, he watched Kebbal take note of this, anxiety increasing. He felt terrible that he was asking this of it, but he had no control of his mouth and couldn’t tell it so.

Once Kebbal was settled in the wagon’s bed with his back against the seat, it said to Farait, “You will sit here with him and prevent the body from being jostled.”

The man climbed into the bed, but said, “I’m not sure he’ll be pleased when he hears.”

Havec’s head rotated awkwardly on his neck in order to gaze at the man standing over him. “He is here right now. We have traded places. This is all.”

Farait settled onto the wooden planks beside him, wrapping his arms tentatively around Havec’s cocooned form. “If you’re so uncertain of the body, why did Havec give control of it to you? If I may ask.”

“I have senses he does not. An awareness of many things he cannot know, which allowed me to formulate a plan where he had only determination and a sense of hope.”

“You couldn’t just tell him your ideas? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to question you, but…”

“You are concerned about him. I understand.”

“He’s told me you tamper with his emotions…”

Kebbal turned his head to look more directly at the person at his side. Havec was enjoying this; now Kebbal was doing the talking, he was free to admire the man and need not agonize over every choice of word. “I think you must not understand how complex your thinking organ is. Emotions are nothing more than chemicals in the blood, and even so, I sometimes get it wrong. Only just the other day, I tried to calm him down after you made a sexual advance that frightened him, and instead I made him to vomit. To attempt to force a thought into his mind? He might not survive and he would never be the same.”

“Oh.”

“Are you worried that I will not give the body back? Every second of this experience is freighted by dread, I cannot wait for it to end.”

“Well… thank you for helping us, it’s very generous of you.”

“It is generous of him,” Kebbal corrected. “He thinks of me as kind and good because I take care of him, but this is ultimately selfish. It has been a long time since someone asked me to do something for the benefit of someone else.”

Farait didn’t seem to know how to respond to that and silence fell. The soldiers riding on either side of their wagon weren’t prepared to interrogate the supernatural being that was wearing him. With a few last shouted orders, the cart started north up the road with a jolt.

It would otherwise have been pleasant to sit nestled in Hot Priest’s arms, snug in his nest of blankets; it had even crossed his mind to wonder whether Kebbal genuinely believed this was accomplishing anything or had done it out of mischief, because it knew how much Havec would enjoy the experience. Kebbal’s fear had infected him, though, and each lurch of the wagon corresponded to a lurch of misgiving about the state his body would be in by the time he got it back. Kebbal coiled within him so tensely, his muscles were already forming into knots. He might have liked to soothe it in the way it often soothed him but had no idea how.

Suddenly Kebbal shrugged his shoulders, twisting his head side to side. “He worries that I am too tense. He thinks my fear is making his muscles cramp.”

“You can hear him?” Farait sounded shocked.

“The body is still his. I am still no more than a passenger. The heart pumps his blood, electrical currents in the brain think his thoughts. He lives: I watch.”

“Is it true that, if you weren’t tethered to a host, you could be in multiple people at once?”

“Yes.”

“Would that not be confusing?”

“No.” At first, this seemed to be all Kebbal meant to say, but then it drew a slightly deeper breath and let out what was unmistakably a sigh. “He is right to suspect that I prefer it like this. I was not made with a capacity to draw boundaries around my sense of obligation the way that humans do, and I do not have these limited ‘senses’ that shut information out. The world when I was born was a simpler place, perhaps it was not necessary.

“I am fond of humans, I think of you as a realized dream. But you were an agony to me all the same. You are too complicated, too difficult to please. Even when I could manage to give you what you wanted, you would turn around one day later and realize it was never what you wanted after all. When humans locked me inside a single body so that I could not answer others’ prayers, I spent three lifetimes weeping in gratitude.”

This spawned a breathless silence. Everyone close enough to hear was gaping. Ancient though the Empire was, it might be the first time anyone had had the opportunity to talk to one of these creatures. Listen to it speak about itself. Farait was the first to find his voice: “I can see why you would be concerned about hurting him. It’s noble of you to help us anyway.”

Kebbal had been living in human bodies long enough to learn how to sigh, but apparently the concept of privacy remained a mystery; plenty loud enough for everyone nearby to hear, it replied, “From the moment his mother bargained with the bonding-broker, I knew of him. I told you it is a relief that I can no longer answer humans’ needs, but I am aware. And I wanted him. A host who might understand me, who would need things I was able to assist him with. It was only after I began to see how my own feelings fed the worst urges of my host that I realized I had made myself into one of the people he should revenge himself against. I am quite certain he has figured that out by now, yet he has chosen not to hold me accountable for reasons I do not understand. I want to be worthy of it.”

“I think all of us can relate. Tabbaqera has done very little to earn his admiration, it isn’t clear why he has forgiven us.”

“You were not to blame: I was.”

“We did our part.”

“It was the sorceress. She did something to him. I hid within him, shrunk down to the smallest mote, afraid to draw his attention because I did not know how he would react when he truly understood that I was there. While I hid, waiting fearfully for him to realize he was carrying the guiltiest party around with him, everything changed. He was very angry, then he was not anymore.” Kebbal fell silent, then added, “He says that she reminded him cynicism is just a way to lie about why we refuse to take risks.”

“And you’re… okay with being forgiven? That isn’t… anathema to you?”