The Great Hearts II: A Game of Gods

by David Oliver

  “…Convulse.” Ella said dryly.

  “Yep,” Kane replied happily. “A whole lot of it.”

  “Sounds…delightful.”

  He gave her a raised eyebrow. “You have a very strange idea of what is delightful.” His grin broadened at her sarcastic eye roll. “Like I said, there isn’t too much to discuss. If you want to be able to control seraph, drinking this is your best bet. You’ll have a horrible time of it for the next day or so but afterwards you should feel something that has been there all along. Something that feels integral to your being and you will wonder as to how you possibly didn’t feel it there before. So,” he fixed us with an intense look, “like I said, choose your location wisely. You’re going to spend the next twenty-four hours filled with regret.”

  He certainly wasn’t wrong.

  My location for drinking that evil concoction was in the forest that surrounded the Academy with Seya by my side. We found a nice spot under the grand bows of a billowing oak, Seya curled around me and I drank the potion. If I hadn’t been tortured I would have classed it as the worst night of my life. What started out as a pleasant warmth in the centre of my belly became a spreading fire that lanced up and down my veins until I was convinced that I was going to combust. When the fire peaked uncontrollable shivering began, my teeth hammering so hard that Seya had to find a branch for me to bite down on until the flames began anew.

  In short, after that night we all knew that if Kane said something was going to be bad it was going to be much, much worse.

  Chapter 24

  Seraph

  “Breathe and focus inwards. Feel the pool within you. Follow how it flows throughout your body, filling each vein with light. Now follow from your pool to your hand, concentrate on the energy moving along your veins, flooding through your muscles, flowing until it is stored in your hand, until your hand can’t contain it anymore and…”

  “-explodes?” Rikol asked suddenly.

  I couldn’t help but burst out laughing and the flickering light that had begun to form at the edge of my hand dissipated before it had ever truly arrived. Sniggers and curses around the room suggested I hadn’t been the only one to lose my concentration at Rikol’s outburst. Instructor Laniel pursed her lips and frowned disapprovingly at Rikol who shrank slightly under the weight of her regard. I couldn’t blame him, Imperator Erethea Laniel had a look that could bring Adronicus to his knees. It was like she could see right into you and found what was there disappointing.

  “Rikol,” she said calmly without any hint of anger or frustration, “please apologise to the class and reassure them that their hands will not explode when focusing seraph. That is, not unless they wanted them to.”

  Rikol mumbled an apology and the associated explanation whilst Instructor Laniel nodded. “And why won’t your hand explode unless you want it to?” she asked when he had finished.

  “Because seraph responds to will,” Rikol replied, his voice little more than a mumble.

  “Because seraph responds to will,” she echoed. “Correct. And few of us have the willpower to intentionally cause themselves damage. You might think you do, but unconsciously your body wants to save itself, to survive, and thus you put limits on your usage without even knowing. This is an important topic and one that, in a way, I am grateful that Rikol has brought us on to.”

  We all groaned inwardly. Instructor Laniel was nothing if not thorough and she made sure to dedicate a large part of each session to reinforcing seraph safety, even though we knew it off by heart.

  “Your body places limits on your seraph usage,” she continued, oblivious or uncaring of our bored looks. “These limits are there for a reason, much like lifting weights if you attempt too much without training for it your body can buckle or break. The good news is that much like a muscle your ability to use greater quantities of seraph is not purely defined at birth but can be improved. Yes Sophia?”

  “But there are differences right?” Sophia asked, lowering her hand. “People do have different levels of ability with seraph, we aren’t all born with the same sized pool?”

  Laniel nodded. “Continuing the muscle and body metaphor, you’re right, everyone is different. Just as someone might be a natural athlete, another might be a natural seraph user, gifted with a larger pool and the ability to wield and control it more effectively. But that isn’t to say that person will always be better than someone born with a smaller pool. If that natural athlete didn’t exercise whilst someone else did, eventually they would lose in a competition. It is much the same here. You might all have different levels of mastery over seraph at this point but whoever trains the hardest, uses it the most and drives themselves to become the best will succeed. Their pools will become larger, their bodies able to handle greater capacities of power. So,” she finished with a pointed look at Rikol, “work hard and instead of being unable to make a light you’ll be able to do much,” she raised her hand and it thrummed with an orange light, “much more,” and she began to paint. Her canvas was the air itself, her hand changing colour as she flicked her wrist again and again until she had created a surprisingly vivid image of Rikol with arms outstretched making a pool of light between his hands. We applauded as she finished and she smiled broadly.

  “As much as the Academy wants you to be efficient with seraph to be more effective fighters,” she said softly, “Seraph is not just for destruction. If you can think of it, seraph can help you do it. So think outside the box and put your skills to use. It will hone your skills and make you all more accomplished seraph users. Understood?”

  Nods all round except for Rikol who sat completely still, his eyes wide in awe at the image that hovered in front of him. For a five-minute art piece Laniel had done an impressive job, the colour vivid and enthralling, Rikol’s face seemingly more wise and noble as he wielded power beyond his current comprehension. Laniel gave it another minute and then with a wink at the stupefied Rikol she waved her fingers and the painting vanished into coloured smoke.

  “That isn't half of what you could do Rikol,” she said quietly at his desk as we all resumed our internal struggles to create basic light. “Work diligently and you could be more than you dreamed. You could have the power to change the world for the better,” her eyes darkened for a moment as though filled with remembrance, “to save your friends from any danger, to be strong enough to save whoever you choose or be a harbinger of destruction to your enemies.” She gave him a soft smile, the darkness that Rikol thought he had momentarily glimpsed dissipating, and stood up from the edge of his desk, patting his shoulder as she did so. “Just give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  As she moved away I saw the look on my friend’s face as he mouthed the words ‘save my friends’ to himself over and over.

  It was just the push that Rikol needed. From that point on he didn’t disrupt the class with jokes, cynicism or wisecracks but dedicated himself to mastering seraph as quickly as possible. When we were outside of the class he spent any spare time funnelling seraph from hand to hand, working on mastering the flow of it through his body and at night I could often see the tell-tale glow coming from behind his curtain. Whilst we all worked hard to control the strange power that lay dormant within us, for Rikol nothing else mattered. His focus on other training lapsed, his mind elsewhere when practising the kaschan or weapons practice. He was repeatedly called out by Adronicus and the other trainers - even given a number of stern warnings by Kane - but it all paled in comparison to the look on his face when he produced his first piece of art with controlled use of seraph. His pool wasn’t the biggest - that glory lay with Sophia if you didn’t count my ability to draw on Seya - but his fine control soon outshone us all and he revelled in it.

  Our passing of the fourth-year exam meant that restrictions on certain training methods had been lifted, with the introduction of seraph being the most important change. Whilst it was obvious that we had stumbled across the origins of seraph back in the desert it did not mean that th
e Academy was not aware of how to use it already. We already knew that both Kane and Sarrenai were users, with powerful control over their abilities. I didn’t doubt that every single Imperator at the Academy had some elements of training in utilising seraph and now knew that everyone in the fourth-year category or above had at least a seraph pool thanks to the serum that we had drank. Those that didn’t were likely kept as fourth years for further training in other disciplines but would be unable to be fully fledged Imperators.

  Three months of seraph lessons combined with the daily rigours of fitness, weapons and combat training meant that our rake thin bodies from the hardships of the fourth-year exam had begun to fill back out. In a relatively short time we were feeling back to our normal selves, able to keep pace with the other Academy students and able to compete within the regular inter-form combat trials that Adronicus continued to hold. The training we received in seraph didn’t hone our bodies but improved mental acuity. Instructor Laniel discussed concepts that were completely foreign to us, the theory only making sense in practice. To be proficient at using seraph required a sharp mind, quick wits and the ability to adapt. You could do practically anything with seraph, affecting the world around you in whatever way you chose to imagine as long as you had a pool of energy big enough to enact the change you desired and the will to impose it. It was why, Laniel had explained, many Imperators stuck with the tried-and-true methods of enhancing their blades or casting lances of force or flame. They were easy to visualise which meant that they were easier to will into being and had relatively small drains on their pools, allowing for longer engagements. The skill that Sarrenai had used when walking through walls and into the literal belly of the beast back in the desert was much more advanced in that it required an extremely strong sense of self to be able to undo and rearrange your body just how it was in another location. The seraph cost by itself was large but the mental exhaustion and strain was the real problem, as evidenced by Sarrenai’s almost coma like state after the final battle in the second year. The stories that Ash had talked about, of people being able to rearrange the world to their liking, of being able to single-handedly crush armies - to have had that amount of power was to have been someone of unbowing willpower combined with unmatched intellect and a vast pool of seraph...or methods to improve these attributes, just like the Great Hearts were designed to be.

  There were thirty-one students including ourselves who were deemed to be of fourth year status. At least a dozen of those students had been fourth years for more than two years and the majority of the students were older; most over twenty. It differed from the third year in the number of people in the fourth-year category and it both relieved and chilled me to realise that the reason why the third year didn’t have people retaking the year was because anyone not at the required level would likely die in taking the test. The fact that there were fourth years who had been here for a long period suggested that progression to the fifth year was one of skill or learning and not of survival.

  We knew most of the group already, having been subjected to countless defeats at their hands in evening combat sessions. We now trained with them in each session aside from seraph - in which we were still very much novices - and each individual’s fighting prowess pushed, beat and moulded us into harder, better and more formidable versions of ourselves.

  Sadly Rinoa, the flaming red head who had unceasingly defeated me in every combat session and whose presence gave me a reason to look forward to each beating, was now a sixth year and more and more removed from the normal activities of the Academy. I caught glimpses of her every now and again, a burning flash of red that caught my attention no matter the situation, but we would share little more than a smile. Whilst to me she was the most glorious being to have ever graced the earth, to her I was little more than a child. It would still be some time before she saw me differently.

  Rivalry between the group was rampant. Those who had been held back were more skilled, older, more knowledgeable and held an inherent dislike for those who had hadn’t yet earned their respect, something that those of us at the lower end of the scale desperately thirsted for. Our fights became vicious, each of us was more than skilled enough to kill and whilst trained to have the cold compassion of an Imperator anger and passion inevitably crept through, putting extra power into each blow. Even blunt wooden blades could leave dark bruises and broken bones. The instructors knew this was happening yet did nothing to dissuade it aside from stepping in if blows were getting too deadly. I suspected that the occurrence was not uncommon and that much like with Kirok and his actions in the first year this was another way to test and train students. The one rule in these combat scenarios was that we did not use seraph. Adronicus was adamant on that fact, declaring it as ‘too dangerous for our foolish minds,’ and any hint of seraph usage was met with his thick arm and a groggy visit to the medical centre.

  He was right to do it too. The more we began to play with seraph the more we realised its overwhelming potential. It would be almost too easy to lose control in the moment and kill each other in a flash of destructive magic. Instructor Laniel made it a point to come to some of our training sessions in order to showcase the various ways that classic fighting could be rendered useless when faced with a skilled seraph user, carefully conducting skilled but controlled fights with Adronicus. Her favourite example of controlled power was to send a powerful cut towards his face, forcing him to raise his sword to parry and then allowing her sword to pass through his blade, just like Sarrenai had managed to travel through walls but without the showy side effects of blue flame, allowing her attack to travel unimpeded to rest on the edge of his neck. She showcased how by utilising seraph to enhance her muscles she could block the sharpened edge of Adronicus’s steel greatsword with her arm, her wrist or even her finger and have the strength to lift him into the air with one petite hand. With a bigger expense of her seraph pool she could do the same thing without lifting a finger, lifting Adronicus into the air through sheer will and sending him cartwheeling through the sky much to our delight. Standard rules of engagement didn’t apply to seraph users, their willpower, pool and mental acuity determining their effectiveness rather than physical prowess. Laniel always stressed that mental acuity - the ability to think fast, clearly and without distraction - was the most important part of being a successful seraph user. According to both instructors the fastest end to a seraph user was to break their concentration, to distract them so that whatever they were willing into being faltered and hitting them as hard as possible in that split second. That or assassination.

  Understandably this meant that as lessons with seraph continued so did the style in which they were taught. For two hours a day we had lessons with Laniel on the theory behind using seraph and then we paired up to spend an hour practicing what we had just used. The reasoning behind the pairing was twofold, firstly to help each other understand the practical applications of the concepts we had learned earlier in the day and secondly to distract the other with liberal application of a pea shooter. It made for an aggravating yet fun method of learning that started to quickly produce results, all of us beginning to train our minds to ignore minor distractions at critical points. Granted, ignoring a stinging pea strike was a long way from ignoring an actual injury and with just one immediate threat on the horizon it was easier to focus yourself to ignore it. An actual battle, as we all well knew, would be filled with threats and distractions of all types. Being able to hold your will in place during such trying times would be an almost incomprehensible challenge.

  “And that’s why,” Laniel explained, “Seraph users that focus on large scale, battlefield altering effects train to trust in the comrades around them to keep them safe whilst they concentrate. It’s not something that as Imperators you will be expected to do. You’re trained to act independently and not as a battlefield unit and- Calidan, you’ve got your mouth open, what is it?”

  I shut my mouth abruptly and blushed. “I-” I flailed for the sentence but w
ords failed me. Not often an issue in my case.

  Cassius spoke up, a broad smile on his face. “I think Calidan hadn’t considered that Imperators might not be the only seraph users around. His brain is struggling to cope with understanding how he didn’t guess at that.”

  Laniel grinned. It was a bright smile that made her normally diminutive features seem larger than life. “That’s not like you Calidan!” she exclaimed. “Did you honestly believe that the Andurran empire would be the only ones to have seraph users? Have you never heard the stories of shamans, witches or those Bedouin wizards who live out in the desert?” she laughed softly at my puzzled brow. “And those are only the ones who are known by the townsfolk, the stories told by peasants and villagers to keep their young ones safe. Most countries have forces dedicated to understanding and utilising seraph though they may not know it by that name.”

  Sophia stuck a hand up. “How many countries do we know of?” she asked when Laniel nodded in her direction.

  “The Meredothians to a small extent,” Laniel replied, brow furrowed as she concentrated. “The Hrudan have some forces who specialise in that area, I imagine you would have met some of them if you had stayed much longer in that region. The Sethani empire down in Arunsea has some particularly skilled wielders; they specialise more in large-scale battle magic due to the nature of the terrain. The Academy has ties with their schools, it is quite possible that you will be sent over there to receive some training from a different perspective. The Rodani maintain a standing force of seraph users embedded within their military command. They are utilised almost like our empire would utilise a cavalry charge, their skills designed to lance into and demoralise foes who have already been engaged - I hear it’s very effective for shattering morale and routing enemy forces.” She pursed her lips as she looked towards the ceiling. “I am forgetting something…what is it…oh yes!” she exclaimed, “Us.”