by Gage Lee
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
“Because I’m better than that,” I said flatly. “You’d all have been much happier if I’d died in the challenge.
“But I’m not like the rest of you. I came here to be healed, not to fight.”
Trulissinangoth took a respectful step back and raised both hands in front of her, palms exposed to show she was no threat to me.
“You certainly seem healed,” she said. “Was that the Flame’s gift to you for winning?”
“No.” I banished my serpents and my fusion blade. “No. The Flame didn’t give me anything.”
She nodded uncertainly and lined up along the wall with her team.
I sat down, exhausted, and closed my eyes.
The Gauntlet was over.
The Rescue
AFTER MINUTES PASSED with no portals appearing and no one coming to let us out of the arena, I got to work helping the wounded.
“Thanks,” Abi said when I plucked wound aspects from his aura and replaced them with vitality aspects I’d harvested through my cycling. “I feel a lot better already.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said with a smile. It felt good to use the Eclipse Transplant technique to heal, rather than harm. “Sorry I dragged you all into this. I had no idea how it would end.”
“Nobody asks to be a hero,” Eric said.
The Resplendent Sun winced when he smiled. An ugly burn covered the left side of his face, and his robes were torn and tattered where blades had wounded him.
“Let’s fix that up.” I went to work on Eric’s face, and he relaxed as my power took away the worst of his pain. He’d have a scar, but Eric would be proud of the battle badge rather than embarrassed. Plus, it’d look super scary during his televised fights.
The healing went on for an hour, maybe more. I left Aesgir with a concussion for the trouble he’d caused, but the rest of the fallen were back on their feet. They’d done terrible things to each other, but it was in the past.
Exhausted, I returned to my team and slumped against the wall. I wanted that missed dinner something fierce.
“What happened in there?” Clem asked. “We all felt something, but none of us knew what. Then the Bright Lodge and the dragons attacked, and we were all too busy fighting to think about it.”
“The Flame.” I tried to put what had happened into words that would make sense. “Things are different now.”
“Do tell,” Hirani said as she stepped into the arena through a portal. Sanrin was right behind her, and the two of them looked like they’d been on the losing end of a fight with a flamethrower-wielding food processor.
“Honored Elder.” I pushed off the wall and reached out for her. “Let me help you. You look—”
“Awful,” Sanrin said. He chuckled. “We’ll be fine, Jace. We came as soon as we could. I’m sorry we weren’t faster. Your core...”
He stopped and peered at me more closely.
“What have you done?” His voice was lower than a whisper.
“What I had to,” I responded. “My core delaminated. There was only one way for me to win the Gauntlet.”
“And so you have,” Hirani said. “If you did not need the Flame to heal you, what prize did it grant for winning?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“That hardly seems fair,” Sanrin said. “Let’s get you all out of here. This place reeks of blood and pain.”
“We have to get to the initiates,” I said. “Before Inquisitor Rhône hauls them off to Atlantis.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Hirani said. “Rhône left some time ago. As did Elushinithoc.”
My hands balled into fists. I’d wanted to catch the inquisitor myself. He needed to pay for what he’d done. But he’d already escaped back to his island sanctuary. There’d be no way to bring him to justice from there. Even with the Empyrean Flame gone, the priesthood wielded enough power to keep him safe forever.
“They knew I’d expose them,” I snarled. “This was all a lie, Elders. The Inquisition and the Scaled Council conspired to let the dragons win the Empyrean Gauntlet.”
Sanrin crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at me. Disapproval radiated from his core in crashing waves.
“You should have told us,” he said. “We would have stopped this madness.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said. “I didn’t know who to trust.”
“Jace,” Hirani said cautiously, “you know you can trust us.”
But I didn’t. Because the world was too big and complex for that simple word. Even the best people, pushed too far, for too long, might look for the easy way out, no matter the ultimate cost.
“If Inquisitor Rhône came to you with a way to solve the heretics problem,” I said, keeping my black eyes focused on Sanrin, “how closely would you look at the cost of that solution?”
The elder wrestled with his own thoughts for a moment. He pursed his lips, shook his head, and threw up his hands.
“Do you have any proof of this?” Sanrin asked.
“Yes,” Trulissinangoth said. “I do.”
The elders stared at the dragon who’d intruded on our conversation. Trulissinangoth stood her ground, though she quickly lowered her head when the weight of their attention fell on her.
“You’ve made some very powerful enemies by winning this,” Sanrin said as he rested his hand on my shoulder. “Please know that your clan is here to support you in any way we can.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I just wish the Flame had given me the prize I wanted after what it put me through.”
“And what is that?” Sanrin asked.
“My mother,” I sighed.
Hirani and Sanrin glanced at one another and smiles spread across their faces.
“It did, Jace.” Hirani chuckled. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The Assault
HAGAR NUDGED ME WITH an elbow, then pulled the corners of her mouth up into a ridiculous smile with the tips of her index fingers.
“Just because they won’t let you go down there doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the show,” my handler said.
We were perched on top of the corpse of an apartment building on the outskirts of St. Louis. Our location was surrounded by more empty buildings and abandoned warehouses left behind when the Midwestern urban sprawl had retreated as the tide of business flooded toward the coasts. The remnants of an amusement park crouched like decaying giants in the distance, and I wondered how many unfortunate souls had taken refuge there when they’d lost their homes.
“I should be down there,” I said. “There’s no one more qualified for it than me.”
“She’s your mother, Jace. Do you really want to arrest her?” Hagar handed me the binoculars and clapped me on the shoulder. “Be glad we’re the ones bringing her in, and not the Church. We’ll make sure she gets a fair hearing, and that’s a lot more than they would do.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
The truth of the matter was I didn’t know what would happen to my mother. She was a heretic and the mad scientist who’d created me and nearly brought the world to ruin at the hands of the Lost. She’d created the Machina for the sole purpose of destroying the Grand Design and turning Empyreal society into a madhouse. And, while my mother’s plan hadn’t worked exactly as she’d hoped, the end result was the same: the Empyrean Flame was gone.
The Adjudicators wouldn’t have much sympathy for the woman who’d caused all that.
I wasn’t even sure I would.
Members of my clan crouched on top of the other buildings that surrounded our target. The long, low warehouse was a solid brick structure with windows high up on its walls, a flat tar-paper roof, and heavy steel doors along its sides. It was also laced with so much jinsei it practically glowed. We couldn’t see any of the scrivenings from the outside, but the power that radiated from that structure told us whatever was inside was very dangerous.
That was the only reason the assault teams from my cla
n hadn’t already blasted through those doors and dragged everyone off to a holding cell. They didn’t know what would happen once the defenses were breached, and no one wanted to take responsibility for setting off a scrivened bomb, even in a mostly abandoned neighborhood.
“What happens now?” I asked. “Everyone’s in position, but nobody’s moving. They should let me go down there. You know she’d come outside for me.”
“Or,” Hagar said sarcastically, “somebody inside the building would put a bullet through the front of your forehead and your brains would exit out the back of your skull. You know better, Jace. Let the experts do their jobs.”
We had six assault teams on site, all of them strapped into combat plate and wielding a combination of firearms and jinsei tech weaponry. I spotted a banelance on the shoulders of one team, and another lurked behind the arc shield of a force projector. Those heavy weapons were designed to deal with armored monsters or military-grade armored vehicles. The fact that we’d brought them here meant they suspected the heretics were a very serious threat.
And that was the real reason that Sanrin didn’t want me down there. He’d made it very clear he suspected I was more important than I knew, especially now that the oracles had gone very, very quiet about what had actually happened during the Gauntlet.
We all knew the truth, though.
The Flame wasn’t talking to the oracles anymore.
It wasn’t talking to anyone.
I’d wanted to tell Sanrin that I was supposed to find the next Empyrean Flame. After what had happened, though, I didn’t trust anyone in power. The elder was one of the five sacred sages. I doubted he’d really want to hear that he would be replaced by someone else if I succeeded.
“Something’s happening,” Hagar said. “We’ve got a team on the roof moving into position with a shadow harpoon.”
The jinsei-powered weapon looked like a cross between a ballista and a mortar. The bow portion was held in place by a long strand of jinsei shrouded in aspects of darkness. The mortar side contained a massive shell filled with force aspects and was tipped by a golden spike scrivened with powerful explosive charms.
“They’re breaching,” I said. “Do they know it’s safe?”
“I don’t think they care at this point,” Hagar said. “The heretics know we’re here. We need to finish this, grab what we can, and get out of here before the rest of their forces arrive. We don’t have the manpower for a protracted fight.”
“Sounds dangerous,” I muttered. It sounded like the kind of plan that could get people hurt.
People like my mother.
A mighty thrum filled the air and the harpoon took flight, trailing a spiral of shadows behind it. I watched as it reached the height of its arc, rotated, and plunged straight down toward the top of the building. The golden spike grew brighter with every foot it descended, and its trail of darkness became an impenetrable cloud.
“Get down.” Hagar dragged me behind the edge of the building’s roof. A handful of soldiers stationed with us had also thrown themselves prone.
It was a good thing, too.
An explosion rattled every building within a mile. A shock wave rushed past us, a screaming wind filled with terror aspects that lodged in our auras.
I cycled my breathing and purged that fear before it could force me to run off the edge of the building.
Not all the guards were as lucky. One of them screamed and hurled himself headfirst off the roof.
“You okay?” I asked Hagar.
She trembled next to me, but nodded and pointed at the ground below.
I followed her gaze and watched the banelance belch forth a bar of colorless light that ripped through the front of the warehouse and almost instantly blasted out the backside. Anything that had been in its path was gone now, torn into aspects and scattered.
The attack teams surged through the dual breaches, and the rattle of small arms fire echoed from inside. It went on for what felt like a million years. Every one of those reports could end my mother’s life. I balled my hands into fists so tight my nails chewed into my palms, and drops of blood dripped down to the tar beneath my feet.
“They’ll capture her,” Hagar promised. “She’s too valuable to kill.”
That was true, but it didn’t make her safe. The banelance breacher could’ve easily snuffed her life out.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, the assault teams poured out of the building. Some of them carried crates on skid lifts, but the lead team had someone with a bag over their head, their arms manacled behind their back.
Even at this distance, I recognized my mother’s aura.
She tilted her head back and stared directly at me even though there was no way she could’ve seen anything through the black hood that covered her face.
“Something’s wrong,” I said quietly. “Where is everyone else?”
Hagar pulled a pair of binoculars from her satchel and surveyed the scene below us. While there were plenty of assault team members down there, the only heretic we could see was my mother. If the blast of the banelance hadn’t killed her, there had to be some other survivors, too.
Only, there weren’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Hagar said. “I’m calling it in.”
“No time.” Before Hagar could say anything or the guards who’d been watching us could stop me, I bolted over the edge of the roof.
What I’d recognized down there wasn’t my mother. It was the twin of the core now inside me. The power that surrounded it was a scrivening.
That was a construct.
I forced jinsei into my legs to strengthen them against the ten-story fall, and my heels shattered the asphalt where I’d landed. Pain rocketed up through my shins, and I ignored it. There were more important matters for my attention.
“Get away from her!” I shouted as I charged across the ground.
I pushed more jinsei into my legs and accelerated far beyond my normal running speed. My steps hit the ground like gunshots, rapidfire cracks that drew the eyes of everyone in the area. Members of the assault team around my mother drew their weapons, ready to shoot the threat they saw streaking toward them.
They didn’t know what I was up to. They had no idea I’d come to save them. From their perspective, a distraught teenager was trying to free his terrorist mother. They couldn’t allow that.
And I couldn’t blame him.
“Bomb!” I shouted. “She’s got a bomb!”
That got them moving, but I knew it was already too late. The assault team members ran away from my mother at full speed, suddenly realizing the nearby danger. They wouldn’t get far enough away, though. The amount of jinsei packed into the construct’s slender frame would unleash a powerful blast that would expand for blocks in every direction.
I had to stop it.
It had all been a setup. Sanrin and Hirani had believed the information they’d received from their informants was the Flame’s prize for me. Only, it had been another heretics’ trick. My mother’s rebels had lured us to this desolate location in the middle of the Midwest, hoping to wipe out as much of my clan’s military might as they could in one fell swoop.
The heretics hadn’t anticipated me being there, though.
Time slowed to a crawl. Every footstep was another tick of the timer counting down to the explosion. I forced more jinsei into my channels, willing myself to be faster, to react with a speed beyond anything I’d ever achieved.
The Vision of the Design burst to life.
I saw a blossoming fire unfold from the construct like origami razor blades. Fire rushed out in every direction and scoured the buildings off their foundations. Dozens of Shadow Phoenixes were burned to ash in the blink of an eye. The sky ship that Hirani and Sanrin had used to coordinate the attack crashed to the street in flames.
So many of my clanmates died.
And me along with them.
This was the path the Grand Design had laid out. Th
is was the way my life was supposed to end.
Except, I was no longer bound to that fate. The Machina that made up half my core had freed me from that trap. I could see the pattern of the world from the outside. Instinctively, I reached out, found what I needed, and shredded a fateful thread from the Design.
It wasn’t much, hardly a ground-shaking change. It made me one second faster.
In the instant before the construct went supernova, I impaled its core with my serpent. My Thief’s Shield technique flared to life and sucked away jinsei and aspects. It was a race between my technique and the construct’s scrivening.
A race I lost when the construct exploded.
Fire aspects rushed out from its aura in all directions. My serpents plucked them from the air and absorbed them. Fire surrounded me, and smoke filled the air above me in a column hundreds of yards high. I took it all in, absorbing every ounce of sacred energy in the same instant. I pushed the overflow into my channels, then threw my head back and screamed to unleash a blast of pure power from deep within me. It tore through the smoke and carried the force of the explosion high into the sky.
I sagged to my knees before the ruins of the construct. The air around me burned without touching me.
Voices shouted, sirens wailed.
At the heart of chaos, I was alone.
The Assessment
SANRIN AND HIRANI DEMANDED to be with me during the last phase of my assessment. They frankly didn’t trust Ishigara, and I didn’t blame them. The reports she’d assembled on me so far were inconclusive. To anyone who didn’t know the truth, it looked like she’d lied about the results. Because those tests, which had been used tens of thousands of times to determine where other Empyreals fit within the social order, simply couldn’t categorize me.
I’d also demanded my friends be with me for the last test. Just because I felt like tweaking Ishigara’s nose.
“Maybe you’ll get something more exciting than Guardian duty,” Eric groused. “I was supposed to start training for a prizefight this summer, and now I have to spend that time in basic. I’m not a soldier, I’m a brawler.”