by Will Wight
She was sure they would all die, and so would Kerian. Very soon.
Until that point, she would do her duty.
~~~
Shera emerged from the cloud of Bastion's Veil in time to see a girl in a Blackwatch coat driving her bone spear through a Shepherd's chest. The man staggered forward a step before he turned into a crimson desk-lamp.
“Tacky,” the girl muttered, slapping a woman across the face with the flat of her spearhead. This one dissolved into a blue fog, which swirled around inside the gray fog before dissipating into the Veil. “Better.”
Without her direction, the red-clad prisoners at Shera's back spread out into the woods around her. Looting corpses, she realized. A good idea, as they had obviously run from their cells unarmed.
The Blackwatch girl killed another Guild member and then turned to Shera, her head cocked. “Hello there, Soulbound. I don't believe we've met.” She wrinkled up her nose. “You smell like the Dead Mother.”
Shera gestured with her Vessel. “I stabbed her a few times with this.”
“Ah, I see.” The girl clubbed another Consultant—this one didn't dissolve, at least—and bowed to Shera. “My name is Bliss, and I am the Head of the Blackwatch Guild.”
Bliss. Shera had never met the woman, but she was rumored to be up there with the Champions or the Head of the Imperial Guard in terms of people to avoid in combat. Soulbound to the Spear of Tharlos, an ancient Elder artifact. Shera clutched Syphren tighter as the weapon whispered his greed into her ear. “Shera of the Consultants,” she said.
“I'm supposed to say I'm pleased to meet you, because that is polite. But I'm not actually pleased, because I don't want to fight a Soulbound and these men with daggers. I'm afraid I might have to let Tharlos loose, and none of us wants that.” She hesitated, looking off into the woods. After a second, she stuck out her tongue. “Excuse me a moment.”
She reached out in front of her and hauled backwards as though tugging on a thick rope. Stretching out from her feet, the ground turned to mud in a straight line. In only three or four seconds, there was a creek running straight between the Guild Head's feet. Running backwards, toward her. The current strengthened, until it was a torrent of water.
The newborn river carried a struggling, shouting, mud-strewn Kerian backwards, straight to the waiting Spear of Tharlos.
She was carrying the glass box.
Shera leaped forward, much to Syphren's joy. She stretched out her mind, clawing at the power she could feel like an ocean in the Blackwatch woman. There was so much, surely she could tear a handful away...
But Bliss spun, slapping the flat of her blade away with the spear. “Stay quiet until I'm finished, Shera of the Consultants. This is very important.”
Behind her, Yala hurled a spade.
The tiny blade actually made contact with the Guild Head, stabbing into her back and causing Bliss to stagger forward a step or two. She hissed, turning on Yala, the Spear of Tharlos in both hands.
Yala had attacked not only because the woman's attention was diverted, but also because her attack could give Shera an opportunity. They had Bliss between two pincers, and now would be the perfect time for Shera to attack. Syphren howled for it.
Shera sheathed her weapon, her thoughts cold.
She let Lucan die.
That alone might not be enough justification, even for her. Lucan had accepted the assignment, after all, and death was always a possibility in their line of work. But Yala had always opposed Shera. She'd tried to have her executed on any number of occasions, and had been the one to advocate Lucan's imprisonment in the first place. If Shera had an enemy among her own Guild, it was Yala.
That Lucan wouldn't want Shera to murder a fellow Consultant in cold blood was the only reason the High Councilor was still alive. But now, she didn't have to wield a dagger in the dark. She just had to stand by.
Shera folded her arms and watched.
Yala lasted longer than she expected. That is to say, she didn't die instantly. Bliss turned, spinning her spear like a staff, swiping at Yala's body. The former Mason dodged, impressively limber, managing to avoid contact even when the spear twisted like a whip.
Bliss was playing it safe, keeping one eye on Shera, but eventually she would finish off Yala. All Shera had to do was wait.
An armored hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned to face into a black void. Darius' armor had been blackened somehow, almost charred, and he leaned on her as though she were the only thing keeping him up. “You have to save her.”
“I think you'll find that I don't.”
In frustration, Bliss slammed her spear on the ground, and the earth rippled upward in waves. Yala used the lift to grab onto a low-hanging tree branch, whipping another spade at Bliss from her new vantage point. The weapon turned into a turtle, which the Guild Head had to spend a moment prying off of her face.
Yala was doing a fine job stalling.
“Shera, please. Leaving her to die is the same as killing her!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Look at me.” That was impossible, as he didn't have a face, but he still grabbed her by both shoulders and turned her toward him. The move almost cost him his life, as Syphren shouted for her to kill him now. “Her life means nothing to you, I get it. Maybe your life means nothing to you. But it means something to someone. She's worth something.”
A vision of Meia, Yala's daughter, flitted through Shera's mind for an instant. “I'm afraid I don't see it that way.”
His head moved from side to side as though he were looking for something in her face. “Then it’s even more important that you listen to people who do.”
“You don't feel it,” Lucan had once told her. “And that's okay. You just have to trust me.”
Shera gave a sharp whistle, just as Maxwell had used to call his children-in-training from all corners of the house. As she'd hoped, the red-suited prisoners jumped up at the sound. “We're about to save that woman from the Guild Head. For some reason. Engage, distract, but maintain a distance.”
Instead of acknowledging her, the Maxwell trainees just did their jobs. Some of them hurled stolen spades or looted spears, while others slipped in as if they were about to stab Bliss, then faded back.
The Blackwatch Head was looking distinctly irritated, not least because Yala had survived. She was limping and bleeding, but still alive.
Shera ran in, straight for Bliss.
“You shouldn't do this,” the Guild Head said in warning, but that didn't stop her. She already knew.
It was stupid, but she was doing it anyway. Lucan would have told her to.
Bliss sighed and blocked Syphren with her staff.
The bone chipped, and a swirl of chaotic green light swirled into Shera. All of a sudden, the mist seemed to clear. The day looked a lot brighter, and her movements gained a new energy. She slipped aside, driving her other shear at Bliss, pulling back as soon as the Spear of Tharlos moved.
She'd stolen power from a Great Elder, and now she was hungry for more.
Bliss raised a boot, kicking Shera away, but Shera rolled with the blow. She came up with a handful of spades, which she tossed in the Guild Head's direction. They turned into straws of wheat, which blinded Bliss for a second attack by the red-clad prisoners. They hurled everything they could find that even remotely looked like a weapon, including helmets, rocks, and thick sticks.
Most of them transformed until they were harmless, but a few struck.
Shera rushed in again, Syphren leading, the ghostly hands pressed against the transparent blade. It wanted Bliss, not just the spear but her, and even Shera was caught up in its furious greed.
The Guild Head's eyes shone, flickering like a pair of silver coins that had caught the light. The Spear of Tharlos abruptly shrank down to a dagger of bone roughly the size of one of Shera's shears.
She tucked the Elder weapon away, patting her coat once as though to settle it in place, and then reached into her pockets. Sh
e emerged with a weapon in each hand: a pair of rough-forged iron spikes.
She brought one up to meet Shera's dagger, and Shera didn't slow. She'd seen Syphren slice through metal and pierce a Handmaiden's face; she'd knock this weapon aside or cut it in half.
The spike sank into the flat of Syphren's blade, sliding through until it froze halfway. It stopped half-in and half-out, as though the Vessel was nothing more than a thin layer of liquid.
The green light dimmed. The hands vanished. Syphren looked like a pane of vaguely green-tinted glass.
A scream wracked Shera's mind, and she gasped as she fell to her knees. Something was being torn away inside, as though someone dug at her spine with a dull spade.
“Quiet down,” Bliss said irritably, pushing a Consultant out of her way. The ground rippled around her again, pushing the attackers back.
She walked up to Kerian, who had somehow been unable to gain her feet.
Then she took her second spike and drove it down, into the glass box. This time it didn't sink through, as it had done with Syphren; it blasted a hole in the glass like a bullet, the silver-blue mist beginning to seep out.
Instantly, Bastion's Veil began to thin. It would only be a matter of minutes before it vanished completely.
Bliss turned and began skipping into the woods. Shera tried to follow, but her limbs twitched and fell to the ground. Her Vessel lay in front of her, pierced through by a black iron spike, frozen in place.
They'd lost.
Without the Veil to protect the island, the Consultants would have no defense against the Emperor's crown. Calder could stop any of them with a word. Worse, Bliss would only grow stronger as the mist faded. If she was even more powerful than she'd been a moment ago, Shera didn't think the entire Guild could stand against her.
And Yala didn't even die. That seemed like the punchline to the whole joke.
The Guild may be doomed, but at least Yala survived.
Survived...and retreated, it seemed. Yala, all the Consultants, and most of the red-suited former prisoners had vanished as soon as Bliss had. The mission was over, the box destroyed. They would be moving to evacuate the Gray Island now.
Still leaking bluish smoke, the box rested on the forest floor. Staring at it, Shera had an idea. It was another stupid plan, another that was likely to result in nothing at best, but she crawled over to Bastion's Vessel anyway. It was worth trying; it wasn't as though the Consultants could be any more doomed.
Drawing her right-hand shear, she drove the blade into the box. The remaining mist curled around the weapon, exploring its nature.
Syphren was all but dead, as far as she could tell, but she still had something of it left inside her. At least, she thought she did.
Drawing on her remaining power as a Soulbound, she inhaled through the blade.
The last measure of mist was drawn out of Bastion's box and into the shear. Nothing else happened. The weapon didn't change, the mist around her didn't thicken, and she didn't feel any different.
Not that she had expected it to, but it would have been nice.
She hobbled over to Darius, dropping the weapon in his lap. “Awaken that.”
His helmet turned from her to the knife and back. “Excuse me?”
“Awaken it. Lucan Awakened my other one only a few weeks ago, and I became a Soulbound. This one might bring the Veil back.”
The Knight-Adjunct sputtered. “There's so much wrong with that, I don't even have time to go into it. First, I hardly know you. I don't know this weapon. I don't even know this mist. I have no way to predict what could happen. And if it does bond to you, that could be the worst possible outcome! You almost killed me with one fresh Vessel, let alone two. You'd slaughter us all. Or you'd crack like an egg, I don't know, and that's if I can even Awaken it so quickly. Which might kill me.”
There was movement in the thinning fog, and she grabbed him to his feet, pushing him down the path. “Because of you, I left alive a woman I hate. You can thank me by Awakening that weapon as fast as possible.”
Darius stumbled along before her. “I'm glad she's alive, but I didn't know her. That was just on principle! You can't expect me to—”
Shera shoved him out of the way, hurling a spade just as someone dropped from the trees above him. He took the momentum from her push and kept running after Yala and the other Consultants, who had already fled.
The attacker caught the spade in the air between two fingers, tossing it back. There was only one person Shera knew who could do that.
Meia scanned the woods behind Shera, her face grim. “You need to run. Calder's after you personally, and he's coming now that the Veil is lifted.”
Shera didn't bother asking any questions. She scooped up Syphren, impaled on the Blackwatch spike, and then she hobbled into the woods. With Meia's support, she ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Soulbound are vital to the Empire. Some Guild Heads are only elected if they can bond to a particular Vessel, usually a weapon passed down through the Guild’s history.
Which Guilds? If I remember, there’s three who do it that way: the Imperial Guard, the Blackwatch, and the Consultants.
—Estyr Six, five hundred years ago
~~~
Twenty-two years ago
Newly appointed High Mason, Yala regarded the young man in front of her. He had refused a mission, actually killing those who were not registered as his targets. Guild law was both strict and permanent on this point. But as the leader of the Masons, she had some leeway to judge what was for the good of the Guild.
Rudeus Maxwell knelt before her, shroud down to his neck, hair falling around his handsome face. He had to be good-looking, playing as he was a young, high-blooded leader in the Imperial army. He'd made the classic Mason's mistake: falling too deeply into the role. Members of the Masons were meant to be the real thing, after all, but there was a price to be paid for imitating the original too closely. He only answered to the Maxwell name, now, as though he'd been born into the family.
“The Empire is weakening,” he said, walking the border between passion and insubordinate anger. “Only the Guilds are strong, and our dedication to a failing Empire is corrupting even us. The Consultants are rotting from the inside, and the Emperor is...not what he once was. We need to build ourselves, gather our strength, and cut the infection from the Empire so that we can be strong enough to face down the Elders once and for all.”
He was brash and entirely too passionate, but he was still young. That could be a virtue, in moderation. More importantly, he was a fanatic. And he was scheduled for execution.
Yala crossed her arms behind her back. “You're thinking like the High Gardener,” she said. “Not a baby Mason. Only the Council decides which weeds should be pruned, and only the Gardeners do that work.”
To his credit, he didn't bristle at the embedded insult. He leaned forward, enthusiasm evident. “Bring me to the Garden. I have more skill than anyone else my age, and I could use it to bring real change to the Empire.”
He wasn't as skilled as he thought he was, but he was good. Good enough to train someone lesser than the Gardeners, at any rate. “You're far too old to change your profession now. There are twelve-year-olds in the Garden who could slit your throat before breakfast and forget about it by lunch.”
At that, he did react, clenching his fist by the side of his thigh. “Let me train them, then. I have military experience and Guild training. I could create an army, just for us, dedicated to the betterment of the world.”
Yala leaned back, studying him. To think he would propose exactly what she intended for him—was it a coincidence, or had he anticipated her? “We would erase you. All your rights as a member of this Guild, your mission record, your financial accounts, everything. You would cease to become Rudeus of the Masons and would become Rudeus Maxwell in truth.”
His eyes widened as though he'd been handed everything he could ever ask for. “I'd be allowed to train my own operatives?”
What Maxwell didn't know, but the Council of Architects did, was that the Emperor was indeed weakening. No one knew why, but tasks that he had previously resolved from the comfort of his throne now required his personal attention. And problems that required his personal attention often went undone.
Yala foresaw a day when the Emperor wasn't around to protect the Consultants, and she was taking steps to ensure their prosperity. For the good of the Guild.
This experiment would cost her practically nothing. If he succeeded and brought them a new generation of soldiers, the Guild would be stronger. If he failed, there would be no way to prove his connection to the Consultants. Even a Reader wouldn't be able to dig it out, after his blacks were burned and his cover thoroughly established. They might figure out he wasn't the blood son of the Maxwells, but that wouldn't be incriminating—interbreeding and infidelity were facts of life among the Empire's heights. And if he accomplished his goal but drew too much attention to himself...well, the Gardeners could be sent to pluck one weed just as well as another.
To Yala, effective results were the highest of virtues.
She picked up his file and a pair of scissors, shredding it in front of him. “A ship leaves for the Capital at sunset. Unless you return successful, I expect never to hear your name again.”
Present Day
Estyr Six flew in low over the ocean, spray whipping into her face. She wasn’t used to taking the stealthy approach—her tactic of choice was usually flying in, laying waste to everything, and flying out. But she couldn’t afford to, not this time. Another life was at stake.
She kept the bulk of the Gray Island between her and the fleet of Navigator ships, letting the green canopy of the island shield her from view. Bastion’s Veil was gone completely; not even a cloud hung over the ancient home of the Consultants. Its absence was disturbing enough, but it revealed something even more ominous: the unmistakable signs of recent battle.