Hollow Core

by Gage Lee

  She didn’t give me a chance to answer before she wrenched my damaged ring finger back into place. The wet pop of the joint sliding into alignment made my eyes water, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as what I’d suffered from the first finger.

  “I did what I had to do to win.” I slid my hand from her grip and flexed my fingers. They were both straight again and only a little sore. “Besides, you’re the one who said it would be better to have a living son in disgrace than a dead son with honor.”

  “And what of a dead son in disgrace?” Grayson Bishop swept into the room. Hank trailed behind him, his damaged hand bandaged and supported by a sling looped around his neck and shoulder. “That little trick was something your husband might have done, Eve. I thought you would’ve trained the boy better.”

  “You cheated.” Hank’s eyes burned with righteous fury. “You have dishonored the ring. You’ve dishonored yourself. And you’ve dishonored me. I demand satisfaction.”

  “I didn’t cheat.” The recovery room was small, and the Empyreal’s fury made it feel even smaller. But I wasn’t going to let the Empyreals push me around with accusations that I’d cheated. I’d studied the rules of the Five Dragons Challenge for years leading up to my shot in the ring and knew I hadn’t broken a single one of the dozens of regulations that governed the contest. “There’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t use a jinsei crystal in the ring.”

  Hank took a step toward me, but Grayson slid in between us. The sacred sage’s face was twisted with rage, but even in his anger he knew that letting a member of his clan attack someone of my low status would be the height of dishonor.

  “No cheat will ever pass through the doors of the School of Swords and Serpents. You can say whatever you want about the rules, but there is more to the traditions than what is written on a page.” Grayson took a deep breath and cycled the jinsei through his aura to remove the flecks of angry corruption that had sprouted within it.

  My pulse pounded in my ears and my thoughts churned into a hurricane of anger and confusion. I’d followed the rules. I’d defeated the School’s champion in a fair fight, and I’d earned my place among its students. No one, not even one of the five sacred sages, could deny me what was rightfully mine.

  “There are no rules against using jinsei boosters of any kind.” I struggled to keep the emotion out of my voice, but every word crackled with anger. “In fact, it’s explicitly allowed to use serums and crystals to restore your aura in the event of a lengthy match that can’t be decided on points.”

  “No true jinsei artist would ever need such a crutch.” Grayson towered over me with his fists clenched so tightly I heard the tendons creak. “The rules were written with honorable men in mind. The dragons couldn’t possibly exclude every degenerate strategy a camper’s sick mind could dream up.”

  “Then you admit I didn’t break any of your rules.” My mother tried to grab my wrist and stop me, but I jerked my hand away from hers and went after Grayson like a mad dog. “You’re just looking for a way to keep me out because of something my father did. Or is it my mother? I don’t know why you hate them, but this isn’t fair. It isn’t right, and you know it.”

  Grayson eyed me with surprise. He wasn’t used to anyone, much less a teenager from the labor camps, coming after him like that. What he didn’t understand is that I had nothing left to lose. If I didn’t get into the School, my life was over, anyway.

  “Even if you didn’t technically break rules concerning jinsei boosters, you certainly broke the rule about weapons.” Grayson fixed my mother with a withering stare, and for the first time in my life, I saw her back down from a fight. “Even your own mother can’t deny that.”

  “It was definitely a weapon.” Hank peered at me around Grayson’s shoulder. “You are far too weak to have penetrated my aura on your own.”

  “I only used the crystal to power my own attack. Your aura was so weak by that point it couldn’t have defended you against a gnat, much less—”

  “My aura was only weak because you tricked me into depleting my core. I don’t know how you did it, but your core should never have been able to stand against my technique.” Hank was so infuriated by my suggestion that his aura wasn’t strong enough to protect him that he almost pushed past Grayson to get at me. “I put everything into that attack. I pushed enough jinsei into that attack to kill you.”

  “Grayson, tell me I didn’t just hear your champion confess to the attempted murder of a challenger.”

  The speaker’s words were calm and collected, but they cut through the air of the recovery room as cleanly as a thrown blade.

  I immediately recognized the elder who’d given me advice during my challenge with Clem as he entered the room. A younger version of the man followed him at a respectful distance. They looked so much alike the younger man had to have been his son.

  “This is none of your concern, Tycho.” Grayson spun to face the new arrivals so quickly his robes flared out and the embroidered hem nearly struck me in the face. “The Disciples of the Jade Flame have no standing when it comes to the challenge. This is the domain of the Resplendent Suns.”

  My jaw dropped when Grayson said the new man’s name. Tycho had to mean Tycho Reyes, patriarch of the Disciples of the Jade Flame, one of the few men in the world who would dare challenge Grayson Bishop as an equal.

  “The fate of the next generation of initiates is a concern to all of the clans.” Tycho Reyes glided across the floor until he stood only inches away from Grayson.

  The two men couldn’t have been more different. Grayson was an imposing figure, broad-shouldered and tall, with striking blue eyes and a devilish beard waxed to a gleaming point. Tycho was slender and shorter, his gray hair tied back in a tight ponytail to reveal the stark lines of his hairless face and piercing black eyes. Yet, for all their differences, these two powerful men were alike on a fundamental level. They were fierce, determined, and ready to go to war for the honor of their names and their clans.

  If anyone had told me I’d one day have the heads of two of the five sacred clans ready to fight over my fate, I would’ve called them a liar. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing even as it unfolded mere feet away from me.

  The two elders glared at one another and their auras swelled to fill the recovery room. Jinsei cracked and popped around us like jolts of static electricity trapped between twin thunderheads.

  My mother caught my hand and pulled me back from the impending battle, and I let her.

  Hank and Tycho’s son also moved to the edges of the room, though they kept their distance from one another.

  Jinsei artists, especially ones as powerful as Grayson and Tycho, valued precision and restraint in all things, even battle. But if they used even a fraction of their power and struck with pinpoint accuracy, violent jinsei would flood the room like lava from a magma vent. The rest of us would be lucky to escape from the small room with our lives.

  “I assure you,” Grayson said with a smirk, “that I am as concerned for the future of initiates as you are. Which is the reason why the Disciples no longer have jurisdiction over the challenges. Or have you already forgotten the dishonor that made this decision inevitable?”

  Tycho bristled at the insult. Serpents of black light rose from his dark robes and surrounded him like a veil of living spears.

  “My memory is long, as I’m sure you are well aware. I do not defend the actions of my forebears, and I’m sure you meant no dishonor by insinuating that I was responsible for them.” Tycho folded his hands in front of him, fingers interlaced in a complex knot of skin and bone. “But if what your champion said is true, this is not merely a matter of challenge etiquette. Your boy tried to kill a child of low status without provocation. As a concerned clan elder, I must question why he would do such a thing.”

  Hank’s eyes flickered from Tycho Reyes to me. All the bluster had gone out of the champion when he realized the elder might condemn him for his actions.

  “I only—”
the champion started, but Grayson cut him off with a sharp snap of his fingers.

  “Mr. Eli was overzealous in his attack, certainly.” Grayson offered me a conciliatory smile and an insincere shrug. “Boys will be boys. Hank had already defeated three opponents, and the heat of battle was upon him. I’m sure he merely wanted to add a fourth victory so we could move on to a real challenger.”

  “I see.” Tycho gave Grayson a sarcastic shrug of his own. “And yet he lost, even after giving it his best effort. Give Mr. Warin the prize he’s earned.”

  Grayson’s fury flashed through his aura with such intensity that everyone else in the room flinched and looked away.

  Everyone, that is, except for Tycho Reyes.

  “This is not a fight you want, Bishop.” Tycho’s voice had dropped into a menacing register. That serpents of light that crawled around his body hissed angrily at anyone and everyone. “And it is not a fight either of us can afford. There is shame enough for your clan based on Hank’s actions. Your grudge against the Warin family is unseemly. Do you want to add to your dishonor by fighting another elder and risking the safety of these bystanders?”

  Jinsei is a powerful tool, but it can also be dangerous. It picks up aspects of emotions, of other energies, and it amplifies them in ways that sometimes escape the control of even masters. Grayson’s rage had infected his aura, and now it threatened to spill out and ignite a mortal combat that even he had to know was a bad idea.

  All I’d ever wanted was to attend the School of Swords and Serpents. And now my attempt to do just that had triggered a series of events I could never have imagined. I had to do something, before these two Empyreal titans of went to war.

  “I am not my father.” It was important to me that Grayson understand that I didn’t want to dishonor his academy. Whatever crimes my family had committed in the past weren’t mine to bear. I wanted to be better. I wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the clans as they held off the hungry souls and protected the Empyrean Flame. “And I have earned my place at the School of Swords and Serpents. There is no need for any of this. Let me attend and prove myself to you.”

  “Never.” Grayson’s words were as cold and flat as the marble floor beneath our feet. “I don’t know how you did it, and I don’t care. You may have tricked your way past the challenge, but I am not deceived. You are disqualified from the Five Dragons Challenge. My judgment is final.”

  His words were like nails driven into my coffin. Disqualifications were rare, but not unheard of, and they were left entirely up to the will of the judges.

  And there was no judge higher than Grayson Bishop.

  I’d taken my shot and lost. Disqualified contenders never got another shot at the challenge.

  All the training I’d done had been a waste. My life was over.

  “That is not fair, Grayson,” Tycho said with a disapproving cluck of his tongue. “The boy deserves his reward.”

  “He deserves nothing.” Grayson motioned for Hank to follow him as he headed for the door. “Which is exactly what he’ll get.”

  “I will not have the reputation of all Empyreals sullied by your pointless vendetta, Bishop.” Tycho turned his back on me and his aura flared toward Grayson. “Reconsider your decision.”

  “Never.”

  “Then you leave me no choice.” Tycho withdrew his aura and folded his arms across his chest. “As is my right as a clan elder, I formally invite Jace Warin to attend the School of Swords and Serpents as a guest of the Disciples of the Jade Flame.”

  Grayson froze. His aura intensified and barbed wire threads of rage entwined themselves into a halo above his head.

  “You would sponsor this boy, knowing what it will mean for you and your clan when he fails?” There was a cunning edge to Grayson’s words, and I wondered what hidden dangers lay beneath them.

  “Of course.” Tycho Reyes smiled broadly and bowed to me. “Jace Warin, if you accept my offer to attend the School as my guest, I will be responsible for your words and deeds. Your successes will honor my clan and my name, and your failures will bring shame to me and mine.”

  “My mother—” I started, suddenly worried that Grayson might go after her while I was away.

  “She will be compensated for your absence, certainly. The Disciples will help her find work more fitting to her station, for as long as you are attending classes.” Tycho’s smile glowed like an incandescent bulb, and I couldn’t believe the generosity of his offer. Just like that, my entire family had been pulled out of the shadows and thrust into the sunlight.

  “I accept.” I bowed so low I thought I’d touch my toes with my nose. “Your gracious offer honors my family. I will do my utmost to honor you and yours in return.”

  Grayson’s eyes flicked from me to his rival elder and back with obvious disgust. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and then shrugged.

  “So be it. He will be your responsibility, Tycho. Whatever shame befalls him shall be doubled on your head and that of your clan.” Grayson and Hank left the room without a backward glance, and an ominous silence descended upon the rest of us.

  “You did not have to accept his offer,” my mother cautioned me. “Gifts of the Disciples often carry a heavy price that won’t be revealed until far too late.”

  “Your mother is right, Jace,” Tycho said. He crossed the room to stand before me with such fluid grace that his robe scarcely stirred around his thin form. “There will be a great cost to be paid for what I have given you this day. But I know you accepted this great gift in a moment of excitement. I do not want it to be said that I tricked anyone into accepting my offer. Do you wish to reconsider?”

  Something flickered behind the elder’s eyes, and I couldn’t shake the image of a spider patiently waiting in its web for a fly to stumble in for dinner.

  My mother’s hand tightened around mine, and I knew she wanted me to reject the second chance I’d been given.

  And I did fear what the Disciples would ask of me. Legends about this clan were not kind, and most were cautionary tales about accepting gifts from strangers.

  But my fears of Tycho Reyes and the traps he might lay were far less than the fear of spending the rest of my life in a labor camp, watching my mother waste away, my own life cut short by bad food, dirty water, and soul-crushing work for far below a living wage.

  “I humbly accept your most gracious gift.” I bowed before the elder, and he placed his hand on the back of my head.

  “Then our compact is sealed, Jace Warin. I will send for you when the time is right.”

  I didn’t dare rise from my bow until I heard the door of the recovery room close behind the Disciples.

  When I did, my mother threw her arms around my neck, and her tears soaked my cheeks.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she whispered.

  The School

  THE NEXT TWO MONTHS were an exercise in excruciating boredom and anxiety. My mother and I still had to work at the camp, and I forced myself to put in as much overtime as I could to stockpile some meager extra funds to help see my mother through the time that I would be gone. Tycho’s offer would pay my mother something, but I didn’t know what that meant. Better for my mother to have more money than she needed than too little.

  As the September first start date for the new initiate class approached, I found myself nervous that this was all some sort of elaborate hoax meant to humiliate my family once again. No one from the Disciples of Jade Flame or Tycho Reyes’ family had contacted us since the day of the challenge. The patriarch had promised to send for me, but as the last week of August arrived, there’d still been no word.

  The School of Swords and Serpents was on an island somewhere in the southern Pacific Ocean. I didn’t know exactly where it was located, but I knew it would take days, at least, to reach its shores. And, yet, the sun set on the last day of August without so much as an email from Tycho Reyes.

  “You can’t trust Empyreals.” My mother tried to soften the
blow of disappointment I’d suffered, but the pain was too raw and fresh for me to accept her help. She put a bowl of algae ramen noodles on the chipboard table in front of me, but I didn’t have any appetite.

  “He promised.” The words caught in my throat like jagged fish bones. “I earned my place at the School. I don’t understand why he would lie to me about that.”

  “Because,” my mother explained, her voice soft and patient, “they don’t see us as people. We work for them, like mules or cattle, while they sit in the overcities and pretend to protect us from threats none of us have ever seen.”

  “Pretend?” That was the first time I’d heard anyone express doubt that the Empyreals were the thin bright line that stood between an army of hungry spirits and the rest of us.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” She stared into the tepid bowl of algae ramen noodles on the table in front of her. “Let’s just eat and go to bed. Morning will come too early.”

  We finished our meal in silence. I was too angry and confused to add anything to our conversation, and my mother had run out of ways to try to comfort me. The algae was somehow both sticky and slimy, as always, and it stuck in my throat every time I tried to swallow. My bowl was still half full by the time my mother had emptied hers, but I couldn’t eat another bite. I cleared the table, dumped my uneaten food down the disposal before she could chide me for wasting it, and busied myself with the dishes.

  I’d just put the last plastic bowl on the drying rack when there was a knock on our door.

  The hollow plastic barrier rattled in its frame, and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound.

  “Jace Warin,” a rough voice called from the other side of the barrier. “It is time.”

  I rushed past my wide-eyed mother and crossed our tiny apartment to reach the door. I shot the bolt and yanked it open, my heart pounding.

  “I need a few minutes,” I said. “Let me grab—”