by Gage Lee
Then, I wouldn’t have to fight anymore.
The fight melted into a timeless slough of burst bodies and jinsei. Time had no meaning in the heart of darkness, and survival was the only thing that mattered. My channels burned, so overloaded with sacred energy they glowed through my skin.
And, then, the spirits retreated. They pulled back from the fray and set up a perimeter around me.
I had no idea what they were up to, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.
The Truth
THE LOCUST COURT HAD given up on getting past my choke point and had called in the big guns.
The army of spirits split down the middle to reveal a group of the Lost. The pale figures advanced toward me with determined strides, their black eyes fixed on mine with a hypnotic intensity. Their hands were wreathed in black fire and the ground smoked where their feet touched it.
“You cannot stop this,” their leader said. She was more muscular and taller than the rest, her physical presence the most imposing of all the Lost I’d seen so far. “We are the inevitable price of betrayal, and the Empyreals must pay what is owed.”
I wasn’t in the mood to start this song and dance again. In the next few minutes, the portal between this world and the Far Horizon would close forever. Spending eternity debating what I could or could not do wasn’t my idea of fun.
“I’ve already been over this,” I shot back. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
“I can take you to your mother,” the tall woman said. “Right now. You can make sure she’s safe while we deal with the betrayers.”
The offer hit me like a bucket of ice water.
“You don’t know where she is.” It was a trick. There was no way it could be true. The Lost hadn’t even been on Earth before I was born. They’d been here, trapped on the wrong side of the Far Horizon.
“We do,” she said. “Eve and I were friends, Jace. Long before you were born. I was called Larissa then. Now I am simply First among the Lost. Come with me, and your mother will be happy to tell you the truth.”
It couldn’t be true.
Niddhogg had told me the Utter War had ended a hundred years ago. That would make my mother much, much older than she looked. I couldn’t see how that was even possible. Only the most advanced practitioners could slow their aging and extend their lives for centuries.
Memories of my mother’s strength flashed through my thoughts like blasts of lightning. She’d taught me to fight despite my broken core. She’d healed my shattered hand at the tournament. She’d somehow designed the Machina...
The truth crashed through my thoughts like a wrecking ball. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was my life clicked together to form a picture that made me want to run screaming into the darkness.
“No.” The tip of my fusion blade drooped to the ground. The more I understood about the world, the more I hated it.
“You see it now,” the woman said, her voice low and calm.
The Lost in my cottage had insisted I’d guided them back when I’d healed my core and become the first of a new generation of Eclipse Warriors. If that was true, then they’d planned for that to happen.
Somehow, the Lost had crippled me before I was born. They’d forced me into the misery I’d suffered. That’s why my core was veiled. They didn’t want anyone to know what I was.
“Tycho did this,” I snarled. He was the veil’s creator. Zephyr had told me as much.
“He helped, but he was not the architect of this plan,” First said dismissively. “His veil hid you, and the others, from discovery. And, of course, he pushed you harder than the rest. Perhaps that is why you were the first to manifest.”
The first...
There were other people out there, kids like me with broken cores and ruined lives. And none of them had gotten as far as me. Their lives must be horror shows.
“The Empyreals killed your people,” I said. “But what you did to me was worse. You stole my life and gave me pain. You turned me into a slave before I was even born.”
“Pain is the crucible of greatness,” First said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You are better for what you have experienced. And, now, you will be a king. A truly perfect fighter with the power of an Eclipse Warrior and the soul of a pure Empyreal. We will, of course, have to cull the others, but that is a detail you will not have to concern yourself with.”
“You’re lying,” I shouted at her. My mother would never have agreed to this insanity. She wouldn’t have let her own child be turned into a monster. She was kind and good. She’d sheltered me through my life, she’d taught me how to fight. “I’m not like you.”
“I know what you are,” First insisted. “When your mother’s husband told us of our betrayal, I knew what had to be done.”
The spirits started restlessly behind the warriors, and the woman’s companions watched her with nervous eyes. It was clear they didn’t want her to tell me this part of the story, and even clearer that she didn’t care. She wanted me to join her, and this was her chance to convince me that I should.
“There was no way to save all of our people,” First continued. “They’d already rounded up most of us. The only ones who survived the first wave were stationed beyond the Far Horizon. The Lost.”
A trace of sorrow flickered across the woman’s face.
“The Lost knew we wouldn’t be safe on Earth,” she said. “We fled deeper into the world of the Locust Court. We learned how to survive here, how to control our environment well enough to avoid our enemies. It was a terrible life.”
“Then why did you keep fighting?” I asked.
“Because someone had to keep the foolish Empyreals safe, Jace. We had to hold back the darkness.”
“But you’ve brought that darkness back,” I shouted. “You went to all this trouble, only to destroy what you swore to save.”
I had to keep her talking. Soon, the Portal Defense Force would close this gate, and then none of this would matter. We’d be sealed up on this side of the portal, and Earth would be safe.
Unless someone else manifested.
My thoughts raced. I had to get word back to the others that Tycho had to be questioned. He could have a list of the other children with hollow cores. They had to be found, rounded up before they could manifest, because...
That was the kind of thinking that had started all this. I shuddered and hung my head. I didn’t know how I’d gotten here or what I was supposed to do next. If the Empyrean Flame had put me on the board to do something, it should have told me what that something was.
“I never wanted any of this,” I said. “I didn’t want to be an Eclipse Warrior. I just wanted to be normal.”
“Oh, Jace,” she said. “You were never meant to be normal. Your mother will be so proud when she sees what she and I created.”
“You’re lying,” I spat. “My mother didn’t make me like this.”
“This is precisely what your mother wanted,” the woman said. “She’s the one who reverse engineered the Eclipse Theory, Jace. Her husband sacrificed his core so her child could be made.”
Memories from the Manual flooded my thoughts. The New Moon clan, the first Eclipse Warriors, were created through a mystical union of a Resplendent Sun and a Thunder’s Children. Two cores made into one.
“He went through the gate alone,” I said. “That’s what was wrong with me. I only had half of his core.”
“Yes,” First agreed. “Now you see. He hated the Empyreals for what they’d done, Jace. He sacrificed himself so you could be made. He gave up his life in service to our vengeance. It took so very long for our plan to come to fruition. Your mother spent so many years hiding to conceal her agelessness while she searched for the answer to save us and a suitable host to bring you into being. You have no idea how hard she fought for all of this. For you.”
My mind ached, and my heart shattered. All the pain, all the suffering I’d gone through, just to bring these monsters back to destroy the world? I couldn
’t accept that.
“That isn’t what I am,” I roared. “I’m more than a tool.”
“Of course you are,” First said, her voice soft and strangely comforting. “You are our champion, the first of your kind. You are more powerful than you know. You have only to believe in your true self.”
Zephyr’s words came back to me.
Be true to yourself.
Rachel had asked me which Jace was the real one.
I understood what I had to do.
Since I’d healed my core, I’d thought of the dark urge, my Eclipse nature, as something outside of me. It had been a force that pushed me to do things I hated. It wanted me to become a monster.
I’d fought it every step of the way. That had been my mistake.
“I’m sorry,” I said, honestly. “I wish this could’ve ended a different way.”
My core ached from the abuse I’d heaped on it. I’d cycled more jinsei through it in one day than I had in a year. It was ragged and beaten, and I was about to beat it even harder.
Everything I’d learned since returning from the Five Dragons Challenge clawed up from my memories.
Song’s enhanced meditation techniques.
The true power of the Borrowed Core.
The unity of core, aura, and blade.
What I really was.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.” First stared at me with awe in her eyes. “You can’t—”
“I will,” I said.
I cycled my breath one last time.
Jinsei flooded me. It carried dark aspects along with it that I didn’t bother to purge. There was no need. My core was my aura was my blade was my body. The separations I’d been taught were lies that meant nothing to me. I was not an Empyreal or an Eclipse Warrior. I was both, and neither.
I was different.
My Eclipse nature shrieked as it merged with my thoughts, where it belonged. It had never been a separate thing. Its darkness was mine, and I had to accept that truth to reach my full potential.
The Lost rushed toward me when they saw what was coming. They’d imagined I was the start of a new phase for them.
Instead, I was their end.
The beginning of a new age.
“Stop him!” First shrieked.
My aura blazed like a dark sun. For one perfect moment, I saw the Eclipse Warrior half of my soul and the Locust Court half. They fit together, but they were still two pieces only pretending to be whole.
“It’s over.” I raised my hand and willed the halves to fuse in perfect harmony.
The veil around my core shattered.
And I was born anew.
My ties to the Lost and the hungry spirits empowered me in ways they could never have anticipated. Here, in a world made of nothing but jinsei and tortured, shifting aspects, I was more powerful than all of them combined. The sacred energy flooded into my core, pushing it to its limits and beyond.
And the spirits of the Locust Court unraveled as I consumed their power.
The Lost screamed and fell to their knees as I drained their cores.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t absorb any more jinsei, my core advanced in a burst of ecstatic agony.
But even a disciple core couldn’t hold all the spiritual power I’d have to drain to kill my enemies.
Fortunately, I now knew I didn’t have to.
The Borrowed Core technique speared into Lost and hungry spirits alike. I drained them in an instant and let the jinsei flow into my core and back out again. I no longer had to cycle power. I was an open conduit, and it flowed through me like a raging river. My enemies fell, their bodies disintegrating as I drained their life away. I’d never have been able to do that on Earth, where the laws of reality were stronger and more difficult to bend. There, though, beyond the Far Horizon in a world of madness, my power was absolute.
The air was hazy with the sacred energy that poured out of me. It shimmered like a mirage and burned away like morning mist. My enemies vanished with it until only one remained.
First lay on the ground, her body twisted in on itself. She raised one hand toward me, eyes pleading.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” she whispered. “I loved you, Jace. You were mine before you were born. Tell Eve your mother sends her love.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“Something’s coming.” First’s voice had faded away to almost nothing. “Something worse. Watch the Design, Jace. Watch—”
First’s fingernails peeled back and floated away, feathers on the wind. Her skin unraveled down the length of her arm in alabaster ribbons. Blood spilled from her wound, then transformed into black sand that vanished before it hit the ground.
I sagged to my knees and let the tears come.
The Plan
THE PORTAL DEFENSE Force dragged me out of the Locust Court’s dying kingdom before it could completely come apart. My friends must have sent them to find me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found, but it was easier to go along with them than to fight.
I was so tired.
“Hands up,” one of them barked. He held a strange gun with glowing crystals rotating around its barrel. At least it wasn’t aimed at me. “Raise your hands. We have to be sure.”
I was far too tired and shellshocked to do anything other than what I was told. I held my hands in the air and waited while a pair of white-uniformed guardians seized my arms and wrenched them behind me. I didn’t even fight when they slapped handcuffs on me.
It would be stupid to blame them for their caution. There’d been a horrible attack on the five sacred sages, not to mention the clan elders who’d come to view the trial. For all they knew, I was one of the terrorists.
While they secured me, their companions aligned a strange machine with the gate. It reminded me of a telescope, though its long barrel was composed entirely of copper, and it sat atop an enormous faceted gemstone that glowed with jinsei.
“Prepared to fire,” a woman next to the device said. “In three...”
I let the guardians guide me away from the portal. It was a relief to let someone else help support me, for once.
“Two.”
The PDF troopers marched me toward another portal and into the courtroom. The bodies were gone, though bloodstains and scraps of gore had yet to be cleaned up. I wondered how many had died, how many of the elders we’d lost.
“One.”
I glanced over my shoulder as the telescope did its work. A cone of light erupted from the end nearest the portal. A grinding thrumming noise echoed across the Far Horizon as the cone settled over the edges of the gate and slowly, so slowly, pulled them together. And then, there was a faint pop, and the gateway was gone.
“We won’t see them again,” one of the guards said to me.
“Thank the Flame for that,” I sighed.
“Jace?” Abi and my friends had been gathered around Tycho on the same side of the room, talking amongst themselves. “It’s him! They found him!”
“This is your friend?” the guard asked. “We found him near the portal. We thought he was one of them.”
“No!” Abi shouted. “He needs a medic!”
Eric, Clem, and Rachel rushed to Abi’s side as he took me from the other guardians. Their eyes were filled with concern, and they handled me like I was made of glass. I must’ve looked even worse than I felt.
“Let me get his hands,” the guard said, and fumbled with the manacles.
I didn’t care what they did to me. I just wanted to lie down.
For, like, a year.
“This way,” Rachel said. “There are EMTs.”
“I’m fine,” I protested, even though I knew I wasn’t.
“You’re not fine,” Clem said. “Let them do their job.”
The medical professionals swarmed me the instant I stepped out of the courtroom. Someone pushed a gurney over, and they hoisted me off my feet and laid me down. Someone shoved a stethoscope against my chest, som
eone else probed my core with a penetrating gaze. Voices shouted medical statuses back and forth.
None of it made any sense.
I was drifting. That was good.
That was fine.
“We’ll be there when you wake up,” Rachel promised.
My eyes fluttered closed, and I went away for a while.
When I came back, the sun stung my eyes, and I blinked away tears as I shielded my face with my left arm. Which, it turned out, was wrapped in bandages. An IV needle jutted from the back of my hand. Somehow that hurt more than the other aches and pains from every other quarter of my body.
“That was something else, Mr. Warin,” Elder Sanrin said. “You’ve certainly kicked the hornet’s nest this time.”
“Water,” I croaked. My throat felt as dry as desert sand.
“Of course.” The elder scooped a pitcher off the nightstand next to my head, poured a small glass, tore a straw from its paper wrapper, and plunked it into the drink. “Just a small sip.”
I wanted to gulp the water down all in one go. But when he placed the straw against my lips, it was all I could do to suck in the tiniest of drinks before the effort exhausted me.
“Better,” I said, my voice no longer quite so raspy. “How long has it been?”
“Three weeks,” Sanrin said. “The school year is almost over, I’m afraid.”
“Figures,” I said. I’d probably have to repeat Intermediate Scrivening.
Crap.
Sanrin pulled a chair across the room to sit next to my bed. He leaned back, steepled his fingers, and watched me in silence.
“I’m not sure what to do with you, now,” he said. “Claude and Brand think we should kill you.”
“That’s comforting,” I said. “Maybe they’re right.”
I’d defeated the Lost, sealed the portal to the land of the Locust Court, and wiped out legions of hungry spirits. That didn’t mean I was safe for anyone to be around.
“Hirani disagrees,” Sanrin said. “I do, too, for that matter. It’s a split decision, now that we only have four elders.”