"Damn it," Kaiser cursed as he saw Ludwig throw away the crystal. He wasn't angry at Ludwig, per se, but at what he had just become.
From the saddle of his grotesque mount, Kaiser watched the crystal skip away into dead grass and churned mud, the little glint of it vanishing between boots and bodies like it had never mattered.
For a second, he wanted to snap his fingers and recall it out of spite alone, some petty insistence that his link wouldn't be discarded like trash.
But the truth was uglier than pride. The moment Ludwig threw it, Kaiser knew Ludwig had made a choice, and it wasn't a tactical one. It was a surrender to the simplest voice in the room.
Wrath was loud enough to drown even a lich.
"Leave him, this was something that he needed to experience…" Gale's voice came from right next to Kaiser.
