by Eric Vall
The Elder snapped open her fan and fanned herself furiously inside of the tent. Around her, the temperature suddenly dropped, and I could almost see the way her breath misted out.
“And Milady was attacked inside of the archive at the same time,” Laika growled as her hands tightened around the armrests of her chair, and the sound of groaning wood could be heard.
“The princess?” Tion’s eyes snapped open wide. “What happened?”
“I cannot remember.” Alyona’s back was still ramrod straight, but she let go of my hand to move a stray lock of hair from her face. “All I remember is being forced to retreat into my spiritual sea and fighting for control of it. Something strong enough to force me into deviation had attacked me.”
I heard shame in Alyona’s voice, well disguised, but I had come to know her well. She still carried guilt over falling into deviation phase, and from what Olivier taunted her with, I knew it was a dangerous thing.
But Alyona was more than just a potential threat. She wasn’t defined by her power and the tightrope she teetered on when it came to her magic. She was beautiful, brave, and kind beyond measure.
“Miasma covered her, and she was comatose for a week.” I reached out and grabbed Alyona’s hand tightly to reassure her.
The sight of Alyona covered in the accursed black smoke would haunt me for a long time. Her entire body had been on the verge of shutting down as her power worked overtime to purify the miasma that coalesced over her.
“And when she woke up, there was an army at our doorstep,” Laika added as she placed her arm around Alyona’s shoulders and comforted her.
“They used her and Evan’s presence in Hatra as an excuse to attack the city.” Ruslan gritted his teeth, and the fur on his ears bristled. “They called us worshippers of the black dragon and said we’d kidnapped the Divine Maiden to use for vile purposes.”
“Kidnap the princess?” Pyotr shook his head. “That’s treason of the highest degree. Besides, how would you take her from the Mihireti Mountains all the way south to Hatra? With all the cities and Nobles of the Sword in-between, that would be like having a death wish.”
“It would be difficult to prove she had been kidnapped,” Daya mused as she plucked a piece of bread off the table and tore it into bite sized chunks. “But it’s a good excuse to lay waste to any city.”
“They said they were from the Green Glass Sect,” I said and glanced around at the table. “Does that name ring a bell for anyone?”
“We haven’t heard of it,” Pyotr hummed thoughtfully as he looked at the two advisors who sat next to him. “Have we?”
“Word of such a sect hasn’t reached our ears.” Tion shook his head as he slipped his arms into his sleeves.
“Somehow, the name sounds familiar.” Alyona frowned and tapped a finger against her lips. “Like I’ve read it in an old book when I was a child.”
“Would anyone from the White Jade Sect know?” I asked as I leaned toward Alyona and looked at her troubled face. “One of the Stewards or maybe one of the Swords?”
“Perhaps,” Alyona murmured with a tilt of her head.
“Maybe we could ask one of the survivors?” I glanced over at the Elders since I had no idea what had been done with the surviving members of the Green Glass Sect, or if there were any survivors left to question.
“The survivors are currently imprisoned in the brig inside of our airship.” Daya’s smile was feral as she leaned back in the chair. “They have been less than cooperative.”
“Well, maybe we have another option,” I muttered, and I bit back a wince as I thought of how Asher slept inside of my spiritual sea.
“Another option?” Pyotr leaned forward with curiosity evident in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“I’m really not sure how to explain this,” I began, “but after I fought with Asher, you know, the leader of the Green Glass sect’s army, I kind of absorbed him? My Predation ability developed into an Assimilation sort of ability.”
“You mean to say you have Asher inside of you?” Ruslan leaned forward and tilted his head in confusion.
“Don’t ever say that again,” I groaned as I buried my face in my hands. “But, yes.”
“Why?” Julia asked and tapped her fan against the palm of her hand. “What caused your ability to evolve?”
“I think it was because I wanted to help him?” I said, but it came out as more of a question than a statement.
“Again, why?” Ruslan blinked at me, and I could tell he was equal parts confused and proud.
I shrugged. “There was something weird about him.”
Saying “weird” wasn’t really enough to go by, but I wasn’t sure how else to explain it.
“Excluding the fact that he had an army on our doorstep?” Ruslan asked with a bit of amusement in his voice. “And was threatening to tear us apart, limb from limb?”
“It was like he was being controlled by something or someone,” I replied as I remembered the echoing voice and face that overlapped with Asher’s during the battle. “I could see miasma coiled around him and his heart like string.”
“That sounds a bit like soul magic,” Alyona murmured as she tapped her finger on her lips.
“Soul magic?” I turned to look at the priestess in curiosity.
“No, no, continue with your story about Asher,” Alyona urged as she smiled at me. “I can explain soul magic to you later.”
“Um, okay,” I said with a confused frown, but I forged on anyway. “Well, he’s sort of just there. Inside of my spiritual sea, or, actually, off to a corner of it. I can barely sense him, it’s like he’s sleeping.”
As I spoke about the former leader of the invading army, I could barely feel him inside of my spiritual sea. His presence just slept on, and it was barely noticeable, like a piece of glass in a snow ridden valley. I knew he was there, but it was almost like he wasn’t, like he was just a ghost I was remembering.
There was a part of my power that worked constantly to analyze the miasma attached to him. My Predation ability had evolved, or rather it developed a subclass. Assimilation was the name of it, and the skill had the ability to analyze whatever I consumed and even start researching possible antidotes.
I really was learning something new every day.
“What about the miasma inside of him?” Tion asked curiously as he leaned forward and stared at me. “Does it affect you in any way?”
I hadn’t thought about that possibility, but I didn’t sense any miasma seeping out of Asher and into me. Maybe the miasma couldn’t keep up with the strength of Predation, or it was my own healing power that kept the darkness at bay and away from me. Whatever it was, it was serving like a hazmat suit or maybe even a vaccine.
“It’s still there,” I tapped the side of my head with my free hand and shrugged, “but it’s dormant. He’s asleep, and the miasma is asleep, too.”
“There is a danger in that,” Alyona hummed as she tilted her head in thought. “The miasma and Asher are separate entities, albeit Asher is controlled by the miasma. Asher being asleep in your mind serves as a failsafe. The miasma cannot use him nor can it get out of him to try and leech onto you. But the moment he wakes up, there is the chance the miasma will take control of him.”
Alyona’s voice trailed off as her eyes lost focus, and she fell into deep thought. Her fingers kept up a steady, tapping rhythm on her armrest that the more feral instincts inside of me found entrancing, almost like it was the beating of a drum that would signal the start of a chase.
“What if Evan continues cultivating his energy?” Ruslan asked, and there were sparks of anger in his eyes. “So that, no matter what happens, the miasma won’t be able to harm him.”
Then I realized it was worry in Ruslan’s eyes, not anger.
I glanced between him and the other two Elders, and I saw they wore the same concern on their faces. Moskal fiddled with his thumbs in nervousness, and Julia was holding onto her ever present fan so tightly I thought it wou
ld snap.
“Not just cultivating his own energy,” Julia interjected as her pale blue eyes glittered with worry. “He’ll have to spend hours out of the day learning how to control the flow of both earthly and heavenly energy. We have to help him build up enough mental fortitude that the miasma won’t be able to do harm, even if it does wake up and attempt to leech onto him.”
A swell of emotion rose up in my chest, and my eyes threatened to water. I hadn’t realized how much they’d begun to care for me in such a short period of time. The Elders were hundreds of years old, and they’d only known me for less than a month, yet they were already so concerned about me, someone who wasn’t even from their world.
Well, I guess it was my world now.
“I’ll be fine,” I said as I swallowed back my emotions. “I have some awesome teachers, and I’m a pretty quick study.”
“I will help you as well,” Alyona promised as she placed one of her hands on mine. “Since birth, I have been cultivating both earthly and heavenly energy. I will teach you all that I have been taught by the sages in the Mihireti Mountains.”
“Perhaps this is a good moment?” Natalya interrupted as she placed a small wooden box on the table. “Perhaps this will help Master Dragon in subduing the miasma within?”
A thrum of power emanated from the box and, somehow, it reminded me of the taste of Alyona’s purity. With my mind’s eye, I could almost see a pale glow around the box.
“Is this from the mine?” I shifted in my seat as I itched to open the box and hold whatever was inside of it. “You’ve already finished making weapons?”
“We have more at the smithy.” Natalya nodded stoically as she sat ramrod straight in her chair. “We brought some to show.”
“Weapons?” Pyotr asked as he leaned toward the wooden box curiously.
“Orichalum is a sacred metal guarded by our people.” Natalya drew in a steadying breath before she continued speaking. “The mine was a gift from the heavens. A star came down and opened a hole in the earth. The star spoke and promised us nothing would hold a candle to the power of the metal. It would be stronger than the scales of any creature and sharper than glass.”
“I know of this metal,” Alyona said quietly as she kept her eyes on the box. “His Eminence has halls full of weapons and armor crafted from it deep in the mountains. He’s never allowed anyone to wield any of the weapons nor wear any of the armor. What he always told me was that they were not for waging war but for protecting.”
“He speaks truly.” Maksim tilted his head as he leaned back in his chair. “We Asuras once used that gift for ill. We rampaged across the land until the Lord of the White Jade Sect stopped us.”
“Asuras rampaging?” Daya snorted as she shook her head. “I’ve never heard of that in any records. You’ve all been a peaceful lot, I doubt any of you would have even attacked a small settlement if provoked.”
“You are wrong.” Natalya’s eyes shifted, and there was an ancient knowledge deep within them. “This was before the Breach opened and the netherworld collided with our own, allowing for devils and demons to seep in and wreak havoc.”
I realized then just how little I truly knew about the Asuras. I’d thought they were a quiet people who’d always lived in the forest near Hatra. This evidently wasn’t the case. They had a far deeper and richer history than I’d previously imagined.
I wanted to learn so much more, and there was so much treasure dripping from Natalya’s lips as she fed us information tidbit by tidbit about her people and the holy metal.
“Before the Breach?” Laika’s eyes were wide as she stared at Natalya in awe. “That would have been more than five thousand years ago.”
“Is this recorded down anywhere?” I asked and thought of the ancient histories Aunt Emma always spoke of. “It can’t just be the Asuras who remember this.”
I prayed it wasn’t just the Asuras who had this knowledge, otherwise so much of it was lost with the attack on their village. If the Asuras had such deep knowledge of things kept secret from the rest of Rahma, then their fall would be equivalent to the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
“It was.” Natalya inclined her head in Alyona’s direction and smiled softly. “His Eminence is not the only one who remembers. The Princess has honored the pact between us.”
“The knowledge and history of the Asuras isn’t lost,” Alyona explained, and her gemstone eyes glittered as she smiled. “There are slabs of jade, small enough to fit in your hand, sent to the Asuras every time an Asuran child is born. Knowledge and information can be stored inside of those jade slips, and there are linked copies of each of them in the various safehouses the White Jade Sect guards as fail safes in case of widespread destruction. If there’s some cataclysmic event and all governing powers in this world are toppled, all the knowledge of this world won’t be lost. It will be there for future generations to use.”
“That’s fucking awesome,” I breathed out as I leaned back in my chair.
The jade slabs opened up a realm of possibilities in regards to the flow of information in Inati and how I’d be able to learn things quickly. While I didn’t fully know how they were used or formed, I knew Alyona would fill me in on the details if I asked. As it was, we’d gotten side tracked from the main point.
The box with the weapons crafted by Natalya.
I leaned forward and reached out to lift the lid of the box, and then I gasped when I did.
“Are they to your liking, Master Dragon?” Natalya laughed, and her voice was smug.
In the box was a set of nine exquisitely crafted daggers that glowed with an inner light. The hilts of each were set with moonstones, and carvings of ferocious dragons curled around the gem. Along the length of the scabbards was also a soaring dragon surrounded by clouds and stars.
“How long did it take you to make these?” I breathed out as I traced one finger along the beautiful scabbard. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Not long, perhaps a week in all,” Natalya hummed and tilted her head in thought. “Twenty swords, one thousand arrow heads, and thirty more daggers in total.”
“And you did this alone?” Tion blinked at the Asura, and shock was evident in his face.
“Aye,” Natalya replied, but she gave no explanation as to her speed or prowess. “Master Dragon, take one of the daggers and tell me how it feels.”
A jolt of pure power ran through me when I lifted one of the daggers from the box and slid it out of its scabbard. The metal of the blade was sleek and smooth with no visible imperfections, but I didn’t know much about blades to begin with.
Almost instantly, a soothing energy coursed through my body and settled in my spiritual sea. The energy was an ocean of calm that swept away my worries and soothed my own power down from the anxious height I hadn’t even noticed it’d risen to.
“It feels almost like I’m back in the River Moonstone House,” I murmured as I balanced the blade in my hand. “There’s power in the dagger, but it’s calming and soothing, like a blanket of armor around me and my mind.”
“That is the power of the metal.” Natalya nodded at my words as a wide smile crept onto her face.
“Can you keep up this production and make a storehouse?” I asked, and my mind moved rapidly from idea to idea. “I know you said this isn’t for war, that it’s to be used to protect. So, we’ll do just that. Can this be added onto the walls? No, the gates, can you forge gates from this?”
If this metal truly was stronger than anything else in this world, that would make the walls of Hatra impossible to breach. Julia was already studying the enchantments that had been added onto the aqueducts, and we’d just have to figure out how to layer enchantments and the metal onto the walls. Alyona could help us with the enchantments, and I knew her power and knowledge would be invaluable in the rebuilding of Hatra.
“There is enough, yes,” Natalya hummed in thought, and she tapped her armrest, “but I will need more help in the forge. Elder Ruslan has been helping
me as I teach him the ways of the sacred metal, but we would need more hands. We will need more space as well.”
I glanced at the Elders, and they nodded in agreement.
“Whatever you need, you shall have it.” Julia snapped open her fan and fanned herself. “We can draw up schematics for expanding the smithy, and we’ll recruit more hands for help. Are there any among the Blue Tree Guild with smithing experience?”
“Some, but mainly for repairing and maintaining weapons,” Tion replied with a grimace.
“That would be enough.” Natalya’s amber eyes glittered with excitement as she leaned forward. “I can teach. They will learn quickly.”
“Natalya, the rest of these daggers, do you mind if I take them?” I asked as my eyes dropped to the other eight daggers in the box in front of me.
“Master Dragon, it would be my honor.” Natalya clasped her hands in front of her and inclined her head.
The dagger in my hands was the only one I was going to keep. I was going to give the other eight daggers away to the people I wanted to protect. Two would definitely be given to Ilya and Ilyushina. I didn’t want any harm to come to the youngest Asuras, and while I wasn’t exactly happy about giving them weapons, they needed to have protection.
With my mind made up, I stood and grabbed the box. Then I walked toward the three Elders and offered the contents to them.
“Elders of Hatra,” my voice was strong and sure as I spoke, “I offer each of you a dagger made of this sacred metal. You are the living history and symbols of this city. If there are any who should wield these holy blades, it is you three.”
“It is our honor to accept this gift.” Ruslan stood and placed his hands on my shoulders. “We shall wield them wisely.”
Julia and Moskal also stood, and pride made their eyes gleam as they placed their hands on my shoulders as well.
Ruslan was the first to pick a dagger out of the box, and he hummed thoughtfully as he balanced the blade in his hand.
“I saw you craft these, Natalya,” Ruslan said as he glanced at the Asura, who seemed almost nervous. “They are beautifully made, and the balance is perfection itself.”