by Gage Lee
Eric’s aura was filled with pain and weakness aspects. Mine held vitality and strength aspects.
“On your feet.” I offered Eric my hand and helped him stand. Before he could pull away, I activated the Eclipse Transplant technique I’d learned at the end of last year. It hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and my core screamed in protest as the high-powered technique pushed it harder than I’d dared in weeks.
It also worked. The jinsei alone hadn’t been enough to heal Eric, but the positive aspects I donated to him, and the negative ones I stole away, did the trick.
My friend braced me with one arm. I’d nearly toppled over from the strain and the sudden flood of harmful aspects into my aura.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Eric said.
“Don’t make me regret it,” I shot back with a grin. “Get your sword up and be ready.”
Abi grunted and went down to one knee, his fusion blade held above his head with both hands. He countered another of the giant construct’s powerful blows with more jinsei. The sacred energy healed the cracks in the shield, but it cost Abi dearly. He wouldn’t last much longer.
“I’m ready.” Eric’s sword erupted from his hands. “Let’s take ’em down.”
I poured a vial of aspects down my throat in a single gulp and grimaced at the horrible taste. It was like drinking rancid grease, and my stomach churned in protest. I clenched my jaw and willed myself not to throw up until the aspects had filtered through my damaged core and made their way into my aura. Fortunately, there was no jinsei in the concoction, and the aspects processed almost as fast as I’d ingested them. The vile brew loaded my aura with enough toxic aspects to summon a dozen serpents.
Instead, I formed a single oversized tentacle and guided it around Abi’s shield toward the giant. My attack slammed into the artificial creature’s chest and locked onto its aura.
The construct reared back and roared. Its clumsy hands slapped through my serpent, with no effect. The simpleminded beast didn’t understand what had happened to it, or how to get free of my grasp.
“Be ready,” I told my allies. “You won’t have much of a window.”
The other constructs threw themselves against Abi’s shield. Without the strength of their bigger cousin to back them up, though, they bounced off the protection again and again.
I poured a stream of toxic aspects through the serpent and into the enormous construct. The crystalline monstrosity twitched and shuddered as the toxic aspects invaded its aura. Bit by bit, my power eroded the construct’s defenses. Its armored body grew brittle, and its strength faded.
“Now!” I shouted.
Eric leaped over Abi’s shield. His aura blazed with fire, and he raised his long fusion blade above his head in both hands. At the height of his leap, the Resplendent Sun unleashed a furious bellow and drove his weapon’s narrow tip into the construct’s shoulder joint. Chips of crystal material burst away from the impact point, and fractures shot through the creature’s torso and arm like cracks in thawing ice.
The construct reacted almost instantly. Its other hand snatched Eric out of the air and squeezed him so hard his face instantly turned red. The creature’s hand had also pinned my friend’s hands to his sides, making it impossible for him to use his weapons.
“Hagar, get a web on that thing’s wounded arm,” I shouted. I kept pushing toxic aspects into the construct’s arm, but it wasn’t weakening it fast enough to save Eric from the crushing pressure around his torso. It was time for something more immediate. “Get it away from its body.”
“On it.” Hagar flung her hands out in front of her. Threads of blood-aspect-infused jinsei shot through the air and stuck fast to the big construct’s limb. My clanmate threw her weight back and pulled the construct’s damaged arm out straight away from its body. Three of the smaller monsters saw what she’d done and rushed around the edge of Abi’s shield to stop her.
“Clem, keep them off Hagar!” I funneled even more of the toxic pollution into the construct and hoped it would be enough.
Clem spun into a tempest kick. Her leg started up high, then dropped down almost to the ground when she’d spun away from her enemies, before rising again as her body came around to face the charging constructs. Jinsei flashed from her foot and slammed up into the chests of our attackers. The blast of sacred energy hurled the constructs up and away from Hagar and Clem.
Straight into the outstretched arm of their overgrown buddy.
The impact combined with the pressure Hagar had applied shattered the monstrosity’s crystalline limb. Jagged shards rained down on Abi’s shield, which sheltered us from the worst of the falling debris.
The other constructs, though, weren’t so lucky. Hunks of dull crystal slammed down on them, crushing torsos and shattering limbs. They struggled to rise, only to find their bodies so badly damaged the best they could do was lift themselves onto their broken stumps.
Jinsei gushed from the stump of the big construct’s shattered limb, and its strength drained away with it. The enormous fingers that had threatened to crush Eric a moment before went limp.
The Resplendent Sun scrambled out of the giant’s grip, ran up its arm, then dashed across its shoulder. His blade slashed through the thing’s body with every step he took. Rivulets of sparkling dust ran from the construct’s many wounds, and it sank to one knee.
We were winning.
But we hadn’t won yet.
The fallen constructs dragged themselves onto the giant and fused their bodies to it with threads of sacred energy. Arcs of jinsei pulled the fallen shards that littered the ground back into the main body, and the thing grew bigger by the second. Soon, it would be back at full strength.
We had to stop it before that happened.
“This is our chance,” I shouted to my teammates. “On my mark, attack with everything you have!”
I scanned the construct’s core, watching as it filled with jinsei. I had to time this perfectly, or the whole plan would fall apart. The last of the constructs had fused with the giant. Scraps of crystal were sucked up into the thing’s wounds until only one remained.
“Now!” I roared as the last fragment sailed into the air and attached itself to our foe’s body. It had rebuilt itself, even the shattered arm, and its core was almost full.
Clem and Hagar came at the construct from its left side. Their blades hacked into the back of the creature’s knee, cracking the joint and splintering its leg. Eric drove his sword straight down into the top of the thing’s torso between its shoulders, and cracks ran through its center. Abi shouted and dropped his shield to unleash a sweeping upward swing that ripped a gaping gouge up the front of the giant’s body.
And I gave it one last blast of toxic aspects that pushed everything in my aura into the construct.
Our combined attack did the trick. Its body was weakened and brittle thanks to my technique. The blows from my friends had cracked its body and wounded its core. The construct went to its knees, its body crumbling away around it. The construct sagged onto its remaining arm, weary and broken.
“And stay down,” Abi said. He swung his heavy, two-handed blade in a savage strike that split the creature down the middle.
“That’s what I call establishing dominance,” Hagar said with a smug smile. “Good thinking, Jace. You doing all right?”
“Other than being sick to my stomach from drinking that poison milkshake, yeah, I’m fine.” It wasn’t exactly true, but the middle of the challenge wasn’t the time or place to tell anyone how badly I’d injured myself. “Let’s finish this.”
“Catch.” Eric had already retrieved the red ball and tossed it to me. “You do the honors. If you hadn’t figured out how to kill those constructs, we’d have lost for sure.”
“If my core wasn’t cracked, I could’ve summoned my own sword and that would have been over much faster,” I sighed. “But thanks.”
I walked the ball to the middle of the arena, cocked my arm back, and hurled t
he red sphere through a goal on the opposing side. It slipped through the opening with millimeters to spare. A loud bell rang, and the one on the scoreboard changed to two. Another red ball appeared on the ground at my feet.
“And that’s three,” I said confidently as I hurled the ball through the same goal. Damaged or not, my core did give me phenomenal aim.
The innermost ring on the scoreboard turned gold, the two became a three, and streamers poured out of the ceiling in a particolored rain.
I let out a sigh of relief. We’d made it through the first challenge.
As the streamers cascaded around us, I was glad for the distraction.
I didn’t want any of my friends to see me wince and clutch at my abdomen.
My core was getting worse.
The Award
THERE WAS NO PORTAL to take us back to the School.
The instant the scoreboard updated with the third point, the arena vanished, and we were back on the stage, surrounded by chaos.
One of the Yzlanti fighters lay on the stage’s polished boards, surrounded by a growing pool of blood, his eyes half-open, a jinsei infuser strapped over his face. A pair of medics labored over the fallen contender, whose chest was laid open by an ugly gash that revealed rows of red-stained ribs down the right side of his body. The rest of his team was gathered around him, their eyes filled with worry that I knew was only partially for their teammate.
The ugly, selfish truth of the matter was that if Yzlanti lost a member, they’d be out of the Gauntlet altogether.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, I didn’t need the competition. On the other, they were humans. Their loss would cost me a potential ally against the dragons.
And his wounds were very serious. There was something deeply disturbing about the idea that the challenges could be fatal. What possible reason could the Empyrean Flame have for maiming or even killing the contenders?
The ache in my core increased at the thought. There was nothing honorable or noble about the Gauntlet. We were all just pawns in a battle between much more powerful forces. It wasn’t much of a stretch to believe that the Flame didn’t care whether we lived or died, and I already knew the same was true for the inquisitors.
There was no guarantee that any of us would get out of this alive.
“This way.” Headmistress Cruzal pushed her way through the chaos and gestured for us to follow. “Let’s get you somewhere quieter.”
The headmistress led us to the back of the stage, through a pair of narrow red curtains, and into a cramped hallway that wound its way deep into the bowels of the campus. I didn’t remember ever coming this way before, though that didn’t mean much. The School of Swords and Serpents was a big place. There were probably hundreds of tunnels and passages I’d never seen.
“Is he going to be okay?” Clem asked the headmistress. “The Yzlanti team member, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Cruzal said, sounding sincere. She’d stopped in front of a small iron door and rapped on it three times with the middle knuckle of her left hand. A moment later, sparks of jinsei danced around the door’s perimeter and it swung open on creaky iron hinges. “No one will bother you in here. The door on the far side of the room will take you back to the dormitory wing when you’ve recovered from your ordeal.”
“How long can we stay?” I could have used a week of quiet rest. My core was raw and throbbing from the delamination. There’d been no time to examine the damage I’d caused myself, though it felt significant.
“As long as you want.” Cruzal gestured toward the table in the center of the room. “There’s a scrivened tablet there that can summon food and drink. Get whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure why Cruzal was being so nice, and I didn’t care. Looking that gift horse in the mouth wouldn’t earn me anything but a headache. Maybe she felt bad for us, or maybe she knew we deserved some time alone to talk about what we’d been through. Whatever the reason, I accepted her generosity graciously.
I led the others into the room and closed the door behind us. It was a cozy enough place, with comfortable chairs arranged around a low-slung table. I flopped down in the nearest chair and rubbed my temples in an attempt to banish the headache headed my way.
“Anyone hungry?” Eric snatched the tablet off the table. “Because I’m starving.”
“Give your body a second to catch up to your brain,” Clem said and took the seat to my right. “Let the adrenaline out of your system before you start shoveling food into your belly, or you’ll make yourself sick.”
“Okay, Mom.” Eric flopped down in a chair across the table from the one I’d chosen, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles under the table. “I wonder if that dragon’s gonna tell us how we did. I bet we came in first.”
I doubted that. There were three possible golden rings according to the scoreboard, and we’d only gotten two. If any of the other teams had destroyed all the constructs before scoring any goals, or letting any goals be scored on them, they’d have gotten all three. I was willing to bet the Shambala team had done just that.
“We did good,” I agreed. There wasn’t any point in sharing my doom and gloom feelings with the rest of the team. I wanted to keep their spirits up and let them enjoy their victory for as long as possible. “Though we could have done better if we’d known the rules.”
“True.” Abi folded himself into the chair next to Eric and bridged his fingers over his belly. “I suppose that’s part of the challenge, though. If they spelled everything out for us, then we’d all get perfect scores.”
That was a point I hadn’t considered. The schools had each sent their best team to compete. Straightforward challenges would have been too simple for the star pupils to figure out. That would force the Flame to split the ties based on time, and that seemed wrong. Being the fastest wasn’t as much of a virtue as being the smartest or wisest or even the most powerful.
“And it’s not like they’re the only ones who aren’t telling the whole truth,” Hagar said from the chair to my left. “How are you feeling, Jace?”
“I’m fine.” I was not. My core was definitely thinner and more frayed after using my technique. An ache that just wouldn’t go away had settled in, and it hurt worse by the minute. I could still hide the worst of the pain from my friends, but I wasn’t sure how much longer that would be true. “How are you feeling?”
“Me?” Hagar leaned forward in her chair, her elbows resting on her knees. “I’m fine, Jace. Maybe we should get Hirani in here to check your core.”
“Did you injure yourself?” Clem’s eyes flicked from Hagar to me and back again. She pursed her lips into a frown and drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. “If your core comes apart and you have to quit the competition, we’re done, you know.”
“I might have overdone it at the end, there.” Before anyone could say anything else, I raised both hands defensively. “I am okay, though. Nothing broke.”
“We should tell someone,” Hagar said. “Just to be on the safe side.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement with my clanmate. It made me want to tear my hair out.
“Listen,” I said. “If we tell anyone, they’ll drag me off to Bogotá. I’ll be out of the competition.”
“That’s better than being dead.” Clem locked eyes with me. “Or having your core split in half. I’d rather lose the competition than lose you.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone took in Clem’s words. Abi wouldn’t meet my eyes, and Eric found something very interesting to look at on the floor. Hagar, though, stared at me with her usual intensity.
“You’re not going to lose me.” I shook my head and leaned back in my chair. “I’m fine. Really. A couple of good night’s rest, and I’ll be back to normal. Hauling me off to South America for treatment will cost us the Gauntlet. I don’t know about you, but nothing I’ve heard about the dragons convinces me they’ll be our friends when they h
ave control of the Grand Design back in their claws. The Yzlanti team is already down a member. We’re the best chance humanity has of winning this thing. And you need me to do that.”
My friends didn’t look pleased by my logic. It was true, though. If I dropped out of the competition to seek treatment, they’d never be able to replace me. And, despite how I’d hurt myself, it was my ability that had turned the tide in the first challenge. I needed to stay in this thing to get my core healed, and everyone else needed me to stick it out because there was no one else who could lead the human teams to victory.
“We have to do something,” Clem said. “If you won’t look for outside help, then we have to figure out another way to protect your core.”
“Hahen is working on something,” I said. “He and I are looking at any possible cure for what’s happening to me. And I’ll be careful in the next challenge. I promise.”
“You’d better be.” Clem threw a halfhearted punch into my shoulder. “I mean it.”
A loud chime sounded in the room before I could respond, and a small box appeared on the table in front of me.
“Congratulations, team.” Elushinithoc’s explosive announcement made all of us wince. “The School of Swords and Serpents finished in third place in the challenge with a score of two points and a time of twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds. The Indomitable Dragons of Light finished in first place with three points and a time of seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. The Yzlanti Empire finished in second place, with three points at the time of nine minutes and forty-three seconds.
“The Battle Hall of Atlantis, Bright Lodge of Frostmir, and Dojo of Opal Radiance finished in fourth, fifth, and sixth place, with one point each. This concludes the first challenge of the Empyrean Gauntlet.”
“Oh, prizes,” Eric said. “Open the box while I order food. Anyone else want pizza?”
“Pizza sounds awesome. Pepperoni, bacon, sausage, and any other meat that’s on the menu.” I examined the box for obvious traps and found none. The red lacquered sides were inlaid with a complex set of scrivenings that I instinctively knew represented the Grand Design, or at least a little slice of it. Before I could touch it, the box’s black lid slid open of its own accord, and a rich golden glow poured out.