Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  An RCA member with red hair tossed a piece of metal at her, but she leaped out of the way. He formed another metal rod from his palm, and Mykel blocked it with his own.

  Grier had switched to his war hammer, blowing through the heads of approaching of more invaders.

  One Caster splintered off, eager to catch Emeryss alone.

  The man’s face was slightly off, slightly animalistic, and then it shifted into something non-human entirely.

  She took a step back. Glamour? An illusion?

  His wrist wasn’t showing any pink ether like Adalai’s. It was deep rich brown, a shade from red.

  He had turned into a massive cat with enlarged fangs and claws. He pounced for her, ready to maul her face.

  Emeryss cast Burst, gripping it in her hand and sensing the jolt of energy through her own body like jumping into a freezing ocean. Suddenly, every part of her was alive, eager, screaming at her to move.

  She darted to the left while the Caster was still in mid-air and coming for her.

  She needed a weapon.

  She cast Illusionary Object like Adalai did, but she’d visualized a javelin instead of a dagger, and it seemed the Burst worked on casting, as well.

  The man’s two front paws had barely touched the ground by the time she’d had the javelin materialized and waiting in her grip. The weight was right, the distance was easy.

  She tossed it as hard as she could.

  It was too easy. He was too slow.

  The javelin flew straight through his skull and then dissolved away.

  The Caster fell over dead in the ash.

  Mykel was still fighting the materials Caster but sliced sideways with a sword he’d fashioned from some other metal. The Caster’s head rolled off with his final expression still in place. Blood spurted from his body as it tumbled to the ground, and Mykel’s eyes were wide.

  “Holy shit!” he screamed. “Did you see what I did? I took a guy’s head off, and you just killed a shape-shifting Caster!”

  She stopped and panted, the ether from Burst already wearing off. “This is terrible—”

  “I usually don’t fight, you know. I’m like a materials guy—”

  His voice cut off. The air seized in his throat.

  His pupils dilated as the veins in his face became more pronounced.

  “What?” Panic struck her. “What’s wrong, Mykel?”

  An RCA Caster stood behind him and had her hands up at his chest. She was only gripping the air behind Mykel, but also somehow held him there.

  Emeryss couldn’t see any sort of weapon.

  Mykel’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he collapsed.

  The Caster turned on her, and Emeryss felt her muscles seizing, the air shortening in her lungs. Her voice was gone.

  Where was Grier?

  She needed something, something to just startle the Caster.

  She needed a spark of fire or a spark of lightning, but she hadn’t seen anything like that before.

  The veil of ether around her threatened to fade as she struggled for air.

  She focused on the ether pulsing in the center of the Caster—a beautiful aura of golden light. Lana had said anything might be possible. Well, she didn’t need anything—she just needed a spark.

  Her lungs burned. Her head grew dizzy.

  She imagined a spark, a bolt, anything to shock the Caster and lose her grip.

  Her fingers made a sigil. She couldn’t even see it with her eyes still locked on the Caster. She gripped it in her palm and threw it at the woman.

  The sigil didn’t hit her. It didn’t blow her back.

  It sparked her ether. Her aura reacted… It sang and vibrated into a stream of light stretching upward and arcing out. And it burst.

  Air rushed into Emeryss’s lungs, and she fell to her knees.

  “Emeryss!” Grier ran up to her, arms around her. “What was that? Are you okay?”

  Her eyes traveled up, the RCA member was gone. A smoking scorch mark was left in the dirt in front of her.

  “Did you see that lightning bolt?” Grier asked. “Did you do that?”

  Crawling to Mykel, she turned him over and pressed her ear against his chest. “He’s not breathing. His heart is too faint.”

  Mykel’s nostrils, eyes, mouth, and ears bled into a bright pool on the ground.

  “What happened?” Grier bent over him, too.

  She shook her head, her fingers frantically combing over his suit, his head, his neck, his chest. “I don’t know. It was an air Caster, I think, but I don’t know what happened to him. I can’t try to fix him if I don’t know—Sonora!”

  Grier looked around. “We need to get him out—”

  “He’s already turning blue, Grier. Sonora!” she screamed again. “Sonora, we need you!”

  Urla and I are in a building fighting, but we can’t leave. There are children here!

  Grier wiped soot from his mouth. “Where?”

  We’re two streets from the center. Two-story house.

  Grier was already hoisting a limp Mykel over his shoulder and heading in the direction of Sonora and Urla. Emeryss led the way, casting Gust as they ran.

  They rounded the corner, and three RCA members were setting fire to a two-story building.

  “Sonora, was the house green?” Emeryss asked.

  I think so. I think someone’s setting the place on fire, but I can’t see who.

  “We see you!”

  Emeryss threw an Air Slice at two of the men lighting the bottom floor. It severed the arm of one and cut through the chest of another. She cast Gust toward the lone Caster advancing toward them, and Grier punched the remaining one still wailing over his severed arm into the dirt.

  He tried to kick through the door, but it didn’t budge, and he almost lost his balance and dropped Mykel.

  Emeryss rammed her shoulder into the wooden door, but it only hurt her more than it did anything to the door. She ran around to a window, wiping soot and ash from the glass.

  Pot-belly stove. Wooden table. Two wooden chairs.

  She couldn’t see much, but it was enough.

  “Stay here.” She Blinked through the wall and into the kitchen.

  She hurried up the stairs and found Urla electrocuting a Caster and Sonora blasting another through the wall. A third stood over a group of children huddled in the corner and crying.

  Emeryss recalled the sigil she’d used earlier and shoved her hand in the man’s direction.

  Spark.

  A lightning bolt erupted from the man’s feet up through the roof of the building, incinerating him instantly.

  The building shifted on its frame beneath their feet.

  “Everyone, touch some part of me,” Emeryss said.

  Sonora touched her shoulder, and Urla held her hand.

  “Come on,” she urged the children. “My leg, my foot, even my finger. I’ll take us out of here. Don’t be afraid.”

  One of the children wrapped her arms around Emeryss’s waist without hesitation, another two wrapped around each leg while the others clamored to hang on.

  Outside. The ground. The ash and soot.

  She drew Blink with her left index finger and gripped it in her palm. The air was sucked from the room, blackness surrounded them, and then they were out in the heat and ash and smoke.

  The children fell off in a pile, coughing.

  “Hurry, now! Run that way!” Urla encouraged them on.

  Emeryss fell to her knees. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill her lungs if she had it all to herself. That Blink hadn’t been easy, and every piece of her felt heavy and tired.

  Grier had placed Mykel down. “We’re losing him.”

  Sonora dropped to her knees and put her hands against Mykel’s seizing chest. “He’s not going to make it. I can’t believe his heart lasted this long.”

  “What did the Caster do to him?” Urla asked.

  Emeryss bit out through pants, “She just sort of grasped him. She’d
tried to take my air, but nothing like what she did to him.”

  Urla shook her head. An arc of electricity left her hand and entered his chest. His entire body jolted upward, but there was nothing.

  “He’s lost too much blood,” Sonora said. “Oh, Mykel.”

  Emeryss shook her head. “If I knew what he needed—”

  Urla tried shocking his heart to life twice, three times, four times.

  Nothing.

  Jahree and Clove ran toward them.

  “We need to get out—” Jahree fell to his knees. “What happened? What happened to him?” His voice cracked. “Mykel, man, tell me what happened!”

  “It was an air Caster,” Emeryss said, tears catching and dribbling over. “I-I couldn’t stop her. As soon as he fell, she took me, too, and cut off my airflow. If you know what happened to him, I can try—”

  Jahree broke. He pulled Mykel up to him, wrapping his arms around him. “No, no, no. She crushed him. She crushed him—”

  Sonora’s hand went to her mouth as she shook her head. “She depressurized him. There’s no fixing this without a real healer.”

  Emeryss had saved that boy in Delour. “I can try—”

  Sonora closed her eyes. “Trust me, Emeryss…”

  Clove knelt carefully beside them. “Should I trance? Should I ask for something?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jahree sobbed to a lifeless Mykel in his arms.

  Sonora jerked her head to the west and gasped.

  “Shit!” Grier rose. “More are coming. I can hear it, too.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Urla said. “Jahree, take Mykel back to the airship. We’ll get back on foot.”

  Jahree nodded, tears streaking through the soot on his face. He picked up Mykel’s body and took off into the air in a long jump.

  Grier took Emeryss’s hand. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Got it?”

  She nodded, and they ran together through the maze of the city and away from the fight.

  Chapter 38

  Sufford — Ingini

  Adalai had Blinked to the top of a building, scanning around her through the fires and smoke. She couldn’t see anyone.

  Too many buildings collapsing.

  Too much fighting.

  And what was she supposed to do? Kill her own?

  She had to at least try to stop them.

  She leaped down into the street and ran into a group of RCA Casters moving through a cluster of businesses. “What are you doing? Why are you here?”

  One narrowed his glare and aimed his palm toward her.

  She didn’t wait to see what the resulting ether would be. She Blinked behind him and sliced him across the back of his neck.

  She spun and looked around at more RCA breaking through glass windows of storefronts, tearing out the merchandise, terrorizing the workers taking shelter inside.

  She ran up to an energy Caster zapping Ingini as they crouched. “Stop it! What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this? They didn’t attack first. They’re not even soldiers! They didn’t do anything!”

  He looked her up and down and pushed her back. “Who do you think you are? Get in line with the others, savage!”

  She stumbled into the helpless crowd.

  She looked Ingini. She wasn’t wearing her RCA suit or her Zephyr emblem at her shoulder.

  He raised a hand at her with an electrical whip in it.

  She fashioned her illusionary dagger and gripped it in her sweaty palm.

  This was wrong.

  This was all wrong.

  This wasn’t how Revelians fought.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  The man whipped the lightning towards a young Ingini woman, and a blood-curdling scream erupted from her as her body shook.

  Adalai Blinked forward, stabbing the Caster in the heart.

  “Go!” she shouted at the Ingini. “Hurry!”

  They didn’t move.

  Why didn’t they move?

  She held her dagger to them. “Go, or you’re next!”

  They turned and bolted for the eastern streets of the city.

  A low rumble echoed overhead, but it was a familiar sound.

  A Super S-Class ship?

  What in the world was a warship doing here? And it was out of Aurelis? How far out had this attack been planned? How screwed up was it that they were ready to destroy the Ingini just because they didn’t get their tech from Kimpert?

  Stupid, hopper-licking, tart-hole jelts!

  Fire and lightning poured out from the warship above her head, incinerating everything in its path.

  She turned and ran, Blinking around debris and through dense patches of smoke.

  The ship was faster than her, headed straight from west to east.

  She had to cut across. She had to get north to get out.

  She Blinked over collapsed timber and crumbling walls, darted across streets, and shouted at anyone she’d seen to get out of the way.

  The fire licked at her heels.

  It was getting too close, too hot, the air too thick to breathe.

  She sucked in as much air as she could and Blinked again.

  She didn’t have enough ether to make it all the way back to the airship. She’d gone too far in.

  A home next to her exploded, blowing her sideways into the building across the street.

  Her back and shoulder slammed against wood, glass, stone.

  It shattered, and her ears rang.

  Pierced and frozen by the pain, her head collided with something solid, and everything went dark.

  She had to open her eyes. It hurt too much to stay where she was. She had to move. She had to keep going toward the airship. The others might never find her.

  It was hot.

  Too hot.

  The air...

  She choked and gasped. Oh, but that hurt worse.

  Everything hurt. Her fingertips, her feet, her hip, her shoulder.

  Was she on fire?

  She tried to open one eye. It was too swollen to open all the way, but the other she managed to use.

  The warship was gone, but the fire was not. Flames crackled around her in the street. Ash lay like a blanket over the demolished buildings. Soot fell like black snow, and plumes of smoke rolled on.

  There was a clacking of heels. Something was moving in formation and coming toward her.

  She moved to get up, to not be seen.

  It was too difficult to Blink out or Disperse, and who knew where everyone else was? If she called for Sonora, the RCA would hear.

  She tried to move quietly through the rubble.

  “Check those houses and those over there.” A gruff voice echoed through the desolation.

  A voice she knew.

  But she didn’t want to know it.

  She shouldn’t be hearing it.

  Not here. Not in this massacre. Not like this.

  But she knew that tone, that shape, that commanding cadence anywhere.

  I should run. I should hide.

  But she had to see for herself.

  “No survivors, you hear me?” General Orr stepped out of formation, pointing directions to his troop of RCA Casters. He wore a mask with two glowing embers for eyes.

  She swallowed, her dry tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

  More flames erupted as General Orr cast fire to a home that had somehow survived the warship.

  Were there people inside? Did he even care?

  He didn’t.

  He didn’t care at all.

  It was just business to him like it was for Kimpert. Except, at least Ingini didn’t lie to their people. Their people understood it was all for profits and power. Revelians believed everyone was equal, everything was as balanced as it could be, that they had it best because of the way they’d lived their lives.

  And it was always under the idea that they lived better than the Ingini. But when it came to keeping that power and control over the people, they only had to con
vince them they were better than someone. Being better than the Ingini had been a lie.

  She swallowed again, her nose burning with the heat and the ash.

  If he saw her...

  She inched up, using a fallen piece of wood to help her. It broke apart, dropping her back to the ground, and she cried out at the pain.

  General Orr faced her.

  She froze. Unable to move, unable to cast, unable to think…

  She tried to stand again, her broken body barely keeping it together. She’d cried out—an impulse reaction.

  General Orr watched and then turned, leaving her there.

  He turned and left her there…

  Had he seen her well enough through the haze to know it was her? Could he see her watching him destroy an entire city because they’d been screwed out of a deal for technology?

  A deal she’d ruined.

  His silhouette disappeared in the smoke.

  She willed herself to get up, despite the pain, despite the fear, despite the betrayal.

  She’d done this.

  She’d done it all.

  The people dying in the streets.

  The city burning.

  Homes and families separated.

  The warship.

  The Goliath.

  She’d done it all, and she’d done it like the perfect pawn.

  He’d betrayed her, their people, and she’d believed all of it enough to murder thousands of people. And for what?

  Clove had been right this whole time, and Adalai had nothing to show for it. Not a crew that would trust and follow her. Not a General she believed cared for her.

  Nothing. She had nothing and no one.

  Something dripped from her chin. She wiped it, expecting blood. It was just wet, but not blood.

  A cloud of smoke broke apart, revealing a pile of debris in the road. She tried to crawl over it, but her footing faltered, still tired and weak from the explosion, and she fell, wincing and crying out.

  “Come on.” Vaughn grabbed her by the shoulder and arm. “We’re near the edge.”

  “V-Vaughn?”

  “You weren’t answering Sonora’s call, and when you didn’t show up, I came back.”

  She inhaled and nodded, using him to help herself stand and hobble out with him.

  Every muscle fiber in her body fought to stay upright.