Infinite Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 5)

by Gage Lee

  The quest was mine and my friends’. Period.

  “Can we continue this conversation somewhere a little more relaxed?” I asked. “I’m hungry, I bet you are, too, and I’d feel a lot more comfortable sitting down to discuss this like civilized beings.”

  Tru looked like she wanted to challenge me for a moment. Then she barked out a little laugh and shook her head. She cracked her knuckles and extended her right hand, slowly and carefully. She knew all eyes were on her and didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to get stabby. “Good idea. I think maybe I’m a little hangry.”

  It was my turn to laugh as I took her hand. I held her eyes as we shook and lowered my voice so my clan members’ relieved applause would hide what I had to say. “Thanks for not beating me up in front of my clan.”

  “Pretty sure that’s not how that would go down,” she responded, then laughed again. “Promise me this won’t turn into a nightmare.”

  “Wish I could,” I said. “Best I can do is promise that I won’t make it any harder than it has to be.”

  “Same,” she shot back.

  “All right,” I said, voice boosted with a little jinsei to make sure everyone heard it, “we’re all good here. Phoenixes, grab some dinner. Tru and I will find a nice quiet place to finish our conversation.”

  My students filed out of the Stacks and headed toward the dining room in a pack, Byron and Christina in the lead. I hoped the two of them would learn to get along rather than vie for a spot as elder’s pet, but that was probably a wish too far.

  Eric and Abi glanced at me, then headed out after my clan members when I gave them the nod.

  Clem took my hand and leaned up on tiptoes to give me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be nearby,” she whispered. “If you need me, I’ll take her out.”

  The mischievous twinkle in my girlfriend’s eye told me she was only half-joking. Clem was no fighter, but she was fierce and devious. I’d put even money that she’d figure out some way to drop Tru if it came to that.

  But even money wasn’t good enough. I squeezed Clem’s hand and returned the kiss so I could whisper back, “Easy, tiger. We’re good.”

  Clem nodded and smiled at Tru as she headed for the door. “Thanks for not killing him,” she said with a smile.

  Tru and I brought up the rear. We walked in silence, letting the others get some distance on us, before the young dragon spoke up. “This wasn’t about dinner, was it?”

  I bent the School around us, and we found our way to a small meeting room tucked away in the administration wing. There wasn’t any food in the cozy quarters, but it had a scrivened kettle that could heat water in the blink of an eye, a pour-over coffee maker, filters, a grinder, and a small supply of beans. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

  “You’re right,” I said as I busied myself with the bean grinder. “It’s about minimizing witnesses.”

  Tru bristled until she saw my grin. She relaxed and we both waited patiently for the burr grinder to complete its business. As the aroma of coffee filled the small, wood-paneled room, she took a seat at the small table and swiveled the chair off to one side so she could stretch her legs out, ankles crossed.

  “This is a dangerous game, Jace,” she said while I positioned a filter in the pour-over’s conical mouth and measured the grounds into it. “Sorry, Elder Warin. You can’t convince me not to tell the Council about all of this. You’re threatening to upend the whole mortal realm. They have every right to know.”

  None of this was news to me. Tru was an honorable, faithful dragon who believed that her people were smarter, wiser, and prettier than any human. She would not let this go until the First Scepter had his say on the matter. I’d never be able to convince her otherwise.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

  I let her stew for a few minutes while I trickled near-boiling water from the gooseneck kettle into the grounds. There was an art to the process, and I wouldn’t be rushed. By pouring the water in a clockwise spiral, I made sure all the coffee was wet and let the turbulence gently stir the concoction as it steeped. Then it was a matter of waiting for it to filter through into the bottom of the pour-over.

  “I will hear what they have to say,” I said as the water trickled through the grounds to become the most delicious drink on Earth. “And I won’t try to stop you from telling them all the gory details. I’m only asking that you wait a bit until I know more about the quest.”

  She made an exasperated noise and threw her hands up. “Here we go again. There’s absolutely no reason I shouldn’t head straight to Shambala after I finish this cup of coffee. My superiors need to know about this.”

  I hid my frustration by pouring coffee into a pair of cups I took out of the rack over the room’s small sink. One of them had a ridiculous caricature of a duelist on it, with the words, “Give me coffee, or give me death!” beneath it. The other was a plain black mug. I took the former and handed the other to Tru. “Cream or sugar?”

  She nodded. “Both. Lots.”

  Gross. So much for draconic superiority. Polluting excellent coffee was such a waste. Still, I wanted to make a good impression on Tru, so I served up her warm milkshake with a splash of coffee in it. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” She took a sip and nodded approvingly. “This is fantastic. Why do you want me to wait to report this news back to the Scaled Council?”

  I poured my coffee straight into my mug without any additives. It was rich, with just a hint of chocolaty notes and bright citrus. It was delicious. “Because I don’t have the best luck with the powers that be. I need time to figure out my next step without interference.”

  “Interference,” Tru muttered into her coffee. “You really think the First Scepter or his people will cause you problems?”

  I let her question hang in the air and leaned against the counter to sip my coffee. When she kept the same serious expression, I had to bite back a laugh. “You tried to kill me when we first met. You’re still a little mad you didn’t. One of your highest-ranking dragons conspired with the Church to lie to everyone and push my team out of the running. It’s not that I don’t trust dragons, Tru, but I don’t trust anyone with more power than me. Because their motive is to preserve that power, at any cost. Otherwise, you wouldn’t feel the need to tell the First Scepter anything.”

  The young dragon’s jaw dropped as I spoke. Fires kindled in her eyes, and I braced for a heated argument. But after a few seconds, she closed her mouth and pursed her lips. “You promise you won’t use my delay to run off and finish your adventure?” she asked.

  That precise idea had occurred to me, but I’d discarded it for a few reasons.

  For one, I didn’t need all the dragons mad at me. That was borrowing trouble. For another, there was no way Eric and Tru wouldn’t talk about this “private” meeting when they sneaked off to pretend they weren’t smooching. Finally, Eric would not let me trick Tru without raising a ruckus. Again, that was heaping trouble atop the massive pile the universe had already dropped on my plate.

  “You’ve got my word.” I didn’t even cross my fingers behind my back. “I might make preparations, but I will not set out to complete another leg of the quest without giving you time to squeal about me and my nefarious plans to your dragon bosses.”

  Tru smiled, but there was a bitterness behind it. “What I said earlier. About how a dragon should have won the Gauntlet.”

  “Yeah?” I shrugged. “Forget about it. No apologies necessary.”

  “Good.” Tru showed plenty of teeth in her smile. “Because I meant it. This mission is too important for any one person. And humans don’t have a good history with this kind of quest. You need our input. Don’t worry. I’ll give you time to get your house in order before we bring it to the Scaled Council. But do not break your word, or I’ll break your back.”

  Well, at least the dragons were consistent in their arrogance. I bristled at her words but held my tongue. She was doing her job, and yelling at her wouldn’t accomplish a
nything. “Thank you,” I said.

  “How long will you wait before you start?” the young dragon asked.

  “A while,” I said, honestly. My interest in pursuing Maps’ new quest was far behind the need to protect my clan members from our enemies. I couldn’t think of going out to hunt for orichalcum until after my people were in fighting trim.

  The Flame could wait. I had more immediate concerns to handle, first.

  “Keep me posted. I really am hungry,” Tru said. She drained the last of her coffee in a single gulp. “You want to grab something in the dining hall?”

  “Nah,” I said. “You go ahead.”

  When Tru had gone, I savored the time alone. After the hectic week I’d had, that slice of isolation felt as good as the coffee tasted.

  The Goad

  ANOTHER SCHOOL WEEK passed faster than I would have believed possible. Even staying up all night didn’t give me as much time as I needed. Working with Eric to keep the Shadow Phoenixes in fighting condition, studying my own class work with Hahen, and maintaining my relationship with Clem all took huge bites out of my day. And I wouldn’t have traded a minute of the time I gave them for anything.

  Sometimes, though, I wished things could slow down, just a little.

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t know you had a sister,” Clem said. We were on our way from the martial arts class with Professor Song to grab some lunch in the dining hall.

  “There’s a lot of stuff about my past I didn’t know.” I shrugged. “That’s what makes me so mysterious.”

  Eric laughed. “You mean confused.”

  Niddhogg interrupted our conversation by bursting up over the staircase railing, his tiny wings a blur. He seemed bigger since I’d seen him that morning, though I wasn’t sure how that was possible.

  “Jace, hurry!” he shouted.

  The little dragon had agreed to help keep an eye on my clan members while I was in class, and he’d done a great job so far. The look of panic in his eyes told me that our run of good luck had just ended.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s Byron,” the diminutive dragon huffed. “He’s in a duel!”

  “He’s not ready for that,” Eric groaned. “Where are they?”

  “Main hall!” Niddhogg said as he dove over the railing on his way to the fight.

  The rest of us raced down the stairs and hurried for the main hall. The School twisted and warped to meet my demands for more speed, shunting aside students unfortunate enough to be in our path and sending us careening around a sharp corner into the entryway.

  “What’s going on here?” I shouted and bulled my way through the crowd that had gathered around Byron and his opponent.

  “Elder Warin.” Theodosia Reyes bowed to me and then glided around the dueling ring to reach me. She stopped just short of Byron and bowed appropriately low in my direction. The annoying smirk plastered across her face made a mockery of her show of respect. “Anna, a member of the honorable Resplendent Suns clan, has challenged Byron to a duel. He has accepted. You have arrived in time to witness the Right of Primacy’s historic return to Empyreal society.”

  My heart sank. I couldn’t imagine a single good reason Byron would have accepted this duel. His opponent, a lanky blonde girl whose robes were a full size too big, glared at my interruption as if eager to get on with the fight.

  “Byron,” I said cautiously. “Did you agree to this duel of your own free will?”

  My clan member nodded to me, his strangely hooked fusion blade at the ready. “She said you killed our clan’s elders to steal their position. I couldn’t let that stand.”

  Theodosia nodded enthusiastically to Byron. “It is only right you would wish to defend your clan elder’s honor. I am sure he is pleased to see you exercising one of the oldest and most respected Empyreal traditions in this time of chaos.”

  If every eye in the main hall, including those of my own clan mates, hadn’t been glued to me, I would have done something ill-advised in that moment. The smarmy Disciple knew she had me up against the wall. If I stopped the duel, my clan would lose face and it would humiliate Byron. Not to mention that the other clans would certainly make a stink about an elder interfering in a sanctioned duel. They’d likely get me hauled up in front of an adjudicator on some trumped-up garbage that would put my clan at risk.

  I bowed to the duelists, then stepped back to the edge of the crowd. “I wish you both the best of luck,” I said. And then, to Byron, “Thank you for defending my good name.”

  The way the kid straightened up with pride made my heart ache. I’d have to explain the reality of the world to him after the duel. For now, I’d let him believe I backed him up, one hundred percent.

  “This is terrible,” Eric said. “I really hate rooting against my clan.”

  “And Jace would really hate to have his clan torn down around his ears,” Clem fired back at him, her cheeks flushed bright red.

  “Please don’t,” Abi pleaded. His hands were tight on the handles of his chair. “Fighting amongst ourselves only adds to the chaos. They’re about to begin.”

  The two students fell into dueling postures. Byron’s weapon, a khopesh, looked horribly unwieldy compared to his opponent’s slender rapier. If Byron was cannier than his foe, that could work to his advantage. A single solid strike from his heavy blade would immediately knock the fight right out of her.

  But if Anna was the better fighter, she’d whittle him down with a dozen little pokes. I had no idea which result was most likely. Neither of them looked like a trained fighter. With any luck, they’d flail around like lunatics for a few minutes before one of them landed a lucky blow and the whole thing ended without lost eyes or severed limbs.

  And then the duel began, and I realized just how wrong I’d been.

  Byron hesitated, but Anna glided across the floor in an arcing path that carried her to Byron’s left side faster than he could adjust his defense. The tip of her rapier flowed effortlessly through a figure-eight pattern and mesmerized the poor kid with its fluid grace.

  The second-year student was an excellent fighter. I didn’t know who’d put her up to taking on Byron, someone with far less training than she had, but I’d find out as soon as this was over.

  Her jinsei-fueled strike was so fast I almost didn’t see it. The rapier’s tip streaked toward Byron’s side like a diving hawk. My instincts told me there was no way he could deflect that blow with his heavy sword. In my heart, I knew Byron would soon be off to join the Resplendent Suns.

  And if Byron had tried to parry Anna’s blow, that would have been exactly how that fight ended.

  But the clever kid didn’t try the obvious. Instead, he threw himself to the ground and rolled beneath the rapier’s tip. The weapon passed harmlessly over him, and Byron bounced up onto the balls of his feet.

  It was his turn to put his jinsei to work, and he used the sacred energy to reinforce the channels of his arms and spine. Byron shouted and swept the khopesh at his foe in a wide, sweeping arc. The fusion blade had an impressively long reach that caught Anna by surprise, and it looked as if the slicing blow would end the battle.

  My heart raced at the thought. Byron’s victory would ensure that other clans would take duels against us more seriously. But if he beat Anna and brought her into our clan, then we’d have a new problem to deal with. I couldn’t imagine that students captured through the Right of Primacy would be cooperative. She’d sabotage our efforts and report any weaknesses she found back to the Resplendent Suns. Anna would become a constant thorn in our side.

  With no space to dodge, and a weapon far too small to parry Byron’s ponderous fusion blade, she fell back on her techniques. She thrust her offhand out in front of her and barked an explosive kiai. Dust kicked up from the main hall’s floor as heat washed ahead of her and slammed into Byron’s arms. The attack lacked enough force to stop his blow, but it was more than enough to knock it off target.

  With a frustrated shout, Byr
on leaned into his attack. He twisted the weapon at the last second and roared with the effort of fighting the blade’s momentum. The fusion blade obeyed his command, though, and rose to catch Anna’s weapon arm on the inside of its hooked blade.

  The crowd gasped, sure we were about to see a student lose most of her forearm. The khopesh was far too large, and Byron swung it with too much force, for the attack to do anything but grievous harm.

  Anna must have thought the same, because she cried out in alarm in the instant before the weapon collided with her arm. She shouted again, a split second later, this time in surprise that she hadn’t lost her hand.

  The khopesh’s inner curve wasn’t a cutting edge. The blunt hook landed with enough force to throw Anna’s arm wide and break her grip on the rapier. The fusion blade flew out of her hand, bounced across the floor, and vanished in a spray of jinsei sparks.

  But that wasn’t the only trick up Byron’s sleeve. The weapon’s momentum carried it around in an arc that trapped Anna’s arm. My clan mate’s leverage and greater strength combined to flip Anna into the air. She smashed into the main hall’s stone floor with an audible thud.

  The impact knocked the air out of Anna’s lungs and left her dazed and helpless. The crowd took in a horrified breath as Byron raised his weapon high above her in a two-handed grip.

  My heart skipped a beat when Byron brought his weapon down in an executioner’s chop aimed at Anna’s neck. A scattering of screams rose from the horrified crowd, and I summoned my fusion blade and serpents, ready to face an angry mob.

  Byron’s blade stopped a fraction of an inch from Anna’s throat. The weapon was so close to her skin that a thin red line of blood appeared when she frantically swallowed.

  For the thinnest slice of a second, something seethed around the pair of duelists. It was everywhere and nowhere at once, a collection of threads that darted between the two of them. But before I could be sure I’d seen it, the air cleared, and I was looking at two students, one about to kill the other.