Paragons of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  Jahree pushed at the air and blew back a group raising their hands for him.

  Emeryss found two other RCA sparring each other. Metal and Sound.

  The people thought she was an air Caster. Time to use something different.

  She placed her hands to the ground.

  Slick.

  Blue ether drew into her palms, tracing the sigil she imagined until ice trailed out from her fingertips. It crawled along the stone to the two RCA, until it had filled a small circle around them.

  Encase.

  The ice crawled up their feet, up their legs…

  They both looked down.

  The ice grew until it encased them up to their heads.

  Emeryss, look out! Sonora shouted.

  Without checking, she Blinked away from her spot, nearly missing a charging bull-hollda with its pointy horns and broad chest.

  It snorted, dug its hooves into chipped stone, and turned for her.

  Emeryss! Sonora called out in her head. People are starting to notice your casting!

  “I want them to see, Sonora.” Emeryss swallowed and panted. “This is the only way we’re going to make change happen.”

  The announcer’s voice mentioned her, the Neerian, casting. He sounded confused and excited. The crowd was near deafening.

  She smiled at the bull, and it charged again.

  She picked up a pebble and tossed it at him.

  Enlarge size.

  The boulder crashed into the hollda, but its head and horns had been thick enough that the rock crumbled away on impact.

  It was still racing toward her, the ground quivering beneath her feet.

  She tossed another pebble and another. It wasn’t slowing down. It would kill her at this rate.

  Emeryss! Sonora shouted.

  Grier’s voice had come through in the background. He was just as concerned, shouting for her to move out of the way.

  She didn’t want to move, though. She wanted to show Revelians what a Neerian could do—what she could do.

  She raised her hands to the sky, drawing white and yellow ether into a sigil at her palms.

  Spark!

  A bolt of bright light struck the hollda.

  The animal collapsed and skidded to a stop a few feet from her. It’d shifted back to its original form—a young man with burnt marks all over his skin and singed hair.

  The crowd erupted in applause and cheers.

  Emeryss, are you sure you know what you’re doing? Sonora asked.

  “The right thing. They need to see.”

  Jahree! Behind you! Sonora screamed.

  Another competitor with fire in her hands was leaping for Jahree. He flipped out of her path, his air casting getting him higher than what should have been normal, and landed away from her.

  Emeryss moved to help him, but Vaughn stepped up, managing to dodge the woman’s fire strikes and grab her arm. She disappeared at his touch.

  Emeryss, they’re calling out some extra RCA, Sonora warned. I can hear the advisors mumbling about you. Orr is there with them.

  This was it. If they were going to take them out, maim them, kidnap them, whatever… then it would be here in front of everyone.

  A gate on the far side of the ring opened, and a giant man thundered through. RCA officials filed out and encircled the ring.

  Other competitors stopped their fighting and turned to face the giant and his entourage.

  “Is this part over? Is this the next challenge?” she asked.

  Jahree and Vaughn walked back, inching closer to her and Urla.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Vaughn said.

  The crowd gasped and grew silent.

  “This isn’t another challenge,” Urla snarled. “But they’ll say it is.”

  The other competitors circled up with their remaining teammates as everyone’s focus shifted to the giant at the far end of the arena.

  Bare-chested and easily ten times their size, he stepped out with a laugh. The hair that should have been on his head was on his face, stretched out in a long beard. He had sigils burned across his body. It wasn’t like the Keepers. It was if he’d been experimented on or was leaking ether from his skin. His aura was bright purple.

  They’re giving him orders to attack Emeryss, Sonora said. He’s going to try to pull you all in.

  Pull her in?

  “What does that mean?” Vaughn shouted.

  But instead of advancing toward them, the man laughed and whipped his left hand toward a small group of competitors near him. Purple ether swirled from his palm and out, slamming and crushing the two groups together.

  They shrieked from the pain, and the crowd cried with them.

  Gravity?

  Magnetism?

  Grier’s screaming for you to run, Emeryss! He’s going to pull you in!

  Where were they supposed to go?

  The gates had been locked. The RCA had even started running for their lives.

  Orr’s voice broke through the crowd. “Challenge Two has begun.”

  It’s not a challenge, guys. He’s lying. The giant won’t take orders from Orr anymore. He’s going to kill you! Sonora’s shrill voice echoed through her head.

  “Can you shrink him?” Jahree asked, hands out as if ready to fly away.

  “I can try,” Vaughn said with a tremble. “But I don’t want to get that close to him.”

  The man used his ether to pull one group of competitors into another, squeezing them until they collapsed unconscious.

  “My bolts won’t be enough,” Urla said. “This was the trap for us.”

  As he grew closer to them, eliminating group after group, his aura shifted in color. From purple to a vibrant rainbow and then back to color.

  He was changing his ether… or absorbing it.

  “He’s absorbing the ether,” Emeryss said. “Sonora, did you hear me?”

  Yes! Get out!

  The ground shifted.

  She looked down. Her feet moved of their own accord toward the enormous man. She dug in her heels, but she slid toward him anyway.

  “He’s got us!” Vaughn screamed, nails digging into the stone.

  Jahree tried to fly away, but he was pulled straight back down with a thud.

  Urla used Burst but couldn’t make it out of his pull.

  Emeryss fell over, trying to stop herself from sliding all the way across the arena to him as he laughed and laughed.

  Vaughn’s arms lifted. His wrists exposed, he shrieked, and the sigils on his arm disappeared.

  The giant was pulling everything to him, even the ether.

  Urla cried out, twisting her arms away from him.

  They were getting closer and closer. Dust swirled around them as they were dragged across the arena floor.

  She needed something big. Something bigger than this giant.

  Flat on her back, she slammed her palms to the ground. The grains of dirt and sand beneath the stone erupted in front of her, rose into the air, and coalesced into a faceless humanoid. Carefully, she built it together in her mind, twisting its parts until it’d become a golem twice as big as the giant.

  She lifted her arms and tossed them down. Crush!

  The golem did as it was told, pummeling the giant in the head and shoulders.

  She stopped sliding toward him.

  Jahree scrambled up and grabbed Vaughn. Urla Burst away along with them.

  Emeryss scurried to stand behind her golem. Swing!

  The golem swung its arm against the giant, slamming him back into the wall of the arena and cracking the floor and nearby pillar.

  The crowd shouted and pointed. They were screaming and cheering.

  For her?

  Or the golem?

  Or the giant?

  She took several feet away from the center of the pit.

  Swing!

  Crush!

  Every command was followed. Every hit made.

  The giant had never seen this coming, and though he’d tried to pull t
he ether from the grains of sand in front of him, he couldn’t do it while getting punched in the face.

  When the giant tumbled over, and the crowd’s voices lifted to an uproarious cheer, she let the golem dissolve back into the ground.

  She’d done it. She’d shown them what no one else could do.

  Get out of the center! Sonora screamed.

  She Blinked just as an explosion shattered beneath her feet, beneath the arena, and landed several feet away, ears ringing.

  Fire rose up from the explosion with waves of heat pulsing out. Her ethereal veil dropped on its own, but her sight was still blurry. The dust and smoke clouds had made it worse.

  She coughed and crawled away.

  The crowd. The crowd was watching, crying out, pointing…

  In the center of the smoking arena, a mound of stone and broken rock jutted out. On top of it was a small woman. She wore dark clothes, a dark hood, and an ethereal mask. Bright magenta hair fluttered around her face as she raised her fist.

  “The REV have come to take our country back!” she screamed.

  Adalai.

  The crowd jumped to their feet in riotous applause.

  Chapter 28

  RCA Arena — Aurelis — Revel

  Emeryss coughed and tried to stand, but her legs and arms were weak. Either from the golem, the magnet Caster, or Adalai’s explosion, she struggled to get her footing.

  The crowd had begun fighting, taking on RCA guards in uniform in the stands. Some fell over into the arena, others were running out, stampeding over each other. The entire arena had fallen into chaos.

  Through the puffs of smoke and dust, the RCA had returned, moving in toward them with metal spikes and Air Slices aimed at Adalai.

  Emeryss fought to stand and raised a shield just in front of Adalai before they struck her in the side.

  Adalai stumbled back and looked down in Emeryss’s direction.

  She called up to her between coughs. “Are you going to come down and help? Or just stand up there and take all the glory?”

  Adalai’s mask faded like ink on water, and she smiled, Blinking down beside her.

  “Look at what you did.” Emeryss swirled a jolt of lightning toward a guard advancing on them.

  “What I did? What did you do?” Adalai Blinked between two RCA before they could reach her and stabbed both in their spines.

  “I showed everyone I can cast anything.” Emeryss heaved a pebble, that she'd turned into a boulder, on an RCA guard who’d shifted into an oversized sandcrawler.

  Adalai laughed, Blinking between two sleeper RCA guards trying to shoot their poison at Emeryss. She sliced the back of their heels with her ethereal daggers and then their arms. “I showed up with a bang. No one got killed, by the way,” Adalai said.

  “An improvement.” Emeryss Sparked another guard. “But not anymore.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “You’re with the REV now?” Emeryss asked, sidestepping a weapon being swung at her head. She blew them back into the stone wall with Gust.

  An air Caster had leaped into the air to come down on Adalai, but Adalai jumped up first, blinding the Caster with Dazzle, and landing on her feet again. “Long story.”

  Another explosion rocked with heat behind them.

  “Was that you?” Emeryss asked.

  Adalai had moved in close enough that they’d bumped shoulders. “No.”

  Another explosion farther away—somewhere in the city—erupted, then another, and another. So many they’d lost count.

  Adalai swallowed through breaths. “Are those—”

  “They’re in the city,” Emeryss said. “You bombed the whole city?”

  “No!” Adalai said. “That’s not us.”

  The dust cloud around them parted, and Orr stepped through.

  Emeryss looked to Adalai. “Let’s get out, now.”

  “No,” she bit, charging him by Blinking.

  Emeryss used ether to grab his feet with dirt and cement him in place, but the earth crumbled around him, melted into shiny rock and glass.

  Adalai leaped up, Blinked, and reached for the back of his neck. But even with ethereal daggers, they sparked when they came in contact with his skin.

  Molten.

  He was molten somehow.

  He managed to reach up and catch Adalai out of another Blink and tossed her toward the wall of the arena. She cried out as she slammed against a gate.

  Emeryss tossed shield after shield behind her as she raced for Adalai crumpled against the stone. Fireballs dissipated on impact with her shield, closer and closer to hitting her.

  She couldn’t look behind her or Orr would catch up. Flames bit at her heels, her legs, her hands.

  Her body lifted suddenly. She’d been thrown, and the ground was coming at her fast.

  No time to react, she cried out and landed, every bone and joint aching. The air escaped her lungs in a whimper and a cough, but Adalai was right there.

  “Adalai!” She crawled toward her. “Get up!”

  But Adalai’s face contorted in pain.

  “Adalai, we have to get out!” Her ethereal veil was fading. The real world fought to return, but she needed to see where Orr was.

  She looked back as he approached, and his arms lifted over them just like she’d done with her golem.

  A blur blew in front of her, hooking her away with a jolt. She expected the landing, the crunch of her body.

  She screamed until everything stopped and her body wasn’t hurting.

  On her knees, she opened her eyes and Grier was there, holding her up. She was in one piece, but now in the arena entrance and out of the pit. How?

  He showed her his scarred finger.

  Grier.

  She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder. Her pain, the shock of the fight, Orr about to kill her—it collided within her. Grier was right there.

  He embraced her, too, burying his nose in her neck.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and onto his shirt.

  He grabbed her face and held her gently. “How bad are you hurt? I tried to get there faster, but—”

  She shook her head, dropping her forehead to his chest. “Just hold me.”

  He did it without question, replenishing her sorrowful heart with his warmth and love.

  Even if he had duties and responsibilities to Stadhold, he’d never not care about her. He’d never stop loving her because he had to do the right thing for his country. Matches or not, they’d never take that away from them.

  And then he kissed her. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips…

  She pulled back. “But—”

  His abyssal eyes sought hers. “I wrote to you. I wrote to you almost every day. My mother found out. She’d taken all of them and read them. I was stuck there with… it doesn’t matter—”

  She swallowed. “You didn’t go through with the matches?”

  He smiled and shook his head, kissing her fully. His taste lingered with the slight bite of iron in her mouth and the smoke on her lips.

  She cried again, pulling him to her.

  A groan echoed behind them.

  She spun. “Adalai? You got out, too?”

  “I grabbed you both,” Grier said.

  Sonora, Clove, Mack, and the others rushed in behind them.

  “We have to go,” Sonora said. “Jahree and Urla got Vaughn out on the other side.”

  “Explosions are going off everywhere,” the Keeper woman said. “The whole city.”

  A tall, dark-headed, more elegant and masculine version of Clove nodded. “I think Orr had the same idea Adalai had. Except he thought bigger.”

  “Are you—?” Emeryss asked.

  “Cayn.” He gave a small grin.

  “There’s more,” Sonora said. “They’re rounding up people in the streets. The RCA are grabbing anyone associated with the REV, blaming them for all the bombings, and executing them for terrorizing the city. On sight.”

  �
��We really don’t have time for this, Grier,” the Keeper said. “We need to go.”

  Emeryss exhaled sharply and fought her tired muscles to stand. “Where are we going to go?”

  “The REV have hidden meeting places. We can go there for now.” Cayn managed to get Adalai to her feet, though she was still grunting and relying on him for staying upright.

  They made their way outside, between crumbled buildings and debris. People were screaming. RCA were chasing. Wailing. Shouting. It was just like Sufford. She swallowed to keep her legs from giving out.

  Winding around street corners and alleys, they’d reached a hidden room inside a wall, and with Cayn leading them, were allowed shelter inside.

  “Cayn is with the REV, too?” Emeryss whispered to Grier.

  His arm had been protectively around her the entire time. “Clove and Mack were just helping them for now and ran into Cayn. Cayn’s been helping the REV to try to get back home to Clove. And Adalai—”

  “She’s one of their leaders.” Emeryss sighed. She should have known.

  The REV shelter was dark with a few ether-lamps, as several REV moved about to care for the wounded with bandages, water, and food.

  Adalai had barely come to. “We have to fight back. You know that, right?” She eyed each of them. “They’re going to destroy the city or kill all of us trying.”

  “We can’t do it with just the REV,” Cayn said. “We don’t have enough. They have the army.”

  Grier clicked his tongue. “We can do it. Kylah and I can go back and get Stadhold to help.”

  “They never will,” Emeryss said.

  “I can try.” He reached out and grabbed her hand.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Kylah watch them together.

  “What are you going to say, though?” Clove asked. “Tell them what happened here?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They already know about Revel breaking the treaty with the grimoires. They already know about Orr being a traitor. He’s been kidnapping untrained Scribes—children—and hiding them in cells, torturing them, and forcing them to Scribe.” His gaze settled on Emeryss.

  Tears burned her eyes.

  “I’m going back to Stadhold. I’m telling them everything—even this.” He held up his finger. “I’m going to get someone to help us.”