by Gage Lee
That wasn’t creepy at all.
“Good,” Ishigara said softly. “The wheel attuned to you quickly. Shouldn’t be more than a minute of cycling before it has your results.”
“Good,” I echoed. “I’m already tired of this game.” My breath flowed smoothly in and out of my lungs in the familiar rhythm of meditation I’d performed thousands of times before. I was careful to take only shallow breaths and let the jinsei flow through and out of my core with as little resistance as possible. If I strained myself taking this stupid test, I’d be furious and so would my clan’s elders.
The wheel siphoned jinsei from the channels in my hands. With every cycling breath, it stole a little more, and the ball at its heart shone brighter. By my fourth breath, the ball jittered in place. On my sixth breath, it slid out of its position and rolled in a slow circle around the center. With every breath after that, the ball’s circle grew wider. Segments of the wheel lit up as the ball rolled over them, then faded as it moved away. The ball picked up speed and spun around the wheel’s outer edge so fast the flashes of the wedges became mesmerizing strobes. I couldn’t have torn my eyes off the contraption if I’d wanted to.
I stopped counting breaths after the thirtieth exhale. The ball’s frantic spinning held me in thrall. The cold grips of the wheel had warmed in my hands, and something tugged at the edges of my thoughts. There was something out there. Waiting. Watching. It measured me with every breath, and the weight of its attention pinned me to the bed.
As quickly as it had started, the ball stopped spinning.
And split into seven smaller balls. One mote of light vibrated at the center of each of the wedges, and the entire wheel glowed with a silver radiance that stung my eyes.
Ishigara’s breath caught in her throat. She snatched the wheel out of my hands to get a better look at it. The instant I lost contact with the handles, though, the orbs of light vanished and the light illuminating the wedges faded away to nothingness.
“What sort of trick did you just pull?” she demanded.
“I didn’t do anything,” I insisted. The single ball that had started at the center of the wheel had vanished. A scorched spiral marred the metal surfaces of the wedges. “Something’s wrong with that thing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it.” Elder Brand stalked in, his boots thudding heavily on the wooden floor with every step. A whiff of sulfur followed him through the room, and rivulets of grit cascaded down his filthy pants to the floor. “Professor Ishigara, I was surprised to hear you’d taken it upon yourself to break the agreement we had regarding Jace’s assessment.”
The professor took an audible gulp. She tried to fold the wheel back into its original configuration, but the slats had warped during my test and it wouldn’t close. She cursed under her breath and tucked the device under her arm.
“Our agreement was that he would be tested.” She shrugged and stood up. The professor was toe-to-toe with Elder Brand, and her eyes sparked dangerously behind her glasses. “I tested him.”
“We agreed you would consult the clan regarding his assessment. His delicate condition requires special care.” A dangerous hint of steel lay beneath Brand’s calm and cool tone.
“I sent word that the testing would begin at the appointed time.” Ishigara straightened her spine, and threads of jinsei glimmered behind her. “It’s not my concern that you couldn’t be bothered to send a consultant until that time had nearly passed.”
Brand said nothing for a moment. He eyed Ishigara like a crocodile trying to decide which end of its prey to devour first. Finally, he let out a dramatic sigh and threw up his hands.
“What’s done is done. I apologize for not coming sooner. The clan has been very busy dealing with issues that affect all of Empyreal society, but I really should have dropped everything and raced here to watch you administer your petty little test to my clan member.” He gestured for the wheel, and Ishigara handed it to him. “It seems your tool wasn’t up to the task of judging Jace. He didn’t fit into any of your neat little pigeonholes, did he?”
The tension between Brand and Ishigara was so thick it sucked the air out of the room. I wanted to tell the two of them it was okay, I was used to being the weird one out. I was the only Eclipse Warrior. My whole life had been a science experiment conducted by my mother, a group of exiles, and a pack of heretics. It was only natural that the wheel couldn’t figure out how I fit into the Grand Design.
That thought triggered another, much more chilling concern.
What if the wheel hadn’t been able to pick a role for me because I didn’t belong in the Design at all?
“That is correct,” Ishigara said quietly. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, nor have I heard of such a thing happening during an assessment.”
“Yes, well,” Brand started, then shook his head. “I understand your confusion, but we should give Jace some more time to heal. It’s possible his current affliction is confusing the results.”
“There isn’t much time left for him to take the assessment,” Ishigara pushed. “Perhaps it would be best if I marked the test as inconclusive.”
Brand glanced my way, gave me a wink out of the eye Ishigara couldn’t see, then nodded to the professor.
“Yes,” he said. “Do that. In the meantime, I’d like to speak with my clanmate for a few minutes, if that’s all right with you.”
“As you wish,” Ishigara said, and bowed low to Brand. “Thank you for your consideration, honored Elder.”
The professor left my sickroom not quite with her tail between her legs, but very nearly. Her test had gone poorly and then Brand had chased her out. That victory would definitely cost me some aggravation down the road. Just then, though, I didn’t really care.
“Mind telling me what happened there?” Brand asked. “Assessments are pretty straightforward, but the damage you did to the wheel suggests otherwise.”
“The ball split,” I explained and spilled the rest of the details.
“I see.” Brand chuckled and plopped into a chair. “Things have gotten very interesting out there, Jace. The oracles won’t shut up about the convergence, and that’s got the heretics all stirred up. They’ve hit us hard with constructs the past couple of weeks. Tough ones.”
“You have to find my mother,” I said. “And not just for me. She’ll be the one behind those designs. I know it.”
Because, apparently, while she’d been a laborer in the undercity, my mother had also been a brilliant scientist. She’d created the Machina, or at least refined them significantly, and she’d engineered the return of the Eclipse Warriors. I was almost afraid of what else she had planned.
“We’re trying, but...” Brand threw up his hands. “Your mother’s ties with you make it difficult. Your presence obscures hers, somehow. Sanrin’s not sure how that works. That’s part of why I’m here. I want to take a good look at you and see if there’s something we’ve missed.”
“You think I’m connected to my mother somehow?” That was both comforting and terrifying. It was nice to know that there was still some part of my mother with me, but if she was using me as a tool to wreck Empyreal society I’d have to put a stop to that. If I could.
“Something like that.” Brand smiled and dragged his hands through his scruffy hair. He didn’t look wounded, just bone tired. Whatever the clan had him doing, the elder was exhausted. “Relax, this won’t take long.”
True to his word, Brand wrapped up his investigation in less than five minutes. He’d spent most of that time staring at me, until the end, when he closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
“Well, nothing unusual there,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe Hirani was right. Your mother might be using one of the Machina to mask her presence, though we’re not sure how that would work.”
“Like this,” I said, and pulled up the sleeve of my robe to reveal the medallion stitched to my forearm.
“What is that?” Brand peered at the medallion curiously.
&
nbsp; “Technique stitching,” I said. “Ishigara explained it to us.”
“Intriguing,” Brand muttered. “I hadn’t considered that, but I suppose it would be possible. Attaching the Machina to her channels would be a strain, though. She’d need to nullify the conflict between the artificial core and her own. Still, she’s a smart woman. I’ll run it past the others. First, though, I wanted to warn you to keep your eyes open.”
“I can’t see much from my bed,” I said.
“True, true.,” Brand chuckled. “Sanrin wanted you to know we’ve caught chatter about a meeting between members of the Inquisition and the Scaled Council.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I flopped back on my pillow. “They’re one step away from a war because of the Empyrean Gauntlet. Maybe it’s peace talks.”
“Anything’s possible the way the world is going, but we wanted you to know that there may be more to all this than meets the eye.” Brand stood from his chair and patted me on the shoulder. “And, whatever trouble is brewing, you’re likely to be at the middle of it.”
“Comforting,” I said.
“We’ve added some guardians of our own to the School’s security.” Brand gave me another wink. “Mostly to keep an eye on you. Just stay alert and don’t trust anyone.”
“No worries there,” I said. “Thank you, honored Elder.”
“Be well, Jace.” And with that, Brand vanished into the shadows.
I lay there for a long time after that, thinking of the dangers that lurked all around me. If the dragons and Inquisition were working together, then things were about to get a lot more dangerous.
The Path
BRAND’S WARNING HAUNTED me for the rest of the week. While my body lay resting in the hospital, my mind jumped from one possible problem to another like a ferret amped up on a pure jinsei cocktail.
“You worry about nothing,” Hahen chided me on one of his many illicit visits to the hospital. The rat spirit wasn’t supposed to even be in the infirmary, much less in my room. Keeping him out had proved an impossible task for the nurses and doctors, though, and the nursing staff had looked the other way as long as our conversations didn’t run too late into the night. “What will be, will be.”
“That’s exactly the kind of thinking that worries me,” I complained. “Everyone is so sure the Grand Design will guide their steps that they never look to make sure it isn’t leading them off a cliff.”
Hahen seemed scandalized by that comment. He ducked his head and glanced over his shoulder as if afraid an inquisitor would appear to smite me for my heresy.
“Jace, you have to be careful with your words.” Hahen lowered his voice. “Especially with your background...”
Especially because my mother was a known heretic who had experimented on her unborn child to turn me into a mystical warrior from the Empyreal past. That’s what Hahen meant, though he was too kind to say it.
“And maybe it’s my background that confused the wheel,” I said quietly, more out of respect for my friend’s feelings than the fear that someone might overhear me. “I was born with half a core. Maybe I’m only halfway integrated into the Flame’s plans.”
“That’s an interesting theory.” Hahen shrugged. “We may never be able to prove or disprove it, of course. For now, let’s focus on the classes you’ve been missing while you’re cooped up in this sorry excuse for a hospital.”
And that was how my time with Hahen went while I convalesced. He tutored me in the classes I’d missed and fended off my endless questions about the Grand Design and why it couldn’t fit me into one of the seven neat roles every other Empyreal assumed as they grew into adults.
To Hahen, those questions served no purpose. Neither of us knew enough about the metaphysical nature of reality to answer them, and any guesses we made just added to my anxiety about my future. In the end, he became so annoyed with me that I simply stopped pestering him on the subject.
But I never stopped thinking about it. I’d seen how Empyreal society treated those it couldn’t categorize or control. They’d burned the first generation of Eclipse Warriors. They’d banished my mother and father for daring to challenge the sages and their rulings. And, now, they’d taken the best and brightest of their students and pitted them against one another in a modern-day gladiator pit to settle a theological argument. We were all pawns for the powerful, and when we were no longer needed, they’d gladly sacrifice any or all of us.
I had to do something about that. I just didn’t know what.
The second semester was well under way by the time the infirmary released me. Though my burns had been serious enough to warrant daily visits from physicians, the real worry was my core. No one had ever seen anything like it, and the School’s medical staff had wanted to send me off for intensive treatment at a hospital in California. I’d had to get Hirani involved to stop that. In the end, I was happy to get out of the infirmary, and the doctors and nurses were glad to have me out of their hair.
They released me just before breakfast on the fifteenth day of the new semester, and I immediately limped toward the dining hall for a meal with my friends. They, at least, would listen to what I was worried about, and they might even be able to help me figure out what I should do.
The vision I’d seen kept coming back to me in nightmares. I was worried that the dragons were getting ahead of my team while we recuperated from the last challenge. Then there was the matter of the hollows, who had less than half a year left before Inquisitor Rhône showed up to drag them all off to Atlantis, where they’d spend the rest of their natural lives turning polluted jinsei into purified sacred energy and aspects the priests could sell for a small fortune.
I couldn’t let that happen to those kids. They deserved better.
“Mr. Warin.” The one good thing about the infirmary was that they wouldn’t let the headmistress bother me. Cruzal must have been waiting for the moment they released me, because she pounced on me before I was anywhere near the dining hall. “A word.”
“Anything for you, honored Headmistress.” I bowed low and winced at pain from my stiff muscles. She was the last person I wanted to talk to just then.
“You’ve neglected the initiates in your charge,” she snapped. “Come with me.”
“I was injured in the challenge,” I began. I’d vowed to be more polite to Cruzal, since I gained nothing by being sarcastic with her, but I wasn’t about to let her blame me for what I hadn’t done while I was under a doctor’s care. “Hahen kept them busy while I was out of commission. They’ve been training with him every day.”
“Your rat spirit is not a qualified instructor,” Cruzal said as she stormed past me. “Now come along.”
“Hahen trained me.” The burn on my leg ached if I moved quicker than a hobble. It would be healed in a few days, but I wouldn’t hurt myself just to keep up with the headmistress. “Please, slow down.”
Cruzal stopped and waited for me to catch up. Her aura seethed with so many negative aspects it was a wonder she still had enough energy to walk. If I’d carried so much anxiety and stress around with me, I’d have been crippled. She needed to meditate, have a drink, or both.
“You do understand the gravity of our situation, I hope,” Cruzal said more quietly. “Inquisitor Rhône has taken a special interest in these initiates and is not pleased with their slow advancement. If something doesn’t change, soon, we’ll lose them.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. None of these people knew anything about the hollows or what it took to heal them. I’d worked like a dog for a solid year, and still wouldn’t have been able to become an Eclipse Warrior if it hadn’t been for my encounter with a Locust Court emissary. These kids were holed up in their dorms or a classroom most of the time, without access to the challenges that had honed my strengths. If something didn’t change, they’d never heal themselves before the end of the year.
“Then give me more time with them.” The four hours a week I had with the hollows just wasn’t eno
ugh. “Let me dedicate all my non-training hours to helping them find their path.”
“No,” Cruzal said flatly. “I’ve had enough trouble convincing the rest of the Empyreals involved in the program to accept you as their tutor. They’d never allow someone with your background to teach students full time.”
“You’d sell those kids to the Inquisition because I’m a camper?” I’d believe a lot of things about Cruzal, but this was tough to swallow.
“No one is being sold.” Cruzal rolled her eyes and rapped on the classroom door. “The investors don’t care that you were a camper. They care that you’re a disruptive influence. If you spend too much time with the new initiates, you’ll corrupt their worldview. Now, get in there and teach them how to fix their cores. I simply can’t afford to lose these investments to the Church.”
Cruzal’s uncharacteristic honesty left my jaw on the floor. It was still hanging open when the door swung open and the guard gestured for me to come inside. He knew the drill and immediately stepped into the hallway to leave me alone with my students.
“Mr. Warin!” they shouted almost in unison.
“Good morning.” I hobbled over and took a seat on the desk. My leg throbbed with every step I took, and the pain was distracting. Getting weight off the injured limb was a blessed relief. “What have you learned while I was gone?”
The students shifted nervously in their seats. No one raised their hands.
“Come on.” I knew Hahen had been with them every day. “You had to have learned something.”
Christina raised her hand, a defiant gleam in her eye.
“Yes, Christina? What did you learn?” I asked.
“I can distill two types of corruption from polluted jinsei at the same time.” She said that proudly, like it was a true accomplishment.
That was a nice trick, but it wouldn’t save them from the Inquisition. I’d told Hahen to guide them toward their individual paths. He’d reported back that he was pushing them in that direction. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear that his teaching had stuck.