The gold locked tight. More theotechs leaned in, jamming long, thin pieces of metal into small indents of the cylinder and twisting. Liam felt a tightening sensation across his skin, the machine bolting into his living arm. There were two knobs near the center of the new mechanism, and Iseph began tweaking them in turn. Each time a strange, awakening sensation filled the area.
“I believe this will suffice,” Iseph told Marius. “Now we wait for the body to adjust.”
The Speaker drew a small bottle from a pocket of his robe as he returned to Liam’s side.
“It’s over,” he said. He tipped the bottle to Liam’s lips. “This will help you rest.”
Liam drank the mixture greedily. It tasted of copper and cloves, and it burned all the way down. Immediately his mind began to swim, overcome with an overpowering need to sleep.
“Why?” Liam asked, his speech slurred. “Why didn’t you give me this before?”
Marius gently patted his uninjured shoulder.
“A gift and a punishment,” he said as sleep began to take Liam away. “Each must be given their turn.”
Liam felt his world slowly return to him, his mind awakening from a drugged stupor. His entire left side ached, and every inhalation scraped air across his raw throat. He tried to sit up. Restraints held him down.
“Hold still a moment,” a voice spoke from the haze that clouded his vision. “You were thrashing in your sleep and we wished to prevent injury.”
Iseph’s voice. Even in his confusion he recognized that deep rumble. Liam closed his eyes tightly and then reopened them. Clearer now. He was in the same room, though the blood was cleaned from his table. Iseph stood beside him while Marius lurked in the corner. Jaina was gone, as were the other theotechs. The leather buckles rattled as Iseph removed them one by one.
“My arm,” Liam said. Talking hurt, but he could withstand a bit of pain. After the surgery he’d just endured, a sore throat felt like a soothing breeze. “What did you do to my arm?”
“Once you’ve recovered, I’ll be happy to show you,” Iseph said.
“No,” Liam said, pushing off the bed and onto unsteady legs. “Now.”
Iseph looked to Marius, who nodded in affirmative.
“Very well,” Iseph said. “First, let us confirm the basic functionality. Can you move your right arm freely?”
Liam looked to the golden contraption bolted to his elbow. It was strange, so strange. As he moved it about it felt normal somehow, only muted, like it had almost fallen asleep. The top bit with the four smaller cylinders were where his hand should be, and somehow he felt those four as if they were his own fingers, currently pressed together into a fist.
“Very good,” Iseph said. “Now hold still.”
The Er’el tapped the golden arm with his finger several times, spacing the taps out every few inches.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
“I do,” Liam said. “I feel it like it was my own arm.”
“That’s because it is,” Marius said from the corner. “You will move and control your gift like it is a part of yourself.”
Interesting, Liam decided, but he still failed to see how it was a gift. There must be something else this new arm could do, but what?
“Follow me,” Iseph said. “If you insist on testing it now, then we need more space.”
They exited into the great cavern full of ancient weaponry. Iseph led the way, Liam trailing a few steps behind. They followed along the wall, for which he was thankful. Every few moments he’d rest his shoulder against it and gather his breath. His new arm occasionally brushed the stone, sending a shiver all the way up his neck. Liam could only guess how long it would take for him to adjust. His eyes saw a foreign chunk of golden metal, but his body felt a new arm and a clenched fist.
Iseph took them all the way to the far end of the cavern, which still stunned Liam with its size. Here there were fewer machines, but that didn’t mean fewer theotechs. One machine in particular had more than two dozen theotechs hovering around it like little worker ants. It looked like the other cannons, only far greater in size and far more ornate in its decorations. Before passing the machine, Iseph stopped at one of the ten chests of elements stashed beside it and pulled out a handful of fire elemental prisms.
“This way,” the Er’el said, gesturing to the massive empty wall towering ahead of them. “You may fire at the door.”
Fire? Door?
Liam saw only the wall, perfectly smooth and flat all the way up to the ceiling, at least a hundred feet high. He nodded as if he understood and followed. When they were within fifty yards Iseph halted and offered Liam one of his prisms.
“There is a compartment on the underside of your new arm,” he said. “You’ll open it similar to a gauntlet.”
Liam rotated his arm, and sure enough, he found the faint indentations of a compartment opening. He pushed it down and in with his left hand, popping it free. Instead of space for a single prism Liam found three separate slots. After putting in the first, Liam accepted two more, carefully inserting them into the contraption and then snapping the compartment shut. Liam immediately felt better with it closed. His mind wasn’t quite sure how to interpret the open compartment, and he couldn’t get the unpleasant image of his flesh opening up to leave his thoughts.
“Your new arm will function as a superior form of gauntlet,” Iseph said, stepping behind him. The theotech put his hands on Liam’s new arm and extended it forward, his fingers tracing the four cylinders at the end. It felt as if Iseph were touching Liam’s real, flesh-and-blood fingers. “Each of these will fire a burst of flame when you make the mental connection. Combined together, and harnessing a trio of linked prisms, this should give you vastly greater range and force than any other knight.”
Liam closed his eyes, keenly aware of the Speaker quietly watching him. He needed to concentrate. Unleashing fire from his gauntlet was second nature to him, but after the drugs and the pain he felt rattled, and this was no ordinary gauntlet. This was a part of himself, akin to unleashing fire from his bare palm. Taking a slow breath in and out to calm his mind, Liam began to feel the soft presence of the fire prisms. When he opened his eyes, he braced his legs, tightened the muscles of his right arm, and envisioned the burst of flame roaring from the golden barrels.
A tremendous burst of fire shot from his arm, the power rocking his entire body sideways. It shrieked forward like a comet before slamming against the stone wall with a roaring explosion. Liam felt the strain of it on his mind, but it was different somehow. More natural. More free.
“Excellent,” Iseph said. “Beyond expectations, even. You will need to relearn how to control your fire as well as brace your body for each attack, but I expect you will pick up these skills with ease.”
“Perhaps,” Liam said, staring at his golden arm. “It kicks harder than a mule.”
“A worthy price for such power,” Marius said. His arms were crossed over his chest, and unlike Iseph, he kept his face passive. “Show him the blade.”
“Blade?” Liam asked.
“In case there are times where melee is necessary,” Iseph explained. “There is a blade hidden within your arm. To activate it, I believe you must try to open your fingers as wide as possible.”
“I don’t have fingers.”
“You once did, and that mental order is what the device will interpret. Now try it instead of arguing.”
Liam nodded and turned back to the wall, now blackened in a large circle from his first attack. He might have four little barrels at the end of his arm instead of fingers, but they did indeed feel like a closed fist. Imagining it as such, Liam tried to open those fingers and spread his palm. Not much happened at first. He concentrated harder, prying open this fingers. The four barrels spread wide with a sudden snap, and from their center punched out a long blade. One side was thin and sharp, the other cruelly serrated.
“You will need practice with this new blade,” Iseph said. “The sword is now a part o
f you, and as such, you’ll lose much of the mobility of a twisting wrist. However, you no longer need to fear losing your grip, nor the strain of impact while striking in flight. This should more than compensate in most battles.”
Liam shifted his arm, trying to get a feel for this new blade. It was thicker than a normal sword, more spearlike, too. He swung it a few times and was pleased with the sense of power and weight it carried. He thought to ask how to retract it but Iseph had pulled back to speak with an older theotech who’d joined him. Marius ignored both, and looked as if he were holding back a grin.
“There is one more surprise left,” he said. “Aim at the wall and release your fire while keeping the blade extended.”
Intrigued, Liam extended his arm once more. He felt the click in his mind, the activation of the prism, and then fire bellowed forth. Unlike the first release, which shot a thick, streaking projectile, this explosion sprayed a massive cloud of fire from the four spread barrels. It didn’t reach the wall, instead consuming air in the space before him in an inferno and fading into smoke.
Iseph broke from his conversation and clapped excitedly.
“As I said, close quarters only. But even the glorified Phoenix will struggle to match the power you’ll wield.”
Liam shook his head in awe. He still mourned the loss of his arm, and the pain of the surgery haunted his waking thoughts … but he could not deny the raw power of the weapon granted to him.
“It is a fine gift,” he said, bowing before Marius. “I pray I use it to its utmost capabilities to repay such trust.”
“I send you to hunt the most frightening of foes,” Marius said, bidding him to rise. “I will not do so without sending you prepared.”
Iseph bowed to the other theotech, who stepped back to give them privacy.
“Er’el Modwin says all preparations for departure are ready,” he said. “Shall we begin?”
Marius’s smile vanished.
“Yes,” he said. “Consider the order given.”
Iseph relayed it to Er’el Modwin, who bowed low and then rushed away shouting. Liam watched as all throughout the cavern the theotechs set their machines to life with a hum of a thousand light prisms.
“How will we get the machines out?” Liam asked.
Iseph gave him a look.
“Are you deaf?” he asked. “I told you we were at the door.”
Liam turned to the giant wall he’d blackened and refused to believe it. Only when the sound of tremendous gears turning assaulted his ears, coupled with the deep grinding of moving stone, did he understand.
A thin line split the wall from floor to ceiling, and outside light bled through, blinding in the gloomy cavern. Liam watched with mouth agape as the crack steadily widened. It was a door for giants, perhaps even gods. He squinted against the light, trying to see what lay on the other side. At last his eyes adjusted, and he saw a long, wide road leading down a large slope. Rocky outcroppings stretched far to either side, with the closest rocks carved into statues of angels with arms raised in supplication. He recognized that path and those statues. They were at the western base of Mount Vassal. An entire mountain, carved hollow to hide Center’s might? The thought was overwhelming. Gears groaned and turned, and theotechs rushed about shouting excitedly. Both the Speaker and his Er’el could not appear more pleased.
“The vault of Heavenstone awakens,” Marius said as daylight streamed through the ever-widening doorway. “Weshern’s rebellion is at an end.”
CHAPTER
6
Bree knocked on the door to their appointed room within the Candren royal mansion.
“Come on in,” Kael said from the other side.
She saw exactly what she expected when she entered, a miserable-looking Kael lying on his bed, hands behind his head, eyes locked on the ceiling.
“How was dinner?” he asked. He didn’t bother to look her way.
“You missed dessert,” Bree said, sitting on the bed opposite his. “I think it was a bread roll of some sort. Was a little hard to tell. The entire thing was practically buried in honey.”
Kael didn’t respond. Bree frowned. She knew he’d been humiliated at the dinner, but this wallowing seemed a bit much. She opened her mouth to berate him, then paused. No, Kael wasn’t moping. His brow was furrowed, his lips locked in a tight frown. He was debating something. Determined to suss it out, she stood and walked to his side.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’ll think I’m insane.”
Bree smiled.
“The rest of Candren already thinks so. What does it matter if I do as well?”
He threw his pillow at her, which she easily could have dodged but didn’t. It smacked her in the face and then dropped into her lap. Bree immediately flung it back into his stomach. Kael exaggerated a grimace, but he was smiling now, and he sat up.
“Fine,” he said. “I want to break into the Clay Cathedral.”
Bree lifted an eyebrow at him.
“You’re right,” she said. “I do think you’re insane.”
“Wait. Hear me out. You heard Evereth during dinner. He thinks I am a lunatic. There’s not a chance he actually grants me permission to go beneath the Clay Cathedral.”
“He’d probably think you were trying to blow up all of Candren,” Bree said.
“Exactly. So we need to sneak in ourselves, tonight, before we perform the signing ceremony and leave for home. This is important, Bree. I don’t feel like we have any other choice.”
Bree crossed her arms and sighed.
“All right, I’ll bite. Why is it so important?”
Kael stood and began pacing, his voice rising with excitement.
“Johan’s banned all entrance into the Crystal Cathedral back home, even to me, and I’ve already spoken with L’fae. He’s claiming it’s to keep Weshern safe, but I’m not so sure anymore. There’s so much we don’t know about L’adim, what he looks like, how he’ll attack, or how we’re to defeat him.”
The mention of Johan soured Bree’s already exhausted mood. She remembered how pleased the man had looked capturing the Crystal Cathedral, how banishing the theotechs seemed to be Johan’s personal victory instead of all of Weshern’s.
“Johan asked you to tell no one about the lightborn,” she said. “He’s starting to act no differently than the theotechs.”
“To be fair, he said I’d be mocked and disbelieved,” Kael said, and he rolled his eyes. “He was right on that point, at least.”
“All right, so say we decide we’ll go into the Clay Cathedral. Care to tell me how you plan on doing that? We don’t know the land, nor the layout of the cathedral, nor how well it’s guarded. It’s not like we can just strap on a pair of wings and fly over there without causing a ruckus.”
Kael flung his arms up.
“That’s what I was pondering when you started asking questions,” he said. “You interrupted my planning. Don’t blame me for not having everything figured out yet.”
“One thing at a time, then,” Bree said, sitting back down on her bed. “We need to get out of the mansion without being noticed first.”
“Can’t we just say we want to go sightseeing?”
Bree chuckled.
“Evereth kindly requested we stay inside the mansion grounds when he dismissed everyone from dinner. For our own safety, of course. He feared some lingering bad blood might cause an incident between us and the populace.”
“Wonderful,” Kael said. “So now we need a way to escape the mansion and sneak into the Clay Cathedral without drawing attention to ourselves.” He sighed. “Maybe I am insane, Bree. The odds of us—”
A loud knocking at the door interrupted him, and the two stiffened and shared a look. Neither had been trying to keep their voice down. Had a passing soldier heard their plotting, or worse, Rebecca Waller herself?
“It’s me.” Saul’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. “I’m not a guard or assassin or whatever else you’re worri
ed about. Now let me in.”
Kael sighed with relief. Better Saul than all the other possibilities. “One moment,” he said.
Kael crossed the room and flung the door open. Saul stood before it, his Seraphim uniform untucked and his jacket unbuttoned. He held a dark red clay goblet in his left hand. A goofy smile covered his face.
“You left too soon, Bree,” he said as he stepped inside.
“The Archon dismissed us.”
Kael shut the door behind him while Saul cast her a wink.
“That was the polite way of saying people could leave when they wished. It was after that they brought out the wine. The good wine.”
That explained the goblet, as well as Saul’s goofy smile. He’d always been a stiff asshole since the first day she met him. To see him so loose and relaxed felt … unnatural. Kael and Bree awkwardly waited, unsure of what Saul wanted. Saul seemed not to care, sipping from his goblet while leaning against the wall.
“So,” he said, glancing at Kael. “What you said about angels and the cathedrals and all that … is true?”
Bree felt her spirits dip. Was that all Saul wanted, to come and offer Kael some additional mockery?
“Every word,” Kael said, and it looked like he was trying not to grit his teeth.
Saul took another sip.
“Every word,” he repeated. A laugh escaped his lips. “Every goddamn word, eh? Damn. Couldn’t you have just lied to me, Kael? I’d not have minded, but now I have to help you.”
Bree couldn’t be more confused.
“Help us what?” she asked.
Saul wagged a finger her way.
“Get out of here and into the Clay Cathedral, of course.”
Bree felt her neck flush, while opposite her, Kael’s hands balled into fists.
“You were eavesdropping on us?” he asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t have if you two weren’t so loud,” he said, taking another sip. “But it’s clear you both mean what you say. I don’t think you’d be risking your life for some garbage nonsense, right? So if there’s goddamn angels keeping our islands afloat, we should hear what they have to say about all this, and not whatever shit the Speaker claims is what they’re saying.”
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